We’re escaping to the Florida Free State for the Maskachusetts school vacation week (April 18-25). A journey of 1,000+ miles is the best way for the kids to get a “mask break” (under what would be the “law” if it had been passed by the legislature instead of merely ordered by the governor, walking outside one’s yard, even at midnight in a low-density exurb, is illegal without a mask).
The post from 2021 quotes the Covidcrats:
Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday he had no immediate plans to change the Massachusetts’ mask mandate, saying his administration would only do so when more people are vaccinated.
It is impossible to walk a dog anywhere in Florida without running into neighbors who work in the real estate industry. Progressive victories yesterday in Chicago and Wisconsin were being celebrated down here. High hopes in particular are pinned on Brandon Johnson to take the title of Florida Realtor of the Year previously held by Andrew Cuomo.
The Democrat-governed state of Wisconsin isn’t as wealthy as Chicago, but it was a positive sign that a person whom the New York Times calls a “liberal judge” won by 55:45 (see “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers”). (Separately, it is interesting that laws and the state constitution will have 180-degree different interpretations depending on the personal politics of the judge!)
The more extreme the politics in the states that send wealthy homebuyers to Florida, the better. If state and local governments are expanded in Illinois and Wisconsin and someone with money doesn’t agree with the new goals, that’s a big nudge toward moving. Chicago is home to nearly 200,000 millionaires (was 160,000 in 2022, but inflation should have lifted quite a few more folks into this category). If Brandon’s proposed new taxes motivate just ten percent of them to move to Florida, that’s 20,000 at least moderately nice homes that can be sold.
What’s the scale of real estate development in Florida? A whole new town, essentially, is being built on what was scrub land 30 minutes south of us: Avenir (houses from $700,000 to “over $3 million”); a similar idea is going on 30-miles inland from Fort Myers at Babcock Ranch.
As noted in yesterday’s post, in our neighborhood, the real estate bubble party ended with the interest rate boosts of summer 2022. Everything sat on the market for months maybe because nobody could figure out what houses were worth in the new non-zero-interest-rate environment. But just within the past month or so the market seems to be clearing. People agree that houses are worth, in nominal and continuously eroding dollars, between 80 and 100 percent of the peak 2022 numbers (i.e., everything has at least gone down a little via inflation).
Let’s hope that Brandon can follow through on his promise to make Chicago’s wealthy pay their fair share! He’s got at least $750 million in tax increases planned; the same article notes “34% of Chicagoans would leave the city if given the opportunity” and also highlights his work with teachers:
Johnson is a Cook County Board commissioner and earned over $390,ooo in five years as the Chicago Teachers Union legislative coordinator. He helped organize three teachers strikes in the city and has pushed the Red for Ed agenda intended to spread the Socialist doctrine among teachers.
He has received nearly $3.2 million in contributions from CTU and its affiliates, and the CTU just voted to take $8 per month from each member’s dues to back Johnson.
What explains the apparent inconsistency? The PBS article:
Lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis last year passed a 15-week abortion limit But that came before the June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
I don’t think this is a complete explanation, however. If Floridians agreed a year ago that 6 weeks was the correct limit, they could have put two laws on the books, one of them inoperative until the Supreme Court ruled. So it seems safe to say that Floridians agreed that a 15-week limit was optimum a year ago, at least 1 week more than France and 3 weeks longer than Germany (the “15 weeks” period might actually be “15 weeks and 6 days”). But now we are saying, through our legislators, that 6 weeks is the right number.
(For the record, I am not offering an opinion that 6 weeks, 15 weeks, no limit (Maskachusetts), or some other time period is correct. I am noting only that 6 weeks is different from 15 weeks and the Science hasn’t changed regarding, for example, the viability of a baby born at 15 weeks.)
Related:
“Massachusetts law about abortion” (legal at all stages of a pregnant person’s pregnancy, but one doctor has to think it is a good idea after 24 weeks)
the local beach, below, yesterday. Let’s hope that nobody compares the body shapes to what prevailed in the 1960s or 1970s…
A federal jury in San Francisco ordered Tesla on Monday to pay about $3.2 million to a Black man who had accused the carmaker of ignoring racial abuse he faced while working at its California factory.
