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Welcome to The Distributed Republic, a blog community started by the members of the original Catallarchy blog. We blog from a classical liberal viewpoint on a variety of topics. Feel free to start your own blog by registering on the sidebar. There are no broad restrictions on viewpoints as long as a civil tone is maintained.
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Your Future
Submitted by Jacob Lyles on Tue, 2010-02-09 05:05.I'm not sure which is more frightening: the dystopian future presented in this advertisement, or the fact that a company thought this vision would appeal to some people.
I'm sure the specific numbers are already being gloated about
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Mon, 2010-02-08 18:34.How handy for Daniel Pipes that the thing he wants most in the entire world--the destruction of as many Iranians as militarily feasible--is exactly what would reinject some vim and vigor back into Obama's presidency! Oh happy day, except for civilized people all over the world.
Saints Win
Submitted by Jonathan Wilde on Mon, 2010-02-08 00:01.I'm not a fan of any professional sports team, so I watch professional football only as a fan of the game. I did, however, want to see the Saints win this one. Though I've never been there, I'm a fan of the culture of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans--the bayou, cajuns, bourbon street, jazz, the blues, A Confederacy of Dunces, etc. Forty years is a long time to wait.
Unlike most professional sports teams, their nickname actually has something to do with the city, having its origin in the song "When the Saints go Marching in". They once had a basketball team with a similarly awesome name, the New Orleans Jazz, but that team moved to Utah, and now the land of Mormons has a basketball team nicknamed "the Jazz".
The player on the field with the most Cajun sounding name, Pierre Garçon, was wearing blue and white. He's of Haitian ancestry, not Cajun. (Note: yelling out "Garçon!!" in a French accent when he makes a catch will elicit guffaws every single time.) Former Virginia Tech standout Pierson Prioleau, now a Saints backup comes close, as does running back Pierre Thomas.
If the Colts had won, Peyton Manning was on track to be considered perhaps the all-time best quarterback in NFL history. He would have had two Super Bowl wins, 4 NFL MVPs, and yearly league domination. However, now that title is probably permanently unreachable for him. His interception, even though it wasn't his fault, will forever taint his career compared to the perfect four Super Bowls of Joe Montana.
Drew Brees, on the other hand, has suddenly catapulted himself into elite company. He is now in the company of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Ben Roethlisberger as one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. What a game, and what a playoff run.
I liked the song accompaniment to the Dante's Inferno commercial.
Instead of "Hell Awaits", the final scene was supposed to read "Go to Hell." However, that version didn't pass the CBS muster, and the ending was changed.
It seems like there is a Moore's Law of Super Bowl halftime bands: they become exponentially older every year.
When I was a kid, the Super Bowl was always a blowout. They've been great games the last few years.
Crystal Ball
Submitted by Don Lloyd on Sun, 2010-02-07 12:30.---------------------------------
By 2050, how many European countries will be ruled by military dictatorships following the breakup of the EU?
Regards, Don
Climate Strange
Submitted by Jonathan Wilde on Sat, 2010-02-06 15:43.This is the Washington D.C. area's second two-foot snowstorm of the winter, something I doubt has happened in over 50 years.
**Insert joke about Federal Government being stalled**
**Insert joke about Climate Change**
The lost Tea Party
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Sat, 2010-02-06 03:19.Whatever momentum the Tea Party movement had--and I view this as a separate movement from the one that arose around Ron Paul--they're now going to squander it entirely.
Historical Precedent for Spending Cuts?
Submitted by Jonathan Wilde on Thu, 2010-02-04 18:18.The resurgence of small-government populism has got me excited. I know tax cuts are viable because they've happened before. Top marginal rates have been in the 70s in my lifetime. A few European countries have adopted flat tax policies. Americans like the idea of tax cuts.
What I'm more pessimistic about is spending cuts. I don't think spending has been cut in a significant way in my lifetime. The last time major spending cuts were talked about (that I can remember) was after 1994, but that was short-lived as people freaked out about Newt Gingrich taking away their Social Security and Medicare.
This paints a mixed picture: tax cuts could potentially improve the economy and raise tax revenues provided we're to the right of the Laffer maximum. But at best, the result will be like the 1990s when the budget was (almost) briefly balanced under Clinton. Then some other crisis will cause spending to increase again.
