It’s all under control — by the wrong people.

There seems to be a long-overdue awakening of MSM outlets to Joe Biden’s corruptness (regarding which, see this and this). The awakening means that the big-money bankrollers of the Democrat Party have decided that Biden must go.

Biden must go not because of his corruptness, of course, but because his presence in the White House (if not in his own mind) threatens big-money’s agenda: corporate capitalism and the effete elite’s agenda (wokeness, “climate change”, etc.), The advancement of the agenda means bigger government and the effete elite’s control thereof. As the old saying goes: Follow the money,.

The question facing the bankrollers is how to remove Biden before the scandal leads to impeachment hearings, which even the MSM wouldn’t be able to ignore. The resulting taint would attach to the Democrat Party and would threaten its hold (and the bankrollers’ hold) on the executive and legislative branches (and eventual hold on the judicial branch).

It follows that Biden must go soon, to avert impeachment hearings and tamp down the incipient revolt among Dem voters. A large fraction of Dem voters have turned against Biden — mainly because they see him as incompetent to advance the big-government agenda to which they have become addicted. So Biden must not only go soon, but he must be replaced by a young, vigorous, articulate leftist who can prevail in 2024, carry both houses of Congress with him, and ensure the advancement of the agenda. Gavin Newsom seems to fit the bill; Kamala Harris definitely does not.

Biden’s semi-graceful departure won’t be hard to arrange, given his increasingly obvious mental and physical decline. (Dr. Jill will be the biggest obstacle to removing Joe, but everyone has her price.) The threat of a removal via the 25th Amendment (sugar-coated with the promise of a pardon) should do the trick. Joe will plead ill-health and go quietly into the encroaching shadows of senility.

The bigger challenge will be getting Kamala out of the way, to ensure the ascension of the preferred successor to Joe. One way would be to remove her before removing Joe, but that would be politically complicated (and time-consuming), and it could alienate some key elements of the Dem base (e.g., blacks and militant women).

The better way is to cut a deal with Kamala before Joe is removed, a deal that involves a prestigious, undemanding, wealth-making job at the end of her truncated term of office (e.g., the presidency of a major foundation or some other institution under the control of the bankrollers). Her side of the deal will be to nominate as her VP the desired successor to Joe. (Approval by Congress is assured because too many Republicans will sell out in the name of bipartisanship.) A few months later, Kamala will announce her decision not to seek election in 2024.

The recently anointed VP will then seize his party’s banner and re-energize Democrats (along with too many independents and gullible Republicans). He will then — with the aid of Big Tech, the media, electronic chicanery, and a lot of money — win the election and bring control of Congress in his wake.

And the death of America will be confirmed.

A little bit can mean a lot.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery. — “Wilkins Micawber” in David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens.

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I have derided marginal thinking in economics and politics because it ignores the full-blown consequences of policies that are meant to be benign. In fact, such policies often have marginal consequences that are far-reaching and destructive.

One such policy is the subsidization of homelessness. Polities that do so (e.g., California) attract homeless persons from surrounding regions and even across long distances. Thus a small addition to a “compassionate” city’s population will result in unsightly and unsanitary encampments, harassment of and criminal acts against non-homeless persons, degradation of whole areas with resulting loss of business (and jobs) and reduced property values. In the alternative, taxpayers are made to foot the bill for keeping the homeless off the streets (when they can be lured off the streets) by accommodating them in hotels and purpose-built “hostels”, where unsanitary conditions and crime will nevertheless fester.

A set of policies is responsible for inflation, which is a marginal phenomenon: a general increase in the prices of products and services. (The rate of increase is now about 4 percent a year, as against the previously prevailing rate of about 2 percent a year.) What are the policies? The leading one, of course, is the huge increase in the Fed’s balance sheet over the past several years, which has enabled the federal government to spend money like a fleet of drunken sailors. There are also policies that restrict supply by giving money to people for not working, or just giving it to them (e.g., SNAP, extended unemployment benefits, expansion of Medicaid, COVID stimulus checks). There are also policies that directly restrict supply, one of which is the minimum wage, which deters employment of unskilled labor and prevents the resulting unemployed persons from acquiring marketable skills. (Government policies, in general, have imposed a huge burden on economic activity, which I measure in “America’s Mega-Depression”.)

The thing about marginal changes is that they can cascade without “nudging” by government. Cascades are especially prevalent among impressionable children, adolescents, young adults, and rootless adults whose moral compasses are broken. If you are at all attentive to the internet (and who isn’t these days?), you may be under the impression that the country is being overrun by young persons who don’t know what sex they are but want to change whatever it is. There seem to be a lot of adults (including parents) who are encouraging this destructive fad, or who feel compelled (lacking a moral compass) to go along with children who want to go along with it.

All of that comes on top of wokeness, which features the indoctrination of the impressionable and morally weak in the general belief that all human beings are created equal — not just under the law, but in all respects. A key tenet of wokeism is that nothing should be said or done to disabuse the woke of the nonsense they swallow and regurgitate. Au contraire, everything should be done to reinforce wokeism, including but far from limited to rewarding criminal behavior, disregarding actual ability and performance, and censoring those who oppose wokeism and its destructive consequences.

Gender confusion and wokeism seem to go hand-in-hand with another marginal change with destructive consequences: the explosion of social-media addiction (enabled by the explosion of cell-phone use) among young persons (and the aforementioned addled adults). On that front, I refer you to Maggie Kelly’s post, “Scientists Report Drop in Young People’s IQs” (The College Fix, March 9, 2023), and an excellent series of posts by Jonathan Haidt at After Babel, beginning with “The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Began around 2012” (February 8, 2023) and including “Kids Who Get Smartphones Earlier Become Adults with Worse Mental Health” (May 15, 2023). (Go to Haidt’s archive for a complete and up-to-date list of entries.)

By pointing out the marginal nature of these various practices, policies, and consequences I don’t mean to minimize them. What I mean to do is emphasize the importance of eliminating rot at its source. The rot in America has a common source: the destruction of civil society and (thus) of traditional morality at the hands of government.

See, for example:

• How the Constitution Was Lost

• The Paradoxes and Consequences of Liberty and Prosperity

• America Is Dead

• The Real Tragedy of the End of “Free Speech”

Do not despair. My diagnoses come with a remedy.

In case you missed them.

The effort to smear Trump going into the election of 2016, to remove him from office after he won, to make up for that lapse by rigging the election of 2020, and to doggedly pursue him in the courts since he left the presidency is part of the larger conspiracy that I spell out in “Obamagate and Beyond”. Appended to that post is a long list of related reading. Of late, that list has become focused on the Biden family’s influence peddling scheme. Preventing the exposure of that scheme was and is one of the objectives that underlies the persecution of Trump.

