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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Charles Kuffner wrote:
Oh, and surely now that several people (myself, Matthew Yglesias, Mac Thomason, Max Power) have pointed out the idiocy of [We The People] the Samizdata folks would admit that they were wrong in assigning them any credibility, right? Not quite. I stand by everything I said.
Well the trouble I have with this is twofold:
Firstly I think Dale was just pointing out what the We The People campaign are saying, not actually making much of an argument whether it was/was not really valid.
Secondly, and my biggest grouse, the ‘not quite’ link is to my article called Tax: The view from Atlantis in which I actually said I thought ‘We The People’ would lose the legal argument. So to use Charles Kuffner’s words, I thought the ‘We The People’ campaign was not a credible way of trashing the IRS. I stand by everything I say too, Chuck. What is the problem, you don’t like people agreeing with some of what you say?
Harry Browne’s LibertyWire recently posted a letter from Rob Kampia, the Executive Director of the DC based Marijuana Policy Project (mpp@mpp.org) that many of you will find interesting.
Here’s the text from Rob Kampia’s letter:
On Tuesday of this week, three more members of Congress added their names to H.R. 2592, the Ron Paul / Barney Frank medical marijuana bill currently pending in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill now has 29 congressional sponsors.
These new House members are signing on to the bill largely because people on the Marijuana Policy Project’s e-mail list have used http://www.mpp.org/usa to fax 7,483 letters to their U.S. House members in support of this bill.
Thanks to the American Liberty Foundation, I am being permitted here to reach out to you, too.
Would you please visit http://www.mpp.org/usa to fax a personalized, pre-written letter asking your three members of Congress to pass the medical marijuana bill? This Web page provides a list of the 89 U.S. House members and 4 U.S. senators who have taken at least one positive action in support of medical marijuana.
If enacted, H.R. 2592 would allow states to determine their own medical marijuana policies without federal interference. Our goal is to persuade dozens of additional House members to co-sponsor H.R. 2592 and — at the same time — we are trying to persuade one U.S. senator to introduce a companion bill in the Senate.
The need for this legislation has never been greater. Medical marijuana is now legal in eight states — Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington — yet the DEA has conducted raids on a series of medical marijuana distribution centers in California since October.
In response to the October raid, a U.S. Justice Department spokesperson said, “The recent enforcement is indicative that we have not lost our priorities in other areas since Sept. 11.” This is an outrageous statement, and it’s time for us to fight back.
Please visit http://www.mpp.org/usa right away to add your voice to our campaign to stop the federal government’s war on medical marijuana patients and — really — the federal government’s war on states’ rights.
As a fellow libertarian, I can tell you there is nothing in H.R. 2592 that you won’t like. After all, the bill is good enough for Congressman Ron Paul to sponsor!
To further escalate the campaign to change federal policy, we are running a full-page ad in The New York Times today! It lists Walter Cronkite, Hugh Downs, a host of other celebrities and opinion leaders, various health and medical organizations, and more than 300 state legislators who are calling upon President Bush to change the federal policy. (See http://www.CompassionateAccess.org )
Would you please visit http://www.mpp.org/usa today? Thank you in advance for your help.
For those of you who are relative newcomers to the scene, Ron Paul is a Libertarian in Republican clothing. In 1988 he ran as the Libertarian Presidential candidate. I worked with he and his committee on a number of occasions and even wrote his domestic and international Space policy. I also sat and briefed him before he spoke in front of a crowd at an International Space Development Conference in Denver in May 1988, the first time a Presidential candidate had ever done so.
In other words, Ron Paul is solid and if he introduced the bill, I’ll take it as given it is at least born libertarian.
New blog Global Grumpy raises an interesting point about the surprising lack of reaction from the US media and muted reaction from conservative bloggers regarding the asinine steel tariffs. He also links to a somewhat pointless article on Slate on the legality of the subject, as if the problem was a legal one rather than an economic and political one. The fact left wing bloggers have little to say is hardly surprising but one can only speculate why the neo-con bloggers are not howling much louder.
