Is Pragmatism Practical?
It’s a question worth asking in the run-up to the 2020 midterms.
One major difference between Utopian Left and Pragmatic Right is that Leftists live in the moment, doing or saying whatever will produce the immediate gratification of a feeling of moral superiority.
Ironically, this is their strength as well as their weakness. They do not keep score, they do not look at results, they do not expect results, and so they can eat away at the keel of the ship for generations, always keeping in the same direction (straight down) without regard for what they are doing… and over generations and decades can bring about social change (and collapse) in a fashion the pragmatic and results-oriented victims cannot imagine.
The pragmatic men (think of an establishment Republican) look in wonder about the dry aqueducts, collapsed coliseums, burned temples, and broken walls of the city, mouths hanging open, wondering wanly what happened.
The Leftist whose eye never leaves utopia to see the evils streaming like sewage in his wake has the same strength as the faithful Christian whose eye never leaves heaven and who never sees the good he does.
And THAT is why the pragmatic republicans and worldly men, conservatives, and libertarians, seem to be helpless in the face of the zombie mob of men stupider and wickeder than they are. The zombies don’t look at results, and so they work without worldly reward. Zombies keep trying after they have lost. Pragmatic men surrender and promise to do something once they win the White House.
Pragmatism, in short, is impractical.
The Ugly American
Victor Davis Hanson weighs in on the matter.
Why then is Biden humiliating Americans by playing the hard-nosed ugly American? Why is he demanding foreigners pump what we ourselves have in plentitude but will not fully produce?
The answer, of course, is raw politics.
Biden knows he wrecked the economy by deliberately surging oil prices in pursuit of the Left’s utopian green nightmare.
Or put another way, if it is a question of avoiding a historic midterm wipeout, Biden will now do anything.
Bullet Points:
* Last Saturday, Trump-Endorsed Arizona Gubernatorial Nominee Kari Lake spoke to a massive crowd at her Country Concert and Rodeo Rally featuring Senator Marsha Blackburn and country music singer John Rich. During her speech, Lake called out the fake news media, Katie Hobbs’ disgusting and racist ideas, and the Democrats’ “progressive” policies, saying, “progress, my ass,” and quoting John Rich saying, “stick your progress where the sun don’t shine.” She then also challenged Katie Hobbs to “go out and milk a bull” because Hobbs thinks there are 47+ different genders.
* From the Mailbag – a question about political evolution with a religious twist. I’ll throw my cracker in the soup. Don’t I always? I’m your huckleberry.
The abuses (many real, many implied) of the Medieval Church led to a rise of national monarchs in Europe, as in England and Germany, who assumed clerical and spiritual powers which led through reaction to Puritanism in different forms; the overreach of the national churches led to the classical liberalism and separation of church and state embodied in the Enlightenment, which is pragmatism and worldly practicality. In many cases this devolved into cynicism; those weary of cynics wanted something deeper in life but sought it in pursuit of secular utopias, and the collective spirit of Marxism; the bloody failures and broken promises of Marxism led next to a rejection of worldliness, but not back to any true faith, but just to vague and directionless paganism, bogus copies of eastern faiths, and a fashionable belief in theosophy and claptrap which is currently manifest in the woke movement, which resembles a cult.
It’s not all cause and effect, but there is enough of it for me to make those linkages.
* Please stop saying that you did the research before you received your plague vax(es) and booster(s)…YOU are the research.
Emoji T-shirts
I’m tempted to buy that shirt…..
Yes, the use of emojis does tell the tale very graphically.
Wilson’s emoji should be replaced with a klansman’s head. FDR’s should be replaced by a zombie’s head. Carter’s replaced by a peanut.
I can’t argue your points. They’re valid.
Rad Lib: Look at the gulf that separates us. It’s all because you’re not willing to compromise.
Prag Con: OK, I’ll take several steps toward you in the spirit of comity.
Rad Lib: Look at the gulf that separates us. It’s all because you’re not willing to compromise.
Prag Con: OK, I’ll…….
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result.
That’s very on-point.
+1.
I can see Lindsey saying it.
No kidding…”My fellow Republicans need to meet the Democrats 90% ‘halfway’.”
Whenever I hear that something is “bi-partisan”, I know that the country is going to take it at the fifth point of contact.
And, we’ve all seen Lindsey doing it. Therein lieth the problem.
Biden- There is no “Why?”. FJB is a willing player, installed specifically to weaken/wreck America. In his addled brain this is his well deserved long career swan song.
Kari Lake- She comes loaded with facts offered with direct deliveries against the warped morons who think they are smarter and more clever than everyone else, sort of a Trump in heels who knows how to present. “Go milk a bull” was awesome, and sums up the Dems/Lefts insane world view. Would be great as a T-shirt.
Gonna have “Let’s do the time warp again…” stuck in my head all day. Heh
I stand corrected…Lake is more like DeSantis, same forthright delivery and unwavering in principle.
“If you’re governor will you rethink your position to securing the border if the NFL decides to pull out of the Superbowl in AZ?”