Here’s a link to a timeline of events in the Biden family’s influence-peddling operation: House Committee on Oversight: The Bidens’ Influence Peddling Timeline.

Below is a selection of readings specifically related to the Biden scandal. The list ends in August 2023, at the point at which new items about Biden Family corruption began to appear too often to allow me to keep the list up to date. At the same time, some notice began to be paid by the legacy media — initially “spun” to exonerate the president, but increasingly critical of him. Where all of this will lead is anyone’s guess. Mine is here.

Fred Lucas, “House Oversight Panel to Consider Demanding Financial Details of Biden Family Business Deals”, The Daily Signal, September 19, 2022 (The move was quashed by Democrats, of course.)

Republican Staff Report, “FBI Whistleblowers: What Their Disclosures Indicate about the Politicization of the FBI and Justice Department”, Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives, November 4, 2022

Jordan Boyd, “Despite Biden’s Explicit Denials, New York Times Confirms POTUS Involvement in Family Business”, The Federalist, January 12, 2023

Tyler Durden, “Why Was Hunter Paying Joe Biden $50k Per Month To Rent House Where Classified Documents Found?”, ZeroHedge, January 15, 2023

Margot Cleveland, “House Republicans Are Investigating Damning Evidence Of Corruption, Not Hunter Biden”, The Federalist, January 16, 2023

Tyler Durden, “Hunter Biden $55,000 Offer for Russian Oligarch Falls Under Fresh Scrutiny”, ZeroHedge, February 2, 2023

Rob Smith, “Joe Biden Is Curiously Serving Two Masters, Which Has Me Wondering”, RealClearMarkets, February 2, 2023

Tyler Durden, “‘It’s As Bad As We Thought’: CCP Money Flowed To Biden Family According Bank Records, Documents Obtained By House GOP”, ZeroHedge, March 12, 2023

Tyler Durden, “Biden’s Collapsing Sgt. Schultz Defense: New Evidence Shows The President Played Direct Role In Addressing Hunter’s Business Deals”, ZeroHedge, March 23, 2023

Charlotte Hazard and John Solomon, “Effort to Squash Biden Family Stories Long Predated Hunter Laptop, Newly Released Emails Reveal”, Just the News, March 24, 2023

Fred Lucas, “Watchdog: Biden White House Officials Coordinated With DOJ for Trump Mar-a-Lago Raid”, The Daily Signal, April 11, 2023

Charlotte Hazard, “Bank Releases Records Showing Millions in Transaction between Hunter Biden, China firms, Johnson”, Just the News, April 12, 2023

Bailee Hill, “Ex-Obama Staffer Blows Whistle on Biden ‘Kickback Scheme’ after Hunter Joined Burisma: ‘Malfeasance in Office’“, Fox News, April 13, 2023

John Solomon, “Senior IRS Agent Blows Whistle, Alleging Biden DOJ Thwarting Criminal Prosecution of Hunter Biden”, Just the News, April 19, 2023

Miranda Devine, “The Left Ignores the Real Biden Delaware Drama to Satisfy [Its] Bias”, New York Post, April, 19, 2023

Neo, “The Biden Coverup”, The New Neo, April 20, 2023

Deroy Murdock, “Biden’s Presidency Built Atop an Actual ‘Big Lie’”, The Daily Signal, May 1, 2023

Fred Lucas, “House Oversight: Biden Family Got Over $10 Million From Foreign Entities While He Was VP”, The Daily Signal, May 10, 2023 (As of the morning of publication, similar stories were abundant across the media, except for the left-wing outlets. There’s no mention of the story in The New York Times online, and it isn’t to be found on the main page of The Washington Post online — finding it on WaPo’s site requires a search.)

Jonathan Turley, “America’s State Media: The Blackout on Biden Corruption Is Truly ‘Pulitzer-Level Stuff’”, Res Ipsa Loquitur, May 15, 2023

Ben Whedon, “Biden Was Briefed on Clinton Involvement in Trump-Russia Hoax”, Just the News, May 15, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “Bidens Offer ‘Safe Harbor’ to Hunter as He Flails over Scandalous Reports, New Messages Show”, New York Post, May 29. 2023

Margot Cleveland, “Breadcrumbs From A Buried FBI Source May Lead To A Bigger Biden Scandal”, The Federalist, May 31, 2023

Bonchie, “James Comer Discusses His Meeting With the FBI, Reveals What’s Next for the Biden Bribery Investigation”, RedState, June 5, 2023

Eric Lendrum, “Comer: FBI Has Harbored Biden Bribery Allegations since 2017”, American Greatness, June 7, 2023

John Sexton, “Rep. Greene Describes What Was in That FD-1023 and Bill Barr Contradicts Rep. Raskin”, Hot Air, June 8, 2023

Bonchie, “Biden Bribery Scandal Expands, Comer to be Briefed on Two Additional FD-1023 Forms”, RedState, June 9, 2023

Jerry Dunleavy, “Joe Biden referred to As ‘Big Guy’ in Dealings with Ukraine, FBI Record Reportedly Reveals”, Washington Examiner, June 12, 2023

Ben Whedon, “Grassley: Foreign National Who Allegedly Bribed Joe, Hunter Biden Has Recordings of Them”, Just the News, June 12, 2023

Nick Arama, “FBI Deputy Director’s Disturbing Revelation About ‘Biden Bribery’ Recordings That Should Concern Us All”, RedState, June 14, 2023

Elizabeth Crawford, “FBI Refuses to Release Document Alleging 17 Taped Conversations Between Biden Family and Burisma Official”, The American Spectator, June 14, 2023

Rick Noble, “Republicans Question Murky Origin of $10M on Biden 2017 Tax Return”, RedState, June 14, 2023

Margot Cleveland, “The Bidens ‘Coerced’ Burisma To Pay $10 Million In Bribes, Says Credible FBI Source”, The Federalist, June 15, 2023

Nick Arama, “Top Biden Aide’s Husband Came to Hunter Biden’s ‘Rapid Response’ Rescue When Burisma Controversy Hit”, RedState, June 16, 2023

Eric Lendrum, “Comer: New Bank Records Will Reveal $30M Foreign Payments to Biden Family”, American Greatness, June 16, 2023

Victor Davis Hanson, “The Ukraine-American
Gordian Knot”, American Greatness, June 18, 2023

Bob Anderson “How Did Biden Really Make His Millions? It’s Time For A Special Counsel To Find Out”, The Federalist, June 19, 2023

Bonchie, “Hunter Biden and a Maltese Bank Account Raise Big Red Flags Amidst the Biden Bribery Scandal”, RedState, June 19, 2023

Margot Cleveland, “Did The FBI Prevent Delaware Agents From Investigating Biden Bribery Allegations?”, The Federalist, June 20, 2023

