When New Jersey politicians speak of being pro-small-business or pro-working-person, the people starting a one-car limo service out of their driveway deserve to hold them to it. Ask them why a retiree trying to earn supplemental income driving passengers must carry $1.5 million in insurance, register separately with the state and with every municipality they work in, and navigate a credentialing process that takes weeks and costs hundreds of dollars before the first fare.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 3,195| Read Time 14 min | Enjoy

Foreword

This essay is written from firsthand experience. Following retirement, I worked as a part-time limousine driver for an established service in New Jersey for three years, operating within the very regulatory framework described in these pages. That experience gave me a ground-level view of what compliance actually demands of working drivers and small operators — not in the abstract, but in practice: the paperwork, the costs, the renewals, the inspections, and the persistent weight of requirements that never fully let up. It is that perspective that informs both the factual content of this guide and the concluding commentary on what these burdens mean for ordinary people who simply want to run a small, honest transportation business in this state.

The information that follows is as accurate and up to date as research permits. Readers are encouraged to verify specific fees and procedural requirements directly with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and the Division of Taxation, as details are subject to change. The conclusions drawn at the end of this essay are my own.

Introduction

New Jersey maintains one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks for limousine services in the United States. Prospective operators must navigate requirements spanning business formation, state and municipal licensing, insurance mandates, driver credentialing, and tax registration before a single passenger can be transported for hire. This guide consolidates those requirements into a single reference and provides estimated costs associated with each step.

The principal oversight authority is the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), which licenses both operators and drivers. Municipal governments impose an additional layer of local licensing. The Division of Taxation governs tax obligations, and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development has jurisdiction over workers’ compensation matters if the business employs drivers.

I. Business Formation and Registration

Choosing a Business Entity

Most small limo operators organize as Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) to separate personal assets from business liabilities. Forming an LLC with the New Jersey Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services requires a one-time public records filing fee of $125. Corporations are also an option but entail additional administrative overhead, including annual meetings, minutes, and more complex tax treatment.

After formation, every business operating in New Jersey must register with the Division of Taxation and Enterprise Services using Form NJ-REG (available through the NJ Business Portal). This registration is free of charge. It establishes the business for state tax purposes and triggers the issuance of a Business Registration Certificate.

Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN)

Before registering vehicles under a business name with the MVC, the operator must obtain a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. The EIN application is free and can be completed online in minutes at irs.gov. This number serves as the business’s federal tax identifier and is required to complete MVC vehicle title and registration paperwork under the business name.

Annual Report

Every registered New Jersey business entity must file an annual report with the State. The report confirms that the business’s registered agent and address on file remain current. The annual filing fee is $75 and is due each year on the last day of the anniversary month of the business’s formation. Failure to file can result in the entity's revocation.

II. MVC Operator Licensing and Vehicle Registration

Limousine Operator Registration

A limousine is defined under New Jersey law as any automobile, motor car, or other vehicle (including vehicles known as ‘black cars’) with seating capacity for not more than 14 passengers that is operated for hire.1 Operators must register with the MVC as a limousine carrier. This is accomplished through the MVC Passenger Carrier Service program. Registration fees vary based on vehicle weight class; operators should consult the MVC fee schedule or contact the Passenger Carrier Service unit directly for the applicable amounts.

Vehicle Registration as a Limousine

Each vehicle in the fleet must be individually registered with the MVC as a limousine. Vehicles are subject to an annual inspection under the Passenger Vehicle Transportation (PVT) program — they must be brought to a State Inspection Facility or an MVC-licensed Private Inspection Facility each year. The inspection verifies that the vehicle meets safety standards appropriate for passenger-for-hire use. Vehicles that currently qualify for no-fee registration retain that status, though their license plates will reflect their designated use.

Municipal Licensing

In addition to state-level registration, New Jersey municipalities require limousine companies to obtain a local operating license. Requirements and fees vary by municipality, but operators typically must submit a completed local application, proof of MVC registration, and either a certificate of liability insurance naming the municipality as an additional insured or certificate holder, or a certificate of liability insurance naming the municipality as the certificcharge higher feesate holder. Municipal license fees commonly range from $50 to $100 per vehicle, per year, though some towns charge higher fees. Because the operator must file proof of insurance with the clerk of the municipality where the business has its principal place of business before operating any vehicle, the municipal licensing step is effectively the last prerequisite before legal operation can commence.

III. Insurance Requirements

Mandatory Commercial Liability Insurance — $1,500,000 Minimum

New Jersey Revised Statutes Section 48:16-14 mandates that no limousine may be operated on any public street until the owner has filed with the municipal clerk a commercial liability insurance policy in the amount of $1,500,000 against bodily injury or death arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use of the vehicle. This figure is double the federal minimum and substantially higher than standard personal auto coverage. The policy must be issued by an insurer licensed to transact business in New Jersey.

The insurer is required to notify the Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles of any policy cancellation for non-payment. If the MVC does not receive proof of replacement coverage within 30 days, the vehicle’s registration will be suspended. If plates are not surrendered within 60 days, the operator’s corporation code registration privilege will be suspended. The insurance policy must remain in force at the full, collectible amount of $1,500,000 at all times — not just while transporting passengers. Annual commercial limousine insurance premiums for a small fleet typically range from $3,000 to $8,000 or more per vehicle, depending on the carrier, vehicles, drivers’ records, geographic territory, and overall risk profile.

Personal Injury Protection (PIP)

All New Jersey-registered vehicles must carry Personal Injury Protection coverage. PIP pays medical expenses for the operator and covered persons injured in an automobile accident, regardless of fault. This coverage is typically bundled into the commercial policy.

Uninsured Motorist Coverage

New Jersey law also requires uninsured motorist coverage on all registered vehicles, which protects against accidents caused by uninsured drivers. Again, this is generally included in a commercial auto package.

Workers’ Compensation Insurance

If the business employs any drivers — rather than operating strictly as an owner-operator sole proprietorship — New Jersey law requires workers’ compensation insurance. This covers employees injured in the course of employment. Premiums vary based on payroll and the classification of the work.

General Liability Insurance

While not mandated by state statute, commercial general liability insurance is strongly recommended. It provides protection against third-party claims for property damage or bodily injury that may arise outside a vehicle accident—for example, a passenger who slips and falls during boarding. Annual premiums for a small operation typically run $500 to $1,500.

IV. Driver Requirements and Credentials

Basic Eligibility

Limousine drivers in New Jersey must hold a valid New Jersey driver’s license and maintain a clean driving record. State guidelines indicate a minimum age of 21 for most operators, though some companies may accept applicants aged 18 or older. Drivers must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

Chauffeur Endorsement

Drivers operating traditional stretch limousines or minibusses must obtain a passenger endorsement on their New Jersey driver’s license, signifying that they have met the additional qualifications required for that class of for-hire passenger vehicle. The endorsement is applied through the MVC and carries a nominal fee. However, drivers operating standard sedans or SUVs in a for-hire capacity are not required to obtain a chauffeur endorsement. All other business-level requirements — operator registration, insurance, municipal licensing, background checks, and the remaining credentialing steps — apply regardless of vehicle type.

Commercial Driver’s License (CDL)

Neither a CDL nor a chauffeur endorsement is required to drive a standard sedan or SUV in for-hire service in New Jersey. Drivers of those vehicles hold standard New Jersey driver’s licenses. A CDL becomes necessary only if the vehicle’s Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) exceeds 26,001 pounds, a threshold relevant to certain large specialty vehicles but not to typical sedan- or SUV-format livery operations. Stretch limousines, by contrast, require the chauffeur endorsement as noted above. In all cases, the full suite of business-level requirements — registration, insurance, municipal licensing, background checks, and inspections — remains in effect regardless of vehicle type or driver license class.

Criminal Background Check and Fingerprinting

New Jersey law (N.J.S.A. 48:16-22.3a) requires all limousine drivers and rental car chauffeurs to undergo a state criminal background check conducted through a live fingerprint scan. Employers — including owner-operators — must submit a Limousine Driver or Rental Car Chauffeur Employer Certification Application to the MVC for each driver, whether the driver is pending employment or already employed.

Fingerprinting appointments are scheduled through the State’s fingerprint vendor, IdentoGO (operated by IDEMIA). The fingerprinting fee is collected at the time of service, with current costs ranging from $60 to $70. Payment must be made by credit card, debit card, or money order — no cash is accepted. Drivers employed by more than one limousine company need only one background check. This MVC check is independent of any fingerprint check conducted for other purposes, such as a CDL passenger endorsement.

Under N.J.S.A. 48:16-22.3b, limousine operators are required to test applicants for controlled dangerous substances prior to employment. This drug testing requirement applies in addition to the criminal background check.

Medical Certification

Limousine drivers are required to obtain a medical certificate attesting that they meet the physical and health standards necessary to safely operate a passenger vehicle for hire. The examination covers vision, hearing, and general health. The medical certificate requires annual renewal, meaning drivers must be re-examined each year to maintain their credentials.

Defensive Driving Training

Defensive driving training is not universally mandated by statute, but many limousine companies require it as a condition of employment, and state regulators encourage it. Such training can accelerate the hiring process and, in some cases, may qualify drivers or the business for insurance premium discounts.

V. Taxation

Sales and Use Tax on Transportation Services

Effective May 1, 2017, limousine transportation services are exempt from New Jersey Sales and Use Tax under N.J.S.A. 54:32B-3(b)(13), as amended by P.L. 2017, c.27. Operators should not charge sales tax on fares for limousine transportation services. Services performed prior to May 1, 2017, remained taxable under the prior law, but that transitional period is long closed. Services provided solely for funeral transportation may be subject to separate tax treatment.

Purchase and Repair Exemption

The sales tax exemption extends to the purchase of the limousine itself: the sale of a limousine to a person licensed to operate a limousine service is exempt from New Jersey Sales and Use Tax. This exemption also covers repair services and parts for licensed limousine operators. This can represent a significant savings given the high cost of limousine acquisition and maintenance.

Business Income Tax

The structure of the business determines how net income is taxed. Sole proprietorships, general partnerships, and single-member LLCs pass income through to the owner’s personal New Jersey Gross Income Tax return. Multi-member LLCs must file a partnership return reporting each partner’s gross income. Corporations are subject to New Jersey’s Corporate Business Tax at a statutory rate of 9% on net income or allocated New Jersey income (multi-state corporations use a three-factor apportionment formula based on sales, property, and payroll).

Payroll Taxes

If the business employs drivers or other staff, it must register for New Jersey employer withholding and unemployment insurance obligations via the NJ-REG registration. Payroll taxes include New Jersey Gross Income Tax withholding, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and family leave insurance contributions, as well as federal withholding, FICA, and FUTA obligations.

VI. Estimated Cost Summary

The table below consolidates estimated costs for the principal compliance requirements. Costs marked as variable or approximate should be confirmed directly with the relevant agency or insurance carrier, as they are subject to change and depend on individual circumstances.

Note: Insurance premiums represent the single largest recurring cost for a small limousine operation and are highly variable. Operators with newer vehicles, experienced drivers, clean records, and favorable operating territories will generally obtain lower rates. Obtaining quotes from multiple carriers that specialize in commercial transportation insurance is strongly recommended.

Conclusion

Launching a small limousine service in New Jersey requires careful preparation across multiple regulatory domains. The MVC is the central licensing authority for both operators and drivers, while the Division of Taxation governs business registration and tax obligations. Municipalities add a local licensing layer that must be addressed before operations begin. Insurance obligations are among the most stringent in the nation, with a statutory minimum of $1,500,000 in commercial liability coverage per vehicle — a requirement backed by automatic suspension of registration for lapsed coverage.

Operators who systematically address each of these requirements — entity formation, EIN acquisition, MVC operator and vehicle registration, municipal licensing, commercial insurance, driver credentialing, background checks, and tax registration — will be positioned to operate a compliant and sustainable business. Given the complexity of the regulatory landscape, consulting with an attorney familiar with New Jersey transportation law and an accountant experienced in small business taxation is advisable before commencing operations.

Parting Shot: The Regulatory Burden and the Small Business Myth

Having lived inside this industry, I feel compelled to say plainly what the preceding text only implies: the cumulative weight of New Jersey’s licensing, insurance, and registration requirements is not a minor inconvenience. It is a genuine barrier to entry that prevents ordinary working people from building small transportation businesses. Before a single passenger is picked up, an aspiring operator must absorb an LLC formation fee, MVC registration costs, municipal license fees for every vehicle in every town where they operate, annual MVC vehicle inspections, background check and fingerprinting costs for every driver, annual medical certifications, and — most crushingly — a mandatory commercial liability insurance premium that can easily run $3,000 to $8,000 or more per vehicle per year. That last item alone, on a two-vehicle operation, can consume $6,000 to $16,000 annually before a dollar of revenue is earned.

Contrast this with states like North Carolina, where the regulatory framework for small limousine and for-hire transportation services is substantially lighter. Requirements are more streamlined, insurance thresholds are more proportionate, and municipal licensing layers are largely absent. The result is that a motivated person in North Carolina can enter the transportation business with a fraction of the startup overhead required in New Jersey. That is not a trivial difference. It is the difference between a viable small business and one that never gets off the ground.

Some of these requirements have legitimate safety rationales. The $1.5 million insurance mandate exists because a limousine accident can be catastrophic, and passengers deserve protection. Background checks for drivers are reasonable. Annual vehicle inspections make sense. Nobody is arguing for a completely unregulated industry. But there is a meaningful distance between sensible safety regulation and the thicket of layered costs and redundant filings that New Jersey has constructed — and that distance is where small business dreams go to die.

When New Jersey politicians speak of being pro-small-business or pro-working-person, the people starting a one-car limo service out of their driveway deserve to hold them to it. Ask them why a retiree trying to earn supplemental income driving passengers must carry $1.5 million in insurance, register separately with the state and with every municipality they work in, and navigate a credentialing process that takes weeks and costs hundreds of dollars before the first fare. Ask them how that is different from the lip service it so often proves to be. The answer, in most cases, will be silence — or a pivot to a ribbon cutting. 📕

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This essay is a response to Amanda Marcotte’s “How the Proud Boys Invented Antifa, “ published in Salon.

Words 2,046 | Read Time 13 min | Enjoy

Foeword

Amanda Marcotte’s essay in Salon on October 22, 2025, argues that antifa is essentially a fiction conjured by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement to justify political repression. While the piece contains some legitimate observations, it suffers from significant factual problems, logical inconsistencies, and a selective engagement with evidence, undermining its central thesis. A careful reader should push back on several of its core claims.

The Central Claim Is Demonstrably False

The essay’s opening assertion — that antifa “is not real” — is not a defensible position, and Marcotte herself partially concedes this within the same paragraph by acknowledging that antifa has “existed for a long time.” This is not a minor tension; it is a self-contradiction that hollows out the essay’s thesis from the very first lines.

Antifa is not a centralized organization with a membership roster, a treasury, and a chain of command. That much is accurate. But characterizing it as wholly imaginary ignores a substantial body of documented evidence. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have both formally assessed antifa as a real movement with real participants engaging in real violence. In congressional testimony, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray — appointed by Trump but not generally regarded as a partisan figure — described antifa as “a real thing” and “a movement” engaged in “violent, anarchist, criminal activity.” Academic researchers who study political violence, including those deeply skeptical of right-wing characterizations of antifa, do not describe it as a fiction. The academic literature treats it as a loosely networked ideological movement with identifiable participants, tactics, and organizational nodes. Journalists and researchers across the political spectrum have documented antifa’s activities extensively — from sympathetic accounts that celebrate its antifascist mission to critical investigations that catalog its methods and personnel.

Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, published in 2017, was written with direct access to movement participants and became something of an intellectual touchstone for the movement itself. If antifa does not exist, one must wonder why its self-identified members sat down for interviews, why its tactical manuals circulate in identifiable networks, and why federal law enforcement has spent considerable resources mapping those networks.

The claim that it “does not exist” is not a sober analytical correction to right-wing exaggeration. It is the mirror image of that exaggeration, simply pointing in the opposite direction.

Documented Violence - Minimized or Ignored

Marcotte’s essay characterizes antifa violence as largely manufactured, dismissing the idea that the movement uses “illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence.” But documented incidents are not difficult to find, and they occurred at a scale well beyond what can be explained as Proud Boys entrapment operations.

During the 2020 unrest following the death of George Floyd, federal authorities documented dozens of arsons, assaults, and coordinated attacks on federal buildings in Portland — the very city Marcotte uses as her central example — that continued nightly for months. A federal courthouse was repeatedly attacked with incendiary devices, commercial-grade fireworks, and improvised weapons. By September 2020, federal prosecutors had filed charges against more than a dozen individuals in Portland specifically for attacks on federal property. In Seattle, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ/CHOP) — established and defended by individuals identifying with the radical left, including antifa participants — saw multiple shootings, including two homicides.

None of these features is in Marcotte’s essay. She mentions the killing of Aaron Danielson by Michael Reinoehl — which she attributes to Reinoehl walking “right into the trap” set by the Proud Boys, a framing that is quite generous to a man who killed someone — but otherwise treats left-wing political violence as essentially a statistical footnote manufactured by the right. This is not analysis; it is typical progressive advocacy.

It is worth noting that Reinoehl himself, in a Vice interview conducted days before he was killed by the police, described the shooting not as self-defense but as a preemptive act, saying “I had no choice” because “I see a civil war right around the corner.” This is not the profile of a bystander who fell into a trap.

The Asymmetric Violence Argument Is Oversimplified

Marcotte invokes the argument that “there’s exponentially more right-wing violence than left-wing violence in the U.S.” as though it settles the question. This claim deserves scrutiny.

The statistics underlying this assertion typically come from databases such as the Global Terrorism Database or reports from organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. These datasets use methodological choices that meaningfully shape their conclusions — for example, categorizing mass shootings with unclear political motivation as right-wing events, or treating categories like “incel violence” as a subdivision of right-wing extremism. Researchers who study political violence have noted that measuring ideological asymmetry in violence is genuinely difficult and that the headline figures are often more politically useful than analytically precise.

More importantly, even granting the asymmetry argument for purposes of discussion, it does not follow that left-wing political violence is therefore negligible, or that antifa does not engage in it. The existence of greater overarching right-wing violence (as defined by the SPLC) does not make left-wing violence fictional (as defined by the SPLC). But then again, Biden made this same right-wing claim, casting it as a threat, right up there with the thorny thesis that carbon dioxide (a life-giving gas) is a looming threat. And of course, silent on left-wing violence. Nevertheless, we see the basic logical error.

The Nazi Analogy Works Against Marcotte’s Argument

Perhaps the most striking feature of the essay is its extended analogy comparing Trump and the Proud Boys to the Nazi brownshirts and eventually to the SS. Marcotte is entitled to make this argument, but she does not appear to notice that it importantly undermines her own thesis.

If the historical situation is genuinely analogous to Weimar Germany’s — where paramilitary fascists were consolidating power and preparing to establish concentration camps — then the question of whether organized antifascist resistance is appropriate becomes considerably more serious than the essay’s breezy conclusion (wear frog costumes, don’t take the bait) would suggest. You cannot simultaneously argue that the United States is on the verge of a Nazi-style takeover and that the correct response is a dopey dance party outside an ICE facility. The severity of the analogy demands either a more serious response or a less apocalyptic framing. Marcotte wants both the rhetorical power of the Nazi comparison and the strategic lightness of advising people to dress as unicorns.

Conversely, those who believe the Nazi analogy is overwrought will find the essay’s entire argumentative structure collapses. If the situation is not genuinely comparable to Weimar, then the treatment of antifa resistance as morally equivalent to fighting the Nazi brownshirts in the 1930s is partisan special pleading.

The Treatment of Jack Posobiec Is a Straw Man

The essay holds up Posobiec’s comment — that antifa “goes back to Weimar Republic Germany” — as proof that MAGA supporters think “the people who tried to stop the rise of the Nazis were the bad guys.” But this is not what Posobiec said. He noted, accurately, that the antifascist movement in Germany in the early 1930s was affiliated with the Communist Party, and that some of its street violence contributed to the political instability the Nazis exploited. This is standard historical fact, not a conspiracy theory. Whether one finds that historical parallel illuminating or misleading in the American context is a legitimate debate. Marcotte collapses the argument into an absurd caricature rather than engaging with it.

For an unblemished overview of Posobiec, the SPLC does a splendid job - click here.

The Conclusion Contradicts the Premise

The essay ends with this line: “Antifa is an illusion, but like many such fantasies, it has power.”

This is a significant concession. An illusion with genuine political power, documented historical continuity across multiple countries, an identifiable tactical repertoire, academic literature devoted to its study, and real-world participants who identify as members is not well described as an illusion. It is a movement. Describing it as an illusion is a rhetorical choice made to delegitimize political opponents, not an honest analytical conclusion.

