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Archbishop Rowen Williams has never heard of me and he never will. However, I now believe I have done him an injustice in various thoughts and comments. I am fully aware that most people on Samizdata are atheists – but you do not claim to be Christians, and I am saying that I have been unjust by assuming a man who said he was a Christian was lying (i.e. was a fraud).
Archbishop Williams is a social gospel man and I have assumed that, like most such folk, he is a disguised atheist – someone who when they use the word “God” really means “society” or “the people” (or whatever code word for the state). However, this was an assumption on my part – I never bothered to do any background research (exactly the sort of failure I attack in others – when they make statements about the “moderate” Barack Obama, or whatever, without spending five minutes doing any research).
Recently I came upon an exchange between Bishop Spong and Archbishop Williams which leads me to the opinion that I have been unjust to Rowen Williams. Although the source is Wikipedia I have spent enough time reading this thing to have a good sense of when articles are false and when they are true. → Continue reading: I have done Archbishop Rowen Williams an injustice
As well as the normal “liberal” distortions (in this case pretending that the de facto ban on both Alaska land drilling, off shore shallow water drilling, and Mountain State oil shale production, do not exist – these being the restrictions that force difficult and expensive deep water drilling) that Michelle Oddis outlines – please ponder the John Stossel story.
J.S. said whatever libertarian says on race – that racism is evil, but people should be allowed to keep people they do not like (for whatever stupid reason) off their property.
And for that all Hell broke lose – with “MediaMatters” and all the rest of the (very well funded) leftist (in the modern sense) organizations demanding that he be dismissed. The man is Jewish (counts for nothing – the left will smear him as a racist anyway), the man was a Democrat before he became a libertarian and has never been a Republican (counts for nothing – the left will smear him as …..), the man has “socially liberal” attitudes seeing nothing wrong with homosexual acts or whatever (counts for nothing – the left will smear him as……).
Being opposed to the left (in the modern sense of the establishment – to the elite that control most of the institutions in society, including many private ones) and yet in the public eye is to undergo trial by fire every day – against a ruthless enemy that will stop at nothing to destroy you. They will lie and cheat and smear, do anything they believe they “have” to do for the collectivist cause).
So one faces a choice – either give in and become a de facto leftist (like the house “conservatives” the New York Times employs to attack real conservatives, or like David Frumm, or Andrew “cash for clunkers is an example of good limited government” Sullivan) or accept that you will be treated as a monster – and that even after you die your name will be spat on and the left will try and train even your own children to hate your memory.
That is the alternative that, for example, Glenn Beck has accepted (he knows that the left will eventually destroy him – and has asked his children to keep private journals so that they will have something real to remember their father by), but it is a hard road to walk. As Mr Stossel is discovering.
Stossel is lucky that he works for the one major media organization that might not fire him or force him to resign – but even that is not certain, for Rupert M. is no hero.
“Why do journalists not dissent from the leftist consensus” – because the left will DESTROY you if you do dissent (if they can find any way to do so).
Deep down the left support the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States about as much as they support the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. And the British left is not different.
This is what Oddis wrote:
I turned on the TV Sunday morning just in time to hear TIME Magazine’s Joe Klein on the “Chris Matthews Show” claim that Obama’s approval ratings won’t be affected negatively by the Gulf oil spill.
He is “incredibly lucky in his opposition — the oil spill is a great example,” said Klein. “The Republicans look worse on that than the Democrats do.” A chuckle was shared between Klein and Matthews.
In hindsight Democrats should be reminded that we are drilling in deep offshore wells (5,000 feet or more) because berserk environmentalists refuse to let anyone drill into the rocky tundra of ANWR even though over 75% percent of Alaskans support this kind of exploration.
Now how does this situation make Republicans look worse? Read more here and watch Glenn Beck back in 2008 explain the truth about ANWR.
British tax funded broadcaster the BBC (it does not like the term “state broadcaster” as it prides itself on its political independence from the government of the day – although it shows no independence from collectivist ideology in general) does not run advertisements apart for what it considers good causes. Such as, of course, itself – BBC shows and other products.
The first “Director General” of the BBC, when it stopped being a commercial company, was a man called John Reith – and annual lectures are given in his name, the “Reith Lectures“. The BBC proudly advertises these lectures as a high culture jewel, something that no nasty commercial or charitable broadcaster would ever produce. Each year some establishment person actually lowers him or herself to speak to the unclean masses.
