SocraticGadfly: 5/26/19 - 6/2/19

May 31, 2019

Did Polk want northern Mexico?

I had not seen that President James K. Polk had at one time supported annexing northern Mexico as far south as the 26th parallel (roughly the Rio Yaqui in Sonora and the Rio Conchos in Chihuahua that eventually flows into the Rio Grande in the Big Bend Country) until a commenter on my Goodreads review of Jill Lepore's "These Truths" mentioned it.

And, he was right. I incorporated that into a longer version of that review on this blog.

I then mentioned that in a comment to a Quora piece about why Polk didn't annex Mexico.

A person, not the OP, liked the comment, but then kept attacking it, for reasons and angle unknown. Anyway, I decided to pull that out and write about it here.

Early on, Polk was indeed looking at the 26th parallel, supporting it in Cabinet when Treasury Secretary Walker raised it. There's more here on how this would have affected the future of the US if attained.

This was after Gen. Zachary Taylor was originally attacked and Polk and his cabinet got news of it. So, though Polk had not originally wanted war, his original emissary, James Slidell, had screwed the pooch on his initial negotiations with Mexico, and much of that pooch-screwing based on Polk's directions. With war inevitable — even though Polk hoped, and expected, it would be short — it seemed that he was with Walker in deciding to grab more than just New Mexico and California.

But ... at some point ... Polk changed his tune.

His negotiating instructions to Nicholas Trist never mentioned the 26th parallel. (That said, Polk could have said something in private. He gives the impression of playing his cards close to the vest at times, like his mentor, Old Hickory.

But, he also changed his tune publicly. Polk even specifically mentions the 32nd parallel in his December, 1847 State of the Union; another version here.

We all know he got mad at Trist for what he presented back to Washington. I think he was mad at Trist in part for other reasons and in part for southern public consumption. (Trist had been chosen in part as being a Whig, and kind of had Polk over a barrel in other ways.)

As it was, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had 14 nays in the Senate. It’s very possible that a highly annexationist treaty would have failed to clear the 2/3 bar. Whigs were already (LEARN, today's Democrats!) threatening to cut off all money for further occupation of Mexico if Polk didn't accept Trist's work. And, a Polk attempt to circumvent treaty-making, a la Tyler’s annexation of Texas by joint declaration of both houses of Congress, might not have gotten 50 percent in the House.

Remember, even though the Wilmot Proviso had been raised in 1846, a new Congress was now in place. Plus Polk was in the White House, not Henry Clay, because the Liberty Party backed James Birney in New York. In 1848, a stronger, broader Free Soil Party backed Van Buren in New York, and arguably put Taylor in the White House instead of Democrat Lewis Cass.

So, I think Polk realized the mood had shifted.

I think he'd also gotten a dose of realism about Mexico and realized a guerilla war was certainly possible in Chihuahua even if Mexico signed off on such a treaty and that, in reality, it wouldn't do that, which meant guerilla war in the Mexican heartland.

As for Polk otherwise?

"He rows to his object with muffled oars," John Randolph of Roanoke once said of Van Buren. That was surely true of Polk.

But it's also true that, for public consumption, even if he didn't personally blabber about it, Polk at one time back annexing not only what was northwestern Mexico pre-1848, but what is northwestern Mexico today.

Was the 26th parallel fixed in stone? No, it was surely a notional line that Robert Walker had come up with. But it's clear that he — and Polk — wanted today's northern Mexico after it had the temerity to attack Americans. And, as best I can tell, Polk only backed off that after Congressional Whigs with Congressional purse strings made clear that was not acceptable.

So, whatever angle my Quora interlocutor was getting at, it wasn't the right one.

In addition, while the Yaqui runs pretty much east-west, the Conchos does not. After leaving the Sierra Madre Occidental, it flows northeast. There are no rivers from northern Mexico, really nothing much more than "streams," that flow into the Rio Grande below it. And, ditto on any waterflows from northeast Mexico into the Gulf, though that would be 23 degrees latitude or a bit further south anyway.

