Maverick Philosopher

The Left's Orwellianism Pictorially Represented

W

Fortuna, Boethius, Philosophia

The Devil Woman lures Boethius a posteriori onto the wheel of fortune while the Eternal Feminine leads him upward a priori.

Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan! (Goethe, Faust)

Wrong and Right Questions

There are some moderate Muslims, and they can be enlisted in the struggle against the anti-civilizational Joe Biden and the moral (immoral?) retards who support him.  Zuhdi Jasser is an example of a moderate Muslim. May peace be upon him and no harm come to him. Here I recount an exchange I had with Jasser.

Up on the Roof

Not "The Drifters" version.

Given the pronounced 'libertine wobble' of leftists, it is passing strange that they would support Islamists who are anti-libertine and anti-liberal in excelsis.  The loons of the Left appear to have lost their minds so much so  that they care not whether they lose their heads.  

Tony Flood, who sent me the graphic, remarks, "This is the outward expression of a fifth column movement that doesn't care about any cognitive dissonance we detect. On a brighter note, take a gander at page one of this week's The Militant!"

Socialists make for strange bedfellows, but we need a broad coalition to defeat the forces of anti-civilization. Exciting times up ahead, my friends. I advise investing in 'precious metals,' in a broad sense of the term to include Pb and its delivery systems.

Epicurus Redivivus

As in the case of Joe Biden and those who support him.

Political 'Toons and Memes

Some are pretty good.

Civility is for the Civil

A reader sent me a graphic to accompany one of my aphorisms:

Civility is no virtue if a cover for cowardice.

The meme is crude, but I see little point these days in being polite to our enemies. As another of my aphorisms has it, 

Be kind, but be prepared to reply in kind.

But don't be misled by what I am about to post.  You must heed Glenn Beck's GRAVE WARNING. 

 

For the Left, the Issue is Never the Issue

'Never' is too strong, but close enough:

Let me explain. As per the graphic, for the Left, the real issues are not protection of children and anti-terrorism. They are but distractions from the real issues. The real issues are suppression of dissent, erosion and ultimate elimination of constitutionally-protected  civil liberties such as those guaranteed by the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, expansion of centralized (federal) government control with concomitant violation of states' rights as guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment, not to mention institution of an omni-invasive Sino-styled surveillance apparatus and 'social credit' register to further limit dissent, stifle liberties, and 'cancel' livelihoods.

But why do the leftists who now dominate and control the Democrat Party want these things? To insure their gaining and maintaining of power in perpetuity, to be sure. But that is only half the answer.  Why do they want power? They want it not just because they exult in its exercise and increase, but because they want it to forward their agenda, which is the destruction of the American republic as she was founded to be. Obama announced the goal brazenly: to fundamentally transform America, not to make needed reforms and improvements, but to transform her fundamentally.  But conservatives, who in the end conserve nothing, and are content to talk and write and conduct seminars on cruise ships, are slow on the uptake, and, hobbled by their civility and other virtues,  cannot bring themselves to believe that their political opponents are political enemies who mean what they say and out for their political liquidation.

So when Tucker Carlson, et al., say that the leftists are out for power, that is not a good answer. After all, we of the Coalition of the Reasonable want power too. Bear in mind that power is good.  (If it weren't, omnipotence would not be counted among the divine omni-attributes.)  Without power one cannot implement the good. The difference is that we want power to implement constructive ends whereas the Coalition of the Treasonable who bow and scrape before the heads of evil regimes, who open the border during a pandemic, who empower criminals, who undermine the rule of law, want power so as to achieve destructive ends. 

Am I alleging that everyone on the Left knowingly promotes evil? No. Some leftists are fools, others are ignorant, still others are useful idiots, others still are suborned by their greed and power-hunger. TDS continues to drive many insane . It's a mixed bag.  But there is no moral equivalence here between Left and Right any more than there was between the S.U. and the U.S.

The Childish Mentality of the Social Justice Warrior

Thankfulness

Michael Bloomberg Again

The former mayor of New York City would make a better president than any of the following: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders.  But that is not saying much. In any case it is moot. The billionaire won't get the Dem nomination. It will go to either Biden or Warren.  Still and all, we shouldn't forget the foolish things Bloomberg has said and done.

