Category Archives: Social Commentary

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Bells Of Barcelona

13 Comments

…toll for Europe:

Catalonia, to be sure, has trampled on the Spanish Constitution. But constitutions depend on the consent of the governed, and Catalonia refuses to be governed by Madrid. Rajoy now faces a political crisis without a clear solution. His minority government depends on the support of a Basque regional party, and the Basques are sympathetic to the Catalans. The governor of the Basque Autonomous Region proposed yesterday that Madrid adopt a British or Canadian solution, allowing the Catalans to vote on secession as did the Scots in 2014. The difference, of course, is that the Scots depend on British subsidies and voted to stay, while the Catalans subsidize the rest of Spain and would vote to leave. The Basques well might follow.

This is an existential crisis for the Spanish state, for reasons I laid out on Sept. 30. Spain is at the cusp of a steep rise in the proportion of elderly dependents (from 25% of the economically-active population to an insupportable 50% by 2050). The question comes down to who will be eaten first in the lifeboat: with the lowest fertility rate of any large European country, Spain cannot support its elderly, and the Catalans want to maintain themselves first.

There is a great deal of speculation about the possible knock-on effects in the rest of Europe. Catalonia is a singularity. The notionally separatist Lombard League has no stomach for a real fight, and no ambitions to create an independent country, as the League-affiliated Mayor of Bergamo explained in an interview yesterday. The Lombards merely want to keep a higher proportion of their tax revenue. The Italian regionalists are playing comedy, while the Catalans are enacting a tragedy: They perceive this moment as one of existential import for their future existence, and will not back down.

The first response of the rest of Europe, to be sure, will be to ask the Catalans as well as the Rajoy government to put the genie back into the bottle. We are well past that point. After demonstrating that mass civil disobedience could defeat the heavy-handed efforts of the national government to suppress them, the Catalans will not turn back. Nor should they. Europe’s infertility leaves the more productive regions of Europe with the choice of impugning their own future by picking up the retirement bill for the continent’s dead beats, or going their own way.

Something that cannot continue will eventually stop.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Vegas Massacre

37 Comments

Yes, based at least on initial reports, it does appear to be very, very strange.

[Update later afternoon]

The Vegas shooting and the attack of the carrion crows.

Every.Single.Time.

[Tuesday-morning update]

Mass shootings are a bad way to understand gun violence.

And Nick Gillespie says that this is the time to defend the Second Amendment and less-strict gun control. Because gun control is not, and has never been, the solution.

I have a crazy idea that if you’re going to propose a policy or law in response to a tragic event, you should have to explain how it would have actually prevented that event. Everything this guy did and used was already illegal, as far as I can tell.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Trump And The NFL

33 Comments

The politicization of everything. When the personal becomes political, when you can’t watch sportsball without politics being interjected, you are well down the road of totalitarianism. I have a crazy idea: I don’t have to choose sides. The protesting players are terrible, and Trump is terrible.

One other point: I see a lot of nonsense on Twitter and in other places that they are just “standing up for their First Amendment rights.” I find this kind of ignorance infuriating. As I tweeted repeatedly over the weekend, this has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment, or the Constitution at all. The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law.” Congress has made no law. The fact that Trump was Trump doesn’t change that, even though a president who understands the role of the president wouldn’t have stuck his oar in.

They have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to make millions throwing and catching footballs. The NFL has a right to fine them, and owners have a right to can them. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom from consequences for it. I’ve personally paid a heavy financial price for expressing my opinions publicly, in that I’ve essentially been blackballed by the main cost-plus space industry. I accept that as the price I have to pay for protesting the continuous waste of taxpayer funds and the continuing crippling of our space capabilities. I have no sympathy for second-rate washed-up spoiled children like Colin Kaepernick and his ilk. But I’m sure that I’ll be called a racist for that.

[Noon update]

[Update a few minutes later]

In Trump versus the NFL, we’re all losers:

Everything about the political dynamic suggests that we could be heading toward an escalation where the NFL protests now become more broadly about Trump. And, as I said up top, there’s no obvious off-ramp here. If you’re a player kneeling because the justice system is screwed up, when do you stop kneeling? Because it’s going to be screwed up for a long time. And if you’re kneeling because Trump is president, that’s got a ways to go, too.

In a perfect world, a presidential response would be something like:

The players can do what they like. We should all want the justice system to work as well as possible. We should understand that it will never be perfect, but will not wave away its failings as inconsequential. We’re all God’s children and I invite you to consider that standing during our national anthem is a symbol of how we remain united in pursuit of ever-greater liberty.

But Trump doesn’t do presidential, at least not often, and never off the cuff.

[Tuesday-morning update]

Red Team, Blue Team? Start your own team:

I’m not on the Blue Team. I’m not on the Red Team. I’m on my team.

Occasionally, I’ll exploit the Reds or Blues to advance my aims in, well, making America great again. But I refuse to surrender my individuality to be an extra in someone else’s movie. As the decades of DC failure have shown us time and again, none of these politicians consider themselves to be on my team. I’m just returning the favor.

Republican leaders will like me if I vote for them. Celebrities will like me if I buy tickets. But neither views me as an equal, just a pawn from which they extract money and power. Those days are long gone.

I look at it this way, in sports and in life: When I see the two teams battling on a football field, I’m not going to passively cheer them from the stands. Instead, I’ll head over to the basketball court to see if I can start my own game. And, to be honest, once the hoops scene gets too crowded, I’ll walk down to the baseball field and try starting a game there.

Politicians are just temp employees we hire to do our bidding. If they suck, we fire them. They aren’t gods we bow to or team owners issuing orders. We’re Americans, dammit.

Celebrities are court jesters we pay to amuse us. When they get too mouthy, we kick them out of the dining hall. That’s the beauty of capitalism.

So, if any of our so-called elites want me to join their team, no thanks. I simply have better things to do.

So do I. Yes, I blew up in comments last night. And I’ll happily do it again any time someone demands that I have to blindly support an anal orifice, whether it’s the one in the White House, or the rich BLM knee takers on the football fields.