I think it was a joke.

Hey Vegeta, what does the battery say about its Ah level?

IT’S!!!… nine thousand.

Some editor ran this piece through a shredder. The main content is good, but the headline and intro are terrible.

Here are the highlights:

One reason this administration is so disorienting is that U.S. foreign policy has been guided for decades by the opposite of realism. The key fights in Washington, especially in recent decades, were between neocons who wanted to spread democracy through war and liberals who wanted to spread democracy through soft power like U.S.A.I.D. contracts to bolster civil society.

…

While Mr. Trump embraces some elements of realism — giving in to the strong and sacrificing the weak — his tariff wars and threats against peaceful neighbors could end up being as costly as the military adventurism of the previous liberal order. Rajan Menon, a professor emeritus at the City College of New York, told me that people who expect the Trump administration “to follow the playbook of realism” by showing restraint “are going to get very disappointed.”

…

To Mr. Trump, America is a great power that Russia wouldn’t dare attack, and Ukraine is a pawn that can be sacrificed. But here’s the thing about great powers: They all decline eventually. Neanderthal realism doesn’t save them. After Athens sacked Melos, word of its brutality spread. Its allies turned against it. Athens lost the war. Noble ideas, it turns out, do matter.

The dichotomy of “freedom to” and “freedom from” is pretty well-worn territory in philosophy, although there are many different formulations of it (including options beyond just these two), but the simplest model is this:

“Freedom to”: The protected right to do something, like fire a gun in the air.

“Freedom from”: The enforced guarantee that you will not be impacted by the actions of others, like your neighbor’s falling bullets.

An egalitarian society can’t grant “freedom to” all actions to all people while also guaranteeing them “freedom from” the consequences of all others’ actions.

If I have the freedom to drive a monster truck on any public motorway, I necessarily lose the freedom to walk those streets without worrying about monster trucks.

The only way around it is to have a privileged class that has extra “freedom to” do things when the consequences mainly impact the underclass, and extra “freedom from” the actions of the underclass.

Like, most states allow you the “freedom to” openly carry a firearm, but also employ police to protect your “freedom from” people being an immediate threat to your life.

In theory, you can’t have both. So in practice, this means that only white people get to openly carry guns. Black people get disarmed or shot.

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That said, I’d disagree that labor freedom reduces economic security in general, but if you got more specific I’m sure there are some instances where that’s true.

Just specifically don’t take an employer’s word when they say “if you unionize we can’t protect you anymore”.

Bags of dirt: The fourth little pig