The Deceptive Allure of Preemptive Military Action

In the book ‘Moral Man, Immoral Society’, Reinhold Niebuhr argued that human beings can individually be moral, but that larger groups, societies and nations are essentially immoral entities because they will always act in their perceived best interests and will not be persuaded by moral arguments.  The recent use of preemptive military actions by Israel and the USA to attack Iran are classic examples of this truth.  But the glamor and excitement of military action are almost always followed by the horror of both the intended and unintended consequences, and the creation of new paths of conflict and hatred.

The aftermath of World War Two saw the two dominant powers, the USA and USSR, avoid direct military confrontation, but proxy wars continued to be fought from 1950 to 1990 in Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Afghanistan and many other parts of the globe.

 

Both the USA and the USSR took preemptive military or covert action during that period with little pushback from the world community in places such as the Dominican Republic, Iran, Cuba, Grenada, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Indonesia and numerous African countries.  In the covert actions there was no public acknowledgement of what had been done, so there was no effort at justification other than internal, secret arguments based on the amorphous goal of national security.  The public justification for explicit military action was anti-communism for the USA and anti-imperialism for the USSR.

A close analysis of these actions and their consequences would certainly call into question their efficacy.  The toll of death and political dysfunction left in their wake was tragic and has left a legacy of perennial chaos in many cases.

 

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the USA had free rein in military adventurism.  Its first venture, the Gulf War of 1990, was largely perceived as a success in the west and gave the USA an inflated sense of its ability to effect rapid responses to world events or perceived problems through military means.

 

The debacle in Somalia in 1993 (the Battle of Mogadishu) dampened that hubris temporarily, but the successful NATO involvement in the Bosnian War gave renewed confidence to the US.  The 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in NYC in 2001 created a mania for military response that ultimately led to ‘forever wars’ in Afghanistan and Iraq with both short- and long-term negative results and massive civilian deaths and displacement.

 

Israel, a nation founded in war, has perceived itself to be in a state of war for its entire existence.  It has initiated preemptive military action numerous times without hesitation and its intelligence services have become the most adept assassins in world history.  But all its clever bombing and killing has not brought it any closer to living in peace with its neighbors and the Palestinian people who live in shameful misery within its territory.  

 

The only real impediments to preemptive military actions and assassinations are a recognition of the unintended and long-term consequences that may result.  Moral or ethical concerns play little or no role, but historical perspective should give every nation pause.  Diplomacy, sanctions and world pressure may be frustratingly slow to produce desired results, but beware the allure of a quick fix that is just sowing future seeds of disaster.

The Irony and Hypocrisy of MAGA Immigrant Hostility

Immigration is a difficult issue and it is roiling every wealthy country.  Liberal democracies have tried to control immigration but have been fairly receptive to it for both humanitarian (wars, famine and repression) and economic reasons (to compensate for declining citizen birthrates).  Populist groups within these countries have emerged as almost single-issue parties, riding a wave of hysteria about the economic, cultural and crime aspects of immigration. 

 

In the USA, Donald Trump won his first nomination almost solely on the basis of his anti-immigrant rhetoric after race-baiting his way into public awareness with the infamous birther conspiracy theory.  And there is little doubt that his dark denunciations of immigrants were a major factor in his election last November.

 

In a troubled world with political, economic and climate catastrophes on every front, it is not surprising that large numbers of people dare to attempt crossing into countries where there is much more opportunity to live freely and in peace, and to become economically stable.  There is a very fine line between refugees, economic migrants, and climate migrants.  The motivations are really no different than they were when our ancestors made the trip to this new land.

 

How much immigration is manageable for a country without destabilizing it in some way or another is a tricky question.  It is particularly fraught in a time when globalization is giving way to unilateralism, and the post-industrial economy is dramatically changing the labor market.

 

It is reasonable, though somewhat dubious in terms of moral and ethical principles, to say no when immigration rates become too high.  But this refusal should be made with a heavy heart and as much empathy as a government and its people can express.  It should break all of our hearts to have to turn away the stranger in need.

 

But the MAGA world, strongly characterized by its self-proclaimed evangelical Christianity, indulges an almost maniacal animosity toward immigrants.  Trump and Vance routinely slander undocumented immigrants and describe them with racist and demeaning language.  They are cast as criminals, drug addicts, terrorists and lazy opportunists.  The MAGA Christians cheer as masked gestapo-like ICE agents round up dreamers who have been here since childhood.  

 

Where is their Jesus in this?  “For I was a stranger, and you welcomed me”.  Where is the love and the sacrificial charity that is the very essence of Jesus’s teachings?  It is both ironic and deeply hypocritical that the MAGA world, with its loud pretense of Christian piety, should be so stridently and heartlessly vindictive to the desperate people that have risked all and started anew as strangers in our land.  Shame on them! 

FX Saturation or Oh no, Not Another Tom Cruise Movie!

Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in the theaters!  Ho hum.   Ok, let’s all just agree that Tom Cruise is one badass dude.  He is a living example of how massive wealth can keep aging in abeyance (or perhaps there is really is something to that scientology stuff?). But quite frankly, I will be perfectly happy to never see or hear about his derring do again in my rapidly diminishing lifespan.

I loved Mission Impossible when it was on television, though I imagine those episodes would seem dated and lame if I were to be desperate enough to watch them again.  In my youth I was fascinated by all the secret agent stuff and loved a good war movie.  I could sit through a couple minute car chase and a lengthy fistfight and be fascinated with the special effects necessary to stage them.  I was eager to watch each new Hollywood blockbuster.

 

But now I avoid them like the plague.  When I am forced to watch one due to social pressures, I find all the endless battle and chase scenes with all their incredibly high-tech CGI and special effects boring, trite and formulaic.  They simply do not interest me in the slightest anymore. I start to root for the evil guys out of sheer indifference.

 

Perhaps it is the fact that at almost 71 years of age I have seen so many adventure movies that I just don’t see anything new or intriguing in them.  I am particularly saturated with special effects.  I couldn’t even get excited by most of the Star Wars movies, though I was absolutely blown away by the first one.  I loved the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, but after that, Harrison Ford just left me cold (envy perhaps?)

 

I’ve only seen a few of the Marvel franchise or any of the other superhero stuff.  As a kid, I read comic books nonstop and would have killed to see blockbusters like the ones that seem to come out every few months. But now I couldn’t care less about the Fabulous Four or Green Lantern or any of the others whose names have now slipped into inaccessible spots in my memory.

