There are the problems of partisanship you enumerate, and then there's the problem of both-sidesism as illustrated by, for instance, the Ukraine example. Putin does not have "legitimate security interests" any more than Hitler did and Russia wasn't any more under threat than the German Reich was. The kind of propaganda from the likes of Mearsheimer that the Right now likes isn't any less propaganda than, say, the news of the "Zionist genocide in Gaza" that the Left likes. That would be my version of both-sidesism, I suppose, the idea that the Left and the Right are just wrong on some issues, and that being right about something else is no excuse.
The West never thought war with the Soviet Union, a nuclear power, was a good idea in spite of the Soviets oppressing vast numbers of captive peoples. Why does anyone think war with a nuclear power is a good idea now? Even if Russia is totally in the wrong?
Who says that war with a nuclear power is a good idea? A lot of people think it's a good idea to disincentivize countries from invading other countries, thus decreasing the risk of war in general.
We are not trying to eliminate Putin — neither the US nor Ukraine started the war, and the first invasion of Russian territory started a couple of years into the war. We are trying to keep Ukraine independent and persuade the Russian government not to invade their neighbors.
Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations on most lists, and it's probably impossible to assign backers with any accuracy. One coup with American assistance against how many with Russian assistance? Against how many years of Soviet control, including the Holodomor? How much Tsarist control before that?
At some point, you have to draw a line in history. Yours seems awfully expedient considering how much corruption there was just the year before, and the year before that, and all the years since.
What is wrong with you? We are at war with Putin's Russia hoping he doesn't lose his temper and nuke us. Anyone who disagrees that war with Russia is a good idea is called a traitor.
We are not at war with Russia. We are supporting someone else who is at war with Russia, just as the Soviet Union supported North Vietnam when we were at war with it. Were they risking Kennedy losing his temper and nuking them?
There is an argument to be made that peace is through willingness to engage in negative retribution. See bees that die when they sting you. If one follows the basic game theory of “given offensive action A by the other player, I am better off choosing de-escalating behavior because if I fight back I will just lose more” the result is that people willing to open with offensive actions ways get their way. One needs to draw a line and say “Thus far, and no more, or I will burn the world down to punish you if I have to.” Turns out that is a very socially desirable behavior, if it can get the effect before the world burns down (which, historically, it has.)
What's really confusing to me is those on the right repeating that there is genocide in Gaza. Why they decry the left as liars, then suddenly buys that story whole heartedly, is kind of strange to me. I have to admit, it makes the claims of antisemitism seem fairly believable. What else is there to take away when people say "The American left is evil and wrong about everything, except that Israel thing"? Seems like an odd point to suddenly agree upon given all other points of disagreement.
You must not know anyone on the anti-Semite Right? Of course, others on the Right think Radical Islamicist Hamas and their Palestinian supporters started it by firing rockets into Israel for decades and then making a sickening attack on civilians having a celebration, etc. Not everyone can be as stupid as the DEM LEFT is about the US southern border.
Oddly, the anti-Semite Right admires Islam! You know Hitler did also. Hitler was a very big admirer of Islam and was in alliance with Islamists against Britain. He named his book Mein Kampf which translates My Struggle, equivalent to the Islamic Jihad. Most conservatives are the opposite, supporting Israel and opposing Islam. You can be certain the anti-Semite Right cares greatly about the Palestinians.
I don’t think I can be certain about anything regarding the antisemites on the right. Though you certainly appear to know a lot more about them than I do.
I do find it hard to believe that the anti-Semitic right care about the Palestinians. Though perhaps some or all of the above is sarcasm on your part. But it’s hard for me to tell.
But I appreciate the education that at least some non-zero number on the antisemitic right fringe are pro-Hamas.
Next time I come across someone writing an essay I will try and remember to come here and post it. You might start here with this essay regarding Chris Brunet (reposted by Chris) and the comment section there of. https://www.karlstack.com/p/right-wing-anti-zionism-is-on-the/comments
I doubt I’ll read through something long by such a person. But I do appreciate the note.
Amended: if you have to cite the *comments* sections, rather than someone - even a “lowly” Substacker - to make the case, IMO you are more making my case.
There is zero doubt that there are outright antisemites on the right. There is zero doubt there’s an even larger subset of America Firsters on the right who even if they are not all outright antisemites are definitely anti-Israel. (The two subgroups just noted combined are still *far* smaller than the number of antisemites today on the left, and far less influential in terms of having political power).