Bonchie, “Bombshell New Information on Hunter Biden Investigation Says the Fix Was in, Merrick Garland Directly Implicated”, RedState, June 22, 2023

Bonchie, “HUGE: Transcript Shows Joe Biden in the Room While Hunter Biden Threatened Chinese Officials to Pay Them, DOJ Sunk the Investigation Into the Matter”, RedState, June 22, 2023

Jordan Boyd, “IRS Whistleblower Docs Show DOJ Obstructed Hunter Biden Probe To Protect President”, The Federalist, June 22, 2023

Spencer Brown, “Oh, So That’s Why Hunter Biden Got a Sweetheart Plea Deal When He Did”, Townhall, June 22, 2023

Elizabeth Crawford, “Special Counsel Durham Further Unveils Russia Collusion Hoax”, The American Spectator, June 22, 2023

Shawn Fleetwood, “FBI Knew Hunter Biden’s Laptop Was Authentic A Year Before Pressuring Big Tech To Censor It”, The Federalist, June 22, 2023

Eric Lendrum, “Durham: FBI Ignored Hillary Clinton Plot to Tie Trump to Russia”, American Greatness, June 22, 2023

Elle Purnell, “Hunter Biden Threatened ‘My Father’ Could ‘Hold A Grudge’ In Extortive Message To Chinese Associate Revealed By Whistleblower”, The Federalist, June 22, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “All the Crimes that Hunter’s Ridiculous Plea Deal Missed”, New York Post, June 22, 2023

John Solomon, “Bombshell Evidence: Read IRS Whistleblower Documents Released by Congress in Biden Family Probe”, Just the News, June 22, 2023

John Solomon, “IRS Whistleblower Says Search Warrants, Charges for Hunter Biden Blocked, Joe Met Chinese Client”, Just the News, June 22, 2023

Ben Whedon, “Second IRS Whistleblower Backs Up Claims of DOJ Improprieties during Hunter Biden Investigation”, Just the News, June 22, 2023

Evita Duffy-Alfonso, “Whistleblower: FBI Tipped Off ‘People Very Close’ To Joe And Hunter Before IRS Investigative Team’s ‘Day Of Action’”, The Federalist, June 22, 2023

Nicholas Ballasy, “IRS Whistleblowers Challenge AG Garland’s Claim Biden Probe Free of Political Interference”, Just the News, June 22, 2023

Fred Lucas, “9 Allegations About Bidens, DOJ in IRS Whistleblowers’ Testimonies”, The Daily Signal, June 23, 2023

John Solomon, “Feds Built $2.2 Million Tax Case against Hunter Biden Dating to 2014 before Being Thwarted”, Just the News, June 24, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “Who Is Lying, Merrick Garland or the Whistleblowers?”, The Hill, June 24, 2023

John Solomon, “FBI Validated Hunter Biden Laptop Months before Experts Claimed Russian Disinformation”, Just the News, June 25, 2023

Thomas Lifson, “Bombshell Revelation: Hunter Paid for Secret $300/Month ‘Global Phone’ Used by VP Biden While in Office”, American Thinker, June 26, 2023

Margot Cleveland, “IRS Whistleblower Emails Suggest David Weiss Misled Congress In Letter Claiming Charging Authority”, The Federalist, June 26, 2023

John Solomon, “With New Evidence, Congress Unmasks a Multi-Year Government Plot to Protect Biden, Sully Trump”, Just the News, June 26, 2023

Debra Heine, “Hunter Biden to CCP-Linked Business Partner: ‘The Bidens Are the Best I Know at Doing Exactly What the Chairman Wants’”, American Greatness, June 27, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “Was Garland Lying? New York Times Confirms Weiss was Blocked from Bringing Additional Charges”, Res Ipsa Loquitur, June 28, 2023

Debra Heine, “Hunter Biden’s Former Business Partner Was Willing to Testify Before Grand Jury; Delaware U.S. Attorney Didn’t Answer His Calls”, American Greatness, June 29, 2023

John Solomon, “Hunter Biden Prosecutor Refusing to Cooperate with Congress, but Adjusts Earlier Story”, Just the News, July 1, 2023

Nick Arama, “Biden Email Has Smoking Gun Evidence When It Comes to Joe, Hunter, and Call to Poroshenko”, RedState, July 5, 2023

Miranda Devine, “‘Missing’ Biden Corruption Case Witness Dr. Gal Luft Details Allegations against President’s Family in Extraordinary Video”, New York Post, July 5, 2023

Debra Heine, “Whistleblower Gal Luft: ‘I May Have to Live on the Run For the Rest of My Life’ For Informing U.S. Gov. About Biden’s Influence Peddling”, American Greatness, July 6, 2023

Debra Heine, “Grassley: Delaware U.S. Attorney Received October 2020 Briefing on Biden Bribery Allegations; Demands to Know ‘What Steps Were Taken’”, American Greatness, July 10, 2023

Tristan Justice, “Weiss Letter Undermines Facade Of Independent Hunter Biden Investigation”, The Federalist, July 11, 2023

John Solomon, “Hunter Biden Mystery: Why Did Delaware Prosecutor Not Bring Charges His Office Approved?”, Just the News, July 12, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “My Wray or the Hard Way: Twitter Files Contradict FBI Director’s Testimony”, Res Ipsa Loquitur, July 13, 2023

Jennifer Van Laar, “It Sure Looks Like U.S. Attorney David Weiss Has Been Obstructing the Hunter Biden Investigation”, RedState, July 13, 2023

Bonchie, “New Emails Finally Reveal What Hunter Biden Was Doing for Burisma Founder, as More Dots Start to Connect”, RedState, July 14, 2023

Jennifer van Laar, “BREAKING: Former FBI Agent Confirms Key Portions of Whistleblower Testimony in Hunter Biden Probe”, RedState, July 17, 2023

John Solomon, “FBI Tipped Off Biden team, Secret Service about Plan to Interview Hunter, Agent Tells Congress”, Just the News, July 17, 2023

Debra Heine, “FBI Whistleblower: Investigators Were Told to Wait For Hunter’s Okay Before Approaching his House to Interview Him”, American Greatness, July 17, 2023

John Solomon, “Forbidden Questions, Denied Warrants, Witness Tipoffs: Agents Detail Interference in Biden Probe”, Just the News, July 18, 2023

Many links about the prepared statement and testimony of “Whistleblower X”, IRS agent Joseph Ziegler, July 19, 2023: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Many links about the incriminating contents of FBI witness statement, the FBI’s authentication of Hunter’s laptop and subsequent coverup, and other news about the Bidens’ influence-peddling operation, July 20, 2023: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Further revelations about Joe Biden’s direct involvement in the influence-peddling business and the FBI’s coverup, July 24, 2033: here, here, here here, and here.

Updates for July 25, 2025: here, here, here, and here.

