Individual Rights and Society

This is a good point: 

Evidently we're going to have a debate about vaccine mandates and abortion at the same time--that is, both culture war tribes are simultaneously going to take both positions on the rights to medical privacy and "my body my choice" autonomy

— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 9, 2021

I support the idea of mandating vaccines, with minimal exemptions, and with permitting abortion before viability (and after in very limited cases).  So how do I reconcile the positions?

Vaccines. People who aren't vaccinated can be infected by the virus, possibly permitting its evolution into variants, and definitely enabling its continued existence. Its existence is a danger to me and others.  Being vaccinated carries a very low risk, so in my view the danger outweighs the risk, which warrants overriding an individual's preference and the vaccine mandate.

Abortion. Every thing equal, I'm in favor of humans. Birth of an infant is, on balance, good for me and the rest of humanity.  It's one more mind and body who can improve life.  But I'm also in favor of individual freedom, of autonomy.  Strong protection of such freedoms is part of my vision of the best society.  So if the prospective mother decides that her interests and sometimes her perception of the interest of the embryo are best served by an abortion, I have to take that seriously.  

And what of the embryo?  We say "life is sacred" but in fact we recognize that's not an absolute, not something which can be applied everywhere. Notably, we don't apply it to members of other species.  (I'm not a vegan.) So I'm comfortable drawing the line at viability.

Almost 3000 Americans Died on 9/11?

 Nope.  As my cousin reminded me today, there were a lot of people in the World Trade Towers who came from other countries. Wikipedia says 372 of them, or over 10 percent of the total. I'm sure a lot of people have fallen into the error of talking about "almost 3000 Americans".  Here's one, which seems to be a DOD site for vets and families. 

I think that sort wrong generalization is something humans do. 

The Afghan Learning Curve

 Carter Malkasian's "The American War in Afghanistan" has gotten some good reviews and a lot of attention, since its publication coincides with the end of the war as far as the US is concerned.   

I'm most of the way through it. It's good, though it gets criticized on Amazon for the writing.  I'm not as critical as the reviewer--Malkasian likes simple subject-verb-object sentences which usually are clear and give at least the aura of objectivity. He overuses them. I'm more bothered by some of his tics: like using "assessed" as a synonym for "judged,..." and by converting nouns to verbs (which these days seems to be considered as good writing by some).

One thing which is striking about the content: the complexity of Afghan society, about which I may write more later.  When you imagine our military in 2002 trying to understand what they're dealing with, you get a sense of the difficulty of their job.

True Facts-I

 Some things are true, among them:

1. In American, and perhaps in all modern societies of reasonable complexity (i.e., possibly above tribes), there will be conmen who will find ways to exploit opportunities.  Their cons can range from affiliating with social movements to fraud (recently collecting unemployment) to crime (WSJ claims people are stealing from big box stores and reselling on the internet) to the Nigerian scam artists and the Rev. Jimmy Jones of Jonestown. A good bureaucrat must anticipate this; a good liberal must design government policies accordingly.

How We Repeat Our Mistakes

 One of the lessons we should take away from our involvement in Afghanistan is that Americans don't react well to unexpected events.  Looking back on 9/11 I think it was, as I remember thinking at the time, a lucky shot.  But we reacted hysterically, especially after the anthrax attacks.  That's not something I said on this blog then, because I wasn't blogging then.  Might I have said something like that had I been blogging--perhaps, but unlikely.  Too much of an outlying opinion.  At some time I would have been comfortable saying that 9/11 was a lucky punch, a combination of circumstances and strategy which worked, but which wasn't likely to be repeatable.

But we overreacted after 9/11.  I think we're overreacting now to the August exit from Afghanistan. It's not the end of the world, it's not major damage to the reputation or influence of the US. 

The Olden Days--Tramps and Newsreels

 Remembering our childhoods with a relative this morning.  Two things I thought of later:

• after the war there was, for a while, discussion of tramps and hobos. That's died out.  I wonder whether the people who would have moved around in the 1920s-40s are similar to the people who now find themselves homeless, at least the males?
• discussions of popular culture move from the radio age to the TV age. It's common, I've done it myself, to note that during the 1950s-80s news came into the home through the 3 main networks, as compared to the diversity today.  What I don't think gets noticed is newsreels:

images on a screen are much more powerful than news on radio, much more novel. 

most of middle class America regularly went to the movies, so newsreels were the medium for people to see images of the world.  I don't think there was much competition in providing newsreels.

That Good Virginia Clay, and Ida

 Along Reston Parkway near Town Center there's a project underway, trying to squeeze in a turn lane between the existing roadway and the buildings.  For some reason instead of just putting in a roadbed maybe 12 inches thick, they've been excavating several feet down, perhaps to run some utility pipeline or something. 

They had a small road roller, maybe 4 wide, sitting in the excavation on Tuesday. I drove past it today--the good red Virginia clay at the bottom and sides of the excavation was holding the water Ida dropped when she passed by. The water was up to the axle of the roller, likely 15 inches or so. I'm impressed by the ability of the clay soil to hold the water

At our plot in the community garden about 1.2 mile south of there our rain gauge showed 4 inches falling between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, most during a thunder storm which I heard and went back to sleep again.   This year National Airport has been wetter than average while Dulles has been several inches below average. Ida dropped more rain on us than on Dulles, which only got about 2.5 inches. 

How Many Refugees Should We Take

 I would take all the refugees who pass basic security checks. It's not realistic to advocate for open borders; too large and rapid a flow of immigrants stresses the social fabric but the people who are now leaving Afghanistan are leaving because of our involvement there since 1979, regardless of whether they worked for us, with us, or simply within the environment we helped create. 

I felt the same way about Vietnamese refugees in the 1970's, and I think that's worked well for us

Carter Malkasian--The American War in Afghanistan-I

 The book is being widely quoted in the media as we grapple with the ending of 20 years of conflict. It's highly rated on Amazon, and no. 2 best seller on Afghanistan war. 

One tidbit--in the start of the war, from October 2001 to March 2002, we had 12 military killed.  In the last 10 days of the war we had 13. 

It's roughly 460 pages of text; I'm 100 pages in.  More comments as I progress.  

The Last Mile in Health Care

 I follow Atul Gawande in the New Yorker and his books, particularly his advocacy for checklists (an indispensable tool for bureaucrats).  The new print issue of the New Yorker has an article by him concerning health in Costa Rica. 

Costa Rica has longer life spans than the US while spending much less on health care. Gawande credits the way in which they have done public health, a systematic way of having health care professional interact with everyone in their district. 

To my mind it's another example of the benefits of government focusing on the "last mile", the connection between government and the citizen.  FSA does it well for its clientele and programs but the US pattern is to have government work through states and localities.