Sunday, October 11, 2009
Nobel Peace Prize So 20th Century
As Swedish peace activists and virtually everyone I know have pointed out, the Nobel Prize should not have been awarded to Barack Obama. The Peace Prize, awarded by a Finnish (not Swedish) government-appointed panel is politicized. Last year it was given to Al Gore, a politician who advocates everyone else's cutting back so he can consume more, and this year to another Democratic Party hack, Barack Obama. Perhaps the Norwegians gave it to him because they believe him to have been born in Norway. But they were afraid to ask for his birth certificate.
In any case the Peace Prize has been degraded. Not that I would think that the Scandinavian governments in Sweden and Norway have any moral substance to give such an award. In the 1930s Sweden quietly back Hitler, and although it was formally neutral during the Second World War, a third of Swedes did not mind seeing six million Jews gassed, and more than a handful likely were happy about it.
I would add that their most famous intellectual, the socialist Gunnar Myrdal, supported Hitler during the 1930s. Roland Huntford's book New Totalitarians dissects the ugly, amoral quality of Swedish socialism. Huntford points out that noticeable elements of feudalism continued into the 1950s in Sweden, specifically the bruk system in which workers in certain factories were tied to the factories, essentially as serfs (with their homes the property of the factories). Notice that American socialists admire Swedish culture because it is reactionary. The Swedes are barely out of the Middle Ages. But remember that it is the Finnish who give the Peace Prize, the Swedes the other prizes.
Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize before refusing to make peace. Obama's chief contribution to peace was reappointing George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert M. Gates, after telling Americans that he is for "change". "Change" to him meant appointing the same guy. It is difficult to take the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which takes an partisan role in American politics, seriously.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a thing of the past. I'm sure recipients want the monetary award, but would you want to share a "peace prize" with Al Gore, Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama?
In any case the Peace Prize has been degraded. Not that I would think that the Scandinavian governments in Sweden and Norway have any moral substance to give such an award. In the 1930s Sweden quietly back Hitler, and although it was formally neutral during the Second World War, a third of Swedes did not mind seeing six million Jews gassed, and more than a handful likely were happy about it.
I would add that their most famous intellectual, the socialist Gunnar Myrdal, supported Hitler during the 1930s. Roland Huntford's book New Totalitarians dissects the ugly, amoral quality of Swedish socialism. Huntford points out that noticeable elements of feudalism continued into the 1950s in Sweden, specifically the bruk system in which workers in certain factories were tied to the factories, essentially as serfs (with their homes the property of the factories). Notice that American socialists admire Swedish culture because it is reactionary. The Swedes are barely out of the Middle Ages. But remember that it is the Finnish who give the Peace Prize, the Swedes the other prizes.
Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize before refusing to make peace. Obama's chief contribution to peace was reappointing George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert M. Gates, after telling Americans that he is for "change". "Change" to him meant appointing the same guy. It is difficult to take the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which takes an partisan role in American politics, seriously.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a thing of the past. I'm sure recipients want the monetary award, but would you want to share a "peace prize" with Al Gore, Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama?
Democrats Are The Party of Greed
Libertarians have long known that FDR's "New Deal" was primarily about banking and that the programs were a smoke screen. FDR used the ancient Roman strategy of bread and circus, small change to the proletarians while the wealthy extract ever larger gains. The bread and circus consisted of inter-generational transfers (from later to earlier generations) and failed attempts to rationalize and re-engineer labor relations and banking. High marginal tax rates and abolition of the gold standard re-enforced government authority over the individual, and during the 48-year Democratic Party reign from 1932 to 1980 the government pursued a bleeding-and-extraction process by which the wealthy extracted the national blood from workers, small business and the poor, using the Federal Reserve Bank as its syringe.
Until the past few years the military-financial-industrial complex was able to keep the public happy with bread and circus; the public's fear of unemployment; and a social security plan that seemed to work until about 10 years ago. The price was massive growth in government waste and special interest extraction, as big business, government employees and most of all the financial community rushed to the public trough to suck productive Americans dry. The Democratic media have lied and covered up this process to the point that Americans now willingly pay 50% of their income for a government that produces S-H-I-T.
