Murder of Charlie Kirk / Leftist violence / etc. (2025-09-11)
The idiocy choice of clothes, etc., with regard to “gender-identity” (2025-09-07)
Faulty attitudes of the Left in light of religion (2025-04-18)
Men competing against women and debaters missing the point (2025-04-17)
Some notes on tariffs and on my silence on the topic (2025-04-11)
Politically motivated pro/-persecution internationally (2025-04-04)
This is my “various and sundry” page for 2025, April–September 11th. It was preceded by 2025 (1) and succeed by 2025 (3).
For more information on the purpose of these pages, reading order, update policy, notes on terminology, etc., see the category description.
For the other pages, see the category navigation.
In light of the murder of Charlie Kirk:
For the umpteenth time, we have proof that political violence is a predominantly Leftist matter—yet media cannot stop harping about alleged “Rightwing” violence.
This type of violence is particularly harmful to democracy, freedom of opinion and speech, and a sane political climate—even when it does not result in death. The more so, of course, when death does result.
In particular, this is an escalation of the utterly, utterly inexcusable and unconscionable attempts by Leftists to kill free speech on college campuses, to reduce them to echo chambers for the lies and hate-mongering of the Left. In the past, an invited speaker might have risked being made inaudible by these utterly contemptible anti-intellectuals and democracy destroyers, so that others were denied the right to listen, or risked being the target of a rotten tomato. From now on, no-one can get on stage for “unapproved” speech in a college setting without fear of death.
Likewise, campaigning as e.g. a MAGA candidate is already associated with risk of death. Trump saw at least two attempts during the last POTUS campaigns—one of which came within inches of taking his life. (To which various dangers of other types must be added, including of attacks through abuse of the legal system, “debanking”, and similar.)
Likewise, even coming to, say, a political rally for the “wrong” party or candidate brings a danger. Note e.g. how other lives were taken by the same Leftist wannabee assassin who got within those inches of killing Trump.
The types of assassination performed by e.g. the IDF against leaders of terrorist organizations within the scope of an armed conflict, are not truly comparable—but they are a two-edged sword. On the one hand, they can (literally or metaphorically) remove an enemy general without having to wade through hundreds of (again, literal or metaphorical) privates. On the other, they are a step towards the normalization of political assassinations. Combine this with events like the murder of Kirk and the attempts against Trump, and we might be heading to a dire political future—the more so, if Leftist violence moves non-Leftist to retaliate, use “an eye for an eye” thinking, or similar.
I have already spoken out about the need for zero tolerance of the Left.
I hereby repeat and re-emphasize that message. Any political grouping that lets the end justify the means, no matter the means, is intolerable. Ditto any grouping that tries to suppress the speech of others for no other reason than disagreement. Ditto any grouping that pushes hatred between groups of humans based on group belonging, and systematically tries to demonize its opponents. Etc. Exactly that is what the Left does.
It might be tempting to try to play down this murder as the act of a single lunatic, a member of a fringe portion of the Left, or similar. Had the Left had a better track record, this might have been justifiable, but in light of the extreme amounts of hate propaganda, lies, and defamation that fills the mainstream Left in so many countries, the U.S. included (indeed, the U.S. in particular), it is not.
Hinckley (who once almost murdered Ronald Reagan) might have been a single lunatic—and was not even acting for political reasons. The many acts of Leftist violence of today’s world, however, thrive on the distorted worldview propagated by the mainstream Left. The Left has sown the wind and, in a horrifying twist, it is the likes of Trump and Kirk who fall victim to the whirlwind. (The standard phrasing of “reap[ing]” would be confusing in context.)
As for:
The already begun stream of condemnations from various Democrat big-wigs: Per the previous item, I cannot view this as more than hypocrisy or a lack of insight. (Which applies the more to any given Democrat big-wig, I leave unstated.)
The many hate-filled, demented, far-Left freaks who see the murder as a good thing: Go to Hell. Simply and plainly, go to Hell.
In the previous entry, I failed to consider the obvious example of hair and how both long and short hair can occur with both sexes, despite a somewhat stereotypical connection of long hair with females and short hair with males. (Maybe, because the stereotype was much more likely to hold true in some places and at some times then in e.g. today’s Germany; maybe, because, even “here and now”, both the average and the median would give females longer hair.)
Also, however, despite the fact that today is my own weekly cut-my-hair-day, which, while cutting, brought a few observations to mind (not all necessarily relevant to the previous entry):
Hair has a trade-off between practicality and aesthetics in at least two regards of relevance to male and female choices: Firstly, longer hair (all other factors equal) requires more care-taking than shorter hair, implying that a greater preference for looking good might be needed to justify longer hair. Secondly, longer hair is more likely to get in the way of practical work and/or be damaged/dirtied by such work, implying that someone who is more involved in work is less likely to prefer longer hair. This the more so, when longer hair could be outright dangerous, say, because it could get caught in a machine or be used by an enemy. (With an overlap where measures to keep hair out of the way, e.g. by “putting it up”, involves additional care-taking.)
Where I note that longer hair, if sufficiently well treated, usually looks better than shorter hair even on men, as demonstrated e.g. by how the proportion of “heart throbs” with long hair has been higher than in the overall male population and how many men in roles of importance have historically had long hair—be it because they were in greater need of good looks or because they had hired help to handle the matter. (Or, in some cases, because they could not be bothered with cutting...)
An interesting case is that of Absalom, in the Biblical depiction: A man of great importance in his own time and place, known for his great beauty and his almost absurdly long hair, who loses his life because his head becomes stuck in a tree while he attempts to flee his enemies—which is usually depicted in art as a tangling of his hair in the branches of said tree.
Other practical problems of less relevance to a male–female difference exist, e.g. in that long hair can get caught in something in one’s spare time or in that very long or to tightly bound hair, apparently, can lead to complications like headaches.
Just like long hair might be associated with females, some particular hairstyles, notably at least some variations on the “tails” theme, might be associated with female children for largely spurious reasons. In a next step, a similar mistranslation to e.g. “Want to be a girl? Have long hair!” can follow, in that an adult woman who does wear (the “wrong” type of) tails can be viewed as having a childish look—or a man who finds such women attractive as actually being attracted to children, because some others see the tails as something belonging to a child even when on an adult woman.
Similarly, other factors more incidentally related to youth can be mistaken as an attraction to youth-as-such. For instance, I did long find that the average girl of 16 was more physically attractive than the average at 26, let alone 36. However, this was at least partially because of matters like state of training and amount of excess fat, where the average at 16 was better or far better than at 26 or 36—and where a well-trained woman at 26 or 36 could be quite attractive. Today, I think much less of the girls at 16, even physically, and an important reason is that far too many of them, at least in Germany, are poorly trained over-eaters, while some or many adult women do better, be it because they belong to a less couch-potato-ey generation or because they have taken up training and improved their eating habits over time.
(Another reason is that my “ideal age” in women seems to have increased as I, myself, have aged. This increase has been far slower than my own aging, but going from an own age of e.g. 16 to 50, it does make a considerable accumulated difference. Yet another, going back far enough in my own age, is an increased ability to see the difference between natural beauty and “beauty” caused by make-up and other artificial helpers, of which teenage girls are unusually large users.)
The underlying reason might, again, be practicality, in that practical obstacles is a lesser concern for children, that attractiveness is given a lower priority relative practicality after marriage, that tails might require a helper, that an interfering mother insists on tails, or similar. To mothers, I recall a brilliant piece from the comic strip “For Better or For Worse” that is quite telling about parents and children, and some other constellations. In an approximate re-telling: Mother tries to put pig tails on very young daughter, who keeps squirming. “Elizabeth, if you want to see your hair in pig-tails, you have to sit still!” / “But I don’t want to see my hair in pig-tails! You do!”
Another male–female issue is the likelihood that someone takes the self-service route, be it out of cost or convenience. I just take a trimmer/clipper/whatnot to my head once a week these days, for exactly such reasons. Before I switched to self-service (a long time ago), I went through several years of regularly having longer hair than I actually wanted, because going to have it cut was a nuisance, with either a need for an appointment or a queue, the time taken for the cutting, and the need to get to and from the hair-cutter’s—and the need to fit this into a full work-schedule. If someone is willing to take a greater cost, make a greater effort, whatnot, in order to look good, this could lead to other choices.
However, sufficient costs or obstacles can move even women into self-service (if usually in a different manner). For instance, a large part of my childhood was spent in a village that did not have a hair-cutting place (let alone, which will shortly be relevant, a self-declared “hair salon”, “hair stylist”, or whatnot). Result? Every now and then, Mother drove the family to another town for hair cuts... Costs and time exploded, and eventually she just bought a set of semi-professional scissors and cut my and my sister’s hair in the kitchen instead. (How she handled her own, I do not remember.) For instance, one of the few vanities of my maternal grand-mother was that she kept her hair permed. (I cannot recall ever seeing her use make-up of any kind.) But, absent a hair salon, how? Home perms, again performed by my mother—and likely an inspiration for Mother’s switch to amateur hair-cutting, as this help began years earlier. (Other likely contributors are that my grand-mother could not drive and that she was from a very cost-aware generation.)
An important off-topic conclusion is that businesses should be careful when imposing further burdens on their customers. Too “optimistic” price increases and (likely, more importantly) other deterrents can result in considerable loss of custom. A notable case is online-shops who make the customer jump through hoops to find the right product, order, find a reasonable means of payment, and similar. Another is store chains that expect customers to travel half-an-hour to the nearest surviving store from the same chain after a closure—when there is a competitor five minutes away, railways that expect the customer to stay with the railway after a station closure instead of going by car, and similar. (See [1] for station closures.)
Such businesses can be partially right, however, in that many fail to consider the non-monetary costs. For instance, I once had a brief discussion with a colleague over giving shirts to a laundry. He did so once a week (every two weeks?), arguing that the cost per shirt was low—I did so in exceptional cases, because, for both of us, the additional effort in e.g. travel and waiting time was far larger than the monetary costs.
Looking at self-service and women, there might be some limits relative men in what is conscionable, in that a very close cropping or shaving need not work as well for a woman as for a man—maybe, at all; maybe, with an eye at remaining attractive to the opposite sex. (With potential implications like that a “butch” lesbian might have greater success with a shaved head than a straight woman.)
However, it does not necessarily follow that a shorter hair-cut would be a bad choice—and in the comparison with “big” hair (as opposed to long hair), I usually find even very short hair preferable. A good example is the main protagonist of the TV series “The Midnight Club”, a young Black woman, who, within my incomplete watching, went through three incarnations of hair: A big, almost stereotypically African–American, bush, then a close crop (relating to medical treatment), then a wig simulating that big, almost stereotypically African–American, bush. (Whether the original version was the actresses real hair or already a wig, I do not know.) By a considerable distance, I found her the most attractive with the close crop.
She could also potentially illustrate another issue, namely that what works for the one need not work for the other (as with men, women, and a shaved head): The same size of bush might have been less out of place, or seemed less big, with someone less lithe. (Formulations using “less” are very deliberate. I hardly ever see big hair that actually works.) Similarly, a problem with at least some trans-this-and-that (including -vestites) is that they just adopt something “female” without bothering with proper adaption or with a check of whether the something at hand is at all a good idea for them, individually.
Which, to preempt Leftist protests, is not to say that hair problems would be limited to Black women. White men, e.g., unless they can afford professional-level care on a daily basis, should almost always stay away from curly hair.
Many cases of “cultural appropriation” could actually be viewed as the alleged victims presumptuously appropriating something with no specific-to-them connection or something that has a much wider and generic applicability than to just them. (Even aside from the extremely disputable legitimacy of the idea of “cultural appropriation”, as such.)
A particularly good example is given by dreadlocks, which not only has a long history outside Africa/Jamaica/whatnot but, in my understanding, can arise spontaneously from prolonged poor haircare. Some styles of “big” hair might also be relevant. (I cannot recall accusations of cultural appropriation relating to e.g. a “big, almost stereotypically African–American, bush”, but they might well exist or follow in the future.)
Something that has long puzzled me is the idea of someone dressing like a member of the opposite sex because “[he/she] feels like a [woman/man]” and variations on similar ideas, including a man wearing make-up or someone “living like” a member of the opposite sex.
But what makes a particular piece or style of clothing “male” or “female”? Yes, there tends to be some conventions that apply to any given time or place, but these are ultimately arbitrary. While such arbitrary conventions can have effects like a boy being mistreated by his fellows for wearing a skirt, the arbitrariness also implies that there is no real reason for him to want to wear a skirt because of e.g. “gender-dysphoria”—while a boy who firmly sees himself as a boy might want still want to wear a skirt for some unrelated reason.
