Conservative Conversation + Podcasts

Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.

Get Your First Month Free

Listen to Our Free Podcasts

Quote of the Day: On Safetyism

June 23, 2021

7 11345

“The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.” – Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton wrote this in the context of the Quasi-War with France and the Barbary Wars against North African states. A nation unwilling to defend its rights and borders soon gets conquered by foreign states and ends up ruled from afar. Or, having paid the Dane-Geld, discovers they never get rid of the Dane.

New Releases

The 1860 Project

June 23, 2021

36 14651

You may have heard of the thing called The 1619 Project, a series of essays shilled by the New York Times, and loved by woke progressives, that purports to demonstrate that America is a country built on and inextricably bound to slavery. It argues that racism infuses every aspect of our culture, is the unifying ideological foundation of our nation and should be seen as the beating heart and evil soul of America.

It’s widely regarded by real historians as tripe, as faulty and incompetent history, shot through with error and toxic reimagining of the past. I share that view.

Quote of the Day: Are We Winners or Losers?

June 22, 2021

Winning means getting Russia to withdraw from Syria, the Donbas and Crimea. A diplomatic victory is when China agrees to dismantle military bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea. Success involves getting Iran to stop arming and funding armed militias and terrorist groups in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Losing, on the other hand, is something the West has become quite good at. Losing is watching construction continue on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as Russia declares the country’s largest opposition party an illegal conspiracy. Losing is moaning about Chinese behavior in the South China Sea as the military balance tilts toward Beijing. Losing is crafting intricate webs of ineffectual sanctions as Russia’s reach and control inexorably expand. Losing is wringing one’s hands and issuing eloquent critiques as China intensifies its crackdowns in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

–Walter Russell Mead

Quote of the Day: Partiality

Clifford A. Brown

June 22, 2021

8 10393

And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
— Deuteronomy 1:16-17 (ESV)

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
— James 2: 1-4 (ESV)

As Critical Race Theory is imported even into the Southern Baptist Convention, despite deceptive denials from the previous and new leadership, it is worth going back to the texts the Christian church has long professed to reverence as the Word of God. Racism and sexism are not “sins” named in the scriptures. Instead, what is consistently condemned and prohibited is “partiality” or “favoritism” in judging between people or deciding how to treat them.

Climate Disclosures and Their Stealth Mission

Richard Epstein

June 22, 2021

A huge fraction of the Biden administration’s regulatory policy is driven by its persistent fear of climate change. Chief among its initiatives are ambitious programs to reduce the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels by pushing for an increase in wind and solar energy reliance.

There are two paths for achieving that goal: direct regulation and disclosure. The former includes the decision made shortly after President Biden’s inauguration to pull the federal permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, which led TC Energy, its Canadian developer, to kill the project some months later. Soon thereafter, the Biden team made its dubious decision to “pause” oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, only to be blocked judicially for encroaching on Congress’s power to set national policy. Ironically, there was no explanation given of how these actions would help the environment. In my view, Keystone’s removal probably increased climate-change risk by preventing the efficient shipment of fossil fuels, which are still used by over 80 percent of the energy market, notwithstanding the heavily subsidized production of wind and solar energy. Piously claiming to follow “best science” hardly serves as an adequate justification.

Racism at Yale 2021

June 21, 2021

Yale, which protects its fragile students from dead white authors and offensive Halloween costumes, nevertheless featured a psychiatrist lecturing at Grand Rounds of her fantasies “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, wiping my bloody hands, like I did the world a [expletive] big favor.”

Grand Rounds is an educational presentation by which teaching hospitals augment routine clinical training with presentations of unusual cases or medical advances. It’s not a political forum nor a venue to permit social causes.

Yet Dr. Aruna Khilanani, a New York psychiatrist, gave a widely-advertised speech on “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” “There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil” she informed the assembled doctors-in-training.

Our Feckless State Department Is an Embarrassment

June 20, 2021

Soon, 18,000 Afghan translators could die, and their blood will be on our hands. We are approaching an emergency situation as we plan to leave Afghanistan. Although we have a program in place, the Special Immigrant Visa Program (established in 2009), to save those Afghanis who worked for us, our State Department demonstrates once again its inability to get out of its own way. The U.S Embassy in Kabul recently suspended visa operations.

