Harangue has been serving up “the right social and political commentary” since 1999—before social media feeds, podcast empires and the twenty-four-hour outrage machine changed the way Americans argue about public life. The surviving WordPress archive begins in December 2000. Since then, it has grown to 380 published posts spanning elections, taxes, private property, free markets, constitutional government, culture, faith and the recurring struggle between individual liberty and collective power.
Twenty-five years is long enough to discover whether a political argument was merely attached to one election or rooted in something more durable. Reading Harangue from the beginning makes one thing clear: presidents, parties and headlines change, but the central questions stubbornly remain.
A soapbox with a memory
The earliest surviving entry, “Gather round, you ‘Monday Morning’ Electioneers”, appeared in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 presidential election. It challenged the convenient story that voters were merely victims of Florida’s infamous butterfly ballot. A companion essay, “What’s missing from…”, named the missing principle directly: voter responsibility.
That insistence on personal responsibility became part of Harangue’s foundation. Government matters, elections matter and public policy matters—but citizens are not innocent bystanders in a republic. Self-government asks more of us than showing up every four years, pulling a lever and blaming somebody else for the result.
The argument beneath the headlines
By 2001, the site was already addressing themes that would echo for decades. “Just Who’s Money Is It Anyway?” asked whether the fruits of a person’s labor belong first to the worker or to the government. “Socialism Resumes…” warned that political promises of fairness can quickly become state control of prices, property and production.
The same argument soon moved beyond government budgets. In 2003, “So Whose Music Is It Anyway?” defended ownership in the age of digital copying. Written from the perspective of a working musician, it argued that technology does not erase the creator’s claim to his work. In 2004, “Private Property at Risk?” turned to eminent domain and the danger of institutions created to protect rights becoming instruments for taking them.
These were different controversies, but they shared one question: who owns the individual—his labor, his property, his choices and his voice?
From a few missives to a political archive
Harangue’s output surged during the Obama years, with 52 posts in 2008, 133 in 2009 and 64 in 2010. Elections and personalities supplied the daily sparks, but the deeper subjects remained government force, taxation, national identity, free markets, constitutional limits and the health of the Republic.
“Who Owns You?”, published in November 2008, may be the archive’s defining question. It asks readers to stop, think and decide who is entitled to the “sweat of your brow.” In 2011, “From Subjects to Freedom to Slavery in 235 Years!” placed that question inside the longer American experiment: the difficult passage from subjects ruled by the state to citizens whose government possesses only delegated powers.
The archive also shows that liberty is not merely a slogan shouted during campaigns. It is a working system built on responsibility, voluntary exchange and countless decisions made without a central planner. “I, Pencil and the Free Market” illustrated that order through one ordinary object whose creation requires cooperation among people who never meet and may not even speak the same language.
What changed—and what did not
The delivery system changed completely. A political website once felt like an independent printing press. Today, commentary travels through platforms governed by algorithms, shifting rules and corporate gatekeepers. The public conversation moves faster, but speed has not made it wiser. It has often rewarded certainty before evidence, accusation before due process and tribal loyalty before principle.
Harangue addressed that danger in essays such as “Presumed Innocent?”, which defended the old and necessary rule that a person is innocent until proven guilty. The names in the news have changed since 2018. The temptation to replace evidence with the verdict of a mob has not.
Nor has the temptation to trade freedom for promised security, equality or convenience. The sales pitch changes with each generation. The bargain remains the same: surrender more choice now and trust distant authorities to use greater power wisely later. Twenty-five years of headlines provide little reason for such confidence.
The archive is the evidence
A long-running commentary site is more than a collection of opinions. It is a record made before the outcome was known. Old essays cannot quietly revise themselves to match today’s conventional wisdom. They preserve the argument, the warning, the humor and sometimes the error exactly where they stood.
That is why the new Harangue should not hide its age. The archive is its strongest asset. A current article can be paired with an older one so readers can judge what changed, what came true and what deserves reconsideration. The recent “Told Ya So!” does exactly that, returning to the 2003 debate over music, ownership and collectivist thinking with twenty-three years of hindsight.
Why continue?
Because the blessings of liberty do not defend themselves. A republic depends on citizens who remember where their rights come from, recognize the difference between government and society, question fashionable certainties and accept responsibility for preserving what they inherited.
Harangue has never pretended to be neutral. It was founded by Partisans of Liberty with respect for America’s founders, a belief in laissez-faire free markets and a healthy suspicion of concentrated power. Its voice has sometimes been blunt, sometimes funny and occasionally exasperated. That is part of the record too.
After twenty-five years, the mission remains simple: inform, question, hold power accountable and preserve the memory of arguments too easily forgotten. The work continues because the central question still has not been settled.
Who owns you?
