Gary North digs himself deeper

It’s amusing to see North continue flailing about, still avoiding the salient points while casting aspersions and lies on every side in a desperate attempt to distract the reader from the fact that his case is hopeless. And yet, a close reading shows that he knows his case is hopeless, as he is trying to respond to arguments that he dare not engage openly by name. Consider this interesting new assertion and the way it contradicts what he had previously written as well as what he later writes in the very same piece:

In my recent essays on tariffs, in which I have used the metaphors of badges and guns and invisible lines known as borders, I have been attempting to get people to think carefully about the underlying economic principles of free enterprise. I am asking people to think through the presuppositions and implications of their views regarding the way the economy really works and the way the economy ought to work.

Ah, so those invisible lines that are used to delineate the nonexistent nation are merely metaphorical now! He didn’t actually mean to say that nations don’t exist, after all, that would be entirely absurd and would prove my point that he is an intrinsically anti-American globalist.

But he’s lying again, and the only reason he’s trying to claim it is a metaphor is because it blows apart his entire argument… which is why he’s promptly forced to return to the “metaphor” only a few paragraphs later.

They say that they do not believe that the state is the same as the nation. The problem is, most of them still operate in terms of the collective entity known as the nation. They still cling to the idea of the nation-state as the final source of guidance for the economy….

What do you mean, “the nation”? What is this nation?

How does special-interest legislation favoring a handful of domestic manufacturers defend the vaguely defined entity called the nation?

There is a true bait-and-switch operation going on here. Defenders of tariffs present themselves as defenders of the nation, when in fact the nation, from the point of view of economics, is not a collective entity. The nation, from an economic standpoint, is simply a convenient name that we give to people inside invisible judicial lines known as national borders.

But wait a minute? Didn’t Mr. North just say that those invisible lines were metaphors? More importantly, it is clear that the only bait-and-switch taking place here is on North’s part, as he is desperate to conflate the nationalist argument with a statist one. He has the hammer of his anti-statist argument and therefore the problem must be a nail. But it is simply false to claim that the nation is the state, and indeed, only a myopic and untraveled American like North is liable to make such a mistake. Nations are more than judicial constructs or units of Samuelsonian economic calculation, they are genetic and linguistic and they are not only distinct from political states, they predate them.

North tells more porkies when he provides a list of propositions he erroneously claims to be false, which are particularly embarrassing given his claims to be a historian. Consider this one: “Badges plus guns plus sales taxes increase the wealth of nations.”

This isn’t a false proposition. History is perfectly clear on how Rome’s wealth, Great Britain’s wealth, and America’s wealth were all produced by badges, guns, and yes, taxes. Indeed, the observable decline of the USA traces back to the point when it had to begin competing in a world in which it was no longer the only state without a shattered industrial infrastructure. As I have pointed out before, Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy is not a fallacy so long as one breaks the windows in another town and shoots the glazier there. It is clear that North simply doesn’t understand the important difference between the collective wealth of nations and the wealth of an individual nation, much less the nature of the dynamic relationship between the two concepts. Nor does he understand that the free trade he advocates requires the end of the very nations that he simultaneously claims are a) nonexistent and b) the beneficiaries of the wealth produced by free trade.

Instead of addressing the substantive arguments that I and others have offered, such as my economic calculation that it will require the emigration of nearly fifty percent of the U.S. workforce under the age of 40 to generate the same benefits from international free trade that are derived from domestic free trade, North prefers to attack straw men and centuries-old mercantilist arguments. But note that even in the quote from Mises that begins his latest debacle, the roots of my argument can be detected: “International division of labor becomes suspect because it hinders the full use of national sovereignty.”

Translation: Free trade is incompatible with national sovereignty. And international labor mobility is incompatible with the very existence of nations.

Perhaps he’s senile, or perhaps he’s simply an intellectually overmatched coward, but either way, Gary North’s continued attempts to tar all economic nationalists with the statist brush are not only false, they are dishonest. Consider his conclusion, which demonstrates the extent to which he fails to grasp the salient issues:

I do not expect to change the mind of any protectionist. But I would like those people who are the targets of protectionists’ taxation program to recognize that the person making the argument for sales taxes on imports is a mercantilist and a welfare statist. The protectionist will not admit this to himself, and he surely will not admit it to anyone considering his arguments. He will staunchly deny that he is a mercantilist or a welfare statist, but his arguments are those of mercantilism and welfare state economics, so his denials should not be taken seriously.

Of course he would like the modern protectionists to do that… because then he’d have an argument against them! But the arguments being made are most certainly not “those of mercantilism and welfare state economics” as many of them have clearly never been made before! And in light of how feeble and dishonest his performance has been, it is more than a little amusing to see an unconfessed globalist utopian such as North trying to claim that anyone else’s denials should not be taken seriously.

