Saturday
(0)
(5)Time and time again,
translation seems to sabotage the words,
you know what is said,
is not what is heard...
- Soulwax, song: Conversation Intercom
Saturday
While shuffling through a stack of magazines at the barber shop yesterday, I came across the August 9th issue of The New York Magazine. While not particularly familiar with the publication, one of the articles caught my eye. It was a conversation between Norman Mailer (NM) and his son John (JBM) entitled What I've Learned About Rage.
If I was more into the political scene in New York I probably would have realized what was coming but I somehow confused the name Norman Mailer with Norman Rockwell (heh), so I read on preparing to receive some fatherly advice about managing emotions. I got a lesson, alright, but certainly not the one I was expecting.
From the article, I gather that the Mailers are insiders with the New York Democratic (Socialist) Party. Besides being further proof that the mainstream media is in the tank for Kerry, the article was mostly how the Democratic Party can arrange protests during the upcoming Republican (Conservative) National Convention in New York. Those protests have already begun. The goal is to cause the most disruption to the Convention while simultaneously gaining the most favorable press for the Democrats. Disgusting, but dirty political tricks are nothing new to either side. The elder Mailer even suggested those sneaky Republicans really, really want lots of nasty riots and so will be secretly stirring up protests against their own Convention. I can not speak for the Republican planners, but that thought certainly gave me a rather nauseating glimpse into Mr. Mailer’s political mind.
Anyway, what really flabbergasted me was a something only a few paragraphs into the article where the younger Mailer dropped this little bombshell:
JBM I feel we've entered a realm where the question is, whose propaganda is better? The left (Democrat) is beginning to figure out that they can't beat the right (Republican) with intelligent argument. They need punch phrases that get to the heart of the average American...
Excuse me? Your party can not win with intelligent argument? Is that because you have no intelligent arguments to make or because the majority of people are too stupid to understand? This suggests either a very deep flaw with your basic tenets or a very dim view of the population in general. JBM continued with:
... If that's the case, what is the future for our country?
What indeed? The elder Mailer had a ready answer.
NM That’s not my first worry right now...
Double excuse me? You do not care what happens to the country as long as you win? I am beginning to understand why your party is bereft of intelligent argument!
Now, maybe I am just naïve. Maybe this is really how all politicos feel. But when was the last time you supported a group who proudly proclaimed: "Our side is wrong. We do not care. If we make enough noise, you idiots will still vote for us"?
Saturday
A smart and thought-provoking blogger I have recently come across, Perry Metzger, who seems to hail from the anarcho-capitalist bit of the libertarian intellectual universe, does not like the way this blog has supported the military ouster of Saddam Hussein. Now, of course another certain Perry (de Havilland) of this parish thinks rather differently.
Metzger asks how it is that folk who are so ardently opposed to the State can possibly countenance the use of force, including appropriation of wealth via taxation, to topple another regime deemed to be dangerous. Well, it is actually quite easy to answer that question in my view. First of all, not all libertarians believe a free society can exist without a minimal state, including one with the ability to provide external and internal security, which may include the need to take out violent and hostile foreign regimes.
Second, the supposedly sacred libertarian principle that thou shalt not initiate force against another is not very useful when it comes to judging whether regime X or Y poses your country a particular threat or not, and whether action of a Bush-style pre-emptive sort is justified and perhaps even more important, whether it is prudent. Good people will and do differ a lot about that.
Such disagreements cannot in my view be arbitrated solely by referring to abstract moral principles - although principles are of course crucial - but have to be also judged on events, by weighing up the possible consequences of an action or taking no action. In fact, taking no action and adopting a purely reactive approach to defence will also have consequences, not all of them necessarily good ones. There is no easy way to say which approach will always be better. So even two ardent libertarians who read a situation in the Middle East, say, could differ on fine points and end up having precisely the sort of heated debates we get in the comments sections.
I have changed my mind on so many aspects of the current war in Iraq that my head will probably explode at some point. At one point I felt the whole affair was a dumb mistake and we would have been better off leaving Saddam in his palaces and let things run on awhile. But regardless of what I thought about facts on the ground and the news reports I read, I honestly do not feel that appeals to higher tenets of libertarian theory really ever decisively swayed my mind about the particulars one way or the other.
