Behind the riots in Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

Melanie Phillips writes:

The focus of opposition [and riots] is [Netanyahu’s] proposed judicial reforms. The protests are also fueled, however, by fear of the nationalist and religious ultras in the governing coalition and by hatred of Netanyahu, who for some people has achieved near-demonic status.

Netanyahu has some similarities to Trump in that regard, and the split in Israeli society, although certainly not the same as in the US, has some similarities to it.

Phillips continues:

Significant as these factors are, a convulsion of this magnitude suggests that something even more fundamental is at play. What is striking about the protests is the irrationality at their core. Although there are legitimate concerns about aspects of the reform package, the overwrought opposition to it is out of all proportion.

The place of the judicial system in Israel is different than in the US, however. Phillips explains the history:

The protesters claim, for example, that giving politicians a decisive role in selecting new judges, as is being proposed, will destroy the rule of law and an independent judiciary.

They say the changes, which would stop the courts from overturning laws made by the Knesset, end the power of legal advisers to prevent government ministers from enacting the policy programs for which they were elected and end the slippery concept of “reasonableness” through which the judges have substituted politics and ideology for law, would herald the end of democracy and the abolition of civil rights.

Yet as law professor Avi Bell has pointed out, for many decades after the State of Israel was founded, only the Knesset could legislate and no court could overturn legislation for any reason. Attorneys-general and all other legal advisers could be dismissed and their legal opinions bound no one. No government action could be reversed by the Supreme Court simply because the Court considered it “unreasonable.”

In other words, the reforms will largely return Israel to the situation that prevailed before 1993, when Supreme Court President Aharon Barak launched his revolutionary campaign of judicial activism.

You can learn much more about the Israeli court system and how judges are chosen here. A quote:

“The system today gives the entirety of the public in Israel a minority in the committee, which is unheard of. It’s really unheard of for unelected officials to have this kind of power, to have a self-perpetuating court. In almost every other democratic country, the system gives the power to the ruling majority to appoint judges,” said Rothman.

There are also issues involving the fact that Israel has no written constitution, and therefore judges are not ruling on new laws in terms of a written document.

Phillips contnues:

Democracy is rooted in [the following] core principle: The laws governing the people are founded upon the consent of the people. That consent is demonstrated by the people’s election of representatives in parliament who pass those laws. That’s why, although government needs checks and balances, the elected parliament in a Western nation is supreme.

But now, the very idea of the Western nation itself is under sustained assault. The progressive narrative, so dominant in Western culture, holds that the Western nation is exclusive, racist and oppressive.

National laws must therefore be superseded by universal “human rights” laws promulgated by international judges, as well as domestic judges who prioritize those laws over the laws of their own nation. The democratic process by which those national laws are formed and passed is disdained.

That process is what is now under attack in Israel by those protesting against the judicial reforms. The agenda of the politicians who have been elected by the people conflicts with the liberal universalism of man-made human rights that prioritizes approved minorities over the majority and is promulgated by Israel’s activist Supreme Court.

As the American foreign-policy specialist David Wurmser has observed, the “illiberal” left no longer believes that elections matter. They believe instead that there is a moral objective to policy matters that the left has the power to divine and define…

…[W]hat all the protesters have in common is that, at base, they would prefer rule by judges to rule by an elected government. Although one might recoil from some members of the government or despair of Israel’s dysfunctional political system, this is a dangerous tipping point—and one that has a baleful resonance far beyond Israel.

For this is the West’s post-democracy moment, in which a dominant mindset is prioritizing universal laws over national ones, elevating the legitimacy of street protests and appointing politically activist judges as the shock troops of the progressive assault on traditional values.

You may indeed recognize this as a process going on in the entire Western world today. Israel is just another example.

On the difficulties of research with human subjects

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Frederick” makes a good point about retractions of research results:

The retractions and replication problems affect some sciences way more than others. Physics, chemistry, math, hardly at all. Medicine, psychology, social sciences, quite a bit.