What those reasons might be, I cannot say from own experience, but some fictional depictions have spoken about enjoying the breeze around one’s legs. Such fictional depictions also sometimes mention the softness of women’s clothing, under-clothing in particular, but this is a matter of material and not of e.g. style of clothing.
Some difference in clothing might certainly arise for practical reasons, e.g. because wearing a bra only makes practical sense above a certain bust size—and one that even most teen-girls reach while few males of any age ever do. The point of a bra is not that it would, in some sense, be a part of a “woman’s uniform” but that it serves a practical purpose that often applies to women and only rarely to men. Indeed, many women chose to forego a bra, be it for legitimate reasons, e.g. comfort, or illegitimate ones, e.g. a deranged belief in the bra as a part of the “Patriarchy’s” attempts to oppress women and/or as a symbol of this imaginary oppression. Why then would wearing a bra help a boy with gender-dysphoria?
Chances are that there is a large aspect of agenda pushing by others, and that making the boy wear a bra would help them in some manner, which might make them tell the boy that “if you feel like a girl, you must wear a bra”.
There is, however, an element of irrationality of another type among the young (likely, the more so among girls, but hardly exclusively among girls) in that a wish to feel more adult can lead to odd choices. For instance, a girl who would not yet gain a practical benefit from wearing a bra might still wish to do so, so that she can feel or appear more adult.
(There is much female irrationality with regard to clothing and related areas, which might make for a separate text at a later date. For now, I merely note that copying this irrationality would, it self, be irrational.)
To return to skirts: Throughout my teenager years, it was rare for even the girls to wear skirts, while jeans abounded. Outside of special events, skirts might have been largely reserved for very hot days (pointing to a pragmatical benefit around cooling) and might have been more a matter of wearing dresses, as opposed to separate skirts. (With some reservations for my memory, after so many years.) Looking at adult life, it has been mostly the same—jeans and whatnots dominate skirts in the office, even among the women. Historically, skirts and similar easy-to-make clothing might have been somewhat unisex, with men simply adopting trousers earlier and at a higher rate for pragmatical reasons relating to daily work. The Scottish kilt is used on some dress-up and/or ceremonial occasions even today.
Looking more in detail, there are some on-average differences. The most notable, likely, is that teen-girls (to a high degree) and women-in-the-office (to some degree) are more likely to wear something tight-fitting than are their male counterparts.
However: Firstly, this is not a uniquely male–female division. Secondly, it likely has a secondary motivation of girls simply wanting to show off their legs in a manner that boys are less likely to do. (Be it because they are less into showing off their bodies or because they might prioritize arms or some other body part.) What happens to be available in stores could also play in, and what is available in stores is ultimately dependent on typical buying patterns, which could have an additional effect in that if most girls buy tight-fitting jeans, then the remainder might be left with little choice—unless they go to the men’s department.
From another angle, the erstwhile considerably greater proportion of skirt-wearers among women might have related to some idea of “decency”, that it might be “indecent” for women to wear pants where at least the shape of the legs was easier to watch. (I have not looked into the topic, but Terry Pratchett did a bit on this in one of his books.) In reverse, a mini-skirt era might have given women greater incentives to wear skirts than trousers, because these show more of the legs instead of less.
Make-up? Again, not something which has been historically limited to women, nor, necessarily, was that common among women at any given time and place. If in doubt, what purpose would it serve a farmer’s wife to waste time with putting on make-up before going off to milk the cows? As, maybe, with tight-fitting jeans, a greater use of make-up by women might have less to do with something “feminine” and more with a greater wish to seem attractive than is found in a man (and/or a wish to seem attractive that manifests in a different manner than in a typical man). Why, then, would it make sense for a gender-dysphoric boy to wear make-up?
To my personal taste, a great many women, let alone teen-girls, would benefit from wearing less make-up. Some types of lipstick, including the brightly red ones, are outright off-putting to me.
How does one “live like a woman”? Apart from the aforementioned and what might arise from biological differences, there really is very little of practical relevance that occurs to me. Yes, maybe more women read romance novels, own cats, or keep a vegetarian diet, but not all women do either, let alone all three, and if a man wants to do the same, there is nothing to stop him—regardless of how he views his own “gender”, with little restriction in time, as he could have done the same in, say, 1925, and with little restriction in place, as the same would almost certainly hold in e.g. Saudi-Arabia. (And, with some reservations for the time and place, the same applies to other life-style choices that women might or might not make.)
In my first draft, I used “live as a woman”. This formulation is likely the more common in the uses that I have seen by others, but could be taken to imply that the subject at hand is a woman, which, in turn, could cater to the gender-activist agenda. Note e.g. how I live as a Swede, regardless of where I am and how I lead my life, but likely live more like a German than like a Swede.
However, this “as” might be a clue to the idiocy: I have long suspected that some are sufficiently moronic that they equate the phrase with e.g. having official recognition on a driver’s license or a birth certificate—but what is on such papers only very rarely affect how we live our lives. Outside of passport renewals and voting rights, the fact that my paperwork says “Swede” and not “German” has no effect on my actual life and gives me no incentive to switch citizenship (despite that I legally could). Such an equation would, arguably, be triply moronic, because we also have to factor in the weakness of mind that would give something like that importance over more practical concerns and the inability to understand the difference between biological sex and “gender identity”. (While fictions around “gender assigned at birth”, and similar, has only arisen due to Leftist pressures. A wavering from the point that e.g. “man” and “woman” refer to biological sex should never have been tolerated. In as far as there is need, new terms should have been created to indicate differentiations relating to “gender identity”.)
Apparently, Greta Thunberg (deranged-and-ignorant-environmentalist-activist turned deranged-and-ignorant-far-Left-activist) is having yet another sea adventure—this time with the ostensible purpose of bringing relief to Palestinians in Gaza.
This has led some observers to point out that the project is likely doomed to fail: Not only is her attempt in violation of an Israeli blockade but the Israelis know that she is coming and will have no problems with intercepting her. (To boot, I wish to recall, but could be wrong, that this is her second attempt and that the first was an equally predictable failure. To boot, questions arise like who would distribute any goods, should they reach Gaza. Handing them to Hamas would be indefensible and to the IDF paradoxical, while organizations like the Red Cross are hardly limited to Thunberg’s aid. Thunberg, herself, is unlikely to have a distribution network that goes beyond setting up in the nearest town square and handing out contraband on a first-come-first-served basis.)
These observers might well be right, but they miss a bigger point—that the more spectacular the failure to reach Gaza, the greater the success in the likely underlying purposes. (For the same reason, issues like distribution after a hypothetical arrival in Gaza are of mostly academic interest.)
With activism, much more generally, it is important to always ask what the actual underlying purpose is. In very many cases (including here, with a high degree of likelihood), that underlying purpose is some mixture of gaining publicity, painting an opponent as evil, and painting oneself as good.
A very apposite example is the “Mavi Marmara” incident, which was likely intended to force a violent resolution that could be used against Israel in propaganda.
Or consider the classic case of a small group chained to something with the aim of preventing something (be it the same something or something else) to be torn down, chopped down, built, or whatever might apply in the case at hand. Well, chances are that the aim is bona fide but that the means to achieve it are more indirect. Having to temporarily stop work until the police arrives with bolt cutters and carries the small group away is a nuisance and an unplanned cost, certainly, but it will only rarely cause more than a delay—and usually a small delay at that. The publicity, on the other hand, can have a genuine effect. If the protestors manage to get enough media cover, and with the right angle, there is some chance of a permanent block and, barring that, there are secondary effects. (And, yes, even publicity will likely fail to stop the project at hand more often than not.) Consider e.g. that a business that has just been painted as evil incarnate in the press might be hesitant to pursue other projects likely to cause protests in the near future and that scenes of policemen carrying off (seemingly or genuinely) peaceful protestors could go a long way to ruin the image of the police. If nothing else, the publicity might turn a small group at the current protest into a large group at the next protest...
Over the last few years, trying to destroy art has been popular among Thunberg wannabees. Here, the purpose of publicity is often outright stated, often followed by a claim in the “What is one piece of art compared to the billions who will die from global warming?!?!?!” family, implying that destroying the art for the publicity would be a justified choice—and that the more famous, expensive, important, whatnot, the piece of art is/was, the better, because it results in more publicity. (Such art destroyers often push ridiculously exaggerated scenarios, e.g. with regard to an imagined death toll, and/or seemingly believe that the vast majority of the population would be completely oblivious to the extensive news reporting on climate-this-and-that over the last few decades, the messages of the likes of Al Gore, the hysteria of the likes of Thunberg, and whatnot.)
Etc.
Other reasons do, of course, exist. Publicity just happens to be the most noteworthy for the purposes of this text. A particular complication is that individual motivations (among the naive, especially) can differ, as can those of actual protestors vs. those of the organizers of the protest. A personal satisfaction from “doing something”, from “fighting the good fight”, or similar, might be a particularly common individual motivation, while someone sufficiently naive might actually believe that a few protestors chaining themselves to something will magically, from the one moment to the next, stop a multi-million dollar project that has been in planning for months.
As for Thunberg and sea adventures: In her very early days, there was great publicity about how she was crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat instead of a jet plane or some other alleged environment destroyer. This, too, is more a matter of publicity than anything tangible, as the environmental gain from a single person making an unusual travel choice would be miniscule. (Vice versa, I do not automatically see it as wrong if a self-proclaimed environmentalist takes even a private jet from point A to point B. It all depends on what is achieved by the travel relative the cost of travel.)
The interesting thing, from a personal point of view, is that the first mention that reached me was so abbreviated and/or poorly formulated that I had the impression that she was performing a solo crossing—and I had some temporary respect for her. (While a solo crossing would not in any way, shape, or form have made me take her more seriously in the underlying issues, the ability and determination needed for a solo crossing, in a sailboat, by a teen girl, would certainly have been worthy of respect.)
As it turned out, a day or so later, she was actually just a passenger on a private yacht...
(And would going by yacht necessarily be more environmentally friendly than going by plane? That could depend very much on the details involved.)
With ongoing peace (ceasefire, whatnot) talks for the Ukraine between Trump and Putin (and, maybe, Zelenskyy), I cannot help wonder what will happen if a realistic peace is actually found—and I have a suspicion that anything short of an (unrealistic) abandonment of all Russian territorial and other demands (including that the Ukraine is kept out of NATO) will be met with complaints that Trump capitulated, threw away Ukrainian territory, or similar.
While there are oddities in these talks, including that negotiations currently are mainly Trump–Putin and/or U.S.–Russia, concessions by the Ukraine and/or towards Russia are not among them: factoring in the difference in military strength between the two actual combatants, the immense damage and suffering caused to the Ukrainian people by the continuing war, and the need to make a peace politically palatable in Russia, finding a peace without such concessions would be next to impossible or would require some extraordinary event (e.g. a successful coup in Russia or current non-combatants becoming such and tipping the power balance).
A particularly interesting point is that many who take a no-compromise stance over the Ukraine seem to be driven by their own version of the “domino theory”, that if Putin is not sent packing with the tail between his legs, some other country will be promptly invaded next, another one after that, etc. However, such complete victory is by no means necessary to justify resistance based on the domino theory—it is enough to demonstrate that the costs of pushing over any given domino will outweigh the benefits (be it in money, lives, political capital, whatnot) and/or that the time needed will be sufficient to serve as a deterrent in its own right. Both these criteria should already have been met with regard to this war, making further Russian aggression unlikely in the foreseeable future—and they make claims that the 20th-century domino theory, concerning Communist takeover, would be discredited or debunked quite weak.
This with some reservations for the exact formulation used for the domino theory. However, not only were there dominoes that did fall and unsuccessful attempts to make others fall, but the Communist takeovers of both Korea and Vietnam were quite expensive, while the Korean was only half successful. To this there might, after leg-work that I have not performed, be room to add cases of outright thwarting through Western intervention (not necessarily overt intervention). To boot, had the takeover of Cuba been stopped or reversed, the overall problems with Communism, including threatened dominoes in South and Middle America, would likely have been considerably smaller.
As with the Israel–Palestine situation below, there might be room for an inconsistency in opinion, in that those who push a “discredited” line towards the 20th-century domino theory often are Leftist and that Leftists are unusually likely to push for a “no compromise” stance on the Ukraine. (However, I suspect, with a greater chance that the groups are disjunct and/or that the “no compromise” stance has another motivation than a domino theory.)
