If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. -- Thomas Paine
Reno, NV
Joined February 2009
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Orrin Johnson retweeted
Anyone who claims a product or service is a “right” is saying something far darker than they admit. If you have a right to a doctor’s time, a farmer’s crops, a builder’s labor, or a programmer’s work, then by consequence the people who produce those things exist to serve you. Their effort becomes an obligation. Their time becomes a duty. Their life becomes a means to your ends.
You cannot have a “right” to something that must be created by someone else unless you believe the creator belongs to you. Rights protect freedom. They don’t impose labor. The moment you declare another person’s work to be your entitlement, you have already crossed the line. You have said, whether you realize it or not, that the producer is your property.
When I was writing my columns for the RGJ and later the Nevada Independent, I’d get all kinds of commentary. Some was positive, some was negative (the Indy’s readership, or at least their commentariat, decidedly does not share my political philosophies), and that was all fine, even enjoyable. I’m a lawyer after all, and debate is central to my profession. But the comments that bothered me to my core – the ones that kept me off Twitter or the news sites themselves – were the ones hysterically accusing me of literally killing people with my ideas. This occurred most during COVID when I was (correctly) questioning the wisdom, legality, ethics, and efficacy of the lockdowns, but it predated it as well. I thought at first that it bothered me merely because it was so ugly, because I like people and do not, in fact, want to kill them, or because they were always calls for censorship (which I abhor). But that wasn’t it. Instead, it was because I realized that they were threats.
If I was seen on the street corner literally trying to kill someone, it would be legal justification for a good Samaritan to kill me in defense of that person. To equate speech with violence – as all autocrats and censors do to justify their acts – is to validate a “self-defense” claim justifying stopping the speaker immediately, and by any means necessary. The same is true in invoking Nazis or fascism – it was necessary to kill Nazis and other fascists during World War II to defend the free nature of Western Civilization, and when the analogy is run to its logical end point, such rhetoric is a threat and a call to violence.
Charlie Kirk’s murder shook me in ways I wouldn’t have expected. I’d seen a number of his videos on line. Expecting empty bombast, to my surprise I rather enjoyed them, usually agreed with him (but not always), and appreciated that he not only invited disagreement, but insisted that the disagree-ers come to the front of the line and present THEIR ideas to as big a platform as he could produce. Exposure to things we disagree with – even find repugnant – is not a mere necessary evil to cope with in a free society. Such exposure is NECESSARY to ensure our mind can think independently, and to inoculate ourselves to those bad ideas, and to even change our minds if ideas we once assumed were bad turned out to be more reasonable. The Charlie Kirk hate is unfathomable to any but those sad souls trapped in unspeakably dark places. The allegations that he is a white supremacist or whatever other smears are running around are absurd lies, and only believed by idiots or cowards who refuse to listen to the man’s words for themselves.
When he was shot, it re-exposed and clarified that old discomfort I had when I was also trying to be a public ambassador for my ideas. There are people willing to kill to silence debate and dissent. The people who justify or excuse or refuse to even feel bad about Kirk’s death because of his (usually deliberately misunderstood) past statements would also justify or excuse or refuse to mourn MY death, and the deaths of tens of millions of others who share some or all of my point of view. It is an evil and corrosive way to think and feel, and if you love and care about people who express such views (as we are all commanded to do), hold them accountable for the sakes of their own souls.
It is important to understand that the temptation towards evil is a part of the human condition. There are no “good people” or “bad people.” My dog is good – he has no choice but to be. But humans are different and special because we get to choose. The line between good and evil runs through the middle of every human heart, and we make a hundred choices a day large and small to indulge one side or another. No individual or faction has a monopoly on good or evil. Most of us (thank God) generally indulge the pro-humanity, pro-freedom good side. Those who seek power for its own sake over other humans against their will, even if it’s nominally “for their own good,” are indulging the evil side. Those who attempt to censor and silence others by threats of force or violence – including the violence of state action – are giving in to evil. You know who you are.
In the vast sweep of history, political violence has been the default condition of human societies, with the post-War Pax Americana the absurdly lucky outlier. To protect and preserve what we’ve had and can have again, we must all recommit ourselves to understand that “good” and “evil” are tangible, definable, objective things. We must recognize that culture matters, that some cultures are frankly better than others, and that while imperfect, Western civilization has been the most potent protector and cultivator of net good over evil than any other cultural tradition in history, for all races and ethnicities.
