We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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On the possible demise of “gentry liberalism” Here is a highly thought-provoking article in Forbes magazine about the phenomenon it refers to as “gentry liberalism” – a term designed to capture the mindset of the sort of person who has voted for New Labour in the UK and Mr Obama’s Democrats in the US. It is, of course, such a shame that the word liberalism has been bent out of shape to mean something rather different, but the underlying logic of the article is hard to contest.
Of course, Mr Obama has a while yet in power, but if I were one of his campaign managers, I’d look at the massacre of left-of-centre parties in Europe with a certain amount of forboding. He’s not invincible, not at all.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Perhaps at the core of the U S deterioration is the strong possibility that the increasingly heterogeneous and broadening electorate is not “invincable’ either.
Political support has moved from one federalist group (PES) to another (EPP-ED). That is all. It doesn’t help us souverainists/eurosceptics as far as I can see.
I found it interesting that Mr. Kotkin refers to David Cameron as an “adequate leader” (in contrast to Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, who are “gargoyles”). No doubt I have a severly distorted view of British politics (getting most of it here!), but I’m not getting the sense that many Samizdatistas would agree and am curious if that is indeed the case.
Meanwhile, over here in the US, the Republican party is undergoing paroxysms trying to redefine itself: big tent with no core values, or a hard right conservative shift? The reason the “gargoyles” (who hold no elective office) are ascendant is that no one else in the party is demonstrating any leadership. There is no Reagan on the horizon, merely a swarm of squeaking liliputians. Hell, we don’t even have a Cameron! Without even the hope of principled change things can only continue to deteriorate.
If someone is born rich they may think that being rich is natural (it is not – being very poor is the default state of humanity). So they may think that poverty is a weird thing that government can solve (rather than make worse) with yet more spending and regulations.
Also it is often forgotten that education (especially higher education) is a consumption good (not “investment”). A rich country has more people with degrees in the same way that a rich county has more people with big houses or nice cars – it is a confusion of cause and effect to say the big houses or the nice cars, or the university degrees, cause the wealth.
In a university people have a certain style of life – one they tend to think (on some level) could exist outside. They chat with friends, they produce the occastional essay (and so on) and that is it. The world of work is not like that – can not be like that in a company that is to survive.
So the assumption (or whatever level) by rich people who have had a nice time at university that government could produce a general society like one vast university (rather like “Star Trek: New Generation”) is a false one.
And then, of course, there is the point about the statist doctrines and attitudes taught at school (including many private schools) and universities.
The richer someone’s family the longer they are likely to stay at school and university – so the more time they will be expossed to endless collectivist propaganda.
For example, someone who goes off to attend Sandle (spelling alert) course on “Justice” at Harvard university (at vast expense – partly picked up by the taxpayers) is much LESS likely to know what justice is (and I am talking about AFTER they have done the course) than a person picked at random from the street.
I don’t really see how ‘right-wing’ parties winning in the EP means anything – after all, aren’t right-wing parties in Europe pretty moderate by any rational standard?
MicroBalrog.
In Europe the term “right wing” is used by the media/academia to mean anything they do not like. No matter how contradictory such usage may be.
It is the same in the United States – with even the Washington museum shooter being described as “right wing” even though he was one of the “Bush was behind 9/11 crowd” and the man is also descibed as a product of “Fox News” ( a station he threatened to attack).
In the European context – libertarians and National Socialists are both described as “right wing” by the media/academia. That they have totally opposed beliefs is not considered important by the media/academia.
No president in American history has shredded the Constiitution with such gay abandon, made the legal system a joke and rewarded his cronies so brazenly as has Presidente Zero. Whether he insults the USA abroad or merely our allies while romancingpeople like Castro or Chavez he is indeed crafting a new foreign policy that will no doubt reap unusual results in the next decade, just as the world’s responses to aggression brought unusual results a decade later.
All ready we see Americans in the hundreds of thousands protesting Obama’s ever growing nanny state and his corrupt policies. Never have I seen such discontent so rapidly develop. Obama’s failure to prosecute those who engage in election fraud and voter intimidation and are an indication of how he probably will deal with the growth in his unpopularity at the next election.
But I doubt there are sufficient corpses for the Democrats and the Chicago mob to resurrect to stave off the fury of the American people. Unlike Colin Powell, most do not wish to see a growth in government nor pay more in taxes for services they do not wish.
No president in American history has shredded the Constiitution with such gay abandon, made the legal system a joke and rewarded his cronies so brazenly as has Presidente Zero. Whether he insults the USA abroad or merely our allies while romancingpeople like Castro or Chavez he is indeed crafting a new foreign policy that will no doubt reap unusual results in the next decade, just as the world’s responses to aggression brought unusual results a decade later.
All ready we see Americans in the hundreds of thousands protesting Obama’s ever growing nanny state and his corrupt policies. Never have I seen such discontent so rapidly develop. Obama’s failure to prosecute those who engage in election fraud and voter intimidation and are an indication of how he probably will deal with the growth in his unpopularity at the next election.
But I doubt there are sufficient corpses for the Democrats and the Chicago mob to resurrect to stave off the fury of the American people. Unlike Colin Powell, most do not wish to see a growth in government nor pay more in taxes for services they do not wish.
Thomas Jackson
Presidnent Barack Obama (how I hate typing those words) has served a useful function.
For years, indeed decades, we have been told not to “conflate” the left – not to put into the same box the “moderate” and the “hard” or “extreme” left.
However, when faced with someone who five minutes of background research would tell them was both the most “hard left” person ever to run as the candidate for President of one of the two large political parties, and someone with a record of great corruption and general vileness – what did the left do?
All the left (the “education system”, the “mainstream media” all of it) backed Barack Obama – and they backed him fanatically.
There was no difference between the “moderate left” and the “hard left” – which liberates us (the enemies of the left) from having to treat them differently.
They are all now unmasked as the enemies of Western Civilization – pityless enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy everything we care about.
We should treat them accordingly.