Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“Secretary Blinken made a claim yesterday that absolutely no one will believe: ‘We apply the same standard to everyone,’ Blinken said. ‘And that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally.’ … It is obvious that allies and clients are given a free pass for things that would trigger condemnation, sanctions, or possibly even military action when others do them. The problem isn’t just that the U.S. lets allies and clients get away with more crimes, but that it simply refuses to impose significant penalties on them no matter what they do. There isn’t a double standard so much as there is no standard for allies and clients at all.” (04/23/24)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/reckless-clients-and-double-standards

Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton

“Most of us have encountered or been told about an encounter with a vicious dog. A dog which, seemingly for no reason, will suddenly lash out at another animal or a human. Attack with no provocation, or even when (as has happened to several of us) when the human is attempting to help the dog. (It’s common enough to promote a saying, ‘biting the hand that feeds you.’ An uncontrolled (or uncontrollable) dog which is vicious is often put down. Hopefully and preferably by its owner. Sometimes by the person who is the object of its assault.” (04/23/24)

https://thepriceofliberty.org/2024/04/23/vicious-government-and-vicious-dogs/

Source: In These Times
by Ankur Singh

“Momtaj Begum was scared, but there was no time. She immediately started packing everything her family owned — for herself, her husband and their three children. At 11 o’clock one night in September 2021, thousands of residents of Dhalpur (a village on a sandbar in the Brahmaputra River in India’s northeastern state of Assam) received notice from the government that they must leave by 10 a.m. the next morning, when their homes would be demolished. State officials claimed the villagers, who lived half a day’s drive from India’s border with Bangladesh, were ‘illegal’ immigrants encroaching on government-owned land, despite families having citizenship documents and living there for decades. While Begum and her neighbors packed, Nur Hussain, a leader in the local All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU), messaged villagers frantically on WhatsApp, trying to make a plan. They weren’t going to leave so easily.” (04/24/24)

https://inthesetimes.com/article/ethnonationalist-playbook-india-israel-bjp-technology-genocide-assam-muslims

Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner

“The Financial Times has an interesting interview with Esther Duflo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019. She argues that developed nations have a moral duty to compensate poor countries for the damage done by carbon emissions …. Duflo’s proposed tax makes no sense if the underlying problem is externalities. Economic theory suggests the optimal remedy for negative externalities is to impose a tax equal to the external cost — in this case a carbon tax. (This is assuming that transactions costs prevent a voluntary solution.) Instead, Duflo proposes a tax on the rich, which would do little or nothing to address the problem of global warming.” (04/23/24)

https://www.econlib.org/externalities-should-be-handled-with-care/

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“[P]olitical establishments are ‘conservative.’ They tend to hold on to old ways of doing things, refusing to make more than minor tweaks to the system, until and unless they’re forced to make real changes. Historically, those changes have been first proposed by ‘third party’ political candidates, after which growing public support has eventually forced ‘major party’ adoption.” (04/23/24)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/18531