The worst of it is yet to come. Both retirement funding and health care will place heavy burdens on the public's pocket book, and the baby boomers are facing a looming gap in both.
The public is seeing itself get poorer as the policies of the Democratic Party turn into the policies of special interest greed. No party in American history has lied more aggressively than the Democratic Party during the Bush years. Damning Bush for greed, the Democrats took power on the promise of change. But their first action was to produce the largest special interest subsidy in the nation's history, exceeding the greed and stupidity even of the Rockefeller Republicans and George W. Bush. The multi-trillion dollar handout to Wall Street, supported by every Democrat, all of whom a few years earlier claimed be concerned with income inequality, is the largest single subsidy to any industry at any time in American history. The Obama bail-out is the largest exercise of greed in the nation's history.
Was the subsidy needed to avert a depression? That claim, which was used to convince some Americans to support the Democrats' exercise of greed, is pap. Most Americans are concerned about depression for one reason: the risk of unemployment. Five trillion dollars was NOT NECESSARY to cover the risk of unemployment. If twenty percent of the 140 million strong workforce or 28 million were out of work (more than double the current number), every one of these people could be paid $30,000 for two years at a cost of about $1.7 trillion, a fraction of the cost of the bailout. Throw in a third year, and the amount goes up to $2.2 trillion, less than half of what the Democrats have spent.
Ah, but that approach would not have ensured that George Soros, Warren Buffett, and Obama's supporters on Wall and Broad could be kept in multi-seven-digit incomes, or that the incompetent Wall Street clowns could be allowed to continue to manage businesses that they do not know how to manage.
The Democrats have become the party of greed. They are the party of the biggest subsidy to the nation's ultra-rich in history. They not just have subsidized the rich. They have subsidized the least productive, least competent group that is also the richest of any group of wealthy in the nation's history.
The Republicans must disown the bailout and fight a good fight to make this a triumph. But some Republicans too are linked to beneficiaries of the bailout--Progressives who would rather sacrifice their party's success than see Wall Street suffer.
It is incumbent upon libertarians, free-market conservatives (the only possible kind), and anyone not motivated by an easy job or special interest benefits, anyone who is NOT A GREEDY DEMOCRAT or a stupid, slobbering Rockefeller Republican, to act.
Americans are getting poorer. Taxes and government waste are on the rise. States like New York are largely Peoples' Republics in which personal and economic freedom have disappeared. Many Americans live the lives of slaves and do not even know it. A person born into slavery does not know what freedom is.
Much of the Democratic strategy has been based on hate--hate for Republicans. The Democrats' obsessive hatred for Republicans is a religion, and the public has been fooled "most of the time" by emotional group-think and misdirected rage. The Progressive Republicans have fed this rage by behaving like...Progressive Republicans. Liberty Republicans need to develop a strategy to overcome the McCain/Bush crew once and for all.
Until the past few years the military-financial-industrial complex was able to keep the public happy with bread and circus; the public's fear of unemployment; and a social security plan that seemed to work until about 10 years ago. The price was massive growth in government waste and special interest extraction, as big business, government employees and most of all the financial community rushed to the public trough to suck productive Americans dry. The Democratic media have lied and covered up this process to the point that Americans now willingly pay 50% of their income for a government that produces S-H-I-T.
The worst of it is yet to come. Both retirement funding and health care will place heavy burdens on the public's pocket book, and the baby boomers are facing a looming gap in both.
The public is seeing itself get poorer as the policies of the Democratic Party turn into the policies of special interest greed. No party in American history has lied more aggressively than the Democratic Party during the Bush years. Damning Bush for greed, the Democrats took power on the promise of change. But their first action was to produce the largest special interest subsidy in the nation's history, exceeding the greed and stupidity even of the Rockefeller Republicans and George W. Bush. The multi-trillion dollar handout to Wall Street, supported by every Democrat, all of whom a few years earlier claimed be concerned with income inequality, is the largest single subsidy to any industry at any time in American history. The Obama bail-out is the largest exercise of greed in the nation's history.
