Their tagline is: "Ricochet.com is the leading place for civil discussion of the center-right and beyond."
However, they ask $5 a month or $39.99 a year to be a member with full privileges.
From time to time I read the free articles, and generally I like the tone of the place, but that's about the extent of my experience with them so far.
Does anyone have any comments on Ricochet? Is it worth it? Has anyone here tried it out?
The Empire vs. the Republic
James Pethokoukis, AEI fellow and CNBC contributor, argues that America right now looks like the Roman empire at the height of its power rather than Rome about to fall.
He links an article he wrote at Vox which argues more in depth that, since America's economy is still strong, America is OK. His entire argument is economic.
I don't care how well the economy is doing if I am not free. If the republic is dying, the state of the economy is irrelevant. After all the ink and pixels that have been used to get that point across, to not understand that the populist argument is fundamentally about political freedom and the culture of freedom is a form of self-imposed intellectual blindness.
If you listen to America’s pessimistic populists, America is so over. We are all in the position of Emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths come over the seventh hill as the sack of Rome begins. (Guess who the Visigoths are in this analogy. Some, I assume, were good people.)
Or to update things a bit, this is the “Flight 93” election, at least according to a recent viral essay. This argument, as I recently described it, posits America’s doom “unless those who value an isolationist, protectionist, and perhaps paler America ‘charge the cockpit’ in Washington and seize control from the open borders–loving, free trading, perpetually warfighting ‘Davoisie oligarchy.’”
That’s not how I see things. My views are more in sync with this notion put forward recently in by Jonathan Margolis in the Financial Times:But he misses the point. The pessimists are not arguing that America is the Roman empire ready to fall. We are arguing that America is the Roman republic about to be destroyed and replaced by the empire. It's not the Visigoths we worry about, it is Julius Caeser and his army. The consuls and senate are about to be replaced by an emperor, or maybe already have been.
So for all its failings and warnings that the US is “over”, in reality, it is not just the new Roman empire, but a reincarnation of the Roman empire at the height of its power, perhaps around 117AD — 170 years before it began to fall apart.
He links an article he wrote at Vox which argues more in depth that, since America's economy is still strong, America is OK. His entire argument is economic.
I don't care how well the economy is doing if I am not free. If the republic is dying, the state of the economy is irrelevant. After all the ink and pixels that have been used to get that point across, to not understand that the populist argument is fundamentally about political freedom and the culture of freedom is a form of self-imposed intellectual blindness.
Ammon Bundy's Lawyer Facing Charges?
In the article that Grim posted on this earlier, it was shocking that US Marshals had tackled and used a stun gun on Ammon Bundy's lawyer, Marcus Mumford.
A new report suggests Mumford may be facing charges. In this news article, it seems that when US Marshals moved to take Bundy into custody, Mumford confronted them.
It seems the marshals didn't just rush him without warning or provocation, but it is still shocking.
A new report suggests Mumford may be facing charges. In this news article, it seems that when US Marshals moved to take Bundy into custody, Mumford confronted them.
Mumford got into a heated argument that ultimately led to the attorney being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. Our reporters say Mumford started repeatedly yelling to Judge Brown that his client was free to go.
"When you get acquitted, you get released. That's how I understand it," said Mumford.
He said he asked the U.S. Marshals to see their paperwork that gave them authority to keep his client in custody.
It seems the marshals didn't just rush him without warning or provocation, but it is still shocking.
Happy Birthday, Royal Marines
The Royal Marines were formed in 1755 as the Royal Navy's infantry troops. However, the marines can trace their origins back to the formation of the English Army's "Duke of York and Albany's maritime regiment of Foot" at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company on 28 October 1664.
Update: 352 years, to be exact.
Today's Lesson in Mythology
As appropriate for the afternoon, let me introduce you to the goddess Nemisis, whose purview is "fair distribution of rewards." She is particularly tasked with pursuing those guilty of hubris, and making sure that whatever those guilty of hubris grasped at through the sin was paid for in fair measure.
