Paradocracy

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...