Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

  • Stealth Ideologues: Hillary and Kamala

    On 21 October 2016, I laid into Hillary for lying about the Heller decision. The post concluded:

    Hillary is a stealth ideologue who operates by deception. This is what makes her so despicable. If she were honest about her positions, her support would erode. So not only are her policies destructive; she refuses to own them.  She is an Obamination both at the level of ideas and at the level of character.

    'Kamala' is substitutable for 'Hillary' salva veritate as the philosophers say.  In plain English, if the first name is substituted for the second in the above passage, its truth is preserved.  

    If you complain that my tone is polemical, I will reply that of course it is, and justifiably so: we are at war with our political enemies. The cadre Dems I have just mentioned are not mere political opponents who share with us a commitment to the principles and values of our great constitutional republic, but revolutionaries out to replace that republic by way of a "fundamental transformation," as Barack Hussein Obama put it. To imagine that we are  engaged with them in a gentle(wo)manly debate under the umbrella of shared commitments is to play the useful idiot as so many rank-and-file Dems still do. You are a superannuated sucker if you still think it is 1960 or even 1980.

    I leave undecided whether Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus was right when he wrote, "Polemos (Πόλεμος) is the father of all and the king of all . . . ." (Fr. 53 from G. S. Kirk and J E Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge UP, 1969, p. 195)

    And then there is this from the same date (21.X.16):

    Leviticus 19:15: The Lord versus Hillary

    “You shall not do injustice in judgment; you shall not show partiality to the powerless; you shall not give preference to the powerful; you shall judge your fellow citizen with justice."  Alternate translations here.

    In the third and final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said the following about Supreme Court  nominations.  "And the kind of people that I would be looking to nominate to the court would be in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful, standing on behalf of our rights as Americans." 

    This is the sort of leftist claptrap according to which the judiciary assumes  legislative functions and the Constitution is a tabula rasa on which anything can be written.  The purpose of the court is not to stand up to the powerful or take the side of the powerless, but to apply the law and administer justice.  

     There must be no partiality to the powerful. Might does not make right.  But neither does lack of might. There must be no  "partiality to the powerless." 

    (Credit where credit is due:  I am riffing on a comment I heard Dennis Prager make. Plagiarism is another mark of leftism.) 

    Related: Weakness does not Justify

    Bill Vallicella

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

    Beatles, I'm a Loser. This one goes out to Comrade Kamala. A loser who is not what she pretended to be. And just to rub it in,

    Ted Daffan, Born to Lose, 1943. The original!

    Thelonious Monk, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You.  But not over you, Kamala baby.

    Simon and Garfunkel, The Dangling Conversation.  A lovely song, if a bit pretentious.  Paul Simon was an English major.

    And we spoke of things that matter
    With words that must be said
    "Can analysis be worthwhile?"
    "Is the theater really dead?"

    Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, You Really Got a Hold on Me

    Lonnie Mack and Co. Mighty fine guitar-slinging.

    Mack has been around a long time. I first picked up a guitar around the time Memphis climbed  the charts. "If I could only play like that!" Never got close. But I played in bands that got paid. If you get paid for doing something, then someone must think it's worth paying for. That's not saying much, but it's saying something. 

    Jackson Browne, The Pretender.  This great song  goes out to Darci M who introduced me to Jackson Browne. Darci is Lithuanian. Her mother told her, "Never bring an Italian home." So I never did meet the old lady. I encountered no anti-Italian prejudice on the West coast whence I hail; the East is a different story.

    Abba, Fernando. I first heard this in Ben's Gasthaus, Zaehringen, Freiburg im Breisgau,  '76-'77.  This one goes out to Rudolf, Helmut, Martin, Hans, und Herrmann, working class Germans who loved to drink the Ami under the table.

    Electric Flag, Groovin' is Easy

    A contender for the greatest, tightest band of the '60s, featuring Mike Bloomfield on guitar, my second guitar hero. I saw him play at the Monterey Pop Festival in '67. The Jewish kid from an affluent Chicago suburb exemplifies cultural appropriation at its finest. His riffs derive from B. B. King but he outplays the King of the Blues.  Is that a racist thing to say? It can't be racist if it's true.

    Commander Cody, Truck Drivin' Man.  This one goes out to Sally and Jean and Mary in memory of our California road trip ten years ago.   "Pour me another cup of coffee/For it is the best in the land/I'll put  a nickel in the jukebox/And play that 'Truck Drivin' Man.'"

    I once asked a guy what he wanted in a woman. He replied, "A whore in bed, Simone de Beauvoir in the parlor, and the Virgin Mary on a pedestal."  An impossible trinity. Some just want the girl next door.

    Bobby Darin, Dream Lover. With pix of Sandra Dee.

