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The guest host of Rush Limbaugh's show (Erick Erickson) gave me reason to think that there is hope for the Republican party yet: "culture trickles down to politics. The Democrats have been waging a long war against American values." THANK YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU! Finally! Someone understands! You're welcome.

One of the hallmarks of American counter-culture is informality.  Inappropriate (done without the individual's permission) informality subjugates the individual into a collective.  The individual is discounted and the group is exhalted.  The latest expression of informality from the counter-cultural political left is the word "boss".  When I went to McDonald's yesterday the person at the window kept referring to me as "boss".  "You got it boss!", "here's your change boss" etc.  I don't know this person and yet he treats me as if we were friends. This assumption not only discounts my individuality but robs me of the opportunity to make my own decisions about who to befriend.  It is a power technique designed to intimidate me into "going along with the program".  As long as I am aware of the technique however, it fails to have any influence over me.  I can choose to ignore it or, as I did yesterday, confront the employee a...

The government agency that the victims of the San Bernardino massacre worked for should be successfully sued.  Given today's realities how difficult would it have been to simply post a security guard?  Beasts, such as the one's that perpetrated the mass slaughter in San Bernardino are bold and brazen.  These animals walked into the building dressed in black with their AK47s hanging out.  A properly placed security guard would have made a huge difference.  You're welcome.

In order for a person to argue in good faith they must be willing to admit that they are wrong.  Socialists/Marxists pretend that socialist paradise is inevitable and they therefore are unwilling to admit that they might be wrong.  If they are unwilling to admit that they might be wrong then they cannot argue in good faith.  The socialistic; therefore, must be intellectually ostracized.  You're welcome. 

If we don't judge then we must look at ourselves and each other as moral "equals".  If we are all moral equals then how can we justify (rationalize?) the death penalty?  Imprisonment?  Arrest?  War?   Being non-judgmental is wrong, not because it is impractical but because judgement is a metaphysical reality.  It is an inescapable part of being human.  In order for me to answer the question:  "how should I live my life?" I must be able to judge.  You're welcome.

The gamble that the Republican party took to sneek amnesty in by using Donald Trump as a stalking horse has failed.  The Republican party knew that the issue most standing in the way of a Republican presidency was illegal immigration.  They also knew that the only way to get rid of this issue was to pass amnesty.  The trick was to find a way of passing amnesty without demoralizing the conservative "base" of the party.  Enter Donald Trump who helped the RNC to dispatch the "birther" crisis four years ago.  The key to Donald Trump's success however was to have and maintain low poll numbers (so that he could easily leave the race and let a liberal like Jeb Bush be nominated).  When Mr. Trump's poll numbers went up, Mr. Trump attempted to bring them down with stupid remarks but to everyone's amazement his poll numbers remained high.  With high poll numbers there is no graceful way for "The Donald" to exit the race.  Stuck with a potential candida...

Don't judge is used to deflate egos and in so doing con a person into believing that life is arbitrary leaving the judgmental feeling vulnerable and susceptible to deterministic and skeptical manipulation. You're welcome.

"In my view, Aristotle's moral philosophy is just as objectively true, just as pragmatically sound, just as practically wise today as it was then. In my view, human nature is exactly the same today as it was in Greek antiquity. In my view, all the manifold changes in our social, political, and economic institutions that have occurred since then, combined with all the extraordinary technological innovations that condition our lives today, are totally irrelevant to the problem we all face when we ask ourselves the primary ethical question: 'how should I conduct my life?'"

"Moral idiots" is strong talk, but it does express the repugnance that is evoked by those who deny objective validity to all moral judgments. In so doing they take the view expressed by the sophist Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic that might is right - that those who have the power to tyrannize over others, whether that be an absolute despot or a democratic majority, cannot be rationally condemned as unjust or as violating human rights. Those who are oppressed by such tyranny may not like it, but they cannot, in the course of reason, contend that it is wrong." - You're welcome

If it is true that identity is the metaphysics of the idealistic, then consensus is their "knowledge" and confession is their "ethics".  My observations of life around me demonstrate the validity of the statement.  I notice that the idealistic will frequently ask people for their opinion rather than asking them for information and when the idealistic want to establish guilt, they engage in a dialectic attempting to induce a confession.  All of this is indirect and cumbersome but it is the only way the idealistic can maintain their volitional integrity. You're welcome.