But that’s different than the even semi-credible leaders of such groups claiming that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, or even being specifically pro-Palestinian.
…whatever number of true lunatic fringe comments in a comments section you can cite.
Do you have a list of who would count as a semi credible leader on the right, alt right or dissident right? I am not sure who those people would be exactly.
I get what you mean about the comments section being crazy, but it isn’t a rounding error amount that it pops up it seems. I read a lot of Substack and there are probably a lot of people that show up multiple times in my observations as a result. Maybe I just see a lot of the Groyopers (or whatever the spelling) mentioned in the article. I certainly don’t go looking for them; along with those on the right who have decided that too much freedom is the problem ailing us it seems like a wild misdiagnosis that is not even interesting.
Still, as I said, I am surprised to see anyone on the right, comments section or no, picking up on the “Israel is genociding Gazans!” riff from the left and running with it. I would have expected a lot of skepticism, since at this point if the MSM or government told me the sky was blue I would lower my prior expectations of the fact.
I get your surprise. Per above, it would surprise me too.
But from what you’ve said, I surely write it off to the occasional troll and the occasional low-IQ whacko.
As a Jew, my problem is the large number of Jews who continue to falsely cite that the problems of antisemitism in the U.S. are on the right, or even now post-Oct 7th that it is just as bad on the right as on the left.
And so citations like yours play exactly to that narrative. And my personal opinion is that narrative is far more dangerous - for the U.S., for Israel and for Jews.
As for me there is no doubt whatsoever that a) of course there exists antisemitism on the right, b) it exists in MUCH greater numbers on the left and most importantly c) the antisemites on the right have almost no power or influence when it comes to the “mainstream right” , while d) the antisemites on the left have quite a lot of power and influence over the “mainstream left”.
"Given a situation which everyone agrees is bad, everyone knows who to blame — the other side."
The *first* problem is looking for someone to blame. To me, that signals that the blamers have more important (to them) priorities than fixing the problem.
They may have a quasi-religious belief that punishment fixes things, so believe that they are _trying_ to fix the problem - but then again they may simply assert such a hypothesis in support of their primary goal, which involves the opportunity to feel justified while hurting other people. (Sometimes, but AFAICT not always, they make sincere efforts to identify the real culprit.)
Most of the things you are discussing are "wicked problems" - no single cause, and no fix that won't have seriously unwanted side effects. We haven't solved them in part because the best you can do in such cases, is make tradeoffs that minimize the sum of the various harms.
Realistically though, we can't even do that much, because of various problems of coordination and prioritization. Those problems generally also interfere with the research that *might* give us a better handle on problems and partial remedies.
An example of those coordination and prioritization problems would be the tendency to convert problems from "something to fix" or even "something to regret" to "something to use to promote My Side (TM)".
I certainly have no solution, and these various deadlocks tend to contribute to my overall misanthropy. People are sometimes good as individuals, or even as small groups. But in aggregate, and in larger groups, they seem pretty noxious to me.
One reason to look for someone to blame is that if people believe the other side is to blame for bad things they will be more willing to support your side. Another is that if you believe that the other side is to blame and your side is not you can feel good about yourself.
Yes, if your goal is to gain support for your side, then the answer to "who to blame" is "your opponent". You conclude this a priori, without bothering with evaluating the evidence - though you might use any evidence available to assemble talking points in favour of your preferred belief.
What you *don't* do, of course, is care about the truth of your conclusions, or even examine evidence in search of real solutions to the problem you claim to care about. Not when the main problem you care about is "I want me/my side to be on top".
Likewise, I guess there are people can feel better about themselves by making up a story about how good they are, and then somehow convincing themselves to believe it.
I don't think that the first problem is looking for someone to blame, exactly, not in the sense of the essay here at least. While I generally agree with "it isn't the people that are the problem, but the process" (like 80% true) in the political cases the people are choosing the process, so it makes sense to say "These policies are driving this problem, and you guys keep pushing them".
I agree that the problems are wicked class, but at the same time that isn't the same as not knowing how any actions affect the problem. In other words, you might not know how to fix the problem, but you might know that some things make it worse.
The usual house rule is that anyone who cooks is responsible for cleaning up from the cooking — for economic reasons that I have described elsewhere. My wife and daughter do more cooking and more cleaning up than I do, but not all of it.