Is there any historical precedent for large-scale spending cuts? Can we point to a time and place in the past and say, "That's our example of what should happen today"?
The Scandalously Non-scandalous Scandal
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Thu, 2010-02-04 16:56.The bounds of respectable political discourse in Europe are waaaay different than they are in the U.S.A. For instance, what mentions Climategate got here focused on the fact that climate data were completely and artificially manipulated in what was an at least loosely organized effort. This team conspired to block competing viewpoints from the discussion and "lost" raw unmanipulated data when it was requested.
And in Europe, they think that intelligence agencies from oil-producing companies were behind the exposé of this manipulation. And the exposé is the scandal, not the falsification.
Even if it's true that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or Russia (or all three) were behind it, um, who cares? If there was a systematic effort to falsify data that have massive, worldwide policy implications, that needs to get worked out.
This is the empire
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Thu, 2010-02-04 15:03.I'm used to wishing I hadn't read articles about the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the complete indifference to human rights on the part of the occupation forces. So many of them turn my stomach and sour my mood knowing that these things are being done (partially in my name) so frequently and with so little reaction from Americans. If you're not ready to deal with reality, don't read this, the story of a man pointlessly imprisoned for years and tortured at Guantánamo. The only upshot is that he resisted with manly fortitude and was eventually released.
Embedded in that story is another one, also frightening on two accounts. An American soldier who was a guard at Guantánamo was the subject of a training exercise wherein he dressed as a prisoner, and other guards were to "pratice" "extracting" him. This guy was beat nearly to death and given permanent brain injuries before they figured out he was part of their gang. (The video evidence, of course, was destroyed immediately, and nothing of consequence happened to the thugs.) If this happened to him it surely must happen in other situations that we know less about.
The second thing, the cruel icing on the cake, is this:
"So, if you got your health back, I take it, after your experience with the Army, you’d never serve again," Simon asks Baker.
"I’d be in," says Baker. "Till the day I die."
This guy is so brainwashed that he can't even wrap his mind around the nature of the organization that did this to him and abjectly refuses to correct it even in the smallest way. He ought to know better more than almost anybody, and he doesn't.
A Tale of Two Systems
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Wed, 2010-02-03 12:53.This one can't wait until our May Day memorial:
Here are the two most shattering facts about North Korea. First, when viewed by satellite photography at night, it is an area of unrelieved darkness. Barely a scintilla of light is visible even in the capital city. (See this famous photograph.) Second, a North Korean is on average six inches shorter than a South Korean. You may care to imagine how much surplus value has been wrung out of such a slave, and for how long, in order to feed and sustain the militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people.
Six inches?! North and South Koreans formed a common genetic pool until the Korean War, and now they differ on average by six inches in height? If we needed a clearer sign that Stalinism is always and everywhere an economic failure, this is it.
The Libertarian Argument For You To Drop Dead
Submitted by John T. Kennedy on Tue, 2010-02-02 21:23.Fukuyama via Caplan:
The second argument [against life extension] --and this should appeal to libertarians that take individual choice seriously--is really a question of the social consequences of life extension. Life extension seems to me a perfect example of something that is a negative externality, meaning that it is individually rational and desirable for any given individual, but it has costs for society that can be negative. I think if you want to understand why this is so, you just think about why evolution makes us, why we die in the first place, why in the process of evolution populations are killed off. I think it clearly has an adaptive significance, and in human society generational succession has an extremely important role. There is the saying among economists that the science of economics proceeds one funeral at a time, and in a certain sense a lot of adaptations to new situations--politically, socially, environmentally--really depend on one generation succeeding another.
Now if that's true then how could we best accelerate the progress of the science of economics, let me think....
Pick up that can
Submitted by Scalping_Elmo on Tue, 2010-02-02 17:35.
Hey, all right! it appears that the Grammy's also made sure to push the police state agenda. What am I talking about? Well, Beyonce and her ode to JBT's - thats Jack Booted Thugs for the uninitiated - that garnered so much applause. If you do not see a problem with the blatant, over the top militarism that gets pumped into homes on a nightly basis, I guess you can just enjoy Beyonce as much as you please.
