Quotulatiousness

June 27, 2011

A review of The Declaration of Independents

Filed under: Books, Economics, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:33

Timothy P. Carney talks about the new book by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch:

Libertarians today are mostly considered a variety of conservative — Ronald Reagan with fewer bombs and more pot. But Welch and Gillespie don’t cast libertarianism as one of many political ideolgies. Instead, they portray it as a truce. It’s unpolitics. The authors see evidence of a “libertarian moment,” not so much in public opinion on policy matters (though outrage about bailouts helps), but in cultural trends that spill over into politics.

Younger Americans don’t like being told what to think. Gone is the voice-of-God Walter Cronkite figure. Younger adults assemble their own news feeds a la carte, following trusted voices on Twitter and RSS feeds. Even walking through a shopping mall, the authors argue, shows how we’re much more individualistic as a culture than we used to be. The authors say there’s a proliferation of cliques and types in high schools and among adults, too. The Internet has helped people find kindred spirits both near and far, making it less necessary to modify your interests to match an existing group. Americans, increasingly, choose their own way.

And there, in a nutshell, is the traditionalist’s core argument against the internet (grounded in their remembered high school experience): it allows geeks and nerds and other unpopular kids to find solace, support and fellow feeling outside their immediate physical surroundings. That undermines the traditional rule of the jocks and the beautiful people.

Welch and Gillespie see our cultural trends as evidence that “decentralization and democratization” are taking territory from “the forces of control and centralization.” The political corollary, naturally, would be a movement that creates more space for individuality. It would be almost an anti-political movement.

But this is where every dream of an independent or libertarian uprising crashes into reality. You don’t win at politics without being good at politics. The people who are best at politics are the people who stand to gain a lot from it — special interests and people who get like to play the political game. Neither group is likely to include many anti-political decentralizers.

What about the libertarians who are already caught up in politics? The think-tankers, the activists, the journalists? Well, they’re another obstacle to a libertarian revolution. For one thing, this is a group famous for infighting. The Libertarian Party has been racked with strife, splits and feuds for its entire existence. Welch and Gillespie want to pitch a big tent, but Beltway libertarians are famous for imposing “purity tests.” (Q: Should vending machines marketing heroin to children be allowed on public sidewalks? A: There shouldn’t be public sidewalks.)

That last quip is quite true: the very first time I walked in to a libertarian gathering, I was besieged with purity testing of that sort. I nearly walked right back out without a backward glance.

June 26, 2011

Anti-semitism at the University of Toronto

Filed under: Cancon, Education, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:54

Post-graduate students at the U of T may have gotten a bit too honest and outspoken in class:

Picture the following: A discussion in a post-graduate university class on the topic of Jews turns ugly. The professor is uncritical when one student says he doesn’t want to be around Jews. Another student complains about “rich Jews,” implying their excessive power. In a subsequent class, the same professor, as if to validate those points, says half her department faculty are Jews and with her approbation, students conduct a ‘Jew count’.

While this sounds like an episode in Germany leading up to the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, it occurred more recently and much closer to home, at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work. Now, more details are emerging under the exceptional circumstance of two U of T professors publicly criticizing a colleague for facilitating classroom anti-Semitism and the university administration’s inadequate response.

The controversy began when some visible minority students in a Social Work Master’s program at the University of Toronto expressed discomfort about being around “rich Jews,” in Professor Rupaleem Bhuyan’s class, regarding a proposed outing in 2009 to the Baycrest Centre, an internationally renowned Jewish geriatric and research facility. They were undoubtedly confident of a sympathetic ear from her. The previous year, Bhuyan denounced Israel as a satellite of the United States, unworthy of distinction as a separate country.

The few Jewish students in Bhuyan’s Master’s Program class were intimidated into silence for much of the discussion by a classroom culture slanted against them. Finally, one young woman spoke up, protesting her grandparents had come to Canada with virtually nothing and she was proud her family could now afford the fees for them to reside at Baycrest.

