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HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 05:07:36 +0000

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON

Word Association

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:47:35 +0000

In Word Association, a poster says one word, and then someone else types another word brought to mind by the first word. For example, Person A might say "toaster," and then Person B might say "leavens."

I'll start out with:

xylophone

"Living Constitution," benefits of trade, et. al.

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:54:09 +0000

In a conversation on another board, Sam Cogley posted this. I'm replying here because the other forum has a restrictive character limit, and this forum is more conducive to political discussions, anyway.

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Grossly mischaracterized, in a very far-right manner.

I doubt Nazis, to whom you must be referring with "very far-right," would object to a "living Constitution."

In any case, the evidence I've seen points to the interpretation I proferred of the "living Constitution" thesis. One of the chief promulgators of the "living Constitution," Woodrow Wilson, writing in his 1908 book Constitutional Government, championed the approach not as a means by which to adjust the philosophy of the Founding to the modern era, but as a way to repudiate the Founders, what with their anachronistic devotion to individual rights and checks-and-balances, and reframe the Constitution according to "Darwinian principles" -- which, for Wilson, partly meant unshackling the President so he could be "at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can" (Cult of the Presidency, pp. 54-55).

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., also didn't seem to think interpretation according to the "living Constitution" paradigm meant just "wiggling" within parameters the Founders had established, but reinterpreting the Constitution according to contemporary mores (see Missouri vs. Holland).

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The actual theory that you're attempting to describe is a simple one - that the Framers were smart enough to leave the Constitution fairly vague and flexible. This gives the government of the people, by the people and for the people some "wiggle room" to adjust to changing conditions without wholesale re-writes.

But a "fairly vague and flexible" constitution is contrary to what, from my readings, the Founding generation thought a constitution was.

An illuminating book, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn, contains a section called "Constitution and Rights" in which Bailyn presents contemporary writings showcasing the evolution of constitutional thought in America during the mid- to late-18th century. A constitution was conceived of as a fixed and inviolable covenant, between the people and/or with God, above government and permanently constraining it, that would demarcate the frontier of government power and secure the people's "universal, inherent, indefeasible" rights. Only with the consent of "a clear majority of all the inhabitants" could alterations be made. A constitution was believed only capable of securing rights if its stipulations could not be "altered or changed by ruler or people, but [only] by the whole collective body." Whereas room was made for judicial review, the purpose was not to "adjust" a constitution but to defend it.

The Federalist Papers are consistent with this view of constitutionalism. In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton writes (emphases mine):

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The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

...

Though I trust the friends of the proposed Constitution will never concur with its enemies, in questioning that fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness, yet it is not to be inferred from this principle, that the representatives of the people, whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body. Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act.

...

That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission.

Had the Founding Fathers conceived of the role of the judiciary as not just defending the Constitution, but updating it for "changing conditions," then how odd for Hamilton to declaim exactly that in Federalist 78, and to dispute the need for a Bill of Rights in Federalist 84. I would think if the Founding Fathers had envisioned anything like a "living Constitution" whereby the constitution would be periodically adjusted by the judiciary, they wouldn't have consigned the declaration of essential rights to an afterthought, or left the list as short as they did. And, had the original public understanding of the Constitution included a federal judiciary with the ability to "adjust [the Constitution] to changing conditions," then given the contemporary revulsion of central power and philosophy of constitutional rule, the states wouldn't have ratified the document.

But they did ratify the Constitution, and it was put into practice, after which the earlier principles of constitutonalism continued to hold sway. In a letter written during his presidency, on March 27, 1801, to Eddy, Russell, Thurber, Wheaton, and Smith, Thomas Jefferson describes what he views as proper constitutional interpretation:

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The Constitution on which our union rests, shall be administered by me according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States, at the time of its adoption,--a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it merely lest the constructions should be applied which they denounced as possible. These explanations are preserved in the publications of the time, and are too recent in the memories of most men to admit of question.

Of course, today, the explanations are obscured by the passage of two centuries. But we still have the publications in which those explanations appeared, so due diligence can mitigate against historical amnesia.

Joseph Story, a protegee of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, an influential Supreme Court justice in his own right, and the author of one of the dominant works on jurisprudence in the 19th century, the 1833 collection Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, supports the revolutionary era idea of constitutionalism in his chapter "Rules of Interpretation" (emphases mine):

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On the other hand, a rule of equal importance is, not to enlarge the construction of a given power beyond the fair scope of its terms, merely because the restriction is inconvenient, impolitic, or even mischievous. If it be mischievous, the power of redressing the evil lies with the people by an exercise of the power of amendment. If they do not choose to apply the remedy, it may be fairly presumed, that the mischief is less than what would arise from a further extension of the power; or that it is the least of two evils. Nor should it ever be lost sight of, that the government of the United States is one of limited or enumerated powers; and that a departure from the true import and sense of its powers is, pro tanto, the establishment of a new constitution. It is doing for the people, what they have not chosen to do for themselves. It is usurping the functions of a legislator, and deserting those of an expounder of the law. Arguments drawn from impolicy or inconvenience ought here to be of no weight. The only sound principle is to declare, ita lex scripta set, to follow, and to obey. Nor, if a principle so just and conclusive could be overlooked, could there well be found a more unsafe guide and practice, then mere policy and convenience. Men on such subjects complexionally differ from each other. The same men differ from themselves at different times. Temporary delusions, prejudices, excitements, and objects have irresistible influence in mere questions of policy. And the policy of one age may ill suit the wishes, or policy of another. The constitution is not to be subject to such fluctuations. It is to have a fixed, uniform, permanent construction. It should be, so far at least as human infirmity will allow, not dependent upon the passions or parties of particular times, but the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

None of this is to say the principles of the Constitution can't be logically extended for the modern day. Just because Article I, Section 8, doesn't mention an air force or a space fleet doesn't mean Congress can't establish them; all military branches the Founding generation could have imagined appear, and little reason exists to suppose the constitution was understood to allow some branches but not others. Likewise, just because the First Amendment doesn't mention the Internet doesn't mean web users don't have free speech; had the Internet existed in 1789, it likely would have been included in the First Amendment, and including it now does no violence to the principle at hand. Here is your "wiggle room," Sam -- which isn't what proponents of a "living Constitution" have in mind.

Funny that you should mention "the government of the people, by the people and for the people" because, as Story notes, judicial reinterpretation of the Constitution, not to correct an earlier mistake a la Brown v. Board but to "adjust to changing conditions," constitutes an end-run around the people. If a constitutional change really has massive popular support, enacting it via constitutional amendment should pose little difficulty.

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Compare this to most state Constitutions, which are very detailed, long and tend to need to be re-written every 20-50 years.

If that's a bad thing, it's just an argument against long and detailed constitutions, not for judicial constitutional reinterpretation.

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I think that's a fairly gross mischaracterization as well.

You gave no reason why it's inaccurate, only why, to you, it's necessary.

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If we want to cripple Congress by making them pass every little tiny procedural rule of any bureaucratic agency, nothing would ever get done. At all.

Who said I wanted them to pass a bunch of tiny niggling rules for numerous spawling bureaucracies? You're right: A legislature is ill-equipped for that. I'd add that even effective oversight by legislative bodies is sheer fantasy.