It could also be that the conventional wisdom is wrong. Wildfires are way down over the last century, as a nice chart from Wikipedia shows. With a slight uptick in the last decade.
But forest cover in the US is larger than it was 100 years ago, so it wouldn't a big surprise if specifically forest fires were increasing or getting larger.
That's an interesting graph, but your "slight uptick" looks like doubling, admittedly from a historically low level, over the last decade or so. Forest cover hasn't increased that fast.
More people? The same article says 84% of fires are started by people.
I wonder how much land is purposely burnt by the government in fire suppression burns. The article mentions it is increasing since about 1980, but doesn't say how much. This article says 2,000,000 acres in 2023. Which is about 1/4 of the total area burnt that year.
Yes, but forest and wild fires now burn down suburbs in accordance with UN "Managed Retreat" from nature ideology. DEWs seem involved as plastics and wood are often spared. Microwaves don't burn plastic and wood, just metal and wet things. Anyway, Forest management is a must in a suburban setting.
Re forest fires, your story about PG&E blames the company for decisions by its regulating agency, CPUC. Beginning about 1985, California "deregulated" its electricity market, but kept the prices of existing utilities controlled and went on to force rate cuts, on the theory that PG&E was spending too much on its thorough maintenance program that included tree trimming around power lines and lots of expenses. They succeeded in forcing the utility to cut way back on this maintenance, so naturally fires increased. If these policies are not changed, I expect the state will wind up buying PG&E and SoCal Edison at bankruptcy sales and running them itself, especially since the utilities are getting undeserved blame in court for disasters like the Napa and Chico fires.
I am not sure why you like to characterize the left's opinions. :--)
- Homelessness:
People who do not own houses want more and cheaper housing. People who own houses want to maintain their value and therefor want less and more expensive housing. And people who own houses have more power in local zoning. Therefore, not enough affordable housing.
Deinstitutionalzation:
The left _can_ blame Reagan for this. He shut down mental health care institutions and suggested that philanthropy would magically take care of the problem. Instead, the largest mental health facility in the US is inside LA County Jail. We have just shifted the problem and solved nothing.
Immigration:
The left does not blame the right for this. Rather, I would suggest there is no immigration crisis. Trump babbling about a crisis does not make it a crisis. Immigrants come here to work jobs that help us. They commit less crimes than people born in the US. Where is the crisis?
There is immigration. It is not well managed, mainly because we do not manage it well. If an agency can charge people more when it takes them longer to process them, as the INS does, what is going to be the result? What is the incentive? People asking for asylum are not breaking a law. Treaties signed by us say that they have that right. If we cannot handle the asylum process, that is on us, not them.
But the convenient thing about the fact that there is no real crisis here is that the left can be blamed for not having a solution. And since there is no "solution" possible when there is no crisis, there you go.
High Prices:
The left does not blame fiscal extravagance. The left blames the lack of regulation on monopolies and monopolistic behavior.
Ukraine:
I would point out only one thing. As the USSR came apart, we could have helped them create a more healthy economy, as we did in Poland. But it was more important to the Bush 41 administration to have Russia as an enemy, so here we are.
A Domestic Disagreement:
Being a parent also, I can confidently say that you should assume you are wrong. It will go better for you if you do. :--)
“The right-wing explanation is poor management of the public lands due to environmentalists1 who discourage the harvesting of timber, along with a policy of suppressing small fires instead of permitting and if necessary setting them in order to burn the deadwood before there is enough of it to fuel a big fire. Presumably the explanation for that, as for political short sightedness in general,2 is that a fire today is my problem, a fire next decade someone else’s.”
Perhaps I simply don’t understand your “Presumably the explanation…” point, but it seems to me that this example of forest fires is NOT in fact politician shortsightedness, but simply politicians (and mostly BLM and equivalent state bureaucrats) adopting the environmentalist position that Gaia (Mother Earth) is pristine and pure and therefore setting small controlled fires in order to avoid the possibility of a bigger fire is simply religiously wrong. Akin to you or I cutting off two fingers as insurance against having to cut off our right arm.
Alex Epstein covers the “Gaia worship” religious narrative very well in his (highly recommended) Fossil Future book.
I think if you look at the structure of the sentence you quoted, it should be clear that I am offering two different explanations, one involving environmentalists and one political short sightedness.
