First of all, let me hand it to David Strom of the conservative Hot Air blog. I have lately found conservative media -- once a refreshing place for intelligent takes absent from conventional media -- to now be largely a stinky, festering swamp inhabited almost entirely by brain-dead conspiracy nuts, Trump fanbois, and other cranks.

You can only read so much from people who generally seemed to know better five seconds ago, but are now racing to be the first to defend Trump's latest dumb move.

But not this time.

Strom takes the current administration to task for its Bernie Sanders-worthy witch hunt of "big egg" over the latest predictable increase in egg prices following a wave of bird flu:

In just the past two months, over 40 million chickens were euthanized to prevent the spread of this nasty disease.

The Trump administration, though, is following the Biden playbook and pointing fingers at egg producers and darkly suggesting that evil egg producers might be price gouging and driving up the price of eggs out of malign intent.

That is just dumb, both as a theory for why egg prices are going up, and as a way to treat the intelligence of the American people. This is AOC-level economics, and I have to say it ticks me off more than a little bit. [bold added]

Strom ends as follows:

Yes, I know I am supposed to be a cheerleader for my team, and I do quite a bit of that when warranted, but I don't want my team to become the same as what I despise.

Good on Mr. Strom for raising an issue I have long wished somebody MAGA-adjacent would raise: What's the point of 'winning' if all you do is turn around and implement the worst kinds of policies of the politicians you defeated at the polls?

On that, see also Trump's anti-trade/high tax tariff foolishness (which the House GOP just doubled down on), the nutty left's anti-vaccine hysteria (now mainstreamed by RFK, Jr.), and our new, one-sided "alliance" with Russia, which is still an enemy to the West, including us.

It is interesting to note that, just as Trump could quickly help our economy by dropping all his new tariffs, he could nuke the equally avoidable, government-induced egg price problems now and forever -- by getting the government out of the way of the poultry industry adopting the bird flu vaccinations other nations have used successfully.

I won't be holding my breath: Between Trump's brain-dead "America first" jingoism and his enlistment of a crank as the head of HHS, I have a hard time seeing common sense prevail here.

How many more own-goals will it take for sensible Republicans to see that they need to form a new team?

-- CAV

I don't know how I managed to miss this, but John Stossel of Reason Magazine interviewed Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute about a month ago.

The video interview (embedded below) is under eight minutes long and both efficiently challenges misconceptions about self-interest and introduces the viewer to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

All I would add -- because the video shows a clip from a suboptimal movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged -- is that the book is definitely better than the movie.

As he always does, Stossel condenses the video into a short column, and -- also as usual -- even the long-time advocate of Rand's ideas stands to learn something from it.

In this column, I learned of the latest major example of private enterprise running circles around a government attempt to offer a service outside its proper scope:

Governments sometimes try to build things, but they routinely fail. California promised high-speed commuter rail service. Seventeen years, and billions of tax dollars later, no trains.

But in just three years, a "selfish" private company, Brightline, built a train line [that] carries commuters and tourists from Miami to Orlando. At no cost to taxpayers.

With both parties now spewing the same kind of nonsense about capitalism and imposing more government control over the economy, it is good to be able to refer the occasional thoughtful person to a voice or two of sanity.

This interview is worth keeping in mind for those rare times one finds oneself conversing with someone who is well aware that both political tribes are way off course and is interested a finding or building better alternative to both.

-- CAV

The New York Post reports that Wall Street types are circulating a video (embedded below) of Ronald Reagan standing up for international free trade, including correctly calling punitive tariffs stupid.

Although, like Reagan himself, this video is far from perfect, it deserves wide circulation for several reasons beyond its clear explanation of why trade is good, which any intelligent adult can understand.

First, here are a couple of brief excerpts, lightly edited from an automatically-generated transcript:

Both developed and developing countries alike have been in the grip of the longest worldwide recession in postwar history. That's bad news for all of us. When other countries don't grow they buy less from us and we see fewer jobs created at home. When we don't grow we buy less from them which weakens their economies and of course their ability to buy from us.

It's a vicious cycle. You can understand the danger of worldwide recession when you realize how much is at stake. Exports account for over 5 million jobs in the United States. Two out of every five acres planted by American farmers produce crops for exports, but because of their recessions other countries are buying fewer American farm products than last year. Our farmers are hurting and they're just one group. So we're trying to turn this situation around.

