I'm not in office yet, not even officially elected until Tuesday, though I'd have to muck it up by the numbers to fail at this point, as I'm running unopposed.
But although I won't be sworn in as a county commissioner until next January, I've begun easing into my role by spinning up on a few projects that were begun under the current commissioner for my precinct, a neighbor and friend, and will still be in full swing when I take office. One of these is the paving of a nearby road dedicated to the county but not yet accepted into its construction and maintenance program.
This business of a road's appearing in the plats as a "county road," but not yet accepted by the county, is a potent source of public confusion. In Texas (and maybe elsewhere) they're called "paper roads." They may be nothing but sand and an easement. The dedication by the developer appears in the surveyed and recorded plats, but the effect is a standing offer to the county, which in later years it may or may not accept. If it does accept, under state law it has no obligation to pay the cost of building the road, though once it accepts it, it does take on the obligation to maintain it unless the road is formally abandoned. In practice, this county follows the usual path of offering to cover a portion of costs if the homeowners unite in requesting a road to be built. The usual split here is 2/3 homeowner, 1/3 county. The process of petitioning the county and taking a homeowner vote and collecting the cost over a period of several years seems quite flexible and humane.
It comes as a shock to many of the homeowners, however, who believe that a plat showing a "county road" means that someone promised them something, and they're not very inclined to be precise about who that was. The idea that they may have a legitimate quarrel with their seller, or their title company, but not the county, is foreign, nitpicking, abhorrent. They are less fascinated than I by the state law that carefully restricts the county's ability to throw largesse around, a product of many years of experience in the crony deals that would result in taxpayer money being spent to build nice streets for the county judge's brother-in-law.
In the current case, a very short piece of residential street became an urgent problem in this fall's extraordinary rains--over 20 inches in October--and is as much a drainage issue as a paving one. The county does take on the responsibility of improving drainage, more or less, subject to available resources. Yesterday's meeting featured mostly homeowners who were fairly content with the message that the county probably could do something to improve the specific drainage problem on their small street in the near future at no cost to themselves. They also seemed happy to learn that the county could build pave their street next summer at the cost of about $2,200 per lot payable over three years, after which the county would maintain the street more or less in perpetuity.
A few struggled hard with the idea that they should have to pay for any of this. The county engineer bent the rules a bit some weeks back and dumped some gravel on a specially low and damaged spot, but didn't have enough off-budget material lying around to cover the whole street. The reaction, as one might have guessed, is that people on the rest of the street felt they'd been given an unalterable right to the same largesse. They reacted furiously to the notion that they ought to pass the hat and buy a few truckloads of gravel to tide themselves over to next summer. One fellow argued that the drainage problem stemmed from further up the nearest cross-street and somehow was the county's fault, meaning the county owed him a free solution. I noticed that the current commissioner and engineer simply heard him out patiently, a good lesson for me. He wasn't carrying the crowd; no one wanted to hear a rebuttal. There was talk of how engineers in the Panama Canal Zone solved drainage problems caused by 7 feet of rain, without much consideration given to how unusual conditions have to be before we are well-advised to spend tax dollars hardening against them. The money comes from us, guys!
Those of us living in the unincorporated area of a small and not very rich county mostly do not assume the county will provide us with any services to speak of. A few have an abiding faith in their right to demand expensive services from government. They've elected me after a campaign in which I told anyone who would listen that my first instinct is to limit government's powers, not to ensure government services, but of course I know most weren't listening at all; few even voted. Clearly a commissioner's job is to do what we can to spend the county's limited resources solving the most urgent problems in the fairest way we can manage. Part of the job is to help people understand how the government works, given that whatever problem they're bringing to my attention could well be the first time they've tried to get the county government involved in a problem. Most have never thought much about how it should work, let alone grappled with difficult questions about how to balance freedom, security, and convenience. My first instinct always is "Why should I have to take your input into account in what I want to accomplish on my own property?"--but often what I hear from neighbors is more like "Why should I have to pay for anything that benefits me?"
It's likely to be an interesting four years.
Stand back, I'll handle this
A commenter at Maggie's Farm nailed socialism, the system that correctly identifies capitalism as so effective that only the experts can be allowed to operate it:
The left wants socialism which of course still must depend on capitalism but where only the state gets to practice capitalism.
This Vegan Thing Is Getting Out of Hand
I can almost see threatening a stranger who is cooking meat if you're a vegan, or some non-Italian if you're a leftist who thinks they're guilty of cultural appropriation, but your own mother for making the sauce you were raised on?
The meaty dish, ragù, is an Italian staple, but it was enough to set off a massive disturbance that ended with the mother being threatened with a kitchen knife by her vegan daughter, an Italian court heard.I might have to make some tonight myself, in appropriational solidarity.
The daughter told a court she’d long had “no sensory nor olfactory contact” with animal products before she went back to living with her mother.
Frustrated by the smell of meat sauce simmering for hours in their small apartment, the vegan woman grabbed a knife and threatened her mother.
“If you won’t stop on your own then I’ll make you stop. Quit making ragù, or I’ll stab you in the stomach,” she said, according to the mum’s civil complaint.
Tribal Epistemology
Vox is worried about you.
That aside, it's a hard problem to address. The post two down from this one links an article that gives some pretty solid reasons to doubt their claims to knowledge from journalism, which I don't think they've adequately considered. FOX News may be no better, but that doesn't answer our epistemological problem: it just leaves us with two sets of wrong information. Blogs were supposed to be the answer, or a part of the answer, because they'd allow people with direct knowledge to comment on the facts. Sometimes that works -- sometimes even Twitter manages that, in spite of its poisonous atmosphere and algorithms designed to elevate people who are part of the problem over the small person with few followers but direct knowledge. Blogs are better than algorithmic sites for getting this right, but finding the right blog in a timely way can be a hard problem too.
Conservatives have descended almost entirely into what I call “tribal epistemology,” wherein the distinction between what is good for the tribe and what is true collapses entirely — in which “true” simply comes to mean “our narrative.” They do not defer to any transpartisan standards of evidence or reasoning; they do not believe any such standards exist. Attempts to invoke such standards are, in their view, just one side’s way of trying to outmaneuver the other....The thing is, I read liberal stuff all the time. I know what they think and why. Do they have any idea what I think, or why? I'm pretty sure not.
The two sides share almost no factual premises, so they are no longer able to coherently argue with each other. Their enmity is total, and the country is becoming ungovernable. Politics is becoming a pure contest of wills, of power.
