Vote by mail

We overlook one of the ways in-person voting gives integrity to the results.

We think of ID – is the person handling the ballot who they claim to be, and is this person eligible to vote in the first place.

Can you extend this to mail-in ballots? We've various proposals for managing this, which you may trust or not, depending on your experience with software. The USPS just came out with some guidelines.

But there's another feature to in-person that's almost impossible to extend to the mail-in voting. Independent observers verify that the voters have gone into the booths alone. Nobody looks over the voters' shoulders, and ballots all go into an anonymous box (no box A for our Beneficent Incumbent and box B for the Evil Challenger).

When our youngest daughter voted by mail, the envelope needed a witness, which I was. For the actual "filling out of the ballot" phase, I left the kitchen. Of course. Anybody who knows me knows I wouldn't lean over her shoulder and make suggestions. But there's no way to prove that.

Perhaps a mail-in ballot was in fact filled in by the person who claimed to fill it in, and perhaps that person is a legitimate voter. That doesn't rule out inappropriate influence.

Our town allowed early voting. Mail-in was one way, but another was to show up at City Hall and vote there. That latter seems reasonable enough. It doesn't have the election monitors present, but you can never tell who else is going to show up and ask why two people are involved with one ballot.

Suppose we deprecate vote-by-mail. With exceptions, of course. For most of us, being out of town on election day is a choice. Not all – my parents were posted overseas for years, though with access to the US embassy, which could have coordinated a voting system. And, of course, those in the armed forces don't always know where they will be next week.

So we need to make some provision to cover at minimum as many of our overseas armed forces as are eligible to vote but are posted away from their voting district. I'd think that at bases this wouldn't be hard – finding observers, setting up a temporary dedicated room and a time for voting, having a single place to receive, collect, and mail back ballots… A ship with a long deployment is slightly more complicated – when do you mail things back?

Men in combat are probably out of luck as far as voting goes, though it might be possible sometimes.

But with the understanding that there are some exceptions which we could account for, what do we lose if mail-in-voting is hard? On the plus side, we lose ballot harvesting. On the minus side, some people get posted to a new location for a long time, from well before the candidates have declared to well after the election, and they won't get a chance to vote. In larger cities in the US one might have reciprocal agreements for receiving/sending ballots at the local city hall, but that doesn't help the oil platform guys much.

A system with integrity will have friction. How much of each are we willing to trade off?

Lands without government

One of the reasons for recognizing nations is to have a single point of contact for coordinating things like war and peace, contract disputes, handing over (or not) alleged criminals for trials for crimes done elsewhere...

The whole point is to have that encapsulation--a single entity that manages the big picture relations between the people of different areas. It reduces complexity and confusion.

Without that, if you want to arrange for an end to armed conflict between your people and another "nation," you have to find representatives of all the groups and get each of them to agree to a cease-fire separately.

If you can deal with a single government, that government has the responsibility of enforcing the agreement on its internal groups.

But when there's no central authority for an area from which hostilities flow, what choices do you have?

Cut a deal with the groups that will deal, and accept that the rest will keep attacking you? That may not work if the holdouts have enough power to inflict serious harm.

Arrange for somebody else to conquer the holdouts, and then negotiate with you on their behalf--putting in a government you can deal with?

Invade the area yourself, and destroy the holdouts, and keep them suppressed? That might get the non-holdouts cheesed off at you too, and get you into a bigger problem.

Do punitive invasions where you tear into the holdouts and their temporary allies, and then leave? See above.

There are several places in the world where the nominal central government doesn't actually have effective control. One of them, insofar as control of military actions is concerned (and that probably extends into other fields as well), may well be Iran. That was their fall-back plan, anyway. I don't know who is talking to who about what, though I hope that secret (and no doubt face-saving) talks are underway about the uranium.

Interesting times

Declaration of Independence, still applicable?

Today is the 250'th anniversary of one of the most important documents in the West.

Some of the text is timeless: "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" and so on. Those apply.

But there's more. I rarely pay attention to the list of facts "submitted to a candid world." Quite a few were specific to the occasion, and aren't so timeless.

How well does the recitation of injuries map into a modern situation?

Just for the fun of it, suppose we pick the PoV of citizens of random small EU country other than Belgium, and for George III read the EU establishment. And take the worst-case/worst-face for the local situation, whether it is completely justified or not. Are there parallels for the old complaints in the new situation?

