A couple of ballsy articles for your cojonic delectation.
Jonathan Turley, The Judicial Calvinball of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
An excellent piece that ends on a weak and decidedly unmanly note: "I truly believe that Jackson can leave a lasting legacy and bring an important voice to the court." I'm guessing that the erudite and distinguished Professor Turley is afraid of being called a racist and a sexist.
Mike Solana, Age of Balls
It's an 'interesting' time to be alive. Who could be bored?
'Due process' is a term of legal shop talk. Those of us who know something about the law — I know a little — know how to use it correctly. And those of us who think that words ought to be used responsibly in serious discussions should take offense at the 'slop talk' use of 'due process.' Trey Gowdy knows a lot more about the law than I do. But a couple of Sundays ago he asked how much 'due process' Laken Riley's assailant showed her. Sean Hannity is another who has asked this question.
That got me thinking about what sort of 'due process' Ibarra should have shown Riley. "You have the right to plead, to pray, and to protest your upcoming rape and murder; you have in addition the right to avail yourself of the services of any well-armed Good Samaritan who might come along."
What were Gowdy and Hannity driving at? That wide-open borders are a recipe for disaster? That the very notion of legal due process needs to be re-thought? Unclear. Commentators who want to be taken seriously should say what they mean and mean what they say.
Democrats are slop heads in the main; we expect incoherence, inanity, and slop talk from them. Conservatives ought not ape them. Does my use of 'ape' make me a racist? What if I were to use such words as 'niggardly' and 'denigrate'?
The WAPO fentanyl 'mystery' is another good illustration of how contemptibly stupid our political enemies can be. Karoline Leavitt has fun with it. In other news, her intersectional and highly 'wokified' predecessor has quit the Dems, and like 'Fake Jake' Tapper and others will endeavor to tap into the money to be made from telling tales of dementia and dysfunction in high places.
Further examples are easily multiplied beyond all necessity. "Tampon Tim" Walz is a bloody good source of them.
How 'progressive' is it to be stuck in the past?
Substack latest.
This article covers many of the essential points.
Hubris Comes From Ancient Greece
English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods. In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero. Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status, and the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of their his mortality.
It is an index of the extreme polarization of our time that there are those who are quite sure that Trump enjoys divine protection. They speak, irresponsibly, of the 'miracle' of his escaping death by assassination at Butler, PA. But how could anyone know, and confidently claim, that God intervened to save his life? I am not saying that God did not intervene in this instance, or that divine intervention in nature is impossible; I am saying that you are guilty of epistemic pretense if you pretend to know what cannot be known, but can only, at most, be reasonably believed.
Hubris or providential protection? You are free to believe what you like, but in a case like this, the wise man suspends judgment.
The ever-helpful Dave Lull informs me that our friend Edward Feser has weighed in on the Gaza matter with an article in National Catholic Register, Trump's Gaza Proposal is Gravely Immoral.
An important WSJ article by Charles Murray.
I wish Murray were more direct and less worried about being called a racist and a white supremacist. An excess of prudence and a deficit of courage? It is interesting how these two cardinal virtues pull in opposite directions.
Here:
More tellingly, this charge is an example of something I call the “celebration parallax,” which is explained here. In brief, the celebration parallax holds that the same fact pattern is either true and glorious or false and scurrilous depending on who states it and, crucially, the perceived intent of the speaker.
So if someone says that the U.S. is experiencing levels of immigration that are unprecedented in human history, if it’s presumed or suspected that he might have doubts, then he is an evil racist. But when Bill Clinton or Joe Biden makes exactly the same point, well, that is A-OK! Because they are “good guys” who welcome “an unrelenting stream of immigration, nonstop, nonstop” (Joe Biden’s words). By the way, I leave to readers to intuit the difference between “unrelenting” (Joe’s word) and “ceaseless” (my word) and the reasons why the former is A-OK but the latter is somehow “racist.”
Depicted here.
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?
Another example of a dumb-as-dirt Dem.
No Sheila dear, the Moon is not a planet, but a natural satellite of the Earth, the only one in fact. Its singularity is why, in correct orthography, we write 'the Moon' and not 'the moon.' Jupiter has a number of moons, whereas the Earth has exactly one. Our moon is therefore properly referred to as 'the Moon.' And as you may have just now noticed, our home planet is properly referred to as 'the Earth,' not 'the earth.' And our sun, which the distinguished Congresswoman informs us is "a mighty powerful heat," is properly referred to as 'the Sun.' So-called 'journalists' take note.
Contrary to what Sheila thinks, the Moon is not made up mostly of gases. Nor is it a "complete-rounded circle" only when it is full. Does she perhaps think that the phases of the Moon are changes intrinsic to the Moon as opposed to changes in the way it appears to us? Does she think that the Moon is a two-dimensional object? Her talk of a circle suggests as much. May I suggest 'sphere' or even better 'spheroid'? Does she perhaps also think that the Moon is the source of its light? Is she aware that moonlight is reflected sunlight?
