Thought Crimes Will Be Prosecuted

Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who remains in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day, according to his lawyer, was arrested last Monday after he spoke to members of the trucker blockade along the U.S.-Canada border in Coutts, Alberta, on Feb. 3.

During a 20-minute speech to the truckers, the pastor urged them to "hold the line" against government overreach without resorting to violence. They had reportedly reached an agreement to abandon their blockade of the U.S. border and travel to Edmonton until changing their minds following Pawlowski's address.

So, the crime is having given a speech urging continued defiance of the government.  It's not even "he incited defiance," because they were already engaged in defiance when he got there. He just persuaded them to keep it up a while longer.

Enchiridion XXXVI

XXXVI

As the proposition, “either it is day or it is night,” has much force in a disjunctive argument, but none at all in a conjunctive one, so, at a feast, to choose the largest share is very suitable to the bodily appetite, but utterly inconsistent with the social spirit of the entertainment. Remember, then, when you eat with another, not only the value to the body of those things which are set before you, but also the value of proper courtesy toward your host.

Courtesy towards your host is a praiseworthy thing; overall, this section is another that is similar in tone to the Havamal in several respects. 

A greedy man, if he be not mindful,
eats to his own life's hurt:
oft the belly of the fool will bring him to scorn
when he seeks the circle of the wise.

Herds know the hour of their going home
and turn them again from the grass;
but never is found a foolish man
who knows the measure of his maw.

The translation of the first line is confusing, because it gives 'it is day / it is night' as already in a disjunctive form. That makes it hard to get the point about why it lacks force as a conjunctiver argument. In symbolic logic, the two propositions look like this:

∀x(Dx∨Nx) [Disjunctive: "For any time x, either x is day or x is night"]
∀x(Dx∧Nx) [Conjunctive: "For any time x, x is day and x is night."]

The point is just that a proposition about day/night works well as a disjunctive in ordinary language, and not at all well as a conjunctive. Although, notice that the conjunctive is also* a true statement: at any time x on planet Earth, it is both day (on the light side of the planet) and also night (on the dark). One might also make arguments about the disjunctive's truth conditions during periods of twilight or dawning. 

* Strictly speaking a true disjunction is satisfied, i.e. evaluates as true, at least one of the conditions is true. Thus, the disjunctive is true if it is either day or night, or both day and night; and thus the disjunctive is true and the conjunctive is true. There is another logical operator called 'exclusive OR' that is like the disjunctive, but only satisfied if -- in the present case -- D is true and N is false, or alternatively D is false and N is true. It would not be satisfied if D and N are both true at the same time, as is really the case on Earth. 

Enchiridion XXXV

XXXV

When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shrink from being seen to do it, even though the world should misunderstand it; for if you are not acting rightly, shun the action itself; if you are, why fear those who wrongly censure you?

Timely advice for the peaceful protesters in Canada today. For us all, perhaps, soon enough.

Canada's Prime Minister to Invoke Emergencies Act

The Prime Minister is too scared to talk to the truckers, whom he regards as such a threat that he is invoking these extraordinary powers for the first time in Canadian history. This act replaced what was previously called the "War Measures Act." 

Whatever one thinks of the position of the truckers on vaccine mandates, their core complaint has been the way in which the democratic legislative branch has been stripped of its lawmaking function in favor of executive assertions of 'emergency powers.' This complaint was fully justified even before this move: last week honking became an arrestable offense, and parking in a proscribed area a felony punishable with a year in prison and a hundred-thousand dollar fine. No legislature considered these updates to the motor vehicle code: they were asserted by bald executive privilege. 

Now the Prime Minister is going for what amounts to wartime powers to crush a peaceful, if robust, domestic protest movement. 

Options for resistance to this abuse of authority are significant, however:

These options are nonviolent, but it is not clear that the Canadian government can defeat them. Even if they take to shooting blockaders, they still may not be able to move the trucks. 

UPDATE: Emergencies Act invoked. Anyone supporting the truckers, or being a trucker, is to have their bank accounts seized without warrant or court order; banks immunized against any damages they cause. The legal excuse for this is "counterterror laws," i.e., perfectly peaceful (though effective) protests are now terrorism in Canada. 

ATF: Happy Snitch on Your Beloved Day!

Ex-boyfriend, or girlfriend, or ex-husband, anyone really.

Sean Davis and Jesse Kelly have candidates for them.

