False Open-Mindedness: How Westerners Support Hate and Repression Through the World

A map of democratic nations in the world. Green are strong democracies, yellow are tolerable democracies, while the nations in purplish gray are despotic nations. For the full map, go here.

Remember my love letter for Botswana last week? This is altogether something different, a hate letter to all the folks that pour tourist monies into inherently undemocratic countries. All the folks that take selfies in front of the Forbidden Palace in China, ride elephants in Thailand, and post pictures of themselves in front of the Egyptian pyramids are pouring money—especially American currency—in inherently unsafe and despotic nations.

Why is American money so important? Because in countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe, extreme inflation has made using their home currencies impossible. Repressive governments have aimed to hoard American money due to its precious value in allowing black market trade in and out of the country, a policy similar to Britain hoarding their gold and bullion in the 18th century. This is why states like tourism from the west: it allows them to fund dragonnades against their own people. The demographic most likely to not give a shit about this is what I call the W3 demographic: White, Wealthy, and Worldly. These are the folks who are too rich and too pampered to even care about how other governments treat their citizens.

I will admit in all fairness that I have wanted to travel to two undemocratic nations in the past, Cuba and Iran. However, the more that I have discovered that tourism is what enables repressive regimes to continue, I have long since changed my mind. Instead of travelling to Cuba, travel to Miami, where Cuban refugees have set up camp, and where they maintain their vibrant culture and language. Instead of travelling to mainland China, go to Chinese Taipei/Taiwan/Formosa. I am not telling you to turn down travel, but I am telling you to be smart about which nations you visit.

Indeed, I despise those who travel to open their mind, but instead of going to viable democratic nations they travel to despotic states. Indeed, so many democracies have vibrant, beautiful culture. Argentina, Tunisia, Japan, and Botswana are all democratic states with a deep and rich history. Thailand and Duarte’s Philippines may be dirt cheap as a certain travel vlogger so persistently insists, but how free are they? Is it conscionable to patronize those nations? Thailand is currently in the grips of a terrible military dictatorship, using lese majeste laws to lock up their opponents, while Duarte has given approval to widespread extrajudicial killing of alleged drug dealers, circumventing the rules and customs of law.

As for the countries in yellow on the Freedom House map, one must not look at the fact the country is in the middle between democracy and totalitarianism, but rather at their general trajectory. Ukraine and Georgia are going up, while Turkey and the Philippines are going down. It is my belief that we as citizens in a society that is democratic on most levels should invest money into developing democracies so that they may grow and strengthen over time. (Despite Poland and Hungary being green, I encourage people to divest from these nations until they radically change their downward trajectory. It’s sad for me to say as a lover of Polish culture, but these countries do not deserve our money, with Poland passing restrictions on abortion that would make Republicans cringe and Hungary blocking off migrants and eroding the rule of law.)

In short, the world is unsafe for liberty. Even here, within the oldest democracy (Sorry San Mariners) we find our institutions threatened, although I believe that they are altogether stronger than Trump as the founding fathers intended. If the government was successful in ejecting Nixon, then it shall be successful in ejecting Trump. These institutions have been tested before, and they withstood it. They will withstand this one as well. However, other nations are not lucky to have our storied and time-tested institutions. Only with your patronage of developed and developing democracies shall we begin to break the global stranglehold that tyranny has over humanity, and foster greater liberty for us all—perhaps one day all humans shall be free?   

Collected Ramblings

Botswana: Hidden Gem of Africa

Zebras at Chobe National Park

Disclaimer: I was not paid in any way, shape, nor form by the Botswanan government to post this. I just really like Botswana.

The beautiful nation, with the meandering Okavango River to its north and the wide Kalahari Desert to the south is an enigma. Despite being resource-rich, it has not fallen into dictatorship—a phenomenon known as the resource curse. The vast desert and savannahs attract tourists, but the Botswanan government has committed itself to be a destination not of quantity but of quality. They have done this to protect the unique national environment.

Despite being surrounded by undemocratic and increasingly authoritarian governments—Zuma’s South Africa comes to mind—Botswana represents a viable model for a democracy with a commitment to protecting its natural lands. It surprised me to read about this nation. I had heard all the great success stories in Africa, such as Nigeria, Kenya, and pre-Zuma South Africa, but Botswana took me by surprise. Despite most of it being sparse desert, the Botswanan people have turned the nation into a prime tourist destination. What’s more, their gross domestic product has risen from a meager 70 dollars to 16,300.

Despite historically being dominated by one party, the nation remains one of the least corrupt in the world, and the least corrupt in Africa. It is a country that had—and continues to—defy expectations.

Permaculture: My Odd Obsession

Claire Gregory’s Permaculture Garden

Permaculture is a design philosophy that runs counter to some streams of thought, such as environmentalism, which emphasizes a leave-alone approach. Instead, it emphasizes the harmony of man with nature, and seeks to optimize the natural world. I have mixed feelings about that—I wouldn’t cut down an old growth forest to make a farm—but it represents a philosophy that I think is of more use than the sacrosanct thought of dark green environmentalists. I personally (kind of) empathize with the bright green camp of using technology and smart development to protect the environment, but I cannot help but obsess over permaculture YouTube videos at 3:41 A.M.

