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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Cato have written about why they are not real keen on Ron Paul and although I pretty much agree with the generality of what causes them such discomfort, I do not actually end up with the same set of conclusions. The money quote for me is:
And now he and his associates have slimed the noble cause of liberty and limited government.
Please, gentlemen, take a deep breath. I realise racism is the cardinal sin of our time and that it carries the automatic penalty of public abomination and auto da fe, followed by burning at the stake (it even gets you banned from commenting at Samizdata, although probably not for the reasons most people think), but the notion that the cause of liberty is inextricably tied up with Ron Paul’s campaign is excessive hyperventilating, both from Ron Paul’s supporters and his detractors.
I never felt he was the dream candidate, just the only one serious about shrinking the size of the state and frankly if he wanted to do that in order to preserve the purity of his precious bodily fluids rather than to increase the general sum of liberty, well so be it, just so long as he really is serious about shrinking the state.
Just as I am (still) quite willing to support him in spite of, rather than because of, his view of foreign affairs as foreign affairs just ain’t the most important issue at the moment in my view, similarly this admitted lapse of judgement by Ron Paul regarding these dismal newsletters does not really change much in my opinion.
He is a politician, for Christ’s sake, what did you expect?
…or should I say Ron Paul. The previous post makes the case against Ron Paul as a champion of the libertarian faction of the US Republican party.
However, I shall be speaking about the US primary system and what Congressman Paul’s campaign means at the Putney Debates tonight. I shall try to get a summary up over the weekend, either on Samizdata or here. The title of my talk is ‘Change at the Top: How the US Election Process Works and What are the Opportunities for Ron Paul?’ Details from here.
I shall also be continuing to cover the US primaries on my election blog.
Although I like a lot of its articles, I have to say I got irritated with some of the intellectual flabbiness of Reason magazine a few months ago and my subscription lapsed. I am also trying to save a bit of money and realise that I have rather lot of subscriptions as it is. The magazine spends too much of its time desperately trying to make libertarianism cool and funky by devoting so much stuff to drugs etc, for my liking; but I do check out its website and I enjoy reading its writers such as Brian Doherty. But something of its old hard edge has gone. Maybe I am just becoming an old git (I am sure readers will agree).
It appears one of its former editors, Virginia Postrel, is none too impressed by the judgement of some the magazine’s writers. This has to hurt:
I do fault my friends at Reason, who are much cooler than I’ll ever be and who, scornful of the earnestness that takes politics seriously, apparently didn’t do their homework before embracing Paul as the latest indicator of libertarian cachet. For starters, they might have asked my old boss Bob Poole about Ron Paul; I remember a board member complaining about Paul’s newsletters back in the early ’90s. Besides, people as cosmopolitan as Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch should be able to detect something awry in Paul’s populist appeals. (Note that by “cosmopolitan” I do not mean “Jewish.” I mean cosmopolitan.) I suspect they did but decided it was more useful to spin things their way than to take Paul’s record and ideas seriously. As for Andrew Sullivan, his political infatuations are not his strong point as a commentator.
The line right at the end about Sullivan is a devastating put-down for being so polite.
According to American Thinker, there is a move afoot to nationalise the ability of people to control the temperatures of their own homes (yes, really!) in, where else, the People’s Republic of California:
What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a “programmable communicating thermostat” or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes’ central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a “non-removable ” FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During “price events” those changes are limited to +/- four degrees F and you would be able to manually override the changes. During “emergency events” the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them.
In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. Your desires and needs can and will be overridden by the state of California through its public and private utility organizations. All this is for the common good, of course.
Good grief. Presumably the same logic will be extended into all your household functions. As for the “and you would not be able to alter them”, has the political class’ dislike of so-called ‘assault weapons’ been extended to ban hammers and screwdrivers?
However I must say that American Thinker demonstrates what a big part of the problem is:
Building codes and engineering standards are generally good things.
By which I assume they mean politically derived and state imposed building codes and engineering standards (and if they do not, ignore all that follows). Well guys, all your are doing is reporting on the logical progression of these ‘good things’ that you like so much. Building codes and engineering standards demanded by insurance companies on the other hand are far less likely to have ‘mission creep’ built into the process. American Thinker makes the classic statist mistake of assuming that order can only be imposed by the state regardless of all the evidence to the contrary (or as Bastiat put it, “Paris gets fed” without any central planner). People want and need order. Order is at the core of what civilisation is about. But it makes little sense allowing a monopoly provider of order to decide how best to achieve that. When you do, you end up with shit like this.
