Category: Social and Political Philosophy
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Political Nullification
Two short articles by Tom Woods. What is it? Answers to Objections The reflexive response of the typical leftist will be to denounce as 'racist' anyone who so much as asks what political nullification is. In the surveillance state toward which we are drifting, or at which we have already arrived, the innocuous act of…
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Spencer Case Reviews Dissident Philosophers
At Quillette. The fair and thorough review concludes: Together, the essays collected in Dissident Philosophers offer a fascinating and valuable glimpse into the lives and minds of marginalized thinkers. The contributors explore some of the social pressures that enforce official and unofficial orthodoxies, and give some indication of the interesting research proposals that aren’t being pursued as…
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Integralism in Three Sentences
Substack latest. Here are the three sentences: Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that rejects the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holding that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two…
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Politics and Meaning: More on the Conservative Disadvantage
Here again is my Substack entry "The Conservative Disadvantage." In it I wrote, "We don't look to politics for meaning. Or rather, we do not seek any transcendent meaning in the political sphere." Thomas Beale charitably comments (edited): Just a short note on that post: your observation about meaning is one of the most penetrating…
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From Democrat to Dissident
This partially autobiographical essay is available here at PhilPapers in pdf format. It is a contribution to the collection, Dissident Philosophers, edited by T. Allan Hillman and Tully Borland. The essay recounts the experiences and reasons that led me to reject the Democratic Party and become a conservative. On the same page you will find…
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The Meaning of ‘Liberal’ in South Africa
David Benatar, The Fall of the University of Capetown (Politicsweb Publishing, 2021, p. v, emphasis added): Whereas in the United States it [the word 'liberal'] is often used as a term of opprobrium by those on the right to refer to those on the (or their!) left, in South Africa it is regularly used as…
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We Must Work with Atheists to Defeat the Left
America is is where the West will make its last stand, or else begin to turn the tide. The rest of the Anglosphere appears lost. It is falling asleep under the soporific of 'wokeism,' the latest and most virulent form of the leftist virus. To assure victory we theists need to work with atheist conservatives.…
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Malcolm Pollack on ‘Mass Formation’
Our old friend Malcolm Pollack has an article in American Greatness entitled "'Mass Formation' is a Two-Headed Coin." Pollack offers the following characterization of mass formation: “Mass formation” . . . is a newish term for an age-old and long-studied phenomenon: the occasional, and usually quite sudden, arising of passionate and sometimes completely irrational fixations…
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Was Kyle Rittenhouse a Vigilante?
I have been known to refer to David French as a useful idiot in the sense usually attributed to V. I. Lenin, but I won't repeat that legitimate charge here. I'll just say that French is exasperating in the Trump-hating pseudo-conservative style of David Brooks, George F. Will, Bill Kristol, Mona Charen and the rest…
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Robert Lewis Dabney on Conservatism
It may be inferred again that the present movement for women’s rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable…
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Vito Caiati on David Brooks
I solicited Dr Caiati's comments on David Brooks' Atlantic piece, What Happened to American Conservatism? The lede reads: "The rich philosophical tradition I fell in love with has been reduced to Fox News and voter suppression." That is a good tip-off to the quality of the article. Here is what Vito said, and I agree:…
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What does Populism Threaten?
First posted on my Facebook page on this date three years ago. ……………………………… POPULISM is a threat to a leftist internationalism that rejects national borders and denies to nations the right to preserve their cultures, the right to stop illegal immigration, and the right to select those immigrants who are most likely to…
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‘Equity’ is Unjust
'Equity' in 'wokespeak' is a deliberately obfuscatory term for equality of outcome. There is no 'equity' in the natural order of things. So it must be enforced from above. Such enforcement, of course, is unjust. I will leave you to work out the details for yourself. Why do I have to do all the work?
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Opponents or Enemies?
If you shrink back from regarding your political opponents as enemies, you do not appreciate the threat they pose. You are not taking them seriously enough. They pose an existential threat. Such a threat is not merely a threat to one's physical existence; it is a threat to one's way of life, to one's cultural…
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The State under Leftism: Totalitarianism with Bread and Circuses
Although the state under contemporary leftism is totalitarian and demands conformity and submission in matters of moment, it tolerates and indeed encourages the cultivation of a politically inconsequential individualism of private self-absorption. A people given bread (food stamps and other forms of infantilizing dependency), circuses (mass sporting events), dope (legalization of marijuana), HollyWeird pornography and…