Nobody's business

 As I write, there are ICE raids all around the country, reaching into private businesses with undocumented immigrant workers (or insufficiently documented workers due to red tape that isn't their fault). President Trump has deported people without due process of law. He called up the National Guard to quash protests against ICE in Los Angeles, and even plans to deploy the Marines there. The legality of Trump's National Guard order, made without the consent of the California governor, is under federal court review.

Is Trump overreaching? Is he acting beyond the scope of Presidential power? Based on my understanding of the Constitution, he is. However, the overreach is a product of a political culture that also tends to overreach. The people on both sides of the aisle in "our democracy" believe they have the right to interfere in my business and your business. That's the first overreach, and it is a moral one, regardless of what the Constitution says. 

Law enforcement officers, with their guns, batons, tasers, and handcuffs, represent violence. The cops escalate a situation; a non-violent situation has become threatening, has become violent, just by their showing up. Why, then, send them to break up peaceful activities and be violent toward non-threatening people?

June 14, 2025, marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Peter McWilliams. Ten days after his death, William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a column about McWilliams that changed the course of my life. I began to think less about the theoretical dangers of government overreach and more about the actual suffering it causes. 

Peter McWilliams died because he was denied access to his anti-nausea medication, which was marijuana. Although Buckley was incorrect - McWilliams died from a heart attack, not directly from vomiting -  his body was in a weakened state due to frequent vomiting.

McWilliams died because he was facing medical marijuana charges; medical marijuana was illegal at the federal level and still is. But years earlier, before he needed marijuana himself, McWilliams authored Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country. You can see the issues he tackled in the Table of Contents (Part III), and you can read the entire book free of charge. 

"Victimless" and "consensual" don't necessarily mean "harmless." It means that the parties involved consent to the activity and understand the risk. 

I posted this last night, borrowing the phrase "nobody's business" from McWilliams:

I don't care - and it's nobody's business - if my neighbor consorts with prostitutes, owns guns, uses or sells pot or hard drugs, hosts secret, untaxed high-stakes poker games, is vaxxed, is unvaxxed, or takes non-approved medicines. Victimless, consensual activities shouldn't be crimes at all.

I would certainly not call the cops on him for these things.

And if he was born in this town, or in El Paso, makes no difference to me.

But if he was born in Juarez, THEN I'm supposed to care?

In the last sentence, I was placing immigration into the same category of "victimless crime," although it's even more absurd to consider it a crime. While I believe it's wrong for busybodies to demand the government save us from ourselves, from our potentially unhealthy, addictive, or dangerous choices, I do acknowledge they carry risks. Some activities may be victimless but harmful..

But moving? That's victimless and harmless. How is anyone hurt by an activity most people do several times in their lives?

The question of whether the government should prohibit or regulate any of these activities, including immigration, amounts to: "Is violence the answer to stop non-violent activity?"

If we can't point to an activity and name its victim, why can't we tolerate it? If toleration extends only to words, but not activities, how is that a free country?

Peter McWilliams died because the feds treated him violently. In a case decided five years after his death, the Supreme Court's decision Gonzales v. Raich ruled in favor of Congress's power to regulate home-grown medical marijuana, which on the face of it goes well beyond Congress's constitutional power to regulate commerce "among" [not within] the states. The federal courts sometimes put the brakes on Congressional or Presidential overreach, but often not. They're not reliable protectors of our liberties. 

The problem is that such overreaching laws exist because the American people believe the government ought to ban things they dislike. Don't like (some kind of) drugs? Ban them. Feel frightened by "uncontrolled" immigration? Regulate it. After all, I won't get arrested.

We have failed to realize that getting the government involved to impose your preferences on others is the same as doing violence to your neighbors who may have different preferences.

But now, we're seeing the consequences of overreach: violent crackdowns on the "crimes" of moving and working. A nation of moderates who have said, "I'm not opposed to immigration, only illegal immigration," is now appalled by Trump ignoring due process and deploying the military on American soil.

