PHILOSOPHERS, PHILOSOPHIZERS, AND REPUBLICANS.

Shine a light in any building, or cave for that matter, and you will see people who claim to think about stuff. Some of them think a.lot about stuff. Among that small group can be found philosophers. They have academic credentials. They may not have the whole story, yet, but they can tell you who among their predecessors said stuff and its relevance to the great questions before us. They are also more likely to be able to help you with those moral ambiguities. Like, is moral outrage even moral? Does a moral imperitive need to be moral? Or imperitive?

A much larger group are the philosophizers. This group extends on a continuum between those actively studying philosophy, but not yet awarded their PhD, to libertarians who are actively trying to find answers to those great mysteries, but are constrained within some Randian code of Objectivism. Beware of people who are under the delusion that Objectivism is a real, honest-to-goodness philosophy. Their search for truth is interrupted by the belief that self-satisfaction is the highest moral purpose in life. And no less moral. What could possibly go wrong with that way of thinking? If you don't know the answer to that question, you aren't giving much thought to thinking.

The lowest level of the thought spectrum is the Republican. Thought, for a Republican is somewhat akin to a mortal being addressed by a god. It is not for the mortal to question the judgement of the god. This was not always the case but something happened, starting with Ronald Reagan, that made this all possible. For a long while there were Republicans who actually though about things. There may not have been many but they did exist. Speculating on the decline of thought and creativity within the GOP, we may place the Blame on Reagan's 11th Commandment: "thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican". Thus the Republican mortal attains a kind of god-hood and cannot be questioned within the halls of whatever Olympus they proclaim their status. Demmocrats were put here by the deity to speak ill of. Feel free to abuse them at will. Refrain from casting aspersions on the noble Republican, great or small, who has been promoted to speak for a portion of the party. For proof I give you Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is, whether you like it or not, a spokesman for the the GOP, which most of us find alternitately amusing of repulsive. Her words, or portions thereof, are eagerly sought out by a large segment of the American electorate. She has Even published.it a book, making those of us who may have at one time held the publishing industry in high regard, deeply saddened. Yet she now has a leadership positions on the DOGE, which does not actually have an official positions.

Funny thing abitu the DOGE (Departament of Government Efficiency), which must be the least efficient department to seek out efficiency. Aside from the minor historical fact that Al Gore did that, then handed the government to the guy he lost the Electoral College vote to thanks to the Supreme Court. That Supreme Court had three of the Justices aho voted in the 5-4 decision receiving family-member employment in either the Bush administration (Bush II), or the RNC. How much more efficient can you get? Republicans have managed to make anything they succeed at an embarrassment, which they promote as brilliance. I am not sure whether the brilliance is that their incompetance shines brilliantly, or that they have brilliantly found the way to conceal their incompetance from those whose brilliance is not illuminated. Bobby Jindahl, a former RNC Chair ( i'm not sure if that is to be capitalized) pleaded with his party in 2012 to "not be the party of stupid". They failed. Two Republican investigations intended to weaponized government to blame President Biden for weaponizing government. Nothing was found except that the whistleblower named Smirnoff (at least he was not named Boris Badenov) was in fact spreading Russian misinformation, and the China-Israel whistleblower was being held in detention....by us. So much for the grand plans of Representative Jim Jordan and James Comer. Please tell me if you can spot any evidence of thought.

I think I was starting to say something about DOGE. Back in maybe the 15th century in Venice, and continuing until today, there was an annual masked gala, given by a wealthy autocrat called, The Doges Ball. Italian literature of the time mentioned a great deal of sexual license behind those masks. I doubt the sexual license will be as evident today. Elon Musk must think himself a modern Doge, with his many baby-mama's. It kinda makes you wonder if his parties are mask optional. What could be less chaste than a 16th Century masked ball? Elon Musk does not seem too concerned if someone should be thinking deeply on this issue.

One final example before us, aming so many, is former Governor Larry Hogan. There has been a number of purported sightings of unexplained drones. Donald Trump thinks they should be summarily shot down. Not to be outdone, former Gov. Hogan, often considered a moderate by people unused to seeing moderate Republicans, claimed to have seen some drones in the night sky. There was something there but it wasn't a pack of drones. It was stars in the constellation Orion. And thus we search in vain for a Republican capable of even thinking about Objectivism.