Friday
It appears that Sadr and his Islamo-fascist militia will be allowed to slip away from the Mosque of Ali in Najaf without further harm. Even if they are indeed disarmed (yeah, right) before they withdraw, the fact their organisational infrastructure will be left intact calls into question the whole point of opposing him in the first place.
It seems to me that there are really only two sensible ways to see this:
Either conclude that following a policy of using force to confront Islamic extremism is too bloody to stomach, leading inevitably to adopting a policy of withdrawal from wherever Islamic terrorism threatens modern global civilisation...
...or conclude that once a decision to use force is taken, it will be followed through robustly and ruthlessly with the intention of killing fundamentalists leaders like Sadr and ideally as many of his hardcore supporters as is practical as well.
In reality I expect neither clear conclusion will be reached in the corridors of power in Washington DC (and do not get me going about the buffoons who run the Foreign Office) and a middle-way fudge that is already being offered up in the established media will be the perceived wisdom as key elements of the political classes work to keep the world safe for Sharia, legally enforced burquas, clitoridectomy and judicial amputations.
Surely the best way to ensure the survival of a tolerable regime in Iraq is to fill the graveyards with as many Islamic extremists as possible. If that policy is not acceptable, then surely one has no business using force to begin with as it seems perverse to kill people unless you are willing to do so for a damn good reason... either fight a war or do not, the middle way just gets you the worst of both worlds: you are hated for the people you kill and held in contempt for the people you would not kill.
The opportunity was there to turn the mosque of Ali into a funeral pyre of Islamic political aspirations. Today was the very last chance to do exactly that but it looks like the opportunity will drift away by this evening.
What a pity.
Friday
Perry de Havilland has pointed out previously that film critics seem to regard it as safer to sneer at films than to praise them.
Praise a film (at least praise a serious but non knee-jerk leftist film) and you run the risk of being considered weak minded. Sneer at the film - and you are a sophisticated person who is not taken in by commercial tricks.
The film critic of the Daily Telegraph is one of the sneering school of critics (that a Conservative newspaper allows its cultural coverage to be dominated by the standard knee-jerk crowd is, sadly, normal). In his review of The Village he duly sneered at the film - and, for good measure, sneered at The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable as well.
Well this got my attention (which, I suppose, is the point of a review) as I liked both of these films. Many people got to see the Sixth Sense - but, and in my opinion unfortunately, most people followed the far stronger and more unified critical attacks on Unbreakable and did not see the film.
Recently Unbreakable has been shown on British television and many people have said to me that they thought it was a good film. "Did you go and see Unbreakable when it was on at the cinema?" - "No, because the critics said..."
It seems to me that what the critics really hated about Unbreakable was that it was not 'tongue in cheek' or a 'good romp for the kids' but also did not make any 'serious' (i.e. leftist) political points. Unbreakable was essentially a non political but serious film which examined the question of what if a man really did have 'special powers', why would he deny them - and what would make him not deny them.
Of course one could say "Of course old Paul Marks liked the film - the hero is a bald security guard" as I am a bald security guard. However, the film stands up in the view of most people who have seen it (and most of these people are not bald security guards).
As for The Village itself:
Well yes, I liked the film (so thank you to Daily Telegraph reviewer for sneering at it - otherwise I would not have gone to see it). There are a couple of twists in the film (one fairly mild another more radical), but the film is well made, does make sense (and the more you think about the film, the more sense it makes that certain things happen the way they do) and was a good film to watch.
If you go to see the film (because of what I write here) and do not like it - well I am sorry to have badly advised you. However, at least I am giving my honest opinion - not just sneering to seem hip.
Friday
I have not really managed to develop much of an interest in the Olympic Games currently underway in Greece. I am watching the television right now. A bunch of Greek 'fans' are objecting to some US athletes for reasons I cannot quite seem to understand, judging by the less than helpful BBC commentator team.
The Games are not supposed to be about nationalism, and yet the constant focus seems to be on how many of 'our' (British) athletes have won how many gold, silver and bronze medals. When the Games are completed, there will be the usual bleating/gloating over how well 'our' men and women did. If 'we' do badly, be ready and primed for a great wailing about the unsportiness, unfitness, lack of moral fibre blah blah of young British folk.
It is easy to forget that the Olympics were originally envisioned as celebrating the value of individual achievement and struggle over nationalistic competition. I think it is fair to say that this hope has been well and truly thwarted.