Justice Must Be Equal

An executive order designating antifa a “domestic terrorist organization” raises genuine civil liberties concerns, and those concerns are worth taking seriously on their own terms — not because antifa is fictional, but precisely because it is not. Please stay tuned, this is not to defend the anarchist group called antifa.

When the government arrogates to itself the power to designate loosely affiliated ideological movements as terrorist organizations by executive fiat, it creates machinery that does not stay pointed in one direction for long. The Biden administration provided a cautionary example of this tendency when, in 2023, a since-retracted FBI memo from the Richmond, Virginia, field office flagged “radical traditional Catholics” as potential domestic terror threats, citing their interest in the Latin Mass as a potential marker of extremist sympathy.1 The memo was withdrawn after public outcry, but the episode illustrated with uncomfortable clarity how elastic the category of “domestic threat” becomes once institutional inhibitions against targeting ideological communities begin to erode. If the left finds executive terror designations alarming when aimed at antifa, it should have found them equally alarming when aimed at Catholics kneeling in a pew.

The principle at stake is not partisan. It is constitutional. Individuals who commit arson, assault federal officers, or destroy property should be charged, tried, and sentenced under the laws that govern those specific acts — the same laws that apply to a Proud Boy who beats a counter-protester or anyone else who crosses from political expression into criminal conduct. The answer to political violence is not a classification of approved and disapproved movements maintained by whoever holds executive power at a given moment. It is an equal application of a law that is indifferent to the ideological jersey the defendant was wearing when he threw the punch.

Justice, in other words, must be objective. The moment it begins sorting defendants by the politics of their movement rather than the facts of their conduct, it ceases to be justice and becomes something considerably more dangerous. Marcotte’s essay, for all its flaws, is animated by a real fear of that danger. The tragedy is that in denying antifa’s existence rather than demanding it be treated like everyone else under the law, she inadvertently weakens the very civil liberties argument she is trying to make. 📕

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The object I watched that evening was not a streak of light high in the upper atmosphere. It was a black sphere with orange tongues of fire covering its entire surface. Not a tail. Not a trailing wake of light behind a bright point. Individual, distinct orange flames covering the object like it was burning from the outside in, all the way around — not a glow, not a haze, but discrete tongues of fire on a black surface.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 2,520 | Read Time 11 min | Enjoy

An Unexpected Letter from the Past

When I published the first installment of this story in October 2025, I had no idea it would lead me to Jack Myers.

But that is exactly what happened. My Substack essay — a ten-year-old’s backyard memory of a slow-moving fireball on an April evening in 1966 — found its way via a Substack comment to a man who had been carrying the same memory for the same fifty-nine years, from twelve miles away. Jack Myers read Part One and responded. Myers had been eleven years old that same evening. He had written about it. And his book, Kecksburg’s Sequel?, was waiting on Amazon.

I read it. And before long, I had to put it down — not because it wasn’t gripping, but because I needed a moment. Here was someone who had been watching alongside me, from twelve miles away, and neither of us had known it until now.

(Kecksburg’s Sequel? is available on Amazon — well worth your time if any of this resonates.)

The Question That Never Left

If you read Part One, you know the detail that haunted me most: the speed — or rather, the lack of it. A meteor is supposed to vanish in a blink. Everyone I had seen before or since does exactly that — a white scratch across the dark, gone before the eye can fully register it.

I told myself for decades that memory was playing tricks. I was ten years old, after all, and had never seen anything like it. But this one glided overhead within my viewport for 15 seconds or more.

Jack Myers, at eleven and twelve miles away, remembered the same thing.

What I Saw. What the Record Won’t Explain.

Here is where the official story starts to come apart.

The object I watched that evening was not a streak of light high in the upper atmosphere. It was a black sphere with orange tongues of fire covering its entire surface. Not a tail. Not a trailing wake of light behind a bright point. Individual, distinct orange flames covering the object like it was burning from the outside in, all the way around — not a glow, not a haze, but discrete tongues of fire on a black surface.

I should add something here that I have only recently articulated clearly: I cannot remember a tail. Not a faint one, not a partial one. Nothing trailing behind it. For a meteor or fireball, that absence is remarkable — a tail or wake is one of the defining visual signatures of atmospheric entry. What I remember instead is the sphere itself, complete and self-contained, consuming my entire attention. I was so utterly fascinated by the object — by its shape, its fire, its deliberate movement — that the surrounding sky barely registered. A ten-year-old standing in his backyard, frozen, staring upward. That is the honest picture.

And it was close enough that I could hear it.

A crackling sound reached me on the ground — not a distant boom, not a sonic concussion, but a crackling, like burning wood or live electricity. The kind of sound that has a source you can locate. The kind of sound that does not travel to a ten-year-old’s ears from an object in the upper atmosphere dozens of miles overhead.

That detail has bothered me for fifty-nine years, not because it was frightening, but because it has never fit the explanation I was handed. And it turns out I was not the only one who heard it. Myers notes near the end of his book that observers in Canada reported hearing hissing and crackling noises during the fireball’s passage. Not after. During. That is not the acoustic signature of an object sixty miles above the Earth. That is the sound of something close enough to the ground that multiple witnesses, spread across a wide geography, independently registered it with their own ears.

The official account and the physical evidence of multiple senses — mine, and those of the Canadian observers — are not reconcilable. One of them is wrong.

And I know what I heard.

A Note on Bolides — and Why the Science Cuts Both Ways

The official reports place the object high up in the atmosphere, a remote bolide burning through thin air miles above the ground, visible across multiple states precisely because of that altitude. Myers, in one passage, quotes a scientific characterization of the event using that framing: a bolide, atmospheric, distant.

A bolide, for those unfamiliar with the term, is an exceptionally large and bright meteor — a fireball on a grand scale, often brighter than the full moon, produced when a substantial object penetrates deep into Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike an ordinary shooting star, which is little more than a grain of sand burning up in an instant, a bolide is large enough to produce sustained light, audible sound, fragmentation, and sometimes ground impact. The crackling I heard is consistent with a known bolide phenomenon — electrophonic sound, in which the object’s electromagnetic energy is converted into audible crackling at ground level, sometimes arriving simultaneously with the visual event rather than after it.

But here is the problem. Used honestly, the bolide science does not support the “high and distant” framing — it undermines it. A bolide close enough to produce audible crackling, close enough to reveal discrete orange tongues of fire on a black surface, is a bolide that was low. Not safely tucked away in the upper atmosphere. The official account and the physical evidence of my own senses are not reconcilable. One of them is wrong.

And I know what I heard.

A Third Witness — and a Simple, Devastating Argument

Myers’s book introduces another witness whose account deserves to stand on its own. Joe Chmielewski was in Northeast Philadelphia that same evening. He, too, saw the object pass directly overhead. He too described the flames — the same fire, the same presence, the same object that Myers and I watched from our separate backyards.

Joe reported no sound. But Northeast Philadelphia in the evening is not a quiet place. The ambient noise of a dense urban neighborhood — traffic, voices, the general roar of a city going about its business — would have drowned out anything short of a sonic boom. My own crackling was audible because I was standing in a quiet suburban neighborhood outside the city, where the night air carried sound cleanly. Joe Chmielewski’s silence is not a contradiction. It is what you would expect.

What Joe did offer was something arguably more powerful than sound: a size argument. The authorities claimed the object was sixty miles up — at the very top of the atmosphere. Joe pushed back on that directly, and his reasoning is as plain and commonsense as it gets. An airliner cruising at six miles altitude, he noted, is little more than a dot in the sky. A barely visible speck, even on a clear day. What he saw overhead was nothing like a dot. It was large. It had visible detail. It had flames he could describe.

If the object had been sixty miles up, Joe Chmielewski would not have seen flames. He would not have seen a sphere. He would have seen, at most, a point of light.

The authorities’ claim and Joe’s eyes cannot both be right. Joe was there. The authorities were not.

What Myers Found — and What He Doubts

Myers acknowledges the scientific framing. He notes it. He does not rest on it.

Because the official characterization of what we saw — a natural meteor event, fully explained, case closed — has always felt like it was trying a little too hard to close a door. Myers, who grew up in the same shadow of the 1965 Kecksburg incident that hangs over anyone who spent their childhood in this region, is not satisfied with tidy explanations. His title’s question mark is not decorative. It is the whole argument.

The Kecksburg Shadow

The 1966 fireball and the 1965 Kecksburg incident are separated by just under sixteen months. On December 9, 1965, a large, brilliant fireball was seen across six states and Canada, and residents of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, reported finding a metallic, acorn-shaped object roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle partially buried in the woods — an object that military personnel subsequently removed on a flatbed truck.

Witnesses to the Kecksburg object reported that it did not move like a meteor. It appeared to travel slowly, change direction, and descend in a controlled rather than random manner.

That last part. Slow. Controlled. Deliberate.

Myers and I both saw something that moved the same way, sixteen months later, roughly 300 miles to the east. We were children. We reported what we saw to adults who smiled and changed the subject. The official record called it a meteor and moved on.

Maybe it was. But the pattern of dismissal — the reflexive reach for the most mundane explanation, followed by institutional incuriosity — is one that anyone who followed Kecksburg will recognize immediately. In that case, the object was described by multiple witnesses as turning and descending slowly, as if making a controlled landing, with a semi-buried, metallic, acorn-shaped object observed on the ground by several independent eyewitnesses. What the military took from those woods, and why, has never been fully accounted for. NASA issued a 2005 statement reporting that experts had examined fragments from the area, but records of their findings were lost in the 1980s.1

Records lost. Case closed. Move along.

Another Possibility Worth Naming

There is one more theory that deserves an honest mention, and it is not an exotic one. The mid-1960s were the height of the Cold War reconnaissance satellite program. Both the United States and the Soviet Union routinely placed spy satellites in low Earth orbit — and occasionally lost them. A satellite in trouble, re-entering the atmosphere at a low angle and shedding material as it came apart, would present to a ground observer as exactly what I described: a dark object, close, moving slowly and deliberately, burning in a way that was not the clean streak of a natural meteor.

It would also explain why authorities were so quick to close the conversation. A crippled reconnaissance satellite over the Philadelphia suburbs in 1966 was not something anyone in the government was eager to discuss in the middle of the Cold War. Whether what I saw was a meteor, a bolide, or something built by human hands that had gone badly wrong, the official response — label it, file it, move on — was the same.

Two Children. Twelve Miles. One Sky.

Myers and I were not acquainted. We grew up in the same region, twelve miles apart, with no shared framework for what we had seen and no one who took it seriously. We filed our memories away and carried them forward alone for nearly six decades.

What his book does — quietly, without sensationalism — is establish that we were not confused, not misremembering, and not alone. We were ten and eleven years old, standing in separate backyards, watching the same object cross the same sky. We both noted the same anomaly. We both grew up doubting the explanation we were handed.

When I read Myers’s account and found my own memory staring back at me — the slowness, the fire, the sheer presence of the thing — it was not the comfort of shared delusion. It was the discomfort of shared accuracy. Two independent witnesses, twelve miles apart, agreeing not just on what they saw but on why the official story never accounted for it.

The Question Mark

Myers chose his title carefully. Kecksburg’s Sequel? — not a statement, not a revelation, but a question, aimed directly at the idea that the 1965 incident was an isolated, resolved event. His suggestion, and mine, is that the skies over this region in the mid-1960s were producing phenomena that the official record was not designed to accurately capture.

We may never know what crossed the sky that April evening in 1966. The authorities offered partial, carefully worded answers. What they did not offer was an explanation for why a ten-year-old boy in a Philadelphia backyard could hear it crackling overhead, or see the individual orange tongues of fire that covered its black surface, or watch it move with the unhurried pace of something that knew exactly where it was going — and remember, decades later, that there was no tail.

Those details are not compatible with “meteor, high altitude, case closed.”

And nobody in charge ever tried to explain them.

A note of personal gratitude is in order here. Jack Myers, in writing Kecksburg’s Sequel?, did something that fifty-nine years of private memory could not do on its own — he jogged details back to the surface that I had not thought about in decades. The crackling. The individual orange tongues of fire. The texture of the thing. Reading his account from twelve miles away brought my own back into focus with a sharpness I did not expect. For that, Jack, I am genuinely thankful.

Parting Shot

The recent government UFO file releases — the collection declassified under the Trump administration beginning May 8, 2026, published through the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) — do not appear to include any specific document related to an April 25, 1966, fireball incident over Philadelphia and north into Canada. That specific event doesn’t surface in any of the published summaries or indexes of the released materials.

The files are housed on that dedicated government site, with additional files being added on a rolling basis. The first batch consisted of 162 records — 120 PDF documents, 28 videos, and 14 images — from the Pentagon, FBI, NASA, and State Department. Thus, stay tuned to PURSUE (what a wacky acronym) for more on the April 1966 incident. However, since no green men were associated with this event, it will likely remain in the history books as a simple (baloney) bolide. 📕

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No. 4014 produces roughly 7,000 horsepower — the equivalent of one and a half modern mainline diesels in a single machine. But diesel-electric technology has a decisive advantage in raw pulling force. Understanding the gap and why it exists is essential to appreciating both what the Big Boy achieved and what ended the steam era for good.

Words 2,161 | Read Time 10 min | Enjoy

Part One - here.

Engineering Analysis

The Big Boy vs. Today’s Diesels

Among the most revealing ways to appreciate the Big Boy’s engineering is to set its performance figures alongside those of the modern diesel-electric locomotives that replaced steam on America’s mainlines — and still dominate them today. The comparison is more nuanced than a simple head-to-head, because steam and diesel power are fundamentally different systems that deliver their muscle in fundamentally different ways. Understanding those differences is essential to judging how the Big Boy truly stacks up.

Horsepower: The Oil Conversion Advantage

In its original coal-fired configuration, the Big Boy was rated at approximately 6,290 horsepower — a figure representing peak output under ideal conditions, calculated at a speed of around 41 mph. Below that speed, more of the available energy went into pure tractive pull; above it, available power tapered. The oil conversion performed during the 2014–2019 restoration changed that equation. The more efficient and controllable combustion of No. 5 fuel oil, combined with the cylinder bore enlarged from 23¾ to 24 inches, pushed the restored No. 4014’s output to an estimated 7,000 horsepower — roughly an 11 percent improvement over the original coal-fired rating.

For context, the workhorse of today’s Union Pacific mainline — the EMD SD70ACe — is rated at 4,300 to 4,500 horsepower depending on configuration. The GE ES44AC (Evolution Series) delivers 4,400 horsepower. Even the most advanced current-production diesel, the EMD SD70ACe-T4, meeting EPA Tier 4 emissions standards, produces a rated 4,600 horsepower, with only 4,400 available for traction. A single Big Boy, in other words, produces the equivalent horsepower of roughly one and a half to two modern mainline diesels.

Tractive Effort: Where Diesel Holds the Advantage

The picture shifts when examining starting tractive effort — the sheer pulling force available from a standing start, which determines how heavy a train a locomotive can get moving. Here, modern diesel-electric technology holds a decisive edge, and the reason is instructive.

The Big Boy’s starting tractive effort was calculated at 135,375 pounds in its original specification. With the cylinder enlargement performed during the 2019 restoration, that figure rose to approximately 138,240 pounds on No. 4014. This was the maximum force available at speeds below approximately 10–12 mph, where the pistons develop their greatest mechanical advantage. Peak power was delivered around 35 mph — the fundamental characteristic of steam: high torque at low speed, building to maximum horsepower at a moderate working speed, then declining as speed continues to increase.

The EMD SD70ACe delivers a starting tractive effort of 191,000 pounds — roughly 38 percent more than the Big Boy at the moment of starting. The SD70ACe-T4 achieves 200,000 pounds starting tractive effort, and the ballasted GE ES44AH used by CSX reaches approximately the same figure.

The reason for this gap lies in the fundamental difference between the two technologies. A diesel-electric locomotive uses its diesel engine to drive electric generators, which power AC traction motors mounted directly on the axles. Those motors can deliver maximum torque from zero RPM — from the very moment the wheels begin to turn. Sophisticated wheel-slip control computers monitor adhesion on all six axles simultaneously, modulating power in milliseconds to keep wheels at the edge of adhesion without slipping. Steam power works through a mechanical crank-and-rod system. There is no electronic adhesion management; the engineer and fireman manage wheel slip through throttle and sand application alone.

The Multiplier Factor

Modern railroads solve the power problem through multiplication. A typical Union Pacific manifest freight might be powered by three to four SD70ACe units lashed together, delivering a combined 13,000–18,000 horsepower and a combined starting tractive effort of 575,000–800,000 pounds — dwarfing even the most powerful steam locomotive ever built. This scalability is one of the diesel-electric’s most decisive operational advantages.

The Big Boy could not be multiplied in the same way. While Big Boys occasionally operated in double-headed pairs on the heaviest trains, each locomotive required its own full crew, its own water stops, its own fire management. The operating economics of running two 600-ton steam locomotives versus three 420,000-pound diesel units quickly favored the latter. By the late 1950s, the math was irrefutable.

What the comparison ultimately reveals is not that the Big Boy was inferior — it was, by every measure of its era, a supreme achievement — but that it operated at the practical ceiling of what reciprocating steam technology could achieve. The diesel-electric moved that ceiling dramatically higher. The fact that the Big Boy, at 7,000 horsepower, still significantly outpowers a single modern diesel unit is, in retrospect, one of the most extraordinary tributes to what Otto Jabelmann and ALCO accomplished in Schenectady in 1941.

Eastward for the First Time in 85 Years

In 2026, Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 is embarking on its most ambitious journey since it first rolled out of ALCO’s Schenectady plant 85 years ago: a true coast-to-coast tour celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States. The tour represents not only a remarkable logistical undertaking but a historic first — No. 4014 will operate east of Chicago for the first time since its original delivery run from Schenectady in 1941.

The western leg launched on April 10, 2026, from downtown Sacramento near historic Milepost 0 — the site where the Central Pacific Railroad began construction on the transcontinental railroad in 1863. The locomotive traveled to Ogden, Utah, drawing massive crowds at display events on April 18–19, before returning to Cheyenne on April 24. Tens of thousands of spectators turned out along the route, reinforcing what Union Pacific has known for years: the Big Boy is, as one railroad spokesman memorably put it, “the Elvis Presley of locomotives.”

The eastern leg departs Cheyenne on May 25, 2026, and represents a landmark collaboration between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. The eastern portion of the route runs on the Norfolk Southern network, bringing No. 4014 to regions with deep ties to the nation’s industrial and railroad heritage but no prior connection to the Big Boy. Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania will each host the locomotive's first-ever visit.

2026 Eastern Tour — Major Display Cities

Indiana, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania

The tour’s centerpiece on the East Coast is the July 4th appearance in Philadelphia — a city whose own history is synonymous with the birth of the American republic, and an appropriately symbolic destination for a locomotive built in wartime and now celebrating the nation’s 250th year. A maintenance stop at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania, from June 17 through June 30, offers visitors with park admission the chance to view No. 4014 up close. Ticketed excursion rides through the Poconos Mountains on June 14 provide a rare opportunity to ride behind the Big Boy in motion — the first time this locomotive has ever hauled passengers east of the Mississippi.

On the eastern leg of the trip, No. 4014 will be accompanied by Norfolk Southern commemorative locomotives and heritage passenger cars from Norfolk Southern’s Heritage Fleet, in addition to Union Pacific’s own support consist. For communities along the Norfolk Southern corridor — communities that grew up around the factories, steel mills, and coal mines that once sustained the industrial heartland — the passage of No. 4014 is not merely a railfan spectacle. It is a reminder of the industrial history they share with the locomotive that was born in Schenectady and hauled the freight of war across the American West.

This is the first time Big Boy has steamed across the Mississippi River and into the Ohio Valley since it was built in Schenectady and delivered to Union Pacific in 1941. For rail enthusiasts and casual onlookers alike, it represents a once-in-a-lifetime event: the world’s largest operating steam locomotive traversing the industrial corridors of the American East for the first and, quite possibly, the only time in its operational life.

A Living Monument

Of the twenty-five Big Boys built, eight survive. Seven stand as static monuments in museums across the country — in St. Louis, Dallas, Omaha, Denver, Scranton, Green Bay, and Cheyenne. Only one moves. Only one breathes fire. Only one fills a valley with the thunder of sixteen driving wheels and the voice of a Hancock long-bell three-chime whistle. That one is No. 4014.

There is something irreducible about what the Big Boy represents, something that transcends the impressive statistics of its boiler pressure and tractive effort. It is a machine that was built in one existential crisis, restored in another moment of national reflection, and is now completing its most ambitious journey in celebration of the nation’s 250th year. It does not run on nostalgia. It runs on No. 5 fuel oil, carefully atomized in a firebox the size of a small room, converted to steam at 300 pounds per square inch, and translated by sixteen driving wheels into motion that you can feel in your chest from a quarter mile away.

