The golden thread connecting not just the three articles to which I’ve linked today but also to Afghanistan, Iraq, the January 6 committee hearings and any number of other undoubtedly important matters is that they’re all trying to accomplish the wrong things in the wrong way. They remind me of the old wisecrack dating from the earliest days of the popularization of golf, variously attributed incorrectly to Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson: golf is a game in which the object is to insert a small ball into a small hole using implements singularly unsuited to the task.
Take Afghanistan. What was the objective? A reasonable objective would have been to uproot Al Qaeda from the country and punish it. Another completely reasonable objective would have been to render Afghanistan incapable of hosting Al Qaeda in the future. How did that transmogrify into turning Afghanistan into a modern secularized country with a modern military? And what sense did it make to use our military to accomplish that objective? None as far as I can tell.
Completely reasonable objectives for the January 6 committee hearings would have been to inform the American people about what happened on that day and prevent the Capitol from being breached again. That has rather clearly been twisted into battlespace preparation for the 2024 presidential election—preventing Donald Trump from running again and any amount of exaggeration, misquoting, and misrepresentation is clearly seen as worth the cost. The cost is threatening those two reasonable and legitimate objectives in favor of a partisan gain. As I see it the truth is bad enough but it puts the partisan objectives of the hearings at risk.
Let’s consider Jason L. Riley’s column through that lens. Providing a workforce for American businesses is a legitimate objective. Having a juster, kinder, more effective system of immigration is a legitimate objective. Conjoining the two is only legitimate to the extent that the one solves the other but that isn’t the case. Our problem is that we’re trying to do the wrong things in the wrong ways. Millions of fast food and other low- or no-skill jobs are a consequence of a large and reliable supply of workers willing to take such jobs. The way to solve the problem is by changing what we’re looking for not bringing in more workers who can only command minimum wage. Maybe fast food restaurants need to use more automation. Maybe fast food restaurants occupied a niche in the economy that is impractical to maintain.
Which brings up another factor. You can build a pyramid with thousands of sweating peasants using their muscles or you can build it using power tools, earthmoving equipment, etc. Should we really be building pyramids at all? And if we must build pyramids should we be building them with thousands of sweating peasants using their muscles?
Let’s consider the Russia-Ukraine War from the same perspectives. What are our objectives? Not the Ukrainian objectives, our objectives. What I hear frequently is something along the lines of “We can’t let Putin win!” How can we prevent that outcome? I don’t believe it is within our power or, at least, we can’t accomplish it without risking starting a thermonuclear war.
I think that basing your strategy on the goodwill and statesmanlike qualities of your opponent is a lousy strategy. It’s not a good risk.
I’m not a good enough student of foreign policy or Afghanistan affairs to really say. But your points seem very reasonable.
Jan 6? I think the Democrats blew it much earlier. Anyone likely to follow the Jan 6 hearings knows that the Trump witch hunt goes back to 2016 and Hillary’s dirty trick, accomplished with the aid of the FBI and people like Clapper. And known even to Obama and Biden. Pardon me if Adam Schiff declares publicly week after week to have damning proof – but under oath, well, not really – if I take Jan 6 hearings with a block of salt.
Paying people not to work, or displacing them with immigrants is cruel policy. Damning the low skilled perhaps for a lifetime. Automation is occurring in fast food. Let’s look at construction, where immigration is very prevalent. But you can now lay bricks with a robot. You can tie down rebar with a robot. And on it goes.
We really, really need to redirect people from getting degrees in women’s studies, race studies, gender studies and the other crap going on now, and into things like operating or servicing those robots.
IMO the likely effect of that will be that housing construction will increasingly be done by much larger companies than at present just as commercial construction is. The way to counter that isn’t through importing more low-skill workers but by creating co-ops for construction like the 19th century granges were for agriculture.
Mechanization and automation produce more jobs not less. Quality control increases, and wasted materials decrease. So, cheaper products are produced, and this allows more variety of products to be produced. Often, machinery and processes used by one industry are transferable to other industries. More workers are available to operate the automated machines.
De-industrialization has lead to fewer good jobs, but it has produced more crappy jobs. We do not need the old jobs back. We need new and better jobs producing similar goods.
Automation has additional benefits. It leads to standardization. Standardization increases quality, but it allows easier job changes to different industries. Socially, it produces a more homogeneous community. Language, numbers, alphabet, etc. become standardized, as well.
I agree. The problem is that not everyone does. They’d rather keep building pyramids with muscle-power.
“goes back to 2016 and Hillary’s dirty trick, accomplished with the aid of the FBI ”
This would be the same FBI that released the late nonsense about the emails that guaranteed her loss?
Steve
Tasty for President.
I have only a modification to what Dave and Tasty say. To say that the repatriation of old jobs is worthless is wrong. Many are still viable, they were simply chased away. But as to the creation of the new ones; well, I’ve spent the last 20 years of my career trying to do so.
As for steve – anything useful, and not cherry picked, to say?
You mean like something more recent than 6 years ago?
Steve