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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Many intelligent things were said at the Republican debate broadcast by the American Broadcasting System the other week. But, being of a negative cast of mind, I was more interested in the stupid things that were said.
Ron Paul listed “Korea” as one of the wars that American should not have fought and “lost” (well there goes the Korean American vote).
Mitt Romney said that government should back “universal healthcare”, as he had introduced in Massachusetts, because otherwise “people turn up to Emergency Rooms and this is expensive” – of course people are still turning up to Emergency Rooms and demanding free treatment in Massachusetts – in spite of Mitt Romney’s expensive new government scheme (which will get more and more expensive over time).
However, I believe that the most stupid thing said at the debate was from Mike Huckabee (a big tax increaser from Arkansas) who said that health care would be fixed if “everyone in America had the same healthcare as the members of Congress were given”.
There are 100 members of the United States Senate, and there are 435 members of the House of Representatives. And there are about 300 million Americans.
Paying the health costs costs of 535 politicians is a rather smaller burden than paying the health care costs of 300, 000,000 people.
Yet this piece of populist bullshit (for that is what it was) was cheered and applauded.
There is a strange furore brewing over pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson suing the American Red Cross over their use of… the Red Cross… on certain commercial products.
My first reaction was “What the…? Have J&J gone completely nuts?”
But then I actually read the background to the story from someone who works at J&J, and also got some background from someone I know who works with them, whereupon I realised actually it is the American Red Cross who have gone nuts. In fact they are worse than nuts, they are acting both unreasonably and quite dishonourably.
Clearly J&J must be aghast by the PR mess that taking legal action against a venerable institution like the Red Cross is going to stir up… and the Red Cross knows that. And so it is very clear to me that when you read the Red Cross press release, what is going on here is a cynical bit of capitalist bashing so that the Red Cross can use their sainted reputation to tear up an agreement they reached over the appropriate use of that Red Cross symbol in… 1895.
Now you might think that how can J&J claim to own the rights to the Red Cross symbol in the USA? Sure, that seems weird, but the fact is the American Red Cross did agree that J&J did indeed own it all the way back in 1895, so that is an indisputable fact, and in return for J&J’s forbearance for the Red Cross using that symbol (not to mention a century of monetary and product donations… but then as we all know, no good deed goes unpunished), the Red Cross undertook not to use the symbol as a logo on products in the USA that directly compete with J&J products that also use that symbol. And so it was for one hundred years.
Until one day the Red Cross decide it no longer suits them, no doubt on the advise of some overpaid shister. It is a shameful think that an institution that people take to represent charity and honour can quite literally trade on that perception in order to act dishonourably. Sometimes big companies act appallingly, but sometimes they are just big targets for other who act dishonourably. J&J have no choice but to defend their trademark but the only winner in all of this will be a bunch of crapulous American lawyers. Such stupidity.
Update: some more background here.
When people start blaming Big Evil Capitalists for the latest SNAFU in the global capital markets – the collapse of many debt products linked to what are called sub-prime mortgages in the US – remember that the problem stems in part from how lenders have been positively encouraged by some states to lend money to risky borrowers and people with a history of debt defaults and late payments (thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link).
Of course, ultra-low interest rates in many nations, such as Japan, have also fuelled a vast rise in the levels of global monetary growth, which in the near-term encouraged people to invest in any asset class offering a decent return regardless of risk of assets held, like bundles of sub-prime mortgages repackaged into exotica called collateralised debt obligations (please do not ask me to define these, it is too early in the morning and I have only had one coffee). Low interest rates have cut the price that investors typically demand for shouldering risk; now that rates have risen to curb inflation, the price for that risk has gone up.
Milton Friedman and Robert Heinlein may be dead, but the truths they espoused are very much alive. As they said, there is not, and never has been, such thing as a free lunch.
Fresh from his humbling at the hands of Hillary Clinton and following on from a statement indicating his willingness to invade Pakistan, Barack Obama ladles on credence to the increasingly ubiquitous assertion that he’s inexperienced:
I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance…involving civilians. Let me scratch that. There’s been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.
Desperately wrong answer to (what should be) a deal-breaking question, Mr Obama. Sure, waving the threat of one’s nuclear weapons capacity around like a pair of chopsticks in a cheap Chinese restaurant is not sensible, because it ultimately reduces that capacity’s deterrent value – which is the only practical reason why a sane nation would field a nuclear arsenal in this world of other nations who also possess The Bomb. A wise leader does not even refer to his country’s nuclear weapons capacity, because the widespread knowledge of that capacity speaks for itself more effectively than any politician could ever hope to.
