Various and sundry

Introduction

General

I often (especially, with current events) have the wish to discuss, reference, or clarify something without creating a separate page. (E.g. because I lack the time or the topic the importance, because the resulting text simply would not be very long, because the eventual scope is not yet clear.) In such cases, I might opt to give a brief treatment on this page.

Note that any of the below entries might eventually be moved elsewhere, e.g. in order to give a fuller treatment on a separate page.

Also note that my intention to give a brief treatment often fails. Once I get started, texts often turn out longer than planned, and chances are that at least some of the texts present at any given time would be long enough to warrant separate pages even in the now. (And are disproportionately likely to be among those later moved.)

Left–Right and terminology

As discussed repeatedly in the past, I consider the traditional Left–Right scale simplistic, misleading, and harmful. (Note e.g. a text with suggestions for more sensible political scales ([1]).)

The alleged “Right”, in particular, is too heterogeneous to be grouped under a label that implies something homogeneous. (The Left, too, is problematic in this regard, but not to anywhere near the same degree.) Correspondingly, I tend to juxtapose the Left with the non-Left and to put words like “Right” (“far Right”, “Rightwing”, etc.) in scare quotes. (But note that the uses in this paragraph arise from speaking of words, not the need for scare quotes.)

Likewise, I tend to avoid the word “Center” and its variations, in part through my experiences in Germany (cf. side-note): (a) What is considered the political center varies too much from country to country and time to time. (b) It gives traditionally “Rightwing” parties incentives to hide under the label “Center”, to reduce the damage from the Leftist pushing of “everyone Rightwing is evil”, “The Nazis were Rightwing; ergo, the Rightwing is Nazi”, etc. (c) It indirectly supports an anti-“Right” worldview, where there is the acceptable Left (viewed as good by the Left and tolerated by the Center), the acceptable Center (seen as good by the Center and tolerated by the Left), and the unacceptable “Right” (uniformly rejected by both the Left and the Center). A better view is simply to see the highly problematic Left for what it is and to, again, contrast it with the non-Left. (While noting, again, that the non-Left is very heterogeneous, implying that the individual parties, politicians, ideologies, whatnot, must ultimately be judged on their individual merits. Some of them are problematic in their own right, some are not—but the Left is almost always worse.)

Yes, I do repeat myself

Re-visiting older contents on this page, I have found occasional repetitions.

In some cases, these might be warranted, because separate individual entries have an overlap or naturally draw on similar ideas/examples/whatnot, in a manner that would be unremarkable if they were on separate pages.

In other cases, I have simply forgotten that I had already addressed a particular topic or sub-topic and written some variation of the same a second time—for which I apologize. (Such memory errors might be understandable in light of the length of the page, but are still a disservice to the reader and a poor use of my own time.)

Even for the latter category, I will usually let the repetition stand for now, but with an increased probability that the contents will be moved to a separate page and unified at a future date.

Dating, reading order, changes, etc.

Beginning on 2024-10-29, I will try to date new entries. Beware, however, that the date refers to first publication and that later changes will not necessarily be reflected. (This will depend on the extent of the changes and whether I pay attention to the matter at the time of change.) Older entries will not receive a retroactive date; however, many of them already mention a date at or around the time of writing in a less formal manner.

Regardless of dating, I almost invariably add new entries at the top of the list. In rare cases, a new entry might be added next to an old entry with a strong connection, even should it be well below the top; however, even when such a connection is present, I usually go with the top. This with the idea that a recurring reader can get what is new by simply reading the top-most few entries.

A side-effect is that those who want to read the entries in approximate order of writing must start from the bottom.

In contrast, changes to older entries, including updates that are too small to warrant a separate new entry, leave the respective old entry in its original place.

The entries

Quasi-religions and the failure of the U.S. constitution (2024-11-19)

I am currently reading a book containing speeches by Antonin Scalia (“Scalia Speaks”). Among many other interesting points, he notes (“Church and State”) how the U.S. constitution has removed the temptation for religious zealots to force their own will upon others on a for-their-own-good basis (citing both the First Amendment and a ban on religious tests for federal office).

However, if we throw a wider net, such implied protection does manifestly not extend to most other matters, and even in areas where protection is nominally present (e.g. the right to bear arms per the Second Amendment) government and/or the Left seems very keen on overriding that protection, often exactly with for-their-own-good arguments. Indeed, even the First Amendment, it self, is often in trouble, as with Leftist attempts to ban speech that is not sufficiently compatible with Leftist orthodoxy.

Worse, as I have noted on many occasions, Leftism often amounts to a quasi-religion, where reason and facts are put aside in favor of faith, where matters are handled with religious fervor, where rights are viewed as void when they get in the way of the quasi-religious dictates, etc. Such quasi-religions, however and by implication of that “quasi-”, are exempt from e.g. the “Establishment Clause”. Likewise, a test of sufficient conformity to Leftist orthodoxy, ideals, whatnot, is increasingly common for various positions, including federal office. (Note, in particular, the strong drive towards making an obsequious “diversity statement” more important than actual qualifications and competence in many hiring decisions, and how often being at least one of non-White, female, and LGBT-etc.-etc. is a central hiring criterion.)

“How to do it better?” is the obvious question. Here, I regret that I have no good answer. A key problem is that a religion proper is more easily discernible than the type of quasi-religion that so often fills the Left. (But by no means always. Generally, far from all ideologies, political movements, whatnot, reach the bar of the quasi-religious—and the attitude might vary even from member/follower to member/follower.)

At the end of the day, the solution might be found elsewhere, e.g. in constitutionally guaranteed small government, a minimal intrusiveness of government, a focus on the will and self-determination of the individual that bars for-their-own-good arguments and only limits the individual when sufficiently large and legitimate concerns for others are present, and similar. (By implication, “thou shalt not eat potato chips (because they are injurious to thy health)” would fail, while a “thou shalt not kill” would stand.)

A sufficiently flexible version of such limitations might even render additional religious freedoms redundant.

Election cheating IV (2024-11-19)

In the two weeks since the election, the area of election cheating has been reasonably quite.

However, there are at least two interesting cases to consider (aside, of course, from the perennial trouble maker that is Maricopa County):

Firstly, various news sources have noted on-going problems, up to and including a blatant and public Democrat defiance of both a law and a court order, in Pennsylvania. Votes that should not be counted are deliberately counted in the hope of turning a narrow Republican victory in a senate race into a narrow Democrat victory. (The hope is likely in vain, but the attitude displayed remains horrifying and fits so well with the 2020 events—count and count until we, the Democrats, have won, and never mind what we count.)

Secondly, it appears that the Harris campaign’s use of money to buy appearances and endorsements goes well beyond Oprah, and includes the likes of Al Sharpton. This, too, is a type of cheating—if done for the purpose of getting an unfair leg up.

However, there might be an even more troubling side to this than such an unfair leg up: The likes of Oprah and Sharpton are not exactly unlikely Harris endorsers to begin with. What if the true point was to abuse campaign donations to give handouts to the right persons and causes? We might then have someone donating to the Harris campaign for the narrow purpose of having her elected—only to see that money diverted into various Leftist causes and movements for which no support was intended. (After all, if someone wanted to support Al Sharpton, he could just have donated directly.)

Non-crime hate incidents (2024-11-17)

As noted below, the U.K. atrocity that is “non-crime hate-incidents” is under heavy criticism (again).

The immediate trigger is an attack on Allison Pearson (her own account^e), an outspoken non-Leftie who often writes for the Telegraph. In the days since, several others have come forward to discuss similar issues. A few recurring observations:

1. The police shows up, announced, at the victim’s door to demand a “voluntary” interview.

   This is a waste of resources, an unnecessarily great intrusion, a potential cause for excess worry, and poses a risk that snoopy neighbors will get the wrong idea. The correct thing to do is simply to send a letter with a polite request for an interview (and a letter that does contain sufficient information per the below items).

   ---

   Side-note:

   I have no idea what takes place in these specific interviews, but I have, myself, had negative experiences with the German police, where I, as the reporter of an actual crime, saw my words distorted to the point that I will insist on only written statements, should a future need arise.

   Considering the presumable pointlessness of such interviews in the cases at hand, I do have the suspicion that the purpose of the interview is something different—namely for half-wit police to instruct the victim in how evil it would be to use certain terms, to stick to correct and established pronouns, to criticize true haters, or similar.

   ---

2. The police refuses to tell the victim what the alleged offense is, except in vague terms.

   A central point of due process is to know exactly what one is accused of and at the earliest time possible. In particular, the idea of going to a vaguely described interview with no room for proper preparation, no opportunity to consult others, and no opportunity to decide when and whether to engage legal counsel, is absurd.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Here there is a potential perfidious issue with the “non-crime” part of the flawed idea: if it is not a crime, by a technicality, due process protections might not apply.

   ---

3. The police refuses to tell the victim who the accuser is.

   Another central point of due process is knowing who the accuser is and to have a sufficient ability to counter accusations and see accusations in a greater context.

4. The accusation has been given undue attention, while real crimes are not pursued and the many instances of actual hate and actually often criminal behavior from e.g. Leftist and pro-Hamas/anti-Jew groups are shrugged off. (Note repeated recent complaints about two-tier policing in the U.K.) For instance, the attack against Pearson appears to have involved three separate agencies and have taken half-a-year.

   However, the purpose of law enforcement is to fight crimes—not to stomp out non-Leftist speech.

In individual cases, other issues can apply, e.g. that a protest from abroad is taken as cause for an investigation or that a tweet from long ago is dug up. (Note comments in several below entries on the risk that speech becomes too dangerous, because the speaker has no way to ensure that speech is compliant, e.g. because different rules can apply in different countries and at different times.)

In a bigger picture, these nonsensical ideas show why various “hate” laws do more harm than good, are pushed for an ideological and destructive reason, and have no place in civilized society—either something is a crime or it is not, regardless of the alleged motivation of the alleged perpetrator. (This the more so, because cases cited as “hate” often have no connection to hate whatever—except, maybe, that some Leftist hates the speaker for speaking.)

The changing climate of politics (2024-11-16)

In the wake of Trump’s victory, we might be witnessing a new type of climate change, of a political nature—that the Left is loosing its complete dominance of media and narrative, that chilled speech is warming again, etc.

A particularly telling issue: Hitherto, even extreme far-Left claims have been allowed to stand, while far more harmless non-Left claims have been attacked and censored. Now, there appears to be consequences in the other direction, while non-Leftist speech is given more rein. For instance, reported today, a Left-loon that steered “Scientific American” into anti-scientific Trump-derangement appears to have been given the boot over having a nut-case meltdown after the election. For instance, the entire board of “LA Times” seems to be about to be replaced in order to increase diversity and tolerance of opinion. (Note the loud internal protests over the sound-for-a-newspaper decision not to endorse a candidate—the more so, as the wished-for-by-the-protestors candidate, Harris, was a dire menace.) For instance, the infamous “The View” is reported to at least be considering adding Conservative voices (but I expect RINOs, if so).

Overlapping, there is at least hope of a reduced tolerance of anti-Semitic speech relative before the election.

Maybe related, maybe coincidental, the U.K. is currently protesting loudly against the atrocity that is “non-crime hate-incidents”, a means by the Left to circumvent legal protections of free speech by application of absurd definitions of “hate” and an absurd abuse of police resources.

To endorse or not to endorse (2024-11-14)

Over the last few days, I have repeatedly contemplated the issue of endorsements. A recurring reader might have noted that I have never used a phrasing like “I endorse Trump” (barring some odd memory lapse)—yet, there can be little doubt that I favored him far above Harris (and Biden, and Hillary). At the same time, every Tom, Dick, and Harry seems to endorse the one candidate or the other in various races.

While I find it perfectly acceptable to discuss who one prefers, how one will/did vote, and similar, the idea of an endorsement might be better saved for a much more limited circle of persons and circumstances. The paramount example might be when one of several competitors leaves a race (e.g. a primary election) and endorses one of the remaining candidates to send a message to his supporters that “unfortunately, I will not be the winner, but the votes that would have gone to me are now best spent on [other candidate]”. (A recent, notable, and non-primary example is Robert Kennedy endorsing Trump after withdrawing from the POTUS race.) Another is when an incumbent chooses not to, or is prevented from, running again and wishes to indicate his preferred successor. (A recent and notable case is Biden endorsing Harris.)

On the other hand, random guys off the street, random celebrities, big businesses, newspapers, whatnot, might better leave endorsements to others, and, if individual persons, stick with a personal “I prefer X, because Y”. (For non-individuals, e.g. a business/newspaper, it seems most appropriate that such claims are left to individuals associated with the non-individual, while the non-individual remains silent—“I, the CEO, personally prefer X, because Y” and “I, the author of this op-ed, personally prefer X, because Y” are more legitimate statements.)

Where exactly to draw the line between less clear-cut cases is tricky, but I would tendentially say that a POTUS might endorse someone running for governor, while the governor should not endorse a POTUS candidate. Likewise that a House majority/minority leader might endorse a candidate running for a seat over other candidates of the same party; however, that neither should he endorse in a race between candidates from different parties, nor should a vanilla House member (let alone candidate) make endorsements in a race for majority/minority leader.

Tulsi Gabbard and that racism/sexism (2024-11-14)

Tulsi Gabbard appears to have just been named Trump’s new director of national intelligence. With an eye at my own writings, this is interesting on at least two counts. Firstly, it again speaks against those “Racism!!!” and “Sexism” charges that the Democrats like to raise when their preferred candidates are not supported by others. Secondly, it shows how far from normalcy the Democrats are:

I first did some reading on Gabbard during the 2020 Democrat primaries (or, maybe, the lead up to them). She struck me as a candidate to actually take seriously, someone who might actually make a worthwhile POTUS even while a Democrat, and someone who might actually move the Democrats back out of extremism and New Leftism. Instead, just a few years later, she left the Democrats to be an Independent. Earlier this year, she outright joined the Republicans. As of today, she is a presumptive member of Trump’s administration.

Now, whether she actually has what it takes to be POTUS, and whether she will ever get the chance, is far from certain, but she does look promising on paper. This opens for an intriguing scenario for some future election: The first female POTUS being a Republican who abandoned the trying-to-get-a-female-POTUS Democrats.

From another angle, what might have happened, had Biden picked her over Harris? They are both women and Gabbard is at least partially Samoan to Harris’s half-Indian/half-African, but Gabbard seems far more competent and, again, far more politically reasonable.

Superficial influencers (2024-11-12)

A potentially great source of Leftist success is the sheer number of successful actors, comedians, musicians, youtubers, and other types of celebrities, who (a) are utterly unqualified to judge various political issues, (b) speak out very strongly and publicly on such political issues. (Similar issues are common outside politics, too, but are off topic. The great number of female celebrities involved gives some overlap with the previous-but-one entry.)

For instance, go through a list of endorsers of Kamala Harris in the recent POTUS election and ask whether their opinions on anything outside their specific field of success are worthy of attention. What about the likes of Taylor Swift, Madonna, and Beyoncé? What makes them even remotely qualified to endorse someone?

A particular oddity is Eminem, who has not only often been in the cross-hairs of the Left, including over allegations of homophobia and misogyny, but seemed to be motivated by a wish for free speech in his endorsement—by which sign he really should have endorsed Trump (he, the Republicans, and other “Right-wingers” are common victims of large scale attacks against free speech, of cancellation attempts, etc.) and not Harris (the Democrats and other Left-wingers are the perpetrators of such attacks/attempts/whatnot). In this he is a shining example of the level of political and societal ignorance that celebrities often have and how little value their endorsements should be given.

A reverse oddity is Oprah, who appears to have received considerable payment by the Harris campaign for a Harris appearance and endorsement. Now, my opinions of Oprah, her judgment, and her opinions are not high, but she (as another Leftist Black woman) would otherwise have seemed like someone who would have bent over backwards to endorse Harris-and (as a publicity hog) she might have seemed primed to take a Harris interview for the sheer publicity value.

Throwing a wider net, we have countless young actresses making political statements on issues that they do not understand, proclaiming themselves Feminists in a near-blanket manner without understanding what Feminism actually entails (see a number of older texts), or suddenly and in an ostentative manner declaring themselves “non-binary”.

In recent weeks (independent of the election), I have encountered a number of works by (in particular) “indie” comic artists, e.g. Aline Kominsky-Crumb (wife of the more famous R. Crumb). These works often give voice to strongly Leftist and highly naive political views—and views that then often reach impressionable teens. These comic artist are, in a next step, not only lacking in relevant qualifications, they also often show severe deficits in their own persons, behaviors, intellectual aptitude, etc. Indeed, many are dropouts, jobless, users of hard drugs, and/or petty criminals. (A large portion of these works have been autobiographical in nature.)

The flawed idea of being non-binary (2024-11-12)

I have long been annoyed at the idea of being/identifying as “non-binary”, which in most cases seem to be rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of regular humanhood.

The general idea seems to be that the average man goes around and feels like a man and the average woman goes around and feels like a woman; ergo, someone who has no particular such feeling must be something different. In reality, most simply do not have such a continuous feeling. I, e.g., am well aware that I have a penis and two balls, have a hairier face than most women, am taller than most women, have different interests than most women, etc., but this awareness is by no means something that controls my life, determines who I am, or is on my mind through most of the day. Being a man (as opposed to being me or, in more limited cases, being human) is not something that I reflect over or notice at all in most situations. (Similarly, in almost all situations, I do not reflect over the fact that I am an adult. For convenience, I use words like “reflect” in a very wide sense. Some below examples, e.g., might be a more unconscious than conscious matter.)

Indeed, even those situations that might seem to call for such reflection or notice, rarely do, if inspected more closely. For instance, if I spot a good looking woman and entertain the thought of sexual intercourse, this might better be viewed as “I am attracted to women” (or “[...] that particular woman”) over “I am a man”. Certainly, I would not expect this to be different for a heterosexual “non-binary” man—much unlike when a homosexual man meets the same woman. (However, the reverse thought that “she is a woman” can be more common, and by no means limited to sexual and romantic matters.) Even should it come to actual intercourse, there is no real reflection on being a man needed (or occurring). Yes, my equipment is different from a woman’s and I do much differently than a lesbian would, but this is (a) broadly what just comes naturally, (b) not something that would change if I identified as “non-binary”.

This, however, does not make me “non-binary”—it just shows that I am a regular man and a regular human.

Women among political nutcases (2024-11-12)

An interesting aspect around political nutcases is how disproportionately often they are women.

Consider e.g. the infamous “Squad”: While its exact given members have varied over time, it began as a four-woman group and it has been either exclusively women or dominated by women in any listing of members that I have ever seen.

With an eye at the recent POTUS election, Harris was decidedly more extreme than Biden and Trump (and those who do not understand this show an extreme naivety). Ditto, in 2016, Hillary.

The somewhat recent U.K. elections brought a very troubled government. True, the Prime Minister is a man, but the greatest danger seems to be a woman, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has delivered a budget so extremist and destructive that it boggles the mind. Angela Rayner (Deputy Prime Minister) seem to be similarly loonier-than-Starmer, including through pushing very far-going pro-Union, anti-growth, whatnot, measures—some of which are claimed to be for the benefit of the workers but are actually rejected by those same workers (note e.g. the “0-hour contract” issue). Among many potentially disturbing personal details, she became pregnant and dropped out of school at age 16, and once took out an actual loan in order to ... have cosmetic surgery. These two women alone, never mind what else Labour is up to, have thrown the U.K. economy into chaos within months of the election.

Or consider the tragic case of Greta Thunberg, who raised hell all over the world even as a teenager and from a position of more ignorance and hysteria than insight and argument.

Or consider the insanity that is Gender-Feminism and the companion pseudo-science that is Gender Studies—both dominated by women. For that matter, read up on the excesses, including violence, performed by many members of even the 19th-century women’s movements

Or look at U.S. colleges (likely, higher education more internationally too) and how many problems go back to predominantly female Leftist activists, be it among students, administrators, or staff.

Leftist failure to discriminate / Puerto Rico (2024-11-12)

The recent U.S. elections gave quite a few examples of how the Left fails to discriminate, be it because of intellectual limitations or for the purpose of manipulating voters (under the presumption that the voters are similarly intellectually limited).

A particularly good example is that Puerto-Rico-as-island-of-garbage joke: The clear implication of the Democrats appears to be (without exception, in the discussions that I have seen) that the Puerto Ricans were called garbage. Going by any actual quote given (again, without exception) it was Puerto Rico that was called garbage.

This is the more important as about 2/3rds of the Puerto Ricans (in the ethnic sense) actually live on the U.S. mainland—“everyone there will have moved here”. This has two implications of note: Firstly, Puerto Ricans appear to prefer the U.S. mainland to Puerto Rico (without necessarily going as far as “garbage”). Secondly, any insult of the island, even if implausibly extended to its inhabitants, would only hit a minority of the Puerto Ricans, making the conflation the more absurd. (Indeed, at an extreme, if this implausible extension was made, a more reasonable interpretation-in-detail would be that “those who have failed to move to the mainland are garbage”—and would, almost necessarily, also include members of other groups, including WASPs, who, for one reason or another, were living there.)

Of course, the island has been the butt of jokes before, including in “West Side Story” and in the mouths of Puerto Ricans—“let it sink back into the ocean”. (However, I caution that the lyricist, Sondheim, was not himself Puerto Rican and that there is far more to the song than a complaint about Puerto Rico.) In as far as anyone found that to be derogatory of Puerto Ricans (as opposed to Puerto Rico), I have yet to be aware of it. The rub, however, is that no-one appears to have conflated Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in the context of “West Side Story”, be it through stupidity or through dishonesty.

As a final point: In as far as a location is used to signify something other than geography (which it often is, as with “the U.S. invaded Iraq”, “the Left has turned Portland, Oregon, into a hell-hole”), the intent is only rarely on the people but on the government, the society, the living conditions, or similar. Indeed, if I were to speak derogatorily about Cuba, to remain in the Caribbean, it might well be with an outright sympathetic attitude towards the Cuban people, as victims of Castro et al. for many decades.

Trump wins! (2024-11-06, -07, -08)

That I am extremely satisfied with the outcome goes without saying. In 2024, we see what should have happened in 2020. To look at some details:

1. The parallel election of the (entire) House of Representatives is still in the air, but I have hopes of a Republican victory, which would open great possibilities. (Still true by 2024-11-08.)

2. The Senate appears to shift narrowly to the Republicans, which has many advantages, including a good chance at reducing the proportion of Leftist judicial activists in the judicial branch. This the more so, of course, if the House does go Republican.

   However, the margin is still very thin and things can still go wrong. Apart from a revision of results, there is certainly a risk of a sabotaging RINO doing a “reverse Manchin”. (By 2024-11-08, a Republican majority is a near certainty. We might see as much as a 53–47, which would make a single “reverse Manchin” impotent. Four of them could be a problem, but that is an unlikely scenario.)

3. While I have not followed the further “down-ballot”, it is notable that election integrity measures were passed in a number of states and that several far-Left DAs were booted for having tried to block persecution of some types of crime and/or by some types of criminals for ideological reasons.

4. Various sources have given three core issues for the election:

   The economy, which naturally went to Trump.

   Abortion, which might have gone to Harris, but, if so, only through a fundamental misunderstanding of the overall issues and situation—the question should have been entirely moot on the POTUS level: The POTUS has no say in the matter, as the leader of the executive branch. Moreover, with Dobbs, the main responsibility for legislation has been returned to the states, and those who favor more permissive abortion rules should elect members to the respective state parliament who have a similar take—or, as in some states, attempt an amendment to the state constitution. A difference between Trump and Harris is extremely unlikely, as it would require (a) that a federal law is put on the table, which is somewhat unlikely, (b) that this law passes both houses of Congress, which is extremely unlikely, (c) that Trump (or, hypothetically, Harris) would actually veto the law, while there are no signs that Trump would do so for a law moderate enough to pass through Congress, (d) that a re-vote in Congress fails to reach the qualified majority to override his veto.

   ---

   Addendum:

   Nevertheless, I have read and read of some hysterical and irrational reactions that show how deep the ignorance of many voters go. At an extreme, someone was crying because “her rights as a woman were taken away” (or something close to that; I did not keep a link or an exact quote). Not only is this fundamentally untrue even for abortion, but (a) there are no signs of any other right reduction (beyond, possibly, the “right” to affirmative action or some similar nonsense) and (b) framing issues in terms of women’s rights instead of e.g. the rights of the individual, human rights, civic rights, or similar shows an extremely flawed attitude to the issue of rights.

   ---

   Democracy, which might have gone either way: To me, it seems obvious that those who care for democracy should be terrified by what we have seen from the Biden regime and to avoid Harris for that reason alone. (Never mind all the other problems with her.) Many others, presumably drawing on defamation by the Democrats, seem to have seen fear of Trump as a reason to vote for Harris, which would, effectively, have put the fox to guard the hen-house. A particular twist, of course, is that Harris, in a democratically very suspect manner, was awarded the nomination that Biden (!) won. Another, that Leftist parties, when push comes to shove, only seem to favor democracy as long they win.

   ---

   Addendum:

   By 2024-11-08, I have seen repeated poor reactions here too, including various “local” Democrat big-wigs speak of how they would fight Trump’s policies to “protect” the locals, or similar, as if Trump was some dire menace that needed to be stopped. (A description that, if anything, would have been more apposite to Harris and was to Biden.) Here, note the difference between a “local” using his power to hinder a federal policy that he disagrees with because he disagrees with it, on the one hand, and having or claiming a motive of “protecting” against such a dire menace, on the other. (To boot, before Trump is even in office and while his previous time as POTUS gave no indications that “protection” was needed.)

   This also reflects a critical difference between the camps on democracy: Biden et al. were a legitimate threat, did repeatedly engage in lawfare, did repeatedly try to weaken election integrity, did seriously suggest changes that would have turned the SCOTUS into a tool for the Democrats, etc. To fear what would have happened in case of a Harris victory is extremely rational. The fears for democracy in case of a Trump victory, in stark contrast, went back to FUD—as did much of the Democrats’/Harris’s case in general.

   ---

5. A significant change is that Trump appears to have done better with Blacks and, in particular, Latinos than in past years. (But keep in mind that Harris still had an advantage in support.) This continues a slow but important trend of diminished support for the Democrat party in these groups. The exact reasons for this are unclear, but a fundamental observation is that these groups might not be so easily lead and so easily buy-able as the Democrats seem to think—and that they might see through the whole “identity politics” and “intersectionality” shtick. A poor actual performance by the Democrats for these groups and a contemptuous attitude against them are also likely play in—promising is easy; delivering, another story altogether. Another fundamental observation is that bribing a particular group is easier the smaller the group is, and that the growth of (in particular) Latinos as a percentage of the population could be an obstacle for the Democrat dominance. (This, especially, when several groups are too be bribed, as their interests will increasingly clash.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   To what degree there is an element of e.g. racism in the Democrat presumptions is open to debate. Many Republicans claim that the degree is high, and I certainly do not rule this out, myself. However, I note that I have long feared that exactly a rock hard support for the Democrats and a demographic shift would make the GOP entirely uncompetitive (unless or until it adopted similar policies, similar rhetoric, etc.)—and that I did so based on my experiences with Sweden, where White workers, low earners, whatnot were voting Social-Democrat for decade after decade based on a very similar approach of “us vs. them” and “you are oppressed!” rhetoric, promises of government handouts and intervention in return for votes, etc.

   (For the last few decades, with the shift from Old to New Left, something similar has applied to women and Sweden, but has not reached the same scale and success—maybe, because even nominally Conservative, Libertarian, whatnot, parties proclaim a support for Gender-Feminism and similar nonsense.)

   ---

   Generally, not limited to Blacks and Latinos, I suspect that the Left simply has pushed its extremist agenda too far, causing too large portions of the people to wake up to the great problems that it entails. (You can fool some of the people some of the time, etc.)

6. Women continue to be a problematic voter group, which has done a great amount of damage to the world through giving Leftist parties/candidates electoral success that they did not deserve.

   At the end of the day, a functioning democracy more-or-less requires (but virtually never has) a restriction not based on age but on ability to think critically, withstand emotional manipulation, understanding when one knows too little to vote, etc. While such problem cases are extremely common, they are clearly over-represented among women. The sad, pragmatic, truth might actually be that we would have been better off with a men-only voting system. (But I stress that I do not suggest that such a barrier be instated or re-instated—better means can be found, as discussed in some older text(s). TODO import from Wordpress and link.)

7. My old thesis that elections tend to be unnaturally close to 50–50 is confirmed again. The results are much, much closer than they would be in a sane world, with intelligent, well-informed, and critically thinking voters. (See an old Wordpress text and follow-ups. Note that the election day mentioned is the one in 2022. TODO import and link.)

