Maverick Philosopher

Regular programming to resume when Typepad gets its act together

Meanwhile, Happy Halloween from Screamin Jay Hawkins.

Substack latest is about zombies and the value of being conscious.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Cool Tunes and More Mose

Ramsey Lewis Trio, The In Crowd

Dave Brubeck, Take Five

Corsairs, Smoky Places

Harry Nilsson, Everybody's Talkin'

B. B. King, Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out 

Sam Cooke, Fool's Paradise

Thelonius Monk, In Walked Bud

Mose Allison, Your Mind's on Vacation

Mose Allison, I Don't Worry About a Thing

Mose Allison, Don't Get Around Much Anymore

Too cool for you? Try this.

Mose Allison, The Song is Ended

Third Parties as Discussion Societies in Political Drag

Substack latest.

 

 

The Losertarian Party

The Libertarian Party is for losers. If you are a conservative who votes Libertarian, you are a damned fool. You say you stand on 'principles'? Principles are great. And some of the Libertarian ones are salutary. But principles without power are just paper.  Politics is a practical game. Wise up and get with the program. Don't throw away your vote on unelectables.

You have heard me say many times that politics is a practical game. I don't mean that it is unserious. Some games are serious; chess is one, life is another. Life is as serious as cancer, and the wrong people in power can put a serious dent in your living of your life. 

Tulsi Gabbard Endorses Kari Lake for Arizona Governorship

Here

Three Axes of Conflict

Antony Beevor in The Spanish Civil War (Orbis 1982, Penguin 2001, p. 279) writes that in the aftermath of the war both sides engaged in gross simplifications for propaganda purposes:

As a result, the three axes of conflict (left-right, centralist-regionalist, and authoritarian-libertarian) have often been crudely amalgamated, leaving the ferocity of the war partly unexplained.

Philosophers do well to study history to offset their penchant for the bird's-eye view.  They need to come to ground from time to time if only to fuel themselves for further flight. Feasting on the carrion of fact, however, is not particularly nutritious. So what caught this philosopher's eye was the three-axes schema. Philosophers love schemata.  They love the synoptic and panoptic survey. 'Spectators of all time and existence . . . ."

The three-axes schema strikes me as relevant to the current political war in the USA as we teeter on the brink of World War Three thanks to the stupidity and criminality of the Democrat Party and the useful idiots who support it.

1) Left-Right. It might be useful to distinguish between the Old Left, the New Left, and the 'Woke' Left. (Having sneered, I now drop the sneer quotes, at least for the space of this paragraph.) What distinguishes the Woke Left is corporate capitalism, the globalist capitalism of mega-corporations with the economic, and in consequence thereof political, clout to bend both government and the Fourth Estate to their collective will, thereby destroying the independence of both of the latter and eliminating checks on their unbalanced power.

2) Centralism-Regionalism. Liberty versus tyranny defines the battle for the soul of America.  Tyranny emanates from the central government which, while endlessly mouthing 'democracy' and 'rule of law' respects neither. Liberty, if it can survive, will be defended locally and regionally by citizens with the civil courage to speak out and face 'cancellation' and worse. (I am thinking, among other things, of ordinary citizens who attend school board meetings and protest being labelled 'domestic terrorists' for rejecting the indoctrination of their children in Critical Race Theory, in 1619-type historical revisionism, in transgender ideology, and in anti-Caucasian ethno-masochism.) Regionalism is or is closely related to federalism. (The overturning of Roe v. Wade scored a point for the latter; the Left's febrile outrage clearly demonstrates its anti-federalism and anti-democratic spirit. )

3) Authoritarian-Libertarian. American conservatism is not authoritarian but classically liberal. But while classically liberal, and thus opposed to throne-and-altar paleo-conservatism, it also opposes the anti-religionism and anti-traditionalism of the Left, especially that of the 'woke' Left, which is a particularly virulent and lethal strain of leftism. It thus treads the via media avoiding both the Road to Serfdom (you get the allusion, of course) and the road to anarchy as lately instantiated by Atifa black shirts and BLM Marxist thugs.

Einstein, Relativity, and Relativism

Substack latest.

To be Alone is Bliss

Your invitation's kind
So I hope you won't mind
If your party I miss.
To be alone is bliss.

