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Posted November 21, 2018; updated November 29, 2018.
Ronn Neff: Donald Trump took a lot of heat when he said that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel ("appointed by Barack Obama," the media dutifully tell us), who ruled against him in a class-action case, ruled unfairly and that his "ethnicity" or "heritage" (the euphemisms for "race") played a role in that. Paul Ryan (who had no dog in the fight) weighed in on the issue by saying, "Claiming a person can't do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It's absolutely unacceptable."
And yet that is PRECISELY the sort of thing that identity politics not only
tells us but enjoins us to take into account: there must be black judges
and women judges and Mexican judges and Muslim judges so that they can see
things the way blacks, women, Mexicans, and Muslims see things, and rule
accordingly. In other words: white male judges cannot do their jobs because
they are white males. (I do not believe that Paul Ryan ever said any such thing
about the claims made for the importance of having non-white female
Supreme Court justices when they were up for confirmation, presumably
because he had no dog in those fights.)
Identity politics has even now explicitly attacked the most basic democratic fiction: that one person, by virtue of an election, can represent a mass of people, even among those who did not vote for him. Now we must have Mexicans, Hawaiians, Indians, blacks, and Muslims in the legislatures so that those people can be "represented."
The only person who imagines he can represent everyone is Dys-Lexi O-C.
Update, November 29: See what I mean?
"Jay-Z says panel is 'too white' to be fair in trademark case," by Rebecca Rosenberg and Julia Marsh, Page Six, November 28, 2018. Ω
Posted November 28, 2018.
Ronn Neff: You'd think leaving something like the European Union would be pretty easy. It wasn't all that difficult to get into it, after all.
But it seems there is one difficulty after another. "Brexit" turns out to be pretty complicated.
Freedom-lovers who like big talk about secession and other separation
should take note. Ω
Nicholas Strakon: If this utopianism is sincere ...
I saw this in one of Politico's e-mail roundups today:
ALERT FOR MAR-A-LAGO ... AP'S MARK SHERMAN: "Roberts criticizes Trump for 'Obama judge' comment": "Chief Justice John Roberts is pushing back against President Donald Trump's description of a judge who ruled against Trump's new migrant asylum policy as an 'Obama judge.'Cinephiles may remember a scene in the movie "Stalin" (1992) in which Molotov says something inane and Stalin (played by Robert Duvall) tells him, "Molotov, you are an idiot. You will go far.""It's the first time that the leader of the federal judiciary has offered even a hint of criticism of Trump, who has previously blasted federal judges who ruled against him.
"Roberts said Wednesday the U.S. doesn't have 'Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.' He commented in a statement released by the Supreme Court after a query by The Associated Press.
"Roberts said on the day before Thanksgiving that an 'independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.'"
John Roberts has gone far. Ω
Posted November 2, 2018.
Ronn Neff: Streisand awakens. In her interview with ABC (about 1:50), Barbra Streisand asks (referring to Donald Trump), "How does someone who lies that much sleep at night?"
We are happy that Miss Streisand's dormant sensitivities on this matter have finally woken up, and we agree that her question deserves an answer. Miss Streisand is fortunate in having easy access to a friend (lover?) who can perhaps give her some insight on the matter: Bill Clinton. Ω
Ronn Neff: A bad assumption. Federalist Paper No. 45 is one of the few from which there is a passage that gets quoted often: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite."
Not quoted so often — and indeed laughable in light of the "secret resistance" within the Trump administration — is this gem, from the same Paper:
"The number of individuals employed under the Constitution of the United States, will be much smaller, than the number employed under the particular States. There will consequently be less of personal influence on the side of the former, than of the latter." Ω
Ronn Neff: With the way feminists take umbrage and manage to get people fired, will someone please explain to me why Jimmy Kimmel has a top late-night show? Doesn't anyone remember "The Man Show"? And the Juggies?
I mean, high-flyin' guys can get fired for wondering aloud whether there's some reason that women aren't techies. Or mathematicians. And Kimmel gets away with the Juggies on trampolines? In slow motion? Ω
What do you think?
"Stop and think" archive.
TLD is a forum of opinion, edited by hard-core market anarchists, that does not flinch from any of the most pressing issues of our time. We are especially interested in questions of culture and ethnicity, our Polite Totalitarian ruling class, and the homicidal humanitarianism of the U.S. Empire.
Our writers include anarcho-pessimists, Old Believers in the West, unreconstructed Confederates, neo-Objectivists, and other enemies of the permanent regime. We are conscientiously indifferent to considerations of thoughtcrime. Thus, from individualist and Euro-American perspectives, we confront the end of civilization — and do our level best to name its destroyers. (More about who we are.)
— Nicholas Strakon, editor-in-chief
Ronald N. Neff, senior editor
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"If this government cared about ideas, it would crack down on The Last Ditch. It could be called The Joy of Thinking."
"Whoever said 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty' didn't realize it, but he was thinking of The Last Ditch."
— Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance
Permanently recommended readings
"What Is Austrian Economics?" (Mises Institute)
"I, Pencil," by Leonard E. Read (Liberty Fund;
scroll down for text)
"The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism,"
by Roy A. Childs, Jr. (TLD)
"Polite totalitarianism," by Ronald N. Neff (TLD)
Published in 2018 by WTM Enterprises, P.O. Box 224, Roanoke, IN 46783-0224.
Please note that Thornwalker is only the "landlord" for The Last Ditch. WTM Enterprises is solely responsible for all design and content on this site.
Nicholas Strakon