On Tariiffs, Free Trade and Ronald Reagan

Four things can be true at the same time 1. Free trade has optimal utility in the long term. 2. Tariffs have a working purpose in the short run to punish those who don't play by the rules necessary for free trade. However it is not a long term solution. Tariffs lead to counter tariffs and trade wars. 3. Ronald Reagan was not a fan of tariffs..hell he set up the FTA which evolved into NAFTA under George H W Bush. 4. NAFTA needed to be renegotiated to fit in with the changing economic environment. This did occur under Trump's First term.

Reflections XXX - Some Wisdom

The curse of the Irish on a generalized level is that they cannot shake their affiliation with the underdog, even if the so-called underdog acts in a morally reprehensible manner. It is for this reason that they have often embraced Palestinian nationalism in its most toxic form.

The Jesuit Pope Francis probably did more to advance progressivism than any other papal figure. Like other popes before him he deluded himself into believing that he was on the right side of history, giving more space than he ought to have to Hegelian idealism.

The French are one of the few nations that take more of a sense of power from their growing irrelevancy.

Communism, National Socialism and Islamism have in addition for their embrace of collectivism a particular hatred for the Jew. One explanation is that Judaism embraces the sanctity of the Individual and is encouraged to debate with G-d thereby questioning any power structure.

Progressivisms biggest weakness is its very nature scorns self control thereby opening itself to extremes by its radical elements.

Reflections - XXIX - October Thoughts

 A person whose sole motivation is pleasure in the afterlife will likely do great harm to themselves in present life as they as they chase a reward for goodness instead of acting with moral intent for the righteous act in and of itself.

Its difficult to not take seriously the notion that the success of the American Revolution wasn’t so much a patriotic victory but a move by the British to minimize their losses.

One can always rely on mathematics to find a safe way of hiding a model from criticism if the evidence in its support is lacking.

The devil is always in the quality and validity of the assumptions.

The success of the British Empire lay with its ability to delegate. It therefore made great use of local networks of administration, designated ‘poopahs’, foreign mercenaries and regional businessmen. The failure of the Mongol empire outside China itself  (with the Yuan dynasty) is that it never came to terms with this idea.

No system, no matter how robust it is on paper can stand up to the folly of the ego of those who run it.

Reflections - XXVIII - Grasping at Sanity

Marvel comics blurred the line between Science in the Spiderman origin and Magic as exemplified by the Norse hero Thor. The distinction became indecipherable until the world was given no choice but to rescue itself with alternative universes. By that time it was too late. Credibility had collapsed.

The fertile ground for Islamism in the west is the post modernist platform that has elevated indifference as the mainstay of the liberal democracies today.

The agenda of the elites has always been about the control of information. Artificial Intelligence is merely the latest phase in the application of this philosophy.

Christianity would never have enjoyed the success it has had without its skillful manipulation of pagan iconography.

If the Jew didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent him as failed ideas and evil need a scapegoat to redirect attention away from their lack of success. The Jew is the convenient other for all types of charlatans, of which there is no short supply.

The great Hegelian lie is that history has direction. This is no more true than the intended directionality of history. Cause and effect eschews such simplification.

A deep concern is not that we may never learn the truth but that so many people have no desire or need to ever want to find it.

This is awkward but not surpising _ Pakistan Saudi Arabia Defense Pact

My thoughts

Pakistani military wants to renew its contacts with the US military. Chinese weaponery which Imran Khan faced was shown to be inferior. Both countries are not trustworthy in my opinion. Saudi Arabia still has a strong Wahhabist influence and Pakistan is a failed Sunni state. Lets not forget that Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi and Pakistan gave him refuge in his hour of need.

Reflections XXVII - Through Life's Looking Glass

The United Nations is a toothless beast that became irrelevant less than a decade of its founding. If it weren’t for a global longing of what it ought to be (but won’t) then it should have been euthanized some time ago. Today it is a country club catering to the worst of humanity.

Extremists have a tendency to oscillate from one polarity to another for they have a mindset drawn to bad ideas regardless of where they reside on any political spectrum. Mussolini for one went from Socialism to Fascism while Peron in Argentina entertained all sorts of bad ideas.

Sometimes I think that the story of history is a tale of recovery from bad ideas implemented.

Every leader given enough time will come crashing down from their pedestal.

The function of bureaucracy in the modern state is to protect the power structure from radical change and circumvent reform. Democracy is the illusion sold to the public that the change is possible.

The best way to violate people’s rights and do so with their consent is to rebrand it under the labels of safety and security. The Covid lockdowns typified this.

The greatest apocalyptic threat isn’t war, famine or disease but the embrace of bad ideas by the population who have been coerced to forgo common sense.

14 Thoughts on the Charlie Kirk Assassination

1. Nobody should be violently attacked let alone killed for exercising their right to freedom of expression. If you want to defeat a person you dislike then do so with rational argument.

2. People celebrating or justifying such violent action need to check their moral compass. I have unfortunately seen this with people I know personally.

3. Advocating tit-for-tat violence in response to such an attack or killing is deplorable as well.

4. Unless you are advocating violence I don’t believe a person should be canceled from their job even if their opinions are tasteless. Those using their platforms however to spread hate on this issue to a captive audience (school children) need to face the consequence of their actions as per the mandate of the specific institution that employs them.

5. Now to the specifics....Charlie Kirk was not a saint and he had, like all of us, his faults. However I do believe that he was a good man with great qualities who was making an honest attempt to change the dialogue on campus which unfortunately been compromised by wokeness, cancel culture and divisive identity politics.

6. Kirk was not an ethnic identitarian which is why both the Far Left and Far Right (check out the Groypers) didn’t like him. Nick Fuentes was a persistent critic and I don’t believe his crocodile tears for a second.

7. He was an unapologetic Christian and was consistent in his Christian belief. He was not however a Christian Nationalist and supported the model of the Republic consistent with the US Constitution.

8. Youth outreach was his bread and butter and his energy, verbal fluency and positive demeanor were well served.

9. I agreed for the most part with Charlie Kirk in his opposition to illegal immigration, support of free debate and meritocracy. He was correct in calling out various failures in our modern cultural world and was on target when taking on DEI and other bad ideas which have become part and parcel of the intellectual and sociological milieu.

10. I disagreed with him on his strong stance on abortion as I don’t believe that life begins with conception and I think that his take on gun rights were too dismissive of background checks. However I respect the consistency of his stance. His platforming of Tucker Carlson on TPUSA was a mistake. However he did pride himself on not promoting a one thought bubble. So such an invitation ought to be viewed within this framework.

11. On foreign policy he was usually on the ball despite the best efforts of American Isolationists to push him into their camp. Having said that I think he would admit that foreign policy was not his strongest area.

12. Kirk was a huge fan of the Jews and a great ally of Israel. There are clips going around criticizing him from either side on this issue but almost always these are fully de-contextualized for click bait purposes.

13. I wish his family all the best and hope that others will take on the mantra where he left off. He seems to be a man of character who had friends on all sides of the spectrum. He was not racist or homophobic but like all public figures was often straw manned as such.

14. In short I see Kirk as a Classic Liberal albeit as one schooled in the Burkean Conservative mode. The problem is that the overton window (range of ‘allowable’ opinions) especially on universities has shifted so far to the left that for many people such a take is seen as extreme when they are really just mainstream conservative takes for the general public.