Author Archives: Greg Swann

Mark Steyn: “When Responsibility Doesn’t Pay”

Posted on February 28, 2010 by Greg Swann

National Review Online: Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn’t pay. You’ll […] Continue reading →

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SplendorQuest: “You behave in certain ways and you lead people to have certain expectations of you. If you’re comfortable with those expectations and if you want to make everything that much more secure you say the words out loud: This is what you are to me and this is what you will always have from me and I give you my solemn vow that I will never withhold from you anything that is yours to demand. That’s what we do at our very best. But what if you’re not comfortable with the expectations? What do you do then? Maybe you follow through anyway, but you never take that extra step, you never put it into words. You’re accountable for what you do as well as what you say, but if you don’t come right out and say it, you can always deny things, you can always claim you were misunderstood.”

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Greg Swann

This is an extract from a book I wrote in 1997 called The Unfallen. This amounts to me letting people I make up speak for me, too, but it’s apposite to the larger conversation, and it’s good, I think. I like art about adults, and this is fun for me because we get to watch […] Continue reading →

Posted in Casual Friday | Comments Off on SplendorQuest: “You behave in certain ways and you lead people to have certain expectations of you. If you’re comfortable with those expectations and if you want to make everything that much more secure you say the words out loud: This is what you are to me and this is what you will always have from me and I give you my solemn vow that I will never withhold from you anything that is yours to demand. That’s what we do at our very best. But what if you’re not comfortable with the expectations? What do you do then? Maybe you follow through anyway, but you never take that extra step, you never put it into words. You’re accountable for what you do as well as what you say, but if you don’t come right out and say it, you can always deny things, you can always claim you were misunderstood.”

Who could foresee that “global warming” would be exposed as a hoax?

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Greg Swann

So quickly, I mean. It was an obvious hoax, at least to me. Environmentalism is the new poverty for Marxists, the new insurmountable crisis that can only be solved by universal slavery under a one-world government. If you didn’t see through that pose, you must have slept through the twentieth century. (For future reference, whatever […] Continue reading →

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The epistemology of Splendor: Apprehending the memes that move me.

Posted on February 13, 2010 by Greg Swann

I had a great week. That’s not something I get to say all the time — rarely more than fifty times a year. The truth is, most of the time I feel like an undocumented refugee from a forgotten country known as A Different Way Of Thinking. I don’t feel any huge bond of commonality […] Continue reading →

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It’s not enough for the tea party movement to throw the bums out. To contain the federal government, we have to cut its powers.

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Greg Swann

What a delight it is that the citizens of Massachusetts have risen up against the federal leviathan. All across the country, the tea party movement is furiously aboil, angry Americans anxiously awaiting the opportunity to pull some levers in a … Continue reading →

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You know what? Despite everything: Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Greg Swann

I wrote this last night in a comment to a post: The United States is being run as a kleptocracy, but instead of plundering the treasury and the accumulated wealth of the nation in behalf of a small criminal conspiracy, we rob from a rapidly-diminishing productive sector in behalf of a vast and ever-burgeoning population […] Continue reading →

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A canticle for Kathleen Sullivan

Posted on December 25, 2009 by Greg Swann

A canticle for Kathleen Sullivan A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story I got to the hospital after visiting hours, but the nurse led me to the room anyway. “There hasn’t been anyone,” she confided. I pursed my lips in grim acknowledgment. “That’s why I’m here.” Inside the room the patient looked like purple death. It was […] Continue reading →

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Looking for reasons to be cheerful this Christmas? Thanks to the free market, everything is better than it was when you were a kid

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Greg Swann

From Reason.TV: It’s worth thinking about as statists strive to destroy innovation in medicine (via Obamacare) and industry and transportation (via environmentalism). If it gratifies you to weep about how bad things are, compare the America of your youth to the police states of Communist Europe in that same epoch. Whatever complaints you might have […] Continue reading →

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A strategy for the Republican party that can actually win elections

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Greg Swann

The national Republican party is riven by an insuperable internal contradiction. Out of one side of their mouths, Republicans wish to portray themselves as tax cutters, red-tape slashers, champions of liberty fearlessly hacking away at the slimy tentacles of the leviathan state. Ignore for the moment that they’re spineless jellyfish when it comes time to […] Continue reading →

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“See, the thing is, Don Corleone, I just want you to steal my competitor’s assets and give them to me. I don’t want for you to tell me what to do with them after you steal them for me. Capisce?”

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Greg Swann

Rotarian Socialism in action: Google chief executive Eric Schmidt favors net neutrality, but only to a point: While the tech player wants to make sure that telecommunications giants don’t steer Internet traffic in a way that would favor some devices or services over others, he also believes that it would be a terrible idea for […] Continue reading →

Posted in Splendor | Comments Off on “See, the thing is, Don Corleone, I just want you to steal my competitor’s assets and give them to me. I don’t want for you to tell me what to do with them after you steal them for me. Capisce?”