Author Archives: stephenkmacksd

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About stephenkmacksd

Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer. 'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.' https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary

On the Political Rehabilitation of Zbigniew Brzezinski, via FP and Edward Luce!

Political Observer comments. stephenkmacksd.com/ Jul 02, 2025 What is telling is that FP was founded by Samuel P. Huntington of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and its racist twin ‘Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity’ ! Luce was also a Speech writer … Continue reading

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Cotton Mather still rules ‘American Political/Moral Life’?

Queer Atheist comments on The New York Times’ Jeremy W. Peters & Company! stephenkmacksd.com/ Jul 01, 2025 Editor: Reader note the framing of this New York Times essay by Jeremy W. Peters: What I Cover I write about debates over … Continue reading

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Oliver Wiseman and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on: ‘The ideological insurgency against the Jewish people’

Political Observer comments! stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 30, 2025 By The Free Press It’s Monday, June 29. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Arthur Brooks on … Continue reading

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Here is my commentary on Michael Ignatieff ‘scolding’of Pankaj Mishra, in The New York Review of Books. A comment by Philosophical Apprentice: March 19, 2017

stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 30, 2025 Episode MDVII of The American Political Melodrama: R2P Zealot Michael Ignatieff scolds ISIS ‘Fellow Traveler’ Pankaj Mishra in The New York Review of Books. A comment by Philosophical Apprentice Posted on March 19, 2017 by stephenkmacksd Mr. Ignatieff reviews … Continue reading

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Josh Glancy, ‘News Review Editor, The Sunday Times’ sends me a note!

Political Observer shares the wealth… stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 30, 2025 https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/61951c6244cd095d046bd5eeo3ozm.1fgt/7df8c745

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Should it surprise that Joseph McCarney wrote the most devistating evisceration of Fukuyama in 1993? (Revised)

Philosopical Apprentice. stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 29, 2025 Editor: The opening paragaraph Shaping Ends: Reflections on Fukuyama Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man has been widely regarded as a celebration of the triumph of the West.footnote1 Its message, on the accepted … Continue reading

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2025.06.14 stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 27, 2025 … https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/intuition-in-kant-the-boundlessness-of-sense/

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Michael Ignatieff on: ‘The Pathos of Power What B2’s Cannot Achieve’

Michael Ignatieff of Jun 26, 2025. Philosophical Apprentice. stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 27, 2025 Who can forget Mr. Ignatieff’s fawning interview with Isaiah Berlin? It’s hard to understand Berlin, but Ignatieff contiues as if every word was… Editor: What might the reader … Continue reading

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Andrew Sullivan on ‘How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way'(Revised)

Old Socialist’s brief comments. stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 26, 2025 As pelude to Sullivan’s 4313 word diatribe, this reader recalls his entusiasm for The War On Terror that faded, and his entusism for the ‘Bell Curve’ of Charles Murray. Even the New … Continue reading

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Katrina Forrester in The London Review of Books of 26 April 2012 on Karl Popper!

Philospical Apprentice. stephenkmacksd.com/ Jun 26, 2025 https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n08/katrina-forrester/tocqueville-anticipated-me Editor: The opening paragraph of this essay via George Soros, offers the reader insight into both political/philosopical actors! In October 2011, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that George Soros had violated … Continue reading

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