News of the Week (April 5th, 2024)

Posted on May 5, 2024 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for May 5th, 2024


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Firing Line Friday: Government and the Arts

Posted on May 3, 2024 by The Political Hat

     In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.

     Should the Federal government subsidize art and the humanities? From subsidizing it as an emplopyment scheme in the 1930s to funding it for the sake of supporting transgressive movements the 1970s, this question hasn’t been without controversy. Let us look back fifty years ago when William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Berman discussed the question of government and the arts.

     Until next Friday.

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Victims of Communism Day, 2024

Posted on May 1, 2024 by The Political Hat

     Today is Victims of Communism Day. It is also “May Day,” where “useful idiots” march and demonstrate in free countries, while those who have to actually live under Communism are made to march lest they face dire consequences.

     Though the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe fell within a few years of each other, each former Warsaw Pact member escaped from Communism in its own way.  Let us look on how Romania defeated Communism.

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Liberty vs. Virtue: The False Dilemma Fallacy

Posted on April 30, 2024 by The Political Hat

     The Post-Conservative Right shares much of it’s worldview with the older Hard Left. Not in the eschaton they want to immanentize, but that we must more forcefully so immanentize. To this end, we see the false dilemma fallacy of freedom vs. order/morality.   They see it as an either/or situation where too much freedom must come at the expense of the moral order. To that end they create some anarcho-capitalist or libertarian strawman and declare that it has failed to create a proper moral order consistent with traditional and veritable values, and thus must give way to more direct imposition by some ruling over others. It is “their base rhetorical trick” :

     Or to put it another way:

“It is one thing to point out a practical difficulty which limits the application of a principle and quite another to refute the principle itself” – James FitzJames Stephen

     Principles that were not first principles but grown organically is society with the generality derived therefrom.   Rules being of a general nature and universally applicable. Equal application of those rules according to the facts and individual circumstances.

     The limitation of government power and protection of freedom of legislative imposition, of executive arbitrariness and capriciousness, and of judicial restrain to not only the Constitution but more broadly to the common and statutory law.

     Inalienable rights that are independent of and antecedent to government itself. As the Bill of Rights preamble stated, those Articles of Amendment were “declaratory and restrictive”: Declaring what already existed before acknowledgement by the government and restrictions upon said government.

     The lack of economic freedom and the scourge of government without customary limits is why the Founding Fathers, who were familiar with what was being taken from them, declared independence!

     Freedom and virtue are at opposite ends and to limit government is to limit the ability of the government to rebalance that. Freedom is curtailable, then, in order to rebalance towards virtue, and because limiting government prevents that.

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Posted in Progressives, War & Terror | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Rise Of Trans-Speciesism

Posted on April 29, 2024 by The Political Hat

     There was a time when people who believed that they were an animal like a deer, both in real life as well as that hellhole known an Tumblr, were considered crazy. Comparisons between such people and those who claim to be transgender by people who pointed out that if biological reality wasn’t real when it came to chromosomes… than it also wasn’t real with it also came to chromosomes, was roundly mocked by transgender activists as a false equivalence rather than a slippery slope. It turns out that that slope actually was on the slippery side after all.

     Students who identify as animals not only exist, but the schools have the documentation to show that.

“A records request discovered 196 documents at Ann Arbor Public Schools about ‘therians’ – students identifying as ‘a species of non-human animal on every level except physical.’

“The students show their animal identity by wearing masks, a tail and running around on four limbs called “quadrobics.”

“On Nov. 15, 2022, a Howell Public Schools teacher wrote that a student identified as a therian. ‘Know what that means?’ the email asked another teacher, who replied ‘No.’ The district serves about 6,800 students.

“One student emailed therian items the person wanted to buy on Amazon with an ‘allowance’ including animal masks, fox ears, cat ears and a tail.

“…

“Documents obtained explain the following terms:

  •    Kitluvollic: a gender relating to kittens, pink, love and dolls.
  •      Animagauditraitic: a gender related to being excited and happy, but in an animalistic way (like a dog spinning and jumping around when they see their owner.’

    •    Wizcatgender: a gender related to being a wizard and a cat.

  •    Traitblur: a label for being unable to differentiate your identity from your interests.
  •     Starwashic: this gender feels like stars washing up on a beach
  •    Prettygender: a new xenogender based off of feeling pretty or beautiful, comfort with one’s gender…’”

     At least schools aren’t teaching bestiality… oh, wait.

“Riverland-based SA school students were exposed to teachings on bestiality through a government-funded sex education program by HeadSpace.

“Bypassing normal protocols for parental permission, the program delivered to year 9 girls on ‘LGBTQIA+ and respectful relationships’ included graphic discussions on bestiality and incest, making some students so uncomfortable that they left for the bathroom and did not return.”

     And yes, the topic of bestiality was “raised in comparison to historicial vilification of homosexuality”.

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News of the Weak (April 24th, 2024)

Posted on April 28, 2024 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for April 28th, 2024


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Firing Line Friday: Amnesty ‘74

Posted on April 26, 2024 by The Political Hat

     In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.

     Illegal immigration is a huge issue today as is amnesty, like the one passed back in the ‘80s under Reagan, but half-a-century ago amnesty for a different group was discussed: Amnesty for draft dodgers. Let us look back as William F. Buckley, Jr. discusses the then contentious question with Ramsey Clark.

     Until next Friday.

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Quick Takes – All The Climate Things: Your Car’s Energy; Your Farm And Home; Your Cold Temperature

Posted on April 25, 2024 by The Political Hat

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: All your things are belong to Gaia (in care of the government, of course).

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     If you have an electric vehicle, you can charge up at home or at a power charging station… or maybe the government will power itself from your car, as California proposed last year.

“The California legislature has introduced a bill that would mandate bidirectional charging capability for all new EVs sold in the state beginning in 2027.

“First spotted by Charged EVs, SB 233 has passed the California Senate Energy Committee and now heads to the Senate Transportation Committee April 25 for further consideration. If enacted, the bill would ensure all new EVs sold in California after 2027 would have the ability to discharge power from their battery packs to assist the power grid, or provide a backup power source for homes.

“‘SB 233 will make EVs more attractive to consumers by enabling them to use their car batteries to power their homes,’ State Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.”

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Utah vs. Gaia (And Robots And Aliens)

Posted on April 23, 2024 by The Political Hat

     Governments either creating or banning “rights” for “nature” is as hot of a topic as ever, and now Utah has not only banned “rights” for Gaia, but far beyond that with HB 0249. It reads, in part:

63G-31-102. Legal personhood restricted.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a governmental entity may not grant legal personhood to, nor recognize legal personhood in:

(1) artificial intelligence;

(2) an inanimate object;

(3) a body of water;

(4) land;

(5) real property;

(6) atmospheric gases;

(7) an astronomical object;

(8) weather;

(9) a plant;

(10) a nonhuman animal; or

(11) any other member of a taxonomic domain that is not a human being.

     Corporations were obviously not included in the exclusion since they are run by human on behalf of other humans, ultimately:

“And for those who will say, ‘Corporations have rights, why not rivers?’ — an argument I hear every time I write about this subject — corporations, partnerships, and etc. are human juridical entities and associations, and granting those organizations rights is deemed necessary for ease of conducting business. Whether that should be the law is a discussion worth having, but has no association with granting rights to pond scum and granite outcroppings.”

     But notice that this bill nonetheless goes beyond just nature.

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News of the Week (April 21st, 2024)

Posted on April 21, 2024 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for April 21st, 2024


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