Search

The expiry date Arlene Foster refers to only arises in the event of a majority in NI wanting Irish unity. Is the implication here that there should be no unity regardless of how many in NI desire it. The consent of a majority being required for constitutional change is at the #NorthernIreland #IrishUnity #Politics #GB #IE

seriously if a candidate for prime minister cannot see the difference between governments and regimes, especially since she is unable to draw a line against V, which is clearly characterized by totalitarian ideals and anti-Semitism, the social democrats have a long history of this in foreign policy, (translated)

De er blevet finansieret i både Sverige og Danmark. Bedrageri skal koste fængsel, pengene skal tilbagebetales samt udvisning af Europa. Og nu må politikernes finansiering af udenlandske statsborgere stoppe. Det er fup og fidus ved højlys dag. #dkpol #uddpol https://t.co/nnsSYtLkRP #dkpol #politics #bedrageri

“Socialism Was Good in Theory” That sentence assumes the theory was never seriously challenged. It was. Long before the Soviet Union existed, before Lenin seized power, and before socialism had been tested on a national scale, major thinkers were already attacking its foundations—from very different directions. Five of them stand out. Tocqueville: Equality Can Become Servitude In 1848, Alexis de Tocqueville drew a sharp distinction between democracy and socialism. Both spoke about equality. But Tocqueville believed they pursued it in fundamentally different ways. Democracy, in his view, sought equality while preserving individual freedom. Socialism risked achieving equality by expanding the power of the state over the individual. His warning was essentially this: equality is not automatically liberty. A society can pursue equality so aggressively that it begins sacrificing the independence that makes political freedom meaningful. Bastiat: Follow Where Redistribution Leads Two years later, Frédéric Bastiat attacked socialism from a different direction. His question was deceptively simple: What happens when the state acquires the authority to take from some people and give to others in the name of justice? Bastiat called this “legal plunder.” His concern was not merely that redistribution might be expensive. It was that once government becomes the instrument through which competing groups obtain benefits from one another, politics can turn into a permanent struggle over who controls the machinery of redistribution. The problem, therefore, wasn’t simply how much the state redistributed. It was the principle that made redistribution legitimate in the first place. (bastiat.org⁠) Nietzsche: Equality Can Become Resentment Nietzsche approached socialism neither as an economist nor as a constitutional theorist. He attacked its psychology. He saw modern egalitarian movements as part of a much older moral impulse: resentment toward exceptional individuals and suspicion of strength, ambition and hierarchy. For Nietzsche, the danger was not simply that everyone might become economically equal. It was that a culture could begin treating excellence itself as something morally suspect. The goal would cease to be lifting people upward. It would become bringing the exceptional downward. Böhm-Bawerk: Challenge the Economics Then came Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. In 1896, he turned his attention specifically toward Marx’s economic system. His criticism was not primarily moral or political. It was technical. Böhm-Bawerk argued that Marx’s theory of value did not adequately explain how the labor values developed in Capital could be reconciled with the actual prices Marx subsequently needed to explain. In other words, he attacked socialism where it claimed to possess a scientific economic foundation. The argument became one of the central criticisms of Marxian economics and helped launch a debate that would continue for generations. Mises: The Calculation Problem Then, in 1920, Ludwig von Mises attacked an even more fundamental question: Even if socialism is morally desirable, how would a socialist economy actually know what to produce? A functioning economy has millions of competing uses for scarce resources. Build a bridge or a hospital? Use steel here or there? Produce more machinery or more consumer goods? Under private ownership and markets, prices for capital goods provide information about relative scarcity and opportunity costs. Mises argued that abolishing private ownership of the means of production also removes the genuine market prices necessary for rational economic calculation. The problem wasn’t simply that socialist planners might make bad decisions. It was that the system deprived them of the very economic signals required to systematically compare those decisions. (Mises Institute⁠) And that was the sequence. Tocqueville challenged the political premise. Bastiat challenged the moral and legal mechanism of redistribution. Nietzsche challenged the psychology behind egalitarianism. Böhm-Bawerk challenged Marx’s economic theory. Mises challenged the possibility of rational central economic calculation. Five different thinkers. Five different objections. And all of them came before the Soviet Union had demonstrated what large-scale socialist government would actually look like. So “socialism was good in theory, but bad in practice” is not an argument. It is a historical claim that requires you to explain why these theoretical objections were wrong. The interesting question isn’t whether socialism had critics. It did. The interesting question is whether socialism ever adequately answered them” - ChatGPT

Austria must not sleepwalk into a new era of political extremism. Today, radical pro-Palestinian far-left activists occupied the Google data-center construction site in Kronstorf. They openly link their campaign to anti-Israel politics, anti-capitalism and militant direct https://t.co/dLeb4rSblx #Austria #PoliticalExtremism #AntiCapitalism #AT