Thursday
Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.
- H.L. Mencken
Which is what is so great about blogs and the blogosphere. Got a view about something? Set up your own 'press' and blog it.
Thursday
The one thing I know government is good for is countervailing against monopoly. It's not great at that either, but it is the only force I know that is fairly reliable. But if you've got a truly free market you only have a free market for a while before it becomes completely regulated by those aspects of it that have employed power laws to gain a complete monopoly.
The above paragraph appears in the latest edition of libertarian magazine Reason, one of the best and most thought-provoking mags out there in my opinion. The quote is taken from John Perry Barlow, veteran campaigner for civil liberties issues, scourge of government attempts to invade privacy, and a writer of lyrics for none other than the Grateful Dead.
And yet the above quotation is to my mind a piece of economic illiteracy so bad that I was rather surprised that the Reason interviewer, Brian Doherty, let him get away with his assertion about the free market so easily. However, where Reason failed, Samizdata can step in.
First off, when Barlow talks of 'power laws', what exactly does he mean? If he means stuff like draconian copyright laws, or licencing privileges to shaft potential competitors, then surely such things are the creation of governments and not a feature of a 'free market'! Most of the restrictions on competition which bar entrepreneurs from entering a field were created by governments in response to business lobbying. That is clearly a bad thing, but it is weird for Barlow to suggest that the remedy to such abuse of power is to 're-regulate' the market to somehow make it freer. The solution to the problem is surely to cut the state down to size so that it cannot disburse such corporate welfare privileges to vested interests in the first place.
In holding this view, Barlow makes the classic mistake of so many folk who think they have discovered a fatal flaw in capitalism in that some sectors of an economy get to be dominated by one or two major businesses such as Microsoft or the aluminium firm Alcoa. "Monopoly!", they cry, before demanding anti-trust style laws to break up businesses into smaller, supposedly more 'perfectly' competing bits. (Yes, I know Microsoft's particular circumstances are open to many legitimate attacks - I am not an apologist for them, in case commenters bring this up). This view is based on the failure to grasp that just because a firm has X percent of a market share and is very big, it is therefore somehow able to coerce folk into buying its products. However inconvenient it may be for me to avoid using the products of Bill Gates, say, I can do so. Microsoft or General Motors do not force me to buy their services at the point of a gun.
Another mistake linked to this confusion about monopoly is the failure to see that competition is not a state of affairs desirable for its own sake, but rather a dynamic process in which economic actors like businessmen are trying to figure out new and better ways to satisfy demands and also to come up with goods and services previously unthought of. At any one freeze-frame of an economy, there will be big, mature businesses fighting to hold their ground and operating on thin profit margins; medium-scale firms still posting sharp growth, and embryonic small fry waiting to burst into the scene. If a big firm with a large market share takes its eye off the ball for a second, it quickly can be overtaken by a previously unkown upstart, as indeed happened to IBM and other firms once thought to be invincible by critics like Barlow.
Big businesses are often the worst defenders of free markets, and are often only too keen on spending millions of their shareholders' money in lobbying for tariffs and other cushy deals from the State. But to expect the State, given its terrible track record, to make the market more "free" is one of the dumbest delusions there is.
Addendum: Thomas Sowell's excellent Basic Economics is a good place to clear up the sort of economic fallacies such as Barlow's.
Thursday
As the French celebrate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation , it seems to me entirely appropriate to draw attention to a rather more sanguine view of French history.
French-bashing has always been something of an indulgent British cultural habit that appears to have caught on in the USA where I get the impression that it is fast becoming a national pastime. Speaking for myself, I find most of its manifestations to be crass and juvenile but that should not deter any serious and critical examination of the key role played by the French state in much of the darkness and turmoil that has so overshadowed the 20th Century.
Professor Christie Davies has done just that in a forthright and trenchant essay for the Bruges Group:
The French defeat in 1870 decisively confirmed France's decline from being the most powerful nation in Continental Europe to that of a feeble and unimportant country rapidly falling behind Germany in population, economic importance and military strength. A decent and sensible country would have accepted that its relegation to the second division was inevitable but the French now tried to drag every country they could find into fighting the Germans. The French threw enormous sums of money into the economic development and thus military strengthening of Russia, then lost it all and nearly ruined themselves. The French shamelessly manipulated the guileless British into thinking they ought to be at the heart of Europe even though they never got further than the Somme. This delusion of an enfeebled France that it somehow had a historic right to dominate Europe, if not by force then by chicanery, is still the source of many of our more recent problems.
