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Friday 26th of April 2024

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Anti-intellectualism When the word of God says one thing and scholarship says another, scholarship can go to hell!  Dwight Moody © 2021 Kwiple.com
Business Once great men created fortunes;  today a great system creates fortunate men. Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life © 2021 Kwiple.com
Christianity There is a bit of Protestant folklore that sheds light on the social position of the various churches. A Methodist, it was said, is a Baptist who wears shoes; a Presbyterian is a Methodist who has gone to college; and an Episopalian is a Presbyterian who lives off his investments. Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life © 2021 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories The emotional appeal of a conspiracy theory is in its simplicity. It explains away complex phenomena, accounts for chance and accidents, offers the believer the satisfying sense of having special, privileged access to the truth. Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, October 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theories The paranoid's interpretation of history is in this sense distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone's will. Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Conspiracy theorists say How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a gross conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men. Joseph McCarthy, 1951 © 2020 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus There is an evident lesson from the pandemic: countries that restricted movement of people early, coupled with an effective and well-run tracing system, fared much better than others, irrespective of ideology. Medical or preventive strategies have nothing to do with political or economic systems. Presumably, Joe Biden, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin brush their teeth. The one who is more thorough is likely to need a dentist less, irrespective of any ideological position. Letter to the editor of Financial Times, December 31 2020, by Guill Gil © 2021 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus The U.S. now has more cases and deaths every 5 minutes than Taiwan has had all year. Wall Street Journal, January 1, 2021 U.S.: 1 death per 990 people Taiwan: 1 per 3,366,140 [3400 × better] New Zealand: 1 per 204,360 [2,064 × better] South Korea: 1 per 63,290 [64 × better] Liberia: 1 per 55,040 [56 × better] © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy For the first time this century, among countries with more than one million people, there are now fewer democracies than there are non-democratic regimes. Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Employment As many as 30 million American workers without four-year college degrees have the skills to realistically move into new jobs that pay on average 70 percent more than their current ones. That estimate comes from a collaboration of academic, nonprofit and corporate researchers who mined data on occupations and skills. New York Times, December 3, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Europe In the 1930s, Europe lost its political and moral authority. Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life © 2021 Kwiple.com
Evangelicals say I have no interest in a God who doesn't smite. Billy Sunday © 2021 Kwiple.com
Higher education Since the 1990s, the death rate for white men with a bachelor's degree aged between 45 and 54 in the US has fallen by 40 per cent, but it has risen by 25 per cent for white men in the same age group without a college degree. You can't be free if you are dead. Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Identity politics The point on which liberals must therefore insist is that identity is not an “either/or” but an “as-well-as-and.” Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Intellectuals It appears, then, to be the fate of intellectuals either to berate their exclusion from wealth, success, and reputation, or to be seized by guilt when they overcome this exclusion. … The intellectual is either shut out or sold out. Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life © 2021 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Calculate the minimum wage as follows: MW = CMHI / CMHS × WPY × HPW where: MW = Minimum Wage CMHI = Current Median Household Income, e.g., $65,000 CMHS = Current Median Household Size, e.g., 2.1 people WPY = Workdays Per Year, e.g., 240 HPW = Hours Per Workday, e.g., 8 [MW would be $16.12 using data above] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Liberalism [A] major handicap for liberalism today is that for centuries it came to most of the world in the form of imperialism. Recall that John Stuart Mill's day job was in the East India Company and he thought that colonised peoples in their “nonage” were not ready for his refined liberties. Western universalism was, in practice, anything but universal. Some of the worst horrors that human beings have inflicted on other human beings – violent conquest, torture, genocide, slavery –  were justified by reference to the highest ideals of liberty, civilisation and enlightenment. … The road to hell can be paved with liberal intentions. Timothy Garten Ash, Prospect magazine, January/February 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Mind Why is Mckinley's mind like a bed? Because it has to be made up for him every time he wants to use it. Popular joke in the late 1890s  --> © 2020 Kwiple.com
Pluto-populism This [GOP sycophancy] is no accident. It is the logical outcome of the political and economic strategy of the “pluto-populist”. Mr Trump is a natural outcome of the strategic goal of the donor class – tax cuts and deregulation.  To achieve this end, they have to convince a large proportion of the population to vote against its economic interests by focusing on culture and identity.  This strategy has worked and will continue to work: Mr Trump may have gone; Trumpism has not. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, December 22, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Political parties The life of an American major political party is a constant struggle, in the face of serious internal differences, to achieve enough unity to win elections and to maintain it long enough to develop a program of government.  Our politics has thus put a strong premium on the practical rather than the ideological bent of mind, on the techniques of negotiation and compromise rather than the assertion of divisive ideas and passions, and on the necessity of winning rather than the unqualified affirmation of principles, which is left to minor parties. Richard Hofstadter, “Goldwater and Pseudo-Conservative Politics” [1964] © 2020 Kwiple.com
Post-2018 Senate shituation 15 states (Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2018 population: 40,056,961 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,335,232 people — 1 state (California) 2018 population: 39,776,830 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,888,415 people 19,888,415 / 1,335,232 = 16, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth 16 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 6% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2018 population = 573,720, therefore: 1 Senator per 286,860 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's © 2016 Kwiple.com
Religion Our government makes no sense, unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith – and I don't care what it is. Dwight Eisenhower © 2021 Kwiple.com
Religion There's always a Mormon around when you don't want one, trying your patience with unsolicited kindness. David Foster Wallace © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot  [He] made even the most concrete things seem like abstractions. … His mind is like a light which destroys the outlines of what it plays upon; there is much illumination, but you see very little. Woodrow Wilson portrayed by Herbert Croly © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm not going back to yesterday's Republican Party. I'm not going back to losing politely, with Mitt Romney. I'm not going back to the Bushes or the Cheneys. This is Donald Trump's party, and I am a Donald Trump Republican. Matt Gaetz, promising to try to overturn Biden's already-certified Electoral College win © 2020 Kwiple.com
 
Wealth inequality Perhaps the best evidence of the power of an aristocracy is to be found in the degree of resentment it provokes. By that measure, the 9.9 percent are doing pretty well indeed. The surest sign of an increase in resentment is a rise in political division and instability. We're positively acing that test. You can read all about it in the headlines of the past two years Matthew Stewart, The Atlantic, June 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com