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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Samizdata quote of the day It’s kind of jumbled, but putting together what the Democrats are saying now and what actually happened in the past, I gather that their economic “plan” is to somehow organize another bubble so that some people will make a lot of money and then tax the hell out of these people, which will then eliminate the deficit and also pay for all their programs, present and future.
– commenter “Hagar” here
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I don’t get – but I’m sure it’s just me…
That’s brilliant. He’s nailed it.
Oh. I see – duh. My brain is not at its best today, sorry:-)
“…and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!”
There is no plan—that’s the dirty little secret all the collectivist huff n puff tries so desperately to hide.
They don’t know what they’re doing.
Each day’s improvisation is nothing more than a frantic attempt to last until tomorrow.
So many people seem mystified at the continuous, and accelerating, deterioration of our economic, political, cultural, and social life.
There’s no mystery at all.
They don’t know what they’ve done. They don’t know what they’re doing now. They don’t know what to do next.
There is only the insatiable lust for power of the terminally incompetent.
They don’t know what they’re doing.
veryretired,
That’s a perfect summing up, as is Hagar’s. Nothing else needs to be said.
Thanks, veryretired.
That nicely captures what I was looking for last night to describe The Team in AGW (Mann, Hansen, Jones, et al).
They don’t know what they’re doing.
I’m afraid that VR, at least on the face of his comment, is too dismissive of the threat: they maybe don’t know what they are doing as far as mere details (such as individual well-being of the unwashed masses) go, but their insatiable lust for power sure leads them in the “right” direction.
Well said, veryretired.
“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.” -Grey’s Law
Garet Garrett, in his classic piece on the New Deal(Link), says the following, which I think applies in this situation as well:
Worse outwitted were those who kept trying to make sense of the New Deal from the point of view
of all that was implicit in the American scheme, charging it therefore with contradiction, fallacy,
economic ignorance, and general incompetence to govern.
But it could not be so embarrassed, and all that line was wasted, because, in the first place, it never
intended to make that kind of sense, and secondly, it took off from nothing that was implicit in the
American scheme.
It took off from a revolutionary base. The design was European. Regarded from the point of view of
revolutionary technique, it made perfect sense. Its meaning was revolutionary and it had no other.
For what it meant to do, it was from the beginning consistent in principle, resourceful, intelligent,
masterly in workmanship, and it made not one mistake.
What Garat Garrett said (which he did some 80 years ago)
There is an enormous thread over at the Volockh site about conspiracy theories. Most of it is nonsense, of course, the same few posters arguing endlessly about their favorite examples, pro or con.
All too often, what appears to be some unfathomable plot to destroy freedom or the economy or some other aspect of our life is nothing more than the damaging results of the endlessly squabbling factions in our political construct trying to get a leg up on the other guys.
It is not that there is no danger. “Idiots at the controls” is almost the definition of danger for any enterprise, public or private.
Of course there is constant scheming, plotting, strategizing, and theorizing. The people that aspire to the kind of power over others that we are talking about live in a fantasy land in which all their careful planning just can’t miss.
So how is it, then, that, one after another, these genius designed and genius led plans fall apart, taking the unfortunate societies that fell under their sway down the sewer of economic collapse and social chaos.
Look around the world. It wasn’t just the soviets or maoists who were forced by reality to jettison their centrally planned utopian schemes.
The Japanese fell into a decades long recession.
Europe has been moribund for decades. The semi-socialized economies of the developing world lurch from one crisis to another.
And the US, after a century of centralization and intrusive statist planning, has finally reached the cliff’s edge, and is staring into an abyss unimaginable just a generation ago.
Termites do not plan to bring down the house—they just go about their instinct of burrowing into wood.
Collectivists do not plan the demise of the societal/economic carcass they are trying to feed on, indeed, they constantly trumpet the superiority of their endless schemes over the chaos of individualism and personal choice.
Why do I support a strictly limited state? Because the less the pols have power over, the less damage they can do when they screw up.
And they always screw it up. It’s not for lack of good intentions—they just don’t know what they’re doing.
Conspiracy Theories generally serve to protect the alleged conspirators from criticism because they can generally be dismissed as paranoid ranting, even if they’re true.
The competence of Resident Bungle, however, is totally open to question. Even his supporters are starting to question that one.
VR: OK, I’ll meet you half way: there are both kinds:-) But I seriously have no doubt there is the kind of which GG was speaking – take these two, just as one example.
I agree that most of them don’t plan such demise, but the thing is that they don’t mind it. The trumpeting is just marketing – in other words, lying.
Yest there is a plan – and “reflation” (i.e. the literal meaning – creating another bubble, as has already happened) was part of it.
But so international “governence” (to get round the hostilty many people have to World Government) and so on.
They (the left – the establishment, including many in the business world, especially in finance) really do believe in all this stuff.
They really do.
And none of it will work – not in the long term.
And the long term is not really so far away.
Within a few years they will have created total economic breakdown.
That is not what most of them want to create – even the worst just want to create a crises which will allow them to create a “fundementally transformed” America (and world – they know that America is still the key, destroy “transform” America and you destroy the West). But they still want a high tech developed world.
They (whether Marxist like Obama, or corporatists like Soros) are not dark Greens – they not want to live in huts hunting other human beings as food.
They really do not want that.
But, inspite of being incredibly clever (tactically) they do not understand just how destructive the things they are doing are.
They do understand they are destructive (they are not innocent – they evil people), but they do not understand the level of destructiveness.
As for the ones that think we can just create a forever credit money boom and fund ever high government spending from ever higher tax reveunes…..
Yes there are a few of of them as well.
For example, Joe Biden may be one of those – but then he has had several strokes.
However, I continue to hope the whole collectivist project will fail – that the human gut instinct that “something just is not right” will over ride the billion Dollar Obama campaign warchest, and the leftist “mainstream” media, and the leftist control of schools and colleges and ……
“But that is blind faith Paul”.
Not blind – but it is faith.
I believe that if the case is put honestly to people (even somehow truth can break through the walls of lies) most people will respond to it.
Paul has it, more or less, in my opinion. As does Garet Garrett.
The tenacity with which the powers-that-be hold to certain courses of action that are expensive, destructive and unnecessary, indicates to me there must be another goal around here somewhere.
Because these people are not stupid. By very definition, to climb the slippery political pole to power, and to exercise the cunning to achieve power, they are cannot be stupid. They must also be tough.
So they are not mentally deprived little weaklings.
They can see what they are doing. Cameron’s advisers must have seen that his stand on the EU would almost lose him the election.
But perhaps their goals are that they want to Britain to stay in the EU (because they are the EU), and they want to almost lose the election so they have to make all sorts of compromises they otherwise would never ever “think” of doing. (Most unfortunate indeed, etc, etc).
That is idle speculation by me. But when you see it happening over and over again in different scenarios, all of which ultimately tend to further the collectivist-ruled-by-elitist agenda, it would be silly not to consider the likelihood of deliberate intent.
Goodness, no, they have no intention so noble as to actually pay down the deficit, or the debt. It is clearly intended to create a bubble so that they can offshore even more loot while the US collapses and finally becomes one more mundane eurosocialist hellhole. Absolutely nobody in Washington DC believes the US can be fixed, they are all intent on looting what they can while they can get it.
“Absolutely nobody in Washington DC believes the US can be fixed, they are all intent on looting what they can while they can get it.”
That’s a frightening thought, but I fear it’s true. Damn, here I thought I was already depressed . . .
Whoever introduces the ‘C’ word into the context of this discussion, either doesn’t understand its meaning, or is egaging in strawman tactics.