Category Archives: Argument

Republican Rep. T. Massie: ‘More Bureaucracy To Go After Domestic Terrorism Is Probably A Good Thing’

Argument, Conservatism, Constitution, COVID-19, Individual Rights, Race, Racism, Republicans, Terrorism, The State

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‘We have a bill that’ll go after domestic terrorism, and that’s probably a good thing.’—Thomas Massie, Republican from Kentucky

Rep. Thomas Massie has found his voice on the still-extant Covid tyranny. Like all things Republican, it’s better than nothing, but nothing much at all.

The Kentucky Congressman … called for an amendment to be included in H.R. 350, a domestic terrorism bill, that would prevent the government from using funds to “monitor, analyze, investigate or prosecute” an American citizen on the bases of their refusal or opposition to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

“The fact that moms are going to be targeted as domestic terrorists because they think their 5-year-old doesn’t need a freaking vaccine because they’ve looked at the data. They’ve seen that the flu presents more of a risk to their child than COVID does — any of the variants,” said Congressman Massie.

While the “Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act” did not initially include language regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, Massie is forcing the issue to add text that provides protections to parents who oppose vaccine mandates.

Such dissembling as that of Representative Massie is deceptive. For one, he is right. Covid-19 has no place in a bill on domestic terrorism. But neither does a Bill against domestic terrorism have a place in the repertoire of a Republican legislator who considers himself hip to the infringements on liberty that such State overreach portends. Yet Massie declared,

… More bureaucracy to go after domestic terrorism is probably a good thing.

Moreover, self-ownership such as that exercised by sovereign individuals, in a free country, means that each and everyone of us has the right to reject the Pharma-State’s hemlock, no matter the reasons, scientific or not. The right to refuse the jab is not reserved for moms and their toddlers, for whom Massie exclusively advocates. What a dumb argument.

RIP, GOP.

Nowhere is a rights-based argument being made [by Republicans], or an argument based on the right to question the safety of the vaccine. Nowhere are individual sovereignty and self-ownership mentioned.

Indeed, Republicans prattle about religious exemptions (state granted!) and natural-immunity based exemptions (state granted!)—but they have not the faintest urge to defend the natural, God-given right of self-ownership.

Enough then of the cheering for the ineffectual GOP and its front men and women, who arrive in the Idiocracy’s version of Rome, only to do nothing, decade after decade. Oh, yes, they turn in appearances on TV and before congressional committees; get lucrative book deals, and consolidate political and corporate power for a lifetime.

But as the West careens toward the Covid-centered anthill society, nobody identifies and defends the individual’s dominion over his body and his right to reject the Pharma-State’s Hemlock prescription for that body. As emphasized, Republicans’ case against Covid mandates indirectly capitulates to coercion.

SOURCE: “Self-Ownership And The Right To Reject The Pharma-State’s Hemlock,” Ilana Mercer

H.R. 350, the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act was so far rejected by House Judiciary Committee Republicans.

Dinesh D’Souza Dumbly, Ahistorically, Exonerates Republicans Of The Ukraine Mess

Argument, Critique, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Propaganda, Republicans, Russia

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The NATO provocation goes back almost two decades. Democrat and Republican administrations share equal blame in provoking and encircling Russia. Putin has been stating as much for this duration, close on two decades. Dinesh D’Souza, then, shows himself to still be the same Republican hack he has always been when he exonerates the Republicans, predictably claiming, “the Biden administration and the West bear a share of the blame for the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine,” while conveniently omitting his party, the Republicans.


Watch Putin’s series of discussions with Oliver Stone circa 2015 in which he recounts the history of Russia-USA exchanges over NATO. Therein, Putin remarks that the US and NATO, NATO being an instrument of the US, have no allies, only vassals. In these interviews, Putin states perceptively that, in the US, administrations come and go—but policy remains unchanged, especially toward Russia.

Mearsheimer, moreover, doesn’t blame Biden alone. More crap. Mearsheimer is not a Republican operative like D’Souza. He saddled US foreign policy, conducted by the UniParty, for the Ukraine tragedy.

