I encourage you to read Robert Lynch’s article on privilege at Skeptic. Basically, he considers one question: is it better to be born into the richest family in a poor neighborhood or the poorest family in a rich neighborhood? This strikes home for me since I did both. I spent my first ten years in the richest family in a poor neighborhood and next half dozen as the poorest or at least one of the poorest in a rich neighborhood. My younger siblings didn’t share that experience.

Here’s his conclusion:

Decades of social mobility research has come to the same conclusion. The income of your parents is by far the best predictor of your own income as an adult. By using some of the largest datasets ever assembled and isolating the effects of different environments on social mobility, research reveals again and again how race effectively masks parental income, neighborhood, and family structure. These studies describe the material conditions of tens of millions of Americans. We are all accidents of birth and imprisoned by circumstances over which we had no control. We are all born into an economic caste system in which privilege is imposed on us by the class into which we are helplessly born. The message from this research is that race is not a determinant of economic mobility on an individual level.39 Even though a number of factors other than parental income also affect social mobility, they operate on the level of the community.40 And although upward mobility is lower for individuals raised in areas with large Black populations, this affects everyone who grows up in those areas, including Whites and Asians. Growing up in an area with a high proportion of single parents also significantly reduces rates of upward mobility, but once again this effect operates on the level of the community and children with single parents do just as well as long as they live in communities with a high percentage of married couples.

One thing these data do reveal—again, and again, and again—however, is that privilege is real. It’s just based on class, not race.

None of my siblings nor I are poor and I suspect that my wife and I have the highest household income in the family (of our generation) or nearly so. I was fortunate in being born into a frugal, hard-working, closely-knit family. My dad’s family was resolutely upper middle class while my mom’s was lower class or classless. Make of that what you will.

At UnHerd Philip Pilkington warns about the risks posed by inexpensive modern weaponry:

The origins of the story go back weeks, with Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. These attacks culminated in the decision by global shipping companies to avoid transit through the region due to the heightened risk.

As a result, the Houthis have now enacted a de facto naval blockade — without possessing a navy. In response, on 18 December, the Pentagon announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, but many allies — such as Spain, Italy and France — declined US command over their navies in the region.

and

Contemporary drone and missile technology is reshaping the global battlefield in ways that are rendering aspects of modern military technology too expensive. Politico quotes an unnamed official from the Pentagon who highlights that the US Navy is shooting down drones that cost $2,000 with missiles that cost $2 million. “The cost offset is not on our side,” the official said.

How long can this go on for? The Houthis can continue harassing ships for as long as they care to. But the US Navy is burning through expensive weapons trying to stop them (a similar problem to that faced by Israel’s Iron Dome). It is only a matter of time before one of the Houthi weapons slips through naval air defences — if another container ship is hit, can global shipping companies really justify transit through the Red Sea?

which provokes the question why are we shooting down $2,000 drones with $2 million missiles? I suspect it’s a combination of Maslow’s Hammer (“when the only tool you have is a hammer…”) and the Everest explanation (“because it is there”).

That all returns to a point I have been making for nearly twenty years, that the risk of modern technology is personal empowerment. Nowadays a single individual can make attacks that would have required a platoon (or even a brigade) 80 years ago.

If we’re going to address today’s security threats prudently, we must change our mindset. It’s not as though there are no other ways of bringing drones down. There are dozens of ways and I venture to say that most of them don’t cost $2 million a pop.

And, as Mr.. Pilkington’s piece points out, we must be prepared to change our mindset quickly.

Even if you never read the book, I recommend reading David J. Hebert’s review of Universal Basic Income at the Acton Institute. Here’s a snippet:

Despite the quirky format, I’m now far more aware of the nuances to the various UBI policy proposals than I was before picking up the book. For example, the authors begin by noting, “a lot of confusion about the concept of a UBI results from people talking about it as though it was a single, precisely defined policy proposal. We think it’s more helpful to think of the UBI as a family of proposals” (emphasis original). They then list three common elements all UBI proposals share:

1. They involve unrestricted cash transfers.
2. These cash transfers are unconditional.
3. They are universal, in that everyone qualifies.