That must have rung an alarm bell for Professor Bhuyan, because startlingly, she then admonished her students not to divulge what transpired in class to outsiders.

H/T to Ilkka for the link.

June 25, 2011

Taxes must rise to maintain “the overall size of government programs”

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:59

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was being as honest as he knows how in talking to the House Small Business Committee this week. Reducing the size of government is literally unthinkable:

[T]he Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.”

The administration’s plan to raise the tax rate on small businesses is part of its plan to raise taxes on all Americans who make more than $250,000 per year — including businesses that file taxes the same way individuals and families do.

[. . .]

Geithner, continuing, argued that if the administration did not extract a trillion dollars in new revenue from its plan to increase taxes on people earning more than $250,000, including small businesses, the government would in effect “finance” what he called a “tax benefit” for those people.

“We’re not doing it because we want to do it, we’re doing it because if we don’t do it, then, again, I have to go out and borrow a trillion dollars over the next 10 years to finance those tax benefits for the top 2 percent, and I don’t think I can justify doing that,” said Geithner.

Not only that, he argued, but cutting spending by as much as the “modest change in revenue” (i.e. $1 trillion) the administration expects from raising taxes on small business would likely have more of a “negative economic impact” than the tax increases themselves would.

June 23, 2011

Shock, horror! Dutch court clears Geert Wilders of hate charges

Filed under: Europe, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Perhaps there is still a faint bit of hope for freedom of speech in Europe after all:

A Dutch court has acquitted rightwing politician Geert Wilders of hate charges, saying his anti-Islam statements, while offensive to many Muslims, fell within the bounds of legitimate political debate.

Judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders’ claims that Islam is violent by nature, and his calls for a ban on Muslim immigration and the Qur’an, must be viewed in a wider context of debate over immigration policy.

The judge added that the remarks could not be directly linked to increased discrimination against Dutch Muslims.

Wilders unmoved as the verdict was read, but his supporters in the public gallery hugged one another and clapped after the acquittal.

Wilders, one of the most powerful and popular politicians in the Netherlands, was accused of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims through numerous public statements, and with insulting them by comparing Islam with Naziism.

“I’m incredibly happy with this acquittal on all counts,” Wilders said outside the courtroom. “It’s not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands.

June 21, 2011

A neologism? A crippling political setback? It’s both!

Filed under: Media, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:49

When you read the word “santorum”, what do you think of? A small minority of people apparently believe it refers to an obscure American politician:

The world’s Wikifiddlers are obsessed with santorum. Though they can’t agree on what that is.

For some, it’s a word. For others, it’s not: it’s the result of a campaign to create a word. The distinction — however subtle — has sparked weeks of controversy among the core contributors to Wikipedia, the “free encyclopedia anyone can edit”. If you find this hard to believe, you’ve never been to Wikiland — and you’ve never Googled “Rick Santorum”.

Famously, Rick Santorum — the former Pennsylvania Senator and a Republican candidate for president of the United States — has a Google problem. But he also has a Wikipedia problem. And the two go hand-in-hand.

If nothing else, the whole controversy has added another variant meaning to the term “to be savaged”.

June 20, 2011

L. Neil Smith on what defines a libertarian

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

From the most recent Libertarian Enterprise where L. Neil is discussing Ann Coulter’s dislike of Ron Paul:

In the column in question, she accuses Dr. Paul of hypocrisy, of being a libertarian who wants to get rid of government (both of which are untrue) while at the same time wanting people to elect him President.

There are two (and only two) fundamental tenets that an individual must accept wholeheartedly and without reservation in order to call him- or herself a libertarian. As decent and likable a fellow as Dr. Paul happens to be, I have never heard him specifically endorse either one.

If I am wrong, please correct me; it would be good news.

First of all, you have to regard yourself — as well as each and every individual around you — as the sole proprietor of his or her own life and, for better or worse, all of the products of that life, including the fruits of your labor and, equally, the smoke from your chimney. The concept is called “absolute self-ownership” — accept no substitutes.

