Saturday, May 09, 2020
NuAmerican Lecturing Americans about Their "Racism"
If the facts turn out to justify the father and son, is Ahmari going to give a public apology for his accusations or is he just going to delete his Tweet and pretend he didn't write his editorial?
The right of citizens' to make an arrest is part of republican self-government. Statists would like to take that way from citizens and turn it over to the state alone. If communities were free to regulate the actions of outsiders, this would not be an issue, but that freedom has also been eroded by the state.
2010 Georgia Code
TITLE 17 - CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, CHAPTER 4 - ARREST OF PERSONS, ARTICLE 4 - ARREST BY PRIVATE PERSONS, § 17-4-60 - Grounds for arrest
Breaking Down Georgia's Citizen's Arrest Law After Ahmaud Arbery Fatal Shooting
By Sarah Rose
Georgia Legal Aid: Rights During Arrest Authored By: Carl Vinson Institute
The right of citizens' to make an arrest is part of republican self-government. Statists would like to take that way from citizens and turn it over to the state alone. If communities were free to regulate the actions of outsiders, this would not be an issue, but that freedom has also been eroded by the state.
Sheer stupidity could have been a factor in the #AhmaudAubrey case, but after so many such cases on the same pattern going back, well, centuries, black Americans might be excused for blaming motives more invidious.
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) May 8, 2020
My take. https://t.co/Qb8outGaq3
Wow. You really upended the narrative with this tweet. I guess he deserved to be ambushed and shot dead . . . for taking a peek around a construction site. https://t.co/Prm1Cr8MRq
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) May 10, 2020
2010 Georgia Code
TITLE 17 - CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, CHAPTER 4 - ARREST OF PERSONS, ARTICLE 4 - ARREST BY PRIVATE PERSONS, § 17-4-60 - Grounds for arrest
Breaking Down Georgia's Citizen's Arrest Law After Ahmaud Arbery Fatal Shooting
By Sarah Rose
Georgia Legal Aid: Rights During Arrest Authored By: Carl Vinson Institute
Rod Dreher Responds to Austin Ruse
‘Apocalypse Any Day Now!’
What I don’t do, either in the book or my writing, is allow people to think that political activism is the solution to our crisis. Hear me: I believe that political activism is important, and should continue. My objection is to the belief widespread among conservative Christians, my own tribe, that our problem is essentially a matter of not having gotten the politics right. Austin Ruse is a political activist by profession. He runs a United Nations lobbying organization called C-Fam. Good for him! I mean that seriously. He should keep going. What he does is not the problem, except insofar as ordinary Christians believe that kind of activism Ruse does is not only necessary (which it is), but sufficient (which it absolutely is not).
'We’ll Meet Again' - Katherine Jenkins brings the nation together in song | VE Day 75 - BBC
Don't UK people already have enough videos of NHS workers? Since the BBC was involved, I bet this video passed their standards for "representation." A rather pathetic sight, actually. A conquered people.
NO BS PC considerations here...
NO BS PC considerations here...
Friday, May 08, 2020
SJWs in Pursuit of Social Justice
You know who didn't die from Covid?
— Rollo Tomassi (@RationalMale) May 8, 2020
Adele.https://t.co/xvqTAmuSKv
What to Make of This?
Josais: Anglo-American Originalism: A Satire by P.J. Smith
Maybe I am sleep deprived or it is too early in the day, but I can't tell what the author is trying to accomplish with this "satire." Appealing to the burning of heretics just discredits his brand of Christianity and makes his political thinking suspect to anyone considering Latin integralism with an open mind but modern sensibilities regarding religious liberty. Rather than a slam against originalism, it's an "own goal" against Latin integralism.
I know in many places there is a COVID-19 lockdown, but: "Dude, you need to get out of the house more."
“Given Adrian Vermeule’s attack on our founding documents of the 1980s, I thought the time was right to reveal what had been shown to me.” https://t.co/ESvE3pmO8q— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 8, 2020
.@smithpatrick08 contra @Vermeullarmine: the Founders built better than they knew. https://t.co/xu6ZP7g5Mk— joe barnas 🦔 (@BarnasJoe) May 8, 2020
The answer to Vermeule becomes clear, does it not? If one accepts a thick understanding of originalism and the Anglo-American tradition, you see that the power to execute heretics is already part of the constitutional order in this country. Federalism is nothing if not a warrant for the states to pursue heretics—as good originalists, we note that these are heretics as Frederick II and Boniface VIII would have seen them—while the federal government sticks to its knitting. Our great separation of powers means that state-court judges shall issue writs de heretico comburendo and de excommunicato capiendo upon the application of ecclesiastical authorities for governors and sheriffs to execute. If the states have modified this understanding by various enactments—here we should remember that statutes in derogation of the common law are always construed narrowly—that is their choice. Other states may make other choices.
