Graffiti Decriminalization Has No Place in Civil Society

I recently came back from a sublime vacation in Colombia. I did so much in 11 days. I tried scuba diving, mud-bathing, paragliding, and riding and ATV for the first time. I also went surfing, learned salsa dancing, went on two separate hikes, and so much more. One of the issues I ran into during my trip was during my stay in Bogotá. One of the first things I noticed as I took a taxi through Bogotá was the graffiti. I have traveled through other cities before, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Mexico City, Quito, Paris, and Stockholm. Yet never have I seen as much graffiti as I did in Bogotá. 

It made me wonder why Bogotá was saturated with graffiti, whereas the other two cities I visited in Colombia (Cartagena and Cali) did not have that level of graffiti. In 2011, a 16-year old Bogotano by the name of Diego Felipe Becerra was spray-painting a picture of Felix the Cat on the walls of an underpass. Police caught Becerra in the act and killed Becerra as he was fleeing the scene of the crime. When a police colonel manipulated the crime scene, the people were in an uproar. This political pressure created by the protesting resulted in the subsequent decriminalization of graffiti in Bogotá. 

The fact that Bogotá has a ton of graffiti makes sense. When something is decriminalized or legalized, you tend to get more of it because the barrier of criminalization is out of the way. Yet I found the proliferation of graffiti in Bogotá to be more than aesthetically unappealing. It was unsettling, as if it were an external symbol of the tumultuous nature of Bogotá. 

Before continuing, I need to make the distinction between graffiti and street art. For one, graffiti tends to be more word-based, whereas street-art is more commonly image-based. About 80 percent of graffiti comes in the form of tagging. There are also throw-ups, blockbusters, wildstyle, and other forms of graffiti, but tagging is by far the most common. Street artists use other materials, but graffiti is typically created with spray paint. Street art is also perceived to be more positive than graffiti. This could do with the fact that street artists almost always ask for permission first, whereas those spray-painting graffiti do it when no one else is around to make sure they do not get caught. This latter distinction is where I take issue with graffiti. 

The pro-graffiti side argues that graffiti is a form of expression and is thus inherently democratic, especially for those who otherwise do not have a voice (e.g., Carroll, 2019). I indirectly addressed this topic the context of pro-Palestine protestors a few weeks ago. Not every form of expression constitutes as freedom of speech, including violence, actual threats, bona fide intimidation, incitement of violence, discriminatory harassment, or the heckler's veto. Graffiti falls under this list of exceptions. Why? 

It does not matter if you view graffiti as art or not. In libertarian thought, the premise of the nonaggression axiom is that your rights stop where mine begin, much like with second-hand smoke. Those who are spraying graffiti on walls are almost never doing it on their own property. They are most likely doing it on someone else's property. Property rights are valued highly, not only in libertarian thought, but in any free society. When you are spraying graffiti on someone else's property without their permission, it is not freedom of speech. It is a form of vandalism that is often accompanied with trespassing.  

Freedom typically does not come at a cost to someone else. I made this argument when I refuted the supposed "right to healthcare." In 2015, American paint manufacturer Valspar released a technical paper finding that graffiti removal cost $12 billion a year. In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that it was as high as $15 to $18 billion. If you adjust those figures for inflation, the estimated cost of graffiti removal is higher. This does not even get into property devaluation. According to the National Association of Relators, graffiti can devalue a property by as much as 25 percent. If it were truly a matter of freedom of speech, it would not come with this sort of price tag. 

I am not going to get into the theory of whether graffiti is a gateway crime or if it encourages more crime. What I will say is that violating property rights by spraying graffiti has no place in civil society. If you want to artistically express yourself on someone else's property, ask for permission first. That is what the vast majority of street artists do. Yet we know graffiti artists do no such thing. 

Most libertarians believe in limited government. It is rarer for a libertarian to say when the government should actually be present. I find that graffiti is one of those times that the government should intervene. Graffiti is vandalism and visual pollution under the guise of free speech. It comes with the direct costs of removing the graffiti, as well as indirect costs of devaluing property. These negative externalities are violations of the nonaggression axiom, especially with regards to defacing private property. Aside from enforcement or improving programming alternatives so they do not feel inclined to spray graffiti, encouraging street art could be another step in dealing with the blight of graffiti. Whatever the solution might be, decriminalizing graffiti has no place in libertarian thought or civil society.

Why So Many on the Woke, "Progressive" Left Embrace Anti-Semitism and Pro-Hamas Sentiments (Part II)

The rabbles of pro-Palestinian elements in response to the current Israel-Hamas war persist. As I observed their protests, their chants, and overall response to Hamas' cruelty, I noticed that a major source of support for the Palestinian cause is the Far Left/the woke/so-called "progressives." It was notable enough where I started writing about why a political entity dedicated to helping out disenfranchised and marginalized people would turn on the Jews. Last week, I explored three theories: the "Oppressor/Oppressed" framework, falsely viewing Jews as white, and resenting the successes of the state of Israel.

I want to continue by going over two theories related to Jewish and Israeli success. One is that the Far Left loathes capitalism and the other is that the Far Left cannot tolerate when minorities shed their victimhood status and make something of themselves. The final theory, which I will leave for later, takes the first five theories I have posited and turns them on their head. Hopefully, this can provide insight into this conundrum of woke anti-Semitism.  

