Infinite Quack

What don't most conservatives realize? Answered by Peter Kruger What I'm hearing in this post is the anguish of someone who holds an actual conservative philosophy, an actual system of values. I may not agree that conservatism is the way to go (I think the world is changing fast and we'd best change with it), but I have 100% respect for someone who holds that other system of values with honesty and open eyes. The people he's angry about, who insist on calling themselves "conservatives" and who sully the name... they are not demonstrating that they hold a system of values. What they're demonstrating, I feel, is best summed up by the term "cult". A strongly held view crosses over into becoming a cult when you insist on members holding beliefs regardless even of directly observable facts. Denying reality has no place in a system of values. Denying reality is not a philosophy, it's a deranged state of mind. Treating every inconvenient fact or obs...

The New York Times normally sets a limit on how many articles non-subscribers can read. They've exempted their Coronavirus coverage from those limits. Like everyone else, I'm glued to the news as this tragedy unfolds. I've been watching stories about the virus move higher and higher on the page. For weeks the Times has made it their top story, and the way things are expected to go, that will continue for a lot longer. So far -- so far -- my own family has yet to be directly impacted. It's heartbreaking to imagine what it has been like for so many families that haven't been as lucky. When someone acquires the full set of symptoms, it is nasty and dangerous. Around the world, nearly 60,000 have died, says the Times, and with tests hard to get in many places, it's likely those numbers are under-reported. Over a quarter million people are known to have caught the virus, and that  number is likely to be dramatically  higher in reality. Recall part of what made HIV s...