I recently archived an article written by J.R. Nyquist on Trevor Louden’s website (link below), both of whom are friends with Gordon Chang — they’re a team allied on their core foreign policy views for both Russia and China.  That article tries to make the case that Putin is a secret communist.

I should start by saying I’m deeply anti-communist.  I have no sympathy for communism.  I write what I do here only to debunk false paranoid conspiratorial excesses that see communist plots in under every rock.  To be effective at opposing communism and communists we have to get our facts straight and not waste our energy attacking phantoms.

The aforementioned people are biased hawks who see what they want to see.  They can cherry-pick and frame things to make their case, of course, but that’s not interesting or helpful.  If their narrative were true then we wouldn’t have such clear and strong evidence of Putin NOT wanting to take Ukraine and trying to negotiate its neutrality, to pick just one example.  I can cite chapter and verse proving this case with countless empirical facts over years -- and I will below.  Though Trevor and his gang would merely invent epicycles to explain away the mountains of contrary evidence and point back to this one time in the 1980s when a person said a thing, therefore the mountain of evidence should be dismissed as merely demonstrating the cynical cunning of our enemy who’s playing not just 4d chess but 8d underwater backgammon.  On their read, even when our enemy fails or concedes something this is only ever part of a broader plot to feign weakness for a coming attack.

Trevor, Nyuist, and Chang et al are either:
1. Delusional or
2. Operatives for the state department / CIA.

I strongly lean toward #2 for Trevor and Chang, and #1 for Nyquist.  By saying I think Nyquist is delusional I want to be clear that I also think he's a very smart and knowledgeable man.  He's definitely not an idiot.  Clever people are far better at rationalizing their existing beliefs than dumb people.  Nyquist is very clever.

Let’s start the debunking with some quotes from his article:

“[…] Because this subject is of grave importance to our country, and because the danger of war is growing day to day, we should no longer allow naïve judgments about Russia to pass without contradiction.
[…]
In January 2016 Putin publicly criticized Lenin. But he didn’t criticize Lenin for being a communist. He criticized Lenin for “providing regions with autonomy.” By doing this, Lenin “planted an atomic bomb under the building that is called Russia and which would later explode.” This explosion took place in 1991 and led to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Putin was not criticizing Lenin’s communist ideas. He was criticizing Lenin for causing the breakup of the Soviet Union. […]”

In 1990 as part of the negotiated end of the Soviet Union the US and other western leaders promised not to expand NATO “one inch east” (of Germany) thereby reducing the pressure on Russia to act to defend itself from an expansive encroaching military alliance hostile to Russia.  There have been many propagandistic attempts to downplay or debunk this, though we have the declassified documents and statements from the men involved:

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/2067093/was-russia-given-assurances-that-nato-would-not-expand-toward-them

After agreeing not to expand NATO in 1990 the US aggressively sought to expand NATO.  Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999, Bulgaria Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004, Albania, and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, North Macedonia in 2020, Finland in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.  Since Russia was assured that NATO was would expand "one inch east" the US has grown NATO by 16 more countries.

In 2004 the US aggressively pursued a color revolution in Ukraine to achieve regime change.  This was called the “orange” color revolution:
 https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/2009271/book-revolution-in-orange-the-origins-of-ukraine-s-democratic-breakthrough-chapter-7-we

Imagine if China or Russia pursued a color revolution in Canada or Mexico — what would happen?  The example of the 1962 “Cuban missile crisis” tells us: the US would freak out and invoke the Monroe Doctrine (any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a hostile act) to justify sending planes, tanks, and troops to crush it.

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/4159307/reminder-from-1962-the-operation-northwoods-memo-describes-an-elaborate-months-long-us-covert-mil

Both before and after the Cuban missile crisis the US launched many efforts to pursue regime change in Cuba.  Depending on which sources you believe the number of regime change efforts ranges from dozens to hundreds, though in any case it's not a short list.  Just from declassified CIA documents alone we can be certain the number was more than you can count on both hands.  The US believes it has the right if not the duty (cf. Monroe Doctrine) to disallow what it perceives as hostile foreign influence anywhere near the US homeland and it has used both subversive methods and warfare to achieve this.

In 2008 at a NATO meeting in Bucharest the NATO officials admitted their expansionist plans openly, including for Ukraine:

"We, the Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance, met today to enlarge our Alliance and further strengthen our ability to confront the existing and emerging 21st century security threats.
[...]
NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.  We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. [...]"
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm

At this point we should take note that Russia is an unusually historically-minded nation and civilization which has been invaded at least 5 different times through Ukraine in the last few hundred years -- as recently as WW2 -- due to the features of the geography relative to Russia's core:

"[...] If God had built mountains in eastern Ukraine, then the great expanse of flatland that is the European Plain would not have been such inviting territory for the invaders who have attacked Russia from there repeatedly through history. As things stand, Putin, like Russian leaders before him, likely feels he has no choice but to at least try to control the flatlands to Russia’s west. So it is with landscapes around the world—their physical features imprison political leaders, constraining their choices and room for maneuver. These rules of geography are especially clear in Russia, where power is hard to defend, and where for centuries leaders have compensated by pushing outward.
[...]
In the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the west. The Poles came across the European Plain in 1605, followed by the Swedes under Charles XII in 1707, the French under Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans—twice, in both world wars, in 1914 and 1941. [...]"

