Based on the definitions I related, I don't think the nomination is racist. To be racist, it seems you must contend that a particular race is superior than another; that must be the basis of the distinction made. If the nomination isn't based on a belief in the superiority of a black woman over others because she's black or a woman, it doesn't appear to come within the definitions. I think you have an uncommon definition of racism.

So-called “positive” race discrimination suggests a belief in the inferiority of the races they are designed to help. But this nomination isn’t a form of affirmative action, and it isn’t clear that Biden thinks women with darker complexions are inferior.

Neither is it about racial justice. Biden worked really hard to filibuster Judge Janice Brown back in the Bush days, and threatened to do the same if she was ever nominated for Supreme Court. He actively and explicitly opposed the nomination of a black woman, so if it was about racial justice let’s just say he missed that opportunity 20 years ago.

Rather, it is about identity politics, in this case using race and gender to score political points in the hopes of retaining political power now and in the future, the ethics of racial discrimination be damned. You can see the justification of this form of discrimination in this very thread, complete with essentialist notions about her experience, different knowledge, and different ways of thinking, which are racist assumptions if I’ve ever seen them. So if it isn’t racist according to your definition, it soon will be.

There is an ethical problem with freedom as construed in liberal thought. If freedom is founded on sovereignty, then my freedom can only be won at the cost of your sovereignty. This is an approach that sets each individual against all the others. We see the result in the dissolution of the common wealth in those nations that claim a liberal heritage.

Better, then to see freedom as a building of the capacity to achieve, to become more than one already is, both individually and as part of that common wealth. We achieve freedom so considered by building the capacity of those around us to be free.

I’m not sure how a freedom founded on sovereignty can only be won at a cost to another’s sovereignty. If each of us are (or ought to be) sovereign over our own actions, and therefor is (or ought to be) free, it seems to me the ethical act would be to give sovereignty instead of purchase it.

Arendt doesn’t describe freedom as a building of the capacity to achieve, but as a capacity to begin. Beginning does not necessitate achieving anymore than it necessitates failing. So I would say your “building of the capacity to achieve” falls more under her Christian conception of “freedom for the sake of salvation” as it appears in her genealogy.

No, she should not have been censored. Censorship is cruel and leaves us ignorant. Better to let truth and falsity battle it out in the open field.

The idea that objects are merely collections or aggregates arranged from other objects (particles, atoms, etc) hasn't born itself out, in my opinion. Arrangement assumes a creative force that at sometime or somewhere formed an object from other disparate and unconnected objects (like particles). But tables are built from pieces of other objects (trees, for example), and do not form, particle-by-particle, like Voltron.

We need to know what this creative force is in order to know that a table was arranged in such a manner.

Actually, the justice system is already perverse. It does not serve justice, and you can ask any lawyer and they will say the same thing.

The justice system is about finding "a" guilty person, regardless of his or her being truly guilty or not. If the court is satisfied that the person is guilty, they condemn him or her. What they find actually is unrelated to reality.

I wouldn't say the system is just—it clearly isn't—but that it ought to be. But it's true: the law serves only to protect the state's interest.

Selecting a judge on the basis race, gender, and “diversity” has nothing to do with justice, I’m afraid, and everything to do with the perversion of justice. When you scan candidates for their skin color and genitalia you’ve tossed justice to the wind in favor of race and sex-based discrimination, adopting the same habits and superstitions which have prohibited diversity in the first place. All of it serves to degrade the candidates and their work. Now, when asked why she was chosen for the Supreme court, the answer is embarrassingly clear.

I like her idea that evoking “freedom of consciousness”, or applying freedom to other metaphysical spaces, is irrelevant. Freedom is the prime concern of politics, of the polis, of political action, and not of inward universes. “The raison d'etre of politics is freedom, and its field of experience is action”.

For Arendt, politics and freedom are intimately linked. She gives a better account of freedom in her The Promise of Politics:

"Politics", in the Greek sense of the word, is therefore centered around freedom, whereby freedom is understood negatively as not being ruled or ruling, and positively as a space which can be created only by men and in which each man moves among his peers. Without those who are my equals, there is no freedom, which is why the man who rules over others—and for that very reason is different from them on principle—is indeed a happier and more enviable man than those over whom he rules, but he is not one whit freer. He too moves in a sphere in which there is no freedom whatever.

At the very least her essay is a good reminder that until everyone is free to participate in the polis, there is no freedom. Given Arendt's criteria, we can look at places with rigid lockdowns and confirm that we are not free, that there is no freedom.

