Pfizer vaccines not shown to be safe

One thing the story highlights is that the 'independent' safety evaluators were not so independent. Why don't we do what the Ancient Greeks did when faced with a politically contentious process--let foreigners do it for us? The ancient Greek city states often contracted out the work of designing a constitutions to non-citizens. Why don't we do the same with drug safety decisions? 

We could just use the recommendations of foreign countries like Germany, Japan, or Israel. They can't be more corrupt than our bureaucracies. And we would save a lot of money. All these massive domestic bureaucracies produce is a list of things approved and not approved. The list is available publicly. Just use their list. It's free. 

What do we gain from having it done domestically? We can haul them before Congress and threaten to cut their funding, which (the cutting) never ends up happening. By doing away with the domestic bureaucracies we could fire our bureaucrats and save billions of dollars along with thousands of lives. 

 The old man and the mountain

This is a fable in Chinese where an old man, annoyed by having to walk round a mountain to get to his fields, resolves to remove the mountain. A old wise man (whom I recall being portrayed as a confusion scholar, though I cannot find confirmation of it now) tells him he is foolish. The old man reposts that the wise man in foolish, because he will have sons who will in turn have sons who will continue his work, while the mountain has no way to get bigger. And so, victory over the mountain is only a matter of time. 

It is kind of like Pascal's wager applied to generational projects. Any probability of God existing multiplied by the infinite good of eternal life is a proper bargain. So any project, multiplied by the infinite power of generational effort, is doable. 

Sometimes you read Western foreign policy experts say that we look 5 years out while the Chinese have a time horizon of 10 or 20 years. They are clueless.  

 The Colorado shooter turns out to be non-binary, using "they-them" pronouns. Isn't that a bit like if a shooting were attributed white supremacist hatred of black people, and then finding out the shooter was black? Isn't this news? 

 There is someone blowing their horn. They are picking someone up. They are sitting in their car outside the house of the person they are going to pick up and blowing their horn. I have never experienced this in Ohio. Maybe a teenager will give a quick toot, I have seen it in movies and may have experienced it in real life but cannot recall now, but it was certainly not habitual. Here, in Chicago, it is the customary method of picking someone up. It is just how one does it. It is 7:30 in the morning and it has been going on 20 minutes and it happens quite frequently. 

This is not an American custom. It is a foreign custom. Our elites who have decided that it is our duty to let all of these foreigners in don't have to live with them. The immigrants and their, at times, noxious customs, don't settle in the neighborhoods where the people who make the decisions live. They make the decision, we bear the costs. It makes me angry. And the worst thing is that if I complain about it these complaints will be met with the retort, "shut up, racist." I don't mind being called a curmudgeon or a grouchy old man. But I do not like being called a racist. 

You ask me how I can vote for Trump. It is because someone is blowing their horn at 7:30 in the morning. 

 The ten books from political science that non-political scientist should read: a personal list

Reinhard Benedict, Imaginary Communities

James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Jay, Hamilton, and Madison, The Federalist Papers

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 1

George Washington Plunkett and William L. Roidon, Plunkett of Tammy Hall

Charles S. Murray, On Democracy

George Orwell, In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950 

EE Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People

 The thing about this January 6th, election deniers, controversy is that it all takes place without discussion of policy proposals. Most of the time when we have a controversy it is what to do about a problem. This is a controversy about a belief. That makes the controversy arid and problematic. 

The reals question about election integrity is what to do about it, and it is here that the arguments of the left and the democrats fall down because all that these terrible election deniers propose to do is have voting in person, with a photo id, and with a paper trail. Those may be good or bad proposals but it is hard to see how they make elections more insecure. 

Queen Elizabeth has Died

May she Rest In Peace.  

 Allow Africa to Join the Civilized World!

Africa is being prevented from building coal fired plants by environmental activist. This forced people in Africa to forced to cook and heat with charcoal and cattle dung. The do as I say not as I do mindset of our elites is extended to the poor of the world. 

A lot of African leaders are complaining about environmentalists preventing Africa from developing fossil fuels. They are allowed to sell their fossil fuels to Europe but not burn it themselves. Green Colonialism. 

 Dobbs Unpopularity

Maybe what people are saying when rejecting Dobbs is not that they don't like the states deciding abortion, it is that they themselves don't want to be deciding abortion. Americans don't like to think about abortion. Now they have no choice. But though they find the choice unpleasant they will make sounder choices in their several democratically elected legislatures than 9 lawyers in their secret high tribunal ever could. 

 Good News for Trump, but Better New for DeSantis

Ann Althouse repots this poll, where she points out that although Trump has very high negatives, he is still the most popular figure in politics. 

