Commentary Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

My View: Grand Theory vs. Stark Reality

Dave Duffy While visiting Boston between issues, my wife, Lenie, got into a conversation about preparedness. It was a brief, but telling, discussion because our host, like many people who live in cities, had not...

The curse of oil

By John Silveira Issue #82 • July/August, 2003 To many, the oil beneath the sands of the Middle East is a kind of godsend for them. My take on it is that it's illusionary wealth in...

The land of the unfree

By John Silveira Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 It's official! The numbers are in once again! For I-don't-know-how-many-years-running, the United States, this so-called "land of the free," is imprisoning more people, in both absolute numbers and...

Money can buy happiness

By John Silveira Issue #72 • November/December, 2001 The results are in: money can buy happiness, but it doesn't come cheap. Not only that, the amount of happiness your money can buy can be measured. I know...

Book Review: Guns Save Lives — True Stories of Americans Defending Their Lives with...

Reviewed By John Silveira Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 I like movies with heroes: High Noon, Death Wish, Dirty Harry and the like where the good guy comes to the aid of guys like you and...

Libertarian and Conservative

By John Silveira Issue #133 • January/February, 2012 I cringe when I hear libertarians lumped with conservatives or at least today's conservatives. Liberals want you to view us as conservatives so you won't look any...

Guns Save Lives Chapter 1: Point Blank

By Robert Waters Issue #80 • March/April, 2003 "Why'd you shoot me, bitch?" Last words of home invader Shaarod Profitt, September 18, 1998. It was a cool fall evening in Little Rock, Arkansas, when Don Mosely heard...

A government with not enough to do, but lots of hungry mouths to feed

By Dave Duffy Issue #130 • July/August, 2011 Most people look in the wrong places for threats to society, and their perceptions are easily manipulated by the mass media, which is often spoon-fed its stories by...

Our energy crisis Part 2 — Nuclear energy is sensible and safe

By John Silveira Issue #114 • November/December, 2008 When an atomic bomb was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945, the amount of energy...

Why not risk it all!

By Dave Duffy Issue #64 • July/August, 2000 I got this letter from a reader: Please cancel my subscription. I had the opportunity to read your editorial glorifying your agenda as a "paranoid, gun-toting nut." This is...

Things kids should learn before leaving high school, but don’t

By John Silveira Issue #159 • May/June, 2016 We send generations of American children to school hoping we're preparing them for adulthood. Among the least of our expectations are that they're going to be able to...

Why I’m nice to telemarketers

By John Silveira July 22, 2000 We complain because they bug us during supper. Of course, it wouldn't make sense for them to call us at 1:00 in the afternoon because we're not usually home then....

What kind of Americans sit on our juries?

By John Silveira March 16, 2000 Our jury system is supposed to be a buffer between us--the citizens--and the government. It is there to prevent the abuse of power that governments have exercised since the dawn...

A lesson in respect

By John Silveira Issue #65 • September/October, 2000 When I was 10, Dad lived on a farm in New Hampshire with my stepmother and two of my sisters, and I went to stay with them that...

The parasitic nature of bureaucracy

By Dave Duffy Issue #106 • July/August, 2007 As we go to print with this issue, my local newspaper's main page one headline reads: County tax levy soundly defeated. I applauded at my desk to the...

Which is better, a small town or city?

By Dave Duffy Issue #78 • November/December, 2002 Traveling has a way of giving you perspective. For the past several summers my family and I have traveled around the country, covering as much as 9,000 miles by...