by Michael Munger, AIRERJune 5, 2024.
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This seems like a paradox. The commercial system has delivered, consistently and widely distributed to all people. Yet participating in a system where one plans, saves, invests, and creates an individual’s “pursuit of happiness” bypasses the very people who should be seizing all the new opportunities the system opens up.
I think the explanation of the puzzle is simple: All that is difficult has been banished. Just as our immune system needs threats to mature and fend off attacks on itself, our sense of commercial success must face challenges, and overcome those challenges, in order to mature into a successful citizen.
Children are told that they can do anything, that they are powerful and important. But they never experience daily effort and failure; In fact, they are urged to avoid anything that might “wake” them up, or enable them to play or act on their own, as has been written by writers from Jonathan Haidt, mentioned above, to Lenore Skenazy. So young people are filled with anxiety: If they do anything short of curing cancer or becoming a US Senator, they’ve failed. But they don’t know how to build a birdhouse out of scrap wood. They don’t know how to fix a toilet, or how to change the inner tube on their $6,000 mountain bike. They cannot help themselves, but are charged with a heightened sense of destiny and self-worth.
DRH’s comment when I read this: One of my proudest experiences at the Naval Postgraduate School happened one afternoon about 15 years ago when I saw a distinguished professor (and by contrast, I mean he was gray-haired and old-looking, which I’m looking at now) in the parking lot of a flat tire. I asked him if he wanted me to help. He did so. I hadn’t changed a tire in over 30 years, but I remembered all the right steps, and we were both off in less than 15 minutes.
DRH’s comments now: I hesitate to challenge Michael’s views because, after all, he is closer to the younger readers than I am. So my 5 counterexamples will probably seem weak, tied as they are by choice. The local organization I’m involved with, called the California Arts and Science Institute (CASI) had an event for young people–everyone from grade schoolers to college students–last Wednesday. My friend Francois Melese spoke to three of them; I talked to two of them—two of mine are in college, one is at Monterey Peninsula College and the other is at UC Berkeley. I came away very impressed, as did Francois. I know the dangers of fairy tales. What I can say is that the danger of going with Mike Munger’s opinion is that you may think that there is no need to show yourself at events like this.
by Roger Pielke, Jr. Trusted SellerMay 20, 2024.
Democrats – not all, but most – have left the IPCC behind in favor of an extreme view of climate and extreme events. Republicans — not all, but most — find themselves more aligned with the IPCC’s findings on climate and extreme events. Similarly, I would think that explains why in recent years I have been invited to testify for Republicans.4
Of course, agreeing with the IPCC (or not) says little about policy preferences. Democrats have always been the party that advocates for climate policy action and Republicans have always been the least supportive. Of course, the main question here is, What action? I’ve long argued that there are unexplored opportunities for greater bipartisan support for pragmatic energy and adaptation policies that can accelerate decarbonization and reduce risk — but that’s a topic for another day.
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The Stanford Classical Liberals had Roger speak on Zoom last month. Very impressive.
by John V. Walsh, antiwar.comMay 27, 2024.
Sometimes a book is persuasive not only because its arguments make sense but also because of who the author is. It would not be surprising to come across a book written by a socialist or a Sinophile taking the false picture of China that adorns the US media. But Joseph Solis-Mullen, author of The Fake China Threat And Its Very Real Danger, he is not a socialist or a Sinophile.
Solis-Mullen is a free agent in the formation of Randolph Bourne and Justin Raimondo. Therefore, he is considered a participant in our impoverished political taxonomy. But his book is not written to appeal to people of any political opinion. It was written with only one thing in mind, the interest of the American people and, dare I say, humanity as a whole, including China. So it is of great help to people of all political stripes who feel that our people are being held captive by false threats from China. It may answer your questions about China or those of your friends in ways that are understandable to the average American.
Comment: I am not completely discounting the threat from China but I think it has gone too far. Indeed, if they are trying to threaten us with trade, they have a strange way of doing it, namely, that their taxpayers give us money in the form of unsubsidized exports. As Milton Friedman once said, “Why should we reject foreign aid?” Especially when foreign aid is given to consumers rather than our wasteful governments.
by Christopher J. Snowdon, Quillette, June 6, 2024.
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The main assumption at the heart of Orwell’s political writings from the mid-1930s was that capitalism was about to disappear and would probably be replaced by tonitarian socialism of the kind it was heralded for. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Despite his disdain for capitalism, Orwell saw the world as caught between a rock and a hard place. He wrote in 1944: “Capitalism leads to crowded lines, competition for markets, and wars.” “Segregation leads to concentration camps, worshiping leaders and wars.” The only alternative, in his mind, was a planned economy that preserved democracy and allowed individual freedom, but he became increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for his liberal product of what he called social democracy as the 1940s progressed. Indeed, he saw “there is no practical way to achieve it.”
This explains why he was so depressed about the world’s prospects in the last years of his life and why he decided to write Nineteen Eighty-Four. But he was wrong. Capitalism he did to survive, the subsequent communist revolutions went the same way as the USSR, and Orwell’s version of democratic democracy was not needed to prevent global totalitarianism. It turned out that it was not a straightforward choice between democratic socialism and communist (or fascist) dictatorship. There was a third way.
The quote from 1944, by the way, comes from his review of two books, one of which was a book by Friedrich Hayek. The Road to Serfdom.
Judge Napolitano, Judging FreedomYouTube, June 5, 2024.
Ritter talks about three US government agents who took him off a flight to Russia and stole, without explanation, his passport. They did not tell him who sent them, and when asked, they told him that the way to get his stolen property back was to contact the State Department.
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