Author: Fred Reed

Much is written about slavery and its aftermaths. A large part of this is frenetically modified history issuing from people both excited and poorly read, a comic-book version apparently intended to support agendas of the impenetrably adolescent Left. A few points: First, slavery was always bad, frequently hideous, much worse in the Deep South than in Tidewater or New York and consequent to the same desire for cheap labor that now results in importing Mexicans and exporting jobs to China. Any notion that abuses were rare or exaggerated is twaddle.  A vast amount of contemporary writing documents this. The best-known … Continue reading →

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In today’s irreligious and indeed anti-religious climate the fashion is to dismiss Christianity as crude superstition and to babble wisely about the separation of church and state. This is unfortunate, and stupid since Christianity was the heart and soul of as yet the greatest civilization the world has seen. Those who know nothing of it cannot understand the last two thousand years and how our world came to be. Renegade Jews founded Christianity (most Jews soon wished they had not), as a sort of heresy that got out of control, lost all resemblance to Judaism,  and eventually stretched across Europe, … Continue reading →

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In Washington, where the rice paddies of self-importance are nourished with the night soil of mendacity, columnists are viewed with the seriousness properly reserved for lung cancer. This is ridiculous. Columnists, the rodent class of journalism, have the dignity of carney barkers and merit the social standing of bellhops. It’s a living. For most of us, barely. A columnist’s job is to tell readers things that they already believe. His function is purely confirmatory. What he confirms may be nonsense, and often is, but this is irrelevant. There is after all everywhere a boom market in nonsense. Liberals read liberal columnists to be told … Continue reading →

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If the reader will permit me this once a somewhat personal and idiosyncratic essay–heretofore I have never been either personal or idiosyncratic–I will promise never to do it again. No one can doubt the reliability of my promises. I have played in writing over the years with my birth in West Virginia and my consequent but imaginary possession of twelve toes. (Most readers will not care where I was born, and a fair few clearly wish that I hadn’t been. Well, this isn’t your day.) Anyway, I entered this world in Bluefield General Hospital, McDowell County, West Virginia, because my … Continue reading →

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Methinks the insane hysteria over Russia needs to stop. It probably will not. For reasons of domestic and imperial politics, the American public is again being manipulated into a war frenzy by Washington and New York. It is stupid, without justification, and dangerous. The silliness over Russia is, obviously, part of the Establishment’s drive to get rid of Trump. Yes, the man is erratic, contradictory, shoots before he aims, backs off much of what he has promised, and may be unqualified as President–but that is not why Washington and New York want to get rid of him. It is about money … Continue reading →

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A great uproar goes forth from the enemies of the Trump Beast, with much gnashing of hair and pulling of teeth. He will be a terrible President, they say, and they may well be right. There are ominous signs, particularly as regards foreign policy, and he seems radically incoherent and contradictory. Interestingly, his critics have no slight idea why he won.  The reason is obvious: He won because everybody was campaigning for him, in particular, the media, Hillary, Black Lives Matter, Obama, Democrats, and far leftists. Everybody worked for Trump. He couldn’t lose. The election was a referendum on Marie Antoinette’s court. … Continue reading →

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In the ever-entertaining dispute over Darwinian evolution, “irreducible complexity”–IC–has  provided a serviceable bone on which intellectual rodents, such as myself, can gnaw. Briefly, for those who have had better sense than to entangle themselves in such brambles, irreducible complexity is the observation–if it is an observation–that many things in biology consist of many parts such that if any one part is missing, the whole shebang fails to function. All the parts would, therefore, have to evolve–appear–simultaneously. This runs against orthodox Darwinery in which, to get from A to B, everything in between has to evolve bit by bit and has … Continue reading →

