If you are old enough to remember the 1990’s or earlier, then you remember when the Left was the free speech side of the debate. If you are a Baby Boomer then you probably remember the Free Speech Movement. It is an odd thing that has happened in the last ten years or so where the poles have reversed on many things, but none more so than the issue of speech. It is what the left-wing crazies call the “far-right” that upholds the old liberal traditions on speech, not the Left.

In 1978, the ACLU came to the aid of a neo-Nazi group that wanted to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie. The area was mostly Jewish, which is why the group wanted to march through their neighborhood. The ACLU made clear that they thought the group was full of terrible people but they had a right to march wherever marching was permitted. Young people were taught in school about this because it was supposed to be a great example of the free speech principle.

There is no way the ACLU would do this today. Instead, they would be on the other side trying to ruin the lives of anyone who dared speak up for the group. The ACLU, like all of the legacy civil rights groups from last century, opposes the basic civil rights of white Americans on the grounds of race. It is a good corollary to Robert Conquest’s second law of politics. Any organization that does business with leftists eventually is consumed by or destroyed by leftists.

The interesting thing about speech and the so-called far-right is that many who claim to be far-right also oppose Western liberalism. You have people who want an authoritarian state, but also say they want free speech. Free expression is inextricably bound up in liberal governance. You cannot have a liberal society in the Western sense without free expression and you cannot have illiberal government with it. Free expression is the cornerstone of the liberal society.

It is why the Antifa types are anti-speech. They are illiberal and authoritarian. These are people who make various claims to communism, Marxism and even anarchism, but embrace the unfettered use of corporate power to suppress speech. It is fair to say that the anti-speech movement in America is the expression of corporate power. Of course, what passes for the Left these days operates from the HR departments of global enterprise and free speech is antithetic to the corporate state.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 03:00: The War On Speech
• 23:00: The Benefit of Speech
• 43:00: The Harm of Speech

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

One of the interesting things about politics is that people suspend their normal understanding of the world when the topic shifts to politics. It is as if we have a separate brain that is only used for discussing current events. In our daily lives, our normal brain does the thinking and evaluating for us. It assesses people and decisions by weighing the facts against past practice. When the topic shifts to politics, the normal brain shuts down and the political brain fires up.

The easy example is the people in politics. Normal brain would never take advice from a stranger with no qualifications. If someone you do not know knocks on your door offering advice, you close the door, maybe call the cops. On the other hand, if that guy says he is running for office and wants to tell you what is best for your community, you take the time to listen. The guy could be naked, but if he is clearly talking politics, well, let us hear what naked guy has to say.

Few people in office are qualified for any job in the real world. The closest any of them come to real work is the law. More often than not, their legal experience was brief, just enough to get them some connections so they could run for office or maybe catch on at a government agency to network. There are a few flim-flam men from Wall Street who end up in politics, but banking is to work what tarot card reading is to science. For most, the only thing they have done is politics.

Political brain finds this perfectly normal. Normal brain, however, would pop out of our skull and run away before allowing the crazy guy in shipping to tell the accounting department how to close the month. Normal brain would never allow the guys in sales to tell production what to make next month. Normal brain expects the decisions to be made by people who are experienced and qualified. Even then, normal brain likes to see some proof before making a decision.

This is most obvious in the consensus building. In every meeting in our work life, normal brain is there reminding us that most of the people in the room are morons whose opinion should be ignored. Most of the room is people who are just going to say something so the boss notices them and thinks they are participating. Normal brain knows that most decisions, thankfully, are not made by committee, because normal brain knows all of us are dumber than most of us.

Political brain, on the other hand, takes the opposite view. Political brains says that we have to all come together and reach a consensus. We have to have long debates where everyone gets to make their voice heard. You cannot leave decisions to just one person as that is not how democracy works. No matter how many times the search for consensus results in the wrong answer, political brain insists that a room full of stupid people will find the right answer.