   ---

   Addendum:

   In the overlap with the increasing extremism of the Democrats, we might simply have seen the Democrats place themselves a little too far Left in terms of the positioning choices discussed on Wordpress, either alienating voters or allowing the Republicans to occupy more of the center-vote than they would have against a more moderate Left. (But note that the issue is better seen as spread over a multitude of scales, not a single scale. Also note that the two parties are clearly not trying to edge each other by the strong focus on the “median voter” discussed in that text.)

   That the extremist positions of the Left were tolerated at all by the voters is not a good sign, however.

   ---

8. The 2020 election demonstrated a problem that, had Trump lost, would have been re-demonstrated in 2024:

   The risk that what amounts to near-foreigners, with potentially radically different interests priorities, beliefs, etc., can decide who govern us. For instance, in 2020, Biden won 306–232, with 55 electors from California alone and another 29 from New York. Subtract these two, very atypical and very strongly Leftist, places, and the result would have been 222–232, with Trump winning. But why should two atypical states impose Biden on a country that otherwise favored Trump?

   ---

   Side-note:

   This just for a simple illustration. A better, but more labor demanding, comparison might contrast “red” and “blue” states and/or appropriately chosen geographical areas. (Note, e.g., how the entire west coast voted Biden resp. Harris in 2020 and 2024—and did so very predictably.)

   ---

   Even as is, 2024 is a partial demonstration, because something similar applies in reverse. The effect is not as strong, however, because (a) no pro-Trump/-Republican state comes close to California in electors, (b) some Leftist states are stronger outliers in terms of politics. For instance, there is no state that is so “far Right” as California or New York is far Left.

   At the end of the day, however, there is an aspect of the-French-votes-determining-the-U.K.-elections to the system, and there might be need for a considerable reform or a considerable weakening of the federation relative the states. (I note that the “Federalist Papers” discussed such issues and saw them as dangerous at a time when there were only 13 states and when these states, the North–South divide notwithstanding, were more homogeneous than the current set of states.)

   Likewise, in both years (and 2016, and likely some earlier years), we had a wide divide in the male and female vote. But if men (women) come down clearly on the side of one candidate, why must they put up with a candidate that was picked by the women (men)?

   (And so on for other groupings, e.g. by race.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   Here it is important to additionally bear in mind how powerful and meddling the government has grown, how far apart both the groups and the candidates often are, and how strongly focused on special interest groups (at least) the Left is.

   In the best of worlds, state of residence, sex, race, whatnot, would matter little as individuals make their individual choices. (And we must always keep in mind that group differences of significance do not necessarily tell us much about a random individual who happens to be a member of that group.) The minority might still be overrun by the majority, maybe even to the point of the classic analogy of wolves and sheep voting about what/whom to eat. (The general problem has been recognized for ages.) However, the U.S. is very far from that best of worlds and the problems so much larger than they have been in so many other times and places (say, the Sweden of my youth).

   ---

   ---

   Addendum:

   In the days after the election, I have pondered issues around the electoral college, the great weight of California, and that the-French-votes-determining-the-U.K.-elections idea.

   The problem with the current system is that (with two exceptions) the states all use a first-past-the-post, all-or-nothing system, which, to some degree, can turn the electoral college into a trap that causes a problem that it was (partially) designed to avoid. The fear is that if there is a straight vote over the entire population, with no electoral college, a few large states (notably, California) could determine that vote so conclusively that small states (in terms of population) and their voters have no practical say. The current situation, however, is not that different—at worst, the first-past-the-post system could leverage the votes of one interest group sufficiently to worsen the problem.

   Here note that early concerns were based on the risk that the interests of the large states would be put above the interests of the small states, with an implicit assumption that the interests of voters within a state would be considerably more aligned with each other than they are today. Today, we have various parties, movements, ethnicities, special interest groups, etc., that have interests more-or-less unrelated to the interests of the state in a manner and/or on a scale not foreseen at the time. (The considerable difference in distribution between the states goes back to factors not truly related to the states, e.g. in that the locations of colleges and the likely later working places of the college educated strongly influence the distribution of the college educated.)

   A potential middle road, given the current situation, would be to divide the electors of a state in a more fine-grained manner, e.g. in that a 60–40 vote in California give us 33–22 electors instead of 55–0. In the current system, a 3-elector state would be outweighed by 55–3, in the modified system and in terms of “net electors”, it might be 11–1 (33 - 22 = 11, 2 - 1 = 1), reducing the factor from more than 18 to 11.

   (This likely remains an improvement over a straight vote, because the electors are not allocated in strict proportion to state population, with smaller states having more electors relative the likes of California than indicated by the population. A complication is that this “over-allocation” might be diminished too often by the reduced number of net votes per state, in the alternate system.)

   Such a system would also reduce the damage done by, say, Maricopa county, its dominance of Arizona, and the great signs of electoral fraud or, on the outside, incompetence; reduce the importance of “swing states”; and generally reduce issues with first-past-the-post systems (note e.g. the effects on the 2024 U.K. (!) election).

   ---

9. A very interesting side-story is that of Vance, who has gone from exceptionally poor childhood conditions to being Veep, and who might, in the fulfillment of time, become POTUS—be it because something (up to and including another sniper) happens to Trump during his second term or because he wins a later election of his own. (His “Hillbilly Elegy” is highly recommendable, e.g. to get an insider’s view in how different life can be.)

   This type of rags-to-riches story is very much the point of the U.S. system, “the American Dream”, and whatnot—and it repudiates much of the Leftist propaganda about how, say, being “under-privileged” would determine one’s entire future.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Off topic, it also raises some interesting questions about how factors like networking, fortunate college admissions, whatnot, can give a leg up in a problematic manner. If he had gone to a lesser law school, notably, he might never have landed where he is. There is a distinct possibility that such factors can create the types of problems that the Left like to ascribe to “privilege” (or lack thereof). I have a separate text in vague planning on similar topics, e.g. how the point of an MBA seems to be less to develop skills and more to gain a network, have access to “placement services”, and similar.

   ---

   He also forms an interesting contrast to Trump, e.g. in terms of poor kid/rich kid and hillbilly/New Yorker.

10. It appears that the betting markets had it right and the pollsters and professional predictors wrong—and not for the first time. There is much to be said about having someone put his money where his mouth is, including a reduced risk of partisanship (which can lead to unconscious or deliberate distortions), an increased willingness to go the extra mile, a lesser focus on established methodology and a greater on making an accurate prediction. (Note the previously successful but simplistic/mechanistic approach of Lichtman, which failed entirely this time. A text on this is in planning. TODO link after writing.)

11. The comparatively low count of votes for Harris casts further doubts on Biden in 2020. Comparisons from one year to another are very tricky, due to factors like a growing population and a varying voter participation; however, in 2020, Trump broke all previous records for raw votes—and still lost by a hefty margin, beaten by a candidate who was very weak. In 2024, he appears to have done slightly better (the count is still on-going) while Harris did far worse than Biden. True, Harris was an even weaker candidate, but Biden (!) crushed the numbers posted by even Obama, who might have been the strongest candidate that the Democrats have fielded in my life time. (In terms of e.g. popularity—not in terms of doing a good job.)

    ---

    Side-note:

    The low count taken alone means next to nothing. Put it together with all other direct and indirect pieces of evidence, and the “balance of probabilities” shifts further towards 2020 being won by fraud.

    I stress, however, that I do not say that the 50–50 line of that “balance of probabilities” has been exceeded.

    ---

    ---

    Side-note:

    As things look right now, Trump will have the second (2024) and third (2020) highest counts, while Harris comes in forth. (Hence, “comparatively low count of votes”.) An interesting difference between Biden and Harris, however, is that Biden’s relative advantage over Obama cannot be explained by population growth, while Harris’s could.

    To make matters more interesting, the voter participation in 2020 was the highest in reasonably modern times and by some distance, which raises questions like why the Democrats would have gone to the polls in such numbers in 2020, but not in 2024 (or, for that matter, 2016; or against George Bush in 2004, seeing that he had been demonized in a similar manner). Maybe, their disappointment with Biden/Harris beat out the “Trump derangement syndrome” in 2024; maybe, something was amiss in the vote counts.

    At any rate, the 2016 performance of Hillary seems to indicate that not even the Democrat voters like her—something that I find very satisfying on a personal level.

    ---

12. A welcome indirect development is that this election could shift Overton windows and whatnots back to a saner place than they have been since at least the Obama era. It might, in particular, make the Democrats go for a more moderate set of political opinions (especially, with regard to wokeness), implying that the next Democrat president might be less harmful than Harris would have been.

13. Not entirely unpredictably, the insane charges of “Racism!!!” and “Sexism!!!” have again been raised, now to explain why Harris did not win. Apart from various other discussions on such topics (most recently on my own take on Harris, Kemi Badenoch, Thatcher, Merkel, and others later on this page):

    Firstly, this would not explain the poor showing of other Democrats and it would be an odd coincidence if Harris did fare poorly because of “Racism!!!” and “Sexism!!!”, while other Democrats fared poorly for other reasons.

    Secondly, the two-time election of Obama should, alone, make charges of “Racism!!!” implausible. If anything, he had a major advantage through pushing a “first Black POTUS” and other racial angles.

    Thirdly, Harris, by all signs, is incompetent, she has a poor track record, and she pushed the maybe farthest Left agenda of any major POTUS candidate in history. Is that not enough to not elect her?

    Fourthly, chances are that exactly race and sex was what gave Harris some chance, because many still seem to have voted for her because she is a woman, Black, or both. Indeed, the supposition of some Democrats and many propagandists seem to be that voters should have some absurd duty to vote for a Black woman over a White man, regardless of competence, political positions, and whatnot—a position genuinely sexist and racist.

    As an aside, one of Trump’s very first acts after being elected was to appoint the first female chief of staff in U.S. history.

It will now be interesting to see to whether the Democrats accept the results, try to raise obstacles, or otherwise are obstructionist. In light of 2016, the risk of obstructionism seems considerable, but 2020 might put a stopper to that: Daring to be obstructionist now, after having raised such a fuss in 2020 would be hypocritical even by the standards of the Left—and, more importantly, would stand a very great chance of registering much more clearly with the people than otherwise would have been the case. (If they do take the obstructionist road, some variation of “Trump can’t be President because his a felon!!!” seems a likely main avenue, except that it might bar Trump, if successful, but would leave the Presidency in Republican hands.)

Election cheating III / the Federalist (2024-11-05)

Election day is here and I am, in nervous anticipation, looking into various online sources and what they have to say.

The Federalist^e has quite a lot to say on the topic of cheating (and other topics relating to the election) in ways similar to and/or overlapping with those that I give below, including renewed problems with Maricopa county. And this while it is still early in the day (late afternoon in Germany, admittedly; however, well before noon throughout the U.S., which is what matters).

Currently, the latest entry deals with blocked pollwatchers^e, a type of indirect sabotage that occurred repeatedly in both 2020 and 2022, and one that enables other types of cheating. (And if no cheating is intended, why block the poll watchers? Pure spite might, of course, be an explanation, but Occam’s Razor points to a wish to cheat.)

Then follow entry after entry, also dated as published today, dealing with topics like problems with potential Democrat cheating through overseas votes, distorted reporting of crime numbers to the advantage of the Biden administration, a potential delay of a release of Walz’s military record, and, of course, problems in Maricopa County.

Election cheating II / issues with census and electoral college (2024-11-04)

And the day is not over before I encounter yet another possibility:

A flawed census.^e

The 2020 U.S. census appears to have under-counted the population in a number of “red” states and over-counted in a number of “blue” ones. Result? The assignment of electors per state in the electoral college is flawed, to the disadvantage of Trump, and a constellation could arise in which he loses the election because of the flawed assignment.

Whether this is cheating will, of course, depend on whether there is an intent behind the under- resp. over-counting or whether incompetence or negligence is the true explanation. Even absent intent, however, we have a proof-of-concept of how cheating could take place. Moreover, with the strong tilt in the mistakes, cheating appears far more likely than if the errors had been more random. (I refrain from the outright conclusion of cheating only because there might be some systematic difference of another type involved, e.g. relating to geography.)

An overlapping non-cheating issue is the risk that the many who appear to flee “blue” states for “red” see themselves counted in a manner contrary to their own interests. If someone moved after the census, this will not be reflected in the electoral college and “his” share of the electoral college will then land with the state of previous residence, which presumably will vote for Harris, and not with the new state of residence, which presumably will vote for Trump (ditto the refugee, himself). Yes, his vote will still count correctly, but as it will not affect the local outcome, the electoral college apportionment is what matters.

Election cheating (2024-11-04)

As the U.S. election day is imminent, a few words on cheating before the election takes place:

There are many other ways to cheat than just e.g. counting ballots in a “favorable” manner. Consider e.g. the appearance of Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live” so close to the election: By statements from several sources, this violates “equal time” rules designed to prevent a disproportionate favoring of the one candidate over the other.

Or consider the problems with a failure to ascertain the identity of a voter. When the Democrats lower the hurdle or fail to increase it to a conscionable level, they might not actively be cheating—but they do open the doors for others to cheat. (And Leftists, with their common the-end-justifies-the-means mentality, are more likely to cheat. Naturally, they are also much, much more likely to cheat in favor of the Democrats than of the Republicans.)

Or consider methods like going to retirement homes and making the retirees fill out ballots in the “right”, i.e. Democrat, way, of which there were several reports in 2020.

Or consider allowing illegal aliens and others not legally entitled to vote to do so, which reportedly might cause thousands of illegitimate votes. The demographics concerned, of course, vote predominantly Democrat. Worse, some Democrat states and/or local governments appear to deliberately further this malpractice, e.g. by outright pushing for a blanket voter registration when taking out a driver’s license, regardless of entitlement to vote.

Looking at cheating in a more conventional sense, I read enough reports (most of which never made mainstream media) in and after 2020 that I can see little doubt that cheating took place. What the scale of that was, whether the outcome of the election was actually influenced, how organized it was, and who on what level of the Democrats knew, that I leave unstated—but cheating did take place.

In the specific case of Maricopa County, the reports were very extensive and the problems not isolated to 2020, and here I see great reason to doubt the validity of the election. Under no circumstances will I take the 2024 numbers from Maricopa County at face value. (By implication, a question mark must be made for the entirety of Arizona, as Maricopa County contains more than half the state’s population.)

As to 2024, we have yet to see what happens, but I do note that I will be very sceptical, should the events of 2020 be approximately repeated, e.g. if a late-evening Trump lead mysteriously turns into an early-morning Biden (2020) resp. Harris (2024) victory, if suspicious counting past normal finishing times takes place, if ballots are suddenly found or “found”. (Beyond the type of cheating already discussed above.)

Southport-related riots and motivation (2024-11-03)

After the Southport-related riots (cf. several below entries), much was made about disinformation that, allegedly, made the riots unjustified and the disinformation a heinous criminal act. That this misses the point is clear by later revelations that point to a more sinister (than claimed by official sources) perpetrator of the original murders and other stabbings, including that he had been preparing ricin (a very dangerous poison).

The riots were, of course, unjustified, but they were so because there are only very few occasions when riots actually can be justified. Whether they are based on information or disinformation is beside the point. (Likewise, they were not unjustified because they were labeled as “far Right” instead of “far Left”. A riot is a riot and the inexcusable leniency shown to e.g. BLM rioters is a true problem. To boot, “far Right” is a pointless and highly misleading label that is best avoided.)

Looking at the disinformation as such, I have yet to see a clear and unambiguous statement about what it actually claimed. (And I am unclear on whether there was a single source with a single claim that was propagated throughout or whether several sources, with potentially different takes, were involved.) However, the gist seems to be that the original murders had been performed by an illegal immigrant, a Muslim immigrant, an asylum seeker, and/or something else in that general direction.

Now, the alleged perpetrator appears to be a British citizen of Rwandan descent, likely a “second-generation immigrant”. But how much difference does it make whether he was a first or second generation immigrant? Much more important is whether and to what degree he was well-integrated into British society, abiding reasonably to British norms of behavior, etc.

Likewise, does it matter whether he was Rwandan or e.g. Iranian? The latter might be more likely to be Muslim or, more significantly, Islamist, but Africans are sufficiently over-represented among criminals and other problematic groups that it would hardly matter from a protester’s perspective. Indeed, much of the current calls for immigration reform is caused by and directed at exactly African immigration.

At the end of the day, would things have been better, had various Internet sources stated “a man of Rwandan descent, who was in the possession of ricin, killed three and injured many others” instead of, hypothetically, “a Muslim asylum seeker killed three and injured many others”. The former might be information and the latter [d/m]isinformation, but the effects would, in all likelihood, have been very similar.

Failing to consider ideological convictions when judging policy (2024-11-03)

When discussing Labour’s budget (cf. the previous entry), many fail to consider ideological motivations—which could be a grave error.

Consider the “VAT raid” on private schools. While this might truly be intended as just a grab for money, it seems quite plausible that the true cause is an aversion to private schools: The Left often has a strong conviction that schooling should be strictly in the hands of the government, be it “because social justice”, in order to ensure that no-one escapes ideological indoctrination, or for some other destructive reason. This seems the more plausible, as the “VAT raid” was pushed from very early on. When now Tories, head teachers from the afflicted schools, and parents with kids in such schools complain about the consequences, will that do any good in averting the blow? Hardly—Labour might very well want private schools to go bankrupt, the students to return to the fold of government controlled schooling, etc. (And sympathy for the economy of the stereotypically wealthy parents might be even less likely.)

In the same way, ideological convictions are likely to overcome common sense, knowledge about the outcomes of previous experiments, economic insights, whatnot, on quite a few issues and in quite a few countries. A more overt example might be attitudes towards the use of oil and some other areas relating to energy and/or the environment, where it is far from a secret that some Leftists want to exterminate the use of oil as soon as possible and at almost any cost. (To be contrasted with a position of e.g. reducing the use of oil as rapidly as is feasible with an eye at the economy, prices, the survival of various industries, whatnot.)

Treatment of Truss and Reeves / Labour’s budget (2024-11-01)

Labour has finally released its much feared budget—and it appears to be as bad as feared, raising taxes, hampering growth, hurting the citizens, etc.

Here, I will address a specific sub-topic, namely the differences in treatment of the Truss-government’s “mini-Budget” and Labour’s current budget, how the former might have done good and the latter is guaranteed to be very harmful, and how the former (!) was slaughtered by important sources of influence and the latter has gone with far less criticism than it should have received from the same sources. Indeed, going by statements made by e.g. various journalists, one might believe that the mini-Budget had been implemented and brought disaster—in reality, it never was implemented because of hostile reactions and, therefore, remains untested and a lost opportunity for the U.K. Moreover, my impression even back then was that the criticisms arose out of ideology or e.g. a wish to preserve a certain world order, rather than out of true arguments.

In this, I will make some quotes from an opinion piece by Truss^e, herself, from earlier today:

After Wednesday’s punishment Budget by Rachel Reeves, the gilt rate spiked higher than it did after the mini-Budget of autumn 2022. The markets revolted at her hit to growth and the gargantuan borrowing figures.

Yet, unlike in 2022, economic institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England have not issued a peep of warning about the Budget and media outlets like the BBC assure us that everything is calm.

[a partial comparison between the two, to the disadvantage of “the Budget”]

The independent Growth Commission assesses that [Reeves budget] will reduce economic growth by 3.4 per cent over five years. Even the Institute for Fiscal Studies believes that her plans for public spending are unrealistic. In all likelihood she will be coming back for more tax next year, further fuelling the economic doom loop.

Despite the obvious unsustainability of this position, economic institutions like the Bank of England, the Treasury and the IMF have circled the wagons around Reeves.

In contrast, back in 2022 I found my plans undermined and briefed against by the same organisations.

This well matches my impressions that the evaluation by some sources were not based on factual arguments but on ideology or other spurious reasons. The BBC, e.g., has a long history of strong Leftist distortions, including pushing of various woke nonsense and an absurd failure to clearly designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. The IMF does have its bright moments, but has also all too often been a tool for Leftist policy on the international level—indeed, it was arguably founded for that very purpose. (Cf. e.g. Henry Hazlitt’s “From Bretton Woods to World Inflation”.)

In particular, I fear that parts of the international establishment are opposed to the lowering of taxes, be it in order to favor Leftism or Big Government, or to e.g. prevent competition between countries. (Note e.g. how Biden has pushed for an international minimum corporate tax of 15 percent, and done so with the idiotic pseudo-argument that he wanted to prevent a “race to the bottom”, when a lower tax is actually better and the minimum tax prevents competition and further disturbs market forces.)

The Bank of England announced the sale of £40 billion of gilts the day before the mini-Budget and didn’t increase interest rates by as much as expected, thereby worrying the markets. Unbeknown to me, they had allowed an unexploded bomb to develop in the pensions market — liability-driven investments (LDIs) — which were a one-way bet by the pension companies that interest rates would stay low forever.

When they had to intervene to fix their own problem, they piled the blame on me. They have subsequently admitted in a Bank of England report released in May 2024 that two thirds of the spike in the gilt market in autumn 2022 was down to their failure to properly regulate LDIs.

The Treasury and Office for Budget Responsibility briefed against me and caused further instability, including a leak claiming that there was a £70 billion black hole in my plans — a number which later turned out not to be true. The reason for the very different reactions to the two budgets by the economic establishment is that Reeves is doing their bidding.

This is a point of which I was not hitherto aware. I did note that the spike had been out of proportion to what reasonably could have been expected—here we have the explanation. This raises two questions, namely: Firstly, what would have happened without this failure by the Bank of England, up to and including the possibility that the mini-Budget would have been implemented, gained success, and left us with a victorious Truss in this year’s election (instead of the Labour landslide that has already proved a disaster to the country far worse than anything that the mini-Budget could have achieved, even had it turned out to be based on misjudgments). Secondly, whether this was a mixture of incompetence and coincidence or whether there just might have been some attempt to sabotage Truss behind it. (Hanlon’s Razor is an important principle, but it becomes ever harder to apply to the Left. Note e.g. the many indisputably deliberate attacks against Trump that have used anti-democratic and unethical, sometimes, maybe, outright illegal means.)

It should be noted, however, that the Office for Budget Responsibility has been very harsh on Reeves too, as discussed in another Telegraph piece^e. (Which also gives a decent run-down of what is wrong with the “punishment Budget”. Also see many other recent articles and opinion pieces from the same source.)

Speaking of black holes, the claimed-by-Reeves 20-something billion black hole alleged left by the Tories appears to have been far smaller and much better known to Reeves than she has claimed, which would invalidate much of her attempts to justify tax increases and various “raids” (the whole “I have no choice because the Tories left us broke without telling me” shtick).

The economic establishment took against me because I challenged them. I thought for myself about what was needed, rather than going along with the orthodoxy. I sought to hold those who had failed accountable. And I attempted to implement the right policies, despite their resistance.

Even worse, according to them, I still refuse to take the blame for their mistakes or accept the false media narrative about my time in office.

Hear, hear. Indeed, similar claims can be made around e.g. Trump—he tried to take on various “establishments” and was promptly made a target of endless hostility from the self-same.

Terms being too long (2024-10-29)

A potentially severe issue is the length of various terms, which (especially, when Leftist extremists gain power) can prove a danger both to democracy and the nation at hand. To boot, it can lead to excessive campaigning of the type seen in the U.S., because the stakes are so high. (To “campaigning”, note the difference between, say, bombarding the people with political advertising and the type of consistent messaging on political matters described in the following entry. Also note that a spread of resources over time, in lieu of the extremely intense campaigning currently seen in the U.S. is likely to give an improvement in result.)

Consider the U.K. election earlier this year: Labour won in a landslide, did so despite low support among voters (cf. an earlier entry), had lost enormously in popularity even before the end of the first hundred days and the presentation of the first budget, has set an agenda that borders on the insane and that, in part, contradicts electoral promises—and the U.K. might be stuck with Labour in charge until 2029. If the election was repeated today, chances are that Labour would not win at all, and any victory would be far from a landslide. (In a parliamentary system, the size of a victory matters much more than in, say, a POTUS election. The outcomes would depend on how long-lasting the “fed up with Tories” feeling is relative the extremism of Labour—the former fades over time, might or might not already have faded enough, and, if not, will have done so long, long before 2029.)

Would it not be better if terms were much shorter? This is a tricky question. Yes, five years is likely excessive by any reasonable standard, and even the four years of, say, the German parliament and the POTUS do seem high, but shorter terms can come with their own complications. (The Federalist Papers discuss such topics at some length.) As an example, it would be a bad thing if power changed hands too often, which would prevent long-term planning and stable policies. Consider, at an extreme, a situation where Starmer et al. raise taxes the one month and the Tories lower them again the next, lather-rinse-repeat. (Ditto “forbids fracking” and “allows it again”, “spends an extra billion on X” and “cancels it again”, and so on in countless variations.)

An interesting middle-road might be found in the U.S. senate, which is divided into three “classes”, that each see re-election every six years but have sufficiently staggered elections that a third (give or take) of the senate can be replaced every two years. This might already give a good improvement. But why not go further and, say, have twelve classes and a smaller replacement every six months? This would bring a much more “continual democracy”, make it much easier to change the political course of the country, should things go awry, make it harder for politicians to ignore the will of the people in favor of e.g. the will of the party, and would still keep a considerable political stability through the remaining personal continuity (each individual senator would still serve the full six years, barring death, impeachment, a voluntary step down, whatnot).

To look at the issue of power changes in such a system, the extreme fluctuations given above are unlikely to be present very often, as the change in composition of parliament (senate, whatnot) would be quite gradual. For instance, assume that this system would have applied to the U.K. elections: Yes, Starmer et al. might still have earned a landslide, but it would only have affected around one seat in twelve. Depending on the accumulated seats over the full six years, they might or might not have gained power. If they did not, and if “fed up with Tories” continues, they might tip the scales six months later, when the next partial election comes. If they did, and if they caused the same dissatisfaction as Labour currently does cause, that next election would give the voters the option of signalling their dissatisfaction with e.g. broken promises and power might return to the Tories—and, if it does not, there is always a new election in six months. From another point of view, chances are that Labour-in-power would have been far less radical after that landslide, because going too far too soon would have risked losses six months later, and a more continual set of changes that did not risk a loss of power would be more prudent. (If in doubt, a bill suggested in the one six-month period might not even be up for a vote until the next.)

Chances are that such a system will actually be more stable than the current, if in another manner.

(Looking at specifically the U.K., with its first-past-the-post system, this type of staggering might also give smaller parties a greater chance of establishing themselves than they currently have.)

A potential counter-argument is that the lesser stakes could lower voter participation. There is a possibility, but whether this is necessarily a bad thing is a different matter. Consider e.g. an earlier text rejecting the view that voting is a civic duty, which discusses related topics at some depth. Another, that this might allow repeated voting by some, because they have moved in a manner that makes them eligible to vote in more than one six-month interval. Here some counter-measure might be needed; however, the problem already exists in other settings with multiple elections. (Including the existing senate system, including when someone might become eligible to vote in a by-election while his originally chosen candidate, representing a different location, is still in office.)

Too selective campaigning

Trump is currently campaigning very widely, including (as I read today/2024-10-27) in New Jersey, which might normally be a lost cause for the Republicans. (And very shortly after my original writing, he moved on to a bigger event in New York.) Whether he achieves anything there in the short term is yet to be seen, but there can be good reasons for giving some weight even to lost causes:

Politicians tend to campaign when and where they see the greatest potential short-term benefits. A POTUS candidate, e.g., might prefer to go for swing states during the lead up to the election or drop by somewhere to help win a close “down-ballot” vote, while giving lost causes and sure wins far less attention, and while being comparatively passive outside the election phases.

This is understandable, as time and resources are limited, but the mid- and long-term effects can be negative. For instance, if a lost cause is left alone, chances are that it will remain a lost cause for the foreseeable future. To boot, it might well be that a rare opportunity to turn the lost cause around in an election of special circumstances is missed, because the vote falls just one or two percent short—and more campaigning in the past could have turned those one or two percent around, when campaigning in the now could not. (An example of such special circumstances is when a Democrat congressman or governor in a “blue state” is hit by a major scandal while being opposed by an unusually strong Republican candidate.) Likewise, even in a state that tends to reliably vote in a particular direction, there can be many other elections (not limited to the “down-ballot”) that are won by the other party, say, for individual seats in a state senate. The degree to which this happens, however, can be in-/decreased depending on whether the state is given attention during federal elections.

In this, a seemingly pointless appearance by someone like Trump somewhere like New Jersey can have great value as an investment in the future.

Likewise, elections are won less during the campaign phases of the cycle and more during the rest of the cycle, which, of course, is much longer.

Campaigning throughout the entire election cycle is, of course, nonsensical. I would even argue that too much time is spent on campaigning as is, and that much of that time would be better spent on e.g. doing the job one was elected to do and investing in self-education to be able to better do that job. However, there is still room for a continual communication in a manner that is not done today, e.g. in that Leftist pseudo-arguments and disinformation are consistently addressed, that a consistent pushing of basic truths about e.g. history and economics follows, that values are ever again discussed and elaborated by various means. This the more so, as the Left does push those pseudo-arguments and disinformation, including outright defamation of their opponents, throughout the year and over so many channels.

