Getting too Worked Up

 

There are stories in the news about people breaking with friends or even relatives over displeasure with which candidate and party they favor in tomorrow’s election. This strikes me as being both wrong and a little nutty. Yet it seems to happen a lot. (I experienced a mild version of it in early 2017 after Trump became president. A relative ordered me out of his house, not for voting for Trump, which I had not, but for joking about Trump. Apparently to him Trump was so dark an evil as to make humor or levity on the subject too inappropriate or immoral to tolerate. That was strange and not profitable for any concerned.) It is not only that a person’s voting preferences are not the most important thing about him. It is that they usually are among the far less important things about him and a truly asinine criterion for judging him as a human being. It is a corrosive thing to see politics as more important than it is, to make it determinative of one’s opinions of others and even one’s outlook on life. It’s just politics after all. In this election we have two lousy candidates, one of whom will win and do some bad things. It matters, but we are lucky to live in a country where it does not matter that much. The country’s culture, principles, and people are far more important and far better than its politicians and government. Regardless of which of the two losers wins the election, the country and the republic will abide. People on both sides who are giving apocalyptic warnings about the other side should look around, calm down, and see that. They are not doing us any good.

Strange at the Bulwark

 

Despite the claims of being committed to defending liberal democracy without tribal loyalties or partisan prejudices, for a long time the work of the Bulwark mainly has been shilling for the Democrats. Lately its writers have gone well beyond that to something pretty nearly Manichean.

Today there was a silly piece on the site condemning libertarians for the sin of “bothsideism” (that is, accurately recognizing that there are threats to liberty from both Republicans and Democrats) and not automatically throwing in with the Dems as all right thinking people should.

Other writers at the Bulwark have been equating voting for Trump to favoring authoritarianism, fascism or, lately, actual Hitlerism, and seeing it as evidence of something frightening and “dark” in the people who will do it. This of course is nuts. Millions of people will vote for Trump despite not liking him or even disliking him, because they see him as less bad than the leftist alternative. And among the ones who do like him, I would guess that the number of them wanting a right wing authoritarian state is smaller than the number of Democrat voters wanting a Marxist one.

It is all a little strange. It’s a political campaign, for gosh sake, not Armageddon. Maybe part of what is going on at the Bulwark is just panic over the increasing likelihood that Trump will win. It surely is not good for the country. I think either Trump or Harris would be a bad president, but I do not plan to anathematize people who vote for either of them. We are all still Americans, and the partisan fanatics and tribalists at the Bulwark should stop seeing half of us as children of darkness. Besides, it makes them sound a whole lot like Trump at his craziest and nastiest.

How I Will Vote

 

I dislike Donald Trump. I have never voted for him in either a primary or a general election. I have written some very harsh things about him, and I still believe them. I wanted the senate to convict him after the second impeachment in 2021. I wanted the Republicans to move on from him after he left office in disgrace. I wanted Jack Smith to convict him of one of his crimes. I wanted DeSantis or Haley to defeat him for the Republican nomination. I wanted the Democrats to replace Biden as their nominee with a moderate rather than a leftist. I still wish any of those things had happened.

But none of them did. So now we get to choose between Trump and Harris as to which would be the lesser evil (which is a different question from which of them is the less bad human being or the lesser fool). The choice is not an obvious one, but I think it is likely that the country would be better off and suffer less with a Trump administration than a Harris one.

There are issues on which each of them is better or less bad than the other. However, on the important issues of national defense, illegal immigration, personal freedom, the economy, and siding with Israel and civilization and against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and barbarism, Trump and the Republicans are better than Harris and the Democrats. A Trump administration would be likely to be harder on our enemies and to move America’s armed forces away from spending time and effort on various irrelevant or even harmful leftist fads and causes and make them more nearly fully directed toward the crucial mission of deterring and, if necessary, defeating the country’s enemies. Trump would try to  restrict illegal immigration, while Harris probably would keep things much as they are now. On personal freedom, Trump and the Republicans would be likely to restrain federal bureaucrats, cut at least some regulations, and generally make Americans a little freer to live their lives as they like, while Harris and the Democrats would be likely to do the opposite. (Some point to abortion as an exception to this, but as a practical matter, abortion is moot at the federal level. The filibuster is not going away, and there will not be sixty votes in the senate for new laws restricting abortion. The issue will stay with the states.) Trump has some bad economic schemes, but overall, Harris’s are worse. Finally, the Republicans mainly are clear that in the present conflict Israel is right and should win decisively, and its enemies are wrong and should lose disastrously. Too many Democrats including Harris are “nuanced” or worse on that.

