The piece that caught my eye this morning was this one by Annalisa Merelli at STAT:

Fixing the U.S. health care system can seem like a herculean task. But the solution is “actually very simple,” according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Amy Finkelstein.

In their recent book “We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care,” Finkelstein and Stanford economist Liran Einav describe how years of research have led them to the conclusion that the best way forward is for the U.S. to offer universal basic health care coverage.

It isn’t until nearly the end of the piece that Ms. Merelli gets to the fine print:

Countries are divided, however, on what constitutes basic services. There are services that are clearly fundamental (say: vaccines, primary care, cancer care, maternity care) and others that are definitely not (for instance, purely cosmetic plastic surgery). But Finkelstein noted that a lot of services fall into a gray area, such as physiotherapy, new drugs that only extend life expectancy for a few months, Viagra, and in vitro fertilization.

Under certain circumstances I could support universal healthcare in the United States. I do have certain questions:

• What would be covered? I don’t believe it could work if elective procedures are covered, for example.
• If universal basic healthcare controls costs why are costs rising so fast in the United Kingdom?
• How will a country of 330 million however wealthy pay for the healthcare of 8 billion people?
• How will we persuade Medicare beneficiaries to accept a lower level of benefits than at present?
• What if they’re wrong?

I suppose we shouldn’t worry about the problems a system of universal basic healthcare might face in the U. S. Such a thing would not be possible politically for some of the reasons suggested above.

I will need to reread this article by Dante Chinni and Stephanie Stamm at the Wall Street Journal a couple of times. I think the interpretation of the data is almost the opposite of what the article claims to show.

As you can see from the graphic above, the American electorate’s voting has become very slightly more Republican (margin of error) over the last 50 year and considerably less Democratic. The article purports to demonstrate that the degree to which Baby Boomers have become more Republican is offset by the degree to which Millennials and Gen Z is Democratic. I think it actually shows that a) the Silent Generation has changed a lot; b) the Baby Boomers have changed a little; and c) Millennials and Gen Zers are quite a bit more Republican than the Baby Boomers were at their age.

More research needed.

One of things that puzzles me is that literally none of the articles, opinion pieces, etc. I have read points out that the Egyptians control the Rafah entry point to Gaza. Take this report at the Associated Press for example. After reading it you’d be left with the impression that the Israelis control entry into Gaza. The Egyptians are mentioned in passing:

Two Egyptian officials and a European diplomat said extensive negotiations with Israel and the U.N. to allow fuel deliveries for hospitals had yielded little progress. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information on the sensitive deliberations.

One Egyptian official said they were discussing the release of dual-national hostages in return for fuel, but that Israel was insisting on the release of all hostages.

That’s just about it. The reality is that all that would be necessary to allow the hundreds of trucks of supplies lined up on the Egyptian side of the border or for foreigners and/or refugees to cross into Egypt is for the Egyptians to allow it.

Egypt’s position is understandable but not particularly praiseworthy. The recognize that if Gazans flee Gaza, the Israelis win. And Hamas is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood which is opposed to the Egyptian government.

And by extension Thomas Sowell as well. Today in a piece at The Free Press Konstantin Kisin declaims:

A friend of mine joked that she woke up on October 7 as a liberal and went to bed that evening as a 65-year-old conservative. But it wasn’t really a joke and she wasn’t the only one. What changed?

The best way to answer that question is with the help of Thomas Sowell, one of the most brilliant public intellectuals alive today. In 1987, Sowell published A Conflict of Visions. In this now-classic, he offers a simple and powerful explanation of why people disagree about politics. We disagree about politics, Sowell argues, because we disagree about human nature. We see the world through one of two competing visions, each of which tells a radically different story about human nature.

Those with “unconstrained vision” think that humans are malleable and can be perfected. They believe that social ills and evils can be overcome through collective action that encourages humans to behave better. To subscribers of this view, poverty, crime, inequality, and war are not inevitable. Rather, they are puzzles that can be solved. We need only to say the right things, enact the right policies, and spend enough money, and we will suffer these social ills no more. This worldview is the foundation of the progressive mindset.

By contrast, those who see the world through a “constrained vision” lens believe that human nature is a universal constant. No amount of social engineering can change the sober reality of human self-interest, or the fact that human empathy and social resources are necessarily scarce. People who see things this way believe that most political and social problems will never be “solved”; they can only be managed. This approach is the bedrock of the conservative worldview.

