Maverick Philosopher – Page 573 – Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

And the Award for Gun Salesman of the Year Goes to . . .

There is a new-year stampede developing that we have not seen for a long time.

Gun stores are swamped with panicking customers. They are looking for handguns, semi-automatic rifles and as much ammunition as they can afford. But buyers are not just camouflaged hunters, conspiracy theorists and gun hoarders. Instead, many of those purchasing firearms and ammo are so-called ordinary people, convinced that this administration will soon begin to centrally register — and then ban — far more than assault rifles.

There were probably lots of reasons why Adam Lanza shot 26 innocent children and adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. But so far the government and media are not focusing much on his prior obsessions with violent video games, on society's seeming inability to hospitalize the unstable, or on the crude violence peddled in Hollywood and through popular music that portrays shooting people as a sort of cheap fantasy without consequences.Instead, the administration is zeroing in on the ability of Lanza's mother to legally buy semi-automatic weapons that her son then stole to murder her and the schoolchildren and employees. The result is a pandemic of fear that the Second Amendment will be reinterpreted and redefined as never before.

…………..

You dumbass liberals have really shot yourself in the foot with this one. NRA membership is way up and gun and ammo sales are through the roof. Good work! The society is more polarized than ever. The arms manufacturers will make more money and have more money for lobbying. More guns will be in circulation to be stolen and mishandled. There will be more accidental shootings. Good job!

Mature Religion is Open-Ended Too: More Quest Than Conclusions

The following is from an interview with A. C. Grayling who is speaking of the open mind and open inquiry:

It’s a mindset, he reveals, that “loves the open-endedness and the continuing character of the conversation that humankind has with itself about all these things that really matter.”

It’s also a way of thinking that marks a line in the sand between religion and science. The temptation to fall for the former—hook, line, and sinker—is plain to see: “People like narratives, they like to have an explanation, they like to know where they are going.” Weaving another string of thought into his tapestry of human psychology, Grayling laments that his fellow human beings “don’t want to have to think these things out for themselves. They like the nice, pre-packaged answer that’s just handed to them by somebody authoritative with a big beard.”

A. C. Grayling, like many if not most militant atheists, sees the difference between religion and science in the difference between pre-packaged dogmas thoughtlessly and uncritically accepted from some authority and open-ended free inquiry.

That is not the way I see it. For me, mature religion is more quest than conclusions. It too is open-ended and ongoing, subject to revision and correction. It benefits from abrasion with such competing sectors of culture as philosophy and science. By abrasion the pearl is formed.

All genuine religion involves a quest since God must remain largely unknown, and this by his very nature. He must remain latens Deitas in Aquinas' phrase:

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas;
Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

(tr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, here.)

But as religion becomes established in the world in the form of churches, sects, and denominations with worldly interests, it becomes less of a quest and more of a worldly hustle. Dogmatics displaces inquiry, and fund-raising faith. The once alive becomes ossified. All human institutions are corruptible, and are eventually corrupted.

Mature religion must be more quest than conclusions. It is vastly more a seeking than a finding. More a cleansing of windows and a polishing of mirrors than a glimpsing. And certainly more a glimpsing than a comfortable resting upon dogmas. When philosophy and religion and mysticism and science are viewed as quests they complement one another. And this despite the tensions among Athens, Jerusalem, Benares, and Alexandria.

The critic of religion wants to pin it down, reducing it to dogmatic contents, so as to attack it where it is weakest. Paradoxically, the atheist 'knows' more about God than the sophisticated theist — he knows so much that he knows no such thing could exist. He 'knows' the divine nature and knows that it is incompatible with the existence of evil — to mention one line of attack. What he 'knows,' of course, is only the concept he himself has fabricated and projected. Aquinas, by contrast, held that the existence of God is far better known than God's nature — which remains shrouded in a cloud of unknowing.

The (immature) religionist also wants religion pinned down and dogmatically spelled out for purposes of self-definition, doxastic security, other-exclusion, worldly promotion, and political leverage. This is a reason why reformers like Jesus are met with a cold shoulder — or worse.

How is it that someone as intelligent as Grayling could have such a cartoonish understanding of religion? The answer is that he and his brethren utterly lack the religious sensibility. They lack it in the same way many scientists lack the philosophical sensibility, many prosaic folk the poetic sensibility, and so on.

This is why debates with militant atheists are a waste of time. To get a taste of the febrile militancy of Grayling's atheism, see here.

