It’s been hard to find anything worth writing about lately. So much is just partisan bickering with little real substance. Let’s consider the pro-Palestinian student protests for a moment.

I have three observations. First, I think that those who characterize the protests as “LARPing activism” or “cos-playing radicalism” have it about right. Fortunately, I remember the student protests of the 60s and early 70s pretty vividly. I can say with confidence that most student demonstrators really didn’t give a damn about the Vietnam War. They were vitally interested in not being drafted. I would submit as proof of that assertion that the demonstrations were greatly muted long before the war ended but just about at the time that the draft ended in 1973.

My second observation is that IMO Tom Cotton’s remarks about the protests on the talking heads programs yesterday were pretty devastating. If the protesters were really pro-Palestinian they’d be demanding that Hamas surrender. There are a lot of things they may be demonstrating about but it’s not in support of the Palestinians.

My final observation on the subject is that the right strategy for addressing them is quite straightforward. People definitely have freedom of speech and a right to protest but they don’t have a right to bullhorns or disorderly conduct and they don’t have a right to conduct protests or camp on private property. The police should be called in the moment a protest strays from speech or one of these encampments is created on private property. When protesters are arrested clear distinctions should be made. Non-students should include charges of trespassing and, possibly, criminal property damage. If they are non-U. S. citizens they should be deported. While non-citizens have the same freedom of speech as citizens while on U. S. soil, they don’t have a right to raise hell here. Consider it a teachable moment.

At Brussels Signal Ralph Schoellhammer argues that Americans are being misled into thinking that Arabs in the Middle East support Hamas when the reality is that they actually support Israel because they recognize that Iran, for which Hamas is a proxy, is the greater danger:

If one views the Arab-Israeli conflict through the ongoing campus protests at US universities, one could easily get the impression that Israel might be winning militarily, but it is losing the battle for global public opinion. However, anyone who has the slightest understanding of the Middle East knows that the language spoken there is one of power, not popularity.

Contrary to popular belief, the fate of Palestine and its people is not the number one issue for most Arab States, and despite the rhetoric of their propaganda there is a growing willingness to find a lasting arrangement with the state of Israel.

This has been clear since the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020 normalizing relations between Israel on side and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on the other. A few months later, Sudan and Morocco joined the accords, marking what has been a tectonic shift in the region – and if it would not have been for the deep-seated prejudice against Donald Trump in the media, should have secured the US President a Nobel Peace Prize.

While I think he has a point I don’t think he’s got it quite right. I think there is a broad gap between popular opinion among Arabs in the Middle East, sometimes referred as the “Arab street”, and the views of the leaders of Arab countries in the Middle East. I think that Mr. Schellhammer interprets the views of the Middle Eastern leaders correctly:

Certainly, public opinion in Saudi Arabia and other places remains staunchly anti-Israel, as recent polling has shown: “Only 14% of respondents agreed to allow Israeli civilian airplanes to fly over Saudi Arabia, and just 13% would permit Israeli sports teams to participate in events in Saudi Arabia, and a mere 7% would welcome Israel’s prime minister to an international conference in Saudi Arabia.”

These views notwithstanding, the reform oriented Arab leaders from Jordan to Saudi Arabia are well aware that the potential peace dividend that could come from the combination of Arab capital and Israeli high tech could be a key element in their modernization plans, and they refuse to make everything contingent on the question of Palestinian statehood.

There is a reason for this and it is not rooted in economic interest as the author avers but in the threat that Islamist radicals pose to the leaderships of Arab countries. Consequently, the basic question is less one of what Arabs believe but of whether the leaders of authoritarian Arab countries will remain in control.

If they do you can expect some modernization of Arab countries in the Middle East somewhat along Chinese lines. If they don’t I suspect we will see increased support for Islamist radicals like Hamas and Hezbollah at the expense all else.

There’s a wisecrack in journalism going back to the late 19th century, attributed to many. “‘Dog bites man’ is not news but ‘man bites dog’ is news.” That’s what I thought of when I read the headlines this morning about a Texas Congressman and his wife being charged with accepting bribes for official actions from a foreign country. “Congressman accepting bribes” is not news but “Congressman charged with accepting bribes” is news. And it’s not just any Congressman, either, but one with ten terms worth of seniority and positions on significant committees and subcommittees.

I wasn’t shocked by the report for reasons I’ve explained before. I think that practically all Congressmen are engaged in illegal or unethical activities and those who aren’t know about the actions of the rest which makes them guilty, too. It did surprise me that the DoJ was charging him. I can only speculate that some rogue news organization or another was about to reveal the facts (or, worse, hold the facts until releasing them could do the most harm) that prompted the action.

You can’t blame the voters. The Congressman has been running unopposed for quite a while. That’s true in a remarkable number of districts.