    Audrey Hepburn, Moon River

    Gogi Grant, The Wayward Wind, 1956. I'll take Lady Gogi over Lady Gaga any day.

    Doris Day, Que Sera, Sera, 1956.  What did she mean? The tautological, Necessarily, what will be, will be? Or the non-tautologically fatalistic, What will be, necessarily will be? Either way, she died in the month of May.

    Bill Vallicella

    2 responses to “Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia”

  • Homophobia and Carniphobia

    Meat phobia triggerOne of the purposes of this weblog is to resist the debasement of language and thought, and to recruit a few others to this worthy cause. The term ‘homophobia’ is an excellent example of such debasement. Worse than a question-begging epithet, it is a question-burying epithet. That is, its aim is to obliterate or at least occlude the very question of the morality of homosexual practices. For the term implies that any opposition to such practices can only arise from an irrational fear, which is what a phobia is. 'Homophobia' implies that there can be no rationally-based opposition to homosexual practices.

    My point is not that homosexual practices are immoral, or the opposite. My point is one that should strike any rational person as entirely uncontroversial, namely, that there is a genuine moral issue here, an issue that no one has the right to legislate out of existence by a merely verbal maneuver.

    Suppose a bunch of meat-eaters band together to advance their cause. Instead of mustering whatever arguments they can for the moral permissibility of meat-eating, or rebutting the arguments against its moral permissibility, they hurl the epithet ‘carniphobe’ at their vegetarian opponents. Then they try to get laws passed banning ‘carniphobia.’ Clearly, their aim is to obliterate the very question of the morality of meat-eating and to suggest that there cannot be any rationally-based opposition to it. My point is not that meat-eating is immoral, or the opposite. My point is that there is a genuine moral issue here, just as there is a genuine moral issue regarding homosexual practices.

    But how many who can be convinced that ‘carniphobia’ is a term to be resisted, are clear-headed and honest enough to see that the same goes for ‘homophobia’?  

    Not to mention 'Islamophobia.'

    Thanks to Catacomb Joe for supplying the above 'trigger image' as he call it.

    Bill Vallicella

  • So Racism and Misogyny Explain Kamala’s Loss?

    Why did Kamala lose?  Here:

    One answer has to do with race and gender. Too many Americans, especially white men, were still not willing to vote for a woman, even less a Black woman. 

    Only a leftist scumbag could spew such slanderous garbage.  The vast majority of conservatives don't care about a candidate's race or sex. We care about ideas and policies.  If the contest were between Joe Biden and Tulsi Gabbard, most conservatives would vote for Tulsi Gabbard.

    UPDATE (11/8)

    Speaking of Tulsi Gabbard, on one of the talk shows last night she pointed out that Biden and Harris never once showed any concern about the very real threat of WW3 whereas Trump repeatedly demonstrated awareness of the grave danger we and the world are in under the 'leadership' of Biden and Harris.  I would add that one of the many reasons why the Clown got crushed was because of her insouciance regarding this genuine existential threat to humanity as opposed to the fake 'threats' cooked up by the Dementocrat tag team.

    Bill Vallicella

    5 responses to “So Racism and Misogyny Explain Kamala’s Loss?”

  • Supplemental OTC Oxygen

    There is an over-the-counter product called BOOST OXYGEN. I bought me a can for around 18 semolians the other day and took it on a strenuous hike. I self-administered the recommended 3-5 snorts after topping out at a saddle, but noticed  only a slight, barely perceptible positive effect. Similarly with later tests.  I wanted a positive effect, so I might have felt what I wanted to feel. Interim conclusion: not worth the money.  Later in the day it seemed to make no difference to my online bullet and blitz chess.

    I'll continue the tests and see if my SpO2 (peripheral oxygen saturation) as measured by a portable pulse oximeter is improved. It is already at 97-98%.

    Exercise maxim: No day without (exercise induced)  oxygen debt!

     

    Bill Vallicella

  • Misplaced Moral Enthusiasm

    Languishing in the archives of one of the early versions of this weblog is a post bearing the above title. I shall have to resurrect, refurbish, and re-post it.  An excellent recent example of misplaced moral enthusiasm is well-described in Spring the Felon, Kill the Squirrel.

    This short article may help you leftists understand why you lost big yesterday.  Some forms of leftism are border-line respectable, but the wokeassery of Kamalism is not one of them.

    Related:  From Gunman to Squirrel Man: Bernie Goetz Thirty Years Later

    You do remember Bernie Goetz, don't you?

    William James had a squirrel problem. You are aware of it, are you not?

    If you like to think, you'll like my blog. If you don't like to think, you need my blog.

    Bill Vallicella

  • Morning in America!

