Author Archives: authorbengarrido
The Tragic Heroes of 2020
The last year and a half saw two major crisis – COVID19 and the breakdown of the rule of law. COVID itself was – conspiracy theories aside – almost certainly a naturally occurring infection that jumped from a wild species to humans. Its spread was aided by freedom protesters and conspiracy theorists, eager to fight […]
Downtown Baby by Bloo
I heard this song for the first time in the gym and, I gotta say, it’s a weird song for a gym, or at least the gym I go to. I’m used to (mostly tuning out) bouncy pop songs, a little EDM and bubble gum hip hop. This typical background banality certainly made the transition […]
Thomas Sowell on Intellectuals
Thomas Sowell is one of the most famous members of the Chicago School of economics. This school, though not super famous on its own, is immensely influential in both academic and policy circles. The layman might accurately conceptualize of the Chicago School as a respectable, mathematically rigorous and very idealistic alternative to Ayn Rand – […]
Nietzsche’s Fascinating Little Quote
“If you regard as deserving of annihilation, any suffering and pain generally as evil, as detestable, and as blots on existence, well, you have then, besides your religion of compassion, yet another religion in your heart (and this perhaps the mother of the former) – the religion of smug ease. Ah, how little you know […]
An Open Letter to Noam Chomsky
Dr. Chomsky, I recently watched “Manufacturing Consent,” a documentary on your career. Some of it – your highly problematic concept of freedom for example – was familiar from my previous studies. Much more was breathless panegyric on the part of the documentary maker. However, the part that convinced me to write this letter concerns the […]
Just a Tool Kit?
Before my first semester of high school an as-yet unknown English teacher sent me a message commanding that I should read four books during vacation and prepare detailed reports on each, due on the first day of class. At the time, I thought this was a pretty intense increase of difficulty compared to middle school. […]
Rust Belt This
The Upper Midwest is a nice place — if you don’t mind cold winters. Since the mid-80s, Wisconsin has had lower unemployment than the national average for all but two years. It has a diverse economy, US News says it’s the eighth smartest state, and there’s lots of delicious beer. I could go on, but […]
So Much Bathwater
One of my happiest memories occurred around 1998 when the family and I went onto the back porch at sundown. My dad peeled sections of grapefruit with a folding knife and passed the chunks to my mom, my sister and me. The sky turned the most flamboyant shades of purple and orange as the sun […]
Why It’s Likely Nobody Knows What You Mean When You Talk About Capitalism or Socialism
In economics and the history of economics, capitalism and socialism are discrete, amoral and relatively rational things. Certainly not the hot button, justice inflamed things that inspire passionate idealists – the folks pictured above for example – to cover us in flecks of morally righteous spittle. Capitalism is markets, the free flow of labor and […]
Why NFAC May Be Good
I like this picture. I consider the existence of this armed militia a cause for hope not because I hate white people and certainly not because I want to express white guilt, but because I think it represents a real, sustainable basis for respect. I think it represents a genuine respect because, in my experience, […]
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