I think there is a good reason why. Environmentalism seems to be a strain of thought that emphasizes the secularity of man over nature, that views it as some kind of encroaching Other. In contrast, permaculture emphasizes unity, harmony, and continuity. Humanity is not apart from nature, rather, it is a part of it. From what little I know of the inherent design principles, it visualizes the built environment as a cell, with humanity at the center, and then rings of varying levels of wildness emanating from the central part.

As an example of this ‘human cell’, consider the traditional permaculture design. The area near the home is nearly entirely human, with chicken coops, pathways, and firewood sheds dominating the space. Then outside the immediate environment is what one could call the farm, although in permaculture the concept of a farm is different from our modern point of view. Most would imagine a farm as organized rows of corn, wheat, or cotton. Not so in permaculture. Plants mix and match, with jasmine vines creeping up carob trees, which feeds nitrogen to the sage undergrowth. Outside this farmland area lies a semi-wilderness, where firewood might be harvested, a few plants added to native species, or graywater caught in ponds to nourish marshland plants. Outside this is a wild and untouched environment, left for the bears and the birds to use as they wish.

My guess as to why I am so obsessed with this philosophy, which represents mythology as much as it does fact, is because it promises independence and self-reliance—a fleeting concept in our rapidly connecting world. Whereas today a biologist and an organic chemist might as well be speaking to each other in French and German, in the older days a holistic understanding of knowledge was encouraged. Think of Da Vinci, who made studies in art, chemistry, anatomy, biology, geology, hydrology, aviation, and engineering. (Not to mention Thomas Young, the Last Man to Know Everything). Permaculture represents a psychological desire for a pre-Ricardian age where we did everything on our own—a past where instead of knowing much about a specific thing, we knew a little of everything.

The New Website

Have you noticed this lovely logo?

Well guys, this is really it. I have changed some things around on the website, mostly related to appearance, but I will also be issuing regular updates every Sunday at noon, starting tomorrow so I can build up my readership. By now, my friends may have noticed blog posts taking over my profile, so I have decided to create a separate page for voidramblings (no space!) I have decided that I’ll have to make this hobby more professional looking, and reach out to more folks, hence the changes. Any sort of thoughts or feedback as I build this brand would be appreciated, so I have opened this article for direct comments.     

The Woman who Feared Yellow

It’d been so many years since I left Girona—those wide plazas covered by apricots and mulberries three centuries old, those winding roads through narrow hills, designed more for mules than cars. There was that wide New Mexico sky, always the purest turquoise shade of blue, an overarching dome over the yellow fangs of rock below. Girona was my home—growing older in the same strange way that cities and trees do.

The original town was founded upon a single spring to water the mule trains. No man was intended to live there—but some merchants decided to set camp and stay. The missionaries were not far behind, building one of the oldest churches in North America. The Pueblo, a tribe of Native Americans, rebelled against the Spainards and their brutal colonial rule—leaving Girona to boil under the hot desert sun. When the Spanish came back north armed to the teeth, they found Girona alone of all their cities had survived, as virtue to its isolation.

The town could never die. When the smallpox swept into town, many suffered, but all the large families survived, and carried on life as usual. When the civil war between Spain and Mexico occurred, Girona was burnt in revenge, but the settlers simply rebuilt where they were. When Americans spread west in that blind burst of Manifest Destiny—our domestic black legend—Girona was in the middle of wars between the Apaches and the government. Even in the age of cannon and cavalry, the town could not die. Tuberculosis, a silver boom and then bust, land speculation, and the immense heat could never kill Girona. Each growth and each decline was marked in the rings that surrounded Girona—from the small old town with its missions and shops to the motels that ringed the outside.

I had the privilege of living with my auntie, who was actually a distant relative of mine who technically wasn’t even related—a rather long story of its own. She was… spiritually inclined. Mirrors had to be covered after sunset, empty chairs covered with a pair of shoes or an old shirt, and only one pillow was permitted in bed, lest a spirit be invited. She had windchimes strung together from pre-war beer bottles—those thick green ones—and I often fell asleep under their brilliant light. Also—she never let yellow into the house.

This was unfortunate because unlike most Mexicans, I was born blond—rumor has it I had Galician blood somewhere in the family. When I was a baby, she kept it cropped close. This caused the other kids around me to tease me terribly, how terribly bald I was! I had to be an old man! Finally, after complaining to her enough, my auntie let me grow my hair out provided I wore a hat in the house, and a cap when I was in bed.

Her obsession with yellow could become terrible. Hotdogs had to be consumed without mustard. Nothing golden was allowed, so I couldn’t bring home a graduation ring. When a slip of blond hair got out of my hat, she would berate me—how lazy I was for letting this yellow menace into the house!

Most may have called my Auntie mad, but I found her to be… inspired. She was onto something that—I don’t know, I felt beneath the surface. She could see other worlds. Even when she burned incense in the presence of a lady friend of mine who had worn a floral dress with a slight trace of yellow at the middle of the flowers, I felt that it had to be for a reason.

The first time I saw the true extent of her powers was when she put garlic in my breakfast cereal—one of the saccharine one with fake fruit flavors that kids just love. I asked her if the milk had gone sour, but nope, it was garlic.

“Auntie, why did you put in garlic?”

She waved a cigarette at me. “Because it shall save you money.”

“How?”

She grinned in a way I’d never seen her grin before, like a fox sneering at its prey. So I went to school with garlic on my breath, and I kept my mouth closed all day. I could feel the smell worsening, escaping through all my pores.