I could propose reforms that would reduce the scale of the problem but why bother? They will never be adopted and Constitutional amendments restraining Congressmen would just move the problem from members of Congress to staffs and the civil bureaucracy. The only thing that could really eliminate the problem would be to restrict the scope of Congressional action and that’s impractical.

The question above is what this article in Foreign Affairs by Christian Caryl struggles with. Most of the article is devoted to how hard it is to be confident about Russian public opinion but this passage is the best assessment the author could come up with:

The data from Levada and other independent pollsters, such as Russian Field and the Chronicle Group, show that general support for the war remains strong—77 percent, according to the latest Levada poll, published in March. Yet Levada also noted that more respondents (52 percent) favored peace negotiations than the continuation of hostilities (40 percent), which doesn’t square with the Kremlin’s desires. And a whopping 66 percent of those surveyed agreed that Russia is paying too high a price for the invasion.

I agree with the author that making a realistic assessment of Russian public opinion is a critical need. However, I doubt that we’ll manage it especially in the near term. All I can advise is take what our news media are saying with a grain (maybe more than a grain) of salt.

I wanted to call this investigation by Aaron Maté at RealClearInvestigations to your attention. It chronicles how involved the United States has been in Ukrainian politics since 2014. It relies heavily on information from Andrii Telizhenko:

Although he once welcomed Washington’s influence in Ukraine, Telizhenko now takes a different view. “I’m a Ukrainian who knew how Ukraine was 30 years ago, and what it became today,” he says. “For me, it’s a total failed state.” In his view, Ukraine has been “used directly by the United States to fight a [proxy] war with Russia” and “as a rag to make money for people like Biden and his family.”

The State Department has accused Telizhenko being part of a “Russia-linked foreign influence network.” In Sept. 2020 it revoked his visa to travel to the United States. Telizhenko, who now lives in a western European country where he was granted political asylum, denies working with Russia and says that he is a whistleblower speaking out to expose how U.S. interference has ravaged his country. RealClearInvestigations has confirmed that he worked closely with top American officials while they advanced policies aimed at severing Ukraine’s ties to Russia. No official contacted for this article – including former CIA chief John Brennan and senior State Department official Victoria Nuland – disputed any of his claims.

Whether fomenting “proxy wars” with Russia is in the U. S. interest or not, just as I do not care for other countries interfering in U. S. politics, I do not care for the U. S. interfering in the politics of other countries.

I found this analysis by the 538 staff of the present political alignment of the House of Representatives interesting. They identify eight different “types”, three Democratic and five Republican, of representatives based on how they voted:

• Progressive Democrats
• Core Democrats
• Moderate Democrats
• Moderate Republicans
• Compromise Conservatives
• Old Guard Republicans
• Far-Right Establishment
• Far-Right Obstructionists

I found it hard to disagree with their breakdown or with their methodology. I did find this passage amusing:

Another surprise: while many members of this cluster [Ed.: Progressive Democrats have made headlines for unseating long-serving representatives in primaries over the last several years, this cluster is actually one of the longest-tenured in the House, having been elected to an average of 6.3 terms. That’s due to the presence of progressive stalwarts like Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the longest-serving member of this cluster, who has been elected to 17 terms.

It’s completely unsurprising. Those long-tenured progressives are the very reason that progressives have more clout in the Democratic caucus than their actual numbers would suggest. Look at the substantial overlap between the House Progressive Caucus and the Democratic leadership.

A few comments. First, their findings completely support a point I’ve made before—progressives have more clout than their numbers warrant. Also, note the relatively low numbers of moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans as well as how distant they are from the Congressional leadership. That’s what makes compromise so difficult.

Finally, I find the authoritarian bent of both major parties troubling. If you’ve listened to the members of Congress who are retiring one of the main complaints is that the leadership is much more in control than used to be the case. That’s not democracy. It’s authoritarian oligarchy by another name.

I wanted to call Oona Hathaway’s piece at Foreign Affairs, “War Unbound”, to your attention. It’s basically a lament for the abandoning of international law, using Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and Russia’s war against Ukraine as examples:

International humanitarian law, also known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict, is supposed to spare civilians from the worst calamities of conflict. The aim of this body of law has always been clear: civilians not involved in the fighting deserve to be protected from harm and to enjoy unimpeded access to humanitarian aid. But in the Israel-Hamas war, the law has failed. Hamas continues to hold hostages and has used schools, hospitals, and other civilian buildings to shield its infrastructure, while Israel has waged an all-out war in densely populated areas and slowed the flow of desperately needed aid to a trickle. The result has been utter devastation for civilians in Gaza.