Nick Arama, “Comer Reveals New Damaging Info About Biden and Offshore Accounts”, RedState, July 27, 2023

Spencer Brown, “Newly Uncovered Emails Don’t Look Good for Hunter Biden”, Townhall, July 27, 2023

Jennifer Van Laar, “Official Court Transcript From Hunter’s Foiled Plea Agreement Hearing Sure Seems to Show Attempted Fraud on the Court”, RedState, July 27, 2023 [Federal prosecutors colluding with Biden’s defense lawyers to conceal the immunity deal from the judge.]

Rebeccah Downs, “Hmm: Multiple Banks Filed Over 170 Suspicious Activity Reports on the Bidens”, Townhall, July 28, 2023

Nick Arama, “Comer Lays out Why Those 170 Biden Suspicious Activity Reports Are So Bad”, RedState, July 28, 2023

Nick Arams, “Hunter Biden Exposes Joe on Big Falsehood About China During Plea Hearing”, RedState, July 28, 2023

Techno Fog, “A Tale of Two Plea Deals”, The Reactionary, July 28, 2023 [In which the writer shows the extraordinarily favorable treatment afforded Hunter Biden by the so-called prosecutors.]

Devon Archer’s testimony (posted in full here on August 3, 2023), following reactions to partial revelations on July 31 and August 1, 2023, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Ben Whedon, “Hunter Biden Associate Visited Obama White House, VP Residence at Least 36 Times”, Just the News, August 7, 2023

Katie Pavlich, “The Biden Family Bank Statements Have Landed”, Townhall, August 9, 2023

David Strom, “Ukrainian Prosecutor General Biden Helped Install Was Tied to Hunter”, Hot Air, August 9, 2023

Paul Sperry, “For Washington Post’s Feared ‘Pinocchio’ Fact Checker, Forthrightness Dies in ‘Updates’ to Biden-Burisma Story”, Real Clear Investigations, August 9, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “Joe Biden ABSOLUTELY Benefited from Hunter’s Foreign Business”, New York Post, August 9, 2023

Matt Vespa, “Guess What Hunter Biden Wanted Removed From Burisma’s Website”, Townhall, August 10, 2023

Jonathan Turley, “‘Illusion of Influence’: The Media Moves the Goalpost Again on Biden Corruption Coverage”, Res Ipsa Loquitur, August 11, 2023

Andrew C. McCarthy, “Garland’s Special-Counsel Appointment in the Biden Probe Is a Farce”, National Review, August 11, 2023

Tristan Justice, “Garland Appoints Corrupt Special Counsel To Stonewall Congress, Protect Joe Biden”, The Federalist, August 11, 2023

David Harsanyi, “Garland’s Special Counsel Gambit Confirms Hunter Investigation Was Always Shady”, The Federalist, August 12, 2023

Bonchie, “FBI Supervisory Agent Corroborates IRS Whistleblower Testimony, Points to FBI-Involved Cover-Up”, RedState August 14, 2023

Nick Arama, “Revealing 2018 Hunter Biden Text Demolishes Joe Biden’s ‘Arm’s Length’ Defense”, RedState, August 17, 2023

Fred Lucas, “House Oversight Chairman Seeks Shielded Biden VP Records From National Archives”, The Daily Signal, August 17, 2023

Eric Lundrum, “Joe Biden Used False Emails to Share Government Secrets with Hunter”, American Greatness, August 18, 2023

First, kill all the bureaucrats.

Bureaucracy is like poison ivy. It spreads rapidly, chokes out desirable life forms, and poisons those who come into contact with it.

I know whereof I speak. I ran a bureaucracy of modest size for a dozen years, and saw at first hand the workings of huge government bureaucracies during my 30 years as a denizen of the military-industrial complex. And, like most Americans, I have endured (for more than 60 years) the frustrations of dealing with bureaucrats in government agencies and corporations.

Human nature being what it is, the head of a bureaucratic organization — large or small — often strives to extend its scope of activity and enlarge it. (The second goal is usually justified by efforts to attain the first one.) The bureaucrat sees a “need” to be met and stakes a claim on the resources required to meet it. It is not coincidental the the enlargement of a bureaucracy means that its head rules a larger “empire”, enjoys more prestige, probably enjoys a higher income, and (unless he shoots himself in the foot) enhances his eligibility to lead ever-larger bureaucracies.

The bureaucratic imperative, in other words, is to grow the bureaucracy, if possible, and to justify its existence by pumping out more rules even if growth isn’t possible. The bureaucratic imperative decidedly is not to be efficient for the benefit of taxpayers or shareholders. The more bureaucratic a business, the more it comes to resemble government in its sluggishness and inefficiency.

The only way to eliminate or downsize government bureaucracies is to eliminate or downsize them. Cutting taxes doesn’t work because (at the federal level, at least) government grows despite tax cuts — the Fed finances bureaucratic bloat. And State and local governments, for the most part, have acquired the habit of passing on the cost of bureaucratic bloat to taxpayers.

The only way to make businesses more responsive to consumers and more profitable for shareholders is to ensure that there is vigorous competition. But doesn’t competition reduce profits? Not if the first response to more competition is to cut spending that is simply the result of bureaucratic inertia; and not if the second response it to stay lean and mean in order to maximize profits in the face of continuing competition.

In any event, government programs are responsible for much of the bureaucratic infestation of businesses: EEO compliance, OSHA compliance, EPA compliance, etc., etc., etc. If you believe that such programs are necessary for “fairness”, safety, environmental quality, etc., you have swallowed the Kool-Aid of bureaucratic rationalization.

Competition, not bureaucratic infestation, is the solution to “problems” that politicians and bureaucrats invent in order to satisfy vocal constituencies and achieve the benefits (to themselves) of bureaucratic bloat.

The only way to foster competition is to cut government — to the bone. The cozy relationship between government and squelches competition by erecting regulatory barriers that favor incumbents.

So it comes down to this: Either overthrow Democrat rule of government and eliminate most of the federal bureaucracy or set up a new government for States that want minimal government.

I have found another good reason for a national divorce. But to tame government effectively, the “freedom party” would have to immediately adopt and then strictly abide by a Constitution that crystal clear about the limitations on government — like this one.

Just wondering.

Wikipedia says:

In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two.

Regarding humans:

Humans (Homo sapiens) are the most common and widespread species of primate [bold emphasis added].

What about subspecies of Homo sapiens? There’s this:

In 1978, Sewall Wright suggested that human populations that have long inhabited separated parts of the world should, in general, be considered different subspecies by the criterion that most individuals of such populations can be allocated correctly by inspection. Wright argued that, “It does not require a trained anthropologist to classify an array of Englishmen, West Africans, and Chinese with 100% accuracy by features, skin color, and type of hair despite so much variability within each of these groups that every individual can easily be distinguished from every other.”

