Advanced Bovine Numismatics

On today’s Ruminant, Jonah, now recovered from Monday’s birthday revelry, has thoughts on everything from ...

By

On today’s Ruminant, Jonah, now recovered from Monday’s birthday revelry, has thoughts on everything from hamburger conspiracies to the history of great societies. After beginning with another deep dive into the evolution of media bias, he turns to the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings, which have turned out to be surprisingly boring despite a few moments of painful stupidity. Stick around to hear Jonah evaluate Nikole Hannah-Jones’ argument that tipping is a product of slavery, and to find out why truth is currently winning the day in American politics.

Show Notes:

– The Remnant with Brian Riedl

– Michael Barone’s Our Country

Keep reading with a free account
Create a free Dispatch account to keep reading Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
By
Comments (37)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Michael Eskridge

    Jonah:belated happy birthday! And thanks for the favorable (and highly unusual) comments about Baltimore....I grew up there in the bad old days and really appreciate how the city has changed for the better...a real city as you said. One favor tho: PLEASE stop drinking into the mic.... It's distracting at best....a cough button maybe? Keep up the good work and thanks for all you do!

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Andrew

    Jonah,

    I can’t find a restaurant in Baltimore called Charlotte, but was it Charleston? Always has been one of my favorites.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    NashLives

    Jonah - you should check out W.D. Ross's The Right and The Good if you haven't already. Your "comfort with contradiction" idea could have stronger footing in pluralistic moral philosophy, particularly with Ross who argues for the lack of any "master" ethical/moral principle (in contrast with consequentialism, many forms of deontology). Rather, Ross argues, a complete system of ethics considers a variety of moral concerns both in terms of rules and outcomes without any overarching meta-concern (i.e., maximizing utility). If I understand your argument about conservatism, you seem to suggest conservatism is defined in a similar fashion, as a comfort with holding a pluralistic basket of competing principles that appear to lead to contradictory results when considered in isolation. The trick then is understanding when, and how, too apply this basket of concerns, and more difficult (IMO), how to persuade others you're not merely changing the weights on different considerations to fit your moral intuitions in different circumstances.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      NashLives

      ah, to*

      Collapse
  4. GregS

    Interesting discussion on media bias here.
    Here is a snippet of what you said:
    "They (journalists) give Democrats the benefit of the doubt. They assume that Democrats are working from a sincere place in ways that they just don't with Republicans and that manifests itself in coverage. ... If you just sort of keep score of how many ... points for Democrats vs points for Republicans are put on the board by your typical political coverage, if there was no bias involved it should come out like 50:50 because that's just the way the statistics would work."

    First, I have a question: is this one of those situations where you're saying, "I'm biased, and I admit it, but I just want everyone else to admit it too."
    Because if so, I have some sympathy for your position.
    Of course, there's a large gap between "I'm biased, and everyone else is at least as biased as I am, if not worse" and "I'm biased, and everyone else also has biases, some stronger than mine, and some weaker." I think the second position is a slam dunk, but, to mix a metaphor, you are stealing several bases if you are claiming the first.

    But if your position is simply that most journalists are biased liberals, while you (and other right of center people) are not, let's just say I have a lot of problems with this.

    1) Plank in your eye, speck in mine etc. I've been (to borrow a phrase) banging my spoon on my high chair about this for a while. This soft of bias - the "give the benefit of the doubt to your buddies" bias - is *everywhere.* It is human. You do it. Steve Hayes does it. I do it in my own life. We all do it. There's nothing special here. For God's sakes, you are ready to declare that Ginny Thomas doesn't hate democracy because she said she wanted to protect democracy in her otherwise insane texts. If that isn't giving the benefit of the doubt to people you have a political affinity towards, I don't know what is. But if you don't like that example, consider how TD has treated Mike Gallagher or Chip Roy or Chris Christie.

    2) Why in the world should the statistics work out to 50:50 for points on the board for Democrats vs Republicans? Do you think that is some ironclad rule of life? That everyone is equally likely to be right, both sides are equally blameworthy and praiseworthy about all things? During the Civil Rights era, would you expect it to be about 50:50 points on the board for segregationists and the Civil Rights marchers? After 9/11 would you expect it to be about 50:50 points on the board for "terrorists must pay" and "this was actually all a conspiracy by GWB and the Jews"? Do you think your critiques of policies tend to be about 50:50?

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    It is interesting how often Fox News is brought up here as being a bigger problem then all of the other MSM combined. I’m not sure why Fox is the only MSM network available for conservatives, but that’s probably why it became so popular. What else is there?

    And, there is nothing I’ve seen in my lifetime to compare to the way Kavanaugh was treated. Nothing was ever proven. Even his main accuser has never been able to prove her accusations, but that justified everything else he went through from there on out. A very low spot in our political history, I think.

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Since you been brought it up at the end, I just wanted to say for the record that I thought that “rectifying the names” G-File was really good and I enjoyed the lengthy and meandering discursions. My favorite G Files are the ones where I learn things.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Kevin Johnson

    Great stuff. But among the “keep me up “irritants I face is your wonderful exposition of the “rectification of the names” issue joined to your (to me) nonchalant approach to the cultural revolution attacking plain language. I see you gleefully attack “ birthing person” but see TD folk letting “equity” “anti racism” etc, go as these Orwellian terms wash over us. The WSJ uses “ birthing person” instead of woman and the chief nyc medical officer does likewise. Meanwhile, my brilliant TD heroes dismiss culture wars. What do we think future Americans will think if they are taught in schools, work places, the media, ngos, libraries, etc. that classical liberalism is racist? We have hysteria promoting open racial discrimination ( Kendi’s own words, supported by the federal government) and the shunning of folks who say “ men can’t be women,”. As happened with immigration and trade in previous years, either reasonable pundits and pols address these real issues, or normal folks will have only extremists to turn to.

    Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    Interesting about Washington Post. I got a 6-month (or was it a year) subscription for 99 cents/month. After trying to read it for 2 months or so, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Yes, they do have some good journalism, but too much of it really is about the injustices done to Blacks and the need to support transgenders. Now they are offering me 4 months FREE! It makes me wonder if they are losing customers.

    Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Man-Eating Cow

    Hmm. Don't think I've ever collected coins.

    Collapse
  10. Tom and Robin Moore

    Maybe Hannah Nicole Ritche Smith & Jones is just a big ol' cheapskate. 😄

    Collapse
Load More