That's another reason to disband these unnecessary and unconstitutional federal agencies.

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I'm not even sure what you're referring to here. If it's the current health care bill

Yes, and in the must not category, to politically disfavored drugs (alcohol and, although to lessening degrees, tobacco, are strangely fine, of course).

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American business is going to keep sliding backwards against the rest of the world, even the "oh so evil socialists," if our businesses keep being saddled with huge medical insurance bills that their competitors don't need to worry about.

I agree the government-created linkage, through tax policy, of health insurance and employment is ludicrous.

But portraying businesses in certain other countries as unencumbered with health care costs is economically obtuse. As economists like to say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch" (something supply-siders would do well to remember, but I digress). The difference in other countries is that health care costs are borne through taxation, as well as through the inefficiencies and dead-weight losses from government regulation and price controls.

Edit: I should add that employers in this country don't really bear the cost of health insurance; employees do, since it comes out of the total of what an employer is willing to pay for an employee.

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Yeah, because demolishing the American middle class and returning to the "Robber Baron" state of affairs where there are the very few exceedingly rich controlling all of the wealth and a great mass of dirt poor people is going to do wonders for our economy.

First of all, absolutely no empirical foundation exists to cynicism about immigration and trade. None. Almost all economists--even Paul Krugman, the equivalent in the profession of the crazy uncle who's locked upstairs for his own safety--support liberal immigration and trade policies because the empirical data show they massively help economies.

As economists William J. Baumol and Alan S. Blinder explain in the textbook Economics: Principles and Policy, Ninth Edition, economists almost unanimously back free trade because:

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Every country lacks some vital resources that it can get only by trading with others.
Each country's climate, labor force, and other endowments make it a relatively efficient producer of some goods and an inefficient producer of other goods.
Specialization permits larger outputs and can therefore offer economies of large-scale production.

(Essentially, they're summing up the law of comparative advantage.)

I'm not going to comment on the "Robber Barron" thing because: 1.) I'm unsure what it has to do with trade and immigration; and 2.) This post is already absurdly long.

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I can agree, to a point. Ongoing operations and sources obviously need to be protected. Playing poker with all of your cards face-up, while everyone else's are face-down doesn't work very well.

But much of the secrecy these days involves shielding from embarassment and accountability, not attack.

All right, that's it for now.

Battleground God

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:18:06 +0000

Do you think your opinions on God are rational and consistent? See whether that's true when you test them on Battleground God.

I took no direct hits and bit two bullets, earning me the Medal of Distinction.

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The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.

Maybe I should wear one of these on my next flight

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:09:47 +0000

From Boing Boing:

Cory Doctorow said:

Big Brother Tees, sporting a variety of slogans relevant to airport security: "Nobody is safer when you take my water," "Cast Member of Airport Security Theater," "You can only detect and respond," "Technology can't solve security problems," "Franklin's Essential Liberty," "What airport security procedures miss."

Someone will come along any moment in the comments to explain that if you get hassled for wearing one of these, it's your own fault for antagonizing them.

But let's be clear: the TSA's job is to keep airplanes safe. Criticizing the TSA does not undermine the safety of airplanes. Hurting a screener's feelings does not endanger our skies. Refusing to believe in the pseudoscience of binary explosives made in airplanes from the contents of your toothpaste tube does not constitute noncompliance with the magic-anti-terror-baggie rule.

My choice would be "Cast Member of Airport Security Theater." It seems the most direct, and therefore most likely to be understood by TSA staffers.

(H/T @normative.)

To what are you listening?

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:02:41 +0000

What songs are capturing your attention at the moment?

The song that's captivated me most lately is "Karma" by Alicia Keys. It has a groovy beat that sounds a unique chord amongst all the other songs out there. I heard a small snippet of it at the recent MTV Video Music Awards, and I had to buy The Diary of Alicia Keys the next day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! JASON

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:13:33 +0000

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! JASON

I enjoy your Web Site, and all the people who post here. Thank you

Vanishing civil liberties in Britain

Sat, 22 May 2010 02:46:49 +0000

According to Britain's [url="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/15/tall_photographers/"]The Register[/url], Kent police asked a man to produce identification because he was a tall man shooting photographs:

[quote name='The Register' date='15 July 2009 - 12:45 PM']According to [url="http://monaxle.com/2009/07/08/section-44-in-chatham-high-street/"]his blog[/url], our over-tall photographer Alex Turner was taking snaps in Chatham High St last Thursday, when he was approached by two unidentified men. They did not identify themselves, but demanded that he show them some ID and warned that if he failed to comply, they would summon police officers to deal with him.

This they did, and a PCSO and WPC quickly joined the fray. Turner took a photo of the pair, and was promptly arrested. It is unclear from his own account precisely what he was being arrested for. However, he does record that the WPC stated she had felt threatened by him when he took her picture, referring to his size - 5' 11" and about 12 stone -and implying that she found it intimidating.

Turner claims he was handcuffed, held in a police van for around 20 minutes, and forced to provide ID before they would release him. He was then searched in public by plain clothes officers who failed to provide any ID before they did so.

Following his release, he further claims that the police confirmed he was at liberty to take photographs, so long as - according to the PCSO - he did not take any photographs of the police.[/quote]
In attempting to explain their treatment of the photographer, Kent police said:

[quote name='Kent police']"At the time of this incident, a police officer responded to a report concerning a man who was taking photographs of buildings and people in Chatham town centre. When challenged by the police officer the man refused to give any personal details which it was thought was suspicious.

"As a result, he was arrested and asked to wait in a police vehicle while his details were checked. He was released a short time later after these details had been properly verified, and no further action has been taken.[/quote]
Declining civil liberties in the United Kingdom has been the subject of much commentary over the past few years. This episode is a case in point, with the hallmarks of a budding police state in full display:

"Papers, please" -- as [url="http://www.theagitator.com/2009/08/15/something-is-happening-here-but-you-dont-know-what-it-is/"]Radley Balko[/url], a journalist who specializes in exposes of police corruption and brutality, notes, this used to be a joke about the distrust totalitarian regimes held for their own citizens. Spurning the principles of "innocent until proven guilty" and "right to privacy," paranoid autocrats considered almost everyone under their dominion a potential criminal unless proven otherwise. Now, British police -- as well as their American counterparts -- are increasingly channeling that paranoia. Woe betide the British or American citizen who doesn't carry identification!
Common, harmless activities are increasingly subject to official scrutiny and harassment. This episode is just one of a panoply of shocking excesses: In Britain, according to Londoner [url="http://www.reason.com/news/show/134489.html"]Brendan O'Neill[/url], a suspicious culture of nosy busybodies is developing around "anti-social behavior orders," with which the government encourages citizens to spy on each other and report annoying behavior. O'Neill says:

[quote name='Brendan O'Neill']The ASBO system has turned much of Britain into a curtaintwitching, neighbor-watching, noisepolicing gang of spies. The relative ease with which one can apply to the authorities for an ASBO positively invites people to use the system to punish their foes or the irritants who live in their neighborhoods. ASBOs have been used to prevent young people in certain areas from wearing hoods or hats (they look "threatening"), to ban a middle-aged couple from playing gangsta rap (the expletives offended workers and children at a nearby kindergarten), and to prevent a 10-year-old boy from having contact with matches until he turns 16, after he was found to have started a fire.[/quote]

