Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Despite some changes, the Venezuelan regime is still the same authoritarian regime, just with a new dictator who is, at least for now, trying to give the Americans what they want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9qBqnQBDw
“the main opposition to including specific protections for the Bill of Rights came not from those who thought the document went too far, but from people who feared it didn’t go far enough.
James Madison, then a representative in Congress decades before his election to the White House, believed rights are natural and preexist any form of government. Man “has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person,” he commented in a 1792 newspaper column. “Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right.” Protecting specific rights, he feared, might lead Americans to believe those were their only rights, and that they’re granted by government.
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In an 1819 letter Jefferson wrote that “rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
That was long after he’d prevailed upon Madison in their correspondence to consider that the new Constitution assigns significant authority to the federal legislative and executive branches and should “guard us against their abuses of power.”
“If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can” with a formal Bill of Rights, he continued. While such a document “is not absolutely efficacious under all circumstances, it is of great potency always, and rarely inefficacious.”
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The Ninth Amendment addressed Madison’s concerns about protecting only some rights by embedding his natural rights ideas in the document. It states: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.””
https://reason.com/2025/12/08/bill-of-rights-day-how-your-rights-keep-authoritarianism-in-check/
“A recent Transportation Department audit of Hurricane Sandy relief funds found $95 million in questionable costs and $2.9 billion in unspent money.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/25/taxpayers-still-paying-for-hurricane-sandy-relief-mismanagement-13-years-later-new-report-finds/
Russia’s privatization after the Cold War, failed partially because the Russian government was too weak. It could not enforce property rights and the rule of law. Instead, the government was corrupted by the oligarchs. When Putin took over, he exchanged many oligarchs for one–himself.
When the U.S. tries to deregulate for potentially good reasons, and avoids taxes, we need to be careful that we are not setting up our own oligarchs who avoid helpful taxes and regulations at the expense of the people.
https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/the-failure-of-russian-capitalism-with-bill-browder
“As of mid-2025, there were roughly 50 simultaneous national emergencies in force.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/25/how-to-ruin-a-shutdown/
Trump is moving the United States in an authoritarian direction and there is a real question as to whether authoritarianism will consolidate, or Democracy will survive.
There are post-truth authoritarian movements in the West, and it’s not clear which countries will survive as democracies.
Many politicians won’t act against Trump because they are afraid it will hurt their careers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoO3_EaoE6Y
“Not even shutting down the government can stop Republicans from forcing their way into corporate boardrooms these days.
The federal government is, at the moment, incapable of completing its most basic and routine task—passing a budget—and yet it is simultaneously expanding its portfolio to include a 10 percent ownership stake in an Alaskan mining company.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/07/republican-socialism-the-trump-administration-buys-a-stake-in-yet-another-company/?nab=1
Trump’s Director of Management and Budget is an extreme ideologue blinded by his ideology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSkaYL7-MLs
“At the beginning of the war, the Taliban were almost completely routed, and the U.S. military could have left from a position of strength. The new Afghan republic announced that it had an offer from the Taliban to surrender in exchange for amnesty and a chance to participate in politics. But the Bush administration turned down that offer, settling for nothing less than total, unconditional victory.”
Our Coming Plutocracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wetEKGZdUo