A middle-aged suit was trying to fight his own Israeli-Palestine War with a food vendor on the streets of NYC. I was not surprised to find out that he once held high level positions in the US State Department and the National Security Council, working on Israeli and Palestinian related “peacemaking” for past-Presidents Clinton and Obama.
Stuart Seldowitz’s behavior last week in NYC communicated to any normal American that he is either a thug, or a thug-in-training, a low-life, a scoundrel. We find that he was in the current employ of a government- connected lobbying firm profiting from the logistics of war.
What did surprise me was that once the video got out, he was fired from his job, the company wiped him from their website, and he has been charged with “hate” crimes and stalking.
That was quick – and while it is likely, given who he is and where he is, he will get off in his brush with the law scot-free – he won’t get his job back. Given the nature of the internet, he also won’t be able to wipe his recorded bad behavior from the eyes of the now and future world.
That a leading Democrat bureaucrat will experience being charged with the Democratic Party’s most salient contribution to law enforcement is not something we should take pleasure in. In a more civilized world, cowards like Stuart Seldowitz would be fighting his war of choice in Israel in person, not being rude and nasty to people he doesn’t know, about issues he knows nothing about, in his hometown.
But it’s a thing.
This week, we also saw the amazing election of a vibrant, straight- shooting, former soccer player and current free market economist to the presidency in Argentina. Anarcho-capitalists and libertarians everywhere must be celebrating this achievement, and also celebrating this trend in elections and party evolution in many places around the world. It speaks to the power of simple and honest conversations about money and man, the economy, and the state. It tells us the wisdom of Mises and Rothbard is spreading around the world like a friendly, health-promoting and welcome virus, leaving its hosts empowered, inspired and excited for what comes next. It speaks to a public and national recognition that the ever-expanding corruption and unfettered, galloping growth of the government-bureaucratic-ruling class has become intolerable.
That government thugs, low-lives and scoundrels – the ruling elite this time – is deadly to liberty and prosperity, and that these elites will destroy their countries to maintain control, does not surprise me. That the average Argentinian gets this – and used the state’s tool of casting a ballot to make a change – does.
Javier Milei – because of who he is and what he understands about the state – is getting a chance to see what may be possible. We must wish him well. But this confrontation between Milei and the government- bureaucratic-elite would not have happened if the Argentinian state, for generations, had not so publicly, and so thoroughly, ignored civil and moral limits, and had not been arrogant, self-righteous, and greedy.
It’s a thing.
I came across an interesting article this week that takes a viewpoint that probably shocks admirers and believers of modern Western government norms and maxims. It is anonymous, and when you read it, perhaps you can see why. The writer looks at lessons that the bloody, long and ultimately successful battle for Algerian independence may have, for Palestinians.
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