Unable to control the fire down below, the outspoken atheist, well-known physicist, and "professional amateur philosopher" (to cop a brilliancy from Ed Feser) Lawrence Krauss has been handed his walking papers by Arizona State University. Good riddance.
One of the tasks of philosophy is to debunk bad philosophy of the sort purveyed by Krauss & Co. to turn a buck. Samples of my debunking operations available here.
The Epistemological Argument
The first argument contra could be called the 'epistemological' argument or the argument from ignorance: it can't be known with certainty that one accused of a capital crime is guilty. The argument sometimes takes this enthymematic form:
P2. Capital punishment is sometimes inflicted on the innocent.
Therefore
C. Capital punishment ought to be banned.
But this argument is invalid without the auxiliary premise:
P1. Any type of punishment that is sometimes inflicted on the innocent ought to be banned.
In the presence of (P1) the conclusion now follows, but (P1) cannot be accepted. For if we accept it, then every punishment ought to be banned. For every type of punishment has been at some time meted out to the innocent. Obviously, to be found guilty in a court of law is not the same as to be guilty of the crime with which one has been charged.
Our first argument, then, suffers from probative overkill: it proves too much. I reject the argument for that reason, and you ought to too.
If the wrong person has been executed, that person cannot be restored to life. Quite true. It is equally true, however, that if a person has been wrongly imprisoned for ten years, then those years cannot be restored to him. So the cases are exactly parallel. At this point liberals will often say things that imply that their real objection to capital punishment is that it is capital. Well, yes, of course: it has to be.
For the punishment must fit the crime, and anything less than capital punishment for certain crimes violates the self-evident moral principle that I put in italics. Justice demands capital punishment in certain cases. If you don't agree, then I say you are morally obtuse. On this issue which divides Right and Left either you see that justice demands capital punishment in certain cases or you are morally blind. End of discussion. To argue with the morally blind is as pointless as arguing with the color-blind and the tone-deaf. Such people need to be defeated by political means. There is no point in further discussion with them.
The Consistency Argument
Another argument repeatedly given against capital punishment is that it involves doing to a person what in other circumstances would be deemed morally wrong. We could call it the 'consistency argument.' The argument is that, since killing people is wrong, then the state's killing of people is also wrong. The trouble with this argument, however, is that it, like the preceding argument, 'proves too much.'
For if the argument were sound, it would show that every type of punishment is impermissible, since every type of punishment involves doing to a person what otherwise would be deemed morally wrong. For example, if I, an ordinary citizen, demand money from you under threat of dire consequences if you fail to pay, then I am committing extortion; but there are situations in which the state can do this legitimately as when a state agency such as the Internal Revenue Service assesses a fine for late payment of taxes. (Of course, I am assuming the moral legitimacy of the state, something anarchists deny; but the people who give the sort of argument I am criticizing are typically liberals who believe in a much larger state than I do.)
The state is a coercive entity that limits the liberties of individuals in all sorts of ways. It has to be coercive to do its job. If you hold that the state is practically necessary and morally justifiable, then you cannot reasonably balk at the state's killing of certain of its citizens in certain well-defined circumstances.
The main purpose of the state is to protect life, liberty, and property. It cannot do this if it does not have the power to punish those who take life and liberty and property.
If justice demands the execution of certain miscreants then this justice must be administered by some agency. It had better be an agency dispassionate and impartial hedged round by all sorts of rules and safeguards. Otherwise vigilantism. The job falls to the state.
