I Believe

We are a month away from the midterm elections, and the American people are poised to hold the party in power accountable.
Republicans raised taxes on the American people. They called those taxes tariffs, but tariffs are taxes. Then they supported going to war in Iran, which created an energy supply problem. And whenever you have an energy supply problem, prices are going to go up, because as the price of energy goes up, the price of making things goes up and the price of delivering things goes up.
So now prices are higher. And while some individual prices can come down, the overall price level generally does not go back to where it was before. If your groceries went from $100 to $120, slowing inflation does not make them cost $100 again. The American people understand that because they live it. So they are going to hold Republicans accountable.
The Republican response may be that President Trump did those things, not Republican lawmakers. That is not the case.
When a military officer crosses the yellow line to participate in Officer Training School, he or she accepts an obligation that goes beyond their own behavior. They swear that they will “not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.” The second part matters just as much as the first. It is not enough to say, “I did not do it.”
There is a philosophical idea here that applies. A difference between doing something and allowing something to happen. Those are not exactly the same thing. But if you have the power to act, you understand what is happening, you have a responsibility to act, and you knowingly choose not to act, then that inaction is also a choice. That is what I mean by willful acquiescence.
Republicans in Congress may not have voted directly for every tariff or every military action, but they were not powerless. Congress has authority over commerce. It has authority over spending. It has enormous power over war and executive action. They could have acted. They chose not to. So they do not get to say, “That was the president. It wasn’t us.” They chose not to stop him, and now the American people may hold them accountable for that choice.
I say ‘may’ which also means ‘may not.’ Because the American voter has another problem. What’s the alternative?
The Democratic Party is not exactly popular either. So if Democrats win the midterm elections, they have to be very careful about what they think happened. The American people may vote against Republicans without deciding that they suddenly trust Democrats. Those are two very different things. A voter can say, “I do not trust the Democrats very much, but somebody has to put a check on the Republicans.”
That is not an endorsement. That is borrowed power. And if Democrats misunderstand that, they will waste the opportunity.
Because the Democrats have a much bigger problem than Donald Trump. They do not have a plan.
They can tell us which programs Republicans cut. They can tell us which programs they want to restore. They can tell us what they want to put back the way it was before Trump. But the American people already lived through the way it was before Trump. And then they elected Trump again.
So simply going backwards is not a plan. If Democrats win in 2026, restore a few programs, congratulate themselves, and believe America has come back to them, they may lose again in 2028 to another candidate who should never have been competitive in the first place.
So the Democrats have to answer a more basic question: Why do we exist?
Simon Sinek uses the idea of Why, How, and What. That methodology is useful here. What is the Democratic Party’s Why?
For most of modern American history, the Republican Party was fairly easy to understand. It was pro-business. It believed in lower taxes, free markets, deregulation, and a strong military. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Business matters. Markets matter. Economic growth matters.
But somebody has to balance the interests of business against the interests of the individual.
That was supposed to be the Democratic Party. The Democrats were supposed to be the party that said, “Yes, business is important, but the people who work for that business are important too.”
Over time, though, something changed. The Democratic Party stopped looking like the pro-people party and started looking like the pro-government party. That is a major problem, because government is not the point. The people are the point. Government is only a tool.
And somewhere along the way, Democrats started to reverse the relationship. The central American philosophy is that the people are independent and the government serves them. But too often, the Democratic approach makes the government the king and makes the people the subjects. You have to qualify. You have to apply. You have to wait. You have to ask permission. You have to hope the program still exists next year.
That is backwards. The government is not the sovereign. The people are.
That needs to become the Democratic Party’s Why again: serve the people.
Then you get to the How. How do you serve the people? By creating a system that makes them more capable of living their own lives. The goal should be autonomy, not dependence. Not dependence on a corporation, and not dependence on the government.
The How is balancing the interests and power of business with the interests and power of the individual person. Government is the tool Democrats can use to keep that balance—changing the rules, regulating where necessary, and redesigning incentives so businesses can succeed while the people who work for them also succeed.
But the answer is not simply to move more money through the government. It is to design the system so more of the benefit reaches people through their own work, their own wages, their own ownership, and their own choices.
And that means Democrats have to think very differently about government programs. If somebody has to come to the government, prove that they qualify, fill out paperwork, wait to be approved, receive some benefit, and then worry that the next Congress is going to take that benefit away, that person may be receiving help. But they are also dependent on the continued permission of the government. Sometimes that is necessary. But it should not be the first answer to every problem.
Take wages. If somebody works full time and still does not make enough money to buy food, the first question should not be, “How much government assistance should we give that person?” The first question should be, “Why does a person working full time not make enough money to buy food?”
Because if an employer doesn’t pay enough to support the worker, and the government takes money from somebody else and gives it to the worker to make up the difference, what has really happened? The money may be the same. But the philosophical point is different. The worker is receiving part of what he or she needs to live from the government instead of through work. And the government has become the intermediary between the worker and economic independence.
There is a better way. Instead of simply making the minimum wage higher everywhere—which ignores enormous differences between places like New York and South Dakota—we should think about how government can help businesses raise wages. Many businesses, especially businesses in rural America, don’t have unlimited revenue. Simply ordering them to pay substantially more may not work.
But government can change incentives. It can change tax policy. It can design the rules so businesses have a financial reason, and the financial ability, to put more money into their employees’ paychecks. The point is not the exact mechanism. The point is where the money ends up coming from.
Whenever possible, the worker would rather receive that money from his or her employer than receive it from the government. The money may ultimately cost society the same amount. But the relationship is completely different. One creates a worker earning a higher wage. The other creates a citizen waiting for a government benefit. That difference matters.
SNAP is a good example. There are people who need help buying food. I am not criticizing those people. Many of them work. That is exactly the point. If somebody is working and still needs government assistance just to eat, then before we build another program, we should ask whether the rules of the economy can be changed so businesses are able and incentivized to pay higher wages. Government should try to make the better outcome the default.
The same thing applies to housing. If people cannot afford housing, we can give them money to help pay rent. Sometimes we need to. But that cannot be the entire answer. Why is housing so expensive? Why is it so hard to build more of it? Why do we have rules that make construction harder? Why do we make it so difficult for the next generation to buy a house? If government can change the rules so more housing gets built and more people can afford it on their own, that is better than making people permanently dependent on a housing program.
Healthcare is the same. If somebody has a $10,000 healthcare bill, we can build another government program to help pay the $10,000 bill. But at some point we have to ask why the bill is $10,000. The goal should not simply be helping people survive absurd prices. The goal should be making the prices less absurd.
That is what I mean by being pro-people instead of pro-government.