Herewith, an edited  re-post from 18 June 2012.

Michael Bloomberg on the Purpose of Government

(CBS News) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg shrugged off criticism of his controversial public health initiatives, saying that "if government's purpose isn't to improve the health and longevity of its citizens, I don't know what its purpose is." [emphasis added.]

 Bloomberg most recently put forth a plan to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces from the city's eateries, street carts and stadiums. The proposal has been sharply criticized, in some cases by beverage and fast food companies as a case of government overreach.

He's also been criticized for previous efforts to, among other things, ban smoking in public places and the use of trans-fats in restaurant foods. Some have gone so far as to mock has as being like a "nanny."

 But on "CBS This Morning," Bloomberg fired back, saying, "We're not here to tell anybody what to do. But we certainly have an obligation to tell them what's the best science and best medicine says is in their interest.

In this startlingly incoherent outburst, Bloomberg betrays the liberal nanny-state mentality in as direct a way as one could wish.  And it is incoherent.  He wants to ban large drinks, pop corn, milk shakes and what all else while assuring us that "we're not here to tell anybody what to do."  He blatantly contradicts himself.  Does the man think before he speaks?

But the deeper problem is that he has no notion of the legitimate functions of government.  Apparently he has never heard of limited government.  Border control is a legitimate constitutionally-grounded function of government.  One reason the borders must be controlled is to impede the spread of contagious diseases.  So government does have some role to play in the health and longevity of citizens.  Defense of the country against foreign aggressors is also a legitimate function  of government and it too bears upon health and longevity: it is hard to live a long and healthy life when bombs are raining down.

Beyond this, it is up to the individual to live in ways that insure health and longevity if those are values for him.  But they might not be.  Some value intensity of life over longevity of life.  Rod Serling, for example, lived an extremely intense and productive life.  Born in 1925, he died in 1975 at age 50.  His Type A behavior and four-pack a day cigarette habit did him in, but was also quite possibly a necessary condition of his productivity.  That was his free choice.  No government has the right to dictate that one value longevity over intensity.

A government big enough and powerful enough to provide one with ‘free’ health care will be in an excellent position to demand ‘appropriate’ behavior from its citizens – and to enforce its demand. Suppose you enjoy risky sports such as motorcycling, hang gliding, mountain climbing and the like. Or perhaps you just like to drink or smoke or eat red meat.  A government that pays for the treatment of your injuries and ailments can easily decide, on economic grounds alone, to forbid such activities under the bogus justification, ‘for your own good.’

But even if the government does not outlaw motorcycling, say, they can put a severe dent in your liberty to enjoy such a sport, say, by demanding that a 30% sales tax be slapped on all motorcycle purchases, or by outlawing bikes whose engines exceed a certain displacement, say 250 cc.  In the same way that governments levy arbitrary punitive taxes on tobacco products, they can do the same for anything they deem risky or unhealthy.

The situation is analogous to living with one’s parents. It is entirely appropriate for parents to say to a child: ‘As long as you live under our roof, eat at our table, and we pay the bills, then you must abide by our rules. When you are on your own, you may do as you please.’ The difference, of course, is that it is relatively easy to move out on one’s own, but difficult to forsake one’s homeland. 

This is why we shouldn't surrender our country to nanny-state, gun-grabbing,  liberty-bashing  soda jerks like Bloomberg and Hillary.

The nub of the issue is liberty. Do you value it or not?  How much?  Over nanny-state security?

Does Bloomberg even see the issue? 

(CBS News) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg shrugged off criticism of his controversial public health initiatives, saying that "if government's purpose isn't to improve the health and longevity of its citizens, I don't know what its purpose is." [emphasis added.]

 Bloomberg most recently put forth a plan to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces from the city's eateries, street carts and stadiums. The proposal has been sharply criticized, in some cases by beverage and fast food companies as a case of government overreach.

He's also been criticized for previous efforts to, among other things, ban smoking in public places and the use of trans-fats in restaurant foods. Some have gone so far as to mock has as being like a "nanny."