As I am not a historian I cannot vouch for the accuracy (or otherwise) of the various factual claims and I suppose it behoves me to point out that the Bruges Group is a think-tank staffed mainly by Conservatives who take a famously hostile view of the European Union.
That caveat aside, Professor Davies essay makes for a compelling, tragic and utterly damning read.
Wednesday
Well, since people don't want to talk about the really big issues (the mainstream media v. blogdom cage match), we might as well give 'em what they do want: the Kerry kerfuffle.
For agonizingly detailed analysis of the blow-by blow, then either Power Line or Captain's Quarters is probably the place to go.
My take:
Personally, I don't give a rat's ass what Kerry did as a soldier in Viet Nam all those years ago, just as I don't really care what George Bush did as a pilot in the National Guard. Both seem to have served adequately well, and I would be perfectly happy to let sleeping dogs lie. I am perfectly willing to stipulate that nothing either man did as a soldier has any relevance to their race for President.
End of story? Not really, because the Kerry kerfuffle is not really about what John Kerry did as a soldier. As far as I can tell, the Swifties are not accusing him of war crimes (Kerry handles that all by himself, not that anyone believes him). They are not even accusing him of incompetence, really. Even by the Swifties' account, he brought all his men home, killed a few bad guys, and generally carried out his mission as well as most young officers. Plenty good enough.
No, the current controversy is not about what Kerry did as a soldier, its about what he has done as a politician. Kerry's career as a politician predates and encompasses his brief military career. He was an anti-war activist before the war, something of a glory hound during the war, returned to anti-war activism after the war, and has been a professional politician just about ever since.
Once you put the Swifties' attack on Kerry in this context, they raise some very troubling questions. Kerry's entry into the military, framed as it is by anti-war and anti-military activity, begins to look like opportunistic ticket-punching. His medals look like more of the same, especially when you look at how they have been used by him as props for his political career ever since (he famously pretended to throw them over the White House fence, only he did not, and now hangs them on the wall of his office). Indeed, Kerry has built his career on the foundation of his four months in-country, and has done so in a way that highlights what many see as fundamental character flaws. Kerry has very characteristically tried to straddle the fence on Viet Nam, claiming on the one hand to be a war hero and on the other to be an anti-war activist.
The Swiftie attack is not on his service as a soldier, it is about how he has used that service (cynically and opportunistically, in their view) to advance his political career. The Swifties are saying that the anti-war side of the straddle disqualifies him from leading America in the current war, which is a purely political argument that does not touch on Kerry's service as a soldier.
They are also saying that the war hero side of the straddle is a fraud. Note that their quarrel is not really with what he did on the ground, it is with what he claims he did (in the military paperwork that resulted in his medals, and in his admittedly exaggerated accounts since then). What happened in the actions that resulted in his medals will be hard to sort out, but I would say the Swifties have landed some telling blows. Principally, Kerry has abandoned "Christmas in Cambodia," the critical turning point that allowed his brave soldier and anti-war activist personae to co-exist.
Good lawyers know that nothing is more important than framing the debate. The Swifties, in their rage at Kerry for, in their view, stabbing them in the back, have not done a very good job of clearly framing this debate as being about Kerry the Cynical and Opportunistic Politico, rather than being about Kerry the Brave and Noble Swabbie. That will probably, in the end, rob their campaign of much of its power.
The folks who want Kerry to take power want to frame the debate as being about Kerry's service as a soldier, so they can delegitimize and confuse the issues raised by Kerry's career as a politican. Just because the mainstream media, who are pretty comprehensively in the tank for Kerry, are falling for and enabling this strategy, does not mean you have to.
Wednesday
There are many annoying things about computing but one of those things that is most likely to reduce me to screaming at the monitor and firing up Google to hunt down the home addresses of certain programmers is rude software.
