Elon Musk, the world’s richest billionaire, has acquired Twitter, the most important platform for expression–good and bad–in this important historical moment.  He has promised an absolutist vision of “free speech.”  What he doesn’t understand is that free speech isn’t free.  It must be won, fought for, protected and nurtured.  There is a myth that free expression means no holds bar, anything goes.  In reality, every citizen in any democracy must do the very hard work of protecting the ability of all its citizens to express themselves.  

Free speech entails rules–rules we all agree to, a social contract made with each other to ensure that everyone has a voice, so we can create a society where citizens can do the work of solving collective problems.  To speak freely is a commitment to listen to the other point of view, to speak truthfully and thoughtfully.

The answer to destructive speech is not censorship.  However, promoting free speech means discouraging destructive cycles of polarization.  The screaming, misinformation, disinformation, incitement, and harassment are speech that threatens to tear down American democracy, not make anybody free.  They are as dangerous as and not that different from the propaganda of dictators.  They go against democracy and are fundamentally un-American.    

Benjamin Franklin famously quipped, “…a republic if you can keep it…”  What people like Musk do not understand is that keeping a democracy means a commitment from every citizen to engage in–and encourage in others to engage in–the kind of discourse necessary for the functioning of a government by the people.  Musk is doing things technically legal.  But he is acting with a completely blatant disregard for his responsibility as a citizen; and encouraging others to do the same.  The concept that Musk is somehow doing the world a service by creating a platform for unethical speech is twisted and disturbing.  Yes, such speech will inevitably occur.  Yes, every democracy will be forced to deal with it in some way.  No, no one person has the right to deliberately make the problem worse.  Musk is creating a problem that could cost us our democracy.  It is not somehow anti-democratic to do what is needed to discourage and limit disinformation.  Anti-democratic is not recognizing a dangerous conspiracy theory when you hear one and allowing it to go viral.

Elon Musk is a citizen, a very important citizen.  He should fulfill his responsibility as a citizen and do his part to stop speech that is dangerous to his democracy.  If he is unwilling, America needs a new social contract for a new generation facing new challenges.  America must make it clear to Musk that he has been given the benefits of citizenship, benefits that have allowed him to amass a fortune.  Therefore, he has a responsibility to his democracy to do reasonable things to stop the forces twisting free speech to undermine democracy.  Free speech means all of us working together to ensure reasoned, constructive, open, and truthful debate.  This effort is simply the price of free speech.

The attempted shooting on the New York subway brings into focus the need to act in response to gun violence in America.  So far, no one has died, but there is a different and worse tragedy–New Yorkers are afraid to use public transportation.  What advocates of using guns to counter guns forget is that the real tragedy of mass shootings and terrorism is the way they force people to live in fear as they go about their everyday lives.  Nowhere is this more apparent than when listening to people who use the New York subway talk about their fears, and their intention to find other modes of transportation.  This comes at a time when getting people onto public transportation is more important than ever.  Public transportation is still suffering low ridership because of fears of COVID; and, with oil prices soaring, energy conservation has never been more important.  This is the exact worst moment for people to be afraid of the subway system.

Mayor Adams is right to act and to act quickly, and the things that he has put in place are not necessarily bad.  Upping patrols and cracking down on less serious crimes may prove helpful in getting people’s confidence back.  However, these measures will not stop crimes like this–that will take sensible gun control.  The mayor recognizes this.  He also recognizes that no one municipality can do it on their own.  This is a moment to remind ourselves that a majority of the entire nation supports common sense gun control.  

What is at stake is not whether gun control would have stopped this particular incident.  What is at stake is that Americans know, and are afraid because, there is no sensible gun control legislation.  They know that this is not a one off.  Gun violence for the entire nation has become a daily fear.  That’s not something more guns can stop.  Arming common citizens will not deter people like Frank James.  The only way to prevent people like him from attempting violence is by making it hard for people like him to arm themselves.In order to restore a sense of security people need to know that there are legal structures in place that are protecting them from this kind of crime.  Otherwise, mass shooters and terrorists have won the battle before they ever pick up arms.  We must go after mass shooters proactively.  Take the battle to them.  Instead, we are continually told by gun rights advocates to be reactive, wait for the shooter to start to fire.   But, if we wait for the shooter to come to us we will never be free of the worst tragedy–the fact that the entire American population now is forced to live in fear that someone who logically should not have access to a gun can turn on innocent people at any time and at any place.  Someone with a gun being there after the shooting starts does nothing to reassure people as they try to go about their daily lives.

