Author: Loquitur Veritatem

See https://politicsandprosperity.com/about/.

“Inherit the Wind” in Retrospect

I enjoyed immensely Inherit the Wind, a 1960 “message” film directed by Stanley Kramer, which I saw in the year of its release. The film starred two sterling actors of Hollywood’s true Golden Age: Spencer Tracy and Fredric March.

I enjoyed the film not only for the acting and literate script, but also because it portrayed Tracy’s character — Clarence Darrow in the guise of “Henry Drummond” — as the hero of the piece who demolishes his opponent at the bar — William Jennings Bryan in the guise of “Matthew Harrison Brady”.

“Drummond” defends “Bertram Cates” (John T. Scopes), who is on trial in 1925 for violating a Tennessee law that forbids the teaching of evolution in Tennessee’s public schools. “Brady” is one of the prosecutors, and the only one who figures prominently in the film.

According to the script of Inherit the Wind, Drummond/Darrow exposes Brady/Bryan as an ignorant religious zealot after putting him on the stand as a witness for the prosecution. Thus my enjoyment of the film, which I saw when I was a “sophisticated” junior in college and a recent “convert” from Catholicism to agnosticism (or perhaps atheism).

Time passes, and the world seems much different to me now. I utterly reject the hatefulness of anti-religious zealotry, which has morphed into the suppression of speech, denial of property rights, and denial of freedom of association. Thus my enjoyment of a piece by Mark Pulliam. Writing at Law & Liberty in “Inheriting the Wind, or Reaping the Whirlwind?“, Pulliam exposes Inherit the Wind as a piece of grossly inaccurate anti-religious propaganda. He ends with this:

In Inherit the Wind, Bryan/Brady is unfairly presented as a ridiculous fool—a pathetic figure. Bryan’s words show that he was thoughtful, decent, and—for his time—wise, albeit uninformed. And he won the case, beating the man regarded as one of the most formidable courtroom advocates of all time. Bryan was not so much an opponent of evolution as he was of Social Darwinism, and the Nietzschean philosophy he felt it represented.

Unfortunately, Bryan’s legacy as a man of faith has been besmirched by Hollywood’s willingness to distort history in the aid of promoting its agenda. The left’s disdain for religion and religious belief has only gained momentum since 1925. From simply mocking piety, the elite intelligentsia has progressed to banning prayer in public schools, forbidding aid to religious schools, removing religious symbols from public property, deeming Judeo-Christian morality to be “irrational,” and persecuting Christian bakers (and other vendors) for honoring their religious consciences.  In 2016, enough American voters—many who are arguably the heirs to the long-ridiculed citizens of Dayton—rose up and pushed back.

The Scopes trial, so badly mischaracterized in Inherit the Wind, better illustrates another Biblical verse, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

Amen.

John Paul Stevens, 1920-2019*

I do not mourn his passing because he

was the author of a diverse set of important opinions. In Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, he wrote for a unanimous court in outlining the process by which courts should review federal agencies’ interpretation of the laws that the agencies administer. In Atkins v. Virginia, the court – by a vote of 6-3 – ruled that the Constitution bars the execution of the intellectually disabled. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the court – by a vote of 5-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts recused – ruled that the use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects violated both the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention and had not been authorized by Congress. And in Kelo v. City of New London, a divided court ruled that the city’s taking of private property to sell for private development as part of an economic development plan was a “public use” within the meaning of the Constitution’s takings clause – even if the land was not going to be used for the public.

Chevron required courts to defer to agencies’ interpretations of vague statutes, thus enabling agencies to legislate (and then to adjudicate based on their own legislation).

Atkins further weakened the efficacy of capital punishment by drawing a line where none need be drawn: murder is murder regardless of the perpetrator’s supposed state of mind or mental ability.

Hamdan undermined the ability of the president, as commander-in-chief, to wage war against America’s enemies.

Kelo was a body blow to property rights, which are an essential ingredient of liberty.

Nominating Stevens to the Supreme Court was Jerry Ford’s biggest mistake. In second place is his pardon of Nixon, who — unlike Trump — was actually guilty of offenses that were not only impeachable but also indictable.
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* The original title of this post was “John Paul Stevens, 1920-1919” — an epic typo that reflects my deep roots in the 20th century. The 21st still seems strange to me, for many reasons.