To oversimplify, some disciplines rely heavily on trying to tease small effects out of very noisy data, and the statistical rules of thumb that have been relied on are not sufficient to do that reliably. The data is noisy and the effects are small not because scientists in general are lazy or incompetent. It’s because studying anything alive, or anything involving human behavior, is very difficult, because humans and other living systems are incredibly complex.

Some disciplines do not labor under this handicap.

Not only that, but there are enormous ethical restrictions on what researchers are allowed to manipulate in terms of human subjects, as well as rules about informed consent. Lastly, a great deal of research on humans can be easily used to make a political point, and so the temptation is great to present the data in a certain way to conform with a desired outcome. How often does this happen? Hard to say, but politics certainly affects funding, hiring, and publication decisions.

That holds true in some of the “harder” sciences, as well, in particular “climate science” – which, although supposedly a harder science, has some things in common with the softer sciences (noisy data and small effects, for starters), and is highly highly politicized. AGW “deniers” are considered pariahs in academia at this point.

Biden’s original sin

The New Neo Posted on by

Biden says some mighty strange things, but this was one of the strangest:

President Joe Biden appeared to criticize Ron DeSantis on his handling of transgender youth and floated the possibility of a nation-wide transgender law in an interview clip released Monday.

“What’s going on in Florida, is as my mother would say, ‘close to sinful.’ I mean, it’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Biden said while speaking with actor Kal Penn.

“It’s not like … a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘you know, I decided that I want to become a man or I want to become a woman … I mean, what are they thinking about here? They’re human beings, they love, they have feelings, they have inclinations,” Biden continued. “It’s cruel.”

“And the way we do it is we make sure we pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law and you’re going to be held accountable,” Biden added…

“I just think it’s wrong,” Biden added. “I feel very, very strongly that you should have every single solitary right, including, including use of your gender identity bathroom in public.”

What’s strange to me is not Biden’s desire to make it impossible for states to ban any part of the leftist agenda, or his desire to nationalize that agenda by making something a right that never was a right. No, that’s just business as usual for our oh-so-moderate kindly old uncle president (and/or the people who advise him).

What’s strange is the use of overt religious language for this agenda. Now it’s a sin – or “almost a sin” – for people to oppose treating minors with hormones or surgery for a condition that might be quite temporary? Seems to me that most religions – perhaps all religions – would consider what the left is advocating here to be the sin, “almost” or not. But the use of the word “sin” by Biden is telling, because leftism is a religion-substitute and treats doctrinal and behavioral non-believers quite harshly.

There’s also this, speaking of sins:

Even in Europe, they’re backing away from this. The vast majority of Americans are against it, too. But the left doesn’t care.

Life imitates art: The Snake

The New Neo Posted on by

An Australian women found a venomous snake in her bed [hat tip: Instapundit]:

Zachery Richards of Zachery’s Snake and Reptile Relocation posted photos to his business’ Facebook page showing the 6-foot eastern brown snake stretched out on a Maroon woman’s bed.

“When I arrived, she [the resident] was waiting outside for me, and I went inside to the bedroom that the snake was in, and she had the door shut with a towel underneath, so it couldn’t get out,” Richards told CBS News. “I pushed the door open, and it was lying in bed looking at me.”

Richards said the snake likely came in through an open door to escape the heat.

Or perhaps it talked its way in:

My brother had that record when I was quite young, so I’ve known that song for ages. It also used to be one of Trump’s favorites to recite at campaign rallies, likening it to policies on allowing illegal immigration. Make of that what you will.

What’s up with the Trump grand jury?

The New Neo Posted on by

No one seems to know the answer to the above question. But there’s been a bit of a pause, perhaps for Bragg to re-group after Costello’s testimony undermining whatever case he had presented, which had depended on the testimony of the extremely dubious witness Michael Cohen.

