Narcissism Isn’t Self-Esteem 15 Apr 2025, 12:51 pm

“Narcissism” is the scarlet letter label of our day. Unfortunately, narcissism gets bundled in with legitimate self-esteem and self-respect. The fact remains: Your life is an end in itself — to you; and it should be. Ditto for me. Ditto for everyone. Honoring the self is not narcissism. Narcissism is when you want to value yourself, and you want everyone else to orbit around you too. Narcissists seek to grant themselves self-interest, denying it to everyone else.

A big double standard. The truth: It’s possible to be self-interested while respecting the fact that everyone else has the same prerogative. If you can’t handle this fact, you probably aren’t quite ready for the real, adult world.

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Outlaws in Spirit 15 Apr 2025, 10:58 am

Dear Dr. Hurd,

I loved your column a few months ago describing resort dwellers as “outlaws.” I agree with everything you said, and I do consider myself self-sufficient and capable of “being alone without being lonely.” But I have to admit I do sometimes miss my favorite big-city restaurants and cultural activities. I don’t feel “lonely” as such, but I occasionally find myself yearning for a more upbeat way of life —especially in the winter. What do you think I should do? And don’t suggest I move away. I really do love it here!

Dear Reader,

You are not alone. I speak to people very often who say the same thing. The change of seasons here at the beach can be a little unsettling. It’s perfectly natural to want occasional contact with something different. You say that the positive aspects of living here outweigh your desires for some, shall we say, “urban interaction,” but you have to remember we are not totally isolated. Within just a few hours of our little beach resort lie some of the biggest and busiest cities in the world. You’re only a couple of hours from major international airports that can take you anywhere you desire. If you shift your mindset slightly to think of this area as “centrally located”, it can open up a world of opportunity.

Metropolitan areas will always take second place to my beloved walks on the beach and the coastal panorama from the top of the Indian River Inlet Bridge. And when I do feel the need for skyscrapers, a Manhattan deli “fix,” or the neon-charged excitement of Las Vegas, I think of the beach as a “base of operations”. And afterwards? I get to return to my own quiet resort.

You mention that you like the notion of being an “outlaw.” I used the term in the positive sense, meaning to think “outside the box.” Instead of feeling that you have to make the choice, you can go with the home base idea. When you’re here, and it’s winter, try not to let yourself feel stuck. Visualize yourself going somewhere that’s interesting. And then visualize yourself returning to a place you obviously love and don’t want to give up. Actualize the visualization by making actual plans. You can enjoy the best of both worlds: First in your mind, and then in reality.

Sometimes we make decisions in life that we end up resenting. We end up resenting them not because we think they’re the wrong decision, but because we recognize some of the “down sides” of the decision. This is where many people get stuck. They wish they didn’t have to contend with the down side of their decision, and they don’t know how to cope other than to “deal with it.” They forget what motivated them to make the decision in the first place. They end up feeling they made the wrong decision instead of recognizing that the decision simply needs some fine-tuning.

Many people find it helpful to break up the winter by treating themselves to a few southerly days or weeks in January or February. Breaking up the summer (if you can get away) by going north, especially to a less traveled place, also makes for a great distraction. In general, I’ve found that people who do these things regularly tend to be happier with their life here. It’s not that you have to do one certain thing, or go in a particular direction; it’s simply that you have to remember that you always have choices, and that you can act on them. Not acting on your choices, as simple or extravagant as they may be, could result in your feeling down, depressed or trapped.

Life isn’t about where you live, so much as it is about just living. You love it here, but you want to experience other things too. In the immortal words of the tennis shoe people, “Just Do It”!

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New York City Goes Communist (Literally) 14 Apr 2025, 3:20 pm

“New York City has a mayoral election later this year, and the two leading candidates right now are former governor Andrew Cuomo and a state assemblyman named Zohran Mamdani. The latter has gained traction in the polls by promising to build city-run grocery stores that “will operate without profit motive” in order to combat “the outrageous price of groceries.” Leave it to the residents of Gotham to pin their hopes on either the guy who turned nursing homes into COVID death traps or a proud communist who is blithely unaware of the Soviet Union’s history with breadlines.” [The American Thinker 4/13/25]

Socialism is based on delusional fantasy. It will wreck New York City, or what’s left of it. If people in that city actually want not-for-profit grocery stores, and think it will work, then they will perish from their own ignorance. The smarter ones will flee. Evolution at work.

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The Disease of Leftism 13 Apr 2025, 12:35 pm

Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba announced that the office is investigating New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin over their instructions not to cooperate with ICE on certain warrants.

