Month: May 2014

The limits of the center-right consensus

Every so often, David Brooks comes very close to getting it, but he’s never quite willing to take his arguments to their logical conclusion. Like back in March, he wrote that “The real power in the world is not military or political. It is the power of individuals to withdraw their consent.” Or this week:

The answer is to use Lee Kuan Yew means to achieve Jeffersonian ends — to become less democratic at the national level in order to become more democratic at the local level. At the national level, American politics has become neurotically democratic. Politicians are campaigning all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Legislators are terrified of offending this or that industry lobby, activist group or donor faction. Unrepresentative groups have disproportionate power in primary elections.

The quickest way around all this is to use elite Simpson-Bowles-type commissions to push populist reforms.

This is an obvious contradiction, and Larison calls him out for it:

Brooks doesn’t explain how making the federal government even less responsive and accountable than it is now will improve or strengthen local government. It’s just supposed to happen. If Brooks’ idea were ever put into practice, it would likely to generate even stronger resentment of the entire political system, and it would produce a backlash against the concentration of power at the federal level.

 *****

On Tuesday evening Mark and I caught a think-tank salon double feature, starting at AEI to see Economist editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge talking about their new book The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State (not to be confused with Herr Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory), followed by F.H. Buckley on his new book about the “rise of crown government in America.”

In a sense the two were polar opposites of one another; in person the two Economist editors had the same eternal optimism that characterizes the magazine’s editorial voice, whereas Buckley’s talk consisted mostly of gloomy aphorisms. On a conceptual level too, though all were deeply concerned about structural deficits and entitlement sustainability, the two Brits’ contention was essentially that Reagans and Thatchers eventually come along to fix these things.

And yet, if the postwar West demonstrates anything, it’s the ability of democracies to decay resiliently. In the Q&A Mark raised the possibility that America could easily muddle on with high inflation and unemployment for years; there isn’t some sort of Reagan kill switch to flip when things get especially bad, and the exigencies of our quadrennial presidential elections mean that the right man for the job could take several cycles to come around.

They claim the challenge for the West — to “get fit,” as they put it, for a competition with Chinese authoritarian capitalism that represents a “much more profound” challenge than the Soviet Union ever did — is an existential one. They pointed, somewhat suspiciously, toward Indian PM-elect Narendra Modi’s stated desire to emulate Chinese growth, as indicating the stakes involved. Shinzo Abe is also concerned.

The trouble is that eventually social-democratic turpitude gets so bad that the inevitable reaction is too immoderate for good classical liberals like Micklethwait and Wooldridge to support — witness the Economist’s hostility to Modi. They’re also somewhat hostile to decentralization in general — during the talk, Micklethwait expressed doubts about the scalability of Singapore-style public services.

So, we seem to have reached an impasse. We are told to wait for a budget-cutting savior — somehow put in power by an electorate that gets more economically left-wing every election — at which time, pace David Brooks, a cadre of expert technocrats will balance the budget, enact populist tax reforms, and deign to grant the states some token of decentralization. Maybe they can set their own drinking ages again, or something.

Does this strike you as a wise course of action? Does it make any sense at all?

In America, what seems clear is that getting out of our social-democratic morass requires a withdrawal of consent at the state level, where political power still lies with the Republicans. The tea party seems to be coming to the conclusion that an Article V convention is the best way to accomplish that, though the devil is in the details (wording of the petitions, exactly what amendments will be up for debate, etc). For what it’s worth, here are some that have been debated; I’m much more enthusiastic about the first four than the last two:

  • Repeal the 17th Amendment to make senators accountable to their states, not parties and special interests.
  • Repeal the Apportionment Act and bring the size of Congress more in line with a country of 300 million people. If progressives object that this would be unruly, that’s simply a reason for them to meet less often.
  • An amendment to allow a majority of state legislatures to veto tax increases.
  • Some sort of repeal amendment, to make sure there is some state-level recourse for things like Obamacare, which has a somewhat dubious provenance.
  • A Niskanen/Amash-style balanced budget amendment that allows some countercyclical spending.
  • Repeal the 26th Amendment — States should be able to set their own voting ages, because screw you kids.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge suggest to today’s right-thinking progressive that today’s overburdened social democracies raise the question of, ‘what is the state for?’ In other words, what is the minimum amount of services we expect it to provide for people. This is inherently threatening to the sort of person whose answer is always ‘more’ and ‘by any means necessary.’ And in a country as notoriously moderate and deliberative as the U.K., maybe that conversation is possible, but neither American party seems interested in having it.

