The pond isn't going to make a habit of late arvo postings, but there was a tremendous surge of reptile stew earlier in the day, and the pond is aware that the Prof has a great following, so where's the harm in the Prof doing a bromancer?
Ah yes, plucky Poland, and that worked terribly well the last time it was tried, but never mind, the pond is mortified that our Prof didn't naturally turn to the lion of Europe, and yet it's doing splendidly ... with Boris on a war footing ...
Good old Brexit butterscotch, and a united Europe standing ready to deal with Vlad the impaler ...
Ah yes, the filthy, vile Germans. But say what, what was that about Poland again?
Why they have so much in common with Vlad the impaler - he too takes a view on the evils of homosexuality - but now for a few finishing pars from the Prof ...
Given all the above, is it wrong for the pond to pray for a miracle? What happens when a secularist gets to doing that? Ah goody gumdrops, the short and curlies ...
Aw c'mon DP, Barebonies has no idea what democracy is. Just consider:
ReplyDelete"His book The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts was named ‘Best on Politics 2018’ by the Wall Street Journal. Salvatore is the author or co-author of seven other books and dozens of academic papers. He has penned op-eds for the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, Spectator Australia, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and The National Interest. Salvatore writes the “Philistine” column for Quadrant and is the regular host of the weekly CIS livestream show On Liberty."
https://www.cis.org.au/experts/adjunct-fellows/salvatore-babones/
Says everything that needs to be said, dunnit ?
Point taken GB, and it was Barton Swain wot did it in the WSJ on 7th December 2018 ...
DeleteOne of the inscrutable ironies of the last two years is that a New York real-estate mogul and reality TV star has forced so many academics and intellectuals to rethink and redefine some basic terms. Among them: authoritarianism, liberalism and conservatism. In “The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts” (Polity, 115 pages, $12.95) Salvatore Babones, an American-born professor of sociology and social policy at the University of Sydney, doesn’t defend Mr. Trump or his administration. But he does suggest the Trump phenomenon may galvanize a revival of democratic self-rule. Mr. Babones, whose ideological affiliations remain a mystery to me, does not fear, as many American liberals do, that Mr. Trump is an “authoritarian” president. He believes, rather, that the president’s populism is a protest against a different kind of authoritarianism: the rule of unelected “experts.” American liberals speak unctuously about “democracy” and “democratic values,” but they have consistently substituted expert opinion for democratic decision-making. Whatever else this president does or doesn’t do, Mr. Babones thinks, his presidency has challenged that tendency at every point, and our politics will be more democratic and better off as a consequence.
Indeed, indeed, the United States is comprehensively fucked, which might in a porn movie be construed as being better off ...
Now that's truly said all that needs to be said, DP. He's a gem, isn't he - of the cheap costume variety.
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