fascism

From the Comments: Populism, Big Banks and the Tyranny of Ambiguity

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, Law, Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Andrew takes time to elaborate upon his support for Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Native American law professor from Harvard who often pines for the “little guy” in public forums. I loathe populism/fascism precisely because it is short on specifics and very, very long on generalities and emotional appeal. This ambiguity is precisely why fascist/populist movements lead societies down the road to cultural, economic and political stagnation. Andrew begins his defense of populism/fascism with this:

For example, I still have more trust in Warren than in almost anyone else in Congress to hold banks accountable to the rule of law.

Banks have been following the rule of law. This is the problem libertarians have been trying to point out for hundreds of years. See Dr Gibson on bank regulations and Dr Gibson again, along with Dr Foldvary, on alternatives. This is why you see so few bankers in jail. Libertarians point to institutional barriers that are put in place by legislators at the behest of a myriad of lobbying groups. Populists/fascists decry the results of the legislation and seek a faction to blame.

If you wanted to be thought of as an open-minded, fairly intelligent individual, which framework would you present to those who you wished to impress: the institutional one that libertarians identify as the culprit for the 2008 financial crisis or the ambiguous one that the populists wield?

And populism=fascism=nationalism is a daft oversimplification. I’ll grant that there’s often overlap between the three, but it’s far from total or inevitable overlap. Populists target their own countries’ elites all the time.

Sometimes oversimplification is a good thing, especially if it helps to clarify something (see, for example, Dr Delacroix’s work on free trade and the Law of Comparative Advantage). One of the hallmarks of fascism is its anti-elitism. Fascists tend to target elites in their own countries because they are a) easy and highly visible targets, b) usually employed in professions that require a great amount of technical know-how or traditional education and c) very open to foreign cultures and as such are often perceived as being connected to elites of foreign societies.

The anti-elitism of fascists/populists is something that libertarians don’t think about enough. Anti-elitism is by its very nature anti-individualistic, anti-education and anti-cooperative. You can tell it is all of these “antis” not because of the historical results that populism/fascism has bred, but because of its ambiguous arguments. Ambiguity, of course, is a populist’s greatest weapon. There is never any substance to be found in the arguments of the populist. No details. No clarity. Only easily identifiable problems (at best) or ad hominem attacks (at worst). Senator Warren is telling in this regard. She is known for her very public attacks on banks and the rich, but when pressed for details she never elaborates. And why should she? To do so would expose her public attacks to argument. It would create a spectacle out of the sacred. For example, Andrew writes:

Still, I’d rather have people like Warren establish a fuzzy and imperfect starting point for reform than let courtiers to the wealthy and affluent dictate policy because there’s no remotely viable counterpoint to their stances […] These doctrinaire free-market orthodoxies are where the libertarian movement loses me. There are just too many untrustworthy characters attached to that ship for me to jump on board.

Ambiguity is a better alternative than plainly stated and publicly published goals simply because there are “untrustworthy characters” associated with the latter? Why not seek plainly stated and publicly published alternatives rather than “fuzzy and imperfect starting points for reform”?

Andrew quotes a man in the street that happens to be made entirely of straw:

“Social Security has gone into the red, but instead of increasing the contribution ceiling and thoughtfully trimming benefits, let’s privatize the whole thing and encourage people to invest in my company’s private retirement accounts.”

Does the libertarian really argue that phasing out a government program implemented in the 1930s is good because it would force people to invest in his company’s private retirement accounts? I’ve never heard of such an example, but I may just be reading all the wrong stuff. Andrew could prove me wrong with a lead or two. There is more:

This ilk of concern trolls (think Megan McArdle: somewhat different emphasis, same general worldview) is one that I find thoroughly disgusting and untrustworthy and that I want absolutely no part in engaging in civil debate. Their positions are just too corrupt and outlandish to dignify with direct responses; I consider it better to marginalize them and instead engage adversaries who aren’t pushing the Overton Window to extremes that I consider bizarre and self-serving. They’re often operating from premises that a supermajority of Americans would find absurd or unconscionable, so I see no point to inviting shills and nutters into a debate […].

Megan McArdle is so “disgusting and untrustworthy” that her arguments are not even worth discussing? Her name is worth bringing up, of course, but her arguments are not? Ambiguity is the weapon of the majority’s tyranny, and our readers deserve better. They are not idiots (our readership is still too small!), and I think they deserve an explanation for why McArdle is not worthy of their time (aside from being a shill for the rich, of course).