While both want to do things I think are seriously wrong, Trump would have the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies, and  the traditional media working against him as he tried to do some of the bad things he  wants to do, while Harris would have the same people working with and for her as she tried to do some of the bad things she  wants to do. Because of that she probably is more capable of doing harm than he is.

So I will vote for Trump. I don’t like it. I am displeased with the stupid voters in Republican primaries for putting me and the country in this predicament. But I’ll do it. It won’t be fun, but I’ll do it.

Finishing the Job

 

The Israeli armed forces have begun a land campaign on Lebanon against Hezbollah. This war and their continuing war against Hamas in Gaza are conflicts of civilization against savagery and barbarism. Americans should be unequivocally for Israel in this war and against the savages. I would guess most of us are. However, our government is not. In Gaza the Biden administration has advocated consistently for an end to the fighting that would leave Hamas surviving as a functional organization, an outcome which would be a strategic victory for Hamas and Iran. In Lebanon it has pushed for restraint and diplomacy at a time when Israel seems to be in a good position to eradicate the menace of Hezbollah, a diplomatic outcome which would deprive Israel of a needed victory and leave Hezbollah in place, dangerous, and functioning. Here at home Biden and Harris have treated pro- Hamas, antisemitic, anti-civilization leftist as very fine people, and officials have appeared less concerned about attacks on and threats against American Jews than about conservative parents getting uppity at school board meetings.

The whole thing is disgraceful, and, for Harris, disqualifying. I hope the Israelis ignore our officials and get the job done fully and decisively both for themselves and the rest of us.

Cheney and Kennedy

 

When Robert Kennedy went against his political party and endorsed Trump, Democrat party flacks in the traditional media denounced him as a political traitor. When Dick Cheney went against his political party and endorsed Harris, Democrat party flacks in the traditional media praised him for his courage and independence.

When Robert Kennedy went against his political party and endorsed Trump, Republican party flacks in the conservative media praised him for his courage and independence. When Dick Cheney went against his political party and endorsed Harris, Republican party flacks in the conservative media denounced him as a political traitor.

I think both Kennedy and Cheney deserve some respect for what they did. Neither had much or anything to gain by doing it. Each of them would have done just fine keeping his mouth shut. Each probably knew he would be attacked by former friends, colleagues, and even, in Kennedy’s case, by relatives. Whatever else you think of them, they both showed some nerve.

It probably is easier for me than for some people to appreciate both of them, because I agree with both of them in their negative opinions. Kennedy is right that Harris should not become president. Cheney is right that Trump should not become president.

Harris and Trump

 

The last nominee for president from either major party who met even minimal criteria for knowledge, experience, character, intelligence, and fidelity to the Constitution was Mitt Romney in 2012. Since then things have been bleak, and this year we have Trump and Harris. The question for voters in this election is not which of them should become president. The clear answer is that neither of them should. The question is which of them is likely to do less harm.

Both have authoritarian tendencies, Harris from leftist ideology and Trump from non-ideological power mania. Both have authoritarian leaning running mates (though to be fair, both Vance and Walz had different opinions when it was expedient for them and so may be just ordinary lying political scoundrels at heart). On foreign policy Harris is too soft on Hamas and Iran in Gaza, while Trump is too soft on Putin in Ukraine. Both are a little vague on dealing with the strategic threat from China. Trump has talked about the need for strong and unequaled armed forces and is probably better than Harris on national defense. (At least he seems unlikely to appoint people who write about the need for “queerness” in nuclear policy to important positions dealing with nuclear policy.) On illegal immigration Trump wants to deport too many people, while Harris wants to keep the southern border effectively wide open. On economic issues, Trump’s worst scheme is for a huge increase in tariffs and restriction on international trade. Harris’s bad ideas include price controls, taxes on unrealized capital gains, dictating what sort of vehicles and appliances people can buy, race and gender quotas, and generally a more powerful and robust regulatory bureaucracy, especially on green issues. Neither of them has a serious plan for reducing or eliminating the annual federal deficit. While bad enough, Trump’s plans here are less harmful.

Both have well earned reputations as ignorant, arrogant, dishonest, power hungry, repulsive people who cannot be trusted. But bad as Harris is, she never tried to overthrow the government or called for overturning the Constitution, things which should have disqualified Trump from holding any elected office in the United States. On the evidence she is the less bad human being.

It is a truism of strategic analysis that one should consider not only the enemy’s intentions but, also and especially, its capabilities. It is likely that Harris’s capability for doing bad things is far greater than Trump’s. Trump would have the traditional media, the federal bureaucracy, the intelligence agencies, and most of the country’s big money and large tech companies working against him. Harris would have the same people mainly working for her, giving her a higher likelihood of getting what she wants done. That is major point in Trump’s favor, though it is a little saddening to have to evaluate presidential candidates the way one does hostile foreign nations.

