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Harry Browne, former Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, writer on business and the author of the very interesting book, How I Found Freedom In an Unfree World, has died. Here is an article about his life and contribution to the libertarian political cause in the United States.

I think his book cited above is the thing I am most grateful to Browne for. It points out the many ways in which, right now, you can make your life freer, less dependent on the State and open your eyes to making the most of life without waiting for someone's permission. At a time when the prospects for liberty seem rather gloomy in some ways, that is a good message to spread around.

I am sure those closer to the coalface of U.S. politics might have less kind things to say about Browne's activities in the LP, but I'll leave that to others if they are so inclined.

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The other day I made a less-than-complimentary reference to the thoughts of so-called "crunchy con" Rod Dreher, who has taken against the ugliness of modern capitalism and its assorted vulgarity. Blogger Clive Davis thought that I was being a touch unfair.

Well, if you thought I was harsh, then check this out by Radley Balko:

"Only after raw, unabashed capitalism has taken care of more primitive problems can we begin to have places like Whole Foods, or targeted products like no-chemical, no-additive, no-hormone, free-range chicken. Only after industry has knocked down a lot of trees and sullied a lot of streams on its way to feeding us, medicating us, and giving us good reason to think we'll live past the age of forty do we get the luxury of beginning to worry about the health of the environment, and the survival of beings outside our own families, much less outside our own species.

I don't begrudge Dreher his Birks and his granola, but talk about the excesses of capitalism and so-called conspicuous consumption are innevitably followed by calls to slow things down -- maybe idle the engines of progress for a bit. There's generally little acknowledgement that it is excess and consumption that have put them in the position of being able to write books about the problems associated with...you guessed it...excess and consumption."

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A friend of mine in Manhattan has joined an effort to save St Brigid's Church in the Lower East side and I find myself sufficiently drawn to the cause to support them in print.

Photo: Copyright Dale Amon, all rights reserved.

St Brigids was built on the old waterfront of New York at the time of the Irish famine. It was perhaps the first stop for those who escaped the horror which starved one and a half million of their fellow citizens to death in Ireland and then survived the unspeakable conditions of the Atlantic crossing. The trip alone killed perhaps one of every five who attempted it. As one British Captain put it at the time, the difference between carrying slaves and Irish to the new world was that you did not get paid for a slave unless you delivered him alive.

The church was built in a time when the majority religion in Ireland was outlawed; those landing on New York's quays built their own place of worship on the shore to celebrate the freedom of religion they found in their new home. The ceiling was built by boatbuilders and carried some of the characteristics of that trade. You can read more about the history here.

The Catholic Diocese of New York has decided to tear it down and has thus far turned a deaf ear to the sometimes strident cries from parishioners. I agree the Diocese is legally the owner and does have the legal right to do with the property as they choose. I do not agree they are doing the right thing. Quite the contrary, I feel they are going down a path that runs counter to the long term interests of their religion, their members, the community the church has served for over a century and a half; and those who wish to see a bit of the historical roots of their own families kept alive.

This is not a problem unique to this small parish; due to costly recent legal problems the Catholic church in America has been destroying small congregations in the same way a national store would cut costs and sell assets to raise capital in hard times: by chopping off all marginal operations. The problem is, a church is not a business, or at least that is not why it exists. A small congregation is not a cost center; it is the very reason the religion exists. If religion is to have any meaning at all in the 21st Century it has to be as the last bastion of community. We used to have small community schools in America. The State destroyed education and communities to gain 'economies of scale' and to 'pay teachers more'. I would hate to see Big Religion join Big Government as yet another destructive force in our society.

If you find this argument compelling; if you want to save a bit of 19th century American architecture or have strong feelings about the immigrant history of the Irish, Italians and Hispanics, contact these people and see what you can do to help.

It is a given in libertarian circles that property rights are an absolute right. You will find no one at Samizdata who will stray from that view. This does not mean libertarians like myself turn a blind eye to what their neighbors do or what happens in the community around them. The actions of others can affect my quality of life, and I feel it my duty to use strong but peaceful persuasion when I feel someone is harming others. Many find it confusing that libertarians will at the same time defend someone's right to do something while saying they are a bloody immoral fool if they actually do it.

I have recently come across two cases which have impacts in areas which I care about. I have dealt with one of them above; the other is a far more complex issue of regulatory distortions which may soon cause disastrous and irreversible secondary harm and are perhaps only answerable in the time available by a devil's deal. I have yet to figure that one out, so I decided, for the moment, to stick with this far simpler and clearer issue of property rights in an unfree world.

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It has been said that the best political arrangement when it comes to protecting liberty and constraining the size of government is when no party controls all branches of government. Gridlock is liberty-friendly, on this view. Well, the idea that it is bad for a single party to run the entire shebang does seem to be borne out by the skyrocketing spending going on in the United States under George W. Bush. Bruce Bartlett, a Reaganite Republican of long standing, has written a blistering indictment of Bush's record on spending.

Bush ran back in 2000 (it already seems a long time ago) as a "compassionate conservative", and only the most gullible must have ignored the fact that this was codespeak for spending lots of other people's money. I fear very much that we could get the same outcome if David Cameron ever leads the Tories back to power by promising the same menu as his Labour opponent.

I get the impression - and that is all that it is - that some conservative writers are getting a bit fed up with Bush, and I am not just talking about the cack-handed post-invasion phase in Iraq. On a whole list of bedrock issues for conservatives, such as federalism, free markets, respect for liberty and privacy, this administration has fallen way short. It has not even delivered on Social Security reform in any meaningful way, and the tax code is as hideously complex and full of distortions as ever.

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You may have already heard this but I laughed out loud when I came across this: an officer involved in Dick Cheney's recent difficulties is called Captain Kirk.

Phasers off, gentlemen.

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Popular Mechanics takes look at the myths that sprung up after Hurrican Katrina hit New Orleans. Some of their findings will be of no surprise to samizdatistas, I'm sure, including:

Folks in Tornado Alley and along the San Andreas fault don't get federally backed insurance, so why should taxpayers subsidize coastal homes, many of them vacation properties? Before we start rebuilding "bigger and better," Congress should reform the flood insurance program. A good start: Structure premiums so the program is actuarially sound and clamps down on repetitive claims.

Three major policy changes could help make our energy system more resilient in the face of disasters. 1) Loosen restrictions on refinery construction to encourage new refineries in more diverse locations. 2) Expand port facilities for Liquefied Natural Gas to help supplement domestic supply. 3) Relax the current ban on offshore natural gas drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Others point to a civil society that is capable of functioning with relatively low levels of government supervision:

In reality, although looting and other property crimes were widespread after the flooding on Monday, Aug. 29, almost none of the stories about violent crime turned out to be true. Col. Thomas Beron, the National Guard commander of Task Force Orleans, arrived at the Superdome on Aug. 29 and took command of 400 soldiers. He told PM that when the Dome's main power failed around 5 am, "it became a hot, humid, miserable place. There was some pushing, people were irritable. There was one attempted rape that the New Orleans police stopped."

When Nagin issued his voluntary evacuation order, a contraflow plan that turned inbound interstate lanes into outbound lanes enabled 1.2 million people to leave New Orleans out of a metro population of 1.5 million. "The Corps estimated we would need 72 hours [to evacuate that many people]," says Brian Wolshon, an LSU civil engineer. "Instead, it took 38 hours."

Disasters such as this pose a challenge for minarchists and anarchists, because they present situations where government can apparently make a difference for the better. The article looks at the government response, and although it has suggestions for improvement, is somewhat favorable.

Interesting stuff.

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Various precincts of the respectable press and the blogosphere having gotten wrapped around the axle regarding Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, I thought a little background on quail hunting in Texas (by an actual Texas quail hunter!) might be in order.

It is not uncommon for a quail hunter to get "peppered", due to the tendency of quail to fly somewhat erratically at relatively low levels. Unlike ducks and dove, which come in high, and pheasant, which take off vertically, quail often fly at head level. Not to mention that quail often live in brushy country where visibility can get a little short, and people tend to hunt them with open chokes which spread the pattern out. Serious injuries are rare, due to the small pellet size, open chokes, and (often) smaller gauge guns used by quail hunters.

I myself have just barely avoided shooting an actual pickup (bright red, thank you, about 20 yards away) while quail hunting, and have had a member of my party peppered (not by me, thank the gods). It was a pretty typical incident - a few stray pellets in the neck, no harm done. It is, in short, easy even for a very conscientious shooter to have an accident.

That said, based on the rumor and speculation in the press, it sounds like what happened to Mr. Whittington was a little more than your typical peppering. The length of his hospital stay alone points to more of a direct blast than a few stray pellets.

The typical rules of gun safety simply do not apply in their usual way when hunting upland game. To verify, to the same degree as with a rifle or pistol, that there is nothing at all in your line of fire before shooting would preclude wingshooting at quail, grouse, and other birds, where you are swinging your gun through a low-flying bird at high speed. For that reason, safety is assured to a large degree by having a disciplined shooting line - everyone stays more or less in line, and everyone knows where their zone of fire is.

The story is that Whittington came up behind Cheney, or that Cheney shot Whittington when he was behind him. Someone can come up behind another hunter and still be in his designated zone of fire, and everyone in the party has a responsibility to stay clear of each other and not show up where unexpected. Its possible but by no means certain that Vice President Cheney was only negligent, and that there was some contributory negligence by Mr. Whittington.

Here in Texas its just good manners to say that it is your fault if you get involved an accident like this (as Mr. Whittington has apparently done). That said, the crashing silence from the Vice President is a little disturbing. Not to blow this accident out of proportion (as the partisan press is busily doing), but he needs to stand up and take responsibility like a man.

The current complaint from the press that they were left out of the loop tells us a lot more about their self-regard, and about how well they have trained the Bush White House to treat them as enemies and tell them nothing, than it does about anything else. Still, the VP needs to hold a press conference, say his mea culpas, mix in some good words for Mr. Whittington, utter a few nostrums about gun safety, and generally be a gentleman (in the older sense of the word) about this.

UPDATE: Cheney finally takes the podium. Looks like the mea culpa I would expect of him.

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U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney wounded a fellow shooter of quail in an accident. Well, I guess it shows what a gulf now exists between the U.S. government and our own. I cannot imagine a single senior Labour politician who would spend time out shooting. (Imagine John Prescott doing it. Actually, don't). The story reminds me of another deputy leader, the late William Whitelaw (a decorated soldier in the Normandy WW2 campaign), who managed to fire some buckshot at someone during a grouse shooting meeting in the Scottish highlands.

Many politicians in the past have enjoyed the pastime of shooting game. Many MPs were landed gentry, who could not wait to get out of smelly London in the summer months and, once the game season started in August, would blast away at hapless birds, bagging them in prodigious quantities. And several paid the price. Robert Peel, Prime Minister in the 1840s, suffered a nasty buzzing in one of his ears after a gun went off too close. Salisbury and Churchill shot game, as did Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home. Across the big pond there was no greater hunter of game, of course, than Teddy Roosevelt.

All that tradition is fading out. I cannot imagine Tory leader David Cameron shooting game (imagine how that would jar with his trendy image) although his ancestors probably nailed whole flocks of pheasants in their time.

Anyway, the lesson of all this is that if you find yourself in the company of a politician holding a shotgun, stand well behind.

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Just as newspapers around Europe and beyond are coming to the support of Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, US State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper has said that freedom of expression in a European country is "not acceptable".

Firstly, who the hell asked the US State Department to opine on something in a newspaper in Denmark? Secondly, if they are going to take a side here, are religious extremists so deeply entrenched in the US political establishment that they cannot understand the importance maintaining secular rights to free expression in the face of attempts at religious censorship and overt intimidation?

Land of the free, home of the brave, eh? Not in Washington DC it seems. Rather than face down the intolerant face of radical Islam, the US State Department is pandering to it. This is a national disgrace and I hope some US newspapers will show how they feel by supporting their colleagues in Denmark and publishing the damn cartoons themselves and telling Kurtis Cooper where he can stick his political master's craven opinions.

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The other night I enjoyed a pleasant meal with a business contact, who works in the property industry and for a large U.S. company. He was talking to a group of people and struck me as a thoroughly charming fellow: articulate, funny, interested in other people, highly intelligent. And then he said something that slightly vexed me in that he started to go on and on about how we must be so appalled by this nutcase rightwinger in the White House, how most Americans were insular and dumb, yadda-yadda. It was so obviously an attempt to deflect what anti-American prejudices potentially might have existed by getting in the blow first. He was, then, slightly surprised me when I said over a drink later that I did not like the way that Americans felt the need to abase themselves this way, or denigrate their home country, or its people. In fact, I told him that, much that I disagreed with many of Bush's policies, such as his fiscal profiligacy and Big Government leanings, I liked the United States a great deal, not least much of its culture, its vitality and the niceness of most Americans.

So a gentle tip for American travellers from this Brit: don't slag off your own country when abroad. The locals will see through it and despise you for it. Be proud of what you are as an individual living in Jefferson's Republic, which for all its faults is the greatest free nation on the planet, and likely to be so for a while to come.

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Efforts continue to use powers of eminent domain (UK = compulsory purchase) to take US Supreme Court Judge David Souter's home away from him in order to use the land for a hotel and tourist attraction called the Lost Liberty Hotel.

However New Hampshire State Representative Neal Kurk, in spite of being behind worthy measures to prohibit in his state the sort of abuses of eminent domain that the US Supreme Court okayed with their monstrous Kelo judgement, is nevertheless opposed to the plan to use eminent domain against Souter.

"Most people here see this as an act of revenge and an improper attack on the judicial system," Kurk said. "You don't go after a judge personally because you disagree with his judgments."

Why not? If Souter was part of the system underwriting a grotesque abridgement of liberty, who not grotesquely abridge his liberty? I suppose being a politician himself, the notion of using laws against the people responsible for them might be a little too close to home for Kurk even if he is sponsoring a measure to prevent such abuses in New Hampshire. Yet why should people whose liberty is abridged and rights to property threatened not want to punish the guilty parties with the tools they themselves have no problem seeing used against others? I am a great believer in revenge.

Do unto others as they do unto you.

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For those of you that have enjoyed your Festive break and have not been keeping up with political happenings 'over the pond', there has been an eye-opening little scandal going on in Washington.

A member of the Most Honourable Order of Washington Lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, has pleaded guilty to the heinous crimes of fraud, bribery and tax evasion. In a plea bargain deal, Abramoff will face nine to eleven years of penal servitude in exchange testifying against the sundry Congresscritters that may face prosecution.

Clearly, Mr. Abramoff is a menace to society:

Among the allegations in the court documents is that Abramoff arranged for payments totaling $50,000 for the wife of an unnamed congressional staffer in return for the staffer's help in killing an Internet gambling measure. The Washington Post has previously reported that Tony Rudy, a former top aide to DeLay, worked with Abramoff to kill such a bill in 2000 before going to work for Abramoff.

An internet gambling measure? Not surprisingly, it turns out that Mr. Abramoff was getting a large part of his money from Native American tribes who have a large stake in gambling operations in the United States outside of Las Vegus.

Abramoff's appearance in U.S. District Court came nearly two years after his lobbying practices gained public notice because of the enormous payments -- eventually tallied at $82 million -- that he and a public relations partner received from casino-rich Indian tribes. Yesterday, he admitted defrauding four of those tribal clients out of millions of dollars.

As you can imagine, that part of the Washington elite that has emerged from their Holiday cheer is agog with the news. Wonkette, for example, took time out from promoting her book to pass comment on the latest news, which is that Republican politicians are falling over themselves to 'return' money that Abramoff donated to them. Starting at the top, President Bush is returning the $6,000 that he donated to his re-election campaign. Abramoff was a generous soul; 24 figures from both political parties in Washington have announced that they are following the President's lead. Oddly enough, a leading Democrat Senator, Harry Reid, is declining to return his $47,000 booty, saying that it is basically a Republican problem.

I was bemused that there was no follow-up from the media on that point. It would seem that it is okay for Democrats to take money from a crook, but not Republicans. It must be that 'liberal media' that they talk about over there.

