Prediction

 

By the end of the year, although Trump is still president, Rubio runs the entire government.

Hey, we're only 100 days in. It could happen.

Wouldn't Like My Clothes Either, Addendum

The NYT/Esquire style guy didn't like Hegseth's, but apparently I spoke too soon in saying they wouldn't like mine. They just did a full writeup this week of the jeans I buy from the Tractor Supply Company. (Locally they are not $50, but $35).

Wrangler’s 13MWZ jeans have remained largely unchanged since their inception. (According to Rivetti, the last major change came in 1963, with the introduction of a new standard fabric for the line.)... Wrangler’s jeans are, ultimately, still utilitarian. The 11⅛-inch high rise (skinny jeans might have a 9- or 9½-inch rise) and two additional belt loops in the back help a rider’s shirt stay tucked in while they’re sitting in a saddle, according to Wrangler. The thicker, flat-felled seam — usually on the inside of the pant leg — is instead placed on the outer part of the leg, since this is more comfortable for someone on horseback....

Wrangler’s jeans also have hard, smooth, copper-colored rivets on the back pockets, creating a more-durable fabric attachment. For its 13MWZ jeans, Wrangler uses a kind of fabric called “broken twill.” Most jeans are made from a rightward-angled twill (this is why denim looks like a series of diagonal lines). Wrangler’s broken twill fabric, however, changes direction, from right to left, every several stitches, giving it an almost chevron-like appearance. The result, Kristy explained to me, is a fabric that physically has more opportunities to fold over itself, making it feel a little less rigid. This allows Wrangler to use heavier, harder-wearing denim without sacrificing comfort....  

Compared with comparably priced jeans I’ve worn from Levi’s and Uniqlo, the 13MWZ jeans are made from a heavier-weight denim that doesn’t start to feel slouchy after a few wears. And the copper rivets and tight stitching make the Wranglers feel sturdier than their counterparts.

I stand corrected. They can sometimes appreciate the clothes I wear.  

Some Progress in local EMS

The sponsor of the EMS bill here in NC that we were recently discussing has given way a bit.

HB-675 would eliminate the state standard — a standard multiple EMS leaders interviewed by SMN said is nationally renowned — and instead require paramedics and EMTs to be certified through a national registry, which those same EMS leaders said is far less stringent. While the bill originally mandated that all paramedics and EMTs would need to recertify, at an April 25 meeting at AB Tech between Pless and dozens of first responders, he said he would amend that so that it only applies to new personnel. On April 29, the bill was officially amended.

So locally, at least, it is still sometimes possible to move the levers on stupid government ideas.  

Mind Your Business

The Fugio cent coin of 1787, also known as the Franklin cent because Benjamin Franklin reputedly designed, had a different national motto than the one we've come to know. 

I am pleased to learn this fact.

The Cathar Heresy

This is the first time I've ever heard it suggested that we don't know what the Cathars believed.

“Cathars”–the target of (a) the first intra-Europe crusade... that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands (often by fire) and the desolation of vast swathes of southern France, and (b) an inquisition that killed more–are a source of fascination and mystery. They left little of a written record, and most of that which is “known” about them was written by a Catholic Church that ruthlessly persecuted them as “heretics.” Thus, what their “heresies” actually were is unknown.

In his fascinating The Rest is History Podcast, historian Tom Holland conjectures that their heresies had nothing to do with dualism or celibacy... they were in a way proto-Protestants who believed that salvation was not dependent on the intermediation of priests, bishops, archbishops, and Popes. One could become a “bon homme” destined for heaven by one’s own conduct and faith without priestly intermediation. This clashed with Pope Innocent III’s aggressive centralizing efforts to enforce the primacy of the priesthood and the formal church.

Put simply, this was a clash between self-governing rural traditionalists and an extremely assertive–and in fact murderous–bureaucratic government with universalist pretensions insistent on controlling the private and public lives of everyone.