But there is an important exception. There are needs that we cannot solve by changing incentives. Some people have disabilities that prevent them from working. Some people have medical conditions that will never go away. Some children are born into circumstances they did not create. Some families get hit by disasters. There are people who genuinely cannot provide for themselves.
In those cases, government should help them directly, reliably, and without making them feel ashamed about it. There is no better economic incentive that is going to make a person with a severe disability suddenly able to work. That is a need society has to meet.
This is similar to what we talked about yesterday. Jesus fed people who were hungry. He addressed the need in front of him. There is a moral obligation to help someone who needs help. But that does not mean the goal is permanent dependence when independence is possible. Feed the person who is hungry. Support the person who cannot support himself or herself. But where people can become independent, design the system to make independence easier.
That should be the Democratic Party’s How.
And then we get to the What. The What is the actual legislation, the actual rules, and the actual results. Every proposal should have to answer one question: when this is over, does the citizen have more control over his or her own life?
Can they afford a house? Can they support a family? Can they move to another job? Can they start a business? Can they get healthcare without being ruined? Can they live in their community without having to continually ask Washington for permission or assistance?
That question is especially important in rural America, because Democrats have lost rural America. And they aren’t going to get it back with better messaging.
They aren’t going to get it back by sending somebody to a county fair. They are not going to get it back because a national candidate puts on boots and takes a picture next to a tractor. And it is not enough to say there are Democrats in Congress who happen to come from rural states or rural districts.
That is not the representation I mean.
Rural America needs power inside the leadership of the Democratic Party. People from rural America need to be helping set the agenda, deciding what the party stands for, and determining what policies are worth pursuing. They need people in leadership who can say, “No. That may sound like a good idea here, but that will hurt people where I live.”
That also means the Democrats need to develop national candidates who actually come from rural America. Not candidates who visit it. Candidates formed by it.
Because the Democratic Party will not regain rural America when it learns how to speak to rural Americans. It will regain rural America when rural Americans once again have enough power inside the leadership of the party to speak for themselves.
And that brings us back to this election.
If Democrats win in November, they should not celebrate as though the American people have forgiven them. They should understand that the clock has started.
They have two years. Two years to build an actual plan. Two years to decide what they believe. Two years to develop legislation and ideas that rural America can look at and say, “That makes my life better. That makes me more independent. That gives me more control over my own future.”
Not another collection of government programs. Not another attempt to recreate the country as it existed before Trump. And not another campaign based primarily on telling us how terrible Republicans are.
A real governing philosophy.
The Why is the people. The How is balancing the interests and power of business with the interests and power of the individual, using government as the tool to maintain that balance. The What is legislation that leaves people more capable of governing their own lives.
Protect the people who truly cannot stand alone. Help people who have an immediate need. But where independence is possible, build a system that makes it easier for people to stand on their own.
If Democrats can do that, they can regain the trust of the American people. And if they can regain that trust, then they may once again have a chance to make a lasting contribution to American politics.
But first they have to answer the simplest question.
Are they the party of the government?
Or are they the party of the people?
Sources
Tariffs as taxes on imported goods, their effects on consumer prices and purchasing power, and estimates of how much of the tariff burden is ultimately borne through higher prices: Congressional Budget Office, “The Effects of Tariffs on Inflation, Economic Output, and the Federal Budget”
Evidence from household transaction data showing that tariffs are passed through into retail prices paid by American consumers: Federal Reserve Board, “The Unequal Effects of Tariffs on Consumer Prices”
Congress’s constitutional authority over tariffs and foreign commerce, and the statutory authorities Congress has delegated to presidents to impose tariffs: Congressional Research Service, “Congressional and Presidential Authority to Impose Import Tariffs”
Congressional authority over war, including Congress’s powers to declare war, appropriate funds, and regulate the armed forces: Congress.gov, Constitution Annotated, “War Powers”
The War Powers Resolution and Congress’s statutory role in decisions involving the introduction of U.S. armed forces into hostilities: Congressional Research Service, “The War Powers Resolution: Concepts and Practice”
The Declaration of Independence’s principle that governments are instituted to secure individual rights and derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed”: National Archives, “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription”
The long-term political realignment of rural America toward the Republican Party and the widening Republican advantage among rural voters: Pew Research Center, “Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation”
Americans’ unfavorable views of both major political parties, including the substantial share of Americans who view both Republicans and Democrats unfavorably: Pew Research Center, “Americans’ Views of the Republican and Democratic Parties”
Working Americans receiving public benefits, including SNAP and Medicaid, and the prevalence of full-time employment among wage earners receiving those benefits: U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Public Assistance: Millions of Full-Time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs”
Housing supply restrictions, land-use regulation, and the relationship between constraints on new construction and higher housing costs: National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability”
The unusually high cost of health care in the United States compared with other wealthy countries, including higher prices and administrative costs as important contributors to U.S. health spending: The Commonwealth Fund, “Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System”
The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), including eligibility, benefits, and its purpose of providing food assistance to low-income households: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)”
Jesus feeding the hungry and responding directly to immediate physical need in the feeding of the five thousand: Matthew 14:13–21, New International Version, via Bible Gateway
The biblical principle of caring for people in need, including the hungry, thirsty, sick, and vulnerable: Matthew 25:34–40, New International Version, via Bible Gateway


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Beautiful October day. I’m walking in the park for some exercise. The leaves on some of the trees have turned yellow, with small flashes of red. There’s a maple tree that has turned maybe a dark burgundy. Blue skies, white clouds, green grass. The park has quite a few people today. There’s an older guy and a younger guy tossing a football, maybe father and son. And there’s a white butterfly floating across the green grass.
My brain doesn’t turn off very easily. I’m exceptionally bad at small talk. Put me at a party with someone I don’t know, and I’m probably not very good at talking about nothing.
Maybe these two things are related. Because here I am, walking through a park on a beautiful October afternoon, and what I’m thinking about is immediate need and permanent dependency.
It’s a question that sounds simple until you start pulling on it: if part of my taxes goes to feed people, house people, provide medical care, or otherwise support people who need help, does any of that count toward our Christian obligation to give?
This is not a question about Christianity as a whole, and it is not an attempt to define what every Christian should believe about government. It is a question about America.
You can argue that America is not a Christian nation and still advocate strongly for public assistance to people in need. Or you could argue that the bedrock and basis of America’s Constitution and law is in Christian theology.
Either way, here’s the question. If we use public money to help people in need, should the design of that help reflect the moral logic Christians see in Scripture?
I do not know the answer. I am not the Almighty, and I’m not going to pretend that I can settle a theological question Christians have argued about for generations.
But I think the question becomes more interesting when we stop asking only whether taxes count as a tithe and ask instead what a tithe, or Christian giving more broadly, is supposed to achieve.