The original treaty line of the Rio Grande and the Gila, though ignorant of the fact this area would become a borderlands, not a border, made sense.

And now, to alternative history.

Could the US had held that?

Probably.

My interlocutor, after I pointed out how small those rivers are, noted how shallow the Rio Grande is. Well, today's Rio Grande is almost as overappropriated as the Colorado; it was different in 1848. The original pre-Gadsden Purchase 1848 border was about as sensical geographically as one could get.

That said, northern Sonora was lightly populated by mestizos and even less by criollos or peninsulares. The US would have had responsibility for all of Apacheria. Ditto with Comancheria in northern Chihuahua and states to the east.

And, after 1862, and after 1911, US-Mexico relations would have been even more volatile than in reality.

Sidebar: This is likely part of why Taylor's presidency was so controversial before he died. Polk had failed to get Congress or Trist to get him today's northern Mexico. Then, slaveholder Taylor succeeds him — and talks about admitting New Mexico as well as California as free states, and immediately. (New Mexico had the population, even if it was just the size of today's state, and not the original territory that included Arizona, as Mexicans inside the American conquest who weren't "other people not taxed," aka American Indians, were given US citizenship as part of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Racism was the reason it didn't get in until 1912.)

Sidebar 2, for the real world and related to this. Below is my review of a fantastic book entirely about the Compromise of 1850.

Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional CrisisTexas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional Crisis by Mark J. Stegmaier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a great overview of key aspects of the Compromise of 1850. While Stegmaier keeps an eye on whether California would be admitted as one state or two, and briefly looks at things like the fugitive slave law, his focus is on what started the Mexican War — Texas' border claims — and how they now related not to Mexico on the south/southwest but to New Mexico on the west.

Stegmaier first explained how Zachary Taylor, under the influence of William Seward and others, hoped to end-run around southern fire-eaters by organizing free-state government in New Mexico as quickly as possible, then presenting it as a candidate for statehood as quickly as possible after California's statehood.

Well, Congress would have none of that, even before Taylor's death allowed him not to have a direct confrontation with Congress over military instructions to the commander in New Mexico and other things.

Meanwhile, there was that border. Taylor's idea had been, seemingly, to present New Mexico as a free state, then after admission, have its border with Texas hashed out. The Lone Star folks wanted none of that.

On the other hand, a fair chunk of Texans were ready to let go some of their lands, for fear that too much of a huge West Texas would get occupied by free-soilers and turn the whole state free.

From here, Segmaier details the various different options put on the table at different times for a boundary, along with sub-options such as dividing Texas into two or even three states. He tracks the stances of Sens. Rusk and Houston, the Texas House delegation, and Texas Gov. Wood and others through all of this.

That all, of course, was within the Senate considering, then finally rejecting, an omnibus bill to settle all Mexican War-related issues proposed by Henry Clay, followed by the House adopting bills piecemeal. Excellent parliamentary control by Speaker Howell Cobb, joined by Taylor's death and timely replacement by Millard Fillmore, whom Stegmaier says is quite underrated, round out the picture.


View all my reviews

May 30, 2019

Howie Hawkins is in the running
for the Green Party presidential nomination

Not quite two months after forming an exploratory committee and giving extended cogitation, Howie Hawkins is in.

Part of me was wondering why he was taking so long, while asking for donations. Then it dawned on me. He's not a medical doctor like Jill Stein or a famous consumer advocate like Ralph Nader, both of whom, while not as rich as the typical duopoly presidential candidates, nonetheless are multimillionaires.

I presume he wanted to make sure he had at least a basic level of equity to actually run, for the nomination, and if he gets it, for the general election. This of course applies in some degree to at least some other candidates as well, unless they're perennial candidates who care first about being a candidate and secondly about how to actually run a campaign. That said, thinking about this issue, and knowing that, even with the lower overhead of a third party pre-nomination, there's still an overhead, is different than just filing to run.

