Category: reason

Gallup has new, “unaided reactions” reactions to the words Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for her party’s presidential nomination.

It’s not good, with “Dishonest/Liar/Don’t trust her/Poor character” pulling 21 percent among U.S. adults. The next thing that comes to mind? “Dislike her,” at 9 percent.

In addition to the 21% of responses in the “dishonest/don’t trust her” category, another 7% of Americans use even stronger words in a similar negative vein, including “criminal,” “crooked” and “thief.” Nine percent say they dislike her.

A slight majority of us (51 percent) express “something negative” about Clinton while just 29 percent have kind words to say about her. Her rival in the Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders, engenders both more positive and less-intense feelings, with 29 percent saying something positive with only 20 percent saying something negative.

Read more here.

Here’s the kicker: As bad as the numbers are for Clinton, she’s doing better than the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump. Three weeks ago, Gallup found that a whopping 60 percent of Americans viewed Trump negatively and only 33 percent felt favorably toward him. Out of recent presidents, only George W. Bush pulled higher negatives and that came after he’d been in office for seven years (in April 2008, Bush managed a record 66 percent disapproval rating).

What does it mean that the two frontrunners are broadly disliked by the electorate? The short version: It means real and continuing trouble for the major parties, who have worked overtime to alienate the average voter.

As I’ve noted before, party identification is at or near historic lows for the Democrats and Republicans. Just 29 percent of us tell pollsters that we’re Democrats and just 26 percent admit to being Republicans. The 2016 election is not going to reverse that. If fact, it may even drive those numbers into single digits (here’s hoping).

This is precisely the situation that Matt Welch and I wrote about in The Declaration of Independents. The major parties have stuck to the same scripts and coalitions that worked well enough for them in the 20th century. The Dems patched together private and public-sector unions and various minority groups while the GOP called out to social conservatives and small business owners, among others. Neither those interest groups nor concerns are relevant enough in the 21st century to keep broad-based parties solvent. The Democratic Party has become a party fetishizing the past of industrial jobs that will never come back. Both Clinton and Sanders attack the few bright spots in the economy, such as Uber and Airbnb, as somehow cheating the workers who flock to those services and the customers who love them. They each now oppose school choice, the single-most-obvious way to help poor inner-city kids get a chance in life. The GOP is ready to shut down the government not over out-of-control spending by the government but over $500 million given to Planned Parenthood for birth-control and contraceptives. If we’re lucky, the next debate might feature Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio speaking in Spanish about which one is more dedicated to keeping Latinos out of the country. The GOP speaks the language of liberty but talks only of building walls and, increasingly, trade restrictions and war. Most of its leaders are in perpetual pants-pissing mode over the end of “mainstream” America and the rise of alternative everything.

The major parties can keep running on fumes because they are effectively the only electoral game in town and unlike duopolies in the private sector, they get a huge stream of taxpayer cash to sling around and eke out win after win at the ballot box. But when your two top candidates are disliked, distrusted, and disapproved of by a majority of Americans—and when shrinking numbers of people will identify with you—there comes a moment when a reboot will happen.

That’s the opportunity for those of us with alternative approaches to politics, whether coming from the broadly defined right or the left. Obviously, I’m convinced that a broadly libertarian approach to politics—one that combines social tolerance and fiscal conservativism—is the way to go. Somewhere on this page is a 2014 meme put out by Tim Moen, a Canadian politician. It’s seemingly a parody of a libertarian politician’s stances but each is wildly popular among American voters at large. Throw in dislike of heavy regulation, skepticism of the U.S. acting as the world’s policeman, and concern over national debt and the need for entitlement reform, and you could win just about every election at every level of government.

For most of American history, married women have far outnumbered their single counterparts. But this all changed in 2009, when the proportion of unmarried U.S. women first climbed above 50 percent. And in 2016, unmarried women will—for the first time—make up a majority of the potential female electorate.

Should libertarians worry? 

If the portrait of the unmarried female voter laid out by Rebecca Traister is correct, then perhaps we should. 