I also re-iterate my doubts that Putin has had his eyes on further dominoes to begin with. Firstly, factoring in who is already an ally, who is a member of NATO, who might be subject to interests of other powers, etc., there are few viable candidates. Secondly, the Ukraine is a special case on several points, including proximity to Russia, historical connections, and the (pre-war) Donbas situation.
A comparison with the Israel–Palestine situation is also interesting, in that the same or similar groups seem to condemn Israel but support the Ukraine, support Palestinian rights to this-and-that but reject similar rights for the Russians in the Donbas, etc. While the respective situations and parties are not perfectly comparable, they are sufficiently similar to call in doubt the consistency of thought of such groups and to what degree they are driven by reason and fairness and to what degree by emotions and preconceived opinions about who is good and evil, oppressed and oppressor, etc. As a thought experiment, say that the Arab neighbors of Israel would repeat the aggressions from 20th-century wars in order to “defend the Palestinians” (or similar): Would this aggression be more likely to be compared to that of Russia in the Ukraine or to e.g. that of NATO in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s?
A new round of elections is approaching, this time county/whatnot elections in NRW (my state of residence). Despite the actual election being more than a month away, Wuppertal has already been plastered with election advertising for a while—with every second candidate promising some variation of “Finally, someone who X!” in reference to himself.
The exact X varies, and I have not made notes, but it is usually something clichéd, vague, and with no particular connection to the politics of the associated party, say, “is on your side”. Well, the same problems mostly apply to those using some other approach than “Finally, someone who X!”, but this specific family is interesting in as far as politicians outside AfD might finally be beginning to acknowledge the great dissatisfaction with the anti-democratic, anti-Rechtsstaat, anti-whatnot, take of so many German politicians and parties. (Including serial coalitions between the nominal arch-enemies CDU and SPD, which make a mockery of elections.)
Regrettably, I have no recollection of previous elections in terms of type of slogan, and I cannot promise that this is a drift to something new—maybe, I have simply not reflected over it before. (At any rate, talk is cheap and I doubt that these slogans will prove to be more than empty talk for the majority of those elected.)
What I do remember from some previous elections is a type of far-Left extremism that I have so far not seen this time around, including open calls for revolution and bans of all “Fascist” parties by the Marxist-Leninist MLPD. (To which I note that “Fascist” in the mouths of such parties tends to imply “anyone who does not agree with us”, and re-iterate my own standard saying that “Fascist is as Fascist does”.)
Recent polls point to the possibility that AfD will emerge as the largest party. AfD is the only major party to go contrary to the political establishment, and where dissatisfied voters tendentially go for that reason, even when they do not necessarily have a great overlap with the party’s positions. We still have to see what “Finally, someone who X!” might bring, but the willingness of the other German parties to change, even in light of the immense dissatisfaction, has so far been minimal. Instead, they attempt to have AfD banned (while e.g. the re-branded SED, a party that truly deserves to be banned, in light of its horrifying history, shares in power in several states) and engage in the aforementioned serial coalitions to nullify the will of the voters.
The re-branded SED also has far-Left opinions that are quite contrary to my own—but, unlike them, I call for bans based on actions-not opinions. (With the meta-exception that those who call for e.g. bans of other parties, for any other reason than defense against such callers, might be banned on that count. Ditto e.g. that someone who opposes free speech for someone else loses his own right to free speech—unless the opposition is based exactly on such “I’m rubber, you’re glue” reflection of harm onto the one set on doing harm to the innocent.)
That the even more extremist MLPD (cf. above) is treated more leniently (Lenin-tly?) than AfD should truly beggar belief, but it is just one more sign of the extreme Leftist hypocrisy regarding e.g. political positions, allowed and disallowed means, and similar, and of how much power the Left wields in both politics and media. (With the added complication that, as with Trump in the U.S., non-Leftist big-government proponents, those who earn money through the existence of big government, and similar, are threatened by the rise of AfD, while the MLPD has seen no such rise, regardless of political positions.)
A recent U.S report on free-speech-in-Germany has apparently made very justified complaints about the deteriorating situation. While I have not read this report, nor seen more than brief mentions, I note that J.D. Vance’s speech from a few months back was spot on and that we do have problems like the aforementioned attempts to ban AfD, disproportionate consequences for wrongspeak, attempts to brand sane claims as extremist, and, of course, the German version of the worldwide COVID propaganda/censorship/whatnot. (See quite a few earlier texts, both on this website and on my old Wordpress account.)
German reporting on the topic, however, makes claims of (in only a slight caricature) “Trump is mean and does not like that we Germans try to stop hate on the Internet!!!”. While I, again, have not read the actual report, this seems like typical Leftist and/or German attempts to hide the real issue behind propaganda lies—and it certainly glosses over the very real problems with undue limitations on free speech in Germany.
(I particularly note that what is classified as “hate” is often a Leftist/woke/PC whim, with no basis in actual hate, that the German press and the German Left often seem to equate “Rightwing” and “hate”, and that even restrictions on actually hate-filled opinions and statements are very dubious and likely to do more harm than good. Restrictions on actions and calls for actions should be enough in a functioning democracy and Rechtsstaat—and the restrictions should be based on the nature of the action (e.g. the use of violence against those who have vote for the “wrong” party), not the underlying opinions, ideology, whatnot.
A problem overlapping with the previous item is that some acts of violence or whatnot are considered “Rightwing” based on the victim and regardless of the perpetrator. For instance, like in the U.S., there has been a great and paradoxical surge of anti-Jewish sentiment since “October 7”. While this appears to largely be a problem in some Leftist, Muslim, and/or Arab groups (again, like in the U.S.), the typical angle chosen by the press and/or the Left is that this is a “Rightwing” problem based on the excuse that Jews are the victims. (While the reasoning behind this has not been obvious or explained, and while I suspect a mixture of stupidity and self-serving deception, I could imagine a pseudo-logic of “Jew-haters and Nazis are the same; the Nazis were Rightwing; ergo, this is a Rightwing problem”. Such a pseudo-logic certainly fits with my prior experiences of Germany.)
Apparently, a slew of further countries are in the process of or contemplating “recognizing” Palestine, while Germany, with its “German RINO” government, is reducing the export of weapons to Israel. This, as far as I can tell from the news, for all the wrong reasons.
In particular, there seems to be a fundamental failure to understand that the warfare in Gaza is not a matter of Israel vs. Palestine or Israelis vs. Palestinians—it is a matter of Israel vs. the hateful and genocidal band of terrorists that is Hamas. Confounding e.g. the legitimate interests of a Palestinian civilian with the illegitimate ones of Hamas is inexcusable. Ditto confounding the legitimate interests of Israel in defense of its people with, well, whatever it is confounded with.
With similar claims applying to e.g. the Israeli–Hezbollah situation from an Israeli point of view. In the other direction, however, it is manifestly clear that the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah are more than willing to deliberately target Israeli civilians as were they legitimate military targets.
Now, if and in as far as Israel oversteps the bounds of acceptable warfare (much like the Hamas indisputably does), this should be criticized and might be cause for action. However, Israel has gone to great lengths to reduce the damage to civilians to the degree possible in the very difficult situation at hand. Moreover, this situation has ultimately been caused by Hamas and the evidence shows that the destruction of Hamas is an extremely worthy goal—for the purpose of peace, likely, a long-term precondition, lest this evil weed grows strong again. (Whether this destruction is sufficient is, unfortunately, a very different question. Not only must the problems of Hezbollah, Iran, etc., be considered, but also the risk that the Hamas is later replaced by some other organization drawing on fanaticism and hatred of Israel and/or Jews.) Notably, the German attitude change seems to be caused by recent claims by Israel that it might now be forced to occupy Gaza entirely for the time being—but without asking why this might be a necessity and without recognizing that the destruction of Hamas is in the best long-term interest of the Palestinians of Gaza too.
At the same time, the criticisms of Israel seem to be rooted more in rhetoric than in fact and reasoning—often combined with likely disinformation, e.g. in that Hamas is taken as a credible source for the number of killed Palestinian civilians. This, to boot, with the apparent implication that they, without exception, were killed by the Israelis, which is extremely unlikely, and needless killed, with no thought for the responsibility of Hamas. The last also exemplifies an ongoing problem with faulty assignation of responsibility. Another example is that problems with food supply in Gaza are blamed on Israel instead of Hamas—the initiators of warfare and the reason why the warfare goes on.
Looking at recognizing Palestine: Firstly, a much worthier measure has usually not been taken, namely to utterly and without reservation condemn Hamas and to internationally and without exception classify it as the terrorist organization that it is. (Ditto Hezbollah.) Secondly, recognition of Palestine plays into the hands of Hamas both as a symbolic act and as implicit pseudo-legitimization. Thirdly, the political, legal, demographic, whatnot, conditions make it doubtful whether there is something that can (at the moment!) be reasonably recognized, and exactly what to recognize remains unclear. In contrast, recognizing e.g. that the Palestinians have a right to a homeland in a manner similar to the international take on the Jews post-WWII/-Shoa would be far more understandable and reasonable.
And clearly it would have been nonsensical to recognize an Israeli state before one was actually founded. Complications around the Palestinians include the split of (the usually intended) territory into areas (Gaza, West Bank) under control of different and hostile-to-each-other political groups (Hamas, Fatah), the utterly undemocratic situation in Gaza, the disputable democratic situation in the West Bank, and the fundamental question of who speaks for the Palestinians with what right (consider the different takes on the “Palestinian Authority” vs. PLO and that neither can be viewed as the democratic result of a collective choice by the Palestinian people, as well as, on another level, the potential and disputable claims of at least Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank and the horrifying histories that the two have). Even the China–Taiwan situation compares favorably and leaves both the PRC and the ROC more reasonably recognized—indeed, even a simultaneous recognition of the two (as existing states; not as states each de jure owning the territory that the other de facto controls) would be more reasonable than the recognition of a Palestinian state. (And certainly it borders on the absurd and the cowardly for some country to recognize Palestine but not Taiwan.)
With territory, a further complication is that while the “recognizers” might have their eyes set on the West Bank, Gaza, and a co-existence with Israel, various Palestinian organizations and whatnot often favor and/or have favored (and might then favor again) the destruction of Israel to create a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea”. (This slogan, of course, is not only standard fare in far Leftist and/or extremist Palestinian propaganda, but aped with no understanding by many useful idiots in the West.) With no further specification or restriction, recognition can be abused or mis-/reinterpreted to have too far-going implications.
(There is also the issue of whether a Palestinian people actually exists in a meaningful sense, but I have never taken the time to investigate the conflicting claims—and, if in doubt, a new people can certainly arise where there previously were none or several. For the purposes of the current discussion, I ignore this issue. The parallel issue of whether “Palestinian” is a reasonable name is irrelevant from a legal or quasi-legal point of view, and likely best viewed as a pointless semantic quibble. I do grant, however, that the term is historically misleading, could distort impressions, and might have been chosen for nefarious reasons.)
U.S politics might be in for a major upheaval of the current “party system”. Not only is Musk trying to create a replacement for the GOP, but (likely, more importantly) the Democrats have so great internal tensions that the party is rife to either split or transform. This in at least two regards, namely, conflicts between the Old Left and the New Left and, orthogonally, between the semi-moderate Left and the extreme Left. (Often with an overlap juxtaposing extremist members of the New Left and semi-moderate members of the Old Left, the latter seemingly increasingly understanding the sheer insanity of the former. To boot, with a growing realization that the excesses of the extremist portions of the New Left cost mainstream votes in return for the fringe votes that they gain.)
A notable manifestation of such issues is the recent success of, and ensuing internal conflict around, Zohran Mamdani, who unexpectedly won the Democrat nomination for NYC mayor.
Another is the great presence of anti-Semitism within the Democrat party (and the Left, more generally, both within the U.S. and internationally), which has revealed itself so clearly since the massacre of October 7—in a party with traditionally large Jewish support, many Jewish members, a large inflow of Jewish donations, etc. (A paradoxical support, at that and even before the last few years, as the GOP has a long history of being both more pro-Jew and pro-Israel, and generally has favored far more sensible politics. With a bit of luck, recent developments can diminish this paradoxical support.)
Regardless of the above and future events, it could be argued that the typical reckoning of party systems is in need of an overhaul, in light of factors like the Paleocon -> Neocon -> MAGA/Trump changes within the GOP and the increasing dominance of the New Left within the Democrat party, and the associated changes in who-votes-for-whom.
