Category Archives: Nihilism

This past week, news broke that the Canadian government would offer euthanasia to those who have mental disorders, including people with addiction problems. This is on top of the existing euthanasia policies from our neighbors to the north which promote doctor-prescribed suicide as a healthy alternative for the sick, the disabled, or the depresseda medicine placed on par with any other wholesome healthcare treatment. The sanctity of life, once held as a paramount virtue, is finding itself challenged by a new ethos that seeks to redefine the very heart of morality. If we allow this trend to continue unchecked, we may find ourselves in a society that values life not for its inherent worth, but rather for its perceived qualitya perilous threat to the very foundations upon which our civilization is built.

Our Canadian neighbors have embraced this perverted culture of death with open arms, legalizing euthanasia at an alarming rate. This has cast a shadow upon much of our own country, for such decisions by modern political leaders are spreading throughout many of our own states, marking a significant departure from the steady values that have long governed our society. Oregon, for example, just recently extended its own euthanasia law to non-residents, making all Americans eligible to travel to their state, fill a simple script from a doctor at one of their local pharmacies, lay down in a hotel room, swallow a cocktail of poison that destroys their organs, and kill themselves. To ensure these physician-assisted suicides are done with dignity, however, social workers come by afterwards to collect the bodies.

Societies should not be judged on the basis of how well they provide for the happiness of their young, healthy, and wealthy members, but for how well they provide for their elderly, their sick, and their poor. The former group relies, to a greater extent, on their individual strength to carry them through their pursuit of happinessthe latter relies on the aid of others. That the strong members of a society are happy proves virtually nothing about the character of that society. On the contrary, that the weak are happy comes to prove that others have helped them, demonstrating that the bonds between family, friends, and neighbors are loving and efficacious, and that the social fabric of such a society is strong. In our case, the happiness of the elderly, the sick, and the poor of West Virginia can be proof that our people are knit together in a resilient community, rather than thrown together by mere geographic proximity.

For this reason alone, it is necessary that the practice of euthanasia, which intentionally encourages and ultimately enacts the suicide of the elderly and the infirmed, remain as foreign to the common life of West Virginia as it is to the health of any just and reasonable society. Instead of that unconditional commitment to love and service by which individuals transcend their own individuality and begin to live as a community, euthanasia offers only conditionality, which measures each and every person against standards of living that may well find them wanting. Instead of occasions to test and prove the promises we make to love each other no matter what, euthanasia degrades infirmity, old age, and the compassion these weaknesses can elicit into occasions to care for each other only so much, within a narrow extent, and under only finite conditions of convenience. In this manner, euthanasia, while allegedly limiting its impact only to the end of life, actually demoralizes everyone at all stages of life, limiting our noblest social impulses by characterizing life itself as only conditionally worth living, while reducing the care for those who suffer to a mere option, rather than the sacred duty of those who have to give of themselves to those who have not.

The desire by those who are suffering to kill themselves is not a sign of a banal need to be met by the provision of some appropriate technology, but a sure sign of social collapse. No one with a love for our state and its people could provide such suicidal desire with the means to its destructive end. Good conscience and common sense urge us to instead eradicate whatever grim causes of suicidal desire afflict our West Virginia community. To do otherwise would be to adopt an unequal and irrational policy by which suicidal ideation in the young and otherwise healthy is treated as an illness in want of a cure, while suicidal ideation in the elderly and infirm is treated as a demand in need of a supply. Such a two-faced answer to the timeless question of whether life is worth living makes a mockery of good and prudential government, while giving credence to the cynicism that so often sees in the rule of law nothing more than a favoring of the strong over the weak. Ultimately, such a dreadful policy forces the state and its representatives to determine between good and bad suicide, thus expanding the states authority beyond every reasonable limit, inciting it to act as a god amongst men.

To any such apparent demand for euthanasia, nothing but a society wide effort of reform will serve as an adequate response. Such a campaign against the despairing loneliness and lack of meaning in life, spreading from the nihilism of our present age, must include the active encouragement of friendship, intergenerational family life, meaningful work, civic participation, the uplifting of our communities with beautiful architecture, festivals and holidays to celebrate our common life together, compassionate medical care, a culture of genuine love and appreciation for the elderly, and the unequivocal affirmation that every human life, no matter what suffering it bears, is never a burden to be done away with, but a gift of infinite and interminable goodness from that which is True and Beautiful.

It is not the case that the technical consent of the infirmed and elderly to their own suicide renders euthanasia as something just and good. We are social creatures, apt to act on each others desires and meet each others expectations in order to keep a broad and abiding peace. When a society enshrines in its law, decrees in its conventional wisdom, and affirms in its practice the possibility of licit suicide, it is a vain pretense to imagine that such validations are not themselves formative of individual desirethat they do not suggest, in morally-empowered terms, suicide as a responsible and law-abiding solution to the problem of pain. The very possibility that doctors, whose authority in our society can be profound, may prescribe suicide as a solution to a terminal disease or disheartening prognosis, presents the act as a medicine rather than as the definitive rejection of all medicine, and so encourages suicidal desire to flourish. Euthanasia is not a solution to a need, but is rather productive of the very need that it purports to fulfill.

Our great state of West Virginia ought to preemptively reject euthanasia by an amendment to our state constitution, for this accords with our tradition of patriotism. A healthy commonwealth relies on the virtues of its members, and a well-functioning republic demands that those who participate in it embody a minimum of goodwill, prudence, and fortitude by which the individual is enabled to love the common good and to sacrifice his own interests for its sake. A community which does not foster this patriotism is a community in name only, a mere collective mix of individuals unwilling to live as members of a social body that both includes and transcends them.