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. I don't know the details well enough to guess.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. I don't know the details well enough to guess. There's no pool of land to draw from in Europe, so there's no exact parallel.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. I don't know the details well enough to guess.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. There are other ways of "fatiguing them into compliance;" e.g. lawsuits and judicial rulings.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. Over-ridden, yes. Very much so.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. I don't know that details well enough to guess at what might be comparable to this.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. Just the opposite – importing large quantities of foreigners without regard for whether they integrate well into the existing society, and making the current citizens reponsible for their care.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. Over-riding local legislatures and judiciaries, certainly.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. When agreement with the masters is a criteria for appointment...
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. I think we can all find examples there and here.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. Not so much. Ignoring the necessity for a military, yes.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. Not so much. Which, given European history, is refreshing.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: This sounds very much like EU.
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: The current version would be quartering large bodies of foreigners among us.
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: This seems to be a problem, if reports are to believed.
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: Not sure this applies. It might, but I don't know the regulatory details.
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: The individual countries impose their own taxes. Regulations, though...
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: The UK famously decided to remove this right from many cases.
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences "Transportation" isn't a current punishment, but "pretended offences" such as mean tweets seem to be treated like "careless speech" in wartime.
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: I don't know of a parallel.
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: As noted above, this seems parallel to EU
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. Not strictly parallel; the individual legislatures exist.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. Maybe the no-go zones?
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. No obvious parallel.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. For mercenaries put colonists and it might apply.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. No obvious parallel.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Not Indians exactly, no.
• In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. I don't know the details well enough to find a parallel to this.

With some revisions it might apply. But "mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Bus numbers

Back before Covid, before the bus reorganizations but after they first started running them to this town, I'd drive to or be dropped off at the bus stop and ride downtown. I never saw more than 15 people on the (rush hour only service) buses, and usually about half that. I liked the convenience--I could use my time much more usefully than I could driving--but wondered just how heavily the town was subsidizing the ride.

The city then expanded bus service, including an in-town only route, which I have used twice. Once again, I wondered: how much was that subsidized?

Budget shortfalls are bringing a lot into public view. Last year Metro Bus+Paratransit had 113,951 riders on this town's lines. Counting weekends as a single day, that comes to about 9 riders per bus run. That's more than I expected, based on what I see through the windows, but OK. To be clear, there are two circulator lines, and one which links to Madison downtown. I just assumed everybody rode the circulator.

The contract with Metro this year is for 2.04 million. That's about 18 dollars per ride, all lines included. Fares were about 2 bucks (and there is some state aid, but that doesn't reduce the cost per ride, just changes who pays), so the city itself subsidizes 600,000 -- a bit over 5 bucks a ride.

Madison Metro got itself a reputation for exploitive contracts with the suburbs, but 18 dollars a ride? You'd have to put 2 people on every seat to make 2 dollar fares alone pay for the contract.

For the in-city short hops, a taxi costs less than the real price for the bus ride. I wasn't expecting that.

More Motse

Following up on the earlier post

An easier-to-read site

From section I, a call for the rule of universal love:

Suppose everybody in the world loves universally, loving others as one's self. Will there yet be any unfilial individual? When every one regards his father, elder brother, and emperor as himself, whereto can he direct any unfilial feeling? Will there still be any unaffectionate individual? When every one regards his younger brother, son, and minister as himself, whereto can he direct any disaffection? Therefore there will not be any unfilial feeling or disaffection. Will there then be any thieves and robbers? When every one regards other families as his own family, who will steal? When every one regards other persons as his own person, who will rob? Therefore there will not be any thieves or robbers. Will there be mutual disturbance among the houses of the ministers and invasion among the states of the feudal lords? When every one regards the houses of others as one's own, who will be disturbing? When every one regards the states of others as one's own, who will invade? Therefore there will be neither disturbances among the houses of the ministers nor invasion among the states of the feudal lords.

And from section III, a claim that the sage-kings expressed universal love:

Nevertheless. the gentlemen in the empire think that, though it would be an excellent thing if love can be universalized, it is something quite impracticable. It is like carrying Mt. Tai and leaping over the Ji River. Mozi said: The illustration is a faulty one. Of course to be able to carry Mt. Tai and leap over the Ji River would be an extreme feat of strength. Such has never been performed from antiquity to the present time. But universal love and mutual aid are quite different from this. And the ancient sage-kings did practise it. How do we know they did?