Political correctness (now wokeness) seems to have subdued straightforward observation a long time ago, insofar as the classification of Homo sapiens is concerned. This Wikipedia article exemplifies the attempt to erase what is obvious by dancing around the truth: Humans who evolved in different regions of the world belong to different subspecies, namely, races.

The observation that race is a “social construct” plays a leading role in the denial that racial differences are real and deep. My answer to that bit of verbal chicanery is here.

Other observations that are meant to deflect attention from substantive racial differences are of this type: Despite the differences across races, all humans beings have in common 96 percent of their genes. Well, if I told you that humans and chimpanzees have about the same percentage of their genes in common, would you consider chimpanzees to be nothing more than superficially different human beings who belong to the same species?

The descendants of ancient racial groupings, wherever they live, belong to the same racial grouping unless they are products of interbreeding. If you watch a lot of movies and TV fare, or live in a “cosmopolitan” urban area, you might believe that racial distinctions are on their way out because of the prevalence of interbreeding. But the vast majority of human beings still live in the same geographical areas in which their ancestors evolved, and are therefore necessarily denizens of different subspecies of humanity. Even those who live far from their genetic homelands tend to marry persons of the same race (e.g., some statistics for the U.S.).

Why does it matter that human beings belong to a variety of sub-species? A candid scientific admission of that fact would put an end to the nonsense the “we’re all the same under the skin”. We”re not, and it’s long past time to own up to it, and to quit using the power of the state to strive for a kind of equality that is unattainable.

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Related posts by LV:

Critical Race Theory: Where It Really Leads

Intelligence: Selected Readings

IQ, Political Correctness, and America’s Present Condition

Other:

Nicholas Drummond, “The Fault Line of American Politics” (review of Heather Mac Donald’s When Race Trumps Merit), Law & Liberty, June 12, 2023

Are rules for fools?

I often turn to Wilson Follett’s Modern American Usage: A Guide, a copy of which I have owned and used for more than 50 years. Follett’s book is an invaluable source of wisdom about how to write well. It is also an antidote to Language Log, whose contributors often (mostly?) deride prescriptivism in language.

I often open Follett’s book at a random page, just for the sheer pleasure of partaking of wisdom that is new to me. Recent explorations led me to these passages:

It is … one of the striking features of the libertarian position [with respect to language] that it preaches an unbuttoned grammar in a prose style that is fashioned with the utmost grammatical rigor. H.L. Mencken’s two thousand pages on the vagaries of the American language are written in the fastidious syntax of a precisian. If we go by what these men do instead of by what they say, we conclude that they all believe in conventional grammar, practice it against their own preaching, and continue to cultivate the elegance they despise in theory….

[T]he artist and the user of language for practical ends share an obligation to preserve against confusion and dissipation the powers that over the centuries the mother tongue has acquired. It is a duty to maintain the continuity of speech that makes the thought of our ancestors easily understood, to conquer Babel every day against the illiterate and the heedless, and to resist the pernicious and lulling dogma that in language … whatever is is right and doing nothing is for the best. [pp. 30-31]

*   *   *

[This book] accept[s] the long-established conventions of prescriptive grammar … on the theory that freedom from confusion is more desirable than freedom from rule…. [p. 243]

Amen.

Speak for yourself, lefty.

I had been thinking about that meaningless phrase when along came Bill Vallicella’s apt post. As BV says, it’s a stock leftist exclamation. I don’t know when or where it originated. But I recall that it was used a lot on The West Wing, about which I say this in “Sorkin’s Left-Wing Propaganda Machine“:

I endured The West Wing for its snappy dialogue and semi-accurate though cartoonish, depictions of inside politics. But by the end of the series, I had tired of the show’s incessant propagandizing for leftist causes….

[The] snappy dialogue and semi-engaging stories unfold in the service of bigger government. And, of course, bigger is better because Aaron Sorkin makes it look that way: a wise president, crammed full of encyclopedic knowledge; staffers whose IQs must qualify them for the Triple Nine Society, and whose wit crackles like lightning in an Oklahoma thunderstorm; evil Republicans whose goal in life is to stand in the way of technocratic progress (national bankruptcy and the loss of individual freedom don’t rate a mention); and a plethora of “worthy” causes that the West-Wingers seek to advance, without regard for national bankruptcy and individual freedom.

The “hero” of The West Wing is President Josiah Bartlet[t], who — as played by Martin Sheen — is an amalgam of Bill Clinton (without the sexual deviancy), Charles Van Doren (without the venality), and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (without the height). Sheen’s fictional ancestor — the real Joshiah Bartlett — might still be spinning in his grave.

Anyway, “That’s not who we are” seems to be evoked by any policy or practice that runs afoul of leftist orthodoxy: executing murderers, expecting people to work for a living, discriminating on the basis of merit, etc.

When you hear “That’s not who we are” you can be sure that whatever it refers to is a legitimate defense of liberty. An honest leftist (oxymoron alert) would say of such defenses: “That’s not who we are.”

There’s more than meets the eye.

If you don’t know about “Blog History and Index of Posts”, you should. You can skip the history, which is trivial, and go to the index. It lists, in broad categories, all of the items that I have posted at Loquitur’s Letter.

Just keep on doing what you’re doing, suckers.

Regarding the indictment of Donald Trump for falsification of business records to cover up hush payments to Stormy Daniels, I said that

Trump was indicted not only to “get Trump” — and end in itself for the left — but also to ensure his nomination as the GOP candidate for president in 2024. With a riled-up “base”, Trump is sure to be nominated, even if he is in prison — especially if he is in prison.

Trump will then lose the election because almost no one will vote for him other than his hard-core supporters, who probably comprise one-third of the electorate. I voted for Trump twice because he was the lesser of two evils — by a long shot — but he is now unelectable. Worse than that, his nomination will secure a Democrat victory.

A lot of otherwise GOP-leaning voters will stay home out of disgust with Trump’s crudity and resignation to a Democrat victory. That will leave a solid majority of voters — including NeverTrumpers, independents, and other pearl-clutching types — to join Yellow-Dog Democrats (there ain’t no other kind no more) to deliver a landslide victory to Joe Biden or to his successor after his influence-peddling while VP becomes undeniable or he is declared mentally incompetent, whichever comes first. It is even possible that the Dems will forgo electoral fraud, which the GOP will be better-equipped to detect in 2024, thus “legitimizing” the victory of the Dems’ nominee.

Now, I’m not so sure that Trump will be nominated. And that’s a good thing for the GOP and the country.

Why is it unlikely that Trump will be nominated? My belief (hope) rests on the possibility that a significant fraction of his “base”, as well as most other Republicans, will take stock of Trump’s legal troubles and conclude that he’s just carrying too much baggage to be a viable candidate for the presidency. I believe (hope) that Republicans, in the main, see the big picture: A win in 2024 is absolutely necessary to the preservation of what remains of America’s liberty and prosperity.