Divine Creation, Possibility, and Actuality

This from a reader:

Your latest blog posts on the problem of existence prompted me to question you about one philosophical problem which keeps "nagging" me:

– When we make plans for the future (e.g. when choosing out next move in chess), we analyze different possibilities. Until the moment we decide our move, each possibility is only that: a possibility, and not an actual move. By moving a piece, we irretrievably select one possibility. The irretrieveability is caused by the existence of a world, outside our minds, which is affected by our decision and prevents it from being "taken back".

– God (were He to play chess), would be able to analyze all possible moves to an infinite depth, since He is an infinite mind. What would make one of this possibilities actual? I assume that, like in the case of a finite mind, it would be His decision on what piece to move and when.

I understand that so far, this is not a philosophical problem, but merely an intuition that choosing an actuality amongst infinite possibilities implies acting on something outside oneself (the chessboard in this instance). My problem arises when thinking about the act of creation:

– In a way similar to a chess game, when God created the universe he would have been able to see in full detail all possible universes. He chose one of these, making it be. How does creation (i.e. actual
existence) differ from potential existence in this instance? In everyday life, like in a chess game, actual existence depends on acting one way or the other on something that exists apart from the
mind. How can we think about it in that moment when nothing exists apart from the infinite mind of the Creator? In other words, from the point of view of an infinite mind, what is the difference between a piece of fiction and a piece of non-fiction before the world is created?

I am not sure I have been able to piece my thoughts together in a coherent way. . . At least, everybody with whom I try to discuss this seems to think I am splitting hairs over a non-issue. . .

All the best to you,

Pedro
—
Pedro J. Silva
Associate Professor
Universidade Fernando Pessoa
Porto – Portugal
http://homepage.ufp.pt/pedros/science/science.htm
http://biochemicalmatters.blogspot.com

RESPONSE

Well, Pedro, you are certainly not splitting hairs over a non-issue. The problem is genuine, and if anything, you are not splitting enough hairs. But first we need to state the problem more clearly. I suggest that the problem can be formulated as the problem of giving an account that allows all the following propositions to be true:

1. God creates ex nihilo: creation is not an acting upon something whose existence is independent of God's existence.

2. Creation is actualization: God creates by actualizing a merely possible world. Of course, 'once' (logically speaking) it is actual, it is not merely possible.

3. There is a plurality of broadly logically possible worlds.

4. God is libertarianly free: God could have done otherwise with respect to any world he actualizes. There is no necessity that God create any world at all, and any world he creates is such that he might not have created it. If 'A' is a name (Kripkean rigid designator) of our world, the world that is actual, then 'A is actual' is contingently true, and 'God creates A' is contingently true.

Suppose we give the following account. The divine intellect 'prior' (logically speaking) to creation has before it an infinite array of broadly logically possible worlds. These possible worlds have the status of complex divine thought-accusatives. They exist only as intentional objects of the divine intellect. It follows that they do not exist apart from God. On the contrary, their existence depends on God's existence. The actualization of one of these worlds depends on the divine will: God wills one of the possible worlds to be actual. As it happens, A is the chosen world. This is equivalent to causing our universe, with Socrates and Plato, me and you, etc. to exist extramentally, 'outside' the divine mind, but still in continuous dependence on the divine mind.

On this account, is creation a creation out of nothing? Yes, insofar as it not an acting upon something whose existence is independent of God's existence. God creates out of mere possibilities, which are divine thought-accusatives, not Platonica. So there is a sense in which creation is ex Deo.

Does this commit me to pantheism? See Creatio ex Deo and Pantheism and Creation: Ex Nihilo or Ex Deo? Am I a Panentheist?

Why the Second Amendment?

Walter E. Williams gives us a little history lesson. The piece ends thusly:

Here's the gun grabbers' slippery-slope agenda, laid out by Nelson T. Shields, founder of Handgun Control Inc.: "We're going to have to take this one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. … Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. … The final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal" (The New Yorker, July 1976).

There have been people who've ridiculed the protections afforded by the Second Amendment, asking what chance would citizens have against the military might of the U.S. government. Military might isn't always the deciding factor. Our 1776 War of Independence was against the mightiest nation on the face of the earth — Great Britain. In Syria, the rebels are making life uncomfortable for the much-better-equipped Syrian regime. Today's Americans are vastly better-armed than our founders, Warsaw Ghetto Jews and Syrian rebels.

