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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Thought Mesh has a post that captures the lefty/statist mindset like an entomologist with a nice long needle.
I made the mistake (again!) of listening to the local NPR station. One of their features is a segment where a law professor opines on society and the law. She’s not always a complete loon. Today she was only semi-loony in a paean to an associate of hers who was a crusader for the poor. What he did, according to her, was encourage the “oppressed” to become involved in politics. The view was that this was not only a good thing in itself, but enabled those involved to “take charge of their own lives”. But politics is primarily about taking charge of other people’s lives. It is precisely those in charge of themselves that have no need of politics. The commentator then listed the marvelous things that this involvement in politics had yielded – primarily recreational projects built at taxpayer expense. So it boiled down in the end to forming gangs and using the power of that gang to extract money from other people. I was hoping for “started businesses”, “got jobs”, “became educated” kind of things. But apparently that’s not the way the poor and oppressed should improve their lot, by improving themselves and their families. Instead they should get together to get their slice of pork. Not quite the uplifting saga of the American Dream one might hope for.
Of course, the fact that this particular lefty statist found a taxpayer-subsidized outlet on National Public Radio is just the icing on the cake.
As a few (very few) kind emailers have noticed, I have been pretty much out of circulation the last couple of months. There are a couple of reasons for this.
First, there just isn’t much going on that has caught my eye. We are seeing a bunch of pre-existing patterns play out, with little new in such arenas as the Iraqi war or domestic US politics. Its all blah blah blah, same old same old. Bush lied, Halliburton is a bunch of crooks, you are all helpless victims of the corporations, etc. ad nauseum, but very little new in the way of facts to move the discussion forward, really. I find the Democratic primaries intensely uninteresting – none of the candidates will do anything to make the US a freer, more vibrant society, so a pox on all of ’em. If GWB ever does anything on the domestic front that I approve of, you will be the first to know, but don’t hold your breath. I certainly won’t.
Second, my apathy toward current events probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have been laid off (Friday is my last day), and have been spending most of my energy scratching for a new position. The circumstances of my departure (law firm political backstabbing) are guaranteed to produce a jaundiced attitude in even the most callous of self-reliant free-marketeers, which has doubtless colored my view of the larger world.
One ray of sunshine – the Wisconsin Senate voted last week to overturn the Governor’s veto of a concealed carry bill. The even more Republican Assembly has it calendared for today, which they wouldn’t do unless they also have the votes to overturn (barring an outbreak of utter incompetence from Assembly leadership, a possibility I wouldn’t dismiss out of hand). So, it looks like Wisconsin will legalize concealed carry at the exact instant that I lack the funds to score a new gun. Bah.
Speaking of which, suggestions from the commentariat on concealed carry guns are hereby solicited. I have one, and only one, non-negotiable requirement – .45 only. No Europellets, no marketing department hybrid calibers like the .40, just good old, puts-big-holes-in-people, .45s for this Samizdatista.
Mark Steyn has been running his columns from the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial over at his website, and they are just priceless. The link is likely to rot soon (its not a permalink), so get it while it is hot!
A taste:
The intern has landed. She had, as is her wont, been keeping her head down, but on Saturday, at the behest of a federal judge, Monica Lewinsky returned to Washington for a “debriefing” with House managers (that means an interview, not that her thong’s been subpoenaed).
No larger point; just a pointer for the political junkies to some good stuff.
A new blog has made its way onto my short list of bookmarked blogs: Allah Is In The House. The funniest stuff going, bar none, and brutally incisive social commentary to boot! His periodic surveys of the news are just priceless.
R. C. says check it out.
A sign of health from the larger body politic spotted at, of all places, the Detroit Auto Show. Brock Yates of the Wall Street Journal notes that the massively cool show features gargantuan amounts of the horsepower so beloved of the masses, and very little of that underpowered PC crap prescribed by our putative betters.
Utopians might expect that the auto makers will offer countless octane-stingy hybrids and zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles to a public seeking to wean itself from all addiction to the cursed internal combustion engine. Sadly, this is not the case. Tree-huggers and Friends of the Earth would be better advised to picnic on the banks of the Love Canal than to set foot in the vast precincts of Detroit’s Cobo Hall.
On the pole position, as it were, was the rakish Chrysler ME412, a so-called halo car (read image-builder) coupe that, thanks to four turbochargers pumping high-test into its gasping 12 cylinders, produces 850 horsepower. DaimlerChrysler engineers who developed the monster claim it will generate top speeds approaching 250 miles an hour.
Throughout Cobo Hall lurk dozens of such muscle cars, Ferraris, Vipers, Lamborghinis, BMWs, Jaguars, Audis, Acuras, et al., ready and willing to tear up pavements and strike the fear of God into unwitting passengers at the touch of the throttle. Four hundred horsepower is not unusual. Three hundred horsepower can be found under the hoods of literally dozens of sedans and SUVs. Two hundred horsepower is simply not worth mentioning.
