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9/12 pledge… or why I would not hack it as a US conservative

· How very odd!

Much is being made in some circles about this “9 Principles, 12 Values” thingie being bandied around by Glenn Beck. So as I am in the grip of insomnia yet again, I though I would run my sleep deprived eyes down that list and see how I would stack up were I an American politico, presumably running not under the Republican Elephant Banner but some sort of vaguely libertarianish ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ Rattlesnake Flag or maybe a Star-Spangled Hippopotamus Vexillum (I did warn you I was sleep deprived)…

The 9 Principles

1. America Is Good.

– America is a nation-state and even the least bad nation-state can never be more than a necessary evil. It is the nature of the beast.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

– Nope and she ain’t … but “Hail Eris” just in case.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

– Um, Glenn ol’ buddy… this 9/12 shtick is addressed to politicians, no? And anyway, I think I strike the right balance between honesty and tactical duplicity.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

– The family is a pretty good idea, so yeah, but in truth I am pretty much owned by my other half as she can be pretty scary when she wants to be.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

– Justice is blind and achieving it is a vital life objective … the law on the other hand is not just blind but rather prone to be deaf, dumb, stupid and as often as not utterly malevolent. So yes, it needs to be applied to politicians good and hard.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

– Hell yeah.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

– Amen to that.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

– Indeed.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

– Quite so. In theory. Sort of.

The 12 Values

* Honesty

– Great idea, at least with people likely to reciprocate.

* Reverence

– Very overrated… to me ‘reverence’ is something that I only feel when confronted by a juicy medium rare Argentine steak or a 10mm that never jams.

* Hope

– Essential.

* Thrift

– As politics is about Other People’s Money and Liberty… utterly essential.

* Humility

– Nice but hardly essential.

* Charity

– Also nice but how does this fit into politics? You cannot be charitable with other people’s money.

* Sincerity

– Indeed and anyone who can fake that has chosen wisely in their decision to pursue a career in politics.

* Moderation

– To quote Barry Goldwater… “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

* Hard Work

– Essential and I intend to hire people capable of doing exactly that.

* Courage

– Essential in all things.

* Personal Responsibility

– The cornerstone of all moral calculus.

* Gratitude

– I would be grateful to get a few hours sleep at some point tonight.

November 2nd, 2009 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)

Political brainfodder

· UK affairs

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive to the Royal Society of Arts and a former adviser to Tony Blair, recently wrote an article in the magazine, Prospect, on the political potential of new developments in behaviourial economics, neuroscience and related disciplines. Such an enterprise is always difficult, in so far as new research is often part of an expanding research programme and questions are not fully answered. Therefore, one should be careful in the enthusiastic application of such results to the political arena.

Taylor’s article marries the politics and selected research results, with section headings such as the Social Democratic brain and the Conservative brain. Without citing too much detail, the aim of the article is to describe and promote this research as a source of justification for policy and power:

Much of this research makes good reading for social democrats. By highlighting our psychological frailties and the way these contribute to market epidemics, behavioural economics makes a powerful case for regulation, paternalism and measures to promote feelings of security. Nor is this the only encouragement for the traditional left.

Homo oeconomicus is circumscribed by the explorations of rationality undertaken by neuroscience and social Darwinism, but the disciplinary failure of the social sciences, the tabula rasa, is erased from the historical backdrop, as this draws attention to their total failure. A neoliberal dominance in our understanding of the human is conjured up to allow the entry of this new legitimation. The vision that Taylor pictures is of mankind as a social being, who requires constraints and direction through social institutions and norms. Such a general vision that marries up with your philosophy is the danger that the contemporary amateur interpretation of scientific results will conclude.

Given that there is no consensus on human nature, merely a greater understanding of our predispositions and controversy over how they relate to the social sphere, is it not arrogant to presume that existing political ideas have the key to unlock the controversial interplay of the social and the inherited. Such interventions in the past have proved disastrous, as the race science of the twentieth century demonstrates. Caution is a watchword here.

The byproduct of this article is the realisation that neither the Tories or Labour can articulate moral arguments and are reduced to tagging their miserable ideas on to the emergent exploration of human nature for the sheen of scientific authority. Economists and intellectuals working in these disciplines are seduced by the consultation of those in power and turn towards the exercise of application in a political sphere.

This article is a useful reminder of what both parties share. Supping from the same well via ‘libertarian paternalism’ or behaviourial economics, we begin to see the outlines of a commonality in approach, though there are differences in institutional and political implementation. Neither approach from Labour or the Tories is a friend to freedom.

November 1st, 2009 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)

Samizdata quote of the day

· Slogans & Quotations

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

– Lord Acton, from The History of Freedom in Antiquity

…with extra added bonus quote from the same:

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime…

November 1st, 2009 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)

Who is the ‘leader’ of the conservatives in the USA?

· North American affairs

Sometimes a ‘leader’ is the person at the rear directing others to do things… but sometimes the ‘leader’ is the one out in front, well, leading, and the people who follow that person’s lead only after they see the way things are developing are mere ‘followers’… the bandwagon jumpers and weathervane watchers.

And that makes Sarah Palin a leader… quite possibly the de facto leader if she really wants. Certainly people who bet their party machine politics against her will think long and hard before crossing her after what happened to Dede Scozzafava, who the left wing statist press hilariously describe as a ‘moderate’ Republican. That the likes of Palin, Armey et al. can come in and kick the snot out of the established local party, even when it has the backing of people like Gingrich, will gave many pause for thought.

Of course some Democrats will rub their hands with glee and see this as the ‘Republicans tearing themselves apart’… and they are right, but wrong to be happy about it, because in truth the party that Obama beat needs to ‘tear itself apart’ and the fact it is starting to do so means the party opposing Obama could be a very different party in a few years… a party that rejects the catastrophic Bush years that hugely expanded the scope of the state and which made everything that Obama is trying to do now possible.

I suspect the reason so much effort was put into rubbishing and ridiculing Palin was an early indication that many of the ultra-statist in both parties saw what Palin represents as deeply unsettling, and not for any of the reasons usually given. Certainly I started to take Palin far more seriously the more she was lampooned by the usual coterie of dismal entertainment biz apparatchiks.

She ain’t no libertarian but she certainly ain’t no John McCain/George Bush either. I suspect her principle-over-party endorsement of an obscure New York conservative over an obscure New York Republican on the far-left of the party, may represent one of those seemingly minor events that turn out to be the precursor to something quite interesting and far reaching. Only time will tell but I think the winds of change are blowing and quite a lot of people are going to be genuinely surprised when their political careers get dumped in Boston Harbor.

Update: And to the commenter who called himself ‘Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle’ on my previous post about this issue… you said:

You know what is really funny? The Republican party candidate is not a lefty at all. She’s made nice to unions a time or two. That’s about it. She isn’t a RINO by any stretch of the imagination

Oh really? Well guess what… Republican Dede Scozzafava, who suspended her campaign yesterday in the New York 23rd Congressional District, has endorsed Democrat Bill Owens.

Yeah, not a RINO at all. This actually makes the “Palin called it right” contention incontrovertible. By doing this Scozzafava has just made Palin even stronger.

November 1st, 2009 | 53 comments - (Comments are closed)
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