I teach philosophy at The University of Texas, Austin. I' m co-editor of: *Foundations of a Free Society*, *A Companion to Ayn Rand*, & *Two Philosophers*.
Austin, TX
- Tweets 1,627
- Following 445
- Followers 3,375
- Likes 1,891
@DouglasKMurray opens an article by asking: “Can a country allow mass lawbreaking and retain its integrity? For almost any crime you can think of, the answer is no.”
Evidently he can’t think of jaywalking, moderate speeding, or failing to report cash tips to taxation authorities, and he’s never heard of a dead-letter law.
He also seems to have somehow forgotten that gay sex remains illegal in much of the world—or else perhaps he thinks that his country lost its integrity in the years when it had ceased vigorously enforcing the laws against private consensual homosexual acts, but hadn’t yet repealed them.
Some crimes are trivial. And many criminalized human activities are such that criminalizing and prosecuting them is itself a breach of any decent country’s integrity.
7
13
59
1,202
Nothing can be further from the truth than the idea that a society somehow respects the rule of law by continuing to enforce the laws it’s enacted, regardless of how just those laws are. Unjust laws (to the extent that they are unjust) cannot be be enforced objectively and so they necessarily breed corruption and subjectivity in all the agencies and institutions that attempt to enforce them. This undermines the rule of law. The only true solution is repealing such laws, but when that’s not been done, the course most consistent with the rule of law is usually to adopt as consistent as possible a policy of non-enforcement.
6
18
168
For months I’ve been contemplating the title “What to an Immigrant is This Fourth of July,” but didn’t think anyone could write an essay worthy of it.
I mentioned it to @Philosophic_Ali, and he pulled it off: open.substack.com/pub/societ…
5
3
15
1,006
Gregory Salmieri retweeted
Fantastic video from Nikos. "A plague on both your houses" is right. piped.video/watch?v=q5XaN1Jp…
2
6
24
1,928
Gregory Salmieri retweeted
Check out my new episode with @GSalmieri on free speech:
elucidations.vercel.app/post…
3
6
742
Amodei is right to stand his ground here.
It’s a good time for people to (re-)read Ayn Rand’s “To Young Scientists” (in The Voice of Reason).
A statement from Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, on our discussions with the Department of War.
anthropic.com/news/statement…
4
9
47
2,226
Another moving post by my friend @PNikmand. open.substack.com/pub/outliv…
3
7
641
250 years after our founding, there's still enough Americanism in our institutions for the SCOTUS to strike down some of tyrannies and usurpations from a ruffian who is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Breaking: President Trump’s global tariffs are illegal, the Supreme Court ruled, in a stinging repudiation of a signature White House initiative on.wsj.com/4rLZ0jX
1
7
46
1,043
On the year of its 250th anniversary America is under intense attack by pretend patriots and open haters. For those who value this country, understanding its essence matters more than ever. @yaronbrook, will discuss that essence at the University of Texas on thursday evening: civitasinstitute.org/events/…
8
16
71
6,509
My friend @PNikmand’s story is harrowing and inspiring. And his voice is one of the ones America most needs to hear right now if this country is to recover its soul. A great place to start is with this interview he did for FIRE.
Ep. 262: Escaping Iran
Recent protests in Iran have drawn renewed attention to dissent under the country’s authoritarian government. The demonstrations have been met with mass arrests, internet restrictions, and even accusations of murder.
While large-scale demonstrations appear to have subsided for now, reporting from Iran describes a tense calm, a heightened security presence, and widespread “disappointment and disillusionment” among Iranians.
@TheFIREorg's @NicoPerrino sat down with @PNikmand, an Iranian-born writer who escaped Iran at 18. He writes about how his experiences have shaped his understanding of expression, freedom, and belonging on his Substack, Outliving Iran.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:17 What’s happening in Iran now?
10:47 What does life look like under an authoritarian regime?
20:33 Growing up in Iran
24:48 The influence of Western media in Iran
32:55 Escaping Iran
37:05 Life after escape
40:55 Being trafficked to Poland
54:45 Escaping captivity and coming to America
01:01:53 An immigrant’s perspective on US immigration
1:07:24 Outro
3
12
757
Gregory Salmieri retweeted
Ep. 262: Escaping Iran
Recent protests in Iran have drawn renewed attention to dissent under the country’s authoritarian government. The demonstrations have been met with mass arrests, internet restrictions, and even accusations of murder.
