Sign in

Ian Walling

@ianwalling.bsky.social
479 followers 279 following 13 posts

Political Theorist. VAP at Valparaiso University. Socialist Aristotelian.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Ian Walling
Sebas @ohlookbirdies.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
If you're not using asbestos yet, you are being left behind. Everyone is using asbestos, there's no point in trying to fight it. Asbestos is the future.
8957071551
Reposted by Ian Walling
The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
If you’re now fighting to restore the status quo ante bellum in a war you began, you lost the war
131166248
Reposted by Ian Walling
Laurent Pech 🇺🇦 @profpech.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Academic freedom or lack thereof: Decline of institutional autonomy in the United States compared to its decline in other prominent (former) democracies that have autocratized, namely Hungary, India, and Türkiye academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...
09859
Reposted by Ian Walling
Paul Gowder @gowder.io · 20/03/2026
ALSO, instead of consulting Adrian Vermeule and Montesquieu to understand the right way to think about a constitutional membership rule in a republic formed on the ashes of slavery, we should consult Frederick Douglass, who fought for that rule. FFS. teachingamericanhistory.org/document/our...
745185
Reposted by Ian Walling
Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Well, that’s the most repulsive thing I’ve read in a minute. I suppose I appreciate Adrian’s candor in saying all of this out loud.
The illegal alien is a line-jumper and a violator of sovereign borders, a thief of both time and space, and generally speaking a thief may pass no valid title to stolen goods. Of course the child of an illegal alien is innocent of any personal wrongdoing, but the problem is that the parents lack the kind of lawful status that could ground transmission to their descendants of the citizenship, and the share of sovereignty, to which the parents are not themselves entitled. Our law, interpreted in this way, would merely deny to the illegal alien, a violator of the republic's laws, the ability to pass on to their children the fruits of the parents' own wrongdoing, the crucial ability to vest a share of republican sovereignty in their
own descendants. A mild remedy indeed.
761486181
Reposted by Ian Walling
Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Newly released footage shows an ICE agent killing Rubin Ray Martinez, 23, in his car in Texas. "He was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger." www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Ruben Ray Martinez: Footage shows US citizen shot by ICE agent in Texas traffic stop
The Department of Homeland Security did not disclose Martinez was shot by one of its agents until almost a year later.
064314013
Reposted by Ian Walling
Micah @rincewind.run · 06/02/2026
good to see hard data on "baseball and hockey players have by a large margin the worst politics of any major sport", a thing that every serious sports fan knows intuitively
4760473
Reposted by Ian Walling
Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 07/01/2026
Texas A&M actually tells a philosophy professor he may not teach Plato.
dailynous.com
Texas A&M Bans Plato - Daily Nous
Drop the race and gender material from your course and the Plato readings, or teach a different course. You have a day to decide. That's a paraphrase of what Martin Peterson, professor of philosophy a...
14233136
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
The US Military remains primarily a tool for compelling foreign countries to render their resources available to US capital.
000
Reposted by Ian Walling
Melissa Martin @doubleemmartin.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”
952291494756
Reposted by Ian Walling
Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 24/12/2025
people are clowning on this, but the Canadian mind is cunning, pitiless, steeped in boreal perfidy
3550880
Reposted by Ian Walling
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
The same people who think we need to bring back real standards to academia also want to give all students a “suspend my professor” button if they don’t like how things are going
361778391
Reposted by Ian Walling
Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Wow: Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (named for Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin, who coined term "genocide") calls Clinton's remarks "genocide denial." "Young people in the US are not stupid or gullible. They simply reject genocide – something the Secretary might consider doing as well."
Statement on Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Genocide Denial at the Israel Hayom Summit

December 9, 2025

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security feels called to point out that former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s recent remarks at the Israel Hayom Summit on 2 December amount to outright genocide denial.

During her remarks, the Secretary correctly noted that the recent deterioration of Israel’s standing among U.S. voters is not a “Republican versus Democrat kind of divide” but rather a generational one. Nevertheless, she incorrectly diagnosed the reasons for the shift as a matter purely of optics, stating that “Israel [has] the worst PR of any group” and accusing social media, particularly TikTok, of presenting “pure propaganda” that American youth are uncritically ingesting.

Secretary Clinton’s framing is not at all an accurate reflection of why Americans are growing more critical of Israel. Young Americans of all political stripes have not fallen prey to propaganda, though that is always a legitimate concern. Rather, they have consumed two years of videos depicting Israel’s genocide against Palestinians that have been uploaded by Palestinian journalists, ordinary people trying to survive in Gaza, IDF soldiers, and ordinary Israelis themselves. There has been no convincing refutation of the sheer amount of raw evidence of genocide coming out of Palestine. Young people in the U.S. are not stupid or gullible. They simply reject genocide – something the Secretary might consider doing as well.

Secretary Clinton appears not to be bothered by the reality of genocidal violence – in fact, she did not mention anything about it. Her concern is, rather, in her words, “the narrative” – the fact that these crimes are no longer hidden and are now being live-streamed and documented in real time, making it harder for her and others to control it. TikTok cannot be blamed for the fact that many members of Gen Z understand that Israel is …It is in fact highly ironic to blame TikTok for the dissemination of content laying bare the realities of Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Like many other social media conglomerates, TikTok has been accused of systematic censorship of pro-Palestinian content. In July of this year, TikTok appointed an ex-IDF instructor as its new manager of hate speech. This person can hardly be accused of pro-Palestinian views given her background and stated opinions. It appears that what Secretary Clinton really means to say is that TikTok is not being effective enough at censoring the truth.

