Political Ponerology – Page 3 – Maverick Philosopher

Biden Broke his Promise, but Did He Lie? Promising, Lying, Predicting

I have no respect for Joe Biden, but a very high degree of respect for Jonathan Turley, who writes:

President Biden's decision to use his presidential powers on Sunday to pardon his own son will be a decision that lives in infamy in presidential politics. It is not just that the president used his constitutional powers to benefit his family. It is because the action culminates years of lying to the public about his knowledge and intentions in the influence-peddling scandal surrounding his family. Even among past controversies about the use of this pardon power, Biden has cemented his legacy for many, not as the commander in chief, but as the liar in chief.

The question is not whether Biden is a liar; he is. The question I am asking is whether he lied when he promised not to pardon his son. He did in fact make that promise on several occasions, and he did in fact break it. Those are known facts. But did Biden lie when he made that promise? What Turley says implies that he did lie. I beg to differ.

I should make it clear that I am not defending Biden. The man is morally corrupt to the core and a national disaster. I am merely using him to focus a question that interests me, namely, if a subject S promises to do X at time t1, and refuses to do X at some later time t2, did S tell a lie at t1 by his act of promising at t1? (I assume that the circumstances at t2 do not prevent S from delivering on his promise. I also assume that no weightier consideration such as a death threat justifies a change of mind on the part of S with respect to X during the period from t1 to t2.)

Can one lie about a future event? If not, then how could Biden's promising not to pardon his son be a lie? The pardoning was later than the promisings. It was therefore future relative to those promisings and had yet to occur. At the time of the promisings, there was either no fact for Biden to lie about, or no fact he could have known about. Either way, Biden did not lie when he made his promises, promises that he later broke.

On one natural way to think about the future, it ain't real until it happens. If we think about the future in this way, there was no fact for Biden to lie about when he made his promises, in which case he did not tell a lie when he made his promises.

On another way to think about the future, all future events are tenselessly real. If we think about the future in this way, then there is (tenselessly) a fact for Biden to lie about at the times of his promisings, but there is no way anyone not possessing paranormal precognitive powers could know what this fact is.

I am assuming that to lie is to issue a verbal or written statement intended to deceive one's audience about a state of affairs that the issuer of the statement either knows or believes to be the case. If so, then one cannot lie about what may or may not become the case, or about what is tenselessly the case but not accessible to our present knowledge.

Turley's response, based on the quotation above, would presumably be that Biden lied about his intention to pardon Hunter. Now if one forms a firm intention at time t to do X (or not do X) in the future, then at t there is the fact of the forming of that intention. That is something one can know about and lie about.

It is reasonable to conjecture that Biden at the time of his public promisings had no intention of delivering on his promise not to pardon his son, or, equivalently, had the intention to not deliver on the promise. But then the problem becomes: how could anyone know what Biden or anyone intends? Preternatural powers aside, one cannot peer into the mind of another and 'see' what is going on there.

And so we ought to distinguish between promise-breaking and lying. It is verifiable that Biden broke his promise: we simply compare the publicly accessible records of what he said with the publicly accessible record of his pardoning. What we cannot know is the nature of the inner mental intention behind the outwardly expressed promises. Hence we do not and cannot know whether Biden lied about his intention.

Let's not forget that the man is non compos mentis, not of sound mind. He is suffering from dementia. It is entirely possible that the superannuated grifter forgot or suppressed an original intention to not pardon his worthless son. If so, he broke a promise but did not lie.

And so, pace the estimable Turley, the massive case for Biden's being a liar cannot be and need not be augmented by citation of his pardoning of the apple that fell not far from the tree.

In sum, one can break a promise without lying. This argument-form is invalid:

1) S promised to do (or refrain from doing) X.

2) S broke his promise.

Therefore

3) S told a lie.

Promising is relevantly like predicting. Both are future-oriented. Many predicted in 2016 that Trump would lose the 2016 election. They were wrong in their prediction. Were they lying when that made their predictions? Of course not. Either the proposition Trump wins in 2016 had no truth-value prior to the election, or it had a truth-value, but one not known to the predictors. Either way, there as no lie. That's blindingly evident.

