Ukraine and Endless War for Profit

[anthony]

Propaganda from the other side> RT:

"Genocide"?

UN refuses to back Ukraine 'genocide' claims — RT World News

WWW.RT.COM

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The office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said that it hasn’t recorded signs of genocide during the Ukrainian...

Surrender?

Russia makes another offer to besieged Ukrainian forces — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

WWW.RT.COM

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Besieged Ukrainian fighters can exit Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol at any time without their weapons, Russia’s Defense Ministry says

Russian soldiers bearing food?

Ukraine accuses mayor of treason — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

WWW.RT.COM

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Ukraine has charged the mayor of Balakleya with treason for accepting Russian humanitarian aid and the restoration of utilities in the town

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

5 hours ago, Bill Blake said:

Constitutions are wonderful things; it would be great if we had one.  Instead, what we have are a bunch of worship-words on paper, spoken with ceremony and reverence when needed to pacify the public or to justify the government's actions but largely ignored otherwise. To hold the idea that individual rights are respected, never mind protected, is to flatly ignore the routine abuses of our government.

Bill,

This is a parentheses, but I disagree with you.

Just because the Constitution has been abused, that does not stop if from existing.

The idea that people in government and the military swear an oath to a document--to uphold it--instead of swearing fealty to a king or queen is one hell of an achievement in mankind's history. 

I'm not one to wipe out that achievement with rhetorical excess.

There are several things in the Constitution that have allowed the USA to develop into what it is today. In my view, that development is far more glorious than rotten, although the rot that has grown like a disease stinks mightily. But still, we live wonderful lives in America.

 

I grant that some people who swear to uphold the Constitution do not know how to do that or don't even know what is in it, and others don't have any intention of upholding it. But that's the nature of oaths. The responsibility for adherence belongs to the oath taker, not to the oath itself. For the rest of us out here, that oath is something far more meaningful and far more serious than doing a formal ceremony with worship-words on paper.

What's more, when I, for one, as an individual, me Michael, pledge allegiance to the flag, the Constitution is at the foundation of that allegiance. To quote Rand, "And I mean it."

If the Constitution is ever removed one day, I would hate to see what happens. But it's not hard to predict. Gang warfare. Rand herself alluded to this in many places, including portraying it in the final part of Atlas Shrugged. 

For a quick example in reality, look at any city where the charter documents mean very little to nothing anymore. Much of Detroit. The south side of Chicago. And so on. That's an exercise in how to make America feudal again--in other words, gang warfare.

 

There are several core components to the Constitution that critics tend to forget and each of them are essential. The Bill of Rights is crucial (and it exists), but it's not the only component.

There is also the formal structure of government where the Founding Fathers managed to thread the needle between democracy and a republic, there is the principle of checks and balances in just about every clause (which I consider one of the greatest achievements of the Founding Fathers), there is power accommodation and distribution for both rich and poor, for both urban and city life, for both high end achievers and less ambitious people, there is a system to alter the Constitution and redress grievances, and it's all put together in order to make changes in governing very slow.

All of that exists. It's an amazing achievement. It's an amazing document.

 

Attempts--including current attempts--have been made to invalidate parts of the Constitution, or invent things that are not in it and claim they are, but the Constitution still stands. It exists.

And, like I said, I swear my own allegiance to it. Gladly and with pride. I lived as an expatriot in Brazil for 32 years, so I do not say that lightly.

Starting in 2025, I believe a lot of the rot will be cleaned away. I even see a Convention of States on the horizon.

This is slow, but that's as it should be. Major changes should never be quick enough to let outright tyrants take over.

Michael

[Bill Blake]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bill,

This is a parentheses, but I disagree with you.

I could write a long rebuttal, but this isn't really the topic for it.  Perhaps we should relocate?

[Peter]

2 hours ago, Bill Blake said:

I could write a long rebuttal, but this isn't really the topic for it.  Perhaps we should relocate?

deleted.  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

22 hours ago, Bill Blake said:

I could write a long rebuttal, but this isn't really the topic for it.  Perhaps we should relocate?