4. The Far Left despises capitalism. Up until the 19th century, Jews were disproportionately financial intermediaries because there were few professions available to Jews in Europe. The stereotypes surrounding Jews and money continued to foment in the 19th and 20th century to the point where the Jewish people became the personification of the market economy, one that persists to this day. Think of some Jewish entrepreneurs: Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, casino magnate Sheldon Addison, co-founder of Starbucks Zev Siegl, William Rosenberg (founder of Dunkin' Donuts), Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Levi Strauss, Arthur Blank (co-founder of Home Depot). The association between Jews and business has not disappeared.

George Mason Professor Ilya Somin posits a theory in which the Far-Left support for Hamas is not an aberration in terms of defending the indefensible. After all, the Far Left has excused the mass murder and human rights violations from the likes of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and Pol Pot. If you can forgive Stalin's gulags or Mao's Great Leap Forward, odds are you can stomach Hamas' attack on Israeli citizens. Why would they do that in the first place? Because for many on the Far Left, capitalism is the greatest evil in the world. Israel is yet another example of how greater economic liberty is successful, which simply sets off the Far Left. The conflict in Israel represents a fight between Western liberalism and opposing movements. It does not matter that Hamas oppresses women, LGBT people, and religious minorities. What matters is supporting an anti-Western or an anti-capitalist regime, even if its ideology differs from that of the Western Far Left. 

5. The Far Left cannot tolerate that Jews overcame victimhood. This gets at to what philosopher Michel Foucault called "political reason," or the rationale that justifies the existence of relationships of power (e.g., between the governor and governed). Modern "progressivism" is obsessed with totalizing these relationships and destroying barriers between the state and society to the point that the governed becomes dependent on the state. 

With this mentality, it is no wonder that the Far Left is obsessed with the figure of the victim. A victim is by definition vulnerable, and in the Far Left's eyes, therefore in need of the state's intervention. What happens if that vulnerability is temporary or even transcended, especially if by the exercise of effort and will? The modern state becomes less and less relevant and the ideology of the Far Left is undermined. 

This brings us to the Jews and the modern state of Israel. While dealing with the traumas of the Holocaust, the Jewish people were able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and create a thriving, democratic nation-state. Over time, Israel made it clear that it wanted to cast off feeling vulnerable or victimized. Zionism is a return of agency to a persecuted people and a reconstruction of dignity. Israel symbolizes the repudiation of perpetual victimhood. Israel also shows the world that victimhood can be transcended, which is something the Far Left cannot abide by. It would also explain why the Far Left decided to throw Asian-Americans under the bus when it came to affirmative action. 

Contrast that with Palestine, which represents perpetual victimhood. There have been other crises that have created refugees: World War II, Kashmir, the current war in Ukraine, Syria, and the Jews in Arab countries that were expelled in response to the creation of the State of Israel. Those refugees were either re-settled or in the process of being re-settled. Even with an entire UN agency dedicated to the cause of "helping" Palestinians (UNRWA), not to mention 50 Muslim nations and 22 nations in the Arab world that could take in these refugees, the Palestinian refugee crisis is not-so mysteriously unresolved.  

6. Far-Left anti-Semitism is not supposed to make sense. Anti-semitism doesn't make sense. People have hated Jews because they are deemed an inferior race and others because Jews are perceived as rich and powerful. As we have seen, Jews are blamed for capitalism, although Marx and Trotsky were Jews. Jews are blamed for communism, even though Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig von Mises were all Jewish. Jews are hated for being outsiders, but still hated even when they blend in, as we saw with 19th-century France and 20th-century Germany. Whether viewed as weak or powerful, capitalist or communist, religious or secular, anti-Semites will find a reason to hate Jews because "haters gonna hate."

You know what else does not make sense? Wokism. It functions as a fundamentalist religion in which colorblindness is considered racism, logic and reason are deemed as part of so-called "white culture," and they think that microagressions against emotionally fragile people are worse than Hamas kidnapping, raping, torturing, and decapitating civilians. I have tried to make sense of how woke people think. As my blog illustrates, that has been an elusive task because woke thought is steeped in illogic. 

We see this Orwellian approach with how the woke approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. For the Woke World, barbarization is civility, terrorists are freedom fighters, and rape and decapitation are deemed acts of resistance. The Far Left screams about Israel being a genocidal state, yet Israel shows no evidence of committing genocide. Meanwhile, there are a significant of number of Americans, particularly on the Left, believing that Hamas' actions have justification. Since its founding in 1988, Hamas has expressed genocidal intent. What they did on October 7 to trigger this latest war shows what they would like to do. Plus, a senior Hamas official stated earlier this month that they would commit another pogrom like October 7 if they could. 

Jews are also called "colonial settlers." It does not make sense for multiple reasons, one of those being that Jews are indigenous to Judea and Samaria. Arabs, on the other hand, are indigenous to the Arab Peninsula (not the Levant, where the modern state of Israel resides). Saying that Israeli civilians deserved what Hamas did because they are colonizing settlers is tantamount to victim blaming. There are other Israel-specific responses to illustrate the Far Left's incoherent response to Israel, including "Queers for Palestine," which makes about as much sense as "Chickens for KFC." 