Speculation abounds; you can read some of it here:

As I reported on Monday, witness Robert Costello said he thought that he’d gotten through to some of the members of the grand jury when he was telling them that Michael Cohen was not a reliable witness, but was a serial liar.

Now the word is the grand jury will also not be meeting today (Thursday) on the case, a source has confirmed to Fox News.

Since they don’t meet on Friday, that means that they won’t be making any kind of a decision on the matter until at least next week…

Looks like they’re having some difficulty indicting that “ham sandwich.”

There’s also a House invegestigation going on involving Bragg’s possible use of federal funds.

Speaking of the House, there’s this response from Bragg:

House GOP members demanded Bragg give them answers about probing into President Donald Trump’s alleged hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Bragg responded…:

“Your letter dated march 20, 2023, (the ‘Letter’), in contrast, is an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution,” wrote Bragg’s office. “The Letter only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene. Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry.”

Bragg’s office claims the investigation, which started before Bragg took office in January 2022, has been consistent with his “oath to faithfully execute the laws of the State of New York.”

The office also told the members that Bragg would “publicly state the conclusion of our investigation- whether we conclude our work without bringing charges, or move forward with an indictment.”

“And if charges are brought at the conclusion, it will be because the rule of law and faithful execution of the District Attorney’s duty require it.”

Sure thing.

Various elected New York officials have been trying to get the Great Orange Whale since his presidency, often campaigning on such a vow. But Cohen is such a bad witness that it might not be possible, once again, even with a jury pool like New York’s.

Or perhaps this is just a slight speed bump. I see this possible prosecution as having four main purposes. The first is to show the base they’re trying. The second is to hurt Trump further with moderates. The third is to elevate him with his supporters, who might then nominate him as a very tainted GOP candidate for president in 2024 to oppose the also-tainted Biden. And the fourth is to remind any other wannabee swamp-clearers that the left will relentlessly pursue them by all means necessary. Neither an indictment nor a conviction is necessary for any of those four goals to be accomplished.

Leftist law schools

The New Neo Posted on by

The so-called top law schools are nothing like they were when I attended one. There was already a leftist element back then, but it probably consisted of less than a quarter of the faculty. The courses were relatively non-political, too, even in fields that would be likely to attract mostly people on the left.

No more:

Elite law schools have become training academies not so much for effective and competent lawyers, but instead for militant transformational radicals with a law degree.

Mainstream consumers of legal services, otherwise known as paying clients, would be shocked by the evolution that has taken place in the nation’s elite law schools. Instead of producing lawyers capable of helping clients, these schools now turn out leftist activists who are most competent at using transformational designs to upend centuries of legal traditions and institutions, including, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution itself.

And the following was already true when I was in law school, and everybody there knew it:

Simply, lawyers from so-called “lesser” law schools are likely to be better trained to practice law in court and represent clients than the ones graduating from elite law schools.

The article goes on to describe course after course at Yale with a solely leftist bent:

Don’t think there are conservative counterparts to the avalanche of leftist curriculum at Yale that I am cataloging here. There aren’t, period. And only a tiny minority of the courses relate to the actual practice of law — the real challenges for which people hire lawyers. But even those appear to have a deconstructionist bent.

This change got going in the 1980s, and by the late 1990’s it was well on its way. Just as in colleges or any other institution, once a critical mass of leftists takes the reins, the process accelerates and the takeover is just about complete. It has affected our entire legal system and is responsible for the disparity between the number of lawyers willing to fight for leftist causes versus the number of lawyers willing to oppose them.

DeSantis versus Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

At Powerline:

In an interview with Piers Morgan that will be broadcast on Thursday, Ron DeSantis finally takes aim at Donald Trump. Until yesterday, he had remained silent in the face of Trump’s usually childish attacks on him. No more

But I see the attacks from DeSantis as very mild – things such as the charge that Trump kept Fauci on too long.

