Paradocracy

In his book Intellectuals and Society , economist Thomas Sowell writes, "There has probably never been an era in history when intellectuals have played a larger role in society than the era in which we live."  For most of history, mankind has worked under autocratic governments, at the behest of kings and emperors, where public opinion was of precious little consequence. With the democratization of political systems, those societies have simultaneously witnessed the (albeit limited) democratization of information, power and influence; however, this is not to suggest that information, power and influence are equally sought after among the people who comprise those civilizations.  On the contrary, just as most workers in the developed world have become specialists in their own respective fields, so too have they sought out guidance from so-called specialists and intellectuals to advise them and mold their understanding of public affairs and political issues. Despite their convi...

Much fanfare surrounds the long-held lies and mystic mythologies which have hypnotized the public conscience: those of equality , the minimum wage , and the so-called "living" wage  are but a few examples of the fashionable notions which have blatantly betrayed better judgment for their expedience on the political battlefield, where the casualties invariably number as high in human lives as they do in inconvenient truths.  Just as with every history ever officially reported, the economic value of man has been broadly politicized and thoroughly distorted, buried under emotional feelings and preconceived notions that prevent the public from ever truly grasping the gravity and implications of their convictions. In the heat of the moment, the parade proceeds inexorably without caution, with the confidence that righteousness measures in the strength of their numbers and the intensity of their voices. Meanwhile, the truth lurks quietly out of sight and out of mind, conveniently rel...

 An American author once wrote, “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” It’s just too bad that so few Americans today even have the vaguest idea of what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American, let alone what it has cost to defend their country and preserve that precious bounty for those who have inherited it.  Of course, that precious bounty is a form of freedom, a disposition on rights, which is uniquely American. It’s incredible, really, just how indifferent most Americans today are toward freedom, such that many of them casually invoke European examples of statism as an endorsement of its institution in the United States. Remarkably, these people seem unaware of the fact that the United States was founded and framed around the institutions of limited government, maximal liberty and state and personal sovereignty.  The case of the United States has indeed been the case for a form of freedom unknown to the rest of civili...

It is the mission of the Left to condition its constituency to believe that all success has been unmerited and all wealth ill-gotten, that they can remedy this problem by insisting that every last misfortune is corrected and every minority is made successful and wealthy on the basis of one’s minority status alone. This means that, assuming that people’s respective stations in life have been the consequence of privilege not merit, the Left intends to remedy the problem by insisting that their stations are merited not by their performance but by their respective ethnicities and relative misfortunes  —  or presumably those of ancestors whom they've never even met. Of course, this isn’t merit at all, but rather a specific type of political privilege which indiscriminately, and without due process, wrongs those who’ve committed no wrongs themselves in order to offset the purported wrongs of those who were never tried in a court of law.  Who then will offer reparations to those...

Part of the problem in modern America is the stubborn refusal to entertain honest dialogue. Here’s a testimony from a Paradocracy reader:  “A relative of mine visited me recently. As she sat on my front porch, she commented on the deterioration of our neighborhood: the shattered glass by the curb, the number of unkempt houses, and the prostitutes, graffiti and loud music down the street. I told her that it’s sad what has happened to the neighborhood, as it used to be such a quiet and peaceful place. She asked me what had changed, so I explained as delicately as possible that prior generations have sold or otherwise rented out their homes to people who simply don’t care about the neighborhood. In terms of demographics, I explained that I’ve noticed that most of the renters are blacks (or African-Americans) who, according to my friend at the Housing Authority, occupy the properties through Section 8. As if on cue, she immediately called me a racist.”  Where factual findings lead...

When the international gold standard officially ended in 1971 with the Nixon shock and the invalidation of the Bretton Woods system, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rallied from an average close of $884.87 to that of $891.14 in 1980 and $4,494.28 in 1995, apparently marking a 407.9-percent rise; measured against gold, however, which itself enjoyed gains of 1,837 percent between 1971 and 1980, or 1,016.83 percent between 1971 and 1995, this translated to an average close of 25.28 ounces in 1971 and 1 ounce of gold in 1980 before an average close of 9.88 in 1994, before it would finally recover into the double-digit range again, after twenty-four years, with an average close of 11.70 ounces in 1995, a level 53.7-percent below the high water mark previously set in 1971. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands at 13 ounces of gold, after trading above 42 ounces back in August of 1999 and above 22 ounces of gold in September of 2018. While far above the dreaded sing...

Upon carefully considering the issue of abortion, I've begun to wonder whether the "pro-choice" camp would endorse the freedom to terminate the life of an infant. In considering this issue, it becomes apparent to me that only a nuanced distinction separates the born from the unborn, chiefly the former's visible existence in our world. The unborn, on the other hand, often reside out of sight and out of mind, leaving the physical bonds between mother and child to produce a sense of power and confuse our sense of right and wrong. After all, it’s not that these bonds are severed after birth; on the contrary, they merely change their form. Indeed, during the child's infancy and even throughout his childhood, the offspring remains intimately attached to his parents, albeit not as physically as he once did through his umbilical cord.  Nevertheless, the born and the unborn share mutually in their dependency upon the mother, who could theoretically decide at any time ...

There are still places in the world today where men and women are forced to work for months each year to pay their lords for the privilege of living on their own property.  Some of these places even forcibly suppress the supply of housing in order to run up their prices so the lords can charge their serfs even more while boasting relatively agreeable demands on a wholly-irrelevant percentage basis. Oddly enough, this practice is ubiquitous in the United States, in the form of property taxes , whereby each man is liable for some quantity of loot — in the form of dollars — to keep the administration from harassing him, seizing his land and putting him in a cage.  What’s more, wherever that man intends to raise those funds to satisfy that liability, he is sure to face penalty there as well in the form of income and sales taxes, both of which erode his bottom line. So, wherever that man even seeks to comply with the dictates of the administration, he is only furt...

Have you ever wondered how the United States amassed so much debt? It’s simple: as the world’s reserve currency, few ever questioned the solvency of its issuer, so creditors domestically and abroad have long ponied up the cash on the promise of future repayment in the form of goods rendered at some future date.  While the United States government has had little issue with satisfying the paper obligations through the proverbial printing press, they haven’t figured out anything new in order to satisfy that latter obligation: the production of the actual goods needed to legitimately repay those debts.  This repayment will ultimately take the form of taxes on men and women, boys and girls not yet even born, at some time in the not-so-distant future.  Through the processes of government, which is always clever enough to reclassify the terms, these debts will essentially enslave the public into years of labor to afford the taxes to repay the debt accrued by the profligate...

The following letter was authored by a Paradocracy reader from San Francisco, California, who felt compelled to share her perspective as an immigrant , a minority and a female who's proud to be an American: I am neither white nor black . I am a naturalized American citizen . I am a minority . I am a woman . I am not a fan of politics, and I tend to think that the little voice inside of me would be useless in the public square; but since everyone seems to have a degree in Political Science these past few weeks, and there are now so many strong supporters (bandwagoners) of all of these different social-media hashtags, I suppose I will let this little voice out of my chest. I am not looking to argue; I am just sharing my own personal feelings . I am greatly disturbed by the craziness that is going on out there in our own community and across the country. Ever since I became a mother, I care more about life than ever. I pray that I will live until I’m 90. I want to make sure th...