Author: Redactor

Today

Beaumarchais

On January 24, 1732, French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, horticulturalist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary (both French and American) Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was born. He proved instrumental in securing armaments for the America Revolution, but remains best known for his three “Figaro” plays, Le Barbier de Séville, Le Mariage de Figaro and La Mère coupable. The plays remain memorable today chiefly for their operatic settings by Mozart and Rossini.

Beaumarchais died May 18, 1799.

Today

Stendhal

On January 23, 1783, journalist and novelist Marie-Henri Beyle, known by his pen name Stendhal (pictured above), was born. Stendhal was a follower of Destutt de Tracy and an attendant at the count’s salons. His most famous works include the novel The Red and the Black and a treatise on romantic love.

Stendhal died March 22, 1842.

On January 23, 1860, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty was signed between France and Great Britain. The treaty was named after the two main proponents of the agreement, Richard Cobden (in England) and economist Michel Chevalier (in France). The treaty had been suggested the year earlier, in British Parliament, by Cobden’s colleague John Bright, who saw the measure as a peace measure, and an alternate to a military build-up.

Thought

Irving Kristol

The inner spiritual chaos of the times, so powerfully created by the dynamics of capitalism itself, is such as to make nihilism an easy temptation. A ‘free society’ in Hayek’s sense gives birth in massive numbers to ‘free spirits’ — emptied of moral substance but still driven by primordial moral aspirations. Such people are capable of the most irrational actions. Indeed, it is my impression that, under the strain of modern life, whole classes of our population — and the educated classes most of all — are entering what can only be called, in the strictly clinical sense, a phase of infantile regression. With every passing year, public discourse becomes sillier and more petulant, emotions become, apparently, more ungovernable. Some of our most intelligent university professors are now loudly saying things that, had they been uttered by one of their students twenty years ago, would have called forth gentle and urbane reproof.

Irving Kristol, “‘When virtue loses all her loveliness’ — some reflections on Capitalism and ‘the free society,’” National Affairs, No. 21, Fall 1970.

Today

Kristol

On January 22, 1920, American neoconservative pundit and author Irving Kristol was born.

Thought

F. A. Hayek

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

links

Townhall: Afghanistan First

Post author By Redactor
Post date January 21, 2018
1 Comment on Townhall: Afghanistan First

Over at Townhall.com, war is waged against death and madness. Click over, come back. Let Common Sense be your guide….

Washington Post: A new U.S. air blitz in Afghanistan isn’t stopping for winter. But will it stop the Taliban?
Al Jazeera: US and NATO Troops in Afghanistan
Counter Punch: Time to get Out of Afghanistan
Cato: Escaping the “Graveyard of Empires”: A Strategy to Exit Afghanistan
Newsweek: We Have Lost the War in Afghanistan. We Should Get Out Now.
Business Insider: The case for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan
AZ Central: McCain is wrong. We need to get out of Afghanistan
Washington Post: The U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.
The Intercept: All the Times Donald Trump Said the U.S. Should Get Out of Afghanistan

Thought

Frank Chodorov

Everybody who objects to injustice does so on the ground that these practices violate some principle of justice which is above human will. This is so even when authority for justice, or equality among men, is found in the ‘dignity of the individual’; for that phrase is just as metaphysical as the ‘nature of things.’

Today

Witness

On January 21, 1950, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, with Whittaker Chambers being the main witness in Hiss’s prosecution. Chambers confessed to having been a Soviet spy, and accused Hiss as an accomplice, which Hiss denied to his dying day. Chambers gave a fascinating account of all this in his bestselling memoir, Witness.

video

This. There Is This. The Interview to End All Interviews.

Post author By Redactor
Post date January 20, 2018
No Comments on This. There Is This. The Interview to End All Interviews.

Dr. Jordan Peterson was “interviewed” on BBC’s Channel 4 News. More like an absurdist’s inquisition, it has become notorious. If you have missed it, watch it now:

Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin gives a play-by-play game summary:

http://youtu.be/PXJeghw-cRk

Ben Shapiro weighs in, too:

http://youtu.be/8EKyIW-jspM

Scott Adams discusses cognitive dissonance and “hallucinations”:

The interview is “all over the Internet,” and you can find lots of video breakdowns and articles. Indeed, an article on Quilette does a great job putting the whole issue into context.

This train wreck of an interview — with only the interviewee coming out unharmed — calls to mind some past collisions where ideologies meet ingloriously. Here is Cenk Uygur’s interview of anti-feminist researcher Karen Straughan:

And here is the granddaddy of them all, the infamous Bill Buckley/Gore Vidal snipefest from 1968:

http://youtu.be/ZY_nq4tfi24

Thought

Ayn Rand

An individualist is a man who says: ‘I’ll not run anyone’s life — nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone — nor sacrifice anyone to myself.’
Ayn Rand, Textbook of Americanism (1946).