“Unlike many other publications on both the Right
and Left, The Federalist goes out of its way to find and publish different
perspectives and competing arguments. That’s because we value debate for its
own sake and aren’t afraid of considering and engaging arguments we may not
agree with. Although stifling groupthink might be the defining characteristic
of many Beltway newsrooms, we think groupthink is boring and turns otherwise
smart people into intellectually lazy hacks who can’t even manage to read a byline,
let alone an entire article. Consuming only content that you already agree with
may be a great way to prevent facts and varying perspectives from invading your
meticulously curated safe space, but it’s a pretty sad and cloistered way to go
through life.”
I read some of the accusations people were making about the
hypocritical nature of The Federalist posting a pro Scaramucci article and the
next day an article saying firing him is a good decision. I disagree.
These two articles are not hypocritical. The Federalist is a media source. It publishes thoughtful commentary from an
diverse array of people. They (as in the
owners of The Federalist) do not have to stand by every article as something
they agree with to see the value in giving a platform to that thought. Not to mention a group of people can never
have one opinion, so as long as more than one person works for The Federalist,
The Federalist as a company will never have an opinion. It will have many people each with many
opinions. It is high time we stop
assigning opinions to groups of people.
Maybe then we will realize that democracy is nothing more than tyranny,
albeit of the (often slight) majority.
“Happiness is the successful state of
life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which
proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell
you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness — to value the
failure of your values — is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that
gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on
the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the
grace of reality and the nature of life, man — every man — is an end in
himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness
is his highest moral purpose.
But neither life nor happiness can be
achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to
survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature
requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the
torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness
proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.” — Ayn
Rand
“While the U.S. government has a
legitimate interest in ensuring that Americans’ property rights are protected
in international markets, too many of the Trump administration’s complaints
about trade with China boil down to this: the Chinese are offering too many
exceptionally good deals to American consumers. If our government is
truly interested in enriching as many Americans as possible, it would
applaud—rather than oppose—foreigners’ efforts to send to us ever-more goods
and services at ever-lower prices.”
Capitalism results in more equality, not less. Even a moderately serious glimpse at world
history confirms this assertion. The
richest people ever, adjusted for inflation, all lived multiple hundreds of
years ago and enjoyed equivalent wealth in the trillions. By comparison, Bezos claims somewhere between
$80-$90 billion. Furthermore adjusting
for inflation is fine but a better measure would be to adjust for quality of
life. By that standard, every person in
America today is richer than all people that have ever lived. The disparity between the quality of life of
Bezos and that of someone making minimum wage pales compared to historical
standards
“Compassion and envy motivate the attainment of different
ends. Compassion, but not envy, predicts personally helping the poor. Envy, but
not compassion, predicts a desire to tax the wealthy even when that costs the
poor.”
Well, well, well.
Isn’t this intriguing? The left
would much rather spite the well off rather than help the poor. Good to see some serious research into this
well known but under-studied phenomenon.
Am I the only one that literally sees a pile of shit coming
out of Al Gore’s mouth every time he speaks?
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