Further Thoughts about Utilitarianism

I am staunchly anti-utilitarian, as I explain at length in this post. But I have argued elsewhere (e.g., here) against government-designed rules that favor the few at the expense of the many. Does that make me a hypocrite?

No. Because I am also against government-designed rules that favor the many at the expense of the few. Both kinds of rules are abhorrent to me because they are government-designed. (I say “government-designed” because there are many rules imposed by government — the prohibition of murder, for example — which merely enforce long-standing social norms. Government-designed rules aren’t strictly government designed; they usually arise from efforts by interest groups to benefit themselves regardless of, or in spite of, long-standing social norms.)

To be clear, when I use the word “favor” I’m thinking not of rules that are meant to protect the vast majority of people from the small minority of them who are predators. “Favor” doesn’t come into it. To “favor” one group over another is to give privileges to that group which impose burdens on others. The prohibition of murder, for example, doesn’t “favor” victims; it denies (or attempts to deny) predators the “privilege” of victimizing others. (For much more, see “The Invention of Rights“.)

So when I rail against two-percent tyranny — the granting of privileges for small segments of the populace — it’s not that I’m making a utilitarian judgment about those privileges (i.e., 98 percent outweighs 2 percent). Rather, it’s because of the privileges themselves.

Such privileges may seem to be born of common sense (e.g., bike lanes keep bicyclists out of traffic lanes; the legalization of same-sex marriage merely extends the institution of marriage, which is a “good thing”). But, as government-designed rules, they signal that the beneficiaries deserve special treatment. Thus, for example, bicyclists push the envelope by riding the white line between the bike lane and the traffic lane. Same-sex couples (emboldened by other government-designed rules) use their status to attack and (financially) destroy businesses that prefer not to honor same-sex “marriage” or same-sex relationships.

In the latter case, a government-designed definition of marriage fosters the subversion of a long-recognized right: freedom of association. Same-sex couples have that freedom, but they seek to deny it to those who prefer not to associate with them.

(See also “How to Protect Property Rights and Freedom of Association and Expression“.)

The Missing Ingredient in “Local Control”

It’s liberty. “Control” is the operative word in “local control”.

Why should I (or any sane person) entrust my liberty to the Democrat hacks who control my city and strive to control almost every aspect of my life, from the specifications of my windows to the wasteful (but “virtuous”) insistence on separating “recyclables” and “compostables” from trash?

Texas, where I live, is far from a libertarian stronghold. But the State government is far more attuned to the liberty (and prosperity) of Texans than are the governments of its major cities (in one of which I live).

(See also “Local Control” and “The Hypocrisy of ‘Local Control’“.)

Reparations and Me

Daniel J. Flynn, writing at The American Spectator in “Master Beto“, nails the faux-Hispanic good and hard:

Beto O’Rourke divulges that a “paternal great-great-great-grandfather of mine” owned slaves and that a “maternal great-great-grandfather” likely owned slaves, as well (he adds that his wife’s line includes a slave owner and a man who fought for the Confederate army)….

“Ownership of other human beings conferred advantages not just to Andrew Jasper and Frederick Williams, but to Jasper’s and Williams’ descendants as well,” O’Rourke writes for Medium of his slave-owning ancestors. “They were able to build wealth on the backs and off the sweat of others, wealth that they would then be able to pass down to their children and their children’s children. In some way, and in some form, that advantage would pass through to me and my children.”

Ostensibly for these reasons, O’Rourke supports reparations. But rather than pay them voluntarily, he wants to force every American — including people like myself, whose paternal line did not live in the United States during slavery’s existence and whose maternal line did live here briefly during slavery’s existence, but in the first state to abolish the institution, about 70 years prior to their arrival — to pay them. If O’Rourke believes that he accumulated some portion of his wealth through racial expropriation, he can donate, without a government program ordering him, to a charity benefiting African Americans. But he refrains from showing the courage of his convictions by paying off the debt he believes he owes.