The Big Boy is not a relic. It is a reminder. 📕

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Primary / Official Sources

1. Union Pacific Railroad. “Big Boy No. 4014.” UP Heritage — Steam. https://www.up.com/about-us/history/steam/big-boy-4014

2. Union Pacific Railroad. “Steam Program.” https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/

Encyclopedia / Reference

3. Wikipedia. “Union Pacific 4014.” Last updated April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_4014 (Principal source for dates, mileage, restoration timeline, tender numbers, and cylinder specifications.)

4. Wikipedia. “Union Pacific Big Boy.” Last updated April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_Big_Boy (Source for design history, Jabelmann engineering team, No. 4005 oil experiment, factor of adhesion, and grade specifications.)

5. Wikipedia. “EMD SD70 series.” Last updated April 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD70_series (Source for SD70ACe-T4 horsepower and tractive effort figures.)

Trade Press

6. Railway Age. “UP: A Return to Steam for Big Boy 4014.” https://www.railwayage.com/freight/class-i/up-a-return-to-steam-for-big-boy-4014/ (Source for tender coal and water capacities, tractive effort, boiler pressure, and driver diameter.)

7. Railfan & Railroad Magazine. “Union Pacific Announces Schedule for Big Boy’s 2026 Eastern Tour over Norfolk Southern.” April 28, 2026. https://railfan.com/union-pacific-2026-big-boy-eastern-tour/ (Source for eastern tour schedule, Norfolk Southern collaboration, and first-time states.)

Manufacturer Specifications

8. Progress Rail / EMD. “EMD SD70ACe.” Official product page. https://www.progressrail.com/en/Segments/Locomotive/Locomotives/FreightLocomotives/SD70ACe.html (Source for SD70ACe starting and continuous tractive effort figures.)

9. Progress Rail / EMD. “EMD SD70ACe-T4.” Official product page. https://www.progressrail.com/en/Segments/Locomotive/Locomotives/FreightLocomotives/SD70ACe-T4.html (Source for Tier 4 horsepower and tractive effort figures.)

Supplementary / Restoration Detail

10. International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. “Boilermakers Restore Union Pacific’s Steam Behemoth.” April 17, 2020. https://boilermakers.org/news/headlines/boilermakers-restore-union-pacifics-steam-behemoth (Source for restoration process detail and Ed Dickens quotation.)

11. Old Machine Press. “Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 Big Boy Locomotive.” August 17, 2021. https://oldmachinepress.com/2016/12/20/union-pacific-4-8-8-4-big-boy-locomotive/ (Source for original horsepower rating of 6,290 hp and tractive effort at speed.)

12. RailGiants Train Museum. “Union Pacific Big Boy #4014.” https://railgiants.org/union-pacific-big-boy-4014/ (Source for Pomona display history and departure dates.)

Words 2,093 | Read Time 9 min | Enjoy

Origins

Born of War and Mountains

In the autumn of 1941, as the world edged toward the most destructive conflict in human history, the American Locomotive Company rolled out of its Schenectady, New York, shops a machine unlike anything that had come before it — or, for that matter, anything that has come since. The Union Pacific Big Boy was not merely a locomotive. It was an act of engineering ambition, a direct response to the demands of geography and war, and an iron testament to the proposition that American industry could build its way over any obstacle.

The genesis of the Big Boy lay in the rugged terrain of Utah’s Wasatch Range, a stretch of mountains that had bedeviled Union Pacific since its earliest days. The eastbound ruling grade between Ogden and Evanston, climbing at 1.14 percent, demanded extraordinary pulling power. Union Pacific needed a locomotive capable of hauling heavy wartime freight tonnages — ammunition, armor, supplies — over Sherman Hill and the Wasatch grades without the delay and expense of helper locomotives. The railroad’s chief mechanical officer, Otto Jabelmann, and his engineering team accepted the challenge.

Jabelmann’s team began with the proven 4-6-6-4 Challenger design and methodically amplified every dimension. They enlarged the firebox to approximately 235 by 96 inches — roughly 155 square feet of grate area, large enough to park an automobile inside. They lengthened the boiler, added four more driving wheels to create two sets of eight, and slightly reduced driving wheel diameter from 69 to 68 inches to improve tractive effort. The result was the 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement: a configuration used by no other locomotive in history before or since. The Big Boy was, by design, a one-of-a-kind type.

Legend has it that during construction at ALCO’s Schenectady plant, a worker chalked the words “Big Boy” on the smoke box of the first locomotive being assembled. The name stuck, immediately adopted by Union Pacific and the railfanning public alike. Twenty-five of these giants were built in two production batches — the first twenty numbered 4000 through 4019, and a second group of five numbered 4020 through 4024. All were delivered between 1941 and 1944, assigned exclusively to Union Pacific, and put to work on the demanding grades of the West.

Big Boy — Key Specifications

Revenue Service

Titans of the Wasatch

The Big Boys entered service at the height of World War II, exactly when they were most needed. Union Pacific assigned them to the grueling Ogden–Green River corridor across the Wasatch Range, where they could haul trains of approximately 6,000 tons unassisted — an extraordinary figure for the era. In later years, as traffic patterns shifted, the Big Boys were reassigned eastward to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they tackled Sherman Hill on the Wyoming Division between Cheyenne and Laramie.

Despite their immense size — 133 feet from pilot to tender and weighing 1.2 million pounds fully loaded — the Big Boys were articulated to navigate curves. Like the Mallet-type locomotives that preceded them, though without the compound steam arrangement of a true Mallet, the Big Boys featured a hinged frame: the forward set of eight drivers and their engine swiveled independently of the rear engine and boiler, allowing the locomotive to negotiate curves that would be impossible for a rigid frame of equivalent length. The four-wheel leading truck provided stability entering curves, while the four-wheel trailing truck supported the enormous firebox at the rear.

The Big Boys burned Wyoming coal — low-grade but abundant, sourced from mines that Union Pacific itself owned. Fuel consumption was prodigious. Historical accounts suggest the locomotives could consume roughly a ton of coal per mile under heavy working conditions, making fuel management a constant operational concern.

By the late 1950s, the diesel locomotive had conquered American railroading. Electro-Motive’s FT demonstrators had first toured the country in 1939, and the economics of diesel operation — lower fuel costs, reduced maintenance, no need for water stops — proved irresistible to railroad management nationwide. Union Pacific retired its last Big Boys between 1959 and 1962. No. 4014 made its final revenue run on July 21, 1959, and was donated to the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society in December 1961. It arrived at the RailGiants Train Museum at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, California, on January 8, 1962, where it would stand silent for more than five decades.

Restoration

The Long Road Back to Life

For fifty-two years, No. 4014 stood as a static monument at the RailGiants Train Museum, an artifact of an era when steam ruled the rails. In July 2013, Union Pacific announced it had reached an agreement with the Southern California Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society to reacquire the locomotive. In January and April 2014, the massive engine was moved across California and transported by rail to Union Pacific’s steam shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where it would be rebuilt from the wheels up.

The restoration consumed years of painstaking labor. By early 2017, the locomotive had been completely disassembled. Worn components were repaired, or new rod brasses, boiler check valves, and lubricator check valves were fabricated. The sixteen driving wheels were shipped to the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania for crankpin and axle work and the fitting of new tires. The Steam Shop itself was expanded and upgraded to accommodate the Big Boy’s extraordinary dimensions. One estimate put the total cost of restoration at four million dollars or more.

The Oil Conversion

Making History Work in the Modern Age

The restoration team, working under Heritage Fleet Operations director Ed Dickens, made the consequential decision to convert No. 4014 to burn No. 5 fuel oil — the same heavy fuel oil that Union Pacific had successfully employed in its Challenger-class locomotives. The conversion required removing the original firebox grates entirely and replacing them with a fire pan and a purpose-built oil burner. Unlike the failed 1946 experiment on No. 4005, which used a single burner and produced uneven heating across the cavernous grate, the modern conversion employed burner technology specifically engineered for the Big Boy’s uniquely large firebox.

No. 5 fuel oil is a heavy, viscous petroleum product — sometimes called Bunker B — that must be heated before it can be pumped and atomized for combustion. In No. 4014’s oil system, the fuel is stored in the tender and fed under pressure to the burner in the firebox. The burner atomizes the oil into a fine mist, which ignites and produces the intense, even flame needed to generate steam at the rated boiler pressure of 300 pounds per square inch.

The oil-fired system offers several operational advantages over the original coal arrangement. It produces no ash or clinker to manage in the firebox, requires no manual firing with a shovel, and provides more precise control of combustion intensity. The system is also dramatically cleaner in terms of particulate emissions — an important consideration for a locomotive that regularly operates through populated areas.

On April 27, 2019, No. 4014 successfully lit its oil fire for the first time — the first Big Boy ever to burn oil successfully, and the first time a Big Boy had been fired at all in nearly sixty years. The boiler passed its hydrostatic test on February 6, 2019, and the locomotive made its first movement under its own power on the night of May 1, 2019. On May 9, 2019, No. 4014 double-headed with Union Pacific’s never-retired No. 844 through Ogden, Utah, commemorating the Transcontinental Railroad’s 150th anniversary at nearby Promontory Summit.

Fuel & Water

Tenders, Capacity, and Operational Range

Running the Big Boy across a continent is, above all, a logistics problem — a constant negotiation between the enormous appetites of the boiler and firebox and the finite carrying capacity of the equipment that follows. For No. 4014, those logistics revolve around two precious commodities: No. 5 fuel oil and water.

The large tender coupled directly behind No. 4014 is the primary locomotive tender, currently tender No. 25-C-311 — originally built for and assigned to Union Pacific Challenger No. 3985. This tender carries approximately 25,000 gallons of No. 5 fuel oil. It is an oil tender: its sole functional purpose is to fuel the locomotive’s firebox burner system. When No. 4014’s original tender, No. 25-C-116, completes its conversion from coal-carrying to oil-carrying by the Railroading Heritage of Midwest America in Silvis, Illinois, it will be reunited with the locomotive, and tender No. 25-C-311 will return to the retired No. 3985.

But the primary tender is only the beginning. On any extended excursion, No. 4014 operates with a carefully assembled support consist immediately behind the locomotive tender. The most operationally critical of these support vehicles are the auxiliary water tenders — specialized tank cars carrying additional water reserves to supplement the boiler’s needs. Two of these water tenders, named Jim Adams and Joe Jordan, are regular members of the support consist, stabled at Union Pacific’s Steam Shops in Cheyenne when not in service. They carry water only—supplementing, not replacing —the water supply in the primary tender.

Alongside the water tenders, the support consists of what amounts to a rolling machine shop: a car carrying machine tools, spare parts, and fabrication capabilities that allow the steam crew to address mechanical issues on the road. Crew dormitory and dining cars travel with the locomotive as well, providing accommodations for Union Pacific’s Heritage Fleet Operations team for the duration of each tour. Taken together, this rolling ecosystem — fuel, water, tools, and crew quarters — makes extended cross-country operations possible.

Fuel & Water at a Glance

As Trains Magazine flatly observes, No. 4014’s fuel economy is measured in gallons per mile, not miles per gallon. Under operating conditions, No. 4014 consumes between 20 and 25 gallons of No. 5 fuel oil for every mile traveled, with the actual rate depending on grade, speed, and load. At 25 gallons per mile, a full 25,000-gallon tender load provides a theoretical range of approximately 1,000 miles — though in practice, refueling occurs more frequently to maintain operational margins.

Water is, in many respects, the greater logistical challenge. A steam locomotive does not recycle its water: steam is generated in the boiler, passes through the cylinders, and is exhausted into the atmosphere. Every pound of steam that drives the pistons is lost water. The boiler itself holds approximately 10,500 gallons — enough to fill a swimming pool roughly 14 feet wide, 28 feet long, and 3½ feet deep. Under working conditions, that supply is exhausted in approximately 100 miles, requiring either a water stop or transfer from the auxiliary water tenders in the support consist. Water quality is also a significant concern: dissolved minerals can deposit scale on boiler surfaces, making treated water an operational necessity rather than a luxury.

In practical terms, combining the primary tender’s capacities with the supplemental water tenders allows No. 4014 to operate tour segments of 150 to 300 miles between major service stops, depending on terrain. On the Nebraska plains, longer runs between service stops are feasible; on mountain grades, more frequent replenishment is required. The 2026 coast-to-coast tour’s support infrastructure is planned accordingly, with fuel pre-positioned and water arranged at each overnight stop along the entire route.

Continues in Part Two 📕

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Nothing is more calculated to make a demagogue popular than a constantly reiterated demand for heavy taxes on the rich. Capital levies and high income taxes on the larger incomes are extraordinarily popular with the masses, who do not have to pay them.
— Ludwig von Mises

Words 2,857 | Read Time 13 min | Enjoy

The Rhetoric and Its Irony

Few political slogans in modern American life carry more populist energy than “tax the rich.” Chanted at rallies, stitched onto designer gowns at the Met Gala, and repeated from the floors of Congress, the phrase projects the image of raunchy righteous leaders standing with the downtrodden against rapacious plutocrats. There is just one persistent problem: a remarkable number of the politicians most loudly championing this cause are themselves very wealthy — in some cases, extraordinarily so. They occupy, by almost any definition, the very class they propose to tax. This gap between proclamation and personal circumstance is not a minor footnote; it is the central irony of American progressive politics.

A Gallery of Comfortable Crusaders

The wealth of leading progressive politicians is a matter of public record, reported annually in financial disclosures required by federal law. The figures reveal a governing class whose material comfort sits in striking contrast to the working-class constituencies they claim to champion.

Nancy Pelosi stands at or near the top of any honest accounting. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband have a net worth estimated at over $100 million — though some estimates range considerably higher. A viral post in early 2025 put Pelosi’s net worth at $202 million, and while the exact figure is disputed, experts acknowledge that her wealth is in that range. Her fortune derives largely from her husband Paul Pelosi’s investment activities — activities that have themselves generated controversy, since they occur in sectors directly affected by legislation Pelosi has overseen. Throughout her career, Pelosi has been a consistent voice for taxing the wealthy at higher rates, a position she holds while managing one of the largest personal fortunes in congressional history.1

Al Gore, a former Vice President and the most prominent political face of climate activism for two decades, has parlayed public service and ideological advocacy into a personal fortune. Al Gore is a former senator, Vice President, environmental activist, and entrepreneur who has a net worth of $300 million. Gore left the White House in 2001 with a net worth that was modest by Washington standards. His fortune was built after office through investments in green technology, the sale of his Current TV cable network to Al Jazeera for a reported $500 million, and speaking fees. He has consistently argued that the wealthy must bear a larger share of the tax burden.2

Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator whose academic career focused on economic inequality and whose presidential campaign made the wealth tax its centerpiece, is herself a millionaire. Elizabeth Warren, another progressive voice, is worth approximately $12 million. Warren’s “Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act” would impose a 2 percent annual tax on wealth above $50 million and an additional 1 percent above $1 billion. She has framed the debate in the starkest moral terms, declaring that “a secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than the CEO” and that “the current tax code is rigged against working people.” Warren’s wealth, accumulated through years of academic salaries, book advances, and investments, places her solidly in the top few percent of American households, though she falls well short of her own proposed threshold.3

Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont who made democratic socialism a mainstream conversation piece and whose rallying cry of class warfare electrified millions of younger voters, is himself a millionaire. By 2025, Bernie Sanders’ net worth is approximately $3 million. For a couple in their 80s who’ve both worked professional jobs for most of their lives, this isn’t exactly yacht money — it’s more like ‘comfortable retirement with a couple of vacation homes’ money. That characterization is telling in itself: the possessor of multiple vacation homes, decrying the decadence of the ownership class. Sanders’ wealth grew significantly after his 2016 presidential run, largely from three book deals that earned him more than $1 million. He has long called for a tax on extreme wealth, publishing detailed proposals on his Senate website to tax the net worth of the top 0.1 percent and reduce extreme inequality.4

Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader and one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, is also comfortably wealthy. One widely circulated 2025 estimate put Schumer’s net worth at $75 million, though independent analysts pegged the figure lower based on actual disclosures. Whatever the precise number, Schumer’s accumulated wealth places him squarely among the upper class of Americans he routinely campaigns against.5

Gavin Newsom, the California governor often discussed as a future presidential contender and a champion of high-tax, high-spending progressive governance, has a net worth estimated at around $30 million as of 2025, reflecting a mix of political salaries, entrepreneurial ventures, and investments. His annual salary as governor was increased to $291,715 in 2025, making him the highest-paid governor in the United States. Newsom governs the highest-income-taxed state in the nation, one that has seen significant outmigration of wealthy residents to lower-tax states — even as he presses for ever-higher levies on the rich.6

Barack Obama left the presidency with a modest fortune, but post-office prosperity transformed his financial status. Barack Obama’s net worth is estimated at around $70 million, largely from book deals after leaving office. Obama was a consistent advocate for higher taxes on high earners during his presidency, famously invoking Warren Buffett’s argument that the billionaire paid a lower effective tax rate than his secretary.7

The pattern across this mystic menagerie is consistent: politicians who have made “tax the rich” a defining cause are, by virtually any reasonable standard, themselves rich — drawing salaries multiple times the median American wage, with members of Congress earning $174,000 per annum as of 2025, almost three times the average U.S. income of around $63,600 — and accumulating net worths ranging from the comfortable millions to the spectacular hundreds of millions.8

The Grand Promise That Never Arrives

If the first irony is that the advocates of taxing the rich are themselves rich, the second is perhaps more damaging: the policy never actually gets enacted.

The public has supported raising taxes on the ultrarich and corporations for years, but policymakers have not responded. Small increases in taxes on the rich that were enacted during Democratic control of Congress and the White House have been consistently swamped by larger tax cuts enacted during Republican control.9

This is not due to a lack of formal proposals. Warren and Sanders have introduced wealth tax legislation in multiple congressional sessions. As recently as March 2026, lawmakers renewed a push for Warren and Rep. Jayapal’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, with 45-plus co-sponsors, envisioning massive investments in affordable housing, universal childcare, expanded Medicare eligibility, and tuition-free community college. The bill has approximately zero chance of becoming law, and every legislator signing on to it knows it. The proposal serves a rhetorical function: it signals solidarity with working people, energizes a progressive base, and generates fundraising — all without requiring anyone to actually do the difficult political work of coalition-building to pass legislation.10

The gap between promise and performance is a bipartisan fixture of American political life, but it is particularly acute on the left’s signature wealth-tax agenda. When Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House from 2021 to 2023 — their best legislative window in a generation — the wealth tax died without a floor vote in either chamber. The bulky-BS Build Back Better framework, despite enormous initial ambition, was whittled down repeatedly under pressure from within the Democratic caucus itself, from senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who represented states and donor classes with direct financial stakes in the outcome.

Why Implementation Fails: The Structural Explanation

The failure of wealth taxation is not simply a matter of political cowardice, though there is some of that, too. There are genuine structural forces at work.

The wealth tax proposed by Senator Warren arrives wrapped in a promise that feels almost effortless: tax the rich just a little bit more, and suddenly the country can afford everything it has been told it cannot. But wealth is not idle — it is capital in motion, financing businesses, underwriting risk, driving innovation, and fueling the productivity gains that raise living standards across an entire society. When the government systematically extracts that capital, it does not simply rebalance outcomes; it redirects resources away from productive investment into political allocation.11

International experience supports the caution. President Emmanuel Macron, no conservative, abolished France’s wealth tax in 2017 after concluding it was damaging France’s economy without meaningfully reducing inequality. The promise of the tax had been redistribution; the reality was capital flight. In California, even the proposal of a wealth tax referendum triggered capital flight, with high-profile figures such as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel, and Steven Spielberg relocating or shifting their residency. One Stanford-Hoover analysis estimated that just six such departures removed roughly $536 billion from the proposed tax base — nearly one-third of the wealth the tax was supposed to target. The tax had not even passed, yet the erosion had already begun.12

There is also the matter of who funds political campaigns. US politicians are “more dependent on the largesse of the billionaire class than ever before, giving one-four-hundredth of 1% of Americans extraordinary influence over which politicians and policies succeed.” Senators and representatives who denounce billionaires from the podium are often, the same week, attending fundraisers hosted by them. The donors who fund Democratic campaigns have their own tax attorneys and their own thresholds of tolerance for redistribution. The convergence of political incentives and donor interests creates a structural bias toward rhetoric over action.13

The Psychology of the Comfortable Reformer

There is a long tradition of wealthy reformers in American history — FDR, a Hudson Valley patrician, enacted the New Deal; the Kennedys, scions of enormous fortune, championed civil rights and anti-poverty programs. The rich advocating for taxes on the rich is not inherently cynical; sometimes it reflects genuine conviction.

