Stop and Think Archive
Pseudoephedrine and Pseudofreedom
The Marriage Amendment: Positions of Power
"...the mental act of believing, familiar to the bulk of mankind, does not seem to actually take place in men jockeying for power. They do not have beliefs. They have positions." Commentary by Ronald Neff.
No Special Features; No Alternate Ending
MUST READ "Because more mercilessly than ever I could, it will unfold what we are up against. More than any handy reminder or a book of quotations, that DVD will serve to impress upon you the immensity of the task before us, the expansiveness of the battle that still lies ahead. Watch it and see there the monster strutting his unmasked glory and showing us the crushing strength of the fist by which he holds your neighbors in its thrall. See there, ladies and gentlemen, the Cult of the State." Column by Ronald Neff.
Just Look What They've Made Us Do!
"In the shows, we see heroic, good-hearted characters being 'forced' to torture suspects in urgent defense of the Empire. Our heroes agonize. They sweat, they grimace. Why, they often seem to be suffering as much as their victims! But you see our brave paladins *have no choice*. Desperate circumstances have *driven them to adopt desperate measures* -- and abandon morality in favor of utilitarianism -- even though, really, the milk of human kindness runs through their veins." Column by Nicholas Strakon.
"But Tillman was not defending his country....He had turned his fate over to evil men embarked on an evil enterprise. He threw his life away, but not for nothing. He threw it away for worse than nothing. He threw it away in the cause of imperialism and criminal war." Commentary by Nicholas Strakon.
Commentary by Ronn Neff.
That Makes Her a Heroine in My Book
Commentary by Nicholas Strakon.
Commentary by Nicholas Strakon.
Recommended "When we display our genuine outrage and indignation, we throw a tiny bit of sand into the gears of the System. We impose an additional cost, tiny but meaningful, on those who 'have to' enforce totalitarian regulations. We show those who 'have no choice' that =we,= for one, do have some choice--in what we think, what we say, and where we shop. Remember, our masters are aiming at a fully perfected form of Polite Totalitarianism that essentially runs by itself: a regime where =everyone= concludes on his own--with no gorilla intervention required--that he 'has no choice' but to serve his masters' whims." Column by Nicholas Strakon.
Comment by Nicholas Strakon.
The Great Breast Sighting of 2004
"Now, one cannot help comparing the current outcry with the total lack of any such thing when the telescreen aired footage of Iraqi women and children maimed and slaughtered by the American military. But of course that is mere War Crime...." Commentary by Nicholas Strakon.