Althouse: At the Solstice...

December 21, 2018

At the Solstice...

... shine your light here.

47 comments:

YoungHegelian said...: Here, yet again, is one of those dipshit articles on the difference between liberals & conservatives. As always, liberals are wonderful & conservatives are stilted trolls of some sort.

It amazes me what amazingly philosophically ignorant fucks modern post-Marxist "on the street" Lefts are. Back in the old Marxist days, the dogmatism would still be there, but there would be a sublevel of historical & philosophical understanding sadly lacking here.

What's the difference between modern American Leftism & Rightism? Here's my take, and it's a gazillion times better than the shit in Vox. And ya know what else? It isn't judgemental about who's right & who's wrong. It's just descriptive.

The difference between the Right & the Left is that the Left believes in Consciousness & the Right doesn't. The Left believes that e.g. there are social forces that shape "Black Consciousness" in black people, "Latino Consciousness" in Hispanics, "Feminist Consciousness" in women.

The Right doesn't believe that such consciousnesses are possible. The Right believes that individual environments such as faith, region, language, individual psychology, & most important of all, personal choices are determinative of individual existence.

Think about it. It makes sense of the seemingly unbridgeable ideological differences between the two , doesn't it? It also doesn't turn either side into villians. Just two sides separated by fundamentally different philosophical assumptions.; 12/21/18, 8:44 PM
Jupiter said...: $13,686,509 Raised by 224,290 people in 4 days.

It's one thing to get two hundred thousand people to sign some stupid petition. It's a very different matter to get them to pony up thirteen million dollars in 4 days, for something that will benefit them only to the extent that it benefits the Nation.; 12/21/18, 8:49 PM
Jupiter said...: YoungHegelian said...

"It makes sense of the seemingly unbridgeable ideological differences between the two, doesn't it?"

I contest the premise. The gap is far from unbridgeable. Churchill; "If a man is not a liberal at twenty, then he has no heart. And if he is not a conservative at forty, then he has no head."

The gap is crossed all the time, and far more often from Left to Right than the other way. Base your analysis on that observation, and you may well arrive at something profound.; 12/21/18, 8:54 PM
Lucien said...: As a thought experiment, would leftists be willing to make police unions illegal if the effect were to reduce "systemic racisms" in policing?; 12/21/18, 9:11 PM
Birkel said...: YoungHegelian,
I like where your head is.
But a discussion of incentives would be necessary to truly demonstrate the difference.
The Left's conception reduces incentives for personal development, imho.; 12/21/18, 9:13 PM
Lucien said...: I think it's a healthy thing if our SCOTUS Justices have had the experience of being falsely accused.; 12/21/18, 9:13 PM
chickelit said...: A quantum of solstice standing still; 12/21/18, 9:35 PM
ELC said...: Today, where I live, we have only 9 hours, 19 minutes, and 16 seconds between sunrise and sunset. On this cloudy, rainy day, it will seem even less than that.

But, only 89 days until the first day of Spring.; 12/21/18, 9:46 PM
chillblaine said...: Weak sauce or hotsauce, only you decide. Gift giving?

Neuticles Make the Perfect Gift; 12/21/18, 9:46 PM
chillblaine said...: whoops that's Phish.

ok, Neuticles etc. Christmas Bunting! Being silly and serious about improving your neutered pet's self-esteem.; 12/21/18, 9:49 PM
Big Mike said...: @Jupiter, what is the context for thirteen million dollars raised?; 12/21/18, 9:50 PM
Narayanan said...: @YoungHegelian ...
Indulge me if you would.

Wasn't it Hegel who is credited for creating "world historical spirit" or something like that?

I'm curious about your nomdeblog.

I have the impression that Hegelians are very much into this SPIRIT (consciousness)

Your point about left is correct but surprising because Hegel is usually called Right ?! Or am I misinformed.; 12/21/18, 9:53 PM
Narayanan said...: **a healthy thing if our SCOTUS Justices have had the experience of being falsely accused.**

Many have successfully presented false front during confirmation.; 12/21/18, 9:58 PM
narciso said...: They turned him into a newt, but he got better,

Right wingers have to swift through the trash compactor or rotten memes misattributed facts bad premises to get to the truth.; 12/21/18, 9:59 PM
gadfly said...: It is difficult to get your mind around the decision-making of Donald Trump, who decided to withdraw U.S troops from Syria during a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a man who has spent two months embarrassing Trump, Jared Kushner, and the corrupt Saudi prince, Mohammed bin Salman, (who Trump has enthusiastically supported) by releasing details of how that prince lulled a Saudi dissident (and American resident) to a third country so he could be chopped up with a bone saw while still breathing. And even while Erdoğan was embarrassing Trump with those details about Khashoggi’s assassination, he was pressuring Trump to extend the same favor to him by extraditing Fethullah Gulen (falsely accused of initiating a supposed coup in Turkey) from the Poconos in order that he too could be chopped up in some grisly fashion. There is no logic or sanity here, but the only motivation appears to be getting wall funding passed.; 12/21/18, 10:01 PM
FullMoon said...: Ginsberg voted from her hospital bed.
Oh, sure.