Added to the indictment mentioned above, there’s the new indictment of Trump for deliberately mishandling classified documents. And there’s more to come: a likely (if unfounded) indictment for his alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. and a possible (also unfounded) indictment for inciting insurrection on January 6, 2021. Add to those legal proceedings, Trump’s appeal of the verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s suit for battery, sexual harassment, and defamation.

All in all, Mr. Trump will be very busy defending himself between now and November 2024 (and probably beyond that). A lot of Republicans will be turned off by a candidate with so much baggage, as will independents — whose votes will be the deciding ones.

The upshot — if I’m right — will be the nomination and election of a more articulate and competent candidate: Ron DeSantis. If Republicans rally around him and independents continue to recoil from wokeness, DeSantis will have a fighting chance to win the presidency. And if he does, his record as governor of Florida bodes ill for “the swamp”, illegal immigration, and wokeness of all kinds. His record bodes well for the restoration of traditional morality, including one of its central tenets: taking personal responsibility for one’s life and fortune.

“Environmentalism” isn’t.

Back-to-nature types, worriers about what “humans are doing to the planet”, and neurotics (leftists) generally take a dim view of the artifacts of human existence. There’s a lot of hypocrisy in that view, of course, mixed with goodly doses of envy and virtue-signaling.

Many of the complaints heard from back-to-nature types, etc., are really esthetic. They just don’t like to envision a pipeline running across some plain that’s far away and well out of their sight. Ditto a distant and relatively small cluster of oil rigs. Such objections would seem to conflict with their preference for ugly, bird-killing, highway straddling, skyline-cluttering wind farms. Chalk it up to scientifically and economically ignorant indoctrination in the “evils” of fossil fuels.

At any rate, what makes a pipeline or an oil rig any less natural than the artifacts constructed by lower animals to promote their survival? The main difference between the artifacts of the lower animals — bird’s nests, bee hives, beaver dams, underground burrows, etc. — and those of human beings is that human artifacts are far more ingenious and complex. Moreover, because humans are far more ingenious than the lower animals, the number of different human artifacts is far greater than the number arising from any other species, or even all of them taken together.

Granted, there are artifacts that aren’t necessary to the survival of human beings (e.g., movies, TV, and electric guitars), but those aren’t the ones that the back-to-nature crowd and its allies find objectionable. No, they object to the artifacts that enable the back-to-earthers (and hypocritical leftists) to live in comfort.

In sum, pipelines and oil rigs are just as natural as bird nests. Remember that the next time you encounter an aging “flower child”. Ask her if a wind farm is more natural than a pipeline, and how she would like it if she had to forage for firewood to stay warm and cook her meals.

A special for baseball fans.

The last time I published a post about baseball I lost two subscribers. Perhaps they were disappointed that I wasn’t writing about politics, economics, the state of America, or some other weighty subject. I usually write about weighty subjects, but I like to take an occasional break and dip into lighter fare. This post is such an occasion. Don’t worry, the next several ones will be suitably somber.

This is an elaboration of “Baseball’s Greatest Hitters for Average”. At the outset, I must admit that there’s no definitive way to conclude that so-and-so was baseball’s greatest hitter for a season, for a career, or for a given age. Baseball simply has too much “causal density” for such a determination; for example:

• batter’s experience and physical condition

• batter’s “handedness” relative to the pitcher’s

• batter’s place in the batting order

• batting prowess of the next hitter in the lineup

• de facto size of the strike zone

• height of the pitching mound

• condition of the infield

• distance to the fences

• height of the fences

• background distractions (buildings, lights, scoreboards, etc.)

• tightness with which the ball is wound

• cleanliness and resilience of the ball

• repertoire of pitches (legal and illegal)

• frequency of pitching changes

• size and strength of players

• length and weight of bats

• size and shape of fielders’ gloves

• defensive “shift” (of which Ted Williams was a prominent victim)

• predominance of night games

• quality of lighting.

• and on and on and on.

Such things change from day to day, ballpark to ballpark, and year to year. The multiplicative effect of uncertainties about how all of those factors influence a particular hitter’s performance on a given day, at a given age, for a given season, or over a career swamps the differences in estimates of batting prowess between players.

Here, I am content to identify those players who — for a given season — not only hit for a high average but also displayed exceptional offensive prowess. Such hitters not only get on base safely but also accumulated a goodly number of doubles, triples, and home runs — in addition to singles. They may have also frequently walked (drawn a base on balls, or BB) because fearsome batters and batters who are good judges of the strike zone (overlapping categories) often get on base by walking.

In baseball record-keeping, there is a statistic for total bases on hits (TB), which accounts for whether a hit is a single, double, triple, or home run. (A single counts for one base; a double, for two; and so on.) It’s a simple matter to add BB to TB to get a statistic that I call adjusted total bases (TB*). Divide TB* by the number of a player’s plate appearances (PA) and you have TB*/PA, which is a first approximation of offensive prowess. (Regarding some commonly used alternatives, see footnote *.)

I modified the first approximation to take into account the differences between the two major leagues and season-to-season variations in at least some of the many factors listed above. Specifically, I normalized TB*/PA for a given player in a given season by dividing it by TB*/PA for the league in which a player compiled his record for the season. (For example, a player’s TB*/PA of .400 divided by the league’s TB*/PA of .300 gives a normalized TB*/PA of 1.333.) I tweaked the normalization to account for the fact that TB*/PA for the American League was strongly affected by the adoption of the designated hitter (DH) in 1973** (another statistic that adds to the cloud of uncertainty).

I began with 1890 so that I could span the careers of two legends of the game — Nap Lajoie and Honus Wagner — both of whom played from the 1890s to the 1910s. Further, to avoid the contamination of the “steroid era” of major-league baseball, I considered only TB*/PA through 1990, at which time a new set of leading hitters came on the scene, and made a mockery of the game. (Barry Bonds, I’m looking at you as a leading culprit.)

The graph below depicts each season’s leader in normalized, league-adjusted TB*/PA from 1890 through 1890, where each season’s leader compiled at least 400 PA in that season. Forty different players led the major leagues in TB*/PA over the 101-year span. (See footnote *** for a complete list, with links to each player’s page at Baseball-Reference.com, which is the source of the statistics used in this analysis.)

The upward climb to the era of Babe Ruth’s dominance and the subsequent descent are obvious. Ted Williams’s era of dominance is also prominent, though less pronounced.

The table below lists the multi-season leaders in descending order of the number of seasons as leader. (Early players on my list might have recorded more leading seasons had I gone back beyond 1890.)

