The editors of the Washington Post muse on whether the end justifies the means in politics, focusing specifically on two cases of pandering to constituencies by the Biden Administration:

• The delay on banning menthol cigarettes, the primary consumers of which are black
• Stated opposition to the acquisition of U. S. Steel by Nippon Steel, a “straight-out sop to the United Steelworkers union”

Possibly predictably they come down on the side of the end justifying the means:

The FDA could revisit the ban after the election, and the ultimate decision on the U.S. Steel sale awaits input from regulators. On the other hand, a Trump victory could eliminate any chance of a good policy outcome in either case. So trim your principles, Democrats, and pander away. Just remember: The only thing worse than playing Machiavelli for a good cause is playing Machiavelli for a good cause and losing.

I do not believe that the end ever justifies the means when the means are immoral. That is a primary reason that I oppose Donald Trump. I think that those who support him thinking that the end justifies the means are going against the ancient wisdom. You cannot achieve good ends through bad means.

In the two cases the editors bring up they’re not accepting bad means just stupid ones. I would add that I think they err in ascribing any principles to elected officials whose only actual principles are the urge to wealth and power. IMO vanishingly few of our politicians have any principles, as I say, other than an urge to wealth and power and what produces that is the belief that the end justifies the means, cf. Mike Madigan.

Recently, I was asked to provide a concrete example of how Iran has not been forthcoming about its nuclear development program. This passage is from the site Nuclear Threat Initiative, which I recommend:

On 21 September 2009, ahead of the public revelation by the leaders of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, Iran disclosed to the IAEA that it was building a second pilot enrichment facility. According to IAEA Spokesperson Marc Vidricaire, Iran’s letter “stated that the enrichment level would be up to 5%,” and the Agency was assured that additional information would be provided in due time. The facility was located in an underground tunnel complex on the grounds of an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) base near the city of Qom. Managed by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) was slated to hold 2,784 centrifuges, and began operations using 696 centrifuges in late 2011. Moreover, Iran contradicted its declaration to the IAEA concerning planned enrichment levels by moving 19.75% enrichment activities from Natanz to Fordow. A May 2012 report from the IAEA raised concerns over the activity at Fordow, citing uranium enriched past the stated target of 19.75%, and the “difference between the original stated purpose of the facility, and the purpose for which it is now used.” The plant’s size, secrecy, and location on an IRGC military base led some analysts in the U.S. government to argue that Iran constructed it in order to produce HEU for nuclear weapons.

The original is copiously annotated. I have taken the liberty of removing the footnote references for legibility.

That example is not isolated. It is typical of our experience with Iran. The process goes something like this:

1. We learn via intelligence of an Iranian nuclear development facility. The intelligence might be electronic but is more likely human intelligence.
2. We convey what we have discovered to the Iranians, informing them that we are preparing to disclose our findings.
3. The Iranians declare our findings.

I would add that the IAEA has not been given access to all of the nuclear development facilities in Iran of which we are aware and that there is evidence that the Iranians have “sanitized” areas to which they have been given access prior to being allowed to enter. BTW I suspect British intelligence has been more successful than we. Americans are notoriously loose-lipped.

Consequently, the question those in favor of negotiating with Iran need to answer is how do they know what they don’t know? In the light of Iran’s bad faith my view is that we shouldn’t negotiate at all with the present generation of Iranian officials. The pattern with revolutions has been that after a while the revolutionaries get old and die and are succeeded by bureaucrats who are a lot more tractable (think Gorbachev).

But I also think we shouldn’t fret. What will happen will happen.

It’s not in the headlines any more but the Francis Scott Key Bridge, brought down by having been struck by a container ship last month, is still impeding travel in the Baltimore area. John D. Schulz reports in Logistics Management:

It will take just over four years and up to $1.9 billion to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge after it was hit by a cargo ship and fell into the Patapsco River, according to an estimate by the Maryland Department of Transportation.

The state plans to build a new span by the fall of 2028, spokesman David Broughton said. He also said it will likely cost anywhere from $1.7 billion-to-$1.9 billion to rebuild the span after the container ship Dali lost power and slammed into one of the bridge’s support columns.

Experts initially estimated it would take between two and 15 years to replace the bridge, which closed the loop of the Baltimore Beltway when it opened in 1977.

The March 26 collision with the massive ship sent a span of the bridge plummeting into the Patapsco River. The result closed maritime traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore because access to the harbor was blocked. The Baltimore port is the nation’s 11th-largest and tops in the number of imported cars and light trucks.

The main channel has yet to reopen. Smaller vessels are now able to pass while larger container ships continue to be blocked. Bodies continues to be discovered.

I hasten to point I’m not in support of isolationism. I’m just reacting to Garry Kasparov’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, arguing that the “free world” should isolate Russia and Iran politically and economically:

In supporting Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe have failed to establish the most basic element of strategic planning—a clearly defined goal.