Postscript: Whether it is due to animus against capitalism, the Jewish people rejecting perpetual victimhood, or an over-simplistic "oppressor versus oppressed" framework, or any number of misconceptions surrounding Jews or Israel, this woke illogic regarding Israel is being used as a litmus test for the Far Left. At least in a U.S.-specific context, anti-Semitism historically came from the Far Right. Now we have to be mindful of anti-Semitism coming from both extremes of the political aisle. I think the woke Left will not have a grip on U.S. culture (or even global culture, for that matter) for much longer because people are getting fed up with woke nonsense. Regardless of its impetus for embracing anti-Semitism, I hope there has not been so much damage done that it contributes to the United States becoming a bona fide authoritarian state.  

Removing Honors Classes Is Yet Another Woke Assault on K-12 Education

Public K-12 schools have taken a wallop since the pandemic began. In an attempt to prevent the spread of COVID, multiple school districts decided to implement school closures. How did this remote learning fare for students? Not only were there learning losses, but these learning losses will result in future depreciated wages. Preliminary data suggest that chronic absenteeism got worse since COVID. In the meantime, the dangerous critical race theory made its way into the curriculum of most schools. As if there has not been enough harm to K-12 students this decade, educators are increasingly looking at eliminating honors classes. 

The purpose of honors classes is to provide an enhanced academic experience for high-achieving students that want to learn more than the regular classes. Honors classes often come with the ability to take exams that could provide college credit. On a personal level, I took a lot of honors courses in high school. I excelled on enough of those tests where I came in with nearly a year's worth of college credit before I even started college. By taking honors courses in high school, I was able to take more of the coursework I wanted to in college. Having those honors courses both challenged me intellectually and helped me advance in my postsecondary education. 

It is because of my experience I have to ask myself why there is this call to get rid of honors classes. I recently came across a Wall Street Journal article (has a paywall) that highlights school districts that are experimenting with de-tracking. The idea behind tracking is using previous test scores or coursework to match them to courses best suited for their academic level. It seems sensible to put students in classes that best fit their level of academic achievement and comprehension of subject material. 

However, tracking critics assert that tracking promotes inequity. These critics argue that tracking is not only a reflection of inequity, but exacerbates it by allocating high-status to some while denying it to others. For tracking critics, the solution is to de-track the students by "offering the same courses to all students in classes composed of students who are heterogeneous in ability." De-tracking proponents posit that exposing students to the more rigorous coursework could help close the achievement gap. 

A couple of years ago, the Left-leaning Brookings Institution summarized the research on de-tracking. First, the literature on tracking is "usually described as 'mixed,' but with a clear warning that tracking can exacerbate gaps between high and low achievers." Second, "the schools that have experimented with de-tracking have not yet produced results strong enough to convince the mass of educators to abolish tracking." I do not believe that tracking exacerbates gaps. If it were true, desisting with tracking, i.e., de-tracking would improve the situation, yet, it has not.  

The lack of evidence for de-tracking does not surprise me. A National Bureau of Economic Research study following a random sample of thousands of students found that when school choice (e.g., charter schools) was taken into account, tracking programs can help low-ability students (Figlio and Page, 2000). There is also a paper from economists at UC-Berkley and the University of Miami that tracking has significant positive effects on reading and math aptitude for Black and Hispanic students (Card and Giuliano, 2015).

The intuition lines up with the empirical evidence. What happens if you put brighter students in with everyone else? At the very least, they get bored. At the most, they rebel. What happens if you mix students with low academic achievement in with everyone else? They are going to struggle. After all, if a student is already academically behind, what good does it do to inundate that student with even more complicated coursework? A recent study from Learning and Instruction points out that de-tracking negatively affects the academic self-concept of students with low academic achievement (Fleischmann et al., 2023).

In 2021, the state of California tried to reform mathematics education by passing the California Mathematics Framework (CMF), which included reducing the availability of advanced mathematics courses. Hundreds of college professors signed a letter in protest, including professors from Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard. These professors criticized this move by saying that "Initiatives like the CMF propose drastic changes based on scant and inconclusive evidence. Subjecting the children of our largest state to such an experiment is the height of irresponsibility." Rather than having a "one size fits all" approach, the professors recommend multiple pathways to explore mathematics. 

How does eliminating options for students to excel such as honors courses help motivate low-performing students to achieve better academic outcomes? Answer: it does nothing to motivate. All it does is implicitly send the message that teachers have given up on helping out those who could use the help. 

The question should not be about whether we remove honors classes, but making them more accessible to students. Students need additional supports, especially in primary education before tracking begins in middle school or the early years of high school. As Senior Research Scientist at the Northwestern Evaluation Association (NWEA) Scott Peters points out:

Critics say attempting to teach everyone at an elevated level isn't realistic and that teachers, even with the best intentions, may end up simplifying instruction. Instead, some educators and parents argue schools should find more ways to diversity honors courses and encourage students to enroll who aren't self-selecting, including proactively reaching out to students, using an opt-out system, or looking to teacher recommendations.

De-tracking is another reminder that the pursuit of equity is not about providing equal opportunity; it's about providing equal outcomes. Last month, I covered that same phenomenon when Oregon decided to suspend its basic skills requirement for high school graduation. Yes, it would be great to provide all students with the opportunity to succeed. Those obsessed with equity do not want to admit that not everyone can be equally intelligent, motivated, resourceful or successful, no matter how much they try. The sooner the education system can prioritize learning over equity, the sooner we can help more and more students succeed in the classroom. 