Yahoo is a particular offender. Download and install their Yahoo Instant Messenger (or better yet, do not) and you get, unasked for, an icon in the taskbar and two more in Internet Explorer, all without so much as a 'by your leave'. Install the whole suite of Yahoo products and you get even more. This is 'interruption marketing' and contravenes the cardinal rule of 'do not piss off the customer'. If I wanted the frigging icons taking up my screen real estate, I would have damn well asked for them. So if you find that as intolerable as I do, download Trillian and use Yahoo Instant Messenger's services without actually having to sully your machine with Yahoo Instant Messenger. Hey Yahoo, my response to you trying to shove your products in front of me? Let's try "Screw you, I am going to use your more congenial competitor". I am willing to pay to be treated more to my liking.
The same 'interruption' ethos can be found all over the internet. The most extreme form is practiced (mostly by porn sites) via complete browser hijacking, persistent pop-up windows and the criminal practice of trying to covertly download diallers and other adware/malware onto your computer. Less extreme but more common are simple intermediate link hijacks. For example if you are a gamer, you might want to check out the well known site Gamespy for up to date news on the subject. But every now and again, you will find yourself confronted not with the Gamespy page whose link you just clicked but rather a bright green page with an advertisement that will eventually release you and send you to where you actually want to go on the site. No doubt Gamespy thinks hijacking some of your valuable eyeball time is a small price to pay for their well informed site.
No, I beg to differ. In fact not just "no" but "get stuffed" is my real reply. If you want to subject me to advertisements, bloody well ask me if I mind first. And my answer will be "No thanks, I mind very much". Not an option? Fine, then I will take my eyeballs to Worthplaying.com, whose coverage of games is just as good and whose advertisements are far less intrusive.
If popup advertisements and link hijacks do not bother you, all well and good, you see things the way 'they' wish we all did. Speaking for myself, my time is far too valuable to waste on information I was not looking for. The internet is filled with many choices and that means there is no need to tolerate that sort of 'push advertising' approach. Internet advertising is cheap so the cost of indifference is far lower per pair of eyeballs than, say, a magazine advert. But that is not true if the advertisement has the opposite effect you want. If your company tried that on me, the consequences will be negative value for your money. Not only does interruptive advertising not work on me, it actively makes me your enemy and induces me to spend some of my valuable time to seek out alternative ways to achieve my objectives that will definitely not include you. And I am far from the only one who feels that way... your competitors are only a few clicks away.
Wednesday
James Lileks, riffing on John Kerry's nomination speech last month:
My life today would have been much easier if I hadn’t been struck with the vision of a former president taking the podium in Boston to announce “I’m Bill Clinton, and I’m reporting for booty!”
Wednesday
I would guess not, because he was complaining bitterly about the regulatory nature of the British government, in an article which drew a dry smile.
After making the confident predicition that the world as we know it will end, on the grounds we are running out of oil, Monbiot presents for our admiration a commune in Somerset. But our hippy heroes found to their dismay that regulations thwarted them at every turn:
Peasant farming, the settlers have found, is effectively illegal in the UK.The first hazard is the planning system. The model is viable only if you build your own home from your own materials on your own land: you can't live like this and support a mortgage. So the settlers imposed more rules on themselves: their houses, built of timber, straw bales, wattle and daub and thatch, would have the minimum visual and environmental impact.
But the planning system makes no provision for this. It is unable to distinguish between an eight-bedroom blot on the landscape and a home which can be seen only when you blunder into it.
...Then the environmental health inspectors struck...
... Tinkers' Bubble, which has never poisoned anyone, is now forbidden to sell any kind of processed food or drink: its cheese, bacon, juice and cider have been banned.
I think it is just hilarious that the hippies of Tinker's Bubble, who have imposed all manner of self-regulations on themselves, find themselves so hindered.
The State is not your friend, even if you are a hippy on a commune.
Wednesday
One of the most enduring, and in some ways quite endearing, characteristics of the British left is their propensity to take themselves so deadly seriously. It is precisely this characteristic that lies behind their customarily ludicrous, nay comical, aggrandisements.
There is not, I submit, a single Trot journal or website that does not periodically feature a 48-point headline declaring that "The Revolution Has Begun" in response to an afternoon of industrial action by a group of clerical workers at a Job Centre in West Bromwich.
For these people, the steps of the Winter Palace are always on the verge of being stormed and they appear entirely unable to grasp the fact that, the more earnest and po-faced they are, the more pant-wettingly hilarious they become.
