We could make our Defense cheaper. We could reinstate conscription. We could transfer large portions of our standing forces into guard and reserve units. We could stop invading central and southwest asian countries. We could increase direct military aid to our allies.

1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

5/Research also pulls in business investment.

Companies want to partner with university labs, so they can commercialize the technologies the labs produce. So they invest in the labs, and sometimes they even put their offices in the town.

Our pretensions to civilization have become very thin. Political violence was legitimized last year and is spreading wildly now. "Might makes right" is clearly the only "principle" behind freedom of speech. That's why Chinese Communists will never be censored by Big Tech.

When every "principle" becomes nothing but a ruthless exercise of power, it's not surprising that a growing number of people conclude they must demonstrate some sort of power in order to be taken seriously. Violence is the crudest exercise of power.

A well-run civilization makes it clear *universally* that violence is absolutely unacceptable. Giving free passes for irresponsible rhetoric and destruction to groups favored by the dominant political ideology of the State undermines that message.

We must also people peaceable means of expressing themselves and controlling their own lives, to relieve the pressures that can lead to violent outbursts and other forms of lawlessness. The less healthy discourse and freedom of action you have, the more pressure builds up.

It's dangerous when large numbers of people begin drawing the conclusion that might makes right, that laws and principles bend easily for those who have the political strength to bend them. Might makes right is the code of anarchy and barbarism, the antithesis of civilization.

I'm teaching a class on race and after reading bell hooks we've moved on to @JohnHMcWhorter. Fact: liberals/progressives generally will never critique the poor moral choices of disadvantaged blacks and tend to blame black morality on "white racism." https://t.co/GEvSKupDox via

Meanwhile conservatives, generally, struggle to confess that Jim Crow was a (Christian) conservative movement. This is why we can't make any progress in 2020. The idea that black people *and* white people *both* have zero moral culpability on our past or present is fiction.

It's not "racist" for a white male to say black men in urban areas commit more crimes in their own neighborhoods and, therefore, are more likely to have contact with police. And it's false that men who commit violent crime & property crime are only doing so because of poverty.

Yes, evangelical Christians, in Jesus name, supported and defended Jim Crow, resisted integration, and struggle with white nationalism as an idol in 2020. Absolutely! Many of their pastors are cowards for never addressing or aiding and abetting it.

Yes, there are cultural patterns in disadvantaged black communities that are not derivative of white racism but emerge from the fact that black men & women, just like white men & women, chose, on purpose, actions that lack virtue & wisdom. Why? B/c all humans are morally flawed.

Thread: Rush Limbaugh and the conservative Id

On the day of his passing, it's worth doing a brief retrospective on how Rush Limbaugh's personal life almost perfectly paralleled American conservatism...

One thing that's not commonly known about Rush Limbaugh is that he began his career in sports, doing sales for the Kansas City Royals baseball team. That's significant because much of the tribalism and dumbed-down rhetoric in American TV news directly came from sports media.

Television journalism in its earliest days was a fantastic product with real investigative reporting, no filibustering live interviews, and no soundbites. This began changing in the 1970s when ABC Sports president Roone Arledge was put in charge of ABC News.

Limbaugh tried to be a conventional FM deejay but kept getting fired because his personality was too abrasive. After working with the Royals, he began a small political talk show for a Sacremento station. The Reagan repeal of the Fairness Doctrine made his show possible.

Rush Limbaugh's Sacramento show started in 1984 (he replaced Morton Downey Jr) and after 5 years, he was picked up by ABC Radio which was trying to copy some of the sensationalism that ABC News television had started. It was a perfect fit.