I Want Your Sex

The 2026 film, I Want Your Sex, is ostensibly about sex, for the film is saturated with that leitmotif, but the narrative is actually a critique of California culture, with European culture playing a minor role to provide a contrast. Generally, comedy can be used by screenwriters as a means by which audiences can accept, or at least acknowledge criticism that would otherwise be met with ferocious denial befitting a drug addiction. In 2026, the sheer dogmatism of ideologically-soaked imposing at will, as if with facts of reason rather than the gloss of merely subjective opinion, was the mentality of the day afflicting (young) adults under 40 years-old in California. Film can expose such banality to the light of day and thus serve as a self-correcting agent for a societal or sub-societal culture, for the human brain, standing on its own as arrogance on stilts, may be woefully and even unretrievably vulnerable to purblindness when  beliefs and values are in the grip of ideological idolatry.

The full essay is at "I Want Your Sex."

California and Florida: Different Political Cultures in the U.S.

As evinced by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney likening a planned referendum on whether Alberta should vote to separate from the rest of Canada to “Brexit,” in which Britain seceded from the E.U., as if the UK in the European Union were equivalent to Alberta in Canada, political category mistakes can run rampant without being detected as such. Referring to the referendum in the province, Carney said, “That is a very dangerous bluff.” He was “pointing to the turmoil that followed the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union.”[1] The implied false equivalence of Canada and the E.U., as if the former too had been formed out of countries, is as incorrect as that which Carney was more directly assuming between Alberta and Britain. A region of a country, even if the latter has a federal system, is not equivalent to a country that joins a political union such as the E.U. and U.S. That Britain was once the host kingdom in the British Empire, and thus equivalent to other members of the empire, including Ireland and Virginia, does not mean that the UK as a state in the E.U. was equivalent to the latter, or to other political unions consisting of early-modern-scale countries.

The full essay is at "California and Florida."

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1. Mike Blanchfield and Sue Allan, “Carney Warms Alberta Not to Pull a “Brexit,” Politico, May 25, 2026.

UCLA’s School of Medicine: Practicing Racism?

The matter of having race as a component part of the admissions process of a school in California university in the U.S. came to the fore once again on May 6, 2026 when the U.S. Department of Justice publicly announced its finding that the UCLA School of Medicine “illegally used race as a selection criteria (sic) for candidates and admitted Black and Latino students who had lower academic qualifications than their (W)hite and Asian counterparts.”[1] The racial discrimination was against White students and students from Asia who had higher academic qualification. Accordingly, assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote, “Racism in admissions is both illegal and anti-American, and this Department will not allow it to continue.”[2] In fact, it could be argued that the sheer existence of race in the criteria for the admission of medical students is racist, taking that term to mean “pertaining to race” without the pejorative connotations that racism has. To be sure, the unique historical disadvantage of Black Americans, including when the institution of slavery existed in the antebellum period of the South, arguably justified making up for the legacy of continuing prejudice by preferential treatment in college admissions. It is important to acknowledge that affirmative action programs contained racial prejudice against another race, and in the twenty-first century the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the racial harm over institutional efforts to redress racial prejudice, perhaps because the latter had diminished considerably especially since the 1960s. UCLA may not have caught up with this recognition because ideology tends to lag changes in the world due to emotional investment and the long-standing nature of values. So the justice department’s accusation that the medical school (and thus the university) intentionally violating the relevant court rulings can be viewed as a sort of recalibration as well as an assertion that laws should not be violated.

The full essay is at "UCLA's School of Medicine."

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1. Lauren Trautenberg, “DOJ Alleges School of Medicine Racial Discrimination,” Daily Bruin, May 8, 2026.
2 Ibid.

On the Ideological Illogic of European Federalism

Europe may have contributed immensely to philosophy but logic seems to have been in short supply at times, as Europe ties itself in ideological knots in service of nationalism itself, as if that ideology had not given rise to two world wars in the twentieth century. I am not referring to the incendiary, irrational fear of the word, federalism, being applied to the European Union, but, rather, to the role of nationalist ideology in distorting the application of comparative institutional politics by journalists.

The full essay is at "On the Ideological Illogic of European Federalism."