As a non-American citizen, I must confess to being bemused at the fuss; in a political system where cash is vital to electoral success, where do people think that the money comes from?

But American political analysts, such as The Washington Post's Richard Cohen, seem to me to miss the point. He wrote about the lobbying system in Washington and its biggest critic in the Washington system, John McCain:

Back to McCain. For years now, he has been fulminating against the system -- the outsized role and influence of lobbyists and the parochialism of senators and representatives who, like the ridiculous Ted Stevens of Alaska, have turned selfishness into a matter of high principle. But more important, McCain has tried to rein in campaign spending, which is a root of the problem. The sad fact is that the average member of Congress has his hat out for campaign funds most of the time. Lobbyists know that. They go see a member and in a heartbeat they are hit up for a donation.

...So much needs to be done: campaign finance reform, an ethics committee with teeth, the insistence that lobbyists report whom precisely they are lobbying -- the name, please, not merely this entity called "the House of Representatives." But what's needed most of all is indignation on the part of the public, a cold fury about being ripped off and taken for granted.

Closer to the point was that old friend of Samizdata.net, Boris Johnson. Writing in this morning's Daily Telegraph, Johnson thinks that Abramoff's lobbying clients, the Native American tribes looking to protect their gaming interests are the real victims.

It was a classic piece of lobbyist's hocus-pocus. The Native Americans needed him to represent their gambling interests, and Mr Abramoff was happy to oblige. In fact, he became known as "Casino Jack" for his skill in persuading Native Americans that he was indispensable to their cause, and prising millions from their reservations...

The point is that he was not only suborning the politicians; he was deceiving the business interests he represented.

Businessmen long for certainty; they long to know what the decision-makers are thinking, so that they can plan ahead. They yearn to be in the loop, to have the drop on things. It is the genius of the lobbyists and the consultants to understand this need, and to satisfy it in the most imaginative way.

The reality is that government decisions are often taken in a way that is shambolically unpredictable, but the lobbyist pretends otherwise. He whispers that he can get his client an introduction to so-and-so. He produces organograms of power. He rustles up members of the governing party, or civil servants, or journalists, and persuades them to come to watch the football or the rugby. And nine times out of 10, since this is England, the freebie-takers will do absolutely nothing to requite the favour they have received; but the lobbyist knows that doesn't really matter. The client sees the beaming, drunken faces of these important folk; the client is satisfied, and the client believes just about anything the lobbyist tells him.

Johnson hints, but does not explain the full nature of the problem.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with lobbying or being a lobbyist. When the state takes it upon itself to regulate and interfere with people's lives and business, it is natural that people and business would like to have an input on the political process that has the potential to ruin or enrich them, depending on the fickle finger of legislative whims. An honourable lobbyist would use intellectual argument to present the case for their client without unseemly corrupt practices. However, it is tempting for the not so honourable to use the shortcut of cash.

Well meaning statists, like Senator McCain, think that campaign finance reform will have an impact on reducing the temptation for politicians to take bribes. I would suggest that an honest politician is always honest. He misses the point that rampant lobbyist-driven corruption is a sure sign of excessive legislative involvement in business life. Businessmen do not give money to lobbyists because they have too much of it, and your average Washington lobbyist is just a smashing fellow, but because they think lobbyists can change legislative outcomes.

Legislatures that do not have the power to distort market outcomes are not plagued with lobbyists. How many gambling industry lobbyists are infesting Philadelphia's City Council? Mr. Abramoff just a symptom of the disease known as 'the state'.

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I must admit to being saddened and a bit angered to read that Doug Bandow, a former writer for the CATO Institute, a leading U.S. libertarian think tank, has left after it was revealed that he was paid by a lobbyist to write articles specifically favouring said lobbyist's clients. I used to like some of the stuff Bandow wrote as he came across as a relatively sane voice on domestic and foreign policy issues. It turns out that at least on certain topics, he was a shill. Ouch.

Of course, most of us have to work to earn a crust, and there is nothing specifically wrong in my view in a writer being paid by a company or organisation to advance a point of view so long as the writer is up-front about that. If a person writing skeptical articles about the so-called Greenhouse Effect is backed by Exxon or Shell, then one can obviously take that into account, even if the quality of the argument is impeccable. The same might go, say, for a writer getting backing from Greenpeace who writes all manner of doomonger articles, and so forth.

A lot of people who once enjoyed Bandow's articles will be feeling slightly peeved.

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Almost uniquely amongst nations, the United States takes upon itself the super-ownership of its subjects even when they are not within the territory over which it claims sovereignty. Even if you live and work outside the USA, you are required to file tax returns and have US tax liabilities. It would appear Americans cannot escape the enveloping grasp of their government and its rules anywhere on this planet.

And yet as soon as you step outside the USA, even though US subjects retain their tax liabilities to the state, it would appear they loose any constitutional protection from its excesses.

Whilst in many ways the USA offers the world a splendid example of defended civil liberties, in so many other ways the freedom Americans assume is theirs is really an illusion.

The state is not your friend.

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The U.S. Senate has blocked a vote to extend the Patriot Act, about which Perry de Havilland wrote the other day. Maybe some sanity is breaking out. Many of the Act's provisions are tenuously linked to protecting the public from terrorism, to put it mildly, and violate parts of the U.S. Constitution. Let's hope Congress reflects more before passing such laws at such high speed in the future. And the same applies to our own benighted Parliament and the wretched UK Civil Contigencies Act.

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It is good to see opposition to the absurdly named 'Patriot Act' but as expected, there are many who want to see this monstrous legislation extended.

Looks like the best chance here is for moves to extend the provisions of the act falling to a filibuster and therefore allowing many of the more egregious aspects to expire.

Much was made much of 'sunsetting' aspects of the Patriot Act when it was initially passed so one would have hoped Congress would be happy to see those parts of this draconian and intrusive law wither away. However the eternal trouble with giving the state more power is that 'emergency' provisions inevitably become the norm from that point onwards as those in power are loath to ever accept a reduction in their ability to exert control over people.

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It is a great shame to see Randy Cunningham, a fighter ace who did sterling work over North Vietnam, descend into the cesspool of corruption like so many before him. My opinions of the man were already diminished by his blinkered views regarding the excesses of Serbian nationalism but to see this old warrior revealed as utterly corrupt is still deeply saddening.

It is equally revolting to see Democrats act as if this is the special preserve of the Republican Party rather than an endemic feature of the whole process of which they too are very much a part. Taxpayers for Common Sense has some rather more non-partisan views:

Keith Ashdown, of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, said Cunningham's guilty plea hurts both parties. "There are very few things that I read that kick me in the gut. This is beyond my wildest guess of how bad it actually is — how bad, how long and how nobody knew about it," said Ashdown. "I don't think Democrats or Republicans win on this. It basically makes people detest Congress even more and deters voter turnout."

In truth the only way to reduce corruption in high places is to have less high places and which party is on top makes very little difference.

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Are the political opponents of George Bush, who are advocating cut-and-run in Iraq, about to take the attrition war there (which by any objective measure the USA cannot possibly lose on the battlefield) and turn gradual military advantage into decisive political defeat?

Discuss.

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I am certain it comes as little surprise to any of our readers that politicians are, by nature, liars. Still, it is a bit of fun to see them blatently caught at it, especially when the lying is potentially putting the lives of their own citizenry at risk.

This Republican film clip shows the moving lips and indeed proves our belief in a multi-party system being the best thing next to a no-party individualist system. Competition makes the antagonists apply resources to counter 1984 style rewrites of history,

Of all the Democrats shown, only the Clintons are truthful enough to admit and some extent hold to their past sentiments. They represent the most honest and upstanding individuals the Democratic leadership has to offer.

Take that as you may...

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Yes, you read that correctly. And moreover he states that presidents do not create jobs, entrepreneurs do... Mister Bleeding Heart himself, Alan Frigging Alda!

Follow the link and read the whole thing, I kid you not.

I am chastened as clearly I must reappraise my views of the man and repent a few of the things I may have said about him in the past. Any moment now I fully expect to see a flock of pigs flying past my window!

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Yesterday I got into conversation with two sibling members of my family, both of whom are opposed to the US invasion/liberation of Iraq. One is (approximately) an environmentalist, the other is (precisely speaking) a UKIPper, but both are agreed in opposing the war and Britain's involvement in it. I am cautiously and pessimistically supportive, but am not sure. I hope Mark Steyn is right about it, but fear that he may not be.

Anyway, an hypothesis about the state of US public opinion surfaced, as interesting hypotheses will when people who disagree, and who hence bring varied ideas and attitudes to the table, but who wish to remain civil with one another, as I and my siblings do.

For the last few years, the Left in the USA has been saying: It's all about oil, it's all about oil. Now for many Americans, and for most people outside America, fighting a war for mere oil is evil. But what if lots of Americans hear that this war is all about oil, and are pleased? But what if the dime has now finally dropped that actually this war is NOT all about oil?

Could that be what Middle America is getting nervous about? For as long as they were convinced that it was all about oil, they were content. That is our kind of war. Simple, limited, clear, selfish. All the things you want, and not like Vietnam at all. But now that it is dawning on them that this really is about "democracy" and such like, for that exact reason they are getting fidgety. Will it be worth it? When will it end? Where will it end? etc.

It would be entertaining to think that the American Left have been the most energetic de facto supporters of President Bush because of what they regarded as their fiercest criticism of him, but that now that the Left is being defeated in the argument about the true nature and true purpose of the war by the war's most energetic supporters, support for that war is, as a direct result, eroding.

One should probably not be looking for entertainment in such serious things, but, entertainment aside, is this not a rather interesting way of looking at it? I am sure that this theory does not apply to all American supporters or ex-supporters of the war. But to some, maybe?

No links in this I am afraid. I do not recall hearing anyone else saying anything quite like this, although some surely have.

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I am in New York. I try to visit this great city every now and then, although as it happens I have not been here since 2000. Besides the fact that the skyline of this city has been defiled since then, it is still the same place, although it seems to get richer and cleaner every time I visit.

My first trip here was in 1991. I was 22 years old at the time, and before I went I remember my mother being slightly scared for me. At that point New York had a reputation for being a somewhat rough and dangerous place. It had perhaps deserved that reputation in the 1970s, but by 1991 it was not especially fair. When I walked the streets of Manhattan I quickly discovered that New York was a fabulous city, but my first experience was an odd one. I arrived at Newark Airport, collected my luggage and headed for the bus stop outside. However, my progress was impeded by the fact that the dead body of a large black man was lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of one of the escalators. There were policemen standing nearby, preventing other people from coming too close.

I do not know how this man died. My best guess is that he simply fell while on the escalator and hit his head. Howevever, my mind was filled with visions of airport shootouts. The thought "What is this place, and what the fuck am I doing here?" went through my mind. I cowered a little.

I then got the bus into Manhattan, found the hostel where I was staying, and had a great time. The city was a litttle grimy, and there were one or two rough neighbourhoods, but it was in truth a magnificent place.

Since then the city has got a lot richer and more gentrified, and (at least in Manhattan) the rough neighborhoods do not seem quite so rough as before. On Saturday I wandered into Hell's Kitchen, famous for being a tough location, recorded in bad movies such as this one.

But of course its proximity to the important locations of midtown means that a certain amount of gentrification may have taken place. That or the long time residents have taken a liking for politically correct lettuce leaves.

Having roughed such a dangerous place, I retired to a nearby restaurant, where I had some Provencale food washed down with an excellent premier cru Burgundy. (Although the food was excellent, the restaurant felt nothing like France. Everything about it was obviously New York, from the size of the portions to the accents to the volume of the diners to the decor). Okay, at that point I got the "kitchen" part. Hell was still eluding me.

If you go a long way uptown, then yes, some places are not quite as gentrified as this. But they are perfectly fine, and in terms of safety New York feels these days more like Tokyo than the dangerous, feared place that people in foreign countries had heard terrible stories about during my childhood.

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Just over a year ago I spent a very happy few days in northern California, spending one very long and pleasant day in the state's Napa Valley wine region. The region boasts some of the best wines in the world, including the now-famous wineries of Robert Mondavi. Mondavi's wines caused a global sensation in the trade when, during a "blind tasting" in the early 1970s, wine critics rated his produce a notch above the competition from more exalted premises in Bordeaux and Burgundy. The horror!

This article very nicely draws out how the challenge of New World wines from California, Chile, Argentina (a magnificent producer of wine), South Africa, New Zealand and Australia has led to a fairly grumpy response from the traditional centres. This is perhaps understandable. The French produced some of the finest wines of all time, with only a bit of competition from the flowery Hocks and Moselles from Germany and the likeable Riojas in Spain and a few good ones from Italy. About 20-plus years ago, you could walk into a supermarket and choose from only a relatively limited range of wines, much of it fairly basic plonk. Globalisation has put some of the world's most far-flung wine producers into the reach of Joe Public.

All we need now is a similar global "race to the top" in the production of effective hangover cures.

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Regular readers may recall that I supported Bush for President as the "least bad" alternative. Certainly his domestic agenda was nothing for a libertarian to crow about, but on most issues his opposition was at least as bad.

Bush is certainly doing what he can these days to put the "bad" in least bad.

One of the areas where this libertarian could confidently point to Bush as better was on tax policy. He cut taxes, and his Democratic opposition was all about raising them. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is now floating tax "reform" that includes limitation of the mortgage deduction, a great way to raise revenue and disrupt the economy by assuring a hard landing from our current mortgage-fuleded credit bubble.

While the usual Democratic lament when faced with the Republican budget agenda has been some combination of "they aren't spending enough" (the Dems wanted to spend more on the brobdingnagian presription drug benefit) and "they aren't raising taxes to pay for this", the Republican spending spree has gotten so far out of control that the normally rock-solid claim that the Dems would spend more is getting harder to make.

And finally, we come to his nomination of crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Now, the reasons for disappointment in this pick are multiple.

First, Bush blinked on the diversity/affirmative action front. You may recall that his first pick to replace Sandra Day O'Connor was a man, John Roberts, a nice thumb-in-the-eye for the diversity crowd. However, Roberts was shifted over to fill Rehnquist's seat, and Bush explicitly told his crew to find a woman to replace O'Connor, pandering to the worst kind of identity politics.

And he apparently did so based on his confidence that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision creating a right to abortion in the US. Now, as a matter of Constitution law, Roe is a terrible decision, and should be overturned pronto. However, there is every reason to believe that Bush has sold a seat on the Supreme Court, for a single vote on a single issue, to a woman who will be reliably statist and anti-Constitutional.

Harriet Miers is from Dallas, and the word here is that she is a pretty squishy liberal who found God (conveniently, just about the time that being an evangelical became a real entre into the Dallas power structure, but lets give her the benefit of the doubt on that). There is no reason whatsoever to believe that she won't join the anti-individual rights wing of the Court, and some pretty good indications that she will. From what I hear from people who have reason to know, she is a very conventional thinker whose strengths have always been political, not intellectual, and who has never shown a shred of political courage in her life.

She is likely to be very much in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, in other words, with the occasional anti-gay and anti-abortion vote thrown in.

Another opportunity blown. Humbug.

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So is GWB really facing 'rebellion' by conservatives over his choice of nominee to the Supreme Court? It has long puzzled me why he has been cut so much slack for so long given that his conservative credentials were never very strong to begin with. I guess just not being Bill Clinton was enough for the GOP's supporters to stomach his significant expansion of Big Government and clear lack of any interest in trying to revive the squandered Reagan legacy.

But is this the straw that breaks the camels back or just a storm in a media teacup? Are there really enough people in the GOP willing to derail his latest nominee to the Supreme Court on ideological grounds and do they think there is any chance of them getting someone more to their liking from a Big Government statist like George Bush Jr.? Is this 'outrage' on the right going to make a difference? I will be curious see how this is really going to play out.