(Ted Williams’s record deserves an asterisk because he lost most of 5 seasons to military service.)

Astute readers will have noticed that the 80-20 rule has been violated. It took 50 percent of the players (20 of 40) to comprise 80 percent of the single-season leaderships (81 of 101). On the other hand, the 40 players were a tiny fraction of the number of major-leaguers who had at least 400 plate appearances in at least one season during the years 1890-1990.

---

* Slugging percentage omits walks. On-base-plus-slugging (OPS) amounts to convoluted double counting; on-base percentage and slugging percentage are overlapping metrics. OPS also takes account of sacrifice flies (SF) and hit-by-pitcher (HBP) — events that are relatively rare, not necessarily deliberate (on the batter’s part), and which (in the case of SF) haven’t been recorded consistently over time.

** The DH adjustment is .0085, which is the difference between the changes in the American and National Leagues’ TB*/PA between two spans: 1901-1972 and 1973-2022. The AL average increased by .0375 between 1901-1972 and 1973-2022. The NL average increased by .0289 between those two spans. I attribute the difference of .0085 (rounded value) to the AL’s adoption of the DH. I therefore subtracted .0085 from the AL’s TB*/PA for each year from 1973 through 2022.

*** Here’s the list of leaders, in the order of their appearance in the graph above, with the spans of their major-league seasons given in parentheses. The links lead to their pages at Baseball-Reference.com:

1. Hugh Duffy (1888-1906)

2. Billy Hamilton (1888-1901)

3. Dan Brouthers (1879-1904)

4. Ed Delahanty (1888-1903)

5. Honus Wagner (1897-1917)

6. Nap Lajoie (1896-1916)

7. Fred Clarke (1894-1915)

8. Cy Seymour (1896-1913)

9. George Stone (1903-1910)

10. Ty Cobb (1905-1928)

11. Tris Speaker (1907-1928)

12. Joe Jackson (1908-1920)

13. Gavvy Cravath (1908-1920)

14. Babe Ruth (1914-1935)

15. Rogers Hornsby (1915-1937)

16. Jimmie Foxx (1925-1945)

17. Lou Gehrig (1923-1939)

18. Hank Greenberg (1930-1947)

19. Johnny Mize (1936-1953)

20. Ted Williams (1939-1960)

21. Stan Musial (1941-1963)

22. Tommy Holmes (1942-1952)

23. Ralph Kiner (1946-1955)

24. Al Rosen (1947-1956)

25. Mickey Mantle (1951-1968)

26. Henry Aaron (1954-1976)

27. Willie Mays (1948-1973)

28. Frank Robinson (1956-1976)

29. Carl Yastrzemski (1961-1983)

30. Willie McCovey (1959-1980)

31. Billy Williams (1959-1976)

32. Dick Allen (1963-1977)

33. Joe Morgan (1963-1984)

34. Mike Schmidt (1972-1989)

35. Dave Parker (1973-1991)

36. George Foster (1969-1986)

37. George Brett (1973-1993)

38. Jack Clark (1975-1992)

39. Darryl Strawberry (1983-1999)

40. Kevin Mitchell (1984-1998)

Which came first?

Syllogism:

All Greek males are bald.

Herodotus is a Greek male.

Therefore, Herodotus is bald.

The conclusion is false because Herodotus wasn’t bald, at least not as he is portrayed.

Moreover, the conclusion depends on a premise — all Greeks are bald — which can’t be known with certainty. The disproof of the premise by a single observation exemplifies the Humean–Popperian view of the scientific method. A scientific proposition is one that can be falsified  — contradicted by observed facts. If a proposition isn’t amenable to falsification, it is non-scientific (which doesn’t make it untrue).

In the Humean-Popperian view, a general statement such as “all Greek males are bald” can never be proven. (The next Greek male to come into view may have a full head of hair.) In this view, knowledge consists only of the accretion of discrete facts. General statements are merely provisional inferences based on what has been observed, and cannot be taken as definitive statements about what has not been observed.

Is there a way to prove a general statement about a class of things by showing that there is something about such things which necessitates the truth of a general statement about them? That approach begs the question. The “something about such things” can be discovered only by observation of a finite number of such things. The unobserved things are still lurking out of view, and any of them might not possess the “something” that is characteristic of the observed things.

All general statements about things, their characteristics, and their relationships are therefore provisional. This inescapable truth has been dressed up in the guise of inductive probability, which is a fancy way of saying the same thing.

Not all is lost, however. If it weren’t for provisional knowledge about such things as heat and gravity, many more human beings would succumb to the allure of flames and cliffs, and man would never have stood on the Moon. If it weren’t for provisional knowledge about the relationship between matter and energy, nuclear power and nuclear weapons wouldn’t exist. And on and on.

The Humean-Popperian view is properly cautionary, but it doesn’t — and shouldn’t — stand in the way of acting as if we possess knowledge. To do otherwise would result in stasis, or analysis-paralysis.

But — to advert to my favorite example — acting upon the hypothesis that CO2 emitted by human activity is a main cause of “climate change” (which can be shown to be a good thing in many respects) is foolish given the amount of evidence that the hypothesis is fatally flawed.

Look (carefully and skeptically) before you leap into action.

Quite the opposite.

A while back I read David Stove‘s Popper and Beyond: Four Modern Irrationalists. There is something “off” about it, which is captured in a review at Amazon:

Stove’s primary target was the idea that there might be a problem about inductive inferences, one dating to Hume who was the first to notice it and try to solve it. His secondary target was Popper, whose solution to Hume’s problem was to develop a deductivist account of scientific rationality (critical rationalism, as an alternative to logical empiricism)–naively attempting to change the philosophy of science to address a problem which, in Stove’s opinion, doesn’t exist. His tertiary targets were “historicist” philosophers of science such as Kuhn and Feyerabend….

One does not learn the actual positions of any of these folks from Stove’s book, unfortunately, much less any of their actual errors or excesses. Stove’s own position seems to be a kind of “naive realism” about scientific change and progress: almost as if there were no questions worth asking on the subject. I’ve encountered secondary literature on Kuhn and Feyerabend before that utterly failed to understand them, but Stove doesn’t even make the attempt.

Here is Stove’s argument, reduced to its essence:

• Scientific knowledge has progressed.

• Some philosophers of science hold the view that scientific knowledge is provisional because what is believed to be true can always be falsified by new knowledge.

• Saying that scientific knowledge is provisional is tantamount to saying that scientific knowledge has not progressed.

• The philosophers of science who hold that scientific knowledge is provisional are therefore irrational because they effectively deny that scientific knowledge has progressed.

Stove assumes that which he seeks to prove. His reasoning is therefore circular. His book is a waste of ink, paper, and pixels.