Conversely, it is sheer lunacy for a US President (or hopeful) to declare that he will never press the button, because such statements completely undermine the deterrent value of these weapons. Mr Obama, if you are not running on a platform of nuclear disarmament, you never take the nuclear option off the table. Ever. You made a most elementary strategic blunder – you are not a suitable candidate for the role of U.S. Commander-in-Chief.
Andrew Sullivan is a rum character. Columnists are not supposed to maintain an iron consistency in their views and I do not hold it against Sullivan that he has switched from being a rather embarrassingly full-on cheerleader for George W. Bush, for example, to an equally full-on despiser of said. I actually believe Sullivan when he claims that his anger at some of Bush’s policies is not primarily motivated by Bush’s stance on gay marriage, but more by Bush’s very un-conservative heavy public spending, abuse of certain powers, and above all, the bungling in Iraq. But Sullivan likes to act as a sort of arbiter of what a true “conservative” is, but I wonder about his credentials on this score. This post leaves a nasty taste, even though Sullivan does his utmost, quite rightly, to divorce himself from condoning acts of violence:
Enviro-activists go all terrorist on us. The Washington Post story is here. I have to say that while I completely abhor the violence, I do not abhor the sentiment. Parking a 7-foot high Hummer in your neighborhood is about as irritating as watching one careen down the small streets of Provincetown. We have to create a social stigma toward people totally contemptuous of the environment.
“We have to create a social stigma”. That is really nice, Andrew. Several decades ago, certain people thought that it was right to “create a social stigma”, involving lots of nasty expressions and social ostracism, against people who wanted to have sex with people of their own gender. People once thought about sexual morality in much the same way that some people think about those who delight in driving gas guzzling cars. I do not know: maybe driving a large car is morally worse than two men bonking one another, but many people might take a different view. Sullivan is a man who has benefited from the liberties afforded to him by the United States, and has written eloquently about the plight of gay people and their struggle to be accepted as normal. It is particularly disappointing to see him joining what amounts to the moral bullying tactics of the Greens and their hysterical invocations of global doom.
Perhaps Dubya has unhinged the man. I wish Sullivan would cheer up: he used to be a great writer. Perhaps he should come back home to Britain for a few years and rediscover his English sense of humour.
There is an interesting article on New West by Christian Probasco, called California Looms.
California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now. O.K., I’ll admit: disturbing to people who take their civil liberties seriously. But I’m one of them.
His description of California reminded me of… Blair’s ever more authoritarian Britain. Another example of creeping democratic totalitarianism?
I am an avid reader of science fiction, and the use of futuristic fiction as a source of ideas is a welcome development. The best science fiction is that which explores the boundaries of our concepts whether in the mind, the computer or how we relate to each other. This is one of the advantages of defending the freedom of the mind, the expression of which is usually described as freedom of speech
Anti-terror chiefs in the United States have hired a team of America’s most original sci-fi authors to dream up techniques to help them combat al-Qaeda.
Ideas so far include mobile phones with chemical weapons detectors and brain scanners fitted to airport sniffer dogs, so that security staff can read their minds.
The writers have also put government scientists in touch with Hollywood special-effects experts, to work on better facial-recognition software to pick out terrorists at airports.
The Department of Homeland Security has set aside around $10 million – one tenth of its research budget – for projects dreamt up by the best brains in futuristic fiction.
Whilst DARPA is a useful channel for futuristic ideas, ten percent of a research budget handed over to any project is not such a good idea. Once the institutional apparatus is set up, with a secretariat to flesh out the innovative ideas, and the bureaucratic accretions which turn gold to mud, what will be left. A few nuggets from the civil service quicksand.
More useful is the Sigma organisation set up by Andrew Arlen some years ago, if it survives the seductive sirenic call of the public sector:
Mr Pournelle said the facial recognition plan was one of a number that aimed to replicate ideas seen on television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS, a similar show. "In real life, the computers are still nowhere near as good as they are on TV," he said. "It’s just one of several high risk, high pay-off projects we have suggested.
He is a member of Sigma, a group set up by fellow writer Arlan Andrews to pursue "science fiction in the national interest. Mr Andrews, who predicted handheld, electronic books long before they became a reality, said: “We spend our entire careers living in the future. Those responsible for keeping the nation safe need people to think of crazy ideas.”