Why So Many on the Woke, "Progressive" Left Embrace Anti-Semitism and Pro-Hamas Sentiments (Part I)

Ever since Hamas launched the largest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust, I have been thinking a lot about anti-Semitism. I have looked at the history of anti-Semitism because the question I have been asking myself with way too much frequency as of late is "Why do they hate us [Jews] so much?" There are 15 million Jews on the planet. Given the concentration of Jews, it is probable that most people on this planet have never met a Jew in their life. 

As I was monitoring current events and the pro-Palestine protests in response to what is taking place in the Middle East, I noticed something about the nature of these protests. Aside from Muslim immigrants and Islamists, the other main participants in these protests are those on the Left, particularly the Far Left. It seems counterintuitive at first glance for the Far Left to having such a strong anti-Israel animus that it often translated into anti-Semitism. We can sidestep the Far Left's hypocrisy of addressing others' implicit bias without addressing its own implicit biases, or not-so-implicit biases, as the case is with Israel. 

I had to write a separate, introductory piece on the topic of "anti-Semitism and the Far Left" earlier this month because I am astonished that the Far Left is choosing a genocidal terrorist organization over a democratic nation-state that was founded in response to the Holocaust, one of history's worst human rights abuses. To address this perplexity, I have created a list of six theories, some of which are overlapping, as to how so-called "progressives" could choose Jew-hatred over principles they purport to value. I present the first three into today's piece and will address the remaining three theories at another time. 

1. The "Oppressor versus Oppressed" mentality and Israel. One of the aspects that frustrates me about the woke Weltanschauung is their highly reductionist way to look at the world. According to this framework, you are either the oppressor or the oppressed. While racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry have existed and continue to exist, viewing everything in such simplistic terms is intellectually lazy, an assault on truth and reality, and harmful to freedom and social cohesion. Yet this binary has become trendy both on the Far Left and to a lesser extent in the mainstream political Left, including critical race theory (see here and here). What happens when woke people apply this crude, sophomoric approach to something as complicated as the Middle East? 

For the woke, Israel becomes the oppressor and Palestine becomes the oppressed because the Palestinians have done a fine job at presenting themselves as the oppressed. It explains how Black Lives Matters Grassroots stated "As a radical Black organization grounded in abolitionist ideals, we see clear parallels between Black and Palestinian people." For about the first twenty years of its existence, the modern state of Israel had strong international support because it was still seen as "the little guy." Once it won the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel showed the world it was no longer the little guy and made it clear that it was not going to be threatened by Arab nations that want to wipe out Israel. 1967 was also when Palestinian nationhood was created and seized the opportunity to position itself as the underdog. Identity politics evolved to the point of portraying Jews as the "powerful, privileged aggressor," what sociologist Erving Goffman characterized as a "spoiled identity."

Forget that being the underdog does not make you morally or factually correct. It surely was not the case for the Taliban or neo-Nazis. This facile approach of "oppressor versus oppressed" ignores Jewish history and the historical context of that region. It also means a morality that puts double standards on Jews while framing Hamas' actions against Israel as "justifiable resistance," which apparently includes excusing the kidnapping of Holocaust survivors, raping women, and decapitating babies. 

If Israel targets Hamas' military targets, the problem, according to this logic, is not Hamas using Palestinian citizens as human shields, but Israel's supposed "aggression." Israel also has a practice of giving advanced warning of its attack because it wants to minimize civilian casualties. No other military in history has taken such precautions because it means losing element of surprise. Yet the Far Left construes that as "ethnic cleansing," in spite of the fact that evacuation is part of every war. With the Orwellian linguistic contortionism under the Far Left's "oppressor/oppressed" framework, what they believe is that Israel can do no right, whereas Hamas and the Palestinians can do no wrong. It is the international relations version of the soft bigotry of low expectations. By accepting the inverse of the regressive worldview it purports to fight, the "social justice warriors" become the mirror image of what they hate. 

2. There are those on the Far Left who perceive Jews as white.  This is partially an extension of the previous argument about "oppressor versus oppressed." It has become fashionable for many on the Far Left to be racist against white people and/or view whiteness as a secular form of Original Sin. Going back to a previous point, there are some that conflate whiteness with oppression. In this mindset, being white is worst than the lowest rung on the ladder of victimhood; it is downright pejorative. What does that have to do with Jews? To quote the British magazine Spiked, "From the identitarians' perspective, Jews symbolize a great evil because they are supposed beneficiaries of white privilege. Jews' relative success in American society has purportedly come about at the expense of people of color. According to this pernicious view, Jews play a key role in America's systemic oppression of black people." 

It is peculiar to argue that Jews are white given that racial anti-Semitism has historically been based on the premise that Jews are not white, but rather an inferior race separate from mainstream society. Yes, most American Jews are Ashkenazi, which is to say of European descent and have white skin. However, on a global level, there are Jews of all sorts of ethnicities: Middle Eastern, Indian, Ethiopian, Chinese, and Latino (Lewin-Epstein and Cohen, 2018). I even have a Japanese-Jewish friend I met ages ago. The "Jews are white" argument ignores all the oppression that Jews faced in America, especially in the early- and mid-20th century. It also ignores that almost every Israeli Jew is no more than two generations away from an attempt from a government in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa to murder or expel them.   