Hiring someone based on her race is the exact opposite of justice, is racist, is stupid, but works perfectly well for politics in the current age.

The author of the article might had fared better with Isaiah Berlin's distinction, which seems to me less muddled. Berlin's versions of liberty, positive and negative, are similar to Arendt's, but a little easier to grasp.

Negative liberty is the kind of freedom found in the phrase “freedom convoy”, as evidenced by their opposition to certain mandates.

Go back to sleep NOS. Or go read more Ayn Rand.

Take some drugs and think about it, Mike.

I don't think I understand you. Are you saying I don't have the right to speak freely unless you give it to me?

That’s right. If no people give and recognize your right to speak, then you have no right to speak freely. It sounds easy to understand to me.

Right, only man in his government form can flatten ground and lay asphalt.

Sure, set a bunch of bureaucrats to do the jobs you refuse to. That’ll work.

It surely is a right. My behavior is such that I allow you to use it, yes, just as my behavior is to allow you to speak when I give you the right to speak freely.

Sweet Jesus, wanting to tax people to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves is sociopathy?

Nah, it was just a joke. But it is immoral and unjust.

Yes, but we need an arrangement that will guarantee that the rights bestowed by citizens to other citizens and the private arrangements that they make are protected and honored, do we not? Don't we need some sort of basic legislation to do this?

In my opinion yes. The so-called Night-Watchmen state suits me just fine. Beyond that it should not go.

I can give you the right to borrow my lawnmower whenever you require it. Rights are bestowed by men, and not all men are legislators.

That’s very admirable. Now you just need to organize with others who do the same and on a grander scale. Do the work instead of demanding it if others. Lead by example instead of force and coercion. Lead by reason instead of sociopathy.

We were talking about the poor, just to be sure. But it appears you’re talking someone broken down on the side of the road. Would you extend the same kindness to the homeless in your community, as you would someone who cannot fix their car?

I don't look at someone on broken down on the road and say "Eh, I pay taxes -- let the government help."

Then what do you do?

Fair enough; my apologies. I’ll just say the American left used to uphold freedom as a guiding principle, and the void has been filled with statism, collectivism, and authoritarianism.

I completely agree that we should care for those who cannot take care of themselves, so long as they want our help. But I believe stealing people’s money or demanding others care for those who cannot care for themselves does not amount to any kind of care I that I can believe in. In fact I believe that is the opposite of care.

The worry for me is, if you limit caring to paying taxes, why should anyone care for those who cannot take care of themselves if they’ve already done it? Why should I give a man a quarter if I’ve already given that quarter to the institutions I’ve delegated to care for others?

Perhaps that’s where we differ. I don’t see how being payed a wage for one’s voluntary labor constitutes slavery while having a monopoly on violence appropriating one’s payments for labor constitutes a sacrifice for the greater good. Taxes are forced labor and slavery. To feel the force of this, try evade taxes on the one hand, and not showing up to work on the other. Only one may land you in prison, where slavery is still constitutionally protected.

Everyone does have the right to a decent standard of living, should they attain it. But if you believe everyone has a right to be provided with a minimum standard of living, why won’t you provide it to them?

Ready-made identities suit us perfectly. We don’t need to consider a person on his own when we need only apply an identity and be done with it. Of course, this is to misidentify rather than identify, but who cares at this point?

I thought it was obvious I wasn’t speaking of some “general individual happiness”, which sounds to me incoherent. Sorry, I should have been more clear. By “individual happiness”, I mean the happiness as determined by each individual. A collective, to me, is simply the sum total of individuals.

So yes, the arrangement, if one is required, should allow individuals to pursuit their own happiness instead of providing happiness to whichever group of individuals hold a majority. But this is an individualist, laissez faire system, such as the one theorized by the founders, but betrayed by everyone henceforth. Could such a system find a home in the left-wing, as it had once done?

If you mean most of the collective will be happy, you’re speaking of a majority, not the collective as a whole. So, again, you’ll need to sacrifice individual happiness to reach your goal, and crack a few eggs to make an omelette. To achieve this, your regime will be unjust.

I wasn’t intending to “flex”, just to offer my opinion.

I guess I agree with some of that. But why not model our government after what we know works and results in the most happiness (social democracy)?

The utilitarian concern is the problem to begin with because it sacrifices individual happiness for collective happiness. One exists, the other doesn’t. One can be attained, the other cannot.

First and foremost, become an independent. Gather with people of like mind instead of like affiliation.

Avoid authoritarianism and make freedom a guiding issue. The American left was on the correct side of every issue wherever it chose to defend and advocate for freedom and against authoritarianism.