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/russia-geography-ukraine-syria/413248/

If any western leader were a leader in Russia and saw an expansionist military alliance that opposes Russia trying to take root in Ukraine they would do the same things Russia has done -- or more.  This is easily understood on basic security grounds (cf. Monroe Doctrine).  In response to that 2008 push to get Ukraine into NATO then-ambassador to Russia (and now CIA director) William Burns wrote a secret diplomatic cable back to the US federal government describing the Russian reaction.  We know about this only because of Wikileaks which published the cable (now referred to colloquially as the "nyet means nyet" memo):

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5563242/archive-from-2008-wikileaks-us-diplomatic-cable-nyet-means-nyet-no-means-no-regarding-ukr

The whole classified US cable makes for an interesting read though I'll focus on just one paragraph:

"[...] Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face. [...]"

This 2008 US diplomatic cable makes it clear the US was well aware of Russia's concerns and understood the legitimacy of their concerns, yet proceeded with further efforts to gain control over Ukraine to make them a de facto if not official member of NATO.

In 2014 the US tried another regime change operation in Ukraine and this time succeeded.  We have a leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State) and Geoffrey Pyatt (US Ambassador to Ukraine) talking about the final details of their involvement in the US coup in Ukraine in 2014 where they decide who will run the country:

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/2009243/reminder-leaked-2014-nuland-pyatt-phone-call-about-us-coup-in-ukraine

Following the 2014 coup the US installed 12 secret CIA bases in Ukraine (more than any other country the CIA operates in -- a huge presence) according to reporting from the New York Times based on having visited the secret bases in Ukraine and talking to over 200 people involved:

"[...] The C.I.A.’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Millions of Ukrainians had just overrun the country’s pro-Kremlin government and the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his spy chiefs had fled to Russia. In the tumult, a fragile pro-Western government quickly took power. [...]"

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5317495/new-york-times-the-spy-war-how-the-c-i-a-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin

The CIA work in Ukraine wasn't just surveillance, they used Ukraine as a staging ground to setup sleeper cells inside Russia to engage in terrorism inside Russia by 2014:
https://epistemology.locals.com/post/3267440/antiwar-com-report-the-cia-is-directing-sabotage-attacks-inside-russia-using-operation-glad

The CIA wasn't alone in training and directing terrorists from Ukraine to operate inside Russia, they also received assistance from British intelligence MI6:

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/3005446/the-grayzone-leaked-documents-british-spies-constructing-secret-terror-army-in-ukraine

Following the US coup in Ukraine that installed a government hostile to Russia one of their first public acts was to ban use of the Russian language inside Ukraine -- a country in which more than 1/3rd of the whole population spoke Russian (including their current leader Zelensky).  Russian language speakers aren't evenly distributed across Ukraine they're focused in the areas geographically nearest Russia.  This triggered open civil war inside Ukraine where the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts sought independence from the western-controlled regime in Kiev.  These regions asked to join the Russian Federation and Putin said no.  Putin didn't want to take these regions.

Russia has had a critical-for-them naval military presense in Crimea since 1786 -- before the US was founded.  Crimea has been Russia's only warm-water port for centuries.  Since the breakup of the Soviet Union Russia has had a long-term lease on Crimea renewed in 2010 for another 25+ years.  Following the 2014 US coup in Ukraine Russia saw the writing on the wall and realized they were under imminent threat of losing their only warm water port and so annexed Crimea.  It should be noted that the majority of Crimean residents favored this according to not just a plebicite run by Russia, by according to US government-funded surveys of public sentiment in Crimea.  This meant Crimea was now officially a part of Russia from Russia's perspective though Ukraine didn't see it that way and vowed to retake Crimea.

By 2015 the CIA was training nazi's in Ukraine to fight Russia:
https://epistemology.locals.com/post/1875873/cia-trained-nazis-in-ukraine-to-fight-russia

By 2017 the US was publicly sending weapons to Ukraine, starting with Javelin missiles.

