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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Whilst reading a discussion on the state of Social Security I noticed some conceptual errors, which if not corrected, could lead to very bad results.
Social Security is not a welfare program. It is not a wealth redistribution program. It was created in FDR’s time as a one size fits all retirement fund. Every working person is forced to pay a percentage of their income into it so that upon retirement, they will continue to live in a life style similar to the one they had before retirement. At the time this idea was sold to the public, pure redistributive Socialism and welfare simply were not acceptable ideas in polite society.
If someone from a conservative view point puts forth an argument that applying a means test is a way to save Social Security, a way to turn it into a ‘social safety net’, they are buying into a deadly shift in the ground rules of the argument. Once you agree your pay out from Social Security need not reflect your pay in, you have left the field of play. You have handed the game over to the Socialists and made Social Security a welfare program. It becomes yet another redistribution program ‘for the poor’.
No one should fall into that trap. Social Security is an alternate to private retirement savings plans. It was created out of a mind set that said individuals are not adult enough to save for their own retirements. It was created out of a mind set that said private entities could not be trusted to hold such investments and pay them back as promised.
The terms of the discussion we should be taking part in is that not only are these statements false, they are disastrously, blatantly false. When a private program fails, some number of people are indeed harmed. When the time comes to pay the piper on the Government program, millions upon millions of people will be screwed out of their retirement savings.
We can also make the argument that politics has allowed the entirety of Social Security to become an enterprise so flawed that if similar actions occurred in a private company, they would be decried as criminal offences. Individuals carrying out such schemes would be compared to Bernie Madoff. They would be worse than Bernie: by comparison he ruined the lives of a very small number of Americans, not many tens of millions. Social Security proves yet again that the government is incapable of running pretty much anything. If you want a disaster, let the politicians run it.
When the collapse finally arrives and the Ponzi scheme can go no further; when the taxpayer can no long bail out a failed scheme and hide the criminal nature of it all, I very much hope thousands are indicted for the crime. Every person who served in Congress and the Senate who voted to raid the program or undermined the T-Bills on which it rests and every bureaucrat who ever worked for the Social Security Administration who went along with the fraud deserves a long prison sentence.
We need to give poor Bernie some company after all, and he can learn how it is done by the real Pro’s.
An old friend of mine, now living in Texas, gave me several links on Face Book that show there really is a revolt going on over the Edison bulb issue. It is one of those small things that everyone can easily understand. It is the hand of Big Brother reaching into their own personal space.
The rebellion is catching on at the State government level in Texas and South Carolina and Georgia and Arizona too.
Let the NoGreen war banners unfurl! Onwards to victory!
I had a few thoughts over a coffee this afternoon on how to express the difference between a Capitalist and a Socialist society in a short sharp shocking manner. In the Capitalist society, when an individual sees someone who is better off, they try to learn from them and work hard to do even better. In a Socialist world… they just steal it.
The stealing may happen by proxy, but it is stealing just the same.
It is time for the simple debate to end and all out war to begin. The Edison bulb bannings by the global class of intellectual Aristocrats is the step too far. To assist all in declaring their allegiance I have generated this handy war logo which could double as a war pennant:
Down with the Greens!
Graphic: copyright Dale Amon, Released under Creative Commons license.
It is hard to believe that great and articulate thorn in the side of the left, William Buckley, has been gone for four years. What would he think of what has transpired since? A friend of his discusses that question and gives us a clarion call of resistance from the great man’s own words:
“I will not,” Bill wrote,
cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
To which I will only add, Amen.
Resistance is not futile. It only takes 15% of a population opting out to bring any overbearing state to its knees. We only need a 15% Galt factor to completely spike the socialist enterprise.
A Janes email newsletter this week reports that:
Israel retains strike option as IAEA strips away Iranian nuclear facade
Israel plans to give the international community time to draft and impose a series of tough sanctions against Iran in relation to its nuclear programme but has not ruled out the possibility of pre-emptive military action at a later date, Jane’s understands from senior government officials. Their comments followed the 8 November publication of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report expressing concern based on mounting evidence that Iran is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, conducting research and tests that are only relevant for the design of a weapon
Next thing you know, they will discover that Israel has teeth enough to respond to an attack or threat… in kind.