Bill,

To be honest, I'm not that up for it. At least not until we are clear on our terms (especially epistemological).

To use a Randian form of expression, to me this issue is not debatable. I already know most all of the arguments. Been three. Done that. For decades.

I came to my conclusions despite a great deal of inner and outer resistance. Even watching the bad guys steal a presidential election did not shake my current view and adherence to the Constitution of the USA. It only reinforced it.

You will find me up there with the fiercest of enemies to the abusers of the Constitution. But my objections are not rhetorical. I belong to a political movement (one Rand would call "ad hoc") called MAGA to straighten out the mess people have made of parts of the Constitution. It is my view that complaining about something without doing something about it is only whining. So I am doing.

A Constitution is not a Platonic form that is supposed to guarantee an outcome. That's the way the left thinks about concepts like equality. A Constitution is a set of organizational rules for a country that must be fought for and defended against power-mongers every generation.

And it is a fool's game to ignore those power-mongers. One of the great temptations in the human brain is to favor power over other values. Up to now, there is no sure-fire cure and many succumb. So one has to constantly beat them back to enjoy freedom. There is no other alternative--not in reality. One must fight them off or accept them as one's master. One cannot wish them out of existence or argue them out with a syllogism.

 

Debating whether the USA has a Constitution at this point in my life falls into the category of debating whether Ayn Rand was a writer. (Believe it or not, there are people who debate this.) I find the issue not debatable, not due to any outrage, but simply because I read her works. And only a writer writes works I read.

Some want to debate whether she was a good fiction writer or horrible and to me, this is the same kind of thing. I read her fiction, observe how it moves me and look for (and find) advanced literary techniques in her stories. What is there to debate when I observe the contrary on a primal level like that?

Ditto for the Constitution. I not only see the paper and the words you denigrate, I see the people who think like me swearing an oath to it for centuries and acting on that oath to defend freedom. I will not debate whether that exists. And I will not let exceptions define the essence. Not when I both live it and see it in others.

 

I will grant one thing, though. Rand herself had a bad rhetorical habit. Often she would discuss something like art, start talking about modern art, then end by saying that a painting of modern art is not art.

It's obvious she had a different meaning for the first time she used art than she did for the last, and it is true that when one opens any dictionary on earth, almost all of the words have more than one definition, but using the same word with differing definitions in the same discussion only confuses the reader and leads to semantics trying to be used for conceptual disagreements.

Technically (as an aside), the first meaning of art was cognitive and the last normative. I realize that hatred moves one to want to obliterate something from existence, but why not say "bad art" instead of "not art at all," especially when earlier the term "art" was used to designate that very thing?

I, for one, do not think this rhetorical excess expresses hatred in a convincing manner. That gets too close to Platonic ideals for me... Or bullshit...

 

To be clear, I did not rebut your statement about the USA not having a Constitution. I disagreed with it and gave my reasons. After the huge amount of thought, study and years of discussions, I don't see anyone changing my mind. 

(Well, there is always that 0.0000001% possibility since no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy by definition.  )

Don't think any silence from me you may encounter on this subject is agreement. It isn't. On this kind of issue, my reasons are aimed more at readers than the one presenting the issue. And after I have given them, unless there is a good reason to repeat or explain further, I will move on. It's not that I am an all-knowing sage. It's that this is really elementary common-sense stuff like talking about the meaning of numbers in addition and subtraction or how valid the alphabet is in making words.

But you are entitled to your opinion. So rebut away wherever you find appropriate. I will not try to convince you of my way of thinking on such an elementary issue. You have to come to your own conclusions, just like the reader has to decide for himself or herself.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The lady actually turned red as she went into her oopsie...

Michael

[Abiding Dude]

On 4/21/2022 at 2:57 AM, anthony said:

1. The coup. A legal government was forced out by revolutionaries.

2. Kyiv's lengthy assault on the Donbas; the easterners who (not irrationally) had decided that they could have no future part in a nation that could "steal the election" (so to speak) by coup, sought "separation" and were attacked.