The award was far less than the $137 million that a different jury awarded two years ago, mostly in punitive damages. The judge in that trial later reduced the figure to $15 million, prompting the plaintiff, Owen Diaz, to challenge the amount in a new trial.
It’s the same justice system, the same plaintiff, and the same facts. Yet the outcome is wildly different at slightly different times. $137 million, $15 million, and $3 million… all examples of “just” compensation.
print out the 23-page NOTAM, which has detailed instructions for arrival and departure
print out “GAP” and “VFR” signs for display during arrival/departure taxi (the VFR sign is likely not critical since it is the default)
load airplane with tie-down kit and hammer if needed (screw-in tiedowns are sold for $30; the volunteers may not have hammers); tiedowns are required even if you’re there for one day and no weather is expected
note the frequency crib sheet toward the back (restatement of frequencies that are buried within the 23 pages of text)
I arrived at 10 am on Friday and the traffic was continuous, with 1-mile spacing, but not so intense that anyone was required to hold. Controllers are great at coaching pilots, e.g., “Cherokee on downwind, turn base now”.
Let’s start with some inspiring stories and people. Here’s a pilot who flies with no arms (in an Ercoupe, which was designed without rudder pedals and therefore requires only two limbs to operate):
Maybe I will stop complaining about my physical infirmities for a few hours…
How about for those of us who think that we need a huge climate-controlled house for day-to-day living? Here’s someone camping out of a minimal-size vehicle:
What if you’ve closing in on Elon Musk with evil billionaire status? Executive configuration PBY Catalina from World War II, privately owned by a guy in Chicago:
(After the Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese and a distress call was sent out and the ship did not arrive as schedule, the U.S. Navy did… nothing. A PBY crew on a routine patrol four days later found the survivors who had not been consumed by sharks and sacrificed their aircraft to rescue some of the men (first radioing for the rest of the Navy to assist). The story is retold, with the government incompetence left out, in the movie Jaws. One interesting aspect of the story is that, instead of blaming its own bureaucracy and procedures for the men left to be eaten by sharks, the Navy court-martialed Captain Charles B. McVay III for failure to zigzag. As part of this blame-assignment effort, the Navy brought Mochitsura Hashimoto to the U.S. to testify against Captain McVay. The Japanese sub captain said that he would have been able to sink the Indianapolis regardless of any zigzagging, but Captain McVay was nonetheless held responsible.)
What about new and exciting products? Despite an industry unable to meet customer demand, e.g., people ordering a Cirrus today might get one at the end of 2024, not too much new stuff was on offer. If you want to connect with great aviators of the past, such as Hanna Reitsch, the rebooted Junkers A50, made by WACO in Michigan, might be the ideal choice. Less than $200,000, supposedly, at least for the first handful that will be built. You just need to be a better pilot than Chuck Yeager and Mike Patey to avoid ground-looping the taildragger.
Most talked-about in the discussion forums that I frequent was an updated noise-canceling headset from Bose, the A30 (not to be confused with the prior “A20”).
Bose says that this is no quieter than the A20, but has less clamping pressure and better weight distribution. I tried it briefly and found no difference.
Aviation + Florida = high risk of Deplorability. Here’s a pilot whom we might infer was a supporter of the January 6 insurrection and, therefore, is a candidate for a few months (or years?) in a re-education camp:
Speaking of Florida, even Maverick and Iceman travel by golf cart:
Cirrus runs a great hospitality center for owners. Here’s a picture of the Blue Angels from the balcony:
Speaking of the Blue Angels, their announcer thanked a seemingly endless list of people and communities, but left out two groups: (1) the taxpayers who paid nearly $5 trillion to the federal government in FY 2022; (2) the children who are going to be stuck with the $31 trillion in debt (plus another $31 trillion soon enough?) for all of the federal spending that wasn’t covered by tax revenue. Here’s a nice break at the end of the show. If these F/A-18s were fully armed, even a bad dude such as Corn Pop wouldn’t stand a chance against six of them:
If you’re not an elite owner of a two-decade-old Cirrus and want a good seat for the airshow, you can bring your own:
Sun ‘n Fun is set up well for afternoon air shows because the spectators are on the south side of the runway (9-27; east-west) and the sun is mostly behind everyone’s back.