However, this year the endless advertisements were useful. The lecturer (a former head
of the Royal Society – although Newton, Boyle, and the others must be spinning in their graves) is to be a man of science, but of the modern sort in that the advertisements quote him saying that science must avoid investigating certain things – there are “doors that should remain closed”. This is an attitude that would have pleased the more extreme people in the Inquisition, but is unlikely to inspire children to question established orthodoxies – but, of course, questioning is no longer the function of “science”. Also the main modern functions of science appear to be to combat “climate change” (by supporting ever greater power for governments, pretending that more regulations and taxes will “save the planet” rather than be a corrupt scheme for special interests to gain money and power – by the way this is true even if, as may well be the case, the theory that human C02 emissions are a danger is correct, as such schemes as “Cap and Trade” will do nothing to reduce such emissions and such political scams are not part of science anyway) and to make sure that the “benefits of globalization are equitably shared”.
How “science” can be twisted so that this last nakedly political aim can be claimed to be part of it, I will never find out – as, of course, I will avoid the Reith Lectures as if they were the plague (which they are – the plague of ignorance and collectivist fanaticism), but I am still grateful for the advertisements for, as always with BBC advertisements, they warn people that the show being advertised is excrement, something to be avoided unless one enjoys stepping in excrement. However, if should be remembered that for children, especially for intelligent children interested in the world, such things as the “Reith Lecturers” are presented as key to the golden door of knowledge.
This is the tragedy – it is the most intelligent and hard working children who are ruined, those who hunger for knowledge are poisoned with a political message disguised as science (or history, or high culture). Not everyone has access to books (especially in modern times – the days when ordinary homes were full of serious works are long gone, at least in Britain), and many people are not first inspired by books in any case – they are inspired by the spoken word. And both the education system and the media (especially the broadcasting media) target such young people for ruination – for taking what is good in them, and turning it bad. Teaching them a rigid orthodoxy (which they must not question) which is really a mask for a political ideology – world egalitarianism, the “equitable sharing” of “the benefits of globalization”, with its basic denial of private property rights.
Perhaps, as so many tell me, the internet will save such young people – but perhaps it will not. I remain doubtful.
Oh and I, of course, remain open to correction – for example it is possible that the lecturer (his name did not make an impression on me – such beings being rather close to being parts of a hive mind anyway) may explain various new designs for atomic fission power stations in his lectures and discuss various approaches to nuclear fusion in great and enlightening detail. If he does I will have been, partly, refuted.
Dr Butler’s work is a follow up to his book “The Rotten State of Britain” – itself a fine book explaining many of the problems this country faces.
In “The Alternative Manifesto” Dr Butler concentrates on the terrible economic position that Britain finds itself in, what really caused this position and what should be done about it.
Unlike the United States there is little challenge in Britain to the establishment view that all our problems are caused by “greedy bankers” and “lack of regulations”. The “lack of regulations” point is utterly absurd as there are endless national and indeed international regulations (for example the “mark to market” rule was part of the international financial regulations agreed, years ago, in Basel, Switzerland).
And, as for “greedy bankers”, they are indeed greedy, but to blame their greed for the crises is like blaming the speculators of “charge alley” for the problems of Britain in the 18th century – many great figures of English literature did this (as to attack the wicked speculators diverted attention from the politicians who were paying many of the great figures in English literature), but that does not alter the fact that it was the “public credit” itself, the endless government borrowing, that was at the root of the economic problems and the political corruption – not the speculators in the debt, however wicked they may have been.
Even today with our fiat money and fractional reserve banking taking beyond any level of sanity – even the most crazy banker can only build a pyramid of debt on new money that the governments themselves have created, and indeed it is these governments who are normally the loudest voices demanding that banks “expand credit” – lend more money.
However, presently Dr Butler’s works are the only books dissenting from the establishment view (the view that the root of the problem is the greed of bankers and the solution is yet more taxes and regulations) that one can find in (for example) high street book stores.
→ Continue reading: ‘The Alternative Manifesto’ – Examining the diagnosis, and possible cure, of Britain’s ills
The British Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, is going to promise nursing at home for all cancer patients who desire this. Such nursing is already provided by the Macmillan charity (hence “Macmillan cancer nurses”), but people will soon forget that. If the plan goes ahead and (a rather wild assumption) the British government manages to stagger on for a few more years without bankruptcy from its endless schemes, people will soon be saying “if it was not for the government people with cancer who wanted to stay at home could not do so – unless they were RICH” (the word “rich” being said with hatred).
This is how the expansion of government happens. The government takes over something (and civil society retreats) and soon people do not even know that it was ever done voluntarily. And, too often, the people who used to undertake the activity welcome the advance of government – “now we will not have to go begging for money” they tell themselves, not understanding that where there is government finance there is also government control.