If the uptick in anti-Semitism in the past few weeks is a reminder, it is that skin color or educational attainment are insufficient determinants as to whether Jews are discriminated against. If you do not think so, why don't you ask gay or disabled people, or even conservatives or libertarians who try to express their ideas on a college campus? 

A problem with Jews in the context of woke thought is that they do not neatly fit in the woke Left's simplistic understanding of intersectionality or white privilege. It seems inconceivable for many on the Far Left that American Jews, most of whom are White, could possibly face discrimination. I would know. I am a Caucasian with a Catholic upbringing and Protestants on my father's side and I converted to Judaism in my early adult years. I have dealt with people who have viewed me in a more negative light finding out that I am Jewish. Trust me, there is a difference! Rather than apply some critical thinking or nuance to the topic, it is simpler for the Far Left to inaccurately categorize Jews as white. 

3. The Far Left resents Israel's success. Prior to the creation of the modern state of Israel, that land was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans scarcely invested in infrastructure or modifying the area. That changed with the creation of the state of Israel. What was once considered the boondocks became a democratic society with a prosperous economy that is comparable to other OECD nations. 

This is a problem because the politics of envy play a prominent role in the Far Left’s worldview. It goes back to Karl Marx's claim that profit could only happen because of exploitation. Plus, those on the Left are more likely to believe that outcomes are due to factors beyond one's control (Schlenker et al., 2012). For those on the [Far] Left, it is inconceivable that Israel could have become successful through effort, grit, and determination. The Far Left's animus towards success even explains the FTC's recent attack on Amazon. 

Why In the World Is the U.S. Department of Agriculture Providing International Food Aid?

Ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the rate of extreme poverty began to decline. There was a considerable decline starting in the 1990s. Although there was a corresponding decline in hunger, global hunger remains a scourge on this planet. Reporting from the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization finds that about 9.2 percent of the planet (or 735.1 million) face undernourishment. Global hunger had been declining, started to creep up in the mid-2010s, and shot up during the pandemic because of the increased food prices and lockdowns causing greater economic insecurity. 

Sadly, global food insecurity is nothing new. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has formally been trying to fight global hunger since it started the food assistance program Food for Peace in 1954. This was followed in 1984 by the Food for Progress program with the goal to strengthen the agricultural sector, as well as a program that donates food to schoolchildren: McGovern-Dole. Since these three programs cost the U.S. taxpayers over $2 billion, I have to wonder how effective these programs really are. After all, the USDA is responsible for food stamps that very well might make recipients more unhealthy, subsidized school lunches that do not help improve child nutrition, and WIC vouchers that contributed to the infant formula shortage of 2022. A report released from the libertarian Cato Institute last month shows that USDA does not fare better with its international food aid programs. Here are some findings from the report:

• U.S. farm product donations undercut local farmers, which undermines the ability to feed poor countries and sustain long-term market development. 
• An increase to food aid can increase the incidence and duration of civil conflicts because "food aid is regularly transported across vast geographic territories [and] is a particularly attractive target for armed factions."
• U.S. food aid shipments typically take four to six months, which can open the shipments to greater incidence of theft, infestation, and storage. 
• Congress mandates that these food shipments need to be shipped on U.S.-flagged vessels, which can  increase shipping costs by up to threefold. 
• The monetization process used by USDA means losing 30 percent of taxpayer funds compared to paying for aid projects with cash. Direct cash transfers would do more than in-kind food transfers.
• The USDA international food aid projects have redundancies with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), thereby wasting more money. 

The U.S. government's program has bureaucratic overlap, stifling cargo requirements, and has such costs as exacerbating conflict and undermining agricultural markets. It makes me wonder why in the world the USDA is in charge of providing international food aid in the first place. As I brought up in 2016, trade liberalization does a better job at fighting poverty than foreign aid. The Cato Institute provides a few suggestions, including strengthening property rights, rule of law, opening markets, removing entrepreneurial barriers, and creating stable currencies. By implementing deregulation and trade liberalization, countries can improve their economy and reduce hunger without foreign intervention. 

Hamas Is a Symptom, Not the Source, of What Is Wrong in the Israeli-Arab Conflict

"Free Gaza from Hamas." It is a refrain I have heard from my pro-Israel friends since Hamas carried out its horrific attack on Israeli citizens on October 7. Hamas is an anti-Semitic, homophobic, genocidal terrorist organization that runs an autocratic regime in Gaza and oppresses its own citizens. It shows zero regard for its citizens, as is illustrated by using Gazan civilians as human shields. Hamas official Ghazi Hamad declared on Lebanese television that Hamas will repeat what happened on October 7 until Israel is wiped out. It makes sense that Israel's more immediate military goal is to remove Hamas. 

The idea behind "Free Gaza from Hamas" is that if you remove an element as radical as Hamas, more moderate elements will fill the void, which will result in more peaceful relations between Israel and Palestine. I remain unconvinced that freeing Gaza from Hamas is going to solve woes between Israelis and Palestinians. 

