Home » Circumventing democracy in order to save it: the case of Sam Harris

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Circumventing democracy in order to save it: the case of Sam Harris — 38 Comments

  1. Yes, “anything would have been justified” in stopping Trump and, as discussed here recently, this holds true for the future as well. What is abundantly clear from this pathetic performance by Harris (truly a “credentialed moron”) is that such members of our so-called (and very much bien-pensant) “intelligentsia” feel no need whatsoever to conceal their tortured and irrational thinking and that they are utterly lacking in self-awareness. A republic presided over by such a corrupt and mis-educated elite can hardly long endure.

  2. Democrats are not even Democratic in their own Presidential Primary. If they were then Bernie Sanders would have likely been the nominee in 2016 for sure and probably 2020.

  3. I read his book about atheism and was appalled at what a terrible thinker he is.

    He makes this long, long case against religion, and to the extent that he makes an argument, he makes it on the basis of tyranny. At the very end he finally addresses the obvious question: if tyranny is the problem, what about all the non-religious tyranny, like Communism? His answer? Well, those things are religions too! Absurd.

    He seems to take himself very seriously but he’s not my idea of a serious person.

  4. I have the podcast downloaded but haven’t listened to it yet. I have no idea who Sam Harris is since this one isn’t a singer. The discussion sounds interesting because you have an obvious hypocritical person, and the interviewers are not even American Trump voters.

  5. Sarah Rolph:

    Well, now Harris has got the tyranny of religion, too – anti-Trump religion.

  6. I just about flipped out when he said that the left-wing (self-admitted) conspiracy that suppressed Hunter Biden’s laptop to hurt Trumps election wasn’t really a left-wing conspiracy because Liz Cheney isn’t a leftist!

    Harris is one of those people who appear smooth and urbane, but with a head full of garbage where the rest of us have brains with which we think. He seems very adept at commanding respect, when he deserves nothing more than mockery.

  7. Harris has thrown his moral compass overboard in his pursuit of Ahab.

    Intellect has little to do with moral rectitude.

    Truth has no need of deceit, which is an anethema to truth.

    Harris supports deceit because in his heart of hearts he knows his views lack persuasiveness and then lies to himself that it’s the blind malice of those who disagree that results in his side’s failure to persuade.

    Harris has declared himself to support a tyranny of which he approves. That mindset does not limit itself to Trump alone, anyone who supports Trump’s policies is judged to be ‘dangerous’ and will support their cancellation by whatever means are necessary.

    Millions of Americans share it.

  8. Angelo Codevilla frames the current conflict as an Urban party vs Country party conflict. The Democrats have basically gone all-in on the Urban party; the Republicans are split between the Urban party (Liz Cheney & the rest of the Never-Trumpers) and the Country party.

  9. I wish more Trump haters were as honest as Harris about their motivations. At least then we could have the argument about whether it is worth suspending all of our principles in order to prevent Trump from ever holding power again. Instead, we get the phony arguments of those who insist everything is being done by the book — there was no fraud in the 2020 election, the FBI is just applying the law objectively, there is no left-wing bias in the media, etc., etc.

    The reason we don’t have that argument is because the people who cling to the delusional belief that everything is fine know that they would lose the argument if they actually admitted their true motives.

  10. Harris is glib and hides behind his words, but this time he caught himself out. Then his talent for glibness seemed to desert him momentarily, as he proceeded to dig himself deeper.

    But it’s a revealing look at the educated, seemingly urbane, city-based Trump hater. What Harris has admitted is that it’s good to be the King; it’s good to have the power, it allows one to excuse bad thinking, worse behavior, and even to discard inconvenient principles. Many have complained about the hypocrisy of the Progressive Left, but those notions ought to be discarded – they’re really just displays of power, a celebration if you will. It’s good to be the King.

    It should be becoming clear to everyone that a collection of people that are in power, that abide these principles (consciously or unconsciously), will not relinquish power to those they have decided to subjugate, whatever the vote, whatever the turnout – unless it’s by force. That is what the Progressive Democrats have decided to do to the rest of the country, and they are in the process of dividing the government and legal system in accordance with those principles. Felons committing new violent crimes in Blue cities walk free. January 6 protestors stay incarcerated with no bail and over a year before their trial. It’s the new Fairness doctrine.