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It has been claimed by the BBC that George Bush has said he was "instructed by God to invade Iraq and Afghanistan", not "inspired by his Christian beliefs" mind you, actually "instructed", presumably via some sort of celestial Red Telephone in the Oval Office. Now he may or may not have actually said that (the BBC is rather prone to run with whatever story fits its world view), but I can certainly believe he might have said those things.

As the guy is a practicing Christian, it is to be expected that the G word is something that might come easy to his lips. Now I am all in favour of the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan but I really do wonder if he has any idea how utterly bonkers that sort of thing sounds to non-believers such as myself?

Do not get me wrong, I am not saying he should deny his faith if he thinks he has a personal relationship with God. If that is how he sees things, why should he not say so? I realise than many of my utterances about liberty and the world generally strike many of a different bent as equally bizarre. But I am well aware how negatively my remarks are often received even though I may not actually care a great deal... but at least I know.

But I wonder if GWB actually has the slightest idea how he sounds to some people when he invoked his deity in such a manner? Is the President of the United States really saying he hears voices in his head and acts on what he hears?

Just curious.

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I must admit that at some stages I thought that Andrew Sullivan had slightly lost the plot in his apparent obsession with the torture issue concerning the treatment of detainees in Iraq and elsewhere. At one stage Sullivan seemed to take upon himself the task of scolding other bloggers (notably Glenn Reynolds) for not buying into his argument. Well, this story today suggests that Sullivan has been right to bang on about the issue and to champion the cause of people in the military looking to clean house. I think this also counts as a genuine victory for a blogger and shows the power of this medium. I don't doubt, for example, that Senator McCain and his allies read blogs like Sullivan's.

In case anyone thinks this is some sort of anti-American or anti-Iraq war issue, it is not. I want to finish the job properly in Iraq and let it be done with honour as well as competence. The U.S. Senate just took a step in that direction.

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It is about three months since the dreadful ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Kelo ruling, authorising public authorities to grab people's homes and businesses so that corporations - with political favours to grant, no doubt - can build big developments on the land and promise a big tax flow for the public purse. The battle is continuing to rage, even though some individual jurisdictions in the U.S. have passed laws trying to contain this monstrous use of what is called "eminent domain".

It is well worth keeping a beady eye on this issue from here in Britain because so much of what happens in the legal and economic sphere in the U.S. tends to eventually hit our shores.

In the meantime, I continue to recommend this blog for regular updates on eminent domain, as well as the Institute for Justice, and this excellent book on property rights issues.

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Rita is starting to look like she is right up there amongst the mothers of all storms. According to the National Weather Service:

000
WTNT63 KNHC 212351
TCUAT3
HURRICANE RITA TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
650 PM CDT WED SEP 21 2005

...RITA BECOMES THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE ON RECORD...

DROPSONDE DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT AT 623 PM CDT...2323Z... INDICATED THE CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS FALLEN TO BELOW 899 MB...OR 26.55 INCHES. THE DROPSONDE INSTRUMENT MEASURED 32 KT/35 MPH WINDS AT THE SURFACE...WHICH MEANS IT LIKELY DID NOT RECORD THE LOWEST PRESSURE IN THE EYE OF RITA. THE CENTRAL PRESSURE IS PROBABLY AT LEAST AS LOW AS 898 MB...AND PERHAPS EVEN LOWER. FOR OFFICIAL PURPOSES... A PRESSURE OF 898 MB IS ASSUMED... WHICH NOW MAKES RITA THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN TERMS OF PRESSURE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN. SOME ADDITIONAL DEEPENING AND INTENSIFICATION IS POSSIBLE FOR THE NEXT 12 HOURS OR SO.

RITA CURRENTLY RANKS BEHIND HURRICANE GILBERT IN 1988 WITH 888 MB AND THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE WITH 892 MB.

FORECASTER STEWART

If you are in Rita's path, please get out.

UPDATE: Here is the current (updated hourly) satellite image of Rita.

UPDATE: Current Category 4 warning. Note that Lake Ponchartrain and New Orleans are within the danger zone.

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We will just have to get used to bigger storms as we head deeper into the upside of the decades long Atlantic storm cycle. Over the next decade nature will be reclaiming land which became saleable during the downside of the cycle. Unfortunately there are some pretty useful things in threatened areas. One of which is the marvellous Lone Star Flight Museum.

I hope they are getting their airframes out of Dodge and their exhibits to safety. I would hate to see a repeat of what happened to Kermit Week's collection in Florida about ten years ago.

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I see that Instapundit has started a bit of a blogstorm with his campaign against government spending. Together with the Pork Report blog, a grass-roots campaign against government excesses might well take off.

I just wish I could imagine this happening in Australia.

Be that as it may, I wonder what the anti-Porkers will make of the latest NASA plans to resume manned missions to the Moon. It is all very good, but NASA admits it will cost $104 Billion and what is the betting that figure will grow as time goes by?

And this drives to the heart of any anti-Pork campaign. What is pork, and what is legitimate government spending?

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I like New York. It is very different from London although they both share the same characteristics of a big city. What I like most about New York is its sense of history. The Art Deco architecture, the 1930s feel to the city, the strange effect of light in the streets that comes through the skyscrapers.

Last night I was on a yacht cruise going from New Jersey and sailing around west Manthattan, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island all evening. As I could not talk, having lost my voice, it was time to watch the view. It was a spectacular one, beautiful and inspiring. Going around the Ellis Island, I thought about all those who saw the same sight before me. There were many people from my country (it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire then) coming to America in 19th century and one thing I am sure of is that their experience of New York was very different from mine in 21st century. Although the comparision may be rather pointless, as I am coming from London these days, the 'going to America' is an integral part of the Slovak history that comes to mind when seeing what to them was America's 'front doors to freedom'.

cross-posted from Media Influencer

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I happen to be in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 and I visited the WTC site today. Alas, I did not get to see much as the place is open only to the relatives of the victims, may they be remembered when decisions are made...

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It is fair to say that I do not always agree with what I read over at the Lew Rockwell blog, considering its position on foreign policy to be sometimes naive to the point of downright obtuse. (That should get the comments fired up nicely, ed). That said, this article drives home very effectively what might be one of the few silver linings of the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina: it may undermine respect for the wonders of Big Government and underscore the importance of local initiative in times of great danger.

And this article by David Kopel certainly adds to disquiet about what certain state officials are up to.

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I ran across this via one of the professional lists I read. It is a fascinating peek behind the scenes of a datacentre that kept going right through Katrina and well into the worst of the aftermath.

The many people like this were (and are) the real heroes of New Orleans.

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If you want to read a splendid and truly hilarious article about US politics from the Irish Times, written by Newton Emerson, then go take a peek at Slugger O'Toole, where the entire article has been reproduced with permission.

And the reason it is so damn funny is that it is entirely correct.

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A hat tip to Glenn Reynolds for this link to video from Fox News about the total incompetence of the state and local governments and their interference with those who could have given real help: The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

There really need to be some rolling heads in Louisiana and I suggest the Mayor of New Orleans be one of the first to meet "La Madame".

Additional thoughts: If you remove all the weasel words and boil the whole strategy down to its essence, what the government plan in New Orleans seems to be is: starve and disarm the local american populace so they will make less trouble during the forced relocation program.

The job of aid agencies is to supply aid. It is not to tell people what to do. It is not to kidnap people from their homes. It is not to violate their Second Amendment rights and steal their property. It is not to prevent people from creating spontaneous order. It is not to prevent those who attempt to evacuate themselves from doing so.

Perhaps I can get some sleep now.

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How else can you interpret the authorities intention to disarm people in New Orleans? We are not talking looters here, we are talking about people with legal weapons.

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This is not the first article with this title I have written but if some of the accounts coming out of New Orleans prove to be genuine and fair accounts, then I suspect a whole new generation of people who agree with my tagline have just been created on the Gulf Coast of the United States. This was written by a pair of paramedics who were trapped in New Orleans.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

These are clearly admirable self-reliant people here, not a bunch of welfare addled 'do nothings' incapable of independent thinking. They came up with a solution to their problem and the state simply stole it from them.

And if this is true, I can think of no better justification to openly state that people should own firearms to defend themselves not just against criminals but from agents of the state when there is a crisis.

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

And the real stunner...

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

Ok, now would someone like to tell me why these people (a) should not have been armed (b) would not have been entirely justified using deadly force against the 'law enforcement' officials who, at gunpoint, did their damnedest to reduce their chances of survival?

We have heard accounts by authorities of crazed looters inexplicably shooting at contractors who were just trying to repair essential infrastructure. You know what? Maybe that is what happened and maybe not. I find myself thinking the official version of a great deal of what went on is far from the truth. Yet all we are ever going to see on CNN is pictures of heroic cops and National Guardsmen saving the day.

Unless this account proves to be a hoax or a gross misrepresentation of what happened, nothing less than a root and branch purge of the power structures in Louisiana will be enough. This is a true national scandal of the highest magnitude. I am appalled but not entirely surprised.

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I am sure very few readers have the slightest doubt about the Samizdata Editorial opinion on forced removal of sovereign individuals from their property. It is without a doubt their right to use deadly force to defend their property. If there were a confrontation of homeowners and the State, it would not be the first time there has been a Southern showdown between residents and corrupt officials. Although I doubt it will happen in this case, a good dose of property rights enforcement by free men and women would certainly be a pleasant thing to see on the nightly telly in place of the victim of the day image.

Local government officials are claiming they are worried about disease and the danger of gas explosions in the flood and hurricane effected areas in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Poppycock. The population density there is hardly enough at this time to be cause for worries of any massive outbreak. Both are risks which individuals may choose to accept. It is not the place of the State to second guess the wisdom or foolishness of the individual citizen.

Now, finally, in my round about way I come to General Inge. In his recent press briefing he is ducking and weaving on the issue of committing violence upon peaceful American citizens:

GEN. INGE: I've been watching the news this morning and I understand that this is an issue. The situation as I know it now is that civil authorities in Louisiana and New Orleans are discussing this issue. It's not clear to us what the exact state of the mission is. We would believe -- we are told there are some 900 policemen in New Orleans. We would certainly see forcing evacuation as a first priority for them to work. If the authorities in the state of Louisiana chose to use their National Guard in a state status, that would certainly be permissible and their call.

When this turns into a law enforcement issue, which we perceive forced evacuation is, regular troops would not be used.

I sense relief in his words that his troops do not have to take part in this foolishness. I also sense he is politely sidestepping what he really wants to say about the local authorities.

Addendum: One of our commentariat supplied this reference. Read it. The State Is Not Your Friend.

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I have read a comment that said that New Orleans had large numbers of school buses, literally hundreds of them, which were not only not used by local government to move people out of New Orleans, they were abandoned to the floodwaters. Is this true?

Now presumably the local authorities in New Orleans were uniquely aware of the economic situation of their poorer subjects and thus aware of their lack of motor transport when they started telling people to evacuate New Orleans.

If that fleet of buses was indeed available right there within the city, can anyone explain why, rather than encourage people to assemble at the Superbowl without any logistic planning in place to actually cope with them or plans move them elsewhere promptly, why were these buses not used to move those displaced people to several sites not so close to New Orleans (i.e. somewhere the transportation and logistic infrastructure were not so badly disrupted) and then use those same buses to provide logistic support for a few days for the relocated people. Presumably Louisiana has contingency fuel stockpiles that are enough for a few hundred buses for, say, 4 to 5 days (i.e. the peak crisis period)?

I realise that logistical planning is not a game for amateurs but seeing as the transportation assets were just sitting there near the people who needed transportation, surely there must have been a way for the city government to have avoided what happened in New Orleans even if the situation in more rural areas may have been more problematic. Am I am missing something?

Update: Take a look at this. Yes, the buses were indeed there and some people did indeed get evacuated... but guess who?

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Robert Tracinski has written an interesting article laying out why he thinks what happened in New Orleans was a man-made rather than natural disaster.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

I do not entirely agree with the article's assumptions but the general thesis is compelling.

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I became very familiar with that phrase when participating in online debates about guns. It is an odd thing that many of the same people who make the argument that whatever might save one life must be done when advocating gun bans are so scornful of government efforts to give advice on self-protection in the event of disaster. Their scorn is based on the premise that having a supply of bottled water will avail you nothing in a nuclear explosion or catastrophic flood. All it will do, they say, is give you a false sense of security. That is quite true near Ground Zero, but the bottled water could easily make the difference between life and death for some people at the edge of the catastrophe. Why not put some by?

I do not often defend government efforts on anything, but pamphlets on basic precautions seem to me to be a great deal more useful than so much else they do. Cheap per life saved, too. Perhaps that is the problem. The mockers feel that the pamphlets are a substitute for whatever action (which usually means tax-funded government action) they would like to see taken. Could be, could indeed be, but if it saves just one life...

(Way back when I myself used to be very amusing at the expense of a British government pamphlet called Protect and Survive. It said what to do in the event of a nuclear war. Paint your windows white and hide in the cupboard under the stairs, I seem to recall. Ha ha ha if your body is being reduced to its component atoms by a nuclear explosion. But, my present-day self says, sound enough advice if you are at the margins.)

Via John Weidner's Random Jottings, I found this post from Cold Fury arguing that mockery of the US Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge's advice on making a survival kit helped create a climate of opinion where preparations that might have saved lives were less likely to be made. Apparently Ridge's recommendation of duct tape came in for particular ridicule. (Haven't these people watched Apollo 13?) I must take issue, though, with John Weidner's use of the word "murderers" to describe the mockers. They were not murderers. They were wilfully, harmfully blind to quite likely possibilities and that is bad enough.

The same point about advice that works sometimes came up in the comments to this Crooked Timber post. One commenter was heavily criticised for saying that people should have walked out of the path of the hurricane. Another commenter replies angrily - and correctly - that a hurricane moves faster than a running man. Once again, it is true to say that for many of the victims attempting to "walk out of it" would be no more than a means of bringing forward their deaths by a few minutes. (A further point made by the commenters is that for able-bodied people to stay to help those too old, too young or too sick to flee is a good act not a bad one.)

Nevertheless. Some people who are dead now would be alive if they had walked early. I do not claim I would have followed my own advice. In his book The Periodic Table, Primo Levi says as an aside that many of his relatives died in the Holocaust because, although they could see things getting worse for the Jews under the fascist regime, they could not summon up the tremendous initiative necessary to emigrate. I felt as soon as I read it that in their place I would have been the same. Probably I would have been the same in the floods too. Probably I would have persuaded myself that the option I wanted to take, staying put, was also the safest - and duly drowned.

But the advice "walk to a safer place" is not always fatuous even if you have left it too late to get right out of the area. Not all places hit by the storm bore its full fury. There are enough stories of people hanging on to trees, rocks or particularly sturdy buildings while seeing the dreadful sight of their less well-situated neighbours being swept away to suggest that some places are definitely safer than others. Even without government instruction it might be beneficial to think about these things in advance.

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Apparently, according to this great story over at CNN, it was still possible to get a decent drink in the centre of New Orleans over the past few days, in the finest decadent traditions of that city.

That must have really annoyed the self-loathing creeps who opined that Katrina was some sort of Divine Punishment for the city's libertine, jazz-loving past. Screw 'em and make mine a tequila.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed Reason Hit and Run blog for the pointer.

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And another thing to think about when we start pointing fingers is this. The government is never equipped to handle a crisis like this. There's too much bureaucracy - initiative-stifling bureaucracy which prevents swift, effective action. I would like to hear from government employees on this. The nature of that bureaucracy is such that you have very specific guidelines to follow for even the most minute tasks. You need approval for just about everything, and the person you need approval from usually needs approval to give you the approval.

It's not as easy as say rounding up 4 of your co-workers and saying, "We've got someone at such and such an address, let's go grab her and get her out of there." Now add a destroyed or disabled command and control center to that bureaucracy and you've got a total and complete mess.

You (as a civilian) don't need "Approved" stamped on 3 different forms before you can run into your neighbor's house and pull them out. I hope this makes sense.