"If no complications arise, the patient is transferred from the surgical intensive care unit (ICU) to a regular hospital room within one to two days. Patients may need to be hospitalized for seven to 10 days after a lobectomy. A tube in the chest to drain fluid will probably be required, as well as a mechanical ventilator to help the patient breathe. The chest tube normally remains in place until the lung has fully re-expanded. Oxygen may also be required, either on a temporary or permanent basis. A respiratory therapist will visit the patient to teach him or her deep breathing exercises. It is important for the patient to perform these exercises in order to re-expand the lung and lower the risk of pneumonia or other infections. The patient will be given medications to control postoperative pain. The typical recovery period for a lobectomy is one to three months following surgery.

Read more: https://www.surgeryencyclopedia.com/La-Pa/Lobectomy-Pulmonary.html#ixzz5aNkXJZ1K; 12/21/18, 10:02 PM
gilbar said...: Zeus (or possibly Thor*) said...
The gap is crossed all the time, and far more often from Left to Right than the other way. Base your analysis on that observation, and you may well arrive at something profound.

i'm not sure the gap IS crossed; more like it's hopped. I used to be a knee-jerk liberal; and now, i can NOT imagine how that was. Many of my friends and family remain liberal's and i have No IDEA why. I think it's sort of like electron shells (in that, you can be in one state or the other: NOT in between; you don't cross: you change)

Thor* you'd think he'd be Odin; but Odin is Wednesday, which is mercury.; 12/21/18, 10:03 PM
narciso said...: It works exactly opposite even though Erdogan has arrested 100s of journolists and only his son in laws publication (he was in a shindig in Qatar last weekemd) hes supposed to be trustworthy; 12/21/18, 10:09 PM
narciso said...: Just like Greenwald was fine then, evil now.; 12/21/18, 10:16 PM
Drago said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/21/18, 10:33 PM
Drago said...: The Poor Man's LLR Chuck gadfly (who also cannot read and comprehend a simple transcript of Congressional Hearings): "It is difficult to get your mind around the decision-making of Donald Trump, who decided to withdraw U.S troops from Syria during a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a man who has spent two months embarrassing Trump, Jared Kushner, and the corrupt Saudi prince,..."

False.

Already debunked.

8 months ago Trump gave Mattis a directive to put together a plan to get the US out of Syria in 6 months.

Again this was 8 months ago.

Instead, Mattis continued to develop plans that further entrenched the US in Syria without any possibility of departing. Permanent US presence with only vague strategic goals identified.

gadfly can't understand anything because every single premise he/she/it is operating under is false, contradictory and rather stupid.

gadfly is an embarrassment. But in a "good" way.....(wink wink); 12/21/18, 10:33 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Shorter YoungH: 'the other side has the mistaken belief that they are correct, my side has the correct belief that I am correct.'

Think about it. Or don't, IOW carry on.

IMHO.; 12/21/18, 11:13 PM
narciso said...: I try to start slow, to clarify things it's like cutting through cob webs; Turkey iran and qatar reinforce themselves, the kingdom the UAE and Jordan are the other axis,; 12/21/18, 11:25 PM
Sprezzatura said...: BTW the war on "beautiful clean coal" has ended.

Many of you can look forward to filled stockings.

IMHO.; 12/21/18, 11:26 PM
n.n said...: Erdogan has arrested 100s of journolists

Journalists. He spared the journolists to spread his narratives, as Obama before him.; 12/21/18, 11:30 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @NS,

I'm curious about your nomdeblog.
I have the impression that Hegelians are very much into this SPIRIT (consciousness)
Your point about left is correct but surprising because Hegel is usually called Right ?! Or am I misinformed.

Hegel is very much into Geist (Spirit). It, indeed, is the central concept that underlines his Idealistic Monism. But, in "orthodox" Hegelianism, there is ultimately one "Consciousness", i.e that of the Absolute Spirit. Whatever "phase" of Spirit an individual may have lived in historically, it was determinative of the nature of his society & not a matter of political manipulation.

There were, after the death of Hegel, a split among his followers. The now lesser known Right Hegelians essentially tried to integrate the legacy of Hegel into Lutheran orthodoxy. Not an easy task.