Hamas’s barbarism—and the explanations and celebrations throughout the West that followed their orgy of violence—have forced an overnight exodus from the “unconstrained” camp into the “constrained” one.

While I agree with Dr. Sowell that the dichotomy with respect to the perfectability of human nature is real and one thing that distinguishes progressives from conservatives, I don’t believe it is the only thing. For one thing, there is no universally accepted definition of what human nature is. Indeed, that’s part of the argument.

I would go on to observe that those dichotomous options, “unconstrained” vs. “constrained” are non-verifiable. Consider it this way: can human beings be perfected and how do you know?

Alternatively, I would assert that there are at least three axes in which people diverge: belief, preference, and gain. Mr. Kisin’s piece largely deals with belief. But there are other differences which cannot be explained easily by whether you accept the “unconstrained” or “constrained” vision. Preference is one of them. Some people want to be taken care of; others want to be left alone. Both of those preferences exist on a gradient—most people want to be taken care of in some circumstances but not in others (that preference is called “succorance”). Other are nurturance (whether you want to take care of others), interoception (how important understanding yourself) is, and many others.

The last distinction on my list, I am sorry to say, is gain: whether you benefit personally from what you advocate.

In short I think the distinction between those who adopt the “progressive mindset” and those who adopt the “conservative mindset” is much more complicated than Mr. Kisin supposes. That very complexity explains how one might go to bed believing one is a progressive and wake up believing one is a conservative. Or vice versa.

Could someone explain to me how you reconcile this “scoop” reported by Barak Ravid at Axios:

The Pentagon plans to send Israel tens of thousands of 155mm artillery shells that had been destined for Ukraine from U.S. emergency stocks several months ago, three Israeli officials with knowledge of the situation tell Axios.

Why it matters: The Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Ministry of Defense told their U.S. counterparts they urgently need artillery shells to prepare for a ground invasion in Gaza — and a potential escalation of the war by Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border, Israeli officials say.

with the White House’s assertion that there is no conflict between U. S. support for Israel and U. S. support for Ukraine?

The editors of the Washington Post echo the president’s remarks:

Delivered at what he appropriately called an inflection point in history, the president’s comments reflect the risk that the United States might abandon its friends, as wars rage in Ukraine and Israel. There is broad support for both countries among the U.S. electorate. A generation of Americans who came of age around 9/11 is wary of more “forever wars,” however. Increasingly isolationist Republicans argue that U.S. resources might be better spent on this continent — 117 House Republicans voted against the most recent Ukraine aid package.

And so it behooved the president to make the links between the two conflicts, as he did in Thursday’s somber address to the nation, and to convince Americans that continued support, for both Ukraine and Israel, is not just a principled stand in defense of democracies under attack — but in the United States’ self-interest. At stake is not only the survival of democracies abroad, however imperfect, but the United States’ long-standing interest in preventing two major regions, Europe and the Middle East, from falling under the sway of hostile hegemons (Russia and Iran, respectively), with the inevitable damage to U.S. security and economic prosperity that would imply. If Russia were to succeed in Ukraine, its next target would probably be a NATO ally, which U.S. troops are committed by treaty to defend. The potential stakes extend to Asia, where successful aggression by Russia or Iran could embolden China to seize Taiwan.

Unfortunately, there is a gap between what you might want to do and what you are able to do. Diverting weapons from Ukraine to Israel sounds like an admission of that limitation to me.

Which of the following are we most likely to do:

1. Support Israel and shortchange Ukraine
2. Support Ukraine and shortchange Israel
3. Attempt to support both and end up shortchanging both, possibly alternately
4. Reindustrialize the United States so we can support both

I’m guessing C.

Here’s the follow-up. Which is the greatest U. S. national interest (pick one):

1. Israel
2. Ukraine
3. Taiwan

I say Taiwan.

The first strand I plan to cut starts with David Mamet’s questioning how Jews can be progressives. After explaining to us the circumstances under which Jews came to the United States and how so many came to support Franklin Roosevelt, he declaims:

Why do Jews vote Democratic? Partly from tradition — conservatives have heard a Liberal Jew, when asked to defend or explain various absurd or inconsistent Democratic positions, shrug and joke: “I’m a Congenital Democrat.” I understand, for I was one, too.