She is associated with Tyche, better known -- and beloved -- as "Lady Luck."
She is associated with Tyche, better known -- and beloved -- as "Lady Luck."
DB: WWI Vets Overwhelmingly Support Clinton
Some 98 percent of ballots cast from the demographic have been from veterans who are registered Democrats.
“This is tremendous news for the Hillary Clinton campaign and for the Democratic Party,” said Donna Brazile, interim chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. “We knew that if we could get a strong turnout among the doughboy demographic, we could win this election.”
A Little Clarity about the Target Audience and Methods
In previous posts on persuasion, I've been sloppy with language and that's led to some confusion. I've also changed my mind on some things based on comments to my posts. I plan to continue writing about this, so I'm going to try to clarify a couple of things. I'll do that by answering these two questions:
When I post on persuasion, who am I talking about persuading? What do I mean by "persuasion"?
When I post on persuasion, who am I talking about persuading? What do I mean by "persuasion"?
Some Non-Presidential Polls
Not all of the propaganda works all of the time. Two polls show that the American people have rejected two of the Left's beloved causes, gun control and BLM.
Note that the spike in people reporting "a great deal of respect for police" is highest among... liberals (+21) and Millennials (+19). But it's greater among non-white Americans (+14) than among whites (+11, although there's not much ceiling left there).
I still think that BLM had some valid complaints, although it was clear from the beginning that their chosen method of protest was certain to fail. You can't improve relations between a given community and the police by driving that community into lawbreaking confrontations that force the police to arrest them. It's unsurprising that things have turned out this way, except that it's surprising to see the swing so strong in exactly the demographics BLM targeted for its efforts.
Note that the spike in people reporting "a great deal of respect for police" is highest among... liberals (+21) and Millennials (+19). But it's greater among non-white Americans (+14) than among whites (+11, although there's not much ceiling left there).
I still think that BLM had some valid complaints, although it was clear from the beginning that their chosen method of protest was certain to fail. You can't improve relations between a given community and the police by driving that community into lawbreaking confrontations that force the police to arrest them. It's unsurprising that things have turned out this way, except that it's surprising to see the swing so strong in exactly the demographics BLM targeted for its efforts.
I Endorse This Heartily
Scientists have recreated an ancient mead from 2,500 years ago
Dogfish head brewery in Delaware has done something like this with residues found in King Midas' (well, actually his father's) tomb and in 4000 year old Chinese pots.
Mankind. Brewing. You don't get one without the other.
Dogfish head brewery in Delaware has done something like this with residues found in King Midas' (well, actually his father's) tomb and in 4000 year old Chinese pots.
Mankind. Brewing. You don't get one without the other.
There's Something You Don't Hear Everyday
"Everything conservatives predicted about Obamacare is coming true."Well, and it has been for a while now. But you don't usually hear that admitted. Obama said we could keep our doctors and our plans if we liked them. That was not true. Obama said it would bring down costs thousands of dollars per family. Not only was that not true, costs are up substantially.
We also said it would destroy the health insurance industry and leave us subject to a government takeover -- a takeover that would be used to ram Nanny State social agendas down our throats. No smoking! No drinking! No motorcycle-riding! No gun ownership! All those things are too dangerous, and raise your prospective cost to the system too much. And since we are all paying for your health care now, we "all" have a right to demand that you live exactly as we prescribe that you should.
The Telos of a University
Jonathan Haidt's video on this topic, which I mentioned in a previous post, turns out to be excellent. It's 66 minutes long; I've watched it twice and plan on watching it at least one more time. Why should you?
He seems to assume he's talking to a Progressive audience, so his arguments are made to persuade them. That in and of itself is worthwhile if you plan to try to discuss issues with Progressives.
And he argues that:
In the end, while he wants universities to publicly declare one or the other, he champions truth-seeking as the proper telos of the university.
More about Haidt below the fold.
He seems to assume he's talking to a Progressive audience, so his arguments are made to persuade them. That in and of itself is worthwhile if you plan to try to discuss issues with Progressives.
