“Disagreement is not oppression. Argument is not assault. Words, even provocative and repugnant ones, are not violence. The answer to speech we do not like is more speech.” —Douglas Murray
Here with some Sunday thoughts. There is so much that can be thunk. First up are some of the things I am not going to talk about.
The Biden Administration has quietly resumed building the wall at the southern border. Biden’s press secretary characterized it as cleaning up the mess Biden’s predecessor left.
The mayor of Washington DC has called out the National Guard to deal with the problem of illegal aliens who have been arriving in large numbers to her city on busses. Other cities are also experience large influxes of illegal aliens.
The economy is in recession, but the Biden Administration changed the definition of that term (and so did Wikipedia for a short time), so it’s okay.
Speaking of changing definitions, Merriam-Webster has changed the definition of “girl.” A girl is now “a person whose gender identity is female.” While they were at it, they changed the definition of “female,” too. A female is now a person “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male.”
And speaking of gender identity, more sports associations are banning transwomen in female sports.
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I have been involved in a long twitter thread started by Laurence Fox:
The point of contention in the thread is free speech. I defended free speech as a human right. Humans rights, the counter ran, are invented by law, so their restriction is tautological.
“If rights are invented,” I pointed out, “then they can be anything—even their opposite.” I them demonstrated how one can know that rights are a priori: “There is no reason to deny women the franchise, therefore they must be allowed equal access to the ballot box. Women, therefore, a priori, possess the right to vote. The law denies—not gives—them that right.”
There was a lot more to back-and-forth, but I will summarize my argument and move one: Humans come with rights. See Maslow’s hierarchy. Human nature. Natural history. Law does not create rights. Rights are not given by men. Rights are discovered and recognized. Or denied. Rights were not established by the United Nations in 1948 or the United States in 1789. They are progressively found and articulated in law and defended by government—if law and government are just.
The notion that rights are invented is a dangerous subjectivist game with very real consequences. As I note in a recent blog, The Behemoth Returns: The Nazis Racialized Everything, it is a characteristic of National Socialism to see the law as politically constructed, unmoored to any universal ethical or moral system. This makes human rights merely a tool of social control.
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Some on the left appeal to populism and progressivism in the same breath. They used to do it a lot more. Awareness that populism comes along with nationalism has causes a general distaste for the term. However, progressivism was invented to supplant populism. And, so far, progressivism has been winning.
Want to know why the left today pushes the agenda of the corporate state? Progressivism. The problem with the left is not, as the conservative believes, creeping socialism or communism. The problem is that progressivism cannot lift up working people because it was evolved to do the opposite.
I have a blog pending on this topic, but it may be a while before I post it, so this earlier blog will have to tie you over: Why I am not a Progressive.
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I am Dr. Ian Malcolm.
The “explanation” for the marked increase in “unexplained” (non-COVID-19) deaths (heart attacks and strokes) among 18-49 year olds now appears to be “cold showers. These deaths have nothing to do with being injected with the spike protein associated with cardiovascular trauma. Right. Textbook instantiation of “blame the victim.” Nobody forces you to take a “cold shower.”
Okay, so tell your loved ones in this age cohort—especially if they’re young men—to avoid “cold showers.” Make sure you to enlighten them about euphemism while you’re at it. Buried lede: At least the corporate media and sellout physicians and scientists are admitting that it’s not just selective attention that’s causing all these young healthy people to drop dead.
(With all the synthetic estrogens in the environment, why do young people even need cold showers?)
It will be damn hard for many more than the tens of millions who have expressed regret at taking the shots and repeating the corporate state narrative to admit regret after they fell for the deception hook, line, and sinker. Admitting regret reveals gullibility. Gullibility indicates a larger judgment problem. Moreover, they’d have to admit that the Dr. Ian Malcolms of the world were right after all. Good Lord, we can’t give those insufferable skeptics any encouragement.
I knew from the beginning the medical-industrial complex and the administrative state were lying and that they will keep on lying. It has been fascinating to watch people around me buy into obvious lies and then scold those who told the truth. Of course people can’t admit they were wrong. Their gullibility goes to judgment.
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I applaud Republicans for exposing the persistent FBI strategy of manufacturing the threat of “white supremacy” by entrapping dumb and confused Americans in plots to commit domestic terrorism hatched and bankrolled by the FBI themselves. Remember how outraged progressives were when the FBI did this to Islamists? They don’t care at all if the targets of FBI machinations are Christians conservatives.
What we need to know (and there is evidence indicating this) is whether and to the extent January 6, 2021 was at least in part an DHS/FBI operation. But how can we in the context of a hearing that does not follow the basis rules of rationally adjudicating facts?
The establishment, including many Republicans (Liz Cheney, most prominently), does not care about the truth. The establishment only cares about thwarting the populist-nationalist movement, because the movement threatens the corporate state and its ambitions.
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freedom and reason 