Nelson Hultberg

Keynes, Orwell, and Multi-Culturalism

I spent an afternoon the other day strolling through the Valley View Shopping Center in Dallas. Its once fine stores are slowly closing one by one. In their place, quaint Mexican vendors with amateurishly painted signs and sparse stores now hawk their wares as they would in a seedy swap meet.

The Charlie Brown Conservatives

In the famous Charles Schulz comic strip, Peanuts, Charlie Brown is enticed every year by Lucy to placekick a football that she volunteers to hold for him. Charlie runs down the field toward his beguiling friend, who is holding the football on the ground, and swings his leg in a huge arching kick. But at the last moment Lucy jerks the football away and Charlie flies through the air to land on his back with a loud thump and the scream of “Aaugh!” Every year, Lucy convinces Charlie to try another kick, promising not to pull the football away like she did last time. And every year, Charlie runs down the field and Lucy jerks the football away at the last moment with Charlie falling on his famous fanny.

America’s Ruling Troika

Who rules America today? Not the people; they have been vanquished. America is ruled today by a collectivist Troika – an Executive-Congressional Combine, Judicial Oligarchs, and a Corporatist Banking Cartel – who have as much concern for the resplendent principles that formed our country as street pimps have for romance and love.

The Anti-Ideology Syndrome

Modern intellectuals are anti-ideology. They shun its use like kings and high priests shun voting. One of the first putdowns a student receives from a liberal professor when expounding the basic principles of capitalism in a college classroom is, “Oh, that’s too ideological. Your thinking is too rigid.

The Paradigm Shift Dilemma

Paradigms are mega-systems of thought that explain certain realms of reality so as to shift mankind toward new visions. For example, mercantilism, Lockean limited government, species evolution, Pasteurian medicine, quantum physics, Keynesian economics, and welfare-state politics are paradigms that developed in their respective fields over the past several centuries. History is a continual process of shifting toward new paradigms in which the established thought of society is dramatically altered.

Revitalization of the State Militias

On April 19, 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord on the outskirts of Boston ignited the conflict that led to the most momentous political event of man's history--the Declaration of Independence and the birth of America. In the early morning hours of that day, a command of British troops was dispatched from Boston to search out and confiscate stores of militia weapons and supplies at Concord. On the way they confronted a small and unimposing band of armed American militia at Lexington. The British Major John Pitcairn shouted out, "Ye villains, ye Rebels, disperse; damn you, disperse! Lay down your arms!"

Time for the Unthinkable: a Third-Party

In the aftermath of the sickening travesty that Obama's reelection represents, pundits on the right are building up their strategic juices to project how conservatives and libertarians can "take over the Republican Party" and begin taking the country back.

A New Kind of Freedom

Karl Marx was asked once how he could justify advocating a political system of slavery for the individual, which is what socialism is. He replied that, socialism is not slavery; it is a "new kind of freedom." As all perceptive students of history know, the intellectuals of Europe bought into such Alice in Wonderland sophistry.

Clint Eastwood and Disrespect

The political left in America is outraged at Clint Eastwood’s recent presentation at the GOP convention. The shock and disbelief of Rachel Maddow at MSNBC and the Blitzer gang at CNN is heavy with condemnation of this inimitable American icon.