The biblical idea of giving was never simply to, “Take ten percent of your income and put it in an envelope for your local church.” In ancient Israel, tithes supported the religious community, including the Levites, but they also helped support widows, orphans, foreigners, and others who were vulnerable.
That makes the modern situation complicated.
Today, the government performs some of those functions. We pay taxes, and a portion of that money goes toward food assistance, housing assistance, medical care, disability programs, and other forms of public support.
So maybe the question isn’t whether government should provide that assistance. If government is using our taxes to provide some of the same kinds of help Christians are commanded to provide, should that assistance follow the same moral logic?
And that brings me to two stories.
Consider the feeding of the five thousand. Whatever else that story means theologically, there is an extraordinarily simple act in the middle of it. People are hungry, and Jesus feeds them.
He doesn’t stop to ask whether they made good choices. He doesn’t set up a job-training program before allowing them to eat. There is an immediate human need, and he meets it.
Sometimes compassion is that simple.
Someone is hungry tonight—feed them. Someone has nowhere to sleep—give them somewhere safe to sleep. Someone is sick—treat them.
Immediate suffering creates an immediate obligation.
But there is another category of stories in the Gospels. Jesus heals the blind. He heals the lame. He restores people who had been physically excluded from ordinary life.
These people were restored to participation in society. They could move through their communities, support their lives where possible, participate in family and economic life, and become less dependent on others.
And they could work. Possibly the most important way to participate in society and be independent, to eat your bread as a result of the sweat of your effort.
So those stories suggest a second principle of compassion: meet the immediate need when the need is immediate, but when restoration is possible, structure the help toward restored capacity rather than unnecessary permanent dependency.
That gives us a standard by which we can begin judging assistance itself. Does it function as a bridge through a period of need? Does it restore a person’s capacity to function and support his own life, where possible? Or does the system gradually become a permanent structure of dependency?
And that question doesn’t apply only to the person receiving assistance. It can apply to businesses, too.
If taxpayers repeatedly make up the difference between what a worker earns and what that worker needs to live, then assistance may be helping the worker survive, but it may also be allowing an employer to build that subsidy permanently into its labor model.
So both sides become dependent on the system.
But there is another side to this. Reducing dependency cannot simply mean reducing assistance. If someone is working and still cannot support a reasonable life, cutting aid does not restore independence. It simply recreates the immediate need.
If the goal is restoration, reform has to work from both directions. Assistance should be structured so that people can move out of dependency. But our economy also has to make it possible for someone who works to actually make that move. Otherwise, we are not building a bridge out of poverty. We are pulling the bridge away while someone is still standing on it.
So. Have we built a system that needs poverty to justify itself?
And if that system perpetuates long-term dependency, then as Christians, shouldn’t we push to reform it so that it better aligns with the logic of the Almighty—meet the immediate need, restore the person where possible, avoid creating dependency, and build an economy in which that restoration can last?
And maybe there is some humility required here, too. We have a tendency to believe that, with enough policy and expertise we can design a system better than the moral order we inherited.
But we are not wiser than that moral order. It’s hilarious that we think otherwise, but the Almighty will not be mocked.
A system that abandons people in genuine need will create resistance, because leaving suffering unanswered violates something deeply rooted in us.
And a system that turns temporary help into permanent dependency will create resistance, too, because dependency is not restoration.
Maybe the mistake is thinking we have to choose between compassion and independence.
Can we build an American system that respects both?
Sources
Biblical tithing and support for Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows: Deuteronomy 14:22–29 — Bible Gateway; Numbers 18:21–24 — Bible Gateway
Christian obligation to feed, shelter, and care for those in need: Matthew 25:35–40 — Bible Gateway Bible Gateway
Jesus feeding the five thousand and meeting an immediate need: Matthew 14:13–21 — Bible Gateway
Jesus healing and restoring people to ordinary life and community: Matthew 11:2–6 — Bible Gateway; John 9 — Bible Gateway
Work, independence, and providing for those in need: Genesis 3:19 — Bible Gateway; 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 — Bible Gateway Bible Gateway; Ephesians 4:28 — Bible Gateway Bible Gateway
Work, provision, and eating by the labor of one’s own effort: Genesis 3:19 — Bible Gateway — “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.”
Federal food, housing, medical, and disability assistance programs: USDA — Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); HUD — Housing Choice Voucher Program HUD; Medicaid.gov — Medicaid Medicaid; Social Security Administration — Benefit Types, including Disability and SSI Social Security Administration
Working Americans who still rely on public assistance: U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Federal Social Safety Net Programs: Millions of Full-Time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs,” October 19, 2020 Government Accountability Office
Benefit phaseouts, effective marginal tax rates, and incentives affecting movement from assistance toward greater earnings: Congressional Budget Office, “How Taxes and Transfers Affect the Work Incentives of People With Low and Moderate Income,” March 17, 2017 Congressional Budget Office
Religion, Christianity, and the intellectual and political environment surrounding the American founding: Library of Congress, “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic”; Library of Congress, “Religion and the American Revolution”


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I was cooking the other day when I thought about a lieutenant I haven’t seen in years. I don’t know why. That happens to me sometimes. A memory will just show up. Nothing in particular brings it to mind. I’ll be driving, or walking, or standing in the kitchen cutting onions, and suddenly I’m back in some room I haven’t thought about in years.
This one has come back to me a couple of times recently.
It was sometime around 2018 or 2019. I was a squadron commander in the Air Force, and one of my flight commanders, a captain and a mother, came to see me about one of her lieutenants. The lieutenant was a woman who had recently had a baby and had been away from normal operational duty for quite a while. I don’t remember the exact amount of time anymore, and I don’t want to pretend that I do.
The Air Force had become increasingly generous with maternity and caregiver leave, and by the time this lieutenant was due to return, she had already been away for a significant stretch. Eventually, though, the leave ended. She was expected to come back to duty.
In our squadron, duty didn’t mean showing up at an office at eight in the morning and going home at five. It meant going out on a weapons-system alert. Roughly thirty-six hours away from home.
The lieutenant told her flight commander that she couldn’t go. She needed more time.
She was breastfeeding. More specifically, she said she couldn’t pump enough breast milk ahead of time to leave her baby for the duration of the alert.
Her husband was also active duty, but he worked a job that allowed him to be home. He could care for the baby while she was gone. The problem was not that there was no one to take care of the child. The problem was feeding the child.
So my flight commander came to me and asked the question commanders eventually get paid to answer: What do we do?
Do we send her back on duty? Do we give her more time? How much more? A month? Three months? Until the child turns one? And if nothing changes, then what? Do we simply accept that she cannot perform that portion of the job for as long as she is breastfeeding?
I remember the problem because no answer made everybody happy.
