Category: Political Morality

A Facebook Sampler; Political Language; Political Ethics

Examples of some of the more measured things I post on Facebook.

PROPAGANDA

Despite the term’s largely pejorative connotation, propaganda is not by definition false or misleading or harmful. Propaganda is anything of a verbal or pictorial nature that is propagated to influence behavior. Propaganda can consist of truths or falsehoods, good advice or bad, exhortation to good behavior or subornation of bad. Anti-smoking and anti-drug messages are propaganda but the messages are salutary. Leftist propaganda is mainly destructive while conservative propaganda typically inspires ameliorative action.

SKEPTICISM ABOUT GOVERMENT

Skepticism about government  is a classically American attitude. It is based in a sober, and indeed conservative, understanding of human nature. Men are not angels. They are flawed, fallible, and easily suborned by their lusts, in particular, their lust for power. Government puts a check on the power that corrupts. But it also must be borne in mind that those in government are just like the rest of us. Their power must be kept in check by the governed. The Founders understood all this. They were a rare and highly distinguished generation of philosophers who were also men of action.  They were our greatest generation, not those who fought and died in World War II.

THE ALTAR OF ACTIVISM

Don’t sacrifice your happiness on the altar of activism. Although happiness involves activity as Aristotle observed, it also involves rest, appreciation, enjoyment, gratitude, contentment, and contemplation. These, especially the last five, are deeply conservative. And they lie beyond the political. We conservatives should be politically active only to the extent that it is necessary to beat back the totalitarians for whom the political is everything. And beat back these bastards we must.
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My tone in the final sentence third piece moves toward the polemical. More so in the following one.
IGNORE THE POLLS
Ignore the polls whether or not they are fake. Some of them are. Polls can induce complacency or the opposite. Just vote! But never for any Islamo-commie. And if you are concerned about the short-term uptick in the price of gasoline, I say you are selfish, short-sighted shithead, lost in your petty personal life, and no true conservative. Just one nuclear explosion over your shallow pate will ruin your whole day.  You won’t stand against Muslim savagery because you don’t want to pay more for gasoline in the short term? Then I say you are contemptible. Drive less.  Learn how to drive efficiently. Learn how to drive, period. Get your priorities straight.
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I don’t hesitate in polemical venues to call our political enemies scumbags and shitheads, although I sometimes package  the latter epithet in quasi-civil terms of ‘intracranial feculence.’  This polemical practice of mine raises questions not just of taste and good manners, but of morality.  Is it perhaps morally wrong to address our fellow mortals with terms of contempt? Or does personal abuse have a morally legitimate use?  This is not an easy question to answer, and I remain open on it.  But it is a fascinating area of investigation. What should we call it? Political ethics?
     Although ‘scumbag’ is an abusive term, it has a non-abusive semantic core to the effect that the one to whom the term is applied is morally reprehensible. If I call you morally  reprehensible, I am not abusing you but expressing  a considered moral judgment. Judge we must: ourselves and others.  Judge, and be prepared to be judged! Thus spoke Ayn Rand. I could argue that it is consistent with the New Testament verse, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” But that’s a difficult topic for another occasion.
     Compare ‘stupid’ and ‘scumbag.’ Neither is nice. Both are abusive. But the difference is that the non-abusive semantic core of ‘stupid’ is non-moral whereas the core of ‘scumbag’ is moral. The non-abusive core of ‘stupid’ is unintelligent.  When I call Kamala Harris stupid, I am expressing my factual (non-moral) judgment that she lacks intelligence, or the sorts of intelligence required for the positions she aspires to hold. But I am doing more: I am showing disrespect for her.  I am ‘dissing’ her. Is that morally allowable? It is if she is personally responsible for her lack of intelligence.  For I would insist that we all have a moral obligation to develop our intellects as far as we can up to the innate limits that we have no control over. (Ought implies can; ultra posse nemo obligatur.) To the extent that a person fails to meet this moral obligation, I feel justified in charging her with willful self-enstupidation, a charge which is itself abusive, but not merely abusive.
     You can see how complicated this discussion can become. Time to bring this installment to a close. In the present circumstances, our political opponents are  not mere opponents but enemies.  Our enemies pose an existential threat to us. An existential threat is not merely a threat to our biological life but to our way of life which goes well beyond the biotic into the economic, the social, the cultural, the historical, and the spiritual, the latter of which  embraces both Hegel’s objektiver Geist and his subjektiver Geist.  Political punch-back with abusive language is justified in the present circumstances  given that our political opponents are  subversives who pose a mortal treat to our system of government, the best system the mind of man has yet to develop.  Liberty-loving patriotic Americans will not accept Islamo-commie DSA-Dem dhimmitude. You must vote! and do it now.  If we can defeat the Islamo-commie scum politically, we won’t have to reach for the extra-political. No one his right mind could want that. Long live the Republic!

Trump versus Prevost: Crudity versus Blather

Donald J. Trump issued a disgusting tweet on Easter Sunday morning. I commented on it in Political Polarization in the Age of Trump.  But I fail to see the value of Pope Leo’s pious performative Easter Sunday response.

The pope continued with words directed at the current conflict in the Middle East: “The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us!… Let those who have weapons lay them down!

If you threw down your weapons before Hitler, he would not be moved to do likewise, but kill you on the spot on the ground that you had thereby demonstrated your physiological decadence and unfitness for life in the only world there is. Something very similar holds for the Muslim thugs of Iran. It is utter folly to project into others one’s own values and attitudes, as if we are all the same ‘deep down’ or all ‘really want the same things.’ Bellicosity is hard-wired into some. Thugs, whether born that way or socialized into it, have no regard for your tender-hearted love of humanity.

The Islamo-theocrats have vowed to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization, and have proven their intent through countless horrific acts over many years.  They cannot be reached by Prevostian pieties. And there is no small hypocrisy in Leo’s decidedly unleonine mouthings. Would he not call upon the armed might of the Italian state to crush any jihadis who descended on Vatican City to destroy its people and its treasures?  Would he allow their slaughter and its destruction?

I discuss the problem in detail in Morality Private and Public. The essay concludes with some penetrating observations of Hannah Arendt  from  “Truth and Politics” in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245:

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked “to do as much evil as they please”), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with “what is good for themselves” cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the “common good,” the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher or Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher and a Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic “Better to suffer wrong than to do it” and the Christian “Resist not the evildoer.” But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as a citizen. As a citizen, I cannot unrestrictedly “welcome the stranger” as the New Testament enjoins, the stranger who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug smuggler or a human trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I must not aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger’s lawbreaking, I would not be “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops and others who seek to inject a particular personal morality into the public sphere.

Are We at Maximal Polarization yet?

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.

Trump’s Demand for Unconditional Surrender

Edward Feser at X:

Unbelievably reckless and immoral. As the Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe warned, the demand for unconditional surrender is a recipe for increasing rather than decreasing the tenacity of an enemy’s resistance, which will in turn tempt us to deploy ever more barbaric methods of warfare yielding ever higher numbers of civilian casualties. This was what led to the abominations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People say “If we hadn’t done that, the invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath.” But that presupposes that an invasion aimed at securing unconditional surrender was necessary and justifiable in the first place, which it was not. That an enemy nation has done wrong does not entail a right to demand that it put itself totally under our control . . . .

Feser, drawing upon Anscombe, is making an important point. If the adversary in an armed conflict acquiesces in the demand for unconditional surrender, the adversary not only surrenders but does so in such a way as to permit the enemy to do whatever it wants to the subjugated entity, including slaughtering the latter’s entire population. This is a purely conceptual point that merely unpacks the meaning of ‘unconditional surrender.’  Call it P1.

But the leaders of no  entity on the losing side of an armed conflict, least of all the Islamist entity,  will agree to that, assuming that they are sane and not suicidal.  Call this point P2. And so the likely, but not inevitable, effect of  the demand for unconditional surrender will be to increase the tenacity of the losing entity’s resistance in almost every conceivable case.  Call this proposition P3. So far, so good.  Feser is on solid ground, and I agree.

But there is no necessity that the party making the demand for unconditional surrender will go on to commit atrocities to enforce compliance with the demand for unconditional surrender. In fact, the U.S. demand for U.S. — pun intended — might well be a blustery move, a feint,  on Trump’s part as one might expect from such a macher  who is also notoriously sloppy in his use of words. The man is a crafty transactional pragmatist who scorns the typical political and diplomatic protocols and who likes outsmarting and out-psyching his enemies.

So why is the demand for unconditional surrender immoral?  How does one validly move from the conjunction of P1 and P2 and P3 to the conclusion that the demand for unconditional surrender is immoral, as Feser claims it is?

Am I missing something? (I wouldn’t put it past myself.)

Resist Not the Evil-Doer?

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.

But he also makes good points that didn’t occur to me.

On Lame Appeals for Civility

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.

The Dems, True to Form, are Lying

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.

Is ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ a Concentration Camp?

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?

Ronald Radosh on David Horowitz: A Critical Appreciation

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.

Leftists as Political Retromingents

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. 

Political Enemies and Political Tactics

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.

The Charlottesville Lie

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.