(A switch of party system, in the U.S. sense, does not necessarily result from the appearance of new parties.)
I have written a fairly lengthy letter to several recipients, including the mayor of Wuppertal, to demand action against problems like narrow pavements being blocked by rental e-scooters, often obviously deliberately, and the often outrageous behavior of bicyclists. (Including, as a triggering event, a complete block of an important street by dozen upon dozens of bicyclists, who refused to let pedestrians across a zebra crossing, drove in parallel with each other, thereby blocking car traffic, and entirely, almost demonstratively, ignored the bike lane that was present—and which they were legally obliged to use.)
I am not optimistic, however: This is Germany and Germany is a Linksstaat. (And within Germany, regrettably, Wuppertal appears to be further to the Left than most of the former West Germany.)
The hoped for overthrow of the Iranian regime does not appear to happen—for now. The regime remains considerably weakened, but with the (again, for now) reduction of the overt conflict with Israel, the immediate opportunity might have passed. Longer term hopes remain, however. If nothing else, the external actions of the regime might be reined in by a wish for self-preservation. (And it might be very interesting to see what happens, should Khamenei die of old age or other natural causes. The type of continuity of extremist theocracy seen after the death of Khomeini seems far from certain.)
Various problems with the Biden regime, the Democrat party, etc., seem to be under thorough investigation, including the apparent use of autopen without proper authorization by Biden, himself, the cover-up of Biden’s mental decline, and the long-known problems with the Trump-is-a-Russian-collaborator hoax.
The eventual outcomes and practical effects are yet to be seen, but there is hope that sufficient clarifications will serve both as a deterrent against future abuse and give the broad masses enough knowledge to thoroughly distrust the modern Democrats. (Certainly, Nixon resigned over lesser sins.)
Apparently, Trump has just cancelled a handout of USD 4 billion to California, intended to further its vastly overdue, vastly over-budget, and minimally complete high-speed train project.
An interesting thought is how often such failures (and other types of wasteful spending) might go back to the obvious explanation of incompetence and how often to something more deliberate and/or sinister—this, especially, as politicians have comparatively less reason to be concerned with consequences through waste, failures, breeches of fiduciary duties, and similar than their counterparts in the business world.
The last, for reasons like their great ability to blame others, including contractors, for any and all problems; that the perception of the ignorant masses trumps that of accountants and comptrollers when it comes to election day; that politicians often prefer to keep even a nominal enemy’s back clear so that their own position relative the people is not weakened; that big projects and big spending often have “bipartisan” support at the time of decision making, which implies that fall-out would be bipartisan too; and similar.
Indeed, one of the issues that Trump, the German AfD, and other politicians/parties of a similar status, face is that they receive hostile reactions for rocking the boat when they are “supposed” to keep the backs of their nominal enemies clear, sing the right tune about the superior wisdom of the government and the importance of keeping government big, whatnot.
The most obvious issue, and what most likely think of automatically in situations like these, is direct and indirect handouts, say, from an office holder to a construction company so that he can receive a cushy job once out of office, or to some ideological favored cause, because the cause trumps duties towards the tax payers.
However, other reasons are possible.
For instance, if we look at the federal money going to California, California does have an incentive to work poorly in order to receive more federal money, which, while bad for the rest of the U.S., would be good for California. The point of a project, then, could be less to achieve the nominal end and more to funnel money from others to oneself: Start a project, draw in federal aid, wait for the project to exceed budget and time allocations, demand more federal money based on new estimates, lather-rinse-repeat. (Of course, if there are some sympathetic federal decision makers, the same money could have an aspect of handout from their point of view. Likewise, there could be a state-internal aspect of handout towards various parties.)
Here and elsewhere, I make no statement about what actually has happened in the specific case of California’s high-speed trains, which I do not know. The point is illustration of principle. The current California issue is merely what triggered the writing of this text.
(However, there is indeed great reason to be wary of the many deranged far-Leftists in California, beginning with Newsom.)
For instance, a Keynesian (in particular, the naive type that is so common among politicians) might want to keep a project going for the sake of keeping public spending up without the public, whose money is spent, going to the barricades. The point of the project, then, is more to achieve economic ends in the broad “fuel the economy” family. (The naivety of this idea is another issue. In most cases, it will do more harm than good compared to non-government spending of the same money.) Similar ideas often apply even outside Keynesian thinking, e.g. in that keeping a project running longer might serve to keep unemployment down by providing employment (another naive idea) and/or to keep allied unions happy at the cost of the tax payer.
An interesting advantage of such explanations is that they also make it easier to understand the risk that projects are started on false premises. For instance, a too-big-too-fail contractor might submit a bid that is knowingly far too low, with the intent that when the inevitable budget overrun happens, the government will provide more money than agreed upon. (As opposed to taking the contractor to court.) Incompetence among politicians might well be a sufficient explanation, should such a bid be accepted, but collusion can also contribute, in that a politician who has a hidden agenda (e.g. federal-money-to-California, tax-payer’s-money-to-fuel-the-economy) might be willing to sign off on a bid that he actually knows is unrealistically low.
In all cases, there are trade-offs to making a project last longer, cost more, whatnot, than it, in some sense, should—including that whatever the project aimed at is not reached in a timely manner (or, sometimes, at all), which reduces the benefits from the ostensible/official/whatnot purpose of the project.
In any given situation, such trade-offs have to be considered relative the perceived gains. Here, incompetence can often be a factor again—as, in many situations, that a given party might see more benefits than costs from a project, while some other party sees more costs than benefits.
A few roundup items:
A truly major series of events have related to the escalations by Israel and the U.S. against the terrorist regime of Iran and its nuclear-weapons program.
Before my “fed up with politics” phase, this might have resulted in a few thousand words of commentary. As is, I restrict myself to a few remarks:
An underlying issue is that the Iranian regime has been tolerated for far too long. It would certainly have been a far worthier goal for an influenced-by-the-West revolution than some countries that did see one, up to and including the 2014 Ukraine. The far too lax attitude of the Biden regime certainly let matters deteriorate rapidly in recent years.
While I welcome any chance to get rid of the Iranian regime (and there are some signs that it could be toppled from within in the wake of the recent attacks), I do have considerable ethical concerns about any meddling with internal affairs of other countries—and, in light of the experiences of the last few decades, considerable pragmatic concerns. Here, I would still favor Israel’s approach because it is not just a matter of internal Iranian affairs but of an ongoing threat to and ongoing aggression against the rest of the region—including a prolonged proxy-war waged by Iran against Israel. Nevertheless, there is a risk of a dangerous precedent.
The trend seen since October 7, of targeting the leaders of an opponent, is interesting, and can conceivably be a great deterrent against unprovoked aggression—it is one thing to send soldiers to kill and be killed; quite another to oneself risk being killed. However, here we also have risks for the future. What, e.g., if an Islamist or Leftist regime decides to have a foreign head of state/government/whatnot killed because of having the “wrong” opinions? (Iran does indeed currently seem to be targeting Trump.)
This trend is the more interesting through the contrast to the Iranian/Hamas/Hezbollah/whatnot approach of indiscriminately and on a large scale targeting civilians.
The ability of Israel to strike effectively without a land border is very interesting, as “boots on the ground” has historically been seen as a necessity for victory. Here the lack of border might, on the contrary, be a great benefit to Israel, which has both a numerical inferiority and a much smaller landmass. (But the final outcomes are not yet clear.) Some historical examples of a similar nature do exist, however, as with Commodore Perry vs. Japan and, partially, Japan’s loss in WWII (the U.S. had plenty of boots on the ground, in general, but boots on the ground in Japan were not necessary)—both of which involved a vastly superior ability to bombard the enemy.
It is also an interesting contrast with the Iran–Iraq war, which was so prevalent in the 1980s news reporting. As an aside, while the Iran–Iraq war was a horror for the respective populations, it might have been a good thing for the rest of the world, through keeping two evil regimes busy with each other.
The SCOTUS has taken very welcome action to reign in the problems with abuse of the judicial branch to cripple the executive branch. Here, it is important to remember that we do not just have a matter of what branch can interfere how with another (where legitimate room for debate exists), but of problems like “forum shopping”, universally binding decisions being made by poorly qualified and/or biased judges in express tempo, and similar.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the SCOTUS decision will be sufficiently respected, as many of the judges involved in such crippling decisions do not seem to act in good faith, through having a different legal interpretation of what the law is than Trump et co., but to have a different opinion of what the law should be—or, worse, what policies Trump should implement. (And, of course, on the issue of whether universal injunctions, as such, are a legitimate tool or whether, as the SCOTUS now says, they should normally be restricted to favor the individual actual plaintiff, when at all successful.)
Misrepresentation in media is common. For instance, headlines in Germany and Sweden went in the direction of “Trump gets more power”, which is not at all what happened: He is merely allowed to exercise the power that he already has as the elected POTUS with less sabotage from the unelected Left. In particular, the SCOTUS has not limited the ability of the court system to test e.g. the constitutionality of various measures—just the ability of individual low-level judges to impose their own positions universally and while awaiting the outcome of proper such tests.
The German CDU does, as I feared, seem to be stuck in a “German RINO” mode. For instance, Chancellor Merz has recently spoken in support of an idiotic raise of the already high minimum wage (from 12.82 to 14.60 Euro)—despite the well-known negative effects of minimum wages (including on employment, growth, prices, and price signals), despite the currently very weak German economy, and despite such regulations being contrary to both Libertarian and Conservative ideals.
It might be argued that this increase will mostly be a nominal adjustment to compensate for the real change in the value of the Euro, but, if so, it would have been better to take one of the very few benefits of price inflation by keeping the nominal level fix.
A particular, if very predictable, annoyance is the misrepresentation of the minimum-wage increase as something that would benefit the poor exploited workers.
SPD, meanwhile, shows its continuous contempt for democracy and Rechtsstaatlichkeit by pushing very hard for a ban on AfD—while not raising a word against the far greater evils of e.g. “Die Linke” and MLPD. Indeed, in an objective assessment, SPD, it self, is likely a greater evil—if in doubt, because AfD is less an ideological grouping and more a fed-up-with-contemptuous-politicians movement. (I do not wish to speak in too great detail otherwise, because AfD is too much of an unknown in terms of what policies would actually follow, should it gain power. It might turn out to be just another Leftist party, and then nothing is gained; it might turn out to be a major improvement over the existing/mainstream parties.)
Since the 2024 POTUS election, I have repeatedly heard claims in the extended family of “The Democrats lost because young men prefer podcasts to NYT!”—with variations that include various media, various groups, various recommendations to the Democrats (“The Left needs its own Joe Rogan!”, e.g.), and similar.
Now, it is very possible that a particular medium is more attractive to some group than another medium through the characteristics of these media, as such. However, these claims miss more important issues around quality, political bias, truthfulness, etc. For instance, if young men are less likely to use and/or trust legacy media, is it truly because of the medium or is it because of the message, the contents, the attitude, the quality, the whatnot? (And would there be any true benefit in pushing the same message, etc., in a new medium, if it failed in the old medium?)
Looking at myself, my own reduction in newspaper readings goes back mostly to what the newspapers do wrong—not that they are newspapers. (See e.g. a discussion of my exposure to news.) There simply are very great issues with the contents, ranging from quality to deliberate distortions. To boot, someone who relies only, or even predominately, on newspapers risks being stuck in an echo chamber—the more so when he relies on just the one paper that he happens to subscribe to or on just some set of “approved” papers.
From what I have heard and seen from others, their rejection of various sources of information has less to do with the medium and more with exactly “the message, the contents, the attitude, the quality, the whatnot”. The extreme mishandling of COVID in legacy media, alone, did much to reveal the low trustworthiness of journalists. This the more so as the extreme failures are, by now, so well documented that even the likes of NYT have made partial admissions of failure (if not guilt: it is always someone else’s fault, say, through a “But we trusted Fauci!!!” shtick).
Trust, credibility, loyalty, and similar, are almost proverbially (a) easy to destroy, (b) hard to rebuild.
This, however, does not seem to be something that legacy media have considered in time. Worse, some seem to have a take of “You should trust us [again]—because!”, without actually taking measures to rebuild trust and without truly even attempting to explain why a prior loss of trust, in their minds, would have been misguided. (Ditto credibility, etc.)
To some degree, this is the mirror image of the flaws of a same-message-new-medium fallacy: What about fixing the message in the old medium, instead?