Maybe I am sleep deprived or it is too early in the day, but I can't tell what the author is trying to accomplish with this "satire." Appealing to the burning of heretics just discredits his brand of Christianity and makes his political thinking suspect to anyone considering Latin integralism with an open mind but modern sensibilities regarding religious liberty. Rather than a slam against originalism, it's an "own goal" against Latin integralism.
I know in many places there is a COVID-19 lockdown, but: "Dude, you need to get out of the house more."
More of Vermeule's Brand of Constitutionalism
MOJ: Deference and the Common Good By Adrian Vermeule
On the relationship between common-good constitutionalism and judicial deference https://t.co/c8GL0bxLKJ
— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 8, 2020
File under “things one thought were obvious” https://t.co/fmBfHvcIn7
— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 8, 2020
(Adrian Vermeule) Deference and the Common Good https://t.co/fNdA0hdKPF
— Mirror of Justice (@MirrorJustice) May 8, 2020
Maybe Taleb Should Replace Jordan Peterson
Never, never complain about your enemies. Only losers complain. Drive them to complain about you.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 7, 2020
What Sort of Alternate History Would Be Realistic?
Crisis: The Fifties: Catholic Paradise Lost? by Charles Coulombe
I'm not going to address the claim that Catholic Americans generally did not take their faith seriously, which is rather difficult to prove. (An opinion that they accepted the priorities of the dominant urban mass culture, while difficult to prove stricly, would be more probable, at least, as they followed the same patterns of behavior.)
iirc, Coulombe is both a Latin traditionalist and a Latin integralist. So in his alternate history, how would have Roman Catholics successfully converted their Protestant neighbors? Assuming that the average Catholic was intellectually prepared to do so by the standards of his time (which would not include a strong familiarity with sacred scripture or knowledge of Greek), how would he have converted the average Protestant?
1. Using neoscholastic apologetics?
2. A Latin triumphalist view of the previous 450 years or so of the history of the West? (Especially one that traced the genealogy of everything that was wrong in the West to the Protestant Reformation.)
3. Appealing to the importance of a form of worship in a language unintelligible to most Protestants?
I really doubt that most Protestants would find these appeals convincing.
So why did the Catholic radicals fail so signally? Partly because of the aftermath of Vatican II and the loss of Catholic identity. But that loss itself was indicative of a deeper problem. As with the pre-World War II Catholic activists, they had no real following with either the majority of lay Catholics or the hierarchy. Mostly converts or only-partly assimilated ethnics, they made the same mistake Paul Blanshard had made. They thought that, as a whole, Catholic Americans took their faith seriously. Our history since then shows that, as a whole, we did not. We are paying the price for that lack of zeal today.
I'm not going to address the claim that Catholic Americans generally did not take their faith seriously, which is rather difficult to prove. (An opinion that they accepted the priorities of the dominant urban mass culture, while difficult to prove stricly, would be more probable, at least, as they followed the same patterns of behavior.)
iirc, Coulombe is both a Latin traditionalist and a Latin integralist. So in his alternate history, how would have Roman Catholics successfully converted their Protestant neighbors? Assuming that the average Catholic was intellectually prepared to do so by the standards of his time (which would not include a strong familiarity with sacred scripture or knowledge of Greek), how would he have converted the average Protestant?
1. Using neoscholastic apologetics?
2. A Latin triumphalist view of the previous 450 years or so of the history of the West? (Especially one that traced the genealogy of everything that was wrong in the West to the Protestant Reformation.)
3. Appealing to the importance of a form of worship in a language unintelligible to most Protestants?
I really doubt that most Protestants would find these appeals convincing.
Thursday, May 07, 2020
Indeed
Relevant to yesterday's post about writing. One of his best interviews. @nntaleb
— Smiljana Skiba (@MasaSkiba) May 4, 2020
“If you do something you don't like, it sort of corrupts your personality”
soul in the gamе | μεράκι | meraki
Талеб објашњава шта је мерак. Мерак га слушати. pic.twitter.com/tfKUzSfQXx
Downsizing the Church
CWR Dispatch: Analysis: The US Church is going broke. Here’s why, and what it could mean by JD Flynn for CNA
Does the patriarchate of Rome, especially in the US, have an opportunity for radical reform? If not with the current economic downturn due to COVID-19, then when collapse proceeds full speed ahead? (Assuming that there is a temporary respite between the two.) Or will clericalism and institutional inertia (as well as lay people holding on to status and power) be obstacles to reform?