(hat tip to Dropsafe)
There is an article on Pajamas Media which, if largely true, would have certainly been enough to tip me over the edge into not supporting Ron Paul. Admittedly I have always been rather equivocal in my support of him, but if some the statements attributed to him are indeed what they seem when viewed in context, then I have even more difficulty lining up behind him.
However…
A lot of the ‘damning’ statement attributed to him are things I have no problem with in the slightest and to describe them as evidence of racism or conspiracy theories is unconvincing and in a few cases actually absurd.
So let us fisk the statements offered up as evidence of Ron Paul’s wickedness by Daniel Koffler, starting with the ones described as ‘Racists Pull Quotes’… → Continue reading: When Ron Paul is wrong… and when he is not
I am covering the New Hampshire primaries over on my Election Watch blog.
So far, the fun is Ron Paul 4 votes, Hillary Clinton 3. OK so Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location are not representative of the whole state.
How odd it is that we in the West seem to have only two ways of thinking about politics – either supreme cynicism or supreme credulousness.
– David Aranovich, who is not entirely impressed by the Barack Obama phenomenon. Count me in on that.
There is a powerful strain of thought in the United States which sees the world as essentially capable of reduction to a series of legal processes, and more specifically American legal processes. Acts of war by foreigners are seen as ‘crimes’, legal infractions, rather than acts of war, and anything that happens anywhere can be a source of legal action (and income) for American lawyers.
A case in point is the strange Biom case. David Boim, a 17 year old American, was murdered in Israel by some Palestinian psychos associated with Hamas and this ends up as the subject of a civil lawsuit by his parents in Chicago.
The actual details of this case are not what concerns me and gawd knows I am far from sad to see bad things happen to Islamist groups in the United States or anywhere else, but the logic underpinning this sort of thing strikes me as being based on a great many questionable and downright dangerous assumptions.
David Boim was an American, but he chose to leave America and go to another country with its own laws and courts, so surely Israel is where any legal issues should be sorted out as that is where he was murdered. Moreover, as the case in Chicago seems to be based on suing people for their political support of Hamas, if those organisations in the USA are legal, is allowing them to be sued for their political views really acceptable? If however they are declared to be proscribed organisations by the American state, surely they should not exist at all within the USA and that would presumably be a criminal matter, not a civil one.
Would it be regarded as acceptable in the USA for American organisations in some third country with links to the Republican Party or just the US government generally, to be sued by people critical of US foreign policy? Can the relatives of people killed by US troops in Iraq sue US commercial or political interests in Europe based on their presumed support for US policies? It strikes me as a ludicrous notion much like the preposterous ‘libel tourism‘ used by the odious Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz to silence US author Rachel Ehrenfeld (amongst others) by using British court rulings.
Yet as long as people in the USA are sanguine about US courts being used to sue people for things that happen outside the USA, they can hardly complain if others use foreign courts against US citizens for things they do in the USA (such as publishing a book, for example).
Former Governor ‘Mitt’ Romney ran a series of ‘contrast ads’ against former Governor Mike Huckabee in Iowa.
The ads claimed that Mike Huckabee had vastly increased government spending and taxation in Arkansas (whereas he claims to have cut taxes) and that he went around handing out every possible government benefit to illegal immigrants – whereas he pretends to be tough on illegal immigration. Every word of the Romney attacks on Huckabee was true – so why did they not work?
It is a simple matter – the source of the attacks. ‘Mitt’ Romney also increased taxes when he was Governor of Massachusetts, although he called the taxes “fees” (hence one of his nicknames, Governor “Fee Fee”). True he did not increase taxes nearly as much as Mike Huckabee did, but…
And on government spending – Governor Romney left Massachusetts with a new entitlement program. Universal health care – the costs and fines connected with this program will go up and up over time, as such things always do. And “but my plan is not as bad as the Hillary Clinton plan” is not really a good defence.
As for “tough on illegal immigration”. Governor Romney was indeed tough on illegal immigration – for about two weeks before he left office. Governor Romney ordered the State Police in Massachusetts to enforce Federal immigration law as a move to impress Republican voters as he was already running his campaign for President – and knowing that the incoming Democrat Governor would drop the whole thing. Governor Romney also made a great show of vetoing some State government spending – knowing that these “cuts” would be reversed by the incoming Democrat.
So why did not Romney’s attacks work on Huckabee?
Simple – people who are not wearing any clothes do not get any credit for pointing out that other people are naked.
One of the first things I learnt, indeed was taught – with hard words, when I first stuck my British nose in American politics is that one should never predict caucus meetings, especially when the polls are close, because “anything can happen on caucus night”.
