Author: Fred Reed

I get a fair amount of mail wanting to know about expatriation to Mexico, whether it is a good idea, what it is like, and how to do it. I  have consequently flung together the following to  satisfy this curiosity. I hope it serves. The upside: Mexico is a friendly, courteous, flavorful country. It appeals to the mildly adventurous who are tired of the uniformity, political correctness, conformism, blandness, and growing authoritarianism of America. Many of the political hostilities that tear at the US do not exist here.  There is a sense of age, of having a past, in countless towns each with a distinctive … Continue reading →

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One of the few remaining unjustified restrictions on the freedom of women–one of few remaining barriers to equality in the workplace–is the prohibition of prostitution.  No other service industry is forbidden to women on the basis of gender. Other sexist obstacles have come down. It is time this one did. Treating prostitution as a crime represents an unconscionable restriction of a woman’s right to control her body. This right is legally recognized, allowing her to have an abortion, and must certainly extend to allowing her to decide with whom to go to bed. Any rational feminist (I know, I know) must favor legalization. So must … Continue reading →

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A few cheering thoughts on terrorism. This column specializes in cheering thoughts. Terrorism by Moslems in America and Europe cannot be stopped. If attacks do not occur, it will be because nobody tried very hard. Stopping them would require excluding Moslems, deporting them, or controlling them by totalitarian methods. Or, improbably, minding our own business in the Middle East. What you think of the foregoing approaches doesn’t matter, since none of them will be used. In France the result would be a civil war. America is too divided to do anything about anything. The notion that the government can prevent … Continue reading →

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In the fall of the year, as leaves turned red and gold on the campus of U.PE, an aging professor stood on the podium to give the welcoming address to the new class of freshmen. His hair was white, his mien one of resignation and cynicism. He looked as though he would rather be almost anywhere else. He spoke as follows: “Welcome to this…place. I trust, or fear, that you have settled in. You are now officially in college.  You need to know several things about this condition. You will not like knowing them, which is part of why they … Continue reading →

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It appears that Washington, ever a seething cauldron of bright ideas, is looking for a shooting war with China, or perhaps trying to make the Chinese kowtow and back down, the pretext being some rocks in the Pacific in which the United States cannot possibly have a vital national interest. Or, really, any interest. And if the Chinese do not back down? Years back I went aboard the USS Vincennes, CG-49,  a Tico class Aegis boat, then the leading edge of naval technology. It was a magnificent ship, fast, powered by a pair of airliner turbines, and carrying the SPY-1 phased-array radar, … Continue reading →

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An example of pathological masculinity, male privilege, substance abuse, and patriarchy with overtones of violence against women and people of color, as well as probable homophobia. May drive a truck. Come morning, I receive emails from friends documenting the curious social transformation coming over the US. These missives usually accompany links to some new tragicomic antics. E.g., Harvard, once a university, lets students invent odd pronouns to promote gender equity. “He” and “she” represent oppression and lack of inclusion. Recently a friend, a Harvard PhD, wrote and said, “It’s not funny anymore.” I thought, and realized that, no, it isn’t. Things that seemed … Continue reading →

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I wonder whether Americans realize just how closely the United States is coming to resemble a country of the Third World, not just in its corruption and attributes of a police state, but in the incompetence of governmental bureaucracies. Federal agencies don’t work. They are rotted by affirmative action. The bureaucrats are inattentive, unaccountable,  anonymous, can’t be fired, and get paid whether they do their jobs or not. Congress is not interested. A few examples, from my experience or that of people I know, mostly involving veterans, but typical. Nightmare the First: Incompetence at State A few weeks ago my wife and I, … Continue reading →

If you were an evil dictator, would you mess with this man? Having recognized that the country is calling on me to restore order and common sense, and that my election as dictator is the last hope of Western Civilization, I hereby throw my sombrero into the ring. Below is a compact summary of the wise and forward-looking policies which will characterize my reign. Interposed are thrilling slogans that will throw you into an electoral frenzy. Social Policy: On the day of my coronation, I will undertake a sweeping reform of society, beginning with radical feminists. We will hunt them with … Continue reading →

The military, once again, puts women into jobs they cannot do–this time, the Army’s Rangers–to advance the careers of political generals–among others, Maj Gen. Scott Miller, who oversees Ranger School. Or what used to be Ranger School. Writes Susan Keating in People magazine: “A woman will graduate Ranger School,” a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a “gender integrated assessment” of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell People. “At least one will get through.” And two did, by being given special treatment. Again, a general’s career takes precedence over … Continue reading →

My father, now dead, a mathematician without the slightest leaning toward the esoteric, once told me of driving by night with a friend through the hill country of North Carolina. Suddenly a large truck, lights blazing, came over a crest, passed through their car without a sound, and disappeared in the night. My father said that after a moment he asked, “Did you see what I saw?” The friend answered “Yes.” They said no more about it, to each other or anyone else. They would have been thought mad. Over the years I have talked to various people, apparently sane, … Continue reading →

A frequent theme nowadays is “Why do they hate us?” meaning why does so much of the world detest the United States. The reasons given are usually absurd: They hate our freedom or democracy. They hate us for our cultural superiority. They hate us because we are wonderful. No. Actually the reason is simple if unpalatable. They hate us because we meddle, and have meddled. They hate us because we are the most murderous nation on the planet. They hate our insufferable smugness. People remember slights. They may not remember them as they actually happened, but they remember them. The … Continue reading →

Vi and I had been talking of taking a couple of weeks to cruise Mexico and in particular Baja California, but hadn’t, for all the reasons and tribulations that afflict humanity. Finally we just hopped into the CRV and went. Wing it, figure it out when we got there, wherever “there” was. Reason, planning, and common sense are much overrated. Too much to describe here: Arandas, Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes, León, Durango, Mazatlan, and finally Baja. A few notes, though. Zacatecas is an old, old city built on what is almost a universal Mexican plan—central plaza with a government building and a … Continue reading →

Art is mostly fraud perpetrated by narcissistic academic quacks on a public easily gulled. They should be prosecuted. This is as true of literature as of painting and sculpture. If modern sculpture were placed in a junkyard, art critics couldn’t find it. Most of what we are told are great works are great works only because we are told that they are. Consider the Mona Lisa, for mysterious reasons regarded an epochal detonation of artistry. Why? She is an excessively round woman who looks as if she is about to spit. We have to be told that she was an astonishment and … Continue reading →

Websites  pour forth heated arguments between liberals and conservative about almost everything—or, as is becoming clear due to brain research, what seem to be arguments but in fact are genetically determined reflexes. Even before the latest results from PET scans and functional MRI, simple observation convinced the sentient that rationality was not involved in political discourse. The chief evidence is that political adherences tend strongly to cluster together. For example, if you tell me that a man favors capitalism, with high confidence I can predict his attitudes toward China, race, immigration, environmentalism, bombing Iran, evolution, abortion, and so on. If you … Continue reading →

  Those were wilder times, hardier times, memorable and loose. The veterans of Vietnam were not yet aged and, as happens after wars, did not settle easily into selling air filters at the NAPA outlet. They had lain atop Amtracs in the tropical night, with star shells blazing white in the sky and the smoke trailing almost solid and the distant roar and thump of artillery. They had known the fast flight of helicopters over emerald-green dangerous jungle and the clotting dead and garish disemboweled and the crack of AKs. It was not preparation for the boredom of civilian life. … Continue reading →