In a New York magazine excerpt of her upcoming book, All the Single Ladies, Traister writes that the rise of the single-lady demographic represents “a radical upheaval, a national reckoning with massive social and political implications. Across classes, and races, we are seeing a wholesale revision of what female life might entail. We are living through the invention of independent female adulthood as a norm, not an aberration, and the creation of an entirely new population: adult women who are no longer economically, socially, sexually, or reproductively dependent on or defined by the men they marry.”

“This reorganization of our citizenry,” Traister continues, “is not a self-consciously politicized event.” Still, its political implications could be profound.

In 2012, single women made up nearly a quarter of all voters. According to the Voter Participation Center, single women drove voter turnout across many categories, making up almost 40 percent of black voters, 30 percent of Latino voters, and around a third of all young voters. And this year, the single women contingent of American voters could be even bigger. 

What do all these single women want? Well, according to Traister, it is most certainly not a “hubby state,” the term some conservatives have used to insinuate that women still desire dependency, just on Uncle Sam instead of a family patriarch. “The notion that what the powerful, growing population of unmarried American women needs from the government is a husband…  is of course problematic,” she writes. “It reduces all relationships women have to marital, sexual, hetero ones and suggests that they are, by nature, dependent beings.”

Traister is right to point out that when men rely on government social programs or tax incentives, we don’t say they’re seeking a “wifey state.” Also that men, especially married men, long benefited from government policies designed to sustain their dominance, be they direct (laws limiting the hours that women could work) or indirect (policies that propped up the mid-century nuclear family). But the problem comes when Traister tries to define what single women do want from government: laws ensuring “pay equity, paid family leave, a higher minimum wage, universal pre-K, lowered college costs, more affordable health care, and broadly accessible reproductive rights.”

With the exception of the last point, those are all either direct requests for state support or requests for state-mandated support from private actors. Sure, these policies aren’t designed solely to benefit women (unless you think of things like parenting as purely female), but there’s no mistaking this agenda for anything other than a call for More! and Bigger! government.

Do unmarried women really support Traister’s policy wishlist, though? That’s harder to say. 

There’s not much gender- and marriage-segregated data on any of these issues specifically. One recent survey from American Women and Elle magazine showed strong support from unmarried women for “equal pay for equal work”—but it didn’t mention any policy specifics. And without specifics, who wouldn’t want “equal pay for equal work?” I found a few other studies concerned with these issues and unmarried women, but all were conducted by partisan or advocacy groups and relied on similarly vague language and biasing descriptors.

The American Women poll also showed strong support from single women for both “allowing workers to earn unpaid sick days” and “requiring employers to provide paid family and medical leave,” as well as “lowering taxes on businesses and the middle class.” When asked what policies would make them most likely to vote for a candidate, “equal pay” was the number one choice for women ages 18- to 24-years-old, but “lower taxes” was the top choice of 25- to 35-year-old women, followed by public school funding and college affordability. Women ages 50- to 64-years-old named public school funding as their top priority, followed by paid sick leave and “equal pay.”  

For the past several decades, U.S. women in general have tended to learn more Democrat than men. In 2012, 56 percent of women voted for Barack Obama, while just 46 percent of men did. In 2000, 54 percent of women voted for Al Gore, compared to 42 percent of men. In 1984, 42 percent of women voted for Walter Mondale, compared to 38 percent of men. 

And unmarried women in particular tend to go even more Democrat than women overall. About two-thirds of unmarried female voters cast their ballots for Obama in 2012. 

But unmarried men also tend to lean heavily Democrat. In 2004, USA Today polling showed 56 percent of married male voters supported George W. Bush, while 55 percent of unmarried male voters backed John Kerry. In a national poll leading up to the 2012 election, 54 percent of married men backed Mitt Romney while 54 percent of unmarried men backed Obama. Come election time, the divide was even more drastic: 62 percent of married men voted Republican, while 55 percent of unmarried men voted Democrat. 

As poli-sci types have noted for years, there’s much more of a “marriage gap” in electoral politics than a gender gap, though the latter receives much more attention.

“While the ”gender gap’ has been a statistically clear election phenomenon only since 1980, differences between married and single people can be found in post-election interviews conducted … at least as far back as 1974,” The New York Times reported in 1983.