Cops not wearing uniforms or presenting badges searched a law-abiding citizen without judicial authority to do so.
The police ordered a citizen not to photograph them. As the crew of [url="http://motorhomediaries.com/jones-county-sheriffs-department-falsely-arrests-mhd-crew/"]Motorhome[/url] [url="http://motorhomediaries.com/ohhhh-canada-not-again/"]Diaries[/url] has [url="http://motorhomediaries.com/ohhhhh-canada/"]discovered[/url], law enforcement aversion to photography and video recording of their activities has spread in North America as well. [url="http://www.positiveliberty.com/2009/07/the-ability-to-define-the-truth.html"]Jason Kuznicki[/url] celebrates the modern near-ubiquity of these technologies as a powerful new tool for citizens to hold cops accountable. But agents of an emerging police state would seek escape from such accountability, maybe not because they want to get away with corruption and abuse, but because [url="http://www.theagitator.com/2009/07/29/response-to-patterico-and-jack-dunphy/"]they view themselves through the prism of society's worship of them as heroic protectors[/url] against the hordes of criminals about which the media bloviates. Perhaps they look down on the public from the pedestals onto which the citizenry has raised them and so resist accountability because they're not used to it.

On both sides of the Atlantic, vexing trends in police behavior are increasingly apparent: disregarding privacy, hassling individuals engaging in legal behavior, resisting accountability and exposure. Both [url="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/11/tasers/index.html"]American[/url] and [url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1194719/Police-blast-man-89-50-000-volt-taser-gun.html"]British[/url] [url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-479341/Now-police-told-use-Taser-guns-children.html"]police[/url] [url="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-494199/Police-shot-diabetic-coma-Taser--thought-suicide-bomber.html"]are[/url] also abusing tasers in trying to ensure compliance with their directives. Digby, filling in for Glenn Greenwald, describes the situation (in the first link of the previous sentence):

[quote name='Digby' date='11 August 2009 - 6:11 PM']As awful as the possibility of death is, tasers would be a blight on any free people even if they weren't so often deadly. Tasers were sold to the public as a tool for law enforcement to be used in lieu of deadly force. Presumably, this means situations in which officers would have previously had to use their firearms. It's hard to argue with that, and I can't think of a single civil libertarian who would say that this would be a truly civilized advance in policing. Nobody wants to see more death and if police have a weapon they can employ instead of a gun, in self defense or to stop someone from hurting others, I think we all can agree that's a good thing.

But that's not what's happening. Tasers are routinely used by police to torture innocent people who have not broken any law and whose only crime is being disrespectful toward their authority or failing to understand their "orders." There is ample evidence that police often take no more than 30 seconds to talk to citizens before employing the taser, they use them while people are already handcuffed and thus present no danger, and are used often against the mentally ill and handicapped. It is becoming a barbaric tool of authoritarian, social control.[/quote]

A treatise on libertarianism

Thu, 06 May 2010 18:16:02 +0000

I originally wrote this in response to a conversation I had via IM with Sim. I'm reproducing it here.

Personal responsibility

Everything we do can affect other people. Even a seemingly innocuous activity like masturbation can have deadly consequences: The women with whom one might have slept had he not pleasured himself instead has a lesser pool of healthy sexual partners from which to choose, thereby increasing her odds of picking one with a sexually transmitted disease such as AIDS.¹

As Friedrich Hayek wrote, and as you said previously, we live in a complex world wherein many things happen—even things that affect us—beyond our control. We often have little influence over the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We can't control where, when, or whence we're born; our genetic code; or most of the trillions of activities other people undertake every day.

But insisting on personal responsibility, in Hayek's view, remains proper. It gives individuals incentive to try to improve their own lives and to avoid dissolute or criminal behavior. Otherwise, if people are not responsible for themselves, and if responsibility is instead assigned to amorphous "society," then why would anyone bother with self-improvement or self-control? There's a proverb about committee decision-making: "When everyone bears responsibility, nobody does." That applies equally well to this case.

The scope of what government can do

The complexity of modern civilization brings to mind another point: An individual's knowledge is limited. Comprehending one's own abilities and circumstances often taxes a person's faculties, which you've said yourself. How, then, could he possibly be expected to bear responsibility for society, which is vastly more complicated than his own life? Why, then, would we ever trust anyone to mold or "regulate" society (especially when the politicians who would do it seem among the least capable of regulating their own lives)?

You might rejoin that you don't expect individuals to be responsible for society, but for society to take responsibility for individuals. But that formulation would only make sense were society a collective consciousness, with people's minds linked together and sharing knowledge. That's not what civilization is, however; instead, the humans who comprise it are in many ways discrete parts, without the capability to meld their minds together. Holding "society" responsible for something is really asking each individual who comprises society to assume responsibility for things that happen outside his own sphere, even though he could not possibly understand, predict, or influence many of them.

So how is society even possible?

Just as life arose through biological evolution without conscious direction, so have our ideas and methods—such as language, law, and economy—arisen through memetic evolution absent conscious planning.² We, by and large, follow traditions that have survived the battle of memes and withstood the test of time, without comprehending all the wherefores behind those traditions.

This is not to defend slavish devotion to tradition. Progress only occurs when individuals believe they have better ways of doing things and have the will and the freedom to assume the risks of pursuing their ideas. Good ideas can spread beyond the early adopters, eventually supplementing or supplanting tradition; bad ideas, in contrast, usually perish in their infancy. And it takes place not with central planning, analogous to "intelligent design," but through an unguided process similar to what gave us opposable thumbs.

That's the point: Most of humanity's advancement and enlightenment stems from evolution, not from design. Of course, human reason plays a role, but in individuals applying reason to their own circumstances, sometimes quite fallibly, and not in "society" exercising overarching responsibility for human development. For cabals that have grabbed political power to claim such responsibility in the name of "society" jeopardizes human advancement by derailing the processes most responsible for it.³

Left-wingers regularly uphold government intervention as a manifestation of collective action and a corrective on individual fallibility. Such a conception of government activity, though, has many problems. When government launches quixotic endeavors to "regulate" society, it undermines collective action. The judgment of millions of people acting freely is substituted for that of relatively few politicians and bureaucrats. Concurrently, the potential for individual fallibility to wreak havoc increases because citizens must do what individuals in government instruct them to do. Therefore, bad ideas affect not just a handful of experimenters but can impact a whole society.⁴

What about criminal law?

Laws against murder, theft, assault, larceny, fraud, etc., evolved almost everywhere on Earth, not as the result of an overarching plan but as cumulative extensions of natural self-defense.

These negative restrictions that apply equally to everyone, consistent with "rule of law," don't require extensive knowledge of everyone's circumstances to enforce effectively. And they leave intact an individual's ability to use reason to formulate his own plans and pursue his own ends. He need only avoid a few obstacles, as would the hiker in the countryside who mustn't fall into ponds or trip over rocks.