Most of all, I want them to stop claiming that they are believers in Austrian school economics and are staunch defenders of libertarianism.

If belief in international free trade is a prerequisite to believing in Austrian School economics, I have no problem declaring myself a post-Austrian. Mises isn’t Holy Writ after all, and I suspect the Austrian School will be eventually seen as little more than a stepping stone that served as a useful contribution towards a more relevant and reliable post-Austrian economics. As for libertarianism, I will merely point out that liberty cannot exist in the absence of nations. The alternative to nations isn’t liberty, but global totalitarianism and the absolute rule of evil.

Dr. Helen asks about doors

And the opening thereof:

I have been pondering this question lately as I have noticed that it is mostly older men that open doors for women anymore. Younger men tend to go in first and let the door hit you as you walk through. Though I am a woman, I tend to hold the door if I get to it first and will hold it for men or women….

I can understand why men no longer want to open doors or help women. I do feel sad, however, that it has come to a situation where society is at this level. In fact, in my forthcoming book on the war against men, I address how our society is breaking down because men no longer want to, or are even afraid to interact with women and girls.

I open building doors for men, children, old women, and young women who don’t carry themselves with an attitude. I used to open car doors for women, but I don’t anymore because I got tired of feeling stupid every time I went to the other side of the car only to stand there uselessly as the woman, already in the car, closed the door herself. I suspect remote door entry might play a role in that, but it might also be simple female impatience.

It’s probably a character flaw, but I do tend to get a minor kick out of the affronted look on an entitled modern princess’s face as she arrogantly marches toward the door, expecting me to dutifully hold it open for her, only to find it closing on her face. It actually took some time to unlearn the habit, as I had been raised to always open doors, but as with the car door situation, I got tired of encountering the negative reactions. I suppose the instinct to help women is still there, but it is now easily quelled by experience and reason. The change that Dr. Helen is noting is reactive behavior; don’t blame the young men, blame the women who, instead of simply saying “thank you” or even just smiling in response to having a door opened for them, sniff haughtily or sneer in contempt instead.

So, my answer to Dr. Helen is that whereas it was once the social norm for men to open doors for women, that is no longer the case and it will not be the case again until men and women finally reject equalitarianism. Unfortunately, we will probably have to go through a cleansing period of behavioral barbarism before society can be expected to return to some of its civilized practices.

Personally, I think bringing back dueling wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Why the Wachowskis suck

There is a simple explanation for why the second and third Matrix movies were so bad, and why the Wachowskis haven’t been able to produce a movie that is one-tenth as intriguing as the original The Matrix. They aren’t genuine storytellers and The Matrix wasn’t their story, they were ripping off a comic book that served as the graphic storyboard for the first movie.

In 1999, The Matrix came out and blew everyone away with its insane action sequences, revolutionary cinematic techniques and, most of all, a mind-fucking plot that left the head of every viewer filled with intense philosophical questions.

What It’s Suspiciously Like:

The Invisibles, a cult comic book series created by Grant Morrison, is basically about a group of individuals who fight the establishment because the establishment is secretly keeping people dumb and hiding the fact that reality is an illusion. Turns out that the “real world” is ruled by horrifying insect-like demons. One more thing: The Invisibles debuted in 1994….

The Wachowskis have never acknowledged The Invisibles as an influence, even though they had invited the comic’s creator Grant Morrison to contribute a story for their website. Morrison — who actually liked The Matrix — says he “was told by people on the set that Invisibles books were passed around for visual reference.” His reaction to the second and third movies? “They should have kept on stealing from me.”

The real problem with Hollywood isn’t the lack of creativity among those responsible for making movies. The real problem is the ridiculous pretensions of those who are technically skilled movie makers to be something that they are not, which is storytellers. At its root, the inability of the Wachowskis to give proper credit and continue to utilize Grant Morrison’s storytelling abilities is no different than James Cameron stealing from Harlan Ellison or Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens crapping all over Tolkien with their idiotic dialogue additions and “feminine energy”. Their pride, narcissism, and incapacity for understanding their limits causes them to produce movies that are much worse than they would be if they would simply focus on their cinematic craft and leave the story construction to the storytellers.

The issue here isn’t IP legalities, but the intrinsic stupidity of trying to claim an idea that wasn’t yours as your own. It’s foolish, because everyone is going to realize that the first idea wasn’t yours just as soon as you’re forced to come up with a second idea and it becomes obvious that you’re completely incapable of doing so.