(H/t Hot Air). You can read a summary of what we commonly teach that they believed at Wikipedia. You can read an extended analogy to the present conflict at the first link. 

UPDATE: Dad29 sends this from an older edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia he had on hand:

The essential characteristic of the Catharist faith was Dualism, i.e. the belief in a good and an evil principle, of whom the former created the invisible and spiritual universe, while the latter was the author of the material world. A difference of opinion existed as to the nature of these two principles. Their perfect equality was admitted by the absolute Dualists, whereas in the mitigated form of Dualism the beneficent principle alone was eternal and supreme, the evil principle being inferior to him and a mere creature. In the East and the West these two different interpretations of Dualism coexisted. The Bogomili in the East professed it in its modified form. In the West, the Albanenses in Italy and almost all the non-Italian Cathari were rigid Dualists; mitigated Dualism prevailed among the Bagnolenses and Concorrezenses, who were more numerous than the Albanenses in Italy, though but little represented abroad. (For an exposition of absolute Dualism, see ALBIGENSES; on the mitigated form, see BOGOMILI.) Not only were the Albanenses and Concorrezenses opposed to each other to the extent of indulging in mutual condemnations, but there was division among the Albanenses themselves. John of Lugio, or of Bergamo, introduced innovations into the traditional doctrinal system, which was defended by his (perhaps only spiritual) father Balasinansa, or Belesmagra, the Catharist Bishop of Verona. Towards the year 1230 John became the leader of a new party composed of the younger and more independent elements of the sect. In the two coeternal principles of good and evil he sees two contending gods, who limit each other's liberty. Infinite perfection is no attribute even of the good principle; owing to the genius of evil infused into all its creatures, it can produce only imperfect beings. The Bagnolenses and Concorrezenses also differed on some doctrinal questions. The former maintained that human souls were created and had sinned before the world was formed. The Concorrezenses taught that Satan infused into the body of the first man, his handiwork, an angel who had been guilty of a slight transgression and from whom, by way of generation, all human souls are derived. The moral system, organization, and liturgy of absolute and mitigated Dualism exhibit no substantial difference, and have been treated in the article on the Albigenses.

The philosophical argument against Dualism, by the way, is that it is impossible. If there were a Good principle and also an Evil principle that defined the universe between them, there would still have to be a third thing that was the substrate that existed which allowed them to interact. The third thing would then be prior to both of the so-called 'first principles,' and being prior, would itself be the First Thing. 

There can't be any other number of multiple first principles for this same reason. The Highlander tag line was "There can be only One," but in fact it was known since Ancient Greece. It was stated in theological form by Avicenna in his Metaphysics of the Healing. 

It's Red, Too

"Unprecedented"

It must be some feature of human nature to want things to be 'the greatest' or 'the worst' ever. Perhaps that increases the sense of drama and thus the meaning of living through the particular challenges being faced at a given moment. Certainly the President loves to use these superlatives; so do his opponents, when discussing him. 

I notice, however, that the NYT piece I just linked has historians stating that there is 'no clear precedent' for the use of the 1798 law to remove immigrants, and then listing several precedents but giving exceptions for them ('there was a war on!'). The next entry is 'dismantling a Federal agency,' for which apparently none of the 35 historians could think of a precedent. Well, I can: the Department of Education was originally founded in 1867, but reorganized several times and eventually dissolved by Eisenhower. If it gets dissolved again by Trump, as USAID is being, it won't be unprecedented (but will be a step forward).

[UPDATE: What about going after universities? Nope.]

Similarly, an organization I have a great deal of support for is the Eternally Radical Idea, a group of free speech advocates. They're currently running a multi-part series called "Cancel culture is happening on a historic scale." We've just discussed how much worse things were under Woodrow Wilson. What do they have to say about that?

