Steven Nemes weighs in on Matt. 5:38-42 in his Substack entry, When should Christians not resist an evildoer?
He makes some of the same points I have made over the years, most recently, here at Substack: Morality Private and Public.
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.
About so much. About gutting the 'safety net' for example. WSJ rebukes the mendacious shites. (Ought we be polite to such brazen liars?)
As for multi-'colored' Kamala, she is like unto Traitor Joe not just in her moral obtuseness, but also in respect of her intellectual vacuity, as explained here.
Here and here for two more examples of leftist lunacy.
More proof this Monday morning (7/7/25) of the praeternatural mendacity and wrongheadedness of the intracranially feculent Democrats. GOP mega-bill structurally racist! Camp Mystic is whites-only!
And now, for a dose of sanity, I present Victor Davis Hanson who exposes Madmani Mandami for the destructive fraud he is.
Recently, Trump said he would "watch over" Mandami, and this morning he said the Feds would work "close" with Texas authorities. We of the Coalition of the Sane and the Reasonable do not support him because he is articulate in his word-slinging, although he does manage to get his meaning across. We support him because he is a great leader who knows what has to be done and more importantly does it.
You say the man has no class? I agree. That's what Jack Kennedy said about Dick Nixon in 1960. But how important is class in a world such as this one? Far more important is the ability and willingness to 'kick ass.' That he has done, and not just to the benefit of the USA, but the benefit of the whole world.
Besides, Trump does not need class; the First Lady has more than enough for both of them.
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?
On very rare occasions, something surfaces at The Bulwark worth reading.
Radosh, who is well worth reading, gives his take on Horowitz's flipping of his ideological script, and takes him to task for his late extremism. But how is this judgment by Radosh not itself extreme:
What David is being celebrated for is the opposite of the introspective and empathetic writer, a thoughtful and moderate conservative, evident in his personal books. And his supporters give him credit for helping to create the most repulsive and nasty of the Trump entourage, Stephen Miller, who of course, added his own tribute to David. Another right-wing extremist protégé, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, wrote to single out David’s responsibility for Miller’s career in these words . . . .
What hatreds politics sires! I am reminded of something I wrote in From Democrat to Dissident:
We were friends for a time, but friendship is fragile among those for whom ideas matter. Unlike the ordinary nonintellectual person, the intellectual lives for and sometimes from ideas. They are his oxygen and sometimes his bread and butter. He takes them very seriously indeed and with them differences in ideas. So the tendency is for one intellectual to view another whose ideas differ as not merely holding incorrect views but as being morally defective in so doing. Why? Because ideas matter to the intellectual. They matter in the way doctrines and dogmas mattered to old-time religionists. If one’s eternal happiness is at stake, it matters infinitely whether one “gets it right” doctrinally. If there is no salvation outside the church, you had better belong to the right church. It matters so much that one may feel entirely justified in forcing the heterodox to recant “for their own good.”
Addendum (5/9)
Here is Stephen Miller in action. Trenchant, but wholly on target, and the reprobates who are the recipients of the trenchancy richly deserve it. Miller is neither repulsive nor nasty by any sane measure. Perhaps someone should ask Radosh which side he is on these days.
Would that the extremity of the political polarization of the present could be avoided, including the polarization over polarization itself, its nature, causes, effects, and who is responsible for it. I say they are responsible for it. Our positions are moderate; theirs are extreme.
For example, James Carville, the "ragin' Cajun," is poles apart from the sane and reasonable Victor Davis Hanson. Bang on the links and see for yourself. But 'see' is not the right word inasmuch as leftists are blind and can't see 'jack.' How explain such blindness, such intransigence, such praeter-natural feculence of brain, perversity of will, foulness of heart?
I find it endlessly fascinating. Polarization, I mean. Why this depth of disagreement? But it's all grist for the mill, blog-fodder for the Bill.
For another example, compare Newt Gingrich's sanity to its lack in one who is "terrified" at Trump's judicial picks.