How unusual that CSI, paraded as an authentic and naturalistic program, can be classified as science fiction, on the grounds that the technology deployed is probably three or five years ahead of our current capabilities. Yet, the same confusion may dazzle the Department of Homeland Security. The politicians will reach for science fictional solutions when actual success probably stems from incremental graft on current processes and clear procurement and privatisation.
Research is often touted as a PR solution for public sector problems. Treat this with scepticism.
I have been watching as the assortment of bad, worse and sickening candidates continues to grow in this premature election campaign. Amongst them are candidates (or at least a candiidate) who would make me vote for the other party: John McCain. There are candidates I find a little less bad on one issue or another. There are my own party contenders who cannot win, will not get much national coverage and will have an anti-war stance I do not support.
But finally, from out of the blue of the Texas sky comes: RON PAUL!
Ron is no stranger to me. I worked with his 1988 campaign manager a bit and wrote some policy papers for his Libertarian campaign. I also introduced him to a crowd at an ISDC (International Space Development Conference) in Denver after giving him a briefing on the audience. I found him thoroughly likable both politically and personally.
True, Ron carries the same anti-war stance as others, but I could ignore that in someone who may actually make a difference. Unlike my party’s candidate he will be unignorable. He could conceivably pull off a Republican nomination. If that were to happen it might cause multiple suicides amongst the kinder, gentler crowd… but no one would miss them anyway.
If he were to win the election, admittedly a very long shot, Statism’s monopoly hold on our political system would be irreparably damaged.
I am willing to take my risks on enemy forces using a weak foreign policy to attack us here because the policies of a President Paul would so liberate Americans and the American economy that we would be accelerating away from the unfree world at a rate they could not possibly match.
Ron would make us freer than we have been since Abe Lincoln mucked things up for limited government. Increased individual liberty would translate into wealth and national strength. There will never be a perfect candidate for me, but at least in Ron Paul I see an overall set of policies that does not make me want to lose my lunch.
Go here to find out how to support him.
I just saw Barack Obama on television saying that he would introduce Universal Socialist Medical Care in the USA and for people who already have insurance policies, the only difference would be such people would pay less in premiums… everything else would be just as good. Yes, you too in the USA can have something as ‘wonderful’ as our decrepit National Health Service. You lucky, lucky people.
And presumably this conjuring act of creating wealth out of nothing with government impositions will come to pass purely via the Triumph of Barack Obama’s will.
Talk about delusional.
I am not an American (I am British – also watch out for my poor spelling), but I have watched the Republican debate, and the interviews after the debate, on Fox News and my impressions are as follows:
On government spending Congressman Tancredo was impressive. He made the point about most Federal government spending being unconstitutional (which I expected Congressman Ron Paul to make, and he did not) and he made the point that various candidates were now saying they were hostile to expanding government spending but that they did not join him in voting against it when they had the chance (another point I expected Congressman Ron Paul to make – and I do not remember him making it).
On detailed military and security knowledge Congressman Duncan Hunter was impressive (for example in explaining what the present military-political tactics in Iraq were), the other candidates tended to talk in general terms and their grasp of some facts was uncertain. For example, Senator John McCain stated (and stated again in the post debate interview) that the division in Congress on ‘waterboarding’ (in interrogation) was between people who had served in the military (who he said were against the practice) and people who had not.
Whatever one thinks of “waterboarding”, the fact was that Congressman Hunter was sitting only a few feet from Senator McCain and had already stated that he had served in the military (Vietnam) and that his son was serving in Iraq.
On illegal immigration Congressman Hunter was at least as specific as Congressman Tancredo (who has made illegal immigration one of main issues). Libertarian minded people are normally (although not always) free migration people – but if you are interested in things like border control Congressman Hunter seemed to know at least as much about it as Congressman Tancredo did.
On abortion all the candidates, bar one, wished it to be unlawful. The one who dissented was (of course) former Mayor R.G. who stated not simply that abortion was a State matter (which would make him anti Roe V Wade without making him give a position on abortion itself), but openly stated that he wished to keep abortion legal (i.e. if he was running for State, rather than Federal, office that would be his position) – although he did state how much he hated abortion and how he wished to reduce the number of abortions (and claimed that his policy on such things as adoption had done this in New York City).