Anyway, I'm sure there's been human error in this catastrophe. How could there not be? But what I'm saying is that I've come to expect poor decision making and a total lack of initiative from government. They can't even balance a budget, at the federal, state, or local levels. I could balance my checkbook and spend within my means when I was a teenager. But I'm not gonna point fingers and get into the blame game. If you want me to blame something besides the storm herself, I blame the nature of government in the first place. It's too big, it's too slow, it's too inefficient, it's too bloated, and it's too intiative-stifling to be effective in normal circumstances, much less in a disaster. It's a systemic issue, more than an issue of individual people in government.

- The Interdictor writing yesterday

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This article contains some pretty damning stuff.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

[...]

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

Yup, let the finger pointing begin. However although I am rarely loath to heap scorn on the state for cocking things up, it does need to be kept in mind that this is the worst natural disaster in US history and any blame laying needs to keep a sense of proportion (ha, as if) as expecting the state to magically solve even the most unexpected problems with seamless efficiency is at best (and I do mean at best) rather like relying on a well meaning but hopelessly alcoholic uncle to be there for you when things go badly wrong. Well, he might come up trumps but it is probably not a good idea to expect him to be there when you need him.

I also expect membership in the NRA and other similar groups to surge as people re-learn the lessons of the Los Angeles riots: the state might help you pick up the pieces after the fact and a policeman might come around to draw a nice chalk line around the bodies of your murdered loved ones, but when the veneer of civilisation cracks, you had better have a gun and be psychologically prepared to use it because the reality is that when the predators turn up, you are on your own.

Hat tip to Tom Pechinski

Update: LGF has some more as the blamefest starts to gather steam.

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Sci-fi addicts will understand why the Star Trek reference in the title is appropriate.

A comment by the minimally named 'IC' on a previous article here neatly sums up an aspect of the situation in the United States:

How many of those who died in the Katrina catastrophe chose not to evacuate? When you died and became one of the satistics, your loved ones would cry and wail in front of CNN, someone started to sue, some politicians' cushy jobs died with you for not doing their jobs of rescuing you from yourself. Hence we have all these idiotic CYA [cover-your-arse] laws.

On the other hand, if you were forced to evacuate, and Katrina hit Houston instead, and your New Orleans home was looted while you were gone, you start fuming in front of CNN, some politicians got blamed for forcing you to leave...

So either way, it was all bound to be Bush's fault

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Compared to the overall scale of the disaster, this tale about part of the costs of Hurricane Katrina may not seem that big a deal. But as a music-lover and fan of blues and jazz myself, one cannot fail to be moved by this story.

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I recently read Philip K Howard's The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America. It is an infuriating look at how politicians have legislated responsibility and judgement out of consideration when coming up with ever more exact, non-sensical laws. Even Mother Teresa could not get a break from our bureaucratic nightmare:

In the winter of 1988, Mother Teresa's nuns of the Missionaries of Charity walked through the snow in New York's South Bronx in their saris and sandals looking for abandoned buildings to convert into homeless shelters. They found two, which New York offered them at $1 each. The nuns set aside $670,000 for the reconstruction, then, for a year-and-a-half, they went from hearing room to hearing room seeking approval for the project.

Providence, however, was no match for law. New York's building code requires a lift in all new or renovated multiple-storey buildings of his type. Installing a lift would add upwards of $130,000 to the cost. Mother Teresa didn't want to devote that much money to something that wouldn't really help the poor. But the nuns were told the law couldn't be waived even if a lift made no sense.

The plan for the shelter was abandoned. In a polite letter to the city, the nuns noted that the episode "served to educate us about the law and its many complexities."

What the law required offends common sense. After all, there are probably over 100,000 walk-up blocks of flats in New York. But the law, aspiring to the perfect abode, dictates a model home or no home.

The book is full of examples like this one, each one showing exactly how critical thinking and common sense have been regulated out of laws in favour of precision. And, as Howard puts it, the more precise the rule, the less sensible the law.

America's modern legal system has achieved the worst of all worlds: a system of regulation that goes too far —while it also does too little. A number of years ago, two workers were asphyxiated in a Kansas meat-packing plant while checking on a giant vat of animal blood. OSHA did virtually nothing. Stretched thin giving out citations for improper railing height, OSHA re-inspected a plant that had admittedly "deplorable" conditions only once in eight years.

Then three more workers died —at the same plant. The government response? A nationwide rule requiring atmospheric testing devices in confined work spaces, though many of them have had no previous problems. Most such legal dictates are stacked on top of the prior year's laws and rules, the result is a mammoth legal edifice: federal statutes and rules now total about 100 million words. The US Federal Register, a daily report of new and proposed regulations, increased from l5,000 pages in the final year of John Kennedy's presidency in 1963 to over 68,000 pages in the second year of Bill Clinton's.

The second chapter of Howard's book is entitled The Buck Never Stops. This phrase is what came to mind as soon as I heard all of the responsibility-dodging going on in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction. And it would make the perfect title for this interview with the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, in which he expresses his frustration at the lack of action taken by authorities at all levels, and their failure to give him any power to act now. Some bites from Nagin's outburst:

Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore. And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done. They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.

...[D]id the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

...But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

The emphasis on process is mine. By using this word, Nagin has pinpointed the problem with American law. Sure, we need due process in our justice system, and in other areas where we do not wish the government to use (blatant) coercion against its citizens. But there are other instances - fixing a leak in a levee on an urgent basis, for instance - in which procedure more often than not gets in the way of a sensible result. In Howard's words:

[M]odern process barely distinguishes among the vast range of government acts, and has thrown its cloak over every decision. Ordinary decisions are subject to rigid formalities taken as seriously as the due process protection in a criminal trial. The actual goals of government are treated like a distant vision, displaced by an almost religious preoccupation with procedural conformity.

...Individual initiative in government has shriveled up and lies dormant. Process has, indeed, rendered initiative unlawful...Irregularities are dangerous, someone might argue; these procedures serve important practical purposes, like preventing fraud and getting the best price, and it would be unwise to permit exceptions. But serving practicality, as anyone within ten miles of a government contract knows, is the last thing these procedures do. Their inefficiency...is legendary. Fraud, notwithstanding all the procedural layers, happens all the time.

...Orthodoxy, not practicality, is the foundation of process. Its demons are corruption and favoritism, but the creed of this orthodoxy is a perfect uniformity. Only if all things are done the same way can government be fair. Sameness, everywhere for everybody, is the operating instruction of modern government...But concepts like equality and consistency are absolute; they have no logical stopping point; there is no place where they say, "Oh, I certainly didn't mean that a broken lawnmower should be treated as a federal case," or, "The Chicago commissioner shouldn't worry about bidding procedures with the river only a few feet above the leak."

Where do you draw the line? No one wants to take that risk, so the line is never drawn. Shuffling to the rhythms of process, answering any potential complaint with one more procedure, becomes what government does.

I may be preaching to the choir here, but surely most of us have a strong sense of the government's ineffectiveness, do we not? Which is why I find it so strange and irritating that so many people in Louisiana believed that the state would save them. It would be a nice thing to believe, a comforting thing to believe, but when push comes to shove, do you really believe that this group of responsibility-dodging, procedure-obsessed egotists would save you? Would you entrust them with your life, the lives of your family, your home? Only cognitive dissonance would allow for such a positive conclusion.

At some point, the wishful thinking of those in danger should have disappeared in favour of reason. For many, it did. For too many others, it did not. If anything positive is to come out of this tragedy, I hope it is a wide awakening across America and other countries that the state is not your friend.

Cross-posted to JackieDanicki.com

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Not a direct quote, but it pretty much sums up the comments from a Louisiana politician in this interview with Anderson Cooper (wmv file). Cooper, quite rightly, calls her on her bull - but not nearly as harshly as he should have. (Again, trying to perpetuate the objectivity myth is doing our media no favours here.)

By many accounts, thousands of people are dead. The survivors are, in their thousands, newly homeless. By many accounts, some survivors are being raped and beaten, and many of them are starving and dying of thirst, their corpses being eaten by rats in the streets of America. Yet all this politician can tell us is how wonderful her fellow politicians are. If you do not think statism is a sickness of the mind, watch this video.

Link via Bitchypoo

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Tyler Cowen over at his Marginal Revolution blog lists out a load of articles about the case for privatising stuff like flood defence, and critiques of U.S. Federal efforts in that direction. He personally believes that flood defence, spectacularly breached in New Orleans, is a proper function of the state. But being the fine scholar and liberal writer he is, gives a comprehensive roll of reasons for thinking these things could be done better out of the State's hands.

Flood defence can be presented as one of those classic "public goods" that cannot arise via the Invisible Hand of the market. Is that really the case, though? It seems to me that if the full, insurance-related costs of living in a flood zone were presented to the people either living or looking to live there, it might either encourage a lot of flood-related civil engineering defence, or for that matter discourage locating in such areas in the first place.

Anyway, hindsight is very easy, especially if you are thousands of miles away. In the meantime, I urge folk to look at the many examples of voluntary compassion flagged up by Glenn Reynolds.

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Thanks to Sean Sirrine of Objective Justice for pointing out the live audio feed from police radio in Hurricane blasted Baton Rouge.

Astonishing.

Want to see some robust news blogged from the front lines of the crisis in New Orleans? Try here.

Perhaps someone has some ideas on links to reputable sites where people can help with donations? Here is one place to start if you want to lend a hand.

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Whilst the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina will take weeks to unfold, the 'experts' flocked to the disaster. They squawked the usual litany of 'climate change' and oiloholic armageddon, overjoyed that they now had a ready-made disaster to cite as evidence. And, of course, such relish could not be served without the knowledge that their moral certainty had been strengthened by the dead Americans; corpses that will serve as an additional accusation in the long list of crimes attributed to President George Bush.

James Glassman, over at TCS, quotes some of the "environmental extremists" who wrote before they thought.

But that doesn't stop an enviro-predator like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from writing on the Huffingtonpost website: "Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now -- Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children."

Or consider Jurgen Tritten, Germany's environmental minister, in an op-ed in the Frankfurter Rundschau. He wrote (according to a translation prepared for me): "By neglecting environmental protection, America's president shuts his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes like Katrina inflect on his country and the world's economy."

The bright side of Katrina, concludes Tritten, is that it will force President Bush to face facts. "When reason finally pays a visit to climate-polluter headquarters, the international community has to be prepared to hand America a worked-out proposal for the future of international climate protection."

He goes on, "There is only one possible route of action. Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced, and it has to happen worldwide." In other words, thanks to Katrina, we'll finally get Kyoto enforced. (He might start at home, by the way. Europe is not anywhere close to reducing CO2 to Kyoto standards. In fact, the U.S. is doing much better than many Kyoto ratifiers.)

Tritten is unrepentant about his article.

Yet, despite the uproar he has caused, Trittin remains unrepentant. On Wednesday, his spokesman Michael Schroeren even said that he "can't understand ... at all" why Americans are upset. Trittin's comments "are true and he wrote what he meant."

Perhaps he would understand if he had to hand out food parcels to the homeless or dig out corpses from the mud. But we know one universal truth about politicians from the European Union: they never dirty their hands because of their pristine ideals.

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It is very hard to know what to say, from the comfort of London, about the horror that has engulfed New Orleans and nearby places. Johnathan Pearce did his best yesterday, concentrating on what he knows about, which is the financial fall-out and the British news coverage.

But Ben Jarrell's situation is very different. Finding the words to describe this catastrophe is the least of his problems, because he and his wife have been personally hit by it. He added what follows as a comment on Johnathan's posting, but his words, and his predicament, surely deserve a bit more prominence here than that.

I live in uptown New Orleans, and my wife and I evac'd Saturday morning - but as reports of the levees breaking and the city's poor looting (I've heard reports they are looting on my street) I don't expect to have much of anything left when I get home.

This global warming bullshit is ridiculous, and despite the amount of aid the US provided to the tsunami victims, I still expect the global community will pretend to care while choking back a smirk.

As for FEMA, despite my libertarian leanings, I will be standing in line for whatever I can get. My belongings are insured, but my insurance company won't pay off on the policy until an adjuster can go in and look at the damage - which could be months.

We escaped with little more than a suitcase full of clothes, and it will be nearly impossible to function for the months it might take to get any resolution to all of this.

It is really surreal. It's hard to think that we are homeless refugees, but that pretty much sums up our situation.

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Reports about Hurricane Katrina make for grim reading. Not just the immediate human and physical toll, which is the worst of all. Also worrying must be the financial impact, both in terms of the likely huge insurance payouts and the rising price of oil - although high oil prices may eventually trigger a supply response, if the market works as it should.

More than 90 percent of the Gulf of Mexico oil production has been shut down and for how long, is as yet unclear. Crude oil is now over $70 a barrel and could even march higher, particularly if another hurricane takes hold, or if political and military affairs take another bad turn in the Middle East, or for that matter other places such as Nigeria and Indonesia. The black stuff is getting ever more expensive and of course, makes a mockery of the sort of anti-SUV posturing of the sort I mentioned a few days ago here. As the price rises, people will not change their motoring habits to please non-drivers like Andrew Sullivan, but because it makes plain common sense. Alternative energy sources, even those once branded too offbeat, starting to attract more venture capital and support.

Britain's Channel 4 news had an item on the hurricane in which the general gist of the commentary went like this, to paraphrase a bit: "Is America getting the payback in weather for being the world's largest carbon polluter?" The broadcasters may mean well but it came across as almost gloating in tone. I hope that was not the intention.

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Clive Davis, writing for TCS last week, has some sad news for his American friends:

Mrs. Miniver is dead. The funeral was held some time ago, and there were not many mourners in attendance.

Mrs. Miniver being a character in a Hollywood film that represented all that was best about war-time Britain and Middle England. Looking beyond the pageantry of the Anglosphere, a different picture emerges:

Immediately after 9/11, much was made of such ceremonial gestures as the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Changing of the Guard. Dig a little deeper, though, and there's no mistaking the hostility to American values among large sections of the British population. Conservative commentators in the US have got plenty of mileage out of jibes at French anti-Americanism; the unpleasant truth is that Britain is home to a similar phenomenon.

Why the hostility? When did this happen and why? My experience supports Clive's view to some extent. Although I tend to move in circles where America may be criticised for some things but respected for many of its qualities, I am often taken aback by latent anti-Americanism when talking to people outside those circles. The most annoying thing about such attitude is that it is emotive, not based on anything other than some misplaced zen-like view of the world. Well, you know, there should be some counter-balance to the US power... . As Clive quite rightly notes it is a potent mix of ignorance and arrogance that feeds the Middle England's political cosmology. (Or shall I say astrology...)

Perhaps as a consequence of all those hours spent sighing over Hugh Grant, Americans tend to assume that British are much more worldly and sophisticated than they really are. The truth is, when it comes to knowledge of American history and institutions, the Brits are woefully uninformed. What they are familiar with is American popular culture, which is - as I don't need to remind you - a different thing all together. The result of that false sense of familiarity is a toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance. Besides, the British middle classes (like many of their counterparts in the US) do not necessarily see American popular culture as an unmitigated force for good. As the cultural critic Martha Bayles observes in an essay on public diplomacy in the latest edition of the Wilson Quarterly: "Popular culture is no longer 'America's secret weapon.' On the contrary, it is a tsunami by which others feel engulfed. "

Indeed, the thing that seems to gall the British chattering classes and, at the same time, helps them maintain their sense of superiority is the impression that Americans are, oh so, stupid. I find myself replying with increasing frequency that in a country where people are free to be as triumpantly stupid, it also means that they are free to be triumphantly creative and innovative.

Update: Clive posted comments emailed by readers of the TCS article on his blog.

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The bureaucratic mind at work, from the WSJ Political Diary:

"Before deploying from Savannah, Georgia to Iraq by a chartered airliner, the troops of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, a National Guard unit, had to go through the same security checks as any other passengers. Lt. Col. John King, the unit's commander, told his 280 fellow soldiers that FAA anti-hijacking regulations require passengers to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters. 'If you have any of those things,' he said, almost apologetically, 'put them in this box now.' The troops were, however, allowed to keep hold of their assault rifles, body armour, helmets, pistols, bayonets and combat shotguns" -- reported in the Air Finance Journal.