In “D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error”, I show quite simply why “D’Souza’s case for ‘American exceptionalism’ is undergirded by a confusion of category:

“Is America a good country? Are we a bad country?”: The … professional gabber collapses the distinction between “America” and the U.S. government. This is a mistake. The state is not the same as America. … D’Souza’s is a box-office success. The statist meta-structure of his argument for “America,” however, is rooted in error. Serious thinkers should give it no quarter.

 

Mercer on Ukraine:

1. Neocons, Neolibs And NATO Inch Us Closer To Nuclear War With Russia (01/29/2022): https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/01/neocons-neolibs-nato-inch-us-closer-nuclear-war-russia/
2. Uncle Sam Still King Of All Invaders: Ukraine, Realpolitik And The West’s Failure: https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/uncle-sam-still-king-invaders-ukraine-realpolitik-wests-failure/
3. True Story: Russia Finds WMD In Ukraine! https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/true-story-russia-finds-wmd-ukraine/
4. It’s Biblical, Zelensky: A Leader Who Fails To Haggle For The Lives Of His People Has Failed https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/biblical-zelensky-leader-fails-haggle-lives-people-failed/

Mercer “Hard Truth” Video Podcasts on Ukraine. Please Subscribe:

https://rumble.com/c/HardTruthPodcast
https://rumble.com/vx058f-true-story-russia-finds-wmd-in-ukrainehtml
https://rumble.com/vw897h-russia-to-us-on-ukraine-pot.-kettle.-black..html
https://rumble.com/vtea18-neocons-neolibs-and-nato-inch-us-closer-to-nuclear-war-with-russia.html

WATCH: It’s Biblical, Zelensky: The Little Guy Must Deal With Reality; Not Bolster Hero Bona Fides

America, Argument, Ethics, EU, Foreign Policy, Morality, Natural Law

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I never though I’d say this, but, if one is wedded to reality as I am—there is a place for Benthamite utilitarianism, however much natural-rights sorts like me dislike Jeremy Bentham’s reasoning.

AT ANY RATE, A LETTER IN RESPONSE TO THE YOUTUBE VIDEO I RECORDED TODAY elicited this rather utilitarian reaction from me. (I lost the letter in the posting-and-replying activity, so perhaps the viewer and writer, a critic, will be kind enough to repost it here at YouTube.)

Having covered and commented on this crisis since 2014, I will repeat the plain reality the commentary was supposed to convey and elucidate:

Ukraine is the little guy. As those Biblical examples offered were meant to vividly illustrate; the Little Weak Guy must deal with reality; not bolster his hero bona fides. For Volodymyr Zelensky, dealing with reality and discharging his duties as a leader ought to have meant engaging with Putin personally and respectfully long before the invasion.

HE CATEGORICALLY DID NOT. Instead, he played footsie with fickle America and kept baiting the Russian Bear. Now his people suffer. That’s a FAIL. The End.

WATCH THE VIDEO & SUBSCRIBE:

“It’s Biblical, Zelensky: A Leader Who Fails To Negotiate For The Lives Of His People Has Failed”

Columns on Ukraine:

https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/true-story-russia-finds-wmd-ukraine/
https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/03/uncle-sam-still-king-invaders-ukraine-realpolitik-wests-failure/
https://www.ilanamercer.com/2022/01/neocons-neolibs-nato-inch-us-closer-nuclear-war-russia/
https://www.ilanamercer.com/2014/02/presstitute-cultivated-ignorance-on-ukraine/

Please Subscribe to the “Hard Truth” Video Podcast, where Ukraine has been covered (and which I enjoy much more than “speaking solo to the camera“):

https://rumble.com/c/HardTruthPodcast
https://rumble.com/vx058f-true-story-russia-finds-wmd-in-ukraine.html
https://rumble.com/vw897h-russia-to-us-on-ukraine-pot.-kettle.-black..html
https://rumble.com/vtea18-neocons-neolibs-and-nato-inch-us-closer-to-nuclear-war-with-russia.html

Peace to all—especially to the poor Ukrainians, failed by the US and by their US-co-opted leaders.