 But on "CBS This Morning," Bloomberg fired back, saying, "We're not here to tell anybody what to do. But we certainly have an obligation to tell them what's the best science and best medicine says is in their interest.

In this startlingly incoherent outburst, Bloomberg betrays the liberal nanny-state mentality in as direct a way as one could wish.  And it is incoherent.  He wants to ban large drinks, pop corn, milk shakes and what all else while assuring us that "we're not here to tell anybody what to do."  He blatantly contradicts himself.  Does the man think before he speaks?

But the deeper problem is that he has no notion of the legitimate functions of government.  Apparently he has never heard of limited government.  Border control is a legitimate constitutionally-grounded function of government.  One reason the borders must be controlled is to impede the spread of contagious diseases.  So government does have some role to play in the health and longevity of citizens.  Defense of the country against foreign aggressors is also a legitimate function  of government and it too bears upon health and longevity: it is hard to live a long and healthy life when bombs are raining down.

Beyond this, it is up to the individual to live in ways that insure health and longevity if those are values for him.  But they might not be.  Some value intensity of life over longevity of life.  Rod Serling, for example, lived an extremely intense and productive life.  Born in 1925, he died in 1975 at age 50.  His Type A behavior and four-pack a day cigarette habit did him in, but was also quite possibly a necessary condition of his productivity.  That was his free choice.  No government has the right to dictate that one value longevity over intensity.

A government big enough and powerful enough to provide one with ‘free’ health care will be in an excellent position to demand ‘appropriate’ behavior from its citizens – and to enforce its demand. Suppose you enjoy risky sports such as motorcycling, hang gliding, mountain climbing and the like. Or perhaps you just like to drink or smoke or eat red meat.  A government that pays for the treatment of your injuries and ailments can easily decide, on economic grounds alone, to forbid such activities under the bogus justification, ‘for your own good.’

But even if the government does not outlaw motorcycling, say, they can put a severe dent in your liberty to enjoy such a sport, say, by demanding that a 30% sales tax be slapped on all motorcycle purchases, or by outlawing bikes whose engines exceed a certain displacement, say 250 cc.  In the same way that governments levy arbitrary punitive taxes on tobacco products, they can do the same for anything they deem risky or unhealthy.

The situation is analogous to living with one’s parents. It is entirely appropriate for parents to say to a child: ‘As long as you live under our roof, eat at our table, and we pay the bills, then you must abide by our rules. When you are on your own, you may do as you please.’ The difference, of course, is that it is relatively easy to move out on one’s own, but difficult to forsake one’s homeland. 

This is why we shouldn't surrender our country to nanny-state, gun-grabbing,  liberty-bashing  soda jerks like Bloomberg and Hillary.

The nub of the issue is liberty. Do you value it or not?  How much?  Over nanny-state security?

Does Bloomberg even see the issue? 

No Entity Without Identity

Could it be literally true that Trump = Hitler?  Why not?

Lefties might try tampering with the concept of identity. They might advance the notion that identity, although long held by reactionary racists to be a symmetrical relation, is really asymmetrical. Thus, if a = b, then it is not the case that b = a. That would allow them to say that while Trump is Hitler, Hitler is not Trump.

But they can't leave transitivity untouched. After all, David Axelrod recently claimed that Trump is literally (his word) Nero.  Axelrod is no Joe Biden.  Axe knows the difference between the literal and the figurative, unlike Joe Blow. So if Trump = Hitler, and Trump = Nero, then Hitler = Nero, which is a decidedly anachronistic result. Hey hey, ho ho, transitivity has got to go! (Along with Western Civ as recommended by Brother Jesse.)

What about reflexivity?  Is Obama Obama?  Not really. He celebrates diversity even unto self-diversity.  It is precisely his self-diversity as both a white man and a black man that made it possible for him to bring us all together as he did so wonderfully while saving us from the capitalist oppression of the Law of Identity.

So I'm thinking that the Democrat Party needs a Logic Caucus tasked with undoing the racist logic of dead white guys like Aristotle and Frege.

It stands to reason that the Identity Politics of the Dems calls for a radical re-thinking of the very concept of identity.

I hereby nominate Nancy Pelosi, the sharpest knife in the Democrat drawer, to head up the Logic Caucus.

