Boomers Okay

 

I think most generalizations, apart from purely statistical ones, about American generations are silly. They are usually disparaging (except about the World War II generation) and say more about the prejudices and resentments of those making them than about their subject. We boomers are used to it, having gotten them from our elders when we were young, from conservative traditionalists all along, and now from some young people who dismiss us and our opinions as irrelevant and out of touch, often with the phrase “okay boomer”.

Probably the best response to “okay boomer” is to laugh it off, but if a person wants a rude rejoinder there is an obvious one. He could say “ We are indeed okay. The success of our WWII generation parents made our childhoods mainly prosperous and pleasant. In our youth we enjoyed a flourishing of sexual and other freedom. We established our careers in the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s, generally did okay thereafter, and now control most of the wealth in the country, besides collecting full social security. Our years in retirement are healthier, wealthier, and full of more fun and adventure than those of any before us. And our music was better than the crap you have to listen to today. So, yeah, we’re okay. How are you making out?”.

I still recommend just laughing “okay boomer” off, but if a person wanted to say something, this would be better than “whippersnapper” or “get off my lawn” or making some dumb generalization about the critic’s generation.

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Bad Movies from Good Novels

 

For some reason I was thinking a day or so ago about bad movies made from good novels. It certainly is possible to make a really good movie based on a good novel. John Huston’s Maltese Falcon shows that. However, I think it is difficult because of the differences between the two forms, and very few of the very good movies I have seen are based on novels, good or otherwise.

On the other hand, there are plenty of bad ones. I do not know of any movie version of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn that I could stomach watching. The movie version of the Guns of Navarone is bad in an unpleasant way. The novel is a straightforward adventure story of daring and heroism in World War II. The screenwriter Carl Foreman was a (former?) communist who according to reports wanted to turn the story into an anti-war one. If that had been done in an upfront way, keeping the title and the names of some of the characters but telling a different story (in the way the Dean Martin Matt Helm movies turned grim, tough novels into silly comedies), the result probably would have been a bad movie, but not such a dishonest one. Instead there was a shady attempt to have it both ways – keeping enough of the novel’s daring events to get an audience while preaching a minor league Bridge on the River Kwai counterpoint on the futility of war.

The most disappointing  one I know about is the movie version of The Fountainhead. Almost everything about it is bad, starting with the cast. Gary Cooper was badly miscast as Howard Roark, and gave a wooden and unconvincing performance, particularly in his droning speech in the courtroom. Patricia Neal later became a fine actress, bur her Dominique Francon got very little of the character. The performance of the actor playing Toohey was bad enough to leave a person wondering if the film was going to end with him tying Dominique to the railroad tracks. Among the main characters, only Raymond Massey as Wynand was adequate. Ayn Rand’s script as shot (and the usual story is that it was shot as she wrote it) is stilted and uncinematic. Vidor’s direction captured nothing of the strength, fire, and intensity of the book, and some of the scenes are amateurishly bad. Even the architectural drawings and sets are lame.

It is too bad. It might  have been a possible to make good movie. A person can imagine what could have been done with, say, Orson Welles directing and playing Roark, Barbara Stanwyck as Dominique, Clifton Webb as Toohey, and some cinematic freedom from the rigidity of Rand’s script. But that is just pointless wishful thinking. Maybe someday somebody good will give it another try.

NATO

 

For over seven decades NATO has been a good thing in the world – good for Europe, good for the United States, good for defending and expanding liberal civilization. Armies from NATO countries - mainly German, British, and American - defended the front line against the Soviet Union during the cold war. After that war was won, NATO expanded to include and protect nations liberated from the Soviet empire. For most of its history, the value and existence of the alliance were accepted without any serious controversy in both Europe and the United States.. (Agents and leftist supporters of the Soviets and later the Russians were opposed, but their opposition did not have much effect.)

In the last few years that has changed, and NATO has a new set of enemies on the political right. Some are old fashioned isolationists who oppose alliances and involvement with Europe in principle. Some are Christian national conservatives who argue that Europe has become so decadent, irreligious, and authoritarian as to be no better or even worse than Putin’s Russia, and thus not being worth protecting from it. Some, including Trump, take the transactional view that the alliance is not a paying proposition. Others, now including Trump, believe the Europeans and Canadians are perfidious pseudo allies who expect America’s protection but will not reciprocate when their help is requested. Almost all of these critics see the alliance as an example of the evils of globalism.