In particular, as bitter experiences over the last few decades have shown, it is not enough to have the facts and arguments, science and statistics, history and empirical evidence on one’s side—not when the Left has a gigantic and ever-working propaganda machine that spreads lies to the masses. These facts and arguments (etc.) also have to be propagated sufficiently widely and sufficiently often that the same masses actually are aware of and understand them. (A point where e.g. the U.S. Republicans have failed to take sufficient actions since at least the end of the Reagan era.)

Likewise, it is not enough to do a better job while in office, e.g. by having a better record on economic growth, inflation, and employment—the record must also be communicated sufficiently well.

Voting based on sex and race

A very destructive aspect of Leftist propaganda and voting patterns is the idiocy that a voter should prefer candidates that have the same sex, race, or similar over those that have the same opinions and preferences, and, likewise, over those with the right competence and other factors that determine actual suitability for office.

Lately (time of writing 2024-10-22), this problem rears its ugly head again, with Kamala Harris attacking Black men for not being sufficiently supportive of her—and despite her support among them still being far higher than can reasonably be warranted, in light of what obviously poor choice for POTUS she would be.

An equally annoying parallel problem is the sometime claim that Whites would only reject a Black candidate out of racism, men a female candidate out of sexism, etc.—something which turns the world on its head. (Note, in particular, the many, many claims that some criticism of Obama were rooted in racism, or Hillary in sexism, despite how flawed they and their political positions are.)

I, e.g., reject Kamala Harris because she (a) has a Leftist or far-Leftist agenda, (b) by all previous signs is incompetent.

In contrast, I see Kemi Badenoch as the most promising choice for leader of the U.K. Tories, with the potential for a later premiership. She, too, is a Black woman—but one who gives an impression of both having sensible political opinions and of being competent. (I make the reservations that I am less knowledgable about her than about Harris and that I tread with some caution after my grave overestimation of Merkel, cf. below.) In fact, she appears to be more African than half-Asian Harris in terms of descent, and would, then, have been a worse candidate, had the Leftist narrative about racism/sexism against Black/female candidates held true.

Other non-Leftist Black politicians of considerable note are rare, but women are common. To these, I note e.g. that I hold Thatcher in very high regard, viewed the gravely mistreated Liz Truss as a tentative positive during her much-too-brief premiership, and that I originally favored Angela Merkel strongly. In a next step, Merkel fell out of my favor because of her disastrous record: When Merkel was a woman who seemed to be a highly competent Conservative and one unlikely to “play games”, I favored her; when she turned out to be a German RINO and to be incompetent, game playing, or both, I disfavored her.

Throwing a wider net, I equally favor or disfavor Black non-politicians (ditto, m.m., female non-politicians) based on factors like their performance, not their skin color. Consider the likes of Clarence Thomas, a great role model for any judge, or Thomas Sowell, who approaches Economics from an Economics point of view—not with a mindset of e.g. “How can I angle Economics to ‘prove’ that Whites are oppressors and my fellow Blacks oppressed?”.

Alleged martyrs

Moved to a page dealing with problematic words in politics.

The danger of protesting the Left into power / hundred days of Starmer

As noted below, we have cases of dissatisfaction with a poorly performing Conservative (or other non-Leftist) government leading to a Leftist government, including, recently, in the U.K.—and even when the dissatisfaction is rooted in a failure to be Conservative. (As opposed to a genuine favoring of more Leftist policies by the voters.)

A few days ago (time of writing 2024-10-15), we saw the end of Keir Starmer’s and Labour’s first hundred days. Conclusion? He and his ministers might already have done or suggested more harm in those days than the typical Tory government does in a full election period. (Some uncertainty hinges on the yet-to-be-presented budget and what suggestions might ultimately actually be implemented, but if things turn out less-bad-than-suggested, it is despite, not because of, Starmer et al.)

The Tories might have failed to impress in office, they might have failed to take a great many opportunities, they might have failed to actually push Conservative politics, etc.—but their failure was, for the most part, one of omission. Labour, instead, is actively pushing harmful policies, be it out of ideological convictions or grave incompetence. (See a below side-note.) A merely inept guard dog has been replaced with a fox in order to keep the hens safe—and the hens are now being eaten by their appointed protector. It would have been better to either keep the dog and bring it into shape or to find a replacement who was not a fox. Indeed, it would have been better to even just keep the dog. As is, the U.K. might be stuck with a five-year reign of Leftism and a rain of poor policies, because of dissatisfaction with a far lesser evil.

Scrooge McDuck and Leftist distortions

Scrooge McDuck provides a very interesting illustration of Leftist distortions (and/or misunderstandings) and why it is important to have a nuanced view of the actions and motivations of others. In large, he has more in common with a hero from the works of Ayn Rand than a villain from Soviet propaganda. (And so, if rarely to the same degree, do many real-life persons of great wealth.)

Consider e.g:

1. The contrast with the likes of Flintheart Glomgold and John D. Rockerduck. While these two are willing to use any and all means for gain and victory, including theft, fraud, and violence, Scrooge mostly stays within the law—and exceptions usually include situations where his actions can be seen as reasonable and ethical, even should they happen to be illegal, e.g. by stealing something back or firing a cannon at the Beagle Boys.

   The point is not whether someone is or strives to be rich—but what methods he uses.

   ---

   Side-note:

   A recurring exception is attacking Donald with a cane over some screw up, but violence simply works differently “in universe” and Donald is in no real danger, even on the rare occasions when he actually is caught.

   (Differences include that a certain type of violence, including being shot at with a cannon, is far less likely to lead to an injury than in the real world; that injuries heal much faster, if in doubt by moving from the last page of one adventure to the first page of the next; and that actual deaths “on screen” are virtually unheard of.

   A borderline case is a great many “mutual combats” with Glomgold et al., but these are, again, causing little harm and no more significant than if two long-standing rivals in the real world were to just insult each other.

   ---

2. While Scrooge is highly unwilling to e.g. give money to charity, he does not prioritize money over everything else and he has repeatedly been shown to have a heart when it truly counts. For instance, one of the most memorable stories (“North of the Yukon”) from my childhood saw Scrooge sacrifice his entire fortune to save the life of a (non-anthropomorphic) dog—something that few real humans would be willing to do, even in light of the earlier events of the story.

   He does not give money to any random asker, but when he has a cause to do so, e.g. on a something-for-something basis, to repay a debt of gratitude, or because it is otherwise the right thing to do based on something more significant than “you have money and I want money; ergo, you should give me money”.

   Or consider the repeated depictions of him taking a hard stance against Donald over the considerable sums that Donald owes him. For the larger part, this was only ever an issue because he had previously, actually, lent money to Donald and the debts were commensurate with the money lent. Moreover, by and large, Donald was never actually forced to repay but, e.g., allowed to work the debt off or, even, had some part forgiven. (And, with most incarnations of Donald, what bank would be foolish enough to lend him money? Alternatively, what bank would have lent him money for any other reason than the hope that any defaulted debt would eventually be paid from Scrooge’s fortune?) But then the idea that debts should be repaid goes over the head of at least some Leftists.

   ---

   Side-note:

   An occasional other reason for debt was that Donald had destroyed some valuable object, or otherwise caused financial harm to Scrooge. Here Scrooge’s part in the affair was not voluntary, unlike with a loan, but Donald still had himself to blame.

   In both cases, loans and destruction, it was likely for the best that Scrooge took a hard line, considering the laziness and lack of responsibility so often displayed by Donald and what the effects of a too soft line could have been. (Which is not to say that this was necessarily Scrooge’s motivation.)

   ---

3. Scrooge had, himself, gone through enormous amounts of hardship and hard work to get where he was—he was by no means a hypocrite when he disdained the lazy (Donald included) and those who wanted handouts, and he was certainly not someone who got rich by “exploiting the worker” while smoking cigars and drinking cocktails. (See, in particular, Don Rosa’s based-on-Barks backstory for Scrooge.) Even once rich, he continually put in great amounts of own work, took great personal risks, and otherwise was very active in his businesses.

   He is a prime example of how differences in outcome are more likely to go back to differences in the person than to e.g. “privilege”. Donald, for instance, had a better starting point in life and achieved far less, because he lacked the head and the right attitude to even reach a middle-class standard of life. (I almost included “priorities”, priorities are indeed often a reason why someone is less materially successful in life than he could be, and certainly a far more legitimate reason than, say, laziness; however, specifically Donald might have been interested enough in getting rich.)

4. While not, or only very rarely, mentioned in the stories, Scrooge is likely to have had a massively positive effect on the world in general and Duckburg in particular. The economy is not a zero sum game, and his absence would (contrary to many naive Leftist beliefs) not have brought more wealth to others—but less. There would have been less employment to go around, less salaries/wages paid, less taxes for the city’s budget, less (and/or more expensive) products in the stores, etc. Those who might have grown wealthier include his main competitors, e.g. Glomgold, but not the “duck on the street”.

   ---

   Side-note:

   A particular issue is what fortunes might have gone entirely undetected, or only been detected much later, without him. This, notably, not limited to the finding of the odd treasure, which would be unlikely in real life, but including new gold mines, oil wells, and the like. (And, similarly, business ideas that might never, or only at a much later date, have been taken up without him.)

   ---

That unemployed foreign physician / issues around fungibility

Every now and then, going back to the 1980s, I hear a Swedish news story about highly educated immigrants, often physicians, who are stuck doing jobs for which they would be overqualified. Sometimes the problem is that the respective degree(s) are not fully recognized in Sweden, sometimes the problem is discussed in the context of those with recognized degrees (or no mention of recognition is made). Sometimes, the angle is “poor mistreated immigrants”; sometimes, it is “oh, what a waste of resources”.

Now, it is very possible that many of these immigrants have been mistreated and it is very possible that a waste of resources is present in many cases. Proof of this is never given, however, or only through specious reasoning based on assumed fungibility, say, that a physician is a physician is a physician—regardless of where a qualification was earned. (With the same assumed fungibility for other degrees and qualifications. Note that the reporting usually speaks in very broad terms, e.g. “immigrant”, without differentiating between immigrants from different countries or regions.)

Worse, many journalists seem to be under the misapprehension that questioning this fungibility would, in and by it self, be e.g. “xenophobe”. However, if a foreign degree is not recognized, there is usually a reason for this. Notably, the educational standards in different countries vary very considerably, as do the type and form of education, and fungibility is not a given. Looking specifically at physicians, members of a usually highly regulated profession, there can be considerable further steps needed in order to qualify for (the local equivalent of) a licence to practise medicine—the more so, if we look at specialists and not just “general practitioners”. In other fields, notably law, the knowledge needed might vary from country to country and it would be foolish to just grab a lawyer from one country and put him to work in another, as if he had earned his qualifications in his new home. (Before the arrival of navigational gadgets, a taxi driver often had much catching up to do merely from moving to another city.)

In some cases, this might be because a corresponding treaty of recognition (or some other recognition mechanism) has not yet been established, even though recognition would, as such, be unproblematic; in others, it is because there are legitimate concerns with the educational standards or because (as with lawyers) even similarly good qualifications are otherwise not fungible. A sob story of the “X was a physician in his home country—now he drives a cab!” type is, then, highly naive, should the details not be elaborated (they never seem to be) and support the narrative.

For those who do have the right qualifications, be it because of recognition or re-qualification, there is still no guarantee of fungibility of the person. For instance, insufficient language skills can be a prohibitive issue and even broadly sufficient ones can, all other factors equal, make a candidate for employment less interesting than a native speaker. (I know from personal experiences, going from Sweden to Germany, how language issues can complicate communication.) For instance, other personal factors might play in, say, that the immigrant has a hole in his employment record (which, in all fairness, might be caused by e.g. time needed to re-qualify) or that he (personally and specifically) is rude. For relatively new immigrants, we might even see factors like uncertainty over length of future stay, in that someone who has been in the country for a month or a year is more likely to decide to leave (e.g. to return to his home country) than someone who has stayed put for twenty years or has lived his entire life in the country at hand—and the sooner an employee does leave, the sooner a replacement has to be found, trained, and integrated, which takes time and money, and the sooner any “local” know-how is lost. (In software development, e.g., it can make a great difference whether someone is or is not well-acquainted with the local product, environment, and tools used.)

Meddling for poor reasons

According to recent Swedish news, marriages between cousins might be made illegal—and for a spurious reason that exemplifies how politician often meddle for poor reasons.

Now, where to draw the lines is a legitimate question and a restriction based on reason and reasonable criteria might (or might not) be justified. For instance, going by fiction, sex between cousins appears to be viewed as incest and/or as “yucky” by most in the U.S., while it is not so viewed in Sweden. For instance, the children of cousins apparently do stand an increased risk of the complications associated with incest.

However, the news mentions neither incest nor practical complications. (Likewise, sex between cousins is not mentioned at all. This might be a side-effect of brevity, but it is more likely that the actual target is marriage, leading to the paradoxical situation that two cousins may have sex but not marry.) Instead, the motivation is that a ban would “motverka hedersförtryck” or, approximately, “counteract honor oppression”. This begins with the oddity that I have no recollection of seeing the word “hedersförtryck” in the past (as opposed to, say, “hedersmord”/“honor killing”)—and the suspicion, from the formulation, that there is an underlying, pseudo-scientific, Feminist and/or “gender” motivation behind the formulation.

More importantly, it is clear that the law is not based on reason and reasonable criteria but on a wish to limit other potential violations. Forced marriages, for instance, are already illegal in Sweden, as they should be, and a direct influence on this through a ban on cousin marriages is highly unlikely. (But note that the news made no explicit mention of forced marriages and that other aspects of this “hedersförtryck” might be of relevance. Forced marriage simply makes for an obvious and easily understood example of a general principle.) However, there is a considerable risk that a ban on cousin marriages can be abused for indirect attacks on something already illegal—and at the cost of, say, cousins who genuinely wish to marry each other. For instance, there is a problem with drawing borders between cases and with plausible deniability—but if cousin marriages are illegal, forced marriages between cousins will be less likely or, in the cousin aspect, easier to prove, as the status as cousins is harder to hide than the use of force (illegal coercion, whatnot). By analogy, the idea of reducing opening hours of bars in order to reduce “drunk driving” should be viewed with great skepticism.

From another perspective, a ban on cousin marriages is ethically problematic with an eye at cultures where cousin marriages are common or viewed outright positively (including at least some Muslim groups). There is reason to suspect that the frequency of cousin marriages in such cultures can be a problem for genetic reasons, but, if so, it would only justify a ban for genetic reasons—not to, e.g., “motverka hedersförtryck”.

From yet another, we have a problem with consistency, continuity, and legal certainty (even assuming that no retroactive invalidations are made). Apparently, the suggested ban extends to not recognizing foreign marriages between cousins, which causes a slew of problems. (While being an almost-necessity, lest cousins circumvent the ban by some variation of the “Gretna Green” trick.) We might now have situations like two married cousins from another country coming to Sweden and suddenly finding themselves not-married in the eyes of the law, or that their status as a married couple depends on when they arrived. Or consider complications like one of two (non-)spouses taking advantage of Swedish law to get married to someone else without bothering with a divorce—and now being a bigamist in the eyes of the law after crossing yet another border.

Pronouns and names are not comparable

Two common issues with gender-mania is (a) the insistence on ungrammatical and illogical pronouns, (b) the insistence on use of new names.

These two issues are often conflated in an unfortunate manner—and even outside the Left.

To begin with names:

1. To view names as inherently male or female is not practical.

   For instance, male/female can vary with country or culture: Consider the Italian “Andrea” (male) and the German “Andrea” (female), variations on “Kim” in various cultures, and the occasional use of “Maria” as a (usually second?) name for male Spanish Catholics.

   In a natively English context, “Kim” is usually short for “Kimberley”, which immediately brings up two other issues: Firstly, shortenings, nick/pet names, and the like are naturally more likely to apply to both sexes than “full” names, as with “Sam” as a short for both “Samuel” and “Samantha” (and maybe some other full names too). Secondly, there is often a drift from the male to the female in use, as with “Kimberley”. A particularly interesting example of this is Leslie Howard, who, in “Gone with the Wind”, played Ashley Wilkes—both the actor and the character were men and any potential confusion on that point is comparatively recent. (How recent, I could not judge without further research.)

   An extremely interesting case of name confusion is Evelyn Waugh, who (a) was very much a man, (b) managed to marry a woman who was also named Evelyn, (c) was at some point put on a well-published list of successful female authors (I do not remember the details, including who created/published the list, but the error was soon pointed out and brought some amount of ridicule to the guilty party).

2. Name changes have a long history and do not necessarily have any deeper significance. (“Would not a rose by any other name [etc.]”; the term “given name” might become a bit misleading, however.) I have, myself, changed my name and some cultures have seen name changes as a natural event when entering certain new stages of life. Even a change to a “traditionally male” resp. “traditionally female” name need not have any deeper significance—consider Alice Cooper, a male rocker, who had his name legally changed to gain precedence in potential naming disputes after his band by the same name broke up.

   The same applies to many other changes: That members of the band “The Ramones” adopt[ed] the family name “Ramone” does signify band membership but neither membership in a particular family or a particular ethnicity, and someone carrying the name need not be a band member. That a non-English immigrant to the U.S. in the days of yore often picked a more English sounding name was more of a pragmatic trick than a deep-seated change of identity. (E.g. to avoid discrimination or to make spelling/pronunciation easier for others.) Etc.

   ---

   Side-note:

   In my case, I turned an original “Mikael” into “Michael” and made it my first name, while demoting “Per-Erik” to second name. (This to make life easier on the Germans and, if the occasion arose, English speakers. With hindsight, it might have been better to keep the old legal name and to just use “Michael” as an informal everyday name.)

   To this, I note that I consider it perfectly natural that those who knew me “before”, my relatives in particular, use “Per-Erik” and I see no reason to treat this differently, had I suddenly viewed myself as a woman and picked a more female name. It is still just a name and the opposite reaction, including use of derogatory labels like “dead naming”, tell us more about the irrationality of the complainers than about the alleged “transphobia” or whatnot of their parents. If in doubt, if a parent has known a child by the one name for (in my case) 24-or-so years, it is odd and unreasonable to demand a change in use—a change that must not only be awkward but also comes with a great risk of innocent mistakes through force of habit.

   ---

3. Alice Cooper is also an example of the use of a particular name, persona, or similar for artistic purposes that does not necessarily have any deeper meaning either. In the music business, Marilyn Manson might be an even better example. Dame Edna was an example of a man outright pretending to be a woman, but only within the scope of an act, with no implication that the actor would be a woman or would constantly be carrying this persona, and with no attempt to hide the fact that it was an act. (Unlike, in parts, the protagonist of “Victor/Victoria”, which I watched a few weeks ago.) Among writers, pseudonyms have sometimes involved a different sex, again, with no further-going implications. Note the likes of George Sand and George Eliot. (But not Evelyn Waugh, who was a “legal” Evelyn.)

In conclusion, there is really no need to make a fuss (in either direction) about names.

Pronouns are a very different story and the Leftist attempts to bend language, 1984-style, to fit Leftist purposes should be resisted over the entire line. (Equally, if a term like “misgendering” is used at all, it should be used when pronouns, contrary to their long-established meanings, are abused to refer to “gender identity” instead of grammatical gender and biological sex.)

Eric Adams, political lawfare, and corruption

As of 2024-09-27, even the international news is filled with claims around Eric Adams, mayor of New York, and a recent corruption indictment. His take? Even as a Democrat, he is being targeted with lawfare for not being sufficiently compliant with the Biden regime (specifically, concerning immigration and, maybe, a tough-on-crime agenda).

There are two options: Either he is right, and the anti-democratic problems with both the Biden regime and the modern U.S. Left are underscored; or he is wrong, and these problems are ... underscored: The only reason that he can make such claims with even a shred of credibility is the extensive lawfare that has been used against e.g. Trump and Guiliani—and often exactly in a context of New York. (Guiliani, indeed, is another mayor of New York, if in the past tense.) In effect, the problems have grown so large that even Democrats fear being targeted and/or that targeting of even Democrats could be plausible in the eyes of the public.

In a bigger picture, the question is whether this will make the lawfare against e.g. Trump less or more dangerous. On the one hand, we could be reaching a point where the controversy and the public disapproval grows too large for further lawfare (or, at least, such blatant lawfare) to be practical; on the other, we might see Trump et al. grouped with Adams as a user of excuses, which would reduce the effectiveness of further accusations of lawfare (even when quite legitimate).

In an even bigger picture, this is yet another demonstration of the dangers of cheating, abusing mechanisms, and, in a very generalized sense, “crying wolf”: Had various groups not engaged in lawfare against Trump et al., and otherwise abused similar mechanisms, Adams (assuming that he is guilty) would not have had access to a lawfare excuse, the public would have been much more likely to take the accusations at face value, and there would have been far less doubt all around. (If Adams is innocent, on the other hand and in this alternate universe without large scale lawfare, chances are that he would not have stood accused. That, say, a disgruntled former employee would be trying to set him up is certainly conceivable, but such an attack against someone innocent is likely easier said than done without considerable backing and credibility—and the success necessary to cause the effects seen today would be an extraordinarily rare exception, be it because attempts are so rare or because attempts are so rarely successful.)

Anti-Hezbollah pager attacks

On 2024-09-17 and -18 Israel appears to have launched unusual attacks against Hezbollah by exploding pagers resp. walkie-talkies that had, prior to delivery to Hezbollah, been modified to contain small explosives.

On the one hand, this could be seen as a form of unusually clever warfare against an evil enemy, which not only has lead to many deaths and injuries among the evil, but must also be psychologically devastating and/or incurring considerable additional and long-term efforts: Questions now arise like what existing devices can be trusted, what future sources of devices are safe, what additional investigations are needed to ensure safety, etc. Putting myself in the shoes of a Hezbollah member, I would likely be terrified. This the more so, as similar attacks need not be limited to communication devices, but could include e.g. ammunition rigged to explode during an attempt to fire.

On the other hand, the implications for the future could be terrifying on a more general basis. What, e.g., if a terrorist organization were to use similar means against innocent civilians? What if a load of cell-phones (in far more common use than pagers) were intercepted on the road from country A to country B, modified correspondingly, and, once they were assumed to have been sold, made to blow up, killing or injuring random buyers? Or what if pagers were targeted, with the idea that pagers are disproportionately likely to be used in hospitals and that a blow could be dealt against physicians and nurses? Or, with a less extreme application of a similar principle, what if China-made devices imported to the U.S. could be made, remotely, to simply and permanently malfunction, in the case of a conflict? Or, in light of a recent second attempt at killing Trump, what if someone targeted an important political enemy by smuggling in something explosive among apparently innocuous items, say, golf balls?

An unclear issue (“on both hands”) is the effects of lack of control. In the current case, it might well be that the risks for civilians were smaller than with a more conventional attack, but this cannot be guaranteed in general. Consider issues like a risk that not all pagers go to the intended targets or that an intended target is hit while driving and causes a pile up. Depending on the exact mechanisms used to trigger the explosives, we could conceivably even have a scenario where a pilot of a passenger flight brings an explosive pager on board and is killed during a critical point of take-off, causing a disastrous crash.

Divisive politicians

Moved to a page dealing with problematic words in politics.

The welfare state as cause or effect?

A common Leftist claim is that the “welfare state” is the cause of general welfare in society, often (as in Sweden during my childhood) with a message that the people should be grateful to some party or other for ensuring the creation of the welfare state and the resulting welfare.

This claim is arguably built into the name. The name, however, is very misleading, as the defining characteristic is not the presence of a great general welfare (or prosperity, well-being, whatnot), but a certain type of policies. These policies, contrary to Leftist claims, are often outright harmful to economic growth, personal wealth building, naturally high employment, and other factors that make for actual welfare. Likewise, they usually lead to problems in other areas, including quality (lowered) and cost (increased) of healthcare.

Most or all countries that have tried to implement a welfare state have been worse off for it. The point is rather this: only a sufficiently wealthy country can afford (at least, for some time) the burden of a welfare state.

This in at least two regards:

Firstly, the price to be paid by those who finance the welfare for others has to be sufficiently small relative what remains them afterwards or they will go to the barricades.

Secondly, the country has to be sufficiently strong in terms of economy, industry, etc., that it is not left in the dust of other countries once the lowering of growth kicks in.

I would even go one step further and claim that rich countries become welfare states because they are rich, because the richness enables the politicians to buy votes through going down the welfare-state road, and because the politicians jump at the opportunity. Likewise, we rarely hear about a poor welfare state because poor countries either do not go down that road or are trapped in poverty by the attempt (leaving them as welfare states measured by policy but not by international reputation and public perception). To be more specific is tricky, due to issues like where to draw the border between an attempted welfare state and outright Socialism/Communism, but India might be an example.

Believing politicians and the failure to think (and price controls)

I suspect that many problems in politics (especially, as usual, on the Left) go back to naive voters taking claims by politicians at face value without proper own thought, own checks, own knowledge of the subject matter, etc.

This potentially covers a wide range, including what the one politician claims that his opponent wants to do, if elected, and various historical claims about who or what party did what with what level of success.

A particularly dangerous class, however, is claims about what suggested policy will have what effect. Far too many politicians make claims like “If you elect me, I will do X and we will see Y!” that are not only unfounded but outright contradicted by both historical evidence and theoretical considerations. What happens when a naive, uninformed, or poor-at-thinking voter sees such a claim? Chances are that he will go with the candidate that promises to solve various problems/achieve various things that are close to his own heart, even should the promises be pointless.

A particularly common case is to simply throw more money at a problem, e.g. poor educational outcomes, where the act of throwing money has already proved unproductive or where the improvements thus achievable already have been achieved.

Many other cases relate to Economics, where established knowledge is regularly ignored (or the politicians ignorant). Consider Kamala Harris and her recent promise of price controls, which would stop alleged price gouging by greedy corporations and make everything right for the poor consumers—a promise that might seem like manna from heaven to the ignorant. Here the problem of high prices and price inflation is real (I have written repeatedly on the topic, myself), but the “solution” is idiotic. Most notably:

1. There are centuries of both experiences and theoretical considerations that show that price controls do more harm than good. A particularly common effect is a reduction in supply, often resulting in empty shelves, long queues, and other obstacles for the consumer. Ditto a reduced prosperity of business, with more unemployment, less room for wage increases, etc. Then we have risks like misallocation of resources, a dependency on foreign imports, the creation of black markets, reduced tax-income from sales and profits, ...

2. The problem was not caused by price gouging, but by the poor decisions of politicians—in the U.S., mostly Biden et al. As Biden’s VP, Harris, herself, is among them.

   The extreme money spending during the COVID-countermeasure era was a strongly driving factor. That it would cause price inflation was predicted by knowledgable observers, Biden et al. pushed through, ignoring warnings, and prices rose.

   The same, if through different mechanisms, applies to the energy policy of Biden et al.: If energy supply is prevented from keeping up with demand, energy prices will rise, and energy prices will affect virtually all other prices, because energy is so central to production and transportation of various goods. (With other factors often applying, e.g. in that some perishable foods might need to be kept frozen, which takes energy, for prolonged times.) The stores where the goods are sold need electricity to run e.g. lights, freezers, and cash-registers, they need heating in the winter and/or cooling in the summer, warm water in the bathrooms, and whatever else might apply. Etc. To boot, we have to factor in indirect effects, as when raw materials, tools, and whatnots grow more expensive and affect the costs of a manufacture that uses these raw materials, tools, and whatnots to produce an end product.

   ---

   Side-note:

   More generally, a price increase among suppliers has a domino effect, where businesses “higher in the chain” have to follow suit or see a reduced profit or, even, a loss. To just say that the likes of Walmart have to follow certain price rules, would be disastrous. For the idea to work, businesses “lower in the chain” have to be included, which makes the implementation far more complicated and far more likely to contain mistakes and oversights. (Even ignoring the pesky complication that many of these businesses are not even on U.S. soil.)

   ---

   Again, Biden et al. were warned: this-and-that decision would drive up energy costs and increase the overall price level. They still charged ahead. Energy costs rose, and so did other prices.

   Then we have the consequences of the COVID-countermeasures, with businesses being run into the ground, with side-effects like reduced supply and competition on the respective markets and how many of the surviving businesses have more debt, which now drives costs up. And what about increased interest rates that drive up the cost of debt and credit. Etc.

   And, yes, warnings were both raised and ignored.