If you’re wondering why we haven’t discussed censorship during the time of the Civil War, World War I, or World War II, it’s because there is no real comparison. As bad as things have been for free speech since 2014, no one is arguing that America has been in a situation as big or as bad as it was during those major wars. 

So, 'a historic scale,' except for the periods of time when real history was happening. Here is what they do say about it:

Over the course of that year, there were 3,600 labor strikes involving a reported four million workers, including over 350,000 steel workers and 400,000 miners.... Riots broke out during Bolshevist protests in New York, Boston, and Cleveland (another great book on this topic is “Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism” by Geoffrey R. Stone). Through all of this, fear of Bolshevism was reaching a fever pitch. 

And then came the bombs.

Thirty-six mail bombs were delivered on May Day to the homes of American leaders, including Supreme Court justices, important businessmen, cabinet members, and politicians. Some of the bombs injured and even killed several people.* Then, eight additional, larger bombings occurred in cities across the country. 

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose D.C. home was destroyed** by one of the bombs, vowed revenge. With the help of up-and-coming FBI agent J. Edgar Hoover, Palmer orchestrated a series of raids against suspected Bolshevik sympathizers — launching what would later be called the Palmer Raids, wherein the government arrested 4,000 to 5,000 suspected political radicals and deported 800 to 900.***  In many cases, suspects were arrested for speech or association with communist or anarchist groups that would be fully protected under the First Amendment today, but it would not be until 1925, in Gitlow v. New York, that the First Amendment began having any teeth at all and decades before it would be strongly interpreted to protect membership in subversive organizations. 

They then go on to say, 'But you don't have to look at America, look at what the UK is up to; they're also arresting thousands in the present day over allegedly offensive speech.' And that's true, and it's a good point. However, it has definitely been worse at other historical periods; England used to hang men for speech that displeased the crown. 

* According to American Anarchy, which I have almost finished now, only two people were harmed by these bombs -- one of them badly maimed, however. 

** 'Damaged' more than 'destroyed.' It did mess up his library. 

*** The American Anarchy author states that the actual figure may have been as high as 10,000. A lot of the arrests were done by local police partners rather than Federal authorities themselves. They were arrested without warrants, and held without bail or access to counsel until an Assistant Secretary of Labor named Louis Freeland Post stood up for their due process rights -- immigration having been assigned to the Department of Labor at that time. This basically ended the whole campaign of the Palmer raids in a disgraceful Federal retreat and embarrassment, a risk the current administration is also running.

The Cathedral of May

Robin and His Mother Go to Nottingham Fair 

Oil on canvas, 1917

N.C. Wyeth

The first of May opens one of the two best months of the year, the other locally being October. (Further north it is probably September. By the same token The Hobbit, written in England, claims that elvish singing is not a thing to miss under the stars of June, and of Elrond as being 'kind as summer.') It is a great time to be out in the beauty of nature, learning to know something about God by knowing his works. 

It always made me think of the stories of Robin Hood in the Greenwood of Sherwood Forest, or how the Knights of the Round Table would 'go into a forest to seek adventure.' The great American painter N.C. Wyeth illustrated both of those things in his career.

It hung upon a thorn, and there he blew three deadly notes

Oil on Canvas, 1917

N.C. Wyeth

In our generations, Disney did a creditable version of a Robin Hood tale, which was after all based on folk tales for popular amusement. 

The Arthurian mythos was much harder for Disney, which didn't quite manage it. They did make a movie about it, but it is definitely not one of their best animations. The later Excalibur was appropriately mythic, if a little on the psychedelic side. 

Try the real forest, if you're able, and see if it isn't enough by itself. 

Health and Ideology

The French seem to be turning up in their youth the same finding we have had in ours: "the most satisfied young men with their lives are those who feel the closest to the radical right," I would translate that underlined part. (H/t IP). Defining what "the right" (let alone the "radical right") is in France gives us a very different picture from how the same terms are used in America, but there is a kind of attachment to traditional culture, patriotism, religion, and traditional values in common.