All of this is wrong. The United States cannot return safely to isolationism. Our two oceans no longer provide adequate protection, and the Royal Navy no longer keeps the sea lanes open for the world’s commerce. The Europeans and Canadians have done things making it easier for their national conservative critics. With Finland punishing public expression of Christian doctrines, Britain arresting people for posting unapproved comments on line or praying in the wrong place, Canada planning to ban some religious expression, and many other examples, it is true that some members of NATO have become less liberal and more authoritarian in the last few years (as has Hungary, though in a direction the national conservatives generally like). However, Canada and the European members of NATO are still far more nearly liberal societies than Putin’s murderous dictatorship in Russia. The purpose of the alliance is not to make the United States treasury more flush. In keeping Russia from dominating Europe, the alliance remains beneficial to the interests of the United States, irrespective of whether the rest of the allies should be paying more of its costs. Then there is the war with Iran. The European allies made a mistake in denying our forces use of their bases and access to their airspace. But Trump started the war on his own without involving members of NATO (or the United States congress) in the decision or planning, and there was little or nothing European armed forces could have done to provide any direct help in the war in any fairly short time, if at all. (The Royal Navy, for one, demonstrated its uselessness vividly in the fiasco over Cyprus.) As to globalism, international trade and cooperation have contributed importantly to much of the economic and other progress in the world since World War II. Overall we are better for them.

The isolationists need to be ignored. The national conservatives with their dogmas need to be kept away from any influence over foreign policy, and Trump needs to calm down. The Canadians and Europeans need the alliance. So do the Americans.

Ranking Presidents

 

It is usual in February and March to think and hear talk about ranking presidents. To me there are only three good answers as to the greatest – Washington, Lincoln, or a tie between them.

There were others who did great things while in the office – Jefferson with the Louisiana purchase, Reagan with the Cold War, FDR with World War II – and a number more who would qualify as good presidents. But Washington and Lincoln stand out. One during his administration set the standard for the office and did more than anyone else to make sure that the earlier victory in a revolution for the principles of liberty led to a stable constitutional republic based on those principles. A person only has to look at the outcomes of other revolutions around the world to see how rare and great an accomplishment that was. The other saved that republic in its greatest crisis and corrected its worst fault. (I believe they were not only the greatest presidents, but also the greatest men to hold the office.)

A t the other end of things, there is the question of who is the worst president in the country’s history. These days a lot of people would say Donald Trump. He is bad enough, but without knowing what will happen in the rest of his term, it is too early to put him at the bottom of a list that includes James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson.

However, if one were to judge only on the basis of character as revealed in public behavior and demeanor, there is a strong argument that he qualifies as the worst human being to hold the office. And that  does not require waiting a couple of years to see how things go.

Dogs, Muslims, and Politicians

 

The question of Muslims’ hostility toward dogs and desire to ban their ownership is not a facetious one. According to the news, such bans are being considered in parts of Britain. Recently an Islamic writer posted the following: “Finally NYC is coming to Islam. Dogs definitely have a place in society, just not as indoor pets. Like we said all along, they are unclean”. A Republican congressman Randy Fine responded this way:” If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one”.

I see nothing wrong with the congressman’s comment.  He did not demean Muslims or even criticize the irrational hatred many of them have for man’s best friend. It is important to see that the only way a choice between dogs and Muslims could could up in America is by a group of Muslims saying  they would leave the country if Americans did not get rid of their dogs. In that very unlikely situation, I think most Americans would say “don’t leave mad, just leave.” And they would be right to say it.

The reaction from some on the left has been amusing to observe. Hakeem Jeffries called Fine’s comments racist, showing himself to be at best an ignoramus and more likely a lying scoundrel. Islam is not a race. (There are Muslims of various races, including millions of white ones.) It is a religion, a body of belief. As with any other body of belief, people are free to like or dislike it and to approve or disapprove of it based on its content. Race has nothing to do with it. It will be interesting to see if Jeffries yells racism the next time someone criticizes or jokes about evangelical Christians, since, you know, many of them are non-white.