In this matter, O’Rourke (an unusual Hispanic surname) emulates the very-rich who want higher income-tax rates because the don’t pay “enough” in taxes. There is a way to make a contribution to the U.S. Treasury, of which any very-rich person’s accountant should be aware. But I am unaware of contributions by the very-rich, who (sensibly) seem to do all that they can to take advantage of tax-avoidance schemes (and, sometimes, tax-evasion schemes).

In any event, I am with Flynn. None of my ancestors — all of whom were of the “lower” classes — owned slaves. Nor, as Northerners, did they have any part in sustaining the practice of slavery. My father, as I related in an earlier post, was the first of his male lineage to have been born in the United States (Michigan, to be exact) — 52 years after the end of the Civil War. My mother was descended from French-Canadians who emigrated to Michigan in the middle of the 19th century, unattended by slaves.

Nor do I put any stock in the theory that American blacks, on average, earn less and have less wealth than whites because of slavery (or even because of racial discrimination). There is a compelling explanation for the income and wealth gap, but cuck-servatives dare not refer to it.

My own view is that American blacks, on the whole, owe me a large tax refund for my “contributions” to various welfare programs. I am thinking not only of the usual handouts to “welfare queens” and the like, but also Social Security and Medicaid, which are designed to transfer income from those with high earnings to those with low earnings (or none). Then there are the taxes that I pay for “public safety”, which are undoubtedly higher than they would be if blacks comprised a smaller proportion of the populace.

Law vs. Justice

Here. It’s a quick read.

In summary: Gorsuch went over to the dark side in voting with Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. In doing so, Gorsuch to made it harder to put convicted criminals behind bars when they violate the terms of parole. Gorsuch’s nit-picky reading of the Constitution — an erroneous reading according to Alito — opens the door to further rulings that will make it harder to protect the public from the bad guys.

The Age of Memes

Memes have always been with us, though they weren’t called that until 1976. According to Wikipedia, a meme

is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.

There’s really nothing new in all of that, except for the “scientific” name that has been applied to it.

No, what’s really new is the rapidity with which particular ideas (i.e., unbaked hypotheses, lies, rumors, and propaganda) spread and seem to take hold without having been examined carefully. Consider, for example, the ridiculous idea that the Betsy Ross flag is a “hurtful” symbol of slavery: from Colin Kapernick’s addled brain to myriad media outlets (including the “social” variety) and thence to the mouths of some presidential candidates in a matter of days. (I would say “to the brains of some presidential candidates”, but their ready acceptance of the meme suggests a dire shortage of gray matter, if not brains that have been conditioned to serve nefarious ends.)

I return to “Peak Civilization“:

In the West, rational inquiry seems to have peaked in the early 1960s. I needn’t remind you of the subsequent descent: mobs, riots, the din of “entertainment”, quasi-religious movements from hippiedom to “climate change”, and on and on into the night.

(In the same vein there is neo-Malthusianism-cum-environmental extremism, which in its mildest form wants some kind of population control and in its most virulent form wants the extinction of human beings.)

Not that rational inquiry has always (or ever) ruled the day, but the decline since the 1960s is striking to me.

What happened in and since the 1960s? Take the idea that humankind is doomed to extinction by “climate change” — a fringe idea, perhaps, but not an uncommonly held one.  Take the shrill and many-fold “social justice” movement, which encompasses so many “wrongs” and “victims” that it would be easier to describe it by listing its exceptions (mainly straight, white, conservative males of British and northwestern European descent whose sexuality has always been tightly controlled).

The meme that “change” (always beneficial, of course) can be accomplished by often-hysterical shrillness and mob action (now virtual as well as actual) got its start with the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s. Adults in responsible positions (e.g. Walter Cronkite, LBJ, and Clark Kerr) encouraged the hysteria directly or by giving in to it. Rare was the person in a powerful position who tried to squelch it; Mayor Daley (Sr.) of Chicago was one such person, and for his sins he became a hated figure in his own (Democrat) party.

And so it came to pass that hysteria in the service of “social justice” became the norm. And then it came to pass that the instruments for spreading and amplifying hysteria were invented and widely adopted (personal computing, the internet, blogs, “social media”). The existing tools of mass communication (radio, movies, television) were swept along in the rising tide of hysteria, the owners and operators of such tools being no less anxious than stoned collegians to prove their “social consciousness”. In fact, the hysteria has spread to the owners and operators of major industrial firms, who swim in the same “elite” circles as their peers in the information-technology complex.

