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Presently people are very angry about Barack Obama’s speech to young children (with the, now withdrawn, “how you can help your President” stuff), but the real damage is done in the ordinary days of propaganda – ordinary school days, and ordinary school textbooks, that parents do not even notice. For example, American and British schools teach the “Herbert Hoover and his free market policies” legend.
Barack Obama has given the enemy a face – but what matters more is the collectivist movement (that which has for more than a century worked to gain influence in all institutions in the West). Yet many people can not see past the bogey man Obama and ignore the vast movement without which he would be unimportant. Just a Marxist son of Marxist parents – making impassioned speeches in parks (to no one in particular).
It was the movement that made sure he went to the best universities, it was the movement who gave him the comfortable positions on the boards of the various charitable trusts, it was the movement who supported him in his various campaigns for political office.
Sometimes the movement can become a parody of itself – for example when the “mainstream media” try to cover up for a loud mouth like Van Jones. Being a Communist is fine, but going around telling people what you are is not fine at all – it is astonishing that Van Jones was picked for high office for he lacks basic self discipline (the ability to keep his mouth shut about what he is), a quality Barack Obama has so much of.
Nor is Van Jones alone: The “Diversity Officer” (Commissar) who goes around praising the Venezuelian regime, and explaining (in detail) his evil plan to destroy free speech in the United States, violates the first rule of being a bad guy (do not tell your potential victims what you are planning to do to them – at least not till they are tied up in your underground laboratory): The science Commissar going on record gloating about the prospect of forced abortions: The health Commissar musing about how the old are useless and do not enjoy life and therefore…
Too many of the Commissars go about thinking they can say anything they like without it getting to Homer Simpson (who they see as the typical American voter) – because the mainstream media (both broadcasting and print) will never tell the bald, fat man what they intend to do him and his family. But the mainstream media do not have a monopoly of information these days. The movement should have made clear to Obama that he should not pick people who have film and audio records of what they have said. That he should only pick people who have learned to keep their secret plans… err… secret.
However, overall the movement is very effective – on a totally different level from the pro liberty side (who are like a bunch of cats – moving in all sorts of directions and with plan of campaign, more chaos than cosmos – although it is cosmos, non forced cooperation, that we are supposed to believe in, against the taxis, forced order, of the movement).
Still economic law (the nature of reality itself) is the great enemy of the movement – and it may save the West yet, in spite of the chaotic nature and crass incompetence of the defenders of Western civilisation.
One of the same, government dependent, “private” credit rating agencies who rated mortgage backed securities as “Triple A” (because Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and the rest, were determined that reason would not stop the “affordable housing policy” and the lenders had to dump the crazy mortgages somehow – and, besides, Alan Greenspan Federal Reserve was backing up the building of a pyramid of debt upon them in spite of complaining about it from time to time) is now saying that there is no threat to the “Triple A” rating of United States government debt.
No doubt questions as to the soundness of this judgement about United States government debt will be met with the same response as such questions as “are you sure these people will pay back their mortgages” were. Namely a look of contempt saying “you are so simplistic, you do not understand the first elements of these complex matters – it does not even matter who the mortgages are to, the financial instruments that important people deal in are only distantly related to such basic things”.
However, please note the get out clause:
As long as the United States government takes action to reduce the national debt.
Both short term, “stimulus”, action and long term, health care “reform”, action is all about increasing the national debt. So when the house of cards finally collapses the credit rating agency will be able to say “What are you complaining about? We warned you!”
A friend (you know who you are) informed me that the Economist magazine was “getting better”, for example it had a lead story denouncing government debt. Of course this was the government debt that the Economist had urged government to take on (to bail out banks and other corporations and then to “stimulate the economy”), but it was good that it was denouncing the debt.
So I decided to give the Economist a chance and read their article (“editorial”) on American health care. After drinking a bottle of cider to recover (what a nice new bottle shape Henry Westons have produced) these on my thoughts upon that article:
It starts with a lie – Barack Obama was elected in part because of his plans to “fix American health care”.
In reality it was Hillary Clinton who stressed her health care plan during the Democrat primary campaign (Barack Obama just attacked her plan and made vague noises about his own). And during the general election campaign it was John McCain who came out with a specific health care plan, allowing people to buy health cover over State lines and switching the tax deductibility of buying health care cover from employers to individuals, whereas Barack Obama just (dishonestly) attacked the McCain plan and was vague about his own.