And many people will die.

Ali and Weiss: Two More Podcasts Worth Trying

June 20, 2021

3 5367

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is something rare and beautiful, a truly heroic figure who has faced life-threatening adversity without flinching, and without surrendering an ounce of dignity or resolve. I recently listened to her June 3 podcast with Megyn Kelly, hosted on Ricochet, about Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, and appreciated the common sense expressed both by Ms. Ali and Ms. Kelly. As one of the few conservatives who has never heard Megyn Kelly speak, I was impressed by her thoughtfulness and intelligence — and, in particular, by her willingness to bluntly reject the absurd claims of the gender identity movement. And Ms. Ali’s is a voice I hope is never silenced; I applaud Ricochet for providing her a platform and hope she does well.

I also listened to a June 16 Podcast by Bari Weiss and her guest Martin Gurri. This podcast appears not to be hosted on Ricochet, so I found it here: Revolt of the Public. What particularly struck me about this interview was Ms. Weiss’s professionalism: she asks intelligent questions, follows up when appropriate, and comes across as a serious woman and a serious interviewer. Mr. Gurri, an ex-CIA employee who left Cuba as a child and has, as he put it, witnessed both right-wing and left-wing totalitarianism, speaks sensibly and optimistically (albeit with some caution) about America. His views on the Internet — that it is transformative and destructive — in many ways comport with my own. I found his rejection of the popular notion that America is a racist country refreshing. I’ll probably read his book, The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium.

A British Police Procedural Updated to the Present

June 20, 2021

5 6328

The British police procedural is one of the most popular forms of detective fiction. The twentieth century brought Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse and P. D. James’s Adam Dagliesh. There are many others, including some set in the nineteenth century.

“Queen of Swords,” by Robert Mills, brings the genre into the twenty-first century.

Senior nurse Jenny Butcher is found strangled in her London flat. Detective Inspector Sanjay Patel, a British-born Indian is the case’s first investigator. He is assigned as deputy to Chief Inspector Tracy Taylor, and an important part of the investigation.

RepubliCAN’T Willful Failure: Juneteenth Holiday

Clifford A. Brown

June 18, 2021

Juneteenth started as an informal Texas holiday.* Last year, at the height of street violence in the name of racial justice for Blacks, the Republican-controlled Senate could not be bothered to push through federal legislation, sponsored by the senior senator from Texas, John Cornyn. This was the sort of legislation that President Trump loved to sign, and would have played right into the heart of his political strategy to make every ethnic and racial group electorally competitive, not the taken-for-granted electoral “property” of Democrats or Republicans. Now Chuck Schumer showed exactly what Mitch McConnell could have done, but chose not to do, out of contempt for Black Americans, or cluelessness, or a burning desire to tank the 2020 election.

Senator Chuck Schumer, acting like a real Senate Majority Leader, put forward a motion for unanimous consent on Senator Cornyn’s legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday. This led to immediate passage after RepubliCAN’T Ron Johnson finally abandoned his “principled” opposition, used by McConnell last year to tank the bill put forward by Republican Senator Cornyn before Juneteenth. Ron Johnson’s laughable objection was the supposed $400 million dollar “cost” of one less workday, converted into a paid federal holiday. Johnson even tried killing the Republican bill last year by proposing an amendment eliminating Columbus Day in the trade-off. In an era of multi-trillion spending bills and annual budgets, $400 million is a rounding error. It is a joke, an insincere objection.

Last year, President Trump followed the long tradition of issuing a Presidential Message for Juneteenth from the White House [emphasis added]:

Canary in the Coal Mine, or You Could Be Next

June 17, 2021

After the last attacks on Israel by Hamas, the canards began to escalate against Israelis once more: they stole the land, they abuse the Palestinians—well, the list goes on. In recent months there has also been discussion on this site about whether anti-Semitic attacks in this country are increasing or not, whether the concern was being exaggerated or should be seriously addressed.