Promising is trickier, and so it is harder to think clearly about it. S's publicly accessible speech-act of promising to do or refrain from doing X is animated by S's mental and thus publicly inaccessible intention to do or refrain from doing X. The difference is that while one can predict one's own behavior — taking a third-person POV with respect to oneself — one is the agent of one's own actions and omissions.

Should Trump Use the DOJ Against his Enemies?

Would it be 'revenge' or would it be a wholly justifiable upholding of the rule of law? Would success be 'revenge' enough, as Trump has suggested? His enemies accused him of violating 'norms' when they themselves violated the norms that matter, those rooted in the rule of law and the Constitution. Doing so, they engaged once again in their trademark psychological projection. The 'norms' Trump violated were merely those of conventional civility.

Here:

Over the last four years, regime lawyers and government officials have repeatedly ignored the constitution, stretched the meaning of federal and state statutes, and shredded legal norms. They have investigated, prosecuted, and persecuted their political opponents. They did this to suppress those who challenged their rule and to send a message to would-be challengers.

With Donald Trump’s election and pending inauguration (assuming no shenanigans between now and then), unpleasant things will have to be done to hold these people to account. The regime’s aggressive lawlessness will require a response.

The response must balance the immediate need for accountability with the ultimate need for reconciliation. On the one hand, we must hold responsible those whose criminal conduct subverted our constitutional order. On the other, we must prepare to reconcile with the millions of Americans who erred grievously in supporting the regime’s lawlessness — at least with those people who are humble enough to acknowledge their error.

Equal justice under the law, an essential feature of the rule of law, means enforcing the law in an even-handed manner. Violators must be held responsible for their actions. This is not “retribution,” any more than arresting a thief or murderer constitutes retribution. All citizens are expected to obey the law. No one is above the law.

Stealth Ideologues: Hillary and Kamala

On 21 October 2016, I laid into Hillary for lying about the Heller decision. The post concluded:

Hillary is a stealth ideologue who operates by deception. This is what makes her so despicable. If she were honest about her positions, her support would erode. So not only are her policies destructive; she refuses to own them. She is an Obamination both at the level of ideas and at the level of character.

'Kamala' is substitutable for 'Hillary' salva veritate as the philosophers say. In plain English, if the first name is substituted for the second in the above passage, its truth is preserved.

If you complain that my tone is polemical, I will reply that of course it is, and justifiably so: we are at war with our political enemies. The cadre Dems I have just mentioned are not mere political opponents who share with us a commitment to the principles and values of our great constitutional republic, but revolutionaries out to replace that republic by way of a "fundamental transformation," as Barack Hussein Obama put it. To imagine that we are engaged with them in a gentle(wo)manly debate under the umbrella of shared commitments is to play the useful idiot as so many rank-and-file Dems still do. You are a superannuated sucker if you still think it is 1960 or even 1980.

I leave undecided whether Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus was right when he wrote, "Polemos (Πόλεμος) is the father of all and the king of all . . . ." (Fr. 53 from G. S. Kirk and J E Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge UP, 1969, p. 195)

And then there is this from the same date (21.X.16):

Leviticus 19:15: The Lord versus Hillary

“You shall not do injustice in judgment; you shall not show partiality to the powerless; you shall not give preference to the powerful; you shall judge your fellow citizen with justice." Alternate translations here.

In the third and final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said the following about Supreme Court nominations. "And the kind of people that I would be looking to nominate to the court would be in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful, standing on behalf of our rights as Americans."

This is the sort of leftist claptrap according to which the judiciary assumes legislative functions and the Constitution is a tabula rasa on which anything can be written. The purpose of the court is not to stand up to the powerful or take the side of the powerless, but to apply the law and administer justice.

There must be no partiality to the powerful. Might does not make right. But neither does lack of might. There must be no "partiality to the powerless."