Ranking Technological Innovation: The E.U. and U.S. as Unions of States

“With the rise of AI, self-driving cars, and wi-fi connected appliances, it can feel like innovation is everywhere these days.”[1] Lest the BBC be presumed to be referring to California, the fifth largest economy in the world, with Caltech and Stanford University, government investment in IT and data infrastructure, and a high concentration of science/technology graduates and employment, California (as well as Massachusetts) is absent from the BBC’s rankings of technologically innovative countries. So Switzerland comes up in that ranking as the world’s foremost in computer technology, while the U.S. comes in third, with states like California and Mississippi being lost in an average that does not correspond to any actual place.

The full essay is at "Ranking Technological Innovation."

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1. Lindsey Galloway, “What It’s Like to Live in the World’s Most Innovative Countries,” BBC.com, December 5, 2024.

A Tale of Two Republics: Arizona and California during the Coronavirus Pandemic

An educated and virtuous citizenry is essential for a republic to endure, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two former U.S. presidents and rivals, agreed in an exchange of letters. Interestingly, both men died on July 4, 1826. Of course, the vote on independence had occurred on July 3, 1776 and the Declaration was signed over weeks rather than dramatically on July 4, 1776. Unfortunately, false narratives can take on a life of their own. Another example involves the U.S.'s "sun-belt" states, whose surging popularity from the 1980s at least through 2020 has masked the true conditions of the underlying cultures. Maricopa county, in which Phoenix, Arizona is located, was in the top 10 nationally for numeric increases in population from 2010 to 2020. Lest it be supposed that that county improved, a survey in July, 2019 listed Arizona as 49th out of the 50 States on elementary education (K-12th grade). 

Relatedly, Arizona's Medicaid system had a sordid reputation in terms of how well the subcontracting companies and non-profits managed themselves and were held accountable. As of 2020, Arizona still had a significant number of ideological voters who believed that Medicaid was a form of sordid socialism, which unjustly had taken the place of horrid communism. Because Medicaid had become the unwanted step-child in that political culture that still boasted that "taxes are theft," tight budgets and the State's bad education system resulted in subcontracting organizations, including medical clinics, conveniently embellishing their low-wage employees. Reports emerged of nurse-practitioners claiming to have the same training as physicians and even specialists such as psychiatrists and dermatologists, and of counselors misrepresenting themselves as being synonymous with therapists. In fact, Arizona's Medicaid tumor even reduced mental health to behavioral health so the cheaper behavior-trained counselors rather than therapists could be hired and relied upon. 

Furthermore, the organizations in Arizona receiving most or all of their funding from public-aid agencies like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Medicaid were reputed to suffer from administrative incompetence without much accountability from either of those two government agencies. It was quite strange to read of the non-profit organizations and companies, including medical clinics, refer to themselves as agencies. Such lying with impunity also served to dissimulate any criticism of administrative incompetence. That low-class sub-culture of dependent organizations could count on the low education level in the state and its notable anti-science (and anti-intellectualism) ideology not to know better. In fact, no one would be likely to push-back on the Medicaid employees in the state who mispronounce the technocratic acronym for the state's Medicaid program, AHCCCS, as access rather than ah-kehs. In Arizona, the letter C is not hard (like a K) if an S follows, rather than just an E or I. You're wrong, ignorance that can't be wrong has the gall to say. You're wrong, I don't need to keep six-feet away from people. You're wrong, my people don't need enforceable government orders. Relative to California, we could rightly expect that Arizona would botch its management of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. 

The full essay is at "Arizona and California React to Coronavirus."

On the Supply and Demand in Housing Markets: Rent Control in California

In February, 2019, Oregon’s legislature passed rent-control legislation limiting rent increases to 7% annually plus inflation. New York’s legislature strengthened the existing local rent-control regulations in New York City. Roughly six months later, California’s legislature passed rent-control legislation limiting annual rent increases to 5% after inflation and strengthening other tenant protections.[1] Not even the largest landlord group and the California Business Roundtable had opposed the legislation in spite of the fact that rent-control even as a concept flies in the face of the free-market ideology that has been so popular in America. Indeed, economists “from both the left and the right have a well-established aversion to rent control, arguing that such policies ignore the message of rising prices, which is to build more housing.”[2] Accordingly, only four of the American states (and Washington, D.C.) had some kind of local rent-control. So what accounts for the rent-control fever that had taken hold in 2019? I want to point to the immediate context then in California, and then to a more theoretical explanation that calls for distinguishing shelter from real-estate investing.

The full essay is at "California Rent Control."

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1. Conor Dougherty and Luis Ferré-Sadurni, “California Approves Statewide Rent Control to Ease Housing Crisis,” The New York Times, September 12, 2019.