The Article V-ers are asking a very different, nomocratic question: How can we arrange the structure of American government to produce better outcomes in the long-run, and mitigate the short-term bias problems of democracy? I’m not sure our center-right thought leaders are quite as serious. To the extent that those in power aren’t willing to talk about this kind of structural reform, extraconstitutional means of withdrawing consent do start to become more attractive.

Some thoughts on marriage, gay marriage, and a simple proposition

I’ve often remarked, about male friends of mine with whom I share deep emotional bonds, that I would happily “gay-marry” them.  Some people take this statement for what it is: an act that, in a way that sex and reproduction only manage to celebrate, amounts to the magic of two individuals becoming one, that I and this or that friend are “like this,” just on that level.  In comparison, I’m extremely sparing with such words for any of my female friends, precisely because I respect them too much, to assume that much knowledge of our possible emotional compatibility (note for the nitpicky: this is not to imply that difference in physical sex or gender identity implies obstacles to emotional connection, but rather that the passion and mystery of romance in any form comes from the diverse inner conflicts which sex can bring to a relationship).

That said, I’m not being flip about the beauty and sanctity of a thing like gay marriage, just because I have no substantial romantic feelings for these men. I’m describing an ideal state where cohabitation is effortless, harmonious and generative, where people’s needs are compatible because they’re essentially the same,  (again, not to imply that the experience of all homosexuals is somehow a narcissistic cop-out like my own affection for my familiars, highlighting rather that these friends of mine and I have no “growing into each other” left to do).  That said, I have no experience of the very real struggles of those involved in romantic relationships which could only flourish naturally under the institution of gay marriage, legally prohibited in a shocking majority of 32 states.

There may be some who share my understanding first stated above, of the beauty and mystery preserved in the hallowed institution of Traditional Marriage, who feel altogether threatened by this kind of talk. By way of a clarification of terms, I think we can bring these opponents of gay marriage into the fold and achieve some mutual understanding. There appears to be a serious misunderstanding among some valiant defenders of Traditional Marriage, about what exactly happens when any two people who are not, strictly speaking, one man and one woman, engage in the apotheosis of mutual boundary dissolution which is so reliably facilitated by sacred cohabitation. That is to say, the experience of ritual union is completely the same. The perceived depravity of a sex act which is not reproductive is not a legitimate fear on the part of this particular brand of conservatives. It holds up to be no more than a straw man when we recognize the motivation behind this fear could not possibly be disgust. Dominion over nature implies all variety of “unnatural” modifications, however slight, to the “natural order” of which human sexual reproduction makes a comparatively small part. Not only then, do reproductive choices on the part of humans fall effectively outside of the umbrella of the evaluation of “nature” and its “order” distinct from society (a distinction fondly maintained by this same line of thinking), but when we see the natural occurrence of homosexuality throughout the animal kingdom, the entire pretense to an essential, natural-moral disgust which runs any deeper than a fear which must be socially ingrained, falls apart completely.

The problem, as I see it, lies elsewhere, and has its origins in a fundamental misunderstanding. There is the spiritual union which occurs between two individuals, and the biological. The sex act is a physical image, of an essential merging which takes place outside of space and time. By the same token, the production of another human organism, a miracle of nature as it may be, is still a miracle of nature, the most elaborate allegory in the entire created universe for what is produced, on a spiritual plane, when two individuals come together. Moreover, neither physical image, when mechanically reproduced, is a guarantee of these special effects. When these effects do occur, they can result in (appear to the slow-witted, to stem from) prolonged physical contact and mutual stimulation; forms of ritual union, however, exist as a social sanctuary for individuals who are compelled, through a constant recapitulation of these genuine spiritual connections, to pursue their physical expressions to their logical conclusion.

