Happy belated 95th birthday to Thomas Sowell

The New Neo Posted on by

I missed the occasion, which was yesterday. But I want to wish a belated happy birthday to a formidable and formative thinker on the right, probably the contemporary political writer I most admire. He apparently has hardly lost a step in his extreme old age, which is quite an achievement.

Here are links to the over-100 posts I’ve written that mention Sowell. But for now I’ll just repeat the substance of this one from four years ago:

And yet most people probably have no idea who Sowell is.

Sowell was one of the very first thinkers I encountered during the course of my political change experience, and he was probably the most formative one. When I initially read his work – I think it was the book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy – it was with a happy sigh of recognition and relief as well as admiration. Finally, here was someone who was voicing clear, intelligent, common-sense versions of thoughts, some of which were new to me but some of which I’d already had in extremely inchoate and amorphous form but had never been able to articulate or order. He made perfect sense, and I couldn’t imagine why everyone in the world didn’t agree with him.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

Notice also that subtitle – of a book first published in 1996 – Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. That’s an excellent example of Sowell’s ability to distill – into a short phrase, sentence, or paragraph – a complex and highly insightful as well as illuminating idea. He’s been doing that for about fifty years, and his body of work holds up very well.

So Happy Happy Birthday, Thomas Sowell. Long may you live and grace us with your clear-headed wisdom.

Do you know what’s in the Big Beautiful Bill that just passed the Senate?

The New Neo Posted on by

I freely admit that I’m struggling to understand exactly what’s in the bill and, more importantly, how it will affect Americans. And I think I’m hardly the only one, if people were to be honest.

The media and the politicians and even bloggers and commenters put their own spin on it. There are, for example, the usual cries against GOP members who are perceived as selling out to various interest groups. There’s the railing against the parliamentarian and those who decided not to overrule her, although they might have. But I don’t fully trust anything I’m reading. So here’s my take on it which admittedly contains a lot of guesswork.

The bill passed 51-50 with Vance breaking a tie, and the three GOP defectors being Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, and Susan Collins:

Paul and Tillis had each voted against even debating the bill. Paul called for greater spending cuts. Tillis said the bill would cost his state $26 billion in Medicaid funding, breaking a federal promise of health care to low-income people. …

Collins had voted to debate the bill but opposed its approval primarily because of Medicaid cuts. She said one-third of her state – 400,000 people – depend on Medicaid and the bill would hurt rural healthcare providers and nursing homes.

She also cited concerns about phasing out tax credits for renewable energy providers. She said the bill should have kept incentives for families that choose to install heat pumps and residential solar panels.

I’ve said it before about Collins, and I’ll say it again: if you want Maine to have a Republican senator, it would have to be someone who votes as Collins does. Otherwise, it’s a Democrat for sure and would help Democrats to gain control of the Senate.

Note also there were only three defectors, which made it possible for the bill to pass. That’s because the other would-be defector, Murkowski, was placated in a compromise:

The deal with Murkowski breaks a deadlock that lasted throughout Monday night and into Tuesday morning.

Thune, Crapo and Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) thought they had secured Murkowski’s vote by crafting language to provide an enhanced federal Medicaid match for Alaska and a waiver to shield the state from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts.

But Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough threw a wrench into those plans by ruling the initial Medicaid and SNAP provisions designed to help Alaska didn’t comply with the Byrd Rule and therefore weren’t eligible to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote.

Republican leadership and committee staff then spent hours Monday and early Tuesday morning to craft language that could secure the approval of both Murkowski and the parliamentarian.

So, why didn’t the Senate GOP just vote to overrule the parliamentarian? I believe – although I also don’t know – that the answer revolves around the three defectors plus Murkowski. I don’t think any of them – and that includes Murkowski – would have voted to overrule the parliamentarian. Certainly there’s no reason that the three who voted against the bill would have voted to overrule the parliamentarian in order to pass it – that simply wouldn’t make sense. And Murkowski was very lukewarm on the bill as well, and relishes her own power.

