Comments on: Candlelight Vigils and Cavity Searches

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:12:23 +0000

“Boston Strong” is as silly as me introducing myself as “Dave the Genius”, or “Dave the Hilariously Funny Comedian”. People who really are strong, intelligent, or funny don’t ever have to say so; their words and deeds speak for them.

By: Mark Minter

Mark Minter — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 05:24:05 +0000

John,

I caught the podcast as my first “highlighted” introduction to you. I have read the more recent posts on Social Matter.

Then I went back to the blog. And I say this with the qualification that I have not read all of the Social Matter essays. But I find that your individual essays on the Bourbon et Veritas speak more to me.

I sort of “got here” much as you did. A little more towards the Game/Manosphere than over in the MRA thing. The basis of that community is “truth” via Evolutionary Psychology, anecdotes and observations from members of the community that back up Evo Psych, and various other sundry bits and pieces of psychology, biology, anthropology, zoology, etc.

For now, I am a reader in this NRx community. I found things you said in the podcast to be informative. Maybe it is because my people are from the south. I don’t know. I sort of spent the first 50 years of my life trying to run away from that heritage.

If you could, would you sort of get back to some of those themes you wrote about on your own site? I understand the writing is sort of a journey. And it can be hard to turn back upon paths previously taken because the journey of it changes you.

Right now I am reading the two essays on Against Critical Thinking. You did touch on that in the podcast. And for some of us, that podcast sets a introductory tone of you to us.

So maybe could you pound on that theme with more recent thoughts you have be having?

By: Manticore

Manticore — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:56:01 +0000

I hadn’t had my coffee yet and allowed two ideas to bleed together. First, in a cosmopolitan world, the only way to run an airline is like a government: armed guards, an absence of privacy, flight attendants with law enforcement power, and a lack of both consumer choice and product quality. Second, while I agree “freedom” is a stale term, it is what we traditionally have called the American brand of social order. I’d rather give the term new life than abandon it. It truly does involve greater autonomy than other brands. But like any social order, it arises mostly from the unreflective behavior of individuals, acting according to folkways (cultural and/or biological). When the population lacks those customs, you get TSA. And once a TSA-like regime is in place, the desirable customs atrophy in a ratchet-like fashion. In the long run, it may be possible to use law to imprint people with the folkways of freedom. But in the short run, the only way to produce freedom is to sift the for persons who “do” it automatically. Then we could enforce a separation of airport and state, and turn the airlines back into consumer-driven enterprises, hopefully giving John more legroom.

By: Peter Blood

Peter Blood — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 21:44:00 +0000

Yes, “Boston Strong” was bravado in the graveyard.

By: Watson

Watson — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:04:10 +0000

Bostonians were so strong that they hid in their homes because two young men with an entire police state on their heels had handguns. Maybe it’s just me but I wouldn’t want a security force which shut down a city over a couple of handguns even if there was a manhunt.

By: Watson

Watson — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:00:46 +0000

Freedom is a slippery word. I agree with your sentiments about what you’ve described being our goals but I think we need a different word to capture it’s essence clearly. Something that captures peace of mind that you the people and system around is trustworthy and benevolent ie not having to worry about your country importing hostile elements among many other things.

By: Thrasymachus

Thrasymachus — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 16:11:23 +0000

They hate us because they are scum and resent our superior civilization. They despise us because they see us as easy prey. The solution is more security, more surveillance, more military and police action, but focused on them, not us.

Freedom is a privilege of those fit for it. Doesn’t include any Moslems.

By: Manticore

Manticore — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:03:45 +0000

Reactionaries don’t talk about freedom enough, which is unfortunate since I think this is really one of our primary goals. True freedom is distinct for its retarded, legalistic SJW stepchildren the “civil liberties.” In a free society, a comfortable (and reasonably safe) seat on a domestic flight could be purchased at some reasonable price, without federal agents groping your junk. Whereas “civil liberties” exist only in the mind of a judge, freedom exists when true Amerians live according to their folkways. Much more than federal agents, this involves space, rugged individualism (including guns), presumptive prejudice against outsiders, and firm boundaries between peoples. It’s not always fully appreciated that those peoples need the boundaries as much as we do. As you note, the Arabs in this country are among those most likely to hate it. Said Qutb, the father of contemporary Wahhabist terrorism was radicalized as a foreign student in Greely, Colorado. Tempted by our lifestyle, but unable to cope with it, he became a reactionary. But for our hubris to believe he could be made an American, he might have been a schoolteacher. In such a world, you would still be “free” to purchase a comfortable seat.