Some will likely praise the winnowing of the Church’s bureaucratic class. But those with day-to-day experience of ministry professionals will acknowledge, even while criticizing a tendency towards bureacratic bloat, that the individuals who fill Church positions usually do so because of a desire to serve Christ and the People of God, and usually do so after ample investment in their own education for ministry.As if credentialing were the most important part of becoming a bureaucrat. Bureaucracy is not ministry. Bureaucracy merely upholds the top-down power structure that strangles the freedom and initiative of local ecclesial communities. "You must take this class to be a certified catechist, or you must have this degree to become a bureaucrat." There is no questioning by the faithful of whether those standards are appropriate allowed. It's all left to the "expertise" of "experts" accountable only to the bishop and the bureaucracy, not to the people.
Nevertheless, barring some dramatic change in forecasts, those things seem practically inevitable."Poorer," smaller parishes would be a change in the right direction. "Poor Church for the poor" is a pious platitude mouthed by those who are well-off and don't have to live with the poor. Such interactions are to be handled by standards of community-formation and communal life, which are observed and upheld by men, who won't be involved in any sort of sanctioned endeavor by the institutional Church.
They will require a new way of living the Church’s life, or the rediscovery of old ways.
A poorer U.S. church, even one made poor through tragedy, might find that it meets the vision of Pope Francis’ hope of a “poor Church for the poor.”
Such a Church will require more Catholics to take personal responsibility for the mission of the parish, the diocese, and, ultimately, the Gospel.The culture of clericalism, "niceness," and feminism will never allow this sort of Christian freedom to be exercised by men.
When faithful Christians call out parish ministries or their pastor for heterodoxy, what will the "official response" of the Church be?
The downturn may well occasion a rise in the prominence and influence of ecclesial movements, whose lay members generally give far more time than other Catholics to missionary work, and often with more evangelical fervor. It may also occasion the emergence of small tight-knit faith communities within parishes, who meet regularly in homes, rather than in large parish events. It might even occasion a rise in the frequency of catechesis undertaken mostly at home, by parents themselves.How long before ecclesial movements and small parish groups are criticized by those with power for being too divisive because they start to disagree with their opinions? Given that so many parents are ignorant of their faith, it is unlikely that they will embrace such a catechetical role for their children.
The downturn might also occasion a new zeal, and opportunity, for evangelization, as people shaken by the pandemic and its aftershocks find themselves looking for meaning. That evangelization will likely be undertaken organically, which is say to cheaply, rather than by professional initiatives driven by expensive and time-consuming pastoral plans.Undertaken organically by whom? Women in a feminized Church? How are they going to reach out to disempowered men?
American Compass Launch
Congratulations to @AmerCompass for an impressive launch this evening, including an essay series with bylines from @marcorubio, @SenTomCotton, @wellscking, and morehttps://t.co/zTB85JDk4W
— James Hitchcock (@JamesHitchcock) May 4, 2020
A host of questionable associations -- will this project be anything more than a "make-work" opportunity. Will it be successful in persuading the oligarchy and the Republican Party that factories have to be brought back to the US? Economic nationalism might be the first necessary step, but it's not the ultimate step since even economic nationalism, given resource limits, is unsustainable. But that's not a message the oligarchy would want to hear. Professional pundits, intellectuals, and think tank workers generally should be ignored. Taleb isn't a professional intellectual (except with his writing about risk and statistics) so he has a bit more credibility, as his livelihood doesn't depend upon him giving his opinion.
NRO is advertising its launch? More reason to suspect it already.
Recovering the American Tradition of Economic Policy | https://t.co/XccZ5S92Bi via @wellscking, @JuliusKrein, & @oren_cass pic.twitter.com/lLzYldcSju
— National Review (@NRO) May 6, 2020
Cass was an advisor for Romney, so this endorsement should be no surprise. What has Romney done to return manufacturing to the US?
.@AmerCompass is helping conservatives rethink how we apply our principles to the problems of today. I welcome their contribution to our national policy debates. https://t.co/iHdOxi59zl
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) May 4, 2020
Congrats to @oren_cass and @wellscking on the formal launch of American Compass! Can't wait to dive in to some of the content on the site. https://t.co/UdwDG0hbj1
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) May 5, 2020
This new think tank wants to reform conservatism. Republicans ignore it at their peril, @henryolsenEPPC writes https://t.co/Itfn7uDu0a
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) May 5, 2020
Definitely read this and pay attention to what @oren_cass and @AmerCompass are doing. It’s brand new, smart, & important. https://t.co/loJwsXep1x
— Chris Buskirk (@thechrisbuskirk) May 5, 2020
For our launch, we are featuring an essay series on Rebooting the American System, with forewords by @marcorubio and @SenTomCotton. The series makes the comprehensive, conservative case for a return to robust national economic policy. https://t.co/zMR2VLjsyf
— American Compass (@AmerCompass) May 4, 2020
At The Commons, Michael Lind: "From Protecting Essential Workers to Upgrading Essential Industries"
— American Compass (@AmerCompass) May 5, 2020
"...the next step is to develop programs for using technology to upgrade essential industries that are low-wage, low-tech and low-productivity..."https://t.co/wDpS84VmNf
First on The Commons, @PatrickDeneen:
— American Compass (@AmerCompass) May 5, 2020
Our economy "is not merely a 'given preference' that arose from purely market forces, but the culmination of... left and right liberal policies designed to shape our identities into creatures above all that consume." https://t.co/fISDVmkmXN
Where Are Autists on the SSH?