There is no “left” or “right.” Thos terms have no real meaning beyond tribal identifiers, and to use those terms is lazy and destructive. We are either pro- some idea or anti. We are either pro- a candidate or party, or anti. There is only pro-human, and anti-human. There is only freedom, or totalitarianism in some guise or another. If you are pro-human and pro-freedom, you are my brother and my countryman, no matter where you come from or what your skin tone is or what party you’ve registered with.
We must recognize the slide towards evil in others, and because we commanded to love them whoever they are, we must endeavor to call that evil out to stop the slide into darkness. And more importantly, we must recognize the constant temptation in ourselves, to seek retribution on the wrong targets, or call for censorship or other restrictions on the freedoms of others we may disagree with. (I don’t want the ghouls who are celebrating Kirk’s death to be silenced – I want them exposed to the light for all to see.) We must rediscover, internalize, and commit to the mantra that while we may disagree with what someone says, we will defend WITH OUR LIVES their right to say it.
The freedom to explore and debate ideas that Charlie Kirk espoused was not free. Whether he understood it or not, he risked – and ultimately gave – his life to protect that freedom for future generations, just as countless members of Western Civilization have done before him. We can do no less. Speak out against the darkness when you see it. Speak the truth lovingly but firmly, even at risk to yourself. Resist the evil always lurking in our own hearts. Understand that often the most loving thing you can do for someone is to hold them accountable when they err. Fight for freedom for all, and resist the addiction of tribalism and power over others. The future is ours to create – let’s create the freest, most prosperous, most loving one we can.
If this stance is controversial or objectionable to you, you are anti education, and should be ashamed of yourself. Thank you, Governor.
Orrin Johnson retweeted
When I was County Judge Executive in Lewis County Kentucky, I was responsible for signing the check that paid for every phone landline and cellphone billed to the county.
At first it seemed impossible to ferret out the waste, fraud, and abuse for these phone plans.
How many phones were taxpayers paying for that were defunct? How many were former county employees who were no longer employed but had been able to keep their phone and mooch off the taxpayer? Was any of it fraudulent or inaccurate billing by the service provider?
But then I came up with an idea… I told every county department (Sheriff, Clerk, Road Crew, Jail, etc.) to give me a list of their phones matched to their county employees or offices.
In one month, I would DEACTIVATE EVERY PHONE that wasn’t on one of these lists.
A month went by and only about 80% complied with the directive to list their phones. I gave them one more month and issued a serious warning that their phones would be turned off at the end of the next month.
Finally, I directed the phone company to deactivate all phones that weren’t accounted for. Guess what?
The jailer called me up and said the finger print machine wouldn’t send finger prints to the state police anymore. Ha! That was the only legitimate phone line that I deactivated. We quickly got it reactivated.
I ended up saving our county thousands of dollars on the phone bill, much to the chagrin of the phone company and a few moochers who no longer had free phone plans. I think most of the savings came from phones that just weren’t in service but had been left on the bill.
Why do I tell this story? Because what Elon is doing by asking federal employees to list five things they did in a week is brilliant. Requiring any kind of an affirmative response from a worker will prove whether that worker even exists and can be reached. Don’t forget, the Inspector General for Afghanistan found out we were paying millions for soldiers and police in Afghanistan who didn’t even exist (ghost employees). There’s no telling what Elon’s plan will uncover. We will find some employees can’t use email or aren’t even literate enough to write five things. So everyone take a chill pill and write down your five things to let us know you exist and you can read email and you aren’t completely insubordinate. Then we can clean the roster.
Orrin Johnson retweeted
I'm concerned that many people do not understand the historical and institutional context in which the DOGE labor reforms are unfolding. They look at this as if these are some random, chaotic, arbitrary, strange, and even cruel measures to impose on a devoted civil service.
The reality is very different, and I'm not even sure that Elon entirely understands this. For more than a century, even dating back to 1883, the civil service has grown and grown without check from the elected branch, either the presidency or the legislature . The bureaucracies have ballooned from a few to 450 or so. The bloat and absurdities have grown too.
Get this: no one has ever known what to do about it. Not Coolidge, not Hoover, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Clinton, no one. No president has been able to crack this nut. The only reforms ever to have made it through are those that make the administrative state bigger, never smaller.
Countless cabinet secretaries have come and gone, always with the intention of making a change but leaving saddened, demoralized, outwitted, outgunned, and ultimately devoured.