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Take note: Michael Barone has a blog. And its just as good (so far) as you knew it would be. Takeaway line from his first few posts:

All of which only illustrates my First Rule of Life: All process arguments are insincere, including this one.

And he hints at the problem that will bring the GOP down, if not next year then very likely in 2008: the lackluster-to-disastrous domestic performance of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have given most Republicans no reason to turn out and vote for them. As Virginia Postrel said recently (sorry, can't remember where), now that the Republicans have given up on economic freedom and markets, they are basically just the party of social/religious conservatism after all.

And if that's all you got, you won't win many elections in this country.

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Attempts to use the Kelo 'eminent domain' ruling to take property in New Hampshire from US Supreme Court Justice David Souter have now been extended to trying to do the same to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

This is splendid but maybe it would be good to extend this to Senators and Congressmen and particularly much lower level local politicians who collude with property developers. Some of these people often have property outside the jurisdiction they live in (and thus maybe be vulnerable to politically or personally motivated grudges from other elected representatives).

The important thing is to make as many members of the political class uneasy that they could be targeted. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

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The retirement of a Supreme Court justice is always big news in the USA. Coming on the heels of a ruling which made big business developers grasping municipalities across the United States rub their hands together with glee, it is vital that the mindset which produced one of the most monstrous anti-liberty trends in America today not be reinforced with yet another ultra-statist. To her credit, although Sandra Day O'Connor was neither a darling of the right nor consistently supporting of civil liberties, she did dissent quite strongly from the monstrous Kelo verdict.

Perhaps now that more people are seeing past the simplistic left/right divide on the issue of eminent domain abuse, the importance of insisting on a judge who does revolt at the very idea of such a predator's charter should become the main focus not just for George W. Bush but people of any party who think that being secure in your property is one of the very lynchpins of a free society.

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No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
- 5th Amendment: US Constitution

Today is the 4th of July, when Americans celebrate their independence and much talk of freedom and constitutions occurs. This day is in many ways an orgy of self-congratulation, much of which is entirely justified (I make no secret of my pro-Americanism Atlanticism).

But perhaps, just perhaps, the 'shot heard around the country' that was delivered by the Supreme Court of the United States with the Kelo verdict will snap a great number of Americans out of their understandable but entirely misplaced complacency regarding the benevolence of their own nation-state.

Not only does Eminent Domain now pose a threat to anyone whose property happens to catch the eye of a well connected property developer, the USA also has outrageous 'asset forfeiture' laws that allow suspects to have their property taken by the state, reversing the burden of proof and making the accused (but un-convicted and usually un-tried) person prove their property is not the proceeds of some crime in order to have the property returned (they cannot prevent it from being taken in the first place). So much for 'due process'.

Americans would do well to remember that it was the use of British sedition laws to seize private property from political activists was a major cause of disaffection in the colonies in the lead up to the Revolution in 1776. Moreover those sedition laws were far less capricious and more respectful of due process than modern 'asset forfeiture' laws (colonial era sedition laws at least required you to actually be convicted).

The fight against Al Qaeda and any who ally with them must go on but the greatest threat to liberty (and in the long run that inevitably means life) facing the people in the United States comes not from without but from within. Until the entire scope of what government can do is radically cut back, Kelo is pointing the way to a grim future. I hope that the Supreme Court's destruction of the 5th Amendment by allowing the state to take private property for the private use of property developers, will be reversed long before it requires the active use of the 2nd Amendment to make private property secure against those who would rather use political power rather than markets to enrich themselves.

Happy birthday America.

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Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter and current Wall Street Journal columnist, often serves in my mind of an example of how even East Coast conservatives share a mindset that is parochial, elitist, insular, and irredeemably statist. However, in today's column she steps back from the Bos-Wash bubble to marvel at the bloviating egomaniacs that populate Washington.

What's wrong with them? That's what I'm thinking more and more as I watch the news from Washington.

Welcome to the club, Peggy. Too bad it took you so many decades to join up.

How exactly does it work? How does legitimate self-confidence become wildly inflated self-regard? How does self respect become unblinking conceit? How exactly does one's character become destabilized in Washington?

And, bless her, she even takes on the fair-haired boy of the elites, Barack Obama. Barack is widely heralded because he is young, a Democrat, reasonably articulate, and, of course, because he is black. He has also revealed himself to be a first-rate egomaniac. Although in the Senate he doesn't even make the A team for self-importance, what with such colossi as Roberty Byrd and John McCain to contend with, he is certainly putting himself forward as a bloviator to be reckoned with.

This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

Because this kind of inflated self-regard is part of the molecular make-up of politicians, there is no such thing as "good" government, instituted through any kind of ethical or institutional means. There is only "limited" government.

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There is a serious plan being master minded by pro-liberty activists to use powers of 'eminent domain' in New Hampshire to take a house belonging to Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and build a hotel on the site.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."

The way the systems works is that you need to make sure at least five of the Selectmen have a nice fat stake in the project personally (and why bother to hide it? That is how this process works). Justification? Easy: it will draw pro-liberty activists and tourists into Weare and thereby increase tax revenues to the town.

This is one of the most splendid ideas I have heard in a while as I have long liked the idea of using the impositions of the state against the very people responsible for imposing them on others. When it comes to such things, there is no 'public and private sphere', there is just a private sphere.

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It seems just a tad perverse that whilst uttering rhetoric about supporting freedom and democracy, the US is sending its military to help train Communists in Vietnam.

Why, exactly?

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It is just plain wrong to think things were just peachy in the United States until last week when all the Supreme Court did was make de jure what had been de facto for quite some time regarding the state's ability to sieze private property for no other reason than to get more tax. But perhaps this is for the best as there is no longer any doubt that things are badly broken and that this should not be a left vs. right issue. As Clarence Thomas wrote in his dissent:

If ever there were justification for intrusive judicial review of constitutional provisions that protect discrete and insular minorities, surely that principle would apply with great force to the powerless groups and individuals the Public Use Clause protects. The deferential standard this court has adopted for the Public Use Clause is therefore deeply perverse. It encourages those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms to victimize the weak.

Those incentives have made the legacy of this court's public purpose test an unhappy one. In the 1950s, no doubt emboldened in part by the expansive understanding of public use this court adopted in Berman, cities rushed to draw plans for downtown development. Of all the families displaced by urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of those whose race was known were non-white, and of these families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whites had incomes low enough to qualify for public housing, which, however, was seldom available to them. Public works projects in the 1950s and 1960s destroyed predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baltimore, Maryland. In 1981, urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely lower-income and elderly Poletown neighborhood for the benefit of the General Motors Corporation. Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; in cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as Negro removal. Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removed from their homes by the slum-clearance project upheld by this court in Berman were black. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the court's decision will be to exacerbate these effects.

I trust that decent Democrats who are not in the pockets of public sector employee associations and who actually have at the core of their convictions the desire to help the 'have nots' against whom the system can at time be so slanted, will set aside partisan politics and join with Republicans who are not in the pockets of well funded business interests to rebel against this savage wound to the US Constitution which in effects rips out the Fifth Amendment. Let this case be the litmus test of decency against which political figures of both left and right will judged and judged harshly.

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There is an industry in the USA in which people make a career based on using the power of the state to seize the private property from churches, home owners and small businesses and turn it over to large corporations in order to let them benefit by setting up large businesses and thereby provide more tax money for more public sector employees to share in.

It has been pointed out by many that this is a deeply corrupting process in which wealthy developers simply pay local government officials to use force in their narrow economic interests. Yet 'corrupting' seems a rather weak term for what is simply naked theft which at the same time negates the often stated pretence that the state is there to ensure individual rights are not trampled upon by the rich and powerful. In fact the Supreme Court ruling overtly institutionalises the fact that the police and courts are vehicles for the rich and powerful (business and governmental interests) to do whatever they wish if there is money to be made.

To understand how this could happen it helps if you realise that many Democrats these days take what is technically a fascist view of private property (that you are free to own property provided you further state objectives with it) rather than a socialist one (that all means of production should belong to the state). So next time a some hysterical Democrat from the Daily Kos tells you how important it is to prevent George Bush from adding some conservatives to the Supreme Court because of the need to safeguard civil liberties from The Wingnuts, understand that these same people actually have no problem from a civil liberties point of view with enriching already wealthy property developers at the expense of community churches and poor people. Exactly how this squares with their purported support for 'the little guy' (have you ever heard of a wealthy district full of stockbrokers and lawyers being bulldozed to make way for a Wal-Mart?) is an interesting question answered only via some impressive pretzel logic. In reality the Justices who stood up to corporate interests were 'conservatives'. The fight to prevent eminent domain abuse now has to be conducted at State level now that the Federal battle has been lost to the corporatists.

But also many advocates of the Second Amendment talk about how private firearms are the ultimate bulwark against tyranny and injustice. Well maybe now it is time for them to walk the walk. Maybe if some of the people who make their living as 'eminent domain professionals' were unable to scout out their targets in the most egregious of these cases without considerable personal risk, much like any criminal casing a property they intend to rob, then perhaps the true nature of what they are doing becomes harder to hide behind legal verbiage.

The only upside to this whole situation is the likely radicalising effect this ruling will have on people to whom civil liberties matter and to whom private property is the very corner stone of those liberties.

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"I think that maybe -- just maybe -- anti-Wal Mart sentiment has more to do with an aversion to the white, rural ethnology the store sometimes represents than its labor practices. We can't have our Ethiopian restuarants and esoteric bookstores blighted by NASCAR culture."

- The always good American blogger Radley Balko, telling it like it is.

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Failed Presidential candidate and negligible Senator John Kerry claims to have released all of his military records to the public. It is unlikely that this claim is entirely truthful.

Lets be clear: he did not release anything to the public. He released some records to his homies and long-time supporters at the Boston Globe, who have written an article glossing over the gaps in what they got from him, but have not made the records available to the public in any way, shape or form.

It seems pretty clear that the Globe did not get the full records, for reasons summed up in this rather pithy post. There is good reason, in short, to believe that the full record described prior to the election, was not released even to the Globe.

It is always dicey to reach a conclusion in the absence of full information, but when the people involved refused to release that information, well, they invite speculation. I think the reason it took Kerry so long to "release" his "records", as he promised on national television some months ago, and the reason they were not released to the public as promised, is because he was playing games with (a) who he requested records from and (b) what records he actually released.

But let's not allow our annoyance at the perfectly ordinary dissembling from this perfectly unexceptional man to cloud our glee at the release of both that picture and the fact that George W. Bush, reviled across the Democratic Party as a moron, got better grades than Kerry did.

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The tabloid Dallas Observer bangs another one out of the park with its ongoing coverage of the corruption and incompetence of the Dallas police force. What's fascinating in this rendition of the age-old story of extortion and protection rackets is the way this one operates out in the open, in the light of day.

Dallas has quite a crime problem in some of its neighborhoods - enormous amounts of violent crime orbiting the black market drug trade. Because people in the drug trade don't give a crap about laws making it illegal, such laws are understandably less than efficacious in getting rid of the black market and its ills. Thus, with impeccable legislative logic, since criminals aren't deterred by the law, our betters decided that laws imposing penalties on law-abiding people, such as the owners of property where the criminals live or hang-out, might have some effect. The so-called "nuisance law" was born, and one of the more astonishing tales of unintended consequences of the law began.

If you have a business in a bad neighborhood, and you call the cops over and over again reporting crime, you are not likely to get a timely and effective response from a police force that claims to be overburdened.

Khraish Khraish and his father own single-family rental properties in South and West Dallas. He caught some guys hauling stuff out of one of their properties on Canal Street, southeast of Fair Park, less than a mile from Edmondson's properties.

"I confronted these people, who were stealing appliances out of my house. I said, 'I want you to stop.'"

No. Not stop. They attacked him instead, for irritating them.

"I literally called 911 as I was being assaulted," Khraish tells me. "I'm telling her, 'They're running after me! They've got me!' I was screaming as this was happening."

He got loose and outran them. They gave up the chase, went back and finished hauling off his appliances. He returned to his property and sat there on the stoop, waiting for the police to come. For hours.

"No one ever came," he said. "That's a typical story. That's what happens out here."

No, you will instead get a visit from the cops telling you that you are the problem, for calling 911 so much, and that you will be fined and possibly lose your business if you keep it up, because the volume of 911 calls from your property proves that your property is a "nuisance" subject to penalties under the law. (Note how "public nuisance" has been redefined from "property that is a haven for crime" to "business owner who bothers the police too much.")

That's when the police department's "Nuisance Abatement" or "Safe Team" comes calling. They lay it out. Look at all these 911 calls, Sam. All from your building. You know what? Your building is turning into a nuisance abatement problem. We may have to turn you over to the city attorney for a nuisance abatement lawsuit. Then you're going to have to hire a lawyer, run up a lot of bills. I don't know, these 911 calls are really starting to look like a problem, aren't they?

Wait. Stop. That's not the punch line yet. Here's the punch line--a line I have heard now from several property owners, a line that was repeated again and again in the hearings in Austin. You know what the real punch line is? I have it on my desk.

The rate sheet.

The next thing they hand the owner of a car wash on MLK, or the owner of a major hotel chain, or the owner of refurbished apartment buildings, is the rate sheet for what it costs to hire Dallas police officers to work as security. Off-duty.

Get it? You call 911 too much. You're making us look bad. We're going to have to sue you and put you out of business if this keeps up. But, hey. There is a way out of your dilemma. Hire us off-duty. Now you're not a nuisance anymore. Now you're our buddy.

And it gets worse. What may well be going on here is that parts of Dallas are being set up for a major urban renewal project. Part of the set-up involves letting things get so bad that only a billion-dollar public works project can save the day.

Dennis Topletz, the chief operating officer of Topletz Investments, said experience has taught him that the city of Dallas usually has an agenda, even if it's not easy to see. He says the city used tactics similar to what it's using now in order to force the Topletzes to sell property in the State-Thomas area in the 1980s.

"They threatened us with the RICO statutes then," he said. "I mean, we're talking about government. We're talking about federal. We're talking about criminal. We're talking about jail time, unless we would sell them the property under eminent domain."

He smells a similar but larger agenda behind the wholesale assault on private businesses that the legislative committee discovered when it investigated the misuse of the nuisance law. Somebody wants certain people out of certain neighborhoods, while other people, who are wired to City Hall, qualify for lavish grants and subsidies instead.

I feel sure that, from the inside of the Dallas administration, this all looks perfectly logical (thus the phrase "the banality of evil"). But from the outside, it stinks like day-old fish in the hot Texas sun.

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It is astonishing that a potential law could even reach the stage of being voted on in the USA that says if you witness or 'become aware' that neighbours or friends have broken the law with narcotics (which presumes you are a competent judge of that), you will be compelled by law to denounce them to the police. Failure to do so means prosecution and the threat of a two year sentence yourself if convicted of simply minding your own business. Even if you disagree with the drug laws, you will be threatened with prison if you do not actively help enforce them against other people.

I have met Congressman Sensenbrenner and I am shocked that he could have come up with such a profoundly authoritarian and illiberal law like this. He explained his support for the ghastly Patriot Act was purely a temporary emergency measure, pointing to the sunset clause as proof of that. Well if this* is his idea of reasonable legislation then I fear that I see all his motivations in a dramatically different light.

Turning neighbour against neighbour like this was how communist states maintained power in the Eastern bloc and anyone putting their name to such a law should be seen for the enemy of civil society that they are, turning people who just wish to be left alone into coerced informers for the state. Truly disgraceful.

*= to see details, enter HR1528 in the search box, then check the enter bill number button, then press search

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The US Supreme Court today overturned the obstruction of justice conviction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm. This comes too late, of course, to save Andersen, which was largely destroyed by the conviction, but it nonetheless injects some common sense back into the rules around withholding information from the government (it can be legal, you know, a fact which the SCOTUS felt the feds needed to be reminded of) and document disposal (a topic on which I spend far too much of my time).