All of this was built on foundations laid insidiously by the public-education monopoly and the professoriate. Their time has finally arrived. And so “public” opinion (where “public” means overt) is dominated if not ruled by what I have elsewhere called the internet-media-academic complex.

The thing about memes, since long before they were called that, is their staying power. A long-standing meme (or constellation of them) — such as obeisance to Judeo-Christian norms in America — can’t be conquered by mere reason. It takes a new meme (or constellation of them) — such as “hope” and “change” and “social justice” — to overrun them. The human animal needs memes to occupy his mind when he has attained a degree of physical security that gives him the luxury conjuring six impossible things before breakfast, instead of having to concentrate his energy on catching or growing his breakfast. (One of the Democrat presidential candidates, albeit one on the far fringe, epitomizes the zaniness that flourishes among the spoiled children of capitalism.)

Do I mean to say that it would take a cataclysm of some kind, a catastrophe so dire that people would abandon political memes in their need to cooperate for subsistence, if not survival? Perhaps, but I am not a full-blown pessimist. Despite decades of brainwashing by the internet-media-academic complex, there is a healthy conservative movement in the country — healthier, in fact, than at any time since the country was essentially conservative (i.e., until 1963). Human nature, in other words, is a powerful force that no amount of brainwashing (or coercion) can eradicate (though it may channel it in undesirable directions for a time).

My hope, and I must call it that, is for the essential neighborliness of the vast majority of Americans to reassert itself among “ordinary” people, who will tire of the hysteria pouring forth from the internet-media-academic complex. Does half of America really want to be on the “other side” (a term that has been applied to the political divide only in this brief century)? I think not.

Though the uniting force need not be a cataclysm (e.g., a devastating EMP attack, a missile strike on U.S. territory), it must be a dramatic event of some kind. Perhaps it’s as simple as replacing Donald Trump in 2021 or 2025 with a less polarizing figure (but a conservative one nonetheless).

A final thought: Though the internet-media-academic complex is mainly responsible for the the present state of political polarization (and leftist aggression), I don’t want to cast aspersions on information technology itself.  Polarization is no more caused by information technology than are traffic deaths caused by automobiles, gun deaths caused by guns, or war caused by weapons. People drive cars, shoot guns, and fight wars. The problem is, as it always is, a small minority of the people — a minority that is striving for power and dominance by using words instead of weapons.

Timothy Sandefur …

… a faux-libertarian like Will Wilkinson (see this, for example), takes lengthy issue with a commentary by Andrew Hyman. The commentary was sparked by George Will’s use of an argument advanced by Sandefur to the effect that the Declaration of Independence is the “conscience” of the Constitution; that is, it explicates the liberty that the Constitution, supposedly, was meant to perfect.

I am unpersuaded by Sandefur’s legalistic jitterbugging. I am especially unpersuaded by a point, fundamental to Sandefur’s worldview, that he makes (for the umpteenth time) in the his final paragraph:

The most basic premise of the entire American experiment is that truly fundamental matters are not subject to the dictate of either a single king or a majority, but are rather dictated by “the laws of nature and of nature’s god.” That is to say, our rights are inherent in us because of our humanity, and are to be discovered by and respected by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches–not decided by them.

This is utter romantic hogwash. As I say in a long-ago post about Sandefur’s “conscience” thesis,

[t]he Declaration and Constitution are not libertarian manifestos — as Sandefur, in effect, characterizes them [here]. Despite the rhetoric about “We the People,” “inalienable rights,” “liberty,” and the rest of it, the Declaration and Constitution are about who governs, and about the division of rights and powers between “the people” and government.

The essential problem with Sandefur’s analysis lies in his Manichean approach to rights. In his view, they are either inherent in individual persons or they are granted by government. (He denies the second possibility, of course.) There is a third way… The third way is hinted at in the paper by Randy Barnett, “A Law Professor’s Guide to Natural Law and Natural Rights,” to which Sandefur links: “natural rights…. describe how others ought to act towards rights-holders.”