So those people who are angry at the GOP as a whole for not voting to overrule the parliamentarian are – IMHO – not taking into account the reality, which is that it probably couldn’t have been done. Still another reality is that getting rid of Collins would bring the Democrats closer to a Senate majority; Tillis is going anyway; and Rand Paul is Rand Paul, another kettle of fish.

Furthermore, this isn’t the final bill. It has to be “reconciled” in the House. The fat lady may be warming up in the wings, but that’s about it.

NOTE: If you want to find out what’s in the Senate bill about Medicaid versus what’s in the House bill about Medicaid, here’s the only article I found that purports to say. It’s CBS, so it would tend to have an anti-GOP spin, but take a look.

Forum-shopping: it’s not just your imagintion

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s for real:

As the Trump administration faces substantial pushback in the courts, including an unprecedented wave of nationwide injunctions halting its policies, some are claiming that his opponents are tilting the scales of justice by selectively bringing their lawsuits before sympathetic courts in a practice called “forum shopping.” They note that three-quarters of the lower court justices who have blocked Trump policies were appointed by Democrats.

Gaming the federal justice system, however, is harder than it sounds because plaintiffs bring cases before courts rather than judges. Most federal courts have a mix of judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans. The plaintiff’s goal in forum shopping is to launch their suit in a district where they are more likely to draw a sympathetic justice – ideally, this district would also include an appellate court stacked with like-minded judges.

To see whether Trump’s adversaries are engaging in forum shopping, RealClearInvestigations analyzed 350 cases brought against the administration. We found that plaintiffs have brought 80% of those cases before just 11 of the nation’s 91 district courts. While Democrat presidents have appointed roughly 60% of all active district court judges, each of the 11 district courts where the anti-Trump challenges have been clustered boasts an even higher percentage of Democrat appointees. In several of these venues, the administration’s challengers are almost guaranteed that a judge picked by Joe Biden, Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton will preside over their case.

We pretty much already knew that. But it’s interesting to see the numbers.

Tillis retreats and the Big Beautiful Bill advances

The New Neo Posted on by

Senator Thom Tillis announced he’s not running for re-election. This was after Trump suggested it might be a good idea to primary him:

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis announced Sunday that he won’t seek reelection after drawing President Trump’s wrath over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — stoking speculation that Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara may potentially vie for the seat.

Just before his sudden announcement, the Republican senator had rankled Trump by voting against advancing the marquee Trump legislation because of his concerns about the Medicaid provisions in the megabill.

“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said in a statement Sunday. …

“When people see independent thinking on the other side, they cheer. But when those very same people see independent thinking coming from their side, they scorn, ostracize and even censure them,” Tillis bemoaned.

Well, duh. Politics is partisan. “Independent thinking” is a phrase that tends to mean “voting against your party’s programs.” Why wouldn’t a party – any party, left or right – criticize that? If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen – which it appears that Tillis is poised to do.

Meanwhile, the Big Beautiful Bill has advanced in the Senate, despite Tillis:

The Senate held a procedural vote to allow for debate on the OBBB, and it passed, 51-49. There was no need for Vice President JD Vance to make a tie-breaking vote, even though he was in the chamber in order to do just that.

Sen. Ron Johnson saved him the trouble. As of Friday, Johnson was still a firm “NO” vote, despite meeting with President Donald Trump to see if a compromise could be found. But somewhere between the vote and the final tally, Johnson miraculously conceded and voted “YES.”

If the bill passes, it will go back to the House for fine tuning. Here’s an article explaining what needs to be reconciled for the bill to become law.

Getting to know Mamdani – a bit late in the game

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course, lots of people would agree with Mamdani’s remark here, and they’ll be voting for him in November:

That’s instructive in so many ways. If you watch it, you’ll learn how smooth and smiley and downright pleasant Mamdani sounds. He just wants less inequality, that’s all, and he’ll work with everyone in New York to make the place more fair. It sounds good to a lot of people who don’t think much beyond the happy vision. Who really needs a billion dollars, anyway? Mamdani is just imagining a world in which billionaires don’t exist, but he doesn’t explain how that would occur or what the consequences would be.