An interesting question around those who lament, say, that “young men prefer podcasts to NYT”, and who wish to reverse such trends: To what degree do they genuinely, and highly naively, believe that legacy media are trustworthy, competent, and otherwise preferable; and to what degree do they have a secondary agenda?
For instance, members of legacy media might take such a stance because of money, influence, or status. For instance, Leftist politicians, activists, agitators, whatnot, might do the same because legacy media (at least, for now) tend to push Leftist messages—often at the cost of the truth. For instance, big-government pushers might prefer to keep news sources few, individually influential, and easily coercible by the government.
Journalism in those countries where I have had some exposure is often rife with both incompetence and political angles. In my native Sweden, the latter include a common suppression of important information and an artificial “gender agnosticism” in treatment—especially, in sports and, especially, in headlines. At the same time, headlines are often made highly misleading or uninformative in a non-political manner, be it out of incompetence or a reader-hostile attempt to force the readers to open a page to find out whether the page might be worth reading. (Thereby sabotaging natural filtering and wasting the readers’ time, while, I suspect, reducing long-term readership over a more reader-friendly approach.)
Consider the trigger to writing this entry: Shortly after the latest competition of Armand Duplantis (world record holder in the pole vault, two-time Olympic Champion, etc.), the video text of SVT published the headline “Duplantis satte personligt rekord” (“Duplantis with new personal best”)—to refer to his sister, Johanna, who competes at a much lower level. (Even after adjusting for the male–female difference. She apparently cleared a 4.39m to reach 11th (!) at the NCAA championships.)
(2025-06-14)
Revisiting the same source a day later, I find the item still present, but now with the revised headline “Johanna Duplantis satte "pers"”.
Now, is this yet another attempt to push an artificial equality between athletes and whatnots, regardless of both accomplishment and public interest, or is it a continued incompetence? (And/or reader hostility, cheap click-bating, whatnot.)
In a bigger picture, such examples raise further concerns about how to tell ideological driven Leftist distortions from mere incompetence more generally—a problem that has vexed me for years. (Also note Hanlon’s Razor.)
To make matters even more complicated, an original maliciousness can manifest through incompetence among useful idiots on a lower level, e.g. in that a small group of Leftist agitators and manipulators pushes some political message or angle and that this is taken up by a far larger group of e.g. journalists, who simply do not understand the background, the risks, whatnot.
Would Johanna’s result have been reported, had she not been the sister of Armand?
I suspect that it would have been.
The connection does increase the risk of both click-baiting and attempts to ride on the fame of Armand; however, Sweden is a sufficiently small and sufficiently-interested-in-athletics country that this result is legitimately newsworthy to a Swedish audience. For instance, that 4.39 does appear to be the current Swedish women’s best of the outdoor season. To boot, her result development points to the potential for more internationally competitive results in the future (even speculation based on her brother’s accomplishments aside), which increases her “newsworthiness” further.
The aforementioned news service is not archived.
It is also neither commercial nor advertising-driven. Indeed, if accessed by TV (as it is strictly speaking intended to be), there is not even a way to track what page has been visited how often or what headline had what effect. Attempts at click-baiting are then either unlikely or a special case of incompetence (in a manner beyond what might be argued for a regular website).
It has a long history of poor and obfuscating headlines, including a failure to mention names, sports, and whatnot upfront. (Headlines like “The star set a new record” are not unusual. Note, however, that this is not a quote but just to give a general idea.) At the same time, problems relating exactly to men–women are particularly common, e.g. in that reporting on tennis majors often makes claims like “World number two upset”, without noting whether it was on the men’s or the women’s side, or that only the club is given in reporting on league sports (where, outside the U.S., it is very common for clubs to put up both a men’s team in the men’s league and a women’s team for the women’s league.)
A few roundup items:
The recent far-Left riots in California again display the double-standards of the Left and Leftist dominated media, as well as their recurring distortions. For instance, what I catch in Germany can be roughly summarized as “evil Trump clamps down on civil rights”, notwithstanding that this type of riot is by no means covered by civil rights (and/or e.g. the First Amendment)—but, on the contrary, violates the civil rights of others. Indeed, a key point is the unlawful prevention of lawful measures to remove illegal aliens—and, especially, illegal aliens who are members of criminal organizations.
Greta Thunberg appears to have been arrested by the Israelis and forced (or be about to be forced) to view footage from October 7 for participating in one of the “flotillas”. While unlikely to help with a loon of this type, there is something poetic in an ignorant, holier-than-thou, listen-to-my-wisdom loon being forced to sit through something like that. (However, some ethical arguments against the idea can be raised.)
At the same time, her actions demonstrate the “for show” aspect of these flotillas: Ignore and/or deny the ability to use official channels to provide aid, choose a manner which is known to be forbidden, and use the ensuing Israeli countermeasures (including lawful arrests) to depict Israelis as evil monsters.
Also note parallels with the first item, including that the Leftist angle in both cases lacks critical context about the background for the events. This is the odder as (portions of) the Left took an “October 7 did not exist in a vacuum” approach to justify a massacre on innocents, while ignoring the vital context of October 7, the evils of Hamas (including an ongoing threat to Israel and great damage to the ruled-by-the-Hamas Gaza Palestinians), etc., when condemning the Israeli intervention in Gaza.
Trump and Musk have had an unfortunate (and unfortunately public and rude falling out). I will not comment on the underlying issues (because I remain in my fed-up-with-politics phase and how not done the necessary reading), beyond noting that I agree with Trump that taxes should be lowered and with Musk that more debt is a bad thing. Indeed, Trump’s willingness to increase the debt ceiling is one of the points where I have disagreed with him in the past.
However, such events can be very damaging in terms of public image and risks feeding the Leftist propaganda machine, while actual issues and arguments are ignored. There are better ways to handle such disagreements—leave school-yard behaviors to the Democrats.
The new German government does, to my surprise, show some signs of actual reform-willingness, including with regard to the economy and immigration, but what will come of this is yet uncertain—and, in light of the many missed opportunities during the Merkel era, I am not optimistic. In particular, the new government does contain a Social-Democrat partner, which is likely to be a severe hindrance to sane politics, even should the Conservatives shake the “German RINO” attitude of the Merkel era (for which there is no guarantee).
As I find myself over-worked, I am mostly taking May off—and being sick and tired of politics, I might choose to prioritize this page and category lower for the foreseeable future, even post-May, in favor of catching up with other work.
A few roundup items:
The anti-democratic problems in Germany continue: The umpteenth foreseeable and election-nullifying “great coalition” between “German RINOs” and Social-Democrats is a fact. Further attempts to eradicate AfD (the second largest party in terms of popular support) by means of lawfare continue—while the far greater evils of Die Linke (i.e. SED) and BSW (an off-shot of Die Linke) are tolerated and increasingly gaining a pseudo-legitimization in the public eye.
To boot, portions of the “Reichsbürger” movement have just been outright banned. However, (a) this is a much smaller group than AfD and (b) the ban might have a legitimate cause. (The latter issue is hard to judge, because it is very hard to find information from other sources than mainstream media and the government, which are all vehemently hostile and have a long history of disinformation on political issues and political opponents—AfD included.)
The horribly misguided Pope Francis has passed, after pushing the Catholic Church further Left in a very unfortunate manner—and at a time when it is critical to stand up the dire threat that the modern Left poses to the world. To boot, as far as I, as an outsider, can judge the matter, he has turned the Church in a religious direction that is hard to reconcile with traditional positions and the positions of his last few predecessors.
My so far very casual readings on his successor, Leo XIV, point to some improvement, but not one that is satisfactorily large. In effect, a very Left-leaning Pope has been replaced by a somewhat to very Left-leaning Pope.
The recent Canadian elections resulted in a very disappointing continuation of Leftist rule and a likely continuation of the many problems of the Trudeau era.
While I have not looked into the details, others plausibly speculate that the Canadian annoyance over U.S. tariffs killed the turn towards non-Leftist parties and overcame the dissatisfaction caused by Trudeau’s mismanagement. This shows another aspect of Trump’s policies that might need consideration—that attempts to stop and reverse the far Left takeover of the U.S. can put obstacles in the way for those who try the same elsewhere.
(Further roundups might or might not follow.)
In my previous entry, I discussed an extension of mandatory schooling in Sweden. A particular complication with such extension is the increased problems with comparisons both internationally and (even on the national level) over time.
In particular, “years of education” is a commonly used measure for how much education someone has, be it in individual comparisons or e.g. comparisons between country averages. This is already a weak measure, because it typically actually measures years of schooling and/or “formal education”, not years of education, because it does not consider quality of education, because it does not consider the age of the student for what year of education, etc.
However, when odd extensions occur that factor of age becomes extremely important. If we compare the Swedish system during my own school years with the current U.S. system, the current Swedish system, and the Swedish system as it would be if the extension is implemented:
I went to school between ages 7 and 19, for a total of 12 years (or 13, if the förskola in the old sense, between ages 6 and 7, is counted). A more typical U.S. schedule would be ages 6 through 18, also for 12 years. Now, what are the chances that the U.S. 12 years are on par with the Swedish, despite substituting a year of study at ages 6/7 for one at ages 18/19? Slim indeed. (Outright negligible after factoring in the long history of lower standards in U.S. schooling.) On the contrary, had I left Swedish school at 18 with 11 years of education, chances are that those years would still have been worth approximately as much as the U.S. 12 at the same age. (Likely outright more after factoring in differences in standards.)
Had I gone to school a few decades later, I would have had 13 years of school between ages 6 (!) and 19, but am unlikely to be more than negligibly better off (even sticking with the deeply flawed assumption that education is gained exclusively in school and/or that school is a good way of gaining an education). Why? The förskola (old sense) was re-conceived as a “förskoleklass” and made more “schooly”. (It was also made mandatory, but in my specific case this would have made no difference as I had been enrolled even when it was voluntary.) This while, absurdly and horrifyingly confusingly, the word “förskola” was appropriated for even earlier years.
Now, we have a push for mandatory förskola (in the new sense) from 3 (!) years of age. Together with an increasing school aspect, we potentially arrive at an astounding 16 (!) years of formal education at age 19—something normally considered equivalent to a bachelor. (But here, of course, falling far, far short of that mark, because years as a small child in förskola are substituted for years as an adult in college.) The same applies to the almost-mythical-in-the-U.S. “20 years of education”, normally taken to imply a Ph.D. or an M.D.: With a base of 16 years to gain a high-school degree, the 20-year mark is reached with a mere bachelor.
When and whether Sweden will be so brazen as to declare these years as a small child to be “formal education” is yet to be seen, but chances are that it will happen—if not now, then in the future. If in doubt, it can be assumed that many individual Swedes will simply count their years of mandatory schooling on an individual basis, with no regard for the actual value of these years; if in doubt, I have seen some comparisons that see “years of mandatory education” (read “[...] schooling”) as a positive in its own right.
My own 20 years of formal education arose through two Master’s degrees, not a doctorate. (But what I have learned outside formal education amounts to more than inside it.)
Recent Swedish news (cf. e.g. [1]) shows disturbing demands for mandatory schooling from 3 (!) years of age—a complete and utter insanity.
Different sources and different parts of sources have used different formulations regarding “förskola” (“pre-school”) and “skola” (“school”). Because the intent of the demands (cf. below) are strongly focused on the school and/or attempt-to-educate aspect of pre-school, I will usually go with “school” below—the more so, as this aspect appears to be stronger than for my generation; the more so, as the correct translation of “förskola” might depend on the specific version of English that is used.
(The same applies to variations of these words, e.g. “skolning”/“schooling”.)
Both “more sos” are exemplified by how “förskola”, terminology-wise, used to be a semi-school taking place at age 6 for one year, which has now been remodeled to more-or-less regular school, extending the school phase from 12 to 13 years, with “förskola” now referring to what comes before and what was originally intended as a form of large scale baby-sitting, to give the children care and a place to be while the parents were at work. That this stage, too, is increasingly turned into school and is now at risk of becoming mandatory is very disturbing.
I note that:
The demands for mandatory schooling for everyone are based on the (real or alleged) problems of many second-generation immigrants—especially, related to learning Swedish. However:
Firstly, even second-generation immigrants in general form a minority of children and those with problems an even smaller one. To use any problems among them to force mandatory schooling on everyone is inexcusable.
