Category Archives: conservatives

Borders and the Fringe

Posted on Tuesday 3 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

A speculation by Adam Lee about what will happen when we give up national borders; Items from the fringe about Trump’s three rules; Musk’s preference for high status males; Christian nonsense about evolution; simply lying about the Arlington story; and … Continue reading →

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Political Truths and Lies

Posted on Tuesday 27 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

A subject which never ends. My fascination with this, yet again, isn’t about politics per se, so much as trying to understand why people believe what they do, and how humanity struggles with the balance of survival vs understanding. How … Continue reading →

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About Expanding the Human Population

Posted on Monday 26 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Two items today on this topic, first an essay in NY Times, then a letters column today responding to it. I addressed a similar piece Saturday. Here’s the NYT essay. NY Times, Victor Kumar, a philosophy professor at Boston University, … Continue reading →

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Friends and Neighbors, Conformity vs. Liberty

Posted on Thursday 22 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How the Walz/Vance debate revealed two different views of America: conformity v liberty; How we depend on friends and neighbors, and Oprah’s DNC speech; How morality evolved, and religion merely captured it; Brief items about crowd sizes and looks; taking … Continue reading →

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Preferred Relativism

Posted on Friday 16 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

A story about the right’s “50-year-plot” to wreck democracy, and attendant thoughts about how conservatives reject one kind of relativism, and embrace another; The credulousness of conservatives; Notes from the fringe: vaccines; rationalizing Hannibal Lecter; Democrats are wolves; wives afraid … Continue reading →

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They’re Losing It

Posted on Tuesday 13 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump and conservatives deny everything they don’t like by blaming “they” or the “Deep State”; And hurling words like “communist” without meaning; Why are we living in a future dominated by idiots?; Donald Trump doesn’t understand oceans; And the brother … Continue reading →

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Doing Your Own Research; Body Doubles; Intellectual Laziness

Posted on Wednesday 31 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How “doing your own research” results in absurd conspiracies about Biden body doubles; Hemant Mehta tries to parse Candace Owens’ vast conspiracy theories; And how objections to the Olympics opening ceremony are all about intellectual laziness. The problem is, on … Continue reading →

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The Need for a Fantasy Past

Posted on Sunday 28 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

There are two problems with MAGA. First, it’s regressive in that it’s trying to reimpose primitive tribal values onto a complex, global world. Second, more practically, it’s simply not possible to return to conditions of the past. Today’s items: Why … Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Economics, Human Nature | Comments Off on The Need for a Fantasy Past

The Resurgence of Tribal Human Nature

Posted on Saturday 27 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Again, one theme of this blog is the resurgence of tribal human nature and morality, at the expense of the achievements of the Enlightenment: Science and Democracy; With examples today beginning with “childless cat ladies” from the right; How Trump … Continue reading →

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Subjective Worlds

Posted on Sunday 21 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

First of all, I updated yesterday’s post to include the initial list of falsehoods in Trump’s RNC acceptance speech as compiled by CNN, and read off on TV by its fact-checker in the minutes after the speech ended. For today, … Continue reading →

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