3. Putin's invasion. Following Ukraine's failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements re: Luhansk and Donetsk 'republics'.

That is 3 evasions and 3 initiations of force, this invasion the most egregious.

There's the simplistic ethics. 

1+2=3

NOTE FROM MSK: Trolling comment removed, but a link going to an article by Tracinski is preserved. 

... you could read someone ... 

[Brant Gaede]

On 4/22/2022 at 12:29 PM, Bill Blake said:

Little more than a decade after the signing of the Constitution, the American government enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts.  These violated the Constitution and infringed on free speech, one of the rights essential to a free society.  It's nice they were revoked--after they had served their evil purpose--but they would not have been enacted in an actually free society. The Supreme Court abrogated the principle of limited government in 1824 (see Gibbons v Ogden, 22 US 1), and has not examined its "error" since.  The number of violations of rights--of exceeding constitutional powers--has grown dramatically over the years.  Just count the number of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations--which regulations, in themselves, are a violation of the Constitution. The concept of rights has been shrunk to the notion of "enumerated" rights plus a few rights that the Supreme Court has divined by the equivalent of reading the entrails of chickens.  And even the acknowledge enumerated rights have been watered down to the point of near uselessness in many cases.  Our courts regard the government as sovereign, and routinely "balance" rights against government "need", meaning that we aren't really talking rights anyway, merely privileges which the government may revoke when it sees fit.  I could go on for hours on this topic and not exhaust the ways that the government has rejected the Constitution and its underlying principles.

The essentials of a free society are just courts, accountable government, and freedom of speech.  We do not have the first two, and the third is under concerted attack from government and the citizenry--and there are signs that the courts might soon follow.  What America has are the shibboleths of freedom and a government that is limited, not by principle, but by its understanding that there is only so much it an get away with before people will give it the finger or the bullet.  And with today's citizenry, domesticated by our education system, what the government can get away with grows ever larger by the day.

Constitutions are wonderful things; it would be great if we had one.  Instead, what we have are a bunch of worship-words on paper, spoken with ceremony and reverence when needed to pacify the public or to justify the government's actions but largely ignored otherwise. To hold the idea that individual rights are respected, never mind protected, is to flatly ignore the routine abuses of our government.

I do not claim a moral equivalence between America and Russia--that would be absurd.  But to say that America is not Russia says nothing important about America's rationality and morality.  One need only look at the facts--which are unequivocal--to see that America is not the country intended by the Founders and that it is nowhere near the Capitalism of Objectivism.

There is nothing that claims a monopoly of force in the international arena and which has the power to even try to enforce such a monopoly.  Moreover, we are seeing the hallmarks of anarchy in the Ukraine situation--the outcome of it will not derive from any principles, but from whoever happens to have the bigger stick and the stronger will. And, of course, Ukraine is nowhere near an isolated occurrence.  There is simply no rule of law on the international level; "might makes right" is the operative "principle".  The international order is an anarchy, held together--for now--by the fact that the gang of countries with the biggest stick don't want war on their territories.

I mostly agree with this. My grandfather wrote a six volume biography of James Madison, but the Construction does provide for the basic Federal structure solidified by Marshall's Marbury vs. Madison. The Bill of Rights was meant to limit Federal not State power but that was changed. The Declaration of Independence is the country's foundational document but the Constitution was the foundation for the triumph of federalism in The Civil War.

The immense power of the, not these, United States has made today's geo-political world from its unnecessary wars, especially WWI, but the past is not to be undone. All we can do is fight for more freedom using the right ideological tools.

Stating that we don't have a Constitution is only a rhetorical flagpole for purpose of focus not discussion as such. Of course we do, what's left of it.

--Brant

[ThatGuy]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

I mostly agree with this. My grandfather wrote a six volume biography of James Madison, but the Construction does provide for the basic Federal structure solidified by Marshall's Marbury vs. Madison. The Bill of Rights was meant to limit Federal not State power but that was changed. The Declaration of Independence is the country's foundational document but the Constitution was the foundation for the triumph of federalism in The Civil War.