While large-scale demonstrations appear to have subsided for now, reporting from Iran describes a tense calm, a heightened security presence, and widespread “disappointment and disillusionment” among Iranians.
@TheFIREorg's @NicoPerrino sat down with @PNikmand, an Iranian-born writer who escaped Iran at 18. He writes about how his experiences have shaped his understanding of expression, freedom, and belonging on his Substack, Outliving Iran.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:17 What’s happening in Iran now?
10:47 What does life look like under an authoritarian regime?
20:33 Growing up in Iran
24:48 The influence of Western media in Iran
32:55 Escaping Iran
37:05 Life after escape
40:55 Being trafficked to Poland
54:45 Escaping captivity and coming to America
01:01:53 An immigrant’s perspective on US immigration
1:07:24 Outro
2
7
25
11,859
All of these four quadrant political graphs (going back to Nolan) are bad for the same reason: they treat contemporary political concepts (many if which are package-deals) as representing coherent quantities that could be independent variables.
8
13
87
4,070
What are they called when they build a life for themselves despite the circumstances in which they find themselves?
Such people don’t fit anyone’s narrative so they get sacrificed to the grievance mongering that’s emmiserated this population for generations.
When Palestinians resist, they are called terrorists.
When they cry, they are called actors.
When they die, they are called collateral.
And when they survive, they are called a threat.
This is not a security doctrine.
It is a theology of supremacy, enforced with U.S. weapons and global silence.
4
6
57
2,803
The answer to what the Palestinians should have done in the months, years, and decades prior to 10/7 is simple: Prioritize making a good life for yourself and your loved ones over rectifying the injustices you think you’ve suffered, and try to redress those injustices only in the context of pursuing such a life.
A much better question than "What was Israel supposed to do in response to October 7?" is "What were Palestinians supposed to do in response to all of Israel's abuses prior to October 7?"
Nobody's ever been able to give me a serious response to this question which doesn't entail mountains of lies and/or the dehumanizing expectation that Palestinians should accept conditions that none of us would willingly accept ourselves.
That's why you never see me criticizing Hamas. If someone could tell me what specifically Palestinians should have done in response to Israel's tyranny that they haven't already tried in order to obtain real material justice, I'd happily say Hamas should have taken that option instead of resorting to violent force. But if that option truly existed, Hamas never would have been created in the first place. That's why nobody's been able to tell me what such an option would have looked like without lying.
What was Israel supposed to do after October 7? Same thing they should have done before October 7: dismantle the apartheid state, give everyone equal rights, pay massive reparations, and right all the wrongs of the past. October 7 was a response to the tyranny and abuse of Israel; the correct thing to do when things finally came to a head with the Hamas attack would have been to remove all the tyranny and abuse which gave rise to it.
That's what Israel should have done. Of course Israel was never going to do this, for the same reason they spent decade after decade murdering, displacing and oppressing Palestinians since Israel was created. Israel would never allow justice and equality after October 7 for the same reason Israel would never allow justice and equality before October 7: because Israel has always been a settler-colonialist project that can only be sustained by nonstop violence and tyranny and theft and abuse and lies and breathtaking immorality.
That is the reason October 7 happened, and it's the problem all decent people in the world are trying to address right now.
56
52
691
51,264
The ultimate cause of this whole horror is altruism—specifically: the idea that because the Palestinians are weaker than the Israelis, it is wrong for the Israelis to defeat them in the decades-long war they’ve been fighting and noble for the Palestinians to continue indefinitely their violence against a more powerful but morally disarmed adversary.
6
5
94
3,769
In this, as in so many other instances, long as people try to live by this immoral moral code, everyone will suffer, and the most dehumanizing of this suffering will continue to be borne by the poor and week who are the alleged beneficiaries of this code—the people who are encouraged to view themselves primarily as aggrieved victims rather than as potential architects of a better life for themselves (despite whatever injustices they may face).
3
2
79
3,135
Gregory Salmieri retweeted
Imagine escaping an unfree country to learn that in a free country you are still not free to work, and that you can get by only through the grace of the morally decadent. Then imagine if you still value life in a free country more than anything. Read the latest from @PNikmand:
3
17
67
2,613