End Vetoes in NATO and the EU

The European Union and NATO accession require unanimity to expand these international alliances. In theory, these laws exist to ensure that no country’s sovereignty is violated, which is a valid goal. In practice, however, what tends to happen is the majority of countries support the accession of a country to these alliances even when the vast majority of governments and people agree that a country should join. Rogue members block the accession for unclear reasons and uphold critical decisions regarding our collective security.

No one is talking about the accession of a country like Russia or Syria to these alliances. Members are blocking Ukraine’s application to join both, and Sweden’s application to join NATO. Erdogan and Orban are trying to extract concessions from other member states to their benefit, actively harming not just the alliance but also their own countries.

We need a different path. What we have is not working when one demagogue can hold the entire alliance up because of some personal beef with an ally. Here is my proposal:

First of all, we need to lower the bar for accession to NATO and the European Union. Instead of unanimity, we have a few options:

  • 50% of member states representing 2/3 of the population
  • 2/3 of member states representing 50% of the population

I have no real preference between these two options. But we must end the filibuster of our organizations.

 

Now let’s say a country is really angry that they need to follow the rules which have been agreed to in parliament (which they are represented) or they are upset a country was allowed in and blackmail did not work and they choose to leave one of these alliances. They need to have this right to unilaterally withdraw. If a country withdraws, all obligations and privileges of its citizens are terminated immediately following their leaving. Visa-free travel, right of abode, and military defense will be lost along with every other right and privilege that came with membership. They will be a third party with the baseline level of treatment and WTO rules apply. If they choose to leave NATO in protest of the loss of veto privileges, then if they are invaded they will not be defended by NATO. Leaving NATO or the European Union must be allowed to protect sovereignty, but it will come at a horrible cost.

I believe citizens of the United Kingdom should have lost visa-free travel to the European Union when they left. After leaving they should have been forced to renegotiate everything after Brexit.

Also, if a country is consistently violating the rules of the EU or NATO we need to use our right to suspend their membership after they come back in line with the alliance. Suspension from both blocs will mean that if they are invaded no one will come to their aid.

This is of course not applicable to Ukraine and Georgia because their membership was blocked by Germany in 2008. Since they were never members NATO still has the right to send them military aid in response to the invasions of their territory by Russia.

But if Turkey were to leave and then be invaded by Russia we would simply let Istanbul burn. It is cruel, but it is the least bad outcome because it would show how important it is for member states to cooperate and disincentivize further dissolution of the alliance. It would show a clear message and seriously weaken Euroskeptic assholes not just in Europe but the United States. The foolish country would pay the price, but every other member would be strengthened, as I believe Brexit has shown with the UK leaving the European Union.

The reality of the world is that sometimes we don’t get everything we want. If a human rights violation being proposed, it is critical, reasonable, and proper to use the power of words and negotiations to reduce the power of arguments and the voting on bad decisions. Constitutional changes should take more than a simple majority, and laws which violate fundamental human rights should be able to be overturned by a court. This is the right way to do it. But with that being said, allowing demagogues to block the accession of new member states to these two international organizations for unclear and undefined reasons increases the risk of every citizen of NATO by weakening the alliance.

This why veto power needs to be abolished and we need a way to suspend an uncooperative member when they are putting the rest of us in danger.

Only two choices

Several major wars are going on right now in the world today which have seen over 10,000 deaths in the last year:

  • Israeli-Hamas war
  • Russian Invasion of Ukraine
  • Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
  • Myanmar Civil War
  • Al Qaeda Insurgency in the Maghreb
  • War in Sudan

There are other more minor wars in the world, but these are the major points of conflict.

I have written several articles about the Israeli-Hamas war. I believe the reasons behind the conflict are numerous and complicated. The only solution given Hamas’ financial resources outside of the territory is a ceasefire and the provision of services and food to the Palestinians.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ongoing conflict which is due to borders which were set by the Russians in the 20th century, and how the Azeri government is a dictatorship. There is only one side here that is not violating international law, and that is Armenia. This is complicated because Armenia is propped up by the Russians since Turkey is part of NATO. This is a rare but not unique example where a NATO member is on the wrong side of history. It also is more complex because the fighting is in Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region of Azerbaijan that is not recognized by any state.

