Right As Usual

What I've been saying for YEARS about the culture being the important thing to change, not the politicians, is bearing fruit in the form on an explosion of fiction that takes the Conservative or Libertarian point of view.  Here are some examples: Fiction What I Saw at the Coup. Alas, Brave N ew Babylon The Alienork Way  - VERY powerful, very prescient. Liberty Island (serialized novels and short stories) NOT Fiction When the Music Stops

I started to post on Facebook about one of these links, then realized that I had a LOT of other links that I wanted to spotlight.  So, in no particular order: From Maggie's Farm, the question of Why People Loath the Successful .  Here is a post on a similar theme, about Bernie Sanders and his supporters frothing hatred of the rich. Why Freidrichs v. California Teachers Association may be a game-changer in education.  It could not only change individual schools, but also the power of the teachers unions to influence politics. Wouldn't we all like to have EVERYTHING we wish for?   Maybe not. These go together - One, Two,   Three , and Four.   They are all about having the things you want out of life, and understanding the price. After reading this, I will never see or read Age of Innocence in the same light.  BTW, one of the few movies that lives up to the book. Want to read the summary of the Left's Endgame?   Here it is.  

That is, from the outside, where does your sense of personal boundaries begin?  For many people, it is at least in the immediate perimeter around their person - their body.  As long as you can keep your personal space from being violated, you are secure.  With family, that is generally at the level of the body exterior.  With less close relatives/friends, that may include an invisible, but real zone around your body.  Inside that zone, only invited people may enter.  Hence, the personal outrage of the children who find that "Great-Aunt Whoever" ignores that zone, and insists on hugging and kissing.  Their outrage is that she ignored the boundary, on the pretense that she is a close relative. But, that personal zone is NOT the ideal, when it comes to strangers - those who have not established trust with you.  For them, they need to stand further away - the less trusted, the further away they need to be for you to feel safe.  The size of the zo...

One major aspect that is wrong with American Life is that minority viewpoints use our basic desire to compromise as a way of "pushing the camel's nose into the tent".  What is that?   Here is one example of the story: One day an Arab and his camel were crossing the desert. Night came and the temperature became colder. The Arab put up his tent and tied the camel to it. The Arab went to sleep. The temperature became slightly colder and the camel asked the Arab if he (camel) could just put his nose in the tent to warm up. The Arab agreed that the camel could just put his nose in, because the tent was small and there was no room for 2. So the camel's nose became warm and after a while the temperature went down even more. The camel asked the Arab again, if he (camel) could just put his fore legs in because they were very cold. The Arab reluctantly agreed that the camel could only put his fore legs in and no more. So the camel moved in his fore legs and they became warm. Af...

She has the neatest blog - politics, culture, and, of course, fantasy and sci-fy (she is an author, having been published both IRL by Baen and in digital form). One of the best things is the way she analyzes America from the standpoint of an outsider, which she was, initially.  Sarah was born and raised in Portugal, and retains the ability to see us at a distance. "The Long March" is 2 days old, but worth the time reading it. Probably  the most crucial part? There is strife.  Strife means the old blood and the new don’t agree.  Another way to look at it is renewal. Problem is advocates of liberty are about as good at coordinated action as a bunch of cats It's true, the Left outflanks us at unified action.  Gone are the days when Democrats proudly proclaimed, "I'm not a member of a political organization - we're not organized at all". Mao and his ilk would be bursting his jacket-buttons at the way modern American Leftists have managed to corral ordinary A...

Never Fear - Kathy Shaidle is here! One of the neat things about occasional bouts of insomnia is that. when carousing around the web (my most common go-to for those times), you sometimes run into Fun Facts! Such as this: More Catholics were killed by left-wing atheists—like my typical sparring partner— during the Spanish Civil War than “heretics” were killed during the 350-year Spanish Inquisition . The "Crusades were SO Terrible" meme that the Progressives/Leftists want to beat any opposition over the head with is another of those accusations that is best combated with a Fun Fact! Such as this  map showing that the Jihadi invasion of the Middle East - at that time, almost exclusively Christian - and Europe was FAR more extensive than the defensive Crusader wars.

Look, I'm a big fan of the online world.  It speeds up the collaborative process when at least a portion of it can take place online.  This semester, the teacher I'm mentoring and I have been doing at least part of our interactions online. However - At least 2-3 times a week, we find that it's necessary to get up, walk the relatively short distance to the other's room in the pod, and quickly confer. Apparently, humans are just hard-wired to prefer at least SOME IRL contact.  I have people with whom I have only online interactions, and I find that I wish we were able to at least occasionally met in the physical world. So, Rubio's decision to keep Iowa almost completely non-physical is probably a HUGE mistake.   More than the coastal people recognize, those living in the interior are accustomed to "pressing the flesh", and those politicians who haven't been face-to-face may not realize that they will likely be perceived of as "cold" - and, ther...