Category: Politics

On Mixing Politics with Philosophy

I have been asked why I intersperse political entries with narrowly philosophical ones.  But in every case the question was put to me by someone who tilts leftward.  If my politics were leftist, would anyone complain?  Probably not.  Academe and academic philosophy are dominated by leftists, and to these types it seems entirely natural that one should be a bien-pensant  lefty.  Well, I'm here to prove otherwise.  Shocking as it will  seem to some, leftist views are entirely optional, and a very bad option at that.

I could of course post my political thoughts to a separate weblog.  Now a while back I did effect such a segregation, sending my political rants and ruminations to my Facebook page. But given that philosophy attracts more liberals/leftists than conservatives, it is good for them to be exposed to views  that they do not encounter within the enclaves they inhabit.  Or are contemporary liberals precisely illiberal in their closemindedness to opposing views?  One gets that impression.

Posting the political to a separate weblog would also violate my 'theory' of blogging.  My blog is micro to my life's macro.  It must accordingly mirror my life in all its facets  as a sort of coincidentia oppositorum of this situated thinker's existence.

A Question about Donald Trump

Things are getting interesting. How long until we collapse into hot civil war? The replacement of the rule of law with the rule of lawfare is a bad sign. The following repost, slightly redacted, is from January 2022, and more relevant that ever.

…………………………..

This from a reader:

It would be very interesting to hear your take on Trump — why do you think that his leadership of the country, despite obvious personality flaws, is less risky for the US and the world than a reasonable alternative? Yes, the ideological, thoughtless, and totalitarian far-left is dangerous, but isn't unprincipled, pugilistic and me-and-my-family first leadership any better? Is your thinking driven by "the lesser of two (or three) evils"?
1) I avoid talk of the lesser or least of evils. I prefer to speak of the better or the worse. 
 
2) Politics is not theoretical; it is practical. There is political theory, of course, and it divides into political science (empirical and non-normative) and political philosophy (normative). But politics is neither of the two, despite the fact that politics is informed by political theory. Politics is a practical game! It is not mainly about having the right views. That does no good unless one can implement them. And no one with practical sense lets the best become the enemy of the good. Politics is a matter of better or worse, not perfect or imperfect.  Politics is about accomplishing something in the extant suboptimal circumstances with the best implementable ideas.
 
3) And which ideas are those? The ideas, values, and principles of the Founders. They arrived as close as anyone ever has to a sound and viable political theory. 
 
4) Now if you accept (2) and (3), then the choice is clear: you support Trump over Hillary, and Trump over Biden. For Trump, unlike Hillary and Biden,  supports those values and not just with words. He proved his support for them in the teeth of vicious opposition by pseudo-cons and leftists alike  in his four years as POTUS.  A long list of his accomplishments could be inserted here. To mention just one, and a very important one: the SCOTUS appointments.
 
5) If you complain about Trump's character, I will agree that he is flawed but go on to point out that the same is true of Hillary and Biden.  Character-wise, either the three are on a par, or the two Democrats are worse. This fact is invisible to many because Hillary and Biden are professional politicians deeply practiced in the arts of deception: mendacious to the core, they know how to hide their flaws, faults, and foibles.  But anyone with life-experience and knowledge of human nature can see that Biden is a fraud and a phony rooted in no principle except that of  the promotion of himself and his family's interests. The same goes for Hillary to a lesser extent. But as I said, they know how to don masks and play the game. Trump, on the other hand, crudely lets it all hang out. He tells you what he thinks. He is blunt, brusque, boorish, and sometimes pointlessly brutal. (I am thinking of that nasty slur he hurled against Carly Fiorina.) He probably knows that his alpha-male strut and swagger is off-putting to many, but he refuses to play the game.
 
6) What decides the question for me is that Trump alone supports the American system of government whereas this is plainly not the case with Hillary or with Biden who is the puppet of puppet masters out to undermine the American system.  That should be blindingly evident to anyone who has been paying attention.
 
7) There comes a time when a corrective is needed, an outsider self-powered, un-owned, and unafraid to kick the asses of the Dementocrats to his Left and expose the fecklessness of the cuckservatives to his Right.  A corrective and a clarifier. No more of the usual Left versus Right. The battle for the soul of America is now a contest between the borderless globalism of the greedy elites and an enlightened nationalism, populist and patriotic.  Hillary/Biden versus The Donald, to personify it.
 