The Mississippi-based Hurricane Hunters brought one of their 10 C-130s to the event. There are two pilots and a navigator in the front and two data-gathering and analysis experts in the back. One releases dropsondes and the other looks at the information received. They do a lot of flying at 500′ to 1500′ above the ocean surface everywhere from Hawaii to the Caribbean. The back of the C-130 is generally empty.
And here’s a military flying job you won’t see in a Top Gun movie… Team Target in a humble Dash-8:
I didn’t have a chance to talk to these folks. It may be that part of this aircraft’s mission is to find people in the water who would be at risk from live-ammo practice. USAF page on the E-9A Widget:
Modified with AN/APS-143(V) -1 Airborne Sea Surveillance Radar to detect objects in the Gulf of Mexico, the aircraft can detect a person in a life raft up to 25 miles away in the water. It downlinks this telemetry data to the range safety officer who determines the shoot area for live-fire activity, according to the Air Force fact sheet.
Not only was expressed support for Joe Biden non-existent at Sun ‘n Fun, but QAnon brought their own Siai Marchetti S-211 jet (characteristically, the group was unable to spell its own name correctly):
What about the hundreds of additional aircraft? Here’s a homemade one that has flown 30 years and 3,000 hours:
For lovers of cameras and film, a 1955 Fuji LM-1!
A window into the challenges faced by mechanics in the final days of the monster piston engines (airshow superstar Mike Goulian in the background):
A nice Beaver:
The Blue Angels celebrate Dr. Bill Cosby, American icon and University of Maskachusetts Ed.D., by naming their C-130 “Fat Albert”:
An RV-12 built by high school students in Wisconsin:
(If it had been built by students in a suburban Boston high school, would they have to keep repainting the fuselage as builders changed gender IDs and first names?)
No date for the 2024 gathering yet, but first week of April seeks likely.
The N.C.A.A. on Tuesday “reluctantly” lifted its ban on holding championship events in North Carolina, removing its six-month-old prohibition less than a week after the state’s Legislature and governor repealed a so-called bathroom bill that had led to boycotts of the state.
The organization, which governs college athletics, said in a statement that the law’s replacement in North Carolina had “minimally achieved a situation where we believe N.C.A.A. championships may be conducted in a nondiscriminatory environment.”
Where were the March Madness basketball games held? Among other places, Florida and Texas. Both of these states are on the official California boycott list for their insufficient devotion to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community (2021):
California is adding Florida and four other states to its official travel ban list after Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday the states passed anti-LGBTQ laws that are “directly targeting transgender youth.”
Before Bonta’s announcement Monday, 12 other states were already on the California ban list: Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
California in 2017 banned state-funded travel to Texas after the nation’s second most-populous state allowed agencies to reject adoptions by LGBTQ couples based on religious reasons.
Here are NCAA basketball tournament cities for 2023 that are in no-go locations for righteous Californians:
Why not rename this event “The Tournament of Hate”? And what happened to NCAA’s principles between 2017 and 2023?
Separately, note that South Florida is home to 50 percent of the Final Four teams with Florida Atlantic University (sounds private, but is state-run) and University of Miami (sounds state-run, but is private).
Related:
“I’m calling on the NCAA to boycott Texas (again) after SCOTUS allows abortion ban” (Deadspin, 2021): From lifting mask mandates to trying to control women’s bodies – the NCAA should stop hosting events in the Lone Star State … “This extreme Texas law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. … In March, I suggested that the NIT and the NCAA Women’s Tournament consider boycotting Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the mask mandate.
if you love sports and roasting/basting in Miami’s summer weather, the May 5-7 Formula 1 race (only $590 to attend, but that doesn’t include a seat)
The Florida Department of Health now says a vital kind of medical care known as gender-affirming care should not be an option for children and teens, even though every major medical association recommends such care and says it can save lives.
The department’s new guidelines suggest that children should be provided social support from peers and family and should seek counseling. But it says they should be denied treatments that can be a part of this care, including calling the child or teen by the name and pronoun they prefer and allowing them to wear clothing or hairstyles that match their gender identity.
Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.
The gold standard of care Major medical associations – including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry – agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults.
The regulators of Florida’s MDs began to shut down the gold standard in September 2022 (source):
The final rule:
64B8-9.019 Standards of Practice for the Treatment of Gender Dysphoria in Minors. (1) The following therapies and procedures performed for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors are prohibited. (a) Sex reassignment surgeries, or any other surgical procedures, that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics. (b) Puberty blocking, hormone, and hormone antagonist therapies. (2) Minors being treated with puberty blocking, hormone, or hormone antagonist therapies prior to the effective date of this rule may continue with such therapies.
The regulators of Florida’s DOs went off the gold standard effective today (source) with an identical rule.
One area where Ron is out of step with the American mainstream is in thinking that there should be consequences for government incompetence. For example, Mary Daly, who focused on the diversity crisis at the San Francisco Fed (NYT) while SVB and First Republic were accumulating risk, would be fired in Ron’s ideal world.
By the time I became governor, it was clear that the victims [of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, which happened a year prior to DeSantis becoming governor] and their families had been failed by both Broward County sheriff Scott Israel as well as the Broward County school district. The Florida Legislature responded to the tragedy by enacting a series of firearms restrictions, which my predecessor signed into law. I campaigned saying that I would have vetoed those restrictions on Second Amendment and constitutional due process grounds. This was a tough position to take, as it was a very emotional time, and there was a natural human desire to “do something.” But when it comes to fundamental rights, those times are the times when defending them is so essential. Rather than a firearms issue, I viewed the Parkland massacre as a catastrophic failure of leadership that cried out for accountability. As someone who had been serving in Congress, I was frustrated that government failures almost never resulted in any real consequences. If an average American posted something politically incorrect on social media, an online mob might very well get that individual “canceled,” including termination of employment. But if a government agency abused its authority or failed in its basic duties, the result, invariably, was essentially nothing in the way of accountability.
After taking office, I acted very quickly to suspend the Broward County sheriff. I had been consulting with a few of the Parkland parents, and they were very hopeful that I would hold the sheriff accountable. He was mired in multiple scandals, including his department failing to stop the shooter despite receiving forty-five calls about him or his household.
Under Florida law, a constitutional officer suspended by the governor has the right to a trial in the Florida Senate; if the Senate agrees with the governor’s decision, then the official’s suspension becomes a permanent termination. Scott Israel challenged my decision in front of the Florida Senate and lost. Justice was served. I also petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to convene a special grand jury to investigate the failures of school security in counties like Broward. This grand jury ended up leading to the resignation of the superintendent of schools and provided a series of recommendations for reform, including removing several members of the Broward County school board, whom I suspended after the final report became public in 2022.
Note that highlighted part. DeSantis is like the dissenters in Korematsu v. United States. FDR said that the Constitution didn’t give Japanese-Americans the right to walk around in freedom #BecauseEmergency (same reason that the Nuremberg Code did not prevent coerced injection of experimental drugs into children; #Coronamergency). The dissenting justices said “What are these Constitutional protections for, then, if not when a president chooses to declare an emergency?”
No matter how whipped up into panic the average American becomes, Ron D is going to do his own analysis and try to act rationally even when everyone else is behaving irrationally.
I refused to do any polling at all once I became governor. When someone does a poll, it provides, at best, a static view of how voters respond to certain issues, but it cannot tell you how people will view a dynamic push for certain policies. If leadership was nothing more than dutifully following poll results, then it would not be in such short supply. A leader does not meekly follow public opinion but shapes opinion through newsworthy actions. If I set out a vision, execute on my governing plan, and produce favorable results, then public support will follow.
We are informed that Republicans are the party of Jew-hatred. But it seems that Ron DeSantis did not get the ADL’s memo. He tells a story about media- and government-selection experts being failures as prophets. It is unfortunate, from my point of view, that he puts double quotes around the word expert.
