The House of David

Monday, November 16, 2009

Card check, 2

The New Scientist is printing an idea by one David Rand of Harvard: mandate that your house and car display your wasteful ways.

Even better than voluntary displays would be laws enforcing disclosure. For example, governments could require energy companies to publish the amount of electricity used by each home and business in a searchable database. Likewise, gasoline use could be calculated if, at yearly inspections, mechanics were required to report the number of kilometres driven. Cars could be forced to display large stickers indicating average distance travelled, with inefficient cars labelled similarly to cigarettes: "Environmentalist's warning: this car is highly inefficient. Its emissions contribute to climate change and cause lung cancer and other diseases." Judging from our laboratory research, such policies would motivate people to reduce their carbon footprint.

Unlike my post on public signatures, Rand isn't running a thought experiment. Rand thinks that everything you do should be public. He disdains "possible privacy issues" where the "potential gains" are "great" enough.

The only reason to out someone else's personal data is to open them up for personal attack. David Rand is a supporter of terrorism; so, apparently, is New Scientist.

Labels: enemies, liberty, progressives

posted by Zimri on 20:39 | link |

Monday, November 09, 2009

Did they really say that?

Did Otto von Bismarck really say "let them say what they want; I will do what I want"? Did Robert Heinlein really say "an armed society is a polite society"?

They are beautiful sentiments but I wonder if I am the victim of internet memes.

Labels: bullshit, liberty

posted by Zimri on 22:29 | link |

Pro-democracy blogs on the Right... well... sorta

The Right - like the Left - has two attitudes toward democracy, and one can find bloggers who hold to either view.

I go to Moldbug for a Right-wing anti-democratic view and to Ace for a Right-wing democratic view. Moldbug isn't interested in working with the system, except insofar as the judo master works with his enemy's folly; he endorses the politicians who are mostly likely to further the ends of this system, which last year meant Obama. Ace by contrast has not abandoned democracy. Ace sees his mission as rallying libertarians and Conservatives together to elect pro-liberty, pro-tradition people into office.

I believe that blogs should state what they are about. When That Other Green-Themed Blog became an anti-Conservative blog, its proprietor should have announced that.

If you are running a blog based on a standpoint, then you have a loyalty to that standpoint. Since Ace is pro-democracy, Ace can't put up with comments advocating anti-democratic means.

The "maximalists" whom Ace frequently posts against, include a sizable subset who support armed resistance to Obama's regime. I am in sympathy with many of these, but Ace's comments are nonetheless not the place to air all that. "Go get your own blog", as a green sage once put it (before he decided he wanted to shut down those blogs too).

With that in mind, I'm at a loss to understand why Ace thinks it's good politics to vote present on an amendment which supports the pro-life position. If the RNC wants to "vote present", why not do that on all this Congress's business? The logical conclusion to this line of argument, for Republicans, should be to stay at home and let the Democrats run the candy store. It's a defensible Moldbug argument, and I might agree with it too - but it's anti-democratic.

Very strange, this. (Not that there is anything wrong with it.)

Labels: liberty, propaganda, republicans

posted by Zimri on 21:05 | link |

Armed resistance

Out on the Right-wing fringe, and maybe not so far out, there is a movement for armed resistance to the Obama/Pelosi regime.

I do not necessarily mean by that: mutiny or revolution. I am including the Oath Keepers and the Sipsey Street Irregulars. Armed resistance entails standing upon support for the Constitution - whatever the current elected officials have in mind. The term "resistance" is inherently defensive - reactionary, if you like; no aggression is implied.

This isn't a pro-democracy blog. I fully support the Constitution as the reactionary document it is. That includes support of armed resistance against Washington's "progress". If I had thought that Bush had the attitude toward the Constitution that Obama's advisor Sunstein has, I would have supported armed resistance during Bush's years too. Peaceful armed resistance. Don't Tread On Me, says the snake, and I won't bite.

Every armed citizen is a free man, and endowed with the inalienable right and duty to resist tyranny - even if the tyranny is popular. (Keeping in theme here - remember that in Greek thought, tyranny was the endstate of democracy. Today, c.f. Venezuela.)

Where I part with the furthest fringe of the Right - the birther fringe - is that I do not pretend that we are an anti-Constitutional democracy now.

And there I give you my difference with ACCDF / "Active" and Pat Dollard. Dollard is showcasing Taitz propaganda and not maintaining his comments, and thereby offering a forum for seditious lies. Where I read politically-motivated falsehoods in a civil strife, I see people trying to turn the strife into a civil war.