Your friends are such a bore
And idle talk's a chore
They will be good to miss.
To be alone is bliss. 

Tulsi Gabbard Defends Objective Truth . . .

. . . at a rally to end child mutilation. Gabbard's  three-minute address begins at 19:30 and runs until 22:42. "Without recognition that there is such a thing as truth, there are no boundaries in our society, which why we are where we are."

That something so obvious needs to be stated explicitly shows how far we have fallen.  But precisely because we have fallen so far, Tulsi Gabbard is to be applauded for having courageously stated it. That it should take courage to state something so obvious is yet another index of our social decline.

And now, if you can spare ten minutes, listen to Chloe Cole's story at 47:15-57:50. 

Animal Awareness: Aristotle, Galileo, Kant

This just over the trans0m from Edward Buckner. I have added my comments in blue.

Aristotle: Even if all animals were eliminated and thereby all perceptions (since only animals perceive), “there will still be something perceptible—a body, for example, or something warm, or sweet, or bitter, or anything else perceptible.”

BV: Evaluation of the above requires that we get clear about the sense of 'perceptible.' There are at least the following three senses:

1) X is perceptible₁ =_df it is logically possible that x be perceived.

2) X is perceptible₂ =_df it is nomologically possible that x be perceived.

3) X is perceptible₃ =_df x is able to be perceived by some sentient being.

I suggest that (3) is what we normally mean by 'perceptible.'  What (3) says is that for a thing to be perceptible, there must be at least one existing perceiver with the ability to perceive the thing.  On (3), then, Aristotle is mistaken. So on a charitable interpretation, he probably means something like (2): many if not most natural things are such that, if there were an able-facultied perceiver on the scene, one or more natural things would be perceived, and would be perceived as having in themselves such qualities as being warm, bitter, or sweet. Aristotle is a realist about what we now call secondary qualities.

Galileo: “tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated.”

BV: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) belongs to the modern period which he helped inaugurate, along with Rene Descartes (1596-1650).   The main point to note for present purposes is that Galileo reduces the sensory qualities that Aristotle viewed as properties of things themselves to perceiver-relative 'secondary qualities.' So if "living creatures were removed," then at least the secondary qualities would be "removed" along with them. That's quite the contrast with Aristotle.  The Stagirite is a realist about warmth, etc,; the Italian is an idealist about warmth, etc.

What would Kant’s view be? Does he think that if all perceiving beings ceased to exist, then appearances would cease to exist? But appearances, according to him, are things like trees and rocks. Does he then think that if all perceiving beings ceased to exist, trees and rocks, and all other non-sentient things, would cease to exist? We should be told.

BV:  Underlying Ed's questions is the question: Who or what is the knowing subject for Kant?  For Aristotle, the knowing subject is the concrete man embedded in nature, a hylomorphic composite in which anima forma corporis. For Kant, however, the concrete man, the man of flesh and blood embedded in nature, with both animal body and animal soul, is blosse Erscheinung, a mere appearance or phenomenon, and thus an object of knowledge, but not the subject of knowledge, i.e., not the knowing subject.  For Kant, the knowing subject is transcendental.  This is Kant's view whatever you think of it. It is undoubtedly fraught with difficulties, but my sketch is accurate albeit superficial. 

And so the answer to both of Ed's questions is in the negative.

Ethnomasochism

Rod Dreher on The Racial Masochism of the Left:

Where does the Left and all its institutional allies -- which is to say, every major institution in American life -- plan to go with this? Do they really believe that all whites, Asians, and Latinos can be trained to accept brutality from black criminals? Do they really think that America itself is Barnard College? So far, they haven't had any real pushback, so maybe they do.

This is what happens when you abandon classically liberal concepts of justice. This is what happens when you Kendify and DiAngelize policy and discourse. When the backlash comes, it's going to be quite ugly. Understand right now that it will be 100 percent the fault of the Left.

I spoke with a salesman at Sportsman's Warehouse the other day. He told me that before 11:00 am he had sold five AR-15s.

That's not a good sign, my friends.

.....................