Click the link above to read about his platform and more.

And go here for my initial assessment of 2020 Green presidential candidates, and what is important to me in a nominee.

David Bruce Collins said he wants to make sure the national party doesn't put a thumb on the scale of the race. This piece explains that it maybe did put a small one on there already at the time of Hawkins' announcement.

May 29, 2019

TX Progessives get you past a sine die:
Abbott's signature awaited on many bills

The Texas Progressive Alliance thinks pardoning war criminals, or fighting dumb wars, was a lousy way to celebrate Memorial Day, and that the Texas Legislature having a banana republic every other year legislature that ends on Memorial Day, is also a bad idea, as it brings you this week's roundup.

With that, dig in!


The Lege and Texas politics

The Trib has a list of winners and losers from the session, omitting that the average Texans, whether he or she knows it or not, is the biggest loser, screwed by our banana republic Lege.

Better Texas Blog has another roundup and importantly notes that the Lege's buy-down of local property taxes offers no sustainable funding mechanism in the future. And, since the state Supremes said four years ago that our current school funding system is constitutional, we'll be at hell in a handbasket space again in a few years.

Off the Kuff calls legislation that would greatly ease third party ballot access an "odd bill." Yours truly has a detailed rundown of HB 2554 and its benefits as well as its faults, in what is definitely not an "odd bill" from this perspective. Brains calls his take "elitist (from a) Democratic party suck-up."

David Bruce Collins reports a second Green Party unit has formed in Harris County. Stay tuned, with the state convention being June 8-9.

The Texas Observer called Speaker Dennis Bonnen a big fat hypocrite on school finance over the Chapter 313 program.

Better Texas Blog explains its opposition to SB2.

Texas Vox decries the Lege's inaction on preventing chemical fires.

The Observer says that open-government advocates await Gov. Greg Abbott’s signing HB 943, which would close some loopholes in open records law. 


Dallas and environs

SocraticGadfly looked at the latest woes of the Dallas Morning News.

Stephen Young reports Dallas suburbs continue to boom.

The City of Dallas, with restrictions, has put the old Bobby Lee statute up for sale. (Short of using the power of a building permit or zoning regs, I don't think any of the restrictions are legally enforceable on First Amendment grounds.)


Houston and other cities

The Texas Observer also profiles Tony Buzbee, potentially Sylvester Turner’s top challenger as Houston mayor.


Other Texas

The Lunch Tray gives context to a recent "lunch shaming" story.

Kam Franklin begs you to help keep stage musicians safe from audience members.

Harry Hamid talks of fighting lymphoma.

A fire that began in Mexico jumped the border and hit Big Bend, damaging the Castolon Visitor Center and other old buildings.

Your newest cellphone's connectivity could interfere with how much it can tell you about a potential next Hurricane Harvey.


National and beyond

The Dallas Observer reports on striking McDonald’s workers protesting their shareholders’ meeting.

Jim Schutze says that Millennials are looking deeper into politics, and for more meaning, than previous generations. He spoils the piece, though, by using as his 2020 focal points Biden and Beto, and seeming to have an almost hard-on bromance for Beto, ignoring the likes of Bernie Sanders within Dems and ignoring kids' interest in the non-duopoly entirely.

May 28, 2019

How right was Thomas Kuhn on his "paradigm shifts"?
Also, how much does he have to say on scientism?
What about larger issues of philosophy of science?

Hot take answers, before we dive in?

About 50 percent right on the paradigm shifts. Not a lot on scientism, but a fair amount on philosophy of science.

I do like that Kuhn's paradigms and paradigm shifts note that science has always had its deductive as well as inductive sides. Good philosophers of science may note that good science has them work in tandem. Good science will also admit when a deductive framework is lurking in the background, and even more when it becomes outmoded. That's the "paradigm," as I see it.

