In an amusing and insightful article this week on JNS.org entitled “The upside of defeat,” Ruth Blum noted wryly how much easier it is to criticize an opponent who has gained power than to defend a friend who is in office. As she puts it, the critic’s task is simplified by having no need to account for the inevitable weaknesses of any human in high office. She writes: Being on the offensive requires little more than hurling darts at sure-fire bullseyes, which is why the likes of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and their apologists in the West are comfortable targets. Far trickier is standing up vigilantly for the person at the helm in one’s own country. Far trickier indeed. It is appealing to seek simplicity. William of Occam identified simplicity with truth, and the short and elegant solution to a problem is superior to one that requires complications to arrive at the same solution. But that’s only part of the story. Occam’s razor only says to prefer the simple answer when the complicated answer is equal to it in every other significant way. Sometimes we impose
State-imposed lockdowns in California and other “blue” states have accelerated the already sizeable exodus of businesses and residents from their states. Texas, where I live and teach, has been among the main beneficiaries. Each year since 2015, 100,000 more Californians have packed their bags for Arizona, Idaho, Texas, Utah, and other less restrictive, lower-tax, business-friendly states than have arrived in the Golden State. The same is happening on the East Coast, where thousands of former New York and New Jersey residents and business owners have fled to the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and other more hospitable and affordable states. But many Carolinians, Floridians, and Texans are worried that blue-state migrants could change their states — and not for the better. They shouldn’t be. For example, Oracle Corporation, the giant software and technology company, recently announced that it plans to move its headquarters from Redwood City, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, to Austin, Texas. The announcement came just days after Hewlett Packard Enterprise, another leading technology firm, announced it was moving its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston. Similarly, Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer, whose sister company SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) already has a major presence in Texas, chose
