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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The subject hierarchy in mainstream media is a clear tool for editorial mischief. No doubt the website designers will argue that their pathways are efficient and designed to assist readers to the most appropriate subject. Inbuilt bias does not exist, and you tag the BBC especially for this. Sometimes irony can ensue, such as the Grauniad pairing “environmental” and “nuclear”.
Only this newspaper could render the sour grapes of subsidy junkies newsworthy. Let’s hear the renewable energy mewl and whine because they do not get enough money:
The developments are likely to fuel concerns among the many environmental campaigners who oppose nuclear power that the industry has unfair access to the government, as well as benefiting from hidden subsidies.
“They [government] have to come clean about all the money spent on assisting nuclear – and this would be part of that,” said Mike Childs, head of climate campaigns for Friends of the Earth. “It’s important ministers come clean about who they are meeting, when they are meeting, and the issues they are discussing.”
After all, green lobbyists derive all of their financing from voluntary donations, so they would have us believe. In reality, the renewable energy industry and its lobbyists require subsidies to survive. So does nuclear energy.
Itis particularly telling when they weep because their quango constituency is whittled down to one. The Chicken Littles wail that the sky has fallen because they have to compete on a level playing field of one quango each:
Concern about the preferential treatment given to the nuclear industry by successive governments is likely to be heightened by the decision last month to abolish the parallel Renewables Energy Board, which met every quarter at the department and once a year outside, as part of spending cuts. The work of the renewables board will be taken on by the Office for Renewable Energy Deployment, for which there is a parallel Office for Nuclear Development.
There would have been a time when the Guardian, in its liberal days, could have stepped back from a story of quango competition and included the question: is this a good use of public money? The prevailing philosophy of the newspaper still recognised a link between tax and accountability. Not an argument that we could agree with but one that we could recognise.
What has changed over the last few years is the sense of entitlement from public sector professionals and their media sympathisers. State expenditure is unquestioned and arguments arise over the disposal of the spoils. The immoral, debauched class of New Labour becomes more visible at a time of illusionary restraint on the part of the Coalition.
Yesterday evening, I attended a discussion group at the home of Libertarian International president Christian Michel. Christian likes to invite intelligent people with a cross-section of views to these events, and although this occasionally leads to heated argument, the conversation usually remains relatively polite.
Last night, the subject of biodiversity came up, and someone made a comment about how human activity is causing every increasing extinction of species. I decided to be Devil’s Advocate to a small extent and I asked a simple question.
“Can you name any large animal that has become extinct recently?”
Nobody else in the room could successfully answer the question. One or two animals that became extinct between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries were mentioned, as were a number of endangered but not extinct species. After they failed to provide any such animals, I mentioned one myself (the Yangtze Dolphin). For what its worth, one can find quite a few large animals that went extinct between about 1800 and 1960 due to human activity. There have been very few since 1960, however. There may be issues with how long it takes for an extinction to be officially declared, or it may be that conservation efforts are working. Or both. But it is far from incontrovertibly clear that extinctions are occurring at an unprecedented rate. There is a lot of uncertainty.
However, I was assured that there is clear evidence of extinction if I looked it up, and some such, and I was assured that it is smaller animals that are mostly becoming extinct and this is what matters. (On the other hand, if this is so, why do the tigers and other large animals get all the publicity?)
After playing the game slightly longer (“Okay, name any species of insect that has become extinct due to human activity, ever”) I backed off. However, as I was doing this, somebody made a curious comment, which was this:
“Michael, you can’t make claims like this without providing evidence”.
This was curious, as I had not made any claims. I had simply asked somebody else for evidence for what they were saying. We have been here before, oddly enough.
However, the question is a very effective one. Many people have accepted the idea that species of animal are going extinct at an alarming rate, without knowing any actual examples. Most people can at least sense the contradiction if you point it out.
Many pixels have given their life on this site in discussions about how supporters of constitutionally limited government must ‘compromise’ to achieve their goals. Such people urging compromise are usually ‘sensible conservatives’ but see us wild eyed ‘libertarian’ types as potentially useful ‘fellow travellers’ if only we would learn to be more pragmatic.