The institution of Traditional Marriage, writ large, is defined by the loudest and therefore unsurpassed participants in the conversation today, as the union between one man and one woman. Radical proponents of this definition, however, have come under the impression that the mechanical reproduction of past instances which served as evidence of spiritual unity are not only necessary, but sufficient to bring about that unity. They see the institution of Traditional Marriage as the sole bastion and refuge of the secret to human happiness and inner freedom available to more than one person at once, in danger of contamination and being lost to history. There is a way in which they are mistaken, and a sense in which they are entirely correct. My reasoning follows:

  • Spiritual unification of at least two individuals is not only possible and desirable, but a moral imperative
  • Myriad forms of ritual practice have served to facilitate this throughout human history.
  • Fear threatens to tear people up on the inside; social institutions arise to ensure that it does so mostly on the outside; all to often, they tend to separate people from one another in the misguided fear of forcing an individual to face fear themselves (to recognize as only a threat, and nothing more without an individual’s participation in it).
  • The institution of Traditional Marriage has evolved around a complex historical network of socially ingrained fears in a valiant attempt to project them back into society, out of the fear that they may ultimately make unity  impossible (again conceiving individuals as non-agents on a double level, first assuming their inherent total susceptibility to fear, while also summarily attributing their spiritual unity to heterosexual reproductive union in faux-causal succession).
  • The institution of gay marriage, which some argue to be an offshoot of Christian monastic orders, (and unthinkably efficient when held to the standard of other esoteric orders, having survived and perhaps thrived, prior to our modern knowledge of its existence, perhaps in excess of a millennium in total secrecy, at least to the historical record) co-evolved with the institution of marriage as a fundamentally heterogeneous set of practices of spiritual unification in direct response to what certain individuals perceived to be unhealthy fixation on heterosexual reproduction becoming increasingly inhospitable to their existence as a category comprising one-tenth of the human population.

So we see, that the institution of marriage does not function in any exclusive way to facilitate the spiritual fulfillment of more than one person at a time. It exists precisely in distinction from other forms of union to allay the fears of individuals, who perceive those other forms of union as a threat.

Now this is all very complex stuff, so any radical camps in the debate, whether they want to destroy this last lifeline for the above-mentioned small populations of neurotics, or are just such neurotics, should be forgiven for any misunderstandings that have come about in our collective attempt to hash all this out. That said, I also think I may just be able to proffer up a few words that will clarify this whole matter once and for all.

The institution of Traditional Marriage exists first to preserve the happiness of a few very frightened individuals by strictly defining the terms by which, second, it helps certain individuals (certainly the ones with heavily preconceived notions about how such a thing is possible) become one. The institution of gay marriage exists as a completely separate institution to accommodate individuals excluded from the institution of Traditional Marriage. Much in the same fashion as Narcotics Anonymous was founded upon Alcoholics Anonymous’ core principles and 12 Steps due to the social unacceptability of heroin use compared to that of alcohol, gay marriage exists as completely distinct from marriage (depending on one’s acceptance of the exclusive truth claims of AA or marriage enthusiasts, this analogy holds varying amounts of water); though serving a similar purpose, and modeled upon Marriage, it serves a group of individuals whose identities do not revolve around the rejection of lifestyles unlike their own, and thus should be afforded equal dignity under the law and in public opinion.

As a point of clarification, this post originated as an attempt to explain to some raised eyebrows my repeated use of the verb “Gay-marry” (as opposed to just marry) to describe what I could totally do to Gabe. There’s no intolerance on my part in insisting that the distinction from Traditional Marriage be preserved; it is firmly my belief that, for the sake of clarity, any ritual union seeking, under ethically legitimate pretense, legal privilege, which does not befall one man and one woman, be heretofore referred to correctly as gay marriage. It is a separate institution of equal stature with equal dignity and equal promise to enrich the lives of a group of individuals who, as long as the institution of Traditional Marriage continues to retain political clout like a swollen joint, will be tragically perceived in however limited, conditional, or even empathetic public aspect, as separate from society.

We live in ‘Brazil,’ not 1984

It has become cliché to make comparisons of the modern world to Orwell’s 1984. Government collection of metadata means we are always being watched. Homeland Security illustrates the penetration of doublespeak in our lives. That we are engaged in a never-ending war against terrorism is analogous to having “always been at war with Eastasia.”

However, despite many important parallels, I find the primary theme of 1984 to be an inaccurate portrayal of modern life.  1984 imagines the evil of unified power. It is personified through Big Brother. The primary theme, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever,” is simply not apt.

