I just don't care enough. Sorry. — frank

You did not address the role of government as highlighted by Land.

Hayek favored dictatorship as the best way to preserve the freedom of the market. He's an ideological grandfather of Land and his friends. — frank

On what basis do you say that? What do you make of Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom, where the intervention of government into private transactions is deemed the source of all tyranny?

What did he describe as conservative? He isn't conservative in any meaningful sense. He's post-Leftism. — frank

I don't understand what post-Leftism means. Land quotes Moldbug in the paragraph preceding my previous quote:

The spontaneous tolerance that characterized classical liberalism, rooted in a modest set of strictly negative rights that restricted the domain of politics, or government intolerance, surrenders during the democratic surge-tide to a positive right to be tolerated, defined ever more expansively as substantial entitlement, encompassing public affirmations of dignity, state-enforced guarantees of equal treatment by all agents (public and private), government protections against non-physical slights and humiliations, economic subsidies, and – ultimately – statistically proportional representation within all fields of employment, achievement, and recognition. That the eschatological culmination of this trend is simply impossible matters not at all to the dialectic. On the contrary, it energizes the political process, combusting any threat of policy satiation in the fuel of infinite grievance. “I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England’s green and pleasant land.” Somewhere before Jerusalem is reached, the inarticulate pluralism of a free society has been transformed into the assertive multiculturalism of a soft-totalitarian democracy. — ibid.

Whatever is the opposite of that is what Land said had died when Bush said:

“When someone is hurting, government has got to move” — ibid

Libertarians truly want freedom and they think democracy has failed in its mission to provide that — frank

The term "libertarian" applies to many forms of expression which support starkly different political agendas. Take Hayek, for instance, who advocated for a completely free market but did not support the deletion of civic governance.

What Land describes as 'conservative' may be more accurately described as nativist. Genealogically speaking, that makes the alt-right closer to the overt racism and cultural hegemony of Pat Buchanan than to various flavors of anarchy.

Land explicitly welcomes the benefits of enlightened despotism. What shall be called libertarian in that environment?

In regard to Cornford, we talked about this two years ago in this thread.

I need to ponder the Pandora box you opened before replying.

Land (and Moldbug) have a narrow view of how tolerance works in public life:

The Jews of 17th-century Amsterdam, or the Huguenots of 18th-century London, enjoyed the right to be left alone, and enriched their host societies in return. The democratically-empowered grievance groups of later modern times are incited by political leaders to demand a (fundamentally illiberal) right to be heard, with social consequences that are predominantly malignant. For politicians, however, who identify and promote themselves as the voice of the unheard and the ignored, the self-interest at stake could hardly be more obvious.

Tolerance, which once presupposed neglect, now decries it, and in so doing becomes its opposite. Were this a partisan development, partisan politics of a democratic kind might sustain the possibility of reversion, but it is nothing of the kind. “When someone is hurting, government has got to move” declared ‘compassionate conservative’ US President George W. Bush, in a futile effort to channel the Cathedral. When the ‘right’ sounds like this it is not only dead but unmistakably reeking of advanced decomposition. ‘Progress’ has won, but is that bad? — Nick Land, The Dark Enlightenment, Part 3

The expectation that people are to be respected as persons happens more in some places than others. It is a way of life that is not sustainable if enough people stop operating with that respect. The equality of civil rights and equal treatment under the law are important but are meaningless if that respect is absent from the commons.

The tolerance for the ghettos that Land applauds is encoded in the U.S. Constitution with the Establishment of Religion clause of the First Amendment. It provides a safe place for intolerance and discrimination within their members' way of life. As regards to the education of children, it gives each American the right to screw up their kids.

By that measure, the alt-right does not want to have control of the commons but to force everybody else to live in their ghetto.

The ambition of the Soviet State to control adjacent countries has been preserved under a new set of justifications.

The Chechen wars are a vivid example of a Soviet policy becoming a new Russia modus operandi. The methods of population displacement and favoring a fawning regime are identical.

The chora needs to be an indefinitely active maelstrom, a background that cannot be sensed in any way that randomly moves and changes itself and everything in it. Otherwise Plato's philosophy doesn't work for him. — magritte

Well observed. That it takes "bastard reasoning" to approach the chora puts any effort toward a systematic view of the whole into question. For instance, Cornford's framing of a Theory of the Forms assumes a level of explanation that may not be on offer.

Yes, the chora must predate the gods and the entire creation story, just as the Forms must. Otherwise the demiurge has nothing to work with in creating the physical world, such as it seems. I'm not sure how that relates the heavens of the gods to the world though. — magritte

I am not sure either.

One feature that does not appear in the pure substrate model is the "wet nurse" role of the "receptacle".