Vito Caiati responds:

Regarding your short post “Ethnomasochism,” I was reminded of this observation by Machiavelli in I Principe (Chapter 14): “Molte sono le conseguenze negative che ti provoca il fatto di essere male armato, ma la più grave è che ti rende oggetto di disprezzo. . . .” (“There are many negative consequences brought to you by being badly armed, the most serious is that it makes you the object of contempt”). Your conversation with the gun salesman appears to indicate that many people have instinctively grasped the truth of the Florentine’s point.

To which pertinent observation I had the following. The natural contempt that many people have for the weak and vulnerable is at present aided, abetted, and exacerbated by a society in collapse, a society in which half of the population and most of those who run our institutions think it 'racist' to enforce laws and to enforce them equally. And so the weak and the vulnerable, the loving and the kind, are arming themselves for defense against depredatory elements of the sort that leftists used merely to coddle, but now positively promote.   At a recent CCW class I was surprised to see so many sweet old ladies fixin' to pack heat.   None of this would be necessary, of course, if government did its job. But it doesn't and anyone who votes Democrat is voting to insure that it doesn't, 'going forward' as journalists and pols like to say.

Marxism and Pelagianism

If Pelagianism is the false belief that man can save himself without help ab extra, then Marxism is a latter-day secularized form of Pelagianism. Among the central  pillars of Marxist and indeed all leftist delusion is the conceit that human beings are fundamentally good. The blood-drenched attempts at the remaking of humanity in the image of this destructive doctrine are the clearest proofs of its falsehood.

Low Lives

People on a low level should not lower themselves further by pretending that they are not.

Which is Worse?

A former colleague of mine published one lousy book, a teacher of mine, many.

What Did He Expect?

He prayed for the ability to see himself objectively, but then complained that he did not like what he saw.

Odd Man Out

Among the cardinal virtues, courage is the odd man out. It is almost always prudent to be prudent, temperate, and just, but not often  prudent to be courageous. 

The Albatross and the Donkey

Joe Biden is and will remain an albatross around the neck of the Democrat jackass.

Forgiveness and Self-Justification

One feels justified in not forgiving. "Why should I forgive the bastard? He wronged me, and not just once!"

"Don't you need forgiveness? You must forgive because you yourself need to be forgiven for what  you have done to others!"

"There is a part of me that can appreciate your fine Sunday School sentiment.  But to survive in this ugly and brutal world I had to become tough and unfeeling; I had to learn how to be unjust and how to wrong people. And of course I had to practice on the weak and vulnerable if I was to make any progress and not be killed right away."

PayPal, Social Media, and the Control of Information

The PayPal Fiasco was no Accident

PayPal on Oct. 8 sent out an update to its terms of use, or acceptable use policy (AUP), that included a shocking addition. It reserved the right to confiscate $2,500 from people’s accounts if they spread “misinformation.” It was a clear announcement of what many already suspected: PayPal has enlisted in the information war.

This comes weeks after PayPal blocked several important accounts in the UK, including Toby Young’s personal account, the Free Speech Union, and the DailySceptic. These are hugely important venues for the English-speaking world in countering the COVID propaganda narrative. It was no accident that they were targeted.

[. . .]

By the following day, PayPal reversed itself, claiming that the banning of “misinformation” was just a mistake.

My take is that the PayPal bums don't have the courage of their convictions. The 'woke' warriors believe in their cause only as long as commitment to it does not affect their bottom line. But when protests cause revenues to drop, they reverse their course, and then lie about their reversal!  A trifecta of outrages: the destructive anti-free speech agenda; the cowardly and crass reversal of course; and then the lies about the reversal.

The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus

In America we once believed our First Amendment prevented a government monopoly on information. But in the age of globalization, the Internet, and social media, the state has become the enemy—not the protector—of free speech.

One obvious sign is that the Biden Administration keeps trying to create new sorts of ministries of truth or “Disinformation Governance Boards.” It alleges such Orwellian censors must combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.” In fact, these bureaucracies are designed to criminalize unwanted free expression while also advancing state propaganda.

Among our Washington officials, the following myths were once declared the official version of the “truth”:

• Mounted border patrol agents “whipped” innocent illegal aliens.
• Officer Brian Sicknick was violently “killed” by Trump protestors.
• An “armed” insurrection sought to stage a pre-planned coup on January 6 designed to overthrow the government by violent means.
• Christopher Steele’s dossier was a factual, well-researched compilation.
• Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a serial sexual assaulter.
• Jussie Smollett in Chicago’s wee hours valiantly fought off white, racist MAGA-hatted thugs.
• Hunter Biden’s laptop was abject Russian disinformation.
• And Joe Biden does not suffer from serious cognitive issues.

