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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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A great Libertarian has died

· North American affairs

I have just received the sad news that David Nolan, co-founder of the Libertarian Party and co-creator of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz died November 21st, 2 days before his 67th birthday.

November 24th, 2010 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)

Rob Fisher does a junk-touching round-up

· North American affairs · Privacy & Panopticon · Self defence & Security · Transport

Here at Samizdata we’ve only paid rather sporadic attention to this whole TSA grope and change (a phrase we have surely not heard the last of) thing, our most thorough airing of the issue so far having been in this posting and in its comments. But over at Transport Blog there is an excellently link rich posting about it all, compiled by Rob Fisher.

In particular Rob notes a Slashdot commenter (on this) saying something which particularly deserves to get around:

I don’t even think the TSA should be the one scanning the people at all, it should be the individual airlines. That way you can choose to pay for your security if you really want it, and competitive practices can find the optimal solution.

Indeed, and this was mentioned in passing in the comments on that earlier Samizdata posting. Safety doesn’t need to be imposed by governments. People want safety, but they also want other things (fun, convenience, speed, comfort, not to be embarrassed or humiliated by neanderthals, etc.) and it should be up to people to make the trade-offs for themselves.

Personally, I suspect that an under-discussed aspect of all this is that a lot of people in the USA (as in many other places), and in particular just now in positions of authority and influence in the USA, think that air travel is evil and that curtailing it, by whatever method that works, is just terrific. These people are fast losing the argument about why air travel is evil (global warming blah blah blah), but the terrorism thing gives them an excuse to just keep on hacking away at the abomination (as they see it) of regular people regularly taking to the air. And the more that regular people squeal that they ain’t gonna fly no more, the merrier these flying-is-evil killjoys will feel about it all. Protest from the ranks of the newly immobilised is good because that means that it’s really working.

November 23rd, 2010 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)

Has another brand new custom-built headquarters ruined another famous institution?

· Architecture · Media & Journalism · North American affairs

Instapundit (and yes I am reading him a lot just now) has been linking to a book called Gray Lady Down, which is about the downfall of the New York Times, from a persuasive proclaimer of the statist consensus to an unpersuasive proclaimer of the statist ex-consensus. I’ve not read this book, but it has a big picture of a skyscraper on its front cover. Might there, I wondered, be a brand new, custom-built headquarters involved in this story? There might indeed:

The New York Times Building is a skyscraper on the west side of Midtown Manhattan that was completed in 2007. …

Previous example of something very similar here. Since writing that earlier posting, I have dug out the original description of this syndrome, by Professor C. Northcote Parkinson, and I note that he sees the causation involved as a bit more complicated than I had previously stated. It is not just that building a new headquarters building causes an enterprise to take its eye off the ball. Its eye already was off the ball, or it would never have decided to build its new headquarters in the first place.

November 22nd, 2010 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)

NEWSFLASH: Sarah Palin attacks political opponent!

· North American affairs

Sarah Palin has apparently attacked Barack Obama in her impending book ‘America By Heart’ and Alex Spillius writes:

The attack is likely to deepen the impression that the former Alaska governor is too divisive a figure to win the presidency.

A political saying unflattering things about a political opponent! Whatever next? Crazy days, eh?

November 20th, 2010 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)

Er, am I missing something here?

· North American affairs · Russia

Real life spy dramas are interesting but what happens after the Big Denouement?

Russian intelligence sources told local media that the traitor who gave away Anna Chapman and nine others was Colonel Alexander Poteyev who served in the KGB’s elite ‘Zenith’ Special Forces unit during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

A criminal case for ‘state treason’ had been opened against him and he will be tried in absentia like other traitors before him, they said.

Hardly surprising…

Fyodor Yakovlev, a KGB veteran who said he served with Colonel Poteyev in Afghanistan, told the Regnum news agency that he now regarded his former comrade as a “non-person”.

“This non-person will live a lonely life until the end of his days in fear,” he said. “Lonely because his relatives and loved ones will not be by his side. Either his children will have to alter their appearances or else they will be doomed to the same nightmarish existence as their father.”

…so his loved one were left behind in Russia when we was extracted by CIA Operations, eh? Pity that but…

Colonel Poteyev is believed to have fled to the United States in June through his native Belarus days before the ten agents were arrested in America. He was reportedly deputy director of ‘Department S’ inside the SVR, the unit which coordinates the work of illegal agents in the United States.

He is reported to have worked in New York in the first half of the 1990s. It was there that the CIA is said to have recruited him, offering him a financial settlement. His wife later became resident in America and his son and daughter moved there before he fled Russia in June.

…er, hang on, Fyodor… did you not just say his loved one were not by his side?