There are about 300 million privately held firearms owned by Americans. That's nothing to sneeze at. And notice that the people who support gun control are the very people who want to control and dictate our lives.

It's not about hunting. It's about self-defense. Against whom? First of all, against the criminal element, the same criminal element that liberals coddle. It apparently doesn't occur to liberals that if there were less crime, fewer people would feel a need to arm themsleves. Second, against any political entity, foreign or domestic, substate or state, at any level, that 'goes rogue.' A terrorist organization would be an example of a substate political entity.

Gun Control: When is Enough Enough?

Suppose a federal ban on the manufacture, sale, transfer, etc. of semi-automatic rifles is enacted in the coming year. And then suppose another mass shooting occurs. Will liberals call for further gun restrictions? Of course. You can be sure that they will exploit the next mass shooting just as they exploited Sandy Hook. Suppose they call for, and get, an outlawing of all semi-autos, including pistols. Will they be satisfied with that? Of course not. For when the next mass shooting occurs, they will again blame the weapon, not the wielder, and take the next step, perhaps the banning of all rifles, shotguns, and handguns. And so on.

Just as, for a liberal, one cannot be too liberal, for a liberal, there cannot be too much gun control. They will exploit any mass shooting to further erode gun rights. This is why there must not be any further concessions. We have enough gun control laws. But for a liberal enough is never enough.

The following from Victor Davis Hanson:

A journalist, Donald Kaul, in the Des Moines Register offers us a three-step, presto! plan to stop school shootings:

Repeal the Second Amendment, the part about guns anyway. It’s badly written, confusing and more trouble than it’s worth. … Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and the NRA has led to the deaths of more of us than American Commies ever did. …Then I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.

Note the new ease with which the liberal mind calls for trashing the Constitution, outlawing those whom they don’t like (reminiscent of “punish our enemies”?), and killing those politicians with whom they don’t agree (we are back to Bush Derangement Syndrome, when novels, movies, and op-eds dreamed of the president’s assassination.)

What would be the Register’s reaction should a conservative opponent of abortion dare write, “Repeal the First Amendment; ban Planned Parenthood as a terrorist organization; and drag Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi from a truck”? If an idiot were to write that trash, I doubt the Washington Times or Wall Street Journal would print such sick calls for overturning the Constitution and committing violence against public officials.

Not all liberals are as extreme as Kaul. But the liberal tendency is ever Leftward. Which is another reason why we need guns. It is not about hunting. Nor is it about plinking at targets for fun. It is about self-defense against the criminal element and any other group that threatens us with violence.

Here is my message to liberal gun-grabbers.

“Environmentalists are by Definition Extremists” More on the Misuse of ‘By Definition’

Regular readers of this blog know that I respect and admire Dennis Prager: he is a font of wisdom and a source of insight. And he is a real Mensch to boot. (If I were a Jew and he a rabbi, he'd be my choice.) But I just heard him say, "Environmentalists are by definition extremists." That is another clear example of the illicit use of 'by definition' that I pointed out in an earlier entry. Here are some examples of correct uses of 'by definition':

Bachelors are by definition male
Triangles are by definition three-sided
In logic, sound arguments are by definition valid. (A sound argument is defined as one whose form is valid and all of whose premises are true.)
In physics, work is defined as the product of force and distance moved: W= Fx.
In set theory, a power set is defined to be the set of all subsets of a given set.
By definition, no rifle is a shotgun.
Semi-automatic firearms are by definition capable of firing exactly one round per trigger pull until the magazine (and the chamber!) is empty.
In metaphysics, an accident by definition is logically incapable of existing without a substance of which it is the accident.
In astrophysics, a light-year is by definition a measure of distance, not of time: it is the distance light travels in one year.
By definition, the luminiferous either is a medium for the propagation of electromagnetic signals.

Incorrect uses of 'by definition':

Joe Nocera: "anyone who goes into a school with a semiautomatic and kills 20 children and six
adults is, by definition, mentally ill."
Donald Berwick: "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional."
Illegal aliens are by definition Hispanic.
Bill Maher, et al.: "Taxation is by definition redistributive."
Dennis Prager: "Environmentalists are by definition extremists."
Capitalists are by definition greedy.
Socialists are by definition envious.
Alpha Centauri is by definition 4.3 light-years from earth.
The luminiferous ether exists by definition.
By definition, the luminiferous ether cannot exist.