But there is no more cosy mystery in the antisemitism of the Democratic Party; Representatives are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists and pro-Palestinians, calling for the end of the state of Israel — that is, for the death of the Jews. And Democrat Representatives repeat and refuse to retract the libel that Israel bombed a hospital, in spite of absolute proof to the contrary, and will not call out the unutterable atrocities of Hamas. The writing is on the wall. In blood.

Moses was instructed to have the Jews smear blood on their doorposts to identify themselves, and, so, avert the wrath of the Angel of Death. Mythologically, the blood can be said to be their own: the message, that if they chose to stay in Egypt, their blood would not mark the doorpost, but would wash the floor.

Many German Jews served the Kaiser during the First World War, and explained to the Nazi thugs that they were Good Germans. And they were killed. And many defended themselves, in the Thirties, by admitting, among themselves, that the Eastern Jews were uncouth; just as today some Western liberal Jews “agree” with the Squad that the terrorists, though they have “gone too far”, “may have a point”: that Israel’s desire to exist is not consonant with an enlightened humanism. This is, in effect, a plea for exemption, not only from terror, but from conscience, for the liberal Jew means the Israelis “are making it hard on the rest of us”. Which is true; for if Israel’s innocent anguish is acknowledged, he will have to admit he has been living a terrible lie.

Many good German Jews in the Thirties ignored their brothers and sisters to the East, and later died with them. My generation, born right after the Holocaust, wondered: “Good God, didn’t you see what was happening around you? Are you literally willing to die rather than admit you were mistaken?” The answer, today, to many liberal American Jews, is “Yes”.

In response, the world’s Leftist media calls for the chastisement of Israel and support for Palestine, while those who consider themselves mere “liberals” moderate their cowardice by calling for a “ceasefire” — which is to say, a pause while Hamas re-arms. This is where the libel of the hospital bombing is instructive. It is, quite literally, another example of the West’s oldest, most reliable, and most permissible sick entertainment: the call for Jewish extinction. The invitation, here, is no different from that of the carnival barker: thrills, chills, and excitement galore.

The position of the Jews changed in 1948 with the foundation of the Jewish State. But the habits of 2,000 years, now of Liberal Jews (in the diaspora and in Israel) have not changed. These appeal, in the name of humanity, to powers which may believe in humanity, but, unfortunately, do not consider Jews human.

And so, the carnival barker titillates us with the thrills available for a pittance: one dime, one tenth part of the dollar. But the sick thrill of antisemitism also has a price: the surrender of reason, and, with it, of conscience.

I think there’s something that Mr. Mamet has not considered, possibly because he does not share the belief.

In Judaism there is a teaching referred to as tikkun olam, “repair the world” in which there is an obligation to engage in actions intended to repair or improve the world, e.g. “social justice”. In orthodox Christianity the obligation to perform charitable acts is the following of Jesus; the notion of repairing the world would be considered blasphemous.

I suspect that trend in Judaism provides a natural affinity between the religious beliefs of those who embrace it and an expansive social safety net, indeed, an ever-expanding one.

Consequently, I suspect that Mr. Mamet will be frustrated if he expects Jews to flee the Democratic Party however many members of its progressive or “democratic socialist” wing support or, at least, make excuses for Hamas.

“Buridan’s Ass” is a philosophical paradox. It was articulated in its present form by Jean Buridan in the 14th century but it goes back much farther, at least to Aristotle:

Should two courses be judged equal, then the will cannot break the deadlock, all it can do is to suspend judgement until the circumstances change, and the right course of action is clear.

For the last couple of days I’ve been stuck between those two identical bales of hay, unsure of what to post on. Rather than waiting for circumstances to change I’m going to try to hack my way through the paradox.

Walter Russell Mead expresses considerable nostalgia for American hegemony in his column in the Wall Street Journal:

The Middle East firestorm is merely one hot spot in a world spinning out of control. The success of Hamas sent waves of excitement through jihadist groups and terror cells in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and beyond. Riots in France, a shooting in Belgium, anti-Semitic marches in Berlin and other uprisings across Europe point to a resurgence of radicalism. Africa, where feeble governments have lost the ability to control jihadist groups across swaths of territory, and where Russia’s Wagner Group supports many corrupt and violent military regimes, is bracing for more terror in more parts of the continent. The war on terror is plotting its comeback even as the Cold War between the U.S. and the revisionist powers heats up.