The people should make up their minds: Are the current immigration laws just, or unjust? If they're just, then you are against immigration to some degree. If they're unjust, then why are you angry with people who dare to break unjust laws? 

Let's say there is due process for every allegedly undocumented immigrant, and they're all found guilty of breaking immigration laws. That means they were found guilty of harming no one.

I suggest an examination of the heart. Why was the law there in the first place? What (real or potential) victims was the law protecting? Who was harmed involuntarily, so that we needed these immigration laws to stop it?

If the enforcement of the law is worse than the so-called evil it's trying to prevent, why not repeal the law?

"Due process" in immigration cases wouldn't be such a problem if there were no immigration cases to prosecute.

It's time to repeal those laws and all other victimless crimes.

Subscription prices to JL Cells are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). If you enjoy the content, please consider a paid subscription, support me using PayPal with an amount of your choice, or contact me if you prefer an alternative method. At this point, I cannot promise that a paid subscription will provide bonus material, but it will help keep this going. Thank you!

James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You can contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

Conference Finals MVPs, Finals MVP Chase, and Thibodeau

Photo: Public Domain

Playoff MVPs

After the Pacers finished off the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals last week, Pascal Siakam was voted Conference Finals MVP ahead of Tyrese Haliburton. This caused something of a stir. I think it's silly even to have MVPs in the playoff rounds, but I decided to look into it.

For each Pacers victory, I ranked the top eight players by the sum of their game score plus +/-. I assigned eight points for the top player, seven points for the second-best, down to one point for the eighth. 

Haliburton topped his teammates in Games 1 and 4; Siakam was third and second in those games. Siakam was the leader in Games 2 and 6, with Haliburton finishing fourth and second. (The Knicks won Games 3 and 5.) 

Adding the points together, Siakam finished with 29 (6+8+7+8) and Haliburton finished with 28 (8+5+8+7). So, those who voted for Siakam were not wrong.

In the Western Conference Finals, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander easily led his team in all four victories. No controversy there.

In Game 1 of the Finals, Obi Toppin from the Pacers' bench is now in the lead for Finals MVP. He came through with a strong 3-point shooting night in the unlikely Indiana win. Using the same metric as with the Conference Finals, he has 8 points for the Finals MVP Chase. Haliburton is in second place. Siakam, considered the second-best player on the team behind Haliburton, had a dismal +/- and is sixth. 

Can Tom Thibodeau win a championship?

On the June 6 Bill Simmons podcast, beginning around 53:40, Simmons and Zach Lowe discussed the replacement for fired Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. Thibodeau has a reputation for overplaying his starters, wearing them out, and not allowing his bench players to get into a rhythm. That criticism aside, Lowe compared him to recent (and fired) NBA championship coaches like Mike Malone (2023 Nuggets), Mike Budenholzer (2021 Bucks), and Frank Vogel (2020 Lakers), saying none of them are elite like Rick Carlisle and Erik Spoelstra in making in-game adjustments. However, like them, Thibodeau can "absolutely" win a championship with the "right talent, right year, right circumstances" because he can raise the floor of a team.

When Lowe said "right talent," my mind went to "superstar." Malone had Nikola Jokic, Budenholzer had Giannis Antetokounmpo, Frank Vogel had LeBron James (with Anthony Davis). 

It is rare for an NBA team to win a championship without a very special player. Forty-one of the last fifty Finals-winning teams had at least one player who was an MVP that season or a previous one. Two had first-team All-NBAers who were future MVPs (Bill Walton, 1977 Trail Blazers, and Larry Bird, 1982 Celtics). The 1975 Warriors had Rick Barry, and the 2019 Raptors had Kawhi Leonard, among the best players who never won the MVP. The 2024 Celtics had perennial All-NBA first-teamer Jayson Tatum. The 1989 and 1990 Pistons were led by Isiah Thomas, who had been a five-time All-NBAer.

