Owning the Libs

The few Republicans who still care about anything but the whims of Donald Trump are not welcome in the world of MAGA/NTC.  They are witnessing the perils of basing your politics on "owning the libs." "Owning the libs" usually means useless impeachment hearings and politicians who are only trying to get TV time.  We can only look forward to a Trump revenge tour, where score-settling is the only real goal. 

The obsession with owning the libs can be seen in the prioritization of style over substance. Mark Levin has made a career out of being rude and insulting instead of serious. Trump has chosen to emulate this cheap combativeness, and add to it Sean Hannity's habit of relying on ad hominem attacks.  Instead of regarding name calling and insults as a cheap distraction from real debate, MAGA/NTC loves this kind of puerile politics. 

Next is the subject of Trump's weird cult of personality. Like all of the most dangerous political leaders in history (Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler), Trump claims to be the only one who can solve his nation's problems. The idea that Trump is more than an ordinary man has allowed him to dispense with ordinary conservative beliefs on free trade, foreign policy and the rule of law. They have been replaced with protectionism,sympathy for Russian Communism, and a studied disregard for the legal responsibilities of the presidency. Trump improperly used Ukraine aid for leverage, and fired Jeff Sessions for prosecuting Republican criminals. January 6,2021, the Save America Riot, was perhaps the worst abuse of a president's constitutional responsibility and grossest dereliction of duty in American history. In perhaps the most nauseating insult to the rule of law imaginable, nominated Matt Gaetz,an ignorant political hack, to be Attorney General. This whole catalog of poor character and recklessness is obviously not even considered by the millions of Americans who still support him. Estase doesn't know if there's any skullduggery Trump could even do that would convince the right-wing media industry to stop carrying water for him. 

The right-wing media industry also doesn't care about the times when Trump's agenda contradicted conservative public policy. Trump wanted Paul Ryan out of public life so badly he fought for Pelosi and Schumer's budget priorities in Ryan's last budget. Last summer Republicans could have gotten everything they had asked for in the last ten years if Trump hadn't ordered them to squander the chance. 

The right-wing media industry loves to denigrate people like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and Joe Scarborough because they reject the false gospel of MAGA/NTC. For those with no principles, pique or personal grudge is a handy explanation for the actions of those who actually have principles. At some point right-wing politics will have to be about more than lies, conspiracy theories and owning the libs. 

Scott Puerile Speaks

My archnemesis Kaitlyn Wagstaff has been allowed to share her libtard ideas here, as have her asshat dad, his friend Frank C.,and that king of the clowns Estase. It's only fair that after all these idiot snowflakes, a real 100% American patriot like me be allowed to share his opinion. 

Estase is all bent out of shape about bullshit like Donald Trump trying to stop the steal and preventing a bunch of corrupt eastern Europeans in a country I can't even spell from mooching off the American taxpayer. I'll tell you what really matters! Anti-white racism! The great Stephen Miller is absolutely right when he thinks programs that help blacks and Hispanics are America's biggest problem. These people need to stop using things that happened long before any of us were born as an excuse for hurting genuine American patriots.

And you know what else sucks? Transgenders! The American woman has a proud and cherished place in society as Webcam girls and lingerie models that shouldn't be dishonored by men pretending to be women 

When I complete my bachelor's degree in Anti-woke Studies at Hillsdale College, I hope to get my own show on Fox News. Then all you libtards better watch out!

Militaristic Isolationism

   What used to be the party of strong foreign policy has become the party of moral equivocation. A perfect example is Tucker Carlson excusing the murderous war criminal Vladimir Putin by saying that "leadership involves killing. " Similarly, Donald Trump wants to act as though his criminal prosecutions are equal to Putin murdering Navalny.

"Tough" in the lexicon of Trump supporters always means unethical or illegal. Wanting to kill the wives and children of terrorists isn't a war crime, it's "tough. "Running your business in a way that's dishonest and semi-legal is also "tough. "

Estase assumes that Orange Blatherskite sees Russia's invasion of Ukraine as "tough " too. It's amusing to see the disparity between the way Republicans treat the first front of World War III and its second front. Republicans want to let the people of Ukraine twist in the wind, but they are falling all over themselves to arm Israel against a Russian proxy, HAMAS. 