No president has seriously taken on this problem because they simply did not know how. The unions are powerful, the intimidation from the deep institutional knowledge is overwhelming, the fear of the media as been powerful, and every single president comes to power vaguely feeling threatened by the intelligence agencies. The industries that have captured every single agency were also far too powerful to unseat or control.
This combination of institutional inertia has blocked serious reform for a full century. No one has dared. No one has even had a theory or strategy about what to do about this problem. It had become so terrible that most people in politics have simply surrendered, like homeowners who know there are rats in the basement and bats in the attic but long ago gave up trying to fix the issue.
All this time, the American people have felt themselves ever more oppressed, weighed upon, taxed and regulated, spied upon, brow beaten, and otherwise overwhelmed. Voting never made any difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies ruled all.
The Biden years underscored the point. We didn't even need a conscious and present executive. We only needed a figurehead to pretend to be president, just like the Soviet premiers in the old days. The institutions ran everything and the people controlled nothing.
How to deal with this? Trump alone figured it out in his last term: he simply took charge of the agencies in a limited way. There were screams of horror and plots galore. They performed a long stream of clever schemes to destroy him and show him who is boss, which is not the democratically elected president but the forces behind the scenes.
The job of the president, goes the message from all the insiders, is to PRETEND to be in charge but not actually do anything meaningful. Shut up, mug up, obey, and disturb nothing, let the administrative state do its thing without oversight or disruption, and then you will get your honorary library and bestselling autobiography and go down in history as great.
Trump refused the deal and look what happened.
Four years have gone by and Trump is back again, this time with a determination to slay this beast, one that he knows all-to-well. The efforts of DOGE and MAHA and MAGA are epic in scope, breaking a century of pathetic acquiescence toward the deep, middle, and shallow states, at last using moral courage to confront the problem head on, come what may.
They are profoundly aware that they MUST act fast and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, else we will default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded system runs things behind the scenes.
It has been this way for TOO LONG. The voters this time have demanded change, and mustered the faith to believe that change is possible. This is precisely what DOGE is attempting, to make good on a promise, a promise that for once the voters actually believed was credible.
They simply must succeed. There might never be another chance. The way of failure is the path everyone knows the US was on, toward economic stagnation, political scolerosis, and eventual irrelevance in the unfolding of the next stage of social evolution.
Orrin Johnson retweeted
A gentle reminder that the US Department of Education doesn't actually educate anyone.
It mainly take your money, burns some off in bureaucracy, then sends it back with strings attached.
@CatoInstitute
Orrin Johnson retweeted
Someone was going to have to sort through a massive database of spending, by the most gargantuan bureaucracy in human history, and figure out what money went where why.
I'll bet Elon Musk took one look at this problem and said to himself, "Self, this problem looks a lot like untangling really bad spaghetti code."
Well, spaghetti-code untangling is a young engineer's job.
What you want is a small, tight team of young super-smart coders, who are especially good at tracing execution paths and holding a LOT of what we call "state" in their heads.
Couple that with the fact the you must work around the clock, sleeping as little as possible and in shifts, because speed is of the essence, speed is life.
DOGE must break the power of the federal bureaucracy, the unelected "fourth branch", or its retaliation will be fierce indeed. It must do that by draining away the patronage, the flows of illicit cash that hold the system together, before the corrupt politicians and courts can rally a defense.
The deep state is deeply entrenched, but bureaucracy, by its very definition, is slow. Its function is to distribute responsibility and accountability as widely as possible, and in order to do that, it must decentralize power as well.
This makes it slow to respond.
The natural enemy of the large and powerful dinosaur is the small, egg-eating mammal.
I believe it was Napoleon Bonaparte who observed that military power is not about raw strength at all, but about the ability to bring that power together, concentrating it at a critical point and moment.
From the outside, the deep state is a powerful engine, which can bring massive force to bear. But on the inside, the deep state is just a collection of paper-shufflers with receding hair lines and few skills besides knowing how to fill out from 437-56-h05e-j0b, and where to file it.
Target these bureaucrats individually, by firing them and taking away their computer access, and there's not much they can do but go home to their wives and cry about it on social media.
And for taking on the whole beast?
Well, I may not know much about auditing, but I do know one or two things about asymmetric warfare.
(Except how to spell "asymmetric". Seriously, I never know where to stop.)
An occupation government's two greatest strengths are also its two greatest weaknesses:
The appearance of legitimacy. And the appearance of overwhelming might.