That was when he came, James Strand. A tall brutish boy whose parents took turns beating him, he cracked his knuckles. He was escorted by two boys with long faces that pointed at a sharp chin—like a fleet of sharks.

“Tell him what you’ve seen in the movies!” One shark urged on James.

“Yeah, yeah, I got you. Hey kid! You got any lunch money?”

At this very second, I remembered my Aunties word, and I opened my mouth wide, and it was as if a biological weapon had exploded—the three of them scattered for cover as the vile garlic smell came over them. That was the day I realized Auntie was not mad, or at least it wasn’t that simple.

I followed every directive from that point on as if it were a religion. Auntie told me to arrive late for a swimming meet—and I met my future boss on the way. She told me to take a spoonful of a vile concoction before bed when I had pneumonia, and the very next morning I found my sickness had faded.

In a way, we became close. We rode four-wheelers together out in the badlands—after she’d peeled the yellow warning stickers off. She’d break into wild hawking and coughing laughter. We lit luminarias together as it got close to Christmastime—an old and proud New Mexican tradition.

Girona was beautiful. Is beautiful actually, especially since the ghastly motels around town were replaced with sleek condos. See—I had left Auntie and not looked back since I graduated. I had outgrown this place in the mountains, a small ring of rock surrounded by desiccated branches. I had gone on to see the widest parts of the world, to see all the great cities out there.

But I returned because Auntie was very close to dying. When I saw her again, the house was sick and yellow. Everything felt greasy and sickly. She was in the furthest back room, and when I saw her, I could tell her once-black hair had been stained with yellow. Her skin was yellow. The blankets were yellow. The fresh mucus on the rag by the nightstand was yellow too, and even the whites of her eyes had been painted yellow. She hadn’t brought anything yellow into her house, but she had brought in something orange and white. One of the thousands of yellow culprits was still smoldering on her nightstand next to the rag—a cigarette.

The Problem of Color: Or Why Art Teachers Are So, So Wrong

A (rough) picture of all the colors visible to the human eye—the so-called gamut.

Disclaimer: I am not a physicist nor a neurologist. All information here is taken from other sources only slightly more qualified than I am. If you cite me in your essay/scholarly article/papal bull, you have nobody except yourself to blame.

Color exists in a spectrum that can be called the gamut. One could argue that the gamut model is overly simplified and two dimensional. Take for example the shade of olive green—which appears to be green, but is actually a darkened shade of yellow. One could argue for another two dimensions: transparency and lightness-darkness. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll stick with the simple two dimensions displayed by conventional color gamuts.

The spectrum on your computer screen right now is limited compared to the vast rainbow of real life. That is the consequence of nature being rather different from computers. The largest lab color gamuts rely on the addition of so called “imaginary colors” in order to hold in the vast field of human vision. The ProPhoto gamut as pioneered by Kodak is pictured here—note how the triangle goes outside the so-called horseshoe of colors.

Now that you know human sight depends on this field of color, let me demonstrate something that will blow your mind. In first grade art, you were taught that the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. But that’s just dreck. There are two (or maybe three!) spectrums of colors, none of them being quite like the red-yellow-blue spectrum.

Let us start with the additive versus subtractive spectrum—or colloquially: RGB and CMYK. The additive spectrum relies on the fact white is all colors put together, and that human eyes have red, green, and blue cones—for the most part. The Red-Green-Blue spectrum is most likely the color on your screen. The interesting thing is that the secondary color between blue and green is cyan, red and blue is magenta, and red and green is yellow. Thus, the RGB and CMYK spectrums are inverses of each other.

Why is it that the mechanism for additive versus subtractive color are opposites? It has to do with physics. Additive color relies on illumination—light is projected to the eye. In contrast, subtractive color relies on white light bouncing off pigments, with a bit of color being absorbed into the pigment. Thus, if yellow is shone into the eye, you are seeing red and green light mingling together. In contrast, yellow pigments absorb the blue portion of pure white light, leaving red and green to be reflected back to the cornea.

Do you know what occurs when cyan, magenta, and yellow are combined? These colors create black—at least in theory. The theory indicates that these three colors in combination absorb all light to form black. In reality, pigments are imperfect—they have mass and therefore density. They cannot concentrate in enough density to create black on their own, and thus a fourth color is needed—the key, AKA black ink. For some reason or another, CMYk has been maligned by artists, perhaps in their fool’s crusade against science and rationalism. (This snide remark, I assure you, is not due to the fact I got bad marks for doing a painting in CMYk rather than RYB. The things I do for scientific orthodoxy!)

Sarcasm aside, there is a very good reason why RYB is used rather than CMYk—it works alright in terms of printing or watercolors, but in settings where pigments are overlaid in high densities, the CMYk spectrum begins to break down. Therefore, a new system is needed—the red, yellow, and blue spectrum. However, this spectrum is scientifically imperfect, covering only a small part of the rainbow that is human vision. A fourth color becomes necessary to widen the narrow gamut available to artists—and this is where Ewald Hering comes in. He proposed that while the RGB spectrum was scientifically correct, the mind formed a fourth primary color—yellow. Red and green competed against each other, and so did yellow and blue. This competition defined his theory of color, known as the opponent process. While this defies the artistic definition of complementary colors being combined to create brown or gray, this process makes more sense scientifically. Perhaps then, a ‘square’ gamut is needed in art, utilizing red, yellow, green, and blue.