Republican VP pick

It’s supposedly down to three:

We can say with a high degree of confidence that Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick has largely come down to three men: former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. And it’s more than possible that Romney has already made up his mind. All three VP finalists bring something different to the table. Pawlenty is the loyal outsider, who would enable a Romney-Pawlenty ticket to run as former governors vowing to take on Washington; Pawlenty also potentially would add some blue-collar appeal to the ticket. Portman would be the insider, someone who knows the ways of Washington and who could help govern starting on Day 1. And Ryan would be the crusader, who wants to substantially transform America’s entitlement programs and who would excite a good portion of the GOP’s conservative base. Indeed, Ryan has emerged a VERY REAL possibility, but he also brings the most risk. If Romney selects him, it’s more than conceivable that the dominant campaign discussion in the fall won’t be the economy — but rather the deficit and Medicare. Of course, there was already a good chance the Ryan plan will get plenty attention regardless of Romney’s VP pick.

I don’t think it will be any of the three. I think it will be Rubio, despite his repeated denials of interest in leaving the Senate. Being a Republican and therefore fearful of raciss, Romney will want something to circumvent Obama’s inevitable portrayal of the Republican pair as two rich white guys. If it’s Pawlenty, he’s a joke and we’ll know Romney intends to tank the election. Ryan would be a more serious choice, but wouldn’t really buy Romney anything since people already assume Captain Underoos knows what he’s doing when it comes to financial rapine. Portman is a Bushnik and doesn’t bring Romney anything he doesn’t already have, so unless he’s got some sort of deal with the Houston Mafia, I can’t see him getting any real benefit out of that option.

So, I expect Rubio.

Immigrants and the economy

It is becoming increasingly clear that immigrants are not good for the economy, except in the pure Keynesian sense of requiring an increase in G:

Immigrants lag behind native-born Americans on most measures of economic well-being — even those who have been in the U.S. the longest, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, which argues that full assimilation is a more complex task than overcoming language or cultural differences.

The study, which covers all immigrants, legal and illegal, and their U.S.-born children younger than 18, found that immigrants tend to make economic progress by most measures the longer they live in the U.S. but lag well behind native-born Americans on factors such as poverty, health insurance coverage and homeownership.

The study, based on 2010 and 2011 census data, found that 43 percent of immigrants who have been in the U.S. at least 20 years were using welfare benefits, a rate that is nearly twice as high as native-born Americans and nearly 50 percent higher than recent immigrants.

The report was released at a time when both major presidential candidates have backed policies that would make it easier to immigrate legally and would boost the numbers of people coming to the U.S.

The same pattern has been seen in Europe. Second generation immigrants are actually less inclined to work and more inclined to be radical about their home countries and cultures than the first-generation ones. While there is nothing about it in the linked article, they are also much more likely to commit criminal acts. Notice that the conclusion is something I have been pointing out for some time now: “full assimilation is a more complex task than overcoming language or cultural differences”.

It is, in fact, close to impossible even over three or four generations. As I have also previously noted, it takes hundreds of years to civilize an uncivilized people; this is why blacks are still behaving in social patterns that are clearly distinct from both native whites and immigrant whites, and if history is a reliable guide, they will for at least another 800 years even if there are no absolute genetic bars to it.

Most non-Anglo Americans have a very retarded and romantic attitude about immigration because their grandparents or great-grandparents were immigrants. First, they don’t understand how those nineteenth and early twentieth waves of immigration harmed the USA for the obvious reason that they don’t understand the Constitution or the English Common Law any better than their immigrant forebears from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scandinavia did. They may have the emotional attachment to the flag and the pledge of allegiance – the latter only created in 1892 – but they are not genuine Americans in the sense of having been born in a tradition of sovereign rebellion.

Second, they fail to understand the qualitative differences between the various waves of immigration. Immigrants from civilized European cultures were always going to be fundamentally different than those from semi-civilized and uncivilized societies.

Spanking is child abuse

But apparently chemical lobotomies are nothing more than good parenting:

The researchers found that doctor visits between 1993-1998 and 2005-2009 that involved a prescription of antipsychotic medication for children jumped sevenfold — from 0.24 to 1.83 per 100 people. For teens, 14 to 20 years old, the rate rose from 0.78 to 3.76 per 100 people, and for adults, it just about doubled, from 3.25 to 6.18 per 100 people….

Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist from Ithaca, N.Y., and an outspoken critic of widespread antipsychotic use in children, said these drugs damage developing brains

“We have a national catastrophe,” said Breggin. “This is a situation where we have ruined the brains of millions of children.” In controlling behavior, antipsychotics act on the frontal lobes of the brain — the same area of the brain targeted by a lobotomy, Breggin said. “These are lobotomizing drugs,” he added. “Of course, they will reduce all behavior, including irritability,” he said….

Between 2005 and 2009, controlling “disruptive behavior” accounted for 63 percent of the reason antipsychotics were given to children and almost 34 percent for adolescents, the researchers found.

To say nothing of what they do to long-term cognitive capacity. Between widespread chemical lobotomies and ubiquitous vaccines, I’m amazed that anyone still believes that medical “science” is genuinely focused on attempting to help children grow up to live healthy and productive lives.