One major foreign policy issue that I cared about deeply was the relocation of America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump promised that, if elected, he would move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. US law since the 1990s identified Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and, as a result, the proper site of the US embassy, but the law included a waiver provision (in classic DC style) that allowed presidents over two decades to punt on relocation of our embassy every six months—even though Presidents Clinton and Bush had promised to move it.
From my seat in the House, I wanted to create a sense of inevitability about the relocation of our embassy. In 2017, I led a small mission to Israel to scout out possible sites in Jerusalem for the new US embassy. I looked at a handful of possible locations, and the site I thought was the best ended up being the site that was selected by the Trump administration. Before I left, I held a press conference at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem to recount what we did on the trip and to express my view that President Donald Trump promised to move our embassy to Jerusalem, and he will be delivering on his promise.
The next month, President Trump announced that the United States would be relocating its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The formal ceremony in May 2018 was a major event, which I attended in person. It was a great day and should have occurred years earlier.
This was an example of why following the advice of the conventional DC expert class is almost always a mistake. Especially when they predict imminent doom.
“What would happen if the US moved our embassy?” I asked. The consistent response from these so-called experts was that relocating our embassy to Jerusalem would be a geopolitical disaster. None even entertained the idea that moving our embassy would serve our national interests. Looking back on it, these were supposed to be our top experts in matters of diplomacy and intelligence, but they were dead wrong about the impact of the move. This experience confirms the bankruptcy of our bureaucratic “expert” class. Time and again, from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to the financial crisis of 2008 to the response to COVID-19, America’s bureaucratic elites have whiffed when it counted.
I continue to believe that Ron D faces an uphill battle in any general election. Americans’ faith in bureaucratic elites remains stronger than ever. The majority bought into Faucism and the dramatically lower percentage of excess deaths in no-mask no-lockdown Sweden (6%; see map) compared to the typical Faucist country has not shaken anyone’s faith in Faucism. (Example: “What Worked Against Covid: Masks, Closures and Vaccines” (Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2023) does not even bother to look at Sweden vs. European lockdown and mask champs nor at Florida versus the lockdown states. And that’s in a conservative newspaper!) We also shouldn’t forget that a higher percentage of Americans are dependent on government than at any time in history due to the massive expansion of government that began in 2020 with coronapanic as the justification. That’s going to make it tough for any politician who suggests that government spending be limited in any way. Point 1 of the DeSantis agenda articulated in his 2019 inauguration speech:
Promoting a fiscally responsible government that taxes lightly and regulates reasonably
This is the opposite of what the majority of Americans want. A typical American votes for a fiscally lavish government funded by taxes on successful corporations and anyone richer than he/she/ze/they is (though, of course, what is delivered is a government funded by borrowing/inflation and taxes on the peasants).
Ron also promised, in that speech:
Ushering in a new era of conservation for Florida’s waterways and Everglades
(and delivered, according to the Everglades Trust!). This is presumably popular, except with Big Sugar, but I can’t imagine government-dependent Americans thinking that this commitment to the environment outweighs their own paychecks.
Continuing our discussion of The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, by Ron DeSantis… in the opening post regarding this book, I noted that a Boston progressive had confidently condemned DeSantis for aiding and abetting actual slavery that the Florida sugar industry was managing (humans arriving and departing the U.S. on ships in chains). It turns out that Ron DeSantis might be Big Sugar’s worst enemy. The bad blood started when Big Sugar backed Ron’s gubernatorial primary opponent in 2018. DeSantis was quitting Congress because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything with Democrats about to obtain a majority in the House.
By April [2018, the campaign luck] changed. A shadowy political group started blanketing the airwaves throughout Florida with false attacks against me. The group was funded by entrenched corporate interests in Florida, led by U.S. Sugar Corporation, Putnam’s biggest supporter. The ads were false and completely ridiculous. But we couldn’t answer them, because I did not have enough money at this early point of the campaign. And Big Sugar’s ads were airing nonstop on virtually every conservative-leaning news source on TV and radio. At about the same time, Putnam started airing ads to boost his own image and to portray himself as a strong conservative. To Republican voters who did not know anything about Putnam, these ads presented a compelling narrative.
Ron eventually overcomes Big Sugar’s candidate and Democrat Andrew Gillum. Once installed in Tallahassee, Ron’s agenda quickly comes into conflict with Big Sugar’s interests.
