Month: August 2026

@ooana – Ooana Trien at X put up a couple of really excellent posts. If you’ve read TSM much at all, you know that if someone says something better than I can, I let them – with attribution. So, with no further ado:

<sub>I always understood why the Second Amendment was constitutionally protected.

What I never really understood was why people called it a natural right.

Then I moved from New York to Florida.

I didn’t own a gun yet.

One afternoon I was loading things into the trunk of my car outside a HomeGoods when a man approached me.

“Excuse me.”

He must have thought he’d startled me, because he immediately added, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get close.”

I laughed.

“I’m a New Yorker. I’m used to close. How can I help you?”

He started telling me that he needed money for gas.

At some point while he was talking, I got into my car.

And sitting there, with the conversation still unfolding, I suddenly realized something:

He didn’t know whether I had a gun.

Not somewhere at home.

Not hypothetically.

For all he knew, I could have had one right there in the car, tucked under the steering wheel or within reach.

I didn’t.

But he couldn’t know that.

Schrödinger’s gun.

And in that instant, before I even knew whether his story was true, something changed in the space between us.

I thought about New York.

I thought about my friend who had been murdered in his own apartment during a burglary gone wrong.

Would those men have gone into his apartment if they had believed he might be armed?

I don’t know.

I thought about the time I was mugged at gunpoint, with a gun pressed against my temple.

Would that man have approached me with the same confidence if he had believed there was even a possibility that I could defend myself?

I don’t know that either.

But sitting there in that Florida parking lot, listening to this stranger talk, I suddenly understood deterrence in a way I never had before.

Not as military theory.

Not as constitutional law.

As something intimate.

My body. My life. The few feet between one person and another.

For years I had thought about guns primarily as objects: who had one, who shouldn’t have one, what laws should govern them.

Suddenly I understood the question from the other direction.

What changes when another person cannot simply assume that I am defenseless?

I felt taller.

Not because I had a gun.

I didn’t.

But because, for the first time, I understood that someone approaching me could not automatically assume that being physically stronger meant having power over me.

There was uncertainty.

There was a boundary around my body that had to be taken seriously.

Then his story began to fall apart.

I told him I didn’t have cash, but offered to help another way. I could put some gas in his car.

He took off.

So apparently, yes, it was a scam.

But by then I had already understood something much larger than the scam.

The phrase natural right finally made sense to me.

The Constitution had not given me ownership of my body.

It had not given me my life.

It had not invented my right to protect either one.

Those things came first.

What I understood that afternoon was the thing underneath them.

I had once been completely helpless while another human being held a gun against my temple.

Years later, without a gun in my possession at all, I understood what it meant for the person approaching me not to know whether I was helpless.

That uncertainty changed the space between us.

And that was the moment I finally understood the natural right behind the Second Amendment:

My life is mine, and the right to defend it has to exist before anyone gives me permission to do so.</sub>

She followed with this:

<sub>I want to add something to my 2nd amendment story.

The cultural shift from being somewhere that gun ownership is not respected or protected, to somewhere that it is was profound.

Truth is, I’m still adjusting.

When you live somewhere where you are taught not only to fear guns, but also not understand them, nor are you encouraged to learn how to use them safely let alone exposed to them outside of a threat, the shift to a place that doesn’t function that way is profound.

I felt and feel immense gratitude that I now had the choice to purchase and learn how to be a responsible gun owner and user. I recognize deeply the profound trust being put in me as an individual, and that may be the greatest shift of all; the fact that I also know others have that same right and responsibility here is a profound thing.

There is a recognition in this that feels deeply honorable and honorable conduct is also expected. That feels like respect.

This respect seemed to vanish in the place I loved so much and I believe not comprehending what natural rights truly are contributed to what many NYers have and still are going through.

My mother is an immigrant from Eastern Europe and lived under totalitarian regimes. She once said to me that no one can understand the first amendment until they live with it. It changes how you perceive the world and what liberty means.

That was a shift I experienced with the 2nd amendment. There was no way I could have truly understood it otherwise.

My point? I am deeply grateful that I had the opportunity to experience such a profound shift in perception. Many people don’t ever get to have it. For many it’s simple a political talking point or a theory.

I felt it – inside. It was visceral and embodied. I felt respected by a government and fellow citizens because my right to protect myself more than demanding that I empathize only externally, was both respected and expected.

If you’ve never experienced this shift, it’s difficult to explain.

