Author: VD

Observing the obvious

Nate W objects to a statement of the obvious:

Flies, honey & vinegar Vox. Flies, honey & vinegar. Calling someone a “fucking moron” is not usually the best way to gain allies. And Dana certainly comes off as a potential ally.

As Nate pointed out, I am not looking for allies. I have no need of them since I am neither looking to build a media career nor am I seeking to influence the political process. I am certainly not attempting to save the people of the United States from themselves since I do not believe it is possible at this point for anything or anyone to save them from the bankruptcy and serfdom that they have collectively and democratically chosen. The Tea Party movement is an irrelevant means of harmlessly releasing populist steam from the system and I have seen no indication that it is capable of accomplishing even the least of the trivial goals espoused by its members. The economic pressures of incipient bankruptcy and rising interest payments will eventually do more to reduce tax revenues than ten million people dressed up in 18th century attire waving placards.

Second, if someone publicly demonstrates he is a moron, he has usually done so without my assistance and he can be correctly judged on the basis of his actions regardless of whether I happen to recognize them or not. If Ms Loesch was asserting that two plus two equaled negative thirty-seven, I expect you would quite readily accept that she was either insane or a complete moron. But the belief that eradicating terrorism from the world is in any way, shape, or form compatible with small and limited government is no more credible than the aforementioned calculation of the sum. And I don’t think the woman is insane.

Terrorism isn’t a mystical force of chthonic evil, it’s primarily a weapon utilized by the weaker side against the stronger side in a military conflict, often one involving the military occupation of an emotionally significant territory. The only way to end it is to a) eliminate the weaker side, or, b) reduce the emotional stakes, ideally by ending the conflict. It should be very clear that the World Democratic Revolution strategery of the last 10 years has completely failed, and moreover, failed by its own Rumsfeldian metric. More terrorists have been created than were killed. And, as those who have read Umberto Eco’s essay, Striking at the Heart of the State? know, terrorism is an aspect of big government.

“Terrorism is not the enemy of the great systems. On the contrary, it is their natural, accepted, taken-for-granted counterpart…. Terrorism helps justify the existence of armies and police forces which are otherwise left idle and need to be given something more active to get on with. Finally, terrorism provides a justification for disciplinary intervention in circumstances where an excess of democracy is making a situation ungovernable.”

It might have sounded more precise had Eco written “populism” rather than “democracy”, (NB: the Italian sense of the term is closer to the former as it does involve the American vote fetish), but nevertheless, he provides a remarkably apt description of the situation despite the obvious handicap of having written it 30 years prior to the present events.

There is the possibility that a small, restricted government with limited funds could be distracted with “overseas” operations rather than harassing their citizens, no?

No, that is not a credible possibility. You might as reasonably posit the possibility of a small and limited government of Playboy playmates whose sole interaction with the citizenry is entertaining them by disrobing nightly on PBS. While it is theoretically possible, it is historically, logically, and practically impossible.

2nd question: who would you rather vote for?
A socialist isolationist
Or a libertarian(ish) interventionist.

This is a ridiculous question. It’s akin to asking if one would rather vote for an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms. Socialists, at least the dominant Marxian strain, are not isolationists by definition. Libertarians are not interventionists. And, even if we assume these nonexistent beasts existed, I would no more vote for either than I voted for Obama or McCain. Regardless of whether you drive north to Massachusetts or Maine, it isn’t getting you any closer to Miami.

The knock on the door

This can’t possibly go wrong:

A shadowy figure lurking in the garden in the early hours. A rattle on a window latch. It must be a burglar. But don’t panic too soon and call the police. That could be them outside. Officers have begun testing windows and doors at night as part of a campaign to increase home security. If they find one open, they are under orders to knock on the door and drag sleepy residents from their beds and lecture them.

Therein lies the difference between a Communist state, a Nazi State and a Nanny Fascist one. In both cases, the hapless citizen is dragged from his bed by the police in the middle of the night. But at least in today’s Britain, the citizen is only subject to a stern lecture. For now, anyhow.