When Yu was working to bring the Deluge under control, he dug the West River and the Youdou River in the west in order to let off the water from the Qu, Sun, and Huang Rivers. In the north he built a dam across the Yuan and Gu Rivers in order to fill the Houzhidi (a basin) and the Huzhi River. Mt. Dizhu was made use of as a water divide, and a tunnel was dug through Mt. Lungmen. All these were done to benefit the peoples west of the (Yellow) River and various barbarian tribes, Yan, Dai, Hu, Ho, of the north. In the east he drained the great Plain and built dykes along the Mengzhu River. The watercourse was divided into nine canals in order to regulate the water in the east and in order to benefit the people of the District of Ji. In the south he completed the Yangtze, Han, Huai, and Ru Rivers. These ran eastward and emptied themselves into the Five Lakes. This was done in order to benefit the peoples of Jing, Qi, Gan, Yue, and the barbarians of the south. All these are the deeds of Yu. We can, then, universalize love in conduct.

When King Wen was ruling the Western land, he shone forth like the sun and the moon all over the four quarters as well as in the Western land. He did not allow the big state to oppress the small state, he did not allow the multitude to oppress the singlehanded, he did not allow the influential and strong to take away the grain and live stock from the farmers. Heaven visited him with blessing. And, therefore, the old and childless had the wherewithal to spend their old age, the solitary and brotherless had the opportunity to join in the social life of men, and the orphans had the support for their growth. This was what King Wen had accomplished. We can, then, universalize love in conduct.

When King Wu was about to do service to Mt. Tai it was recorded thus: "Blessed is Mt. Tai. Duke of Zhou by a long descent is about to perform his duty. As I have obtained the approval of Heaven, the magnanimous arise to save the people of Shang Xia as well as the barbarians (from the tyranny of Emperor Zhou). Though (Emperor Zhou) has many near relatives, they cannot compare with the magnanimous. If there is sin anywhere, I am solely responsible." This relates the deeds of King Wu. We can, then, universalize love in conduct.

And again from section III, examples of things that are nominally harder to do. One may harbor doubts about the wisdom of these kings...

Is it because it is hard and impracticable? There are instances of even much harder tasks done. Formerly, Lord Ling of the state of Jing liked slender waists. In his time people in the state of Jing ate not more than once a day. They could not stand up without support, and could not walk without leaning against the wall. Now, limited diet is quite hard to endure, and yet it was endured. While Lord Ling encouraged it, his people could be changed within a generation to conform to their superior.

Lord Goujian of the state of Yue admired courage and taught it to his ministers and soldiers three years. Fearing that their knowledge had not yet made them efficient he let a fire be set on the boat, and beat the drum to signal advance. The soldiers at the head of the rank were even pushed down. Those who perished in the flames and in water were numberless. Even then they would not retreat without signal. The soldiers of Yue would be quite terrified (ordinarily). To be burnt alive is a hard task, and yet it was accomplished. When the Lord of Yue encouraged it, his people could be changed within a generation to conform to their superior.

Lord Wen of the state of Jin liked coarse clothing. And so in his time the people of Jin wore suits of plain cloth, jackets of sheep skin, hats of spun silk, and big rough shoes. Thus attired, they would go in and see the Lord and come out and walk in the court. To dress up in coarse clothing is hard to do, yet it has been done. When Lord Wen encouraged it his people could be changed within a generation to conform to their superior.

Now to endure limited diet, to be burnt alive, and to wear coarse clothing are the hardest things in the world, yet when the superiors encouraged them the people could be changed within a generation. Why was this so? It was due to the desire to conform to the superior.

Now, as to universal love and mutual aid, they are beneficial and easy beyond a doubt. It seems to me that the only trouble is that there is no superior who encourages it. If there is a superior who encourages it, promoting it with rewards and commendations, threatening its reverse with punishments, I feel people will tend toward universal love and mutual aid like fire tending upward and water downwards - it will be unpreventable in the world.

So a realm of universal love is achieved from the top down, by conforming the inferiors by "Identification with the Superior."

About fifty years ago I decided to read Mencius, who was one of the great influences in Chinese thought. I wearied of the book well before finishing, but got through the section in which he excoriates Mozi's "universal love" ideas. He complained about propriety (insuffiicent filial piety) and hierarchy (You have to have hierarchy!). I don't remember a complaint that this just wouldn't work.

