Define ‘worked’? And tell me why you fancy it didn’t ‘work’ in Eastern Europe.

This is important to understand. We can vote for one group of masters, or we can vote for the other. But we can also vote for *no masters at all*. The idea that the purpose of government and of democracy is to protect the individual’s right to be an individual, and not a puppet.

I dislike political parties, but I’m more favorable to a group of politicians who don’t see me, or anyone else, as a means to an end, but rather as the end to the means.

Democracy before established market capitalism hasn’t worked anywhere, and didn’t work in Iraq. Democrats demand democracy first — but most poor folk, if given the vote, vote in favor of promises of more “free” gov’t money.
Irresponsible / unsustainable voting.

Dems are pushing for one-party rule, like in CA; like in most colleges.

The biggest Rep failure in the culture Wars is giving up the fight to get Rep Professors hired, and to accord higher status, and money & influence, to Rep intellectuals. Like the almost unknown Thomas Sowell.

I favored the Iraq War – why no mention in these comments of the 17 different UN Security Council Resolutions that Saddam violated? I have 4 kids. A key guideline for raising kids: choose the boundaries on their behavior that you are willing to punish. Those are the real rules – when the kids break those rules, they get punished. “Rules” without punishment for violations are not real rules, merely guidelines, suggestions; they are somebody else’s opinions.

Not easy as a parent; not easy for the world. Not fair in the world – no real way to “punish” the USA, nor Russia, China, or other nuclear powers. Except maybe with trade.

After Saddam was overthrown, Bush should have followed Gen. Gardner’s plan, and got out, and let them work it out / fight it out without the US. Of course, Dems would claim for every problem: Bush/USA broke it, USA owns it…

No. Those who do the bad things are the bad people. Who has how much responsibility for stopping the bad actors? In the US, it’s the US gov’t. Outside of the US, it’s the responsibility of the gov’t. But what if it’s the gov’t full of bad people, like Saddam, doing bad things, like murdering 30,000 Kurds in one city?

Still no general answer to this, because neither is the US a World Policeman; nor does the US agree that the (child rapist supporting) UN should be the World’s Policeman.

Lots of Dems think they want a UN – world gov’t. As the gay & women hating Muslims have gained huge influence at the UN, there is a lot LESS talk about the UN being the world gov’t. But Dems still want one, united, PC world — with forcible re-education for any who disagree.

We just had a special election in NC…because Republicans engaged in voter fraud. AFAIK, this event is not analyzed on these pages, even thought it would naturally inform us about the accuracy of this theme.

But Brexit is. Here, the right wing party called for a referendum and is not honoring the results of said referendum. Because they lost. Not unlike NC. But what does this demonstrate in Neo-neo land?

It demonstrates that the left is opposed to democracy!

AesopFan on September 14, 2019 at 2:59 pm said:

DNW on September 14, 2019 at 2:29 pm said:
How did sheltering behind the letter of the law work out for Thomas More, when he confronted men driven by appetite and power?

* * *
This is part of what is driving the Ahmari-French debates, although Almari is not any kind of acknowledged spokesman for the Right, although French purports to be and is published as such.

I’ll have to read that.

It causes us to ask ourselves what “principles” are in the first place, and what they are in aid of. And I mean this when they are taken seriously and not just mooted as elements of highfalutin rhetoric.

So, what are first rules or axioms of interpretation and operation, and how, and why are they arrived at to begin with?

One important question to be answered then, regards the extension of the category or membership class to which the principle applies.

Universalism has been the parsing rule among liberals for more than a hundred years now … but ironically the justification for an ever-expanding class of coverage was based on a notion of a increasingly revealed nature common to all men; which is precisely what is now rejected by progressives both explicitly and implicitly, in this age of existential and radical diversity.

“DNW:

But that’s exactly the point: where to position yourself between the two extremes, so you don’t end up like More and you don’t end up becoming what you hate?”

I’m tempted but hesitant to say – because it’s just occurred to me – that there may be something partially akin in operation to the “Liar’s Paradox” so-called conundrum in some of these instances … wherein a pseudo-predicate or referentless sentence is taken as having a troubling existential import … when the fact is, that we’ve overlooked the problem that there is not a valid predication under consideration but rather an empty one which gives the appearance of reflexivity.

But I’ll have to consider this further as it relates to the class membership problem in the application of the law. Could be just a will-o-the-wisp that crossed my mental screen … LOL

But that’s exactly the point: where to position yourself between the two extremes, so you don’t end up like More and you don’t end up becoming what you hate?

* * *
This is part of what is driving the Ahmari-French debates, although Almari is not any kind of acknowledged spokesman for the Right, although French purports to be and is published as such.