Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

And that word is �pneumonia�. That�s why I�ve been out of circulation for just about three weeks. I went down to Denver recently with my lovely and talented wife Cathy to watch the Colorado Rockies play at beautiful Coors Field on three consecutive days. It was like a trip to Disneyland. I returned to Fort Collins deeply fatigued and with one of the sorest throats I�ve ever experienced. A trip to UrgentCare produced the diagnosis. I�ve had pneumonia a couple times before in my life, but I have now reached an age at which I need to take it seriously. I spent the next several days flat on my back in bed, unable to do anything more productive than cough horribly and moan.

The worst part (for me, at least) is that all sorts of events have been piling up that I felt it was important to comment on. I observe that, despite a million minipundits whinging about Trump�s frank straightforwardness (or his straightforward frankness) and joggling the President�s elbows, we have yet to have a nuclear war with North Korea. The guy probably knows what he�s doing. Kim Song-Piggy is an authoritarian personality who just needs bitch-slapping from time to time. It may help that his Chinese leash-holders told him, �Piss America off, and you�re on your own.�

I�m not going to comment in detail on the various demonstrations and riotry. Anybody can see that those on the �right� generally come to the party armed with the best intentions, while those on the left come armed with baseball bats with nails driven through them. Anyone who opposes free speech is a villain as far as I�m concerned and my mortal enemy. I�ve been fighting censorship since I wrote for my high school newspaper in the early 1960s. Yet the Stalinist media continue to claim that the right wing is too aggressive. Yesterday�s washed-up celebrities and various low-level politicians continue to back their play. Thus the University, as such, passes out of the chain of institutions that have traditionally advanced the human condition. They have worn out their welcome, and people are beginning to see what a waste and hoax the college degree has become. An Associate�s degree from some poor-but-honest junior college is a more respectable credential than a Harvard Ph.D.

In fact, something I�ve been meaning for some time to take up in these pages is the spreading menace of �degreeism� under which you can�t get a job, or advance from where you find yourself, unless you possess an academic degree of some kind. It doesn�t matter what this degree may be in�Underwater Basketweaving is well thought of�just as long as you have it. I wouldn�t be suprised if someday, in the near future, you can�t get a book published without a degree, Given what our universities and colleges have become, this is especially ludicrous. Degreeism needs to be cast out of our culture like everry other form of unreasoning bigotry.

But, as usual, I have digressed. Another thing that happened as I was spending long sleepless nights and longer empty days without being able to write is Hurricane Harvey. I don�t know what I could have written that would have helped. I�m concerned for my friends Scott and Iris and Shelley and others. All the time I lived on the Gulf Coast, we never had a terrible event like this one, although we drilled and prepared for them regularly on the Air Force base (Hurlburt Field) we lived on. I have been in a flood, in 1997, and it was just about the least fun you can imagine having. I notice that everybody is laboring to make the response to Harvey as different from Katrina as they can, and that�s good. Texans have acquitted themselves admirably, and others have been very kind and gallant to them. And there�s a benign use for helicopters, after all.

I also notice that the usual tiny minds and shriveled souls of the media scum-suckers and bottom-feeders who hate Donald Trump for no discernible reason have taken it on themselves to kvetch about the First Lady�s choice of footware while accompanying her husband to Texas. If that isn�t as low as you can go, I don�t know what is.

Which brings me to the most urgent topic, I think, before us today. It appears that all of the �social media� we use at the moment are run by snowflakes and halfwits who believe they have a right to tell us what we can say and what we can�t. Google, Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook have all been caught censoring some people, kicking others out, and generally acting like Politically Correct Hall Monitors. If a criticism gores their pet oxen (for example, calling any Democrat a crook) that�s �hate speech�, whereas they welcome the vivisection of any conservative or libertarian that leftists want to pick on.

The only way to stop this nonsense is to stop using these �services�, until they straighten up and fly right or go broke. That�s why I will begin exploring alternatives immediately. I first looked into Gab and was shocked at the bigoted and vicious description of it in Wikipedia, something else I may look to replacing in the near future.

And how was your August?