Abraham Lincoln, a true strategist, began his 1858 “House Divided” speech: “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.” Where are we today? We are at war, but one side doesn’t want to admit it. Whither are we tending? In an impossible two directions at once, yearning for a return to the status quo ante of profitable and corrupt dealings with Russia while giving Ukraine just enough support to prevent a Russian victory that would spark a crisis in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

European leaders like Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz act as if they are eager to get back to business as usual with Vladimir Putin’s mafia state. They provide defensive weapons to Ukraine but waver when it comes to arms that would help Ukraine strike back, creating a perpetual cycle of civilian deaths.

The Biden administration is still guided by Obama-era aides and failed Obama-era concepts of constraining American power and allies while indulging American enemies. Supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes” isn’t a goal. Supporting Israel while telling it not to root out Hamas terrorists isn’t a goal. Supporting Ukraine until it is whole and free is a goal. Promoting long-term peace in Europe and the Middle East by doing everything possible to accelerate the downfall of hostile regimes in Russia and Iran is a goal.

and here’s his peroration:

A war can’t be won by following the rules set in peacetime. The only way to win this long war is through regime change in Moscow and Tehran. Such change will be brought closer by isolating Russia and Iran politically and economically and by halting their foreign aggression.

The aid bill must be a new beginning, not the end. On a recent trip to Washington, I heard from former top-level defense officials about a growing recognition of what is at stake and a willingness to fight for it. Russia has shifted to a permanent war footing, and China is supporting Mr. Putin’s efforts to destabilize the Western world order. The U.S. and Europe must rise to the challenge.

I believe in America and I believe the free world will prevail. Its economic, technological, cultural and military advantages are so great that only self-destructive politics can prevent success. They have already delayed it.

We need goals, a strategy for victory, and bold leadership, starting with the recognition that we are at war and the courage to take political risks to change its course. The future of American democracy—and of the entire free world—depends on it.

My question for Mr. Kasparov is how do we isolate Russia and Iran “politically and economically” without also isolating China, India, and every country trading With Russia or Iran even indirectly? I see no way of accomplishing that other than by isolating ourselves from the rest of the world “politically and economically”. That is the very definition of isolationism.

It isn’t going to happen and, consequently, it’s neither a strategy nor a goal. It’s a fantasy as is orchestrating regime change in Russia and Iran. Don’t construe that as my supporting the regimes in Russia or Iran. I would be happy if they both transmogrified into liberal democratic governments. If those are your goals, propose a reasonable, workable strategy for accomplishing it. Or, alternatively, mitigating the risks those regimes pose in some other way.

The recurring theme I have encountered today is commenters relying on empirical measures that aren’t really as empirical as one might think. One example of that is William Galston’s Wall Street Journal op-ed. In it he’s complaining about what actually may be a problem—enduring truancy after the COVID lockdowns:

About 15% of students nationwide in 2019 were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year, or about 18 days, according to the American Enterprise Institute. Full data aren’t yet available from the 2023-24 school year, but fragmentary statistics from local jurisdictions aren’t encouraging.

Students from poorer families are more likely to be chronically absent from school, but even in the nation’s richest districts, chronic absenteeism was nearly twice as high in 2023 as in 2019. Surprisingly, the length of time a school was closed isn’t a reliable predictor of absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism in 2023 stood at 28% of students for districts that remained closed the longest, not far ahead of 25% of students for districts that reopened the fastest.

A district’s racial makeup is a better predictor of what percentage of students miss school, but even in majority-white districts, chronic absenteeism rose significantly, from 13% in 2019 to 22% in 2023, compared with 17% to 30% in majority nonwhite districts.

That sounds pretty alarming but how serious is this issue really?

The problem is that “chronic truancy” is not consistently defined or applied. In Illinois “chronic truancy” is defined as nine days per academic year of unexcused absences. In Washington, DC it’s ten days. But there is no distinction between nine days per year, nine days per month, or never attending school at all.

I think we should be able to agree that outright avoidance of school is a problem. How serious is just not going to school for one day per month? That’s all that DC’s definition of chronic truancy requires.

A real chronic truancy problem has all sorts of implications among them that it calls into question the entire strategy of individuals improving their prospects in life through education. If you won’t go to school, that’s not going to happen. I should add that for the last 50 years teachers have been complaining about being saddled with addressing every social problem rather than just “readin’, ritin’, and ‘rithmetic”.

I found Jonathan Russo’s proposal at The Hill for dealing with the federal debt by imposing a wealth tax on members of the Baby Boom generation interesting:

To avoid shackling the post-Boomer generations with the onerous task of paying off the national debt, the Boomers’ wealth needs to be on the table.