And I believed the lieutenant. I want to make that clear. I did not think she had invented a breastfeeding problem because she didn’t want to work. I think she had a baby, she was trying to feed that baby, and she was looking at thirty-six hours away from her child and saying, I don’t know how I can do this.
That mattered. She had a responsibility for the child.
But something else mattered too.
Somebody had to go on alert. The mission didn’t disappear because one lieutenant had a difficult family situation. If she didn’t go, somebody else did. Somebody else stayed away from his or her family. Somebody else carried the burden.
And suddenly a question that sounds like a personnel problem becomes a philosophical one.
If we say everyone can do this job, can we also say some people don’t always have to do all of it? And if we say that, who decides when that is okay?
That question is bigger than breastfeeding. But breastfeeding is what makes the question difficult, because biology is not imaginary. Pregnancy is real. Childbirth is real. Recovery is real. Breastfeeding is real. None of those things disappear because an institution adopts a policy of equal opportunity.
That is where equality gets complicated.
We often use the word equality as though it answers a question. Sometimes it only starts one.
There is equality of access. Can you enter the profession? Can you compete for the position? Can you command? Can you serve in the operational role? Can you serve on the combat team?
And then there is equality of obligation. Once you have the position, are the expectations the same?
That distinction becomes uncomfortable because we like clean moral principles. Treat everyone the same. Accommodate people according to their circumstances. Both sound good until they run into each other.
One way of thinking about this is the difference between equality and equity. Equality says people occupying the same role ought to face the same essential obligations. Equity says relevant differences may justify different treatment. The hard part is deciding which differences matter, and how much difference in treatment is still compatible with calling it the same job.
Another way of thinking about it is role morality. Certain roles carry obligations that ordinary life does not. A judge cannot decide a case based on friendship. A physician cannot simply abandon a patient in the middle of surgery. A military officer accepts obligations that most citizens do not.
That does not mean the officer stops being a mother, father, husband, wife, son, or daughter. It means those obligations sometimes collide.
The philosopher W. D. Ross wrote about competing duties. You can have more than one genuine moral obligation at the same time. You can have a duty to your child, a duty to your fellow officers, a duty to the mission, a duty to obey lawful orders, and a duty not to place unreasonable burdens on other people. The fact that one duty is real does not make the others disappear.
That is the part that gets lost when we turn difficult problems into slogans.
Sometimes two good things really are in conflict.
You can even make what you believe is the right decision and still leave something valuable damaged. Maybe you order the lieutenant back onto alert. The squadron is treated fairly, the mission is covered, and a mother believes she has been forced into a situation that makes caring for her infant harder.
Something has been lost.
Or maybe you excuse her. The mother and baby are protected, but another lieutenant goes in her place. And another time. And another.
Something has been lost there too.
There is no administrative form that makes the loss disappear.
This question also has an interesting history in the American military. For much of the twentieth century, the institutional answer to pregnancy and motherhood was much harsher than it is today. Women could serve, but pregnancy would effectively end that service.
One of the important cases in that history involved Air Force Captain Susan Struck, a nurse who became pregnant in 1970 and challenged the policy that would have forced her out of the service. Her case became part of the broader movement away from treating pregnancy as automatically incompatible with military service.
That change was important.
But it didn’t eliminate the problem. It moved the problem.
At first, the institutional answer had essentially been: women can serve, but motherhood may end that service.
Then the answer became: women can serve and become mothers.
Which immediately creates another question: what happens when the obligations of motherhood and the obligations of military service conflict?
That is not an argument against women serving. It is simply the next question.
And over time the question became sharper. The military opened more roles to women: aviation, ships, operational specialties, and eventually direct ground combat positions. Each time a barrier came down, the debate centered on equal access.
But another question always follows behind it.
Does equal access imply equal obligation?
Or can equal access coexist with different obligations?
And if the answer is yes, how different can those obligations become before we are no longer talking about the same job?
This is where historical fights over equality become more complicated than they first appear.
A woman like Susan Struck was effectively saying that pregnancy shouldn’t automatically end her military career. I think she was right.
But once an institution accepts that principle, it has to turn an individual claim into a general rule. Not because every woman necessarily wants exactly what she wanted. Not because every future mother will make the same decision. Institutions simply cannot operate on individual intent. They need principles.
A person fights for the right to remain. The institution recognizes that right. Then, years later, someone else enters under that right and asks for an accommodation the earlier system would never grant.
That does not mean the original principle was wrong.
It means principles have consequences.
Rights create obligations. Access creates expectations. Equality is not complete until we talk about both.
There is an old philosophical test that helps here: ask what happens if the exception becomes the rule.
Not because exceptions are always wrong. They are not. But because a functioning institution has to know where exceptions stop.
Suppose any member with a serious personal obligation could decline an essential operational duty whenever the two conflicted. That sounds compassionate. It may be compassionate. But could the unit function?
If not, then you need a limiting principle.
Which circumstances justify accommodation? For how long? Who carries the burden in the meantime? At what point does accommodation change the nature of the position itself?
Those questions apply far beyond pregnancy.
A father can become a sole parent. A spouse can become seriously ill. A parent can require constant care. An officer can be injured. A family can suffer a tragedy.
Everybody eventually encounters something outside work that matters more to them than work.
And yet some professions exist precisely because society needs people who will sometimes place the obligation of the role ahead of the obligation of the moment.
That is especially true in the military.
Which brings me back to that lieutenant.
She had a baby. She wanted to breastfeed. She said she could not produce enough milk to leave the child for thirty-six hours. Her husband could care for the baby. Her authorized time away from duty had reached its end.
Her flight commander came to me and asked: What do we do?
I know what I decided.
I am not sure I want to tell you. At least not yet.
Because the more interesting question is what you would have decided.
Do you order her back on duty?
Do you give her more time?
If so, how much?
And what principle are you using to decide?
Because whatever rule you create for her has to become a rule you could defend for everyone else.
Maybe that is the hardest part of leadership.
Compassion is personal.
Command cannot always be.
So here is the question.
If we say everyone can do the job, can we still say some people don’t always have to do all of it?
And if the answer is yes, who decides when that is okay?