By 2019 the RAND Corporation had drawn up plans for subversive, economic, and military measures to harm Russia:

"[...]  The purpose of the project was to examine a range of possible means to extend Russia. By this, we mean nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military or economy or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as measures that would lead Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence. This report deliberately covers a wide range of military, economic, and political policy options. Its recommendations are directly relevant to everything from military modernization and force posture to economic sanctions and diplomacy; consequently, it speaks to all the military services, other parts of U.S. government that have a hand in foreign policy, and the broader foreign and defense policy audience.
[...]
Most of these measures—whether in Europe or the Middle East— risk provoking Russian reaction that could impose large military costs on U.S. allies and large political costs on the United States itself. Increasing military advice and arms supplies to Ukraine is the most feasible of these options with the largest impact, but any such initiative would have to be calibrated very carefully to avoid a widely expanded conflict. [...]"

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5309342/reminder-from-2019-rand-corporation-extending-russia-competing-from-advantageous-ground

Also in 2019 Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president of Ukraine on a platform of peace: friendliness toward Russia, and tolerance of and integration with the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts.  By March of 2021 Zelesnky signed a loftily-worded decree making it clear he was not going to pursue peace, but military dominance of Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk:

https://ppu.gov.ua/en/press-center/today-president-of-ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskyy-signed-decree-117-2021-of-march-24-2021-on-the-strategy-of-de-occupation-and-reintegration-of-the-temporarily-occupied-territory-of-the-autonomous-republ/

This action was met with great concern by Russia who saw it -- correctly -- as a threat by Ukraine that they were going to (re)take Crimea by force.  From Russia's point of view this meant Ukraine was planning to attack the Russian homeland.  Russian officials had no doubt read the RAND Corporation document as well -- it's public -- and realized the US was hell-bent on harming Russia using Ukraine as a weapon.  Ukranian officials were planning on going to war with Russia using NATO was their shield:

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/1988042/ukraine-adviser-to-zelenskiy-alexey-arestovich-has-been-advocating-and-planning-for-war-with-russi

By this time in 2019 we have US and British spies training nazis and terrorsts to harm Russia, we have the US shipping weapons to Ukraine, and we've had 5 years of NATO countries training the Ukrainian military -- all following a US coup in 2014.  Add up the evidence and it's very clear what the west has done: make Ukraine a de facto member of NATO while pushing aggressively to make it official.  Given this bleak reality -- that Russia's absolute red line of Ukraine being in NATO was being violated -- Russian officials began drawing up plans to reverse this.  The first attempt was diplomatic.  Later in 2019 Russia tried to negotiate with NATO insisting on an ironclad treaty ruling out NATO expansion into Ukraine and more broadly rolling back prior NATO expansions to those of 1997:

"The demands, spelled out by Moscow in full for the first time, were handed over to the US this week. They include a demand that Nato remove any troops or weapons deployed to countries that entered the alliance after 1997, which would include much of eastern Europe, including Poland, the former Soviet countries of Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Balkan countries.

Russia has also demanded that Nato rule out further expansion, including the accession of Ukraine into the alliance, and that it does not hold drills without previous agreement from Russia in Ukraine, eastern Europe, in Caucasus countries such as Georgia or in Central Asia."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-list-demands-tensions-europe-ukraine-nato

The US and NATO declined such a treaty according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:

“[…] The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that. [...]"

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5286990/reminder-from-2023-nato-secretary-general-jens-stoltenberg-explains-that-russia-asked-for-a-treaty

The refusal of NATO to sign a treaty meant Russia had exhausted diplomatic efforts to prevent NATO expansion into Ukraine and so Russia prepared for a military operation it later launched in February 2022:

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5318897/reminder-from-february-2022-putin-s-two-initial-speeches-at-the-start-of-the-war-laying-out-his-c

This Russian "special military operation" (SMO) was meant to be a lighting attack just strong enough for force Ukraine to negotiate.  The Russian SMO worked, by April 15th 2022 a draft treaty had been initialed:

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5358439/ted-snider-putin-s-draft-treaty-between-russia-and-ukraine-did-exist

Ukrainian officials said Russia was prepared to end their SMO as early as March -- just a few weeks after the start of the SMO -- if Ukraine had agreed:

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/4924342/antiwar-com-ukrainian-official-confirms-russia-was-ready-to-end-war-in-march-2022-if-kyiv-agreed

Former Ukraine officials said after the fact the treaty was a good deal and contained many consessions from Russia:

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/4938590/former-top-advisor-to-zelesnky-arestovich-says-istanbul-peace-agreement-was-good-had-many-concess

Unfortunately the US and UK blocked Ukraine from signing the treaty:

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/3479375/antiwar-former-israeli-pm-bennett-says-us-blocked-his-attempts-at-a-russia-ukraine-peace-d

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/2039350/turkish-foreign-minister-mevlut-cavusoglu-some-members-of-the-nato-alliance-favor-continued-bloo

It's clear that various western interests were concerned this early peace negotiation would end the war "too soon" when they believed they had an opportunity to harm Russia (remember the "Extending Russia" paper from RAND):

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/1962057/some-warhawks-concerned-russia-ukraine-war-will-end-too-soon

Once Ukraine pulled out of the peace negotiations with Russia in April 2022 -- after being pushed by the US and UK to do so -- Russia changed it's goal from forcing a negotiation to imposing it's goals using military force.  Russia mobilized more soldiers and ramped up military production and set plans to annex Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts -- which they did by Septermber 2022.