The more the state relies on positive commands, though, the more it substitutes its own thinking for that of individuals. Instead of one considering his own circumstances, including laws against criminal behavior, and then deciding how to act, he must suspend his faculties and act as per the will of the government that has decided for him. Imagine the hiker in the countryside, but this time with a leash on his neck, being tugged where his handler wants him to go.⁵

In the former scenario, an individual is his own master, under the protection of laws the purpose of which is to ensure he remains such, for a Hobbesian state of nature would leave self-mastery very much in doubt. In the latter scenario, by contrast, an individual is a tool the state uses for its own ends; even if a tool is used only sparingly and judiciously, it remains a tool.

Aren't "we" the state?

Of course not.

As heretofore described, "society" comprises largely discrete individuals. People in government, serving in often distant national, state, and provincial capitals, are not in telepathic communion with people elsewhere. Whereas democratic republicanism enhances the rapport between state and citizenry above what it would be under any other system of government, such as monarchy, it's still flawed, so flawed that "we" cannot be said to "be" the state.

Consider:

The principal-agent problem, exacerbated by the inability or unwillingness of many people to follow politics closely.
The "pebbles in an avalanche" problem.
The energy of the executive,⁶ vis-à-vis the diffuseness of the legislature, hinders legislative control and oversight of executive bureaucracies. Today, with sizable government power delegated to bureaucracies⁷—which are full of career personnel without political accountability, and which frequently make their own rules and enforce them on the public—much of the apparatus of the state falls beyond electoral or legislative accountability.

Aristotle postulates accountability as the shield against tyranny. That, and not mythic communal decision-making, represents the end of democratic voting in a republic. This is why bureaucratic lack of accountability, and the rampant government interventionism that has catalyzed the growth of bureaucracy, should concern anyone who cares about freedom.

Why "social responsibility" threatens social harmony

Every system has winners and losers. The questions are: Who will become winners or losers? How many will become so? Why?

Under a free system, one rises or falls based on the value⁸ his services provide to the community, the sum of his inherent abilities and defects, and the effects of millions of other citizens interacting with each other. So, in many cases, the outcome depends on one's own efforts and characteristics. And, when that's not true, the reason usually isn't the plotting of another individual or group with one's own misfortune in mind, but impersonal societal forces more akin to weather phenomena than to conscious decision-making.

Once government intervention begins eroding freedom, however, the conscious decision-making of other people exerts more control over whether one wins or loses. If one is a member of a politically favored constituency, then government likely will decide he should be a "winner" and transfer resources from less favored constituencies to make it so, often contributing to them becoming "losers." The damage to the economy from the forcible transfer of resources from more efficient activities to less efficient ones creates more "losers," so the number of "losers" from government action can surpass that of artificially created "winners."

You might—in a discriminatory spirit that mocks rule of law⁹—not mourn the plight of rich people resulting of government action. But what about the employees who will lose their jobs when wealthier individuals must curtail spending, when some companies must go out of business? What about patients who will go untreated and clients who will go un-served by fed-up doctors and lawyers working fewer hours?¹⁰ Why do they deserve to suffer; how is it "fair"? And what gives anyone else the right to decide they must suffer for the sake of other people?

Furthermore, not only does such an interventionist state rest on the ethically questionable framework of robbing Peter, Mary, and Sue to pay Paul, but it encourages societal discontent as well.

Why?

In a free system, to the extent that one's circumstances aren't one's own fault, they normally stem from processes that are as impersonal as rain, since they comprise indirect effects nobody has planned or could reasonably be expected to have anticipated or prevented. Say you have a tofu burger instead of a pizza. That could have larger effects of some kind, but how could you be "responsible" for them? You'd have little idea what most of them could be, you'd have little ability to control them even if you knew more, and you'd hardly be able to do anything if you tried contemplating them all before taking any action (inaction which could itself have just as many unforeseeable consequences!).

Such a multiplicity of indirect effects, just like rain or snow, cannot be somebody's "fault." Ergo, individuals usually deal with them as best they can, according to their own strengths and weaknesses, without hating other people. In contrast, under an interventionist state—be it corporatist, mercantilist, social democratic, or something similar—then one's fate is often directly controllable by other people, in the form of the state. What was once bad luck transforms into, from the perspectives of many citizens, a decision by identifiable men and institutions—the state—not to act. Unemployment, business failure, job displacement, and other such maladies become the government's fault, in the eyes of the public. After government inevitably breaks its unfulfillable oaths to protect society from these afflictions, having arbitrarily shifted around resources to create visible "winners" while making the rest of the populace feel left out, civil discontent accumulates.

Let's revisit a political brouhaha from a year ago, sparked by then presidential candidate Barack Obama's comments about voter bitterness¹¹:

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"You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said in an address to fundraisers in San Francisco last week. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The United States government continually made promises it couldn't keep in light of the domestic economy's inexorable shift from manufacturing to services. Of course that sparked anger within clingers to an increasingly outmoded way of life, who might have moved on long ago but for an interventionist state that absolves them of personal responsibility to improve their own lives and soothes their fears of change by giving them false hope it won't happen. (Most individuals who traffic in such fraudulent claims are known as "con men," but in Washington, we call them "congressmen.")

One reason why class hostility hasn't historically riven the United States as much as Europe might be the American government's greater reluctance to interfere with the market on behalf of either proletariat (social democracy) or bourgeoisie (mercantilism, corporatism). Consequently, less of a perception exists among Americans that government has privileged undeserving "winners" at the expense of everyone else.

Holding the innocent "responsible"

In response to my point about impersonal societal forces for which no specific person or group could be held responsible, you might aver that is why society itself should be held responsible, because no individual could reasonably be deemed "guilty."

But, in addition to the difficulties with "societal responsibility" I raised above, such a notion can represent communal punishment for the actions of a few. I trust I need not explain the barbarism of punishing Peter, Paul, and Mary for what only Paul did.

"I agree," you might say. "But if everyone is guilty of some indirect hurt of another, certainly some redress might then be appropriate."

Because, however, under such a scenario, specific crimes could not be delineated or specific perpetrators identified, the state would have an ultimately unlimited mandate to seek "redress" from society as it sees fit. One could only hope the "right" party is in power to forestall abuses, an uncertain prospect and an arrogant expectation.

In addition, since society is really just a collection of individuals, the above scenario would enshrine the concept of holding individuals accountable for that for which they cannot be held responsible, as they could not understand, predict, or control most of the indirect effects for which they're being punished.¹² I also trust I need not explain the barbarism of that concept.

On "fairness" as commonly understood

If a particular distribution of resources is the cumulative result of actions undertaken in freedom and absent coercion, then hullabalooing about the "unfairness" of it just validates envy. A distribution, to borrow from Thomas Jefferson, neither picks one's pocket nor breaks one's leg. The mere fact that Person A has more than Person B doesn't harm Person B or prevent Person B from acquiring more than what he already has.

This is not to minimize any suffering of Person B. If Person B is suffering, of course any empathetic human would consider that a problem (not necessarily a problem for government, but nonetheless a problem some mechanism would hopefully address). It's a problem regardless of whether Person A is in a better situation than Person B. If Person A suddenly had just as much as or less than Person B, that would do nothing for Person B!