I think populism/fascism is often attractive to dissatisfied and otherwise intelligent individuals largely because its ambiguous nature seems to provide people with answers to tough questions that they cannot (or will not) answer themselves. Elizabeth Warren’s own tough questions, on the Senate Banking Committee, revolve around pestering banks for supposedly (supposedly) laundering money to drug lords and terrorists:

“What does it take, how many billions of dollars do you have to launder from drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution?” Warren asked at a Banking Committee hearing on money laundering.

Notice how the populist/fascist simply takes the laws in place for granted (so long as they serve her desires)? The libertarian would ask not if the banks were doing something illegally, but why there are laws in place that prohibit individuals and organizations from making monetary transactions in the first place.

Senator Warren’s assumptions highlight well the difference between the ideologies of populism/fascism and libertarianism: One ideology thinks bludgeoning unpopular factions is perfectly acceptable. The other would defend an unpopular faction as if it were its own; indeed, as if its own freedom were tied up to the freedom of the faction under attack.

A Warm Welcome, and other assorted editorial duties

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty, Politics , , , , , ,

Hello all. I’m proud to announce and introduce Jesper Ahlin to the blogging team here at NOL:

Jesper Ahlin received his B.A. in philosophy from Linköping University and is now a graduate student in philosophy at Uppsala University. He has conducted Stureakademin, a study program run by the classical liberal think tank Timbro, and is the local coordinator for European Students For Liberty in Sweden. As a right-libertarianish thinker he enjoys reading Mises and Rothbard as well as Hayek and Nozick. He also likes ice hockey, music and traveling.

Jesper’s debut post can be found here. He’s currently hanging out in Washington and New York City, but do look for more of his posts in the near future. I, for one, am very excited to be blogging alongside Jesper.

In other news around the blog, Andrew is shocked – SHOCKED! – to find Senator Elizabeth Warren in the company of other rich, white (class-wise, of course) liberals. What would a “sincere and credible populist” be doing rubbing elbows with rich, white (class-wise, of course) Leftists? After all, Senator Warren, a Native American, was a law professor at Harvard. Think of all the glass ceilings she shattered. Do read the whole thing. As always, it’s very well-written.

‘Populism’ is just a quaint term for ‘fascism’ and ‘fascism’ is just a fancy term for ‘nationalism’. All three terms are useful if you want a society to be culturally, economically and politically stagnant. What, for example, is the criteria for being an ‘American worker’ (one segment of society that Senator Warren holds especially close to her heart)?

The guy who works twelve hours a day at a hospital, four days a week?

The guy who works twenty hours a week at a deli slicing pastrami?

And what, for example, characterizes an ‘American worker’ from, say, a ‘German worker’?

Nobody in Warren’s populist camp ever really defines what it means to be an ‘American worker.’ Policy matters, and policies targeting certain segments of society – whether for good or for ill – will only guarantee stagnation, especially if the certain segment of society is only vaguely defined. Not everybody can drive a BMW to work and, more importantly, not everybody wants to.

Elsewhere, Hank and NEO and Edmund argue about political power. It seems to me that they are simply arguing about how this power should be shared, rather than how it should be shorn. This is a dangerous precedent, in my opinion. Read Edmund’s whole piece, and the exchange that follows.

Personally, I don’t care which party is in office, as long as laws that are anathema to libertarianism can be repealed. Conservatives are often an embarrassment to themselves and to their countrymen. They rarely travel, are often less educated than their Leftist peers and usually possess a deep belief in the power of magic and sorcery to solve the social and personal problems that they inevitably come to face in life.

For all this, at least they aren’t Leftists.

Thanks for reading and, more importantly, for sharing your thoughts in the ‘comments’ section. Together, through arguing, we are doing the fine-stitching of democracy.

Cruz Barn Burner: Strawman or Paper Tiger?

L. A. Repucci Current Events, Politics , , , , ,

Commentary

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) burned the barn to the ground with his 21 hour ‘fauxlibuster’ this week on the Senate floor.  Supporters of Cruz’ increasingly libertarian voice relish his statesmanship and clarity, and conversely, no doubt detractors and skeptics dismissed much of the material content addressed due to Cruz’ rhetorical devices, not limited channeling statist icon Darth Vader while lampooning Senator Mike Lee (R-UT).