That’s the crisis. I first wrote about it in reference to Robert Mueller’s investigation, raising the question: What if Mueller uncovers rock-solid evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians or committed financial crimes, and ... it just doesn’t matter? What if he finds something, but the Americans who get their news from conservative media simply never find out about it? What then?
That aside, it's a hard problem to address. The post two down from this one links an article that gives some pretty solid reasons to doubt their claims to knowledge from journalism, which I don't think they've adequately considered. FOX News may be no better, but that doesn't answer our epistemological problem: it just leaves us with two sets of wrong information. Blogs were supposed to be the answer, or a part of the answer, because they'd allow people with direct knowledge to comment on the facts. Sometimes that works -- sometimes even Twitter manages that, in spite of its poisonous atmosphere and algorithms designed to elevate people who are part of the problem over the small person with few followers but direct knowledge. Blogs are better than algorithmic sites for getting this right, but finding the right blog in a timely way can be a hard problem too.
The Feast of All Saints
Today is the feast day for all saints, but originally especially for martyrs. I wonder what the Church's position is on the Jewish victims of the weekend's shooting? They are not Christians, obviously, and thus not Christian martyrs; they certainly are martyrs for their own faith. Jews have a special status that I don't quite understand. But if this statement the Vatican put out in 2015 is accurate, I'm not supposed to understand it:
In any case it's on my mind, although I haven't written about it here before now. Perhaps this is even the right day for it.
How God will save the Jews if they do not explicitly believe in Christ is "an unfathomable divine mystery," but one which must be affirmed since Catholics believe that God is faithful to his promises and therefore never revoked his covenant with the Jewish people, it says.The ability to appeal to 'unfathomable mystery' is one of the explanatory advantages of religion, although one finds it in philosophy too: Kant's noumena are essentially the real facts about the world, which are by the nature of human experience unfathomable and destined to remain mysteries. Kant's got a pretty good argument for this, so the fact that one must sometimes admit unfathomable mysteries into one's ontology shouldn't be upsetting even to quite rational thinkers.
In any case it's on my mind, although I haven't written about it here before now. Perhaps this is even the right day for it.
A Good Piece on Turkey
Lee Smith points out that the Turks have been acting like the Harlem Globetrotters against America's press, which has willingly taken the role of the Washington Generals.
The U.S. media meshed seamlessly with Turkish information operations because our journalists have become habituated to their new role as political assets. For two years the press has been breathlessly reporting thousands of stories sourced to unnamed U.S. officials and promising that the latest development—Russiagate, Stormygate, etc.—was certain to topple President Donald Trump. Whether you admire or disdain the so-called #resistance, the fact is that a press labeling itself as such on Twitter is one less interested in reporting facts than shaping political outcomes....They sometimes also fall for sucker plays even when they aren't trying to do so. But even then, they rarely correct themselves once it becomes obvious they were played. For example:
Arab papers are widely known as platforms for the views or goals of a particular regime, political figure, or intelligence service. It’s not a free press in any meaningful sense. But taking these many outlets as a whole, it’s possible to piece together a relatively accurate picture of the political game board.... U.S. reporting about the disappearance and death of an Arab journalist who pleaded for media transparency in his own society marks another chapter in the ongoing transformation of what was once the freest press in the world: America’s.
A gullible and inexperienced press corps can’t help but be taken advantage of by savvy political operatives, especially when they’re working in foreign lands. Most reporters don’t know Arabic, which is why the press mistranslated, for instance, a statement from the Saudi Justice Ministry saying that it had received the Turkish government’s claims that the Khashoggi murder was premeditated and was further investigating. The press reported instead that the Saudis had admitted it was premeditated.I'll bet you've heard that claim if you've been following the case at all, and not the clarification (emphasis added).
Selective Demons
CNN’s Lemon:
“We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them."
Related.
UPDATE: An additional wrinkle to Lemon's comments: "'There is no travel ban on them... They had the Muslim ban; there is no white-guy ban,' he added. 'So what do we do about that?'"
It's hard to know where to start with this. There was no "Muslim ban"; there was a temporary ban on entry from certain countries, identified by the Obama administration, but hardly including all of (or even the majority of) the Muslim world. Second, it was a bar on entry for non-citizens, who have no right to enter the United States. Lemon is talking about a bar on travel for citizens, who do have a right to come home if they should go abroad. The US ban didn't interfere with anyone's travel around their own nation, either, which Lemon sounds as if he might like to do.
His comments are not only outrageously biased, they're ill-informed and ignorant of basic facts. Why is this guy on television?
“We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them."
Related.
UPDATE: An additional wrinkle to Lemon's comments: "'There is no travel ban on them... They had the Muslim ban; there is no white-guy ban,' he added. 'So what do we do about that?'"
It's hard to know where to start with this. There was no "Muslim ban"; there was a temporary ban on entry from certain countries, identified by the Obama administration, but hardly including all of (or even the majority of) the Muslim world. Second, it was a bar on entry for non-citizens, who have no right to enter the United States. Lemon is talking about a bar on travel for citizens, who do have a right to come home if they should go abroad. The US ban didn't interfere with anyone's travel around their own nation, either, which Lemon sounds as if he might like to do.
His comments are not only outrageously biased, they're ill-informed and ignorant of basic facts. Why is this guy on television?
Early Thoughts on Birthright Citizenship
I don't want to fall into the trap of discussing an issue as if I had an authoritative opinion when it's still quite early. This one is breaking today, but it's in reference to a piece Michael Anton published back in July. Anton published a response to criticisms of his idea in another venue a bit later.
One thing that seems clear to me is that an Executive Order isn't adequate for this action. Andy McCarthy gives a good account of why it wouldn't be:
However, SCOTUS might find that the 1868 understanding wasn't so obvious that a later Congress acting in accord with a later President might not define it more clearly. If so, then what the Congress of 1952 can do, the Congress of 2018 or 2019 can also do. Sen. Graham is proposing to get the ball rolling on that. If the Republican Congress hands Trump a bill that reinterprets this clause formally, and he signs it into law, that would do whatever the 1952 law did to define the terms.
That might be nothing at all; SCOTUS may well say that mere legislation can't alter an amendment's terms, and that it feels that there is a clear enough record of intent from 1868 to apply. That's originalism, which many of us have long argued for as a judicial philosophy. You have to take the good and the bad of that. Birthright citizenship may simply be something we're stuck with pending a new Constitutional convention. Perhaps not, especially if they find the 1868 language unclear or in need of further exposition from the legislature. I think this expresses the range of constitutional possibilities.
