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People all too often blame their circumstances for their success or rather their lack thereof.

Reality offers a different explanation.

It is the choices we make that determine the outcome.

One sterling example is that of the life of Anne Sullivan, the woman responsible for freeing Helen Keller from a dark and lonely existence.

Anne had a difficult childhood filled with abuse, suffering and loss.

Did she choose to wallow in self-pity and become a nobody, accomplishing nothing?

No, she did not....

Another misunderstood term is meritocracy. Some feebly attempt to portray it as a myth.

First, meritocracy has nothing to do with equality and does not maintain that a person's success is owing completely to their own effort.

That is a straw man argument.

Meritocracy is simply the recognition of a person's usage of the raw materials nature and circumstance have provided them. Everyone has been dealt a slightly different hand than everyone else. It is up to us what we do with the hand we were...

The reason why central planning never works at scale is because knowledge is dispersed and is never held by any person or group of persons.

Instead it is spread out across all of humanity.

Free markets and their price systems allow all of this dispersed knowledge to be used to make things run more efficiently and cheaper, and to encourage innovation.

I have maintained for a very long time that nothing is immoral which does not involve a violation of property rights. I have never had anyone satisfactorily refute that assertion.

All price controls, as well as being economically ignorant and misguided, are immoral.

To force a person to sell their product or service for less than they would voluntarily is immoral.

It violates their right to control their property as they see fit.

This is the reason why governments everywhere, even the more benign...

Few people other than economists understand the nature of prices. Essentially prices are bits of information which are conveyed between those participating in markets (all people whether buyers, sellers or intermediaries).

Among other things it conveys what the best use of scarce resources are at any time and in any place. When prices rise to a certain level consumers of the product or service involved, unless the product or service is an absolute necessity (food for example), either curtail...

In his prescient book entitled 'The Road to Serfdom' F. A. Hayek included a chapter, 'Why the Worst Get on Top'.

There he explains why only the most ruthless of men rise to the top in totalitarian regimes.

The reason being that only they are willing to do the despicable and horrific things required to establish and maintain such brutal regimes.

Where the principle of 'the end justifies the means' prevails, no such thing as morality exists.

It is almost always those who feel inferior who fill the lower ranks of the activist groups. Having no certainty in themselves they seek to obtain it in a group identity. Those with high self-esteem are not susceptible to such group allure.

It seems to be a tragic flaw in human nature that it is far easier to rally people around something negative such as envy or hatred of another than it is to rally them around something positive.

One reason Socialism appeals to the intellectual 'chattering classes' and especially the young is because there is a romantic feel to utopian abstract theories which is lacking in more practical considerations.

Visions sell; practicality, not so much.

When it comes to social policies, does it matter more what the intentions of those promoting it are or what practical outcomes it brings about?

It never ceases to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent people are utterly convinced that all could be made right if only we could put the right people in charge of bossing the rest of us around.

The most serious mistake men make regarding the ordering of society is their failure to comprehend and appreciate the limits of engineering.

They believe that since engineering has enabled us to harness nature and build monuments like expansive bridges, jet airliners, high speed trains. etc. that such engineering principles can be applied to the organization of societies as well, and to the same positive effect.

This is why planned economic schemes like Socialism continue to rear their ugly...

The class in society which most influences its direction is the intellectual class.

These are not the scholars, scientists or experts. Rather, they are the educated upper middle class who know a little bit about this and a little bit about that and believe that they are superior to the masses and equals with the scholars, scientists and experts.

They are often referred to as the 'Chattering Class's' because it is nearly impossible to shut them up.

Inevitably, and almost always tragically, the...

While outsiders can call attention to a group's problems, they can provide only ancillary support for their solutions.

These solutions must be spearheaded by members of the affected communities.

Thus with the obviously serious problems facing Muslims, blacks and the political left, they need to take charge of cleaning their own houses.

Until they do, little improvement can be expected.

There are basically three different types of information.

Misinformation is incorrect but without intent to deceive.

Disinformation is incorrect but with the intention to deceive.

Mal-information is correct but harms a favored narrative.

While all three exist, we rarely hear anything about mal-information, but are constantly hearing about both misinformation and disinformation.

Unfortunately, the later two terms are often used today as terms of opprobrium in order to hinder a person or opinion,...

Writing, which was invented around 3,000 BC was invented not for the writing of books, but rather the keeping of books.

Writing was invented to keep track of inventories and transactions.

All literature and stories at that time were conveyed orally.

The first simple papyrus and clay tablet books were not written until roughly four centuries later.

Man has a natural fear of change, and especially drastic or sudden change.

The primary reason is because it requires him to reinvent himself and this is a daunting task.

It is not well known and even less well appreciated today that it was the young which gave us most of the inventions which led us to where we are today.

Things like the domestication of animals,, the wheel, the sail, the plough, irrigation, fermentation and metallurgy were all discovered when most people died by the age of 25.

Thus it was the juveniles who ushered in the age of modernity.

There can be nothing worthy of the name 'free speech' without the freedom to offend.