We can guess. The methods that come to mind are to confiscate the money of anyone earning over a certain amount, either through an astronomical tax rate or some other method; or cap salaries and investments. The kind of “fairness” he’s talking about can only be accomplished through income redistribution and government control. Government decides how much people “should” earn. The effect this would have is that, on a local level, the rich would move away – and take their job creation with them. Or they’d just stop striving.

Kipling said something of the sort long ago:

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

I don’t know what Mamdani would have the power to actually do about it if he did become New York’s next mayor. But it’s just one of many worrisome statements of his.

He’s certainly got the attention of the press and pundits, and there’s a lot of analysis since last Tuesday of just who voted for him to account for his win. Here’s one article on the subject:

Less than 30% of Democrats voted in the mayoral primary. Of those, supposedly, 43.5% voted for Mamdani. So some 12.9% of New York Democrats voted for Mamdani.

56% of registered voters in the city are Democrats so some 7.2% of city residents voted for him. …

Mamdani’s base isn’t New Yorkers, it’s a coalition of white hipsters and Muslim immigrants, most of them weren’t even in the city during 9/11, like Mamdani, have no roots in the city, and no connection to its history. The quintessential New Yorker, as envisioned by a thousand Hollywood movies, TV shows and Broadway musicals, still exists, but is harder to find than ever. The city of those movies and shows can be glimpsed as a palimpsest under layers of chain stores, illegal migrants, social justice projects and vegan eateries before it vanishes again in the rain.

What happened to New York is what happened to legendary cities across the country and around the world, from Philly to London, which is that the revival of the 90s was the final act in driving out its working class and middle class population. Rents soared until the only young people who could afford to live there were white hipsters and third world immigrants.

And their politics became based on coalitions between the hipsters and the new arrivals. In New York City, as in London, it produced a Jihadist coalition that paved the way for a Muslim mayor.

Interesting observations. But unless a decent alternative is presented to the voters, and unless the opposition becomes focused on just a single candidate, Mamdani will probably win because his supporters are passionately involved. There’s apathy and disarray on the other side, and that’s not good.

My curious foray into poetry translation

The New Neo Posted on by

I was generally an excellent student, but my worst and most disliked subject was foreign languages. I’m not sure why, except that I hated having to memorize lists of words. I took Spanish because I was told it was easier than French – certainly the spelling was easier. But I still found it difficult, although I learned enough to get by at a fairly undemanding high school level. By now, I’ve forgotten almost all the Spanish I ever learned, which wasn’t much in the first place.

However, I recall that one day when I was in high school I resolved to translate a poem into Spanish. This was an exceptionally odd decision of mine, and it was definitely not an assignment. Granted, I loved poetry. But not only did I hate learning Spanish and knew relatively little, but translating poetry is exceptionally difficult and one needs exceptional skills to do it. I didn’t have those skills, to say the least.

Why the thought even occurred to me is a great puzzlement. I must have been bored that day, and was probably procrastinating about doing my other schoolwork. It was a weekend, most likely a Sunday. The challenge must have appealed to me. At any rate, armed with a large Spanish/English dictionary – which I would need for about 80% of the words – I proceeded to try.

What poem did I choose to translate? That’s very strange as well; it was A. E. Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young.” Granted, I liked the poem and still do. But it’s not an easy poem even in English, with some archaic words, and I also had to follow the rhyme scheme. But I went about doing it.

I never knew if my translation made any sense once I was done, because I never showed it to anyone who could speak Spanish. Sadly, I’ve lost most of my translation of the poem. But the other night, while looking for something else, I found a remnant of three stanzas. And so I’ve decided to put them here, and anyone who can speak Spanish (or anyone at all, for that matter) can give an opinion on them.

First, here’s the original poem in English. It has seven stanzas, and I translated them all. But only the last three of my translation survive. Here are those three in Housman’s original English:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

And here’s my translation. I believe that it’s probably missing some of the accent marks, alas, and I don’t know enough Spanish now to have a clue where the missing ones should be:

No aumentaras el gran numero
De estos con honor pasajero
Corredores de quien fama salio
Y antes del hombre, el nombre murio.

