Little r republican

“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality." - Francisco d'Anconia

@JonforFairfax @uaustinorg Instead of a timid manner, perhaps an "am I wrong" manner. More specifically, an insistence on WHY am I wrong.

@uaustinorg To say what you actually think sounds good but can end your career before it gets started if you voice conservative opinions in anything other than the most timid manner.

To: Admitted Students on Ivy Decision Day From: UATX Congratulations. Getting in was hard and you should be proud. Now here’s some unsolicited advice so you don’t waste the next four years. Go to class. We know this sounds obvious. But as the New York Times reported recently, Harvard students routinely skip class, rarely speak up when they're there, and focus on their devices instead of the discussion. Faculty say few students do enough preparation to contribute meaningfully. The average college student spends about 20 hours a week on class and studying combined. At UATX, we aim for 50. That’s the difference between a part-time commitment and a full-time job. You (or your parents) are about to spend upwards of $90K a year. If you don't show up, you're paying roughly $250 per skipped lecture for the privilege of sleeping in. Read the books yourself. Your generation is the first to arrive at college post-literate — raised on short-form video, dependent on algorithms, and increasingly incapable of sitting with a difficult text long enough to let it change your mind. Ninety percent of college students use AI academically. This makes you more reliant on the authority of others. Most professors will also stand between you and the text. They’ll tell you what Marx “really meant,” what Aristotle “failed to see,” as though an academic in 2026 has outsmarted minds that shaped civilizations. The good professors do the opposite: they put you in front of the book and they work with you to find what a great mind has to teach us directly. Find those professors, and read everything yourself. Say what you actually think. Seventy-three percent of conservative students report withholding their political views in class out of fear their grades will suffer. Our advice isn't political; it's intellectual. If you spend four years learning to say what's expected instead of what's true, you’ll graduate roughly where you started — just older, more credentialed, and more practiced at self-censorship. One study finds that nearly half of students show no measurable gains in “critical thinking” after two years in college. Keep this in mind as you make decisions about which professors to take and how to do your assignments. Taking a small hit on your paper to gain integrity and wisdom is usually worth it. Ask for real grades. Sixty percent of Harvard undergraduate grades are now A’s. Twenty-five years ago, it was 20%. It got so bad that the legendary Harvard professor, Harvey Mansfield, started giving students two grades: the official one for their transcript, and a private one reflecting what they actually earned. He called the official grades “ironic.” So here's a suggestion: Take your A, but also ask your professors for a “Mansfield grade” so that you know where you stand. And don’t avoid difficult courses to keep your transcript clean for law school. Get work experience before you graduate. Forty-two percent of recent college graduates are working jobs that don't require a degree. Many employers are projecting the next few years to be the worst college grad job market in years. A degree alone — even from an Ivy — is not a job guarantee. Seek out apprenticeships, internships, and real work starting freshman year. The students at UATX are connected with entrepreneurs and business leaders from day one. Many will graduate with four years of work experience alongside their degree. You can build something similar at your school, but you'll have to do it yourself. Understand how debt shapes your life. If you're paying full freight or even half, do the math with your eyes open. Your decision to take on debt will quietly reshape the trajectory of your adult life through countless small surrenders: the job you take because it’s safe instead of starting the company. The city you choose to live in. The relationship you delay and the kids you don’t have. For women, a $1,000 increase in student loan debt lowers the odds of marriage by 2% per month in the first four years after graduation. None of that shows up in the college brochure. If you're going to take on debt, treat it like the constraint it is from day one: save aggressively and make sure every dollar is buying something that will actually compound in your favor. Find the people who take school seriously. The best thing about a great school isn't the lectures or the library. It's the handful of professors and students who are genuinely there to learn — who read ahead, argue in good faith, and push you to be sharper. Find them. UATX is a small community of those who seek a serious education. At a larger university, you have to build this community yourself. * The most dangerous thing about an elite university is that it is very easy to do nothing for four years and still come out looking successful. The transcript will say you excelled. The diploma with the fancy crest will open certain doors. Your parents will be proud. And yet you will have coasted — through inflated grades, unread books, and borrowed opinions. Getting in is an accomplishment. Making the next four years worth it will be harder, and the right decisions will change everything. We wish you luck.

@MWChapman @MarioNawfal "How could Israel and the US let Iran complete a nuke? Why didn't they stop them before they could use it? Such incompetent leadership!"