I think the 20'th century shows us that top-down proclaiming everybody to be comrades doesn't work very well.

Forging on: This sounds fairly timely. Economy of Expenditures

When a sage rules a state the benefits of the state will be increased twice. When he governs the empire, those of the empire will be doubled. This increase is not by appropriating land from without. But by cutting out the useless expenditures it is accomplished. In issuing an order, taking up an enterprise, or employing the people and expending wealth, the sage never does anything without some useful purpose.

…

What, then, is difficult to increase? To increase the population is difficult. In ancient times, the sage-kings said: "No man of twenty should dare to be without a family; no girl of fifteen should dare to be without a master." Such were the laws of the sage-kings. Now that the sage-kings have passed away, the people have become loose.

…

In those ancient days, at the beginning of the race, when there were no palaces or houses, people lived in caves dug at the side of hills and mounds. The sage-kings felt quite concerned, thinking that the caves might keep off the wind and cold in winter, but that in summer it would be wet below and steaming above which might hurt the health of the people. So palaces and houses were built and found useful. Now, what is the standard in building palaces and houses? Mozi said: Just so that on the side it can keep off the wind and the cold, on top it can keep off the snow, frost, rain, and dew, within it is clean enough for sacrificial purposes, and that the partition in the palace is high enough to separate the men from the women. What causes extra expenditure but does not add any benefit to the people, the sage-kings will not undertake.

I'm not sure how popular some of these ideas would be today.

How about the supernatural?

Mozi said: The way to find out whether anything exists or not is to depend on the testimony of the ears and eyes of the multitude. If some have heard it or some have seen it then we have to say it exists. If no one has heard it and no one has seen it then we have to say it does not exist. So, then, why not go to some village or some district and inquire? If from antiquity to the present, and since the beginning of man, there are men who have seen the bodies of ghosts and spirits and heard their voice, how can we say that they do not exist?

…

Not only does the record in this book prove it to be so. Formerly the Lord Zhuang of Qi (794-731 B.C.) had two ministers, Wang Liguo and Zhong Lijiao, who were engaged in a lawsuit. For three years no judgment could be reached. The Lord of Qi thought of putting both of them to death, but was afraid to slay the innocent; he thought of acquitting both of them but was afraid to let loose the guilty. So he let them provide a lamb and take oath on the altar of Qi. The two men agreed to take the oath of blood. The throat of the lamb was cut and its blood sprinkled on the altar. The case of Wang Liguo was read all through. But before half of the case of Zhong Lijiao was read, the lamb arose and butted at him, broke his leg and prostrated him on it. At the time those people who were present all saw it and those far away heard of it. It was recorded in the Spring and Autumn of Qi. The feudal lords circulated the news around and remarked: "So speedy and severe is the punishment from spirits and ghosts to him that takes an oath in insincerity!" Judging from the record in this book, how can we doubt that spirits and ghosts exist?

Therefore Mozi said: One may not act disrespectfully even in woods, valleys, or solitary caves where there is no man. Spirits and ghosts are watching everywhere.

…

Those who deny the existence of spirits, saying "Ghosts and spirits just do not exist", are opposing the interest of the sage-kings. Opposing the interest of the sage-kings is not the way of the superior man.

Motse

We've all heard of Confucius. One of his competitors was Motse. Legend has it that many of the books from his school were burned, and a bunch of the scholars too.

I'm not sure I'll finish the work linked above. His style is maddening; repetitious and forever citing dubious details of the putative wonderful reigns of the first emperors. The first thing that looked different from the rest was this--but (spoiler) it isn't.

Motse said: The interest of the wise (ruler) lies in carrying out what makes for order among the people and avoiding what makes for confusion.

But what is it that makes for order among the people?

When the administration of the ruler answers to the desires of the people there will be order, otherwise there will be confusion.

How do we know it is so?

When the administration of the ruler answers to the desires of the subjects, it manifests an understanding of the approvals and disapprovals of the people. When there is such an understanding, the good will be discovered and rewarded and the bad will be discovered and punished, and the country will surely have order. When the administration of the ruler does not answer to the desires of the subjects, it shows a lack of understanding of the approvals and disapprovals of the subjects. When there is no such understanding then the good will not be discovered and rewarded and the bad will not be discovered and punished, such a government will surely put the country into disorder. Therefore when rewards and punishments do not answer to the desires of the people, the matter has to be carefully looked into.

