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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It is fascinating how so many government cannot abide the idea of constitutional limits on the power of the state. Clearly the US and Brazilian governments are beside themselves that many in Honduras seem unwilling to allow their country to go the way of Venezuela.
If I was the government of Honduras I would simply give the government of Brazil 48 hours to get their embassy the hell out of Honduras permanently, and when they do… solve the ‘issue’ of Hugo Chavez wannabe Jose Manuel Zelaya the way they should have initially… with a 9 mm wide object moving at 360 metres per second.
The following was sent to us by our occasional Samizdata correspondent and secret agent within the heart of the MSM, Taylor Dinerman.
Writing in the Washington Post Adam Nagorski the former Moscow corespondent (Reagan’s Missile Defense Triumph) wants us to believe that Obama’s September 17th decision to cancel the deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic of a missile defense system based on the one now deployed in Alaska and California, is somehow a triumph for Reagan’s SDI (Star Wars) concept. Like they said to the tomcat when they brought out the snippers, “Its for your own good”.
He writes, “The debate is no longer focused on whether to build such a system, but on what kind of system will do the job better against what sorts of threats. ” That debate was over long ago. The Democrats, in the 1990s under Clinton, came to the decision that publicly at least, they could no long promote the idea that the US population should be totally defenseless against nuclear attack.
Either Nagoski is ignorant or he is being disingenuous. In 1993 after canceling the first Bush administration’s space based Brilliant Pebbles with the words “I’m taking the stars out of Star Wars”., the Clinton administration could not simply abandon missile defense completely, instead, like the Obama administration they sought to proceed with the smallest and least offensive possible program. They ordered the Defense Department to concentrate its efforts on defending against tactical and medium ranged missiles.
After the GOP gained control of Congress in 1994 Clinton’s team faced unrelenting political pressure from Congress to build up America’s anti ballistic missile defenses. They chose to support a few programs including the Navy one that Obama is now touting as if it were something new, and the Airborne Laser (ABL) program that the administration has eviscerated.
Most significantly Clinton and his team promoted something called National Missile Defense, a mid course interceptor system designed to handle ICBMs. It was this program that Bush, on taking office decided to proceed with especially after he withdrew from the much violated ABM treaty. This has long been the most controversial part of the US Missile Defense program since provides a direct, though weak protection to the US civilian population. For the Democrats and their allies who still believe in Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) this is intolerable.
Bush and the GOP pushed ahead and now there are about 30 Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) deployed in Alaska and California, along with a network of sensors. The Obama administration is choosing to cut the number of deployed GBIs to from the 44 ones planned by their predecessors to the ones now in the ground. The Bush plan was in itself inadequate, so this cut means that the US population is almost as completely vulnerable as it was under Clinton.
Like Clinton, Obama knows little about missile defense or about nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. At least Bush had flown air defense missions in a nuclear capable aircraft, the F-102. To imagine the plan to deploy sea based SM-3 missiles as a substitute for the GBIs that were to be based in Poland is laughable, as is the idea that sometime around 2020 there will be a version of the SM-3 that can do the job the GBIs are now doing.
The SM-3 is an excellent missile and Vice Admiral J.D.Williams (ret.), the father of sea based missile defense, is to be congratulated. It is however, not a system that can defend the US population against an ICBM attack. That is the main question that Nagorski tries to avoid. The Democrats are still doing everything they can to prevent a real space based missile defense. The other question as to why Bush failed to revive his father’s Brilliant Pebbles program is a tough one for him and for the GOP. The little they did is now being cut to ribbons by President Pantywaist (as he was referred to in the London Telegraph.) Trying to put a Reaganesque happy face on this fact is typical of the way the MSM is willing to make a fool of itself for its man.
Taylor Dinerman
To look at this from a UK perspective, I have given this a lot of thought as we have a general election next year (Civil Contingencies Act permitting). Abstention or a vote for a party other than Cameron’s “Conservatives” runs a real risk of preventing the eviction of the Labour party that has done so much damage in the past 13 years. Given another 5 years they could add incalculable damage to an already impressive list.