The Myanmar Civil War has been ongoing since independence from the United Kingdom. The 1962 coup d’etat replaced the democracy with a military dictatorship which lasted until 2011 when a democracy was reinstated. In 2021 there was another coup d’etat and the military is currently under control of the country. In this case, the only reasonable position is to oppose Tatmawdaw which deposed a democratically elected government.

The al Qaeda insurgency in the Maghreb is due to a constant flood of money supporting al Qaeda, and weak state institutions in the Maghreb. Until Mali, Niger, and Chad have an improvement in their quality of government they will always be at risk of civil war.

The War in Sudan can be explained by weak institutions and the fact that until 2019 it was a dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir. It has been only 4 years since Sudan started to democratize, and the economic issues facing the country are severe. On top of that, their current government is under military leadership. It is going to be a long time until Sudan can develop unless there is significant foreign aid. It is a true tragedy.

All of these conflicts are primarily internal conflicts. There is usually foreign aid involved to at least one side, but they are not from organized armies from states spilling across international borders.

Then there is the War in Ukraine. The War in Ukraine is the only truly international conflict between two states where fatalities are over 10k. It is the only true land grab invasion by a hostile foreign enemy power. It is not from a rebellious region of an authoritarian state like Azerbaijan. It is not a situation like Gaza, where despite being trained in political science I am not sure what word best describes Gaza. Bantustan might come the closest. It is not like Burma because it is not a military coup, and Ukraine has had free and fair elections for 20 years now. Ukraine has corruption issues, but not nearly as bad as the other countries on this list, and they have been making incredible strides toward democratization over the last decade.

The situations in the other 5 regions are sad and distressing, but there are a multitude of reasons for all of them, so there will be complicated solutions to each. Ukraine is different because of the blatant aggression by the Russian government against the Ukrainian people. It is not complicated. The most similar war I can think of to Ukraine was the invasion of Poland by Russia and Germany in 1939. Ukraine did nothing wrong. Ukraine was actively doing what it needed to do to move towards eventual NATO and EU accession.

There is no valid reason to defend the actions of Russia, even fewer than there were in 1939. The reason Germany invaded Poland in 1939 was to reclaim its territory which was transferred from Germany to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles. The invasion of Poland in 1939 is one of the closest examples I can think of to what is happening right now.

But even the argument of reclaiming territory doesn’t work in terms of Ukraine. Ukrainians and Russians are different people. There was no forced movement of people on the scale of the post-World War I when the Soviet Union broke up. The people of Ukraine chose independence from an authoritarian state in 1991. Ukraine and Russia speak different languages. They have different value systems, and this can be easily seen in their systems of government and how they rank on every freedom index in the world. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is so patently absurd, that it is less absurd than if the United States were to invade Canada, which I do not support. Unlike Ukraine and Russia, the United States and Canada share values. We are both democracies, we are members of NATO, and we are former British colonies. While Ukraine and Russia have a shared history, Russia has veered deeper into authoritarianism, and Ukraine has been becoming more democratic since independence. Even if their similarity score on objective lists may be similar, their trajectories are quite opposite. Most importantly, Ukrainians have clearly shown they do not want to be Russian. End of story.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is one of the most patently absurd and pointless invasions we have seen in a very long time. The other invasion by Russia, the invasion by Georgia is tied to it in how absurd it was. Even if Ukraine were to be annexed by Russia it would be a rebellious province until they regain independence. But the issue is that given the behavior of the Russians and the speeches made by Russian officials, it is clear they intend to commit genocide against Ukrainians, and many experts already believe this is the case.

The invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to grab some of the most fertile land in the world and commit genocide against the people. It is a patent land grab of fascism, reminiscent of the actions of Hitler and Stalin.