Surprisingly to me, this is well attested in the literature and has been robustly studied (understanding, of course, that psychology has been having a particularly severe replication crisis for more than a decade). I cite that study because it cites many other studies on aspects of how conservatism is aligned with health, physical as well as mental. The authors' assumption is that this is causal in the one direction: those who were already healthy are likely to be conservatives because they don't experience the bad things that cause one to question conservative assumptions. Still, they have to admit quite a lot along the way:

Vigor aligns with conservatives' higher propensity toward happiness (Taylor, Funk, & Craighill, 2006), life-satisfaction (Schlenker, Chambers, & Le, 2012), and meaning and purpose in life (Newman, Schwarz, Graham, & Stone, 2019).... Having had more energy and, thus, the capacity to work hard and be productive, adolescents who were healthy as children may also exhibit higher levels of Maturity (hard-working, responsible, productive, dependable, and goal-oriented). Maturity aligns with conservatives' strong work ethic, anti-leisure, and achievement striving (Furnham, 1990; Jost et al., 2003; McHoskey, 1994; Mudrack, 1997) — and, endorsement of sentiments like, “The worst part about being sick is that work does not get done” (Furnham, 1990). Thus, through Maturity, healthy children may demonstrate conservative ideology in adulthood....  healthy children may be more inclined toward Tidiness (neat, clean, orderly, and organized). Tidiness aligns with the characterization of conservatives as clean, organized, and orderly (Carney et al., 2008; Schwartz et al., 2014), thus, through the tidiness personality trait, healthy children may demonstrate conservative ideology in adulthood. [Emphasis added]

This leads to a prediction that shows a straight-line probability of health being associated with conservativism, but the implication they would forward is that the causality goes from 'being healthy' to 'being conservative' and not the other way around, or as mutually reinforcing phenomena.

Yet we see shifts leftward among young women in spite of the fact that they have, over the same period, experienced a shift from near-parity to actual superiority in work outcomes, educational outcomes, rates of pay (younger women make more than their male cohorts, unlike in prior generations), and social power as demonstrated by movies and literature increasingly portraying female leads, and making female characters actually superior to the males around them. We also see that same cohort of young women experiencing greater mental distress -- though not any increased lack of vigor, or opportunities to work hard and develop maturity. (Here's a French graph showing that the connection holds there as well.)

Here is another article that takes the question on from a wide-scale perspective, citing the document I was citing about childhood health along with many other surveys. 

Liberal girls tended to be significantly more depressed than boys, particularly after 2011. However, ideological differences swamped gender differences. Indeed, liberal boys were significantly more likely to report depression than conservatives of either gender.... he well-being gap between conservatives and liberals is not unique to youth. The gap manifests clearly across all age groups and is present as far back as the polling goes. In the General Social Survey, for instance, there has been a consistent 10 percentage point gap between the share of conservatives versus liberals who report being “very happy” in virtually every iteration since 1972 (when the GSS was launched).

Academic research consistently finds the same pattern. 

The findings are fascinating, and you may want to go through them in detail. To skip ahead to the conclusion, however, they suggest that there might be mutual reinforcement going on after all:

The well-being gap between liberals and conservatives is one of the most robust patterns in social science research. It is not a product of things that happened over the last decade or so; it goes back as far as the available data reach. The differences manifest across age, gender, race, religion, and other dimensions. They are not merely present in the United States, but in most other studied countries as well. Consequently, satisfying explanations of the gaps in reported well-being between liberals and conservatives would have to generalize beyond the present moment, beyond isolated cultural or geographic contexts, and beyond specific demographic groups.... 

1. There are likely some genetic and biological factors that simultaneously predispose people towards both mental illness/ wellness and liberalism/ conservatism, respectively.

2. Net of these predispositions, conservatism probably helps adherents make sense of, and respond constructively to, adverse states of affairs. These effects are independent of, but enhanced by, religiosity and patriotism (which tend to be ideological fellow-travelers with conservatism).

