Category Archives: Politics

UPDATED (3/15): Things That Haven’t #MAGA, So Far

Business, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Political Philosophy, Politics, Republicans, Russia, UN

Foreign Policy:

We’re peace-keeping on Syria. Policing the world doesn’t make America or the world great again. I thought President Trump promised we wouldn’t be enabling the UN’s ineptitude any longer.

President Trump has hired individuals who do not articulate the principles he ran on. Gov. Nikki Haley, for one. When the rest open their mouths to speak, too many sound nothing like what was promised. The generals scare me. America First? Where? In Yemen? Hiring different perspectives in business could well be a strength. But it’s not a strength when it comes to politics and policy. In politics you want a team that shares a political philosophy.

It’s a mistake to allow Russia mania to ramp-up without decisively and repeatedly articulating the need to get along with powers which share mutual, non-neocon interests.

UPDATE (3/15): The swamp is still swampy.

Beware The Values Cudgel

Conservatism, Government, IMMIGRATION, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Islam, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Politics

“Beware The Values Cudgel” is the current column, now on The Daily Caller (founded by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson). An Excerpt:

… When you hear an appeal to “permanent values”—”the values that make our country great,” to quote Hillary Clinton—know you are dealing with world-class crooks. These crooks want to swindle you out of the freedom to think and believe as you wish. For in the classical conservative and libertarian traditions, values are private things, to be left to civil society—the individual, family and church—to practice and police.

The American government is charged purely with upholding the law, no more. Why so? Because government has police and military powers with which to enforce its “values.” A free people dare not entrust such an omnipotent entity with policing values, at home or abroad, because values enforced are dogma.

When incontestable majorities call on government to curb Islamic and other in-migration because this imperils American lives, President Trump’s unswerving opponents—the Obama, Clinton, Ryan, McCain, Graham, Schumer and media mafia—will invariably intone, “That’s not who we are.”

When you hear that manipulative mantra, tell them to shut up, mind their own business, and stick to their constitutional mandate to protect the people, not police their minds.

Remember that through an appeal to values, the State aggrandizes itself.

A limited government, serving an ostensibly free people, must thus never enforce values. …

… Read the rest. “Beware The Values Cudgel” is now on The Daily Caller.

If you’d like to feature the Mercer Column (criminally underexposed in paleolibertarian and paleoconservative quarters), in your magazine, paper or pixels, contact me at ilana@ilanamercer.com. My gratitude to the wonderful, intellectually honest publishers who’ve taken the leap.

UPDATED: Rex Tillerson: Private Sector Top-Performer Makes Pols Look Dumb

Business, Donald Trump, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Logic, Politics

Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s pick for US secretary of state, instantiates the deep differences in intelligence and competency between politicians (those grilling him) and a top-performing individual, at the top of his game in the private sector (Tillerson). It’s night and day.

Impressive are Tillerson’s command of the issues, in-depth insights and meticulous, careful, logical approach. Tillerson’s confirmation hearing is what “no-experience-in-politics” looks like, when exhibited by a legendary top performer in the private-sector.

As historian Clyde Wilson has observed, politics is a degraded sphere. Poor pickings is all you get in politics (with negligible exceptions).

UPDATE:

Marco Rubio delivers, during the confirmation hearings, a neocon laundry list & lecture about what the US government must do with its people’s taxes to liberate the world. America First, moron. #MAGA

UPDATED (1/9): The Unbearable Banality Of Fox News (Tucker Carlson Excepted)

America, Conservatism, Intelligence, Media, Politics, Pop-Culture, Republicans

“Tocqueville in the 19th century, and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th, noted that conformity of thought is powerfully prevalent among Americans.” Thus, the possibility that a lonely voice telling an unwanted, original truth might be heard on Fox News is small.

With this in mind, I couldn’t resist bringing you the “mind-blowing” Fox headlines for December 22, 2016, the kind of insights that are off-the-charts brilliant (cynicism alert):

“Germany’s Refugee Policy Has Been a ‘Complete Disaster.'” [You don’t say!]

“Gutfeld Slams ‘Divisive, Alienating’ YouTuber Who Claimed Racism on Plane.” [Yawn.]

Meghan McCain, one of the dumbest women on TV: “‘I’m So Blown Away’ That Some Dems Want a 3rd Hillary Run.”

“‘Russia Didn’t Elect Trump, America Did'” [OMG!]

Prepare for the clincher: “‘Tolerance Is One-Sided’ on the Left.” [The truly brilliant Christopher Hitchens must be tossing in his grave. His brilliance has finally been bested.]

Mediocrity.

UPDATE (1/9):