Sorry but sounds to me like some guy called Hank Smith from Chickasaw Falls, plus his wife Wilma, son Hank Jr and daughter Natasha… er, I mean Britney… are living Happily Ever After and spending that hearty ‘financial settlement’ from Uncle Sam in a suburban strip mall looking forwards to Christmas somewhere with a fuck load better weather than Moscow.

November 19th, 2010 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)

Samizdata quote of the day

· North American affairs · Slogans & Quotations

It didn’t used to be so hard to get the liberal message heard over the screams of reality. Journalism was once a respected profession where liberals ignored reality to portray themselves as unbiased newsmen while actually pushing people towards liberal ideas and away from thuggish reality. Reality still found ways to occasionally get people to listen to it, whether through economic conditions or war, but its message could be contained. Eventually, though, reality weaseled its way into the media, first through talk radio, then Fox News, and now the internet, where pajama-clad imbeciles with brains too simple to understand anything other than reality spout reality on numerous websites on a daily basis.

– Frank J Fleming

November 15th, 2010 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)

A robust defence of George W Bush

· North American affairs

This comment by “Armaros”, made in response to a Guardian piece by Michael Tomasky about the former president’s new book, put the case well:

His whole agenda was thrown out the window on 911.

Not since the war of 1812 was the WH directly targeted by an enemy.

He was going to focus on Mexico, L American trade and education.
He recognized that only by bringing Mexico up to par with the rest of N America, can free trade be fair.
He was also for immigration reform and resisted the xenophobic tendencies of the SW states and tried to educate America about why this problem was occurring.

He can claim credit for No Child left behind, along with the late Teddy Kennedy who ran with the bill in the Senate. One of the most memorable stories of bi-partisan co-operation.
He was also instrumental in helping Africa and dealing with AIDS.

Bono and Geldof praised him for that.

His administration was also the most multiracial in American history.
He even offered the VP spot to Powell who decided against it in the end.
He choose a black S of state, a black NSA, and a Hispanic AG.
His Supreme court choices were centrist and sensible in Alito and Roberts.

He addressed crowds in Texas in Spanish and garnered more Latino votes than any republican before him, both as governor and president.

He will be of course remembered for the war(s).

Those will be judged with time. Iraq can be said to be a success. Saddam is gone as is the mad fascist ideology and tyranny. Iraq has proven that democracy can and should work among Arabs.
Most of the criticism of Iraq (aside from the fact that there was a war) was that Arabs cannot live in a democracy.

There have been 4 elections in Iraq with greater turnouts than most Western ones and one can say that democracy did take some hold there.

Afghanistan is still up in the air. I am not sure whether what was done in Iraq can be done there. However it is no longer a base for international terrorism.
In other words, Afghanistan is no longer a threat to us.
Whether it would revert to being that once Western troops leave is a fair question.

Bush was the first US president to declare the necessity for a Palestinian state. Another one of his forgotten positives which the Left omits on the regular.

What do you think?

November 9th, 2010 | 66 comments - (Comments are closed)

“Without these shall not a city be inhabited …”

· North American affairs · Slogans & Quotations

This morning I recorded a BBC Radio 4 programme about the late LTC Rolt, historian of the industrial revolution, biographer of (to name but one) Brunel, and the man who put a Rocket, to coin a phrase, under British industrial archaeology and who did much to make it a popular British enthusiasm.

The programme ended by quoting these words from Ecclesiasticus (not in the Bible and not to be confused with Ecclesiastes which is in the Bible) chapter 38:

All these put their trust in their hands and each becometh wise in his own work. Without these shall not a city be inhabited, and men shall not sojourn nor walk up and down therein. They shall not be sought for in the counsel of the people, and in the assembly they shall not mount on high. But they will maintain the fabric of the world, and in the handiwork of their craft is their prayer.

This guy liked it too, when this show was first aired, on Nov 8th.

Not saying I agree, mind. Read what precedes it (e.g. by following the immediately above link) and you discover that the writer of these stirring words had no problem with the working stiffs playing no part in government. That’s strictly for the idle – and therefore wise – rich to take care of.

But, stripped of that context, the above quote reads more like a protest on behalf of the downtrodden craftsmen and a claim that they should be sought in the “counsel of the people”. Understanding it that way, which is how I did understand it when I first heard the words on my radio this morning, I liked it a lot.

I also think that these words capture something of what the Tea Party is about. We, say the Tea Partiers, run the world, even if we don’t rule it. We certainly maintain the world. We know how the world works. Without us the world – the “fabric of the world” – stops. When the idle rich, mounted on high in their assemblies, decide about how the world shall be ruled, they should damn well be listening to us. A healthy majority of those in such assemblies should be us.

November 8th, 2010 | 52 comments - (Comments are closed)

The limits of compromise: the realisation that spawned the Tea Party

· North American affairs · Opinions on liberty

Many pixels have given their life on this site in discussions about how supporters of constitutionally limited government must ‘compromise’ to achieve their goals. Such people urging compromise are usually ‘sensible conservatives’ but see us wild eyed ‘libertarian’ types as potentially useful ‘fellow travellers’ if only we would learn to be more pragmatic.

