Category Archives: Political Philosophy

UPDATED (8/4/020): ‘Mercy For Animals’ Contaminates Worthy Message With The Illogic Of Racial Politics

Argument, COVID-19, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Free Speech, Logic, Political Philosophy, Politics, Propaganda, Race, Racism, Reason

All good people would intuitively support “Mercy For Animals,” if the organization refrained from veering into racial politics. Such fuzzy, imprecise thinking, as expressed in this fortune-cookie quality notice above, will only serve to weaken the appeal of the worthy causes of “Mercy For Animals.”

In connecting the cause of animals with the “Black Lives Matter” production, “Mercy For Animals” has ridiculously and irrationally conflated unrelated issues. It’s akin to the epidemiologist who suddenly starts rabbiting about racism as a pandemic.

Racism is generally a thought crime—the crime of thinking politically impure thoughts.

COVID-19, the pandemic, is the spread of a physical, contagious disease that affects the body.

Logically, never the twain shall meet.

Aside from spouting irrational stupidity, such “medics” have crossed over into politics—policing thoughts, in particular—and should forthwith, as a result, lose all medical credibility.

Likewise, “Mercy for Animals” should stick to their needy charges: abused and misused animals.

UPDATED (8/4/020): No learning curve.

“Mercy for Animals” should not be muddying its laudable message and mission with political overtones. Leave off the racism, diversity doxology and such political constructs.

Animals don’t deserve to have their cause polluted. MFA will also lose supporters and donors who understand that a message not polluted by politics maximizes outcomes for the critters.

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UPDATED II (4/17): NEW COLUMN: Coronavirus And Conspiracy: Don’t Be A ‘Covidiot’

Conspiracy, Government, Healthcare, libertarianism, Liberty, Political Philosophy, The State

NEW COLUMN (with YOUTUBE video) is “Coronavirus And Conspiracy: Don’t Be A ‘Covidiot.’” The column is on WND.COM and the Unz Review.

An excerpt:

Reality is bad enough; there is no need to explain the world using conjecture and fantasy. The facts suffice.

Government is bad enough. There is no need to explain it using conjecture and fantasy. The facts about it suffice.

In particular, imputing garden variety government evils to conspiracies is based on the following faulty premise: Government generally does what is good for us (NOT). So, whenever we think it is failing in a mission it fulfills so well (NOT), we should look beyond the facts for something more sinister (NOT).

As if The State’s natural quest for expanded power were not enough to explain the events! Why, for example, would you need to search for the “real reason” behind an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless you honestly believed government would never prosecute such a war? History belies this delusion. Even when government prosecutes a just war, it finds ways to turn it into an unjust war by prolonging it. After all, a protracted crisis demands more taxpayer funds. Cui bono? For whose benefit?

There’s no conspiracy here. The constituent elements of the bureaucratic behemoth that is government continuously work to increase their sphere of influence. Thus, grunts don’t benefit from war; the generals everybody reveres do. It is therefore but natural for the soldier’s superiors to pursue war for war’s sake. By virtue of its size, reach, and many usurpations, the U.S. government is a destructive and warring entity—no matter which of one the big government parties is at the helm.

Clearly, conspiracy thinking is not congruent with a view of government as fundamentally antagonistic to the welfare of the individual and civil society, a position held by a good number of libertarians and conservatives.

Some conspiracy claims are more consequential than others. Those pertaining to coronavirus are an example. Let us, then, briefly discuss coronavirus and conspiracy. Watch the YouTube corresponding to this section of the column here. …

READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Coronavirus And Conspiracy: Don’t Be A ‘Covidiot.’” It’s on WND.COM and the Unz Review.

UPDATE I (4/17):

The great Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ph.D, writes:

I always read my friend Ilana Mercer’s essays with great interest, and whether one agrees or disagrees with her on this or that issue, she never ceases to be thought-provoking, including in this current piece, “Coronavirus and Conspiracy: Don’t Be a ‘Covidiot‘”—which is timely for those among us who are always concerned about the growth of government power in times of crises. Check it out.

UPDATE II (4/18):

NEW COLUMN (1/16/020): The Punishing Agenda of the Anti-Punishment Movement

Argument, Britain, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Critique, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Political Philosophy

NEW COLUMN is “The Punishing Agenda of the Anti-Punishment Movement.” It is now on WND.COM and  The Unz Review. The column first appeared on American Greatness.

