[William A. Baurle]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Never heard of Horowitz. But if he's a Hobbesian, then he's the right kind of guy.

I haven't read Hobbes very thoroughly, but the little I've read, I've liked. He seemed ahead of his time, like Spinoza.

Originally Posted by Andrew Mandelbaum

Actually....no thanks John. Enjoy the goat and the under-bridge.

I don't know if this is accusing John of trolling, or this thread. In either case, it's offensive.

But that's okay, I've got a thick skin, and I'm sure John's is way thicker.

I wouldn't waste five minutes examining Horowitz except for the fact that powerful people like Sessions, who I believe is one of most practically dangerous people in the present administration, view him as an important thinker.


BTW I think Zizek is mostly out of his mind but he makes me laugh. - Andrew M.

Sessions is not dangerous. And Zizek doesn't know what he thinks. He's Derrida-warped, like many in the world.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Before putting Hobbes under your pillow I would suggest reading Arendt's work on the Totalitarian state. His place at the roots (whether innately or not) is an interesting idea and her work on sovereignty is compelling.

There are millions of non-violent offenders in cages in the US. Sessions wants to turn back from the trajectory that was making some headway against indiscriminate sentencing and vicious application of the law. Of course you don't find him dangerous. That is how the tough on crime propaganda works. It turns itself from the actual threat that it is into a sense of security.

[William A. Baurle]

It would be awfully nice if you could make an attempt to write clearly, but as usual your response leaves me wondering just what you're trying to say.

I don't care for your snide insinuations. What does this mean, for instance:

"Of course you don't find him dangerous. That is how the tough on crime propaganda works. It turns itself from the actual threat that it is into a sense of security."

Does that mean we shouldn't be tough on crime? And just what do you mean by the part I emphasized? As many of my posts as you've read, and you seem to assume something about me that is simply not the case. Or, and I find this more likely: you are trying to cast suspicion on me because I don't spout the kind of lefty lingo that you do?

Put Hobbes under my pillow? What the hell does that mean?

Arendt? Okay, I'll dig into her more. I've read a bit, but not much. I suggest you dig into somebody like Harold Bloom. It's always good to hear views you don't agree with. Keeps you level-headed.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

You seem to want the freedom to argue and throw out loaded phrases but don't seem to be able to handle it when folks treat your arguments accordingly. I find that dull. I don't think you have a good grasp of Horowitz, Hobbes, or political theories in general. Normally, that doesn't bother me. I talk with people all the time about subjects I am new to. But I know when I am new. And I do my homework when I stick up for an idea or a writer. You don't. Which again, is fine. But I don't have time for your temper tantrum.

I wish you well in your Hobbesian world. I will not will not live in it with you, if it can at all be helped. I don't find my bit on Hobbes or Sessions that mystified.

I am not you guy here, William. I think ideas that have violent or unfair outcomes in the world don't deserve good manners or gentle handling. I think my approach is pretty consistent and out in the open. If you don't like it, I can easily ignore your posts from here onward.

[Mark McDonnell]

Fwiw I fundamentally agree with you, Bill, that terms like 'left' and 'right' have become divisive and counter-productive to reasoned debate. But that also makes me suspicious of people like Mr Horowitz who claim to have moved from 'the left' (because of it's terrible political correctness and tribalism and curbs on 'free speech') to the 'right'. Why move from one tribe to another?? It's all just book deals and internet noise.
What I know about Israel/Palestine you could fit on one side of A4 so forgive me if I make anyone spray their breakfast at my naivety. But. It's always baffled me that the left's default position is to favour Palestine over Israel. I know this is a dull point to make and probably means I haven't done my homework, but I thought the left were all in favour of freedom of speech, gay rights, women's rights, general freedom of religion/secularism. None of these ideals sound like they would come down much in favour of Palestine.

I know I'm being naive (deliberately so - I think I know some of the answers to my own questions) but someone explain it to this liberal atheist who just sees two Abrahamic religions kicking the shit out of each other. Don't tell me to read a book. Assume I'm really interested but very pushed for time...

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Subsets of Palestinian society are highly educated, human rights proponents with many outspoken, strong women. It is society full of secular minded individuals, playwrights, poets, and others. It is also has other elements less open to those values. The question is what type of conditions encourage the former and what conditions the latter? You cannot collectively punish a people, deny their history, and the their connection to the land and not see all manners of resistance, honorable and less so. It is especially ill conceived to place a culture steeped (for good or ill) in machismo in a position of constant shaming and impotence. There is no Left with a capital L. There are people that support Palestine because they are anti-Semitic schmucks. I believe they are the minority. Others because they recognize in the occupation circumstances that they themselves would never surrender to and find the damage to the occupier as disturbing as the damage to the occupied. Some hate what is because of what could have been.

[Julie Steiner]

Reviews of other members' poetry should not take place in General Talk. Thanks.

[William A. Baurle]

Nevermind.

It's pointless.

[John Riley]

Sessions is not dangerous.

This is the type of thinking I was referring to when I said I don't take anyone who thinks Horowitz is worthwhile seriously. I am a Southerner old enough to have grown up during the climatic years of the Civil Rights Movement. Sessions is a Bull Connor-type racist. It's obvious to anyone not blinded by the racist pseudo-intellectualism of what passes for conservatism in the twenty-first century. He is an extremely dangerous man who has participated in the denial of the fundamental freedoms and rights to millions of citizens. He would like nothing more than to find ways to do that again.

There once was a tradition of conservatism that did not require one to lose all decency and self-respect in order to hold it as one's fundamental political belief system. But since WWII, and particularly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965, what I think of as true conservatism has been swamped by a Southern-minded racist hysteria. The superficiality of current conservatism renders it unserious. The core of Paul Ryan's ideology comes from the rantings found within two of the silliest novels of the twentieth century, and he is the man who is held up as the keeper of the conservative belief system in Congress. He is constantly held up as a serious thinker when his ideas are derived from the shallow ravings of a woman who wanted to recreate the society that had given her family its privileged life style before the Russian Revolution. Her ideal was the Russia of poverty and serfs and Ryan makes all his aides read her. This is what has replaced Russell Kirk and John Adams and Edmund Burke. Horowitz is just another example, although a minor one, of the deterioration of American conservatism.

There are still a few worthwhile conservative voices out there. No one participating in the ravaging of American decency and democracy going on today pays them any mind of course. They have been run out of the movement as "Rinos" or "Cucks" or secret liberals.

There is more that could be said. A basic question, for example, is whether a guiding idea that cautions against rapid change is possible in an economic system--and the U.S. is first and foremost an economic system--that is predicated on rapid, constant change? I think the contradiction is unsustainable. I don't think Conservatism will ever exist in a hyper-Capitalist economic system that uses up all resources, particularly lives, in its unceasing drive for profit. But I suppose this is a question open for discussion and debate. Horowitz's rantings are not.

[James Brancheau]

"You cannot collectively punish a people..." Yeah, that's right. Both Andrew's and John's last contributions make this thread worthwhile. I wasn't familiar with Horowitz before this thread. What an ass.