The Cost Argument
And then there is the 'cost' argument. The idea is that capital punishment is not cost-effective. It is claimed that the benefit to society does not outweigh the cost. A utilitarian might be able to rig up such an argument, but I am not a utilitarian. The issue is one of justice. Justice demands capital punishment in certain cases, and it doesn't matter what it costs, or whether there is any benefit to society, or even whether there is any society to benefit. Recall Kant's last man scenario from Metaphysics of Morals, Part II (emphasis added):
[6] But whoever has committed murder, must die. There is, in this case, no juridical substitute or surrogate, that can be given or taken for the satisfaction of justice. There is no likeness or proportion between life, however painful, and death; and therefore there is no equality between the crime of murder and the retaliation of it but what is judicially accomplished by the execution of the criminal. His death, however, must be kept free from all maltreatment that would make the humanity suffering in his person loathsome or abominable. Even if a civil society resolved to dissolve itself with the consent of all its members–as might be supposed in the case of a people inhabiting an island resolving to separate and scatter themselves throughout the whole world–the last murderer lying in prison ought to be executed before the resolution was carried out. This ought to be done in order that every one may realize the desert of his deeds, and that blood-guiltiness may not remain upon the people; for otherwise they might all be regarded as participators in the murder as a public violation of justice.
In any case, there is nothing necessary about high costs. They could easily be reduced. A limit could be set to appeals — and ought to be set to them. Endless appeals make a mockery of justice. And if malefactors were executed in a timely fashion, the deterrent effect would be considerable. Thus a fourth argument, the 'no deterrence' argument, is also worthless in my opinion. Apart from the suicidal, people love life — criminals included. Swift and sure execution for capital crimes could not fail to have a deterrent effect.
I will add that if it could be shown that in some jurisdiction the capital penalty was not being applied fairly and justly (due to prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent, let us say), then I would support a moratorium on the penalty in that jurisdiction. But this question is distinct from the question of principle. That alone is what I have been discussing.
How low can they go?
On August 2, 2018, Pope Francis announced an update to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, making a prohibition on the death penalty official Catholic teaching. Prior to this change, many scholars believed that the historic teaching of the Church did not declare capital punishment intrinsically immoral, even if the practice is, as a matter of prudence, not required in countries with modern prison systems that can safely isolate dangerous criminals. Other scholars argued that the natural law duty to respect all human life does in fact render any intentional taking of human life morally unacceptable, and that this development of doctrine does not contradict any infallible teaching.
The articles below lay out this debate, with clear summaries of the arguments on both sides.
Rod Dreher comments on the Pope's announcement and quotes extensively from the writings of our friend Ed Feser.
Paul J. Griffiths maintains a strikingly wrong-headed thesis in an article entitled, Ora et Labora: Christians Don't Need Leisure. The Latin translates as "Pray and Work.' The thesis is in the second paragraph:
The deleterious effects of narcissism are evident in the work of many, Christian and otherwise, who advocate leisure as good for us, appropriate to us, necessary for us, a blessing to us, an aid to contemplation, the foundation of culture, and so on. Christianity is more bracing than this: we Christians think, when we are thinking clearly, that between conception and death in this cataclysmically damaged world we should neither expect nor seek leisure. What we should expect, and will certainly find, is the double curse of death and work. Each of those involves pain, so we should expect a lot of that as well. Our task as Christians is not to look for islands of leisure-for-contemplation exempt from the eddy [ebb] and flow of work and suffering and death; were we to do that . . . we would become fascinated by phantasms, especially those of our own inner life . . . and would, too quickly, learn to close our eyes to the pressure of pain and the imminence of death—our own, that is, and all else’s, too.
The main thesis is the one I bolded above, namely, that Christians should not seek leisure. A subsidiary thesis is that the pursuit of leisure is an effect of narcissism.
Upon reading this, the philosophically literate will immediately think of Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Pantheon, New York, 1964, tr. Alexander Dru, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot.) This book contains two essays, "Leisure: The Basis of Culture," and "The Philosophical Act." Griffiths appears to be alluding to the first of the essays in this wonderful old book with his phrases "an aid to contemplation" and "the foundation or culture." I would be very surprised if Griffiths was not at least aware of Pieper's book. But if he has read it how could he write the article before us? How could he maintain something so absurd as that the pursuit of leisure is an effect of narcissism?