Though I dislike saying it and thought I never would say it, if I had to vote for one of them today, I would vote for Trump. But I surely don’t like it and surely respect the opinions of those who see Trump administration as likely to be worse than a Democrat one. Before Gaza and the selection of Harris, I did too. I do have trouble respecting the opinions of people who think either of them is hot stuff. They both are bad news.

Harris, Shapiro, and Walz

 

Mr. Taggart: I got it! I know how we can run everyone out of Rock Ridge.

Hedley Lamarr: How?

Mr. Taggart: We’ll kill the firstborn male child in every household.

Hedley Lamarr: Too Jewish.

-Blazing Saddles

So apparently was Josh Shapiro. On the evidence Kamala Harris and the Democrats were set before the weekend to select Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania as their candidate for vice president. They announced that there would be a big kickoff event for their ticket Tuesday in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania is a state that a Democrat pretty much has to win to become president. Shapiro is very popular there, and people thought that having him on the ticket might swing the state away from Trump. He is also what passes for a moderate among Democrats these days and might have helped with some voters who would be wary of a hard leftist such as Harris. The selection seemed obvious to lots of people, an easy slam dunk of a decision.

It probably would have been except for one thing. Shapiro is a Jew, and not only a Jew but a Jew who supports Israel in its war against Hamas. The best guess is that that outraged the party’s pro-Hamas leftists enough that Harris found it necessary to drop him and choose instead a leftist governor who seems to add nothing to her chances of winning.

If so, the antisemitism it shows is not even the worst thing about it. The war in Gaza is not only a conflict between Israel and Hamas’s savages. It also is part of a world wide struggle between liberal civilization and its illiberal and barbarous enemies in China, Russia, Iran, and elsewhere. If Harris and her party are too afraid of, or worse sympathetic to, those who side with the savage and the barbarous to do not only the right but even the apparently politically expedient thing, it says a lot about her and the entire party.

Pressuring Judges

Many years ago on road trips with my parents, I would see billboards along the highway reading “Save our Republic. Impeach Earl Warren.” They were put up by members of the John Birch Society who disliked some of the Warren court’s legal opinions and saw him as in league with or at least enabling communists in the United States. There was never any chance that Warren would be impeached, and it seems likely that many of the Birchers knew it. Probably the idea was to stir up hostility to the court and pressure it to take a different direction in its rulings.

This week Joe Biden announced proposals for term limits for justices on the supreme court. Since this would require a constitutional amendment, there is no chance that it will happen, and it is likely that even Biden knows it. Probably the idea is to stir up hostility to the court and pressure it to take a different direction in its rulings.

Making political threats against judges whose opinions one dislikes is a bad idea. There are good reasons the constitution established a judiciary independent of and equal to the legislative and executive branches of government. The Birchers were a bunch of cranks that few people took seriously. Biden is the president of the United States with many members of his party supporting his scheme. It is almost enough to make a person take the cynical view that Democrats and their public relations people in the traditional media might not be sincere in their bleating about saving democracy and preserving guardrails and restoring norms of political conduct, but only pretending for political advantage.

 

Ford

 

According to the news Ford is making billions each year on its gasoline powered pickups and SUVs and losing billions each year on its electric vehicles. So this week the CEO of Ford was reported as proposing a solution to his problem. Americans need to stop wanting the gas powered pickups and SUVs and make the sacrifice of switching to electric vehicles, and not just any electric vehicles but small, cheap ones so that Ford can compete internationally with the cheap electric vehicles coming out of China. One might think a better solution would be for Ford to try to produce vehicles its customers in each market want, whether large gas burning pickups and SUVs here or something else in other places.

It is well known that people advocating free economies, free markets, and free choice often cannot count on corporate weasels for help or even agreement, but a person would think the head of Ford might favor things that make money for Ford. He and others in the industry are under pressure and orders from the government to make and push electric vehicles and “transition” away from making the things customers want, but it is still a free country. He does not have to crawl on his belly and mouth the party line. He could speak out against it and for his customers and employees. It might even do some good.

I plan to take him at his word. If he does not want me to like or want a gas powered Ford pickup or SUV, I won’t. I will take my business elsewhere. There are plenty of other choices. It would serve him right if his loyal customers did the same.

Trouble at the Debate

 

A couple of things went very wrong Thursday for the people running the country. The first and most obvious is that millions of people saw directly that Joe Biden is in some stage of at least intermittent dementia and is not qualified to serve as president. The second is that millions of people who might not have thought about it before got pretty clear evidence that they had been lied to consistently about Biden’s condition by people in the traditional media.