Barack Obama was elected President of the United States for several reasons (white guilt about mistreatment of black people, the total ideological devotion of the education system and the mainstream media, the insane judgement by John McCain to back the bank bailouts…), but stressing some specific plan to “fix American health care” was not one of them.
Still the Economist does not let the truth stand in the way of its articles, so it then outlines its position.
“Starting from scratch their would be a good case for a mostly publicly funded system” even for a magazine “as economically liberal as this one”.
This is a standard Economist trick – propose some form of statism and defend it by saying even we, the free market ones (the European meaning of “economically liberal”), are in favour of this statism. Of course the Economist never actually produces any evidence that it is pro-free market – but it is at trick it has been using since Walter Bagehot (the second editor, the first editor actually was a free market man) so I suppose it is a lie hollowed by history.
However, we are not “starting from scratch” so the Economist reluctantly concedes that some little freedom (about half of American health care is already government funded and the rest is tied up in regulations – facts that the Economist avoids, see later) must remain for awhile – it suggests five years. → Continue reading: The ‘Economist’ and American health care
Unlike the dismal Economist, Newsweek magazine does not claim to be a free market supporting publication.
Henry Hazlitt stopped writing for Newsweek back in 1966 and his replacement, as a free market voice, Milton Friedman was fired (asked to stop writing for the magazine – which is being ‘fired’ as far as I am concerned) many years ago – which is the reason I stopped subscribing to Newsweek, which I had done as a youngster.
In recent years Newsweek magazine has been fairly openly socialist (although it does not formally admit this). So why am I bothering to write a post about the publication? I am doing so because I have just seen perhaps the most insane edition of Newsweek that I have seen – not just ‘leftwing’, or whatever, but an edition that just makes no sense, whether from a socialist or any other point of view. Makes no sense as in ‘senseless’ – insane.
The front cover of the edition has the headline ‘Capitalist Manifesto‘ and this article is odd enough – page after page of standard statist stuff (supporting the bank bailouts and so on) written by one Newsweek‘s high ups. Why the high up is being given about half the magazine for his statist musings (rather than doing his job of editing the articles of real writers) is not explained – and the title of ‘Capitalist Manifesto’, for standard statism that one could hear and see on the BBC or American ‘mainstream’ broadcasters any day of the week, is also not explained.
However, this is by no means the most odd article.
There is also an article about a group of ‘rebels’ who are out to “save capitalism” from President Barack Obama. I was astonished to see such an article in the ‘mainstream media’ (especially in Newsweek) and read it. That is when the utter insanity of this edition of Newsweek hit me.
The ‘rebels’ are actually Democrats (and one is Bernard Sanders, the openly Socialist Senator from Vermont) who are “saving capitalism” by “opposing” Barack Obama (in reality they are all strong supporters of Barack Obama) who they fear is “too soft on Wall Street”.
So capitalism is to be “saved” by even more statism than there is already. People like Senator Sanders of Vermont are interested in “saving” capitalism (which it has been their life long dream to destroy) and they are “rebels” against the (life long far leftist with Marxist background, whom they all really support) Barack Obama, who is too free market – in much the way Lenin or Mussolini were too free market I guess.
After I put my head back together (it had exploded), I tried to make some sense of this article. The only thing I can come up with is it is some sort of cover for the new regulations announced by President Barack Obama. By saying they are not enough (selling out to Wall Street and so on) and pointing at ‘rebels’ (i.e. pro Obama fanatics) who are out to “save capitalism” (i.e. are determined to utterly destroy what is left of the free market), life long far leftist Barack Obama can be presented as a ‘moderate’.
Also the real causes of the present crises (the endless increases in the credit money supply by the Federal Reserve system and the wildly harmful “affordable housing policy” pushed by Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and the rest via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and so on) can be hidden by lies about the “deregulated” (!) financial system.
However, this explanation is rather complex and does not really convince me. A more simple explanation is that the people over at Newsweek have just finally gone totally insane.
Many people say that the poll tax funded BBC no longer matters – but I do not agree.
The BBC matters less than it once did, but it (or rather parts of it) is still considered a source of serious discussion – and things said on the BBC go into the schools and colleges (via teachers and university lecturers – the sort of people who still actually listen to things like BBC Radio Four) and even into the entertainment media – as BBC money is still a major source of funding for comedians, and actors and even pop singers like to be thought of as “intellectual” so they follow what other people tell them are serious ideas.
