The Crowhill Journal

What do you think of this?

Lawyer Roy Den Hollander, who shot federal judge’s family, specialized in ‘anti-feminist’ lawsuits, had cancer

Whenever there’s a horrible crime, people have the natural but kinda weird hope that the perpetrator was from “the other side.”

Somebody shoots up a school, or commits some hideous crime, and while we all feel terrible about the tragedy, we also have this secret (or not so secret) wish that the bad guy was from the other party, or other ideology, or whatever.

It’s natural, because we like to think that “our side” is good and righteous, while the other side is sick and twisted and evil.

This is a stupid reaction because everybody is sick and twisted and evil, and no matter how you divide up society, you’re going to get bad eggs in every group.

When you see a horrible act committed by the other side, you think, “see, I told you! This is what their hateful rhetoric leads to!” But when someone from your side commits a crime, you think, “there are crazy people everywhere.”

We need to stop that.

There are ideologies out there that promote violence, and we need to keep an eye on those people. But it’s another thing to assume that an ideology promotes violence, and that seems to happen far too often.

This guy was an anti-feminist. Does anti-feminism promote violence? I’m sure there’s some gender theorist out there who’s made that case, and I suspect the media will come up with a way to blame this on their favorite bogeymen.

This is a quick episode to address a couple questions from the mail bag.

First, what’s the difference between an ale and a lager?

Second, it seems kids are more politically involved. Is that true? Is it a good thing?

P&C drink and review Steel Reserve, a cheap, high-powered lager you can get at 7-11.

Mississippi has taken the confederate battle flag off their state flag. Nascar has prohibited confederate flags. Sounds like progress, right? But why are some people so attached to this flag? Is it “southern pride,” or is it racism?

What about confederate monuments? Should they come down? P&C agree that they should (in most cases), but there are larger issues to explore, such as who gets to interpret the meaning of a symbol?

Some people legitimately see the confederate flag as a symbol of oppression and racism. But to others, it might only mean southern pride. Who gets to decide what it means, and is it fair for person A to judge person B’s use of a symbol according to what person A thinks it means?

Are there any guiding principles in this? At this point, it seems that whoever is uncomfortable wins. Is that the right way to handle this?

You can right click on this link and download the episode, or play it in this browser.

When a politician pledges to spend a lot of money on some issue, what that means is that he’s using the issue as an excuse to hand out money to his friends and allies.

Biden climate plan would spend $2 trillion in bid to boost economy

He may actually believe in the cause (in this case it’s climate change), and he may make excuses to himself about handing off money to his friends.

“Well of course! We’re funneling money to companies that have the right values. We don’t want the Koch brothers doing this.”

And so on.

But the bottom line is that when the government decides to spend a lot of money, there’s going to be corruption.

I know a person who used to be involved in politics in Eastern Europe. He said they had “corruption commissions” to keep an eye on this sort of thing. That sounds like a good idea. Of course the corruption commission itself will almost certainly become corrupt. Wherever there is power and money, there will be corruption. But … you’ve got to try to control it.