I hope it is clear why the incorrect uses are incorrect. As for the Prager example, it is certainly true that some environmentalists are extremists. But others are not. So Prager's assertion is not even true. Even if every environmentalist were an extremist, however, it would still not be true by definition that that is so. By definition, what is true by definition is true; but what is true need not be true by definition.

So what game is Prager playing? Is he using 'by definition' as an intensifier? Is he purporting to make a factual claim to the effect that all environmentalists are extremists and then underlining (as it were) the claim by the use of 'by definition'? Or is he assigning by stipulation his own idiosyncratic meaning to 'environmentalist'? Is he serving notice that 'extremist' is part of the very meaning of 'environmentalist' in his idiolect?

Language matters!

Presentism Between Scylla and Charybdis

What better topic of meditation for New Year's Morn than the 'passage' of time. May the Reaper grant us all another year! "I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think." (Nietzsche)

…………..

If presentism is to be a defensible thesis, a 'presentable' one if you will, then it must avoid both the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of absurdity. Having survived these hazards, it must not perish of unclarity or inexpressibility.

Consider

1. Only what exists exists.

If 'exists' is used in the same way in both occurrences, then (1) is a miserable tautology and not possibly a bone of contention as between presentists and anti-presentists. Note that (1) is a tautology whether 'exists' is present-tensed in both occurrences or temporally unqualified (untensed) in both. To have a substantive thesis, the presentist must distinguish the present-tensed use of 'exist' from some other use and say something along the lines of

P. Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter.

This implies that what no longer exists does not exist simpliciter, and that what will exist does not exist simpliciter. It is trivial to say that what no longer exists does not presently exist, but this is not what the presentist is saying: he is is saying that what no longer exists does not exist period (full stop, simpliciter, at all, sans phrase, absolutely, pure and simple, etc.)

But the presentist must also, in his formulation of his thesis, avoid giving aid and comfort to the absurdity that could be called 'solipsism of the present moment.' (I borrow the phrase from Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Simon and Schuster 1948, p. 181.) To wit,

SPM. Only what exists (present tense) exists simpliciter; nothing existed and nothing will exist.

The idea behind (SPM) is decidedly counterintuitive but cannot be ruled out by logic alone. To illustrate, consider James Dean who died on September 30th, 1955. Presentist and anti-presentist agree that Dean existed and no longer exists. (Alter the example to Dean's car if you hold to the immortality of the soul.) That is, both presentist and anti-presentist maintain that there actually was this actor, that he was not a mere possibility or a fictional being. The presentist, however, thinks that Dean does not exist at all (does not exist simpliciter) while the anti-presentist maintains that Dean does exist simpliciter, but in the past. In contrast to both,the present-moment solipsist holds that Dean never existed and for this reason does not exist at all. Thus there are three positions on past individuals. The presentist says that they do not exist at all or simpliciter. The anti-presentist says that they do exist simpliciter. The PM-solispist says that they never existed.

Clearly, the presentist must navigate between the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of present-moment solipsism. So what is the presentist saying? He seems to be operating with a metaphysical picture according to which there is a Dynamic Now which is the source and locus of a ceaseless annihilation and creation: some things are ever passing out of being and other things are ever coming into being. He is not saying that all that is in being is all there ever was in being or all there ever will be in being. That is the lunatic thesis of the present-moment solipsist.

The presentist can be characterized as an annihilationist-creationist in the following sense. He is annihilationist about the past, creationist about the future. He maintains that an item that becomes past does not lose merely the merely temporal property of presentness, but loses both presentness and existence. And an item that becomes present does not gain merely the merely temporal property of presentness, but gains both presentness and existence. Becoming past is a passing away, an annihilation, and becoming present is a coming into being, a creation out of nothing.

To many, the presentist picture seem intuitively correct, though I would not go so far as Alan Rhoda who, quoting John Bigelow, maintains that presentism is "arguably the commonsense position." I would suggest that common sense, assuming we can agree on some non-tendentious characterization of same, takes no position on arcane metaphysical disputes such as this one. (This is a fascinating metaphilosophical topic that cannot be addressed now. How does the man on the street think about time? Answer: he doesn't think about it, although he is quite adept at telling time, getting to work on time and using correctly the tenses of his mother tongue.)

