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Overnight Open Thread (09/06/2020)

I have spent all my life under a communist regime,, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.

-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

-- Ronald Wilson Reagan

I wasn't part of John Kennedy's vision of the world, or Lyndon Johnson's. I thought of them as anti-Communist imperial monsters.

-- Bill Ayers

In general, I distrust philosophy. Plato recommended chasing poets from the city; the 'great' Heidegger was a Nazi; Lukacs was a communist; and J. P. Sartre wrote: 'Any anti-communist is a dog.'

-- Claude Simon

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.

-- Mao Tse Tung

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Geopolitical Futures is an interesting magazine with a thoughtful take on many issues. I am less enamored of their certainty, but still, it's a worthwhile read.

Nothing Has Changed With Taiwan

The decision to make public a document after nearly 40 years comes at a time of rising tensions, military drills and Chinese threats in the Taiwan Strait, and is meant to stave off more escalation by clarifying its position. The memo outlines the following:

That the U.S. had not agreed to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan
That the U.S. had not agreed to consult with China on arms sales to Taiwan
That the U.S. would not play a mediation role between Taipei and Beijing
That the U.S. had not agreed to revise the Taiwan Relations Act
That the U.S. had not altered its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan
That the U.S. would not exert pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiations with the People’s Republic of China

In other words, the United States was not prepared in any substantial way to abandon Taiwan, and by releasing the memo, Washington confirmed that the position it has held since 1982 has remained in place, and that China should understand as much.

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In fairness to many of these "fails," some of these folks are racing, and capsizing and pitchpoling is just one of those things. If you aren't on the edge, you are probably going to lose.

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[Hat Tip: Weasel]

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Made by long-time commenter Muad'dib.

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Courtesy of commenter "Our Country is Screwed," who snapped this photo while wandering in the wilds of New Hampshire.

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Ah...high school!

But it sure was a new sound, and I think I may have worn out the album.

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