What is unique about these lies is not that the government and its media partners advanced them, but that to this day, some continue to disseminate such untruths in spite of widespread and publicly available information discrediting them.

California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed into law a bill criminalizing the work of doctors who express public doubts about medical orthodoxy. Specifically, the law warns that so-called dissident opinion is synonymous with “misinformation.” It is now a crime for doctors to spread “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”

If we were to criminalize all of history’s doctors who “contradicted scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care” then Hippocrates, Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur, and Marie Curie would have been felons in their day.

 

Berdyaev on the Moral Source of Atheism

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It is 410 A. D.

Alaric is sacking Rome. An obscure Roman philosopher  is penning an agenda for the salvation of the republic. His writings are lost to history. In any case, too little, too late. Will we share his fate?

Three years after the Visigoth invasion, a Christian Platonist and mystic in North Africa puts pen to paper. As Rome goes under, and night falls, the Owl of Minerva rises in the pages of The City of God.

If St. Augustine could see us now he might remark that while the pagan gods failed Rome, we failed the true God when we began worshipping idols.

Joseph-Nöel Sylvestre’s 1890 Painting Depicting the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in AD 410.

 

Hot LInks

Facebook blocked my page because of my refusal to sign up for Facebook Protect. They wanted me to set up two-factor authentication 'for my protection.' I decided not to go along on their phishing expedition.  Not that I have any objection to 2FA as such. You ought to use it for all your sensitive sites financial and otherwise.  

Blocked from FB,  I opened an account at Twitter. I'll use it mainly to advertise my Substack articles.  

I was using FB mainly for linkage, so some of that will be brought back here.

Reasons to be vaccine-hesitant. 

Something to consider: Do you think that a government that lies repeatedly and brazenly about things that can be easily checked, such as the security of the border, will hesitate to lie about things not so easily checked such as the efficacy of vaccines?

Murray Rothbard on How We Can Win

If I started quoting it, I'd quote the whole thing. Please read it for your own good.

Citizenry, Government, and Firearms

You say you don't trust the citizenry with firearms, but you do trust the government with them?  If "the government is us" as Barack Obama and Joe Biden have said, what you say makes no sense.  For if that were so, there would no difference in point of trustworthiness between the governors and the governed.  But of course, Barry and Joey were bullshitting in Harry Frankfurt's sense, that is, shooting their mouths off with no concern for the truth, not even the concern the liar must have for the truth given his intention to hide it from us.

The government is most assuredly not us, but it is composed of people like us. And what are we like? 

We are a mixed bag of a few saints, many scamps, and a broad mass of moral and intellectual mediocrities. And the same holds for those in government except that in government, scamps, fools, clowns, know-nothings, liars, bullshitters, quislings and the incompetent rise to high posts in a way that is impossible in the private sector. 

The current (mal)administration is one of the worst if not the worst in the nation's history. The names say it all: Biden, Harris,  Garland,  Mayorkas, Granholm, Yellen, Buttigieg, Jean-Pierre, Pelosi, Schumer, and I'm just warming up. 

And you are still a Democrat?

Saturday Night at the Oldies: October Jazz

The 15th already! October's a bird that flies too fast. Time herself's such a bird. I would freeze her flight, but not that of

Charley 'Bird' Parker, Ornithology

Jack Kerouac and Steve Allen, Charlie Parker

Kerouac and Allen, October in the Railroad Earth

Jack Kerouac, San Francisco

Mose Allison, Parchman Farm.

This one goes out to Tom Gastineau, keyboard man in our band Dudley Nightshade, who introduced me to Mose Allison in the late '60s. Tom went on to make it, more or less, in the music business. I caught Allison at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California, a couple or three times before I headed East in August of '73.  Heard him on the East Coast as well at a joint in Marblehead, Mass. with a girlfriend  I dubbed 'Springtime Mary'  which was Kerouac's name for his girlfriend Mary Carney.

