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You know how people who think they can top something crazy like to say, “Hold my beer”? Well, this week Budweiser decided to try to top Alvin Bragg’s bogus indictment of Donald Trump by rebranding their “light” beer such that no one want to hold it even for Alvin Bragg. What explains this dumbest marketing move since the New Coke? And does the Biden Administration have a political death wish by deciding to use Title IX as a trans-cudgel? (“Trans-cudgel” is one of the 159 genders isn’t it?) Yes, this week was that crazy, and we haven’t even got to the elections in Chicago and Wisconsin yet.
John Yoo hosts this week’s episode, which is good since Steve is under the weather with yet another bug of some kind, necessitating at least three whiskies, while Lucretia adds to her “Moron of the Week” designation with yet another new feature (which will rotate amongst the three of us every week) on . . . political philosophy! Don’t groan—it’s going to be fun. Especially since Steve demonstrates in this episode how it is possible to sneak up on John unawares with a reference to . . . the verboten Clean Air Act!
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Always love this podcast! Sometimes I savor it for a few days in my feed before listening – it’s that good.
Couple comments, first on the “Trump will lose the General” When people on the right say this I think often it’s just because they support another candidate in the primary – that’s totally fair, pull for your candidate. But if you want to be honest you have to point out that Trump only “lost” by 40k across 3 states- in an election year of covid lies, fortifying elections, and the most questionable election in modern history.
To think this cannot be overcome by 1) playing the new voting game better, 2) showing the facts that blame Pelosi and the “intelligence” agencies for allowing 1/6 to happen (no beefed up security – which would have avoided the whole thing), 3) that the Biden Family Business is a real thing and many others in GovCo. are complicit with these back scratching State Department grifts, and 4) maybe promoting the actual policy platforms that are being put out by the campaign (a dozen now?), and 5) having the GOP talking-heads out there soberly point these things out; well that easily take away the biggest current criticisms of Trump. I get it, many want RDS, but when he doesn’t win the primary, the talking-heads need to stop with the wah wah we gonna lose BS and push the reality of a resounding win.
With all those issues neutered by the above steps if you then consider the fact that the Ds/corps/media shot their wad in 2020 – they’ll never be able to “fortify” like that again – and it’s not only possible but highly likely that Trump can make up the 40k deficit from the last election, and likely do far far better by “playing by the new rules” of voting.
On those new rules – the large sums of money that D candidates get from outside-of-the-State groups are fed right into their pre-existing GOTV plans. The GOP does not even have those plans, much less the machine to fund to use it. This election, like many others, was lost by the GOP apparatus itself. Ronna McDaniel strikes again. If you think I am wrong, where was the immediate lawsuit over the illegal gift cards for votes? No case even filed. Flat-footed because there IS NO GOP GOTV MACHINE.
It might not be there because someone … *wants* to lose?
Keep up the AmAzInG Podcasts!
Thanks. BTW and for the record, I think Trump can win in 2024 depending on general conditions (meaning Biden’s record and obvious decrepitude), but it’s a gamble. But if he does win, Trump would be limited to just a single term. What we really need now is a two-term president with clarity of goals and skill to see it through. We’ll be discussing this along the way of course.
What was that song at the end? Siri had a lot of candidates but they were all wrong.
Regarding John’s question why it took seventeen hundred years to progress from the idea of the inherent equality of all human beings (given to humankind by Christianity) to the idea of individual equality under the law (given to humankind by the founders of the United States), I offer the view of Rose Wilder Lane. (A successful writer in her own right, Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and is credited with encouraging her mother to write the Little House on the Prairie.)
In her book The Discovery of Freedom (1943, before Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom), Lane focuses on Man’s [historical] Struggle against Authority (the book’s subtitle) and proffers the view that, in the Old World, individual Christians were viewed as being equal before god, but their philosophical and creative energies were stymied by having to live under the authority of the state. In the New World, however, as exemplified by the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the political separation of church and state, and the emergence of individual rights as granted by the U.S. Constitution, humankind discovered freedom from authority (historically a mixed blessing, it should be noted). For Lane, what makes the New World unique is that it enabled the sovereign individual to come to life.
I did it again—forgot to include exit music info in the show notes. It’s Bragh Adair (again, like last week), “Cloud of Witnesses.”
If you’re interested in the question “Why did it take so long?” then the book for you is Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Justice. He traces the idea of human rights from Old Testament prophets up through medieval thought and all the way to modernity.
Incidentally, Locke gets human equality right. We’re only equally valuable in the state of nature because God values us.
As Edward Feser observed in response to one of those “traditional” gay men objecting to the transgender movement…where does @lucretia think all of this nonsense started? And no, we don’t all have gay friends and even if we did we wouldn’t think their “lifestyle choices” are in any sense good.
https://twitter.com/FeserEdward/status/1640487886532526080?s=20
Yes.
And I am pleased to see that we medieval philosophers are doing good work around betrayal.
Just saw this, and just wanted to say that a three-term run with Trump as the return to good governance and then hand it off to the next “generation” for two more is just as valid a concept. Plus it keeps the new coalition and the realignment of the GOP front and center where it needs to be growing.