Smoke and Mirrors

In last week´s Takimag, Dr. Dalrymple gives his readers his take on the latest ´Big Tobacco´ lawsuit from Canada and the moral culpability of the government and smokers themselves.

Thus, the principal financial beneficiary of smoking has in effect extorted money from the producer of that benefit, namely the tobacco industry. Whatever the misdeeds of the latter, this is a morally disgusting manner of proceeding, especially when the principal beneficiary was always in a position to prohibit smoking as it has now in part done.

Insubstantial Men

Our pugnacious doctor eviscerates the current crop of mediocre, intellectually unserious, left-wing bureaucrats managing (the formerly Great) Britain´s rapid decline in his latest City Journal article.

If Starmer and Reeves had been born in an Islamic country, they surely would have been Islamists of statue-destroying propensities, because they would have regarded all that was not of their doctrine as mere Jahiliyyah, the product of the age of ignorance.

The Will to Outrage

In his latest Takimag piece, our impassioned doctor comments on more feigned outrage from the left-liberal media following an awkward Donald Trump remark about the attractiveness of the junior senator from Alabama.

The will to outrage is also the will to power; and the ultimate power is that of forcing people to believe, or to pretend to believe, what is patently untrue, for example that all women are beautiful, on pain of excommunication or worse.

Ingsoc in Embryo

Over at Law & Liberty, our feisty doctor challenges the generally accepted wisdom of economic journalists, who are usually far wide of the mark when it comes to sound reasoning, not to mention their poor predictions.

Or perhaps the moral is that one should beware of articles written by economic journalists, for whom no level of savings, investment, spending, or of anything else, is ever the right one.

“Bold Vision”

In the October issue of The Critic, the critical doctor takes issue with a seemingly innocuous statement from the chairman of the organizing committee for the Paris Olympic Games.

An action or choice can perfectly well be bold without being good. It can be bold and stupid, or bold and vicious, or bold and cruel, or bold and any number of horrible things. Boldness is not a good in itself.

An Answer to Inequity

In his weekly Takimag column, our miffed doctor satirizes various preposterous, perverted, and pernicious woke positions, which have tragically spread far and wide in the Western world.

But in this vale of tears, it seems, going straight to the heart of the matter is both unwelcome and unimportant. The mouthing of sentiments without examination of their presuppositions, their implications, their corollaries, and their consequences is all that is necessary to obtain a reputation for wisdom and goodness.

Repression Britannia

Over at City Journal, the skeptical doctor begins to consider the validity of the notion of liberal fascism, following numerous cases of British police arresting anti-Hamas protestors and people praying silently near abortion clinics.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of people are permitted to demonstrate time and time again, to the great inconvenience of the rest of the public, in effect supporting the mass murder of 1,200 Israelis by a terrorist organization and calling for the deaths of millions of others. This has become a “liberal” cause and is therefore protected.

Playing Dumb

In his latest Takimag piece, the good doctor reflects on the topic of human stupidity after reading an interesting French book on the subject.

Stupidity is like measles in the old days: Everyone has to go through it. But there is no possible immunization against stupidity. If anything, its prevalence seems to have risen with tertiary education and yet further with the so-called social media. Artificial intelligence will boost it to new heights, or depths.