Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
John Yoo is off again this week (I know—many of you think he's "off" every week!), so joining us as a special guest is Titus Techera, who wears many hats, including executive director of the American Cinema Foundation; Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale College; International Program Coordinator, Edmund Burke Foundation; and researcher in political philosophy, Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest. The Romanian-born Techera is one of those non-citizens whose love of liberty led him to become a deep lover of America.
We cover a lot of ground with Titus, and since he is currently in Budapest, we get a report on what the new authoritarian government of Peter Magyar is doing to suppress all remnants of the supposedly authoritarian government of Victor Orban that voters turned out of office a few months back. This is not just a Hungarian problem; we also look at France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, where the EU establishment blob is trying to suppress the democratic will all in the name of "saving democracy."
From there we take up the question of rising anti-Semitism, about which Titus has some novel suggestions. And finally, as a preview of his next visit with us, we do a lightning round discussion of our favorite John Ford and Whit Stillman movies.
'Lucretia'
Steve Hayward
Discussion (11)
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
"You can just find another plaintiff". Hold up, and think about that statement some more. What do you mean find another plaintiff? If someone is not injured enough to have standing then why are you trying to resolve this through the courts?
Courts exist to remedy individual injuries. Legislatures exist to legislate. Using the former for the latter end is a time-hallowed custom in American politics, I know, but it's a mistake. One that shouldn't be encouraged any further.
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Titus used to post on Ricochet all the time. Got to meet him in person once; at the Las Vegas meetup. We were sitting in a hotel bar on Las Vegas Boulevard within easy walking distance of more than one 24 hour wedding chapel complete with Elvis officiant. I was sipping down Gins and Tonic, and he was explaining to me how the two whales hanging from either side of the ship in Moby Dick represented the American Transendentalist movement. Can't remember much more of the argument than that, but it was a real fun evening.
Almost as much fun as MORE CLEAN AIR ACT CONTENT!!
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
It was excellent. I miss seeing Titus on ricochet.
I agree with Lucretia about the 19th but I adopted that opinion after women went for Gore in 2000 after he planted a kiss on Tipper on stage.
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
I worry that it's a tragic choice in the Greek sense; that freedom requires us to give the vote to people who will use it to destroy us. I can't imagine Lucretia accepting that formulation though.
PODCAST HOST
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
I do agree that, in many cases, our constitutionally protected freedoms protect those who want to destroy the republic that exists to protect those freedoms. However, I do not believe voting is a “freedom” in that sense. The relentless push for universal suffrage is itself the tragedy. Our founding fathers understood that voting was a right to be exercised only by those sufficiently capable of exercising it responsibly. For instance, property qualifications were not designed to favor the rich; rather, it was believed that those with property had a greater stake in the community and would therefore exercise their vote with a view to the common good. The situation we are in today where almost half of the population pays no taxes but has equal access to political power is the very situation our constitutional system was designed to avoid.
I am appalled by “get out the vote” initiatives, which almost always favor uninformed, uneducated (in the necessary virtues and obligations of citizenship), apathetic targets who can be easily manipulated. I am equally against any measures to make voting easier, such as a federal voting holiday, universal mail in voting, or extended voting periods. Voting is not an end in itself; its purpose is to provide the mechanism for channelling the wisdom of the sovereign people to create and hold accountable elected officials who will secure their rights and promote their safety and happiness.
You're seeing five of eleven comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.