Griffiths doesn't have a clue as to the classical conception of leisure found in Aristotle and Aquinas and explicated by Pieper. Griffiths writes,
Suppose we understand leisure as otium, which is to say the state or condition of doing nothing, of being otiose, of occupying a place in which nothing is expected and there is nothing to do but . . . what? If there were a place of otium for human creatures, it would be hell: a no-place capable of occupation only by the solipsist who has reached the end of narcissism, which is to be the only thing there is, to live in a world in which relation with others, animate and inanimate, is impossible because they have been abolished.
Otium liberale in the classical sense has nothing to do with narcissism or doing nothing or being idle or indolent or lazy or sunk in acedia (cf. Pieper, p. 24 ff.) or otiose in the wholly pejorative sense that this word has in contemporary usage. Leisure in the classical sense is disciplined activity in pursuit of non-utilitarian ends. It issues in contemplation which is an end in itself and the basis of culture. It was the contemplative monastic orders that preserved and transmitted the culture of the ancients to the moderns. On the classical view, the servile arts subserve the liberal arts. The vita activa is for the sake of the vita contemplativa. We neg-otiate the world to secure a space within it to pursue otium iberale. The worldly hustle is for the sake of contemplative repose.
The non-utilitarian is not eo ipso worthless. On the contrary, the truly and finally worthwhile is precisely the non-utilitarian. Griffiths needs to read Pieper.
Related: Why I Resigned from Duke. Curiously, I agree entirely with Griffiths' explanation of his resignation.
Classical leisure is this:
Not this:
We conservatives who voted for Trump in November 2016 have been vindicated in spades. His accomplishments are manifold and multiplying. A list is in order. I'll essay one later on. For now I draw your attention to the indelible conservative stamp President Trump is placing on the judiciary which includes but is not restricted to the Supreme Court.
What do you say now, Never Trumpers? Man up and admit you were wrong. It is sickening to watch George Will, a man I once respected for his erudition and insight, dissolve into a mewling, puling crybaby as if someone stole his bow tie and the propeller on his beanie.
From October 2016:
Pussy Bow is elliptical for 'Pussy Cat Bow,' the latter a well-established term in the world of women's fashion. Melania Trump sported one at the second debate. Was she out to implant some sly suggestion? I have no idea. But it occurred to me this morning that bow tie boys such as George Will also sport pussy cat bows. (As you know, pussy cats are both male and female.) And given the currency of 'pussy' in the politics of the day, it seems entirely appropriate to refer to the signature sartorial affectation of effete yap-and-scribble do-nothing quislings like Will as a pussy bow.
George Will is a good example of how Trump Derangement Syndrome can lead to cognitive meltdown.
I used to respect Will. No more.
Matthew Schmitz at First Things:
These are the culture war’s true battle lines. On one side are well-scrubbed members of the managerial class who believe that any constraint on the free movement of labor, goods, and capital is a violation of “global values.” They are fully committed to the central project of neoliberalism: the insulation of markets from democratic pressure. They also wish to protect desire from any legal, cultural, or moral restraint. On the other side are unwashed people of varying political stripes who intuit that economic life should be subject to political authority, which today rests in the nation. They believe in moral norms and national boundaries.
Christians need to practice cultural realpolitik. No explanation of the meaning of marriage, however rigorously argued or scrupulously secular, can overcome the power of a managerial elite that is wholly opposed to the kind of society for which Christians hope. Refusal to see this has been fatal to the traditionalists’ cause. While arguing against liberal social changes, they have cheered economic policies that harm their natural allies and aid their opponents. They have handed a shovel to their own gravedigger.
Progressives now stand with global capital, as the Pride Parade so clearly shows. Christians in turn should stand with the working class, which is more religious, more diverse, and more patriotic than the managerial elite. Only by reducing inequality and restraining corporations can Christians avoid being buried. Only by challenging the ideology of free markets and open borders can they advance their view of the common good. The struggle between woke capital and the working class will determine the outcome of the culture war.
For Vito Caiati
…………………..
