When Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority leader, refused to hold hearings for the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, he argued that no nomination should move forward during an election year[i]. He was echoed by the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley (R-IO), who stated…

This analysis and my own thinking on the correlation between demographics, technology, prices and their manifestation in human societies owes an inestimable debt to the work of David Hackett Fischer and his outstanding work in “The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History” (Oxford University Press, 11 November…

It has been ten days since the Spanish Government imposed an Article 155 sanctioned take-over of Catalonia, provoking a defiant Catalan Parliament to sign a declaration of independence. Subsequent events have been somewhat anti-climactic, even mundane: Carles Puigdemont, desposed President of the Catalan Autonomous Region and unrecognized President of the…

On the 9th of May, 1950 the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed “to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.” His plan was to create a common market of natural resources and production between France and Germany, along with the supranational institutions to administer it. Mr. Schuman hoped…

I wrote last year about one of the most flagrant yet unremarked “fixes” in our political system in the aftermath of the first Presidential debate on 28 September. This was the most watched debate in history, with more than 84 million American viewers on TV and an uncounted number more…

The suspended declaration of Catalan independence on 10 October was followed by a week of uncertainty and allegations, with both Spanish and Catalan leaders engaging in a tit-for-tat series of accusations more reminiscent of a schoolyard than of two national leaders. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted that Catalan leader…

Outside the Box is a series of articles that proposes unconventional solutions to controversial topics. Their purpose is to attempt to reframe debates that have fallen into ideological ruts and dogmas. Author’s note: I’m a gun owner, a hunter, and a firm supporter of the Second Amendment. I am also…