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Good readers, lend me your eyes, for I've a tale to tell—one of loss, of folly, and of a world gone topsy-turvy. In my day, an elite was a soul who earned their place through sweat, wit, or service: the farmer wresting crops from stony earth, the printer setting truth to page, the statesman weaving a nation from discord's threads. We hailed them elite not for titles, but for deeds. Alas, in this summer of 2025, that noble breed seems extinct, ousted by a garish throng of elitists—peacocks in powdered wigs, strutting sans merit or shame. This is no grumble from an old kite-flyer; 'tis a plague upon our age, and I'll probe it with the zeal of a lightning rod.
Picture the elite of old. I knew them—men like Washington, who swapped plow for sword and led with quiet iron; or my humble self, tinkering with stoves to warm the common lot. Flawed we were, but we aimed to do, not merely to be. Our rank sprang from results—a bridge raised, a law crafted, a fire doused. Now gaze at this fevered year, and what do you spy? Politicians who rule by bluster, scribblers who hawk half-truths for cheers, scholars who preach on matters they’ve never touched—these are no elites, but elitists, grasping power like a miser clutches unearned coins.
Take, for instance, the halls of Congress, where once I saw men reason through the republic's knots. Today, they bicker like magpies over scraps—witness this very week, when Representative Jasmine Crockett, that firebrand from Texas, lit a blaze by claiming Trump's supporters, nigh on eighty million souls, suffer a "mental health crisis." President Trump, with his usual thunder, hailed his voters' loyalty, while Crockett, ever the brash orator, doubled down on a podcast, painting half the nation as unhinged for their ballots. By dawn, X was ablaze with cries of a misplaced snobbery—Crockett, they swore, was scheming to vilify voters, perhaps to shine as her party's provocateur or curry favor with its fringes. A tale spun from her words and a congresswoman's swagger, yet it flew faster than my kite in a gale, fanned by headlines and retweets. Where's the proof? Thin as a cobweb, yet the clamor drowns all sense. In my time, a lawmaker was a carpenter of the state, measuring twice and cutting once. Now, she's a mummer, juggling words for the mob's roar, ethics be damned. I'd sooner trust a squirrel with my almanac than these folks with my liberty.
And the press—oh, how my printer's heart bleeds! I labored over ink to enlighten. Today’s scribblers chase phantoms, puffing Crockett's rant into a national feud, proof my craft has fallen to elitist hands. Yet, hope glimmers. In muddy fields and smoky streets, I see soldiers, athletes, and healers—true elites, proven by works, not words. Over four missives, I'll unmask these elitists—first in Congress, then in newsrooms, then in ivory towers and social salons—before hailing those who still serve. Join me, for as my almanac said, "Many lack the originality to lack originality." Next, we’ll stalk the political peacock further, where bluster buries service.
Till then, keep your kite aloft and your wits sharper,
Your humble servant,
B. Franklin
Editor's Note:
From one point of view, Peter Kaizer and The Stony Man agree on almost nothing. From a deeper point of view, we agree on almost everything. I asked Peter to write a post for The Stony Man because I value his perspective on the deeper issues at stake in today's political milieu. I gave him carte blanche to pick the topic, within a few parameters. I was pleased, but not surprised, when he chose this topic, which I consider to be one of the most important topics if we are to save our democratic republic. Peter and I frequently go head-to-head on the political issues of the day. But we've been able to maintain respect for each other as persons, even though we usually don't agree. I thank Peter for his thoughtful contribution to The Stony Man.
Peter:
We find ourselves in a time of political and cultural polarization in our nation and beyond. In a world where everyone is one social media post away from a meltdown, the ability to “agree to disagree” has become a lost art. Every disagreement is treated like a personal insult of the highest order, and changing your mind is seen as a weakness. Standing firm is mistaken for righteousness when it’s just believing what you believe.
Let’s be honest; not every disagreement needs a winner. Sometimes, the best move is to step back, nod, and move on, or even better, try to gain an insight or an appreciation for an alternative point of view.
That doesn’t mean rolling over or compromising your principles—quite the opposite. Agreeing to disagree is about acknowledging that some differences will never be bridged, and that’s okay. I have no illusions that Matt and I will agree on very much, at least not when it comes to politics or policy, but our exchanges are often illuminating and insightful.
Intellectual Confidence, Not Fragility
Standing firm while allowing space for others to stand in opposition is a sign of confidence and maturity, not weakness. It’s also a way to gain insight from experiences that differ from your own. Save your energy for interactions that can shape your world and contribute to the greater good. As one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Steve Earle, has said:
Unless we can have a conversation with someone we know we will disagree with at the outset, we are screwed. Cause that’s how democracy works: it’s a conversation.