Another factor could be PG&E wasting their budgets on useless, expensive, environmentally disastrous wind/solar, leaving little or no money for forest/transmission throughway management.
But they've been regulated into wasting their budgets on "cheap" wind/solar, thus driving up costs tremendously, with no corresponding increase in budget (because it would be so "cheap") to compensate for the disastrous costs of wind/solar.
The regulation is what's forced them down this route.
In Austin, TX, e.g., they avoided raising rates, in part, by cutting the tree trimming budget. So the politicians wouldn't look bad. Now every time there's a storm or a little wind, folks lose power to tree limbs on the power lines. But we have plenty of useless wind energy and they ignore the huge clean contribution from South Texas Nuclear Project.
Not sure I followed the last bit about the nuclear stuff, but I appreciate the education about TX electric utilities, and I’ll defer to you on that.
I’m pretty confident my educated speculation about CA utility PG&E, based on several things I’ve read on the subject and having lived in CA and been their customer for over 30 years, is likely correct.
"WHOM" to blame!
My ear often disagrees with the grammatical rule on who/whom.
Amen, as I age I just go with what sounds correct even though I know that is a byproduct of me just getting used to using it incorrectly
There are the problems of partisanship you enumerate, and then there's the problem of both-sidesism as illustrated by, for instance, the Ukraine example. Putin does not have "legitimate security interests" any more than Hitler did and Russia wasn't any more under threat than the German Reich was. The kind of propaganda from the likes of Mearsheimer that the Right now likes isn't any less propaganda than, say, the news of the "Zionist genocide in Gaza" that the Left likes. That would be my version of both-sidesism, I suppose, the idea that the Left and the Right are just wrong on some issues, and that being right about something else is no excuse.
The West never thought war with the Soviet Union, a nuclear power, was a good idea in spite of the Soviets oppressing vast numbers of captive peoples. Why does anyone think war with a nuclear power is a good idea now? Even if Russia is totally in the wrong?
Who says that war with a nuclear power is a good idea? A lot of people think it's a good idea to disincentivize countries from invading other countries, thus decreasing the risk of war in general.
We are risking nuclear war to eliminate Putin
We are not trying to eliminate Putin — neither the US nor Ukraine started the war, and the first invasion of Russian territory started a couple of years into the war. We are trying to keep Ukraine independent and persuade the Russian government not to invade their neighbors.
The US sponsored a coup against the democratically elected pro-Russian leader of the Ukraine.
Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations on most lists, and it's probably impossible to assign backers with any accuracy. One coup with American assistance against how many with Russian assistance? Against how many years of Soviet control, including the Holodomor? How much Tsarist control before that?
At some point, you have to draw a line in history. Yours seems awfully expedient considering how much corruption there was just the year before, and the year before that, and all the years since.
I beg to differ. The Soros-led "Orange Revolution" of 2014 started the war. I hate Soros, but he is one of ours.
All Russians oppose NATO membership for Ukraine. It’s a red line
Even if that were true, I don't see how that would imply anyone thinking that war with a nuclear power is a good idea.
What is wrong with you? We are at war with Putin's Russia hoping he doesn't lose his temper and nuke us. Anyone who disagrees that war with Russia is a good idea is called a traitor.
We are not at war with Russia. We are supporting someone else who is at war with Russia, just as the Soviet Union supported North Vietnam when we were at war with it. Were they risking Kennedy losing his temper and nuking them?
There is an argument to be made that peace is through willingness to engage in negative retribution. See bees that die when they sting you. If one follows the basic game theory of “given offensive action A by the other player, I am better off choosing de-escalating behavior because if I fight back I will just lose more” the result is that people willing to open with offensive actions ways get their way. One needs to draw a line and say “Thus far, and no more, or I will burn the world down to punish you if I have to.” Turns out that is a very socially desirable behavior, if it can get the effect before the world burns down (which, historically, it has.)
What's really confusing to me is those on the right repeating that there is genocide in Gaza. Why they decry the left as liars, then suddenly buys that story whole heartedly, is kind of strange to me. I have to admit, it makes the claims of antisemitism seem fairly believable. What else is there to take away when people say "The American left is evil and wrong about everything, except that Israel thing"? Seems like an odd point to suddenly agree upon given all other points of disagreement.
Who on the right is repeating the “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza” idea? I confess I don’t recall seeing a single one.
