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May 13, 2013
Though Robin sometimes seems to intend to incriminate Hayek and others by association, as with the likes of Pinochet, perhaps as a way to emphasize his continued membership in good standing on the political Left, there is nothing in the core of his argument, as opposed to its trivial polemical decorations, that a Hayekian ought to find embarrassing. To the contrary, Robin attributes "profundity and daring" to Hayek and his marginal siblings. Thought through, Robin's arguments may present at least as many difficulties to a leftist, including one operating from Robin's own presumptions, as to a conservative or to a libertarian.
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September 7, 2010
If a resuscitation and revival, a last ditch effort at salvation, or a transfiguration of social democracy is not on today's political agenda, that may be all the more reason to pass this book on, following Tony Judt's last requests, to a young person looking forward. It may even be the conservative thing to do.
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October 15, 2012
The zombie is a perhaps only slightly exaggerated version of the slave or other member of the lower orders from the perspective of the privileged. Like the hungry poor, the zombies confront the responsible citizen as insatiably ravenous mouths to feed, the "unreasoning mob" itself, human as less than human, pure destructive appetite. At the same time, the terrifying joy of the zombie movie, like the terrifying joy both of other apocalyptic genres and of the slave revolt, lies in the destruction of one form of inhumanity by the other that it has produced, or is produced from it. We witness or continually re-experience the liberating annihilation of the whole constricted, compromised, and evil world, all of its inequities, and all of its false values.
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This is a good and thought-provoking post. I can't quite congeal my thoughts into anything coherent, but I wanted to say that. And to touch [...]
CK, I love this. Like you, I've had misgivings about the liberal feminism that's popular right now, and I've found it hard to articulate [...]
Interesting. So you're saying that taken to its logical extreme (which could be either nihilistic or fantastical by the way) liberalism ends up having [...]
On “Only the Right Believes in Class Conflict Anymore”
OT, Jonathan Howard has a Cthluthu meets Marlowe type tale, Lovecraft and Carter, out, with some reference from the classic tale 'thing on the steps'
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the oligarchs in the right and left, will work together against 'the radical middle' FN is the Poujade movement redux,
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Not exactly, the dominance of the corporate class, shorthanded by the Chamber of Commerce, over petit bourgeois interest, and their willingness to collaborate with the regime, on a whole host of issues, is indemic, not only on this side of the pond, for Tory/UKIP, UMP/Front National, and CDU/CSU, Alternative, also Populares/Citizens,
On “In This Galaxy, Now”
A more interesting point, is the scenario the sequel presents, 33 years on, the victory over the Empire, has faded into Myth, the First Order, somewhat like the Siloviki, reigns over certain corners of the outer rim, their ferocity also suggests the Islamic State,
On “Open Thread”
Heykel doesn't answer the question, why Salafism is the default reaction among regime opponents, with the possible exception of Indonesia,
On ““A” rarely if ever equals “A” only”
whatever, btw that Presidential rant at the prayer breakfast, is reminiscent of those apologias when you came back from the underverse
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the prophets were quite clear, from Isiah on, certainly Jeremiah,
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the arrogance of humans conceiving of such a god, actually nothing new under the sun, Saul of Tarsus saw it nearly 2,000 years ago,
On “Feet First on Reagan, Neo-Conservatism, and Hegel”
well this episode of colonial marines extreme, was supposed to be an allegory of the Indian Wars, Vietnam and Iraq,
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Except Avatar was about a fictional interplanetary war, whereas American Sniper is about a very real threat, which manifests itself not on in Ramadi, but Beziers or Birmingham
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Eastwood's whole oevre, going back to the spaghetti western, is how does one deal with evil and corruption, from VanCleef's corrupt Union colonel, to Holbrook's police commissioner in Magnum Force, to Hackman's character in Unforgiven, if memory serves, it's about institutional corruption as well, for the similar reasons,
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well this still demonstrates a moral vacuum, saturated in oikophobia, the notion that we are the greater evil,
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the sophistry endorsed by some of those on your twitter feed, re the Kyle story, is really breathtaking, it's as if ISIS never arose, which is Zarquawi's old outfit, with a new chief,
On “Being Charlie – Updated”
it's an interesting notion about the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but as with the Aliens in ID 4, the answer is more obvious,
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I was reading Candide, and was reminded that the great Lisbon earthquake, was a strong influence, on Voltaire's thinking, the atrocity of the 2oth arrondisement demanded something more profound,
re Fukuyama, as I've remarked before, he seems not to understand his own conclusion, the 'end of history' was a reset, not an end in itself,
On “Will’s Affront (An Untimely Post)”
no the 'hookup culture' is not synonymous with rape, these activists seem to ignore that detail in their paradigm as if this was the Victorian era, and not the aspect detailed in Penny Dreadful
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no rape is a very serious offense with serious consequences, precisely it should not be bandied about loosely,
On “The Docket”
With the results from Tunisia in ,the Arab Spring will turn out to have been as enduring as the Revolutions of 1830,
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odd how 'the narrative' and the facts rarely align
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vizzini, was the evil dwarf in Princess Bride, the more prominent the campus, the less likely the incident, Ramapo yes, UVA apparently not, Merry Christmas,
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Only in a Vizzini sense, do we agree about a 'rape culture' where value clarification and use of intoxicants are a toxic brew, but that isn't the progressive argument is it,
On “Feet First on Reagan, Neo-Conservatism, and Hegel”
A thought experiment, think of an alternate reality where the US adopted Hegelianism, and Germany adopted Locke, what kind of a world would that be,
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No, I don't that's it, amorality is probably what rankles Strauss, although one might flow from the other, re Nietzche's mixed feelings about Gott en Totten, De Tocqueville had the prophetic vision, as did Orwell although he cribbed from Burnham,
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I thought both Reagan and Lincoln were quite clear, Lincoln might have been a little hyperbolic, he didn't want to sound like Cicero, recovered in the 5th Century AD, when the state and the church had fused into one authority, and self government was a fiction, some might say, the regime of President Snow, was what Reagan might have feared in addition to foreign powers,
On “…and, Ultimately, to Destroy (3): Acceptance”
Actually no, Halabja was an example of how that doesn't really happen, even in '91, there wasn't a sufficient response, the Sunni tribesman of Anbar and other provinces are willing to join AQ not once but twice, so this is their 'liberated state' much like the Golden Square and the Baath,
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.