Tag: politics

Confucius Condemns Neoliberalism

A philosophical experts on Aquinas considers the applicability of The Analects to today’s catastrophically atomized society.

What is essential to a well-functioning society? In a famous passage from The Great Learning traditionally attributed to Confucius (551-479 B.C.), the philosopher says:

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.

From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered.

These words from the great man of the East would be warmly endorsed in the West by ancient thinkers like Plato and Aristotle and medieval thinkers like Thomas Aquinas. But they run counter to the modern West’s liberalism, including the libertarian brand of liberalism that too often passes for “conservatism.” The liberal attitude is that the moral character of individuals does not matter for social order so long as the right rules and institutions are in place. Part of Confucius’s point, and that of any conservatism worthy of the name, is that rules and institutions are ineffectual without individuals willing to subordinate their desires to them. And individuals who do not seek the good (so as to “rectify their hearts”) and the true (thus pursuing the “investigation of things”) can neither curb bad desires nor cultivate good ones. The brute force of legal coercion cannot substitute for this missing moral fiber. As we read in chapter 2 of The Analects:

The Master said: “Lead them by political maneuvers, restrain them with punishments: the people will become cunning and shameless. Lead them by virtue, restrain them with ritual: they will develop a sense of shame and a sense of participation.”

And again:

Someone said to Confucius: “Master, why don’t you join the government?” The Master said: “In the Documents it is said: ‘Only cultivate filial piety and be kind to your brothers, and you will be contributing to the body politic.’ This is also a form of political action; one need not necessarily join the government.”

And in chapter 12:

The Master said: “I could adjudicate lawsuits as well as anyone. But I would prefer to make lawsuits unnecessary.”

In such passages, Confucius reminds us that the personal is the political, not in the totalitarian sense that absorbs the personal up into the political and tries to mold attitudes and actions via state coercion, but on the contrary in the humane sense that devolves the political down to the personal level, in the recognition that social order depends more fundamentally on prevailing morals and mores than on legislation.

Wisdom comes in many forms. And it is remarkable how often wisdom from wildly disparate sources ultimately direct us toward the same conclusion.

It Ain’t Creepy Joe

Donald J. Trump observes that Fake President Biden is not in charge:

Trump: “He’s (Biden) not running government anyway. They have a cabal that runs government. A group of people.”

Maria: “Who’s running it, Mr. President? Who do you think is in charge?”

Trump: “I don’t want to say right now.”

Whoever it is, we’ll find out sooner or later. As I’ve frequently noted, the only thing we can be absolutely certain isn’t the case is whatever the media declares is the Official Story.

But it’s already apparent to everyone that Creepy Joe can barely walk or talk, so it’s obvious that he’s not running anything.

Can We Vote For Them?

The Taliban’s political agenda is almost disturbingly viable in the West:

So the Taliban offensive only seems to be gaining power and they now have control of 2/3 the country. They are killing thousands in the areas they have taken over. They have just issued a list of people who civilians need to report to them so they can be executed.

Anybody who worked for the previous government

Bankers and financial workers

Anybody committing child abuse

Feminists

Women in political office

Journalists

TV presenters

LGBT activists

LGBT individuals

Let’s face it, that’s a more compelling platform for the average populist than anything the Democrats or the Republicans have on offer these days. Apparently the Taliban have even banned both abortion and Covid vaccinations. Which suggests, at this point, a Taliban-endorsed candidate would easily defeat Joe Biden in a fair election, not that the USA has those anymore.

However, the Taliban has also provided a useful reminder in how to deal with a fake and corrupt electoral system run by foreigners who hate America, Christianity, and the West.

Our message to the American people and people of the western powers who fought us, who we know are hurt by this defeat, is simple: we do not have any hatred for you. Your government, ran by Zionists and atheists, who want to spread their anti-Islamic views here, were our enemies, not you. We pray for the day when you liberate yourselves from their grip and there can be peace upon this planet.

Now, I’m not a Muslim and it’s not the sort of system under which I’d prefer to live. But then, neither is satanic globo-homo.

Discuss on SG.

The corruption of the courts

One of the contributors to Mike Lindell’s symposium describes behavior that some of the recent arbitrants would recognize:

Joe Oltmann, the Tech executive who described hearing Dominion executive Eric Coomer say he had made sure Trump would never win in November, and who said publicly Coomer had extensive ties to Antifa, was at Lindell’s Tech symposium, and briefly told his story. He began by saying people should have no doubt, there is a massive hidden organization in this country that has taken everything over, and it works, in his words, “exactly like the Mafia.” He said when Coomer sued him, the Colorado Court system mysteriously dropped the case in Denver, the bluest district in the state, despite the fact nobody involved lives in Denver, and Denver has nothing to do with the case.

He said the original Judge noted the anti-SLAPP laws of the state would not allow Coomer’s lawyers to depose Altmann or conduct discovery before the initial hearing on the case, so they could not go fishing for details and force Oltmann to have to hire an expensive attorney before he had a chance to get the lawsuit dismissed. That judge quickly got replaced with a new Judge who had marched at Antifa rallies and contributed profusely to Democrats, and that judge, out of the blue in contravening the prior judge and the current case law, before the trial even started, sent notice to counsels out of the blue that she was open to ignoring the anti-SLAPP caselaw and allowing Coomer’s attorneys to go fishing with a deposition of Oltmann before the initial hearing. Oltmann’s attorney, in talking with the judge on a phone conference, argued Oltman should not have to reveal the name of the Antifa member who let him sit in on the phone call with Coomer, because that Antifa member would be killed, to which the judge replied, “I guess we are going to see.”

