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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Dr. Murray Sabrin is running for the United States Senate in New Jersey and reportedly has devoted his career to promoting limited government and personal freedom.
There will be an online fund raising event today (February 29) and Dr Sabrin hopes to raise $1.5M by getting 15,000 Americans to pledge a minimum of $100 each. If he succeeds, he will be the favorite to win the U.S. Senate seat against Frank Lautenberg.
I do not personally know much about him but we can certainly do with all the real constitutionalists in DC that we can get.
There is a depressing article at Reason magazine about the protectionist instincts of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. What the article does not tell us about much is whether McCain is much better (I honestly do not know, so I welcome comments about his voting record). And of course George W. Bush hardly made friends with Britain by slapping tariffs on steel imports – which also hurt American manufacturers and builders (but they lacked powerful friends in Congress). America is the largest economy in the world and despite what some of the more starry-eyed writers on China or the other ‘Brics’ might claim, is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
Basically, America matters. If the country goes down a more protectionist path, it will hit the world economy in general. For all his many flaws, Bill Clinton’s signing of the NAFTA Treaty – admittedly when Congress was in Republican hands – was one of the few major achievements of his time in power. It has helped to fuel the ascent of the world economy, lifting millions into higher living standards: if any fans of trade restrictions out there want to contest that assertion, let them provide figures. Here are some official US ones that give some pretty punchy numbers.
As the title says, I wish they could all lose. I have had it with the media guff about how a McCain-Obama contest will somehow elevate American politics and ‘restore’ its image in the eyes of the world. What is the point of winning image points among the Guardian-reading classes if you pull a rug under the world’s economy through greater trade restrictions? How is that going to help America’s ‘image’, assuming that Americans could or should give a flying **** what people think of them in the first place?
One of the most important writers and intellectuals of America, William F. Buckley, has died. I did not agree with all of his views, but it would be churlish and extreme bad manners not to acknowledge his enormous influence in the fightback against what was, when he started out, the entrenched Big Government views of the US. He was, by all accounts, a most civilised, friendly and good man. As they say, he left the world a better place. He is one of those American intellectual and political figures, like Barry Goldwater, whom I regard, warts and all, as heroes.
May he rest in peace. My condolences to his friends and loved ones.
It seems John McCain, of McCain-Feingold fame and little else, has been hoist on his own petard and run afoul of the anti-democratic, anti-free-speech and anti-liberty FEC regulations.
This could not happen to a more deserving individual.
You have nothing to lose but your place at the trough and a whole world to win!
One non-conservative Big Government Republican (George Bush Sr.) praising the ‘conservative’ credentials of another non-conservative Big Government Republican (John McCain). I assume I am not the only finding this more than a little absurd. These guys are not ‘neo-cons’, they are ‘non-cons’.
Michael Totten has a superb article up that compares the approach to counter-insurgency followed by Israel under the dismal Ehud Olmert, and that of the US in Iraq under General David Petraeus.
What Totten points out is that the policies promised by Barack Obama for Iraq (in essence remove the army and drop bombs on anyone who seems to be the Bad Guys) is essential the same as the demonstrably failed approach used by Ehud Olmert in Lebanon. Israel blew the crap out of Lebanon from the air and achieved precisely zero of its war aims.
Read the whole article.
I have read more about the Che and flag incident in the Houston Obama office today and my biggest concern over this affair now is the poor woman who was to ‘blame’ for it. We really have to be careful in the blogger world about building mountains out of molehills and using verbiage to turn neighbors into ideological enemies.
From what I have read via Little Green Footballs, I see someone very much like many close and dear friends of mine. People who I disagree with but whom are nonetheless good people with whom you would not at all be averse to spending an evening arguing ideas over some good wine.
She did something really dumb and probably never even considered setting up ‘her space’ with a familiar and comfortable decoration would actually mean something in the real world. Many people spend much of their lives without learning that lesson and are surprised when it happens. She possibly managed some minor and unintentional damage to her favoured candidate and in punishment is cowering in her home in fear of all those hateful people who are sending venom her way.
This is certainly not the Samizdata way as you all well know. Ideas can and should be argued… but one must recognize the humanity and very often the basic decency of the people you disagree with.
I sincerely hope her McLuhan fame is soon over so she can get back to her normal life.
PS: I have intentionally not mentioned her name or given a link.