George W. Bush once referred to Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher, thereby betraying both a failure to grasp what a philosopher is and who Jesus claimed to be.
Jesus Christ is not a philosopher. The philosopher is a mere lover of wisdom. His love is desirous and needy; it is eros, the love of one who lacks for that which he lacks. But Jesus Christ lacks nothing; he is is the fullness of wisdom, the Word and Wisdom of God embodied. So Christ is no lover of wisdom in the strict sense in which Socrates is a lover of wisdom. Divine love is not erotic but agapic.
If a sage is a possessor of wisdom, no philosopher qua philosopher is a sage. If a philosopher were to become a sage, he would thereby cease to be a philosopher: one does not seek what one possesses. Socrates is the embodiment of philosophy but not of wisdom. Socrates, then, is not a sage.
The wisdom of Socrates was largely the wisdom of nescience: he knew that he did not know what he did not know. In stark contrast, Christ claimed not only to know the truth, but to be the truth as recounted in the via, veritas, vita passage at John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me." Ego sum via et veritas et vita; nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per me.
Suppose a philosopher comes to accept Christian doctrine. Does he remain a philosopher in his acceptance of Christian doctrine or does he move beyond philosophy? I say that a philosopher who accepts the revealed truths characteristic of Christianity has moved beyond philosophy in this acceptance. Why?
A philosopher is not only one who, lacking wisdom and desiring it, seeks it, but also one who seeks the truth in a certain way, by a certain method. It is characteristic of philosophy that it is the pursuit of truth by unaided reason. 'Unaided' means: not aided by divine revelation. (It does not mean that the philosopher does not consult the senses.) The philosopher operates by reason and seeks reasons for what he believes. The philosopher relies on discursive reason as he encounters it in himself and accepts only what he can validate by his autonomous use of reason. Qua philosopher, he accepts no testimony but must verify matters for himself. The philosopher is like Doubting Thomas Didymus at John 20:25: "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
That is the attitude of the philosopher. The philosopher is an inquirer into ultimate matters, and doubt is the engine of inquiry. The philosopher qua philosopher asks: Where's the evidence? What's the argument? What you say may be true, my brothers, but how do you know? What's your justification?
You say our rabbi rose from the dead? That sort of thing doesn't happen! I want knowledge, which is not just true belief but justified true belief. You expect me to believe that Jesus rose on no evidence but your testimony from probably hallucinatory experiences fueled by your fear and hunger and weakness? Prove it! W. K. Clifford takes it to the limit and gives it a moral twist: "It is wrong always and everywhere to believe anything on insufficient evidence." Presumably the testimony of a bunch of scared, unlettered, credulous fisherman would not count as sufficient evidence for Thomas Didymus or Clifford.
The Christian, however, operates by faith. If Reason is the faculty of philosophy, Faith is the faculty of religion. The philosopher may reason his way to the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, but he cannot qua philosopher arrive at the saving truth that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14) by the use of reason. The saving truths are 'known' by faith and not by reason. It is also clear that faith for the Christian ranks higher than reason. As Jesus says to Thomas at John 20:29: "Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and have believed."
The attitude of the believer who is also a philosopher is fides quarens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. But what if no understanding is found? Does the believer reject or suspend his belief? No. If he is a genuine believer, he continues to believe whether or not he achieves understanding. This shows that for the believer, reason has no veto power. The apparent logical impossibility of the Incarnation does not cause him to reject or suspend his belief in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. If he finds a way to show the rational acceptability of the Incarnation, well and good; if he fails, no matter. The Incarnation is a fact 'known' by Revelation; as an actual fact it is possible, and what is possible is possible whether or not we frail reeds can understand how it is possible. The believer in the end will announce that the saving truths are mysteries impenetrable to us here below even if he does not go to the extreme of a Tertullian, a Kierkegaard, or a Shestov and condemn reason wholesale.