Pongas, antes de marchitan los ecos
El pie rapido en los bordes lejos
Y leventas al dintel bajo
La taza defendiste por su trabajo.

Y a esa cabeza de laurels coronado
Leventaran par aver el cuerpo de debilado
Y, en los rizos, la guirnalda sera
Más breve que lo de una niña.

I tried to translate back to English what I had written, and this is what I thought at the time that I’d said:

You will not increase the large number
Of those with fleeting [or transient] honor,
Runners from whom fame departed
And before the man, the name died.

Put, before the echoes fade
The fleet foot on the far border
And raise to the low lintel
The cup defended by your work.

And to that head with laurels crowned
Will flock to see the weakened body
And, on the curls, the garland will be
That is briefer than that of a girl.

And what does handy online Google Translate say that I wrote? Why, this:

You will not increase the great number
Of these with fleeting honor
Runners from whom fame came
And before man, the name died.

Place, before the echoes fade
The swift foot on the far-off edges
And raise to the low lintel
The cup you defended for its work.

And that head crowned with laurels
They will rise to see the weakened body
And, in the curls, the garland will be
Shorter than a girl’s.

Not half bad, I think.

And by the way, although Google says “shorter” rather than “briefer” in that last line, when I ask for the word in Spanish for “brief,” it gives me “breve.” So breve apparently means either short or brief.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

As often is the case these days, there’s a ton of news and so I’m resorting to a roundup for some of it:

(1) Trump actually has made America great again – for the moment. He’s shown leadership on the world stage and accomplished something most countries applaud (some of them secretly, some overtly): the destruction or near-destruction of Iran’s nuclear program. But the Senate Democrats (minus Fetterman) would like to have been able to stop him, and would like to prevent future such actions by him:

The resolution, authored by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, aimed to affirm that Trump should seek authorization from Congress before launching more military action against Iran. Asked Friday if he would bomb Iranian nuclear sites again if he deemed necessary, Trump said, “Sure, without question.”

The measure was defeated in a 53-47 vote in the Republican-held Senate. One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joined Republicans in opposition, while Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote in favor.

Democrats had no such qualms about Obama’s bombing efforts abroad.

(2) Speaking of double standards, there’s Justice Kagan in 2022 on universal injunctions:

In a stunning display of judicial flip-flopping, Kagan’s own words from 2022 have come back to haunt her, exposing the left’s all-too-familiar habit of changing the rules when it suits their political objectives. …

Back in 2022, when President Biden was in the White House and conservatives were the ones seeking relief from his executive orders, Kagan was openly skeptical of nationwide injunctions.

“This can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stuck for the years that it takes to go through a normal process,” she said.

(3) Did Andrew Sullivan just notice that trans extremism hurts gay people? That’s been obvious for well over a decade, and not just in the ways Sullivan mentions. I haven’t read Sullivan’s piece – it’s in the NY Times, and I can’t get behind their paywall at the moment – but the summary at the link, plus the quotes from Sullivan’s article, indicate he thinks that the excesses of the trans movement and in particular its move towards going after the children have alienated some of the public from the gay rights movement as well. Although that is certainly the case, the trans movement hurts gay people more directly by encouraging minors who would otherwise grow up to be gay or lesbian to mutilate themselves in an effort to change sex instead. This is most obvious in a country such as Iran, which punishes homosexuality harshly but encourages sex changes. But even in Western countries, the trans movement draws from people who would otherwise be gay if trans propaganda hadn’t swayed them.

(4) Cuomo isn’t withdrawing from the mayoral race:

While it’s hard to predict with any degree of certainty how this ultimately will play out, the first post-mayoral primary poll is out and shows Cuomo and Mamdani both with equal levels of support, and Adams trailing badly.