This article is in the LA Times titled Doctors balk at request for data:
The state’s largest for-profit health insurer is asking California physicians to look for conditions it can use to cancel their new patients’ medical coverage. Blue Cross of California is sending physicians copies of health insurance applications filled out by new patients, along with a letter advising them that the company has a right to drop members who fail to disclose “material medical history,” including “pre-existing pregnancies”.
Firstly all aspects of medical care, including insurance, are regulated to bits in the United States (especially in California), and it is the government regulations and subsidy programs (such as Medicare and Medicaid – but in recent years SCHIP as well) that are at the root of the high price of medical cover. But to turn to the specific question:
If someone lies about their medical history when filling out a contract, in order to get less expensive medical cover, they are guilty of fraud. In an alternative world, which I am not saying I would support, they would not only be dropped by their insurance company when their fraud was exposed – they would also be prosecuted.
Of course, in our world, they will not be prosecuted and would not be convicted if they were prosecuted. It is much the same with all the political talk about “fraudulent lending” in the mortgage market. There has been vastly more fraudulent borrowing, but I doubt that the vast number of people who lied on their mortgage applications (for example claiming to have an income much greater than they really have) will be prosecuted.
However, in an alternative world (which, again, I am not saying I support) prosecution and conviction would solve the problems of customers guilty of fraud – medical cover and a roof over their heads.
Prison provides both.
This article on the Ron Paul news site has a very interesting photo of the Obama Houston Campaign office. You really want to take a look.
It would be much improved by a propeller beanie.
Now that the rather dismal Romney has bowed out, it looks like absent a brokered deal by genuine conservatives, the truly dismal John McCain will get the Republican nomination.
My hope is that he asks Fred Thompson to run as his veep… and that Thompson tell him to go fuck himself (and if he accepts, then Thompson was not the man some folks thought he was).
Although I am rarely in enthusiastic agreement with Ann Coulter, I agree with her basic premiss regarding John McCain. Better to have the statist poison introduced by the Hildebeeste or Obrama than a Republican, because if McCain gets into the White House, that is the end of the Republican Party as anyone in the Goldwater or Reagan tradition will abandon them, quite possibly forever. The Republicans will be dead and gawd knows it will be a well deserved death.
Of course the upside of a seismic shift style Republican collapse is maybe a new political grouping is indeed what is needed, one that can also appeal to the deeply civil libertarian elements on the so-called left (yes, they really do exist). I have met many Democrats who would never consider supporting Republicans for tribal/cultural reasons and yet quite frankly are deeply uneasy bedfellows with the intolerant authoritarian ‘Daily Kos’ style left that so loves Hillary Clinton. Every cloud has a silver lining.
I must admit to being surprised by the volume of comments that this “Samizdata quote of the day” item provoked; I am not aware that we got linked to by some pro-Clinton blogs. One thing that did strike me about the comments was the apparent ignorance of the new commenters as to the philososphical bias of this blog (pro-liberty, pro-capitalism, small, if not minimal government, robust view on defence, etc). My dislike of Hillary/Obama/McCain/Huckabee/Romney is pretty consistent all the way through. Their unifying characteristic is their belief that government can do many good things and should do these things a great deal. Not one of them has – unless I missed it – made the sort of general, shrink-the-state comments that were the trademark of Reagan in his prime (that’s not to say, of course, that the Gipper actually was as marvellous as some of his supporters might claim). Of course, there remain differences, but none so much to really make a major shift in the direction of American, or for that matter, western politics. If Clinton were elected and we got a re-run of the Clinton psychodrama of the 1990s, it would be tedious, even a dangerous distraction from serious events, but I am not convinced it would be the end for Jefferson’s Republic. On the other hand, if McCain got elected, he’d probably only want to serve out one term, as he is getting on in years.
Why does any of this matter? Well, like it or not, what happens across the Big Pond resonates here. British politicians look for suggestions that western political ideas are moving in a particular way. At the moment, Big Government, Greenery, micro-management of personal behaviours via the tax and legal system are dominant ideas, although there is some fightback. This is why, infuriating though it may be to Little Englanders, the US Presidential elections get so much attention.
I’ll just be relieved when it is over so we can go back to bashing Gloomy Gordon and Dave.
Hayek? …. Check!
Hazlett? …. Check!
Von Mises? …. Check!
Ron Paul gave an extremely cogent economics talk to Seattle Business leaders which you can watch here.
He even wants to dump Sarbanes-Oxley. What more could you ask?
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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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