Søren Kierkegaard:
"Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority."
"Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority."
"The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons. As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles."
"The neocon outlook is based on an overriding false premise: that the US military, financial, technological, and economic superiority enables it to dictate terms in all regions of the world. It is a position of both remarkable hubris and remarkable disdain of evidence. Since the 1950s, the US has been stymied or defeated in nearly every regional conflict in which it has participated."
Michael Anton in Compact, July 21 2023:
"Remoralization Never or Rarely Happens Within the Same Society or Regime
"There are very few examples of a formerly moral or at least somewhat virtuous people becoming dissolute and then remoralizing absent some sort of collapse and reset. Some will point to Britain in the Victorian era. OK, let’s stipulate that. Can you think of any others?
"What caused the Victorian example? It was, first, a religious movement led by dissenting Protestants and, second, the result of a widely expanding middle class insisting on 'middle-class morality.'"
Hadley Freeman in an article about Captain Tom:
"Maybe it’s because English people get so nervy about patriotism — is it embarrassing? Is it racist? — that they channel those feelings into other, less suitable outlets, known as national treasures. So whereas in the US it would be bad to say you hate the American flag, in Britain it would be unforgivable to say you hate Stephen Fry."
It's odd, isn't it, how unsaintly many British "national treasures" are: Barbara Windsor, Elizabeth Hurley, Mr Fry himself. Few are edifying Christians of the sort the Victorians admired (think General Gordon or Florence Nightingale).
The same goes for the foreign triptych of heroes, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.
It's odd, isn't it, how unsaintly many British "national treasures" are: Barbara Windsor, Elizabeth Hurley, Mr Fry himself. Few are edifying Christians of the sort the Victorians admired (think General Gordon or Florence Nightingale).
The same goes for the foreign triptych of heroes, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.
Despite her being a woman Mother Theresa of Calcutta is no longer a heroine, being far too conservative and Catholic.
I am not a morning person. If the Good Lord had intended for me to see the sun rise, he would have scheduled that for the middle of the day. I rise early because I ought to, sometimes because I have to, but never because I want to. Besides, I can’t recall one good thing in my life ever happening before noon. It’s never good news when the phone rings at 5 A.M. It’s either people in the hospital, folks dead or dying, or some fool from Indonesia overly concerned about the warranty on my pickup truck. Surgeries always occur in the gray dawn, and arraignments take place first thing in the morning when judges are still surly from being awakened by our friend from Jakarta. And I am not interested in either of those appointments. So years ago I made a deal with early mornings: “I won’t bother you if you won’t bother me.” We struggle, but these days we maintain an uneasy peace.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nojesuits.com/p/turners-diner-tire-and-lube
The US has not posted an annual current account surplus since 1981.
ReplyDeletehttps://davidstockman.substack.com/p/exorbitant-privilege-no-more
France wins this race: 1974
DeleteFinally, long-term readers will know I’m a big fan of Christopher Caldwell, so it really baffles me that his book The Age of Entitlement still, as far as I know, doesn’t have a UK publisher. You can’t even get it on Kindle here. So if there are any publishers among my subscribers, hint hint. Here’s my review:
ReplyDeleteCharting the decline of the American Republic
The Age of Entitlement: Christopher Caldwell sees in the 1960s the beginning of the country's divisions
BY ED WEST
https://unherd.com/2021/01/charting-the-decline-of-the-american-republic/
I would also like to remind you what Poland’s aggressive policy led to. It led to the national tragedy of 1939, when Poland’s Western allies threw it to the German wolf, the German military machine. Poland actually lost its independence and statehood, which were only restored thanks in a large measure to the Soviet Union. It was also thanks to the Soviet Union and thanks to Stalin’s position that Poland acquired substantial territory in the west, German territory. It is a fact that Poland’s western lands are a gift from Stalin.
ReplyDeleteHave our Warsaw friends forgotten this? We will remind them.
Today we see that the regime in Kiev is ready to go to any length to save its treacherous hide and to prolong its existence. They do not care for the people of Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty or national interests.
They are ready to sell anything, including people and land, just like their ideological forefathers led by Petlyura, who signed the so-called secret conventions with Poland in 1920 under which they ceded Galicia and Western Volhynia to Poland in return for military support. Traitors like them are ready now to open the gate to their foreign handlers and to sell Ukraine again.
As for the Polish leaders, they probably hope to form a coalition under the NATO umbrella in order to directly intervene in the conflict in Ukraine and to bite off as much as possible, to “regain,” as they see it, their historical territories, that is, modern-day Western Ukraine. It is also common knowledge that they dream about Belarusian land.
Vlad P.
Neagu Djuvara argued that Basarab, the XIV-th century founder of Wallachia, was a Cuman.
ReplyDeleteOne of his arguments was that there is no precedent of a decaying empire to refound itself. So if Romanians are remnants of Romans then they could not have had the vitality to found a new state. He argued that invading barbarians are the required ingredient.
I don't know if the argument stands. Various couter-examples come to mind: the various kingdoms/dynasties of Ancient Egypt, the various dynasties of China (of which two, the Yuan and the Qing, were not ethnically Chinese). But maybe they are not considered rebirths by Djuvara but rather reorganizations like the 5 'republics', two 'empires', and one 'ancien régime' of France.
Who should be a national hero?
ReplyDeleteYou tell me. Please give reasons for your choice.
Delete