In other words, the thing (for want of a better word) that arises from human nature is not a set of rights that each person “owns”; rather, it is an inclination or imperative to treat others as if they have rights. This idea of being inclined (or compelled) to “act toward” is more plausible than idea that “natural rights” inhere in their holders. It is so because “act toward” suggests that we (most of us) learn that it is a good thing to leave others alone as long as they do no harm to us or mean no harm to us. That is a much more plausible explanation of rights than the claim that rights inhere in individuals as rights-holders.

Given the more plausible view that rights are a matter of “acting toward” others, it should be evident — to all but romanticists of Sandefur’s ilk — that rights are not a priori (“inherent”) but arise from interpersonal bargaining (at best) and governmental edicts (at worst). It cannot be otherwise, for even if human beings are wired to leave others alone as they are left alone, it is evident that they are not wired exclusively in that way. Thus claims about “natural rights” are not only foolish but futile. Rights, inescapably, are a matter of persuasion (at best) and power (at worst, unless the power happens to be on the “right” side).

(See also “Evolution, Human Nature, and ‘Natural Rights’” (in which I take Sandefur head-on), “The Golden Rule as Beneficial Learning“, “Human Nature, Liberty, and Rationalism“, “The Futile Search for ‘Natural Rights’“, and “Natural Law and Natural Rights Revisited“.)

Will Wilkinson

Arnold Kling takes note of this, and concludes with this:

Wilkinson, once with the libertarian Cato Institute, now comes across as a full-fledged partisan Progressive Democrat. In theory, he could argue for his new views from a perspective that respects the ideas he no longer finds congenial. Instead, he has adopted a Krugman-esque approach of painting non-Progressives as cartoon villains. I don’t begrudge him his ideological evolution. But I do fault the manner in which he expresses it.

I’ve been onto Wilkinson for a long time; see, for example:

Political Correctness

Pseudo-Libertarian Sophistry vs. True Libertarianism

More Pseudo-Libertarianism

In Defense of Marriage

Human Nature, Liberty, and Rationalism

Why Stop at the Death Penalty?

Cato, the Kochs, and a Fluke

A Man for No Seasons

The Fallacy of Human Progress

Assuming a Pretzel-Like Shape

Terrorism Isn’t an Accident

And I do begrudge his ideological evolution. Though it is more accurate to say (as I argue in some of the posts linked above) that Wilkinson wasn’t really a libertarian, even when he masqueraded as one. The mask is finally off.

Pardon Me …

… I can’t resist. I post this with apologies to Catholics* who are sensitive to hints of blasphemy.

For decades there was a widely used response to a question the could only be answered in the affirmative:

Q. Would you like some ice cream with your cake?

A. Is the Pope Catholic?

Then along came John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła), and my response became “Is the Pope Polish?”.

With the election of Francis and his subsequent pronouncements about “social justice” and “climate change” I have changed it to “Is the Pope a communist?”.
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* In case it matters to anyone, I am a long-lapsed Catholic and a deist who is agnostic about the Creator’s role in the operation of the universe.

The Essential Declaration of Independence

The core of the Declaration, brought up to date:

To secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the present government of the United States was instituted by the Constitution of 1787. That government has long since become destructive of its legitimate ends, having enacted myriad abuses of its power while often failing to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore the right and duty of the people to alter, abolish, or secede from that government, and to replace it with a new government that strictly adheres to the original Constitution and Amendments I-X, XI-XV, XIX, XX, XXII, XXV, and XXVII.

(See “Constitution: Myths and Realities” for much more, including the legality of secession.)

Trump’s Fourth of July Parade

I admit to profound indifference — and even dislike — of ceremonial occasions and gestures. The vastly expensive Apollo 11 mission seemed to me (even at the time) to be little more than an ego trip for its political sponsors. Half-time shows bore me. I reluctantly attend weddings and funerals. And I have long eschewed parades of all kinds. I certainly will not waste my time in viewing tomorrow’s Salute to America parade in D.C.

But I must say that Trump’s all-out promotion of the parade is a piece of political genius. Trump knew that the left would oppose it vociferously. And in doing so, the left would further underscore its opposition to things traditionally American. That, in turn, tightens Trump’s hold on the vast, silent, non-cosmopolitan swath of the electorate that was responsible for his victory in 2016.

