Author: Brandon Christensen

An update from Texas

Brandon Christensen Culture , , , , ,

I am still working from home. The weather has been spectacular here over the past few days. I immediately head outside with the kids at 5 o’clock. We just run around and play. The younger one likes throwing the football around in the grass. The older one likes to play with the ants in the cracks of the sidewalk.

I was looking forward to going to Oslo this fall, but I just received news that the event has been postponed. I’ve still got the inaugural family camping trip to Ouachita to plan, so that’s exciting.

The political landscape here is much different than it is on the west coast or in Austin. Authority is decentralized. There are more black and Mexican people here, and fewer other minorities (including Central Americans). I have more black friends now than I ever did in California. It’s odd. In some ways, the non-South is now more racist than the old South. I can’t put my finger on it but I swear it’s true. You can carry on a friendly conversation with anybody here, something that’s missing out west and up north.

My guess is that this has something to do with the fact that segregation was blatantly racist in the South during the Cold War, and Washington felt it had to do something about it in order to win friends (despots) abroad. The racism in the north and the west was less blatant, and as a result nothing has ever been done about it.

I mean, I didn’t grow up with any black people. Or Mexicans. There are tons of them in California, but they don’t live in white residential areas. Down south, at least in the parts of Texas I’ve lived in, this is not the case. There are still “sides” of town, but at least we all share the same town. There’s still racism here, but the racism is more honest than, say, the zoning found up north and out west. This familiarity between blacks, Mexicans, and whites is something you as an individual have to work hard on to achieve in the non-South.

The federal government forcibly dismantled Jim Crow. It did so only after it conveniently ignored the 14th Amendment for decades, but at least it finally did so. There’s a place for Washington down here in Texas. Decentralized tyrannies are still tyrannies. I just started watching Waco, the Netflix series. It’s good. Washington is responsible for the deaths of several innocent women and children. It’ll never pay the price. Those people were just too strange for the broad public to really give a shit.

It’s a never-ending balancing act: finding a comfortable equilibrium between federal, state, and local governance. The feds are better at protecting the descendants of slaves than the state and local governments. But the state and local governments are better at protecting non-conformists and religious extremists than the federal government.

Libertarianism hasn’t been able to shake its racist stigma yet. Sure, leftists call us racists all the time, but a kernal of truth is still a kernal of truth. I have witnessed several people I once respected sweep libertarianism’s ugly, recent past under the rug and then turn to grab their paycheck. Libertarian Inc. has its place in our society, but it won’t be effective so long as the racist label sticks with us. And the racist label won’t come off until we grapple with the brutal truth of what we’ve become comfortable with and what we will tolerate.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Historicizing Foucault Stuart Elden (interview), JHIBlog
  2. Historicizing inflation George Selgin, Alt-M
  3. Historicizing Hong Kong Brian Fong, Diplomat
  4. Historicizing West Africa Barnaby Crowcroft, Literary Review

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Pandemics as an externality Robin Hanson Overcoming Bias
  2. The 21st century sucks Scott Sumner, MoneyIllusion
  3. Farewell, Mr President Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
  4. Tolstoy wrote stories for children John Kuhner, LARB

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Coronavirus and Ramadan Declan Walsh, New York Times
  2. The future of China’s political economy South China Morning Post
  3. Ricardo, Marx, and interpersonal inequality Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
  4. Polystate, part 2 Rick Weber, NOL

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Hayek’s rapid rise to stardom David Glasner, Uneasy Money
  2. Why I am not a natural lawyer FH Buckley, Law & Liberty
  3. British Imperial Federation (pdf) William Smith, Political Science Quarterly
  4. The people who profited from the Trail of Tears Caitlin Fitz, Atlantic

Wow, what a week

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , ,

I think it’s time to start re-opening our society. Last I heard, 50,000 Americans died from coronavirus. And throughout the world? 191,000. There are 7.6 billion people living today.

I think most of the arguing from here on out will be: 1) on whether the relative dearth of deaths was because of the lockdown, 2) why the data don’t match up, and 3) ___________ (fill in the blank, use the ‘comments’).

I think that, here in the States, there will be enough pushback that a lockdown on such an epic scale won’t happen again. Americans long ago chose money over public health, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Check out these numbers.

This thing is far from over. Singapore has seen a rise in cases. But I think it’s time to open up shop again. Government schools can close for good. Don’t go shopping just because you’re too lazy to pick up a book. Nursing homes have always scared me, so why not rethink the whole concept? This is manageable. Government proved that it is unfit for the task. Government also proved that it is responsive to the people. Same old story, same old song and dance. That’s not a bad silver lining for a pandemic like this one.