The BBC is not all “Eastenders” and other soap operas; it still considers itself in the business of spreading ideas (although, of course, even the soap operas spread ideas and attitudes) and the Reith Lectures, named after the founder of the BBC, John Reith, is what BBC thinks of as the high point of its “High Culture” mission.
Of course the vile taxpayers may not actually listen to the Reith Lectures, or understand them if we did, but watered down and adapted forms of the ideas expressed in the Reith Lectures will be used to “educate” our children and even “inform” popular entertainers, so whether we listen or not is not really relevant from the point of view of the BBC.
The Reith Lectures this year are to be delivered by what the BBC’s advertisements describe as “one of the world’s great philiosphers”, Michael Sandel, actually a Harvard professor who has spent his entire academic life repeating the statist mantras of the late John Rawls. In this context, see Antony Flew’s examination of the ideas such men stand for, which Flew gives in such works as “Equality: In Liberty and Justice”. → Continue reading: BBC Harvard ‘Philosophy’ is based on lies
Articles like this help even an intolerant short tempered swine like me forgive the Ludwig von Mises Institute for some of its people’s a priori history and America-and-Britain-are-always-wrong view of war.
Calling a Roman Emperor a possible father of the West is problematic enough, but one from the late Empire is especially problematic.
Since the time of Diocletian peasants, the great majority of Roman citizens, had not been allowed to leave their farms – as it was feared they might be trying to dodge taxes by doing so. And since the time of Constantine it was “legal” to put peasants in chains if they were suspected of planing to leave.
And, of course, anyone below the rank of Senator was open to flogging and torture if Imperial officials felt such treatment was needed to get a confession for a crime or just to inspire greater tax revenue. Technically a town councillor could not be treated in this way, but such old fashioned legal technicalities were largely a dead letter in the late Empire. And even Senators could be flogged, tortured and murdered if the Emperor felt like it – because his will was law. In a way that baffled some barbarian tribesmen – who were used to a tribal chief not being able to change the basic laws of the tribe whenever he felt like it.
Roman legal practice (both due to the arbitary will of Emperors and the degenerate thinking of scholars) had long become infested with notions like the “just price” (of which there are traces even under the Republic) – defined not as a price freely arrived at by buyer and seller (an interpretation of the “just price” that one can see in one tradition of Roman law going from Classical times up through such things as Bavarian law in the 8th century, right to our own times) but as some “correct price” for bread (and other products), laid down by the arbitrary will of the ruler – in a way such tyrants as Charles the Great of the Franks (Charlemagne) and his pet scholars would have approved of centuries later.
Nor was Valentinian himself a gentle man – for example the punishment he brought in for trying to avoid conscription was to be burnt alive. Nor did Valentinian think of removing the ban on the private ownership, and training with, weapons – which under the Republic was just as much the mark of a free man, as it was among the Saxons or other such tribes.
Valentinian is also attacked for his “old fashioned” concentration on the frontier – building forts and other such, and stationing his best troops in the frontier areas (and leading them himself till he dropped dead of the strain of command). Rather than the enlightened “defence in depth” conception favoured by Emperors like Constantine.
The attack on Valentinian military policy is, however, wrong headed. At the time when men either marched or rode on horseback to war modern “defence in depth” ideas were not really an option. The main armies had to be on the frontiers or invasions would destroy whole provinces before “strategic reserves” could come up. After all just sending message for help could take weeks.
Nor was Constantine really thinking about “defence in depth”. He created an elite army (with the best troops and equipment) and positioned them round himself in his new capital (Constantinople) to guard against frontier commanders doing what he himself had done – leading a military revolt against the Emperor. His plan was a political, not a military, one.
But just being correct on the military question would not make Valentinian a father of the West – after all the Roman Empire fell and (given the degenerate nature of the late Empire) probably had to fall for the West to be born. So Valentinian was, in the end, a failure and we should not be sad that only a few years after his death the Visigoths sacked Rome. Although this “in the long term it was for the best” thinking does leave aside the horror of the barbarian invasions themselves – and the fact that much of civilization was lost. For example Roman notions of sanitation (not a small point) only really returned to Europe in the mid 19th century.
And lastly I can not even claim that Valentinian did not add some statist ideas of his own. For example he set up a free medical service – and although it was only 12 doctors servicing the poor of the city of Rome (itself only a small percentage of the population of the Empire) this was yet another expense the Empire could have done without. And yet another betrayal of the old, pre “bread and games”, Republic of independent families and voluntary association – at least the voluntary association of citizens.
