My pieces for other mediums (the thought-dump).

Because this site is a late product, I haven’t been updating it with the pieces I’ve written over the last few months through Young Voices.

This is a brief list of each of the pieces I’ve written. As I continue publishing in other mediums, I’ll begin updating the blog with links and further commentary.

In Rare Media – We Can’t Deny that ISIS is Islamic. We Also Can’t Conflate it with all of Islam. 7/14/2016.

In Salon – Don’t let conservatives fool you: Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is about regulation, not abortion. 7/16/2016.

In the Freeman – Donald Trump is an Ayn Rand character, but not the one he thinks. 7/22/2016.

In Truth Out – Newt Gingrich wants a Muslim test. Okay, here’s what it would look like. 7/26/2016.

In the Freeman – Pokemon GO! is not, in fact, totalitarian. 7/26/2016.

For the Libertarian Institute – Abolishing the police state can be a common point of interest between libertarians and Black Lives Matter activists. 10/26/2016.

For the Daily Caller – For liberals, Castro represents a last roadblock to forgetting the evils of communism. 11/30/2016.

For the Freeman – Bernie is Blind to Compassion without Compulsion. 1/26/2017.

For Townhall – The health insurance debate reveals the endemic flaws of our politics. 5/8/2017.

For Real Clear Policy – Do Atlanta’s taxis deserve a level playing field? 6/6/2017.

For the Washington Examiner – Scalise shooting, Portland, and others: how much do the political views of American terrorists matter? 6/15/2017.

Some notes:

• There are a couple pieces that require some update. Since writing about Pokemon GO! and Google, I’ve realized there was some nuance I failed to discuss. The conceptual distinction I made is internally consistent, and is very much in the mold of Ayn Rand’s framework for understanding compulsion vs. voluntary exchange. The angle I hadn’t fully considered was that Google has a long, well-documented history of sharing information with the Federal Government. This complicates that distinction considerably. Kevin Carson wouldn’t be thrilled with me.
• Also, too, I’ve realized I was somewhat sloppy in my discussion of communism – a fatal mistake for someone who for a long time identified as being on the “far left.” When I discussed communism, I was referring to the totalitarian states that developed in the Twentieth Century from centralized state power and a base theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I understand – and should have been more careful to note – that many forms of socialism and communism have been proposed, and that quite a few folks would have some right to quibble with my categories. With that said, my fundamental point holds for two reasons. (1), while not all (though most, I think) forms of socialism will inevitably lead to totalitarianism, there’s compelling reason to believe they all lead to tribal warfare and mass poverty. And (2), the fundamental critique was of Castro. I think I would have since reworded my critique to be even more unequivocal. He was responsible for much evil, and the Left gives him far too much credit.
• An interesting conversation ensued beneath my article in the Freeman on Bernie Sanders. The crux of it was this: it might be that private compassion really is the compassion we ought to strive for, but is it really compassionate on the part of politicians to indiscriminately take away folks’ healthcare? There’s an interesting phenomenon happening here I will be writing about soon, where the government distorts markets and fosters dependency to services to the point where only it can adequately provide them. Accordingly, it would be cruel to remove those services without adequate measures to transition people appropriately and humanely. Thomas Sowell talks a lot about this process, by which more legislation is endlessly required to fix the unintended consequences of past policy.