Prosecute them. Lock them up. Murphy has never been punished for wrecking his state with lawless lockdowns in 2020-2022. And state governments are going after Fauci and others given the fake, illegal federal pardons by Biden’s autopen. One way or another, get these people locked up. I would include the Bidens, Obamas, Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. It’s not simply payback. It’s accountability for lawless tyrants wrecking our republic. Americans should see that there’s a price for lawless tyranny. The Democratic Party is 100 percent tyrannical, top to bottom. In my view, they shouldn’t be allowed to run or hold office, because they are openly Communist and fascist. We should go after lawless Republicans too. If we don’t? THEY WILL KEEP DOING IT.

Notice how the leftist response to EVERYTHING is destruction. Feeling that black or brown people get a raw deal? Destroy white people. Dislike rich people? Loot the rich, give it all to USAID, and wreck the currency through inflation. Want electric cars? Eliminate fossil fuels. Want people to accept transgenders, whatever that means? Make life miserable for the 99.99 percent of children not confused about whether they are a boy or a girl.

Leftism is all about destruction, never about production. It’s all about rewarding the unearned and shaming those who earned. It’s about hatred of good for being the good, and celebration of insanity because it’s insanity. Leftism burns, bombs, destroys, censors, masks, shuts down and sneers. It never builds, enlightens, persuades or fosters good will among men. I refuse to call leftism “liberalism.” It’s the least liberal attitude there is. Leftism is not authoritarian, but totalitarian. It feeds on control like a drug. It will never gain enough control, and never achieve enough destruction.

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President Trump 2.0 is Great, but America Still Needs a Revolution 12 Apr 2025, 1:12 pm

“Obama appointed judge orders Trump to imprison all who didn’t vote Democrat.” Coming next?

Where does it end?

Under our current situation, you need only 1 leftist federal judge to reverse everything Trump does. This is still not America.

Trump has been told he cannot use his executive authority to deport people who have violated our immigration laws. Obama and Biden judges feel that if a law is unjust, then no President has a right to enforce it. This means judges — federal circuit court judges, not even the Supreme Court — have a right to abolish or create laws at will.

Similarly, and absurdly, circuit court judges nowhere near D.C. have ruled that President Trump must have members of the Communist media in the White House press room. Would a judge in San Francisco or Portland, OR, have a right to tell a private citizen which media he must watch, or be interviewed by — much less a President?

It’s truly insane. The Obama (and Biden) years installed a coup that won’t stop.

At some point, as wonderful as Trump’s presidency is so far, we’re going to need a revolution. People will have to be arrested and stopped in their open, brazen efforts to bring down what’s left of our Constitution and our free republic.

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You Have No “Free Trade” With Mobsters 11 Apr 2025, 12:49 pm

Why must President Trump get the Supreme Court’s permission to run the executive branch of government?

Trading and dealing with people in totalitarian countries is like dealing with mobsters. It’s not that the people in those countries are necessarily bad; but their rulers are. China is not a free country. China is a totalitarian government. Workers in China are borderline (if not actual) slaves. They work not for their own benefit, but for the welfare of their rulers. They operate only with the consent of the government. If you live in a free country, it’s an absurd delusion to claim you are “trading” with slaves. You are never trading with workers or business people in a Communist or fascist country, like China; it’s all an illusion perpetrated by the totalitarian government. The only appropriate policy of a free country toward a slave country’s government is to do everything possible (economically or even militarily) to undermine or destroy that government. At a minimum, you don’t trade with them, because it’s no different than doing business with mobsters. It WILL come back to bite you. Everything Trump is doing to the Chinese government at present is morally justified and long overdue.

Before you get FREE TRADE you must first have FREE COUNTRIES. China is not free.

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What Ayn Rand REALLY Thought About Totalitarian Economies 11 Apr 2025, 12:47 pm

At the height of the Cold War, Playboy magazine asked free market thinker and Russian author Ayn Rand, “Would you actively advocate that the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet Union?”

Rand replied, “Not at present. I don’t think it’s necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott, I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both of those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life.”

I find it interesting that the globalist, pseudocapitalist Ayn Rand Institute denounces every aspect of Trump’s foreign and economic policy. And yet: Rand’s proposed economic boycott and blockade of Soviet Russia and Communist Cuba are more strenuous than Trump’s tariffs on China. The 21st Century Ayn Rand Institute, if consistent, would be forced to complain that Ayn Rand’s proposed economic boycott of Soviet Russia back in 1960 would be a violation of the economic individual rights of Americans to trade with the victims and slaves living under dictatorship.

More evidence that the Ayn Rand Institute and Ayn Rand have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.