3. The situation has already improved considerably, most of the damage has already been done, and while limiting further price increases might be better than not doing so, 2025, the first time when Harris could be expected to implement her policies, is decidedly too late—the time to act was several years ago, when prices first took off and/or the increases were much larger. (And the methods to use very different, notably, to prevent/reduce the inflation of the money supply and to resolve energy issues.) Even 2025, however, might be optimistic (from her point of view; pessimistic from mine): To institute price controls is almost certainly in the purview of congress, even a single Republican-controlled house would block her and even two Democrat-controlled houses might give her an uphill battle. Factor in the time needed to negotiate and pass bills, time to implement this-and-that, the transition time needed to give businesses a realistic chance to adapt, and somewhere between 2026 and never seems more likely. (Of course, it is always possible that she counts on gaining votes from promises that she hopes that she will not be forced to keep, with the added benefit that she can later blame others for blocking her, while leaving the ignorant and naive in the delusion that “if only they had listened to Kamala Harris, things would have been alright”.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   It is much, much easier to get excessive on-going price increases in grip than to reverse past increases. (And few politicians would be willing to even attempt the reversal, as they tend to have a near hysterical fear of deflation.)

   At the same time, apparently, there are many voters (and, maybe, politicians) who are so unused to, and have so poor an understanding of, price inflation that they see prices as returning to pre-COVID levels once price inflation stops. Stopped price inflation, however, implies only that prices (on average) will not rise further—not that they will be lowered. Moreover, what politicians mean when they speak of stopping price inflation is not a rate of 0 percent. Instead, they see a return to a target of, say, 2 percent, implying that prices will still rise, just more slowly.

   ---

Now, very many voters will have sufficient insight to understand such issues on their own, but very many others will not—and, especially, among those low in intelligence and education, who often have poor earnings and are hit the harder by rising prices. What, then, happens when someone “important” comes out and promises to set up price controls and make everything better?

German elections and language change

In the aftermath of recent state elections (cf. an earlier entry) some interesting language changes poked their heads up, together with the risks that come from associating past positions of various groups with the modern versions of these groups (let alone, modern semi-equivalents with little real connection), past meanings of various political labels with the groups, today, implied by the labels (often in form of self-labeling), and similar.

A good example is the description of BSW as a “Links-autoritäre” (“left-authoritarian”) party. (Which I encountered in at least two sources reporting on the elections.) In the continuation, the authors spoke of both “Left” and “Right”, and seemed to imply that “autoritär[e]” was taken to be approximately “Rightwing” or as referring to a subset of “Rightwing” positions. (As opposed to something that was both Leftwing and authoritarian, which otherwise would have been a reasonable interpretation of the phrase.)

Now, they are not necessarily wrong about the mixture of (often considered respectively) Leftwing and “Rightwing” positions—I made similar remarks myself. The issue is partially one of terminology, partially a faulty reasoning that the authoritarian positions of BSW would be “Rightwing”: Neither is there a particular reason to view “Rightwing” positions as particularly authoritarian, nor authoritarian positions as particularly “Rightwing”. (And this even when glossing over the complication that authoritarianism is only a small aspect of overall political positions.) If we go back far enough in time, the case could be made, e.g. in that 19th-century “Rightwing” groups often favored a monarchy while Leftwing groups typically favored some variation of democracy (at least, nominally; the Left in power tends to reveal different positions from those previously proclaimed). Looking at the 20th century, however, the clear majority of governments that were authoritarian were also Leftwing—and this even if we fall into the trap of considering Nazis/Fascists “Rightwing”. Today, a fair bit into the 21st century, virtually all authoritarian regimes are Leftwing, e.g. China, North-Korea, Venezuela, while, short of such extremes, the U.S. Democrats are considerably more authoritarian than the U.S. Republicans, ditto Labour vs. Tories in the U.K., etc. Looking at Germany, it was SPD, not CDU, that wanted to enforce COVID-vaccinations (and at a time when COVID was already on the downturn), it is various Leftwing groupings (notably, the MLPD) that call for bans of other parties, and the aforementioned BSW, to whom the word was applied, has arisen from the re-branded, but still far Left, SED, etc. (Cf. earlier comments on BSW. I re-iterate my caveat that the positions of BSW are not always clear, which makes a classification harder.)

As I have noted repeatedly in the past, the “Liberals” of today are often outright anti-Liberal (indeed, often, with an authoritarian angle), if we use the word in earlier senses, with modern Libertarians having more in common with classical Liberals than e.g. the U.S. pseudo-Liberals. To, then, award brownie points to the likes of Kamala Harris for being “Liberal” in an older sense, and, implicitly, for standing in a tradition of enlightenment, the rights of the individual, freedom of choice, etc., would be a horrifying error. The label might be the same, but the product is not.

A similar case can be made for “Progressive” (and related brownie points and whatnots):

Firstly, most modern users seem to equate being “Progressive” with holding (or merely professing) some certain values, much or most of which can, with only a pinch of parody, be covered by “bigotry is evil”, “everyone from past generations was a bigot”, and “unless you are one of us, you are a bigot”. (In complete obliviousness to how bigoted this position, it self, is.) This, of course, has very little to do with earlier Progressivism.

Secondly, even if we restrict ourselves to the more traditional meaning of belief in progress, how society can progress through the right decisions and reforms, how science can help progress, whatnot, chances are that Teddy Roosevelt, the archetype of the early Progressive, would have had little in common with the Progressives of today. Today, it might well be argued that the Conservatives are more Progressive, as they, contrary to sometime Leftist propaganda, do not want to freeze society as it is (or restore it to some past point and then freeze it)—what they want is progress in a manner that respects previous experiences and does not dash wildly into change with no regard for what might go wrong. I could certainly see many past Progressive and/or Democrat figures of note vote for for Trump over Harris, had they still been alive. (While many on the Left want to perform exactly that wild dash, in a manner better described with terms like “radical”. I note, in particular, that “change” and “progress” are not the same. Change can go in either direction; progress implies a change for the better.)

If we look at educational reform, to pick a traditional Progressive issue (but not necessarily a traditionally Progressive one), we have complications like wishes for reform naturally arising more from those long out of control of whatever is the subject, and reforming education is currently likely to be more of a Republican than Democrat topic (at least, if we focus on what relates to core issues, like quality of education and benefits for the students and society—not ideologically driven agendas of a tangential or, even, anti-educational nature, like political indoctrination). A notable observation is that some of the things that earlier Progressives welcomed as useful tools for a better education (more generally, society), e.g. I.Q. tests, are now rejected and derided—and not because they are any less useful, but because they give results that violate some fix tenets of modern Leftism, like “nurture only”. Certainly, the typical “Progressive” per “Firstly” might outright reject progress in favor of “equality of outcome”, “diversity”, or some similar idea.

Even looking at “Left” and “Right”, themselves, one of the problems with them and the idiotic, misleading, and limited Left–Right scale is exactly how much their meanings have changed over time (and from country to country, context to context, whatnot). Applying old associations with a particular label is then particularly dangerous. Note e.g. the Danish party “Venstre”, which has a name implying “Left” (similar to the German far Left “Die Linke”) but is now normally considered “Rightwing”.

Something similar applies to “Liberal” in conjuncture with “Left” and “Right” (and Venstre might well be a special case): There were times when even classical Liberals were seen as Leftwing in the political spectrum of the day. This, however, was a matter of relative, not absolute, positions, and it tells us nothing about where (true) Liberals should be categorized today or which of the directional labels should be seen as more or less Liberal. Looking at e.g. Sweden, Germany, the U.K., the U.S. in today’s world, true Liberals belong on the Right and the Right is more Liberal than the Left—period. That it once might have been different does not matter. (Nor do current positions necessarily say anything about what will be the case in 2124, nor the positions in one country about the positions in another.) Likewise, even if we were to accept the Nazis as “Rightwing” by the standards of, say, 1924, it does not follow that they are so by the standards of 2024; and if we accept AfD as “Rightwing” by the standards of 2024, it does not follow that it would be so by the standards of 1924.

Indeed, the equation of AfD with the Nazis, apart from deliberate and bad-faith demonization of the former, seems to hinge on some pseudo-arguments: Firstly, that both are/were “far Right”, with the implication that if both are “far Right”, by whatever measure, then they are approximately the same. This fails completely, as, from all that I have seen so far, the Nazis had more in common with the likes of “Die Linke” and, likely, BSW than they do with AfD, when we look at what matters. (Note e.g. the introductory discussion to this page and, per link, [1].) Secondly, that anything migration-critical, nationalist, or whatnot is automatically “far Right”. This, however, is a complete non sequitur—a lie pushed by Leftist propaganda for decades, for the purpose exactly of stigmatizing any such opinions to the point that they fall outside the opinion corridors of the day. Thirdly, that there are or were connections between AfD and the Neo-Nazi scene. However, the connection between Neo-Nazis and real, NSDAP, Nazis is thin, both in terms of continuity and actual ideology, beyond some specific points; even the AfD connection to the Neo-Nazi scene forms only a small part of the overall; and the (ignored by media) connection of “Die Linke” to SED is much, much stronger, more continuous, and more recent than any AfD–Nazi connection—it is the same party, just with a different name and the changes in positions and membership that any party undergoes over time. The same is true even for BSW: BSW is a new party, but its main figures have a “Die Linke” and/or SED history—Sahra Wagenknecht, herself, joined the SED shortly before the fall of East Germany, and has no excuse in that regard.

We do not negotiate with terrorists! (Yes, we do.)

Yesterday (2024-09-02), I watched the movie “Special Correspondents” and, independently and for the umpteenth time, encountered various demands for trade-offs with Hamas in the news, e.g. that Israel must agree to a ceasefire in order that some hostages be released. (Both will be given some more detail below.)

On paper, there is often a very sound policy of “We do not negotiate with terrorists!” (and “[...] kidnappers”, and similar). In reality, however, even those who do nominally have such a policy often fall flat on their faces in order to negotiate, while those who do negotiate, regardless of policy, often do so with poor deals resulting. For instance, the infamous exchange of Gilad Shalit, a single Israeli solder, came at a price of over a thousand (!!!) prisoners, many of them terrorists and/or murderers.

A more important aspect than poor negotiations is incentives and game theory, that those who engage in this type of deal making, give terrorists (kidnappers, whatnots) great incentives to repeat, increase, and intensify their evil deeds. This, in turn, can cause untold suffering down the line, which goes back to a failure to stay firm in the moment.

Now, wanting to, e.g., save a soldier from enemy captivity, or (as with the current Israeli situation) innocent victims of terrorists, is very understandable. Chances are that almost everyone, me included, has a gut reaction that puts “save” as the top priority, even be it through negotiating a deal. This gut reaction, however, is not the humane and sensible thing—it is what causes ever more suffering down the road, putting other soldiers, innocents, whatnots at risk. Therefore, this reaction must be resisted.

To first look as “Special Correspondents”, a somewhat absurd comedy, it featured a fake kidnapping believed to be real by a sympathetic public, which donated money to finance the ransom. Through twist and turns, a real kidnapping followed and a ransom demand was turned down, because this real kidnapping was believed to be fake.

The real kidnapping followed in a somewhat common real-life scenario: some clueless gringos with money land in the hands of South-American criminals (here, Ecuadorian), who know from experience that there will be other gringos to the north willing to pay a ransom. But why do they know this? Because it is tried and tested. A strict no-ransom policy would make such kidnappings pointless. As is, there have been times and regions where kidnappings have been performed on such a large scale that the word “industry” is occasionally used. (Whether in Ecuador, at all, or at the time of the movie, I have not researched.)

The first, fake, kidnapping was a different matter, but let us take the same scenario “for real”: A guerilla group takes two U.S. citizens, in the country to gather and report news about a civil war, hostage. They turn to the U.S. with a ransom demand. If some party, e.g. the U.S. government or (here) the wife of a victim, raises the ransom, what will happen? Firstly, an evil group will have more money to perform further evil deeds, possibly including buying more weapons and using them on innocents. (Evil is as evil does, and the act of the kidnapping is evil, even should nominally good goals be pursued. However, many or most such groups are very unsavory in terms of goals too.) Secondly, the group, and others like it, will be given incentives to perform more kidnappings. Thirdly, the safety of journalists and their like in war zones will be undermined. (With similar remarks possibly applying to other foreign non-combatants, including e.g “Red Cross” workers, which in turn can lead to e.g. worse survival chances for those injured during the war.)

Looking at Israel, we have a scenario where genocidal terrorists performed a large attack against Israeli civilians, killed many, and took many others hostage. Israel launched a war to defeat these genocidal terrorists—and is now faced with demands to stop the war in return for some surviving hostages. Agreeing to even a ceasefire, however, could do great damage to the success of the campaign against the terrorists, who might now (in part) escape and regroup, only to perform further attacks down the road. As with Gilad Shalit, the price is simply too steep, no matter how much our hearts might bleed for these innocent victims and their families—and this even if Hamas et al. can be trusted to hold up its end of any bargain reached, upon which, frankly, I would bet neither my own life nor the hostages’. But, again, game theory and incentives are more important: if a deal of this kind is made, the message is that taking hostages pays off and, maybe, even results in a get-out-of-jail-free card: Murder, say, a thousand innocents, take another hundred hostage, and use the safety and potential return of the hundred as a guarantee against the deserved retaliation.

German state elections, September 2024

On 2024-09-01, there were German state elections in Sachsen/Saxony and Thüringen/Thuringia. These saw a massive success for AfD and, with reservations for BSW (cf. below), a promising drop in votes for various Leftist parties. A few comments, especially in light of some below writings and a very recent text on the Solingen attacks:

1. The elections saw a newcomer, BSW or Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht. This new party has, so far, failed to provide a sufficiently full party program for me to judge it. However, it is very notable that is has arisen around Sahra Wagenknecht, who used to be one of the leading figures in the far Left “Die Linke”—the re-branded SED, that once ran the East-German dictatorship.

   From my superficial readings so far, absent that party program, the gist of its suggestions seem to be that “we will make everything better”, in a weird mixture of (what is in Germany normally considered to be or condemned as) Leftwing and “Rightwing” populism—supported by the belief that there is an endless supply of money

   Sahra Wagenknecht, herself, has never impressed me. The degree to which the party is the one-woman-show that the name might imply, however, is unclear to me and my (superficial, outsider’s) impression is that the naming is more a matter of drawing on her status as the most well-known of the current non-SPD Leftists than on her being a dictatorial figure. Nevertheless, she is (at a minimum) one of the leading figures, which is a warning sign. (The decision to name a party after a person is, in and by itself, a slight sign for concern, but names should always be taken with a grain of salt).

   This is the type of party to view with utmost caution until (if it does so at all, which I, frankly, doubt) it has proven it self worthy of votes, cooperation, whatnot.

   ---

   Side-note:

   I have not looked into details of what-voter-went-from-what-party-to-what-party; however, it is notable that in Thüringen, at least, the sum of seats held by “Die Linke” and the Social-Democrats before the election will only be slightly larger than those awarded to BSW, “Die Linke”, and the Social-Democrats in the election. Chances, then, are that most of the BSW voters came from other Leftist parties—especially, “Die Linke”, which has taken a hit of a similar size to the gains of BSW.

   ---

2. The chances that AfD will form or participate in state governments are still limited. It is still condemned by the established parties, who, absurdly, see even “Die Linke” and, so far, BSW as lesser evils. We might then, for the umpteenth time, have an election that shows a large swath of the population reject the old parties and/or Leftist/woke/whatnot politics—and old parties that join ranks, suppress democracy, and push the political landscape further Left. Imagine, by analogy and assuming a more “parliamentary” system than the U.S. does have, that the RINO party were to team up with “Bündnis Elizabeth Warren” to keep the MAGA party out of power—despite that a MAGA–RINO union would have an easy majority, despite the fundamental incompatibility in positions between Republican voters and the likes of Warren, despite the disaster that she would almost certainly be in power, etc.

   ---

   Side-note:

   The exact nature of AfD in terms of both the outdated Left–Right scale and in international comparisons, e.g. with MAGA, is ambiguous. However, on paper, it has sufficiently much in common with CDU (the RINO-party equivalent in the above comparison) that an AfD–CDU government makes far more sense than the atrocity, the anti-democratic betrayal of the voters, that the repeated SPD–CDU governments are.

   (Generally, any international political comparison is tricky and might be highly misleading, if taken too literally.)

   ---

   ---

   Side-note:

   An at least partial explanation is, of course, that many politicians have a very strong interest in not letting upstarts take over, while their interest in sound politics, faithfulness to their voters, etc., are more limited than they should be.

   This has sufficiently strong parallels elsewhere that a longer text on the more general topic is likely to follow. Note e.g. Uber/AirBnB, as discussed below, other dubious or unethical anti-competitive measures in business (including around unions/guilds and around the likes of Microsoft, Google, et al.), and how various sports organizations have viciously attacked anyone who even tries to move out of their scope of control, as with the reactions against LIV Golf by older tours—including threats of sanctions against any golfer who participates in LIV events.

   ---

3. The results are unusually interesting in that these states are in the area of the former East-Germany, which, over recent years, has had a massive problem with a strong far Left (even by German standards). For instance, Thüringen is currently ruled by a coalition that is dominated by “Die Linke”, as the largest party of the last election (joined by the Social-Democrats and the “Greens”). To re-iterate: this is the re-branded SED.

   (And, absurdly, that the re-branded SED gained power was, back then, viewed as less alarming by other parties, journalists, and the like than a (then) lesser AfD success. The historical ignorance, the lack of insight into society, etc., is astounding. Cf. an old Wordpress text on the last election. TODO import Wordpress text and link.)

   This time around, AfD is the largest single party, while an AfD union with the nominally Conservative CDU would have more than 60 percent of the seats.

4. Unsurprisingly, there are now loud calls about a “threat to democracy” and similar. Why? Because the old parties will attempt to circumvent the will of the people? No. Because the will of the people has not been what the old parties want it to be, reflecting the common, Hillary-esque, attitude among German politicians that the politicians should tell the people what to believe and how to vote—and that the people should be “brav” and comply.

   (And, as above, note how the success of the far Left “Die Linke” was seen as a far smaller problem, if a problem at all, than the rise of AfD—despite the extremist politics suggested by the “Die Linke”, its despicable history, and how parties of this type have a long history of anti-democratic stances, even by German standards.)

5. An interesting question is whether, how, and how much the Solingen attacks might have influenced the election results. I have not done the leg-work to answer that question, but I suspect that the answer is “not very much”, because most voters make their minds up well before elections and are, later, hard to sway. Those that can be swayed at the last minute might, indeed, change the outcome of an election, but here the changes from the one election to the other were very considerable, and more long-term explanations to be sought.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Such legwork might e.g. compare the latest polls before the attacks with the latest poll from the same respective source before the election. Even then, we could only, to some approximation tell the change from date A to date B—not the reason for the change. (And the approach presupposes that polls with the right timing exist.)

   A deeper investigation would require actual polling for the motivations of the voters.

   ---

   However, it might well be that the proximity of the elections was a partial explanation for the apparent change in take by the old parties, immediately after the attack: They might have reasoned that the attack could give AfD an advantage in the elections and gone out with a message tailored at neutralizing this advantage among the respective “own” voters, e.g. to avoid that a long-standing CDU voter who has been tempted by AfD would see the attacks as the last straw that breaks his resistance.

   In a next step, then, we have to see whether this change in take survives in the long term (e.g. for reasons speculated on the Solingen page) or whether it will be business as usual once the publicity around the attacks and/or various elections are sufficiently far behind us.

Explanation for the make-rich-richer propaganda?

(Moved to a separate page for combination with later contents.)

And Brazil joins the club

After recent mentions (cf. below) of free-speech problems with the U.K. and France, Brazil joins the club by shutting down The-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter, and it does so on what appears to be very flimsy reasons and/or technicalities.

In light of Lula and the anti-democratic problems around him, there is cause to suspect that these flimsy reasons are pretexts and that the true reasons are political. However, even should the shutdown be more bona fide, it should be condemned for the disproportionate damage done to free speech.

Hypocrite Harris aping Trump

As I note somewhere below, there has been some tendency for the 2024 U.S. Democrats to suggest policies that Trump and/or the Republicans have favored—and that were previously strongly opposed by the Democrats.

In today’s news (2024-08-30), I am told that Kamala Harris now wants to stop illegal immigration (which she, over almost four years, already has failed to do) and support fracking (something that the Democrats have opposed strongly—as well as other oil-furthering measures and technologies). Indeed, whenever Trump has suggested measures against illegal immigration he has been called names by the Democrats, while his positions on oil, fracking included, have been viewed as supporting the destruction of the environment and the spread of global warming by the same.

The obvious suspicion is that she is trying to block Trump by creating the impression that she will implement similar policies on some key issues, which would reduce the incentives to vote Trump for those too focused on single issues and unaware of the disaster that Harris is likely to be in office. (Whether she would actually be true to her claims is another question: politicians have a long history of promising much and delivering little, while Leftist politicians, especially, have a long history of outright lies—and so does Harris, specifically and personally.)

This the more so as she seems to try to hi-jack some other issues, if with a radically different take. Most notably, one of the main complaints against the Biden regime is its mishandling of COVID and the economy, including enormous additional government spending and expansion of the money supply, which, in combination with e.g. the anti-energy policies of Biden, drove prices up in an entirely unnecessary manner. Now, Harris tries to steal this pro-Trump/anti-Harris argument by promising lower prices through price controls, while, it seems, following the long Leftist tradition of blaming greedy businessmen for the failed policies of the Left. (Such price controls are nonsense and likely to do far more harm than good. To reverse price inflation in a non-trivial manner, moreover, is extremely hard without reducing the money supply. As Harris, to the best of my knowledge, has not mentioned such a reduction with even one word, an actual lowering of prices is extremely unlikely to follow.)

Lost colorblindness

For some decades, “colorblindness” has been touted as an ideal—and rightly so: it is the individual that should count, not skin color. (With similar remarks applying to other characteristics of a superficial nature.)

Over time, however, colorblindness has been lost in two regrettable regards:

1. In society, colorblindness as an ideal has been shoved aside through at least two mechanisms:

   Firstly, those who truly are or truly try to be colorblind are accused of, e.g., being racist, because the outcomes are not what various Leftists and wokesters demand. If we base college admissions, hiring and promotions, etc. on performance, ability, and other relevant criteria, then different groups will have different outcomes, because different groups simply (and regardless of why) do have different distributions of such characteristics. The Left, however, be it out of ignorance or dishonesty, rejects these outcomes as “proof” of racism, be it racism in general or “structural racism” in particular. Be colorblind and be condemned as racist!

   (In contrast, someone who has an eye on the individual will, in a colorblind situation, see that individuals with approximately the same profile for such characteristics have at least approximately the same outcomes, regardless of color.)

   Secondly, colorblindness, as such, is increasingly rejected in favor of an intense color-awareness. The modern Leftist dictate is not just to avoid proper colorblindness (as per the previous paragraph)—but to be explicitly color-aware, to explicitly base decisions, to explicitly award merit, etc., based on skin color. This often goes hand in hand with idiocies like the type of pseudo-diversity that awards special points for not being a straight White man (while not doing so for having different opinions, a different specialization, a different educational background, whatnot) and an “intersectionality” that reduces the individual to someone of a certain combination of race, sex, sexual orientation, and other categories of, at most, secondary interest to the individualist, with no regard for the person, the individual, beneath these intersecting group belongings.

2. More personally:

   For the longest time, I paid very little attention to skin color. If I watched a movie, e.g., I might have noted skin color, but I did so in the same way that I noted hair color, that the one guy wore a suit and the other jeans and a leather jacket, or age. Indeed, the latter two were usually more important, because they told me more about the character at hand than skin (or hair) color. More, I took e.g. extraterrestrial aliens and anthropomorphic animals in a stride—and someone like Tuvok registered as “Vulcan” with me, not “Black”. Today, after year in and year out of Leftist harping about Black-this and White-that, skin color is among the first things that I, even against my will, notice: The Left, alleged anti-racists (who often are extremely racist), BLM fanatics, and the like have ruined my colorblindness.

   ---

   Side-note:

   The male–female divide, in contrast, was always much more obvious. This might in part be because of the very drastic differences in clothing style, length of hair, use of make-up and jewelry, behavior, whatnot that occurred on screen. This difference is, indeed, often considerably larger on screen than in real life.

   Whether the awareness was, then, more a matter of the accumulation of such differences or more a reflection of the real-life differences between men and women, I do not know.

   ---

On the success of and resistance against Uber, AirBnB, etc.

Firstly, the success of the likes of Uber and AirBnB relative their “traditional” counterparts shows that there are problems with the old business models. From that point of view, they should be welcomed, not rejected, and older companies should look to overhaul their own business models.

The exact problems with the old models vary, but recurring issues include a lack of customer orientation, a failure to adapt to new technologies and a staleness of methods, the use of dedicated and/or inefficiently used resources, a lack of real competition and opportunities for informed consumer choice, and unduly high prices. A lack of flexibility through size, internal bureaucracy/hierarchies, low intelligence of various managers, etc. is a particularly common complication. (I have some horror stories about hotels, to be told at a later time.)

On a slightly different level, we have governmental over-regulation, including regulations that (without a sufficiently offsetting societal benefit) create or increase entry barriers, hinder competition and innovation, and/or cut into profits. Here the businesses are often the victims, but they have also often contributed to or failed to prevent problems. For instance, entry barriers are usually an outright benefit for those already “in”, and this might overcome the damage done by e.g. the overhead caused by new regulations when these regulations hinder entry, which can then give businesses perverse incentives to support even pointless or damaging regulations. Similarly, bigger businesses are better able to afford various regulatory restraints, costs of legal experts, whatnot, than smaller businesses, which can reduce the competition “from below” and, again, give perverse incentives.

Among (!) the issues with taxis in Germany, to take a specific example: They underlie government-regulated fees (which severely reduces the ability and incentive to compete), have a sufficiently uniform optical look that the possibility of using taxis for other purposes during off-hours is limited, are historically called by phone or found in a shared-by-all-companies queue at e.g. train stations (and customers have to pick the first taxi in the queue—period), and usually work on an employer–employee basis (implying that the revenue must finance both the employer’s profit and the employee’s salary, in addition to various costs and taxes). A particular complication is that there is little room for entrepreneural drivers, who are either employees or must shell out the considerable costs for a dedicated taxi and cross other barriers of entry.

Secondly, they are not fought because they (in any real sense) do something wrong, but because they indirectly threaten to out-compete those unwilling or unable to adapt. This can be seen by how the latter fail to take a fair fight and insist that the government intervenes to eliminate the new competition, usually using very weak arguments—up to and including claims that the traditional businesses must be protected to, e.g., avoid unemployment among its workers. (A recurring type of pseudo-argument that has done a great deal of damage, even long before Uber et al. appeared on the scene. The net effect on society, including overall employment, from trying to prevent unemployment by “protecting” certain industries is almost invariably negative. Moreover, any such unemployment is likely to be a very temporary problem, while the efforts to “protect” an industry can go on, and accumulate costs and damage, for decades. In the case at hand, we must also note a high likelihood of disingenuity, as the businesses almost certainly only use the welfare of their employees as an excuse and actually just want to protect themselves.)

Zuckerberg repents

According to a recent Telegraph article^e, “Mark Zuckerberg has said Facebook and Instagram were wrong to censor posts about Covid during the pandemic and that the company should have fought pressure from the Biden administration.”, with further details on suppression and pressure from the Biden regime.

He also admits a mishandling and undue suppression of a Hunter Biden story, which could have damaged (Joe) Biden’s election chances. (A possibility raised by many Conservative commentators at the time. How large the influence of this suppression actually was, is hard to tell, but if it did cost Trump the election and caused the disastrous Biden presidency, the damage might be far greater than even that caused by the COVID censorship.)

This change of attitude is very welcome, especially in light of a recent increase in free-speech threats (cf. below mentions of U.K. and France). However, it gives no guarantee for a better future behavior or on other topics, enormous damage has already been done, and (even if a better future behavior does follow) it might be a case of “too little, too late”.

It is, of course, also true that “better late than never”, but the Swedish saying “sent skall syndaren vakna” seems more apposite. (Implying that the literal or metaphorical sinner only awakens from and repents his errors when it is too late.)

Keyboard warriors

Executive summary: Avoid nonsense terms like “keyboard warriors” and focus on what is actually important, including quality of argumentation and level of truthfulness.

To continue the below topics of censorship, Southport, etc.:

Apparently, much of the criticism (maybe, even anger) is directed at “keyboard warriors”—a longstanding and almost absurd derogatory term. In the wake of Southport, it has reared its ugly head again, and I have seen it used on a near-daily basis since then. Likewise, phrases like “hiding behind a keyboard” are common.

But what would they have instead? Someone who uses the methods of Antifa or Hamas? Is not trying to influence opinion with words both perfectly legitimate and much, much better than taking to the streets to engage in violence?