(Credit where credit is due: I am riffing on a comment I heard Dennis Prager make. Plagiarism is another mark of leftism.)

Related: Weakness does not Justify

Kamala, Crime, and California Proposition 36

Leftists have an astonishingly casual attitude toward criminal behavior, so Kamala's recent behavior is entirely in character. Here:

47 Minus 36 Equals Kamala

"I am not going to talk about the vote on that. Because honestly it’s the Sunday before the election and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it."

That was Kamala Harris on Sunday, responding to a question about California ballot Proposition 36, a measure to reform the 2014 Proposition 47, which transformed theft of merchandise worth less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor. Attorney General Kamala Harris called it the “Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act,” but the measure launched a wave of car break-ins, shoplifting, and theft of car parts such as catalytic converters. So no surprise that Joe Biden’s replacement doesn’t want to talk about Prop 36. Harris has always been kinder to criminals than their innocent victims, whatever the gravity of the crime.

On December 2, 2015 in San Bernardino, Muslim terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik gunned down Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel. In a December 17 statement, and a statement one year later, Harris failed to condemn the killers and failed to name a single victim. They included blacks, Asians and Hispanics, but the attorney general failed to call the mass murder a hate crime or even an example of gun violence.

Now Kamala Harris is a disaster and anyone who votes for her is an anti-civilizational, crime-promoting fool. A vote for her is a vote for more crime. But I won't criticize her for not using the silly phrases 'hate crime' and 'gun violence.' These are phrases that conservatives ought to avoid. You have to understand that he who controls the terms of a debate controls the debate. Leftists understand this completely, but conservatives tend to be slow on the uptake.

See my Nat Hentoff on 'Hate Crime' Laws.

As for 'gun violence,' I have made the acquaintance of many a firearm but not one them has proven to be violent. Even leftists ought to be able to wrap their heads around the distinction between weapon and wielder. 'Gun violence' is an obfuscatory phrase the purpose of which is to shift the agency from the wielder to the weapon. I could go one for a couple of pages about what is behind that destructive move. (And you hope I won't.)

As I have said a few times before, language matters, and if you are a conservative don't talk like a willfully self-enstupidated 'liberal.'

If Trump Wins, the Left is Prepared to Intensify the War

Yesterday's Substack entry ended as follows:

Whatever the outcome on 5 November, the war will continue, intensify, and become increasingly ‘existential.’ That is to say: it will become less verbal, less cultural, [i.e., less like a mere culture war'] hotter, and more like a real war. The conflict unto death in which we are currently embroiled is deeply rooted in philosophical soil. To borrow the title of Thomas Sowell’s great 1987 book, it is A Conflict of Visions.

It appears that Trump has a good chance of winning. Our political enemies, of course, will not accept that result since they reject the American constitutional republic which makes provision for a peaceful transfer of power. Aiming at a "fundamental transformation of America," in Barack Hussein Obama's phrase, they are out to overturn our system of government. But being the stealth ideologues that they are, they will not 'own their intentions,' which is to say: they will not plainly state their plans. This is why Comrade Kamala utters the most vacuous of phrases when she is not outright lying. She comes across as an airhead, but she is less of a an airhead than she appears. She is a crafty political operator, not unlike Pelosi who also adopts the persona (mask) of the harmless dingbat. Kamala signals to her leftist base with the assurance that "my values haven't changed." She is assuring them that despite all the empty rhetoric, outright lies, and apparent reversals of position, she is still the same old hard-Left political Californicator she always was.

To appreciate the gravity of the situation and the danger we are in I refer you to Is the Left Preparing for War if Trump Wins? It begins:

The propaganda campaign labeling Donald Trump as an aspiring dictator determined to use the military and national security apparatus against his political opponents is designed not to affect the upcoming election but rather to shape the post-election environment. It is the central piece of a narrative that, by characterizing Trump as a tyrant (indeed likening him to Hitler), establishes the conditions for violence — not just another attempt on Trump’s life, but political violence on a massive scale intended to destabilize the country.

