Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“In controversies on global warming, one issue that keeps coming up is whether it is anthropogenic, whether the world getting warmer is our fault. So far as I can tell, the question is almost entirely irrelevant to the controversy, reflects a confusion between moral and practical arguments. Suppose the cause of global warming is not human action but changes in solar activity or some other external factor. Suppose also that the consequences of global warming will be catastrophic. Finally suppose that there is something we can do to prevent global warming, say raising the albedo of the earth with orbital mirrors, high altitude pollution, or whatever. Isn’t the argument for doing it precisely the same as if we were causing the warming? Hence isn’t ‘whose fault is it’ an irrelevant distraction?” (11/23/25)
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“Where primitive societies understood power and thus sought to preempt it and foreclose political domination, our modern societies obsess about and worship power. This bad habit puts our lives and those of our children and grandchildren at risk, and it makes movement in the direction of a free society almost impossible. This is among the many reasons we ought to be deeply disturbed by and uncomfortable with standard political taxonomies such as left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, etc. These binaries lead to shallow and confused analysis because they do not even attempt to understand the structural realities driving today’s states. These frameworks don’t know how to talk about or understand the relationship between the state and capital or the development of authoritarian power during the modern era.” (11/23/25)
“Federal prosecutors have filed a new indictment in response to a July 4 noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, during which a police officer was shot. There are numerous problems with the indictment, but perhaps the most glaring is its inclusion of charges against a Dallas artist who wasn’t even at the protest. Daniel ‘Des’ Sanchez is accused of transporting a box that contained ‘Antifa materials’ after the incident, supposedly to conceal evidence against his wife, Maricela Rueda, who was there. But the boxed materials aren’t Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, or whatever MAGA officials claim ‘Antifa’ uses to wage its imaginary war on America. As prosecutors laid out in the July criminal complaint that led to the indictment, they were zines and pamphlets. Some contain controversial ideas — one was titled ‘Insurrectionary Anarchy’ — but they’re fully constitutionally protected free speech.” (11/23/25)
“[S]olving problems is hard, and in politics, it often involves taking on well-organized constituencies that will wave away the smoke and insist that everything is just fine. So institutions often choose to disregard the underlying issues and simply whack the alarm with a hammer until it stops beeping. There has been a lot of that going on recently, most notably in education. Instead of rectifying disparities in preparation and achievement, people decided it would be simpler to adjust the measurements.” (11/23/25)
“As many of you know, at People’s Action we have been thinking about and preparing for this moment for some time. Our 2023 report, The Antidote to Authoritarianism, issued a call to develop a shared playbook of the most effective tactics to stop the rise of an authoritarian regime. We have now done this, and are moving into action. Twenty national organizations endorsed our original call for an Organizing Revival. That number has since swelled to more than sixty, and more than four hundred state and local organizations, all across the country and in every state. Together with these partners and new friends, such as the May Day Strong alliance, we have trained more than 1,200 organizers across the country and are training more every day, so we can defend democracy while we still can. We welcome anyone who wants to join us.” (11/24/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Walter Block
“Under Mamdani’s proposal, [New York City’s] minimum wage would improve to $20 per hour in 2027, $23.50 in 2028, $27 in 2029 and $30 in 2030. This is almost double the present minimum wage currently prevailing in the Big Apple, at $16.50. … [T]he minimum wage law is not a floor, raising wages above the level stipulated by the enactment. Rather, it is a barrier over which one has to jump in order to get a job in the first place, and then to retain it.” (11/23/25)
“A couple hours before I began writing this column, I drove from Irvine up the 405 to the VA Long Beach Healthcare System for a routine appointment. At the hospital I saw two veterans in their 40s in wheelchairs. Although it’s possible they suffered civilian accidents, more likely their legs were blown off by IEDs — improvised explosive devices — in the Iraq War two decades ago. I backed President Donald Trump in three elections because I hoped he would end such senseless ‘regime-change wars,’ as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called them. He promised to be a ‘peace president.’ Instead, recently he perpetrated the nonjudicial killings of 76 ‘narco-terrorists,’ who could just be fishermen given the lack of actual information, in violation of international law. … Worse is his inability to end the Ukraine War ‘in 24 hours,’ as he promised. … Then there’s the Middle East.” (11/23/25)
“What are a few deportation threats among friends? President Donald Trump has called Zohran Mamdani a ‘100% Communist lunatic’ who ‘needs to be DEPORTED.’ Mamdani called the president a ‘despot,’ promising to ‘Trump-proof’ New York. Yet they couldn’t have been chummier in their Oval Office meeting on Friday. What’s happening here? Trump loves populists and winners, and Mamdani is both. … This surreal scene is no bad thing for voters who have been told that the other side is the mortal enemy, though they might wonder how sincere each side was in their election insults. In reality, Mamdani and Trump have some shared interests, and it’s not just about building more apartments and tackling inflation. Both men are looking to seize more executive power, deepen the reach of the state into people’s everyday lives and bring government to bear on businesses and entrepreneurs who won’t fall in line.” (11/21/25)
“Taiwan is not now, and never has been, part of the People’s Republic of China. … But whenever any politician on the world stage publicly mentions, or even alludes to, that fact, Chinese politicians rattle their sabers militarily while threatening, ‘diplomatically,’ to throw themselves on the floor and hold their breath until they turn blue. To placate Beijing, western regimes have generally adopted policies of ‘strategic ambiguity.’ They conduct friendly relations with Taiwan while not ‘recognizing’ its status as independent, and provide Taiwan with military assistance of various kinds while very carefully NOT openly saying they’d help it defend itself against invasion. ‘Strategic ambiguity’ is the worst of two worlds when it comes to foreign policy.” (11/23/25)
“The unity that once held the Democratic Party together has given way to ideological meandering, oscillating between ‘woke’ moralistic left-wing populism and technocratic managerialism. These two impulses now define its fractured identity: the former emerging from the Occupy movement and the momentum of Bernie Sanders'[s] presidential campaigns, the latter from the evolution of the Clinton-era ‘New Democrat’ consensus. The 2025 elections crystallized the divide through two major victories — socialist outsider Zohran Mamdani in New York City and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who’s more in line with the neoliberal wing. Each has been called the party’s ‘future,’ though their wins more clearly reveal how ideologically hollow the party’s core has become.” (11/23/25)