Lincoln

 

Today is Lincoln’s birthday. Many people will be thinking about his greatness, his eloquence, his character, and his accomplishments. Some will feel gratitude and pride that this country once had such a man as its president. Some will be making angry or rueful comparisons between him and the vicious scoundrel now in the White House. A few may be taking time to read some of his speeches and writings. All these things are appropriate, but I think there is something more he would have wanted from us. From his example we should take increased devotion to his great cause, to a new birth of freedom, and to making our country once again the last best hope on earth. We have some troubles now, but nothing like the troubles of his time. Those who care about the liberal principles of liberty, individual rights, and a constitutional republic of the people should avoid depression or despair and bear down.

Stolen Lands Again

 

Leftists are fond of claiming that all of America is “stolen land” taken from the Indians and making “acknowledgments” about it. Conservatives observe correctly that this has not led to leftists handing things they own over to any Indians, and the charge of hypocrisy is accurate. However it misses the most important point. It is possible for hypocrites to be right in principle about something on which they are hypocritical. It is necessary to refute the claims, not just show the leftists are being phonies.

The notion of theft presupposes the notion of property. If there were no property, that is things that rightly belong to someone, there could be no theft. People acquire property rights to land in a wilderness by settling it – by building permanent dwellings such as a town or village on it or by farming , ranching, mining, or otherwise developing it. Moving through land on nomadic hunting trips, having a small village within miles of it, or marching across it in the name of the King of Spain does not acquire property rights to it. Some of the land in what is now the United States was fully settled by Indians, and any newcomers should have respected their property, and, if they wanted it, bought it from them (which often happened as when the Dutch bought Manhattan). Those who did otherwise were wrong. However most of the continent north of the Rio Grande was wilderness belonging to no one. It was not stolen and could not have been stolen.

It is interesting that the proponents of the idea of America as stolen lands seem mainly to be socialists and communists who generally deny the whole idea of property rights, showing that if one hates America enough, any excuse will do, and any inconsistency is acceptable. Some others are rich, posturing phonies who deserve to be called on their phoniness. It would be amusing to see what the defense would be if some Vermont Indians showed up in court demanding ownership of, say, a famous ice cream factory in the state, or some California Indians laid claim to a well known singer’s mansion. That would be worth paying to watch.

Petti's Shooting

 

There are some things about the killing of Alex Pretti that are obvious even without having full information. It is hard to claim self defense for shooting a man lying or kneeling down on the ground helpless. The fact that an American citizen with a concealed carry permit has a concealed weapon on his person is not evidence that he is a crazed terrorist out to shoot up a bunch of feds, and certainly not justification for shooting him. The interesting thing about the government’s story on the killing is what its people are no longer saying. They now do not claim Pretti fired, brandished, or even drew his pistol. Instead they are saying only that he was armed. The evidence I have seen so far points to murder, followed by a very weak cover up and a lot of lying.

An observant person expects politicians and bureaucrats to lie. There is nothing unusual about that (though Trump is a bigger and more frequent liar than most). What is a little unusual in this case is how poorly and ineptly the lying was done, and how easily video evidence refuted it. An observant person also expects politicians to be unprincipled and willing to ignore or even contradict and reject their professed beliefs when it is expedient to do so. Still it was somewhat unusual for officials of the party and administration claiming to support the Second Amendment and the right of self defense to announce that the fact that an American citizen with a concealed carry license had a gun on him proved that he needed killing or at least brought his death on himself. That should cause some pro-Second Amendment people to wonder if Trump is really on their side or just playing them for useful suckers.

People are right to worry about the authoritarian tendencies of Trump and his administration. But they can take some consolation and feel some relief in noticing how seriously incompetent many in  Trump’s gang are.   It may not be much in the way of good news, but it is something.

Being the World's Boy Scouts

 

I like having been the world’s boy scouts. I like having a country that did so much good in the world. I like having a country that saved the world from fascist tyranny in World War II. I like having a country that rebuilt western Europe and Japan after that war and led former tyrannies to become stable, fairly liberal democracies. I like having a country that fought and won a decades long cold war with Soviet communism that led to the liberation of the countries of central and eastern Europe. I like our country being that last, best hope of which Lincoln spoke.