What truly seems to unsettle Secretary Clinton is not “misinformation,” but rather the fact that younger generations are no longer consuming a single, state-controlled narrative. They are accessing unfiltered images and testimonies that challenge decades of political messaging. This helps explain why TikTok has become a target, not because it is misleading students, but precisely because the content uploaded by its users allow them to see beyond official propaganda.

When former Secretary Clinton calls this “a serious problem for democracy,” it sounds less like a defense of democratic values and more like concern for the weakening of a long-standing political and ideological agenda, one that, it must be stated, is highly undemocratic.

Secretary Clinton did get one thing right, although quite inadvertently: When you do not have the truth on your side, all you left with is indeed optics and “the narrative.” But she is wrong to think that any amount of PR – even really great and expensive PR – is going to hide this genocide. Israel would be better served by advice to end the genocide, engage in a transformational process that brings the perpetrators to justice, and build a future with Palestinians. That is the only way to change its image.

America’s young people are no longer fooled by genocide denial – whether it is being presented by Israel, the United States, Sudan, Myanmar, Russia, or Secre…
6240931534
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Just the shrimp tacos for me thanks.
050
Reposted by Ian Walling
Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Mamdani turned his haters into waiters at the table of success
293715394
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Having a Chicago Pope really paying off right now.
031
Reposted by Ian Walling
Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
ben smith’s take from last year when the nuzzi/rfk story first broke aged like cheese on a dashboard
But now that we are in the full fury of American media prurience and self-righteousness, I am going to risk my neck on a slightly contrarian view.

Reporters have all sorts of compromising relationships with sources. The most compromising of all, and the most common, is a reporter’s fealty to someone who gives them information. That’s the real coin of this realm. Sex barely rates.
281516164
Reposted by Ian Walling
Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
OVER A MILLION USERS DISCUSS SUICIDE WITH CHATGPT EVERY *WEEK* what the fuck are we DOING here
555381849
Reposted by Ian Walling
derek van vliet @derek.bike · 05/11/2025
good morning specifically to the FBI agent who introduced Mamdani’s dad to Marx
guy said, “Do you like Marx?”

I said, “I haven’t met him.”

Guy said, “No, no, he’s dead.”

“Wow, what happened?”

“No, no, he died long ago.”

I thought the guy Marx had just died. So then, “Why are you asking me if he died long ago?” 

“No, he wrote a lot. He wrote that poor people should not be poor.” 

I said, “Sounds amazing.”

I’m giving you a sense of how naïve I was. After they left, I went to the library to look for Marx. So that was my introduction to Karl Marx.

BS: The FBI.

MM: The FBI. Then, of course, I took a class on Marx. Couldn’t just get Marx out of the library. But,
4393002581
Reposted by Ian Walling
Missing The Point @missingthept.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Worst night for Virginia Republicans since 1860.
949786
Reposted by Ian Walling
Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
"You cannot be explaining your Nazi tattoo and defeat a multi-term incumbent."
Let’s keep this simple. This is not about whether Platner is an irredeemable person, or whether he can be forgiven. This is not about whether people were wrong to find him an intruging candidate in his initial appearances — I agree that he was. It’s about who will be the Democratic candidate in a critical Senate in Maine, and “got a Nazi tattoo and still has it” is transparently disqualifying. You cannot be explaining your Nazi tattoo and defeat a multi-term incumbent who has consistently punched above her party’s weight in the state. His allies are not doing him any favors if they allow him to believe otherwise, and if you don’t like Mills you need to find someone else to challenge her.
542539456
Reposted by Ian Walling
Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
The attack on core departments, tenured, and tenure track faculty is now accelerating in blue states, building upon the assault on NTT colleagues. Far from resisting Trump’s assault on higher ed, University admins in Democratic run states are spraying fuel on the fire to make it burn faster.
012766
Reposted by Ian Walling
The Mask of the Red Jeph @ass.golf · 27/12/2023
THE HORSES HAVE DISCOVERED BLACK METAL
1326638
Reposted by Ian Walling
Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 30/11/2023
Honored to write the Rolling Stone obituary for the worst American of the post-World War II era. Rot in piss
rollingstone.com
Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies
Henry Kissinger has died at age 100, his consulting firm said in a statement on Wednesday.
427138905224
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 30/11/2023
In moments of gravity like this, I'm reminded of Byron on another famed diplomat: "Posterity will ne’er survey a Nobler grave than this: Here lie the bones of Castlereagh: Stop, traveller, and piss!"
000
Reposted by Ian Walling
Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 01/11/2023
It’s November, which means we’re coming up on three years since this quote. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tru...
361961649
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 27/10/2023
I'll be heading to WPSA, so if you are going and want to meet up, let me know!
000
Reposted by Ian Walling
mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 25/10/2023
i feel like i’m going completely insane otherwise and then i log on and people are just posting like “will the gop mobilize behind Chip Hornk (R-CO)?” i simply don’t know. i don’t know. i don’t know
1775364
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
Moby Dick is just sentences like this, piled up to the length of a book, and it rocks.
000
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 20/10/2023
Ngl, this was a weird week to be teaching Gandhi.
000
Reposted by Ian Walling
Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 09/10/2023
In Noah Pinion's attic hangs a take that just keeps getting smarter and smarter
362325284
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 09/10/2023
It's incredibly heartening when students come up to you after class to ask what else you'll be teaching next semester.
020
Ian Walling @ianwalling.bsky.social · 02/10/2023
C: So this function your talking about, that's, what in Greek, it's ergo? Me: Ergon, Mister Columbo. With an n. C: Aaaaaah, like ergonomic! You know my wife, she's been after me to get one of those, what do you call it, ergonomic chairs. Is that what Aristotle was after? Me: Hardly Mister Columbo.
050