Second — and this is the social and political manifestation of absolute self-ownership — you have to agree never to initiate physical force against another human being for any reason whatever, nor to advocate this initiation, or delegate it to someone else. This concept is called the “Zero Aggression Principle” and it is the absolutely indispensable bedrock on which political libertarianism rests.

If anyone argues with you about that, it’s because he (or she) wishes to reserve some right that he (or she) falsely imagines he (or she) has, to employ force against you whenever he (or she) feels it necessary or convenient. For the sake of national security. Or for the children.

Whatever you think of these ideas, they are unquestionably central to everything that is truly libertarian, and all proposed libertarian policies spring from them. Regrettably, the general freedom movement, as well as the Libertarian Party itself, are cluttered today with counterfeit libertarians — Nerfs and LINOs — who can’t make the moral cut. Coulter claims she has one libertarian friend who is “not crazy”, but if she regards him or her as “not crazy”, it’s certain that whoever she’s talking about is not a libertarian at all. This is among the best reasons I can think of for defining libertarianism properly.

June 14, 2011

QotD: John Hospers

Filed under: Liberty, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:38

My old philosophy professor has died. He was the only person I’ve ever met who both received a vote in the electoral college for president of the United States and published leading textbooks in ethics and aesthetics. I am fairly confident that he was the only person of whom that will ever be said.

When I enrolled at the University of Southern California in 1973 to study philosophy, John was chairman of the department. I already knew about him, however, as I had read his book Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow and had heard him debate against socialism the year before, alongside the late R. A. Childs, Jr. That was when John was the first presidential candidate of the brand new Libertarian Party. (He and his running mate, the first woman ever to receive an electoral vote, Tonie Nathan, were on the ballot in only 2 states that year.) It wasn’t a very vigorous campaign, but it helped thousands of people to say, “You know, I don’t fit in with either the left or the right; they’re both abusive of liberty.” Besides that electoral vote the Hospers campaign helped to launch a long-term political alignment that is very much with us today, as people increasingly see issues in terms of personal liberty and responsibility, rather than as a battle between two different flavors of statism.

Tom G. Palmer, “John Hospers, R.I.P.”, Cato @ Liberty, 2011-06-14

Random links

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:11

A few links which don’t lend themselves to becoming full blog posts:

The SlutWalk double standard

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:41

Abigail Ross-Jackson wonders why SlutWalkers would want to “live in a world where women can wear what they want but men are never allowed to woo or whistle?”

Why should men be demonised for wolf-whistling or for attempting to chat up a woman whom they think is attractive? The Slutwalkers’ demand of the right not to be judged is profoundly backward and anti-social. Several of the banners on Saturday’s protest seemed to suggest that men are more like animals than rational human beings. One said: ‘Why am I dressed like a slut? Why are you thinking like a rapist?’ This is worrying, because it points to another serious problem with the Slutwalk phenomenon: its embrace of the widening definition of ‘harassment’. While most people would agree that stalking, groping and so on is unacceptable, amounting to harassment, the idea that looking, thinking, flirting and chatting someone up is also no longer acceptable, and that it amounts to ‘thinking like a rapist’, shows that everyday human interaction is now increasingly being labelled ‘harassment’. What next: no eye contact without written permission?

One woman who took part in the London Slutwalk later tweeted: ‘Thirty-seven people have taken my photo so far on #slutwalk. Just one sought consent first. (Of those I challenged, it’d not occurred to them to ask.)’ This just about sums up the preciousness, and the social aloofness, of Slutwalkers: they seem to imagine that even on a public demonstration at which they have dressed in the most attention-grabbing way, it is somehow a violation of their person for someone to take a photo. Feminists are warping the word ‘consent’, taking it from the realm of rape and applying it to such everyday actions as chatting and taking photos in public. But if we had to seek consent for every form of human interplay, nothing would ever happen; it would be a boring world indeed.

[. . .]