As a libertarian, I can't help but think "fairness" would lie in thinking of how to address Person B's problems without in the process spreading misery to others, and then considering his dilemmas "solved" because they now feel some of the pain he does.

If that is "fairness," I want nothing to do with it.

----------------------
1. More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics by Steven E. Landsburg presents the counterintuitive but compelling case that more promiscuity would decrease instances of STD's in the aggregate by increasing the number of less risky, more healthy (not drug abusing, not sickly, not completely slutty) partners available to sexually active people. An example would be Patricia having sex with several of her friends instead of committing to one person or pleasuring herself. (But, whereas society might benefit from that, greater promiscuity would entail more risk for oneself because one would raise his chances of sleeping with a carrier of an STD.)

2. Spontaneous order (http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/spontaneous-order/).

3. The memetic evolution described here should not be confused with Social Darwinism, the subject of which was people, not ideas.

4. Notice the resemblance to the case James Madison made for federalism in The Federalist, No. 10 (http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm): "The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State."

5. Friedrich Hayek discusses this concept in more detail, and perhaps with greater facility, in Chapter Ten of Constitution of Liberty, "Laws, Commands, and Order" (http://www.hypersyl.com/files/hayek_constitutionofliberty_lawcommandsandorder.pdf).

6. For example, Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist, No. 70 (http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa70.htm), discusses the potency of the American Presidency.

7. As it must be to enact coercive social democratic policies on which substantial and cohesive—as opposed to fragmentary—agreement couldn't be reached within republican institutions.

8. As opposed to "merit." See "Equality, Value, and Merit" (http://www.woldww.net/classes/General_Philosophy/Hayek-equality.htm), a chapter from Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek.

9. Which upholds the equal treatment of all citizens by government, regardless of their personal differences. Otherwise, we have rule of men, deciding which rules will apply to which people.

10. "Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hike Plan" (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6975547&page=1), ABC News. As one lawyer said:

Quote

"We have to find a way out where we can make just what we need to just under the line so we can benefit from Obama's tax plan," she added. "Why kill yourself working if you're going to give it all away to people who aren't working as hard?"

11. "'Bitter' Pill Hard to Swallow in Pennsylvania Town" (http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4652934), ABC News.

12. Talk about "tasking" individuals too much!

An open letter from Greek soldiers pledging not to enforce tyrannical orders

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:46:40 +0000

Stirring words from Greek soldiers in defiance of their government (h/t @PeteEyre):

Quote

We are civilians in uniform. We will not accept being turned into free tools of fear that some are trying to implant in society like a scarecrow. we will not accept being turned into a force of repression and terror. We will not oppose the people with whom we share the same fears, needs, and desires, the same common future, the same dangers and the same hopes. We refuse to take the streets, under the name of any state of emergency, against our brothers and sisters. As young people in uniform we express our solidarity with a fighting people and we state that we won't turn ourselves into pawns of a police state and of state repression.

We will never fight our own people.

Some American soldiers and police have started a group, Oath Keepers, which has made a similar vow. Of course, many Americans consider them dangerous; after all, they pledge to disobey unconstitutional orders to disarm, imprison, or combat American citizens without due process. Oh crikey, that's scary! (At least, it is to elites whose dreams for America would entail forcing dissenting citizens to cooperate, Constitution be damned.)

But I applaud the Oath Keepers, the Greek soldiers who wrote the letter to which I link above, and all other armed agents of the world's governments who would refuse to act as oppressors rather than defenders of the people. I do question why the Oath Keepers didn't emerge sooner; how many people seemed to have, as an Oath Keeper describes in a Mother Jones article, "relied on Bush's character and didn't pay attention," I don't know. And if the Oath Keepers' fidelity to constitutional principles mysteriously vanishes upon the election of the next Republican president, that would be disappointing. Come what may, though, the words now of the Oath Keepers and their like-minded compatriots across the globe deserve appreciation, not scorn, and should stand before history as emblematic of the proper attitude a soldier or policeman in a free society has toward his government and his people.

What It Feels Like to Be a Libertarian

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:25:42 +0000

In January 2009, Georgetown University business professor John Hasnas posted this screed to his web site: "What It Feels Like to Be a Libertarian."

This libertarian, of course, appreciated the article. The balance of economic research, from what I've gathered over the years, perforates the assumptions underpinning social democracy while highlighting the virtues of free enterprise capitalism. Even my economics textbook from college -- Economics: Principle and Policy (Ninth Edition), one of the writers of which was a Clinton administration economist -- mightily endeavors to show how, "Attempts to fight market forces often backfire." Meanwhile, as Hasnas notes, libertarians who take to heart the teachings of economics have been most consistently right about the consequences of suppressing free markets and using politics to attempt to pick winners and losers. (I'd add, astute libertarians have also been most consistently right about the consequences of military adventurism and suppression of civil liberties, but that's another argument.)

This doesn't evoke joy at being correct but despair, which Hasnas captures, over proving unable so far to convince our friends across the world to stop imperiling their economic future.

My buddy Sim, though, objects to elements of Hasnas's essay. Sim has given me permission to quite his email on the subject:

Quote

It's an interesting article, but I wonder if it's a bit too self-flattering for libertarians. As far as I am concerned, I don't think it's by far not proven that FDR's measures actually did more bad than good (even if it prolonged the crisis, it may very well have eased the symptoms and thus did the right and necessary thing during crisis -- 10 years of moderate hardship are easier to stand for a society than 5 years of extreme hardship), and I think it's ridiculous to blame government for the recent crisis (at best, the government was a minor contributing factor, and 90% of the problem was the extreme carelessness and lack of responsibility on the side of financial market actors. But that's just my personal impression).

At least that's the absolute consensus position you find over here in Germany/Europe, which may either be because 95% of our commentators and elites are ignorant and unaware of basic market principles and thus idiots -- or because maybe, just maybe, the remaining 5% are ideologically misguided based on stubbornness, potentially blinded by greed and their agenda to promote a status quo that they only profit from. Considering that the mob often is ignorant, I don't discard the former possibility entirely, but I think it's not very likely.

What I think is much more probable, though, is not that libertarians are ill-meaning, nor that the majority is ignorant. I think it's that libertarians have a very good grasp on economy, but are blind for social matters because of their ideology. It's true that a good economy is a necessity for general wealth -- but what if it's not the only necessity, and what if the importance of a good market alone is way over-estimated by libertarians? That compromises in favor of certain social values are necessary for a fair and well-running society, which necessarily cause slightly more inefficiency in the market, which are small enough to be tolerated and worth the result?

If that's the case, then libertarians have an important role: They remind that an efficient economy does matter, and that ignoring the economy because of social values is indeed a dead end, and even dangerous. Many advocates of social values certainly do that -- and I agree that's dangerous, and criticism is warranted. But still I think libertarians may be way too one-sided, and overshoot the mark. Sure, there is no prosperity without a good economy, but a good economy is not the solution to all problems.

So my answer to the article: It's easy to claim having been right all the time and in the first place, when your ideas have never needed to stand the test of time. Libertarian solutions have never been fully enacted, and thus, there is no proof they are any more right than what had been done. It seems presumptuous to me at best to claim having been right all the time with such a certainty, when it was never proven.

