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.
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Well, the days roll by and the uncertain drumbeat of war continues. Counting myself as a marginal pro-war type, I must say I have begun to wonder about how far and for how long a military campaign in the Middle East will spread. Will Bush’s pre-emption doctrine end with Iraq, or be applied to other nations? (France – heh-heh!). What about Saudi Arabia? And there are dozens of other countries, not especially chummy with the West, which could be places where folks are cooking up WMDs which could get into the hands of thugs of various descriptions. Just how far could the war on terror go? 100 years?
Here’s an idea: I think one key strategy for encouraging people to depose odious regimes and bring in something better must be a continuous push for greater free trade. I am not being naive, I think. Trade is the great solvent of social strife, while protectionism tends to be the harbinger of such strife.
For example, I’d be happier with the case for going into Iraq if it were tied to a clearly-stated willingness, on the part of the US government and its allies, to immediately lift ALL restrictions on imports of Iraqi goods (such as they are) in the event that Saddam and his thugs fall from power, as in “We will bury Saddam for you for a fistfull of dollars”.
And given that Iraq is probably one of the most secular states in the Middle East, a concerted campaign to promise Iraqis that they can join the capitalist party once Saddam has gone is sure to make it easier for his regime to crumble under pressure. This sort of policy may even encourage people in Iran, for example, who are currently trying to depose the Mullahs, to re-double their efforts.
There’s been a lot of debate about how much “stick” we should apply to defeat terror. I don’t think it idiotic though, to debate the merit of a bit more “carrot”.
Andrew Sullivan has some rather sharp things to say about George W. Bush and the ballooning budget deficit.
About time! Sullivan has tended, I think, to give the President a fairly easy time on a lot of issues, perhaps on the basis of natural loyalty to a conservative pol and hatred of the other side. But there’s no getting away from the fact that the US budget deficit is set to grow at an alarming pace.
At the core of the problem is the raft of domestic programmes Bush feels obligated to support or which the GOP in the House and the Senate refuse to kill off. At least the defence spending aspect to the budget can be justified by the war. But although I support Bush’s tax cuts, especially the abolition of tax on dividends because of the economic benefits, he could be storing up trouble unless some discipline is imposed.
Why am I, as a Brit, fretting about the US deficit? Well, given the enormous importance of a vibrant US economy, it is in my interests that Bush doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel on this issue. There are no excuses.
My ego being suitably gratified by the reactions to my earlier post about SUVs, well, I could not resist linking to this nice story, also by Reuters, about the latest incarnation of the mighty Ford Mustang.
It seems that folk who want us Westerners to cut back on oil as a way of squeezing the Middle East are fighting a losing battle at the moment.
Also in a totally gratuitous vein, here is a story with some picks of the latest Aston Martin, as driven by Pierce Brosnan in his, in my view, largely rather silly James Bond movie. But for this petrol-head, the car is pure eye candy. Aston Martin in my view has made some of the most beautiful cars ever. I used to rank the DB5 as the most aesthetically pleasing, but I think the Vanquish is even better.
Reading a number of anti-war libertarian blogs such as that of the estimable Jim Henley, it occurred to me that among the various errors in their positions over what to do about Saddam, etc, is a tendency to dismiss or downplay any threat that such countries may pose to us.
Now, I am not going to engage in some long ramble about why I think the case for war is correct (though I think it is). However, what I do want to do is briefly reflect on what I think is an aspect of the anti-war libertarian position which could prove damaging to libertarianism more generally. It is the problem of evasion.
In recent years, libertarians have been aware of a growing threat to our free society, namely, the Green movement. And much time is spent, rightly, dismissing or pulling apart the scare stories (such as the Greenhouse Effect, population explosion, etc) that are offered to justify wholesale government controls over our lives. But a nagging question is – what would libertarians do if the Green case is partly, or even wholly, correct? What if global warming is as bad as they claim? What would we fans of free-wheeling capitalism do about that? It is simply not good enough for us to trash the Green case without at least working out how we would cope with such issues.
