This seems like a good time to remind ourselves of Lincoln’s Lyceum Address of 1838:

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that arises, as for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is necessarily true; that is, the thing is right within itself, and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all good citizens; or, it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case, is the interposition of mob law, either necessary, justifiable, or excusable.

But, it may be asked, why suppose danger to our political institutions? Have we not preserved them for more than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times as long?

We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope all dangers may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise, would itself be extremely dangerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes, dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore; and which are not too insignificant to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed, and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all, to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.–Then, all that sought celebrity and fame, and distinction, expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it:– their destiny was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world, a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition, which had hitherto been considered, at best no better, than problematical; namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded, they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties and cities, and rivers and mountains; and to be revered and sung, and toasted through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experiment is successful; and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught; and I believe it is true, that with the catching, end the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?–Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.–It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.

Here, then, is a probable case, highly dangerous, and such a one as could not have well existed heretofore.

Another reason which once was; but which, to the same extent, is now no more, has done much in maintaining our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice, incident to our nature, and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were, for the time, in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive; while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause–that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty.

But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it.

I do not mean to say, that the scenes of the revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but that like every thing else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the bible shall be read;– but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then, they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or brother, a living history was to be found in every family– a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related–a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.–But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls. They are gone.–They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more.

They were the pillars of the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.–Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON.

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

I don’t know about you but I find a bit of resonance with the present day in that.

What’s the gravest problem presently afflicting K-12 education? I wouldn’t have guessed it but apparently it’s a shortage of bus drivers if this post by Zachary Crockett at The Hustle can be credited:

The shortage is quickly becoming a national crisis:

• In Texas, teachers and basketball coaches are being asked to drive buses before school
• In Pennsylvania, some districts are paying families $300/mo to voluntarily opt out of bus pickups.
• In New York, officials have launched a multi-agency recruitment effort targeted at 500k+ drivers with commercial licenses.

What’s driving this trend?

The Hustle talked to nearly a dozen bus drivers, school officials, and trade groups to find out.

Apparently the factors include that the market is dominated by a limited number of providers, bus drivers tend to be older and, consequently, at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, the pay is low, the schedules lousy, and, increasingly, districts and private providers are in competition with Amazon for the same drivers.

I have a bit of trouble understanding the source of this problem. I never took a schoolbus to school a day in my life—I either walked the mile to school or, when I went to high school (seven miles from home), took public transport. I would think that walking to school should be the preferred solution for all sorts of reasons. According to the post 55% of kids take a schoolbus. Why is that?

At Persuasion Zaid Jilani laments that previously legitimate organs of serious inquiry are undermining themselves in the name of “social justice”:

The Urban Institute is one of America’s most storied think tanks. For half a century, it has produced high-quality research that has helped guide American policymakers as they tackle major domestic policy challenges.

Part of what makes the organization’s work so valuable is that it’s produced in an environment that values rigor and objectivity. Regardless of whether you agree with their policy recommendations or political lean—they tend to argue in favor of progressive solutions—you can count on their research being thorough and reliable.

That’s why it was so alarming to see a recent Urban Institute blog post by one of its policy analysts, Lauren Farrell, that argues that we should rethink the very concept of impartial research. She warned that the research practices of “objectivity” and “rigor” are “harmful” and “rooted in racism, ableism, and classism.”

“Objectivity allows researchers, intentions aside, to define themselves as experts without learning from people with lived experience,” she cautioned. “Objectivity also gives researchers grounds to claim they have no motives or biases in their work. Racism, sexism, classism, and ableism permeate US institutions and systems, which, in turn, allows for research that reproduces or creates racist stereotypes and reinforces societal power differences between who generates information (white cisgender people) and who is a subject (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color at the margins of class and gender).”

Here’s the heart of his piece:

Farrell seems to be concerned that objective and rigorous research may produce findings that are unfriendly to a progressive social agenda. She wants us to infuse our research practices with left-wing ideology for the purpose of serving left-wing goals.

But the point of research is not to promote a particular ideology or agenda. The point of research is to tell us what is true. Objectivity lets us see the world as it is, rather than what we might wish it were. It’s important to acknowledge reality and settle on a good set of facts before we do anything else. We can then use that knowledge as we see fit, based on our values—which is where ideology and argument about what should be done can come into the picture.

The irony of such a surrender is that it does not produce benefits for those who are victims of racism, for people with disabilities, or for the poor but it does reap financial rewards for those sowing discord and dissatisfaction.