I have more to say about federation as a foreign policy. I just don’t know what yet. I’d like to focus on present-day India, the Caribbean, and Mexico, as well as the 19th century’s Federal Republic of Central America, Five Civilized Tribes, and Gran Colombia. It’ll be a long, slow process.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Why does government do stuff? Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
  2. Indian removal Claudio Saunt, Aeon
  3. Migrants, Muslims, and other non-people Namit Arora, Baffler
  4. Immigration will be another casualty of coronavirus Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , , ,
  1. Catholicism, America, and the fascist temptation James Patterson, Law & Liberty
  2. The greatest financial bailout of all time is underway John Cochrane, Grumpy Economist
  3. Whither the precautionary principle Thomas L. Knapp, The Garrison Center
  4. Steel-manning lockdown socialism Arnold Kling, askblog
  5. What will the political outcome of coronavirus be? Niall Ferguson, Spectator

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. A crisis of mundane absurdity Pascal Bruckner, City Journal
  2. Can economic multilateralism survive? Jean Pisani‐Ferry, Economic Affairs
  3. On Louër’s Sunnis and Shi’a Karen Taliaferro, Law & Liberty
  4. In Russia, death becomes you Sophie Pinkham, The Nation

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Why women read more than men Lucy Scholes, Times Literary Supplement
  2. Avenging the humbled and humbling the proud Fretwell & Kiland, War on the Rocks
  3. Redrawing ethnic boundaries in Tang and Song China Bryn Hammond, Asian Review of Books
  4. #coronasomnia Wang Xuiying, London Review of Books

Feyerabend and the libertarians

Brandon Christensen Philosophy , , , , , ,

I’ve still been reading through Feyerabend’s Against Method, and following along what Rick and Bill have to say about his arguments, but it’s slow going. Sometimes slow is better than fast, especially these days.

Awhile ago Irfan Khawaja, a philosopher who has been purged from at least one libertarian inner circle and blacklisted from several others, sent me a bunch of journals: Critical Review, Raritan, and New Left Review. (I still owe him for the postage. Holla at me Dr K!) These have been veritable gold mines of insider knowledge, and I came across a 1990 article by James McCawley in Critical Review that aptly sums up my own raw thoughts on Feyerabend. Namely, the question of Feyerabend’s own brand of politics. Was Feyerabend unwilling to accept political anarchism even though he was a methodological anarchist?

I still don’t have a solid answer to this question, though the evidence so far points to an affirmative. If he wasn’t a political anarchist, what was he? Certainly not a Stalinist, but my guess is that his politics wouldn’t have been as original as his philosophy. I suspect he was, at heart, a democratic socialist along with most of his peers.

One of the more insider-y aspects of the McCawley piece was Ayn Rand’s dislike of Feyerabend’s methodological anarchism. McCawley points out that Rand read and responded to an early piece of Feyerabend’s, and that if Rand had been a little more tolerant, she and Feyerabend could have some stimulating (though no less heated) exchanges over the years. Alas.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Nobody knows anything (Singapore and South Korea) Scott Sumner, Money Illusion
  2. The cholera riots and the coronavirus revolts, compared Jesse Walker, Reason
  3. Climate, disease, and the end of the Roman Empire Jaspreet Singh Boparai, Quillette
  4. On trying to solve the paradox of memory Emina Melonic, Modern Age

China versus the Communists; American civil liberties

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , ,

I don’t know about you but I’ve come across my fair share of anti-Asian bigotry over the past few weeks. This is not a good trend.

Here is my public service announcement for the week: China is not the Communist Party. Billions of Chinese citizens are lorded over by a Communist Party. Singapore, Hawaii, California, Taiwan (see this great article), Sydney, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Jakarta have all managed to avoid repressing data and silencing scientists.

You’re welcome.

Jacques has been subtly prodding me to write an essay complaining about the loss of civil liberties in the United States due to coronavirus (“every true libertarian is doing it”), but I just can’t muster up the willpower. I realize that civil liberties will be attacked by governments. Covid-19 is a crisis, after all, but I don’t think the attempts so far are unjustified. Hear me out:

There is a global pandemic and the virus causing all of the mayhem is one we know little about. It’s a deadly virus. It’s highly contagious. Governments have attempted to protect lives. They’ve done a terrible job, and factions are trying to use the crisis to push their agendas.

Predictable, but what about the pandemic? I don’t want to get the plague. I don’t want my small children or my wife to get the plague. And I certainly don’t want to be responsible for passing the plague on to family members who are most susceptible to the virus (my children’s grandparents).

The backlash against government stabs in the dark have already begun. Small businesses and many, many workers have been screwed. If the trade-off, though, is between small businesses/lower wage workers going broke or my family members dying unnecessarily, bye Felicia.

In politics, sometimes it’s good to play offense and sometimes it’s better to play defense. Libertarians can play offense here and there, such as when the economy is roaring, or when wars are unjustified. In a crisis like this, though, it’s best to wait and see what happens. It’s best to play defense and wait for a good place to counterattack. It’s bad enough that crackpots and racist frat boys claim the mantle of Libertarian (we wouldn’t want to be intolerant, after all), but when our leading lights start downplaying this plague before anybody really knows what’s going on, it just gives liberty a bad name.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Between Scylla and Charybdis Mark Helprin, National Review
  2. Protest and pandemic at sea Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
  3. Scottish nationalism and free banking George Selgin, Alt-M
  4. What to do about China Samuel Gregg, Law & Liberty

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Can you be confident about an economy you can’t see? Frances Woolley, WCI
  2. When rules don’t apply Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
  3. Show me your books… Henry Farrell, Crooked Timber
  4. America’s first Tiger King Nathaniel Rich, NYRB