The usual political hay has already been spun by the  pundits, including Limbaugh and Coulter, providing color commentary and cold shots alike.  Senator Cruz’ profile is quickly rising, and he is being touted as a quill for the young libertarian porcupine within the halls of congress — alongside the likes of Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.  Indeed, Cruz is more than likely positioning himself for a cabinet post in potential Paul campaign 2016, bidding the GOP base against New Jersey’s increasingly progressive Chris Christie.

It is assumed Hillary Clinton will be the ochlocratic candidate.

Rafael Cruz (Ted’s father) makes impassioned appeals to the ideals of Americana-brand liberty for large crowds of supporters, evoking support from the base of the GOP with the family’s brand; scathing indictments of our Republic’s current state, drawing parallels to Bautistas’ fascist, then Castro’s communist Cuba and the horror of living under a totalitarian regime two times over.  Rafael Cruz escaped Castro and fled to the liberty and free markets in Canada, then here in the US, finding success through a technology connection to the petroleum industry — a familiar Horatio Alger-esque tale — Millitary Fascism to Communism and to Corporate Fascism in less than a generation..

…and then there is  Mrs.Heidi Nelson-Cruz, the senator’s wife.  Ted and Heidi met in the Bush White House, while she was working for Condi Rice.  A Claremont-McKenna and Harvard Business grad, Heidi Nelson-Cruz currently works for Goldman-Sachs as a Vice President.

Texas seems to have a GOP senator with strong ties to petroleum, the Bush White House and good ol’ Goldman-Sachs through his wife.  These observations, coupled with the current political landscape may provide insight the origin and intent of the Senator from Texas’ dazzling libertarian all-nighter.

Cruz may need to spend another 21 hours in an attempt to burn down his own straw man — free markets or corporatism?  If his wife works for the self-same Goldman-Sachs that profited from the TARP bailout rammed through the halls of Congress at the tail end of the Bush regime and spilling into the Obama regime; the Goldman-Sachs that boasts both parties’ presidents and cabinets in their pockets going back to (at least) the Clinton administration, would that not be a conflict of interest?  Cruz made open comment about the excellent health insurance provided Heidi’s Vice-Presidency with Goldman-Sachs.  The banking cartel’s involvement in  and subsequent manipulation of the political sphere is a common link between both ends of the popular political spectrum, and to assume that a politician’s libertarian common sense would be immune to the pressures and normalcy bias of the human condition would be naive.

Ted Cruz talks a good game.  He offers the concepts and economic pedigree libertarians have been waiting to hear from a GOP Senator other than Ron Paul, and presents these concepts in a clear and relatable way.  His voting record as a Senator approaches perfection.  Unfortunately, many of the Tea Party Rockstars* who held great promise for the cause of liberty have proven to be paper tigers.  However liberated Ted Cruz’ economic policy could be, the rigor of skepticism cannot be abandoned by liberty-minded citizens just yet.

As Patrick Henry, liberty lover and skeptic of government, famously remarked of the Constitutional Convention, I smell a rat…and hope on the bones of Lysander Spooner for our Republic’s sake, that I am wrong about the Senator from Texas.

*Rockstar Brand Tea flavored energy beverage is not endorsed by publisher or any so-called Tea Party Rockstars.

Qui Bono,

L.A. Repucci

What Obamacare is Really About

Warren Gibson Liberty ,

The good folks at the Reason Foundation, who have the stomach to follow such things, tell us that the bureaucrats entrusted with implementing Obamacare have missed half their deadlines. Even well-connected consultants, they tell us, remain largely in the dark. And for sure, the general public is totally in the dark and generally suspicious.

This I can predict with confidence: there will be train wrecks but some parts will work well. Some people will be happy and others won’t. Republicans will holler I-told-you-so while Democrats will hail the successes and call for patience while the glitches are fixed. How could it be otherwise? Such a complex piece of legislation, even as it falls way short of Obama’s initial promises, will inevitably stumble into a few successes, if only for the short term.

But does anyone believe the perpetrators of Obamacare didn’t know that? While playing up its seeming successes, feeble as they might be, they will blame its failures on the greedy private sector. A mixed system won’t work, they’ll say, and they’ll be right. (A central theme of the great Ludwig von Mises was the instability of a mixed economy.) They will then trumpet the slogan they’ve kept under wraps for some years: single payer!

Single payer, of course, means total government seizure of the health care sector. Having already achieved near total control of the education and financial industries and a heavy grip on energy, they will be one step further along the road to their real goal: the extinguishment of the last of our freedom and prosperity and the establishment of total fascist dictatorship. That’s what Obama, Hillary, et. al. are really after, folks.