On the other hand, a vote for the “Conservatives” would vindicate Cameron’s position, kowtowing to the supposed BBC/Guardian left of centre (quite a long way left of centre actually) “consensus”. In the short term Cameron would do less harm than another Labour government, but his success would result in future “Conservative” governments following the same policies so we would be stuck with them for the long term.
The question I asked myself was: do I think Labour can do more damage in 5 years than Cameron’s “Conservatives” can in 10, 15 or more? My answer was no, another five years of Labour is less threatening than an indefinite period of Cameron “Conservatism”. Once defeated Cameron would be dropped like the proverbial hot brick and then it will time to start working for a new leader with Conservative beliefs.
– Commenter MarkE
Madsen Pirie has a new book, 101 Great Philosophers. It’s an amazingly compact account of the ideas of those who made modern thought. It’s a heroic venture, romping through the giants of Western civilization at a cracking pace which allows only 400 words on each of them. The result is a highly condensed overview of philosophy and philosophers, enough to give even a beginner a working grasp of what it’s all about, but with enough meat to interest philosophers themselves in his take on the subject.
It takes a cool analytical brain to do this (which Madsen has), and he has produced a book that will lead many into a subject they had previously only wished they knew more about. I rather think that academic philosophers will disparage it, largely because it demystifies their subject. Their careers are made by writing technical papers for each other that bear little on what philosophy can offer to our lives.
In an age when people demand condensed information they can absorb quickly, I think Madsen has produced a book that delivers the goods. Its available from Amazon, and it’s a fascinating and highly informative read.
Indonesia, the most populous muslim nation in the world, is often held up as an example of how moderate islam can be reconciled with modernity.
Indonesia’s province of Aceh has passed a new law making adultery punishable by stoning to death, a member of the province’s parliament has said. The law also imposes severe sentences for rape, homosexuality, alcohol consumption and gambling.
Apparently not.
If I go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbour, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich. Authority may (and may not) make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally poor in all that makes life best worth living
– Benjamin Tucker
America has “Czars” because there are still a few respectable people using the titles of “Capo” and “Don”
– Commenter CJF
The persistent delusion is that the West has a capitalist economy. It doesn’t. It has a rent-seeking economy, and the failures of government regulatory agencies are as likely to be a result of their delivering such rents as of their being ‘honestly’ incompetent. History tells us that the sensibly cautious – not paranoid – way to look at government is with the presumption that it’s corrupt.
– Commenter ‘Person from Porlock’
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
– George Eliot
UBS has been closing the secret accounts of its American clients, forcing them into the cold, tax lawyers say. Many Americans with undeclared accounts have sought leniency by making voluntary disclosures to the IRS. Meanwhile, UBS has reported large outflows of deposits, which go beyond its American clientele.
Union Bank of Switzerland is haemorrhaging clients, not just American ones who have unwisely not stuffed their US passports in a shredder, but others too who no longer trust the bank with their privacy.
Frankly UBS was insane to do business in the USA in the first place, given the mafia-like behaviour of the American tax authorities, and the way I see it, this is just a very bad business decision being punished by clients voting with their feet money in favour of more discrete and less bombastic banks that cater to people with the quaint notion that their own money belongs to them and not the IRS… or any other rapacious state.
And any US nationals throwing themselves on the mercy of the thuggish IRS seriously need their heads examined. At the first sign of trouble, and this has been brewing a long time, they should have sold up and got the hell out of the USA for good. The weather in Costa Rica is really very nice, guys, trust me, and your money buys a whole lot more down here.
The government forgets that George Orwell’s 1984 was a warning, and not a blueprint
– Chris Huhne
In every language, the first word after “Mama!” that every kid learns to say is “Mine!” A system that doesn’t allow ownership, that doesn’t allow you to say “Mine!” when you grow up, has – to put it mildly – a fatal design flaw.
– Frank Zappa
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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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