Secondly, the claim that several years of more schooling at such low ages would be effective if the already existing 13 (!) years of mandatory or quasi-mandatory schooling fails is preposterous. The true solution would be to fix the problems with these 13 years—not to throw on further years of wasted time at an age where success is far less likely. (And note that these years are at any rate complemented by various other exposures to Swedish, e.g. through watching Swedish TV series.) If in doubt, the educational benefits of three additional years of schooling tagged on at the “low end” are far smaller than from a single year tagged on at the “high end”. (Even assuming that we maintain the Leftist fiction that education is gained from school and school alone, and ignore the opportunity cost of lost self-education. Cf. below.)
Thirdly, a presumption is that language learning would be easier at such ages. While there is some truth to this, it is not more than a half-truth, which here seems to be applied in a dangerous manner.
Fourthly, a failure to acquire sufficient language skills over time is usually more rooted in the individual than in the circumstances, making this yet another demonstration of the deranged and horrifyingly dangerous “nurture only” attitudes that are so pervasive in nanny states and among Leftist extremists.
To this, I note that I, myself, with success, took college classes in German and in Germany as an exchange student off 6 years of “German as a third language”. (Similar claims apply to a great many other exchange students.) The implication of this is, of course, a rate of some three hours a week in a non-immersive environment—much unlike the immersion into Swedish that is present through the current 13 years of classes in a Swedish school at (maybe and on average over all years) ten times as many hours per week. Moreover, for those who swear by early learning, these six years began when I was 13—not 3. Conclusion: If someone fails to learn Swedish from 13 years of immersion in Swedish classes, to the degree that schooling (as opposed to e.g. inborn characteristics) explains a lack of academic success between “natives” and second-generation immigrants, the classes must be train-wrecks. It is not the quantity but the quality that is problematic.
I also earned a fully German and non-exchange Master’s degree a few years later, but my background in German was much more extensive at the time. (If still well short of 13 years of immersion.)
Mandatory schooling, as I have discussed repeatedly, is an inherently wrong approach. Mandatory education might or might not be justifiable, but schooling is never so. Indeed, schooling is a very poor way of gaining an education—as proven by its horrifyingly poor results. (But ever so with politicians: schooling fails and fails and fails—and the “solution” is to add ever more schooling.)
Looking at higher ages, schooling is likely to outright get in the way of the intellectual development of those truly interested in and capable of gaining an education; looking at lower, it will take away time from play and other activities that further the very young; at some ages, both might apply. (Where to draw the line for “higher ages”, I leave unstated, and chances are that there will be great individual variation. In my own case, we are certainly talking pre-teens and I would not be surprised if I even began my school years with school as a hindrance. I certainly learned more English outside of school than in school, largely simply through watching TV.)
A secondary claimed benefit (in yet another politician’s standard fallacy) is “socialization”. However, school does not just add time spent with other children—it also takes away from time that children would otherwise spend with each other. (Depending on the child, it might be more or less, but chances are that what is gained on the roundabouts will, on average, be more than lost on the swings.) Moreover, better socialization effects are likely from having children spend time with adults than with other children. Moreover, my own schooling showed a complete failure in this regard, leaving me much worse off than if I had gone other roads—my social skills and “social confidence” past-school were a disaster, to a large part through the failure of school to teach such skills and through my many negative interactions with children in school over the years.
The demands appear to fail to consider the considerable direct and indirect costs, including the need for further teachers and classrooms, a reduction of “family time”, etc. (And note that recruiting more teachers almost necessarily will lead to a further fall in teacher quality and/or in the need to recruit talent from other fields.) As to the immediate footing of the bill, the demanded reforms are described as “free” for the parents, which effectively means that the tax-payers are stuck with even more costs, regardless of whether they have children and regardless of whether they view the reforms as a positive or a negative.
A truly disgraceful attitude of “Vi har kommit till vägs ände med frivilligheten” (“We have reached the road’s end with voluntariness”) is shown. In other words: “It is voluntary as long as you do what we want; if you do not, it becomes mandatory!”—something worthy of a Lauterbach in its contempt for the rights and interest of the citizen and its implicit undue belief in the wisdom of politicians.
Further derangement is shown in “Barns rätt till en bra start i livet trumfar föräldrars rätt att kunna neka sina barns förskola.” (“Children’s right to a good start in life trumps parents’ right to deny their children pre-school.”) This is a complete non sequitur, because there are no true signs that förskola would be the best way to give children a good start in life—if anything, the opposite is likely to apply. Indeed, all in all, I cannot suppress the suspicion that a hidden agenda of taking the children away from the parents is present, to reduce parental influence in favor of governmental indoctrination. (Sweden is also a country with an extremely prejudiced and ignorant attitude against homeschooling, which is, with very few exceptions, illegal—despite how often the homeschooled in the U.S. show better results than those that go through regular school and despite many other signs that homeschooling is better for most. Ditto other variations on non-school learning, including unschooling and self-studies in general.)
Also see a text on my revised take parents vs. the government for more on the dangers of putting school, the government, or similar ahead of parents—even should there be an abundance of bad parents.
Further yet in that an emphasis is put on förskola as important for life-long learning. This, too, is a complete non sequitur, as the point of life-long learning is to learn outside, beyond, and independent of school—that education is something that the individual continually works on on his own, and not something that is force fed during his school years, after which any type of learning supposedly stops. (The last being a typical, hyper-naive, Leftist view.)
Unsurprisingly, Trump tariffs have also, as with virtually everything that he attempts to do, been a target of lawsuits. A particular problem with such attacks is that they undermine the strength of tariffs as a tool of negotiation, as foreign counterparts might simply wait out what will happen in the courts or factor in the possibility that the tariffs are removed or restricted when making cost–benefit or whatnot analyses. (In as far as they do—politicians governing a country often fail to perform tasks that would be taken for granted in a large business.) As a consequence, there is even a risk that the lawsuits lengthen the time during which tariffs are in effect towards some countries, because countries that would have played ball without the lawsuits might not do so now. (=> The positive effects of the tariffs are reduced.)
The lawsuits also increase the issue of uncertainty and make it more difficult for businesses to plan, potentially leading to delayed or suboptimal investments (also cf. below). (=> The negative effects of or around the tariffs are increased.)
Something similar can, of course, apply elsewhere, e.g. in that the incentives for illegal immigrants to “self-deport” are reduced when they see a possibility that this-or-that executive order against illegal immigration is blocked or delayed, but the effects are potentially particularly strong and damaging with tariffs.
Continuing my re-watching of “Jesus of Nazareth” (cf. [1]), I am reminded of another family of problems common with Leftists and/or religious opportunists. (Depending on whether the Leftist at hand is religious and/or whether we look only at religion, as opposed to more general cases.)
Now, looking at religion, many believers can be classified into one of the below three takes on areas like compliance, what is right behavior, and similar:
One broadly and repeatedly suggested by Jesus (be it in “Jesus of Nazareth” or the actual gospels), namely, that a follower should adapt to the religion (divine commandments, the divine will, whatnot)—and, especially, to do so beyond mere lip service, beyond attempts to impress others, and beyond those cases where it is convenient or matches what the follower wanted to do anyway.
A Christian following this line might then say that questions like whether “gay marriage” and female priests should be allowed would be a matter of interpreting the known signs of divine will (notably, but not necessarily only, the Bible). Whatever conclusion is reached based on such interpretation is what should be followed and different takes are allowed only as far as different interpretations can be made plausible. (Ditto, m.m., for adherents of other religions.)
One broadly assumed by much of the modern Left, that the religion should adapt to the preferences of the follower (at least, should that follower be Leftist), the sum of the followers, what the surrounding society or Leftist (not religious) orthodoxy requires, or similar.
Such Leftists would then reject any actual Bible interpretation and take a view that “gay marriage” and female priests are what “I want”, “what is enlightened”, “what is equitable”, or similar, and demand that Christianity and its various churches bow down in compliance to the Left—not to God.
While this text focuses on believers, something similar applies to Atheist Leftists, in that they might grant a religion the right to exist, but only to the degree that it conforms with the Left.
The take, as such and after modifications to suit the details, is not limited to Leftists, but Leftists provide the main cases in at least today’s world.
One broadly based on an evaluation of the compatibility of a religion with the believer’s own takes on various issues, including what is morally right, in order to decide whether to be a follower. (Not all believers need be followers, which is why I use both “believer” and “follower” in this entry. Whether someone can be a follower without being a believer boils down to an issue of semantics, but it is certainly possible to claim to be a follower without being a believer.)
This with some room for both great variations in details (hence, “broadly”) and some overlap. Looking at the third take, notably, those who chose to follow might be further divisible into those who, in the continuation, go with the first take and those who reserve their own judgment on individual issues—but, unlike those going with the second take, without attempting to dictate what other followers, let alone the church as a whole, should do/believe/whatnot. (Resulting opinions on “gay marriage” and female priests will vary enormously from person to person, but are only rarely relevant, as no attempt takes place to enforce them upon the church.)
Those who do reserve their own judgment are advised to tread carefully, lest the whole thing degenerates into religion-as-a-buffet, which is hypocritical, misses the point, and is unlikely to please the god or gods at hand. However, those who do tread sufficiently carefully can have a legitimate road, e.g. because they believe in a god who might be mentally above humans, but who is still far from omniscient and whatnot. (This while a belief in a sufficiently large superiority of gods over humans almost requires that the first take is chosen.)
A particular caution is to keep in mind the difference between actual own judgment, based in deep thought, and mere convenience, mere gut reaction, mere whatnot.
In a next step, we can throw a wider net and look at Leftist takes on, say, the U.S. constitution, where any attempt at an originalist interpretation is abandoned in favor of whatever fits the Leftist sentiments of the day, the personal opinions of the individual Leftist judicial activist, or whatnot—very similar to how many who should abide by the above first take on religion goes with the second. (And for the worse: When it comes to religion, we can legitimately ask whether, say, the Judaeo-Christian God exists, whether he is omniscient, whatnot, and what effect this has on the Bible as a source of influence; with the U.S. constitution, we know that its makers were fallible humans, but this question is rendered irrelevant by the constitution’s purposes, e.g. as a ward against various special interests and as a source of stability; by the judges’ duty of legal, not activist, interpretation; and by the defined way of changing the constitution within a democratic framework, which does not include arbitrary and partisan imposition of meaning by individual judges.)
The Leftist takes on, say, elections and democracy, free speech, and similar, are not as good a match but does follow a similar pattern in the abstract. (E.g. in that the purpose of elections is all too often seen as keeping the Left in power, not to let the will of the people be done; that the right to free speech all too often is made dependent on the speech being sufficiently acceptable to the Left, with no eye at true freedom of expressing and forming one’s own opinions, of free societal and political debates, or similar.)
In contrast, when the Left (and only the Left) is in control of some area (e.g. one of the branches of government), the first take suddenly applies to others: Words spoken are to be uncritically believed, commands given to be uncritically followed, etc.—as if spoken by God Almighty. This while the speakers are (a) usually very far from being impressive in terms of intellect, insight, suitability to govern, whatnot, (b) without exception are like ants compared to humans when themselves compared to that God Almighty (in the typical Judaeo-Christian view).
The “to others” is an important qualifier: The discussion of takes on religion refers to choices for oneself. Here, instead, we have the Leftist meta-demand that everyone should adapt the first take for matters political and follow the given Leftist demands. (Similar to meta-demands by many religious leaders and, so they exist, gods with regard to matters religious.)
Factors like individual preferences and priorities can be added to the politicians’ fallibility: Even if someone like Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, or Keir Starmer had been far, far more competent than in reality, he could still not adequately take the many different individual views of, say, what makes a good life into proper consideration in the one-size-for-all decision making that tends to go hand in hand with Leftist rule. The only true way of doing that is to let the citizens decide for themselves to the degree possible.
I am more intelligent, better educated, more knowledgable about economics and history, whatnot, than the vast majority of politicians–often far more. Even someone who cannot make that claim, however, is almost invariably and almost necessarily more capable of understanding his own preferences and priorities—often, again, far more.
A weakness in the argumentation of some opponents to trans-mania is the idea that it would be wrong for men to compete against women—period. This entirely misses the point and overlooks e.g. the many cases of women striving for the right to compete against men. (In particular, at the mostly past times when the only competitions available were men only, as with the Swedish Vasaloppet, a prestigious yearly ski race, which only allowed men for the better part of the 20th century.)
The actual point is that men should not compete in women-only divisions, just like heavyweight boxers should not compete in the welterweight division. The reason in both cases is the same: The divisions were instituted to give some group a sufficiently even playing field as to make competition, in some sense, fair. Allowing men resp. heavyweight boxers in makes a mockery of the divisions.