This patriotism, which sustains and nourishes West Virginia, is a seed sown in the soil of the family and a lesson learned in the school of friendship. These lessons of love are severely disrupted by euthanasia, which would encourage healthy residents of our state to facilitate the suicide of those whose age and infirmity would otherwise call forth their loving sacrifice, even as it would encourage those in our state who suffer to see themselves as a burden to their friends rather than as an occasion for their heroic love and virtue. A people accustomed to euthanizing their fathers are not a people prepared to sacrifice themselves for their fathers home, and children raised under advertisements recommending suicide are not children who are being raised ready to suffer and give of themselves for the good of our state. Euthanasia destroys the solidarity of the family, and through this root, it would ultimately help destroy the character of West Virginia.

The rejection of euthanasia as utterly foreign to the spirit of West Virginia is a commitment to keeping our hands free of innocent blood and to professing, in all humility, a limitation to the power of the state, which cannot administer death as a cure for pain without usurping divine prerogatives. Such a limitation is also a protection against the avarice and cynicism of a wealthy elite who stand to gainand profitthrough the disruption of the stable and peaceful custom by which families in our state love each other, bear with one another, and care for their sick and dying.

Against this culture of death, we must offer a vision of a restored and rejuvenated West Virginia, a community whose strength is known by the happiness of the weak, the infirmed, and the elderly, who are not only aided and assisted by their family, friends, and society until the day they die, but whose very suffering is the irreplaceable means by which we may transcend ourselves, enter deeply into communion with one another, fulfill our nature as social creatures, and learn the sacrificial love that can so often give life true meaning.

(Pat McGeehan is a six-term state delegate. He resides in Chester).

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Standing against the insidious spread of euthanasia | News, Sports ... - The Daily Times

The Washington Post's Aaron Blake highlights a new poll probing what share of the Republican base even wants a House speaker to be elected. The first thing to know is that the poll in question, conducted by Suffolk University, is deeply goofy, asking respondents which of these two sentiments they more agree with:

1. Congress needs to elect a Speaker as soon as possible to fund immediate needs like support for Israel, Ukraine, and to prevent a government shutdown in November, or

2. I dont care if Congress elects a Speaker. Every day that goes by without a Speaker means that Congress cant waste more of our tax dollars.

You can see the poll is designed to split Americans into two groups: those who are vaguely informed about politics and understand what a speaker does, and those who are generally uninformed radio listeners and base their entire personalities around what some performative turd announces during peak commuting hours. Unfortunately, it also loaded the civics-based first option with support for Ukraine and Israel, which stacks the deck against Republican support. Still, the question basically probes whether respondents ground their beliefs more in civics or trolling.

What's interesting is the sheer number of Republicans who chose the trolling option34%whereas only 57% preferred to have a speaker and a functioning government. Butsurprise!not caring whether the government remains open jumps to 40% among those who support Donald Trump in the upcoming Republican primaries.

What we have here, yet again, is more evidence that Trump's base is hostile to the very concept of government, doesnt understand what it does, and is far more interested in nihilistic trolling than in developing actual, well-considered political opinions.

Trump appeals to Americans who might not have ever thought deeply about government before but who very much like the idea of a showboater "shaking up" Washington with knee-jerk racist opinions and declarations of their group's innate superiority in America. It's a militia movement, but one armed with TV remotes rather than guns. (But also frequently guns, too.)

There's another way to look at these poll results, thougha way that might better put things into perspective. Thirty-four percent of Republicans and 40% of Trump supporters chose the trolling option of "Every day that goes by without a Speaker means that Congress cant waste more of our tax dollars"both an expression of civic nihilism and a well-known conservative partisan taunt.

It's better to have no government at all than one I don't agree with or control might be the cleaner version of that sentiment.

And that's just New Leopardism. Forty percent of Trump's supporters want leopards to eat America's face if the alternative is the government doing nonconservative things, and if the leopards eat the supporters own relied-upon governmental services during a release-all-the-leopards federal shutdown, then that'll be a problem for Future Them, not Current Them.

A chunk of Trumpism wants to see Congress grind to a halt because they think the outcome would be funny or cathartic. That suggests that the Republican fetish for shutting down the government whenever the option arises won't go away soonnot when the base is demanding leopards on every street corner.

Sign if you agree: No more MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!

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A large chunk of Republicans are quite set on voting for the face ... - Daily Kos

In the lead-up to Canada Day I wrote a lament for our countrys atomization and polarization. I bemoaned our decadence, our lack of national unity, andrather cavalierlypointed to Israels robust patriotism, strong birth rate, and shared sense of purpose to make the case that Canada ought to experiment with a mandatory year of national service, just as is required of young Israelis.

While the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel caused me to pause and approach the matter more soberly, it didnt fundamentally change my view. In fact, it is increasingly clear that the horrific act of terrorism, and our subsequent inability to properly reckon with it, has revealed the true depths of Canadas moral relativism. Fortunately, the event that so exposed our flaws can also be a source of inspiration. Israels 9/11, while revealing our weakness, calls on us to find courage, and provides us, in the brave reactions of Israelis themselves to the tragedy, with examples to aspire to.

