Feb
25
2025

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

I detect a certain amount of moral clarity here that's sorely missing … um, elsewhere:

Hans Bader has the story: U.S., North Korea, Russia vote against UN resolution affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity.

In a 93-to-18 vote, UN member countries voted to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It came on the third anniversary of Russia’s brutal, unprovoked invasion.

Shamefully, the U.S., along with North Korea, Russia, and communist-controlled Belarus, voted against the UN resolution supporting Ukraine. The resolution names Russia as the aggressor, which it was. Every European nation except one voted for the resolution, as did America’s allies in the Pacific, such as Japan and South Korea.

The resolution in support of Ukraine was so obviously correct that even nations friendly to Russia like Serbia and Turkey voted for the resolution.

At NR, Noah Rothman wonders: Do We Have to Lie on Russia’s Behalf?

According to the Wall Street Journal, “U.S. diplomats told European counterparts over the past day that Washington would oppose the Ukrainian resolution if it advances and pressed the Europeans to persuade Kyiv to withdraw its text.” Americans have now been drafted into an obscene attempt to muscle Ukraine into keeping its objections to the slaughter, rape, and abduction of its citizens to a minimum. That attempt succeeded only in sacrificing America’s moral authority.

The United States was joined in this ill-conceived attempt to shield Moscow from international criticism by such global paragons as Russia itself, Belarus, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and other ne’er-do-wells. Among America’s democratic allies, only Israel joined it — likely because of Jerusalem’s understanding that the Trump administration will play a crucial role in its own strategic planning. Save for that exception, the United States aligned itself with nations that actively oppose its interests.

Is that what’s needed for Moscow to get to yes? Is it absolutely necessary to compel U.S. elected officials to lend credence to Russia’s revisionist history to secure a lasting — forget just — peace in Ukraine? That seems to be the Trump administration’s conclusion. It’s not enough that the Trump administration is pressuring Ukraine to consent to its own dismemberment and to surrender its natural resources in exchange only for, well, not much. It seems there will be no deal unless Trump officials articulate the morally deformed apologia for Russian aggression that was once exclusive to Moscow’s most shameless sophists.

And Jeffrey Blehar piles on with another query: What Are Costs of Lying for Russia?.

We do not have to accede to Putin’s propagandistic “reading” of recent European history or indulge in outright falsehoods in order to bring the Ukrainian war to a conclusion, nor should we.

But unfortunately the point seems moot; it sure looks like that’s what America’s going to do regardless of whether we like it or not. Notice that I write “America,” and not “Trump.” If the United States’ recent seeming attempts to posture itself toward an alliance with Russian interests in Ukraine is a product solely of Trump’s private obsessions, its repercussions are not limited to him. This is an act of Trump’s caprice, yes, but for every other nation in the world it transcends Trump’s ephemeral personality; this is an act of United States policy.

That is why I have to wonder what the diplomatic consequences of this sort of rhetoric will be, not just while Trump holds office but long after he is gone. I’m not qualified to answer this question myself — which is why this is a brief late-night Corner musing and not one of my typically lengthy essays — but I certainly am qualified to ask it, given that the last 75 years of American foreign policy orientation threatens to flip its polarity without warning in the first month of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

For obvious reasons, I dug up Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1974 essay, Live Not By Lies. A key, relevant, paragraph:

When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.

So that's where we are today, barely over one month into Trump II: Living By Lies.

Also of note:

  • Not too smart on the domestic front either. Kevin D. Williamson on Elon and DOGE: Immortal Stupidity, Revisited.

    One of the irritating things about DOGE—something that ought to bother conservative DOGE apologists more than it should—is the comprehensive lack of honesty in the thing. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is not a department, it is really only quasi-government at most, and its aim is not efficiency. It is the right-wing mirror image of those “diversity” offices whose aim is the enforcement of homogeneity and conformity. George Orwell (I hope he is pleasantly surprised by his position in the afterlife) is somewhere laughing his immortal ass off.

    The dishonesty is compounded by secrecy. For example, we probably should know who is in charge of the project. There is a person calling himself or herself the ”DOGE administrator” who signs off on paperwork, but no one outside of Musk’s little circle knows who this person is. The only thing the White House will say is that it is not Elon Musk—which means, of course, that it is Elon Musk de facto if not Elon Musk de jure. (Trump says Musk is in charge, contradicting his own people.) People who smile admiringly and pronounce that Trump and Musk just don’t “play by the old rules” ought to think a little bit, if they still can, about what it is they are smiling at.

    To slightly adjust KDW's subhed: <voice imitation="linda_richman">"The Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department nor efficient. Discuss."</voice>

  • That would make a grand total of one reason, James. James Freeman wonders if there's Another Reason to Move to Florida?

    Florida Man is at it again, with an intriguing message that could make the Sunshine State even more alluring to blue-state residents currently suffering in high-tax locales. Responding to a question on X about the possibility of abolishing property taxes in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) wrote recently:

    Property taxes are local, not state. So we’d need to do a constitutional amendment (requires 60% of voters to approve) to eliminate them (which I would support) or even to reform/lower them… We should put the boldest amendment on the ballot that has a chance of getting that 60%… I agree that taxing land/property is the more oppressive and ineffective form of taxation…

    Florida’s regular legislative session starts next week and state Sen. Jonathan Martin (R., Fort Myers) recently filed a bill to study “a framework to eliminate property taxes… and to replace property tax revenues through budget reductions, sales-based consumption taxes, and locally determined consumption taxes authorized by the Legislature.” The study must include, among other things, an “evaluation of whether a shift to consumption-based taxes would make Florida more attractive to businesses compared to other states.”

    James links to the Tax Foundation's 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index which (indeed) has Florida in fourth place, slightly ahead of New Hampshire, which is in sixth.

    A quick glance at the study's breakdown shows that Florida does better than New Hampshire, competitiveness-wise, in Corporate Taxes, Individual Taxes, Property Taxes, and Unemployment Insurance Taxes. But New Hampshire beats Florida on Sales Taxes. (They say NH has no sales tax, but try eating in a restaurant, or getting a hotel room.)

  • But you look like you need some good news. Megan McArdle has some: Academia is finally learning hard lessons (For some reason, this is a change from yesterday's headline: "Academia finally got schooled.")

    The left, not the right, picked this fight. Too many institutions set themselves up as the “Resistance” to Trump and tried to make a lot of mainstream political opinions anathematic, while expecting to be protected from backlash by principles such as academic freedom that they were no longer honoring. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support.

    Academia at least should have known better, given that it has entire departments devoted to studying how politics works. It has long been clear that cuts to research funding could be the first step if Republicans were so minded. The student loans and Pell grants that subsidize tuition could be slashed, the tax rules that let elite institutions accumulate massive endowments could be changed, and in red states, government aid to public schools could be reduced. The resulting budget holes would be calamitous in many cases and would filter through the ecosystem even to schools that survived: If small schools stop hiring new faculty, that means fewer jobs for graduate students from large research universities.

    Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. Milquetoast professional opinions and legitimate research were retracted under pressure from activists. Scientists marched against Trump — not as private citizens but as scientists, as if lab work gave them some special moral authority. Public health experts issued a “get out of lockdown free” card to George Floyd protesters, and the American Anthropological Association issued a statement explicitly conceiving its discipline as a form of progressive activism. What was going on in the rest of academia made it clear anthropologists weren’t alone in thinking that way.

    That's my last free WaPo link for February, so enjoy.