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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The often intemperate Jesse Walker lists 10 reasons to throw Bush out of the White House. I tend to agree with the majority of his complaints, but his last one really points up the dilemma posed to libertarians by the US major parties.
The Democrats have nominated a senator who—just sticking to the points listed above—voted for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, McCain-Feingold, and the TSA; who endorses the assault on “indecency”; who thinks the government should be spending even more than it is now. I didn’t have room in my top ten for the terrible No Child Left Behind Act, which further centralized control of the country’s public schools—but for the record, Kerry voted for that one too. It’s far from clear that he’d be any less protectionist than Bush is, and he’s also got problems that Bush doesn’t have, like his support for stricter gun controls. True, Kerry doesn’t owe anything to the religious right, and you can’t blame him for the torture at Abu Ghraib. Other than that, he’s not much of an improvement.
Yet I find myself hoping the guy wins. Not because I’m sure he’ll be better than the current executive, but because the incumbent so richly deserves to be punished at the polls. Making me root for a sanctimonious statist blowhard like Kerry isn’t the worst thing Bush has done to the country. But it’s the offense that I take most personally.
So the loathesome (second post down) John “interesting” Kerry has chosen John “even less interesting” Edwards as his running mate. This is obviously a bad move as people will confuse them, and maybe even vote for someone else called John Nondescriptname instead, but on the other hand, their policies seem to be mostly about saying whatever crowd-pleaser pops into their heads at the time, so perhaps it is a deliberate ploy to make people so confused they can’t keep up with all the turnarounds, and surrender their powers of reasoning altogether (unless that happened already).
Here are some of the things they said about each other in the past. Notice the recurrence of the word “different”. Now see if you can spot which statement belongs to which John. Answers on Fox News.
[John’s policies would run the country] deeper and deeper into deficit.
This is the same old Washington talk that people have been listening to for decades.
I think he’s said some different things at different points in time … So I think there’s been some inconsistency.
[John] and I have very different positions on the issue of trade
This one is easy:
No. No. Final. I don’t want to be vice president. I’m running for president.
And my personal favourite (remember, John is criticising John here)…
I think that the world is looking for leadership that is tested and sure. And I think that George Bush has proven that this is not a time for inexperience in the White House.
How very unintentionally right he is.
I recently wrote about Belinda Stronach’s Conservative Party candidacy in Canada. Reader Jim Bennett reports:
“Don’t know if you noticed, but Belinda Stronach did win her seat in Canada. She’ll probably be shadow International Trade minister — a good place for her.”
Canada could use the touch of an Iron Lady. It will be interesting to see if Belinda can grow enough to fill those shoes.
One way to guarantee Bush’s reelection.
Michael Moore bans Michael Moore?
It seems the new stupid campaign finance regulations in the USA (the result of Michael Moore’s years of vomit among others) are about to be used to restrict distribution of Moore’s latest wind-up.
Because the law attempts to prohibit all sorts of ‘in kind’ donations to the Republicans [I meant political parties], making a movie that plugs one candidate at the expense of another in election year could be ruled “interference” by the Federal Electoral Commission. I wonder how Michael Moore feels being felt sorry for by the US Libertarian Party.
Of course it is a shocking abuse of the US constitution. (sigh) How sad!
James Lileks captures the angst of the social statist in America in this exchange regarding John Kerry’s promise to raise taxes by rolling back the rather meager and back-loaded Bush tax cuts:
Then came the Parable of the Stairs, of course. My tiresome, shopworn, oft-told tale, a piece of unsupportable meaningless anecdotal drivel about how I turned my tax cut into a nice staircase that replaced a crumbling eyesore, hired a few people and injected money far and wide . . . . Raise my taxes, and it won’t happen – I won’t hire anyone, and they won’t hire anyone, rent anything, buy anything. You see?
“Well, it’s a philosophical difference,” she sniffed. She had pegged me as a form of life last seen clilcking the leash off a dog at Abu Ghraib. “I think the money should have gone straight to those people instead of trickling down.” Those last two words were said with an edge.
“But then I wouldn’t have hired them,” I said. “I wouldn’t have new steps. And they wouldn’t have done anything to get the money.”
“Well, what did you do?” she snapped.