It is a common motif in American politics to talk about what people would do if they were alive when Hitler was marching his army across Europe and committing genocide against people. This has been for most points in my life a mostly hypothetical question, and the invasion of democracies is very rare in the modern world.

But it was not hypothetical in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia, and it was not hypothetical in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. This stage of the invasion however in how long it is taking, the absolute brutality of the Russians against the Ukrainian people, and their refusal to distinguish between military and civilian targets, all to prevent a free people from taking their rightful place as a member state of NATO and the European Union, makes it impossible to be neutral. This invasion is more serious than the invasions of 2008 and 2014. The question has been whether politicians would have sided with Hitler through armistice or financial support, or would have opposed him outright. You cannot be neutral on a moving train, and there is no neutral position on this issue. You are either pro-Ukrainian, or you believe Ukraine should be annexed by Russia.

Today we can see clearly where politicians stand. The only morally righteous answer today is the same answer which was the only morally righteous answer when Nazi armies plundered France and the Vichy terrorized the people. We must oppose fascism and provide support to the free peoples of the world. Fascists will never respect autonomy, they will never respect the right of self-determination of free peoples. They will always continue to expand their reach until they are met with force.

Always be suspicious of any politician who attempts to excuse the actions of people like Hitler, Stalin, and Putin. Their motives are never righteous.

The invasion of Ukraine is the most black-and-white good vs. evil war I have seen in my life. It is unique among modern conflicts in how Ukraine is restrained against military targets, they have no desire to commit atrocities against the Russian people, (unlike the Bosnian War where there were war crimes on all sides) and their people have shown a clear and consistent desire to reform their country to improve their lives and join the European Union and NATO. Ukrainians don’t want to hurt Russians because Russian civilians don’t deserve to be treated the way Ukrainians are being treated, and it would prevent their accession to NATO. The Geneva Conventions are what separates us from countries like Russia.

When politicians today state that we should stop supporting Ukraine, this is morally the same as a politician standing up in 1943 and advocating to end support for de Gaulle and Free France.

We must continue military assistance of Ukraine so they can repel the Russian horde off of their land and reclaim their territory, and the minute the last Russian brute leaves Ukrainian territory, we must grant them immediate membership in NATO.

Send Ukraine arms.

Long Live NATO.

Slava Ukraine.

Refugee camps are necessary

If Hamas survives, there will be more attacks on Jews in Israel.

Anything short of supporting the complete eradication of Hamas for this reason is anti-Semitic.

I believe the only way Hamas can be eliminated is to ensure there is safe passage for refugees into safe refugee camps in Israeli territory outside of Gaza. Every death of civilians angers people around the world and increases pressure to end the war in Gaza, and every civilian death is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. An effective elimination of Hamas will allow the IDF to track down and arrest or kill every Hamas soldier. This requires safe passage of non-combatants to refugee camps where they will have food, water, beds, and sanitation services.

If I am correct in my assessment, everyone opposing the safe passage of refugees into safe Israeli territory as the IDF eliminates Hamas is then anti-Semitic.

This is a dangerous time for Israeli politics and the Palestinian people. Everyone is angry, this is a tragedy, and it was completely avoidable. Israel must conduct itself in ways that minimize anger from the Palestinian people. Angry children today are likely to become radicalized in the future. Israel must protect its people, no reasonable person will deny this, but it must also protect every Palestinian civilian. It is the only path to peace.

Unfortunately, this is not happening. Not only that, but Hamas is bigger than just a military force in Gaza. Its money is protected in Qatar, Israel knew about the upcoming attack and did nothing, and Hamas has existed since the beginning to be a destabilizing force of the Palestinian Authority according to Jews who have served in the IDF.

There is a solution to the War in Gaza. It will not happen. The United States needs to realize this and pull the plug. Bombing apartments in Gaza is counter productive, and dangerous for Israel.