Was the subsidy needed to avert a depression? That claim, which was used to convince some Americans to support the Democrats' exercise of greed, is pap. Most Americans are concerned about depression for one reason: the risk of unemployment. Five trillion dollars was NOT NECESSARY to cover the risk of unemployment. If twenty percent of the 140 million strong workforce or 28 million were out of work (more than double the current number), every one of these people could be paid $30,000 for two years at a cost of about $1.7 trillion, a fraction of the cost of the bailout. Throw in a third year, and the amount goes up to $2.2 trillion, less than half of what the Democrats have spent.
Ah, but that approach would not have ensured that George Soros, Warren Buffett, and Obama's supporters on Wall and Broad could be kept in multi-seven-digit incomes, or that the incompetent Wall Street clowns could be allowed to continue to manage businesses that they do not know how to manage.
The Democrats have become the party of greed. They are the party of the biggest subsidy to the nation's ultra-rich in history. They not just have subsidized the rich. They have subsidized the least productive, least competent group that is also the richest of any group of wealthy in the nation's history.
The Republicans must disown the bailout and fight a good fight to make this a triumph. But some Republicans too are linked to beneficiaries of the bailout--Progressives who would rather sacrifice their party's success than see Wall Street suffer.
It is incumbent upon libertarians, free-market conservatives (the only possible kind), and anyone not motivated by an easy job or special interest benefits, anyone who is NOT A GREEDY DEMOCRAT or a stupid, slobbering Rockefeller Republican, to act.
Americans are getting poorer. Taxes and government waste are on the rise. States like New York are largely Peoples' Republics in which personal and economic freedom have disappeared. Many Americans live the lives of slaves and do not even know it. A person born into slavery does not know what freedom is.
Much of the Democratic strategy has been based on hate--hate for Republicans. The Democrats' obsessive hatred for Republicans is a religion, and the public has been fooled "most of the time" by emotional group-think and misdirected rage. The Progressive Republicans have fed this rage by behaving like...Progressive Republicans. Liberty Republicans need to develop a strategy to overcome the McCain/Bush crew once and for all.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Conservatism versus Libertarianism
David writes in the comments section with respect to my post on libertarianism:
>The accounts of Burke, American history, and its values posed here seem terribly flawed.
Conservatism in America pertains to the CONSERVATION of the nation's fundamental values, which inform its governmental structures, the substantive law, and the use and scope of rights. Burke himself said the American Revolution wasn't a complete revolution in the sense that the colonists were merely perpetuating English norms.
Furthermore, your account seems unable to explain the fact that 19th Century members of all parties (Dems, Repubs, Whigs) referred to themselves as dividing along 'liberal', 'moderate', or 'conservative' wings. What were these labels in reference to? True, the Dem-Repub and Federalist parties do not fall along those lines (one couldn't call the Federalists "conservative", but rather pro-business), but their demise still puts the generative period of Left and Right nearly 100 years prior to the stated era, i.e., the end of Jacksonian rule.
Even to say "there is no American conservatism because American institutions are rooted in flexibility and change" is to appeal to a discernible norm subject to alternation, replacement, or complete conservation (as conservativism may inform the nature and degree of alteration).
It is Libertarianism that has a more modern foundation. For example, how, pre-incorporation doctrine thinking, could a libertarian explanation account for some states actualizing their right to a state church?
My response:
The word liberal in the 19th century DID NOT mean what it means today. The current meaning was a bastardization by John Dewey, Herbert Croly and others in the early 20th century. Liberal in the 19th century meant what we call today "libertarian". It meant a more radical commitment to freedom.