But what I think is more interesting is that DeSantis is the only political figure whose negatives are not higher than his positives. I don't see how more people don't comment on this. 

It is remarkable that there is only one political figure in this poll with negatives that aren't higher than their positives. And this is for a candidate that speaks his mind forthrightly and leans into the culture wars. 

Of course this will likely change as he becomes better known, but it does seem to suggest that it is not the positions of the right that alienate voters--DeSantis is at least as far to the right as Trump--but the way in which the candidate argues for and supports those positions. 

DeSantis argues soberly and cites statistics to support his positions. He tends to focus on one issue at a time and be very well prepared to back up that position with facts. 

Is there a lesson in this for other candidates both from the right and the left? Could we be seeing the initiation of a new style in American politics? Possible extreme but backed with facts and arguments? I hope so. 

 Ezra Kline: Oh Captain, my Captain

On the Originalist Interpretation of the Constitution

On his podcast Ezra Kline quoted a legal scholar, who, in describing the originalists control of the Supreme Court, made the analogy to a ship that was built to a set of architectural plans. And then, when they took the ship on the ocean, they found they had to make changes and add things. 

They go along about 200 years making changes and adding things to the ship and then someone claims to have found the original plans. And they say that they have to get rid of everything that was added on to the ship and every thing has to be returned to the original plans no matter what. This can only result, argues the law professor, in a sinking ship. 

It is a compelling analogy, but I think he gets it wrong. Our situation is that for 200 years changes have been made to the ship by a Captain who claims that he is only adding what was called for in the original plans. The the crew finds the original plans and it turns out that a lot of the things the Captain has been adding weren't in the original plans at all. Moreover, the original plans call for changes to be made not by the Captain's sole decision of what the original plans called for but by a vote of the crew. 

The Captain is replaced by a new Captain who returns decision making to the crew. Future changes to the ship will be decided by the crew. Also, the changes that have been made to the ship can be kept or rejected by the vote of the crew. The crew, with more experience and closer contact with the problems faced by the ship and more minds on the problem will keep the ship afloat better than the expert diktats of the Captain.

 

Clarence Thomas' Conservatism has its Roots in Black Nationalism 

This is a great article by Musa Al Garibhi, a liberal, on the thought of Clarence Thomas, who, Garibhi explains, started out as a black nationalist and ended up a conservative Republican. These are not opposites but, in Thomas' case, kindred ideologies. What connects them is a disdain for charity of the white man. 

There is a lot to learn from black nationalism and the thought of Malcolm X. When I was in Chicago I lived around the corner from Louis Farakan's house. There were a lot of his followers in the neighborhood. They weren't especially friendly but you didn't see anyone dealing drugs on the street corners of Farrakhan's neighborhood. 

I met one of his followers and I can't remember his name but we became pretty good friends. He was the drummer in a jazz band I was in. He was pretty good. Anyway, I found out he was a Muslim by accident. I was sitting in his car, I think I saw him sitting in his car as I was walking down the street in Winter and he invited me in to get warm. Anyway, his teenage daughter was sitting in the back seat and I extended my hand to shake hands with her and she said she doesn't do that. And her Father explained that she did not shake hands with men because of our religion. It was a pleasant chat and I wish I had stayed in touch with him. 

I think of this when people say that we have to learn to love each other to get along in civil society. I don't suppose that loving each other would do any harm, but I don't think it is necessary or even advisable. The Nation of Islam is officially not in love with the US or white people, but I would rather have them as neighbors than the one I have now. (In fact, the Nation of Islam is officially hostile to Jews, which all the black people in Hyde Park assumed I was on account of I have curly hair and I am so smart.)

What is needed is mutual respect. One can dislike the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan and Malcolm X, but one must respect them. Not the put-on, pat on the head, I'm a nice person kind of respect but real respect. The kind of respect that is commanded by the other's accomplishments, pulling themselves up while disdaining the proffered help of white liberals. And the kind of respect that comes in a real measure from fear, which is the only sure and honest ground of respect. 

Don't Imitate Progressives 

It would be a shame if Conservatives used the occasion of their victory at the Supreme Court today in seeing Roe and Casey overturned if Conservatives repeated the mistake of Progressives in passing laws that do not pass constitutional muster or in nationalizing state issues. Matt Walsh tweets that the next step is a national law banning abortions. I think that would be a mistake. 

