Category Archives: Philosophy

The Pre-Trump World

Was it normal, or abnormal?

One off the polling practices I find annoying is the “right track, wrong track” question, because it can be very misleading in its implications. It doesn’t provide any information as to what the respondent thinks what “track” we should be on. I have never in my adult life felt that the country was on the “right track,” and if polled I would always say it was wrong. And of course, if I said that whenn Republicans were in power, Democrats would infer that it meant that I wanted them to win, which would be stupid, because what I wanted continually was a more libertarian, constitutional government.

Anyway, I have to confess that, despite my dislike of Trump, I do feel, for the first time, that with all the regulatory rollback, and constitutionalist judicial appointees, we’re at least, finally, on the right track. But we still have along way to go down the rails. My fear is that if the Democrats get back in power, we’ll be off the rails entirely.

Natural Arguments For God

Mark Tapscott has what he thinks are the five best ones. I find none of them particularly compelling, and the third one is very weak.

As I note in comments (the discussion has been going on for a couple weeks), science is orthogonal to the issue of whether or not God exists, and (as I argued with Hugh Hewitt years ago) the desire of believers to misuse/misunderstand the nature of science to validate their religious beliefs is indicative of a certain lack of faith. And of course, the fallacy of the blind watchmaker appears, in which I have to point out that rolexes don’t replicate with random errors to improve the breed.

America’s Next Civil War

will be worse than the last one.

Yes. This time it is a war between those who revere the Constitution, and those who hate it.

[Evening update]

OK, let me amend that. It’s a war between those who revere the principles underlying the document (limited government), and those who hate them. Because they are totalitarians. Anyone who thinks (like Elena Kagen) that it would be a “bad idea” (it would actually be a good one, nutritionally) to compel the American people to purchase and eat broccoli, but constitutional, is completely clueless about the philosophy and principles of the document. “Totalitarian” doesn’t have to mean concentration camps. What it means is that there are no limiting principles, and that the personal is political.

And Then There Were Four

Alan Bean has left the earth for the last time.

I just saw Buzz last night at the ISDC awards ceremony, which was probably the most encouraging in the history of that meeting, in which (amid saving The Expanse for another season, with many of the cast and production crew present) Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, laid out his vision for humanity in space that was shared by all in that room. There will be a party tonight, and I don’t think the organization will have had a more joyous one in its history. It was fitting that it occurred in the very same hotel where the very first conference was held, thirty-seven years ago.