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The whisky bar is short one bartender this week as John Yoo is overseas yet again to Italy for some nefarious purpose, so it's just Steve and Lucretia slinging the 180-proof analysis of the Twitter revelations and other news headlines of the end of the week. But the main topic is following up on the mid-week conversation with Glenn Ellmers on "Hard Truths & Radical Possibilities," which excited considerable discussion in the comment thread on Power Line.
It is tempting here to recur to Stan Evans's First Law of Insufficient Paranoia, which holds that no matter how bad things look, it is usually the case that when you look more closely, things are even worse than you thought. Steve's corollary is that things are going to get worse before they get worse, and in an amazing switcheroo, Lucretia is actually more optimistic than Steve in the analysis of the fundamentals of our crisis. It a fit of foolish impetuosity, Steve tried to invoke the controversial German thinker Carl Schmitt to illustrate that behind the problems of the administrative state are the defects of the liberal tradition itself, but Lucretia wasn't buying any of it.
To be continued next week, when we'll take up John's completely defective article in National Review about why Texas Governor Abbott is wrong to invoke state power to protect the southern border from federal neglect, which, we note for the moment, has drawn some heavy fire from some of our other friends.
We do end on a happy note, sharing a message from John from the Munich airport Friday morning, where he met by chance a European listener of our podcast—who knew?—and then Steve offers up some especially obscure exit music mostly to annoy Lucretia and mess with peoples' heads. Though "See the deadly nightshade grow" seems like a fitting lyric for our grim topic.
Hosted by Steve Hayward, with guest "Lucretia"
Discussion (2)
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I believe that our system not only doesn’t work anymore but, also, that the Biden administration working hand in glove with Twitter and Facebook during the 2020 election and beyond to lessen the impact of Republican voters to the benefit of their party is a sign of creeping fascism. Its ugly face is everywhere all at once in legacy media attacks on regular Americans. Never in my 69 years have I heard so many ad hominem attacks against regular Americans. Never has the normal conflict between political parties been so personalized, so gleefully angry, and so dismissive of democratic principles that used to be considered of vital, crucial importance to a fair political process. Peremptory principles reign supreme and their adherents call it democracy.
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Well, on males and females being fundamentally different and on human nature being a thing, I'm pretty sure Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism at least are on the same page.
Lewis is right in The Abolition of Man. The rejection of all objectively moral categories is a uniquely new approach originating in western thought specifically.
And what's this I hear--Lucretia dares to doubt macro-evolutionary theory?!?!??!!!? What next--doubting the 100% honesty of a 10% secure election? Or--shudder--thinking chloroquine is a good drug? Surely not thinking trees like carbon dioxide? I can hardly stand all the malice and science denial I'm picking up here.