Stove nevertheless (unwittingly) poses a question that demands an answer: If scientific knowledge is provisional (as it always is), is it possible to say that scientific knowledge has progressed; that is, more is known about the universe and its contents than was known in the past?

The provisional answer is “yes”. Human knowledge of the universe progresses, in general, but it is never certain knowledge and some of it is false knowledge (error). Witness the not-so-settled science of cosmology, which has been in flux for eons.

There is broad but not universal agreement that the universe (or at least the part of the universe which is observable to human beings) originated in a Big Bang. Expansion followed. But the rate of expansion of the universe and the cause(s) of that expansion remain beyond the ken of science. The knowledge that the universe is expanding — and expanding at an ever-increasing rate — is an advance on prior knowledge (or belief), which held that the universe is contracting or that it is neither contracting nor expanding. But the knowledge of an accelerating expansion must be provisional because new observations may yield a different description of the universe.

That example brings us to the essential dichotomy of science: observation vs. explanation. What is observed is observed with varying degrees of certainty. The variations depend on the limitations of our instruments, sensory organs, and brains (which may be conditioned to misperceive some phenomena). Where things often go awry is in explaining that which is perceived, especially if the perception is wrong.

A classic case of misperception is the once-dominant belief that the Sun circles Earth. It’s easy to see how that misperception arose. But having arisen, it led to erroneous explanations. One erroneous explanation was that the Sun is embedded in a “sky dome” that surrounds Earth at some distance and rotates around it.

A current case of misperception is the deliberately inculcated belief that the general rise in observed temperatures on Earth from the 1970s (or is it the 1850s?) to the present (except for the current pause of almost 9 years) is due almost entirely to an increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 caused by human activity. The dominance of that theory — which objective observers know to be incomplete and unsubstantiated — may well lead to the impoverishment and death of vast numbers of persons in North America and Western Europe because the leaders of those countries seem to be virtue-signaling CO2-reduction race to limit and eventually ban the use of fossil fuels.

If David Stove were still with us, he would probably say what I have just said about the current misperception, given his penchant for iconoclasm. But where would that leave his “naïve realism” about scientific progress? He would have to reject it. In fact, knowing (as he undoubtedly did) of the erroneous belief in and explanation a geocentric universe, he should have rejected his “naïve realism” about scientific progress before taking Popper et al. to task for their skepticism about the validity of new scientific knowledge.

Yes, scientific knowledge accrues. It accrues because knowledge (to a scientist) is ineluctably incomplete; there is always a deeper or more detailed explanation of phenomena to be found. The search for the deeper or more detailed explanation usually turns up new facts (or surmises) about physical existence.

But scientific knowledge actually accrues only when new “knowledge” is treated as provisional and tested rigorously. Even then, it may still prove to be wrong. That which isn’t disproved (falsified) adds to the store of (provisional) scientific knowledge. But, as Stove fails to acknowledge, much old “knowledge” hasn’t survived, and some current “knowledge” shouldn’t survive (e.g., the CO2-driven theory of “climate change”).

Here is the argument that Stove should have made:

• Scientific knowledge has progressed on many fronts, but not to the exclusion of error.

• Some philosophers of science hold the view that scientific knowledge is provisional because what is believed to be true can always be falsified by new knowledge.

• Given the track record of science, those philosophers are correct to say that scientific knowledge is provisional.

• It is possible for scientific knowledge to accrue, and to be provisional at the same time.

Think of all of the ink, paper, and pixels that could been saved if Stove had thought more carefully about science and issued a PowerPoint slide instead of a book.

It isn’t quite what you might think.

The real tragedy is that the left got there first.

Freedom of speech is beneficial only if a vast majority of the populace shares certain fundamental values:

• Free markets produce the best outcomes, especially when people take personal responsibility for their economic situation.

• Social comity rests on taking personal responsibility for one’s actions, not making excuses or blaming “the system”.

• The last six of the Ten Commandments are the best guides to proper behavior.

• Duly enacted laws are to be upheld until they are duly revised or rescinded.

• Social and economic freedom come down to mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual forbearance, which describes the state of liberty. Without those things, there is no liberty.

The Framers of the Constitution could not envision a free society in which the foregoing tenets were routinely and gleefully violated. That is because there cannot be a free society where the foregoing tenets are routinely and gleefully violated.

The only remedy for America’s present condition, as I have said many times, is a national divorce that leads to the creation of a (smaller) nation that is dedicated to liberty. That new nation would need a new Constitution (e.g., this one). And that new Constitution would (inter alia) bar creeping leftism; for example:

Congress may … enact laws prohibiting and punishing the utterance or publication of ideas that would circumscribe the economic or social liberties of citizens of the United States, as they are recognized in this Constitution.

If that seems draconian, you haven’t been paying attention. The left is in the process of effecting such a regime, albeit without constitutional authorization. Having been allowed to do so, you can be sure that the left would do it again if given the cover of “free speech”.

The obituary is overdue.

I wrote this in “Society and Genetic Kinship”:

I define society as an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another.

A society coheres around genetic kinship, and is defined by its common culture, which includes its moral code. The culture is developed, transmitted through, and enforced by the voluntary institutions of society (civil society). The culture is the product of trial and error, where those elements that become part of received culture serve societal coherence and — in the best case — help it to thrive. Coherence and success depend also on the maintenance of mutual respect, trust, and forbearance among society’s members. Those traits arise in part from the sharing of a common culture (which is an artifact of societal interaction) and from genetic kinship, which is indispensable to societal coherence. If the foregoing description is correct, there is one aspect of society — and one only — that a society cannot “manufacture” through its social processes. That aspect is genetic-cultural kinship.

The United States, for a very long time, was a polity whose disparate parts cohered, regionally if not nationally, because the experience of living in the kind of small community sketched above was a common one. Long after the majority of Americans came to live in urban complexes, a large fraction of the residents of those complexes had grown up in small communities.

This was Old America — and it was predominant for almost 200 years after America won its independence from Britain. Old America‘s core constituents, undeniably, were white, and they had much else in common: observance of the Judeo-Christian tradition; roots in the British Isles and continental Europe; hard work and self-reliance as badges of honor; family, church, and club as cultural transmitters, social anchors, and focal points for voluntary mutual aid.

Mutual trust, respect, and forbearance [the foundation of liberty] arise from the emotional force of genetic kinship. They may be mimicked in arrangements of convenience, such as economic ones. But those arrangements last only as long as they are profitable to all parties.

The old ways have largely vanished with the small communities of distant memory. The aggrandizement of government and its usurpation of civil society is largely to blame. Government’s assault on civil society has been magnified by the internet and social media, which spread divisiveness and hate.

None of that is going away. Civil society will continue to dominate the lives of some Americans, but only in isolated pockets where there is deep-seated genetic kinship. Civil society no longer survives on a scale that would nourish Old America.

Welcome to Dystopia.