You must not know anyone on the anti-Semite Right? Of course, others on the Right think Radical Islamicist Hamas and their Palestinian supporters started it by firing rockets into Israel for decades and then making a sickening attack on civilians having a celebration, etc. Not everyone can be as stupid as the DEM LEFT is about the US southern border.
No I do not personally know anyone on the anti-Semite right.
And while I have read a little by folks on the “alt-right”, I don’t go seeking it out.
But again, note I’ve never read a single person who clearly identifies as being on the right claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
And FWIW, my take on the anti-Semitic right is that few of them would be very fond of Muslims or care much about the plight of the Palestinians.
Oddly, the anti-Semite Right admires Islam! You know Hitler did also. Hitler was a very big admirer of Islam and was in alliance with Islamists against Britain. He named his book Mein Kampf which translates My Struggle, equivalent to the Islamic Jihad. Most conservatives are the opposite, supporting Israel and opposing Islam. You can be certain the anti-Semite Right cares greatly about the Palestinians.
I don’t think I can be certain about anything regarding the antisemites on the right. Though you certainly appear to know a lot more about them than I do.
I do find it hard to believe that the anti-Semitic right care about the Palestinians. Though perhaps some or all of the above is sarcasm on your part. But it’s hard for me to tell.
But I appreciate the education that at least some non-zero number on the antisemitic right fringe are pro-Hamas.
One example: https://stonetoss.com/comic/in-all-but-name/ note the admin post at the bottom "Casual reminder that Israel commits genocide on the US tax-payer's dollar."
Next time I come across someone writing an essay I will try and remember to come here and post it. You might start here with this essay regarding Chris Brunet (reposted by Chris) and the comment section there of. https://www.karlstack.com/p/right-wing-anti-zionism-is-on-the/comments
It's a lot to sift through, I am afraid.
Thx.
I doubt I’ll read through something long by such a person. But I do appreciate the note.
Amended: if you have to cite the *comments* sections, rather than someone - even a “lowly” Substacker - to make the case, IMO you are more making my case.
There is zero doubt that there are outright antisemites on the right. There is zero doubt there’s an even larger subset of America Firsters on the right who even if they are not all outright antisemites are definitely anti-Israel. (The two subgroups just noted combined are still *far* smaller than the number of antisemites today on the left, and far less influential in terms of having political power).
But that’s different than the even semi-credible leaders of such groups claiming that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, or even being specifically pro-Palestinian.
…whatever number of true lunatic fringe comments in a comments section you can cite.
Do you have a list of who would count as a semi credible leader on the right, alt right or dissident right? I am not sure who those people would be exactly.
I get what you mean about the comments section being crazy, but it isn’t a rounding error amount that it pops up it seems. I read a lot of Substack and there are probably a lot of people that show up multiple times in my observations as a result. Maybe I just see a lot of the Groyopers (or whatever the spelling) mentioned in the article. I certainly don’t go looking for them; along with those on the right who have decided that too much freedom is the problem ailing us it seems like a wild misdiagnosis that is not even interesting.
Still, as I said, I am surprised to see anyone on the right, comments section or no, picking up on the “Israel is genociding Gazans!” riff from the left and running with it. I would have expected a lot of skepticism, since at this point if the MSM or government told me the sky was blue I would lower my prior expectations of the fact.
I get your surprise. Per above, it would surprise me too.
But from what you’ve said, I surely write it off to the occasional troll and the occasional low-IQ whacko.
As a Jew, my problem is the large number of Jews who continue to falsely cite that the problems of antisemitism in the U.S. are on the right, or even now post-Oct 7th that it is just as bad on the right as on the left.
And so citations like yours play exactly to that narrative. And my personal opinion is that narrative is far more dangerous - for the U.S., for Israel and for Jews.
As for me there is no doubt whatsoever that a) of course there exists antisemitism on the right, b) it exists in MUCH greater numbers on the left and most importantly c) the antisemites on the right have almost no power or influence when it comes to the “mainstream right” , while d) the antisemites on the left have quite a lot of power and influence over the “mainstream left”.
You write:
"Given a situation which everyone agrees is bad, everyone knows who to blame — the other side."
The *first* problem is looking for someone to blame. To me, that signals that the blamers have more important (to them) priorities than fixing the problem.