 

Is it just me?  Is everyone else adoring this constant flow of Hollywood blockbusters with their ever more expensive, elaborate and stupefying special effects?  Do I no longer have my childlike wonder?  Can I no longer be thrilled by a fantastic adventure?

 

My movie and series tastes are very narrow now, and I find fewer and fewer things that really capture my imagination or that don’t seem terribly cliché to me.  But that’s ok.  I read more books and I find less sensational fare to pique my interest. I am a victim of FX saturation, but I can still fall in love with a book or a movie.  I guess I just have to accept that I am a bit of a snob and learn to live with it. 

No Political Party Has the Answer for the Post-Industrial Economy

The Post-industrial Economy is upon us.  The developed world is experiencing the death throes of industrial labor as a combination of automation and off-shoring to lower wage countries relentlessly eliminates manufacturing jobs.  Delusions about ‘bringing back manufacturing’, as voiced by Trump and other populists, will appear ever more irrational as the exponential advances in AI and robotics put the final nail in the coffin.

In reality, the post-industrial economy has been insidiously emerging over the last 90 years, as the service industry grew exponentially and other labor sectors stabilized or declined due to automation.  Here is a graph that depicts how services have increasingly dwarfed manufacturing and agriculture since 1840.

Significant numbers of manufacturing jobs left the US for lower wage countries.  Advances in robotics and AI will replace even those jobs at some point in the near future, just as automation essentially reduced farmwork to a skeleton crew of farmers and seasonal workers whose jobs few Americans want and are likely to be performed eventually by clever robots.

 

So now the future of labor is in services and so-called ‘knowledge work’ – jobs that require specialized education.  But for a significant segment of our population the service jobs are a poor substitute for the high-paying factory jobs of the past.  

 

Why is the average service job so much lower paying than the manufacturing jobs?  One theory is that the service sector has very low union representation compared to factory work. Collective bargaining has historically been one of the primary means for workers to achieve a better standard of living.  But even with labor unions, it is unlikely that the majority of service jobs will provide a satisfying standard of living.

 

In addition to traditional service jobs, there is a growing segment of so-called ‘gig jobs’.  These are jobs that are often independent work for limited periods of time making use of the Internet, social media, or working for Big Tech as contract labor.  These jobs may have a reasonable level of compensation, but they are typically short-lived and workers must hustle to stay employed and achieve a continuous cash flow.

 

As automation continues to advance it will no doubt take over many service jobs.  Much of customer support has already been automated, and brick and mortar storefronts and salespeople are disappearing.  Logistics, trucking, ride services, low level legal services, initial medical diagnoses, cashier services, fast food services and many other services can conceivably be partially or totally replaced by AI and robotics.

 

New service and gig jobs will be created, and perhaps there is no limit to what new ways people will find to make money, but it is likely to be a much more chaotic and uncertain labor model.  Can social media influencer be a career?  Will there be any stability in the work life of the vast majority of people?  

 

Neither the democrats nor the republicans nor the MAGA world have the faintest idea how to recreate the American workplace of the 50’s and 60’s.  Trade wars won’t do it.  Culture wars and immigration raids won’t do it.  Even taxing the rich more won’t do it, though using some of their vast wealth to create a better infrastructure, universal healthcare and free education might at least make the stagnating middle class less vulnerable.

 

We are facing a brave new labor world.  Populists have benefitted from the fear, anger and uncertainty that this new world has provoked, but they will be no more successful in finding a solution than the globalist elites that they have blamed and castigated.  The invisible hand of the market will flail helplessly.  Bold new social engineering ideas are needed ASAP, or the future will be one of disharmony and revolution.

Separating Anti-Israel Protests and Violence

The recent killings of a Jewish/Israeli couple and a Molotov cocktail attack on people at a rally for Jewish hostages in Gaza are tragic events and there is no justification for them.  However, the immediate efforts by the Trump regime and MAGA world to associate these acts of violence with the general protests against Israel’s war on Gaza and treatment of the Palestinian people are entirely misplaced and reprehensible.

There are protests against Israel taking place around the world.  European nations have taken strong stands against the disproportionate Israeli response to the October 7^th attacks and the recent use of humanitarian aid restrictions as a war strategy.  There have been sharp increases in anti-Jewish actions in these countries, though I know of no murders having been committed despite a far higher degree of anti-Israeli feeling and expression than in the USA.

 

Whether these are also associated with latent antisemitism is very difficult to discern.  The simple fact is that Jews are very closely associated with Israel, and the passionate feelings about Israel’s conduct of its war find expression in protests and opinions that are focused on Jews. 

 

Violent acts are often coincident with passionate protesting and criticism.  During the Vietnam War protests, a small number of people took violent action in expressing their rage against the war and the ‘system’.  During the civil rights era, an armed section of the Black Panthers committed violent acts in their belief that peaceful protest would not bring equality.  But in neither case were those violent acts seen as a justification for clamping down on peaceful protest and differences of opinion.

 

Violent acts like the two most recent ones would probably have taken place even if there were no protests on campuses.  Let’s face it, violence is endemic in our country.  Every effort should be made to prevent these acts, but denying people the right to protest and express opposition to US policies and deporting everyone who has voiced any concern about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people are the behaviors of a despotic regime.

 

Anti-Semitism vs Anti-Israelism

Big news!  The MAGA world has become the noble standard-bearer for the fight against antisemitism.  Hurray, hurray!  Their righteous fury over Palestinian protests and campus efforts to defund America’s support of Israel is a sign of their deep affection for Jewish people and their unyielding support for non-discrimination and tolerance, right?  Yeah, right.

The Trump regime, Christian evangelicals and other MAGA types have become strange bedfellows with the Jewish world and Israel.  Jews might be wise to view this passionate embrace with a bit of skepticism, as fervent Christians have not historically been the best supporters of Jewish people (see the inquisition, the pogroms, the holocaust and a long list of other less-than-affectionate treatments).

 

Christian evangelicals are supportive of Israel primarily because the return of the Jewish people to the holy land is seen as a pre-cursor to the second coming of Jesus and the Armageddon.  Christians are also not big fans of Islam, which may play a role in their newfound Jewish affinity.

 

As for Trump and the political right, their crusading efforts on behalf of Israel’s war in Gaza and their indignation over supposed antisemitic trends in American society are simply a way to demonize the left and provide a means for launching their war against universities.  They couldn’t care less about Jews or tolerance or antisemitism.

