Champion of Truth
In certain situations, a forever war may be the best option. If the cost of the war is low, the cost of total victory too high/total victory is not possible, and the consequences of defeat great, then the best of bad options may be forever war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DkKPV8n1YI
Insights from Decades of Observing the Mind | The Ezra Klein Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTZlt0FsJj8
“Even as some Republicans mocked economists for predicting prices would rise as a result of tariffs, there was a whistling-past-the-graveyard quality to the snickering. Yes, tariffs that had been threatened, delayed, and only partially implemented hadn’t yet much increased costs for consumers, but there were clear signs that importers were rushing to beat high customs duties, and that trouble was on the way. Now we’ve had a weak jobs report and a higher-than-expected producer price index (PPI), and it’s clear that tariffs perform just as we were warned: They raise prices for domestic businesses and consumers.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/20/tariffs-begin-taking-a-bite-out-of-the-economy/
“A recent immigration stop in San Bernardino, California, ended with three gunshots from federal officers after the driver fled the scene in his vehicle. While the Department of Homeland Security claims that the officers acted in self-defense after the driver struck two agents, the passengers believe footage of the altercation reveals that it was the passengers, not the officers, who were the victims.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/20/video-shows-immigration-officers-shooting-at-a-san-bernardino-familys-car-dhs-calls-it-justified/
“The Trump administration’s 50 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum were expanded this week to cover hundreds of imports that plainly are not steel or aluminum. Among the items targeted by the new tariffs: dairy products like milk and cream, as well as gasoline and other fuels, fire extinguishers, baby strollers, furniture, engines, and motorcycles. In short, anything that contains steel or aluminum or that is (as with dairy products) transported or stored in steel or aluminum containers could now be subject to those massive import taxes.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/20/trumps-steel-tariffs-now-apply-to-milk-and-hundreds-of-other-products-that-arent-steel/
“The initial images of bored Drug Enforcement Administration agents strolling past perplexed joggers on the National Mall were more clownish than carceral. Local street resistance to the occupation was limited to a drunk guy throwing a sandwich at a federal agent.
But inevitably, as this operation has dragged on, things have taken a darker turn. The sandwich-thrower was overcharged and rearrested in a needless, publicized show of force.
Masked federal agents have set up an unconstitutional checkpoint, violently arrested at least one delivery driver, and filmed themselves tearing down a banner protesting their presence in the city. Each day, more and more National Guard members pour into the capital.
The conversation about Trump’s declared crime emergency has understandably, albeit unhelpfully, provoked a lot of discourse about how safe D.C. is, whether a federalized local police department will make it safer, whether federal agents are being deployed in the right places and going after the right crimes, and on and on.
This incessant crime conversation has distracted from just how un-American Trump’s show of force in the nation’s capital is.
Uniformed troops and masked federal agents doing routine law enforcement at the command of the president is just not how we do things in the United States.
The entire point of the U.S. Constitution is to prevent the federal government from becoming a despotism, and one of the primary ways it does this is by limiting how many men with guns it has at its disposal.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/20/trumps-d-c-goon-squads-are-un-american/
Socialism Just Imploded in Bolivia
https://reason.com/2025/08/21/socialism-just-imploded-in-bolivia/
The Hidden Problem with Religious Arguments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-BHwFqI-c
A lot of conservative complaints about free speech infringements are not defending free speech, but defending harassment of disabilities and incitement of in real life harassment. Joe Rogan has trouble understanding the difference between making fun of someone who regularly says stupid stuff about politics on his show, and making fun of someone’s disability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kUdtXlb0ms&t=20s
Why were the gospels so late? Most early Christians could not write. Some thought that Jesus was coming back very soon, so didn’t see the need to write this down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768D9sqYdE4