So why the claim that Valentinian may have been one of the fathers of the West?
There are two reasons… → Continue reading: The Emperor Valentinian: A father of the West?
In its ironically titled ‘Lexington’ section the Economist magazine attacks those who point at the influence of collectivist ideologies on American government policy. Rather than refuting the evidence and argument the critics of government policy produce, the Economist (in the best education system and mainstream media tradition) just ignores evidence and argument, and denounces those who point to Marxist and Fascist origins of much modern “Progressive” government policy.
One example of the Economist approach really caught my eye:
For years Glenn Beck has denounced wild spending Republicans (especially President Bush) and since moving to Fox News he has continued to do this. He has also (with the help of many people who have written scholarly books on these matters) continued to try and explain the influence of collectivist philosophies on American politics over the last century – from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama.
The Economist collapses all of this into – Glenn-Beck-claims-Obama-leading-the-United-States-to-Fascism.
If ‘Lexington’ was attacking me this would make some sort of sense, as I have often pointed out the Marxist background of Barack Obama (and Marxists sometimes evolve into Fascists – as this involves no rejection of their basic collectivism). However, Glenn Beck has clearly stated (many times) that he does not believe that that Barack Obama is a Communist or a Fascist – what Beck is trying to do is to show how collectivist philosophies have increasingly influenced American government policies over time, often without the leading politicians being fully aware of the origins and nature of the principles they try and put into practice.
Anyone who has seen the show, as opposed to tiny bits of the show taken out of context, would know this.
However, ‘Lexington’ would rather write about something without bothering to watch it – getting his “information” from the far left smear site “mediamatters” instead.
And the mainstream media wonder why libertarians and conservatives despise them.
It will of course not be the end of the Catholic Church, but the pattern of state regulatory encroachment here in what should simply be a criminal matter is unmistakable.
After a priest stole $1.4 million from a church in Darien, state legislators have proposed a law that would regulate how parishes are controlled and operated.
The state’s Catholic bishops rallied opposition from the pulpits at weekend Masses.
The law essentially would strip the dioceses of all financial control of parishes and leave bishops and priests to oversee “matters pertaining exclusively to religious tenets and practices.” A board of elected laypersons would handle parish finances.
Even if “lay control” (and what started with an “elected body of lay persons” would not end there – it is the principle that Church matters are governed by the government that they are after) was established the Roman Catholic Church would continue to operate in peaceful defiance of the government – as it did in France after the government take over (the “separation of Church and State” in the inverted language that is used by these evil people) of 1905.
This is the real reason that Obama and the other liberals are not popular with either conservative Protestants or Jews or with Roman Catholics – whereas FDR was. FDR, however far his economic radicalism went, was a social conservative – government control of churches would not have even occurred to him. The left think they can use scandals, both financial and sexual, to aid their objective of taking over (i.e. destroying) all institutions outside government.
They are mistaken. Even if there is no God – it is the independence of these institutions from government that gives them value in the minds of those who are involved in them. They will be deeply offended in ways the left do not understand.
(via Red State)
In an article in its present edition “In Knots Over Nationalization” (page 14) the Economist magazine writes the following about the many trillions of Dollars that President Barack Obama has pledged to spend over and above the wild spending of the hopeless incompetant President George Walker Bush.
…an honest attempt to put the recent stimulus in the context of a plausibly responsible medium term fiscal path
Of course the antics of President Obama are not “responsible” at all. If this increase in government spending, not just over this year but over the following years, is “responsible” what would the Economist consider “irresponsible”?
Of course there are other articles in the Economist in which the details of President Obama’s tax and spend policies come in for criticism – but the position of general support for his Administration, in line with the endorsement of then candidate Obama last year, would seem to be incomprehensbile for a publication that claims to be a supporter of free market “capitalism”.
However, the position of the Economist is not incomprehensible at all – but to understand their articles one must understand some other things first…
If I thought that it was a good idea for more money to be lent out than existed in real savings, i.e. all the complex things that are very loosely called “fractional reserve banking”, how would I defend the practice?
Actually I do not it is a good idea, I think that all borrowing should be one hundred per cent from income that people have chosen not to consume (real savings), but let us say I did. I would defend the expansion of credit in something like the following way… → Continue reading: What could President Barack Obama do that ‘The Economist’ would consider “irresponsible”?