Some thoughtful critics of the disturbing, morally bankrupt Canadian responses to Hamas attack on Israel have pointed to a creeping nihilism in the West to explain how mainstream Canadians can defend such evil acts. And theres no question that a worldview which understands only power, identity, and oppression leads to a shocking inhumanity. But a few wrong-headed opinion leaders alone dont make for a rotten culture. More concerning in the weeks following October 7th has been the deafening silence of their neutral appeasers. Brushing off tough questions, avoiding taking a stance by appealing to both sides and de-escalation, the newsroom editors, university administrators, and labour leaders choose neutral amorality when confronted with discomfort and sit idly by as their more radical peers ratchet up their justifications.

Our dominant culture of deference and equivocation seems mostly harmless in times of peace and prosperity when manifestations of evil are subtle. We value pluralism after all. Surely good ideas will win out, we think. Surely our proud history will guide us if ever we have to face an uncertain future. But that uncertain future is here, and as de-colonization discourse takes to the streets our neutral liberal mainstream is struggling to respond. Nowhere is Canadas moral confusion playing out more dramatically than in the Liberal Party itself, where a leader who flirted with trendy post-modernism when times were easy is struggling to bring his team onside in defence of civilization when times are tough.

The apparent harmlessness of liberal neutrality when the impacts of evil are merely subtle explains our reluctance to take assertive action in favour of a common good. For libertarians like my friends at the Institute for Liberal Studies who opposed my mandatory service proposal, the potential benefits would never outweigh the coercive state power involved in implementing it. And for most Canadians, most of the time, our moral neutrality feels benign. But when world events force us to confront overt evil, its clear not only that Canada would fail were it to arrive at our doorstep, but that we cannot even summon the courage to consistently oppose it as it terrorizes our allies abroad.

If there is any benefit to the horrors of October 7th, it is in the fact that overt, unsubtle evil is clarifyingit shakes us out of our stupor and stiffens our spines. Stories from the attack remind us of what is important, and what is at stake. Tales of rape so vicious it broke bones, of an unborn baby cut from its mothers womb, and of youthful revellers screaming in fear, their young lives cut short, remind us of the vitality of our bodies, their purpose, and their fragility. Tales of mothers losing daughters, fathers searching for sons, and family members burned to death in embrace remind us of the irreplaceable bonds of family, our most sacred relationships. Tales of terrorists crossing into sovereign territory, descending on a music festival and kibbutzim, and murdering thousands in order to make all Israelis feel terror in their own country remind us that in Canada our safety is a great privilege, our democracy delicate, and our geography lucky. We should never wish to witness the kind of evil that leads to war, but when it comes, we should be grateful for the gifts of its clarifications.

And while Canadas weakness is shocking and concerning, we should take some comfort that that strength is not entirely inaccessible to us. Indeed, Canadian Israelis are summoning the call of their countrymen even today, flying toward bloodshed to fight for what they believe in. They are summoning an ancient virtue, often inaccessible to us neutral liberals. And their fellow compatriots provide ample models for those among us who wish to be inspired by their bravery: a young man throwing himself onto a grenade to spare his girlfriend, a Bedouin man trying to hide Jews from the terrorists who sought them out, a former IDF general leaping into a truck to drive into harms way to rescue his son and grandchildren and saving others along the way.

For those of us who have been lamenting Canadas moral rot and cultural decay, our countrys social response to the events of October 7ththe nihilistic justifications and the neutral liberal equivocationhas felt like an unwelcome reminder. But just as the attack revealed unpleasant truths about the health of our country, it provided helpful hints as to how we might go about healing. If in response to future incidents of evil in Canada and abroad we can summon a shred of the courage shown by Israelis in the face of terror, perhaps we rise above our passive neutrality, reject the proliferation of nihilisms death cult, and promote a shared vision of Canadian valuesmaybe even some wed be willing to fight for.

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Israel's civic strength in response to the Hamas attacks should stiffen ... - The Hub

You either want a rules-based international order or you dont. Ukraine aid is the test.

In a recent conversation with a group of academics and activists from developing countries, a high-level German decision-maker noted that while Germany is preparing to spend 100bn on its military, it does so with a heavy heart. Putin, he said, made us do it.

Not all in the group agreed. Putin, many argued, is no excuse for arming yourself instead of helping the world, especially when there is a humanitarian emergency in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas massacre.

After all, there are countries with more than 200 million population surviving on a state budget of just one-fifth of German military spending. Some described the German governments position as disingenuous.

And yet, all evidence of the slow political process by which Germany has come to the decision to strengthen its defense and to help Ukraine fend off Russian aggression points to the opposite. No democratic country in Europe is rejoicing in cutting spending on welfare, economic development, or humanitarian aid, and redirecting that money to military spending. It is just that there is no other way to stop a rapacious and imperialist neighbor repeatedly acting on its imperial instinct for at least the third time since 2008.

No consensus was reached in that conversation in Berlin, not least because the audience was electrified by the eruption of war in Israel and Gaza since the Hamas, but not at all by 20 months of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

According to a survey from early 2023 by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a clear divide has emerged between the European and American public on the one hand, and those elsewhere, even those fairly neutral on the Chinese-Russian push to end the rules-based international order like India and Turkey.

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While the West still believes it must help Ukraine to win and to stop Russias further expansionist aggression, large parts of the developing world would be satisfied if war simply ended, with Ukraine giving control of significant parts of its territory to Russia. Despite all the years of ever-closer connections between the economies of these countries and the West (or even because of this connectivity, as Mark Leonard argues), the West and the rest of the world do not see eye to eye when it comes to defending the principles of international law and liberal democracy against land grabs and the normative nihilism of dictators.