Addendum (5/10): polarization update
TDS at TNR:
Living under a far-right authoritarian regime that is gutting every American institution that keeps people safe, alive, and connected to a thriving civilization, we have to keep asking ourselves how we got here—and how we can get out. And the most important factor in Donald Trump’s win was that Kamala Harris lost.
Trump has run for president three times and Harris is the only person to have lost the popular vote to him. In 2024, he had no special magic; if anything, he was marred as a felon and a failed coup leader. A major part of the problem was Harris, who embodies the change-nothing politics of Hillary Clinton without the latter’s political savvy; and the cautiousness of Joe Biden without his populist instincts.
Perhaps the most despicable feature of our political enemies is their penchant for mendacity in all of its many modes. There are so many examples. Here is one: Pelosi's Orwellian Mendacity: A STFU Moment
A retromingent is an animal that urinates backwards.
Posturing as 'progressive,' the leftist pisses on the past, seeking to erase its memory by destroying monuments and redacting the historical record. There is no piety in the leftist, no reverence. Try using those words at a Manhattan or Georgetown cocktail party and see what happens.
This political retromingency helps explain the leftists' lack of respect for language.
If you erase history, however, not only will you not be able to learn from it, but you won't have anything left to piss on, either. Your retromingency will cut counter to your benighted and backwards modus vivendi et micturendi.
Instructive story here.
I had an interesting exchange with Dr. Caiati about political tactics in the comment thread to Haitians, Cats, and Red Herrings. Here are some further thoughts.
When our political enemies use our virtues against us, we should use their vices against them. Call it the Converse Alinskyite Tactic (CAT).
I used to say to them: Lie about us, and we will tell the truth about you. Now I say: Lie about us and we'll lie about you. Along the same lines, and given that Kamalism Will Destroy America, as it surely will, Tom Klingenstein writes:
In wartime, as Churchill famously observed, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” We are told, by Republicans almost as frequently as by Democrats, that Trump lost the recent debate. But even if this were true, to say so merely gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Like Trump, we must stand up and proclaim victory. Assert it: He won. These are wartime rules. The other side already plays by such rules. We do not.
Likewise, we fight Kamalism with facts and arguments, but today these are no more effective than using a straw to penetrate the shell of tortoise, as Lincoln put it. For example, our best historians, liberals and conservatives, thoroughly debunked the 1619 project, the official history of Kamalism. But to what avail? War is not a battle of facts.
The point here is that we conservatives will always lose so long as we fail to grasp that our political opponents are enemies who see politics as warfare. If that is the way they see it, and it is, then that is the way we must see it. Taking the high ground does no good. You might think that taking the high ground would shame our enemies and inspire them to play fair and speak the truth. But this ignores the fact that our opponents are enemies who are out to win by any means. They cannot be shamed.
See my Politics as Polemics: The Converse Clausewitz Principle. I quote David Horowitz, a former leftist, who understands how these people operate.
I also refer you to recent posts by Malcolm Pollack who draws upon Carl Schmitt.
It is time to gird our loins and enter the fray. The fate of the Republic hangs in the balance.
See also: Rod Dreher: Floating Above the Fray as Usual. In the last couple of years, however, Dreher has 'evolved' somewhat.
Related:
Trump is Going to Win. I must add: only if we don't become complacent and we each do our bit.
The only sure way to stop a leftist from lying would be by stopping him from talking. The Biden administration is one of the most, or the most, mendacious in our history. Copycat that he is, Biden saw the Clintons and Obama get away with it and resolved to go them one better. A brazen liar and serial plagiarist, truth decay has rotted his soul. Will Nancy Pelosi pray for him? Dennis Prager:
Most people will tell that you that President Trump called Neo-Nazis “fine people” during his famous press conference following the Charlottesville riot. But he never did. So, why do so many believe it? CNN political analyst Steve Cortes explains how the Charlottesville lie happened and why it’s so dangerous. See the video here and then pass it on to family and friends. Then after they’ve seen it, ask them if they still believe “the lie”?
