Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: War and Peace

  • Decent Man, Manly Man, Otherworldly Man

    No morally decent man wants ever to have to take a human life. But no manly man will be unprepared to defend against a lethal attack using lethal force, or hesitate to do so if and when circumstances require it.*   The first proposition cannot be reasonably disputed; the second can.  How might one dispute the…

  • Three Axes of Political Conflict

    Substack latest.  

  • Resuming the “Never-Trump Mentality” Thread

    Tom Tillett often leaves very good comments, but he is 'slow on the trigger.' As a result, his contributions often get buried and go unread. I get the impression that he is someone who actually works for a living [grin].  Today he left two long but very good comments on the Never-Trump Mentality post.  Here…

  • Political Polarization: the Radical Cure

    Political polarization is deep and wide. We are 'siloed' into our positions and things threaten to go 'thermonuclear.'  The usual cures cannot be dismissed out of hand, but are mostly blather served up by squishy, bien-pensant 'liberals' for their own insipid and clueless ilk. No doubt we should listen to others respectfully, but how many…

  • War, Torture, and the Aporetics of Moral Rigorism

    Substack latest.

  • And You Call for a Cease-Fire?

    Take a look at the massacre map. Then read this: The world is yet again staring at the near inevitability of another global conflagration.   The flashpoint is in the Middle East and the Hitler of our time: the Mullahs of Iran.   The West, led by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have chosen to follow in…

  • Robert Paul Wollf on Benjamin Netanyahu

    Substack latest.

  • An Interview with Michael Walzer

    Liberal Commitments.  Excerpt: Liberals are people who are best defined morally or psychologically; they’re what Lauren Bacall, my favorite actress, called “people who don’t have small minds.” A liberal is someone who’s tolerant of ambiguity, who can join arguments that he doesn’t have to win, who can live with people who disagree, who have different…

  • ‘Nuclear’ Thoughts on Dylan’s Birthday

    We've gotten used to living under the Sword of Damocles: One of its more famous [invocations] came in 1961 during the Cold War, when President John F. Kennedy gave a speech before the United Nations in which he said that “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the…

  • Three Senses of ‘Peace’

    There is the divine peace that "surpasseth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7) It is the most difficult to achieve. There is peace among people who love, or at least tolerate, one another. It is moderately difficult to achieve. There is finally the peace most easily achieved, that based on deterrence and mutual fear. (Our enemies do…

  • How to Leave a Call Back Number on the Eve of WWIII

    Don't make me re-play the message a dozen times. Pronounce the string slowly, clearly, and distinctly, numeral by numeral. You are not in a competition to see how fast you can spout it. And then repeat the string.  Don't say 'o' if you mean 'zero' (0). 'o' is a letter, '0' is a numeral. Confusing…

  • The Chinese Trial Balloon, Realpolitik, and What it Excludes

    Now this you should read. Excerpt: If I’m right, Beijing’s chief reason for floating a balloon over North America was to see whether it would elicit a response from the U.S. government and military, as well as from the American people. And so it did, judging from the subsequent uproar in the press and on…

  • Combat Veterans

    They descended into hell and some rose again from the dead. Who am I to ask them any questions? Do I have the right? Craig was a housemate of mine in undergraduate days. When he was 18 he ran away from a troubled home and joined the Marine Corps. He ended up in Vietnam. One…

  • Asking Questions about Ukraine Makes You Pro-Putin? Why Do They Lie?

    Here: If you say out loud that you think there is something strange about a campaign involving Democrats and Republicans, the media, Big Tech, corporate giants, and US intelligence services to promote one side in a foreign war that doesn’t obviously touch on the daily concerns of most Americans, you’re pro-Putin. That accusation has haunted the…

  • Military Service and ‘Skin in the Game’

    There is something to be said in favor of an all-voluntary military, but on the debit side there is this: only those with 'skin in the game' — either their own or that of their loved ones — properly appreciate the costs of foreign military interventions.  I say that as a conservative, not a libertarian.…