“What do you mean?”
“Why should the government have given you the money in the first place?”
“They didn’t give it to me. They just took less of my money.”
That was the last straw. Now she was angry. And the truth came out:
“Well, why is it your money? I think it should be their money.”
Two responses to this last quote. First, it is James’ money because he earned it. Second, he has no objection to it becoming the worker’s money, so long as they earn it from him. In fact, the money James kept because of his tax cut now is the worker’s money. Her point, such as it is, evaporates into thin air.
The only difference? Mr. Lileks, sturdy Midwesterner that he is, believes people should should earn their money. His earnest young interlocutor, following in the sadly well-worn path of Minnesota socialism, thinks money should shower down like manna from heaven.
Very interesting appraisal of Bill Clinton. I confess I loathe the man and his wife, who strike me as distilling the worst elements of their generation and of the New Ruling Class in America into two near-sociopathic personalities.
Also apropos Clinton and the current President, one of the mysteries of their terms:
The mystery of Clinton is that he was an essentially conservative president — perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the White House since Grover Cleveland — and yet he was loathed by conservatives… I’m not sure I can explain it either — any more than I can explain why George W. Bush has inspired such antipathy from the Al Franken wing of the Democratic Party even while so abjectly pandering to them with his Medicare expansion, No Child Left Behind Act, campaign finance reform and budget-busting spending increases. Here’s Dubya expanding the Great Society, and yet he gets accused of dismantling the New Deal. Go figure” — columnist Max Boot, writing in the Los Angeles Times. (link not provided due to odious registration process, which pissed me off).
Clinton (despite his tax increase and failed nationalization of health care) has a domestic policy legacy that most Republicans would be proud of, and Bush’s domestic policy has been largely scripted to satisfy his Democratic opponents. Yet both are vilified by the very people whose policy positions they advanced. Something to ponder.
Of course, neither has done much to increase liberty within the four corners of the US of A.
Canada’s Conservative Party has some new blood. Belinda Stronach recently left a $10 million/year job as CEO of international auto parts manufacturer Magna International. Belinda is 38, single, brilliant, gorgeous, an experienced senior manager and capitalist to her DNA base pairs.
Some other Conservative Party members expect she will be a part of any Conservative government elected in Canada and eventually be Prime Minister.
From the look of things, Canadian Conservatives are on the winning side of history.
Christopher Hitchens has a fantastically (in a good way) written review of Moore’s latest creation Fahrenheit 9/11. This is my favourite bit:
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.
Hitchens extracts from the turgid and self-righteous on-screen heap of non-sense six points that he then proceeds to fisk with brisk ruthlessness they deserve. Read the whole thing as they say…
It seems astonishing that the state still gets involve with the content of TV programming in the USA. I expect this sort of crap in Britain and Europe, but in the USA?
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to crack down on indecency on radio and television by sharply raising fines. The Senate also took steps to rein in the growth of U.S. media companies by invalidating new, more relaxed ownership rules.
Can anyone tell me, do these absurd rules in the USA also apply to other non-terrestrial broadcast media companies, such as cable and satellite TV or even internet ‘radio’?
The folks in Iowa have got their market up and running for the 2004 Presidential election. Each contract pays a dollar; as of yesterday, you can spend just over 58 cents on a Bush contract, and around 43 cents on a Kerry contract. As you can see, the futures market is bullish for Bush (hmm, there’s a slogan in there somewhere, possibly with an R rated logo) as compared to the opinion polls (right hand column, scroll down a little for a summary/average of current polling – very handy for the political junky).
The Iowa market is worth keeping an eye on – over the last several elections, it has half the forecast error of the opinion polls.
Update: For those hankering to put their money where there mouth is, and perhaps fleece a few rubes, the main page for the Iowa Electronic Futures Market is here. Sadly, there is a $500 cap on positions.
President Ronald Reagan has just passed away about an hour ago.
One of the few politicians that went into politics because they believed in something. This was a president who in his inaugural address in 1981 said:
Government is not the solution, it’s the problem.
He will also be remembered as the Vanquisher of Soviet Communism, whatever the revisionists of all flavours may say.
Rest in peace.
Update: For more information here. Some notable quotations from Reagan here.
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