Many millions of us negotiate our relationships, sexual or otherwise, on a day-to-day basis; we don’t need contracts or written consent or any clearly established boundaries. In trying to formalise human relationships, the Slutwalkers’ attitude is actually quite arrogant: they seem to want to reshape the public sphere, and even parts of the private sphere, according to their own tastes and desires, with no regard for the rest of us. One Slutwalker said: ‘I wear what I want. Because I dress this way it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I get upset if a girl gets dressed up for male attention.’ This really gets to the heart of the double-standard in the Slutwalk phenomenon: they can wear what they like because they are apparently empowered and strong women, but if other women chose to dress in order to attract attention then they should be pitied and looked down upon. Meanwhile men can’t look, pass judgement or flirt for fear of being branded sexist and vile, while women apparently exist in a bubble where they are elevated and protected from the prying eyes and judgements of society.

June 13, 2011

QotD: Canadian foreign policy

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:03

Further proof of the Americanization of our politics: the journalistic elevation of the drunkard’s walk known as Stephen Harper’s foreign policy to the level of a “doctrine.” We spent the post-Gulf War nineties hearing about “the Powell doctrine”, and in 2001, Charles Krauthammer gave George W. Bush a doctrine of his own as a post 9/11 present. Today, the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson gifts our prime minister with his very own “Harper Doctrine,” spelled out as follows:

     “We know where our interests lie and who our friends are,” he declared, “and we take strong, principled positions in our dealings with other nations, whether popular or not.”

I’m no foreign policy guy, and John Ibbitson has taught me more about how Canada works over the years than I like to admit. But apart from supporting Israel “four-square, without reservation” — which Harper does seem keen on — I don’t see the evidence for the rest of it. “No foreign aid funding for abortion” doesn’t seem like much of a doctrine to me. As for “aggressively asserting our sovereignty in the North” … how so?

Andrew Potter, “Canada’s foreign policy, in black and white and orange”, Maclean’s, 2011-06-13

June 8, 2011

Ontario’s (pathetic) choices in the next election

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

Read ’em and weep:

Dalton’s McGuinty’s record is so well known it barely justifies repeating: the health tax he promised not to introduce, but did. The HST. The eco tax. The soaring power bills. The epic borrowing. The multiple boondoggles. The “wage freeze” that turns out not to apply to police, nurses, civil servants or anyone who actually gets paid by the government. The big bonus for eHealth workers for overseeing a billion dollars in wasted spending. Stop me before I break into tears.

Tim Hudak says he’ll end the agony, but can’t be believed. Sorry Tim, but it’s true. If the campaign platform recently released by the Tories was handed in as a project in a first-year finance class, it would be returned with suggestions that the author find another line of interest. Like line dancing; something that doesn’t involve numbers, or adding and subtracting. Mr. Hudak says he’ll raise spending on all the important programs, but make up for it by finding “waste”. We all know that isn’t going to happen. Politicians never find waste. What they find is that if they keep spending money, their chances of re-election improve. The federal Tories have been promising to find waste for five years now, and have jacked up spending every year.

It’s been widely understood that this election was the Tories’ to lose . . . and they’re determined to do exactly that. This is how the NDP might finally get another chance to form a government . . . perhaps the misery of the Rae experiment has finally been forgotten. Between McGuinty and Hudak, the NDP could run a cardboard cut-out of Jack Layton and be (significantly) more appealing to the average Ontario voter.

June 7, 2011

Intolerance of educational experimentation

Filed under: Britain, Education, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Brendan O’Neill surveys the range of responses to the proposed establishment of a new private for-profit university in London:

It is ‘odious’, ‘repugnant’, ‘parasitic’, ‘hypocritical’, a ‘travesty’, a ‘money-grubbing’ scheme, and ‘it would be better all-round if its doors never opened’. Wow. What is it? A whorehouse? A Satanic church? A junk-food chain that specialises in feeding fat straight into children’s veins via a drip? In fact it’s a proposed new London-based university, called the New College of the Humanities, which says it will teach students the best of literature, culture and history for a fee of £18,000 a year. And yet judging from the unhinged coverage, you could be forgiven for thinking that someone had proposed opening a Ratko Mladic fanclub in Islington.