Bush’s action is clearly damaging to the US economy due to the inevitable knock-on effects it will have on international trade, not to mention the increased costs passed on directly as US steel becomes more expensive. I was expecting to hear people making much stronger remarks about ‘The Bush Steel Tax on US consumers’ (for that is what it is). The headlines I was expecting were:
- ‘Bush causes squeals of delight amongst anti-globalization advocates’
- ‘Is Bush trying to get France to award him the Legion d’Honneur for inconsistency?’
- ‘Bush encourages reduction in global trade’
- ‘Bush to World: please add tariff barriers against goods exported from USA’
- ‘Bush tells Russians: ‘Yeah I know we are proping up your economy with aid on one hand and trying to wreck your steel industry with the other… so what? If you need money go sell nukes to Iran and stop bugging us’
I hope the reason for this is not the flip side of a phenomena I saw many times during the ghastly Clinton years: even when Clinton occasionally got something right (very occasionally), so great was the detestation of several otherwise analytical commentators (and friends) that they opposed policies which if conducted identically under any US president except Clinton, they would have supported without question. I wonder if ‘wartime’ admiration for Bush has not cause a similar blindness in the other direction towards a truly inane policy.
This is not a trivial issue and could have disastrous implications for the international trade system that are far more important than an industry which employs 150,000 people out of a population of 260 million.
[Note to ‘Global Grumpy’: the two e-mail addresses I have for you both bounce]
The We The People Foundation held their own hearing as the US Federal Government broke its word to do so. They claim testimony taken under oath shows the entire income tax system to be unconstitutional.
Decide for yourself. The hearing webcast is available here.
Perry’s comments on George W. Bush’s economically illiterate steel tariffs below are surely a reminder that conservatives (with a large or small c) are often the worst defenders of free enterprise.
How on earth can Dubya, for whom I have a fair amount of respect, talk about free markets any more with a straight face? Looks like the worst kind of vote-grubbing measure to me. Clearly bound to have an adverse impact on other sectors of the economy as well as sour relations with other parts of the world.
Bush has given the euro-weenies a stick to beat him with – and this time they have right on their side. Bush’s move is clearly related to next November’s Congressional elections. George, get a copy of Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” and wise up!
The recent trip by George Bush to Asia in which he preached the value of free trade and capitalism was of course widely reported in the media across the world. As a result, his remarks about the lowering of trade barriers are inevitably going to be thrown back in his face following the ludicrous imposition of 30% tariffs on steel imported into the USA.
Given that the underlying trend for steel imports into the USA has been downwards for years (down 30% over the last four) it is particularly bizarre that this politically motivated protectionism should have been allowed to happened. Of course this will also result in more expensive steel for the domestic US construction and manufacturing industry, it will cause retaliatory tariffs against US products overseas and most importantly, completely destroys the US ability to put political or moral pressure on other countries to lower tariffs against US goods.
So in order to protect some jobs in an inefficient sector, other US jobs are put at risk in not just steel consuming areas of the economy but also possibly the entire export sector once anti-US retaliatory measures are used to hit back by US trading partners.
Perhaps someone needs to point out to Dubya that compared to the value of liberalisation of the world trading system to a massive high tech external trading nation like the USA, the US steel industry is really not that important in the overall scheme of things. In any case, the whole idea that less competition will make the US steel industry more efficient, well, how does that work? It will just penalize the modern and the more competitive US steel producers in order to protect the less efficient unionised dinosaurs who will go bust in a few years anyway regardless. In the meantime overall competitiveness of US industry suffers versus overseas steel users who have access to steel at the regular non-‘protected’ price. Nice one George.
According to Wired the media industry has spent massive amounts of money in its’ attempts to buy the government:
Also, in the 2000 election cycle , the entertainment industry handed Democrats a whopping $24.2 million in contributions compared to $13.3 million to Republicans, according to opensecrets.org.
