I've written often about Thomas Paine (1736-1809), one of my favorite historical figures. I thought this week as a counterpoint I'd write about one of my least favorite figures... his 18th century contemporary, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).   Being against reason, science, civilization, individual liberty, and self-discipline, Rousseau's thinking has been at the root of much of the psychological, political, and cultural trouble of our time.  It has specifically popularized a philosophy of emotions that has done and continues to do great harm. While ideals of individual liberty, natural rights, representative democracy, and private property were growing in influence throughout the west, Rousseau argued against them. When Rousseau sent his friend Voltaire a copy of his second Discourse, Voltaire began his brilliant reply, "I have received, Monsieur, your new book against the human race."   Which is why one clear path to wisdom is to ignore his baneful influence completely.

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy," said Benjamin Franklin. "An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." But it's been tough sledding for equal protection of the laws these last five years. The president alters at his whim laws passed by Congress, exempting some, but not others, from Obamacare provisions. His attorney general won't prosecute civil rights offenses -- if the victims are white. Pennsylvania's attorney general won't prosecute bribe-taking politicians -- if they are black. The scofflaws could be reined in -- if plaintiffs prevail in lawsuits which got hearings in courts in Washington D.C. last week.

"The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David," began a lengthy story in the Washington Post March 20. "The finding about the Koch acreage is likely to inflame the already contentious debate about the Keystone XL Pipeline," said reporters Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin. Which was the purpose of a two page "report" issued by the International Forum on Globalization, on which the Post story is based. "IFG's intention is to demonstrate the Koch-Keystone connection," Executive Director Victor Menotti  told the Post reporters.  Which exists only in the feverish imagination of the far left group.   Here's the story of how the crooked left-wing shyster jouranlism of the Washington Post was exposed.

To whom would you be willing to trust with all of your financial and tax information: 1) close family members; or 2) the U.S. government and foreign governments, including Russia? For the last several decades, global liberty-haters have dreamt that all financial privacy would be eliminated. They have sought out a variety of excuses to act as Peeping Toms peering into your bank accounts. In the 1980s, their big push was to enact "anti-money laundering" legislation, with the claim that it would make catching drug dealers and other assorted criminals easier. The United States passed its first anti-money laundering law in 1986 -- despite the fact that no one could objectively define "money laundering", because it is not an action but an "intent" to act unlawfully. As a result of all the global anti-money laundering regulations, total compliance costs for financial institutions are now in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Basic banking and other financial services have been reduced and even eliminated for tens of millions of people around the world. Have all of these regulatory costs done any good?

Investment banker Kenneth Bellando, 28, was found dead March 12 on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building on Manhattan's East side where he lived. Police think he jumped from the roof of the six story building. A former investment bank analyst at JP Morgan, Mr. Bellando had been working at Levy Capital since January. His brother, John, is a chief investment officer at JP Morgan. Mr. Bellando is the 11th financial professional -- the 4th with ties to JP Morgan -- to die mysteriously in the last two months. One of them, American Title Services president Richard Talley, 57, was found dead in the garage of his home in suburban Denver Feb. 7. Police have ruled his death a suicide.  Mr. Talley shot himself in the head and torso eight times with a nail gun, police said. That's tough to do  Suicide or suicided?

The "news" is resolutely out of context.  A subject about which virtually nothing is known - the mystery of the missing airplane - gets saturation "coverage," while events of potentially earth-shaking importance are largely unreported. Any self-respecting "news network" would relentlessly run stories about the ongoing demonstrations from Caracas to Maracaibo - demonstrations surely the equal of those from Maidan Square in Kiev - but no. The Venezuelan uprising may turn out to be the biggest story of all, because it is part of a world-wide battle that pits anti-Western tyrannies against their own people, and against their neighbors.  It is of a piece with Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Russia itself, where, just a few days ago, fifty thousand Muscovites demonstrated against Putin's imperialist moves in Ukraine. I've been saying for years that we're the target of a global war, that the Pyongyang-Beijing-Moscow-Tehran-Damascus-Havana-Caracas  Axis of Evil is hell-bent to dominate and destroy us.  Now the evidence is so clear that only a willfully blind man could fail to see it.