This points to how much is at stake in Ukraine. No other conflict today is to such an extent about the survival of a global order based on international treaties and democratic norms. If the West, after proclaiming its support for more than a year and a half, and allocating massive aid to Ukraine, does not remain united and genuinely supportive of Ukraine until it wins, the rules-based global order may sadly lose what remains of its credibility. (This, after all, was the rallying cry of that key post-Cold War event, the US-led liberation of Kuwait in 1991, which re-established that borders cannot be changed by force.)

All of which should remind the US Congress of what is at stake in Ukraine. It is true that since the outbreak of all-out war, the US has been the number one contributor to Ukraine in absolute numbers, but it ranks 16th in the world in terms of the share of its GDP dedicated to this aid.

The idea of continuing military aid to Ukraine is currently criticized by both the conservative right (because it is US taxpayers money spent to help people abroad) and the left (which has a long-standing historic affinity to Palestine, but not to Ukraine.)

Nevertheless, however pressing the need to address other conflicts, Ukraine should firmly remain on the list of US priorities, as it remains for its friends and allies in Europe. Failing Ukraine would undermine the unity that emerged in the West following February 24, 2022, and no good scenarios are in store for a petty and disunited West. The world is watching.

Marija Golubeva is a Distinguished Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She was a Member of the Latvian Parliament (2018-2022) and was Minister of the Interior from 2021-2022. A public policy expert, she has worked for ICF, a consultancy company in Brussels, and as an independent consultant for European institutions in the Western Balkans and Central Asia.

Europes Edgeis CEPAs online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or viewsof the institutions they representor the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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No Time to Go Wobbly on Russia - Center for European Policy Analysis

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appears to call out much of the international community for failing to explicitly condemn the October 7 Hamas onslaught.

Blinken says in his speech to the ministerial gathering of the United Nations Security Council that in his conversations with world leaders since the assault, there has been agreement that countries have a right and obligation to respond to terror attacks against their civilians, but indicates that not all of them have acknowledged this publicly.

It must be asked: Wheres the outrage? Wheres the revulsion? Wheres the rejection? Wheres the explicit condemnation of these horrors? Blinken asks.

The secretary calls on countries to do everything in their power to secure the release of the remaining 220-plus hostages in Gaza.

Blinken tells the ministerial gathering that while the US does not seek conflict with Iran, it will respond if Tehran or its proxies attack US personnel. Make no mistake. We will defend our people. We will defend our security swiftly and decisively.

Blinken urges Security Council members to call out Iran for its malign regional activity and warn it, like the US has, not to open another front against Israel.

Act as if the security and stability of the entire region and beyond is on the line because it is, Blinken tells members.

He closes by urging members to redouble our collective effort to work toward a two-state solution following the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

The only road to lasting peace and security in the region, the only way to break out of this horrific cycle of violence is through two states for two peoples, Blinken says, acknowledging that it will be difficult.

Nothing would be a greater victory for Hamas, than allowing its brutality to send us down the path of terrorism and nihilism. We must not let it. Hamas does not get to choose for us, Blinken says, adding that the path the US and the world should choose is one where the region is more integrated and normalized hinting at efforts to broker an Israel-Saudi agreement.

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Blinken to Security Council: Where's the revulsion over Hamas attacks - The Times of Israel

Were living through an era of collapsing paradigms. The conceptual frames that many people use to organize their understanding of the world are crashing and burning upon contact with Middle Eastern reality.

The first paradigm that failed this month was critical race theory or woke-ism. Yascha Mounk has a good history of this body of thought in his outstanding book The Identity Trap. But as it applies to the Middle East the relevant ideas in this paradigm are these: International conflicts can be seen through a prism of American identity categories like race. In any situation there are evil people who are colonizer/oppressors and good people who are colonized/oppressed. Its not necessary to know about the particular facts about any global conflict, because of intersectionality: All struggles are part of the same struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed.

This paradigm shapes how many on the campus left saw the Hamas terror attacks and were thus pushed into a series of ridiculous postures. A group of highly educated American progressives cheered on Hamas as anti-colonialist freedom fighters even though Hamas is a theocratic, genocidal terrorist force that oppresses L.G.B.T.Q. people and revels in the massacres of innocents. These campus activists showed little compassion for Israeli men and women who were murdered at a music festival because they were perceived as settlers and hence worthy of extermination. Many progressives called for an immediate cease-fire, denying Israel the right to defend itself, which is enshrined in international law as if Nigeria should have declared a cease-fire the day after Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls in 2014.

American universities exist to give students the conceptual tools to understand the world. It appears that at many universities students are instead being fed simplistic ideological categories that blind them to reality.

The second paradigm that fell apart this month was what you might call pogromism. This is the belief, common in Jewish communities around the world, that you can draw a straight line from the many antisemitic massacres in ancient history, through the pogroms of the 19th century, through the Holocaust and up to the Hamas massacres of today. In this paradigm, antisemitism is the key factor at work and Jews are the innocent victims of perennial group hate.

The paradigm has some truth to it but is simplistic. In fact, Israel is a regional superpower, not a marginalized victim group. Israeli indifference to conditions in the territories has contributed to todays horrible reality. The Middle East conflict is best seen as a struggle between two peoples who have to live together, not as a black and white conflict between victims and Nazis.

