Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Politics

  • Is it Rational to be Politically Ignorant?

    A re-post from March 2016.  Was in Georgia 10 pt; now in 12 pt. Slightly emended. Stands up well. Internal hyperlink verified. …………………………. There are those who love to expose and mock the astonishing political ignorance of Americans.  According to a 2006 survey, only 42% of Americans could name the three branches of government.  But…

  • Guest Post: Vito Caiati on David Brooks

    I asked long-time reader Dr. Vito Caiati, historian, to comment on David Brook's Atlantic article, America is Having a Moral Convulsion.  Vito responded with alacrity and acerbity, and I have thrown in my two cents. Comments enabled. …………………………… 1.  The essay is entirely descriptive rather than analytical in that it presents various economic and sociological…

  • Policy and Personality

    The first trumps the second.

  • Voting and the Stupidity of Liberals

    A re-post from February 2018. Michelle Malkin: Two adult men, occupying lofty perches as law professors, argued this week that the voting age in the U.S. should be lowered to 16 because some high school survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting who want gun control "are proving how important it is to include young people's…

  • A Facebook Post

    Here I was misinformed. I was told that individual FB posts could be read by people without FB accounts if they were provided with the URL of the post.  Well, click on the link and see what happens. You will see the post for a second or two, sans comments, and then you will be…

  • Should Firearms Manufacturers be Civilly Liable for Gun Crimes?

    Joe Biden thinks so: Hold gun manufacturers accountable. In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products – a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will…

  • The Political Equivalent of Divorce?

    You've heard me say that we need to find the political equivalent of divorce if we are to reduce the animosity that threatens to destroy us as a nation. But the marital analogy limps badly. Although I don't think much of Damon Linker, he talks sense here: Part of me gravitates to a fantasy of…

  • Democrat Extremism Has Deep Roots

    Issues and Insights: While the Democrats’ lurch to port looks like a recent event, it’s been decades in the making. The party has been a comfortable home to closeted authoritarians for decades. Its big government agenda is a safe harbor for socialists, statists, coercionists, and sworn enemies of liberty. Democrats have a history of rejecting…

  • Defunding: The Most Effective Weapon in Our Arsenal?

    When it comes to resisting the depredations of the Left, the best tactic is defunding/divestment. It's easy: just refuse to give money to your alma mater, say. When their bean counters make an appeal you simply ignore it, or explain why you will not fund opposition to your values. It costs nothing. No check to…

  • Christianity and Politics

    The Christian who sees politics with worldly eyes must support Donald J. Trump. The Christian who doesn't must withdraw from the fight and turn the other cheek even if it means getting slaughtered, just as Jesus allowed himself to be slaughtered. But the apolitical Christians won't be slaughtered right away. They will first have to…

  • Politics as Polemics: The Converse Clausewitz Principle

    Would that I could avoid this political stuff.  But I cannot in good conscience retreat into my inner citadel and let my country and its Western heritage be destroyed — the country that makes it possible for me to cultivate the garden of solitude, retreat into my inner citadel, and pursue pure theory for its…

  • Never Trumpers Never Quit being Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

    Being parasites, they lose if Trump loses, and being Never Trumpers, they lose if Trump wins. It's a lose-lose situation for these miserable yap-and-scribble irrelevancies. Julie Kelly: A lack of self-reflection, of course, is just one of the many fatal character flaws of NeverTrump. What they must not realize is how much they need Trump…

  • Sam Harris and the Problem of Disagreement: Is Conversation Our Only Hope?

    Sam Harris: More and more, I find myself attempting to have difficult conversations with people who hold very different points of view. And I consider our general failure to have these conversations well—so as to produce an actual convergence of opinion and a general increase in goodwill between the participants—to be the most consequential problem…

  • POTUS at Rushmore: A Great Speech

    If you agree with the speech, you are either an American or appreciative of American values; if not, a hate-America leftist.  The speech could be taken as a test of where one stands. There was nothing "dark and divisive" about it. Trump is not a divider, but the Great Clarifier. He is not a divider…

  • Point of No Return

    The 2020 presidential election will not be Biden versus Trump; Biden is but a shell, a puppet, a has-been on cognitive life support. The election will be Biden's keepers versus Trump. But even this observation does not cut deeply enough. 2020 will be a referendum on whether the people want the preservation of the Republic…