Such lying is fairly typical behavior for many in that business. They lied for years about the origin of the Covid epidemic. They lie about apocalyptic claims on climate change. They lied about the riots in the summer of 2020. They lie about conditions on the Mexican border. They lie about critical race theory, DEI, BLM, “systematic racism”, and anti-white bigotry. They lie about the politicization of the FBI and the DOJ. They lie about the war in Gaza. They lied about Hunter Biden. They even lie a little about Donald Trump, which is silly since there is plenty of true stuff to go after there. What is not typical is getting caught at it so fully red handed by so many people.

They are important supporters of and public relations agents for the Democratic party and the bureaucratic state. To be effective they have to be believed. Public skepticism is the main danger for them. What happened on Thursday night should have made and probably did make for more skeptics.

Jerry West

 

One of the things that remind a man he is getting old is seeing the great players of his boyhood die off. There was another one today – Jerry West. Bill Russell and Jim Brown went in the last couple of years. Mantle, Musial, Williams, Unitas, Aaron, Berra, and most of the rest have been gone a while. Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and Oscar Robertson are the only ones I can think of who are still alive, and they are very old men. And we boys who followed them and collected their cards in the 1950s and early 60s are old enough.

Jerry West was special – a great offensive player whom Russell rated as also a great defensive player. He was one of my favorites. I still remember vividly how good he was.

Pride in June

 

The first week of June is a very important one in the history of the armed forces of the United States. Between June 4^th and 6^th,1942  an outnumbered and outgunned American naval force defeated the Japanese navy at Midway in the most decisive and historically important naval battle since Trafalgar, ending Japan’s offensive in the Pacific. On June 6^th,1944, American forces landed in Normandy, securing their beachhead and beginning the great campaign leading to the destruction of Nazi Germany.

It’s a free country, and people can select what they want to be proud of and when they want to show their pride. For me this June, it will be the armed forces of the United States from the time of the revolution to the present. This year is the 80^th anniversary of the invasion in Normandy. I have read that there are major commemorations every five years on June 6^th , and that this year’s may be the last one with any veterans of the battle attending. We should honor and be proud of them and their valor especially.

Trump's Conviction

 

Statement A:

Donald Trump is a man who is unfit for any public office in the United States. He is an arrogant, vulgar, bullying, graceless, power mad ignoramus, and he doesn’t hide the fact. From December 14^th 2000 to January 6^th ,2001, he functioned as an enemy of the republic, conspiring and attempting to overthrow the government and remain in power illegally and unconstitutionally. The rally and riot of January 6^th had no other purpose. His order to Pence to change the results of the election was by itself an attempted coup. In 2022 he called in writing for overturning the Constitution and returning him to power immediately. He has made it plain recently that the only thing he regrets about the coup is that if failed. He is erratic to the point of instability, and apparently incapable of strategic thought beyond superficial transactional considerations.

Statement B:

The basis for the indictment of Trump in New York was farcically weak. The prosecutor was a Democrat party hack and scoundrel who acted for purely political reasons. The judge was another party man clearly biased in favor of the prosecution. There is evidence that the Biden administration was involved in the case in an attempt to ruin the leading candidate of the opposition party. The whole thing was a travesty and miscarriage of justice that Trump’s supporters have rightly called worthy of a banana republic. It also created a dangerous precedent, made millions of people more convinced that the ruling establishment is both corrupt and their enemy, and weakened the civil order.

These statements are not mutually exclusive. Both can be true, and I think they are. People celebrating this should be ashamed. They also should realize that from now on it is going to be harder to take their homilies about democracy and the sanctity of the rule of law very seriously. Besides that,  the thing probably will not even work. Unless the judge sends Trump to jail and keeps him from functioning as a candidate, it likely has raised the probability of Trump winning in November. If he does win, and this helps him do it, it would serve the people who did it right.

Five Days of Helicopter Jokes

 

Iran’s president, the butcher of Tehran, Raisi has died in a helicopter crash. Iran’s dictator has decreed five days of mourning in his honor. At the suggestion of the artist formerly known as Iowahawk, Americans are celebrating with five days of helicopter jokes. I have seen several good ones at various places, but my favorite so far is the following:

“As Allah as my witness, I thought Iranian presidents could fly.”

In the spirit of the thing and after reading the administration’s disgusting statement of condolence to Iran, I will quote the following more appropriate reaction from an anonymous, highly placed pentagon source, straight from the war room beside the big board:

“If I may speak freely, the raghead talks big, but frankly, we think he’s short of know how. I mean, you just can’t expect a bunch of ignorant goat humpers to understand a machine like some of our boys.”