The response to Professor AC Grayling’s educational experiment, for which he has recruited other ‘star’ professors such as Richard Dawkins and Niall Ferguson, has been extraordinarily intolerant. No sooner had the press release about the new university been emailed than Grayling and Co. were being accused of selling out working-class students and the ideal of ‘education for all’ by opening an institution that only the wealthy (and those lucky enough to secure a scholarship) will be able to afford. As one journalist summarised, the initiative has met with ‘universal scorn from commentators in the national press’. Journalists have described the university as a ‘disgrace’, ‘nauseous’ and ‘disgustingly elitist’. The Twittersphere, always keen to ape the pronouncements of its heroes on the op-ed pages, heaped 140-character fury upon Grayling’s vain/pathetic/evil/doomed initiative.

Not to be outdone, members of the University of London Union and other radical student groups called an ‘emergency meeting’ last night. Not an emergency meeting to discuss the corrosion of liberty and free speech in the West or the future of the Arab uprisings — as radical students might have done in the past — but an emergency meeting to discuss how to crush this new uni. ULU’s vice president called for it to be blacklisted, insisting that the University of London refuse to recognise or work with this ‘repugnant’ institution. There was a serious debate about how to shut it down before it had even opened. One left-wing group said we must ‘stop Grayling’s sham university’ because it’s the ‘thin end of the wedge [of privatisation]’. Without so much as a whiff of self-awareness or irony, it went on to describe New College as ‘an attack on free education’. Yes, that’s right — this educational institution must be smashed in order to defend ‘free education’. Perhaps we should also burn its books in the name of defending book-reading.

Of course, if the quality of teaching at the New College of the Humanities is not up to an acceptable standard, it will fail and the university will close. That does not appear to be any part of the motivation for all the screaming and wailing. It rather implies that they’re actually afraid it will succeed, which might start raising questions about the existing university system.

June 6, 2011

SlutWalk arrives in Britain

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

Brendan O’Neill is not impressed with the SlutWalkers, calling them “the most anti-social sluts on earth”:

The most annoying thing about the SlutWalk phenomenon, which arrived in Britain at the weekend, is not its knowingly provocative name or even its attempt to make a serious political project of the frazzled Nineties pop trend of Girl Power (“I wear sexy stuff, therefore I am powerful!”). No, it is its inherently anti-social nature. These are the most anti-social sluts on earth. Where I grew up, the catty phrase “she enjoys the company of men” was often used as a euphemism for “slut”, but you could never say that of those taking part in SlutWalk. On the contrary, many of the SlutWalkers seem to see interaction with men — especially cocky, swaggering men — as a dangerous and risky thing, best avoided.

Of course, no one — except maybe Peter Sutcliffe — disagrees with SlutWalk’s spectacularly uncontroversial message that women should be free to dress as they please without getting raped. But it is quite different to expect to be able to dress as you please without attracting *any* attention from blokes. Yet that is what some SlutWalkers seem to be demanding: effectively the right to dress provocatively without ever being looked at, commented on, whistled at or spoken to by a member of the opposite sex. Unless such interaction is clearly solicited, of course.

[. . .]

The high-minded feminists who make up SlutWalk’s supporters and cheerleaders seem to want to opt out of this everyday social interaction, to dress as sluttishly as they like while also being surrounded by some magic forcefield, legally enforced perhaps, which protects them from any unwanted male gaze or whistle. They are prudes disguised as sluts, self-styled victims pretending to be vixens, astonishingly anti-social creatures who imagine it is possible to parade through society dressed outrageously without any member of that society ever making a comment about or to them. This is the highly individuated politics of fear — fear of men, fear of unplanned-for banter, fear of sexual licence — dressed up as radical feminism. But to update an old saying: no slut is an island.