The problem with policing today is twofold: 1. Overreaction. 2. Super-citizenship. Once upon a time back in the eighties and nineties this country was experiencing a big crack problem. With the big crack problem brought the big violence problem and police departments all across the country began overreacting. To deal with gang violence officers became "strapped" with lager caliber handguns on their hips and assault rifles in their trunks. Police departments thought that these changes were necessary at the time (I contend that if one needs that kind of firepower one should declare martial law and bring in the national guard) there certainly is no justification for them now. Combine the over-arming of our police departments with the unconstitutional habit of treating police officers as "super-citizens" that have additional rights that you and I lack (a "subjective" standard of evidence instead of a "reasonable man" standard of evidence in excess...

Donald Trump has entered the Republican presidential primary race yet again and yet again he is merely a stalking horse. Mr.Trump's mission is to aid and abet the Republican party in getting rid of immigration as a campaign issue once and for all. The Donald will make a big deal out of immigration until the Republicans pass a reform (read amnesty) bill. Mr. Trump will then give that bill his blessing leaving his supporters in the untenable position of either supporting the "reform" or being marginalized as"kooks". You're welcome.

Ayn Rand was right (correct) about a lot of things but...she was also wrong about a few. One of the biggest mistakes Ayn Rand made was in "creating" a philosophy. By identifying herself with "a philosophy" rather than being philosophical, Ms. Rand became idealistic and subjectivist. Her objective from that point on was to promote her viewpoint rather than the truth (objective reality). Her philosophy was inherently contradictory which marginalized herself and her viewpoints. She created, inadvertently perhaps, a cult of personality. A cult full of devotees, acolytes, apostles, followers and adherents. Contrast Ms. Rand with Aristotle. Aristotle created not a philosophy but a school. A school where he taught students how to analyze and discover the world around them. He didn't create "a philosophy" he studied philosophy. He studied in order to be a philosopher (a lover of wisdom). You're welcome

Authority and responsibility are commensurate. This is inescapable and inarguable. The idealistic, primarily of the political left, pretend and want others to pretend that one can exercise authority while evading responsibility. In idealistic jargon it is known as "leadership transparency". The authority and responsibility doctrine is based on the acknowledgement of reality whereas the unlimited authority dogma of the idealistic requires the slavish adherence to the superstition that reality is all in one's mind. Manipulate the psyche and manipulate reality. By the evidence of our senses nothing could be farther from the truth. In reality existence is primary and authority is limited by responsibility. You're welcome.

Former U.S. Navy SEAL Eric Greitens has written a book titled "Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for living a better life". The blurb from Amazon.com reads as follows: "You cannot bounce back from hardship. You can only move through it. There is a path through pain to wisdom, through suffering to strength, and through fear to courage if we have the virtue of resilience." Most advice books provide psychologistic remedies to life's difficulties. Magic answers to imaginary problems. Subjectivistic, deterministic, skeptical. One size fits all. No knowledge, no reality, no ethics. Thank God that someone is offering real solutions. Solutions that acknowledge reality: individuality and responsibility.

Republicans have put themselves in an intellectual and psychological box on the issue of same-sex marriage by ignoring science and by refusing to propose alternatives. Same-sex marriage has become an issue in the United States, and as a matter-of-fact all over the world, because at least one court -accepted scientific study has concluded that being gay is biological in nature and not just a life style choice. Republicans ignore this fact and oppose same-sex marriage as strictly a political issue. The main reason Republicans give for opposing "gay marriage" is freedom of religion and the possibility of a constitutional crisis. In Europe couples have the alternative to marriage in the form of a civil union in which couples have all of the rights of a marriage without the religious trappings. Republicans should challenge the dubious "science" of homosexuality and in the mean time propose civil unions as an alternative to same-sex marriage.

David Letterman is leaving. Is this a good thing?To answer that question one must answer another question: Is Mr. Letterman a good man? Is he a good person? Super-human? Virtuous? Continent? Incontinent? Vicious? Bestial? Commentators have studiously avoided passing judgment on Mr. Letterman's character as if it doesn't matter. But one cannot properly assess the art without also assessing the artist and for the record...he's incontinent. You're welcome.

Workplace violence. In this case one of my coworkers has been slugging another one of my coworkers. The very definition of a hostile and intimidating work environment. Bad. Wrong. Illegal. I had reported this misbehavior to my supervisor some time ago and hoped that my complaint would result in a cessation of hostilities. No such luck. I then reported the problem to a manager a little higher up the chain of command. The first words out of his mouth were: "I take this very seriously". At first I thought that the statement was appropriate but something was nagging at me. I later realized that the statement was value neutral. The manager had failed to say something like: "That's terrible!", "That's horrible!", "That's wrong!". The manager's neutrality about this obviously unethical behavior is troubling and its troubling because its common and its common because of the influence of American counter-culture. American c...