In some sports, as a partial exception, there can be additional concerns of injury. However, (a) the maybe single most publicized case (Lia Thomas) of a man competing against women involved swimming, where no such concern seems justified, and (b) sports with legitimate concerns (e.g. boxing) would see similar problems with (actual) women who are sufficiently extreme outliers, and care must be taken to not push the argument too far. (Also note how some male boxers, boxing against other men, have had a similar advantage through being extreme outliers. Someone like Mike Tyson might well have won some fights before they began, because the opponents were scared to fight him.)
To boot, some injury concerns might (!) be overblown. Note e.g. an earlier discussion of the Khelif boxing controversy or consider objections to men playing against women in volleyball. To the latter: Yes, taking a ball to the head when spiked by a man might be more injurious than by woman, but is the solution not rather to not take a ball to the head? I would certainly imagine that a hard spike by an elite female player, taken to the head, is something very far from a picnic.
Looking back at my own school days and PE, boys and girls routinely played sports of various kinds, including volleyball, in mixed teams, and this was seen as perfectly normal. Balls to the head? To my recollection, there was a single non-trivial incident, around age 14, where one boy accidentally knocked down another boy (!) by a poorly aimed attempt to score in handball. The former was short but very sporty, the latter was tall but thin as a reed, and the ball hit him square in the head. After a brief examination of the second boy by the teacher, including the “How many fingers?” bit, play resumed with not one word of e.g. “We had better segregate boys and girls!” or “[...] those above/below a certain [weight/level-of-skill/whatnot]!”. (The boy might or might not additionally have been sent to the school nurse, but, if so, was certainly back for the rest of the school day.)
PE is generally an arena where extreme differences can occur, even within the same sex, due to different levels of training, great variations in height, variations in age of puberty (and, for boys, an often rapid increase in strength and mass), and similar. Especially among younger children, even variations in age (period) can be significant, as when someone born in January of one year is up against someone born in December of the same year.
These differences, I strongly suspect, exceed those found in all but the most egregious cases of men-who-want-to-be-women playing against women. (Note that even those sports/organizations/whatnot that take a permissive attitude to such play usually demand at least hormone therapy to reduce the natural differences.)
As occurs to me during writing, injuries in school were often somewhat unexpected. For instance, I actually had my own injury problems with specifically volleyball and PE, repeatedly spraining (straining?) fingers—presumably, due to poor technique, as everyone else seemed to do alright.
For instance, there was a notable head injury relating to volleyball (or, maybe, badminton) for another boy: He was setting up or taking down the net, was incautious with some big lever, and managed to have the lever bounce up and hit him in the head. This resulted in a scary-to-us-kids amount of blood, but no great injury. (This was at a lower age than with the handball incident.) It also had nothing to do with actual volleyball, boys vs. girls, or similar.
For instance, the same boy was also involved in the only brain injury, a severe concussion, that I can recall from my school years—playing with a big tire-swing, he managed to take a hit in the head from the swing and was away from school for some days as a result. Again, an issue of a very different type.
Often, there are complaints that this-or-that would reduce “X’s rights”, where X is some group with an influential and/or loudmouth movement. Women are particularly common, and for a long time, while trans-whatnots have been common over the last few years (e.g. after this week’s decision by the U.K. supreme court that words like “sex” and “woman” should, in legal interpretation, follow the established biological meanings—not woke newspeak). Indeed, it often seems that the more “rights” the X at hand has, the louder and more frequent the protests.
Why scare-quotes around “rights”? Because a key point of this entry is that it is usually less a matter of rights in a fundamental sense and more of special privileges afforded to X—rights or “rights” that others do not have or, worse, that come at the cost of the rights of others. In some cases, e.g. the right to use correct grammar vs. the “right” to self-chose pronouns contrary to grammatical rules, actual and fundamental rights are deeply violated in favor of a fairly pointless privilege for the X at hand.
Indeed, the absurdity of some claims of “rights” is illustrated by clashes between Feminists and trans-activists over who is infringing upon the rights of whom, who is the oppressor and who the oppressed, etc. An example is that U.K. decision, which seems to be framed in terms of “A victory for women’s rights!” resp. “A destruction of trans-rights!” (or variations thereof) by the “winning” resp. “losing” groups. Here, however, the core issues were something else and something not truly connected to either of women and trans-whatnots, namely, whether biological sex or “gender identity” should be implied by words like “man” and “woman”, whether long established use or woke newspeak should take precedence, what Leftist language manipulations are to be tolerated, whether natural science or ideologically captured social “science” should have a greater influence, whether laws should be taken to fit the original intentions or whatever the societal trends and sentiments of the day are, and similar.
To be more accurate, these are the types of questions that apply to the overriding issues in general. The same gist seems to apply to the decision (especially, when it comes to language), but I do not rule out that a more narrow take or a shorter list would be warranted upon closer inspection. At any rate, however, angles of “women’s rights” and “trans-rights” both miss the point.
This also shows how important it is to focus on fundamental rights for everyone—not rights for specific groups, which tend to do more harm than good and to be unfair to their very core. Indeed, even a formulation like “women’s rights” for, say, the right to vote regardless of sex, is flawed, because the issue is far wider and because “women’s rights” misses the fundamental point of equal rights. (Note that the right for women to vote often went hand in hand with the right for men-in-general to vote—as opposed to men-with-the-right-title or similar. Also note that a “women’s rights” perspective would make it acceptable if men lost the right to vote again, as long as women kept theirs.) In almost all cases, someone who speaks of/pushes for “X’s rights”, instead of e.g. “civil rights” or (from another perspective) “equal rights”, should be condemned and rejected.
Now, did that U.K. decision in any way shape or form limit the right to vote, to be elected, to free speech, to due process, to travel abroad, to dress in a skirt (if a man) or trousers (if a woman)? To the best of my knowledge: No!
While I have not studied the decision beyond what news tells me, it appears that the original conflict related to whether trans-whatnots could count in political quotas based on “gender identity” instead of biological sex. (As an aside, such quotas are a potentially grave problem, contrary to both basic democratic principles and to equality of opportunity.) An effect of the decision would be that biological sex is dispositive—which removes a better-than-others-opportunity of picking what gives the best chance of inclusion. Likewise, it might affect what is printed on various pieces of paper or plastic and what bathrooms are to be used—but not the right to have these various pieces or the right to go to the bathroom. (The first of the latter is, of course, virtually entirely symbolic for the trans-whatnots, while the bathroom issue is mostly symbolic for the trans-whatnots and have greater practical effects on others.) Likewise, it might affect who is allowed to compete in what competition, but this too is mostly a symbolic issue from a trans-perspective with potentially great negative effects on others (note cases like Lia Thomas).
To boot, the decision does explicitly not reduce any protections against discrimination based on being trans, e.g., when it comes to hiring practices.
Uses of words like “might” go back to a vagueness in either the decision or the reporting on the decision, including that some details of interpretation and action might (!) be left to others, say, those who run public bathrooms.
I make reservations for how correct the reporting is.
One point of potential complication is how high the hurdles are in a system based on self-chosen gender, which can range from someone waking up one morning and deciding that “From now on, I am a [wo]man!” to a complete surgical transition. The higher the hurdles, the lesser the problems and the more justifiable a “pro-trans” take.
(The U.K. and Scottish laws, going by a brief Internet search, do involve hurdles, but not hurdles involving hormones, let alone surgery, and with Scottish attempts to reduce the hurdles to something close to “waking up [etc.]”.)
However, even with very high hurdles, some limits must be present, e.g. to prevent an unfair advantage in sports through, say, greater height in a male->female relative a sibling who was born a female—something that cannot be resolved by any amount of hormone therapy. (At least, within the limits of current medicine.)
The, maybe, currently single most important family of news items is issues around Trump’s tariffs, responses to them, potential developments, etc.
Beyond what I have already written, I will likely remain mostly silent on the topic, simply because there are too many uncertainties for me to have firm opinions.
Some general remarks, however:
My initial impression of tariffs-as-a-tool-to-negotiate (-put-pressure-on-others, whatnot) seems to be confirmed. (Without denying the possibility of other uses, e.g. as an alternate source of funding to reduce income tax.)
More generally, it is clear that Trump approaches many tasks like a business man—not a politician. In the main, this is likely a good thing.
The repeated changes in policy, where a tariff is imposed the one day, suspended the next, put back in force again, whatnot, might prove a problem in their own right: If businesses and other entities cannot plan properly, bad things can ensue, including a postponement of investment until the situation is more stable and investments that are made under assumptions that do not pan out.
The fluctuations and reactions on the stock exchanges must be taken with a grain of salt, because they do not necessarily reflect real changes in e.g. prospects and values—they are more likely to base on subjective reactions. These reactions might even to a large part be caused by a too one-sided message of “tariffs bad” or “Trump bad” in mainstream media.
(They can, however and in all fairness, contribute to the problems of the previous item, even should they be spurious.)
Fiction often shows fundamental misunderstandings, or allows it self excessive “artistic liberty”, on topics like economics, politics, society, and human nature. (But with issues varying from author to author and sometimes with a need to differ between what the author gets wrong and what a character gets wrong.)
The scope of this issue is quite wide and not limited to politics and other on-topic fields—if I had a penny for every absurdity that I have seen around IT, software development, hacking, etc., in fiction...
I would suggest the exercise to the reader to look at how much fiction gets wrong in a field where he has deeper knowledge and then to consider a generalized version of Gell-Mann amnesia and how much fiction is likely to get wrong elsewhere.
These are interesting in at least two regards: Firstly, they give some clue on what misunderstandings might exist among the public at large and where educational efforts are best directed. Secondly, they pose a risk of creating, furthering, or deepening such misunderstandings among the public. (In some cases, such creating/furthering/deepening seems deliberate, especially, when it comes to painting groups that the Left dislikes in a misleading or outright defamatory manner.)
A point of importance is that such a misunderstanding can often fly below the radar of the audience exactly because it involves a fundamental issue—but might then be even more dangerous, because (a) it can remain undetected and (b) because any attitude change in the audience would work on an equally fundamental level. Consider “Orphan Black”: Here we have a series dealing with clones that are virtually identical biologically and therefore, going by science, should show great similarities in behavior, preferences, etc. These clones, however, are so different from each other, in any other respect than physical similarity, that they might as well have been picked randomly off the street, from among random strangers. Indeed, because many of the clones are strongly stereotyped or exaggerated in a particular direction, they might be even more different than random strangers. The in-universe reason? A radically different upbringing and other circumstances for each of the individual clones—or what, in discussions of such issues, is often simplistically referred to as “nurture”. While nurture is important, the virtual “nurture only” view that is presented is detached from reality. There have, e.g., been a great many studies performed on siblings (regular siblings, non-identical twins, and identical twins) in both shared and non-shared environments (notably, through adoption studies) that show a strong influence of “nature” (in the same simplistic terminology) even among non-clones. In this, “Orphan Black” might have done great harm by perpetuating the long debunked “nurture only” take on humans and human development, which, in turn, does truly immense harm through its negative influence on political decision-making (especially, regarding education) and how it allows the Left to disregard equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcome (because any difference in outcome is ascribed to differences in opportunity, e.g. in school quality or parental SES).
In all fairness, the difference in upbringing on “Orphan Black” was often larger than can be expected by e.g. adoption to semi-random parents. (Consider the extreme upbringings of Rachel and Helena.) However, there were sufficiently many cases that simply cannot be explained even by such greater-than-real-life differences. (And the harm done through distortions of perceptions in the real world could be considerable even had Rachel- and Helena-level upbringings been more typical for the series. Here a lack of “social responsibility” among the show makers could be argued.)
Topics like economics/business/capitalism form an area where I suspect that there are more faulty claims made, faulty attitudes displayed, whatnot, than correct ones, including a popular theme of capitalism-is-evil, despite the enormous amount of good that it (much unlike e.g. Marxism) has done for the world—yes, capitalism done with evil means is evil, but the same applies, m.m., to everything and capitalism in and by itself is good. Consider the many sci-fi series, e.g. “Star Trek”, that have left free enterprise (no pun intended) and money behind in favor of a system that works as if by magic, with no regard for how human nature and lack of incentives would get in the way of this system, were it tried in the real world. Or take the world of Oz under the reign of Ozma: An apparent utopia based on the idea that everyone would voluntarily work hard for the common good, often in jobs assigned to them (not self-chosen), where everyone is convinced of the goodness and wisdom of Ozma and might want nothing more than to keep her happy, etc. Factor in the dictatorial attitude of Ozma, and this world might have more in common with Hitler’s Germany (sans warfare) than with a true utopia. (My memory of the details is vague, so I have to speak somewhat in generalities; however, consider such a simple thing like magic being banned for everyone except for Ozma, herself, and some few who practice magic with her explicit permission.)