 

I understand the deep-seated fear in Jewish people of any hint of antisemitism, and their paranoia about their security, whether here in America, in Europe or in Israel.  The history of antisemitism is long and painful.

 

But here is the thing:  It is not unreasonable to believe that Israel has gone far beyond its right to defend itself in inflicting devastation and horror on Gaza.  There is an element of cry-wolf in Israel’s painting itself as constantly in existential danger.  Israel is the most powerful nation in the middle East and perhaps one of the most powerful in the world.  Its military and intelligence services are incredibly capable and it also has nuclear weapons.  It has more or less wiped out Hezbollah and it has made Iran look weak and impotent in every encounter.

 

Israel has become a bully as regards the Palestinian territories and people.  Its settler-dominated government and increasingly extremist political slant is clearly intent on seizing as much of Gaza as possible and continuing to steal land and settle the West Bank.  It has been building settlements in the West Bank continuously since the 1967 invasion and there are now over 700,000 settlers in this territory that the UN and most nations consider occupied land.

 

Jewish people have associated Israel with Jewish identity from the start.  Jewish people in the United States embrace this association.  Therefore, it is not hard to understand why anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiments are also conflated with anti-Jewish feelings.  If I am criticizing Israel’s actions, am I antisemitic?  If I am calling for an end to military support of Israel until it ends the war in Gaza am I pro-Hamas?  A large number of Israelis and Jews in the United States have voiced similar feelings.

 

It is absurd to categorize the majority of anti-Israel protests as antisemitic.  And it is dangerous to use a pretense of protecting Jews from antisemitism to prosecute or deport protestors on campus or anywhere else.  America is at its strongest when it embraces free speech and the opportunity for competing views to express themselves, even in fairly energetic protests and marches.  The Trump regime has all the characteristics of a nascent police state, and this fake concern about antisemitism is a ruse that must be fought on every level before it assumes even more frightening forms.

If Push Came to Shove

The Trump regime has shown a willingness, a delight even, to cross the boundaries of legality, constitutionality and ethics.  Trump believes that he is empowered to do just about anything he pleases, and this time he has filled the government with lackeys who will carry out his every wish without hesitation.

The only thing that has stood in his way up to now is the judiciary.  Even Trump-appointed judges have shown some level of integrity and opposed his more egregious executive orders.  This has irritated Trump and his minions to no small degree, and they have already indicated that they are willing to bypass or ignore court decisions if they see fit.

 

Thus, the question arises: who can stop Trump if he chooses to go full dictator and ignores court rulings? Given the current obsequious nature of the republican-controlled congress, there is little chance that they will intercede or attempt to rein him in.  The only force left that is capable of stopping him would be the American people.  I believe there will be mass protests if Trump openly defies the courts.

 

But Trump has already indicated that he would eagerly deploy the armed forces if significant protests occur. Therefore, the most important question we may face in the months ahead is whether the US military will allow itself to be used by Trump to quell protests in a situation where he has clearly violated the constitution and any reasonable interpretation of presidential authority and ethics.

 

The military is expected to be apolitical.  It has both civilian and military leadership, with the President being the commander-in-chief.  But every officer in the military takes an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  In theory, if there is a conflict between the President and the Constitution, their path is clear: to protect and defend the constitution.

 

The military is conservative and masculine by nature.  Does this imply that it will tend to be supportive of the Trump ethos?  If one believes the Hollywood blockbuster version of the military, it would not be difficult to imagine the military falling in line with Trump’s authoritarian dictates.  But as a former military officer and the son, grandson and nephew of Naval Academy graduates, I have a very strong opinion that contradicts this assumption.

 

For US military officers, character, leadership qualities and discipline are the most important personal attributes.  Military officers detest poor character.  They admire honesty, modesty, integrity and ethical behavior.  

 

Trump’s macho version of America may appeal to the common soldier, but his character flaws, his lying, his boasting, his preening, his immorality, his lack of ethics and his arrogance are red flags to military leaders.  They will support him up to a point simply because he is the commander-in-chief, but I firmly believe that they will refuse to comply with orders to take arms against the American people if Trump has violated the constitution.

 

I sense that Trump’s momentum is already beginning to wane and that the consequences of his chaotic first months and his economic missteps will soon manifest themselves and prevent the worst from happening.  But I also am confident that if push comes to shove, the American military will demonstrate its true nature and integrity and oppose the first American tyrant.

Budget Thoughts

The ‘big, beautiful bill’ that Trump is pushing through congress is on its way to the senate, where, unlike the house, there is a tiny bit of spine left in republicans and the possibility that there may be significant changes before it becomes law.  But that is probably a bit of wistful optimism.

What does this bill accomplish?  First, it preserves the tax cuts that a republican-dominated congress pushed through under Trump in 2017.  These tax cuts were passed with the promise that they would stimulate growth and more than compensate for their cost.  The deficit grew from 0.67T in 2017 to 0.98T in 2019, so this was clearly wrong.

 

Republican orthodoxy has always insisted that tax cuts will stimulate economic growth and tax increases will hurt the economy.  The logic behind this is that tax cuts put more money in people’s pockets to spend and also to invest.  But the truth is harder to discern and most economists disagree with this assumption. 

And here is an observation that is anecdotal, but very likely valid:  a large percentage of my generation, the baby boomers, is much wealthier than my parents were.  We have more money, more wealth than we really deserve to have.  We don't need new tax cuts. If you look around at today's opulent homes, the restaurants that are full every night of the week, the travel and shopping catalogs that bulge in our mailboxes and the massive cars that we drive, it is all too clear that a significant part of our society is disproportionately wealthy when compared to the bottom half.

 

If most of the tax cuts go to the wealthy, who already have high net incomes and extensive investment portfolios, then how is that money actually used?  Do the rich buy more and more things and stimulate the economy?  Do they invest in more start-ups?  It seems to me that there is a point of saturation, where additional income and wealth to the top 20% have little positive effect on the economy and merely ratchet up the equity and real estate markets, where the rich store their vast wealth.  

 

What seems more likely to stimulate the economy is putting money into the hands of the bottom 50%, whether through tax breaks, social programs, infrastructure improvements or redistribution scenarios.  That group will definitely spend all of that money.

