Enjoying the view from Limbo
Six days ago, I wrote of the Russian state media’s calls for Vladimir Putin to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to NATO’s alleged nuclear threats against Russia. At that time, I wrote: In short, Russia, in desperation and about to suffer the most humiliating military defeat since the United States scurried away from the Taliban like the frightened rats...
Yesterday, I noted that there is a discernible movement afoot among some factions within the American “conservative media” to encourage their readers or listeners to detach themselves from Donald Trump, as he begins to seem like a liability going into the midterm elections. As I explained, this trend does not represent a serious attempt to reassert conservative or constitutionalist principles in defiance of...
The clever fence-sitting, bandwagon-hopping, finger-in-the-wind, trail-sniffing businessmen of the “conservative media” who pretend to be leaders and trend-setters — perhaps best epitomized at the moment by the teenage “debate champion” Ben Shapiro — are quietly urging their Republican-friendly audience to stop making everything about Donald Trump in these months leading up to the midterm elections. Their reason for this urging, quite explicitly stated,...
There is much talk these days of “threats to democracy.” But the greatest threat to democracy today may be the incessant talk of threats to democracy. For a threat is something to fear, and when men are driven by fear, they will sacrifice nobler aspirations in a heartbeat in the name of removing the source of their fear. Beware those who beat the...
In 1988, at the Seoul Olympics, Canada’s greatest hope was the reigning world champion in the 100-metre dash, Ben Johnson. A soft-spoken, stuttering, mild-mannered Jamaican immigrant, Johnson represented every secret wish of the Canadian soul: to be recognized as the best in the world for once, and not in a marginal or regional event, but in the marquee event on the biggest stage;...
In her opening statement at the January 6th hearings in the U.S. Congress, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick “Deep State” Cheney, spelled out an interpretation of that day’s Capitol riot that, if it had crossed all the Ts and stated its unstated premises, would essentially have supported the interpretation I have offered here in Limbo all along. Put simply, all or...
The vast majority of Trump supporters who wanted to prevent the certification of the 2020 electoral votes, including those who were prepared to fight on Capitol Hill to stop Joe Biden from becoming president on January 6th, 2021, were not, as per the standard talking point of our day, “trying to overturn an election.” Nor were they “trying to destroy American democracy.” On...
Dr. Oz, a television celebrity who, like his endorser and “friend” Donald Trump, has tried to parlay empty fame and business success into a political career, slightly led Pennsylvania’s GOP senate primary after initial vote counting. Today, it appears that the absentee votes are tipping the scales toward one of Oz’s rivals, Dave MacCormick. Donald Trump’s response to this on social media: He’s...
This past week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the poster boy for the logical fallacy of “argument from authority,” publicly stated that if Donald Trump were to win the presidency in 2024, he, Fauci, would retire from the elite executive branch bureaucratic position where he has enriched himself at the public trough more brazenly, and for more years, than almost anyone in American history. His...
Vested emotional interests, almost inescapable in life, are a constant threat to rational deliberation. If heightened by extreme circumstances, they may prove the enemy of reason itself. The current gulf between the two sides in the debate over the 2020 U.S. election and its fallout provides an object lesson in the danger of allowing one’s mind to become immersed in emotional interests, which...
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