The immense power of the, not these, United States has made today's geo-political world from its unnecessary wars, especially WWI, but the past is not to be undone. All we can do is fight for more freedom using the right ideological tools.

--Brant

As  Billy Beck, a one-time brief participant here, often quotes, "The Constitution was a counter-revolutionary act." I've seen it debated, to no one's satisfactory conclusion (it's like that internet meme of trying to decide whether the dress was blue or gold).  "Your mileage may vary", and I doubt the debate will be settled here to anyone's satisfaction, either; as the conclusions usually comes down to where one falls on the libertarian/conservative spectrum. Perhaps it's an understandable, and perhaps inevitable ambiguity, because even Ben Franklin, when asked what emerged from the Convention, answered with "A Republic, if you can keep it...", so there's that...

"To What Extent Is the Constitution of the US Counter Revolutionary? "

To What Extent Is the Constitution of the Us Counter Revolutionary? Essay - Free Argumentative Essays For Students

LAGAS.ORG

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The Constitution of the United States of America was the solution to fix the weaknesses that Articles of Confederation...

"The Constitution: Counter Revolution or National Salvation?"

The Constitution: Counter Revolution or National Salvation?  |  Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress  |  Library of Congress

WWW.LOC.GOV

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Teachers Students Jump to: Preparation Procedure Evaluation Teachers It is Fall 1787. The Federal Convention has recently...

 

[anthony]

22 hours ago, Abiding Dude said:

NOTE FROM MSK: Trolling comment removed, but a link going to an article by Tracinski is preserved. 

... you could read someone ... 

And read someone else.

For the record, I don't accept one or other.  I'm unconvinced by either writer's opposing, argued opinion, morally or politically, they both contain an excess of self-justifications and rationalizing from fixed and preset premises. While both sets of facts are presumably valid. The hard question: which facts are ¬more¬  "valid", and most important?

Unchanged - the packaged 'storyline' that has swept up the mass of people - only cynical demons over there; all angels/victims here - never will ring true.

 

Daniel Kovalik: Why Russia's intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

WWW.RT.COM

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Russia’s incursion in Ukraine is more justified under the “right to protect” than what the West has done in the past

 

[anthony]

And if there's nothing to hide why is the 'spin' from Russia Today been stifled and banned?

Donbass Under Fire. Life in the Donetsk Republic Under Bombs | RT Documentary

ODYSEE.COM

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After the Donetsk People’s Republic was proclaimed, war ravaged Donbass. Ukrainian artillery has been shelling towns and villages...

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Stating that we don't have a Constitution is only a rhetorical flagpole for purpose of focus not discussion as such. Of course we do, what's left of it.

Brant,

That actually was my point.

And I get real tired of that form of rhetoric because it always leads to people acting in a stupid manner.

I suspected this was going to be a soapbox issue and it was. So I removed the soapbox through discourse and, as we all can see, the soapbox itself was not debatable. I can assure you that for you, saying that the USA did not have a constitution was a rhetorical flagpole. For the guy who was saying it, it was the One True Truth.

People who talk like that don't want to discuss. They fall in love with what they believe is a huge insight and they want to preach about it. If you tell them their preaching sounds silly in that form, they get pissed. They don't forgive you and they never give up the silliness.

The silliness is more important than the issue and you can verify this by what they do, not by what they say. Faking reality to them is more important than working with it.

I guess I'm getting tired of thin-skinned neurotic people who think they are saving the world.

Discussion is like romance in a sense. I learned the hard way that on finding a new partner, one does not sleep with a person crazier than oneself. They will suck you into their madness.

 

And they rarely build anything with their madness...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The Bill of Rights was meant to limit Federal not State power but that was changed.

Brant,

And we can change it back. In fact, we will, but within the context that if the USA does not provide a serious defense against countries that intend to conquer the world, the USA will not exist for long.