The lyrics may not have been overtly obscene or laden with bloodthirsty jingoism, but the imagery certainly was. The site of men in black armor goose-stepping in sequence to the sound of applause is frightening. I am reminded of the scene from the 3rd Indiana Jones film. Nazi's prancing about with wooden heels, carrying banners in torchlight all while der Koniggratzer plays in the background. How delightfully civic minded!
This is all incredibly reminiscent of some prison documentary I had seen. CERT, otherwise known as Corrections Emergency Response Teams routinely parade down the halls - stomping their feet in unison - prior to making a hard entry into a cell. This type of psychological warfare is intended to get the subject to submit before the JBT's with taser-shields go in and give them a serious ass kicking. Can you imagine being pinned to your bed with one of those until you comply?
Omar Deghayes doesn't need to imagine torture at the hands of civil servants, his story is far worse. When I view these things I see a systemic problem, one that requires more than just structural changes, but indeed a whole new foundation.
Society is rotten to the core. Democracy is a joke that brings us unaccountability and places like GITMO. I find myself leaning more towards Hoppe by the day. Democracy is the god that failed, the experiment should end now. Instead of now it will happen later, when inevitable central bank failure will place democracy in the trash heap alongside the US Dollar hegemony. Then what?
I guess those who survive will decide.
P.S. Before I forget. If you intend on resisting just remember that when they tell you to pick up that can in real life, you had better hope you made a shank out of your toothbrush this morning. Just don't store it in your prison wallet.
Adam's Family Jewels
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Tue, 2010-02-02 14:41.John Payne hipped me to a great article about how dirty the Bible really is. Highly recommended. Here's the intro:
“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and He took the bone of Adam’s penis and made him a woman.”
Er, wait, wasn’t it from one of Adam’s ribs that Eve was created?
Not according to Ziony Zevit. A professor of Semitic languages at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles Zevit posits that the Hebrew word tsela (literally “side,” but traditionally translated as “rib”) employed in Genesis refers in fact to Adam’s member.
The Culinary Grammys
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Mon, 2010-02-01 14:35.I'm thinking of starting my own awards ceremony: the Culinary Grammys. Each year we'd reward truly outstanding culinary creations in the same way that the Grammys reward musical excellence. This year's best burger winner: McDonald's. Best restaurant: T.G.I. Friday's.
I haven't decided on the other ones yet--I mean, the experienced, knowledgeable judges haven't decided on the other ones yet. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.
Structuralists @Cato
Submitted by Jacob Lyles on Mon, 2010-02-01 14:29.Cato offers some marginal structuralist ideas in lieu of campaign finance reform:
Life Terms Members of Congress serve for life. Few special interests will throw money at the political process in this system, because the cycle of funding and response won’t exist anymore. Elections will be hard to predict and infrequent, and once the election’s over, the member-elect can vote however he wants till he kicks the bucket. Parties and partisanship will be vastly weaker — also a good thing as reformers see it.
Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment We hear much about the corporate influence in politics, and many worry that it is bought through campaign contributions. The solution to the problem of faction, as our founders understood it, was not to prohibit faction, which would restrict liberty, but to set one faction against another. Let the corporate interests have the House of Representatives. The Senate will once more be elected by state legislatures, which will use their powers to advance interests not necessarily in line with the corporate agenda. Faction will check faction, and free speech will survive.
Election by Lot In ancient Athens, important officers were commonly chosen by lottery among all the citizens. This method, called sortition, may be asking a bit much of our citizens today, but it would certainly end the problem of shady campaign contributions. This measure would be most effective if it came with a life pension for former members, to avoid all fears of bribery and to compensate citizens for their interrupted lives.
The Old Legislators’ Home Much like sortition, ostracism has a fine pedigree in western democracy. Here’s to bringing it back.
We hear a lot about the “revolving door” between lobbying and serving in Congress. Let’s end it once and for all, not by restricting lobbying groups, but by restricting congressmen. Whenever anyone retires from Congress, they aren’t allowed to go back to work in the private sector… as anything. They’re permanently retired.
We’ll send them to the remote, though very pleasant, Hawaiian island of Molokai, where they will be maintained in idleness, with all reasonable expenses paid, for the rest of their lives. (An inducement to early retirement would also do much of the same good work as term limits.)