June 2, 2011

When shipyards produce pork instead of effective ships for the Navy

Filed under: Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

Shipbuilding for the navy has traditionally been a good source of pork for politicians to dole out as their political fortunes require. The US Navy is having monumental problems with the quality of ships, but the problem isn’t easy to fix:

The U.S. Navy continues to have serious problems with shoddy shipbuilders. The latest incident involved a support ship, the 12,000 ton, 172 meter (534 foot) long radar ship, the Howard O. Lorenzen. The ship recently failed its acceptance tests. The Lorenzen was built to carry a special, billion dollar, radar used to track ICBM tests. This tracking activity also supports verification of missile and nuclear weapons treaty compliance. The Lorenzen replaces a similar ship that is over 30 years old. The acceptance tests found serious problems with the steering, electrical system, damage control, anchor control, and aviation (helicopter) facilities. The yard that built the Lorenzen, VT Halter Marine, builds military and civilian ships, and has had problems with some of the other military ships it has built recently. Like the Lorenzen, the other ships were late, over budget and suffered quality control problems.

[. . .]

While the admirals are correct in blaming the shipyards for many of the problems, the navy shares a lot of the blame as well. It is, after all, the navy that draws up the contracts, and supplies inspectors during construction. However, inspectors are regularly deceived and lied to (about the quality of work and supervision and known defects being fixed). While Congressional interference can be blamed as well, in the end, it’s the navy that has the most to say, and do, about how the ships are built. The problem is, admirals who stand up and take on the contractors and politicians put their careers on the line. The ship builder deploys a large number of lobbyists and has many key politicians as allies.

[. . .]

The problems with nuclear subs and carriers were minor compared to the LPD 17 travails. Still, the sheer extent of the problems, across so many ships, is very disturbing. This may be why a growing number of admirals are willing to take career risks, and try for some fundamental reform, and finally fix the “system” that turns out more problems than warships. Victory is not assured. The shipyards and their suppliers have powerful allies in Congress. All that money translates into votes that gets incumbent politicians reelected. Congress is not inclined to attack this kind of patronage and pork, since nearly all members of Congress depend on it. The admirals can openly complain, but offended legislators can quietly cripple the careers of those critics. The smart money is betting against the good guys here. So far, the smart money is right. But the bad builder mess is so vast, expensive and messy that even many politicians are calling for some fundamental changes.

The poster children for defective ships is the San Antonio LPD 17 class of amphibious ships.

May 30, 2011

Yet another politician has Twitter exposure issues

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:47

First, it was the turn of congressman Anthony Weiner to have his Twitter account hacked. Now it’s an Ontario Tory candidate whose Blackberry was stolen, and a picture of his genitals posted on his Twitter account:

Rookie PC candidate George Lepp says he’s embarrassed that a photo of his family jewels was posted on his campaign Twitter account for about 20 minutes before it was quickly unzipped.
Alan Sakach, communications director for the Ontario Conservatives, said the photo was inadvertently taken by Lepp’s BlackBerry when it was in his front pocket. The photo was posted after someone took it from the candidate for the riding of Niagara Falls, according to Sakach.

“He is pretty upset and embarrassed,” Sakach said of a photo that was posted on Lepp’s account Sunday. “It was removed as soon as it came to his attention.”

The Toronto Sun obtained grainy copies of the Twitter page images before they were removed.

The pictures — too graphic to reproduce in the newspaper — are of a man naked from the waist down, showing a close up of his penis and his crossed legs.

As commenters on that article point out, it’s hard to believe the “official” story in this case:

Antinephalist:
George Lepp’s pockets are transparent, are they? And the photo was taken while he wasn’t wearing pants, that apparently have transparent pockets?

jaysfan33:
so wait…this guy’s phone took a picture of his twig and berries from his pocket??!?! Then his phone happened to be stolen…then the thief looked through all the guys pictures on the phone found the shot in question and then uploaded it to twitter…yeah that sounds pretty likely.

what probably happened: this prev took a shot of his junk when boozed up and then thought it would be funny to post it online, some time passed and he remember oh wait, im running for office, this might not look good, so he took it down…unfortunately for him the snake was out of the bag

H/T to “Lickmuffin”, who posted this link in a comment on the original article about Congressman Weiner.

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