As an example of instance, consider the combination of cadmium yellow with ultramarine blue—the gold standard of color. Rather than forming a rich and vibrant lime green, they make a muddied shade of forest green. Televisions are beginning to experiment with the color gamut by adding an extra yellow pixel to their RGB screens, although limitations in most cameras (which only captures RGB rather than RGYB) require that the yellow pixel has to be ‘invented’. If artists added lime green in addition to the usual RYB spectrum, would it increase the vibrancy of their work? My guess would be yes, it would.

Darwin’s Forgotten Friend: Alfred Russel Wallace and What He Can Show Us

Look at this handsome beard! Don’t you just love it?

Many have bandied about the term social Darwinism, from economists, politicians, philosophers, and worst of all, eugenics supporters. However, to say such a thing betrays a poor understanding of evolutionary thought. While Darwin himself was shy to comment on social issues, seeing it as outside his scientific realm—Alfred Russel Wallace was not.

Wallace, always outspoken and iconoclastic, was a man ahead of his day. He was a co-discoverer of natural selection, a biogeographer par excellence, and a friend of Darwin. A contemporary of my favorite philosopher, John Stuart Mill, he was not afraid to make his controversial opinions known to others. He took down the flat-earthers a bit less than a century before NASA with the Bedford Level experiment—he was not a man who would gladly suffer the idiocy of the masses. He was an early supporter of women’s suffrage, reformist criminal justice, and an opponent of militarism. Although the man was a socialist and not a classical liberal, back then these two ideas had scarcely begun to diverge. Indeed, Ricardo contributed to both ideas in equal measure, raising concerns about class inequality and economic exploitation even as he formulated the earliest theory in support of free trade.

He was also a vocal opponent of the crime of eugenics, which is more than can be said for (of all people) Helen Keller. This is important, because eugenics represents the most radical and evil deviation from true Darwinist thought. While Darwin was neutral on the issue as he saw no empirical evidence one way or another, Wallace was always outspoken in his opposition. He saw it as an attempt by foolish humans to try and determine value and worth on old heuristics. Many writers, such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, saw eugenics as a public good. When the two of them truly saw the horror of the concentration camps of Europe, it was far too late for them to recant their words—the Nazis cited both men as providing the model for their despicable purges.

However, Wallace was not perfect. He opposed free trade—something which has been proven to uplift nations from poverty—compare Colombia to Venezuela. He believed that intelligent design had a place in scientific literature, and advocated spiritualism even after it was debunked as fraudulent and predatory. Even so, Wallace still remains a man ahead of his time, one of the scientists who saw the future and embraced it. I am reminded by an insightful quote from Albert Speer, a Nazi who stood by and did nothing while Europe fell into madness. He once said “…The more technological the world becomes, the more necessary as a counterweight is the demand for individual freedom and self-consciousness of individuals.” In terms of this quote, Wallace represents the self-consciousness that was not only in pace of the technology in his day, but ahead of it.

The Rise of the Kingdom of Suburbia

A typical example of suburbanization in the United States

How the Brits Ruined our Fun

Have you ever noticed how different it feels in suburbia—without the life and activity of the deep city, but none of the bucolic comforts of the country? Rather, they feel like islands of solitudes, set against oceans of green grass, devoid of life save for the occasional car passing by. Don’t think of me as some sort of deep, philosophical thinker—that would frankly be embarrassing. The kingdom of suburbia seems to be an ambivert’s dream, with people never separated from you by walls with the thickness of rice paper, but not so far away that you only see another human face once a week. But inadvertently, we have ended up with neither the pleasure of company nor the pleasure of raw, wild solitudes. I blame the British for this.

This isn’t me attacking the British over some grudge from 1776, but analyzing a national obsession with suburban sprawl, with multi-square foot homes with little practical use to its occupants, at the price of shrinking yards to the point that the average dog has just enough room to sit down and do their business. This, I believe, has to do with English manorial culture, passed on first after the revolution, and thereafter with the rise of an American elite educated in Britain.

“The kingdom of suburbia seems to be an ambivert’s dream, with people never separated from you by walls with the thickness of rice paper, but not so far away that you only see another human face once a week.”

In the time of English nobility, the concept of the manor was as a seat of power, with vast, palatial gardens presided over a large house. Even to be a gentry—a landowner without noble status, was to be entitled to vote in parliament. To own such a site entailed its owner with prestige and power, especially if this manor had a lawn.

Now a stupid atavism of British influence, a lawn signified excess—it meant that nobles controlled so much land that they didn’t have to worry about food, instead using the arable land around their manor as a lawn. Nowadays, lawns maintain the same prestige, however it is difficult to grow a green yard outside the gentle clime of the British latitudes. Indeed, in the desert and chaparral of America, a lawn is all but useless, a green elephant if you will. Indeed, it is environmentally damaging, introducing invasive species alongside depleting water reserves.

Manoralism in America had its roots in the super-wealthy, such as the Virginia elite, what with their massive plantations, and their deplorable use of chattel to keep the grounds. The South, ever loyal to the monarchy (Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia were all named after monarchs for a reason), imitated the British pastoral tradition, copying their manors to the new world. Indeed, the Carolinas almost became a haven for the monarchy with their Cassiques—a Native American equivalent to Count—but Article Four, Section Four, Clause One of the United States constitution put an end to that idea. Even so, suburbia remains as an aristocratic testament to the manor.