Donald Trump does not. He has no use for liberal principles, liberal societies, or the cause of liberty in the world. His ideas on foreign policy and international relations are closer to those of Putin or Mussolini than those of FDR, John Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan. (It is an interesting experience to listen to speeches by any of those three and then read one of Trump’s screeds on Truth Social.) In a very deep way his behavior is both anti-American and a repudiation of Americanism. In regard to Greenland it is also nuts. He is a disgrace, and he is doing his best to disgrace this country. Regardless of the various and conflicting things we are for politically, decent Americans need to stand up together and make it clear that this is something we are against.

TTU and Oregon

 

Texas Tech’s football team had a very good season, winning the Big 12 twelve conference championship and being seeded as one of the top four teams in the country for the playoffs. Then it lost to Oregon 23-0. Some people took the loss as a sign that the program was not ready for prime time and unable to compete against the top teams in the country. I think they were wrong. TTU’s defense performed very well in the game. The offense failed completely from play calling, to line play, to the running backs, receivers, and especially the quarterback, but I do not think this indicated Tech being completely over matched. Oregon had a good team, but its defense had given up 34 points to James Madison, 24 points to a Penn State team so bad that its coach got fired in the middle of the season, and , of course, got humiliated against Indiana in the next round of the playoffs. Experts say offenses need to get in a rhythm. TTU’s got off to a bad start, and things just went downhill. I have seen similar things in super bowls where it is safe to assume both teams were ready for prime time. To me it seems better to write the game off as one where the offense picked a bad time for its worst performance and not to relapse into the old TTU inferiority complex.

HItting New Lows

 

It is hard for a man like Trump to hit new lows, but in the last couple of weeks he has managed. His decision to crush the hopes of Venezuelans who wanted their country liberated and side with the Marxist dictatorship instead of the elected opposition was execrable. I do not know if he did it because he was jealous that Maria Machado won the Nobel peace prize that he wanted (though that surely sounds like him), and it really does not matter. What matters is that it not merely shows but broadcasts that as of now the government of the United States is not on the side of freedom in the world, but just another grasping gang of international bandits out to steal what they can (oil in this case). The sleazy lawfare attack on Chairman Powell shows not only contempt for the legal status of the federal reserve, but a thug’s notion that the way to deal with opposition or resistance is intimidation. The whole fiasco with ICE, but especially not only attempting to justify the killing of Renee Good but effectively proclaiming that anyone else getting in the way might expect a dose of the same is simply something that should not be tolerable in America. The scheme to occupy Greenland by force, which legally would require all our NATO allies to go to war with the hostile invading power, us, is so completely absurd, so vilely un-American, and so manifestly harmful to our actual national interests and security that it is reasonable to wonder if it is the work of a literal raving madman who should be removed via the 25^th Amendment.

It is a hell of a mess. Republicans used to claim, and often back their claim up, that they were better than Democrats on issues of individual freedom, national security, the cause of liberty in the world, and respect for the Constitution. Well, that was then. This is now.

There are various definitions of a fascist. There is the formal one that a fascist is one who advocates a program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance while allowing the existence of nominally private property, and practicing rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition. There is the colloquial one that a fascist is someone who desires a government characterized by racial or ethnic bigotry, military aggression, suppression of dissent, and the glorification of the all powerful leader as the manifestation of the nation. There is the ostensive one that a fascist is somebody who wants to be like Franco, Peron, or the Duce. A person can take his pick.

Babbitt and Good

 

On the premise that cops should not shoot people when there is no good reason for it, I think it is wrong that Ashli Babbitt was killed and wrong that Renee Good was killed. If I judged by what I have been seeing on the internet this week, I might have to conclude that that opinion puts me in a very small minority. Many Democrats and leftists are arguing that rioter Babbitt got what she had coming to her, while Good was a murdered, mainly innocent protester. Many Republicans and Trumpists are arguing that obstructionist Good got what she had coming to her while Babbitt was a murdered, mainly innocent protester. Still the optimist, I am not going to reach that conclusion. I think the country is not yet at a point where most of those on side A think killing those on side B is acceptable, and most of those on side B reciprocate. But we need to be careful, and politicians and their flacks need to learn to show some sense and decency.