Most people do not feel the boot on their face. Obama, despite the fact he occasionally drones children, is not Big Brother. Homeland Security is not the Ministry of Love, it is the DMV with police powers. Rather than the horrors of totalitarian dictatorship, we have the horrors of rampant, dysfunctional bureaucracy.

“Brazil,” directed by Terry Gilliam and loved by those who have seen it, captures these themes expertly. It follows Sam Lowry, a low-level bureaucrat with fantasies about saving a woman from his dreams.

A clerical error leads to the imprisonment, looking very much like a modern SWAT raid, of a Mr. Archibald Buttle, instead of terrorist Archibald Tuttle. This is reminiscent of putting Rahinah Ibrahim on the no-fly list because of a clerical error. It took 8 years for the government to admit its error.

Later, Archibald Tuttle, an air conditioning repairman gone rogue because of his dislike of paperwork, helps Sam fix his air conditioning. I can’t help but think of licensing laws and how they keep people impoverished.

Overall, the picture is painted is not one of evil, but incompetence. The bureaucracy is impossible to navigate, but no one is responsible. It is the result of human action but not human design. Our world today is the same.

Have economists given up on the free market?

This is the thesis offered by Noah Smith. He argues that the rise of data and new theories has led to economists to move away from free market theories. Adverse selection, moral hazard, and game theory have shown how rational agents can lead to suboptimal results, while behavioral economics has cast doubt on the assumptions about human rationality.

It seems to me that he conflates two things. The first is how the public perceives economists. The second is the political preferences of economists themselves. The distinction is important because even if economists have become more liberal, they still might appear to be free market dogmatists if the public continues to not understand economic theory. Bryan Caplan has demonstrated there continue to exist biases in the public understanding of economics. While adverse selection is important, I think most economists agree comparative advantage is even more so. Paul Krugman at least used to agree.

Noah also falls prey to the nirvana fallacy. He compares supposed market failures with idealized solutions. These idealized solutions rarely happen, the reason being public choice, an innovation he failed to mention. Government actors are the same fallible humans as market actors.

Take behavioral economics for example. While it is often applied to market actors, the same logic also applies to the government actors making and enforcing the rules. Therefore, on net, it isn’t clear whether behavioral economics justifies government intervention. Applying behavioral economics to government might imply restricting state intervention.

However, Noah’s more central point is about the change in attitudes of the economic profession. David Henderson already responded about macroeconomics. My research has been on development economics and that field has become substantially more likely to favor open markets.

It is worth noting that the traditional dichotomy between liberal and conservative is misplaced. While I favor lower marginal tax rates and less government intervention, far more important is government recognition of property rights. The question is not, is Sweden a better model than the US, it is, why is Africa poor? The (relatively new) consensus among economists is that Africa is poor because of bad institutions.

This wasn’t always the case. Peter Bauer was for years a loner voice against state led planning. Though Douglass North won the Nobel Prize in 1993 for his work on institutions, the turning point didn’t occur until Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson published “Colonial Origins” in 2001. They were the first to causally show through econometrics that institutions caused economic performance and not vice versa.

While institutional economics cannot be described as entirely libertarian in its implications, it is substantially more so than previous development theories. Two recent books, Why Nations Fail and Violence and Social Orders offer similar frameworks. They differentiate between two types of governments; I will call them an open state and a predatory state.  Predatory states are defined by elite expropriation of wealth and monopoly privileges. Open states allow any person to enter the marketplace and encourage competition. These distinctions are comparable to indices of economic freedom.

Part of the reason Noah might have the impression he does is because economists used to assume the existence of strong stable property rights. The discussion was over government intervention given those property rights. Perhaps given that assumption he is correct, but the importance of institutional economics is abandoning that assumption.

As I tell my students, the reason there are poor countries is because their governments steal too much from the people and don’t respect their property rights. I do not think most economists would have agreed in the 1960’s or 1970’s, but I do think they would today.

Secession lagniappe

From Office of Hawaiian Affairs Kamana’opono Crabbe’s remarks at a press conference on Monday:

A second reason for my questions to Secretary Kerry stems from our Hawaiian community. My staff and I have held some 30 community meetings in the past two months regarding our proposed process to rebuild our nation. In that same period we also held two governance summits with key community leaders. At these gatherings, and in other virtual contexts, we heard repeatedly concerns about engaging in a process of rebuilding a nation when-following the research of many legal, historical, and political experts-our nation continues to exist in the context of international law.