As Hamas put a torch to the Middle East, Russia’s Legislature revoked its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and ended limits on missile technology sales to Iran. Mysterious disruptions to a gas pipeline and telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea continue.

Flying to Beijing, President Vladimir Putin toasted the growing friendship between Russia and China and celebrated a historic high in their bilateral trade. Trade between the two countries has roughly doubled since Mr. Putin’s original 2014 invasion of Ukraine.

Trade between Russia and North Korea also has flourished. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said last week that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military supplies and weapons to Russia. What does Pyongyang want in return? “Fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles, ballistic-missile production equipment, or other materials and other advanced technologies,” Mr. Kirby said. With Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov currently visiting North Korea, he and his hosts will have plenty to talk about.

China is also getting frisky. In the past two years, there have been more than 180 documented cases of People’s Liberation Army planes harassing American aircraft, the Pentagon said this week. That exceeds the number of such incidents in the entire preceding decade. More ominously, China’s pressure on Taiwan continues to grow. The number of Chinese military aircraft flying sorties into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone rose from 380 in 2020 to more than 1,700 in 2022. China has also increased the number of fighter jets and bombers (including bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons) venturing close to the island. On one day last month, more than 100 Chinese military aircraft flew missions near Taiwan, with 40 entering the air defense identification zone.

Why are so many actors challenging American power in so many parts of the world? Because the U.S. is losing its power to deter.

I think that Dr. Mead is confusing power to deter with overwhelming superiority AKA American hegemony. I think that the “American hegemony” ship has sailed and won’t return for a simple reason. We refuse to pay for it economically, socially, and politically. You can’t maintain even the illusion of hegemony with a de facto open southern border. You can’t maintain hegemony and be dependent for strategic materials on near peer competitors. You can’t maintain hegemony and be defeated again and again. You can’t maintain hegemony without being willing for the economy to grow more slowly than it otherwise might.

This passage jumped out at me from Fareed Zakaria’s most recent Washington Post column:

The president is right: The United States made a series of disastrous decisions after 9/11 for which it is still paying a price. It rushed to build a new bureaucracy for “homeland security” comprising hundreds of thousands of people and two dozen organizations. It expanded executive power dramatically, trampling on individual rights, adding to governmental secrecy and sanctioning what many would describe as torture.

Washington’s military strategy was also flawed from the start. Rather than focusing narrowly on the people who planned and executed 9/11, it adopted a vast and ambitious approach that, in President George W. Bush’s words, made “no distinction” between terrorists and “those who harbor them.” So the country went to war not just against al-Qaeda but also against the Taliban, trying to ensure that the latter would never again rule Afghanistan, a goal that entailed a 20-year war that the United States lost. And, of course, it also went to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Washington’s response to 9/11 — the wars, the bureaucracy and more — has had a price tag, by one estimate, of $8 trillion.

Since I opposed all of those measures, that naturally caught my attention. IIRC President Biden was serving in the Senate in that period and voted in favor of all of those measures. What were Mr. Zakaria’s views at the time?

He continues:

The point of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction. The best response to it is not to lose your head.

Did the U. S. overreact? Or did it misreact? I don’t believe we overreacted to 9/11. We misreacted.

Here’s his advice to President Biden:

In addition to his counsel of caution, Biden should press the Israeli government to provide some political pathway for Palestinian aspirations. For decades, the United States — under both Republican and Democratic administrations — was seen as an effective broker between the two sides. Palestinian officials trusted American diplomats such as Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and Edward Djerejian because they worked tirelessly to find a negotiated path to a Palestinian state. The United States pressed the PLO to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel, but it also pressed the Israelis to stop building settlements.

All those efforts have petered out as Palestinian leadership proved feckless and Israel has been ruled by a series of right-wing governments that do not believe in a two-state solution, have increased settlements and turned a blind eye to the condition of Palestinians. These are ideal conditions for Hamas, which argues that there is no nonviolent, negotiated solution and that acts of terrorism are the only option.

This is a tall order for American diplomacy. But the alternative is to let this crisis fester, which could easily result in violence that is even worse than what we are seeing now.

to which I can only repeat that the most recent polling information from both Israel and Palestine before Hamas’s attack is that majorities of both believe that the “two state solution” is unworkable. Does Hamas’s attack suggest that majorities now think it’s workable?