One Advantage of Being a Liberal

Make Orwell Fiction Again

This from Nancy Pelosi's website (emphasis added):

The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2010, ensures that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and significantly reduces long-term health care costs. This historic legislation, in the league of Social Security and Medicare, will lead to healthier lives, while providing the American people with more liberty to pursue their hopes and dreams.

This is another good example of an Orwellian use of language.  Americans love liberty and so Pelosi, in an attempt to deceive, works 'liberty' into her statement,  advancing a claim of Orwellian absurdity, namely, that limitations on the liberty of individuals and private entities are in reality enhancements of liberty.

War is peace.   Slavery is freedom.  Less liberty is more liberty.  Dependence on government is self-reliance. Fascist thugs are anti-fascist. The Orwellian template: X, which is not Y, is Y.  

And You are Still a Democrat?

This is addressed to those of you old enough to remember the Kennedy administration who are still Democrats. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you attached to a mere label when that to which the label was attached has evaporated entirely?  Are you bent on proving that there is no fool like an old fool? Get with it! You're living in the past!

A 'Fake News' Smear

Donald Trump baits the so-called journalists of the lamestream media with his largely, but not entirely, true accusations of 'fake news' and what do the 'journalists' do? They bite. They take the bait. 

In their TDS-driven rage they verify the accusations by violating their own professional standards. Well, keep it up knuckleheads! You are destroying what is left of your credibility.

By the way, when John McCain and others accuse Trump of attacking the Fourth Estate they are merely flailing about in frustration.  Trump is rendering a salutary service by punching back effectively at the patently biased and leftward-leaning mainstream/lamestream media.

Trump's genius is that he knows how so to needle them that they show their true colors. Or as Dan Bongino rather less delicately put it the other night, "He gets them to pull down their pants and show their asses."

Bongino then went on strangely to remark that he didn't mean the comment literally! No?

The only thing wrong with Trump's 'animal' comment is that it is not fair to animals. They don't have free will; MS-13 gangsters do.

It is clear proof that  leftists in high positions in the Fourth Estate are moral scum that they could with impunity slander a duly elected president in such a vicious and absurd way.

Stella Morabito on the "Feral" Michelle Wolf

'Feral' is precisely the word for this disgusting leftist.  The vile specimen cannot seem to distinguish between being foul-mouthed and being funny. There is no humor in what she said. Succeding as a scum bag, she fails as a comedienne.

She actually joked about abortion in the crudest terms imaginable. "Don't knock it if you haven't tried it." And then something about knocking the baby out. But she missed the one pun in the vicinity, 'being knocked up' as a slang phrase for 'being pregnant.'

Even the left-wing 'journalists' present thought Wolf's trangressivity excessive.

 

Governor Moonbeam at the Golden Gate

The Contribution of Hollywood Cultural Polluters to Violence

Our contemporary media dreckmeisters apparently think that the purpose of art is to degrade sensibility, impede critical thinking, glorify scumbags, and rub our noses ever deeper into sex and violence. The liberal fetishization of freedom of expression without constraint or sense of responsibility is part of the problem. But I can't let a certain sort of libertarian or economic conservative off the hook. Their lust for profit is also involved.

What is is that characterizes contemporary media dreck? Among other things, the incessant presentation of  defective human beings as if there are more of them than there are, and as if there is nothing at all wrong with their ways of life. Deviant behavior is presented as if it is mainstream and acceptable, if not desirable. And then lame justifications are provided for the presentation: 'this is what life is like now; we are simply telling it like it is.' It doesn't occur to the dreckmeisters that art might have an ennobling function.

The tendency of liberals and leftists is to think that any presentation of choice-worthy goals or admirable styles of life could only be hypocritical preaching.  And to libs and lefties, nothing is worse than hypocrisy.  Indeed, a good indicator of whether someone belongs to this class of the terminally benighted is whether the person obsesses over hypocrisy and thinks it the very worst thing in the world.  See my category Hypocrisy for elaboration of this theme.

Leftist scum need to look in the mirror before blaming inanimate objects for violent behavior.

