Category: Social and Political Philosophy
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Austrian Perspectives on Social Justice
Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek versus Murray Rothbard.
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Ernst Bloch on Law and the State
Substack latest. We humans are hopeful. Ernst Bloch was on to something. But man on his own is without reasonable hope. We are reduced to praying. The above thought occurred to me during the penumbral twilight period betwixt sleeping and waking.
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Is the U-Haul the Vehicle of Peaceful Coexistence?
You may have noticed that our relations with some people improve when we no longer have contact with them. Now while we can and must round up and deport illegal aliens, our classically liberal principles make it very difficult to force out of our midst those of our political adversaries who count as out-and-out political…
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Morality Public and Private: On not Confusing Them
With a little help from Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Hannah Arendt. Substack latest. By the way, I learned that Arendt had ten books by Carl Schmitt in her library. We will have to look into their relationship. Is that a cigarette holder she's using? A Randian touch. It would not be fair to call Ayn Rand…
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Identify the Quotation!
Who said it? A post-liberal, an anti-liberal, Carl Schmitt? Blood rises up against formal understanding, race against the rational pursuit of ends, honor against profit, bonds against the caprice that is called 'freedom,' organic totality against individualistic dissolution, valor against bourgeois security, politics against the primacy of the economy, state against society, folk against the…
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The Presidential Power of Pardon: A Political-Theological Theme
According to Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 56: All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development—in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example,…
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Joseph Sobran
Tony Flood asked me if I had read Joseph Sobran. I have. In fact, I have a couple of posts on him. Here's one from 6 October 2010. I've added an update. Comments enabled. Joseph Sobran Joseph Sobran is dead at the age of 64. Beginning as a paleocon, he ended up an anarchist, and apparently…
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Cognitive Ability and Party Identity
Tony Flood writes, Cognitive ability and party identity in the United States Last sentence of abstract: "These results are consistent with Carl's (2014) hypothesis that higher intelligence among classically liberal Republicans compensates for lower intelligence among socially conservative Republicans." Good study. I'll read this later. But for now, one quick comment. I am both a…
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Is Trump’s Order to End DEI Conservative?
From the Independent Institute: President Trump signed a flurry of executive orders last week, leaving media pundits breathless in their efforts to cover it all. One of the most controversial orders was titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” Yes, conservatives applauded loudly the government’s suspension of its commitment to DEI (diversity,…
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Steve Bannon and Megyn Kelly on FAFO
Here. Megyn Kelly, being relatively young, may be forgiven for referring to Elliot Ness as Elliot Nest (ouch!), but Steve Bannon, whose superannuation shows, and who ought to know better, either missed her mistake or let it pass, being the gentleman that he is. In all other particulars, however, the short video is delightfully on…
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Legutko on Libertarianism
I have some bones to pick with Legutko, but this is good: [Libertarianism] crumbles because it attempts to square the circle. Two loyalties — one particular to one's own community, the other to an infinitely open system — cannot be reconciled. ― Ryszard Legutko, The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of False…
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Robert Paul Wolff (1933-2025)
When John Silber died in September of 2012, Robert Wolff expressed his contempt for the conservative Boston University president in an ironically entitled notice, De Mortuis. Wolff's title alludes to the Latin saying de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Literally translated: "About the dead, nothing except the good," which is to say, "Speak no evil of…
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Too Many Lawyers in Government
Top o' the Stack. And top o' the season to my readers.
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MAGA, Majority Rule, and Consent of the Governed
Here: In short, the political battle between the Left and Right is best understood as an existential fight over what America will be. The Left pushes for a metanoic transformation, while the Right tries to catalyze an epistrophic one. Metanoia is a forward-looking change — a recognition that one’s past way of life was flawed…
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Emma Goldman on Anarchism
The topic of anarchism surfaced in an earlier thread. Dmitri and Hector introduced us to David Graeber. But let's go back a century or so for a bit of historical perspective. Herewith, a brief examination of Emma Goldman's definition of anarchism. ANARCHISM: the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made…