Richard Carlson

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

The buyer is just as "greedy" for wanting lower prices as the seller is for wanting higher ones. The employee is just as "greedy" for wanting higher wages as the employer is for wanting lower labor costs.

The free market channels these competing interests into voluntary exchange instead of coercion, and the resulting price is whatever both parties find acceptable. Neither side gets everything it wants, but both walk away believing they're better off than before, or no change takes place.

[Survival Mindset @SurvivalMindse1]

When CBS Reporter Margaret Brennan tried to outsmart Medal of Honor recipient Will Swenson, she got an answer she didn't expect.
BRENNAN: "Before I let you go, we are coming up on this 250th anniversary of the American experience. I know I can't ask you a question like, are you optimistic? What specifically makes you optimistic? Because this country, at times, can feel dark, these days, there's a lot of darkness. What makes you feel optimistic?"
WILL SWENSON: "Well, ultimately, because we're in Washington DC and everything revolves around politics, we have to remember that politics aren't everything. American lives continue on. Children are born, children go to school. Lives are achieved. Dreams are achieved. This country is a great place. It's not politics. It's not just what's the news bites coming off of media. Ultimately, we continue forward as a country, continually imperfect, continually evolving forward, always trying to achieve a more perfect union. That's what's important to remember, what we can achieve aspirationally. No other place in history, time or on this planet have ever gotten to where we are today. We need to be proud of that, and we need to remember that is what we stay focused on, what we can be."

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Lettre à l'Amérique, d'un Français qui a vu la fin du film.

Vous vous croyez encore le dernier pays libre. Vous l'êtes pour l'instant. Je vous écris depuis un pays qui l'était aussi, et qui a signé sa reddition sans qu'un seul coup de feu ne soit tiré.

En France, l'État capte et redistribue 57% de tout ce que la nation produit. Cinquante-sept pour cent. Arrêtez-vous sur ce chiffre. Pour chaque unité de valeur créée par un ingénieur, un ouvrier, un fondateur qui a risqué sa peau, plus de la moitié transite par une main qui n'a rien bâti. Ce n'est pas une ligne budgétaire. C'est une hypothèque permanente sur l'existence des gens.

Et voici ce que personne ne vous avouera : ça n'arrive jamais par la révolution. Personne ne vote pour le déclin. On vote pour la compassion, pour la sécurité, pour la justice, pour la planète. À chaque étape, on troque un morceau de liberté contre une promesse. Et les promesses sont toujours belles. C'est ça, le piège.

Le collectivisme d'aujourd'hui n'agite plus le drapeau rouge il a compris que ça ne se vend plus. Il a appris à parler la langue du soin. ESG, gouvernance, conformité, « responsabilité » : ce sont les mots nouveaux d'une très vieille idée. L'idée qu'une élite éclairée sait mieux que vous ce qui est bon pour vous, et qu'il faut donc lui transférer, ligne après ligne, le pouvoir de décider à votre place. Ce n'est pas un complot. C'est pire : c'est un consensus. Personne ne se cache. Tout se fait à visage découvert, applaudi, subventionné.

Hayek l'avait écrit il y a quatre-vingts ans : la route de la servitude est pavée de bonnes intentions et de planification centralisée. La France a marché sur cette route en souriant. On a nationalisé le risque, socialisé l'échec, taxé l'audace, et administré tout le reste. Résultat : un pays magnifique qui ne construit plus rien, qui gère sa décrépitude avec une élégance funèbre, et où le jeune le plus doué rêve d'une seule chose partir. Beaucoup atterrissent chez vous.

L'Amérique a encore ce que nous avons perdu : le réflexe de bâtir plutôt que d'administrer. Le fondateur y est un héros, pas un suspect. La réussite y est une preuve, pas une faute à expier. C'est votre trésor. Et un trésor, ça se perd sans qu'on s'en aperçoive un formulaire, une agence, une « bonne cause » à la fois.

Alors ne cherchez pas d'ennemis cachés. C'est inutile et c'est indigne de vous. Regardez plutôt le chiffre. Regardez la France. Chaque point de PIB que vous laissez glisser vers l'État est un point de liberté qui ne revient jamais.

La liberté ne meurt pas assassinée. Elle meurt anesthésiée, sous les applaudissements.

Ne signez pas. Construisez.

[Good Morning Liberty @GoodAMLiberty]

Many on the right and right-leaning independents are sick of being held hostage by the midterms.

