Briefly

A new Gallup poll says that 43 percent of Americans favor some form of socialism. If you factor in the people who also favor various forms of existing socialism but aren’t intellectually honest enough to call it that, those who understand economics and morality should know to be terrified by this. But the real terror isn’t that 43 percent of people embrace this destructive economic theft. No, the real problem is that we are stuck with a political system which forces everybody to be dragged along by the same populist insanity whether we want it or not. I have no objection to millions of people living together in socialism. I have a serious moral and practical objection when they insist they have the right to force me to go along with them. The problem isn’t public opinion. The problem is that the political system makes public opinion into a dictatorship.

Here’s my grass-cutting neighbor attacking my yard this afternoon. No, I won’t tell you which house is his, because I’m afraid you’ll steal him to do your yard instead. I really appreciate Harvey. My yard was looking pretty ratty. Another neighbor, Cora, called me on the phone while he was cutting and said, “Did you know someone is cutting your grass?!” I told her not to say anything because he might come to his senses and quit working if she did.

I got an email this week from an Australian psychologist who wanted to let me know that the therapists at the clinic she runs have been using an article I published six months ago — “If you grow accustomed to abuse, you eventually accept it as normal” — as required reading for their patients. (The clinic specializes in abuse by partners and parents.) She asked if I would let them print it for internal use by their clients, too, because she said some clients had found it was a good way to start opening up to the idea that maybe their experiences with a spouse or parent had been abusive and they hadn’t accepted that for a long time. I was really happy to find something I wrote being helpful for hurting people.