The images from Bucha are horrific and hard to witness. And, if history serves, it will prove very hard to bring those responsible to justice through any court, even with the specter of chemical weapons.  Ukraine is in ruins; if we stopped the war today it will take years if not decades to rebuild.  Most of its population is either refugees or a target of war crimes.  And, an equally terrible global food crisis that promises to kill many more.  Even as we risk having yet another situation where we are unable to assert effective deterrence of  use of chemical weapons; once again red line which will be crossed.  Yet, the West, NATO and the US are still trying to avoid  a conflict, allowing Putin to threaten nuclear force. 

There is growing evidence that sanctions are not working and it will be harder and harder to make them work over time.  Despite western efforts, Russia has managed to pay its international debts.  Rising oil prices mean that Russia is still bringing in millions.  As oil prices rise, China and India are not going to be willing to support sanctions.  Even Europe cannot quickly wean itself off Russia energy.   Putin is an autocrat who doesn’t care about the people who will really suffer because of sanctions–his own people.  In some ways sanctions are counterproductive.  They play into Putin’s domestic misinformation campaign.  He will continue.   There is no deterrence.

The politics of Europe is already shifting.  There are doubts about the long term military commitments of Germany.  The French president is in a close run-off with a candidate who was close to Russia.  The US is squandering  yet another opportunity to capitalize on the world unity and argue for military intervention.  Waiting will just make it harder to bring the world together. Zelensky is right, more needs to be done and more needs to be done now.  

Condemnation is not enough.  Simply arming the Ukrainians is going to prove inadequate.  At best, it will create a long grinding war that slowly wears down the Ukrainian people, similar to what the world saw in Syria.  At worst, it will mean the use of chemical weapons.  At that point, military intervention will become a necessity.  The US would again be in the position it was in during the war in Syria.

  Putin has carte blanche to do as he pleases in Ukraine.   If we are ultimately going to have to confront a nuclear armed Russia, the moment is now.  Every day we wait only brings about more suffering for the Ukrainian people and the world’s hungry. 

As I see the blanket coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, I see a double standard, one with negative consequences.  I do not begrudge the Ukrainian people anything.  What is happening to them is horrific. It’s war crimes.  It deserves our attention.  However, far more people may die from starvation because of the Ukraine war than civilians from bombs.  This isn’t just a  moral problem.  Dramatic rises in food prices are destabilizing.  Not enough is being done to rally the world to ensure that the World Food Program is able to meet people’s needs.  The world community faces a tragedy on the other side of the world that is a humanitarian catastrophe on an even larger scale than that of Ukraine. 

This, in turn, creates another potential complication.  It encourages developing nations to buy from Russia on the black market and refuse to cooperate with sanctions.  If common people in the developing world see America as indifferent to their suffering, and conclude that the West cares only about people with light skin, they are going to be more likely to accept anti-West Russian disinformation.  Sanctions are going to contribute to rising food prices at a time when people around the world face starvation.  Even if the impact is small, people are going to need to know that the US and its allies care about the consequences of their forgien policy for all people the world over.  Otherwise, people in the developing world have no reason to support the West.  We will make allies for our adversary.  Now is the time to win hearts and minds.  America can’t do that if starving people blame US forieng policy for their hungry children.  This isn’t just a question of sanctions and money.  The more allies Putin has the less he will feel like a pariah, and the more emboldened he will be. 

There is an even greater consequence to the global double standard–the Ukraine war itself.  Putin’s actions are nothing new.  The only thing that has changed is the way the West has chosen to respond.  In terms of tactics and conduct, the Chechen War was a near carbon copy of the war in Ukraine.  And, yet, the response of the international community then was abysmal.  Chechnya was not on anybody’s radar.  If we had seen the kind of outpouring we see now, then, we would all be living in a different, (and better) world.

Not to mention Syria.  The global double standard blinded the West to consequences of the war for world stability.  Many felt sorry for the Syrians and agreed to take some of them in, but in the end refused to take the kind of actions we are taking in Ukraine.  Even when chemical weapons were used, the West did not rally the world as we have now.  Over time, Syria and Chechnya both ceased to be top foreign policy issues.  This was not just morally wrong; the unintended consequence was an emboldened dictator and a war close to home.