I experienced what a God Given right / Natural right actually is when suddenly I was given the choice to recognize it.

I am profoundly grateful to that man for trying to do a version of the metro card scam on me, because in that moment I remembered how it felt not to be afraid. I also got to remember this during a moment I was not in any danger.

That’s the point.

See- during the summer of 2020 in NYC my nervous system had become accustom to feeling at the mercy of the mob.

In that parking lot – just knowing what was possible, I felt something heal.

I didn’t mention this in the original post, but I wept when I got back the home I was renting short term.

I was grateful. I still am. I had to experience something else to understand fully what was being denied me.

The respect to not be expected to externalize every moral arithmetic. Years of the hypocrisy during the lockdowns, my block being looted, and random violent crime going through the roof in my neighborhood had left me with a feeling of submission and acceptance that I hadn’t realized I’d so deeply integrated into my experience of the world.

Natural rights can be forgotten when the rituals that surround us demand us to.

My confident, street smart, NYer poise came back to me and it felt incredible.

So – thank you, Florida and all of you who advocate for the 2nd amendment. I hope this story helps bridge a divide between those who still haven’t had this revelation and those who have.

It’s nuanced and deeply personal, but it’s real.

2020 was the peek of what can happen when our natural rights are treated as something dolled out or denied by a system that uses fear to control how we perceive reality.

Nothing is clearer than the moment nature is free to show you something that is simply true.</sub>

In other news,

So, while Correlation ≠ Causation, this information unequivocally disproves the old gun ban control SAFETY adage:

More Guns = More Gun Crime

And Ooana understands why. Hopefully more do every day.

On April 15, 2026 at the University of Texas at Austin, Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech, “Remarks on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.” He didn’t pull any punches. I urge you to watch the entire thing on YouTube or read the full transcript linked above. For the purpose of this Überpost, however, I want to concentrate on just this excerpt:

<sub>European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockean world, with its weak decentralized government and strong individual rights. They say our 18th century Declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government. Why has America never had a socialist party, one German sociologist famously asked. But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bounds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism – which, after all, was a national socialism – triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good of notions of history, progress, or, as Thomas Sowell has written, the “vision of the anointed.”

None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the Declaration. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is largely about how America owed its superiority over Europe to its conscious decision to reject central planning and administrative rule root and branch. Progressivism, in other words, is retrogressive.</sub>

Tech Bro Peter Thiel recently predicted:

<sub>I think there’s going to be a democratic-socialist takeover of the Democratic Party.

The Republican Party doesn’t matter that much. It’s the less important one. When the Democratic Party goes, this country is over.</sub>

One thing that Muslims and Socialists have in common: Their goals are absolute power, and their plans are very long-term.

The point of Justice Thomas’s lecture was that it is up to We, the People, to stand in the way, say “NO!” And make it stick. Regardless of the cost. Our lives, fortunes and sacred honor are at stake whether we do or not.

But to do so effectively, first we must understand what we’re up against. We’re up against millions of carefully created “useful idiots,” the Left’s “True Believers” Eric Hoffer warned us about. I wrote about Hoffer’s warning in 2005, if you’re interested. Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov explained it in 1984. It’s a four-step process:

• De-moralization. In all meanings of the word. Bezmenov said it required about 20 years, long enough to brainwash one generation of your enemy. At the time he was recorded it had been going on since at least the 1950’s.
• Destabilization. Screw with the social cohesion of your enemy. Financial, social, cultural, criminal, etc. Make everyone uncertain, hesitant, unconfident, pessimistic. In a word, enervated.
• Crisis. Self-explanatory. This is when “new leadership” steps in promising “solutions” if you’ll just give them unprecedented power to create…
• Re-normalization. Only things don’t go back to “normal.” You get a new “normal” that’s very different from what you thought you were promised.

Meet your new Overlords, who will shortly be busy putting the Useful Idiots against the wall pour encourager les autres. After all, they will be the ones most upset about not getting that utopia they were promised.

Four years ago over at Quora I answered a simple question: “Why does the idea of ​​socialism and the distribution of wealth displease the majority?” I answered the question with one of my own: “Why is my desire to keep what I have earned considered ‘greed,’ but your desire to take what I have earned not ‘greed’?” What followed was a comment exchange almost 60 posts long where “Alan Dumont” and I debated socialism vs capitalism.