The MAGA/NTC view of the world doesn't recognize the changes to international order resulting from World War II. The UN Charter considers collective self defense legally preferable. This is why the United States needs NATO. 

The assumption that America can practice some sort of militaristic isolationism is one reason Ukraine is being hung out to dry. At some point, America will need allies, but no one will help such an unreliable country that can only be counted on to care about itself. 

The Strange Love of Donald Trump

"The Strange Love of Martha Ivers "is a picture about a privileged ĺittle girl and her two friends. One is the son of her tutor, and the other is a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. The little girl pushes her rich grandmother, whom she despises, down the stairs. The boy from the wrong side of the tracks is blamed for the death. 

The point of "Ivers "is that the boy from the wrong side of the tracks goes to reform school, but ends up living an ordinary lower class life. The granddaughter and the tutor's son end up rich, powerful, married and evil. 

The fact that the couple are evil results from the repeated moral compromises they committed to protect their position in life. 

The ideas in "Ivers "are quite Aristotelian. What originally reminded Estase of "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers?"Those who have followed this blog have seen how Trumpism separated Estase from most of the right. January 6,2021 was where I felt like my former fellows had transformed into the sort of snarling, evil sociopaths played by Barbara Stanwyck and Kirk Douglas in the film. 

Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic represents the ideas of power-worship and cynicism that mark MAGA/NTC.

Socrates:And would you call justice vice?

Thrasymachus:No,I would rather say sublime simplicity. 

Socrates:Then would you call injustice malignity?

Thrasymachus:No,I would rather say discretion. 

Socrates:And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good?

Thrasymachus:Yes, he said;at any rate Those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing States and nations;but perhaps you imagine me to be talking of cut purses. Even this profession, if undetected, has advantages, though they are not to be compared with those of which I was just now speaking

Socrates:You are very kind, I said;and would you have the goodness also to inform me, whether you think that in a state, or an army, or a band of robbers and thieves, or any other gang of evildoers could act at all if they injured one another?

Thrasymachus:No,indeed, he said, they could not. 

Socrates:But if they abstained from injuring one another, then they might act together better?

Thrasymachus:Yes. 

Socrates:And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship;is that not true, Thrasymachus?

       Refusing to accept personal morals in a leader seems to have led members of MAGA/NTC to lose their own ethical guide posts. 

"Therefore the bad man does not seem to be amicably disposed even to himself, because there is nothing in him to love;so that if to be thus is the height of wretchedness, we should strain every nerve to avoid wickedness and should endeavor to be good;for so and only so can one be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another. "

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (1166:25-29)

       MAGA/NTC created men who rebelled against the legal norms they had pretended to champion. 

       Aristotle said that ethical behavior is habitual.  Part of this is wrapped up in his natural law theory, in which virtue is necessary for the formation of practical reason (phronesis).People accustomed to wickedness will have difficulty making moral decisions. 

"Now if the mark be noble, the cleverness is laudable, but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere smartness;hence we call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart. Practical wisdom is not the faculty, but it does not exist without this faculty [ed.-virtue].And this eye of the soul acquires its formed state not without the aid of virtue, as has been said and is plain;for the syllogisms which deal with acts to be done are things which involve a starting-point, viz. 'since the end, i.e. what is best, is of such and such a nature';whatever it may be (let it for the sake of argument be what we please);and this is not evident except to the good man;for wickedness perverts us and causes us to be deceived about the starting points of action. Therefore it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being good. "

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (1144:25-35)

         Those who reject MAGA/NTC will end up doing what Van Heflin's character does at the end of the film--watching as the exponents of evil show their inability for friendship and destroy one another. 

Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!