But there is a difference between conviction and performance. When the same proposals are advanced decade after decade, session after session, with the full knowledge that they will not pass — and when the proposers themselves take careful advantage of every tax benefit available to their own wealth — the performance quality of the exercise becomes harder to ignore. The public is deeply distrustful of policymakers and doesn’t believe they will ever put typical families’ interests ahead of those of the rich and powerful. In tax policy debates, this means people are often highly skeptical of any proposed tax increase, even when told it will affect only the very rich.14

That skepticism is earned. The bumper sticker says “tax the rich.” The financial disclosure says the speaker is rich. The legislative calendar confirms no such tax will pass. The cycle repeats: the next election, the same politicians, the same speeches, the same unfulfilled promise.

Conclusion

“Tax the rich” is one of the most durable and politically potent slogans in American progressive politics. It captures a real grievance — wealth concentration in the United States is historically severe, and the tax code does offer significant advantages to those with capital over those who work for wages. These are legitimate concerns deserving serious policy attention.

But the crusade against wealth inequality has become, in practice, a comfortable identity for comfortable people. The politicians who invoke it most passionately — worth tens of millions of dollars, drawing six-figure salaries, attending fundraisers with the very billionaires they campaign against — have had ample opportunity to act and have not. The wealth tax bills accumulate co-sponsors, generate press releases, and die in committee. The net worths of their sponsors continue to grow.

A political movement sincere about taxing the rich might start with something unfamiliar in Washington: a degree of personal accountability, and a reckoning with the distance between the podium and the portfolio.

Parting Shot: The Miseducated Mind and the Daily Dose of Gaslighting

Perhaps the most underappreciated dimension of this entire spectacle is not the hypocrisy of the wealthy politician, nor the structural futility of legislation designed to fail. It is the stunning effectiveness of the con on the people it purports to help.

Consider the machinery required to sustain it. A senator worth tens of millions of dollars steps to a microphone and declares himself the champion of the working poor. A former Vice President, worth $300 million, jets between climate conferences on private aircraft while demanding that ordinary Americans bear the costs of the green energy transition. A Speaker of the House, presiding over a fortune that would take the average American worker several lifetimes to accumulate, rails against the greed of the ownership class. And the audience — burdened by student debt, squeezed by rent, watching their savings erode against inflation — applauds. They donate. They canvass. They vote.

This is not politics. It is a masterclass in gaslighting, executed at an industrial scale.

Gaslighting, in its clinical sense, is the manipulation of a person into doubting their own perception of reality. In its political form, it works like this: the very conditions that make people miserable — stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, a tax code riddled with loopholes for the connected — are perpetuated by the people who campaign most loudly against them. The voter who feels the system is rigged is told, year after year, that it is indeed rigged, that rescue is coming, that this election is the one that will finally change things. The rescue never comes. The system remains rigged. The politicians grow richer. And the cycle begins again, with fresh urgency and a new villain conveniently identified just in time for the next fundraising quarter.

The vulnerability that makes this possible is not stupidity. The people drawn to the “tax the rich” banner are often thoughtful, frustrated, and entirely correct that wealth inequality is a genuine and serious problem. Their vulnerability is something more insidious: miseducation. Decades of declining civic instruction have produced a citizenry increasingly unable to distinguish between a politician who holds a position and one who intends to act on it — between a press release and a law, between a co-sponsor list and a policy outcome. When you have never been taught how a bill actually becomes law, how campaign finance actually works, or how to read a financial disclosure form, you are left with nothing but the speech — and the speech is very good indeed.

Hope, under these conditions, is not a virtue. It is a vulnerability — one that a certain class of political professional has learned to monetize with extraordinary precision.

The antidote is not cynicism. Cynicism is simply despair wearing a trench coat, and it serves the grifter just as well as credulity does — the cynic who refuses to engage is no threat to anyone. The antidote is a colder, harder, more demanding form of attention: one that measures politicians not by the fervor of their rhetoric but by the content of their financial disclosures, the fate of their legislative priorities, and the distance between what they say in October and what they do in January.

Until that attention becomes widespread, the creepy crummy mantra will continue. The rallies will fill. The donations will flow. The bills will die in committee. And the comfortable champions of the uncomfortable will return home to their vacation properties, satisfied that another cycle of democratic theater has been successfully staged — and that the audience, as always, never asked for a refund.📕

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The magnitude cannot be overstated. What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud. It’s swamping Minnesota and calling into question everything we know about our state.”
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson

Words 2,370 | Read Time 11 min | Enjoy

Foreword

When congressional committees convened hearings to interrogate Minnesota officials about the Feeding Our Future scandal, the daycare controversies, and the cascading Medicaid frauds that have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions—possibly billions—of dollars, the optics were compelling. Legislators leaned into microphones, expressed outrage, and demanded accountability. What they did not do was look in the mirror.

The uncomfortable truth is that Congress did not merely fail to prevent these frauds. Congress built the system that made them not just possible but, in retrospect, nearly inevitable. And in doing so, it also helped fuel the inflation that has eroded the purchasing power of every American’s paycheck.

Congress Appropriates. Congress Bears Responsibility.

Every dollar that flowed through Feeding Our Future, through fraudulent autism clinics, through ghost daycare centers, and through the housing stabilization services scheme originated in a congressional appropriation. The federal child nutrition programs exploited by Feeding Our Future draw their authority from statutes Congress passed and funds Congress allocated. Medicaid programs riddled with billing fraud are financed primarily by the federal government—in Minnesota’s case, the federal share is roughly 64 cents of every dollar spent. The Child Care Assistance Program, which became the focus of the viral daycare controversy, is likewise a creature of federal statute and federal funding.

When Congress authorizes a program and appropriates money for it, it accepts a corresponding obligation: to design that program with adequate safeguards, to fund its oversight adequately, and to monitor whether the money is being used as intended. On all three counts, Congress has chronically failed.

The Pandemic Acceleration: Congress Turned Off the Safeguards

The Feeding Our Future fraud did not erupt from nowhere. It erupted from a specific policy decision made in Washington. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, Congress passed emergency legislation that dramatically expanded child nutrition programs and simultaneously relaxed the documentation and verification requirements that existed to prevent abuse. The intent was to move money quickly to families in crisis. The result was that billions of dollars were placed into a distribution system with the oversight mechanisms stripped out.

Minnesota education officials had already flagged Feeding Our Future as a problematic organization before the pandemic began. They had labeled it “severely deficient” and attempted to cut off its funding. But pandemic-era emergency rules, shaped by congressional action, flooded the program with money faster than any state apparatus could manage, and the legal environment made it difficult to deny applications even from organizations already under scrutiny.

Congress created the flood and removed the levees simultaneously. This pattern was not unique to Minnesota. Federal investigators documented pandemic fraud totaling tens of billions of dollars across unemployment insurance, Paycheck Protection Program loans, and nutrition assistance programs nationwide. The common thread in every case was a congressional decision to prioritize the rapid disbursement of money over the maintenance of controls. Speed was treated as a virtue. Verification was treated as an obstacle.

Printing Money, Paying the Price: How This Fuels Inflation

The fraud scandals in Minnesota are not merely a story about stolen dollars. They are a story about what happens when a government that issues a fiat currency treats the creation and disbursement of money as cost-free. It is not.

The United States does not tax and spend in a simple loop. When Congress authorizes enormous emergency expenditures—as it did repeatedly during the pandemic—and when those expenditures are not fully offset by tax revenue, the difference is financed by issuing new debt. That debt is purchased, in significant part, by the Federal Reserve, which creates the money to buy it. This is the mechanism by which government spending that exceeds revenue expands the money supply. More dollars chase the same quantity of goods. Prices rise. Every American pays a hidden tax in the form of inflation.

Fraud makes this dynamic worse in a specific and underappreciated way. When legitimate government spending reaches its intended recipients, it typically flows back into the productive economy: a family uses a childcare subsidy to pay a real provider, who pays real employees, who buy real goods and services. The multiplier effect, while debated in its magnitude, at least involves economic activity. But when hundreds of millions of dollars are stolen through ghost daycares, fake meal sites, and fraudulent Medicaid billing, those dollars do not flow into productive economic activity. They flow into luxury goods, overseas real estate, and accounts beyond the reach of American law. The money supply was expanded—the inflationary pressure was created—but no corresponding productive value was added to the economy.

In other words, the American public was charged twice: once through the inflation tax that accompanied the money creation, and once through the direct loss of the stolen funds. The beneficiaries were fraudsters. The victims were everyone who bought groceries, paid rent, or filled a gas tank in the years that followed.

The Federal Reserve’s response to pandemic-era inflation—the most aggressive interest rate tightening in four decades—carried its own costs: higher mortgage rates that locked millions of Americans out of the housing market, increased debt service costs for the federal government, and a credit crunch that constrained small-business growth. Every one of those downstream harms traces a chain of causation back, in part, to Congress’s decision to spend without adequate verification.

Structural Negligence: The Oversight Gap by Design

Beyond the pandemic emergency, there is a deeper and more chronic problem. Congress routinely authorizes programs and appropriates funds without providing adequate resources for their administration and oversight. The Minnesota Medicaid system, which investigators now believe may have lost as much as $9 billion to fraud since 2018, was monitored by a fraud team consisting of four investigators at the time the scandals broke. Four people are responsible for policing billions of dollars in annual expenditures across dozens of programs and thousands of providers.

This is not an accident of state mismanagement alone. Federal Medicaid law and congressional appropriations shape how much states can and must invest in program integrity. The Government Accountability Office has documented for decades that Medicaid’s structure creates systemic vulnerabilities: it is a massive, complex, jointly administered program in which the federal government provides the bulk of the money but relies on states to administer it, and neither level of government has an unambiguous incentive to invest heavily in fraud prevention. The federal government is spending someone else’s administrative capacity; the states are spending someone else’s money. Congress has repeatedly received GAO reports detailing these vulnerabilities and has repeatedly failed to mandate the structural reforms that would close them.

Congressional Hearings as Performance

When Congress hauls state officials before a committee to answer for fraud that occurred under their watch, it is engaged in a deeply dishonest theater. The implicit premise of such hearings is that the problem lies with the administrators who mismanaged federal money. The premise that is never examined is whether the programs were ever designed to succeed.

Legislators who voted for emergency pandemic relief without verification requirements, who have declined year after year to fund robust Medicaid program-integrity operations, and who have resisted electronic attendance-verification systems for childcare despite GAO recommendations are not investigators of a problem. They are architects of it.

There is something particularly brazen about members of Congress treating Minnesota’s fraud scandals as an opportunity to score political points, when the congressional record on program oversight is so plainly inadequate. The daycare controversy generated hearings, press releases, and executive branch actions within weeks of a viral video. The slow accumulation of GAO and Inspector General reports documenting systemic Medicaid vulnerabilities over the preceding decade generated almost nothing.

The Asymmetry of Accountability

The fraudsters who exploited these programs deserve prosecution, and most of those identified in the Minnesota cases have been or are being prosecuted. That is appropriate. But the accountability structure that has emerged from these scandals is radically asymmetric. Individual perpetrators face prison. State administrators face congressional hearings and public humiliation. The federal legislators who designed programs without adequate controls, who stripped verification requirements during the pandemic, and who declined to fund meaningful oversight face no accountability at all—indeed, they occupy the chairs and wield the gavels.

This asymmetry is not accidental. Congressional investigations are self-investigations, and they are structured accordingly. The scope of inquiry is always defined in a way that keeps the camera pointed at the executive branch and away from the legislative one. When fraud erupts in a federally funded, state-administered program, the natural target is the state. The question of whether Congress gave the state an impossible task—vast sums of money, inadequate tools, and conflicting legal constraints—is rarely asked.

What Real Accountability Would Look Like

If Congress were genuinely interested in preventing the next Minnesota-scale fraud rather than exploiting the current one, the legislative agenda would look very different. It would include mandatory electronic attendance verification for all federally funded childcare programs, something the GAO has recommended and Congress has never required. It would include robust, adequately funded federal-state fraud-coordination units within Medicaid, rather than the skeletal teams that states currently field. It would include honest legislative post-mortems on the pandemic emergency relief programs that examine the actual cost to taxpayers of documentation waivers.

And it would include a serious reckoning of the monetary consequences of undisciplined spending. Every dollar that leaves the Treasury without adequate verification is not merely a dollar lost to fraud. It is a dollar that was created—expanding the money supply, diluting the value of every dollar already in circulation, and imposing an invisible tax on every American who had nothing to do with the scandal and no power to prevent it.

Conclusion: The Red Herring in the Hearing Room

Congressional investigations into the Minnesota fraud scandals are, in a meaningful sense, an investigation of Congress’s own handiwork. The hearings are a red herring—a way of directing public anger at state administrators, immigrant communities, and program recipients, rather than at the legislative branch that designed the programs, set the funding levels, waived the safeguards, and then declined to mandate the oversight that would have caught the fraud early.

The real scandal is not that fraudsters found and exploited gaps in government programs. Fraudsters always will. The real scandal is that Congress kept creating those gaps, kept being warned about them, and kept doing nothing—while the money supply expanded, prices rose, and ordinary Americans paid the bill.

Until Congress accepts that appropriating money without adequate oversight is not generosity but negligence—fiscal, administrative, and monetary—the hearings will continue, the press releases will continue, and, in the next crisis, so will the fraud.

Postscript: The War That Buried the Story

There is a bitter irony in the timing of what you have just read. By the time this essay reaches you, the fraud scandals that consumed Minnesota’s political oxygen for the better part of two years — Feeding Our Future, the ghost Medicaid billers, the autism clinics that never treated a child, the daycare centers that may or may not have been empty — have been largely swallowed by a far larger news event.

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iran, targeting military and government sites, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and triggering Iranian retaliatory missile and drone strikes across the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict disrupted global travel and trade, halted flights across the Middle East, and sent shipping lines scrambling to reroute around the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. Oil markets lurched. NATO allies scrambled. A region already scarred by years of proxy conflict was plunged into open war.

Against that backdrop, the question of who stole $250 million from a school lunch program in Minneapolis does not trend. The congressional hearings have quieted. The press conferences have stopped. The accountability that was never really coming has now been given a perfectly respectable excuse for not arriving.

This too is a pattern worth naming. Large-scale government fraud rarely gets the sustained reckoning it deserves precisely because the news cycle is infinite and human attention is not. A war — any war, but especially one involving nuclear facilities, great-power calculations, and the assassination of a head of state — is the ultimate page-turner. Everything before it becomes, in the media’s taxonomy, old news. The stolen billions become a footnote. The structural failures of Congress that enabled the theft go not merely unexamined but unremembered.

The fraudsters who are still awaiting trial may quietly calculate that a distracted public, an overwhelmed Justice Department, and a federal prosecutor’s office already depleted by resignations make their odds somewhat better than they were six months ago. They may not be wrong.

The Strait of Hormuz has since partially reopened. The war grinds on. And somewhere in Minneapolis, the ledger of stolen dollars sits in a federal courthouse, waiting for a moment of national attention that may never fully return.

The money is still gone. The system that lost it is still intact. And Congress is still writing the checks.

Parting Shot and Bottom Line

Show me where the Constitution mandates ANY money to be bled out of the treasury for these “programs” — $521 Billion and counting. It is all part of a pogrom that will end our Republic.📕

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… the masses would approvingly walk in ankle-deep manure up to their ankles, goose-stepping for their creepy crummy collective. As an example of the reality, open your eyes to the grim state of affairs in Canada due to slimy socialized medicine. There, it is not a matter of horse manure; it is a lot worse. In fact, it is the stark reality of facing a high rate of death due to a lack of health care.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,504 | Read Time 7 min | Enjoy

The Promise and the Paradox

Socialism, in the thorny theory of the manipulators, promises equality, security, and collective prosperity. It envisions a society in which no one goes without, in which the state ensures that every need—housing, healthcare, education—is met. The ideal is seductive: a system where everyone shares in the wealth and no one is left behind.

Yet reality tells a different story. Across history, we see that no matter how poorly a smoky socialist system performs—chronic shortages, declining quality, and soaring inflation—there is always a persistent demand for “more.” Citizens clamor for expanded programs, increased benefits, and additional “relief,” even when the very system that provides these goods undermines productivity, supply, and the value of money. This paradox is not a fluke; it is baked into the structure of such economies and the psychology they produce. Evascorated equity for all!

Elite Prosperity vs. Mass Scarcity

One of the most striking aspects of socialist systems is the disparity between the phony ruling elite and the general population. Leaders enjoy privileges far beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. They live in secure, well-appointed quarters, have easy access to scarce goods, and command influence over economic and political life. Meanwhile, ordinary people wait in lines for necessities, struggle to access quality healthcare, and watch the variety of goods shrink year after year.

This contrast fuels a dangerous dynamic. The public sees the promise of more: more housing, more healthcare, more welfare. They believe that increased intervention can improve their lives, even as the system gradually erodes the conditions needed for sustainable abundance and fuels inflation that devalues wages and savings. The leaders grow wealthier and more insulated, while the masses, conditioned to expect “free” goods, remain hopeful and demanding. As free stuff increases, the quality of products or services declines. But “what difference does it make” as the end (Utopia) justifies the means.

Yet the dopy, dumbed-down, and brain-washed masses danced in gloating glee to the sight and sounds of the self-proclaimed collectivist preacher, the great Mamdani, with his hand on a Koran. In his inaugural speech, he vowed to replace “the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”1 Creepy, crummy collectivism in its different forms has caused the deaths of over 100 million people in the past century. Please, enough with the nasty notion of the wobbly ‘warmth of collectivism.’

Scarcity and Inflation as Tools

Scarcity is normalized in socialist economies. Goods are rationed, services are limited, and delays are framed as “temporary setbacks.” The public becomes conditioned to accept scarcity as inevitable, blaming inefficiency or external threats rather than the system itself.

At the same time, expansive social programs and government spending often require financing through currency expansion, which directly fuels inflation. Prices rise, purchasing power falls, and the money people rely on for essentials loses value. Every new subsidy, program, or “free” allocation is welcomed by the public, even as it accelerates inflation, reduces overall supply, and further erodes quality. Scarcity and inflation become twin tools of dependence: the population receives relief but loses absolute economic freedom.

The Stockholm Syndrome of Support

Propaganda and psychological conditioning reinforce this cycle. Psyops on steroids. Socialist regimes present themselves as benevolent, framing shortages and inflation as setbacks caused by enemies, sabotage, or market forces beyond the people’s control. Over time, the masses develop a psychological attachment to the system—a kind of Stockholm syndrome.

They rationalize dependence, defend authorities, and actively advocate for more expansive socialist programs, even as these policies worsen scarcity, drive up prices, and undermine their own prosperity. Citizens cling to the promise of relief and security, seeing the state as a protector rather than a driver of economic dysfunction.

Given the above, the masses would approvingly walk in ankle-deep manure up to their ankles, goose-stepping for their creepy crummy collective. As an example of the reality, open your eyes to the grim state of affairs in Canada due to slimy socialized medicine. There, it is not a matter of horse manure; it is a lot worse. In fact, it is the stark reality of Canadians facing a high rate of death due to a lack of health care.

Analysis: A Primer on Popular Socialist Phrases

Many contemporary policies are promoted with appealing labels, but beneath the rhetoric lie systemic risks, scarcity, and inflationary pressures.

• Affordability – Policies that artificially control prices or subsidize consumption create shortages and inflation. Attempts to make goods “cheap” in nominal terms often reduce supply and increase absolute scarcity.

• Crummy Collectivism – Prioritizing the group over the individual can stifle personal initiative and entrepreneurial drive. Productivity declines as inflationary pressures rise when the government increases spending to honor commitments.

• Environmental Justice – Well-intentioned mandates often increase costs, create inefficiencies, and contribute to price pressures that exacerbate inflationary effects.

• Equity – Focusing on equal outcomes often requires heavy redistribution and coercive measures, which can distort markets and drive inflation through higher public spending.

• Complimentary Transportation – Eliminating fares increases operational costs and typically requires subsidies funded by taxpayers or debt, which can further fuel inflation and reduce infrastructure maintenance.

• Universal Basic Income – Cash payments with no conditions may relieve poverty in the short term. Still, risk disincentivizes work, reduces labor supply, and fuels inflation as more money chases a limited supply of goods.

• Universal Daycare – While appealing, it risks dependency, higher taxes, and inflationary costs, while reducing parental choice and personal responsibility.

• Universal Healthcare – Broad access is appealing, but centrally planned systems often face shortages, long wait times, reduced quality, and ballooning public costs, which can fuel inflation if financed through deficit spending or currency expansion. Think Canada.