In the book The Four Dimensions of Philosophy by Dr. Mortimer Adler, the author bemoans the fact that philosophy doesn't get the respect from American society that science does. Dr. Adler goes on to explain why he thinks that this is so and what philosophers can do about it. Again the doctor misses the point. Complaining that philosophy doesn't get the same respect as science is like complaining that the foundation doesn't get as much respect as the rest of the house. Philosophy provides the foundation for all other intellectual activities scientific or otherwise. And so, garbage in, garbage out. If science is backed by philosophy then it will be solid, reliable. If it is undermined by psychologistic theory (Hegel, Kant et. al.) it will be doomed to failure. In short, fretting about philosophy's respectability is a waste of time. You're welcome.

I am reading a book by Mortimer Adler Ph.D. called The Four Dimensions of Philosophy . In this book Dr. Adler discusses certainty of knowledge as it relates to philosophy, the sciences and natural history. He writes about episteme (certain knowledge) versus doxa (doctrine - or knowledge that is subject to doubt) and concludes that philosophy belongs in the doxa camp. Dr. Adler also covers knowledge that is beyond a shadow of a doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, clear and convincing and by preponderance. There are categories and sub-categories and if all of this is supposed to be an example of "commonsense" philosophy it misses the mark. It seems to me that commonsense would dictate that knowledge is certain at the point when an individual is able to make a decision. You're welcome.

I was reading an article about the moral countenance of art in the latest issue of Philosophy Now. The article deals with the subject at hand by analyzing two movies: Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln. The author claims that Zero Dark Thirty was the more controversial of the two because the film deals with information from a source that was obtained by allegedly "torturing" the source. Unfortunately the author never defines his terms especially the word torture. Let me suggest a definition. Torture: The deliberate and gratuitous infliction of pain on another sentient being strictly for the sadistic gratification of the individual inflicting the pain. When I say gratuitous I mean that the infliction of pain is an end in itself rather than a means to an end. The information that we have is that the interrogation techniques used on Sheikh Mohammed were teleological in nature and therefore not torture. You're welcome.

The other day, I was conversing with an acquaintance ("Mr. Skeptic")about things astronomical. More specifically space travel. I refer to my acquaintance as Mr. Skeptic because of his proclivity to wax skeptical (i.e. deny certainty of knowledge). During the course of the conversation Mr. Skeptic claimed that we cannot know whether or not primitive cultures had explored/travelled space and therefore it was possible that they did. I rebutted him by saying that since there is no evidence that primitive cultures surmounted earth's gravitational pull that we can and do know with certainty that there were no ancient astronauts. At this point in the conversation the "battle lines" were drawn with me on the philosophical/intellectual side and Mr. Skeptic on the psychological/emotional side. Since he could only use technique and be manipulative I knew that I need only stand my ground in order to win the argument. Mr. Skeptic initially tried to intimidate me by qu...

In a recent column by Dr. Tallis in the latest issue of Philosophy Now, the doctor is complaining about the pending dissolution of the National Health Service. In the article Dr. Tallis suggests that the forces that are promoting change are all motivated by greed. This suggestion illustrates the inherent hypocrisy of the socialistic. The socialistic insists on getting paid but bristles at the idea of anyone else making money.

I heard on the radio a clip of an interview with the Director of Communications for the State Department. During the interview the director stated that "we cannot kill our way out of this conflict". We must get at the root cause of extremist violence. Wrong! Determinism is dead! As Dr. Mortimer Adler correctly pointed out because human beings have an intellect they have free will. No terrorist is forced to commit violent acts by capitalism (no jobs, poverty etc.). Terrorists do what they do because of poor judgment and character defects.

Mark Belling, sitting in for Dr. Bill Bennett, on the radio, made a comment that "hits the bullseye". He said , in response to the criticism about the Cuban embargo - that it doesn't work - that indeed it did work! That the embargo pointed out to the world the evilness of the Castro regime. Hooray to Mr. Belling for discovering that materialism is dead and that concepts and abstractions matter!

I heard a clip of Jay Leno on the Moe Kelly radio show. In this clip Mr. Leno (while discussing the Bill Cosby accusations) quipped: "In Saudi Arabia it takes two women to testify against a man...but here it takes twenty three." Mr. Leno's acidic remark reflects his attitude about American civilization: That American men are in the habit of raping women and expecting to get away with it. Jay Leno should remember that one cannot be pro-woman without being anti-man and if he wants to avoid this psychological dilemma he should instead be...pro-law.

Happy new year to everyone! I wish you a year filled with reality, certainty, morality and beauty!

A talk-show host was talking about former president Reagan's "optimism" and as I was listening to him I realized the Reagan was "optimistic" about this country past, present and future. It also occurred to me that any political candidate that wants to position themselves as "Reaganesque" should also be optimistic about this country...in its entirety...not just its future.