It may even be that, a few years down the track, some future government decides to abolish home nursing of cancer sufferers (“it would be more efficient to do this in hospital”). Take over and then some time later close (or mutilate) has been a common thing in such things as health… for example the cottage hospitals that local communities had financed for centuries… or education (no more need to go “begging” for funds to finance talented poor children going to the local grammar school, for the government would fund the grammar schools – accept that the government closed them after a couple of decades).
The education “system” (the schools and the universities – with the exception of the University of Buckingham) teaches none of the above – one would not expect it to, after all even the private schools are dominated by such things as they need to pass examinations set by government approved people. However, even the privately owned media is useless – at least in Britain.
For example, today “Classic FM” (one of the largest non-government radio stations in the United Kingdom) just covered the matter in its news broadcasts by saying how Mr Brown was making this nice offer – and had a person on saying how the whole scheme might even pay for itself by helping people back into work and… basically flying pigs nonsense.
As for the Conservative party – there was no opposition in principle (no defence of civil society), just a question of what was going to be cut to pay for the noble scheme.
Lastly where Mr Brown is going to make his promise is worthy of note – he is going to make a speech at the “King’s Fund”. This was once a charity set up to give poor people health care and it was given vast sums of money (by rich people – but also by a lot of people who were not rich at all) which was invested to provide an income. Then the organization changed its function (to offering advice conducting, non medical, “research” and so on) – but it never gave any of the money back… It is controlled by ex BBC people, and other such, these days. Actually the King’s Fund is, therefore, a perfect venue for a speech that will (in reality) announce the death of another piece of civil society – but I doubt that anyone present for the speech will understand this.
Some words or terms are thrown about in casual conversation – but also have formal meanings, and meanings that still have practical (including political) importance.
“Common Sense” and “Pragmatism” are two examples of this.
The “Common Sense” School of philosophy (sometimes known as the “Scottish Philosophy” – see James McCosh’s book of 1877 with that title) grow up in opposition to certain doubts promoted by David Hume and others.
“Common Sense” philosophers such as Thomas Reid held the following things:
That the physical universe actually existed – that it was not just an illusion in the mind.
That the mind itself (the “I”) also existed that it was not an illusion (for if the mind is an illusion – who is having the illusion?), that thoughts really did mean a thinker. An agent, a being – that we exist and that (as agents/beings) we have the ability to choose (agency). And that our choices are real ones – not illusions hiding either a series of causes and effects going back to the start of the universe, or random chance. For choice is neither predetermined (for that is no choice) or random chance (for that is no choice either) – choice is what it is, neither predetermined or chance. Choice is choice.
And that as we have the ability to choose we can choose between good and evil – and that these are real things also, not just “boo and cheer words” (to take a line from the Logical Positivist A.J. Ayre – for a refutation see C.E.M. Joad “A Critique of Logical Positivism” London, 1950), but are objective things which we as subjects (not just objects) can choose between.
On all of the above the Common Sense school are in agreement with the Aristotelians. Both religious Aristotelians (such as the Roman Catholic scholastics who stretch from the Schoolmen in the Middle Ages right to people in our time) and atheist Aristotelians – such as Randian Objectivists.
Although the forms of words (the methods) are very different the Common Sense school were even in agreement with the Aristotelians are on what are good acts and what are bad acts – for example the Non-Aggression Principle was broadly accepted, as much by scholastics in the Middle Ages as by 18th and 19th century Common Sense thinkers as by modern thinkers of these schools of thought.
But why is the name important? → Continue reading: ‘Common Sense’ versus ‘Pragmatism’
On the front cover of the current edition of the Economist people are given a “Bubble Warning“. If one reads the article to which the front cover refers, one is informed that the massive monetary expansion (i.e. creating money from nothing) and fiscal deficits of various governments, but particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, have artificially maintained false values in assets – in everything from shares to housing and commercial property. A vast bubble economy – an unsustainable mess that these governments have no real plan to deal with.
I admit that I read Economist articles (when I read them at all) through a deep red haze of rage – but I think I would have spotted the words “we are very sorry we gave governments such bad advice all through the current crises” and I do not remember them being there. For, of course, it was the Economist itself (along with the rest of the establishment) that pushed the policies of bailout (TARP and so on) and “stimulus” that have meant that markets have not cleared, mal-investments have not really been liquidated and the bubble economy now stares us in the face.