Only two title-winning teams, the 2005 Pistons, coached by Larry Brown, and the 1979 Supersonics, coached by Lenny Wilkens, had no players who had been a first-team All-NBAer or named to 2021's 75-member 75th Anniversary Team.

I decided to look at Thibodeau's talent over his 13-season career. The only players he's had who were ever selected First-Team All-NBA were Derrick Rose (who also won an MVP) and Joakim Noah. They each earned the honor once and never made any other All-NBA team. 

Thibs's Bulls teams, 2010-15, included a young Jimmy Butler for four seasons, and a still-great Pau Gasol for one. However, it's hard to fathom who could have beaten LeBron James and his Heat and Cavaliers teams of this period.

Since then, the best players Thibs has coached are Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle, and Jalen Brunson. None have ever been selected for the First-Team All-NBA or made any All-NBA team more than three times, and they've all been in the league a long time.

They're very good, but not elite. That is, they're not MVP-caliber, which is what you need to win a title. 

I don't know where Tom Thibodeau will go next, or when. Wherever he winds up, I hope he has a truly great player and a solid roster. Then we can see if Thibs really can coach a team to an NBA title.

Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

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Our Democracy

 

Silver dollar certificate, 1886. Photo Credit: Neuroforever

Today (June 5, 2025) is the 142nd birthday of John Maynard Keynes, the English theorist behind Keynesian economics. Keynesianism advocates using the State and its central bank to stabilize the market economy. It calls for government deficit spending to create jobs in periods of high unemployment, and tax hikes during an "overheated" economy to control price inflation.

Keynes's birthday provoked three thoughts, which aren't really about him, but about the nature of his work.

First, the purpose of economics is the same as the purpose of democracy: to stave off revolution. We're told that the government exists to protect our rights. However, the state is based on violence, and all it accomplishes is through violence or the threat of violence. All existing States are inheritors or usurpers of previous States from time immemorial. The rulers rule for the benefit of themselves, their friends, and their allies. 

Democratic institutions and the encouragement of civic participation are concessions by the rulers to keep us emotionally invested in the regime. When the State commits awful crimes and oppresses us, we're encouraged to point our finger at our neighbor who voted for these "leaders" and not at the institutions of the State.. When people organize for the voting booth, they're not organizing revolutions.

However, if the people are starving, they may revolt, regardless of how democratic the system is. That's where the economists come in. They inform politicians about what can and cannot be done to 1) make the people economically dependent on the State, and 2) make this dependence sustainable. That is, to stave off bankruptcy and revolution. The people won't overthrow a system if they're dependent on it and can't conceive of how to replace it.  

My second thought is that jobs are a form of social control. A significant concern of Keynes was unemployment, which was understandable given that his theories were developed during the global Great Depression of the 1930s. 

But why do people need to be employed? How much work do we really need to do to feed and shelter our families? Not a lot, if we want to live simply. Especially if we know how to build things and trade with our neighbors, we wouldn't need much money at all in daily life. However, if we don't work hard at a full-time job, we won't earn a lot of money. That means we won't pay a lot in taxes to fund the military, prisons, and interest on government debt.

That's why the State has a vested interest in keeping us working and encourages us to aspire to attain higher living standards in the form of luxuries (what American politicians call the "American Dream.")

The entire Keynesian model is based on these unspoken premises. Keep us employed so that we can buy more stuff, with the resulting taxes going to political cronies. Use the "stimulus" of deficit-based government spending and subsidies to put more money in people's pockets, increase consumer demand for stuff, and employ more people to make the stuff.

Keynes advocated fiat currency, which creates money out of thin air and whose value is based solely on the credit of the government itself. Much of the world now relies on fiat money because the U.S. dollar is a fiat currency. In the former system, bills were certificates that were exchanged for gold or silver. Precious metals could be put to other uses (jewelry, tableware, electronics); they have practical value. Under fiat currency, however, the dollar bill is inherently worthless because its only value is as a medium of exchange; the dollar can't be used for anything else.