So long as these two appearances are intact, large populations can be subjugated, some percentage by trickery, the rest by fear.
But when these are successfully attacked, the compliance of the general population falls apart, and no government on Earth has ever had the power to compel all its people by force.
DOGE is attacking the bureaucracy's appearance of power by physically occupying its offices and going through its files while the bureaucrats scream and cry.
DOGE is attacking the bureaucracy's appearance of legitimacy simply by telling everyone what the bureaucracy was doing with their money.
Once those two appearances are sufficiently eroded, the Overton window will have shifted to the point where abolishing entire agencies, who would have been unassailable six months ago, will be on the table.
And the good news is, you can participate in these attacks.
Attack the appearance of legitimacy. Attack the appearance of strength.
Spread the word about the ridiculous fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption. Focus on the worst examples. Openly discuss abolishing the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the IRS.
Mock the impotence of federal paper-shufflers. Meme them until they cry, then make memes about them crying.
Accuse everyone who defends them of being on the take, and track down the receipts that show they frequently are.
Accuse them personally of every hypocrisy, corruption, and character flaw. Make them so busy defending themselves personally that they have no time to defend their institutions.
You thought "meme warfare" and "weaponized autism" were jokes?
They are not.
They are precisely how we win.
These young, talented men are the weaponized autism.
You're the meme warfare.
Because the best tactics are the ones your people enjoy.
Every government employee* MUST be at-will, with a person I can vote for (or against) at the top of their chain of command who can hire or fire them. A government voters can't change is not a government for a free people.
*Excluding Article III judges and their staffs, because that's how we maintain a republic rather than risk our rights to pure democracy.
Orrin Johnson retweeted
Not to pick too much of a feud with an institution I quite like, but to pick a feud with an institution I quite like, young liberals need to snap out of reflexive revulsion and mockery every time someone raises a conservative-coded problem.
Look. I get it. "DEI this" and "DEI that" are annoying. And anything that becomes an Approved Conservative Explanation will be embraced by some of the most obnoxious and unpleasant people in the world. One time an unambiguous white supremacist called it DEI when I pointed out he was lying about Asian IQ graphs. That stuff's real. It happens.
But you know what else is real? The 2014 air traffic control hiring scandal as one of the clearest and most pressing causes for the ATC shortage @CNLiberalism dismisses here. With explicitly racial motivation, people actually substantially weakened the test used to hire air traffic controllers. Then, with explicitly racial motivation, they actually replaced it with a blatantly rigged "biographical questionnaire." Then, with explicitly racial motivation, one person leaked the answers to this questionnaire to people in a race-based organization.
All of this actually, unambiguously happened. As a direct result of it, the air traffic control hiring pipeline was shattered. People who had spent years in school planning to become ATCs—fully qualified, ready to go, having already passed relevant tests—were dismissed with no chance of appeal. Those same people have been fighting for justice for a decade now.
I've spoken with several of these people fighting for justice. They're not fringe firebrands. Their politics are all over the spectrum; their backgrounds are everything from a woman working passionately to get more women involved in aviation to a moderate Latino man who spent years fighting through courts to get his FOIA requests approved so he could piece together the story to instructors who watched the government trample and dismiss their livelihood, then cover it up, lest it interfere with Diversity Goals.
You know who's stood in their way? Look, I hate it as much as you do, but it wasn't the crank conservatives. It was the Reasonable, Centrist, Smug Liberals who, every time they heard a conservative-coded criticism, refused to air it in their media, turned their brains off, and mocked it.
I was glad to have some small role in bringing their story back to prominence during the Biden administration, when Buttigieg--one of the politicians I respect most--was in charge of the FAA and had his name on the lawsuit that's been trying to settle this for years. He could have repaired it. He could have been honest, could have fixed what Trump 1 failed to do. He did not.
So now--guess what? The conservatives get a dunk. They get to score a point. They win a round in this game of politics, and liberals lose. They have the opportunity to fix something that everyone who understands the story knows is a massive scandal, something that makes liberals look terrible, and you know what? If they actually settle this lawsuit, patch things up with the CTI schools that the FAA screwed over all those years ago, bring justice to the individuals harmed, and repair a broken pipeline? Good. Let them rub that in our faces. Let them drink liberal tears, because in this case, the libs deserve it.