And he argues that:
- gender is biological and real
- "safe spaces" are damaging to the students they are supposed to protect
- arguing sexism or racism solely from disparate outcomes is irrational
- some goals of social justice are unjust
- the telos of seeking truth and the telos of seeking social justice are incompatible for a university and, if both are sought equally, harmful to both truth and social justice
In the end, while he wants universities to publicly declare one or the other, he champions truth-seeking as the proper telos of the university.
More about Haidt below the fold.
Power and Liberty: Separation versus Tension
The Declaration of Independence says:
Consider, for example, AT&T's spying on the American people. "Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why."
There is a clear separation of powers between AT&T and the police. If you contract with AT&T, it has a certain power over your life because it gains access to a lot of information about you. Still, AT&T has no police powers.
The police, meanwhile, have no right to demand access to AT&T's proprietary information without a warrant.
Does this protect you? No, it does not: AT&T is happy to provide the police with everything it knows, secretly, in return for a cash payment (one that you are contributing to yourself as a taxpayer).
If the government were to nationalize the telecoms, it would lose access to this kind of spying. A nationalized telecom would have to justify its spying by warrant. By outsourcing this spying to a non-government agency, the government actually increases its powers.
So too with the "death panels," below. A nationalized single payer system would presumably have to respect the claim that you could not be denied life (or liberty or property) without due process. It might not be much better -- the VA's system simply delays the due process so long that you die anyway -- but the corporate/government alignment provides them with immediate access to a power that they could never get through Congress.
For now, the hope lies in an intensification of the tension between the states and the Federal government. There, where the powers have competing interests, there is a chance that some space for liberty will come to be between them. Tension between powers is the thing that really works.
Merely separating the powers, without a competitive tension between the powers, aggregates them just as certainly as a failure to separate them at all. Indeed, in these two examples of corporate/government collusion, the power of the state increases beyond what it could ever legitimately do should it seize the private body and run it as a formal arm of the state.
[W]henever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., the securing of unalienable rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.When it comes time to do that, I hope that whoever has the charge of doing it will remember this lesson: separation of powers is not enough to guarantee liberty. What guarantees a space for liberty is not merely the separation of power, but a tension between the powers.
Consider, for example, AT&T's spying on the American people. "Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why."
There is a clear separation of powers between AT&T and the police. If you contract with AT&T, it has a certain power over your life because it gains access to a lot of information about you. Still, AT&T has no police powers.
The police, meanwhile, have no right to demand access to AT&T's proprietary information without a warrant.
Does this protect you? No, it does not: AT&T is happy to provide the police with everything it knows, secretly, in return for a cash payment (one that you are contributing to yourself as a taxpayer).
If the government were to nationalize the telecoms, it would lose access to this kind of spying. A nationalized telecom would have to justify its spying by warrant. By outsourcing this spying to a non-government agency, the government actually increases its powers.
So too with the "death panels," below. A nationalized single payer system would presumably have to respect the claim that you could not be denied life (or liberty or property) without due process. It might not be much better -- the VA's system simply delays the due process so long that you die anyway -- but the corporate/government alignment provides them with immediate access to a power that they could never get through Congress.
For now, the hope lies in an intensification of the tension between the states and the Federal government. There, where the powers have competing interests, there is a chance that some space for liberty will come to be between them. Tension between powers is the thing that really works.
Merely separating the powers, without a competitive tension between the powers, aggregates them just as certainly as a failure to separate them at all. Indeed, in these two examples of corporate/government collusion, the power of the state increases beyond what it could ever legitimately do should it seize the private body and run it as a formal arm of the state.
Death Panels
Remind me how stupid this idea was.
It's a serious philosophical question, one going back to Protagoras and Socrates. Is man the measure of all things, or is there some god whose opinion rules? Even if the god is "Nature," you still get a kind of telos in which pursuit of life is the good: after all, all things that can pursue their own survival, and their own furtherance through reproduction. So, even if we reason from the squirrels and the trees of the forest, we get to this idea that life is the good.