So far, so good. But there is still, to me at least, something deeply puzzling about the presentist thesis. Consider the following two tensed sentences about the actor James Dean. 'Dean does not exist.' 'Dean did exist.' Both tensed sentences are unproblematically true, assuming that death is annihilation. (We can avoid this assumption by changing the example to Dean's silver Porsche.) Because both sentences are plainly true, recording as they do Moorean facts, they are plainly logically consistent.

The presentist, however, maintains that what did exist, but no longer exists, does not exist at all. That is the annihilationist half of his characteristic thesis. It is not obviously true in the way the data sentences are obviously true. Indeed, it is not clear, to me at least, what exactly the presentist thesis MEANS. (Evaluation of a proposition as either true or false presupposes a grasp of its sense or meaning.) When the presentist says, in the present using a present-tensed sentence, that

1. Dean does not presently exist at all

he does not intend this to hold only at the present moment, else (1) would collapse into the trivially true present-tensed 'Dean does not exist.' He intends something more, namely:

2. Dean does not presently exist at any time, past, present, or future.

Now what bothers me is the apparent present reference in (2) to past and future times. How can a present-tensed sentence be used to refer to the past? That's one problem. A second is that (2) implies

3. It is presently the case that there are past times at which Dean does not exist.

But (3) is inconsistent with the presentist thesis according to which (abstract objects aside) only the present time and items at the present time exist.

My underlying question is whether presentism has the resources to express its own thesis. Does it make it between the Scylla of tautology and the Charybdis of PM-solipsism only to founder on the reef of inexpressibility?

I have long held that time is the hardest of all philosophical nuts to crack. I fear it is above my pay grade, and yours too.

Happy New Year!

Nassim Taleb’s Argument for Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons

Just over the transom an e-mail from someone who wants me to review Nassim Taleb's latest book. So I asked Mr. Google to tell me who this Taleb fellow is and he referred me to Nassim Taleb's Super-Simple Argument for Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons. After reading this incoherent Facebook posting of his, I decided that time spent reading anything further by Taleb would probably be wasted.

Beware of wasting time on the latest stuff. What is hot now will be forgotten tomorrow. Here is some good advice from Leo Strauss on reading and writing.

UPDATE (1/2): This parody further dissuades me from reading Taleb. There is a strong temptation to want to be be up on all the latest stuff. But isn't it foolish to succumb to this temptation if there are great books you have never cracked? Life is short. Spend it well.

Work, Not Welfare, Uplifts the Poor

Our aptly appellated (by Newt Gingrich) 'food stamp president' really ought to read this excellent piece by Peter Cove.

What the Gun Debate is Fundamentally About

At bottom, the gun debate boils down to a conflict of visions, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Sowell. This is well-explained by Mchael Medved in The Liberal God Delusion. Excerpt:

Consider the current dispute over the right response to gun violence. At its core, this argument comes down to a visceral disagreement between relying on self-defense or on government protection. Gun-rights enthusiasts insist that the best security for law-abiding citizens comes from placing formidable firearms into their hands; gun-control advocates believe we can protect the public far more effectively by taking guns away from as many Americans as possible. In other words, conservatives wantto address the threat of gun violence by giving individuals more power while liberals seek to improve the situation by concentrating more power in the hands of the government. The right preaches self-reliance while the left places its trust in the higher power of government.

The same dynamic characterizes most of today’s foreign-policy and defense debates. Right-wingers passionately proclaim the ideal of “peace through strength,” arguing that a powerful, self-confident America with dominant military resources remains the only guarantee of national security. Progressives, on the other hand, dream of multilateral consensus, comprehensive treaties, disarmament, grand peace deals, and vastly enhanced authority for the United Nations. Once again, liberals place a touching and naive faith in the ideal of a higher power—potential world government—while conservatives insist that the United States, like any nation, must ultimately rely only on itself.

For the liberal, the weapon, not the wielder, is the cynosure of his moral disapprobation, and it doesn't matter whether the weapon is a semi-automatic pistol or a nuclear device. It is baaaaaad, as such and in itself, and so must be banned. For the conservative, the focus is on the wielder, not the weapon, for only the wielder is a moral agent. If Israel has nukes, that is not a problem. But it is a big problem if a rogue state such as Iran does. Iran does, but Israel does not, call for the destruction of other states.

The difference between my shotgun and Stanley 'Tookie' William's shotgun resides not in the shotgun but in the fact that he is or (thankfully) was a moral cretin whereas your humble correspondent, despite his manifold minor faults, does not deserve such an appellation.