The latest recruits to this mythical army of restless proletarians are American sociologists who are about to cast off their chains:
More than 5,000 American sociologists, plus a few foreign scholars, held their largest and, many said, most vibrant annual convention for years.Bush and Kerry were campaigning through nearby states. Their soundbites were rarely mentioned, but the lack of serious debate is one reason for US sociology's new political engagement after decades of quiet since the 60s.
Be on notice you nattering nabobs of neo-liberalism! The sociologists are waking from their slumbers and soon the entire civilised world will quake to vibration of their sensible shoes on the warpath.
The profession's centre of gravity is moving left.
No kidding!!??
There is a drive to inject ethical standards into the analysis of what most agree is a US society becoming increasingly polarised beneath its veneer of shared consumerism.
Er, if the consumerism is 'shared' then who, exactly, is 'polarised' here?
Words like "empire" and "inequality" popped up frequently at this conference after their post-Vietnam war dormancy. New phrases like "the corporate state" and "global apartheid" appeared.
Any context at all? Or does one delegate simply sidle up to another delegate, whisper the word 'inequality' and shuffle off again with an enigmatic look on their face?
Half the world's PhDs in sociology are taken at American universities. The US has 13,000 career sociologists, a potential for extraordinary intellectual hegemony.
Not to mention an extraordinary waste of wood pulp. And one would think that this British author would appreciate that here in Blighty the word 'sociologist' has rather negative connotations. 'Career sociologist' is usually a euphamism for a middle-aged beardy-weirdy with no job.
Without rigorous scholarly standards no public sociology will be taken seriously.
Just ignore the first four words of that sentence, please.
The South Africans and east Europeans present were ex-dissidents who described how the advent of democratic and legitimate governments in their countries had brought new problems. Debate narrowed, intellectuals were less in demand and disappointment with rising social inequality and the new governments' economic policies was leading to public apathy.
So the useless, boring wankers of yesteryear are still, useless boring wankers only without a state stipend. Tragic!
Jacklyn Cock, author of a path-breaking exposure of the plight of domestic workers in South Africa, called on sociologists to stand in solidarity with the new social movements.
See, this is precisely the kind of thing I was talking about. See above.
Four days in California are not going to change the world. But it was hard not to feel that something big is stirring in US academic life.
Yes, a very large pot of tea.
The foreign subjects of America's global empire have been restless for years. Now some of the sharpest minds are raising questions. Even if John Kerry wins control of the White House, the rebellion is unlikely to stop.
Did you hear that, all you bourgeois lackies of the capitalist running dog? Do you imagine that your flimsy paper empire can possibly halt the march of truth, progress and historic inevitability? The sociologists people are angry and they are rising up in solidarity against the forces of Reagonomic reaction. The revolution is at hand!
I know, I know. This is the Guardian and I really should learn to pick on someone my own size. But when I come across comedic treasures like this, I simply cannot resist the urge to share them with the world. Just call me an altruist.
Tuesday
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
- P. J. O'Rourke
Tuesday
Robin Cook, the former Cabinet Minister, who resigned with aplomb on the eve of the Iraqi War, has proved a popular alternative for the anti-war brigade on the backbenches of the House of Commons. His speeches have provided illuminating insights into the mindset of those who view anti-terrorist actions as propaganda to expand the power of the United States. The debate on combating terrorism is structured as a conflict between freedom and security, balancing civil liberties against the need to pre-empt atrocities on innocent civilians. There is a case for arguing that the erosion of civil liberties in Britain has been accelerated by Blunkett the authoritarian using the 'war on terror' as a convenient excuse.
Robin Cook, in a speech at the Edinburgh Book Festival, personified the anti-war Left, and argued that the anti-terrorist activities of the British government was a conflict between multiculturalism and security. The necessity of combating Al-Qa'eda operatives was secondary to the importance of reinforcing and extending a multicultural society. Cook evinced some surprise at this recent development:
He said: “I’m deeply troubled by the increase in raids under the Anti-Terrorism Act which are now running, staggeringly, at 10 times the level of three years ago.“There were 30,000 raids under the Prevention of Terrorism Act last year from which less than 100 individuals were charged with offences relating to terrorism.”