3. Some strains of liberal ideology, on the other hand, likely exacerbate (and even incentivize) anxiety, depression, and other forms of unhealthy thinking. The increased power and prevalence of these ideological frameworks post-2011 may have contributed to the dramatic and asymmetrical rise in mental distress among liberals over the past decade.

4. People who are unwell may be especially attracted to liberal politics over conservatism for a variety of reasons, and this may exacerbate observed ideological gaps net of other factors.

So, if you are both a liberal and unhappy, would converting to conservatism and adopting traditional values make you happier? 1 and 4 suggest the effect might not be as pronounced for a convert as for someone who was already healthy and happy; but 2 and 3 suggest that it might, indeed, have a positive effect on your life. 

Willie Nelson at 92

Happy birthday to one of the few remaining Outlaws.

Former wife Connie Nelson: He’d open every show with “Whiskey River” and he got so sick of that song. I remember at one point he said “God, I hate doing (that song) every night, it just grinds on me.” Well, it pissed him off that he was tired of it, so — this will tell you everything about Willie — he started opening AND closing the show with it. That’s who Willie is right there, it’s just total stubbornness. He’s gonna show whatever is bothering him that he can overcome it. He knew that by doing that song twice a night, that he'd have to get over it.

I won't post it twice, at the beginning and the end, but feel free to listen to it a second time if you want.

He is still making music. His latest album is called "Oh What a Beautiful World." 

Immigration and the Underground Railroad

All analogies always break. Analogies are comparisons of two things that are not perfectly alike, otherwise they'd be the same thing being compared to itself. This being the case, at some point you'll find at least one place where the things are not alike. The question is whether the breaking point of the analogy comes before or after the analogy has borne the weight you wanted it to bear rhetorically. 

To say that something is analogical is to say that it has a sort of proportion to the other thing; they are shaped, in other words, in similar ways. Two unlike things can be analogical to the same object: a baseball diamond and a playing card diamond, for example. Indeed, two opposed things can both be analogical to the same object. In this case, Federal immigration enforcement is being analogized to slave patrols or Nazi Jew-hunters. It is just as legitimate to analogize the illegal immigration system to slavery, in which case the Federal immigration enforcement is... well, you'll see, because I'm going to spell out both analogies after the jump.

Deportations by the Boatload

Still reading American Anarchy, a remarkable book that was well worth the time it is taking from my evenings. I had not realized how incredibly destructive the First World War was to the United States history and traditions, but I now see that the powers seized by the government in that war laid the foundation for the whole security state. The Bureau of Investigation's counterintelligence work in immigrant communities gave rise to the FBI and all the other three-letter police agencies. The NYPD allowed members of its bomb squad (focused as they were on Russian Jewish and Italian bomb-making threats in the migrant communities) to be commissioned into US Army Intelligence and to operate as military counterintelligence within the civilian community. The Espionage Act and later the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment as we understand it today almost completely,* and people were sent to prison for arguing that the draft was unconstitutional or that registering for Selective Service was. 

The Department of Labor, which had been given control of immigration (there was some honesty! Mass immigration was always about providing cheap labor) began stripping the citizenship and arranging for deportations of aliens who had too much to say about America's injustice to workers. Whole shiploads at a time were eventually being sent to now-Soviet Russia. 

Everything we hear complaints about today was being done at a far worse level during the Wilson administration. Woodrow Wilson is of course one of the most admired of Democratic Presidents among today's progressives, even though he was a terrible racist who segregated Washington D.C. He was powerful and effective at transforming the state towards his vision, though, having promised to keep America out of War and then leading her to it instead once re-elected. 