Of course, some people are going wild. For example, this guy:

As Bonchie points out:

Those are the same people who have been spreading lies about DeSantis for months, calling him stupid names and suggesting he’s a globalist RINO cuck who is bought and paid for by George Soros. So forgive me if I don’t think their whining is justified. If you throw punches, expect to get punched back.

I wouldn’t even describe what DeSantis said about Trump as “punches.” They just weren’t love taps.

As far back as I can remember the GOP has been split between what used to be called the Rockefeller Republicans and the Goldwater conservatives (I’m showing my age here). The split is along somewhat different lines now, both demographically and ideologically, but there’s still something familiar about it. But I see nothing “Rockefeller Republican” – or GOPe, or Romneyesque, or McCainish, or whatever you want to call it these days – about DeSantis. He tough and he’s conservative. The thing that most separates him from Trump is his temperament and presentation.

Thinking about this, it strikes me that one of the things the Trump diehards who hate DeSantis very much like about Trump is his audaciousness. It’s certainly not the only thing they like about him, of course. But the way he gave the middle finger to the press, his opponents, and even his fellow Republicans at times, was very satisfying to a lot of people. And they want that to continue. In a way, you might say they got addicted to the thrill of the Trump battle, to the excitement of wondering what bold outrageous thing he’d say next.

That makes DeSantis, who is absolutely no Jeb Bush, appear to be a bit Jeb-like in contrast. That’s one of the favorite charges against him by the EverTrumpers: he’s another Jeb, whether they actually believe it or not.

To illustrate, here are a few of the comments from the Powerline post I linked and quoted at the outset.

Commenter A: Good for DeSantis. Trump is one step away from either jail or a nervous breakdown. He is an odious fat head and a cancer on the Republican Party.

Commenter B responds: If you believe that, then I think the 74 million Americans who supported Trump should stay home in 2024. Let’s see how your Republican Party (TM) candidates do then!

Commenter C responds: Not all of us who voted for Trump in 2020 will be voting for him this time. There will be many defectors.

And then over and over, you can see the equivalent of this comment: DeSantis is an establishment shill.

Who benefits from all of this? As far as I can tell, it’s the left.

I’m in the process…

The New Neo Posted on by

…of switching cellphones.

This doesn’t affect the blog, but any technical change stresses me out. Wish me luck!

I find more and more that modern “conveniences” have become awfully complicated. I probably barely scratch the surface of what my cell phone can do. In fact, I probably barely scratch the surface of what my cell phone’s camera can do.

But I often scratch the surface of my actual cell phone in the physical world, despite protective coatings and cases.

The distinction between intersex and transgender

The New Neo Posted on by

This article by Colin Wright, “Understanding the Sex Binary,” may seem somewhat esoteric, but it deals with an important distinction in the trans debate. Here’s how Wright puts it:

The “sex binary” refers to the biological reality that there are only two sexes—male and female—and that these categories refer to individuals whose primary sex organs are organized around the production of either sperm (male) or ova (female). The “sex binary” does not entail that every human is unambiguously either male or female, even though the vast majority are.

This is an important distinction, because adopting the second framing is inaccurate and plays into the hands of activists who seek to debunk the existence of only two sexes by calling attention to the existence of rare edge cases (i.e., “intersex” conditions). But the first framing (“there are only two sexes”) is both biologically accurate and ensures that two distinct concepts—transgenderism and intersex—remain distinct. It also puts to rest the false notion that the existence of rare edge cases necessarily entails that sex is a “spectrum” and that we are all therefore intersex to some degree.

Crafting effective policy therefore requires treating transgenderism and intersex as the distinct concepts that they are. It also requires not falling into activists’ trap of conflating intersex with transgender.

I have noticed before that the existence of rare intersex people is often used, illogically, to bolster the pro transwomen-in-female-sports argument. This article is useful if you ever find yourself discussing the issue with someone intent on blurring that distinction.