Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Political Theology

  • Radical Islam’s Threat to the Left

    Substack latest. Why don't leftists — who obviously do not share the characteristic values and beliefs of Islamists — grant what is spectacularly obvious to everyone else, namely, that radical Islam poses a grave threat to what we in the West cherish as civilization, which includes commitments to free speech, open inquiry, separation of church…

  • Frédéric Bastiat on the Law

    To gain historical perspective and philosophical insight as we slide into the abyss, you must read Bastiat among others. Our current situation is nothing new and what the Frenchman writes is directly relevant to our decline. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings at dusk. It's twilight time. Can we turn things around? I don't…

  • Who Am I?

    Personal versus political identity. Top o' the Stack.

  • ‘2A’ a Terrorist Marker?

    It emerged in the Congressional FBI whistleblower hearings that the abbreviation '2A' is a "terrorist marker." That came as news to me. (But see here.) I have been using '2A' from time to time as an innocuous abbreviation of 'Second Amendment.'  The context, of course, is the Bill of Rights which are the first ten…

  • “All Men are Created Equal”

    I have claimed against certain alt-rightists that the above famous declaration in the Declaration of Independence is not an empirical claim about the properties and powers of human animals whether as individuals or as groups, but a normative claim about persons as rights-possessors. For if "All men are created equal" is an empirical claim about…

  • Trump the Only Way Forward

    Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda is the Only Path Forward Refreshingly realistic but also deeply troubling. I fear the author is right. Conservatives lost the culture war and so now:  Conservatives do not have a viable path to political power any other way. The issues of national survival are of primary…

  • Stackman Strikes Again!

    Here

  • Does Classical Liberalism Destroy Itself?

    Joe Odegaard sends us to The Orthosphere where we find Classical Liberalism Destroys Itself. The opening paragraph is stylistically brilliant, especially the concluding sentence, and I agree with the paragraph content-wise, though not with the quotation from Dreher: “Classical liberalism detached from the Christian faith is what got us here.”  Rod Dreher, “David French: Not…

  • Down with Tobacco, Up with Marijuana

    Why down with the first (I allude to the menthol cigarette ban) and up with the second?  Why the differential treatment and the misplaced moral enthusiasm? The locoweed I smoked with band members in the late '60s was tame stuff, poor in tetrahydrocannabinol as compared to the potent THC-rich product on the market today.  Since…

  • The God Question and the Christian Proposition

    A conversation between Alain Fikielkraut and Pierre Manent.  Very French and very flabby, but here is an excerpt that I approve of (emphasis added): P.M. What is the nature of Islam’s challenge for us? And who is this “we” being challenged? The challenge lies in the fact that what is happening is that Islam is exerting…

  • Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?

    This just in from Vito Caiati: Your thought provoking post An Oligarchic Pathocracy and in particular the twenty characteristics of this collective psychological derangement, each of which is an absolute inversion of the natural, the good, and the rational, leads me to consider whether potent demonic (Satanic) forces are at work here and now, either…

  • Integralism in Three Sentences

    Substack latest. Here are the three sentences: Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that rejects the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holding that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two…

  • Politics and Meaning: More on the Conservative Disadvantage

    Here again is my Substack entry "The Conservative Disadvantage."  In it I wrote, "We don't look to politics for meaning. Or rather, we do not seek any transcendent meaning in the political sphere." Thomas Beale charitably comments (edited): Just a short note on that post: your observation about meaning is  one of the most penetrating…

  • The Fix We Are In: How Should We Respond to the ‘Woke’ Revolutionaries?

    The difference between paleo-liberal and post-liberal responses to the 'woke' Left is well described in a recent Substack entry White tribalism is a third response. I have been entertaining (with some hospitality) the notion that whites may need to go tribal pro tempore, for the time being, in order to defend themselves and their interests (which…

  • David French, Christianity, and Politics

    Substack latest.