thoughts in and out of season
Isn’t the claim that we have “democracy” a bit of a fossil? It may have been arguable in 1840 that the goal was popular rule, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense today:
A commenter asks those who post here “What does your ideal America look like?” The question’s worth discussing.
From the standpoint of specific practical political goals, I don’t really have an ideal America. No society is ideal, since every society depends on the cooperation of imperfect human beings. The specifics of what’s good politically depend … More ...
In America politics is more and more a matter of social metaphysics:
I’ve commented that the AIDS industry promotes death through a sort of perverse moralism: sexual freedom and sex equality, which from the standpoint of advanced liberalism are absolute metaphysical necessities, trump medical and public health considerations, which the spoiled children of techocracy believe infinitely manipulable. One illustration: the World AIDS Conference, at which sexual … More ...
The logic of antidiscrimination law continues to work itself out: scholar proposes compulsory “tolerance” within churches. The argument’s no joke if you’ve thought through the implications of existing legal principles regarding equality of opportunity and access and the separation of religion from public discourse. Whatever the activity, you have to rearrange it to make … More ...
Maybe in another 114 years I’ll link to Time Magazine again: here’s a story from their current issue on the oldest living American, my grandmother-in-law. [Obligatory reference to political theory: her full name is Emma Verona Calhoun Johnston. That’s “Calhoun” as in John C. Calhoun, although she’s not a direct descendent.]
In today’s world it’s natural for there to be a great many accepted turns of thought that encode liberalism and modernity. An example is the “fact/value distinction.” That distinction involves the belief that two quite different sorts of things are involved in the way things are for us: facts, neutral statements about a world that’s … More ...
What is “liberalism”?
Since I’ve been saying a lot about liberalism and its problems, a natural question is just what this liberalism is, where it is to be found, and why I think it’s so important. After all, the views I attribute to “liberalism” aren’t held in their totality by most people recognized as liberal, … More ...
I usually discuss the current situation by reference to fundamental liberal concepts like freedom and equality, and try to show how those concepts come out of the modern turn away from the transcendent and toward immediate experience and formal logic, and how they naturally lead, though various forms of modernity, to what we have today. … More ...
One issue raised by the current sleaze involving New Jersey Governor McGreevey is the issue of homosexuals hiring homosexuals. I have some slight personal experience of the thing, since an Episcopal diocese to which I used to be connected is run by a gay mafia that looks out for its own. Others have noticed it … More ...