Author Archives: Ray
Gattaca
Gattaca is one of my all-time favorite flicks. It is not new — it came out in 1997 — and yet it remains, I think, one of the most underrated movies ever. It was written and directed by the New Zealand born auteur Andrew Niccol, who, before and after Gattaca, has been inexplicably silent. It…
UCSD Student Jumanah Albahri Publicly Admits She Wants A Second Holocaust
David Horowitz: “I am a Jew. The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. … For it or against it?” Jumanah Albahri: “For it.” Watch this chilling exchange, which just recently occurred at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD):…
Francis Bellamy And The United States Pledge Of Allegiance
The United States Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by an American socialist named Francis Julius Bellamy, who was also a Baptist minister, and whose cousin Edward Bellamy is the semi-famous author of two socialist utopian novels: Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897). Francis Bellamy was born in Rome, New York, May 18, 1855.…
What’s the Difference Between Communism, Socialism, Progressivism, & Welfare Statism
Communism is a species of the genus socialism. It is one of the many variations on the theme. Communism explicitly calls for the violent overthrow of government. In theory, it is an anarchist ideology which believes that the state will one day magically “wither away,” as Karl Marx famously phrased it, though only after an…
The Truth About Sierra Club
Sierra Club is the oldest environmental group in America. It was founded in 1892 by a Scottish immigrant named John Muir, whose stated goal was “to make the mountains glad.” In many ways, that puerile policy compendiates perfectly the essence of Sierra Club. Among other things, John Muir was an unapologetic racist, writing in 1894…
The Jihadists’ Deadly Path To Citizenship
The following article, quoted only in part, was written by Michelle Malkin, with whom I do not, for the record, always agree. (I believe in open borders, with thorough and proper background checks.) But she does raise an exceptionally important point here: In the aftermath of the botched Times Square terror attack over the weekend,…
Buffaloed
Chief Seattle was an extraordinarily intelligent and charismatic man, a 19th century leader of Puget Sound Indian tribes. In 1884 he purportedly said, among other things, the following: The earth is our mother. What befalls the earth befalls all the sons and daughters of the earth…. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the…
Environmentalists Prevent Cleaner Power Plant Construction
More on the inherently statist nature of that pseudo-philosophy known as “environmentalism.” From journalist Patrick Richardson: In 2007, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation proposed a state-of-the-art coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas. This plant represented a $3.5 billion investment in one of the most rural areas of the country, $78 million in annual payroll during the…
Trivia
The United States is not a democracy and was never intended to be. Democracy means majority rule. The rights of each individual, however, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, color, class, or creed, are inalienable in the literal sense (i.e. cannot be transferred, revoked, or be made alien) and are thus never subject to vote…
The Sudsbuster
He was one of the mellow, the soft-spoken, the tawny-haired — one who preferred to be alone. His name was Mark, a dishwasher at age 45. He was a drifter, a loner. He valued his freedom above all; dishwashing jobs he could always find. Our paths crossed and re-crossed at the Café Claire, where I…
Earth Day
This year rather than celebrating Earth Day by advocating still more government bureaus, which will then determine for the rest of us what we can do with our property, let us instead celebrate the only real way to clean up and beautify the planet: private property rights and private stewardship. From Chapter 2 of Leave…
Free Will
A reader writes: Dear Ray Harvey: Can you prove that humans possess the faculty of choice? — Waffling Dear Waffling: Yes, I can. And so can you. But first let me point something out: in the same way that you could not ever conceive dreaming if you’re never awake, so you can never conceive choice…
Definition of Philosophy
The definition of philosophy — judging, at least, from very nearly every philosophical dictionary on the planet — has confounded philosophers for centuries, the concept being “too large,” it is sometimes said, to properly capture in concise fashion. Yet at the same time, in all branches of philosophy, minutia is cataloged to complete weariness. This…
Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism
Economics deals with society’s fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen (Ludwig von Mises, Human Action). The following address was delivered before the University Club of New York, April 18, 1950, by Doctor Ludwig von Mises: How Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism The…
Lt. Col. Terry Lakin Refuses To Deploy To Afghanistan; Considers Obama “Illegal”; Faces Army Court Martial
From NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Mark Murray U.S. military officials tell NBC News that the U.S. Army will court martial a lieutenant colonel who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan because he considers orders from President Obama to be “illegal.” Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin believes Obama does not meet the constitutional requirements to be…