The result is that each faction identifies its own approved sources of information and rejects any source not on the approved list out-of-hand.

There are a disturbing number of articles and blog posts about the difficulties or need for secession these days. Henry Olson’s column in the Washington Post is one example of the genre:

Many Americans are increasingly concerned that our national heritage, our democratic republic, is seriously in danger. A new poll from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics confirms that we have reason to worry — and that the fault is in ourselves, not our political stars.

We can see the signs of the fraying bonds of citizenship all around us. The increasingly hostile tone of mainstream political speech. The inability of our two parties to find common ground in cases of clear national interest, such as raising the debt ceiling. The way that leaders of each side accuse the other of intentionally subverting the election process to ensure their hold on power. The fact that partisans increasingly isolate themselves in information bubbles where they only hear their side of an argument and often only the extreme elements of that side.

That’s why the Center for Politics poll is so worrying. It surveyed 2,000 voters on a host of issues related to democratic health, especially how each viewed members and leaders of the other party. It found that large numbers of Joe Biden and Donald Trump voters view the other party with fear and contempt.

The most frightening findings show that supermajorities of voters in each camp believe the other side is bent on destroying the country. More than 80 percent of Biden and Trump voters agree that elected officials of the other party “present a clear and present danger to American democracy.” More than 70 percent of both sets of voters believe that some extreme media voices on the other side should be censored “despite the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.” More than 75 percent of Biden and Trump voters believe that Americans who strongly support the opposite party also threaten the American way of life. In short, politics has stopped being about how to govern a shared country and is more about a naked, “Lord of the Flies”-style struggle for power.

and so is James Joyner’s most recent post at Outside the Beltway:

Vast swaths of the country are essentially unpopulated forests, farmland, or deserts. (Both of the live maps at the USA page are interactive.)

The point of all of this is that, like it or not, there is no plausible way for Red or Blue states to secede. As has been noted here more than once, the real divide isn’t Red states and Blue states but rural and urban.

Still, the starkness of the divide is something to see. Moreover, turning to a debate that’s been ongoing in the comment section here for some time, despite the fact that the Republican Party has undeniably been more aggressive in bending the rules to get what it wants and thereby thwarting the democratic process, supporters of both parties have strong authoritarian tendencies.

In the past I have highlighted the reasons for all of this: the enormous financial rewards of increasing centralization, a decreasingly logical and increasingly visual society leading to highly agonistic modes of expression, financial subsidy of such expressions by social media, the facility for dispersed organization provided by social media, and loss of consensus due to an increasingly diverse society, just to name a few. I agree with James that the best ways of addressing the increasing division are devolution (reducing centralization and returning power to the states) and greater tolerance of a diversity of preferences and opinions. I also agree that there is little prospect of either happening for the reason I’ve underscored.

What strikes me are the responses in the comments sections. I would like to suggest that people are thinking about the prospects for civil war entirely wrong. Bowing to the need for more visual expression, let’s consider a couple of movies. The climactic scene of The Patriot, a Mel Gibson movie about the American Revolution, the scrappy rebels form a battle line opposite the redcoats and, through a series of clever tricks, outmaneuver them. There are similar scenes in The Red Badge of Courage and practically every other movie set in the American Civil War ever made.

A civil war won’t be like that. It will be more like Mad Max or maybe Blackhawk Down. Mad Max depicts a world in which civil order has simply collapsed. No real reason is given for it. Nuclear war? Fuel shortage? Just for the heck of it? It doesn’t really matter. Chaotic gangs kill, loot, and terrorize. Whom do they attack? Anyone in their path.

Not dramatic in the sense of pitched battles. And it’s already going in. The disorder in Portland continues with both left and right arguing in favor of it. Here in Chicago we’ve got broad daylight shootings in the middle of downtown. It’s not just that order has broken down but that the will to preserve order has been eroded.

As to the practicality issue emphasized by James, have people never heard of “ethnic cleansing”? It’s a phenomenon that isn’t just conducted at the national level. It goes on block by block with neighbors turning on neighbors. Thinking it can’t happen here because most states are in fact Purple States is being overly optimistic. Start thinking breakdown in order rather than maneuver warfare. Mad Max rather than The Patriot.

And speaking of other priorities you might not have heard about this incident:

Short version: a running gun battle, filmed with a video camera by a following car, going on in broad daylight in an area near the Loop.