It's the wielder, not the weapon, that counts. Wise up, liberals.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Tunes from Scorsese’s Mean Streets(1973)

Ronettes, Be My Baby (opening sequence).

Rolling Stones, Tell Me (Keitel's entrance).

Rolling Stones, Jumpin' Jack Flash (De Niro's entrance).

Smokey Robinson, Mickey's Monkey

Derek and the Dominoes, I looked Away

Marvelettes, Please Mr. Postman

Little Caesar and the Romans, Those Oldies but Goodies

Johnny Ace, Pledging My Love

Paragons, Florence

On the Illicit Use of ‘By Definition.’ 2012 ‘Gun’ Version

What follows is a reposting of an entry that first appeared in these pages on 19 July 2010. The reposting is prompted by the following surprising statement by Joe Nocera: "But it is equally true that anyone who goes into a school with a semiautomatic and kills 20 children and six adults is, by definition, mentally ill." (Emphasis added.) Well, maybe it isn't so surprising given that Mr. Nocera is a NYT op-ed writer. Surprising or not, Nocera's claim is not only false, but illustrative of complete confusion about the meaning of 'by definition.'

Suppose a Palestinian Arab terrorist enters a yeshiva with a semi-automatic rifle and kills 20 children and six adults. May you validly infer that the terrorist is mentally ill? Of course not. He may or may not be. Were the 9/11 hijackers mentally ill? No. They collectively committed an unspeakably evil act. But only a liberal would confuse an evil act with an insane act. Suppose a young SS soldier is ordered to shoot a group of 26 defenceless Jews, toppling them into a mass grave they were forced to dig. He does so, acting sanely and rationally, knowing that if he does not commit mass murder he himself will be shot to death.

Conceptual confusion and emotive uses of language are trademarks of liberal feel-good 'thinking.' To give one more example from Nocera's piece, he refers to semi-automatics as "killing machines." Question: would a semi-auto pistol or rifle be a "killing machine" if it were used purely defensively or to stop a would-be mass murderer? Is an 'assault weapon' an assault weapon when used for defense? Is a liberal a liberal on the rare occasions when he talks sense?

…………………

What is wrong with the following sentence: "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional"? It is from a speech by Donald Berwick, President Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, speaking to a British audience about why he favors government-run health care.

I have no objection to someone arguing that health care ought to be redistributional. Argue away, and
good luck! But I object strenuously to an argumentative procedure whereby one proves that X is Y by illict importation of the predicate Y into the definition of X. But that is exactly what Berwick is doing. Obviously, it is no part of the definition of 'health care' or 'excellent health care' that it should be redistributional. Similarly, it is no part of the definition of 'illegal alien' that illegal aliens are Hispanic. It is true that most of them are, but it does not fall out of the definition.

This is the sort of intellectual slovenliness (or is it mendacity?) that one finds not only in leftists but also in Randians like Leonard Peikoff. In one place, he defines 'existence' in such a way that nothing supernatural exists, and then triumphantly 'proves' that God cannot exist! See here.

This has all the advantages of theft over honest toil as Bertrand Russell remarked in a different connection.

One more example. Bill Maher was arguing with Bill O'Reilly one night on The O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly came out against wealth redistribution via taxation, to which Maher responded in effect that that is just what taxation is. The benighted Maher apparently believes that taxation by definition is redistributional. Now that is plainly idiotic: there is nothing in the nature of taxation to require that it redistribute wealth. Taxation is the coercive taking of monies from citizens in order to fund the functions of government. One can of course argue for progressive taxation and wealth redistribution via
taxation. But those are further ideas not contained in the very notion of taxation.

Leftists are typically intellectual cheaters. They will try to bamboozle you. Listen carefully when they bandy about phrases like 'by definition.' Don't let yourself be fooled.

"But are Berwick, Peikoff, and Maher really trying to fool people, or are they merely confused?" I don't know and it doesn''t matter. The main thing is not to be taken in by their linguistic sleight-of-hand whether intentional or unintentional.

Silence

If it is a mere absence of sound, why is it so delicious? Turn off some noisemaker and the silence is there, palpably. It is supereminently there if you succeed in turning off that most noisy and hard-to-turn-off noisemaker, your own mind.

Max Picard proved unhelpful. His effusions are vaguely suggestive but neither fish nor fowl, neither philosophy nor poetry. More help is to be had from the Beatles: "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. It is not dying, it is not dying . . . ."

U. K. Experience Proves It: When Guns are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Have Guns

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control