Tag: politics

John Edwards, celebrity john

Lest we forget, this is the man for whom the self-appointed champion of women, Amynda Marcotte, worked because she thought he should be the President of the United States:

A call girl working for alleged “Millionaire Madam” Anna Gristina told investigators she was paid to have sex with former U.S. Sen. John Edwards when he was in New York raising money for his failed presidential bid, DNAinfo has learned. Edwards is the first big name to surface in connection to Gristina’s alleged prostitution scheme run out of an Upper East Side apartment.

The only remarkable thing here is that this news didn’t break when Obama was battling Edwards for the Democratic nomination in 2008.

Shoot the scientists

They’re now openly embracing technocratic world totalitarianism:

Since doing that issue, I’ve come to the conclusion that the technical details are the easy part. It’s the social engineering that’s the killer. Moon shots and Manhattan Projects are child’s play compared to needed changes in the way we behave.

A policy article authored by several dozen scientists appeared online March 15 in Science to acknowledge this point: “Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change. This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.”

Scientists have been on the wrong side of every political movement of the 20th century. Because they are narrowly educated elitists almost completely unschooled in both logic and history, they tend to be heavily inclined towards top-down authoritarianism. And there is absolutely no reason to believe they will be on the right side of any of the geo-political issues of the 21st century.

Libertarianism in one country

It’s too late for the USA, but from a theoretical perspective, Steve Sailer is correct about the impossibility of using liberty to lead by engaged example:

It’s time for us good guys to take a lesson in prudence from the bad guys. As you may recall, Trotsky and Stalin had a little falling out. Trotsky wanted to pursue “permanent worldwide revolution.” In contrast, Stalin thought it wiser to concentrate on “revolution in one country,” and only pick off buffer states as circumstances allowed. Stalin won the debate with Trotsky through the penetrating power of his logic (and ice pick), and went on to be the most enduringly successful of the 20th Century’s sizable cast of monsters.

This is what libertarians must realize: There is staggeringly too much inequality in the world for America’s love affair with capitalism to survive importing massive amounts of it.

As my Southern Baptist pastor used to say, it is much easier to pull someone down than it is to lift someone up. Free trade and open borders have turned out to be nearly as significant factors in the American decline as increased government spending and women’s suffrage. None of which, of course, were as important as the establishment of the third central bank, but it is worth noting these things in the process of the ongoing decline and fall in the hopes that future generations will turn out to be wiser than we were.

Just as many of the arguments that pervade our political debate today were presaged one hundred, and sometimes one thousand years ago, we can reasonably expect politicians of the far future to be arguing over whether free trade with the aliens in the Gar Zephrod sector will be of benefit to the economy or not. And we can also expect that leftist equalitarians of the far future will be shocked when the carnivorous Hleetongs of Xpicol IV, who were permitted to settle en masse among the posthuman colonists of New New York, begin devouring their neighbors.

Mailvox: the logic of suffrage

This dialogue with Bohm merits its own post.

1. Do you concur that when the government imposes a law on the populace, it is intended as a restriction on human behavior?

2. Do you concur that a general restriction on human behavior is a restriction on human liberty, given the definition provided by Icarius?

For the sake of argument, I will concur with both your propositions, with the caveat that restricting one’s ability to rob, maim and murder, say, is obviously beneficial to general liberty.

3b. Do you concur that laws are passed in order to modify existing human behavior?

of course I concur, since I’ve said as much already, except perhaps to say ‘prohibit’ instead of ‘modify’, since people will carrying on murdering other people even when they know they shouldn’t really.

4b. Do you concur that the threat of government force causes humans to behave differently than they otherwise would?

Agreed.

5. Do you concur that laws are backed by the threat of government force.

Agreed. I would have thought that, for the purposes of this discussion, 4b) and 5) amounted to the same thing.

6. Do you concur that because they are backed by the threat of government force, laws cause humans to behave differently than they otherwise would?

Ha! So we have another transitive relationship. I am bound to agree with proposition 6.

7. Do you concur that the imposition of laws backed by government force amounts to a restriction on the behavior of those humans who would otherwise choose to behave differently?

I suppose so. I would prefer the term ‘modification’ rather than ‘restriction’. Are we going to address those humans who choose not to behave differently.

7b. Do you concur that a “modification” amounts to a “restriction” when the legally permissible range of human behavior has been reduced?

