Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Politics

  • Take it Like a Man

    Here via Andrew Klavan. 

  • Gentlemen Lose Against Thugs

    Here.  

  • Kevin Kim on the Mourning of the Morning After

    Kevin Kim has been following me since late 2003 before I was a proper blogger commencing 4 May 2004 and only a mere slogger (slow blogger without the proper software: I'd upload batches of short posts to a website that I have long since taken down). In his Conservatives Mourn, Kevin links to me, Malcolm…

  • Bread, Circuses, and Decline

    This from an English reader commenting on my owl of Minerva post: America's fondness for bread and circuses is by no means singular and all may be well for a while, as Theodore Dalrymple observed, at least as long as the bread holds out. Yet the twilight quickly becomes darkness and after the owl of…

  • Libertarians are the Ralph Naders of the Conservative Side

    I just heard Dennis Prager say that on his radio show.  Exactly right.  The point is to do good, not feel good about yourself by making some meaningless, ineffectual, narcissistic, self-congratulatory, adolescent 'statement.'  It is a futile gesture to 'stand on principle' and 'vote your conscience' when the candidate representing your principles is unelectable.  Politics is…

  • The Owl of Minerva Spreads its Wings at Dusk

    Obama won, conservatism lost, and a tipping point has been reached in America's decline. Our descent into twilight and beyond is probably now irreversible.  The economy is bad, the opposition fought hard and well, and the incompetent leftist won anyway.  Why? The Left promises panem and the culture's circenses have kept the masses distracted from…

  • My Campaign Sign

    Subtle, eh?  I thought of placing two such chairs side by side, the second to signify the vacuity of the benighted and mendacious Joe Biden, but then I thought that might confuse people. Did you vote?  Of course, I don't want any of you liberal knuckleheads to vote thereby canceling out the thoughtful votes of…

  • Vote Libertarian, Waste a Vote

    Did you perchance vote for Gary Johnson for president? Then you wasted your vote on an unelectable candidate and helped Barack Obama's re-election. The truth of a view does not depend on its popularity.  But the political implementation of a view does depend on the electability of the candidate or candidates who represent it.  If…

  • Ten Reasons Not to Vote Democrat

    The Dems are the left-wing party in the U. S. Almost all Dems nowadays are leftists or liberals — there is no practical difference at present.  It's not 1960 any more and you geezers out there with your sentimental attachment to the 'Democrat' label need to wise up.  So any reason to oppose liberals is a…

  • Subsidiarity and the Left’s Assault on Civil Society

    You say you're Catholic and you are going to vote for Obama? Are you stupid?  Apart from the fact that the Dems are the abortion party, the Obama administration's attack on civil society is at odds with Catholic social teaching which rests on the principle of subsidiarity.  David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity: One of…

  • What Does Abortion Have to Do with Religion?

    The abortion question is almost always raised in the context of religion.  The Vice-Presidential debate provides a good recent example.  The moderator  introduced the topic with these words: “We have two Catholic candidates, first time, on a stage such as this. And I  would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion…

  • The Losertarian Party

    Politics is a practical business: it is about the gaining and maintaining of power for the purpose of implementing programs and policies that one believes to be beneficial, and for opposing those whose policies one believes to be deleterious. As the Converse Clausewitz Principle has it, it is war conducted by other means.  For this…

  • Your First Time: Obama Ad Hits New Low

    Here.  How low can the Dems go?  And you thought Clinton was a sleazeball for answering the question about his underwear and telling us about his old El Camino with the astroturf in back for, you know . . . . Time to elect some adults.  Enough of clowns and buffoons.  (Did you see Biden in…

  • Ron Radosh on George McGovern

    A  balanced assessment.  The piece concludes (emphases added): Years later, I heard McGovern at the PEN International Writers Conference in New York City, where he spoke on a panel with Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Bruno Kreisky, the former chancellor of Austria who was virulently anti-Israel. At that meeting, McGovern said that had he been…

  • Liberty Forever?

    How many Americans care about liberty?  The depressing fact that Obama may well win the election shows that vast numbers of Americans care more about panem et circenses, bread and circuses, than about liberty. We're running on fumes.  The stamp is border-line Orwellian. Time was, when liberty was a state.  Now it's a stamp. Dorothy Rabinowitz…