“Both ideologies aim to tear down the existing system and replace it with utopias that always turn out to be hellish anarchies: Islamic State in Raqqa, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle. Both are collectivist: Group identity trumps the individual. Both tolerate—and often glorify—violence carried out by zealots.”
Read MoreJust as a slight difference in the angle at it origin can dramatically change the direction and distance of a trajectory, a seemingly slight change in a definition can dramatically change the the outcome from from the use of a commonly used term or idea.
Read MoreYes, it could be true, but that is poor grounds for a reporter. The more outrageous an accusation the greater care should be taken to prove it. If they are unwilling to go on the record and there is contrary evidence it should be shelved. Rage makes you stupid.
Read More“Such cases show what happens when our heightened eagerness to take offense meets institutions’ innate desire to avoid trouble. If hearing a contrary opinion feels like a personal assault, then any potentially controversial statement is equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theater. It’s much easier for a business or a school to avoid trouble, and potential liability, by shutting down discussion altogether.”
Read MoreOur biggest challenge is an endless appetite for government spending and an unwillingness and inability to raise taxes enough to support it. The idea that infinite spending can be supported by a small percentage of taxpayer defies basic math and principles of human action. This has caused record deficits and a belief that deficits do not matter and that tradeoffs are no longer required.
Read MoreBut the 1619 Project claims that the entire founding was motivated by the most immoral objectives. History is much too complex to be reduced to a single theorem; good and evil often ride on the same horse. George Floyd may have ignited the riots but the idea that we are irretrievably racist, that it is in our DNA, not only ignores the incredible progress made, but ignores scores of other influences on our social and racial constructs.
Read More“And he’d warn that the damage being done — to civil order, public property and, most of all perhaps, to the values demonstrators claim to champion — may not be easy to undo. “Rage and phrensy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a hundred years.””
Read MoreJacobin mobs that pay little respect to due process or constitutional rights, cancel culture that seeks to punish dissent, and political correctness that tolerates nothing other than the accepted orthodoxy are all tolerated in the pursuit of the removal of Trump who they sense is a threat to those values they so quickly dismiss.
Read More“We saw that the bias in psychological research is in favour of publishing exciting results. An exciting result in psychology is one that tells us that something has a large effect on people’s behavior. And the things that the studies that have failed to replicate have found to have large effects on people’s behavior are not necessarily things that ought to affect people’s behaviour, were those people rational. “
Read MoreThe progressive challenges to the founding principles was largely intellectual and ideological; few challenged them on moral grounds. The current revolution of the woke vigilantes now challenges the entire morality of the founding; this is the danger of the 1619 Project and its reflection in the Black Lives Matter organization. By changing the focus of the founding from one of clarifying and protecting rights to one of advancing and protecting slavery they seek to remove any moral authority of the founding and the Declaration of Independence. It is no wonder that the statue toppling Olympics did not stop with the Confederates; Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln were sure to follow.
Read MoreThe Jacobin mob sews the seeds of its own destruction. The power of the mob is never satiated; it is empowered by contrition. It is as unreasoning and intolerant as any religious zealot; and more dangerous. Political zealotry invades every aspect of society, destroys every moderating institution and shreds the individual rights of constitutional government. It preys on the intellectually weak, political appeasement, and fear.
Read MoreIn our new revolutionary atmosphere, we face a Jacobin moment where our political and social institutions are called into question by woke vigilantes who follow in the footsteps of Calhoun’s racism, historicists, pragmatists, and the early progressives in challenging the philosophy and principles of the founding. Reform is always seductive; comparing visible faults and errors with untested intentions or in the case today nothing constructive. Like the French Jacobins the woke wish to deconstruct (destroy) the existing order in the name of systemic racism, critical race theory, vague concepts of equality, intersectionality or whatever concept oozes out of our citadels of credentialed ignorance.
Read MoreThere will be no resolution of America’s many social problems if free thought and free speech are no longer upheld in our public sphere. Without them, honest deliberation, mutual learning and the American problem-solving ethic are dead.
Read MoreOur faith in our narratives is as strong as any religious faith we so commonly reject in the name of modern rationalism. When we do change our minds, it is more from evolution than revolution; evolution is gradual and unconscious, revolution is violent and threatening. Revolution comes from a radical element that represents a minority view, but it is enabled by another minority that finds it less of a threat and maybe even an asset serving their narrative. Revolutions incite defensiveness and reaction; responding more to passion than reason and the destruction of critical institutions that become taken for granted.
Read MoreVirtue Signaling is an effortless act of contrition that empowers a mob to act more like a mob. Real solutions require thinking, listening and effort; not threats, intimidation and scapegoating. Systemic racism and white guilt is just a way to avoid accountability, using a narrative as a scapegoat.
Read MoreToleration and appeasement of the lawless mob will only make the divisions worse. The inability or unwillingness to stop destruction of property and uphold the law, the justification and rationalization of this by sympathetic hearts and minds will only make it worse and the dismissal as only a swing of the pendulum will greatly damage the urban areas that are home to the abused. It does not matter that most protests were peaceful; when enough violence is unchecked people and their capital will leave.
Read More“By pragmatism’s own metaphors, their philosophy is like an acid that dissolves dogmas. The problem with acid is that it never knows when to stop burning. That’s why liberals are constantly discovering new crises that require more government solutions. Suggesting to activist liberals that maybe some day they could just go home and get a real job elicits nothing but bewilderment or rage when you bring it up.”
Read More“Hence, the great irony: Hayek, one of the greatest champions of individual liberty and economic freedom the world has ever known, believed that knowledge was communal. Dewey, the champion of socialism and collectivism, believed that knowledge was individual. Hayek’s is a philosophy that treats individuals as the best judges of their own self-interests, which in turn yield staggering communal cooperation. Dewey’s was the philosophy of a giant, Monty Pythonesque crowd shouting on cue, “We’re All Individuals!”
Read MoreWhen the vast amount of money from the Fed is dropped on the economy it does not matter where it is directed, much of it will find its way to the service providers and producers where the money will be spent. When trillions of dollars are pulled from thin air and dropped on the economy it is inevitable that much of it will find its way into the stock market.
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Refuse the Mob
“Refuse the mob. We have seen again and again that the mob comes only for those who hope to please it. And when it does, no amount of apology will save you. We stand against the mob and all its aims. We stand against the chaos and violence, the silencing of debate, the purging of heretics, the rewriting of history, and the destruction of the greatest country in the world. “
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