One thing that seems clear to me is that an Executive Order isn't adequate for this action. Andy McCarthy gives a good account of why it wouldn't be:
The problem as I see it is twofold. First, the legal landscape is not limited to the 14th Amendment. Congress has enacted a statute, Section 1401 of the immigration and naturalization laws (Title 8, U.S. Code). In pertinent part, it appears merely to codify in statutory law what the 14th Amendment says: included among U.S. citizens is any “person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” But that means the issue is not just what jurisdiction was understood to mean in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was adopted, but what it meant in 1952, when the statute defining U.S. citizenship was enacted (it has been amended several times since then).I think that's roughly right on both points, although I'd suggest that the 1952 statute can't override the 1868 Constitutional Amendment's meaning -- otherwise we could by statute redefine any Constitutional term. Congress can't re-issue the Third Amendment by statute with a legislative statement to the effect that "quartering shall only mean permanent residence of troops in private homes, i.e., greater than ten years' duration," and thereby remove the Third's prohibition. Thus, the 1952 understanding can only alter the 1868 understanding in a fairly limited way; Congress might broaden the Third's protections, as by forbidding 'quartering' within 100 yards of a private home, but not limit it. Here, Congress might not be able to alter the 1868 understanding at all by mere statute.
Secondly, even assuming the meaning was the same, Congress’s codification of the 14th Amendment — which it did not need to do — is a strong expression of Congress’s intent to exercise its constitutional authority to set the terms of citizenship.
However, SCOTUS might find that the 1868 understanding wasn't so obvious that a later Congress acting in accord with a later President might not define it more clearly. If so, then what the Congress of 1952 can do, the Congress of 2018 or 2019 can also do. Sen. Graham is proposing to get the ball rolling on that. If the Republican Congress hands Trump a bill that reinterprets this clause formally, and he signs it into law, that would do whatever the 1952 law did to define the terms.
That might be nothing at all; SCOTUS may well say that mere legislation can't alter an amendment's terms, and that it feels that there is a clear enough record of intent from 1868 to apply. That's originalism, which many of us have long argued for as a judicial philosophy. You have to take the good and the bad of that. Birthright citizenship may simply be something we're stuck with pending a new Constitutional convention. Perhaps not, especially if they find the 1868 language unclear or in need of further exposition from the legislature. I think this expresses the range of constitutional possibilities.
Social Contract
Jeff Sessions responds to protesters: "I don't believe there's anything in my theology that says a secular nationstate cannot have lawful laws to control immigration ... not immoral, not indecent and not unkind to state what your laws are and then set about to enforce them"There's a reasonable argument that the 'social contract' we hear about is not a defensible philosophical concept: most of us never asked to join the polity, never consented to the terms (which pre-existed us), and probably joined as a consequence of a decision made by some ancestor of ours rather than by ourselves alone. There are several approaches to the consequences of that argument.
But one class of people do explicitly consent to join something like the 'social contract' of a nation, and that is the class of first-generation immigrants to that nation. They really are making an election to join a polity, and presumably this entails a contract they personally make with that polity to abide by its terms.
It's not unreasonable for a nation to refuse to accept those who will not make this contract, and abide by it. Why on earth would they do so? Yet, as Sessions' reply suggests, the public discussion has run entirely in the other direction. He is defending the idea that he isn't religiously required to accept people who reject the terms of the contract; that morality doesn't obligate a polity to accept people who refuse any obligation to abide by its terms.
That's madness, yet it has clearly passed into the realm of commonly held opinion.
Who's in charge of you, anyway?
From Jim Geraghty:
What do the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, the Florida mail-bomber, the angry young man who drove a van into a crowd on a Toronto street in April, and last year’s shooter at the congressional baseball field have in common?
* * *
It’s almost always the same, isn’t it? Few or no friends, no relationships, estranged from family, difficulty holding down a job, and a lot of time spent online on chat boards and sites that reinforce growing paranoia, scapegoating, and hatred. It’s safe to assume this shooter’s life, like the others, did not turn out the way that he had hoped.
All of these men shared an inability to face the possibility that the problems in their life were a result of their own decisions and actions. They retreated to the flattering conclusion that only a vast conspiracy of powerful forces could possibly have brought them to this state of perpetual disappointment.
The good news is that very few of us walk around thinking like this. If all it took to turn someone into a homicidal maniac was a Donald Trump speech, or a Bernie Sanders speech, or an anti-Semitic website, or a rant against women, then the world would be nonstop massacres.
* * *
But if one of the preeminent arguments in our society about the power of the individual — whether we are the captains of our fate and masters of our soul, or whether the quality of our lives is heavily determined by broader societal factors outside of our individual ability to control, influence, or overcome — then the conspiracy theorists are just a more extreme form of a pretty widespread anti-individualist philosophy.
Merkel Out
The EU project has been holed by BREXIT, but even more by the fallout from Merkel's decision to throw open the floodgates where refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere were concerned. For years she's been trying to put that genie back in the bottle. Now she's preparing to step down and leave those problems to somebody else.
Brazil Gets On The Tropical Trump Train
A decisive win for a candidate who got stabbed, then won anyway. It’s kind of like that time Teddy Roosevelt got shot by a would-be assassin, but stayed to finish his speech.
UPDATE: Police in Brazil have begun raiding college classrooms, seeking electioneering materials that Brazilian law forbids in those settings.
The major difference between this flag and the one used in the US is that this one foregrounds the red. It is a more honest flag, in other words.
UPDATE: Police in Brazil have begun raiding college classrooms, seeking electioneering materials that Brazilian law forbids in those settings.
The raids are part a supposed attempt to stop illegal electoral advertising. Brazilian election law prohibits electoral publicity in public spaces. However, many of the confiscated materials do not mention candidates. Among such confiscated materials are a flag for the Universidade Federal Fluminense reading “UFF School of Law - Anti-Fascist” and flyers titled “Manifest in Defense of Democracy and Public Universities.”I happen to have a couple of friends who are Brazilian academics, at least one of whom has been posting some of these materials online. Here's a screenshot. Look familiar?
The major difference between this flag and the one used in the US is that this one foregrounds the red. It is a more honest flag, in other words.
A Public Service
Hey kids! Why not steal your parents’ guns and turn them in to agents of the state? We mean your teachers, of course, who will have no reason to view your producing a firearm in their classroom as anything but good citizenship.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong?
Trust but verify
A poll examines the trust gaps between the nation's main political parties:
Americans are united in their trust of the military and Amazon, and in their distrust of Facebook, political parties, and Congress. Both parties are lukewarm on state and local government, philanthropy, non-profits, and the courts. They differ sharply in their trust/distrust of the executive branch, local police, organized labor, the FBI, religion, Google, banks, big corporations, the press, and academia.