Jokes aside, there should have been no condolences, and certainly no prayer about the murdering scum in the senate. People should be glad he is dead and and willing to say so.

Call It Too Close to Call

 

In most elections voting (other than some protest voting) requires deciding which bad candidate is less bad. With the Republicans picking Trump, and the Democrats sticking with Biden, that surely is the situation this year. Neither of them should be elected president, but unless something surprising happens, one of them will be. I have thought that, bad as Biden is, Trump is enough worse that it was clear who was the lesser evil, and Biden should be reelected. I believed that while still respecting the opinions of people who think the plans and policies of the Republicans are better than those of the Democrats or see the green left, the bigoted DEI left, and the anti-civilization pro-Hamas left for what they are want a bulwark against them or figure they should pick the scoundrel likely to do them less direct harm and so favor Trump.

Now I am not sure, because of what has happened in the last few weeks. In the war in Gaza Israel is right and should win, and Hamas’s savages are wrong and should lose. Seven months ago Biden seemed to know that. Now he does not and has betrayed an ally in wartime. The betrayal goes beyond the disgraceful public carping and refusal to give Israel needed munitions. He and his administration effectively have switched sides by advocating for the wrong outcome of the war. If Hamas survives as a capable force, the war will have been a strategic victory for it and its masters in Iran. An end of the fighting without Israel finishing Hamas off in Rafah would produce that result. The savages would have won, and civilization would have lost. Yet that is what Biden and his administration favor. Meanwhile Trump, who I feared would abandon Ukraine, did not go on the warpath against the speaker’s plan to give more weapons and munitions to that country, giving some reason for hope he would show some sense there.

Right now if people asked me who in this race would be less bad for the country, I could not give them an answer. The best recommendation I could make would be to watch both of the scoundrels until November and hope something happens to make the right choice clear, as I thought it was a while back. (As I have written before,  my plan  now is not to vote for either of them, but most people won't see that as an option and will settle on one or the other.)

The Bulwark and the Shark

 

The Bulwark is usually worth reading. Its mainly accurate coverage of Trump and its articles on other subjects are often well written and informative. However, it is possible to jump the shark even with Trump, and lately its writers have. A few days ago there was a piece suggesting with no evidence that the judge in Trump’s case in Florida will make a few rulings in favor of the prosecution to make sure she can stay on the case and then dismiss the charges with prejudice when the trial started, letting Trump skate. There have been articles characterizing the coming election as one in which the survival of democracy in America is at stake – warning that Trump would destroy the republic and that there might be no more elections after this one with Trump ruling by decree. That goes too far and frightens people unnecessarily - confusing what he might want to do with what he would be capable of doing. It may also help Trump. If it happens, a second Trump term will be bad, but it will not be the end of the world or the end of the republic. Pretending it would makes it easier for Trump’s defenders in the conservative media to argue to voters that the warnings about him, including the many appropriate ones, are just wild hyperbole from panicky Democrats.

It is also counterproductive to attack voters who favor or may favor Trump. Insulting people usually is not the best way to persuade them to consider your point of view. Today Mona Charen equated people supporting Trump to those supporting Hamas’s murderous savages. Other articles have insulted Trump voters as ignorant rustics too stupid to know what is good for them (“Cletus” and “Lurleen”), something not only vulgarly condescending to rural people but clearly false. If only country people, smart or otherwise, supported Trump, he would not be leading in the polls. There are too few of them. I cannot vote for Trump, but I understand that people can have good reasons for doing so. Some simply believe that the plans and policies of the Republicans are better than those of the Democrats. They may know Trump is a power hungry scoundrel, but note correctly that lots of politicians are power hungry scoundrels and decide to ignore it. Some see the green left, the bigoted DEI left, and the anti-civilization pro-Hamas left for what they are and favor Trump and the Republicans as a bulwark against them and the harm they want to do to the country. Some are very unhappy with inflation and the open southern border. Comparing him to Biden, some just see Trump as the lesser evil. Instead of attacking the voters, people at the Bulwark should urge the Democrats to move to the center, with or without Biden. The Dems probably won’t, but it would not hurt to tell them they should.

Two Old Tales for Tax Week

 

Here in tax week and apropos of nothing really, I recalled a couple of stories about citizen’s interactions with our nation’s public servants. The first was told to me twenty five or more years ago by a man who was old then and is probably long since dead now. I don’t recall his name, and so I’ll call him Smith. One day years before he told me the story, Smith and his wife were being rudely threatened and insulted in their home by a nasty IRS agent wearing a green sports jacket. At one point the agent turned to Smith and said “do your realize I can throw you in jail?”. Being something of a hard head, Smith replied “do you realize I can blow your brains out?”. The agent then left in a hurry. Smith then picked up the phone, called the local IRS office, and warned them that there was a man in a green sports jacket going around town impersonating an IRS agent and threatening people. According to Smith that was the end of affair, and he never heard any more from the IRS.