I'll respond in detail later rather than posting another hyper-long message as in the "treatise on libertarianism" thread. But I thought I'd "open the floor," as it were, to comments.

What libertarians believe vs. what critics say they believe

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:41:32 +0000

Do many critics of libertarianism distort its message willfully, or do they genuinely not understand the difference between wanting a less intrusive government that protects the rights of its people and wanting no government at all?

Schizophrenic Google ad

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:57:01 +0000

This was running on the front page:

Is Libertarianism Politically Bankrupt?

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:08:14 +0000

There is an article I came across. I don't think I agree with every point it says, but I think it may interest you as well. So I've translated it -- but there is one thing I have to explain first:

In Germany, the term "liberal" has never become synonymous with "left" or "progressive" and Germans who call themselves "liberal" see themselves in the tradition of classical liberalism, much like people in America who call themselves "libertarians".

But German liberals are very similar to American libertarians: Skepticism towards government and state, praise of individualism and individual freedom, free markets and Friedman/Hayek-style supply side economics. In Germany, there even exists a "liberal/libertarian party", the Free Democrats (FDP), which is currently #3 in the parliament and junior coalition partner in the center-right government of Chancellor Merkel (CDU).

That's why it's been difficult to translate the article -- in some cases, I translated the German term "liberal" with the English word "libertarianism", sometimes with the term "classic liberalism". Please keep that in mind when reading the article.

Another difficulty posed the translation of the German terms "b�rgerlich" vs. "bourgeois", the former with a neutral connotation, the latter slightly derogative. I've translated it with the words "civic" vs. "bourgeois".

Ok, here is it:

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Political and Mental Emptiness

The [libertarian] FDP is in a crisis, the party leadership commits many mistakes. So it's plausible to think these mistakes are the reason for the crisis, and that the crisis will end as soon as the mistakes are no longer committed. (...)

Something else should be plausibly explained here: That libertarianism in general is in a mental-political, but also a moral crisis; and that the manner the FDP currently handles its libertarianism will result in strategic mistakes time and again.

Trust in the individual, skepticism towards the state, freedom before security, those are the still valid slogans that describe what has been uniting classically liberal-thinking people for more than two centuries. Classic liberalism, which is often forgotten, is indeed a big thing. But those who think like that must be rather shaken up by the last ten years.

With the internet, a second, virtual world of increasing importance has been created, in which the free actions of individuals have caused mass anarchy, the lawful state does not really exist here, it just goes on patrol occasionally. At the same time, powerful oligopolies are forming with Google or Apple. Their capacity to spy on and observe people, to patronize and to manipulate, has become bigger already than that of states, at least that of democratic states. Civic rights like copyrights are trampled upon.

With the climatic disaster, a topic has gained existential importance which cannot be grasped with ordinary patterns of libertarian thought. Warming of the atmosphere is obviously not the result of excessive government action, but -- on the contrary -- an unwanted side-effect of individual consumption and economic behavior. And this threat can hardly be solved without a "more" of government action and steering by the state.

A deregulated, free, global financial market has pulled the world from one hour to the next close to economic disaster. Only with extreme effort by governments of the fortunately still sufficiently strong states, the catastrophe could be prevented.

These three crisises, we might add international terrorism, have two things in common. First, they are not the result of state or government action, but of hardly controlled individual action. Second: They can only be countered with an increase of state power.

That doesn't mean classic liberalism or libertarianism has been disproven, or doesn't belong into our time. That is because especially state power that has to expand will often do that in a wrong way and in the wrong places. And it can hardly be denied that the state always runs the risk of becoming too big and inefficient. Still it must be deeply disturbing for libertarianism that today -- at least within the democratic republics --, more threats emerge from individual action than from government regulations of individual freedom.

Classic liberalism in Europe has always seen itself as an opposition to an etatist-oriented majority. That's where the continously rebellic tone stems from, which for example Margaret Thatcher never managed to lay off during her long years in power. From this kind of thought also stems Ralf Dahrendorfs famous dictum of "the end of the social-democratic century". He didn't see that on the world scale, the second half of the 20th century was rather a victory parade of classic liberalism and libertarianism. The names Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, Tony Blair and, less strongly, Gerhard Schr�der stand for less state, at least for a less of the welfare state.

But the 21st century will hardly belong to classic liberalism again. It will rather have to deal with the consequences of these victories, have to fence them in and to heal them.

Of course the libertarian FDP doesn't need to see it that way, when we constate the end of a libertarian century these years. Its mental-political crisis is because it seems completely unaffected of all that. Instead of becoming the arena for debating the inherent contradictions of libertarian thought, the FDP treats classic liberalism like an ideology that's always right, but just has to be applied to reality every time again. If not even reality has to be applied to the theory.

Like that, the FDP runs the risk of distancing itself increasingly from reality and the majority. While more and more people have the -- maybe exaggerated -- feeling that the state could be their last saveguard, the FDP still considers it the biggest threat. Calls for tax cuts are the loud signal that continuously reminds of the difference between the libertarians and the 85% who did not vote for them.

But regardless what happens, the FDP always evokes the impression to have all the answers already, while all others are still contemplating. Usually, the answer is: tax cuts, often: less state. Now we realize that's not enough to be part of the government. (...)

Why does nobody connect the FDP to the demand, a lawful, constitutional state has to be defended within the internet as well?

Why does parliamentary floor leader Homburger demand that some families should receive coupons instead of welfare handouts -- and extreme patronization by the state?

Here, another dimension of the mental-political crisis of the libertarian FDP becomes visible. Because individual freedom encounters less and less limits these days (at least in the democratic republics), because it's mobile, because it neither encounters spatial or moral barriers in the net, because institutions like churches or the parties, but also the media lose authority, a libertarianism that bursts barriers increasingly gets in conflict with civic thought, which appreciates modesty, measuredness and centeredness, which loves tradition and formalities.

That why a modern classically liberal party should step in against the excesses of classic liberalism in the name of civic thought. If it doesn't do that, then libertarianism will stroll around and look for other, shallow illusions of safety. Islamophobia and xenophobia for example. It's a symptom of the lack of intellectual depth of the libertarian FDP, when it doesn't care that in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria, libertarian-leaning parties become catchment bassins for prejudices. (...) J�rgen W. M�llemann [former FDP politician who played with anti-Semitism] has demonstrated the potential for seduction of irritated libertarians by right-wing populism.

When today's libertarianism has to struggle with severe inner contradictions, but the FDP treats it as a completely conclusive ideology, then this party becomes resistant to a learning process. It will insist on tax cuts no matter the cost, because it believes to be only credible when clinging to something, not when having a healthy debate or even changing its mind. On its current crisis, the desperately decisive leadership reacts by promising to continue the current course -- just "quicker" and "harder". The libertarians have reached a dead stop.

And because they cannot explain their crisis, the libertarians accuse the media, which allegedly treats them unfairly. This wouldn't even get the libertarians further if it was true. Because they surely cannot change the media.