It took a while for the concept of the manor to trickle down from the top to the middle, and even lower classes, this process accelerated in the 1950s, when a combination of post-war prosperity, a fear of urban crime, and mass production led to suburban boomtowns. Various goods became an aspect of American manoralism, such as the car—how else to navigate that vast ocean of houses?—the grill, the lawnmower, and the famous white picket fence. One shocking difference in those days is the fact that these picket fences did not defend the yard in the same way many modern fences do. Rather, the gap between the fence were wide, and the tips were at around waist height as shown in this picture of the typical neighborhood—making the suburbia of then much less an island than today.

“Now a stupid atavism of British influence, a lawn signified excess—it meant that nobles controlled so much land that they didn’t have to worry about food…”

However, the Kingdom of Suburbia has drifted from a realm of individualism and prosperity to a dictatorship led by hysterical groupthink. Houses in seven shades of beige dominate the landscape, where homeowner associations have (allegedly) handed down secret fines without telling the landowners, removing religious articles, along with an American flag—from a veteran’s yard no less! Indeed, is it true freedom to live in the suburbs when your own lands are run by hysterics that want to spite people for growing the wrong kind of shrubbery? But enough about that.

Another disadvantage of living in suburbia: the distance between people and services. In the city, you can easily access subways, libraries, museums, and parks, whereas in suburbia such services are spread around over a wider area. This makes sense, if you need 100 households to pay for a library, you would want to try and distribute those benefits. In the city, a few towers can hold a hundred households, but the suburbs require a hundred individual houses to achieve the same critical mass required. This results in more spread-out services, and thus a reliance on the automobile. In addition to large interiors that require electricity plus the addition of suburban amenities such as lawns, it makes the suburbs into an energy sinkhole.

A Few Plusses

There are a few reasons for the expansion of the Suburban Kingdom, one of the largest reasons being that a home is a store for wealth, a place for the middle classes to grow their investments. This means houses have become so-called nest eggs, allowing the accruement of debt, so long as such debt remained stable against the value of a home. This is what made the housing crisis of 2008 so potent: home values sank so much that debts went into default, and people had to foreclose. (This is a simplified and thus insufficient model of what happened as negative equities only contributed a small part to the foreclosures, but this model is useful enough as a short explanation) Even so, home ownership is considered an useful investment, if not a safe one.

In addition, suburbia finds itself removed from crime, although the gap between the crime rates of urban and suburban areas has narrowed. This could be part of why white flight has been replaced by gentrification in many urban areas both of which has been treated with consternation by the left—which are the people to choose? For me, I believe that underlying income inequality issues between races need to be dealt with—complaints of gentrification only distract from the real issue at hand.

Alternatives to suburbanization

One issue with suburbia is its propensity for mass consumption. One alternative is given by the tiny house movement, which promises to decrease consumption and waste. There are many facts on their side—even if I view it as suburbanization lite. I believe that this movement will balance the manoral desire rooted in American culture with the moderation offered by tiny houses. There are multiple designs of tiny communities floating around, with tiny homes facing each other across a central courtyard, with a bus stop to connect to public transportation. In essence, this would make these communities open-air apartments, and help to raise the density of the neighborhood and thus increase the concentration of nearby services.

“In the city, a few towers can hold a hundred households, but the suburbs require a hundred individual houses to achieve the same critical mass required. This results in more spread-out services, and thus a reliance on the automobile.”

Another option is to build apartments inspired by people-centered architecture. See, apartments on their own are often cramped and dismal. There is little incentive to provide people with space-wasting amenities such as courtyards when it could be filled up with even more suites. One proponent of people-centered architecture, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, suggested the Window-Right: A person could have the right to paint everything within arm’s reach of the window. No doubt this would send homeowner associations into a tizzy. Indeed, Hundertwasser’s final opus, the Green Citadel, provides an ideal model of such people-centered architecture.

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Pictured: The Green Citadel.

Take note of the central courtyard, with shop signs propped up on the ground floor. This signifies the building is mixed use, allowing concentrated economic activity befitting a city to take place. Such developments minimize car use, reduce food deserts by increasing the concentration of retailers, and encourages healthier living. There are trees in this development, creating both shade and a healthier atmosphere for residents. If one looks hard enough, they can identify open air bistro tables, ideal for socializing.

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Perhaps, as a way of encouraging such people-centered developments, one could encourage positive revenue effects, such as greater tenant retention, added income from commercial establishments, and a greater willingness to pay higher rents for services such as pools, gyms, and so on. This would result in a win-win scenario, stimulating the economic lifeblood of a community while increasing property value. This economic boon could be enhanced if rentiers are allowed to pay toward the ownership of their suites to use as equity, encouraging the tenants to invest in and improve their suites, and raising the land value of the homes as a whole.

A Solution to Gentrification

Typical example of British public housing

This may be controversial, as such a rise in land value might lead to further gentrification. However, it is my belief that if such developments emphasize both mixed use and mixed income in its criteria, the impact can be lessened. On the other hand, imposing rent controls on private apartments would be moronic—even a first year economic student could expose the folly with the concept. If prices are to fall, landowners will be obliged to rent out less, either selling their properties or allowing it to be maintained less, thus justifying the lower rent. Economist Assar Lindbeck characterized rent control as “the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing”.