So a balance is needed, not an either-or choice (either states rights or federal government--it has to be both). One cannot blank out the reality of predators and survive.

Love it or hate it, our Constitution has not only provided the conditions for the USA to survive all this time, it has provided a structure where the USA has become the dominant power. And don't forget, when it started, there were only kings and queens in the world (under differing names, but the same essence).

 

I know you are not on board with my support of Trump, but he is the only one I see in today's environment with the will and existential possibility of changing the government to more states rights. And keep the balance. The places I read are talking seriously about a Convention of States to do precisely that.

I don't talk about Trump's defects much because that's not the way I sell. (Don't forget, we are in the selling stage, not the governing one right now.)

One will never sell a car by emphasizing that there are dents and scratches on it, that the driver's side leaks in too much rain, that the car stalls in particularly cold weather, the radio glitches all that time, the gas mileage could be better if some serious money were invested in the engine, etc. etc. etc. Who will buy a car when that is all the seller talks about?

That is true even when it is the only car and the only alternatives are mass transportation or bicycles or feet, which is metaphorically the alternatives I see right now for getting to more, not less, states rights.

One sells by showing benefits and features. On the negative side, a damaging admission here and there is good, but too many blow the sale.

Like I said, bitching without doing something about it is only whining at root.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is a side issue, but I can't resist.

To anyone familiar with Ayn Rand's writings, can anyone seriously imagine her claiming the US has no constitution?

To take that further, imagine how she would treat one who does make that claim.

 

Actually, one doesn't have to imagine much. Her opinion of libertarians is a pretty good indication...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, anthony said:

And read someone else.

Tony,

I just read Tracinski's article and it is just awful. In his view, there are only two sides, pro-Putin or pro-Ukraine. And if you are not pro-Ukraine, this is proof positive you are an authoritarian.

He says so clearly, too.

Quote

At an “emergency conference” meant to prevent support for Ukraine, these conservatives complained, not about the artillery bombardment of Mariupol, but about the “bombardment of the neocon moment that we are in,” while “speaker after speaker targeted the GOP hawks more often than they spoke about Ukraine itself.”

And why would "these conservatives" target "GOP hawks"? Could it be that people are sick and tired of one endless war for profit after another sold under political jingoes? Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the endless drone bombardments, etc. etc. etc.?

For Tracinski, that issue never even makes it into his sphere of awareness.

The objection is only for the following reason to him.

Quote

A petition signed by these anti-interventionists blames the conflict on “leading interventionists in the United States and Europe” who are “goading the West into an abyss of war and suffering.” The people of Ukraine appear in this narrative only as “victims,” who “bear the brunt of Russia’s aggression and of the [Western] attempt to bog down Moscow in a long, devastating insurgency.”

One suspects much of this is a dodge by those who have long been sympathetic to Putin’s regime and the dream of using authoritarianism to promote religious traditionalism, which fits well with the ideals of the “nationalist” and “integralist” Right.

That's right. One suspects it's them damn Christian authoritarians who don't want another endless war for profit.

That's what it is.

Each one of those suckers is a little Putin in the making.

By the end of the article, that's no longer a suspicion for Tracinski. It's a fact.

Quote

But the story is revealing of Putin’s mindset, in which the people are objects to be divvied up among the rulers with no need to consult them about what they want.

That helps explain why, for all their loud talk about “sovereignty,” the nationalist conservatives can so casually deny it for Ukraine. Despite their protective camouflage of populism, the nationalist authoritarian vision is one in which a small clique or cadre decides for itself how the people’s lives and property are to be arranged—in Ukraine, and also possibly here at home.

Tracinski's vision is one I argued extensively against during the 2016 election.

There is a large number of Americans, the majority actually, who are Christian and who do not want war for profit. They just want to live their lives, follow their dreams and be happy. They can be ginned up to war against a threat (weapons of mass destruction, etc.), but they do not want war for profit. 

I ran into a brick wall over and over and over by people like Tracinski back then. It's not that he argued against this position. It's that he blanked out these people. (I'm picking on Tracinski here, but he was just one small voice among a slew of other media voices--largely loud neocon voices, but a lot of loud others, too.)