There is little evidence of Gazans protesting or uprising against Hamas. To say that Gazans do not protest or uprise because they are in an authoritarian regime is a copout. There have been multiple revolutions and revolts in authoritarian countries throughout history when the people have had enough with the ruling government. In spite of its crackdowns of protestors, even a country as totalitarian as China has its dissenters. 

It is more than a lack of public dissent, even in spite of the high rates of unemployment and poverty in Gaza. It goes beyond "ordinary Palestinians" cheering in the streets at Hamas' October 7 or even gathering intelligence to help out Hamas. I found survey results from Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR). PCPSR is a Palestinian research organization based in Ramallah, which means no one can accuse them of being pro-Israel. These results from PCPSR will give you a sense of how most Gazans view Israel and having Jewish neighbors:

• As of September 2023, 51 percent of Gazans support armed resistance against Israel and 67 percent are opposed to a two-state solution. 
• In June 2023, 38 percent of Gazans view the creation of Hamas as the single best thing to happen to Palestinians since the creation of the state of Israel (PCPSR, p. 3-4).
• If there were an election between Ismael Haniyyah (the current Hamas leader), Mahmoud Abbas (the current PLO leader), and Marwan Barghouti (the leader of the first and second Intifadas), 45 percent of Gazans would chose Haniyyah, 37 percent for Barghouti, and 16 percent for Abbas (ibid., p. 14). Even if you expand the candidate list, Haniyyah and Barghouti would still have half the Gazan votes. Other potentials include Hamas co-founder Khaled Mashal and Gazan Chief of Hamas Yahwa Sinwar (ibid., p. 15).
• Gazans think that the so-called "occupation" is more pressing than unemployment or corruption (ibid., p. 17-18), which is another sign of how Gazans would rather blame Israel than the terrorists governing them.
• When asked what is the most important lesson since the creation of the state of Israel, only 15 percent of Gazans said it was the need to seek political solutions to the conflict with Israel. 28 percent said it was staying steadfast on the ground, with an additional 32 percent saying to build military capacity to liberate so-called "occupied territories" (ibid., p. 23).
• Gazans show no moral qualms with harming Israelis. In March 2023, 71 percent of Palestinians said that they supported Palestinian terrorists attacking and killing two Israeli brothers who were simply driving on a road near Huwara. In September 2019, 80 percent of Gazans were fine with planting the IED and subsequent bombing that killed 17-year-old Rina Shnerb, as well as injuring her family. In December 2015, 85 percent of Gazans were supportive of stabbing Israelis with knives. 

This is not to say that all Gazans are Hamas or supportive of Hamas. At the same, there is strong Gazan antipathy towards Israel and strong support for Hamas and its genocidal intent. Those in the West think that pluralism and democracy are norms. It seems inconceivable that there would be a group of people that by and large despises its neighbor for being of a different religion and ethnicity. That is precisely the problem of imposing Western values and understanding onto a situation in a different culture: it does not work. It is the same sort of thinking that got the United States in trouble when trying to bring democracy to Iraq.

Sadly, this phenomenon of despising Israel is nothing new. In 2010, Pew Research found that only 2 percent of Gazans viewed Jews favorably. Speaking of history, let us take something else into consideration. Hamas was founded in December 1987. The Israeli-Arab conflict predates Hamas. It also predates Benjamin Netanyahu, settlements, the creation of the Palestinian state in 1967, and the armistice lines of 1967. Arab nations were denying Israel's right to exist well before Hamas was even a thought.

We can talk about the nuance of the Middle Eastern conflict. As someone who studied international relations in his postsecondary studies, I can tell you that any conflict in international relations has its history and complications, even between Ecuador and Peru. What I will say is that the complication in the Israeli-Arab conflict has a simple undercurrent: Each time peace has been offered to Palestinians (or in the earlier pre-1967 renditions, for [Jordanian] Arabs), they have responded with a resounding "Hell no!" 

There have been multiple times where the Arabs were offered "land for peace": the Peel Commission of 1937, the UN Partition Plan of 1947, UN Resolution 194 (1949), UN Resolution 242 (1967), the Camp David Accords (1978), the Oslo Accords (1993), the Camp David Summit (2000), the Olmert Peace Plan (2008), and John Kerry's Peace Plan (2013). If the Palestinians wanted peace, they would have had it by now. 

Hamas has got to go, no question about that. Conversely, the issue is not with Hamas per se, but with one group of people who does not want Jewish neighbors in its backyard. Unsurprisingly, Israel is not willing to compromise on its existence. Getting rid of Hamas will not get rid of decades of anti-Semitism that has been so engrained in the minds of Palestinians. Until Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza wanting to live side-by-side with Jews is a norm rather than an aberration, there will continue to be violence and strife in the Middle East.

The Lies of Pro-Palestinian Activists Are Contemptible, But Denying Them Freedom of Speech Isn't the Answer

It was not bad enough that the terrorist organization Hamas carried out the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust last month. Over 1,200 Israeli civilians were murdered. Hamas also kidnapped, tortured, raped, and decapitated civilians. There was no shortage of carnage and mayhem from Hamas on October 7, 2023. What I also found to be jaw-dropping was how pro-Palestine activists and protestors reacted. They showed no indignation for what was clearly a violation of human rights. Quite the opposite!