A Gay Judge on California's Anti-Marriage Proposition in 2010: A Judicial Conflict of Interest?

In 2010, Chief Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling that declared Proposition 8 (against gay marriage) an unconstitutional violation of gay Californians’ civil rights. After retiring in February of the next year, the judge revealed that he was in a 10-year-old relationship with a same-sex partner. The question is whether a reasonable belief that the judge would stand to benefit from the ruling means that there was a personal conflict of interest sufficient to have the judge’s ruling vacated. Amid the emotions swirling around issues such as gay marriage that involve the uneasy mix of personal matters and public scrutiny, an urgent need exists for ethicists and jurispruds to isolate the pernicious problems inherent in the conflict of interest phenomenon so we all can have faith that such issues are decided impartially in substance as well as appearance.

The full essay is at "Are Judges above Personal Conflicts of Interest?"

California’s Turnaround in 2013: Brown’s Budget Surpluses

By early 2013, California had turned the corner from deficits—$9 billion in 2011 and $25 billion in 2010—to anticipated surpluses—$785 million for the fiscal year ending June 2013 and $851 million in the year thereafter. The lack of balance between billions and millions suggests that Keynesian economics may contain a fundamental imbalance in favor of consumption, at least in a democratic context. The prudent proposals by Jerry Brown, California’s head of state and chief executive, point to the ability of a republic to responsibly manage its fiscal business even within the overall imbalance.

                   
The full essay is at "California's Turnaround."

Brexit and Calexit: Excessive Democracy?

Ordered by Britain’s Supreme Court to get the state’s Parliament’s approval for the state to secede from the Union, the Prime Minister, Teresa May, faced the prospect of debate, amendments, and the votes themselves in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In the latter chamber, May’s Conservative Party did not at the time have a majority. Some in her party “suggested that she should quickly appoint enough new lords to give her the votes she needs. But few say they expect that to be necessary: with little democratic legitimacy, the 805 lords are unlikely to dare to block” the referendum outcome favoring secession.[1] I submit that the democratic criterion is ill-fitting to the House of Lords.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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1. Katrin Bennhold, “Ordered to Seek Approval on ‘Brexit,’ Teresa May Does So. Tersely,” The New York Times, January 26, 2017. 

California Passes Stricter Pollution Targets: Bringing Business Around

California’s legislature approved a bill (SB 32) in August, 2016 that extends the climate targets from reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 (the former target) to just 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030.[1] A second law, which includes increased legislative oversight of California regulators and targets refineries in poor areas, passed as well. Diane Regas of the Environmental Defense Fund pointed to California’s climate leadership. “As major economies work under the Paris Agreement to strengthen their plans to cut pollution and boost clean energy, California, once again, is setting a new standard for climate leadership worldwide.”[2] At first glance, it would seem that the legislature had freed itself from big business to pass the bills, but the sector itself was split. I submit the anticipation of a refreshed “cap and trade” program as an alternative (or mitigating factor) to stricter regulations played a role. Simply put, using the market mechanism in government regulation makes the stricter targets more palatable to market-based enterprises.

The full essay is at "California on Greenhouse Gases."

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1. Chris Megerian, “’A Real Commitment Backed Up by Real Power’: Gov. Jerry Brown to Sign Sweeping New Climate legislation,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2016.

2. “Landmark Climate Bill Passed by California Legislature,” August 26, 2016.

Big Soda Campaigning against a Proposed Tax in San Francisco: A Vested Interest Thwarting Democracy?

With a proposed 1-cent per ounce tax on sweetened beverages such as soda-pop on the 2016 ballot in Oakland and San Francisco, the effected industry reserved about $9.5 million in television-ad time.[1] As of August 10^th, the American Beverage Association had already spent $747,267 on campaign consultants and advertisements against the proposed tax in Oakland, whereas supporters of the proposal had spent only $23,297.[2] The imbalance itself could mean that business was subverting democracy by overwhelming voters. If big-soda’s ads were unethical as the pro-tax camp contended, the subversion would be especially harmful.

The full essay is at "Big Soda Campaigning."

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1. Michael McLaughlin, “Big Soda Spends Millions on ‘Unethical’ San Francisco Area Ads Fighting Drink Taxes,” The Huffington Post, August 24, 2016.

2. Darwin Graham, “Big Soda Is Spending Big Money Against Oakland Surary Beverage Tax Proposal,” East Bay Express, August 10, 2016.