The National Space Society and the International Academy of Astronautics held a press conference at the National Press Club yesterday to announce stunning advances in the systems design of Space Based Solar Power satellites.
John Mankins has been working on a modular solar power station architecture for a number of years. Instead of a big, all up construction project, there are mass produced small modules that begin paying for themselves almost immediately.
His concept could be flying in 10 years. Rather than assume a system has to look like the concept drawings from the 1970’s, he completely rethought it using modern technology. The result is a module that can launch on an existing rocket and immediately make itself useful by delivering power to anywhere on earth it is needed. On its own one module is not going to power a city, but it might power a small remote facility or supply emergency power to a team at a disaster area. As cash-flow or investment capital allows, more identical units can be launched. They may be used separately… or they might be joined up like robotic Lego blocks to form larger and larger structures, generating larger and larger amounts of energy for Earth-Based usage.
Take a look at the IAA report.
The video is now available.
When young beautiful and really smart girls are on your side, you know you are winning. Check out Token Libertarian Girl’s Youtube channel
You will not regret it.
Not a lot of news coming out but I found this news on the Polywell Fusion reactor testing.
500 shots so far. A long way to go, but Dr. Bussard’s concepts have now survived quite a lot of testing. There is probably a lot more interesting information behind the scenes, but the US Navy Office of Naval Research prefers they not talk a lot.
I wish them success because it changes everything for all of us if they do succeed on the final hurdle of creating a working fusion generator.
So, a company notes that its natural food product has scientifically documented positive health effects… and a bunch of underhanded bureaucrats underhandedly silences them:
Quote of the Day: “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” – Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Only an organization as evil as the FDA could manage to harm public health, free speech, and due process, with a single action.
The sample letter to Congress below explains how the FDA accomplished these things in the name of protecting you from . . .
Wait for it . . .
Walnuts!
But hey, is that not what we pay them for via our voluntary tax system?
According to information linked to by Glenn Reynolds, the New World is poised to become the center of gravity for oil production by the end of this decade. There is as much as 2 Trillion Barrels in the US; another 2 trillion in South America and 2.4 Trillion reserves in Canada.
This affects the Middle East but it hits Russia even more. Over the last decade two of their big earners have been oil exports and aerospace. These have been just about the only sources of national power they have. Oil and gas exports have been used as a carrot and stick against the Europeans. The need for Soyuz launches to the International (but mostly US funded) Space Station have softened reactions from the US congress. The Russians know the US can only make noises about sales to Iran and others like them because ISS is and has been essentially hostage to their good graces for years.
SpaceX and American companies like them are about to shift the center of gravity for space systems back to US dominance. This has huge geopolitical implications. Cargo and crew flights to ISS will be fungible. If the Russians threaten a stand down, all that is needed to counter it are extra purchases from an American provider. That assumes we are even still buying Soyuz as the desire for Congressional ‘pork’ will almost certainly be overwhelming. It will result in a ‘buy American’ requirement for all US Government space flight as soon as SpaceX proves they can handle the job. On top of it all, if SpaceX delivers on the low prices it is quoting, and there is no reason to believe they will not, Russia and China and Europe are all going to be priced out of the commercial launch business in short order.
That is why the Russians are not happy about the SpaceX Dragon rendezvous and docking with ISS in December. With that docking and the shift in global energy production the writing is on the wall for Russia. Its days as even a minor world power are numbered. The implications of that are not necessarily good. Russia’s ruling classes have been known to do very bad things when they feel threatened.
Whatever the case, we are going to find out by the end of this decade.
I have been intending to do a long article on SpaceX and their plans but the combination of consulting to eat and pay the bar tab and of trying to get funding for my own New Space business has been keeping me too occupied for a lengthy and well researched article. Fortunately, the National Space Society finally finished its internal deliberations and is now solidly and publicly backing the commercial space approach to exploration. (No industry insiders were harmed in the making of this film… er policy.)
With policy in place, an updated version of an excellent article on SpaceX, what they are doing, where they are going and what it all means has been published. John Strickland did an excellent job on it. Read it!
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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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