Enchiridion XXXIV

XXXIV

If you are dazzled by the semblance of any promised pleasure, guard yourself against being bewildered by it; but let the affair wait your leisure, and procure yourself some delay. Then bring to your mind both points of time—that in which you shall enjoy the pleasure, and that in which you will repent and reproach yourself, after you have enjoyed it—and set before you, in opposition to these, how you will rejoice and applaud yourself if you abstain. And even though it should appear to you a seasonable gratification, take heed that its enticements and allurements and seductions may not subdue you, but set in opposition to this how much better it is to be conscious of having gained so great a victory.

This is especially excellent advice for those considering an extramarital affair, I think. 

There's a problem here with some pleasures, though, which are not obviously semblances in the sense that he has been using the term. A good drunk gets in where you live; it's as real as any other internal experience, an elation of the mind whose activity and experience is our proper business. A woman (or man, for some of you) might seduce by outward semblance, and bewilder the mind with her beauty; her attention might be thrilling and exciting in the way he is discussing here. A drink isn't like that. There's no excitement to be had in looking at a bottle or a glass; a good Scotch tastes good, but some of it doesn't even do that. The whole experience is in the mind.

You can still easily do what he's talking about: delay, and then think through two potential tomorrows. Wouldn't you rather wake up early, feeling good physically and also good about your virtue in having done the right thing? Wouldn't you rather avoid a day of hangovers and reminding yourself that you only feel bad because you didn't stop yourself from feeling bad? The advice is still worthy; I just question to what degree it counts as a semblance. That may be why drug and alcohol issues are so difficult for people to overcome; it's a thing that lives in one's own proper seat of power. 

Canada Clears Ambassador Bridge

The bridge had been closed for a week of business days. It sounds like almost everyone had gone home of their own accord by this morning.

"A 27 yr old male was arrested at Huron Church Rd at Millen St. for a criminal offence in relation to the demonstration. Officers will intervene when necessary to ensure the safety of the public & maintain peace & order," the Windsor Police tweeted late Saturday. 

The arrests come after a Canadian judge ordered the protesters to vacate the area on Friday. Windsor Police said Sunday morning they are taking a "zero tolerance" policy toward "illegal activity." 

Only two pickup trucks and less than a dozen protesters blocked the road to the bridge before police moved in.

That means they can put the blockade back, using trucks that aren't easy to tow, whenever they want. Round one is over at the bridge, but not elsewhere. 

UPDATE: The American Mind has a piece by a central organizer on the future of the work, and their intent to remain outside Parliament until they win or are removed by force.

A Small Story of No Particular Importance

Durham’s court filing claims that Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid a tech company to hack into Donald Trump’s servers in his residence and in Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. The surveillance continued on into the White House when he became president.

It can't be important because it's not mentioned at all on the front page of the Washington Post today, nor the New York Times. ABC mentions someone being stoned to death in Pakistan, but not anything about this. Even FOX has nothing about it on the front page. 

Well, it's just a court filing. 

UPDATE: Not on the front page, but FOX did at least have a story about it.

Enchiridion XXXIII

XXXIII

Begin by prescribing to yourself some character and demeanor, such as you may preserve both alone and in company.

Be mostly silent, or speak merely what is needful, and in few words. We may, however, enter sparingly into discourse sometimes, when occasion calls for it; but let it not run on any of the common subjects, as gladiators, or horse races, or athletic champions, or food, or drink—the vulgar topics of conversation—and especially not on men, so as either to blame, or praise, or make comparisons. If you are able, then, by your own conversation, bring over that of your company to proper subjects; but if you happen to find yourself among strangers, be silent.

Let not your laughter be loud, frequent, or abundant.

Avoid taking oaths, if possible, altogether; at any rate, so far as you are able.

Avoid public and vulgar entertainments; but if ever an occasion calls you to them, keep your attention upon the stretch, that you may not imperceptibly slide into vulgarity. For be assured that if a person be ever so pure himself, yet, if his companion be corrupted, he who converses with him will be corrupted likewise.

Provide things relating to the body no further than absolute need requires, as meat, drink, clothing, house, retinue. But cut off everything that looks toward show and luxury.

Before marriage guard yourself with all your ability from unlawful intercourse with women; yet be not uncharitable or severe to those who are led into this, nor boast frequently that you yourself do otherwise.

If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”

It is not necessary for you to appear often at public spectacles; but if ever there is a proper occasion for you to be there, do not appear more solicitous for any other than for yourself—that is, wish things to be only just as they are, and only the best man to win; for thus nothing will go against you. But abstain entirely from acclamations and derision and violent emotions. And when you come away, do not discourse a great deal on what has passed and what contributes nothing to your own amendment. For it would appear by such discourse that you were dazzled by the show.