The Left Hegelians, better known nowadays as the Young Hegelians were the ones who both applied & then transformed the legacy of Hegel into multiple revolutionary movements in 19th C Europe. For example, I would lay the blame for the idea of "Consciousness" as an important basis of political action at the feet of Feuerbach even before Marx.

I use the nom de blog "YoungHegelian" not because I've that fond of the historical Young Hegelians but because one of my friends in grad school lived in a seminary. The seminarians had to sign out where they were going when they left the seminary. My friend, as a courtesy, followed their protocol. When he visited with my wife & me, he would put down "The Young Hegelians" as his destination. That's where the nom de blog comes from.; 12/21/18, 11:31 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: You have two more nights to see Brookgreen Gardens "Nights of 1000 Candles" if you happen to be near the SC coast.

Here are the lights on 15 December 2018; 12/21/18, 11:36 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Saw Bob Seger in Greenville last night. What a great show. It's his last tour and you should catch it if you can.

Bruce Springsteen wants to be Bob Seger when he grows up.; 12/21/18, 11:37 PM
chillblaine said...: "They turned him into a newt," hello, this is Fake News.; 12/22/18, 1:22 AM
chillblaine said...: Bumping my "Important Message From Cope Land," then off to bed. Tuckered out, like bunny coming down from friggen shrooms. Ok. Also, uploading tonight, is a new, "Yeti Comes In," the post-game interview, also, Yeti tries to sell his swag during the interview. try not to laugh. ok. Impotent Corps Land Massage Aboat One Of Our Sponsors, Eh.; 12/22/18, 1:26 AM
traditionalguy said...: Full moon over Florida tonight. Also a full I-75 with Xmas travel. The Trump economy is booming and the gas is cheap.; 12/22/18, 3:49 AM
tim maguire said...: Ahhh, the never ending quest to sum up the difference between right and left. I think it’s necessary (though not sufficient) to recognize that stripped down to their core, the right and the left want the same thing—they want people to lead happy fulfilled lives free of unnecessary suffering. Where they differ is in their view of how best to get there.

The right believes that the dignity of the individual is the most important value and they stress liberty, independence. Happiness is found through the free exercise of personal agency. They prefer that any necessary coercion come from free members of society enforcing cultural norms. The left believes guaranteeing basic necessities, freeing people from the stress of uncertainty over food and shelter, creates the best environment for the individual to flourish.

The gap is not unbridgeable because the goal is the same, only the belief in the best route is different. And people can change their minds about the best route.; 12/22/18, 3:57 AM
tim in vermont said...: It is difficult to get your mind around the decision-making of Donald Trump,

I bet it’s hard for you to get around the decision making required to get out of a brown paper bag too. It’s all right.

The gap is not unbridgeable because the goal is the same,

History says that you give them too much power, and they spend every waking hour thinking of ways to take more power, they will start wiping you out, like the cuckoo pushing the other baby birds out of the nest. Whether through famine, as in Ukraine, or with gas chambers, as in Germany, or with good old machine guns, trenches, and lime, as in so many places that collectivism has seized unbridled power. They really do view us as less than human.; 12/22/18, 4:44 AM
tim in vermont said...: Leftism comes from living in small bands and it makes sense in small bands, I guess. You give the alpha male (yes, he will be almost exclusively male, probably exclusively, really) absolute power, but ensure that whatever good fortune the band of humans happens to wander into is shared, well, the best stuff goes to the leaders of course, as in Cuba and Venezuela, but the stuff that’s left over gets shared equally. Socialism is driven by the inner brain, the reptile brain, the old brain that has been evolving since brains first evolved. Quick to anger, jealous, unreflective.

Rightism probably grew more with farming and ranching, when a man had to be responsible for something, make decisions and live and die by them, and culture got more complicated and people specialized into roles and by filling those roles, the group as a whole prospered and created their own good fortune. Rightism is centered in the conscious mind, lefties can’t see this of course, so they think it’s a lie, but it’s about creating, rather than seizing and divvying up.; 12/22/18, 5:01 AM
tim in vermont said...: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8042572/gatwick-airport-arrests-latest-cyclist-spotted/

I bet it’s an angry Trump supporter.; 12/22/18, 5:12 AM
Tina Trent said...: I don't trust cows.

But the story on Drudge about the cows forming the sign of the cross was sweet.

Unless it was an upside-down cross.; 12/22/18, 5:16 AM
tim maguire said...: But fellow tim, my point is that that is method, not goal. Very few people actually intend to do those things, they just happen when leftists get power. Most leftists are leftist because somebody told them that was the best way tio make people happy and content. Conservatives don’t really bother to make the case. And so they struggle to win converts even among those people who actually are conservative (which is basically everybody—everyone is conservative in their personal lives).

