21 crazy, brilliant, boring, exciting, insightful, inappropriate, timely, and misguided things I said in January 2024

In review

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

I published the following articles last month…

1. Understanding the chain of custody for the “Holy Land”
2. Why I think Peter Zeihan is wrong about the importance of military power
3. Why I think Peter Zeihan is wrong about the productivity apocalypse and others are wrong about the need for Universal Basic Income
4. Selected aphorisms, Part 1
5. My politically incorrect Mt. Rushmore of the best presidents
6. Why I think Israel should rule from the river to the sea
7. My take-down of stupid answers from a presidential debate
8. Palestinian public opinion is horrifying

A selection of my social media posts and commentary

#1

I want to start the year off right. Please be informed that I identify as she/he/it and my pronoun is shit.

#2

My friend David McGraw asked me to use my shit pronoun in a sentence. How’s this…

“Shit talked shit and got the shit beat out of shit.”

#3

Dogs are the greatest creatures on planet Earth and the main reason the aliens shouldn’t destroy us.

#4

Daryl Davis would be a good place to deposit a Nobel Prize. It would remove some of the damage done by less deserving choices. (I’m looking at you Barrack Obama, Yasser Arafat, and Henry Kissinger)

#5

Claudine Gay has finally resigned. But I’m sure it was slavery that made her a plagiarizing bigot.

#6

I continue to have thoughts about Claudine Gay. No, not those kinds of thoughts. Rather, I’m thinking that character is destiny.

I mean, it doesn’t surprise me that a narcissistic bigot also turns out to be a plagiarist or vice versa.

#7

Beets create vivid effluent.

#8

Ah yes, the good old days…when men were men and sheep were nervous.

#9

Hemingway? I think I’ve heard of him. Didn’t he write “The Grapes of Kilimanjaro?”

#10

Trump didn’t drain the swamp, he injected it into his arm.

#11

I saw this on Facebook…”As a woman, letting a man inside of you should be sacred. That act creates life.”

My reaction: It also creates orgasms. Why not be generous?

#12

I left this comment to James Leroy Wilson’s article: Uri Geller, Big Foot, and a Virgin Birth

Great article. I’ve come to believe that we are living in a collaborative work of art. The designer of this world gave it aspects of great uniformity — rules of the road we can rely on as we come to know them, the same way a video game has rules. BUT…

I think the designer also created room for irregularity in order to make the world more interesting. Magic and psi powers work sometimes, but not all the time. And some of the creatures in our realm can phase in and out, leaving us wondering if they really exist. The purpose is entertainment I think. Likewise with good and evil. It creates conflict that we enjoy in our lives for the same reason we enjoy it in sports or fiction.

NOTE: There is insufficient room in a Facebook comment to describe the evidence I have for the strange claims I make in my comment to James Leroy Wilson, but future articles on Substack and Medium will provide that.

#13

RFK got shot from behind with skin contact. That’s exactly where an armed Thane Eugene Cesar was and Sirhan was not. Some mysteries are difficult to figure out. This isn’t one of them.

#14

Drop acid and you can listen to the lightning and watch the thunder.

#15

If a person of the Left uses the word capitalism or a person of the Right uses the term “national security” I know I’m about to hear something mind-numbingly stupid.

#16

It is becoming necessary to wait for a few days, weeks, months, or years before we can know the real truth about media reports.

#17

As a person who grew up next door in San Antonio, it greatly surprises me that Austin has become the Athens of America.

By Athens, I mean a place like Athens, Greece in the 5th century with all the great artists, philosophers, writers, and mathematicians.

Every time I turn around someone who I think is smart or important to the culture turns out to be either already living in Austin, or moving there.

Examples include Michael Malice, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, the new University of Austin initiative, and much more.

#18

Our current system is kept in place by a tiny minority of the population. We only need a slightly larger tiny minority to replace it.

#19

It amazes me that WWI was closer to the Civil War than 2024 is to the 1960s. The math works, but the intuitive feeling doesn’t.

#20

I contend that the culture the Jews brought from Europe was superior to the indigenous Arab culture in Palestine.

The values Palestinians express today are congruent with Arab values and attitudes that go back centuries, and that still exist in other Arab countries. These are primitive values and attitudes.

Meanwhile, most of the Muslims who live in the West, except for recent immigrants, have much more civilized views. Indeed, Muslims in America, to give just one example, are more supportive of gay marriage than American Christians are.

Culture matters. Legal systems matter. Arabs living in Arab legal systems have impoverished and unfree lives. While the Arabs living in Israel or America have free and prosperous lives.

The last thing the world needs is one more Arab Islamic honor culture hell hole. And we especially do not need a Palestinian state that would wage constant war to take over Israel.

It’s a simple fact — Palestinians would have better lives as part of Israel than they would have in a Palestinian state. Am I being paternalistic? Yes I am, and I don’t give a flying fuck. I care about peace and human rights, not crazy nationalistic aspirations.

A Palestinian state would not bring peace. It would bring continued war. It would also be a disaster for human rights, as the example of Gaza has so amply demonstrated. The slogan “free Palestine” is an oxymoron, and every decent libertarian, classical liberal, progressive, and conservative should oppose it, as should every decent Arab, including those of Palestinian origin.

Israel should rule, from the river to the sea.

#21

The concept of national self-determination is a primitive holdover from WW1 and Woodrow-freaking-Wilson.

What really matters are human rights and the laws that either protect or violate those rights. I don’t care if I’m governed by Martians as long as my rights are protected.

NOTE: This is a gross simplification for reasons of pith, but Woodrow Wilson did pour gasoline on the nationalistic fire, both during and after WW1.

A brief reminder about my January articles that you may have missed…

• Understanding the chain of custody for the “Holy Land”
• Why I think Peter Zeihan is wrong about the importance of military power
• Why I think Peter Zeihan is wrong about the productivity apocalypse and others are wrong about the need for Universal Basic Income
• Selected aphorisms, Part 1
• My politically incorrect Mt. Rushmore of the best presidents
• Why I think Israel should rule from the river to the sea
• My take-down of stupid answers from a presidential debate
• Palestinian public opinion is horrifying

Copyright © Perry Willis 2024

Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.