We're reminding the world that, yes, we all have serious problems, but our economic system based on individual freedom private, initiative, and free trade has produced more human progress than any other in history. It's in all our interest to preserve it, protect it, and strengthen it.

Much later:

I'm old enough and hopefully wise enough not to forget the lessons of those unhappy years [the 1930s]. The world must never live through such a nightmare again. We're in the same boat with our trading partners. If one partner shoots a hole in the boat, does it make sense for the other one to shoot another hole in the boat? Some say yes and call that getting tough.

Well, I call it stupid. We shouldn't be shooting holes. We should be working together to plug them up. We must strengthen the boat of free markets ...

While I am glad that some are circulating this video, I think it is a mistake not to share it much more widely.

For one thing, this is a badly-needed remedial lesson in basic economics, and if the current President can't wrap his head around it, we need everyone else to, so that there is some hope of a united opposition to his policies now, or at least a broad understanding of how to correct for them later.

For another, this is also a much-needed glimpse of what leadership in a free society looks like. The people of a free society neither want nor need to be told what to do. A politician wishing to change course will speak to them like the adults that they are and earn their considered support by appealing to their intelligence and to their self-interest.

This works, because Trump to the contrary, trade (within or across borders) is win-win, as apparently anyone but he can understand.

-- CAV

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. "Why 'Colorblindness' on Race Matters More than Ever," by Elan Journo (New Ideal):

The book has two goals: to dispel the caricatures and vilification of colorblindness and to demonstrate that by abandoning the ideal of colorblindness, self-styled "anti-racist" thinkers are actually peddling a form of racism. Rather than breaking new ground, the book's main value is as a trenchant corrective, and it is likely of greatest benefit to younger readers, especially students, and others marinating in today's "anti-racist" outlook.

The book being reviewed is The End of Race Politics, by Coleman Hughes.

2. "Sweatshops: A Means to Human Flourishing," by Jaana Woiceshyn (How to Be Profitable and Moral):

Typically, students grappling with the [factory collapse] case want [Canadian fashion brand] Joe Fresh to pull out of Bangladesh after the disaster, to demand doubling of worker wages, or even to improve working conditions by building their own factory there.

This recent class, however, was particularly thoughtful. The students unanimously agreed that Joe Fresh should continue to source from Bangladesh after the factory collapse -- but learn from the mistake of choosing an unscrupulous, corrupt supplier that ended in a tragedy for the workers, a prison sentence to the supplier, and reputational damage to Joe Fresh.

Despite this bad factory owner, or others like them, there is a moral case for sweatshops: they increase human flourishing through mutually beneficial, voluntary trade.

Following is a good discussion of how active-minded participants in a free market can easily avoid the kind of disasters that lend false credibility to popular negative tropes about sweatshops.

3. "Ramping Back Up After You've Been Off Your Routine," by Jean Moroney (Thinking Directions):

The problem with routines is that you get used to life functioning very smoothly. Then when you get sick or go on vacation or travel for work, some of the routines break. This adds complexity to everything. Suddenly you are behind on writing, out of organized cat food, and your sleep schedule is off. It seems like all of the routines need to be put back in place all at once. But that is the problem.

Moroney follows with a description of her own procedure for returning to normal after disruptions, but is clear that such procedures can be highly individual, depending on such things as the nature of one's work and which routines matter the most overall or underpin other routines.

4. "Trivia Contest," by Harry Binsawnger (Value for Value):

The Randsday Conference, which was a great success, featured my Objectivist trivia contest. Having used the questions before an audience of about 70, I know I can't use them again, so I post them here for your edification and amusement.

Answers are at the bottom.

These are good! For example: "What real person whom Ayn Rand had met was the springboard for Dr. Robert Stadler?"

-- CAV

Better yet, save your time.

George Will -- having had trouble finding a column topic -- must have experienced greatly circumscribed and temporary relief upon recalling the meanness and busy-ness of the new Administration: He quickly filled his column with vignettes like the following:

Elon Musk, who, like Trump, confuses hyperactivity with achievement, is, like Trump, incapable of imagining how his incessant spouting off is making him smaller. When, last week, an X lunatic ("I know Barack Obama is a Kenyan") said, "It's time to leave NATO," Musk had time and inclination to respond: "I agree." Even while busily trying to erase mistakes made by the Constitution's framers (e.g., creating Congress and the separation of powers), Musk has time and inclination to notice and opine about everything, including the need to end history's most successful collective security organization.