It’s not hard to guess what’s going on here. Sure, inclinations toward liberalism or conservatism are also likely to effect the importance individuals place on marriage. But the bulk of the gap probably lies in demographics, not disposition: Unmarried Americans are more likely to be young, and younger Americans are more likely to be Democrats (or liberal-leaning independents). Until recently, the unmarried was a population that necessarily included most same-sex individuals—another cohort that understandably leans less toward Republicans. And race also plays a role: black men and women are both less likely to be married than whites, and way more likely to vote Democrat. 

In fact, race may a much bigger predictor than gender of how someone will vote. In 2012, 96 percent of black women and 87 percent of black men voted for Obama, 76 percent of Hispanic women and 65 percent of Hispanic men voted for Obama, and just 42 percent of white women and 35 percent of white men did so. 

The liberal tilt of unmarried women as a voting bloc, then, seems to be come down to a confluence of factors, including racial makeup, age, and gender—with gender mattering least. As Kay S. Hymowitz wrote in City Journal, “unmarried women [vote] just the way you’d expect them to, considering their age, income, education, race, and ethnicity.” 

“Yes, taken as a group, women vote more Democratic than men do,” concluded Hymowitz. “But that has little to do with their sex, which is why analysts would be wise to pay a little less mind to the gap.”

Traister acknowledges towards the end of the New York excerpt that single women run “the gamut of race and class” and have thus far “largely defied the pull of identity politics.” 

But Democrats won’t take to this failure of collectivism lightly. The rise of unmarried female voters presents “an opportunity that you cannot take for granted,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the DCCC, told The Washington Post in 2014, “and that is why we are building our earliest and most aggressive field and targeting program ever.” 

They’ll have hard work ahead of them, however: while women vote in higher numbers than men overall—nearly 64 percent of eligible women voted in 2012, compared to about 60 percent of eligible male voters—unmarried women are some of the least likely to show up to vote. 

• The Nevada Republican caucuses are happening today.

• Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will face off tonight in a Democratic town hall on CNN.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook: Complying with court order to unlock iPhone “too dangerous to do.”

• Bill Gates: Apple should comply with the federal government and unlock the iPhone.

• Kurdish special forces have rescued a Swedish teenager from ISIS.

• “Drone users are facing the possibility of fines up to $27,500 and even jail time if they have not registered their devices with the federal government.”

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don‘t forget to sign up for Reason‘s daily updates for more content.

Will Apple compromise iPhone security to assist the FBI in the investigation of deceased San Bernardino shooters Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik? For now, Apple says no: the company has done what it could to help law enforcement in the past, but it would not craft a tool allowing agents to bypass iPhone security. Complying with such a request would constitute a fundamental violation of customer trust, and publicly compromising the integrity of its devices was simply a non-starter for the tech giant. 

The FBI, on the other hand, counters that this request is a reasonable and narrow means to bring about justice for the victims of terrorism. Stripping away the emotional rhetoric from all sides, writes Mercatus Center tech-policy expert Andrea Castillo, the core question is whether a company can be compelled to build a tool for law enforcement that will compromise the security of all of its devices. 

View this article.

Surely, there’s no place less likely to become the site of an impromptu Trump rally than a college campus. And yet, at a recent Rutgers University event, throngs of students erupted into cheers of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

Would many of them cast a vote for Trump in a GOP primary? Probably not. For these students, Trump is not the leader of a political movement, but rather, a countercultural icon. To chant his name is to strike a blow against the ruling class on campus—the czars of political correctness—who are every bit as imperious and loathsome to them as the D.C.-GOP establishment is to the working class folks who see Trump as their champion.

That might not be much comfort for the numerous people on the right and left—myself and most of my colleagues included—who consider Trump a narcissistic, fearmongering authoritarian peddling a destructive, fascistic policy agenda. But what if his supporters aren’t actually applauding his agenda: what if they’re merely applauding the audaciousness of his performance?

“Trump’s becoming an icon of irreverent resistance to political correctness,” Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor at Breitbart, told me. “It’s why people like him.”

Even some people on campus.

‘A Mark of Privilege’

College students and Trump supporters, have at least something in common: both groups are plagued by legitimate economic anxieties: middle-class job losses and burdensome loan debt, for example. But the argument can certainly be made that these concerns are trumped (pardon the pun) by cultural issues, at least as evidenced by the priorities of both groups. And when it comes to the culture wars, they are on opposite sides.