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How the Media is Killing Society 10 Apr 2025, 2:08 pm

How the media is killing society:

1. People like good production value. They like good acting. Look at the popularity of The White Lotus. Or The Game of Thrones. To most people, the “news” seems credible, because it’s executed well. They’re liars, but they’re highly capable liars. Rachel Maddow is not a good person, but she’s good at what she does.

2. People were not trained to think critically. Government schools and most private schools condition you to be part of the pack. You are taught in groups, or classes, not individually. The goal is the average, or the norm, not achievement of your own potential. This leads, in adulthood, to a mentality of group think. In practice, this means replacing “What’s true?” with “What does everyone else seem to think?” I never knew how prevalent this was until COVID. It was shocking and staggering, even to me. 2020-2021 unmasked EVERYTHING.

3. The people in the media are the same as the people watching the “mainstream” media. They lack independence and critical thinking. Just like their audience. However, they, the members of the media, do have a leftist agenda. In fact, they are SO leftist they don’t even realize they’re leftist. To them, it’s a combination of virtue and objective truth. Their biases and outright lies seem self-evident, to them. They sneer at dissension, something they rarely encounter outside their elite blue states and cities. This results in the spectacle of sheep teaching sheep; sheep reinforcing sheep. Today’s establishment media: an elitism of ignorance and naivete masquerading as sophistication and truth. Most don’t see it. They just absorb it all, uncritically call it “news,” and go about the business of their lives.

It’s not hopeless. But the situation is daunting. More than most of us know. It’s incredibly uphill. Trump’s surprising victory in 2024 proved the media is not omnipotent. But it’s very, very present. And, because of those 3 points above, people will continue to default to whatever the media wants. Trump has an uphill battle, and his successors will have it even tougher. Ignorance has morphed into hatred, and it’s not letting go. It will not go down without a fight, and I am talking the fight of this century.

If the media stopped being leftist, it would have an impact. Indeed, we have more nonleftist media than ever before. It started with National Review and Ayn Rand’s Manhattan living room discussion groups in the 1950s and 1960s. It evolved into Rush Limbaugh, Fox News in the 1990s and 2000s. And today: alternate media (translation: nonleftist) is a force. It’s so much a force that Donald Trump got two terms (really, three terms) as President. Never underestimate the power of human potenial in the exercise of free will. We all have the capacity to think and know the truth, independently and against any odds. We all have this inner superhero, when we choose to activate it.

Good news: Critical, objective thinking is making a comeback. But we have a long tough road ahead for America, for truth and for civilization itself. I love Ayn Rand’s quote the most: Those who fight for the future live in it today. Thanks to the future we are creating today, the world has become a better place.

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Michelle Obama Thinks All Women Are Idiots 10 Apr 2025, 2:06 pm

Michelle Obama, in response to divorce rumors arising from the fact she no longer appears in public with her husband:

“And that’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with, like disappointing people. I mean so much so that this year people were, they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing, you know? This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself, right? But that’s what society does to us.”

What an incredibly stupid thing to say. How is rudeness or blatantly inappropriate behavior a virtue of womanhood? She no-showed to the funeral of a former U.S. President she claims to adore, because (as a woman) she didn’t FEEL like going. It’s trashy behavior, and it’s insulting to rational and decent women to say, “Hey, women act illogically on their feelings and that’s a good thing.” As for men (especially white men), she cuts NO slack.

Note the irony: Mrs. O. wants the ability to make billions off her illegitimate government connections through marriage, while having the same freedom to be out of the public eye as a nonfamous person. She yearns for freedom and privacy, something that she and her husband deny to the rest of us through their relentless campaign to destroy individual liberty, freedom and even civilization itself.

Michelle Obama is racist, sexist, life-hating trash. But we already knew that.

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A Majority of Leftists Want President Trump Dead 9 Apr 2025, 2:11 pm

According to a poll reported by Breitbart, 55 percent of leftists believe it’s justifiable to assassinate Trump.

Absolutely believable.

Most leftists are unhinged politically, as we know. But it’s not only about Trump. It’s about dissension from their views. They simply cannot endure dissension. They cannot live with the noise inside their heads created by the facts pointed out by dissenters: Facts (e.g., there are only two genders; high taxes and regulation hurt people) that they don’t wish to be named as facts. Fact assertion — as Trump does so bluntly and without apology — truly makes them wild with rage and hysteria. The only thing calming the hysteria is the propaganda peddled by the cultural and media figures they listen to. Leftists are not victims of an echo chamber; they choose to live in an echo chamber. Leaving that echo chamber would kill them. They sense this. Which is why they opt for the murder of the noise inside their minds articulated so shamelessly–and brilliantly–by Donald Trump. They feel like killing Trump will end the pain and confusion. But the problems are created by their willful evasion to know what’s plainly true. Trump gets the blame.

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