Be not prompt or ready to attend private recitations; but if you do attend, preserve your gravity and dignity, and yet avoid making yourself disagreeable.

When you are going to confer with anyone, and especially with one who seems your superior, represent to yourself how Socrates or Zeno* would behave in such a case, and you will not be at a loss to meet properly whatever may occur.

When you are going before anyone in power, fancy to yourself that you may not find him at home, that you may be shut out, that the doors may not be opened to you, that he may not notice you. If, with all this, it be your duty to go, bear what happens and never say to yourself, “It was not worth so much”; for this is vulgar, and like a man bewildered by externals.

In company, avoid a frequent and excessive mention of your own actions and dangers. For however agreeable it may be to yourself to allude to the risks you have run, it is not equally agreeable to others to hear your adventures. Avoid likewise an endeavor to excite laughter, for this may readily slide you into vulgarity, and, besides, may be apt to lower you in the esteem of your acquaintance. Approaches to indecent discourse are likewise dangerous. Therefore, when anything of this sort happens, use the first fit opportunity to rebuke him who makes advances that way, or, at least, by silence and blushing and a serious look show yourself to be displeased by such talk.

These are interesting maxims, as nearly all pertain to semblances and how to relate to them. In a way this doesn't seem like the proper business of a Stoic; on the other hand, you can imagine Epictetus saying "one must do something from day to day during ordinary activities, so here's some guidelines." 

They remind me of the opening verses of the Havamal, and indeed much of the advice is the same: advice to tend towards silence in company, advice to be moderate at gatherings and feasts, advice to think about how others will receive your boasting and, therefore, to avoid it.

For the unwise man 'tis best to be mute

when he come amid the crowd,

for none is aware of his lack of wit

if he wastes not too many words;

for he who lacks wit shall never learn

though his words flow ne'er so fast.

The advice about how to respond to insult is hard to keep today, for the habit of so many is to go to the worst insults possible right off the bat. It would be a bold man who responded to accusations that one is a racist Nazi white-supremacist sexist misogynist fascist by saying, "Well, but what about my other faults?" Yet something like that might be more effective than either denial -- which is pointless, because it will not be believed and anyway the accusations are obviously false -- or apology, the latter of which is never accepted and instead taken to be proof of your deserving punishment. 

* The note at the original says this is probably Zeno of Cyprus, the founder of the Stoic school, and not the Zeno you know from earlier commentaries. 

Enchiridion XXXII

XXXII

When you have recourse to divination, remember that you know not what the event will be, and you come to learn it of the diviner; but of what nature it is you knew before coming; at least, if you are of philosophic mind. For if it is among the things not within our own power, it can by no means be either good or evil. Do not, therefore, bring with you to the diviner either desire or aversion—else you will approach him trembling—but first clearly understand that every event is indifferent and nothing to you, of whatever sort it may be; for it will be in your power to make a right use of it, and this no one can hinder. Then come with confidence to the gods as your counselors; and afterwards, when any counsel is given you, remember what counselors you have assumed, and whose advice you will neglect if you disobey. Come to divination as Socrates prescribed, in cases of which the whole consideration relates to the event, and in which no opportunities are afforded by reason or any other art to discover the matter in view. When, therefore, it is our duty to share the danger of a friend or of our country, we ought not to consult the oracle as to whether we shall share it with them or not. For though the diviner should forewarn you that the auspices are unfavorable, this means no more than that either death or mutilation or exile is portended. But we have reason within us; and it directs us, even with these hazards, to stand by our friend and our country. Attend, therefore, to the greater diviner, the Pythian God, who once cast out of the temple him who neglected to save his friend.

Divination has fallen out of favor in the West since Epictetus' day, although of late there is an interest in things like Tarot cards and whatnot. What the Romans and Greeks thought they were doing was seeking counsel from the divine. It was at this time considered a perfectly decent thing to do, to try to consult the divine beings through their appointed oracles.

Socrates got himself killed doing this, as Epictetus invites us to remember by invoking him. The Oracle of Delphi told him that he was the wisest among Athenians; and he (claimed, at least that he) did not believe it. So he went about questioning those who called themselves wise, and showing that they were not wise in fact. He, at least, knew that he knew nothing: and therefore he was wiser than they, who thought they knew something they did not in fact know. 

Once again I have highlighted what I take to be the most important part for our purposes. Whatever happens, you can make the right use of it -- the best use, by doing the right thing in the face of whatever it is. No one can stop you from doing that. As long as you always do the right thing in the face of whatever comes before you, in a sense it hardly matters what does come before you. That is the sense in which "every event is indifferent and nothing to you." Events arise, and perish: duty is done in the face of each and if done, that is enough.