In a unanimous opinion, justices said the former Big Five accounting firm's June 2002 obstruction-of-justice conviction - which virtually destroyed Andersen - was improper. The decision said jury instructions at trial were too vague and broad for jurors to determine correctly whether Andersen obstructed justice.

. . .

[I]n his opinion, Rehnquist noted that it is not necessarily wrong for companies to instruct employees to destroy documents, even if the intent is in part to keep information from the government.

Like a mother who advises a son to invoke his right against compelled self-incrimination out of fear he might be convicted, "persuading" an employee to withhold information is not "inherently malign," Rehnquist wrote.

"The instructions also diluted the meaning of 'corruptly' so that it covered innocent conduct," Rehnquist said.

The Andersen case was of a piece, really, with Martha Stewart's conviction. Both were convicted, essentially, of failing to cooperate in their own prosecution. Give Martha cred for serving her time, but I wonder if she wouldn't have won out on appeal. Eventually.

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According to the New York Times:

An American military inquiry has uncovered five instances in which guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba mishandled the Koran, but found "no credible evidence" to substantiate claims that it was ever flushed down a toilet, the chief of the investigation said on Thursday.

All but one of the five incidents appear to have taken place before January 2003. In three cases, the mishandling of the Koran appears to have been deliberate, and in two it was accidental or unintentional, the commander said, adding that four cases involved guards, and one an interrogator. Two service members have been punished for their conduct, one recently.

I am not sure if the service members that were punished had other things to answer for- the investigation is by no means complete, apparently.

However, I am curious if that was what they were punished for. Does the Koran have some special legal protection in the United States now?

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The Bush administration wants to get rid of the filibuster in the US Senate when voting on nominations to the US Supreme Court. Now the prospect of replacing left wing activist judges with right wing slightly less activist judges seems like a minor move in the right direction, however... I am uneasy because although this (none too civil liberties inclined) government adjusts the underpinning rules to impose its will now, the shoe could so easily be on the other foot in a few years, with President Hilary getting to ram through some ghastly left wing jackanapes using the very mechanisms Bush looks likely to put in place next week.

And anyway, anything which buggers up the process of laws getting made (which filibusters certainly do) tends to appeal to me instinctively. But is the filibuster a good thing when it comes to the calculus of whether or not the US system is conducive to producing liberty? Is that peculiar institution a good way of curbing legislative excess or is it just a way of locking in bad stuff already on the books and making the system un-reformable?

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A retaining wall in the Upper West side of New York at the Hudson River, just up-river from the George Washington Bridge has collapsed and buried several parked cars at the very least. I was unable to find out if anyone had been caught in the collapse: no one seemed to know at the time I was asking around.

Since I am on the same side as the collapse, I was unable to get into a position to get a picture. There is nowhere one could do so without standing on part of the hillside which has just collapsed and the NYPD has the cliffside cordoned off in both directions for many blocks. I know. I tried.

I do know that the Henry Hudson Parkway is closed and traffic in NYC is a royal mess right now.

I ha ve never in my life heard so many sirens and seen so many emergency vehicles. Lines of them filling city block after city block and off into side streets. Broadcast vans from every station in New York with a news program. Talking hairdo's smiling into TV cameras every which way you look. Police smiling and saying absolutely nothing about what is going on. Lots of the folk thought it must be a terrorist threat because there was nothing but rumour floating through the gathered crowds.

You will get the details on the News at Eleven... but I will start uploading some of my on the scene photos. So, here goes... Dale Amon reporting Live and On The Scene in New York City.... Roll 'em!

Move along now, nothing to see here...

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

The line of emergency vehicles fades off into the distance.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

Notice the herd of cameramen down on the edge of the hillside where they can all go down together. Somewhere along there and below is my best current guess as to where the collapse occurred.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

Gee, Perry, when can we get one too?

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

The talking heads were out in force.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

A newsgirl and her cameraman.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

This is a couple blocks upriver. Beautiful view but still cordoned off. Note the hardhats and police near the hillside.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

This shot is from about three or four blocks upriver. Obviously you cannot see the collapse, but it does give you an idea where it happened. That is the George Washington Bridge.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

Coffee break time I presume...

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

Update: No one was hurt; cleanup will probably take through the weekend; traffic on the Henry Hudsen Parkway is being diverted at 181st St.

Morning Update: I was able to get to a location from which I could get a photo of the actual collapse area and it was not where I'd thought it, but a block further upriver. The big worry yesterday was whether or not some apartment buildings had been undermined. Engineers determined they were safe so this morning it was easy for me to get within telephoto range.

Photo: D.Amon all rights reserved

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Jim Babka, President of DownsizeDC has more to report today:

The Senate is supposed to vote on REAL ID Act this afternoon. "Roll Call" reports yesterday that governors are protesting the creation of a national identification system. Plus, we know of other organizations that are now rallying their forces. We're not alone in this fight.

It's traditional for the Senate to vote unanimously in favor of Conference Committee Reports - to rubber stamp them. As a result of all the voices they're hearing, I'm not so sure that's how this is going to play out. Let's keep up the pressure all the way to the finish line.

The REAL ID Act could signal the end of real privacy in America, as this article suggests.

And I told you yesterday about my experience on an Omaha, Neb. radio show. Well the host might not have gotten it, but his local paper certainly did! Did our interview influence the following editorial? {Registration required} Who knows? But it's well worth reading to get a clear understanding of this issue. And when you share our campaign with your friends, encourage them to read this article for a clear explanation.

Send another message to the Senate right now, asking them to vote down the appropriations bill containing the REAL ID Act. Tell the Senate to send the appropriations bill back to the Conference Committee to remove the REAL ID Act. Send your message by Clicking here

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I just can't help myself, it seems. I suppose my attitude towards Dems suffers from the soft bigotry of low expectations, - I really don't expect any better from them. For the Reps, well, they have been marginally better than the Dems on liberty issues, but whatever principled commitment they had to Constitutional limited government is apparently no match for the strong solvent of controlling the unitary state.

This time, really, a nice even-handed non-partisan bashing that indicts both Dems and Reps on federalism. I happen to think that dispersed power is one of the most critical bulwarks for freedom in any society, and one to which many seem oblivious to. The column details the ways in which the dispersion of government power in the US has been destroyed by both Dems and Reps.

Since the Great Society delusions of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrats have assumed the powers of Congress are unlimited absent an express constitutional prohibition. The assumption turned the Constitution on its head. It evoked stentorian pledges from Republicans to honor traditional state prerogatives and to restore the Founding Fathers' design of a limited federal government, not a Leviathan. But after capturing control of Congress and the White House, Republicans are bettering the instruction of Democrats in pulverizing federalism. The pledges of change proved hollow, like a munificent bequest in a pauper's will, to borrow from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.

The US Constitution successful in preserving individual freedom as long as it did in large part because it dispersed power so widely among and between the state and national governments, the governments and the people, and between the branches of the national government. That dispersion is at an end, and with it is born the unitary totalising state that is, and always has been, the bane of individual freedom.

One side note - the article actually does a decent job of capturing the embryonic "new federalism" jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, but any Court that will uphold an abomination like the McCain-Feingold political speech controls offers faint hope indeed to libertarians.

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This item is in from the folks at DownSizeDC:

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

I'm sending out today's Downsizer-Dispatch message earlier than usual. The Senate may vote TODAY on the "emergency" appropriations bill and the REAL ID Act. Hammer them. And do it now.

Let them know that you know that they can vote down this bill and then come back and do the spending bill again (that is, if they really must take another step toward national bankruptcy), only next time they should do it without the REAL ID Act. Tell them you know it won't be easy, but you want them to show some backbone on this vote. Tell them you will remember what they do. The REAL ID Act must not be passed.

Send your message by clicking here.

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Just another stone in the bucket:

The Republican promise of smaller, less-intrusive government is getting harder and harder to believe. Especially when a more plausible plot line is unfolding every day: that the GOP has put aside the ideals of Reagan and Goldwater in order to pursue a political strategy based on big spending.

It's not always easy to see how radically Bush has transformed the GOP — from Reagan's admonition that "government is the problem" to Dubya's own assertion that "when somebody hurts, government has got to move." But it's a real transformation — and an expensive one.

I have never been a big fan of GW Bush's domestic policies, although the primary complaint from the loyal oppo has generally been along the lines that he isn't a big enough spender/regulator. Still, the refrain that "But Kerry would have been worse" is starting to wear a little thin.

Between the Rovian big spenders and the prudish blue-noses pushing their own nanny state, the Republican Party's status as a better home for libertarians than the Democrats is getting more and more dubious. Truly, libertarians are being cast into the wilderness, with their only company a smattering of gibbering anchorite "true believers" and associated hucksters. Why, its getting almost as bad in the US as it seems to be in Britain!

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In what is almost certain to become a long-running series devoted to the topic, let us now note one of the ways in which the Republicans are fools:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, like his immediate predecessor, John Ashcroft, has pledged to make obscenity prosecutions a priority. The department is expected to announce soon the creation of a special unit within its criminal division to focus on adult obscenity cases.

Surely no additional comment is needed, but let us note that there are apparently federal laws against obscenity in spite of a rather clear and unqualified statement in the Constitution of the United State to the effect that "Congress shall make no law... , " so let us pause a moment to lob a brickbat or two at the apparently illiterate Justices of the Supreme Court who have upheld such laws.

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I frankly haven't been paying much attention to President Bush's Social Security reform, ehrm, thingie (hard to call it a proposal because I don't think he's really proposed anything concrete), but I gather that the spineless wimps in Congress are coalescing like a school of jellyfish around a "bipartisan" proposal to raise the hell out of taxes and do absolutely nothing to create private ownership. Sounds like I, personally, can look forward to paying several thousand dollars more per year to support Social Security.

Business as usual in Washington. Just think how much worse it would be if John Kerry had won! (Sadly, I'm not sure if I mean that ironically or not.)

In the relentless, frantic spinning that passes for political discourse among our anointed masters, though, the frothing anti-Bushie Paul Krugman sets a new high. Krugman frantically lets us know that under Bush's latest Social Security thingie "the average worker--average pay now is $37,000--retiring in 2075 would face a cut equal to 10 percent of pre-retirement income."

That's right, folks - we should swat down whatever the evil Chimpler McBushiburton proposed because it might cause people who aren't even born yet to take a 10% reduction in income when they quit working for their money.

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How little coverage there is of this scandal, no?

When was the last time a felony fraud investigation into the campaign of a sitting Senator and presumptive Presidential nominee was almost totally ignored by the press?

This looks pretty open and shut to me, at least as far the fraud part goes. The only real question is whether the candidate knew, and that puts the candidate in the position they so frequently find themselves in - they either knew what was going on in their campaign, in which case they are guilty and unfit for office, or they didn't know what was going on in their campaign, in which case they are incompetent and unfit for office.

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One of my occasional forays in the United States has washed me up on the shores of historic Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod. Looking back over the Atlantic to the West Coast of Ireland has reminded me of how the weather can be just as bad over here as it is at home.

Anti-Americanism remains as popular at home as it is misunderstood here. What was originally considered a prejudice has now transformed into an orthodoxy, where the demonisation of the United States, its people, culture and contributions has acquired the power of an aesthetic reaction. The reaction is not an ideology, although the attacks are structured as such within various contexts, especially as formed by the Left or the Green movement who merge the USA with a wider system of empire, capitalism or oppression. Ideologies tend to wither if they drift too far from reality. Anti-Americanism has acquired the power of an aesthetic, a style derived from its audiences and reproduced from T-shirts of Che Guevara to a new orthodoxy amongst the educated elites. Like left-wing satire of the nineteen-eighties, it has ceased to be funny and its proponents look down on those who disagree with them.

Politics and style are a dangerous combination. Supporting Bush is not the same as accepting America on its terms, good and bad, but orthodox behaviour encourages polarisation in argument. When confronted with an anti-American style that is no longer based upon argument and is winning the culture war, you provide the 'fishbone statement' that will make these people choke. To stand up for the Stars and Stripes can be considered a form of private dissent, allowing you to needle those whose views you hate.

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One can, I suppose, trace the end of the ideal of limited government in the United States from any number of events. I have heard the Civil War, Roosevelt's court-packing schemes and the emasculation of Supreme Court jurisprudence on enumerated powers, even (half-jokingly) the extension of the franchise to women.

If these are all candidates for the beginning of the the end of limited government, I wonder if we aren't witnessing the end of the end. Constitutional structure, jurisprudence, and the like were never more than temporary and imperfect restraints on the state, in the absence of real political backing and deep cultural roots for the ideal of limited government. There is precious little sign of either in the current landscape.

At this point, one looks around in despair for any sign that limited government has any political viability at all. The Republicans, whose commitment to limited government has been steadily waning for decades, appear to have abandoned it entirely now that they hold the reins of government.

While some libertarian types may have been upset with President Reagan's deficits, he was at least singing from their hymn book: Government is the problem, not the solution. George W. Bush on the other hand has never even gone to the trouble of aping a small-government posture. Instead, Bush has adopted one of Reagan's other famous lines, sans irony: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

This represents a fundamental shift in the direction of the Republican Party and a threat to its traditional alliances. The shift is self-evident. Instead of being the party that tries to rein in entitlement spending, the Republican Party is now the party of the $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Instead of being the party that is opposed to even having a federal Department of Education, the Republican Party is now the party of extensive intrusion into local schoolhouses by Washington, D.C. And instead of being the party of the rule of law and state's rights, the Republican Party is now the party of Congressional intervention into the thoroughly adjudicated medical decisions of an individual family.

It scarcely need be said that the Democratic Party provides no hope whatsoever for limited government, outside of a few isolated issues. Of the Libertatian Party, well, the less said the better. Many small-l libertarians, pragmatic and incremental reformers such as myself, looked to the Republicans as the least worst alternative, with some hope that their authoritarian and statist instincts could be tempered by the political calculation that they couldn't do without us.

It is apparent, however, that a new political calculation is afoot, one that relies not at all on believers in limited government, and thus consigns them to utter political irrelevance.

What if Karl Rove's idea for a permanent majority actually worked? The GOP could convince soccer moms that it's not so hard-hearted by implementing national health care piece by piece. It could pick up the votes of blue-collar union members by appealing to them on "values" issues that the Democrats can't talk about without choking on their own bile. And the GOP could even pick up votes from socially conservative black and Hispanic voters who are adamantly opposed to gay marriage.

The electoral logic of Big Government Conservatism, in fact, is virtually inescapable.

At this point, I see no hope for limited government in the near or medium term. I don't see any political home for us, anywhere that we can exert any meaningful influence. We can look forward only to the expansion of the state, until the entire political system is rendered chaotically fluid by some shock or upheaval. The most likely scenario I see for realignment and revival of limited government ideals would be the collapse of the Democratic Party, which would at least create an opening to reinvent the current, sterile Rep/Dem, Conservative/Liberal dichotomy as a new opposition between liberty and the total state.

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Now that the animated corpse of Terri Schiavo has finally been allowed to die, some of the fault lines of American conservatism have been brought into sharp focus. The behaviour of quite a few on the left has not been very edifying either but certainly it is amongst the Republicans that the most remarkable behaviour has occured.

The term 'pro-life' may be a reasonable description for those who oppose killing late term foetuses but the broad political church of pro-lifers (with whom I actually share many positions) includes a section of conservatism which is so obsessed with the physical trappings of life that they have stretched the definition of human existance to the breaking point.

The origins of this conservative faction are not hard to see. It came about in opposition to those on the socialist left who treat abortion as not so much something to be tolerated but rather a sacred sacrament which they venerate with cult-like obsessiveness and even demand it should be supported by the tax money of people who abominate the practice. In resistance to this we now see some conservatives developing an equally extreme cult to whom being 'pro-life' means treating the intentional death of a fertilised egg as tantamount to murder and demanding the removal of the customary fiduciary role of a spouse in decisions such as the Terri Schiavo case when the spouse does not follow the 'pro-life' party line. Moreover these people describe courts which does not intervene in such a civil matter as 'activist judges' who should be opposed with force by the executive if they will not buckle under and act like a, well, activist judge.