But how can the desires of the people (being so many and various) be met?

Therefore Motse said: It can only be done only by adopting the principle of Identification with the Superior in government.

Nope. We don't have an ancient Chinese democrat here. "Identification with the Superior" means that the hierarchy takes its standards from the top. The desires of the people should be shaped into conformity with the rules of clan patriarch, with the feudal lords, and so on up the chain.

Whoever discovers a benefactor of the clan shall report it; whoever discovers a malefactor to the clan shall report it. Whoever reports the benefactor of the clan upon seeing one is equivalent to benefiting the clan himself. Knowing him the superior will reward him, hearing of him the group will praise him.

And then the feudal lord says the same about the state, and the emperor about the empire. "Now that the empire is orderly, the emperor will further organize the purposes in the empire and identify them with the Will of Heaven."

Quite a bit of the advice so far boils down to "You're supposed to be keeping the state orderly and prosperous for everybody." and "Don't appoint your relatives and sycophants; appoint the capable and honest." and "Make sure everybody knows to do what their superiors tell them to." and "Don't go in for excessive luxury."

I haven't gotten to the parts about designing fortifications yet. Apparently the Motse school was famously good at that.

Streamlining

Years ago I got a computing magazine, and on each issue's last page they ran a short column on some amusing anecdote. One was a repairman's observation: a computer at the point of sale got shaken up each time the cash door slammed shut, so he helpfully moved it--and the computer started hanging. Apparently the disk's bearings were starting to go, and the little shake it got helped it unstick. Anecdotes like that.

One column was a story of an intern at BigExpensiveComputer Company, which had million-dollar support contracts on mainframes and software. As our hero learned the ropes of his small piece of a large project, he shared an office with a fellow who didn't do anything but read the sports sections and fiddle with things on his desk. Hero speculated on how the officemate kept his job with such a lousy work ethic. Hero came in one morning to find the officemate on the phone -- all day long -- stepping a customer with a crashed database through picking up all the scattered bits and putting the software back together.

Turned out said officemate was the only one left who understood a ancient computer/software combination that BEC Co had sold, and still earned seven figures on the maintenance of. BEC Co was happy to pay the man big bucks to sit around and figure betting odds on horses, just so he'd be there on that one day every few years when something really bad happened. Insurance.

How many places in government are like that, where most years you don't need an expert on shield volcanos, but this month something started steaming in Lake Erie and people want answers now?

The military is one role where efficiency isn't top priority, of course -- coverage and robustness compete with it.

Hardball

and spitball too.

It's an old game--require a cut in an agency's budget, and they respond by curtailing the most popular services (close Yellowstone rather than Great Sand Dunes), to inflict maximum pain on the people to whom the executive is supposed to answer.

I'm hearing a few things already--whether true or not needs the 24-hour rule--that might be the result of sloppy directives from Trump or might be revenge from agency heads.

Interesting times.

Incitatus

We vote for a president; we get a team.

BBC's famous "Yes Minister" comedy assumed that the existing bureaucracy defines most of policy (and tries to perpetuate and enlarge itself). I haven't seen much evidence that this is wrong.

There's no way any human being can know all the people in a single government agency, much less the whole government. To pick people to direct an agency you have to trust someone else's vetting of them – and trust the standards by which they were measured. The reports that cross your desk are distillations of distillations: how do you know if there was a pattern to what was omitted?

We hope that the president we vote for will pick a trustworthy team to farm out the other personnel selections to and give them the general policy directions for their various underlings to implement, and then listen to what we hope is their good advice. We hope we can trust the policy statements and party brand. We hope we're not buying a pig in a poke. That's a lot of hope.

Trump seemed to have some sensible advisors, but so many of his team rotated in and out that I figure continuity had to have suffered – and then bureaucratic momentum wins. "Personnel is policy:" and the bureaucracy has most of the personnel already – and offers a pool from which one may select directors.

Perhaps instead we vote for Incitatus, with religious faith in the party brand and trusting that the team that selected Incitatus is benign. That team, invisible to any ballot, will pick the cabinet, set the policies, and try to decide on the proper reactions to the crises that will arise. The president will sign bills like a living autopen, read from teleprompters, and smile or glower on cue.

