The growing divide among the States

Posted on 2026-02-13 by TPOL Nathan

Headlines this week continue to illustrate the growing de facto secession taking place in the “United States” in 2025.

As Tom Knapp pointed out, many States that are labelled red or blue are not reliably so. But the big urban areas drive the train. Smaller communities in the rural and frontier areas (outside the big metro zones) are dragged along, often kicking and screaming but unable to make any impact.

State boundaries are easy to use to emphasize differences, but it is too easy. Still, we see the divide growing. Somebody in Ferndale, California or Milford, Oregon may be disgusted by what the politicians in Sacramento, supported by San-San denizens, or in Salem, supported by Portland and much of the Willamette Valley do, but have no choice. The same for the inner urban cores of Houston and Dallas and El Paso (and even Austin itself) when the numerous smaller cities are less blue: Odessa, San Angelo, Waco, etc.

There are many issues over which to divide: let us look at just two.

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More thoughts on “the pizza caper”

Posted on 2026-02-12 by TPOL Nathan

Yesterday, we published a long, perhaps apocryphal story about a 2nd grader who was punished for being kind to a classmate. For trying to share his lunch with the classmate who was served the “cheese sandwich of shame” because his parents hadn’t paid for the “regular” meal.

No doubt some will claim that the solution to that situation is what is being done now in, for example, Colorado. Where all school lunches (and presumably, breakfasts, snacks, and more) in the public schools (government-run, tax-funded) are free. Or what likely is the case in New Mexico, where now childcare is free. Of course, we mean “free to those eating the food, and being cared for” and in the case of many, free even to their parents.

But they are not free: it is just that someone else besides the child benefitting (and their family) is footing the bill. That is, the taxpayers. Current and future. Or whoever is left holding the bag with the whole corrupt and bankrupt system fails cataclysmically. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

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One of the evils of public schools and our system is …

Posted on 2026-02-11 by TPOL Nathan

Readers, this story is longer than most commentaries; we hope you will still read the whole thing.

We do not know if the following story is true. But some of us here at TPOL have personally seen incidents like this and have heard of others very similar. This was shared by a brother in Christ, on social media. I suspect similar stories are behind the news stories we sometimes hear about someone paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to settle up bills. Please read and share the story and then read the comments below the story. And share them and add to them, as well. Tyranny can be very tiny things.

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The Pizza Caper

I was doing eighty on the highway because the Vice Principal said my second-grader was caught “distributing contraband” in the cafeteria. I thought he had drugs. I was wrong. It was pepperoni.

I walked into the administrative office still wearing my work boots, drywall dust on my jeans. The secretary looked at me like I was going to track mud on her carpet. I didn’t care. I just wanted to see Leo.

I found him sitting on the “Cool Down Chair” in the corner of Vice Principal Miller’s office. He didn’t look scared. He didn’t look guilty. He looked confused. His hands were folded in his lap, and there was a smudge of tomato sauce on his chin.

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Guest commentary: SCOTUS looks at Hawai’i

Posted on 2026-02-10 by TPOL Nathan

From Rob Morse, as we again note how the States are dividing themselves along lines of freedom and tyranny. (Edited; comments/additional thoughts from TPOL in brackets.)

We note again that the so-called Blue States (such as Hawai’i, California, New York, etc.) no longer appear to believe that they are bound by limits in either the United States Constitution or their own State constitutions.

Attorney Alan Beck presented oral argument before the US supreme court. The case challenges a gun-control law from Hawaii. It is both the state law and the 9th circuit decision supporting it that are being challenged. The Hawaii law requires you to obtain expressed [stated] permission before you can enter private property with your legally concealed gun. That law applies even if that property is open to the public. That means every gas station, every grocery store, every shop or car dealership requires prior permission to enter. In theory, you need permission from the gun shop before you bring your gun into the shop to have it serviced. Note that the property line does not have to be marked. That means you broke the law when you pulled off the road onto the tire shop’s parcel to repair a flat tire, not when you opened the door at the tire shop.
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Too little, too late… at least for the victims

Posted on 2026-02-09 by TPOL Nathan

Government is, first (and perhaps foremost), a tool for predators to use to feast upon their desired victims. Even while government claims to protect people from predators. Sometimes, we fail to understand, or even comprehend, the depth of the depravity which the predators and their enablers have. The entire idea of males who should be females, and females who should be males, is such an example of predation. Not just allowed by governments, but actively pushed by governments, “non-governmental organizations,” and advocates of anything and everything.

There are people who are different from the normal run of humans. Like all humans, they should be respected and protected from being abused and discriminated against because of what they are. But we submit there is a great difference between that and encouraging and aiding anyone in acts of aggression, including taking advantage of people (especially the young) for political and personal gain. But that is normal for human governments, is it not?

A correspondent reports this:

At last a mainstream medical association — far too late, and far too timidly — repudiates “gender transition” surgeries for minors. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) just declared:

When evidence regarding benefit is limited, natural history is uncertain, and fully informed consent a challenge, ASPS believes that plastic surgeons should adopt a posture of heightened caution, enhanced documentation, and explicit uncertainty disclosure, recognizing that their role is not simply technical but ethical.

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Libertarian philosophy and New Testament christianity

Posted on 2026-02-08 by TPOL Nathan

A friend recently shared this dialogue with us here at TPOL:

We’ve encountered this attitude for decades, as followers of the Messiah (Jesus the Christ). And not just from “secular people:” people in denominations sometimes have a similar attitude.