There is very little about politics, especially democratic politics, which makes any sense to our normal brain. In any other context, normal brain would recoil in horror at what political brain considers rational. It is, however, our political brain that tells us to trust unqualified and unscrupulous strangers. It is our political brain that tells us to give that weirdo a chance to speak. On the other hand, it is our normal brain that has to live with the consequences of what political brain has done.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• Soccer
• Politics
• Cows
• Democracy

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

Way back when the tech oligarchs began to censure people, the primary reaction was that this was not allowed. Americans had been operating under the assumption that we had the right to speak freely about politics and we had the right to hear others speak freely about politics. That was the rule. What these tech companies were doing was un-American and immoral. In other words, they were breaking the rules.

It did not take long before people started losing respect for the rules, since they were no longer being applied fairly. Working around the arbitrary enforcement of ever-changing rules is now a primary enterprise. The new normal is that the people with power exercise it arbitrarily and capriciously. As a result, the people who prided themselves on obeying the rules now have no respect for the rules.

That has been the biggest change in the last half dozen years. It used to be that a room full of dissidents would be talking about how we can get the state to do a better job enforcing the rules. Now, the room is full of people who laugh at the rules and talk about ways to get around the latest schemes by the rule makers to benefit themselves and their allies at the expense of the decent people.

All of sudden, billions of people around the world are having the same sort of conversion in their minds. The Global American Empire is literally trying to de-platform an entire country. They are threatening to do the same to anyone who helps the Russians evade the effort. The rest of the world is about to learn something American dissidents have learned. You cannot trust the rule makers.

This was madness when inflicted on citizens, but it is suicidal when scaled up to the world as a whole. Does Washington really think they can send the world a notice that they have changed the terms of service? That is what we are seeing. We are seeing Western governments seize Russian property, for no other reason that the terms of service have been changed and property rights no longer exist.

What the Russo-Ukrainian war is testing is whether Karen culture can become a ruling ideology of the Global American Empire. Russia is unhappy with NATO and Ukraine, so Washington demanded to speak to Russia’s manager. When that failed, they launched a de-platforming campaign on social media. Millions of American zombies have joined in on the campaign to destroy Russia.

The madness of this is that the Global American Empire has rested on the fact that America could be trusted to enforce and abide by the rules. Sure, with power comes privilege and one of the benefits for America has been flexibility on the rules, like we saw with the Iraq invasion. In general, the empire was built on a set of rules that were promoted by and defended by the American empire.

Now the rules no longer matter. Where does that leave the moral authority of the Global American Empire? It is too soon to know, but we see Russia, China and now India adjusting to this reality. That means developing a parallel set of systems and institutions, something we have seen in America. Soon, most of the world’s people will live outside and opposed to the American rules

In the end, that means death to the Global American Empire. Just as we see domestically, the collapse of moral authority means the only way to maintain power is through force. Washington can bully Americans around, but she cannot expect to bully the world around for very long. The cost becomes prohibitive. What this war has done is bring us to the winter phase of the Global American Empire.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• The Nuremberg Trials
• Lucius Junius Brutus
• America as Brutus
• Russia & Ukraine
• The Reckless Giant
• The Loss of Virtue

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

One of the things I forgot about travel is that I always pick up a bit of the plague whenever I spend time in airports. Back when I was traveling on a regular basis, my immune system was used to it, so it was a day or two of a very mild cold the week after I got back from a trip. Having been off the road for two years, my white blood cells are out of practice or perhaps my memory cells have forgotten. Regardless, I picked up a nice case of Ebola on the trip to Florida.

I rarely get colds or the flu. I think the last time I got the flu was in the 1990’s, but the best I can say is it was a long time ago. Colds are a different thing. Like everyone I get those from time to time, but for me it is always very mild. Mostly just some sneezing and the sniffles for a couple of days. Like the flu, the last time I got a serious cold that had me struggling was so long ago I cannot recall the date. I remember Bush was the president, so a little less than twenty years ago.

