Thumbs up, thumbs down

Possibly the only thing on which I am closer to the Republicans than the Democrats is abortion.

And that is because support for the alleged right of women to kill their unborn children, which ought to be denied the shelter of the privacy right given it in Roe, is the absolute core of modern feminism, and because feminists are so strong within the Democratic Party they have made it a litmus test issue for Democratic candidates.

In my view - except for the first couple of weeks of pregnancy, before actual organs begin to develop, during which it is intrinsically unobjectionable, though perhaps it still would be best for it to be illegal - abortion is the killing of an unborn child and ought to be illegal, just as is infanticide.

In fact, woman should have legally enforceable duties of care for their unborn children, just as parents have such duties regarding their children who have already been born.

But what women want is the right to commit murder, and without any interference from anyone, not even the fathers of their children, not even the parents of pregnant minors.

And they want that more than anything else on their feminist todo list, many of the items on which are there only to defend or entrench that right.

It occurs to me that Immanuel Kant somewhere wrote that prohibitions of cruelty to animals were necessary, though animals have no rights and no moral standing in themselves, in order to prevent humans being even more vicious and brutal toward each other than they are.

Surely someone must see how this applies to the question whether abortion ought to be prohibited, even if it is believed or anyway alleged that unborn children are not children or have no rights.

Though it has been argued by some utilitarian ethicists - perhaps previously employed at Buchenwald and widely admired by liberals -  that killing a mature ape or adult chimpanzee is morally much worse than even killing a human infant, and much, much worse than abortion.

Trump Administration to Tie Health Facilities’ Funding to Abortion Restrictions

But this is horrible, malicious, ugly, misogynist Nativism.

Trump Administration Wants to Shut Door on Abused Women

Please, not Bernie

George Will said just now on MSNBC that Bernie would be McGovern 2.0, and I think he's right.

Single payor is a bad idea and won't sell, anyway, nor will the rest of Bernie's signature, social democratic, "socialist" agenda so beloved of smart and both socially and economically well-off college kids who don't want to pay off their government guaranteed college loans.

He's an anti-Democratic Party candidate for the anti-Democratic Party left.

He's the Trumpist of the left, but far more sincere than The Duce in his moral disgust with the system, the establishment, the DC "swamp," our very form of government, and capitalism, itself.

His positions - anyway, his verbal positions - on trade and on foreign policy are not so different from the America First-ism of the Buchananite Trumpists.

And his views on global warming and global redistribution of wealth are way too close to those of that anti-capitalist hyper-liberal and vegetarian, utilitarian globo-phony, Peter Singer.

The truth is the outsider left who support him will tell you straight out they would rather Bernie and people like them take over the party and lose than see the Democrats win as a party of progressive Democrats, committed to our republic and to democratic capitalism.

They are as ideologically committed as the radical wingnuts of the right who dominate the House and have dominated the GOP for decades.

And them controlling the Democrats would be as bad for the country as the wingnuts controlling the GOP has been.

Bernie Sanders Says He’ll Run For Re-election As An Independent

They never give until they are as poor as the world's poorest

Actually, people who have large amounts of money mostly keep it, and pay large sums to other people who help them find ways to spend it more or less on themselves.

1stdibs is selling this Carlo Giuliano brooch for just under $300,000.00.

And this yellow and white diamond necklace for $675,000.00.

Amal Clooney channels flapper-girl glamour in a vintage fringed dress at Lake Como party

Eat your heart out, Peter Singer.

Or, for that matter, Bernie Sanders.

Fielding's Allworthy

It seems to me he talks a talk but does not walk the walk.

A man in a palace sounding like Peter Singer on famine relief.

Well, I suppose that makes sense, after all, since Singer is the poster boy for humbuggery celebrated as a virtue.

Allworthy vs Blifil on benevolence.

Tom Jones, Bk 2, ch 5.

Carpe diem

Officials confirm Tennessee couple won historic Powerball

John Robinson said he reached out to his brother for help assembling a team of lawyers and financial planners before deciding to take the winnings in a single lump sum of nearly $328 million, rather than let the Lottery invest the prize and pay him 30 annual installments totaling an estimated $533 million.

Why pass up on a certain income totaling more than $200 million?

"We're going to take the lump sum, because we're not guaranteed tomorrow," Robinson said. "We just wanted a little big piece of the pie. Now we're real grateful we got the big piece of the pie."

Note, too, that they indicate no plans to donate it all to the world's worst off people, which could reasonably be expected to do the greatest good for the greatest number, as the liberal celebrity faker Peter Singer claims and recommends.

No word of consulting with experts about any charitable or altruistic volleys, at all.

A win for Peter Singer and others of a like ilk

New York court issues habeas corpus writ for chimpanzees

A judge in New York has issued a writ of habeas corpus in a case brought by animal rights activists on behalf of two chimpanzees.

The order means the university holding the chimpanzees will have to respond to the activists' petition in court.

The activists said the court had "implicitly determined" that the two chimpanzees are legal "persons".

But unborn babies in the last trimester are not persons, according to American jurisprudence.

Peter Singer is beaming with pleasure, now.

The sexual revolution in the law of the last 60 years or so has put the state out of the business of enforcing Christian morals and metaphysics.

And it has put the state into the business of enforcing the morals and metaphysics of liberal, secular philosophers.

Much as it has put the public schools out of the business, to the extent they were ever in it, of teaching Christian morals, metaphysics, and natural history and into the business of teaching the morals, metaphysics, and natural history of liberal secularists.

Pretend ethics

Peter Singer, decades back, perhaps rightly pointed out that to produce the greatest good for the greatest number nearly all of us should sweat ourselves like coolies and send the entire proceeds, minus only a pittance for bare subsistence, to Oxfam or someone to feed the world's most desperate.

But no one does that.

Singer no more than anyone else.

And yet, he blesses this choice with the name of duty.

And is showered for that with admiration and celebrity from billionaires who praise him and . . . . remain billionaires.

But then all ethics is pretend ethics.

So what the heck?