Author: Bill Vallicella

On Lame Appeals for Civility

Trey Gowdy issued one on his show last night. The man needs to stiffen his spine and realize that our political opponents are enemies with whom we share insufficient common ground for productive debate.  They don't need debating but defeating.  He did guest a Dem pol who talked some sense and seemed decent, but the guy was an outlier who apparently hasn't yet grasped that his party is and has been for some time a hard-Left outfit.

Here at MavPhil my tone is 'edgier'  than on Substack and on Facebook it is edgier still.   A good writer can write in different tones and voices depending on his audience.

See my Leftists and Civility over at the Stack for a measured partial statement of my views on this topic.

Russell’s Paradox Explained

The Dems, True to Form, are Lying

About so much. About gutting the 'safety net' for example. WSJ rebukes the mendacious shites.  (Ought we be polite to such brazen liars?)

As for multi-'colored' Kamala, she is like unto Traitor Joe not just in her moral obtuseness, but also in respect of her intellectual vacuity, as explained here.

Here and here for two more examples of leftist lunacy.

More proof this Monday morning (7/7/25) of the praeternatural mendacity  and wrongheadedness of the intracranially feculent Democrats.  GOP mega-bill structurally racist!  Camp Mystic is whites-only!

And now, for a dose of sanity, I present Victor Davis Hanson who exposes Madmani Mandami for the destructive fraud he is.

Recently, Trump said he would "watch over" Mandami, and this morning he said the Feds would work "close" with Texas authorities.  We of the Coalition of the Sane and the Reasonable do not support him because he is articulate in his word-slinging, although he does manage to get his meaning across. We support him because he is a great leader who knows what has to be done and more importantly does it. 

You say the man has no class? I agree. That's what Jack Kennedy said about Dick Nixon in 1960. But how important is class in a world such as this one? Far more important is the ability and willingness to 'kick ass.' That he has done, and not just to the benefit of the USA, but the benefit of the whole world. 

Besides, Trump does not need class; the First Lady has more than enough for both of them.

Ray Monk on Frege, Russell, Patriotism and Prejudice

Excerpt:

The single thing I can imagine Russell finding most shocking would be Frege’s endorsement of patriotism as an unreasoning prejudice. The absence of political insight characteristic of his times, Frege says, is due to “a complete lack of patriotism.” He acknowledges that patriotism involves prejudice rather than impartial thought, but he thinks that is a good thing: “Only Feeling participates, not Reason, and it speaks freely, without having spoken to Reason beforehand for counsel. And yet, at times, it appears that such a participation of Feeling is needed to be able to make sound, rational judgments in political matters.” These are surely surprising views for “an absolutely rational man” to express. The man who wanted to set mathematics on surer logical foundations, was content for politics to be based on emotional spasms.

This is a rich and fascinating topic, both intrinsically and especially for me,  given my recent deep dive into the world of Carl Schmitt and his antecedents.  I will be returning to him. But there is so bloody much else that clamors for my attention. I'm a scatter-shot man to my detriment. Quentin Smith detected that tendency in me way back when. How I miss that crazy guy.

Live long, old friends die, and new friends will never be old. 

But Robert A. Heinlein is right: "Specialization is for insects."  The trick is to be a jack of all trades but a master of one while running the risk of being a master of none.

Is the U-Haul the Vehicle of Peaceful Coexistence?

You may have noticed that our relations with some people improve when we no longer have contact with them. Now while we can and must round up and deport illegal aliens, our classically liberal principles make it very difficult to force out of our midst those of our political adversaries who count as out-and-out political enemies. And of course we must do our level best to avoid hot civil war while preparing to engage in it should it prove unavoidable. May we be spared from the hell of that unavoidability!

Might the solution be voluntary segregation?  I make the case at Substack. 

Note the qualifier 'voluntary.'  And please don't play the know-nothing who confuses segregation with racial segregation.  I am talking about the voluntary political segregation of the sane and the reasonable from the rest. 

If you are a sane and reasonable American citizen, and you love your country with an ordinate love, then I bid you a happy Fourth of July. If and only if.

Is ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ a Concentration Camp?

It is according to the author of a TNR article.  I don't disagree.  After all, the bad hombres are being held against their will in one place prior to their deportation. The conclusion to draw, of course, is that some concentration camps are morally justified. This one is also legally justified. President Trump is merely upholding the rule of law, unlike the Dems who love to mouth that phrase, but don't mean what they say. "No one is above the law," Nancy Pelosi and her followers intoned again and again. Did she and they mean that? No. They meant: no one is above the law except our guys and gals.