A Problem with Political Authority

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Law, Politics , , , , , ,

As a libertarian with deep anarchist leanings, I have plenty of problems with political authority myself. Nevertheless, I find the society in which I live to be libertarian enough, and that any deviation from the rules and procedures in place can be considered to be a threat to my freedom. With this being said, the Wall Street Journal has a great editorial out on the Obama administration’s increasingly authoritarian and cavalier approach to the political process. What I like best about this editorial is that it focuses on one of the Obama administration’s less well-known attempts at consolidating power: that of granting regulators powers that they don’t actually have. Observe:

In re: Aiken County is another episode in the political soap opera about spent-fuel storage at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, an Energy Department project that requires the approval of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission […] Yucca has since been infamously stop-and-go amid opposition from the green lobby and not-in-my-backyard Nevadans and Californians. This particular application was submitted to the NRC in June 2008.

Mr. Obama promised to kill Yucca as a candidate and the Energy Department tried to yank the license application after his election. But an NRC safety board made up of administrative judges ruled unanimously that this was illegal unless Congress passed a law authorizing it. Mr. Obama then teamed up with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to stack the NRC with anti-Yucca appointees.

Although Congress appropriated money to conduct the review, the NRC flat-out refused, in violation of the three-year statutory deadline.

The explanation continues:

A federal court is stating, overtly, that federal regulators are behaving as if they are a law unto themselves. Judge A. Raymond Randolph notes in a concurrence that former NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who has since resigned, “orchestrated a systematic campaign of noncompliance.” If Mr. Jaczko worked on Wall Street he’d be indicted.

Judge Kavanaugh then offers some remedial legal education in “basic constitutional principles” for the President who used to be a constitutional law professor. Under Article II and Supreme Court precedents, the President must enforce mandates when Congress appropriates money, as well as abide by prohibitions. If he objects on constitutional grounds, he may decline to enforce a statute until the case is adjudicated in the courts. “But the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections,” writes the court.

That is especially notable given that ObamaCare’s employer-insurance requirement and other provisions are precisely such unambiguous statutory mandates, with hard start dates […] All of this highlights that Mr. Obama is not merely redefining this or that statute as he goes but also the architecture of the U.S. political system.

Indeed. Dr Delacroix has suspected the Obama administration of authoritarianism from the beginning, and it looks as if time has proved him right (which is a good thing for him, given his penchant for missing the mark in foreign affairs). Stay tuned. This blog is just warming up.

The IRS Crimes: a Gift from Providence to Libertarians

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , ,

Anyone who has libertarian sentiments, in the Libertarian Party or outside of it, in the Republican Party, or elsewhere; anyone who sees himself as supporting the non-existent, imaginary “Tea Party,” is familiar with the difficulty of explaining even basic libertarian principles. There are three problems:

First, most people are lazy, especially when it comes to re-examining the creeds they absorbed in childhood or youth.

Second, libertarianism is paradoxically too familiar to draw interest. It’s more or less what you learned in high school about the work of the Founding Fathers. (Digression: It’s more interesting for immigrants like me than for the US-born precisely, because we had no superficial exposure to it at the time we had acute testosterone poisoning.)

Third, libertarianism is not sexy. It does not enjoy the emotional ease of access that big words procure: “Revolution,” “Justice,” “Fairness,” “the Future.” In other words, it’s not a cartoon; it ‘s not a reality show; it’s not a vampire movie. It’s an intellectual stance for adults only. Tough call!

Sometimes, though Providence throws us a lifeline. Now is such a time. A libertarian Hollywood scriptwriter, if there were one, could hardly come up with a better script than the current controversy regarding the IRS role in singling out conservative organizations, in persecuting them, in forcing them illegally and immorally to disgorge private information about opponents to the Obama administration. Or about imagined opponents.

The IRS storm happens at the same time as other Obama administration discrediting events:

It is trying to convince America that it did not deny protection to the assassinated Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and that it did not subsequently lie about what happened;

It is imposing on all American universities restrictions on free speech unheard for centuries in the Anglo-American legal tradition. (See Greg Lukianoff in the Wall Street Journal of 5/17/13);

It is attempting to justify spying on journalists on the basis of an unknown national security risk. (It might be justified. There are tried ways to convince the nation that the spying was justified. President Obama shows no intention of using them as I write.)