The economic crises of 2008 was caused by the general increase in the money supply pushed (each time they “saved the world” i.e. prevented a clear out of mal-investments, year after year) by Central Banks – particularly (but certainly not exclusively) by Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve. The role of the Fed in general is explained in Thomas Woods’ work “Meltdown”, and the political reasons why the increase in the money supply flowed especially into the housing market are explained in Thomas Sowell’s work “Housing: Boom and Bust”.
In 2008 is was no longer possible to avoid a terrible economic slump. That chance was lost when Greenspan (and his fellow government Central Bankers) had “saved the world” by avoiding (by increasing the money supply) the painful but needed clearing of the market and liquidation of mal-investments – which they did again and again over the years, with each time they did leaving the bubble economy worse than it was before – putting off the problem (and making it worse) not solving it. → Continue reading: The hypocrisy of the ‘Bubble Warning’ in the Economist magazine
Some people whip themselves for thrills… me, I watch Congressional votes – no doubt for similar mental reasons.
Anyway the vote was not quite how it would be in a Paul Marks doom-of-horror fantasy – no triumphant cries of “Death to America” and “Obama is the Living God” from the leftists (although Durbin and some others were no doubt thinking at least the first of these two things) as they waved copies of the Economist magazine. However, there were some noteworthy moments.
My favourite was when Senator K.K.K. Byrd shed tears during his vote saying it was for “his friend Ted Kennedy”.
The late Senator Edward Kennedy is presently burning in Hell for the manslaughter of Mary Jo and other crimes (none of which he ever repented of – and repentance, contrary to Hollywood, must include openly admitting one’s guilt and accepting punishment). But it is some seasonal comfort to me that Senator Byrd will be joining Senator Kennedy in Hell, reasonably soon.
The name of Hunter Lewis’ book says it all: Where Keynes went wrong – and why world governments keep creating inflation, bubbles and busts.
What Mr Lewis has done is to update Henry Hazlitt’s “The Failure of the New Economics” – the classic line by line refutation of Lord Keynes that the older ones among us read as undergraduates (before such works were purged from university libraries). Of course Hunter Lewis uses work on Keynes that was not available to Hazlitt in the 1950’s and he explains the terrible effects that the influence of Keynesian ideas on the policies of modern governments (especially in the United States), but basically Hunter Lewis is a Hazlitt for our time.
To say this is not to diminish the achievement of Mr Lewis – which is a considerable one. Many people when the first come upon Keynesian doctrines at school and then at university spot some of the absurdities (such as the idea that the government spending more money makes a nation more wealthy), and when not satisfied by textbooks and by the explanations of teachers and lecturers, we go on to seek out J.M. Keynes’ “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” (1936) but then we are confronted with a tested mess. Not just a very badly written book (so different from the witty paragraphs that are quoted in the textbooks), but such a complex mass of absurdities and contradictions that one despairs (or let me be honest “one despairs” means “I despaired”) of writing a full refutation of the work that was actually readable.
For example, the use of mathematics. It was obvious even to someone as ignorant of mathematics as me that Keynes used mathematics improperly – he used mathematical means that assumed, in their very structure, the very things the mathematics were supposed to “prove”. Yet Keynes also downplayed the importance of mathematics in the “General Theory…” and in other works – so what was the point of trying to explain his misuse of mathematics? Hunter Lewis deals with this problem (as he deals with all the other problems that trying to seriously examine Keynes presents), by using enough words to fully explain what Keynes is doing – whilst not falling into the trap of making the language so complex that his book becomes unreadable. The great strength of Keynes’ “General Theory…” is that it is almost unreadable – the nature of the writing is not an accident (Keynes could write perfectly clearly if he wanted to), it is deliberate – in order to obscure the line of “argument” and intimidate the reader into thinking “I can not follow this – Keynes must be a genius”. Paul Samuelson (the main American spreader of the ideas to undergraduates in the post World War II world) admits all of the above, but then (without irony) takes it as proof of the ‘genius’ of Keynes – as Hunter Lewis explains in chapter 20 of his work, especially on pages 267 to 268. → Continue reading: “Where Keynes went wrong : and why world governments keep creating inflation, bubbles and busts” by Hunter Lewis
For the New York Times writer Mr Frank Rich to complain of “Stalinism” among conservatives is interesting, considering that the New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty helped cover up the murder of tens of millions of people in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
Indeed the New York Times won a Pulitzer Price for Mr Duranty’s reports (which were one long cover up of the above mentioned murder of tens of millions of people) a prize that it has been asked to return – and has never done so.
Nor is this ancient history.