I’ve decided to take a different approach to the “Jewish question.” From my perspective, there are three types of attacks on Jews that have a great deal to teach us and serve as a warning: (1) the relevance of the merging of anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist thought in these times; (2) the subtlety of criticisms of Jews, and how Jews are adding credence to these statements, (3) the lessons that need to be learned from the current situation by Jews and non-Jews alike.

* * * *

Quote of the Day: Crusades and Woke Folk

June 16, 2021

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your behavior ‘righteous indignation’ – this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” – Aldous Huxley

This quote perfectly describes the appeal of Wokism. At its heart, it is the opportunity to bully and maltreat others “for the greater good.” It is also why the most egregious of the woke folk are all idlers, people with no constructive purpose in life. It is easier to destroy than to create. And if one is unable to create, jealousy of those who can is a frequent feature. Wokism is the cause that allows you destroy and be proud of it.

Saving our Children

June 16, 2021

The resolve of the Woke community to propagandize and control our children has continued to steamroller ahead, especially in the area of transgenderism. The Left is targeting them on multiple levels and in numerous venues, and we seem to be helpless to stop them. A recent article reminded me that since the Left is so determined to “follow the science,” science is one area to focus on to make sure that our children’s wellbeing is not permanently destroyed. I’ve also identified other steps we can take to at least slow down the transgender movement; at this moment, it seems like an out-of-control speeding train. But if we want to have a generation that can carry on a future that is moral and productive and to protect this country we cherish, we must act. Now.

Medical Facts

Sorting Out the Global Tax Mess

Richard Epstein

June 15, 2021

The Group of Seven (G-7)—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—met last week in Cornwall, England. High on its agenda was establishing basic agreement on three major proposals for remaking the international tax system, whose structure looms ever larger in today’s global economy.

These three proposals are of uneven merit. The first calls for a 15 percent minimum tax on the global income of all international companies. This means that each company will have to pay at least 15 percent of its income in taxes in every nation in which it does business. The second is targeted against various kinds of tax havens. Under today’s law, the corporate tax is localized to the nation that hosts the corporate headquarters. The new proposal allows a limited corporate tax to be imposed in those nations where those company’s products and services are “consumed.” The tax would be imposed only on the 100 largest global companies, to be measured by some future metric, which would be calculated as follows: the first 10 percent of any allocated profits would be taxed as they are under the current system, but 20 percent of the profits above that 10 percent threshold would be taxed under this new regime. Third, as part of the overall deal, each of the various nations agrees to eliminate special taxes on digital sales at the place where the sale is completed, but not at the place where the products are made.

At the outset, it is important to establish a sensible metric by which to judge these proposals. To a classical liberal, the proper approach seeks to move government tax policy to the ideal that has been congenial since the earliest time: low flat taxes on a broad range of economic activities, which seeks to drive up production and income. In the long run, this means taxation imposes fewer economic distortions on underlying market activities.

Was Henry Ford a Nazi?

June 15, 2021

70 181386

A lot of people already think they know. Such a stark, blunt question deserves a direct answer: No, he wasn’t. Ford did not support Hitler or his ideology. He wasn’t a Nazi, officially or unofficially. What Ford was, however, was pretty awful without ever getting near a swastika armband. He was one of the most powerful, influential anti-Semites in history, and did immense harm all over the world by lending his once-golden name to vicious lies. Ford didn’t go around quoting Hitler, but Hitler was grateful that “a great man like Ford” was sounding the alarm.

Ford’s notorious publicity campaign against the Jews began after World War I when he bought a local newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and turned it into a heavily subsidized powerhouse of anti-Jewish agitation. That campaign largely ended by the end of the Twenties, by which time he had other, more pressing problems. Hitler didn’t come to power until 1933. But the effects of Ford’s pseudo-history lingered for decades to come, for the millions of Jews he slurred, and for the reputation of Henry Ford himself.

Ring the Bell!