I got tired of saying, "We exist." And hearing, "You're confused," or "You're unprincipled," yada yada yada.

But we do exist.

We elected Trump against all odds and against a massive amount of cheating. (The bad guys got the cheating right the second go-around, but they are going to get punished real hard in the upcoming history. Their structure is going to get dismantled to the extent it becomes ineffective in reality.)

Trump wins military conflicts the old fashioned way: destroy the threat and leave so people can get back to living their lives. 

A person who thinks like that is the same as a space alien to people like Tracinski. He is not aware that people like that exist, or if he is aware, he does not think they are important enough to consider. It's a weird form of elitism.

And, apparently this is true for a lot of people who want another endless war for profit. (Except one never calls it that. One uses a narrative to make it sound different than reality. One must never show one's hand, you know...)

It just ain't gonna happen this time unless Biden bumbles us into a shooting war with Russia.

If that happens, I fear that will not turn into an endless war for profit. It will be a nuclear war of mass annihilation.

I, for one, intend to do my part to make sure that does not come about. Nor another endless war for profit.

Michael

[anthony]

David Kelley hosts Richard Salsman and Robert Tracinski in debate. Robert brings up the same talking points from his essay above, Richard comes in at 20min (his general take and overview matches mine, and others here at OL).

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

44 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I just read Tracinski's article and it is just awful.

There is another issue, a persuasion issue, I want to highlight for people who read that article.

Tracinski raises it here:

Quote

They don’t seem to want to talk about the invasion itself. Dwelling on the horrible, brutal details would, at the very least, make an emotional case for defeating Russia. Nor do they seem eager to talk about Ukraine’s heroic resistance or Russia’s statements about their geopolitical aims or their plans for Ukraine.

Within the context of USA interests, meaning the interests of average Americans who just want to live their lives, follow their dreams and be happy (I love quoting myself.  ), all of that Ukraine stuff is too distant for them to sacrifice for.

And, yes, the right term is sacrifice.

Why should a family working to pay off a mortgage, send their kids to college, and so on sacrifice part of that for Ukraine? There is no reason ever given. There is only "muh Putin."

Not to mention the trash heap of corruption the elites have made in Ukraine.

 

The way Tracinski phrased that paragraph is called a victimization story and victimization stories have always worked.

Tracinski is gobsmacked that it isn't working any more. But let's do a reality check. He doesn't care about the people who are not buying the hustle. He just wants their treasure in the hands of military people he supports and, for the rest, they can fuck themselves. (He even calls them authoritarians when the vast majority are not.)

 

But this persuasion thing isn't complicated. It's about as simple and ancient as fairy tales.

There is a little story called the boy who cried wolf. 

The establishment war machine cried wolf once too often and nobody believes them anymore.

It's that simple.

 

There's also that little thing called a bait and switch. After crying wolf (the bait), average people kept finding that getting the wolf in sights and killing it was not what the criers had in mind. The criers always wanted to live as parasites off the town people with endless hunts and so on (the switch).

 

After suffering through this all those times before, average people see this clearly. Just repeating the con in louder and more obnoxious tones, or looking perplexed and pointing to victims and blaming some "them" or other (like Tracinski does), will no longer get suckers to give up their treasure. At least not from that pool of people.

War-mongers who want to fleece what they consider as their livestock-people-herd have to do something else now. That way doesn't work anymore.

Michael

[ThatGuy]

27 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

There is another issue, a persuasion issue, I want to highlight for people who read that article.

Tracinski raises it here:

Within the context of USA interests, meaning the interests of average Americans who just want to live their lives, follow their dreams and be happy (I love quoting myself.  ), all of that Ukraine stuff is too distant for them to sacrifice for.

And, yes, the right term is sacrifice.

Why should a family working to pay off a mortgage, send their kids to college, and so on sacrifice part of that for Ukraine? There is no reason ever given. There is only "muh Putin."