POTUS is legally justified in building a concentration camp in the middle of the Everglades for the housing of illegal aliens prior to their lawful deportation.  What was legally unjustified was the Biden-Mayorkas invitation of an invasion of illegal aliens into our country. Those 'gentlemen' were in dereliction of duty and should both have been impeached and removed from office, at the very least.

Some say, quite reasonably, that they should both now be in prison. 

If you think my use of 'invasion' two paragraphs supra is an exaggeration, consider that in December 2024, during the Biden-Harris (mal)administration, there were 301, 981 Southwest Land Border Encounters according to  official U. S. statistics.  For the same year there were over two million total such encounters.  Under Trump, border encounters have dropped dramatically.  In June of this year there were zero. Again, these are official stats.

If you are against detention centers, then you must also be against prisons.  Is your name Zohran Mamdani?

The Upside of Zohran Mamdani

What I like about the winner of the New York City mayoral Democrat primary is that he is not a 'stealth ideologue' a phrase I have been using for years to characterize the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris.  Mamdani, unlike the mendacious foursome just mentioned, comes clean about what he and the Dems intend:

Mamdani is now the mainstream of the once great Democratic Party.

The only difference is that Mamdani isn’t afraid to say what other Democratic politicians try to hide.

Think about what Mamdani has proposed or supported:

  • A yearlong freeze on rent
  • A $30 minimum wage
  • Free bus service
  • City-owned grocery stores
  • Defunding the police
  • Calling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide.

“Mainstream Democrats” support every one of these positions in one way or another.

With the advent of Mamdani it will be more difficult now to remain a Useful Idiot as so many of the supporters of the Dems are. You know these people. We have them in our families and in our neighborhoods and workplaces.  A lot of them are the "college-educated white women" of a certain age.  They rescue cats and dogs and support what they sincerely believe are good causes. But they are lazy and inattentive and too wrapped up in their private lives to pay proper attention to current events. Their loving and nurturing feminine nature impairs their political judgment and makes them easy marks for the fraudulent come-ons of professional pols like Phony Joe Biden who has 40 years of experience of looking into the camera, smiling, and making an emotional appeal. The women think, "He's a nice man!" They cannot see past the polished style to the lack of substance.  Conversely they cannot see past Trump's off-putting style to his genuine and salutary substance.  In the case of pretty boy Gavin Newsom, they are so taken by his style that the question of substance doesn't even arise.  I had to agree with Sean Hannity one night when he remarked that Joy Behar of The View has a "crush" on him. Joy Behar, that well-fed paragon of wisdom and insight!

But old men, too, are part of the Useful Idiot contingent.  Lazy, inattentive, superannuated and superficial, pissing their lives away hitting little white balls into holes and — worst of all — living in the past.  Mamdani, as a sort of Fidel redivivus, may help these Rip van Winkles wake up.

One more thing. It is good that the battle lines are clearly laid out. Let the battle begin, the battle for the soul of America. Mamdani is a Great Clarifier as is our boy Trump.  John Catsimatidis, billionaire, said on Stuart Varney's show this morning that  Trump has God on his side. How would he know? Does the billionaire have a hot line to the divine? What is within the range of our knowledge, however, is that Trump's the man to save the Republic, and make the whole world a safer place, as he already has.

Related: Should Mamdani be Deported?

Alligator Alcatraz

Leftist environmentalists are bringing suit to block the construction of a detention center for illegal aliens in the heart of the Everglades. This should interest Sarasota resident and fellow philosopher Elliott Ruffin Crozat who paid me a visit over the last three days. You can imagine the 'orgy' of philosophizing that took place, both peripatetically (hiking in the Superstitions), aquatically (in the pool and hot tub) and automotively (as we meandered down to see Brian Bosse in Green Valley south of Tucson via the scenic route with a stop at the Tom Mix Monument on SR 79 south of Florence and before Oracle Junction.)
 
We thereby honored Aristotle, Thales, Mix, and Kerouac. Here is Crozat looking cool as a cucumber after a five hour ankle-busting hike in 100 degree Fahrenheit weather. Hot, sunny, dry.  Just the way we like it in these parts.
 