And excerpt:

On November 29, 2019, a man now called the London Bridge terrorist slaughtered British student Jack Merritt.

While the cutthroat has been named for a famous London landmark; his victim has been all but forgotten.

The killer’s family was quick to condemn the London Bridge terrorist’s actions.

The family of his victim—not so much.

David Merritt, the late lad’s dad, got busy condemning those who wish to condemn that killer and his ilk to life in a cell.

By December 2, Merritt the elder was already penning op-eds about clemency and leniency for criminals like the man who murdered his son.

Such minute-made forgiveness would have been Jack’s wish, asserted Merritt senior rather presumptuously—for how can the living speak for the dead?

David Merritt, then, proceeded to minimize what was murder with malice aforethought, by dismissing what his son’s killer did as a mere “tragic incident.”

Just how obscene is the progressive mindset can be gleaned from what Mr. Merritt wrote:

“If Jack could comment on his death – and the tragic incident on Friday 29 November – he would be livid. We would see him ticking it over in his mind before a word was uttered between us. Jack would understand the political timing with visceral clarity.
He would be seething at his death, and his life, being used to perpetuate an agenda of hate that he gave his everything fighting against. … What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens.
That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences … Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge.” [Emphasis added.]

Anti-punishment ideologues like Merritt, incorrectly and condescendingly conflate punishment with “hate” and vengeance, and justice with restitution and “rehabilitation.”

They typically treat us to facile flimflam such as that the desire for vengeance cannot become the foundation of jurisprudence. By this verbal manipulation, these ideologues disingenuously advance a definition of justice that precludes incarceration and instead equates that object with restitution and rehabilitation alone.

Compared to David Merritt’s woke sentiments, the family of the London-Bridge Killer was mundane in its proper and civilized expiation:

“We are saddened and shocked by what Usman has done,” said the family. “We totally condemn his actions and we wish to express our condolences to the families of the victims that have died and wish a speedy recovery to all of the injured.”

But there was apparently no need to apologize, Mr. and Mrs. Khan. Speaking for his dead son, David Merritt appears to have already made peace with Jack’s ripper.

In their extreme versions, anti-punishment ideologues like David Merritt often plump for complete penal abolition.

Driven by parental and pedagogic progressivism, Jack, of blessed memory, had “devoted his energy to the purpose of a “pioneering program” called “Learning Together,” which aims “to bring students from university and prisons together to share their unique perspectives on justice.”

The imperative to offer up young lives to this or the other manifestation of Moloch is a progressive impulse—an obscene one, at that. …

… READ THE REST.  The complete COLUMN, “The Punishing Agenda of the Anti-Punishment Movement” is now on WND.COM and  The Unz Review. The column first appeared on American Greatness.

Why Can’t You Say It, Tucker Carlson? Katie Hill Is A Slut

Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Political Correctness, Political Philosophy, Sex

It’s always curious to see how conservatives will twist into pretzels in order to, well, eat their philosophical cake and have it, too.

A traditionalist (check) would come out and call Rep. Katie Hill a self-adoring slut.

Who else takes nude selfies of her three-way (“throuple”) indiscretions, flaunting the iron cross tattooed on her crotch, and then frames her slut-like sexual frolicking as sacred sexuality disrespected? Katie Hill did.

When a male does the same, he, too, should be dissed by conservatives as a priapic pig. And he has been over these pixelated pages. Anthony Weiner I called “an engorged organism indigenous to D.C., who was in the habit of exposing himself as often as the Kardashians do.”

But Tammy Bruce, on Tucker Carlson’s show, no less, takes the tack taken in the leftist Atlantic:

Hill engaged in a profound breach of responsibility by engaging in a sexual relationship with someone who was working for her—and by doing so while running for public office. “The mistakes I made that brought me to this moment will haunt me for the rest of my life,” she said this afternoon in her final speech on the House floor.

“Nobody is judging her personally,” reiterated Tucker Carlson.

But why not? Katie Hill is a repulsive slut.

Likewise, Bruce was careful to emphasize she was not being a prude. The Hill indiscretion Bruce was decrying was purely a violation of labor law, or something.

Both Bruce and Carlson refuse to be cast as “prudes” who reject public promiscuity. It’s Hill’s conduct in the “work place” that bothers both these Fox News hosts. Oh Buddha!