  11. Destroy democracy to save it. No thanks, Sam. As with many other leftists, “democracy” only means “the people we agree with win.”

  12. I gave up on the interview about ten minutes earlier when Harris was talking about Trump’s Twitter ban. He said something to the effect that he wasn’t sure of how (or even if) Trump had violated Twitter’s terms of service, but they were justified in banning him anyway. Which is Harris throwing away the rule of law right there, IMO. Not as catchy as “Trump University was a bigger deal than anything on Hunter’s laptop could be, up to and including dead kids” but it was sufficient to get the point across.

  13. The guys of Triggernometry, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, did a followup on that interview after it went viral. They disclose how hard it was not to show their feelings as he said these things. I’ve watched quite a few of their videos lately. They just did a tour of the US and have other interviews of Americans. Sunday they had Coleman Hughes, I was very impressed with that young man.
    Konstantin Kisin also has a very good book out, An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West. which I am reading on my Kindle app.

  14. Lawyers, it is said, make conclusory statements. Then they support the statements with factual evidence.
    Harris, and pretty much every anti-Trumper I know makes conclusory statements and when challenged for evidence supports them with more conclusory statements.
    I’d maybe give them a break in that some of them actually believe the literal truth of the supporting conclusory statement makes it evidence.
    But actual facts….as I like to say, picture a vampire confronted by a Crucifix.

  15. The two (Brits?) interviewing him seem to have a much better understanding what living in a country formed by laws and not autocracy is and should be. I really, really hate “the ends justifies the means” thinking. This line of thought ends with “I want, I take “. And once again we are told that Trump is an existential danger without pointing to one real thing that he did while in office.

  16. It’s American provincialism. Hatred of Trump matters more to him than what the relations between Biden and China and other foreign powers might be. That American provincialism is surprisingly strong among globetrotting Americans, because wherever they go, they don’t escape the reassuring bubble that encases their individual and group self-satisfaction. They don’t see or hear their views contradicted by anyone in the circles they run in, so they feel free dismissing opposing opinions. But the problem is that “normal” Washington politics and the way things ordinarily work is worse than anything Trump has done or was likely to do.

  17. Here’s my comment on Sam Harris from last Friday in the Rasmussen/FBI topic. Holds up well enough.

    ***

    File this under weaponization (Gestapoization?) of the intellectual class.

    Sam Harriss, scientist, writer and militant atheist, just outed himself as an authoritarian openly supporting subversion of the press and democracy should the Wrong Person, i.e. Donald Trump, threaten to be elected:
    ___________________________

    36:09
    Hunter Biden literally could have had had the corpses of children in his basement. I would not have cared.
    […]
    Taking down the New York Post’s [Hunter Biden laptop article]?

    That’s a Left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. Absolutely it was.

    But I think it was warranted.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDqtFS_Pvcs&t=2165s
    ___________________________

    You can bet that went viral. That’s saying the Quiet Part Out Loud, as Twitchy put it.

    Then Harriss comically attempted to walk it back in a Twitter thread as a misunderstanding.

    https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2022/08/18/sam-harris-clarifies-that-clip-where-he-says-he-wouldnt-have-cared-if-hunter-biden-had-childrens-bodies-in-his-basement/

    No one was having it.

    Harriss isn’t a stupid or evil person. I’ve read some of his stuff. Jordan Peterson even gives Harriss the nod as someone on the left with whom Peterson can have a decent debate.

    Harriss is just conveniently blind to his biases and contradictions.

    I’m pleased Harriss has the consistency and stones to take on Islam — he’s not one of those atheists who will bag on Christianity and Judaism, then say not a word about Islam.

    But Harriss has long struck me as a arrogant smug smart guy, who can question everything except himself.

  18. So I will stipulate that Sam Harriss is actually an intelligent human. How does he get so tangled up and stupid in this interview?

    I’m reminded of the recent Joe Rogan / Elon Musk interview. Musk was riffing on how the internet augments human intelligence, so we are now already partial Artificial Intelligences.

    Then Musk darkly observed that this AI mirrors our own neocortex where we do all our fabulous human reasoning, yet our neocortex is in service to the limbic system which is deeply emotional and on the basis of emotions and memories striving to survive.