But we’ve also encountered a very similar situation with many people with different political philosophies (or just ideas) other than libertarian. Especially those who reject the ideas of free-market anarchism. Sometimes it is precisely analogous to the above. But other times, it is the other side of the coin:

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Political impacts on migration and population shifts within the States

Posted on 2026-02-07 by TPOL Nathan

The US Census Bureau has recently published this map:

The various comments online about this of course concentrate on the (politically) red and blue State divide. And to a degree, there is a definite correlation – and indeed, direct cause and effect. That was heightened by the impact of the panic over the Beer Flu (COVID-19) in 2020 and 2021. But by no means as clear cut as many tout.

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Propaganda machines churn the stuff out more and more

Posted on 2026-02-06 by TPOL Nathan

What happens when you combine so-called “artificial intelligence” with lying politicians?

Perhaps you get something like this, shared by a correspondent a day or so ago:

Senate Democrats Block Voter ID Law That 2/3rds of Their Own Voters Support
The partial government shutdown ended yesterday when Republicans agreed not to add the SAVE Act, which would mandate that states require an ID and proof of citizenship to be able to vote in federal elections. Senate Democrats threatened to torpedo the entire funding bill if it included the voter integrity provision.
The bill has passed the House twice but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer railed that “the SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0. It would disenfranchise millions of Americans.”
By that, he really means the act would disenfranchise people who are not legally eligible to vote.
Sounds to us like the Schumer Democrats WANT ineligible voters to vote. This law requires voters show the same type of ID now required to sign up for federal programs such as Medicare and Social Security. It’s true that noncitizens are already barred from voting in federal elections, but without verification, there’s no effective way to enforce that.
Harry Enten, a CNN data analyst, finds overwhelming support for requiring a photo ID to vote. In last year’s Pew Research poll it was backed by 71% of Democrats, 76% of blacks, and 82% of Latinos. When it comes to voter ID, Enten said the issue is a complete “nontraversy.”
So is Chuck Schumer saying that three out of four blacks support a Jim Crow Law?  

Fortunately, once more Armageddon was avoided, and all Fifty States did not dissolve into chaos because the FedGov wasn’t fully functioning, right?

Both sides in Congress are screaming at each other in public, while they work deals quietly by secure text-messaging and whispered words in the lounges (and no doubt, toilets). Deals which do not accomplish anything but to speed up the decay of the dead Republic, and pave the way for more totalitarian power in their hands. And of course, keep the spending ramped up as much as possible, no matter where the money comes from (or doesn’t).

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The killing nature of inflation

Posted on 2026-02-05 by TPOL Nathan

A relative posted this on-line:

Inflation is indeed a killer. It is only the incredible productivity of even our badly-perverted and severely-damaged free market economy that makes a Quarter-pounder meal cost “only” somewhere between $9.00 and $12.00 (well, FRNs).Plus sales tax, as government rip us off for another 6-10% (between 54 cents and a dollar-twenty more). We can count our blessings that we are only paying TEN times what that same food cost a half-century ago.

(Of course, we must remember that even in 1972, a McD’s hamburger, fries and even soft-drink loaded with sugar was probably a whole lot bigger, better tasting, and more healthy that that meal today.)

Gold and silver, as Robert Kiyowsaki was fond of saying, is “God’s money.” Something that holds its value. Little green pieces of paper or a stream of electrons does not. We can blame the FedGov (and the rest of the world’s governments) and the banks for this: it is harder to lay the blame on just one man, though we cannot speak with any sort of approval for Richard Nixon. Or before him, FDR, both of whom led to this sort of pain and agony.

But the real blame perhaps can be laid at the feet of American voters, and American citizens in general. We did not (and do not) rise up in rebellion against this horrible treatment. Against these stupid actions. Instead, we meekly bow down, or kneel in front of those who we let be our masters. (Though of course, they claim they are our “servants” and doing all this for their love of us and these nations.)

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Sex, gender, words, and madness

Posted on 2026-02-04 by TPOL Nathan

English test:

Define the following words:

a. Sex (noun)

b. Gender (noun)

c. Confusion

The entire issue of “sex” and “gender” and hatred of those who differ from us is back in the news headlines. Revelations that the murderer of Charlie Kirk had “non-standard” beliefs and practices has brought this issues forward from the back burner. Actions in various States have ramped this up in the last five months.

Once again, it is obvious that many people in the world – and especially here in the States – not only disagree on how things should (or should not!) be done but on how to define these words. TPOL recently discussed so-called leftists recommendation about banning words that either confused or caused very negative reactions in many people. Primarily their political opponents and those people whom they believed could be persuaded to come over to their side. Of course, this is portrayed as “protecting free speech” as they again pervert and twist principles. Not just the English language.

The Blaze had this provocative headline some time back: DHS updates policy to recognize only two genders: ‘There are only two sexes — male and female’

Since then, a number of fedgov agencies have followed suit. The Donald is blamed, of course. Several States have also done this – taking advantage of that evil “freedom” that The Donald claims to be bringing back to the States and people in general.

As a high school student and engineering student, your writer was taught that “sex” refers to biological creatures, like animals and humans. “Gender” refers to inanimate objects, like the gender of electrical components. Such as plugs (male gender) and outlets (female gender). In the past 40+ years, this clear distinction has mutated. A brief visit to that rarified authority, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, takes several thousand words to try and explain the difference in usage and even the history.

Although the FedGov has officially ended the silliness of requiring people to append “their pronouns” to emails and letters, many States and private businesses still require (or at least practice) that waste of electrons and ink.

For lovers of liberty, the bottom line is simple: let people say whatever they want to provided that they do not use actual violence to try and force others to agree with them. And understand that we are not acting aggressively towards them when we reject their claims, their definitions, and their accusations. No matter how offensive they may believe us to be. Government should stay out of it.

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