It’s useful to discuss these in more detail. A UBI as an unrestricted cash transfer means that the government is simply transferring cash into the hands of every citizen—that’s it. If we compare this to the current welfare system, as the authors do, we can already see a stark difference. Consider electronic benefit transfers (EBTs). In the current system, the government decides 1) who is eligible to receive benefits, 2) how many dollars those people receive, and 3) what they’re allowed to purchase with those dollars. There is tremendous potential for cronyism at each of these steps. For example, did you know that you can buy iced coffee with EBTs but not hot coffee or cold chicken, and not hot, ready-to-eat roasted chicken? Where is the line between “cold” and “hot” anyway?

And consider Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits: “For some items—such as yogurt, cereal, and pasta—only specific brands are eligible” (pg. 81).

The list of welfare programs is too long to go through exhaustively, but if you think through those three questions above for each one, you’ll quickly find that cronyism pervades our current welfare system to an alarming degree.

In the end Mr. Hebert isn’t sure whether the book convinces him that a UBI is a good idea or not but he’s certainly tempted.

IMO there’s an important distinction between a hypothetical UBI and a UBI that would actually be enacted in law. That’s illustrated by this quote:

Finally, consider the universality of a UBI. This is the one aspect that even the authors balk at. As they note on page 8: “A UBI that gave money to everybody would either be so expensive as to be unmanageable, or so small as to be practically useless to the people who need it most.” This is probably the weakest part of the book: the authors contend that universality is a central theme of all UBI proposals … but then write that “while most proponents of a UBI say that eligibility for the grant is not dependent on income or wealth, we’ll let you in on a little secret: nobody really means this” (emphasis original).

The hypothetical UBI in which everyone is eligible and everyone receives the same amount would probably be effective in reducing “cronyism” as Mr. Hebert infers. IMO it would also be unconstitutional as well as horrifically expensive or ineffectual, depending on the amount of the stipend. That’s why an actual UBI would be based on need, be arguably constitutional, and not reduce “cronyism”.

Here’s the meat of Ruth Marcus’s most recent column in the Washington Post:

Rules, norms and laws are empty fixtures without decent, patriotic leaders. We cannot survive when one party’s leaders give up on truth, loyalty to country and self-restraint.

Actually, I agree with that statement. However, the context she presents for it is grimly amusing:

Few could argue that Republicans still prize character in their leaders. A 2018 Gallup poll found: “Republicans, by 22 points, were much more likely than Democrats to say it was very important for the president to be a moral leader when [Bill] Clinton was in office.” The pollsters continued, “Now with Trump in office, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to hold this view, by 14 points.”

Here’s her prescription:

The solution to the tyranny of the minority is a wave of pro-democracy reforms, including elimination of gerrymandering and lifetime terms for Supreme Court justices as well as expansion and protection of voting rights. Republicans, once deprived of the crutches that allow minority control, thereafter will need to appeal to the multicultural, multiracial electorate of the 21st century.

My list would be somewhat different. I think that the “expansion and protection of voting rights” does not have the effect she believes and anyway those have gone about as far as they should be taken. Just enforce the laws we have.

Consider the voting in presidential elections

contrasted with that in primaries:

If expansion and protection of voting rights have increased since 1980, what relation between them and participation do those graphs illustrate? I would say none or an inverse relation if any.

I think we need term limits for all elected offices, elimination of pensions for elected offices, and to double or even triple the size of the House of Representatives. The larger the House, the more democratic, no?

The relationship between virtuous leaders and good government is not original to Ruth or me. Plato pointed it out more than two millennia ago. His “philosopher-kings” were a class apart and did not even know who their offspring were if any. Greed and lust were foreign to them. Not to mention nepotism or providing estates for their heirs—they had none.

The Founders, despairing of finding such paragons in a systematic manner, decided that limiting the power of government to “enumerated powers” was the only way to provide for good government systematically. It’s an idea so wild we might consider trying it.