Stick to mommyblogging

This is what happens when a Mommyblogger strays outside her areas of competence:

I love Ron Paul immensely with one exception: I vehemently disagree with his foreign policy. A nation alone in a world of enemies is a nation that does not last long. It’s part of a strategy in protecting American citizens. Big difference from “nation building,” a broad, sweeping term tossed at anyone who dares look to protect America from outside her borders – that and “neoconservatism” which just, ugh, gag me….

I don’t speak for all tea partiers, but having been involved in politics most of my life, this movement for a year, and having met thousands of tea partiers, I’ve yet to met one who thinks that eradicating terrorism, beyond our borders if need be, isn’t a good idea. There isn’t a concrete policy on anything but limited government power, low taxes, and devotion to the American government’s first (and only, really) priority which is protecting its people.

Eradicating terrorism beyond our borders is a good idea? It appears that the woman doesn’t understand that this is significantly less tenable than simply eradicating crime, poverty, and drug abuse within them. As the recently confirmed federal policy on assassinating American citizens abroad proves, it is also tantamount to handing Washington an unlimited license for lethal abuse. And it is absolutely neoconservative in two of the primary senses of the word to support the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, to use the Bush administration’s neocon parlance. There is simply no way that supporting a limited government and low taxes is consistent with an endless hunt for terrorists, both real and imaginary, around the world.

If Americans don’t want to be targeted by terrorists, the answer is very clear. Stop the military occupation of foreign countries and stop permitting nationals from countries with whom we are at whatever passes for war these days to enter the country. Most terrorism, past and present, is directly tied to military occupations and is directed at ending the occupation of specific territory.

At least Ms Loesch doesn’t claim to speak for the Tea Partiers. Even so, this is only one of what will be many attempts to hijack the movement for various Republican and neoconservative causes.

No basis in fact

A NASA astrophysicist’s review of the IPCC’s 4th assessment report:

There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact.

Forget science, apparently there is not even “any foundation or basis in fact.” Naturally, this refers to the chapter which is devoted to the anthropogenic part of the AGW/CC facade. But apparently claiming to summarize something “based on” peer-reviewed literature is enough to permit making arbitrary points with no actual basis in fact. Because it’s, you know, science.

The New Atheism, revised

The American Psychiatric Association, with its release this week of proposed revisions to its authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is recommending that Asperger’s be dropped. If this revision is adopted, the condition will be folded into the category of “autism spectrum disorder,” which will no longer contain any categories for distinct subtypes of autism like Asperger’s and “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified” (a category for children with some traits of autism but not enough to warrant a diagnosis).

The New Atheists are entirely correct to insist that their militant atheism is not a religion. It is not. It is merely a “pervasive developmental disorder.”

Goldman Sachs: destroyer of economies

The Vampire Squid is draining the global economy, one nation after another:

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country’s already bloated deficit.

Is anyone going to be surprised when the next time there are reports that a bank has been involved in some suicidally destructive financial shenanigans that have its victimpartner on the verge of bankruptcy, it will turn out to be Goldman again?

Land of the Free

Not so much in these latter days of what used to be the Republic:

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee today, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told representatives that American citizens can be assassinated by the US government when they are oveseas. Blair said the comments were intended to “reassure” Americans that there was a “set of defined policy and legal procedures” in place and that such assassinations are always carried out by the book.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R – MI) inquired about the procedures involved, asking what the legal framework was under which Americans could be killed by the intelligence community.

Blair insisted that under no circumstances would Americans be assassinated overseas for criticizing the government, adding “we don’t target people for free speech.” Rather they are subject to assassination when the government decides they are a threat and when they “get specific permission.” Exactly who was giving that permission was unclear.

It would certainly be interesting to know precisely what defines threat these days. Are they talking about employment in a secret Iranian nuclear weapons facility, making fun of Obama’s teleprompter, or shorting the stock market? Regardless, one would think that an official U.S. government policy of assassinating American citizens might be of some small interest to the Tea Party movement, given their much-ballyhooed concerns about government overstepping its bounds.