The masses of people who show up at rallies for Trump—and have propelled him to Republican frontrunner status—are thought to be uneducated, coarse, and intolerant of immigrants. College students, on the other hand, are so tolerant their tolerance is borderline oppressive. Trump’s backers despise the political correctness of liberal elites: students think liberal elites are closet reactionaries who disdain leftist goals and refuse to nominate black actors and actresses for Oscars. The two groups might possess a shared distrust of social progress—Trump people, because it’s happening too quickly, and student protesters, because it’s not happening quickly enough—but they are on opposite ends of that fight, and virtually all others.

So why did a bunch of millennials break into an impromptu Trump cheer at Rutgers? To be clear, this was a pre-sorted group of non-liberals: conservative and libertarian students affiliated with the campus’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter. The occasion was a visit from Breitbart‘s Yiannopoulos, a social media celebrity associated with the GamerGate and online anti-feminist movements.

Yianopoulos, a British writer and conservative provocateur who revels in controversy, is currently travelling to college campuses across America. He calls it his “Dangerous Faggot Tour.” No, Yiannopoulos isn’t disparaging gays (though he wouldn’t care if they were upset): he is gay himself, a fact to which he makes frequent (and X-rated) references. Subverting expectations is part of Yiannopoulos’s shtick: he aims to create a safe space—if it can be called that—for students to express their views, even if those views are vile and offensive. His goal isn’t to persuade—it’s to shock critics who thought nobody had the nerve to say such things out loud.

Yiannopolous’s talk at Rutgers hit on many familiar themes—the evils of feminism, the hypocrisy of Black Lives Matter—and inspired a predictable protest. Several student protesters–a distinct minority of the event’s nearly 500 participants—stood up part way through the debate. “This man represents hatred,” said one woman, who smeared fake blood—red paint—over her face. The protesters eventually broke into a chant of “Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!” Their outbursts interrupted Yiannopolous and temporarily prevented him from continuing.

In an interview with Reason, Yiannopoulos derided these protesters as privileged hypocrites who weren’t interested in an actual exchange of ideas.

“It’s certainly a mark of privilege, being able to spray yourself, other people at the talk, and the venue, in red paint and not have to worry about the poor janitor who is going to have to clean it up, who was of course black,” said Yiannopoulos.

It was these outbursts that inspired the Trump counter-cheer. Yiannopolous’s fans in the audience eventually succeeded in drowning out the cries of “Black Lives Matter!” with their own cries of “Trump!”

Matthew Boyer, a Rutgers student, leader of its YAL chapter, and organizer of the event, told Reason that the people chanting “Trump,” were “individuals who have been railing against political correctness” and identify with “Trump’s recent actions as part of the anti-PC movement.”

The crowd at Rutgers—and at Yiannopolos’s other appearances—certainly suggests that some students are sick to death of the liberal orthodoxies being drilled into them during every waking moment of their time in school. What if millions of Americans feel the same way?

‘Despise Them and Their Culture’

“Nobody votes for Trump or likes Trump on the basis of policy positions,” Yiannopoulos told me. “That’s a misunderstanding of what the Trump phenomenon is.”

Yiannopoulos, who affectionately (and with clear intention to troll) refers to Trump as “daddy,” clearly understands something about the phenomenon that mainstream journalists are now only beginning to grasp in the wake of Trump’s decisive South Carolina victory.

It’s something perhaps best summed up by The American Conservative‘s Rod Dreher, who was inspired by my article about American University’s plans to establish social justice training in its dormitories. In response, Dreher wrote:

This has a lot to do with why people support Trump. They know that the academic elites despise them and their culture, and are going to try to educate their children into hating themselves and their culture. Can Trump stop AU or any other university from doing this? Of course not, and we would not want to live in a country where POTUS has that kind of power. But a vote for Trump is a vote against the class that’s doing this p.c. indoctrination. They know that Trump doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about p.c. — and they love that about him. Shoot, when I read the Robby Soave piece, my knee-jerk response was, “Give ’em hell, Trump!” …

Again: this is not a justification for voting Trump. But if you think that the various establishments in this country aren’t working in your interests, and indeed may be working against your interests (as in the Orwellian AU program, in which students indebt themselves to the tune of over $40,000 per year to be educated into why they should despise themselves or others along racial and cultural lines), this is all fuel for the, “Screw it, I’m voting Trump” bonfire.

