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.