“Fewer than 26% of US households still have someone working remotely at least one day a week,” Bloomberg reports, “a sharp decline from the early-2021 peak of 37%,” citing US Census Bureau statistics.  “Remote employees have been blamed for dwindling profits and costing cities billions, and fears of a recession have eroded their ability to demand the telework perks they won early in the pandemic …”

But if the work gets done, it’s “return to the office” that’s a “perk” — for employers, for office-area businesses which profit from having all those workers commuting daily, and for money-hungry city governments.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of American workers left their traditional office environments and worked from home. That wasn’t always easy on either workers or employers. It was not an unalloyed positive. But for the most part, the work did get done.

Doing that work isn’t a “perk.” It’s a “job.”

If the job gets done, why should employers care where it gets done from — and if they do care, why shouldn’t they, rather than employees and taxpayers, cover the costs of doing it from that place?

Time is money, and commuting takes time. Gas isn’t free. In many cases, parking must be paid for out of pocket. And it’s not just the employees covering those costs. Less work from home means more traffic jams, more smog, and more driving around looking for a parking place for everyone else, too.

For some workers, the difference between home and office is the difference between keeping one eye on their kids while they work, or paying someone else to do so, or the difference between making or not making payments on a car and auto insurance.

On the market level, I suspect the trend initiated by the pandemic will eventually become the norm. Per the Bloomberg story, “[i]n 157 of the largest metro areas in the US, more than half of job applications were for fully remote or hybrid roles in August.”  Those who CAN work from home increasingly WILL work from home, unless employers want to pony up extra for presence in the office. Businesses will learn to cater to those remote workers’ demands in ways other than just leasing locations near office complexes, or go under.

The government angle is a tougher nut to crack. One might think that fewer cars on government-maintained roads and lower ridership on government-operated mass transit would go down as a benefit insofar as it implies reduced infrastructure costs, but one would be wrong.  Instead of taking the win and reducing spending, governments complain about the loss of tax revenue. They’d rather have more pollution and more congestion than give up the money and power that comes from administering massive transportation subsidies for the benefit of Big Business.

But again, time doesn’t stand still. Working from home will become a norm for the same reasons that lighting our workplaces with kerosene or spending our days riding plows and staring at mules’ rear ends no longer are.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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March 2023: “While the US has many vital national interests,” Florida governor and 2024 presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis wrote in response to a questionnaire from Tucker Carlson (as of that time still a Fox News host), “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

As of October 2023, DeSantis takes a different approach: “Now is the time to defend Israel’s right to defend themselves to the hilt” and  “[w]e must stand with Israel as they eradicate Hamas.”

Inquiring minds want to know:

How is meddling in a territorial dispute between former Soviet kleptocracies in eastern Europe “not a vital national interest” for the United States, while meddling in a territorial dispute between tribal Middle East garrison states is a “must?”

In general, if you have to ask why, the answer is “money.” In American presidential politics specifically, if you have to ask why, the answer is usually “cynical political calculation.”

While American Jews tend to vote for Democrats — estimates of 2020 results range from 60% to 77% of “the Jewish vote” going to Joe Biden — millions of evangelical Christians are “pro-Israel” and consider the issue important. Donald Trump knocked down 75-80% of that voting bloc in both 2016 and 2020.

Additionally “pro-Israel” individuals and groups, religious and secular, direct large sums to congressional and presidential campaigns, and to lobbying efforts, to ensure the continued flow of US aid (nearly $4 billion last year). One donor alone, the late casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, ponied up $424 million to support Trump and other Republican candidates between 2016 and 2021.

Where “national interest” in Middle East affairs is concerned, one stock response is a need to ensure the free flow of oil … but that one doesn’t pass the smell test.

In fact, the opposite is more likely true. The US is a net oil exporter. It doesn’t need Middle Eastern oil.  Producers in the US (where oil production is more expensive due to regulation and the higher costs of extracting it from shale) benefit from a foreign policy that IMPEDES the free flow of oil from, for example, Iran, to maintain profitability. Those US oil producers are, by the way, also generous campaign donors and lavish lobbying spenders.

Ron DeSantis is at least as slavishly devoted to Israel (even signing a law requiring state contractors to swear a loyalty oath to that foreign power — so much for “America First”) as US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been to the Egyptian regime (which he was recently indicted for allegedly accepting bribes from) and the Cuban-American voter demographic, for the same reasons: Because that’s where their money and votes come from.

US meddling in the region doesn’t just cost Americans money. It also costs Americans their lives when it inevitably results in things like the Beirut barracks bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and foreign wars of choice.

When American politicians put Israel, or any other foreign country, ahead of you — and Ron DeSantis is the rule, not the exception, in that regard — they further discredit the already implausible term “national interest.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Complaining of “media bias,” Hamas spokesperson Dr. Basim Naim denies allegations that its members intentionally murdered civilians and non-combatants in their assault on Israel last week. The operation “targeted only the Israeli military bases and compounds,” he says, and Al Qassam Brigades commanders ordered their troops to “avoid targeting civilians or killing them.”

Given the details, as best we can know them, those claims ring hollow.

So, too, do claims that the Israeli Defence Forces — among whose members  t-shirts illustrated with a picture of a pregnant Arab woman in rifle crosshairs and the caption “1 Shot 2 Kills” popped up during a previous military confrontation with the Palestinian Arabs —  constitute “the most moral army in the world.” In declaring a “complete siege” of Gaza — with the intent to cut off food, fuel, and electricity to, while engaging in massive airstrikes on, the Arab enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants —  Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant referred to the people he wants murdered as “animals.”

The same is true of the numerous claims by numerous governments and armed forces, in conflicts around the world, that murders of civilians and non-combatants are mere accidents or asides for which they bear no responsibility.

Three moral premises seem fairly basic to me:

First, we’re individually responsible for what we do.

Second, we’re jointly and severally responsible for for what we collude with others to do.

Third, we’re at least partially responsible for the actions of others when we accept positions of authority from which we may order, allow, forbid, excuse, or punish those actions.

Phrases like “collateral damage” or “mistakes were made” or “they did it first” or “I was just following orders” don’t magically relieve us of responsibility for our individual, collaborative, or organizational actions.

Nor does the claim that one is acting as, or on behalf of, a government. The pernicious doctrine of “qualified immunity” notwithstanding, when a cop guns down a nonviolent citizen or a drone operator launches a missile into the middle of a wedding party, it’s murder and nothing else.

When you pull a trigger, or order that trigger pulled, you’re responsible for the consequences. Period. And if your action or order results in injuries or deaths among civilians or non-combatants, there are no acceptable excuses. You should be charged, tried, convicted, and punished for your actions.

Unfortunately, that seldom happens. And when it does happen, it’s usually just for show, with lower-level killers getting thrown under the bus while generals, presidents, and prime ministers skate off to comfortable retirements, the laurels of “statesmen” resting ostentatiously upon their botox-tightened brows.

Ultimately, the only way to do away with war crimes is to do away with war. And that requires us to first abolish the state.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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