Category: Seiler

Although I can’t prove it, I think an unconscious element in every presidential election is the fear a candidate might get us into a nuclear war. In my long career of voting for president, beginning with Ford/Carter in 1976, I certainly had a “gut loathing” of only two candidates I thought would be unstable and liable to lunge for the Nuclear Football and press the Button: John McCain, a Republican, in 2008, and Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, in 2016. I think a lot of voters shared that fear. There’s even a 1999 book, “The Gift of Fear and Other Survival...

Although he’s back on Twitter as of this writing, recently the tech giant locked gun scholar John Lott out of his account. He’s been the main source for my writing on guns and politics for two decades. And when it came out I reviewed his main book, “More Guns, Less Crime” – great title – as well as one of his other books. Lott’s “crime”? He actually read the New Zealand mass killer’s “manifesto” and quoted its socialist and environmentalist sections. That violated New Zealand’s policy of banning all discussion of the killings. But since when do New Zealand’s policies...

I’ve seen a lot of different iterations of “conservatism” in my life, so I think I’ll pass on the new National Conservatism movement, which just held a conference in Washington, D.C. The least they could have done was hold the shindig out there in the “nation,” somewhere down in Flyover Country. How do you find out if it “plays in Peoria” if you’re not in Peoria? I’m also allergic to using “nationalism” instead of “patriotism.” Dr. Fleming criticized “nationalism” here. He makes the salient point that “nationalism” erases localism. It’s ironic the National Conservative movement is run by something called...

  We’re far enough along in the election process to sum up what the Democratic Party candidates stand for: Foreign Policy. Except for Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang (sort of) and Bernie Sanders, all the candidates want a return to the globalist, interventionist policies that reigned before Trump. Especially indicative was their rejection – again excepting those three – of Trump meeting with Korean Boss Kim Jong at the DMZ. Typical was Elizabeth Warren’s war whoop, “Our President shouldn’t be squandering American influence on photo ops and exchanging love letters with a ruthless dictator. Instead, we should be dealing with North...

One of the benefits of the presidential primaries is ideas sometimes percolate to the surface. That’s the case with Andrew Yang and his $1,000 monthly Universal Income. Every citizen, from Jeff Bezos, worth $100 billion (after the divorce), and the homeless guy on the street corner would get a bank deposit of $1,000 a month. This is an old idea. Back in 1972, Democratic Nominee George McGovern promised $1,000 a year to everybody. According to the government’s inflation calculator, that comes to $6,218, about half Yang’s amount. But if you go by the price of gold, it was $72 in...