The third conceptual paradigm under threat is the one I have generally used to organize how I see the Middle East conflict the two-state paradigm. This paradigm is based on the notion that this conflict will end when there are two states with two peoples living side by side. People like me see events in the Middle East as tactical moves each side is taking to secure the best eventual outcome for themselves.

After this months events, several assumptions underlying this worldview seem shaky: that most people on each side will eventually come to accept the legitimacy of the others existence; that Palestinian leaders would rather devote their budgets to economic development than perpetual genocidal holy war; that the cause of peace is advanced when Israel withdraws from Palestinian territories; that Hamas can be contained until a negotiated settlement is achieved; that extremists on both sides will eventually be marginalized so that peacemakers can do their work.

Those of us who see the conflict through this two-state framing may be relying on lenses that distort our vision, so we see the sort of Middle East that existed two decades ago, not the one that exists today.

The worldview that has been buttressed by this months events is unfortunately the one I find loathsome. You can call it authoritarian nihilism, which binds Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and other strongmen: that we live in a dog-eat-dog world; life is a competition to grab what you can; power is what matters; morality, decency, gentleness, international norms are luxuries we cannot afford because our enemies are out to destroy us; we need to be led by ruthless amoralists, to take on the ruthless amoralists who seek to take us down.

I dont want to live amid that barbarism, so Im hoping the Biden administration will do two things that will keep the faint hopes of peace and basic decency alive. The first is to help Israel re-establish deterrence. In the Middle East peace happens when Israel is perceived as strong and permanent and the United States has its back.

Second, Im hoping the U.S. encourages Arab nations to work with the Palestinians to build a government that can rule Gaza after Hamas is dismantled. (Robert Satloff, Dennis Ross and David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy have sketched out how this would work.)

Some events alter the models we use to perceive reality, and the events of Oct. 7 fit that category. It feels as if were teetering between universalist worldviews that recognize our common humanity and tribal worldviews in which others are just animals to be annihilated. What Israel does next will influence what worldview prevails in the 21st century.

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Opinion | In Israel and Gaza, Searching for Humanity - The New York Times

The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, has announced that Donald Trump will testify in his fraud trial on November 6. The news was a second blow for the serial indictee after Judge Arthur Engoron denied daughter Ivankas attempt to dodge testifying in the case. She will take her place in the line of familial witnesses after brothers Don Jr. and Eric squirm in the box starting November 1.

Even though Boss Trump will be called to testify as part of the plaintiffs case, he will assuredly be treated as a hostile witness. This will allow the AGs lawyers to ask closed-ended questions mandating a yes or no answer. No doubt he will attempt to speechify and obfuscate. But expect the Judge to derail his oratory and demand he stick to the point under threat of contempt.

He may want to take the fifth with an eye to his criminal exposure in his falsifying business records case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. But it is a pointless exercise. The judge can make an adverse inference (assume he is hiding illegal acts). The AG already has his deposition. And a non-responsive strategy will only increase what is now an inevitable financial penalty.

Any number is theoretically possible, but the $250 million ask by James now seems more like a floor than a ceiling. Especially, as Trump has pursued the scorched earth strategy he learned at Roy Cohns knee. The problem with that aggressive nihilism is that, while it worked in the small-ball cases brought by sundry victims of his inveterate chiseling, he is now facing major league heat. And he has an old man's swing.

The evidence and the Judges comments presage a significant penalty for Trump. His only sensible course would be to try and negotiate a settlement with the state. But two factors doom that course. One, the cost James will demand to close the case will be so highthat Trump may as well risk a Hail Mary. Two, the man is so convinced of his own ability, he probably believes he has the goods to keep his Titanic afloat.

I suspect that Trumps time on the stand will make Captain Queeg look like a high-caliber witness in his own defense. Can you imagine the man who cannot finish a sentence in the friendly confines of an adoring MAGA rally, trying to maintain mental cohesion in the face of an unrelenting attack on a courtroom battlefield?

It is too bad the proceedings will not be televised. If they were, Trumps adoring horde would see a man as defeated as the yellow rat Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) on his way to the chair at the end of Angels with Dirty Faces (start at 0:46 if you want to save time)

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Donald Trump to testify in NY AG Case - Daily Kos

Im walking with Andy through my Riverwards neighborhood.

Andys been in Philadelphia for two years. Hes 26 years old but could easily pass as younger. He has a quiet and agreeable nature and seems more of a 60s stoner type than a typical K & A slumped over drug addict. Andys drug is fentanyl. He makes it clear to me that it is not meth. He would never use meth which often creates open sores and abscesses on the skin.

We pass other lost souls on our way to Wendys where Ill buy him a hamburger. They include a young man who steals beef jerky from Wawa and who can always be found flat on his back in the Rite Aid parking lot; the ginger-haired scrapper with brain cancer; a number of bulk shoplifters headed to the dollar stores with empty Santa Claus bags that will soon be filled with goodies stripped from the shelves.

In many ways, the scene parallels the fall of the greater society. Why shouldnt the homeless be getting worse when society itself seems to be splitting like cracks on an I-95 bridge?

Demonic nihilism has infected the nation, Jacob Howland recently declared in UnHerd. America is now a zombie state.

America is on a different kind of fentanyl.

Case study #1: The woke zombies at the Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran an investigatory piece detailing how many unacceptable political tweets Mark L. Tykocinski, president of Thomas Jefferson University, liked since being appointed president in July 2022.