At a pro-Palestine rally in Sydney, they were cheering "Fuck the Jews" and "Gas the Jews." In DC, they were screaming "Long live the intifada." In Arabic, intifada (انتفاضة) literally means "shaking off." In a political context, it refers to violent uprisings against Israelis that previously took place in the late 1980s and the early 2000s. There were those in New York cheering for what Hamas did. There is no shortage of "hate marches" in the western world in recent weeks.  

The pro-Palestinian hypocrisy is also stomach-churning. It is not only that they call Israel a genocidal state, even though it is not. They are cheering for Hamas, an anti-Semitic, homophobic terrorist organization that carried out a pogrom to incite a war with Israel and then has the gall to play victim. Hamas has made their genocidal intent clear since its founding in 1988. And the chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," what do you think it means? It calls for the erasure of the Jewish state, or in other words, ethnic cleansing. 

These activists demand empathy and decency, but are basically cheering to wipe out about half of the Jewish population. I know we just had the clocks turn back because Daylight Savings ended, but I didn't think we turned those clocks back to the 1930s when anti-Semitism was fashionable. Not only is it hateful, but the pro-Palestine side bases its arguments either on outright lies, half-truths, exaggerations, or events wholly taken out of context. They misuse such terms as occupation, colonizer, and apartheid to mask Jew-hatred. 

On a personal level, I despise this assault on truth and human decency. It is an affront to so much of what I value and stand for in life. I believe such vile has no place in civil society. Given the uptick in anti-Semitism that has manifested as a result, I honestly wish that pro-Palestinian activists would collectively shut their trap. As much as I cannot stand it, I believe in their right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment. Before continuing, I want to state that freedom of speech does not include violence, true threats, bona fide intimidation, incitement of violence, discriminatory harassment, or the heckler's veto. The aforementioned exceptions are not covered under the First Amendment. That being said, why am I standing on the side of preserving the freedom of speech of pro-Palestine protestors? 

1. Freedom of speech is indivisible. For free speech to be free, it does not only apply to those I agree with. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience have to apply to those that I vehemently disagree with, as well. That extends to people having the right to hate Jews or cheering on a terrorist organization raping and murdering innocent civilians, as upsetting as it is. After all, hate speech is still a form of free speech. 
2. If that power to suppress freedom of speech could be used against anti-Semites , it could also be used against those who are in favor of Israel if anti-Israel politicians got into power. Giving government that sort of power would mean that no one's freedom of speech would be guaranteed. 
3. Allowing for their freedom of speech creates greater tolerance in society. Keep in mind that acceptance and tolerance are not the same thing. I do not accept the lies or hatred that are prevalent in the pro-Palestine movement. I don't have to agree with their viewpoints. Conversely, if we are to live in a pluralistic, democratic society, we have to have a threshold for opinions we disagree with, as well as a basic level of respect for those who we do not agree with. Tolerance is key for creating a more peaceful, cohesive society. 
4. I want to know who hates Jews so much that they end up being apologists for depraved mass murderers. Bring them out into the light and expose their hatred. At least I know where they stand. That is freedom of association. Plus, haven't there always been consequences in the professional world if you go as far as glorify terrorists? If someone celebrated 9/11 on September 12, 2001, what do you think would happen? They would most likely lose their job or not get a job offer. I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe that freedom of association means disassociating from someone who has a view you find disagreeable or repugnant. 
5. A working paper from the Research Institute of Industrial Economics shows that increased freedom of expression helps ease social conflict (Bjørnskov and Mchangama, 2023). This paper's findings suggest that censorship would only increase tensions because it would limit legitimate avenues for discussion. 
6. Banning something is not the same thing as defeating or eliminating it. As we see with other bans, it most likely means making the problem worse. This is a war of worldviews and we need to use freedom of speech to fight against Islamist extremists and Jew-hatred. Let them come with their fallacious arguments. This is about preserving a marketplace of ideas. It is up to us to refute the lies and the hate. Now is the time to stand up not only for Jews or Israelis, but for human rights, democracy, civilization, and plain human decency. 

Prefatory Remarks on the Anti-Semitism That Exists on the Far Left

Hamas' assault on Israel on October 7 was unconscionable to say the least. Kidnapping over 100 hostages, raping, torturing, decapitating babies, and killing over 1,200 Israeli citizens is brutal. It was the single worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. It is difficult to see how Israel could not militarily respond to such brutality. Seeing the surge in pro-Palestine protests and anti-Semitism as a result of current events has gotten me thinking about anti-Semitism a lot lately. 

Jews being oppressed, stigmatized, and murdered simply for being Jewish is sadly nothing new. Jews have contended with the ire of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the English Expulsion of 1290, the Spanish Inquisition of 1492, the pogroms in the Russian Empire, and most notably the Holocaust. The Holocaust was actually a major impetus for the modern state of Israel to be created shortly thereafter. Israel was to be a safe haven for Jews because Jews were hoping "Never Again" would mean never again. Oh, how October 7, 2023 changed that notion!

Anti-semitism has come in multiple forms. It has come from Christians and Muslims. It has religious and secular varieties. Some have hated Jews on ethnic grounds as opposed to religious. Whether it is blaming Jews for the cruxifixction of Jesus (spoiler: it was the Romans), Jews control the media (which is hard to believe given the pro-Palestine tilt of many major media outlets), Jews are an inferior race (as argued by Nazi Germany), or Jews are money-obsessed, there is no shortage of libel and hatred that has been directed at the Jewish people over the centuries. 