As I write in my forthcoming book Disappearing the President, Democratic Party research and media reports show that many senior party officials and operatives are preparing for the possibility of a Trump victory. Accordingly, planning is focused on undermining the incoming president with enough violence to rock his administration. Prominent post-election scenarios forecast such widespread rioting that the newly elected president would be compelled to invoke the Insurrection Act. With some senior military officials refusing to follow Trump’s orders, according to the scenarios, the U.S. Armed Forces would split, leaving America on the edge of the abyss.

Kamala the Joyful is a Serial, Brazen Liar

She's got 'em all beat now: Bill, Hillary, Barack, and Joey. I now hand off to VDH who provides plenty of evidence of her deep-seated mendacity. His article opens:

In the last two weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris has been trying to revive her stagnant campaign by smearing Trump as being Hitlerian and a fascist. She claims Trump is planning to put his enemies in encampments [interment camps].

Read it all, and appreciate the difference between Kamala and Trump.

If you vote for her, you are as contemptible as she is. If you vote for neither, I won't call you contemptible, but foolish: you fail to grasp that one or the other will become president (barring assassination, etc.) and you fail to understand what is in your own best long-term self-interest. The following are not in your interest even if you are a terminally-benighted leftist: WW3, increasing inflation, rampant crime by homegrown criminals and foreign drug cartels, terrorist events in the homeland, environmental degradation by illegal invaders, increasing suspicion and Balkanization, (. . .) not to mention an insane open borders policy that is at the root of most of the above ills.

Ready for Rage?

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Should Trump win, do you think our political enemies will accept the result, acquiesce in a peaceful transfer of power, and resolve to work harder next time? Expect a post-election temper tantrum:

Democrats have warned the country that Trump is a “danger to democracy,” a fascist, another Hitler. But it’s the Democrats who use the threat of violence to turn the election in their favor. “If Trump does win the election, the left in America will certainly riot,” says author and political commentator Douglas Murray. “They will make sure cities they believe they dominate go up in flames again.”

And they’ve apparently been considering the insurgent option for months. Jonathan Tobin wrote in the Federalist in February that Democrats “need a backup plan if the courts won’t do their bidding” to keep Trump out of the White House if he wins by “doing exactly what they labeled as ‘insurrection.'”

“A Trump victory would almost certainly set off bloody riots in every American city,” he said.

Hell hath no fury like the Democrats who won’t allow a peaceful transition of power.

Douglas Murray is a sensible and astute commentator. Be sure to click on the internal hyperlink.

Auschwitz Survivor: Trump’s not Hitler, but a Mensch

Here:

Jerry Wartski, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, says that Kamala Harris comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is "the worst thing I have ever heard in 75 years living in the United States."

"I know President Trump and he would never say this, and Kamala Harris knows this," he told the New York Post.

“Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was 9 years old. He murdered my parents and most of my family," he said. "I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes."

"She owes my parents and everybody else who was murdered by Hitler an apology for repeating this lie."

"He's a mensch," he said about Trump.

Kamala Harris is a contemptible, truth-hating know-nothing, and anyone who would vote for her is a contemptible, truth-hating know-nothing. I hope we can all agree on that.

For more on this delightful, heart-warming topic, see J. D. Vance's response to CNN's Jake Tapper.

UPDATE 10/28

Sasha Stone, Meet the Real Fascists

Elon Musk: If Trump loses, 2024 will be our last election

Here. The title claim begins at 3:05. His explanation of the claim is cogent, and I fear he is right. 'Interesting' times, these. Who could be bored?

UPDATE 10/28: Elon at the Trump MSG rally.

Bumper Stickers and Yard Signs

As November 5th approaches, I am seeing a lot of them, especially yard signs. I myself prefer to 'go gray' inasmuch as such signage will reliably trigger emotions, but never persuade anyone to change his position. Suppose you have good relations with your neighbor across the street. You share some interests, but have never talked politics. You display a Trump-Vance sign. He sees it, and thinks to himself, "I thought Ron was a nice guy, but what sort of person would vote for Hitler?" What did you accomplish by putting up the yard sign? Nothing, and you've made things slightly worse.