The second was told me over thirty years ago by a colleague named Bob. Bob lived out in the country in the plains of west Texas. He enjoyed guns and shooting and decided it would be fun to become gun dealer. He filed his application with the ATF, and eventually an agent named Chauncey showed up to interview him. He took Chauncey out to the small out building behind his house which he intended to use as his store. Bob had applied for an ordinary license to deal in sporting and personal arms, but somehow in the bureaucracy his application had been coded as one for a license to deal in weapons of war. When Chauncey asked Bob what he would be doing with a license to sell such weapons, Bob, instead of explaining the error, decided to have a little fun. He stepped outside and pointed to the flat plains around him and said “well I guess I’m not going to be selling them to the communists in the hills”. That was a mistake. Chauncey was not amused, but eventually the error was corrected, and Bod got his license.

I believe Bob’s story. It sounded just like him. I’m more skeptical of Mr. Smith’s tale, but both are interesting yarns.

Deciding How to Vote

 

I  usually have voted for Republicans for president. I have never voted for a Democrat. The closest I came to doing so was in 1976 when I almost voted for Carter but finally decided on Ford. I voted for the Libertarian candidate the first time I was eligible to vote (John Hospers as a write in in 1972) and in both of the last two elections, three votes I am still proud of given the other choice of Nixon, McGovern, Trump, Clinton, and Biden.

Once it became clear that Trump would be the Republican candidate, I thought about breaking my streak and voting for Biden, bad as he is, because Trump is so extraordinarily bad. I surely did not want to, but it seemed to be the right thing to do. I knew I believed the country would be better off if Trump lost. Then Biden decided to turn on Israel in its war against Hamas, and that, on top of all the rest that is wrong with him, brought me to my senses. I plan to sit out the presidential election, vote for the Libertarian, or write in Nikki Haley or Liz Cheney. I still think Biden is less bad than Trump and should defeat him, but I cannot vote for him. Sometimes the lesser evil is just too rough, and this year is one of those times.

Biden and Israel

 

As a matter of humanity and human sympathy the killing of seven innocent civilians in a mistaken attack by the Israeli armed forces was horrible. As a factor in deciding whether and how much the United States should side with Israel in its war against Hamas’s savages, it is irrelevant. Informed people know that horrible mistakes happen in war. (I have read that some GIs in World War II began calling the Ninth Air Force the American Luftwaffe after some of its mistaken attacks on American positions.) They also know there inevitably will be civilians killed in wars where civilians are present and especially in a war where the “fighters” on one side have made it a policy to hide among civilians. According to reports from experts, the Israeli armed forces have made extraordinary efforts to minimize casualties among civilians. That is all, and probably even more than, a reasonable person can request of them. In this war Israel is right and should win, and Hamas is wrong and should be destroyed.

Biden began well by siding unequivocally with Israel at the start of the war. Lately he and people in his administration began equivocating in an effort to appease voters in the pro-Hamas left. Now there are stories in the news suggesting that they may be moving away from supporting Israel. That would be a repugnant betrayal of not only a trusting ally but of the cause and values of liberal civilization. If they do not care about that, they should consider that it also could be a political mistake. Neither Biden nor Trump is an attractive candidate. Foreign policy has been one important point in Biden’s favor – especially given his generally good job on Ukraine and the fear that Trump might abandon Ukraine. If Biden turns against Israel, it could cause people to see him as being no more trustworthy on foreign policy than Trump and as throwing in again with the left, making a formerly fairly easy choice between him and Trump less so. It would me. Sitting this one out or a protest vote for the Libertarian might look pretty good. Sometimes the lesser evil is just too rough.

A Time for Hobson's Choosing

 

I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I had hoped Republican voters would come to their senses and nominate DeSantis or Haley. I had hoped Smith would get a conviction in one of his cases against Trump. I had hoped Biden would move toward the center, or the Democrats, fearing defeat, would replace him on their ticket with a moderate. None of it happened, and so here we are. Unless something very unusual happens, if they both stay alive for the next eight months, it will be Trump versus Biden in November.

