If you want a clue to the basic reason behind Trump’s capitulating “Memorandum of Understanding,” just read his attempted justification for allowing the Iranians to keep their ballistic missiles:

“I mean, they have to have some, because other people have some. . . . I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some.”

True, the reference to “other countries” was to other despotisms in that region. But the whole point of this nominal war was to eliminate a significant threat to America. And Iran is the nation posing that danger. It is Iran that is dominated by an ideology that regards America as the “Great Satan” which needs to be annihilated. It is Iran that is spearheading jihadism across the globe. It is Iran, therefore, that needs to be defeated and disarmed. Yet Trump is concerned about being “unfair” to Iran by removing its arsenal of ballistic missiles.

An effective foreign policy must make moral discriminations. It must identify the nature of a country that is an enemy, and the nature of a country that is a friend. Merely looking at a country’s weaponry cannot guide us. Nuclear bombs in the hands of Iran or North Korea are very different from nuclear bombs in the hands of England or France. Just as the guns possessed by criminals call for a very different evaluation than do guns possessed by the police.

But Trump is incapable of making such moral evaluations. Whatever the conflict—Ukraine vs. Russia, Israel vs. the Palestinians—he cannot understand which side deserves our support and which our condemnation. And even when it comes to Iran, he does not comprehend the fundamental moral distinction between that nation and ours.

Instead, he sees only two haggling parties that need to come to some agreement. What he sees is an opportunity to impress the world with his deal-making skills.

This amoral approach to Iran has, predictably, led to disaster. Trump engaged in a war that will not result in the categorical defeat of an enemy and the irreversible removal of its ability to threaten us. He does not grasp the reason Iran is a threat. Instead he declares that he has achieved a change of regime in Iran, because “we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before.” The fact that they hold the same ideas—the same theocratic, America-hating ideas—means nothing to him. Because ideas, particularly ideas of morality, mean nothing to him.

“[The] development [of law] during the last hundred years has become increasingly one of the destruction of justice by 'social justice', until even some students of jurisprudence have lost sight of the original meaning of 'justice'. In substance this has meant that the individual ... has become increasingly subject to the commands of authority....
    "This totalitarian trend appear[s] under a moral guise. It is indeed the concept of ‘social justice’ which has been the Trojan Horse through which totalitarianism has entered.”

~ FA Hayek from his 1976 book Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice [pp 135-6]

We will know that the reparations debate is morally serious when this question is a part of the mix: How much does Ghana owe the USA? Why? “The Ashanti Empire (1701–1901) in modern-day Ghana was a prominent participant in the slave trade. Enslavement was primarily fueled by warfare, where the empire acquired captives from rival […]

John Stossel's latest column is eye-opening for three reasons, perhaps the least being the astounding safety record of Waymo's driverless cars:

Waymo claims its cars are 10 times safer than human-driven ones. I wouldn't believe that if insurance companies, with their own money at stake, didn't agree.

Reinsurance News reports Waymos had an "88 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 92 percent reduction in bodily injury claims."

"We have the data," says Adam Thierer, author of Permissionless Innovation. "94 percent of all accidents are attributable to human error ... We can address one of the leading killers of Americans."

Stossel notes earlier that car accidents kill 100 Americans per day.

I heard that such cars were safer, but I had no idea how much safer they were.

Even more incredible -- although appalling is a better term -- is the fact that mafioso-like politicians are waging war against driverless cars and are -- thanks to the altruism behind their featherbedding rationale -- proud of the comparison:

[Luis] Sepulveda [(D-NY)] responds: "Waymo is going to make billions of dollars -- let them pay for the disruption to the labor force."

"Sounds like a mafia pitch," I push back. "'Want to come here, Waymo? You have to pay.'"

"If the pitch sounds like a mafia pitch, so be it," Sepulveda replies.

I thought I might change his thinking by making a creepy comparison, telling him his ban would kill more people than infamous serial killers have. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy combined killed about 80 people. Human-driven cars kill more people every day.

"The data on Waymo is not 100 percent safety," he replies. "A Waymo vehicle struck a child in California."

Like most critics, he cites isolated incidents. Even that child wasn't injured. [bold added]

The daily human sacrifice of 100 humans to the god of make-work reminds me of Ayn Rand's apt turn-of-phrase to describe altruism: moral cannibalism.

If this isn't a story that at once shows the power of altruism to motivate and whitewash evil, I don't know what is.

-- CAV