So how is it that so many people who are naturally inclined to conservatism actually support leftist policies and politicians? It’s because the leftists have done a better job of selling their path.; 12/22/18, 5:32 AM
tim maguire said...: Drago, do you have a source for that 8 month claim? I don’t see it anywhere—not even among republican politicians or other people supporting the withdrawal. Which is surprising for such a killer argument.; 12/22/18, 5:37 AM
rehajm said...: Remember when Obama would have given his left nut for 3.4% GDP growth? Now it's a 'freefall'.; 12/22/18, 5:43 AM
Tina Trent said...: On the other hand, by December, the 1918 flu pandemic was winding down. Boston alone lost 3,000 to the flu in October. Other major cities resembled outtakes from The Seventh Seal.

As we debate intervention, troops, and our role in the world, it would be nice to acknowledge that the World War II isolationism so reviled today had diverse and resonant origins. The ideological mission to conflate isolationism with prejudice is the laziest sin of contemporary historiography, yet its prejudices shimmer through our current debates with the sleazy allure of a crack-addicted supermodel.

Imagine being as close to the grim slaughter of trench warfare and the horrors of world pandemic as we are to the era of Whoops I Did it Again. What would be your response to the pleas from Europe to rescue itself from the obvious failures of its diplomacy again? We were, nonetheless, preparing that rescue. Many whine about the isolationists balking, but Lindberg was already spying for us by cozying up to Himmler (someday he will be vindicated), and we were already manufacturing the needed armaments.

Populism today is economic not battlefield warfare. There is no war but the class war, at the end of the day. It never ceases to amaze me that populism is such a hated word. The culture warriors we face today and so shallow and ignorant that the biggest danger seems to lie in the sheer degradation of their capacity to think. It almost doesn't matter what they actually do think anymore.; 12/22/18, 5:49 AM
tim in vermont said...: But fellow tim, my point is that that is method, not goal.

People say that socialism doesn’t work, but it sure worked for the Castro family, as one example. It’s a proven way to seize dominion over your fellow man and keep them in their place because free men are scary. In Cuba for decades there was only one free man, therefore Cuba wasn’t a scary place! See how easy it is to understand. Control is the goal of the left, not the “method.”

Remember that post by Althouse about the sexual fantasies of the left being about binding people up and the fantasies of people on the right were about freedom from constraints? Betterment of the condition of mankind in a “pretext” for the left. The goal is control, that’s why they are unmoved by all of the examples of utter failure out there. They point to Norway, sitting on a lake of oil, and Sweden, selling cars into capitalist United States, and racially homogenous, as their shining exemplars. What would Sweden do if the US didn’t buy their luxury cars? What will Norway do when the oil runs out? Doesn’t matter, their fellow men are under the yoke of the state!; 12/22/18, 5:50 AM
Humperdink said...: April 2018: "Trump Hates ‘Arbitrary Timelines,’ Yet Gave Military 6 Months to Exit Syria: Report"

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/trump-hates-timelines-yet-gave-syria-exit-6-months-report.html; 12/22/18, 6:11 AM
gilbar said...: hmmmm? April 2018 ? May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 yep EIGHT MONTHS AGO; 12/22/18, 6:27 AM
tim in vermont said...: That argument would have a lot more sting if anybody could explain what we were doing in Syria in the first place. I mean what goals did we have that weren’t clearly rejected as uses of US forces in the 2006 and 2008 elections.; 12/22/18, 6:29 AM
Humperdink said...: gilbar counted: "hmmmm? April 2018 ? May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 yep EIGHT MONTHS AGO "

"On Thursday, Trump defended his decision, saying on Twitter: “Getting out of Syria was no surprise. I’ve been campaigning on it for years, and six months ago, when I very publicly wanted to do it, I agreed to stay longer.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-pulling-out-of-syria-might-afghanistan-be-next/2018/12/20/304c36cc-0419-11e9-958c-0a601226ff6b_story.html?utm_term=.71f78fef38b6; 12/22/18, 6:41 AM
chillblaine said...: Yeti Comes In - The Post-Game Interview

have fun and try not to laugh.; 12/22/18, 7:30 AM
Bilwick said...: "I've observed over the years that researchers tend to explain any gender difference in a way that makes whatever is true of women good."

I've often speculated that the reason women are the Statist Sex is that they are generally less rational. I was told that was "sexist"--but then along came left-wing feminists such as Catherine McKinnon to tell me, yes, that's true, but that being rational is another male foible. As is, I'm sure, being too pro-liberty.; 12/23/18, 4:14 PM