"After nearly ninety years of social security it would be reasonable to conclude that the state cannot solve 'poverty.' Indeed, the more the state does, the more the state is expected to do."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'The other side of the story' 

You have to understand the psychology of leftists. Dissenting opinions make them FEEL like they’re being physically assaulted. And to leftists, feelings are of paramount importance. Feelings are truth — their own feelings, that is; not anybody else’s feelings.

With leftism, we are confronting the fusion of mental illness, narcissism and brute force: a truly lethal, unsustainable combination.

 

 

The post Disagreement Is Not a Physical Assault appeared first on Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. | Living Resources Center.

The latest outrageous excuse for our President's authoritarian war on immigration amounts to He's just enforcing the law, which is the same kind of cop-out as I was just following orders.

The issue at hand is Trump's immigration enfocement, which would be alarming enough even without people being deported overseas by accident or roundups of such dangerous elements as farm workers about to pick a harvest. So we'll set aside such matters for the sake of argument.

Here's the nut of the piece:

Under Trump, things have changed. One of the most significant backstops to so many visas being issued abroad and then promptly forgotten about is a new plan to review the more than 55 million people who have valid U.S. visas for any violations that could lead to deportation. The State Department said all U.S. visa-holders, to include tourists and students, are now subject to "continuous vetting," with an eye toward any indication they could be ineligible for permission to enter or stay in the United States. If such information is found, the visa will be revoked, and if the visa-holder is in the United States, he would be subject to deportation.

...

Since Trump's second administration came into power, the most obvious change in immigration policy is the current campaign by ICE to locate and deport aliens in the United States illegally. This summer storm has been a long time coming. This is a step that the flaccid immigration system demanded for decades, as local, state, and Federal authorities turned a blind eye toward illegals walking free out of court rooms, walking free from prisons, and living any life they chose, good or bad, in America...

Regarding that last: Much of the piece is laser-focused on the small minority of "illegals" who aren't living a good life. The vast majority who are here are here peacefully, with the forgiveable "exception" that they are breaking laws we ourselves have been tacitly excusing them from for a long time.

If a municipality set the speed limit on a freeway to 20 m.p.h., but never enforced it, and is now concerned about safety, it has many alternatives. Among these are a gentle ramping-up of enforcement, like warnings; or, better yet, raising its speed limit to something that makes sense so law enforcement has a prayer and its efforts aren't wasted. Sheriff Trump is showing up and throwing the book at all comers, whether their drving is actually dangerous or not.

Interestingly, the piece also mentions in passing just such a gentle alternative that Trump could have taken and improved upon, but has not:

At one point the number of illegals grew so high that an amnesty was granted to, for a moment, reset the number to zero. This immigration amnesty was enacted in 1986, under President Ronald Reagan, through the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This law offered a pathway to legal permanent residency (and eventually citizenship) for most illegal immigrants who had entered the U.S. before January 1, 1982 and had lived continuously in the country. It also provided legal status to seasonal agricultural workers who had worked a minimum number of days as illegals in America...

This was decades ago, and yet the sky never fell. The author, Peter Van Buren, doesn't ask any of the below very good questions: (1) Why didn't Reagan follow up by either (a) finding a way to enforce immigration laws from his amnesty on, or (b) simplify immigration law -- which sounds challenging to enforce, to say the least -- enough to be enforceable? (2) Why is it important to enforce current immigration law in such draconian fashion no matter whether the immigrants are living a "good or bad" life? (3) Since when has Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free not been a source of pride and strength for this country? (4) By what right does the government restrict the movement of anyone not from a country we are at war with?

While yes, Trump is our Chief Executive, he could, as Reagan did, find a more humane way to deal with a backlog of unenforced (and arguably, unenforceable) law. And like any President, he could lead efforts to change the laws on the books to something better, or at least more understandable and enforcecable.

-- CAV

From universities to legacy media to Antifa to Black Lives Matter to Big Pharma, Kirk fought the most influential cartels in our midst. They noticed.

Podcast audio:







In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Onkar Ghate and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss the causes of America’s growing wave of political violence, which recently claimed Charlie Kirk as its latest victim.



Among the topics covered:




* The current state of political violence in America;



* How 9/11 and the BLM protests accelerated political violence;



* How Western intellectuals pushed the speech-as-violence equation into the mainstream;



* How tribal fear-mongering fuels political violence;



* Whether unqualified “civility” is the right standard for engaging someone rationally;



* Why we must have zero tolerance for any recourse to force.




The podcast was recorded and posted on September 12, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.












Download audio: https://media.blubrry.com/new_ideal_ari/content.blubrry.com/new_ideal_ari/20250912_Charlie-Kirk-Political-Violence.mp3

"Capitalism is the only system where the state’s role is servant, not master, limited to protecting rights and banning force and fraud. When it oversteps, that isn’t capitalism failing, it’s the state abandoning capitalism. 

    "In every other system, there’s no confusion: the state is master by design. 

    "And anarchism doesn’t escape this dynamic, without a rights-protecting state, power doesn’t vanish, it shifts to gangs and warlords. The real choice isn’t no master, but whether the state is master over men or servant to their rights."

~ Rock Chartrand