So when such a group which thinks extending the existence of the hapless Terri Schiavo's body regardless of the fact much of her brain was spinal fluid and pretending that being in some way reactive to light and sound means she was still 'alive' in any meaningful way, they cannot really be called 'pro-life' because it seems to me that Terri Schiavo's life ended many years ago. We are not talking about euthanizing someone who is horribly brain damaged and has been reduced to sub-child like imbecility (i.e. someone with at least a pathetic but identifiable remnant of a human existence), no, we are talking about someone with an effective intelligence of pretty much zero.

Now it seems fair to differentiate between three classes of people who opposed moves to allow Terri Schiavo's body to die:

Firstly, those who disagreed on the medical facts (i.e. felt that she was not persistently and irretrievably vegetative)...

Secondly, those who did not feel Michael Schiavo was the right person to make the decision because he had alienated his right to be regarded as Terri Schiavo's husband...

And lastly those to whom the only acceptable outcome was keeping Terri Schiavo's body alive regardless of who was nominally 'in charge'. It is this later group with whom I have the greatest disregard and who seem to me as being the ones making the most noise at the front of the pack.

For the first group, granted I am not a doctor but the publicly available evidence seems pretty clear to me. That said, I admit that opinions may vary but I can only go with what seems the most plausible theory. Likewise to the second group, it seems to me that Michael Schiavo's behaviour fell within sufficiently acceptable bounds to not disqualify him and that far from taking the 'easy way out', in spite of the character assassinations levelled at him, he did what he thought was best and was well within his rights to do so. Ann Coulter has certainly not convinced me that Michael Schiavo stands to get anything out of this other than the hatred of millions of people and precious little else. Again, I realise that reasonable people may disagree on these points. I certainly do not think all (or even most) of the people who took a contrary view were either unreasonable or immoral, I just think they were wrong.

To the third group however, no accommodation or meeting of the minds or even reasoned discourse seems possible. For me, the decision to starve this poor creature to death was wrong: once it was decided that the body that was once Terri Schiavo was better off dead, why not just have the courage of convictions to end it all with an more dignified injection? I understand the legal niceties of why it was done the way it was done but that does not make it the right or humane way to do such a thing. Terri Schiavo may have been past caring but the fact there are people who are so obsessed with prolonging physical existence even under the most horrendous circumstances that to 'do the right thing' would risk prosecution for murder, which is deeply disturbing.

I am fortunate that this blog means my views regarding what I would want for me if I was ever in Terri Schiavo's situation will be a matter of public record so not even Tom DeLay will be able to argue if someone wants to pull the plug on me if some day I get hit by a bus when in Florida. To demand the intervention of the state to ensure the continued bodily existence of a woman whose brain was made up of a high proportion of spinal fluid is not being 'pro-life', it is being 'pro-undeath', what we have here is truly an American Zombie Cult.

We want your votes!

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Just to stir the pot in the peanut gallery:

Does anyone else find the use of the term "undocumented" to describe people who are in the US illegally to be more than a little disingenuous, misleading, and politically correct?

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On The Voice of Reason (slogan: "A penny saved is a government oversight"), there is a pretty clear headed little essay of what I think is most the reasonable position on this absurdly emotive case.

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Bill Quick puts up 11 excellent reasons for limited-government types to be pissed off at the current administration. I found little to quibble with.

Generally, I have found George W. Bush to be good, very good, on foreign affairs, and mediocre to bad on domestic issues.

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Some readers may have heard of the Institute for Justice, a U.S. organisation which fights the legal battles of property owners resisting the odious power of what is called eminent domain. Eminent domain powers, which were originally designed to give governments the ability to seize private property to build facilities for so-called "public use" like an airforce runway, prison or road, have also been used by said governments to build things like condos purely in order to boost tax revenues. It goes without saying that such a power is a powerful force of corruption, since a large property developer who wants to build a supermarket or whatever can get his political chums to use ED to kick small businessmen and homeowners out of their property. The politicians get lots of campaign contributions. The whole business stinks, and flagrantly abuses property rights. In any event, if the re-development of an area really made financial sense, that would be reflected in the increased prices of the houses and shops targeted for demolition, in which case the issue can be left to the market.

The Institute for Justice is, quite possibly, the most important libertarian organisation now in existence. I can also recommend the Free Space blog for regular updates on this issue and I also love the book, Defending the Undefendable, by Walter Block, on the same subject.

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I often do not see eye to eye with James Taranto but he does point out some good stories in his "Best of the Web" email newsletter. He highlighted this Drudge Report today. Drudge reports Michelle Zipp, editor of Playgirl magazine, was fired for being a Republican. It contains an e-mail from Ms. Zipp:

After your coverage of my article about coming out and voting Republican, I did receive many letters of support from fellow Republican voters, but it was not without repercussions. Criticism from the liberal left ensued. A few days after the onslaught of liberal backlash, I was released from my duties at Playgirl magazine.

After underlings expressed their disinterest of working for an outed Republican editor, I have a strong suspicion that my position was no longer valued by Playgirl executives. I also received a phone call from a leading official from Playgirl magazine, in which he stated with a laugh, "I wouldn't have hired you if I knew you were a Republican."

I just wanted to let you know of the fear the liberal left has about a woman with power possessing Republican views.

I would go further. The currently constituted Democratic Party is based on victimology. 'Minorities' must be victims. Victims must be helped. The only way to help victims is through regulation, law and massive Federal spending. If a member of a Democratically important minority breaks ranks, they are endangering the core beliefs which bind the party together. Thus that individual must be silenced or put in their proper place as a victim.

Minorities contain intelligent, hardworking and resourceful people. You can not keep them 'down on the farm'. You can not pretend to speak for all of 'them' because they are not really a 'them'. As any libertarian will tell you, there is no such thing as a Class. There are only individuals with temporarily aligned self-interests.

This is a problem for the Democrats. As soon as the underlying self-interests of their pet victim classes were met, those classes began to dissolve. The Democrats do not have an acceptance of this, let alone a plan to understand and deal with new alignments. All they can do is individually lash out against 'class' defectors. It solves nothing, it wins them no friends... but perhaps it makes them feel better.

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The American diplomat George Kennan passed away on Thursday night, at the ripe old age of 101.

George Kennan was famous for being the principle intellectual architect of the US policy of 'containment', as applied to the USSR. As a diplomat who served in the USSR, he composed what is known as the 'Long Telegram', which had a considerable impact on the thinking of US policymakers, which became even greater when it was expanded into a longer essay, 'The sources of Soviet conduct'.

Kennan's view was that Soviet expansionist tendencies were internally driven, and based on the fundamental illegitimate nature of Soviet power:

At bottom of Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted Russian rulers rather than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundations, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it.

Kennan's view was that US policy should be to meet the Soviet challenge with firmness, patience and intelligent policymaking. In the 'Long Telegram', he compares the relationship between the US and the USSR as that of a doctor and a disturbed patient.

What is curious though is that Kennan thought this would be solely a political and diplomatic effort. He deplored the US military buildup in the Cold War. It strikes me as curious that a diplomat that lived through the rise and fall of Nazi Germany would under-rate the importance of military preparedness in dealing with militant totalitarian dictatorships.

But then Kennan had many curious views.

It is odd that a man who had a profound impact on the policy direction of the US in the Twentieth century should be so out of sympathy with the prevailing spirits of the age; the great advocate of Bismarckian 'realpolitik' had indeed, a world view closer to Bismarck then any figure in his own age. As Daniel Drezner noted:

Kennan never gave a flying fig about the developing world, believing that it never would develop. Kennan's narrow world vision consisted only of the five centers of industrial activity -- the US, USSR, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan. By the early nineties, when he wrote Around the Cragged Hill, he clearly believed the U.S. to be doomed to decline and devoid of "intelligent and discriminating administration." And the less said about Kennan's view of non-WASPs, the better.

Believing as he did in a limitless human capacity for error, Mr. Kennan was an unabashed elitist who distrusted democratic processes. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas reported in their book "The Wise Men" that he suggested in an unpublished work that women, blacks and immigrants be disenfranchised. He deplored the automobile, computers, commercialism, environmental degradation and other manifestations of modern life. He loathed popular American culture. In his memoirs, he described himself as a "guest of one's time and not a member of its household."

He not only deplored such modern gadgets as cars and computers, and equal rights for all, he deplored nuclear weapons; he pushed his opposition to the point where he was considered unemployable in the State Department, and retired to that haven of the impractical man, academia.

There, he forged a productive career, writing books, articles and winning prizes; his views remained archaic and unworkable, which is a pity. He made a great contribution to American public life during his short spell of real influence; looking back, one can only consider that if he had only been more willing to re-examine his views, he might have made a far greater contribution then he actually did.

See also David Adesnik, and a collection of his Foreign Policy contributions can be viewed here

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Instapundit has already just linked to it, and to other responses to the same story, and copied and pasted the first two paragraphs. It being a CNN report about how Forbes has included Fidel Castro in its list of the world's richest people, and about how Fidel Castro is not amused. This story will soon be everywhere, but I do not care. Count me in, if only as one delighted heckler among millions.

Funny as those first two paragraphs are, I think this sentence is my particular favourite:

Castro, 78, and in power since a 1959 revolution, said he was considering suing.

I cannot believe he really said that, but in the event that he did... you go grandad.

This reminds me of Danny de Vito's line in Mars Attacks, where he says (if memory serves), to the invading Martians, something like: "You want to take over the world. You're gonna need lawyers, right?"

Not that Fidel is trying to take over the world any more. It is just the idea of a hitherto unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist trying to protect what's left of his revolutionary reputation by calling in the lawyers.

It is, alas, far too much to hope that he will really do it.

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"To permit an entire class of political communications to be completely unregulated... would permit an evasion of campaign finance laws..."

The American regions of the blogosphere has been reverberating after Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated that blogs must be regulated in order to comply with US campaign finance laws.

However I do not propose to add my voice to the myriad of other commentators decrying this or explaining why it is such a bad idea, as regular readers of this blog can pretty much join the dots to guess The Samizdata Position on that issue. What I will do though is point out that as well as being a threat to freedom of expression, this has huge positive potential as well.

There are few things more corrosive to the power of the state than for it to decree something and then be seen to be unable to enforce its writ. So let Colleen Kollar-Kotelly do her worst. You want to link to a Democratic or Republican campaign site regardless of what regulations say you can or cannot do? Simple... off-shore hosting. Host your blog outside the USA and post using a pseudonym (like maybe "Tom Paine" or "Ben Franklin") and then link to whoever the hell you want to. Moreover put a banner on your blog saying "This Blog is in wilful violation of US Campaign Laws and there is not a damn thing you can do about it".

Hell, my 'inner capitalist' is whispering in my ear as I write this... I just might talk to some chums of mine who are hosting experts with a view to setting up Samizdata.net branded non-US based hosting, available for bloggers across the political spectrum who want to stick their thumb in the eye of those people who want to control free political expression. Anything which weakens the authority of the state, shows the limits of political power and makes enterprising folks some money whilst helping people to do all that is too good for me to pass up. Yeah, I really hope this travesty becomes law in the USA... stay tuned <evil laugh>

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My former flatmate Drew Johnson has been setting up a new think tank. It has just launched a website. Called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the organization aims to do for the US state of Tennessee the excellent job that many state-based think tanks have been doing elsewhere in the United States. So get to work with the Jack Daniels and Coke and give Drew some moral support by visiting his site.

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Irony, or hypocrisy? You decide.

In one of those events that barely even raises an eyebrow anymore, one of the leaders of the "Million Mom March" in favor of (even more) gun control, was arrested on firearms violations.

A Springfield woman who began lobbying against gun violence after her son was shot to death in 2002 was arrested last week when police allegedly found an illegal gun and drugs in her home.

First, lets be clear - she wasn't lobbying against gun violence, she was lobbying against gun ownership. The Million Mom March was all about driving guns out of everyone's hands, regardless of criminality.

So just what was she busted for? Having a gun with a scratched-off serial number, and not having firearms owner ID card (required by Illinois). Two classic gun-grabber laws, here being applied to someone who admits that she had the gun in question.

In other words, she admits violating the laws in question. One wonders if she will plead guilty and volunteer for jail time, as her beliefs would seem to require. Well, one wonders only if one is terminally naive - she is fighting the case, apparently unwilling to live with the consequences of the restrictions she wants to impose on others.

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Michael Barone is truly the dean of American political analysis. Throughout last year's election, his analysis was spot-on, and his recent post mortem continues in the same vein.

I have long thought that the way to win elections in the US was not to chase the apathetic and uninformed "undecided" voters, but rather to "motivate your base", that is, to give people who care about goverance and who lean your way philosophically a reason to vote for you. I was particularly gratified to have a strategy that is generally dismissed by the American commentariat ratified by Michael Barone:

But polling in late 2003 and for most of 2004 indicated a very close presidential race. Bush strategist Karl Rove keeps a card in his pocket showing that the percentage of voters who were behaviorally "independent" declined from 15 percent in 1988 to 7 percent in 2002. The strategy that Rove designed and that Bush-Cheney '04 campaign manager Ken Mehlman executed was geared not to persuading the undecided and weakly committed voters, but to turning out the maximum number of Republicans. The Kerry campaign and other Democrats likewise saw their main task as turning out the party faithful.

Rove won the turnout war (although not for lack of, erm, "creative" attempts by the Democrats to get the Deceased-American and Fictional-American communities to the polls in critical precincts), and the rest is history.

The Dems achieved impressive turnout gains, Barone notes, using their old, command-and-control, industrial-era model. They were, however, buried by Republicans using a new networked model for campaign organization. As a result, the Republicans under George W. Bush may well have turned the Democrat's flank , inaugurating an era of Republican dominance.

The 2004 election has also reshaped the American electorate, in part through the invention of new political techniques. It is too early to say that it produced a natural majority for the winning party. But it has laid the groundwork.

In this article, Barone shows how it is done, using historical perspective and current data to put forth a predictive and testable thesis. If you get all wonky over American politics, read the whole thing. Peddling its insights at cocktail parties will make you seem smarter than you are, and isn't that the ultimate payoff for all the blogs you read?

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For a while now, I have reading about how the mighty U.S. economy, heavily in debt, with big budget deficits and a large current account black hole, is headed for the rocks. The dollar is on the skids, inflationary pressures are rising, the Fed has been putting up interest rates, the coming Social Security crunch... you know the drill. And some of these worries are to my mind justified, which explains why, with all the plan's faults, I broadly applaud the efforts of President Bush to overhaul the state pensions system.

Is the situation really as grim as some of the jeremiads claim, however? This suitably wonkish article in the prestigious Foreign Affairs journal argues that things are not nearly as worrying as some might make out and that if anyone has cause for worry, it is Europe with its shrinking birth rates.

The article concudes with this paragraph, and it seems to hit the mark, in my view:

Only one development could upset this optimistic prognosis: an end to the technological dynamism, openness to trade, and flexibility that have powered the U.S. economy. The biggest threat to U.S. hegemony, accordingly, stems not from the sentiments of foreign investors, but from protectionism and isolationism at home

Indeed.

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He may not be the sort of man who gets the attention of the ordinary citizen, or the sort of man one talks about down the Dog and Duck on a Friday night, but New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, wannabe Democrat politician and formidable lawyer, is making quite a name for himself as a legal terror of big Wall Street businesses, launching a flood of suits against insurers, brokerages, fund management companies and banks.

Some of his suits may have an element of justice behind them and no doubt he has calculated that bashing the Gordon Gekko classes makes for good copy and will no doubt endear him to the sort of folk who regard Michael Moore as a political seer. To the rest of us, however, who make a living in the financial markets, his zeal is troubling. Take the recent so-called "scandal" surrounding the case of mutual fund firms which allowed certain types of quick-fire trades to happen in and out of their funds. The activity, while not illegal, is considered harmful because it can damage the long term investments of ordinary investors. Well maybe, maybe not. I find it worrying, however, that the cumulative impact of Spitzer's energies will be to push up the costs of doing business in the U.S. capital markets, and drive many smart would-be financiers into other fields.