Another element besides emphasizing mixed income developments could be the addition of public housing. Now, it isn’t perfect. The projects of the 1960s United States led to cramped apartments, a high concentration of poverty, and a lack of employment for tenants. In contrast, public housing in the United Kingdom was so well-liked for its spacious accommodations that people had to be taxed out. Even in Britain, such projects are not perfect, as the corner-cutting which led to the Grenfell Tower disaster proved. A reason why British public housing may have functioned better than in America could be the fact that it was designed for not just the destitute, but also for low-income denizens, thus reducing the impact of poverty concentration. This effect is also enhanced by creating public housing in high income areas, allowing low-income individuals access to better opportunities.

However, the British Conservatives, in their eminent stupidity, have slowly transformed public housing from something for the cash-strapped, and made it into something for the destitute and thereby increasing the concentration of poverty, while also cutting the number of council estates to record lows, backing up wait lists and making mobility more difficult (people have historically refused to move to higher opportunity areas if it hurt their position on a public housing waitlist.)

Even with careful planning, public housing is not a silver bullet to end economic woes associated with gentrification. Public goods are perpetually flawed by their own public nature, without the feedback mechanism that a price signal alongside with economic competition provides. Instead, such options serve more as a compress on a wound—in this case the tacit (albeit decreasing) segregation that still exists between different races more than 50 years after the Civil Rights movement ended.

In Conclusion

In short, suburbia is a desert imposed upon America by an unique quirk in its history: a burgeoning post-war middle class combined with English manoral culture and the unique national propensity for mass-production and standardization. The suburban culture has become characterized by dissatisfaction and group-think. A better solution would be to emphasize tiny homes which creates the same manors at a smaller cost in terms of resources—or to embrace mixed use and mixed income development designed to increase the land value and purchasing power of the nearby area, thereby creating positive externalities. Even positive externalities still have negative impacts such as gentrification, which may be offset by establishing public housing, provided that such public housing is designed in a way to minimize the concentration of poverty, and mixed into high opportunity areas as a way to increase mobility.

A Federal Britain: The Solution to the Current Madness

Theresa May with pro-independence Premier of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon

British Government: A Primer for Americans

Before I start this article, I feel obliged to explain a few things to my American readers, however if you are British or familiar with their politics, feel free to skip this section. You might know the Prime Minister is kinda like the president, but not, and that the Queen has relatively little power, if any, but you know she’s William’s granny.

But what you may not know is that the United Kingdom and England are two different things, kind of like calling an American a Yank, even though Yankees only live in New England. (There is a good reason for both phenomena. At the time America was colonized, England did not own Scotland and only possessed half of Ireland. Thus, the memory of “England” persists, even though it has been called the United Kingdom for quite some time. In the same vein, the Yankees spearheaded the American Revolution, being the most fiery and passionate out of the thirteen colonies in fighting for their independence. Therefore, while the fiery region of New England contained just a small portion of the Thirteen Colonies even back in the day, the image of the fiery Yankee has imprinted itself on the memory of the British.)

Rather, England is a part of the United Kingdom, alongside Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, in a group called the Home Nations—the States of the United Kingdom. While there are outlying territories such as Gibraltar, Jersey, and the Island of Man, they are each under their own parliament, with the UK responsible only for national defense—like Puerto Rico and Guam is to America, you could say.

The whole thing is run by the Parliament, with the House of Commons as the House of Representatives, and the House of Lords as the Senate—a weaker, neutered version. While the Prime Minister serves the role of President, the power to veto lies with the monarch, although not a single bill has been vetoed since 1707, when Queen Anne vetoed the deployment of a militia in Scotland. The monarch has enormous reserve powers on paper, although in practice the monarch has hardly a reason to use them—there is an old joke in political science that goes “The United Kingdom has a hereditary President, the United States has an elected King.”

The biggest difference between the UK and the USA however, is the fact that America is a federal union, whereas the United Kingdom is a unitary state. In the American system, the states have powers that cannot be violated by the federal government, however the degree of freedom varies from country to country. For instance, Canada—another federal state—reserves the right to reject provincial laws. In a unitary state, all powers are given at the behest of the central government, and can be revoked at will. However, the United Kingdom is already on the road to becoming a de facto federation, as it becomes increasingly clear that the powers given to the home nations will be difficult, if not impossible to revoke. At the very least, codifying a federation would help to reconcile the constitution with the current political reality of Britain.

The Federal Argument

Nobody had dreamed it: that Scotland would be just ten percent shy of independence. Long ago, it was believed that the Scottish National Party were just a few madmen, obsessed with tartan culture and the ghost of Braveheart. But they had reformed themselves to become a major political party, at one point driving out all other parties from Scotland. This highlighted the issues facing Britain, issues that had long been in storage since the secession of the Irish Free State. Even today, with parliamentary reforms, the government is English dominated. (For the difference between Britain and England, refer to this CGP Grey video.)

Out of 650 members of the House of Commons (The British Parliament is all but unicameral), 533 are English. However, some may argue that the English advantage is offset by the fact Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales all have self-government to varying extents. I would counter-argue that what is truly needed is a Senate for all Britain, to equalize powers between all the four home nations. There is still the House of Lords, but they serve little more purpose than window dressing.