Sounds like fun to me. Chicago is having its auto show in a few weeks. Its been a few years since I went, so I do believe I will drive (yes, drive – probably in my full-size pickup, thank you) down for a look. The larger point is slipped in at the end of the piece:
The lure of the open road increases by the day. With it comes the romance–perceived or otherwise–of a freedom ride at the wheel of an automobile. This is a hateful thought for greenies, social engineers, media elites and intellectuals everywhere, but the lunatic love affair with the car remains in a state of steamy passion.
There is no debating that hybrids and fuel cells make sense in terms of the environment and reducing fossil-fuel dependence. But until these new powerplants can equal current conventional gasoline engines in terms of performance, cost and durability, auto makers will respond to the harsh realities of the marketplace. No amount of government mandates, media pressure or high-minded pontifications can replace the simple laws of supply and demand.
The internal combustion automobile is one of the biggest engines of personal liberty ever created, right up there with the firearm. With it, the individual is free to leave the jurisdiction, free to travel on his own schedule, and free to haul an enormous amount of stuff around with him if he desires. “Mass” transit trains its users to be livestock, and so it is no wonder that our putative betters are constantly trying force us into its cattle cars. The old saw about totalitarian governments making the trains run on time cuts deeper than many think. By contrast, the automobile makes you captain of your own ship.
Enough with the mixed metaphors. The American insistence on bigger and more powerful automobiles, and continued avoidance of mass transit except as an utter last resort, should give lovers of liberty cause for cheer.
Having just returned from a roundtrip flight to Texas during the “high” level alert this past week, I can report first-hand on airport security and its hidden costs.
First, I didn’t notice anything new in airport security procedures during the high level alert. Whenever I travel to Texas, I take a rifle or two. Not as protective coloration, but because Texas in general, and my father’s ranch in particular, are full of things I want to shoot. Specifically, during the Christmas season, white-tail deer. I am pleased to report that my shooting iron did not set off any alarm bells (by now, I know the drill for transporting firearms by air), and I had a very pleasant conversation with the guard in Wisconsin who confirmed that it wasn’t loaded. Whereupon I locked it up in its case, as required by law, and didn’t think twice about it until I got to Texas.
I drove out to the ranch at the first opportunity, gun and various hunting supplies in tow, and had barely been sitting in my blind for an hour when one of the larger deer I have ever seen in the wild came strolling by. He passed within 40 yards of my blind, and I watched him feed and mess about for over half an hour. He was a big eight-pointer, with heavy, symmetrical antlers.
At this point, one of the hidden costs of airport security reared its ugly head. I had, you see, forgotten to unlock my gun case when I got to my parent’s house, and had left the key firmly attached to my briefcase sitting on my bed. I was sitting in my blind unarmed, the rifle securely locked in its case back at the pickup. I didn’t get my deer, and its all BUSH’s fault!
Belmont Club has a couple of fascinating entries that mesh well with my last post on the tranzi menace. Collect the set!
I was particularly struck by the Club’s take on the immediate post-9/11 tranzi reaction:
The curious antipathy of the Germany and France towards unilateral American action following September 11 was driven not by a sudden revulsion for American culture, but by the loss of something they deeply coveted: the means to exercise supranational police power under the aegis of international treaties. In the days following Osama Bin Laden’s attack on New York, hopes ran high in Paris, Berlin and Moscow, that America in her grief would deposit her strength in the hands of the “international community” who, thus armed, promised to put a stop to terrorism and uproot its causes. To provide the violins, the capitals of Europe expressed the utmost sympathy for the American loss and deluged embassies with flowers and letters of support. “We are all Americans now”. For a moment, matters hung on edge, the most critical instant in modern history. Then the haze passed, and America shook the expectant, extended hand and said “I’ll take care of it myself”. The response was immediate and incandescent. The internationalists rounded on America with as much hatred as the sympathy they had professed mere moments before.
As always, Belmont Club’s full analysis of the prospects for the future shape of international order are worth pondering. The Club posits a bottom-up New World Order founded on common law that contrasts sharply with the top-down command-and-control vision of the transnational progressives.
The transnational progressives have a new power grab underway – their attempt to seize control of the trial of Saddam Hussein and move it to the ICC or some other “international court.” I think it would be a very serious mistake to indulge the tranzis on this issue, as it would serve to validate and legitimize the most noxious pillar of their ideology.
The transnational progressive movement has a consistent theme: that governments should be answerable primarily to some overarching international authority, rather than to their own citizens. The pernicious (and unstated) part of this theme is that last phrase – the tranzis never state, and may not even recognize, that as governments become more accountable to outside authorities, they become less accountable to their own citizens.