Just today, the WaPo has an editorial arguing that our current moment is different that bows to Wilson as well as to other Presidents who've violated the constitutional order to resolve crises:

At the beginning of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was the government of the United States for 11 weeks, not even calling Congress back into session until he could get the Union war effort begun in a direction he single-handedly established. He blockaded Southern ports, a belligerent act widely understood to be the sole province of Congress. He spent tax dollars that had not been appropriated to raise, provision and deploy troops — all without specific legislative authorization. Later in the war he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which by the conventions of the day amounted to a monumental taking of private property.

Lincoln’s powers were later dwarfed by Woodrow Wilson in World War I, who could, among other things, direct Americans as to how much sugar they could add to their morning coffee. Wilson was granted by a compliant Congress the power to distribute fuels and other public necessaries; to fix wheat prices and coal prices; to take over factories and mines; and to regulate the production of intoxicants. Enhanced legal constraints were created by Congress to control treasonous utterances and punish disloyalty, which the president executed, energetically, through the federal courts.

And during the Great Depression, and then the Second World War, Franklin D. Roosevelt ran a command economy. For a time, he shut down the nation’s banks. 

The author, Russell Riley of the University of Virginia, only alludes to the horrors of the Espionage and Sedition Acts. He does mention that unlike the current President, President Wilson had the support of Congress and the courts. He adds later: 

Wilson became America’s closest approximation to a prime minister, openly courting congressional authorization for virtually everything he did. His Congress was a full governing partner.

So too the Supreme Court, which ruled 9-0 against any suggestion that being drafted against your will to fight and possibly die in a war you didn't support was a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment's clause against involuntary servitude; also against the claim that it was a violation of the First Amendment's freedom of conscience protections.**  

It's been a whole lot worse, and all on the side of consolidating Federal power and control over all levels of American life. At least this administration is sometimes on the side of reducing such power and control, even if they are more enamored of power and control than I wish they were. 

* As for freedom of speech or the press, the Supreme Court didn't see anything wrong with imprisoning you for things like talking bad about the Navy or the war or the President, or suggesting that the draft was wrong or illegal. They only thought the First Amendment prevented prior restraint on speech, but you could be punished however the government liked after you'd been allowed to speak. You could print what you liked as long as you went to prison for it, and with the understanding that so would anyone who helped to distribute the things you printed, that military intelligence would be employed to raid their homes and arrest their compatriots, and that the US Mail would censor and destroy any you tried to send by mail, even in sealed envelopes that the government was free to open and read through to ensure it wasn't forbidden thought being sent. Or birth control advice.

** The draft did allow for conscientious objectors, but only if they were from 'well recognized' religions, and not for secular reasons nor for religions that weren't recognized by the state. The latter omission would today be regarded as a 'establishment of religion' violation, but the SCOTUS of that era didn't think so; they were satisfied that they were willing to admit more than one religion into the category. 

EMS and Battlefield Medicine Update

Some impressive advances being talked about here.

 

When I started in EMS in the early 90s, artificial blood was a hot area of research. More than 30 years later, we're still working on it. The key trick is to get a fluid that can carry oxygen to supply the body's tissues. So far, only real blood does that. Artificial blood could save a lot of lives in civilian EMS and on the battlefield.

Although there were medics before the 1960s, my understanding of the history of the field is that current EMS is the product of the Vietnam War. Military doctors and medics got used to working together and, when they returned home, understood they could do something similar in a civilian setting. The GWOT has improved civilian EMS as well. Talking to young medics today, the advances made in the last 20 years are pretty cool (not to, uh, mention all the life saving).

Disinformation

Here is a rather thorough debunking of a claim about former CIA director Casey's remarks on disinformation, which prove themselves to be disinformation. 

The Rebirth of the Bobarosa

Totally destroyed by Hurricane Helene, the Bobarosa Saloon is now back in business. Any of you motorcycle riders who decide to head up there, let me know and maybe we can link up. 

Talking versus Competence

You may have seen this on Instapundit, which is where I first saw it: every male member of the Supreme Court talks less than every female member; all the male members put together talk less than Kentaji Brown Jackson does alone.