A federal United Kingdom, with specific powers devolved to each state, would also provide a seamless solution to the West Lothian question. The West Lothian question, which was asked by a Scottish parliamentarian, asked why Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland could vote on laws that would only affect England. By entitling each home nation to certain powers, it would resolve that question once and for all—each would have their own government and their own laws, with a central parliament to deal with issues like national defense, finance, taxation, and diplomacy.

Further, creating a Senate would equalize power between the four home nations, ending any dispute about power-sharing once and for all. As for the House of Lords, perhaps they could simply become a gentleman’s club. Any sober second thoughts could be handled by the monarch, who still has the power to reserve assent for any outlandish laws (which functions the same way as a veto does in the United States, save for the fact that reserving assent cannot be overridden.)

 

 

A Federation with British Characteristics

However, for a federation to work in the United Kingdom, some quirks of federations will have to be cast aside. For example, federations are usually spearheaded by an independent capital, located within the center of the country, such as Washington or Mexico City. However, much as I would love to see the capital moved to a place such as the Island of Man, situated in the seas between the four home nations, I have no doubt the capital will remain in London, and that London itself will remain within England in the foreseeable future.

Also, the proposed senate would likely not be fully equal between the four nations, in contrast to the American senate, which guarantees each state regardless of size two senators. Rather, it would be like Canada, with senators varying from 24 for both Ontario and Quebec to four for Prince Edward Island, with one for each territory. Perhaps England would have eight, Scotland six, Wales five, and Northern Ireland four. While recognizing the population disparities between each part, it would guarantee that the English supermajority in Parliament would be countered by a more equitable senate. Indeed, a large part of the reason for establishing the Senate in Canada was to counter the might of Ontario-Quebec, which together hold sixty-two percent of the whole nation’s population.

The final modification to the characteristics of federation to suit the United Kingdom would be a change in reserved powers—powers not explicitly given to neither the central or state (national, in the British case) governments. In America, reserved powers are given to the states under the Tenth Amendment, whereas I believe parliament should reserve all unexpressed powers for itself.

In short, a federal United Kingdom would resolve the constitutional issues facing the nation, and ensure that it would remain united for some time to come. However, let me be honest with myself. I am hardly an expert at British politics, and yet I understand the monumental task of federation would require multiple referenda over several decades, countless compromises, and who knows how many amendments to the massive Constitution, which after the Magna Carta has grown to a tangle of laws wrapped together like vines and nettles. However, it would provide something of a patch to the holes in the British constitution, and might save the United Kingdom from many troubles in the long run.

Post-Nationalism versus Neo-Nationalism

Trudeau reacting to Neo-Nationalism

Justin Trudeau, in an interview, identified Canada as the first post-national state. I dispute this supposition as Belgium, a union between French-speaking Wallonians and Dutch-speaking Flemish, was founded in 1830. Although, to be fair to Canada, the Belgians did feel closely tied to a Catholic rather than an ethnic identity, in contrast to the Netherlands whose ruling house literally defined Orangism. However, Canada is not too dissimilar from Belgium, what with its large, restless French community. Trudeau’s assertion of postnationalism serves to forestall Quebecois secessionism, by rendering its fundamental question of nationalism moot. As peoples move around the world, exchanging ideas and culture, ethnic nationalism has found itself in steep decline.

 

This movement of peoples has triggered something which I call Neo-Nationalism, a belief that immigrants cannot properly integrate into society, and therefore that they should be kept out. There may be some exception for nations with similar cultures, such as Germany and Austria, or America and the United Kingdom, but for the most part, immigration is frowned upon. Neo-Nationalism has risen in a reaction to Post-Nationalism, much as Romanticism has risen in response to rationalism after the age of Enlightenment. It has been embraced by Fidesz in Hungary, the Law and Justice Party (Polish) in Poland, and closer to home, it has seized the Republican Party away from the rational center.

 

In France, the rivalry between these two concepts was one of the most important controversies of the election, with Post-Nationalist and pro-European Emmanuel Macron running against the Neo-Nationalist Le Pen. Macron campaigned on the idea that immigration would be an economic boon, and he won amidst concerns of rising terrorism—no mean feat. It is perhaps the best example of how serious the debate has become. Indeed, upon further analysis, Trump could have secured his surprise win in the Midwest due to Neo-Nationalism, making it a fundamental wedge issue that pulled away Democrats from the party fold. It seems that as the younger generation becomes less nationalist, the elder generations are heading in the opposite direction. There may be several concerns driving the two generations apart, such as a loss of traditional culture, or the burdening of social welfare programs which elder generations may rely on.

 

To analyze the rise of Neo-Nationalism, we must first understand its adherents. One main aspect to understand is the geography and demography of Neo-Nationalism, both here and abroad. For example, Utah displayed one of the strongest rejections of Trump, which I speculate might be due to missionary activity by Mormons, wherein they expose themselves to different countries and cultures. In contrast, the Midwest is home to some of the most white states, save for Illinois, whose population was close to the national average. What is most intriguing is how Trump made inroads with what I call Mountain Yankees, those in Maine and New Hampshire who live in the rural uplands. Maine and New Hampshire increased their share of votes for the Republican party, and both have a white population over 90%. It may be that the reason for this turn to Trump is a fear of losing white, Judeo-Christian, and English nationality.

