RedStateEclectic

LP VP Candidate on the War on Drugs

One gets the feeling that the now Johnson-Gray 2012 Libertarian Party ticket is a different sort of LP ticket.  Self-made millionaire with 8 years of experience as Governor of New Mexico + a U.S. Navy JAG veteran who served as a Judge in California. 

 

I hope Johnson and Gray can get a place on the stage of the Presidential debates.  Win or lose (and I think they’ll pull votes from both the Republican and Democrats), it would be refreshing to see something different, and a true debate about ideas.

LLE

In the Era of Unaccountable Permanent War

Read the fascinating story of the cheap lies you are being told to make you feel patriotic in the face of unjust wars:

It is now clear that CIA officials were blatantly misrepresenting both bin Laden’s role in al-Qaeda when he was killed and how the agency came to focus on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Read The Truth Behind the Official Story of Finding Bin Laden.

The More Things Change…

“You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others, will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself - educating your own judgment. Those that stay must remember, always and all the time, that they are being molded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this society.” ~ Doris Lessing

Everyone is a Speculator

It is impossible not to speculate.

Speculating is a form of behaviour, active or passive, resulting from a view taken on the course of future events. If you do not participate in the stock market you are effectively taking a speculative position. Your speculative position will be rewarded if the stock market is doing badly; you will be punished if exchange-traded equities are doing well.

Probably the most risky and most questionable form of speculation is to be long, as it were, on government and the state, i.e. to rely on these forces to influence and shape your fate.

My own generation is likely to become part of a long and uninterrupted sequence of generations totally destroyed (physically and/or materially) by the German state (First World War, hyperinflation, depression, Third Reich, Second World War, impending currency collapse and break down of the "welfare state").

Don Boudreaux has an excellent letter to the editor, where he brilliantly debunks the unthinking emotionalism - "the stakeless and idle yammering" - of those who blame rising oil prices on speculators.

You speculate that “excessive speculation, mainly by Wall Street index-fund traders, is needlessly driving up [gasoline] prices” (“Speculators and the Gas Pump,” April 19).

Speculative buying is excessive only if it pushes prices higher than will be warranted by tomorrow’s conditions.  But no one – not even the academic authors of papers to which you link – knows for certain just how tight gasoline supplies will be tomorrow.  Many investors are speculating that these supplies will be very tight indeed.  If these investors are correct, they’ll earn profits and their purchases today will be revealed tomorrow not to have been excessive.

You, in contrast, insist that these speculators are mistaken (that is, you think they’re destined to lose money on their investments).  So put your money where your mouth is: invest contrary to these speculators by going short in gasoline.  If you’re correct that today’s speculation is excessive, not only will you make a killing when proof of your prescience arrives tomorrow in the form of gasoline prices that are lower than are expected by the speculators who you criticize, you’ll also put downward pressure on today’s gasoline prices.

Rather than opine with no skin in the game, get involved!  Show the world that your intellectual speculations aren’t idle.

The source.

Iran: An Anti-War Reminder

Following the anti-war reminder This Imperialism Thing, I want it also on the record that

The United States, European allies and even Israel generally agree on three things about Iran’s nuclear program: Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead.

Those conclusions, drawn from extensive interviews with current and former U.S. and European officials with access to intelligence on Iran, contrast starkly with the heated debate surrounding a possible Israeli strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

Indeed, this has obviously been true for years. The official position of practically every authority on this subject has been: Iran has no nukes and is not trying to get them. This “impending” threat from Iran is completely bogus. Yet we see the anti-Iranian rhetoric stepping up, month by month, all toward an increasingly likely culmination in the form of war. Insanity.

The source.

This Imperialism Thing

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.
- quoted in A Pen Warmed Up in Hell

It is a healthy thing to remind oneself every once in a while of the full picture of evil madness that destroys the American nation:

It is interesting to note just how well this imperialism thing has worked for the American people. At the end of last year the U.S. was kicked out of Iraq after spending some trillions of dollars and producing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Americans. Al-Qaeda, which was not present in Iraq when the U.S. arrived, has lately been responsible for bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of Iraqis, mostly civilians. As a result of the ham-handed American intervention, Iraq’s closest friend now is not the U.S. It is Iran.

Appalled by the excesses of the U.S. military, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has followed suit, initially demanding that the U.S. restrict its soldiers to their bases, a move that would mean that the American presence in Afghanistan could well end in short order after the loss of another trillion dollars and the deaths of some tens of thousands of coalition soldiers and Afghan civilians. Even if Karzai accepts a continued U.S. presence that is more managed by his own “sovereign” government, the writing is on the wall, and all that is needed is a firm departure date. Oh, and the Taliban will definitely be coming back in one form or another.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Pakistan, the parliament is debating ending all cooperation with the United States because of the continuing drone campaign, which, true to pattern, kills mostly civilians. Pakistan is nuclear-armed and actually has real terrorists roaming its tribal regions. The departure of Pakistan from the game enables the manifest waste of the past 11 years to become completely clear, with Washington leaving Central Asia in far worse shape than it was when the U.S. Army and the CIA arrived.

[...]

If generally reliable client states such as Iraq and Afghanistan can summon up the courage to pull the plug on Obama, anyone can.

[...]

When everyone finally figures out that they don’t really need what former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dubbed the “necessary nation” that “sees far,” they will be able to take steps to put their own houses in order. A Middle East without meddling from Washington would mean that the Israelis and their neighbors might actually have to talk to each other and establish a modus vivendi. Afghans and Pakistanis would have to work things out. Iran might even decide that no one is threatening it anymore and lose some of its paranoia. Likewise for the North Koreans. Americans could go back to doing what they used to be really good at: making things, being inventive and inclusive, and living decently without having to invade anyone or tell a government or two how to behave. It would be good-bye to all the things we don’t need and good night, America, finally in a good sense.

