On Liberty Watch

Around 30 years ago William F Buckley and his friend Professor Milton Friedman debated Buckley’s proposal that some kind of National Service be required of young people. Buckley, who along with Dr. Friedman famously championed the free market, insisted that the National Service be voluntary and non-military. On the other hand, Friedman maintained that the proposed National Service would not really be voluntary; that it would be captured by political interests as is typical of government programs and that it would fail to meet its objectives, also typical of government programs. 

Micheal Kinsley, then editor of the New Republic, served as the debate moderator. The half hour debate, which is well worth watching, can be seen by clicking on the Buckley Friedman Debate link below. 

The Video Can be seen on You Tube at the link below:

Buckley Friedman Debate

JFB

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For some reason or other many think that a policy of “Zero Covid” is the way to go. But it isn’t. Covid-19 isn’t going to go away. We just have to learn to live with it.

JFB

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Ever notice that progressives have a habit of manufacturing a “crisis” when they have a policy goal in mind, but somehow manage to ignore real crises they’d rather not talk about. Consider the eviction “crisis”. 

In August of 2020 the Aspen Institute published a paper that claimed 30-40 million Americans are “at risk” of eviction in the next several months. One year and 2 months later those 30 – 40 million potential evictees failed to materialize. By September of 2021—a year after the Aspen paper—the New York Times reported that the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the national moratorium on evictions placed “…at least 2 million renters in immediate danger of eviction…”. Students of arithmetic will note that is somewhere between 28 and 38 million fewer than the Aspen paper. 

Not that the Aspen paper was an outlier in its general thrust. The Biden Justice Department weighed in by explaining how State Courts could prevent a “looming crisis” asserting that 6 million Americans were behind on their rent. Similarly, the American Prospect published an article in August of 2021 asserting that “The Eviction Crisis is a Rental Assistance Crisis”. It went on to assert that “a law designed not to work has put millions at risk of losing their homes”. 

Except that the projected surge in evictions just didn’t happen. As Reason Magazine reports, a month after the end of the federal eviction moratorium eviction filings were up, but nowhere near the projected Tsunami. For instance, Princeton University’s Eviction Lab found an 8.75% increase in filings from August to September, but relative to historic averages, eviction filings in September were estimated to be 48.5% below historic averages.  

There are different explanations for this. Among them, state governments stepped in to help; landlords continued to cut tenants slack, and state and local governments finally got around to distributing the $46 billion in federal rent relief funds that they have. Regardless, the fist pounding and hysteria was unwarranted.

On the other hand we have accumulated debt of around $28 trillion that progressives would prefer not to talk about. And the main driver for all the accumulated debt is entitlement spending, which the Democratic Party is determined to increase by substantial amounts. The Social Security program is already insolvent; Medicare is due to run out of money in the mid 2030s, and Medicaid runs out in 2026. 

Those pesky little facts will not be part of a great “national conversation”. Nor will there be a “search for solutions” for the simple reason that there is no solution. There is not now, nor will there ever be enough money to cover the utopian fantasies of the left. The only question is how much the clean up costs will be when the music stops. 

JFB

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On a daily basis it seems that the Biden White House launches a new round of absurdities. Consider that they keep on insisting that they have enough votes to suspend the debt ceiling to avoid a default, but the whole thing is really Mitch McConnell’s fault. Or that in the past the Congress routinely voted to increase the debt ceiling on a bipartisan basis. Except that they didn’t. In fact, in 2006 when the government was in Republican hands, every single Democratic Senator voted against raising the debt ceiling. One of the leaders of that exercise in bipartisanship was none other than Joe Biden when he was Senator from Delaware. 

Then there is the botched pull-out from Afghanistan. The Biden Administration is busy hailing it as a great success even though it is beyond dispute that American citizens and green card holders were left behind. Not to mention the airport bombing that killed 13 American soldiers and over 100 Afghans. Or the drone attack in the middle of Kabul that mistakenly targeted civilians thereby killing as many as 10 Afghan children.  

The Afghan debacle, predictably enough, included President Biden’s attempt to evade responsibility by claiming that he was following the unanimous counsel of his top military advisers.  Except that he wasn’t, as subsequent testimony made it clear that some advised the President to leave 2,500 troops in place.  

And then there is the ongoing budget negotiation fiasco. Shortly after a bipartisan infrastructure deal was reached, Biden turned around and linked passage of the infrastructure deal to his $3.5 trillion middle class welfare bill. Incredibly enough, Biden and his team are claiming that the cost of this extravaganza is — wait for it —zero. 