Before taking office, I flew up to DC to meet with President Trump. My goal was to convince him to direct the Army Corps to manage the lake in a more balanced manner. “Mr. President, I need your help regarding the discharges of algae-laden water from Lake Okeechobee,” I told him. “What do you want, money?” the president asked. “Well, eventually, yes, but immediately I need help with the Army Corps of Engineers,” I replied. “Oh, the Army Corps is the worst!” he thundered. “I mean, they are good people, but they have the worst red tape in the entire government!”
During my first week in office, I acted. I issued a far-reaching executive order to reorient Florida’s water policy in a better direction, convened a task force that could offer recommendations for legislative reforms, appointed independent members to the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District, and proposed historic funding to support water quality, infrastructure, and restoration. While Big Sugar did not like it, most people across the political spectrum in Florida were thrilled. We ended up securing major funding support and enacting water quality legislation. We made clear that the old ways of doing business were over.
I have begun to read The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, despite my general aversion to this genre of literature. I consider reading Ron DeSantis’s book to be a duty both as a blog publisher and as a new Floridian. Progressive academic friends in Cambridge feel that they already know Mr. DeSantis. One noted, during my most recent visit, that DeSantis is responsible for importing slaves into the United States to pick sugar cane. “They come on boats in chains,” he said, “and aren’t paid.” Why don’t journalists from New York-based media enterprises ask Mr. DeSantis about his slave importation operation at press conferences? “They know that he won’t answer.” Why didn’t the progressive himself go down to Florida and picket outside the Governor’s Mansion for the slaves to be released? He’s a member of the laptop class and can work from anywhere. He couldn’t explain why he wasn’t willing to invest the price of a plane ticket to protest the actual slavery that he has identified on U.S. soil.
For folks who don’t feel that they already know everything worth knowing about Ron D, read on…
The book starts out rough, in my opinion:
Most Americans instinctively know that something has gone wrong with our country over the past generation.
How is Ron going to win with this message? Successful politicians generally tell Americans that they are the world’s greatest people living in the world’s greatest (and richest) country. A vote for the politician is a path to slightly increased greatness, not a recovery from a nosedive. The language gets a little softer later in the introduction:
Our nation needs immigration policies that recognize and enforce the country’s sovereignty, not just by having a wall at the southern border but also by quickly repatriating those in the country illegally. An erroneous claim of asylum should not give a foreign national a ticket to settle in the interior of our country. Nor should the legal immigration system have policies such as the diversity lottery and chain migration; instead, the immigration system should be merit-based; favor assimilation, not mass migration; and be geared toward benefiting the wages of working-class Americans.
Ron D will not deport migrants, but repatriate them.
Looking for useful life advice?
People often talk about the need for a student-athlete to “balance” the demands of the classroom with the requirements of sports. For me, I rejected the idea that I would strike a balance between academic achievement and athletic success, because I was not willing to give less than 100 percent to either baseball or my academics. So instead of balancing, I just did everything to the hilt and let the chips fall where they may.
He gave 110 percent while at Yale, in other words? Or 200 percent? I am not sure how to put this into practice since my capacity is about 50 percent on my best day.
We learn about Ron and Casey’s working class and military roots. Ron worked during high school and college, e.g., for an electrical contractor, while Casey’s sister was a USAF C-17 pilot. (Even today, the DeSantis family has minimal wealth.) Ron’s own military service made him skeptical of America’s recent war aims:
It was just as obvious that we would not succeed in establishing a pro-American, Western-style democracy in Iraq. This was simply outside the capability of any military force to achieve. The cultural differences were too vast for Iraq to embrace Madisonian constitutionalism. In fact, the Iraqis considered “freedom” to be submission to sharia law, not the enactment of a liberal democracy.
(The U.S. would be a lot friendlier to the immigrants that we claim to welcome if Michigan and Minnesota adopted sharia law. Why should Muslim immigrants, many of whom are asylees or refugees who are fleeing violence, have to accept a debauched society? They didn’t come to the U.S. because they love the way that the U.S. is, but because they would have been killed if they had stayed in their home countries.)