    Hats off to all the patriots who did their civic duty.  But this is no time to gloat over the defeat  of our enemies. They will not give up or give in. For these totalitarian dogs, the political is everything.  They do not suffer, as we do, from The Conservative Disadvantage.

    The war is just starting and the national sanitation project will take at least a generation to accomplish.  To give you a taste of what we are up against, here is David Frum writing in The Atlantic this morning:

    Donald Trump has won, and will become president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us need to prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024.

    Above all, we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt. Over the past decade, opinion polls showed Americans’ faith in their institutions waning. But no opinion poll could make this shift in values any clearer than this vote. As a result of this election, the United States will become a different kind of country.

    In a post from January of this year, Dueling Articles, I arrange a confrontation between Frum and Steve Cortes. The comment thread is a very good one, featuring contributions by the most distinguished among the MavPhil commentariat.

    World leaders congratulate Trump.

    UPDATE 3:42 PM

    Leftist incomprehension:

    Jonathan Chait, Americans Didn’t Embrace Trump, They Rejected the Biden-Harris Administration

    But Lanny Davis, remember him? displays some self-awareness:

    The Morning After: Lessons to Learn — and not to Learn

    Bill Vallicella

    24 responses to “Morning in America!”

  • Religious Liberty and David Brooks

    Top o' the Stack

    Bill Vallicella

  • Terrorism and Anti-Semitism

    Two more reasons to vote for Trump.  Ask yourself two simple questions.

    Will the likelihood of terrorist events in the homeland be greater under Trump or under Harris with her open-border policy? Will there be more anti-semitic acts under Trump or under Harris with her casual and tolerant attitude toward crime?  The questions answer themselves, and in the affirmative, obviously. Now I can't expect a leftist to care about the second question. But even a leftist will care about the first unless she is completely out of her mind.

    The case for Trump, all things considered, is overwhelmingly strong. There  is no case for Harris.  Her 'case' is merely a pile of anti-Trump lies and distortions.  She is a brazen liar, as is now perfectly evident, as well as being unfit for high office in other respects. 

    You have a legal right to your opinion. But you have a moral obligation to do your best to form correct opinions.*  This obligation leftists fail to fulfill. So I hereby exercise my legal right to free speech by condemning them morally.

    Bear in mind that these swine are working to eliminate said legal right.

    The line it is drawn
    The curse it is cast
    The slow one now
    Will later be fast
    As the present now
    Will later be past
    The order is rapidly fadin’
    And the first one now will later be last
    For the times they are a-changin’

    Time to "turn the page." Time for "hope and change." This may well be our last chance to save our republic. But whatever the outcome of the election, the "battle outside raging" (Biblical Bob again) will rage on. So get ready.

    _____________

    *Note that I did not say that one has a moral obligation to form correct opinions. I said that one has a moral obligation to do one's best to form correct opinions. This is because one cannot be morally obliged to do something one is unable to do. 'Ought' implies 'can.'  Ultra posse nemo obligatur. 

    Talk-jock Dennis Prager has said that one has a moral obligation to be happy. That is false as it stands, and for the reason I gave. 

    Bill Vallicella

    5 responses to “Terrorism and Anti-Semitism”

  • The Militant Defends Religious Liberty

    Mirabile dictu!

    Bill Vallicella

  • Kamala, Crime, and California Proposition 36

    Leftists have an astonishingly casual attitude toward criminal behavior, so Kamala's recent behavior is entirely in character.  Here:

    47 Minus 36 Equals Kamala

    "I am not going to talk about the vote on that. Because honestly it’s the Sunday before the election and I don’t intend to create an endorsement one way or another around it."

    That was Kamala Harris on Sunday, responding to a question about California ballot Proposition 36, a measure to reform the 2014 Proposition 47, which transformed theft of merchandise worth less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor. Attorney General Kamala Harris called it the “Safe Schools and Neighborhoods Act,” but the measure launched a wave of car break-ins, shoplifting, and theft of car parts such as catalytic converters. So no surprise that Joe Biden’s  replacement doesn’t want to talk about Prop 36. Harris has always been kinder to criminals than their innocent victims, whatever the gravity of the crime.

    On December 2, 2015 in San Bernardino, Muslim terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik gunned down Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel. In a December 17 statement, and a statement one year later, Harris failed to condemn the killers and failed to name a single victim. They included blacks, Asians and Hispanics, but the attorney general failed to call the mass murder a hate crime or even an example of gun violence.

    Now Kamala Harris is a disaster and anyone who votes for her is an anti-civilizational, crime-promoting fool.  A vote for her is a vote for more crime.  But I won't criticize her for not using the silly phrases 'hate crime' and 'gun violence.' These are phrases that conservatives ought to avoid. You have to understand that he who controls the terms of a debate controls the debate.  Leftists understand this completely, but conservatives tend to be slow on the uptake. 

