There was a bit of excitement a couple of weeks ago in the suburb where I have lived since the spring of 1995. I should make it clear that this is a working-class to middle-class suburb on the north-eastern fringe of San Antonio, a city which has pretensions to being Democrat-run and a smidge on the libby-lefty side. After all, this place did spawn Julian Castro, of whom I am convinced there is a picture in that Great Universal Dictionary in the sky next to the definition of that German word which means “a face in need of a good punching”. San Antonio may be well stocked with representatives of the lunatic left, but we are pretty far from being Austin, and the fact that one cannot throw a rock in this place without hitting at least four retired colonels and a dozen retired senior NCOs (Army and Air Force, primarily) – well, that keeps a ration of sanity in play. I’ve only spotted two signs for Beto “Blotto” O’Rourke lately, for whatever that counts for.
Immigration
Poisoned Fruit of the Poisoned Tree
This week, the month-long mystery of the missing college student, Mollie Tibbits, was sadly resolved, with the discovery of her body in a local cornfield. Developments in the search for her were updated frequently over the last few weeks, and always featured at the top, or near to the top of headlines on the English tabloid, the Daily Mail. Which, for all its’ eccentricities, abuse of grammar, spelling, penchant for the flamingly obvious, providing Piers Morgan with a salary, extreme Kardashian-worship, and light-to-moderate Trump disdain, does cover the American news scene without much fear or favor.
The longer the mystery of her disappearance went on, though – the greater the chance of a less than happy ending. And as it turns out that the chief suspect in her kidnapping and murder is a man with a distinctly dodgy background – an illegal alien of Mexican background, whose’ identity papers are something of a mystery. His American employers seemed to believe that everything was hunky-dory; this lends the cynical among us to assume that such paperwork must have been better forgeries than the usual run.
Rickover
Recently watched an excellent documentary on Admiral Hyman Rickover, creator of the nuclear Navy. There’s quite a lot in the documentary that is relevant to today’s issues and concerns, for example: circa 1972, the CIA had assured the Navy that the top speed of Russian attack subs was about 22 knots. Rickover suspected that they were wrong, and he directed a carrier which was being shadowed by a Russian sub to gradually increase speed. When it reached 30 knots, the shadowing sub was still there.
Which provides one more interesting data point at a time when we are being lectured about the need to treat the conclusions of the “intelligence community” with reverence.
In a 1974 speech, Rickover told of an ancient people called the Locrians:
These people gave freedom of speech to all citizens. At public meetings anyone could stand up and argue for changes in law or custom, on one condition. A rope was placed around his neck before he began to speak and, if what he said did not meet with public approval, he was forthwith hanged. That, no doubt, prevented disturbing the even tenor of familiar customs and ways of life.
I have encountered some in the Navy who look with nostalgia on this ancient custom. But we must face the stark fact that an uncriticized society cannot long endure.
Quite a few organizations in America today are following in the footsteps of the Locrians–the universities, especially, but also certain Silicon Valley companies. And not only them.
I learned of this documentary about the same time I read about a professor who was disturbed that Hispanic students that she interviewed credited their success to their own hard work and self-reliance rather than to affirmative action.
Rickover was Jewish, and he entered the Navy at a time when Jews were not common in that service…and the negative attitudes toward Jews which were prevalent in the society at large were also quite common in the Navy, perhaps even stronger there than outside. (The Academy yearbook pages for both Rickover and the only other Jewish midshipman in his class were conveniently perforated for easy removal.)
And I wondered: If Rickover had been influenced by professors and others endlessly and excessively beating the Victimhood drum, would he have been able to achieve the success and the great accomplishments that he did? Or would he have just folded up and concluded that it was hopeless, that Jews had no chance in the Navy?
Well, probably not Rickover–he was an extraordinarily tough and resilient man. But there probably are a lot of people who have high potential, though maybe not on the Rickover level, and who are being inhibited and will be inhibited in achieving that potential due in substantial part to such preaching.
Seth Barrett Tillman: My Post on CONLAWPROF: my response to a discussion about removing Trump from office
If your dispute with Trump and your call for his removal are based on policy (and his language about policy), rather than about discrete factual predicates amounting to legal violations, then you should eschew the language of the criminal law and push forward with debates (in this forum and elsewhere) about the prospective dangers you think Trump is creating or the harms he has already caused. But as I said, the country survived Johnson. To the extent that the argument against Trump is based on his saying stuff you think outrageous, I think the country will survive his talking big. I would also add that Trump has done little (as I see it) which substantially departs from his campaign statements—so a removal based on political disagreement about the expected consequences of policy is not going to be one with a strong democratic justification.
Technical point: It may be that deporting foreigners is not a criminal punishment, but exiling/banishing/deporting Americans who are in the country legally would seem to me to amount to a violation of a 14th Amendment liberty interest. This brings up an important cultural divide in America today (and not just in America, but across the Western world). Many of Trump’s supporters see the elites as being indifferent between their fellow citizens and foreigners. I ask you not to prove them correct.
Draining the Swamp
Romney’s greatest charm was his history of taking a chainsaw to businesses and setting them on their feet. Those virtues are not always apparent in a campaign nor necessarily popular. Mick Mulvaney, backed by a businessman who was appalled at the waste in government (as almost all sentient beings are but someone that has planned large projects more clearly), is doing what I for one voted for Romney to do.
Simplifying permits, narrowing focus clears the brush, then we can build. The enlarging of bureaucracies encourage flakey, dishonest, bullshit laws that we don’t follow – that was Obama’s plan and we see it at its worst in the immigration fiasco, it works well to produce fear, malaise, and arbitry enforcement. The Home Land secretary put it best when she asked Congress if they had thought about the road they were going down in criticizing her for enforcing the laws they had made. Extraneous laws & large bureaucracies stunt growth, use up energy and frustrate. The result is malaise and a nation with less and less “trust”.
[Note: rewritten – parts unconnected – the commenters connected them but I realize it was rude of me. Great link! I added a second)