Ron was inspired by Barack Obama:
Once I left active duty, I began to think more and more about how our country was moving in the wrong direction, especially under the leftist agenda of the Obama administration.
What did he learn as a Congressman?
Ingrained in Beltway thinking is a contempt for average voters, particularly voters who reject leftist ideology.
That’s certainly consistent with my experience of D.C.! Also, Ron turns out to be one of the few Representatives who actually reads the bills.
The book does get more substantive. Leafing through, I found the following, for example:
Our reforms included protections for political candidates against being deplatformed, which is a way for Big Tech to interfere in elections. What is stopping Big Tech companies from shutting off Republican candidates from social media platforms during the stretch run of an election? If someone hosts a get-together for a candidate and provides refreshments, that must be accounted for as a campaign contribution, yet a tech company can upend an entire candidate’s campaign, and that is somehow not considered interference with an election. The reforms also included transparency requirements for the social media companies’ content moderation policies, and required that users be given notice of changes to those policies. The opaqueness of how Big Tech arrives at its censorship decisions means that it is easy for them to move the goalposts to stifle views the industry does not like.
I’m actually surprised that Twitter, Facebook, and Google allow Republican candidates to use their platforms at all. Any of these firms could cite the following analysis of the January 6 insurrection and say that it wasn’t safe to allow Republicans to speak.
January 6th has a higher death count than Covid. And there are no vaccines to prevent insurrectionists.
— Jess Boosted 🦜y (phi/zer) (@BoostedJess) March 9, 2023
I hope that some readers will read along with me!
So far I’m dismayed that Ron hasn’t adapted his message to be more like conventional politicians’. Crushing it in Florida against an all-abortion-care-all-the-time fossil does not mean that he can crush it with voters nationwide in 2024. Americans in general are the most timid and compliant humans ever to occupy this planet. The Floridians who wanted the freedom to leave their houses, breathe without masks, send children to school, not inject their children with experimental drugs, etc., are outliers on the spectrum of American cowerhood. Young/cognitively sharp/competent/energetic/effective sounds good, but Americans in 2020 chose a new president who does not have any of these qualities.
One constant feature of health care in Maskachusetts was the provider asking, often as the first question of an encounter, “Do you feel safe at home?” A fit 6’2″ tall 25-year-old who identified as a cisgender heterosexual man would be asked this question just the same as a frail slight person identifying as female.
A memorable example of this was the delay of care being provided to Senior Management after I had taken her to a community hospital in Cambridge, MA at 5 am. Getting to the bottom of the “Do you feel safe at home?” question was more important than asking about the labor pains that had occasioned the hospital visit (the same hospital where she had been receiving prenatal care, so it wasn’t a new-patient situation). In order that she would be free of coercion, the person who got up at 4:30 am to do the hospital drive had to removed into a separate room so that the 9-months-pregnant person could answer this question freely before moving on to whether abortion care (perfectly legal at all stages of pregnancy in Maskachusetts) or delivery was desired.
An example in miscommunication occurred when the question followed me telling the doctor that I had recently returned from a trip to Israel. This was early in the adoption of the “Do you feel safe?” question so I heard it as “Did you feel safe?” and launched in a long explanation of security risks in Israel, the lack of street crime compared to big U.S. cities, etc. The doc then had to explain that she didn’t care about Israel but about whether Senior Management was physically abusing me.
Because I’m in possession of a mostly timed-out body, I’ve had quite a few encounters with physicians here in Florida since August 2021. What did these encounters have in common? Never once was I asked if I felt safe at home. Nor are patients asked to wear masks, even inside the full-service hospitals with operating rooms, etc.
Separately, I’m noticing that a remarkably high percentage of doctors in Florida are private jet charter customers. The specialist who toils for peanuts in MA and pays 5% income tax (9% under the new “millionaires’ tax” if there is a rare good year) will pay 16% estate tax on finally dying. He/she/ze/they can bask in the glory of institutional prestige, e.g., at MGH, even if prestige doesn’t come with a lot of money. The counterpart in FL seems to earn twice as much, pays 0% income and estate tax, and spends the extra on a luxurious lifestyle.
