Month: February 2025

Trump’s Gaza Proposal

 
Donald Trump seems incapable of qualifying his statements, a fault that may be connected with his tendency to exaggerate.  And so he needlessly inflames his enemies, who, given their biases, naturally took him to be advocating ethnic cleansing with his talk of "taking over" Gaza.   Anthony Flood here skillfully rebuts the suggestion.
 
I believe Tony is right, having carefully listened to the joint Trump-Netanyahu speech and the context-providing interview last night by Mark Levin of the Israeli Prime Minister. In the speech with Trump, Netanyahu  hung back, not sure what Trump was proposing with his "take over Gaza" remark.  But in the interview he put a positive spin on it. 
 
It is not quite clear whether Trump's  provocation is intentional, a sort of 'blue-baiting' if you will, or simply due to a lack of political skill. 
 
In any case, the interregnum did him a world of good. Our boy is learning the ropes, and if he plays his cards right and does not succumb to hubris he may end up on Mt Rushmore. 
 
Dingbat Pelosi has proposed the benighted Joe Biden for that high honor, thereby underscoring her preternatural asininity and her unfitness both for high office and political commentary.
 
Trump's propensity for hubris does, however, worry me.  Merriam-Webster:

Hubris Comes From Ancient Greece

English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status, and the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of their his mortality.

It is an index of the extreme polarization of our time that there are those who are quite sure that Trump enjoys divine protection. They speak, irresponsibly, of the 'miracle' of his escaping death by assassination at Butler, PA.  But how could anyone know, and confidently claim, that God intervened to save his life? I am not saying that God did not intervene in this instance, or that divine intervention in nature is impossible; I am saying that you are guilty of epistemic pretense if you pretend to know what cannot be known, but can only, at most, be reasonably believed.  

Hubris or providential protection? You are free to believe what you like, but in a case like this, the wise man suspends judgment.

The ever-helpful Dave Lull informs me that our friend Edward Feser has weighed in on the Gaza matter with an article in National Catholic Register, Trump's Gaza Proposal is Gravely Immoral.

Catholic opinion on Trump is divided, to put it mildly. See Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano's Letter to American Catholics.
 
Addendum (2/13)
 
Gaza Takeover

Trump’s Executive Order re: 2A

I had been toying with the idea of heading to the range tomorrow morning; this 2A news just in, I am now going for sure to celebrate the Executive Order with a bang.  One hundred rounds worth.

The Bill of Rights is just so much 18th century parchment unless and until backed up with Pb. 2A codifies the Pb. 2A does not grant a right to self-defense; it protects a right logically antecedent to governments, a right to defend not only your life and liberty, but also your property, including the property instrumental to the defense of the first two items of the Lockean triad.

Read the EO carefully. Do see where 'impinge' ought to have been 'infringe'?  Call me a pedant if you like, but you young people will never fathom the beauty, richness, and versatility of the English language if you don't read good old books, but restrict yourself to social media dreck  and the latest printed offerings.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Good Tunes from the ’70s

The '60s rule, of  course, since no decade in Anglospheric popular music was richer or more creative.  I say Anglospheric because great stuff came out of the U. K., Canada, and Australia. I don't know about New Zealand. But let's not ignore the cream of the '70s.  Full enjoyment of course requires proper synaptic lubrication. I'm having me a Jack and Coke this Saturday night. Just one. A generous shot of whisky is good; ten shots is not ten times better.

Jackson Browne, The Pretender.  This great song  goes out to Darci M who introduced me to Jackson Browne. Darci was Lithuanian, and it's a good bet she still is. Her mother told her, "Never bring an Italian home." So I never did meet the old lady. I  encountered no anti-Italian prejudice on the West coast whence I hail; the East is a different story. The closer to Europe, the closer to Old World prejudice.

Running on Empty. A great road song. There's nothing like the open road of the American West. Big sky, lambent light, broad vistas, buttes and mesas, railroads running, truckers trucking, ballin' the jack one more time to the End of the Line. Get out there and see it before it's gone or you are too old, one.

Gerry Rafferty, Right Down the Line

Baker Street. This was a big hit in the summer of '78. This one goes out to Charaine H and our road trip that summer.

Dave Mason, Only You Know and I Know

We Just Disagree

All Along the Watchtower (2013)

Roy Buchanan, Sweet Dreams

Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams (1963) 

Written by Don Gibson

Orleans, Dance with Me

Still the One

Abba, Fernando. I first heard this in Ben's Gasthaus, Zaehringen, Freiburg im Breisgau ,' 76-'77.  This one goes out to Rudolf, Helmut, Martin, Hans, und Herrmann, working class Germans who loved to drink the Ami under the table.