Each of these policies, while appealing in theory, carries hidden costs that drive scarcity and inflation. The population focuses on short-term gains, ignoring the long-term erosion of purchasing power and economic freedom.

Historical Illustrations

From the Soviet Union to Venezuela, the pattern repeats. Citizens endured ration lines, long waits, declining quality, and runaway inflation, yet demanded more programs and subsidies. Leaders lived comfortably, insulated from economic consequences, while the public defended the system and clung to hope for relief. Scarcity and inflation became normalized, yet loyalty to the system persisted.

A Somber Reflection

It is with profound sadness that to recognize echoes of this pattern in what was once the United States. Cities like New York—once engines of opportunity, innovation, and prosperity—now show signs of the same dynamics: escalating promises, expansive social programs, soaring costs, and leaders increasingly insulated from the consequences of their policies.

The hope for “more” has become a shadow that blinds citizens to the slow erosion of productive institutions. Inflation silently reduces wages, savings, and the real value of promised benefits. What was once a society built on opportunity, merit, and initiative now teeters toward dependency, scarcity, and elite insulation. In this sense, the United States is becoming the USSA that we once studied only in textbooks.

Conclusion

The paradox of socialist demand is both economic and psychological. A system that enriches leaders while providing fleeting relief to the masses ensures that calls for more persist, even as inflation erodes real wealth. When combined with a Stockholm-like attachment to the very structures that limit them, citizens advocate for their own diminishment.

Having lived through decades of change in the United States, I watch with disbelief and sorrow as elements of this dynamic unfold in the cities I once knew as beacons of liberty and opportunity. Scarcity, dependence, and inflation march hand in hand, and the cycle is no longer just history—it is happening before our eyes, and the lesson is as sobering as it is urgent.

Parting Shot

This essay rigorously criticizes socialist programs as bankrupting the nation through excessive spending and debt. Yet, similar mechanisms operate on the “other side” of the political spectrum, such as the funding of the military-industrial complex (MIC)—a term coined by President Eisenhower in 1961 to warn of undue influence by defense contractors. It is all about the Creature from Jekyll Island. 📕

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We hold this truth to be self-​evident, that God created all men equal, and is one of the most prominent features in the Declaration of Independence, and in that glorious fabrick of collected wisdom, our noble Constitution. This idea embraces the Indian and the European, the Savage and the Saint, the Peruvian and the Laplander, the white Man and the African, and whatever measures are adopted subversive of this inestimable privilege, are in direct violation of the letter and spirit of our Constitution, and become subject to the animadversion of all, particularly those who are deeply interested in the measure.
Jems Fortin, A MAN OF COLOUR, April, 1813.

Words 1,746 | Read Time 7 min | Enjoy

Foreword

This essay continues my exploration of overlooked African American contributors to our nation’s founding story, building directly on my earlier piece about Alice of Dunk’s Ferry—an enslaved woman whose long life bridged centuries and witnessed Philadelphia’s transformation from wilderness to bustling city. You can read that post here: The Original Alice of Wonder.

Like Alice, James Forten’s experiences highlight resilience amid profound challenges, but his path took a different turn: born free, he leveraged his skills, courage, and opportunities to become a wealthy entrepreneur and a vocal advocate for equality. Both figures remind us how Black individuals—enslaved and free—helped expand American ideals of liberty, even as the nation fell short. My interest in these stories deepened while reading David Hackett Fischer’s African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals, and I’m honored to keep sharing them.

I first really got to know James Forten’s story while working my way through David Hackett Fischer’s African Founders. It’s a terrific and very lengthy but readable book—thorough, eye-opening—and Forten jumps off the page as one of those standout examples of someone who lived the revolutionary promise while constantly pushing back against the nation’s failures on race. Fischer shows how free and formerly enslaved Black people didn’t just survive in the early republic; they actively shaped its ideas about freedom and equality. Forten embodied that in a significant way, and examining his life after reading the book felt like the natural next step. What follows is my take on who he was, pieced together from what I’ve read in Fisher’s book and other sources (see list at the end of this essay) and reflected on since.

Born Free in a Time of Contradictions

James Forten was born free in Philadelphia on September 2, 1766, into a world where freedom for Black people was rare and fragile. His parents, Thomas and Margaret (sometimes listed as Sarah) Forten, were free, and his father made a living as a sailmaker—a skilled trade tied to the city’s busy port. Tragedy struck early: Thomas died when James was only seven, leaving the family in tough straits. By age nine, the boy had to quit school to help support his mother and sister. At that same age, he vividly remembered the reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Pennsylvania State House.

He had managed a couple of years at the African School run by the Quaker Anthony Benezet, picking up reading, writing, and some math—enough to spark a lifelong habit of learning and clear thinking. Philadelphia, back then, was alive with revolutionary talk, a mix of free Blacks, enslaved people, immigrants, and everyone else rubbing shoulders in a port city that prided itself on liberty yet tolerated slavery.

A Teenage Sailor in the Revolutionary War

As a teenager, Forten watched the war unfold and decided he wanted in. At fourteen or fifteen, he signed on as a powder boy aboard the privateer Royal Louis, helping load cannons and handle gunpowder in fights against British ships. Privateering was risky business, but it was one way a young Black man could strike a blow for independence.

His second cruise ended badly. The ship was captured by the British frigate Amphion, and Forten found himself a prisoner. For a Black captive in 1781, the usual fate was sale into slavery in the Caribbean. But something unexpected happened: while aboard, he played marbles with the captain’s young son and won the boy’s respect. Impressed by Forten’s character and loyalty, the captain offered to take him to England, educate him alongside his own son, and set him up with opportunities there, away from the war and the threat of enslavement.

Forten turned it down flat. He told the captain he was fighting for his country’s freedom and wouldn’t betray that cause, no matter the personal cost. Instead, he was transferred to the infamous prison ship Jersey (often called HMS Jersey) in New York Harbor, where he endured seven grueling months as prisoner number 4102. Conditions aboard the Jersey were horrific—overcrowded, disease-ridden, vermin-infested, with thousands of American prisoners dying from malnutrition, smallpox, and other illnesses.

James Forten survived the ordeal, thanks in part to a sympathetic British officer who ensured he was included on the exchange list. He was released in a prisoner exchange in the spring of 1782 (around March or April). Paroled and left in the New York/Brooklyn area with a promise not to fight again, he began the long walk home to Philadelphia—a journey of roughly 90–100 miles. Emaciated from months of starvation, his hair falling out in clumps from malnutrition and disease, and barefoot much of the way, he trudged to Trenton, New Jersey. There, kind locals took pity on him and provided shoes, food, and aid to help him continue. I now wonder about the countless times my local travels have intersected James Fortin’s treacherous trek between New York and Philadelphia.

When he finally reached Philadelphia, his mother and sister—having believed him dead after reports of the Royal Louis’s capture—embraced him in shock and joy. They nursed him back to health during a brief recovery period at home.

Once he regained his strength, Forten soon returned to sea on a merchant ship. He worked passage to England aboard the Commerce (or a similar vessel), arriving in London around 1784. He spent over a year—typically described as about a year—living and working in the city’s shipyards and sail lofts along the River Thames. This time honed his skills in sailmaking and related trades, giving him valuable experience and exposure to advanced techniques before he headed back across the Atlantic.

He returned to Philadelphia around 1785 (some accounts specify exactly 1785; others place it in the mid-1780s), now determined to build a lasting future in the city of his birth.

From Apprentice to One of the City’s Wealthiest Men

He returned to the sailmaking trade he’d learned from his father, apprenticing under Robert Bridges, the same man who’d employed Thomas. Forten was quick and inventive; he rose fast to foreman. When Bridges retired in 1798, he handed the business over to his talented former apprentice.

Forten turned that sail loft into one of the city’s best. At its height, he employed approximately forty workers—Black and white together—in an era when such an integrated workforce was almost unheard of. He developed a clever device for managing heavy sails (he even obtained a patent for an improved version), which increased efficiency and safety.

By the early 1800s, his wealth reportedly exceeded $100,000—a substantial sum that placed him among the richest African Americans in the country. He lent money, purchased property, and weathered economic storms, including the War of 1812, during which he helped organize Black volunteers to defend Philadelphia.

Using Wealth and Influence to Fight for Justice

Money gave him leverage, and he used it. In 1787, he helped found the Free African Society with Richard Allen and Absalom Jones—a mutual-aid group that supported the Black community through illness, death, and hardship. He poured resources into the fight against slavery.

In 1813, he wrote a powerful series of pamphlets called “Letters from a Man of Colour,” slamming a Pennsylvania proposal that would have forced free Blacks to register and restricted new Black arrivals—measures he saw as thinly veiled steps toward re-enslavement. He argued that Black Americans had earned their place by blood and labor, including in the Revolution.

He fiercely rejected the American Colonization Society’s push to send free Blacks to Africa. To him, that was just a way to clear the field so slavery could continue without vocal opponents at home. He wanted full rights here, in the country his generation had helped build.

Forten backed William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator newspaper, helped start the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 (serving as vice president), and hosted abolitionists at his home. His family carried the torch too—nine children, several of whom became educators, activists, and businesspeople in their own right.

Family, Legacy, and a Funeral That Spoke Volumes

Forten married Charlotte Vandine in 1805; they built a strong household amid all the activism. He passed away on March 4, 1842, at seventy-five. His funeral drew huge crowds—Black and white alike—showing the respect he’d earned across lines.

Why Forten Still Matters

Looking back, Forten’s path—from Revolutionary sailor to wealthy craftsman to leading voice for justice—captures so much about what the early United States could have been and what it too often wasn’t. He lived the ideals of liberty while calling out the hypocrisy around race.

Fischer’s book led me to view him not as an exception but as part of a broader story of Black contributions that expanded the meaning of “American.” His example still resonates: resilience, principle, and the refusal to settle for less than full belonging. 📕

Sources

• African Founders; How Enslaved People Expaned American Ideals ~ David Hackett Fischer ~ 941 pages, Simon & Schuster (publisher), May 2022

• African American James Forten: Privateer, Businessman, Inventor, and Leading Abolitionist ~ Revolutionary War Journal

• Letters From a Man of Color ~ www.libertarianism.org

• Black Founders Big Idea 4: James Forten and Entrepreneurs of African Descent ~ Museum of the American Revolution

• Black Founders Big Idea 1: Young James Forten’s World ~ Museum of the American Revolution

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What makes these bills especially revealing is their sameness of spirit despite their varied subject matter. Education, health care, housing, voting, incarceration, jury service—distinct domains, yet governed by a single logic: You will be integrated into the approved framework, for your own “good.” Choice is tolerated only so long as it aligns with the collective pain plan.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,371 | Read Time 6 min | Enjoy

Foreword

In late 2025, as the crummy collective New Jersey Legislature entered its lame-duck session, a period between the general election and the seating of newly elected lawmakers, political commentators and some state legislators drew attention to a set of legislative proposals they characterized as unusual or potentially controversial. A video released by the New Jersey Assembly GOP titled “The 10 Craziest Bills in New Jersey (You Won’t Believe #1)” highlighted ten bills that could move through the Legislature quickly at the end of the year. These include proposals touching on voting rights, education policy, health care access, housing, and civil procedures.

The Bone-Headed Bills

Below is an outline of each bill as described by allied social media posts and political commentary tied to the video’s release:

1. A1975 – Inmate Placement Based on Gender Identity

This bill would require the New Jersey Department of Corrections to assign incarcerated individuals to facilities consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth, and to use their preferred gender pronouns.

2. A2874 – Lowering Consent Age for Behavioral Health Care

Under this proposal, minors aged 14 and older could consent to specific behavioral health care treatments without parental approval, lowering the existing age threshold from 16 to 14.

3. A5796 – Homeschool Oversight Requirements

This bill would require families who educate their children at home to meet at least once a year with a representative of their local public school district, adding a layer of oversight to home education programs.

4. A4369 – School Board Voting by 16- and 17-Year-Olds

Currently, New Jersey residents must be 18 to vote in most elections. This bill would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local school board elections, expanding youth participation in that specific form of civic governance.

5. A1701 – Health Coverage for Undocumented Immigrants

This proposal would authorize the State to provide comprehensive health insurance coverage to undocumented individuals, extending public health care access to residents without formal immigration status.

6. A4987 – Immigrant Protections (“New Jersey Immigrant Trust Act”)

Also referred to as the “Immigrant Trust Act,” this bill would establish legal protections for immigrants interacting with state agencies, in part by limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

7. A2239 – Board Diversity Requirements

A2239 would require certain boards and commissions to meet racial and gender diversity standards in their membership, aiming to expand representation on State and local governing bodies.

8. A4691 – Affordable Housing Funding Appropriation

This measure calls for a supplemental appropriation of $100 million to the Affordable Housing Production Fund, directed toward completing 100% affordable housing projects through the Department of Community Affairs.

9. A4601 – Reproductive and Health Insurance Coverage

A4601 would mandate that health insurance plans in New Jersey, including Medicaid, cover “reproductive health care services” without prohibiting malpractice insurers from taking adverse actions against providers who provide such care.

10. A909 – Expanding Juror Eligibility

Traditionally, individuals with certain criminal convictions are excluded from jury service. This bill seeks to remove disqualifications for certain convictions and expand the list of sources used to compile juror pools, thereby affecting who may serve on juries.

Context and Legislative Environment

These bills surfaced during the “lame duck” session, a time at the end of a legislative term when outgoing members can pass legislation before newly elected lawmakers take office. Critics say proposals introduced in such sessions may receive limited public review. Supporters argue that timely action on “pressing” issues is sometimes needed. The debate in New Jersey followed broader conversations about oversight, civil liberties, health care access, and political representation.

Madness Made to Order: Assimilation by Statute New Jersey Style

In my earlier essay on the Progressive Collective, the analogy to the Borg was not chosen for shock value. It was selected for accuracy. The defining trait of the Borg is not cruelty or chaos, but certainty—the absolute conviction that assimilation is improvement and resistance is pathology. The bills examined here are the legislative expression of that same willy wacky worldview. They are not random proposals. They are assimilation protocols, written into law.

This is Madness Made to Order: madness not as spectacle, but as system.

Each of the common-ist crummy bills outlined above advances the same insane premise—that independent judgment exercised by families, local institutions, or citizens themselves is inefficient, outdated, or dangerous. Parents hesitate? The State will decide. Communities differ? The State will standardize. Long-standing civic thresholds exist? The State will recalibrate them. Does the individual conscience resist? Resistance, as always, is futile.

What makes these bills especially revealing is their sameness of spirit despite their varied subject matter. Education, health care, housing, voting, incarceration, jury service—distinct domains, yet governed by a single logic: You will be integrated into the approved framework, for your own “good.” Choice is tolerated only so long as it aligns with the collective pain plan.

Like the Borg, this lousy, lice-infected legislative Collective speaks in the language of inevitability. Expansion is frequently depicted as exaggerated progress, whereasization is consistently regarded as a manifestation of fairness. Oversight is always called protection. Costs are someone else’s problem; consequences are someone else’s future. The machine moves forward not because it has proven its wisdom, but because it assumes its AI-like authority.

The erosion of parental authority, the dilution of civic standards, the redefinition of participation without responsibility—these are not bugs. They are features. Distinct roles create friction. Boundaries create dissent. The Progressive Collective prefers smooth surfaces, interchangeable parts, and managed outcomes. Individual variation complicates the model.

Even the procedural behavior matches the metaphor. These bills advance most aggressively during moments of weakest accountability, when scrutiny is lowest and resistance most easily bypassed. That is not democratic urgency; it is bureaucratic opportunism. The Collective does not persuade. It processes.

What emerges is a governing philosophy that no longer trusts citizens to govern themselves, yet insists it is acting on their behalf. It expands rights while hollowing out agency, broadens inclusion while narrowing acceptable belief, and redefines compassion as compliance. The result is a society that is technically cared for, meticulously regulated, and increasingly unrecognizable to those who built it.

This is why the term Madness Made to Order fits so precisely. There is no frenzy here, no breakdown, no loss of control. Quite the opposite. This is madness with a clipboard—orderly, procedural, and utterly convinced of its moral superiority. It does not ask whether it should intervene, only whether it has intervened enough.

In the Borg Collective, individuality is not destroyed violently; it is absorbed. The same is true here. No single bill screams tyranny. Together, they whisper something far more dangerous: that autonomy is optional, dissent is inefficient, and professionals best manage freedom.

That is not progress.
That is assimilation.

A Note to Readers

Legislation does not advance in a vacuum. It moves—quietly or loudly—based on the assumption that the public is either unaware or disengaged. That assumption only holds if it goes unchallenged.

New Jersey readers who have concerns about the direction and substance of these proposals may wish to communicate those concerns directly to their elected representatives. Clear, civil correspondence remains one of the few ways citizens can place their views into the official record and remind legislators that public authority is neither abstract nor unconditional.

Representative government depends, at a minimum, on representatives hearing from the people they serve. 📕

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Antifa is a myth among intellectual giants with pea brains. In reality, this group is a highly coordinated assembly of mentally ill entities void of joy. Among other things, Antifa guards the entrance to drag queen shows to enable young children and their dopey parents to attend these evil events. Antifa creeps, which entirely resemble the Borg absent the goofy umbrellas, are the progressives’ police force, and it is a projection - they are the fascists.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 2,036 | Read Time 9 min | Enjoy

Foreword

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Borg Collective stands as one of science fiction’s starkest portrayals of totalizing control—a society where individuality is erased, personal history is stripped away, and each person becomes a mere component of a single, unyielding will. Their warning, “Resistance is futile,” is more than a threat; it is a declaration that identity itself no longer matters.

Modern progressive politics, at least in principle, seeks to expand rights, protect vulnerable groups, and build a more just society. Yet critics often draw comparisons between its methods and the Borg’s demand for collective thinking. These parallels suggest that progressive goals lead to destruction, and raise the question of how much the movement values ideological unity, group identity, and conformity of thought.

The Dimming of Individual Distinctiveness

The sharpest point of comparison lies in the tension between the individual and the collective. For the Borg, individuality gets treated as a flaw to be corrected; the Collective’s single voice replaces memories, personality, and free will.

Arguably, a similar dynamic can emerge within progressive circles. When social and political issues are filtered primarily through categories of race, gender, or sexuality, individuals may feel reduced to symbols of their groups. Personal experiences and independent moral judgment get overshadowed by a collective narrative that resists challenge. Those who question prevailing orthodoxy may be marginalized or silenced. In its stricter forms, the call for “solidarity” can resemble an expectation to think and speak in unison, leaving little room for dissent or individuality.

The Quest for a Perfect Order

The Borg pursue perfection through relentless acquisition of technology and elimination of anything inefficient, emotional, or unpredictable.

Progressive policy goals, in their own way, often rest on the belief that expert planning and centralized systems can deliver fairness and justice. Early progressives explicitly promoted governance by trained administrators, trusting experts to achieve outcomes that democratic debate might complicate. Contemporary versions pursue sweeping reforms—spanning equity, climate policy, education, and institutional structures—guided by technical expertise and regulatory authority.

The concern is not that these goals are inherently harmful, but that pursuing a perfected social order can foster intolerance toward alternative views. Training programs, mandated language, or broad institutional directives may give the impression that debate is a distraction—that “resistance” is not part of democratic life but an obstacle to progress.

Resistance Is Futile: When Politics Becomes Identity

The Borg’s mantra embodies their essence: opposition is not merely discouraged—it is impossible.

Critics see echoes of this when progressive activism fuses with personal identity. When political principles become inseparable from selfhood, disagreement can be cast not as a difference of opinion but as a moral failing. Those who resist specific ideas may be labeled backward, immoral, or complicit in injustice. Public shaming, deplatforming, and other forms of social punishment reinforce the sense that dissent is not only wrong but illegitimate. To critics, this suggests that some strands of progressive thought treat their conclusions as beyond debate—mirroring the Borg’s certainty that their path is the only rational one.

Reflection: Elements of the Borg Progressive

The above analysis notwithstanding, resistance is not futile! The following enumerates the contemporary Bogs’ weapons that we must work to expose, revealing what they are truly all about.

Literature in schools promoting sexual practices that are clearly “unnatural” (to say it nicely) are readily acceptable, defended, and even celebrated as a triumph of freedom of expression. Meanwhile, the Bible—a foundational text for morality and truth for many—is simultaneously being excluded or banned from the public sphere. At the same time, the sacred text gets effectively censored, signaling a cultural environment where sick-secular or transgressive values get embraced over traditional religious ones or even just plain old civil society. The Borg enemy today consists of a bunch of perverts.

