The Inner Monologue

When I was younger—much younger, back when my joints didn’t sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies every time I stood up—nobody listened to me. And let’s be clear: I was right. About everything. Mostly. But because I hadn’t yet accumulated enough birthdays to qualify as a “sage elder,” my insights were dismissed as the…

By Karen McSnarkerson Oh, joy! The small-government crowd has blessed us with yet another brilliant idea: Let states opt out of federal programs—because clearly, the best way to govern a nation is to turn it into a patchwork of mismatched policies where your basic rights depend on which side of a state line you’re standing…

Oh, the horror. The absolute tragedy of today’s youth, lounging around in their avocado toast-filled dens, refusing to contribute to society. Except—wait. Have you looked around lately? Let’s take a quick tour of reality, shall we? 1. The Young Farmers Breaking Their Backs While the rest of us complain about the Wi-Fi being slow, there…

There is a dangerous illusion that tempts many developing nations: the idea that progress can be achieved by imitation. The notion that if one simply mimics the political systems, economic structures, or cultural patterns of a superpower, success will follow. Yet history, geography, and human ingenuity suggest otherwise. Every great nation’s rise is rooted not…

I. The Industry of Suffering Imagine, for a moment, a society where the right to breathe was privatized. Where a corporation owned the air, and your ability to inhale depended on your insurance premium. Outrageous, right? Yet that is precisely what we have allowed with the pharmaceutical industry in America. The right to live without…

There’s a quiet beauty in owning things that outpace our current needs. Not in the greedy, hoarding sense, but in the aspirational one—the belief that certain objects are investments in the person we might yet become. Tools and books are the best examples of this principle: both are enablers of potential. Owning Tools: A Vote…

The electric revolution will not happen all at once. It will happen in increments, through evolution rather than proclamation. The assumption that the world can leap directly from internal combustion to pure battery power is as unrealistic as it is romantic. Batteries are still heavy, charging infrastructure is still patchy, and human behavior still clings…

Every few months, a chart flashes across social media showing U.S. mortgage debt at “record highs.” The line rises like a mountain range—steep, relentless, crimson red. It is meant to alarm: proof, supposedly, that Americans have once again mortgaged their futures. But if we pause and adjust our perspective—correcting for inflation and home values—the mountain…

History rarely belongs to the loudest voice. It belongs to the person who volunteers for the committee no one else wants to sit on, who learns the bylaws, who stays until the end of the meeting when everyone else has gone home. It belongs to those who infiltrate the structure—not to corrupt it, but to…

The Myth of the Free World We like to believe the world is an open canvas — that creativity, invention, and progress arise spontaneously from the mind of the individual. But look closely, and you’ll find the lines already drawn. Nearly every object you touch, every system you use, every decision made in a boardroom…