Taking Nihilism Seriously as Republican Politics

Nihilism easily defined is that death to all is preferable to any opponents’ continuity. To wit, the nihilist doesn’t want to die but has every arsonist’s instinct and especially the desire to burn his opponent’s house down with them in it. If possible, such death must include cruelty to confer pleasure because the true nihilist…

Got Rant? Why Happiness and Its Pursuit Are Overrated

Allow me to be contrarian. You were expecting?  Let’s start by saying that happiness is way, way overrated. I can think of 330 million things I would rather pursue than happiness. That makes me damn near unAmerican and certainly no one ever mistook me for a Buddhist but for my love of metaphysical annihilation at death.  …

What’s Left? Self-Respect and the Culture of Self Interest

Words like “disparity” or “incongruity” don’t do the matter justice. I mean something more like “chasm,” in this case the chasm between the legal and the ethical. Our president and his criminal mob are not being prosecuted because their acts or their position within the legal system suggests that their behavior has not risen to…

The Moral Equivalence of War, Democracy on the Brink Must be the Norm

For President’s Day I reread Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. Its most familiar bits about malice towards none and charity toward all remind us that this hope was not realized but reversed in the aftermath of his death. The Confederate traitors largely did not pay for their crimes of treason but rather freed black people who…