Gilead
Competitive authoritarian regime project
Fig. 1. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Clarence Mitchell during signing ceremony of the voting rights act. Yoichi Okamoto, August 6, 1965, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Writing in the Washington Post, Jason Willick is all about how conservatives really do prefer federalism, the devolution of power to more local authorities,[1] and so-called “free”[2] speech, right up until nearly the end of his column, when he writes:[3]
New socially conservative movements — variously labeled populist, New Right and integralist — consider conservatism’s traditional commitment to process to be a political handicap. Why, they ask, should the right commit to playing by certain rules if those rules tend to lead to progressive victories? For example, the Harvard law scholar Adrian Vermeule’s theory of “common-good constitutionalism” urges conservatives to eschew originalism’s procedural strictures and embrace judicial outcomes that promote a certain vision of the common good.[4]
Given that white Christian nationalism has turned conservatism into a near-monolith[5] and has the Republican Party nearly completely under its thumb, it’s odd that he nonetheless concludes that political arguments are increasingly about “process.”[6]
Jason Willick, “The conservative challenge to liberalism goes deeper than self-interest,” Washington Post, February 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/12/conservative-values-free-speech-federalism/
So-called ‘ridesharing’
Drivers
Fig. 2. Yeah, this is me. The sign says, “If you’re whining about a labor shortage, STOP ignoring my job applications!” And the QR-code leads here. Photograph by author, January 16, 2023.
If the strike by Uber and Lyft drivers in Pittsburgh this weekend, specifically from 3:00 pm Friday, February 10, through 3:00 pm Sunday, February 12,[7] had any impact, I’ve yet to hear of it. I’m not optimistic that either company will respond. Even if they relent a bit on driver pay, which I believe they have cut by 40 percent in recent months, the abuse I find intolerable[8] will surely continue.
Fig. 3. Graph of estimated daily average net income (in blue, using Internal Revenue Service mileage allowance) by month since January 2022, what the federal minimum wage would be for a six-and-a-half hour day had it kept pace with productivity[9] (in orange), and the federal poverty line[10] (in red), created by author, February 10, 2023.
The entire point of the gig economy, the reason I consider it a neoliberal wet dream come true, is to impose upon workers their absolute disposability and infinite replaceability. Uber and Lyft drivers exist solely as means to corporate ends and the companies are positively orgasmic about their power over drivers.
But I didn’t want to undermine the strike any further than I already had—I didn’t even hear of it until I’d quit on Friday—so I took Saturday and Sunday off, even though I really can’t afford to.
Among other things, I went to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and saw the 58th annual Carnegie International exhibition. For a relatively conservative institution, this was a remarkable statement about social inequality[11] and a powerful demonstration of the utility of the humanities in addressing these issues, prompting me to write a new blog post entitled, “Ignorance cannot now be an excuse for inaction.”
As with the Uber and Lyft strike, however, I strongly doubt anything will come of the Carnegie exhibit.
Balloons
I haven’t commented on the recent saga of four unidentified aerial objects shot down in North America, largely because 1) I’m not much impressed by spy versus spy antics, and 2) so little about the objects is publicly known. But the best bet right now seems to be that the first was indeed a Chinese spy balloon and the remaining three were mere weather balloons gone astray—the Chinese explanation for its alleged spy balloon.[12]
Max Matza, “Flying objects over North America – the unanswered questions,” British Broadcasting Corporation, February 13, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64620798
- [1]Jason Willick, “The conservative challenge to liberalism goes deeper than self-interest,” Washington Post, February 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/12/conservative-values-free-speech-federalism/↩
- [2]The word ‘free’ should always be interrogated: David Benfell, “On ‘freedom,’” Not Housebroken, August 7, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/09/13/on-freedom/↩
- [3]Jason Willick, “The conservative challenge to liberalism goes deeper than self-interest,” Washington Post, February 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/12/conservative-values-free-speech-federalism/↩
- [4]Jason Willick, “The conservative challenge to liberalism goes deeper than self-interest,” Washington Post, February 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/12/conservative-values-free-speech-federalism/↩
- [5]David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, February 5, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/↩
- [6]Jason Willick, “The conservative challenge to liberalism goes deeper than self-interest,” Washington Post, February 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/12/conservative-values-free-speech-federalism/↩
- [7]Marcie Cipriani, “Local rideshare drivers stop accepting rides for 48 hours to protest work conditions,” WTAE, February 10, 2023, https://www.wtae.com/article/pittsburgh-rideshare-drivers-lyft-uber-work-conditions/42830261; Liz Kilmer, “Uber, Lyft drivers announce strike across Pittsburgh region,” WPXI, February 10, 2023, https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/uber-lyft-drivers-announce-strike-across-pittsburgh-region/T7SE5T7GHJB7VOD4LG3J4VF34A/↩
- [8]David Benfell, “A life worth living,” Not Housebroken, January 29, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/12/27/a-life-worth-living/↩
- [9]Dean Baker, “Correction: The $23 an Hour Minimum Wage,” Center for Economic Policy and Research, March 16, 2022, https://cepr.net/the-26-an-hour-minimum-wage/↩
- [10]U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “Federal poverty level (FPL),” n.d., https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/federal-poverty-level-fpl/↩
- [11]David Benfell, “Ignorance cannot now be an excuse for inaction,” Not Housebroken, February 12, 2023, https://disunitedstates.org/2023/02/12/ignorance-cannot-now-be-an-excuse-for-inaction/↩
- [12]Max Matza, “Flying objects over North America – the unanswered questions,” British Broadcasting Corporation, February 13, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64620798↩