Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Politics

  • So Long, Nancy

    I bid Madame Speaker a fond adieu on Substack.

  • The Militant Defends Trump and Our Civil Liberties

    I never thought I'd be quoting from The Militant! A tip of the hat to Tony Flood who writes, I could consider making a tactical alliance with one who signs off with "The fight to defend constitutional liberties is at the center of the class struggle today." This is classic Marxism, not Antifa terrorism. Populist…

  • Another Useful Idiot Crosses My Path

    I'm the chess guy hereabouts. A year ago I got a call from an 86-year-old retired chemist with an interest in the game. A meeting was arranged, a game was played, and then the talk turned to politics. The old man told us that he had voted for Biden out of revulsion at Trump. He…

  • Fetterman Unfettered: Against Ableism

    In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman is currently competing with Dr. Mehmet Oz for a seat in the U. S. Senate. Any objective person who observes both men in action can see that Fetterman is mentally, morally, and politically unfit for office.  (I won't comment on the 'hoodie,' the ugly forearm tattoos, the neck…

  • Tulsi Gabbard Endorses Kari Lake for Arizona Governorship

    Here

  • Three Axes of Conflict

    Antony Beevor in The Spanish Civil War (Orbis 1982, Penguin 2001, p. 279) writes that in the aftermath of the war both sides engaged in gross simplifications for propaganda purposes: As a result, the three axes of conflict (left-right, centralist-regionalist, and authoritarian-libertarian) have often been crudely amalgamated, leaving the ferocity of the war partly unexplained.…

  • Citizenry, Government, and Firearms

    You say you don't trust the citizenry with firearms, but you do trust the government with them?  If "the government is us" as Barack Obama and Joe Biden have said, what you say makes no sense.  For if that were so, there would no difference in point of trustworthiness between the governors and the governed. …

  • Why Tulsi Gabbard is Leaving the Democrat Party and Why You Should Too

    Here at Substack. HT: Anthony Flood. Full text follows. Please propagate. Do your bit to restore some sanity to this country and to the world.  Why I'm leaving the Democratic Party Tulsi Gabbard   I love our country. Our God-given rights of freedom, life, and liberty enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights are…

  • Leftist Omni-Politicization

    For the Left, everything is either political or to be politicized, including that which is non-political. Take this to its logical extreme and you end up with 'woke' mathematics. This reductio ad absurdum will cause a sane person to reject the premise. The sane will point out that some things, by their very nature, cannot…

  • Moral Community and Civil War

    Malcolm Pollack writes, and I respond in blue:   Visited your blog today . . . and saw this striking passage:   But also: haven't the barbarians forfeited their (normative) humanity to such an extent that they no longer deserve moral consideration? Do they form a moral community with us at all?    I am…

  • What is Fascism? Are MAGA Republicans Fascists?

    The Left's favorite 'F' word is of course 'fascist.' But of course they don't define it, the better to use it as a verbal cudgel.  But we know that responsible discussion of a topic begins with a definition of terms. What is a fascist? More to the point, what is fascism? The term expresses what…

  • Would a Fascist Want an Originalist on the Supreme Court?

    First posted on 4 July 2018. ………………………………………. Donald Trump is called many things including racist, misogynist, xenophobe, and fascist. Suppose he is a fascist. Then he is not a very good one. For he is about to nominate an originalist to the high court. A fascist, however, would not want an originalist on the court…

  • American Fascism?

    Originally posted on 23 September 2016, and thus before Trump's trouncing of Hillary. It was true then and truer now. I was right not to worry about Trump's getting in touch with his inner Benito. As for Joe Biden's recent scurrilous accusation of 'semi-fascism,' I urge you to read Joe Biden: American Fascist which exposes…

  • Rod Dreher: Floating Above the Fray as Usual

    Here: We are somewhat insulated from this in America because we don't face the hideous energy crunch that Europeans do. Do you really think, though, that the US is going to be fine when one of our largest trading partners goes belly up? We are going to crash too, and crash hard. A word to…

  • The Latest from Michael Anton

    Thorough, penetrating analysis of the . . . what? state of the Union? No, the state of the dismal disarray, unstable and pregnant with disaster, in which we find ourselves.   They Can't Let Him In