Americans are united in their trust of the military and Amazon, and in their distrust of Facebook, political parties, and Congress. Both parties are lukewarm on state and local government, philanthropy, non-profits, and the courts. They differ sharply in their trust/distrust of the executive branch, local police, organized labor, the FBI, religion, Google, banks, big corporations, the press, and academia.
The Nazis and FOX News
I can understand Democratic concerns that they don't control as much of Congress as they'd like, or that the Supreme Court may have slipped out of their grasp, or that the Presidency is a very powerful weapon they'd prefer to wield than to have wielded against their interests. You'd think they'd be satisfied with the media, though. Over ninety percent of journalism directed at Trump, which is a shocking amount of the total journalism being constructed today, is negative in its treatment of the President and his interests. They control every major news agency but one.
However, the existence of that one is seen as a great and terrible problem.
However, the existence of that one is seen as a great and terrible problem.
Another parallel exists between the Nazis' skillful use of propaganda and state-sponsored media and Trump and the Republican Party's relationship with Fox News.I don't watch television, so I never see broadcast news of any sort unless it's a clip put online for some reason. This is a pretty intense criticism, though, which I have trouble imagining is well-grounded.
Fox News is a privatized ministry of propaganda. Under the Nazis, Joseph Goebbels was a key adviser to Hitler. They conversed a great deal. In a sense, Sean Hannity and Donald Trump have that same relationship. It is symbiotic because it works both ways, where Fox News is not just Trump's personal news outlet and propaganda arm but Trump also gets his inspiration from watching Fox News. It is a very reciprocal relationship.
Ivy Diversity is a Racket
Diversity in general is, I suppose, but the Ivy Leagues are at least as bad as others. Harvard is in the crosshairs today.
An attorney for the plaintiff asked why a white boy in, say, immigrant-rich Las Vegas with a score of 1310 would get the letter, while his Asian classmate with a 1370 would not. Fitzsimmons responded with generalities about the need to recruit from a broad array of states to achieve diversity.There's another fudging mechanism they use too: sports scholarships.
By the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s own estimate, 61 percent of student athletes last year were white. At elite colleges, that number is even higher: 65 percent in the Ivy League, not including international students, and 79 percent in the Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference, which includes elite liberal-arts colleges like Williams College and Amherst College....If any of you know a junior in high school who would like to go to the Ivy Leagues, there's still time to get them into a sports program. It'll help if they're not Asian.
All applicants to Harvard are ranked on a scale of one to six based on their academic qualifications, and athletes who scored a four were accepted at a rate of about 70 percent. Yet the admit rate for nonathletes with the same score was 0.076 percent—nearly 1,000 times lower. Similarly, 83 percent of athletes with a top academic score got an acceptance letter, compared with 16 percent of nonathletes.
Mobs, Then and Now
Also, "then" was three days before "now."
My personal theory about all these non-exploding bombs is that they are the work of a civic-minded individual trying to illuminate to the recently pro-mob crowd just why they really don't want to go down that road. If so, it's working.
UPDATE: On reflection, Democratic leaders decide to reject the call for sensible behavior.
UPDATE: Andy McCarthy on the subject.
My personal theory about all these non-exploding bombs is that they are the work of a civic-minded individual trying to illuminate to the recently pro-mob crowd just why they really don't want to go down that road. If so, it's working.
UPDATE: On reflection, Democratic leaders decide to reject the call for sensible behavior.
UPDATE: Andy McCarthy on the subject.
Unclear on the concept
From Coyote Blog, on Texas U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke's proposals for encouraging entrepreneurship as a path to social justice:
Amazing. We are going to promote entrepreneurship by showering the economy with regulations (1000 new bills a year in progressive CA) and making sure many of the returns from an entrepreneurs' money and effort go to other people. This is like saying we really want to promote the growth of the rabbit population and we are going to do it by putting out lots of rabbit traps and making sure all the carrots the rabbits are eating are given to others.Ted Cruz is so personally unpopular that I was worried about his campaign for a while, but Beto seems to be taking care of it. I think Trump's "stone-cold phony" description struck a chord here.
Flag-Burners Unite
It's a little odd to run for Governor of a state when you've a history of burning that state's flag, but such is the new normal.
What few seem to realize is that the current Georgia flag is just as much a Confederate symbol as the one people got so upset about in the 1990s. I suppose that, if elected, Abrams would want to change the flag again. Maybe this time they can just put Dr. King's face on the flag and leave it at that.
As for the mountain, it is maintained by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, a state agency that is not supported by taxes but by usage fees and the like. When I go camping in the park, I help maintain the Association. The Highland Games, the annual Cherokee-led Pow Wow, and similar cultural events do likewise. So too does the use of the golf course, the lakes, and so on. They have contracted out theme park attractions and similar services, and get a cut of the profits from all of those things. What they don't control is the carving; the State Legislature would have to approve legislation to remove it.
I hate to see such a beautiful place continually mired in ugliness and controversy. This feud is a feud about honor, specifically, about whom we will honor and whom we will treat as shameful. The Confederate leadership included some men who merit honor by virtue, but many who did not -- especially Jeff Davis, who is on the memorial carving. The Confederacy itself deserves little honor. The Klan deserves none. Perhaps there is a compromise position that can handle all that, but so far I haven't seen it.
Abrams has been a vocal critic of Confederate imagery on state symbols.As noted below, I was just at Stone Mountain for the annual Highland Games. The site has been tied to the Klan since 1915, when it was privately owned and chiefly used for rock quarries. One of the owners was tied up with the re-founding of the Klan, and offered the site as a location for the ceremony. In 1958, a Georgia government then intensely interested in defending segregation purchased the mountain specifically to be a monument to the Confederacy. The flag Abrams was burning dates to the same era, being adopted in 1956.
Shortly after white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., she called for the removal of the carving of Confederate war leaders from Stone Mountain’s massive granite face. Noting the state-owned site’s link to the Ku Klux Klan, she said we “must never celebrate those who defended slavery and tried to destroy the Union.”
What few seem to realize is that the current Georgia flag is just as much a Confederate symbol as the one people got so upset about in the 1990s. I suppose that, if elected, Abrams would want to change the flag again. Maybe this time they can just put Dr. King's face on the flag and leave it at that.