I find myself balking at this supposedly ‘logical’ approach. This formula is too vague to be meaningful. The ‘range of human behavior’ remains the same whether it is permitted or not. What constitutes a ‘legally permissible behavior’ is decided by a judiciary on a case by case basis. You’re presuming that human behavior is a range that is measurable; reduced or extended, which presumes that behavior comes in some kind of unit. Is unlawful killing of a human being a unit of human behavior? Or is simply killing a human being the unit to be measured? There are myriad different circumstances under which a death might be deemed lawful or unlawful, depending on the circumstances and who is doing the killing. Is gambling a unit of behavior? Or should it be divided into smaller units, depending on the nature of the punt? Laws against sports gambling in the US do not prevent Americans gambling on other stuff or indeed on sports. Furthermore, what is considered unlawful in one place, is perfectly legal elsewhere, even within the US. This is probably not what I’d say precisely if I had more time today, a bit rushed but there you go. But I really think we should stop talking about ‘human behavior’ and address something more tangible.

There is nothing vague about “the legally permissible range of human behavior.” Nor is this approach anything but logical, there is nothing supposed about it. The fact that you are balking at this approach is because you are increasingly beginning to understand that your position on the matter is not a logical one. So, I will repeat the question. Do you concur that a “modification” amounts to a “restriction” when the legally permissible range of human behavior has been reduced?

OK, I’ll play ball. I concur just to see were this is going.

8. Are there significantly more state and federal laws than there were in 1919?

I would have thought so, yes.

9. Do you concur that because laws restrict the legally permissible range of human behavior and because there are now significantly more state and federal laws than there were in 1919, the legally permissible range of human behavior has therefore been reduced since 1919?

That’s certainly true.

10. Do you concur that the majority of the electorate is capable of effecting change in the number of laws passed by its representatives?

Run away, Rush, run away

I find Rush Limbaugh’s retreat on Slutgate to be more than a little amusing:

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh apologized Saturday to a Georgetown University law student he had branded a “slut” and “prostitute” after fellow Republicans as well as Democrats criticized him and several advertisers left his program.

The student, Sandra Fluke, had testified to congressional Democrats in support of their national health care policy that would compel her college to offer health plans that cover her birth control.

“My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir,” Limbaugh said on his website. “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choice.

Now, I don’t know if Ms. Fluke is a slut or not. I do know her position on government funded birth control is idiotic and that she’s not intelligent enough to understand basic supply and demand or she wouldn’t be pursuing a law degree at the age of 30. So, she may well be a slut, but she is not necessarily one. I tend to think it’s a little strange to apologize to someone for something that is possibly, though not necessarily, true without first attempting to determine if one is actually incorrect or not.

But Limbaugh’s apology demonstrates the fundamental cowardice of the conservative media. They are spooked as easily as neurotic thoroughbred horses. He’s the one with the massive audience, so why should he pay any attention to what his advertisers want? By allowing them to dictate his limits, he’s making himself their bitch. That’s fine, if that’s his desire, but then he would do well to abandon all of the heroic posturing of which he is so fond.

As with the Republicans, Limbaugh operates by one core principle: Always Retreat. And that is why conservatism has failed and one reason why American democracy is a thing of the past.

WND column

The Limits of Democracy

Two of the most informative political tracts one can ever expect to read share very similar names. I mention this simply because in these degreed, but uneducated days, if one happens to refer to Cicero’s “Republic,” one can reliably count on being “corrected” by someone insisting that it was not Cicero, but Plato who wrote it. But for all their similar appellations, there are distinct differences between “De re publica” and “Res publica” that are less the result of the distinction between practical Roman thought and philosophical Greek philosophy and more the difference between the experience of an accomplished politician and the utopianism of an academic without responsibility.

The military supports Ron Paul

It’s strange, how the candidate who is supposed to be crazy because of his “insane” foreign policy is so strongly supported by the military, who actually have to carry out the dangerous tasks that are so cheerfully set for them by Republican and Democratic chickenhawks alike:

Current and former service members staged a rally outside the White House today in support of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Several hundred troops and their supporters attended the event. The veterans were men and women, young and old, some in uniform and some in plain clothes.

The demonstration was a mostly silent affair, with the veterans standing calmly at attention in rows. An organizer bellowed that each second of quiet was for every military suicide since President Obama took office. A second moment of silence was for each soldier to die abroad under the current commander in chief.