The attitude of the philosopher who is open to the claims of Revelation is different. He feels duty-bound by his intellectual conscience to examine the epistemic credentials of Biblical revelation lest he unjustifiably accept what he has no right to accept. This attitude is personified by Edmund Husserl. On his death bed, attended by nuns, open to the Catholic faith, he was yet unable to make the leap, remarking that it was too late for him, that he would need for each dogma five years of investigation.
There is a tension here and it is the tension between Athens (Greek philosophy) and Jerusalem (the Bible), the two main roots of the West whose fruitful entanglement is the source of the West's vitality. As Leo Strauss sees it, it is a struggle over the unum necessarium, the one thing needful or necessary:
To put it very very simply and therefore somewhat crudely, the one thing needful according to Greek philosophy is is the life of autonomous understanding. The one thing needful as spoken by the Bible is the life of obedient love. The harmonizations and synthesizations are possible because Greek philosophy can use obedient love in a subservient function, and the Bible can use philosophy as a handmaid; but what is so used in each case rebels against such use, and therefore the conflict is really a radical one. ("Progress or Return?" in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 246, bolding added.)
So is the Christian the true philosopher? Only in the sense that philosophy points beyond itself to something that is no longer philosophy but that completes philosophy while cancelling it. I am tempted to reach for an Hegelian trope while turning it on its head: if Christianity is true, then philosophy is aufgehoben, sublated, in it. If Christianity is true, then the Christian arrives at the truth that the philosopher at best aims at but cannot arrive at by his method and way of life, the life of autonomous understanding. To achieve what he aims at, the philosopher would have to be "as a little child" and accept in obedient love the gift of Revelation. But it is precisely that which he cannot do if he is to remain a philosopher in the strict sense, one who lives the life of autonomous understanding.
That is tension some of us live. The life of autonomous understanding and critical examination? Or the life of child-like trust and obedient love?
The problem in what is perhaps its sharpest form is presented in the story of Abraham and Isaac.
The Christian life is not the philosophical life. It lies beyond the philosophical life and, if true, is superior to it.
But is it true?
In the end, you have to decide what you will believe and how you will live.
Dr. Vito Caiati writes (minor edits, formatting, and bolding added),
I thank you for your online response (Reasoned Mysterianism: A Defense of an Aphoristic Provocation) to my recent email. In it you offer an impressive, rigorous defense of “reasoned mysterianism” that has impelled me to think more deeply on this subject, so much so, in fact, that I spent part of the night awake in bed ruminating over your argument. Both it and your aphorism of July 21 (The Believing Philosopher) lead me to repeat what I wrote in my first email to you last February: “You have helped me sharpen and deepen by thinking on many questions, and you have made me more assured in turning away from easy or comforting answers.”
In this spirit, I will take up the invitation made in your email of yesterday and respond. In doing so, I would like to draw a clearer distinction between a “reasoned belief” and a “reasoned mysterianism” by referring to your statement,
Vito mentions the leap of faith. As I see it, there is no avoiding such a leap when it comes to ultimate questions. There is no possibility of proof or demonstration hereabouts. One can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, for example. So if, on the basis of arguments for or against the existence of God, one comes to believe in God or not, there will be a leap of faith either way.
I fully agree with what you say here because while the affirmations of God’s existence or the existence and immortality of the soul cannot be proven, they can be reasonably held. In holding the former, for example, one gives assent to one or more philosophical arguments or calls on other forms of evidence, while acknowledging the powerful arguments and evidence against this belief. But here, most would agree that we are not dealing with what “to the discursive intellect must appear contradictory”; rather, while the intellectual challenges are so enormous that certainty is beyond our grasp and, as you correctly point out, that a leap of faith is required, we respect the intellectual limitations imposed on us by our “cognitive architecture.”
For me, this is the important point: that we not go beyond these limitations however much we would like to do so. Therefore, I agree that “reasoning about God and the soul, etc. is precisely reasoning in justification of a leap of faith or else in justification of a leap of disbelief.” In such matters, the absence of “certainty” is no hurdle for me in affirming the existence of God, which I do.