The big tech companies that own all the social media platforms have tricked us into thinking that every post is an attack on the frontlines of battle—all so they can monetize your opinions. I don’t know about you, but I am not willing to hand my views over to the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg so they can profit off them. If someone insists pineapple on pizza is a culinary sin—I think it is—let them have their delusions.
Learn from Diversity
Professionally, I’m a product designer who designs the interfaces of large information applications. In product design—and especially in user testing—agreeing to disagree is essential. When testing a product, you’ll quickly realize that no single design solution will please everyone. Users will have conflicting opinions. A designer’s job is to observe, synthesize, and make informed design decisions. The best designers know when to take feedback seriously and when to let it go, recognizing that disagreement is part of the process, not a flaw. Like in any good debate, the goal isn’t to “win”—it’s to learn, refine, and create something that works in the real world.
I’m not interested in a world where everyone agrees; that sounds boring. The liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the conservative Justice Anton Scalia never agreed on their judicial opinions, yet they were the best of friends off the bench. Similarly, Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil were political adversaries, yet they had a legendary friendship.
A More Interesting, Less Exhausting Life
What’s more boring than a room full of people who all think the same way? Disagreement, when handled correctly, keeps life dynamic. It forces you to sharpen your thinking, examine your views, and occasionally admit when you’re wrong. Letting a disagreement rest, without forcing an outcome, often plants the seed for someone to rethink their stance later. Sure, some differences are deal-breakers, but most are just noise.
Knowing when to let go before an interesting debate turns into a pointless, energy-draining slog is key. In a world addicted to outrage, agreeing to disagree is a survival skill.
This is to expand upon a comment I left on a friend's Facebook post. These points are in no particular order, but each are important to me in their own right.
1} She thought she had the female vote in hand with the abortion issue, but it turns out that most women don't want to kill their babies. Most grandmothers don't want their daughters to kill their grandchildren.
2} She's virulently anti-woman because she believes men can be women, a biological impossibility. She believes men pretending to be women should be able to compete against women in sports, taking valuable achievements and scholarships away from women - and by competing that includes beating real women in the face.
3) She believes in the physical and chemical castration of children, that parents shouldn't have a say as long as a doctor thinks it's in the "best interest" of the child, and that the government should pay for it using taxpayer dollars. I thought I wanted to be a cowboy when I was a kid, which involved a little cowboy outfit, a hat, and a gun belt with two six-shooter cap guns. When I didn't want to be a cowboy, I took off the outfit. Good luck changing back once your parent (it's usually only one) or the government encourages you to lop off an otherwise healthy part of your sexual anatomy.
4) She's not a likeable person. Really not likeable, unless you're an aging and unattractive governor of California looking for something on the side. She's phony. She took credit for other people's work and ran from her own mistakes. She slept her way to power. Not likeable at all. Less than a year ago the Main Stream Media™ was tearing her apart over the fact that she had done nothing in her first three years in office. Then she became the media’s darling once they could no longer cover for Biden’s dementia, but the people didn’t buy it.
5) She constantly lied or ran away from her record. She WAS the border czar, and she helped opened the floodgates and kept them open for four years. She talked like she was tough on crime but her record shows that she backed the antifa riots and was soft on hard criminals. She claimed to have "raised children" when the truth is she gained a stepdaughter when the girl was 15. That's not "raising children". The false claim that Trump wanted a national ban on abortion (I personally would support that, of course, but he never said it). Even the mainstream media was appalled at some of the whoppers she told during the debate, with Politifact taking her down on a number of points.
6) She could not have picked a worse, more pathetic VP. He was even more unlikeable than she, and even sicker than she. A disgusting, despicable excuse for a man. Men hated him for his denigration of men. Women hated him for his denigration of women. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. None. His ”stolen valor” loomed large in this election. His lies were more blatantly obvious than hers, and his attempts to do an end-around them were hilariously bad. He was put forward as "the face of masculinity", to which anyone with a brain responding with incredulous, mocking laughter. An awful performance from an awful man. He couldn’t even help her win his home state, a state that Biden won 4 years ago. Almost anyone else would have been a better choice.
7) She hid the fact that her boss has had dementia for at least the last 3 years. She was part of the coverup, "in the room" as she said. Had every been honest and that fact had been acknowledged earlier, the Dems would have had the opportunity to prep and groom Biden's successor - anyone would have been better, from Shapiro to Newsom. Instead, she aided in the coverup, perhaps in order to establish herself as the go-to for the Dems once the truth came out. Regardless of her intent, whether it was selfish or just stupid, she was still a willing and active participant in the coverup, a very dangerous act to leave this country a rudderless ship, and the voters held her accountable for her role.
