 |
The Castle ReportAuthor: Darrell Castle
Defending Western Civilization Language: en-us Genres: News, News Commentary, Politics Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
Listen Now...
The Best and Worst of Times
Friday, 31 October, 2025
Darrell Castle speaks to the best and worst of times as a good description of our times, today. Transcription / Notes THE BEST AND WORST OF TIMES Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 31st day of October in the year of our Lord 2025. Yes, this is Halloween day, a traditional spooky, bad news day, but I have decided to use this spooky day and borrow a bit from the classic novel written by Charles Dickens entitled “A Tale of Two Cities”. Mr. Dickens opened his novel with “It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times” and that is a pretty good description of our times, today. Dickens wrote those words in 1859 as the title and opening of his novel which was set in London and Paris during the French Revolution. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.” That sounds so much like today because the more things change the more they stay the same and as we all know technology constantly changes but human nature does not. The setting of Dickens’ novel was an age of radical opposites that faced each other much like today, but today they are not cities but political divisions. Here in present-day America, we have opposing forces and contrasting views everywhere you look. In New York City, for example, there seems to be a very good possibility that the people of that once great city will elect a man named Zohran Mamdani as mayor in the upcoming election. The man is often described as a communist as well as an Islamic fundamentalist at the same time. Those two terms are, of course, contradictory because communism was founded and still is based on atheism while Islam is obviously based on a belief in God. He does seem to have some radical ideas based on economic theories which have been failures everywhere they have been tried. He is not the first to suggest that public transportation be free without any corresponding explanation of where he would get the money to pay for it. See folks, nothing government does is ever free because someone always pays and the politicians want the people to give them the authority to decide who they will steal the money from. I suppose that is true democracy whereby the mob is empowered to loot anyone not voting with the majority. Once again it proves the wisdom of the founders who believed in individual rather than collective rights. Just wind the clock back a century or so and you will find the words of Thomas Paine who wrote a revolutionary pamphlet called Common Sense. One article or series of articles in the pamphlet was called The Crises. He began that section with the words, “These Are the Times That Try Men’s Souls” and that phrase seems more appropriate today than ever. That phrase is especially true here on Halloween Day as many vitally important things hang in the balance such as NYC and whether that city will ever be great again or whether it will continue its slide into the abyss. So, Mr. Mamdani is an example of the worst of times. The best of times is an amazing contrast whereby the people of Argentina, after decades of socialist experiments, which left that once powerhouse of an economy in a state of collapse decided to change course. What could be more wonderful than the joy of seeing voters reject the allure of socialism for the second time. Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, has led his party to a landslide victory in the elections held last Sunday. Radical spending cuts and free-market reforms defined the two years of his presidency and the people of Argentina have endorsed his efforts and decided to continue the road to recovery. That’s the very good news from Argentina. The bad news or at least I have decided to see it as bad news is that Donald Trump agreed to extend a $40 billion loan to Argentina which has defaulted three times since the year 2000.