However, while I grant that “it may well be that there are certain objects and states of affairs and phenomena whose internal possibility we cannot discern due to our irremediable cognitive limitations. [And that] Apparent contradictoriness would then not argue unreality,” I hold that such objects and states of affairs are best left alone. If the objects and states of affairs of “reasoned belief,” such as God’s existence, remain as open and debated today as they were in the distant past and as cloudy to the human mind, what can we possibly know of those shrouded in absolute mystery and apparent contradiction? Here, it seems mere hubris to make a leap of faith; rather, is it not better to acknowledge the mystery and grasp what aspects of the Unknown, albeit small, that reasoned belief permits? Why not be content with the latter and leave the rest to God, who, after all, either intended or permits our having a constrained “cognitive architecture”?
The misery of our ignorance, perhaps the greatest evil, is not to be undone by mere conjecture and hope, however well intended. Thus, while I agree that we must choose, I think that the possible choices are quite circumscribed.
REPLY
I will begin on a note of deep agreement: the misery of our ignorance is indeed a great, and perhaps the greatest, evil. It surprises me that this is not usually mentioned when people recount the evils of the human predicament. Surely it is awful that we are almost totally in the dark about the ultimate whence, whither, and wherefore, and that bitter controversy rages on every side. To my mind the human condition is indeed a predicament, a 'situation' deeply unsatisfactory, the solution to which is either impossible or, if possible, then such as to require a radical revision of the way we live.
Now on to the meat of our disagreement.
For most of my philosophical life I have held the position sketched by Vito Caiati according to which only what we can see to be rationally acceptable may be accepted. So if, by my best efforts, I cannot bring myself to see how a religious dogma satisfies the exigencies of reason, then I ought not accept it.
But lately I have been re-examining this position. Such re-examination is in the spirit of philosophy as critical reflection that spares nothing, not even itself. There is nothing unphilosophical in questioning the reach of reason.* Note that this questioning remains within philosophy: from within philosophy one can question philosophy and raise the possibility that philosophy can be and perhaps must be supplemented ab extra.
One type of supplementation is via divine revelation. Now philosophy cannot prove the fact of divine revelation, nor can it validate the specific contents of a putative revelation, but it can reasonably allow for the possibility of divine revelation. Without quitting the sphere of immanence it can allow for the possibility of an irruption into this sphere of salvific truths that we need but cannot access by our own powers.
Vito will grant me that it is reasonable to believe that God exists. If so, it is reasonable to believe that there is a transcendent Person capable of revealing himself to man. I would argue that the possibility of revelation is built into the concept of God. Our concept of God is a concept of a personal being who could, if he so desired, reveal himself to his creatures in specific ways, via prophets who leave written records, or even by revealing himself in person in a special man who somehow is an, or rather the, incarnation of God. Our possession of such a concept of God is of course no guarantee that there is such a God. But without straying from the precincts of philosophy one can articulate such a concept.
This implies that it is reasonable to be open to the possibility of receiving 'information' of the highest importance to us and our ultimate well-being from a transcendent Source lying beyond the human horizon. This possibility is one that we can validate from within our own resources and thus without appeal to divine revelation.
One who grants the existence of a personal God cannot foreclose on the possibility of the receipt of such 'information.' To foreclose on it one would have to adopt some form of naturalism or else a non-personal conception of God. Spinoza's deus sive natura, for example, is clearly not up to the task of transmitting any saving truths to us.
Now suppose some of these bits of 'information' or revealed truths are beyond our ken not only in the sense that we cannot validate them as true from within our immanence, but also in the sense that we cannot validate them as possibly true. That is, we can generate no insight into their logical possibility. Suppose they appear, and indeed must appear, logically impossible to us within our present (fallen) state. The idea is not that they are logically impossible in themselves, but that they must appear logically impossible to us due to our current 'cognitive architecture.'