Those tweets included comments questioning the validity of Covid vaccines to condemnations of child sex change operations. The president also liked tweets expressing skepticism about certain radical equity issues.

They investigated Tykocinskis tweets as if they were digging for facts behind a major crime. Imagine paying reporters to investigate how many tweets someone liked just to ruin their life. And the story doesnt end there. The Inquirer was first tipped off by a group of woke students at the university. The president then resigned under pressure but before that he apologized to the fascists in an attempt to save his job.

As the upper reaches of society crumble over trivialities like this, its no wonder that people like Andy, who comes from a good but impoverished home in Delaware, decide to go full hog into the drug world. Turn on, tune in, and drop out is happening all over.

When Andy first arrived in Philadelphia he didnt know how to panhandle, so asked a street elder how to do it. The elder, a guy named Moose, has been homeless for years, traveling the nation like the hobos of old: riding boxcars, hitchhiking, and taking Greyhound buses when he could afford to.

Moose spent some years on the streets of San Francisco, a city he calls the most evil in the nation. He was drawn to Philadelphia by the lure of cheap and plentiful drugs. Theres safety in numbers: just go to Kensington and Allegheny if you want proof of this. Hillary Clinton was right: It takes a village.

Moose gave Andy a few pointers: make a sign; walk with the sign through traffic at intersections, then wait for people to hand you dollar bills, sometimes twenties, sometimes even larger. Or wait for the unexpected: a banana in your face, milk shakes, soda bottles, a big blast of pepper spray. You never know whats going to come out of a car window or whos driving.

Andy has a makeshift tent not far off Aramingo Avenue in a small wooded area that developers no doubt have their eyes on.

The developers have claimed a lot of Kensington as their own, building condo multiplexes for more exiled New Yorkers and millennials with dogs. With nowhere else to go, the Kensington homeless are now forced to travel book bags and syringes in tow into areas of Port Richmond like Campbell Park, long considered a family spot but quickly turning into Narcan Plaza.

Complaints from neighbors in the Port Richmond area are growing. What was a beautiful neighborhood with decent Polish residents going to Mass every Sunday is slowly turning into your typical Philly dung heap.

Some of the homeless have Home Depot-style tents but Andys tent is his own rustic creation. Several feet away from him a fellow panhandler has pitched his own tent. They are not friends but acquaintances. Friends are hard to come by when you live on the street. Its every man or woman for himself.

Belongings book bags, tents, bicycles, shoes and cell phones disappear, thanks mainly to friends.

I came back from panhandling once and found a fat half-naked black man in my tent, Andy told me.

The weather was 95 degrees, the overweight man was sweating profusely, and Andy wanted him out. The man refused. This is my spot now, the man said. Andy reached for his pen knife and threatened him: Soft spoken peace-loving Andy, the stoner. Once a Gandhi pacifist, life on the streets has him pulling out a knife.

The street will do that to you.

The tent-crasher eventually left, but there was still Billy and Bob to worry about.

Billy and Bob are much like the editors at the Inquirer, the same ones who ruined the life of Mark Tykocinski. They keep watch. They keep tabs. They live to cancel people.

Billy and Bob live in a Home Depot tent with lots of perks. They steal from fellow homeless but do it in clever, manipulative ways. They are also a couple but not in the Ozzie and Harriet sense because they are open to interludes with strangers, especially new young homeless faces who might want to make a few bucks.

Because Billy is the younger and more attractive partner, overweight Bob does most of the (grueling) panhandling. Its the price you sometimes have to pay when you have a trophy lover.

Andy says Billy and Bob snowballed him when he needed to use their phone to access an app in order to get money his father sent him. Billy and Bob stole his money and then acted as if they had a right to do so, just as the Inquirer editors felt it was their right to cancel out Tykocinski. Billy and Bob have hit on other homeless people as well.

Some history: The citys drug-addicted homeless were different when heroin was the drug everyone was abusing. In those days, even the worst of addicts could hold a conversation, make eye contact, and act in normal ways. Todays addicts are often the reverse of that. The effects of animal tranquilizer additives produce anti-social behavior, an inability to construct simple sentences, and spasmodic bodily movements on a par with the antics in The Exorcist.

A thousand and one ways to make your way in a society on the decline: this might be a book title if Clint and May, a homeless couple from the Lancaster area, were to write a book.

Mays daily beat includes holding a sign and walking in the middle of traffic at Aramingo and York Streets while waving at drivers like shes in the Miss America Pageant. Last year she and Clint hosted a Thanksgiving dinner in the woods where they roasted a turkey near the Conrail tracks. Invited guests brought shoplifted items from Wawa and various dollar stores. The turkey was good, Andy recalls.

Clint and May have been together forever, an unusual thing in homeless circles.

Drug addicted homeless couples rarely go on to live happy lives together. Life on the street is not conducive to happy relationships.

A mere ten years ago, most of the Riverwards homeless were single men. Women simply didnt subject themselves to the dicey possibilities that living on the street entails. In todays world, equality rules; homeless women prowl the streets late at night while well bred domestic women who live in houses express fear about going out late alone.

Sometimes May will throw Andy a few extra bucks when she makes a lot of panhandling money. Shes got a motherly instinct, Andy says. Shes also an avid fighter: Clint and Mays fights are usually public spectacles.

