Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 488
Here’s something you probably don’t hear every day: I dislike obedience. Obedience is not something to be encouraged or celebrated; it’s one of the most dangerous human traits there is. Obedient people have caused far more problems than rebels. It’s not even close. The Holocaust can be laid directly at the feet of obedient people -- including people who weren’t otherwise bad, but who were obedient. It wasn’t only the Nazis and those who enabled them, their victims were also t...
As I write this I am wrapping up my own adventure with COVID-19. It didn’t feel good, but it was nothing worth destroying the economy over. It was not worth any mandates, shutdowns, or other government overreaches. When I think back on the worst illnesses or injuries in my life, this doesn’t even make the top 100 list. Even those experiences in the top 10 wouldn’t convince me to violate your liberty in the tiniest degree to avoid them. If they could even be avoided by viola...
There’s almost no one more dangerous than a driver who refuses to yield because they have the right-of-way. I’ve known people who got into accidents because the other person was supposed to move over or slow down, and didn’t, and they weren’t going to let the other guy “win.” When two drivers of this sort encounter one another, have your camera recording. Personally, I think it’s more important to avoid an accident than to be “in the right.” I’ve tried to teach my kids that th...
The conveniences of the modern world are all around us all the time, but I don’t think I’ll ever take them for granted. One of my grandmothers grew up in this area during the Dust Bowl days. Her big family was crowded into a two-room, dirt-floored shack without indoor plumbing or electricity. They traveled by horse-drawn wagon and their water was dipped from a cistern; they didn’t even have a windmill. They picked cotton by hand, dragging the heavy sacks behind them. She g...
I’m libertarian, uncapitalized, to separate the ethical philosophy I follow from the political party I can’t. A Libertarian, capitalized, is a member of the Libertarian Party. Ethical libertarianism is based on the recognition that no one has the right to use — or threaten — violence, personally or politically, against anyone who isn’t currently violating the life, liberty, or property of another. This is the guiding principle that distinguishes a libertarian from anyone else....
Once upon a time, the word “liberal” was used to describe people who were “generous,” “open-minded,” and “accepting of other opinions.” It was closely related to the word “liberty.” This description no longer applies to political liberals. Describing their backward-thinking as “progressive” or their nightmarish denial of reality as “woke” is equally ridiculous. This doesn’t mean they are always wrong. I agree that everyone has value, but their value has nothing to do with...
There can be a difference between what a person likes and what they are willing to force on others. Most of my preferences lean conservative: liberty, family, and keeping government out of my life. The difference between me and political conservatives is that I don’t believe it’s ever ethical to use government or legislation to force my preferences on others. Therefore, I can’t be politically conservative. Another difference is I’m no fan of the Constitution. A fatal mistake...
This past spring I noticed a bigger than usual crop of the plant that becomes tumbleweeds when it dies and the wind blows. I told a few people to be ready for an epic tumbleweed season this year. Then, I failed to see many tumbleweeds last month and wondered what had happened to them all. It turns out they had all gone to Oasis State Park to plot their attack. So, I was right about the bumper crop, but I missed where they were going. I can’t win ‘em all. Some things are easy t...
I love people. I also know that humans are deeply flawed. This combination explains why I’m a libertarian. Every other position insists that no one is smart enough to run their own life while also believing most people are smart enough to run the lives of people they’ve never met. This running of strangers’ lives is carried out through voting and wielding political power. It’s not a realistic position. The libertarian position recognizes that most people are better at running...
Have you been hearing about the metaverse? What is the metaverse? It’s “virtual reality” taken to another level. Like experiencing the internet as though it’s the world you live in — to see and hear it all around you as if it’s physically real. Imagine the best video game you’ve ever seen, but so much better you have a hard time believing your character isn’t actually you, doing all the things your character is doing, surrounded by other people’s characters experiencing the sa...
The Kyle Rittenhouse trial may have served as a canary in the coal mine. That’s how I saw it. Government doesn’t respect your right of self-defense and would prefer you die at the hands of attackers. Fortunately, the jury saw through the malicious prosecution. Unfortunately, much of the public believed the lies spun by the national media corporations to advance their anti-gun, anti-defense agenda. Rittenhouse was even called a “white supremacist” and his attackers were ca...
It’s popular to paint the other political side as evil. The people probably aren’t, but their ideas and actions may be. Remember — you are “the other side” to them. Evil isn’t just whatever you don’t like. That would be too easy. Evil is any action that violates someone who isn’t currently violating the life, liberty, or property of another; an act that harms someone who doesn’t deserve to be harmed at this moment. Philip Zimbardo, who became famous for his 1971 Stanford pri...