Many (especially, Leftists) do seem to consider street violence a legitimate form of opinion making, including physically attacking those who disagree with them, and even more seem to consider marching up and down while shouting into bullhorns serious argumentation. Some might even have an opinion that the “keyboard warrior” should get out on the street so that disagreements can be settled by use of fists instead of words. I will assume that the reader does not need to be convinced of the idiocy of this, and focus on the “influencing opinion with words” aspect:

How is a debater on the Internet (as such) any worse than a journalist who also uses written words, a politician who simply has access to a greater forum for the spoken word, or, for that matter, someone who influences through spoken words over channels like Youtube? Indeed, comparing the spoken to the written word, the written should be given preferences for those set on ethical persuasion, as the possibilities for emotional and other manipulation are greater with the spoken word—as is the access to those of low intelligence and education, who are much less likely to read but more likely to be easily manipulated.

Or consider the so often implied cowardice and the seeming attitude of “a keyboard warrior talks big, but if he were right in front of me, he would be as quiet as a mouse”:

Firstly, this is an assumption that might or might not be correct, and might tell us more about the complainer than about the alleged keyboard warrior. Indeed, there are many writers on the Internet who have been in wars as actual soldiers or, for that matter, served as firemen, fought in the boxing ring, or otherwise proved greater “physical” courage than the typical complainer ever has. (I make no such claim for myself, however.)

Secondly: Who is the greater coward? The private person who risks the wrath of the government by standing up for his opinions, in writing, or the politician who hides behind governmental power? The politician, even, who tries to prevent others from poking holes in his arguments, from proving him wrong by superior arguments, from showing statistics that go contrary to his claims, whatnot, by calling the censors on those who do not agree with him? How is it cowardly to use the few communication channels that are actually available? Etc. (And is not the Leftist hiding in a crowd of other Leftists, while throwing stones or shouting insults, far more cowardly?)

Indeed, in many cases, citizens, customers, and whatnots are outright hindered, sometimes by design, from having any in-person contact, which protects offenders and true cowards from the consequences of their behaviors. If someone in customer service or in a governmental agency does not do his job, disinforms his counterpart, breaks a promise made by phone (with no writing to back it up), whatnot, what recourse does the victim have, short of grabbing a keyboard and typing a complaint? (And, as an aside, my own experiences show that it is highly beneficial to have a paper trail when dealing with such entities—as opposed to just e.g. phone calls.) The offender might be hiding in a call center that is not even in the same city, or even the same country, or behind layers of bureaucracy and non-accountability. German civil servants regularly refuse to sign their writings with more than a family name, which can make it impossible to even find out who the offender is, skipping not only given names but the basic “Herr” resp. “Frau” and leaving the citizen with a mere “Schmidt”. (There is cowardice!)

Now, if we look at individual cases, there might well be things to criticize, but they rarely have anything to do with a keyboard. If lies are told, they are not lies because they were typed on a keyboard. If someone tells others to engage in violence through a keyboard, the problem is the suggested violence, not the keyboard. If someone (usually in a non-political context) is trolling, the problem is the trolling, not the keyboard. Etc.

Looking specifically at anonymity, which an alleged keyboard warrior might or might not have, we have to ask why anonymity was chosen. Often, the answer is that there are genuine, unfair, and distorting risks involved, e.g. that someone has reason to believe that a perfectly reasonable statement will lead to a cancelling from a pack of the rabidly woke, or that a dictatorial government will throw him in jail. (Forget about what might or might not happen in the U.K. and France and look at e.g. China and North Korea—these are very, very real issues for those who live in some countries. And, no, avoiding such issues is not cowardice—it is common sense.) Indeed, the reason why many, especially Leftists and governments, complain about anonymity is often exactly that anonymity strengthens freedom of speech. Even if anonymity would otherwise be a bad thing (of which I am by no means convinced), anonymity in the face of such risks is a very, very legitimate choice that cannot reasonably be held against someone.

Any criticism should then be directed at the actual faults, not at any involvement by a keyboard. This the more so, as the term or, contextually, slur is all too often used as a blanket attempt to discredit someone, without actually engaging with arguments or actually pointing to e.g. lies—often, even, for the apparent purpose of not having to engage with arguments (etc.) and risking a severe loss through simply having weaker arguments. (Again, who is the coward?).

French with international clamp-down on free speech?

As I noted earlier on this page, the U.K. wants to extend large scale prosecutions for alleged offenses regarding Southport to the rest of the world, e.g. in that someone posting the wrong thing about the Southport situation behind a keyboard in the U.S. should be extradited to the U.K. to face trial.

Now, 2024-08-25, France seems to take a similar line in another case through arresting the visiting Pavel Durov, co-founder/CEO of the messaging service “Telegram”. I am still unclear on the exact charge, but it has all appearances of a “say something that the French do not like outside of France, and you will still be prosecuted” manoeuvre. (With variations, e.g. that Durov and/or “Telegram” would facilitate or, even, not actively prevent unwanted-by-the-French speech. The most specific claim that I have, so far, encountered is a “failure to cooperate”.)

I re-iterate my warnings about the death of free speech that will follow, should such a push for “international jurisdiction” by various governments be tolerated. (And who knows what further crimes or “crimes” might next see a similar push?)

Moreover, I note that we urgently need less interference by various social-media and whatnot platforms. Those who understand free speech, should have understood this even before the COVID-countermeasure era. After the COVID-countermeasure era, where even correct information that happened to go against the official narrative was censored on a large scale, no-one has an excuse.

(Which, to prevent Leftist distortions of my words, does not in anyway preclude that individual cases might still justifiably be censored. This, however, does not include cases of deviating from the Leftist orthodoxy in opinion, making scientifically correct, or even incorrect-but-good-faith, statements about I.Q. or COVID, taking the “wrong” side in an international conflict, and a great many other cases that de facto are censored, or wished-by-the-government to be censored, today.)

The difference between change and progress

In the context of Evolution, an important point is that Evolution usually implies change but not necessarily progress—contrary to common misunderstandings and/or misrepresentations of Evolution as continually going from worse to better as time passes. Yes, we might argue, say, that a world in which both water and land see life is, in some sense, better than one where only water sees life. (But even that is a subjective judgment.) However, a creature that has evolved from being water- to land-dwelling is not inherently better than one that has remained in the water—just like, say, a dolphin or a seal has not grown better or worse through returning to the water. Walking upright? Chances are that so many seem to view this as progress merely because we humans, ourselves, walk upright. Less dramatic examples of Evolution include ever ongoing selection to fit the current environment better. To some degree, this can be viewed as improvement, in that the next generation might be a better fit in that environment. However, this comes with great caveats, including that the same environment might contain different niches and that mastery of the one niche does not imply superiority over the master of another niche, that both environments and niches are ever changing (which can make the apparent improvement of the one generation a future detriment), that the ideal characteristics of the one species can depend on the characteristics of another species (which implies that changes to the latter can force changes in the former), etc.—almost any change for the better is of a temporary and relative nature. We might even have situations where a literal or metaphorical arms race between two species leaves both worse off in the long term, or where sexual selection within a single species has the same effect.

Chances are that the same applies in many other areas—that what is taken or claimed to be progress is actually merely change. (Also note my recurring theme of new-vs.-good.) This is a particularly important caution in the area of politics and to those who are hellbent on “being modern”, forcing society onwards and upwards, whatnot. (Not necessarily the same as “Progressives”, however. There is a considerable overlap, but the self-proclaimed “Progressives” of today seem more set on holding certain opinions than on progress—much unlike their predecessors in, say, the days of Teddy Roosevelt.)

Looking e.g. at the history of thought, there have been many changes that are outright improvements, including the theory of Evolution over its predecessors, heliocentrism over geocentrism, quantum mechanics and the works of Einstein over the works of Newton, etc. There have also been many steps backwards and sideways and whatnot. For instance, philosophy has no clear line of improvement and, quite often, the considered-great-by-us thinkers did less to build on past thinkers and more to come up with a replacement with no obvious higher value than what was already there—and they were not necessarily considered-great-by-their-contemporaries. The ideals of the enlightenment (generally) and the “founding fathers” (in the U.S.) have over time been increasingly ignored and, often, replaced by ideals that go contrary to them—and often go against what can at all be considered reasonable. Take such dangerous and destructive nonsense as CRT, intersectionality, or, even, just the idea that equality of outcome should trump equality of opportunity. A particular twist is that some modern “thinkers” never seem to tire of lauding themselves for being so superior to the thinkers of the past—because these thinkers of the past actually had the audacity to think themselves ... superior to others. Here, a natural human tendency to feel or want to feel superior has just been transferred from one area to another, while the pseudo-enlightened modern “thinkers” are seemingly oblivious to their hypocrisy and the beams in their own eyes, as they delight over having spotted the motes in their predecessors eyes.

As an Atheist, I might view the decline of Christianity, taken alone, as a good thing, but what has happened in the wake of that decline? (And might we not have been better off with more Christianity, as a lesser, sometimes far lesser, evil?) Not only has this opened the door for more Islam (which is also a religion, but one associated with much greater problems over long stretches of time, including the 20th and 21st centuries), but all too many seem to have a need for something akin to religion in their lives, and without such a religion, they might then turn more dangerous quasi-religions, often of a political nature (including CRT, etc.)—where politics needs so desperately to be governed by facts and reason, not quasi-religious beliefs, preconceived (and inalterable, because quasi-religious) opinions that go back to wishful thinking or propaganda, and whatnot. There are also great signs that point to a worsening of morals, less consideration for others (e.g. through the “golden rule”), less happiness and harmony, whatnot, in the wake of a weakening Christianity (a text on this is in planning, TODO link once written).

Money? No, pure fiat money is not better than gold-standard money and gold-standard money is not better than actual gold/silver/whatnot coins. There are advantages to the one, but there are also advantages to the other, and to say that the one is better than the other is like saying that an apple is better than an orange. (Here, we also have a good illustration of “better for whom”: it might be argued that fiat money would be better for the government or some group of politicians, because it makes it easier for the politicians to govern the money supply, but this will usually be to the disadvantage of the citizens and society as a whole.)

Software? Well, tendentially, software seems to grow worse over time, through feature bloat and undue complexity, artificial limitations on what users can and cannot do, naive one-size-fits-all assumptions and/or an only-the-dumbest-users-count mentality, attempts to abuse the users’ data, and similar.

Etc.

Death of Mike Lynch and too much (?) of a coincidence

As I have remarked in the past, great coincidences do happen. It might even be argued that great coincidences are outright likely to happen. The recent events around Mike Lynch, however, might still be cause to suspect foul play:

Billionaire Mike Lynch had been involved in years of legal wranglings, including prolonged house arrest and the risk of a 25-year jail sentence for various fraud charges.

On 2024-06-06, he was acquitted on all counts and set free. Ditto, his co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain. In my impression, the complete acquittal was unexpected.

On 2024-08-17, Chamberlain was struck by a car and killed, less than two and half months after his acquittal.

On 2024-08-19, a mere two days later, Lynch’s yacht sank in a storm, killing Lynch (and others).

At this point, I had some suspicions, but reasoned that (a) great coincides, again, do happen, (b) if foul play had been involved, it would have been foolish to act with so little time between events (exactly to reduce the suspicion of foul play), (c) storms are not exactly under mortal control.

However, today/2024-08-23, I encounter claims^e that the yacht was “virtually unsinkable”, “one of the safest boats in the world”, and that an almost seventy year old other boat had survived the same storm at almost the same location and without problems.

For want of deeper personal knowledge, I can make no ruling on the matter, but foul play now seems a possibility.

(For the same reason, I can only speculate about the “how”, if it was indeed foul play. One way might be that someone was on board with the intent of a less spectacular killing, that the storm was a coincidence in its own right, and that the perpetrator performed some impromptu act of sabotage to allow the storm to sink the boat. Another, that some member of the crew had been bribed to cause an accident when a storm eventually happened, and that the storm just happened to happen when it did.)

Absurd female idols

At the moment, it seems that the three biggest female names among U.S. Democrats are Kamala Harris, Michel Obama, and Hillary Clinton. The two latter have, indeed, been almost worshipped by some Feminist groups since 2008-ish resp. 1992-ish. To call them Feminist icons would not be an exaggeration.

Hillary Clinton’s greatest own achievement might be earning a J.D.—something done by countless others. Time as FLOTUS, time as senator, time as secretary of state, whatnot, goes back, directly or indirectly, to having married the right man. Effectively, she is a Feminist icon because she married the right man.

Michele Obama? Well, she earned a J.D. and married the right man.

Kamala Harris has a more impressive own track record, including becoming a senator without the pull of a former POTUS husband. However, her highest post to date is as veep, to which she was helped by a male POTUS candidate (Biden) and despite faring extremely poorly when she tried to earn the POTUS candidacy for herself. For her current/2024 POTUS candidacy, she was gifted the ticket that Biden (!) earned in the 2024 Democrat primaries. Should she win the election, it will be from a combination of that gift and more anti-Trump than pro-Harris sentiments.

Now, that someone rides on the coattails of someone else is neither unusual nor automatically wrong. Bush Jr., e.g., would likely have had a far less impressive résumé, had Bush Sr. not been POTUS and/or had his otherwise long and successful political career.

But here is the rub: To see the likes of Michel Obama and Hillary Clinton as great female role models and to make them Feminist icons is ridiculous. Even Kamala Harris is dubious for a top-three position (but nowhere near as bad).

In contrast, if we look at someone like Nancy Pelosi, she (to the best of my knowledge) had no particular help in getting where she got in life compared to a man who went through a similar career. Ditto Elizabeth Warren. Ditto a great many other women—and, likely, the more so when we look at women outside the Left. Contrast, say, Margaret Thatcher with Hillary Clinton in terms of who had what supports and what obstacles, who achieved what on her own and who was handed what, etc.

Two-tier policing / Follow-up: British riots

In the wake of the British riots (by now 2024-08-21), I still do not have a truly clear picture. However, I note that the speed of prosecution and conviction has been much higher than I am used to seeing, that several British sources complain about “two-tier policing” and “two-tier Keir [Starmer]” for the apparent double standard used relative the many, many Leftist violent shits, and that I have seen reports of several very odd and disproportionate punishments.

Most recently, earlier today, I read how someone received a jail sentence of 20 months for shouting^e.

While I do not want to defend the behavior of the man at hand, which seems to have gone well beyond what the situation reasonably called for, there is no mention of actual violence and Leftist rioters, vandals, and whatnots have done so much worse and been sent off with a “Naughty boy!”—sometimes even pre-prosecution.

To boot, this opens a door for alleged far-Rightists being condemned in media for “rioting” and other terms of a similar nature, without actually doing any physical harm—while Leftists who do worse are already considered “mostly peaceful”.

From another point of view, crime and punishment must be of such a nature that the punished, at the time of the crime have a reasonable chance at understanding (a) that they stand the risk of punishment for committing a crime, (b) what level of severity that punishment will have. Concerning e.g. the recent British reports and the J6 travesty, punishments have often been so disproportionate to the act that this cannot reasonably have applied.

All in all, the reactions to the riots might point to a larger problem than the riots themselves.

Leftist word trickery and rhetoric / illegal immigrants

Two of my main objections against the Left is its use of rhetoric over proper arguments and its attempts to control society through control of language. These two problem areas overlap in (what might be called) word trickery.

The, maybe, best example is the treatment of “illegal immigrant” (“[... ] alien”, whatnot; for simplicity, I will only use “[...] immigrant”):

Here we have to put up with rhetorical questions (that entirely miss the point) like “How can a human be illegal?!?” and indignant (and equally missing the point) illegal emigrants loudly protesting that “I am not illegal!!!”. Worse, with these pieces of rhetoric, the Leftists seem to see the issue as closed, as if the entire complicated discussion of immigration (in general) and illegal immigration (in particular) could be waved away with a magic formula. This is, in fact, worse than the sometime Creationist claim that “Evolution is just a theory!!!”, which misses the point to a very similar degree, but is only used to paint Evolution as something unproved by a misunderstanding/-representation of what “theory” actually implies, while the Left goes one step further and sees this-and-that as swept of the table by a misunderstanding/-representation of what “illegal immigrant” implies, as if the Creationist had seen Evolution as disproved by that rhetorical claim.

The point, however, is not that the immigrant would be illegal qua human being but qua immigrant. In that, it is no different than e.g. “illegal possession” (except that it happens to reference someone human). But we even have other cases involving humans, e.g. the “illegal combatant” that might feature in a war. For that matter, there are any number of similar combinations of a human and a modifier, often of a negative character, that are entirely uncontroversial, e.g. “failing student”. That the “failing” refers to the student qua student and not, e.g., qua human being is taken for granted—and a failing student who stands up to shout that “I am not failing!!!” would hardly be taken seriously. (He might be seen as going through the first stage of grief, however, or as giving some indication that he indeed deserves to be failing.)

Now, if someone had wanted to argue clarity of language, or similar, there might well be room for discussion, e.g. that a “he is an illegal immigrant” is better transformed into “he has immigrated illegally” (or, more precisely, “he lacks a residency permit”, or whatever might apply in the case at hand). This, however, is not done. Moreover, if it were done, the pointlessness of the Leftist rhetoric would immediately be clear.

If the target had been specifically the shortening “illegal”, I might even have been sympathetic, because this shortening can give the wrong idea and is inherently domain and context specific. (We might e.g. have “illegal” implying an illegal immigrant in the context of U.S. immigration and an illegal combatant in the context of a battle zone.) This, however, is not the case—the target is “illegal immigrant”, because the goal seems to be to undermine the concept of an illegal immigrant and illegal immigration (by whatever name).

To boot, the suggested main (?) replacement of “undocumented immigrant” is highly misleading and misses the point. For instance, it is quite possible to be a legal immigrant and undocumented, e.g. due to the destruction or loss of something, and to be an illegal immigrant and documented, e.g. because someone was caught, documented, and let loose again (maybe, pending a later hearing). A potential example is how many U.S. states actually allow illegal immigrants to obtain U.S. driver’s licences. The idea, presumably and again, is to use rhetorical trickery to alter perception in a misleading manner.

Free speech, extradition, etc.

By 2024-08-10, it appears that the U.K. wants large scale prosecutions for alleged offenses regarding Southport (cf. below)—and wishes to extend this to the rest of the world, e.g. in that someone posting the wrong thing about the Southport situation behind a keyboard in the U.S. should be extradited to the U.K. to face trial.

The consequences of such a procedure would be horrifying, even should the U.K., in principle, have it right about Southport and any given claim: It is virtually impossible to keep track of what speech (and, more generally, act) is illegal in any given country at any given time—and no telling who might accidentally ran afoul of whom. Worse: Even those who have some idea will be severely hindered in their speech, even should they avoid punishment, because the punishment is avoided by suppressing the speech. This could truly mean the extermination of free speech.

What if person A living in country X falls afoul of country Y and is extradited for a pro-Russian position on the Ukraine? What if his neighbor B is extradited to country Z for being anti-Russian? What if Salman Rushdie had been extradited from the U.K. to Iran after the “The Satanic Verses”? What if Israel extradites someone from the U.K. for marching with a Hamas flag or Iran someone who has an illegal-in-Iran position on Israel? What if some country with far-Left “pronoun legislation” takes aim at someone who sticks to correct grammar in another country? What if Germany wants to extradite someone for using some particular phrase or symbol related to the Nazis? What if Venezuela (Brazil, the U.S., whatnot) extradites someone for questioning the results of an election? Etc.

The consequences truly would be bad beyond belief. Note that this applies even should a particular ban be a potentially good thing, taken alone. (I do not know what position Israel does have on sporting Hamas flags in an overt gesture of support of a group of known terrorists and genocidal haters, but if it was illegal, I could see the point. Less so with e.g. pronoun laws that violate established grammar rules and common sense, and laws on e.g. blasphemy.)

Generally (including for, but by no means limited to, speech), I suspect that it would be a very good idea to reject extradition requests that refer to something not illegal in the country of presence. Maybe, even to reject extradition when the alleged crime is not viewed as severe enough in the country of presence (even should it be criminal). Maybe, even to restrict prosecution to the country of presence, without any extradition. Note, e.g., how much shit could have been avoided, had the U.K. summarily rejected the flawed Swedish extradition demand against Assange.

New calls for censorship and related (follow-up on U.K. riots)

Around the allegedly “far-Right” riots in the U.K. (cf. a later heading), there appears to be calls for further and faster censorship of what is decried as “far-Right disinformation” or similar. While there might well be instances where censorship is warranted, what we have seen again and again and again over the last decade and, in particular, the COVID-countermeasure era, is that unwarranted censorship takes place exactly with incorrect claims about “disinformation” (be it because the alleged disinformation is actually correct or because the jury is still out on the matter at hand). To boot, such censorship has, so far, had two strong drifts, namely pro-Left/anti-“Right” and pro-“whatever the government currently claims is true”—both of which are very bad things. Firstly, generally, (a) the “market-place of ideas” is extremely valuable (and sabotaged by such censorship) and (b) even what seems to be the truth often turns out to be a half-truth or worse (while such censorship cements a certain position). Secondly, the Left is, it self, an enormous source of disinformation—indeed, the facts and arguments on so many issues are so solidly against the Left that it could hardly survive without systematic disinformation. Thirdly, for a democracy to have any chance at working, the government must not be the arbiter of truth. (This even speaking in broad principle. The immense governmental disinformation about COVID-this and COVID-that shows that many current governments simply cannot be trusted.)

Correspondingly, “the government said to censor” (and similar claims) must never be used to justify (let alone create a legal obligation for) censorship of e.g. social media. (Reservation: Here I speak of matters of e.g. political and scientific opinion. When we move into areas more traditionally and more reasonably restricted, e.g. calls to “kill all Jews”, libel, and copyright violations, the situation might be different. Even here, however, the censorship should follow within a due process framework, e.g. based on a clear law and a court order governed by that law. Moreover, libel excepted, the specific issue of real or alleged disinformation is not necessarily relevant.)

Likewise, social media sites must act in a politically neutral manner and give equal access to speech for all interested parties.

This the more so, as the alleged “fourth estate” all too often fails to fulfill its natural duties of criticizing governmental information, giving neutral information on political groupings, etc. More often than not, the term “fifth column” seems more appropriate, through how often claims by the government and/or the Left are uncritically propagated as the truth, while claims by others are condemned as disinformation. A free Internet can be a valuable compensation for the failings of the press. (Of which Internet-based social media is an important special case, but not the sum total. This site, e.g., is not social media.)

Looking specifically at issues relating to immigration, I have on many occasions seen governments or media make grossly incorrect claims while condemning correct claims as “disinformation” (or, more commonly, “xenophobia”, “racism”, or similar).

For the former, consider e.g. claims that immigrants would, in a blanket manner, be valuable to society, be necessary to keep the pension system going, or similar—and, therefore, we should take in as many Somalis as possible! (With many variations, including on place of origin.) However, different groups contribute, behave, whatnot, in very different manners, and a net contribution from a highly educated Ukrainian does not imply that the average uneducated Somali would be a net contributor. (At a minimum, concrete and specific numbers for Somalis would be needed. Note that the point is how some specific arguments are invalid. If someone, instead, were to argue a humanitarian angle, we have a different situation.)

For the latter, consider e.g. how claims, corroborated even by official statistics, about problems with crime, violence, and whatnot in some certain group have often been condemned as “disinformation” (“xenophobia”, whatnot).

(In the overlap between several points, note how news media in e.g. Sweden and Germany deliberately try to suppress the country-of-origin of crime suspects, unless Swedish resp. German, but how the reverse often applies to crime victims.)

Looking specifically at the current U.K. situation, it is not clear what supposedly needs to be censored, which makes an individual analysis impossible. However, it does seem that the trigger to the riots was an individual piece of disinformation, concerning the identity of the perpetrator of the 2024-07-29 Southport murders. (Well, if media can be trusted on this point. Knock on wood... Indeed, the exact nature of this disinformation has either gone unmentioned or seen claims that conflict between different sources.) Here, however, it is important to bear in mind that the trigger is not the core problem—if it had not been the Southport tragedy, chances are that it would have been something else and something comparatively soon, with very similar results. Any benefit from censoring [whatever the disinformation was] would, then, have been very limited in time.

Alleged far-Right riots in the U.K. / August 2024

Early August 2024 saw alleged far-Right riots in the U.K. How does this play with my repeated claims that political violence is a predominantly Leftist phenomenon? Apart from the observation that “predominantly” and “exclusively” mean very different things, the vagueness of the reporting that I have encountered make matters hard to judge. However, a few general observations:

1. Most of the problems seem to have arisen in clashes between protesters and counter-protesters. At a minimum, then, the responsibility has to be portioned fairly.

   Moreover, looking at Germany, where I have seen more examples over the years, the typical pattern is that some “far Right” group marches peacefully until it is attacked by counter-protesters. I can by no means guarantee that it is the same here, but the possibility must certainly be considered—and, if so, the fair portioning puts the majority of the problem with the counter-protesters.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Germany also has the problem that newspapers report such events by a headline like “Far-Right protests lead to riots!!!’, followed by a long discussion of damage done, costs caused, injuries inflicted, over a full page—and ending with a single, discrete, unread-by-most-readers, alibi sentence that the protests had been peaceful until counter-protesters attacked.

   Again, we might or might not have something similar in the U.K.

   ---

2. The allegations of “far Right” are thin, as the reasoning seems to be “protests directed at X; ergo, far Right”. (Where X might be “immigration”, “immigrants”, “Islamists”, or similar.)

   This, however, has very little to do with “Right” in the first place. Indeed, such alleged “far Right” movements/persons/whatnot are sometimes outright Leftist in other regards (see e.g. parts of the introduction to the overall page and, especially for the Leftwing Nazis, [1]). Certainly, recent anti-Semitism has, as usual, come mostly from the Left.

3. Chances are that many of the involved were, at the end of the day, not very political in any direction, but just happened to have a considerable grievance against the immigration situation.

4. The U.K. does have a significant and legitimate problem with poorly controlled immigration, with consequences including (an at least currently) hard-to-support load on society, a considerable increase in crime, and the importation of a great many Islamist extremists (note the difference between “Islamist extremist” and “Muslim”). That a real problem is at hand does not justify a riot, but there is still a fundamental difference between a riot caused by a legitimate problem and the illegitimate causes and pseudo-problems that tend to feed Leftist riots and whatnots, as with the recent and, at least, partially anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas demonstrations and violence in the U.K. or the horrifyingly misguided BLM riots in the U.S., which were based on fundamentally flawed premisses, an ignorance of facts, and Leftist hate propaganda.

5. There seems to, again, be a disparate treatment. Why did not the U.K. react more strongly against pro-Hamas protesters, these supporters of a genocidal terrorist organization? (Pro-Palestinian is one thing; pro-Hamas another. Ditto anti-Israel vs. anti-Jew.) Why do e.g. Germany and the U.S. trivialize Leftist problems and come down like a ton of bricks on anything “Rightwing”?

Greed and Capitalism

A common problem with Leftist propaganda and naive worldviews is that “Capitalism” is paired up with “greed” or some other negative word in a highly misleading manner, e.g. in that this-or-that movie is described as taking “a critical look at the effects of greed and Capitalism”.

Greed and Capitalism, however, have nothing inherent to do with each other:

At the core of Capitalism, we have various parties engaging freely in transactions with each other, each in the belief that he will gain from the transaction. Indeed, the ideal and very common case is that both parties are correct and that the transaction is mutually beneficial. (There are at least two cases where this fails, namely when one of the parties misjudges, which is usually his own fault, and when one of the parties tries to cheat the other, which breaks the rules just as much as when one race-car driver sabotages the car of the other.) Capitalism has brought an enormous amount of progress and well-being to the world—including to the (in most of the Western world) poor-only-by-fraudulent-misdefinitions, who, without Capitalism, might have been poor for real.

Greed is a harmful wish to have ever more. Many Capitalists are greedy, no doubt, but this has nothing to do with Capitalism per se. The same applies to many politicians, Communist party functionaries, simple craftsmen (Silas Marner might, short of Ebenezer Scrooge, be the most stereotypical depiction of greed), and whatnots. This while many Capitalists are merely ambitious, simply let their money work in a sensible manner, just enjoy the game, try to ensure the future of their children, or are otherwise not destructive in attitude.

We might even go one step further and note that greed, per se, usually only hurts the greedy: greed is a wish to have that is taken to such an excess that it hurts one’s own life. If someone greedy, say, cheats a business partner, the damage is at most indirectly related to greed, as it arises out of the cheating. There are many who are greedy without cheating and many who cheat without being greedy, however. The problem with cheating is not greed but dishonesty and a flawed attitude towards others.

Being Leftist vs. being kind to the poor / government’s choice vs. own choice

If we go by Leftist propaganda, those on the Left are kind to the poor, those on the “Right” are not—or are, even, set on exploiting, demeaning, oppressing, whatnot, the poor. (And, no, the last is not an exaggeration: I have often seen such sentiments in certain Leftist groups, especially in Sweden.) This with parallels when we replace the poor with some other groups.