The source.

The Worst Get to the Top

This post is by way of addendum to Eric Parks' recent article The last exit ramp on the road to unlimited government. I find Eric's post noteworthy not least because it reminds me of how undiscerning and crude people have become in the face of the most blatant violations of justice and the rule of law. The position taken by the Institute for Justice (see Eric's post) is a pleasant exception, deserving wide dissemination.

On a different level, this post on Hayek's thesis that in a politicised society the worst get to the top forms part of the background to Eric's observations.

I like the author's definition of a statist, i.e. a person passionately asking for leadership by the worst:

“Someone who learns nothing from human nature, economics, or experience, and repeats the same mistakes over and over again without a care for the rights and lives of people he crushes with his good intentions.”

Even the worst features of the statist reality, Hayek showed, “are not accidental byproducts” but phenomena that are part and parcel of statism itself. He argued with great insightfulness that “the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful” in any society in which government is seen as the answer to most problems. They are precisely the kind of people who elevate power over persuasion, force over cooperation. Government, possessing by definition a legal and political monopoly of the use of force, attracts them just as surely as dung draws flies. Ultimately, it is the apparatus of government that allows them to wreak their havoc on the rest of us.

Bubama Advancing

Image credit.

 

It is ironic but perhaps sadly appropriate that Attorney General Eric Holder would choose a law school, Northwestern University, to deliver a speech earlier this month in which he demolished what was left of the rule of law in America.

In what history likely will record as a turning point, Attorney General Holder bluntly explained that this administration believes it has the authority to use lethal force against Americans if the President determines them to be a threat to the nation. He tells us that this is not a violation of the due process requirements of our Constitution because the President himself embodies “due process” as he unilaterally determines who is to be targeted. As Holder said, “a careful and thorough executive branch review of the facts in a case amounts to ‘due process.’” That means that the administration believes it is the President himself who is to be the judge, jury, and executioner.

As George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote of the Holder speech:

“All the Administration has said is that they closely and faithfully follow their own guidelines — even if their decisions are not subject to judicial review. The fact that they say those guidelines are based on notions of due process is meaningless. They are not a constitutional process of review.”

It is particularly bizarre to hear the logic of the administration claiming the right to target its citizens according to some secret selection process, when we justified our attacks against Iraq and Libya because their leaders supposedly were targeting their own citizens! We also now plan a covert war against Syria for the same reason.

I should make it perfectly clear that I believe any individual who is engaging in violence against this country or its citizens should be brought to justice. But as Attorney General Holder himself points out in the same speech, our civilian courts have a very good track record of trying and convicting individuals involved with terrorism against the United States. Our civilian court system, with the guarantee of real due process, judicial review, and a fair trial, is our strength, not a weakness. It is not an impediment to be sidestepped in the push for convictions or assassinations, but rather a process that guarantees that fundamental right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

I am encouraged, however that there appears to be the beginning of a backlash against the administration’s authoritarian claims. Just recently I did an interview with conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham who expressed grave concern over using these sorts of tactics against Americans using the supposed war on terror as justification. Sadly, many conservative leaders were silent when Republican President George W. Bush laid the groundwork for this administration’s lawlessness with the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention without trial, and other violations. Similarly, as Professor Turley points out, “Democrats previously demanded the ‘torture memos’ of the Bush administration that revealed poor legal analysis by Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo to justify torture. Now, however, Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.” The misuse of and disregard for our Constitution for partisan political gain is likely one reason the American public holds Congress in such low esteem. Now the stakes are much higher. Congress and the people should finally wake up!

The Crowd-Pleasing-for-Dummies President

Credit.

Leaving education in the state's hands is a guarantee to keep the conscripts of such enlightenment so self-contentedly uneducated as to take pride nationwide - by democratic majority and other mean means - in their preposterous ignorance and to cheer the paragons of educationally acquired obtuseness as men of genius and compelling leadership.

In this respect Obama is the people's president (no less than Bush), and a dignitary truly worthy of representative democracy.

Writes Mark Steyn:

A great nation needs successful self-made businessmen like George Peck, and purveyors of scholarly excellence like Mary Somerville. It's not clear [well, it is - see above, G.T.] why it needs a smug over-credentialed President Solyndra to recycle "Crowd-Pleasing For Dummies" as a keynote address.

The source.

Hat-tip.

See also More Obarrassment.

Too Crooked To Fail

Image credit.

In a politicised society crime and corruption can be conjured away by political will. Our highly politicised Western societies have become infested with excessive levels of legalised crime and corruption.

So much so that I think 'too crooked to fail' is the motto that summarises the present state of Western societies -- fraud and contempt for the truth abound and define success of the few at the expense of the duped and complicit majority:

In a pure capitalist system, an institution as moronic and corrupt as Bank of America would be swiftly punished by the market – the executives would get to loot their own firms once, then they'd be looking for jobs again. But with the limitless government support of Too Big to Fail, these failing financial giants get to stay undead forever, continually looting the taxpayer, their depositors, their shareholders and anyone else they can get their hands on. The threat posed by Bank of America isn't just financial – it's a full-blown assault on the American dream. Where's the incentive to play fair and do well, when what we see rewarded at the highest levels of society is failure, stupidity, incompetence and meanness? If this is what winning in our system looks like, who doesn't want to be a loser? Throughout history, it's precisely this kind of corrupt perversion that has given birth to countercultural revolutions. If failure can't fail, the rest of us can never succeed.

The source.

Relatedly, get this from Greg Smith's op-ed in the New York Times "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs"

The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

See also my post One More Cobblestone ...