In an entertaining, if ultimately depressing article over at Takimag, Kevin DeAnna shows how popular discontent with the government can translate into demands for even more government, in the absence of a clear alternative. He also expresses the dilemma currently facing the American Right:

Make no mistake; it is capitalism that will take the blame for this crisis. Crying that we do not have "true captalism" is as questionable as those coffee house philosophers telling you that the Soviet Union was not "true communism." Both claims might be correct, but that is irrelevant....

Seeing as how our government's drug policies have been such a smashing success everywhere else, it only makes sense that we would expand them to Afghanistan. The recent comments of Gen. Craddock, along with the new adminstration's suggestion that the U.S. will be shifting its focus from reconstruction to combat missions, and the infusion of up to 30,000 more troops, seems to suggest that the gloves are coming off in what Obama has long claimed is the central front in the War on Terror.

As someone who has never owned, fired, or even held a gun, I find reassurance in the fact that I nevertheless have recourse to a means of self-defense should the need arise. Moreover, I like the idea of living in a country where the designs of an overly-zealous State are kept in check (at least in theory) by a well-armed citizenry. The State, of course, hating challenges to its own power, harbors an inveterate hostility towards gun-ownership rights, a hostility most recently manifested in this country in H.R. 45, sponsored by Black Panther-turned-congressman Bobby Rush. The purpose of H.R.