Cromwell

With no apparent sense of irony, members of the reactionary right are carrying signs stating “My Body, My Choice” at anti-mask demonstrations. This is, of course, a slogan used by abortion supporters.

I would guess that, if pressed, these people would argue that abortion is murder, and masks don’t work. The latter is demonstrably false, and the former is a philosophical position, not a scientific one, with which most Americans don’t agree.

In reality, what the sign means in this context is that I, as a real American, have the right to do whatever I want, and you, as an interloper, can go suck eggs.

Since it has been obvious for at least a decade that conditions in Afghanistan were never going to improve, the relevant question was whether the benefits of maintaining a significant military presence there (preventing terrorism; protecting women; maintaining geopolitical stability) justified the costs (money; casualties; distraction from more compelling concerns). In my opinion, they did, and I said so. However, reasonable people could disagree on this point. Biden did, and I respect his choice.

With an equilibrium of sorts in place prior to our withdrawal, we pretty well know what would have happened if we had stayed. But what about the people who argue that the concept of withdrawal was sound, but the execution was flawed?

Consider a counterfactual in which the fall of Afghanistan happens in accordance with the predictions of the intelligence community—in other words, the government hangs on for a much longer time. Is the evacuation process smoother and more deliberate?

No. It is human nature to assume that the worst won’t happen until the last minute. The Afghan government would have discouraged any slow exodus, and the citizens would have gone along until it was too late. The scenes of chaos you are seeing today would be substantially similar.

In other words, the critics of the execution of the withdrawal have no case. The only people with a right to complain are those who wanted to stay indefinitely, and they have an obligation to own up to the costs of staying.

The left truth is that a capitalist system that does not adequately distribute resources to workers results in the dollar store economy, with inadequate domestic demand and both political and economic instability. The right truth is that a largely socialist system does not provide the incentives necessary to generate growth, which results in an absence of funds to be redistributed, a more intense battle for resources, and either terminal instability or strongman government.

Obviously, the objective is to find a path that runs between the two extremes—to provide both adequate incentives and a fair distribution of resources. Today, we are much closer to the dollar store nightmare than to socialism—hence, the ambitious Biden agenda.

To a Republican, there are two kinds of American. Real Americans are hard-working, self-reliant, white Christians living in rural areas. The rest of us can be divided into two groups, both of whom live in or around urban areas. One of the groups consists of over-educated, self-satisfied knowledge economy workers who look down on Real Americans; the other includes lazy minorities who do nothing but demand handouts from Real Americans and constantly whine, without any good reason, about bigots and discrimination.

The overriding goal of the GOP is to stick it to the bad guys by denying them public resources. The best way to do this is by cutting taxes and spending. Hence, the orthodox GOP position on spending money on anything other than the military.

The GOP view of urban areas as parasites is, of course, totally at odds with reality; booming urban states are net contributors to left-behind rural areas.. In addition, GOP orthodoxy makes it extremely difficult to help rural residents who have no home in the knowledge-based economy; GOP voters would rather do without the help than do anything that also benefits the bad guys. So what do the red people voting against their economic self-interest get out of the bargain? The satisfaction of remaining rugged individuals, and someone to blame for their troubles. It’s not their fault; it’s the blue people, and the establishment they control, that have caused their misery. Overthrow the corrupt system, and they will prosper again.

The key thing to remember about the Republican creed is that it marries the economic interests of the donor class with the psychic well-being of poor Reactionaries. That is why it persists in spite of the left’s attempts to appeal to workers on pocketbook issues.

Ever prepared to appropriate the ideas and rhetoric of the left, DeSantis and his friends are arguing that mask and vaccine mandates, even from private businesses, are a form of “discrimination” against anti-vaxxers. Is there any basis for this position?

No. The essence of unlawful discrimination is that it is directed at personal traits over which the victim has little or no control. Refusing the vaccine is a deliberate action, not a trait, over which the anti-vaxxer has complete control. It would make as much sense to say the law discriminates against thieves and murderers.

American social conservatives have made it clear: they’re tired of playing defense. It’s time to impose their religious values on the rest of us, even if they aren’t anything like a majority in this country. But how?

The next logical step is illiberal democracy, of course, but if that doesn’t work, they could always take inspiration from the Taliban. After all, on issues of morality and regulation, they have a lot in common.

