Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Politics

  • Patriotism and Jingoism

    It is not uncommon to hear people confuse patriotism with jingoism. So let's spend a few moments this Fourth of July reflecting on the difference.

  • A Further Thought on State-Run Lotteries: The Morality of Accepting a Payout

    In Good Societies and Good Lives I argued against the morality of state-run lotteries. Now let's consider the morality of accepting a payout. Suppose you win big, in the millions. Chances are excellent that this will ruin you for the rest of your life, but that is not my present point. Suppose you can handle…

  • Good Societies and Good Lives: On State-Run Lotteries

    Good societies are those that make it easy to live good lives. A society that erects numerous obstacles to good living, however, cannot count as a good society. By this criterion, present day American society cannot be considered good. It has too many institutionalized features that impede human flourishing. Here I discuss just one such…

  • If You are a Conservative, Don’t Talk Like a Liberal!

    I saw Michael Smerconish on C-Span one morning. His conservative credentials are impressive, but he used the word 'homophobe.' I've made this point before but it bears repeating. We conservatives should never acquiesce in the Left's acts of linguistic vandalism. Battles in the culture war are often lost and won on linguistic ground. So we ought…

  • A Libertarian Argument Against Open Borders

    John Hospers lays into 'limousine libertarians.'

  • Politics: Would That I Could Avoid It

    Using 'quietist' in a broad sense as opposed to the Molinos-Fenelon-Guyon sense, I would describe myself as a quietist rather than as an activist. The point of life is not action, but contemplation, not doing, but thinking. The vita activa is of course necessary (for some all of the time, and for people like me…

  • Jacques Maritain on Right and Left

    Before one is a conservative or a liberal ideologically, or by party affiliation, one is a conservative or a liberal temperamentally, or by disposition. My suspicion is that temperament is a major if not the main determinant of political commitments. First comes the disposition, then come the theoretical articulation, the arguments, and the examination and…

  • A Liberal Asks: What are the Bases of Liberal Opposition to Religion?

    Harriet E. Baber, professor of philosophy, "unrepentant liberal," and proprietor of The Enlightenment Project writes, I'm an academic. Most of my friends and colleagues are atheists, have no sympathy for religion of any kind and, in particular, detest Christianity. Being a good liberal I read good liberal sources because I like to read people who agree…

  • A Tax Day Observation

    Good societies are those that make it easy to live good lives. A society that erects numerous obstacles to good living, however, cannot count as a good society. By this criterion, present day American society cannot be considered good. It has too many institutionalized features that impede human flourishing. In Good Societies and Good Lives,…

  • Hypocrisy, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Left

    If, per impossibile, there were such a catalog as the Seven Deadly Sins as seen from the Left, hypocrisy would be in first place. Why?  Although some who identify themselves as liberals or leftists can be counted among the religious, the dominant note of the Left from at least 1789 on has been anti-religious.  Couple this with…

  • Anti-Obama Bumper Sticker

    I saw this attached to the back of a Jeep Liberty:  I'll keep my guns, freedom, and money.  You can keep the "change." Another conservative sticker recently sighted: If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. Which suggests the 'contrapositive' sticker: You breed 'em, we'll feed 'em. With taxpayers' dollars of course.

  • Liberal Hypocrisy

    Bruce Thornton reviews Peter Schweitzer’s Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, (Doubleday, 2005, 272 pp.) Excerpts:

  • The Politicization of the American Philosophical Association

    Several people have asked me my opinion on the recent petition to the American Philosophical Association regarding alleged discrimination by certain colleges and universities against homosexuals.  At the moment I have nothing to say about either the petition or the counterpetition.  I want to point out that the politicization of the A. P. A. is…

  • Is Religious Instruction Child Abuse? Is Religion the Greatest Social Evil?

    That religious instruction constitutes child abuse is another theme of contemporary militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins and A. C. Grayling. Consider the competing 'truths' taught by different faith-based schools, e.g. that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is not, etc. Grayling complains that . . . in schools all over the country…

  • The ACLU and Mardi Gras

    Fat Tuesday, coming as it does the day before Ash Wednesday, derives its very meaning from the beginning of Lent. The idea is to get some serious partying under one's belt just before the forty-day ascetic run-up to Easter. So one might think the ACLU would wish to lodge a protest against a celebration so…