All Thoughts Being Equal

Exercising freedom of conscience: A virtuous act for any American or Christian Dear sir, The First Amendment to the Constitution seems clear to me: civil protest and peaceful assembly are basic American liberties. They are also Christian liberties, which also seems obvious to me given the history of the Christian religion; but as I am not a Christian, perhaps I am wrong about that. Though I may not be a Christian, I still respect the many Christians over America's history who have stood their ground against the government---facing public ridicule, arrest, even physical injury or death---because of their beliefs. Specific examples that come to my mind are abolitionists, suffrage and civil rights proponents, and conscientious objectors. Moreover, I firmly believe that Americans or Christians have the right to assemble and protest against abortion or extending marriage beyond certain traditional interpretations, even if I just as firmly believe that the govern...

Now that we've seen why Western Washington University decided (and was justified, in my view) to cancel classes for Tuesday, 24 November 2015, in response to racist and threatening comments on the anonymous social media shithole application Yik Yak, let's look at the reaction from the students and the community. Was their response justified? I don't think so. This post is a partial follow-up to: On the rigged-world fallacy and pullback error , Rhetorical imperialism I. Let's get this out of the way first: of the two "camps," so to speak, of students who disagreed with President Bruce Shepard's decision to suspend classes, the ones who thought classes shouldn't have been suspended have a very weak position. Now, there wasn't a lot of publicity of the various posts made, so I can understand why—at the time—some people might have thought the class cancellation was the wrong call. I hope that since those posts have come to light, those peop...

I. At the end of the last Drunken Philosophy meeting I gave in to a bit of political-philosophy masochism and listened to a former-libertarian-now-anarchist explain how to argue your way out of paying a traffic fine. Just ask the following series of questions—not arguments, because if you try to argue the judge can just order you to pay: Is the court obliged to prove its case against me, beyond a reasonable doubt ?    - Yes. Must the court justify every point of its argument to prove the case?    - Yes. Can the court use anything but facts and evidence to justify those points?    - Yes. Is the court's reasoning based on the idea of jurisdiction ; that I must pay the fine because I allegedly violated a law in the jurisdiction of the court?    - (with growing trepidation) Yes... Then what facts or evidence can the court provide that this "jurisdiction" actually exists ?    - Bailiff! At which point the anarchist, having smugly ...

or, Notes towards a new characterization of bumper-sticker politics in the American mainstream I. I've had a reasonably long-running joke that when Subarus accumulate enough bumper stickers, they metamorphose into Volvos. Certainly bumper stickers say something about the person whose vehicle they're on. This blog post (which I mostly chose because it features a liberal-bestickered Subaru and a conservative - bestickered pickup truck) opines:   You can tell a lot about a person by their bumper stickers.  I get a kick out of reading what people have branded on the back of their cars.  Some of the stickers are political some are religious and some tell us about the kids or dogs.  If you see a car with multiple bumper stickers one thing about these people who you can count on is, they are passionate and dedicated to what they believe in. I don't think this is entirely true. Bumper-sticker politics is a derogatory term for a rea...

In my previous post I wondered about the common feminist narrative of an overwhelming fear: that women face so many threats and imminent dangers that it's mentally exhausting just to get through the day. Rather than diagnose that directly (because politics is war and arguments are soldiers ) I want to examine another case of overwhelming fear: that of white male reactionaries. Why? Well, because I'm going to give a presentation on neoreaction later this month, but also because this is prima facie a "safer" discussion topic. The last section of Nick Land's summary of neoreaction (also known as NRx or the "Dark Enlightenment") includes a "multi-part subdigression into racial terror," and attempts to explain the deeper motivations behind stuff like John Derbyshire (formerly of National Review ) giving his son "the Talk" about basically avoiding black people unless a few prove themselves sufficiently safe to befriend. For the recor...