That said, I did have the man’s version of Covid back when this started. That was not particularly impressive, as plagues go. It was pretty much like having a bad cold with a fever for roughly a week. Three days of getting sick, three days of being sick then three days of getting over being sick. This softer, girly version is much milder, but it seems to stick around for longer. The worst part is it has messed with my sleep. I am more tired right now than legitimately sick.

That is why I did a one-take show this week. I had something more elaborate planned, but I am running low on energy. It is also why the show is a bit rambling. I started to lose the plot in the second half of the show. It was also a chance to clear up some questions about the two big topics of the week and clear out the items in the mailbox. I have a two hour show I have been plotting, so maybe that will next week, assuming the plague lifts and I am fit for recording again.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 03:00: AFPAC
• 25:00: Ukraine
• 55:00: Closing

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

One of the segments of the show this week is a topic that seems to be difficult for smart people to grasp. This is something that comes up in the discussion of conservatism and where to go now that Buckley-style conservatism has failed. All of the debates just assume some starting point without thinking much about it. They talk about Burke and Locke as if they were gods, rather than men. We have to respect what they said because they are the authority of all political knowledge.

A political theory is a lot like a proof in mathematics. In math, a proof will rest on axioms of mathematics and certain constants like the speed of light. You start from these fixed things that are always true. From there you derive knew truths or new solutions to problems of the universe. Political theory works the same way. The Founders started with Locke because they started with Natural Law as their authority. This was the universal constant upon which they built their politics.

This sounds rather esoteric and pointless at first, but the biggest question in all politics is by whose authority? When put to left-wing politics, few people championing things like critical race theory or antiracism could provide an answer. They just assume they are our moral superior. They do not know that the stuff they absorbed in college or had fed to them by coreligionists in their political cult come from some rather bizarre theories of history and human relations.

Not that it matters, as a practical matter. These people are quite dumb, but simply asking the question puts them on their heels. From our perspective, the effort to build an alternative politics has to start from this question. It is why things like “common good conservatism” must be viewed as a distraction, possibly a deliberate one, aimed at preventing genuine analysis of the current condition. They want to avoid any discussion of the authority for their claims.

This is obviously a big-brained topic that gets boring for most people, but it has important practical implications. That is the point of the show today. The practical questions that naturally arise from these theoretical issues are useful in dealing with the political crazies, but also in dealing with allies and converts. Being able to talk sensibly about the practical application of politics, segment three of the show, is probably the best thing anyone can do to change minds.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 03:00: By Whose Authority?
• 23:00: To What End?
• 43:00: How Do We Do It?

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

This week I have been pressed for time, so the shows I have in the planning stages had to be shelved for something that fit the schedule. Since the schedule has little free time right now, that meant I turned on the mic and spoke for an hour off the top of my head about whatever was on my mind. I did no editing and I stopped only once or twice for a drink as I was recording, so it is pretty much a first draft. All things considered it is not the worst noise you will hear this week.

Upon reflection, I probably have more to say about the trucker protest in Canada than I said in the show. One thing that comes to mind as I type this is that it reveals just how controlled the mass media is now. They have been told to ignore it other than some approved narratives and that is what they have done. Look at the Canadian media and there is zero sympathetic coverage of the protestors. They are making no effort to meet with these people and give them a hearing.

The American media has brought down the cone of silence. Drudge has a government issued warning to Canada at the top. The New York Times and Washington Post are busy peddling their latest Russia fantasies. Soviet media was more informative that the American media is now. If you want to know anything about anything you have to dig around in Substack and independent sites. The American media is now a blanket of darkness thrown over the public square.

The other thing that comes to mind is how blatant the authoritarianism is now. I see the Canadian dictator just ordered the funds for the truckers frozen. He just made up some new rule apparently or his handlers did. Trudeau is most likely illiterate, so he has to rely on others to do these things. The US government is flying surveillance aircraft over the protest to intercept communications. They will then “share” this intel with their “partners” in the Canadian secret police.