Apparently, the leadership is not aware why the FDP is under special scrutiny by the media. But it's really simple: The libertarians are pending between two political goals: Bourgeoiseness for everybody, that's one goal; everything for the bourgeoisie, that's the other. If the FDP is civic or bourgeois, if it's classically liberal or a clientele party, that's often hard to recognize and thus under special scrutiny. (...)

Similar as the Westerwelle-FDP does the Green Party behave, which handles its environmentalism like the FDP handles its libertarianism. But sustainability is a historically younger thought, which has not won a victory yet and which has not been trapped yet within its inherent contradictions. In a manner of speaking, green ideology has not progressed far enough yet. That's why the Green Party appears fresher and younger, although its leadership isn't anymore.

The libertarian FDP will in the future, even when they don't like it, be in a political and mental competition with the Green Party -- also for the affection of the [conservative] CDU. In its current state, it will not be able to win this battle.

------------------

Here you find the original article: source

What do you think? Does it apply to American libertarians as well, and not just on the German party FDP?

Where do you lie on the Political Compass?

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:03:30 +0000

Where do your political beliefs lie, in comparison to other people? Take the Political Compass test to discover the answer, and share your results.

Here's where I stand:

Economic Left/Right: 2.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.49

That puts me within the same political quadrant as Ayn Rand.

After 100 days: New conservative-libertarian German gov in chaos

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:02:18 +0000

It's tradition in Germany -- most new governments got rather bad grades by commentators after its first 100 days. The new CDU/CSU & FDP (conservative-libertarian) coalition, Chancellor Angela Merkel's (CDU) 2nd administration, is no exception.

But this time, the chaos seems especially extreme -- it seems that the "dream team" of conservatives (CDU and Bavarian CSU) and libertarians (FDP) has made a hobby of fighting against each other in public, rather than governing together.

Quote:
Chancellor Angela Merkel's first 100 days in power at the head of a new center-right government following her re-election in September have been marred by infighting on economic and foreign policy and opposition accusations of cronyism and incompetence.

Merkel has been accused by members of her Christian Democratic Union of failing to show leadership, and opinion poll ratings for her coalition of conservatives and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) have been falling ahead of an important regional election in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, in May.

Media commentators say a senior member of the FDP has now added to the general picture of chaos and confusion by reversing one of the only policies the coalition has implemented since it came to power.

Deputy FDP leader Andreas Pinkwart, editorial writers say, has embarrassed his party and the government by calling for a U-turn on a controversial tax cut for hotel owners. The reduction in value-added tax (VAT) for hotel visits to 7 percent from 19 percent, effective from Jan. 1, represented a windfall for hotel owners and was criticized as a classic case of the FDP serving its core clientele -- prosperous entrepreneurs.

Then a SPIEGEL report last month about a big donation to the FDP from a hotel owner provoked damaging accusations that Merkel's government can be bought. The Finck family, which owns a majority of the M�venpick hotel group that runs 14 hotels in Germany, donated �1.1 million to the FDP in the run-up to the September general election.

Pinkwart diverged from the FDP's line by telling SPIEGEL that the tax cut amounted to a "bureaucratic monster" and should be reversed. "Good politics corrects itself when a law doesn't work in practice," Pinkwart said in the interview published in the latest issue of the magazine. The new system of taxing hotel accommodation was too complicated, Pinkwart said. The lower rate of tax will be charged for overnight stays but the higher rate of 19 percent will remain in force for hotel breakfasts.

"Dilettantism or intent -- the implementation by the Finance Ministry has created a bureaucratic monster," said Pinkwart, the deputy governor of North Rhine-Westphalia. He said the hotel tax cut should be suspended and revisited as part of a planned wider reform of the tax system. Pinkwart added that he wasn't happy with the first 100 days of the new government. "The members of the Berlin coalition must learn to trust one another and to remain faithful to their shared principles," he said.

North Rhine-Westphalia governor J�rgen R�ttgers, a member of Merkel's CDU, said he agreed with Pinkwart. Media commentators say the FDP and parts of the CDU are panicking because their opinion poll ratings are falling ahead of the North Rhine-Westphalia election, and that both parties have cut a poor figure in the last 100 days.

source link

The "dream team" Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (FDP)?

It seems the voters blame especially the libertarian FDP: After they had won 14.6% in the September election, an all time high, polls now suggest only 8% or 7% would still vote that party -- losing around 50% of your supporters within 100 days is quite a trick.

As mentioned above, there are elections upcoming in the largest German state, Northrhine-Westphalia, in May. This state used to be a stronghold of the center-left opposition SPD for decades, but fell to the conservative-libertarian coalition in 2005.

This is interesting, because losing that state -- as current polls suggest -- would mean the CDU/FDP coalition has no longer a majority in the 2nd chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat (state chamber). The possibility of a coalition between conservative CDU and the left-liberal Green Party in that state is being discussed -- which would be the first coalition of that kind in a large state (the Greens used to be partner of the center-left Social Dems).

Minister for the Environment, Norbert R�ttgen (CDU), has already started flirting with the Greens: Against the FDP's declared goal of reversing the nuclear power phase-out that had been installed by the former SPD/Green government, he said nuclear power should not continue longer than 8 years maximum. Chancellor Merkel (CDU) now backed him in this struggle against the FDP.

Chaos between the "dream partners" after 100 days in office, and interesting new coalition options ahead -- there were times when politics were more boring in Germany.

Socialist Left Party in Germany loses its most important figurehead

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:17:12 +0000

The far-left populist and socialist Left Party has won 11.9% of the votes in the 2009 parliamentary election in Germany, and thus has become 4th largest party and 2nd largest opposition party in the parliament.

The party demands a "democratic socialism", stronger social welfare nets, a strict curbing of the financial sector in favor of a "redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom", the immediate withdrawal of the German military from Afghanistan and all other places abroad.

The party is the successor of the former communist state party which governed East Germany from 1949 to 1990.

This party has now lost its most important figurehead, Oskar Lafontaine.

After having undergone treatment for prostate cancer, Oskar Lafontaine now announced he will not candidate again in the upcoming party convention for the office of party co-chairman and parliamentary floor leader, because of his health situation. He said "the cancer was a warning shot I cannot ignore", stating he will be occupied with his health for the time being.

Oskar Lafontaine is a skilled orator, despised on the right "as far-left populist". He is said to be responsible for the recent successes of the Left Party in the western part of Germany, ending its status as an east German regional party, making the Left Party the 4th force on national level.

Lafontaine, being west German, used to be member of the moderate center-left Social Democrats (SPD), was SPD chairman from 1995 to 1999 and Finance Minister under Chancellor Schr�der from late 1998 to March 1999. Protesting against Schr�der's "Third Way" social policies, which he considered too right-wing, he resigned from all offices and finally defected from the SPD in 2005, joining the far-left socialist-populist Left Party, becoming its co-chairman.

Thanks to his popularity on the left, his new party managed to enter 6 west German state parliaments it had not been represented in before.

The center-left SPD had been refusing to cooperate with the Left Party on national level since its rise in 2005, because it considered the Left Party's stances too extreme, and because Lafontaine is considered a traitor among many SPD members and supporters.

