Oedipus and Bruce Jenner

Don’t be misled by statements that private property rights put rights of property over rights of people. Private property rights are rights of people over uses of goods they own.-- economists Armen Alchian’s and William R. Allen’s Universal Economics (2018; Jerry L. Jordan, ed.)

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The environment has recently become our misunderstood and abused friend. The government has wrecked sanitation by ruining our appliances in the name of conservation. Come the virus. And now we suddenly discover that we care about cleanliness and getting rid of germs. Suddenly the environment might be, as it always has been, our enemy. It is like those terrible stories where some poor soul raises a chimp from a baby and it grows up and destroys her. These people think the fences in zoos are to protect the animals. The tiger isn't walking the fencing to bond; it's shopping.

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In the 21 years from the first full year of the George W. Bush administration (fiscal year 2002) through today, the U.S. government has not balanced its budget once. This is the longest sustained period of deficit financing in American history, leading to a rise in the gross national debt to about 125 percent of total output. This is higher than it was at the end of the war fought by the Greatest Generation. Contrast that to the period 1900–1930. This is the time when the Greatest Generation was born, grew up, and reached early adulthood. The federal government ran budget surpluses in 20 of those 31 years. During the Roaring Twenties, the national debt declined by one-third, as Presidents Warren Harding and especially Calvin Coolidge worked assiduously to reduce the debt burden.

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Oedipus and Bruce Jenner

A recent article reports almost 40 percent of students at liberal arts colleges identify as LGBTQ. The historic rate has been between 0.75% for women to 1.5% for men.

What has happened? This is certainly not reflected in the rest of the world. Was there an awakening in the halls of education? An epiphany? An insightful book available only in English? Are the other, non-educated working people suppressed or inhibited? Have the Russians poisoned the water?

Or have the days of Freudian self-oppression returned? Is everything a construct and have those of us locked into our identities through circumstances--like pregnancy--the true tragic figures, unable to escape our self-imposed chains?