It might seem as though either way the bureaucracy dominates, but it isn't entirely just a difference in degree. In the case of a compos mentis president, decisions in the various crises would be made by the same person; there's no guarantee that the same person each time would give Incitatus the lines to say. And a forceful president might have some impact in despite of the bureaucracy.

Post-liberalism

First Things has an essay by Nathan Pinkoski "Twentieth-century civilization has collapsed. It rested on an essential tenet of liberalism: the state-society, public-private distinction."

In 2006, then prime minister Blair said that the “traditional civil liberty arguments are not so much wrong, as just made for another age.” Soon after, his home secretary John Reid elaborated. The previous age—the postwar age—began in response to concerns about the threat the “fascist state” posed to individuals, Reid said. Today, the threat comes from “fascist individuals,” not fascist states.

This, after Pinkoski's description of the subsuming of private enterprises under government control in a way that is fascist in all but name, is telling.

How the mighty are fallen

Fermilab has had some issues with performance and meeting goals recently. Evaluations ranked it as the second worst in the country.

I recognize very few of the names. It has been quite a few years since I spent much time there, and even then I hung out with colleagues and not the administrators, or even the staff. I just didn't stay long enough each time. (and the names I recognize are some of the good guys)

Apparently they centralized Safety, which then lost close contact with the Divisions.

Fermilab's leadership is accused of cronyism and allowing a "toxic work environment." The incidents documented were certainly toxic; perhaps this was widespread, perhaps not.

Giorgio should have run the paper by a proofreader before submitting it; in one case the text reads the exact opposite of his obvious intent.

One of their problems is the ratio of administrators/auxilliary staff to actual workers and scientists. Part of what causes that imbalance is the regulations--even something like purchasing differs so much from ordinary business practice thanks to the many extra rules(*) that it constitutes a specialty of its own, and one scarce enough to demand high salaries that cause dissatisfaction among the already-working staff--assuming they are permitted to pay the high salaries. (If not, positions don't get filled.)

And they've made it harder and harder for the public to visit. The cited reason was security, but the lab does no secret research. Safety I could believe--you could kill yourself if you got into one of the labs and started monkeying with some high voltage or gas systems, and if you broke into a source cabinet you'd get the newspapers freaking out, though the danger was objectively less.

(*) When I was there, a colleague employed by Fermilab instead of a university had extra hoops to jump through in order to get travel approved; e.g. prove that American carriers didn't fly to the location, get extra layers of approval--starting long enough in advance that the conference date wasn't always fixed yet.

Advice to analysts

"What I Learned in 40 Years of Doing Intelligence Analysis for US Foreign Policymakers" by Martin Petersen: From September 2010.

During one of the most challenging times in my analytical career, I worked for the finest analyst I ever knew. In the middle of the Tiananmen Crisis in 1989—when everyone’s hair was on fire—I found him late one afternoon going through a stack of musty old reports. I asked him what he was doing. He said, “I am looking for things that did not make sense then, but do now.” He found some, and it profoundly affected our line of analysis.

The article ends with this:

The colleague who teaches the Kent School’s Art of Review Seminar with me tells a story about Abraham Lincoln, who in one of the darkest hours of the Civil War attended a Sunday service in that little church that still stands across from the White House. On his way back, he was asked by a fellow parishioner what he thought of the young reverend. Lincoln replied that he had a strong voice and clear message, but that he failed to do one thing; he failed to ask us to do something great.

It's a pity the agency deteriorated so badly. We could use some intelligence.

AWOL

I ran across this today about the AWOL Secretary of Defense. It hadn't crossed my mind that continuity of government plans would involve 24/7 monitoring of all the cabinet and next level positions, but it makes excellent sense (Lincoln was just one of the targets of Booth's conspiracy).

So if Austin did command people to stop tracking him, and that didn't raise alarms, then this probably wasn't an unusual request. If that in turn is true, I wonder how effective this CoG effort really is.

National Security 60 years on

Althouse noted that RFKJr complained that the JFK assassination records haven't been released. Biden decided to maintain secrecy, as did Trump before him. "National security"

Naturally, most comments speculate about embarrassment to people who want to hide our government's stupidity or culpability. One sympathizes; the government seems to generate surpluses of those.

“When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before."

60 years is quite a while. I assume all the most deeply involved players, known and unknown, are either dead or far into at least their 80's and not active movers and shakers any longer. I'd think that close enough for Kipling's rule to apply.