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All right, we have him. My reaction to Trump’s victory is barely of interest to me, and so it may be that the world is not waiting in quiet desperation for an account. I have no information on this matter from Ulan Bator or Sulawesi. Insofar as my reaction was that of half of the country, it may be of note. My reaction was, “Yes! Yes!  Yessss!” This, of course, is because like all of Trump’s supporters I am sick of corruption, oligarchs, New York, candidate’s who sell state favors surrounded by serial rapists and goofy-looking pedophiles, and the goddamned … Continue reading →

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Oh good. The world reaches a crossroads, or probably a road off a cliff, just when I want to relax and watch gratuitous violence on the tube. To judge by the rapid drift of events aboard our planetary asylum, the talons of Washington and New York on the world’s throat are fast being pried a-loose. The Global American Imperium is dying. Or so it sure looks anyway. I say talons of  “New York and Washington” because America’s foreign policy, forged in those two cities, belongs entirely to them. Americans have no influence on it. Further, none of what the Empire does abroad is … Continue reading →

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More fun in the Indispensable Nation: As we have all heard by now, according to Hillary, ardent of becoming National Basilisk, half of Trump’s supporters are evil and the other half losers, deplorables all. That is, she holds half of Americans in contempt. Unsurprisingly she said this in New York, which is barely America, and to a convention of sexual curiosities. I frankly think her admirable. As she coughs, staggers convulses, lies, pilfers, sells favors and lapses into intermittent confusion, she still has the courage to tell America that she loathes half of it. That´s candor. Give her credit for consistency. She … Continue reading →

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More fun in the Indispensable Nation: As we have all heard by now, according to Hillary, ardent of becoming National Basilisk, half of Trump’s supporters are evil and the other half losers, deplorables all. That is, she holds half of Americans in contempt. Unsurprisingly she said this in New York, which is barely America, and to a convention of sexual curiosities. I frankly think her admirable. As she coughs, staggers convulses, lies, pilfers, sells favors and lapses into intermittent confusion, she still has the courage to tell America that she loathes half of it. That´s candor. Give her credit for consistency. She … Continue reading →

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What, precisely, is the US military for, and what, precisely, can it do? In practical terms, how powerful is it? On paper, it is formidable, huge, with carrier battle groups, advanced technology, remarkable submarines, satellites, and so on. What does this translate to? Military power does not exist independently, but only in relation to specific circumstances. Comparing technical specifications of the T-14 to those of the M1A2, or Su-34 to F-15, or numbers of this to numbers of that, is an interesting intellectual exercise. It means little without reference to specific circumstances. For example, America is vastly superior militarily to … Continue reading →

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This is atrociously long, criminally even, by internet standards but I post it anyway because I get occasional requests.  Few will read it, which is understandable.  Apologies. The Devil made me do it. Regular readers, if there is one, will have seen most of it before since in large part it is a gluing together of several columns. “A scientist is part of what the Polish philosopher of science Ludwik Fleck called a “thought collective”: a group of people exchanging ideas in a mutually comprehensible idiom. The group, suggested Fleck, inevitably develops a mind of its own, as the individuals … Continue reading →

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It is easy to underestimate the peasantry, the little people. They appear well under control. All seems calm unless one looks carefully. The means of control work smoothly: the legions, the church, the media, the secret police, the enforcers of political correctness.  The serfs are cowed. Why worry about a distant peonage? Do we not have our castles? Let us dance and drink champagne. And comes the guillotine. I know three young women of exceptional intelligence and talent, all of them mature and disciplined. They cannot find jobs. It is not from lack of trying, far from it. One of them is … Continue reading →

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Don’t look for a walk-over. The T14 Armata, Russia’s latest tank. You don’t want to fight this monster if you can think of a better idea, such as not fighting it. Russia once made large numbers of second-rate tanks. That worm has turned. This thing is way advanced and outguns the American M1A2, having a 125mm smoothbore firing APFSDS long rods to the Abrams 120mm. (As Hillary would know, that’s Armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding sabot. You did know, didn’t you, Hill?) This isn’t the place for a disquisition on armor, but the above beast is a very advanced design with unmanned … Continue reading →

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