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Maverick Philosopher: The Left's War Against The New York Times

Maverick Philosopher: The Moronic Level of Leftist Race-Baiting

Sullen Obstructionist Crapweasel Crybabies

Also known as: Democrats. I left out: destructive, gun-grabbing, liberty-bashing, religion-hating, Constitution-disrespecting, language-hijacking, terrorist-coddling, dictator-appeasing, race-baiting, distinction-denying, reason-averse, law-nullifying, criminal-shielding, baby-aborting, tribal, totalitarian, . . . socialist . . . and so on ad nauseam.  So sad! And you are still a Democrat?

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Death Penalty, Abortion, and Certainty

Who Will Hire You?

Time was when leftist termites were found mainly in government, the media, schools and universities, Hollywood, and the churches,  Now they have come to infest huge corporations that control the flow of information. The times they are a'changin.' 

Here is another reason why the libertarian notion of a minimal  'night watchman state' is untenable. The Federal government has to have power sufficient to punish rogue corporations.

Motherly Advice

Collusion is not a Crime . . .

. . . and even if it were, there is no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. That is the considered opinion of Alan Dershowitz who, by the way, voted for Hillary.  I hope you will grant me that the Harvard professor knows something about the federal criminal  code. Watch this video which is less than five minutes in length.

Dershowitz reports that his liberal pals won't have him over for dinner any more. It's their loss. What a pack of idiots!

It is time for the witch hunt to end.

 Hillary's Boomerang: What goes around comes around.

A Liberal's Notion of Self-Restraint

Refutation By Cartoon

A Cold One

Welcome to the Age of Feeling

Liberals are So Stupid A Cartoon Suffices to Refute Them

The Political Burden of Proof

As contemporary 'liberals' become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I call the political burden of proof.  The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so  morally and intellectually obtuse as not to be worth talking to.

Kathy Griffin, Cultural Appropriator!

Isn't the Rope Too Long?

"Isn't the rope too long?" I wrote to the man who sent me the graphic a sinistra.

He replied, " The idea is the tree will grow and eventually be tall enough to hang him."

"I got that," said I.  "But trees grow slowly and there's a lot of rope that has to hoisted before the man is hanged. Although Islam's threat to the culture of Europe is not imminent, it is not far in the future either.

So I say the rope is too long!"

 

In battling our ideological and existential enemies, all methods must be employed, including cartoons, jokes, mockery, derision, and tweets.  You have to make them look ridiculous and 'uncool.' The young and immature are inordinately impressed by what is 'cool' and what is not.  So we need comics like Dennis Miller and polemicists like Kurt Schlichter whose name for Hillary is 'Felonia von Pant-Suit.' That is perhaps more effective than the more accurate but brutal 'Crooked Hillary.'

 

Learned disquisitions and carefully crafted arguments are necessary but insufficient. You have to get the attention of the masses besotted and benumbed by the ever-present wash of media dreck.

 

Memo to George F. Will, et al.: it's about saving the West from its main internal threat, leftism, and its main external threat, radical Islam. It's not about gentlemanly conversations about Edmund Burke over good brandy and fine cigars in well-appointed drawing rooms while Rome burns.

 

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Diplomad on Drawing Mohammed

Is the Enlightenment the Problem?

White Liberal Guilt

Sore Losers

Russian Dressing

So Much to be Grateful For

'Liberal' Name-Calling

One wonders how there can be peace with 'liberals.' Whence their slanderous scumbaggery?

Less Than One Day to Go . . .

What a wonderful legacy! Some people have a negative net worth. Can one speak of a negative legacy? In these waning hours of his (mis)administration, let us reflect on the foolish and destructive things Obama has said and done the better to savor the change and hope that tomorrow will usher in. Remember Arizona Senate Bill 1070 from 2010 and the lawsuit former Attorney General Eric Holder brought against the State of Arizona? Here are my posts from that time in case you want to refresh your memory over that outrage. Image credit: Lisa Benson.

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Liberal Logic

Happy Halloween!

Scared yet?  If not, take a gander at this creepy clown, a Chicago philosophy adjunct whose main claim to fame is his philosophy gossip site.  His latest prank is a scurrilous smear of Rightly Considered.  He foolishly confuses one of the commenters, Jacques, with one of the contributors.  

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