Venezuela

 

Deposing Maduro in Venezuela was a good thing for which Trump should be commended. Leaving Maduro’s regime in place to be headed by his vice president is not. It may be that this action is a short term expedient to get time to neutralize the forces of the dictatorship before elections or turning the government over to the already elected opposition. That would be acceptable and perhaps even the best course the situation would allow. However, Trump and his people mainly have been suspiciously quiet about elections and the freedom and interests of Venezuelans. Instead Trump is talking about running the country and taking its oil for uses he alone will determine and bragging about having the new dictator under his thumb. (Some people  have suggested that Trump is shunning the opposition because its leader beat him out for the Nobel peace prize. That would be a crazy assertion about other American presidents, but with Trump one never knows.) If it turns out that this operation has nothing to do with freedom and justice for Venezuelans, but only with grabbing the country’s oil and replacing a dictator Trump could not control with one he could, it will be a disgrace and a repudiation of the good things America stands for and of the good things it has done in the world since 1941. I hope I am wrong, but that seems to be the direction things are going. We should know soon.

Terrorists in Boats

 

The usual argument that Trump’s supporters make to try to justify the attacks on the boats is that the people on them are terrorists, and the president has a mandate to attack and destroy terrorists wherever they are found. That does not work. Terrorism is distinct from ordinary criminal or illegal behavior. It is the act of making or planning violent attacks against civilian targets for political, religious, or ideological reasons. (Some might want to narrow or broaden that definition a little, but it or something very similar to it is what reasonable people mean by the term.) A terrorist is someone who practices terrorism. Dope smugglers in boats do not fit that definition. The argument of Trump’s apologists reduces to the claim that the smugglers are terrorists because Trump says they are terrorists, not because of their actual behavior. Liberally minded people will be likely to disapprove of a president having the arbitrary power to designate people as terrorists when they have committed no acts of terrrorism. Conservatives and Trumpists should be bothered as well. They would not like it if a future Democrat president declared some people he did not like – say AR-15 owners or Southern Baptists or fans of Charlie Kirk – to be terrorists and started eliminating a few of them.

Waving the Bloody Shirt

 

The actions of one murderer do not imply that all Americans should be denied the right to self defense and disarmed. The actions of one Afghan refugee do not imply that every resettled Afghani is a threat, much less that everyone from the “third world’ should be kept out of the country. That is not how issues of rights and policies should be considered or decided. Conservatives are right in criticizing leftists for ghoulishly and irrelevantly waving the bloody shirt after every politically convenient shooting to stir foolish people up to support unthinkingly their schemes for gun control. It will be interesting to see how many of Trump’s conservative supporters criticize him for ghoulishly and irrelevantly waving the same shirt to stir foolish people up to support unthinkingly his schemes to expel immigrants and block new ones from places and races he does not like. Whatever the posted odds, it might be a good idea to take the under on that one.

Non-Contradictory Angst

 

There are people I respect who believe that Trump is dangerously unfit to be president, that he probably would like to become our Duce, and that too many Republicans have wrongly abandoned their former beliefs in limited government, free trade, and America’s essential role in the world, making them unfit to govern. There are people I respect who believe that for all Trump’s personal failings, ignorance, and incompetence, he and the Republicans have done some needed and sometimes necessary things that have benefited the country.

There are people I respect who believe that too many Democrats’ embrace leftist dogmas, and favor radical identity politics and a general dangerously expansive statism, making them unfit to govern. There are people I respect who believe the Democrats are doing the necessary work of upholding norms, defending settled, law abiding illegal immigrants from mass deportations, and opposing Trump’s authoritarian tendencies.

These opinions are conflicting by not contradictory. All them can be true, and the saddening fact is that they are. Neither party is fit to govern or deserves the political allegiance of the citizens. People should accept political homelessness, favoring one party or the other on particular issues but not fully throwing in with either, and certainly not expecting too much from either. One would not want to encourage either bunch.

Elections This Week

 

Some people who dislike Trump are presenting the results from elections this week as a “wave” for the Democrats. I do not care for Trump either, but I do not think the elections were as significant or predictive politically as some are saying and hoping. In New York City a leftist Democrat defeated a less farther left Democrat for mayor. There was a Republican on the ballot, but it is fair to say the Republicans did not have a horse in that race. In New Jersey a Democrat won a race to succeed another Democrat against a Trumpist Republican who had tried once before and lost. Democrat voters in California voted the way their Democrat governor told them to. The main gain for the party was in Virginia where a Democrat will replace a term limited Repuiblican governor. That was no surprise since northern Virginia is home to many federal employees and others whose jobs depend on  the government who had reasons to be annoyed at Trump and the Republicans. It strikes me that all of this predicts very little about the elections next year and maybe nothing, and that Trump will ignore it. Trump needs to be taken down a peg, but it will have to happen in the courts, particularly the supreme court, rather than with the results from Tuesday.