My other blog posts in this series:

Arab Israeli War 2023 edition

How the wars can end

When it comes to Ukraine, there are two solutions, either Ukraine wins or Russia wins. But the reality is Russia cannot win. Ukraine has military support from the West and despite having a significantly smaller population than Russia, Ukraine has successfully managed to prevent Russia from taking over their country. When NATO increases the amount of arms Ukraine receives so they can shatter Russian supply lines to their troops so the Russian troops start to starve Ukraine will be able to reclaim its territory. There is no realistic path to Russia being able to conquer Ukraine, and even if they did Ukraine will be a rebellious province until they win independence again.

On top of this, when Russia loses the war Putin will lose his life. Ukraine is going to win, it is inevitable. We might as well give them the support they need so the war can end sooner and fewer people lose their lives. Ukraine’s winning scenario, as has been made very clear by President Zelensky, is that Ukraine will get back all of its territory as it had in 2013. The Russian soldiers chose to stay in their country and refused to revolt against their dictator. They will pay with their lives. It’s only a matter of time.

 

Israel however is a very different situation. Regarding Ukraine, the objectives of Zelensky and his nation are identical. If Zelensky wins, Ukraine wins, and vice versa. When it comes to Israel I am going to demonstrate there is no way Israel can win while Likud wins as well. This puts Israel in the worst quagmire of its history.

The way Israel can win this war is by allowing refugees from Gaza into refugee camps outside of the strip. Elders and children, along with all working-age people who are not members of Hamas will be given shelter, food, and medical supplies in camps run by Israel in Israeli territory. The Israeli military can then go into Gaza, remove all weapons Hamas has been using to launch rockets into Israel, and then grant citizenship to the Palestinians and help them build a life in a unified state. I don’t think a two-state solution is going to happen. The problem with this is it will be the end of the Likud Party’s time in government. Netanyahu cannot choose this option and stay Prime Minister. But it is the solution for Israel. This is what makes the end of this war a complete quagmire.

If Israel stops bombarding Gaza and sends aid into Gaza without eliminating Hamas, Netanyahu loses power. This is not an option for him.

If Israel continues to bombard Gaza it doesn’t matter how many apartments, hospitals, and schools they blow up, Hamas leadership is safe in Doha. Hamas’ assets are diversified across the Middle East. Israel cannot win this war simply by blowing up every building in Gaza.

If Israel kills every person in Gaza, that is genocide, and their approval rating and image abroad will tank. This is a losing scenario and highly unethical.

What also must be kept into consideration is the longer Israel bombards Gaza, the more likely it is Iran will get involved with their ICBMs and start to pummel Israel with everything they have, starting with Tel Aviv. This would be a catastrophe, and cannot occur.

This is where this becomes a scenario with no path where the government of Israel can win. They cannot stop bombing, because they will lose the next election, and they cannot continue bombing because eventually there will be attacks from Iran against Israel, a war they cannot win.

Israel is not part of any military alliance. If Israel gets itself into a war with another state, there is no obligation for any other country to send troops to protect Israel. They will be on their own except for military aid. You cannot military aid your way out of a reign of hellfire of ICBMs raining down on your largest city.

Netanyahu is in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. He needs to sacrifice his political career for the safety of his country. Based on history, we know he will not do the right thing for Israel. He never has. I don’t see a good path out of the current conflict for Israel before the next election. Only time will tell.

How to stop terrorist attacks

When looking at the 9/11 attackers, a few things seem pretty obvious to me in terms of ways we actually could have prevented the 9/11 attackers.

The first thing that needs to happen is they can’t have a safe haven anywhere in the world, and any countries that are safe for terrorists to host their training camps need to be heavily scrutinized. Stabilizing regions like Afghanistan is a matter of national security.

Reducing the reasons why someone would want to attack another country is a tried and true method to reduce terrorist attacks. Programs like the Peace Corps and USAID are effective anti-terrorist tools.

Saudi Arabia reissued passports to the terrorists before they came to the United States. Countries like Saudi Arabia which are known to harbor financiers of terrorism need to be heavily scrutinized and their citizens need extra scrutiny by the State Department before they are granted visas. Not just Saudi Arabia but all Gulf States.

When someone is reported to the police to be supporting terrorists, take them seriously.

