You can laugh at the bad guys

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for December 31, 2025)

Happy New Year!

I can't help it. I feel a bit optimistic for 2026. No one spiked my eggnog, either.

Maybe it's because I had a really nice Christmas, with lots of family and food, and only one relatively minor dog bite. I was neither the bitten nor the owner of the biter, so this is a plus.

It feels as though a page is turning; my past troubles are behind me, to be replaced by exciting new troubles.

Maybe it's because the supporters of tyrants of various kinds have become so ridiculous it's just funny. Still dangerous, but more like fans of killer clowns than serious people. The masks are slipping a little more every day, and it's good for the rest of us to see the truth.

Partly, it might even be that it seems some things have hit rock bottom and don't have anywhere but up to go. Please don't shatter this illusion!

If the coming year sees the economy rally, great! I'm ready to celebrate.

If, though, it sees the economy tank, I have those bases covered as well. At least, as well as I can in my current situation. I hope you can say the same. It's not "paranoia" to prepare; it's your responsibility whether you want to or not.

Further, I'm not going to base my mental health on what political criminals say or do. I expect nothing but more of the same from them.

It's liberating when you realize how little effect they have on you. Their opinions (which they'll insist are laws) are little more than hot air, even with their hired guns roaming the streets to enforce them against you. People have always had to avoid the highwaymen and other criminal gangs, official and freelance. To expect this to change while so many still fall for the myth that government is necessary or good is to expect the Sun to stay up later if you order people to mis-set their clocks in the Spring and pretend the time has changed.

Be of good cheer in the New Year, and remain so when the year is no longer new. The best way to defy the bad guys is to enjoy life in spite of all they intend for you. As an acquaintance of mine says, "The Ultimate Answer to Kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh!" Poke them in their evil eye with your smile.

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Statists have no principles; only weapons

Statists only care about liberty if they can use some facet of it to "own" the "other team".

This is because they are- all of them- hypocrites.

The anti-gun governor of Colorado was trying to argue the Second Amendment against those who believe marijuana use should disqualify someone from owning and carrying a weapon. He's right, of course.
Yet, he has signed into "law" a host of anti-gun rules that violate this same part of the Constitution even worse.

And you'll constantly see "conservatives" invoking the Constitution* while saying it doesn't matter that some of the policies and "laws" they seem to love the most directly violate the Constitution and what it allows government to do. (That's where they go after they try to twist the Constitution for their purposes and fail.)

It's as predictable as the phases of the Moon.

Neither side talks about actual liberty much- talking about the Constitution is as close as they usually get. Statists can't think outside the government box, and it shows.

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*The Constitution is illegitimate anyway. Its only use in our time is to point out how hypocritical Constitutional Statists are. That's probably always been the case, as Lysander Spooner observed..

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