As far as the IRS persecution of Obama opponents, in my mind, it’s not a question of who is getting fired or of “who is going to jail.” Punishment of the more or less guilty would be low on my agenda. There is a more fundamental problem that is being pushed aside in televised congressional testimonies and in most of the printed press (I think. I welcome corrections.)

Given that the IRS exists as a very powerful, autonomous, large government organization of ordinary but overpaid people, with a proven capacity to hurt large numbers of citizens, it was bound to happen.

That the IRS is a government organization matters a great deal because , in practice, such organizations enjoy immunity from lawsuits. They exist beyond the reach of the arm of the law. But the rule of law is what largely defines civilized societies, of course. Such organizations as the IRS thus tend to pull us back toward a lesser state of civilization. That’s true irrespective of who is president and, to an extent, independent of which party is in power. If you have a famished and crazy dog chained in the backyard, you should not reassure yourself that everything is under control because it’s your house, not that irresponsible, other guy’s house.

It’s true that the IRS crimes now being discussed were somewhat more likely to take place under a Democrat administration. First, the Fascist current runs deep in the middle of the Democratic Party river. It’s the party of Roosevelt, who classically, used war to place as much of the American production apparatus under federal government control as he could reach (even artists). Second, the Democratic Party was the Party of Birmingham’s Bull Connor, of his attack dogs and of his water hoses aimed at peaceful black demonstrators. The Democratic Party is also most closely associated with labor unions, some of which (not all) have a history of thuggery extending a century or more.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, is not sinless but it carries in its veins an instinctive mistrust of government power which serves as some protection though as minimal protection. The rank-and-file Republican is much less likely than his Democrat counterpart to assume that anything is correct just because the government is doing it. Nevertheless, frankly, is there anyone who would assert with a straight face that the currently revealed IRS misdeeds would never happen under a Republican administration?

The truth now staring us in the face is that a free society simply cannot have in its midst a monster such as the IRS (described above). It should not be allowed to arise. If its exists, it should not be allowed to grow (as with the Obama administration giving it big additional responsibilities within Obamacare). Such a government bureaucracy should be given practically no discretion, no power to pass judgment without at least close judiciary monitoring.

How about collecting taxes for freeways, some will say? Supposing it has to be the federal government’s task to build freeways (just supposing) and to perform other necessary functions, it should be done with a simple flat tax allowing no deductions. It should be a low tax of 15% of gross income or less. (I live within my means; so can the government learn to do.) Federal tax collection would look like this.

You would receive a short postcard saying:

“1. Your income last year was___.

2. Send 15% (or less ) of that amount.

Thank you.”

Tax cheaters would have to deal with the local sheriff who would be paid a flat fee for each recovery.

Unrealistic? How about our existing system, is it realistic?

The IRS and Fascism

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law , , , ,

If I wanted to set up a secret police in the US, would I try to create a Gestapo from scratch? Would I call it “Gestapo,” or “NKVD,” or “KGB”?

Or would I rather take an existing, comparatively efficient agency, familiar though unloved by the mass of the people, and simply extend the reach of such an agency? I mean the Internal Revenue Service, of course.

Do I believe that President Obama  ordered the IRS to discriminate against Tea Party-sounding groups and others identified as conservatives? No, I do not.

I think he is responsible for the actions of low-level underlings because he created a statist, totalitarian atmosphere. He did this a lot through his non-actions regarding his old friends, in particular, including the bomber- terrorist Bill Ayres. He is responsible for allying himself with out-and-out extremist groups in his first election. The mainstream press is light-heartedly helping him erode democracy in this country.

None of these important actors is fundamentally evil (not even Ayres today). The president is a man who looks so good in a suit that he is the suit itself in the end, an empty suit. The liberal press is silly in the manner intelligent people who are seldom contradicted become silly. Many of the ordinary Americans who voted for Mr Obama are keeping their eyes and ears tightly shut in an effort to keep believing that everything is alright because they elected a man of color. I mean even college professors, aside from journalists. Black voters have been trained to have low expectations. They tell themselves it’s good enough that the president is (more or less) African-American.  Another kind of supporters, unions, is as corrupt as ever. Take all the teachers’ unions, for example….or, rather, don’t!

I think Mr Obama is the non-Fascist leader of a genuine, grass-root American Fascist movement. The recent discoveries at the IRS are just one manifestation of creeping fascism.

The Second Amendment has rarely been more relevant.