It strikes me that the graph ordering them shows an almost perfectly inverse relationship between the quality of the justice and how much that person talks. I think Gorsuch may be better than Kavanaugh, but he talks very slightly more. Otherwise, the relationship holds completely.

Jackson is of course illegitimate, since she was not nominated by a President who was competent to exercise his office. 

Spring Bash 2025

Saturday definitely did not go the way I had planned. I was going to take my son to a Tolkien-themed event in Asheville, but he came down sick and wasn't fit to travel. 

I had planned (and scheduled) to drop off my bike to be serviced at the Asheville Harley dealer -- the one that became an Air America-style ad hoc airfield during the hurricane relief -- so I went ahead and took the bike over even without him to pick me up and go on to the other thing. Turned out they were having their Spring Bash the same day, so I ended up sticking around for it. 

Good turnout for 9 AM. Kept getting bigger all day.

I like the brass handlebars on this one.

"Crosscut Groove," a local blues band, played live all day.

"Snitches get Stitches" is a great t-shirt.

North Carolina-style Pulled Pork sandwiches: $5 flat, cash.

Unfortunately I turned out to need the ride home because the bike had a frozen piston in the rear brake caliper, so they had to order a new one (or part it out and fix it, but they charge $145/hour for shop labor, so it was cheaper just to have them get a part). I couldn't ride it home since they'd disabled the brakes (which had been working fine as far as I could tell before), so I had to leave it there until they could get the part. I stayed overnight at a local motel and then my wife came to get me today. She wanted to go to the arboretum. 

I think she said this was some kind of orchid.

Plants are pretty boring, but they did have a model railroad that was pretty cool.

View from above.

So kind of a sideways weekend. Not a terrible party, though.

Random Images and a Song

Now that Lent, Holy Week and Easter have passed, I’ll post a song that is a bit irreverent. Also, some photography from my life. 

Love those Springer forks. 

For some, a freshly cut stick is the best thing in life. 

Gotta make sure you’re not going anywhere. 

The local market, just thirteen miles away. It’s pretty Wild West: almost every man you meet there is wearing a gun except me. I wear a knife. 

A non-controversial statue also by the Sylva library.

This is the Way

Civilians with permits stopped the attacks more frequently and faced a lower risk of being killed or injured than police. Officers who intervened during the attacks were far more likely to be killed or injured than those who apprehended the attackers later.

…[A]rmed citizens reduce the number of deaths in active-shooter incidents significantly more than the police do. In fact, armed citizens reduce the number of people killed by 49 percent, while the police increase the number killed by 16 percent in comparison to the omitted class (shooters who are arrested later or stopped by unarmed citizens or stop of their own accord).

Good paper by John Lott and Carlisle Moody.  

A Recruiting Boom

As you may recall, military recruiting has been terrible since the Afghanistan withdrawal demonstrated that the American military was not led by serious people. It was thought that this might be a lasting problem, similar to the recruitment shortfalls in the 1970s after the Vietnam War was thrown away by Congress. 

“This is the start of a long drought for military recruiting,” said Ret. Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank. He said the military has not had such a hard time signing recruits since 1973, the year the U.S. left Vietnam and the draft officially ended. Spoehr said he does not believe a revival of the draft is imminent, but “2022 is the year we question the sustainability of the all-volunteer force.”

The pool of those eligible to join the military continues to shrink, with more young men and women than ever disqualified for obesity, drug use or criminal records. Last month, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville testified before Congress that only 23% of Americans ages 17-24 are qualified to serve without a waiver to join, down from 29% in recent years.

An internal Defense Department survey obtained by NBC News found that only 9% of those young Americans eligible to serve in the military had any inclination to do so, the lowest number since 2007. 

Apparently not.

He may not dress the right way for Esquire, but having a fighting man as SECDEF seems to be having a positive effect on morale and recruitment.