Hallowe’en As Oppression

I read the other day that our modern view of Hallowe’en was created using white suburbia as a model, and that it should be dismantled because the act of Trick Or Treating propagates racial oppression. The gentleman who wrote that had earlier mentioned that I was unqualified to opine on matters of race, as I’m one of the oppressors and couldn’t possibly understand the way he could.

(more…)

No Way Out

“There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is — other people!”

– Jean-Paul Sartre, “No Exit” / “Huis Clos”

The latest in the interminable blame-game handoffs that are what passes for normalcy in Washington D.C. is upon us — again. And, as always, it’s everyone’s fault and no-one’s.

(more…)

Healthcare: Tear It All Down

I’ve never understood why it is that otherwise intelligent people instantly assume that a simple, massive change is the only solution.

(Brace yourselves. This rant has been building for a while.)

It’s a truism that every single complex problem has a simple, easy-to-understand, common-sense wrong answer. What’s wrong with complex solutions for complicated problems?

(more…)

Texas Abortion Law: This Is A Good Thing

Even its proponents will often be compelled to admit: This is a strange type of law.

There’s precedent for granting bounties to private citizens, and it’s very probably lawful to use the civil courts instead of criminal for enforcement in this or a similar fashion. Even if it’s not, centering a counter-argument on this point is an error anyway. Those who invented the bill in the first place are attempting to choose the ground for the next fight over what is effectively a “heartbeat law” on abortion.

(more…)

Vaccines and the Declaration of Independence

Permit me, gentle readers, to recommend a book: “Starship Troopers”. If you’re looking for a gift for that stubborn conservative in your life, it should do fine.

But, recognizing that you probably won’t have time today, and you may not actually have a copy on your shelf at present, I’ll paraphrase a bit and apply that to the vaccine debate. After, you can go buy the book at the link provided above. (Independent booksellers will benefit, not Bezos.)

(more…)

History Repeating
An agent of the CIA aids evacuees up a ladder onto an Air America helicopter on the roof of 22 Gia Long Street, April 29, 1975, shortly before Saigon fell to advancing North Vietnamese troops.

“There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy…”
– President Joe Biden (July 8, 2021)

The following is not a popular opinion, either among historians or the general populace:

By 1970, the United States had won in Vietnam.

It’s generally understood that the Vietnam War was the most embarrassing defeat for the United States military in history. Yes, the debacle at Bladensburg was bad, and the subsequent burning of the capitol unpleasant, but compared to Vietnam? And yet, by any objective measurement, the war in Vietnam had actually been all but ended with the destruction of organized resistance in the south. That is, by any measurement but one.

(more…)