May be an image of 1 person and jeep
 
And here is your humble correspondent:
 
May be an image of 1 person and jeep
 
What hypocrites these hate-America leftist scumbags are! Not a peep out of them re: the environmental damage to our beautiful deserts caused by their support of wide-open illegal immigration. The environmental impact on the Everglades will be minimal. The 'gators will see to that!
 
Here, along with many other arguments,  is my Environmental Argument against illegal immigration:
 
The Environmental Argument. Although there are 'green' conservatives, concern for the natural environment, and its preservation and protection from industrial exploitation, is more a liberal than a conservative issue. (By the way, I'm a 'green' conservative.) So liberals ought to be concerned about the environmental degradation caused by hordes of illegals crossing the border. It is not just that they degrade the lands they physically cross, it is that people whose main concern is economic survival are not likely to be concerned about environmental protection. They are unlikely to become Sierra Club members or to make contributions to the Nature Conservancy. Love of nature comes more easily to middle class white collar workers for whom nature is a scene of recreation than for those who must wrest a livelihood from it by hard toil.
And you are still a Democrat? WTF are you thinking? ARE you thinking?

Birthright Citizenship and the 14th Amendment

Robert Kuttner, in a piece entitled Supreme Contempt for the Constitution, writes,

The Supreme Court issued a shocking ruling today, making it easier for President Donald Trump to overturn birthright citizenship. The way the Court did it was in keeping with its disingenuous strategy of using technicalities that allow it to duck the underlying question.

The substance of Friday’s 6-3 decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, involved a challenge to Trump’s executive order denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily. His order violated the 14th Amendment, which clearly holds that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of the circumstances.

This Kuttner is obviously a leftist ideologue. 14A does not "clearly hold" what Kuttner says it "clearly holds." Section 1 begins:

14A. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The meaning of the amendment depends on how the clause I have set in italics is interpreted. Such interpretation is the office of SCOTUS the function of which is neither legislative nor executive. Its function is judicial.  Here is how  Stephen Miller and others read 14A.:

Let's talk about birthright citizenship. After the Civil War, Congress and America came together to ensure freedom for the children of slaves, not the children of illegal aliens . . . .

If you go to the UN today, the United Nations, [which is located in New York City] you have diplomats from all over the world. None of their babies become automatic American citizens. Why? 

Because they're [the diplomats are] subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign country. Their allegiance is to a foreign country. Their citizenship is to a foreign country.

Illegal aliens are no different, in fact, worse, because illegal aliens are expressly forbidden from even being on our soil. Their allegiance is to a foreign land. They're under the jurisdiction of a foreign nation.

Their children are not U.S. citizens, and the Supreme Court has now cleared the way for us to restore the actual meaning of the United States Constitution and the idea that this special privilege does not belong to illegal aliens and their children. 

The interpretation of 14A depends on  who the referents are of the phrase, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."  Miller quite naturally takes the referents to be the parents of the illegal aliens.   Thus Miller et al. take 14A to be expressing the more explicit:

14A*. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and WHOSE PARENTS are subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

On this reading birthright citizenship is ruled out. The actual formulation in the Constitution, however, is 14A.  The trouble is that  the actual formulation allows the following reading:

14A**. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, whether or not their parents are subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 

14A** is ruled out by the points Miller makes, one of them being that the children of foreign diplomats born to these diplomats while they are in the USA do not automatically become U.S. citizens.

I have made two main points. The first is that Kuttner is either bullshitting or lying when he claims that the meaning of 14A in its actual formulation in the Constitution is transparently clear. No, it NOT clear.

Second, and more importantly, the most plausible reading, is 14A* above, and NOT Kuttner's perverse hate-America leftist reading.

A Marital Memory from the ‘Nineties

I had dropped her off at Sky Harbor on a Thursday.  She was headed to a conference. I said, "You'll miss Seinfeld." She said, "I'll miss you!" (Seinfeld episodes, the original series, were aired on Thursday nights.) As our 42nd anniversary approaches, I recall the incident with deep love and gratitude.  She has probably forgotten it.

This miner for a heart of gold struck paydirt. The strike was lucky, the pursuit wise. In this life, there's no discounting luck.  For the unlucky.

Is Trump Still the TACO Man? Or is he now THE HAMMER?