Monetary inflation leads to higher prices, which hurts everyone, but the lowest-income people most of all. Remove all bigotry in America, and there will still be social injustice as long as there is inflation.

And that's not all. My third thought is that inflation is bad for the environment. When the Federal Reserve "prints" money, or creates more money with computer keystrokes to finance government deficit spending, it produces what otherwise would not have been made. It "stimulates" activity that would not have been stimulated. That is, it consumes energy (fossil fuels, etc), and otherwise takes from the planet what would not have been taken at that time.

All for the sake of "jobs," which are for the sake of taxes, which are for the sake of the military, prisons, government debt, and all the programs the government provides to keep us loyal and prevent revolution.

Well, the system has "worked" in that modern democracies haven't had revolutions. But there's no romance in it, and it's hard to ascribe "good intentions" to those with political power, regardless of party. Our leaders don't care if you have a job, or have good schools, or decent medical care. They don't care about you, even as they may provide these things with your taxes. You can tell how much they care about you, about human life, by their foreign policy. Those who would starve and bomb people abroad are perfectly capable of doing the same to you. The only difference is, they want your vote.

Subscription prices to JL Cells are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (50% off). If you enjoy the content, please consider a paid subscription, support me using PayPal with an amount of your choice, or contact me if you prefer an alternative method. At this point, I cannot promise that a paid subscription will provide bonus material, but it will help keep this going. Thank you!

James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You can contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

AL and NL MVP Chase Updates

Photo credit: Tage Olsin

The following is an update of the AL and NL MVP Chases through the May 31 games.

The MVP Chase reflects the number of games in which:

• The player's team won the game

• The player had three or more Bases Gained (BG): total bases + walks + steals

The chief determinant for the MVP is the sheer number of games in which the player had three or more bases gained (3+ BG) in a victory. When players have the same number of such games, I rank in order of percentage of team victories in which the player had 3+ BG.

In this list, I have included not only the number of 3+ BG in victories, but the overall record of the team when the player has 3+ BG. It gives a clue on how effective teammates are in helping win the games.

AMERICAN LEAGUE  MVP

1. Aaron Judge, Yankees: 24-9 66.7% of team victories

2. Rafael Devers, Red Sox 18-8 62.1

3. Cal Raliegh, Mariners 18-8 56.3%

4. Steven Kwan, Guardians 17-3 53.1

5. George Springer, Blue Jays 16-7 51.6

6. (T6) Paul Goldschmidt, Yankees 15-5 41.7

7. (T6) Ben Rice, Yankees 15-4 41.7

8. (T8) Spencer Torkelson, Tigers 15-7 37.5

9. (T8) Riley Greene, Tigers 15-5 37.5

10. (T10)Maikel Garcia, Royals 14-5 45.1

11. (T10) Bobby Witt Jr, Royals 14-13 45.1

 

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE

 

1. Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers 24-8 66.7% of team victories

2. Francisco Lindor, Mets 23-4 60.5

3. Kyle Tucker, Cubs 22-7 59.4

4. Kyle Schwarber, Phillies 21-5 58.3

5. James Wood, Nationals 20-8 71.4

6. Seiya Suzuki, Cubs 20-4 54.1

7. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs 20-4 54.1

8. Manny Machado, Padres 17-6 50.0

9. Freddie Freeman, Dodgers 17-5 47.2

10. Pete Alonso, Mets 17-4 44.7

Subscription rates to the MVP Chase are the lowest that Substack allows: $5 per month or $30 per year (a 50% discount). You can also support me through PayPal or contact me using an alternative method. The more support I have, the more content you'll see. Contact me for writing, editing, research, and other work at jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

Check out JL Cells for my non-sports weirdness.