I Do Not Stand With Ukraine

It’s the new hit hashtag: #StandWithUkraine. People putting up blue-and-yellow flags.

Which means what, exactly?

Seems to me, it’s nothing more than an atheist’s version of “sending thoughts and prayers” — which is nothing. There’s not even the chance of a friendly deity intervening. It’s just an excuse to buy a militant tee shirt.

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The Lessons Of War

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.

But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

– Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, from “The Gulag Archipelago”

Today, again, we stand on the brink of global war. Its spectre is never far from us; for all that our nations are inextricably intertwined by the bonds of commerce, natural resources never increase, and there will always be a country that wants what another has. There will always come a generation that doesn’t remember how terrible war can be, and that dreams of glory.

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Wisconsin D.A.: Sic Semper Tyrannis!

In Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, five people were criminally charged with felony voter fraud on Thursday. Their offense was, allegedly, using a post office box rather than a physical address on registration forms. The charges carry sentences of up to three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and would suspend the right to vote of any person convicted.

One of the people charged was homeless, and living in his truck at the time; a married couple was reportedly living in an R.V. and traveling the country.

And only three out of the five voted in 2020.

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There Is No War In Ukraine. (Or Albania.)

“There are two things I know to be true: There’s no difference between good flan and bad flan, and there is no war.”
– C.I.A. Agent Mr. Young, “Wag The Dog”
(image courtesy New Line Cinemas)

So if you haven’t seen the movie “Wag The Dog”, watch the movie. And I’m not just telling you that in order to dodge a “Take It Down” notice; frankly, I doubt any studio would waste the effort on the likes of me. Rather, it will inform you about what’s not going on in Ukraine right now.

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The Case For Capitalism

EDITORIAL

The newly-crowned World’s Richest Man, Elon Musk, is a favorite target of the purveyors of internet outrage. Those who don’t despise him for hoarding wealth without ending world hunger or homelessness can find hundreds of things to take offense at in his social media accounts alone. His support for blockchain currencies, his apparently artless attempts at market manipulation, and his single-minded drive to solve humanity’s “One Basket Problem” each would attract the ire of the militant Twittarchists*, and yet he keeps coming up with more in what would, to a cynic, almost seem a deliberate effort to taunt them.

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