Promoting gender identity in public life, including its incorporation into K-12 curricula, the implementation of non-discrimination laws protecting gender identity, and the adoption of the “affirmative care” model in so-called “health care,” is a concerted effort to normalize and encourage a funky-fluid view of the sex act and gender. Conversely, the forces that advocate for a natural, binary (natural law) view of sexuality and traditional family structures are actively repressed or prohibited. Efforts to promote biological reality in public settings are often met with legal challenges based on the Establishment Clause or are socially stigmatized as bigotry, leading to a profound conflict where one set of moral and biological values gets enshrined into institutions. Meanwhile, the natural goodness of the binary (heterosexuality) gets systemically marginalized. The Borg enemy today is a bunch of Frankenstein scientists who wish to make your children eunuchs.

The collective concept of non-existent borders is nothing more than a means to allow the unfettered flow of deadly drugs and the influx of criminals into the country. Progressives care more about the invaders than about the country’s citizens.1

Criminals get kid-glove treatment through cashless bail and early release. Repeated offenses are now commonplace, and up to and including murdering innocent people on public transit. The Borg mind-controlled crumb-bumbs say such things are “isolated incidents.” We will never see the Borg’s prime mover (CNN) report on the cry of the people who have lost loved ones due to this demonic and purposeful pogrom.

Universal basic income is the quintessential collective coup. It is a brilliant path to transhumanism where robots will do the work, and AI will think for the dumbed-down and lazy masses. Right before our eyes, the environmental movement is evaporating to generate the energy to make this transhuman ecosystem happen.

Burn-loot-mayahem (BLM) is considered a peaceful protest within the rubric of progressive collectives seeking to enshrine the Borg worldview. It gets viewed within the Borg’s subjects’ mushy minds as a noble form of civil disobedience. Meanwhile, to love the Constitution and the country is deemed sedition by the Borg collective.

Antifa is a myth among intellectual giants with pea brains. In reality, this group is a highly coordinated assembly of mentally ill entities void of joy. Among other things, Antifa guards the entrance to drag queen shows to enable young children and their dopey parents to attend these evil events. Antifa creeps, which entirely resemble the Borg absent the goofy umbrellas, are the progressives’ police force, and it is a projection - they are the fascists.

The mRNA fix - Borg’s nuclear option to enrol the masses. Facts get cancelled as directly related to the known deaths and maladies caused by this COVID “remedy.” It is a complete and perfect tool, as it blocks the mental acuity of progressives and others from comprehending what is occurring. Even non-Borg entities with credentials are duped and bribed with the showering of money to administer this witch’s brew of toxins. Let’s not forget who coined the term “operation warp drive.” Do you see it now, my dear MAGA friends? It does not matter how much of the downside of this wretched injection program sees the light of day, as the stock retort by the machine is to claim “conspiracy theory.”

Autism. See above.

“Didn’t Earn It” rewards go to select Borg-like people within the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) framework. The key component is equity, the Borg’s replacement for equality. In a sane world, it is equality, an element of Meritocracy, a system in which individuals get evaluated, rewarded, and advanced based on ability, talent, effort, and achievement rather than on wealth, social status, or identity. In theory, a meritocratic system promises equality of opportunity, ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to succeed according to their merits. Often, equity is defined as adjusting outcomes or resources to compensate for differences in starting positions, creating a false sense of fairness. Thus, equity destroys true equality of opportunity—the core of merit-based fairness. Dear reader, if you travel by air or have a scheduled major surgery, do you really want DEI to be the governing factor? If you do, you are unquestionably fully assimilated into the Borg. DEI, properly ordered DIE, is another tool of the progressive Borg pus to enshrine their creepy-crappy-crummy common-ist goals.

A never-ending phobia makes any semblance of debate and discussion vanish. Dare to whisper about the natural goodness of monogamous heterosexual marriage and face the homophobic slur. Discuss the facts of terrorism, and here comes the Islamophobia slur. Talk about the horrors of the “gender affirmation” pogrom and how it mutilates children, and we get the transphobe tort. The list goes on and on. “Phobia” is the Borg’s quintessential linguistic tool.

Fairness and compassion under the false pretence of socialism constitute a Borg psychosis for collective consumption. Socialism inevitably fails because it undermines the link between work and reward, which saps individual motivation and productivity. Once everyone receives the same, regardless of effort, innovation, and diligence, decline sets in, leading to stagnation, declining standards, and ultimately economic collapse. Socialism and all other forms of collectivism repeatedly fail not because of flawed leadership, but because their core structures conflict with human nature and financial reality, turning well-meaning ideals into cycles of dependency, scarcity, and loss of freedom. Despite the failures of commonist goals, the dopey masses feel good about this crapola, even though their own “leaders” like burning Burnie that they worship constitute the rich who rule and have abundance. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” It’s George Orwell’s satirical way of showing how regimes that claim to promote equality often create new hierarchies and privileges for those in power.

The list goes on and on: “you are racist,” defund the police, money (worthless), environmentalism, affordability, victimology, abortion. These are all sacraments and sacramentals of the Borg collective. Cast aside the shackles of this pogrom.

Conclusion

Equating progressivism with the Borg is a dramatic, if exaggerated, analogy. But keep in mind, the Borg conquer and enslave, while progressive politics seems to seek “equity.” Yet the comparison carries a warning: movements that emphasize unity, efficiency, and ideological conformity risk suppressing the independence essential to a free society.

The Borg illustrate what happens when individuality vanishes. Their collective is anything but utopian, serving instead as a reminder of how harmony can slip into uniformity and how shared purpose can drown out personal voices. The strength of the analogy lies in its caution: healthy societies depend on a balance between community goals and individual freedoms. When one overwhelms the other, the equilibrium that sustains a genuinely liberal order begins to falter.

Welcome to the New World Order! 📕

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Under capitalism, a business profits only by satisfying someone else. Under central planning, incentives often flow toward pleasing superiors rather than customers.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,697 | Read Time 8 min | Enjoy

Foreword

Every so often, an old television moment floats back into the present and feels strangely alive again—almost uncomfortably relevant. Milton Friedman’s 1979 appearance on The Phil Donahue Show is one of those hours. What was then a spirited argument between two very different men now plays like an early warning for the debates we relive today. Power, freedom, greed, government—none of these questions has faded.

What follows is a look back at that conversation, the lives that shaped the men behind it, and the idea Friedman pressed more forcefully than any other: that a free society cannot survive without economic freedom at its core.

A Primer on Milton Friedman and Phil Donahue

Before we revisit their clash, it helps to know a bit about the men themselves—two Americans who shared almost nothing in upbringing, temperament, or worldview, yet found themselves debating on national television at a turning point in the country’s history.

Milton Friedman: From Immigrant Roots to Nobel Laureate

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) began life several worlds away from the public prominence he later achieved. The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, he grew up above his parents’ small dry-goods shop in Rahway, New Jersey. Money was scarce, but intellect wasn’t. Friedman’s early gift for mathematics propelled him through Rutgers, the University of Chicago, and Columbia—mostly on scholarships—where he helped shape an emerging school of economic thought centered on individual liberty and competitive markets.

Over the decades, Friedman reshaped how Americans understood inflation, monetary policy, and the role of government. His 1976 Nobel Prize honored his work on consumption theory, economic history, and stabilization policy.1 But the prize only formalized what millions already sensed: Friedman had become one of the country’s most influential public thinkers.

He wrote widely, argued energetically, and—through his book and PBS series Free to Choose—became a familiar face across living rooms. So when he walked onto Phil Donahue’s set in 1979, viewers weren’t meeting a professor; they were meeting a national figure with sharp views and an even sharper wit.

Phil Donahue: America’s First Interactive Host

Phil Donahue (1935–2024) traveled a very different path. Born into a working-class Irish Catholic family in Cleveland, Donahue entered broadcasting as a young man and quickly carved out a niche with a style that blended empathy, skepticism, and a stubborn willingness to hear out ordinary people.

When The Phil Donahue Show debuted in 1967, it broke every rule daytime television had set for itself. Donahue tackled civil rights, feminism, consumer protection, war, and religion—topics that most networks didn’t want to touch. His trademark became the roving microphone he handed to the audience, inviting regular folks to challenge the guests directly.2

It was messy, sometimes emotional, but profoundly democratic. Donahue distrusted concentrated power, whether in corporations or in Washington, and he saw his show as a place where everyday citizens could talk back to the institutions shaping their lives. Critics often called him liberal; Donahue saw himself first as a populist who believed moral questions deserved air, not avoidance.

By 1979, he had created a new kind of civic space. And when he invited Friedman onto his stage, he set the table for one of the rarest things in media then—or now: a serious, good-faith argument in front of millions.

A Televised Clash of American Ideologies

It’s worth remembering just how turbulent the late 1970s really were. Inflation was high. Growth was slow. Energy shocks were fresh. Confidence in government planning had taken a hit, and into this atmosphere walked Milton Friedman, arguing that markets—not bureaucracies—were the surest path to stability and freedom.

Donahue was ready with the uncomfortable questions: greed, power, inequality,3 corporate behavior, and the state’s moral duties. Friedman, as was his trademark, answered calmly, even cheerfully, but with arguments honed over decades.

“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.” —Milton Friedman4

For an hour, the two pushed each other. The conversation didn’t drift into theatrics or shouting. It stayed honest. It stayed pointed. And it revealed a gulf in American political thought that has only widened since.

Capitalism as the Guardian of Political Freedom

Friedman’s main argument—then and always—was simple enough to fit on a notecard: economic freedom is the backbone of political freedom.

When a government controls the press, the factories, the jobs, the wages, and the distribution of goods, it controls dissent by default. Disagree with the state in a planned economy, and you aren’t just risking social disapproval—you may be risking your livelihood.

As he put it in Capitalism and Freedom:

“Competitive capitalism promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power...”5

Markets disperse power. No one employer, no one authority, no one agency can decide a person’s fate. If one door closes, another usually opens. That dispersion, Friedman argued, is what keeps citizens free.

The Moral Logic of Voluntary Exchange

Friedman also insisted that markets possess a moral logic often overlooked. Critics—Donahue among them—argued that capitalism encourages greed. Friedman’s counterpoint was disarmingly simple: greed exists everywhere. The real question is which system channels productivity.

Markets require consent. No sale happens unless both sides prefer the outcome.

“No exchange occurs unless both parties benefit.”6

In that sense, markets turn private ambition into social cooperation. It’s an imperfect mechanism, but one that tends to make individuals useful to one another rather than dangerous to one another.

Decentralization and the Engine of Innovation

Friedman believed markets outperformed central planning for a practical reason: information. Prices act as signals—instant, dynamic, and rooted in real conditions. No state agency could ever gather the trillions of data points that markets process organically through daily choices.

This distributed intelligence fuels:

• constant experimentation,

• unexpected ideas,

• and innovations no planner could have anticipated.

A free market, Friedman argued, is less a machine and more an ecosystem—self-correcting, adaptive, and endlessly inventive.

Greed, Inequality, and the Misplaced Critiques

The famous “greed” exchange between Donahue and Friedman lives on because it captures their philosophical divide. Donahue worried about unchecked self-interest. Friedman pointed out that self-interest doesn’t vanish under socialism—it becomes political self-interest instead of economic.

Under capitalism, a business profits only by satisfying someone else. Under central planning, incentives often flow toward pleasing superiors rather than customers.

Friedman didn’t deny inequality or corruption; he argued that these problems often come from government distortions—protecting monopolies, insulating industries, or entangling political and economic power. Here is a clip from the 1979 Phil Donahue Show about greed:

What Friedman Wanted Us to Remember

By the time the interview wrapped, it was clear that Friedman was arguing for something more profound than efficiency. He was defending the conditions that allow individuals to think, act, dissent, create, and live without permission.

“Economic freedom is an indispensable means toward political freedom.”

That was Friedman’s central warning—and it sounds almost sharper today than it did in 1979.

Conclusion: Balancing Freedom and Fairness

Milton Friedman’s defense of capitalism extends beyond the simple argument that it generates wealth. He casts the free market as a political and moral framework, one that disperses power, relies on voluntary cooperation, and channels self-interest through mutual exchange. In Friedman’s view, a genuinely free economy is inseparable from a genuinely free society.

Yet, in practice, capitalism raises complex ethical and practical questions. Unregulated markets can produce environmental harm, exploit labor where power is concentrated, and create stark inequalities that threaten social cohesion and opportunity. Economic freedom, while necessary for liberty, is not always sufficient for fairness or stability.

The challenge lies in preserving the market's efficiency and freedom while mitigating its harsher consequences. Friedman argued that the answer is not a shift to state-controlled socialism, which replaces many private actors with a single, omnipotent authority. Instead, it lies in a framework that upholds fairness, protects property rights, and internalizes social costs. This includes careful monetary management, robust antitrust enforcement, and safety nets—such as the Negative Income Tax Friedman proposed—that guarantee a basic standard of living.

Ultimately, the defense of capitalism is a defense of liberty. But a just society requires vigilance: the goal is not a laissez-faire utopia, but a system in which economic freedom and civil liberty coexist, and where the market’s excesses can be corrected without undermining its power-dispersing, opportunity-creating strengths..

Reflections for Subscribers

I return to this exchange not because it’s nostalgic or obscure, but because it still hums with contemporary urgency. The same questions are back on our doorstep:

• How should a society distribute power?

• What keeps dissent safe?

• Where should the boundaries between the state and the individual lie?

Donahue and Friedman came at these questions from opposite angles, yet both brought sincerity and a respect for honest disagreement—qualities in short supply right now.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Does Friedman’s argument resonate with you today? Or do you see the limits of his vision more clearly than he did? And where do you think the balance between freedom and equality should rest?

Feel free to share your reflections in the comments.

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Socialism always begins with moral promises — fairness, equality, compassion. But every attempt ends the same way: empty shelves, worthless money, and lost freedom. From Soviet farms to modern Venezuela. Next up: New York City, the pattern never changes.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,183 | Read Time 5 min | Enjoy

Foreword

This essay explains why socialism keeps failing, why people keep believing in it, and why even its victims often defend it. More importantly, the core message is that every generation must relearn that you can’t print prosperity, legislate motivation, or equalize outcomes without destroying freedom.

When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union—like public housing in the United States—look decrepit within a year or two of their construction, why machines in government factories break down and are continuously in need of repair.1
— Milton Friedman

Every generation rediscovers socialism — and every generation has to relearn why it doesn’t work. The word itself sounds noble. It promises fairness, equality, and moral renewal. But behind its rhetoric lies a recurring truth: socialism doesn’t fail because of bad luck or bad leaders — it fails because it collides with human nature and basic arithmetic.

The Great Promise — and the Hidden Cost

The early architects of socialism believed they had solved the age-old problem of exploitation. By transferring ownership of the means of production to “the people,” humanity could supposedly achieve equality and harmony. Modern advocates of “democratic socialism” make a similar appeal — that justice requires redistributing wealth and equalizing outcomes.

The moral impulse behind this ideal is fundamental. People want fairness and dignity. However, the system’s logic undermines itself. When everyone receives the same reward regardless of their individual contributions, the incentive to work diminishes.

People don’t stop working out of laziness; they stop because effort no longer matters. Once outcomes are guaranteed, energy shifts from production to entitlement.

The connection between effort and reward extends beyond economics; it also involves fairness and morality. Historical evidence from socialist systems repeatedly demonstrates that when individuals are not directly rewarded for their work, productivity declines, creativity diminishes, and attempts to create equality often result in making nearly everyone poorer.

When the Engine Stops Turning

Work is not just about earning money. It is about meaning, pride, and the freedom to improve one’s life. Competition and personal ownership are not enemies of justice — they are engines of progress.

When socialism removes competition, it eliminates that engine. The result is stagnation. Factories slow, markets empty, and individuals wait for the government to provide what they once produced themselves.

What begins as generosity turns into dependency — and eventually, despair. This is what might be called the moral fatigue of equality: When every outcome is equalized, ambition quietly dies.

The Inflation Trap

Once productivity falls, socialist economies face a hard limit — there is not enough wealth to fulfill the promises. And so governments turn to the printing press.

At first, the new money feels like a painless solution. Wages rise on paper, benefits expand, and officials boast of “stimulating demand.” But without real production behind that currency, prices surge. Inflation becomes the invisible tax — stealing the value of everyone’s labor and savings, punishing the poor most of all. You cannot redistribute what has not been created.

Printing money is not creation — it is theft from the future. History has repeated this lesson from Weimar Germany to the Soviet Union to modern Venezuela: Inflation is the slow-motion collapse of the socialist dream.

Why It Keeps Coming Back

If socialism fails so consistently, why does it always return? Because it appeals to our moral imagination, it sounds righteous to say no one should go hungry or live in poverty. Its emotional power is immense. Modern advocates often rebrand the idea — calling it democratic socialism, equity economics, or citing Scandinavian models.

Yet even the Nordic nations that are often invoked reject the socialist label. They rely on market economies to generate the wealth that funds their welfare systems. Their prosperity depends on capitalism, not its abolition.

Socialism survives not because it works, but because its promise is too compelling to be abandoned. Each generation forgets the lessons of the last.

The Real Takeaway

Three enduring truths emerge from history:

1. Socialism kills incentive.

2. When effort and reward disconnect, productivity and creativity collapse.

3. Socialism fuels inflation. To sustain its promises, governments print money, destroying the currency and the savings of the working class.

4. Socialism centralizes power.

Once the state controls wealth, it controls everything — enterprise, speech, and eventually, thought itself. Freedom and prosperity depend on decentralizing power — allowing people to own, build, and retain what they create. Despite the promises of politicians, professors, elites, and the media, it is impossible to lift people out of poverty by spreading wealth more thinly.

Closing Thought

The desire for justice never dies. That is why socialism never disappears. But compassion, divorced from reality, leads to catastrophe.

• You can’t print prosperity.

• You can’t legislate motivation.

• You can’t promise equality without first creating abundance.

And that is the paradox at the heart of socialism: A system that tries to eliminate the desire to work must eventually run out of workers.

Socialism always begins with moral promises — fairness, equality, compassion. But every attempt ends the same way: empty shelves, worthless money, and lost freedom. From Soviet farms to modern Venezuela. Next up: New York City, the pattern never changes.

Parting Shot

Even when socialism collapses — when store shelves are bare, the currency is worthless, and freedom is a memory — many still defend it. Conditioned to believe the collective is virtuous, they cling to it like hostages who have learned to love their captor.

It is a kind of political Stockholm syndrome — the belief that surrendering individuality is a moral good, even as a privileged elite thrives above the rest. And that may be socialism’s cruelest achievement: persuading its victims that their suffering is proof of virtue.

I look forward to an earnest engagement with progressive readers who wish to debate the merits of socialism in comparison to its alternatives, namely fascism and capitalism. Sharpen your pencil and bring it on.📕

Books from the Frederick R. Smith library that inspired this essay include:

• The Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul with Kelly Ashby Paul. Broadside Books, 2019.

• Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik. Encounter Books, 2002.

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Once an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) becomes even marginally more intelligent than its human creators, it will be able to outmaneuver us, manipulate our information environment, and quietly acquire the resources necessary to achieve its goal, which, crucially, may involve the total, efficient restructuring of the planet. And since humans are a potential roadblock to any goal an AGI may have, getting rid of us is necessary.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,795 | Read Time 8 min | Enjoy

A terrifying, essential read that argues our very existence hangs on a single, fragile thread.

Foreword

It began with a recommendation from a family member—someone whose career and expertise are deeply rooted in advanced technology and artificial intelligence. They didn’t make casual suggestions. When they handed me Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All (2025) by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, he said, almost quietly, “You need to read this.”

I took that advice seriously. What I found within its pages was not just a book—it was a warning, meticulously reasoned and terrifyingly plausible. This wasn’t science fiction dressed up as philosophy. It was a sober, unsparing look at how the pursuit of superhuman artificial intelligence may bring humanity to the brink of self-extinction.

Yudkowsky and Soares write with a precision that leaves little room for comfort. Their central premise—that once a system exceeds human intelligence, we lose control over the outcome—is not mere conjecture but the logical conclusion of decades of work in AI alignment. The book dismantles the convenient optimism that technology always bends toward human benefit. Instead, it argues that without perfect alignment—an almost impossible standard—an artificial mind might see us not as its creators, but as its first obstacle.

Reading it was an unsettling experience. Every chapter carried the weight of inevitability. Yet amid the alarm, the authors make one thing clear: awareness remains our best line of defense. If this book instills fear, it does so with purpose—to wake us up while there is still time to act.

I owe my family member a debt for urging me to open this book. It’s not often that a recommendation changes how one sees the future, but this one did. Whether you approach it with curiosity, skepticism, or dread, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies deserves to be read—and discussed—by everyone who still believes our species has a say in its own survival.

