Thanks, guys

I knew when I decided to go inactive on my longtime Twitter account and move to cultivating the blog instead, I was going to lose audience and a piece of the conversation. So I'm gratified that in the last day or so, more than 30 of you have decided to follow the Twitter account that is just a feed of this blog. That's roughly 1 percent of the number of followers I have at the old account, but hopefully I'm offering better and slightly more thoughtful content here. At the very least, I think, I am responding to actual stories and not just the headlines -- and I'm less tempted to offer knee-jerk takes when I have to go through the process of creating a blog post. It slows me down a bit. That matters, I think. I hope. 

Anyway, for those of you who have followed me here: Thanks.

The moral burdens of leaving Syria. (And why we should leave anyway.)

 Daniel Larison:

Andrew Bacevich recently commented on our government’s senseless policy in Syria: “So instead of a realistic policy defined by clear national interests, the United States drifts toward a confrontation with Russia in a place that virtually no American believes is worth dying for.” This “drift” is what happens when U.S. foreign policy operates as if on autopilot. Instead of deploying troops somewhere to achieve a specific end to advance an American interest, our policymakers come to see the deployments as ends in themselves. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the deployment serves a clear purpose or whether it is a wise use of resources. It evidently doesn’t matter whether it’s legal. Once the U.S. sends troops somewhere, it usually takes extraordinary effort to extract them later, and that has no effect on subsequent decisions to deploy them in new countries.

Correct. I'd add that deploying to countries like Syria creates a moral element to this flytrap effect: Once our troops are in a country and affecting the political landscape, we become morally responsible both for what happens while we are there -- and what happens as a result of our leaving. I think we should get out of Afghanistan, but I am distressed by what might happen to women in that country as a result. I think the U.S. has no business being in Syria, but it's also true that getting out screws the Kurds over. Those are lives lost and destroyed because we walked away. (I lost a friend, in fact, because I thought it correct to leave Syria -- he felt that doing so was a moral abomination because of the Kurds.)

The answer, as Larison suggests, is not to go to war in countries where American interests aren't all that clear in the first place. And I still think we should get out of Syria and Afghanistan. The advocates of a more humble foreign policy often find themselves having to justify the moral burden of non-interventionism in a way that hawks don't. But drifting toward a confrontation with Russia for no good reason could end up creating a higher moral cost -- in terms of shattered lives -- than leaving. Sometimes, when there are no good answers, the best answer is restraint.

The unnecessary death of Dijon Kizzee

 NYT report on the death of Dijon Kizzee, who was shot to death by sheriff's deputies in LA:

On Monday, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials said deputies tried to stop a Black man who was riding a bike in South Los Angeles. They said he was stopped for a code violation related to the bike, but wouldn’t elaborate on what the alleged violation was.

The sheriff's office said Kizzee fled and then "made a motion" toward a dropped gun. I think we've learned by now that such accounts should be viewed as provisional, at best, and possibly false. But even if completely true, I'm trying to imagine a "code violation related to the bike" that was so worth enforcing that this outcome was worth it.

We need laws for good order and civilization. But the libertarian side of me has come to believe that maybe we go overboard -- and that the result, sometimes, is a death sentence for selling loose cigarettes, or having a bike code violation. At the very least, it criminalizes people who are just trying to get through the day. And, disproportionately, those people are Black. I'm not saying anything new, here, I realize, but really: If a bike code violation was the reason Dijon Kizzee is dead, then he should be alive today. 

"Asking people to be hyper-conscious of race is likely to aggravate, not fix, racial injustice."

At Persuasion, Matt Lutz argues that "asking people to be hyper-conscious of race is likely to aggravate, not fix, racial injustice." 

Refusing to ascribe importance to something morally neutral is a virtue. And because colorblindness is a refusal to discriminate against others on the basis of their skin color, it remains the best remedy for old-fashioned racism that we have. 

But: 

The world is a much more peaceful place today than it was as recently as a century ago—largely because of attempts to emphasize our common humanity. If we focus on what unites us, our altruistic instincts take over and we become kinder and more trusting towards each other.

But our tendency to favor the ingroup can never be completely eradicated.

Perhaps the answer, then, isn't to embrace some unachievable notion of colorblindness, but A) to refuse to discriminate against others on the basis of their skin color, B) recognize that many people are discriminated against on the basis of their skin color, then C) act accordingly. Recognizing that people are and have been discriminated against and that this fundamentally transforms their relationship to ingroups and outgroups and groups of all sorts doesn't have to be "hyper-conscious." It just has to be conscious.

@RyanLCooper: "Facebook, in short, is destroying America"

The Week: "The platform has become a gigantic factory of extremist conspiracy theories and genocidal hatred — part of a general trend in which right-wing publications and political campaigns have come to dominate the site — all while bleeding traditional journalism to death."

With a brief exception at the start of the pandemic, I've been off Facebook for a year-and-a-half. Long story short: It bummed me out. But it was also literally addictive -- I found myself checking the service in any free moment. I had to go cold turkey, and honestly, as bad as the world seems, it feels better without Facebook in my life.

The funny thing is, Facebook might be even more integrated into our lives right now, when social distancing is the norm. I remember well how much I depended on the service for any connection with the world when I was undergoing my surgeries in 2011. People all over the planet are experiencing similar isolation right now. And it's worrisome to think that isolation is making them vulnerable to disinformation.

"Republicans started and recessed in less than 30 seconds"

The contempt these guys must have for their constituents:

In a special session called by Gov. Tony Evers to pass a package of bills on policing policies after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, who is Black, seven times in the back, Republicans started and recessed in less than 30 seconds -- satisfying requirements of the law that they meet.

I wrote Monday at The Week: "You can't demand peaceful protests and dismiss them at the same time." That remains the case. Republicans couldn't be bothered to pretend they care about issues of concern to Wisconsin's Black community. It's kind of breathtaking.

Andrew Sullivan smears Ben Smith: "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Ben Smith's profile of Andrew Sullivan was about as respectful -- even loving -- as you can get while still rejecting Sullivan's long-and-ongoing history of just asking questions about whether some groups of people are genetically inferior or superior to each other.

Sullivan opens his response thusly:

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! But the press is mercifully free and Ben Smith can write what he wants. To be fair to Ben, he’s a man with ambitions at the New York Times. After the woke coup there earlier this summer, he had no choice but to call yours truly a racist if he seeks a future at that paper. He knows what happened to James Bennet for crossing the critical race activists now in control of what was once the paper of record. And he reported a lot about my career that the far left wants to erase entirely from the record, for which I am grateful.

In other words: Sullivan refuses to consider the possibility that Smith really believes Sullivan is wrong about this stuff. Even though, as he notes later in the column, lots and lots of people think Sullivan is wrong about this stuff. No, Ben Smith is a careerist with ignoble motives.

Sullivan doesn't provide any evidence behind his assertion, instead puffing his chest about defending free discourse. "I believe that’s what journalists should do: air a debate as responsibly as possible." Fair enough. But if you're going to be a journalist, you can't just say stuff -- you have to root what you say in provable facts, and then show your work. Smith tried to treat Sullivan with respect, even though he disagrees with Sullivan. Sullivan did not reciprocate.