Category Archives: Reason

UPDATE (7/30): What-Aboutism: A Pale, Weak Defense Of Trump’s Pro-American Tactics With Putin

Argument, China, Foreign Policy, Government, Propaganda, Reason, Russia, The State

Limited government has a constitutional obligation to secure the peace by defending and protecting its constituents—not the world. Duly, and since my values are not yours and vice versa, a limited government doesn’t enforce “our values.”

POTUS is doing just that with Mr. Putin.

Hence this Breitbart article amounts to a bit of “What Aboutism.”

In “The President’s Controversial Policy Toward Russia: The Good Guys Risk Losing If the Bad Guys Are United — Part One,” the author seems to galvanize FDR and Churchill to argue—what exactly?—that Putin is a Stalin, with whom we have to make strategic common cause?

No idea.

What Aboutism should be added to the list of logical fallacies. It is not a substantive argument to say, “Oh, lookie, FDR did it too, Churchill did it too. You like them. Why not Trump?”

The other “argument” here is that China is worse than Russia, the premise being that we should do battle with the former but not the latter. In other words, the American government, a paragon of perfection, has enemies more worthy than Russia.

It might be that Synophobia is more justified than Russophobia, but the point remains that an American president should pursue not war, but peace and prosperity, albeit through mighty strength. Those are pursued through diplomacy.

UPDATE (7/30):

Wrong title. Corrected: Brilliant Russia scholar, #StephenCohen, makes Mad #MaxBoot Cry. Boot is the warmonger con who said he'd sooner vote for #Stalin than #Trump." https://t.co/85VUXzATDs https://t.co/85VUXzATDs

— ILANA Mercer (@IlanaMercer) July 31, 2018

Using Wall Money To Bomb Syria

Constitution, Debt, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Just War, Nationhood, Reason, War

No idea why bootlickers are elevating Laura Ingraham’s mild objections to the Syria strikes. It looks like what she’s saying is that “if we had the money; then OK. But we’re broke, so not now.” Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, offers principled objections to The American Way (intervening everywhere).

Sure, money is an important consideration, but it’s entirely a side issue here—Ingraham’s utilitarianism makes no appeal to the Constitution, to the War Powers Act (a bad bit of legislation, but still); not to the sovereignty of nations, or to justice. Yes, her protestation is better than nothing, but arguments like hers are dodgy.

You see, the same argument is made against The Wall. This, as we use so-called wall money to bomb Syria. Even if we had the money, we don’t have the right, really. We do, however, have the obligation to stop aggressors from entering the US—whether they wage welfare, bring in hitherto eradicated diseases, or harbor hatred for Americans that spills over into hate crimes (terrorism and racially motivated crime).

UPDATED (2/22): Townhalls And Discussion About School Shootings, One Constructive (Courtesy of POTUS Trump), Another Destructive (Via CNN)

Crime, Donald Trump, GUNS, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Reason

President Trump made a remarkable effort, EVEN HISTORICAL, hosting and listening to a discussion with victims of school shootings, including students and teachers from Parkland, Florida, as well as victims from the Columbine and Sandy Hook shootings.

Alas, CNN’s “legal analyst,” Jeffrey Toobin, pooh-poohed the event POTUS had held where a large group of school-shootings survivors exchanged views amicably, politely and so much more constructively than on any of CNN’s putrid panels.

3:09 minutes into this segment, a bereaved dad, Andrew Pollack, spoke about daughter Meadow Pollack, shot by “some animal” free to roam. “We should’ve fixed the schools,” roared Pollack. “I’m pissed!” The grieving Mr. Pollack focused the debate considerably. “It is not about gun laws. That is another fight, another battle. Let’s fix the schools and then you guys can battle it out whatever you want. But we need our children safe.”

True. We’ve arrived at a point where guards and metal detectors at the entrance to public venues—schools, amusement parks, concert halls, ballgames—are in order. Like in Israel.

UPDATE (2/22): I clean forgot to mention Darrell Scott, yet another bereaved parent from 1999, who runs a program emphasizing the promotion of connectedness and comity. He pointed out that diversity enforcement increases division and anger.

Conversely, the competing CNN TownHall, also with students, parents, lawmakers—but of a different stripe and temperament—showcased incivility and divisions. Boorish parent Fred Guttenberg berated a patient and stoic Sen. Marco Rubio.

To judge from what the rather mediocre students said at the CNN townhall, their education transmits sentimentality over reason, attitude and mush over canon and curriculum. They’ve been forced-fed a pedagogic diet of pop psychology by female teachers who promote every mythical, politically correct orthodoxy that pervades the Zeitgeist. Their parents were not that different. The apple never falls far from the tree.

With no moderation, if only for maintaining manners, from activist journo Jake Tapper of CNN, the students of Stoneman Douglas High hurled insults at Sen. Rubio and NRA representative Dana Loesch, showing themselves to be simple-minded, yet arrogant, liberals.

Loudmouth Sheriff Israel, of Broward County, was on easy street, surrounded as he was by the social justice warrior students of Stoneman Douglas High. None of these inquiring minds asked the sheriff about his department’s abysmal failures in stopping Nikolas Cruz.

Democratic Parkland congressman Rep. Ted Deutch regaled the predictable crowd with windy, empty, grandstanding. He got louder as the evening progressed and he saw Rubio isolated and Loesch desperately trying to please.

“Trump suggests arming teachers as a solution to increase school safety.”

“Nothing New About Parkland School Massacre. FBI Has Been Criminally Negligent In Almost All Of America’s Major Terrorist Attacks.”

Russian Response to Robert Mueller’s Ludicrous Indictment Of The Famous 13 Spy Bots Sounds About Right

America, Conspiracy, Donald Trump, Elections, Reason, Russia

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova:

“Turns out, there’ve been 13 people, in the opinion of the US Justice Department. 13 people interfered in the US elections? 13 against billions budgets of special agencies? Against intelligence and counterespionage, against the newest technologies? Absurd? The indictment, however, is the “modern American political reality.”

Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin:

“The Americans are very emotional people, they see what they want to see. I have great respect for them. I am not at all upset that I am on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:

“It’s a pity that under Donald Trump, for more than a year of his presidency, our relations have not improved compared to the period of the Democratic administration. Even worsened to a certain extent,” Lavrov told Euronews.

Indeed. Deplorable were promised peace and cooperation; instead we are getting agitation based on idiocy. To say that Americans are merely emotional is very charitable indeed.

And my own analysis in “Making Sense of The Russia Monomania.

UPDATE (2/18): With respect to my “Making Sense of The Russia Monomania,” most people don’t get the column and reduce it to the kind of non-issues of simple paralleled. It is about, however, the anatomy of, 1. The US creating its own reality. 2. The US forcing the world into that parallel universe. 3. The US having the power to do all that and more.

Bill Meyer was the only individual who got it.