UPDATED V (2/27019): A Pair Of Motor-Mouth Faux Conservatives: Explaining What Makes Ben Shapiro & Meghan McCain ‘Crass Pragmatists’

Foreign Policy, Individual Rights, Iraq, John McCain, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Neoconservatism

On WND.com, the new column is “A Pair of Motor-Mouth Faux Conservatives.” On the Unz Review, it’s “What Makes Ben Shapiro & Meghan McCain Crass Pragmatists.”

An excerpt:

Ben Shapiro is an anti-Trumper, who continues to assert baselessly that “the future of the Republican party is anti-Trump.”

Fox News, generally pro-POTUS, persists in exposing Deplorables to Shapiro’s twitter travails and spats with a left that, in turn, doesn’t know left from right—for Ben is no rightist; he’s a neoconservative media-pleaser.

In this farcical tradition, Ben was asked to comment on the election of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, whom Rush Limbaugh—he knows a thing or two—calls the female Barack Obama.

Since winning the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th congressional district, Cortez, a hard-core socialist, has been the toast of the town.

True to type, Shapiro failed to come up with one principled argument against Cortez’ socialism. All that came through was:

“It doesn’t work.” Socialism doesn’t work.

Not a word did wonder boy utter about the very crux of the matter. The rights-violating underpinnings of socialism is what makes socialism and its attendant political platform both an economic wrecking ball and plain wicked.

Another popular fount of conservative philosophy is Meghan McCain. She’s as conservative as her father, John McCain, from whom she got a dynastic leg-up in the menagerie of morons that is mainstream media.

On “The View,” a very vulgar program, Meghan made a similar non-case to the one mouthed by motor-mouth Shapiro:

“Name one country that socialism has ever worked” (sic) she blurted. (Translated: “Name a country where socialism has worked.”)

In her defense, we should say that everyone knows Meghan is no Michael Oakeshott. The problem being that Ben is considered the very embodiment of Russell Kirk, a classical conservative, and the intellectual father of American conservatism, may it rest in peace. …

… READ THE REST.  On WND.com, the new column is “A Pair of Motor-Mouth Faux Conservatives.” On the Unz Review, it’s “What Makes Ben Shapiro & Meghan McCain Crass Pragmatists?”

Whatever floats your boat.

UPDATE: In “The historical revisionists,” Vox Day upbraids “Ben Shapiro for trying to speech police Pat Buchanan for telling the truth about American history.”

Also via Vox Day:

Because Shapiro is an evil little fraud. He’s terrified of debate with anyone who isn’t a left-wing halfwit. He’s a midwit, a gatekeeper, and a media construct who has been relentlessly pushed on American conservatives since he was in junior high. Any Christian or conservative who considers himself a Shapiro fan is a naive fool who has been taken in by the propaganda program. The same thing goes for Jordan Peterson.

These heavily promoted wormtongues do not speak the truth, they do not believe what their fans think they believe, and their objectives are to protect evil by distracting and confusing those who would otherwise stand against it. William F. Buckley. Glenn Beck. Ben Shapiro. Jordan Peterson…. when are conservatives going to stop falling for these obvious frauds?

UPDATE I (7/30): Fox News’ “The Story” discusses socialism. The debate is purely pragmatic (cost analysis); no mention of principles, namely the infraction of individual rights involved.

UPDATE II: Another cost analysis by Guy Benson. Rights? What’s that? 

“Brutal: Examining Ocasio-Cortez’s Painful Answer on Funding Her Socialist Utopia.”

UPDATE III (8/12): A Primer on Israel Firster Ben Shapiro:

Ben Shapiro: Alt-Left/Big Con Celebrity Extraordinaire” By Jack Kerwick

UPDATE IV (8/15/018):
Evil Twin:

UPDATE V (2/27019): Reparations argumentation a la Ben.

Comments Off on UPDATED V (2/27019): A Pair Of Motor-Mouth Faux Conservatives: Explaining What Makes Ben Shapiro & Meghan McCain ‘Crass Pragmatists’

Why Liberals Hate The Original Constitutional Scheme

Constitution, Egalitarianism, Europe, Federalism, Founding Fathers

Liberals disapprove of the brilliant men “who wrote America’s constitution,” you know, the geniuses of the pale patriarchy.

Yes, concedes the Economist, the Senate was devised “to represent places, not people, and there is a case for that; other constitutions, such as Germany’s, look to ensure regional representation in their upper house.”

So far, so good.

But liberals want heavily populated cities and city slickers—they vote Democrat—to drown out rural people, who vote Republicans. So, for ensuring that “the largest states do not dominate the rest,” the Senate is considered bad by liberals. “[T]he constitution provides equal representation for all the states, large and small alike. This builds in an over-representation for people in small or sparsely populated places.”

That liberals can’t abide.

But for the electoral college liberals, who’re ignorant of any political theory other than egalitarianism, reserve the ugliest terms.

The “electoral college,” writes the Economist, is as system “that America’s founders jury-rigged in part to square the needs of democracy with the demography of slavery.”

Come again?

See: “The minority majority: America’s electoral system gives the Republicans advantages over Democrats,” July 12th 2018.

‘Labor Shortages’: Business Leaders Are Bitching, Workers Are Celebrating

Business, Economy, Labor, Outsourcing

Workers are happier than they’ve been for a long time.

“For the first time since data began to be collected in 2000, there are more job openings than there are unemployed workers.” By the Economist’s telling, “Fully 5.8m more Americans are in work than in December of 2015.”

Workers may be happy, but not businesses.

Big and small, business is nattering about labor shortages.  “Ninety percent of small businesses who are hiring or trying to hire workers report that there are few or no qualified applicants, according to the National Federation of Independent Business.”

Excerpted from, “Worker shortages could heal America’s economy: Why a scarcity of labor is probably something to celebrate”:

The shortage is reaching a “critical point”, read one recent CNBC headline. A lack of applicants for blue-collar jobs such as trucking and construction has received particular scrutiny, as have states like Iowa where the unemployment rate is especially low (it is just 2.7% in the Hawkeye state).
But portraying widespread labour shortages as an economic problem is misguided. While they may be bad for firms, they are a boon for society—so long as inflation remains contained. In fact, a labour market in which firms must compete for workers, rather than workers competing for jobs should help resolve three of America’s biggest economic problems.

* Inadequate wage growth.

* “Faster productivity growth, which has been disappointing in America—and in other rich countries—since the financial crisis. If less profitable firms have to fold because they cannot pay enough to attract workers, their labour and capital can be put to better use.”

* Wage gains accrued “to the poorest workers. Full-time employees at the 10th percentile of the income distribution are earning almost 4% more than a year ago.”

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):

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