I found the following at Ed Feser’s place. I wonder what Vito and the rest of you think of it. I myself have taken “Death to America” as a highly credible threat and the statement of a policy the Iranian regime intends to carry out if we let them acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
Hello, EXE, I agree, that’s another silly talking point.
The Democrats refuse to credit Trump for anything he does. But there is something similar on the Right, though not as extreme. Sean Hannity last night on his show found the following Trump tweet funny, and found nothing in it to criticize:
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.
Now if you are morally sane you will grant there is no moral equivalence between the USA and any Islamo-theocratic terror state. No such state should be tolerated. What’s more, the civilized world must not tolerate any state, Islamist or not, that sponsors terrorism. The current Iranian regime not only sponsors world-wide terrorism through its proxies, but also is (or was) well on the way to the possession of nuclear warheads and the means to delivery them intercontinentally. It ought to be perfectly evident that “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” are not slogans but policies, and that the threat to implement them has been proven credible by Iranian actions since 1979.
The current regime in Iran must therefore be forced to acquiesce in Trump’s demands, including the surrendering of all uranium enriched to the point where it could be used in ‘suitcase’ dirty bombs. But why can’t the president just say this in a ‘presidential’ way, the say I have just said it? The whole world knows that he is a man who will act on his word. They know he is not a merely performative professional politician like Biden and the rest of the effete and epicene Democrats who put their private interests above the public good.
Why the unnecessary crudity, and more importantly, why the mockery of all Muslims in the final sentence? And why can’t Hannity, a reasonable fellow, bring himself to say something like what I just wrote?
What we have here, friends, is political polarization in excelsis.
Things are made worse by the “God on our side” mentality of some on the Right. Edward Feser’s take on this matter needs to be carefully thought through.
Theme music: With God on Our Side
Crossposted at Substack in a slightly improved version.
A CONSPIRACY is a clandestine agreement among a small group of people to achieve a nefarious end, typically by means of treason or treachery. The members of a conspiracy are called conspirators. They meet in secret and in small numbers. Hillary's abuse of English is plain: conservatives do not form a secret organization; they are not few in number; and their opposition to Bill Clinton and his policies was not nefarious, treasonous, or treacherous.
A conspiracy THEORY alleges that a conspiracy is under way or has occurred to bring about some event. An example is the theory that 9/11 was an 'inside job.' Some conspiracy theories are true, and some false; some are well-supported by evidence, others are not. None of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are well- supported in my opinion. But that in not the present point. The present point is that it is a mistake to assume that every conspiracy theory is false or baseless.
Top o' the Stack.
The Dems are always going on about 'our democracy,' their noble defense of it, and the Republicans' nefarious assault upon it. But they never tell us what they mean by 'democracy.' One is left to speculate. Here is David Brooks commenting on the recent gerrymandering/redistricting contretemps:
I understand the argument. But let's do a little ethical experiment here. You're in World War I. The Germans use mustard gas on civilians, and it helps them. Do you then decide, 'Okay, we're going to use mustard gas on civilians?' What Trump ordered Abbott to do in Texas is mustard gas on our democracy. (emphasis added)
One gets the distinct impression that for Democrats, 'democracy' means our party, the Democrat party. Accordingly, to defend and preserve democracy is to defend, preserve, and enhance the power of the Democrat party by any and all means necessary including gerrymandering. After all, they are (in their own eyes) wonderful people; so whatever they do must be wonderful too. But when we do unto them what they have long done unto us, we are despicable 'fascists' out to destroy 'democracy.'
'Fascist' is the pejorative counterpart of the Dem's honorific 'democracy.' 'Fascist' is the Left's favorite F-word, although, thanks to Hunter Biden and others, the F-word itself may be coming to occupy the top slot in the depredatory Left's deprecatory lingo. Hunter and the benighted Beto O'Rourke seem incapable these days of uttering a sentence free of F-bomb ornamentation.
I should think that both the pejorative and the honorific, as used by the Dems, ought to enter retirement. For they know too little history to know what 'fascist' means, and their actions show that there is little that is democratic about them. Or do you think the coup against Joe Biden and his replacement on the 2024 Dem ticket by Kamala Harris was a democratic action? Quite the contrary!
The subversion of language is the mother of all subversion. The contemporary Dems are a pack of subversives out to destroy our republic. And yes, it is a republic, not a democracy , even when the word is used responsibly. It is a constitutionally-based republic and is democratic only to the extent that the people have a say in who shall represent them.
Is a home invader an asylum seeker? Only in very rare cases. So why are people who immigrate illegally called asylum seekers? A few are but most are not. What we have here, once again, is the characteristic 'progressive' abuse of language. You should have learned by now that no word or phrase is safe around a leftist. Conservatives are not against asylum; they are against the abuse of asylum.