The publisher of the New York Times is a far left person who (for example) supported the Communist forces in IndoChina (including in Cambodia where the Marxists exterminated one third of the entire population).
The New York Times also has long supported Barack Obama – a man with a life long record of Marxist links. And should anyone care to deny that Barack Obama is a Marxist (in spite of his recent appointments of such people as Van Jones and Mark Lloyd) would they please give me the date when Obama stopped being a Marxist.
Obama was clearly a Marxist when, for example, he was going to Marxist conferences whilst a post grad at Columbia in New York (by the way can the public please see his thesis on “Soviet Disarmament Policy”) so when did he stop being a Marxist? I am not asking for a particular day – a year will do.
Did he (for example) react to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 by breaking with Bill Ayers and the other Comrades in Chicago – by resigning from all the boards on which they sat together perhaps? I think not.
I mean nothing “racist” when I say that for a New York Times writer to call someone else “Stalinist” is for the pot to be calling the kettle black.
P.S. Unlike Glenn Beck I would take any accusation of being a “McCarthyite” as a complement. But then I have read “Blacklisted by History” by M. Stanton Evans, whereas (sadly) Mr Beck gets his version of events from his memory of the CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow. Although, I suspect, that as an-alcoholic-who-is-not-drinking-today Mr Beck has an understandable bias against Senator Joseph McCarthy, a man who never really faced up to his drinking.
In New York 23 Hoffman is going up against both the Democrat and the Republican machines (Dede S. having endorsed the Democrat and working closely with him on get-out-the-vote) so if he wins it will be a big upset in a district that supported Barack Obama.
Actually the New York Conservative party may evolve (from an unimportant group that just follows in the wake of the Republicans) into something like the “Barnburner” (later Van Buren) faction of the New York Democrats of the early 19th century.
No doubt the Republicans will reach out to Hoffman if he wins and say “Caucus with us” – but he would be sensible (again if he wins) to keep them at arms length and avoid going back into bed with people who stabbed him the back.
The Virginia race looks won for the Republicans (famous-last-words) a big defeat not just for Barack Obama – but also for the Washington Post (which ran smear ariticles on the Republican almost every day for the last month or so).
New Jersey.
My prediction is the same as I have been saying for a long time – Christie will win on the day, but Goldman Sachs will remain Governor.
One indication already – 3000 absentee ballots were checked and it was found that the signatures did not match. But, no doubt, they will be counted anyway (and this is the tip of the iceberg – there are more absentee ballots this year than there were in the Presidential election year).
In short, as so often, in New Jersey the fix is in.
I hope I am proved wrong on that one – but it would take a get-out-the-vote effort by the Republicans on a scale they have not managed in New Jersey since 1993 (when there were simply so many people voting Republican that their votes outnumbered the fake votes).
Some thoughts on Anglo-American history contrasted with Bavarian history – with possible political and/or cultural consequences. The main expanders of the state in 19th century Britain are remembered (at least by most of the minority of people who remember them at all) as good people.
Edwin Chadwick was a good man who urged for state police forces to be made compulsory in every town (done in 1835 as part of Municipal Corporation Act, the Act that swept away, apart from in the City of London, the nasty Tory closed corporations and created the new councils that would mean more economical local government – of course we are still waiting for those lower local taxes). And in the rural areas , achieved by the Act of 1856 (which also provided central government funding and controls) – before this time the people of the villages of England and Wales were savages who hunted each other for food.
Chadwick was also the nice man who saved us all from being killed by filth (government being the only thing that can provide water or remove waste you see) or falling over in the dark (government being the only thing that can provide street lighting) and so on on and so on. A noble reformer in the tradition of his mentor Jeremy Bentham (although Bentham’s dream of 13 departments of state controlling every aspect of human life, had to wait till the 20th century to come to pass – even the national Public Health Board was repealed in 1858 in the time of the wicked Palmerston).
All of Chadwick’s doctrines are described as things that “everyone agrees with” in J.S. Mill’s “Political Economy” of 1848, of course there were large numbers of things that looked human that did not agree, but J.S. Mill did not count them as people (a full person being someone whose mind is fully developed – and whether someone had a fully developed mind could be determined by whether or not they agreed with J.S. Mill, this is also true of the Labour Theory of Value which was “settled” with everyone in agreement the people who did not agree, such as Richard Whately and Samuel Bailey, being nonpersons). Academics and media people carry on with J.S. Mill’s tactic to this day, and like him, they talk endlessly of “freedom” and “liberty” as they do so. → Continue reading: Anglo-American history contrasted with Bavarian history
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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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