Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Current Affairs

  • The Case Against George Zimmerman

    There is no case, and the man should not have been charged in the first place. The race-baiting, delusional Left is completely out  of control in this country as witness the Zimmerman prosecution, the Paula Deen shakedown, and the mindless uproar over the SCOTUS decision to strike down Article Four of the 1965 Voting Act. Curious how…

  • Epistle from Malcolm: State, Civil Society, Individual

    Malcolm Pollack e-mails: Just minutes before ambling by your place and seeing your link to Brooks, I had run across this riposte. It's worth a look, I think. This administration has aggressively sought to hollow out all the mediating layers of civil society that stand between the atomized citizen and the Leviathan (those civil associations having…

  • Oxymoron of the Day: ‘President Obama’

    A president presides over something.  To preside over it, however, he must know something about it.  But 'President' Obama seems to know little or nothing about what is going on in his government.  He puts me in mind of Sgt. Schulz of Hogan's Heroes: "I know nothing!"  Check out this clip.  This cute comparison occurred…

  • Gibson Guitars and Government Abuse of Power

    On 1 September 2011 I commented on the Obama administration's attack on Gibson.  Now the Gibson guitar raids make sense.  The article concludes: The Gibson Guitar raid, the IRS intimidation of Tea Party groups and the fraudulently obtained warrant naming Fox News reporter James Rosen as an "aider, abettor, co-conspirator" in stealing government secrets are…

  • The Government Is Us?

    Liberals like to say that the government is us.  President Obama recently trotted out the line to quell the fears of gun owners: You hear some of these quotes: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government.’ ‘We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away,’…

  • Intervene in Syria?

    Senator John McCain is for it.  Victor Davis Hanson is against it.  VDH has the better case, as it seems to me.  The further expenditure of American blood and treasure "to teach locals not to be their tribal selves" (VDH) is a losing proposition.  We are in deep trouble domestically, and we are going to…

  • Be Afraid

    In this fine piece, Marilyn Penn takes Thomas Friedman to task.  Her article begins thusly (emphasis added): In Thomas Friedman’s op ed on the Boston marathon massacre (Bring On the Next Marathon, NYT  4/17),  the boldface caption insists “We’re just not afraid anymore.”  Perhaps this is true for a traveling journalist who doesn’t use the subway…

  • Promiscuous Post-Modern PC Prudes

    What follows is the whole of Victor Davis Hanson's Promiscuous Prudes with a bit of commentary. More than 500 people were murdered in Chicago last year. Yet Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel still found time to berate the fast food franchise Chick-fil-A for not sharing "Chicago values" — apparently because its founder does not approve of…

  • The Rand Paul Filibuster

    In Paul's own words: I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime. As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights. The…

  • Victor Davis Hanson

    A tip of the hat to one of the oldest of my blogger buddies, Bill Keezer.  He keeps me hipped to the output of the amazingly prolific Victor Davis Hanson.  The Tangled Web of Race Brave New World  

  • Benedict XVI: “A Conservative Not in Favor of Reforms”

    A Fox News anchor's reportage from earlier today betrays presumably inadvertent bias.  The anchor said that Pope Benedict XVI is "a conservative not in favor of many reforms."  A reform is not merely a change, but an improvement.  The Wikipedia article gets it right: "Reform means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc."…

  • Voter Fraud

    Liberals oppose photo ID at polling places because it would 'disenfranchise' all the blacks and others among us who somehow live without ID whose votes liberals need.  And anyway, voter fraud never happens — except when it does.   Related articles The Delusional Left and 'Voter Suppression' Photo ID: Voter Suppression or Liberal Projection? Photo…

  • Welcome to Fascist Amerika

    Leftists like to call conservatives fascists, but it is the fascism of the Left that is taking hold.  Two more pieces of evidence as part of a massive cumulative case: Obama Willing to Use Executive Orders on Guns At a news conference on Monday, exactly one month after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Obama…

  • Abdication of Authority

    According to a news report I just heard, the Taft High School shooter targeted a bully.  Rather than blame an  inanimate object, the gun, which makes no sense, one ought to blame the parents, teachers, administrators, clergy, and other so-called 'authorities' who have abdicated their authority and allowed bullying to become a serious problem in…

  • What the Gun Debate is Fundamentally About

    At bottom, the gun debate boils down to a conflict of visions, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Sowell. This is well-explained by Mchael Medved in The Liberal God Delusion.  Excerpt: Consider the current dispute over the right response to gun violence. At its core, this argument comes down to a visceral disagreement between relying on self-defense…