The conflict in Gaza is an extreme example of the breakdown of the law of war, but it is not an isolated one. It is the latest in a long series of wars in the years since 9/11, from the U.S.-led “war on terror” to the Syrian civil war to Russia’s war in Ukraine, that have chipped away at protections for civilians. From this grim record, it might be tempting to conclude that the humanitarian protections that governments worked so hard to enshrine in law after World War II hold little meaning today. Yet even a hobbled system of international humanitarian law has made conflict more humane. Indeed, for all the frequent transgressions, the existence of these legal protections has provided continuous pressure on belligerents to limit civilian casualties, provide safe zones for noncombatants, and allow for humanitarian access—knowing they will face international consequences when they do not.

None of my ensuing comments should be taken as taking one side or the other in either of those conflicts.

I would suggest to Ms. Hathaway that she read Ernest Gellner’s book, Plough, Sword, and Book. “International law” as exemplified by, say, the Geneva Accords, is a fine illustration of cultural bias. Like it or not those accords were arrived at by Western Europeans when Western European countries ruled most of the world.

To most of the rest of the world including (to use Samuel Huntington’s taxonomy) the Orthodox world, the Islamic world, and the Sinic or Confucian world, distinguishing between the military and civilians is meaningless noise. We only think that distinction has a meaning because there is a millennia-old basis for it in our Western culture. That is not the case for other cultures.

Contrary to its portrayal by many in the West, Israel’s is not a Western culture any more than the Palestinians’ is. Indeed, they are more alike in their practices than different. What’s amazing is that the Israelis have been as restrained as they have. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians are part of the Orthodox world.

If we are to be really serious about international law we must a) follow it ourselves (the U. S.’s reluctance to obey international law is the meat for another post) and b) reassert Western dominance over the rest of the world. I don’t believe we can be successful in such an effort. In other words we should get used to a world in which there is no international law or, possibly, no international standards of conduct for nations at all because that is likely to be the world we will be living in.

In her latest Washington Post column Megan McArdle muses on what will happen when automation begins to supplant professionals’ jobs. After noting that she continues to believe that free trade and increased automation are the correct prescriptions she goes on:

But as artificial intelligence starts coming for our jobs, I wonder how well the professional class will take its own medicine. Will we gracefully transition to lower-skilled service work, as we urged manufacturing workers to do? Or will we fight like hell to retain what we have, for our children as well as ourselves?

My prediction is that professionals will go through the Five Stages of Grief. It may be that has already begun and they’re in the denial stage.

My prescription on the other hand is that professional education needs to change with the times, both in how prospective professionals are selected and what they’re expected to do.

A number of other observations occur to me. I wonder how Megan squares this:

As we entered the electorate, it became a major force in our politics, as the Clintons tried to steer the economy toward a global, postindustrial future.

with the fact that there was a sharp upswing in immigration, almost entirely of low-skill workers whose jobs could easily be performed via automation, during the Clinton years? Different Clinton policies were working at cross-purposes? Or that much of Washington Consensus policy was either wrong or inconsistently applied?

My second observation is that I suspect that generative artificial intelligence will replace the lowest cost entry level “professional” jobs first which is almost entirely backwards. As I have pointed out any number of times junior engineers become senior engineers. When you cut off the paths to becoming a junior engineer whether by offshoring or automation, it will inevitably lead to no senior engineers eventually.

The sad reality is that some of the things that can actually be done better by algorithms, e.g. a lot of what lawyers do and some of the things that physicians do, e.g. diagnosis based on clinical findings but that lawyers and doctors have the political clout to prevent their jobs being taken over by machines. The comparison I would make is to occupational licensing. It’s one way of preventing your job from being offshored.

Nate Silver cautions that campus activists are not synonymous with “the youth vote”:

Speaking of which, as you can see from the poll, “Israel/Palestine” and even climate change also ranked as issues of relatively low importance to young voters. The Middle East may be the exception that proves the rule — even if relatively few people care about it, those who do are obviously extremely passionate about it, and I don’t think people are bluffing when they say it could swing their votes. However, the reporting often treats protests on elite college campuses, or social media posts from articulate activists, as though they’re a proxy for the youth vote overall. Young voters do differ from older ones on some issues, including Israel-Palestine and free speech. But they do not care about these issues nearly as much as they care about more basic stuff like the economy and health care.

Here are the poll results to which he refers:

As you can see the issues they’re most concerned about are inflation and healthcare while the issues most frequently mentioned in the media as issues swaying “the youth vote”, e.g. climate change, Israel/Palestine, and student debt, are way down on the list. How to explain the discrepancy? I think there are many reasons including:

• The issues they report on make more colorful copy
• The issues they report on are more important to them, personally
• The issues they report on reflect the interests of people who work on political or campaign staffs
• The issues that are actually young people’s highest concerns don’t fit the preferred narrative
• The issues that are actually young people’s highest concerns are seen as disadvantageous for Biden and advantageous for Trump

Here’s a wacky idea. The White House could start focusing on the problems that people including young people actually care about rather than the issues political activists care about.