Visa-free entry for democracies which we share criminal record data with is a reasonable policy that doesn’t endanger American lives. The ESTA would not have hampered any of the 9/11 highjackers. Visa-free entry for all European Union citizens and other allied democracies. ESTA does not prevent terrorism.

Countries with developing economies and very low rates of terrorism should not have large barriers to travel to the United States.

Visa refusal rate and overstay rate have little to do with countries that are the most likely to be the source of violent terrorist attacks. I am doubtful visas are an effective tool for reducing terrorist attacks.

Conflict breeds more conflict. Hatred breeds more hate. The path to world peace is through communication, trade, dialogue, and building friendships across nations.

References:
Foreign Aid as a Counterterrorism Tool: More Liberty, Less Terror?

Biden should not run

This is the current polling for Biden across the country as of today according to https://www.racetothewh.com/biden.

This is very very bad. He is on par with Trump in terms of net approval.

Yikes. Even after everything Trump did, Biden has done such a bad job getting his message out and working with Congress that he is slightly below Donald Trump in approval polls. He has failed to give his supporters anything to latch on to, and for the relatively small wins we saw in Build Back Better they were overshadowed by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan (which happens to be when his approval dropped 15 points in 2 months), the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the failure of the United States to provide Ukraine sufficient support to repeal the fascist invaders, and now with the onslaught of Gaza which is just further alienating voters who he needs to win in order to win the presidency, particularly people of color, Biden is looking likely to lose the election next year.

Biden should just not run. I know there is only a month to go, but at this point, his defeat is all but certain except if there is an absolute miracle in his approval rating over the next year.

His polling is on par with where Donald Trump was at the end of 2019. He is less popular than Richard Nixon was in 1971. The only two presidents who compare to his polling numbers at this point in the first term are Trump and Carter. Every other president since Harry Truman has better polling numbers than Biden does now.

If we check betting pool odds Trump has been leading Biden since September.

Trump led a mob to attack the Capitol building. The Democrats should be beating him handily. The President should have been able to make a case so clear that he is better than that absolute traitor over the last year that it shouldn’t even be close. Biden has failed to do this very basic task.

This election should be a slam dunk for the Democrats, but under Biden, it is not.

Biden passed Build Back Better which included some good marginal wins. But on top of this abortion is now outlawed by the Supreme Court in many states. While this is not Biden’s fault, he will get the blame for it from voters. We abandoned Afghanistan to the terrorists, Biden is one of only two Presidents in history to ever truly lose a war, the other is Nixon. He has failed to defend Ukraine. He has supplied Israel with as many weapons as possible which are being used to kill civilians in Gaza. His losses far outweigh his wins.

An important part of being a politician is you need to provide as many reasons for people to vote for you and make as few decisions that anger your base as you can. Biden has routinely done the opposite. Biden has routinely given voters reasons to not like him, with an unhealthy and delusional obsession with compromise with people who want our country to fail, along with losing wars, while also his wins have been so marginal and gradual that there is no big win that is making people’s lives better that he can point to which undermines his failures in Ukraine, Israel, and Afghanistan. He has given everyone something to hate. This is a terrible way to run a country, but a great way to lose elections.

Trump should be buried by anyone the Democrats nominate. Biden has very little charisma and many of his policies are out of touch with what the majority of his voters want. We are seeing this in the polls now.

There are plenty of Senators and Governors who would be able to easily beat Donald Trump.

Biden should not run for reelection.

References:

https://www.racetothewh.com/biden

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating

Why I have a website

The reason I have a personal website which I own is pretty straightforward.

I can use any HTML tag I want
I can upload images of any size, and share those images uncompressed with my readers. You have a better experience here than on Medium, Reddit, or Facebook.
I have full control.
If I write something a company doesn’t like, no one can take it down.
It gives me the freedom to do anything I want.
Since I am using a VPS I can make subdomains and run multiple programs on my server.
It is a fantastic learning experience.
Everyone should make a personal website.

You keep more ad revenue than on a website someone else knows.