The editors of the Washington Post come out in support of banning ski masks:

Tucked into Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s Addressing Crime Trends Now Act, a bill intended to help police fight crime in D.C., is an under-discussed proposal: a prohibition on ski masks and face coverings.

The mayor’s proposal would revive the anti-mask section of a 1982 law, the Anti-Intimidation and Defacing of Public or Private Property Criminal Act. That statute prohibited those 16 and older from covering their faces while in public, intending to commit a crime, intimidate, threaten, or harass others or in cases in which masking would recklessly “cause another person to fear for his or her personal safety.”

The provision, which carried a one-year maximum sentence, was rarely enforced even when it was on the books. And D.C. repealed it in 2020 to encourage the use of face masks during the covid-19 pandemic.

That reasonable public health policy had an unintended consequence: normalizing masking for all sorts of purposes, legal and otherwise. Now, identity-obscuring ski masks have become a de facto uniform for those who commit retail thefts, carjackings and robberies. The disguises make perpetrators more difficult to identify and their crimes scarier — which of course is the point. One of the more remarkable aspects of last week’s City Center Chanel store break-in was that a video camera recorded a burglar without a face covering.

I have all sorts of questions about this including:

• Why do they think that enacting a law will stop people from doing something?
• Why do they think that police officers who won’t enforce laws against shoplifting will enforce laws against wearing ski masks in public?
• What percentage of those wearing ski masks in public do so with the intention of concealing their identity when they commit a crime?

I wear a ski mask which I call a “balaclava” nearly every day in the winter when I take the dogs out for a walk. Or, at least, I did until my wife insisted I throw the raggedy old balaclava I was wearing away. The entire notion strikes me as backwards from how our laws ought to work.

My general view of law is that anything not expressly banned is allowed (rather than the other way around), we should be prepared to make a good faith attempt at enforcing all laws that are enacted, you can determine whether a good faith attempt at enforcement is being made by the number of violations without enforcement that are being made, and that the primary effect of any law should be to discourage behaviors we must prevent rather than limiting the actions of people who are doing no harm.

Laws don’t reduce crime. Vigorous and routine enforcement of laws reduces crime.

At USA Today Kate S. Petersen does her best to explain why there’s good reason to believe that human action is causing global climate change:

More than a century of experimental and observational research by generations of scientists shows that modern global warming is driven by greenhouse gases emitted by human activity. Scientists know that natural CO2 emissions are not driving modern global warming because they are reabsorbed by natural “carbon sinks.” However, additional emissions by humans have resulted in excess greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere − driving global warming.

Sadly, I doubt she will convince anyone who is not already predisposed to agree with her. Rather than wasting time debating whether, to put it succinctly, “global warming is real”, let’s focus on what the right policies are to deal with it.

My view is that almost all of our present efforts are wasted motion. EVs. Wind and solar power. The whole magilla. Why? There are basically two reasons.

First, China and India are increasing their production of greenhouse gases faster than we can conceivably reduce ours. And, second, while the actions we’re presently taking provide plenty of opportunities for government spending and increasing the income of the wealthiest of our citizens even if successful they will make life harder and more expensive for ordinary people while influencing the actions of those wealthiest citizens hardly at all. That’s perverse because if we are to accomplish anything we must reduce the greenhouse gas productions of the wealthiest—they produce a lot more than ordinary people.

That’s why, for example, a carbon tax is such a lousy idea. It’s regressive—it falls hardest on those least able to pay it while the wealthiest can just shrug it off.

Also, there are lots of problems with wind and solar that can be summarized as that they cause environmental problems of their own while not having an energy density suitable for industry.

Consequently, my policy preferences are:

• More nuclear power
• Carbon capture and sequestration
• Reduce our imports
• Focus efforts on reducing the greenhouse gas production by the rich rather than by the poor. Examples of such measures are the banning of private ownership or lease of jet aircraft or substantial federal taxes on homes of 4,000 square feet or greater

I’m open to other suggestions and I’d like to hear yours.