Getting arrested is always a possibility when you go down the way an expression a lot of addicts use to acquire your daily allotment of drugs. The thing is, dont be fooled by the apparent freedom and anarchy on the streets at K & A where zombies shoot up on the streets. Theres still vast undercover police sting operations away from K & A around the Huntingdon and Somerset El stations. Men and women in or out of uniform wait in unmarked police cars.

Andy tells me he was caught buying five dollars worth.

Two men sprung out of a car and nabbed him near a boarded up storefront.

A legitimate arrest is one thing. After all, a law has been broken, but why the need to take Andys book bag, his only possession, and cut it in half after dumping the contents out in a dumpster? After this came taunting and a bit of bullying. No offers of a phone call at the police station. Andy was thrown in with a bunch of people who bragged about killing someone.

Okay, cops are human and they have limits like everybody else. Theyre sick of dealing with drug violations and the bizarre anti-social behavior produced by animal tranquilizers.

Everybody and everything is breaking down, even people who are supposed to be the good guys.

In the meantime, the societal decline continues on its merry way. Andy is waiting for another arrest, which is sure to come, as the Inquirer, in its self-righteous blindness, prepares to take aim at another unsuspecting lover of freedom.

Thom Nickels is a Philadelphia-based journalist/columnist and the 2005 recipient of the AIA Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism. He writes for City Journal, New York, and Frontpage Magazine. He is the author of fifteen books, including Literary Philadelphia and From Mother Divine to the Corner Swami: Religious Cults in Philadelphia. His latest, Death in Philadelphia: The Murder of Kimberly Ernest was released in May 2023.

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Thom Nickels: Demonic nihilism? It's not just on the streets. - Broad + Liberty

The Narrow Passage: Plato, Foucault, and the Possibility of Political Philosophy by glenn ellmersencounter books, 120 pages, $21.99

The year 2020 revealed two dominant impulses in the American-led world order. First, the yearning to transcend politics in favor of scientific administration, embodied in the widespread eclipse of self-government by public health experts to manage our response to COVID-19. Second, a fascination with a racial-cultic substrate that lies below the ordinary plane of politics, embodied in the ritual destruction of whiteness and veneration of Blackness after the death of George Floyd.

Glenn Ellmers is not in the business of prediction, and his new book The Narrow Passage does not opine on the stability (or fragility) of our regime. Instead, he analyzes its contradictions as a scholar of political philosophy and as a disciple of Leo Straussand especially of Strausss student Harry Jaffa. A reader expecting the clichd conservative formulaWe must reinvigorate the principles of Western civilization (namely, the liberal values of America two or three decades ago) to halt the lefts extremism and correct the impoverished philistinism of the Rightwill be disappointed. Though Ellmers is opposed, without qualification, to the political agenda and anti-philosophical currents of left ideology, he is surprisingly sympathetic to their psychological roots. His book is an inquiry into the human condition that occasioned the culture war.

Following Strauss, Ellmers understands Western civilization, and perhaps humanity itself, as animated by the tension between the philosopher (for whom the unexamined life is not worth living) and the city (which requires the authority of unexamined opinions). Every political order sees itself as the holy city, animated by a divine commandment to make no covenant with and show no mercy to alien nations, but instead to destroy their altars, cut down their groves, and burn their graven images. But the philosopher questions all opinions, including those that his holy city accepts as true and unquestionable. The deepest roots of our present discontent are found, not in 1968, or 1789, or 1776, or the Enlightenment, or medieval nominalism, but in the human soul itself.

So far, so Straussian. But Ellmers, following Jaffa, accords far more respect to the possible truth of revelation, to the dignity of the moral virtues, and to the demands of political life than most Straussians, whose philosophic supremacism typically results in contempt for politics even unto complicity in the leftward drift of our political order. Though he collapses even religion into the political, Ellmerss respect for politics grants him access to the motives of the revolutionaries on the left who are prosecuting our cold civil war and the radicals on the right who wish for nothing more than the destruction of our decadent regime.

Ellmers describes the contradiction within our present regime as between a scientific-bureaucratic-rational state indebted to Hegel (and represented by Fauci-ism) and a post-modern rejection of all objective standards indebted to Nietzsche (and represented by Floydism). This is the point at which a genealogist of our present regime such as Christopher Rufo might observe that these two strands were masterfully interwoven by the New Left during its half-century march through our institutions; that the contradiction between these strands explains the growing nihilism of the victors; and that their nihilism should encourage Americans attempting a cultural and political counterrevolution. Ellmers addresses the nihilistic terminus of our present regime via a discussion of Michel Foucault, whom he takes as a guide to how todays intellectuals perceive the world, and therefore how the ruling class, at least to some degree, thinks and operates. But he frames the Hegel/Nietzsche or Fauci/Floyd contradiction as the most recent incarnation of the tension between the rational tyranny of philosophy and the tribal passions of politics, between two aspects of human nature described by Aristotle: that all men desire to know and that man is by nature a political animal.

Neither aspect can be abolished. What is often described as a worrying return of tribalism is in fact a reassertion of our political nature, an attempt to recover a sense of meaning and purpose by recreating a holy community of citizen-believers. Drawing on Fustel de Coulangess classic study The Ancient City, Ellmers notes that the spirit of the closed city, with its intense religious and civic camaraderie, seems to be deeply embedded in the human psyche.