My code is cleaner than if I were to use some whizzy wig bloatware like Wix. If I want to change something later, it is much easier with WordPress than any other blogging software I have ever used.

Now what you need to do to start, is do the following steps:

  1. Buy a domain name. It’s not very expensive, but it is the first thing you need to do. While you can make a website with a subdomain of something like wordpress.com it is better to own your domain. I bought mine on Dreamhost.com and I absolutely love their service.
  2. Start with a shared hosting plan, Dreamhost has good prices and good service. It is affordable and easy. It will automatically spin up your server for you, you don’t need to know a lot.
  3. Eventually, you will find your server feels sluggish because you are using a shared hosting plan. You will want to upgrade and that means you will want to move over to a Virtual Private Server. I use Ionswitch which gives me amazing service at very good prices for the industry. Now you have full control over what you do and can do basically anything you want.
  4. If your website’s traffic becomes too heavy for your VPS you can move to having your server on a rack which gives you even more control. I have not gotten to this step yet.

that’s how to start your own website in my opinion, and this is why I choose to write my things here instead of on another service.

Pull All Aid from Israel

I have a bachelor’s degree in political economy, which included multiple classes on foreign relations.

Israel knew of Hamas’ attack a year before it happened. Netanyahu ignored the information in a manner very similar to how the Bush administration granted visas to the 9/11 attackers. The response has been disproportionate, has focused on non-military targets, and has created a million refugees. These are war crimes on par with the brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Israel has had countless opportunities to avoid this terrifying situation. Israel set up Hamas originally and continues to tacitly support them in the background according to numerous high-ranking Israeli sources.

Israel has created a refugee crisis of historic proportions in Gaza, massacring children, bombing apartment buildings and hospitals, and other war crimes on par with what their ally Russia is committing in Ukraine.

After this latest report in the New York Times, it is obvious that the United States is assisting Israel in committing War Crimes which were defined in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and that the extremist Likud government does not share any values with the American government, least of all the Democratic Party.

I find it disturbing that the United States government is so hesitant to give Ukraine the aid they call for to repel the fascist Russian invaders from their land, as they rape and murder innocent civilians across Ukraine, but when Israel directly ignores reports from their intelligence agency about an incoming attack from Hamas and then respond by striking non-military targets the United States gives them everything they want, even as they violate treaties which the United States drafted and is a party to. This needs to be reversed.

Slava Ukraine.

References
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/netanyahu-israel-gaza-hamas-1.7010

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847

Pensions are not insurance

A common motif on the American left is that Social Security is not an investment, it is insurance, as are pensions offered by the state to their employees.

It sounds good, but it shows a deep misunderstanding of what insurance is. This mindset and lack of what insurance actually is probably also contributes to our utterly absurd health care system, and how we underregulate all forms of insurance. It contributes to people overbuying life insurance, an absolute cash cow for scam artists like Dave Ramsey, and people then underinvest in assets. This helps keep people who don’t understand the system poor while also concentrating the wealth in the hands of the unethical who profit from such mistakes.

So what is insurance?! The primary motive of insurance is to prevent absolute ruin on the occasion of an adverse event. People have lives, and sometimes accidents happen. You need to see a doctor after a climbing accident, you get into a car crash, your house burns down and you lose everything, or your bank goes bankrupt and you need your cash in order to live. These events are unpredictable, they do not happen to everyone, but when they do they can be absolutely devastating. But everyone will have an adverse event happen to them at some point. The problem however is you cannot predict which accident will happen or when to whom. A savings account alone is not enough for such events.

This is where insurance comes in. We all pay into a giant pool of money and when these random events happen the insurance pays out our claim so that we can continue our lives and not suffer for years after an event which we are not at fault for. Insurance helps flatten the curve of spending, so we can better budget for them. On top of this issue, these are events that can happen when you are 30. They can happen when you are 80. Because of that randomness, you cannot simply save your way out of a house fire. Insurance is a necessary part of life. You don’t just need insurance, you need good insurance.