There's a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote where he says that there are two kinds of personalities. One, the "liberal", is robust, the other, "conservative", is phlegmatic. I read that in college and wondered for years what he was talking about. It wasn't until I read Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman that I realized that the meaning of "liberal" was the opposite in the 17th to 19th centuries. Liberal meant belief in freedom, the ideas of Jefferson and Jackson. Conservative meant retaining the old world approach, the state church and monarchy. Hamilton and Adams were more along these lines.
Neither Democrat nor Federalist was conservative in the sense that Burke described it. Nor was Burke correct that Americans retained the institutions of England in the most important ways. It is true that the common law was maintained, but key areas of change were in the much greater degree of liberty of the colonists than England had ever known. The colonists "ran wild" for two centuries, established their own government on republican grounds and really lacked the training to perpetuate English institutions in detail.
In the 16th to 18th centuries, as Bertrand de Jouvenal makes clear in On Power, the English kings had centralized power considerably. Henry VIII and later kings were ruthless in their oppression of religious dissent, frequently using horrific torture and murder. These are the institutions that conservatives would need to say that they are preserving if they are to take Burke's advice. The history of the English centralization of power by the kings and Oliver Cromwell involves several early mass murders, especially of the Irish and of the Irish Protestants, who should have been on the Tudors' side.
I would most certainly call the Federalists the "conservative" party. They opposed the French revolution for economic reasons, but Hamilton was very much in favor of the economic ideas of David Hume, who today would be called a Keynesian, and supporting business. That is not libertarian and it's not socialist. He favored privilege for the rich, which is the closest tradition to the British.
The historical pattern of privilege for aristocracy arose from barbarian conquest. The British "aristocracy" were just the descendants of brute barbarian savages who had occupied Britain, killed the British king and took over land through violence. There is no moral significance to their holding power. The significance is in how the power was overcome by Cromwell and then evolved into greater laissez faire due to the work of Cobden and Bright. As well, the English had the most internal strife of any country, with the War of the Roses leading to the Tudor dynasty. In turn, the killings in Ireland that went on, the religious wars, wars with the Scots, all lead to intensified decentralization and loss of centralized power. England was the butt end of Europe until the 17th century. But the decentralization and lack of central control lead to enhanced experimentation, greater freedom and hence the industrial revolution.
I don't claim to be a great historian. But history too often suffers from extreme left-wing bias, to the point where it frequently is ideological.
In the 18th century Jefferson said that there should be a revolution every 20 years. Unless conservatives reject Jefferson, who did not say this once but virtually every day, I do not see how you can say that there is an American conservatism. The country was based on country farmers who had their own ideas, local churches, a weakly associated culture (Virginians referred to their state as "their country") and religious diversity.
Libertarianism evolved over time, reaching a climax in the 1830s, but continuing on in fairly robust form to McKinley. It is true that John Winthrop and the Puritans who ran Boston would have rejected libertarianism. But it was Jefferson who wrote on his grave the three things he did that he was most proud of (and being President of the United States wasn't one of them):
1. Author of the Declaration of Independence
2. Author of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom
3. Founder of the University of Virginia
Note the second. I'm curious whether you believe that the author of the Declaration believed in a state church, or that someone who says that this country had a national church is anything but a crank?
It is true that the states had established churches. But they knew that perpetuation of English quarrels and murder over religion would result from establishment. So they ended it over time.
>The accounts of Burke, American history, and its values posed here seem terribly flawed.
Conservatism in America pertains to the CONSERVATION of the nation's fundamental values, which inform its governmental structures, the substantive law, and the use and scope of rights. Burke himself said the American Revolution wasn't a complete revolution in the sense that the colonists were merely perpetuating English norms.
Furthermore, your account seems unable to explain the fact that 19th Century members of all parties (Dems, Repubs, Whigs) referred to themselves as dividing along 'liberal', 'moderate', or 'conservative' wings. What were these labels in reference to? True, the Dem-Repub and Federalist parties do not fall along those lines (one couldn't call the Federalists "conservative", but rather pro-business), but their demise still puts the generative period of Left and Right nearly 100 years prior to the stated era, i.e., the end of Jacksonian rule.
