Today’s links The tax sharks are back and they’re coming for your home: Like picking pennies off a dead man’s eyes. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. The tax sharks are back and they’re coming for your home (permalink) One of my weirder and more rewarding hobbies is collecting definitions of “conservativism,” and one of the jewels of that collection comes from Corey Robin’s must-read book The Reactionary Mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reactionary_Mind Robin’s definition of conservativism has enormous explanatory power and I’m always finding fresh ways in which it clarifies my understand of events in the world: a conservative is someone who believes that a minority of people were born to rule, and that everyone else was born to follow their rules, and that the world is in harmony when the born rulers are in charge. This definition unifies the otherwise very odd grab-bag of ideologies that we identify with conservativism: a Christian Dominionist believes in the rule of Christians over others; a “men’s rights advocate” thinks men should rule over women; a US imperialist thinks America should rule over the world; a white nationalist thinks white people should rule over racialized people; a libertarian believes in bosses dominating workers and a Hindu nationalist believes in Hindu domination over Muslims….Pluralistic: The tax sharks are back and they're coming for your home (27 Apr 2024)