They may have a quasi-religious belief that punishment fixes things, so believe that they are _trying_ to fix the problem - but then again they may simply assert such a hypothesis in support of their primary goal, which involves the opportunity to feel justified while hurting other people. (Sometimes, but AFAICT not always, they make sincere efforts to identify the real culprit.)
Most of the things you are discussing are "wicked problems" - no single cause, and no fix that won't have seriously unwanted side effects. We haven't solved them in part because the best you can do in such cases, is make tradeoffs that minimize the sum of the various harms.
Realistically though, we can't even do that much, because of various problems of coordination and prioritization. Those problems generally also interfere with the research that *might* give us a better handle on problems and partial remedies.
An example of those coordination and prioritization problems would be the tendency to convert problems from "something to fix" or even "something to regret" to "something to use to promote My Side (TM)".
I certainly have no solution, and these various deadlocks tend to contribute to my overall misanthropy. People are sometimes good as individuals, or even as small groups. But in aggregate, and in larger groups, they seem pretty noxious to me.
One reason to look for someone to blame is that if people believe the other side is to blame for bad things they will be more willing to support your side. Another is that if you believe that the other side is to blame and your side is not you can feel good about yourself.
Yes, if your goal is to gain support for your side, then the answer to "who to blame" is "your opponent". You conclude this a priori, without bothering with evaluating the evidence - though you might use any evidence available to assemble talking points in favour of your preferred belief.
What you *don't* do, of course, is care about the truth of your conclusions, or even examine evidence in search of real solutions to the problem you claim to care about. Not when the main problem you care about is "I want me/my side to be on top".
Likewise, I guess there are people can feel better about themselves by making up a story about how good they are, and then somehow convincing themselves to believe it.
Many people.
I don't think that the first problem is looking for someone to blame, exactly, not in the sense of the essay here at least. While I generally agree with "it isn't the people that are the problem, but the process" (like 80% true) in the political cases the people are choosing the process, so it makes sense to say "These policies are driving this problem, and you guys keep pushing them".
I agree that the problems are wicked class, but at the same time that isn't the same as not knowing how any actions affect the problem. In other words, you might not know how to fix the problem, but you might know that some things make it worse.
Brilliant analysis (by your daughter in respect of your dish cleaning capabilities of course).
Your daughter should wash the dishes if she wants female standards.
The usual house rule is that anyone who cooks is responsible for cleaning up from the cooking — for economic reasons that I have described elsewhere. My wife and daughter do more cooking and more cleaning up than I do, but not all of it.
I was more or less kidding.
Forest fires are indeed down dramatically over the century or so.
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/the-mysterious-wildfire-chart/
You forgot no-growth environmentalism and climate change / limits to growth ideology which stifles economic growth, the CURE for most social problems!
It could also be that the conventional wisdom is wrong. Wildfires are way down over the last century, as a nice chart from Wikipedia shows. With a slight uptick in the last decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfires_in_the_United_States
But forest cover in the US is larger than it was 100 years ago, so it wouldn't a big surprise if specifically forest fires were increasing or getting larger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_States
That's an interesting graph, but your "slight uptick" looks like doubling, admittedly from a historically low level, over the last decade or so. Forest cover hasn't increased that fast.
More people? The same article says 84% of fires are started by people.
I wonder how much land is purposely burnt by the government in fire suppression burns. The article mentions it is increasing since about 1980, but doesn't say how much. This article says 2,000,000 acres in 2023. Which is about 1/4 of the total area burnt that year.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/24/1215152713/this-year-saw-more-prescribed-fires-than-ever-before
Yes, but forest and wild fires now burn down suburbs in accordance with UN "Managed Retreat" from nature ideology. DEWs seem involved as plastics and wood are often spared. Microwaves don't burn plastic and wood, just metal and wet things. Anyway, Forest management is a must in a suburban setting.
It's common sense dirt control to wash one's hands before washing one's dishes.
Easier to blame than to fix. Plus, as someone once said, if you’re not part of the solution there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
That would be despair.com. :--)
Before you can fix something, you must first stop those actively sabotaging it.
Re forest fires, your story about PG&E blames the company for decisions by its regulating agency, CPUC. Beginning about 1985, California "deregulated" its electricity market, but kept the prices of existing utilities controlled and went on to force rate cuts, on the theory that PG&E was spending too much on its thorough maintenance program that included tree trimming around power lines and lots of expenses. They succeeded in forcing the utility to cut way back on this maintenance, so naturally fires increased. If these policies are not changed, I expect the state will wind up buying PG&E and SoCal Edison at bankruptcy sales and running them itself, especially since the utilities are getting undeserved blame in court for disasters like the Napa and Chico fires.