Even to say "there is no American conservatism because American institutions are rooted in flexibility and change" is to appeal to a discernible norm subject to alternation, replacement, or complete conservation (as conservativism may inform the nature and degree of alteration).
It is Libertarianism that has a more modern foundation. For example, how, pre-incorporation doctrine thinking, could a libertarian explanation account for some states actualizing their right to a state church?
My response:
The word liberal in the 19th century DID NOT mean what it means today. The current meaning was a bastardization by John Dewey, Herbert Croly and others in the early 20th century. Liberal in the 19th century meant what we call today "libertarian". It meant a more radical commitment to freedom.
There's a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote where he says that there are two kinds of personalities. One, the "liberal", is robust, the other, "conservative", is phlegmatic. I read that in college and wondered for years what he was talking about. It wasn't until I read Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman that I realized that the meaning of "liberal" was the opposite in the 17th to 19th centuries. Liberal meant belief in freedom, the ideas of Jefferson and Jackson. Conservative meant retaining the old world approach, the state church and monarchy. Hamilton and Adams were more along these lines.
Neither Democrat nor Federalist was conservative in the sense that Burke described it. Nor was Burke correct that Americans retained the institutions of England in the most important ways. It is true that the common law was maintained, but key areas of change were in the much greater degree of liberty of the colonists than England had ever known. The colonists "ran wild" for two centuries, established their own government on republican grounds and really lacked the training to perpetuate English institutions in detail.
In the 16th to 18th centuries, as Bertrand de Jouvenal makes clear in On Power, the English kings had centralized power considerably. Henry VIII and later kings were ruthless in their oppression of religious dissent, frequently using horrific torture and murder. These are the institutions that conservatives would need to say that they are preserving if they are to take Burke's advice. The history of the English centralization of power by the kings and Oliver Cromwell involves several early mass murders, especially of the Irish and of the Irish Protestants, who should have been on the Tudors' side.
I would most certainly call the Federalists the "conservative" party. They opposed the French revolution for economic reasons, but Hamilton was very much in favor of the economic ideas of David Hume, who today would be called a Keynesian, and supporting business. That is not libertarian and it's not socialist. He favored privilege for the rich, which is the closest tradition to the British.
The historical pattern of privilege for aristocracy arose from barbarian conquest. The British "aristocracy" were just the descendants of brute barbarian savages who had occupied Britain, killed the British king and took over land through violence. There is no moral significance to their holding power. The significance is in how the power was overcome by Cromwell and then evolved into greater laissez faire due to the work of Cobden and Bright. As well, the English had the most internal strife of any country, with the War of the Roses leading to the Tudor dynasty. In turn, the killings in Ireland that went on, the religious wars, wars with the Scots, all lead to intensified decentralization and loss of centralized power. England was the butt end of Europe until the 17th century. But the decentralization and lack of central control lead to enhanced experimentation, greater freedom and hence the industrial revolution.
I don't claim to be a great historian. But history too often suffers from extreme left-wing bias, to the point where it frequently is ideological.
In the 18th century Jefferson said that there should be a revolution every 20 years. Unless conservatives reject Jefferson, who did not say this once but virtually every day, I do not see how you can say that there is an American conservatism. The country was based on country farmers who had their own ideas, local churches, a weakly associated culture (Virginians referred to their state as "their country") and religious diversity.
Libertarianism evolved over time, reaching a climax in the 1830s, but continuing on in fairly robust form to McKinley. It is true that John Winthrop and the Puritans who ran Boston would have rejected libertarianism. But it was Jefferson who wrote on his grave the three things he did that he was most proud of (and being President of the United States wasn't one of them):
1. Author of the Declaration of Independence
2. Author of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom
3. Founder of the University of Virginia
Note the second. I'm curious whether you believe that the author of the Declaration believed in a state church, or that someone who says that this country had a national church is anything but a crank?
It is true that the states had established churches. But they knew that perpetuation of English quarrels and murder over religion would result from establishment. So they ended it over time.
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