Quick Solution to the Syrian Immigration Question

If there's no problem (it helps the economy, etc.), Democratic governors (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Maine, etc.) should just get out in front and volunteer to take all the immigrants* no questions asked.

*Immigrants, not necessarily refugees.  For all anyone knows some of those migrating are not seeking refuge but are instead seeking terror.

Blacks Kicked Out of White-Only "Healing Space"

Disgusting.  Racism won't end until people start treating color as the insignificant property that it is.

What's Wrong With Calvinism?

Houston Baptist University philosophy professor, Jerry Walls, on Calvinism.
It was actually a conversation I had with Walls (when he taught at a seminary) that solidified my choice to continue my education in philosophy rather than change directions by going to seminary.

Am I Essentially Material, an Animal, a Human?

Here is an inconsistent set of propositions:

1. I am essentially human.
2. Humans are animals essentially.
3. Animals are essentially material.
4. I can exist immaterially with no material parts.

One could deny 1.  Perhaps to be a human just is to be a (rational) animal.  I can survive death and exist immaterially, but since animals are essentially material I would not be an animal and thus not a human.

One could deny 2.  Perhaps I am essentially a human, but one can exist with no material parts and still be a human, since animality is merely a stage in a human life.  Or perhaps I'm never an animal.

One could deny 3.  Perhaps I am essentially a human and humans are essentially animals.  However since I can survive the death of my body, an animal (me) can exist with no material parts.

One could deny 4: Perhaps I am essentially material and cannot exist with no material parts.

My inclination is to deny 2 or 3, leaning towards a denial of 3.  It could be that all humans must begin to exist having a material part but can exist immaterially.  But it could be true that humans are essentially immaterial, in which case one should reject 2.

ESPN is Wrong (as usual) on Mizzou

Howard Bryant begins his article with the following:

Despite its complex web of allegiances and rivals, the dynamic that doomed Missouri system president Tim Wolfe and school chancellor R. Bowen Loftin was quite simple: It was the workers versus the owners, the little versus the big, the invisible versus the invincible.

The power of the Missouri football team provided the fulcrum, because money ultimately forced the action. But so much of the uprising was rooted in the frustration of minority students facing years of entrenched racism. 

 It all stemmed from a movement addressing major offenses that were deemed too trivial by an administration whose only response had been to advise that the slapped get tougher, have thicker skin, get over it.

First, there are no owners of universities, unless, since Missouri is a state school, one thinks that the owners are the tax-payers.  But the president is no more of an owner than the board which appoints him, and no more of an owner than the faculty or the students.  They all "own" the university if we want to call it that.  Second, it's not true that the administration's only response had been to advise that the "slapped get tougher."  It has been reported that the president met with students personally.  As well, it has been reported that one of the drunken students who made the racial slurs was removed from campus until campus disciplinary proceedings run their course.  Third, the reported evidence of "entrenched racism" consisted of a nut who scrawled feces (!) and a couple jerks who spat racial epithets at a school with over 35,000 students.  Are we to think that the student body, professors, and administration at large are by and large racists?  Fourth, though the football team no doubt provided the final muscle to upend the president from his presidency, the power of the football team is overrated.  It is only the action of the football team in combination with the progressive radicals that provided the impetus.  As David French writes,

If you think football players are suddenly all-powerful, imagine a counter-factual — like a “strike” by a few players in solidarity with an athlete wrongfully convicted by a campus sex assault tribunal, or a stand in solidarity with a team chaplain under fire for allegedly offending the LGBT community. Would ESPN fawn all over them, celebrating their courage? Would faculty and radical students extol them as heroes? Would a university president and chancellor step down within 48 hours in response to an athletic cry for religious liberty? Student-athletes can’t even figure out a way to be fairly compensated for the billions in revenue they bring to college athletics. Powerful? Only when weaponized by the campus Left. The story at Mizzou is the same old story we’ve reading and watching since the Sixties. Radicals rule.