Would an autist like Robespierre gain such an acceptance and respect in a well-ordered tribe? I think they would have to occupy a different place, for the good of the group, especially if they are not immune from narcissism or the desire to be AMOG. I always thought something was off with Robespierre in the descriptions I read of him, even if no one diagnosed him as autistic.
Rod Dreher: Robespierre And Auden, Autists
Dreher injects too much of himself (again) into the discussion...
Rod Dreher: Robespierre And Auden, Autists
Dreher injects too much of himself (again) into the discussion...
Another Version of the "New Conservatism"
More heartening evidence that young conservatives are smart and woke. https://t.co/e3TDYn7d23— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) May 7, 2020
National Telegraph: A case for common-good conservatism by Anthony Daoud
"The only solution is to recuperate the tenets of our philosophical history. If not, what are we conserving?"
With a last name like Daoud, it isn't surprising that he doesn't know what else might be worth conserving. NuCanadian.
Hadley Arkes to the Critics of Vermeule
A typically excellent piece from Arkes that lays out the basic problem for originalism, which is that it cannot, as far as its own methods go (and apart from the contingent hopes of some of its practitioners), achieve a stable relationship to the common good. More soon. https://t.co/qPXHUm5xIL— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 7, 2020
NEW: Hadley Arkes argues that @Vermeullarmine's critics demonstrate the moral incoherence of what currently goes for an originalist jurisprudence. @theammind https://t.co/UR3i3tIvdh— RCPublicAffairs: American Civics (@RCPACivics) May 7, 2020
American Mind: Vermeule, his Critics, and the Crisis of Originalism by Hadley Arkes
Hadley Arkes may have something to teach about the Natural Law, but he's wrong on the Constitution. We are dealing with the intersection of legal interpretation and historical fact, discovering the meaning of the Constitution not from the writings of some Founder named as such, but how the states understood the Constitution when they ratified it. Vermeule and others misunderstand the Constitution as a deliberate limit on the Federal Government - there is no "crisis" of Originalism. The problem lies with those who have power, and tinkering with our understanding of the Constitution to give the Federal Government more power so that it can supposedly protect the "common good" will just give it the abuse of power by the Federal Government the cover of approval.
Maybe Arkes has been too influenced by Straussians. This is very unfortunate.
As Harry Jaffa, of blessed memory, so tellingly remarked, that perspective begins by denying that there is any intrinsic worth in the individual person himself, for if there were, that would indeed be the source of personal rights of intrinsic worth. This is deep legal positivism, and I’m afraid that it is indeed a defining strand of what has come to mark “conservative jurisprudence.”
Is He a Latin Traditionalist?
There is always the fringe Catholic passing judgment on American independence.
I don't especially care about the Pulitzer Prize and I think the Times and most of its staff are morons, but it seems strange to me that Catholics would reject the premise that 1776 was a lie and that the real first-order principle of the American project was brutalization.
— Matthew Walther (@matthewwalther) May 5, 2020
A Tribute to John Lukacs
My personal memories of John Lukacs, Hungarian-American historian of Jewish descent, of "reactionary" Catholic views, unfortunately in Hungarian language.https://t.co/hWkUPTzdhNhttps://t.co/JSlPN9LVjk pic.twitter.com/fyb5JesTHi
— Ferenc Hörcher (@HorcherF) May 6, 2020
Harmel Academy Has a Podcast
All of you guys who like to talk about Rerum and Quadragesimo, please give a listen to this talk. It's one thing to talk about the "worker" in the abstract. It's quite another to meet workers where they are & give them training and a life. What can you do? https://t.co/j4DKfFSRyF
— TheFarmersBookshelf (@1947Farmall) May 5, 2020
Liberal Regime?
Why not just the state, or the oligarchy?
American Mind: “First to the Camps”: An Interpretation of Adrian Vermeule by James Matthew Wilson
“Our liberal regime was never a neutral arbiter, defending a free political realm while remaining itself agnostic about the good. It had always at its heart the state’s arbitrary imposition of its will.”https://t.co/xW4NGXQ2ey— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) May 6, 2020
American Mind: “First to the Camps”: An Interpretation of Adrian Vermeule by James Matthew Wilson
If This is Conservatism, You Can Have It
"I share Vermeule’s vision of a conservative future which relies more on the assertive sword of 'Ahmari-ism' " https://t.co/driX9JxMxw— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) May 7, 2020
America Mind: Common Good Originalism by Josh Hammer
The Roman Saint-Making Machine Steams Along
USCCB SJWs
"Racism" is bad but this is just nannying. If they limited their press releases to the USCCB website and checked the page views, what number would they see?