And doubling down on the importance of philosophy is no answer, at least not in the conventional way. Plato cannot be a simple hero for Ellmers, representing as he does the philosophic tendency to rational tyranny over ordinary politics. Yet it is from Platos Statesman that Ellmers concludes that the promise of a comprehensive political science which seeks to displace the moral virtue and practical wisdom of the statesmans prudence remains dubious. Plato, then, teaches us as much about the danger that philosophy poses to politics as he does the danger that politics poses to philosophy. The open society and rational state that was the dream (or nightmare) of so many twentieth-century intellectuals, and which presupposed a final resolution to the tension between philosophy and politics, is impossible for both psychological and scientific reasons.

Ellmers thus accepts what so many centrist and conservative intellectuals cannot: that we have never transcended our political nature, and never will, unless and until we achieve the abolition of man. This allows him to avoid a typical conclusion by conservative scholars and culture-warriors: the lamentation of the decline of the postwar liberal order and of the purportedly neutral or at least tolerant postwar academy. Such lamentations, insofar as they wish for a culture without conflict and a nation beyond partisanship, ignore our ineluctably political nature.

The great (but largely unannounced) theme of Ellmerss work is thumos or spiritedness, the part of the human soul that C. S. Lewis called the Chest, the middle element [by which] man is man rather than pure intellect or mere instinct, the part that unifies and dignifies us and by which we feel indignation, righteous or not. Aristotle argued that the best regime required both the habits of freedom of a high-spirited culture and the rationality of an advanced civilization; one without the other produces either overzealous tribalism or slavish subjection. It is thumos that creates affectionateness, the civic friendship or civility whose decline is so often lamented today. But friendship among fellow-citizens is itself a species of what St. Thomas calls piety, the virtue of justice exercised toward those to whom we are indebted for our being and our government: family, country, and God. Little wonder, then, that decline in religion has been followed by declines in patriotism and family formation.

Ellmers errs in largely subordinating religion to his discussions of citizenship in the holy city. Perhaps for this reason, he neglects some of the most interesting features of Coulangess Ancient City, namely, what distinguished Rome from the Greek cities, and how the eclipse of the ancient city prepared for the advent of Christianity. Still, Ellmers offers a helpful corrective from which Christians can learn. It is not enough to dismiss wokeness as a new and false religion, to be combatted with the true religion. Nor can we forget our political duties while seeking to do right by our fellow men and women. We are naturally citizens. Proper piety to our human creditors is not only a school for piety to our heavenly Father, but also a duty enjoined upon us by him. Perhaps our full conversion requires that we recollect the relation between our duties to family, country, and God.

Pavlos Leonidas Papadopoulos is assistant professor of humanities at Wyoming Catholic College.

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Reflections on the Revolution in America | Pavlos Leonidas ... - First Things

Summary

The constant rain in David Finchers bleak neo-noir Se7en creates a memorable atmosphere, but there were also practical reasons for employing it in the film. With its dark tone, engrossing plot, and top-notch cast, Se7en is rightly remembered as one of David Finchers best films. The thriller follows Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman), two homicide detectives on the trail of an elusive serial killer whose murders are modeled after the seven deadly sins.

Se7ens dark tone and harrowing ending were considered a serious gamble upon the films release in 1995. After a disastrous test screening, director David Fincher had to battle with the studio to keep the film as it was (via Daily Hind). Ultimately, the venture paid off, revitalizing Finchers career and proving that star Pitt could deliver depth. The rich, almost gothic atmosphere of Se7en is praised to this day, with the use of rain proving one of the most engaging, atmospheric tools in its arsenal, but the downpour wasnt in the original script.

While Andrew Kevin Walkers Se7en screenplay does include some mention of rain, it isnt nearly as heavy nor as constant as in David Finchers final film. While the rain can be heard beating down from the first moments of the finished film, the first line in Walkers script is Sunlight comes through the soot on the windows. Its a striking opening line, but Fincher has practical reasons for disregarding it. As for the heaviness of the rain, this was the only real option for Se7en since light rain is hard to create and even harder to capture on film.

David Fincher cites a primarily pragmatic motivation for the continuous nature of the rain. The '90s were a big decade for Pitt, who was already seeing his star rise thanks to such films as 1994s Interview with the Vampire. As such, the actor was only available to shoot Se7en for 55 days. With such a tight timeframe, Fincher and the crew couldnt afford to lose a day of shooting. As a result, the director chose to have it always raining in the films city sequences so that production wouldnt be thrown off if it started raining for real (via Scraps From The Loft).

While the primary reason for Se7ens constant rainfall boils down to maximized shooting efficiency, the rain powerfully reinforces the films themes and contributes significantly to the visual and sonic atmosphere of the film. Even during interior scenes, the pounding of the rain is hard to ignore, reinforcing the bleak, noirish sense of a city oppressed by a thundering downpour of sin and nihilism, which cant be forgotten even when the characters are safely inside. Likewise, the reflective quality of the rain achieves a black-and-white contrast that feeds into Se7ens noir-esque visual language.

On a thematic level, the motif of rain feeds into Se7ens biblical allusions. Serial killer John Does image of himself as a weapon of God sent to eradicate sin is corroborated by the heavy rain, which calls to mind the Old Testament story of Noahs Ark and the torrential flood which was intended to wipe the earth clean of the sins of humanity. After John Doe turns himself in on the 6th day of Se7en, the rain ceases, signaling that the flood-like killings have come to an end. Se7ens climactic ending takes place in an arid landscape beneath a cloudless sky where, as with Noahs Ark, the floods have finally receded.

Sources: Daily Hind, Scraps From The Loft

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Why It's Always Raining In The Movie Se7en: David Fincher's ... - Screen Rant