Ditch the European socialism for something more American, like Georgism. It was a big mistake to propagate the Euro-brand of socialism when there is a rich history of American leftism worth remembering.

Quit playing identity politics. It is just as superstitious and divisive as when the right uses it, and for the same reasons.

Avoid methodological collectivism because it leads right back into authoritarianism.

So, I have this question: "Is there any meaning in talking about 'materialism' to materialists, since they can't see or think that there's anything else than matter, anyway?" That is, it is something self-evident for them. You can see this also as a paradox: "Materialism has no meaning for a materialist"!

All this is true, at least in my own case. I prefer the concrete and physical to the abstract and immaterial. But it’s more a preference for dealing with a thing rather than a nothing. One I can point to, the other I can only find in the pure wind of idealist literature. So there is some thrift to holding on to the position: one needn’t waste his metabolism on what amounts to fiction and fairytale.

The American’s in power right now are the same ones who meddled in Ukrainian affairs during the Euromaidan events. Par for the course, for them, so this is no suprise.

At any rate, American leadership already has the Afghanistan disaster under its belt, so I’m not sure why Putin should care one straw about Biden’s saber-rattling.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions, goes the old refrain. The belief we can force society to resemble some utopian vision is the problem to begin with. It isn’t long until even the most well-intentioned socialist is tossing people in a Gulag. Just say “that isn’t true socialism”, try again, kill millions, rinse and repeat.

Welfare isn’t a one-to-one ratio with socialism, but I agree.

Which socialist society appeals to you? Kampuchea, Cuba, North Korea? Eritrea? East Germany?

Resist falling under the spell of socialism, if you can. The world is still recovering from its lies and ruin.

The question one needs to ask, is given that different ontological assumptions about life lead to radically different conclusions about death that are in large part tautological, why choose a single ontology as being correct? Why not accept all of them and accept their respective conclusions relative to their respective ontology?

Simply because observation and study confirms the one and not the other. I am just unable to take the leap from assumption to conclusion.

One would hope that such an idea would be as disreputable as statism is to you. If "the revolution" was successful--and not just a rearrangement of the deck chairs--people's thinking would be different.

I don’t think a system of voluntary cooperation is as disreputable as statism, because statism is a system of compulsory cooperation. That’s why I wonder if your system would be compulsory or not, and what you’d do to those who refuse. If it’s voluntary, it’s just; if it’s compulsory, it’s unjust.

I’m familiar with Debs but only vaguely with DeLeon. I’ve read Debs, his free speech trial, but only know DeLeon through his criticisms of George. Both were contemporaries of George, though. If I remember correctly Debs praised George and Deleon excoriated him. But those debates during those times, between the socialists and the Single Taxers, were fascinating to read about, and represent an exciting moment in American political theory.

I’m well aware of the treatment of socialists in the early 20th century and beyond, Debs included. It’s embarrassing that a country so adamant about freedom and free speech would violate these principles due to fear of ideas. I wager had they left them alone, socialism and communism would have fell out of favor in America long ago.

Experience could be construed as the state of a living body, perhaps. But beyond that it cannot go. Both the body and thus all states of the body dissolves upon death.

It’s completely voluntary, and the opportunities myriad, far more than would be available to him should the the capitalist be absent. We could exploit some patch of land somewhere and through toil accumulate enough to make a living, but exploiting capitalists is far easier. We could also live off the toil of others, but that would be unjust.

An experience of what? It is the experience of a body, by a body. It’s body all the way down.

The other conclusions beg the question. They assume that an entity or substance exists within the biology but is not the biology, and second, that this entity or substance can somehow persist beyond the biology itself. It seems to me one should be proven before contemplating the other.

Not only Marxists, but Georgists believe in roughly the same thing regarding exploitation. But Henry George was able to devise a far more just system. (It’s a damned shame Americans prefer German socialism to Henry George’s ideas, which are these days relatively unknown).

For me, I don’t see how a relationship of voluntary exchange can be the same as exploitation proper, for instance in slavery. It is because the capitalist is the same human animal that I see them as an opportunity. They want and need things, as well, and I can provide it to them in exchange for some of their capital. Perhaps the Marxist should learn to exploit them.

Why just those two choices as default?

As far as I can tell there are only two types of general “means” to acquire the wealth required to satisfy needs, namely, (1) through one’s own labor or the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, and (2) through the appropriation of the labor of others. One is just, the other unjust.

Anyways, as far as economic systems go, Justice is the prevailing ideal for me. All others, like charity, community, wealth equality, are better left to ethics and matters of personal conscience.