"In one of the villages he entered during his journey, a woman named Martha entertained him in her house. She had a sister called Mary;  and Mary took her place at the Lord's feet,and listened to his words.  Martha was distracted by waiting on many needs, so she came to his side, and asked, Lord art thou content that my sister should leave me to do the serving alone?  Come, bid her to help me.   Jesus answered her,  Martha, Martha how many cares and troubles thou hast!  But only one thing is necessary;  and Mary has chosen for herself the best part of all,  that which shall never be taken away from her. "  Luke (10:38-42)

      Estase has written before about the ancient Greek categories of Excellence (meaning moral behavior),and Effectiveness (meaning personal accomplishment).  Rarely do Excellence and Effectiveness exist together in the same person.  The story of Mary and Martha would seem to echo the Excellence/Effectiveness dichotomy. 

       Society's obsession with doing has educational consequences.   Liberal arts educations are disdained because they aren't profitable.   The fact that they aren't profitable makes it seem that they aren't practical.   Of course,  knowing about government,  philosophy and history serve to make it possible for one to see through bad arguments and political illusions.  So, although they are not necessarily profitable, they are types of knowledge that are practical in a selfless way. 

     Unfortunately,  the public school system makes no attempt to prepare students to study Greek and Latin, showing its dismissal of Classical learning.   Today's colleges of liberal arts and sciences can be extremely political,  showing that even a selfless education can be turned to selfish ends.   Learning for learning's sake is something whose value the university doubts. 

    But just as how secular people see profit as all-important, some religious people think Christians are preferably people who accomplish greatly.  Obviously we need people to perform practical tasks (like feeding the hungry), but the contemplative life and the pursuit of virtue are all too easy to discount.   The Marthas of the world wish to be social workers,  or,  even worse,  political activists.  A nun that spends her time contemplating the Almighty is more important than a Nun on the Bus because the world already has plenty of political agitators. 

     At the end of this meditation on Excellence and Effectiveness, Estase can offer only the twelve-step suggestion,  "Don't just do something, sit there!"

Hegelian Justifications

Long ago, Estase remarked that the old Greek categories of Effectiveness and Excellence had been completely conflated. That is to say, success is prized so highly that even morally corrupt means are considered acceptable. The right's saying of "That's not my problem,"applies equally to poverty, racial issues, and now, even to our legal system. This degraded moral sensibility accompanied the transformation of right-wing politics into a mere attempt to safeguard the position of the well-off. 

First, Mark Levin depicted the Constitution as having right-wing ideology baked into the crust. When you only like our founding document based on a delusion, it leads the Trump faithful to, even after the Save Save America riot, say "We can't vote our way out of this, "showing their ongoing interest in violent revolution. 

Second, the acceptance of a morally rancid person like Orange Blatherskite was a sign that the moral rot of NTC (Nothing to Conserve) was already setting in. 

One of the consequences of conflating Effectiveness and Excellence is that the NTC people think and act like Marxists in the sense that success excuses every form of crime. In Marxism, this was due to the skeletal role Hegelianism plays, that also being its most dangerous component. Hegelianism taught that success would justify every crime. NTC has much the same viewpoint, accentuated by its judgment that the American left is actually satanic. 

MAGA Goes NTC

The hillbilly sans-cullottes over at The Federalist have apparently decided that the term conservative is outdated because American government has nothing to conserve. Ridiculous and apocalyptic--just what we expect from Trumphumpers. But I think we have a new acronym to replace MAGA--NTC(pronounced "nutsy").  

  If American government has nothing to conserve,  perhaps it has something to do with Trump's disregard for the democratic and legal norms that kept politicians' hands out of the public still and ensured peaceful transfer of power. 

     It has been clear for some time that anything that even resembled eighteenth century Whiggery has been purged from the Republican party by the ideological mess that is MAGA.  Donald Trump has nothing in common with John Adams.   Talk radio overcame anything that ever resembled intellect, and the NTC nonsense makes a mockery out of Trump supporters' claims to love the Constitution.Laura Ingraham said a while ago that  the Constitution wasn't sacred because it might be improved upon.   Estase dreads what Laura Ingraham would consider an improvement on the U.S. Constitution. All you have to see to prove this disrespect is the minimizations and rationalizations for the Save America Riot and its concurrent fake elector scheme. 

    All of this amounts to the once-proud Republican party checking out and withdrawing from American democracy.   What is there to call NTC but the final embrace of authoritarianism?