Read French's other devastating critique.  Excerpt:

Closeted campus conservatives are worse than useless. Indeed, their very timidity contributes to the narrative that there is something shameful about their beliefs. To read anonymous letters from professors who are afraid to “out” themselves in a hostile campus culture is to read the sad dispatches of people too pitiful for their profession. Do something else, anything else, than merely sit and watch while the revolutionaries shred the Constitution, reject our culture, and assert their own will to power.The true shame is that it doesn’t even require actual courage to defeat the university Left, just a tiny bit of will — a small measure of staying power. No one is shooting at trustees. No one is beheading professors. There’s no guillotine in the quad. Instead, campus “leaders” tremble before hashtags and weep at the notion of losing a football team so inept that it couldn’t score a touchdownthrough most of the month of October. Let them strike. With an offense that inept, the SEC won’t even notice.These are the times that try men’s souls? No. These are the times of men without chests. The Left has the will to power. University leaders have no will at all. They have earned nothing but contempt.

George Will on the Hack Calling the Kettle Black

More on the entertaining exchange.

If you haven't seen the video here it is:

The Washington Post weighs in.

True Liberals...

...are now conservatives and libertarians.  Progressives are too totalitarian to warrant the "liber" label.  That's why I've tried to start referring to whom many still refer to as "liberals" simply as "leftists."  There is still ambiguity with the term but not as much.

The left is the side of brainless emotion.   Here too is a reminder of how Democrats can easily turn out the youth vote with appeal to pity, anger, and the like.  The left owns the youth as they own the poor--two of the most susceptible groups to being politically herded by emotional appeal.

Was Jesus in the Tomb?

In a recent discussion I objected to the following premise by J.S. in a theological argument on theological grounds:

Premise: Humans are essentially embodied.

There are at least two theological counterexamples.  One is that humans survive death until the resurrection.  The other is that Jesus descended into hell while his body was still in the tomb.  If either are true then humans are not essentially embodied (provided that one is a human essentially).

To that, M.C. responded that there is no good Biblical evidence that Jesus went to hell, citing 1 Peter 3:19, Revelation 20:3, and that in the Creed it refers to Hades where dead bodies go.

Here, I do not wish to argue for any definitive theological proposition, rather I will point out potential options available to make sense of the empty tomb.  This is a rough sketch.  I will avoid arguments in favor of and problems with each view, though for a couple I point out some difficulties.

Update on Liberal Use of Words

Like manna from heaven (or maggots from hell), I see this today from a liberal on Facebook:

Assholes.

Unless like a socialist you believe in a huge, centralized government, you're an asshole.

Liberal and Conservative Use of Words

According to a study of the use of words on Twitter, liberals tend to swear more and use words such as "I" and "me," whereas conservatives tend to use "we" and "our" more.  Conservatives tend to mention "Nancy Pelosi," "Barack Obama," and "Harry Reid," whereas liberals are more likely to mention "Dick Cheney" (as in, "Dick Cheney is a like totally a dick").

Other examples we might add:

"Republicans are f#$@ing fascists!"
"I hate Bush!"
"I want free college!"
"I want free health care!"
"I want someone else to pay for it!"
"Give me free condoms!"
"What's in it for me?"

Why Does the Left Hate Black Conservatives?

Now that the media full-court press is on to destroy black candidate, Ben Carson, Bill Vallicella's recent posts look prescient...

Several days ago, philosopher Bill Vallicella asks, "what explains the Left's hatred of black conservatives?"

My comment:

The Ben Carsons are simply a huge political and existential threat.
Political: If the black vote were suddenly split, that would spell doom for Democrats.
Existential: The elite left needs to be needed. Ben Carson is a perfect example of someone who should but doesn't need the left.