No wonder they were so loath to give Libertarian Presidential Candidate Harry Browne coverage during the 2000 election campaign. They just didn’t want to waste any of their Demopublican investment.
I remember laughing to myself about mediots (media idiots) who castigated President Bush for not immediately flying back to Washington DC after the attack. I simply could not understand how anyone could concievably make it into US national media without knowing about the well oiled but never before used procedures which bind the President and other top federal officials during an attack.
Of course under most of the scenarios for which these procedures were created… most of the media, along with everyone else would have been too dead or occupied trying to stay alive to bitch that the President was carrying out his assigned wartime duty. Which is to stay alive and in communications… and issue those terrible orders which only the acting President may issue, using the codes available only to him.
Similarly, I find the bruhaha over the “shadow” government inane and a result of willful ignorance. There are very real fears of attacks on the continental USA by weapons of mass destruction. While on the face of it some might think losing Washington and all the federal government a positive good… I suggest you think again. I, for one, prefer civil over military government, however benign.
The Amygdala blog did a nice bit of research on the policies and procedures involved in Continuity Of Government. He referred to a web publication written by John Pike at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). I’ll personally vet the source. I know John quite well and although we have very different politics and don’t agree on much of anything, he’s a good guy. He’s done me some seriously good turns in the past.
The purpose of Continuity of Government is to ensure that even under the direst of circumstances the United States remains under civilian control as mandated in the Constitution and does not ever fall under military governance by failure of the leadership to stay alive and in communication.
To put it bluntly, if you don’t like the dispersal of senior officials to not-so-secret locations, it is tantamount to saying you prefer the US Military keep order after we lose Washington.
And before this war is over… we just might.
If you are a registered Independant or Libertarian, or are willing to be so registered (or re-registered if you are a Demopublican), please contact the Carla Howell For Governor organization and sign her ballot petition. Just follow the quick and easy instructions I’ve excerpted from her campaign mailing:
Who can sign?
1. You must be registered to vote in Massachusetts.
2. You must be registered as an “Unenrolled” (Independent) or “Libertarian” voter.
3. If you are registered as a “Democrat” or “Republican” voter, we can re-register you as “Unenrolled” or “Libertarian”, so that you may legally sign our petitions. (Democrats and Republicans are legally forbidden from signing our petitions.)
4. If you’re a Massachusetts resident and you’re NOT registered to vote, we can register you as an “Unenrolled” (Independent) or “Libertarian”. Then you can sign our petitions.
What do you do next – if you meet these requirements?
5. Send us your name, home address, city, zip code, and phone number at petition@carlahowell.org
6. If you are registered “Democrat” or “Republican”, or if you are NOT registered to vote, please tell us in your email message, and whether you want to be registered “Unenrolled” or “Libertarian”. We’ll send you a voter re-registration form.
Here’s what we do: we mail you the petitions with quick and easy instructions.
Here’s all you have to do:
7. Sign the petitions the way the instructions tell you to. (If your signature or petitions are filled out wrong, the government will disqualify your signature.)
8. Put your signed petitions in the return envelope we provide, put a first-class stamp on the envelope, and mail it in.
Less than 60 seconds to sign. Quick and easy. Saves our campaigns money. And you will be part of the biggest Tax Revolt in Massachusetts since the Boston Tea Party.
Please send us your name, home address, city, zip code, and phone number immediately at petition@carlahowell.org . And if you are enrolled “Democrat” or “Republican”, or if you are NOT registered to vote, please include the information requested in #6 above.
Massachusetts state law forbids us from accepting petitions printed directly off the internet. The law requires us to use Secretary of State Certified hard copies printed from flaw-free templates.
By supporting Carla’s candidacy you are also assuring a high profile for the ballot initiative to end the state income tax.
Are we at Libertarian Samizdata partisan? What on Earth would ever make you think that?
