A Limit of Free Expression

The median estimated elasticity of the socially optimal fertility rate is 2.4 in the US, well above today’s 1.7.

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Asked if Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing enough to secure a hostage deal, President Biden—whose appearance at a rally for Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh yesterday was his first public appearance since his convention speech on August 19—answered “No.” 

A senior Israeli source told Axios’s Barak Ravid that “it is puzzling that Biden is pressing Netanyahu, who agreed to the U.S. proposal as early as May 31 and to the U.S. bridging proposal on August 16, and not Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who continues to vehemently refuse any deal.”

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Ireland ranks as the loneliest country in Europe, with almost a fifth of people lonely most or all of the time and nearly two-thirds of people suffer from anxiety or depression, according to EU data. One in seven children live in homes below the poverty line, defined as 60 percent of the median disposable household income.

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A Limit of Free Expression

According to the WashPo, a coordinated attack on anti-Xi demonstrators in San Fransisco last November was planned, developed and carried out by the Chinese Communist Party.

Violence was instigated by pro-CCP activists and carried out by coordinated groups of young men embedded among them, verified videos show. Anti-Xi protesters were attacked with extended flagpoles and chemical spray, punched, kicked, and had fistfuls of sand thrown in their faces.

The Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles paid for supporters’ hotels and meals as an incentive to participate, according to messages shared in WeChat groups reviewed by The Post. At least 35 pro-CCP Chinese diaspora groups showed up to the APEC summit protests — including groups from New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington State.

Videos show at least four Chinese diplomats from the consulates in Los Angeles and San Francisco among the crowd of pro-CCP protesters, sometimes directly interacting with aggressive actors over four days of protests from Nov. 14-17. Some Chinese diaspora group leaders with ties to the Chinese state participated in some of the violence, the videos show.

Chinese diplomats hired at least 60 private security guards to “protect” Chinese diaspora groups gathered to welcome Xi, according to people involved in the arrangement.

This puts a different spin on demonstrations. They can be foreign-sponsored events. And that raises a bigger question for a state: sovereignty.

Middlebury

The Middlebury event with Murray has upset a lot of people.
William Deresiewicz has written a brave article in the "American Scholar" on the religious nature of American colleges. Here is a representative paragraph:

"First, that they possess a dogma, unwritten but understood by all: a set of “correct” opinions and beliefs, or at best, a narrow range within which disagreement is permitted. There is a right way to think and a right way to talk, and also a right set of things to think and talk about. Secularism is taken for granted. Environmentalism is a sacred cause. Issues of identity—principally the holy trinity of race, gender, and sexuality—occupy the center of concern. The presiding presence is Michel Foucault, with his theories of power, discourse, and the social construction of the self, who plays the same role on the left as Marx once did. The fundamental questions that a college education ought to raise—questions of individual and collective virtue, of what it means to be a good person and a good community—are understood to have been settled. The assumption, on elite college campuses, is that we are already in full possession of the moral truth. This is a religious attitude. It is certainly not a scholarly or intellectual attitude."

"The fundamental questions that a college education ought to raise—questions of individual and collective virtue, of what it means to be a good person and a good community—are understood to have been settled."
It's almost as if we did not need them any more.

Greeks Demanding Gifts

This is an interesting project that pits the Greek people against the EU, of which they are a part. It documents much of the final crisis and typifies much of the debate one hears and reads of concerning money in the cultures of the world. The Greeks have borrowed 333 million Euros from other Europeans and the lenders want it back. The Greeks are arguing that the loan is somehow a function of the democratic process, perhaps does not need paid, or should be paid in a way that the lenders do not like. If the debtor does not pay, the creditor does and it seems the Greeks believe that right.

What is prominent here is the current concept that seems to be so pervasive in the West: Pretending. The new government takes a bold stand, pretending to have some say in the matter and they are cheered by the public. When the truth begins to emerge, everyone pretends there is a conspiracy afoot. The country has no money, lives on borrowed money, holds a referendum then puts a gun to its own head and says, "Give us want we want or we'll shoot."

This is very strange.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTClMptZJE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOM6jONVZwg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUbrV-gdv9A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR_kvr0x5MA
 

Discontent is its Own Reward

The Wall Street demonstrators are at a tremendous disadvantage: In a crowd you can always find someone who will make the group look bad. The bigger the crowd, the better. But there is an additional problem here. Angst does not qualify as a movement. Being worried or unhappy, although they may be common themes in mankind, does not constitute an organizing social point. It can sometimes--the French Revolution was outrage all dressed up with nowhere to go--but generally specifics are necessary.

I was watching a demonstrator being interviewed a few days ago and he stated his motive for being there was his high college student loan payments. As a guy whose grandfather did not go to grade school, I was not moved to search for the barricades.