The “Appeal to authority” fallacy is becoming quite common in political discourse. Particularly when someone who would typically line up with an opinion different from the one making the appeal says something in line with the appealer’s belief. For instance, if I’m a gun rights supporter (and I am), I must naturally support that one time Wayne LaPierre of the NRA came out against campus carry in the 1990s. If I am a libertarian (and I am) I must naturally agree with Milo and Ben Shapiro, even though they don’t agree with each other. Christians point to Anthony Flew and more recently, Leah Libresco. Atheists, especially New Atheists, have many stories of reading the Bible, usually, if not exclusively the first three books, being abhorred and abandoning Christianity. Their patron saint is Penn Jillette. Continue reading Appeal to Authority →

The fallout over Trump’s alleged (yes, alleged) comments are proving that the #resistance is trapped in a very, very angry cycle

First, can anyone point to something Trump said that is on record and not from “sources familiar with the story”? Seriously, we’ve been playing the “anonymous sources controversy” game for a year now. Also, how is there no cognitive dissonance for people who justified Antifa violence, the behavior of the Clintons and the weaponization of MeToo who now feel like they have a right to the moral high ground?

As mentioned last time in “Parallels” and in “Reflection“, the latest Don Lemon one-liner “It is better to be strategic than outraged” goes against what has been the hallmark of the #resistance since that thing’s inception. How are we to believe “strategic” is something this bunch even knows the definition of? Continue reading #HelpTrump →

I’ve tried to get a pulse on what’s missing from this deluge of sexual harassment claims being made through Hollywood and the media. First there was Bill O’Reily, and it felt like the coverage was more to get Fox News than anything else. Nobody taking a principled moral stand, just using abhorrence to their advantages. Then came the Weinstein story, then Spacey, Rose, Halprein, Bolling and now Matt Lauer. The political aspect dissipated, how could it not? However, a monologue from Erick Erickson on WSB demonstrated a few missing points that either haven’t been addressed, or are being carefully avoided.

We’ll cover a few things here. I’m seeing a bit of a similarity in the sexual harassment conversation to the usual mass shooting conversation. There is an attempt to either contain what is evil, or to use it for political ends. To the former, every time some murderer circumvents three or four laws, the same few questions and statements pop up. “Who could do this?”, “I didn’t think this could happen here”, “we need to do something to make sure this never happens again.” Strangely, the same statements seem to come up in this wave as well. So let’s go through them. Continue reading Parallels →

“Those who are determined to be offended will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics and it is degrading to make the attempt.” — Christopher Hitchens

It seems every year ends with lamentations on what went wrong and how the next one “can only get better”. In 2016, the election of Donald Trump sent much of the country on a tailspin between recounts, abolishing the Electoral College (a constitutionally enshrined institution, not like that changed anything), and the great tradition of quad-annual threats to move to Canada if they didn’t get their way. Once again, they all still live here. Whether that is because they never were going to move to Canada or because Canada’s immigration and citizenship policy made it more complicated than just calling Mayflower to bring them to freedom and hope again is left up to the reader, but if past experience on this is anything to go by, they were quite happy to sit and complain in a nation that has the American South for them to escape to without a passport. Continue reading Language →

In the musical “The Book of Mormon”, there is a number that sees the Ugandan people the missionaries have been sent to air their grievances: “There isn’t enough food to eat/People are starving a street” they sing, “we’ve had no rain in several days/80% of us have AIDS”. When it’s time for the missionaries to “list the bad things in your life”. Among them, somebody took their luggage away, the plane was crowded and the bus was late.

I’m reminded of this ridiculous comparison as I watch the fallout of the power outage at Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta. The outage, it is now believed was caused by an electrical fire. The comments consisted of a more interesting set of ideas: Government conspiracy, mayor Kasim Reed hired a buddy to run the power grid, CIA op etc. But the more prevalent complaints were of a more ignorant set than that. Continue reading Normalcy →

Let’s get the problem of perception out of the way, When a situation has reached peak hysteria, opinion pieces that say “calm down”, and present solid arguments for why such is a wise decision, are met with the critique that such essays are a defense mechanism against how bad the situation is and could still get. The idea that this nuclear brinksmanship between North Korea and the United States could be a years long “I’m definitely going to leave Facebook” conundrum is an, on its face, asinine and stupid thought. When someone implies that North Korea and the United States are led by, on their face, bombastic lunatics with fingers just inches above their respective nuclear buttons, one risks being called a leftist or “libtard” in today’s advanced vernacular. These same people are, let’s just say “unlikely” to make an argument for Trump’s calm, rational demeanor and Churchillian command of the English language. It is cliché to note that nuclear war would be the end of North Korea and potentially cripple the US critical infrastructure, and has been repeated to the point where such is now the baseline hypothetical, feeding into the idea that nuclear war is inevitable and perhaps very much imminent. So let us reiterate the points that have been made as to why war is unlikely Continue reading Hysterics →

There are two videos that accompany this essay. The first is a 90 second bit from FS1 host Colin Cowherd with Larry King on giving hatred a platform. The second is the great Christopher Hitchens giving a full embrace of free speech in spite of objectionable views. The second half of his speech, on religion being the primary source of hatred in the world, is demonstrably false. Politics is the greatest source of hatred in the world. I need only point to the discourse over Charlottesville and at the latest (just to be polite) this past election cycle. Religion, hasn’t been a force, especially in this country’s political conversation, for a -very- long time. Let us begin. Continue reading Reflection →