November will be a very important lesson:
Do the job you were hired to do, or you will lose it.

No more of this "But you still have to vote for me because the left is so much worse!"

Sure. The left is worse, but both Democrats and Republicans are continuing to send America in the wrong direction.

You don't get to stab me in the back while arguing you're still better because the other guy will shoot me in the face.

Republicans that have done nothing to cut spending, abolish departments, and continue to move us further away from constitutional government do not deserve to hold their office. It's as simple as that. Sorry, not sorry.

[Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee]

Is @megbasham right?

[Tim Allen @ofctimallen]

What is so frightening about a path to getting our country out of debt. It’s a balanced budget! Stop this country spending more than it has. Neither party shows any leadership or vision or courage to make the dollar the standard and showing fiscal leadership.

[Rick Scott @SenRickScott]

Ken Griffin is absolutely right: our nation’s $38 TRILLION debt crisis is a ticking time bomb and a risk to our economic stability.

Future generations shouldn’t be left paying the price for Washington’s failures. We need to take action NOW to rein in spending, balance our budget, and pay down our debt.

[Ron DeSantis @GovRonDeSantis]

Congress will never cut off the spending spigot unless We the People force them to rein it in. That’s why I have been urging state legislators around the country to back efforts to adopt a U.S. constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget, like Florida has done.

As of today, 28 states have passed convention applications for a balanced budget amendment. We need six more for an Article V Convention. Today in Boise, I asked lawmakers to make Idaho the next state to join the effort for a federal Balanced Budget Amendment.

Let’s get it done!

[Girl patriot 🙏 🇺🇸 🦅 @Girlpatriot1974]

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explains the U.S. Constitution.
🇺🇸 🦅 ⚖️

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

The real question isn’t “why wouldn’t you want universal healthcare.”
It’s why should you want something labeled “free” that can only exist through force.

There is no such thing as free healthcare. Doctors don’t work for free. Nurses don’t. Equipment isn’t free. Buildings aren’t free. Someone pays, and under “universal” systems that someone is whoever the state can extract from, regardless of consent.
So the honest questions are:
By what right does the state seize one person’s income to pay for another’s care?

Who decides what care you’re allowed to receive, and when?
What happens when demand exceeds supply, as it always does when price signals are abolished?
Why should access to medicine depend on politics instead of choice?
Wanting healthcare is universal.
Wanting forced provision is not morally neutral.

If healthcare must be coerced, rationed, and bureaucratically controlled to be “universal,” then the issue isn’t confusion. It’s whether you believe need creates a claim on other people’s labor.

That’s the question people keep dodging.

[Milton Friedman Quotes @MiltonFriedmanW]

“The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive.”

— Milton Friedman

[Ron DeSantis @RonDeSantis]

To have Coolidge rated poorly and Woodrow Wilson rated as great is proof that Harvard‘s ideological biases are long-standing.

Wilson was one of the most destructive presidents — and the first to reject the Founders and our original constitutional principles. Wilson thought he was smarter than the framers of the Constitution. And his foreign policy utopianism ended in tragedy.

Meanwhile, Coolidge was a great president — especially on economics, immigration, and constitutionalism.

[Rick Scott @SenRickScott]

It’s insane that the federal government spends $2T more than it takes in every year — why should we operate differently than every American family & business has to?!

Proud to join @SenJonHusted on a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.
https://t.co/Tdm1msQs6k

[Richard Carlson @RichardCarlson1]

@Matt_Pinner 19/20

[Richard Carlson @RichardCarlson1]

@HiddenHistoryYT Butterpie

[Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee]

It’s past time to amend the Constitution & limit Congress’s power to engage in deficit spending

Deficit spending has become an inter-generational wealth-transfer technique, leading to taxation without representation

Such spending should require a 2/3 supermajority in Congress

[Richard Carlson @RichardCarlson1]

@newtgingrich You were the last one to do it. Show them how!

[Newt Gingrich @newtgingrich]

Now that the One Big Beautiful Bill has passed, Congress has set its sights on an even more ambitious long-term project. This new project will require five to seven years of creativity, thoughtfulness, and ingenuity: balancing the federal budget and beginning to pay down the national debt. https://t.co/R5rWDK0AMf

[Tom Bevan @TomBevanRCP]

This is why you should come to RCP (if you don't already!). A great cross-section of viewpoints represented. 👇

[Richard Carlson @RichardCarlson1]

@espn Even happier about Shoeless Joe.