Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Invective

  • Kurt Schlichter

    You don't want to end up on the wrong end of his invective.  Schlichter may be the contemporary master of this mode of discourse. There is a place for invective in this fallen world although I sincerely wish invective were not needed. "Resist not the evil doer" and "Turn the other cheek" make sense only…

  • Would a Fascist Want an Originalist on the Supreme Court?

    Donald Trump is called many things including racist, misogynist, xenophobe, and fascist. Suppose he is a fascist. Then he is not a very good one. For he is about to nominate an originalist to the high court. A fascist, however, would not want an originalist on the court but someone who views the Constitution as…

  • Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit

    I'm pretty good with the invective, but I can't hold a candle to Kurt Schlichter.  Here is another taste: Yes, the Democrats do have a major advantage in the fact that the Republican establishment, especially in Congress, is largely a gaggle of drooling idiots. From Sissy Sasse to Foamy Marco, these fussy failures seem determined…

  • Trump the ‘Trigger’

    Trump's shoot-from-the-hip style forces leftists to show their true colors while keeping them in a state of impotent frenzy. That can't be bad, can it?  Robert de Niro, Italian hothead and HollyWeird liberal, loses it 'bigly' over Trump in his latest outburst, wherein he calls Trump in public a "fucking idiot" and a "fucking fool" and…

  • Don’t Pathologize Political Differences

    This is the excellent advice of Alan Dershowitz (emphasis added): But psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have no more right to pathologize a president or a candidate because they disagree with his or her political views than do prosecutors or politicians have a right to criminalize political opponents. I have been writing in opposition…

  • Hyperbole

    Every word they write is a lie, and every syllable they speak. Their mendacity extends even unto the syntax of their sentences. Their periods prevaricate and their dashes dissemble.

  • Jerry Coyne Talks Sense for a Change!

    Here: It’s time that angry liberals stop calling every Republican a misogynist, a Nazi, or a white supremacist. On left-wing websites everywhere, these terms are being dispensed like gumballs from a machine. If we really want to take back the country, we have to deal with issues. Name-calling may make us feel good, but it’s not…

  • Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

    This old phrase, coined by Patrick J. Buchanan and deployed by Spiro T. Agnew, needs to be dusted off and re-deployed against the petty leftist crapweasels who will pick at everything Trump does or says.  What a sorry lot of sore losers!

  • The Republic Repeals Itself?

    And the Left continues to melt down over the election result. A curious exercise in hyperventilation from the pen of Andrew Sullivan.  Here are a couple of gasps: In the U.S., the [populist] movement — built on anti-political politics, economic disruption, and anti-immigration fears — had something else, far more lethal, in its bag of…

  • “A Cesspool of Corruptibles”

    The Clintons.  Invective courtesy of Judge Jeanine Pirro.  Last night on Hannity.  Modeled on Hillary's "basket of deplorables."  Invective has its place in the armamentarium of the conservative.  Lying crooks cannot be engaged on the plane of reason via calm conversation. Conservatives need to learn how to punch back.   Related articles Hillary the Corrupt…

  • On Mocking Religious Figures

    My view in a few words.  Other things being equal, one should not mock, deride, or engage in any sort of unprovoked verbal or pictorial assault on people or the beliefs they cherish.  So if Muslims were as benign as Christians or Buddhists, I would object on moral grounds to the depiction and mockery of…

  • The Pussy Cat Bows of the Yap-and-Scribble Bow Tie Milquetoasts

    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 boy tie boys such as George Will also…

  • A Waste of a Good Hyphen

    A reader doesn't get the point of my earlier entry: Use-Mention Confusion Dennis Miller:  "Melissa Harris-Perry is a waste of a good hyphen." So let me explain it.  Miller is a brilliant conservative comedian who appears regularly on The O'Reilly Factor.  If you catch every one of Miller's allusions and can follow his rap you…

  • Use – Mention Confusion

    Dennis Miller:  "Melissa Harris-Perry is a waste of a good hyphen."

  • Is There Any Place for Gentlemen in Post-Consensus Politics?

    We are in the age of post-consensus politics.  We Americans don't agree on much of anything any more.  As our politics comes more and more to resemble warfare, the warrior comes more and more to replace the gentleman.   Here is the best description of a gentleman I have encountered: The True Gentleman is the man…