There are, however, many on the “Right” who go to great lengths to help the poor (or whatever group is at hand in the parallels), who have very altruistic and/or philanthropic motivations, etc. The key difference in this area is something very, very different—that the Leftist almost always wants to “be kind” with someone else’s (!) money, while the “Rightist” uses his own money and gives others a choice for themselves. This fundamental Leftist attitude, that others be left no choice (especially, through taking their money as taxes and then spending according to Leftist preferences), is one of the largest difference between the Left and groups like Conservatives and Libertarians. (It is also one of the largest problems with the Left.)

Imane Khelif boxing controversy

(Moved to a separate page for reasons of length.)

The Santa–government parallel

The idea of Santa Clause as a supposed bringer of gifts is an interesting parallel to the government as a supposed bringer of gifts—but with the critical difference that the former is something believed by many children, while the latter is something believed by many adults.

Two aspects are particularly noteworthy:

Firstly, the belief in a near-inexhaustible source of free gifts. In reality, of course, the gifts are paid by (mostly) the parents resp. the tax-payers. (With the critical difference that the parents pay voluntarily, while the tax-payers are robbed.) Santa and his magic do not exist and what money the government spends ultimately must be paid others, be it by taxes, value destroying inflation, or borrowings that merely delay payment. (To which other negatives can be added, including a typical reduction in economic growth.)

Indeed, during my readings of comic strips, I have repeatedly and in independent sources encountered jokes following a template of (a) adult is concerned about the expense of buying gifts, (b) child, in apparently full seriousness, suggests to just get the gifts from Santa instead. This matches the common belief among many naive relative the government depressingly well—as does the approach to troubling costs.

Secondly, how both effectively take credit for what others do. Santa might not be real, but if he were, he would be on top of a giant scam, topped by the U.S. “mall Santas” taking gift requests that are silently passed on to the parents. (At least, going by some fictional depictions.) Governments, again, pay with someone else’s money—often, even, the money of the alleged gift receiver. (While much of the money going out is a matter of redistributions, much of it remains a case of robbing Paul, himself, to pay Paul, while pretending to have the money from someone or somewhere else, be it Peter or the money press.)

Other points of potential interests include how Christmas gifts often run into ridiculous amounts, because too many loose sight of what is truly important or fail to stay within a reasonable budget relative income, while government “gifts” have a very similar problem, how some parents try to buy the affection of their children, while many politicians try to buy the votes of the people, and similar.

Venezuelan 2024 election / parallels elsewhere

After the 2024-07-28 election in Venezuela, a presumed non-/anti-Maduro victory was, somehow, turned into a Maduro victory, confirming in power the disaster that is Maduro. This has raised such concerns about cheating that even the Biden regime has protested. Prior to the election, major further restrictions were imposed on Maduro’s opponents, including a ban from participation of key figures like Maria Corina Machado, who seemed set to be the main opposing candidate and likely winner. (And, following on many years of earlier anti-democratic misdeeds by the Maduro regime.)

To this I note that:

1. After the 2020 U.S. election, many on the Left and/or in the Biden-sphere took the stance that election results are sacrosanct. Once the election is done, the results must not in any way, shape, or form be questioned. Indeed, Trump has been prosecuted for doing exactly this, under the fiction that calling for the replacement of a (whether correctly or incorrectly) believed-to-be-flawed slate of electors (for the U.S. electoral college) would be an illegal and anti-democratic outrage—never mind the possibility that the original slate might indeed be the flawed one and that, without deeper investigation, it is not clear which suggested slate actually corresponds to the “will of the people”.

   Now the Biden regime takes a stance that is incompatible with such sacrosanctity. (Unless we impose the further fiction that cheating in the U.S. system would be impossible. Also cf. a below item.)

2. The extra-democratic methods used have strong parallels in e.g. the U.S. (see older texts) and Brazil (note how Lula was controversially released from prison just in time to participate in the 2022 election, how he very narrowly and with suspicions of cheating won said election, and how his main competitor, post-election, found himself legally barred from standing for office—for questioning the election results).

   (Also note very recent claims about Biden attempting to alter the SCOTUS to further Leftist purposes. This will likely be addressed separately in the somewhat near future.)

3. Such events (regardless of whether cheating took place) prove how important it is to have impeccable elections. (While such impeccable elections are exceptionally rare.) There simply must not be room for either of cheating or plausible accusations of cheating.

   ---

   Side-note:

   In the above paragraph, plausible accusations have no room because it would be extremely hard to cheat and not have the cheating show through transparent procedures, hard controls, etc. Squashing accusations through threats of consequences against the accusers, merely for raising the accusations and without proven impeccability of the elections, is a very, very different matter. This includes calls for an election to be overturned—to accept the distorted-through-cheating results of an election, even while believing that they are distorted, is the true crime.

   ---

   Exactly how to achieve such impeccability is a tricky question in detail (as opposed to as a statement of principle). However, many modern developments have been negative, including in the U.S. where we have instances of Republican election observers being thrown out of Democrat-dominated polling stations on spurious accusations, increase of mail voting, use of dubious electronic voting machines, and a push for voting registration with insufficient checks for actual eligibility to vote (recently in the news again).

   Note that it is in the interest of all non-cheating parties to reach such impeccability and to avoid such errors (and that those who go in the other direction can legitimately be suspected of foul play). On the one hand, it prevents the other party from cheating in order to win unfairly and contrary to the will of the people; on the other, should the other party lose, it now has little incentives to make false accusation. Likewise, a losing party is much less likely to engage in wishful thinking about the winner having cheated.

Events of 2024-07-25/26 / Leftist violence and hypocrisy

In the last few days, coincidentally coinciding with my reading of “War on Warriors” (WoW) by Pete Hegseth, we have seen Leftist and/or anti-Israel violence and riots in DC and sabotage of French rail services, with a presumed aim at indirectly sabotaging the beginning of the Olympics.

Based on typical behavior of various groups, the odds are overwhelming that the French issue goes back to Leftists, Islamists, and/or anti-Israel groups, but there is still no official clarity and I leave that sub-topic with a warning about where the world is headed and where we will ultimately end up if the methods of such groups are tolerated, be they used by the “usual suspects” or by some newcomer. (As always, “evil is as evil does”.)

The combination of WoW and the recent situation in DC, however, is very interesting, and the more so in the light of the typical Leftist hypocrisy and, especially, the exaggerations of the events, and the per-/prosecution of the mostly peaceful protesters, of J6. Note e.g. how the current violence, triggered by a visit by Netanyahu, breaches any reasonable border of legitimate protests and demonstrations, how much hate is present, and how many of the demonstrators signal explicit support for Hamas—a known terrorist group guilty of mass murder and with an actual genocidal agenda. (Note the very critical difference between e.g. being pro-Palestinian and being pro-Hamas or, even, just anti-Israel. Cf. portions of a text the Left and Hamas.)

While the main topic of WoW is the degeneration of the U.S. armed forces, driven by factors like “diversity”, indoctrination into Leftist hate, an increasing hostility against non-Leftists, etc., portions extend to the overall U.S. society, including an insiders perspective of defending the White House against “BLM rioters and Antifa anarchists” (coincidentally, I have repeatedly used phrases like “BLM rioters and Antifa terrorists”; my version is likely closer to the mark). Certainly, these were more problematic, more irrational, more hate-driven, whatnot, than J6. It also mentions how Hegseth was mysteriously booted immediately prior to the later inauguration—honi soit qui mal y pense.

Biden drops out / Harris in

Biden has now dropped out and is (almost certainly) replaced by Harris in the race.

A few comments:

1. Biden remains POTUS, which is both disputable and somewhat disturbing.

   The candidacy for re-election is, strictly speaking, a separate matter, as someone might reason that “I am clear-headed enough for now, but might not be so in four years” or “I am clear-headed enough, but trying to win the election would be futile”.

   However, non-Democrats have raised concerns about Biden’s brain power and ability for years, often, even, during the 2020 (!) campaigns. With recent evidence, “clear-headed enough” is extremely unlikely to apply, and likely ceased to apply years ago.

   ---

   Side-note:

   To boot, in my understanding, Biden has never, even when he was a young-ish senator, long ago, been considered among the best and brightest.

   ---

   From the point of view of the Democrat party, there might be an interesting dilemma involved. Giving Harris a few months as POTUS might increase her electoral chances and her “brand value” simply through being POTUS—but if she is the POTUS, she can screw up in a manner that she cannot as VP, which could, then, tank her campaign entirely. From a voter’s point of view, if the Democrat party does not trust her as POTUS for these few months, even in comparison with Biden, how can she be trusted with the full four years?

2. These raisers of concerns have still not received credit from the Democrats for seeing the truth—and are not likely to receive it in the future either.

3. A particular absurdity is that a number of Democrats, including Harris, now take the opportunity to speak of Biden as an all-time great, while he, by any reasonable standard, was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Certainly, the worst this side of LBJ, maybe even further back, and this while only being in office for (currently) around three-and-a-half years.

   Among his failures, we have a tanked economy, inflation, energy issues, a considerable further division of the country, following Leftist hate propaganda, a deterioration of the armed forces in a volatile time, the Afghanistan fiasco, increasing violations of civil rights and per-/prosecution based on political opinion, etc. This not to mention the COVID fiasco and the disastrous mishandling.

   To boot, there is reason to suspect that Biden’s weakness and flawed approaches have had international consequences, e.g. in that the very promising situation in and around Israel that Trump left behind has gone to its worst state in decades, and that the Russian invasion of the Ukraine would, at least, have been less likely under Trump.

   To boot, there have been political steps that were condemned by Biden and/or the Democrats when Trump suggested them, notably trade tariffs, that now are suggested by Biden and/or the Democrats.

   (This not counting the very many points where anyone Conservative, Libertarian, Classical Liberal, whatnot, has considerable reason to complain, but where the Left, even far Left, might be enthusiastic.)

   Of course, Biden has not just been a horrible POTUS, but he has predictably been a horrible POTUS. That he would do massive damage was predicted by many, including me, even before his 2020 election.

4. I have at some point written about how absurdly close elections tend to be. (TODO import from Wordpress and link.)

   The current opinion polls are a further example. Despite his disastrous record and despite his obvious lack of fitness for office, Biden has trailed Trump by just a few percentage points in polls. Even had he had a clear head, a sane, informed, and intelligent population might have seen Trump leading by 80–20, while the current Biden should have been lucky to get away with 90–10.

   Harris has a similarly poor record, if in a position of less influence, has been accused of mobbing her staff, is unpopular with the Democrats (or was so, until the last few days), and really has nothing going for her that a rational person would consider a “Unique Selling Point” or something worthy of mention in the current context. (No, “colored woman” is very far from reaching that bar.) Nevertheless, she, too, only trails Trump by a few percentage points.

   Apart from the general issues discussed in the past, this is, in and by it self, a strong sign of how horribly divided the U.S. has become and how Left dominated e.g. media are. In a sane world, neither of Biden and Harris would ever have been relevant for the office of POTUS.

   ---

   Side-note:

   A potential upside is that Trump might over-perform relative polls. (Note, in particular, the 2016 election.) However, there is no guarantee for this, and even if he does, the margin of victory will be far smaller than it, in some sense, should be.

   ---

5. The overall transition is democratically dubious, and makes Harris (as candidate) a figure on par with Ford (as POTUS). Note that Harris was picked as “running mate” without any great support in the 2020 primaries, where she had one of the worst performances, that the 2024 primaries picked Biden as candidate, and that she has now inherited Biden’s ticket based on being the VP and without voter input.

   Should she, the god-of-your-choice forbid, win in November, a partial justification would, of course, follow. Even then, however, she would have won based on Leftist anti-Trump propaganda and a Leftist anyone-but-Trump agenda—with a dozen other Democrats having the same chances, had they been picked in her place. She would not be the choice of the people—just the choice of the Democrat establishment.

   The U.S. is now close to the anti-democratic situation in Germany, where the politicians do their darnedest to minimize the influence of those pesky voters, e.g. by forming coalition governments between nominal arch-enemies. Unlike Germany, in all fairness, the current scenario is unlikely to be repeated in the same manner the next time around.

Attempted Trump assassination

(Moved to a separate page.)

Governmental ruthlessness exemplified by the war in the Ukraine

Apart from the example arguably contained in any invasion of a foreign country, consider some of the problems involved:

1. The original invasion likely put the interests of the Russian government and/or Putin personally above those of the Russian people, which did not have a say in the matter. Ditto the continuation of the conflict, to the point that some speculate that a potential loss of face by Putin is a hindrance to peace.

   ---

   Side-note:

   However, the damage done to Russia and its people is considerably smaller than to the Ukraine (cf. the next item) and the participation in the actual fighting appears to be on a more voluntary basis.

   Below, I repeatedly mention the ethical need for/benefit from a referendum. This most certainly applies to starting a war, too, but it would hardly ever be practical for reasons like extensive forewarning being extended to the presumed opponent. Moreover, the question could be viewed as moot, as a referendum might give some “internal” justification, but cannot reasonably create an ethical justification towards the opponent, a justification in current “international law”, or similar, should one not already be present—and such a presence has historically been very rare.

   ---

2. The government of the Ukraine puts its own continued existence and control over the country above the welfare of the people, which, by any reasonable standard, has taken greater damage and suffered more than could have been expected under a Russian dominion. (This, especially, as at least the original goals of Putin did not seem to include a full conquering, but had considerably more limited territorial and political goals.)

   The means to achieve this include unethical (if, historically, very common) methods like conscription, forcing men to fight a war that they do not necessarily agree with and to take risks that do not match their own risk–gain preferences. (As practically verified by how many go into hiding or try other means to avoid conscription.)

   While I do not suggest that any invaded country should roll over and surrender, great care must be taken to not do more harm than good to the people and to remain within ethical bounds. Forced participation in a war, what the conscriptions amount to, is a gross violation of basic rights of self-determination and “life, liberty, pursuit of happiness”, and should rightfully be condemned by international law. A central observation around government is that the government exists for the people—not the people for the government.

   This, especially, with an eye at the likely length of a conflict, what options are available, the results of continual cost–benefit analyses, etc. (Also note a text on evidence-based politics.)

   At a minimum, the continued defense, potential sacrifices in return for peace, and/or the level of sacrifices by the people should have been put to a referendum beyond some point. (Exactly what point is a tricky question, but the currently two-and-a-half years of war is certainly beyond that point.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   More generally, war tends to come with an increase of governmental power and a decrease in human rights, rule of law, etc. (Often by application of outright martial law, as is the case in the Ukraine.) While the pragmatic side of that is obvious, the ethical justification is absent, more harm than good might often result, and it might even be argued that the rule of law (etc.) is particularly important during wars and other extreme circumstances and should, then, be enforced more strongly than in times of peace.

   ---

3. Many foreign governments put their own good over that of the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It might or might not be that prolonging the war is good for these governments and/or countries, through holding back any aggression of Putin elsewhere, but, if so, the benefits gained are gained at the backs of the Ukrainians. The one country sends military equipment; the other is turned into a battlefield.

   ---

   Side-note:

   While the risk of further aggression should not be trivialized (note the lead up to WWII), this risk is speculative, the Ukraine and the events prior to the invasion are a special case, and there are not that many other areas where Putin could expand (should he actually want to) without either attacking a more-or-less Russia-friendly nation or coming into direct conflict with NATO.

   A particular risk is that governments engage in international power play and intrigues for reasons, e.g. power as an end in it self, that do not actually benefit the people.

   ---

4. The same foreign governments have, vs. their own peoples, proceeded in a negative and undemocratic manner. Even aid in the form of money and, say, tanks (and as opposed to, say, soldiers) is costly and must somehow be paid. Who pays? The people. This regardless of whether the individual members of the people actually agree with the war, actually see the benefits as outweighing the costs, etc. Indeed, these are the types of actions that governments love to take even the majority of the people are against them (I make no claim as to the majority opinion concerning the Ukraine).

   A further consideration is that the replacement pipeline can be long and that extensive aid to the Ukraine can weaken the defensive capabilities of the giving country, which, in turn, comes with risks. Or what if a drain of Western resources eventually makes a future defense of Taiwan against a Chinese take-over too hard (should such a defense be wanted)?

   At a minimum, for non-trivial aid, some type of referendum would have been highly recommendable. Better yet, aid, beyond some point, should have been left to voluntary donations of money, maybe in combination with some arrangement to buy military equipment from the local military for donation.

Forced switches bringing suboptimal technology, etc.

A particular problem when the government forces a certain switch, say, from one means of heating a house to another, is that a number of unnecessary problems can occur, e.g. that the technology used is suboptimal. (With similar remarks potentially being relevant to switches that do not or not primarily relate to technology and certainly when the switch of technology affects businesses instead of citizens.) Consider issues like:

1. The new technology is often not as mature as older and competing technologies, implying that a forced switch forces the use of something worse and/or something more expensive than might be available in due time. (Sub-problems include that the politicians might be over-optimistic about the potential of a technology, that accumulated improvements over a longer period have yet to take place, that the actual exposure to practical use and varying conditions might be lacking, that some grave problem might exist but yet be undiscovered, that economies of scale might be absent, that the market might be dominated by some few early producers with too little competition, and similar.)

2. If everyone switches now, everyone will begin with (at best!) this year’s technology, which will then only very slowly be replaced with newer versions as the years progress. The next few years after the switch might then see a virtual standstill, with the future upgrades only very slowly gaining speed, and quite possibly leading to a net loss relative a more gradual switch. Specifically heating technology is usually intended for very long-term use and, say, a car or a refrigerator that breaks after just a few years is a failure.

   ---

   Side-note:

   The “now” is to be understand somewhat relatively. It is rarely a matter of a switch literally from the one day to the next, but even a span of years can lead to similar problems (ditto elsewhere)—and politicians invariably seem to set more optimistic than realistic time limits, and/or set time limits that brings the additional costs down on the heads of others, e.g. the citizens.

   What the “net loss” refers to will vary from case to case, but should be seen relative whatever the government wants to achieve. For heating, it might be a reduction of greenhouse gases.

   An additional complication is that even a generous seeming timespan can be much smaller effectively than nominally. Say, for example, that I have to replace old product A due to an irreparable malfunction, that I have the choice between the current version of A and new product B, that the typical service life of A is 10 years, and that everyone must, by governmental decree, have switched to B within x years. If x < 10, I would now lose 10 - x years of use, should I choose A. Unless x is very close to 10, this might make A too expensive on a per year basis and force me to pick B now—even though I nominally have another x years. If x = 5, e.g., I can amortize product price, installation costs, and whatnot, over 10 - 5 = 5 years, which would double the yearly rate relative an amortization over the full 10 years.

   (The overall costs might include e.g. yearly service fees, but if these are approximately the same for all alternatives, they have no effect on the above issue.)

   ---

3. In the overlap between the above items, the makers of the technology see reduced incentives to improve the technology in a timely manner.

4. A switch over too short a time risks installation/delivery/whatnot bottlenecks that can lead to delays, shoddy work, and increased costs.

5. The risk of price-gouging is considerable, if everyone has to buy in the now, with only a limited choice of sellers and no option of rejecting a purchase until prices are lowered.

   (While accusations of price-gouging are usually nothing more than Leftist rhetoric, the term has legitimacy here. Also note how the Leftist rhetoric is intended to paint the markets in a bad light, while we, here, have a situation caused by the government.)

6. The temporary increase in demand risks a temporary misallocation of resources and rising costs elsewhere, because a certain field temporarily absorbs more workers, raw materials, and whatnots than it naturally would.

   In a next step, there is a risk of a crash and problems caused by reallocation of workers and whatnot, once the artificially increased demands subside after the switch has been completed.

With a more free-market approach, the transition might be slower, but it would also come with a lower overall cost, a better overall result, a more mixed technological level that was upgraded more continually, etc.

Anti-democratic politicians and paradoxical outcomes

The recent/2024 election in France saw a great success for the “far Right” National Rally, which seems to have resulted in a considerable Leftwards shift in power. The reason? The rest of the political France appears to have decided that any other outcome is better than giving the National Rally even a sliver of power—up to and including handing power to Leftists or, even, Far Leftists, who are likely to do more damage than the National Rally could and would. (If at all: considering the very real problems of France, notably with regard to immigration and Islamist extremism, I suspect that National Rally would have a positive net effect in power.)

Worse, this happens at a time when, globally and in light of the last few years, it has never been so important to keep the Left out of power since the fall of the Soviet Union.

This parallels developments in several other countries, where the will of the people has been entirely set aside, and a great opportunity to keep the Left out of power has been wasted, for spurious reasons, including the fear of “guilt by association” with a demonized “far Right”, attempts to prevent any loss of power for the established parties relative newcomers, and attempts to kill any reduction in the size and power of government. Note e.g. how the increased support for AfD (in Germany) brought on a similarly paradoxical increase of power for the Left—the more unfortunate, as large swaths of AfD voters are driven mostly by dissatisfaction with the old parties, and how they neglect the interests and opinions of the voters. (In particular, but not limited to, the failure of the nominally Conservative CDU to actually do Conservative politics under Merkel and her repeated political alliance with the Social-Democrat SPD—even when many voted for CDU exactly to prevent SPD from gaining power.)

Also note e.g. the Swedish SD and how Trump had such problems through his attempts to keep government in check: Half the Republican establishment rejects him for not being sufficiently “Big Government”. (And various civil servants, government agencies, and whatnots have a very strong interest in blocking him for self-serving reasons.)

As is, three of the four most important “Western” countries (the U.S., France, and Germany) could and should each have a non-Leftist government at the moment—instead, they have (or shortly will have) a Leftist one. In the case of the U.S., it is one of the Leftmost administrations in U.S. history and, maybe, the outright worst POTUS.

The fourth? The U.K. just saw a Labour landslide. Here, the main reason was that the Tories failed to be Tories during some fourteen years in power, which brought on a massive dissatisfaction. In other countries such dissatisfaction about nominally X parties not doing X politics has brought up new parties (e.g. the AfD), which are rejected by the “establishment”, which brings power to the Left (e.g. the SPD). The U.K. has seen a similar tendency in the Reform party, but the first-past-the-post system makes votes on too small parties wasted, and the dissatisfied then mostly went to Labour. The effect is the same: the Left in power.

Notes on links

In light of the below Russia Today entry, a few further words on linking:

While some restrictions on linking might be acceptable or even necessary (e.g. to remove incentives to create and distribute child porn), they usually do more harm than good. In the case of RT and other targets of politically motivated censorship, the restrictions are also anti-democratic and Rechtsstaat-hostile. (Note that this applies even should the targeted content be e.g. disinformation—the key is the political motivation for the censorship, not the nature of the censored contents. If political censorship is allowed, it is only a matter of time, often of a short time, before censorship extends too far and hits contents that should not, by any reasonable standard, be censored.)

Particular problems arise when someone links to a page and the contents of the page later changes, as the effort to keep up with any possible change is unconscionably large and as, even when such effort is made, there is necessarily some delay during which the new contents cannot have been tested, verified, whatnot. A further going responsibility, if at all, than a check for what contents were present at the time of linking is not normally conscionable.

Another great complication is the absurd, yet disturbingly common, attitude that a link represents approval or endorsement. This while both neutral and negative opinions are possible. For instance, if I find something that I disapprove of on the Internet, I sometimes quote and comment on parts of the text—and I naturally link to the original source so that readers can, e.g., read the quotes in their larger textual context. Such an attitude can be horribly damaging when it is additionally adopted as a (ridiculous) legal fiction.

Tim Berners-Lee, the “inventor of the Web”, has an interesting text on “Links and Law”^e. Two pertinent quotes (that do have my approval):

Normal hypertext links do not of themselves imply that the document linked to is part of, is endorsed by, or endorses, or has related ownership or distribution terms as the document linked from.

The intention in the design of the web was that normal links should simply be references, with no implied meaning.

It is true that the intentions of someone like Berners-Lee relative a creation like the Web cannot automatically form the limits of interpretation, but an interpretation that exceeds such limits (in particular by the law and/or the government) should be applied only with great care. If not, it is very easy to land in absurd situations, including for reasons like politicians lacking the technical or conceptual understanding for a reasonable interpretation and that others might have relied on a standard interpretation in good faith, only to find themselves in trouble after a later, legally enforced and incompatible change, to interpretations.

Russia Today (RT)

Preliminary remarks

RT seems to be more known as a TV sender than an online paper, but I have not bothered with TV contents and speak only about the written portions. I have also not investigated any non-English contents.

Normally, I would link, but:

1. The official link is often blocked by ISPs and would, then, be of little help to the reader.

2. Said official link is easy to guess.

3. A reasonable Internet search can find both this link and instructions for circumvention of any block. (Which might grow outdated and would also be pointless to state here.)

4. In today’s German climate, linking could bring an unnecessary risk for me.

5. I see no particular reason to recommend RT beyond the benefits of learning different perspectives and takes on various issues and there are more worthwhile sites that do that.

   (For examples of and links to such sites I refer to some past and current entries on my blogroll at my, currently unmaintained, Wordpress blog.)

I do state with emphasis, however, that censorship is not a legitimate step in situations like these, not warranted in the specific case of RT, and unethical through how it hinders those citizens who want, as they should!, to form their own opinions, as opposed to just adopting the opinions of the government or the Left. The true victims of censorship are not the ones prevented from speaking but those prevented from listening.

Main text

Occasionally, I do some reading of RT—a Russian news source widely condemned as a spreader of disinformation and whatnot. A few remarks on the contents:

1. The Western Left seems to see RT as a broadly Rightwing source. Looking at its actual contents, it seems considerably more Left- than Rightwing, e.g. through a constant harping about the evils of colonialism, a pushing of “the first world is mean to the third world” angles, and a view of Israel as the great evil-doer in the Israel-related conflicts. Generally, many angles would be pleasing to the Western Leftist pseudo-academia or the writers of, say, the NYT.

   Signs of PC writing (or what I might have labelled “PC writing” in a Western source) are common, as with the affected use of “Türkiye” over “Turkey”, while still referring to Germany as “Germany” instead of “Deutschland”, Sweden as “Sweden” instead of “Sverige”, etc. Likewise, “Yay Africa!” and “Yay [some specific African]!” angles are more common than seems proportionate.

2. A considerable difference is, unsurprisingly, a pro-Russia and (partially) anti-U.S. take, while e.g. the typical U.S. newspaper has an anti-Russia and (partially) pro-U.S. take. This is combined with natural takes on related issues, e.g. the war in the Ukraine, BRICS and NATO, who is seen as a potential threat to the world, and whatnot. (Even in this, however, there are some parallels with Leftist Western media, and what is seen as wrong with the U.S. often overlaps with what the Democrats said was wrong with George Bush or the complaints of “imperialism” that were long a staple of Leftist anti-U.S. rhetoric.)

   It might or might not be that RT engages in more partiality or mis-/disinformation than Western media, but it is not by much and the issue seems to be more one of natural partiality: RT is considered evil by Western media because it supports the “other side”, while other Western media are considered good because they support “our side”.

3. On issues not related to certain topic families (e.g. the war in the Ukraine and Russia vs. the U.S.), the differences in reporting are usually unremarkable.

Senile Biden and maligned Republicans

After a 2024-06-27 TV debate between Biden and Trump, even many Democrats, Democrat-favoring news sources, and the like, are publicly admitting doubts as to Biden’s mental fitness or outright calling for him to abandon his bid for re-election.

Many on the Republican side have recognized that Biden had severe problems for years, pointing to his many odd behaviors and slip-ups in public. For this, they have been condemned, e.g. for allegedly spreading “fake news”, by a Democrat establishment set on denying any possibility of a problem.

The latter is just one of many examples of how speaking a truth that clashes with the Leftist agenda, worldview, narratives, whatnot, leads to unfair condemnation (note e.g. the COVID-countermeasure era)—and this regardless of how obvious, how supported by scientific evidence, how logically plausible, whatnot, something is. The first, that the Left belatedly admits, even to some approximation, that the truth-speakers were correct, has far fewer examples—the Left tends to stick to its guns.

(With Biden, it might be a matter of the evidence being too overwhelming or the stakes too high, that Biden is now a liability with the voters and must be removed in order to keep the Democrats in power; however, it is also notable that few have acknowledged the past problems of Biden, and many seem to pretend that his state is something entirely new, as opposed to a worse version of what we have seen for years. Moreover, many Democrats still stick to their guns on Biden—especially, understandably, among those who stand to gain from specifically Biden, not just a Democrat, winning the election.)

Industrial revolution and working/living conditions as example of distortions

Both the popular (to some degree) and the Leftist (to a very high degree) view of market forces, free markets, the relationship between business and labor, etc. is often highly distorted.

A good potential example of this is the industrial revolution, the often poor working conditions, and the extensive poverty in the cities. (However, I have seen very conflicting claims on how various conditions compared to the “before” and caution against the error of comparing with today’s conditions instead of that “before”.) This is often seen or presented as something caused by industrialization, methods of industrialists, diminishing of older types of manufacturing, whatnot. While there is some truth to this, and while various factors can have interdependencies, the core issue is more likely to have been one of supply of and demand for workers. The cities often saw a very large inflow of workers from the countryside. If industry did not grow fast enough, this resulted in an over-supply of workers, put a strong downwards pressure on wages, gave industrialists little reason to improve working conditions, increased the rate of (whole or partial) unemployment beyond what it would have been with fewer workers, etc.