What was three years ago? In contrast to this omission, Cook made a veiled reference to the Muslim vote, now so important in certain constituencies. This has followed his recent courting of Muslim leaders, supping at the same stagnant reservoir of support that has attracted other midges, such as Respect and the Liberal Democrats:
Mr Cook, who quit the Cabinet over the Iraq war, went on: “There’s a real risk that if we continue with that we will end up alienating the very people we need for a successful multi-cultural society and a successful appeal to people around the world of a different culture.”
Although the speech was crafted for short-term political gain, Cook provides evidence that a proportion of those who demonstrated against the war, will continue to oppose measures that can be utilised to investigate and break up terrorist cells and sympathisers in the United Kingdom.
Tuesday
President Bush had a chance to make a ringing endorsement of free speech rights, and he muffed it big time. From the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web (which doesn't seem to do permalinks):
Never murder a man who is committing suicide," Woodrow Wilson once said. President Bush seems to be following that advice, refusing to be drawn into the controversy over the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's allegations about John Kerry's Vietnam War record. Yesterday the president did, however, make a procedural criticism of the group, as the New York Times reports:In response to reporters' questions, the president once again condemned the so-called 527 groups, which can raise unlimited donations and run attack ads, but cannot directly coordinate their efforts with the campaigns. . . ."All of them," the president said, when asked whether he specifically meant that the veteran's group's ad against Mr. Kerry should be stopped. "That means that ad, every other ad. Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527's. I can't be more plain about it, and I wish--I hope my opponent joins me in saying--condemning these activities of the 527's. It's--I think they're bad for the system."
For once we'd have to say Bush is actually vulnerable to criticism from civil libertarians. Does he really mean to suggest that no group except a campaign or a political party has the right to express its political views? And of course Bush is substantially to blame for the rise of 527s as an alternative to campaigns and parties, whose fund-raising and free speech are severely restricted by the McCain-Feingold law, which he signed.
Why couldn't Bush have said "Hey, its a free country. If they want to exercise their right to free speech, put out a book, run some ads, who am I to say no?"
Its hard to say what Bush really believes should be legal campaign discourse - apparently, political parties should have their contributions choked off, campaigns should be subject to strict limits (after all, he signed the McCain-Feingold bill that did just this), and independent, unincorporated associations should be prohibited from saying anything political as well.
Who does that leave? Well, the media and bloggers, I guess. So far, in the cage match between Old Media and the Unwashed Masses (that would be you and me), the Masses are ahead on points, in my book.
Monday
God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time! Forty three species of parrot! Nipples for men! Slugs! He created slugs! They can't hear! They can't speak! They can't operate machinery! I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic? If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!
- from Time Bandits
Monday
Any regular reader of Samizdata.net has probably noticed that I am no enthusiast for the democratic process, which I just regard as little more than a system of legitimising proxy mugging. I can see a role for democracy as a countervailing force even in a limited-government minarchist state, but as currently practiced it is rarely more than just a way to try and appropriate the money of others, impose restriction on competitors and generally add the force of law to personal prejudices in ways that conflate state and society to the profound determent of the later.
However I could not help but laugh when I read how the Democratic Party, who by their name one might assume were very keen on democracy, have been pulling all manner of legal tricks to keep socialist Ralph Nader off the US Presidential ballots. I expect the Republicans might try the same sort of thing against the turgid US Libertarian Party if they ever become a significent threat (not something I can see anytime soon).
But then that approach to choice is American as apple pie in some circles... "You can have any colour, as long as it is black". This is why so much effort goes into the making the small differences between the two parties in the US seem VASTLY IMPORTANT TO THE FATE OF THE WORLD... otherwise people might start to think it actually does not matter a damn which particular lying parasite gets sent to Washington DC and that election day would be a pretty good time to go to do something really important, like maybe go to the beach or look at the cost of relocating to New Hampshire where voting really might cause something interesting to happen.
Monday
The latest engagement in the file sharing wars is a victory for the forces of, well, file sharing.
The makers of two leading file-sharing programs are not legally liable for the songs, movies and other copyright works swapped online by their users, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in a stinging blow to the entertainment industry.
So far, so good. Those using file-sharing software to violate property rights are, after all, personally responsible for what they do. File sharing software has legitimate uses, and its makers should no more be held responsible for illegitimate uses than a camera manufacturer should be held responsible for child pornography.
Among other reasons, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., unlike the original Napster, were not liable because they don’t have central servers pointing users to copyright material.
