We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day “It is outrageous, and amazing, that the first free and general elections in the history of the Arab nation are to take place in January: in Iraq, under the auspices of American occupation, and in Palestine, under the auspices of the Israeli occupation. . . .”
– Salameh Nematt
Washington bureau chief for the London-based daily Al Hayat November 25
Quoted by Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard,
[Thanks to Instapundit for the pointer]
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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How free and general will these elections be?
Who says that democracy is an idea accepted by the Arab nations, not imposed?
(Wow, fancy comments function)
Ditto to the above — who are we to impose our western ideas of the “right” way to do things on people who have their own cultures and practices?
So are you two suggesting we leave the people in those countries under tyranical genocidal dictators? I mean you could make the same argument about say…order loving Germans or Austrians?
“who are we to impose our western ideas of the “right” way to do things on people who have their own cultures and practices?”
We are the people who have been tolerating the results of their “cultures and practices” since before Leon Klinghoffer’s wheelchair born corpse was thrown off the Achille Lauro. They should be very grateful, that we are merely imposing our western ideas of the right way to do things on them.
Had their culture done the same things to, say, Saddam Hussein with no one to stop him (as there is no one to stop us), they would now be breathing poison gas or enjoying dirt baths.
“Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.” – John Milton
How free and general were presidential elections in the US during and after the US Civil War? Here’s a hint, many states didn’t participate at all until a decade after the war was over.
How illegitimate were those anyway? Did the country survive?
Huh.
Yes, England at the time was a great example of how NOT to function as a society – in light of the slaughter that Milton lived through during English Civil War, the tyrannical regime that sprang from it (namely the “interregnum” of Cromwell), the religious intolerance, etc.
Gary, I think Milton was commenting on contemporary events and reminding his countrymen to cease & desist in the religious slaughter.
As for the Islamacists… perfection shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. We have a chance to split off the radicals from the moderates, and from the vast body of men who would just as soon live their lives in peace, apart from jihad and sharia. That’s the real war, and Iraq is meant to be a beachead in that struggle. I think public support for Bush’s enterprise would be better if he would come right out and talk about the apparent goal – taking advantage of the transformative nature of freedom and the rule of law to destroy the tyrants who rule most of the Islamic states and control much of their cultures. Of course, that’s something he can’t say if he wants the cooperation (or at least to avoid the open opposition) of the Saudis and other putative allies in the region.
I get so friggin’ tired of hard-core libertarians like Rachel and Mary Beth Windsor who equate democracy with mob rule. They are no different than your everyday hard-core Marxist in their belief that a country should only be ruled by those with the proper and correct political orientation. And, that the average citizen of a country should never, ever, be trusted with the power to decide who will govern themselves, or what laws they should live under. And that is what I truly dislike about libertarians, they are just as doctrinaire as any hard-core party of the left, and they would just as happily ignore the wishes of the majority as any group of Stalinists or Maoists, if they ever found themselves in power.
Hey, blood pressure alert, guys!
The issues I see here:
1) Will the Wahhabis be appalled?
You bet.
2) Will the Ba’athists be appalled?
You bet.
3) Will the Marxists be appalled?
You bet.
4) Will the racialists who reckon non-whites can’t do democracy be appalled?
You bet.
5) Will the EU and UN crooks be appalled?
You bet.
So the fact that Palestinians and Iraqis may end up voting for people I wouldn’t have round for dinner is a minor price for upsetting all the right people.
And who knows, the Palestinians could one day end up with a leader who actually can agree peace with Israel.
I’m reasonably certain that Islam is is incompatible with democracy, mainly because it is at odds with free-market capitalism, the foundation of democracy.
But that’s no reason not to try. I could be wrong.
Assuming that these places don’t descend right back into dictatorship, I’m not sure I want to deal with the leader the Palestinians in particular would voluntarily choose for themselves. He could actually be worse than Arafat, if that’s possible.
But it’s a noble experiment. Stay tuned.
***Hey, blood pressure alert, guys!
The issues I see here:
1) Will the Wahhabis be appalled?
You bet.