It would be informative to know how these children on antipsychotics do on IQ tests before and after their brains are bathed in chemicals for years.

South African science

Lightning is raciss!

Following a spate of deaths from lightning in the province of Natal, Nomsa Dube of the Provincial Executive Council promptly called on the National Department of Science and Technology to investigate what causes lightning:

We will do an investigation and talk to the department of science and technology on what is the cause of the lightning, and if it only happened to the previously disadvantaged, as I have never seen any white people being struck by lightning.

At least Americans and Europeans will have the benefit of a nice object lesson in what happens when a civilized nation hands over the keys of government to the previously disadvantaged in South Africa. Certainly no one appears to have learned anything from the fate of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Send the Sikhs to safety

It seems that the Onion’s parody of Michele Bachmann’s fake response to the Wisconsin shootings wasn’t actually all that far off. Two-thirds of those killed weren’t Americans, which is why the savages are now attempting to attack the U.S. Constitution.

Top State Department officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been working behind the scenes to assuage Indian anger following the attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin over the weekend by an Army veteran and alleged former white supremacist.

Indian government officials and Sikh leaders across India were outraged by the attack that left 6 dead, including 4 Indian nationals, at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee and called on the U.S. to do more to protect Sikhs living in the United Sates. Clinton called Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna from her stop in South Africa Monday after Krishna criticized the U.S. for failed policies and a growing trend of violent incidents against religious minorities….

Protests broke out in several Indian cities in response to the news of the attack, some calling for stricter U.S. gun laws. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal wrote to India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to urge the Indian government to press the Obama administration to do more to protect Sikhs living in the U.S.

First of all, the Secretary of State’s message to the Indians should be a very short and succinct one. “Fuck you, fuck your emigrants, and if they don’t like our gun rights, then they can go home to live in unarmed filth and fear among your rabid, feral dogs.”

No country has as many stray dogs as India, and no country suffers as much from them. Free-roaming dogs number in the tens of millions and bite millions of people annually, including vast numbers of children. An estimated 20,000 people die every year from rabies infections — more than a third of the global rabies toll.

If the Indians were willing to fight for their own freedom to carry guns, they could save tens of thousand of lives by simply shooting the feral dogs that attack them. But they’d rather run their mouths trying to interfere with how Americans live in the USA than do anything about the squalor, filth, and tyranny of their own country. The Obama administration should agree to protect the Sikhs by putting them on a plane back to India.

Mailvox: why Romney is better

MM explains why Romney would be preferable as president to Obama:

Romney must have some principals because despite theological differences Mormons tend to be law abiding and dedicated to their theology. Whereas Obama is a Muslim, Black Supremacy, Progressive. Liberal Buffoon. Romney has had success with Capitalism, Obama has never had a success with anything except politics. And unfortunately we have to defeat Obama so a “fifteenth choice” candidate like Romney is the only option. You have the right to prognosticate what evils Romney may bring into office with him. No doubt being human he will screw a few things up. Yet he will:

Not apologize to the haters of America that we deserve their hatred

Not admire the most virulent of Jihadists while angering our most important allies

Not block our chances of energy independence as drastically

Not allow amnesty for voter menacing or voter fraud

This is just a short list of some of the most obvious ways Romney will be so much less harmful than Obama.

Yes, because it is all the apologizing that is the real crisis facing America today. This isn’t damning with faint praise, this is underlining my case against Romney by defending with the very faintest of attempted justifications. As I said, if you’re still buying the “we must defeat Evil X with Evil Y” after the debacle of the George W. Bush years, you’re not merely wrong, you’re observably stupid.

The final survey:

Romney: 174 comments, 125 Likes
Obama: 106 comments, 82 Likes
Keen: 10 comments, 11 Likes

Conclusion: WND readers vastly prefer reading about politics to economics. Which is probably true of most readers on the nominal right side of the political spectrum, as their propensity for producing endless permutations of Team Red good! Team Blue bad! explains why Coulter, Breitbart, Me So Michelle, and the Mommyblogger are so popular.

Guess the title of next week’s column….

A pattern emerges

The Sikh temple shooter is nominally identified:

Authorities tell CBS News that the shooter behind the deadly massacre at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin Sunday has been identified as 40-year-old Wade Michael Page. Page previously served in the U.S. military, but was no longer on active duty, sources tell CBS News.

CBS News reports that Page enlisted in the Army in April 1992 and was given a less-than-honorable discharge in October 1998. He was last stationed in Fort Bragg, N.C., serving in the psychological operations unit.

Another shooting, another link to military psychology. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. I wonder how many more it will take before the Obama administration realizes that it doesn’t matter how many shootings take place, the American public isn’t going to accept gun control.