I am rather shocked by this article that I wrote nearly decade ago - before I had any interest in politics and before i had discovered my predilection for liberty or even any coherent set of political beliefs at all.

Bearing in mind that it was written just before Obama came to power, it seems to have identified with some accuracy the big geo-strategic if/thens that America is now facing... and even more weirdly, it seems to foreshadow all the most striking moves Trump made on foreign policy - the Taiwan call, pushing back on China, getting cosy with Russia - in his first couple of weeks.

I'd not defend the final line of this article now, but it rather interestingly frames where we are at...

In a way, this is the scariest piece of news I've read in a long time.

If Edward Snowden returns to his native land, I will come out onto the street to honor this man, and point out tirelessly that those who would have him punished for undermining the war on terror (etc.) are those who are doing the real terrorizing - of the patriots who have the courage, like Snowden, to risk everything for the principles of our Constitution.

Posted without comment - except to say, "It's come to this..."

Because we should measure our compassion by the good that we do and not by the money that we spend.

Hopefully, friends on this page know that i like to nudge people, including myself, out of our intellectual comfort zones...

I'm especially interested in my libertarian and free-market conservative friends' take on this...

This is a strangely compelling perspective from Gingrich on Trump. I've been trying to work out if Trump is an inconsistent bull in a china shop or a strategic and psychological genius or somewhere in between or both. This talk by Gingrich sheds some light on that question...

"The State always pleads security... But it's always [really] the security of the State against its own people" - Noam Chomsky

This insight from Daniel Hannan applies almost as much in the US as it does in the UK...

"If you’re on the Left, it’s relatively easy to avoid opposed opinions. This is clearest when we move away from news and current affairs into the broader culture. Watch a consumer affairs programme and the premise will almost certainly be that wicked corporations are defrauding innocent customers. Tune into a soap opera, and you’ll have endless plotlines about people overcoming homophobia or anti-immigrant prejudice; but it’s hard to imagine an episode of Eastenders about a market trader being over-regulated, or an Archers story that touched on the iniquities of the CAP."

"... the fury emanating out of Washington and other major American cities is likely disproportional to the country at large. To some Democrats, this is a flashing alarm that incessant full-throated opposition is counterproductive."

Mmm.... Perhaps one way of "winning a negotiation" is to make the opposition so incoherent with rage that they can't get their s#@t together... I really must find that old copy of "Art of the Deal" :p

Fortunately, perhaps, his unpredictability has not yet become predictable...

We have to start thinking more about his point between the hard Left's work to blur the line between speech/ideas and actions as a means of trashing the first amendment and justifying physical violence against viewpoint diversity.

Lots of talk about immigration these days.

Here's how it really works - by someone who's actually been through the system... (Heads up: it gets crazier and crazier as it goes on. And you may not believe the ending, but it's true...)

A quote from a student at a place called UC Berkeley, which perfectly captures the prevailing cultural authoritarianism of the Left, against which much of America reacted in November, and continues to be quite sick of...

“The whole reason we’re here is for free speech. Milo’s hate speech is not allowed here. When it’s hate speech, our free speech is to shut him down.”

Can't make that up.

An interesting insight... the nature of the man is becoming clearer bit by bit...