A civil liberties pressure group has called for the resignation of Prof Janet Hartley, the academic responsible for banning Islam critic Douglas Murray from chairing a discussion tonight at the [London School of Economics].
Modern Islamists will cut a women’s face if she uses make-up and kill women for such ‘crimes’ as being raped, but they are in favour of wild spending and printing (“expansionary fiscal and monetary policies for a counter cycle effect” as the scum of the Economist would put it) – even though such antics are actually denounced by the Koran.
That so many academics sides with the forces of radical Islam should come as no surprise – for the modern left (including modern mutant forms of Marxism that have combined Marxist and Keynesian doctrines in ways that Karl Marx himself would have had nothing but contempt) and radical ‘Islamists’ favour many (although not all) of the same economic policies – as Comrade President Barack Obama would have been reminded by both his leading Marxist (well mutant heretic modern Marxist) and leading Islamist neighbours in the Hyde Park area of Chicago. Although, of course, this is what he had already been taught as a child (both by his Mother and by Frank) and then at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard. Before he was ever sent to Chicago to join the operations of the Comrades there.
“You are off the point Paul – we are talking about academics and free speech”.
Well Pigou (the Cambridge ‘Economics’ Prof who Keynes implies was free market in one of the in-jokes in the ‘General Theory’…) held that anyone who questioned the need for more government spending should be sent to prison.
Collectivist academics have never been pro free speech (it would not be consistent with collectivism if they were in favour of free speech) – the academic that Dr Gabb attacks was following in the tradition of Plato himself.
The function of a university (as explained by Gramsci and Marcuse) is to produce minds indoctrinated with ‘progressive’ thought – so indoctrinated that any ideas that are hostile to the cause will be rejected by them (without consideration), and reject them with great hatred.
Universities are not totally successful – in that most students are just given a vague mind set of support for ‘progressive’ ideas and a built in hostility to ‘reactionary’ ideas, but only in a very loose way, enough to, say, vote for Obama – but not enough to kill for him. They become the sort of people who think the Economist is free market, laugh at the “humour” of the Communist comics on Radio 4 without actually sharing their ideology and do not see anything odd in the selection of books in British bookshops.
“But what has this got to do with radical Islam”.
Sadly quite a lot – as far from being seen as reactionary (with its hatred of women’s rights and so on) radical Islam is seen as progressive. And it is (if one defines progressive in the way the academics would) – Islamic socialism (the word “socialism” is used) is common among both the Sunni and the Shia radicals.
And communist groups (in spite of the atheism of Karl Marx and co) ally with them – look for the banners on the demonstrations (they are there). Students are taught to be anti-American (this will continue in spite of Comrade President Barack Obama) and anti Israeli – and anti capitalist. And radical Islam is all three. Therefore they feel vaguely “pro” it – in spite of its tearing women to bits, and so on, and so on… after all plenty of female radical Islamists can be found – and we must not be “culturally imperialist”.
As for reforming the universities – they can not be reformed. They must be de-funded – no more taxpayers money for them (directly or indirectly).
Oh and if anyone thinks I am judging the ‘educated classes’ too harshly, then spend five minutes in a British book shop (not just the wall of Obama books, but the other books you will find – and the books you will not find) or listening to the news (or film reviews) of private broadcasters such as ‘Classic FM’
They know their market – the people who accepted (or half accepted) the ‘progressive‘ ideas they were taught at school and university, such as a ‘progressive conservative’ leader who attacks ‘big government’ whilst at the same time explicitly promising to… increase the size of the government.
Evidence is only of use to the mind that is prepared for it.
Every time I see the government of Japan (or some other government) spending yet more money, in spite of the failure of all their previous government spending orgies, I am reminded of this.
Because, of course, to them there is no such thing as evidence that expanding government spending is not a “good thing”, just as there is no such thing as evidence that trying to finance lending (“investment”) via credit/money expansion, rather than solely by real savings, is not a “good thing”.
On the contrary, any economic decline (perhaps even mass starvation) is interpreted as evidence that there should both be more government spending (an “expansionary fiscal policy”) and more credit/money expansion (an “expansionary monetary policy”).
This is due to the framework of ideas in the heads of the politicians, administrators, mainstream academics and media people – and, yes, many businessmen… What Perry would call the “metacontext”.
Yet in the private sector, this sort of behaviour is called this a ‘pyramid scheme‘ and people get thrown in jail for it.
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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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