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/1979884/russia-s-goals-and-framework-for-their-war-on-ukraine-early-april-2022

Despite repeated warnings the US has given long-range (190 mile) missiles to Ukraine in 2024 and so Russia has said in response they will impose a buffer zone big enough to protect what they perceive as Russian homeland, including the annexed regions (Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia).  This means Russia will not accept anything less than conquering 190 miles beyond the already-annexed territories.  Until and unless Ukraine -- and most importantly the US -- agree to negotiate an end to this conflict Russia will continue to demilitarize Ukraine (killing all their soliders, destroying all their war production capability), and will continue to advance it's troops ever-deeper into what was once Ukrainian territory.  If Ukraine doesn't surrender they may not have any country left by the time Russia is done.

I've summarized the key facts of this issue and provided citations which expand on what I've summarized to document clearly what Russia has done and why.  Russia did not want war, contrary to what Nyquist et al claimed in 2017.  Russia does not want to reclaim the territory of the Soviet Union, as claimed by Nyquist.  Russia wants security for itself along its own borders and has been completely unambigous about this for years and now decades. If you poke a bear in the eye don't be surprised if they bite you.

Context:
https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5563022/archive-j-r-nyquist-is-vladimir-putin-a-communist

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/5292056/documenting-us-regime-change-efforts-in-and-around-russia-over-the-last-20-years-belarus-georgia

https://epistemology.locals.com/upost/2760093/podcast-pete-quinones-how-the-west-brought-war-to-the-ukraine-w-ben-abelow

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/4286405/podcast-the-grayzone-aaron-mat-interviews-former-ukrainian-government-official-and-diplomat-and

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5342208/wsj-putin-s-punishing-peace-deal-for-ukraine-revealed-some-details-from-the-april-2022-dra

https://epistemology.locals.com/post/5558336/independent-ukraine-war-analysis-as-of-april-25th-2024

In my experience most people accept that voluntary interaction with other people is morally good, and coercing innocent people is morally bad. If I have a dollar and you have a pen and I want your pen more than my dollar and you want my dollar more than your pen, then we can make a trade where I get your pen, you get my dollar, and we both feel better off by the result: we both got what we wanted, and we would both say we're better off than we were before our trade. People only engage in voluntary interactions when both parties will benefit from the result (where benefit is understood in the broadest sense). Even charity benefits both parties because the person giving is deriving some psychological or other benefit from the act of charity at the same time the person receiving charity is getting some (usually) tangible benefit.

The beauty of voluntary interactions is that they almost by definition require both parties to benefit (sans mistakes). If one or both parties would not benefit from the interaction, why would they choose to engage in such interaction voluntarily? Obviously they wouldn't. Voluntary interactions demonstrate our preferences through the choices they actualize.

If I hold a gun to your head and demand that you give me your money or else I'll kill you or lock you in a cage, virtually nobody thinks this is moral. Coercion is immoral because it violates individual rights. Even if I used some of the money I took from you by force to help orphans, this would not make my act of coercion any more moral. Coercion is wrong because it's an immoral means, regardless of what the ends are. This is easy to see when we talk about a man robbing people at gunpoint.

For reasons that aren't entirely clear, if we add in a voting process to the previously mentioned example of robbing people at gunpoint many if not most people seem to think robbing people at gunpoint becomes moral. If everyone in our neighborhood votes on whether or not to send people with guns to take money from everyone by force and the majority favor it then most people seem to accept that. Why is that? In part I think the answer is that humans have an innate respect for authority. So when a person or institution claims to have authority we are likely to accept their claim by default. Another reason for this is our pervasive bias in favor of the status quo, whatever it is (slavery was regarded as perfectly normal and acceptable by most people for most of human history). As far as I know the only rational way of coming to question the status quo is by becoming educated in rationality, ethics, and maybe history. Since few people have taken the time required to seriously study such things most people are likely to accept however things already are. Acceptance of the status quo is further facilitated by plausible-sounding myths in popular culture and by outright propaganda used by those who might mean well but are poorly informed, or more cynically, by those who benefit from the status quo.