 

Akin to this, Le Pen had shown her strength in the rural Picardy region in northern France, and in the southern area of Provence. While an analysis of race is impossible since any race or ethnic questions in the French census have been prohibited since 1978, other factors such as industrialization can be analyzed. Picardy shares many characteristics with the Midwest, including a post-industrial history. As the region furthest removed from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, it has not encountered diverse populations. In contrast, the Provence region has felt overwhelmed with the number of migrants fleeing Africa, and perhaps they felt that the Front National would have done something about the migration wave.

 

Post-Nationalism seems to be rising within urban areas, perhaps due to the inherent diversity in cities. From Los Angeles to New York, cities have swung left in the 2016 election. One of the most notable places where this occurred was the BosWash megapolis, a strip of urbanization stretching from Boston to DC, alongside Utah (although part of this is due to McMullin taking votes from Trump), and the Black Belt in the American South.

 

Of these two ideologies, I am more partial to Post-Nationalism. Although some of the most radical among Post-Nationalists advocate tearing down borders, I am not so much against them insomuch as I am for facilitating the flow of peoples between two nations. Border controls do not make much sense—whatever walls may exist may still be flown over, and stricter controls might spark fears among those who overstayed their visa that if they leave, they may never enter America again. Inspecting and questioning people at our ports of entry makes sense, but a massive wall does not. We need to ensure more ports of entry to facilitate the movement of peoples and goods, and perhaps give passports to businessmen and entrepreneurs who live in the south but work in the North, that allows them to cross borders with ease provided that they do not present a security threat to the United States.

 

However, before I sound like a pie-in-the-sky open border liberal, let me note that the immigration process is long for a reason—it ensures that peoples from other nations have time to adapt to our habits and customs. To allow people an express pass simply because they crossed the border illegally would be unfair to those who crossed the border legally and went through the long and arduous process of naturalization. The only measure of amnesty I support is for tax-paying and law-abiding illegal immigrants who later register through the government to be naturalized. The time that they spent in America while paying taxes will be deducted from the five-year residency period required for citizenship. Regardless of whether or not they crossed legally or illegally, it will ensure that the burden is shared by both, while both minimizing the risk of ‘cheating’ the process and encouraging illegal immigrants to come forward and become naturalized in a proper manner.

 

In short, it is my sincere hope that as America becomes more diverse we will find a nationalism not based on British culture or Christian faith, but based on our deeper traditions of optimism, curiosity, and enterprise. These three things represent true American values, immutable through our history. It was the reason Ricky Gervais had to redo The Office for an American audience—the original show was a cynical, dead-end take on working life that would have fallen flat in a country like America. We were the nation that crossed the vast blackness of space to land on the Moon, braved the Challenger Deep, and created the Internet—the greatest wonder of our age. The way to make America great again is to once again open our arms and lift our lamps for the tempest-tost from faraway lands to come and join us.

What the Affordable Care Act Should Have Been

Not pictured: Page 1-6,999/7,000

 

I’d like to put down my usual disclaimer: I am an incompetent, highly opinionated fool who doesn’t know what he’s getting into. If you were to take me seriously by actually taking the time to respond to my post calling me a whiny liberal cuck, I’d be flattered that someone outside my family actually noticed this blog. Also, it’s hard to insult a man with no ego to speak of.

 

With that said: I have seen the recent news of the Republican plan to repeal Affordable Care Act. It has been a profound shock to me that after years of whining and petulant obstructionism, the Republican party has still as of yet not proposed a serious replacement. This seems to me a great oversight, especially considering that the party has been mobilizing for 8 years in opposition to the law. This has been more than plenty of time to propose a serious alternative, but unfortunately—they have not. Indeed, it would be irresponsible to repeal the plan—the CBO says that Affordable Care Act will reduce the ten-year deficit by a cool 337 billion. Say what you will, but the CBO is an independent organization, and has a very good reason for being so, as its very reputation relies upon it. The Republican replacement on the other hand will reduce the deficit by a smaller amount, while leaving the same number of people insured. Fiscal conservatism at its finest, if you’d ask me.

 

With that number in mind, the Affordable Care Act has its issues. Most notable among them is the lack of a public option. While it may seem strange that a self-professed classical liberal would support the public option, bear with me here. There are several forms of market failures, including public goods. However, we must be practical and compare this to the stunning lack of competition in the health insurance market, alongside the massive asymmetry of information in the marketplace. It is my belief that the government should not intervene, unless the price of not intervening is greater than the price of doing so—and indeed it is. The Congressional Budget Office has stated that creating a public option would save 158 billion dollars, nothing to sneeze at. Indeed, when both the military and welfare account for almost 70% of the federal budget, cuts will have to be made.

 

It is my sincere hope that the public option becomes a more serious part of the public discourse, as having a public health plan would force insurance suppliers to drop their costs in order to compete. This plan would in no case be mandatory—the Affordable Care Act requires all people to have insurance plans, but does not give any preference to specific plans. Indeed, small business groups such as the Main Street Alliance support a public option, since it would ease burdens on small employers to provide benefits for their employees.

 

In short, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay, unless Republicans can formulate a better plan. Seeing that the Affordable Care Act has reduced the deficit and brought more people into the health insurance marketplace, it has been somewhat successful. However, providing a public option would help those in need, and reduce our deficit, while giving small businesses across the country the ability to compete with large companies to provide more benefits.  While it is not ideal, the public option would be the best idea going forwards to reform healthcare in America.