Such concerns have led our community to request more time in the nation rebuilding process to have questions– such as I raised with Secretary Kerry– fully explored and shared with our people so that they can make well-informed decisions throughout the process.

The Hawaiian community needed to know that I was inquiring about the very matters they sought to bring forward. And this is the reason I felt it was imperative not only that I ask the questions but that the community be aware of the inquiry.

However, recognizing the gravity of the questions posed, I met with Chair Machado before making the letter public. I explained that my questions were a matter of due diligence and risk management to avoid OHA missteps in its nation rebuilding facilitation. I believed I had her consent to proceed with sharing publicly my letter to Secretary Kerry. Unfortunately, it is now apparent that we walked away from that meeting with a misunderstanding and misinformation.

Despite disagreements that will need to be worked out between myself and OHA’s trustees, I am certain that the Board and I stand firmly together in our commitment to do all that we appropriately can to reestablish a Hawaiian nation. I look forward to engaging with the trustees in the ho’oponopono, which Chair Machado graciously suggested, so that we can work collectively to Ho’oulu Uihui Aloha, to Rebuild a Beloved Nation.

We must succeed in our efforts for the good of our lahui, our community, and our families for generations to come.

Chairwoman Machado disputes that he consulted with her before sending the letter. The OHA trustees had a very interesting meeting on Thursday, with a big crowd supporting Crabbe. Related: The militarized Pacific.

From one of the translated letters of Tibetan prisoner Goshul Lobsang, written in prison, September 2012. He died on March 19:

I have no regrets, although all of a sudden, I may be compelled to separate from the path of life that [I have been treading along] with my beloved mother, siblings, wife and children. I may have to depart with [feelings] of cold, heavy sadness, but I have no sense of guilt in my heart.
My clear conscience is my only asset in this world. I don’t possess anything other than this, and I don’t need anything other than this.
[But] my only regret that weighs heavily on my heart is the lack of profound sense of solidarity among our people, because of which we are unable to achieve a strong unified stand.

*****

In the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday, a letter to the editor written by a Republican name-checks Lincoln and asks:

The right-wing fanatics who would have the federal government hand over all public lands in Utah, Nevada, etc., remind me of the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. When would they like to hold the referendum on secession from the United States?

Chris Roth says the Cliven Bundy standoff is the harbinger of a new “silly season.” State legislators from a number of states are getting involved, including Matt Shea:

Four more county committees forming for the Jefferson statehood effort, one is working with Tea Party Patriots.

*****

Nationalia looks at Yorkshire autonomy, the Bavarian Party’s attempt to get a representative in the European Parliament, and the Occitan Nation Party’s pro-stateless peoples (and pro-EU) message.

Ukrainian oligarch says no to secession.

Timothy Snyder and Leon Wieseltier are in Kiev this weekend.

Scottish Tory MEP says in an address supporting a Spanish unionist MEP that Scottish independence “would trigger a wave of secessionist movements across the EU.”

Israel clears up a rumor that they were going to transfer sovereignty of the tomb of David and the Cenacle to the Vatican.

*****

Adam Gurri, “The Morality of Futility“:

 Our moral sphere should not be stretched beyond the scale appropriate for an individual human life. That does not mean that we are indifferent to suffering outside that scale, nor that there’s something wrong with giving to charity or volunteering. Telescopic as an adjective is meant more pejoratively than categorically; to reject telescopic morality is not to say that our concern for far matters should be reduced to zero, just as rejecting gluttony does not mean that we should stop eating entirely.

Nevertheless, I am very pessimistic about our ability to have a non-negligible impact on large scale and distant matters.

First Things on Quebec:

While generations of Québécois had felt estranged from a spiritually apostate France after the 1789 Revolution, this antirevolutionary ethos vanished during the 1960s. The French Revolution had begun when Louis XVI had convoked the Estates General. Shortly thereafter, the Third Estate, consisting of commoners, rose up and abolished the first two estates, representing the clergy and nobility, declaring itself l’Assemblée nationale, that is, the National Assembly.