No, that’s not correct. We talked right past each other. I tried to engage, but his ideological blinders were on tight. But what “Alan Dumont” did was provide a perfect example of type. And there are a lot of his type in the world today. Western Public Education has ensured it.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to repost that entire exchange for your edification. In hindsight, I left a lot out of the discussion I wish I’d included, but I will address this in Part II of this epic-length Überpost. I will also post Part II physically after Part I, and comments will be turned off for Part I. So, if you’re ready, willing and able, click to open below.

Continue reading “Galloping Socialism, Part I” →

I posted all of that so I could post this commentary on all of that. Honestly, when I had that exchange four years ago I just kind of did it on the fly for the entertainment value, but with Democratic Socialist candidates sprouting up all over like weeds in 2026 and winning, the exchange has a darker implication.

The Long March Through the Institutions™ was successful far beyond the wildest dreams of Rudi Dutschke, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse or the rest of the faculty of the Frankfurt School.

This is the mindset of one of the major enemies of Western Civilization. Recognize it. Understand that its internal inconsistencies matter not a whit to its True Believers. As Bezmenov himself noted,

_{…exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him a concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it — until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. When the military boot crushes his balls, then he will understand — but not before that. That is the tragedy of the situation of demoralization. So basically, America is stuck with demoralization. And even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating a new generation of Americans. It will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.}

We didn’t start in 1984. We haven’t started yet. And to be honest, it might be too late, but Winston Churchill laid down the facts for us:

_{If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.}

It sounds melodramatic, but it’s not. We’re in late innings and down by a lot of points.

Let’s analyze our ideological opposition using the words of one Alan Dumont, example par excellence of type.

First, I’d like to point out that this exchange illustrates perfectly the difference in worldviews between what we call today the Left and the Right. What Dr. Thomas Sowell, in his magnum opus A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles called the Constrained and Unconstrained Visions, and what Stephen Pinker in his book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature renamed the Tragic and Utopian Visions. Sowell notes that apparently humans are born with one of these two “visions” that he defines as “our sense of how the world works.” It has been described, he says, “as a ‘pre-analytic cognitive act.’ It is what we sense or feel before we have constructed any systematic reasoning that could be called a theory, much less deduced any specific consequences as a hypothesis to be tested against evidence.” Visions are crucial, because they are “the foundations on which theories are built.” BUT: “The final structure depends not only on the foundation, but also on how carefully and consistently the framework of theory is constructed and how well buttressed it is with hard facts.”

However, Bezmenov points out that, once indoctrinated, hard facts are useless. Only pain suffices to instruct.

Let’s start with ADM’s first assertion: “…socialism is literally a method to stop people (the capital holders) from taking value that they themselves have not earned.” There’s a lot wrapped up in that little sentence.

• Socialism is a method.
• The purpose of socialism is to stop people from doing something they ought not.
• That thing the ought not do is “taking value they themselves have not earned.”

Lots of judgements in that. Who decides? We’ll return to it.

His next assertion: “Accumulated capital is always the result of exploitation,” and “The answer always leads back to exploitation. Always.” Remember these, too.

This one is very revealing:  “I cannot express enough that a) money was NOT created to facilitate barter. No society has ever actually functioned on a barter system, that’s a myth. … When two people exchange goods, they exchange goods.” Alan has obviously never even dabbled in economics. In hindsight I wish I had hammered him on this, but I regretfully didn’t. Money is an idea. It represents your labor, just as materials for barter might. The difference between this:

and this:

…is belief. A couple of the upper pieces of paper will get you a Sausage McMuffin off the McDonald’s Value Menu. The lower one is good only for wiping your tush or starting a fire. No one believes it has any other value. If you work for an hour, someone may be willing to give you a few of those upper ones, and because our society believes that they represent value, you can purchase things with them. You’re bartering your labor for material goods.

It’s up to you to get the best exchange rate you can. But the Socialists don’t believe that, because reasons: “When my work generates 40 dollars of value in an hour, and my boss pays me 15 dollars for that hour, that is not the voluntary exchange that capitalists like to pretend it is. It is exploitation, intentionally taking advantage of the fact that those workers either don’t know how much value they create, or are desperate enough to accept exploitative conditions, which doesn’t stop them from being exploitative.”

Exploitation. Always.

Here we get to the core of his Utopic Vision: “So long as we live in a system where basic living has costs, everyone is coerced into participating, and it isn’t voluntary.”

Basic living should be free. Just because. And having to work to live is … slavery.