Does voting about something change the morality of that thing? No. If 99% of everyone in your neighborhood voted to kill the remaining 1%, would that be moral? Obviously not. What if 99.99999% vote to kill just 1 innocent person -- would that be moral? No. No matter the breadth of a majority, the morality of an action is unchanged. If voting is allowed to have unlimited scope, unlimited power, then it is nothing but the tyranny of the majority. In a just and moral society it's absolutely essential that minorities be protected because by definition they lack the numerical strength to protect themselves. The smallest minority is the individual. A just and moral society protects individual rights no matter how many people vote to violate those rights. Should we let a majority white population vote on whether to keep black slaves? No. Should we let two wolves and one sheep vote on whether to have mutton for dinner? No. The legitimate scope of power for what voting can do, or what government can do more generally, is not unlimited. In a just and moral society the proper role of voting and government is limited to protecting individual rights. Every inch moved beyond this is an inch in the direction of tyranny. Whether tyranny by government or tyranny by the majority, it's tyranny nonetheless -- even a well-meaning tyranny is still a tyranny. Any system that gives itself the power to violate individual rights -- even for well- meaning ends -- is a system of tyranny and oppression that we should all oppose.

If a healthy patient walks into a doctor's office for a routine checkup and the doctor has waiting 5 other patients in desperate need of a heart, liver, kidney, etc. Should the doctor murder the one healthy innocent patient to save the 5 who need organs? No. Even if the net number of lives saved is 4, the ends don't justify the means. So it is with voting and government policy. The ends can never be used to justify any means, because if you take that approach it can be used to justify any horror you can imagine, even murdering an innocent stranger for the purpose of harvesting their organs. Even ignoring the principled ethical argument, just consider the practical horror of ends that are desired but never achieved. In Soviet Russia they desired some kind of Utopian nation and used this goal to justify mass starvation, gulags, countless arbitrary executions, etc. So if you take the approach of saying the ends justify the means you can quite literally justify killing millions of people and still never actually achieve your goals. And again, that's ignoring the principled ethical argument against the ends justifying the means which says actions must be ethical, and so no matter the end-goal, the methods of achieving it must be ethical. Or in other words: the ends can't justify the means -- we must evaluate the ethics of each action, not just the desired outcome.

I'm going to guess that you the reader agree that voluntary interactions are good, forcing people to do things at gunpoint is bad, that voting to kill innocent people is unjust even if a large majority of voters agree that they want to kill innocent people, that harvesting the organs from an unwilling and innocent person even to save several others is not just, and that ends cannot justify the means no matter how well-meaning the ends are. Though watch what happens to your own emotions when I bring up forced wealth redistribution in state welfare programs. Do you think it's just and moral for people with guns to come take your justly acquired private property by force? No. But what if they use some of the loot they took to help poor people -- is it moral then? No. What if the people with guns are representatives of the government -- is it moral then? Do the ends justify the means in this instance? Why is that? How can you justify your position without engaging in a logical fallacy like special pleading, appeal to consequences, appeal to emotion, appeal to expediency, etc? I'll save you the trouble: you can't. It's simply not possible to make a philosophically robust, principled argument in favor of coercing innocent people.

Yet many people do argue in favor of coercing innocent people in some cases. How do they do it? They rationalize. They change the subject. They throw out red-herrings. They use vague or misleading language to cloak their position in a way that makes it seem morally respectable. They give examples of what amounts to how two wrongs make a right. They appeal to systems of ethics that might sound good, but in the final analysis depend on evasions or errors in reasoning. They hem and haw about a "social contract" that nobody signed. They engage in victim-blaming and tell you that if you don't like having your individual rights violated you should move. In other words they respond with emotions, not reasons. Just as you probably are right now (link1: "When our beliefs are threatened by facts, we turn to unfalsifiable justifications").  Remember earlier when I said to pay attention to your emotions as I talked about this? How do you feel now? Are you upset? Do you feel repulsed by what seems like a cold apathetic maybe even malevolent attitude toward poor people? But wait: we're not talking about poor people, we're talking about the just and moral use of force against innocent people and how voting interacts with this. I picked this example to provoke emotions and demonstrate how it is that we justify coercing innocent people. We justify such things not with sound ethics and reason and evidence, but with emotions. Then later we rationalize our emotions with increasingly clever arguments that we find endless support for because of our confirmation bias -- we seek out information that supports whatever it is that we already believe (link2: "Selective Exposure Theory", link3: "How facts backfire"). Is that what you're doing right now? Are you currently screaming at the page with your favorite rationalizations? Have you decided that the implication of what I've written is such that you think I'm an amoral psychopath and thus you feel justified dismissing whatever I've written? I encourage you to ask yourself: do you have rational arguments against what I've written, or does it simply make you uncomfortable and thus you desire to reject it? Are you engaged in careful rational deliberation about the facts of the matter, or are you letting your emotions get the better of you? Is it possible even in principle if you're mistaken? Is it possible there are things you don't know? Is it possible you've been misled? Is it possible there is a compassionate "third way" that doesn't involve letting children starve nor violating the individual rights of innocent people? I will not answer such questions here, I raise them only to encourage you to open your mind (link4: "Why Are Unfalsifiable Beliefs So Attractive?").

