Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Political Theology

  • Is Trump Still the TACO Man? Or is he now THE HAMMER?

    VDH, Ten Iranian Questions: Trump had warned the Iranians on numerous occasions. They never got the message. They were apparently listening to the American Left’s smears of Trump as a “TACO” (“Trump Always Chickens Out”)—a silly slur phrase that just died Saturday night. And die it did. To hell with the American Left with its…

  • The Presidential Power of Pardon: A Political-Theological Theme

    According to Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 56: All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development—in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example,…

  • Carl Schmitt on Political Romanticism as a Form of Occasionalism

    Another in a Substack series.

  • Who is the Enemy? More on Carl Schmitt

    Commenter Ben wrote: Neighbors are familiar, local. This is in direct contrast to the sort of pablum about being a "citizen of the world" and preferring the plight of the universal faceless stranger over what you owe to your own countrymen . . . That's right. I'll add that while we are enjoined to love…

  • The Secularization of the Judeo-Christian Equality Axiom

    With a little help from Carl Schmitt. Top o' the Stack.  Ben wants to talk about Schmitt. This article will serve as an introduction. You say Schmitt was a Nazi? So was Heidegger. Frege, according to Michael Dummett, was an anti-Semite. And Sartre was a Stalinist. You won't read these thinkers because of their distasteful…

  • Five Current U. S. Protestant Political Outlooks

    "There are currently five major streams of Protestant political outlook and activism." 1) The old Religious Left 2) The old Religious Right 3) The neo-Anabaptist Left 4) MAGA Christianity 5) TheoBro Right Finally, there is the TheoBro right, which wants a Christian confessional state that legally privileges Christianity as the only remedy for defeating the…

  • Thomas Aquinas: Unity is Our Strength!

    Summa Contra Gentiles, Book IV, Chapter 1, C. J. O'Neill, tr., University of Notre Dame Press, 1975, p. 35, para. 2, emphasis added: . . . since causes are more noble than their effects, the very first caused  things are lower than the First Cause, which is God, and still stand out above their effects.…

  • J. D. Vance at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

    The Veep's performance was impressive. The man has excellent public speaking skills, is considerably more articulate than his boss, and displays natural political talent. He will make a fine successor.  On the down side, he, unlike Trump, is a professional politician. I don't have to explain what that means. Trump's astonishing effectiveness is in large…

  • “How I Joined the Resistance”

    J. D. Vance on becoming Catholic.  I wonder if David French has read this.

  • Caiati on Feser on the GOP Platform re: Abortion

    This just in from Dr. Vito Caiati: I am wondering if you have been following the ongoing, intense debate on the GOP platform that has taken place on X and in several conservative online journals, which was ignited by Edward Feser and other social conservatives, who are strongly critical of the removal of long-standing planks…

  • David Brooks Interviews Steve Bannon

    This is an important interview. I will add a few comments at the end.   Excerpts: You said something I’ve got to ask you about, that Trump’s a moderate. In what areas is the MAGA movement farther right than Trump? BANNON: I think farther right on radical cuts of spending, No. 1. I think we’re much…

  • Jews and Christians Together

    A reader of this blog recently opined, "And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet." This provocative comment ignited some animated push-back from other commenters. And so it was serendipitous that I should stumble this morning upon Jews and Christians Together by Ian Speir. If…

  • Democracy and Toleration

    Jesus and the Powers (N. T. Wright & Michael F. Bird, Zondervan, 2024): Democracies are compelled to tolerate and enfranchise [give the vote to] people who stand in resolute opposition to the very idea of democracy itself. (164) This sentence implies that a democracy is a system of government in which the will of the…

  • Reading Now: Jesus and the Powers

    By N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird. Subtitle: "Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies." Just out. Available via Amazon.  Memo to Brian B: order a copy and we'll discuss it the next time you're in town. It's right up your Calvinist alley and highly relevant to our last…

  • Realpolitik and What it Excludes

    It has been said that war is politics with bloodshed while politics is war without bloodshed. The saying is strongly reminiscent of Carl von Clausewitz: "War is politics by other means." Both exemplify Realpolitik. What does Realpolitik exclude? It excludes any politics based on otherworldly principles such as Christian principles. Does it not? The exclusion is implied…