Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Political Tactics

  • Climate ‘Theology’

    Tucker Carlson has a bad habit of referring to climate alarmism as climate 'theology.'  I know what he is trying to say, but it is unseemly for a conservative to misuse a perfectly good word and denigrate that to which it refers. Natural theology, which is a branch of philosophy, is a legitimate inquiry, as…

  • Expressive Individualism

    Is Trump an example? Substack latest.

  • DIE: ‘Equity’ Can Get You Killed

    Here: America’s top medical schools, worried [that] they have too few minority students, are doing something about it. They are lowering academic standards for admission and trying to hide the evidence. Columbia, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Stanford, Mount Sinai, and the University of Pennsylvania have already done so. The list already tops forty, and more…

  • Lifestyle Rightism

    Sohrab Ahmari is against it. Clean living and self-improvement are no substitute for political action. One form of Lifestyle Rightism is Rod Dreher's Benedict Option which Ahmari dubs "the New Frontierism" and criticizes for its ahistoricity. Ahmari's article rehearses  one aspect of the old problem of activism versus quietism. Can one productively blend the two?…

  • Depredatory Wokery: Resist and Refuse

    The good Baron over at Gates of Vienna has some worthwhile suggestions. (HT: Bill Keezer) My main suggestion is that you vote with your wallet. For example, if your alma mater requests money, tell them, politely but firmly, no dice as long as they support DIE.  ('Die' is the singular of 'dice.' Surely DIE is…

  • Steel Yourselves, Conservatives

    This is a good article. Read it. Not just analysis. The author makes some suggestions for action. And I learned a new word from it, polycule.

  • The Musket Canard, its F-15 Counterpart, the Need Canard, and 2A

    Tony Flood commenting on my Substack entry ARs and Cattle Cars: Excellent all around, Bill. Pithy opener and rises from there, especially the fixed meaning/variable application distinction. (Good biblical hermeneutics, too.) Will propagate.  Besides the musket canard, there's its F-15 counterpart, which recently came out of Biden's mouth (I wonder who put it there): to take…

  • Four Ways to Vote

    1) There is voting proper, with a ballot at the polling place. It won't do much if any good except at the local level. And even there it won't do any good if proper procedures are not followed, something that cannot be taken for granted these days. 2) There is 'voting with your feet.' Sick…

  • 1984 Bumpersticker

    It read: 1984 is not an instruction manual. True, but it may be that some of the novel's dystopian ideas can be turned against the Left.

  • Losertarian Update

    A tip of the hat to Dmitri Dain for sending us here where we read: Libertarian Marc Victor dropped out of Arizona’s closely watched Senate race on Tuesday, encouraging voters to cast their ballots for Republican Blake Masters in his challenge to Sen. Mark Kelly (D). Polls had shown Victor garnering support in the low single digits, but his…

  • Third Parties as Discussion Societies in Political Drag

    Substack latest.    

  • The Losertarian Party

    The Libertarian Party is for losers. If you are a conservative who votes Libertarian, you are a damned fool. You say you stand on 'principles'? Principles are great. And some of the Libertarian ones are salutary. But principles without power are just paper.  Politics is a practical game. Wise up and get with the program.…

  • Hot LInks

    Facebook blocked my page because of my refusal to sign up for Facebook Protect. They wanted me to set up two-factor authentication 'for my protection.' I decided not to go along on their phishing expedition.  Not that I have any objection to 2FA as such. You ought to use it for all your sensitive sites…

  • Moral Community and Civil War

    Malcolm Pollack writes, and I respond in blue:   Visited your blog today . . . and saw this striking passage:   But also: haven't the barbarians forfeited their (normative) humanity to such an extent that they no longer deserve moral consideration? Do they form a moral community with us at all?    I am…

  • ‘Democrats’ Aping National Socialists

    Excellent commentary here: In two years, the Nazis went from being a fringe party to having a stranglehold on the German government and people. It was then that they unleashed their previously subdued anti-Semitism, from boycotts to book burnings to de facto discrimination to de jure separation (Nuremberg laws) and, finally, to the Final Solution.…