Prayers for Truckers

Tonight the claim is that 'all measures are on the table,' as convoys appear in France, Australia, and New Zealand as well. 

Yesterday, [Ontario Premier] Ford’s government froze nearly $11 million of their money.

Today, Ford declared a state of emergency and said anyone blockading border crossings or Ottawa streets could be hit with a $100,000 fine or a year in jail.

People have been living with governments enacting a steady stream of unconstitutional edicts with no parliamentary oversight and little political opposition, so I’m not sure “state of emergency” feels like much of a departure from what’s become the new normal.

It’s this descent into the permanent emergency that has galvanized the trucker convoy in the first place.

That's why they can't afford to lose -- and neither can we. Support your local outlaws.

A Thoroughly Pleasant Interlude

 A glass of wine and Tatiana Eva-Marie singing

And another, in French

Lethal

A retired Marine officer has wise words that will, sadly, not be heeded. 

Enchiridion XXXI

XXXI

Be assured that the essence of piety toward the gods lies in this—to form right opinions concerning them, as existing and as governing the universe justly and well. And fix yourself in this resolution, to obey them, and yield to them, and willingly follow them amidst all events, as being ruled by the most perfect wisdom. For thus you will never find fault with the gods, nor accuse them of neglecting you. And it is not possible for this to be affected in any other way than by withdrawing yourself from things which are not within our own power, and by making good or evil to consist only in those which are. For if you suppose any other things to be either good or evil, it is inevitable that, when you are disappointed of what you wish or incur what you would avoid, you should reproach and blame their authors. For every creature is naturally formed to flee and abhor things that appear hurtful and that which causes them; and to pursue and admire those which appear beneficial and that which causes them. It is impracticable, then, that one who supposes himself to be hurt should rejoice in the person who, as he thinks, hurts him, just as it is impossible to rejoice in the hurt itself. Hence, also, a father is reviled by his son when he does not impart the things which seem to be good; and this made Polynices and Eteocles mutually enemies—that empire seemed good to both. On this account the husbandman reviles the gods; [and so do] the sailor, the merchant, or those who have lost wife or child. For where our interest is, there, too, is piety directed. So that whoever is careful to regulate his desires and aversions as he ought is thus made careful of piety likewise. But it also becomes incumbent on everyone to offer libations and sacrifices and first fruits, according to the customs of his country, purely, and not heedlessly nor negligently; not avariciously, nor yet extravagantly.

I think the bolded word is more properly "effected." The Perseus Project translation agrees with me.

I have italicized what I think is the hinge of this chapter. Confer with Aristotle's dictum that 'The Good is what all things desire.' This becomes important, in a different way, for Aquinas. For Aristotle, it is obvious that all things desire to continue to exist, to perfect their existence, and to extend it (as through reproduction). The good of a thing, say a dog, is that which allows that thing to flourish: food, shelter, a relationship with a kind master, a chance to breed. 

The good per se is thus, as Aquinas notes, existence; but not, he warns, the kind of existence that we things have. It is existence in the divine sense, which is everlasting and eternal and incapable of eradication: a kind of good to which our souls aspire, but which we cannot have without yielding up our own natural good. Yet in coming to know the divine, as much as we can, we realize that God is truly good in a way that no earthly thing is. The nature of his existence proves that his goodness is truer than ours: Good itself.

In Epictetus dictum is complicated by the possibility of error: beings desire (and thus pursue and admire) that which causes them to flourish, or appears to; and they "flee and abhor" those things that harm them, or that appear to do. Yet, he says, we can fall into error if we mistake good and evil: if we take it to be human existence, as he notes, the man who loses a wife or a child may come to flee and abhor the gods who are presumably in charge of fateful events such as that. The danger of falling into impiety, of hating the gods instead of loving them, lies in failing to see the philosophical truth about what is truly good and, therefore, evil.

Now re-read Enchiridion XXVII. Aquinas' view is not Epictetus', who is centuries too early. His view of what the true good for humans is, and is not, is laid out there. The gods built the good for us into the world, and we should never doubt it -- nor should we doubt them and their goodness, either, because they built us a world in which the human good is both available and attainable. Mistaking the random acts of fate for evil is an error; just as, for Aquinas, it will prove to be an error to mistake human survival for the true good, the latter being a kind of existence that we do not have naturally but might obtain through divine grace. For Aquinas too the good is available and attainable, and via a divine action that made it so: but it is a different conception of the good.

Hamburger Misogyny

See how long you can listen to this without laughter. I made it to “girls and women.” But don’t worry. If that doesn’t get you, there’s more! 

