Robust Analysis

Readings and occasional commentary

Robust Analysis

The Laken Riley Act

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The Laken Riley Act passed 84-9 in the Senate and 251-170 in the House.

What problems will the Laken Riley Act help fix?

The acute issues at the US-Mexico border are:

  1. Insufficient government capacity to process asylum applications and other requests to enter the country;
  2. Limited housing, school capacity, and medical services for migrants.

The first issue could be addressed by adding staff to process applications;  the second by helping would-be Americans settle in areas where there is adequate housing supply, school capacity, etc. The latter is a real issue. Even if money were no object, there are material limits on the goods and services that can be provided to people seeking them.  There are finite number of homes, schools, doctors and nurses, etc. and additional ones can’t be created immediately on demand.  Infrastructure takes time to build.  It takes time for people to learn the skills that make them capable professionals.  Exceed the capacity of the system and it breaks down.  With that in mind, fewer people might seek to immigrate if the quality of life in their home country was more favorable, e.g., better economic and educational opportunities, less authoritarian government and/or social environment, lower crime. Towards that end, foreign aid to the countries that people are leaving might be helpful.

The Laken Riley Act addresses none of these things. One thing it will do however is deprive some people of due process based on their immigration status. Nothing good will come of that. Overall, it is a cynical, hateful piece of legislation. I thanked my Senators and Congressman for voting No.  (The motivation for this post were the Yes votes from craven Senate Democrats.)

Our community welcomes new neighbors and most of us are fine with some change, but communities have a finite capacity for growth before growth becomes disruptive.  Most of us are also quite willing to provide resources to other communities when they’re trying to lift themselves up, but our resources are finite.  Acknowledging preferences and limitations doesn’t prevent us from doing good.  We have goodwill and the capacity to help people who fear for their and their families’ well-being in their home community.  Let’s figure out how best to help them and get about doing so.

References:

 

“The System Failed”

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From Dan Drezner’s, My Extremely Brief Take on January 6th:

Folks are going to point out that today marked a peaceful transfer of power, overseen by the loser of the last presidential election, and isn’t that a great thing for democracy?! Usually, it is. But the fact remains that the only reason for the peace is because the guy who has threatened or fomented political violence for the last ten years won the election this time around. America’s political elite appeased a bully, the American people endorsed that strategy, and now America’s economic elite is falling all over itself to appease the bully some more.

And when you think about that dynamic for more than half a second, you realize how pathetic it makes this country sound.

Useless Idiots: Vichy Liberals Are Not Our Friends

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RFK Jr. is a grifter and a crank.  Unfortunately, Sens. Sanders and Fetterman are apparently open to supporting him for HHS Secretary.  Many will die if he is empowered to put his malevolent ideology into practice.  He must be stopped.  It would be depraved indifference for them to vote to confirm.

RFK Jr. has apologists beyond Sanders and Fetterman.  Give them no quarter.  From Dr. Benjamin Mazer, The Sanewashing of RFK Jr.:

Let’s be clear: Many scientists consider Kennedy to be a fool, and a ludicrous pick to run HHS, because the evidence supports that assessment. [Former Baltimore Public Health Commission and former Planned Parenthood President Leana] Wen nods to this in passing—Kennedy has a “long history of antiscience propagandism,” she writes—but otherwise she’s focused on the nitty-gritty of one particular public-health debate. So allow me to fill in some gaps: According to his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, RFK Jr. believes that Fauci and Gates are members of a “vaccine cartel” trying to kill patients by denying them hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He argues that this cartel secretly funded doctors to produce fraudulent studies showing that the drugs were ineffective against COVID—and that it did so in order to orchestrate global lockdowns and accelerate the construction of 5G cellular networks, which, in Kennedy’s understanding, are very, very bad.

From Gabriel Schoenfeld, Before Crackpot RFKism There Was Crackpot Lysenkoism: Continue reading →

Burn-It-All-Down Populism

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Catherine Rampell, Fan club for suspected shooter is a symptom of burn-it-all-down populism:

Public praise for a killer is an escalation of a troubling trend: bloodlust for destruction & retribution. Americans are rejecting leaders who propose solutions for problems, in favor of antiheroes who just want to burn everything down—figuratively or literally.

I disagree with Rampell’s characterization of Senator Warren’s statement as expressing sympathy with Mangione – Warren offered an explanation of the motivations for vigilantism, not an excuse for it – but otherwise I concur with her take:

Here’s the thing about indulging this annihilative reflex to infuriating social problems: Besides the obvious moral odiousness, it doesn’t fix the problems.

Murdering health-care executives won’t help more Americans get care. Purging the FBI won’t reduce crime. Jailing political enemies won’t lower egg prices.

It’s easier to break something than to build it. But to solve a problem, something eventually needs to be built. That part is boring, hard and, lately, not well appreciated by the public.

 

“The meaning crisis, and how we rescue young men from reactionary politics”

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From “The meaning crisis, and how we rescue young men from reactionary politics” by Aaron Rabinowitz:

Everyone needs meaning in their lives. Society used to hand men a simple set of narratives for meaning-making: provider, protector, patriarch. Now some segments of the male population feel they are denied those paths, told that it is chauvinistic to see themselves that way, and that progress demands they sit down, shut up, and let others take the lead. While that is good and right for those who are finally being allowed to also participate in society, many men feel they are denied any appealing alternatives. If a large swathe of the population feels they are being denied avenues for meaning-making in their lives, it becomes everyone’s problem, because they will find a way to make their lives meaningful, and in the absence of water they will drink sand.

A correspondent comments:  “Creating spaces to explore models for living as cooperative partners rather than in a hierarchy of superior-inferior positions seems like a good idea.”

Thought for the Day – November 19, 2024

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If [Rep. Nancy] Mace finds it difficult to use the toilet without thinking sexual thoughts or inspecting the genitals of the others in the bathroom she would be well advised to shut the stall door and keep her hatred and darkness to herself.

-Rep. Sean Casten

As some of you know, I have a trans son. I think it’s fine to thoughtfully debate whether trans girls can be in girls sports. Not debatable: Transgenderism is real & stirring up hatred against a minority community for political gain is despicable. That’s what this is. Period.

–Jon Ralston