Category Archives: ethics

Some Arithmetic Regarding Social Welfare

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This arithmetic centers on the Western canonical welfare State of France, but the lessons apply to us also.

Today there are 39 seniors for every 100 working-age people in France. But by 2070 working-age French will account for only 50% of the population, down from more than 55% in 2023.

That works out to ratios of 1.8 working age persons for every retiree and 1 working age person per retiree, respectively. Each working age person in 2070 will have a retiree on his payroll whether he wants that or not.

That’s the outer bound.

[M]any of France’s working-age ranks aren’t actually working. The French unemployment rate was 7.7% in October 2025….

That reduces today’s ratio to 1.6 actually working person for each retiree. That’s an outer bound on the burden actually laded onto the worker. Those working age unemployed, those 5+ of the 100 who are unemployed, are being supported him, too.

Our demographics are only a couple of generations behind France.

Academic Hysteria

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Texas Tech University’s Chancellor has published a decision tree/flow chart regarding the inclusion or exclusion of advocacy/promotion of race or sex-based prejudice in the courses the university teaches, and the ideologs in the professorial population are in an uproar. The decision tree (see the link) clearly reins in the heretofore unfettered professors’ ability to “teach” whatever ideology they felt like and requires them, instead, to show the relevance of their material, first to the course and second to the purpose of the course.

The reaction of the ideologs in that population is hysterical. Andrew Martin, Texas Tech Professor of Drawing and Painting, for instance (although, to be sure, at least he has the integrity to go on the record with his concerns):

This is disastrous. History is full of examples of what happens when authoritarian governments gain control of the educational institutions of a country or a society. That is the death of freedom.

No, today’s examples, rather, center on the results of one-sided, extremist control of education. The Chancellor’s move is a restoration of balance and of a focus on actual education.

Martin’s hysteria continued with this bit:

[I]f I welcome a student, whose identity is controversial, to my classroom, and they make work about that identity, is that advocacy? Does that mean I’m subject to disciplinary action?

The decision tree plainly deals only with what the professor professes; there is no mention of what the students do in his classroom. In Martin’s own example, his concern should be with technique and symbolism in the student’s art effort, not with the professor’s approval or disapproval of the art’s content. That’s clear to anyone not overcome with hysteria over being reined in and returned to a focus on the material he’s hired to teach.

The Judge Erred Badly

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A Minnesota jury convicted a man and his wife of stealing $7.2 million from the state’s Medicaid program. After the jury rendered its verdict, Minnesota State District Judge (4th District) Sarah West overturned it in its entirety.

In her decision, West wrote that prosecutors “relied heavily on circumstantial evidence,” adding that the state didn’t rule out other potential “reasonable inferences.”

If West really thought that, why did she let the case go to the jury and then let the jury reach its verdict and then read out that verdict?

If West really thought that, why didn’t she, when both sides had rested their cases—or even just when the prosecutor had rested—simply issue a directed verdict of not guilty instead of wasting so much time? Those jurors were private citizens with day jobs, after all. Her claim of other “reasonable inferences” that could have been drawn seem to me would approach reasonable doubt.

Sarah West seems to be a State district judge who does not understand her role as judge or her oath of office.

Of Which the Press Demonstrates the Need

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The need, that is, for a Web site that identifies misleading, distorting, outright lies that the press has such a penchant for. Examples were provided by the “news” pages of The Wall Street Journal, and a second example was provided by the WSJ‘s editors in the very same edition.

From the “news” page, this article ostensibly describing the Web site, which the Trump administration made live earlier this week:

For years, Trump has used social media—particularly his platform, Truth Social—to reprimand the press for negative coverage. The new government site reflects a more coordinated, formalized approach to criticizing members of the press.

No, for years, Trump and others in his administration have called out the naked bias of the press and social media as both moved to suppress coverage of Conservatives; the naked bias of outlets that insist there are not two sides to every story and that announce that their “news” pages will take sides in reporting, no longer even trying to do balanced reporting; and outright spiking of stories unfavorable to the Left or to Progressive-Democratic Party politicians.

And this “news” page:

President Trump has made no secret of his disdain for renewable energy.

It’s hardly disdain for renewable energy when the Trump administration is actively pushing an all-of-the-above energy production industry, which includes pushes for renewables—just in parallel with traditional sources and nuclear power sources rather than exclusive of them. Cutting subsidies for wind and solar and for battery-powered vehicles is hardly disdain; it’s simply putting all sources of energy on a more level competition field.

Then there’s this from those editors:

Lawmakers are doing a public service by trying to get to the truth on whether the Trump Administration killed defenseless survivors of a drug-boat strike.

There’s a world of difference between killing survivors in a second strike and targeting them with that second strike. It’s telling that the editors not only chose not to acknowledge both interpretations, they chose to not explain why they ignored the one and accepted only the other. Of course, the Washington Post story they cite, while noting the story had only anonymous sources, also only mentioned killing, without its own distinction between the two interpretations.

A second strike, as the editors know full well, would have been entirely justified if the goal was to destroy the boat and its cargo—cocaine floats, as the editors also know full well—and the first strike didn’t succeed in the destruction. The deaths of any first-hit survivors from the second blow would have been tragic, but would have been collateral damage, and so entirely within US and international law.

Campus Extremism

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Robert George, multiply-titled Professor at Princeton University, had some thoughts on how to deal with this.

So what should we do? The answer isn’t complicated, but acting on it will take determination and courage. Colleges and universities must return to offering a rigorous liberal arts education that refuses to engage in indoctrination and challenges groupthink. College courses must actively cultivate the virtues of curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual humility, analytical rigor, and above all, dedication to the pursuit of truth.

He added this:

This might seem like an unattainable ideal, but it isn’t. I’ve seen firsthand that it’s possible. Twenty-five years ago, Princeton University authorized me to establish and direct a program in civic education dedicated to helping young men and women become determined truth seekers, courageous truth speakers, lifelong learners, and responsible citizens.

He succeeded in his small world, and he cited a number of examples at other schools. But these are anecdotes, not a general trend of success. At many of the other schools he touted, antisemitic and terrorist-supporting riots mostly peaceful protests seized buildings and common grounds, vandalized the buildings and generally prevented the sort of free-exchange of ideas George touted. Those destructive disruptions occurred while school managers meekly watched and many of the schools’ professors participated in the disruptions.

No. The only way to achieve George’s ideal, extremely worthy that it is, is to remove from schools those school administrators and professors, whether ideologues or simply too timid to oppose ideology over education. Both kinds are worthless wastes of payroll.

The detritus must be removed before cleanup can begin.