At the same time that so-called progressives abuse 'asylum,' they also abuse 'xenophobic' when they apply this term to those of us who stand for the rule of law. You are one dumb conservative if you acquiesce in the Left's abuse of language.
If you are a conservative, don't talk like a 'liberal.'
He who controls the terms of the debate controls the debate.
'Retribution' has two main senses in English, and they are importantly different. The word can refer to revenge or to a form of justice, retributive justice. Do I have to explain that justice is not revenge? Conflating the two, journalistic shills for deep-state malefactors try to dismiss as revenge what is a quest for justice to right the wrongs perpetrated against Donald Trump by said malefactors.
Tulsi Gabbard's exposure of the Russia Collusion Hoax has leftists in our government sweating. Jonathan Turley names names: John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe.
But of course one cannot expect our political enemies to play fair in what they take to be a war. So this comes as no surprise:
Former Attorney General Eric Holder told MSNBC on Sunday morning that the Justice Department is being politicized to attack enemies of the Trump administration and "put at risk the lives and well-being" of people who oppose the president.
Talk about projection! What Holder & Co. are accusing our side of doing is precisely what they have been doing all along.
There is also the underhanded ploy of accusing us of putting lives at risk when our side rightly responds to their illegal actions. We are supposed to accept the injury meekly, lest our legitimate objections to their outrages inspire some lunatic to go on a rampage. Yet another application of the Left's double-standard 'principle.'
We should never forget what sort of sorry specimen this Holder was and is. See Photo ID: Eric Holder's Assault on Common Sense.
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.
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?
'Due process' is a term of legal shop talk. Those of us who know something about the law — I know a little — know how to use it correctly. And those of us who think that words ought to be used responsibly in serious discussions should take offense at the 'slop talk' use of 'due process.' Trey Gowdy knows a lot more about the law than I do. But a couple of Sundays ago he asked how much 'due process' Laken Riley's assailant showed her. Sean Hannity is another who has asked this question.
That got me thinking about what sort of 'due process' Ibarra should have shown Riley. "You have the right to plead, to pray, and to protest your upcoming rape and murder; you have in addition the right to avail yourself of the services of any well-armed Good Samaritan who might come along."
What were Gowdy and Hannity driving at? That wide-open borders are a recipe for disaster? That the very notion of legal due process needs to be re-thought? Unclear. Commentators who want to be taken seriously should say what they mean and mean what they say.
Democrats are slop heads in the main; we expect incoherence, inanity, and slop talk from them. Conservatives ought not ape them. Does my use of 'ape' make me a racist? What if I were to use such words as 'niggardly' and 'denigrate'?
The WAPO fentanyl 'mystery' is another good illustration of how contemptibly stupid our political enemies can be. Karoline Leavitt has fun with it. In other news, her intersectional and highly 'wokified' predecessor has quit the Dems, and like 'Fake Jake' Tapper and others will endeavor to tap into the money to be made from telling tales of dementia and dysfunction in high places.
Further examples are easily multiplied beyond all necessity. "Tampon Tim" Walz is a bloody good source of them.
One form political nominalism takes is loyalty to a political label.
In late November I heard a self-described "life-long Democrat" on Fox cogently explain why Kamala Harris lost the election and why her political career ought to be over. Despite the accuracy of his analysis, the fool remains a Dem! That makes no sense. When the thing labeled no longer exists, why cling to the label?
It is not as if the old Democratic Party can be brought back. The transmogrification unto wokery has proceeded too far. The young Turks have taken it over, the 'woke' squadristi mainly, AOC et al., and the members of the old guard (Pelosi, Schumer, et al.) are on their last legs. But there is no fool like an old fool, and a huge, but dwindling, number of useful idiots still vote Democrat out of misplaced loyalty to an empty label or else because of their delusional opposition to Trump. But they, like Pelosi & Co., will soon pass into the night, and the sooner the better, not that I wish them physically dead; I wish them politically dead. The physically dead can't make political mischief.
But wait a minute! Don't the dead vote in Dementocratic precincts?
Here:
Lustration is the removal of public officials and judges who are associated with a tainted political regime. It has been used as a tool of transitional justice in newly independent and postconflict countries. Lustrating begins with vetting—a review of conduct and competency. Individuals associated with the discredited government, and credibly accused of corruption or human rights violations, are dismissed. Officials appointed on the basis of political connections may be removed or reassigned to lower-level positions. Lustration also can be implemented indirectly, as with lowering the mandatory retirement age for judges.
The federal bureaucracy is clearly an obstacle to the president’s agenda. But Trump has a plan this time around. Already, the administration has fired prosecutors involved in former President Joe Biden’s Jan. 6 witch hunt. It has also fired eight high-level FBI officials and is reportedly considering firing many thousands more. Additionally, Elon Musk has claimed that Trump agreed to “shut down” the U.S. Agency for International Development, which would put 10,000 civil servants out of job. And then we have the 30,000 or so federal employees who accepted Trump’s brilliant buyout offer.