It would return us to the problem we have had for 50 years--trying to impose one morality on a diverse society. In the various states there are majorities for policies ranging from abortion on demand up until the moment of birth to banning it from the moment of conception. By the mere fact of a law being national in scope it makes it inevitable that fewer people will get the policy they want, whatever that policy happens to be! 

And since we have relied on the originalist interpretation of the Constitution to effect a momentous victory, we are ill advised to, on the very morrow of victory, set about trying to enact a policy which ignores the Constitution. Where in the Constitution is the Federal government granted the power to regulate abortion? Of course, one could torture the Commerce Clause into making it confess to granting the power to regulate abortion to the Congress, but it would be a false confession. 

 

 Citizens Talk to Each Other

I link to a National Review article about the reactions of supporters and opponents of abortion. It details some conversations between people on different sides of the issue and it made me think: now those conversations matter. 

What has been so insufferable about this judicial diktat is that it has turned us into subjects instead of citizens. It has turned us into rival mobs shouting slogans at each other. The incentives are all wrong. 

There is no incentive but to make a public spectacle showcasing each side's passionate adherence to their side's most extreme position. There is no incentive to moderate one's position or to compromise. To the extent the public is involved at all, it is only to create the impression that there will be violence and blood running in the streets if the case doesn't go their way. It is a catalyst for extremism. 

In normal politics the incentives run in the other direction. It is in one's best interests to put forward a moderate proposal. It is best to deal amicably on all issues with everyone you deal with because everyone is a potential ally on some issue. 

But the most important thing is that it is a degraded condition. To live under laws that you have no hand, no voice, in making, is the office of a subject, not a citizen. 

The Internet and Property Rights

It is un-American. 

Cancelled: Colin Wright

The linked article details the cancelling of Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist who holds the controversial opinion that the sexes are different. The cancelling involves his PayPal and Etsy accounts and seriously affects his livelihood. 

The decision un-American. It violates our natural sense of justice and due process, a sense that was once commonly held in the minds of adherents of all shades of political opinion. 

It violates our belief in freedom of speech embodied in the saying, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The belief that everyone has a right to their own opinion. 

Stop Blaming Biden 

The Republicans love to bash Biden and there is certainly a lot to criticize, but I think that focusing on Biden is both an error in tactics and an error in fact. 

It is an error in tactics because someday Biden will be gone. If you concentrate on blaming Biden it implies that if you get rid of Biden you get rid of the problem. 

But it is, more importantly, an error in fact because the problem isn't the decisions that Biden is making it is the decisions he isn't making. What we are seeing with the Biden administration is not the mistakes of one man but the effect of ceding policy making to the permanent bureaucracy and the party apparatchiks. And the problem will attend any Democratic administration. 

It is important to focus not on Biden but on the policies of the Democratic Party and the permanent Bureaucracy. This is the government on auto pilot, and so it attends everything the government does. Laws are now passed that creates an agency which actually creates the law. What is coming out of the Biden administration is what the bureaucracy wants. 

The only way the gains from the upcoming Republican friendly election is the convince people that the republican policies are the right policies. Time spent ridiculing Biden is time not spent making policy arguments to the electorate. 

Failure is a Choice

How is a nation able to police the world and project force around the globe unable to defend its border? By choice. We can send cruise missiles around the world to target the passenger side of a sedan in motion but can't stop people wading across a stream? 

Every illegal alien that comes into this country comes in because this country allows him to. And everyone that suffers the harms of illegal immigration, every low wage worker that can't get a job, every addict who ODs on fentanyl brought across our border, everyone who suffers from illegal immigrant crime, does so because someone decided that something else is more important. 

I wonder what that something could be? 

One way to end the border crisis: Hispanics voting Republican

If the prospect of perpetual Democratic majorities were to fade due to Hispanics voting the "wrong" way then, I predict, all the urgent humanitarian reasons found for letting people come freely across the Southern border will, with promptitude, go missing. All the reasons that we have to let people stream across the border in their millions will suddenly be found to be not so urgent. 

So if you are an hispanic concerned about border security you choice is clear. Vote Republican. Not because of what the Republicans will do, but because of what it will make the Democrats do. 

 Rejoin the civilized world

That is my new slogan. Some of the things that progressives push in America are just unknown outside of America in other first world countries. 

Open air drug markets/homeless camps

Voting without photo id.

Prohibit mail in voting. 

No abortion on demand up until the moment of birth (ok, it's not prohibited in North Korea or China, but I did stipulate the civilized world). 

Having to get a prescription for birth control pills, update.

Undemocratically determined laws on abortion.

Do not give education ministers SWAT teams.

Pass a basic privacy law like all the nations of Europe (Snowden interview with John Stossel). 