Trump plays with the left like a cat plays with a mouse. I love it.

That “Hurtful” Betsy Ross Flag

Fox News has the latest:

Two Democratic hopefuls have expressed their support for Nike after the sportswear company pulled sneakers featuring the Betsy Ross-designed American flag ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. The company did so after former NFL quarterback and Nike endorser Colin Kaepernick raised concerns about the shoes.

Former HUD Secretary Julián Castro told CBS News on Wednesday that he was “glad to see” Nike remove the shoes from the shelves, comparing the “painful” symbol to the Confederate flag.

“There are a lot of things in our history that are still very painful,” Castro explained. As an example, he cited “the Confederate flag that still flies in some places and is used as a symbol.”\

Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke also approved of Nike’s decision, noting that “white nationalist groups” have “appropriated” the Betsy Ross flag.

“I think its really important to take into account the impression that kind of symbol would have for many of our fellow Americans,” he said,  according to Jewish Insider senior political reporter Ben Jacobs.

As I understand it, the Betsy Ross flag, which became the symbol of the rebellious, united States (i.e., Colonies) in 1777, is “hurtful” because it dates from an era when slavery was legal in what became the United States. How that historical fact is “hurtful” to anyone is beyond me. The fact of slavery is reprehensible, but a flag that merely denotes America’s struggle for independence from Britain really has nothing to do with slavery, except in the slippery way that “social justice” warriors have just invented. (Clearly, they are running low on ideas.)

Well, if the Betsy Ross flag is “hurtful” to professional virtue-signalers and malcontents, it is certainly — and more legitimately — hurtful to me. I am a direct descendant of a man who, with three of his sons (one of whom I am also directly descended from), fought on the British side in the Revolutionary War. They had settled in the Colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s and, perhaps not unwisely, chose to defend the Crown against presumptuous rebels like George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and 53 other signatories of the Declaration of Independence — all of whom used to be called patriots. (Washington, Jefferson, and many other signatories owned slaves, but that wasn’t why they rebelled; slavery was then still legal throughout the British Empire.)

In any event, because my ancestors were Loyalists, they fled to Canada at the end of the war. And from then until the birth of my father in the United States more than 130 years later, the ancestors in my paternal line of descent were Canadian and therefore (nominally, at least) subjects of the British monarch.

So if anyone has a right to be offended by the Betsy Ross flag, it is I. But I am not offended by the flag, though I am deeply offended by the useless twits who profess to be offended by it.

Pages Updated

There are new links at the bottom of “Climate Change” and “Intelligence“, and there’s a new entry at the bottom of the latter. Read them da capo if you haven’t been there before.

Consulting

There is a post at Politico about the adventures of McKinsey & Company, a giant consulting firm, in the world of intelligence:

America’s vast spying apparatus was built around a Cold War world of dead drops and double agents. Today, that world has fractured and migrated online, with hackers and rogue terrorist cells, leaving intelligence operatives scrambling to keep up.

So intelligence agencies did what countless other government offices have done: They brought in a consultant. For the past four years, the powerhouse firm McKinsey and Co., has helped restructure the country’s spying bureaucracy, aiming to improve response time and smooth communication.

Instead, according to nearly a dozen current and former officials who either witnessed the restructuring firsthand or are familiar with the project, the multimillion dollar overhaul has left many within the country’s intelligence agencies demoralized and less effective.

These insiders said the efforts have hindered decision-making at key agencies — including the CIA, National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

They said McKinsey helped complicate a well-established linear chain of command, slowing down projects and turnaround time, and applied cookie-cutter solutions to agencies with unique cultures. In the process, numerous employees have become dismayed, saying the efforts have at best been a waste of money and, at worst, made their jobs more difficult. It’s unclear how much McKinsey was paid in that stretch, but according to news reports and people familiar with the effort, the total exceeded $10 million.

Consulting to U.S.-government agencies on a grand scale grew out of the perceived successes in World War II of civilian analysts who were embedded in military organizations. To the extent that the civilian analysts were actually helpful*, it was because they focused on specific operations, such as methods of searching for enemy submarines. In such cases, the government client can benefit from an outside look at the effectiveness of the operations, the identification of failure points, and suggestions for changes in weapons and tactics that are informed by first-hand observation of military operations.