CNA/CWR: US bishops denounce racism, encourage solidarity amid coronavirus pandemic
Vatican News: US Bishops decry racism and xenophobia amid Covid-19 pandemic By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ
In a statement released on Tuesday, three U.S. Bishop express concerns about the increase in incidents of racism and xenophobia amid fears and anxiety fueled by Covid-19 pandemic.
CNA/CWR: US bishops denounce racism, encourage solidarity amid coronavirus pandemic
Vatican News: US Bishops decry racism and xenophobia amid Covid-19 pandemic By Fr. Benedict Mayaki, SJ
In a statement released on Tuesday, three U.S. Bishop express concerns about the increase in incidents of racism and xenophobia amid fears and anxiety fueled by Covid-19 pandemic.
Stoicism
Stoicism, like default accounts of virtue, applies to men. It's one of the few standards of masculine behavior that has not been subsumed by feminism as being proper to fempowerment, though that it is a masculine trait is sufficient for it to be criticized as being "toxic" or a form of emotional repression.
Crisis: ‘Be Strong, Fear Not’: The Case for Christian Stoicism by Michael Warren Davis
Crisis: ‘Be Strong, Fear Not’: The Case for Christian Stoicism by Michael Warren Davis
French Legionnaires Killed in Action
French Foreign Legion soldier dies in combat in Mali
Related:
Vanity Fair: The Expendables By William Langewiesche
It’s the dark romance of the French Foreign Legion: haunted men from everywhere, fighting anywhere, dying for causes not their own. Legionnaires need war, certainly, and Afghanistan is winding down. But there’s always the hopeless battle against rogue gold miners in French Guiana . . .
French Foreign Legion Recruitment
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Terrence Wright on Dorothy Day
CWR Dispatch: Author: Dorothy Day’s personalism and faithful orthodoxy too often overlooked
“If my work on Day has one point to make,” says Dr. Terrence Wright, “it is that she was a very faithful Catholic who loved the Church.”
“If my work on Day has one point to make,” says Dr. Terrence Wright, “it is that she was a very faithful Catholic who loved the Church.”
CWR: As you note, Day’s “program” is not a political one but is spiritual in nature. But is this not also a form of “politics” in a more expansive sense of the word “politics”? And does not the narrower sense of politics (voting, legislation, policies) depend on this broader sense of politics? Could you elaborate more on this notion of politics and how it relates to Day’s anarchism?Her suspicion of the state is correct; but does she have a political program that all should follow? Is there anyone living today who can be called her true successor or follower? With how many of her disciples would she agree today? And if there is disagreement on their political advocacy and public positions, then how well did she supervise her organization? If she didn't do a good job, then whatever credibility she may have with respect to political discussions is undermined.
Wright: A lot of people have misascribed different political ideologies to Day, claiming that she was a communist or socialist. After her conversion, Day was in fact an anarchist in the sense that she embraced the Church’s teaching of subsidiarity which emphasizes the importance of acting locally. Day’s personalism emphasized the responsibility that we all have for one another.
Far from being a communist, she was very suspect of “Holy Mother the State” relieving us of this personal responsibility for the other. Christ doesn’t call for the state to take care of the poor, He calls us all to this responsibility. So her politics is spiritual in that my membership in the local community and my membership in the mystical body of Christ calls me to take care of the other. And, since we are all body and soul, this care must be on both the material and the spiritual level: thus I am called to perform the spiritual and the corporal acts of mercy.
Taleb on Localism
Indeed, this is the essence of #localism! https://t.co/0pZaUjAiSb
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 6, 2020
We need to figure out which "libertarians" are really localists without the right language, and get them on board. #localism https://t.co/HK5uCRRmLl
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 6, 2020
TOB Virtual Conference
NLM: May 8th: Free Virtual Conference on the Theology of the Body and the Writings of John Paul II by David Clayton
List of speaker follows:
List of speaker follows:
Who's the Real Stormtooper?
🚨New Video! Please Share🚨
— TheQuartering (@TheQuartering) May 5, 2020
3 Officers Took Down An Evil Female Star Wars Cosplayer!
Guns Drawn, They Slammed Her Face Into The Ground, Put Cuffs On Her & Threw Her In The Police Car Sobbing.
She Was Celebrating #MayThe4th
WTF!?!