Not to mention the trash heap of corruption the elites have made in Ukraine.

 

The way Tracinski phrased that paragraph is called a victimization story and victimization stories have always worked.

Tracinski is gobsmacked that it isn't working any more. But let's do a reality check. He doesn't care about the people who are not buying the hustle. He just wants their treasure in the hands of military people he supports and, for the rest, they can fuck themselves. (He even calls them authoritarians when the vast majority are not.)

 

But this persuasion thing isn't complicated. It's about as simple and ancient as fairy tales.

There is a little story called the boy who cried wolf. 

The establishment war machine cried wolf once too often and nobody believes them anymore.

It's that simple.

 

There's also that little thing called a bait and switch. After crying wolf (the bait), average people kept finding that getting the wolf in sights and killing it was not what the criers had in mind. The criers always want to live as parasites off the town people with endless hunts and so on (the switch).

 

After suffering through this all those times, average people see this clearly. Just repeating the con in louder and more obnoxious tones, or looking perplexed and pointing to victims and blaming some "them" or other (like Tracinski does), will no longer get suckers to give up their treasure. At least not from that pool of people.

War-mongers who want to fleece what they consider as their livestock-people-herd have to do something else now. That way doesn't work anymore.

Michael

Is it me, or has ARI just become something *like* a neocon think-tank since Yaron Brook came on? (*I know, I know, Brook has written against neo-cons, but something just bugs me about it all...and both the neocons and ARI are afflicted by the same Trump Derangement Syndrome...is it a matter, to quote from WE THE LIVING, of "loathing their goals, but admiring their methods?

"Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, by C. Bradley Thompson and Yaron Brook"

 

Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, by C. Bradley Thompson and

MISES.ORG

---

Mises Review 16, No. 1 (Spring 2010)NEOCONSERVATISM: AN OBITUARY FOR AN IDEAC. Bradley Thompson and Yaron...

Or, is there just something in O'ism that makes it a "Strange bedfellow" of the neocons, even if they can't, don't, or won't see it?

On Neocons and Neurotics: Yaron Brook and the Folly of Preemption

On Neocons and Neurotics: Yaron Brook and the Folly of Preemption – The Occidental Observer

WWW.THEOCCIDENTALOBSERVER.NET

 

[anthony]

18 hours ago, ThatGuy said:

Is it me, or has ARI just become something *like* a neocon think-tank since Yaron Brook came on? (*I know, I know, Brook has written against neo-cons, but something just bugs me about it all...and both the neocons and ARI are afflicted by the same Trump Derangement Syndrome...is it a matter, to quote from WE THE LIVING, of "loathing their goals, but admiring their methods?

"Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, by C. Bradley Thompson and Yaron Brook"

 

Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, by C. Bradley Thompson and

MISES.ORG

---

Mises Review 16, No. 1 (Spring 2010)NEOCONSERVATISM: AN OBITUARY FOR AN IDEAC. Bradley Thompson and Yaron...

Or, is there just something in O'ism that makes it a "Strange bedfellow" of the neocons, even if they can't, don't, or won't see it?

On Neocons and Neurotics: Yaron Brook and the Folly of Preemption

On Neocons and Neurotics: Yaron Brook and the Folly of Preemption – The Occidental Observer

WWW.THEOCCIDENTALOBSERVER.NET

 

I actually agree with Brook for once - on preemption. A swift preemptive strike or couple, to block or end an enemy's clearly belligerent intentions. At his military forces, that is. A proper national self-defense has to preferably start outside the country's borders, before they are penetrated. One does not meekly wait for someone to throw the first punch when you can see or strongly suspect one is coming at you. Most libertarian, is that passive notion of non-initiation of force. 

ARI got so twisted out of shape by anti-Trump-prejudice, I think they could fit in anywhere today, leftist to neo-con. Reminds me of when you get over-invested in "a position", could be a stock market share, a romantic relationship or a political stance or a philosophical argument, and you suddenly realize - you got things wrong: that does hurt. You a). back off, admit the mistake to yourself, cut your losses and acknowledge your error of judgment to others involved and handle the consequences or b. buy deeper into the terrible investment and take mounting losses, faking it, making the position harder to back off any time..