Given that very different presidents were persuaded that there actually were national security interests at stake in revealing all the evidence and ways it was acquired, let's pretend that's true. What sort of reasons could there be?

One obvious reason isn't quite so critical now that the Soviet Union is no more, and since 9/11 told of one limit. Suppose Oswald was closely enough directed from Moscow to lead people to believe this was ordered by the Kremlin. We obviously didn't go to war over that, but we don't want the discussions about that to become public (or even be discussed much)--how much can an enemy get away with before we go big?

Others pointed out that individual spies of the time are no doubt dead, but the channels they used may still exist. It seems unlikely, given the number of moles we've heard about, but weirder things have happened.

Or perhaps it is very simple: the default of generations advisors has been "We might use that method again someday, so keep it secret".

Haitian resistance

The gangs are out of control in Haiti; the government is useless and people are fighting back--machetes, stones, gasoline, road blocks...

The gangs started launching attacks outside Port-au-Prince, and at least some of the people have had it, and are taking matters into their own hands. You may have seen some of the pictures of suspected gang members about to be killed and set on fire. I'd guess that most of them were easily identified outsider gang members, and richly deserved what was coming to them.

I skimmed some of the comments on the article. The ones dealing with Haiti (and not drawing conclusions about matters elsewhere), seemed to be of three kinds:

• "Good for them!" I agree that this is the right thing for the villagers to do. They owe it to their families and neighbors to fight anarchy.
• "Beware. Vigilantes turn into gangsters themselves." Quite true (happened in Chicago)--less of a risk if more of the people are involved. Probably the best outcome here is for the local resistance to become very broad and then to become the local government. The worst is more of the same with different gangs.
• "The UN needs to intervene." No. Very little good has come from outsiders intervening in Haiti over the years, and a lot of trouble. I think Haiti's solutions will have to be homegrown, and this sort of grass-roots resistance may prove the seed of something durable. Or it may not.

There's a lot of pain in the offing, no matter what. The gangs have modern weapons, and are malicious and vindictive.

UPDATE: So far so good as of 27-May

Balance of powers

From Tower of Skulls A history of the Asia-Pacific War July 1937-May 1942:

Yet another Japanese policymaking participant exerted power outside the constitution: the elite bureaucracy. Its power rested in its functions: drafting legislation, controlling information reaching cabinet members, and implementing laws. Some of its most senior members would even become cabinet members. Supposedly a neutral body of "officials of the emperor," in practice the bureaucracy became politicized.

That sounds familiar. I wonder if that's ever not the trajectory of a large bureaucracy.

Hard times

"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times..." Bret Deveraux decided to have at that trope about 3 years ago. He looked at the civilized/"barbarian" conflicts in general and then with specific reference to Rome, in a 6-part series, and concluded that the "trope" of the upright outsider destroying the decadent empire was pretty much worthless. Sometimes the "barbarians" won; more often they got whipped. Western Rome was finally knocked out by "barbarians" who had picked up Roman ways.

In particular, some of the more famous "Rome is decadent and about to be destroyed" complaints came just as Rome entered several centuries of expansion and power.

I don't know what the history field is like these days, but his "we don't believe those evil things anymore" asides get annoying after a while, especially when he touches on live issues. Maybe he has to lard descriptions of the past with disclaimers to ward off the evil eye, or maybe he really believes that we're superior now.

Anyhow, he holds that the trope isn't really about the "poorer, harder" people, it's a critique of decadence in the rich society. The poor "Fremen" cultures live in hard lands because they've no choice--they generally can't fight their way into richer lands, or they would have already.

OK, fair enough. Why has this critique been so popular--for thousands of years?

There seem to be two different paths. Consider a family instead of a nation--I'll get into why in a bit. A family can become so rich that they distort the economy and politics of a region, and their wealth becomes self-sustaining, requiring only modest intelligence to manage. Outsiders find it lucrative to participate, and thanks to the political distortions, competitors are suppressed. These can endure for a long time.

Another path is that described by the Chinese proverb that “You can only keep wealth in the family for three generations.” The first makes the business, the second runs it, and the third ruins it. According to the Conway Center for Family Business, 12 percent of all family businesses make it past the second generation, and only 3 percent make it to the fourth generation. That sounds like pretty substantial attrition, though perhaps changing environments plays at least as big a role as deteriorating management.

