Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler rightly insists that even idiots have the right to speak freely. Here’s his conclusion:
If you can’t handle what someone says, that’s on you, not him. I would argue that, in total, free speech doesn’t create friction but instead is the grease that eases it over time—by making you think of something you hadn’t thought about before, sparking even the tiniest of internal debate about the way forward. Prove me wrong. We need to cherish this right.
Free speech is for everyone, although civility seems to be only for the civil. Say what you want about birthing people, carbon spewing, the need for racism to fight racism or even comparing the president to someone who ran extermination camps. That’s your right. But you’ll lose my respect and trust for a long time. And don’t be surprised if I think you’re a blathering chucklehead. Like Jimmy Kimmel.
Art Carden reviews Matthew Desmond’s book Poverty, By America. A slice:
Unfortunately, however, Desmond blames the usual list of suspects: corporations, speculators. Republicans, Ronald Reagan. The familiar scapegoats are well-represented, as is the usual hero: government, but this time, a government that does the Will of the People.
First, Desmond asks why the richest country in the world has “so much poverty.” It’s a fair question, but it’s unclear exactly what would no longer be “so much poverty.” He doesn’t contextualize some of his numbers and slips back and forth between incommensurate definitions when he wants to make international comparisons. Domestically, he uses the federal poverty line and is aghast that there were some 38 million people in the United States who lived below the federal poverty line as of 2021. It’s a “country” larger than Venezuela and Australia (and, I would add, richer than Venezuela). Any decent person, I suspect, would say that’s 38 million too many, but it’s about 11% of the population–and over the long run, it’s headed in the right direction.
The March of Folly
By Barbara Tuchman (1984)
3. Historians often explain turning points through technological shifts, class identities or geopolitical forces. Barbara Tuchman’s different insight makes “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam” such a notable achievement. She restores folly to its rightful place in history, defining it as “the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved.” This helps explain why, in the late 15th century and for decades after, popes squandered the spirit of the Renaissance and cleared the path for the Reformation by neglecting calls for reform and entangling the papacy in intrigue and war. In a rare moment of self-awareness, Alexander VI, the pontiff from 1492 to 1503, allowed: “The most grievous danger for any Pope lies in the fact that encompassed as he is by flatterers, he never hears the truth.” Tuchman saw how vanity, confirmation bias, lust for power and short-termism could ignite wars, debase currencies and expel minorities.
The Road to Serfdom
By Friedrich Hayek (1944)
4. The Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek spent World War II in Britain, where he pondered how totalitarians could have consumed Europe—and whether similar ominous forces were stirring in England and the U.S. He dedicated “The Road to Serfdom” to “the socialists of all parties,” because he argued that the drive to control the economy from the top down inevitably eroded liberty, concentrating political and economic power in the hands of planners. Hayek explained that the demand for quick and decisive government action breeds frustration with the slow machinery of democratic procedure. Principles that once bound rulers and made progress possible begin to look like obstacles to be brushed aside impatiently. “It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough ‘to get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal,” he wrote. Hayek’s book is a lament for a lost world and a manual for rebuilding civilization after the war. Real progress, he insisted, comes from spontaneous, voluntary forces, not from dictates. It requires both the rule of law to restrain power-hungry leaders at home and a rules-based international order to check rapacious nations abroad.
The global race for artificial intelligence and the inability of the U.S. electricity sector to keep pace have state policymakers scratching their heads. Some respond by restricting data centers’ use of local grids; others put existing customers and taxpayers on the hook for investments to accommodate the new demand. The electricity sector is in a state of crisis.
New Hampshire recently approved an elegant solution: Let anyone build. In August Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed HB 672, which minimizes red tape for electricity providers that don’t connect to the existing grid, thus bringing more competition, speed and innovation to the state. In the spirit of reducing bureaucracy, the bill itself fits neatly on one page.
Off-grid electricity providers in New Hampshire will no longer be subject to public-utility regulation. This means they are free to develop projects, operate or enter into commercial agreements without going hat in hand to state bureaucrats. “New Hampshire welcomes entrepreneurship and innovation in energy,” says state Rep. Michael Vose, who sponsored HB 672. Recent analysis suggests regulatory hurdles can add anywhere from one to five years to projects.
Joesph Politano details “the tariff exemption behind the AI boom.” (HT Phil Gramm)
As this Wall Street Journal headline reveals, Trump & Co. now sound like the coaches, players, and fans of a losing football or baseball team: “Trump’s Team Hones a New Message Pledging Economic Gains Next Year.” [DBx: It undoubtedly escapes Trump and his team that this particular excuse for the failure of the tariffs to live up to Trump’s promises sits rather uneasily alongside Trump’s and his team’s insistence that a court-ordered end to his IEEPA tariffs would compel the U.S. government to part with gazillions of dollars of amazing riches allegedly already reaped by these tariffs.]
Jones fantasized about shooting Todd Gilbert, the Republican who was then-speaker of the Virginia house; talked of pissing on the graves of Republican officeholders if they predeceased him; and expressed his belief that Republicans would only change their views if they experienced personal pain, and allegedly gave as an example the wife of Todd Gilbert watching her child die in her arms.
Rather than slinking away somewhere upon the revelation of these disqualifying messages, Jones responded with defiant misdirection.
“Like all people,” he said in a statement, “I’ve sent text messages that I regret.” Yes, who among us hasn’t hoped to see people we disagree with get shot or suffer the loss of loved ones via text message? Most of us regret text messages with embarrassing autocorrects, not passionate explanations of why we want to see our political opponents die.
“Let’s be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General race right now,” he continued, “Jason Miyares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign.”
The only things wrong with this sentence are that Fahlberg’s report was not the product of an oppo dump by Miyares; the report wasn’t a smear, since it was entirely accurate as Jones himself has conceded; and we aren’t a Trump-controlled media organization, or a media organization controlled by anyone else, as perusing our content for about five minutes would make abundantly clear.