8) She's part of the War Party. She wants war, she wants to poke Russia in the eye, she wants to maintain unrest in the Middle East. Americans are tired of the constant beating of that war drum. We're tired of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars going to Ukraine to fight our proxy war with Russia. Enough.
9) She's a socialist, and America does not need or want her brand of socialism. She tries to run from it but she can't help herself. The capital gains tax fiasco and the lack of any solid fiscal policy of any kind showed her true colors. She was caught flat-footed whenever she was asked about these issues.
10) Word Salad Queen™. 'Nuff said.
11) She could never give a straight answer to a question. Her CNN interview – which was intended to be a friendly, softball conversation - was abysmal. The Fox interview (a sign of desperation that she even agreed to the interview) was even worse. Her mis-directions and answer avoidance were obvious and painful to endure.
12) She hates parents, actual parents. Her cackling glee when she said "with a stroke of my pen" she could threaten parents with jail, make them lose their jobs, and destroy their lives if their kids skipped school, was absolutely dreadful. She thought it was a good thing to destroy families by putting parents in jail and taking away their livelihood simply because their kids skipped school. Anyone who saw that video had to be horrified.
13) JD Vance. One of the consequences of picking such an awful VP for the Democrat ticket is that it made the pick of JD Vance that much better. Vance had poise and grace, while Walz had neither. Vance never talked down to his interviewers, he acknowledged and apologized for any mistakes he made, he offered thoughtful ideas, and didn't choke. He was intelligent and interesting. Tim was a mess, and while they let him on the rally stage and made him appear in some embarrassing videos, they kept him away from interviews (except for the staged ones) because of his rank stupidity.
14) The coverup of her husband Doug Emhoff's affair with his child's elementary school teacher didn't help. By not responding to the story she only deepened America's distrust. We know there was a payment, there was probably a paid abortion in there, too (the Daily Mail reported “the teacher became pregnant in 2009, but did not have the baby”). Revolting behavior from another disgusting man. Every man in her life – Willie Brown, Doug Emhoff, and Tim Walz – is repulsive.
15) She couldn't run from her record in helping create a brutal economy for many Americans. Government spending increased 22% during her administration, a huge driver of the inflation spike. She tried to belittle it, or put the blame on Trump,
but no one, even her most ardent supporters, believed that.
16) She flipped-flopped repeatedly, and obviously. "Closing the border". “Banning fracking”. "Free sex change operations for immigrants". She said all those things, then not only flipped her position, she subsequently denied having those positions in the first place. Bizarre behavior in a world where there are long paper and video trails of everything she’s ever done (or not done).
17) She mocked Christianity. Most of this nation is Christian. Christians who might otherwise have voted for her don't take kindly to being told "you must be at the wrong rally". That was a big last-minute fail.
18) She tried vainly to paint Trump as "a threat to democracy". Every legal voter in this election lived through Trump's first term. We all survived, the economy flourished (at least until the covid lockdowns), and no one was thrown into the gulag. He was not a tyrant. He did not abolish the Constitution or mobilize the feds against American citizens (unlike the Obama administration, when the IRS specifically and unequivocally targeted conservative citizens and non-profits and dragged them through Hell). The false narrative came back to bite her.
19) She couldn't separate herself from the Biden administration. It became clear (well, at least the media glommed on to what we already knew) that Biden couldn't run because of dementia, and it became equally clear that that's been the case for some time. If you can't run in 2024, then you cannot be president in 2024, too – so why was he still in office, and what has he done for the last 3+ years? In any thoughtful person's mind there can be only one of two conclusions: 1) Harris was running things in Biden’s absence (extremely unlikely), or 2) someone else - call it the deep state - was running things, and in a Harris presidency, would continue to run things (most likely). Neither conclusion helped her one iota.
20) No one who voted for her did so because they liked her. They did so because they hated Trump (or, at least they hated the media's portrayal of Trump). She put way too much emphasis on claiming that Trump was mean and a bully. While her most ardent supporters grabbed that with both hands, most Americans don't care if their president sends out "mean tweets".
Another reason was brought to my attention after I first published this, courtesy of Matt Walsh:
21) She placed way too much emphasis on celebrity endorsements. Given her lack of substance, her campaign was basically built around celebrity endorsements. She touted and celebrated each such endorsement. She invited Beyonce to sing at her rally, but that backfired when she wasn’t paid and refused to sing, leaving thousands of attendees angry and frustrated. She invited Cardi B to speak at her rally, but that turned into an embarrassing debacle when the teleprompter failed, leaving Cardi B mumbling and inarticulately thrashing around until someone brought her speech to her on a phone (and even then, it was pathetic). Bruce Springsteen DID play at her rally, but he sounded so incredibly bad that it might have been better if he had just tipped his hat to the crowd. And when the Diddy Posse joins the endorsement party, those endorsements are going to drive away far more voters than they attract.