Beyond that, however, outsiders are of little help, and may be a hindrance, as in the case cited above. Outsiders can’t really grasp the dynamics and unwritten rules of organizational cultures that embed decades of learning and adaptation.

The consulting game is now (and has been for decades) an invasive species. It is a perverse outgrowth of operations research as it was developed in World War II. Too much of a “good thing” is a bad thing — as I saw for myself many years ago.
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* The success of the U.S. Navy’s antisubmarine warfare (ASW) operations had been for decades ascribed to the pioneering civilian organization known as the Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research Group (ASWORG). However, with the publication of The Ultra Secret in 1974 (and subsequent revelations), it became known that code-breaking may have contributed greatly to the success of various operations against enemy forces, including ASW.

The New York Times Crossword: Leftism Never Sleeps

I have been doing it online since February, and have completed 135 puzzles — a goodly sample. Contrary to what the Times says, I find the Sunday puzzle to be the hardest one, not the Saturday puzzle. My average time to complete a puzzle rises from Monday through Sunday, with a sharp jump from Wednesday to Thursday.

Further, my best time for each day almost follows the same pattern, though Saturday is slightly better than Friday. Sunday’s best time is markedly higher than the best time for any other day of the week.

According to the Times,

Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest. They’re just bigger.

But bigger takes more time. The Sunday puzzle is therefore harder to complete.

The Times, in typical leftist fashion, prefers a “gut” judgement — the Saturday puzzle is harder than the Sunday puzzle because we say so — to a factual assessment — the Saturday puzzle is easier than the Sunday puzzle because it routinely takes less time to solve. It’s of a piece with global warming hysteria, hysteria about Trump’s “collusion” with Russia, and many other things.

What Ike Also Said

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his farewell address on January, 17, 1961, warned famously that

we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

Later in the same speech he also issued a warning that has been largely forgotten:

[I]n holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

The scientific-technological “elite” insidiously regulates almost every aspect of our lives — if not directly, then through the choices we are allowed to make in our purchases of items ranging from homes to can-openers, from travel to medications, from schooling options to vacation choices, and on and on and on. The same “elite” is responsible for foisting upon Americans and much of the Western world the immensely costly fraud known as “climate change”. The same “elite”, operating under the unwarranted protection of the First Amendment, is responsible for stifling facts and ideas that are inimical to its agenda.

Given that America is slipping toward second-class status as a military power, Ike’s first warning — to the extent that it was heeded — proved counterproductive. Sadly, his second warning was ignored until recently — and it may be too late to stem the tide against the scientific-technological “elite”.

Organized?

I see ads on TV (with sound muted), at shopping website, and in periodicals for organizing systems and services. And I wonder who buys such things. It can’t be persons who are organized; they don’t need them. So it must be persons who are disorganized, and who benefit from them briefly and then go back to their old ways.

Sort of related, and worth a visit if you like trivia, is a post of mine from two years ago: “You Can Look That Up in Your Funk & Wagnall’s“.

Do Ends Justify Means?

Sometimes. If, for example, the end is the preservation of innocent human life, and the means (or some of them) are the prohibition of abortion and the right to bear arms.

Sometimes not. If for example, the end is “equality” and the means are such things as racial preferences and income redistribution. Stealing from others doesn’t make a person equal to them, except perhaps ephemerally — a job is gained (though probably to be lost), a certain amount of income is gained (though probably to be squandered). “Equality” is just a slogan, a sloppy excuse for theft. It is not the moral equivalent of  preserving innocent human life.

Sometimes. If the end is liberty and the means include killing to gain or defend it.

Sometimes not. If the end is the subjugation of others and the means include killing, enslavement, muzzling, threatening, or otherwise oppressing those others.

As Leon Trotsky put it:

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

By their ends you shall know them.

Supreme Court Page, Updated

With the end of the October 2018 term of the U.S. Supreme Court just behind us, I have updated “U.S. Supreme Court: Lines of Succession and Ideological Agreement“. It consists of four parts: Lines of Succession, Ideological Alignment, Polarization, and Judging the Justices: The Thomas Standard. The last two sections are new to the page; I adapted them from now-outdated posts.