Water. Food. Shelter. Education. Medical care. Clothing. Daycare. Transportation. (Insert your desire here.) All free. They believe this. Logic and reason be damned. They’re owed this merely by existing. How much are they owed?

From that belief we get this: “It’s about the fact that taking more than you need is literally unnatural and counterintuitive to the furtherance of the human race.”

So you should get only what you need. Who’s in charge of determining what that is? Obviously not you.

I called bullshit on that and pointed out that this is his zeroth-order logical error. It’s perfectly natural for humans to take more than they need, to want more than they have. In fact, if it wasn’t we would never have descended from the trees and walked upright. We’d still be swinging from tree branches and picking lice out of each other’s hair.

He kicked back: “Human nature tends to act contrary to actual nature. I’m not saying that humans inherently have some tendency toward egalitarian behavior. The exact opposite. Humans are selfish and self-destructive.” Which contradicts his assertion that human behavior is “unnatural.” We’re also greedy. He says so himself.

Here he exhibits the Rousseauian tendency towards a belief in the purity of “Nature.” He says, “Nature, on the other hand… the natural world… is exceptionally balanced. Each part of nature gives what it can, and takes what it needs, except for humans.” He also echoes “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” Humans, you see, exist outside nature. We’re not part of the natural world. We’re an anomaly. An abomination. He says it himself, “Humanity is best served by fighting against their selfish tendencies.” Against their nature. Lord Tennyson described nature as “red in tooth and claw,” but Rousseau protested that “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau blamed that on civilization, just as Alan does here. He just calls it “capitalism” because he doesn’t know any better.

But he believes the basic cost of living should be zero, and we should all get only what we need. We should be still swinging from the trees? Living in caves? Foraging for food? Earning only enough to stay alive? That seems to be what he’s advocating even if he doesn’t recognize it.

Then he openly contradicts himself (one of many): “What separates humans from animals… the ONLY thing that actually separates humans from animals… is humankind’s inclination to strive to be more than their nature dictates.” I thought that was a bad thing? Unnatural, in fact. But here he really exposes himself: “The creation of civilization itself is proof that humans recognize the value of collectivism.” Civilization ≠ Collectivism. But apparently they’re teaching this today. I called him on it, but (of course) he ignored it.

And now we get to the meat of Socialism. Human nature isn’t natural. What separates us from animals is our desire to be “more than (our) nature dictates.” Civilization is Collectivism. And, finally: “I fully acknowledge that many human beings are less evolved and prefer the short term gains of a capitalist, self-preservation worldview … We CAN create a better, more egalitarian society, and most humans want that. The most hilarious thing about conservativism is the distinct lack of self-awareness. They’re fighting against CHANGE.”

They want to change human nature, create a “better, more egalitarian society.” They are the better angels with the wisdom to do that. THEY will be the ones to determine how much is enough and how much is too much. THEY will be taking from you what you didn’t earn (neither did they) and distributing it to the people they deem needy.

The “less evolved” need re-education camps, and if that doesn’t work, gulags and killing fields. Which is why Socialism/Communism always – always – descends into massacres. “Civilization is evolving again. Capital holders won’t be allowed to continue running things.” How will this be accomplished? He doesn’t say it, but “The Revolution” hovers in the background of his words.

This is the – I hesitate to call it a philosophy – the mindset of a large portion of not only our youths, but people of all ages in this country who have been taught this bullshit without opposition since at least the 1960’s.

Either we start fighting this actively and vigorously, or it will cause the downfall of Western Civilization. Charlie Kirk was one of the best at it, and he was killed for it. More of us need to step up, and we need to start with children.

Get your kids OUT of public schools.

I will conclude with this response that Alan totally sidestepped by concentrating on the Monopoly game rather than the argument I was making. It reminded me of this:

Anyway, in conclusion:

We have a first-order philosophical disagreement.

Take the game Monopoly: Each player starts off with exactly the same wealth. After multiple rounds of – voluntary! – play, some have more, some have less. Who was coerced? Who was compelled?

The difference between the game and reality? The size of the pie isn’t fixed. It can be increased.

Your worldview says “Life should be FAIR! Someone should make it FAIR!!!!” Mine says “Life isn’t fair. You can do everything right and still lose, and it isn’t anybody else’s fault. It’s life.” Yours says “everyone should have just enough.” Mine says “You can do better than you are now.”

Human nature leans significantly my way.