Something similar applies to the cost-of-living side of the equation for the workers. For instance, more workers meant a greater competition for living space, as the supply did not grow anywhere near as fast, which lead to higher rents, less floor space per capita, and lowered incentives for landlords to keep standards up. Food, clothing, and similar might have seen a greater supply increase in the short term than living space, but is unlikely to have been flexible enough, and the same principle would have struck again. (Note that production was more local at the time than today, that transportation costs were higher, and that “perishable goods” were much more limited in how far they could be transported before perishing.) Other areas yet might have been similarly affected or otherwise suffered from lack of supply/capacity/whatnot, e.g. access to water of reasonable quality, as a consequence of the inflow of workers.

Attacks creating opposition

An interesting variation of the below distortion of motives is how motives can arise or change in light of the behavior of the other party—and how a failure to consider that behavior can lead to the wrong conclusions.

For instance, if a party, movement, large societal group, whatnot, takes an aggressive and hostile approach towards others, this is likely to create resistance and, quite possibly, counter-aggression or counter-hostility. Ditto if said party (whatnot) strives to rob Peter to pay Paul—negative reactions from Peter are hardly unexpected. Ditto if said party (whatnot) pushes an agenda of polarization, demonization, or similar—those on the receiving end can hardly be blamed for pushing back. Etc.

Such aggression is, of course, a common problem with the Left and when the victims of the aggression react, this can have further negative effects, including that a “I hate him; ergo, he hates me” becomes self-fulfilling because the original Leftist hate causes a counter-hate (which is then taken as confirmation of the original claim in a misguided manner), that the reaction to the aggression is disingenuously seen as aggression, that a fight for preservation of rights (or, e.g., certain labor-market outcomes) which takes place in self-defense is misreported as a mutually wished for battle or a natural consequence of e.g. class membership, etc.

A very common issue is that evil behaviors from a minority within some group causes negative feelings, which are then unfairly generalized to the group as a whole—or, in reverse, that the negative feelings fairly remain directed at the evil-doers, but that the evil-doers unfairly claim that the negative feelings would be directed at the group as a whole.

This is not limited to “internal” politics, but can include e.g. conflicts between two states or a state and some form of separatist group, often with a vicious circle resulting. The situation in and around Israel is a good example, especially with an eye at current events, beginning with the Hamas-driven terrorist attacks in October 2023, but going back with an at least semi-continuity to the early Arab attacks after the founding of Israel 76 years ago.

Claims like “hate begets hate” have, indeed, reached a proverbial status.

Distorting the motives of opponents

A recurring problem with the Leftist propagandists (to a lesser degree, more generally) is that the motives of their opponents are distorted or outright replaced. This, in particular, when the propagandists attempt to push a worldview of “us vs. them”, “the oppressed vs. the oppressors”, or similar.

The 2023 uproar after the SCOTUS decision in “Dobbs” is particularly telling: Here the actual motives of the court centered on reversing the judicial overreach and spurious constitutional interpretation of “Roe”, in which the court had not only implicitly arrogated lawgiving powers to it self, under circumvention of democratic processes, but had also enforced the unfortunate trend of power moving from the states to the federation. This while the popular “pro-life” movement was centered on protecting what the members viewed as innocent human life from murder. (I make no statement about whether they are correct, but do note that the key question is when in life we acquire what type of human rights.)

In the aftermath, however, claims were repeatedly heard that the decision had the purpose of reducing women’s rights (with variations; with Feminists, not limited to “Dobbs”, claims of “oppressing women” tend to be common). Likewise, and equally long before the decision, the members of the “pro-choice” movement were accused of having the purpose of reducing women’s rights. Such a reduction might or might not be a side-effect of restrictions on abortion, but, if so, are side-effects—nothing more, nothing less.

The “old Left” is not better: among my own first political memories (1980s’ Sweden) is rhetoric by the Social-Democrat and Communist parties that, e.g., some non-Leftist suggestion would have the purpose of “making the rich richer”, “exploiting the worker”, or similar. (With many later encounters, both in the respective “now” and in historical sources, and in many other countries.) That the typical motives are very different (even that they could be different) is not acknowledged by such propagandists. Consider e.g. the wish for a stronger economy (from which almost everyone benefits) or the genuine conviction that certain types of government interventions are unethical, unjust, and unfair—and accordingly should be stopped. (Disproportionate taxes on high earners might be the paramount example.) Notably, there is immense empirical evidence that Leftist economic policies lead to less growth and a weaker economy than more Libertarian policies—and this is easily understandable with an eye at incentives, market forces, and similar, to those who have actually bothered to read up and think.

Another notable example in somewhat recent times (maybe, the last two decades in Sweden and Germany) is equating any attempts to reduce migration with racism, xenophobia, or similar. While such motivations are not as rare as their counterparts in the above examples, they are not the main issue at hand. Consider perfectly legitimate, even idealistic, wishes for policy changes like the government being more picky about how many may immigrate from where in order to not overtax social systems, to avoid higher crime rates, and to allow orderly assimilation. An example of a more specific, and not obvious to everyone, issue is the effect of immigration on an existing or looming housing crisis: too much immigration can make the supply of new buildings (often already lacking through over-regulation, low incentives to build, and similar) unable to keep up with demand, and the low elasticity of housing costs now makes these costs rise disproportionately.

As to the reasons, the most significant (especially, on the top) might simply be deliberate dishonesty in order to score political points with the easily manipulated. However, my personal suspicion is that projection often contributes (especially, among the “grass roots”). If, e.g., a worker is pushed into an ideology of class conflict, where “the rich” are seen as the enemy or, even, as an object of hate, it would be unsurprising if he projects similar feelings onto them. We might then have ideas like “I want to take him for everything that he is worth; ergo, he wants to take me for everything that I am worth”.

The same risk does exist in the other direction, and non-Leftists should take care not to repeat the Leftist error—the Left has no dearth of idealists and good intentions, the main problem being what road these idealists almost invariably pave. However, the situation is not symmetrical, as the Left also has a long history of genuinely evil intentions in a manner that e.g. Libertarians and Conservatives do not (note, especially, various Communist dictatorships) and does have a history of deliberate polarization and deliberate pushing of “us vs. them” (etc.) thinking. Looking at Marxism and its off-shots, such thinking borders on a sine qua non.

Flawed elitism

I do not see elitism as something inherently wrong. On the contrary, if done right, I would see it as advantageous.

The problem with modern society (in general), politicians (in particular), and, maybe, Leftist politicians (in double particular) is a highly flawed take on elitism.

Looking specifically at politics, it might be true that most of the population is sufficiently intellectually weak that it would need some level of “nannying” and it might be true that the country would be better off being governed by an elite.

There are at least two central and fatal flaws in today’s politics, however:

Firstly, the assumption that because some would need nannying, everyone must be nannied. (Alternatively, that everyone needs nannying in the first place.) The consequences include that even many who are both more intelligent, better educated, have a deeper understanding of x, y, z, whatnot, than the politicians are nannied against their will and in conflict with their best interest.

A particular danger, a potential disaster, is when the nannying extends to formation of opinion—that no-one is allowed to form his own opinion but must rely on what the political pseudo-elite tells him to believe. (Potentially, including how he must vote; certainly, in many cases, how he must not vote.)

Secondly, the political elite is not an intellectual, cognitive, whatnot, elite. Many or most of them might well be above average, but few are actual stars and many are disasters. Very few, even among those at the highest reaches, have a solid understanding of core topics, including history and economics; very few have a proven competence from outside politics; very few show signs of genius level intellects; and very many are where they are for the wrong reasons, e.g. a proven loyalty to a party or the ability to manipulate the masses.

Any attempt at a sane and sound elitism must correct these two flaws, to (a) discriminate between those that do or do not need nannying (or some other type of control) and/or to vary the degree more continuously according to need, and (b) put an actual elite in charge. (Even so, I am far from certain that political elitism actually would work.)

Various remarks:

1. Some phrasing in this text would have been more apposite in Swedish, where “förmyndarstat” (approximately “legal-guardian state”) is the term used for “nanny state”. The natural connotations are partially different and “förmyndarstat” is a better counterpart to expressions like “political elitism”.

   (In both cases, of course, there is more to the issue than mere nannying or förmyndar-ing, but I wish to keep this text short.)

2. Use of “it might be true” is very important in both cases. Note that ethics speak for self-determination, that pragmatical net-reasons might favor self-determination (e.g. through differing preferences or to keep markets functioning), that even an actually competent elite might fail through being self-serving, and similar.

   Of course, even if the respective “might” is true, there would be limits to the impositions allowed. Notably, previous historical attempts at nanny states and plan economies have done more harm than good—often far more and the more so the higher the degree of nannying/planning.

3. Looking more in detail, a number of other flaws are present in the current political elitism, including that even a good political decision can be mis-implemented through incompetent civil servants and that politicians rarely have the best of the people in mind (but of themselves, some sub-group of the people, those whose votes are up for purchase, the lobby-organizations willing to provide perqs, whatnot). Indeed, the low-level civil servants that are often put in a position to nanny the citizens are usually exactly those who need nannying—certainly, so to a higher degree than many or most citizens; and very, very certainly so compared to the likes of myself.

4. A paradox is that the current political elitism is founded in nominal egalitarianism. Here the elected politicians are, all too often, elitists, see themselves as the elite, and only give lip service (no matter how ardently) to egalitarianism. At the same time egalitarianism is a strong contributor to these fatal flaws:

   Firstly, egalitarianism is likely a partial motivation (whether as a true reason or as an excuse) for the lack of differentiation—if some need to be nannied, we all need to be nannied, or it would not be egalitarian.

   Secondly, egalitarianism is a strong contributor to the electoral success of the political pseudo-elite of today, what helps its members to power, despite their lack of suitability, as (almost) everyone has a vote—no matter how easily manipulated, politically ignorant, whatnot he or, more often, she is.

   ---

   Side-note:

   An important point is the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, or, here, variations on the same theme:

   The politicians’ take on egalitarianism usually seems to be analogous to equality of outcome, which leads to absurdities. (But, of course, excepting the politicians themselves.) An egalitarianism analogous to equality of opportunity is a potentially very different matter, is more sensible, can avoid universal nannying, etc. (But might need a different word in order to avoid confusion.)

   ---

5. Flawed elitism is by no means limited to politics, however. For instance, mere fame is often seen as enough to warrant membership in a wider societal elite. For instance, even outside the likes of the Kardashians, success, including status as “elite” within some group, in some field, or similar, is too often based in the subjective approval, or even personal liking, of others, rather than objective competence, accomplishment, whatnot.

Government as the cause of problems that it claims to solve

A sometime general issue is that someone causes the very problem that he warns of or complains about. A good illustration is the comic strip “Ben” on 2012-02-11:

One brother hangs from a tree branch. Another brother comes running, insisting that the first brother get down, lest the branch breaks. As the first brother refuses, the second tries to forcefully remove him by pulling him down—which breaks the branch. Comment by the second brother: “See what’d I tell you?” This in complete obliviousness that he, himself, had caused the breaking and that the branch likely would have been perfectly fine without his intervention.

Such issues appear to be particularly common with governments, politicians, and whatnots: they intervene and do not only do more harm than good—but often outright cause the problems that they claim to wish to solve. This in particular where “markets” are concerned: Where the markets would have been fine on their own, the politicians postulate that the markets cannot cope without the help of the government, an intervention follows, market forces are disturbed and the markets brought out of balance, problems follow—and then comes the politicians’ “See what’d I tell you?” as they behold the branch that they broke.

Another common source of problems is the politicians’ apparent inability to understand incentives, e.g. how more generous social aid can increase the proportion of the people that prefers to rely on social aid over own work. An immense increase of those on aid is then seen as proof of a problem that only more social aid can solve, without considering that very many of those on aid do not actually need the aid—they merely take advantage of it. (Here, there might have been a real-but-smaller underlying problem, while the resulting larger often owes more to the intervention than to a true need.)

Overlapping, as can be seen with many “welfare” states, the costs of running various social-security systems can be so large that the citizens are forced to rely on the systems for want of own money—but a want that is caused by having to pay for the systems. What, e.g., if the typical German was not forced to pay, on top of taxes, half a fortune to mandatory pension, health-insurance, and unemployment-insurance schemes? What if he could invest these sums to finance his old age, periods of sickness, periods of unemployment, whatnot? (If need be, in combination with more sensible insurance schemes than the current, moving from a “You have the sniffles? The insurance pays your medicine!” thinking to a “You need heart surgery? The insurance pays for your surgery!” thinking.) To make matters worse, such schemes also lead to failing markets, poor allocation of resources, increasing costs, etc.

Generally, there is an unfortunate feedback mechanism in that interventions that cause a problem are increased ever further in the belief, or claimed belief, that more of what caused the problem will solve the problem. We then have interventions against markets causing market failures, which causes calls for even more interventions, which leads to worse failures, etc. Likewise, we might have too generous social aid causing an increase in the “needy”, which causes calls for even more social aid, which gives even stronger incentives to rely on aid over work, etc. Likewise, we might have citizens struggling with e.g. health costs because they pay so much in insurance fees (cf. above), which leads to even more “generous” insurance schemes, which reduces own means even further, etc.

Extremely distorting fictional portrayals

A massive problem is the way that fiction (U.S. TV, in particular) portrays various issues, and in a manner that feeds into the prejudices that keep the Left alive. Examples range from the greatly exaggerated and Feminism-furthering frequency of abusive husbands (while wives, contrary to statistics, are hardly ever portrayed as abusive) to extreme portrayals of various “Rightwing” groups as complete lunatics. A good recent example, and the trigger for this sub-heading, is the third season of “The Righteous Gemstones”, which portrays preppers in a highly misleading manner, as violent, ignorant, “far Right” thugs, set on poisoning liberal cities and making bombs with fertilizer. Firstly, this has nothing to do with prepping. Secondly, by a considerable distance, political violence is a Leftist phenomenon! It cannot be said often enough: political violence is a Leftist phenomenon! In just the U.S., we have the likes of Antifa terrorists and BLM rioters engaging in large scale violence in recent years, well beyond anything “Rightwing”; and e.g. the “Black Panthers” and the “Weather Underground” in the past. (And what “Rightwing” violence does take place is often blown out of proportion in news reporting, and/or goes back to entrapment, as with the police-driven “kidnapping” plot against Gretchen Whitmer, and/or stems from groups that are decried as “Rightwing” solely based on e.g. immigration issues or nationalism, which misses the point entirely.) Germany? Rote Armee Fraktion, the “autonomous” Left, Antifa, etc. Again, nothing “Rightwing” comes close in scope. Recently, we have a very wide-spread problem with various forms of destruction, e.g. of art, for the alleged purpose of saving the environment—again, by Leftist groups. Who uses violence against those who do not fall in with the Leftist unions? The Leftist unions. Who pushes for violent revolutions? Communists. Who uses any and all type of violence to keep the population in check, once in power? Predominantly, Leftist groups. Certainly, the Pinochet, Franco, and whatnot regimes put together, and even if they are classified as “Rightwing” in a meaningful sense, are dwarfed by some individual Leftist regimes. Etc.

A particularly perfidious example occurred in “Boardwalk Empire” (likely: I did not watch beyond the first episode and might have my series confused): Some politician had engaged in electoral cheating—and was given a pat on the back and a “Good Republican!”. This despite the very long history that the Democrats, not the Republicans, have of electoral cheating, including the Tammany-Hall era and various illicit collaborations with trade unions for the purpose of swaying elections. (And this entirely independent of what might or might have happened in e.g. 2020: “Boardwalk Empire” played during the prohibition.)

At some point in the last year/2023, I saw a blurb for some series or other that played in the 1970s, had a female lead, and pushed the idea that it was extra special hard to be a career woman in the 1970s—because men in the 1970s wanted women to fail. (With similar ideas occurring repeatedly in other contexts. Note the immense difference between e.g. “because women were not taken seriously”, which likely often held, and this claim that men outright and positively wanted women to fail.)

Also see several earlier texts, e.g. on the “Santa Clarita Diet” (TODO import from Wordpress and link); and note an often highly distorted portrayal of Christians in the aforementioned “The Righteous Gemstones” throughout the series.

Failure to consider human nature

Political, societal, and personal problems often arise from a failure to consider and accommodate human nature (especially, but by no means exclusively, on the Left/among Leftists). This, in particular, in two forms:

1. A failure to take into account how humans will naturally tend to behave in various situations, under various rules, and similar. Two important special cases are (a) not considering the effects of varying incentives on behavior, (b) assuming that humans will behave as they “should”. (Where the “should” can be e.g. the personal preference of an ideologue, politician, social reformer, or educator. Such preferences do not tend to be universal.) Ideas like that humans are naturally good, that they will voluntarily work hard for the “common good” in a Communist society, and that they would never, ever cheat to get social benefits that they do not deserve belong in this category.

2. Attempts to ignore, deny, overcome by brute force, or similar, human nature. Consider the “tabula rasa” fallacy, the view of humans as something entirely apart from “lower” animals, the view that the shells of clothes, apartments, books, habits, whatnot, that we put on fundamentally determine who we are, etc.

   Overcoming nature, within reasonable limits, might well be a worthy goal, but we must approach that matter in a reasonable manner, the most important point being the recognition of what we are beneath the shells and by nature. (As the hackneyed claim goes: The first step to overcoming a problem is to admit that we have a problem.) Once we understand and acknowledge the limitations, natural drives, and whatnots that nature places upon us, then we can work at overcoming them in a healthy and productive manner. (As an interesting special case, reading books on animals can, in some cases, improve our understanding of humans. Note e.g. “Gorillas in the Mist”.)

   Consider, by analogy, two short monozygotic twins who want to be successful basketball players. The one acknowledges his height (respectively, lack thereof), tries to find out what he can and can not do well in light of his height, finds the areas where being short might be an advantage (dribbling?) and then plays to his strengths, adapts his style of play and playing choices to take a height difference into account (e.g. by passing where someone else would have taken a shot or by making more 3- than 2-point attempts), etc. The other trains and plays as if he matched the average height of the NBA. Which of the two will have the better chances?

   An important special case is forgetting that we might gain or lose happiness depending on whether we stick to or deviate from what is, in some sense, natural. For a partial pun, consider something as trivial as getting more exposure to nature over living 24/7/365 in world of concrete. Many examples include a difference between what does makes us happy and what “should” (often, again, in the opinion of some ideologue or whatnot) make us happy. (With variations centered on other things than happiness, e.g. what makes us laugh, what we like to read, what causes sexual excitement.)

(This topic can be expanded very greatly. I hope to do so at some point, but it will not be in the near future.)

Government as the fox in the hen-house

It is often the case that the government involves it self in some matter where it does more harm than good. (And/or that politicians call for such involvement and/or that naive members of the public do so.)

Often, this is taken to the point that we have the proverbial situation of a fox guarding the hen-house.

Consider many market situations, where it is assumed that the markets cannot handle this-or-that, that those in charge of various free enterprises cannot make correct decisions in this-or-that area, or similar. Now, maybe this is true or partially true in some cases. But what makes the government better suited in terms of e.g. decision-making ability? (See side-note for other factors.) Governments have a horrible past record, are plagued by partisan concerns and ideological biases, draw on the work of civil servants (an unusually low competence group in modern times), and, if in doubt, fish from the same or a smaller pool of talent that/than free enterprises do. The politicians, themselves, are also often no where near where they should be for their respective jobs.

Similarly, the government often decides to meddle in the business of private individuals. Sometimes, this might be for the best; more often, it is for the worse. In particular, there is a massive problem with a one-size-fits-all and/or the-government-knows-best-for-everyone thinking. In reality, different individuals have very different priorities, life situations, and whatnot—and they move at very different levels of competence. It might then, e.g., be that the government presumes to make a decision that (a) might make sense for the average construction worker, (b) might be correct in assuming that the government knows better than that average construction worker. Even if the respective “might” is true, however, there is no guarantee for even a construction worker outside the average—and it might be horrifyingly wrong for someone like me. Certainly, I am not just smarter and better educated than the average construction worker—I am smarter and better educated than the vast majority of all politicians, including the likes of Olaf Scholz (German Chancellor at the time of writing) and Joe Biden (POTUS at the time of writing).

In a next step, however, real problems can begin: because the citizens are considered incapable of making good decisions for themselves, many decisions are moved to civil servants, who (a) form an unusually untalented subset of the overall population, but (b), somehow, magically, by dint of being civil servants, are considered capable of making decisions that a mere citizen is not. (Worse, many civil servants, especially in the social-services area, appear to be strong adherents of Marxism or some variation or off-shot of Marxism, which influences their work and their decisions for the worse.)

Health insurance and misguided attitudes

The U.S. comic strip “On a Claire Day” included an arc dealing with health insurance, beginning in June 2007. Several of the installments exemplify a faulty attitude to health insurance and the problems that can arise from them. Faulty attitudes, a faulty or absent understanding how health insurance works, a faulty or absent understanding of incentives, etc., are strong contributors to why healthcare is such a problem in today’s world, why politicians intervene in a manner that makes matters worse, whatnot—and the same applies, m.m., to many other issues.

Some particularly noteworthy examples:

1. 2007-06-18: Claire, an unemployed early twenties woman, compares insurances. One is at 500 USD a month, which she, understandably, cannot afford. But in what system is it reasonable that a young woman, with no known health issues, should pay 500 USD a month for health insurance? This amount is entirely out of proportion to the risks and the costs-in-a-sane-system.

   A part of the explanation is that it is not (as far as I can speculate based on the limited information given) not a true insurance, but one of those “you pay us 500 USD/month in a blanket manner and we cover any costs that arise” schemes. (If, likely, with a rider of “except for one-thousand-and-one-things that we will weasel out of”.)

   The effect of such a scheme, on top of the proper insurance sub-part, is that Claire pays more into the “insurance” than she, per expectation, would ever get back, making her better off with a proper insurance and “out of pocket” payment for lesser issues.

   The second appears to be a proper insurance: For a 100 USD a month, costs beyond 10,000 USD are covered. (Again, with reservations for interpretation.) We can discuss whether fee and coverage are in proportion and whether a limit at specifically 10k is suitable, but the general idea is much better. (For instance, maybe, especially for someone with little or no savings, amounts of 200 USD a month resp. 1,000 USD would be a better choice.) This is what insurance should do—cover the really big things that, without insurance, would hit us too hard if they hit.

   (Imagine a car insurance that would not just cover accidents, but the cost for regular maintenance, a monthly visit to the car wash, and the cost for re-fueling the car—and how much such an insurance might cost. The idea is idiotic—but it is exactly what many insurance schemes amount to.)

2. 2007-06-23: Claire is told that a physician (“doctor”) would not even shake her hand, unless she held an insurance card in it.

   While likely not strictly true, it does show the systematic problems caused by the U.S. insurance system. There is no reason (except for risk of default on payments, which is a minor issue for e.g. checkups and trivial treatments) that someone who pays out of pocket should be less welcome than someone who pays through insurance. To the degree that they are, it perpetuates a vicious circle.

   ---

   Side-note:

   Here we see that the citizens’ attitudes are to some degree forced by surrounding circumstances. A “health insurance should pay for everything” attitude is fundamentally flawed, but a “I have to be insured because the system punishes those who pay out of pocket” attitude might be a necessary evil in a broken system. The system is broken, but the attitude, given the broken system, is not.

   ---

3. 2007-06-23: Claire takes a basically sound attitude of I-will-just-take-care-of-myself, which would likely work quite well for a woman her age and basic health, when combined with a proper insurance. She refers to the “pioneers”, who got by without health insurance—and is told that they “all keeled over by age 40”.

   Not only is this claim factually untrue, but the reasons for a lower life expectancy did not rest in having or not having health insurance, but in factors like a more physically dangerous life, the number of diseases without effective treatments at any cost, an insufficient understanding of hygiene, malnutrition, and similar. (We simply do not need the “insurance pays for everything nonsense”.)

   ---

   Side-note:

   Moreover, the overall impression from the strip is less that Claire has a healthy attitude and more that she is trying to find excuses for remaining uninsured. (And, yes, I have serious doubts as to how sound the attitude of the strip’s author is.)

   ---

   Addendum:

   I gave up on the strip comparatively soon after writing this text. This, in part, because of poor execution of promising ideas; in part, exactly because of examples of Leftist naiveté or agenda pushing on behalf of the author shining through. This included several entirely unnecessary jabs at Bush Jr. and, in-the-final-read-by-me installation, an attempt at raising Obama to the skies. (I did not keep exact notes, but consider a dialogue along the lines of “Marrying an X might not be so bad.”, “Isn’t Bush an X?”, “Oh, yeah, never mind.” anti-Bush, and claims like “Obama got a JD from Harvard! He must be super-smart!” pro-Obama for the respective gist.)

   With hindsight, and an eye at the timing, it seems somewhat likely that the health-insurance arc was also an attempt at exactly Obama-pushing.

   ---

   ---

4. 2007-06-27: A friend (of a similar age and apparent health) tries to justify her own high payments with the claim that “It’s important to treat your body as a temple.”. Phrasing aside, this is a non sequitur: Health insurance does not lead to such treatments, nor does such treatment require health insurance. On the contrary, Claire’s idea of e.g. eating healthier is the better approach.

   Now, what the friend might have intended is that she now could go to a physician for even minor problems and suspicions of problems. However, this is unlikely to bring her much benefit (at least, at that age; at 80, it might be different). What it does is to drive up costs in the overall system, use up physician time that could be used for other purposes, and otherwise worsen the problems of health care. Note that even her own health situation might be worsened in the aggregate. What e.g. if she has a real problem on some occasion and she does not get timely enough treatment because too many physicians are bogged down prescribing vitamins to young women with a cold? Or if the demand for physicians has pushed competence levels down so that she is mistreated? Of if her physician is over-worked and misses something important that he otherwise would have found?

5. 2007-08-06: Claire now actually is at the physician’s, for “feeling run-down”, and wants some type of medication against the issue. She gets the advice to eat better and to get some exercise. Her reply? A request for a pill to make her do that...

   Now, it might well be that Claire intended her answer as a joke towards the physician, but combined with her trivial reason for going to him in the first place (and her failure to try his fairly obvious advice on her own, before going), it displays a very poor attitude—and one highly likely to lead to an overloaded healthcare system, etc. I often feel run-down and I have yet to visit a physician for it. Instead, I get some rest-and-relaxation and catch up on my sleep, which actually works. A trip to a physician, on the other hand, would waste my time and money, leave me with some trivial advice or a pointless shot, and otherwise be useless. (This, unless some rare long-term condition is found. A visit to check something like that might be justified if rest-and-relaxation, sleep, better eating, and exercise fails over a non-trivial time.)

   (Note the overlap with the previous item, which was written before I encountered the 2007-08-06 strip. The 2007-08-06 strip gratifyingly reduces the amount of speculation above. A continuation of that arc points to Claire trying to take the easy way out. The “wants a pill” attitude might be a symptom of that and such an attitude could also negatively affect the health-care system, if in an off-topic manner.)

While I will not go into details of the flaws of various systems, I do point to the risks involved with variations of “single payer” (an extremely misleading term) and “insurance pays” systems. When there is no connection between use of a service and payment for a service, the use of the service will be suboptimal. Overuse and use by those who do not actually need/benefit is particularly common. In the other direction, those who charge (here physicians, hospitals, and the like) will tend to charge more and more, because charging more is not a deterrent for the patients/customers.

Important: The main problem in the U.S. system (and the German and many others) is costs. It simply costs too much to get this-or-that treatment due to decades of flawed incentives and distortions. Cut the patient costs down to where they rightfully should be, and issues like “Millions lack insurance!!!” become far less important. (And with the resulting, more affordable, insurance, the proportion without insurance would likely shrink too.)

An upside in comparison with the German system is that Claire actually had the option of going uninsured and, importantly, the option of going for a proper insurance. In Germany, we are stuck in mandatory insurance schemes that are based on ideas like “the insurance company pays for everything” (except that the insured pay so much to the insurance that they lose money on the scheme), “the ‘rich’ pay for the ‘poor’—social justice!” (instead of the “lucky pay for the unlucky”, as with proper insurance), and similar. In particular, those who do take care of themselves, by and large, pay as much as those who do not, despite the latter causing much larger costs. Likewise, those who go to a physician only when they have a legitimate reason pay as much as those who run to a physician for any trivial complaint. (The resulting incentives are horrible.)

Effect of productivity on e.g. working conditions

An interesting thought is how productivity of the workforce (or, more accurately, the average and/or marginal profit gained from a worker/employee/whatnot) affects e.g. working conditions, wages, what businesses are sustainable, what the effects of union activity or government interventions (notably, minimum wages) are, etc. Below I give some examples on a “food for thought” basis, especially with an eye at political pressures of various types.

