In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
With Primary Season having already kicked off, the question of electability, even for voters who desire purity first and foremost, is as relevant as it was fifty years ago when William F. Buckley, Jr. and John P. Sears discuses whether Ford or Reagan were more electable.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Canada just likes killing.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Parents don’t have the right to not have their children killed in Canada.
“A report by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) was tabled in the House of Commons on February 15 calling for a drastic expansion of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada. Among other recommendations, the report recommends that euthanasia be expanded to include children “mature minors.”
“Recommendation 19 in the report states:
“‘That the Government of Canada establish a requirement that, where appropriate, the parents or guardians of a mature minor be consulted in the course of the assessment process for MAID, but that the will of a minor who is found to have the requisite decision-making capacity ultimately take priority.’
“This means that parents or guardians may or may not be consulted, in the euthanasia death of a child that is deemed capable of decision-making.”
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The sudden and seemingly coordinated drive in both Blue and Red states to require age verification in order to use an operating system or an app store claims another state, Michigan. However, the twin bills introduced in the Legislature, one by a Democrat and one by a Republican, extends this to hardware and requires that device manufacturers. Both HB 4429 and SB 284 describe a “covered manufacturer” as “a manufacturer of a device, an operating system for a device, or an application store.” and requires them to:
Sec. 5. (1) A covered manufacturer shall take commercially reasonable and technically feasible steps to do all of the following:
(a) On activation of a device, determine or estimate the age of the device’s user or users.
(b) Using an application programming interface, provide an application store, website, application, and online service with a digital signal regarding the age of the device’s user or users, […]
Unsurprisingly, it uses the same exact age brackets as all the other bills. It also has the same convenient safe-harbor protection for those who use “commercially reasonable and technically feasible steps”.
The bills also allow the Attorney General to “promulgate rules […] to establish the processes covered manufacturers must use to comply with this act” without any check or balance.
This is the camels nose sticking in the tent; allow that in and soon you’re getting trampled.
News of the Week for March 29th, 2026
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
With the current war against Iran, people are again wondering what America’s next step will be and even what “victory” would look like. Sixty years ago, questions about a very different war were asked by William F. Buckley, Jr. and Staughton Lund discussing what is next in Vietnam.
A lie told often enough may not be sufficient to make people believe it is true, but can be if you get enough people to say it, effecting a normalization of the lie until it is “true” for most people. It is an inorganic, and powerful, way of manipulating people that is also known as “reflexive network dynamics” as James Lindsay explains:
One of the ways reflexive propaganda campaigns spread on social media is through what we should call “reflexive network dynamics.” This is a very important concept for understanding not just propaganda today but also the gaming and weaponizing of the algorithms.
Reflexivity
First, a quick review. Reflexivity refers to a propaganda technique in which the same message appears everywhere all at once, reflected from all angles, until it takes off virally.
Ultimately, “reflexivity” in this regard springs from the tools George Soros laid out for doing “social alchemy” in his 1992 book The Alchemy of Finance. In that book, Soros explains that while the natural sciences are actually scientific, the social sciences are actually alchemical. One might say that the point of studying society is not to understand it, but to change it, even.
Soros indicates that the difference between social sciences (or, as he calls it “social alchemy”) and natural sciences is that the participants in social sciences are themselves influenced by participation in the situation. He recognizes that this “reflexive” state of affairs can be arranged inorganically to create social change and refers to reflexivity as a “dialectic” and a theory of “historical change.”
Soros’s point is that reflexivity occurs when changes in perception start to cascade into greater changes in perception, and this only happens when people’s beliefs are out of alignment with reality, with the more the better. He understands that reflexivity can also be manufactured by getting people to start to believe false things, and that belief is largely a social process.
The California Legislature Grand Soviet continues to be hell bent on racially discriminating, and has repeatedly put state constitutional amendments on the ballot to alter or abolish Prop. 209, which banned affirmative action in California thirty years ago. Now, they are trying to do so again in such a way that doesn’t explicitly run afoul of the landmark Supreme Court case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
How?
By repealing the ban on affirmative action in public education on everything except higher education admissions and enrollment. ACA 7 would change the first three sub-sections of the California constitution’s Article I, Section 31 to read, with removed text in strikethrough and new language in bold:
(a) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education admissions and enrollment, or public contracting.
(b) This section shall apply only to action taken after the section’s effective date and is limited to the areas of public employment, higher education admissions and enrollment, and public contracting.
(c) Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as prohibiting bona fide qualifications based on sex which are reasonably necessary to the normal operation of public employment, public education admissions and enrollment, or public contracting.
This would, purportedly allow for full racial discrimination in K-19 and for discrimination within colleges and universities. California last tried this, and failed spectacularly in 2022 with Prop. 14, which failed by 14%.
This is going to go on until the Supreme Court slaps it all down. California, though, is hoping to hold out long enough for the Supreme Court to flip to a pro-discrimination majority… no matter how long it takes.
The text can be read here, or as passed out of the Assembly and introduced into the state Senate.
News of the Week for March 22nd, 2026
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
Union corruption has been around as unions themselves have. Both their power and the effects of corruption are just as relevant as they were sixty years ago when William F. Buckley, Jr. and Victor Riesel discussed if labor power should be reduced?
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