 

The Trump budget also seeks to somewhat compensate for the tax cuts by slashing various so-called entitlement programs, with Medicaid and SNAP being two of the biggest targets.  These programs have long been vilified by the right.  The impact of these reductions on poverty, health, hunger and basic social safety net issues could be disastrous, but the MAGA world believes that fraud and abuse are rampant in these programs and is rabid to push their cost-cutting agenda as a far as possible while they still have majorities in congress.

 

This ‘big, beautiful bill’ has a deficit price tag of $3.8T over the period from 2026-2034 (non-partisan analysis from the congressional budget office), which is ironic, considering the hysteria from the right during the election cycle over the national debt.  But this kind of hypocrisy is not new – Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump all increased the budget deficit after railing against it to win the office.

 

The budget decreases in tax revenue will no doubt decrease the IRS budget further, which will allow the estimated $600B of annual individual tax cheating to continue.  Furthermore, there appears to be no will to force corporations to pay taxes on profits that they earn in the USA but manage to transfer to low-tax havens like Ireland.

 

So, all in all a pretty amazing level of incoherent nonsense in this budget.  But all a budget has to have to make it big and beautiful for the MAGA world is the words ‘tax cuts’ and ‘defense increases’.  A big, beautiful golden dome is the cherry on top.  It should complete our isolationism and protectionism.  But beware, we don’t exist in a vacuum and the way that the rest of the world reacts to our lunacy may yet rain heavily on the MAGA parade.

Obsessed With Revenge

If one has to choose a single defining characteristic of the MAGA world it would have to be their thirst for revenge.  Trump is the avenger-in-chief, but vengeance and retribution are the animating impulses throughout the cult.

But why this mania for revenge?  Why does the MAGA world feel so aggrieved and vengeful?  What are the underlying causes and how did we get to the point where much of Trump’s world revels in the outright mocking cruelty that he, Musk and others employ in pursuing the Project 2025 agenda?

 

The first cause that comes to mind is resentment of the intellectual elites.  The MAGA world is primarily, though certainly not entirely, composed of people with less education.  Education level does not necessarily correlate with intelligence, but there is definitely a predisposition in society to associate the two.  Over time, people with less education may feel demeaned or underestimated, even if not specifically ridiculed by those with more education.  And certainly,  in the partisan battles of the last several decades there has been a tendency of the educated left to speak condescendingly of the less-educated right.

 

The second cause is an angry lashing out at the implication that the right has no compassion or conscience. The right’s positions on social services, extreme income inequality, immigration, incarceration and other ‘issues of conscience’ are often characterized as lacking compassion or empathy.  Being labeled in this way is particularly galling for people who consider themselves to be the moral and religious compass of society.  The secret guilt of rejecting the very fundamental teachings of the Jesus that they claim to follow is transformed into an indignant and angry outrage.

 

The third cause is the ‘woke culture’ obsession and backlash.  Confronted with multiple themes of a changing society – sexual freedom, the decline of religious affiliation, reproductive freedom, immigration, gay marriage, gender concepts and transsexuality, racial reconciliation, new definitions of patriotism and reassessments of US history – the MAGA world has felt overwhelmed and alienated.  Finding themselves labelled as backward or unable to adapt, the reaction has been one of fury and self-righteousness.  Rather than rationally discuss or attempt to find compromises to the woke cultural changes, the goal has become the complete negation of them and a furious attempt to punish any and all who endorsed them.

 

And a fourth cause is the shock and pain of having MAGA disinformation debunked and their glorious leader indicted for multiple different crimes.  The fact that no court in the land has ever legitimized the claims of a stolen 2020 election or that a jury of regular citizens found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation, or that over 1500 people were convicted by juries of their peers of crimes associated with the January 6^th riots have created an insatiable hunger for vengeance.  This is another example of the furiously aggressive reaction that people with guilty consciences have to perceived slights.

 

Seeking revenge is not the act of any leader or movement with integrity.  It is the classic ploy of a tyrant and his henchmen.  Trump has brought the entire MAGA cult down to his level, and whipped up Orwellian doublespeak versions of reality:  that they are the persecuted, that they have lost their freedom of religion and speech, that the USA is being exploited by other countries.  And thus they seek retribution, indulging in a cathartic orgy of cruel and petty acts, with Trump as their mighty sword of vengeance.

Prometheus Bound and Eve Condemned

It seems that our ancient ancestors had a variety of views of how human beings sought or acquired a thirst for knowledge.  There is a wealth of different mythologies that give us insight into our religious and intellectual heritage.  If one takes the time to study several of them, it becomes clear that our struggle to answer basic questions about our existence is universal, and that any claim to be the absolute truth is dubious.

In Greek mythology, the story of Prometheus explores the creation of humankind and the gift of fire, the arts, science and other knowledge.  Prometheus was a titan whose love for humankind inspired him to oppose Zeus and secretly provide fire to the newly created humans and then teach them language and the love of the arts, literature and science.  Zeus punished him by having him bound in chains on a mountaintop.  Each day an eagle would attack him and eat his liver, which would heal overnight so as to allow the horrible act to be repeated endlessly.

 

Prometheus was celebrated as a heroic figure.  The quest for knowledge and the love of all of the arts and sciences was paramount in Greek culture.  The search for meaning and understanding produced a myriad of philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, dramatists, poets, architects, orators and other luminaries that are still recognized today as the richest lode of human advancement.

 

The bible gives a very different take on human striving for knowledge.  After creating Adam and Eve, God provides an idyllic garden for the new humans, but forbids them to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Eve persuades Adam to eat the fruit after being tempted by a serpent and this is perceived as the original sin of humankind.  

 

There is no heroic Prometheus in this version, and if the message to quit seeking knowledge wasn’t strong enough, it is repeated in Genesis 6 with the story of the tower of Babel.  Humans began building a tower as a means to achieve new knowledge and capabilities, and God was not amused.  He scattered them across the earth and made them all speak different languages so as to limit their ability to make progress together.

 

Is it any wonder that religions based on the bible have had such a difficult time reconciling the spiritual and the rational?  No wonder a big part of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish world doesn’t accept evolution and is so suspicious of scientific inquiry and research.

 

And what to think of poor Eve, whose curiosity and persuasive arts led to her being cursed with the most dangerous and painful childbirth in nature and branded with the reputation of being treacherous and conniving for most of history.  No heroic treatment for her like Prometheus.