Now It's Piracy

 

There is a term for attacking ships on the open seas in peacetime. It is called piracy. That is what Trump is guilty of in ordering attacks on boats or ships of another country in international waters. The excuse is that the vessels that were destroyed were bringing illegal drugs from Venezuela to the United States. If so, there was a legal way to stop them – waiting until they entered American territorial waters and having the Coast Guard board them, arrest their crews, and seize the contraband. This is another case of Trump violating laws and customs and an especially bad and potentially counterproductive one. America is the world’s leading maritime power. Our navy is charged with protecting shipping lanes and enforcing freedom of the seas throughout the world. It is a crucial and honorable job, and Trump has made it harder and once again shown disregard for the moral capital this nation has created for itself over the last two hundred and forty nine years. It figures.

National Conservatives vs. Lincoln

 

Having finished with Jefferson, the national conservatives have moved on to dumping Lincoln. They ditched Jefferson with their rejection of the notion that the United States is based on and made exceptional by ideas – the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the continuing thinking and work to live up to them. Now they have repudiated the idea of America having and being dedicated to a fundamental proposition – fairly clearly choosing the word “proposition” to reject Lincoln’s words that the nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal (probably because Lincoln believed anyone could become an American and that this country was the world’s last best hope because of its ideas).

People should take them at their word and, understand that they are dismissing the country’s founding and basic principles as irrelevant and worse. They think enlightenment liberalism was a mistake and one they plan to correct. Accepting their premises requires rejected Americanism as the term is usually understood and the patriotism associated with it and replaced them with traditionalism and an atavistic tribal/religious sort of patriotism. Critics say the national conservatives want to go back to the American 1950s. That gives them too much credit. Their ideology points to going back much farther to times long before 1776 and places far from here.

It would be a mistake to ignore these people. They are organized, form a powerful faction within the Republican party, and have a president who seems to see many things in their way. Be on the lookout and speak up.

Kaine vs. Jefferson

Recently Senator Kaine of Virginia said that people’s rights are creations of their government. Conservatives then griped that he was denying  the divine endowment of those rights. What they and others should have been objecting to is that what he said is fundamentally wrong and deeply illiberal. Whether one believes in individual rights out of religious conviction or from secular philosophical considerations is irrelevant in the context of rejecting Kaine’s claim. People own their own lives and have their unalienable rights regardless of the actions of their governments. Slaves in Cuba or North Korea have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as citizens of the United States. They are unfortunate in being subject to tyrannies that violate those rights, while Americans are lucky in having a government that generally respects them. But the rights of human beings are the same everywhere. Better governments respect them. Worse governments suppress their exercise. No government creates them, and governments can justify and legitimatize themselves only by securing them. Better Virginians than Kaine have understood that.

 

Eighty Years

 

Yesterday was V-J Day, the eightieth anniversary of Japanese surrender ending World War II. My father and several of my uncles served in that war, my father and one of his brothers in the Pacific. They are all gone now, as are almost all of the other men who fought. Those of my generation, the generation of those men’s children, are getting old. V-J Day is now as far in the past as Appomattox was on V-J Day. I wonder if we boomers, most of whose fathers fought the war and almost all of whose parents lived through it, will be the last generation for most of whom it is more than somewhat remote history. I hope not, but regardless this is a good time to remember those men and what they did.

Tariffs and Fooling the Peasants

 

For American consumers, tariffs function effectively as a hidden sales tax they pay on goods produced in foreign countries and imported into the United States. They raise the prices of those goods above what they would have been otherwise. (Claims to the contrary by Trump and his supporters make no more sense than if some Texas politicians claimed that the eight and a quarter percent sales tax they lay on most things purchased in the state does not make those things more expensive to buy.) Increasing tariffs increases that tax, raising prices and contributing to price inflation. Years ago there was a cartoon in the Wizard of Id comic strip with the king and his henchmen plotting new taxes on the peasants. One suggested supplementing the income tax with an outgo tax. Another objected that not even peasants were dumb enough to go along with that, and so they decided to call it a sales tax. They could have gone for a tariff and hoped to fool the peasants into believing it would be paid by foreigners. That is pretty much what Trump is doing now.