But 'the virtuous'  and the upholders of 'norms' are too scrupulous to rouse the people against their tyrants.

Here:

Describing Wilkes and two of his allies, Walpole wrote, “This triumvirate has made me often reflect that nations are most commonly saved by the worst men in [them].” Why? Because, he concluded, “The virtuous are too scrupulous to go the lengths that are necessary to rouse the people against their tyrants.”

Until the coming of The Donald, that had certainly become the case in recent American politics. Until the Orange Menace loosed the fearful lightning of his terrible swift tweets, the “virtuous,” rather battle-fatigued traditional conservative movement—even when controlling both houses of the Congress—had been out-shouted and outmaneuvered by the unholy alliance of a Left-dominated, morally nihilist pop culture and educational establishment, and what is laughably referred to as the “mainstream” media, all nudging an increasingly radicalized Democratic Party further and further to the left.

 

Black Lives Maga!

The South Bronx comes out for the Orange Man. 

The video is about eight minutes long and puts me in mind of the old "Joe and Eddy" tune from the early '60s, There's a Meeting Here Tonight. 

Black support for Trump makes perfect sense. These black citizens understand that an endless influx of illegal aliens will have a disproportionate impact (to put it mildly) on them. After all, where will the illegals be sent? To Martha's Vineyard?  They will be sent and are being sent to black neighborhoods  where they take over the schools, the playgrounds, drain the social services, etc. 

Black citizens, most of whom are law-abiding, understand that the rule of law is good for them, and that the cadre leftists who have infiltrated and now control the Democrat Party have contempt for said rule, despite their mendacious mouthings  to the contrary, mouthings that are belied by their actions.

My use of 'disproportionate impact' above is slightly ironic, as I am sure my astute readers have noticed. The leftist line is that the enforcing of laws is 'racist' because strict enforcement and appropriate punishment has a 'disproportionate impact' on blacks. And of course it does. But that doesn't make it 'racist' on any reasonable definition of the term.  It can't be racist if it is true.

'Disproportionate impact' is exactly what one would expect given the well-established fact that blacks as a group are more criminally prone than other groups.  And this even after adjusting for police brutality, and other forms of police malfeasance.  

We conservatives are not racists or fascists with an 'authoritarian personality structure.' We stand for liberty and (therefore) for limited government. We appreciate that cops are a necessary evil.  I dilate further in  Cops: A Necessary Evil. 

UPDATE (5/21)

Is Trump the first populist Republican? No surprise The Militant sticks  up for him.  Meanwhile, James Carville, junkyard attack dog, barks himself silly. (Looks like the video I was looking for has been removed.)  What could the lovely Mary Matalin see in him?

Biden Chases ‘Death to America’ Vote

David Harsanyi:

Biden, it should be noted, is a vacuous political zombie who has never met a position he hasn’t dropped for a vote. Today, he is surrounded by Obama-era advisers and Hamas sympathizers . . . who have long wanted the U.S. to be aligned with mullahs of Iran, as a counterbalance to colonialist Western capitalists of Israel. And now that Democrats like Chuck Schumer have sold out the Jews to the vultures for a few votes in Dearborn, nothing holds back progressive Democrats from normalizing the antisemitism that already infects the hard left.  

That's the truth. Just so you know who you are supporting if you support Biden. You may not like Trump, but if it comes down to Trump versus Biden, you must support the former out of self-interest if for no other reason.

Resuming the “Never-Trump Mentality” Thread

Tom Tillett often leaves very good comments, but he is 'slow on the trigger.' As a result, his contributions often get buried and go unread. I get the impression that he is someone who actually works for a living [grin].  Today he left two long but very good comments on the Never-Trump Mentality post.  Here is the first, and here is the second which I now reproduce: 

Bill writes to Malcolm, >>are you prepared to endorse extra-political means to defeat our political enemies?<<

Malcolm writes, >>This is war, and we should do what we can to win, rather than do only what we may, and lose. <<

A difficult question for me, but I am on Malcolm's side on this. I think the question depends on what time you think it is. Attacking and boarding a ship under another nation's flag is an act of piracy and the crew of the attacking ship is subject to criminal prosecution. However, any crew that does the same in a declared war cannot be prosecuted because such actions are under a completely different set of rules and laws.