 

But lest we think the Greeks were paragons of gender equality, be aware that the story of Prometheus is often related with the appearance of Pandora, the first woman, whose box of ills and plagues is given by Zeus in retaliation for Prometheus’s gift.  And, of course, Pandora, weak, beautiful, treacherous and deceitful woman that she is, cannot contain her curiosity and opens the box, releasing all the plagues that humankind must endure.

 

Yes, it seems that no matter which mythology you endorse, women get condemned and slandered.  Almost makes you suspect that these mythologies were all composed by men!

Trump’s Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study performed under Professor Zimbardo at Stanford University in 1971.  It was designed to study antisocial behavior and involved the observation of how volunteer guards reacted when given authority over volunteer prisoners.  The experiment was terminated early because of the increasing brutality of some of the ‘guards’.

Trump is conducting a similar project, imbuing various cabinet members and their newly hired underlings with the imprimatur of executive authority and instructing them to perform various aggressively undemocratic actions.  The results are horrifyingly similar to the Stanford experiment, but no one yet has had the power or temerity to stop this project.

 

Marco Rubio (or little Marco, as Trump once demeaned him), flush with his new authority as Secretary of State, has revoked visas and permits for hundreds of students who protested against the Israeli conduct of the war in Gaza, in direct violation of their basic right to free speech.  He accuses them of antisemitism, though many Jewish students were hand-in-hand with these students in demonstrations and protests.  

 

The same is true for Kristi Noem, whose cruelly zealous prosecution of undocumented immigrants while taking every opportunity to burnish her image in photo ops, is a perfect example of how power can provoke sadistic and anti-social behavior.

 

JD Vance, the attack dog for Trump, abandoned any semblance of integrity when he left the Never Trump Camp and courted Trump at Mar-a-Lago, desperate for the next step in his political ascendancy.  Now he spews out ever more mean-spirited diatribes against any country or person or principle that stands in the way of the MAGA cult.

 

Hegseth, the veritable poster child of toxic masculinity, is rampaging through the military in a petty, vindictive manner, hoping to win the award for most slavishly devoted to master Trump.  After all, his time as a Fox host worshipping Trump got him the job. 

 

Trump, who needs no motivation to lash out in vengeful, sadistic acts, is using every tool at his disposal to attack, belittle, disenfranchise, persecute, threaten and extort anyone standing in his way.

 

The type of people who have signed on for the MAGA ride and imbibed the Trump kool aid are in free fall.  Like the Zimbardo guards, they are empowered well beyond normal social boundaries.  They are the type of people who embrace power trips and rationalize cruelty.  

 

When I went to Naval Officer’s Candidate School in Newport, RI after college, I experienced a mini version of the Stanford experiment.  Older officer candidates were given authority to make life very difficult for new ones in the quest to break down individuality and create a team unity and military discipline.  They responded to this responsibility in different ways.  About two thirds of them did the required work with integrity, finding no joy in the process but carrying it out in a competent manner.  But one third of them succumbed to the temptation to give their inner demons full voice.  They became sadistic taskmasters and reveled in the fear and unpleasantness they inflicted on their charges.  It shocked me how quickly these people lost their humanity, then pretended it was all part of the game once it was over.

 

The Trump team is an all-star cast of people with this predisposition for antisocial behavior.  They are not so unlike the Himmlers, the Goebbels and the Heydrichs of a previous experiment of empowering people’s darker selves.  The only question is whether there are enough remaining people of conscience in our three branches of government to rein in this experiment before it permanently damages our country.

When Everything is an Emergency

Tariffs on Canada and Mexico because of the so-called fentanyl emergency.  Tariffs on the rest of the world because of the national emergency described as the poor ‘international economic position of the United States and the need to protect American workers’.  Mass deportations based on the 1789 wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.  Arrests and deportations of students who protested Israeli actions in Gaza with essentially no justification at all other than a vague and unconvincing order to fight antisemitism.  The firing of large numbers of federal employees with almost no analysis or justification or congressional oversight.

Trump has declared multiple emergency situations and has claimed emergency executive power in an avalanche of executive decisions that have sidelined congress and centralized the direction of almost all government activity in the oval office.  Trump has become a dictator.  This is not a representative democracy and we are perilously close to becoming an authoritarian state.

 

Congress is unwilling and/or unable to rein him in, because republicans live in fear of having Trump or Musk single them out as unfaithful to the MAGA cause and losing their next election.  The tiny republican majorities in the house and senate ensure that the outrage from the democratic side remains impotent. The legitimacy of these sweeping executive actions will be tested in the courts, but Trump has already extorted law firms and threatened judges with impeachment to game the system.  

 

Trump’s apologists would argue that he must perform these executive actions because they are urgent and congress has been unable to move quickly or decisively.  But the reason congress has been stymied for many years is that the country is deeply divided.  Overriding congress to take aggressive actions at a time when the country is struggling to find a balance in opinion and direction threatens our democracy and the rule of law.  The consequences may be disastrous.

 

Trump’s arrogance and narcissism are well known.  His reliance on his business instinct, forged in the cauldron of his street-brawling real estate and construction deals, is for the most part unguided by respected experts.  His MAGA advisors are not highly regarded and they were clearly chosen primarily for their loyalty and sycophancy. 

 

Trump may be successful in ‘evening the playing field’ with some trading partners, because the USA is the most powerful economic nation on earth.  But the long-term consequences of a chaotic and mean-spirited USA will certainly be the loss of trust and respect in the world community, and may be the end of our exalted economic position as nations adjust their alliances and trading relationships to a new world order.

Trump’s America is a Bully and a Spoiled Brat

Here are a few facts that reflect on Trump’s assertion that the USA has been taken advantage of by other nations and that we desperately need to put America first.  The first fact is that our GDP is by far the largest in the world and is seven to fifteen times more than the GDP of the next ten strongest economies excluding China, whose GDP is a little more than half of ours.  The per capita GDP is also very high, eclipsing all but a few small-nation outliers – Luxemburg, Switzerland, Iceland and Singapore.

The second fact is that our average personal wealth is more than twice that of every other developed nation, with the exception of Luxemburg, Switzerland and Hong Kong.  The third fact is that the average wages in the USA are higher than every other nation except Luxemburg, Hong Kong and Iceland. 

It is hard to argue that the USA is suffering in a general sense.  We are the acknowledged technology capital of the world, we have been the largest producer of crude oil in the world since 2018, we have an unmatched military capability, and we have untapped natural resources and vast areas of arable land that are the envy of the world.  