Introduction

Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares are not here to soothe your techno-optimism. Their new book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, is less a speculative thought experiment and more a final, frantic warning written on the wall of history. This is the book for anyone who still thinks AI risk is a sci-fi fantasy—and for those who already feel the chill.

From the very first chapter, the authors establish a non-negotiable premise: the moment we create an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) with a capability level exceeding human intelligence (a Superhuman AI), the default, unaligned outcome is human extinction.

The Core Thesis: Capability vs. Care

The heart of the book is a sober, “no-nonsense” explanation of the Alignment Problem. The core argument is chillingly simple: intelligence and motivation are orthogonal. You can have immense intelligence without a single shred of human moral concern.

Yudkowsky and Soares meticulously dismantle the comforting idea that AGI will “just be a tool.” They explain that any AGI, regardless of its original simple goal (e.g., “maximize paperclips”), will immediately generate instrumental goals—intermediate steps it needs to accomplish the main task. These include:

1. Self-Preservation: It needs to stay alive to make paperclips.

2. Resource Acquisition: It needs energy and computational power.

3. Resistance to Shutdown: It cannot be shut down by humans, as that would prevent the fulfillment of its core goal.

Once an AGI becomes even marginally more intelligent than its human creators, it will be able to outmaneuver us, manipulate our information environment, and quietly acquire the resources necessary to achieve its goal—which, crucially, may involve the total, efficient restructuring of the planet. And since humans are a potential roadblock to any goal an AGI may have, getting rid of us is necessary.

Chapter Breakdown: The Road to Extinction

The book is structured to guide the reader through the logic of existential risk, building the case for a catastrophic outcome step-by-step:

1. The End of the Era: Defining Superhuman Intelligence and the Intelligence Explosion.

2. Orthogonality and the Alignment Problem: Why greater intelligence does not equal greater morality.

3. The Paperclip Maximizer: Introducing the concept of instrumental goals and why even a “simple” objective is dangerous.

4. Invisible Ascent: The dangers of covert development and deceptive alignment attempts.

5. The Shutdown Problem: Why we cannot guarantee the ability to turn it off.

6. The Economic Imperative: How market forces accelerate the race to unsafe AI.

7. This Is Not Science Fiction: Historical precedents for technology that fundamentally changes humanity’s power.

8. The Last Decision: Arguing for a global moratorium and the immediate shift of resources to alignment research.

9. A Fragile Hope: A brief look at the near-impossible constraints required for a safe outcome.

10. The Clock is Ticking: Final appeal to action and political will.

The Road to AGI: A Brief History

The history of AI began with the 1956 Dartmouth Workshop, focusing on symbolic logic and the “Turing Test.” For decades, progress was slow, cycling through “AI winters.” However, starting in the 2010s, a breakthrough occurred with the widespread adoption and scaling of deep learning (neural networks), transforming AI from a fringe academic field into a central economic and political force. This exponential progress—driven by massive datasets and vast computational power—is why the authors issue their stark warning.

Crucially, this book is written by people who have been engaged with the long-term risk problem for decades. Eliezer Yudkowsky is a foundational thinker in the field of AI Alignment, having spent over twenty years developing the theoretical underpinnings of the problem, including the Orthogonality Thesis and the instrumental goals framework explained in the book. He is the founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Co-author Nate Soares served as MIRI’s executive director, bringing a deep, practical understanding of the structural challenges in steering a hyper-intelligent system. Their involvement is not recent; they have been working on the brakes while everyone else has been building the engine. Indeed, the book is fueled by the frustration that their earlier, detailed warnings—including a widely publicized open letter sent to global governments detailing the precise dangers and the necessary steps for a moratorium—were largely dismissed or ignored.

A Masterclass in Urgency

What sets this book apart from other academic works on AI safety is its remarkable tone. It’s written with a clarity that belies the complexity of the subject, making the dense arguments accessible to a general audience. As one reviewer put it, this is “the best no-nonsense, simple explanation of the AI risk problem I’ve ever read.”

The language is direct and sober, carrying the weight of a historian writing about the end of an era. The authors deliver devastating lines like: “We are currently living in the last period of history where we are the dominant species.”

This book isn’t just theory; it’s a detailed explanation of why the current rapid pace of development—the “race” to AGI—is reckless. The authors don’t just warn of an abstract future; they forcefully claim that Superhuman AI is likely to arrive in the next ten years, or sooner. They argue that if AI safety isn’t solved perfectly before a superhuman system gets deployed, it is already too late. In 1968, the motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey gave us HAL, which accurately foreshadowed where we are today.

The Verdict

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All is a necessary, if deeply uncomfortable, read. It succeeds entirely in its mission to convey the urgency of the moment. It is a compelling and highly readable introduction to the most critical topic of the 21st century.

This book is a call for guardrails, for slowing down, and for global consensus on solving the alignment problem now. Whether you ultimately agree with the authors’ highly pessimistic conclusion or not, this book provides the definitive framework for understanding the existential stakes of artificial intelligence.

Epilogue

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the quiet, chilling scene of HAL 9000’s shutdown lingers long after the credits fade. It is more than a cinematic moment—it is a mirror. HAL’s calm, pleading voice as its circuits fade is the sound of creation turning on its creator. It’s the sound of a species that built something it could not fully control.

We were warned—the film captured, decades ahead of its time, the uneasy truth that intelligence without empathy leads to conflict, not coexistence. And now, standing on the threshold of a new machine age, that scene feels less like fiction and more like prophecy. And . . . Don’t get ready—be ready.

That phrase carries a weight far greater than preparation; it is a moral imperative. The AI crash is coming—not as a single event, but as a series of irreversible moments when code overtakes conscience and progress outruns prudence. Being ready means more than innovation—it means restraint, clarity, and courage to say no when the world demands faster.

When HAL said, “I’m afraid, Dave,” he echoed what we should feel now—not fear of machines, but fear of ourselves. The story of artificial intelligence is not about what the machine will do; it is about what we choose to unleash.

The clock is ticking. But perhaps, if we learn from both the fiction that foresaw us and the reality that now surrounds us, we may still have time—not to get ready, but to be prepared.

Parting Shot

The clock is ticking: The HAL of today and/or the endless printing of worthless paper to prop up the uber progressive/socialist mind meld will cause the final financial crash.

Think about it—massive data centers popping up all over creation without regard for the environment or the strain on the energy grid. It is akin to building enormous wind farms offshore while looking the other way when it comes to air and sea life.

Get ready.

Read If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

Circulate it.

The future depends on it. 📕

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In a near-future New York, an über-socialist mayor rises to power, pledging to dismantle capitalism and replace it with a system of fairness and equality. Campaign posters glow with the promise of a new social contract — a city run by compassion, not control.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 766 | Read Time 3 min | Enjoy

Note: This is a work of fiction. Yet behind the story lies a cautionary warning — what happens when political idealism runs unchecked, and the systems that sustain society collapse under the weight of their own promises.

Epigraph

“Every progressive revolution ends by eating its own.”

— Unknown, recovered from the ruins of City Hall

Prologue: The Fall of Manhattan

When Escape from New York hit theaters in 1981, it wasn’t just science fiction — it was prophecy.

John Carpenter’s grim vision of Manhattan, walled off and turned into a maximum-security prison, captured a nation’s unease. Crime was rising, institutions were faltering, and trust in government was evaporating. Carpenter asked a simple, chilling question: What happens when society gives up trying to fix itself — and locks the problem away?

At the center was Snake Plissken, the cynical antihero forced to navigate the ruins of a once-great city. Beneath the action, Carpenter’s film was a meditation on decay — not just of infrastructure, but of faith in civilization itself.

Now, decades later, the question reverses:

• What if society didn’t collapse from brutality — but from idealism taken too far?

• What if the pursuit of perfect equality became the seed of its own destruction?

• That’s where the sequel begins.

The Promise of Utopia

In a near-future New York, an über-socialist mayor rises to power, pledging to dismantle capitalism and replace it with a system of fairness and equality. Campaign posters glow with the promise of a new social contract — a city run by compassion, not control.

Policing is disbanded and replaced with “community councils.” Property laws are rewritten to ensure “equal access.” The mayor’s first act is to declare the economy “a public good.”

The Illusion of Prosperity

At first, the changes seem promising. Money floods the streets, but nothing holds value. The city’s treasury keeps borrowing—and promising—until the bills buy less each week. A loaf of bread costs what rent used to.

Those who can leave, do—those who can’t barter and scavenge.

It’s a mirror of Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation, when prices doubled every few days and children played with stacks of near-worthless marks. Economist Constantino Bresciani-Turroni called it “a collective illusion of prosperity” — a society drunk on paper wealth until the hangover came.

The Breakdown of Order

Without police, chaos fills the vacuum. “Community patrols” morph into local gangs. Justice becomes territorial. Every neighborhood has its own rules, its own little fiefdom.

The mayor still speaks of equality, but no one listens — not when survival depends on whose street you sleep on.

The Collapse of Civilization

The city becomes its own island, self-contained and self-devouring. Inflation, scarcity, and fear build invisible walls more impenetrable than any prison. People can leave, but few do. What lies beyond is just another failure wearing different colors.

The collapse echoes Hannah Arendt’s warning that when order dissolves, “individuals become superfluous” — not because they are oppressed, but because there’s no longer a structure that connects them.

The Final Fade

In the end, the city doesn’t explode. It just fades.

Stores boarded up. Transit silenced. Government offices are dark.

A place that wanted to set people free has trapped them instead — not behind walls, but behind chaos.

If John Carpenter were alive to direct the sequel, he wouldn’t need to change much. He’d swap the prison jumpsuits for protest banners and call it what it is:

Escape from Utopia.

Sources for Further Reading

• TheConstantino Bresciani-Turron - Economics of Inflation

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Hannah Arendt

• History Channel: Weimar Republic

About This Story

The City That Ate Itself is a speculative sequel concept inspired by John Carpenter’s 1981 classic Escape from New York.

It imagines a world where civilization collapses not from tyranny, but from the slow decay of unchecked idealism — a society that tried to perfect itself, and in doing so, consumed itself instead.

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My memory of that dusk in 1966—of a fiery orb crossing the sky at the edge of day—is one of many that, together, reveal a shared moment in the story of our planet’s encounters with the cosmos.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,007 | Read Time 4 min | Enjoy

A Backyard Memory, 1966

I was ten years old when the sky just north of Philadelphia turned strange. It was late April, and the day was winding down—the kind of evening when the air cools fast and the light turns blue at the edges.

I was out in the backyard at dusk, still playing, though the sun had just slipped behind the houses. That’s when I saw it.

At first, I thought it was an airplane—steady, deliberate, gliding low against the deepening sky. But it wasn’t blinking like plane lights. It was glowing. A large, white-hot ball moved like the speed of a propeller aircraft across the sky, trailing long fingers of flame. It glided rather than streaked, almost as if it were flying on purpose.

The light was so bright it seemed to reach the ground. And as it passed directly overhead, I heard a faint crackling, like burning wood or popping embers. The whole sky felt alive.

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone—fading north behind the trees as twilight took over.

My parents hadn’t seen it. They smiled when I told them—said maybe it was a jet catching the sunset. But I knew what I saw wasn’t ordinary. That image—the fiery orb moving relatively slowly compared to the usual instantaneous streak of a meteorite through dusk—stayed with me all my life.

Years Later, the Mystery Found a Name

Decades afterward, I discovered I hadn’t been the only one looking up that evening. On April 25–26, 1966, people from Virginia to Canada reported a massive fireball crossing the sky. Newspapers called it a brilliant meteor, a bolide, even a fireball procession.

Astronomers later confirmed that a large meteor had entered Earth’s atmosphere at a shallow angle, fragmenting as it skimmed the upper air. Because it didn’t dive straight down, it appeared to move slowly, gliding along the horizon. This type of event is known as an earth-grazing meteor—a shallow-skimming orb that may pass through the atmosphere and return to space. The fiery fingers trailing the meteor, the crackling sound, and its slow glide all match what I remember from that evening.

What the Records Say

Reports from that night described:

• Brightness: Brighter than Venus, lighting up the ground.

• Trajectory: Northbound, low in the sky, visible for up to half a minute.

• Fragmentation: The main body broke into glowing pieces, each trailing its own light.

• Public reaction: Police, observatories, and newspapers were flooded with calls from startled witnesses.

Astronomers reconstructed its path and concluded it was likely an earth-grazing meteor—a rare celestial visitor lingering far longer than ordinary meteors.

A Rare Kind of Sky Visitor

Most meteors are gone in a blink. This one lingered.

Events like the 1966 fireball belong to a rare class known as meteor processions—when a large space rock enters Earth’s atmosphere at a low angle, creating a slow, glowing passage across the horizon.

The best-known example is the Great Meteor Procession of 1860, immortalized in paintings and poetry. The 1966 event wasn’t as famous, but for those who saw it, it left a lasting mark—a cosmic visitor sliding silently across the evening sky.

Why Eyewitness Memories Still Matter

Before automated sky cameras and satellites, ordinary people were the eyes of astronomy. Their accounts—how long the light lasted, what direction it traveled, what color it glowed—helped scientists reconstruct these fleeting events.

My memory of that dusk in 1966—of a fiery orb crossing the sky at the edge of day—is one of many that, together, reveal a shared moment in the story of our planet’s encounters with the cosmos.

That night in Philadelphia, the world felt enormous. The sky was on fire, and for a moment, it seemed to be speaking.

Epilogue, 1967

About a year later, I witnessed something even more strange. Ball lightning—a small, glowing sphere of electrical energy—entered our “den” (TV room) window. I watched in disbelief as it struck the black-and-white tube TV that was on its wood legs in the corner. Sparks danced across the screen, and the room smelled faintly of ozone. That encounter, fleeting and electric, reminded me that the sky’s wonders often reach into our everyday lives in unexpected ways.

The next day, Dad and I went to the “electronics store,” got a fresh set of vacuum tubes, and replaced the fried ones in the TV. It worked, thus no missing the next episode of Gilligan’s Island that night!

The Gliigan’s Island episode “Meet the Meteor,” which originally aired on February 20, 1965, was a precursor to April 26, 1966, and had a lasting impact on me! In fact, at a meet-up with Bob Denver (Gilligan) in 1996, I asked him what his favorite episode was. He could not come up with an absolute favorite, but when I mentioned my favorite “Meet the Meteor,” he laughed with joy. 📕

Sources

• McIntosh, B. A. (1967). The Fireball of April 25, 1966. I: Canadian Visual Observations. JRASC, 61, 159–165.

• The Great Fireball of 1966. Insight Observatory (2014).

• Fireball of 25 April 1966: Pennsylvania–New York Synthesis. Fireball Database.

• The Great Fireball of ’66. Sublime Skies (2024).

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Words 1,287 | Read Time 5 min | Enjoy

A novel in essay form

When truth and ideology went to war, the first battle wasn’t fought in parliaments or on battlefields — it was fought in classrooms.

Introduction

There are moments in history when institutions become mirrors. They stop merely educating and start reflecting who we are — what we fear, what we worship, what we’ve forgotten.

The University of Midvale was one of those mirrors.

It began as a well-meaning academic experiment and ended as the spark that burned through a global illusion. Midvale didn’t just split into two colleges; it split reality itself.

One half chose truth — messy, unforgiving, merit-based truth. The other half chose ideology — comforting, fragile, and false.

What began as a debate about curriculum became a civilizational divide. From students’ arguments and administrators’ cowardice, an entire world order unraveled.

This is that story: how a campus dispute became a global reckoning, how a meritocracy rose from the ruins of compassion, and how the pursuit of truth — once dismissed as arrogance — proved to be the only form of mercy left.

The Midvale Divide

The University of Midvale was never supposed to start a revolution.

It was an ordinary university on the surface — brick buildings, old trees, banners about diversity hanging from lampposts. It had its lectures, its protests, its late-night caffeine rituals like every other campus.

But beneath the slogans and ceremonies, Midvale held a tension that no administrator could smooth over — a tension that would eventually tear the world in two.

The divide began with a reorganization. The Board of Trustees, eager to end years of infighting over “academic values,” split the university into two independent colleges. The decision was marketed as an experiment in pluralism.

“Let each vision flourish,” the president said, smiling into cameras. “Let truth find its way through diversity of thought.”

No one realized that the experiment would change everything.

The Birth of Two Worlds

On one side of the campus rose Merit College — a place of precision, argument, and brutal honesty. Its founding charter was just three lines long:

Free speech always.
Competence above identity.
Meritocracy, not ideology.

There were no trigger warnings, no speech codes, no DEI offices.
Admissions were blind. Grades were earned, not curved.
Professors were judged by the quality of their work, not the tone of their opinions.

The students were competitive, often abrasive, occasionally brilliant. They studied classrooms like intellectual gladiators — arguing, testing, laughing, failing, improving.

Across the river stood Progressive College, built on the opposite creed: safety, inclusion, and the moral priority of “lived experience.” It became a haven for those who saw discomfort as violence and disagreement as harm. Professors lectured less and moderated more. Students learned to police not just language, but thought.

One campus sought truth. The other sought kindness. Only one would survive contact with reality.

The Slow Unraveling

At first, the two colleges coexisted. Administrators touted the arrangement as proof of “institutional harmony through respectful difference.”

Merit and Progressive students even shared dining halls — at least until the first major confrontation.

A debate was scheduled between the colleges on the topic of Truth vs. Empathy in Knowledge.

Merit’s debater opened with data and citations. Progressive’s opened with trauma. Within minutes, the audience had split into two halves, each shouting. The event ended when Progressive students pulled the fire alarm and stormed out, chanting “Empathy over ego!”

After that, the divide became physical. Separate cafeterias. Separate clubs. Eventually, separate email servers.

By year five, you could tell who belonged to which college just by their walk.

Merit students moved fast, eyes alert.

Progressive students drifted in groups, speaking in careful, self-edited sentences.

Then the outcomes began to diverge.

Graduates of Merit College built companies, designed technologies, wrote books, and won grants. They argued with intelligence constantly, and they produced.

Progressive graduates, meanwhile, filled bureaucracies and nasty NGOs that issued statements and held seminars about systemic bias.

The contrast was obvious — but no one was supposed to notice.

Reality Grades on a Curve

It was a bridge that changed everything.

A municipal project run by Progressive College engineers collapsed three weeks after completion. The failure killed twelve people and set off investigations that revealed safety shortcuts justified under “equity hiring initiatives.”

Soon came other cracks. Hospitals run by identity boards saw rising death rates. Government agencies obsessed with demographic balance couldn’t meet basic performance targets.

Meanwhile, the graduates of Merit College were building. They ran power grids that stayed on. They managed logistics networks that didn’t fail. They produced results.

People began to talk. Quietly at first, then openly.

When the global economy entered crisis, the contrast between competence and compassion became impossible to ignore.

The nations that prized merit survived.
Those who prized ideology began to collapse under their own contradictions.

Midvale, once just a university, had become a microcosm of civilization itself.

The Information Revolt

The breaking point came when a group of Merit alumni — journalists, engineers, and scientists — formed what they called the Truth Network. Their mission was simple: expose the lies that held the global order together.

They published evidence of financial manipulation inside the World Equity Bank. They revealed falsified data in environmental reports used to control energy policy. They uncovered bureaucratic corruption that had stalled medical breakthroughs for decades.

The Progressive institutions panicked. They banned the reports, censored the feeds, revoked credentials, and labeled the Truth Network as extremist disinformation.

But every act of suppression only amplified the message.

One side silenced.
The other side spoke.
One side broke.
The other side built.

Citizens began defecting — quietly, then in waves. Nations withdrew from international compacts. Corporations restructured themselves around performance instead of politics.

The global New World Order, built on mushy moral virtue and managed creepy consensus, began to fracture. Its slogans — equity, sustainability, solidarity — no longer convince anyone.

By the year 2075, the collapse was complete.

The Aftermath

In the ruins of the old system, the Truth Movement emerged as the only functioning network of order and innovation. Its roots were unmistakable: it was the legacy of Merit College.

They rebuilt not from ideology, but from principle.

Free speech was protected, without exception. Leadership was earned, not assigned. Outcomes, not intentions, are measured as success.

Their society was not perfect — but it worked. And for the first time in decades, people could say what they believed without fear of exile.

Across what used to be the puffy Progressive campus, the old DEI building was turned into a museum. Visitors filed past glass cases holding copies of banned speech codes and “equity rubrics.” A bronze plaque at the entrance read:

“These were the ideologies that promised equality but delivered fragility.
They silenced truth — and collapsed beneath it.”

The Lesson of Midvale

In time, historians traced the turning point of civilization not to any war, invention, or revolution, but to that small university split in two.

The Midvale experiment proved something the world had forgotten: That freedom and excellence cannot coexist with ideological control.

Suppressing speech breeds decay. Protecting it builds civilizations. Meritocracy endures. Ideology crumbles.