Biden is a bad president. He is a dishonest, lying, unprincipled party hack and scoundrel, as his record over several decades makes obvious. He shows evidence of being in some stage of at least intermittent dementia. His administration has been mainly a leftist one. He and his administration are in bed with some really bad people on the green left and the bigoted DEI left, and recently have become more sympathetic toward the pro-Hamas left. If Biden is reelected and gets some of the things he wants, people’s lives would be worse. Electric power would become less reliable, and it would become harder or impossible to buy the car or appliances one would like. The problems coming from the immigration of too many poor and unskilled people into a welfare state would get worse. Higher taxes and more regulations would make the country poorer than it would be otherwise. Increased spending by the government would add more to the dangerously high federal debt. The nanny state would become more intrusive and obnoxious, and the IRS, the EPA, the FBI, and the rest of the gang more nearly unrestrained.

Then there is Donald Trump, a man who should never be considered for any public office in the United States. He is an arrogant, vulgar, bullying, graceless, power mad ignoramus, and he doesn’t hide the fact. From December 14^th 2000 to January 6^th ,2001, he functioned as an enemy of the republic, conspiring and attempting to overthrow the government and remain in power illegally and unconstitutionally. The rally and riot of January 6^th had no other purpose. His order to Pence to change the results of the election was by itself an attempted coup. In 2022 he called in writing for overturning the Constitution and returning him to power immediately. He has made it plain recently that the only thing he regrets about the coup is that if failed. He is erratic to the point of instability, and apparently incapable of strategic thought beyond superficial transactional considerations. His vice president has refused to support him for another term. Other serious and decent people who worked with him in his first administration have warned that he is dangerously unfit to serve. It is possible he would abandon Ukraine to Putin, effectively abandon NATO, and throw away much of our victory in the cold war. His vile demagoguery takes the country’s already low level of civility in politics lower. He has demanded full immunity from any crimes he might want to commit when back in office (including murdering political opponents according to his lawyers). He shows no sense of being or wanting to be bound by laws or the Constitution.

In 2016 P. J. O’Rourke argued for supporting Hillary Clinton on the grounds that, while she was wrong about almost everything, she was wrong within the ordinary boundaries of American politics, while Trump might do something really crazy and destructive. That summarizes the case for supporting Biden for those of us not  Democrats or leftists. The case for supporting Trump is that the plans and policies of the Republicans generally are less bad than those of the Democrats, and the hope that Trump would mainly follow those and be restrained from doing anything really crazy and destructive, likely producing a better outcome for the country than we would get with Biden.

It is truly a Hobson’s choice, and I can see good reasons for people deciding either way. There are serious people I respect who have picked Biden and others who have picked Trump. My choice based on what I know now is that the less bad choice is to elect Biden and work for Republican majorities in both houses to mitigate the damage he would do. But it is not a choice a person can be comfortable with.

The Coming Election

 

Joe Biden is a bad president. He is a dishonest, lying, unprincipled party hack and scoundrel, as his record over several decades makes obvious. He shows evidence of being in some stage of at least intermittent dementia. He and his administration are in bed with some really bad people on the green left and the bigoted DEI left. If he is reelected and gets some of the things he wants, it would make people’s lives worse. Electric power would become less reliable, and it would become harder or impossible to buy the car or appliances one would like. (If Biden wins, it might be a good idea to buy a backup generator, purchase and store for future use functional, affordable appliances while one can, and maybe trade for a new car a little sooner than usual and plan to keep it a long time.) The problems coming from the immigration of too many poor and unskilled people into a welfare state would get worse. Higher taxes and more regulations would make the country poorer than it would be otherwise. Increased spending by the government would add more to the dangerously high federal debt. The nanny state would become more intrusive and obnoxious, and the IRS, the EPA, the FBI, and the rest of the gang more nearly unrestrained. Yet with all that, Biden should be the preferred choice in November.

That is how bad Donald Trump is. He should never be considered for any public office in the United States. He is an arrogant, vulgar, bullying, graceless, power mad ignoramus, and he doesn’t hide that fact. From December 14^th 2000 to January 6^th ,2001, he functioned as an enemy of the republic, conspiring and attempting to overthrow the government and remain in power illegally and unconstitutionally. The rally and riot of January 6^th had no other purpose. His order to Pence to change the results of the election was by itself an attempted coup. In 2022 he called in writing for overturning the Constitution and returning him to power immediately. He has made it clear lately that he regrets nothing about the attempted coup except that it failed. He has repeatedly and apparently sincerely expressed his admiration and affection for the world’s dictators. It is likely he would abandon Ukraine to Putin, effectively abandon NATO, and throw away much of our victory in the cold war. His vile demagoguery takes the country’s already low level of civility in politics lower. He has demanded full immunity from any crimes he might want to commit when back in office (including murdering political opponents according to his lawyers). He shows no sense of being or wanting to be bound by laws or the Constitution. His vice president has refused to support him for another term. Other serious and decent people who worked with him in his first administration have warned that he is dangerously unfit to serve, something we have not seen when other presidents of either party have tried for a second term.