The EU project is certainly an attempt to implement this ideal, as was last year’s attempt by the UN to control US foreign policy and military apparatus in the Iraqi, campaign. Readers will, I’m sure, be able to multiply examples, as the tranzis are nothing if not consistent in their top-down approach to accountability and control.
For the tranzis, the problem of rogue or abusive governments is not that such governments are too powerful and/or insufficiently accountable to their own citizen/subjects. After all, the source of legitimacy for this lot is not the consent of the governed; rather legitimacy can apparently only be conferred from above. Thus, the creation, from whole cloth, of international institutions such as the UN or International Criminal Court, so that there is a higher, transnational, authority to judge and confer legitimacy on the doings of national governments.
Of course, being made answerable to the “international community” (read: other governments) comes at the cost of being accountable to your own citizenry. This is the reason that the whole tranzi project is fundamentally corrupt, and corrupting. In my book, consent of the governed is the only source of legitimacy. Period. Discussion over. Turn out the lights as you leave. The tranzi project is corrosive of the consent of the governed, because it substitutes the consent of other governments for the consent of the governed.
The whole meme/dynamic is on full display in Iraq right now. The tranzis and their project are the long-term enemies of liberty, my friends, as much as or more so than your penny-ante domestic politician.
Many thanks to Tacitus for his rather more brutal assessment of the tranzi attempt to shove the Iraqis out of the way and seize control Saddam’s fate, which got the juices flowing this morning.
The fine science fiction writer Orson Scott Card delivers a brutal, and well-deserved, rebuff to the Democratic Party.
[The Democratic candidates] platforms range from Howard Dean’s “Bush is the devil” to everybody else’s “I’ll make you rich, and Bush is quite similar to the devil.” Since President Bush is quite plainly not the devil, one wonders why anyone in the Democratic Party thinks this ploy will play with the general public.
There are Democrats, like me, who think it will not play, and should not play, and who are waiting in the wings until after the coming electoral debacle in order to try to remake the party into something more resembling America.
But then I watch the steady campaign of the national news media to try to win this for the Democrats, and I wonder. Could this insane, self-destructive, extremist-dominated party actually win the presidency? It might–because the media are trying as hard as they can to pound home the message that the Bush presidency is a failure–even though by every rational measure it is not.
God knows I am no fan of the Bush administration’s domestic policies, but for the most part the Dems promise more of what I don’t like about Bush. Fine, I can deal with that, I vote for a couple of Democrats consistently because they are sterling human beings, every political system needs to have legitimately competitive parties to keep the bastards in power honest, etc.
However, the truly disturbing development from the Dem side of the aisle is that they have, in important ways, ceased to be a loyal opposition. → Continue reading: If the shoe fits . . .
John Keegan has an excellent column in the Telegraph today on the legal problem of what to do with a deposed sovereign. One suspects that Mr. Keegan wrote this column months ago, in the sure knowledge that sooner or later it would become topical when Saddam was winkled out of his hole. The column provides a nice historical overview of “sovereign immunity.”
How to dispose of a fallen dictator is a problem of immense complexity for victor states. Dictators have been sovereigns, as Saddam was, de facto if not de jure. Sovereign states shrink from disposing peremptorily of sovereign rulers. The process, whichever is chosen, always threatens to set inconvenient precedents. Since 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia created the principle that sovereign states, and therefore their sovereign heads, are both legally and morally absolute, there has been no legal basis for proceeding against such a person, however heinous the crimes he is known to have committed.
[Brief discussion of Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, various Axis dictators, which should not be missed.]
None of these precedents seems likely to spare Saddam. He may, de facto, have been head of state but, by fleeing his capital and office at the outset of the last Gulf War, he effectively abandoned whatever constitutional status he enjoyed. The power vacuum he left has been filled by the creation of the Iraqi Governing Council, which, very conveniently last week, announced the establishment of a tribunal empowered to try any Iraqi citizen – and that Saddam unquestionably is – for crimes under domestic law. Prima facie, Saddam has to answer for many crimes, including murders he has himself committed, large-scale episodes of murder and torture of his fellow citizens, and organised extermination of minorities, particularly Kurds and Marsh Arabs, inside his own country.
I back into being a supporter of sovereignity, on the theory that a multitude of sovereign states limits the damage that any one of them can do, and that liberty arises in part from competition among dispersed authorities and powers. Solving the sovereign immunity problem by placing sovereign states under the jurisdiction of an overarching power seems to me to be a cure worse than the disease, because it creates a qui custodiet ipsos custodes problem, and because the supranational authority would be largely immune to democratic accountability. However, I see no reason why government officials should be immune from judicial accountability to their own citizens, which is precisely the solution that seems to be in the offing in Iraq.