I get the impression that if the civil war came and the rebels arrested me: the Oath Keepers would protect me, and Pat Dollard would have me against the wall.

Labels: constitution, enemies, liberty

posted by Zimri on 20:08 | link |

Proof by bad analogy

I'm always suspicious of parables. I heard a lot of them from Christian evangelists. Whenever I poked holes in one model they would just move on to another model. It got too much for me to bear as of late 1996 or so. I see no reason to be any more tolerant of socialists - in fact, I have more of a problem with socialists, who want to steal from me after they're done preaching. (I can always sleep through a sermon.)

I fully expect "pnrj", who came up with the analogy below, to come up with that other model. It will be just as bad as the first one.

Labels: bullshit, liberty, propaganda

posted by Zimri on 16:29 | link |

Saturday, November 07, 2009

What to do about sleeper agents?

University graduates today may have taken courses like the courses Monfort took. These people are a danger to us in every sense of that word.

In a previous life I would have called on the State to put an end to the rot where it starts - the universities - but the State is deeply entwined via its civil service, so that wouldn't be practical.

Non-government personnel can help here, though.

Employers nationwide should demand the full transcripts of all university graduates. If you see a course that looks "off", don't count it toward the total credit hours which that university requires; and if the new total runs below the minimum, don't treat the graduate as a full graduate.

Your duty as a good employee, as a patriot, and as a free human being is to make it impossible for men like Monfort to move in decent circles.

Redemption is possible; this can be done through vocational training. If he's still a joker, you can probably tell (we're not dealing with the cream of the university system here or he would have got his Engineering degree in the first place). But you are not malicious; you do want to offer the genuinely-misguided a way out of their hole.

In all cases resist, resist, resist the urge to hire a still-damaged person; or to allow a university-aligned division any place in Human Resources. Downsize the company if you have to; set up offshore if you have to. The more you reward the worst element of this system, the worse the system gets.

Labels: liberty, progressives

posted by Zimri on 18:07 | link |

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Taxes and the citizen

When the Federal government asserts the right to tax your income or your estate, that makes you a Federally-owned serf.

When other governments assert the right to tax your land, that makes you a tenant of the land which those governments (really) own.

After much thinking about this, I have come to accept land tenancy. The governments have always had the right of eminent-domain. The secular kharaj known as "property tax" seems like a reasonable extension.

If you want "your own house" you pretty much have to move to a houseboat or an asteroid.

Labels: liberty

posted by Zimri on 16:32 | link |

I retract my vote for TX2009#9

I oppose eminent-domain for the purpose of revenue-grabbing. I don't oppose eminent-domain where someone has bought some land, and then the government finds out they need it for truly social purposes.

The classic example would be railways and highways. People settle all over the place. Later on, other people will need to get from one point to another, and despite the best efforts of city planners there is always some old coot who has set up his shack in the middle of things. There's not much the government can do other than to say, "here's some cash to get to another location, now get out".

In that spirit, there's the Gulf Coast. Says Janus, it's all "public". "Public" is a Newspeak expression which means that the State of Texas and, in some cases, USG are sovereign over it. Anyone who "owns" property along the Coast does not own it; he's got a certificate of tenancy (whatever the deed and title documents pretend). That gives the State certain rights.

I am fine with all that. This is an unstable coast; it is subject to tides and hurricanes and, depending on the mood of the Caribbean Plate, tsunamis. The various coastline governmental levels absolutely should be responsible for the coastline. The State of Texas also has an interest in suppressing the population there, so that said population doesn't clog the roads whenever the latest Ike or Rita threatens inland cities like Houston. The Gulf Coast is inherently a bad bet for "private property owners".

I have no hard criteria, yet, for how far this eminent-domain principle should hold elsewhere. I would extend it to San Andreas and other obvious tectonic faults. State-regulated watersheds, for the purpose of efficient water conservation, have a proven track record in New York State; I think I would borrow their model for the drier mountains West (especially as more people settle there). Tornado zones, though, I wouldn't accept as the State's excuse for a land-grab. Anyway at this point I know what I am and I am "haggling over the price", as Churchill might put it. I do reserve the right to haggle.

And I reserve the right to admit where I've haggled for too high a price. TX2009#9 was a frivolous recreational measure, "irrelevant" in the words of Janus. But against Janus I hold that in principle, private property shouldn't hold on the Coast. I voted "Nay" on it but I wish I had voted "Yea". Oh well, teach me to wait for the last minute before learning the issues; and at least it passed anyway.