On our failure in Afghanistan.

We had no discernible plan.

All the choices were bad

So I’m not really sad

That we no longer play kick the can.

Some commentators are asserting that the Taliban’s need for basic administrative competence and financial aid will force them into a degree of moderation. Is that true?

No. The idea that the state is responsible for the comfort and prosperity of its citizens is relatively new. The older model—that the state is required to maintain a society that is pleasing to God—is the one followed by the Taliban. If the Afghan people are poverty-stricken, miserable, and righteous, that will be fine with them.

The real constraint on the Taliban will be the need to avoid provoking the Chinese and the Pakistanis, not success in providing material goods. Will they try to inspire Islamic revolutions outside their borders, with all of the risks that will entail, or will they settle for medieval squalor in one country? On that point, only time will tell.

In the end, Kabul fell in one night

When the Afghans just chose not to fight.

The images on

Look a bit like Saigon

And the future’s not looking too bright.

Ross felt compelled to make the case for belief in God in Sunday’s NYT. Frankly, I think he was pushing on an open door. In my experience, Americans are not committed, hardened materialists; they are actually humble, undogmatic believers. By that, I mean they acknowledge the existence of a higher power, and occasionally try to negotiate with it, but they doubt their ability to fully understand it, particularly through the use of anachronistic rituals.

Douthat’s real problem with people he considers unbelievers is that, unlike their grandparents, they aren’t willing to accept the authority of supposedly sacred texts and practices without further examination based on logic, experience, and the scientific method. They want orthodox Christianity to justify itself by reference to common sense. What reasonable person would become a conservative Catholic by creating a metaphysical universe from scratch?

And then, of course, there is the Trump factor. The truth of religions should not be evaluated based on the behavior of their adherents, but who, really, can help it?

The Taliban are telling the world that they don’t intend to oppress the Afghan people this time. Should we take them at their word?

Of course not! They want to recreate the 7th century in their country. They will go as far as the world lets them. Period.

The bottom line is that the Taliban are the monster to Pakistan’s Dr. Frankenstein, and Pakistan is now a Chinese client state. Stability in the neighborhood is now their problem, not ours. Good luck with that.

Some commentators are portraying the Afghan War as one between the US and the Taliban, with the Afghan people playing the role of innocent victims caught in the crossfire. Is that accurate?

No! Our war was with Osama and the terrorists, not the Taliban, whom we tolerated for years before 9/11. After Osama’s death, the war became purely an effort to protect what we considered a decent society in Afghanistan. In other words, it was a war for the Afghan women; we were just there to help out.

Remember that when you are told we have obligations to Afghan people other than those who assisted us directly. They ultimately chose not to fight for their own interests. Why should we take responsibility for their failures?

I saw an interview with David Petraeus on NBC last night. Lester Holt pitched him a number of softball questions about Afghanistan, to which he responded by saying that the Afghan military only refused to fight because it knew that help wasn’t coming.

Let’s dig into that response more than Holt did:

1. If Petraeus was saying that America was obligated to come to the rescue, one can only assume he meant the Afghan military was designed by him and his successors to be dependent on American help in perpetuity. At what point did Petraeus tell America that we were committed to stay in Afghanistan forever, and what right did he have to obligate us in that manner? If, on the other hand, he was actually trying to build an Afghan military that would survive on its own, he certainly did a pathetic job of it, didn’t he?
2. If Petraeus meant that the fault lies with the Afghan government in not coming to the rescue, that is on the Afghans, not us, isn’t it?

Virginia was relatively late to the secession party, but it is fair to call it the heart of the Confederacy. After all, it provided a disproportionate number of the South’s leaders, resources, and battlefields, as well as its capital.

Today, Virginia is a blue state—the only one in the Confederacy. The GOP candidate for governor doesn’t even mention his party affiliation in his commercials, even though he is a Trump acolyte.

How would our nation’s history have been different if Virginia had been a blue state in 1861? The mind boggles at the thought of it

Theodore Roosevelt’s reform program was called the “Square Deal.” FDR, of course, had the “New Deal.” If the Biden legislation is approved, what should it be called?

It can only be the “Big F@#@# Deal,” of course.