However, I now find myself predicting the Iowa caucus – indeed I have even found myself writing about it in on-line games I am involved in, which must make me seem even odder than I do normally. I am not predicting the Republican side – my emotions are too involved in that. But I do find myself predicting the Democrat side – in direct contradiction to the first rule I was taught. Therefore I am almost certainly making a fool of myself. However, I can not see Senator Hillary Clinton losing.
Take the line of policy.
For example, going on television and saying that people should vote for Senator Clinton because if they did she would “cure autism – I have been working on this for many years” and “cure cancer – a women came to one of my campaign events with a bald head from cancer treatment, but she had painted her head in support of me and I will not let her, and all the other people who have placed all their hopes and dreams in me, down”. Or the Christmas ad – Senator Clinton with lots of presents wrapped in ribbons saying things like “universal pre K.”, “alternative energy”, “universal healthcare” and so on. With the Senator indicating how all these presents would be given if she won.
I may think that such an behaviour is terrible and disgusting, indeed a sign of a maniac with delusions of Godhood – but Democrat voters will love it. But it is not just this, it is organization.
For example, what other Democrat will have five thousand cars on Thursday to take people to caucus events – and this is just the full time cars not the ad hoc help. And then there are all the child minders in special centres who will “take care of the children” whilst the parents are at caucus – I trust that nothing bad will happen to the children if the parents vote the wrong way. The campaign has just such a huge organization and such an unlimited amount of money I do not see how Senator Hillary Clinton can lose.
This morning Fox and Friends concentrated on three candidates in relation the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night: the two lead candidates in the polls, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney – and John McCain… this was in spite of the fact that Senator McCain is not in Iowa (he is in New Hampshire) and that Fred Thompson is ahead of John McCain is most of Iowa polls.
This is a part of pattern: last night Fred Thompson was on Fox News Sunday, but in the panel discussion, later in the show, the panellists ignored Fred Thompson. He is attacked by people, including me, for not going on enough television shows – but when he does go on what he says is ignored, so perhaps I see why he does not clamour to go on. Yesterday morning Fox and Friends, like the rest of the media, was busy laughing at Fred Thompson’s comments about not being obsessed with politics: “If one is not passionate about campaigning one should not run for office,” was the message of the media.
But what sort of person is passionate about the political process? Not getting things done – but the process of gaining votes. Of going around pretending to be close personal friends with lots and lots of people one has never met before?
Fred Thompson is in the middle of a 40 town Iowa tour – so he is hardly lazy. And he does go on television shows – thus dealing with critics, such as myself, who attacked him for not going on enough shows. But what sort of person would enjoy all this?
A lunatic. Someone who was interested in office for its own sake – not as a means to reduce the size and scope of government.
What the media, including Fox News (the only non-leftist news station and, therefore, of vital importance in the Republican nomination process), are saying is that Fred Thompson is too sane to be President. It is not enough to produce detailed policies for dealing with the entitlement program Welfare State (a cancer that is destroying the United States and the rest of the Western World), or producing a new optional flat tax (individuals could continue to use the existing system if they wished to) to deal with the nightmare of complexity that the income tax has become.
It is not even enough to have a long record of service, going back to Watergate and taking down a corrupt Governor of Tennessee in the 1970’s. And having one of the most Conservative voting records in the United States Senate – before leaving it in disgust at how the system did not allow real reform.
No – someone has to enjoy the prospect for office for its own sake, not to reduce the size and scope of government and restore a Federal Republic. One must enjoy the whole process of politics – i.e. be crazy. Or one must pretend to enjoy it – i.e. be a liar.
And then people complain that politicians are either crazy or corrupt. When they shoo away anyone who comes along who is neither crazy or corrupt.
Fred Thompson or Ron Paul? Like Perry and some others, I would rather see a big government Democrat elected than a big government Republican. At least that would bring back some opposition. Republicans in Congress have a much better record of reining in the Democrats’ presidents than their own. And as I explain later, I think that one of these two is the only Republican candidate capable of winning the national election.
Ron Paul answering the What programs? question by naming three cabinet level departments … Wow. Good answer. If there was no rest-of-the-world, he would possibly have my vote.
“Possibly?!” Yes. Possibly. Why? Because good intentions are not enough. Many people have the right ideas. Even if elected, he needs to maneuver his ideas through both the Washington players and the great ambivalent middle of the electorate. He needs to explain and convince massive numbers of mainstream people that what he will bring is better for them personally. How many think Ron Paul is up to that job? I don’t.
Does any small government candidate have a chance both to be elected and a chance of accomplishing a rollback if elected? → Continue reading: Fred or Ron?
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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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