Or consider recurring complaints because someone who was a poor credit risk was denied a loan, and the associated attitude of “If loans are not for the needy, what good are they?”. Well, the point of a bank loan is for the borrower to be able to access future money today, and that allows a great amount of good when used judiciously. (With is not to say that any and all loans are taken out for good reasons and the money used wisely, but that is a problem on another dimension—just as with capitalism and evil means.) Consider loans so that someone can buy a house today and pay over time, instead of living for rent for twenty years while simultaneously saving for the purchase; so that someone can found a business or expand an existing business to great profit that otherwise might have gone unfounded/unexpanded, or where other years of waiting and saving might have been needed; so that someone with a temporary cash-flow problem does not have to sell off assets before the problem is resolved; etc. (Where I use “cash-flow problem” in its actual meaning, not as a euphemism for being broke.)
At the same time, a bank that handed out loans without considering credit risk would soon go bankrupt, cutting off loans for everyone and harming savers. This while a bank that handed out loans to great credit risks in exchange for a higher interest rate might, instead, be condemned for greed, usury, and exploitation of the poor.
An interesting example of extreme short-sightedness is found in the German TV series “Türkisch für Anfänger” (again, with reservations for details and my memory): The grandfather of the main protagonist spent decades owning and running a factory, which has now gone bankrupt. His daughter, the mother of the main protagonist, berates him for his failures, lack of business acumen, or similar. (Motivated, to a large part, by a pre-existing hostility towards him.) However, this factory earned him a living for a long time, kept her and her sister clothed, fed, and with a roof over their heads until they left home, paid salaries for workers, gave an income to various suppliers, and provided products to the public. That it failed now, when he was already at an age where the typical employee had gone into retirement, well, there is no shame in that. (The more so, as his high age might have lowered his ability to keep the factory running and as neither of the daughters had lined up to take over; the more so, as the product at hand, buttons for clothes, is the type of item that was far easier to make profitably in country like Germany in the past than at the time, mid/late 200x, of the events.) Say that he had chosen to go into employment in someone else’s factory: He might still have earned enough to keep his family solvent, if likely less solvent, but all the other positive effects would have disappeared and he would still, at his advanced age, be out of a job in the now.
More generally, to think that a business is a failure because it went bankrupt is often a fallacy. We have to look at the details, just like when evaluating the death of a human. There is no shame or failure in dying when a life has run its natural course, while dying when drunk-driving into a truck is another matter. A business that takes a big start-up grant of tax-payer’s money and goes out of business within a year of founding is a failure; a business founded and run without aid for 80 years, before bankruptcy, is/was a success. Likewise, rather than pushing an old business into new fields or trying to force it into a second life, it might well be better to take out the money, build a new business, and let the old one die.
As I note in the previous entry, there is an undemocratic aspect in disqualifying candidates from being elected, rather than letting the people chose as its sees fit.
More generally, democracy hypocrisy is quite common, where democracy is hailed on paper and neglected or unduly restricted in practice—to the point that many politicians, Leftists, and, in particular, Leftist politicians, appear to see democracy as a tool to gain election, to pursue a particular agenda, or similar. (Where it should, within reasonable limits, be the will of the people that governs the politicians.) Consider e.g. the abuse of government money to propagandize to the people what opinions the people should have, attempts to quash free speech “because democracy”, and the repeated unholy alliances between “German RINOs” and Social-Democrats in Germany. (Even more generally, this could be seen as yet another example of the “citizen as a minor”.)
While some restrictions on democracy are highly beneficial even from an obligate pro-democracy point of view, these should be few and exist in a consistent system—not in a system where the will of the people is infallible when it equals the conclusion wanted by the politicians (the Left, whatnot) but ignored when it deviates.
I use “obligate[ly] pro-democracy” to point to those who see (or claim to see, as long it fits them) democracy as e.g. an end in it self, something that results in infallible results, something that automatically would lead to human rights, something that rights all wrongs, something so important that civil rights (free speech, in particular) can be stamped out in its defense, something so beneficial that forcing democracy unto other countries with force of weapons is good and just, or similar. These, in my impression, make up most of the modern Western politicians—and, yes, I do suspect that most of them are “claim-ers” rather than “see-ers”. (But, no, I do not say that they would all hold each and every of these attitudes—one or two is enough to qualify.)
I do not, myself, hold (or claim to hold) such an obligate pro-democracy view. Instead, I see democracy as a “lesser evil” and as a means to preserve civil rights in the long run, to avoid a degeneration into a dictatorship, and similar. (That democracy is an imperfect means is demonstrated by e.g. the COVID-countermeasure era, the Weimar–Hitler transition, and the problems in Iraq post-Saddam.)
Those who do not have an obligate pro-democracy point of view are naturally, not bound to a need for consistency in pro-democracy attitudes in the same manner. (Regardless of whether they, like I, are broadly-but-non-obligately pro-democracy or are more averse to democracy.)
To discuss what restrictions are warranted in detail (again, even from an obligate pro-democracy point of view) could lead to a very long text (and those more fanatical could reject even the below examples). However, consider some potential examples:
Restrictions that serve to protect minority groups from the tyranny of the majority, including constitutionally guaranteed rights.
(Where “minority” is a much wider term than the limited senses, like “ethnic minority”, that dominate today, and includes e.g. those grouped by an economic interest or a particular opinion not shared by a majority or sufficiently large non-majority group.)
Restrictions that limit who is allowed to vote in order to increase the chance that a sufficient quality of decision making (e.g. age restrictions) or sufficient legitimacy of interest is present (e.g. residency and/or citizenship requirements).
While this is an area where great care is needed (including to ensure that no special interest group gains a self-perpetuating monopoly on power), such restrictions are quite common, and usually not controversial. Consider age restrictions: Yes, some want to lower the age of voting from a typical 18 to 16, but even those will only in exceptional cases suggest that there be no limit at all—and those who do are rarely taken seriously.
I am broadly in favor of replacing age limits with some type of competency test that must be passed or with some other more “age neutral” criterion. However, here the devil might well be in the implementation details.
I have further, in the past, spoken of similar limits on the elected/electable. I am still open to such, the more so with an eye at e.g. the COVID-countermeasure era; however, it does require a non-obligate take on democracy or it will fail for consistency reasons, as with the restrictions discussed in the previous entry.
Restrictions that prevent a temporary fluctuation in “mood” (for want of a better term) to have too far-going consequences (e.g. that the results of a single parliamentary election cannot turn society on its head and that constitutional changes cannot be made nilly-willy). Examples include the U.S. division of powers and checks-and-balances (but these are not limited to this function alone).
The use of a representative democracy over a direct democracy to keep costs, efforts, reaction times in decision making, and similar, sufficiently low; to ensure a further sufficient quality of decision making; and similar.
However, the current situation can hardly be called satisfactory, because most current systems seem to give the politicians too much room to play without accountability towards the people. A discussion of potential remedies would be far longer, but I note both that more plebiscites than today could be beneficial and that various high-level politicians, including heads of state/government, ministers, and members of parliament must approach their respective roles with an attitude of “elected public servant”—not “elected public ruler”.
Indeed, “minister” goes back to a Latin word with meanings like servant. The adoption might have arisen from a meaning of servant to the king (or similar), but replacing the king with the people and preserving a servants attitude is not that big a leap in terms of restoration. (Also note the parallel use of the word in church contexts.)
In a bigger and off-topic picture, I would also propose restrictions that are less likely to be compatible with an “obligate pro-democracy” take, e.g. constitutionally guaranteed small government.
In recent news, Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement, receiving what (for now) appears to be 2–4 years in prison and a 5-year ban on running for political office—a period which includes the 2027 French presidential elections, in which she would have been one of the strongest candidates. (Also affected were some other members of her party.)
Now, I do not know whether she was guilty or innocent—but I do know that this follows a very disturbing pattern of using the courts to prevent specifically “Rightwing” candidates from running for important offices in a manner that, in its sum, goes far beyond coincidence. Consider the attempts against strong presidential candidates like Trump in the U.S. (failed), Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Călin Georgescu in Romania, and María Corina Machado in Venezuela—or the constant German trickery to prevent AfD from gaining a sliver of power, even at the cost of handing it out to the re-branded SED, a far greater evil, which includes attempts to have AfD, in its entirety, banned and/or declared “Verfassungsfeindlich”. (AfD came in second in the recent German parliamentary elections and might well be first, if not banned, next time around.)
To boot, other very recent news saw similar actions against Ekrem İmamoğlu in Turkey. He, unusually, appears to be a Social-Democrat and the victim of someone often claimed to be “Rightwing” by the Left (Erdoğan). However, attempting to put Erdoğan on a Left–Right scale does more to show how useless such scales are than to justify that claim. At best, from a Leftist point of view, we have a case of “evil is as evil does”, and a great caution for the Left to consider who else uses Leftist methods and what the implications of that might be; at worst, a case of two Leftists slugging it out.
(I will not attempt a detailed classification of Erdoğan. This, in part, because I do not consider the Left–Right scale useful; in part, because my knowledge of Turkish politics is too superficial for a thorough job. Note, however and as a complement to the simplistic view that might come from a Leftist newspaper, Erdoğan’s anti-U.S./-West/-Israel positions, his pushing of a welfare state, how his positions on e.g. governmental power appear to clash horribly with those of the U.S. “founding fathers” but line up much better with the likes of Biden and Maduro, and how he fares on the alternate scalese that I have suggested.)
In a bigger picture, these issues raise the question whether and to what degree ineligibility to be elected is a reasonable punishment (and/or a reasonable consequence of an otherwise reasonable punishment). While I can to some degree sympathize with the idea of restrictions, the risk of abuse is immense and the idea is undemocratic in that it prevents the people from making an own decision. If the French people prefer a Le Pen who has a known conviction over another candidate without a conviction, why should someone else, be it a court or a lawmaker, get in the way of that preference? In some cases, say, Bolsonaro in Brazil and Machado in Venezuela, the excluded would almost certainly be the lesser evil, even if convicted of a felony, which shows how problematic such laws can be. (Ditto Trump vs. Biden and/or Harris, had Trump been prevented from running.)
A similar criticism is possible for restrictions on the right to vote, as is common in the U.S., but this is a far lesser issue, because the “convict vote” is far less likely to change an election: Not only can running a replacement candidate severely hamper the chances of a particular party winning, but the replacement candidate is and remains a replacement, who might bring different priorities, different experiences, a different level of competence, whatnot. Imagine, e.g., an alternate reality in which legal complications booted Trump in favor of Vance, while attempts to hide Biden’s deterioration were sufficiently successful to allow the Biden/Harris ticket to run as planned. The election might well have gone in the other direction; if it did not, chances are that the Vance presidency would have been different from Trump-47.
This the more so when we factor in (a) the risk of someone being innocently convicted even absent a politically motivated per-/prosecution, (b) how common it is that laws have an inherently political angle that can make it hard to simultaneously abide by the law and be politically active. (What, e.g., if someone has been deemed ineligible because of a crime that, in my eyes, should not be a crime?) To the last, note e.g. how Germany has laws that limit what may be said about politicians (even beyond the already unusually and unconscionably strict defamation and whatnot laws for non-politician targets), which might, in the hands of the wrong judge, limit (ethically and/or factually) legitimate criticism and expression of opinion, and, further, how Germany has an “asymmetric” take on Left/“Right” when it comes to crimes, e.g. in that showing a swastika, even without expressing support for the Nazis!, is usually illegal, while showing a hammer-and-sickle is perfectly legal—even when support for, say, the SED or the CPSU actually is expressed. (Also note how the actual and/or attempted application of laws can be asymmetric, e.g. in that AfD, as noted, is at risk of being banned, while SED is not—an absurd hypocrisy and an absurd display of distorted priorities.) Ditto various modern “hate speech” laws in various countries, which, at an extreme, can make it criminal to use words like “man” and “he” for a man-who-wants-to-be-a-woman, despite such uses being in conformance with long established grammatical rules and despite how ridiculous those opposing such uses would have looked in the eye of the public just some few years earlier.
I have not investigated when what crime reaches the level of a felony (or its local equivalent), which can have a great effect on consequences. However, that even saying the wrong thing in the wrong country can be a felony is a fact. Even death penalties have been imposed—and are still imposable in some of today’s countries (Iran and blasphemy springs to mind).
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