@MarioNawfal We have no business there. It is a war of choice. What a waste of lives and treasure.

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 The U.S. just deployed robot speedboats to the Gulf and it's about time The Pentagon confirmed for the first time that uncrewed drone boats are patrolling the Strait of Hormuz during Operation Epic Fury. The GARC, a 5-meter autonomous speedboat, has logged 450+ hours and 2,200 nautical miles on patrol. These vessels can run surveillance or be used as kamikazes against Iranian fast-attack boats. Ukraine proved the concept by crippling Russia's Black Sea Fleet with explosive drone boats reportedly costing around $250,000 each. For context, a single Iranian anti-ship cruise missile costs millions and a U.S. destroyer runs about $2 billion. Iran has already used sea drones to hit oil tankers twice during this war. The U.S. was late to the game but is finally playing it. Source: Reuters

The "wrong place" was Chicago, Illinois. The "wrong time" was while Democrats were in charge of law and order.

Colorado power lines are dilapidated for the same reason CO roads and bridges are crumbling. The money meant to improve and maintain infrastructure is instead being wasted on fantasy projects hoping to rewrite reality. The inmates are running the proverbial asylum.

@RaysPlectrum @SeanPaige @angrydannyboy For the same reason CO roads and bridges are crumbling. The money meant to improve and maintain infrastructure is instead being wasted on any kind of generation except what's proven to work, reliably and economically. The inmates are running the proverbial asylum.

I partially agree. I think XCEL got sued after a big fire and doesn’t want to get sued again if the wind forecast is wrong or a tree branch falls into a power line and starts a fire. We’re a little sister of CA but there’s a lot percolating. The other point is infrastructure. The CO distribution system is 1958 era design in a lot of places. Why?

Turning off Grandma's power every time the wind blows is unacceptable -- but it's become the "new norm" in #Colorado ever since "green energy" advocates began monkey-wrenching a formerly reliable grid: completecolorado.com/2026/03/18/the… Coloradans are being socially conditioned to accept a costly but unreliable green grid, argues @i2idotorg's John Caldara. #copolitics #coleg #greengridfailures @GovofCO

The world should hear the truth about the Islamic Republic. Why are they protected from exposure? It's almost like, daresay, the Third Reich. "Why did nobody tell us?" Some are trying. Thank you @AlinejadMasih .

It is difficult to comprehend how powerful brainwashing can be.

@Inquisition1776 @MattMorseTV Furthermore, ANY supply Iran provides, to ANY buyer, lowers the global oil price. The first to cry "Uncle" will be China and India, not the US or Israel. And supplying them keeps prices lower everywhere.

Matt, the sequential retreats are the story. Total closure. Then yuan passage. Then everyone except the US and Israel. Each position weaker than the last. Iran is negotiating with itself in public while an international naval coalition assembles outside the door. That is not leverage. That is a slow surrender.

The Iranian regime is just completely imploding right now. First, they said that the Strait of Hormuz is closed - for EVERYONE. Then, they opened it up for vessels willing to pay in Chinese Yuan instead of the U.S. dollar. And now, they're saying that everyone can go through except for the USA and Israel. Meanwhile, Trump has put together an international coalition of battleships to go blast the Strait open. Iran blinked. Won't be long before this 'war' is over.

@aki_being @RockChartrand @SarasvuoJari Interest is what allows the middle class to even exist. Without it there would be gentry and peasants. With it, millions of people can live in homes they don't own, but then own them when they reach retirement age. What is "very much bad" about that?

@RockChartrand @SarasvuoJari True but interest is absolutely very much a bad thing there’s a reason so many Jewish people do well financially and they do not charge interest from each other as the Old Testament explicitly forbids usury

Rent, profit, and interest aren’t theft. They come from voluntary agreements involving property, risk, capital, and time. Pretending only physical labor creates value is childish economics. And if your rule were true, the first thing it would condemn is welfare, because that actually takes money from someone else’s labor by force. So the slogan doesn’t expose anything profound. It just exposes how little thought went into the premise.

@SecretaryWright @RepGabeEvans Right in my back yard! I'm sorry I missed it. Are either of you doing anything to help CO's Suncor refinery? I believe @repgabeevans is up to speed on that.

Political choices have choked the Colorado energy industry, but there are commonsense ways to reverse this. I visited Fort St. Vrain Generating Station with @RepGabeEvans to discuss how the Trump administration is delivering more affordable, reliable and secure American energy.