One begins to suspect that the court is straining a tad to distinguish its earlier decision shutting down Napster, but let that pass. One is always surprised to find the reliably statist Ninth Circuit signing paeans to the market, but whatever gets them through the opinion, right?
“History has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player,” [Judge] Thomas wrote. “Thus, it is prudent for courts to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories.”
Finally, a quote from the Ninth Circuit that I hope to find cited in other cases. Full opinion here, and hat tip to Hit & Run.
Sunday
During a very pleasant week in the island of Malta, I took a fair old mix of books to read while catching some rays on the beach. Among the books I had been meaning, out of curiousity. to read was Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. (A sort of upmarket version of Confessions of a Bored French Housewife). I read the novel in about three days and I can say that the book is one of the most overated pieces of crud it has been my misfortune to read for a long time. I have read a fair amount of famous French literature in my time (I love Dumas and Hugo) but this was poor.
I can see why the book appeals to a certain kind of reader. While it tilts at the vital issue of women's liberation and the dangers of destructive relationships, it is in fact also deeply cynical and negative. It maintains a sustained sneer at a whole way of being for about 290 pages. While obsessed about the "hypocrisy" of 19th Century social mores, it utterly fails to suggest how a more "honest" value system would work. (Never mind the old adage that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue).
At times there is almost Woody Allenish message jumping from the page: "Life sucks and then you die". It is also hugely conceited and snobbish about ordinary, middle class people. (Flaubert prided himself on not performing any productive work in his life). It set the precedent for a whole range of books and plays mocking the middle class and supposed stuffy convention. However, unlike the wonderful short stories of Saki or the plays of Osar Wilde, Flaubert is rarely funny.
Why worry now about a book by a diseased Frenchman penned 150 years ago? Well, as this fine short article by Anthony Daniels makes clear, we have been paying the price for sneering at the bourgois value system almost as soon as the word "bourgois" became part of our verbal lexicon. The greatest victims, invariably, are the poor and ill educated.
Sunday
It is a common occurrence on this blog to point out how the Labour government blatantly pursues its socialist agenda. Yes, I am using the S-word in relation to the party that has been polished and spun by the likes of Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair for the public consumption. Today after reading the Sunday Telegraph, gloom descended upon me in an almost David-Carr-esque manner.
The Labour government, true to its socialist DNA, is making headlines again with its penchant for tax increases. The front page announces that inheritance tax is to rise to 50 per cent for those whose inheritance exceed a limit set by socialist bureaucrats or worse yet, a bunch of self-righteous lefties. Institute for Public Policy Research that came up with the scheme is indeed firmly wedged in the socialist utopia:
Inheritance tax needs to be made fairer, according to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), published next week. The report recommends a tax cut for middle class families, with extra revenues raised from the wealthiest invested in assets for the poorest children.
Ah, children. Beware of 'children' mentioned in any political context.
A fairer inheritance tax would see the very wealthy, who are comfortably over the threshold, pay more, whilst the vast majority of families that are currently taxed would pay less.
Again, a fairer inheritance tax. Fairer to whom? To those who build up assets during their lifetime so they can choose to pass them on to their children? And, pray, what is that 'threshold', which the very wealthy are comfortably over?
The quotes read like passages from an old Marxist-Leninist textbook, the problem is that they originate from an institute whose former director, Matthew Taylor, is now the head of policy unit at No 10 Downing street. It has been suggested that the scheme may be a "big idea" for a third Labour term in power.
But the Labourites are not yet finished with the Middle England and with anybody who either owns a roof over their heads or stands to inherit one. Northern Ireland minister admitted there will be significant shifts in rate bills [local government tax], particularly at the top end of the market.
It is only fair that those who can afford to pay do pay a fairer share as soon as possible.
Here we go again, talk of fairness... fair to whom and fair by whose definition? Who are these guardians of fairness and equality that they feel confident to define how much I get to keep before I am forced to pay a fairer share? These are the very same people whose existence and - dare I say it - salaries depend on the money that are extracted from all of us to self-righteous noises about 'schoolsandhospitals'.
For once, the Tories managed a sound-bite:
It is becoming clearer by the day that Labour are planning third-term tax rises to feed their appetite for fat government.
The only thing that is not clear to me is that how Labour's propensity for taxation and fat government has not been clear to everybody all along.