Aristotle seems to find nurture as a reflection of the active agency and teleological aspect of Coming to Be. What is decided to be "prior" in the Timaeus, as a matter of likely stories, does not appear to satisfy Aristotle's view of time and place. Is that a disagreement about creation per se or a different view of Nous/ Not Nous?

The range of possible active agency is represented to some extent by those different translations.

In regard to the discussion of Sallis' work (immediately preceding your comment), the issue was how to understand the "what" that is acted upon by Forms. Sallis focuses upon how Aristotle puts forward a function of "substrate" that is at odds with how Plato approached the idea.

Or, if not at odds, then something else to be described.

I have been anxious for my friends' and family's future, but I see that for many, the future is now.


Yes, some congress critters are already talking about codifying whatever Musk does in the next budget.
Midterms are surely a long way off. There will at least be a return of the Legislative Branch with a Democratic win.

I think that pressure will build up on the GOP as the blowback hits more and more people and local economies. I don't know if that will happen quickly enough to salvage institutions.

Perhaps this crisis of democracy is really part of a larger crisis, a crisis of "critical awareness." — Pantagruel

What do you mean by that?

Donald is grabbing what he can but how does that fit into the model you have in mind?

Keep your good spirit and a stiff upper lip. These jerks are not the only people in the scrum.

Another Musk benefit:

DOGE employee cuts fall heavily on agency that regulates Musk’s Tesla

A small government team regulating the sort of autonomous cars that Elon Musk says represent the future of Tesla, his car company, is getting cut nearly in half by the Musk-led U.S. Doge Service, according to people briefed on the reductions.

The loss of personnel from the specialized unit is part of a 10 percent overall workforce reduction at the federal agency tasked with ensuring safety on America’s roads. In all, the agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, will lose between 70 and 80 people, split roughly evenly between firings of probationary employees and buyouts, according to three people, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. — WPost

The "insurrection narrative" pertains to what Trump and his team attempted, not his believers. The criminal charge is based upon fraud:

The Grand Jury indictment reads in part:

1. The Defendant, DONALD J . TRUMP, was the forty-fifth President of the United
States and a candidate for re-election in 2020. The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election.
2. Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false. But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.
3. The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.
4. Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies:

a. A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371;

b. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified ("the certification proceeding"), in violation of 18U.S.C. § 1512(k); and

c. A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.

Each of these conspiracies—which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud—targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election ("the federal government function"). — DOJ

Gold's account may be true or not. That in no way informs us as to how others were treated or whether their charges were bogus.

The charges were not based upon participating in an insurrection. Here is a breakdown of the charges. The following point was emphasized:

There are zero cases where a defendant was charged only with corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so. Every defendant also faces other criminal charges—felonies, misdemeanors, or both—for illegal conduct related to the Capitol Breach. — Department of Justice

To the degree that you are correct about Gold's case being different from more vile transgressions is the extent of the injustice perpetrated by Trump's blanket pardon.

The validity of the prosecutions or the deficiencies of the trial processes for particular defendants has no bearing on the "quasi-coup narrative." Violent or not, the participants were repeating the language of their leader. And he has blessed them all with pardons. A coup is what a regime does. A crowd protesting a stolen election is another thing. They all did not spontaneously have this idea.

There were a lot of trials. I doubt this report establishes a principle that can be applied to them all, especially those that involve assault.

Would you accept that such context is pivotal to understanding this report?

Does the man say when this happened in the context of the attacks on police lines?

Those supposed peaceful visitors are not why they got access to the building.

If she is not claiming that about violence, what is the point of what she does observe? How does it change your understanding of what happened?

I watched it to the end. The claims amount to something like "I was shoplifting for a couple of hours in the store but saw nobody getting hurt."

I don't find anywhere in that video where Gold claims that no violence or rioting occurred on January 6. — Leontiskos

Then what is the value of her testimony measured against all the violence that was filmed and reported upon by others?

I was curious, not trying to make it about Gold's testimony which can be questioned by a review of the facts.

The love in the air:


Leaving aside the riot, are you a fellow traveler of the anti-vaccine crowd Gold hung out with back in the day?

Vance is comfortable adjusting his sheep outfit as needed. His pow wow with the Alternative for Germany party coincides with AfD MEP Hans Neuhoff calling for normalization with Russia:

I think the vivacity of dreams is a shifting ground of dream experiences not easily compared. The peculiarities of my own development must be a critical factor. I have a knack for imagining situations through models but have a poor memory of my chronology. I know people who can recall small details of their early life and the order in which events occurred. For me, it is all a shuffled deck of flash cards with few names attached.

With these differences in mind, it is interesting how we can refer to our dreaming as shared experience. Poetry and literature refer to the activity in ways that prompt recognition of the way it creates its own logic and physics. But it is no simple thing. The tension between the awakened and dreamt events emerges in different ways.