There is yet another problem emerging with reliance on sanctions to deter Putin’s aggression against Ukraine: enforcement.  Generally,  one of the major ways sanctions are designed to work is by putting economic pressure on the oligarchs who surround a dictator–the hope being that they will turn on him and bring down his regime.  However, many past sanctions, especially sanctions on countries with petroleum wealth, have failed miserably because there is not enough international cooperation to ensure they those sanctions be respected.  

Even as Western nations are putting incredible constraints on the Russian economy, they are still buying Russian oil and gas.  That means it will be very hard to do what sanctions are intended to do most–hit the wealthy elite that surround Putin until they turn on him; thus, getting him out of power.  Furthermore, even if the West completely cut off all Russian oil and gas money today, there are too many other countries willing to step up and buy their oil at below market price on the black market.   This is how a host of countries have successfully evaded petroleum sanctions in the past–for instance, the way Venezuela avoids its Western oil embargo by selling to Iran and China.  History shows that keeping Russia from making money off its oil and gas is going to be next to impossible.  

Additionally, wealthy oligarchs can move money around through complex shell companies and convoluted financial transactions.  It will take a lot to make sure that this time is different–it will take the creation of an apparatus that the world has not yet seen.  We need such an apparatus desperately.  The ability of the super-rich to evade sanctions is a problem that desperately needs to be solved and needs to be solved with all haste.  But, with all haste may mean a long time.  Getting everybody on board and working together can’t be done overnight.  Meanwhile, Ukraine burns.  

There are still many governments around the world that are ambivalent about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  There are developing nations around the world that are expressing sympathy toward the Russian perspective.  From Vietnam to South Africa, Russian disinformation is showing up in national news broadcasts, and common people have come to believe that Russia is fighting a war of self-defense against Western domination.  Countering this narrative is going to be difficult and could send the US closer to another Cold War.  It will have to be done, and it will take time.

Furthermore, not all of those governments are ever going to be willing to come on board–not to mention China, whose next move is anybody’s guess and certainly cannot be relied upon to not help Russia over the long term.  There are too many governments and too many private entities who for their own interests do not want to tackle the problem of sanctions enforcement.  Otherwise, it would have been solved a long time ago. 

          Sanctions are only as strong as their weakest link.  Putin knows this.  He understands the inherent weaknesses built into the system.  It is much of the reason he is ignoring international law and targeting civilians.  He believes he can destroy Ukraine without feeling the full effects of the sanctions. 

          This isn’t to say that sanctions shouldn’t be there.  They are absolutely necessary.  The international community needs to use every tool at its disposal.  However, there are two problems: enforcement issues mean it will take valuable time for the full force of sanctions to be felt; and there are going to be nations and private entities that are going to be unwilling to assist in enforcement.  

Sanctions are not going to be effective soon enough to actually deter Putin.  If Putin feels he can wait out the West he will try, and over time the deterrent effect of sanctions may prove to be fleeting.  We will end up chasing Putin’s oligarchs around.

As the costs of helping displaced Ukrainians become clear and images of destruction in Ukraine fill our news, the international community should step up militarily.  President Zelensky is right. We need a no-fly zone, now, especially considering the difficulty that the Ukrainian army is going to have in the future trying move, without adequate air defenses, the material the world community has generously provided.  On the all-important humanitarian front, it is wonderful to see the welcom that Ukrainian refugees are recieveing in some of the poorer nations of the European Union.  However, those countries will have to be reimbursed.  This at a time when inflation is hitting both the EU and the US hard. That is on top of the effects of sanctions. I am in no way at all begrudging the brave Ukrainian people support. We need to find every way we can to support Ukraine as they fight for freedom and their democracy. However, it is pointless to make serious financial commitments when making a military one would be better in the long run.

Right now, what the international community is doing is allowing Putin to play a dangerous game of chicken with his stockpiles of nuclear weapons and his willingness to broaden this war. Financially speaking, we are letting the Russians score a victory, and an important one. Even as we put intense economic pressure on the Russian war machine, which desperately needs to be done, we are allowing Russia to create a long-term financial problem for the West. Eventually, we will have to pay for the destruction of Ukraine. And, if you look at the bombings that Putin has carried out, it is clear that he understands that.  

Not intervening militarily to protect Ukraine now means paying for devastation later. Seeing that we have made it clear that our solidarity with the Ukrainian people doesn’t mean a willingness to commit to war, Putin may take the tack of wearing down Western governments financially. This could become an Achilles heel for the West. Even if the West is willing to make the long-term financial commitments it needs to make, Putin may perceive weakness. Because the world community is still sending mixed messages about the nature of our support, Putin may bide his time and hope for an erosion of the willingness to stand behind Ukraine financially.