🔥Watch & Share!🔥https://t.co/ePNHB1DJsi pic.twitter.com/wtdLhjnnPm
Violent crimes involving firearms have devastating impacts on families and communities across the country. But enough is enough. Military-grade assault weapons can no longer be bought, sold, transported, imported, or used in Canada. pic.twitter.com/ItNHiKtvqJ
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 2, 2020
Meant to Be Humorous
NLM: Traditional Latin Mass Server Quarantine Workout
But Latin traditionalists take altar service so seriously that the training is usually rather regimented, often with warnings about venial sin.
Because We Can't Get Enough Wokeness
Okay, this is literally the most hilarious thing I've seen in weeks. I can't stop watching
— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) May 5, 2020
It's brilliant: she realizes her hijab is off, then the dramatic music, Rob Lowe's pained expression, and one of the guys shouting "form a wall!"pic.twitter.com/NSYhrYGNHn
Which Uhmerican Consumers Will Be Watching These?
A modern coming-of-age story or some such nonsense peddled for the modern woman, just like the original novel...
And more..
And more..
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Taleb Shreds Libertarians
2) PRINCIPIA POLITICA shows the effects of scale/localism.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 5, 2020
Systemic harm has no tort laws (you can't sue a virus) so you MUST use the Precautionary Principle.
Many libertarians are just cranks & sociopaths.https://t.co/LIT73xCfCT
4) "Libertarians" are also incoherent: they deny stores the right to require masks & constrain their freedom yet ask for freedom...
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 5, 2020
Nothing to do with libertarianism: rather a collection of marshmallowbrained psychopaths and misfits taking their hatred of humanity too far.
Where Things Stand
I read Spencer's stuff as I started learning about genetics. https://t.co/RDHnCXDtDA
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 5, 2020
Related:
Do We Need Another Zombie TV Show?
Especially one based on a video game franchise that has become a woke manifesto?
The Last of Us on HBO: everything we know so far about the TV series
The Last of Us on HBO: everything we know so far about the TV series
Monday, May 04, 2020
"Little Sadie"
The wokeness of the 2018 E3 gameplay reveal for Last of Us 2 couldn't ruin this song.
Crooked Still:
Crooked Still:
And Who Are the Representatives of Statism?
The shock that comes upon learning that Aristotle was not a liberal. The “Western tradition” is a series of disagreements, among the most significant between Aristotle and Locke.
— Patrick Deneen (@PatrickDeneen) May 2, 2020
The English Catholic Martyrs
Today, the Church remembers the English martyrs, Roman Catholics executed during the Reformation.
— Catherine Maguire 🕯 (@CathJMaguire) May 4, 2020
The first to die was a Carthusian hermit, St John Houghton. His last words were reportedly “Good Jesu, what wilt Thou do with my heart?”. It inspired this painting by Zurbarán. pic.twitter.com/quWvdWVL34
Emma Stone
I don't know how she got to be an emerging starlet, but maybe Hollywood's standards have dropped or changed.
Oren Cass' New Conservatism
AmConMag: Seven Questions for Oren Cass on the New Conservatism by Arthur Bloom
American Compass, a new organization dedicated to rethinking right-of-center economic orthodoxy, launches tonight.
AB: Let’s make that more concrete. For instance, today it does look like some consensus is developing that we should bring certain vital industries back to the United States, drug manufacturing for instance. If that were to happen, it seems to me we might see a big argument about where to put them, with libertarian conservatives wanting maybe Utah or Arizona, and populists wanting them to go to union states in the rust belt. How should we be thinking about these sorts of problems?
OC: This is a great example. Bringing back industries doesn’t have to mean a government program that picks which states to build factories in. The right way to think about economic policy generally, and in this instance industrial policy, is to step back and recognize that markets generate outcomes in response to the conditions they are operating in. This isn’t about the market being free or unfree. It’s about how we choose to educate, how we choose to regulate, how we choose to invest in research, how we manage trading relationships with countries whose own markets are decidedly unfree, and so on.
So if we want vital supply chains to return to the U.S., we should start by asking why did they leave, and under what different conditions would they have stayed, or be likely to return? And then we should try to create those conditions. Just as a hypothetical example, in the drug manufacturing context, what if we said that drug patents expire sooner if used for manufacturing outside the country? Or what if we said that Medicare pays a higher reimbursement rate for drugs manufactured inside the country? Or created a bank that made zero-interest loans for the construction of new manufacturing facilities of all kinds? Or created a fast-track permitting system that ensured site review and approval within one year and allowed no further legal challenges?