2) Will the Ba’athists be appalled?
You bet.
3) Will the Marxists be appalled?
You bet.
4) Will the racialists who reckon non-whites can’t do democracy be appalled?
You bet.
5) Will the EU and UN crooks be appalled?
You bet.
So the fact that Palestinians and Iraqis may end up voting for people I wouldn’t have round for dinner is a minor price for upsetting all the right people.
And who knows, the Palestinians could one day end up with a leader who actually can agree peace with Israel.***
Sounds like you might be number 6 at your own dinner table of infamy.
Isn’t this really the rub for libertarians? Imposing freedom by Force. It’s self contradictory.
Also, there seems to be two factions on this board, those who still view ‘democracy’ as good and wonderful and those who see it as just another means of imposing on the individual. Some may simply view it as the best of the worst, I don’t know.
Democracy may need to be further defined. There are several different manifestations for democracy here in the US. We vote for school boards, city councils, county councils, State assemblies and executives, and national assemblies and executives. I maintain that there is a huge difference between voting for the guy down the block for shool board and voting for a person for president. One is well within understandable parameters, the other is some fantastic notion that by voting for A or B I’m really making a statement. True democracy has a scale to it. Once off the chart of personal comprehension it is an exercise in quasi-theocracy. So a firm understanding of democracy and it’s scale probably needs to be defined first.
So for those who label such as proto-marxist don’t comprehend that there are libertarians, left and right, who gravitate toward an anarchic ideal (I don’t get the sense that many ‘libertarians’ here do), the main point of contention is personal ownership of property up to and including means of production (which seems to be the unifying element between myself and the majority here). Left doesn’t buy it, the right does, and it’s a major difference. Anarcho-capitalists are certainly not marxists, but demand pure markets, of which war and imperialism decidedly is not. It is not up to us to free peoples.
I’m not fond of public programs for ‘my folk’, why would I support one for others? The martial spirit will rise among the population when true threats manifest themselves. If the rationale is to free peoples from tyranny, likely there is another reason, hence why the US/UK isn’t galavanting around the globe freeing folks left and right; it seems to be restricted to certain geographical areas. So the issue is economic, which, at the root, is origin of all conflict. Then the question should be is the economic threat so basic to the population so as to raise the martial spirit, or are they fed misinformation and appealed to on some collectivist rationale of brotherhood? Freeing people I don’t know from the yoke of tyranny that they themselves aren’t rising up against must require some basic collectivist rationale. That seems much more marxist to me than the other way around.
So that’s where I divert from a goodly portion here at Samizdata. They are convinced of the nobility in the wars, while I see it in terms of pragatism that the US Federal government is so keenly interested first hand in the health of the US economy, and will wage war to protect vital economic interests. That’s what the involvement in the middle east is about. But as long as the Feds bind us all at the pocket books, I have little choice but to support its secondary actions to make it work. Otherwise they will fall on me for a greater share than the 33% (plus borrowings) of my labor they already take. Welfare States and Warfare States are connected at the hip, and are essentially the same things. This doesn’t make me a Marxist, it makes me an individual who sees freedom in terms of the removal of State, even those espousing a twisted form of democracy. If I’m a Marxist then so was Jefferson.
I’m pretty sure there have been relatively free and fair (by local standards) elections in Arab countries before, the problem is second elections in which power is transferred in an orderly way.
Anyone can have elections once, the trick is having second and third elections (and the biggest trick is getting incumbent losers to accept the result).
Toolkien, I have herad that theory about economics being the root of all wars before. When I challenge the theorists for evidence, they mumble and slink off. Maybe you will be different?
Where is your evidence? While ALL wars Cost Money to wage, it is a far step from that to ALL wars are about money. Look at the Crusades. Granted the Crusaders did their share of looting, that wasn’t the reason they were crusading.
There is a difference between cause and effect, which is why they are two different words,
Rachel, it would be nice if eveybody could just get along in peace, but that only happens in a grave yard.
The questions isn’t if the West has a right to force cultural change on the Islaimc world, but if we want to stand and allow Islam to force cultural change on us.
