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Dennis McMillin

Male. Lives in United States.

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A good man is a violent man who can stay good until he is forced to become violent.

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Dennis McMillin

August 12, 2026 9:07 pm

It's sad seeing my cherished conservative movement gradually turn against some of our fundamental principles. The horseshoe right and the socialist left are undeniably ascendant, and both won't shut u... View MoreIt's sad seeing my cherished conservative movement gradually turn against some of our fundamental principles. The horseshoe right and the socialist left are undeniably ascendant, and both won't shut up about Israel or their hate for free market capitalism. You want to complain about affordability? Fine. I’ll join you IF you get the diagnosis correct. During our disastrous reaction to Covid, people like me tried to warn that drastically constraining production (by shutting down the economy) while simultaneously sending people free money (backed by debt-spending rather than wealth creation) would ultimately result in significant inflation. Free-market economists were screaming from the rooftops that such short-sided thinking would result in a future affordability crisis. We were ignored with dismissive retorts like “you only care about rich people” or “but normal people need help right now.” I don’t even disagree that forcing people not to work means it’s not their fault when they suddenly need free money, but that’s all the more reason why we never should’ve shut down the economy in the first place. When the currency drastically loses value, it negatively affects people’s limited budgets for years and years. Even when current inflation rates come back down to “normal” levels (usually around 3%), that does nothing to fix the 9% inflation which previously occurred in mid-year of 2022. People ARE struggling, and I don’t deny that, but they mostly aren’t struggling because of elite Jews or capitalism. They’re struggling because we had above-average inflation rates for three years in a row (2021 - 2023), with no deflation to later offset that damage. Annual Average Headline Inflation Rates * 2020: 1.2% * 2021: 4.7% * 2022: 8.0% (peaked mid-year at 9.1%) * 2023: 4.1% * 2024: 2.9% * 2025: 2.6% * 2026 (Mid-year): 3.5% (as of June 2026 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) The last thing people should be doing is looking at the rising cost of living - caused by politicians and populists - and blaming the same capitalism which lifted millions out of poverty for decades. Instead of trying to regulate our way out of an affordability crisis, we should acknowledge that our terrible foray into central planning caused it in the first place. Expanding our regulatory institutions was historically a common view on the left. Until recently, it wasn't a common view on the right. With Tucker Carlson’s continued devolution, combined with populist talking heads like Steve Bannon, their rhetoric against capitalism and “wealthy elites” often overlaps with leftist political narratives. It's very alarming to see such nonsense taking over the right. We were supposed to be the coalition of freer markets and individual liberty, not the party of government oversight and centralized bureaucratic authority. (Additionally, we were supposed to be the party who vehemently opposed Islamic fundamentalists, not sympathized with them, but that topic needs its own essay, so I digress.) Does this mean you need to blindly support completely unregulated markets with literally no exceptions? No, not necessarily. Anything which infringes on people's individual human rights, such that it would be poisonous to non-consenting 3rd parties (such as pollution, for instance), is a negative externality I'm open to addressing, so long as it's done in a manner which balances the benefits of economic growth and a need to be globally competitive. Surprise, but I’m fine with outlawing the mass poisoning of a populace. Similarly, I'm in favor of outlawing fraud, since voluntary trade built on misrepresentation fundamentally violates the consent of a trading party, extracting permission under false pretenses. So no, you don’t need to defend toxic water supplies or con-artists and scams to understand that market economies are more functional than centrally planned ones. Where people lose me, however, is when they start blaming the productive, the profitable, and the all important risk-seeking entrepreneurs who innovate on the hopes that R&D costs are one day offset by profits. Attacking free enterprise under the guise of "protection" from inequality or "exploitation" often misdiagnoses our problems while implementing “cures” which backfire. In this case, we created new money without simultaneously producing anything of value for it to represent. WE caused this affordability crisis because we begged our politicians to mismanage our economy, our national debt, and our money supply. Instead of demanding that politicians centrally plan our way out of a problem that central planning created, how about we learn our lesson and try the opposite?

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