The key moral problem with Soviet communism, or Nazi socialism, or any number of lesser attempts at socialism or "mixed" economies is that people are forced into the system. With such systems you either accept the diktat of the people in charge or you risk execution or imprisonment. If a group of people willingly join together to create their own communist commune for just their own members and violate no individual rights in the process, I say good for them. Or if a business owner wants to make their business by owned by the workers as in socialism, so long as they're not violating individual rights in the process that's a fine thing too. What people choose for themselves is none of my business or anyone else's so long as any harm is restricted to consenting adults. The trouble comes in when people want to impose their will on innocent people by force. This is why voting and governments must have very limited scope: to help ensure nobody can initiate violence against or enslave their innocent fellow man. To help ensure no ideology (no matter how well-meaning) can be imposed by force on unwilling people.

So what are government-mandated welfare programs? They are programs created by usually well-meaning people that accept using violence as a legitimate means of achieving their goals. Either accept this violation of individual property rights and involuntarily pay into the system or we'll send people with guns to your house and put you in a cage. This is an example of well-meaning tyranny, but tyranny nonetheless. It's also a poorly informed policy in terms of how well it does what it aims to do (lookup the goals of the war on poverty vs. the outcome 5), what kind of unintended consequences it has (subsidizing poverty rather than eliminating it), etc. And it's astonishingly short-sighted: are the key problems that are attempting to be addressed by welfare programs the best place to take action? If you only look at a snapshot of the present world you might think struggling children are the key issue in need of being helped. But why are there struggling children? If you look one level deeper it becomes clear that the key problem is actually parents making the immoral choice to have children they can't take care of. Parents without the skills, material means, environment, etc are having children that they won't be able to raise on their own to be well-adjusted. So really the problem is parents. Parents are the moral agents making the implicit or explicit choice to have children they can't provide for.

Should the immoral choices of others be sufficient to justify harming innocent 3rd parties? Clearly the answer is no: forcing innocent people to pay for the immoral choices of others is a bad system. And yet that's the system we have. People defend it because they are used to the status quo, and because they can see no better option. But appealing to the status quo is not an argument, it's a logical fallacy.

Nobody wants to see children suffer. Children are not to blame for their parents bad choices. I think most people would agree that progress toward protecting individual property rights can't take a path that involves children currently benefiting from welfare starving to death. But for the purpose of this essay I will not address possible solutions to this problem and instead will confine myself to a discussion of our perception of morality and how it changes when voting is involved.

Here's where I think we usually go wrong in such discussions. We tell ourselves that "sure initiating violence is in principle wrong, but in practice there are a few careful well-meaning limited exceptions." This is a mistake. What we should be doing is questioning our assumptions. We should be working to discover the principles that maximize human flourishing. Once we have those principles we should work on plotting a gradual course in the direction of that ideal of human flourishing. The right answer is not that we accept poorly defined principles and only apply them sometimes. The right answer is that we define better principles and better paths to achieve our principles. To many this sounds unnecessarily rigid or dogmatic, but recognize the fork in the road we're discussing: one path uses reason and evidence to maximize human flourishing. The other uses emotion instead of reason, popular myths instead of evidence, and moves only chaotically toward a future that may be better or worse. If you want to build a rocket that can send people to the moon or you want to build a microchip, emotionalism and a lack of evidence are not successful attributes. So it is for working towards a better world for all of humanity in the realm of ethics and politics. My argument here is not saying we should ignore emotions and let robots make all our choices -- not at all. My argument is that rationality and evidence enable us to be most successful at whatever our goals are. If we don't have a firm grasp of the principles that do (or should) guide us or we don't have principles that work in practice (i.e. we need various exceptions), then this is a sign that our principles are not as good as they could be and that we're relying on intuition (chock full heuristics and biases and all the problems that entails!) and thus making less progress toward the ideal of human flourishing than we could be making.

Should we ignore evidence? Deny rationality? Reject ethics? Of course not. No matter what our goals are, we need ethics and rationality and evidence to make good choices that enable us to best achieve our goals. What is true for designing a spaceship is true for designing government policies. Emotions are an input, a factoid, a piece of data: not a reliable decision-making technique by itself.

Conclusion

There's nothing magic about voting. Voting cannot trump ethics and rationality. If we want to live in a better world we need a better understanding of ethics, rationality, and the legitimate (limited) scope for the power of voting. We need to reflect very carefully about how democratic voting has acquired an almost mystical quality in popular culture, and we need to question our assumptions about such things.