Please realize that when you vote for Democrats you are voting for people who, as a group, are not only morally inferior to Republicans, but also intellectually inferior as well. I am speaking of the contemporary Democrat party.
Story here.
Finally, what was the name of that black male pol who, if memory serves, opined that islands float and can sink?
Remember Angela Davis? Here she links the 'war on Gaza' with the 'racist lynching of George Floyd.'
A re-post from 1 August 2013. Slightly redacted.
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Everyone gets abused verbally in this world and one had better learn how to take it. There are bigots everywhere — leftists and wokesters the most vile, their tendency to project psychologically rendering their bigotry invisible to them — and sooner or later you will encounter your fair share of abusers and bigots. A fellow graduate student called your humble correspondent a 'guinea' in the 1970s. This was in Boston. But I didn't break his nose and do the ground and pound on him. Was it cowardice or good sense? Call it self-control. If Trayvon Martin had control of his emotions on the fateful night of his encounter with George Zimmerman, he would probably be alive today. The downside, of course, is that then we wouldn't be having this delightful 'conversation' about race.
My impression is that there is more anti-Italian prejudice — not that it is any big deal — in the East than in the West where I come from. (And without a doubt, Jim Morrison had it right when he opined that the West is the best, in at least two senses.) I didn't encounter any anti-Italian prejudice until I headed East. I had a Lithuanian girl friend in Boston whose mother used to warn her: "Never bring an Italian home." I never did get to meet Darci's mom. Imagine a Lithuanian feeling superior to an Italian!
But I want to talk about blacks, to add just a bit more to this wonderful 'conversation' about race we are having.
Blacks need to learn from Jews, Italians, the Irish, and others who have faced abuse and discrimination. Don't whine, don't complain, don't seek a government program. Don't try to cash in on your 'victim' status, when the truth is that you are a 'victim' of liberal victimology. Don't waste your energy blaming others for your own failures.
Don't wallow in your real or imagined grievances, especially vicarious grievances. That's the mark of a loser. Winners live and act in the present where alone they can influence the future.
If you want me to judge you as an individual, by the content of your character and not by the color of your skin, then behave like an individual: don't try to secure advantages from membership in a group!
Abandon tribal self-identification. Did you vote for Obama because he is black? Then you have no business in a voting booth.
Bear in mind that the world runs on appearances, and that if you appear to be a thug — from your saggy pants, your 'hoodie,' your sullen and disrespectful attitude — then people will suspect you of being a thug.
Take a leaf out of Condi Rice's book. She's black, she's female, and she became Secretary of State. And her predecessor in the job was a black man, Colin Powell. It sure is a racist society we have here in the USA. And that Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court — isn't he a black dude? And not a mulatto like Obama, but one seriously black man.
Lose the basketball. Get the needle out of your arm, the coke out of your nose, and that soul-killing rap noise out of your ears. Listen to the late Beethoven piano sonatas. May I recommend Opus #s 109, 110, and 111? Mozart is also supposed to be good for improving your mental capacity. We honkies want you to be successful. If you are successful, we won't have to support you. And if you are successful you will be happy. Happy people don't cause trouble.
And we don't give a flying enchilada what color you are. It's not about color anyway. It's about behavior. Work hard, practice the ancient virtues, and be successful. If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere. Don't let Brother Jesse or Brother Al tell you otherwise. Those so-called 'reverends' are little more than race-hustlers who make money from the grievance industry. And when they run out of grievances? Then they create 'micro-aggressions.'
Liberals are not your friends either. They want you to stay on the plantation. They think you are too stupid to take care of yourselves.
If you learn to control your emotions, defer gratification, study hard and practice the old-time virtues, will you be 'acting white'? Yes, in a sense. High culture is universal and available to all who want to assimilate it. What makes our culture superior to yours is not that it is white but that it is superior. You have already 'appropriated' our technology. (Or did it come from sub-Saharan Africa?) Why balk at 'appropriating' our virtues? We want you to! For your benefit and ours. 'Cultural appropriation' is a good thing. Here is a fine example of 'cultural appropriation.'
Don't get mad, be like Rudy Giuliani. Can you imagine him making a big deal about being called a greaseball, dago, goombah, wop, guinea . . . ? Do you see him protesting Soprano-style depictions of Italian-Americans as mafiosi?
This morning at The New Yorker:
At this point, we know everything there is to know about Donald Trump. His diehard admirers—not all seventy-four million people who voted for him in the 2020 election but his immovable base, maybe thirty per cent of Republicans—admire him still, now more than ever. Is he a racist? Sure, by many definitions.
At this point I stopped reading. I cannot think of one reasonable definition of 'racist' according to which Trump would count as a racist. Can you? At least the journo* gives some evidence of understanding that the question whether so-an-so is an X depends on the definition of 'X.'
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*'Journo' is my term of disapprobation for hack journalists a crapload of whom can be found among the 'woke.'
