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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Disturbing parallels “Which former president does Barack Obama most resemble? When it comes to handling oil spills, the answer is Richard Nixon. Like our current president, Nixon too presided over a major offshore oil blowout—the three million gallon Santa Barbara spill of 1969. And, like Mr. Obama, Nixon responded by whipping up anti-oil sentiment and passing a sweeping moratorium on drilling. This parallel is important to keep in mind, because Nixon’s reaction helped cause the worst energy crisis in American history.”
Alex Epstein.
Alas, the rest of the article is behind the WSJ subscriber firewall (I wonder how that is working out for Mr Murdoch, Ed).
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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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Well, the paywall arrangement for the Wall Street Journal is apparently very profitable, and was so long before Mr Murdoch even bought the paper. It’s a very special case though, one of the main reasons being that people’s employers tend to pay the subscription fee rather than the readers themselves.
The problem is the belief that this special case really applies anywhere else.
For the benefit of those who can’t get beyond the firewall, here are a couple more quotes:
Nixon is best remembered these days for Watergate, which was an irrelevancy. What is forgotten is that he was responsible for imposing wage and price controls, outlawing the private ownership of gold, creating the EPA, the first campaign finance “reform” law and the “Anti-Impoundments Act” (which took away the President’s functional line-item veto, setting the stage for uncontrollable federal spending). He was a disaster on almost every front, yet today only the memory of Watergate remains.
Epstein is correct: Obama is reminiscent of Nixon. All of the arrogance, but without the competence.
“…outlawing the private ownership of gold…”
That was Franklin Roosevelt. Nixon ended the gold convertibility of the dollar.
You’re right, Mastiff. My mistake.
Yes, but the main difference is that Nixon’s energy crisis was unintentional. Obama’s is intentional (see his “put coal out of business” comments).
Worse than that, one can arguably maintain that the Nixon administration was even more liberal than that of Johnson. In fact Noam Chomsky called Nixon “the last liberal president.”
Re: Nixon’s Liberalism–if there’s any truth to the comparison of Leftist ideology to religion (and I think there is plenty), it’s worth bearing in mind the very vocal abhorrence of Nixon by certain sectors of the Left. A useful rule of thumb is that heretics are despised more for their similarities than for their differences.
There is a way to tweak the URL’s to get behind these idiotically designed paywalls. Here(Link)‘s an ungated version for your pleasure.
Okay, that failed, which does not make the design any less idiotic. Try copying the URL, pasting it into Google, and opening the first link. Sometimes, for example for FT, it helps to open the cached version, or to delete a few numbers from the end, if the original URL brings back no results.
You are a wise man, Bullfrog.
Obama is a new departure unless Rooselvelt was an undercover Marxist. If he was then I suppose that is whom he resembles.
To quote Garet Garrett (The Revolution Was – 1938):
I think te realissue with Nixon was the “wage & price freeze”.Which, if I rember correctly, the oil companies could not sell oil for more than the current peice. Then OPEC raise thier price per barrel, and the oil companies would sell it at a loss. Probably the only thing “Jimah” did right was to end it
jimmy didn’t end price controls on gasoline, Ronald Reagan did. Now there was someone with balls-an honorable man, who didn’t talk down to us.
Presidents of the US are usually considered to be smart, crafty, tricky, strong, wise persons.
The adjective that strikes me most is “idiot”. They were all a bunch of unbelievable idiots.
Nixon, Carter, Johnson, Ford, Bush 1, the “smart” Obama. Kennedy too. No doubt about them.
Clinton was no idiot, therefore his presidency was plain, uneventful sailing, with the exception of the trivial, unimportant Lewinsky affair (but that hardly qualifies as “idiotic”, it’s more silly).
The only un-idiotic president was Reagan – dubbed by the MSM a retard.
Can’t tell about Roosevelt.
Truman strikes me as a sort of decent, normal guy.
Eisenhower – a crafty apparatchik.
The only bunch of greater idiots were the candidates defeated in the presidential elections (except Goldwater).
remarkable how “the greatest democracy” produces such a crop of idiots as presidents.
I agree with Jacob’s points, except that I don’t find it “remarkable” in the least that the form of mob rule we have in the United States has resulted in “such a crop of idiots as presidents.” On the contrary, it is not only expected, it is the inevitable result of unfettered democracy.
The philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe had this to say:
You can read the whole essay here.
Or, as Jouvenel put it, “A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.”
“A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.”
Maybe, but I talked about idiots, not wolves. It’s not the same, wolves are not idiots.
While some of those idiots had charm or charisma (like Kennedy or Clinton) or oratory gifts (Obama), others lacked even that ( Nixon or Johnson).
Idiots or not, they are all wolves.
Wolves don’t have to be very bright, just reasonably cunning predators with sharp teeth. Which is precisely what you need to successfully navigate the jungle of national politics. In fact, intelligence might actually be a liability.
“In fact, intelligence might actually be a liability.”
That is correct. It is empirically proven.