In his book, “A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America,” Bruce Gibney argued that “generational plunder” was their economic legacy. Through tax cuts and deficit financing of several wars, the Boomers left America in shock. “Plunder” is a strong word. In the corporate legal world, it is enough to justify a clawback of the plunderers’ assets.

That the rich and powerful owe something to the government that gave them the ability to amass so much wealth is not unheard of. The group Patriotic Millionaires and its most visible member, Abigail Disney, argue that they themselves should pay more in taxes. They claim that American tax codes are riddled with loopholes that often make the rich pay lower average rates than working people — something Warren Buffet has spoken about for years and which was recently brought up in President Biden’s State of the Union speech.

I was unaware that the Baby Boomers had been conspiring to enrich themselves at the expense of the generations that preceded them and follow them. Or that they had used their control of the legislative and executive branches of government to do it.

As it turns out there has never been a time during which the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, and the president were all Baby Boomers. Such a time may never come. Furthermore, the author is looking at a snapshot of national wealth when he should be looking at a movie. Courtesy of Statista here is a graph illustrating the distribution of wealth by age cohort over time:

Find more statistics at Statista
As you can see the Baby Boomers’ holding of the majority of national wealth didn’t start until 2005 and it’s already beginning to decline. Meanwhile the Silent Generation held the majority of national wealth for a full fifteen years (at least)—you can’t actually tell how long due to the limitations of the graph. Most of the debt has been racked up by the Silent Generation.

Shorter: as Willie Sutton put it he robbed banks because that’s where the money is. Don’t worry. The Baby Boomers won’t have their wealth for long.

As you might suppose I do not hold with the Batman theory of American foreign relations. That is the view held by progressive interventionists (“responsibility to protet”) and neoconservative (“spread democracy”) interventionists alike. One of the things I do not understand about that view is how you reconcile shrinking defense budgets and industrial sectors with the ever-increasing need for interventions. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on that.

There are many things about the contours of the present U. S. policies that I do not understand. I do not understand how an infinite number of low-skill migrants will help the United States. I don’t even know how we’ll pay for them. I’ve published the numbers before. A family of four migrants without highly desirable skills, e.g. one in which neither of the two adults is a physician or other highly compensated worker, has a maximum household income of around $60,000. In Chicago the cost of such a family (two adults, two children) to the city is right around $60,000. Said another way you lose money on every such household. And that doesn’t even include their housing. Just school for the kids, healthcare subsidies, and safety.

I also don’t understand how we will produce senior engineers when junior engineers can’t get jobs here. Or how we’ll pay the ever-increasing interest on the public debt on which we already spend more than we do on defense.

There are times when I feel fortunate that I am unlikely to live to see these flawed policies come to their fruition. I’m not planning on dying in the next year or so but the likelihood of my living another, say, 20 years is pretty low.

I’m afraid I disagree with the point that John Limbert is making at Responsible Statecraft. I think it’s far too early to negotiate with Iran.

Sooner or later, if the U.S. and the Islamic Republic are going to avoid such a lose-lose conflict, the two sides will need to stop shouting and start talking. Forty-five years of exchanging empty slogans, accusa­tions, threats, and denunci­a­tions have accomplished little beyond furthering a few political careers and feed­ing a sense of self-righteousness. For suc­cessive U.S. adminis­trations, Iran remains a problem that will not go away.

To para­phrase Trotsky, “You may have no business with Iran; but Iran has business with you.” For Iran, the U.S. remains an obsession. The more Iran’s hated rulers denounce it, the more attractive it becomes — as both a role model and a destination — to a savvy popula­tion suffering from inflation, unemployment, and the stern, miso­gynistic dictates of an aging and ossified ruling elite.

The Islamic Republic, despite the wishes of many Iranians and their friends, is probably not going away soon. In the first months after the fall of the monarchy, the most-asked question in Tehran was, “When are THEY leaving?” (Inhaa key mirand?). Forty-five years later THEY are still in charge and show no signs of packing their bags.

Two comparisons come to mind: Russia and Cuba. The Russian Revolution took place in 1917. Forty-five years later was 1962—just about the time of the Cuban missile crisis. We would still be dealing with committed revolutionaries until the 1980s and the Soviet Union collapse in the 1990s, a full 75 years later. The Cuban Revolution overthrew Batista in 1959. Forty-five years later Fidel Castro still ruled Cuba and would until his death in 2016. Cuba’s present ruler is no committed revolutionary—he hadn’t even been born in 1959. Negotiating with him might be effective; negotiating with either of the Castro brothers would have been a waste of breath and plane fare.

Ali Khameini, Iran’s Supreme Leader, is a committed revolutionary. We won’t get a damned thing from him.

It doesn’t make any difference how urgent the need is. Some things can only take place in the fullness of time. Regardless of how much we might like to think otherwise negotiating with Iran at this point would be an exercise in futility.

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.