As for the mountain, it is maintained by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, a state agency that is not supported by taxes but by usage fees and the like. When I go camping in the park, I help maintain the Association. The Highland Games, the annual Cherokee-led Pow Wow, and similar cultural events do likewise. So too does the use of the golf course, the lakes, and so on. They have contracted out theme park attractions and similar services, and get a cut of the profits from all of those things. What they don't control is the carving; the State Legislature would have to approve legislation to remove it.
I hate to see such a beautiful place continually mired in ugliness and controversy. This feud is a feud about honor, specifically, about whom we will honor and whom we will treat as shameful. The Confederate leadership included some men who merit honor by virtue, but many who did not -- especially Jeff Davis, who is on the memorial carving. The Confederacy itself deserves little honor. The Klan deserves none. Perhaps there is a compromise position that can handle all that, but so far I haven't seen it.
"Caravan"
Wretchard wonders if there isn't something off about the global order.
Open borders advocates wait with bated breath as central American refugee "caravans" headed for the United States in a replay of the migrant crisis that changed the political landscape Europe.... Ironically the caravans could wind up boosting Donald Trump the way the European refugee flows crippled Angela Merkel. Her position as "Leader of the Free World" now seems over as "her junior coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), saw support in Bavaria halved." It would be one more hint that liberal policy analysts miscalculated badly.There is more, including a report on Chinese money in Canada.
Just how weak the globalist orthodoxy has now become was illustrated by Italy's budgetary defiance of the European Union. "In what is becoming a dangerous game of chicken for the global economy, Italy’s populist government refused to budge on Tuesday after the European Union for the first time sent back a member state’s proposed budget because it violated the bloc’s fiscal laws and posed unacceptable risks." The Atlantic notes that far from being fearful of Brussels the Italians are raring for a fight. The Independent suggests that Rome's open revolt is now a bigger threat to the EU than Brexit. "It could finish the euro ... Add the migrant crisis" and you have a perfect storm.
The chief challenges to globalization now stem from the cascading failures of the system itself principally in the effect of China, Russia and MENA's refusal to democratize. With hostiles inside the wire Western political parties are realizing that they are no longer complete masters of their own house. Russian collusion and Saudi influence are but different names for foreign influence now rampant in what used to be domestic affairs.
Random Bee Stings
This infographic is going to leave a mark: How to Tell a Modern-Day Nazi from an Antifa Member
On Gender, Left Steps Up Effort Against Notorious Hate Group: Reality
What Should You Wear to Church? A handy guide for each denomination
Report: First Star Destroyer in Space Force to Be Named 'USS Civility'
On Gender, Left Steps Up Effort Against Notorious Hate Group: Reality
What Should You Wear to Church? A handy guide for each denomination
Report: First Star Destroyer in Space Force to Be Named 'USS Civility'
Random Philosophy Links
Psychology research by philosophers is robust and replicates better than other areas of psychology
I didn't know there was a field called "experimental philosophy."
Philosophers Name the Best Philosophy Books
The War on Reason - A very interesting article by psychologist Paul Bloom that argues for a place for free will against the assault by sociology and psychology. It is long and wide-ranging and I found it thought-provoking. Plus, brief mentions of Aristotle.
The Theory of Mind Myth - a challenge to the idea that we can understand another person's mind
Update: Does reading give us access to other people's minds?
I didn't know there was a field called "experimental philosophy."
Philosophers Name the Best Philosophy Books
The War on Reason - A very interesting article by psychologist Paul Bloom that argues for a place for free will against the assault by sociology and psychology. It is long and wide-ranging and I found it thought-provoking. Plus, brief mentions of Aristotle.
The Theory of Mind Myth - a challenge to the idea that we can understand another person's mind
Update: Does reading give us access to other people's minds?
Revolution
I've been swimming around in G.K. Chesterton quotations today:
“There are two kinds of revolutionists, as of most things – a good kind and a bad. The bad revolutionists destroy conventions by appealing to fads – fashions that are newer than conventions. The good do it by appealing to facts that are older than conventions.” Illustrated London News, April 30, 1910
STEM Gerrymander
The infamous Jordan Peterson warns the STEM field that it is about to get sucker-punched.
Format Change
I've restored a very old all-black format as a test to see if it is easier to read. The white-on-red text, though I find the design attractive, may be harder on the eyes than is necessary. Feedback is welcome, of course. But the design isn't an innovation, for what that's worth; we blacked out the blog for a long time way back when. It was done to protest the anti-Free Speech initiatives of the late Senator McCain.
NPC Conan
One of the more effective memes developed lately is the meme of the NPC, short for "Non-Player Character." These are characters one encounters in video role playing games that are supposed to simulate human beings, but whose responses are scripted and thus limited and predictable. Politically Correct culture forces its adherents into a similar role of only being allowed certain thoughts and expressions. Thus, they come to act as if they were NPCs even though they are, presumably, actual humans.
Naturally members of the PC culture are describing this meme as "fascist," which somewhat amusingly makes the point that they have a very limited range of acceptable responses. They claim it is "dehumanizing," which is a favorite term they use that doesn't seem to mean what I'd expect it to mean. Human beings are characteristically capable of free thought and, therefore, free expression. Limiting one's own capacity for thought and expression is more dehumanizing (to one's self) than mocking others for refusing to engage in freer thought and expression. The guy who mocks you as an NPC isn't dehumanizing you; he's pointing out the degree to which you have agreed to dehumanize yourself.
I thought of all of this because of today's edition of "Conan the Salaryman," an often-amusing Twitter account that imagines Conan the Barbarian forced into modern life. Normally the joke is that Conan would probably kill people on a regular basis if forced into such a life, which allows the author to make jokes about the indignities of commuting or working in an ordinary office. Now and then, though, you get stuff like this:
I find transgender claims philosophically interesting, at least the ones that arise from people who physically are biologically male or female but who claim to be the opposite sex essentially. The claim seems to point to a sort of dualism, in which the sex of the body and the sex of the soul/spirit/mind/etc come apart. That's so at odds with the materialism that wrongly dominates much of our philosophical conversation today that I'm inclined to entertain it, if only because I see the value of the challenge it poses to ordinary received wisdom dominant in our culture. (In addition, at least some people aren't either male or female in the strict biological sense; these people have a sensible claim to accommodation as they have been born into a world that otherwise doesn't really have a place for them.)