On a bit of a tangent, Mr. Keegan makes the astonishing assertion at the end of the column that “at present there is no death penalty in Iraq. . . .” I would not dream of questioning the eminent Mr. Keegan on a point of fact such as this, but how can it possibly be true? I cannot believe that Saddam did not have the death penalty on the books (could all of those hundreds of thousands of executions have been extrajudicial?), and I cannot imagine that the Iraqi death penalty has been revoked in the last 6 months. Input from the commentariat would be appreciated – I sense a fine bit of obscure knowledge here, just out of reach, begging to be retailed to impressionable young things at cocktail parties.
Wonderful editorial in the Wall Street Journal today that spins out one of my favorite conceits – that there is no difference between the Mafia (the mob, la cosa nostra, call it what you will) and party politics. The details are very much American politics “inside-baseball”, but I have no doubt that a similar column could be written in England or elsewhere. A taste:
Al Gore’s grandly public endorsement of Howard Dean last week confirms my view that the easiest way to understand the Democratic Party today is by watching “The Godfather.”
I think of Bill Clinton as the Don Corleone of the Democratic Party. In the organization, there is no one above him. Terry McAuliffe is his Tom Hagen, who talks to the outside world. I leave it to others to fill out the rest of the cast.
It has been talked about among the cognoscenti for some weeks now that the new Dean organization, if he secured the nomination, would challenge the Clintons’ control of the party apparatus, meaning mainly the cash flow from contributors and the unions. But I thought it more likely that if Mr. Dean got the nomination, he would be visited over a table in a nice restaurant, the Palm in Washington, by Mr. McAuliffe and Harold Ickes, who would explain that he could win the presidency with them, but not without them.
With this understanding, an alliance of partners would result. The old organization and its traditional sources of income–the patronage mills, the government contracts, the public-bond issues, the legal jobs–would survive, and Mr. Dean’s people would be given significant control, maybe half. Now it’s not so clear that Howard Dean needs to cut a deal with the Clinton factions, because maybe the factions aren’t so close to the Clintons anymore.
I have long suspected that by far the most important aspect of the current Democratic primary is the internal struggle for control of the party that it is part of. Howard Dean has never liked the Clintons, who now control the party, and owes them nothing – he has his own internet-based grassroots and fundraising machinery. If he wins the nomination, he will become the new head of the Democratic Party, displacing the Clintons.
The Clintons have to oppose Dean because they don’t have any hooks in him – if you don’t understand this, you don’t understand power politics at all. The Clintons have always been the primary motivator behind the Stop Dean movement. They must maintain their control of the Democratic Party, or Hillary’s Presidential ambitions will come to naught. Wesley Clark, the quintessential Stop Dean candidate, is wholly a creation of the Clintons. The Clintons aren’t concerned that Dean will win the Presidency and prevent Hillary from running in 2008 (as the incumbent, Dean would be almost impossible for Hillary to challenge). They are concerned that Dean will win the nomination and control of the party, so that they will lose their only remaining fingerhold on influence, and the wealth and power it brings.
I regard the Clintons as a cancer on my country, and so, even though I think Howard Dean would make a dreadful President, I am all in favor of his winning the nomination.
The estimable Austin Bay has a midstream assessment of the Iraq campaign and occupation. Grades are mixed. Given Mr. Bay’s knowledge of things military and strategic insight (he was a supporter of the Iraqi campaign for hardnosed geopolitical reasons), the mixed grades bear some pondering. Read the whole thing (its not long), but a few excerpts struck my eye:
The number of Free Iraqi police and paramilitary personnel in the field is a rough yardstick, but ultimately Iraqi security is their job. The major U.S. mistake prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom was failing to create a functioning Iraqi constabulary. The United States had 3,000 exiles training in Hungary, but that simply didn’t cut it. Interim coalition grade: D.
The March-April military campaign was a huge success. Saddam’s regime collapsed quickly, with few civilian casualties. The strategic demonstration of American power was dramatic, and it put teeth in the U.N.’s 1991 resolutions. Some day, U.N. sanctions may mean something again. Final Grade: A (No attack from Turkey, so no A+. A northern attack would have swept Tikrit and the Sunni Triangle, conceivably diminishing the current opposition in these Baathist districts.)
International contributions to Iraqi reconstruction, both in number of contributors and total capital is a strategic political measure. Interim Grade: C-
One measure that he does not address is control of Iraq’s borders with neighboring sponsors of terror. Until this occurs, Iraq is not secure. I’m not sure how we are doing on this front, but I read Austin Bay to find out stuff like this!
Interesting, and to my mind somewhat pessimistic, overview of the current situation.
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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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