Here are a few more explanations and thoughts from others:

They hate black conservatives the most because blacks are to them the ultimate left-wing argument against America. They are, even more so than indigenous populations, the group that has endured all that is wrong with our civilization, which they are endlessly trying to destroy and change. For a black person to then actually accept and champion elements of that civilization against them is the ultimate sickness within the black community. He's a traitor working with the "colonizers" and those keeping his own people down. He's equivalent in a way to a jew who is a Nazi, or the "house slave". That's why someone can call him "the most thoroughly despicable person" to run for president in modern times when he's neurosurgeon who's been helping to save people's lives for over 20 years. 

Liberals see a man like Carson as an apostate, and to the faithful, an apostate is far worse than a mere infidel. You've seen the same attitude at work in the university, where conservative professors are held in greater contempt than, say, conservative lawyers. Like conservative Blacks, conservative professors are seen as traitors to the tribe, apostates. Traitors are always dealt with more harshly than mere enemies.

Bill, the "race is a social construct" doublethink is one of the hardest self-delusions of the Left for a rational person to get his head around. On its face it seems an obvious absurdity to build so much of one's ideology, and to expend so much effort and political capital, on something that, according to one's own dogma, has no reality.

The only way it can even begin to make sense is if race is superficially real, but only "skin deep". In other words: yes, there are ancient human subpopulations that differ in their pigmentation -- but these variations in skin color absolutely must not be imagined to correlate, even statistically, with any other human qualities (unless, of course, the comparison with whites is a positive one). In this way race becomes just "real" enough for right-wing bigots to pick out their victims, and for liberals to succor these victims as an oppressed class.

So: to be a member of the victim class, but then to turn your back on your saviors on the virtuous Left and associate with your oppressor, is not only to betray your race, but to reject the Good. (And to insult the good people of the Left -- but I repeat myself.)

See also the smearing of Ben Carson.

And don't forget Herman Cain.

Dems Fear Rubio?

Here I averred that Rubio will get the same treatment that the left gives black conservatives.  Now early in the primaries the DNC has released this ad:

Curious.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul Could Hurt Mary

Harry Frankfurt on the inflationary effect that is likely caused by the government taking money from the rich and redistributing it (only) to the poor:

     The supply of goods available for consumption does not increase, after all, when money is redistributed.  On the other hand, the demand for certain goods by people who were formerly too poor to afford them is very likely to increase.  Thus prices of those goods will probably rise.
     This inflationary pressure will entail a corresponding reduction of consumption, perhaps not by the very rich--who will still have plenty of money with which to cope with the price increases--but by members of an intermediate class, who will be unable to maintain their accustomed level of consumption in the face of higher prices.  The reduction of their standard of living will tend to offset the gain made by the formerly poor.  This trade-off will mean that aggregate utility does not increase.  The aggregate of utility cannot reliably be increased, then, by taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.  On Inequality, (Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 19-20.

Father to Marry Adopted Son

Eh, why not?  If you're going to pretend you're a son (in this case) might as well pretend that you're married.

Don't Uncritically Read Kant's Critique to Children!

Excerpt:

Where to begin? First, we must point out Wilder Publications’ strange certainty that a hypothetical Kant of today would express his ideas in tolerant and liberal language. The supposition has the effect of patronizing the dead philosopher and of absolving him of any responsibility for his blind spots and prejudices, assuming that he meant well but was simply a blinkered and unfortunate “product” of his time.

But who’s to say that Kant didn’t damn well mean his comments that offend our sensibilities today, and wouldn’t still mean them now were he somehow resurrected and forced to update his major works? Moreover, why assume that all current readers of Kant do not share his more repugnant views? Secondly, who is this edition for? Philosopher Brian Leiter, who brought this to our attention, humorously titles it “Kant’s 3 Critiques—rated PG-13.” One would hope that any young person precocious enough to read Kant would have the ability to recognize historical context and to approach critically statements that sound unethical, bigoted, or scientifically dated to her modern ears. One would hope parents buying Kant for their kids could do the same without chiding from publishers.

Determinism is Incompatible With Moral Responsibility

Rubio's Secret Weapon

I expect if Rubio continues to make a show (or Cruz), he will get the same treatment the left gives to black conservatives.