    Which is another way to say that this is the Planet of the Apes — even for smart humans.

    As Beria, Stalin’s head of the secret police, said, “Show me the man, I’ll show you the crime,” the neocortex says to the limbic system, “Tell me the conclusion, I’ll tell you how to reach it.”

  19. So Sam Harriss’s neocortex told his limbic system, “You need reasoning to support an all-out authoritarian attack on Donald Trump?”

    Limbic system said, “Yes.”

    Then the SH neocortex affirmed, “Reporting for duty!”

    Finally, “Mission accomplished.”

  20. No doubt Harris approves:

    “The Ministry of Environment & Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is building a new facility in Winnipeg that will be home to a firearms armoury, interrogation rooms, biological labs, media relations offices, “controlled quiet rooms,” and intelligence facilities.

    According to a recently posted Indeed.com ad, the Ministry is searching to recruit a battalion of Climate “Pollution” Officers, a unit within the coldly named “Environmental Enforcement Directorate.”

    Trudeau’s Climate Police may enter any project location that affects the environment to take photographs, access computer systems and communication devices, and “direct any person to put any machinery, vehicle or equipment in the place into operation or to cease operating it.” Climate Police may also prohibit access to the location entirely.

    It seems to be no coincidence that this Climate Police armoury was placed in the heartland of agricultural production in Canada. This information comes just days after agents dispatched by ECCC were accused of trespassing on private land in Saskatchewan to collect Nitrogen samples, the newest target of Trudeau’s climate change agenda.

    According to the landowners who confronted the federal agents trespassing on their land, they were told that the purpose of them being there was to test the water in the farmers’ dugouts to measure nitrate levels.”

    https://thecountersignal.com/exclusive-leak-trudeau-installing-weapons-armouries-interrogation-rooms-for-ministry-of-climate-change/

  21. @ Richard Aubrey > “Harris, and pretty much every anti-Trumper I know makes conclusory statements and when challenged for evidence supports them with more conclusory statements.”

    Lawyer Jonathan Turley makes the same observation about Lawrence Tribe:
    https://jonathanturley.org/2022/08/19/tribe-the-criminal-case-against-trump-is-another-slam-bunk/

    In past columns, we have discussed the litany of “slam dunk” crimes that Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has declared as established against former President Donald Trump, none of which have been actually charged. Indeed, Tribe appears intent upon running through the entire criminal code.

    While some of us have suggested that we wait to see the actual evidence before evaluating the risk in the case, Tribe again is confident that the still uncharged case has already been made.

    Tribe promised more if needed: “There are other crimes that have been proven. Those are plenty to start with.”
    It is a curious thing that none of these prior “proven” crimes have been charged.

    Tribe has, of course, never lacked confidence that his lengthening list of crimes have been proven “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt.” He is not alone in such hair-triggered analysis. It has been the signature of much of the legal analysis in the last six years. Yet, it would be useful. . . just once . . . if only for appearances . . . to start with the release of actual evidence before discussing slam dunk convictions.

  22. A good solid critique of Sam Harris’s statements from Peter Heck.
    https://notthebee.com/article/and-they-wonder-why-people-rally-to-trump

    However, I’m rather concerned by Melinda Devine’s closing statement.
    https://nypost.com/2022/08/21/the-lefts-mask-slips-on-brazen-trump-bias/

    The propaganda media of the left amplifies and twists this attitude in hateful ways. Watch MSNBC for a day with its increasingly extreme defamations of Trump and his supporters, and you can’t help but recall the radio station in Rwanda that blared out regular denunciations of the minority Tutsi as “cockroaches” in the prelude to the 1994 genocide.

    History tells us where dehumanization always ends.

  23. LOT’S OF juicy observations, bits of fact added, and moral tales well-told in this thread. All added to neo’s fine abbreviated fisking — Huzzah!

    JFM asks quizzically “The two Brits?” In answer, my knowledge of their background: Both young men have worked as comics and turned to vlogging because PC and “canceling” tyranny left them without the usual theatrical conduits to their audiences.

    I am unsure if both were born abroad and raised from childhood in the UK, or if their folks had seen them born in the UK?

    Kisin is Ukrainian, of originally Russian speaking family, and I have enjoyed his reflections and knowledge about the Russian war there over the past six months.