Supposing all this, would it be reasonable to take Vito's advice and leave these putative truths of revelation alone, on the ground that it would be hubris to make a leap of faith in their direction when, by our own best lights, and after protracted examination, they appear logically impossible?
It is not clear to me that it would. For then the measly creature would be valuing his intellectual integrity over the possibility of an eternity of bliss.
There might well be more hubris is setting up ourselves as arbiters as to what is possible and what is not. Weak-minded as we are, who are we to judge what is possible and what is not? If God exists, then we are his creatures. We are in the inferior position and ought to listen to God's teachings and commands whether or not they pass muster by our criteria, and especially since our ultimate happiness is at stake.
If we really understand what is meant by 'God,' and we believe that God exists — which I admit itself requires a leap beyond what we can legitimately claim strictly to know — then how can we insist that God, his actions, his commands, and his revelations satisfy the exigencies of our puny intellects in order to be admissible?
There is much more to be said, but I have gone on long enough for one post.
________________
* Think of the academic and the Pyrrhonian skeptics, the empiricists, the critical philosophy of Kant, phenomenology with its anti-dialectical orientation and invocation of the given, logical positivism, and the ordinary language philosophy of the later Wittgenstein.
How does he do it? Explanation here.
. . . is probably not in the offing, the wave not the dream, but we of the Coalition of the Sane must not become complacent.
Here is good advice from Hugh Hewitt.
You might think that the fate of the Dems will be sealed by the appeal to morons of chuckleheads like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But take no chances. Charles Cooke comments on the Ocasionalist here.
If the blue wave should materialize, then Trump has only been buying us time, and the U.S. will continue its death spiral.
The trouble with the Tucker Carlson show is that the host is insufficiently judicious as to the number and type of leftists he invites onto his program. No doubt he is striving to be "fair and balanced," but what typically happens is that Carlson asks some reasonable question of the leftist guest, which the latter evades in order let loose with his reliably incoherent canned spiel, about, say, all those thousands of people roaming around without photo ID who are 'disenfranchised' — sneer quotes! — by reasonable ID requirements at polling places. Tucker tries without success to bring the knucklehead back to the topic, voices are raised, they talk over each other, and I surf away to a Seinfeld re-run.
These shouting matches are totally unproductive. Besides, they elevate my blood pressure. But when I return from Seinfeld to hear the brilliant and consummately witty analysis of Mark Steyn, or the less brilliant, but solid, contribution of my favorite gun-totin' lesbian, the charming Tammy Bruce, then it is all worthwhile and the old B.P. returns to 'within range.'
Of course, there are people who like to watch unproductive shouting matches. They like to see people fight. So it may well be that ratings would decline if my suggestion were followed.
Tucker needs to realize that the age of productive dialog with political opponents is over in American politics. Ours is the age of post-consensus politics. Destructive leftists don't need talk, they need defeat. Let's hope it can be achieved politically without resort to, God forbid, the 2A solution. But as every patriot knows, the 2A ain't about hunting.
I now hand off to Bruce Thornton, Ridicule, not Reasoned Debate, is the Best Medicine for Political Cults.
The problems associated with time are the toughest there are. I need a break from breaking my head against them. I'm nursing a Jack and Coke and on the prowl for some 'timely' tunes.
Chad and Jeremy, Yesterday's Gone
New Christy Minstrels, Today
Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows. "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream . . . " This one goes out to Vlastimil V.
Bob Seger, Old Time Rock and Roll
Chicago, Does Anybody Know What Time it is?
Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time
Billie Holliday, As Time Goes By
Glen Campbell, By the Time I Get to Phoenix
Beatles, Any Time at All
Beatles, Things We Said Today
Allman Bros., Ain't Wastin' Time No More
Marty Robbins, Cryin' Time
Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a' Changin'
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slowest one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
The first one now will later be last
For the times they are a'changin'.
If this anthem's Biblical lines move you then you were not only in the 'sixties, but of the 'sixties.