I am not sure why you like to characterize the left's opinions. :--)
- Homelessness:
People who do not own houses want more and cheaper housing. People who own houses want to maintain their value and therefor want less and more expensive housing. And people who own houses have more power in local zoning. Therefore, not enough affordable housing.
Deinstitutionalzation:
The left _can_ blame Reagan for this. He shut down mental health care institutions and suggested that philanthropy would magically take care of the problem. Instead, the largest mental health facility in the US is inside LA County Jail. We have just shifted the problem and solved nothing.
Immigration:
The left does not blame the right for this. Rather, I would suggest there is no immigration crisis. Trump babbling about a crisis does not make it a crisis. Immigrants come here to work jobs that help us. They commit less crimes than people born in the US. Where is the crisis?
There is immigration. It is not well managed, mainly because we do not manage it well. If an agency can charge people more when it takes them longer to process them, as the INS does, what is going to be the result? What is the incentive? People asking for asylum are not breaking a law. Treaties signed by us say that they have that right. If we cannot handle the asylum process, that is on us, not them.
But the convenient thing about the fact that there is no real crisis here is that the left can be blamed for not having a solution. And since there is no "solution" possible when there is no crisis, there you go.
High Prices:
The left does not blame fiscal extravagance. The left blames the lack of regulation on monopolies and monopolistic behavior.
Ukraine:
I would point out only one thing. As the USSR came apart, we could have helped them create a more healthy economy, as we did in Poland. But it was more important to the Bush 41 administration to have Russia as an enemy, so here we are.
A Domestic Disagreement:
Being a parent also, I can confidently say that you should assume you are wrong. It will go better for you if you do. :--)
Global warming is my fault, I pray for warm weather so that I never have to drive in the snow. So far it's working.
“The right-wing explanation is poor management of the public lands due to environmentalists1 who discourage the harvesting of timber, along with a policy of suppressing small fires instead of permitting and if necessary setting them in order to burn the deadwood before there is enough of it to fuel a big fire. Presumably the explanation for that, as for political short sightedness in general,2 is that a fire today is my problem, a fire next decade someone else’s.”
Perhaps I simply don’t understand your “Presumably the explanation…” point, but it seems to me that this example of forest fires is NOT in fact politician shortsightedness, but simply politicians (and mostly BLM and equivalent state bureaucrats) adopting the environmentalist position that Gaia (Mother Earth) is pristine and pure and therefore setting small controlled fires in order to avoid the possibility of a bigger fire is simply religiously wrong. Akin to you or I cutting off two fingers as insurance against having to cut off our right arm.
Alex Epstein covers the “Gaia worship” religious narrative very well in his (highly recommended) Fossil Future book.
I think if you look at the structure of the sentence you quoted, it should be clear that I am offering two different explanations, one involving environmentalists and one political short sightedness.
Another factor could be PG&E wasting their budgets on useless, expensive, environmentally disastrous wind/solar, leaving little or no money for forest/transmission throughway management.
Given that they are a regulated utility, that explanation, while possible, seems far less likely to me. But that’s just my take on Occam’s Razor here.
But they've been regulated into wasting their budgets on "cheap" wind/solar, thus driving up costs tremendously, with no corresponding increase in budget (because it would be so "cheap") to compensate for the disastrous costs of wind/solar.
The regulation is what's forced them down this route.
I agree 100% they’ve been regulated into that.
And that said regulation is bad.
I just don’t think it has anything at all to do with how they address fire management.
As a regulated utility they get to include their costs in their rates.
In Austin, TX, e.g., they avoided raising rates, in part, by cutting the tree trimming budget. So the politicians wouldn't look bad. Now every time there's a storm or a little wind, folks lose power to tree limbs on the power lines. But we have plenty of useless wind energy and they ignore the huge clean contribution from South Texas Nuclear Project.
Not sure I followed the last bit about the nuclear stuff, but I appreciate the education about TX electric utilities, and I’ll defer to you on that.
I’m pretty confident my educated speculation about CA utility PG&E, based on several things I’ve read on the subject and having lived in CA and been their customer for over 30 years, is likely correct.
"Russell's Condemnation" instead of "Russell's Conjugation"