As an example, lets examine ‘honor killing’.
In the west, if my sister is raped, the police arrest the SOB and hopefully punish him. If they don’t, I’l track the low life down and murder him, paying what ever penality is demanded if I’m caught. In the ME, the PC solution is to murder my sister.
Make your choice. Both Osama and Dubbau are not accepting neutrals in this war. That means you pick a side, or both will fight you. If that’s a problem, to bad. The only thing you can do about it is pick a side.
Just wanted to point out that the link to Bill Kristol’s article is messed up. The end of the link is missing the “sp” as in “.asp”. Here is the correct link…
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/994vcnso.asp
Stehpinkeln,
Economics is money?
Economics is the science and philosophy of man’s interaction with the material world. Is there an ideology in existence which does not involve elements of man and resources? Religions are essentially dictations of how man is supposed to function in the material world. Granted refined ideologies make some dictation of how man is to interact with man also, but much of the interaction also traces back to the materials and trade between them.
I’ll concentrate on the US. The Revolutionary War, fighting against taxation (impounding of property) without representation and resentments at being restricted commercially so as to be a dumping ground for British production. Economically based.
The War of 1812, impressment and sea lanes and still to some extent, being the receiver of British production – economically based. The Mexican War, fighting to secure territories which contain economic resources and prevents other interests from controlling it. Manifest Destiny was pragmatically about making sure French, English and even Russian interests didn’t prosper there. Economically based.
The Civil War, mostly about Northern control of Southern production, at least in terms of assessments and levies. Original european sympathies lay with the South, and of course cotton supplies didn’t hurt the matter.
Spanish-American War – to ‘free’ Cuba? Maybe. But there is strong evidence of manipulation of the masses to further burgeoning American Imperialism (Manifest Destiny pretty much having run its course). The noble causes become a bit spotty with the Phillipines and the ‘insurgent’ muslim population.
Then there is WWI and German ambitions in Imperial gains, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. And WWII was kindled by Lebensraum, perhaps the most naked assessment by an agressor that War is about economics and resources. You at least have to admire Hitler’s honesty of purpose.
As for the Crusades, several were nothing more than plunderings, and it can said that all had elements of plunder, particularly of Constantinople by all parties.
Attacks on Britain bringing in the Romans, and Saxons and Jutes, the attacks by the Danes and Vikings and the paying of the Danegeld. All mostly about plunder and resources.
Even the Religious based expansion of Islam was about spreading its geo-political set of beliefs on how people should live. Religions are simply some of the first sets of laws people were required to live by, and most of the tenets deal with consumption, property, and interaction with resources. It is the desire to impose tenets on others, and how they conduct their lives, almost entirely with the material world of resources that make it up.
Recent times have seen an explosion of quasi-theocratic cousins to religion such as Marxism and Environmentalism, which are typically ‘secular’ but are refined systems that are economically based. They both result in a top down administration of resources, and the Cold War was most obviously an economic War as Marxism (practically speaking) and Capitalism (hybrid) battled it out in third world arenas. Of course neither were hardly anywhere near pure forms, and were much more alike than different in that East and West were largely dominated by Statists.
At its most abstract, how much warring could man do if he were naked and had no access to resources? War is the application of materiel and logistics primarily waged either to pillage or protect from pillage. Obviously protecting hearth and home from aggression is a noble use of Force. And it only takes one to tango, as the expression goes. But the War itself is always about controlling resources directly, or imposing cultural or religious tenets on others on how they control resources.
At the end of the day man is nothing without resources and that is what all the fuss is about.
Mary Beth: It sort of worked in Lebanon. I say “sort of”, because of a lack of adult supervision from within.
There’s nothing especially amazing about the Palestinian elections. Even tinhorn banana republics (*cough* Venezuela *cough*) have elections. Even the Union of Soviet Freakin’ Socialist Republics had elections. What the Soviets and Latin American Chiquitastans didn’t have was a semblance of rule of law – which the Palestinian Authority also lacks. Iraq doesn’t have it, either, but a rule-of-law nation is nudging it in that direction – which is more than can be said for the PA.