Category Archives: Republicans

Afghanistan And The Sunk-Cost Fallacy

Argument, Democrats, Economy, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Military, Neoconservatism, Republicans, War

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Joe Biden is right in his “Remarks on Afghanistan“: “… if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that 1 year — 1 more year, 5 more years, or 20 more years of U.S. military boots on the ground would’ve made any difference.”

Tempting as it may be for right-thinking conservatives and paleolibertarians, in particular, to use the inevitable collapse of the charade in Afghanistan against Biden—honesty demand we avoid it.

TV Republicans, no doubt, will join the shrill CNN females and their houseboys, who love nothing more than to export the nanny state, in bashing Biden for his decisive withdrawal. The president said, “I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

Falling into the Republican line of partisan, tit-for-tat retorts is wrong. The man made the right choice—as opposed to Barack Obama’s. Afghanistan was a war Obama had adopted.

Beware especially the military men, who will flood Fox New with the sunk-cost fallacy. As I explained in “GOP Should Grow A Brain, Join The Peace Train“:

Military movers and shakers are heavily vested in the sunk-cost fallacy—the irrational notion that more resources must be committed forthwith … so as to ‘redeem’ the original misguided commitment of men, money and materiel to the mission.

“To that end, repeated ad nauseam is the refrain about our ‘brave men and women of the military,’ whose sacrifice for [Afghani] ‘freedoms’ will be squandered unless more such sacrifices are made.

The Skeptic’s Dictionary dispels this illogic: ‘To continue to invest in a hopeless project is irrational. Such behavior may be a pathetic attempt to delay having to face the consequences of one’s poor judgment. The irrationality is a way to save face, to appear to be knowledgeable, when in fact one is acting like an idiot.’

Besides, it’s time the military heed its paymasters, The American People, a majority of whom don’t want to send U.S. soldiers back into Afghanistan.”

 

 

 

 

NEW COLUMN: Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem)

Business, Economy, Individual Rights, Law, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Regulation, Republicans, Technology

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NEW COLUMN is “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem).” It is currently on WND, Towhnhall.com, The Unz Review, and CNSNews.com

Excerpt:

Republican solutions to Big Tech tyranny do not begin to address financial de-platforming, the cancellation of citizen dissidents en masse, including the infringement of the right to partake in the public square and make a living.

In their weak case against Deep Tech (“Deep” to denote enmeshment with The State), Republicans are still defending only some speech on the “merits,” rather than all speech, no matter how meritless.

In a sense, the statist anti-trust bills—targeting especially Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google—being pushed by lawmakers are worse than useless.

The anti-trust impetus is misguided as it conflates corporate size with anti-competitive practices: the larger, the more monopolistic. However, reducing the size of an entity–a corporation–doesn’t necessarily alter its nature.

When a malignant cell divides, it doesn’t grow less potent. To the contrary, it innervates and enervates more spheres. Likewise breaking up Big Tech. Smaller malignancies metastasize and kill just as well.

The habitual failure of the representatives sent by Deplorables to D.C. to prevent cancellation en masse–the Orwellian nightmare from unraveling–cannot be understated. On the line is dissidents’ ability to speak, publish, partake in society; sell our cultural products, and transact financially over the country’s major online economic and social arteries.

No wonder the Tech crooks appear periodically on The Hill to make fun of the country’s comical representatives and their gullible, pliable voters. The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, has no qualms about letting his delivery drivers, who, “operate under severe [app monitored] time constraints,” urinate in bottles for fear of losing their low-wage jobs.

Do you think the dim bulbs in Congress, posturing for the cameras, scare his ilk?

Do not forget that anti-trust busting or the repealing of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are solutions the GOP had failed to implement when in control of both chambers and the presidency.

It was under Republican control that de-platforming (of a president, no less), the banning of legions of powerless dissident citizens, including detrimental financial de platforming, “occurred.”

Given this incontrovertible reality, The People have an obligation to quit the “my party, right or wrong” unconditional love, and demand the GOP work to unban ordinary, innocent folks, the crooked politicians be damned….

... READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN is “Big Tech’s Financial Terrorism And Social Excommunication (Part 1: The Problem).” It is currently on WND, Towhnhall.com, The Unz Review, and CNSNews.com

UPDATED: My solutions, presented next week, are not going to exist, as I like to say, in the arid arena of pure thought.

*Image courtesy WND.

The Woke Conservatism Of Ben Domenech And Fox News

Conservatism, Democrats, History, Populism, Propaganda, Pseudo-history, Race, Racism, Republicans, The State

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Ben Domenech continues to sell soothing, snake-oil conservatism on FOX News Primetime.

In fact, Woke conservatism is a good moniker for Domenech’s conservatism .

Fox News, sometimes mistaken for the real deal, has signed this John McCain clan member on as a contributor. It’s how Beltway conservatives keep the wealth and the consensus in the political family.

When TV admits outsiders in, it’s only ever if, like J.D. Vance type elites, they’ve slithered  up through the Ivy League, or the military-industrial-complex; have gotten elected, preferably in moderate districts. There isn’t an independent thinker in the District of Columbia radius.

This time, On August 2, in dulcet tones, Domenech—who has a great speaking voice—was selling some court historian’s idea that Lincoln and his supporters were the quintessential populists.

That is quite funny. Lincoln was “a wealthy railroad lawyer”; “a card-carrying member of the Northern corporate elite“:

Via Tom DiLorenzo:

Lincoln proudly boasted that he had made more speeches promoting protectionism or legal plunder than on any other subject. He stumped for Whig party protectionist candidates for decades, and established himself as the most rabid mercantilist in American politics, the political son of Alexander Hamilton. As the general counsel of the Illinois Central Railroad who had represented all the major railroad corporations in the Mid-West, he was a card-carrying member of the Northern corporate elite who traveled on the legal circuit in a private train car courtesy of the Illinois Central, accompanied by an entourage of Illinois Central executives (See John Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads). As such, the Illinois plutocracy sponsored and financed his candidacy. A key part of their strategy was to use Lincoln’s protectionist credentials to win over the steel-manufacturing state of Pennsylvania which had the second-largest number of electoral votes at the time. Joseph Medill, the influential editor of the Chicago Press and Tribune, sold the Lincoln candidacy to the Pennsylvania Republican party by pointing out what a slick politician he was, “an old [Henry] Clay Whig, right on the tariff and . . . exactly right on all other issues.”

“DiLorenzo and His Critics on the Lincoln Myth” is pretty neat, especially as Jim Ostrowski mentions the upheaval caused by the publication, in 2002, in WND of my review of Tom’s The Real Lincoln.

With two of the leading political websites in the world heralding his tome, Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, and his book selling like statist intellectuals’ souls, the Church of Lincoln could not ignore DiLorenzo. When Ilana Mercer fired her starter’s pistol, the congregation raced to attack the book before it was even published.

 

WATCH: UPDATED (8/1): Humor Alert: When Democrats And Pelosi’s Republican Poodles Weep; There Is Mirth In the Vance-Mercer Studio

Comedy & Humor, Conservatism, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Culture, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Republicans

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WATCH: David and I discuss the ins-and-outs of the Jan. 6 Committee, also the Democrats’ September 11: Menstrual America Vs. MAGA America.

When Democrats and Pelosi’s Republican Poodles Weep; There is Mirth in the Vance-Mercer Studio:

The harder the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi’s Republican poodles wept—the greater was the mirth in the David Vance and ilana Mercer studio. Our superstar of a producer was in stitches, too. Good times.

UPDATE (8/1/021): Humor Alert: I never watch my own videos. So did I REALLY ask David, of https://HardTruthWithDavidVanceAndilanaMercer.podbean.com/, if Speaker Pelosi has a drinking problem? A viewer insist I did. David agrees.

https://rumble.com/embed/vhxj2z/?pub=fyb9t

Must something manifestly hilarious be marked with a “Humor Alert” before people allow laughter? Maybe Brits and their South African former subjects have a different sense of humor? This appended comment is way funny, too. Learn Brit humor: