Quotations

TWO VERSIONS OF SELF-LOATHING
1. The kind Douglas Murray rightly rails against - hating your own culture and history
2. The conservative’s loathing of what the West has become that leads to thinking that if this is bad then Putin is good

Both are wrong. 2 is wrong because, in spite of the decadence of western culture there is still sufficient good residual in the ethos. The good still lingers in the consciousness. I think 2 is often embraced in order to achieve a kind of cognitive harmony. It’s a kind of over-simplifying moral maths.

Guy Walker

Name a single time in history when the group fighting to censor speech and ban books were the good guys. 

Kevin Sorbo

Taiwan wants to buy Abrams tanks and howitzers, which are of no use whatever in defense against a prospective mainland invasion, and is balking at US attempts to sell it "porcupine" weapons. As every pundit in the world has written, Taiwan is watching Ukraine closely and drawing lessons. But the lesson it appears to draw is that you won't have much of a country left after fighting a proxy war for the US.

David Goldman yesterday

'Still, so much more could be sent, and that is the priority of the growing Ukraine-victory lobby that stretches from the US to Finland, with notable outposts in Germany’s once-pacifist Green Party and in Downing Street. This loose but influential lobby holds that victory for Ukraine is a victory for Nato and the West, so defeat for Ukraine must mean their defeat as well. It follows that enough military support must reach Ukraine to allow it to expel Russia’s forces, including in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
'For this lobby, the greatest short-term threat is a ceasefire or, even worse, an armistice with Russian forces still in control of Ukrainian territory, providing a dangerous bargaining chip for Moscow. It sees a perilous contradiction between what satisfactory short and medium-term results look like for Ukraine, and what many Western leaders might accept to stop the violence, including allowing Russia to hold on to the territory it gained. It sees Ukraine losing the war unless it receives much more Western support, including heavy weapons with the requisite training. And it sees Nato’s role as ensuring Ukraine drives out all Russian troops, with the hope that Putin himself will be driven out of office.


'Unlike the victory lobby, I see the makings of a solidly satisfactory outcome in the present situation, so long as enough aid reaches Ukraine to keep up its strength — and that means reading the riot act to double-dealing Chancellor Olaf Scholz — while vigorously proposing a peace plan. After all, the two sides have already reached agreement on the broadest issues: Zelenskyy has already stated that Ukraine will not join Nato and the Russian side has already accepted Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.'


Edward Luttwak on 26 April

"Judge me in a year" said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s State Epidemiologist, in July 2020, when his country was being attacked for sticking to its pandemic plan rather than adopting the novel intervention of lockdown. The latest World Health Organisation figures add to the evidence that has been accumulating since summer 2021. Sweden managed the pandemic more successfully than most, with much less disruption of everyday life and economic activity.

Daily Telegraph

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, power, and grace in it.”

Goethe. Putin might think or might have thought this.


“Do what terrifies you. Everything else is boring.”

Anonymous