18 crazy, brilliant, boring, exciting, insightful, inappropriate, timely, and misguided things I said in February 2024
Instant replay
Articles
#1
In Social morality vs. personal morality I argued that you cannot legislate the latter without violating the former.
#2
In A reading and viewing guide to the JFK assassination I advised people on what to watch and read first to get the low-down on who really killed JFK and why they did it. Hint: It wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald.
#3
In How you can be smarter about the Great Depression than the average rube I correct a few pernicious myths most of us learned in school.
My posts and comments on social media
#4
Genes are recipes for proteins. Why they should have any bearing on a sovereignty debate is beyond me.
NOTE: There is an ongoing debate as to whether modern Jews or Palestinian Arabs have the most genetic relationship to ancient dwellers in the so-called Holy Land. It’s an absurd and irrelevant debate. Sovereignty should go to the side that would do the best job of protecting human rights. That side, despite all its many failings, is Israel.
#5
Sovereignty over the “Holy Land” passed from the Ottoman Empire to the victorious powers and the League of Nations at the end of World War 1. They then conferred some of that sovereignty on the Zionist Jews in the partition plan of 1947. There was NEVER a time when people calling themselves Palestinians had sovereignty over the land. N-E-V-E-R!
There was also never a time when Palestinian Arabs owned all the property in the “Holy Land.” N-E-V-E-R!
#6
There seems to be so much self-hatred tangled up in human attitudes toward sex. Disgust with sex is disgust with the wellspring of life.
#7
Historically at least, sovereignty has had little or nothing to do with who could best protect human rights. But neither has it had much to do with property ownership. Instead…
Sovereignty has mostly been determined by who had the most military power. Well, in the case of Israel-Palestine the side with the greater military power is clearly Israel. But it’s also true that Israel’s legal system would do the best job of defending Palestinian civil rights. That’s why I favor Israel having sovereignty from the river to the Sea on that basis.
But to make good on that potential for protecting Palestinian civil rights Israel’s government would have to step on the settler movement HARD. I think that would only be politically possible after Israel formally annexes Judea-Samaria (the West Bank) because that would remove the main issue driving settler criminality (such as land thefts and vigilante harassment).
I will say it again, Israel should rule, from the river to the sea. And Palestinian Arabs should benefit from the same legal system that currently serves Arab Israelis so well
#8
Someone just defriended me because I don’t believe Taylor Swift is the transgendered son-into-daughter of Satanist Anton LeVay.
#9
My Facebook friend Hodey Johns posted the following…
The most annoying people on earth in my opinion:
-Non-Sports Watchers on Super Bowl Sunday
-Evangelicals when they see alternative lifestyles
-Anti-Theists anytime somebody mentions God
-Fad Dieters on Thanksgiving
I responded…
It’s a decent list. If I was pressed to offer additions I would propose…
- People who think every election is the most important election in a generation.
- People who think the differences between the Democrats and Republicans are large and significant.
Fun game.
#10
I wrote this on February 14, 2022. I still feel the same way two years later…
I really liked the staging of the Superbowl halftime show. But rap leaves me cold as poetry and even colder as music.
I love black music — blues, jazz, rock — but with rap/hip-hop, black music has finally jumped the shark.
#11
Here are the facts as I see them…
The Palestinians don’t want a two-state solution. The only outcome they will accept is to rule everything from the river to the sea.
Because the Palestinians reject a two-state solution, and because previous peace agreements backfired on the Israelis, and because the settler movement never wanted a two-state solution either, Israelis as a whole have given up on the two-state approach. This means…
The status quo will continue, or one side will prevail in ruling from the river to the sea.
Israel has vastly greater economic and military power, so they will probably win the conflict on that basis. This may eventually involve expelling recalcitrant Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, by force.
Like I said, those are the facts as I see them. Now comes my speculative proposal…
The only hope I can see to prevent the violence inherent to the status quo is formal annexation by Israel, followed by a crackdown on the settler movement and the application of due process and the rule of law to both the settler movement and the Palestinians.
From there, it might be possible to evolve a new relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs, based on the rule of law, and eventually full citizenship for the Palestinian Arabs.
#12
This is how I responded to a Facebook post on this continuing subject of Israel-Palestine…
I think I understand your argument. It reduces to this…
The Palestinians will win for demographic reasons because their higher birth rate gives them, or will give them, a larger population. I agree with that. Only a much higher Jewish birth rate could alter this equation. Absent that…
I also agree that a single secular state is the only solution. My area of disagreement is the idea of negotiating that outcome.
The last peace agreement, the Oslo Accords, increased violence rather than reducing it. And this will remain true as long as Palestinian pedagogy teaches each new generation that murdering Jews is the highest virtue.
The only path I can see to achieving a secular single state is for the Israelis to adopt policies that will slowly peel off Palestinians to be as supportive of Israel as Arab Israelis currently are.
But the settler movement will not allow the changes that could make such a process possible.
So, how do we remove the settlers as an obstacle? I think the best way is to give them the main thing they want — sovereignty over Judea-Samaria (the West Bank), while also cracking down on their property thefts and vigilante patrols.
There is more to my plan, that I will publish about in the near future, but that’s the starting point. It aims at a single secular state where all Palestinian Arabs have the same rights and commitments that Arab Israelis currently have, but where the protective purpose for which the state of Israel was founded, is also maintained.
#13
I’m for being against being for something.
#14
I’ve always hated the phrase “fall in love,” and also the phrase “in love.” They’re so squishy. These euphemistic terms are really about the combination of an emotion with the physical desire to fuck, but we have such a hard time saying so in clear language.
It is possible to love someone and not want to fuck them.
It is also clearly possible to love someone and want to fuck them.
It is also possible to want to fuck someone and not love or even like them (though some people do find this last feat difficult or impossible.)
Where does the FALLING come in? Is that the process of starting to feel the emotion of love? Why don’t we just say that? I’m starting to feel love for this person. Is that so hard?
Where does the IN part come from? Why do people say “I love you,” but I’m not IN love with you? Clearly, the IN part has to do with the fucking part. But god forbid we ever use plain language. Apparently, we can only say the word fuck when we’re wanting to say ‘fuck this.” But we find it almost impossible to use the word when we’re talking about actual fucking.
And don’t get me started on the term “sleeping with.”
End of rant. For the moment.
#15
He posted: Most people are wasting their time thinking about AI.
I commented: They should let AI do it for them.
#16
I doubt that demons exist, but the demonic sure does.
#17
I find it interesting that apologists for Palestinian evil constantly have to misuse language because they have no honest arguments to make for their otherwise indefensible position.
Even the phrase ‘free Palestine” is an oxymoron, because the citizens of said Palestine would be far less free than the Arab citizens of Israel are.
#18
I continue to be mystified by what Trump supporters think they get from him, beyond the fact that he vexes Democrats.
If you missed any of my articles last month, and they interest you, please give them a try…
- Social morality vs. personal morality
- A reading and viewing guide to the JFK assassination
- How you can be smarter about the Great Depression than the average rube
Copyright © Perry Willis 2024
Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.
