“Americans have not endured a military draft since the 1970s. Our bodies and very lives aren’t conscript. Just our fortunes. Not perfect, true, but as political trades go it’s better for equal freedom than slightly lower taxes and a return of the draft, which conscripts some to benefit (the story runs) ‘all.’ The all-volunteer force has produced the world’s best military … without ‘slave’ labor. Comedian Rob Schneider thinks differently.” (04/03/26)
“Pope Leo urged global leaders in his Easter message on Sunday to end the conflicts raging across the world and abandon any schemes for power, conquest or domination. The pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war, lamented in a special message to the thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square that people ‘are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent.’ ‘Let those who have weapons lay them down!’ the first U.S. pope exhorted. ‘Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!’ Leo did not mention any specific conflicts in the message, known as the ‘Urbi et Orbi’ (to the city and the world) blessing. It was unusually brief and direct.” (04/05/26)
“An oddly divergent narrative has taken hold in the commentary class. On one hand, many argue that America’s declining birthrate is the predictable result of too much prosperity. As societies grow wealthier, more educated, and more urban, they tend to have fewer children — a pattern across nearly every developed nation. Meanwhile a competing view holds that Americans are not having children because they are not wealthy enough — that the prime childbearing generations are facing stagnant wages, rising costs, and downward mobility. These two explanations seem contradictory, yet both contain elements of truth — and even work in tandem.” (04/04/26)
“Hundreds of anti-war activists demonstrated in Tel Aviv and dozens in other cities on Saturday, after an interim order by the High Court of Justice ordered police to allow protests on a larger scale than permitted under the IDF Home Front’s regulations, despite the military’s objection that it would not be safe amid the ongoing missile threats from Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Just before 9 p.m., however, police said the main demonstration at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square had exceeded the court’s 600-protester limit, declared the event unlawful, and violently dispersed the crowd, making 17 arrests. … Many of the demonstrators in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square had waved signs demanding an end to the ongoing war with Iran, while others decried a newly passed law enshrining the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists.” (04/05/26)
“Ideas really do have consequences. That claim may seem obvious to many, but its rejection is a core component of Mearsheimer’s brand of realism, and central to one of the most glaringly erroneous accounts of why Russia attacked Ukraine. Many realists — Mearsheimer chief among them — repeatedly insist that Russia is the victim of bullying by liberal democracies. They claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a defensive response rather than an act of imperialist aggression and have rushed to ‘explain’ Russia to the rest of us. That blame-Ukraine narrative not only naively mirrors Kremlin propaganda; it is wholly at odds with reality.” (04/04/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“In theory, criminal conviction in the US legal system is by the unanimous vote of a jury. In practice, the overwhelming majority of felony convictions are due to plea bargaining, the defendant pleading guilty in exchange for reduced charges or an agreement by the prosecutor to ask for a lower sentence. I have criticized the system in the past, mostly on the grounds that a prosecutor can make it in the interest of an innocent defendant to plead guilty by charging him with additional offenses, not because the prosecutor believes he is guilty of them and can be convicted but to persuade him to plead guilty of the lesser offense whether or not he committed it. It recently occurred to me that, while there are serious problems with plea bargaining as it now exists, there could be uses for it.” (04/04/26)