That said, it's absurd to adopt the persona of Conan and talk movingly of transgender rights. Robert E. Howard would have laughed in your face, probably just before punching it. Howard was an early 20th century adherent of understanding even many mystical aspects of the world in terms of hard science; he wrote of demons as coming from 'outer space,' and of evolution causing 'races' of men to rise nearly to godhood, or fall back to bestiality. Indeed, there's no separating Howard's racism from his adherence to Darwinism, at the hour when Darwin was being treated with intense skepticism by the Christianity of the period. Howard believed a man could come from an ape, and he believed a line of men might therefore be closer to apes than another line; or that a line could fall back into apehood, under the right conditions. He believed apes could come to take on manlike intelligence, thus being even greater perils for his heroes.
As far as I know, Howard didn't even imagine a transgender character, but I can't imagine they would have come off kindly in Conan's eyes had he encountered one. But it's the only acceptable viewpoint for the PC today, and therefore even NPC Conan the Barbarian has to mouth the line. It's the only line in the script.
Naturally members of the PC culture are describing this meme as "fascist," which somewhat amusingly makes the point that they have a very limited range of acceptable responses. They claim it is "dehumanizing," which is a favorite term they use that doesn't seem to mean what I'd expect it to mean. Human beings are characteristically capable of free thought and, therefore, free expression. Limiting one's own capacity for thought and expression is more dehumanizing (to one's self) than mocking others for refusing to engage in freer thought and expression. The guy who mocks you as an NPC isn't dehumanizing you; he's pointing out the degree to which you have agreed to dehumanize yourself.
I thought of all of this because of today's edition of "Conan the Salaryman," an often-amusing Twitter account that imagines Conan the Barbarian forced into modern life. Normally the joke is that Conan would probably kill people on a regular basis if forced into such a life, which allows the author to make jokes about the indignities of commuting or working in an ordinary office. Now and then, though, you get stuff like this:
I find transgender claims philosophically interesting, at least the ones that arise from people who physically are biologically male or female but who claim to be the opposite sex essentially. The claim seems to point to a sort of dualism, in which the sex of the body and the sex of the soul/spirit/mind/etc come apart. That's so at odds with the materialism that wrongly dominates much of our philosophical conversation today that I'm inclined to entertain it, if only because I see the value of the challenge it poses to ordinary received wisdom dominant in our culture. (In addition, at least some people aren't either male or female in the strict biological sense; these people have a sensible claim to accommodation as they have been born into a world that otherwise doesn't really have a place for them.)
That said, it's absurd to adopt the persona of Conan and talk movingly of transgender rights. Robert E. Howard would have laughed in your face, probably just before punching it. Howard was an early 20th century adherent of understanding even many mystical aspects of the world in terms of hard science; he wrote of demons as coming from 'outer space,' and of evolution causing 'races' of men to rise nearly to godhood, or fall back to bestiality. Indeed, there's no separating Howard's racism from his adherence to Darwinism, at the hour when Darwin was being treated with intense skepticism by the Christianity of the period. Howard believed a man could come from an ape, and he believed a line of men might therefore be closer to apes than another line; or that a line could fall back into apehood, under the right conditions. He believed apes could come to take on manlike intelligence, thus being even greater perils for his heroes.
As far as I know, Howard didn't even imagine a transgender character, but I can't imagine they would have come off kindly in Conan's eyes had he encountered one. But it's the only acceptable viewpoint for the PC today, and therefore even NPC Conan the Barbarian has to mouth the line. It's the only line in the script.
Stone Games
That event is Weight Over Bar, i.e. throwing a 56-pound weight over the rising bar. They were throwing at 18 feet when I took that photo.
These games have been an important part of my life for decades. Old friends, old swords, old stories, old ways.
Priorities
One of Maggie's Farm's recent posts concerned crushes in the workplace. I liked this comment:
Life is too complicated for simple answers, but you fulfill your duties and obligations first. Then you make sure your actions reduce chaos and drama. THEN you satisfy your wibbly bits.
I Wonder If That's True?
AVI speculates:
Still, I've spent a lot of time with the dead -- at least the ones who wrote books, or who had books or sagas written about them. I usually like them fine, often better than my contemporaries. It's a subset, of course, of the whole population; but then again, the population was a lot smaller in the old days and traveled a lot less. It wasn't as important that you learn to like people who were from far away, because it wasn't as likely to come up that you'd need to do so.
As an aside, I sometimes tell a story about how progressive and conservative thought are both the result of psychological illusions, and AVI's speculation reminds me of it. I'll run through it quickly here just because I haven't written it down in a while, and maybe it'll be interesting to some of you or at least useful to someone someday. The story goes like this:
For the most part people learn their values by contact. You can think of values as 'rubbing off' in an almost literal sense: you get yours by rubbing up against someone else who already has them. That's how they teach you to have them. Now you're more likely to rub up against people who are closer to you than who are further away. That closeness holds for both time and space: those who are closer to you in time rub up against you a lot more than those who are distant, unless you're one of those who goes out of their way to seek out the old books, or institutions that bring old things forward anew.
The illusion that gives rise to progressivism, then, is just that this process makes it seem like those who are closer to you in time are increasingly like yourself. Since what you believe is right is what you believe is right, and you got your values by rubbing up against those closer to you than further from you, naturally as you look further and further back the moral world of those older generations looks less and less in agreement with your own. Because you believe your own values are right, this fact makes it appear as if there is an 'arrow of progress' in history that points in your direction. Every generation gets closer to you, as if they were learning lessons that are bringing them closer to the true values you hold in your heart.
Of course it's just an illusion. As things get further away from you in the future, those people will have rubbed up less against you and those you rubbed against. Their values will change in a different direction. There's no arrow of history. It's an illusion, almost an optical illusion. It comes from this fact of perspective.
The illusion that gives rise to conservatism comes from picking a point in history -- real or imagined -- and holding it up as the exemplary one. It doesn't matter if it is the Founding, the Age of Mohammed and his Companions, the Early Christian Church, the Viking Age, the 1950s or the High Middle Ages. King Arthur. Camelot. Whatever. Once you've picked a point and a set of values as exemplary, this very same process I have been describing means that history looks like a long falling away from that moral ideal. Every generation is less and less like the one that lived in the great days.
That's an illusion too. It's an illusion of the very same kind.
What isn't illusory in the moral world is the transcendent values, the ones that hold true by virtue of the structure of reality and human nature. Courage is a virtue in every generation, because the courageous are more likely to succeed in achieving whatever it is they want to achieve. So too the self-disciplined. So too the ones who love at least certain particular others enough that they lead lives they enjoy and value. Courage, honor, moderation, discipline, love, friendship. These things really matter. They are not illusions.
Almost everything else is. Some of the illusions are harmless; others give rise to terrible tragedies. But they should be recognized by the wise for the illusions that they are.