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

17 hours ago, Abiding Dude said:

NOTE FROM MSK: Trolling comment removed, but a link going to an article by Tracinski is preserved. 

... you could read someone ... 

While we are still wasting our time on the OL soap opera intermission, let me take a moment to comment to readers about this person.

I have had to delete a couple of his posts so far and had to edit a couple others like the one above (in the first, I did not comment). I am not going to edit them any longer. I'm just going to delete posts that do not follow the moderation conditions no matter what substance they have in them.

You, reader, don't get to see this stuff. I'm not trying to keep it from you, but just like in a restaurant, we remove people who hawk and spit and fart loudly and things like that, there is no need to include the intellectual equivalent in our discussions.

The problem is that this guy doesn't know how to separate an idea from the person he is talking to. For example, it is impossible for him to say, "I disagree," and give his reasons. He has to say he disagrees because you are hopelessly stupid and full of Russian propaganda or whatever, and you are this and that (all bad), and of course, he's smart and here to instruct you about it, if only you weren't too dumb to understand. And he taunts the person he is talking about up a storm.

I am pretty sure OL has gone through enough people like this for me to put a stop to it at this point and be right on the money.

Like I said when this dude showed up, I don't have time to babysit him. If he keeps on submitting posts full of neurotic crap, I will simply ban him.

This is not a place for trolls anyway. This is a place for people who like to discuss ideas, starting from a Randian perspective.

Banter is one thing. This crap is another.

If he has issues with me, or Tony, or anyone else on OL, there is an entire Internet out there for him to vent and there are places for free to do it. There is no need for me--or donors when that is the case--to pay for a place for him to troll and provide his audience to boot. That is called "sanction of the victim."

My patience is near the end.

We have important things to do and talk about. This hostile bird-brained stuff is a huge distraction. As Rand had Toohey say (I'm going on memory, so this is probably a paraphrase), "Do not bother to examine a folly. Ask only what it accomplishes."

Well, trolling, like spam, is a folly and it accomplishes only one thing in the end: time wasting. Very little else ever comes of it. So better to use my time, our time, for more productive things.

(God, I hope I am not turning ARI-like as I go along...  )

Michael

[anthony]

Topmost of Putin's immoral statements have been his nuke references. Bluff, defense against western intervention, intimidation, or whatever his rationale, Trump rightly calls him out.

Found on RT. Of all places, to be even, indirectly, critical of Putin.

(Is any RT news available to you guys over there? As said before, we should see -all- the propaganda-stroke- info to form our opinions. These news/opinion inserts I find go a little way to redressing the balance with MSM's spin)

Trump says he’d stop Putin from using the ‘N-word’ — RT World News

WWW.RT.COM

---

Former President Donald Trump has said he’d stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from saying the word “nuclear” ever again

 

[atlashead]

somebody might have said this (& i have no interest in politics) so i'll make it brief.  The problem is not the constitution, but the changing of government.  Use your mind to get around a law just as you would an axiom of existence.  easy as that.  the problem is when you're running & they're felling trees in your paths

[ThatGuy]

2 hours ago, atlashead said:

somebody might have said this (& i have no interest in politics) so i'll make it brief.  The problem is not the constitution, but the changing of government.  Use your mind to get around a law just as you would an axiom of existence.  easy as that.  the problem is when you're running & they're felling trees in your paths

"Who guards the guardians?"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

How does one get around an axiom of existence?

Exist and not exist? Be something and not that something? Be aware without being aware?

How does that work?

Michael

[atlashead]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

How does one get around an axiom of existence?

Exist and not exist? Be something and not that something? Be aware without being aware?

How does that work?

Michael

let's say you're in a desert- you have no water- you must procure water.  Let's say the world has global warming, more trees or carbon capture must be implemented.  A reiver gives you the ultimatum "your money or your life"-you shoot him