One bystander was shot and seriously injured.

There are several things which need urgent attention in Chicago:

• We need to get rid of the mayor. She’s obviously not up to the job.
• We need to get rid of the Cook County States Attorney. She is uninterested in enforcing the law.
• If the present police chief can’t do his job, get rid of him, too.

Daylight gun battles? C’mon, people.

And James Pethokoukis has some advice for Democrats in The Week:

Americans haven’t seen a lot of successful governance lately, from the Iraq War to the global financial crisis of 2008 to the COVID-19 pandemic. And while I’m no fan of the $3.5 trillion bill, it would reflect incredibly poorly on American democracy — both domestically and internationally — if we can’t even fill a few potholes, strengthen a few bridges, and promptly raise the debt ceiling so financial markets stay calm and the United States doesn’t look like an utter laughingstock. Progressives need to pass something here if they don’t want to help turn their fascism fears into self-fulfilling prophecy.

So if progressive Democrats have to settle for a far smaller social spending bill — perhaps with means testing of new “universal” programs, for instance — they should grab the opportunity, right after they vote overwhelmingly for the infrastructure bill and the debt hike. American democracy will thank them for it.

When I was a kid my dad was the president of our street’s homeowners’ association. Every weekend he would go out with a wheelbarrow full of blacktop and a tamping tool and faithfully patch holes in the street that ran in front of our house. I should check to see if he expensed the blacktop to the HOA.

Contrary to Mr. Pethokoukis’s suggestion if we don’t “fill a few potholes” it will be because we have other priorities—in good part higher standards of living for politicians and other public employees. The reason that trust in government is waning is not because we can’t manage to fill a few potholes but because we do manage to have politicians who end up with lavish retirement homes in the Bahamas.

Predictably, the editors of the Wall Street Journal are enthusiastic in their support of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s negotiating position on the spending bills presently being debated:

Progressives are furious with Mr. Manchin, and with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, for refusing to go along with the Bernie Sanders entitlement dreamscape. As an act of retribution, they’ve threatened to scuttle the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that the two Democrats negotiated with Republicans.

Mr. Sanders wants the House to defeat the infrastructure bill, a Biden priority, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to delay going to the floor again Thursday because she lacked the votes to pass it. Unless it passes, the moderate liberals who support the infrastructure bill will know they’re riding in the back of the party bus.

Not so Mr. Manchin, who has the leverage in a 50-50 Senate to ride in the front, maybe even to drive the bus. They can’t afford to lose his vote, yet the left and the White House have behaved as if somehow the West Virginian would roll over in the end.

Mr. Manchin has been sending signals for months that his support has limits. First he refused to break the Senate filibuster. Then he said he couldn’t support $3.5 trillion because it’s inflationary and the economy no longer needs the help. Then in our pages he called for a “strategic pause” on the spending bill to debate specific policies. He might as well have been Ted Cruz for all that Democratic leaders paid attention.

Then, in statements and remarks Wednesday and Thursday, Mr. Manchin laid down markers that Democrats can no longer ignore. He won’t support more than $1.5 trillion in new spending. He says “social programs must be targeted to those in need, not expanded beyond what is fiscally possible.” He’s willing to raise some taxes, but nothing like what’s in the $2.1 trillion House Ways and Means bill.

They see Mr. Manchin as engaged in a rescue mission for Democrats, saving them from their own excesses:

Unlike Mr. Manchin, we think even $1.5 trillion more in spending is far too much after Congress has spent $5.4 trillion in the last year. More than the amount of new spending, and even more than the tax increases, the real danger is from the many new entitlements demanded by the left. Even if they start small, they will always grow. And even if they are phased out to fit a 10-year budget window, they will never be repealed.

These entitlements are the largest stakes as Democrats try to pass whatever they can without a voter mandate. They would corrode the federal fisc and entrench government from cradle-to-grave. Meantime, Mr. Manchin is trying to save Democrats from themselves.

Many Democrats, particularly House Democrats, are complaining bitterly about how undemocratic it is that one (or two) senators can hold their and the Biden Administration’s agenda hostage. I find their definition of “democratic” somewhat eccentric, apparently 50%+1 majoritarianism with themselves setting the rules on how the votes are allocated.