And my view is usually to find out if the person telling me to compromise supported Bush or McCain, if American or Cameron if a Brit. And if they did, I try to discover if they are having serious buyers remorse… and if not, I tag them not as a ‘fellow traveller’ but as a political enemy to be opposed at every level.
But as in the USA there is at least a viable opposition movement to the Leviathan State whereas in the UK the now out-of-office Demonic Party and the ruling Stupid Party/Stupider Party coalition agree on all the Important Roles of the State, I will confine my remarks to America-centric ones because the vast majority of folks in the UK seem to rather enjoy the whole ‘circling the drain’ sensation and after all, the NHS is ‘the envy of the world’.
It seems clear that the best chance for ‘small staters’ (which means small-L libertarians, classical liberals and genuine conservatives) in America is taking over the Republican Party and that is exactly what the Tea Party is all about.
However the self identified libertarians, classical liberals and genuine conservatives within the Republican Party over the last 15 years have not been the solution to anything, indeed they have been the root of the problem…
…why?
Because in thinking that they must compromise on even the fundamental core principle of constitutionally limited government, large numbers of ostensibly pro-liberty people have voted for and abetted Big State Republicans like George “I started the bailout” Bush and John “I support the bailout” McCain. If you can ‘compromise’ to that extent, you are either lying about being in favour of limited government or you have no conception of what the word ‘limited’ means. ‘Limited’ does not mean “vast-but-growing-less-than-the-other-guy”.
It is the very fact so many people who want a smaller state refused to ever say “THIS IS A DEAL BREAKER“… and really mean it… but rather kept endlessly holding their nose and voting for The Lesser Evil that made it possible for the state to keep growing remorselessly under Republican governments.
But the Cold War in over, we won, so Reagan’s excuse no longer applies.
I have nothing against compromise with fellow travellers and usually see little value in obsessive purity tests, but the key here is compromise with fellow travellers (such as libertarians compromising with conservatives and visa versa), but what has happened over and over and over again is endless ‘compromise’ with people whose objectives are in fact antithetical.
So in short, what oh so many ‘small staters’ have been calling ‘compromise’ when they hold their nose and vote for a Big State politician just because he is running as a Republican, is not “compromise” at all… it is surrender.
What possible reason did the likes of Bush or McCain have to accommodate the views of ‘small staters’ when they knew they would vote for them regardless of how much they grew the state? No reason at all. None.
You want to know the problem? Look in the mirror and the problem will look back at you. That was the realisation that spawned the Tea Party and I was calling for that before the Tea Party even existed.
The true enemy of the Tea Party movement, contrary to what oh so many in the the clueless and wilfully blind MSM would have you believe, is not Obama and the Democratic Party, it is the Republican Party’s establishment… i.e. the people who made Obama presidency possible.
And so when George W. Bush, the very embodiment of everything that brought the Tea Party into existence, says “Sarah Palin is unqualified“, then it is time to start counting the days until the Tea Party propels her into the White House at the head of the angry mob of peasants with torches and pitchforks soccer moms, office workers and garage mechanics.
Often the quality of a person can be judged by who their are enemies… and that means Sarah Palin is looking more appealing by the day.
I read this article by Peter Oborne and felt more or less in sympathy with it until I came to this clanger:
“But this shift, while of long-term significance, has been dwarfed by the most astonishing development of all: the apparent ending of the 20-year Tory civil war on Europe. Last weekend, David Cameron opened the way for a sharp increase in our budget contributions to Brussels, while giving the green light for a new treaty to save the eurozone. On Monday, he announced a new era of defence co-operation with France. The Prime Minister has developed an easy, relaxed and mature relationship with both President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel. Until very recently indeed, there would have been uproar had a Tory leader countenanced any of this. Last week, there was scarcely any reaction on Conservative benches. The spectre of Europe, which has engulfed the Tories since the assassination of Margaret Thatcher exactly 20 years ago, may have been laid to rest.”