In 1968, in an eerie echo of the events of nearly two centuries earlier, Québec similarly abolished the upper chamber of its provincial legislature, le Conseil legislatif, while the lower chamber, l’Assemblée legislative, changed its name to – you guessed it – l’Assemblée nationale! The French Revolution had finally caught up with La Belle Province. That same year saw the formation of the Parti québécois, which sought a wholly French-speaking nation separate from Canada.

David Harvey is extremely skeptical of Thomas Piketty’s Capital.

Trotskyite blames Indian communist parties for Modi’s election.

D.G. Hart on Ulster Presbyterians and protestant radicalism:

Political philosophers and historians have given lots of attention to Calvinism as an engine of modern liberal (read constitutional) politics. Whether it’s resistance theory, the Dutch rebellion, or the so-called Presbyterian revolution of the British colonies in North America, students of Calvinism believe they have a firm read on Reformed Protestant politics as an inherently rebellious outlook, one that won’t let any human authority encroach on the Lordship of Christ. (Why we didn’t celebrate 1861 along with 1776, 1689, and 1567 prior to getting right with race is a bit of an inconsistency.)

That sounds good in theory, and it certainly turns out Calvinist (New, Neo, or Denominational) in large numbers for Fox News. But it doesn’t make sense of history where context matters.

Justin Raimondo on the NSA:

The NSA’s “new collection posture,” as shown in the NSA documents reproduced in Greenwald’s book, is: “Sniff it all, know it all, collect it all, process it all, exploit it all, partner it all.” In short, they aim to abolish the concept of privacy – and if they are now targeting political “radicalizers,” as one of their documents puts it – not Al Qaeda, but American political dissidents – then our old republic is no more. The Constitution means nothing: the Bill of Rights is abolished, and we are living under a de facto “democratic” dictatorship. …

As it stands … anyone in America who has ever expressed a “radical” idea is now a potential target.

Nothing short of a revolution is going to reverse this monstrous reality. Whether it comes in a peaceful form – perhaps some combination of electoral and legislative action – in which the warlords of Washington are thrown out on their ears, or some other way is not for me to say. No one can know the future. What I do know, however, is this: one way or another, the monster must be slain.

Mark Meckler on the John Doe raids in Wisconsin:

… a partisan prosecutor launched “secret John Doe” investigations to terrify the entire conservative community and to remove them from the political conversation. Even though these Wisconsinites have been charged with nothing, they’ve been subjected to pre-dawn raids, warrants, subpoenas, and other harassment.

Committee For The Republic’s 80th Birthday Tribute to Jon Utley

Video is now online of the Committee for the Republic’s tribute to American Conservative publisher Jon Utley back in March, for his 80th birthday, which I had the great pleasure of attending.

If there’s ever been a meeting of the good guys in a Washington salon, this was it, featuring (quoting from the YouTube description): “John Henry, Chairman of the Committee, fundraising giant Richard Viguerie, Lee Edwards of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Dan McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative, Allan Brownfeld of the American Council for Judaism, Alex Chafuen, President of the Atlas Economic Research foundation, Norman Birnbaum, Georgetown University Professor emeritus, British writer Francis Beckett, author of Stalin’s British Victims, and Fran Griffin, President of Griffin Communications, who also read a message from Pat Buchanan.”

I forget which one it was that comments that the thing that distinguished Utley from the other anti-communists is that he never held his own government to a double standard.

Here are Jim Bovard’s remarks:

Jon has been in the forefront of the antiwar movement since 1990, when he spearheaded a group to oppose George H.W. Bush’s war against Iraq.  He has been a rare voice of reason and grace in conservative circles, patiently pointing out how foreign warring was destroying American freedom – as well as wreaking pointless havoc abroad.  He has also been a generous supporter of groups ranging from the Future of Freedom Foundation to Antiwar.com, where his columns continue to trounce bloodthirsty politicians of all stripes.

Jon has always been kind in his comments and encouragement on my writing. Some years ago, I saw that he was heading to an ACLU awards dinner that featured some fashionable left-wing keynoter who didn’t seem truly concerned with freedom. I asked why he was going to the ACLU event.

Jon replied, “So that somebody will care when government agents take us away.”

Hearing that line from someone whose father vanished in the Gulag makes it impossible to forget.

Happy birthday, Jon, and thanks for all you’ve done for freedom for 60+ years!

Check out the documentary, “Return To the Gulag,” about Jon’s search for his father here.