Sources
Air Force maternity-leave policy in effect beginning in 2016—12 continuous weeks of paid maternity leave: U.S. Air Force, “AF Implements New DOD-Wide Changes to Maternity Leave,” February 9, 2016 Air Force
Air Force parental-leave policy adopted in 2018—six weeks maternity convalescent leave, six weeks primary-caregiver leave, and three weeks secondary-caregiver leave; caregiver leave was in addition to maternity convalescent leave: U.S. Air Force, “Air Force Implements New Parental Leave Policy, Secondary Caregivers Given 21 Days,” June 8, 2018 Air Force
Contemporaneous Air Force summary of the 2018 policy, including its retroactive applicability and the distinction among maternity convalescent, primary-caregiver, and secondary-caregiver leave: U.S. Air Force, “Air Force Parental Leave,” June 18, 2018 Air Force
The 1948 law formally integrating women as permanent members of the armed services: U.S. Government Publishing Office, Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, Public Law 80-625, June 12, 1948 GovInfo
Historical overview of the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, including the original limits on women’s participation and combat service: Naval History and Heritage Command, “Women’s Armed Services Integration Act”Naval History and Heritage Command
Captain Susan Struck’s challenge to the Air Force regulation requiring discharge of pregnant female officers; the appellate opinion describes her pregnancy while serving in Vietnam and the Air Force’s attempt to discharge her: Struck v. Secretary of Defense, 460 F.2d 1372, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1972 OpenJurist
U.S. Army historical discussion of Susan Struck’s case and its place in the changing relationship between motherhood and military service: U.S. Army, “Serving on Two Fronts—Finding Balance Between Motherhood and Military Service,” March 29, 2023 Army
The Department of Defense’s 2015 decision opening all military occupations and positions—including direct ground-combat positions—to qualified women beginning in 2016: U.S. Department of Defense, “Carter Opens All Military Occupations, Positions to Women,” December 3, 2015 Defense.gov
DoD’s implementation of women’s full integration into previously closed combat positions, including its stated emphasis on maintaining combat effectiveness and standards: U.S. Department of Defense, “Statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook on Secretary Carter’s Approval of Women in Service Review Implementation Plans,” March 10, 2016 Defense.gov
W. D. Ross’s idea of prima facie duties—multiple genuine moral obligations that can conflict, requiring judgment about which obligation carries the greatest weight in a particular situation: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “William David Ross” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The philosophical concept of universalizability—the idea that a moral judgment should be defensible under the same standard regardless of which person happens to occupy the relevant position: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Impartiality,” section 4.2, “Impartiality and Universalizability” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy


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Everybody seems to be scared of artificial intelligence. Or maybe the press makes it seem like everybody is scared of artificial intelligence.
AI is going to take our jobs. AI is going to replace artists. AI is going to manipulate elections. AI is going to become smarter than us. Eventually AI is going to destroy civilization.
Why are we always doing this?
Why do human beings always think civilization is about to end?
In my lifetime, first it was nuclear war. We are all going to die. Then the millennium change. Everything is going to stop working. Computers are going to fail. Civilization is going to fall apart. Then climate change. Now AI is going to destroy us all.
Before that, people thought Halley’s Comet was going to poison everybody.
In 1910, scientists detected cyanogen gas in the comet’s tail. Earth was going to pass through it. People bought gas masks and supposed remedies. Newspapers ran with it. There was real dread that this thing in the sky might kill everybody.
Then Earth passed through the tail.
And nothing happened.
That does not mean every warning is stupid. Nuclear war was a real danger. It still is. Y2K was a real computer problem. People spent years fixing it. Climate change is real. AI is going to create real problems.
But we have this habit of moving really quickly from, this could be bad, to, this could end civilization.
And I keep coming back to the same thing.
Every day has enough worry of its own.
Do not tax your life with the forethought of grief.
Enjoy the hard work of staying alive while you can.
There is that Wendell Berry poem, The Peace of Wild Things. I am paraphrasing it, but it is something like: when I wake at night and worry about my life or my children’s future, I go lie down by the water, among the wild things who do not tax their lives with the forethought of grief.
That phrase is just right.
The forethought of grief.
We do that all the time. We grieve things that have not happened yet. We suffer tomorrow before tomorrow gets here.
What happens to my children?
What happens to the climate?
What happens if the Russians launch?
What happens if the computers stop working?
What happens if the machine becomes smarter than us?
And some of those are reasonable questions. But at some point, you are just paying today for grief that may never come.
That does not mean do nothing.
Take climate change.
Climate change is not going to kill every person on Earth. Do you know what might kill a lot of people? Doing nothing to prepare for climate change.
If we need to shore up buildings, improve infrastructure, strengthen the electrical grid, prepare for drought, fires, flooding, storms, then do those things.
That is useful.
Sitting around worrying that civilization is going to collapse is not useful.
Worry is not preparation.
And I think AI is the same way.
There are reasonable guardrails we can put around artificial intelligence without acting like the machine itself is evil.
Start with personal responsibility.
No fake lewd photographs or videos using another person’s likeness. That should be illegal.
Not because AI made the image.
Because you used somebody else’s face to hurt them.
If an AI system hacks another company and causes millions of dollars in damage, somebody is responsible for that. “The AI did it” cannot become some excuse that means nobody is liable.
A person deployed it. A company built it. Somebody authorized it to do something.
Now, I do not think the AI company should automatically be responsible every time somebody misuses a model. That would be ridiculous.
If the company demonstrated reasonable guardrails, reasonable security, reasonable efforts to prevent abuse, then no, they should not automatically be liable because somebody found a way around those protections.
But if they knew there was a problem, knew their model was being used to do something harmful, had reasonable ways to stop it, and ignored it, then responsibility starts to move back toward the company.
That would make AI companies pay attention really quickly.
Not because somebody wrote a vague ethics statement.
Because there would be consequences.
There would be damages.
There would be liability.
And in a messed-up twist, I am not against the use of AI for military action.
I do not think that is contradictory.
The military already uses force that would be illegal in ordinary civilian life. The question is who is responsible.
If an autonomous or semi-autonomous system strikes a target, somebody in the chain of command still owns that decision.
“The algorithm decided” cannot be an excuse.
Somebody authorized that system. Somebody gave it the authority to act. Somebody remains responsible.
That gets into the philosophy behind all of this.
Sartre comes to mind.
Freedom creates responsibility.
You are free to choose, so you are also responsible for what you choose.
You do not get to hide behind the system. Or the institution. Or the role. Or, eventually, the algorithm.
John Stuart Mill fits here too.
Mill’s basic idea was that people should be left free to act unless their actions harm somebody else. The state should not interfere just because an action is unusual, risky, unpopular, or offensive. The line is harm.
That is pretty close to how I think about AI.
Do not regulate it because it frightens people.
Do not regulate it because it is new.
Do not regulate it because somebody can imagine a terrible future.
Regulate conduct when it causes real harm to other people.
That is a much cleaner rule.
If someone uses AI to commit fraud, punish the fraud.
If someone uses AI to create a nonconsensual sexual image, punish that.
If a company negligently deploys a system that causes foreseeable damage, hold the company responsible.
But do not build a giant apparatus around every hypothetical thing the technology might someday do.
You will never keep up anyway.
And I think the same principle applies to corporations.
Corporations have rights. They can own property. They can enter contracts. They can sue and be sued. They have legal protections.
