We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

3Q&3A

Have we got fed up with Americans, especially for some reason Donald Rumsfeld, asking three questions in a row and answering them for themselves with three different but oh-so-poetically balanced adverbs instead of waiting for answers from the persons they’re talking to like normal people? Absolutely. Is Ally McBeal to blame for this, and in particular John Cage, also known as (I don’t know why) “The Biscuit” (who is otherwise very good fun, I think)? Possibly. Would we like them to stop? Immediately.

The trouble with Prince Charles

How can I count the ways! Well first, let me say what is right with him… namely that as a future constitutional figurehead monarch, he is in fact powerless to do jack shit to impose his world view on the rest of us and his ideas are in reality no more significant than John Bull the Greengrocer. That is a very good thing indeed because unlike members of the government, we are free to ignore his bleating if we wish.

The thing that annoys me however is that when Charles opines in some issues, such as hunting, people misunderstand his underpinning philosophy. People think of him as advocating liberties against the encroachment of the state because he supports the right of hunters to hunt in Britain, but this is utterly incorrect. Prince Charles is in fact an advocate of big interventionist redistributive government: for example see his calls for taxpayers to be forced to subsidise organic farms (which overwhelmingly sell to higher income members of the public). Most significantly he has no problem whatsoever with the philosophical position that rights exist collectively, which is the underpinning of every tyranny imaginable. In a letter to Downing Street, the Prince wrote:

The Human Rights Act is only about the rights of individuals. This betrays a fundamental distortion in social and legal thinking

So when Charles says:

Our lives are becoming ruled by a truly absurd degree of politically correct interference

He is not arguing against the morality of the state interfering in people’s lives, just the fact that it is not being done in a way he approves of. Like so many paleo-conservatives, he thinks the state telling you how to live your life is just fine, provided ‘sensible chaps from Eton’ are the ones in control of that state.

Please help me on Connecticut

Paul Marks has a question for the blogosphere

Some weeks ago I bought a copy of the American journal Liberty (the September edition). I bought the publication because it had an interesting section on State and local taxes in the United States (written by R.W. Bradford).

On reading the section I found various minor errors (which I will not bore you all with), but one feature of the section keeps tormenting me.

Mr Bradford makes a major point of families in Connecticut paying over a fifth of their incomes in State and local taxes (with the biggest bite coming from property taxes).

Is this really true? Do families in Connecticut really lose more than a fifth of their income (regardless of whether the family income is 25,000 dollars or 150,000 dollars – or anything in between), to the various State and local taxes (income tax, sales tax, property tax and so on).

You see Connecticut is a high income State (so the Feds income tax takes a big chunk of Connecticut incomes). If the State and local governments take more than 20% of people’s incomes (in one way or another) and the Feds take another large junk (in Social Security tax, Income Tax and so on) then people in Connecticut are rather more harshly taxed than people in Britain.

Paul Marks

Samizdata slogan of the day

Hey, just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t understand!
– a slice of The Wisdom of Homer Simpson

A meme machine at work

Today I came across this on my wanderings, a US Libertarian Party candidate called Ken Krawchuk who seems to be making some kind of impact, in particular by wiping the studio floor in a TV debate with his Republicrat opponents. A huge haul of votes, forget it, but the serious spreading of some of our memes, definitely. Such as:

We’re letting murderers and rapists out of prison to make room for pot-smoking Grateful Dead fans. That’s insane!

That got a cheer from a mostly college audience. And there was another good one about a handgun being a girl’s best friend. Thanks to Heretical Ideas for the link.

War and Peace

In my last two postings about war on Iraq, I tried to set out the moral grounds for using military force against another country, as well as distinguish between civilians and combatants. The blogosphere had already been teaming with opinions, moral or otherwise, about the war on terror, Iraq, the US military power and its proper use. when Steven Den Beste posited the conflict as more than a mere ‘war on terrorism’ but rather clash of cultures and civilisations in his article last week.

The majority of reactions were, predictably, based on the respondents’ previously established positions. Some agreed because they agree with Den Beste and his ‘Hollywood-style patriotic wanks’ that make them feel good about themselves and the country they live in 1. Some disagreed for the sake of disagreeing; some may have even had genuine grounds for dissent although I am yet to see a counter-argument that would rise to the challenge. We at Samizdata have taken, ehm, a rational approach, and judged his ideas on their merit. We found that we could not disagree with the fundamental points of the treatise and were ready to admit it openly. Long live our unbiased and rational intellects!

Most of the analysis of the Arab World certainly made sense to me despite the occasional twinge of disagreement. It still did not add up to opposition in principle and I have continued to seriously think about Den Beste’s ‘Modest Proposal’ to subdue and transform Arab Traditionalism, to find out why I agree or why, if at all, I disagree with him. Re-reading the piece point by point did not yield conclusive result. I decided to re-examine my own fundamental reasons (both moral and practical) for supporting the war on Iraq.

This means that I will not fisk Den Beste’s proposal for his opponents’ benefit, nor will I please those who wish the world to agree with their ‘champion’. It is perhaps aimed at those who may share his conclusions but not the journey to it. → Continue reading: War and Peace

Strategic considerations for attack on Iraq

Part III of III

The long awaited third part on Iraq and war is different from what I originally intended. Strategic and military aspects remain important but the debate has moved on in a direction where evidence of Iraqi threat on its own does not convince. Strange since it provides the most obvious reason for war on Iraq – self-defence.