Most of your ancestors did about as well as they could under the circumstances, but their times were not ours and you wouldn't have liked them much. You would have found them slow, ignorant, indifferent to violence, intolerant of people twenty miles distant, dirty, and smelly. On the other hand, they would find you pampered, soft, arrogant, overfed, sexually uncontrolled, irreligious, and wasteful. And they would be right, I suppose, though I don't think I would hang around to hear them talk about it.Well, I don't have to care what anyone thinks of me who isn't my wife or a few close friends. I've built my life that way on purpose.
Still, I've spent a lot of time with the dead -- at least the ones who wrote books, or who had books or sagas written about them. I usually like them fine, often better than my contemporaries. It's a subset, of course, of the whole population; but then again, the population was a lot smaller in the old days and traveled a lot less. It wasn't as important that you learn to like people who were from far away, because it wasn't as likely to come up that you'd need to do so.
As an aside, I sometimes tell a story about how progressive and conservative thought are both the result of psychological illusions, and AVI's speculation reminds me of it. I'll run through it quickly here just because I haven't written it down in a while, and maybe it'll be interesting to some of you or at least useful to someone someday. The story goes like this:
For the most part people learn their values by contact. You can think of values as 'rubbing off' in an almost literal sense: you get yours by rubbing up against someone else who already has them. That's how they teach you to have them. Now you're more likely to rub up against people who are closer to you than who are further away. That closeness holds for both time and space: those who are closer to you in time rub up against you a lot more than those who are distant, unless you're one of those who goes out of their way to seek out the old books, or institutions that bring old things forward anew.
The illusion that gives rise to progressivism, then, is just that this process makes it seem like those who are closer to you in time are increasingly like yourself. Since what you believe is right is what you believe is right, and you got your values by rubbing up against those closer to you than further from you, naturally as you look further and further back the moral world of those older generations looks less and less in agreement with your own. Because you believe your own values are right, this fact makes it appear as if there is an 'arrow of progress' in history that points in your direction. Every generation gets closer to you, as if they were learning lessons that are bringing them closer to the true values you hold in your heart.
Of course it's just an illusion. As things get further away from you in the future, those people will have rubbed up less against you and those you rubbed against. Their values will change in a different direction. There's no arrow of history. It's an illusion, almost an optical illusion. It comes from this fact of perspective.
The illusion that gives rise to conservatism comes from picking a point in history -- real or imagined -- and holding it up as the exemplary one. It doesn't matter if it is the Founding, the Age of Mohammed and his Companions, the Early Christian Church, the Viking Age, the 1950s or the High Middle Ages. King Arthur. Camelot. Whatever. Once you've picked a point and a set of values as exemplary, this very same process I have been describing means that history looks like a long falling away from that moral ideal. Every generation is less and less like the one that lived in the great days.
That's an illusion too. It's an illusion of the very same kind.
What isn't illusory in the moral world is the transcendent values, the ones that hold true by virtue of the structure of reality and human nature. Courage is a virtue in every generation, because the courageous are more likely to succeed in achieving whatever it is they want to achieve. So too the self-disciplined. So too the ones who love at least certain particular others enough that they lead lives they enjoy and value. Courage, honor, moderation, discipline, love, friendship. These things really matter. They are not illusions.
Almost everything else is. Some of the illusions are harmless; others give rise to terrible tragedies. But they should be recognized by the wise for the illusions that they are.
The Logic of the Current Revolution
Dr. Codevilla has a long piece on what he calls the current revolutionary moment. He posits at least one scenario in which it ends well for the most part:
Were a conservative to win the 2020 presidential election, dealing with the Progressives’ renewed resistance would be his administration’s most pressing problem. But had the Left’s resistance failed utterly during the previous four years, it may be possible to convince it to switch from its present offensive mode to a defensive one. Were this to be the happy case, the conservative side of American life, operating from a dominant position, might be able to obtain agreement to some form of true federalism.I used to think something like this could work; of late I've become unconvinced. I think the real issue now is that there are progressive urban areas even in the reddest states, and red areas even in the bluest ones. Federalism still might work, but not state-oriented federalism. We need some way of preventing the Mountain Tribe from having to be ruled by the City Tribe; and vice versa, not that I think the Mountain Tribe has much interest in ruling over cities or their people.
Unattainable, and gone forever, is the whole American Republic that had existed for some 200 years after 1776. The people and the habits of heart and mind that had made it possible are no longer a majority. Progressives made America a different nation by rejecting those habits and those traditions. As of today, they would use all their powers to prevent others from living in the manner of the Republic. But, perhaps, after their offensive resistance’s failure, they might be reconciled to govern themselves as they wish in states where they command a majority, while not interfering with other Americans governing themselves in their way in the states where they are a majority.
Seven Years in Prison for a 40 Year Old Mistake
A Vietnam Veteran awarded the Silver Star is being sent to Federal prison for buying an M-14 like the one he carried in the Army.
The raid and arrest on Pick’s Plano home came two weeks after his wife of 40 years died of cancer. They were using marijuana, which authorities found and added another criminal charge.Good candidate for a Presidential pardon, that.
Friends of the vet showed up to support him after he pleaded guilty in a Plano federal courtroom and was sentenced to 87 months in prison by a judge.
“He’s had it all these years never robbed a bank or done anything with it,” said Shackelford. “Somebody that made one mistake and now 50 years later, he’s paying a really big price for it.”
Silence, Dogs!
I just don't get the concept that the best way to fight "dehumanization" is through speech bans. Nothing is more characteristically human than speech; respect for freedom of speech is the sin qua non of respecting someone's humanity. It is far less dehumanizing for Louis Farrakhan to suggest that his Jewish opponents are "termites" than it would be for us to tell Louis Farrakhan that he wasn't permitted to speak in public.
The right to think for yourself is one of the clearest cases of natural rights: nature itself defends this right. As long as you have a human brain -- unless some opponent should lobotomize it or physically destroy it -- you will think. Speech is just one step removed from this natural human right, as it's just a way of putting your thoughts in the air. No one has to agree with them. No one is necessarily going to be persuaded. Hearing Farrakhan doesn't make me scorn or dislike Jews; it persuades me only that he's a nasty person. But I know he's a person. I know it in part because I got to hear him speak his thoughts.
Freedom of speech should be non-negotiable, especially in America. Whatever they do elsewhere, here we speak our minds.