"But shouldn't you stand up for what you believe in?"

Generally speaking, yes. But there are more effective and prudent ways of proceeding. Vote, encourage your like-minded friends to vote, try to persuade open-minded fence-sitters, make a campaign contribution.

There are also safety considerations, especially if you have a family to protect. Take a gander at this, seeing once again just how vicious, vile, and dangerous our political enemies can be.

Trump supporters in Pennsylvania are reportedly being targeted with threatening letters from radical leftists, warning them that their visible support for the former President could lead to dire consequences.

Residents with Trump signs in their yards, particularly in Philadelphia, have reported receiving disturbing letters through the U.S. Postal Service, complete with fake Trump campaign letterheads, Post Millenial first reported.

The threatening letters, which start off as a seemingly benign “thank you” note for being engaged in the electoral process, quickly devolve into dark, ominous threats.

One Trump voter, Janet from Penn Valley, shared her harrowing experience to Post Millenial.

After proudly displaying Trump signs in her yard, she received one of these letters, filled with hateful rhetoric and explicit threats to her family and property.

The unsettling message was far from an isolated incident. Janet, who reported the matter to the Lower Merion Police, revealed that other Trump supporters in her area had received similar letters.

Local law enforcement, however, has been unable to pursue the matter further, as the letters were delivered through the mail without any available video evidence.

Despite this, Trump supporters in the area have confirmed that this intimidation campaign is widespread, with reports of the same threatening letter being delivered both by mail and without postage directly into mailboxes.

The letter, which opens with pleasantries, swiftly transitions into a vitriolic condemnation of Trump supporters, labeling the former President a “felon, rapist, desecrator,” and blaming him for political violence in the country.

Read it all.

Kamala the Destroyer

Tom Klingenstein understands what's going on:

Republicans criticize Kamala Harris for refusing to reveal her agenda, but, as Frank Cannon points out, she already has. Her agenda is the agenda of her vice-presidential pick, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota — someone Harris “ loves,” as she said recently. Unlike Kamala, Walz’s agenda and his beliefs are out there for all to see. He supports the full belief system of what I am calling “Kamalism”: a utopian society, today nominally led by Kamala, based on equal group outcomes.

Admitting people to college or flight training school (or anything else) based on quotas is the essence of the destructive Left’s “social justice,” which is utterly irreconcilable with American justice, which is based on individual merit. Because these are two understandings of justice (as occurred in the Civil War) it’s one or the other, group quotas or merit. A house divided against itself cannot stand; it will be all one thing to another. Not to put too fine a point on it: Kamalism must try to destroy America (and of course the reverse: we must try to save it). So, let’s frame the election: “Kamalism versus America.”

This is by far the most important aspect of this election. One candidate wants to destroy our country ; the other wants to save it. This seems to me what virtually every politician misses. This election should not primarily be about immigration or crime or inflation or anything else Republican and Democrat politicians talk about. It should be about whether to elect a woman who wants to destroy America or a man who wants to improve it. But it isn’t. If we are to save America we must make the election about this choice, for every voter, right up until Election Day.

Kamala the Plagiarist

She follows in the footsteps of Joe and Jill Biden, Claudine Gay, and so many others. Christopher Rufo exposes her.

At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal-justice issues.

However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

Read it all.

Moral Community and Civil War

Substack latest.

An exchange with Malcolm Pollack.

More Proof that Our Political Enemies are . . .

. . . indeed political enemies. Jonathan Turley is solid and sane:

This week, Elton John publicly renounced the Rocket Man — no, not the 1972 song, but Elon Musk, whom he called an “a**hole” in an awards ceremony.

Sir Elton, 77, is only the latest among celebrities and pundits to denounce Musk for his support of former president Donald Trump and his opposition to censorship. Musk-mania is so overwhelming that some are calling for his arrest, deportation and debarment from federal contracts.