From Wikipedia: Hanlon’s razor is an aphorism expressed in various ways including “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” or “Don’t assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.” It recommends a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for a phenomenon (a philosophical razor). To me, Hanlon’s razor is a deliberate misdirection. I (more…)
Once Obamacare is “Repealed & Replaced” – i.e. once the GOP ensures that we have socialized medicine against our will, the last hope, the Freedom Caucus and all that that implies (the Tea Party, the Liberty Movement, etc.) will die…that will be the Freedom Carcass.
I just published Semantic Infiltration as a glossary term and I nearly fell for it myself recently. I am an anarcho-capitalist and refuse to relinquish the word capitalism as if it means corporatism or cronyism, but there is an insidious plan afoot that has converted so much of the world’s production into financial wealth amassed (more…)
Semantic infiltration is the “systematic distortion of meaning of certain words to confuse or mislead”.[1][2][3] According to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, it “is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality”.[2][4] Eventually, “we pay for small concessions at the level of language with large setbacks at the (more…)
Potlatch Culture A potlatch was a ceremonial feast among tribes of the Pacific Northwest who were so rich in resources that they demonstrated their wealth at big celebrations by wasting it, for example, by preparing mountains of fish and dumping them back in the ocean. I see alarming hints of this mentality in today’s consumer (more…)
“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” “The most important political office is that of the private citizen.” “Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and (more…)
I can’t take credit for coining this one and I must admit, though I saw the PsyOp brewing for over a year, I didn’t see it ending in real violence–and that is only beginning, I suspect. In today’s Journal, Daniel Henninger coins a couple of phrases, Political Disorder Syndrome and Political Shooter, the latter in (more…)
I walked past a bakery recently and saw some outrageously priced coffee with some heavy marketing elements that said something to the effect that it was grown by desperately poor farmers who sacrifice their children’s food to give you organic, environmentally-friendly coffee (they left out “to fuel your hyper-productive, obscenely materialistic lifestyle,” but that would (more…)