But given that the federal government employs more than 2 million people, much work remains to be done. Thankfully, Trump signed an executive order on day one that not only reinstated his Schedule F executive order from 2020 but also expanded its scope. According to the National Treasury Employee Union, Trump’s executive order would affect far more federal employees than the 100,000 previously anticipated. It turns out he wasn’t kidding about draining the swamp.
No More Lip Service
Dealing with the bureaucracy isn’t the only policy field in which the second Trump term is superior to the first. Across the board — DEI, immigration, trans nonsense, foreign policy, you name it — this administration has proven its commitment to implementing a holistic platform that addresses the existential issues of our time. Long gone are the days of elected Republicans paying mere lip service to conservative ideals. Thanks to Trump, the new GOP knows the score — and it’s playing to win.
Having been dealt a stinging rebuke on 5 November 2024, you might think the Democrats would learn something, for example, that playing the 'Hitler card,' like playing the 'race card,' will henceforth give them a losing hand. But no! The knuckleheads double down!
Elon Musk is an exuberant fellow at the top of his game. And he is, like all sane people, very happy with the outcome of the November election. His heart goes out to all who brought the Orange Man to a second term. And so he jumps around and cuts loose with idiosyncratic arm-hand gestures. He puts his hand on his heart and then extends his arm. A neutral observer might call it a 'heart-felt thank-you' salute. See here for a video of his antics.
But of course the Musk gesture is a Nazi salute to our political enemies. Out comes the 'Hitler card'! Typical.
And then they amalgamate this piece of scurrilous stupidity with a display of their penchant for double standards. (An old saying has it that if you strip a leftist of his double standards he will be left with no standards at all.) After all, "Tampon Tim" (Tim Walz) and "Fauxcahontas" (Elizabeth Warren) have been known to engage in similar arm extensions. Are they too Nazis?
What these fools don't understand is that they will continue to lose as long as they continue to slander we us the people.
Should people this stupid be let anywhere near the levers of power?
That is a rhetorical question, as is the one that preceded it.
Addendum (1/26)
A commenter points out that Elon's gesture was the Bellamy salute.
I just heard a Democrat politician refer to the The Trump-Homan border crackdown as 'draconian' and 'xenophobic.' It is neither.
It is not cruel or severe. Although you may think that 'severe' is etymologically related to 'sever,' it is not. To witness a penology that includes beheading and limb amputation you will have to take a trip to the Middle East. Iran and Saudi Arabia are go-to locales for draconian punishments. If there are any draconian punishments in the USA at the present time, they are inflicted by leftists. J-6 trespassers and abortion protesters are good examples of inflictees.
As for 'xenophobic,' it it is the adjectival form of 'xenophobia.' Now a phobia is an irrational fear. But we who stand for the rule of law, have no irrational fear of foreigners or of things foreign. If we did, why would we freely travel abroad and indeed freely live for extended periods in foreign lands? ('Freely' as opposed to 'by military order.') I myself have lived two and a half years abroad: six months in Salzburg, Austria, a year in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, and a year in Ankara, Turkey, and I have intensively studied the native languages, cultures, religions, and histories of these countries.
What's more, I entered legally, did not overstay my visa, obeyed the local laws, ate their food, observed their customs, and dressed appropriately. I did not, for example, walk around Turkey Arizona-style in short pants. I showed respect for Muslim ways. I entered legally in the way my ancestors entered the USA, legally. And like them, I studied the native languages and did my best to assimilate.
You can always count on a leftist to misuse language. Language abuse is as it were inscribed into their DNA. Show me a leftist and I'll show you a linguistic hijacker. The scumbaggery of our subversive political enemies has many sources, but the mother of them all, and the mother of all subversion, straight from the pit of hell and the Father of Lies, is the subversion of language.
What a hypocrite this guy is! You can 'migrate' anywhere, just not into the Vatican.
Don't you love that word 'migrate'? Its use manages to elide two important distinctions in one fell swoop: the distinction between legal and illegal immigration, and that between immigration and emigration. A worthy addition to the lexicon of the Left.
. . . I figure that I ought to take the time to clear up one particularly stupid talking point that I’ve also seen brought up: the fact that the Iranians say “Death to America” being interpreted as evidence of ruthless savagery or genocidal intent. This requires you to interpret the phrase in a thuddingly literal manner, despite the fact that the Iranians don’t use it that way, and the regime’s officials have repeatedly clarified that that isn’t what it means.
Yes, if you translate “Marg bar Âmrikâ” literally, that’s what it means, but repeated usage has made it clear that it’s intended to be interpreted as opposition to American empire and policy towards Muslim countries. It’s why official Iranian government documents translate it as “Down with America” instead, because that’s more in line with the spirit of what the phrase actually means.