He’s quite optimistic about success!

TJ:

I missed your comment earlier. Thanks for speaking up.

I didn’t even know Arthur Laffer was still alive.

The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Thomas Sowell talks about this, more or less. So does Jordan Peterson. Sowell talks about constrained and unconstrained visions – another way, ISTM, of illustrating the difference between a Hobbesian and a Lockean (Lockeian?) worldview. The constrained vision holder (the conservative) believes that humankind is fallen and humans are prone to taking whatever advantage they can, so we have to set up systems that – in Paine’s formulation, was it? One of the Founders anyway – check and balance one ambition with, and against, another. The unconstrained vision holder (the progressive) believes perfection, utopia, is possible.

Real life teaches us that the constrained vision is, at minimum, far more reflective of people’s actions. It’s my opinion, as a constrained-vision person, that the constrained vision is reflective of reality. This worldview can be perceived as pessimism.

Peterson says that conservatives are “pretty good” (ya know how he talks) at implementation, but not good, not nearly as good as the Left, at explaining their vision or ideals. He says he thinks this is because conservatives don’t really need a vision – their default is (this is the way I always put it, which I draw from William James – it’s not how Peterson puts it) “that which works.” An example he gave: when a conservative is challenged to defend marriage, the conservative says, “But… didn’t we all agree a long time ago, basically at the beginnings of human civilization, that marriage is a social good? Why does it need defending?”

Now, I think that, under pressure from the progressives everywhere in our society, conservatives are getting a lot better at explicating the conservative “vision,” such as it is, as well as at explaining why pragmatism triumphs over utopianism. But we’re still on our back foot, because utopianism is a whole lot more attractive, especially to young people, than “the poor will be with you always” (for example), however smart the young people are, even if they are forced to admit that if you’re going to define poverty by quintiles there will always be a lowest quintile. And the Left has gotten a lot better at couching their utopianism in “pragmatic” terms so it’s not so obviously impossible. Take MMT as a foundation for UBI, for instance. It’s easy to see that a UBI will bankrupt us all if you think money is a real thing (which it is – a real means of exchange that reflects the value people place on real things), so redefine money as some kind of social construct, and Bob’s your uncle!

This probably belongs in an open thread… Neo, please delete or move this comment if it’s too distracting from your topic!

Welcome to 1984. When 2024 is stolen, will America have been “fundamentally transformed” as Obama promised?

Democrat voters are thrilled with the progress.

In the meantime, Biden has now been formally charged with the two misdemeanor tax charges. He pleaded not guilty, even though he had been ready to plead guilty just minutes earlier.

Now, we have to learn more about what happened. It’s an outrage that the DOJ has not even released the plea agreement and that we are all going on somebody’s cellphone photos of the agreement posted in Politico. (And thanks to Politico for doing it.) “It’s a scandal that it hasn’t been released,” Wisenberg said. “It ought to be released immediately by the attorney general. His failure to release it adds to the suspicion that this is a tainted deal.”…’ [All emphasis mine; Barry M.]

Suspicion?

You will find there is a pattern to McCarthy’s essays. He’s usually quite good these days on everything but January 6th issues and also Trump.

Foreign Agent Reporting Act violations are what the DOJ used to go after Trump’s people, and more significantly it ties Hunter’s tax woes to the foreign sources of his money! If the DOJ is forced to address FARA, the obvious next step is asking “By the way, exactly what service was Hunter selling his customers?”