Lake- “No. I work for the people of Arizona, and if the NFL thinks they’re more important than the Fentanyl coming across our borders killing kids and adults then they to rethink their position.”
Republican’s need more of this type and less of the Graham’s and ancient’s like McConnell who are both well past their allowable ‘use-by’ date, floating along in Congress doing nothing of substance, year in and year out as if they have some preferred status privilege.
Lake will be president one day if she pushes through 8 years running Arizona.
Agreed…assuming the Dem thieves do not prevail. HRC (gag!) was projecting onto Republican’s their playbook.
She’ll be found to have sexually harrassed someone, or hired hookers to pee on her or be colluding with Russia.
And the FBI will verify it.
It sorta worked before with the uninitiated, why wouldn’t it work again only this time switch the sexes (which is easier math when restricted to the two God designed).
I’ve been hearing that we’re about to have a diesel shortage in 3 weeks…like running out completely. Northern states have already implemented heating oil rationing…and it’s not even winter yet. A perfect storm approaches.
It would prevent a trucker strike – if the trucks won’t move.
Kari Lake: Fentanyl coming across our borders killing kids and adults
Are the syringes slithering across the desert like snakes, creeping through open windows, and poking into veins while innocent people sleep at night? Let’s blame the inanimate syringe in the same way we blame the inanimate gun. Ask Nancy Reagan about the one simple trick to avoid health damage from low-quality intoxicants.
Oh, I don’t think that she is doing that. Stopping the cross-border action is difficult for a governor because the federal government has that remit. Stopping CHINESE fentanyl from arriving in Mexico is also beyond what a governor is capable of doing. The US Government has undertaken a policy of deliberately allowing open borders and has supported cartel financial interests in human and drug smuggling. It’s sort of a libertarian concept – open borders and legal drugs, is it not?
Stacking Conex boxes as a temp stop gap measure rubbed FJB and Crew the wrong way, filing a lawsuit to stop Arizona and by extension, America, from protecting itself.
Imagine Biden sending in the Corps of Engineers to remove the Conex.
Because they are unsafe by code, or some such nonsense.
That’s not the argument. They are on federal land are impeding (illegal) commerce (human trafficking and drug smuggling).
The US Government has undertaken a policy of deliberately allowing open borders and has supported cartel financial interests in human and drug smuggling.
Government drug bans function as price supports. Legalize drug victimless non-crimes and drug organized crime goes broke, just like we saw with alcohol prohibition. Addition is a problem which prison doesn’t help. Likewise for human smuggling; government borders are price supports for border-evasion crime.
Disbanding a national defense force has always been shown to fail
Standing armies fail worse, and killed 250 million in the 20th century. Liberals seem to believe that even more than 250 million would have been killed if those governments hadn’t existed, but can’t point to even one historical example of Hobbes “warre of every one against every one”. You know, the wagon trains get 100 miles West of St. Louis, which triggers a human firmware bug and everyone kills each other in an orgy of murder, and the West was never settled. Similarly, pirate ships don’t exist, because since pirates don’t have recourse to any government’s court systems, an infinitesimal disturbance grows until they kill each other. Arrrgh! https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hook-Hidden-Economics-Pirates/dp/0691150095 _The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates_
Crime will always pay. People will always be exploited. It seems to be a constant despite everyone’s best efforts.
In the year 1800 it was conventional to believe man would never walk on the moon. But this wasn’t proved, it was merely a lack of imagination. Today, saying man will never have liberty is like saying man will never walk on the moon, but saying it in 1960 as the Mercury and Gemini programs are looking really plausible.
“Standing armies fail worse” but I’d prefer one when a foreign player attacks.
Or rather to prevent that attack.
College welfare-subsidy-loan applications ask the parents of the adult student to reveal tax returns to inform the eligibility determination. Similarly, would-be welfare recipients could be asked to show five years of tax returns showing net payment into the treasury before being eligible for welfare. That would satisfy the objection that people crossing a border are receiving benefits they never paid for.
The systemic avoidance of picking policies which solve problems like that tells me the middle class’ motivation for government is they want to hurt people with it. Soon technological innovation will stop crime from paying, and we will have a libertarian society. In that environment where nobody can be a bully, I believe many people will freak out and do crazy things because everyone else having liberty means they are at the bottom of the monkey pecking order, a position which historically is dangerous.
You and I disagree fundamentally at a number of levels, but you do have the right to express yourself. Crime will always pay. People will always be exploited. It seems to be a constant despite everyone’s best efforts. Disbanding a national defense force has always been shown to fail – peace in our time and all that.
Are we, as a species, much different from lemmings?
Only some.
We’re faster!
I believe it might not be Lemmings but the Dodo. And they’re not extinct…I’ve seen enough to know there is a sizable colony residing in LA and DC with a few smaller gaggles in Chicago, Philly, and Denver.
And Ann Arbor.
The colony on Martha’s Vineyard is also noteworthy.
Biden, what an utter fraud.
Good Rocky Horror banner infographic.