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Gareth Richmond's avatar

There's a time and place for everything even whatever the f that was. But IMO the Olympics opening ceremony was definitely not the time and place for whatever the f that was. But the Olympics has become hopelessly politicized ie. Belarus and Russia banned and even potential athletes from those country competing under neutral flags being forced to submit to an ideological purity test on their attitude to the war in Ukraine to compete. Meanwhile Israel is free to both compete and commit genocide and I don't remember US and UK athletes etc being barred because of the illegal invasion of Iraq based on a lie. We are through the looking glass and the view is trash. C'est la vie.

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Dan Klein's avatar

As Alex C. put it, the scene in Paris was ClownWorld.

RE 'universalism' and 'liberalism':

The 'universalism' that Glenn objects to is objectionable, but it is not the universalism of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville and the other best figures of conservative liberalism.

Glenn, too, favors a universalism, one that is context-sensitive and suitably humbled to the human limits of knowledge.

"Of Universal Benevolence," Adam Smith in THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS:

"The administration of the great system of the universe,...the care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God, and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension — the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country..."

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