Mose Allison, Young Man's Blues

Mose Allison, I Ain't Got Nothing but the Blues

Dave Brubeck, Blue Rondo al a Turk

Herbie Hancock, Watermelon Man

Beyond Philosophy

Josef Pieper, Death and Immortality, trs. Richard and Clara Winston, Herder and Herder, 1969, pp. 129-130. Originally in German under the title Tod und Unsterblichkeit in 1968:

Thus we have now at last touched, and perhaps overstepped, the boundary which is set for the philosophical enquirer. Really to reach this boundary -- therein lies, I think, the true meaning and distinctive opportunity of philosophy. The great philosophers have always seen in philosophy a challenge to penetrate beyond philosophizing.

I divide the paths beyond into two main groups, call them 'mundane' and 'transcensive' or perhaps 'descensive' and 'ascensive' for want of better terms. Two examples of the former are Pyrrhonism as represented by the skeptic way of Sextus Empiricus and political activism as represented by Karl Marx and his followers. I have had plenty to say about both in these pages.

Examples of the higher and nobler paths include religion and mysticism. Here I write about their relation to each other and to philosophy.

The main thing, as it seems to me, is to forge onward and not fall back.  

 

 

Populism Reload: An Interview with Steven K. Bannon

Steve Bannon talks sense. See if you don't agree: 

Mark Granza: Let’s talk about the “Deep State“. The term is widely used by people on the Right to describe the network of bureaucrats and organizations secretly running the country behind the scenes. Is this in your experience an accurate description of what’s going on in Washington?

Steve Bannon: I think the nomenclature is important to get right. I would rather call it the “administrative state”, which is really a fourth branch of government never intended by the founders and, quite frankly, the American people. The Administrative State’s purpose, and really the Progressive Left, is to take over all functions of government through these agencies. Up until now they could issue their own regulations and laws, and now they control even their own law enforcement, whether it’s 87,000 IRS agents or these jackbooted FBI or the EPA, with armed security and guards. So our big focus should be its deconstruction. It needs to be taken apart brick by brick. You saw how out of control this was with the CDC and FDA when the pandemic hit, with Tony Fauci as the face of the administrative state that ruled without permission to be questioned. And it’s not that we don’t need an FDA or CDC, but they definitely have to be heavily repurposed. I would say the national security and the intelligence apparatus and part of the legal one are what we would more traditionally think of as a “deep state”, probably best personified in the first Trump impeachment. If you remember all that kind of fetish about the interagency process and the sacramental nature of the way those things should work when Trump was President, that was really the Deep State saying that Trump was unacceptable because deeply he did not believe in those processes. He did not believe in their function, nor their policies.

You can tell this now with Ukraine, these groups have their own goals. It has captured the American national security and foreign policy apparatus, and it needs to be defeated. They don’t believe in the Constitution, they don’t believe that a commander in chief should be able to make his own decisions. You know, I’ve advocated from day one that we need another Church Committee. In the 1970s, after Watergate, after Vietnam, after the assassinations and all the turmoil in the streets, it was determined that the FBI and the CIA had crossed the boundaries of what their mandates were on both surveillance of Americans, infiltration of groups, and all of their tasks really. And so you had the Church Committee set the modern structure for the FBI and CIA as a consequence. But I think that’s been blurred over time. You clearly still have a lot of nefarious activity going on and a lot of stuff that needs to be reviewed. I think we need to get back to that; a total revamping, rethinking and rejuvenation of these apparatuses, whether it’s the NSA, CIA, FBI, DOJ, the military or the armed forces. I’ve spent eight years as a naval officer. My daughter went to West Point. She was with the 101st Airborne Division and deployed to Iraq. So we are all big patriots and huge believers in serving in the military. But things have gone way off track and we definitely need to, not just take a hard look, but have massive reform at those levels.

Slavery, Abortion, and 'Skin in the Game'

Substack latest.

The 'Equity' President

'Equity' is wokespeak for equality of outcome without regard for merit or qualifications. In Joe Biden, the demented have finally a representative at the highest level of government in the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Who can deny that this is progress? To question it would be discriminatory and ableist.

A Reason for Reserve

The less I know of you, the more highly I can think of you.

The Melting Pot

A melting pot can't do its job if unmeltable ingredients are thrown into it.

Takes a Lifetime

It takes a lifetime to get used to a world one must soon quit.

