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.

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*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. 

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?

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. 

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.

Three Lockean Reasons to Oppose the Destructive Dems

New, improved, updated.  Top o' the Stack.  A call to action. Get off your lazy butts and do something for the great Republic that has made it possible for you to live a good life. What are you, an ingrate? Do you have children, grandchildren? Don't you want them to have a good life?  Are you a defeatist? A fatalist who believes that nothing you do matters at all?

Related: In the Grip of Madness

Site Stats at Sweet Sixteen

Although Maverick Philosopher has been on-line for over 20 years now, its third incarnation, this Typepad version, first saw the light of day on Halloween, 2008, 16 years ago. I thank you for reading. 

Although the heyday of blogging is long gone, the peak having occurred near the end of the aughts, I bump along at a somewhat respectable level especially given the austerity of my offerings.

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I'll be returning to some hard-core philo-content soon, but first things first: every mentally sane and morally decent man Jack and woman Jill of us must do his or her bit to beat back the forces of darkness.  No jacking, jilling, or slacking off.  Do your part, but with detachment from the outcome. To make a slogan out of it:
 
Beat back better!

Ready for Rage?

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Should Trump win, do you think our political enemies will accept the result, acquiesce in a peaceful transfer of power, and resolve to work harder next time? Expect a post-election temper tantrum:

Democrats have warned the country that Trump is a “danger to democracy,” a fascist, another Hitler. But it’s the Democrats who use the threat of violence to turn the election in their favor. “If Trump does win the election, the left in America will certainly riot,” says author and political commentator Douglas Murray. “They will make sure cities they believe they dominate go up in flames again.”

And they’ve apparently been considering the insurgent option for months. Jonathan Tobin wrote in the Federalist in February that Democrats “need a backup plan if the courts won’t do their bidding” to keep Trump out of the White House if he wins by “doing exactly what they labeled as ‘insurrection.'”

“A Trump victory would almost certainly set off bloody riots in every American city,” he said.

Hell hath no fury like the Democrats who won’t allow a peaceful transition of power.

Douglas Murray is a sensible and astute commentator. Be sure to click on the internal hyperlink.

Ten Reasons not to Vote Democrat

Originally posted 5 November 2012. Slightly redacted. Things are far worse now.

………………………………..

The Dems are the left-wing party in the U. S. Almost all Dems nowadays are leftists.  It's not 1960 any more and you geezers out there with your sentimental attachment to the 'Democrat' label need to wise up. 

1. Leftists lack common sense. As witness their lunatic stand on photo ID at polling places.  I have written several posts on this topic.  Here is one.

2. Leftists play the race card every chance they get.  There is plenty of evidence in my Race and Leftism categories.

3. Leftists, also known as 'liberals,' are anti-liberty.  As witness Obamacare's  individual mandate, to give just one example.

4. Leftists have a casual attitude toward crime.  See Britain and the Barbarians and other posts in the Crime and Punishment Category.  They oppose capital punishment even though this is exactly what justice demands in certain cases.  With their unhealthy and immoderate love of underdogs, leftists champion criminals while ignoring the concerns of decent citizens, even when the criminals are responsible for their 'sub-canine' status. Conservatives stand for the rights of the accused, due process, and equality before the law. Leftists distort and subvert these high principles. 

5. Leftists smear their opponents and then issue hypocritical calls for 'civility.'  What passes for argument among them is the hurling of SIXHRB epithets: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, bigoted. (acronym via Dennis Prager)  For example, if you oppose illegal immigration then you are a xenophobe; if you carefully argue against Obamacare then you a racist; if you give reasons why marriage is between a man a woman you are dismissed as a bigot.  If you oppose the slaughter of innocent human beings which is abortion you are waging war against women and interfering with their 'health care' and 'reproductive rights.'   If you point out the very real threat of radical Islam, then you are dismissed as an  'Islamophobe' with a mental illness.  And then there are the inevitable Hitler comparisons and the repeatedly thrown F-bomb, 'fascist.'  'White supremacist' and 'white nationalist' are other terms of abuse hurled scurrilously and without definition.

6. Leftists are weak on national defense and naïve about foreign policy. 

7. Leftists are fiscally irresponsible.  Unlike his predecessor, Obama made no attempt to put the existing entitlements on a sound fiscal basis.  Instead, he started up a new one!

8. Leftist are anti-religion. 

9. Leftists have  no proper appreciation for the Second Amendment.*

10. Liberals have no proper appreciation of the Tenth Amendment and the notion of federalism.

Addendum:  Tony H. writes to say that I forgot one:

11. Liberals are economic illiterates.
True.  Of course, I wasn't trying to give a complete list of reasons to oppose Obama and the whole leftist gang.  There are a lot more reasons than ten.  How about this one:

12. Liberals are linguistic hijackers.  They routinely distort the English language for their ideological purposes.  This is actually worse than lying.  To lie successfully one must use language properly, in accordance with the going conventions.  Misuse of language  is a subversion of the rules of the communicative game.  There are examples in my Language Matters category.

One particularly egregious example is the use of 'voter suppression' to refer to common-sense demands for proper ID procedures at polling places.  This shows that the scumbags of the Left will do anything to win. "The end justifies the means." Right out of the commie playbook.

For even more reasons, see The Constructive Curmudgeon who has worked himself into a fine, and justified, lather over Obama's abominations.  

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*In 2012 one might still say that if leftists showed as much respect for the Second Amendment as they do for the First, gun ownership would be mandatory.  But now in 2024 things are far worse, as I said at the top. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and the rest of their scrofulous globalist-totalitarian ilk are gunning for the First Amendment too, as you must know if you have been paying attention.