If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?  -Hillel the Elder, circa 50 BC

Astronomy contains no wisdom.

A man died at the Brooklyn Half Marathon a few days ago.  Many people are happy to jump to conclusions about it instead of asking some basic questions and doing the boring thing of finding answers.

“Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the incursion of barbarian hordes... Our barbarians are home products, indoctrinated at the public expense, urged on by the media systematically stage by stage..." -Malcolm Muggeridge, 1980

It will be in vain for the rest of us, speaking simply as men, to say, "but this punishment is hideously unjust, hideously disproportionate to the criminal's deserts". The experts with perfect logic will reply, "but nobody was talking about deserts. No one was talking about punishment in your archaic vindictive sense of the word. Here are the statistics proving that this treatment deters. Here are the statistics proving that this other treatment cures. What is your trouble?" --CS Lewis, 1954

The terrible thing about a false accusation is that, even when we believe the innocence of the accused, we’re never quite as sure of that innocence as we were prior to the accusation. It raises a faint, durable doubt.

Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct. -Leslie Fiedler, pre-1980

"To put it quite clearly: we have an economic programme. Point No. 13 in that programme demands the nationalisation of all public companies, in other words socialisation, or what is known here as socialism. ... the basic principle of my Party's economic programme should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority... the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual.” -Adolf Hitler, 1931

Some remarkable facts about the Buffalo shooting and the reaction to it.

"...when ships were made of wood and men were made of iron."  -unknwon

“There's a phenomenon/fallacy I think might not have a name. The basic formula is "If only everyone would X, there'd be no Y." It has frequent appearances in progressive, conservative, and libertarian/anarcho- discourse. It's ubiquitous. Obviously, everyone won't X, so then what?”  -J Nelson Leith

It's weird the things that make us nervous. A first date. An interview. Selling a house, buying a house. None of which will kill you. Then, when it's time to drive home late at night an hour or two and you're behind on sleep, no nervousness.

“You become a libertarian when you just want to be left alone. You become something else when you realize they won't.”  –Pete Quinones

"Let's be honest - if men wanted to "control women's bodies," they'd demand an end to Ben & Jerry's and plus-sized clothing" -@Dame_ThugLife

A pro-abortion group has published the addresses of SCOTUS judges' residences. This could go very bad, very fast. And I mean VERY bad.

“That the politicians most outraged by Roe being overturned are all progressives in states with legal abortion underscores the degree to which the progressive world view is not a personal preference, but a moral absolute justifying global domination.”  -Jeremy Kauffman

The guy who attacked Chappelle is, predictably, a maniac. His landlord said of him and his miscreant rapper brother, "I’m just glad they didn’t burn my house down."

People who've never been around bad dudes don't seem to get it. So many victims.

“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. ” -Aristotle

"Politicians need fears to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless. If it has no basis in fact at all." -Michael Crichton

Today makes me feel like the only non-pro-life guy in the world who thinks Roe was trash and a national embarrassment. I'm thrilled at the news it may be overturned. Why's it so crazy to think some abortion should be legal AND to actually want to have a damn vote on it?

“Do justice, and let the skies fall.” -Ancient Roman saying

"Much confusion comes from judging economic policies by the goals they proclaim rather than the incentives they create." –Thomas Sowell

The left in San Francisco have incentivized homelessness and marvel at its increase.

The government has created a shadowy "misinformation" board in homeland security. If you question it you're a Putin stooge, needless to say.

A man in the next town over has committed his third forcible rape. He's been sentenced to another 10-15 year sentence, or, as I call it, a rape hiatus.

“When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” -CS Lewis

"There are no plain and simple problems any more. From poverty to race to crime to Vietnam, all we face are crises which threaten to bring down the world upon our heads." –Ben Wattenberg, The New Republic, “The Nonsense Explosion,” 1970 Brad Paisley's "She's Everything" is pretty crappy.

Elon Musk has bought Twitter. And just like that, the left is very concerned about the squelching of political speech haha.

"Necessity is the mother of taking chances." -Mark Twain

“I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world ... And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.”  -Oscar Wilde, from prison a few years before his death

Re: The Disney Story

What's the point of the right if it has to be hostile to free speech in order to win?  What's the point of the right if it lies about decent people every day for political power?

Likewise, what's the point of the right if it continues to lose?

"The government was to exist and move by virtue of the efficacy of ‘checks and balances.’ The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live." -Woodrow Wilson, 1913