Thoughts about “sofa fascism”

Evgenii Grigorev Books ,

Привет, подписчики и читатели сообщества!

На днях перечитывал одну книгу Харуки Мураками. Так вот, в книге был эпизод, связанный со студенческими восстаниями в Токио в 1970 годах. Вся суть вопроса состояла в том, что после того, как восстания были подавлены силами правопорядка, вчерашние бунтари спокойно и без лишних слов вернулись к занятиям как ни в чем не бывало. Возникает вопрос: зачем тогда было орать с баррикад про какие-то права и свободы, если в конечном итоге они так легко отказались от своих идей? Это понятие называют в России “диванный фашизм”. Человек будет сидеть дома, до одурения орать про какие-то права, свободы, законы, расовую нетерпимость, про необходимость поменять текущий государственный режим и прочее, прочее – при этом сам человек ничего не будет делать. Человеку страшно или лень что-либо делать. Не хочется покидать свою зону комфорта, ограниченную стенами квартиры, привычного жизненного уклада. И таких у нас треть населения. Так вот, к чему я все это пишу тут. Эти овощи на диванах, табун овец, формирующий пресловутое “общественное мнение”, на деле откажется от всех своих убеждений и продаст Родину за новый iPhone, лишь бы не посягнули на его личный комфорт. Время идет, а “стандартный электорат” почему-то не меняется. Сколько еще нужно войн и насилия, чтобы до народа наконец дошло, что если чего-то желать и при этом не прикладывать усилий для достижения целей – будет так, как хочет “действующее меньшинство”. Спасибо за внимание.

Cutting the Three Lifelines in Full Daylight; Boy Rape from Unexpected Quarters

Jacques Delacroix Economics, Liberty, Politics , , ,

I would never have thought that one can become bored with emergencies. It sounds like a contradiction in terms. Yet, here I am. I am bored with the procession of disasters that hit us every other day as a result of Obama administration actions or pronouncements. Also, I am not man enough to pay as much attention as I did a year ago. I have indignation fatigue. I should be energized by the thought of the unfairness of the crushing burden the Obama spending is placing on young people. I don’t feel it much because the young voted overwhelmingly from Obama and it seems they are the most obdurate about waking up from the dream. The ungenerous thought that they made their bed and they should lie in it dominates my reactions.

About indignation fatigue: The powers may have planned it that way. If a boxer gets punched fifty times in three minutes, he does not feel the pain as clearly as when the blows come every thirty seconds. Be it as it may, the new dispensation forces me to be more selective in what I expose myself to. Also, in what I write and what I talk about on the radio (“Facts Matter” KSCO radio Santa Cruz, Sundays 11am to 1pm, available on-line in real time.)

The recipes for sabotaging a modern, advanced capitalist economy such as this one are similar to the formulas to control it. I say, “such as this one” because I think that what I am saying below would apply equally to Germany, or to Japan, or to Finland. It would be the same play-book. This short essay is not about American exceptionalism, a political and a moral concept. It’s about the nuts and bolts of the only economic system that has brought prosperity to huge numbers, capitalism. Continue reading →

Hugo Chavez, Fascist/Socialist (Same Thing) Dead at 58

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , ,

Hugo Chavez, the portly, socialist dictator from Venezuela, died from cancer at the ripe old age of 58. My only lament is that I will probably never get to piss on his grave.

His rule was fairly typical for a Leftist regime: assaults on free speech and the free press, diminished civil liberties, picking and choosing winners and losers in the private sector, strong ties to the military, etc. etc. From the New York Times:

At the same time, he was determined to hold onto and enhance his power. He grew obsessed with changing Venezuela’s laws and regulations to ensure that he could be re-elected indefinitely and become, indeed, a caudillo, able to rule by decree at times. He stacked his government with generals, colonels and majors, drawing inspiration from the leftist military officers who ruled Peru and Panama in the 1970s.

[…]

He began describing his critics as “golpistas,” or putschists, while recasting his own failed 1992 coup as a patriotic uprising. He purged opponents from the national oil company, expropriated the land of others and imprisoned retired military officials who had dared to stand against him. The country’s political debate became increasingly poisonous, and it took its toll on the country.

Private investors, unhinged over Mr. Chávez’s nationalizations and expropriation threats, halted projects. Hundreds of thousands of scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and others in the middle class left Venezuela, even as large numbers of immigrants from Haiti, China and Lebanon put down stakes here.

