Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: War and Peace

  • Polarization and Flotation in Politics

    Can we avoid both polarization and a noncommittal floating above the fray that does not commit to one side or the other? I fear not. Politics is war. You must take a side. You can't play the philosopher on the battlefield.  A warrior at war cannot be "a spectator of all time and existence," as…

  • 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…

  • Civilization Requires Deterrence

    Wisdom from Victor Davis Hanson. There is precious little of it on the Left. We are awash in the deleterious consequences. Excerpt below the fold.

  • Weakness is No Justification: The Converse Callicles Principle

    It needs to be said again at this time when Israel is under attack again due in no small measure to President Biden's weakness and senility. First posted 24 July 2014. ……………………… Might does not make right, but neither does impotence or relative weakness. That weakness does not justify strikes me as an important principle, but I…

  • Politics as Polemics: The Converse Clausewitz Principle

    Would that I could avoid this political stuff.  But I cannot in good conscience retreat into my inner citadel and let my country and its Western heritage be destroyed — the country that makes it possible for me to cultivate the garden of solitude, retreat into my inner citadel, and pursue pure theory for its…

  • Trump’s Space Force

    "I will not weaponize space," said Barack Obama while a candidate in 2008. That empty promise came too late, and is irresponsible to boot: if our weapons are not there, theirs will be. Some warn of the militarization of space as if it has not already been militarized. It has been, and for a long…

  • After Enough Time Passes . . .

    . . . de mortuis nil nisi bonum lapses. (In justification of  some negative remarks about  Senator John McCain (R-AZ) posted on my Facebook page. I pointed out that while McCain served with great distinction in the Vietnam war, he failed to translate military valor into civil courage, while Donald J. Trump, who did not…

  • 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.…

  • How Close Are We to Civil War? A Pessimistic View

    The following view is pessimistic, but current events give me no good reason to be optimistic.  A bad moon's rising and trouble's on the way. A house divided cannot stand. Don't say that Trump has divided us. The division was well-entrenched long before he came on the political scene. He merely gave voice to the…

  • ‘Liberal’ Aggression is Getting Dangerous

    The Dan Bongino Show, Ep. 749

  • Seven Forces Driving America Toward Civil War

    No one in his right mind could wish for civil war. At the moment it is unlikely, but it is becoming more likely each day as the nation sinks into madness, 'thanks' almost exclusively to the ever-expanding extremism of the hard Left which has captured the Democrat Party.  John Hawkins lists seven 'forces' pushing us…

  • The Left and Political Violence

    A very interesting Vanity Fair article.

  • Civil War is Upon Us

    Two articles by Daniel Greenfield.  Read this one first, then the sequel.

  • War, Torture, and the Aporetics of Moral Rigorism

    That the deliberate targeting of noncombatants is intrinsically evil and cannot be justified under any circumstances is one of the entailments of Catholic just war doctrine.  I am sensitive to its moral force. I am strongly inclined to say that certain actions are intrinsically wrong, wrong by their very nature as the types of actions…

  • Is Waterboarding Torture?

    Here is the opinion of a man who has both done it and had it done to him.  "I volunteered to be waterboarded myself and can assure you that it is not a pleasant experience. But no one volunteers to be tortured." Words mean things. They ought to be used responsibly. No good purpose is…