Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here is the route of the 2019 Tour de France. I can't wait to watch it. Cycling is the most beautiful sport in the world.

A resource which can be a basis for the possession of power or of the ability to coerce is the control of and ability to use means of applying force or physical constraint. Employing force or physical constraint is itself, of course, a relatively straightforward way of getting another person to pursue a course of action he would not otherwise have pursued. I shall use either of these expressions to cover any exercise which reduces the range of actions actually open to an individual. (No other way of getting others to do things does this, as we shall see. Power, persuasion and the exercise of authority all work on the individual's will—in the case of power, by altering the incentives attached to the options; in the case of persuasion and the exercise of authority, by altering the individual's attitudes to the options—without reducing the range of options actually available to him.) The ways in which the range of available options may be reduced include restriction of the individual's movements (incarceration in a prison cell; confinement in a straitjacket); destruction, confiscation, removal, etc., of any of the necessary physical means of pursuing a course of action; and affecting the individual in such a way that he becomes literally incapable of doing certain acts (torture may do this, for example).

Another way of putting the matter is to say that when A employs force on B, B's decisions 'are irrelevant to the course of events which affect him'. Force is the only way of getting people to do things they would not otherwise have done, of which it may be properly said that, because of A's actions, B has no choice (with respect to the excluded options).

(Michael Taylor, Community, Anarchy and Liberty [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], 19-20 [italics in original; footnote omitted])

What is the best part of the #WinterSolstice? How about daylight will now start increasing for the next 6 months!
Read more about astronomical seasons here: https://t.co/rRWaknryeV pic.twitter.com/pfbiboydu5

— NWS (@NWS) December 21, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

After reading “The year of reporting dangerously” (John Diaz, Insight, Dec. 16), in which John Diaz cited so many examples of journalists being jailed or murdered in 2018—particularly in countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey—I wondered: Is the United States going to join or reject these repressive regimes in its treatment of the fourth estate in 2019?

It’s bad enough that our authoritarian-minded president has been regularly accusing the press of publishing “fake news” and calling it the “enemy of the people” since he took office. Now, as evidenced by the Capital Gazette murders earlier this year, his Make America Great Again minions are taking matters into their own hands and committing violent acts against journalists. Americans must defend the First Amendment guarantee of a free press in the coming year.

Journalists are not just (as Time magazine called them) “Guardians of the Truth,” they are also (in this country) “protectors of democracy.”

Julian Grant, Pacifica

The Democrats, whose votes we need in the Senate, will probably vote against Border Security and the Wall even though they know it is DESPERATELY NEEDED. If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time. People don’t want Open Borders and Crime!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Here.

Here.

Here is Kurt Schlichter’s latest column.