The homicide rate soared under his rule, turning Caracas into one of the world’s most dangerous cities. Armed gangs lorded over prisons, as they did in previous governments, challenging the state’s authority. Simple tasks, like transferring the title of a car, remained nightmarish odysseys eased only by paying bribes to churlish bureaucrats.

Other branches of government often bent to his will. He fired about 19,000 employees of Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company, in response to a strike in 2002 and 2003. In 2004, he stripped the Supreme Court of its autonomy. In legislative elections in 2010, his supporters preserved a majority in the National Assembly by gerrymandering.

All the while, Mr. Chávez rewrote the rule book on using the media to enhance his power. With “Aló Presidente” (“Hello, President”), his Sunday television program, he would speak to viewers in his booming voice for hours on end. His government ordered privately controlled television stations to broadcast his speeches.

Again, nothing too surprising here. This is what socialism will bring your society, every single time. It’s a conversation that doesn’t happen enough around the world.

What I find most surprising about his death is not that so few on the Left are willing to condemn him for his brutality (Leftists are – by and large – authoritarians who believe that the ends justify the means), but that so many Leftists really believed Chavez’s fascism represented a threat to US interests in the region.

Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, American policy in the region has changed markedly since the end of the Cold War. American interests in the region have largely faded into obscurity, even when it comes to the drug war (which should end tomorrow). Afghanistan, Mexico and West Africa and the Caribbean are the new fronts in the war on drugs, and overthrowing democratically-elected governments to prevent communism was sooooo 1980s. Nowadays Washington sees democratically-elected socialists coming to power as good for democracy, so long as the fascists don’t try to rewrite the rules to fit their fancies and eliminate democracy (like they’ve done in Honduras, Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, Argentina).

Chavez was nothing to Washington. Not even a pain in the ass. That uninformed Leftists continue to lie to themselves, and the like-minded tools they hang out with, should not surprise me, but alas…

Latin America has thrived since Washington has taken a softer, more respectable approach to the region. States that come under socialist influence – like Venezuela and Cuba – become pariahs on their own. Most of this has to do with the fact that militaries are involved in one way or another. Socialism has never come to power democratically.

I’m not too fond of memes, but here is one that often pops into my head when I read a Leftist’s defense of some dictator or other in some part of the world: Continue reading →

Taking Guns by Executive Order

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Liberty , ,

I wrote recently about one of the American attitudes and set of beliefs about private ownership of firearms. (“Guns” ; “America and Firearms…“).

I need an addendum in view of current developments.

First, I want to confess that I wouldn’t be all that opposed to banning high-capacity magazine guns and rifles that can be turned into the currently illegal assault weapons, if I thought that would be the end of it. Nevertheless, I would never agree to such ban in the current cultural context. That’s because I think American gun-banning organizations are mostly in bad faith.

Let me put it in more clear words: I suspect they lie all the time. They are not merely after my so-called “assault weapon” (already illegal). If I let them have anything, I think, they will be after my duck shotgun next. Then, they will want the handgun that never leaves my house. Then, they will demand that I turn over the b.b. gun (very small-bore compressed-air rifle) that I use to sting marauding raccoons in the ass. (I do this because they insist in defecating en masse under my grape arbor, near where I sit outdoors in the summer. If they learned to shit on the neighbor’s lawn for example, I would let them be.)

To summarize: Gun control advocating organizations are liberals-led organizations. Not all liberals are liars but liberals leaders almost all are liars. That’s in addition to having no respect for the US Constitution. Continue reading →

National-Socialist Management Practices; No Obama Derangement Syndrome

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law, Liberty, Politics , , , ,

[Editor’s note: this essay first appeared on Dr. Delacroix’s blog, Facts Matter, on July 18 2009]

Quick update on health care on 7/20/09:

I have said before on this blog that there is something wrong with the way we deliver health care in America. It costs us twice more per capita than it costs Europeans and we die younger. That is true in spite of the fact that liberals lie a lot on the subject of health, especially, regarding the number of “uninsured.” The Republican Party missed that boat entirely and we are paying the price for it now.

The President’s insistence that bills must be passed before the August recess has only one explanation: He wants to avoid debate like the plague. Think it through. If our health care system is as bad as he says, it has been so for a long time and we can probably stand it for an additional three months, or six months , or a year. Decisiveness is not everything. (See below.)