And my view is usually to find out if the person telling me to compromise supported Bush or McCain, if American or Cameron if a Brit. And if they did, I try to discover if they are having serious buyers remorse… and if not, I tag them not as a ‘fellow traveller’ but as a political enemy to be opposed at every level.

But as in the USA there is at least a viable opposition movement to the Leviathan State whereas in the UK the now out-of-office Demonic Party and the ruling Stupid Party/Stupider Party coalition agree on all the Important Roles of the State, I will confine my remarks to America-centric ones because the vast majority of folks in the UK seem to rather enjoy the whole ‘circling the drain’ sensation and after all, the NHS is ‘the envy of the world’.

It seems clear that the best chance for ‘small staters’ (which means small-L libertarians, classical liberals and genuine conservatives) in America is taking over the Republican Party and that is exactly what the Tea Party is all about.

However the self identified libertarians, classical liberals and genuine conservatives within the Republican Party over the last 15 years have not been the solution to anything, indeed they have been the root of the problem…

…why?

Because in thinking that they must compromise on even the fundamental core principle of constitutionally limited government, large numbers of ostensibly pro-liberty people have voted for and abetted Big State Republicans like George “I started the bailout” Bush and John “I support the bailout” McCain. If you can ‘compromise’ to that extent, you are either lying about being in favour of limited government or you have no conception of what the word ‘limited’ means. ‘Limited’ does not mean “vast-but-growing-less-than-the-other-guy”.

It is the very fact so many people who want a smaller state refused to ever say “THIS IS A DEAL BREAKER“… and really mean it… but rather kept endlessly holding their nose and voting for The Lesser Evil that made it possible for the state to keep growing remorselessly under Republican governments.

But the Cold War in over, we won, so Reagan’s excuse no longer applies.

I have nothing against compromise with fellow travellers and usually see little value in obsessive purity tests, but the key here is compromise with fellow travellers (such as libertarians compromising with conservatives and visa versa), but what has happened over and over and over again is endless ‘compromise’ with people whose objectives are in fact antithetical.

So in short, what oh so many ‘small staters’ have been calling ‘compromise’ when they hold their nose and vote for a Big State politician just because he is running as a Republican, is not “compromise” at all… it is surrender.

What possible reason did the likes of Bush or McCain have to accommodate the views of ‘small staters’ when they knew they would vote for them regardless of how much they grew the state? No reason at all. None.

You want to know the problem? Look in the mirror and the problem will look back at you. That was the realisation that spawned the Tea Party and I was calling for that before the Tea Party even existed.

November 7th, 2010 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)

Yet another truly excellent endorcement for Sarah Palin

· North American affairs

The true enemy of the Tea Party movement, contrary to what oh so many in the the clueless and wilfully blind MSM would have you believe, is not Obama and the Democratic Party, it is the Republican Party’s establishment… i.e. the people who made Obama presidency possible.

And so when George W. Bush, the very embodiment of everything that brought the Tea Party into existence, says “Sarah Palin is unqualified“, then it is time to start counting the days until the Tea Party propels her into the White House at the head of the angry mob of peasants with torches and pitchforks soccer moms, office workers and garage mechanics.

Often the quality of a person can be judged by who their are enemies… and that means Sarah Palin is looking more appealing by the day.

November 6th, 2010 | 57 comments - (Comments are closed)

California dreaming

· North American affairs

Now that the US mid-term elections are over and the Republicans have scored a decisive victory in the House, and won seats in the Senate, the thought must occur that California, which has stuck to its socialistic politics, is ever closer to going bust. The GOP in Congress is unlikely to tolerate a bailout for a state run by delusional, mostly Democratic, fools. But if California does go bust and defaults on its debt, what happens then? Maybe this would be a good thing in the long run. Several South American states have defaulted in the past, but they did recover, eventually.

I guess one not-so-difficult thing to predict is that businesses and people will continue to flee California. It is so sad: the last time I was there, the place appeared – maybe only on the surface – to be booming.

Rand Simberg has thoughts.

November 4th, 2010 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)

What happens if there’s a tie in 2012?

· North American affairs · Sui generis

In 2012 there will be a US presidential election using a new distribution of the electoral college. This will use the population data of the current US census. After last night’s elections, there has been a dramatic change in what happens if the Democrat and Republican candidates end up with a tie (for example 269 votes each).

Short answer is that, assuming the politicians stick to their party, the Republicans win the presidency, but the Senate would pick a Democrat for Vice President. Details at my election blog.

[Update: correction made from comments, thanks Lone Ranger!]

November 4th, 2010 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
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