A blow against local tyranny?

Posted on August 30, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

From Florida comes word that a State legislator is attempting to outlaw HOAs – Home Owners Associations.

Juan Porras, a Miami Republican, is pushing to liberate nearly half the population of Florida who live in communities with HOAs. Over the years, TPOL and other lovers of liberty have pointed out the abuses of people and the denial of liberty that these organizations do. We have not pointed out that these quasi-governmental bodies also often charge incredible “membership fees” to pay for both their evil deeds and the few good deeds such entities are known to do. In Florida (and no doubt elsewhere), these HOA fees can run as high as $500-600 a month.

All too often, the money is collected under the same threat of legal and law enforcement action that property taxes enjoy. And then the money is used to harass and otherwise abuse the members of the HOA: the homeowners or indirectly, the renters.

Such matters as having a flag flying, leaving up Christmas decorations too long, leaving your garage doors open, or having a child set up a lemonade stand are prosecuted and fined.

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Political correctness – the human race (not)

Posted on August 28, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

TPOL continues to look at, comment (and make fun of) the ThirdWay’s list of verboten words for the Woke, SJW, and regressives when that gang of enemies of liberty try to cozen people. Today, we have five bad words for the Woke et al to NOT use.

Five deal with racial matters. Of course, we here at TPOL reject the idea of anything other than a “human race” and deplore the divisive nature of racism, anti-racism, and post-racism. Oh, we recognize that there are human “breeds.” You know, like Siamese and Persian, Calico and Manx… oops! Those are cat breeds. We mean like Hereford and Angus and Longhorns and… nope, those are cattle. And humans are neither cats nor cattle.

ThirdWay points out that the five words to follow are signals that talking about races is a minefield to avoid. Or die. TPOL is considered by many to be racists since we do not use the latest and greatest politically correct terminology. Well, we simply say, “No, I won’t.” That’s freedom.

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Political correctness – groupthink at risk?

Posted on August 27, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

We continue to look at the 45 “no speaker” words proposed by the left-wing ThirdWay. They want the Woke and social justice warriors to self-censor. Now, we come to a third group. We looked at eleven on Friday, eight on Saturday, and after a couple of days away from the political keyboard, here are the next eight: “Organizer Jargon.”

Here at TPOL, we have to endure some of these in our daily (supposedly non-political) work and even in our spiritual life. Military acronyms and slang, financial patter, bureaucratese, and even legalese and religious cant is full of jargon. But specific to a particular profession or group, and therefore, difficult for outsiders to understand. This is bad politically: ThirdWay wants the Woke prophets to be understood by the general population. Not only to win them over, but to coddle and numb them.

Again, TPOL presents our thoughts on these words.

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Flag burning

Posted on August 26, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

We will put off continuing our discussion of Woke-banned words and all the fun with that to comment on The Donald’s latest assault on the public peace. Of course, we are speaking of his imperial decree (executive order) signed Monday the 25th, making burning a US flag an offense to be prosecuted.

And to remember a couple of fine people. People we don’t necessarily agree with, but greatly appreciate many of the things they said.

The first, of course, is the estimable George Carlin (1933-2009):

A flag is supposed to represent everything that a country does. It doesn’t only represent the good things. If you burn the flag, you’re burning the flag for what you perceive to be the bad things the country has done. it’s only a symbol. It’s only a piece of cloth. George Carlin (2009).

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Cursing? No, cursive writing is not for cursing – nor a curse

Posted on August 25, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

A few months back, a lady asked an interesting question. Why don’t the schools (at least, the “public schools” – government-run, tax-funded) teach children to write in cursive anymore?

She had some good thoughts – definitely answers that could be exactly right. Of course, her answers could be viewed as those of a conspiracy-theorist.

She suggested that it was no coincidence that teachers are using cursive writing less and less. Cursive encourages making ideas (thoughts) into words. For one thing, it does not let you take your hand off the paper, so that you develop a flow of ideas, stimulating more thoughts, associating the ideas to each other, and then putting them into the proper relationship. It both controls emotions – you must have good self-control to write well in cursive – and at the same time communicates emotions. In contrast, hand printing and typing do not exhibit emotions, and require a far different kind of action and control.

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Political correctness – more words the Woke aren’t supposed to use

Posted on August 23, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

In the last commentary, we looked at 11 of the words that the Third Way website/group says that the leftists/Woke/so-called Progressives should stop using. As we pointed out at the end, at least one reason for the advocates of that political and social system to do so is because when normal people hear them, they tune out. People stop listening to them, they can’t spread their message.

The next set of works is shorter, and the Third Way calls them “seminar room language.” Perhaps, but we will tell you up front, the only way we’d stay in a room for a seminar that featured considerable use of these words? If we were chained to the floor and wearing a straitjacket. They’d probably need to gag us, too.

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Political correctness – sticks and stones but…

Posted on August 22, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

It is getting downright painful to listen to the media – both mainstream and alternative, both “left” and “right.” And even the libertarian (or semi-libertarian) versions.

There is poor English, bad grammar, mispronounced words, and an arrogant attitude. But the worst? The way plain English words are twisted, abused, and used in disgusting ways.

Some Woke group (who can keep track of them all?) called Third Way published a forty-five-word list that “liberals” (leftists – the Woke, so-called Progressives) should stop using.

Now, this is scary: the vocabulary of many of these enemies of liberty is already very limited.

Let’s look at these (or at least some of them) from the point of view of lovers of liberty:

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The evils and abusive nature of modern marketing

Posted on August 21, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

All the radio news and online talk shows and social media, for the last couple of days, have been talking all about the new Cracker Barrel logo. It took a day or two for most observers to notice it is not just their logo, but their entire image, inside and outside their iconic restaurants and stores.

We’ll chip our two cents in on the changes, first. With the revelation that West River of South Dakota and the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming don’t have one of their locations. But when traveling in areas where such do exist (business or family travel), we have enjoyed eating and browsing – and sometimes actually shopping! – at a Cracker Barrel.

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Throwing down the gauntlet

Posted on August 19, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

Do you happen to remember Robert Reich?

Here is a refresher from MSN: Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.”

In one of his latest screeds, he claims that The Donald has “relinquished the presidency.” Curiousity piqued by this bold claim, wondering if I’d missed something over the weekend, we found a list of ten reasons that we should “stop recognizing him as president.” What we found was a rehash of claims made again and again by the media, a whole slew of rabidly anti-Trump Democrats (and a few GOP types), and a lot of chestbeating on the part of the physically diminutive Mr. Reich. (We note that The Donald, at least, has the physical body to actually support such a stupendous ego. Mr. Reich seemingly possesses miraculous powers – or maybe he is a buddy with Charles Xavier.)

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Put not your trust…

Posted on August 18, 2025 by TPOL Nathan

Rob Morse, whose Second Amendment and Self-Defense News email is always a great read, recently posted this snippet.

“Selecting government personnel is how politicians establish policy. President Donald Trump nominated a judge for the U.S. Ninth Circuit. This judge, Eric Tung, has been an member of the the International Defensive Pistol Association for five years. That means the judge has owned and trained with firearms.. a lot. He is intimately familiar with concealed carry. Judge Eric Tung was nominated on the 30th of July. We will see how long it takes Senate Republicans to approve the judge.”

TPOL certainly agrees with what Rob writes here. One of the big problems with Trump 1.0 (and many other elected officials) is that they make campaign promises and announce/promote good (or at least tolerable) policies – then appoint people who do exactly the opposite. Often stealthily, warping matters.

This judge’s past record – especially with his appointment to the Ninth Circuit – is promising. It is good news. But we should be very careful.

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