VDH, Ten Iranian Questions:

Trump had warned the Iranians on numerous occasions. They never got the message. They were apparently listening to the American Left’s smears of Trump as a “TACO” (“Trump Always Chickens Out”)—a silly slur phrase that just died Saturday night.

And die it did. To hell with the American Left with its Tampon Timmies, its Joyless Behars, its cortically-challenged Cortezes, and its Kamalian clowns.   (It should be clear that I am no longer quoting my man Hanson.)

Some fear that Midnight  Hammer will lead to a wider war. It might. The world, led by  the USA, will then have the opportunity to rid itself once and for all of the current Iranian Islamist theocracy. That would be a good thing, and easy to accomplish: destroy the oil refineries first, and see if that gets them to back off, and "build back better," to coin a phrase.  If they remain recalcitrant, destroy their power grid.  No more pussy-footing around with these evil-doers. It's not 1979 any more, or the Carter administration.

Their  particular brand of Islamist insanity would then be finished forever. Do you doubt that? It would be finished in its concrete exemplification just as Nazi ideology was finished in its concrete exemplification in 1945. By 'concrete exemplification of an ideology' I mean its existence in an actual State.  Once the current Iranian Islamist theocracy is concretely at an end,  it is not likely to come back.  I will fire off two more points and you guys can have at me in the combox.

First. A great power such as the USA cannot be wholly non-interventionist, although it ought to be as non-interventionist as it can be consistent with self-preservation and the defense of its allies.  No nation-building! Non-interventionism is good, but it has limits. One limit is reached when anti-civilizational savages pose an existential threat to we us  the (more or less) civilized.  I call our enemies 'anti-civilizational,' but you ought not call them  'medieval' as some pundits do unless you want to advertise your historical ignorance and slam an entire epoch.

An existential threat is a threat not merely to one's physical existence or biological life, but to one's way of life.  The radical Islamist trilemma: conversion, dhimmitude, or death is radically unacceptable — which is why I call it a trilemma: three prongs, each of which is unacceptable.  If one has been nuked out of physical existence, then one has been 'nuked' out of cultural existence as well.   

This is why Khamenei and the boys cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. We do not yet know the extent or efficacy of Trump's bunker-busting despite Trump's typical boasts and exaggerations. (Trump is a builder, a promoter, and a bit of a carnival barker, but still vastly superior to any of the electable Democrats.) The Iranian nuclear program has, however, surely suffered a major set-back.  If they get it going again the IDF and the USAF will kick the mullahs' collective ass one more time.

Second. The Iranian people have a right to any system of government they choose so long as it poses no existential threat to any other State.  Who the hell are we to tell them how to live when our Western societies, dripping with decadence, are hanging by a thread?  (Leastways, until Trump came along.) If the Iranians want a theocracy, that is their business.  Is it objectively certain that our classically liberal system is better than a theocratic system?  No, or so say I, even though I firmly believe that our system is better than any theocracy. What if they want an Islamic theocracy? No problem with that either, so long as the Islam in question is moderate and wields no such trident as the one lately described.  I wish Zuhdi Jasser the best of luck in his quixotic quest to reform Islam.

Ann Coulter a while back said that we should invade the Muslim lands and convert them to Christianity.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.

Convert Muslims? Sheer madness. Coulter is a very intelligent woman, but sometimes intelligent people say stupid things.  Of the Abrahamic religions, Islam is the worst. Schopenhauer describes it as "the saddest and poorest form of theism."  It is the religion of terror at the present time. An inferior religion, it gives rise to an inferior culture, downstream of which is a benighted politics.  But Islam is their religion and it is better than no religion. Try barging into people's lives to convince them to renounce their parents, their hometown, their region, their religion, their folkways.  Try that down in Hillbilly Holler or anywhere.

Convert the benighted Muslims for the sake of their immortal souls because Jesus claimed to be via, veritas, vita? "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6, KJV. I was brought up on Douay-Rheims, but I love that old English.)   Why not make it more specific: extra ecclesiam salus non est, where the ecclesia in question is the Roman Catholic Church? That won't sit well with our Protestant or Eastern Orthodox pals, and it shouldn't. I go a step further: paths to salvation are many. I won't argue it out, leastways not now; I'll just refer you to the work of Frithjof Schuon. See, for example, The Transcendent Unity of Religions.

How about converting the Jews? Another form of folly. Here is an instructive short piece by Rabbi Yehiel Poupko.