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Best Posts of 2016
Friends, as 2016 comes to a close, we want to highlight some of the best writing from our community this year. However, we have a small problem: Every year we have so much great writing here on Ricochet, that it’s easy to overlook some of the best stuff. So we’re hoping you can help us out.
We’re going to have two categories: Best Post by a Member and Best Post by a Contributor or Staff Member. You can help us out by nominating posts for our consideration.
Here’s how it works:
Everybody gets two nominations, one for each category. If you want to go back through your own posts and nominate yourself, please do. Great writing is great writing.
The year is quickly winding down, so we’re only going to leave the nomination window until Sunday at midnight (Pacific Time), so if you know a member who hasn’t made their picks, feel free to drop them a line before time is up.
This isn’t a popularity contest, so there’s no point in nominating the same thing multiple times. (But if you like a nomination, feel free to hit that “like” button.) After that, we’re going to narrow them down and pick the best ones and you’ll see the results next week!
Published in General
Tis the day after Christmas, and here I sit, sipping Baileys in my coffee, trying to sift through lo these many wonderful and varied posts from 2016. (Note: this alone is no small feat, since it requires me to stop fiddling around with the Apple Watch my wife and daughter conspired to give me for Christmas yesterday. Gee it’s fun!)
The news surrounding the election seemed, in my opinion, to own 2016, and Donald Trump seemed to own the election. I say he seemed to, but actually I think the voters owned the election, eschewing as they did conventional electoral strategies, conventional wisdom, conventional politicians and their conventional lies.
Our own @paulrahe captured this phenomenon perfectly in his post, The Power Of The Purse, which gets my vote for the best post of 2016. The money quote, for my money, is when Professor Rahe described Republican congressional leadership thus:
Not sure how I missed it but Cargo cult OP. FABULOUS
http://ricochet.com/archives/cargo-cult-science/
You mean other people other than me post here?
Fred gave me some gentle arm twisting, so I’ll note which one of mine I think is the best this year:
http://ricochet.com/archives/pro-life-but-not-proud-of-it/
By a member: http://ricochet.com/394383/you-may-have-missed-the-obituary-for-the-primary-care-physician/ by @DrRich. Really illuminated the situation for those of us whose interaction with the medical system is limited to the patient role.
By a contributor: I’m a yuuuuugge @davecarter fan. Dave writes with both clarity and passion, and his “regular workin’ guy” perspective enlivens his prose. I could choose pretty much any of his posts from this year, but if I have to limit it, I’ll choose http://ricochet.com/archives/bonfire-sophisticates-part-1/ and http://ricochet.com/archives/bonfire-sophisticates-part-2//, with a slight edge to the latter. The two go a long way to explaining the election results this year……and he wrote them nearly a year ago!
Paul Rahe’s Nov3 post to Never Trumpers summed up how I felt.
Pseude’s cut and paste videos without comment. I dig the minimalist vibe baby. In seriousness I’ll vote for Jlocked article about his grandpa in WW2. I loved it.
Waaaaaay back in January I was first introduced to I Shot the Serif.
My calling of Iowa for Ted Cruz made me feel pretty good
If I were to suggest one of my own, it would be April of this year, “Do you Believe in Fate.”
The OP was short but the comments were amazing.
Edit–link is corrected. Thanks, Fred! http://ricochet.com/331322/do-you-believe-in-fate/
Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions. Nominations are now closed.
We appreciate everyone who took the time to suggest something.
JudgeMental’s is the one I was going to add, but you beat me to it.