Fine.
Then they also have reasonable responsibility.
You do not get rights without responsibility.
That applies to individuals. It should apply to companies.
So maybe the philosophy is something like this:
Maximum freedom, with responsibility for foreseeable harm.
Let people build things.
Let companies innovate.
Let people use powerful tools.
But when somebody gets hurt, ask the same questions we already know how to ask.
Who did it?
Who authorized it?
Who could reasonably foresee the harm?
Who failed to take reasonable precautions?
Fraud is still fraud.
Theft is still theft.
Defamation is still defamation.
Negligence is still negligence.
Calling it artificial intelligence does not make responsibility disappear.
And that brings me back to the larger point.
Maybe AI could someday create some civilization-level danger.
I do not know.
But every generation seems convinced it is standing at the edge of the end.
Nuclear war.
The millennium.
Climate catastrophe.
Artificial intelligence.
Before that, Halley’s Comet.
At some point, you have to live.
If there is something useful to do, do it.
If the climate is changing and infrastructure needs to be stronger, build stronger infrastructure.
If AI can be used to make fake sexual images of people, make that illegal.
If AI systems can cause real damage, establish liability.
If companies put reasonable guardrails in place, do not punish them automatically because somebody misused the tool anyway.
Do the work that needs doing.
Fix what can be fixed.
Prepare where preparation actually matters.
And then live.
Because every day already has enough trouble of its own.
There are people to love. There are things to build. There are things to repair. There are books to read. There is dinner to make. There is work to do.
There is a world that is still here this morning.
Do not tax your life with the forethought of grief.
Enjoy the hard work of staying alive while you can.
Tomorrow has enough worry of its own.
Sources
Public fear around Halley’s Comet in 1910, including concern that cyanogen gas in the comet’s tail might threaten life on Earth, and contemporary anti-comet remedies and gas masks: Library of Congress, “Halley’s Comet: Topics in Chronicling America”
Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” including the phrase about not taxing one’s life with the forethought of grief: Academy of American Poets, “Life Lines: Wendell Berry”
“Each day has enough trouble of its own”: Matthew 6:34, New International Version, via Bible Gateway
Finding satisfaction in one’s labor during the brief life God gives us, and receiving the ability to enjoy that labor as a gift: Ecclesiastes 5:18–20, New International Version, via Bible Gateway
Enjoying life, doing the work before you, and doing it with all your strength while you are alive: Ecclesiastes 9:7–10, New International Version, via Bible Gateway
John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, liberty, and the idea that coercive power is justified primarily to prevent harm to others: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “John Stuart Mill”; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy”
Jean-Paul Sartre on freedom, responsibility, and bad faith: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Jean-Paul Sartre”; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Authenticity”
Corporations and other legal entities as legal persons capable of owning property, entering contracts, suing and being sued, while also carrying legal responsibilities and liabilities: Cornell Legal Information Institute, “Legal Person”; Cornell Legal Information Institute, “Artificial Person”; Cornell Legal Information Institute, “Corporation”
AI risk management, governance, and reasonable safeguards designed to reduce harms while preserving flexibility and innovation: National Institute of Standards and Technology, “AI Risk Management Framework”; NIST, “Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile”
Cybersecurity risks, vulnerabilities, and resilience issues involving artificial intelligence systems: National Institute of Standards and Technology, “AI Research: Security and Resilience”
Autonomous weapon systems, human control, and legal and humanitarian questions surrounding machines that can select and apply force without further human intervention: International Committee of the Red Cross, “ICRC Position on Autonomous Weapon Systems”


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Hey, this is Joel.
I’m sitting next to a pile of flowers in the yard.
I spent some time this morning taking hops vines out of our hoop house, and now I’m sitting on a bucket, picking the flowers off the vines.
A buddy of mine brews beer. Sometimes he gives me some of it, so I’m going to give him a bunch of these.
I grow several different varieties of hops in the hoop house. I’ve got some New Zealand varieties, some Cascade, and some Chinook. The Chinook seems to yield better than anything else I’ve tried here at high altitude.
If you’ve never smelled a hop flower before, go get yourself a good, fresh West Coast IPA and really smell it before you drink it.
That smell is hops.
A West Coast IPA is usually very hop-forward, and when you break one of these fresh flowers open, there’s this strong green, citrusy, resinous smell. You immediately think, that smells like an IPA.
Except it’s really the other way around.
The IPA smells like this flower.
My hands are busy, so I obviously can’t type anything. I’m sitting here talking to my phone instead.
And with my hands busy, I’ve had some time to think about a few things from this week, even though I haven’t had time to write them down.
The first one is cattle.
I made a trip this week to the Buffalo Livestock Market up in northern Wyoming, and one of the things that stood out was the number of heifers.
For people who don’t spend much time around cattle, a heifer is a young female that hasn’t had her first calf yet. If you want to grow a cow herd, you have to keep some of those young females. You breed them. They have calves. They become cows.
That sounds simple enough.
Except right now those heifers are worth a tremendous amount of money.
An individual heifer can bring something like $2,500.
If you keep her, maybe she has ten or twelve or fifteen calves over the course of her life. Maybe keeping her turns out to be a tremendous investment.
But maybe cattle prices fall.
Maybe three years from now you look back and realize somebody was willing to hand you $2,500 for that animal and you turned it down.
And meanwhile, you have to feed her.
You have to carry her through the winter. You have to buy hay. You have to buy fuel. You have all the other expenses that come with running a ranch.
That was another thing people were talking about at the livestock market. Everybody hopes we get a lot of snow this winter.
Snow means moisture. Moisture means grass.
And grass matters because hay is expensive.
Fuel is expensive.
When diesel is expensive, even if there’s hay somewhere else, getting it to your ranch gets expensive in a hurry.
So there’s this national conversation about the cattle herd being historically small and ranchers needing to retain heifers so we can rebuild it.
But an individual rancher doesn’t operate the national cattle herd.
He operates his ranch.
He has bills. He has input costs. And he has an animal standing in front of him that somebody is willing to pay a lot of money for right now.
Sometimes people ask why ranchers don’t just keep more heifers.
Sometimes they can’t afford to.
And sitting here picking hops, I realized I’ve got a pretty good example right in front of me.
I’ve got thousands of these flowers.
Suppose somebody came along and offered me a nickel or a dime for every one of them.
At some point, the price might get high enough that I wouldn’t keep any to brew beer myself.
I’d sell them.
Not because I suddenly stopped liking beer.
Not because I don’t know they might be useful later.
The price somebody is willing to give me today changes the decision.
That’s basically the position ranchers are in.
The price can get high enough that you almost can’t afford not to sell the animal you would otherwise like to keep.
The second thing I’ve been thinking about is Iran.