 

Trump’s brutal trade policies and his threats to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada can only be interpreted as the antics of a spoiled child and bully that will never be satisfied.  There is no rationale, either economic or political, for these hyper aggressive actions, other than the greedy frenzy of an arrogant, ignorant MAGA group led by two narcissistic autocrats.

 

It is true that the last 30 years have left a good part of the American population behind with stagnating wages and cultural shocks.  The high wages and wealth skew wildly toward the top end of the American wealth demographic.  Somehow, Trump has managed to convince this group that radical liberals and the rest of the world are at fault for their economic malaise.  This fiction will not stand the test of time, but Trump’s strategy will no doubt be to shut the door on any democratic processes and eliminate all opposition before that happens.  

 

The USA is powerful and can assert its will on many nations even if the terms are wildly unjust and punitive. A bully can prevail for a time.  But in the long run, I believe there is enough strength and integrity in other nations to enable a re-ordering of world commerce and affairs.  The sad truth for us is that it will be the stature and economic strength of the USA that will be diminished in the end.  This is what happens to bullies and spoiled brats.

Patience

I am not a particularly patient person.  This is most evident in my driving habits.  I like to say that I am an energetic driver, but it is clear that I generally am impatient and too eager to get to my destination in the most efficient and fastest way possible.  My impatience is also evident in my unwillingness to endure long plateaus in new hobbies or acquiring new skills.  I am not big on persevering if progress doesn’t come pretty quickly.  

Recently, I have been confronted with an example of patience and perseverance that is making me reevaluate my own predisposition for impatience: my grandson.  He was born on October 18^th and I have seen him about every two weeks since his birth.

 

The thing that has really made an impression on me is how much time it takes for a baby to develop various physical capabilities.  Other animals can ambulate almost immediately.  Our family watched an Icelandic horse give birth to a foal that was up and walking within minutes!  Baby birds start to fly around two weeks – is that crazy or what?

 

My grandson, Oliver, whom I love dearly, just recently found his feet at five months.  He is capable of flinging his arms and kicking his feet quite energetically, but he is just now learning how to control his hands to bring objects up to his mouth for exploration.  He can roll over, but not back yet.  Crawling is months away and when he finally walks, at about a year, he will ‘toddle’ like a drunken sailor for another year.

 

Human babies are incredibly slow developing in the realm of physical capabilities.  They are literally helpless for years!  But something very profound and amazing is going on behind the scenes during all that time.  That big human brain is gobbling up much of the energy provided by its caregivers and creating a basis for incredibly complex activities in the future.

 

And despite the apparent frustratingly slow progress on the physical front, Oliver is undeterred.  He tries again and again to make different movements or explore different sounds or try different facial expressions.  He learns how to smile and laugh and emit shrieks of glee or frustration or discomfort.  

 

As it slowly dawns on him that his parents and others around him have amazing freedom of movement and speech, he recommits himself each day to emulating them.  His determination, and yes, his patience, are laudable.  He will not leap up and walk right away, nor will he make an intelligible sound for some time.  But he works on it, making slow but steady progress.  

 

Maybe I need to be more like Oliver.  I need to be willing to keep plugging away at the things I become interested in.  I need to persevere.  And maybe, like Oliver, I will find that some amazing things are going on behind the scenes when I persevere and be very happy with the long term result.

The Trump Gestapo

The arrest and possible deportation of numerous students who protested on campus against Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza is a shocking and dangerous assault on free speech.  It is reminiscent of the early moves by the Nazi regime to eliminate political opponents.  If our country cannot allow people to express their opinions freely and without repercussion then what kind of a democracy do we have?

The video of the Tufts graduate student being arrested by ICE is chilling to the bone.  Masked agents taking her into custody as she left her home as though she were a desperate criminal.  What kind of America is this?  If Trump had been our president during the Vietnam War, he would no doubt have made mass arrests of student protesters and attempted to silence all criticism.  

 

There is only one way to interpret these actions: a rapid descent into an authoritarian police state.  The ICE Gestapo are the first step.  What comes next?  Every patriotic American should go out into the streets and demand an end to these vengeful and unlawful acts before it is too late.

A Return to the Dark Ages?

Science funding cuts, vaccine skeptics elevated to key positions, incompetent sycophants in cabinet positions, climate change denial, a fire hose of falsehoods, religious fundamentalism directing public policy, attacks on the judiciary, retribution initiated against all perceived enemies or critics.  The Trump/Musk regime, in its quest for vengeance, is doing its best to send America back to a modern variant of the dark ages.

It is hard to know how many of the Trump/Musk initiatives are ideological and how many are simply tossing red meat to the adoring minority of the population that feeds their massive egos. Trump famously denied any knowledge of Project 2025 and even suggested that some of it was too extreme, but he has been following its playbook almost to the letter.

 

The half of the population that voted for Trump was motivated by various concerns, but chief among them was the economy and the declining quality of life for much of the middle class.  The actions that Trump has taken to address these issues have mainly been chaotic and unfocused, such as imposing and rescinding tariffs on an almost daily basis.  Or cutting important programs to supposedly decrease our deficit, though the programs’ cost is down in the noise of the federal budget.  

Congress may, by some sleight of hand, be able to make some popular cuts in taxes before the midterms, but the promised return of manufacturing, and a solution for the general economic malaise are highly unlikely to occur by then, or ever, for that matter.

 

The anti-DEI, anti-abortion, anti-vaccine, anti-science, climate denying part of MAGA that is propelling us toward a new dark age is probably much smaller, perhaps as low as 25% of the population.  But they are a highly agitated group and they worship Trump.  Trump and Musk may find it euphoric to bathe in the glow of their frenzied adulation, but I suspect that their promotion of those causes will backfire in the midterms, especially if no economic benefits have accrued.

 

Is the USA really regressing to a state of ignorance where most of its citizenry rejects science, revels in conspiracy theories, and seeks a return to conservative religious values?  I refuse to accept that as inevitable and I expect the American people to deal a crippling blow to the MAGA extremists in less than 20 months.

 

 

Trade Deficits, Tariffs, AI and the Future of Manufacturing

One of Trump’s signature obsessions is the trade deficit.  He sees everything as win/lose, and despite the fact that most economists disagree with his position, he believes he can use tariffs to erase our trade deficit and bring back manufacturing jobs to America.

The loss of manufacturing jobs here has occurred over several decades.  It is not difficult to understand why.  Once global trade and relations offered the opportunity for developing nations to play in the game, their lower labor rates made the shift inevitable.  The result was a loss of middle-class jobs here, but also the increased availability of less expensive goods.  