    Foster’s family came from Venezuela. And thus they make an intriguing pair, having their parents bring them from so far away to live and enjoy this singular island like a shared refuge from historic storms, and to share their delights and discoveries throughout the incomparable Anglosphere via the Internet.

    As mentioned above, they did a follow up reaction vlog. And they are both enjoying a burst of new and wider attention, summoned by Harris’ grotesque blundering blindness.

    Ah! It’s all to laugh. Perhaps these post-pandemic times will soon see them capitalising upon this rare yet opportune moment?

    For instance, if they were to announce a tour with Jordan Peterson, I can see myself attending more than once!

  24. Atheists talk about logic and evidence but they often show little concern with those things. If for no other reason than there are too many things that one has to intensively investigate to understand.

    In other words there are a lot of people who assume they are using logic and evidence when they are just making assumptions. So it’s no surprise to me that Harris violates those when talking about Trump.

  25. The issue is this:
    Micah (Micha) VI:8—
    “O man, what is good, and what the Lord demands of you; but to do justice, to love loving-kindness, and to walk discreetly with your God.”

    Don’t believe—or have a bit of trouble believing—that God exists?
    OK!!! Fine!!!!! NO PROBLEM…Well, let’s hope so, anyway…
    (But don’t throw the baby out with the bath water…)

  26. }}} Harris resembles Roper in A Man For All Seasons, willing to cut down every law in England to get after the devil.

    Here’s the scene, for those unfamiliar with it. I seem to recall it’s been brought up before, here, and recently, but one may have missed it.

    This is a GREAT scene, and everyone should know of it, and live by it every moment of their waking lives… Would that more people knew and felt this way these days.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUqytjlHNIM

    .

    =============================

    .

    P.J. O’Rourke has a collection of essays, Eat The Rich

    Interview:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UomGB6tW9mM

    Synopsis:
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/815995.Eat_the_Rich

    O’Rourke’s essays are an examination of 10 different nations, each exhibiting different components of socio-economic behavior — democracy, rule of law, market ideology, freedom of action, and so forth. He also considers the 10 nations as either a basket case or “doing well for itself and its peoples” (5 each, to varying degrees).

    While this is hardly a statistical universe, he does come to the conclusion that there are basically two things needed to be in the latter, rather than the former, classification — one of those is Rule of Law (which ties back to the topic of this comment, and Bolt’s “A Man For All Seasons”)

    I do highly recommend it. I think it’s O’Rourke’s second best book, behind Parliament of Whores, and in front of the third place Give War A Chance.

    https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Rich-Treatise-Economics-ORourke-ebook/dp/B008UX2W78

  27. In regards to his criticism or Trump University “[W]here more was promised consumers than was delivered for the money charged”, wouldn’t that apply to pretty much all US colleges?

  28. “Harris is glib and hides behind his words, but this time he caught himself out.”

    The conflation of glibness for intelligence or wisdom is one of the cardinal sins of modernity.

    Mike

  29. “I think his type of thinking is typical of a huge number of successful intellectual people who pride themselves on their virtue and their logic but exhibit little of either where Trump is concerned.”

    PJ O’Rourke in justifying his vote for Hillary Clinton said she was wrong about everything but “she’s wrong within normal parameters.” O’Rourke, Harris, and their ilk are consumed with xenophobia when it comes to Trump. He’s not like them and that’s all they care about. People like them are allowed to be catastrophically wrong about any and everything. It doesn’t matter because, for all their faux sophistication, O’Rourke, Harris, and their ilk are fragile narcissists who can’t stand the thought of someone not like them being in charge.

    Mike

  30. P.J. O’Rourke, RIP, 2022, was, like many, wrong about President Trump in 2016.

    Bunge in this case is wrong about O’Rourke. Bunge didn’t know he had passed?

    Don’t be a Bunge.

  31. And that has nothing to do with bunges point this is the same carp hillary would havr delivered sans maybe one corona or two including war in ukraine because thats what happened they were in charge

  32. He long past his rep as republican party animal he became ted knight from caddyshack

  33. Pj chose nurse ratchet over mcmurphy still didnt get the point when she lost now everything in this country is wrecked only people in bezos ths times the financial times dont see it does this country have to burn to a cinder and a two front global war could get us there. To wake up

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