Protectionism is another manifestation of Trump's courage. He has plucked from the air a number -- 25 percent seems to entrance him -- as a properly muscular way to (in Rubioese) "stand up for" America with tariffs against two of its economic tormentors. MAGA means protecting America (2024 GDP: $29.16 trillion) from Canada ($2.21 trillion) and Mexico ($1.84 trillion).

You get the same from any member of Trump's personality cult you encounter, in the form of being alerted (often obnoxiously) to his pronouncements -- or at unpredictable moments finding on your person a regurgitated mixture of those pronouncements and whatever after-the-fact "rationale" some obsequious conservative has fashioned as an "argument" in its favor.

But at the end of the day, it all boils down to Uhhh. Whatever Trump says. It's brain-dead, and I wonder why these people even try to communicate at all, since they obviously aren't able to (sometimes even to imagine) offering reasons based on the facts of reality as a means of helping anyone else get on board.

The piece starts with "Little" Marco Rubio and returns to him a few times. I once, ages ago, respected Rubio and wished he'd run for President. He was (or seemed to be) generally free-market and generally had a pro-American foreign policy.

On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump destroyed him with the nickname above, and he has more than earned it since. I have never been so shocked at how small a person has become (or turned out to be) since first encountering that person, and he frankly seems more and more by the day to be representative of the conservative movement overall.

Rubio's complete capitulation to Trump's anti-American foreign policy has still been shocking. Someone said, after an image of Rubio that seemed like it was of a man disgusted with himself captioned the image, "This is what a man who has sold his soul looks like." Robert Zubrin (if I recall correctly) improved upon this: "No, he gave it away for free."

The new Administration's blitzkrieg of horrible policies, petty behavior, and uncertainty have been somewhat disorienting, but the effect pales in comparison to the similar nonstop parade of disappointing sub-humanity that has come with it.

From the yes-men and hucksters Trump has surrounded himself with to the cowards -- Senator Cassidy, "M.D.", I always think of you, first -- who now form almost the entirety of the rest of the Republican Party, it has been a rude shock, but it is one those of us who value liberty must absorb as we adjust our aims and strategies.

(There are a few rare exceptions, but I am increasingly dubious of their prospects of doing much good.)

If the GOP ever was a friend to liberty, that friend is lingering at death's door.

-- CAV

Mardi Gras was great fun, but more on that some other time. The festivities included a ball that had me up past my writer's/old man's relatively early bedtime. A Trump follower made me aware (on that otherwise relatively Trump-free day) that he would be addressing Congress, not that I'd have watched it in real time anyway.

(A question: If Trump knows everything and is omnipotent as so many followers of his seem to imagine, why does he need to deliver a message to us poor slobs at all? Why delay America's Golden Age one more second by prattling about it? I find this question remarkably similar to ones I had as a boy starting off from the supposed need for imperfect, inefficient human missionaries to "spread the word" on behalf of a deity alleged to be omnipotent and ubiquitous -- i.e., more capable and better-placed to do so...)

This post won't be about whatever Trump bloviated on then, but about a couple of pieces I've run across that make interesting points about the President that I think are worth considering.

This post will, however, probably help the reader better grasp why the President does some of the things he does, and communicates about them the way he does.

The first and much longer (and better) of these is a Jonah Goldberg piece at The Dispatch, titled "Judge Trump's Motives, Not Just His Methods," and it is aimed at a common shortcoming in analyses of Trump's actions. (There are a few that aren't tribal embarrassments consisting of blind worship or hysterical smearing.).

Goldberg's piece is a bit long (about 2000 words), but uses multiple examples to build a case that many conservative defenders of Trump, while partly correct to push back against a certain hysterical kind of leftwing criticism of the President's actions, fail to impart true understanding of those actions:

This approach of taking each controversy as a single, isolated argument amounts to debating single trees while ignoring the forest.

To be blunt: This approach's fundamental problem is it treats Trump as a kind of academic abstraction. What can the president do? rather than the more pressing question: Why is this president doing this?

And, much later:

I do not think the smart conservatives I have in mind necessarily disagree with me in whole or in part. But the tendency to fall back on those academic -- and correct! -- arguments about the president's power often hinge on a false assumption about Trump's motives. The motives of a president matter a great deal. His politicization of government institutions is not simply a needed corrective to past politicizations, as sorely deserving those politicizations were in need of correction.

