Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 419

Christ Our Light and the Horror of Self-Immolation

What would cause a man (and in almost every case it is a man) to burn himself alive? Two men in recent months have publicly done so: one protesting the Israeli assault on Hamas, the other’s motive somewhat unclear but somehow connected to the trial of Donald Trump.

In the Roman Martyrology, we often read of the faithful being burned alive by authorities who feared Christ and His ability to evoke a loyalty higher than any on earth. In the case of St. Joan of Arc, the immolationists were Church au...

The Real Debt Problem

Someone sent me an article from something called Patriot Alerts, “Morgan Stanley Sounds Alarm On ‘Death Of US Dollar.’”

The death of the US dollar is not blamed on the Federal Reserve printing trillions of new fiat currency during the years of Quantitative Easing in order to bail out the difficulties of the 5 large banks. It is not blamed on the thoughtless US sanctions imposed on Russia, Iran, and other countries, the only effect of which is to encourage countries to abandon the dollar based sy...

After the Missiles Fall on Israel Things Get Real for the West

“You either die a hero, or you live just long enough to become the villain.”
— Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight.

Too many people are trying to downplay last weekend’s response from Iran to Israel’s attack on their consulate in Damascus as some kind of “Wag the Dog” event. While I do agree there was a certain level of theatrics in the entire scene, to think this wasn’t a major geopolitical event is the worst kind of cynical cope.

Usually that type of detached cynicism is reserved to Millennials, but ...

Will Zionism Self-Destruct?

(This paper is the basis of a talk to be given at the 25th Yasin (April) International Academic Event on Economic and Social Development, HSE University, Moscow, April 2024)

In the summer following Israel’s 2006 (unsuccessful) war on Hizbullah, Dick Cheney sat in his office loudly bemoaning Hizbullah’s continuing strength; and worse still, that it seemed to him that Iran had been the primary beneficiary from the U.S. 2003 Iraq war.

Cheney’s guest – the then Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Banda...

Epistemic (in)security

In my last post I promised a more optimistic subject, but then life happened.
A distressing personal event that made positive thinking quite difficult; then I came across an article fitting right into the train of my own thoughts in the past few posts:
Monopoly on Knowledge: The Era of Epistemic Security – A guest post by Dr. Monika Gabriela Bartoszewicz on the  Substack.

The post is superb, please read it. It is a treasure trove of references and most beautiful art. It guides us thr...

Debunking All the Main Arguments for Antitrust Laws

It does not take too much upstairs to see through the Biden administration’s rejection of the JetBlue-Spirit Airlines merger. The latter is on the verge of bankruptcy. It is $1.1 billion in debt. It faces the headwinds of a new labor agreement raising pilot pay by 34% and has trouble with its Pratt & Whitney engines. JetBlue offered Spirit a $3.8 billion buyout. Together the two of them would account for a 10.5% market share, fifth in this industry.

It is exceedingly difficult to see the logic b...

Tariffs Are Taxes on Americans—But Protectionists Pretend Otherwise

During the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, Trump’s opponents in the Democratic party (and elsewhere) often pointed out that Trump’s protectionism hobbles private markets and the economy overall. Yet, the allegedly anti-protectionist Biden administration has done virtually nothing to end Trump’s protectionists policies put in place from 2017 to 2020. The motivation is unclear, but it is possible that the Biden administration realized that protectionism is a useful political tool. These policies offer a ...

Congressional Extortion: Aid Funds, TikTok, & X – Leveraging Censorship

EXTORTION – the practice of obtaining something through force or threats.  Obtaining benefit through coercion.  Intimidation Tactics.  Housed within the Aid funding Bill passed in Congress were two less advertised agendas:   1.  Tik Tok’s Chinese founders are now required to sell their interest in the company to an American investor approved by Congress – within six months.    2.  Frozen Russian assets will earn interest (at an undisclosed rate) which will be used to fund Ukraine’s reconstructio...

Sanctifying Time

In a recent essay, I argued that Americans—both secular and, increasingly, Catholic ones—experience a “flattened” sense of time. Time just simply “passes by” with little to distinguish it, with our increasingly attenuated civil holidays (including those shorn of their religious and/or historical content) trying to contend against a brutally “immanentized” approach to time. To remedy this, I argued for the recovery of a religious sense to time—the liturgical year—that forces not just memory but a...

War, What’s It Good For?

We have only seen a handful of movies in a theater over the last decade. Ever since the kids grew up, there hasn’t been a reason to spend too much for too little. Regal Cinemas in Oaks was the place to go in the old days. It had 24 theaters and was always packed. You could never get a parking spot close to the venue. The restaurant near the theater always had a line and you usually had to wait 30 minutes to get a seat.

We decided to go and see Civil War on Friday night, and boy times have change...