Labels: apology, constitution, liberty

posted by Zimri on 16:31 | link |

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Military government in Texas

The military and civilian definitions of "order" differ; and in healthy nations there are strict roles for each, and even stricter rules for how they are to interact.

As a general principle, we don't want to live under martial law. Battlestar Galactica, in its second incarnation and earlier seasons, offered as good a reason as any: if the army is in charge, it becomes an occupation force, and an occupation force has to see the occupied civilians as the enemy. Eventually some punk will skateboard, or tag, somewhere it shouldn't and people will get shot.

Civilians revere the military when it's not ruling over them - and IMO, rightly so, as the enlisted servicemen and women have proven their loyalty to the people. Robert Heinlein understood that, and used this understanding in a bid to promote virtue in political society: that veterans should receive the franchise (and no-one else). This blog has had lukewarm-to-kind words to say about Heinlein's system here and here.

Somewhere between martial despotism and veteran aristocracy, we have the prospective of rule by military personnel who haven't yet earned their honourable discharge papers. This is the system which Texas has approved with its 7th constitutional amendment this year (hereby, "TX2009#7").

This is a VERY BAD idea, and even Heinlein wasn't proposing it. You can find a good argument in Janus's anti-endorsement.

I should have read the amendments weeks ago and raised a stink then. I did vote against it, and before that I directed readers over there; but that was clearly too little too late.

The Federal Government should implement a Constitutional clause which bans individual states from incorporating articles like TX2009#7. States which do as Texas has just done, have proven that they don't have the political wisdom to be States. A strict definition of honour would demand that our Senators and Representatives suspend their voting rights as long as TX2009#7 defines our State - and it's a sad observation of our current political situation that we can't afford to do that.

In the meantime the Oath Keepers, Sipsey Street Irregulars, Three Percenters and other pro-Constitutional groups need to get on this and see that Texas undoes its stupidity.

Labels: constitution, fascism, liberty

posted by Zimri on 17:05 | link |

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

A better Tea Party?

Well, this is heartening. (h/t, Insty.)

You'll recall that I went to the 3 July shindig, most of which offended me to the point of revulsion. I'm glad to see that the movement has improved.

Labels: conservatives, liberty

posted by Zimri on 23:55 | link |

V

This evening's plan is to watch V. I saw the first eight minutes online already. It looks pretty clever so far. I am crossing my fingers that it will be good. And that the regular season doesn't kill it.

[9:10 PM] Okay - seen it. 'Twas good. I hope the upcoming episodes are good too. I'm a little worried. The logic of this show is anti-Utopian and, therefore, anti-Progressive and anti-Obama.

The show exposits that the Vs have always been with us, creating the crisis that they're now here to save us from. That's an interesting idea... for anti-Progressives. In the real world, for the most part minus the lizard people, this is the argument anti-Progressives made against (for instance) the Community Reinvestment Act, and against ACORN and other exploiters of liberal government programmes.

Labels: liberty, media, progressives, propaganda

posted by Zimri on 17:44 | link |

Monday, November 02, 2009

Endorsements (for Texas and Houston)

I'm in Houston, which is not one of the exciting places like NY-23 or Virginia or New Jersey. I haven't been paying much attention. I was tempted not to vote at all.

But I'm a Right-leaning secularist, and I found another blog with similar views, so I'll outsource my endorsements to Janus for tomorrow's election.

Labels: liberty, republicans

posted by Zimri on 16:14 | link |

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Why freedom?

Conservatives, if they argue for freedom (as American Conservatives do), tend to justify it as a gift from God which no man may alienate. Liberals take God away and then proceed to alienate people of their freedom. Is this inevitable - are secularists bound to be crushers of peoples' dreams?

I think not. There are two arguments I can come up with, which support individual liberty against serfdom. This should work even for secularists.

Ayn Rand had one: morality can be constructed from the axiom �human life == good�. Liberty allows humans to live their lives; oppression does not. We might call this the mathematician�s libertarianism. It�s kind of... cold, but that�s Ayn Rand for you.

There�s also the school of thought that people have two innate drives: to avoid being crushed under someone else�s boot, and to be the person crushing others under your own boot. Libertarians understand that there are a limited number of job openings for boot-crusher. They also understand that even if they got to be one of the boot-crushers, they would no longer be able to enjoy the society of their peers; it�s a life of fear. So, liberty is better because it�s just easier and more fun to live that way.

I used to believe the former but I am leaning to the latter these days.

Labels: liberty, misanthropy, secularism

posted by Zimri on 16:40 | link |