Oil deal with US is denounced by both sides of Venezuelan politics Opposition said agreement with Trump administration was potentially illegal while government hardliners cast it as a betrayal https://t.co/jfGAYk0n3U via @ft #Venezuela #OilDeal #Politics #US #VE

The “Code of Conduct,” as it typically functioned over the past decade, was a naked emperor. Anyone awake could see that it enforced extreme progressive politics, but few dared say so because the professional and social consequences could be very real. Whenever a project #CodeOfConduct #ProgressivePolitics #StandUp #Nospecificcountrycodesarementionedinthetweet.

Five Lessons on Aggression and Dominance “There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that… it sides even with those who harm it.” Friedrich Nietzsche wrote this nearly 140 years ago, yet it still sounds contemporary. In *Chimpanzee Politics*, Frans de Waal shows that dominance, aggression, hierarchy and confrontation—often dismissed in humans as “toxic masculinity”—also appear in our closest relatives. These behaviors may reflect deep-rooted drives, not merely social constructs. **1. The threat of violence can keep the peace** Most chimp confrontations are displays, not fights. Only about 0.4% of male confrontations become physical. Rank depends on strength, alliances, displays and recognition. Violence matters partly because it is rare: conflict must be allowed to resolve before it escalates. **2. When respect disappears, violence rises** Chimpanzees maintain hierarchy through formal greetings, including bowing. At Arnhem, 22 of 37 serious male fights occurred when males had stopped greeting one another—even though such periods made up less than a quarter of observation time. Violence was nearly five times more likely when recognition rituals broke down. **3. Power requires alliances** Before challenging the dominant male, a chimp often grooms females and plays with their young. Like Machiavelli’s political challengers, he builds support before attempting to seize power. **4. Influence can replace force** Female chimps sometimes recruit males to attack rivals, signaling distress and flattering the enforcer while avoiding the fight. Power can operate through alliances and influence, not just strength. **5. Concentrated resources create conflict** Chimpanzees normally forage for scattered food, limiting competition. When humans provide concentrated food, aggression rises. Larger groups are also harder to govern because familiarity declines and hierarchies become unstable. Stable societies may require hierarchy, respect, controlled confrontation and distributed power. Suppressing every expression of dominance may not eliminate conflict; it may remove mechanisms that keep conflict contained.

"Their Christianity is not simply a religious belief imposed upon politics. Increasingly, it is a way of making political grievances feel sacred." An excellent insight into the new British Christian far right. 👇 https://t.co/UYUlfrj5dw #ChristianFarRight #PoliticalBeliefs #SacredGrievances #GB

Check out Polyphony Arts & Words’ August story! A story about a poor teacher, a powerful local strongman, and a single dead tree becomes a larger meditation on poverty, power, morality, politics, and the compromises of survival. Writer of the month Hiranmoy Gangopadhyay’s literary journey from the coalfields of Bengal into the contradictions of contemporary India. Would you like to submit your translated stories or poetries for publication? Language: English. Submission e-mail: [email protected] https://polyphony26.substack.com/p/crosshatch-game?r=7ak8i&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

The Politics of Pity For a decade, the West has argued whether empathy should be its highest value. Some praise it as a superpower; others call it harmful. Gad Saad’s “Suicidal Empathy” topped the New York Times list. Elon Musk called empathy a weakness; John C. Reilly called it a superpower. Ideas should be judged by consequences. Compassion-justified policies have coincided with worse addiction and homelessness, rising crime, mass migration, social fragmentation, higher living costs, and controversial medical interventions for gender-dysphoric minors. When these fail, advocates often claim it was not implemented “strongly enough.” ## An Inversion of Truth A quote often attributed to Hannah Arendt claims “the death of human empathy” precedes barbarism, but no source supports it, and her writings argued almost the opposite. Arendt contrasted the American Revolution’s institutions and law with the French revolutionaries’ “politics of pity.” Pity is not compassion: it ranks “fortunate” and “unfortunate,” grants the pitier moral authority, and overrides rights. Arendt argued this enabled Robespierre’s Terror. ## The Trojan Horse Empathy can become projection—imposing your values as if they were others’ needs. Adam Smith warned about the “man of system.” Nietzsche described societies so “soft and tender” they side with those who harm them. Orwell noted equality preaching alongside elite privilege. Rob Henderson calls these “luxury beliefs.” I call it suicidal narcissism: acquiring moral status by appearing compassionate while policies erode the foundations others rely on. The reward is immediate; the damage comes later.