Enjoying the view from Limbo
Made you look! Made you look! Some of you may be wondering why, despite the frequently topical nature of my political writing, there are certain topics of the moment to which I haven’t devoted any space as yet. The simple explanation comes from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book XII: “there are some things it is better not to see than to see.” In any case,...
2016 US Election / Liberty's Labors Lost
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 30, 2018 · Last modified January 31, 2018
Donald Trump’s White House has simply refused to impose sanctions voted for by veto-proof majorities of the House and Senate — sanctions, not surprisingly, against Russia. Sanctions related to the Putin regime’s active interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, among other thuggeries. Why doesn’t this even seem peculiar? Trump’s groupies are hell-bent on persuading themselves — we’re way past the stage when they...
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 30, 2018 · Last modified October 14, 2024
Those of us who believe we are living through a moment of final civilizational decline — to be clear, that’s “final” as in “last stage,” not “the absolute end of everything” — often cite late modernity’s fall into nihilism as either a symptom of the decline, a cause of it, or both. Nihilism — broadly, the belief in nothing (nihil), i.e., the rejection...
Those watching Trump’s sudden and complete cave to the Democrats on amnesty for illegal immigrants might be wondering if this indicates that Trump is a somewhat less brilliant negotiator than his admirers claim. Not necessarily — for the quality of a negotiator’s maneuvers is determined not by what you thought he was aiming at, but by what he was really aiming at. First,...
Donald Trump, who built an entire campaign and personal cult out of (sort of) promising to build a thirty-foot-high border wall that Mexico would (sort of) pay for, while in the process (sort of) sending illegal immigrants out of the country, is now sounding a little softer on immigration than “Little Marco.” A few days ago, an official Trump spokesman was out on...
And so it begins. Donald Trump, President of history’s foremost living argument for the practical benefits of economic liberty and international free trade, has slapped massive tariffs on imported washing machines, apparently in direct response to demands from the U.S. manufacturer, Whirlpool. If that sounds exactly like crony capitalism to you, then your ears are working well. Why should anyone be surprised? During...
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 22, 2018 · Last modified January 23, 2018
A U.S. Government shutdown, as some of the panic-stricken or feigned panic-stricken need to be reminded, is not, in fact, a shutdown of the federal government. It actually means only a hiatus on “non-essential services,” which of course entails sending home “non-essential” federal workers without pay. I happened to hear Glenn Beck comment on this the other day, and he made the only...
Trump’s chief of staff, General Kelly, described Trump’s position on the border wall as having “evolved” since his campaign, particularly with regard to whether a 2,000-mile continuous wall is necessary or possible. Trump took to Twitter to shoot down this “evolution” narrative — and then restated (with qualification and nuance) his old claims about the wall and who will pay for it. Right...
The presidential physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, has given Donald Trump a clean bill of health, including and especially mental health — I say “especially” because the press grilled Dr. Jackson on this. Many, not only among radical leftists but also among civilized humans, are responding to this news with a combination of incredulity, conspiracy-theory accusations, and above all, crushing disappointment. Shame on them....
The easiest defense one may offer for President Trump’s crude, idiotic, vulgar, ignorant, disrespectful, expletive-infested, “Who-taught-you-that-word-Johnny?” style of communication — his “grab ’em by the p—-,” “s—hole countries” manner of self-expression (and such language really does express Trump’s self quite well) — is the classic, “Oh, come on, we all talk like that behind closed doors. What’s the big deal?” This defense has...
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