Both the US and the UK have maintained that Iraq has breached the provisions of the UN sanctioned ceasefire agreement from the Gulf War and continues to pose a military threat to the region. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s dossier on Iraq says President Saddam Hussein has the military planning to launch a weapon of mass destruction at 45 minutes’ notice.

There are other documents that deal with Iraq’s military capabilities and certainly convince me that self-defence is essential. A CSIS document Iraq’s Military Capabilities: Fighting A Wounded, But Dangerous, Poisonous Snake concludes:

It is both easy and dangerous to be an armchair field marshall. Anyone can assert how easily Saddam’s regime will collapse in the face of the slightest opposition, or produce worst case scenarios that argue against any form of attack. The reality is, however, that no one can firmly predict Iraq’s military capabilities and the uncertainties and intangibles are as important as the numbers. It is also important to remember that one key risk – Iraq’s unceasing efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction – will grow steadily worse with each year in which the UN cannot conduct effective inspections and take effective action. There are risks in not acting as well as acting.

Perhaps the best way to assess Iraq’s military capabilities, therefore, is to understand that a war might lead to extensive fighting, large civilian casualties, and significant US and allied casualties. It might involve weapons of mass destruction, and it might be far more costly than other recent wars.

This is not an argument for paralysis, but rather to avoid thinking of war as some safe and antiseptic process where other people’s sons and daughters take the risks. It is an argument against facile half-measures like arming a weak and ineffective opposition, and taking the risk that the Bay of Pigs may be followed by the Bay of Kurdistan. It is an argument against trying to do the job with limited amounts of air power or with air power alone, and without coalition allies and access to friendly bases in Turkey and the Gulf. It is an argument against trying to avoid the deployment of “decisive force” and several sustainable heavy US divisions. It is an argument against going to war without announcing clear redlines to prevent Iraq from using weapons of mass destruction, and without preparing a devastating US conventional response if it does. One does not play with poisonous snakes – wounded or not. One either kills them as safely and efficiently as possible or leaves them alone

Good stuff. Another one is IISS Strategic Dossier titled Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment, more recent and poignant:

In conclusion, war, sanctions and inspections have reversed and retarded, but not eliminated Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and long range missile capacities, nor have they removed Baghdad’s enduring interest in developing these capacities. The retention of WMD capacities by Iraq is self-evidently the core objective of the regime, for it has sacrificed all other domestic and foreign policy goals to this singular aim. It has retained this single objective, and pursued it in breach of the ceasefire and UN Security Council Resolutions that brought a conditional end to the 1991 Gulf War. Over more than eleven years the Iraqi regime has sought to evade its obligations and undermine support for the sanctions and inspections regime meant to eliminate its WMD capacities and contain its ambitions. Iraq has fought a relatively successful diplomatic war of attrition. It is worth recalling that the international debate 18 months ago was centred on how sanctions against Iraq might be relaxed, and inspections concluded with some dispatch in light of the dwindling willingness to support the containment policy developed in 1991.

Today, after four years without inspections, there can be no certainty about the extent of Iraq’s current capacities. A reasonable net assessment is that Iraq has no nuclear weapons but could build one quickly if it acquired sufficient fissile material. It has extensive biological weapons capabilities and a smaller chemical weapons stockpile. It has a small force of ballistic missiles with a range of 650km, that are capable of delivering CBW warheads, and has prepared other delivery methods for CBW, including manned aircraft and UAVs. Sooner or later, it seems likely that the current Iraqi regime will eventually achieve its objectives.

In compiling this Strategic Dossier, the IISS has sought to put the best available facts on this difficult issue before the wider public. This Strategic Dossier does not attempt to make a case, either way, as to whether Saddam Hussein’s WMD arsenal is a casus belli per se. Wait and the threat will grow; strike and the threat may be used. Clearly, governments have a pressing duty to develop early a strategy to deal comprehensively with this unique international problem.

Hear, hear.

Update: Just noticed Perry’s post below – not only he got there first with Tony’s dossier but also makes a similar point. Oh, well, great minds think alike.

Samizdata slogan of the day

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.
– G. K. Chesterton

Now this is rather interesting!

Here is the UK government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. As it is rather extensive I have yet to wade through the whole thing. Read it and see what you think.

The threat posed to international peace and security, when WMD are in the hands of a brutal and aggressive regime like Saddam’s, is real. Unless we face up to the threat, not only do we risk undermining the authority of the UN, whose resolutions he defies, but more importantly and in the longer term, we place at risk the lives and prosperity of our own people.

Well the UN has no authority, moral or practical, so that point means exactly nothing. On the last point, that is putting it mildly!

I rather suspect it will not change too many people’s minds regarding the justification of military action against Saddam Hussain’s regime as I have observed that the facts of the matter have only a limited bearing on the positions people take.

EUroaches

Jim Bennett‘s latest Anglosphere article is a particularly good one called The European Roach Motel.

It addressed in more depth the same issues we touched on in The traitor class at work.

The Illuminatus has eyes everywhere


(Photo: D. Amon)

…but who can help me identify the arcane Techno-mage, Transterrestrialist, Anglosphericaloid and, er, Pundit, who make up this sinister cabal before whom the world trembles?

Samizdata slogan of the day

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
But roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right.
– Hillare Belloc