No one ever claimed tariff costs won’t get passed along to consumers. Trump thinks foreign countries will make deals cutting their own tariffs on US products and trade restrictions in return for our dropping ours, and it won’t be a major problem for long. Maybe so, maybe not. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, Priotectionism’s previous Last Hurrah, was rather less than a success.

I’d say: It’s obviously true that free trade benefits everyone. And it’s also true that Protectionism forces farmers, professionals, shopkeepers, &c. to pay more for many things to benefit industrial companies and factory workers. Lots of Americans have argued, not incorrectly, that this kind of privileging of some members of society at everyone else’s expense is immoral. But… we have seen, over decades now, the mass transfer of production, manufacturing, industry, and blue collar jobs overseas, resulting in the economic devastation, depopulation, and general ruin of cities, regions, communities. The small non-resort town, the small city or town lacking a college or university has become a wasteland, braindrained as the capable younger population was compelled to relocate to some portion of the Megalopolis, leaving behind a dysfunctional residuum of losers. The 19th Century Tories would have contended that noblesse oblige and national solidarity requires bearing some extra costs to keep the peasantry happy, prosperous, and in work. American Classical Liberalism is more Darwinian, but we Classical Liberals tend also to be agrarians who deplore the effeminacy and conformity of suburbia, the corruption and decadence of urban culture. Subsidizing the proletarians may be necessary to save civilization.

And, beyond that somewhat questionable argument, we do have the issue of National Defense. If we build just about everything overseas, inevitably one fine day, the balloon will go up, there will be war. Quite possibly with China. How inconvenient and embarrassing it will be when our adversaries decline to fill our new emergency orders for tanks, ships, and planes, which we find they can produce in profusion.

Cheap goods are a fine thing, but military capability and preparedness is decidedly a better thing.

In any case, of course, it’s out my hands and yours, 77 million voters put the decision in the hands of Donald J. Trump, who has had a Protectionist bee in his bonnet for a very long time.

It’s also been a long time, most of a century, that Free Trade has been in ascendance. Even the democrat party left gave up “protecting American workers’ jobs” long ago, hoping cheaper stuff at Walmart would suffice to keep them happy. But, now everything old is new again, and we are about to have an experiment in Protectionism one more time.

The Donald Trump theory of Industrial Revival, I’d say, has one key shortcoming: cheap labor. Back in the day, 1880-1920, America had that huge wave of immigration and those immigrants overwhelmingly came here willing to work and eager to take jobs Americans wouldn’t do. My ancestors came to Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines at a time when the casualty rate of deaths was on the scale of a small war and the survivors had lives shortened by miners’ asthma.

Those immigrants had lots of kids so American industry had lots of cheap, affordable labor.

Today, we’re in the middle of another huge wave of angry Nativism precipitated by the feckless and cynical policies of the democrats intentionally turning a blind eye and facilitating mass Third World immigration, then lavishing housing, health benefits, and welfare on illegals who in turn delivered a long series of front page stories of murders, rapes, drug dealing, and gang violence.

Meanwhile, a very large segment of the old American working class, in the traditional American way, has with passing generations moved up and out of the proletariat into management, the professions, and the bureaucracy.

Whether or not the kids-who-did-not-do-homework left behind in the falling-down ruins of rust bucket America are going to put down the meth pipe and start rising with the sun to answer the factory whistle remains to be seen. If I were Trump, I’d stop deporting illegals who are actually working right now.

During their medal ceremony in the stadium in Mexico City during the Summer 1968 Olympic Games, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith, who won the Gold Medal in the 200-meter running event, and John Carlos, who won the Bronze, each raised a fist in the Black Power Salute during the playing of the US national anthem.

George Foreman, after winning the Gold Medal in Heavyweight Boxing,took a small American flag and waved it to the four corners of the auditorium.

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Jeff Blehar

Granted, it’s a bit of a cliché, but I spend a lot of time thinking about what would happen if 100 Harry Potters faced off in a battle to the death against 1,000,000 unarmed Kermit the Frogs. (Like most men, I do this when not thinking about the Roman Empire.) Could the badly outnumbered Potters — their powerful magic best suited to dueling at close quarters — make a heroic stand against the onrushing green menace, or would hundreds of thousands of mindlessly determined frogs swarm the Hogwarts elite in an implacable amphibious wave?

Western civilization’s crude attempts to answer this question have heretofore been relegated to the arena of philosophical speculation, much as the learned medievals took to pondering how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Until now. Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to watch all one and a half minutes of this stunning simulation, undertaken using the finest technological modeling tools available to modern researchers, and discover the breathtaking truth. …

More.

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100 Harry Potters vs 1 million Kermit the Frogs
byu/FeanorOath inGeeksGamersCommunity

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The hundred Harrys are idiots. Running chaotically in an unorganized mass toward these overwhelming numbers of attackers is the precise opposite of the proper defensive technique.

First of all, we need a straight line of Harrys presenting the maximum frontage of firepower.

We commence by laying down a heavy and devastating barrage of fire, wiping out the nearest Kermits and causing their cadavers to impede briefly their comrades’ charge.

We retire slowly, while at the time more rapidly withdraw, each Harry by Harry at both ends of the line.

While retreating, every even number Harry is firing fire bombs into the mass of Kermits, while every even Harry creates his own portion of a line of defensive obstacles.

The more rapidly moving ends of the line close backwards creating a closed circle.

In essence, Harrys continue to fire on the enemy and other Harrys slow the enemy, while the full set of Harrys arranges itself in a defensive circle.

We finally take a third of Harrys and use them to build an internal final redout and to form a reserve.

And we then proceed to dissect all the froggies.

https://t.co/Mnt3vVpIck

— J. David Zincavage (@DavidZincavage) March 17, 2025

From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:

LEGENDARY HISTORY OF ST. PATRICK

Almost as many countries arrogate the honour of having been the natal soil of St. Patrick, as made a similar claim with respect to Homer. Scotland, England, France, and Wales, each furnish their respective pretensions: but, whatever doubts may obscure his birthplace, all agree in stating that, as his name implies, he was of a patrician family. He was born about the year 372, and when only sixteen years of age, was carried off by pirates, who sold him into slavery in Ireland; where his master employed him as a swineherd on the well-known mountain of Sleamish, in the county of Antrim. Here he passed seven years, during which time he acquired a knowledge of the Irish language, and made himself acquainted with the manners, habits, and customs of the people. Escaping from captivity, and, after many adventures, reaching the Continent, he was successively ordained deacon, priest, and bishop: and then once more, with the authority of Pope Celestine, he returned to Ireland to preach the Gospel to its then heathen inhabitants.

The principal enemies that St. Patrick found to the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, were the Druidical priests of the more ancient faith, who, as might naturally be supposed, were exceedingly adverse to any innovation. These Druids, being great magicians, would have been formidable antagonists to any one of less miraculous and saintly powers than Patrick. Their obstinate antagonism was so great, that, in spite of his benevolent disposition, he was compelled to curse their fertile lands, so that they became dreary bogs: to curse their rivers, so that they produced no fish: to curse their very kettles, so that with no amount of fire and patience could they ever be made to boil; and, as a last resort, to curse the Druids themselves, so that the earth opened and swallowed them up. … Read the rest of this entry »