A Couple Of Things

Both dave.s and Withywindle have asked whether FLG still thinks NATO should be abolished in light of the recent Russia expansionism.  Short answer -- yes.

Longer answer --- In the short term, the existence of NATO seems to have benefit.  FLG believes that the existence of NATO, however, allows the Europeans to free ride off of the US for their security.   He believes that if NATO were abolished, then the EU could and would provide a similar protection for Eastern European countries.  And given that this was explicitly under the EU, it would necessitate the Europeans increasing their defense spending to provide for the collective security of the EU.   Moreover, as far as US involvement goes, there would be nothing precluding the US from sending some troops to Poland, etc, even in the absence of NATO.


So, to summarize, short term, it looks like NATO has value.  Long term, NATO is still a crutch for the Europeans and doesn't really have much usefulness.  

NATO delenda est.

On an entirely unrelated note, FLG was in a cab on the West Side Highway the other day when he saw a truck for Arethusa Farm & Dairy.

Spring Break

This might be the funniest segment FLG has ever seen on The Daily Show.

FLG, like many people, has always had an issue with folks saying "kids these days" about shit they did when they were younger.   Now that he has kids he sort of gets it more, but he tries to fight it.

Contraints

FLG has written before that the ultimate goal of the Left is a misunderstood form of Aristotelian leisure.  This ultimate goal, which  FLG believes most don't even fully understand themselves, manifests something like this:

there not only shouldn't be constraints on human desires, but the only constraints are economic and the present state technology. Both of these are theoretically rectifiable. It lends to the idea that the eventual and proper state of human life is one with no constraints on human desire. Therefore, any constraint is by definition an obstacle to be overcome. 

FLG found this interview with a White House economist fascinating because it so illustrates my point:

I agree that the 77 cents on the dollar is not all due to discrimination. No one is trying to say that it is. But you have to point to some number in order for people to understand the facts. And what it represents is the fact that women on average are put in situations every day that for a variety of reasons mean they earn less. Much of what we need to do to close that gap is to change the constraints that women face. And there are things we haven’t tried.

The pay gap isn't the best case for FLG.  The issue arises more when people on the left view the adverse consequences of bad decisions made by an individual eventually become, not the adverse consequences of a series of bad decisions, but rather unfair constraints in a some future decision.  Since FLG has trouble thinking of children as a bad decision, so it's harder for him to point to that as a major issue in this type of analysis.  But nevertheless, the decision to have children comes with a variety of long-term consequences, which are unavoidable and also fall differently, potentially disproportionately, on each parent.


FLG certain that we can't fundamentally change the adverse consequences of having children, and is deeply skeptical that the government should try to ameliorate certain of the second order effects.