Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Politics

  • Political Action and the Principle of Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien

    Attributed to Voltaire. "The best is the enemy of the good."  The idea is that one should not allow the pursuit of an unattainable perfection to impede progress toward an attainable goal which, while not perfect, is better than the outcome that is likely to result if one seeks the unattainable. Here is another formulation,…

  • What a Clinton Supreme Court Would Mean for America

    William J. Bennett nails it.  He concludes: Too many of our rights, liberties, and securities already hang by a one-vote thread. A Clinton Supreme Court would surely do away with them. It is a better bet that a President Trump together with Vice President Pence and a Republican Congress would ensure that Scalia's seat or…

  • Not to Vote for Trump is to Aid Hillary

     James N. Anderson has a post entitled A Non-Vote is not a Vote: One of the reasons put forward by some conservatives for voting for the controversial Republican nominee is that not voting for him would be “a vote for Hillary”. It’s important to understand why this is a really bad argument. I agree that…

  • Obama the Brazen Liar

    Here: “We do not pay ransom. We didn’t here, and we won’t in the future.” Barack Obama might like to have that one back this morning, to stick a pin in the moving finger that writes. But the finger done writ, and it won’t come back to cancel a single line of the president’s fatuous…

  • ‘Dog Whistle’ Becomes a Buzz Word

    Or rather a buzz phrase. Mollie Hemingway: A dog whistle is, according to Wikipedia, “political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.” Saying that Hillary Clinton lacks the physical and mental stamina to take on…

  • A Difference Between Democrats and Republicans

    Democrats 'circle the wagons' while Republicans prefer a different type of circularity, that of the 'circular firing squad.' Related articles The Democrats Have Moved Farther to the Left than the Republicans to the Right 'The Punishment Must Fit the Crime' and Lex Talionis Harry Reid on Burden of Proof

  • George Will’s Moral Narcissism

    What is moral narcissism? Roger L. Simon: What you believe, or claim to believe or say you believe—not what you do or how you act or what the results of your actions may be—defines you as a person and makes you “good.” It is how your life will be judged by others and by yourself. In 19th-century France, the gastronome Jean…

  • Why ‘Never Trump’ Conservatives are Wrong about Trump

    An excellent, balanced, piece by Charles Kesler.  Charles R. Kesler is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the Claremont Review of Books.

  • The Subterranean Link and the ‘Bow-Tie Brigade’

    Here is perhaps the deepest connection, the subterranean link, between the decidedly strange bedfellows, Leftism and Islamism: both deny the absoluteness of truth and both make it subservient to power and arbitrary will. But how is it that Islamists attack objective truth? Aren't they theists? Don't they believe in an absolute source and ground of…

  • The Leftist as Retromingent

    A retromingent is an animal that urinates backwards.  Posturing as 'progressive,' the leftist does what to the past?

  • Limited Government

    Being a conservative, I advocate limited government.  Big government leads to big trouble as we fight endlessly, acrimoniously, and fruitlessly over all sorts of issues that we really ought not be fighting over.  As one of my slogans has it, "The bigger the government, the more to fight over."  The final clause of the First Amendment…

  • The Political and the Religious

    I stated that the reason for carefully vetting Muslims who aim to immigrate into the USA is political rather than religious.  I had several points in mind, one of them being that it is the theocratic character of Islam that renders it incompatible with Western values, but not its specifically religious character. Theocracy is a…

  • You Say You Want Money Out of Politics?

    You say you want money out of politics? But of course you understand that running political campaigns costs money.  What you object to is the buying of influence.  What you object to are candidates who will do the bidding of their deep-pocketed donors, whether corporate or individual.  Now along comes Donald Trump who funds himself…

  • Politics as Adversarial and the Stupidity of Republicans

    Perhaps you think I go too far when I liken politics to warfare.  Well then, will you admit that it is adversarial? The defense attorney in a court of law fails to do his job if he strives for objectivity: he is paid to argue on behalf of his client.  He is paid to be…

  • Hillary Milhous Clinton

    Jonathan Turley: It has taken almost 50 years, but the Democrats have finally found their inner Nixon. Make no mistake about it: Hillary Clinton is the most Nixonian figure in the post-Watergate period. Indeed, Democrats appear to have reached the type of moral compromise that Nixon waited, unsuccessfully, for Republicans to accept: Some 71% of Democrats want Clinton to…