This is the new game now. We saw this with Trump. The CIA asked Australia and Britain to spy on the Trump campaign. That got around the rule against the CIA spying on Americans and gave the FBI an excuse to do their own spying. Five years ago, they made up a phony story as cover, but now it is out in the open. We live in a country that has secret police that spy on people with impunity. America is becoming East Germany with better consumer goods.

That last bit is always the undoing of authoritarians. You can run a police state or you can have a happy productive society that has nice things. With posted inflation approaching double digits and real inflation much higher, the economic reckoning is quickly approaching. There is no easy way to tame inflation. It always means a recession and usually an ugly one. People are unhappy now. Imagine where things are when the economy is in the dumper.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. Types in HAPPY ZALENTINES DAY at check out to get free shipping through Valentine’s Day. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• Truckers
• GOP Crackup
• Rogan
• Black Stuff
• Conservatism
• Music

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

One of the fun parts of studying the ancient world, even for an amateur, is that you see that the problems of the human condition are immutable. The issues we face today have new characteristics, but they are not new to man. The Ancients had the same sorts of problems because they had the same sorts of people. Then as now, there were people who lived to create trouble. There have always been people nibbling at the support cables of society, hoping for disaster.

Of course, the Ancients could not afford to indulge their fantasies about themselves or the world, so their solutions were to the point. An office holder who betrayed his duty to the office was forced to commit suicide. People who committed crimes, even small crimes, faced rough judgment. Much of what ails the modern age is the unwillingness to deal with the problems of society. As a result, they have metastasized to the point where they seem intractable.

Even so, it is settling to read about how the Ancients worked through the problems of society as it is a reminder that this is a constant. It is also comforting to see that even the most brilliant people of the age got things wrong. Just as troublemakers and subversives are a fixture of human society, wrongness is a universal constant, even among the most brilliant of the age. It is a good reminder that appeals to authority are often an excuse for not questioning authority.

For the show this week I plucked out a handful of not so famous Greek thinkers and did a short segment on who they were and what we can learn from them. As I said in the opening, the show is a bit of self-indulgence on my part. I like reading about this period in Western history, so I like talking about it too. I usually like to keep the show somewhat related to the issues of the day, but every once in a while, it is good to do one for the sole purpose of making the host happy.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. Types in HAPPY ZALENTINES DAY at check out to get free shipping through Valentine’s Day. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 03:00: Lycurgus
• 13:00: Solon
• 23:00: Draco
• 33:00: Zaleucus
• 43:00: Parmenides
• 53:00: Democritus

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

While doing homework on the Army – McCarthy hearings, I was reminded of two things that seem to come up regularly. One is that the people causing the mayhem in our society are lacking in self-awareness. The term McCarthyism has dropped out of use of late, I cover this in the show, but most people are old enough to remember when it was popular and what it meant. The new McCarthyites are totally unaware of that rather easy comparison between themselves and McCarthy.

The other thing that comes up repeatedly is that the people causing trouble have a weird blind spot about the internet. Often, they will make a big bold moral statement and then sometime later make another big bold moral statement that is the exact opposite of the previous statement. Even crazier is they will do this on Twitter. Not long after, people will post screen caps of their prior statement alongside the new statement, easily revealing the contradiction.

You are left with the impression that these people are unaware of the internet, despite using it for their political drama. You really see this with the January 6 show trials they are cooking up. The claims they are making against these people are for things these people have done in the recent past. Adam Schiff spent four years claiming the 2016 election was illegitimate. Now he is tormenting people for the crime of questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

What lies at the heart of this is the problem presented by McCarthy. The sorts of people attracted to these moral crusades are without the normal sense of self that mentally healthy people possess. They need a foil, someone they can point to as bad in some way, so they can claim to be good by virtue of opposing that person. It is why their politics are highly personal. Liz Cheney cannot stop obsessing over Trump because she is a moral nullity who needs a villain to feel like a hero.