The ironic thing is that many members of the military openly despise their slobbering Republican “supporters” who are so eager to show their enthusiasm for the military by waving flags as they send its members off to die for Afghan democracy, Iraqi oil, the national security of Israel… and whatever the purported rationale for being in Somalia was.

Proving the opposite

A professor of mathematics complains that unlike the fortunate Chinese, America does not enjoy the benefit of being ruled by scientists:

For complex historical reasons, Americans have long privately dismissed scientists and mathematicians as impractical and elitist, even while publicly paying lip service to them. One reason is that an abstract, scientific approach to problems and issues often leads to conclusions that are at odds with religious and cultural beliefs and scientists are sometimes tone-deaf to the social environment in which they state their conclusions. A more politically sensitive approach to problems and issues, on the other hand, often leads to positions that simply don’t jibe with the facts, no matter how delicately phrased….

Dinosaurs cavorting with humans, climate scientists cooking up the global warming “hoax,” the health establishment using vaccines to bring about socialism – it’s hard to imagine mainstream leaders in other advanced economies not laughing at such claims.

I always enjoy the left-liberal arguments which revolve around the idea that because someone, somewhere, might be laughing at an idea, it must not be true. And, of course, given that there is no global warming and climate scientists did cook up one of the most colossal scams in human history, the professor manages to explain more cogently than he imagined why Americans, for all their flaws, still aren’t dumb enough to vote for scientists.

The problem isn’t so much that “an abstract, scientific approach to problems and issues often leads to conclusions that are at odds with religious and cultural beliefs”, it is that ideology hidden under a veneer of an abstract, scientific approach to problems and issues often leads to conclusions that are at odds with readily observable reality.

Americans don’t refuse to vote for scientists because they think scientists threaten their beliefs, Americans refuse to vote for them because they conclude, on the basis of considerable evidence, scientists are foolish and stupid.

A wee bit late

I’m not saying National Review’s call for Gingrich to get out of the race is misguided. I’m merely saying it is much later than would have been justified:

At the moment Rick Santorum appears to be overtaking Newt Gingrich as the principal challenger to Mitt Romney. Santorum has won more contests than Gingrich (who has won only one), has more delegates, and leads him in the polls. In at least one poll, he also leads Romney. It isn’t yet a Romney–Santorum contest, but it could be headed that way.

We hope so. Gingrich’s verbal and intellectual talents should make him a resource for any future Republican president. But it would be a grave mistake for the party to make someone with such poor judgment and persistent unpopularity its presidential nominee. It is not clear whether Gingrich remains in the race because he still believes he could become president next year or because he wants to avenge his wounded pride: an ambiguity that suggests the problem with him as a leader. When he led Santorum in the polls, he urged the Pennsylvanian to leave the race. On his own arguments the proper course for him now is to endorse Santorum and exit.

The correct moment to tell Gingrich to leave the race, of course, was the moment he decided to enter it. No one was ever going to vote for the corrupt and thin-skinned little troll. The only purpose he served was to make Santorum and Romney look half-electable by comparison, and they both possess the electability of a Republican candidate in the classic Dole/McCain vein. They’ll lose, but they’ll lose respectably and make it look as if the Republican Establishment actually wanted to win the election.

Which, as is readily apparent, it doesn’t. Obama is obediently bombing who he’s told to bomb and defending the interests of the banks he’s told to defend. So long as his handlers can sufficiently head off his self-destructive political instincts – seriously, he’s picking a fight on healthcare now? – and keep him from quitting the race in a morose tantrum, the Republican Establishment will be perfectly satisfied with a loss to Obama it can blame on the Tea Party.

We have a very strange situation in 2012 where it is the Democratic Establishment that wants Obama out whereas the Republican Establishment is perfectly content with the idea of him serving a second term.

Everybody hates Captain Underoos

The more inevitable Mitt Romney looks, the less Republicans like him:

“In Missouri, Romney lost by 30 points and did not win a single county. In Minnesota, Romney finished third behind Ron Paul and did not win a single county. And in Colorado Romney kept his loss within five points, but finished 35-points behind his 60 percent 2008 total.”

I was, of course, amused that in at least one National Review post, the second-place finisher in Minnesota was unidentified. I do find it remarkable that so many Republicans would turn to Santorum as the anti-Romney candidate, however. Republicans apparently really, really, like their central banks and foreign wars.