On the Pretentiousness of Senior Water Rights in California

California water regulators proposed a record $1.5 million fine on July 21, 2015 against the Byron Bethany Irrigation District (BBID) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The agency claimed that the district had defied cutbacks that the California Water Resources Control Board had ordered by diverting water from June 13 through June 25. The complaint said that Byron Bethany had consumed an estimated 2,056 acre-feet of water[1] in spite of the fact that the agency had imposed a 25 percent mandatory cutback in urban water use and cuts to major agricultural interests.[2] I contend not only that the district’s board put the interest of a part ahead of the good of the whole (i.e., the common good), but also that the board did so out of a sense of entitlement based on the sheer longevity of the water rights in the district.

The full essay is at “Pretentiousness of Water Rights.” 

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[1] An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover a square acre up to a foot high.

[2] Adam Nagourney, “California Farm District Accused of Diverting Water,” The New York Times, July 21, 2015.

On Reaching Water Sufficiency: Can California Learn from Israel?

As California faced its fourth year of an extreme drought in 2015, Californians could have done worse than look at Israel’s ten-year completed effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and recycle wastewater.  The sustained investments provided Israel “with enough water for all its needs, even during severe droughts.”[1] If only California’s officials could say the same. Rather than deprive the Israelis of the opportunity to instruct the Californians, I want to point to the subtle role of basis-of-comparison as undermining the California end.


The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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1. Isabel Kershner, “Aided by the Sea, Israel Overcomes an Old Foe: Drought,” The New York Times, May 29, 2015.

On the Southwest American Drought: Looking to China

Lake Mead, a reservoir outside Las Vegas serving 40 million people in Nevada, Arizona, Southern California, and Northern Mexico, was at its lowest level (i.e., below 1,080 feet) in April 2015 since it was formed with the Hoover Dam.[1] Particularly for California, whose snow-melt would again be minimal, the continued draught was quickly turning dire. With a surplus of rain-water coming down on western Washington and Oregon, the U.S. Government could have dusted off FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to activate the long-term unemployed (and the imprisoned) to assist the Army’s Corps of Engineers in constructing aqueducts and digging canals that would hook up with the extant canals running from the delta area north of Sacramento to southern California. It is not as though the Oregonians and Washingtonians would miss the water, and the Californian farmers could see to it that their best produce finds itself up north. Yet as easy as such a large-scale governmental project seems, the devil is in the details, which can actually be rather huge in themselves. China provides a useful case study that the Americans could, conceivably at least, benefit from—should they endeavor on a truly large-scale governmental project.

The full essay is at “The Southwest Drought and China.”

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[1] Reuters, “Lake Mead on Track for Record Low Water Level Amid Drought,” The Huffington Post, April 24, 2015.

California’s Elongated Drought: Warming to a Changing Status-Quo

With the winter of 2014-2015 failing to deliver much of a snowpack to California, Californians entered a fourth year of drought. The measurement on March 3^rd of the snowpack was the water equivalent of five inches, or 19% of the average for that date.[1] The drought’s extension ran counter to the conventional wisdom that droughts last three years in California. Such “wisdom” is problematic not only for its specific content in this case, but also because of the underlying presumption of epistemological infallibility. Ok, I’ll unpack this bit of creative verbosity. Without being aware of it, we tend to assume that we can’t be wrong about things we have not studied. In fact, we even dismiss the knowledge of those who are learned in a given subject in favor of our own belief that we can’t be wrong about what we suppose we know. This tendency of the human brain gets our species in a lot of trouble, yet we as a species are nearly blind to underlying drought.

The full essay is at “California’s Elongated Drought.”

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[1] Adam Nagourney, “Alarm Rises For a State Withered By Drought,” The New York Times, March 18, 2015.

The German Government Refuses to Pay Down Its Debt: How Un-German!

How should a government spend a budget surplus? In California, the Californian government put some of its surplus in a “rainy-day fund” in 2014. The following year, the German government made plans to use any surplus in 2016 “to increase investment instead of repaying debt.”[1] This means the government “could spend more to support the German economy and that of its neighbors.”[2] Undoubtedly, the E.U. economy would benefit, especially if the U.S. dollar were to continue to appreciate against the euro. However, the decision not to use even a portion of the anticipated surplus to pay down some of the government debt is problematic.

The full essay is at “German Budget Surplus.”

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1. Andrea Thomas, “Berlin Moves to Spend Now, Save Later,” The Wall Street Journal, March 14-15, 2015.