Today, I want to take the time of my colleagues to set the record straight yet again about an FBI investigative report that's been generated that goes by the number 1023. And I do this because the breathless media is misreporting requires that I come to the floor to give a historical reorientation of the facts and the evidence. As I've said all along on the center floor, I and Chairman Comer of the House made the 1023 document public for this single purpose. That purpose is to force the FBI to do what the taxpayers pay the FBI to do. And that is investigate, in this case, the information contained in that document that goes by the number of 1023. It's all pretty simple. I didn't promote or vouch for the allegations in 1023 as the truth, like some confused Democrats in the partisan media, have falsely said. I pushed the FBI to do their job because that's my responsibility to the taxpayers and the people of Iowa. Now some confused Democrats and partisan media have returned to their favorite line, falsely saying that our effort to get the FBI to do their job is somehow peddling Russian disinformation. It's kind of like a nervous tick to all of them. For years, they falsely said the same thing about my and Senator Johnson's Biden family investigation, even though our investigation was based on Obama, Biden, administration records, and really on authentic bank records. Some Democrats in the partisan media apparently don't care about observing and reading the facts. Well, this senator does care about that. So let's discuss the facts of the matter that they either missed or more likely are choosing to ignore because it doesn't fit their narrative. The whistleblower's within the Justice Department, who came to me, said the FBI had this document, the 1023, in their position now three years ago, June of 1920, three and a half years ago, in fact, because that document is dated June the 30th, 2020. Those whistleblowers that came to me were right. The whistleblower said the FBI considered its confidential human source to be credible. That confidential human resource, source, which I'll simply describe today as the FBI source, formed the basis of the 1023. If you're following television, we now know the name of that FBI source, but until he was arrested, I did not know his name. The FBI said the same to Congress and used the credibility of that source, the credibility assessment of that individual as he accused to even withhold the 1023 from Congress when we first asked for it. Even ranking member Raskins of the House committee confirmed that the FBI told Congress that the FBI source was credible. The FBI found their source so credible that the FBI gave their source the authority even to engage in illegal activity for the FBI's criminal investigation. And yes, I want to make clear. The FBI said that he could do illegal things in his work for the FBI. The FBI told him that he may even have to testify in court based on the information he provided. In fact, the FBI said that this source was so credible that the public release of the unclassified 1023 could put his life at risk. And then when they used the excuse, it could put his life at risk for releasing it is another excuse that they used. Now let me be clear. The FBI consistently and publicly vouched for their source. Then the other week, the Biden justice made this source's name public for the world to see. So if you watch television, you'll get his name off of television. Apparently the FBI's excuse to withhold the document from Congress, as you can see, was pure smoke. However, the FBI said releasing the 1023 could put their employees a confidential human source, life in danger. The FBI's conduct is of course obviously observed, observed, and a disservice to the American people, that means a disservice to the American people when the FBI doesn't do its job of following up on investigative reports as they did in this case for three years. So you can see those same whistleblowers were right about the FBI believing that their source was credible. The FBI's source served as a source for many years, dating to the Obama administration, roughly 2010 as I recall. According to the Justice Department indictment, the FBI source worked for the federal government and was paid by the federal government. So again, those whistleblowers injustice were right. Whistleblores said the FBI failed to investigate the allegations in the document. So let me refresh this history by giving you the timeline. According to the Justice Department indictment, the FBI finally interviewed the FBI source on September 27th last year. We made the 1023 public just a few months prior to July 20th, on July 20th, 2023. Clearly, the FBI finally acted because of our release of the document. In other words, we embarrassed them. And by that time, as I've said, by my timeline, the document was over three years old. Three years they didn't do their job that the FBI ought to have been following up on. So the 1023 sat with the FBI collecting dust until we and Congress acted. My releasing the 1023 got the FBI to do its job that they should have been doing three years before. So I think it's legitimate in this political climate we're in this year, a presidential year, to ask the question, would special counsel Jack Smith have waited years to act if the 2010-23 was about former President Trump. Those whistleblores were right about the FBI's failure to investigate. I started my oversight relating to the FBI's failure to investigate the 1023 on October 13th, 2022. So I didn't have the document in my possession. I knew about it from the whistleblores, but what information I got from the whistleblores without actually reading the document, I sent a letter to Attorney General Garland, Director Ray, and U.S. Attorney Weiss to ask this very simple question. And I quote from the letter, "What has the FBI and the Justice Department to include U.S. Attorney Weiss done to investigate." I also asked for an array of documents, including travel documents, that the Justice Department has used to indict the source. And I also asked before I had read the document, for the same records again, this would have been after we released the document. So I correct myself. I asked the same records again on October 24th, 2023. I said this on May 3rd, a year earlier. What we don't know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. I asked on May 5th, 2023, about the 1023, quote, "I wish I could say that