Category Archives: culture

Welcome to the Wider World

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An Internet influencer rented a house on Nantucket, set up a four-day camp for some of her followers, and Nantucket’s locals have had their collective panties in twists ever since. Their main beef is that she’s not from around there, and worse, as Jen Reddy, a marketing executive and Nantucket resident complained,

It feels like we’re being infiltrated by someone who doesn’t understand the culture[.]

Welcome to the wider world of illegal aliens who flooded into our nation under the prior administration, but weren’t interested in understanding our culture, didn’t want to assimilate.

“Collective Defense Guarantee”

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That’s the hype in a Fox News article centered on Russia’s flying armed drones through NATO member Lithuania’s airspace.

In recent days, drones launched from the Russian-aligned state of Belarus have pierced Lithuanian airspace, drawing alarms from the region’s political and military leaders. One drone traversed approximately 100 kilometers, loitered ominously over Vilnius carrying two kilograms of explosives and ultimately crashed inside a military training zone. Earlier in July, another drone forced the evacuation of high-level officials when it crashed near the Šumskas border crossing.

Lithuania’s Defense Minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, has responded [paraphrased by Fox News].

while stressing that there is no evidence suggesting the latest drone breached intentionally, said “this is an unprecedented and alarming incident,” especially given that the drone flew just one kilometer from the president’s residence.
Describing the behavior as “reckless drone incursions,” she warned they amount to “a direct test of NATO’s resolve.” In response, Lithuania has pledged to review its defensive protocols and urged NATO to bolster its air defenses as a clear message that the alliance stands ready to safeguard every inch of its territory.

And this, from an outside “expert:”

Andrew D’Anieri, associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told Fox News Digital that while it isn’t crystal clear whether Putin is openly testing Article 5, his apparent lack of caution about these actions is telling.
“The kind of alarming thing is, we haven’t seen any real response from NATO to any of these,” D’Anieri said.

Here’s the text of Article 5 of the NATO treaty [emphasis added]:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Bruno Kahl, Germany’s chief spy…cautioned that Russia’s growing employment of hybrid tactics—ranging from sabotage and cyberattacks to disinformation—raises the likelihood that NATO may ultimately feel compelled to invoke Article 5.

For good or ill (I suggest for ill), Lithuania’s and other member nations’ responses meet the letter of that mutual defense requirement and that nothing, of necessity, would change were Article 5 formally invoked.

A mutual, collective defense arrangement is crucial for defending against invasions or other attacks, but such arrangements are practically executable only when what’s included in “collective self-defense” is understood rather than distorted. Beyond this simple thing, only when what’s included is clearly understood can necessary improvements—which Article 5 so desperately needs—be made.

In furtherance of that last, here is Article 3:

In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

This Article is dishonored—other member nations betrayed—by nearly a third of the current member nations as those deplorables steadfastly refuse to fund their own defense establishments much less honor their commitments to fund NATO directly to a percentage of their GDPs.

Article 12 organically provides for review of the treaty’s functioning:

After the Treaty has been in force for ten years, or at any time thereafter, the Parties shall, if any of them so requests, consult together for the purpose of reviewing the Treaty, having regard for the factors then affecting peace and security in the North Atlantic area, including the development of universal as well as regional arrangements under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

If such a review is not carried out in any serious manner (see the shortcomings above), then it’s time for serious nations to leave NATO (as Article 13 provides, or without it) and form a new, actually serious mutual defense arrangement.

Should be a No-Brainer

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As The Wall Street Journal‘s editors put it,

Get ready for what could be another landmark Supreme Court case. On Friday the Justices agreed to consider whether majority-minority Congressional districts drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act are compatible with the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee.

The Court has asked the litigants in Louisiana v Callais to assess whether creation of a second majority-minority Congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.

This is long overdue, as states are now caught in a vice. If they weigh race too heavily, they can run afoul of the Equal Protection Clause. But if they ignore race, they can be sued for violating Section 2. Louisiana’s House map is a prime example.

It is long overdue, from as far back as 1965 when the Civil Rights Act was first enacted. The relevant clause of the 14th Amendment is in its first Article:

No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The 15th Amendment is even more explicit:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Favoring one group of Americans over another—which especially in the zero sum game of voting favors one group at the direct expense of another—denies both groups equal protection of the laws by that favoring. Tailored to the right to vote, creating a voting district to favor one group on the basis of race or color explicitly abridges the voting rights of those citizens in that district who are not members of the favored race or color while simultaneously exaggerating the voting rights of those who are members.

This should be a no-brainer: Louisiana’s voting districts, drawn as they are on the basis of race, are unconstitutional, and the Voting Rights Act, which mandates such favoritism is itself unconstitutional. Any use of race, however seemingly slight, to create a district or any policy that considers race is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court should listen to and heed its recently prior ruling that any consideration of race in college/university admissions is unconstitutional.

Bureaucratic Interference

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The lede laid out the problem, but the news writer missed it.

The agencies under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy are getting squeezed between old-guard staff who object to Trump administration priorities on one side, and prominent conservatives and business interests on the other.

Old-guard staff are well worth listening to and taking their input, especially their objections, seriously. But, this:

The dynamic is creating a minefield between Make America Healthy Again and deregulation for current leaders and new appointees.

No, it does not create any sort of minefield. The situation really is quite straightforward and simple, requiring only some managerial will.

Staff inputs, especially those objections, legitimately, apply only during the investigation, ideation, and discussion/debate phases. Once the decision has been made, though, here by Kennedy or his designated subordinate—CDC Director or Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director, for instance—it then becomes the duty of old-guard staff, every single one of them, to carry out that decision with zeal and enthusiasm. Their objections or disagreements no longer matter and should no longer exist.

If an old-guard staffer does not believe s/he can carry out that decision in good conscience, then his duty is to resign, not to refuse to execute or to passively resist.

If an old-guard staffer—or a newer hire—does resist the decision or obstruct it passively, then the relevant manager must fire the staffer. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya has an opportunity here. In a kerfuffle over whether NIH would create a list of DEI-related words to be banned from grant recommendations, he issued a directive barring any such lists.

[B]ut some program officers “took it upon themselves” to create ad hoc, unofficial lists.

Those program officers should be identified and fired for cause.

I Have a Question

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In partial response to President Donald Trump’s (R) refusal to pay Progressive-Democrats $1 billion in released foreign aid and NIH funding—variously a bribe or an extortion payment, depending on who’s talking—in order to get Party Senators to agree to speed up the nomination confirmation process that Party has been busily stonewalling, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) had this:

Sooner or later, Donald Trump—Mr “Art of the Deal,” or so he claims—is going to have to learn that he has to work with Democrats if he wants to get deals, good deals, that help the American people[.]

My question, and the answer illustrates the intrinsically partisan and obstructionist nature of Party, is this: when will “Democrats” work with Trump? When will “Democrats” work with Republicans generally? Party’s determined refusal to do so is harming us American people about whom Schumer and his Party so piously pretend to care.