Soap Box: Do People Understand What Tyranny Actually Is?

Jim Lardy, a member of the West Mountain Rangers militia group, has become just the latest example of the modern misunderstanding of the concept of tyranny. (photo courtesy of Ben Botkin/The Las Vegas Review-Journal)

"We need guns to protect ourselves from the tyrannical government."- Jim Lardy, Montana militia member

With the almost clock-like precision of a well-built timepiece, news consumers in this country have been subjected to yet another round of for-the-camera ideological melodrama revolving around the charges of tyrannical behavior by our elected leaders and the levers of powers that they wield while in their respective offices. I, for one, am getting a little sick and tired of seeing that term being bastardized by people too lazy to look up its actual meaning.

Soap Box: Realpolitik and "Mom" Jeans

 We learned this week that some people actually base their opinions of world leader's governing skills based primarily upon their choices--or lack--of clothing.

Unless deliberately shunning newspapers, cable news or the internet since last weekend, you should already know that Russian president Vladimir Putin moved elements of his nation’s military forces to the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine, a neighboring country and former Soviet republic. This was reportedly in response to a request from Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukraine’s fugitive president—and Putin lackey—who  was ousted in a popular revolution in late February and took up sanctuary in Russia to escape vindictive retribution in his homeland by the people who took over for him.