Happy Independence Day

I am not much of an American. Yes, I served my country, but for me, it was more about economics than patriotism. I traded nine years of my life for a free education, and if I was in the same position today, considering making that trade-off again, I wouldn’t do it. Never trade time for money. Yes, I have pictures of me in dress whites with my lieutenant shoulder boards and my fruit salad, and yes, I have a shadowbox in my office to prove it, but my memories of that period of my life are not especially pleasant. I had a lot of ideas on how to improve the Coast Guard, and nobody was in the mood to listen. You find people of all political persuasions in the military (Mikie Sherrill on one end, Dan Crenshaw on the other, for some contemporary examples), but you do not find any libertarians. Politically speaking, I was a raisin in the oatmeal, and I was doing things (like interdicting drugs and migrants) that I disagreed with. So I have mixed feelings about the whole affair. I certainly don’t get all misty-eyed at the national anthem. Also, I left the military two months before 9/11, so I never experienced the wave of gratitude that people felt towards people in uniform after that day. No one ever thanked me for my service. It’s fine. You don’t need to thank me in the comments.

Also, I am not much of a student of history. Yes, I took a few history classes in high school, and yes, I took a couple of history classes in college, core courses, of course—I was a math major—but not much of it stuck. You know how it is: in school, you are memorizing dates and facts and figures, which is not really what history is all about. I’ve taken an interest in it in adulthood, here and there. I read Amity Shlaes’ Coolidge biography, and I did a lot of reading about that period of time generally, from about 1917-1930, which to me, is perhaps the most interesting period of time in our history. I know more economic history than political history, going all the way back to the Burns Fed, the Miller Fed, which led to the Volcker Fed. I’ve never read the Constitution, but then again, I don’t get the impression that many lawmakers have read it, either. But I don’t know much about the Founding Fathers, and I don’t buy into much of the narrative of Lincoln and the Civil War. But basically, I have no idea what I am talking about, which makes me intellectually honest, because many more people have opinions about economics who are completely uneducated in economics.

I haven’t voted in 22 years. Interestingly, I just registered to vote (more on this in a second), but for two decades, I refused to participate in the political process. I wrote an essay about that, years ago, but basically, I view voting as an act of aggression, using to the coercive power of the state to enforce your political preferences on others. The difference is that these days, I think that aggression is necessary. I don’t belong to any civic organizations, like Rotary or any other bullshit. I will go to the annual HOA meeting, mostly to eat snacks. I have never been a joiner. I don’t belong to a political party, and in the small amount of voting that I have done, I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats. The short answer is that I just don’t give a shit, and I want to be left alone. But I’m sure you have heard that old quote about how if you don’t take an interest in politics, then politics will take an interest in you.

Which brings me to the democratic socialists. I don’t get the impression that they are very democratic. If they were, then they would be extolling the virtues of Sweden and Norway, not Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-Sung. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic, but they would cut your throat if given the opportunity, and take your stuff, or throw you in prison. I get the impression that most of my readers are at or near the top tax bracket, and for sure, you will be first against the wall if one of them takes power. Speaking of history, I think McCarthyism is one of the best things to ever happen to this country; communists should be named and shamed. There is no shame in being a communist today—quite the contrary. I’d propose a new McCarthyism, but I think it is already too late—the horses are out of the barn, they are embedded in government, winning elected office, and are present in every industry in the private sector (even finance).

Now, even though I may not be a student of history, I am a student of social psychology, and I have to wonder if this is just another fad/social contagion that will blow over at some point, like most recently, nonbinary children. And if you are a student of social psychology, then you know that the cure for anything is too much of that thing, and I don’t think we have gotten to the “too much of that thing” point yet. I am fairly certain that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will run for president—if not now, when? I’m sure your visceral response to this is: she will never win. Well, nobody thought Trump could win, either—twice. And the media will carry water for her. I fall back on the premise that America typically doesn’t vote for extremists—see Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern in 1972. McGovern got his ass kicked so hard by Nixon that it was the largest popular vote differential in history. In normal times, extremism doesn’t fly, but these aren’t normal times. Cliff Asness and Aaron Brown recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, pointing a finger at Trump as the proximate cause for this, and I agree. There is something about Trump that pushes the left to the limits of sanity. I also think that one of these days, someone is going to drive an eighteen-wheeler down the middle and win as a sane centrist, and maybe Fetterman will do that in 2028, but being a student of social psychology, I can tell you that nobody wants the sane centrist, not here, not now.