Dreher on Douthat on the Curse of Vatican II

Excellent. And here is the internal reference to Peter Hitchens. 

Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour

Episode Thirty Two: Moon.  The harvest moon is big and bright these October nights.  

Informed commentary by a lover of and major contributor to musical Americana. Hear how much you've missed and how much young Bobby Zimmerman sopped up through long and cold Hibbing nights listening to the radio.

Around 50:00 Dylan commences reading  the Slim Gaillard passage from Kerouac's On the Road and then cues up a Gaillard number.

Another Reason to Limit Socializing

Avoid unnecessary socializing lest you inadvertently reveal what it would be imprudent to reveal. As we sink into a Sino-style surveillance state, it is probably best for most of you, especially the young, to lay low and go gray. I've made mine so I run less of a risk in speaking my mind. The little civil courage I display I cannot in good conscience demand of others who are not as well-positioned and have much more to lose. 

 

Why Tulsi Gabbard is Leaving the Democrat Party and Why You Should Too

Here at Substack. HT: Anthony Flood. Full text follows. Please propagate. Do your bit to restore some sanity to this country and to the world. 

Why I'm leaving the Democratic Party

Tulsi Gabbard

 

I love our country. Our God-given rights of freedom, life, and liberty enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights are my inspiration. I answered the call to duty and took an oath, dedicating my life to supporting and defending those freedoms, both in uniform and in public office.

Growing up in Hawaii gave me a special appreciation of our home, water, and precious natural resources.  So when I was 21 years old I decided to run for Hawaii State House so that I could be in a position to protect our environment.  I wasn’t politically affiliated before that, but as I was about to file my election papers, I had to choose which party to affiliate with. 

As I did my research, I was inspired by Democrats who stood up against the war in Vietnam, and those who fought for Hawaii’s plantation workers who were being abused and exploited by wealthy landowners. I was inspired by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and drawn to the ideals of a big-tent Democratic Party that stood up for working men and women — the little guy.  In contrast, the Republican Party seemed like one that stood for the interests of big business and warmongering elites.  So I became a Democrat and remained one for over 20 years — an independent Democrat to be sure, but a Democrat nonetheless. 

I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.

Here are some of the main reasons I’m leaving the Democratic Party, in brief. I’ll be tackling each of these in more depth in the coming weeks.

The pro-war Democratic Party has led us to the brink of nuclear war. The party is led by warmongers who are firmly in the grip of the military industrial complex, and don’t know or care about the cost of war, or who pays the price. President Biden and Democratic Party elite have pushed us to the precipice of nuclear war, risking starting WWIII and destroying the world as we know it. This is the most urgent existential threat we face. I ran for President in 2020 because I knew that this is where we were headed. All the signs were there. I raised this issue every day during the campaign, and on the national debate stage. But politicians and the media ignored it. They didn’t care then, and they don’t care now. Obviously I didn’t win that election, and don’t have the power to do what is necessary to prevent it. President Biden and Congress do. But they irresponsibly refuse to use that power to protect the safety of our country, the American people, and the world from the devastation of a nuclear holocaust. To protect our loved ones, our children, our world, I’m calling upon the American people to join me in standing up to these cowardly politicians now. This may be our last chance to do so.

 

Negativity: The Spirit of the Left

Substack latest.

The spirit of the Left is the spirit of negativity. Any intellectually honest person following current events can see that the tendency of leftists is mindlessly to destroy for the sake of destruction what it has taken centuries to build. Transgressive of tradition and its wisdom, these 'progressives' are both hobbled and enabled by their presentism. Hobbled, because they know nothing of the past. Enabled, because their ignorance allows them to imagine themselves to be free of the moral limitations of humanity. Punks and know-nothings for the most part, they are unwitting agents of the demonic.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Marital Advice

Before you even think of getting married, make sure you have plenty of money.

Then shop around.

Consider who will become your mother-in-law.

If you want to be happy,  don't worry too much about physical beauty. 

If she has a cheatin' heart, hit the road, Jack.

But then again you might be better off without a wife.

.............................