No matter how neoconservative you are, no matter how much of a pro-war National Greatness Conservative you might be, no matter what a complete Obama Democrat you have been since his glorious ascension to the Cherry Blossom Throne began, you cannot possibly condone your government targeting your fellow American citizens for execution sans arrest, trial, or conviction.

Tucker Max and the fall of the West

Charlotte Allen writes a remarkably clear-eyed article on the evolution of Game and its social significance for American civilization:

[I]t’s a fair signal of impending social chaos when the prevailing female attitude is dissatisfaction, either mild or intense, with the workaday Joes—the good-provider beta males—whom one has already married or, in the era before the sexual and feminist revolutions, would be planning to marry because chasing alphas in bars was not a respectable option for the female middle class.

One would have to be either blind or socially autistic to fail to see the signs of economic, moral, and structural disintegration at this point. Which leads one to the obvious question: where is our Juvenal?

That there are such things as Manes, and kingdoms below ground, and punt-poles, and Stygian pools black with frogs, and all those thousands crossing over in a single bark—-these things not even boys believe, except such as have not yet had their penny bath. But just imagine them to be true—-what would Curius and the two Scipios think? or Fabricius and the spirit of Camillus? What would the legion that fought at the Cremera think, or the young manhood that fell at Cannae; what would all those gallant hearts feel when a shade of this sort came down to them from here? They would wish to be purified; if only sulphur and torches and damp laurel-branches were to be had. Such is the degradation to which we have come!

They’re going to need a bigger bar

I tend to suspect that the Fed’s recession bar on the TOTLL graph shown below is going to need to be widened in the relatively near future. As is clear from the graph, total bank loans are falling at an increasing rate; the January 27th report is down 9.25% from the October 2008 peak and in the first month of 2010, deleveraging is occurring at a pace that would lead to the first double-digit credit contraction since the Fed began keeping records in 1947. Keep in mind that this does not take into account all of the loans that have effectively defaulted already but have not yet been recognized as doing so.

If the default situation is as grave as debt-deflationists such as Mike Shedlock, Steve Keen, and Karl Denninger have been warning, there could be a 20% bank credit contraction over the course of this year. Such a credit collapse would completely overwhelm Washington’s present strategy of substituting government debt for private debt; as we’ve seen, the Obama administration had to produce a record $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 in order to keep the overall debt level from falling more than one percent. A further 20% contraction in bank credit, (which makes up about 15% of total credit market debt), would require an additional $1.34 trillion in government debt to replace it and keep the economy “growing”. It should be obvious that this is not a stable or sustainable situation.

Of course, when your GDP is made up of nothing more than borrowed G, you don’t have a free market economy. You don’t really have anything that can even be reasonably described as an economy. On a related note, Steve Keen brings to our attention the Real-World Economic Review’s Dynamite Prize poll where one can vote for the economist most responsible for the Great Financial Collapse of 2008. You can cast up to three votes; I voted for Alan Greenspan and Paul Samuelson.

Mailvox: the impact of nurture

M reports how science compares paternal behavioral patterns:

I thought you might enjoy this excerpt from the book NurtureShock:

“Dr. Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan did a study of parenting styles, and how they relate to aggressiveness and acting out at school. The fathers in her study fell into three camps–the Progressive Dads, the Traditional Dads, and the Disengaged Dads…. However, Schoppe-Sullivan was surprised to discover that the Progressive Dads had poorer marital quality and rated their family functioning lower than the fathers in couples who took on traditional roles…

[The Progressive Dads’] inconsistency and permissiveness led to a surprising result in Sullivan’s study: the children of Progressive Dads were aggressive and acted out in school nearly as much as the kids with fathers who were distant and disengaged.”

This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest and my own observations tend to bear out the research. It makes sense if you think about it, since it doesn’t really matter if the figure who is theoretically supposed to provide discipline is present or not if the discipline isn’t provided in a predictable manner. Of course, anything that can reasonably be described as “progressive” is usually a reliable indication that someone is in the process of unnecessarily screwing something up by attempting to improve it.