Category Archives: Quotes

Selective Lack of Sentiment is the Value-Add of Ideology

Kevin Williamson kicked off the thought process with this paragraph – referring to the Nation and Mother Jones magazines

Rather than bring out the best in them — the muckraking, the unsentimental view of American life made possible by a politics not excessively burdened by patriotism — President Donald Trump and his merry men have driven the Left deeper into daft identity politics and vague conspiracy-mongering. Where once there was Christopher Hitchens, now there is the “interactive privilege simulator.” That is not progress.

Which does raise the thought that it is the unsentimental side of an ideology that has value.

That would break out to

Liberals (not the populist left) contribute insight onto

  1. The military
  2. Foreign Policy
  3. The criminal justice system
  4. Come to think of it, anything involving flags and guns
  5. What life is actually like on the bottom

Conservatives (not the populist right) contribute insight into

  1. Education
  2. Poverty/anything even remotely resembling an underclass
  3. Anything involving the “intersectional/priviledge” – though that is probably a recent development

Libertarians (there are no populist libertarians) contribute insight into

  1. The actual working of the state, and it’s victims
  2. Insight about the planning fallacy, and central planning – that probably includes all of the insights libertarians have

Monday quote – Utah Phillips edition

I’ve been feeling very Western in sentiment lately, and less Southern I suppose – I find myself thinking more about how my Grandfather described America, i.e. bounded disparate identities moving in the same direction (that’s how I remember it anyway) – which made this quote ring true.

Yes, the long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision, not of where we’re going, but where we want to go.”

Quote of the day

From some song on Utah’s show 

Clearly God is all-powerful, he got the Jews to keep Kosher, the Muslims to keep Hallal, and the Baptists to put mayonnaise on everything.

and

Stalin was the gravedigger of the revolution

a

As an addendum, it’s fascinating to listen to these shows, Utah is a great storyteller, and expresses his views clearly and honestly.    His views and mine are quite far apart I can listen to him discuss something like fairness (defined differently than I would) , truth justice, war and so forth and honestly glean how other people think without forming any particular judgement on them.

One other good attribute of his show is that it does not treat World War II as year zero of history, but rather as a culmination of forces that occurred before and after the war.

Misc Friday

Joe Hill’s last words, before a firing squad were “Ready, Aim, Fire”

 

Utah Quote

Everything you have that you don’t need was stolen from the poor

Which is a very Utah Phillips, and fundamentalist Christian way to look at things.  The question is of course is, are those things you don’t need of any use to anyone else?

Wednesday Links

A very chilling look at the Sandusky matter, and persuasive evil in general.  It gives sports a new horror.

Utah Quote

No matter how new age you get, old age will kick it’s ass.

and

The past didn’t go anywhere.

An idea for a long blog post I need to write at some point

Iron Man technology vs God Technology

Iron Man technology allows you to do something you couldn’t do before, or do you something better.  Like excel or a database.   Usint it allows you to change something  or it helps in the change of soemthing. God Technology allows you to sit there for a while and then feel good after a while.  Like Facebook.  Or you sit there for a while and do not feel good but you fulfill your Social Obligations, also like facebook.  Either way, nothing has changed but you’ll do it again soon.

Well Put

The rich person is not the one who sits on a plushy couch or otherwise needs a lot of stuff or a lot of conditions to be satisfied to be comfortable. In fact, such a person is very poor having externalized their ability to be comfortable. The rich person is the one who can be comfortable or happy in any kind of situation.

Random Sunday

Your seemingly daily Utah Phillips

Spokane is a place like Denny’s – it’s not a place you go to, it’s a place you end up.

Metaphor for America These Days

Back in World War Two they didn’t make pet food, so we had to keep chickens as pets.  We had two chickens.  One day one chicken got sick, so we killed the healthy one to make chicken soup so the sick one could get better.

More

If you’ve got to have heroes, make sure they’re dead so they don’t blow it.

Non Utah – read The “Wash My Ferrari” Problem: A Meditation on Risk