First Big 2024 Decision

Just When I Thought I Was Out....

Word is, we’ll pick a President again in 16 months, a process that has taken a lot out of me since the summer of 2011. Right around this time that summer, I headed out to Iowa and worked the phones for the Mitt Romney campaign. I would end up as an advisor on Navy issues and like a lot of people who worked for his election, I was truly shocked that he didn’t win. Not that there was ever even a single poll that said he would, mind you. We just felt it. Yeah. I know.

Four years later about this time, I signed on with the Marco Rubio campaign, back when he appeared to be a man of principle and substance, and I worked Navy issues on that campaign too. He would light himself on fire on a New Hampshire debate stage as part of the process in which the Republican Party would ultimately settle on the man who caused me to leave the Republican Party and vote third party in 2016.

In 2020, I voted for Joe Biden because I wanted one and only one thing from him, and that was the removal of the then occupant of the office. Joe Biden delivered on his end of the bargain and won the election. My vote for him came under the “Buckley Rule”, which is to vote for the most conservative person in the race. As my brand of conservatism is that of conserving the blessings of our Founding as enshrined in the Constitution, I could not vote for the man with no regard for the document, and my decision was validated when he summoned, instructed, inspired, and directed a violent attack on it. His successor—President Biden—has not attacked the Constitution in violent insurrection, but he has sufficiently attacked it in word and deed as to render him unworthy of another vote. So I look to the Republican field (minus one) to supply me with possibilities.

Note: get it though your thick head (some of you), I am a CONSERVATIVE of the Burke, Kirk, Buckley, and Reagan variety. My allegiance is to the IDEAS, and parties are transitory, illusional, and imperfect vessels for those ideas.

In what appears to be an early event in the sixteen month process that will yield our next President, “Christians” in Iowa held a “Family Leadership Summit” last week and invited GOP candidates to a one on one with Tovarisch Tucker Carlson as their interlocutor.

I’ve been trying hard to sit this election out, mostly, thinking that I’d either find one of the Republicans worth voting for or just vote third party again if we get the Biden-Trump Shitshow. So I wasn’t locked on to the press coverage of Tucker Carlson and the GOP hopefuls. I did manage to see enough—both of Carlson’s obvious agenda in attacking Pence and Scott on Ukraine, and of DeSantis’ ridiculous attempt to have it all ways on the same subject—to arrive at a red-line for 2024 (one I’ve considered drawing, but haven’t until now).

I will not vote for anyone in this election who:

• does not believe Russia losing in Ukraine is a core national security interest of the United States.

• is not committed to continuing to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

• attempts to curry favor with the mouth-breathing pro-Putin wing of the GOP

• attempts to gussy up his or her coolness to the war in Ukraine in some geostrategic babble about China needing all of our attention.

Please notice what I did not say.

• I did not say I support a “blank check” for Ukraine, which is the charge the Putin-proletariat on the right makes about Biden’s support. I haven’t seen a single credible source advocate for a “blank check”, but I’d be happy to put my argument FOR one against anyone else’s argument for cutting off support. See, I can play zero sum games too. Besides, the assertion that Biden’s given a blank check is laughable.

• I did not say I support American troops on the ground in Ukraine or American warplanes in the skies over Ukraine. Ukrainians are doing just fine fighting and dying for their own future, and as long as we keep sending them bombs and butter, there isn’t a need for American troops.

So for those keeping score, I think I can scratch Trump (obviously), DeSantis, and Ramaswamy from my list of those I could vote for in 2024.

On Legacy Admissions

The Supreme Court recently found that practicing racism was not a Constitutional method for ending racism, a decision that the American people appear to support (even though public support is not for the Supremes to measure). One of the interesting developments since the ruling has been the invigoration of the “we need to end legacy admissions” discussion, and I have been delighted to follow it. I have an uneasy relationship with the concept of giving a child a bump because of where his/her parent went to school. As a high school student applying to competitive colleges (neither of whose parents graduated from college), I remember thinking it annoying and somewhat unjust, but as this was the early 80’s, my political consciousness was somewhat less-developed, and I didn’t fixate on it. As a parent, the possibility that one of my Kittens might GET the little bump was attractive to me, and whatever feelings of “justice” I have or had were suppressed in the noble cause of sending forth another enthusiastic UVA graduate to the waiting and deserving world.

Legacy admissions is a reasonable strategy for colleges and universities to pursue in order to protect a revenue stream sufficient to fund the staggering number of administrators required to maintain a modern institution of higher learning. What, without the possibility of junior getting a leg up on the competition, mom and dad might very well forgo the annual “giving” donation that they believe will someday be accounted for at admissions time, not to mention the very real loss of large donations made in service to the same outcome. Without the comfort of this revenue, where would the money come from to maintain the DEI grift, the Title IX star-chambers, and the “partnerships” with “universities” in Doha? I mean, how could a modern, socially-aware institution POSSIBLY afford to virtue-signal sufficiently to attract the next generation of social-justice trustafarians necessary to resource the infinite goal of appearing?

I don’t think a private institution maintaining legacy admissions is unconstitutional, and I don’t think a public institution maintaining legacy admissions in the absence of state law banning it, is illegal. What I DO think is that college admissions is not untouched by free market principles that most of them spend four years trying to stamp out of their students, and after the (required, just) dismantling of the “affirmative action” boost, there is a just plain fairness argument for universities to dismantle the legacy bump too. You can’t very well go around trumpeting a merit-based system of admissions while fudging the files of rich, well-educated children of deep-pocketed alums. Growing public awareness (and rejection) of this advantage is what will ultimately bring about its end. And we can chalk it up to a happy happenstance flowing from a truly great Supreme Court decision.

Probably No CW Next Week

The Kitten and I are heading off this week to join some friends on their sailboat. I figure I’ll spend a little time doing some doing a travelogue, something readers seem to enjoy as my curmudgeonly reaction to the invariable discomforts of modern travel amuses others who gain strength from my pain. I’ll post that when I return.