We tend to forget that despite high-level scandals such as the collapse of energy giant Enron, the world economy has greatly benefitted from the efficiencies and new products driven by the entrepreneurs of the modern age. My worry about the whole raft of laws spawned in recent years, such as Sarbanes-Oxley or even the awful Patriot Act, is that financial innovation will be curbed. And as a result, many businesses will shun the public listed stock market and choose to go private instead if that is the way to avoid the glare of the Eliot Spitzers of this world.

Regulatory growth is not a sexy subject, I admit, but let's not forget that the destruction of wealth and entrepreneurial morale will end up biting us in the economic behind if we don't take a full regard to the effects.

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I was on the road again today, or perhaps I should say 'rail'. The US northeast is still very much in the deep freeze as one can see from this photo I took somewhere before Baltimore.

Photo: Copyright Dale Amon, all rights reserved.

The AMTRAK Acela train seemed to require more resets than a Microsoft Operating system. We were stopped a half hour on a siding while they attempted to 'reset the air'; and later for problems in the lead locomotive. My 'express' train trip took nearly five hours from Penn Station NYC to Union Station DC and wrecked my plans for meeting up with some aerospace types in town. I will not complain too loudly though. The trains have normal AC power available for your laptops, you have enough legroom and arm room to actually type... and you can use your mobile phone.

As opportunity arises - I am now on another gig and my meter is running - I will catch up on a few photo stories left over from Manhattan.

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Today is the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 1916 that income tax is a violation of the Constitution.

So the politicians had to change to Constitution.

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I am working in Manhattan this week and next and will post a few longer stories as I get caught up with work after several days of mail server problems. In the interim, here is a quick bit of weather photo-blogging.

It has been snowing all day long, is still snowing, and is slated to continue doing so for some time to come. I snapped a few photos during a walkabout in the Upper West Side of Manhattan a short while ago. While we did have a White Christmas in Belfast this year, it was nothing like this.

Photo: Copyright Dale Amon, all rights reserved

One day accumulations of this sort are more like what I grew up with in Western Pennsylvania. Ah, the glory of snow days!

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After his oath to protect the Constitution of the United States President Bush made a speech in which he said he wished people in other nations to be free in their own way.

I hope he meant this, as the examples of the broad American way of freedom that President Bush gave in his speech were 'the Homestead Act', the 'Social Security Act' and 'the G.I. Bill of rights'.

The Social Security Act (a government pyramid scheme) speaks for itself. As does free education for ex-servicemen (to call this the 'GI Bill of Rights' was an insult to the real Bill of Rights - rights as limits on government power, not excuses for it).

As for the Homestead Act - well this (in 1862 I believe) was an effort by President Lincoln to copy some of the ideas of Jefferson (as expressed in the North West Ordinance) of breaking up land into small farms. In the West it was a terrible mistake - as much of the land was not (and is not) environmentally suitable for farming (as opposed to the big ranches that would have naturally envolved). 'Water mining' and soil damage (remember the dust bowl of the 1930's) were the result of the Homestead Act.

The Social Security Act at least was unconstitutional (or the Tenth Amendment does not mean a thing - and there is no need to list the powers of the fed government in Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution - as the "General Welfare" has been declared a power rather than what is actually the case, that "the common defence and general welfare" being the purpose of the powers).

In short, like most recent Presidents, Mr Bush does not have a clue about the document he swore to defend.

Oh well Presidents do not write their own speeches, and at least there was no plan to go to war with Lower Slobovia to make sure they have got a Social Security Act.

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Nothing gets the political class to lying their faces off like the chance to spend your money on their legacy.

I saw it in Madison, Wisconsin when the new Frank Lloyd Wright convention center was being pushed through. The lies included (a) we will not build a new hotel next to this facility (it was built a year or two later (b) this facility will not block views/access to the lake it is built on (it does, in spades), and (c) this facility will not be a drain on the public purse (it requires a taxpayer subsidy ad infinitum.

I am seeing it again in Dallas, where the legacy project revolves around the Trinity River that runs through downtown Dallas. Jim Schutze, the excellent political writer for Dallas' alternative newsweekly (the one with the sex ads) details the lies now on offer from the City of Dallas and its allies and puppets.

For example, recently arrived on my desk is the slickly produced special D magazine Trinity River edition, just out, called "The Trinity: How the river will change Dallas forever." This magazine--a collection of preposterous whoppers, fibs, prevarications, exaggerations, subterfuge, propaganda and Orwellian doublespeak--is an omen of things just ahead.

The D magazine special edition goes on and on about the recreational amenities the Trinity River project will create: "...the Trinity River will accommodate small sailboats and paddle boats," the magazine tells its readers. "More interestingly, a reverse-flow lake is planned with a 17-foot drop where it curves back to the river, creating rapids and a perfect whitewater course for winter kayaking competitions...

"But the most visible benefit will be on the Oak Cliff side, which will have easy access to downtown, great views and--most important of all--along the levee, direct entry into the country's largest urban park."

All of this is a lie.

Read it and weep.

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And speaking of rain, so here I am in Los Angeles, having escaped dreary grey London for a while and...

...it has been pissing down with rain here for 11 days now! Wonderful.

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There are a lot of big shiny 1940s-era aircraft zooming across our cinema screens at the moment. Yeh! We have had Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, we are due to get the remake of The Flight of Phoenix, based on the wonderful old movie starring James Stewart, and I have just returned from watching The Aviator, starring Leonardo Di Caprio as mogul, test pilot and eccentric, Howard Hughes. It is a fine film, and makes a number of important points about the man himself, the nature of doing business in America in the mid-20th Century and the evolution of modern air travel.

The story is quite well known of how a rich young oil family son becomes a major player in the aviation industry, challenges rivals like PanAm, produces smash-hit movies, before descending into madness and solitude. Director Martin Scorcese has long been fascinated with Hughes' tale and gets DiCaprio to convey the mixture of driving ambition, brilliant engineering skills, bravery and craziness. Hughes could be seen, from one vantage point as an almost Randian-style business hero, challenging rivals like PanAm, whose boss was played with appropriate menacing charm by Alec Baldwin.

There are two great scenes which get the pro-enterprise, unpretentious side of Hughes across. He drives with his then girlfriend, Katherine Hepburn, excellently played by Cate Blanchett, to see Hepburn's family. At lunch, Hepburn's mother, instantly declares to Hughes that "we are all socialists here", and "I do hope you are not a Republican", and Hughes, bless him, looking around the vast mansion and its grounds, is too dumbstruck at these comments to make a fast and smart reply. Recovering his composure, later Hughes tells the preening Hepburns that his favourite reading is technical engineering reports on planes, which of course has the welcome effect of shutting the ghastly Hepburns up.

In a later scene, set in 1947 when Hughes is fighting for the future of his airline TWA against the monopolistic ambitions PanAm in cahoots with the U.S. Senate, Hughes makes a number of fine points about competition and business risk-taking that almost got me cheering in the stalls. Hughes wins his battle and PanAm is forced to concede.

Hughes was a troubled man and spent the last two decades of his life in circumstances so lonely and depressed that it of course will colour one's view of his life in the round. But I came away from the film feeling a certain admiration for Hughes in how he was willing to challenge the status quo. Long after people have forgotten corrupt U.S. senators and complacent airline bosses, they will remember the man who built and flew some amazing planes. I also cannot help but wonder whether people will think something similar in future about our contemporary airline boss and daredevil man of action, Britain's own Richard Branson. We shall see.

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At Joanne Jacobs I learned about another of these teacher/pupil ruckuses where the teacher would appear to have behaved very stupidly.

17 year old Ahmad Al-Qloushi disagreed with his teacher, Professor Jospeh Woolcock, about America being great. Ahmad Al-Qloushi thinks it is. His teacher, Professor Joseph Woolcock, on the other hand, said to Ahmad Al-Qloushi that he needed therapy for expressing such an obviously bonkers opinion. The story is already bubbling away on the internet and will surely spread. Al-Qloushi has put his version of the story out there, and however much the Professor may curse, he cannot now reverse this. The Professor has filed a grievance, whatever exactly that means, against Al-Qloushi, for putting his, the Professor's, name out there, but out there it is and out there it will now remain.

Whenever I hear about disagreements like this, I always think to myself: well, maybe the guy is a bit crazy. Maybe, in this case, the essay was a bit bonkers. And maybe Al-Qloushi had said and done other crazy things which he is forgetting about, and this essay was just the final straw in a hayrick of craziness that we are not hearing about. So, I am especially interested that in addition to reading Al'Qloushi's complaint, we can also read the offending essay.

Says Joanne Jacobs:

If the student's tale is accurate, it's outrageous. It's one thing to flunk him - I think the essay is not bad for a 17-year-old immigrant - quite another to treat him like a lunatic because he thinks the Founders were good guys and is grateful America liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

This guy (IA?), on the other hand, is sceptical about Al-Qloushi. Registration may be needed at the other end of that link, so I quote from this mercurynews.com story at length.

Needed: a grain of salt

"Arab Student Pushed to see Therapist'' the headline began. The Foothill College Republicans blasted faxes to reporters this month complaining that a professor had forced a student to see the college therapist merely because the student wrote a pro-American essay.

This, the students fumed, is why the Los Altos Hills campus should adopt an Academic Bill of Rights.

Nationwide, conservatives are pushing the political protection bill, which says that while colleges tolerate different races, sexes and creeds, they only welcome liberal politics.

Ahmad Al-Qloushi seems a poster child for the cause: His political science professor allegedly told him to get psychological help simply because Al-Qloushi wrote a chest-thumping patriotic essay.

But IA was suspicious. Al-Qloushi happens to be president of the Foothill College Republicans - a fact the group's press materials neglected to mention.

What were the odds of a campaign-perfect case happening to the college Republican president?

"It is a coincidence,'' Al-Qloushi said, "but this is the case.''

IA tried to confirm Al-Qloushi's story - and a subsequent release from the group that said the professor had filed a grievance against Al-Qloushi - but campus officials said they couldn't discuss confidential professor-student matters.

The professor wouldn't return calls and e-mails; the therapist simply hung up.

Fair enough. If you criticise someone publicly, you become a target yourself.

My first reaction was that maybe an angry Professorial outburst was being misunderstood, or misinterpreted, as a serious recommendation. But if there is indeed a therapist involved, the Professor presumably meant his recommendation seriously.

And maybe the fact that Al-Qloushi is the college Republican president is all part of what the Professor regards as so crazy about him.

However, I further guess that the combination of a pupil who is also a student politician (and maybe also an aspiring politician period) plus the Internet, faced the Professor with a situation he did not see coming. I guess that this Professor is used to getting away with crap like this, but did not realise that he was dealing with a different sort of pupil to the ones he is used to subjugating. My guess is that this Professor is a lefty who did indeed, despite what the mercurynews.com guy says, do something seriously wrong, but who did not understand that the Internet has changed the rules of these little conflicts.

Maybe he simply underestimated his adversary, regarding him as a confused immigrant without the moxie (as Joanne Jacobs would say) to stand up for himself.

In which case, the Professor is now getting a rapid piece of further education in the subject he is already a Professor of: American government and politics.

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When people criticise 'America' for not giving more money to help with the horrendous calamity that has overwhelmed a large part of southern coastal Asia, they really need to keep in mind that, as mentioned on James Bartholomew's site, private aid does not get counted and that far outwieghs US government aid. Moreover, money received from a nation-state cannot be charity as the money is not freely given, whereas willingly donated private funds are true charity.

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There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
- Alexis de Tocqueville

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A full recount of Ohio's votes in the recent presidential election has been ordered by a federal court, following lobbying by the Libertarian and the Green presidential candidates. I have covered the story here. There is no way a full recount could be completed by December 13, when the Electoral College has to formally cast its votes.

It occurs to me that it is a very strange way of promoting the Libertarian message to waste $1.5 million of Ohio taxpayers' money. The recount is not going to change the overall result and could only conceivably cause the Libertarian candidate to finish behind the Constitutional Party or the Greens finish behind a local independent.

The real purpose is exposed by Badnarik's musings about TV exit polls. He appears to be the only person not taking medication in the US to believe that the exit polls were right (Kerry win) and the ballot counting wrong (Bush win). This beats Dan Rather anyday:

From what I can see, there's no reason to believe the exit polls were wrong, and fairly good reasons to believe that it was the election process that was faulty.

I can see some benefit to the Democratic Party in all this. Without spending any money, or attracting the tag of "Sore Loserman" from the 2000 election, the Kerry camp gets all the benefit of the Libertarian and Green lawyers trying to put their guy in the White House.

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...Thanks

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Instapundit thinks there is a connection between the dodgy cover-ups in US public life such as Rathergate and the Sandy Berger affair, as detailed here, and the basketbrawl and its public implications as detailed here. For good measure, he invites us to call him crazy.

I do not think he is crazy, but he might be taking a short term view. As Jim Geraghty put it:

There's one set of rules for regular folks, and another set of rules for celebrities, former high-ranking government officials, and other "important" people. If we break the rules, we pay the price. If a Dan Rather lies on the air, or Sandy Berger steals classified documents, there's no consequence.

Well, yes. I would posit, though, that rich and powerful figures in society have always benefited from these sorts of shenanegans. There is nothing new there. What IS new is that thanks to the compressed news cycle and bloggers, whistleblowers and better education, is that people are much less willing to put up with it. Compared to the dodgy dealings of earlier times, Rathergate is small beer indeed. We are not talking Teapot Dome here.

That is not to say that we should not worry about this level of dishonesty. Dodgy dealings by those with public responsibilities should never be tolerated. But it is a positive sign that people are increasingly unwilling to tolerate illegal behavior from what is laughingly known in some quarters as the Great and the Good. (Maybe one day people will worry about the actual laws that get passed. I remain an optimist.)

Instapundit thinks there's a connection between dodgy dealings and boys behaving badly, either playing or attending sport. I remain to be convinced. The actual fight in question seems to me to be a bit excessive, but hardly unprecedented. I have seen worse fights in Australian country football, and as for players and spectators interacting, well, after 25 years of watching cricket, I think I've seen it all before.

The shock that US bloggers seem to be in over the affair does suggest that it is new to American sports lovers though. But as a sportslover with a more global perspective, I would say that the behavior of sports fans (and indeed players) is probably somewhat improved, if you take a long term and global view.

But then, when it comes to the long term (longer then the next electoral cycle), I am a raging optimist. I think Professor Reynolds is wrong on this one.

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The Republican party is normally presented by the media and academia as the anti Welfare State party - the 'liberal' (i.e. statist) establishment denounce the Republicans as the party of cuts in government spending and wicked deregulation.

And yet when the Republicans win an election, most libertarians are not very pleased. Of course we are happy to see the media people upset or the academics in despair, but we do not really expect the Republicans to roll back the entitlement programs or slash and burn the mass of regulations. The reason for this, many libertarians tell themselves, is that Republicans are no good - they talk the language of freedom, but when put to the test they fail the voters who supported them.

However, there is another point of view and this is that most voters (including many people who vote Republican) just do not support liberty and would turn against the Republicans if they ever seriously tried to roll back government.

Take the example of the most recent election. Florida voted Republican for President and sent a new Republican to the United States Senate. And yet, at the same time, the great majority of voters in Florida supported a new State minimum wage law.

Is this because the Republicans did not oppose this minimum wage law? No they did oppose it (if you wish check, look at the web site of the Florida Republicans), but the people voted for it anyway.

People do not tend to support deregulation - when they think a regulation will (by magic) give them something they want (higher wages, cheaper medical care, whatever).

And people may vote for lower taxes, but they are not in the habit of voting for less government spending.

Deep down most Americans are not much different from the people in my own country (Britain), they do not care about the traditions of liberty - at least they do not c