June 15, 2013
If we agree that we want a world in which nation-states do not use chemical weapons against their peoples, or a world in which chemical and other WMD use does not spread in interstate or other conflict situations, and the only way to ensure that worthy goal is to assert and enforce a transnational imperative, then we are neo-imperialists, and the only reason we do not confess as much is that we have inherited an ideological-terminological allergy.
Continued
August 19, 2009
The process of social psychological reconciliation can be as unforgiving as conventional monetary accounting, but remains infinitely unpredictable, compounding interest perversely - like a sadistic loan shark, like the Joker. That the actor who played the part in The Dark Knight died before the film was released adds even greater horror to the pallidly morbid visage - not as some crude call for assassination or lynching, Obamanaut, but as a death notice for the candidate's seeming promise: The Obamessiah we raised up becoming a zombie clown, an immortal Beelzobama, or maybe just a Lizard People - an excuse for mournful laughter, if ever there was one, perhaps until the day or days, to our relief or regret, a human being at last emerges.
Continued
July 3, 2015
The critique of neo-conservatism and of Reaganism, especially the right-libertarian critique from within conservatism, amounts to a critique of their shared Hegelianism.
Continued
On “Glenn Beck’s Jewish Problem”
@ fuster:
If it had been only a tiny bit effective, it still would have saved a life or two. And it would have slowed the transportation of equipment to soldiers, etc. Bombing rail lines in those railroad-dependent days was as useful and less deadly than bombing cities in order to weaken one's enemies.
Here's an old book review of mine, the immediate source of my statement about Lippmann:
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/Buried.html
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@ fuster:
Lippmann was a columnist who wrote about foreign affairs. Had the issue of genocide become known during the war, the United States might have bombed the railroad lines leading to Auschwitz.
And maybe writing about it wouldn't have made a difference. We can't know. We do know that not raising the issue was effectively anti-Semitic--whether or not it was intended to be.
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@ fuster:
Lippmann never mentioned the subject of genocide, either before, during, or after World War II.
@ miguel cervantes and CK MacLeod:
Marx wanted to create a new type of human nature, so that all disagreement would end and the state would wither away. Rejecting humans the way they are necessarily leads to attempts at thought reform and totalitarianism.
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It occurs to me that Glenn Beck and Ahmadinejad agree on a number of issues. Leftists, for some reason, never try to minimize Beck's extremist remarks.
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Walter Lippmann was a Jewish anti-Semite. In 1922, he said, “The rich and vulgar and pretentious Jews of our big American cities … are the real fountain of anti-Semitism…. You cannot build up a decent civilization among people who, when they are at last, after centuries of denial, free to go to the land and cleanse their bodies, now huddle together in a steam-heated slum” (cited in Ronald Steel’s "Walter Lippmann and the American Century"). How one can be rich and vulgar and pretentious and reside in a slum is not explained. Perhaps he considered Central Park West a slum. Lippmann did not take his own advice and go to the land to cleanse his body. Nor did he ever praise the socialist kibbutzniks who did so.
On “On Loughnerism”
The astrological signs have been moving from the dates conneced with them for millennia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/us/15zodiac.html?scp=2&sq=astrology&st=cse
But it doesn't matter. If one believes in dogfart, astrology works as well even if the constellations no longer line up with the periods associated with them.
On “California isn’t sliding into the fiscal ocean after all…”
Economies go up and down, but California, like the United States, is rich by nature--because of natural resources and because of democracy.
On “How Palin Should Have Responded to the Tucson Shootings”
@ fuster:
I guess it was in 1968. It doesn't matter. Even if the law is still on the books, the militia doesn't exist. Jared Loughner doesn't belong to it.
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@ fuster:
The militia described in that law was well regulated. It doesn't exist today. What well-regulated militia is it that is served by letting people own weapons?
Of course, One could easily imagine a well-regulated militia composed of a coalition between the KKK and al-Qaeda.
I guess a member of such a group certainly needs the right to be armed to his or her teeth.
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@ fuster:
Here's a line from Article I section 8:
"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."
What in the name of heaven can that have to do with letting any old nut buy weapons? That doesn't suppress insurrections; it enables them.
The amendment may have had something to do with militias once, but it doesn't today. What militias might one be thinking of?
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@ fuster;
Then why did they put in the opening restrictive clause, which makes the amendment incomprehensible?
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@ fuster:
So you're saying the authors of the amendment wanted to make sure that every single person, including crazy nuts and enemies of the United States, should have the right to be armed to the teeth.
I will grant that in 1791 there was no anticipation that groups as fanatic as al-Qaeda would come into being.
But they did know about slaves. Since a slave was three-fifths of a person, according to the Constitution at that time, five slaves would equal three people, who therefore would have the right to be armed.
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@ fuster:
The amendment is one single sentence. The introductory clause is a part of that sentence which was put there for a reason.
I assume the word "People" means "nation" in the context of the amendment.
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The Second Amendment begins with the words, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...” In what way does the right of individuals to bear arms have anything to do with a militia, or with its being well regulated? The Second Amendment must have meant something in 1791, when it was passed, but today it is gibberish.
New York City has the lowest crime rate of all the major cities in the United States. One of the reasons is that New York State has strict gun-control laws. On the other hand, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Huntsville--and most recently, Tucson--were places where tragedies occurred because of inadequate gun control.
On “Assassination: Live-Blogging and Not Exactly Holding Back on the Potentially Explosive Politics…”
People are good. People all deserve respect.
There are, however, people who do bad things. They do so because they are trying to be good but have been misled by their faith in a cuckoo doctrine. For example, Muslims who blow themselves up in order to destroy mosques and kill other Muslims--the most common form of violence nowadays--are doing so because they believe they are being kind to Islam and to the world.
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@ fuster:
Pat Buchanan licks Islamic ass.
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Extremes meet.
The Left is the Right.
On “Israel’s Relentlessly Growing Illiberalism”
Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, was where I saw the vigil mourning the victims of the murder at the gay center in Tel Aviv in 2009. Jerusalem has an annual gay-pride parade.
On “Almost Everyone vs. The Whole Thing”
@ CK MacLeod:
For all intents and purposes, Bob has done it for me.
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I hadn't, miguel. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
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@ miguel cervantes:
Dostoevsky knew how to write clearly and capture the attention of his readers, unlike authors who fly around in ever-decreasing circles.
@ bob:
He DID want to tell you what color socks to wear, as do all thinkers who don't understand that facts are beautiful, that argument is a way to explore reality, and who look forward to the "perfect" time when people will all people will think alike.
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@ bob:
I agree with you. I have always thought of Hegel as a bird that flies around in ever-decreasing circles until it flies up its own ass.
On “The next war in the Middle East coming soon to your home theater”
@ CK MacLeod:
You certainly stick to your guns.
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If you believe Jews kill children to use their blood for ritual purposes, no peace with them or their state is ever possible. Some slanders are more equal than others.
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@ CK MacLeod:
It's instigation if it's in a government-run source in a country that has signed a treaty agreeing not to instigate.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.