“The state is a monster that eats itself, along with individuals within its domain, its spheres of influence, and beyond. Citizens typically don’t perceive this due to the crafty rhetoric generated by the state’s intellectuals. Sometimes the rhetorical machinery breaks down and we get to see the monster in all its gruesome majesty. This has happened in Israel due to its ‘plausibly genocidal’ savagery in Gaza, coupled with its structurally flawed, adolescent dependence on the United States’[s] information warfare apparatus. Much as Israel created a ‘Palestine Laboratory’ for the workshopping of occupation technology, the Israeli state itself has become a vast research field for the study of political modernity. Someday dissertations on the topic will stack up faster than the bodies exhumed from an IDF created mass grave. But for now, we must do our part to bear witness and understand.” (04/30/24)
“This week, the United States will celebrate an official National Day of Prayer, as it has every year since 1952. The National Day of Prayer kicked off a profusion of official endorsements of religion: the National Prayer Breakfast (1953); ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance (1954); a Congressional Prayer Room in the U.S. Capitol (1955); ‘In God We Trust’ as the U.S. motto (1956), on our money (1957) and inscribed on the rostrum of the speaker of the House (1962). Of those, it is the most benign. It’s less ubiquitous than the cash we handle, less coercive than a pledge that schoolchildren recite every day, less freighted with significance than a permanent fixture in the People’s House. A person might absolutely ignore the National Day of Prayer as she ignores other holidays that grant neither time off nor an excuse to drink green beer. But we shouldn’t ignore it. We should get rid of it.” (04/30/24)
“Changing jobs can often be the best way to get a raise. But employers frequently force workers to sign ‘noncompete clauses,’ contract stipulations that make it harder for workers to move to better jobs and artificially depress wages. That will change later this year. The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a new rule declaring that most noncompete clauses in employment contracts are unfair. The new rule bans employers from requiring workers to sign these agreements and prohibits the enforcement of existing ‘noncompetes’ for workers other than senior executives. This is an important step toward fostering fair competition and empowering workers. Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job. They’re ubiquitous.” (04/30/24)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Wanjiru Njoya
“The ideal of individual liberty is perennially under attack not only from socialists, as one might logically expect, but also from conservatives who regard individualism as a form of selfishness. The ordinary meaning of selfishness is ‘caring only about what you want or need without any thought for the needs or wishes of other people,’ and many conservatives see this as a major contributing factor in social decline. The conservative British journalist Nick Timothy attributes many social ills to selfishness, arguing that ‘our society has become more about ‘me’ than ‘we,’’ leading to higher rates of crime, antisocial behavior, and a ballooning welfare state as selfish people try to take as much as possible from the public purse while contributing little or nothing to it. This school of conservative thought regards ‘excessive individualism’ or ‘hyperindividualism’ as a cause of social decay.” (04/30/24)
“Recently, a psychologist friend sang a familiar refrain: ‘My clients want their problematic circumstances alleviated, but few want to change how they see the world.’ Most intransigent among his clients are those with government benefits and mandated weekly therapy. Some have been coming to him for years. Their mindsets are characterized by hopelessness, but they have shelter and food and seem averse to change. Going to therapy is a big event in their week. Qualifying for benefits is important to them. An oft-repeated question is, ‘Can you get me eligible for more benefits?’ They were unlikely to take steps to hold a steady job, since doing so is at odds with keeping their benefits.” (04/30/24)
“There’s some kind of ‘Mandela effect’ thing going on with the plot of Sylvester Stallone’s 1976 masterpiece …. On more than one occasion, I have heard somebody talking about the film clearly under the impression that Rocky Balboa, the hardworking underdog, trains hard, beats his hands bloody on some sides of beef, and then defeats sneering champion Apollo Creed in the big fight. But that isn’t what happens at all. Rocky is treated with contempt and condescension, written off as a joke opponent who has no business being in the ring with the heavyweight champion. Then he gets beaten to a pulp and loses the big fight.” And it is glorious. Rocky’s vindication doesn’t come from victory; it comes from showing up, doing the work, going the distance, and enduring everything Creed throws at him.” (04/30/24)
“The Alvin Bragg case has gotten grander at trial, but also more ridiculous. The Manhattan district attorney has a meaningless business-records misdemeanor wrapped within a theory about an alleged Trump conspiracy to defraud the voters by denying them disparaging information before the election and obscuring after the fact the payments that were used to do so. Bragg is accusing former President Donald Trump, in effect, of stealing the election. He, thus, joins all the other progressives who have denied the legitimacy of Trump’s 2016 election, although he finds the culprit not in Russia (at least not in this case) but in the shady maneuverings around Stormy Daniels. If this is the standard by which we judge elections, we need to go back and conclude that Bill Clinton wasn’t elected legitimately in 1992, either.” (04/29/24)
“The US Congress authorized a $95 billion military aid package for continuing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well as for war preparations against China. This represents, in effect, a downpayment on World War III. US President Joe Biden, reading from a playbook that could well have been scripted by George Orwell, announced: ‘it’s a good day for world peace.’ And in order to dispel any doubt, he added, ‘for real.’ Biden proclaimed: ‘It’s going to make the world safer.’ In fact, the bipartisan authorization, passed on April 23, could nudge the doomsday clock a little closer to midnight.” (04/30/24)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“According to reports today, satellite images are showing that the massive U.S. project to build a pier and causeway to help surge humanitarian aid into Gaza has finally begun. President Joe Biden first announced the plan during his State of the Union speech, on March 4. The problem is it was supposed to be complete in ‘early May’ but Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system is no where near being in place. In fact, according to this Associated Press report, an American military engineering unit is currently ‘training’ to build the 1800-foot causeway, which is supposed to be anchored right off the Gazan beach, with another Israeli military unit, up the coast.” (04/30/24)
“Revolution is a social expression of the logic of entropy which the science of politics consists in holding at bay. The revolutionary crisis which irrupted in France in 1789 didn’t come out of nowhere, but can be traced back to forces that began to coagulate under the centralizing, absolutist regime of Louis XIV. The contemporary revolutionary crisis can likewise be traced back to the establishment of the progressive, centralizing administrative state by FDR, and especially to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The common factor in both cases was the destruction of organic authority by a centralized, administrative power animated by a new ideology serving to justify its expansion.” (04/30/24)