1. Compare two workers that create revenue of 10 resp. 20 dollar/hour. A trivial observation is that the latter brings as much benefit per hour when paid 10 dollar/hour as the former when unpaid. Another that the employer will be much more open to pay the latter a given amount of money than the former (all other factors equal), as well as more willing to pay the latter more than the former. For instance, at a payment of 8 dollar/hour, the former generates a net profit of 2 dollar, the latter 12 dollar, implying that the one brings the net benefit of six of the former—despite “only” being twice as productive. (For simplicity, I will usually leave out the “/hour”.)

   In a next step, consider e.g. what might happen when a minimum wage pushes those 8 dollar to 10. Note how the first worker now brings no net benefit to his employer, while the second still creates a value of another 10 dollar (unless already better paid as a consequence of his productivity). Move to a 12-dollar minimum wage, and the first loses his employer 2 dollar, while the former still brings in 8 dollar. If the first is not outright laid off, his employment will now effectively be subsidized by the latter, who, in turn, might be much less likely to receive voluntary raises and other benefits, because there is less money to go around.

2. Compare two different factories, where the average revenue generated by all workers are 10 resp. 20 dollar/hour.

   Which of the two factories is more likely to offer higher wages, various voluntary benefits, give company picnics, whatnot? Which is more likely to scrimp and try to cut corners, including on worker safety?

   Which will be affected how by e.g. union activity and minimum wages?

3. If someone wants to help the workers, how is this best done? Do we impose minimum wages or do we help to increase productivity or, more generally, the net profit per employee? Note how the net profit (in a scenario without simplifying assumptions) also includes factors like company taxes and hidden taxes on salaries that are paid by the employer (but hurt the employee through reducing wage increases and issues like the ones discussed in this text). Likewise, consider the effects of VAT and governmental bureaucracy.

   For instance, take a worker paid 8 dollar who generates 10 dollar’s worth of revenue. Is he helped more by a minimum wage that gives him 9 dollar per hour (shrinking his “net productivity” to 1 dollar) or by a reduction of government interference that moves his revenue to 11 dollar (increasing his “net productivity” to 3 dollar)? What are his chances of being laid off or seeing his employer go bankrupt vs. his chances of better working conditions or a voluntary raise? Where will his long-term prospects be the better? Etc.

   (Note that I am not saying that he will necessarily benefit more from the latter. More generally, many of the questions posed in this text are best understood as food for thought. Some have clear answers that can be found with minimal thought; others are of e.g. the “well, it all depends” type.)

   Likewise, are union efforts better spent striking or improving the skills of the workforce, if improving the conditions for the workforce is the goal? (Note that strikes bring productivity to a temporary halt and, thereby, reduce average long-term productivity. If strikes are common, they can be a considerable obstacle. If poor working conditions, low pay, whatnot, are a result of low productivity, a strike for better conditions or more pay can be outright counterproductive through lowering that productivity further.)

4. What will be more beneficial for the workers? Minimum wages or new and better technology that increases productivity?

   ---

   Side-note:

   The effects of new technology go far beyond the scope of this text. However, it is noteworthy that the net effects of new technology usually have defied the fears of e.g. increased long-term unemployment. (So far, knock on wood.)

   ---

5. Slavery is a particularly interesting example, where the low (but not zero) cost of work gives few incentives to increase productivity per worker/slave, which keeps productivity down, which keeps working conditions poor, which makes the slaves less likely to be productive workers, which keeps productivity down, etc.

   Looking at e.g. the “field” slaves of the U.S. slavery era, with an eye at working conditions, chances are that the productivity was quite low, well in line with the idea that slavery does more to hold societies with slavery back than to enrichen them. (I have also heard claimed, but have not looked into this, that the “cotton gin” was more important to Southern wealth from cotton than slavery was, maybe even that the cotton gin was what made slavery profitable. If so, with an eye at the previous item, it would be interesting to see who did or did not benefit in what manner.)

   It is also historically noteworthy that slaves with different abilities have had different trajectories, based on differences in what benefits they brought their masters. In ancient Rome, for instance, a slave with a solid education and a good mind, if landing with the right master, could lead a good life by the standards of the day, even to the point of being freed and growing independently wealthy.

Rational vs. cold and calculating

One of the fundamental problems with certain groups (often, but not necessarily, Leftist) is the assumption that anyone rational or proposing a rational approach would also be “cold and calculating”.

To exactly define what “rational” implies would require far more deliberation, and might result in a far longer text, than I have time for. However, a typical case would be to begin with some given goal and to see how that goal is best achieved; another, to begin with some set of premises/priorities/values/whatnot and to see where thinking takes us. (And, of course, any suitable mixture of the two.)

Nothing in this requires, e.g., that someone strives to maximize profits at any and all cost (“And to hell with everyone else!”). The common misperception (often, it seems, deliberate caricature) as “cold and calculating” presupposes certain goals and whatnots that, however, are not a part of being rational. Someone rational might have such goals, certainly, but he might equally have goals like “maximize the common good”, “save the community center”, and “find loving homes for abandoned children”, or anything in between.

For a more specific example, consider various forms of governmental aid and checks for actual eligibility, requirements on the recipients (e.g. that someone receiving unemployment aid must actively look for job), upper time limits, and similar. Many Leftists try to paint this as sheer callousness (at extremes, even as deliberate evil or deliberate oppression). In reality, it is a matter of applying reason to the situation. For instance, if there are no, or too lax, checks for eligibility, then many who are ineligible will receive aid, which will enrichen them at the cost of everyone else—including the actually eligible that have less money to go around and/or the tax payers who need to pay more to finance the aid scheme. Even if someone has an expansive welfare state as a goal (I do not, obviously; if in doubt, I see the expensive welfare state), rationality implies that such restrictions must be present in order to maximize the intended positive, and minimize the unintended negative, effects of the welfare state.

Likewise, who does more to help the needy—the bleeding heart that throws them each a fish or the rational mind that gives them the skills, tools, and opportunities to fish for themselves? (Even when the former comes back with more fish, day after day, and the latter leaves the needy to their own devices, once they have been set up for fishing.)

It is also very important to keep in mind that different goals and priorities are not necessarily a sign of different levels of e.g. egoism and idealism. Certainly, from what I have seen over the last three or four decades, egoism is more common on the Left while idealism is very common on the non-Left. (Whether the same applies in the juxtapositions emotional/irrational vs. rational is not a given, however.)

Consider the following statement by Walter E. Williams:

But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?

(Quoted from the notoriously unreliable goodreads.com^e; however, I have seen the same or almost the same quote even in printed form.)

Why should the one who wants to keep what he has earned, let alone the one who wants that we all keep what we earn, be more of an egoist and less of an idealist than the one who wants the government to take the money that others have earned and give it him? In particular, the Leftist caricature of the greedy Capitalist who wants lower taxes so that he has more money is a caricature—a typical position among e.g. Libertarians, even those who are not very wealthy or well earning, is that (a) it is a matter of common fairness that we all have a right to our own income, (b) lower taxes, less redistribution, etc., leads to more growth, which will leave everyone better off in the long run. Here, (a) is idealistic, while (b) is an excellent illustration of a rational approach: a sensible goal exists and we choose a good way to reach that goal.

Finally, consider a community center in jeopardy: An emotional reaction that “We must save the community center!” is unlikely to be helpful—it might or might not save the community center, but it will not necessarily be for the best, and will, barring sheer luck, be worse or much worse than a rational approach. Instead, we have to take that rational approach, beginning with the question whether we would be better off if we save the community center than if we do not. This includes looking at alternatives, e.g. whether the important purposes can be saved without saving the whole center; giving proper attention to factors like opportunity costs (e.g. whether saving the community center might force the sacrifice of something else and whether a better use for the community-center money can be found); and other acts aimed at finding the best approach overall, not just the best approach to “save”. The community center must be seen as a means to an end—not as an end in it self. If the rational verdict comes down on “save the community center”, then we should save it. If not, then not.

Promising a better future

Looking back at history, one of the main ways to gain followers has been to promise them a better future, be it on Earth or in some afterlife, be it through rewarding own efforts or through arbitrary hand-outs, be it through “righting wrongs” or through favoring the chosen, whatnot.

This is a common approach on the Left, and especially the Marxist Left, with variations along the lines of “after the Revolution, we will build a Paradise on Earth”, “if you vote us into power, we will raise taxes for the Evil Rich and give to you”, “you are only poor because of Capitalism—vote for us and we will make everything fair and proper”, “the government can solve all your problems, it just needs enough power”—with endless variations, depending on e.g. the target group at hand. (Below, I will simply speak of “the Revolution”. This, however, mostly for convenience—similar issues apply to a wide range of Leftist promises and whatnots, and especially when there is a future threshold involved, e.g. that “if you vote us into power for the next election cycle, then XYZ”.)

From this, there are at least two issues of interest to the Left now as opposed to the Left in the 19th century.

Firstly, the promised carrot works best when it cannot yet be delivered because of external obstacles. If and when the Revolution comes, the Party actually has to deliver, which it might not be able to do. (In fact, for many promises, this is a near certainty, because of how economically flawed Leftist thinking and policies almost invariably are.) In a next step, some scape-goat has to be found, e.g. that Paradise is only prevented through “subversives”, “counter-revolutionaries”, enemies abroad, or similar.

From another angle, even a successful deliverer of promises, let alone an unsuccessful one, is faced with issues like a natural human tendency to be discontent, the “the grass is always greener on the other side” effect, different expectations in detail among different adherents, which are then fulfilled to different degrees, and that someone might find that what was “supposed” to make him happy actually does not. (To the last, consider e.g. someone who was a factory worker in a privately owned factory and is now a factory worker in a factory collectively owned by all the workers. The latter might seem more satisfying than the former to a Communist, but if work, and life in general, otherwise remains more-or-less the same, is he truly better off?)

Secondly, what happens when life grows better even without a Revolution or when the problem(s) that justified a cause otherwise disappear? Consider the massive improvements in living standards for workers since the days of Marx, how much the lives of U.S. Blacks have improved both absolutely and relative to Whites since the Civil War, or how women have become an outright privileged group. (More specifically, a group that has kept all old rights and privileges of women and added all rights and privileges of men, but usually without (a) accepting the obligations and duties of men, (b) extending women’s rights and privileges to men. Note how Feminists have been given everything that they asked for, yet seem to grow ever more dissatisfied as time goes by.)

Sooner or later, usually sooner, the point comes where it makes little sense to give sincere promises, make fair comparisons, etc., and great twists and turns become necessary. (From what I have seen, it is often dubious whether earlier promises were sincere and earlier comparisons fair, but the chance was, at least, better.)

For instance, in today’s world, the allegedly poor often have an obesity problem. Instead of then emphasising the purchasing power needed to grow obese (and the need to take own responsibility for one’s exercise and eating habits), health problems among the allegedly poor are ascribed to e.g. their being “‘underprivileged” or being victims of “structures” or some other vague and misleading formulation. We must now defeat poverty in order to prevent obesity!

For instance, goal posts are constantly moved, as with outrageous misdefinitions of poverty that are pushed by the Left: the poor are no longer those who have problems keeping themselves clothed and fed, but those who e.g. earn “less than half the median income”—which all but ensures that a significant portion of the population will always be mislabeled as “poor”, no matter how well off they are relative past generations and no matter how much society progresses. (As I have noted elsewhere, this type of metric is not of poverty at all, but of income distribution—among several problems. TODO import Wordpress text and link.)

For instance, it becomes ever more important to push “us vs. them” thinking and the alleged evil of “them”.

For instance, it is possible to prey on the ignorance of the masses and compensate for a lack of problems by screaming ever and ever more loudly about the remnants of problems that exist—or to outright invent them when they do not.

For instance, much can be gained by keeping own responsibility, own abilities, whatnot, out of the equation: any and all failure is caused by someone or something else, be it the young Black man who hung out with a gang instead of studying and ended up in prison instead of college (e.g. “Systemic Racism!!!” or “School-to-prison pipeline!!!”) or the incompetent and belligerent middle-aged woman who was passed over for a promotion (e.g. “Patriarchy!!!” or “Glass ceiling!!!”)—and never mind the Black men who did study and end up in college or the competent and friendly women who did get promotions.

Such observations explains quite a lot about the modern Left.

Libertarians vs. Leftists on freedom

Main text

A common difference between Libertarians and Leftists, especially on the New Left and/or among those who abuse the word “Liberal” in the manner common in the U.S.:

A Libertarian might want everyone to have the right to do this-and-that, even while acknowledging that it can be a bad idea and that we are better off not exercising that right. For instance, that someone has the right to live on junk food, while foregoing vegetables, does not mean that this is a good idea.

Leftists often have two contrasting takes:

Firstly, the superficially similar that everyone should have the right—but that it would be virtuous to exercise that right.

(Including in many cases where it is hard or impossible to argue that the action would be virtuous, beneficial, or otherwise positive. At the extreme end, I have e.g. seen mentions of an increased number of abortions as a sign of progress. I am open to the possibility that relatively unrestricted abortion laws are a good thing, but under no circumstances can I see an abortion as something good. An occasionally necessary evil, yes; something good, no.)

Secondly, that what is not good should be forbidden or otherwise prevented by the government, even when it would seem to be a natural matter of personal choice. (This take is sometimes shared by Conservatives, if usually with very different priorities and, in my impression, less often.) To boot, “[not] good” must often be seen with a particular Leftist interpretation. Some Leftists might be content with favoring bans, restrictions, or additional taxes on what is widely considered negative; others might go after what is considered outright positive outside the Left, e.g. hiring help for the household and giving someone else a new source of income. (One of my earlier political memories is the Swedish Communists having conniption fits over the mere thought of making such help easier to hire. Swedish readers might recognize “pigdebatten”.)

The same applies, to some degree, to what is good, in that a Libertarian sees a right to forego it, while the Leftist is much more likely to want to make it mandatory. (See below for a lengthier example. Note the above comment on interpretation of “[not] good”.)

Going back to the original example, we would then, all too often, see one of two takes on unhealthy food: Either eating it is both a right and a virtue or it should be forbidden. (In this particular case, however, the question is sufficiently trivial and/or low-priority that most Leftists likely do not have very strong opinions in either direction.)

To what degree these two groups within the Left overlap, I leave unstated. However, I suspect that the overlap is considerably larger than might be believed based on the apparent incompatibility of the positions, the hitch being that different issues can see very different takes, with more regard for partisan concerns than logical consistency.

A particular absurdity in this vein were claims by some Leftist nitwit during the COVID-countermeasure era:

Sweden had fared well, despite having a cautious take on lockdowns. This was ascribed to Swedes behaving responsibly without being forced by the government. (Something that proponents of the Swedish approach had indeed predicted—if in doubt, and contrary to misleading propaganda, the risks taken by the individual were more likely to hit said individual than to hit others.)

At this juncture, someone sane, reasonable, and intellectually honest would have concluded that mandatory lockdowns, etc., were unnecessary and that advisories of various kinds were the better way to go—take Sweden as an example and trust the people to make individual decisions. This would have almost the same positive effects (if any) as mandatory lockdowns, while avoiding some of the negatives (see excursion).

A vanilla proponent of lockdowns might have simply dishonestly ignored the Swedish example or, with some justification, noted that the mentality of the populations in different countries can vary, implying that what was true in Sweden was not guaranteed to be true, or true to the same degree, in e.g. Scotland.

What was the conclusion of the nitwit at hand? Because the Swedes had acted responsibly, we should make lockdowns/whatnot mandatory! After all, if the people showed a certain behavior anyway, what harm would it do to make the behavior mandatory?

Excursion on the effects of mandatory lockdowns vs. voluntary choice

(The below is not a complete analysis, and only intended to show that there are considerable advantages to the voluntary.)

From an overall societal point of view, a voluntary system brings benefits like shorter reaction times, less need for regulation and bureaucracy, less need to control and enforce, less risk of miscommunications and delays in propagation of rule changes, etc. (I note e.g. that Germany long used a system of restrictions that depended on the current, ever varying, infection rates; that restrictions were accumulated from at least three levels, the federal, state, and county/city/whatnot levels; and that it was up to the citizen to inform himself about what restrictions were currently in place.)

From the government’s/politicians’ point of view, mandatory lockdowns obviously bring justified feelings of resentment towards the government, implying that even the most high-handed politicians and whatnots should take great care.

Looking, more importantly, at the people, a voluntary system predominantly has benefits “on the margin”. Exactly what these are will depend on what exactly the respective voluntary and mandatory systems contain, but consider e.g.:

1. That someone who would normally stay at home has greater options when something goes wrong.

   This ranging from a lack of toilet paper to a medical issue. (Note the “stay away from hospitals unless you have COVID or are dying” attitude displayed in some countries.)

2. The greater ability to e.g. exercise in low-risk settings and at low-risk times.

   Germany, for instance, had various rules about not leaving the home (at all or outside certain hours) for long stretches, notwithstanding that e.g. a solitary walk in the late evening carried a greater risk of being hit by a car than by COVID.

3. The ability to save considerable time in stores, through not having to wait until an open-but-restricted store was sufficiently empty.

   At least Germany had rules that restricted the number of simultaneous customers in a store relative the floor space, leading to such counterproductive nonsense like queues outside the stores in order to get inside the stores.

4. That some stores and restaurants that died would have just barely scraped by, through having lesser costs, a customer more here and there, and, above all, no mandatory period of complete shutdown. (A semi-voluntary such period might, of course, still have followed, if remaining open at a given time brought too little revenue relative costs.)

Another major issue is the breaking of habits, e.g. in that many have seen a mid- to long term reduction in amount of exercise (bad for health of the individual and an additional long-term risk for the healthcare systems, with costs pushed down on the tax-payers or whoever is stuck with the bill). Ditto, a lesser probability of visiting cafés, restaurants, and the like (bad for business, employment, tax revenues, etc.). Speaking for myself, as of 2024-03-19, I am still far from where I used to be in terms of walking and I have not had as much as a cup of coffee outside my home since last year, months ago. (Compared to several times a month pre-lockdown, as well as the rarer restaurant visit.). What if I, and so many others, had had more continuity in that I could have had a cup of coffee every once in a while, instead of an endless draft of nothing at all?

(There is also an overlap, as I often used to walk, say, three miles in the one direction, have a rest in a café, and then walk back. The lack of open cafés thus contributed to breaking my walking habits. Similar overlap and interaction between factors is common, e.g. in that a permanent closing of cafés can lead to fewer opportunities for that cup of coffee, which makes potential customers less likely to take walks, which reduces the number of café visitors, which can lead to the permanent closing of more cafés, etc.)

Nothing new under the sun

The more I read about history in various forms, the more I see that problems that seem, in some sense, “recent”, “modern”, whatnot, have a disturbingly long history. (With similar remarks applying to positive things, but these are of less interest to me.)

This includes a great many issues in and around politics, be it faulty government, various forms of capture, poor economics, whatnot.

A particular range of cases relate to the Left, where I sometimes have the impression that the main change is not in what problems appear, but in how large the problems have become after the Left has accumulated political victories, pushed goal posts, shifted Overton windows, increased further what should be minimized and decreased further what should be maximized, etc.

A good example mentioned in earlier writings is Feminism and how it was “never not rotten” (a phrase borrowed from a linked-to text that goes into depth on this issue), as well as a similarly themed text on Ellen Key.

For another example, consider the extensive treatment by Henry Hazlitt of problems with welfare states and, more generally, systems with a “the government pays for the poor” mentality in “The Conquest of Poverty”. (In all fairness, the motivations have sometimes been more opportunistic than Leftist, but, even here, the current Left insists on pushing something that has always failed.)

A personal speculation of potentially great importance (but where I have yet to do sufficiently in-depth readings), is that much of the current (and likely, in the plural, past) incarnation of the Left is explainable as a continuation or reappearance of an over-focus on “emotionality” (for want of a better word) that stretches back through history, manifested e.g. in Orphic/Dionysic cults in Ancient Greece and in the 19th-century Romantic movement. More generally, human motivations, human mentality, whatnot, have changed much less than the surrounding society and this tends to be reflected in political, societal, religious, etc., manifestations and developments.

The last paragraph also points to strong similarities between the Left and religious thought/methods/developments/whatnot (as I have noted repeatedly in the past), and it can pay to look for a certain problem not just in the history of politics but in the history of religion. This, in particular, for the Left. Consider issues like fanaticism, extreme intolerance against “heretics”, a prioritization of faith over reason and facts (“credo ut intelligam”), belief in (quasi-)holy books and (quasi-)prophets, etc. However, issues outside the Left are often present, especially when we move into the borderline area of “church politics”. (And portions of the history of the Catholic Church, in particular, sometimes have more to do with secular politics than with matters religious.)

The idea of “nothing new under the sun” is it self not new: Latin has a direct equivalent (“nihil sub sole novum”) and it could conceivably have been imported even in Latin. It is also it self an example of something recurring in variations over time, as with “the same old story”, “history repeats it self”, and the French “plus ça change, plus c’est le même chose”.

A particularly sad case is Santayana’s proverbial claim that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it—almost everyone seems to know it but hardly anyone heeds it. This, in turn, is a major reason for why so many “recent” problems have such a long history.

The idea, however, is older than Santayana, which brings us to a final frustration: over time, a great many have warned, cautioned, advised, upbraided, whatnot that, e.g., “X will not work” and “Y will lead to disaster”—in vain. Usually, they have been Cassandras even in their own day, and a generation later, or in the next country over, they have either been unknown or, like Santayana, seen lip-service, while yet another group warns, cautions, advises, and upbraids in vain.

Flawed theories based on pre-chosen principles

I have repeatedly made the observation that this-or-that well known (admired, influential, whatnot) book (author, theory, system of thought, system of explanations, whatnot) does not live up to its reputation—and often because it tries to explain everything with a set of underlying principles that are taken for granted. (At least one prior text deals with a concrete example: The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

While I have not investigated this in detail, I strongly suspect that the underlying principles are chosen for poor reason and the observations then bent to fit the resulting theory/model. In some cases, we might not just have a faulty set of principles but principles that might have no real-life equivalent, no equivalent at that level of abstraction/explanation, and/or no equivalent with an explanatory value that extensive.

Looking at historical developments, this might be the single most important thing that sets science apart from various earlier philosophical speculations, meta-physics, religious takes on nature, etc. For instance, because the circle was considered the ideal shape, the trajectories of planets “should” be circles, according to some old thinkers. In combination with geocentrism, also potentially influenced by what “should” be, this brought on absurdly complicated systems of calculations and epicycles—and the result was still unsatisfactory. Modern scientists base their theories on observations, try to fit the theories to the facts, try to find theories that are economical in explaining observations (as opposed to determined by a pre-observation “should”), etc.

The move away from this gave us the natural sciences. Later, various other sciences arose, often with an aspiration to emulate the natural sciences. However, these, especially in the realm of the social sciences, usually took a step backwards, put (often ideologically driven) “shoulds” in the center, ignored facts and observations, interpreted facts and observations to fit the “shoulds”, etc. The result was large fields of mostly poor or pseudo- science that often did more harm than good—especially, because they were taken to be the peers of the natural sciences by far too many. In reality, they might have more in common with old philosophy than with modern science.

In my own observations, those historians, economists, sociologists, etc., who keep a firm eye on facts and observations tend to deliver useful material, while those who go by “shoulds” usually (!) end up with quackery. I would strongly advice anyone reading materials from such fields to be very cautious, take everything (non-factual) said with several grains of salt, question whether the reasoning used makes sense, check whether claimed conclusions actually match reality, etc. This applies doubly in fields with a strong (usually: Leftist) ideological drive, like sociology and gender-studies.

A perverse approach to costs and services

Politicians, government services, whatnot, often have a perverse approach to costs and services:

If there is a surplus, the message is “Great news, citizen! We can extend our services for you!”.

If there is a deficit, the message is “Bad news, citizen: in order to keep our services up, we have to raise your taxes [fees, whatnots].”.

Consider what long-term developments we have with this attitude and would have with one that went in the other direction, be it in a mere neutralizing manner (turning one of the two around to either lower taxes in the first case or reduce services in the second) or in a reversing manner (turning both around).

The current approach is particularly harmful because the citizens rarely have any opportunity to opt out, themselves choose less services for less money, or otherwise counter this perverse approach.

A similar issue can exist in the private sector, but is less dire exactly because the customer usually does have countermeasures, e.g. to jump to another provider of some service. Things can get very iffy in the overlap between the private and the public, however, as with German health-insurance companies, which can rely on (a) that everyone must be insured, which prevents customers from opting out entirely, (b) there being very high minimum rules for what must be covered, which prevents effective competition through better pricing and makes a switch of provider almost pointless to the customer. (Of course, German health insurance is not an insurance at all, but that is a different topic.)

A perverse approach to costs and services II

Overlapping with the above, there is a common issue with (usually, government imposed) mechanisms that hinder competition over price, which forces various businesses to compete by offering more services (often of a low-relevance kind) or through some mechanism that does more harm than good, or prevents them from meaningful competition. In a next step, these additional services and whatnots can increase the pressure for a higher price further, e.g. with politicians being lobbied with arguments like “We barely make a profit! We need higher prices to survive! Think of the poor consumers, should we go out of business!”.

German health insurance is one example (cf. above). German bookstores another (retail prices of books are fixed by the publisher and identical for all stores). German taxis yet another (prices are fixed by the county (?) and identical for all taxis). Health insurers, then, compete by forcing in additional (usually, low value) services within the same price, e.g. coverage of homeopathic quackery. Bookstores can compete by means like having a coffee shop, but not by e.g. having a low-price orientation. (Which gives the large chains a massive advantage, as they have the resources and floorspace for coffee shops.) Taxi companies, as far as I can tell, compete mostly through having more cars and getting a larger slice of a fix cake, with an enormous waste as a result. Competing with e.g. a better car or more pleasant drivers is largely pointless, as passengers at airports and train stations (and, maybe, elsewhere too) are obliged to pick the first car from a queue shared by all companies.

A potentially related issue, if largely unpolitical, is the drive to justify a high price of something through additional features, services, whatnot, which can drive the price up further. For instance, all other factors equal, a bigger TV costs more than a smaller TV, both for the manufacturer to produce and for the customer to buy. To give customers incentives to pick the bigger TV, it might be given extra bells and whistles not given to the smaller (or, worse, the smaller might be artificially “de-belled”). While the additional cost of these is usually small relative the overall cost/price, it does increase the cost and adds further upwards pressure on the price relative that “all other factors equal” situation.

On good and bad Utilitarianism

Utilitarian reasoning can be very valuable, but it is also extremely dangerous and can often be used to give a (pseudo-)justification for true atrocities. This especially when we enter the area of “the greater good”, “the needs of the many”, whatnot—especially, in combination with force exerted on others.

At least (!) three distinctions between good and bad Utilitarianism are needed to avoid such traps.

Firstly, the difference between applying Utilitarian reasoning to one’s own actions for oneself and to e.g. the actions of the government and actions directly or indirectly imposed on or affecting others through the government.

Consider, for an excellent example, Spock’s self-sacrificial attitude and claim that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. As a justification for laying down one’s own life, as Spock did, it is perfectly valid. As a justification for forcing someone else to lay down his life, it is an abomination.

Secondly, the difference between actions that are reasonably likely to benefit everyone and those that merely blindly maximize, e.g., happiness in the overall population with no regard for the individual and the negatives that the minority might incur. (This overlaps with the idea of Pareto effectiveness.)

Take an action that would give most of those affected more of some good, give a very small minority less, and leave the rest at roughly their original level, while keeping the “who gets what” reasonably random. (Consider the use of a budget surplus to lower taxes, with both a direct effect through the lowering and an indirect through the chance at greater growth.) Contrast this with an action that would take from a specifically chosen group in order to enrichen others—even should the latter form a larger group than the former. (Consider increasing taxes on the minority to hand out to the majority.)

Thirdly, the difference between combining Utilitarian thinking with other factors and going blindly by Utilitarianism. Such other factors can include who has or has not some existing right, who is more or less deserving of a certain effect, and similar. (The exact factors will obviously depend on the case at hand.)

As additional, if off-topic, cautions:

The measure to maximize must be chosen wisely. For instance, money is a highly imperfect proxy for happiness and well-being, and anyone wishing to maximize one of the latter two should be cautious about focusing on money. For instance, different individuals can value some given good differently, making a mere counting of goods, goods per person, and/or persons with goods naive. For instance, diminishing returns can make a large increase in a proxy misleading.

Whatever decision is made must consider potential long-term effects and side-effects that can make a seemingly Utilitarian decision turn non- or anti-Utilitarian. (To return to Spock, we might well have a situation where one Spock provides more value than a handful of red-shirts. Losing Spock to save them now might lead to the entire Enterprise being lost at a later time, for want of a Spock. Likewise, a selective tax increase for purposes of redistribution can have effects like a lowering of growth, which ultimately might harm even those intended to benefit.)