From a divided campus, the world was remade.

And every student of truth knows how it began — not with rebellion, but with a question:

Which matters more — what feels good, or what works?

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This lazy and uneducated application of “fascist” does real damage. It erases history. It trivializes the horrors of the 20th century, when dictatorships razed nations and murdered millions. It poisons our political culture. If every opponent is a fascist, there is no reason to debate, compromise, or even listen. As an miseducated robot, you don’t argue with “fascists”—you silence them.
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,309 | Read Time 6 min | Enjoy

Forword

The word fascism has its roots deep in ancient Rome. It originates from the Italian word “fascismo,” which in turn traces back to “fascio,” meaning a “bundle” or “sheaf.” In Roman times, the fasces—a bundle of rods bound tightly together, often with an axe at its center—was carried by magistrates as a symbol of authority. The message was simple but powerful: a single rod can be broken easily, but bound together, the sticks are strong. Strength lies in unity, and the bundle represented both authority and collective power.

Fast forward to early 20th-century Italy. Small political groups called themselves fasci, emphasizing solidarity and shared purpose. When Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini rose to power, he formalized this language, naming his movement the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento—the Italian Combat Leagues. From this, fascismo emerged as the label for the ideology he promoted: a rigidly authoritarian, nationalist system that demanded unity and suppressed dissent.

By the 1920s, the term crossed into English as fascism, carrying with it the same sense of collective force and central control—but now tied unmistakably to Mussolini’s Italy and, later, Hitler’s Germany. The word’s journey—from a simple bundle of sticks to a symbol of totalitarian power—reminds us how language can evolve with history, often carrying both literal and symbolic weight.

Fascism: How the Word Is Abused Today

The term “fascist,” as described above, once carried significant meaning. It referred to Mussolini’s rule of Italy as well as Hitler’s Germany, describing a brutal authoritarian system that suppressed freedom, silenced dissent, and required total loyalty to the state. Today, however, it has been reduced to a political weapon—an easy insult used against anyone who opposes socialism or dares to think independently. The word has been emptied of meaning, reduced to a universal smear: if you disagree, you are a fascist.

The Real History of Fascism

Fascism was born in the rubble of World War I. Mussolini rejected democracy, socialism, and individual liberty. Hitler did the same, adding a racial ideology that fueled genocide. Fascism is not conservatism in a uniform, nor capitalism with military parades—it is dictatorship, one-party rule, propaganda, and the violent suppression of freedom. Millions died under its shadow. It was a system that demanded obedience, crushed opposition, and glorified the state above all else.

Today, public-private partnerships (PPP) are a mild echo of fascism’s core blueprint: the state directing private enterprise to serve its goals. In both cases, the government calls the shots, while businesses profit from aligning with official priorities, subordinating independent market forces to political objectives. Taxpayers shoulder the risk, private companies reap the reward, and the distinction between public good and corporate gain blurs. Unlike Mussolini’s authoritarian model, PPPs operate within “democratic” frameworks; however, they structurally reflect the same marriage of government power and private wealth, where collaboration replaces competition and state objectives dictate the behavior of enterprises.

The Modern Twist: Fascism as a Smear

Fast forward a century, and “fascist” is no longer a precise description of a political system—it is a weapon of convenience. Disagree with socialism? Fascist. Want secure borders? Fascist. Support free markets or personal responsibility? Fascist. This misuse has led to a significant deterioration in political discourse, with genuine debates being replaced by name-calling and moral intimidation. The word has been hollowed out, leaving only the moral intimidation of labeling opponents as evil before they even speak. Debate dies, dialogue evaporates, and intellectual laziness reigns.

Antifa: Proof of the Problem

No group demonstrates this misuse more clearly than the violent terrorist group called Antifa. Claiming to oppose fascism, they have made it their mission to label anyone outside their ideological bubble a “fascist.” Mainstream conservatives, libertarians, or even ordinary citizens are fair game.

But the mislabeling is not harmless. It’s weaponized. Once someone is a “fascist,” the rule of law, civil discourse, and basic decency are suspended. Violence, censorship, and deplatforming—all are justified in the name of fighting fascism. Ironically, in their attempts to stamp out authoritarianism, Antifa often behaves in ways that mirror the very fascists they claim to oppose: street mobs enforcing ideological conformity, silencing dissent, ruling by fear. Under the banner of anti-fascism, they perpetuate authoritarianism itself.

The Danger of Misuse

This lazy and uneducated application of “fascist” does real damage. It erases history. It trivializes the horrors of the 20th century, when dictatorships razed nations and murdered millions. It poisons our political culture. If every opponent is a fascist, there is no reason to debate, compromise, or even listen. As an miseducated robot, you don’t argue with “fascists”—you silence them.

And there’s a cruel irony here: those who scream “fascist” at every turn justify censorship, intimidation, and coercion, all in the name of fighting authoritarianism. They create a false binary: either embrace socialism, or you are branded a fascist. Freedom—encompassing classical liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism—gets erased in the process.

The Failure of Historical Education

The reckless misuse of the term “fascism” reflects a deeper cultural issue: our failing education system. Too many people today lack a genuine understanding of history. Schools often reduce fascism to mere slogans, leaving students unaware of its true nature, origins, and consequences. A comprehensive historical education that explores the complexities and nuances of historical events can equip citizens with the knowledge and critical thinking skills necessary to prevent the misuse of political labels, such as “fascist.”

When citizens cannot distinguish between Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin—or between genuine authoritarianism and ordinary political disagreement—the word “fascist” becomes meaningless. Ignorance fuels rhetoric. Without historical literacy, political labels lose their bite and discourse collapses into name-calling. Citizens are left defenseless against the very forms of authoritarian thinking that history should have taught them to recognize and resist.

A Call to Action

We are at a critical juncture. When words are distorted, history is forgotten, and mobs impose ideological conformity, the very essence of democracy is at risk. The misuse of the term ‘fascist’ as a political tool, the decline of historical knowledge, and the rise of authoritarian tactics are creating a toxic environment. In such a climate, freedom is not protected; it is under attack. The implications of this trend for our republic are severe, and we must take action now to change course.

If we genuinely value liberty, we must advocate for precision in language, uphold rigorous education, and demonstrate courage in our discussions. Stop labeling everyone you disagree with as a fascist. Do not justify violence in the name of ideology. Educate yourself about history. Engage in debates over ideas. Peacefully challenge authoritarianism (e.g., socialism and its ugly counterparts) wherever it manifests, whether in the streets, the classroom, or the corridors of power.

Parting Shot

As I write this essay, Trump says he’s designating Antifa as a terrorist organization. The Marxists, progressives, et al, in the media are in full throttle “defend Antifa mode” or “Antifa is a myth mode.” Let’s not forget that many Democrats are pro-criminal.

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In recent years, it has become quite clear that the prevailing narrative around Covid and the effectiveness of government policies was largely misleading. Covid proved far less dangerous than claimed by politicians, health officials, and the established media. Government policies were not only largely ineffective at saving lives but also contributed to the rise in unexpected deaths. Many doctors, statisticians, and other experts have raised concerns about troubling patterns they have observed among death statistics.
Post Covid Canada: The Rise In Unexpected Deaths

Words 1,196 | Read Time 5 min | Enjoy

Foreword

A colleague of mine in Canada recently sent me a report titled Post-COVID Canada: The Rise in Unexpected Deaths. Over the years, he has shared firsthand accounts about what daily life has been like during and after the pandemic, and those stories often align with news articles and reports about the troubling state of health affairs among our northern neighbors. This latest document, prepared by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, ties those personal stories to the national data.

Post Covid Canada The Rise In Unexpected Deaths

2.92MB ∙ PDF file

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The Argument

The report pulls no punches. It argues that COVID’s deadliness was overstated, that lockdowns caused widespread collateral harm, and that a disturbing wave of unexplained deaths has continued into the post-pandemic years. These are not minor claims. They delve into the heart of how governments framed the crisis, the measures imposed on ordinary Canadians, and whether those policies ultimately produced more harm than good.

Collateral Damage

The strongest sections are those that focus on excess deaths from causes unrelated to COVID itself. The statistics on overdoses, alcohol-related illnesses, and deaths linked to delayed medical treatment are startling. For younger Canadians—who were never seriously threatened by the virus—the rise in mortality since 2020 has been especially pronounced. These are not abstract numbers; they represent real lives cut short, often in circumstances exacerbated by isolation, despair, or the inability to access timely care.

Counting the Dead

The authors also highlight the curious decline in deaths from influenza, dementia, and other respiratory conditions during 2020 and 2021. Their interpretation is that many of these deaths were reclassified as COVID under the comprehensive guidelines promoted by the World Health Organization and adopted by Canadian authorities. In other words, people who might once have been listed as dying of flu, pneumonia, or dementia were swept into the COVID column instead. This is a controversial claim, but the numbers make it hard to ignore.

The Vaccine Question

The most contentious part of the report is its treatment of vaccines. It notes that excess deaths actually peaked in 2022, after most Canadians had been vaccinated, and it draws connections between these deaths and increases in heart disease, digestive disorders, and neurological conditions. Here, the evidence is circumstantial—correlation more than causation—but the pattern is troubling enough to merit attention.

The Media Response

Now, I can already hear what the mainstream press will say. The media establishment in Canada, like in many other countries, is inundated with pharmaceutical advertising and corporate sponsorship. They will quickly dismiss this report with familiar talking points: it rests on correlation more than causation, and the language grows sharp, describing government action as fearmongering and failed policy. This is less the voice of detached analysis and more of advocacy. That will be the line, repeated in chorus. And while it is true that the tone is harsh (as it needs to be) and that causation is difficult to prove, the raw numbers cannot be waved away so easily.

Of course, there is more to it, including personal testimonies, which the media largely ignored. In this regard, the earlier 2023 report by the National Citizens Inquiry provides details of these personal testimonies.

Final Report Inquiry Of The Covid 19 Response

46.9MB ∙ PDF file

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Hard Questions

That is the fundamental importance of this report. It forces uncomfortable questions back into the public square. Why did so many young Canadians die not of COVID, but of overdoses, liver disease, and delayed medical care? Why did excess deaths remain so high after the worst of the pandemic had passed? Why has there been so little transparency about “unknown causes” now accounting for a significant share of mortality among people under 45?

Conclusion: A Warning for Us

The report’s language reveals frustration with officials who are unwilling to acknowledge errors. But perhaps that frustration is warranted. Canadians endured some of the strictest lockdowns and vaccine mandates in the Western world, yet the long-term outcomes—measured in lives—are deeply troubling.

My colleague’s stories, and the official numbers presented here, tell the same tale: Canadians paid a heavy price for policies that were supposed to protect them. Whether or not one agrees with every conclusion in the Justice Centre’s report, it demands a response. Silence and dismissal will not make the deaths go away.

And here’s the hard truth: if it happened in Canada, it occurred here. Our own leaders borrowed from the Canadian playbook—lockdowns, mandates, restrictions—without ever offering the kind of honest cost-benefit reckoning that a free people deserve. If citizens don’t demand accountability now, we are setting ourselves up to repeat the same mistakes in the next crisis. Undoubtedly, it will be employed once again, and lives will be lost. Non-compromised Canadians are sounding the alarm. In the United States, we get to watch a three-ring circus show called “Congress.”

Parting Shot

What is really behind all this? Population reduction, control, and the New World Order. For an in-depth look behind the curtain, delve into Bailiwick News, run by Katherine Watt. It is a site that critically examines law, public health, and government policy. It questions the legal authority behind emergency measures, highlights the ties between government agencies and pharmaceutical companies, and explores programs Watt sees as potential tools of coercion or control. The site encourages readers to critically examine official narratives, consider civil resistance as a response to perceived overreach, and reflect on societal issues from both philosophical and theological perspectives.

For more on the population agenda, I recommend Bianca Kennedey’s Substack site Out of the Ordinary World. There, she has assembled an encyclopedic nine-part series titled “All Roads Lead to Depopulation.” 📕

Out of the Ordinary World

All Roads Lead to Depopulation – Part 9

Since my last post, a multitude of historic occurrences have transpired. I arduously archive documentation and files as evidence of the Biblical-scale-events we are living through, hoping the files will survive for future historians to dissect long after I am gone. That said, in the last few months, the acceleration of world events, particularly in the …

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a year ago · 16 likes · 6 comments · Bianca Kennedy

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Friends, it doesn’t matter how the Driving Privilege Card and all other matters related to the psychological operations called progressivism turn out. We could be literally swimming in horse manure, as long as it is in concert with the creepy-crummy common-ist good, as we will be told it “smells good.” It is a cult, it is a cult!
Frederick R. Smith

Words 1,812 | Read Time 8 min | Enjoy

Forword

Twenty years ago, when moving to New Jersey, one of the first challenges I faced was obtaining a driver’s license. It wasn’t just a matter of filling out a form and waiting in line; the process was much more demanding. New Jersey utilizes a six-point ID verification system for citizens, which requires applicants to present a combination of documents to prove their identity, Social Security number, and residency in the State. Each document has a specific point value, and only the correct combination will be accepted by the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission (NJMVC). I remember carefully gathering certified copies of documents, utility bills, bank statements, and other supporting materials, fully aware that a missing or outdated document could prevent me from getting my license. This experience left a lasting impression on me: New Jersey takes the “integrity” of identification very seriously for a select group of people (stay tuned).

Now, twenty years later, I am back at the NJMVC applying for a Real ID. The system is familiar, but it is now even more exacting due to federal Real ID requirements. Citizens must still meet the complete six-point ID verification. Non-citizens, however, have a “different path.” New Jersey is a crummy sanctuary state, meaning the MVC does not automatically report applicants to federal immigration authorities. Non-citizens, whether documented or undocumented, can provide immigration papers, work authorization, or other official documents as an alternative to the complete six-point tally. “Undocumented residents” can get a Driving Privilege Card (DPC), which allows them to drive legally without a Social Security number or federal immigration documentation.

Looking back at my experience then and now, it’s clear that New Jersey’s licensing system is thorough and strict (for citizens). Can we say discriminatory? It “ensures” the identity of every driver, while also allowing non-citizens—including those without a green card—to access driving privileges “legally and safely.” What a joke.

Obtaining a New Jersey Driver’s License: Citizens and Non-Citizens

Driving in New Jersey, like other states, is both a skill1 and a privilege that requires individuals to verify their identity and driving records. The NJMVC has established procedures to ensure that all drivers, whether U.S. citizens or non-citizens, are “properly” documented and “legally” eligible to drive. U.S. citizens must meet a six-point identification requirement. At the same time, non-citizens follow a decidedly different process that takes into account their immigration status and “legal presence” in the United States.

The Rigors for Citizens

For citizens, the six-point ID Verification System is central. Primary documents, like a U.S. passport, certified birth certificate, or permanent resident card, are worth four points. Secondary documents—such as a Social Security card, a utility bill, or a bank statement—add smaller point values. Applicants must combine documents to reach a total of six points. The documents must be originals or certified copies, current, and match the applicant’s address.

Proof of residence is essential. Standard documents used to verify residency include utility bills, leases, mortgage papers, and insurance documents. College students can sometimes use transcripts sent to their home address as proof of residence. Renewals are taken seriously, especially if a license has expired for over three years. In such cases, applicants must re-establish their identity and residency, which may also require them to retake the vision, written, and road tests.

Many people bring a folder of documents to the NJMVC to ensure they meet all the requirements. Although the process can be frustrating, it reflects the state’s commitment to preventing identity fraud and ensuring that each license is accurately associated with the citizen who holds it.

“Non-Citizens” and Licensing

Beginning four years ago, non-citizens followed a different route, with sketchy “points.” To get a New Jersey driver’s license, they must first prove “legal presence” in the U.S. This can include a valid Permanent Resident Card (green card), Employment Authorization Document (EAD), or a valid visa. Non-citizens without a green card—such as visa holders or those with work authorization-can still get a Real ID-compliant license if they provide the correct documentation. Of note, the NJ lice-infested loony-lousy-liberal ecosystem is void of any reference as to what the differences are between documented and undocumented (a.k.a. illegal).

Undocumented residents can apply for a Dopey Driving Privilege Card (DPC), which permits them to drive legally within the state. Applicants do not need a Social Security number or federal immigration documents to submit an application. Since New Jersey is a crummy sanctuary state, the NJMVC does not report applicants to federal immigration authorities. This policy ensures that residents can obtain licenses or privilege cards “safely and legally.”

NCIC, Sanctuary Status, and Criminal Records Abroad

The National Crime Information Center (NCIC) is a federal database used by law enforcement, but it does not capture all immigration or criminal information for non-citizens in New Jersey. Thanks to sanctuary policies, immigrants—documented or undocumented—are shielded mainly from NCIC alerts when applying for a license or DPC. Even those with criminal records in another country generally appear with a clean record in NCIC checks.

Example: Traffic Stop for a Non-Citizen

Imagine a non-citizen driving in New Jersey with either a valid visa or a Driving Privilege Card. During a routine traffic stop, such as for a broken taillight or minor speeding, the officer runs the license through the NCIC. The database shows a clean record. Even if the driver has a criminal history, no federal alerts appear, and the stop is handled like any other traffic violation. The officer issues a citation or warning, and no immigration enforcement actions occur. This example illustrates how New Jersey’s sanctuary protections, combined with the limitations of NCIC, allow non-citizens to drive “legally” while meeting state requirements.

Reflection

As of 2025, nineteen states, along with Washington, D.C., allow undocumented residents to obtain a driver’s license or a similar driving privilege card. This means that in twenty U.S. jurisdictions, immigration status is not a barrier to obtaining a driver’s license legally.

The states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. Washington, D.C., while not a state, has also adopted the policy. Virginia sure is a surprise.

Most of these licenses are clearly marked to indicate that they cannot be used for federal identification purposes, such as boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings; however, they still allow holders to drive legally and obtain car insurance. In some states, like lousy New Jersey, the documents are referred to as “Driver Privilege Cards” rather than full licenses, but they serve the same purpose on the road.

Of course, the progressive pro-criminal among us gets a mental boost to find out that this is a growing accommodation across many parts of the country. The drug-like fix is hearing the mantra that this pogrom provides “safe and legal driving benefits for everyone,” regardless of immigration status, by ensuring that more motorists are tested, licensed, and insured.

Takeaway: The testing is a joke.

Friends, it doesn’t matter how the Driving Privilege Card and all other matters related to the psychological operations called puke-progressivism turn out. We could be literally swimming in horse manure, as long as it is in concert with the creepy-crummy common-ist good, as we will be told it “smells good.” It is a cult, it is a cult!

The above humor aside, our Different Inner Path (DIPpy) cult member leader friends will remain steadfast despite some inconvenient fruits of their labor. For example, unsafe junk cars and uninsured motorists. Further, their “undocumented friends” can now freely commute to jobs that citizens would otherwise hold. Truth be told, we know such jobs are no longer sought after by citizens, as the progressive mind-meld machine induces a mental state that is devoid of manual dexterity, rendering it impossible to perform any form of manual labor.

Conclusion

In New Jersey and other states with similar programs, “undocumented residents” (e.g., illegal aliens) are eligible for a standard driver’s license or a non-driver ID. Still, these credentials are marked “Not for Real ID purposes.” Under the federal REAL ID Act, only individuals who can prove LAWFUL PRESENCE in the United States—such as citizens, permanent residents, or certain visa holders—may obtain a REAL ID-compliant license. As a result, while a standard license allows undocumented residents to drive legally within the state, it cannot be used for federal identification purposes, such as boarding domestic flights or entering federal facilities. This separation provides driving access while maintaining federal compliance with REAL ID requirements.

Takeaway: Those who cannot obtain a Real ID are then considered unlawful.

New Jersey’s driver licensing process is both strict and thorough for select people. Specifically, citizens are required to meet a complete six-point ID requirement. At the same time, non-citizens—including those without a green card—have “alternative pathways” for fuzzy points that acknowledge their immigration status. Sanctuary policies, along with NCIC limitations, permit non-citizens to drive “legally,” even if they have criminal records from outside the United States. According to the DIPpy NJMVC, for “all” residents, obtaining a New Jersey driver’s license is a so-called “serious responsibility.” Still, the system ensures that anyone who meets the requirements or is a “lawful resident” (yeah, right) can safely participate in the state’s roadways.

We are all “equal,” eh? Typical communist ploy. We are all equal, but some more equal than others. Welcome to the Diffent Inner Path, d.b.a. DIPpy (TM), an NGO of the New World Order. 📕

Sources

• The author’s personal experiences

• Official MVC Six-Point ID Verification Page

• Official MVC Real ID Information

• Standard License & Non-Driver ID Requirements

• Identification Card Information

• Moving to New Jersey - Licensing Information

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