It’s July 4^th, our nation’s 250^th birthday, and I figured it would be a good time to have a conversation about whether our Republic, and the Constitution, could survive communism. Well, we have survived a lot. The Constitution has been stretched to its limits at various points in history. Maybe the pendulum will swing the other way at one point, and we will endure a decade or two of stagnation and decline, and then get religion and vote our way out of it. But I have a saying about this: you can vote your way into communism, but you have to shoot your way out. I posed a question on X last night: would you rather live in a free-market dictatorship, or a communist democracy? Which are more important to you, economic freedoms or political freedoms? Would you rather live in Singapore or, well, is there such a thing as a communist democracy? I’d say that Venezuela, pre-Maduro, comes closest—at least it made a pretense of democracy. So would you rather live in Singapore or Venezuela? I think that’s a pretty easy decision. The truth, the absolute truth is that political freedoms come from economic freedoms—all freedoms come from economic freedoms. This is the point in the essay in which I take a dump on Trump, and especially JD Vance, who went on Bill Maher recently to crap on Milton Friedman. Jesus H. Christ. This is the problem—we have no intellectual defense against the communists. Our shields are down. Thomas Sowell is 96 years old, Friedman is long dead, the kids don’t read Ayn Rand anymore, and the quote unquote “libertarians” in or out of Congress, like Amash, Massie, and Rand Paul, are all obsessed with hating Jews, and Rand Paul is busy storming the castle, trying to put Fauci in jail, rather than defending capitalism. They are all useless. And the MAGA Republicans are fans of muscular, state-directed capitalism, rather than the free-market variety. Yep, we’re fucked. Maybe Marco Rubio, the descendant of Cuban refugees, and ardent anti-communist, can do it, if he is given a platform.

Here’s the money shot. You see, I don’t view communists as human beings. Yes, I am a man of the right, and yes, I have friends on the left, and we can have spirited debates over taxes or schools or this or that, but when you are talking about someone who wants to nationalize the entire private sector, put everyone into public housing, and murder dissidents—there is no such thing as spirited debate. These are people who are so filled with envy, hate, and resentment, people with absolutely nothing to offer, whose contribution to the world consists only of violence—no, I don’t view them as human beings. They are the scum, the filth, the absolute lowlifes of this world. They want to take everything that is beautiful and smash it. Those on the right like to point out that everywhere communism has been tried, it has failed. They don’t care. They only care about destroying everything in their path. This is a mentality that good, honest people find difficult to understand. Well, they are just misguided, they say. No, they’re not—they’re evil, and evil must be stopped.

I said that I registered to vote—well, in 1996, when it was Clinton vs. Dole, there was not much point to it. The two parties were ideologically indistinguishable. Now, there are stark differences between the two parties’ vision for America. I don’t particularly like either of them, but I like one a lot less than the other, and that is my base case for 2026 and 2028. I hate writing about politics. Nothing good ever comes of it. But the rise of the far left coinciding perfectly with the 250^th anniversary of our independence, is just a bit too on-the-nose. At the rate we are going, we won’t get to the 500^th anniversary. We won’t even get to the 260^th.

Anyway, enjoy the fireworks and burgers and such. I went to two 4^th of July parties today, and one of them had a boat parade in the inlet. Boats flying enormous American flags getting into super soaker fights with kids on shore. It was awesome. I don’t take this for granted. Nations rise and fall, and we’ve had a pretty great run, because we’ve won the battle of ideas. Don’t let the terrible ideas win.