You would think with Jews having endured so much, the political Left would be sympathetic to the Jewish plight. After all, the political Left over the past century in the Western world has operated with the stated intent of helping out the marginalized and disenfranchised. I would have thought this would especially hold for those who identify as woke or "progressive." If one were to be consistent with this goal of helping out the marginalized, that would include wanting to help out the Jews. Yet what I have seen in recent weeks makes me think otherwise, especially since the Left has a history of anti-Semitism that dates back to the Enlightenment era. 

Most universities could not muster the decency to condemn the barbarism of Hamas on October 7. Reports of pro-Palestine protests, which has a lot of allies on the Far Left, have been perturbing. Some have yelled "Intifada," which is an armed rebellion that entails violence against Jews. Others chanted "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which if you look at a map of the region, means wiping out Israel and advocating for ethnic cleansing. Black Lives Matter in Chicago blamed Israel for Hamas' attack and cheered it on. It is not only anecdotes that have me worried. It is not that anti-semitic incidents increased 400 percent since October 7 when antisemitism was already on the rise. It is also the polling data in response to current events. 

The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released in mid-October asked some questions about opinions on the conflict between Israel and Gaza. When looking at the cross tabs data, I was able to see the data broken down by political ideology. I found out that liberals are more likely than conservatives to believe the following:

• Hamas' attack was targeted against the Israeli military, and not citizens (35% vs. 18%)
• Hamas comprises of militants and not terrorists (29% vs. 15%)
• Hamas murdering Israeli civilians is justified by Palestinian grievances (36% vs. 16%)
• Hamas' attack is not indicative of increased anti-Semitism (52% vs. 36%)
• Hamas and Israel have fairly equally just causes (48% vs. 26%)

The Far Right and The Far Left do not agree on much. One thing they have in common is hating Jews (e.g., Allington et al., 2023). Those on the Right in the U.S. that express anti-Semitism tend to go with more traditional forms of anti-Semitism. The Left is pernicious with how it expresses it. Why? Criticizing Israel is not inherently anti-Semitic. Israeli citizens do it with the vigor of a national pastime. Conversely, those on the Left are more likely to use anti-Zionism as their guise for their anti-Semitism (ibid.), even down to having token Jewish friends and allies sympathetic to the Palestinian cause giving them cover. This tactic of using anti-Semitism to masquerade as anti-Zionism originates from the Stalinist Zionology that intensified after the Six-Day War of 1967. 

If the the uptick in anti-Semitism the past few weeks were a reminder of anything on this topic, it is that the overlap between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in the Western world is astoundingly high. What we are seeing on the Far Left is beyond criticizing the Israeli state beyond normal or reasonable standards. Examples of when legitimate criticism of Israel crosses over into anti-Semitism including holding Israel to double standards and singling out Israel in a disproportionate matter (especially while ignoring or downplaying actual human rights abuses), opposing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state or to live in the land, or the very flawed analogies of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany or an apartheid state. It has resulted in 95 percent of the antisemitic attacks in the U.S. that were motivated by Israeli policy were carried out by those on the Left. 

You can read my piece on when criticism of Israel turns into anti-Semitism here. You can also read Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews by David Bernstein for more on the history of how "progressives" turned to anti-Semitism. I want to get into the heart of the matter in the near future. How did so many on the woke Left embrace anti-Semitic tropes to the point where they can sympathize with a genocidal, terrorist organization intent on wiping out a historically marginalized people? In an upcoming piece, I plan on going through a list of theories as to why so many on the Far Left abandoned human rights, democracy, and equality in favor of making Jew-hatred en vogue. 

NBER Study Shows That Lower Corporate Taxes Vis-à-Vis the TCJA Boosted Economic Growth

In 2017, the Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the largest tax reform passed since the Tax Reform Act of 1986. One of the major components of TCJA was cutting the statutory tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. When I analyzed the TCJA in 2017, I predicted that the corporate tax cut would be one of the redeeming features of the TCJA because it would boost global competitiveness. It looks like I was correct that it would improve the U.S. economy.  

A couple of weeks ago, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) released a paper entitled Tax Policy and Investment in a Global Economy (Chodorow-Reich et al., 2023). In addition to looking at the corporate tax rate cut, the authors also looked at the bonus depreciation provision and the various components of the international tax code overhaul. I want to look at the corporate tax reduction because about half the boost in investment and capital stock from the TCJA was due to the corporate tax reduction (p. 43).

As for the aggregate of all the provisions, the U.S. domestic corporate capital stock is to grow 7.4 percent over the long-term (i.e., ten years), as well as a 0.9 percent increase in domestic wages (p. 4). Plus,  the abstract points out that "the TCJA caused domestic investment of firms with the mean tax change to increase roughly 20% relative to firms experiencing no tax change." 

These findings do not surprise me because they are in line with what empirical research has to say on the effects of high corporate taxes. I have written before how corporate tax cuts spur investment. Conversely, I have written how high corporate tax rates cause countries to flee to other countries with friendlier tax codes, as well as how corporate taxes reduce labor productivity, slow economic growth, and creates double taxation effects. This recent NBER study shows how we need to keep corporate tax rates low instead of Biden's recommendation of raising corporate tax rates.