Under six minutes.
Tom Tillett often leaves very good comments, but he is 'slow on the trigger.' As a result, his contributions often get buried and go unread. I get the impression that he is someone who actually works for a living [grin]. Today he left two long but very good comments on the Never-Trump Mentality post. Here is the first, and here is the second which I now reproduce:
Bill writes to Malcolm, >>are you prepared to endorse extra-political means to defeat our political enemies?<<
Malcolm writes, >>This is war, and we should do what we can to win, rather than do only what we may, and lose. <<
A difficult question for me, but I am on Malcolm's side on this. I think the question depends on what time you think it is. Attacking and boarding a ship under another nation's flag is an act of piracy and the crew of the attacking ship is subject to criminal prosecution. However, any crew that does the same in a declared war cannot be prosecuted because such actions are under a completely different set of rules and laws.
Likewise, what tactics we adopt from the Left's arsenal depends on whether you think the Left has declared all-out war on the rest of us. I think it's clear that they have, and I believe Malcolm agrees. If so, then this is not normal politics and different, more flexible rules apply as to how we should respond.
How flexible? I dunno. But the clearest case is the reprehensible lawfare the Democrats are engaged in. I think Republican state AGs need to crank up the lawfare against Democrats. How about Adam Schiff running for the Senate in California? Since the DC Courts have stripped Trump of his presidential immunity for acts taken as President, then Schiff has no immunity for his acts and outright lies to the American public while in Congress. Surely there is an obscure statute somewhere that can be misinterpreted to hold [place?] Schiff in the docket.
Bullies need to be punched in the mouth or they will continue to punch the rest of us in the mouth – or worse.
BV agrees with Malcolm and Tom that we are at war with the Left, and he agrees with Tom's use of the phrase, "declared all-out war." The war is over the soul of America. The question concerns whether we should (i) preserve what remains of America as she was founded to be, and (ii) restore those good elements of the system bequeathed to us by the Founders, while (iii) preserving the legitimate progress that has been made (e.g. universal suffrage), OR whether we should replace the political system of the Founders with an incompatible system which can be described as culturally Marxist.
(This formulation of what the war is about may ignite some dissent among us friends. My approach is restorationist, not reactionary. There is the danger, however, of a merely semantic quibble. The combox is open.)
Tom implies that there are certain rules of engagement in the conduct of our war with our political enemies and that it is not the case that any and all means can be employed to defeat them. Here is where it gets very interesting.
I used to say, "You lie about us and we'll tell the truth about you." Now I am inclined to say, "You lie about us, and we'll lie about you." Slander us, we slander you. Smear us, we smear you. Shout us down, we shout you down. And so on.
So here is something we need to get clear about. Given that there are some rules of engagement with our political enemies, and that we cannot, or rather ought not, do just anything to win, what are the rules in this supersessionist (not secessionist, and not successionist) civil war in which we are now combatants?
Ron Paul and the principle of subsidiarity.
Top o' the Stack.
I would have thought that stopping the influx of Fentanyl would have priority over banning menthol cigarettes.
Here is a curious argument:
If it sounds a bit nanny state-ish to ban an otherwise legal product used by consenting adults, consider this: In 2009, Congress gave the FDA authority to ban all other flavors in cigarettes, which it did in order to make these dangerous products less attractive to new smokers. But Congress stalled on menthols and asked for more study.
So the more the feds ban, the less nanny state-ish any particular ban becomes?
If you are among the sane, reasonable, and morally decent, then you ought to consider leftists, and this includes today's Democrats, as political enemies. Here is one reason among many:
Earlier this year, RCP [RealClear Politics] learned that it was one of many news sites that appeared on an advertising blacklist put out by a group called Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British NGO that advises advertisers and search engine companies. GDI labeled RealClear Politics as a high-risk news site for disinformation. All because we include voices they don’t like. That we pair such voices with those they agree with doesn’t seem to matter to them.
Alles klar?