After all, the President wants to dispose for the long run of 1/6th of our economy. Given the considerable slowdown in economic growth his other policies guarantee, given the aging of the population, it will soon be 1/5, or 20 % of the economy. There is nothing else like it. For comparison, national defense never took more than 5% since the Korean War.

Aside from anything I may believe about the influence of government on  effectiveness in health delivery, I am interested in the political consequences of the President’s plans, of all his plans. With health, he will make sure the government controls the economy to an unprecedented level. He is turning the US into a corporatist state. That’s another word for “fascist,” without the violent overtones. Continue reading →

Soft Fascism?

Jacques Delacroix Law, Liberty, Politics , ,

I am trying hard to avoid joining the current hysteria but I can’t help reading signals flashing right in my face.

The President is going to address grammar-school, and middle-school, and high-school students. That might be OK though I don’t see why or what for. He is not a king but our hired servant. What’s not OK is that the federal Department of Education is sending teachers everywhere follow-up packets of suggested topics for post-speech classroom discussion, some with the word “inspiration.”

That’s a classical, conventional totalitarian strategy. A liberal commentator who struck me, that time, has   argued that it’s not because the teachers don’t have to follow the suggestions. I am sorry but I am sure 80% and up of teachers, at all grade levels, are Obama devotees. They probably constitute the core of the silly, adoring Obama constituency. They will follow the suggestions. They can be counted on to establish the foundations  of  an Obama cult of personality.

I have been holding casual, short conversations with a young man I like around the coffee- shop. (He is very likable in general; I think everyone likes him.)  He is a student of philosophy at one of the University of  California campuses. I like him for this; it takes bravery to major in Philosophy rather than in, say, Accounting. He is an Obama supporter, of course, but a thoughtful one.  He represents the best of what there is to like in political liberalism, including  a striving for rationality and generous  impulses. Continue reading →

Socialism and Free Speech: Forget About It

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty , , , , ,

Fascists Arrest Woman Blogger

Links to the Spanish and English language blogs of a brave Cuban blogger have been on this blog for years. This courageous anti-dictatorship woman’s name is Yoani Sanchez. She was arrested recently by the Castro fascist police. Below is her communication from the English language blog. Notably, I was unable to reach her Spanish blog today.

Read the rest, and do your part to help spread the word. Thugs like Castro would have been gone a long time ago if more people like the arrested blogger had stood up and said ‘no’ the first time around.

It doesn’t help that thugs in DC put sanctions on the Cuban state, either, but I am digressing…

Iraq to Jews: Don’t Come Back

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History, Liberty , , , ,

Dr. Foldvary is renowned for his predictive capabilities, especially after calling the 2008 financial crash in 2007. However, I’d like to highlight his keen sense of direction and justice in regards to foreign affairs as well.

From a 2005 article on the situation in the Middle East, Dr. Foldvary writes:

Before Israel become an independent state in 1948, there were 150,000 Jewish citizens in Iraq. Israelites have lived in Iraq for over 2500 years. In 586 B.C.E., Babylon conquered Judea and brought many Jews to what is now Iraq. Baghdad later became a major center of Jewish thought. During the 1930s and 1940s, Nazi ideology infected the Arab region. In 1941, led by a mufti allied with Nazi Germany, there was a pro-Nazi coup, followed by killing, raping, and looting of Jews. Iraqi Jews call this the “Farhud,” or “violent dispossession.” The British army then came in and squashed the pogrom.

After World War II, the government of Iraq enacted Nazi-like anti-Jewish laws. Most of Iraq’s Jews fled to Israel. In 1952, the Iraqi government prohibited Jews from emigrating. Additional restrictions were placed on Jews in 1963 when the Ba’ath Party came to power. After 1967, Jewish property was confiscated and Jews were executed. Most remaining Jews were allowed to emigrate from Iraq during the 1970s.

This Jew-hating ideology still reigns in Iraq. There is also a concern that if Iraqi Jews are allowed to return and become Iraqi nationals, they will seek to be compensated for their confiscated property. Also, if Iraqis abroad are able to vote in Iraqi elections, Israeli Iraqis would be voting also, and many Iraqi Arabs don’t want foreign Jews voting in their elections.

Muslims, especially Arabs, denounce Israel for not letting Arab Palestinians return to their original places. How, then, can Arabs justify not allowing Jews to return?

Now Dr. Foldvary is not pointing fingers, mind you. He’s just trying to point out the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics and introduce a level of fairness in the whole damned process. Do read the whole thing.