By Selwyn Duke
Someone close to me had a great friend who lived through the Stalinist times in Ukraine. She said that when she was a little girl, her father made the whole family go to bed every evening fully clothed, coat, shoes, and all. One night she found out why.
Secret police came to her home in the darkness and unceremoniously forced the family out. They were then compelled to go on a long march in the bitter winter cold. They suffered, but, prepared, they survived. Many did not.
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By Selwyn Duke
In 1811, Joseph de Maistre, a French philosopher who detested the French Revolution, famously said: “People get the government they deserve.”
In light of recent events in France and elsewhere, however, something else comes to mind: Do people get the riots they deserve, too? Maybe—sometimes.
Now, I’ll preface my remarks by saying that I really do hope France channels its inner Napoleon and rights the ship. And were I in charge there, I assure you the rioting miscreants would meet their Waterloo in short order. (If the Duke of Wellington can do it, so can the Duke of Westchester. I do proffer my services, too, but I require the same deal the Roman Republic offered during crises: A man would be appointed dictator for a specified time to restore normality, endowed with extraordinary powers and largely free from the usual legal constraints—wink.) But a thought occurred to me the other day.
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By Selwyn Duke
It’s an amazing, though ignored, story: Murder in the United States is at its lowest level since perhaps 1900. As for the violent-crime rate in general, it fell 9.3 percent in 2025. This is the largest year-to-year decline since the FBI began estimating national trends in 1936.
Something else at its lowest since perhaps the ’30s is net migration. In fact, when the numbers are finalized, it may turn out that there was negative net migration in 2025. But this can happen when you deport, or induce to self-deport, up to three million people, as the Trump administration has done. Note, too, that approximately 190,000 of the ejected illegals had criminal convictions, and many thousands were gang members.
Now, question: Could there be a connection between the reduction in crime and the reduction in illegal aliens?
Moreover, is it coincidental that this rapid crime decrease occurred under the watch of a president who has prioritized crime-fighting?
Third question: How can we know that the Democrats would, upon gaining power, re-enable criminals?
Answer: They’ve said so — in so many words.
(more…)By Selwyn Duke
Napoleon Bonaparte once said that history is “a series of agreed-upon myths.” Yet that current events can be, too, brings us to a question.
Can the Democrats win the midterms only if Americans subscribe to a certain myth?
That is, the idea that President Donald Trump’s second term has been a failure.
A number of observers definitely think so. They point out that far from a failure, Trump’s tenure thus far has been a resounding success. And one of these observers, Rod D. Martin, founder & CEO at Martin Capital, has the receipts to prove it.
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By Selwyn Duke
“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” So said George Washington during his Farewell Address on September 17, 1796. They’re powerful parting words, but also, today, controversial ones. They’re met now with protestations such as “Whose God?!” and “You can be moral without God!”
Well, perhaps, but it certainly doesn’t show in contemporary America — not on the collective level, that is.
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By Selwyn Duke
One candidate has chosen a pastor who isn’t sure Jesus Christ existed and believes He didn’t die for our sins. Another supposes that Scripture got it wrong on sexuality. A third expressed discomfort at public Christian displays and suggests they should be rooted out. And a fourth opposes a ban on youth “sex changes” (aka sexual-mutilation surgery for kids).
Welcome to the “religious Left.”
All the individuals described above are currently running for office in the midterms. All are wearing their “faith” on their shirtsleeves. And all are citing it as a reason you should vote for them.
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By Selwyn Duke
Forget that uber-thin-skinned narcissistic neighbor — are we now going to have to walk on eggs around artificial intelligence (AI), too?
It’s a staggering thought, but also, essentially, the claim of British-Canadian computer scientist Professor Geoffrey Hinton. Hinton is no fly-by-night character, either — the 78-year-old Nobel laureate’s work on neural networks paved the way for AI. And now he appears to be saying that if we don’t befriend the tech, we could face extinction.
Hinton, whose triumphs got him dubbed “the Godfather of AI,” is apparently as serious as a heart attack about this. In fact, he resigned his position at Google in 2023 over fears that, as the New York Post put it Tuesday, “the tech could manufacture killer robots capable of exterminating humanity.”
Yet a question now presents itself. Taking Hinton’s warning at face value, would being “just” and “nice” to a self-aware machine ensure its good will? Or is there another, deeper prerequisite for valuing human life?
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By Selwyn Duke
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” So noted famed English author George Bernard Shaw, lamenting the British political system in 1944. And now a Frenchman, lamenting the French political system today, has a warning for Americans.
Don’t be Paul.
Paul believes promises. He gets pain — and maybe even poverty.
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By Selwyn Duke
Could the Republicans say, paraphrasing Mark Twain, that rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated? Recent history of polling missteps and abuses — and a new story illustrating this problem — suggests that maybe they can.
As many know, the Democrats have been counting on a “blue wave” to wash away their Washington power woes. But not only are polls now tightening, they’re also frightening — in their inaccuracy. A case in point is a “polling organization” that just confessed it was issuing fake numbers that helped hard-core leftists. The entity claims it was conducting an “experiment” to illustrate polling’s perils. Critics, however, call this a cop-out designed to explain away the organization’s fraud.
And whether or not at issue is damage control, damage had already been done. The fake polls could, arguably, have helped candidate Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed win his Michigan Democratic primary.
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By Selwyn Duke
So often today we use weasel words, terms that just aren’t, you might say, “up to the challenge.” We may state that something is “inappropriate,” “suboptimal,” “problematic,” “misguided,” or “inadvisable” — even if it’s downright wicked. But not so with Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. He’s urging Catholics to “confront the evil in our world,” which, this November 3, is actually on Virginia’s ballot.
Mounting a parallel effort on this front are more than 150 Protestant pastors. At issue are two proposed Virginia constitutional amendments on abortion and same-sex “marriage.” And all these clergymen are hoping that some moral clarity will rally voters against them.
This gets at an even wider issue, too. Moral clarity informs that all elections are a matter of good and evil, right and wrong. This realization could perhaps inspire election turnout among church-going Christians, tens of millions of whom habitually fail to vote.
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