The opposite of good is evil, is it not?
About one-year ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state’s assisted-suicide bill into law....At some point, we're going to have to grapple with the idea that the government -- or, to be more sophisticated, this alliance of government and for-profit companies -- is evil by all traditional measures. Do we go along with the new ideas, redefining the good as if it were a matter of convention? Or do we deal with the government as harshly as we would with a genuine evil?
Now, one young mother says her insurance company denied her coverage for chemotherapy treatment after originally agreeing to provide the fiscal support for it, but indicated it would be willing to pay for assisted suicide instead.
It's a serious philosophical question, one going back to Protagoras and Socrates. Is man the measure of all things, or is there some god whose opinion rules? Even if the god is "Nature," you still get a kind of telos in which pursuit of life is the good: after all, all things that can pursue their own survival, and their own furtherance through reproduction. So, even if we reason from the squirrels and the trees of the forest, we get to this idea that life is the good.
The opposite of good is evil, is it not?
You Can't Make This Stuff Up
Seriously, no commentary. Just roll the tape.
Aspiring United States Air Force pilots can skip the fitness test if they are transgender and in the process of transitioning, according to new protocol determined by military officials and made public last week.
Transgender pilots who are in the middle of hormone treatment won’t have to retake the exam, which includes pull-ups, pushups, and running, if they have already failed it — so long as the Air Force commander sees that the individual “tried to the best of their ability” to meet the standards associated with their preferred gender.
Good Point
Of 1,000 voters polled by Rasmussen Reports on October 18 and 19; 65% believe that Clinton broke the law with her use of a private server — and 53% believe that the FBI should have filed criminal charges.H/t Gateway Pundit, who points out that this means that more Americans want Hillary Clinton in prison than as President.
Meanwhile, according to Sunday’s daily IBD/TIPP tracking poll, only 43% of voters support Clinton for president.
Nothing to See Here
Clinton ally donated half a million bucks to a political campaign... led by the wife of an FBI agent who was subsequently promoted and placed in charge of the Clinton investigation.
If it were the only such "little surprise," I suppose we could write it off as a coincidence. It is not, of course. Not hardly.
If it were the only such "little surprise," I suppose we could write it off as a coincidence. It is not, of course. Not hardly.
Final Military Times Poll: Trump Support Grows
Trump leads overall and with enlisted, among whom Clinton doesn't break 1 in 5 and finishes in a distant third place. Trump is narrowly in third place among officers, but Clinton isn't even a half percentage point ahead of Gary Johnson in that subset. Johnson is in second place among enlisted as well.
Female servicemembers look a lot like officers in their voting preferences: Trump is in third, but Johnson is the overall winner. Men prefer Trump.
As has been true in previous polls, support for Trump is strongest and for Clinton weakest among the Marines and the Army. She does better among the Navy and Air Force, but she is still behind Trump (who always wins) and, in the Air Force, also behind Johnson. She leads Johnson narrowly in the Navy, but remains a good distance behind Trump.
Female servicemembers look a lot like officers in their voting preferences: Trump is in third, but Johnson is the overall winner. Men prefer Trump.
As has been true in previous polls, support for Trump is strongest and for Clinton weakest among the Marines and the Army. She does better among the Navy and Air Force, but she is still behind Trump (who always wins) and, in the Air Force, also behind Johnson. She leads Johnson narrowly in the Navy, but remains a good distance behind Trump.
Both major parties remain largely unliked by the military. Nearly 83 percent of those surveyed said they are dissatisfied with Clinton as the Democratic Party’s pick to be president, and more than 65 percent said the same of Trump as the Republican nominee.One Marine corporal who responded to the survey wrote back, "No one seems to care that Hillary Clinton is directly responsible for leaking classified information. It's an embarrassment that she is on the verge of becoming president.”
Only 4 percent of troops polled said they have abundant confidence that Clinton can lead the military as commander in chief. About 9 percent said the same for Trump. More than 60 percent of troops said they had little confidence either could.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)