The AU example is just one of many. Think of the Oberlin College students who assailed the (likely lower-income, less-well-educated) cafeteria staff for failing to prepare ethnically appropriate dishes. Think of the Yale University students who lashed out at administrators for failing to shelter them from insensitive Halloween costumes. Think of the Northwestern University students who claimed victim status because they weren’t chosen for solos in a burlesque performance. Think of Melissa Click.

There is ample anecdotal evidence to support the idea—right or wrong—that college campuses are more repressive and ideologically-stifling than ever, and that students are suffering because of it. Consider a recent news story about the mental anguish of Brown University’s far-left student activists:

“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus.

His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health. “My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay,” he said.

This student and his compatriots sound like they just survived something like a mass shooting. But nothing of the sort occurred. The most traumatic event at Brown in recent months, according to the story, was the publication of a racially problematic column. Brown’s student activists are enduring sleeplessness, panic attacks, andß suicidal thoughts because of it.

As Dreher noted, if you believe this sort of thing is as common on campus as it appears to be, and it infuriates you, and a candidate comes along who rails against the cult of political correctness—not just on campus, but everywhere—well, maybe you cheer for him.

‘Feminism is Cancer’

If colorful characters like Trump and Yiannopoulos are leading an anti-PC movement, some independent-minded students are copying their tactics.

At the University of Michigan on Tuesday, Yiannopoulos is scheduled to debate Julie Bindel, a feminist whose controversial views on transgender issues has made her an enemy of the left as well. The two were previously banned from a University of Manchester debate (the subject, ironically, was censorship), but will receive a warm welcome from UM’s conservative and libertarian students. Tuesday’s debate will focus on feminism and free speech, and is sponsored by the campus’s alternative student newspaper, The Michigan Review.

To promote the event, Review editors Omar Mahmood and Hunter Swogger filmed themselves asking random students whether they would rather give their children feminism or cancer—a nod to Yiannopoulos, who once polled his Twitter followers on the same question.

Even the most dedicated anti-feminists don’t actually believe feminism is worse than cancer (presumably). And Swogger and Mahmood deliberately eschewed seriousness in their presentation of the question. But that’s beside the point.

“The reason we asked the question is because it is so absurd that we were sure to elicit reactions,” Swogger told me.

Elicit they did.

“I don’t appreciate humor at the expense of other people,” said one student in the video.

It was an unsurprising reaction.

“The video was just to promote our event and to have fun, but it shows exactly how humorless these people are,” said Swogger, who describes himself as “passionately libertarian.”

More surprising was Facebook’s response. Swogger tried to advertise the video on the social media platform, but received a message from Facebook administrators that the video violates their policies.

“We don’t allow ads that refer to the viewer’s attributes (ex: race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, name),” according to the policy.

But it’s not clear to me how the video actually breaks that rule. It’s not clear to Swogger, either.

“The only grounds to ban our advertising on are ideological or sensitivity,” said Swogger.

This would not be the first time, of course, that non-leftist read ideological retaliation into a social media platform’s decision to suppress content. Yiannopoulos himself made such a charge after Twitter stripped him of his verified status for unspecified policy violations (the “feminism is cancer” tweet may have had something to do with it). Just last week, Twitter banned Robert Stacy McCain, a conservative blogger and notorious anti-feminist. The reasons are unclear, but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Twitter recently created a “Trust and Safety” council for the purpose of policing hate speech and harassment on the platform. The council doesn’t include any prominent free speech supporters, but it does include anti-GamerGate leader Anita Sarkeesian—of whom McCain was frequently critical.

The inescapable conclusion for many on the right is that they are unfairly policed—not because they are behaving badly, but because they don’t articulate the correct views.

‘A Wonderful Spectacle’

Given all that, it’s no wonder non-leftists think media corporations are against them. Media members are against them, too. And so are colleges.