At any rate, on the micro scale we see something happening that at least superficially seems to deserve the critique--"shape up and get hungry again or the outsiders will eat your lunch." You can probably think of several businesses that were at the top of the world just a couple of decades ago, and just weren't flexible enough to make it.

Of course just being hungry isn't enough to fit you for beating the fat and lazy--it's a necessary but not sufficient condition. But it's easy to see why the trope/critique is popular. It fits, at least if you ignore the hungry failures.

I haven't done a systematic survey, but the "decadence leads to decay" trope seems to fit the smaller upstarts better than the big empires--at least in the histories I've read. Perhaps they're too small to attract outsiders to support them.

I surmise that one reason the "decadent empires" last longer than the three generations is because the empire isn't a single family, but a collection of competitors working within the framework of empire. When one crime family gets sloppy, another starts encroaching on their turf, and the overall structure doesn't change. As long as they don't start dismantling the machinery, if it's big enough it keeps going until bureaucratic friction burns out the bearings.

Love of liberty

"What has most harmed modern government, including what we call representative government, is a certain quality that is seldom mentioned, though I think I have mentioned it, for I think it very serious. It is the loss of the old ideal which associated a love of liberty with a scorn of luxury. The first and best of the democratic idealists were always definite on this point. They demanded that a republican senator should show a republican simplicity." Chesterton

Bumblebees

A bumblebee is a fish.

"In October 2018, the public interest groups petitioned the Commission to list four species of bumble bee as endangered species" They did. "In September 2019, petitioners challenged the Commission’s decision": the Fish and Game Commission of California had no authority to do so.

They didn't claim that the bee wasn't endangered--just that the Commission had no statutory authority to include it.

"Prior to 1969, section 45 defined fish as “wild fish, mollusks, or crustaceans, including any part, spawn or ova thereof.” In 1969, the Legislature amended section 45 via Senate Bill No. 858 (1969 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 858) to add invertebrates and amphibia to the definition of fish." Of course this was accompanied by the note that "[t]he expanded definition of fish will permit closer control and monitoring of the harvest of species such as starfish, sea urchins, sponges and worms, and the . . . "

Later regulation changes added some specific species: 3 butterflies and a snail. Their DNR pled that

"The [1970 Legislation] defined species as birds, mammals, fishes, reptiles, and amphibians. Although, technically, these terms name only vertebrate classes of animals, it was the Department’s understanding of legislative intent that the [1970 Legislation] was to extend to invertebrates as well. It was not believed necessary to include the term invertebrate in the original legislation because ‘fish’ is defined in the Fish and Game Code to include ‘invertebrates’

Page 19 mentions a "rule against surplusage", "which provides courts should “avoid, if possible, interpretations that render a part of a statute surplusage." I'd not heard of it before, but that's a good principle. If a statute spells out details, don't expand one of them to encompass others--the statute presumably has a reason for the breakdown. And if there is no good reason (contempt for congress seems mandatory sometimes), why am I to believe the judge is any smarter?

The ruling promptly ignores this on page 27, where the separate addition of the bristle snail to the list is taken to prove that the definition of "fish" is already expansive.

Never mind whether some organization needs to keep track of endangered species in California. That's a different question. As constituted, the Fish and Game Commission didn't have the authority to monitor "non-watery" things besides game. The Third Appellate Court seems to go at the issue backwards--they want a result and are willing to expand definitions beyond the law to get it. It seems like an innocuous goal, but HumptyDumpty means are dangerous. And in this case, also ridiculous.

Ethnic Integration Policy

Singapore has an ethnic integration policy in place. It sounds a bit like the one Oak Park used (quite illegally) to block the block-busting back in the day: only so many of each specified minority in a given block.

In the 60s and 70s, the government had undertaken mass resettling exercises, taking pains to ensure an even distribution of races. But by the 80s, this was no longer possible, since much of the land had already been developed into occupied residential estates. The EIP was thus put in place to counter the formation of ethnic enclaves during a time when certain neighbourhoods were starting to be dominated by one ethnicity or another.

...

If you are a Singapore citizen or Malaysian PR buying a resale flat from someone of the same race, you do not have to worry about the EIP or HDB quota, as the transaction would not change the racial makeup of the neighbourhood.

For all other transactions, you will only be allowed to buy the flat if the quota for your race has not been exceeded.

Singapore is not noted for liberty, and I gather that elections tend not to shake up the establishment.