When he is Irish of course! Well according to Democratic Representatives in US Congress this seems to be the case.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York seems to have allied herself with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (P-IRA). She attempted, with some of her Democratic colleagues, to push through legislation in praise of dead P-IRA terrorists. In this amazing act of stupidity, these Democrats are trying to use the American House of Representatives to further their support for the P-IRA. This group of people obviously do not share most Americans new found distaste for terrorism of any kind. This disgusting legislative act should be widely reported to all who will listen.
Oh yes, and one more point, Ms. McCarthy is a staunch anti-gun zealot.
Surely this is not the best message to send to the US’s staunch ally, Britain. Reports on this in the British press will not make it easy for Blair to convince his reluctant back-benchers to stay quiet, when and if the US/UK coalition goes after Iraq.
Either the Democrats need to do some house cleaning/reprimanding or else anyone who loathes terrorism should campaign to make sure all those Democrats who supported this bill are defeated at the next opportunity.
Lagwolf
The name Hollings rang some bells, but I just couldn’t place it. I Googled him and nearly drew a blank… except I found his name is Ernest “Fritz” Hollings. That clicked. I dug back into my old email queues and notes from the days when I ran Pittsburgh L5 and found a cryptic lead. I had angrily called Hollings office on February 21st, 1986. All I could tell from the phone log was Hollings had done something I’d considered utterly despicable at the time and that it had to do with the Challenger disaster.
What else to do but call on friends like Glenn Reynolds to do a quick Lexus search? And now I’ve got it.
Senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D, Times-Warner) tried to grandstand on the corpses of 7 dead astronauts. While submarines were still looking for key bits of debris on the ocean floor and the Rogers Commission was starting the long difficult job of sifting the evidence, Hollings was trying to grab headlines by calling for Senate Investigation. As reported in the MacNeil Lehrer Report transcript of that day:
LEHRER: Key members of the U.S. Senate went to war today over the shuttle Challenger investigation. Democrat Ernest Hollings fired the first round, holding a news conference to call for the resignation of NASA chief William Graham and for a Senate investigation of the Challenger accident. Hollings also had critical words for the presidential commission which is already investigating.
Within that context the log entry for my phone conversation with Gary Oleson (head of the Washington DC-L5 chapter) makes it clear why I was ticked off enough to call a Senator in another state:
Gary Oleson: looks like a setup. Jesse Moore is from S. Carolina, knows Hollings, and just moved to JSC [Johnson Space Center] post, puts him in line for running NASA if Graham gets the boot. Graham is evidently being fed incorrect info and the commission is being told that he’s going to give them incorrect info. Hollings, with GHR [Gramm-Hollings-Rudman] amendment under his belt is headline grabbing and has nothing to do with investigation. We have already notified chapters in SC. We’ll try to nail Hollings.
So this isn’t my first run in with this…. person.
And by the way… there’s a new Hollingsgate article over at Instapundit.
I was aware Donald Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon at the time the Al Qaeda kamikazi’s struck, but I did not realize he had experienced the full glories of middle eastern hospitality. He said the following in an interview with Sir John Keegan of the Telegraph, who had shared some of those same “glorious” times in Beirut:
DONALD RUMSFELD: The fellow who finally got me out of there was Brigadier General Carl Steiner, who was then head of our special forces and was travelling with me for a period.
He is quite well known today as a terrific person. But we ended up, we’d been trapped in there for three or four days where they were shelling the house we were in. And we got in the car and there was all this crazy driving. My wife took some Dramamine. She was in there with me that whole time.
We ended up in your Embassy on those wooden pews that are in the front, where all the people come in to get visas? And she had taken two or three Dramamine and fell completely asleep in a flak jacket. And I can still picture her, just out cold from the Dramamine, waiting for a helicopter to come in, and the only place we could go was your Embassy, before we got out of there.
Secretary Rumsfeld’s CV for his current job is even better than I had ever imagined. No wonder he understands there is no safety in any form of engagement with al Qaeda and their ilk that does not leave them laid in rows on the ground.
The interview is in the online Telegraph and well worth a read.
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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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