It seems to me that the isolationist libertarians who rubbish most government attempts to crack down on terrorists and their state sponsors need to answer a similar sort of question. How can free, minimal state societies deal with serious threats to liberty and life? What sort of measures should such societies take?
I think we owe it to ourselves to pose such questions and come up with a few ideas. Attacking governments for trashing civil liberties and ramping up defence spending is of course a good thing for libertarians to do, and we must continue to do so. But not offering any positive suggestions on how we defend ourselves is not just unwise. It threatens also to make the libertarian movement irrelevant.
And frankly, I don’t give a toss whether such worries make me a ‘neo-libertarian’ or whatever. I am not interested in going to my grave knowing that I died like a good disciple of Murray Rothbard. I want to stay alive with as much freedom as possible. It is about time that we worked on a few ways to achieve that.
Consider the gauntlet thrown on the floor.
The sports utility vehicle (SUV) is the bete noire of the anti-globalista class, epitomizing much that they hate about western, and specifically American, culture. They are big, brash, consume a lot of fossil fuels and symbolise an almost Wild West ethos (although in my experience many of them are driven by stockbrokers in deepest west London).
I must say that in my more ideologically manic moments, I fantasize about buying a SUV for no other reason than to cock a snook at the flat-earthers. Check out this interesting story for the enduring appeal of these capitalist behemoths on wheels. Vroom!
A number of commentators in the Big Media and of course in blogosphere have remarked on how UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to back up the US on the Iraq issue has put Britain at odds with Germany and France while mightily improving the standing of lil ‘ol Britain in the eyes of Uncle Sam.
Christopher Caldwell makes the point eloquently in the latest edition of British weekly, The Spectator. The whole thing is worth a read but I have one quibble with a remark he makes in the final paragraph, where he says Britain has an “economy in far better shape than that of the United States”. Huh? The British stock market has been falling proportionately more severely than the main indices of the U.S., a fact which can be explained by the higher taxes and red tape emanating from Whitehall and Brussels.
But that is a quibble. Overall, Caldwell’s article reads true to me and suggests that Blair, either by luck or judgement, has put the UK on a much stronger geo-political footing by siding with the U.S.. Optimism is always easy to knock but I cannot help thinking that Blair may have unwittingly given the Anglosphere a powerful boost, and pushed this country a little further from the EU behemoth.
Of course, I may be eating these words soon.
I don’t expect isolationists who oppose George W. Bush’s policy of pre-emption to be converted by his State of the Union address last night, but this paragraph helped to tilt my mind in favour of the view that taking Saddam Hussein down is the right, if perilous, course:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restratint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Exactly.
It seems the shakedown artists (sorry, legal campaigners) trying to sue fast food colossus McDonalds are not giving up their fight easily, even though a judge recently threw out a case from a man claiming he had been been turned into a lardbutt.
At first, it is tempting to file stories like this under this blog’s ‘humour’ category, and of course in the past stories about overweight folks suing fast-food joints would have been the sort of thing to have been written up in the The Onion or Private Eye. But no longer. It seems one feature of decades of Big Government has been the steady infantilisation of large chunks of the populace to the point where the concept of taking responsibility for one’s own actions no longer applies.
Perhaps folk who sue fast food retailers should instead sue the State education system for making them so dumb in the first place.
This story is already a little old but I thought I’d give my two pennies’ worth on the situation facing Danish statistics teacher Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, which was published over a year ago.
In a nutshell, Lomborg uses the evidence on which Greens rely to point out that by many yardsticks, life on planet Earth is getting better. As one can imagine, this has sent large parts of the Green movement and the anti-globalistas into a collective funk…
“You mean the world is getting greener, healthier and wealthier? But that’s just terrible! Heretic! Heretic!”
