I have enabled ‘nested’ comments for a while as an experiment, thus you will see a ‘reply’ option on each comments that may be used if you seek to reply to that remark specifically, rather than to the article in general. This may or may not become a permanent feature.
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Though many things have changed in American political life over the past couple of years, one aspect remains a comforting constant: Democrats never lose an election. Not really. Not fairly. Sure, elections can be stolen. Americans can be misled. Big Oil or Big Business can buy elections – because these institutions possess the preternatural ability to control human actions. Voter always fail to understand what’s good for them (which, amazingly enough, always aligns with the state-expanding goals of the Left.) Whatever the case, something fishy and nefarious must also be going on, because there’s absolutely no way voters could reject Democrats. December 12th, 2016 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I haven’t yet found or invented the exact right phrase to describe it, but I know it when I hear it and I do not like it. “Reductive grumbling” is the best I can do to describe what I am getting at, until such a time as a better description of the thing presents itself to me. I’d been meaning to blog about this very bad mental habit for quite some time, and I have now been jerked out of my torpor by the fact that someone else has just now also been denouncing this way of thinking and talking. Which means that I can now do a more meaningful blog posting with a link to this denunciation, as reported by Kaitlin Collins of The Daily Caller, and with quotes from this denunciation:
… provided the person on the receiving end of your reduction doesn’t see through the trick you are trying to play, as Mike Rowe does. Rowe is responding to a woman who had complained about Mike Rowe’s objection to people burning the US flag. Rowe doesn’t argue that burning the US flag should be forbidden by law, but he doesn’t like it.
I myself wrote about this syndrome, over a quarter of a century ago now, in this Libertarian Alliance rant which I still remember fondly and which was provoked by a P. J. O’Rourke rant about an epic trip he once made across America, in a Ferrari. Even though the technology I ranted about (compact discs) was pre-internet and now pretty much obsolete for all but compact disc dinosaurs like me, my ranting still works, for me anyway. → Continue reading: Mike Rowe denounces reductive grumbling (and so do I) December 11th, 2016 | 85 comments - (Comments are closed)
We’re living longer lives these days, we’re working for fewer decades of them and thus people are rationally saving for their expected golden years. Thus capital as a percentage of GDP rises – not to produce inheritances, but to produce incomes in retirement. And rises by potentially at least more than 100% of GDP. We can’t see that this is a problem and we most certainly cannot see that this is an argument for greater taxation of capital. Quite the reverse in fact, people saving for their old age should be encouraged, not specifically taxed. December 10th, 2016 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
What is funny is to watch the media try to interpret [Trump] through their prism of politics. It is like trying to understand the workings of a nuclear reactor through the prism of deconstructionist feminist semiotics. December 9th, 2016 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
The essay by Mr Palmer is entitled “A New, Old Challenge: Global Anti-Libertarianism”. The article examines three broad threats, which are serious, to classical liberalism: radical Islamism, the post-Gramsci Far Left, and what is called the “Alt Right”:
December 8th, 2016 | 70 comments - (Comments are closed)
Incidentally, for once Trump himself was spot on when it came to the question of Taiwan. Anyone finding it horrifying that he talked to the Taiwanese leadership in supposed breach of protocol needs to pull themselves together. The Chinese government has had it its own way for far too long, whether it is in terms of Western leaders humiliating their countries by kow-towing or with Chinese companies stealing intellectual property and technology and exploiting open markets in the West that it will not open properly at home to Western firms. Terrible Trump is onto them, which is a rare shaft of light in the darkness. – Iain Martin. The article is actually mostly about Boris Johnson, another politician who commits lots of “gaffes” (MSM-speak for stating uncomfortable truths or comments deemed offensive for some reason, either valid or not.) December 8th, 2016 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
The story of the demise of slavery I take to have great significance for our evaluation of capitalism. The system is not to be judged purely by its material consequences. Relative or temporary happiness brought about by productive efficiency or growth cannot be the last word. Absent liberty and self-government, the situation would be inexcusable. We now can see that capitalism has as its essence individual freedom-rights. Without respect for these rights the system is in danger of turning into a monstrosity, as it would have in an unchecked antebellum South. It did so in Wilhelmine Germany and could do so still in crypto-communist China. Again, as in the case of the developing regions of today, liberty-rights are of the essence of capitalism as an improving force for humanity. If we do not see this we run the danger of suffering from the same tunnel vision of colonel Nicholson at the River Kwai. December 7th, 2016 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yet another knife in the face of the rule of law is proposed in England and Wales, to deal with the problem of stalking. The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, appears to be pleased with the proposals.
A closer inspection of the proposals reveals a familiar tactic, imposing a court order on someone who has not been convicted of any crime, and making a breach of that order a crime. This has already been in place since the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 was brought in, which was, IIRC, supposed to have dealt with this problem. And look at the box of tricks that the State is offering:
So no need to even arrest someone, just dump an order on them, and that will be a good start. But there’e more, all very Soviet if you ask me.
So without so much as a chance to argue your case, you could find yourself ordered to undergo treatment, and risk 5 years in jail if you refuse. Not that it is much better that this could perhaps only follow a conviction. So what do the police think?
Not, I note ‘We want to bring suspects before the courts if the evidence justifies arrest, charge and a realistic prospect of conviction in a situation where it is in the public interest to prosecute, even though prosecution is a matter for the Crown, not the police.’, which would be a bare minimum of respect for the rule of law. But clearly not a shoot-to-kill to ‘stop stalkers in their tracks‘. And what do the ‘charities’ think?
This ‘trust’ is named for a murdered estate agent. I don’t see how killing the rule of law is an appropriate memorial to her. And did you note the sly hint that (State) funding is important? And on what pretext is the rule of law being sacrificed, with a dagger in the chest for the beating heart to be pulled out and eaten warm?
How about the elimination of violence against the rule of law? December 7th, 2016 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
Throughout our time in the EEC/EU Ministers have regularly used prerogative powers to bind us into EU decisions, regulations and judgements which Parliament has been unable to vote on or prevent. Many of these have adversely affected our right to be a sovereign and free people. It was curious that the High Court of England thought that was acceptable yet using the same prerogative powers to bring the right to self-government back was not. I hope the Judges understand three basic points. The first is the referendum was the decision. Government made that clear in Parliament and in a leaflet to all voting households. The second is Parliament can debate Brexit any time it likes, and has done so extensively already. The third is Parliament needs to make up its own mind on what it wants to vote on, and is free to do so. There can be plenty of votes on the Repeal Bill. December 6th, 2016 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
December 5th, 2016 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
Baroness Warsi on Peston on Sunday, talking about “identity”:
It sounded as if she thought we had all been suffering from some sort of medical condition. Brexit? Perhaps she does think this, about that. But, she presumably had the word “coalesce” in mind. At first I tried to type out what she had said from memory. But the only reason I was watching this was that my video machine had switched to it from something else, because it was about to record some rugby. And this machine can play back a recording even as it is still making it. December 5th, 2016 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
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