Bonus cut: Lauro Nyro, Wedding Bell Blues

Leftist Omni-Politicization

For the Left, everything is either political or to be politicized, including that which is non-political. Take this to its logical extreme and you end up with 'woke' mathematics. This reductio ad absurdum will cause a sane person to reject the premise. The sane will point out that some things, by their very nature, cannot be politicized. There is nothing political about the Poisson distribution or Rolle's theorem.

 

Will the leftist back off? Hell no, he will deny that anything has a nature, and affirm that everything is subject to social construction. For example, a typical leftist will state that a conservative black is a traitor to his race. Now that makes no sense. 'Traitor' is a political notion; 'race' is not. Race is not like political affiliation. You can quit your party, and if you are a Democrat you should; you can't, however, quit your race. Not even Rachel Dolezal could pull it off.

 

Being a leftist, however, means that you don't have to make sense. Herewith, a case of 'leftist privilege,' to give it a name.

 

You say you've forgotten who Rachel Dolezal is is? Too much Twitter! A weapon of mass distraction. Soon you'll be a tweeting twit with a mind fit only to flit.  The Left is all about the erasure of memory, collective and individual, except for what serves their agenda. To refresh your memory, see Rachel Dolezal, The Black White Woman.

 

I make a mistake at the end that I will now correct. I represent Elizabeth Warren as the author of Pow Wow Chow when in fact she is merely a contributor to that by-now-famous recipe book. Her contribution, however, a recipe for lobster bisque — Cherokees were into haute cuisine? — was plagiarized!

Maxims and Meta-Maxims

1) Live now: resist the tendency to bring the past into the present.

2) Beware of viewing yourself through the belittling eyes of others.

3) Avoid negative and weakening thoughts.

4) Avoid comparisons with others.

5) Keep socializing to the minimum necessary to maintain one's sanity and humanity.

6) Do not associate with those beneath you except as duty and necessity require.

7) Guard the mind, the tongue, the heart.

8) Abide in the here, the now, the self.

9) Aspire.

10 Strive and persevere.

11) Begin the day with a review of these and other maxims.

12) Maxims ought to be part of one's 'everyday carry.' Don't leave home without them.

13) Age quod agis!

14) Indulgence weakens; resistance strengthens.

15) Coin new maxims.

16) Carpe diem et noctem! 

A Reason to Live Long

There is work to be done, and it may be that it can only be done here. It may be that at death soul-making stops and one is stuck at the moral, intellectual, and spiritual level one has attained in the precincts of the sublunary. This could prove problematic if one survives one's bodily death.  Are you sure that you don't? 

Kierkegaard on the Impotence of Earthly Power

Substack latest.

The State under Leftism: Totalitarianism with Bread and Circuses

Although the state under contemporary leftism is totalitarian and demands conformity and submission in matters of moment, it tolerates and indeed encourages the cultivation of a politically inconsequential individualism of private self-absorption. A people given bread (food stamps and other forms of infantilizing dependency), circuses (mass sporting events), dope (legalization of marijuana), HollyWeird pornography and violence, politically correct propaganda, and such weapons of mass distraction as Twitter and Facebook is kept distracted, enervated, and submissive.

 

Nowadays it is not religion that is the opiate of the masses, but the dope of Big Government and its leftist enablers and shills in mainstream media, the so-called 'universities,' the churches, the courts, and horribile dictu, the military!

 

The Democrats have long been the party of Big Government; they are now the party of hard-Left Big Government by 'woke' elites. There is nothing democratic about them.

Polarization and Flotation in Politics

Can we avoid both polarization and a noncommittal floating above the fray that does not commit to one side or the other? I fear not. Politics is war. You must take a side. You can't play the philosopher on the battlefield. A warrior at war cannot be "a spectator of all time and existence," as noble as such spectatorship is.

 

A warrior who is fully human, however, will know when to put aside his weapons and take up his pen. He will know that in the end "The pen is mightier than the sword." But only in the end. Now you are in the field. If you don't survive the fight, there will be no life left for 'penmanship.'

God and Morality

A short piece by Richard Swinburne.

Divine Light, Sex, Alcohol, and Kerouac

Substack latest. 

From Bad to Worse

His johnson became his dousing rod, but it led him not to the waters of life, but to the fleshpots. This after abandoning organized religion and its hypocrisies, but also its curbs and checks on destructive behavior. So he went from bad to worse. He started on down that Lost Highway.