Time has come to remind everybody of a few basic things about this blog:

1) I don’t “endorse” everything I post here
2) The only stuff I “endorse” is the articles I sign with my name
3) Controversy is good if it makes you think

Two articles I posted recently got me into hot water with some of you: Andrew Kroybko’s article on Armenia and Belarus and Sakari Linden’a article on Karelia.  Both of these articles were posted in the “Guest Posts” section which should already indicate to everybody what I did not “endorse” them.  In fact, I personally disagree with both of these articles (and with many others I posted in the past).

You might want to know why I would post something I disagree with.  Would I just post anything here?  No, not “anything”.  But if an article is well-written and on a topic which receives too little attention, then I will most probably post it in the hope of eliciting interest and a healthy debate.  I would note that my Research Assistant Scott did an absolutely superb job challenging some of Linden’s arguments.  And this is exactly what I was hoping for.

Now some of you do not approve of this approach and that is okay.  But I fully expect to post things I don’t agree with in the future (as I have often done in the past).  And here is a superb example of that:

This morning a friend emailed me a number of links including this absolutely superb anarchist video.  Now, let it be clear: I am absolutely not an anarchist and I am completely and unapologetically what the anarchists call a “statist”.  And yet, I would say that I fully agree with about 80% of what this videos says.  80% that is a lot, don’t you think?

Still, like with Marxism, while I agree with the critique offered in this video, I do not agree at all with the (naive) notion that all evil comes from the state and that removing the state is the solution to rid ourselves from all evil.  I don’t like utopian ideologies and utopian “solutions”, but I do often full concur with the outrage utopists feel when they look at our world.  So today I am going to post this excellent video not because I “endorse” it, but because it made me think and because I hope that it will make you think too.  Questioning our certitudes is one of the most noble and, I would add, Christian thing anybody can do.  Did Saint Paul himself not write “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thess 5:21)?

There was one graffiti on my high-school wall which said “the glitter of certitudes leads me to murder“.  I don’t know who wrote that, but I remembered that many times later in my life when questioning my certitudes brought me to the realization that I was wrong and my certitudes false.  Those lucky few who are always right can definitely dispense with doubt, an open debate and questioning, but those who, like myself, have been wrong too many times to count vitally depend on that opportunity to question our certitudes.

Anyway, here is that video.  I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did.

The Saker

PS: I have no idea how this lady ended up on this video’s thumbnail, but I suspect that this was an attempt to “bait” the zombies into watching the video by appealing to something they “understand” (so to speak).  And no, I do not “endorse” this kind of “baiting” either.

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