Rilke uses the gap to uncover what escapes perception without guidance:

As if escaping the creatures of a dream
engendered in the throes of anguish
the next day rises; so the vaulting ribs
spring from the tangled capital.

and leave that chaos of densely intertwined,
mysteriously winged creations:
their hesitance and the suddenness of the heads
and those strong leaves, whose sap

mounts like rising anger, finally spilling over
in a quick gesture that clenches
and thrusts out----: driving everything up

that always with darkness coldly
falls back again, like rain bearing worry
to keep this old growth alive. — Rilke, The Capital, translated by Edward Snow

In The Trial, by Kafka, the gap is seemingly infinite. All the particular struggles K takes on to defend himself do not reach up to a higher order of judgement where the "real" gets on. It seems to me that a lot of dreams are like that. We are dropped into a maze from which to escape but the design is changed when we start figuring some of it out.

If both sides of gap are necessary for either one to appear, then the question changes. I think of Borges in Borges and I which starts with:

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. — Borges

and ends with:

I do not know which of us has written this page. — ibid.

In fact Vance defended the European citizens who were roundly silenced by the weak commissars of European governments for the smallest of speech and thought crimes. Does anyone in the EU do the same? — NOS4A2

Viktor plays your song:

The globalist elites hate us, of course. The bureaucrats in Brussels, the Democrats in the US and the Soros network have set about hunting us down. They are hunting us because we have defended our country. And what have they done in the meantime? They have destroyed Europe. Brussels is sinking the European economy. Brussels is sending our money to Ukraine, to a hopeless war. Brussels has caused Europe to be overrun with migrants. Brussels has opened the gates and borders to an invasion of migrants. I remember in 2015 Soros announced that one million migrants a year should be allowed into Europe. And lo and behold: in nine years, nine million illegal migrants have arrived! Europe’s illegal migrant invasion and population replacement is not a conspiracy theory – it is a reality. As the dark joke has it, it’s time to look for new conspiracy theories, because the old ones have all been proven to be true. — ibid

Bannon sang a similar tune, especially in the Breitbart days. Is that not where you go for your "Deep State" updates?

If one is not willing to participate in a discussion are they ready to discuss? — DifferentiatingEgg

Now you will never know unless you happen upon the discussion in another thread.

No need to participate in a discussion you're not prepared for. — DifferentiatingEgg

No need to indulge in gratuitous insults.

Fair enough. All of these conditions concerning the conflict have been discussed in the 17,500 comments resting comfortably in the Ukraine Thread. The only difference now is that Tzeentch has a champion in the field.

Somehow I predict you would be a lot less eager to prolong this war if you had to make similar sacrifices. — Tzeentch

The armchair calls the sofa comfy.

Show me a well sourced, balanced story about DOGE, I double dog dare you. — philosch

Present one yourself.

So far, your presumption that alarm at executive actions is overwrought is only that. How is that not a form of gaslighting?

Where is the bias in this report?

After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds.

Edit to add: Another emerging Republican reaction: ‘You would see lawsuits’: Susan Collins fires new warning shot at Trump on spending.

That is strikingly similar to a Speech by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán given at a meeting of the Patriots for Europe Party.

Some of the more purple bits would also be at home at the Alternative for Germany where Vance gave a cheery high five.

As someone who tries to stay open minded in the middle I have found more and more I have no where to go to get decently reported news. — philosch

Do you believe the reports concerning the Mass Firing of Federal Employees?

How about the Closure of Federal Agencies without the approval of Congress?

Here is report on Probationary Workers by Business Insider. Ironically, much of the information in the report comes from OPM, one of the agencies subject to the order.

After all the debate over the years here on this platform over different approaches to reading original texts, it is disappointing to see the scholarly pursuit assigned to a particular class of cultural influence.

Probationary workers in each agency are who do the job after the ones doing it now are gone:

The Trump administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, according to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union, weeks after a fatal mid-air plane collision in Washington DC.

Several hundreds of the agency's probationary workers - who have generally been in their positions for less than a year - received the news via email late on Friday night, a statement from PASS's head, Alex Spero said.

It is a part of a cost-cutting drive, driven by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), that aims to drastically cut the federal workforce. — BBC

You asked me questions and I spoke my mind. I am okay with people doing drugs if I, or people I care about, are not harmed. I do not know of a more direct way to answer your questions.

Tobacco gets ruled out of the job site because of danger to others. I am libertarian enough to let people decide how they die left to their own devices.

I would rather make most guns illegal.

I appreciate what OSHA has done for work site safety but the most effective guarantee of not getting hurt is paying attention to the states of awareness around you. That includes one's own state of awareness.

So, if you have a habit that makes you okay at work but nonetheless shortens your life, that is on you.

In the building trades, the limits are closely linked to how dangerous one becomes to others. Substance abuse that just kills you is different from what kills others.