The right to think for yourself is one of the clearest cases of natural rights: nature itself defends this right. As long as you have a human brain -- unless some opponent should lobotomize it or physically destroy it -- you will think. Speech is just one step removed from this natural human right, as it's just a way of putting your thoughts in the air. No one has to agree with them. No one is necessarily going to be persuaded. Hearing Farrakhan doesn't make me scorn or dislike Jews; it persuades me only that he's a nasty person. But I know he's a person. I know it in part because I got to hear him speak his thoughts.
Freedom of speech should be non-negotiable, especially in America. Whatever they do elsewhere, here we speak our minds.
Elizabeth Warren's DNA
This raises a couple of thoughts in my pea brain. One concerns identity politics: many pundits
are saying that her DNA outcome and her touting of it spell the end of identity
politics. To the extent this works out
to be true, would this make Warren a heroine of the right?
The other concerns the DNA itself. I suggest that, by fair means or foul, we're
all at least as much African-American as Warren is Native American. We all can open our businesses and claim our
minority-owned subsidy.
But why stop with molecules?
Why not take seriously particular groupings of DNA? I have at least half the number of X chromosomes
as my wife, as do all of the nominally male population of the Hall and of America
at large. On that basis we don't have to
self-identify as female, our genetics make the case for us at least as soundly
as Warren's DNA makes her case. We can
open our own businesses and claim our woman-owned subsidy.
We're all two-fers now.
Eric Hines
Bill Gates's Eulogy for Paul Allen
I somewhat dislike Microsoft, but Bill Gates & Paul Allen changed the world. Two days ago, Allen passed away. Yesterday, Gates wrote "What I Loved about Paul Allen," which is about their friendship.
The Worst Yet To Come?
A Bush administration veteran writes that the Left is not done; they intend to get worse, he warns.
Meanwhile when Republicans in New York invited Vice-founder Gavin McInnes to speak, an Anitfa group formed to harass them. After one of the Antifa members attempted to steal the hat off a man's head, it turned into a brawl. The New York government is regarding it as a hate crime -- by the Republicans, whom they are going to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law in order to let them know they aren't welcome in New York City. There are of course regular street brawls in Portland, Oregon now.
All this leaves out non-violent but illegal attacks on Republicans, such as the Reality Winner leak of classified information because she thought it was about Trump; or the Treasury Department employee just arrested for leaking Paul Manafort's bank records. The ongoing illegality from within the government is a serious problem for the operations of that government, but at least it stops short of violent attacks.
As we discussed in the comments recently, the easiest way to end a lifetime appointment is to end the life. You can force a special election to replace a Senator you don't like if you off the Senator. You don't need to form a majority for that either; just a competent cell of radicals willing to operate 'by any means necessary.' People on the right should expect this, and take appropriate precautions.
That liberals’ orchestrated effort took both Congress and Court to new lows was not their concern. Their one and only goal was in not seeing the Supreme Court move any more to the right. Yet, the left’s effort also served notice: If they have their way, the process will only get worse....We just had what was proclaimed to be a ricin attack on Susan Collins, following demonstrated ricin attacks on Mattis and the chief of the Navy. Howling mobs have been driving Republican elected officials out of public places. Today two Republican candidates in Minnesota report having been attacked and punched while attempting to campaign. Of course there was the 2017 baseball shooting targeting Republican Congressmen as well.
More importantly for liberals, [the Supreme Court] is not directly dependent on a political majority. Certainly, the President nominates and the Senate confirms justices, but these can be far removed from particular decisions… and both can also have been wrong in their assumptions about their picks.
The Court’s lack of dependence on a political majority has been crucial to liberals, America’s smallest ideology. Lacking the thick edge of the political wedge, America’s left have sought the thin one of the Court to advance issues for which they could never have constructed a public majority.
Meanwhile when Republicans in New York invited Vice-founder Gavin McInnes to speak, an Anitfa group formed to harass them. After one of the Antifa members attempted to steal the hat off a man's head, it turned into a brawl. The New York government is regarding it as a hate crime -- by the Republicans, whom they are going to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law in order to let them know they aren't welcome in New York City. There are of course regular street brawls in Portland, Oregon now.
All this leaves out non-violent but illegal attacks on Republicans, such as the Reality Winner leak of classified information because she thought it was about Trump; or the Treasury Department employee just arrested for leaking Paul Manafort's bank records. The ongoing illegality from within the government is a serious problem for the operations of that government, but at least it stops short of violent attacks.
As we discussed in the comments recently, the easiest way to end a lifetime appointment is to end the life. You can force a special election to replace a Senator you don't like if you off the Senator. You don't need to form a majority for that either; just a competent cell of radicals willing to operate 'by any means necessary.' People on the right should expect this, and take appropriate precautions.
Actuality and Potentiality
Reason proposes that self-mythologizing is fine 'when you're young,' but that at some point you have to set aside childish things. That's an interesting principle I find somewhat attractive. Younger people are still 'coming to be,' and imagination can help them to decide how to actualize what is still mostly potential in them. At some point, however, you are actual enough that you should stand on what you've really done.
On the other hand, one cannot actualize what does not already exist as a potential. I can't actualize being Cherokee; I can't actualize being a woman either, current fashion notwithstanding. This is in line with Aristotle's dictum that 'potentiality is first actuality.'
Still, I'm not inclined to view someone harshly who -- even in their 20s -- has a rich imaginative life, so long as they are working towards translating what they imagine of themselves into actual accomplishments. Deeds to be proud of; becoming someone who has 'been, and done.' If they do that, I'd let youthful imagination fall away as harmless as the actual person emerges in adulthood.
On the other hand, one cannot actualize what does not already exist as a potential. I can't actualize being Cherokee; I can't actualize being a woman either, current fashion notwithstanding. This is in line with Aristotle's dictum that 'potentiality is first actuality.'
Still, I'm not inclined to view someone harshly who -- even in their 20s -- has a rich imaginative life, so long as they are working towards translating what they imagine of themselves into actual accomplishments. Deeds to be proud of; becoming someone who has 'been, and done.' If they do that, I'd let youthful imagination fall away as harmless as the actual person emerges in adulthood.
You'll Never Guess Why People Switched to Trump
It's a Vox article, so there's no real shock:
"Hint: It has to do with race."
Well, your study doesn't apply to me. I never voted for Barack Obama, not even in a primary. I did for Hillary Clinton, in 2008, in the hopes of beating Barack Obama. In retrospect I'm not sure if we came out ahead or behind in that exchange.
"Hint: It has to do with race."
Well, your study doesn't apply to me. I never voted for Barack Obama, not even in a primary. I did for Hillary Clinton, in 2008, in the hopes of beating Barack Obama. In retrospect I'm not sure if we came out ahead or behind in that exchange.
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