Negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public adversities, of useless and unjust wars continually
Jean Meslier
depopulating the earth, of greedy and despotic governments, destroying the benefactions of nature for men. The rapacity of the courts discourages agriculture, blots out industry, causes famine, contagion, misery; Heaven is neither cruel nor favorable to the wishes of the people; it is their haughty chiefs, who always have a heart of brass.
The fundamental assumption in moral philosophy is that men are responsible for their actions. From this assumption, it follows necessarily, as Kant pointed out, that men are metaphysically free, which is to say that in some sense they are capable of choosing how they shall act.
Now that I’ve established a few of the basics of data reliability, and I can see that many of you understand the problem fairly well, I have a couple additional points I’d like to make on a related topic.
Whenever I encounter someone saying that Texas should secede, I counter that the US should give Texas back to Mexico.
This is going to be a couple of parts, but I’m going to try to tie them all together, in time. I’ve chosen a “selection plus commentary” approach for these sermons, which means I’m almost certainly going to be dropping spoilers about the future pieces of text. Since it’s philosophy, not thriller fiction, I think that’s OK. On with the sermon:
– Robert Paul Wolff
Politics is the exercise of the power of the state, or the attempt to influence that exercise. Political philosophy is therefore, strictly speaking, the philosophy of the state. If we are to determine the context of political philosophy, and whether indeed it exists, we must begin with the concept of the state.
This staggers my brain and leaves me flailing around for words. 1% of the population of the planet are refugees.
Creepy homophobic totalitarian Louie Gohmert is concerned about humans being able to repopulate in the event of a species-threatening event.
Thanks, Louie, but maybe you should engage your thinky bits before you try getting all sciency.
The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.
I’m reading this rather lengthy article on NYT interactive, and it feels like I’m immersed in a documentary film. It’s not fun reading, but I think it’s important. If you have an hour or two to spare, you may wish to check it out yourself.
This episode of “Ask the Strategic Genius” is about logistics and the 2nd Amendment: two things you typically will not find connected in public discourse. Time to cure that!
“Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals study logistics” – Napoleon Bonaparte*