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Those in power in the Capitol – as well as many local politicians – make skillful use of those who rely on government services to advance their spending agenda. They use children, the disabled, the elderly and others who appear vulnerable to justify increasing taxes. When reasonable arguments are made that higher taxes in an already high-tax state could lead to fiscal ruin and less for everyone, politicians and bureaucrats use these dependent classes as human shields. (via John Beck) March 12th, 2009 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
 “The trouble is that because schools fail to teach history, especially legal and constitutional history, the vast majority of today’s citizens have no inkling to what they owe their liberty and prosperity, namely a long and successful struggle for the rights of which the right to property is the most fundamental. They are therefore unaware what debilitating effect the restrictions on property rights wil, over the long run, have on their lives.” – Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom, page 291. Of course, by property, one does not just mean physical property, but also to the whole idea that individuals, not the state, own their lives. March 11th, 2009 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is said that pragmatism trumps ideology in a crisis. What actually happens in a crisis, certainly in this one, is that the ruling party gets to rechristen its ideology as pragmatism. He is talking about the Democrat’s addiction to protectionism. But it is happening all over, and not just with ruling parties, but with would-be ruling ones. The wicked world is disintegrating, and it is all the fault of an evil which whatever commentator you are reading especially hates, and offers a superb opportunity for the bees in his bonnet to rebuild the social honeycomb so that mankind can buzz happily in unison ever after. I am reminded of the Trotskyist red-greens I met in the 80s, who had the merit of putting it very clearly. Unlike the merely conservation-minded, or deep-green nature-worshippers, they welcomed a predicted ecological collapse: chaos and mass-starvation would turn people to The Revolution out of desperation. A lot of those purveying their own patent medicines for the depression seem to be unconscious that they are engaged in the moral terrorism of the transitional demand. March 8th, 2009 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Regular commenter here Nick M takes a wack at Vernon Bogdanor:
I was going to put that up as a Samizdata quote of the day, but I reckon the feline enumerator has his sneer quotes around the wrong “progressive” there. Still, good stuff, albeit sweary. Talking of which, I do wonder about this swear-blogging thing. The bad news is that respectable bloggers who might give particular (swear-)blog postings of merit lots of new readers are put off by the swearing from linking to such postings. (Telegraph Blogger Alex Singleton recently told me exactly this.) On the other hand, a lot of people are very angry just now, not just, you know, in a state of respectful disagreement with the powers that, for the time being, be. Such angry persons deserve voices around which to rally, voices which communicate their feelings rather than just their thoughts. Swear-blogging may also mean that, by assembling all the angry ones in a cursing, seething internet mob, in a way that completely alienates our present version of Polite Society, the angry ones will achieve a far greater degree of tactical surprise come the storming of the Winter Palace, or whatever will be the equivalent event or events during the next few years. Polite Society just won’t see it coming, because it simply cannot now bear to look. It will consequently swing in far greater numbers from lamp-posts (or again, whatever will turn out to be the modern equivalent) than would otherwise have happened. Which just might be a rather fucking good thing. March 6th, 2009 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
“If you have a mortgage and are celebrating record low repayments, then enjoy it for now. Ask what the consequences will be for your household budget of interest rates of 10 per cent or higher, which will be needed to tame the rising prices that will result from this mad experiment. But there is another great British consensus emerging around the idea. “It is essential,” say analysts. “No other option,” sighs many a fiscal conservative. “Everyone” is in favour of it, we’re told. I have just about had enough of “everyone”. It was “everyone” – most economists, politicians, etc – who thought that the bubble would never burst. They were wrong then, and are now. “ Iain Martin, on the Bank of England’s descent into monetary madness. Milton Friedman must be spinning in his grave. March 6th, 2009 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
“What did you do during the recession, Daddy? I installed solar panels and wind turbines. If only Franklin Roosevelt had thought to put millions of Americans to work during the Depression doing make-work jobs that were gee-whiz futuristic…. Oh, that’s right. He did. And it didn’t work then, either. But this time is different, you know.” – Nick Gillespie, at Reason’s Hit & Run blog. March 2nd, 2009 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The idea that everyone is entitled to his opinion is one of those truisms so often repeated that it now goes without saying. Like many truisms, however, it is false. It is also usually irrelevant. Let us suppose that Jill disputes Jack’s opinion that free trade causes poverty in the Third World. Jack may defend his opinion by producing evidence connecting trade and poverty but he cannot help his case by insisting that he is entitled to his opinion. How could that show that free trade causes poverty in the Third World? The entitlement would be relevant only if it guaranteed the truth of your opinions. But it can’t do that, because it is an entitlement supposedly enjoyed by everybody. And people disagree. Jack and Jill are both entitled to their contradictory opinions about trade and poverty, but they can’t both be right. So insisting that you are entitled to your opinion cannot possibly give you any proper advantage in a debate.” March 1st, 2009 | 40 comments - (Comments are closed)
“It is noteworthy that in all the glaring headlines and TV news media’s Pecksniffian commentary about Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion scam and now R. Allen Stanford’s multi-billion dollar gold brick, not one word has been heard about the federal government’s own ongoing confidence scheme. The recent “bailouts” of banks, mortgage companies and automakers, together with the $787 billion “stimulus” legislation and the $75 billion home mortgage “rescue” plan signed by President Barack Obama last week, share the same attributes and methodology as Madoff’s and Stanford’s, and differ from them only in scale. Compared to Congress, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the myriad perpetuated entitlements such as Medicare, Social Security, the Federal Employees Retirement System, confidence men Madoff and Stanford are mere small-time grifters.” He’s right. Ponzi schemes and much public sector pension/benefits systems are more or less identical. I guess the caveat is that with Mr Madoff and others, they were allegedly claiming, falsely, to be running funded schemes with actual investments in real assets. But the broad point is valid. February 26th, 2009 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are no jack boots here, that’s too obvious, perhaps at some later point more overt force if there is too much “selfish” foot dragging by you or me, though the powers and aggression of the government’s already-existing “force” is sufficiently threatening to anyone who might resist. Make no mistake about that. The speech (2/24) by Obama was a seemingly soft yet determined Declaration of War against free exchange, against the natural and beneficial chaos of the myriad of human transactions (spiritual and economic – which cannot be rationally or logically separated by the way!). He is simply doing that which popular mainstream philosophy and pop culture point to and in effect “authorize.” – ‘Mister Integrity‘ February 25th, 2009 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Whenever someone complains that libertarians are just pie-in-the-sky utopian (or distopian) intellectuals, just ask them again about the real world consequences of the War on Drugs, and see who gets all pie-in-the-sky right quick”. Mr Barnett clearly did not get the memo from former UK prime minister Tony Blair that all that talk about liberty was so 19th Century, dahling. February 23rd, 2009 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
February 22nd, 2009 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
A propos of my earlier post on what recent legislation we should try to repeal in order to reclaim our lost civil liberties, I was struck by the thought that it might be easier to simply repeal every piece of legislation introduced since 1997. February 19th, 2009 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
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