June 13, 2021

Clang! cried the bell, as noisemakers rattled and whoops and cheers rang out
Clang! pealed the bell, as noisemakers chattered with yells and applause
Clang! sang the bell, as noisemakers roared and voices whooped and hollered.
And I stood there, covered my face, and cried.

* * *

A Famous German Scientist and His British Fans

June 13, 2021

8 7466

Albert Einstein was one of the twentieth century’s great men, vying with Winston Churchill for the title of “Man of the Century.” In addition to relativity, he was an accomplished musician and a noted pacifist. He was an Anglophile. He was also an assassin’s target in the 1930s.

“Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist,” by Andrew Robinson tells two tales. It explores the admiration Einstein and Great Britain mutually shared. It shows how the British offered Einstein sanctuary at the scientist’s moment of greatest peril.

The book is also a biography of Einstein, but it is a focused biography. It recounts his life in the context of his relation with Britain. It shows how British physicists, most notably Sir Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell, shaped Einstein’s scientific studies, and fostered an admiration for British scientists.

Fauci Blinded Us with Science

Clifford A. Brown

June 12, 2021

26 15852

covid versus public health Anthony Fauci is a very senior federal bureaucrat who has clung to the top of one small bureaucracy for the past fifty years. He falsely poses as an objective oracle of “science.” In truth, he was far past his sell-by date when put forward as the supposed non-partisan face of federal medical authority. Anyone who had advised every president since Reagan must be safe, just like nobody was fired for buying IBM products back in the day.

Fauci knew, Fauci lied:

Fauci knew the scary model with millions dying was a complete fraud, generated as the latest iteration of a serial scam artist posing as a real “scientist.” He used it to deliberately deceive the president, the Congress, and the world.
Fauci knew the “flatten the curve” cocktail napkin graph was empty of quantitative data and entirely unsupported by any peer-reviewed scientific publication. He used it to deliberately deceive the president, the Congress, and the world.
Fauci knew he was entirely unqualified to speak on the whole of public health. He knew that his plandemic experimental course of treatment for the United States would have entirely predictable side effects, quantified by decades of real science in cancer, heart disease, blood clots, stroke, diabetes, suicide, drug addiction, and more. He willfully falsely held himself out at all times as speaking for all of medicine, for public health, as opposed to grubby economics and other political considerations.
Fauci ignored the facts of Chinese Communist Party control and distortion of science, evidenced in the early 2000’s SARS epidemic. He knew that his counterparts were not able to actually behave as he falsely claimed he trusted them to do. Here he lied to Congress, claiming it was reasonable and safe to fund research in China because the scientists could be expected to behave according to science standards.
Fauci went from no mask, to mask, to double mask theater, never once actually citing any controlled, quantified testing of the face coverings he first rejected and then endorsed. This one was low-hanging fruit, an obvious experiment begging to be run in, say, defense test labs. Think protective mask design testing. Fauci avoided science like the plague.
Fauci directly contradicted centuries of hard-won scientific knowledge about contagion containment through quarantine, both internal and external. Shutting down entry from China was what real science indicated. Fauci lied. He gave knowingly false counsel.
Fauci lied through his teeth about the science of the origin of COVID-19. He did so for self-serving political reasons. He was and is a butt-covering bureaucrat, not a noble scientist. Fauci lied and people died.
Fauci lied about COVID-19 being somehow different from all other infectious diseases, where surviving a disease leaves you with a natural immune response, which is what every vaccine ever has sought to artificially induce. That is centuries of real medical science, starting with cowpox inoculations to prevent smallpox sickness and death.
Fauci lied through his teeth about gain-of-function research, about funding research in China to test the behavior of viruses manipulated to more effectively attack humans. He lied to Congress. He lied.

OR.

Democrats Cause Massive Increase in Desert and Drug Deaths

Clifford A. Brown

June 11, 2021

15 9681

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to CNN and CBS. CNN reports that border deaths tripled over last year. CBS reports a nightmare increase in lethal drugs, and overdoses, directly connected to the Democrats controlling immigration policy. AND. Do not believe a word of supposed opposition spewed by the RepubliCANT party of Lyin’ Ryan, the Bush clan, California Republican House Minority “Leader” McCarthy, and McConnell. They all colluded in subverting President Trump’s attempt to keep the 2016 Republican Party’s promises and the much older post 9/11 legislative promise to build a wall. Remember that this year and next and strictly hold it against them and every candidate who does not vocally reject them. The death toll was entirely foreseeable. Everybody knows.