Now, since the SPD lost its participation in the government in 2009 and has become opposition leader, the two parties are expected to approach each other and prepare a cooperation, first on state level, possibly on national level for the 2013 elections as well -- since Lafontaine is gone, the SPD has a much easier time to do that, because the "traitor" and defector is no longer in the way.

But before that happens, it remains to be seen what happens with the Left Party: Will it manage to remain popular in west Germany as well, or will west German voters turn away again, with Lafontaine gone? Also, the Left Party may see an increased internal struggle about the course of the party -- phony, radical opposition, or constructive force with the will for compromise, with the goal of taking responsibility in the government? If the latter forces are successful after Lafontaine's resignations, chances are the SPD will approach the Left Party and both prepare a potential coalition after 2013.

source

Either these people are very stupid, or have a great sense of humour

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:10:51 +0000

Some of you may have heard that the UK maintains a list of foreign individuals whom are banned from entering the country for promoting hatered.

Well, the UK Immigration and Asylum tribunal recently overturned a ban on the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who was denied entry to the UK last year. He's responsible for a controversial anti-Islamic film, and is also trying to get the Koran banned from the Netherlands.

Now you can make your own mind as to whether or not the man promotes hatred - he calls himself a defender of freedom and democracy, but you can't help but sympathise with him a little bit when you look at how members of the UK's muslim community greeted him:

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Controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders has hailed his arrival in the UK as a "victory for freedom of speech".

He told a packed press conference in Westminster he was "proud of the UK asylum and immigration tribunal" for overturning the ban.

And he repeated his criticism of Muslim ideology and defended his call for the Koran to be banned in Holland.

His press conference was moved inside amid angry scenes, with demonstrators chanting "Wilders go to hell".

About 40 Muslim protesters gathered outside the Abbey Gardens buildings, opposite the Houses of Parliament, where the hastily rearranged press conference was held.

Held back by a police line, and surrounded by camera crews from around the world, they chanted slogans such as "Sharia for the UK" and "Freedom go to hell" and held up placards saying: "Sharia for the Netherlands" and "Islam will be superior".

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Why you should buy Girl Scout cookies

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:08:39 +0000

The Population of the World

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:57:32 +0000

For a few years now, we've been hearing a lot about climate change, oil and food prices, and the general strain on the planet's resources - not to mention the fact that we're due for a forecast 50% worldwide population rise in the next 30 years. This is obviously not a good thing, so what the hell are we to do about it?

I am quoted on the Daily Dish

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:07:09 +0000

One of the bloggers on the Daily Dish, Conor Friedersdorf, asked readers to recommend books for President Barack Obama. I sent Conor an email recommending The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek. Conor quoted my email here:

Jason Vines said:

My suggestion to President Obama would be The Road to Serfdom by Austrian economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek.

Originally published in 1944, The Road to Serfdom is a concise yet illuminating description of how socialism in the Kaiser's Reich and the Weimar Republic laid the groundwork for the ascendance of the Nazis. Unlike Jonah Goldberg in his ridiculous equivocation of liberals to fascists, Hayek doesn't claim that left-wingers are Nazis or that we will precisely mimic Nazis by following left-wing prescriptions. Rather, Hayek issues and supports a more measured warning: that increasing central control and collective responsibility has unintended consequences dangerous to liberty. As Obama contemplates trying to solve our problems by expanding government, The Road to Serfdom could give him valuable perspective on the wisdom of such an endeavor.

Witty and insightful video on open-mindedness

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:02:22 +0000

As an atheist, I've been labeled close-minded on several occasions by religious believers. And the same charge is often leveled against prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins.

The video below shows the absurdity of calling someone close-minded just because he's skeptical of fantastic or improbable claims.

I especially like the narrator's point that excessive receptivity to ideas, without rational evaluation of them, can make the believer more close-minded than the skeptic because it leads him to accept ideas too quickly without considering alternatives.

The illustration the narrator gives is adept, but consider also the run-up to the Iraq war. Excessively trusting people accepted the Bush administration's claims regarding Saddam's WMD, whereas more skeptical individuals didn't just accept the president's word but also pondered other explanations. Of course, history vindicated the cynics.

Fusing together these strands of thought about irrational beliefs and public policy: I've ruminated in the past about how blind faith could affect political views. I'd think the deviation from reason that faith encourages wouldn't often confine itself to spirituality. Through religious faith, which usually serves as the bedrock of people's worldviews, many individuals would likely assume faith in general serves as a useful method of cognition. After all, how easily could a person think one way about an important subject, and then think in a different way about everything else?

I wonder how an American people that embraced rational skepticism more than blind faith -- i.e., that was more open-minded -- would have reacted to the Bush administration's poor case for war.

The Whole Foods "boycott"

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:57:03 +0000

I agree with Radley Balko's commentary on the Whole Foods "boycott."

And I find ironic that left-wingers condemn the town hall protesters for stifling "debate," but when John Mackey tries to provide just that, many on the left whine and complain about how horrible he is and how they're going to make him regret what he's said, demonstrating they've little interest in debate, either. They're just more passive-aggressive than the demonstrators at the town halls.

Why don't we have health care consumer guides?

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:20:54 +0000

Patrick Appel, filling in for Andrew Sullivan at Daily Dish, wonders:

Patrick Appel, on 12 August 2009 - 03:31 PM, said:

[consumer guides] to rank and review doctors it would be much easier to determine the best value and the best doctors. Yelp.com does this for restaurants. Amazon.com does this for merchandise. Why can't we mandate that insurance companies do this for health care?

I wrote him this in response:

Jason Vines, on 12 August 2009 - 04:37 PM, said:

This doesn't happen for health care because it is free market in name only. Consumers cannot meaningfully chose from multiple competing vendors; insurance companies, and employers by virtue of selecting which of these companies will cover employees, do this. Furthermore, the insulation insurance companies provide most consumers from the costs of treatment discourages consumers from making comparisons based on value for money.

The absence in the health care sector of true competition for customers and scrutiny of prices both explains the astronomical medical costs in the United States and the lack of consumer guides. Because of government interference in health care that has landed us in the mess we're in, few incentives exist to discover ways of keeping satisfaction high while reducing costs or to help consumers make informed decisions.

Almost no other industry suffers these problems because they have millions of customers freely making choices and assessing prices, while serving as markets for guides to help them do so.

In foreign policy, Obama chooses pragmatism over ideology? No.

Mon, 18 May 2009 16:31:15 +0000

Something in this Washington Post article cheeses me off a bit:

Quote

Taken as a whole, his national security policies do not [lean left], as they represent the triumph of pragmatism over ideology.

I disagree. Pragmatism describes "a practical approach to problems and affairs." And practical means "of, relating to, or manifested in practice or action : not theoretical or ideal."

But "practice or action" does not indicate the strategic effectiveness of nation-building, Predator drone strikes, military tribunals, trying to quash legal cases on the flimsy basis of "state secrets," or ignoring the law regarding prosecution of torture perpetrators. These are what rest on "theoretical or ideal" benefits that real world application either doesn't support or demonstrates to harm our interests rather than help them.

For Obama to continue our foreign policy in the vein of "big, bad interventionist (albeit less bad than Dubya)" represents the triumph of ideology over pragmatism.