Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2358

Organized Sports and the Total State

The POTUS chastised the NFL for disrespecting the flag and the NFL Commish chastised the POTUS for a “lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.” Thus, the jingoistic USA in demanding that we respect the sacred flag and nationalism gets crossed up with the narcissistic NFL in its demand that we respect the sacred sport of football and athleticism. Spectator...

The Tyrant Abe

Abraham Lincoln was the best U.S. President, motivated by a patriotic and Christian desire to preserve the union of states and free the slaves. At least that is what modern textbooks suggest. There is a bigger story to the 16th President of the United States than the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation. A whitewashed version of the man is all that we learned about him in school. It is what our children and grandchildren are still being taught. Public school districts and univ...

For Goodness Sake, Let Boys Be Boys

I’m a man.

There, I’ve said it. At the risk of offending the world’s increasing army of hypersensitive PC-crazed snowflakes, I am proudly and unapologetically identifying as a male.

I realise that for some people, this admission alone is currently tantamount to having me fired, arrested and possibly publicly executed.

Think I’m being ridiculous?

Think again.

Last night, popular US Teen Vogue writer Emily Lindin tweeted this to her 22,000 followers: ‘Here’s an unpopular opinion. I’m not actual...

Kratom: The Safe Natural Pain-Killer

It is no secret that Americans are losing trust in large institutions that were once believed to be beyond reproach. The media, once considered a paragon of integrity, is viewed with cynicism and suspicion. Our former faith in governmental programs and the ‘best and brightest’ has plummeted steadily from doubt into resentment. So it seems politically foolish for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in the midst of its own opioid crisis, which has wrought hundreds of thousands of deaths, lai...

The Manliness of Card Games

Card games have been around for a long time. They’ve existed in various forms for a millennium, having been invented in the Far East. From there, they came West with trading, and in the 1400s the French solidified the 52-card deck and the four suits — spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds — that we use today. While different cultures and nations use different sets of cards, that system is the most widely used around the world. For literally centuries now, friends, families, and strangers have c...

Why Everyone Uses the US Dollar

As Doug Casey has correctly noted, the prime directive of any organism—whether it’s an amoeba or a person or a corporation or a government—is to survive.

That’s why the US government protects the petrodollar so zealously. It needs the system to survive.

World leaders who have challenged the petrodollar recently have ended up dead…

Why Everyone Uses the US Dollar… for Now

In the 1970s, the US government struck a series of deals with Saudi Arabia, creating the petrodollar system. The US promise...

The Pilgrims Rejected Communism

Historically, Thanksgiving has been a feast day during which Americans are called upon to thank the Lord for the many blessings he has bestowed upon us. Richard J. Maybury and Gary Galles both explain the economic lessons to glean from the experience of the Pilgrims and both note that the primary reason for God’s blessing them with relative prosperity after years of famine and hunger was a shift away from socialism and toward private property. In their essays, both authors draw upon William B...

The Illusion of Growth

The Wall Street Journal published a superb example of hopium recently in a sunny-side-up story entitled “U. S. Manufacturing Rides Rising Tide, Buoyed by Global Growth, Optimism.”

Indeed, this lazy cheerleading excuse for journalism captured the sum and substance of why the punters keep buying the dips despite troubles gathering all around.

That is, as the tax bill falters, the crusade to remove the Donald from office gathers strength, the Fed moves into balance sheet normalization and instab...

Ethnically Cleanse the Palestinians

Let me confess that I’ve never liked Ben Shapiro, ever since I first saw his smirking face on Fox-news. He spouts minicon banalities with all the smiling assurance of a con artist selling ownership deeds for Time Square. It’s also annoying to watch all the media-authorized conservatives drooling over Ben every time he opens his mouth to say something that is strikingly uninteresting. Therefore when he was dispatched to Berkeley by conservatism, inc. to defend free speech, values or whatever e...

The First Thanksgiving

Stan Freberg was a very funny man. I first wrote about him in 2003.

He was part of the original Time for Beany, a local Los Angeles TV hand puppet show, which was immensely popular locally in 1949, and then went national from 1950 to 1955. Albert Einstein loved it. So did Groucho Marx.

He did comedy skits on records, beginning with John and Marsha in 1951.

He did some of the most clever TV ads for half a century. He ran his own ad agency, Freberg, Ltd. (But Not Very). The company’s motto was...