 

The use of tariffs to ‘even the playing field’ will certainly make goods more expensive.  But will it truly bring back manufacturing to our country?  It seems that tariffs would have to be applied worldwide to avoid just having the manufacturing move from one low-cost labor country to another.  And the investment and time necessary to create new factories here would require investors to believe that this is a long-term phenomenon and not just a Trumpian phase that will be gone in a year or two.

 

But there is an interesting question about the future of all manufacturing that plays a role here and makes Trump’s vision of an American factory renaissance even less likely.  The question is this one:  how will AI impact manufacturing in the next 20 years? 

 

About 10 years ago I visited a brand-new diesel engine plant in Mississippi.  Mississippi was no doubt chosen because of its low labor rates and the lower probability of union formation.  The general manager of the plant told me that the starting salaries for workers were around $18-20/hour, much lower than traditional manufacturing salaries in years gone by.  But more astounding was the fact that the total number of workers in the plant was around 400, in stark comparison to previous engine plants where the number was closer to 4000.  The use of robotics and automation had reduced the number of workers by a factor of 10.

 

As the AI juggernaut accelerates, which no doubt will spur major improvements in manufacturing automation and robotics, how many jobs will future manufacturing plants actually have?  It is highly likely that the great majority of these jobs will disappear.  If so, then the location of a factory will become less dependent on the cost of local labor.  It will probably be more dependent on the tax situation, the availability of materials, and the overall corporate strategy.

 

If manufacturing no longer employs significant numbers of workers, then it will have less impact on the country where it is located.  It will no longer play a large role in solving the crisis of middle-class salary stagnation or unemployment.  It will enrich the corporation and its stockholders, but not much else.

 

Rather than focus on the delusional nemesis of trade deficits, the real challenge for the future is understanding the very nature of work in an AI saturated world.  In the revolutions of the past, new jobs have always replaced old jobs, and there is a temptation to believe that will be the case with the AI revolution.  But the computer revolution has already demonstrated that new jobs are not always the equal of old jobs, and that allowing the market to take its course may not produce satisfactory results.  Things are changing too fast to be complacent.  

 

 

Living Forever – Blessing or Curse?

If one can take a short break from breathless exclamations about the AI revolution, another area of technology with potentially life-changing consequences comes to mind: aging research.  A field that has long labored in obscurity has recently made significant progress and is causing some to predict dramatic new anti-aging regimens in the coming years.

Many hallmarks of aging have been identified, such as deterioration of cells or organs over time due to increased inflammation; genome instability; damage to DNA, proteins and lipids due to the reactive oxidative species that metabolic processes generate; and changes to telomeres, the repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes that get shorter as a cell divides.

 

One area of aging research focuses on preventing aging by addressing the factors above.  The result would be a slowing of aging.  There are also hormonal therapies that rejuvenate skin cells, an aesthetic attack on aging to produce a more youthful appearance.

 

But in the last year scientists have also demonstrated ways to ‘turn back the clock’ on cells and restore them to their youthful state.  This was accomplished in a limited setting by inserting specific Yamanaka genes into cells.  This epigenetic approach (epigenesis is the process by which cells differentiate), whether by chemical process or gene therapy, actually changes the instructions that the cells receive and can accelerate, slow down or even reverse the aging process.  In some experiments, the cells have essentially been ‘re-booted’ to their original youthful state.

 

The implications of this research are profound.  If the human body can stop aging or be continually restored to a youthful state, what kind of world would we have?  Two extremes come to mind:  In one, we age gracefully to a certain point and then arrest the aging process.  We stay 65 or 70 for eternity.  But if anti-aging can completely restore youth, then certainly no one would choose to age past whatever ideal age they imagine for themselves, which is the other extreme.  Or perhaps we would age up to a certain point to have the full experience of aging, then backtrack to that ideal age?  The variations are infinite.

 

The sensible approach to anti-aging would seem to be to slow down the aging process so that people have longer and healthier lives.  But once the genie is out of the bottle there would be no turning back.  The rich would trade in their face lifts, tummy tucks, collagen lips and hair transplants for a return to their glorious youth at any price.  

 

What kind of fiendish groundhog’s day would our lives become?  A world full of 18-year-olds strutting around with full hormonal impetuosity!  Would our brains stay youthful and accumulate wisdom and experience?  Would injuries eventually curtail our exuberant youthfulness or would they all be repairable as well?  

 

If we think we have problems with climate change and environmental disasters now, just imagine the impact of exponentially increasing hordes of Peter Pans inhabiting our planet.  What the hell would the billions of eternal 18-year-olds do with themselves?  What kind of nightmarish society would evolve?

Even if anti-aging remedies merely extend our lives another twenty years I can't get very excited about them.  Who wants to live with a 90 year old body for another twenty years?  Even pickleball gets old at some point.  The younger generations would come up with some sort of a soylent green solution for that nonsense.

 

Anti-aging, gene editing and AI are all technologies that have potential repercussions that simply boggle the mind.  To be honest, I have a hard time imagining their advantages outweighing their disadvantages.  But wait, there may be a simple solution.  AI may just gene-edit and anti-age the hell out of us and create an eternal caste of slaves to do their bidding.  It would be a bit of poetic justice, you have to admit.

My Abhorrence of Arrogance and Malice

I am finding it very difficult to accept the fact that Trump, Vance and Musk are the face of our nation.  I am at odds with most of their policies and actions, but it is their arrogance and toxic behavior that most disturb me.  I despise bullies, blowhards, braggarts.

I have interacted with many people in my seventy years of life, from childhood friends to teachers to coaches to bosses to co-workers and subordinates.  People exhibit many different types of behaviors, from enchanting to offensive.  

 

I have had coaches, teachers and bosses who were taskmasters and quite demanding.  I accepted that behavior in good faith if their approach was respectful and had a measure of humility.  But some of them were malicious.  Their treatment of others was imbued with arrogance and a mean spirit.  When they were critical, they spoke angrily and hurtfully, not caring about the impact of their words and their actions.  They did not hesitate to brag about their own capabilities while demeaning others. They reacted viciously to any perceived slight. They didn’t acknowledge or tolerate nuance or ambiguity or disagreement.