Pretending the Jan. 6 demonstration was an insurrection is silly. An “insurrection,” which didn’t seek to topple any government, which was in support of the sitting president, and where the armed people were all on the other side? Nonsense. On top of this, it infuriates me that anyone could be charged with a crime for entering a building that belongs to the people — not to government — and for protesting there. To treat this as a crime is injustice. Any government pursuing...
I hate to sound like a parrot repeating the only phrase he knows until everyone is sick of hearing him. Even though it’s true. Squawk! Government is the problem. If you’ve seen any news or visited a store recently, you may have noticed the supply chain seems to be broken. Almost every retailer is having trouble getting products, and many of them are telling customers to start trying to get what they want early. They are warning customers that the things they want may sim...
I am a fan of education. If there were such a thing as public education, I’d be a supporter. Unfortunately, what exists instead is “public schooling.". By “public,” they mean government controlled, and by “schooling” they mean indoctrination. Schooling is not the same as education, but its opposite. I oppose socialist, tax-funded government indoctrination and the compulsory day-prisons for children where it occurs. It’s no wonder socialist and Marxist ideas sneak in to t...
Actions have consequences. I can disagree with what someone does, and even believe they should face consequences for their actions, without believing government should hand out those consequences. Government isn’t the proper place to look for solutions. Natural and social consequences are unavoidable; consequences from government are arbitrary. I don’t believe government authority has any legitimacy. It looks to me like any other superstitious belief lots of people share. It’s...
If government claims it will finally allow you — after you buy a license — to do something you’ve always had a natural human right to do, but makes the rules for getting the license so burdensome, complex, annoying, and expensive that few will jump through the hoops, what was really accomplished? Was your freedom increased or was it a scam? The New Mexico cannabis business licensing scheme looks like one such example to me. Some licensing schemes are concerned with controlling...
The best survival strategy for a society, a civilization, or a species is to let individuals try different things. Get out of their way, even when you believe their choice will lead to certain doom. The only legitimate limit is when an action would violate the life, liberty, or property of another. In that case, the intended victim has the right to stop the violator, but otherwise, step aside. Every choice is a fork in the road. You can’t see what’s ahead along either path. Yo...
Are you enjoying this “new normal?” Neither am I. What can be done about it? Consider: Those who gained power or prestige by using the COVID panic will not willingly go back to the way life was before. They will have to be forced out. They’ll probably make this a crime before you get the chance. Try anyway. Even if you do successfully force them out, things can never go back to exactly the way they were before. COVID-19 is a new cold virus, added to over 200 cold viruses — rhi...
Tax the rich? It sounds like a great idea ... to people without a grasp of economic reality. For the rest of us, it looks like national economic suicide. If you punish people for being productive, you’ll discourage productivity. Yes, there are some people who would keep working hard to create value even if the IRS keeps stealing it, but many would throw in the towel and live on the bare minimum they are allowed to keep. They wouldn’t start businesses to benefit society or to...
You may have picked up subtle clues that my opinion of politicians is exactly as low as my opinion of freelance thieves, bullies, and vandals. It’s impossible for me to dislike them more than I already do. Still, I admit some politicians are undeniably worse than others. My measure of how good or bad a politician is depends entirely on whether they force me to notice them. The more I notice them, the worse I consider them to be. Any politician who isn’t completely inv...
A couple of centuries ago, a smart fellow known as Voltaire pointed out, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” This is a timeless truth. It explains why a disturbing number of people in the year 2021 are calling for segregation, imposed poverty, or even concentration camps — they prefer to use euphemisms — for their neighbors who are, for whatever reason, unvaccinated against COVID-19. If this isn’t a willingness to commit an atrocity,...
I am not anti-vaccine. I’ve been vaccinated for a few things in my adult life because I think the risk of those vaccines is less than the risk or inconvenience of the diseases they are supposed to prevent. I wouldn’t bother getting a quasi-vaccine that neither prevents the vaccinated from getting nor spreading a disease I’m not particularly worried about; a sort-of-vaccine that doesn’t even last a few years, to moderate a new, slightly more dangerous, cold virus. A cold vi...
Nearly everyone criticizes the way the U.S. left Afghanistan and claims to know what the right way would have been. I see it differently. The tragic situation in Afghanistan has lessons for Americans, but I see most Americans missing the lessons because they are looking at it wrong. The problem wasn’t in the leaving; it was going there. It’s smarter to not make mistakes in the first place, rather than to dig yourself in deeper and deeper for 20 years and then realize there’s n...
When you take a libertarian and whittle away everything nonessential — all the philosophy and politics — what is left is the understanding that no one has the right to use violence against those who aren’t harming someone else, and no one has the right to violate the property rights of others. This simple idea is often phrased as “no one has the right to initiate force.” Another name for the initiation of force is “aggression,” so the definition of a libertarian is anyone who...