That said, one can ask how well Kuhn applied some of this to himself.

One can also appreciate his broader work on philosophy of science while noting he didn't always apply that to himself either, and that he's of limited value in critiquing "scientism."

Now, let's dive in.

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris was a graduate student of Kuhn's for a year. He decades later wrote five New York Times Opinionator columns about the experience (here's the first) and eventually turned them into a book.

His central charge? Kuhn was a relativist rejecting the idea of objective truth.

New Atlantis hated what Morris wrote, in large part because it had the usual Errol Morris style. At the same time, it admitted that Kuhn himself snarled up some of his arguments about science and history.

Steven Poole in The Guardian flat-out claimed Morris got Kuhn wrong.

John Horgan, while saying he thought Morris overdid his killing of Kuhn, said that from personal experience, he found Kuhn "almost comically self-contradictory."

Horgan and Poole also disagree on Morris' interpretation of, and use of, Saul Kripke. Poole thinks Morris understands Kripke as poorly as he does Kuhn, while Horgan says he found Morris' interpretation enlightening.

Horgan finally does a twist on Morris by wondering if he wasn't actually a secret admirer of Kuhn.

==

This Venn diagram reflects about how much I think Kuhn
actually had to say about problems in science in general, and
even more, or less, what he had to say or not about scientism.
Beyond Morris, and with Horgan, my take is that Kuhn did bring new insights to philosophy of science, but that he was, from what I read, self-contradictory. That then said, per this commenter on Morris, perhaps the self-contradictory issue reflects science's messiness.

Plus, he own theory can easily be self-judoed.

And, for people who think he has crushed scientism? First, not in the mind of scientism aficionados, he hasn't. Second, to the degree he can be self-judoed, he hasn't in general. Because ... the next paradigm shift may be around the corner.

Per that and per Kuhn's Wiki page, I think the charge of relativism has some merit. Kuhn himself said "I am not a Kuhnian," but that sounds like the defensiveness behind his allegedly throwing an ashtray at Morris. His paradigm shift does raise questions of how much rational thought is involved with shifting to a new paradigm — or not.

Also, what both Kuhn and Morris (and Popper fans) seem to miss is that it ties back to the old Problem of Induction. Even more, given Kuhn basing his charges about problems with commensurability, or the incommensurability lack thereof, being based on issues with modal logic, Kripke and related, Kuhn connects to Nelson Goodman's New Riddle of Induction. Indeed, Goodman's original ideas later influenced Kripke.

A related issue is that Kuhn probably oversold the whole idea of paradigm shifts. New ways of thinking in science usually aren't as starkly incompatible as, say, classical and quantum mechanics.

Take Charles Darwin. Ideas of evolution had been floating in the biology world for decades. Darwin just thought of a specific mechanism — or two, counting sexual selection.

Per what I said about physics, I'm not sure there's been a revolutionary paradigm shift since quantum mechanics and general relativity. Dark matter and energy have been accepted without much fight, and string theory has yet to be proven, so neither qualifies.

Biology arguably has had paradigm shifts since Darwin. The acceptance of prions as semi-alive. The acceptance of the reality of epigenetics. These are both at least semi-major shifts, and contra dark matter, both have been fought-over.

Chemistry? Maybe high-temp superconductivity. I'm not sure.

In short?

Kuhnians shouldn't put him on a pedestal, because the paradigm beneath that will shift away. And, beyond that, there's arguably greater shifts in issues in philosophy directly or indirectly tied to philosophy of science than to science itself.

I once thought Kuhn was genius-like myself. Now, I think he should have viewed himself more skeptically.

Basically, Kuhn was good at showing scientists can engage in motivated reasoning. But, in pushing the idea of paradigm shifts too far, and getting defensive about the judo-holes he left, he arguable was doing that himself. And, other than the scientism folks being stubborn, scientism isn't really a paradigm from which to shift.