This is not normal. Trump's program isn't really ideological and certainly not "conservative" in any traditional sense. If Trump were overseeing the imposition of Reaganism, or even some ideological agenda I disagreed with, those arguments would have greater purchase with me. But MAGA at its best is a pretext, and more often it's not even that. This is the faux-ideology of one person, one person's vanity, grievances and personal glory.

That's why I think the "why" of it all is much more important than debates about "can." Sure, he can do a lot of things, because the Founders really didn't envision someone like Trump as president. They envisioned the man who presided over the Constitutional Convention, George Washington... [bold added, links omitted]

Regulars will know that Goldberg is no raving leftist willing to impute/project ridiculous alleged motives onto Trump. Goldberg instead follows the proper approach of abstracting a motive from the commonalities of the various controversies.

The second piece is mercifully short (coming as it does from a Trump acolyte) but also less helpful (again, coming as it does from a Trump acolyte). It is about the trademark rhetorical style Trump uses in front of supporters and other people he feels he has power over, and which he himself has called "the weave."

Like the first, what is probably most interesting is what modern conservatives are failing to notice.

Trump's rhetorical style, the piece claims, is intentional, with the President always returning to where he started from. (No, I have not myself verified the claim that the full text of his remarks will prove it, but let's accept the premise here.)

And indeed, this ability to touch on a vast array of topics is precisely what makes President Trump's "weave" so effective. From building his business empire to his time atop the entertainment industry, President Trump has spent his entire career learning to be an effective speaker. Unlike most career politicians who sound rigid and stale in front of a microphone, President Trump has an innate [sic] ability to feel the mood and energy of an audience and adjust accordingly.

Without becoming boring or dull, President Trump provides colorful context while helping anyone listening to him understand the broader connections between various different issues. Through the power of storytelling, he provides the American people with an inside look into the events and interactions that shape his thinking and decision-making. "The weave" is a central part of what makes him the most open and transparent president in American history. [bold added]

Setting aside for a moment, effective? at what?: Many commenters have noted the value of storytelling to build a connection with an audience, and it is well known that some orators are very good a reading a room and throwing out the right kind of red meat. Resist gagging at the obsequiousness and you can see a valid point.

But if Trump is as brilliant as he says he is and is as transparent as his toadies say, where is his ironclad case for tariffs? Or for continuing the "War on Drugs"? Or for releasing actual criminals during his blanket January 6 pardons?

There are no such arguments in these stories, and it is disturbing that so many conservatives are apparently okay with that.

Things work -- or don't -- for reasons in reality, and for the vast majority of matters in politics, ordinary men can understand those reasons.

And a truly honest and effective leader will be able to explain those things to the public in a succinct way they can understand. (Indeed, this is why good leaders make cases so clear that opponents hang themselves when they continue to present opposition.) That is about the one thing "the weave" leaves out altogether.

-- CAV

Or: Down, But Not Out

The first part of this week was already going to be hectic for me, but I fell ill Friday on top of everything. I'm better, but have a weekend's worth of chores and errands to catch up on, and, if my improved health holds up, a Mardi Gras parade ride to do Tuesday.

That opportunity comes courtesy of a relative who is a member of one of the krewes that put on the parades. That will have me busy from the wee hours until the end of that parade Tuesday. And then there's a ball, which my wife is looking forward to.

While I am happy to learn even more about this new-to-me local holiday, and am grateful for the chance to participate in this way, I can't help but remember a parting comment I wrote comparing Christmas to Mardi Gras:

I forgot to mention in my analogy to Christmas, the lack of social pressure to stress out with gift-purchasing (along with outdoing the neighbors on decor). That's a great feature, so far, although I am not so sure the members of the Krewes -- the folks who plan all the parades, balls, and social gatherings -- share that luxury.

It is astounding how much time and effort go into these festivities -- as one can say about almost any field of endeavor one hasn't given much thought about in the past. I'll enjoy tomorrow, but would I want to do something like that every year? I have no idea, but lean to no as I am pretty introverted.

But the beauty is that there is no pressure to do anything, as far as I can tell. It's up to everyone to take it as far as they want or to leave it altogether, aside from the matter of joining a krewe, which I understand, can be an inscrutable process.

As I also said then:

I'm more than happy to have a new reminder to celebrate being alive, and I hope this holiday long outlives the unhappy circumstances of its birth.

Happy Mardi Gras, and I'll be back here Wednesday.

-- CAV