Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com.  

Before we begin, I’d just like to say A+ on the comments section last week. Maybe that’s an odd thing to congratulate, but I was just very pleased with how the conversation went on the whole, so keep it up. Believe it or not, we do consider all the comments that come in even if we don’t post responses, so keep the conversation going. That’s all; just wanted to say thanks. To the mailbag:

Q: Nathan asks: “Julian Assange: Hero? Villian? Somewhere in between?”

A: Villain. My suggestion: Throw him in the oubliette and melt down the key. Assange has gotten his love primarily from two groups in the past, (1) civil libertarians and groups opposed to US foreign intervention, and (2) right-wingers who were happy with the document dump he had on Hillary Clinton during 2016. To the latter group I just have to say that, regardless of the extent to which Assange played a useful idiot in beating Clinton, the turnaround in opinion was rather awkward, especially since conservatives largely wanted this guy strung up by his entrails a few years back. Trump essentially played St. Schultz the other day on Wikileaks, “I know nothing, nothing at all about Wikileaks.” Well, that’s mightily convenient given all the praise you gave them during 2016. See, I can call out my own when they deserve it. Again, the document dump on Clinton doesn’t make Assange a hero; it just makes him a useful idiot.

Now, for the first group, I understand the argument that we need to protect journalistic freedom and the spread of information, and we should celebrate when governmental abuses are brought to light. That, however, is a striking minority of what Assange released several years back. A journalist would have curated the information and been sensitive with respect to what was posted. Assange did none of that. He posted troop transport schedules, military secrets about how to disable US equipment, the names of Afghan helpers, etc. He put many lives in danger, and there are likely several people dead as a result. David French put it well, he’s not a journalist; he’s a non-state intelligence operative. More than that, he is a very credible candidate for ‘Russian Pawn of the Year,’ and reports of his personal behavior show that he’s just a generally vile, scummy individual. So, yes. Find the darkest region of the dungeon and throw him away for good. The world will be a much better place without him.

Q: Nathan also asks: “Do you think Democrats are starting to support slavery reparations as a way to sure up their support with black voters in light of the improving employment numbers for the black community?”

A: Well first of all, let’s just be thankful for the improved employment numbers as a matter of fact. I think it’s probably one of the undersung parts of the Trump administration so far. Yes, I think there’s a definite element of that there, but it’s part of a broader move by Democrats to pander to the intersectional crowd which is overrunning their base. All signs point to a rather radical 2020 platform for the Democrats, and this is simply a component part of that plan. In a less polarized and mercurial time, I doubt we’d see the reparations idea take any real hold.

Q: Charles Erwin Wilson asks: “What is your opinion of civic culture/beautification projects? Parks, sports stadiums, museums, etc. – a valuable investment or a waste of resources? Best handled at the local level or the national level?”

A: Funny enough, I actually debated this with a coworker a few days back, which should tell you something about how productively I use my time. In short, I am not principled enough to care. If I sat down with my econ books and some utility functions and maybe a graph or two, I’d probably find some deadweight loss and inefficiency with them. But you know what? I just don’t care.

Tyler Cowen made a similar point on agricultural subsidies the other day while discussing his new book on Big Business. Are subsidies a bad economic idea? Yup, there’s really nothing economically redeeming about them, but if it’s $20-40 billion out of a $4 trillion budget? Meh, maybe we have bigger fish to fry right now. Pensions and government healthcare take up ~60% of the budget by themselves, and the interest alone is now 9% of the budget. With limited political capital, I think we need to put it towards cutting spending where’s it’s going to have a noticeable impact. Tackling subsidies may just have to be a luxury issue for now, save for where we can more easily hash and slash them.

Moreover, I just like my beauty objects, doggone it. I passed a fountain on my way to work the other day, and I actually thought, “What a nice fountain on a nice day. My walk has been marginally improved as a result. God bless the public works industry.” I know my taxes pay for those ‘free’ museums and parks, but you know what, who cares? I like being able to waltz in whenever I want, and I think the parks service does a nice job anyway. They provide a metaphysical blessing to my overall well-being. We have enough focus on efficiency in this society; how about a little appreciation of beauty for a change? So in short, yes I like my beautification objects. Now get off my manicured lawn, you whippersnappers.

Q: Charles also asks: “What’s with all this Lakers trauma? Last summer it seemed like they had a good thing going.”

A: Well, I’ve talked about the Lakers before, and I will reiterate what I said before. They were a mediocre team without Lebron, so it would make sense if they became an excellent team with Lebron. Apparently not, it would seem. No doubt Lebron’s injury played a role in their poor showing, but that certainly doesn’t explain everything. Add to that the recent top brass departures, and it’s a truly strange situation. For now, I’ll chalk it up to birthing pains and wait to see what happens next season.

Q: Charles finally asks: “In the Democratic primary, what role might Hillary Clinton play? How likely is she to make a serious intervention, and if so are there any candidates more likely to receive her support in your opinion?”

A: I think I’ve commented on this in the past, and the short answer is that I think she’s an old guard power broker at this point but not a particularly serious one. I suspect Obama’s endorsement is going to be far more influential than Clinton’s, but I’m not even sure Obama’s endorsement may be the most important one anymore. Most of the candidates are running to the left of both Obama and Clinton, and the intersectional blessing is probably going to take the cake over the anointing of the old guard.

To be frank, I don’t see Clinton playing any outsized role in 2020; she’s simply dead weight at this point. But, stranger things have happened, so we’ll see. As for who gets Clinton’s endorsement in particular, I think Biden or Buttigieg are the logical favorites, with a longshot chance of Sanders getting it as a thanks for his ‘support’ (read: sacrifice at the hands of the DNC) in 2016.

A Final Reflection:

A couple weeks back, one of my pals from work and I discussed the debasement of language in our culture and the problems associated with it. Our focus at the time was said debasing in the political arena. Realistically, it’s not a bad idea to ascribe a certain degree of sacredness to language simply because of the way our minds function in regard to its use. Terms like ‘racist’ or ‘Nazi’ shouldn’t be thrown around because racists and Nazis are genuinely horrific individuals, some of the worst society has ever known. If those terms get deployed as scattershot against any idea we find objectionable, they ultimately become meaningless, and the culture begins to lose its capacity to identify true evil, which you can bet your postmodern keister is a surefire recipe for chaos and destruction.

And so it was with some apprehension that I witnessed a remarkable move in a debate between an atheist and a Christian yesterday. The atheist pressed the Christian on the Bible’s use of metaphors, and the Christian (rightly, I think) responded that we can tell the difference between metaphor, factual statement, and other mediums by their context, culture, and our general capacity for grasping language. “For example,” the Christian said, “If I say this car cost me an arm and a leg, you don’t actually think of that literally, right?” The atheist responded, “Well, maybe it did actually cost you an arm and a leg.” And, to my surprise, she was quite serious.

You have to wonder about the subtle fanaticism of someone who is willing to offer language itself upon the altar just to fight God. I doubt most atheists would resort to that kind of tactic, but I think it should serve as a fair warning to us all to constantly be reviewing our talking points for dormant disasters like that one. Some things are sacred by choice, others by necessity. If we want to keep the good society we have, we best keep language sacred one way or the other.