Socratic Citizen

Texas and California are each the champion of their respective half of the country, and in the last 365 days, BOTH have suffered power-grid breakdowns; California from intense heat, Texas from intense cold. Furthermore, pundits on both sides have managed to blame both climate change and our attempts to fight climate change for the problems. But what's really going on?

Much like the regular free market, the marketplace of ideas has been regulated almost out of existence, to the point that there has arisen a veritable cartel of ideas, controlling through means albeit direct but nonetheless powerful what can and cannot be talked about in polite society. So let's be good intellectual rebels and steal some of their ideas for our own purposes--why not?

Joe Biden's been after guns for a long time--so it's unsurprising that he's called on Congress to legislate, legislate, legislate. But Americans are buying guns at record levels, and support for gun control is at a low ebb. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin manhandles technocrat soy-boys at the World Economic Forum over their Great Reset pipe dream; predictions of a post-dollar, post-American century seem to back up his assertions.

Maybe things have always been this way--but it sure doesn't seem like it. Indeed, it seems like sometime in the last few years, the great debate of our time became the debate over free speech: not the First Amendment, but rather "what it's okay to say." The Internet and its attendant cultural shift have ushered in a new era of unprecedented questions around speech, the media, and who gets "canceled."

With continuing reports of censorship, spying, and other intrusions onto individual freedoms by the powers that be, perhaps it's time we sat down and had a chat about the blockchain--the exciting but definitely hyped technology behind cryptocurrencies that is poised to change the world--especially as the U.S. dollar weakens unto collapse.

Do you ever get the feeling that there is some force behind events, guiding and shaping history as it unfolds? Well, for some, this is the "deep state," a mysterious, shadowy entity of power brokers and embedded bureaucrats who, whether intentionally or not, determine the contours of world-impacting events.

Biden leads the charge back to what he thinks of as "the center"; meanwhile, the signs are everywhere that the so-called peace and quiet of the new administration bespeaks not peace, but a tenuous equilibrium. There is tremendous potential kinetic energy in each side; how long can "the center" really hold?

The government controls everything, including your mind, and there's no way out and we're all doomed and your smartphone works for the CIA and.....okay, maybe it's not all that bad. But there's certainly some oppression in the air, and it's not just coming from government.

The CDC says teachers don't need to be vaccinated, while White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says vaccines won't change much. COVID recedes, and the MyPillow guy picks fights with everyone from Dominion Voting Systems to David Hogg. Also, Ron DeSantis is going after Big Tech, big-time.

We make the case that criminal justice reform isn't about race; Democrats go after Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Republicans respond by going after Ilhan Omar. Plus, lots of discussion about why someone would support Marjorie Taylor Greene, despite her crazy media persona.