    See my Nat Hentoff on 'Hate Crime' Laws.

    As for 'gun violence,' I have made the acquaintance of many a firearm but not one them has proven to be violent.   Even leftists ought to be able to wrap their heads around the distinction between weapon and wielder. 'Gun violence' is an obfuscatory  phrase the purpose of which is to shift the agency from the wielder to the weapon. I could go one for a couple of pages about what is behind that destructive move. (And you hope I won't.)

    As I have said a few times before, language matters, and if you are a conservative don't talk like a willfully self-enstupidated 'liberal.'

    See also my The Problem: Gun Culture of 'Liberal' Culture?

    Bill Vallicella

  • If Trump Wins, the Left is Prepared to Intensify the War

    Yesterday's Substack entry ended as follows:

    Whatever the outcome on 5 November, the war will continue, intensify, and become increasingly ‘existential.’ That is to say: it will become less verbal, less cultural, [i.e., less like a mere culture war'] hotter, and more like a real war. The conflict unto death in which we are currently embroiled is deeply rooted in philosophical soil. To borrow the title of Thomas Sowell’s great 1987 book, it is A Conflict of Visions.

    It appears that Trump has a good chance of winning. Our political enemies, of course, will not accept that result since they reject the American constitutional republic which makes provision for a  peaceful transfer of power. Aiming at a "fundamental transformation of America," in Barack Hussein Obama's phrase, they are out to overturn our system of government. But being the stealth ideologues that they are, they will not 'own their intentions,' which is to say: they will not plainly state their plans. This is why Comrade Kamala utters  the most vacuous of phrases when she is not outright lying. She comes across as an airhead, but she is less of a an airhead than she appears. She is a crafty political operator, not unlike Pelosi who also adopts the persona (mask) of the harmless dingbat. Kamala signals to her leftist base with the assurance that "my values haven't changed." She is assuring them that despite all the empty rhetoric, outright lies, and apparent reversals of position, she is still the same old hard-Left political Californicator she always was.

    To appreciate the gravity of the situation and the danger we are in I refer you to Is the Left Preparing for War if Trump Wins? It begins:

    The propaganda campaign labeling Donald Trump as an aspiring dictator determined to use the military and national security apparatus against his political opponents is designed not to affect the upcoming election but rather to shape the post-election environment. It is the central piece of a narrative that, by characterizing Trump as a tyrant (indeed likening him to Hitler), establishes the conditions for violence — not just another attempt on Trump’s life, but political violence on a massive scale intended to destabilize the country. 

    As I write in my forthcoming book Disappearing the President, Democratic Party research and media reports show that many senior party officials and operatives are preparing for the possibility of a Trump victory. Accordingly, planning is focused on undermining the incoming president with enough violence to rock his administration. Prominent post-election scenarios forecast such widespread rioting that the newly elected president would be compelled to invoke the Insurrection Act. With some senior military officials refusing to follow Trump’s orders, according to the scenarios, the U.S. Armed Forces would split, leaving America on the edge of the abyss. 

    Bill Vallicella

    2 responses to “If Trump Wins, the Left is Prepared to Intensify the War”

  • When Politics Becomes Like Philosophy

    Trouble's on the way, as I explain over at Substack.

    Bill Vallicella

    One response to “When Politics Becomes Like Philosophy”

  • Kamala the Joyful is a Serial, Brazen Liar

    She's got 'em all beat now: Bill, Hillary, Barack, and Joey.  I now hand off to  VDH who provides plenty of evidence of her deep-seated mendacity.  His article opens:

    In the last two weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris has been trying to revive her stagnant campaign by smearing Trump as being Hitlerian and a fascist. She claims Trump is planning to put his enemies in encampments [interment camps].

    Read it all, and appreciate the difference between Kamala and Trump.

    If you vote for her, you are as contemptible as she is. If you vote for neither, I won't call you contemptible, but foolish: you fail to grasp that one or the other will become president (barring assassination, etc.) and you fail to understand what is in your own best long-term self-interest.  The following are not in your interest even if you are a terminally-benighted leftist: WW3, increasing inflation, rampant crime by homegrown criminals and foreign drug cartels, terrorist events in the homeland, environmental degradation by illegal invaders, increasing suspicion and Balkanization, (. . .) not to mention an insane open borders policy that is at the root of most of the above ills.

    Bill Vallicella

  • A Girl Gunsplainin’

    Using the NATO 5.56 round as her example, she does a good job of explaining its 'anatomy.'

    Bill Vallicella

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