Waiting will prove to be futile. Either the US will be forced into the conflict when it spills over into NATO territory; or face a grinding, protracted conflict that shipments of arms just will not help. As for widening the war, the reality is that Putin is going to do what he is going to do, and the time is now, not later, to confront his nuclear war saber rattling. Otherwise, we give him the upper hand, and a chance to wear down the world community in slow motion.

As the world turns its attention to the crisis in Ukraine.  I am reminded that the word for “crisis” in Chinese is the same as “opportunity.”   This moment is an opportunity for the international community to step up and reaffirm the importance of a post-WWII worldview–a world order in which the aggression of the larger over the smaller is not tolerated.  Instead of pointless arguments with Russia about their endless deceptions, send a message to all aggressors that the world community will not allow the gains that came about in response to the tragedies of WWII to be threatened without a fight.  

There are too many parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the early aggressions of the Third Reigch.  Putin, and Russian aggression toward Ukraine, should set off alarm bells that the world must reaffirm what was learned during WWII.  Although the response from the West is far from an apology of appeasement, it is also not enough.  There are too many echos of an aggressive state using linguistic and cultural similarities as an excuse to annex a sovereign nation.  It to say that simply going to war and abandoning hope of diplomacy is the right path forward.  But, the world community should draw the line at a humanitarian crisis.

Just allowing a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine in the wake of a Russian invasion makes no sense.  In terms of manpower and money, over the long haul, it will make sense to go ahead and send troops now to promote government stability.  What interest does anybody anywhere have in Ukraine becoming a failed state?  Not only is this increaeinly inevitable it is Putin’s real motive.  The purpose of his invasion is not be so much to conquer Ukraine as to throw it into crisis–through cyber attacks, a war of attrition from proxies, and a slow wearing down of the will of the West to impose sanctions to stop him.   Instead of constant arguing about what he will do next, which puts Putin in control of the conversation and the situation, the world community should commit to military intervention to prevent the collapse of what has suddenly become one of the world’s most important democracies.  This is the world community’s opportunity to draw the line, a line that the world community should have drawn a long time ago.  Tell Putin, and the world, he will not be allowed to destroy a sovereign democracy and create a humanitarian disaster without a full on effort to stop him.

It is time to send troops to Ukraine.  Not only for the sake of the proud, brave Ukrainian people, but for the sake of all small nations all over the world.  Otherwise, the international community risks sending the message that its collective military firepower is irrelevant.  It does the world community little good to amass weapons and then not use them when use of force is truly justified–in order to prevent and address a humanitarian crisis.

Today, in America, we have an incredible number of police officers dying in the line of duty.  Not from gunshots, but because they are refusing the Covid vaccine.  Those most vulnerable, on the front lines, and most likely to unwittingly spread the virus, who logically cannot socially distance, do not trust the best science and best scientists there are.

For years, scientists have been sounding the alarm–science in America is under assault, and that that assault would have devastating consequences.  Now, the nation faces a time of crisis, the worst pandemic in over a century, and it is becoming clear just how right they are.  It is useless to build government institutions not trusted by their people.  Anthony Fauci and the CDC have no purpose if people do not recognize them as an authority.  We are no better off as a people, in fact we are in some ways worse off, as if we did not have those institutions at all when they are not trusted.  

In the beginning it was possible to understand a degree of hesitancy in communities of color, particularly in African American communities; long standing mistrust of the medical establishment was a barrier.  Those barriers have been largely overcome by intense and smart pro-vaccination campaigns. As the long and turbulent medical history of America that has created so much distrust has finally been addressed well enough, the gap between vaccination rates in white and Black communities has narrowed.  

            It is time for a national conversation, and not one simply about vaccines and the risks of the coronavirus, but about the purpose of institutions like the CDC and Anthony Fauci.  What is their purpose if not as trusted voices in a crisis?  In life, we must accept that we do not each as individuals know everything.  I accept that I am no expert on virology.  I am willing to turn to others I do trust.   It is this shared trust that enables me to work together with others to solve problems that we face collectively, problems that cannot be faced alone.  This basic system of trust is what has eroded.  It is not really a problem of individuals refusing to receive the vaccine.  It is a problem of individuals refusing to be part of the whole in a moment of crisis.   

