Pat McGeehan

Catholic | Dad | Ph.D. studies | M.A. Philosophy, Franciscan University | Former Intelligence Officer | USAF Academy ‘03 | Majority Leader, WV House

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

In 2015, the “Defend the Guard Act” was introduced in the West Virginia Legislature, aiming to bring sanity to our nation’s foreign policy and the legal abuses foisted upon our servicemen within our state’s National Guard. 🧵

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

@johnddavidson @HollyOrdway Important commentary, good work.

[Leading Report @LeadingReport]

BREAKING: Afghans in America are now living in fear, per CNN.

[The Chivalry Guild @ChivalryGuild]

In the end, all a man really wants is to do enough so that when he goes to his fathers he might not be ashamed, even in their mighty company.

[Scott Yenor @scottyenor]

I've joined @Heritage as Director of the Simon Center for American Studies. I look forward to continuing my work from @ClaremontInst, focusing on applying the spirit and principles of the Founding to family life, ed, immigration, and other issues. Very grateful to @KevinRobertsTX for this honor and am happy to be part of his incredible team.

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

@ChivalryGuild Excellent (do journalists, next)

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

@AuronMacintyre D.C. Schindler’s “Freedom from Reality”…much deeper look into this concept and its consequences

[Istra of Glome @byistra]

G.K. Chesterton, my favorite definition of courage

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

Duh.

[Auron MacIntyre @AuronMacintyre]

John C Calhoun explains that in a government of numerical majority the press not only fails to restrain government power, but becomes a tool of organized minorities to control public opinion

[Athenian Stranger @Athens_Stranger]

Among the worst things thoughtful Christians could do is mistakenly think they don’t need to read —and read *very* seriously— Nietzsche.

The great error made by most is thinking that they can critique nihilism as if they aren’t somehow already deeply entangled in it themselves.

[Humble Flow @HumbleFlow]

I’ve never been so moved by a Dostoevsky paragraph before.

[Joseph Porter @jjosephporter]

This is how @Columbia's "Contemporary Civilization" course ends. A nice illustration of the lopsidedness of almost all humanities curricula— promising "a wide range of perspectives" and then excluding all unapproved perspectives

[Athenian Stranger @Athens_Stranger]

The word “Neoplatonism” is itself neo (new) and, like so many other neologisms in philosophy, far more problematic than helpful

The word was invented in 19th century

Prior to the 19th century all so-called “NeoPlatonists” understood themselves as fully within Plato’s teaching

[Athenian Stranger @Athens_Stranger]

Philosophy is unique among the various fields of knowledge because it’s so uniquely rare

Reading and commenting on philosophers doesn’t make you a philosopher — much like reading and commenting on kings doesn’t make you a king

Similarly, most “intellectuals” are *mere* pundits

[Mark W. @DurhamWASP]

“‘The West’, Spengler argued, has come to its end, as every culture must. We have now entered the period of mere ‘civilization’, when administration and technology take over from the flowering of the spirit in its summer forms...”

Sir Roger Scruton

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

Ressentiment: Living rent free in honest Iago’s head

[(((Mike Pushkin))) @pushkinforhouse]

I guess @McGeehanWV won’t be able to send our tax dollars across the river after all

[BaseballHistoryNut @nut_history]

Let’s not forget that July 4th is also the anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s epic speech (1939) at Yankee Stadium

[𝙶𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚢𝚜𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚐, 𝙼𝚊’𝚊𝚖 🗯 @gettysburgmaam]

Lee & Longstreet have a little chat this morning

Pete is gonna 2nd guess this entire thing from the get-go

But Lee is set on his plan
***Attack the center***

"No 15,000 men ever made can take that ridge"

#Gettysburg162 #Gettysburg

[Manifest History @ManifestHistory]

The Battle of Gettysburg: Day 3 🧵

1/ On July 3, 1863, Gettysburg reached its climax, with 140,000 troops locked in a desperate struggle. From Culp’s Hill to the fields south of town, Day 3’s battles—culminating in Pickett’s Charge—produced over 15,000 casualties, deciding the battle’s outcome. Lee’s Confederates staked everything on breaking Meade’s Union line, while the Army of the Potomac fought to hold the high ground. Cavalry clashes and artillery duels framed the day’s drama, as the Civil War’s turning point unfolded. This thread covers Day 3, where courage and carnage changed the trajectory of the war.

[Pat McGeehan @McGeehanWV]

It’s a fool’s errand to reason with what’s irrational. Much of what passes for journalism here seems to be promotion of victimhood…which is worse than the mediocre norm of participation trophies. Excellence is no longer diluted by simply dropping standards…the underlying aim is now an attack against excellence itself. And it’s not about actual victims. At its core is resentment…

The spite at the center of it all is concealed by moral language, but the content of the language is hollowed out—which is noticeable through a focus on ‘gossip,’ inflated outrage…and innuendos about evil nazis lurking around the corner. All of this amounts to passive-aggressive power plays to tear down what is resented, which are typically qualities victimhood pushers lack (strength, cardinal virtues, abilities to overcome real adversity, etc)

Victimhood, then, is not about protecting those who are weaker. It is really a shrewd means for weaker characters to act on this resentment…and injure who and what they resent. This is a form of nihilism…and its ends are “nothing”—in the sense that the disvalue is innately life-denying, and only finds definition through what it opposes, alone. Its total success would entail total downfall, including their own.

Young reporters here, chasing social status, probably don’t have any bad intentions. Fairly unreasonable though to expect cooperation in an exercise where that status is gained by presupposing participants as evil

[Amelia Knisely @ameliaknisely]

When you’re trying to do journalism

@caitycoyne

[The Chivalry Guild @ChivalryGuild]

A Christian must come to a proper understanding of what humility is—and what it is not.

This passage from Josef Pieper’s Faith Hope Love strikes me as very helpful: “Humility is not primarily an attitude that pertains to the relationship of man to man: it is the attitude of man before the face of God. Humility is the knowledge and acceptance of the inexpressible distance between Creator and creature.”

So a lot of the stuff that we associate with humility—self-deprecation, performative lowliness, renunciation of aspiration and ambition—has little to do with the real virtue. Humility is much more about knowing yourself—which first and foremost means knowing that you did not create yourself. You were created.

A lot of implications follow from this.