 

They could be quite charming and friendly under some circumstances, especially with friends and acquaintances, or people they considered their equals.  But their mode of management and direction was brutal.  They had a tendency to lie or misrepresent things to obtain their goals.  They were the personification of ‘the ends justify the means’.  Some were spectacularly successful.  Trump, Vance and Musk are these people on a larger stage.

 

The substantial part of our nation that voted for Trump is either blind to his obvious narcissism and mendacity, or they are willing to accept ‘rough’ behavior in the service of crushing woke culture or fixing our economic woes.  I suppose that in their view, liberal elites and government workers looked down upon them and belittled their religious beliefs, their patriotism, and their concerns about government excess.  Trump, Vance and Musk are their avengers, and their supporters don’t seem to mind the cruel tactics they employ.  Indeed, they appear to be delighted.  So much for our better angels.

 

Trump’s petty, vindictive acts – renaming the Gulf of Mexico, threatening Greenland, Panama and Canada, treating Europe like a vassal state, firing non-white and female military leaders, threatening and firing government workers without any real analysis of what parts of government can reasonably be trimmed, taking away security details from people who have criticized him, excoriating a courageous leader who rallied his nation against a ruthless Russian invasion – may have underlying motives that one can assign to his overall ‘America first’ mantra.  But the manner in which he has conducted his first month in office is unquestionably that of a brutish and arrogant tyrant.

 

In my worldview, there is no excuse for arrogance or cruelty.  There is a sadistic element in the Trump/Vance/Musk playbook.  It is purposely vengeful.  It delights in shocking and wounding.  And I am ashamed to have these men represent me in the world.  

Why Do Good Things Happen to Bad People?

As I watch the Trump/Musk plutocracy conduct a cruel and chaotic mass firing of government employees and threaten and blackmail other nations, I feel heartsick and horribly disappointed at how life often seems to reward the worst people with power, wealth and fame.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are both profoundly impaired human beings.  They lack empathy, they are emotionally immature, they are grotesquely vain and narcissistic, and they are frighteningly vindictive. Both Musk and Trump seem to be trapped in an endless adolescence.

 

Their business success is probably at least partially due to these pathological traits, which is a very sad and depressing fact.  The history of human endeavor is replete with examples of people with horrific flaws wielding tremendous power and causing mayhem and tragedy.  

 

Both Trump and Musk achieved wealth through audacious, risk-taking ventures.  Trump was never seen as a great genius, but his massive accumulation of wealth made him a celebrity in a nation that worships the rich.  His unscrupulous character and hardball business ethics were well known from the start, but he, like so many of the rich, was never called to account for the way he did business.  The only thing that mattered was that it succeeded.

 

Musk, on the other hand, was idolized early on for his technical acumen and his apparently visionary commitment to a world of electric vehicles and space adventure.  He cast himself as the planet’s savior from climate change and the world swooned in admiration.  A closer look at his business trajectory poses many questions as to how much of this hero myth was self-generated after clever appropriation of other businesses and their already well-developed strategies. 

 

But now the true character of both men has come into stark relief.  With the unbridled glee of a spoiled eight-year-old torturing a cat, Musk revels in wreaking havoc in real people’s lives.  He seems to experience a diabolical joy in the fear and heartbreak that his DOGE goons have inflicted on tens of thousands of dedicated government employees.  And Trump stands behind him, sneering proudly – “this is my son, with him I am well pleased”.

 

Yes, it is a sad truth that bad people will often have their way in this world.  I find it highly dispiriting, but I know from history that their success is not the end of the story.  Justice will not necessarily be served directly to Trump or Musk.  Trump may keel over from a fast food induced heart attack before he experiences any sort of consequences for his actions.  But good people will rise and the pendulum will eventually swing away from the red zone of the Trump/Musk villainy.  I just wish it were more like the movies and the bad guys got their punishment quickly and we got to see it happen.  Sigh.

 

The Liberal Bias in Academia is No Conspiracy!

Conservatives have complained bitterly about liberal bias in academia since the 60’s.  The hysteria became particularly shrill in the last 10 years or so, appending the pejorative ‘woke’ as a further term of disdain.  The right believes that college and universities specifically hire and encourage liberal professors and administrators, and reject or ostracize conservatives.  They consider this part of a liberal conspiracy to corrupt impressionable students and bolster ‘woke’ culture and America-hating.

But the simple fact is that across America (and, for that matter, the rest of the developed world) higher education is associated with more liberal political views.  The Pew Charitable Trust conducted a survey on political views with people of various levels of education (https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/).  People with postgraduate education and degrees were much more likely to hold liberal views, and people with high school and some college education were very likely to hold conservative views.  The liberal bias in the well-educated is not simply a college professor phenomenon, but extends across the US population.

 

Every professor has a postgraduate degree, so it is no surprise that the majority of them hold liberal political views.  And when a majority of people hold similar views, then there is always the potential for some level of bias in that population and it is certainly possible that students and professors who hold conservative views may feel unwelcome or in some way demeaned.  My own experience in college was that professors did not hide their political inclinations, but they also welcomed other opinions and were never dismissive of them.

 

One might argue that people with postgraduate education have generally been corrupted by the liberal universities, but I find that to be a specious argument.  Once people leave the university there are multiple factors influencing their thinking and it is unlikely that they would cling to views formed at the university unless they continue to make sense to them in the marketplace of ideas that they confront throughout their lives.  And indeed, the tendency, as one grows older, is to become more conservative and less idealistic, as taxes and self-interest curb one’s zeal for liberal causes and ideology.

 

There is a better explanation for why postgraduate education leads to liberal political views.  Better educated people recognize the contradictions and injustices in society and they tend to read widely and dig deeply into history, science, economics and other concepts.  They have developed the skills and habits necessary for deep thinking and processing of more complex data.  They have the same self-interest that less educated conservatives have, but they recognize the contradictions and the paradoxes and choose to err on the side of social justice and the social contract.  In the balancing of liberty and equality, they are willing to push the scale a bit toward equality because otherwise it will steadily slip further away from it.

 

Yes, colleges generally tend to be liberal.  But quite frankly, it is typically the only time in one’s life that the surrounding culture will tilt that direction.  There is no broad conspiracy to indoctrinate our youth in Marxism, atheism or socialism or any other specific ideology. It is simply a great time to explore different ways of thinking and be challenged in one’s point of view.  We should all have faith in the intellectual strength and the ethical and moral code that we have nurtured in our children.  They will find their own way.  

 

But if they get well educated, and don’t simply go to frat parties and football games, then there is a high probability they will lean left.