Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Current Affairs

  • The Russian Farce

    Teaser quotation: From Russia’s point of view, considering their strategic and economic interests, a pliable Obama 2.0 would have been far better than Trump, with his pro-oil-and-gas domestic agenda, his promised defense buildup, and his unpredictable Jacksonian promises to help friends and hurt enemies. Well, duh.  The sheer stupidity of the Dem line on all…

  • What Does America First Mean?

    America First does not mean that that the USA ought to be first over other countries, dominating them.  It means that every country has the right to prefer itself and its own interests over the interests of other countries. This is compatible with respecting other countries' interests and right to self-determination.  So America First has…

  • Coming Together and Walling Off

    Is it an unalloyed and exceptionless good that people be 'brought together'? Not even the Facebook CEO thinks so.  Mark Zuckerberg touts his social media site as bringing people together. How sweet. Yet he has had a huge wall built around his Hawaiian compound. Apparently, many of those who engineer 'bringing together' are  very special people…

  • Radosh on Milo

    Should one take any old enemy of one's enemy as one's friend?

  • “The Era of Empty Talk is Over”

    The best line of Trump's CPAC speech. 

  • Secession?

    Malcolm Pollack discusses the Calexit variation of the Secessionist Gambit. He is an uncommonly good writer.  My favorite sentence in the piece in question: California, after all, is the mothership of Leftism in America: of radical environmentalism, open borders, sexual libertinism, and entropic postmodernism regarding every natural category. We need to explore modes of political…

  • Paradoxes of Illegal Immigration

    This entry from 6 January 2012 bears re-posting in the light of current events. 'Light' indeed. A new day is dawning. Things are looking up. We now have a president with the cojones to take action, and he has. Who would have thought that Donald J. Trump of all people would be the patriot to…

  • Election Hacking?

    Today's Arizona Republic sported a headline containing the phrase 'election hacking.' How about a distinction? It is one thing to hack into DNC servers and John Podesta's e-mail. It is another thing to hack into a voting machine.  So I ask: what is the justification for talk of election hacking? Let's assume that, contra Julian…

  • So Long, John Glenn

    The third American into space, and the first to orbit the Earth, John Glenn is dead at 95.  In those days American greatness was evident. America can become great again.  President-Elect Trump's speech last night at the Iowa rally on his 'thank you' tour referenced Glenn and the need to revitalize the space program.  A…

  • On Flag Burning

    In a piece entitled, "Mr. Trump, Meet the Constitution," the editorial board of The New York Times betrays a failure to grasp the distinction between the U. S. Constitution and Supreme Court rulings about it.  In the 1989 case "Texas v. Johnson," SCOTUS handed down a 5-4 ruling according to which flag burning was a…

  • Rod Dreher on Steve Bannon

    Fair and balanced.  An excellent antidote to the mindless screeching of the loons of the Left.  But do loons screech?  It is more like a plaintive keening.

  • Things are Getting Nasty

    Trump supporters are being physically assaulted, but Trump critics such as David French are also coming under vicious attack.   In the immortal words of the 'motorist' Rodney King, "Why can't we all just get along?" Related articles How to Tell the Truth without being Truthful Sick of Political Acrimony, Reader Goes on 'News Fast'

  • Who’s Deplorable Now?

    Members of the party of 'tolerance' and 'inclusion' go on the rampage as captured in this collection of videos. Trump won fair and square despite all the chicanery of the Dems.  Now just as most Muslims are not terrorists, most Dems are not street anarchists.  But the latter constitute a significant subset of Dems.  What…

  • Victor Davis Hanson’s Case for Trump

    Excerpts: Trump’s defeat would translate into continued political subversion of once disinterested federal agencies, from the FBI and Justice Department to the IRS and the EPA. It would ensure a liberal Supreme Court for the next 20 years — or more. Republicans would be lucky to hold the Senate. Obama’s unconstitutional executive overreach would be…

  • Philosopher Daniel Bonevac Supports Trump

    He gives his reasons in the Washington Post: So why, given the response it gets me from colleagues and friends, do I support Trump?