That is what makes the January 6 commission worth following. These people are so morally obtuse they could very well set themselves up like McCarthy. None of the people on that commission are sympathetic to the public. None of them seem to be smart enough to see this. They are so sure they are on the sign of angels, because they are certain their opponents are evil. That is how these people eventually find themselves on the other end of the inquisition.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation via crypto. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. Types in HAPPY ZALENTINES DAY at check out to get free shipping through Valentine’s Day. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 02:00: Background On The Hearings
• 22:00: The Morality Of McCarthyism
• 42:00: The New McCarthyites

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

This week’s show is a continuation of last week’s show. The point of the effort is to describe the various aspects of the ruling regime. We don’t have a good name for this form of rule and one reason for it is it just sort of happened. Unlike various forms of socialism, there is no one guy at the center of it. It is the combination of historical and economic events over the last two centuries. The great contribution of Karl Marx was having a last name that made for a pithy label.

In last week’s show, I thought the segment on managerialism was the best, but it is also the most studied aspect of the system. We have 80 years of writing on the growth of the administrative state. This week I think the two segments that are most important are Custodialism and Quadripartism. This growing sense by our rulers that they need to take care of us is rising from and encouraging this blending together of the power centers of the American empire.

There is a feudal aspect to this arrangement. People think of feudalism as knights saving damsels in distress. That makes for good story telling, but it was really a fully integrated social control system. The reciprocal relationships between the warrior elites evolved into a set of customs governing all of society. The duties and responsibilities the warrior elite had with one another became a model for society. The life of every person was defined by his duties and responsibilities.

Something similar is happening with the power centers of the empire. They are working out the rules with which they regulate behavior towards one another. At the same time, they are working out rules to govern those within their domain. Instead of a code of chivalry it is terms of service. Like life in feudal Europe, people are either compliant or non-compliant. The compliant get the privileges and protection of the system while the non-compliant are fair game.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. Types in HAPPY ZALENTINES DAY at check out to get free shipping through Valentine’s Day. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 03:00: Quadripartism
• 18:00: Custodialism
• 33:00: Universalism
• 48:00: Revolutionary

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On Odysee

One of the things that plagues opposition to the ruling regime is a poverty of language to label what is happening. The bad guys have a million ways to label their enemies, but the good guys are lacking a language to categorize the other side. The paleocons got close when they coined the term managerialism. This is both accurate and simple, but it only describes one aspect of the current system. Managerialism is one result of an ideology that has evolved over the last century.

When people hear the word “Marxism” or “communism” they immediately think of a set of economic arrangements. They may not know much about Marx or Marxism, but they know that it means the end of property and the rule by a party of ideologues. It is a simple and effective label. The same is true of communism or socialism. These words have connotations that make for effective shorthand. Even capitalism, a thing that may not actually exist, carries meaning for people.

We don’t have a label like that for the current political regime. Liberal democracy is probably accurate, but it has positive connotations. Democracy is supposed to be a good thing and liberal government is peaceful and accommodating. There are examples of things that are good separately but horrible together, like fish ice cream, but that is not really the same thing. When people in the public square use the term liberal democracy, they tend to use it in a positive way.

This conundrum is the inspiration for the show. Instead of trying to come up with a clever label for the current political order, maybe the better starting place is to just describe some of the big attributes. After all, the word “Marxism” did not come into use until the thing itself existed in some form. Once we can come up with a description for what we are experiencing, then maybe a label comes into focus. At the minimum, it starts the process of thinking about it beyond platitudes.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.

For sites like this to exist, it requires people like you chipping in a few bucks a month to keep the lights on and the people fed. It turns out that you can’t live on clicks and compliments. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you don’t want to commit to a subscription, make a one time donation. Or, you can send money to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. You can also use PayPal to send a few bucks, rather than have that latte at Starbucks. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount if you use this link. Types in HAPPY ZALENTINES DAY at check out to get free shipping through Valentine’s Day. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sa***@*********************ns.com.

This Week’s Show

Contents

• 00:00: Opening
• 03:00: Managerialism
• 23:00: Pluralism
• 43:00: Democracy

Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Amazon

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG-2Ynb2YvM