The response from many quarters has been nothing less than childish. A self-selected and rather Orwellian group calling itself The Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty has denounced Lomborg root and branch for the temerity of writing such a book and has sought to smear him and his academic credentials. So it is good to see the man himiself fight back. Check out the article by Lomborg in the online pages of the Wall Street Journal for his rebuttal of many of their claims.
Of course by writing in the WSJ, Lomborg has proved he is a mere lackey of the global free market capitalist conspiracy, so no doubt the doomongers will not pay a shred of attention. It might influence saner counsels, though.
And in the meantime, take a look at www.lomborg.com for an ongoing discussion of his book and associated issues.
By now, quite a few Samizdata readers will have learned of the infuriating plight of my good friends and fellow bloggers Andrew Ian Dodge and his lovely fiance Sasha Castel. They were able to spend just a few days in the UK owing to officials carping about (alleged) glitches in Andrew’s paperwork. Andrew and Sasha were forced to fly back to Maine earlier this week.
What is obviously incredible, considering that these are two citizens from Britain’s No 1 ally, is that they were treated in this way while, of course, thousands of folk enter this country successfully on false papers, or with no papers at all. Often many such folk disappear. Such people may even pose a security risk. The contrast between the treatment of Andrew and Sasha on the one hand and that of folk possibly entering Britain with hostile intent hardly needs to be stressed.
I guess this shows that as far as rules about emigration and immigration are concerned, we need a thorough overhaul in ways that encourage enterprising and good folk to live here like Andrew and Sasha. On a more positive note, may I recommend readers to look at Jim Bennett’s An Anglosphere Primer, which sets out ways in which these issues might be resolved.
In the meantime, my best wishes to two of the feistiest bloggers in the business. Britain has lost the chance to be host to two fine writers, not to mention two of the biggest heavy rock and opera nuts around!
Heard this rather good gag at a financial conference this morning:
A parish vicar dies and goes up to the Pearly Gates where he is greeted by St Peter. St Peter bids the vicar to step aside and sit on a wooden bench and wait for some formalities to be dealt with.
About half an hour later a farmer comes up, dressed in his overalls. “Ah, Mr Jones, welcome to Heaven! Please do step through the gates,” St Peter says. The vicar looks on, a mite baffled, but keeps quiet.
An hour later, a hospital surgeon of brilliant renown comes up, and again St Peter joyfully waves the good doctor through. Again, the vicar bites his tongue and waits to see what happens.
Suddenly, a sleek young man in a suit carrying a copy of the Wall Street Journal steps in. “Wonderful to see you Mr Gekko!” shouts St Peter. “So good to see you at last.”
At this point our vicar can contain himself no longer. “Why have you let in that capitalist pig through the gates while I, a humble servant of God, have to sit outside on a wooden bench?” the vicar exclaims.
“Well,” St Peter replies, “We let folk into Heaven these days because of results. You see, the farmer gets in because he produced food. The surgeon got in because he healed people. And you, dear vicar, produced no results. In your sermons most of the congregation fell asleep.”
“What sort of results did that hedge fund manager give, then?” asked the vicar.
“Well, that guy produced money for his clients. And unlike you, vicar, when he was at work, his clients were praying.”
All is not well in the Golden State of California these days as the citizens of that fine place continue to struggle under the governorship of Gray Davis, the man who helped acquaint Californians with the sort of power blackouts we Brits used to get in the unlamented 1970s.
This article (link courtesy of Virginia Postrel) shows how bad the tax revenue situation is on the West Coast, but also points out that the public sector there is as bloated as ever.
My recent trip to California last year confirmed such reports. One thing I was struck by was the poor quality of the freeways, in contrast to the smooth fast roads of neighbouring Nevada.
California could certainly use someone like Ronald Reagan, its last great governor, to shake it up and kick some ass in that state. Many political and economic trends seem to start on the West Coast, like the internet and tax revolts. A place for we Anglospherists to watch.
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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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