Likewise, what tactics we adopt from the Left's arsenal depends on whether you think the Left has declared all-out war on the rest of us. I think it's clear that they have, and I believe Malcolm agrees. If so, then this is not normal politics and different, more flexible rules apply as to how we should respond.

How flexible? I dunno. But the clearest case is the reprehensible lawfare the Democrats are engaged in. I think Republican state AGs need to crank up the lawfare against Democrats. How about Adam Schiff running for the Senate in California? Since the DC Courts have stripped Trump of his presidential immunity for acts taken as President, then Schiff has no immunity for his acts and outright lies to the American public while in Congress. Surely there is an obscure statute somewhere that can be misinterpreted to hold [place?] Schiff in the docket.

Bullies need to be punched in the mouth or they will continue to punch the rest of us in the mouth – or worse.

BV agrees with Malcolm and Tom that we are at war with the Left, and he agrees with Tom's use of the phrase, "declared all-out war." The war is over the soul of America.  The question concerns whether we should (i) preserve what remains of America as she was founded to be, and (ii) restore those good elements of the system bequeathed to us by the Founders, while (iii) preserving the legitimate progress that has been made (e.g. universal suffrage), OR whether we should replace the political system of the Founders with an incompatible system which can be described as culturally Marxist.

(This formulation of what the war is about may ignite some dissent among us friends. My approach is restorationist, not reactionary. There is the danger, however, of a merely semantic quibble. The combox is open.)

Tom implies that there are certain rules of engagement in the conduct of our war with our political enemies and that it is not the case that any and all means can be employed to defeat them.  Here is where it gets very interesting. 

I used to say, "You lie about us and we'll tell the truth about you." Now I am inclined to say, "You lie about us, and we'll lie about you." Slander us, we slander you. Smear us, we smear you. Shout us down, we shout you down. And so on.

So here is something we need to get clear about. Given that there are some rules of engagement with our political enemies, and that we cannot, or rather ought not, do just anything to win, what are the rules in this supersessionist (not secessionist, and not successionist) civil war in which we are now combatants? 

America First!

I explain what it means over at Substack. 

I refute the fragile Kristol and articulate what the inarticulate Trump cannot. But to this man of action goes the credit of having put paid to Kristol and others of his pseudo-con ilk as well as to the Bush and Clinton dynasties. Jeb! is toast and Chelsea has been strangled in her political crib. Remember Jeb!? The mendacious Hillary has been put to pasture where she chews her cud of resentment.

Kristol America First

Joe Biden: An Anti-Civilizational, Race-Baiting, Opportunist and Ignoramus

And as all of those things, a worthy representative of the contemporary hard-Left, hate-America, Democrat party. Ben Shapiro has his number:

More importantly, however, Biden's characterization of "English jurisprudential culture" as "white man's culture" is profoundly disturbing. English jurisprudential culture is rooted in the belief in the rule of law, due process of law, equal rights under law; English jurisprudential culture is responsible for preserving the natural rights we hold dear, rights which were imperfectly but increasingly extended over time to more and more human beings, particularly minorities. No less a leftist figure than Barack Obama explained just that in 2009, saying he sought a system at Guantanamo Bay that "adheres to the rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo-American legal system."

Protection of individual rights — and in particular, minority rights — lies at the heart of English jurisprudence. Yet Biden boiled down those rights to racial privilege. And the attempt to reduce the fundamental principles of our civilization to a mask for racial hierarchical power is both false and frightening. It suggests that those principles ought to be undermined for purposes of disestablishing that supposed hierarchy. Get rid of English jurisprudential law, presumably, in order to fight racism.

Ron and Vivek: Their Day Will Come

Both are outstanding patriots. Their day will come. They will serve the republic well if there is any republic left to serve five years from now. We have reason to be hopeful. But Trump is the man of the hour. He alone can get us back on track. When Trump's work is done, the young guys will be well-placed to take over.

