Category: Virtues and Vices

Calvinball, Big Balls, and the Age of Balls

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?

The Theological Virtue of Hope

RCC Catechism: 

1817. Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Now listen to Pope Leo:

The pontiff [Leo] said that the Jubilee Year of Hope “encourages the universal Church and indeed the entire world to reflect on this essential virtue, which Pope Francis described as the desire and expectation of good things to come despite or not knowing what the future may bring.”

I am no theologian, but Pope Francis's description of the theological virtue of hope leaves something to be desired. Compare it to the quotation immediately preceding. Is Leo, who seems to be uncritically accepting Francis's description, much of an improvement over his predecessor?

Brazen Lies and Big Lies

1) Brazen lies.  Here is an AI-generated definition: "A brazen lie is a bold and shameless falsehood, often told without any attempt to hide or conceal it." 

The AI-generated definition is on the right track, but it is not quite right: it blurs the line between a falsehood (a false statement) and a lie. A lie is not the same as a false statement. For one can make a false statement without lying: one may sincerely believe that what one is asserting is true when in fact it is false. The intention to deceive is essential to a lie: there is no  lie without the intention to deceive. A lie, then, is an intentional misrepresentation of what one either knows to be the case or sincerely believes to be the case for the purpose of deceiving one's audience.

So that is what a lie is. But not all lies are brazen lies. A brazen lie is a lie told boldly and shamelessly.   

2) Big lies.  I would define a big lie as a brazen lie so outrageous that an ordinary person would think the liar had to be telling the truth because no one would have the chutzpah to say something so outrageous unless  it were true. Example: Alejandro Mayorkas's claim that the border is secure. 

Shakespeare on Lust

Sonnet 129: Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame
 
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

    

Related:
 
 
Like a Moth to the Flame.  A sermon of sorts on romantic folly. Jean van Heijenoort plays the moth, Anne-Marie Zamora the flame. The moth dies.

Kamala the Plagiarist

She follows in the footsteps of Joe and Jill Biden, Claudine Gay, and so many others. Christopher Rufo exposes her.  

At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal-justice issues.

However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

Read it all.

The Racism of Reduced Expectations

To tolerate and excuse Harvard president Claudine Gay's  plagiarism has been cited by some as an example of the so-called 'racism of reduced expectations' (RRE). For what you are then doing by your toleration and excusal is lowering the standard for blacks when, or rather on the assumption that, they are as capable as any other group of meeting those standards.  Such a slighting  of blacks would indeed be racist.

But is the assumption true? The assumption underpinning  RRE is that blacks as a group are the equal of Jews, Asians, and whites in respect of intelligence, intellectual honesty, love of truth, interest in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, commitment to the traditional values of the university, respect for high standards of scholarship, and the like. If this is the case, then it is indeed racist to tolerate and excuse the bad behavior of blacks such as President Gay, and in her case 'sexist' as well.  

So whether there is racism here or not depends on whether the underlying assumption is true. Most establishment conservatives believe that it is.  They believe that blacks are the equals of the other groups mentioned in respect of the attributes mentioned. I don't doubt their good faith. Jesse Watters a few nights ago played the RRE card: to tolerate and excuse President Gay's plagiarism is to treat her as either incapable or unwilling due to her race of being objective, truth-seeking, and intellectually honest. It is to suggest black intellectual and moral inferiority when they are not inferior. Hence the racism of reduced expectations.  But if blacks as a group really are inferior when it comes to the appreciation and implementation of the values in question then the reduced expectations are justified and there is no racism of reduced expectations.

My point is that reduced expectations are racist only if the assumption is true.  If the assumption is false then a reduction in expectations is in order  and there is no racism.  One is entitled to play the RRE card only if one has already shown or given good evidence for the truth of the assumption.

“He be Good for the Hood”

I have some mind-numbingly substantive posts in the works, but for now here are three items from the (non-fake) news you may want to opine about.

1) The mug shot heard or rather seen 'round the world and its appeal to blacks. "He be good for the hood." "The more they indict, the more we unite."

2) Gold Star dad to Biden: "It's two-fucking-thirty, asshole." (1:30 ff.) Civility is a good old conservative virtue. But anyone who calls for civility in the present political situation is simply not perceiving said situation. We need to condemn morally our political enemies, in blunt and brutal ways. Yes or no? Argue the pros and cons.

3) My man Victor Davis Hanson was on Sean Hannity's show tonight. I have been linking to him for years. But I got annoyed with him tonight when he kept repeating, in reference to Biden's disastrous border policy, "It makes no sense!"

But it makes perfect sense if you are a globalist like Traitor Joe out to destroy the USA as she was founded to be. Does my man  lack the cojones (testicular fortitude) to come right out and say what I suspect he believes, namely, that the whole point of the open border policy is destroy the republic? Could he really be confused or puzzled about what's going on? Is he tempering his remarks to keep from getting shit-canned like Tucker?  'Defenestrate' is a polite word, and I could have used it instead of 'shit- can,' but again what good is politeness? You will get nowhere being polite or civil with mendacious thugs. Around thugs you have to be able to  project danger credibly and elicit fear. Jordan Peterson is pretty good on this. 

A good man is not a weak man. A good man is a dangerous man who is in control of the animal in him. 

Continence

There is continence sexual and gustatory. Custody of the eyes and of the heart are forms of continence.  Continence should also extend to rebuttals, replies, ripostes, rejoinders, responses, and reactions. Deny yourself the desire for vindication, and getting in the last word. Better retraction than self-serving reaction. The self denied is the ego; the self that denies is the soul.