Cheering on the likes of Trump and Yiannopoulos might just be one way for them to cope with that perceived reality. Trump’s naysayers claim—with good reason—that his candidacy is a disaster for the Republican Party: his election to the presidency would destroy the country. But that’s a selling point for his supporters—not because they love destruction, but because they’re suffering under the status quo, too. At least with Trump, they can enjoy the show and collect some small measure of vengeance against their PC overlords.

One person who is definitely having a good time is Yiannopoulos. He doesn’t mind that protesters scream at him wherever he goes—in fact, he welcomes it. He enjoys it.

“The whole thing was pandemonium,” Yiannopoulos told me, recalling the Rutgers event. “But a wonderful spectacle.”

Pandemonium, but a wonderful spectacle. Would anyone deny that the same could be said of the 2016 GOP presidential race?

You know who to thank for that.

It’s a safer world, writes Marian Tupy:

Since the end of the Cold War, wars have become rarer. International conflicts are way down, though civil wars and armed conflicts have been on the uptick. Moreover humanity’s destructive potential–while still considerable–has been declining. Consider that in 1986, the Soviet Union had over 40,000 nuclear warheads, while the United States’ nuclear arsenal peaked in 1967 at over 31,000 warheads. Last year, both countries’ nuclear arsenal contained less than 5,000 warheads each.

View this article.

Speaking at a White House reception for the National Governors Association yesterday, President Obama mentioned the series of shootings that killed six people in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on Saturday. “Earlier this year, I took some steps that will make it harder for dangerous people, like this individual, to buy a gun,” he claimed. At this point there is no reason to believe that’s true.

Obama’s “executive actions” on gun control included a “clarification” of which gun sellers are “engaged in the business of selling firearms” and therefore must conduct background checks. But even if we assume that more gun buyers will undergo background checks as a result of that initiative (which is by no means assured), it is almost certainly irrelevant to the the case at hand.

The man charged in the Michigan attacks, Jason Dalton, had no criminal record, and he apparently was never compelled to undergo psychiatric treatment either. Police say he used a pistol in the attacks, and they found various other guns at his house. But according to the Associated Press, “there was no indication that he was prohibited from owning the weapons.” If so, even the “universal background checks” that Obama wants Congress to require (covering all gun transfers, not just sales by federally licensed dealers) could not have stopped Dalton from buying the weapon he allegedly used to kill six people and wound two others.

Once again, Obama is presenting background checks as a solution to crimes they cannot possibly prevent: murders committed by people who are legally allowed to own guns, as is typically the case with mass shooters. The New York Times says Obama thinks “it should be harder for troubled people to obtain guns.” But since there is no way to know in advance which people are “troubled” in a way that will lead them to shoot random strangers, there is no way to implement that policy without disarming millions of Americans who pose no such threat.

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor Beverly Kopper sent out a campus-wide email condemning a “disturbing racist post” by two students that was “hurtful and destructive to our campus community.” Kopper believed the two had posted online a photo of themselves in blackface. In fact, if she’d spoken to them before she sent out her email, she would have found they had taken a photo of themselves getting a facial and were wearing exfoliation masks.

Williams College—a private, liberal arts college in Massachusetts—overrode  a student group’s decision to bring a controversial conservative speaker, John Derbyshire, to campus. Williams President Adam Falk made the contemptible move to violate his institution’s commitment to free speech because “[Derbyshire’s] expressions clearly constitute hate speech, and we will not promote such speech on this campus or in our community. 

Derbyshire was invited to participate in the college’s “Uncomfortable Learning” series, which is run by a group of students who bring provocative lecturers to campus. Reason readers will recall that the group previously invited Suzanne Venker—a conservative critic of feminism—to give a talk, but the backlash from other students was so intense that the invitation was rescinded. 

During that episode, Falk wisely maintained that the decision to invite or disinvite Venker was in the students’ hands. It’s unfortunate that the president has reversed himself in Derbyshire’s case. Here was his statement: 

Today I am taking the extraordinary step of canceling a speech by John Derbyshire, who was to have presented his views here on Monday night. The college didn’t invite Derbyshire, but I have made it clear to the students who did that the college will not provide a platform for him. 

