Enjoying the view from Limbo
Q. What would Donald Trump have to do to change your mind about him? A. He would have to replace his rational faculty with that of Thomas Jefferson, his temperament with that of Ronald Reagan, and his principles with those of George Washington. Unfortunately, his life, past and present, shows him to be on the very opposite end of the spectrum on all...
Ideas and Reflections / Liberty's Labors Lost / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 1, 2024
Lost in the Cloud.— We are all, today, in all our endeavors, at the mercy of everything we ever did, everything we ever said, and everyone with whom we ever interacted in any way, at any time, under any circumstances. In practice, this means that standing apart from others, or disagreeing in any way with current moral or political orthodoxies, no longer merely...
A headline I just read from Jacobin: “True Democracy Is Incompatible With Capitalism.” My random responses to this headline and accompanying article, as they occur to me on the fly (since flying past quickly is the only reasonable way to look at such blather): How presumptuous to assume that one has discerned which sense of democracy is the true one — but never...
Ideas and Reflections / Liberty's Labors Lost / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published April 5, 2023
Hostility, incivility, and outright barbarism are breaking out in our midst, on a mass scale. This proves that John Stuart Mill was wrong, and indeed that all progressive views of historico-political development — using progressive in its earlier theoretical sense, rather than in its current euphemistic sense — were wrong. There is no “stage of development” at which a society or civilization…
“And yes, I’m doing this for profit!” With those smug, pseudo-principled words, every popular “conservative media icon” and “conservative intellectual” tells us, point blank, that we have every reason not to take him seriously, and no reason whatsoever for trusting one word that comes out of his mouth. The modern world of liberty and self-governance is crumbling at speeds that even the bleakest...
Liberty's Labors Lost / What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published October 10, 2022
Elon Musk, who soiled himself for all time by defecating on the people of Ukraine last week, has decided to raise his profile in the pantheon of profiteering punks to yet another level of shame. This time, rather than waiting for a tyrannical government to actually invade a smaller, sovereign neighbor, destroy much of that neighbor’s infrastructure, and kidnap thousands of its children...
That cynical men will exploit a human problem for their own petty advantage, without concern for ultimate outcomes beyond their own immediate gain, is obvious. This cynicism explains most of what is called “foreign policy,” most of what is called “medicine,” most of what is called “education,” most of what is called “entertainment,” and most of what is called “lawmaking.” But none of...
The problem with libertarians is that they believe that if everyone were left to live as he pleases, human life in general would improve. But when did men in general ever improve themselves through the unrestricted pursuit of what pleases them? Is pleasure happiness? Is comfort the good? Is greatness achieved through living without limits, without conflict…
The reason advertisements consistently portray everyone as a smiling idiot, a self-absorbed advantage-seeker, a gushing sentimentalist, a self-righteous slogan-spouter, a hypersexual poseur, or an all-knowing and assertive fake expert, is that professional advertisers know how to do their job. The essence of their job is to attract the greatest number of targeted consumers by appealing to the most common tastes and tendencies of...
Once you accept the general premise that safety trumps freedom, there is absolutely nowhere to draw the line. For all life is risk, difficulty, unexpected threats, and the ever-present, universal certainty of impending death. Thus, on the above premise, freedom can never be the primary concern or the highest goal. If I see you stepping in front of an oncoming car, I will...
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