Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

I am extremely happy and proud of the job being done by @USTreasury Secretary @StevenMnuchin1. The FAKE NEWS likes to write stories to the contrary, quoting phony sources or jealous people, but they aren’t true. They never like to ask me for a quote b/c it would kill their story.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Here.

Here.

In the pages that are to follow I shall try to discuss the validity and the sufficiency of a celebrated moral principle of Kant's "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, always as an end, never merely as a means." In doing so, I shall say quite a lot about Kant, because his statement of the principle has had great influence, because he gave his genius to its elaboration, because he illustrated and defended it in ways that deserve a close examination. On the other hand, my principal purpose is not to supply a piece of Kantian exegesis interspersed with sundry criticisms. In the main I want to discuss the principle, as people say, "on its merits." In so far as I discuss Kant himself, I am doing so with the object of eliciting these merits.

Kant's ethics was a very original system, and he believed that all other moralists had strayed from the way. Nevertheless, he set out to be an interpreter rather than an innovator, to state and defend what he believed to be the plain man's conviction in ethical matters, to describe that conviction in an accurate philosophical analysis, and to justify it metaphysically in so far as a metaphysics of moral freedom was possible to speculative man. Such innovations as he made were intended, indeed, to distil the wisdom of the past as well as to correct oversights. It is therefore to be presumed that the principle we are now examining was not intended to be a brand new invention in morals. It is the principle of intrinsic human dignity, familiar in some form or other to every Stoic and to every Christian, to say nothing of other moralists. Its inclusion in Kant's system was a desideratum that might have been foreseen, and strengthened the motives, and even the popular motives, to credence in the system.

(John Laird, "The Ethics of Dignity," Philosophy 15 [April 1940]: 131-46, at 131)

To the editor:

President Trump’s statement expressing support for Saudi Arabia and its crown prince, whom the CIA concluded ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, reveals his character.

At first Trump said we did not even know if Khashoggi was dead. After that was established, he said we really did not know how he died. After it was conclusively proved that Khashoggi was murdered, he said the Saudi crown prince had personally assured him that he was not involved and knew nothing about it.

Trump, just as he has with other autocrats, accepted his word as truth.

Now our own CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s killing. But the truth does not seem to matter to Trump, especially when it is an inconvenient truth.

Trump views Saudi Arabia as the linchpin of his Middle Eastern policy and praises it for buying hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the United States. To Trump, Khashoggi is simply acceptable collateral damage.

The president will not let a little matter like right and wrong stand in the way of what he wants to do. This is an inconvenient truth about Trump that we all should accept.

Ken Derow, Swarthmore, Pa.

Republicans and Democrats MUST come together, finally, with a major Border Security package, which will include funding for the Wall. After 40 years of talk, it is finally time for action. Fix the Border, for once and for all, NOW!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Here.

Here.

Here is Kurt Schlichter's latest column.