Every one of those ideas has pros and cons, and there are plenty of other approaches too. In fact, next month American Compass is hosting an online symposium where leading experts will each lay out the case for a different approach to encourage reshoring of supply chains. That’s the kind of policy development we need, that existing institutions have really failed to facilitate. But the point is, none of them entails bureaucrats choosing which state to put a factory in. They require policymakers to have a goal in mind—we have to be willing to say, “yes, we care where these things get made” instead of just “wherever the market wants to make them is best.” They require the crafting of policies in pursuit of that goal, which will surely be imperfect in many ways. But there’s no question that policy could help create conditions in which drug manufacturers would be more likely to construct plants in the United States.
Another think-tank to try to influence public policy. How's that going to work out against the oligarchy, especially when time may be running out? Does Cass get the urgency of our current problems? Yes, some form of economic nationalism that would bring manufacturing back to the United States is an important step; can American Compass get something done about that at least? I don't count on American Compass to do anything to further relocalization and anti-fragility.
AB: Of course, there are also a lot of bets against you. When Donald Trump leaves office, either in 2021 or 2025, a lot of people in Washington expect, and perhaps even hope, that conservative politics will return to its previous melange of casino capitalism and permanent war. It isn’t obvious to me that this “national conservative” moment or whatever you want to call it is more than a flash in the pan yet. Tell us why that’s wrong.
OC: Well, what you’ve described is exactly the impetus for American Compass. If you look out across the right-of-center at individuals, you see this incredible intellectual energy and creativity and eagerness to return to first principles and formulate a conservatism that is responsive to the challenges of a modern economy. And then you adjust the setting on your binoculars so that you’re looking at institutions, and it all disappears. Within just about every institution, from Heritage and AEI to the Wall Street Journal and National Review to name your Senate office or agency, you find people excited by the idea that conservatism means more than just tax cuts, and in fact doesn’t really have anything to do with tax cuts. But the institutions themselves are, by and large, creatures of inertia.
I don’t think it should be surprising that even years into this enormous disruption within right-of-center politics, the institutions aren’t especially interested in reform, rather they’re putting their heads down and hoping that Trump too shall pass. And if this were about Trump, maybe that would be right. But it’s not about Trump. I think he has probably accelerated the process, but the fusionist coalition of economic libertarians, social conservatives, and defense hawks that carried the right-of-center through the Cold War is way past its expiration date. And this is something that the people you see leading these efforts now were already talking about long before Trump descended down the Trump Tower escalator.
Go look at what Senator Hawley was writing in National Affairs eight years ago. Or the way Senator Rubio was talking about fighting poverty. Or, for that matter, my essays in National Review, calling for confronting China on trade and challenging conservatives to take inequality seriously. Go back to 2008 and look at what Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat wrote in Grand New Party. The right-of-center was overdue for change, and a lot of the same forces that drove Trump’s success—things like the hollowing out of American industry, the deaths of despair—were also going to catalyze a firm rejection by conservatives of libertarian pieties and a reevaluation of what conservatism should stand for.
So I understand why the institutions want to go back to how things used to be, and have perhaps even convinced themselves that there’s a chance of that, but in reality there’s not. Their ideas and their coalition just do not hold together any more. The question is what comes next. And to advance that debate, there have to be institutions on the other side of it. And the goal of American Compass is to be such an institution.
Does Cass think that rebuilding the blue-collar middle class will resolve the problem of identity politics? And what does it mean if instruments of the oligarchy are so supportive of an invention of "new conservatism"? Creating a controlled opposition in replacing globalism/neoliberalism with a more restricted form of neoliberalism, economic nationalism?
Sunday, May 03, 2020
Human Scale
Proposing a "theology of local community."
— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) April 30, 2020
In this 20 minute lecture from almost ten years ago I sketch how the goods of persons are related to the goods of communities.
(video is "unlisted" so this will never turn up in a search!)https://t.co/JMQOI6oiiD
“Taleb's interest is in what the pandemic reveals about the fragility of our institutions. The story historians tell about COVID-19 may prove to be less about the disease & more about its rapidly cascading effects on governmental & financial systems....”https://t.co/RlFzeDMns4
— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) April 29, 2020
Paul Gottfried Reviews R.R. Reno's Latest Book
The Agonist: The Gutless Persuasion on the Return of the Strong Gods by Paul Gottfried
I think that one sentence should be: "Reno fails to see that a democracy of, say, 10,000 citizens with the same cultural and moral principles would..."
Let me also note that what held together ancient democracies, and what Rousseau properly observed as their strength, was homonoia, a loyalty to the polity, its cult and its history. Today it is doubtful that our football fans embody the same shared sentiments. Reno fails to see that a democracy of, say, 10,000 citizens with the same cultural and moral principles wouldn’t practice self-government in a more meaningful sense than sports enthusiasts bellowing out the national anthem. Certainly, size and heterogeneity affect the quality of a democracy. Still, I wouldn’t expect Russell Reno to concede something so obvious, unless it were in his professional interest.
