Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Political Language

  • ‘On His Watch”

    What happens on a person's watch may or may not be his responsibility.  Or will you maintain that a Republican president is responsible for the arson and looting tolerated by Democrat mayors?

  • The Hyphenated American

    One may gather from my surname that I am of Italian extraction. Indeed, that is the case in both paternal and maternal lines: my mother was born near Rome in a place called San Vito Romano, and my paternal grandfather near Verona in the wine region whence comes Valpollicella. Given these facts, some will refer to…

  • ‘The Wrong Side of History’

    (An edited re-post from 15 May 2012.) I once heard a prominent conservative tell an ideological opponent that he was 'on the wrong side of history.' But surely this is a phrase that no self-aware and self-consistent conservative should use. The phrase suggests that history is moving in a certain direction, toward various outcomes, and…

  • Protesters?

    BLM and Antifa members are 'protesters' in the same sense in which Rodney King was a 'motorist,' Trayvon Martin was 'a child on the way to the candy store,' Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri was an 'unarmed teenager,' and Adolf Hitler was a 'statesman.'

  • Sam Harris and the Problem of Disagreement: Is Conversation Our Only Hope?

    Sam Harris: More and more, I find myself attempting to have difficult conversations with people who hold very different points of view. And I consider our general failure to have these conversations well—so as to produce an actual convergence of opinion and a general increase in goodwill between the participants—to be the most consequential problem…

  • Don’t Talk Like a ‘Liberal’!

    When you do, you validate their obfuscatory and question-begging jargon. For example, leftists believe in something they call 'hate speech.' As they use the phrase, it covers legitimate dissent. It is foolish for a conservative to say that he is for 'hate speech,' or that 'hate speech' is protected speech. Dennis Prager has been known…

  • President Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech

    Roger Kimball appreciates its magnificence and writes about it brilliantly: The president was especially strong in challenging what is perhaps the most obnoxious manifestation of our petulant antinomianism—that species of politically correct intolerance that has come to be called “cancel culture.” In essence, cancel culture is the malignant inversion of liberalism’s defining virtues, openness and…

  • Was Jesus a Socialist?

    No way! He actually fed people. ………………….. I came to this witticism via Karl White who got it from someone unnamed.  It is too good not to repeat and propagate.  So do your bit and spread it around. You can't battle the Left effectively with just one weapon: the whole arsenal has to be brought…

  • Break Contact with Political Opponents?

    Should one break off contact with those whose social and political views one finds abhorrent?   Let me mention one bad reason for not breaking off contact.  The bad reason is that by not breaking off contact one can have 'conversations' that will lead to amicable agreements and mutual understanding. This bad reason is based on the…

  • Senatorial Scumbaggery in Excelsis

    There are decent folk among rank-and-file Democrats, but the leaders of this party are vicious, vile, destructive, obstructionist, and slanderous.   "Ongoing war against immigrants." That's slander, besides being stupid.

  • Is ‘Wuhan Virus’ Racist?

    I'll grant you that it is if you grant me that leftism is a deadly virus and that leftists, 'liberals,' 'progressives,' and members of the Democrat Party in the USA knowingly and willingly carry and transmit it. Do we have a deal?  But if 'Wuhan Virus' is racist, then then so are the following: West…

  • Is There Such a Thing as Racial Profiling?

    A re-post from 5 December 2014 …………………………… One of the tactics of leftists is to manipulate and misuse language for their own purposes.  Thus they make up words and phrases and hijack existing ones. 'Islamophobe' is an example of the former, 'disenfranchise' an example of the latter.    'Racial profiling' is a second example of the…

  • Lie or Exaggeration or Bullshit? Politics in an Age of Bullshit

    A redacted re-post from 30 November 2016 ……………………………….. Over the weekend, Donald Trump bragged in signature style that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Lefties are calling the statement a lie.  But it is no such thing.  In the typical case, a lie is a false…

  • Is ‘Again’ a Racist ‘Dog Whistle’?

    We must never forget the contemptibly vile things that regressive 'progressives' and illiberal 'liberals' say about us. This is a repost from 25 May 2016. …………….. Some liberal-left idiot is arguing that 'again' in Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' is a racist 'dog whistle.'  The suggestion is that Trump wants to bring back slavery…

  • Elizabeth Warren: “That’s not Who We Are!”

    This stock leftist exclamation, silly as it is, is sillier still coming from the mouth of the Cherokee Maiden, Fauxcahontas herself, who doesn't know who she is!