Enjoying the view from Limbo
Rule of thumb.— Authority should never be in the hands of those who want it. The principle of decentralization.– The level of authority one human being has over another should be directly proportional to the level of personal interest and affection that defines their relationship. Hence, parents and other family elders ought to be the primary authorities in every child’s life, friends and...
You are supposed to believe that your own immediate physical comfort and safety are the highest priorities of life, and that anything which threatens, or is alleged to threaten, either of those in any way is sufficient warrant for giving up all your freedoms, as required, to anyone who is able to convince you that he can ensure your physical comfort and safety,...
Tyrants and time.— In the final years of an ambitious tyrant’s reign, he typically takes his shot at ultimate glory — and ultimately hits himself. Why? Because he mistimes the shot. All his earlier calculations and preparations were undertaken with patience and painstaking forethought, so much so that the preparation and forethought themselves almost became the essence of the game. At the end,...
Last week in the U.S. Supreme Court, the most powerful judges on Earth began their formal dive into the Biden administration’s federal vaccine mandate policy. The occasion was marked by a profoundly representative reminder of what power is really about in this age, and, more sadly, what it is not about. Justice Gorsuch hinted at his opposition to the mandate by commenting that...
The honest answer.– If I knew the answer to all the world’s problems…would it make any difference? For in order for this answer to actually solve the world’s problems, the world would have to understand what the world’s problems were, and care about solving them. Furthermore, the world would have to pursue the answer to its problems in a relatively universal but also...
If a Marxist calls you a fascist, should you care, let alone worry yourself about disproving the charge? (Likewise, for that matter, if an authoritarian populist or corporatist oligarch calls you a Marxist.) If someone criticizes your honest opinion on the grounds that it undermines “the movement,” is it more reasonable to defend your actions against that criticism, or to ask why the...
Caricature: “exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics.” (Merriam-Webster) What is a human being, as ordinarily witnessed? A creature that devotes too much of its brief life and limited energy to the acquisition of goods that would only have ultimate value to a being that was going to live forever. And what is a tyrant? A human that devotes...
The roots of political philosophy grew from Socrates’ lifelong frustration with all the politicians, rhetoricians, and sophists active and influential in the political arena, who through all his attempts to question and challenge them on this issue, could never provide one rationally plausible definition of politics’ essential concern, justice. In short, Socrates found that none of the men important in the political life...
Government vs. God / Ideas and Reflections / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published October 24, 2020
A broken clock is right twice a day, as they say. It is with this adage in mind that I note, so as not to be remiss, that Pope Francis (aka Francis the Talking Marxist) finally met God’s hour hand for a passing moment. Specifically, during his weekly address in St. Peter’s Square in early September, Francis strayed from his usual themes of...
Two things may be said of experts and specialists in general: (1) They are often proved wrong in the end, particularly with regard to their areas of specialty — and not merely wrong about details, but about the premises and presuppositions upon which they established their reputations as experts and specialists. In other words, it typically turns out, in hindsight, that for the...
Follow: