The New Number Two

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments) grounded ethics in human sympathy & the impartial spectator—not God. Morality from our social nature & psychology. Religion can reinforce it, but isn’t required. Even praised virtuous atheist Hume. Your ancestor built a secular moral theory!

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@charlesmurray I also wondered if Canada’s political culture was altered when Canada took in Loyalists fleeing America—perhaps making Canadians more deferential to authority? It would be culture passing down, not genetics.

[Sherman McCoy @wasphyxiation]

> notorious womanizer despite being fat and bald
> retires at 42 as the richest man in the colonies by building a fortune on posting
> world-leading scientist in his SPARE TIME despite little formal education
> hired by the government during the revolution to schmooze people in France
> founded the future most powerful country on earth
> died at an old age universally admired

Reminder: Ben Franklin was the biggest baller of all time

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@LouiseCulmer1 @pensandpoison Yes, War and Peace should have been edited down.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@BillMelugin_ @FoxNews Another example of an illegal alien getting a CDL from one state and causing harm by his driving in another state. Shame, shame on the Supreme Court for not taking up this issue, when Florida sued California and Washington state.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@TRHLofficial I think that the threshold need to pass an Amendment via Article V—38 states to ratify— is a barrier high enough to prevent bad amendments. The barrier might be so high that some good proposals might fall short.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

Well, I think it would have been entirely possible—and in fact quite likely—for a Harvard student in the 1970s to take classes from both John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

Both philosophers were long-term members of Harvard’s Philosophy Department during that decade, with significant overlap in their tenures.

[James Bovard @JimBovard]

July 4 is the anniversary of my first attack on Congress - a 1979 satirical salvo published by the New York Times. I explained that congressmen were so dishonest & irresponsible that randomly conscripting citizens would vastly improve Washington.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

It might also partially explain why Generation X is less receptive to socialist ideas than the younger generations. Generation X lived when the Communist bloc existed, and saw its shortcomings. When someone such as the mayor of New York touts government run grocery stores, the attitude of some of us to that is like “that’s old hat, and not good”.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@FischerKing64 The books deal with different problems . Plato’s Republic deals with the problem, what is the best government and societal arrangement? A work of literature such as Anna Karenina deals with the problem of conveying a truth about the human condition.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@TiffanyFong My high admiration for Japan has increased even more!

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@COSProject @GWhat558242 I think great governor DeSantis proposed that here on X.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@PAHoyeck Interesting book covers.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@EP_Freely @SchopenhauerNow Schopenhauer remains a fascinating case: a thinker whose misanthropy was intellectual and pessimistic.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@EP_Freely @SchopenhauerNow Schopenhauer called for kind and compassionate treatment of animals and condemned gratuitous cruelty, but he permitted their killing for human needs when done humanely.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

Respectfully, the minor premise overstates the case. NDEs arise during brain stress (hypoxia, cardiac arrest), with measurable surges in gamma activity, neurotransmitter release, and disrupted multisensory integration (e.g., TPJ). These produce vivid experiences with compromised—but not absent—brain function. Memories still require post-event brain encoding. Brain-based models explain the data well; they don’t refute materialism.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

@miles_commodore I totally agree. High schools should be teaching the basics of investing too—stocks, mutual funds, compound interest, that kind of thing. I think a lot of kids would actually find it interesting once they see how it directly applies to their own future.

[Rekieta Law @RekietaLaw]

This issue is not so straight-forward. Congress is SUPPOSED to have plenary authority on matters of immigration and naturalization (except the limited cases where this butts up against executive authority over foreign relations).

In theory, congress could pass a law clarifying "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to mean political jurisdiction AS WAS OBVIOUSLY AND SPECIFICALLY INTENDED.

In this case we have congress exercising its plenary authority and is theoretically uncheckable by SCOTUS. This sounds great...

Except SCOTUS could say that the 14th still guarantees birthright citizenship and congress has no authority to "add" the word "political" to the amendment to give it different meaning than what SCOTUS says it means.

SCOTUS will cite to Marbury v Madison to justify their unconstitutional regulation of the legislature's plenary authority because it unconstitutionally claimed the power to do so despite having no explicit authority in the text.

This, of course, leaves us in a constitutional crisis caused by Roberts and his harem of retards who decided that a specific clause in the 14th amendment simply doesnt exist.

Congress should still do it.

[The New Number Two @TheNewNumberTw2]

Philosopher Robert Nozick nailed this decades ago in his essay “Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?” He pointed out that “wordsmith intellectuals”—people whose skills shine in verbal, academic settings—thrive in school-like environments where intelligence and articulation get top grades, status, and approval from authority figures.

They then want society remade in school’s image: centrally directed, with rewards based on perceived merit (i.e., their kind of smarts) rather than market outcomes that value what people actually demand and produce. Capitalism frustrates that expectation, so they resent it and push alternatives that promise to put “the best and brightest” (them) in charge.