This is my “various and sundry” page for 2025, April–?. It was preceded by 2025 (1).
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.
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 In effect, a very Left-leaning Pope has been replaced by a somewhat to very Left-leaning Pope.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 in 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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