2. Ibid.

Political Theater Undermining American Democracy

To be viable, a representative democracy needs a virtuous and educated citizenry. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed on this point in their exchange of letters in retirement. Their assumption was that an electorate would be able to apply judgment informed by virtue and a broad knowledge to not only matters of public policy, but also the candidates and incumbent office-holders themselves. To the extent that the people in power use it to present a false image, the judgment by the popular sovereign is unavoidably marred. The democratic system itself falters even if it is being portrayed as strong by those at its helm. I contend that the extent of political theater being orchestrated by U.S. office-holders compromises the democratic legitimacy of public power at the federal level.

The full essay is at “Political Theater”

Beyond Breaking California Up into Six States: A Federalist Alternative

In any epoch and in any culture, the human mind displays a marked tendency to accept the status quo as the default—being so ensconced in fact that efforts at real change almost inevitably face formidable road-blocks. In this essay, I analyze the 2014 failed ballot-petition that would have put the proposal of breaking California into six separate states to Californians. I contend that the proponents could alternatively have taken up a more optimal alternative—one much easier to put into effect. Interestingly, that idea comes from the E.U. rather than the U.S.

The full essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

Full Employment in a Republic: Hollande’s France

Facing an unemployment rate of 10% in his state, with youth particularly hard-hit (23% for those under the age of 25), Francois Hollande of the state of France announced in August 2012 a new initiative for the legislature to pay most of the salaries of tens of thousands of young people hired in 2013. Young Europeans have  been hard-hit by the laborious labor laws that make it difficult for companies to let people go. Some E.U. states, including France, have proposed modest tax breaks for companies that hire people just entering the workforce, but no one is under the impression that such proposals will redress the underlying structural problem.

 Hollande, a Socialist, of the E.U. state of France.            The Telegraph

Fundamentally, there is no guarantee that a competitive market will come to an equilibrium at full employment. Accordingly, government has a legitimate role in picking up the slack, such that ideally any able-bodied adult who wants to work can have a job. In the state of France, the plan being proposed by Hollande in August 2012 would have companies that hire a person between 16 and 25 for at least a year pay as little as 25 percent of the person’s salary (for up to three years). In this way, the state hoped to create 100,000 new jobs in 2013 and 50,000 in 2014.

While managements would doubtless see this as a bargain, the question is whether other jobs would be put at risk given the 25 percent of the salary being paid by the companies. A clever manager might try to increase the proportion of the employees for whom the company must pay only 25 percent. Increasing the proportion would mean letting some non-subsidized employees go. The cost structure assumed could be a basis of sustainable competitive advantage if competitors do not also have such an arrangement. In other words, do government-subsidized jobs in the private sector add much in the way of the total employment of a company (and thus of the economy as a whole)?

One might also consider the matter of France’s deficit. Under E.U. law, it cannot exceed 3.5% of the state’s total economic output. Hollande’s strategy going into office was to offset the additional spending with a tax increase on the rich, yet even in anticipation of this some rich French were relocating to Belgium, a state with lower income taxes on the rich. California, which at the time also had an unemployment rate of just over 10 percent and a youth rate of 23 percent, also suffered from a budget deficit and a proposal by Brown to increase taxes. Unlike France, however, California faced no federal law limiting the deficit. In this respect, the E.U. was already a more consolidated federal system than was the U.S.

In short, the problem of individuals undercutting a policy for the whole is evident. A company’s manager seeking to take undue advantage of subsidized labor is like the rich person who seeks to avoid paying higher taxes by going to another state. To be more effective, government policy needs to figure out how to minimize such opportunism that is at the expense of the whole. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both assumed that a virtuous citizenry is required for a republic to work. In the cases both of France and California, reaching full employment and achieving fiscal balance in the government may well come down to whether the respective citizenry does not try to exploit the requisite government policies.

It could even be said that a society or civil contract that is disvalued in the face of widespread opportunism deserves to fail.  Managers use “corporate citizenship” as window-dressing, yet without any sense of obligation to anything beyond the company. Doubtless there are rich people whose motivation to minimize even taxes they can pay dwarfs any sense of staying put and riding out the storm with everyone else (i.e., we are all in it together). If we are not all “in it,” then there is no We, as in We the People.

Source:

Sylvie Corbet and Sarah DiLorenzo, “French Government Offers to Pay Most of Young Hires’ Salaries,” The Huffington Post, August 28, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/french-salaries-young-hires_n_1839663.html?utm_hp_ref=business