@SeanDuffyWI is the new US Secretary of Transportation. As one of his first acts, he should settle the class action lawsuit formerly known as Brigida v. Buttigieg, soon--presumably--to be known as Brigida v. Duffy, issue an official apology to the victims of years of knowing incompetence on the part of the FAA, and repair a broken pipeline. No more excuses. No more waiting. It's been a decade. The time is now.
And if all liberals can do while that's going on is call it "tiresome"? Look: the Obama admin made that bed, the Biden admin failed to fix it, and I don't really care how "tired" people are of hearing the phrase DEI, there is a problem that needs fixing and someone had better fix it. If the New Liberals can't help with that, can't even face it down honestly, then they need to step aside so others can.
My favorite shows are with guests I disagree with while still enjoying the conversation. Really appreciate @JosephDalia joining me on Newsmakers! nevadanewsmakers.com/video/d…
My conversation with Carson City's new district attorney, Garrit Pruyt. Enjoy! nevadanewsmakers.com/video/d…
Orrin Johnson retweeted
Elon Musk has; read a bill proposed by the congress, discussed the things he finds objectionable on a public forum, ask others to contact their representatives if they agree, and make clear he will help primary republicans that vote for the bill.
this is how representative government is intended to work. this is government for the people, by the people, and of the people.
anyone that objects to Musks activism is only objecting to his effectiveness.
Orrin Johnson retweeted
That "skinny" girl lifting the bar recently gained 5lbs trying to overcome her eating disorder.
That skinny kid on the bench press is trying to get stronger because he’s tired of being bullied.
That young girl doing her workout wrong is new to the gym and struggling with addiction.
That angry looking buff guy just lost his job and has no idea how he is going to provide for his family.
That "overweight" girl wearing tight clothes has already lost 30lbs and is only just starting to feel confident.
That Mom lifting 5lbs has been dealing with postpartum depression and just making it to the gym is a huge win for her.
That guy sitting alone on the turf just lost his wife and his entire world is falling apart.
Everyone in the gym is fighting demons we know nothing about. Be kind always. 🙏🏼❤️
Orrin Johnson retweeted
I was picked to be on a jury once. It was one my life’s most important experiences and responsibilities.
There is enormous pressure on holdout jurors to capitulate to the majority. People are away from home and work, and responsibilities start to pile up. Juries and courts use that pressure in an attempt to get to an unanimous verdict.
My only advice to jurors is to stick to your personal assessment of the accused’s guilt or innocence after considering all of the facts and the input of others on the jury, but don’t capitulate and approve a verdict that you disagree with. Someday, it could be you, your father, mother, son or daughter on trial, and it may be that lone juror that is the difference between your/their independence and 25 years in jail or worse.
If you are a juror on the Daniel Penny case, stay strong with your convictions and never capitulate to a verdict you don’t believe in. It is matter of life and death.
Can there be any doubt at this point that Joe Biden voted for Trump, and is doing everything in his power to burn to the ground the Democratic Party that he feels betrayed him? It is fitting that Biden's decades of self-serving me-first politics directly resulted in what will be a humiliating legacy of corruption and failure. And it tells us who Joe Biden is that he couldn't care less, now that he feels he's gotten his revenge.
Orrin Johnson retweeted
Jen Psaki said that "laws have to be changed" to stop the "disinformation" online. I'm on the left and think that there was a lot of wrong information put out about vaccines, conspiracies, etc. But we're not changing any laws to block social media because your real intent is obvious - block people from disagreeing with you. Fuck that! We're not going back!
We're not going back to the mainstream media monopoly on the news. There is no bigger source of disinformation than cable news telling you everything is great, politicians aren't crooks and that the donors aren't in charge.
This was more or less my path.
Confessions of a Reformed NeverTrumper, by @ishapiro open.substack.com/pub/ilyash…
Regardless of how you voted, anyone who grew up yearning to reach for the solar system and beyond has reason to be very excited for the next decade. Human expansion beyond the Earth is not inevitable, but I believe it is vital to both the cause of freedom and to enrich the human spirit and unlock our full potential as a species. If humans are walking on Mars in the next decade, it will (perhaps ironically, given previous claims of some to be the "party of science" be as a direct result of this election.
substack.com/home/post/p-151…
Vance's story isn't exactly mine, but similar enough for me to be legitimately inspired. Freedom is the only true path out of poverty.
This disenfranchised kid with a rough family life from Middletown Ohio, which has an average income of $29,000 just became the next Vice President of the United States.
The American dream could not be more alive.