Important side note incoming. Unless you are a professional in the financial services industry, you should absolutely have a trusted personal insurance agent with a fiduciary to you who is not tied to any one particular insurer. I have a degree in economics and some experience in the financial services industry, and I have a personal agent who I have a fiduciary with. I recommend this setup to everyone.

Another vehicle insurance can provide is that it can help an individual negotiate pricing against a powerful monopoly. Health insurance does this because as a group we can negotiate lower prices with drug insurers. The bigger the insurance pool, the lower the price. Single-payer and public option plans save their participants the most money. Health insurance is unique because not only does it negotiate lower prices, but also it protects against a wide array of adverse events. This is why mandatory public health insurance for every individual, or a public option, is a very reasonable policy. Having copays, food standards, and health saving accounts as well can be good policies that lower the risk not just for the individual but society as a whole.

Insurance can become a complicated topic, but these are the basic ideas I learned in my public finance class in college, among a few other classes that touched on the topic. If it is a random, adverse event that can be very expensive, insurance is probably worth it.

Retirement on the other hand is not adverse, and it is not random. It should happen to everyone who lives long enough, and it is possible, and practically easy to plan for. This is why government or private insurance pools are generally successful when it comes to house, fire, property, and health insurance, but insurance is not a viable instrument for retirement. Since it is not insuring against an adverse event, Old Age and Survivors “Insurance” is not actually insurance. It’s a long-expired government handout that transferred money from the Greatest Generation to the Lost Generation. Since then it has been a net loss for every generation since. Properly run insurance is never a net loss outside of a major event like a hurricane.

Please stop calling pensions insurance. They are not insurance.

It was never about American lives

On 11 September 2001 America was attacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists composed of 1 Egyptian, 1 Lebanese, 2 Emiratis, and 15 Saudis. 19 of these terrorists had visas which were granted to them by the Bush/Powell Department of State. All but one were in their 20s. All of them had previously existing ties to terrorist groups.

As a result of this attack one of the most obvious results was the United States implemented security at airports and banned dihydrogen monoxide from planes. We also implemented visas on every nationality in the world except for Canada, Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. For most NATO members and a few other nationalities, they got an eVisa instead of a B visa.

The claim is that this was done to save American lives. But I don’t believe this. The right claim that the terrorists attacked America because they “hate our freedom”. On this point, I actually agree. The world was very easy to travel between democracies at this point in time, air travel was and still is becoming more and more affordable for the average person. The result of the 9/11 attacks could not have gone better for the terrorists.

  • Increased restrictions between safe democracies fuel an us vs them mentality. It is easier for demagogues to overstate the pros or cons of other countries when you have never met someone from there and have never traveled there. This feeds political extremism, endangering liberty.
  • Implementing further barriers to travel is easier once you have started down that path. It is politically hard to jump straight from “show up with a passport” to expensive visas which take months to process through bureaucracy.

When it comes to actually blocking the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 however, nothing except for the added security at airports would have actually caught any of the terrorists who have actually attacked us in the last 50 years.

The cynical part of me believes another attack has not been seriously attempted because the terrorists achieved their goals.

So if the goal is to save American lives, the 9/11 Commission almost certainly failed in its mandate set by Congress.

More proof of this is how murder and suicide by guns have killed more Americans than 9/11 every year over the last 55 years. If the government’s purpose of restrictions following 9/11 was simply to save American lives we would have joined the rest of the free world in basic gun reform decades ago.

A line chart showing that the U.S. saw a record number of gun suicides and gun murders in 2021.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

All of this makes it clear that the 9/11 Commission did not take its declared responsibility seriously but instead just randomly rattled off a Republican wish list of laws that would not protect America from terrorists but instead alienate us from our friends.

Every time the Republican Party has had the opportunity to actually save American lives by even simple things like requiring a license to own a gun they routinely oppose such measures. That would actually save American lives. But they oppose it completely.

They never cared about saving American lives. That was never the point.

They instead embraced the proposals made by George Bush’s appointees which gave him an excuse to push for fascist legislation which makes us less free and more isolated every day.

That is the point of the 9/11 Commission report.