As a thought experiment I think it’s useful to speculate on how the administration’s “infrastructure bills” would fare if divided into individual initiatives and subjected to national votes. Judging by the polling information I have seen some would pass while some would fail. The limitation on the deductibility of state and local taxes would probably survive. True, traditionally-defined infrastructure spending would survive. Spending programs for which most of the proceeds would go to the upper middle class probably would not.

My own view is that as policy matters the limitation on the deductibility of state and local taxes should remain, corporate tax rates should not be increased, and the marginal rates on higher income individuals should be increased to make up for shortfalls. Infrastructure spending should be focused on improving the capability and durability of the electrical grid. Bridge and road repair, much of which will inevitably devoted to local conmuter traffic should be much more limited. Elon Musk seems to be improving rural broadband with only a bit of help from the federal government. Refurbishing and modernizing ports should be given more attention rather than less. Further subsidizing higher education, daycare, and healthcare should be avoided.

The editors of the Washington Post rush to the defense of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell against the verbal assaults of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren:

Ms. Warren’s critique centered on Mr. Powell’s oversight of banks. She charged that the chair has overseen deregulation that makes another 2008-style financial crisis more likely — weakening “stress tests” that banks must undergo to prove they can cope with a downturn, for example. Without urgent federal aid, Ms. Warren pointed out, big banks would have lost $300 billion when the economy turned south last year, challenging their balance sheets.

Mr. Powell responded that the banks could have endured those losses “without difficulty,” and that is in part because of the stress tests Ms. Warren argued are deficient. The chair also expressed willingness to revisit the decisions about which Ms. Warren complained. The Fed has far more tools now than it did before 2008 to police the financial system. To be sure, Mr. Powell has not used them as aggressively as Ms. Warren would prefer. But former senator Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the authors of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, wrote two weeks ago that “these were not major attacks on the legislation, and nothing in Powell’s performance contradicts his assertion that he supports the basic framework we put in place.”

Clearly, there is a difference of perception here. Sen. Warren sees her job as to bully and harass banks while Mr. Powell sees it as his job to assuage and mollify them. I will leave it as an exercise for the interested student to decide why both of those may be the case.

My own view is that Mr. Powell has been a lousy Fed Chairman, the latest in a series of lousy holders of that position going back decades. Yes, regulating banks is his job. It’s also his job to keep prices stable and maximize employment. In the immortal words of Dr. Phil, how’s that working out for you? QE has been tried and found wanting but it’s been remarkably successful in producing tremendous wealth inequality in the U. S. Banks aren’t failing at the rate they did 13 years ago but they remain on life support. We’re experiencing the highest inflation in a generation and a reduced level of employment participation.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry about these comments about the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings from the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

Underwhelming is the most charitable way to describe the World Bank’s contribution to reducing global poverty over 75 years. And now the organization’s most useful service, its annual Doing Business ranking, has been shelved, thanks to some untoward lobbying by China.

The survey, first published in 2003, “measures aspects of business regulation affecting small domestic firms located in the largest business city of 190 economies.” It covers a wide range, from registering a business to resolving bankruptcy. This massive undertaking involves nearly 50,000 experts across the globe, and its conclusions guide perhaps billions of dollars of investment.

But an independent investigation by the law firm WilmerHale has concluded that former World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva and other leaders pressured staff to improve China’s Doing Business 2018 ranking. World Bank management commissioned the probe after data irregularities were reported internally last year. The report says China rose seven places after the changes. China ranked 31st in the 2020 report, which was ahead of Switzerland in 36th. Does that sound plausible for a regime that considers business a servant of the state?

There are so many problems with the Doing Business rankings it’s hard to know where to start. Not to put too fine a point on it but it’s completely bogus. Of the 100 largest cities in the world 20 are in China, more than any other country. India comes in #2 at 9 with the U. S. #3 at 6. Most of the cities used in the rankings don’t even make the list of 100 largest cities. Many wouldn’t even make the list of 200 largest cities.

China’s largest city, Shanghai, has 26 million people. That’s more than all of the higher-ranking cities in the index put together. Wellington, New Zealand, one of the cities used the rankings (New Zealand ranks highest), has 212,000 people. I don’t honestly see how a meaningful comparison could be made. That’s not just comparing apples to oranges, it’s comparing watermelons to blueberries.

But there is an interesting question that emerges from this story: why would the Chinese authorities care? There is an answer and it’s one that should be kept in mind. For the Chinese authorities it’s not enough for China to be the best or the biggest, China must also be perceived as the best and the biggest. Once you recognize that it explains a lot.