Do not mandate the covid vaccines for children. 

Make individuals the owners of their personal data and require interoperability of platforms in line with the European data law. 

Restrict transgendered care. 

Don't provide health insurance through employers. 

Continuing updates

 Virtue Signaling and Mass Shooting

There is an aspect of the issue of mass shootings that doesn't get much attention. Almost invariably the places where mass shootings take place turn out to be gun free zones. 

Suppose you are a budding mass shooter on your way to make your first and last appearance on the world stage playing God, deciding who lives and who dies, and you notice that the venue for your debut has a sign saying that no guns are allowed on premises. Do you A, turn around an go home or look for another place to carry out your plan or, B, ignore it? If you answered A I have nothing to say to you. But if you answered B we are entitled to ask what good can come of such signs? 

The only people that will heed such signs are the law abiding. To an incipient mass shooter who wants to have scores of helpless people begging for their lives it means one thing: victims. 

Pelosi's responsibility 

One thing that I don't think has gotten enough emphasis in the controversy about the January 6 riot/insurrection is Pelosi's responsibility for security at the Capital. It was her responsibility to call in troops or the national guard or extra police, not the Presidents. The reason lies in the Constitution. 

The Constitution provides for three separate branches of government, each with authority over their own security. The reasons are obvious to anyone familiar with history. The example of the Roman Republic. The emperors would surround the Senate with troops and then ask them their opinion on some matter. 

Their opinion was, naturally, favorable to the emperor. Such examples could be multiplied. 

The point should be obvious to anyone worried about Trump's dictatorial tendencies. Image if, instead of just inciting an unarmed crowd (unarmed. An unarmed insurrection. In the most armed country in the world.), he had been able to send troops under his control. The President can make troops available but they must be invited in and under the command of the leaders of Congress, mainly Ms. Pelosi. 

We have gotten into the habit of expecting all things to be taken care of by the President. The Founding Fathers were wiser men. 

Bill Maher hosts Cornell West 

Why doesn't Bill press this guy for a straight answer? The guy is allowed to bloviate and obfuscate with nary a peep from courageous contrarian Maher.

Bill asks can math be racist. West answers something about my brother...speaking truth...universal love, even for Trump...whatever. Why does Maher put up with this? 

A Modest Proposal

On the other hand Maher's closing monologue was great and brought up an issue that I don't recall thinking about. Hollywood is careful to not give encouragement to smoking, fat shaming, racism, environmental destruction--the list goes on--but glorifies gun violence and revenge. It is gun violence and revenge that is at the heart of school shootings. He makes the point that Hollywood will not show an actor smoking because it might make smoking look cool, but positively glorifies actors committing the most fantastical acts of revenge using guns. To call this hypocrisy is an understatement. 

Why, when we are admonished to consider every possible factor in the cause of preventing school shootings, is this one totally ignored? And it calls to mind what might be an effective gun control measure that might pass both constitutional muster and be consistent with concern for gun rights. Why not raise the age at which one is permitted to buy a semi-automatic rifle, especially those that resemble military weapons, from 18 to 21? 

Unlike many gun control proposals that come in the wake of mass shootings, this measure would possibly have stopped some of the crimes they are meant to prevent. The disturbed young men who committed these atrocities seem to be attracted by the idea of gunning down the defenseless with a military looking weapon. They could use pistols to the same effect: their victims are defenseless and at that range aiming is not really an issue, especially when you don't care who you kill. Why, then, do these young men choose to use so called 'assault rifles'. For the same reason so many Hollywood shoot outs involve rifles. Because they are acting out a fantasy. A fantasy that involves being all powerful and playing God. A pistol would do the job but it doesn't fit with the image. 

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe they would get just as much satisfaction from using a pistol. But it might. And in the case of school shootings, even if it stops only one, isn't it worth it? 

The Decline of the Common Law

Just watching the Beatles documentary of Let It Be, the part where they do the concert on the roof top. One thing that is striking is that it hadn't occurred to them that what they were doing was against the law. 

In those days, if something wasn't illegal it was legal.There was no law against playing on the rooftop so they thought they could play on the rooftop. Today the first thing you would think it to get a permit. 

There are a lot of things about the Common Law that are being lost today. The idea of innocent until proven guilty. The idea that a law has to state clearly what is prohibited so you can know what not to do. The idea that both sides get to speak and tell their story. These things used to be part of the common understanding of fairness, but no more. 

It is also worth noting that the 'Fab Four', filmed for hours during hard working days, were perfect gentlemen to one another and, as far as I can recall, used nary a word of profanity. 

A lot has been lost.