The paradox of the individualistic society is that it can only exist if individuals embrace virtues that are greater than their own needs and whims.

A society where each individual acts as a little tyrant, pursuing his desires with total selfishness at the expense of everyone else becomes collectivist as the little tyrants turn to a series of big tyrants to get what they want no matter who gets hurt by it.

As individual virtues and social compacts break down, selfish squabbles escalate. Tribalism turns into legal civil war. Laws become the means by which one group imposes its will on the other and by which one man seizes the property of another. The people come to view the system with contempt. All virtues and principles are abandoned as neighbor turns on neighbor in resentment and hatred.

Ideas can exist objectively. Feelings only exist subjectively. Identity politics resolves this problem by treating the objective response to feelings as privilege. But even subjective empathy can never truly approach the subjective experience of the crybully.

Even a member of that same identity group will differ in some way from the multiple intersectional identities of the crybully. And that difference is its own privilege. This isn't really politics. It's self-help narcissism crossbred with stale Marxism.

British computer scientists have devised a digital crypto-currency in league with the Bank of England that could pose a devastating threat to large tranches of the financial industry, and profoundly change the management of monetary policy.

The proto-currency known as RSCoin has vastly greater scope than Bitcoin, used for peer-to-peer transactions by libertarians across the world, and beyond the control of any political authority.

The purpose would be turned upside down. RSCoin would be a tool of state control, allowing the central bank to keep a tight grip on the money supply and respond to crises. It would erode the exorbitant privilege of commercial banks of creating money out of thin air under a fractional reserve financial system.  

“Whoever reacts too slowly to these developments is going to take it on the chin. They will lose their businesses,” said Dr. George Danezis, who is working on the design at University College London.

"My advice is that companies should play very close attention to what is happening, because this will not go away," he said.  Layers of middlemen in payments systems face a creeping threat across the nexus of commerce, stockbroking, currency trading or derivatives. Many risk extinction over time.

[This is the most eloquent and moving explanation of support for Trump I have ever seen. One caveat is that the GOP Elite does not run California, the Democrats do and totally. –JW]

During the most recent Detroit debate (3/03), even a reformed “inclusive” and “presidential” Donald Trump still was crass and vulgar. (Has a candidate ever crudely referred to the size of his phallus, and in our sick world is that a Freudian admission of doubt, or a macho reassurance in LBJ fashion?)

Trump gave more than enough evidence that his positions are liquid and change as often his perceptions of his flatterers and critics. He is a blank slate, who as president could build or tear down a southern wall with equal ease, depending on the dynamics of the political deal of the moment.

In the debate, in passive-aggressive fashion Trump pouted and pounced, furious that others had broken the Golden Rule and done unto him what he has done unto others. His entire moral universe is predicated on a preteen morality of liking those who praise him, and hating those who criticize him.

All that said, I doubt Trump will lose much of his 35-45% support in the next rounds of elections. There are quite understandable reasons why.

Today, Evangelical communities in the US number anywhere between 60 and 150 million people, depending on who is counting. They form the backbone of American support for the Jewish state. It is the support of the Evangelical community, rather than the Jewish community in the US that ensures that come hell or high water, no matter how Israel is demonized in the media and in academia, the majority of Americans continue to support Israel.

But will this support last?

One of the more surprising aspects of the 2016 elections is Evangelical support for businessman Donald Trump. Trump in many ways personifies everything that people who take the Bible seriously are supposed to oppose. He owns casinos. He curses and uses profanity in his public appearances. He has donated to Planned Parenthood and forcefully supported abortions on demand.

Trump has also insisted repeatedly that he will be neutral toward Israel.

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of Evangelical support for Trump is that he takes these positions as he runs against primary opponents who all wear their faith on their sleeves. All of his opponents have records of standing with the Evangelicals on social and other salient issues – including support for Israel.

What are we to make of this seemingly inexplicable phenomenon? To understand, the Christ at the Checkpoint conference taking place this week in Bethlehem is a good place to look.

President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating is regularly accepted as a proxy measure for the level of Russia’s internal cohesion. And his support remains on a sky-high plateau, where it has stood since the explosion of jingoism caused by the annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

However, powerful and divisive forces are eroding this purported cohesion, turning Russian society into a disillusioned and apathetic crowd—resembling the nation that failed, 99 years ago, to turn the dethroning of Tsar Nicolas II into a lasting liberating moment.

Stalin’s grave on Red Square was covered with flowers last Saturday (March 5), on the day of his death; and many Russians still cherish or long for a “firm hand,” no matter the millions of destroyed lives such authoritarian leadership has historically produced (Slon.ru).

This urge to escape from the apparent dead end of the present by reliving the “glorious” past translates into a desire to ignore the disasters that mark Russia’s current decline.

The dream of a Brics ascendancy has ended in sadness and squalor after the iconic figure of the era was seized by police at his home here, to the rapturous applause of Brazil’s stock exchange.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, or “Lula” to the world, is sacrosanct no more. The once beloved president – and former Fiat car worker – who came to personify Brazil’s seeming rise to prosperity and global stature is under criminal investigation for his role in the ever-spreading Lava Jato (car wash) scandal. 

So are his three sons, and his wife. “Nobody is above the law in this country,” said the lead prosecutor, Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima. 

The shock comes as Lula’s economic legacy turns to ruin. Output has been falling for most of the past nine quarters. It contracted 3.8% last year. The OECD expects another 4% fall this year, the deepest slump since national records began in 1901. 

It is a cruel twist of fortune for those who thought Brazil had reached the premier league, with deep-sea oil reserves fit for an emirate, and a currency so strong that it cost more for a coffee in Sao Paolo than in Oslo, Tokyo, or Zurich in the glory days of 2008. Those days are gone, as is Brazil’s future yet again.