People who revere the Constitution should not vote for a man who disdains it and wants to overturn it. People who believe in limited government should not vote for a man who demands unlimited power. People who think this country needs to work with trusting allies to defend itself and freedom and liberal democracy in the world should not vote for a man who doesn’t. Republicans and others who usually vote for Republican candidates for president should grit their teeth and realize that between the two choices they have, Biden is the right one. They also can work for Republican majorities in both houses of congress to mitigate the damage Biden can do, something which is a good idea since Biden 2.0 may need all the mitigating we can find.

Misunderstanding RIghts

 

There was a small controversy this week over comments by journalist named Heidi Przybyla about Christian nationalism. She did get something very important wrong, but it was not anything she said about Christian nationalism. It was what she implied about rights. People have unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether one believes these rights come from a supernatural source or from the nature, quality, and value of humanity, the essential point is that they are fundamental and unalienable. They are not gifts from kings, courts, or legislatures, and are not contingent upon the approval of officials. People in North Korea have the same rights as human beings as Americans do. They are enslaved because their government violates their rights. Taking the term “Christian nationalism” to mean the religious aspects of today’s national conservatism, as listed in the national conservatives’ manifesto, her criticism is mainly valid, irrespective of how well or poorly stated. America is a secular republic with religious freedom for all. Any attempt to create an established religion or a government created Christian commonwealth is contrary to the principles and Constitution of our country, which is to say it is anti-American.

Lincoln's Birthday 2024

 

Yesterday was Lincoln’s birthday. I suppose there were speeches and celebrations in some places, but it seems that people do not celebrate it much these days – retailers aside. They should. It is good for people to see that such greatness is possible, especially these days. It is easy to be of two minds in thinking about today’s politics in light of Lincoln. A person can feel better about the political situation by remembering that he and the country he led faced far worse and more dangerous things than we do and came through successfully. So maybe we will too if we work at it. But he can surely feel worse after studying Lincoln and reading his writings and speeches and then looking at the sort of people who have sought and won the presidency in the last few years, especially at the leading candidates from both major parties this year. It can ruin a person’s lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next morning. Even worse it is not necessary to measure Trump and Biden against Lincoln or other great presidents to see how bad the likely present choices are. Comparing those two to Adlai Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, or Bob Dole would make the point well enough. It is a mess, and if nothing changes, we will suffer for it.

Time to Hang It Up

 

Yesterday the special prosecutor did not exonerate Biden as Democrats have claimed. His report said Biden knowingly broke the law in taking classified documents and keeping them when he was a private citizen. The prosecutor declined to recommend prosecution because Biden was cooperative with investigators, his offenses were less severe than the ones with which Trump is charged, and as a well-intentioned elderly man with failing memory, he likely would appear too sympathetic to jurors for them to convict him. The report contained various examples of seriously failing memory. (Attacks by Democrats on the prosecutor as some sort of MAGA agent are both silly since Garland picked the man for the job and hypocritical enough to make a person wonder how serious their worries about eroding respect for the legal system really are.) Biden’s problem is not his age. It is his mental condition. He gives easily noticed signs of being in some stage of at least intermittent dementia with memory loss. He is not fully up to the job of serving as president now, and will become less so over time. (A president is accompanied by the “nuclear football” with which he can order nuclear retaliation. We should hope that Biden or those functioning as Edith Wilson and Colonel House if things have come to that have delegated control of the football to someone, such as Secretary Austin, who is consistently up to the responsibility.) Pointing out correctly that Trump is an ignorant sociopath who often sounds like a raving lunatic changes none of the facts about Biden. The world situation is tougher than it has been since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the country needs a president who is competent, mentally and otherwise. Biden should pull a Lyndon Johnson.

A Good Time for Gratitude

 

Earlier this month we in Texas got a several day taste of harsh winter – really cold weather with highs in the teens or twenties, lows around zero, and strong winds in West Texas where I live. Much of the rest of the country got worse. It was unpleasant but nothing like what people endured in similar conditions a couple of hundred years ago. For that people should be grateful and grateful specifically to the oil, gas, and coal industries of this country. They deserve gratitude not only for the obvious accomplishment of keeping the power on and the furnaces running throughout the country but for something more general – creating necessary parts of the economic, industrial, and technological environment which has made the modern world with its modern windows, insulated houses, heated cars, snow plows, central heat, nylon shell parkas, and so on possible. I appreciate it, and other throughout the country should too. The fact that they are despised by the greens says something about the greens and a lot about what the greens want and have planned for us.