The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” — AYN RAND - Charlie Kirk

The willingness of, for example, generations of the elite to fight those devastating wars over oil-rich regions is a perverse side effect of the mingling of private interests and public power. Just as government subsidies for pharmaceutical purchases start looking like a great idea if your family is in the pharmaceutical industry (or, like Medicare Part D architect and former senate majority leader Bill Frist, the hospital management industry), your family being in the oil business just might make you more willing, on a subconscious level, to tolerate great sacrifices (on the part of others, including taxpayers) in the name of keeping the black lifeblood of industry flowing.

I can’t stand the word empathy actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that — it does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy I prefer more than empathy.

I’m only in my early 20s and I am assuming, perhaps naïvely, that I will live an actuarially normal life. I have more than 50 years remaining. This is going to be a long game.