I think that one sentence should be: "Reno fails to see that a democracy of, say, 10,000 citizens with the same cultural and moral principles would..."
Skin in the Game
Excellent idea.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 3, 2020
You want freedom to infect others; now pay for it.
None of the people in parks enjoying their "freedom" should have any priority over and displace other sick people in hospitals. https://t.co/fiL5Ps2OmK
Like the spaghetti-minded Phil-the-rat🐁@Ptetlock, there are still some pple around who are not getting skin in the game.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 3, 2020
To repeat: it is not just an incentive-disincentive problem but a FILTER --a filtering mechanism that helps remove harmful idiots. https://t.co/ArlTtIvyaJ
Walter A. McDougall on Douthat's The Decadent Society
AmConMag: On Decadence, Decline, and Hope for a Renaissance by Walter A. McDougall
Ross Douthat says that a revolution is far-fetched, but the virus may provide the necessary alchemy for change.
Douthat is also ignorant of the economic collapse that is taking place, and decadence may be visible in blue urban areas, but I don't think the opioid crisis and the problems of middle red America.
Ross Douthat says that a revolution is far-fetched, but the virus may provide the necessary alchemy for change.
My only objection to Douthat’s diagnosis is that it has little or nothing to say about elites, establishments, and plutocracies. I believe Americans have become decadent in good part because they have chosen to do so, but I also believe it is not paranoid to suggest the choices we make are rarely free ones. Rather, we are constantly tempted, manipulated, by those who occupy the commanding heights and who grasp the levers of power. That is why I recommend readers to pair The Decadent Society with James Kurth’s new book The American Way of Empire: How America Won a World—But Lost Her Way. Among much else, Kurth describes the “preferred domestic public policies” as well as the foreign policies of three American plutocracies. The first rose to power in the 1880s and 1890s on the strength of industrial sectors such as coal, steel, railroads, and oil. Its captains of industry, or “robber barons,” wanted a political system that seemed bracingly democratic, but in fact ensured that both political parties would do their bidding by supporting the gold standard, protective tariffs, a big navy, and foreign markets through the “Open Door” policy. The second American plutocracy that arose in the 1920s and 1930s was split between industry and the financial sector which rose like a rocket during and after the Great War. Wall Street favored free trade and internationalism and thus quarreled with the industrialists of the Middle West. When the Great Depression hit both were hurt badly, but did not succumb to populist or leftist movements thanks to Franklin Roosevelt, World War II, and Harry Truman.
Douthat is also ignorant of the economic collapse that is taking place, and decadence may be visible in blue urban areas, but I don't think the opioid crisis and the problems of middle red America.
And it's probably working...
Kayleigh McEnany: beautiful, Christian, conservative ... designed by nature to enrage MSNBC viewers.
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) May 1, 2020
Today @PressSec came out swinging for General Flynn pic.twitter.com/mz5ZhXaNmY
— Jack Po-So-Bik (@JackPosobiec) May 1, 2020
A Casualty of Wokeness
My Native American father drew the Land O’Lakes maiden. She was never a stereotype. https://t.co/i4enGKG2rP
— Kitty Eisele (@RadioKitty) April 29, 2020
Boo-Hoo
BREAKING: The U.S. women's national soccer team's claim for equal pay has been dismissed https://t.co/iMkJUb8Q2L pic.twitter.com/ayB3mFRc2k
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 2, 2020
Lmao epic https://t.co/qoAAIblfc5
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) May 2, 2020
Wakanda Is Not Enough
Blackwashing Arthur and a strong girl protagonist who is actually the first to wield Exaclibur? Winning!
More woke garbage from Netflix. Was the original graphic novel as woke? It does have the girl power aspect. (A woman holding a sword that is so heavy that it requires two hands? In combat? Ridiculous)
Netflix’s Upcoming Cursed Series Features Radical Changes To The Arthurian Legend You Know
Cursed: Everyone Who’s Joining Katherine Langford in Netflix’s Mythical New TV Series
More woke garbage from Netflix. Was the original graphic novel as woke? It does have the girl power aspect. (A woman holding a sword that is so heavy that it requires two hands? In combat? Ridiculous)
Netflix’s Upcoming Cursed Series Features Radical Changes To The Arthurian Legend You Know
Cursed: Everyone Who’s Joining Katherine Langford in Netflix’s Mythical New TV Series
Brion McClanahan on Justin Amash and the Libertarian Party
Steve Sailer: Flight from White, Part 472
And your point? https://t.co/xCLZJFCuxF
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) May 2, 2020
Because Virtual Reality Is Better than Reality
One is supposed to want be among the Vikings in this, fighting against the English who are seeking to protect their lands from depradation. Maybe that would appeal to some in the alt-r. I don't see any of the PC stupidities that are in the Vikings tv show, but maybe they are present in the game as well.
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