I knew it was true or untrue," end of quote. On May 9th, 2023, I said quote, "My focus right now is on the FBI and the Department of Justice. What have they done with this document?" Meaning 1023, end of quote. On June 1st, 2023, I said quote, "We're responsible for making sure the FBI does its job, and that's what we want to know," end of quote. I came to this floor in the Senate on June 12th, 2023, to say to my colleagues this, and I quote, "Here, with this 1023 document, I've been referring to throughout my remarks, the Biden Justice Department, FBI, must explain to Congress and the American people what, if anything, they've done with this information, and they need to show their work. We're not accepting their word for anything. We're seeking documentary proof of what they did to investigate the matter or their failure to do so," end of quote. Even after Comer and I publicly released the document, I said this on July 25th quote, "I want to make sure what my oversight focus is, and we'll be holding the Biden Justice Department and the FBI accountable to explain to the American people what they did to investigate and what they found. What did the Justice Department and the FBI do to investigate the information contained in 1023? Did the Justice Department and the FBI follow normal investigating process and procedure or try to sweep all this under the rug because of political bias? More precisely, did the FBI and DOJ seek to obtain the evidence referenced in the document? Did the Department of Justice and FBI seek to interview individuals relating to the 1023? And if not, why not? If so, one way or the other, what did they find? And that's end of the quote from what I said here on the floor of the Senate last year on this very subject. Let me say that one line again, so everyone hears me, one way or the other, what did they, meaning the FBI, find? All these partisan media outlets, if they had a shred of intellectual honesty and decency, could report those facts and hold the FBI accountable for their failures. And of course, our congressional request after another, one congressional request after another, when unanswered to the Justice Department and the FBI. So considering that deafening silence and the FBI's assertion that the source was credible, we made the 1023 public to force the FBI to do what they're paid to do to do their job. They were supposed to be investigating this matter three years ago and doing it, not for Chuck Grassley, but for the American people. If Congress didn't ask for transparency and accountability, in other words, us in the Congress doing our oversight work, we'd break faith with the American people just like the FBI didn't do its job and broke faith with the American people. And you know what else? The Biden administration hasn't answered. My and Senator Johnson's oversight request. Let's not forget, there's a larger investigative picture here other than just 1023. Senator Johnson and I released two reports in 2020 as part of our Biden family investigation. We gave a series of floor speeches, introducing bank records, connecting the Biden family to communist China financial interests. Then on October the 26th, 2022, we sent hundreds of pages of those bank records to use the U.S. attorney vice. So then this question is appropriate. To my Democrat colleagues and more importantly, the partisan media that's not doing their job are those authentic bank records that Johnson and I made public. Is that Russian disinformation? How Chairman Comer, Jordan and Smith have built on, built and advanced upon the foundation created by Senator Johnson and this Senator. So here's the question. Where's the Biden justice department regarding those bank records and potential money laundering? Where's the Biden justice department regarding Biden family members registering under the Foreign Agents Act? Another question, the Biden justice department appears to, appears concerned about their FBI sources contact with national, for nationals. So where's that same concern regarding the Biden family foreign connections? Are the justice department and the FBI sitting on it just like they did with the 1023 for at least three years? Here's another question to pose to the media and my colleagues. If we didn't make the 1023 public would the FBI have interviewed the FBI source or would he remain on the taxpayers payroll for another 10 years continuing to misinform the FBI and by misinforming, I presume that's the reason he's sitting in jail now in Las Vegas, waiting trial or waiting whatever they have to do to follow up on the arrest? What will happen to the defendants if this sources information was used for a conviction or a plea deal? This is really quite the mess for the justice department and the FBI and it's one of their own making. My oversight investigations are done without regard to power, party or privilege. And I backed that statement up with asking you to remember I'm the senator that did a transcribed interview with Donald Trump Jr. when Donald Trump was president of the United States. That's when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I also ordered my staff to interview other Republicans during my crossfire hurricane investigation. And you know what? If I had the gavel today, I'd bring more Biden's to Congress to testify because the American people really deserve the kind of nonpartisan oversight that I've been conducting for years. And remember this and it's pretty simple. If the FBI came clean years ago about this document 1023, we wouldn't have had to release that very document. I wouldn't have had to rely on whistleblowers to make this public. So this guy still could be working for the FBI for another 10 years. Instead, these people played games, withheld the document from Congress and provided false and misleading information to Congress and the American people to not want to come clean on what they did with 1023. We all know that transparency in government brings accountability. Now folks are being held accountable because of my congressional oversight. My oversight will continue. The FBI has a lot of explaining to do for their continued shortcomings and actions in this case. When will the media ask the FBI to explain? I've just explained it for the American people. I'd like to see the media cover this instead of talking about rights and disinformation when this issue is discussed in print media and on television. Mr. Chairman, I yield before.