Enjoying the view from Limbo
Perhaps it’s the Roman Catholic in me, but for whatever reason I am occasionally gripped by an inchoate need for purification through speech, a sort of confessional moment if you will, in which I divest myself of a few wayward thoughts in order to regain my equilibrium. This is one such occasion. Bear with me. Better yet, given that, if you are reading...
This will be less an essay than a personal letter. It is a letter to my readers, past and present, who have sometimes questioned my heavy focus on Donald Trump, my unwillingness to bend a little on my opposition to him, and especially my unkind words for and about his supporters, including those among them who used to be friendly to me. Specifically,...
One of my most popular and widely referenced articles, back in my “conservative media” days, was a piece entitled “Parasitocracy,” which has subsequently become the opening essay of my Limbo series, Progressivism 101. That essay sprang to mind as I read this headline from NBC News: “Fauci warns reopening states: You can’t ‘leap over things.’” One of the most important things that the...
Today I read this headline: “Trump says federal social distancing guidelines will be ‘fading out’.” Meanwhile, here in Korea, Moon Jae-in’s government, which was one of the most reasonable and restrained in the world in the early stages of this nonsense, has become increasingly schoolmarmish and micromanagerial of late, repeatedly warning people that if they insist on “violating” social distancing “guidelines,” they will...
During this brief hiatus in my continuing Limbo series, “The Rule of the Experts” (read Part One and Part Two), I cannot resist an opportunity to highlight one of my central conclusions about the kind of people modern society refers to as experts, by way of this simple point of contrast with myself: I am occasionally proven right. Case in point: Back on...
I just saw this headline on my MSN homepage: “Leader of NC protests has coronavirus.” My first reaction upon reading this phrasing: So what? My second reaction was to imagine what I would think if the headline were about me: “Anti-hysteria writer tests positive for coronavirus.” My hypothetical response to that second, imaginary headline was the same: So what? In other words, what...
A man claims ownership over you. He declares his authority to restrict your movement completely, and to limit your social interactions indefinitely as he sees fit. He browbeats you with belittling criticism and public shaming for your every breach of authority. He chains you to your post, sending his guards to discipline you severely if you should attempt to escape. All the while,...
During this Pandemic that Ate a Planet, Sweden and Sweden alone has refused to be sucked into the vortex of self-interested media fearmongering, progressive globalist propaganda, and totalitarian social experimentation. She has refused to succumb to the abject, life-annihilating terror of death; refused to play the immature game of prolonging the inevitable by hiding under the bed hoping that somehow an unpleasant reality...
Two things may be said of experts and specialists in general: (1) They are often proved wrong in the end, particularly with regard to their areas of specialty — and not merely wrong about details, but about the premises and presuppositions upon which they established their reputations as experts and specialists. In other words, it typically turns out, in hindsight, that for the...
We live in the age of The Group. Group fear, group laughter, group compliance, group protest. As I have said many times, following Socrates, every crowd is dumber than its dumbest member. “Group activity” and “group thought” are euphemisms for death and stillbirth, respectively. No group achieves more of positive value than any individual member, acting alone or in coordination with one or...
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