Free speech is a value I hold in extremely high regard. The college has a very long history of encouraging the expression of a range of viewpoints and giving voice to widely differing opinions. We have said we wouldn’t cancel speakers or prevent the expression of views except in the most extreme circumstances. In other words: There’s a line somewhere, but in our history of hosting events and speeches of all kinds, we hadn’t yet found it. 

We’ve found the line. Derbyshire, in my opinion, is on the other side of it. Many of his expressions clearly constitute hate speech, and we will not promote such speech on this campus or in our community. 

We respect—and expect—our students’ exploration of ideas, including ones that are very challenging, and we encourage individual choice and decision-making by students. But at times it’s our role as educators and administrators to step in and make decisions that are in the best interest of students and our community. This is one of those times. 

Derbyshire’s views are certainly contemptible. As The Washington Post‘s Jonathan Adler notes: 

He has written some contemptible things, and I supported National Review’s decision to cut him loose over his intemperate writings. I would not have invited him to give a speak and (frankly) I question the judgment of the students who did.  Nonetheless, Falk’s decision to cancel the event — to, in effect, prohibit someone with Derbyshire’s views from speaking on campus — was awful, and represents a betrayal of the ideals of a liberal arts education. 

Zach Wood, a student organizer of the Uncomfortable Learning series, explained his decision to invite Derbyshire in a blog post for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Wood, according to The College Fix, is a Hillary Clinton-supporting Democrat and person of color. He doesn’t agree with Venker or Derbyshire, but he believes it’s important to confront people whose ideas one finds reprehensible. In an email to Reason, he wrote: 

“I think that President Falk is an analytic and deliberative leader and I respect his decision; however, I sharply disagree with his decision and if I could challenge it, I certainly would. I think his decision to cancel the speaker not only does a disservice to the intellectual character of our institution, but is antithetical to the principles of free speech and intellectual freedom that he has previously claimed to endorse. This decision is evidence of the fact that President Falk has failed to show support for student efforts to instill and promote political tolerance at Williams. I radically disagree with John Derybshire. And he has said offensive, even hateful things about minorities, things that I have a problem with. That is precisely why I was looking forward to taking him to task. If every student does not desire that kind of intellectual challenge, that is perfectly okay. But for President Falk to deny Williams students that opportunity, I believe, is not merely injudicious, but undemocratic and irresponsible.”   

Wood’s dedication to the principles of free inquiry is as admirable as Falk’s censorship is cowardly. 

In modern countries mortality rates for all age groups have generally been falling as average life expectancy increased. Princeton University scholars Anne Case and Angus Deaton have recently reported that these mortality trends have apparently reversed for poor middle-aged American whites during the past decade. I reported other data showing that mortality rates have also been going up for younger white Americans, too. Increased white mortality is associated with rising rates of opioid overdosing, suicides, and alchohol abuse. In contrast, mortality rates continue to fall for black and Hispanic Americans.

Today, Johns Hopkins University sociologist Andrew Cherlin has an op-ed in the New York Times in which he asks, “Why Are White Death Rates Rising?” His analysis focuses on reference group theory. Basically, he argues that many whites with high school educations or less are losing heart because they do not feel as though they are doing as well as their parents did. Cherlin suggests:

And here is one solution to the death-rate conundrum: It’s likely that many non-college-educated whites are comparing themselves to a generation that had more opportunities than they have, whereas many blacks and Hispanics are comparing themselves to a generation that had fewer opportunities.

When whites without college degrees look back, they can often remember fathers who were sustained by the booming industrial economy of postwar America. Since then, however, the industrial job market has slowed significantly. The hourly wages of male high school graduates declined by 14 percent from 1973 to 2012, according to analysis of data from the Economic Policy Institute. Although high school educated white women haven’t experienced the same major reversal of the job market, they may look at their husbands — or, if they are single, to the men they choose not to marry — and reason that life was better when they were growing up.

In my column, I speculated that government welfare policies are making the situation worse:

Perhaps dependence on the paltry alms doled out by the welfare state encourages rural recipients to stay out in the boondocks where they have few opportunities for improving their lives. Not being as cautious about speculation as Case, I’ll guess that lots of poor rural whites have come to believe that the modern world is leaving them behind and are seeking solace in mind-numbing substances and suicide. Bribing people to stay poor can kill them.

The whole op-ed is worth a read.