Here. Why do leftists lie? Because lying works, and because the end justifies the means in their moral calculus. They see politics as war, and "All's fair in love and war." Therein lies yet another reason for the defense and exercise of Second Amendment rights.
Saul Alinsky and the Rise of Amorality in American Politics
Related: Do Communists Lie?
Negativity is more difficult to subdue than animality. No surprise: the mind is more difficult to control than the body.
If the senses could speak, they would claim that they alone provide access to truth. Why then should we take seriously intellect's claim that there is nothing beyond it?
To bring the soul into the field of awareness and not merely to believe in it like the religionist or reason about it like the philosopher.
St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 10, Chapter 37:
But to be without any praise whatsoever, and to test ourselves in this condition, how can we manage it?
One associates loud, domineering, and aggressive behavior with a 'big ego.' But a long memory for wrongs done one, a fine sensitivity to slights and slurs real and imagined are also signs of a 'big ego.'
People lack an inner compass; or rather the compass they possess is easily deflected by the surrounding 'socio-magnetic' fields.
Another indication thereof being the increasing number of well-placed and influential individuals, some of them well-meaning, who now believe that it is morally justifiable to use state power to violate the consciences of individuals by forcing them to do that to which they are morally opposed on grounds that are well-articulated, thoroughly reasoned, and supported by distinguished traditions and authorities.
To live beyond society, beyond the need for recognition and status. To live in truth, alone with nature and nature's God and the great problems and questions. There are the ancient dead ones for companionship. They speak across the centuries. With them we form a community of the like-minded in nomine scientiae.
I wrote this on 4 July 1997:
I'm reading volume 5 of T. Merton's journal. He's a flabby liberal both politically and theologically, but there is a good line here and there. "When will I learn to go without leaving footprints? Along way from that: I still love recognition . . . ." (p. 33)
Those who crave recognition would do well to consider the moral and intellectual quality of those destined to do the recognizing.
Intellectual talk can be as bad as mundane trivial talk, an empty posturing, a vain showmanship without roots or results. But worst of all is ‘spiritual talk’ when it distracts us from action and (what is better) contemplative inaction.
Corruptio optimi pessima. The wonderful pithiness of Latin! "The corruption of the best is the worst of all."
This is good news. (HT: Mike Valle) People on one's side will tolerate a little scumbaggery, but not a lot, as both Brian Leiter and PZ Myers are learning the hard way.
Here is one of the articles in which Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland documents Myers' viciousness.
After reading through the examples Nugent adduces, I wonder whether Myers is quite sane. In the case of Leiter, his mad attack on Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins raises similar doubts.
Dale Tuggy has a good eye. Here is a shot from our Good Friday hike, 3 April, 2015. We are headed back to the trail head via the First Water Creek bed.
Philosophy is the high ground from which to survey the dismal and contentious scene, the bellum omnium contra omnes. One retreats to the high ground for three reasons. To contemplate and understand the passing scene, to escape from it, and to be in a position to transcend toward what is neither passing nor a scene.
Solitude does not guarantee elevation, but society almost always insures the opposite.