R.G. also replied to Congressman Ron Paul’s claim that American “bombing of Iraq whilst it was under sanctions” (and other interventions in the Middle East) provoked 9/11. The former Mayor of New York did not go into a detailed examination of Congressman Paul’s claims (as he was speaking without permission, the moderators would not have allowed him to speak long), he simply stated (in a quiet but firm way) that blaming the United States for 9/11 was ridiculous and called upon Congressman Paul to retract his comments (which Congressman Paul refused to do) – this reply got a vast positive response from the audience. The audience had been warned before the debate not to applaud – but Congressman Paul’s words did rather change the situation, making a reply and audience response not something that could really be prevented. Later in the debate Congressman Tancredo stated that he did want to be associated with his “dear friend’s [Ron Paul’s] remarks” which ignored the religious motivation of America’s enemies – i.e. their interpretation of Islam which holds that the main infidel power should be defeated regardless of what policy it follows (other than submission to Islam).
In the post debate interview, on being asked about Saddam Hussain gassing the Kurds, Congressman Paul said “we gave them the gas” (untrue). It did put me in mind of the late Murry Rothbard, with his habit of repeating whatever the latest enemy propaganda about the United States government and military happened to be. It should remind people (such as myself) how rant on about how bad the left are, that not all of the blame America crowd are on the left. And I write all this as someone who opposed the judgement to go into Iraq.
Mitt Romney (former Governor of Mass) was talked of a lot before the debate, but I thought his performance was terrible. He stated that he was “for Second Amendment Rights” but he also stated that he was “for the assault weapons ban”. He stated that he was in favour of getting government spending under control (as all the candidates did – for example R.G. was very strong on this) but also stated that it was a government responsibilty that everyone had health cover, and stated how much he supported “No Child Left Behind” (the extra Federal government funding and regulations that President Bush and Senator Kennedy introduced).
However, after the debate the “text vote” had former Governor Romney comming in second (after Ron Paul) as the winner of the debate – indeed he overtook Congressman Paul in the text voting by the end of the post debate show.
As regards former Governor Romney – those “text voters” must have been watching a different debate to me. Unless his campaign people were doing something.
I know well that the were other people in the debate. The former Governors of Arkansas, Wisconsin and Virginia. But they did not make much of an impression on me – although the former Governor of Arkansas got a laugh from the audience with a joke about former Senator John Edwards. Governor Huckabee also defended his choice to greatly increase road building and education spending in the State of Arkansas. Former Governor Thompson of Wisconsin made a point about how many times he had used the veto (more than all the other candidates of both parties put together he claimed). And former Governor of Virginia Gilmour made the point that he had reached out to racial minorities whilst Governor and also whilst Chairman of the Republican party.
“Well who would you vote for”.
Perhaps it is just as well that I do not have a vote – as I am unsure.
Who will be the next President of the United States?
I do not have a link, but David Brooks was speaking on Meet the Press this morning about the Don Imus affair in the USA.
He says shock-jock popularity is not about racism. It is about cruelty. Institutionalized culturally based cruelty. Indiscriminate cruelty for its own sake.
On hearing the case (allegedly put forth by Snoop Dog in defense of his own misogynistic lyrics) that these particular women, the basketball players should not have been spoken about that way, Brooks said with sad derision, “We can only step on the down trodden.”
Brooks also points out that Imus was very heavily watched and listened to by the power elite. After an appearance on Imus’ show he, Brooks, received a remarkable amount of feedback from the power elite that make made up a disproportionate part of Imus’ audience. So now I ask, what does this say about the souls of those who demand the power and authority to be our masters? What does it mean that the powerful should be so enamoured of deliberate and systematic cruelty that they listen to it for entertainment? Somehow, I am not as surprised as I would like to be.
I think this path to cruelty is one that has been travelled farther in the UK than here, but we appear to be following closely behind you. My personal opinion is that cruelty is a/the clear marker for both the decadence and impotence of a society. Celebrated cruelty is the symptom of a society that has reoriented from protecting its weakest members to baiting them for entertainment. It is historically clear that cruelty, a cultural coldness in the extremities of society, is one of the final signs of its imminent death.
On a positive note, watching this exposure of the internal tensions in the power cabal has provided some interesting moments. For me, the most interesting of all was hearing the market place being praised from the left for having removed Imus from the air (referring to the actions of sponsors). I will take all such statements/concessions as a sign of our strength.
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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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