None of this is to say that Trump was or is perfect. He had four years already. He didn't build the wall. He didn't drain the swamp. He surrounded himself with the wrong people in his first admin. He should have fired Fauci from the beginning. America wasn't looking for a perfect president, they know what Trump has to offer, and they accepted Trump with all of his shortcomings.
There you have it. Your mileage may vary.
Here's the money quote:
She’s running because she’s not Joe Biden. That’s it. The entire theory of her campaign comes down to this: Biden was unfit to run so someone else had to, and there was no practical way to pass over the vice president, so she gets to be the nominee.
There's more in the article. It's a good read. Cuts through all the bull.
No one really believes she'd actually, you know... make a good president. She may be running because she's not Joe Biden (even though she kinda is), but the only reason any voter could possibly have for voting for her is that she's not Donald Trump. Okay. If that's your reason, at least be honest about it, and stop pretending she's not really seriously damaged goods. The Democrats got themselves into a pickle that they couldn't get out of, and she's the result.
Anyway, here's the link: https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/09/harris-is-only-running-for-president-because-it-became-impossible-to-hide-bidens-decline/
Take as much time as you need.
Words Matter!
Maryland voters will vote to approve or reject a proposed amendment to the state constitution that, if approved, would have a disastrous effect on parental rights.
Read the words of the proposed amendment carefully. It provides the necessary framework for the courts, the schools, law enforcement, and the medical community to ignore the parents' rights to make decisions they believe are in the best interest of their child.
The language is so absolute, so far reaching, that it is no stretch of the imagination to suggest that the amendment, even without corresponding enacting or enabling legislation, would allow a child of six to simply say that he never wants to have children, and the medical community would be obliged to sterilize him.
In the text of the proposed amendment below, I have bolded the parts that support my contention, above:
“That every person, as a central component of an individual’s right to liberty and equality, has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end one’s own pregnancy. The State may not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
Given the clear intent and reach of the amendment, it's hard for me to think of what the courts would deem "a compelling state interest."
There's no age limit stated or implied. In fact, the very use of the term "every person" is clearly intended to include minors. The phrase "and effectuate" means the child can make the decision without the approval of his or her parents. The phrase "directly or indirectly" can obviously be read to include almost any action you can think of.
If you put your head in the sand and pretend this won't be used to effectuate exactly the scenario I mention above, then you're either an idiot, or you're complicit.
Vote NO to this amendment. It's outrageous.
Update: 9/10/2024 - California takes custody of and attempts to ‘transition’ Christian widow’s child. See?! Don’t think this won’t come to Maryland if this amendment passes.
Apparently Kamala now opposes a ban on fracking. She won’t tax tips. She now thinks a border wall is a good idea. Etc., etc., etc.
There are plenty of sheeple who will be fooled by her mendacity. I’m not one of them.
"Who needs policies when you have Trump to hate?" One of the best lines I’ve heard! And it comes from a Kennedy, no less!
He is, in many ways, the most credible and serious candidate in the race, so of course he has no chance of actually, you know… winning.
He skewers Kamala and the Democrats, endorses Trump, and refuses to be a spoiler.
Since he’s not coming off the ballot in Maryland, I may actually vote for him, despite his position on abortion.
At the very least, any honest voter needs to hear him out before deciding to vote for the candidate they’ve already settled on.
He’s not the wacko the MSM have convinced you he is because of their hatred and fear of Trump.
Watch his address to the American people in which he explains his reasons for suspending his campaign. You owe it to him. And you owe it to yourself.
Gotta watch this interview.
Governor Welz continues to be unmasked. But do the Democrats and the MSM even care? More importantly, is it a case of double standards if they don’t?
Asking for a friend.
It is a common strategy for tyrants to use decency as a weapon against their opponents and against the people over which they rule. Tyrants rule by fear, including the fear decent people have of offending God, of being ashamed before their neighbors, or of simply not living up to their own sense of self respect, morality, and proper behavior. The decent man's unwillingness to stoop to his oppressor's level or to employ tactics and strategies he views as immoral, or "beneath him," becomes his Achille's heel. The tyrant, unbound by any sense of scrupulosity, morality, or common decency, has an advantage over the decent man that can only be defeated by God.
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