Everything you have believed about this country – about freedom, about the rule of law, about the Constitution and what it guaranteed you, about what opportunities you had to succeed and what fields you were allowed to operate freely in, even the privacy you were guaranteed in your own home – everything was a lie. They told you this lie, because if they did not, they would face the most heavily armed, and violence-capable population on earth in violent conflict, and you might just take those freedoms and rights by force. And now the lie is collapsing.

An arbitrator used exactly that excuse to deny one arbitrant the right to know who, personally, was responsible for deplatforming him, falsely claiming that to identify the employee responsible would put his life at risk. The level of corruption of some judges and arbitrators, and the extent to which a few of the latter directly ignore the laws that specifically address and control their powers even when explicitely reminded of them, would astonish you.

They will literally declare that black is white, that three months are seven days, and that “no power” means “implicit power to do whatever I want”. Spend five minutes reading some of these corrupt morons’ decisions will suffice to turn the average literate individual with an IQ over 100 into an advocate of violent revolution.

New York Governor resigns

The national Democrats have successfully ejected Andrew Cuomo from the New York governorship:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has resigned, bringing an end to a 40-year political career that made him a pandemic hero but is now in ruin thanks to a damning report by Attorney General Letitia James which labeled him a serial sexual harasser. 

The narrative is still inconclusive as to why, though. It’s not as if they drove Bill Clinton from office and his behavior was at least an order of magnitude worse.

That should go over well

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors response to a subpoena from the Arizona Senate. Translation: we all know we’re legally screwed once the extent of our fraud is revealed, so we’re stonewalling as long as we can.

Why people don’t believe in “science”

An explanation of why the public doesn’t trust science anymore underlines the importance of distinguishing between scientody and scientistry:

From climate to Covid, politics and hubris have disconnected scientific institutions from the philosophy and method that ought to guide them.

The Covid pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the disconnect between science as a philosophy and science as an institution.

If you think biological complexity can come about through unplanned emergence and not need an intelligent designer, then why would you think human society needs an ‘intelligent government”?

Science as an institution has a naive belief that if only scientists were in charge, they would run the world well.

Perhaps that’s what politicians mean when they declare that they “believe in science”.

As we’ve seen during the pandemic, science can be a source of power, but conformity is the enemy of scientific progress, which depends on disagreement and challenge.

There’s a tension between scientists wanting to present a unified and authoritative voice, on the one hand, and science-as-philosophy, which is obligated to remain open-minded and be prepared to change its mind.

The pandemic has, for the first time, seriously politicized epidemiology.

It’s partly the fault of outside commentators who hustle scientists in political directions, but it’s also the fault of epidemiologists themselves deliberately publishing things that fit with their political prejudices or ignoring things that don’t.

Scientists, by and large, are relatively stupid. Even worse, they’re accustomed to being more or less unaccountable. They’re high-level midwits, for the most part, which is why so many epidemiologists failed to note the obvious: if you make an incorrect prediction that costs people a considerable amount of time, money, or freedom, you will not get a second chance to tell them what to do.

For example, no one in the UK cared about SAGE’s third wave doomsday predictions or paid any attention to its demands for a lockdown because its predictions for the first two waves were off by a factor of more than 10.

Furthermore, everyone with an IQ over 115 understands that science is corrupt now, so they correctly view any “study” or recommendation with extreme skepticism.

AL governor effectively resigns

I think we can be confident that Alabama Gov. Kate Ivey will be defeated in the Republican primary next year:

The governor of Alabama stated Thursday that it is “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for rising cases of COVID in the state, adding that “These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain.”

Governor Kay Ivey made the comments during a press briefing, declaring “Let’s be crystal clear about this issue. The new cases of Covid are because of unvaccinated folks.”

“Almost 100{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6} of the new hospitalizations are with unvaccinated folks. And the deaths are certainly occurring with the unvaccinated folks,” Ivey added.

She continued, “We got to get folks to take the shot. The vaccine is the greatest weapon we have to fight COVID. There is no question about that the data proves it. I’ve taken the shot back in December, both shots. It’s just the thing to do. The unvaccinated is who we need to focus on.”

“Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down,” Ivey further proclaimed.

This is anti-scientific retardery piled upon retardery. It’s already confirmed everywhere from England to Singapore that it is predominantly the vaccinated who are contracting Covid. Either this woman is literally retarded or she’s taken the ticket.

The vaccine isn’t a weapon against Covid at all. It doesn’t immunise against it. It doesn’t reduce the symptoms. The whole reason for this full-court press from the governments and the media and the sports leagues is because the vaccines don’t work, they aren’t safe, and they aren’t effective. And everyone with even a modicum of common sense and an IQ over 115 knows it.

REMINDER: heard from another medical professional. Covid cases are on the rise in their area, but ALL of the infected are vaccinated. Not some, not most, all of them.

REMINDER: Reuters reports that three-quarters of the Covid cases in Singapore are vaccinated people.

REMINDER: 84 percent of the new cases of COVID in Israel are vaccinated individuals.