CNN’s Rosa Flores reports on the massive surge in border-crossing deaths. Understand, these are mostly horrible deaths of dehydration and heatstroke, with a few drowning deaths in canals. Special techniques have been developed to get fingerprints from sun-baked and bloated corpses. We do not get those disturbing details from CNN, but the bare facts are terrible in themselves.

Dog Bites Man: Trump (voter) hating Media Lies

Clifford A. Brown

June 11, 2021

In another “dog bites man” story, we now know that the Democrats and their professional propaganda wing, the media, lied like rugs about President Trump’s walk through Lafayette Park. Everybody knew. Now a career bureaucrat, with long service under Bush the Younger and Obama, has put his official stamp on the truth of that day.

Who is Department of Interior Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt?

Democrat Regime “Whitesplains” to Blacks in Harlem

Clifford A. Brown

June 11, 2021

Make them own it. The Democratic Party, in the administrative state, the Congress, and the White House, is all in on Critical Race Theory and acknowledging white privilege as part of “anti-racism.” So, how is it that the Senate, White House, and administrative state, medical wing, sent two white women and an old white man to whitesplain experimental, emergency authorization vaccinations to Black people in Harlem?

Can Jill Biden help move the needle on vaccination rates?

My Winding Spiritual Journey

June 10, 2021

by Rembrandt

When we relate a story about our past, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of viewing that memory through the same lens, with the same high points, low points, and final outcomes. Recently I realized my journey to a deeper spirituality (which was really a story about relating to G-d) had taken on a richer and more vibrant meaning than I’d even realized. That’s what this updated post is about.

At first glance, it probably looks like I couldn’t make up my mind about what I wanted to be when I finally became a serious faith practitioner. I’d grown up in a nearly secular Jewish home, where my parents had little connection to Judaism and made a half-hearted effort to expose me to my roots. I don’t think they had the religious understanding to do more than send me to Hebrew school and Saturday school. I also chose to go to Israel in my junior year to study at Tel Aviv University. I was mainly curious, realizing how little I knew about my heritage or the state of Israel.

The Platinum Rule

Clifford A. Brown

June 10, 2021

The Golden Rule, “Whoever has the gold makes the rule,” has turned into the Platinum Rule: “He who has the government’s American Excess Platinum Card makes the rules.” Because state politicians lack the power to spend significantly in excess of annual revenues, thanks to state constitutional balanced budget provisions, they turn to Uncle Sugar. The first taste may be free, but then come the demands. This bipartisan political dynamic has pernicious effects on the constitutional balance between states and the federal government. nationalizing much of our policy, right down to local government and so right down to where you live.

But wait, we hear all the time about states in debt, what is this state constitutional limit talk?

Quote of the Day: Responsibility

June 9, 2021

19 11599

“Responsibility without authority is slavery.” – Rollo Tomassi

This is a quote that cuts to the heart of what is wrong with Critical Race Theory. It assigns responsibility for actions to those who did not perform them while simultaneously denying those with responsibility for “fixing” the problem the authority to do so. All you can do is admit fault, accept guilt, and do what your masters demand of you. Isn’t that the very definition of slavery – of being a slave?

Massive IRS Breach or Leak against “The .001 Percent”

Clifford A. Brown

June 9, 2021

65 151222

Propublica, a leftist media organ, has just published an article on the wealthiest Americans, based on what they acknowledge to be illegal disclosure of taxpayers’ information. They will almost certainly not be prosecuted by the leftist DOJ careerists, once again backed by leftist political appointees. The leftist White House media mouthpieces are good with the felonies and already framing this as the rich not paying their fair share.

We see the set-up for Propublica’s June 8th publication in the June 7, 2021 White House press briefing:

@