The rationale is that the bill is “paid for” and therefore costless. That is the equivalent of saying that if I go out and buy a $250,000 Ferrari and pay for it with cash, it costs me nothing. But if I buy it with a credit card the cost is $250,000. Same car; same price but one is “free”.  The mind reels.

Almost every day the White House belches out a similar absurdity mixed liberally with mendacity. And from the polling data, it seems that the public is getting more than a little tired of it. Last November the body politic expressed its displeasure with routine displays of incompetence and dishonesty. You would think the Biden team would have gotten the message. Apparently not. 

JFB

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With each passing day the magnitude of the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan is sinking in. In an attempt to reduce the domestic political damage, the Administration of James Earl Biden is furiously trying to reframe the discussion.  For instance, the Administration argues that President Biden had no choice but to do what he did because he was locked into President Trump’s ill-considered deal with the Taliban. Alternatively they argue that the U.S. would be required to re-commit thousands of troops to re-fight a war that had already achieved its stated objectives. 

Both of these assertions are lies. President Biden spent the first 7 months of his Administration overturning Trump Administration policies that he didn’t like, which was most of them.  The fact is that Biden agreed with Trump’s Neo-isolationist policy favoring an abrupt withdrawal. The shambolic nature of the execution of the policy is, of course, a disgrace and a stain on America. But the catastrophe is far greater than that, more about which later. 

The alternative argument, that the U.S. would have to re-commit thousands of troops to re-fight a civil war in which America had already achieved its objectives is, similarly, a lie. The overriding American objective was to prevent the Taliban, ISIS or other radical group, from re-establishing Afghanistan as a platform for launching more attacks on America as happened on 9/11/2001. The collapse of the Afghan government and take-over by the Taliban virtually guarantees that Afghanistan will once again become such a staging ground. 

Afghanistan is now a no-mans land with no one in control. Jihadist groups from all over the globe will now gravitate toward Afghanistan as a place to train foot soldiers, run financial operations, stock pile arms and work on developing weapons of mass destruction, including bio-weapons. If you think Covid-19 is bad news, just wait until jihadists are running bio-labs in Afghanistan with the aid of Pakistan’s ISI while the U.S. has limited intelligence capabilities on the ground.

This is more than a tactical retreat, notwithstanding the Biden Administration’s transparently meaningless claims about our “over-the-horizon” military capabilities. Those military capabilities require on the ground intelligence. Whom does the Biden Administration think is going to provide that intelligence now that the U.S. is in the process of abandoning Afghans and green card holders to their fate at the hands of the Taliban?

The defeat —and that it is what it is—of the U.S. in Afghanistan, is a strategic catastrophe of the first order. But it took the Biden Administration’s stunning incompetence mixed with a liberal dose of stupidity to elevate a strategic blunder into what may be an existential crisis.  After all, Biden and Co have effectively torpedoed NATO, a development that Vladimir Putin must find satisfying. 

And it isn’t just NATO. China has already started taunting Taiwan. The price for Biden’s pleas with Iran to re-join the nuclear deal just got a lot higher. Not to mention the U.S. position on the Korean Peninsula. Or the position of Israel.  Or India vis-a-vis Pakistan. Given the lack of U.S. resolve, the obvious question is who will trust the U.S. to keep its commitments in the future?

It is easy to see the organization of world politics moving toward a Euro bloc led by a Germany that is increasingly friendly with Russia; an Asian block dominated by China; an Arab bloc increasingly threatened by Iran and Iranian sponsored jihadist groups, and an English speaking group (America, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Note that all these groups would be armed with nuclear weapons. 

Moreover, such a world lacks a security guarantor. It is instead a world in which autocracies and authoritarians vie with democracies for influence. And it suggests the end of a rules based Liberal order with free trade and capital flows. In turn that suggests a reduction in economic growth and increasing power in the hands of dictators. 

It didn’t have to be like this and it doesn’t have to end like this. There is a remedy. It will require the West to recognize the failure of progressivism; the progressive embrace of nihilism and its refusal to defend Western Liberalism. Populism, socialism and identitarian politics will have to be recognized for what they are—a precursor to fascism. 

The West has a choice to make. It can robustly defend a Liberal civilization that promotes individual freedom, democracy and pluralism, using its economic, military and political power. Or it can refuse to defend itself and allow the ancient hatreds of pre-enlightenment civilizations to determine the course of history. It is entirely a matter of choice. 

JFB

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