I hadn’t followed the mayoral race until a couple of days ago, but from what I’ve read and heard, Cuomo was sort of just phoning it in. Of course, plenty of New Yorkers dislike him for very good reasons. But still, he really didn’t attack Mamdani sufficiently, probably believing that he (Cuomo) could coast to victory. Now he’s woken up. But will New York? As far as Adams goes, he hadn’t really started his campaign till now. The big problem, however – aside for the fact that all these candidates are deeply flawed – is that the anti-Mamdani vote is split among Sliwa (the Repubublican, who probably doesn’t have any chance at all), Adams, and Cuomo.

(5) Speaking of Mamdani, the WaPo’s editorial board has come out against him:

Usually the liberal rag is little more than a mouthpiece for the DNC, so to see them go after a Democrat this hard is a stunner and reveals two things: 1) Mamdani and his extremist policies are truly a danger to the Big Apple, and 2), leftists are scared right now.

The headline of the piece is “Zohran Mamdani’s victory is bad for New York and the Democratic Party.”

The German definition of freedom of speech

The New Neo Posted on by

I learned long ago that compared to Europe and Canada and other countries I’d assumed had freedom of speech, only in the US is there a serious commitment to it. Of course, that commitment in the US is sometimes compromised, but it still is much greater than that of any country that comes to mind. Europe has long had hate speech laws, for example, and in Germany that situation been ramping up lately:

Police in Germany have launched a nationwide operation targeting suspected authors of online hate speech and incitement, according to information obtained by dpa.

More than 170 operations are planned, coordinated by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

The suspects are accused of incitement to hatred and insulting politicians, among other things.

The investigations focus on far-right statements made online. Many cases also involve criminal insults against politicians, with fewer cases concerning extremist religious or far-left postings.

Insulting politicians seems to be a crime in Germany. It also appears that these laws are more often enforced against the right than the left.

From this past April, FIRE reports:

This month, David Bendels, editor-in-chief for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)-affiliated Deutschland Kurier, received a seven-month suspended sentence for “abuse, slander or defamation against persons in political life.”

The offense? Bendels had edited and posted a photo of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser so that a sign she held said, “I hate freedom of opinion.” … A Bavarian district court found Bendels guilty under a provision giving advanced protections to political figures against speech.

And from this past February:

Dozens of police teams across Germany raided homes before dawn in a coordinated crackdown on a recent Tuesday. The state police weren’t looking for drugs or guns, they were looking for people suspected of posting hate speech online.

As prosecutors explain it, the German constitution protects free speech, but not hate speech. And here’s where it gets tricky: German law prohibits speech that could incite hatred or is deemed insulting. Perpetrators are sometimes surprised to learn that what they post online is illegal, according to Dr. Matthäus Fink, one of the state prosecutors tasked with policing Germany’s robust hate speech laws.

“They don’t think it was illegal. And they say, ‘No, that’s my free speech,'” Fink said. “And we say, ‘No, you have free speech as well, but it is also has its limits.'”

In other words, you are free to say nice things about people we like.

More:

Fink, and prosecutors Svenja Meininghaus and Frank-Michael Laue, explained that German law prohibits the spread of malicious gossip, violent threats and fake quotes. Reposting lies online can also be a crime.

And of course it’s they who get to determine what’s a lie or an insult worthy of prosecution:

The punishment for breaking hate speech laws can include jail time for repeat offenders. But in most cases, a judge levies a stiff fine and sometimes keeps the offender’s devices. …

It was a 2021 case involving Andy Grote, a local politician, that captured the country’s attention. Grote complained about a tweet that called him a “pimmel,” a German word for the male anatomy. His complaint triggered a police raid and accusations of excessive censorship by the government.

As prosecutors explained to “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, in Germany it’s OK to debate politics online, but it can be a crime to call anyone a pimmel, even a politician.

“Comments like ‘You’re son of a b—h,’ excuse me for using, but these words has nothing to do with a political discussions or a contribution to a discussion,” Fink said.

I won’t call Fink a pimmel, although he sounds like one.

Trump plays hardball with Canada on tariffs

The New Neo Posted on by

Here we go again:

We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to trade with, including the fact that they have charged our farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on dairy products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American technology companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

The ball is in Canada’s court now.