UPDATED (3/23/022): Tucker Carlson’s Producers Rewarding Retread Reformed Neocon Tools Like Sohrab Ahmari

Argument, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, Media, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, War

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On the one hand, Tucker Carlson and his oft-worthy guests make the case that America’s catastrophic institutional rot (MY EXTENSIVELY DEVELOPED TERM, no theirs) is a consequence of there being no adverse consequences attached to being dead-wrong all the time.

On the other hand, the show has a tendency to reward reformed neocons such as newcomer Sohrab Ahmari, who peddles retread banalities (or stuff the Old Right—myself included—had espoused decades ago, and from the get-go, in the case of the Globe and Mail commentary below: September 19, 2002).

Rewarding conveniently reformed, politically pleasing mediocrities makes the practitioner part of the institutional rot.

“PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!” (Ilana Mercer, May 29, 2004) spoke to this repulsive specter:

… So why are insightful commentators whose observations have predictive power generally barred from the national discourse, while false neoconservative prophets are called back for encores?

I got to thinking about the neoconservative talking twits. They’ve been wrong all along about the invasion of Iraq. They’ve consistently dished out dollops of ahistoric, unintuitive, and reckless verbiage. Yet they’ve retained their status as philosopher-kings.
Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens (undeniably a writer of considerable flair and originality), George Will and Tucker Carlson (both of whom seem to have conveniently recanted at the eleventh hour), Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Mark Steyn, Max Boot, John Podhoretz, Andrew Sullivan – they all grabbed the administration’s bluff and ran with it. Like the good Trotskyites many of them were, once they tasted blood, they writhed like sharks. Compounding their scent-impaired bloodhound act was their utter ignorance of geopolitical realities – they insisted our soldiers would be greeted with blooms and bonbons and that an Iraqi democracy would rise from the torrid sands of Mesopotamia.
Their innumerable errors and flagrant hubris did not prevent the neoconservatives from managing to marginalize their competitors on the Right: the intrepid Pat Buchanan and his American Conservative; the quixotic Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. of LewRockwell.com, and Antiwar.com. (Plus this column, of course). Unfortunately for America, there hasn’t been a horror in Iraq that these prescients did not foretell well in advance.

….the opportunity costs associated with consumption of toxic punditry are low or non-existent.

If you didn’t have the cerebral wherewithal to be against the war on Iraq in 2002, you don’t have anything original to contribute on foreign policy and anti-war or Just War thinking now.

Younger offenders can be found agitating against Iran, or scribbling inanities for the War Street Journal and other neoconservative outlets such as Commentary, the Weekly Standard, and Foreign Policy, where Sohrab Ahmari would put out irredeemable and unforgivable content such as “The Costs of Containment.”

It’s one thing to have made a mistake as Tucker Carlson had done regarding the Iraq war of aggression. Carlson apologized profusely and humbly about his Iraq error. Moreover, Carlson had never been the consummate philosophical neocon; which Sohrab Ahmari is. According to the Militarist Monitor,

“the neocons’ favorite Iranian,” Sohrab Ahmari has been a vocal advocate of U.S.-imposed regime change in his native Iran, which he left as a teenager. Rosenberg likened Ahmari to Ahmed Chalabi, the formerly exiled Iraqi politician who curried favor with U.S. neoconservatives ahead of the Iraq War and lent an Iraqi name to the list of those supporting the U.S. invasion.[3]

I’ve watched the likes of Sohrab Ahmari work their magic in the malfunctioning media for decades. I also understand fully that Tucker Carlson has a producer, for he himself cannot research each such well-promoted phony who is resurrecting a career on the solid anti-war arguments of the dissident Old, paleolibertarian and paleoconservative Right.

* Image: Truth-teller on Twitter.

And in defense of The Tuck against mediocrity Claire Lehmann, who generated the non sequitur below: Tucker Carlson doesn’t support the Russian invasion! From the fact he argues unpopular truths–it doesn’t follow that Tucker is not a populist. Most immutable truth is unpopular. Popularity does not equal populism. This woman can’t even define the terms of debate.