President Biden has ordered airstrikes against the Kataib Hezbollah group in Iraq. Samantha Waldenberg, Brad Lendon, and Mohammed Tawfeeq report at CNN:

The US military carried out airstrikes on three facilities used by the Iraq-based Kataib Hezbollah and “affiliated groups” on Monday night after an attack injured three US troops, leaving one in critical condition, the White House said.

A US Central Command statement said early assessments indicated that the US airstrikes, ordered by President Joe Biden, “likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants.”

The Iranian-backed militant group earlier claimed credit for using a one-way attack drone to target the US forces on Erbil Air Base on Monday morning, the White House said.

I honestly cannot determine what is going on. Our present media coverage is so spotty it’s impossible to get perspective on what’s actually happening in the Middle East. My choices are that this is:

1. A specific response to a specific attack by a specific group
2. A warning shot across Iran’s bow
3. An escalation of what has been going on for months or even years
4. What has been going on for months or even years
5. Building the case for increased U. S. armed involvement in the Middle East
6. Wag the dog
7. Something else

Help me out. What’s going on?

In my description of our Christmas yesterday I neglected to mention the stocking cap with a light on it, handy for picking up after the dogs at night, and the two children’s books I received chronicling the adventures of Mori, pictured above. As it turns out the real Mori is a relative of Jack’s whom he resembles in character as well as conformation.

For our Christmas dinner, frustrated by the high price of roasts, I made braised short ribs with mashed potatoes and green beans sauteed with garlic and chery tomatoes.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu explains Israel’s objectives in its war in Gaza:

First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end. Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again.” That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.

[…]

Second, Gaza must be demilitarized. Israel must ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack it. Among other things, this will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel’s security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory.

The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. Not surprisingly it has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza. It failed to do so before Hamas booted it out of the territory in 2007, and it has failed to do so in the territories under its control today. For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza.

Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized. Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it.

That will likely require courageous and moral leadership. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas can’t even bring himself to condemn the Oct. 7 atrocities. Several of his ministers deny that the murders and rapes happened or accuse Israel of perpetrating these horrific crimes against its own people. Another threatened that a similar attack would be carried out in Judea and Samaria.

Successful deradicalization took place in Germany and Japan after the Allied victory in World War II. Today, both nations are great allies of the U.S. and promote peace, stability and prosperity in Europe and Asia.

My question is whether Israel can accomplish any one of those goals let alone all three without eradicating the Arab population of Gaza? That is not advocacy on my part, merely an observation. I also wonder if the Israelis understand how extreme those three measures are, extending not just to security but into Gazan schools and mosques. That is bound to provoke pushback not just on the West Bank and in Gaza but throughout the Arab world and in the Arab diaspora including in the United States.

Update

The Egyptians have produced their own peace plan report Summer Said and Carrie Keller-Lynn at the Wall Street Journal:

The Egyptian proposal’s first phase calls for Israel and Hamas to agree to a roughly 10-day pause in fighting, during which all civilian hostages being held in Gaza would be released in exchange for Israel releasing around 140 Palestinian prisoners.

That phase also calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from residential communities in Gaza and allow the free movement of Palestinians across the strip. Israel would also pause drone surveillance and allow a significant increase in aid going into Gaza, especially to the northern part of the enclave, access to which has been restricted.

In the second and third phases, Israel and Hamas would negotiate the release of female Israeli soldiers, followed by male Israeli soldiers, in return for large numbers of Palestinian prisoners.

Those hostage-prisoner exchanges, along with the formation of the transitional, technocratic government, pose a thicket of negotiating challenges for both sides.

The transitional government plans would require rivals Hamas and Fatah to reconcile and work together. Once the transitional government took over, elections would be held in which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is 88, would be succeeded by a younger leader accepted by a majority of Palestinians.

The Egyptian plan is being described as “victory for Hamas” by Israelis. It’s hard for me to see a lot of room for agreement in those two plans.