Part of the reason I think about Iran more than most people probably do is my previous life working around nuclear weapons and strategy.
And I keep coming back to the idea that maybe we are just too impatient with Iran.
We want problems solved. We want regimes to change. We want countries to behave differently.
But Iran isn’t a new country.
Persia is one of the oldest civilizations in the world.
There’s a story about Alexander the Great that I keep thinking about.
Go back to 334 B.C.
Alexander is about twenty-two years old. He crosses into Asia with a Macedonian army and takes on the Persian Empire, one of the great powers of the ancient world.
And then he starts winning.
He defeats Persian armies. He defeats Darius III. He pushes deeper and deeper into the empire.
Eventually he gets through the Persian Gates and reaches Persepolis, the ceremonial heart of Persia.
Parts of Persepolis are burned.
So if you stop the story there, Alexander conquered Persia.
He did.
But then something interesting starts happening.
Alexander begins adopting elements of Persian royal dress. He brings Persian nobles into his government. He brings Persian soldiers into his army. He marries into the Persian royal family. He encourages his officers to marry Persian women.
And his Macedonian soldiers hate it.
They marched across the known world to conquer Persia, and now they’re looking at their king thinking, wait a minute.
We conquered them.
Why are you starting to look like them?
Persia could obviously be conquered.
Alexander did it.
But there’s something remarkable about a civilization that can lose the war and still influence the conqueror so deeply that the conqueror begins changing himself.
Alexander conquered Persia.
And then Persia changed Alexander.
I think we ought to remember that.
We don’t have to be Iran’s friend.
We don’t have to accept Iran possessing nuclear weapons.
We don’t have to accept attacks on shipping or attacks on its neighbors through militias and proxies.
But maybe we should stop assuming that the final answer is somehow to make Iran into us.
We’ve tried versions of that before.
In 1953, the United States became involved in the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and helped restore the Shah’s position.
Over the next couple of decades, the United States became very closely associated with the Shah while he pursued rapid modernization, military expansion, and increasingly authoritarian rule.
It’s probably too simple to say America was trying to make Iran culturally American.
But we were deeply involved in determining who governed Iran and what direction the country would take.
And eventually there was a backlash.
The Iranian Revolution in 1979 had a lot of causes. Religion mattered. Economics mattered. Political repression mattered. The Shah mattered. Foreign interference mattered.
And out of that revolution came a phrase Americans still recognize immediately.
Death to America.
Maybe there’s a lesson in that.
Iran does not have to become us.
We can deter Iran.
We can contain Iran.
We can protect our allies.
We can oppose nuclear proliferation.
We can respond when American troops or American interests are attacked.
But those things are different from assuming we are going to redesign Iranian society.
Even negotiating with Iran is complicated.
Iran has several centers of political power. The elected government handles diplomacy and much of the ordinary work of government. But the Supreme Leader has the final say on the biggest national-security questions, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps answers to him, not to the elected president.
So when an Iranian diplomat sits across the table from an American diplomat and signs something, the question isn’t just whether we got a signature.
The question is whether the person across the table actually has the authority to bind the parts of the Iranian system that have the missiles, the ships, and the guns.
Does the Supreme Leader support the agreement?
Does the security establishment consider itself bound by it?
Will the Revolutionary Guard carry it out?
You can have diplomacy happening in one place while military pressure continues or resumes somewhere else.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the Iranian diplomats are fake, and it doesn’t mean the Revolutionary Guard is some completely separate rogue government.
It means we need to understand who actually has authority before we congratulate ourselves for reaching an agreement.
And maybe the broader point is just patience.
Patience isn’t the same thing as weakness.
Sometimes patience means understanding the civilization in front of you well enough not to expect it to become something it isn’t.
Anyway, I’m still sitting here picking hops.
They’re going into a silver metal bucket.
When I’m done, I’m going to spread them out on a screen, let them dry for a couple of days, and then freeze them.
And while I’ve been doing that, I’ve also been thinking about Russia.
I read a piece this morning in the Wall Street Journal about something Russia has become very good at doing.
Russia takes actions against NATO countries that seem deliberately designed to stay just below the point where everybody immediately agrees an armed attack has taken place.
Cyber operations.
Sabotage.
Electronic interference.
Disinformation.
Using proxies.
Border pressure.
Things that can create real damage without a Russian tank necessarily crossing a NATO border.
And that creates a strange problem for NATO.
Article 5 says an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all.
But real life is messier.
Something gets sabotaged.
Who did it?
Can you prove it?
Was it an armed attack?
Was it espionage?
Was it a criminal act?
Was it a proxy?
How much evidence do you need before you respond?
And if you respond militarily, are you defending yourself or escalating something that was intentionally designed to sit below that threshold?
Russia may not just be testing NATO’s military strength.
It may be testing NATO’s decision-making machinery.
From Moscow’s point of view, the ideal action might be something serious enough to frighten people and impose costs, but ambiguous enough that thirty-two NATO governments spend the next two weeks arguing over what exactly happened.
I think we make a mistake if we assume there are only two possible responses.
Do nothing.
Or go to war.
There is a lot of room between those two things.
And geography gives NATO some choices.
One place Americans don’t talk about very much is Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad is a small piece of Russian territory on the Baltic Sea, physically separated from the rest of Russia.
It sits between Poland and Lithuania.
Both are NATO countries.
Kaliningrad is extremely important to Russia. It is home to major Russian military forces and Russia’s Baltic Fleet. It gives Russia a powerful position in the Baltic.
But that geography also makes it vulnerable.
It is Russian territory surrounded on land by NATO.
And some of the land transit between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad crosses NATO territory.
So if Russia wants to operate in the gray zone, NATO doesn’t necessarily have to answer every provocation by firing a missile.
There are economic tools.
There are diplomatic tools.
There are transit rules.
There are inspections.
There are sanctions.
There are ways to increase pressure gradually.
You could imagine a ladder.
Russia takes some deliberate action against NATO infrastructure.
NATO responds by tightening restrictions.
Russia escalates.
NATO tightens them further.
At the far end of that ladder, you could even start discussing suspension of some rail transit.
The United States cannot simply close a railroad through Lithuania.
It is Lithuanian territory. European Union law matters. Our allies matter.
And completely closing access would be a very serious escalation.
But that’s exactly why it can matter as leverage.
Deterrence works when the other side knows there are things it values that can be put at risk.
Kaliningrad is a Russian strength.
It is also a Russian vulnerability.
And if a new American president really wants to understand Russia, I think one of the first places he or she ought to go is Finland.
Go to Finland and listen.
Finland shares about 830 miles of border with Russia.
The Finns have lived next to Russia for generations.
They have fought Russia.
They have negotiated with Russia.
They have traded with Russia.