The benefits of global trade are obvious both in economic theory and in the history of the eighty years since the end of World War II. Trump’s mercantilist notions on trade and tariffs have been refuted by economists from the time of Adam Smith to the present. Yet he and his gang plow ahead. He will cause discomfort in our country and probably real hardship in some countries where fairy open global markets have helped large numbers of people to rise out of real poverty. He will make people around the world angry and skeptical of the good will and good sense of the United States. The one place there is a good case for high tariffs and other restrictions on trade is with China. Economic dependency on hostile foreign powers is not beneficial, and China is one. But Trump seems to be going easier with China than with many others. It is a mess.

Watching Grande Illusion

 

This week Debby and I watched Renoir’s Grande Illusion for the first time in a good while. It was a good as I remembered. It is the best war movie I have ever seen and one of the best of any sort. Its fine performances, superb direction, and most of all wonderful humanity were just as I remembered. So was the sense of loss I felt not only for the characters but also for a splendid civilization that that war wounded grievously (and the next one may turn out to have killed). It was not only the end of the Rauffensteins and Boeldieus.  

Trump and Epstein

 

The big news story of the weekend is the printing of Tump’s supposed 50^th birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump claims the note is fake. Democrats claim it is not only genuine but hard proof that Trump knew about and perhaps participated in Epstein’s crimes.

To me there are two obvious points against authenticity. First the style does not seem like Trump’s. It is not at all like the stuff we have seen from him on X and Truth Social over the last ten years. The second is more important. It is very, very hard to believe that Biden’s DOJ had it, knew it was authentic, and gentlemanly declined to leak it to their friends in the media before the election. Of course people’s style of writing can vary both with time and situation, and the note may have turned up only recently. (I haven’t seen anything on that, and it may be discussed behind a paywall I can’t see over.)

The main arguments for authenticity are the reputation of the Wall Street Journal and the riskiness of making that sort of attack on the president of the United States without being able to back it up. There is something to both of them. The news side of the Journal is not the public relations team for the Democrats that many other papers are, and its editorial side usually favors the Republicans. And with all the threats (sometimes real and successful) of lawsuits by Trump against media companies, one would think that on a story such as this one, prudent editors would want to make sure their reporters had the goods before publishing. As against that Trump’s defenders can argue that some reputations earned in the past may no longer be justified and remind people that well known media organizations have published false stories about Trump before.

It will be interesting to see both how it plays out and whether it matters. My guess is that it will not matter much. It is well known that Trump and Clinton and various other wealthy and/or powerful people knew and socialized with Jeffrey Epstein. It is well known that in his younger days Trump was what people used to call a playboy.  If the note is authentic and can be shown to be so, it probably will not make many of his supporters turn against him.  If it is a forgery and can be shown to be so, it probably will not make many of his opponents less prone to believe the worst about him immediately. If nothing is determined either way, the whole thing probably will just fade away and fairly quickly.

Bombing Iran

 

I do not think Donald Trump is qualified to be president by either knowledge, character, demeanor, judgment, or temperament. I wish the Republicans had nominated someone else in the last three presidential elections. I think the only valid reason for voting for him last November was a decision that Harris and Walz likely would be worse. Regardless of that, I am proud of President Trump for ordering the attack on Iran’s atomic weapons production sites. It was the right thing to do and, together with the actions of Israel’s armed forces, has made the world safer and the geopolitical situation better for liberal civilization. He deserves credit and respect for doing it.

On the other hand, many leftist Democrat politicians and many of their public relations people in the traditional media deserve contempt and ridicule for their behavior. From silly claims that all would have been well if Obama’s agreement effectively allowing Iran to develop atomic weapons but maybe a little more slowly had still been in place, to fairly obviously hoping the attack had been a failure, to in some cases directly siding with the Iranians, their behavior has been despicable. There is a joke going around that Democrats are angry about the attack because it destroyed the only Obama/Biden infrastructure project that actually got built. That is unfair, but some of the Dems and their friends deserve the mockery. So do Tucker Carlson and the rest of the anti-Israel, isolationist, and at least somewhat antisemitic gang on the right.

Trump was right on this one, and it does not hurt those of us who do not like him to see it and say so.