Listen to Vivek Ramaswamy's fabulously hard-hitting, content-rich, and super-articulate speech in endorsement of Trump. (7:18) 

Ron DeSantis' speech is also impressive. (4:33)

But no complacency! The filthy Dems will use every Alinskyite tactic and commie-playbook trick to win by any and all means. 

If you are a conservative who can't abide Trump, you are just going to have to suck it up and shut up about the man's obvious flaws.  As DeSantis said, he's superior to Biden — an understatement! — and I would add: superior to any Dem who might run against him. 

No infighting! Circle the wagons. No RINO-fueled circular firing squad. No Libertarian/Losertarian or other third-party circle jerk. As Ramaswamy said, it's a war. In a war, you have to take sides. You can't float above the fray as if you are a transcendental spectator with no stake in the bloody battle below. 

Do you have RINO friends? Confront them brusquely with 'Which side are you on?'

Do you have Democrat friends? Cut 'em off! Make them pay a price for their willful self-enstupidation. Why should they get the benefit of your friendship? (The usual ceteris paribus considerations apply.)

And if Nikki the Neocon should get the nomination? Then too you must suck it up and  support her and not hang back because she's not Trump. She can't turn things around, but she could stave off collapse until DeSantis and Ramaswamy are ready to enter the lists.  

The Case for Trump

Brilliantly made by Sebastian Gorka before the Oxford Union. (12 min.)

See also, National Populism and the Rise of Donald Trump

UPDATE (21 January 2024)

The case for Trump can also be made from the inanity and perversity of the criticisms made of him by our political enemies. Among them are the Never Trumpers at The Bulwark, a rearguard  resistance outlet for discredited and resentful neocons.  Take a gander at this lame outburst: Jamie Dimon Joins the Trump Normalizers.

I was going to respond point-by-point, but thought better of it, seeing as how my readers agree with me on fundamentals. In recent years, as compared to the early years of the blogosphere, we have become 'siloed into our positions' and increasingly convinced of the fatuity and futility of engaging our political opponents in anything that could be called 'productive dialog.'  

The other side of the coin is that a 'surfeit of agreement' — to give it a name — can be annoying, said surfeit being one of the upshots of the 'silo effect' lately mentioned. If we too closely agree, then we end up 'stealing one another's thunder' and boring one another. Productive, clarifying, insight-generating dialogue requires disagreement; the disagreement, however, must occur against the backdrop of broad and deep agreement, where such agreement is the unity that controls the diversity, a unity without which there would be fruitless contention. Here as elsewhere diversity unchecked by unity leads to disaster. Diversity untrammeled by unity is not our strength as woke chucklephucks mindlessly repeat; it is our undoing. Near the top of the indices of leftist self-induced stupidity is the febrile and fatuous emphasis on 'diversity.' 

I am not saying that diversity is not a value; it is. But it is a value subordinate to the competing value of unity. There are fools to my right who think that any talk of diversity is a concession to our political enemies. It is not. Avoid the NETTR fallacy: there are enemies to the right, right-wing anti-semites, for example, though they are at the present time outnumbered by left-wing anti-semites. And there are white supremacists even though their threat to the Republic is nothing as compared to the threat of the race-delusional leftist totalitarians for whom the slanderous Joe Biden speaks.

Self-serving as it may sound, all of my positions are sane, reasonable, balanced, and moderate. If you disagree, and do so respectfully, while giving evidence of intelligence and good will, I will listen.  I am committed to adjusting my views to reality. 

So, to avoid preaching to the choir, I will content myself with giving a list of some of the key terms which our enemies such as the author of the above piece either misuse or exploit to advance false, absurd, slanderous, or otherwise noxious theses.

  • Cult of personality
  • Norm
  • Normalize
  • Dictator
  • Demagogue
  • Insurrection
  • Migrant
  • Xenophobe
  • White supremacist
  • White nationalist
  • Nativist
  • Extremist
  • Dogwhistle
  • Authoritarian
  • Tyrant
  • Third Reich
  • Hitler
  • Insurrection-inciter
  • Rule of law
  • Constitution
  • Democracy

Und so weiter! (Is that a 'dogwhistle'?)