The whole room breaks out in laughter at one point. 

Boots Not Made for Walking

A top nuclear DOE official the Biden administration has hired has an interesting choice of footwear.

Sam has worn his stilettos to Congress to advise legislators about nuclear policy and to the White House where he advised President Obama and Michelle Obama on LGBT issues. He shows young men and women everywhere he goes that they can be who they are and gives them courage. Once, while he was walking around Disney World in 6 inch stilettos with his boyfriend, a young gay boy saw Sam with his boyfriend and started crying. He told his mother, ‘”t’s true, Mom. WE can be our own princess here.”

I shouldn't talk. I've worn both cowboy boots and combat boots to the White House campus, though in my case it was just the Old Executive Building / Eisenhower Building to meet with the NSC. Sometimes you just need to go with what feels most comfortable on your feet.

He has identified the contradiction

The title of this Intelligencer piece is "Pro-worker conservatives are just union-busters in disguise," though what the article itself is saying is closer to "Conservatives are appealing to workers more and more, even though we believe the workers are mistaken about their own best interests." A conservative worker might put it a different way and say "Pro-union progressives are just union-boss-lovers in disguise, and will drop the actual workers in the ditch without a second thought."

"The Republican Party," the author complains, "has an interest in spotlighting the political divides between culturally conservative workers and progressive union officials."  As usual, the leftist spin is not that union officials are ignoring the preferences of the members whose dues buy their country houses, but that Republicans have pounced on a weakness and engaged in their usual divisive tactics, using a wedge issue to show union members that they have a good reason to resent the use of their dues to support a party whose platform they abhor.

The author complains further that "Republicans do not need to advance working-class interests in order to gain working-class vote share."  Now, why might that be?  Because workers have an idea what they want out of a political system, and the Democratic party platform ain't it?  Are we really supposed to believe it's unfair that Republicans can get workers to vote for them because they have outperformed Democrats in identifying what the workers want?

Enchiridion XXX

XXX

Duties are universally measured by relations. Is a certain man your father? In this are implied taking care of him, submitting to him in all things, patiently receiving his reproaches, his correction. But he is a bad father. Is your natural tie, then, to a good father? No, but to a father. Is a brother unjust? Well, preserve your own just relation toward him. Consider not what he does, but what you are to do to keep your own will in a state conformable to nature, for another cannot hurt you unless you please. You will then be hurt when you consent to be hurt. In this manner, therefore, if you accustom yourself to contemplate the relations of neighbor, citizen, commander, you can deduce from each the corresponding duties.

That very first premise is widely challenged by contemporary philosophy, which wants to consider duties as universal in character. Rawls, famously, argued that we should imagine (because we cannot actually do it) devising the moral rules in a 'veil of ignorance,' behind which we should know nothing about our actual circumstances. Some who consider themselves Kantian thinkers argue that Kant's dictum that you can only act properly under a maxim that could be expressed as a universal moral law requires treating all people exactly equally -- but Kant, of course, would never have accepted that you ought not to pay special attention to your father. Kant's actual moral vision was highly conservative, once he got around to spelling it out in the Metaphysics of Morals. It's only people who stop with the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals -- which is far more popular, being both shorter and more theoretical -- who can imagine he would have endorsed any such thing.

Epictetus says something that would have been morally obvious to everyone in his age, and in every earlier age, and almost every subsequent age. That it has become controversial points to the weakness of our own.

This view of duty expands outwards in accordance with the relations we bear to each other. I owe duties to my family that I do not to others; to my neighbors that I do not to others; to my fellow citizens that I do not to others. (This too is now highly controversial among the Managers, who would have us bear duties to the entire world while washing citizenship of any meaning: disloyalty to the demos from those who describe themselves as democrats.) Doing your duty in each of your relations satisfies your duties to the semblances you encounter of the things outside. 

In fact, though, you have only done your duty to yourself. You have behaved as one ought to do, given what you think you know your relations and duties to be. In that way you have lived with honor, and thus can rest in honor. The injustice the semblances may produce is their own concern: you know you have done right, and are satisfied.

A Legal Dispute

Julie Kelly hits upon an interesting fact: the Justice Department has been lying in its indictments about the whereabouts of two people, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. I don't think she's right about the legal argument she's advancing, but it is interesting that the government apparently refuses to tell the court the truth here as elsewhere. If this conduct was so bad -- Cocaine Mitch himself called it an "insurrection" just this week -- surely just laying out the plain facts would do? 

Confront Your Skin

 NPR worries about your choice of emojis, and wants you to worry too.