Last Days, Last Things

What better way to spend one's last days than by deep inquiry into the Last Things?

Would that not be a better use of time than gambling and fox hunting, and the other examples of Pascalian divertissement?

You will soon be embarking nolens volens for a permanent stay in a foreign destination, departure date unknown. Are your affairs in order?

For a good old introduction to the traditional Roman Catholic doctrine on death, the intermediate state, resurrection, judgment, and eternity, see Romano Guardini, The Last Things. 

Could Kamala Explain the Difference between True and Magnetic North?

I doubt it. She thinks 'the cloud' in cyberspeak refers to a physical object in the sky. Remember that howler?

Why are the Dems so dumb? They lack both a message and messenger. The think they failed to 'get their message across.' But they had no message to get across, and no one to get it across.  Did you see the unedited Sixty Minutes video?  Kamala the Joyous  could not explain why she wanted to be president.  She is perhaps fit to be a kindergarten teacher, but not POTUS.  Is that not blindingly evident? And are you not an emotion-driven fool if you let your TDS impel you to embrace the Joyous One?  I'll leave Tampon Tim and his page-turner of a wife out of this rant.

Part of what make the Dems dumb is their inability to learn  from experience, as witness their continuing to play the race and Hitler cards. Do they have a death wish? And what does it say about the nearly half of the voters who cast their ballots for that intersectional dumbass?

Collateral observation. The voters are not the electorate. Two reasons. First, the voters include those who vote illegally; the electorate, used normatively, as I am using the term, does not. Second, the electorate include those who do not vote in a given election. The electorate comprise those who are legally entitled to vote. You are legally so entitled only if you are a citizen who has not disqualified himself by, say, committing a felony.  Bernie Sanders thinks that felons should have the right to vote. I make an invective-free case  against this foolish and indeed asinine view at Substack, sine ira et studio. 

By the way, it appears that magnetic north has shifted position.

Cognitive Ability and Party Identity

Tony Flood writes,
Last sentence of abstract: "These results are consistent with Carl's (2014) hypothesis that higher intelligence among classically liberal Republicans compensates for lower intelligence among socially conservative Republicans."
Good study.
I'll read this later. But for now, one quick comment.  I am both a classically liberal Republican and a social conservative Republican. I fail to see how classical liberalism excludes social conservatism.  I do understand, however, that there are those who think the two incompatible. But of course it all rides on how these terms are defined.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

It's Satyrday Saturday night. Pour  yourself a stiff one and loosen for a time the bonds that tether you to the straight and narrow. Tomorrow's another day. 

Freddy Fender, Cielito Lindo.  Tex-Mex version of a very old song.

Arizona's own Marty Robbins, La Paloma.  Another old song dating back to 1861. 

Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger, 1963. 1963 was arguably the best of the '60s years for pop compositions. 

Emmylou Harris, Hello Stranger. Same title, different song.  This one goes out to Mary Kay F-D. Do you Remember the Fall of 1980, Mary Kay? 

Get up, rounder/Let a working girl lie down/ You are rounder/And you are all out and down.

Carter Family version from 1939.

Joan Baez, Daddy, You've Been on My Mind. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Bruce  Langhorne's guitar.

Joan Baez, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Langhorne's guitar.

Joan Baez, A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Langhorne's guitar. The incredible mood of this version, especially the intro, is made by Langhorne and the bass of Russ Savakus, another well-known session player from those days. I've been listening to this song since '65 and it gives me chills every time. 

And now the fifteen-year-old is an old man of 75, and tears stream from his eyes for the nth time as he listens to this and we are once again on the brink of nuclear war as we were back in October of '62.  It'll be a hard rain indeed, should it fall. But the despicable Dems have been routed and sanity has returned to the White House. It's a New Morning.

Carolyn Hester, I'll Fly Away.  Dylan on harp, a little rough and ragged. Langhorne on guitar? Not sure.

Joan Baez and her sister, Mimi Farina, Catch the Wind. Fabulous.

Joan Baez, Boots of Spanish Leather.  Nanci Griffith also does a good job with this Dylan classic. 

The very best version may be this duet of Griffith and Hester.

Betty Everett, You're No Good, 1963.  More soulful than the 1975 Linda Ronstadt version.

The Ikettes, I'm Blue, 1962. 

Lee Dorsey, Ya Ya, 1961.  Simplicity itself. Three chords. I-IV-V progression. No bridge.