That paragraph is written in a tone of approval. Now, unless I have missed something, wasn’t Mr Oborne the man who wrote a book a few years ago condemning the rise of a political class that tended to associate its own material interests with those of the country? I remember at the time pointing out that Oborne failed to give due weight to the significance of the European Union in all this. Well, now it appears he has become a sort of cheerleader for Britain giving ever greater sums of money to countries determined to pursue wrongheaded economic policies.
Well, it was nice knowing you, Peter.
I see that EU Referendum thinks as I do.
Ministers should not spend more time consulting business about the general question of what should we deregulate. Exisiting businesses can handle existing regulations and often see them as allies to keep others out of a market.
– John Redwood
Dr. Bernanke unfortunately does not understand economics, he does not understand currencies, he does not understand finance. All he understands is printing money. His whole intellectual career has been based on the study of printing money. Give the guy a printing press, he’s going to run it as fast as he can.
– Jim Rogers, investor and commentator, giving his considered view on Ben Bernanke, the current chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Now that the US mid-term elections are over and the Republicans have scored a decisive victory in the House, and won seats in the Senate, the thought must occur that California, which has stuck to its socialistic politics, is ever closer to going bust. The GOP in Congress is unlikely to tolerate a bailout for a state run by delusional, mostly Democratic, fools. But if California does go bust and defaults on its debt, what happens then? Maybe this would be a good thing in the long run. Several South American states have defaulted in the past, but they did recover, eventually.
I guess one not-so-difficult thing to predict is that businesses and people will continue to flee California. It is so sad: the last time I was there, the place appeared – maybe only on the surface – to be booming.
Rand Simberg has thoughts.
In 2012 there will be a US presidential election using a new distribution of the electoral college. This will use the population data of the current US census. After last night’s elections, there has been a dramatic change in what happens if the Democrat and Republican candidates end up with a tie (for example 269 votes each).
Short answer is that, assuming the politicians stick to their party, the Republicans win the presidency, but the Senate would pick a Democrat for Vice President. Details at my election blog.
[Update: correction made from comments, thanks Lone Ranger!]
I ran across this item in a Jane’s Newsletter this morning:
US, Japan agree to diversify rare earth minerals. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara agreed on 28 October that diversifying sources of rare earth minerals was a priority in the wake of China’s freeze on exports to Japan. These minerals are indispensible to modern defence systems and see commercial use in mobile phones, wind turbines, televisions and hybrid electric drives
Rare earth elements, with names like Yttrium, Scandium, Lanthanum and Praeseodymium, are critical to a modern industrial society. They appear in lasers, high tech alloys, superconductors, and much else. China is applying Mercantilist practices to corner a larger share of the global market in high end electronics. They are the largest producer of the strategic REE’s and see this as an advantage in a geopolitical sense as well.
It will not work however. They may well be the current largest producer, but these elements exist all over the world. In the short term they will gain an advantage. Over the medium to longer term they will accomplish the same thing ITAR regulations accomplished for the United States. They will create a thriving industry elsewhere and it will eventually ‘eat their lunch’.
To paraphrase an old saw: “You can’t fool Mother Market.”
Too bad there already is an SQoTD for today, but here’s a classic bit I’ll copy and past for you anyway:
We are almost getting to the situation where we will be seeing unemployed environmentalists walking the streets. As with unemployed actors who describe themselves as “between jobs”, one might expect them to admit to being “between scares”.
That’s the EU Referendum man, Richard North, ruminating about how the environmental debate is now going quiet, and about how the forces of darkness are now going to have to find themselves a different line of bullshit to work with. “Biodiversity” won’t nearly suffice. How true. Although, as he’d be the first to remind us (I found that link in this), “climate” money is still being thrown around like there’s no tomorrow, and if that carries on there probably won’t be. Anyway … as I was saying. Between scares.
That phrase could really get around. It deserves to.
Liberty is not a pick and mix free-for-all in which you think government should ban the things you don’t like and encourage you things you do like: that’s how Libtards think. Libertarianism – and the Tea Party is nothing if its principles are not, at root, libertarian ones – is about recognising that having to put up with behaviour you don’t necessarily (approve) of is a far lesser evil than having the government messily and expensively intervene to regulate it.
– James Delingpole, with his obvious typo corrected.
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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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