When a crisis comes, all societies need people that can be trusted to get them through that crisis—to be a voice of reason, to hold the people together. Without that they will inevitably fall apart.  A common belief in science is a glue that holds America together.  Now, in that moment of crisis we are discovering the terrible consequences of an assault on science—an assault that many dismissed as unimportant.  Now, we need not only science we can trust but a people willing to trust it.

By now we have all heard about the climate crisis–from wildfires devastating wineries in the West; to buildings that can no longer be insured in Florida; to the inability of Chicago to deal with its waste because water levels in Lake Michigan have begun swinging wildly. It is clear that climate change is here and now, everywhere in the world. Rich nations will not be immune.
Climate change has affected me personally. The entire neighborhood of my childhood was demolished in the wake of the 2008 flood. It was about 20 homes, situated on an island where there had always been flooding. Still, it brought it home. Climate change is real here in Iowa. The rich productivity of the land here relied on a cycle of cold winters with heavy snows and hot humid summers. The harsh winters and hot summers made Iowa a difficult place to live in, but they also made the corn grow. Now, every winter, the snowfall is less. Every summer it floods more. Farmers here are increasingly dependent on GMO crops. The moral of the story: no one anywhere is unaffected by climate change.
And that leads to the real crisis behind climate change–a crisis far harder to deal with even than the droughts and floods that threaten entire industries. It is a crisis of confidence in science, a crisis of critical thinking. I can look out at my life–my childhood home, my community’s farmers, and see the threat of climate change. But there are people around me that can’t. How can people mistrust not only science, but evidence in their everyday lives?
One of the primary functions of government is to overcome the destructive human propensity to want to be told that a complex threat either isn’t real or that it won’t affect them personally. It is a universal human tendency, but one that must be addressed in order to maintain a democracy. Building a functional democratic society requies telling people what they don’t want to hear. It is hard, but no gain in climate science will mean anything until the eletment of human psychology is overcome. Government can and must ways to overcome this human tendency. This ethic has been largely forgotten in America.
The question that needs to be asked most right now is not how do we go about the mechanics of slowing and eventually stopping climate change–we know how to do that. The technology and the know-how largely exist. What absolutely has to happen for us to overcome it, is to address the propensity in all of us to believe someone when they are telling us what we want to hear. The enemy is not nature or even the carbon we are putting into the air–the enemy is something that exists in all of us.

As the tragic events in Jerusalem play out Biden’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come into question.  It is understandable why Biden might reach the point of just not wanting to address the Israeli-Palestinian question.  A solution to this problem has evaded generations of American and world leaders.  But there is a moral imperative.  For one, the terrible loss of life; but it is also wrong for a place with so much significance to so many to not be a place of peace.  The seat of the three Abrahamic faiths should not be a place of violence and bloodshed, but a place where all can worship in peace.  

       There is room for condemnation on both sides.  It is never permissible, under any circumstance, to target innocent civilians in rocket attacks.  However, what is needed is clear heads and a willingness to do what is needed to end the conflict, rather than the constant back and forth blame laying.  The rightness or wrongness of Hamas is not what is at stake.  

Israel is allowing a powerful but exceedingly small minority to control the fate of the conflict.  Of course, Ultra-Orthodox Jews have a real and very deep connection to a sacred land.  But, the global community cannot automatically place their attachment to this land above that of their neighbors.  The issue at stake is how to remove from the conflict a group of people who are unwilling or incapable of reaching peace.  If the Ultra-Orthodox were to be forced to back down, the power of Hamas might be very much diminished, bringing a solution to a seemingly impossible conflict.

This is where the US and the world community could step in.  Biden faces a terrible problem, but he also has a tremendous opportunity.  It is an excellent moment to turn to the Haredi minority who are provocative and violating the human rights of Palestinians and make it clear that if they do not change the way they approach the conflict, they cannot remain part of the process.   This is the right moment to confront the Netanyahu administration.  The world community cannot afford to allow his administration to gain political advantage by empowering people who are too radical in their religious beliefs to accept a world where everyone has equal rights.

       Jews can maintain a connection to the land that does not disregard the shared humanity of their Palestinian neighbors.  The legal arguments being used to evict Palestinians from their homes are not only discriminatory, they are senseless.  There is an imperative in Judaism for respecting the right of people to remain in their homes.  There is no place in any faith for simply disregarding the faith of another.  There is no just cause to cater to one small minority who cannot put peace above a connection to a sacred land.