They have deterred Russia.
They built their military and a lot of their civil preparedness around the fact that Russia is going to remain next door no matter who happens to be sitting in the Kremlin.
There’s something we can learn from that.
Sometimes Americans think distance gives us objectivity.
Sometimes distance just gives us distance.
If you want to understand somebody, listen to the people who have to live next door to them.
That doesn’t mean Finland is always right.
It doesn’t mean Poland is always right.
It doesn’t mean the Baltic states are always right.
But their experience matters.
We shouldn’t decide what Russia means from Washington and then call our European allies afterward to explain our decision to them.
We should listen first.
Sometimes the people who understand a rival best are the people who have had to live next door to it.
And then there was one other thing from this week that has almost nothing to do with Iran or Russia.
I went to a University of Wyoming football game Saturday.
Wyoming played Hawai‘i.
We recently dropped our oldest off at the University of Wyoming. Three weeks ago, maybe a month ago.
It was great to see them.
And it got me thinking about college.
A lot of people are worried about college right now.
And I understand why.
College is expensive.
Private universities can be extraordinarily expensive.
Tuition has increased tremendously over the last several decades.
And young people are looking at those numbers and asking a pretty reasonable question.
Is this worth it?
I think there was probably a period when too many people treated college as automatic.
You graduated from high school, so you went to college.
Nobody stopped to ask what you were studying.
Nobody stopped to ask what the degree cost.
Nobody stopped to ask what kind of job it might lead to.
Nobody stopped to ask how much debt you would have when you finished.
We should think about all of those things.
But I wonder if we’re starting to swing too far in the other direction.
Now there’s a growing cultural message that college just isn’t worth it.
If you’re seventeen or eighteen years old, I’d be very careful about letting that cultural mood make the decision for you.
When everybody starts moving in one direction, that’s usually a good time to stop and ask whether that direction makes sense for you.
That doesn’t mean every kid should go to college.
Absolutely not.
There are great careers that don’t require a four-year degree.
There are trades that pay extremely well.
There are people who would be much better off becoming electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics, or entrepreneurs than borrowing a hundred thousand dollars for a degree they don’t need.
But the opposite is also true.
If you can get a useful degree in a field where there is demand, at a price you can reasonably afford, and you have a good chance of finishing it, that can still be a very good investment.
The question isn’t whether college is good or bad.
It’s what are you trying to do?
What education does that require?
What will it cost?
And what are you likely to get in return?
Don’t go to college just because everybody else went.
But don’t refuse to go because everybody around you suddenly decided college is a scam either.
Make your own decision.
And maybe that’s what all of these things I’ve been thinking about this week have in common.
The cattle market.
Iran.
Russia.
College.
The easy answer is usually the one everybody repeats.
Keep the heifers and rebuild the herd.
Make Iran more like us.
Either ignore Russia or go to war with Russia.
College is always worth it.
College is never worth it.
But reality is usually more complicated than that.
The rancher has to make payroll.
Iran has thousands of years of history.
Russia understands geography.
And an eighteen-year-old has to live with their own decision long after everybody giving them advice has moved on to something else.
Maybe the lesson from this week is just to slow down a little.
Understand the incentives.
Understand the history.
Understand the geography.
Listen to people who know something you don’t.
Then make your own decision.
Anyway, I’m still picking hops.
I keep looking down at this bucket wondering when it’s ever going to be full.
It’s like an infinite bucket.
It never fills up.
So I’ve still got plenty of flowers left to pick.
Thanks to you all for keeping me company while I sit on this bucket and pick flowers.
Sources
Cattle / heifer retention
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, United States cattle inventory down slightly — Jan. 30, 2026. This supports the small national herd and current inventory context. USDA NASS
USDA Economic Research Service, Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook: February 2026. This is especially useful because it specifically discusses beef replacement heifers and says sustained heifer retention is needed before the beef cow herd can expand. Economic Research Service
USDA ERS, Livestock Production Cycles Affect Long-Term Price Outlook for Cattle, Hogs, and Chickens. Good background on the cattle cycle, historically low inventories, and why low supplies produce high cattle prices. Economic Research Service
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices. Useful for the high-diesel-cost portion; national on-highway diesel was above $6.50 per gallon in the week of Sept. 21, 2026. U.S. Energy Information Administration
Alexander and Persia
Alexander the Great, World History Encyclopedia. Covers Alexander’s effort to integrate Macedonian and Persian elites, the Susa marriages, his marriage to a daughter of Darius III, adoption of Persian dress and manners, incorporation of Persians into the military, and Macedonian resistance to those policies. World History Encyclopedia
Alexander the Great & the Burning of Persepolis, World History Encyclopedia. Useful for the conquest and destruction of Persepolis. World History Encyclopedia
1953 Iran coup / the Shah
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States, Iran, 1951–1954. A 1954 CIA memorandum explicitly describes the U.S.-approved campaign to remove Mossadegh and replace his government with a pro-Western government under the Shah. Office of the Historian
The same official documentary collection includes Eisenhower acknowledging that the United States helped bring about Mossadegh’s removal and the Shah’s restoration. Office of the Historian
There are also contemporary CIA communications describing direct American support for the Shah during the operation. Office of the Historian
Iranian political structure / IRGC
Council on Foreign Relations, The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It explains that the IRGC answers directly to the Supreme Leader and that its command structure bypasses the elected president. It also covers the IRGC’s military, political, economic, and regional roles. Council on Foreign Relations
Russia / NATO gray-zone activity
NATO, Collective defence and Article 5. Particularly important because NATO explicitly says an “armed attack” is assessed case by case and that sufficiently serious cyber and other hybrid attacks can qualify under Article 5. NATO
Kaliningrad
Council of the European Union, EU sanctions against Russia: questions and answers. Useful for the legal and logistical reality of Kaliningrad transit; EU sanctions make specific provisions for goods moving between Russia and the Kaliningrad oblast. Council of the European Union
NATO material describes Kaliningrad as a Russian exclave on the Baltic surrounded by Lithuania and Poland and discusses the importance of civilian and military transit. NATO
Finland
NATO material gives Finland’s land border with Russia as about 1,340 kilometers, or roughly 830 miles. NATO
College costs and value
College Board, Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025. This is probably your best source for tuition, sticker prices, net prices, financial aid, and the long-term cost discussion. College Board Research
College Board’s archive gives you historical reports back through the 1990s if you want to make a precise claim about thirty-year tuition growth rather than simply saying college has become expensive. College Board Research
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Education pays, 2025. In 2025, workers with bachelor’s degrees had median weekly earnings of $1,578 and a 2.8% unemployment rate, with earnings generally increasing and unemployment generally declining as educational attainment rose. Bureau of Labor Statistics


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