On this relatively tree-less street, there are three residents at one house registered to vote in Colorado. Two are males, both with the same last name and year of birth. One has a first name of ADAN (registered in 2020) and the other ADAM (registered in 2021). There is also a female resident with a similar birth year and same last name. The males may be twins with cruel parents and one or both may be married to the other resident OR Colorado's automatic voter registration process has screwed up yet again. (Only one of the males has been voting since 2022 so likely the latter.)

Two individuals at this house have the same first & last name and same year of birth on the Colorado voter roll. Originally registered to vote in 2018, automatic voter registration added a duplicate registration in 2024 when the individual (likely) included a middle name, extra last name and checked a different gender box on some state government form. (Despite getting two ballots, they only voted once in 2024.)

🔴 UK LLOYD'S SURRENDERS, FBI Caught Red-Handed | Live Q&A x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Good stuff.

After he rescues the once proud people, impoverished by decades of wealth destruction by communist ideologues in the local government of Cuba, I hope President Trump tries to save Californians next.

@MaxUtilitarian @RockChartrand Leftists need to be regarded equal to roadside beggars, i.e. ignore them. I try to persuade only the people who acknowledge and value reason.

@3SourcesJG @RockChartrand Agree but: "The American System is about self-reliance and universal prosperity." Tell that to your average leftist.

I understand criticizing your own country when it deserves it. That’s healthy. What I don’t understand is pretending that because your country has problems, a regime with the more and worse problems multiplied a hundredfold suddenly becomes morally superior. Communists routinely hold free societies to impossible standards while applying none at all to authoritarian regimes. It exposes something important. They know the difference between good and evil, but they just keep desperately searching for excuses to side with the worse one.

@AdamMossoff @voicereason05 @Lieboisout In my humble opinion, the ability of the IRGC to construct eleven nuclear warheads constitutes and emergency. One that manifested over forty-seven years of failure to prevent it. aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emerge…

I won't argue over a quote from a philosopher deductively applied to an issue given the false factual assumptions underlying the use of the quote. I'll be more direct than my prior post because too many armchair constitutional lawyers are making false claims about what the Constitution requires or doesn't require. The Constitution doesn't require *pre-approval* by Congress before the use of military forces by the President. You will search in vain in the Constitution for this non-existent limitation of an express mandate of prior authorization by Congress before deployment of military forces. In fact, the Founders' own actions in the executive and legislative branches after 1790 make clear the Constitution does not mandate a pre-approval requirement. Here's just two examples of innumerable examples: President Washington did not seek prior congressional approval before deploying military forces to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 (he claimed authorization under a prior general statue). President Jefferson did not seek or obtain pre-approval before deploying the U.S. Navy in 1801 against the Barbara pirates in extended warfare in response to declaration of war by Tripoli. A year later in 1802, Congress legislatively approved the ongoing military operation, and the First Barbary War lasted for four years (1801-1805). What makes the use of armed forces a "war" versus a "military operation" is defined by purpose and context. One cannot simply deduce from a generalized quote by a philosopher that President Trump, or President Washington or President Jefferson, are violating the Constitution in acting on "whim" in deploying military force in defense of American lives and American interests without pre-approval by Congress for this use of force. The starting point for these analyses is in fact the Constitution, not an Ayn Rand quote, and it's beyond clear that the plain text of the Constitution that empowers Congress to declare war among its other delegated powers in Article 1, Section 8 (including the power to secure parents and copyrights), does not require pre-approval from Congress before the President uses military force. After this, it's a contextual assessment of the facts of the deployment of force, e.g., nature of the attacks on the U.S., the duration of the attacks, a declaration of war by the attacking country, etc., etc., etc., etc.

If only all the pundits were around in December 1941 to oppose going to war with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany because the U.S. had no plan in place about what came next after their unconditional surrender, and literally no actual plan of how to fight the war. A total failure!

Twenty-nine MILLION followers and only three thousand likes on this Hate Trump (TM) merch post? This poll says America likes winning and wants more please.

The Muslim world is divided about Iran: Muslim countries in favor of removing the regime: Jordan 🇯🇴 Kuwait 🇰🇼 UAE 🇦🇪 Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 Oman 🇴🇲 Qatar 🇶🇦 Bahrain 🇧🇭 Muslim countries against the removal of the regime: Great Britain 🇬🇧 France 🇫🇷 Spain 🇪🇸