Unlike Seasteading, these ideas are too dependent on the whims of the majority of a Democratic populace to ever get enacted. But it's still good to see people think outside of the policy box from time to time.
Lefty Structuralists
Submitted by Jacob Lyles on Sun, 2010-01-31 20:29.Lessig makes a structuralist case against US Govcorp
The Second Vermont Republic
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Sun, 2010-01-31 12:47.There's something awesome brewing in Vermont: a secessionist campaign. If you recall, during the Revolution Vermont was its own republic, and the group is aptly titled Second Vermont Republic.
A former Duke University economics professor, Naylor heads up the Second Vermont Republic, which he describes as "left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar, with small is beautiful as our guiding philosophy." The group not only advocates the peaceful secession of Vermont but has minted its own silver "token" — valued at $25 — and, as part of a publishing venture with another secessionist group, runs a monthly newspaper called Vermont Commons, with a circulation of 10,000. According to a 2007 poll, they have support from at least 13% of state voters. The campaign slogan, Naylor told me, is "Imagine Free Vermont."
...
Another member, Dennis Steele, points out:
"People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes. We live in a nation that is asleep at the wheel and where the hearts are growing cold like ice."
Obviously, I recommend you get on over there and read it.
Intellectual Privilege and Pharmaceutical Patents
Submitted by Micha Ghertner on Sat, 2010-01-30 23:22.Back when healthcare-debate status signaling/peer pressure was all the rage on the Facebook, Glen Whitman had an insightful comment in response to a call for more government intervention. I can't link directly to the comment because it's on Facebook, but one portion of his response stuck out:
Here's the fact: the vast majority of important medical advances over the last 40 years have been made in the U.S. This is true despite the fact that the EU has a population 50% larger than ours. Why? Well, there are lots of factors. But surely one important factor is monetary compensation; that is, profit. U.S. pharmaceutical sales account for 45% of worldwide pharma sales. The prospect of profit is the incentive for companies to create new products. Other countries, with price controls and supply-based restrictions, contribute much less on a per capita basis. Those countries are, in effect, free-riding on the financial contributions of Americans to medical research.
I have not yet read all of Tom Bell's work on IP (Bell is Glen's co-blogger at Agoraphilia), but I know he is some kind of IP skeptic. How would Tom approach the pharmaceutical innovation argument Glen makes here? After all, patents are a form of government (or at least legal system) granted monopoly. Maybe this form of government intervention is justified on economic efficiency grounds, but maybe it isn't. And it is certainly more difficult -- if not impossible -- to justify government granted monopolies on non-consequentialist, deontological grounds. (So much the worse for deontology, says the consequentialist.)
I'm not sure what pointing out other countries' price controls and free-riding does for Glen's argument. A government granted monopoly is a lot like a price control - monopolies by definition set price by reducing quantity supplied relative to what price and quantity would be under a competitive market.
Further, wouldn't it be in our "national interest" (ugh) to free-ride on other countries' innovations? If our system of government granted monopolies is just as artificial and contrived (and some would argue anti-free-market) as other countries' price controls and supply-based restrictions, what evidence is there to justify the current arrangement? Perhaps if we reduced the financial incentive to innovate by lessening the duration of pharmaceutical patents (to zero?), other countries would be less able to free-ride and have greater incentive to contribute to the global public good of advancing human knowledge and technology.
Question for Open Borders Folks
Submitted by Jacob Lyles on Sat, 2010-01-30 13:57.What do believers in open borders do about terrorists who want to immigrate, or other people of an unsavory character? What if the extent of a potential immigrant's transgressions was praising terrorists in public press? He hasn't actually harmed anyone, so to prevent him from immigrating would be unjust according to an open borders philosophy.
I think it clear that the government should prevent such a person from immigrating. In the worst case scenario, he is actually a peaceful person and our country will lose a tiny bit of economic benefit through the loss of economic exchange with him. But if he is not a peaceful person then the decision to let him immigrate is disastrous.
Odd Ends
Submitted by Jacob Lyles on Fri, 2010-01-29 04:29.In discussing politics, I prefer to focus on outcomes over ethics. This sounds like I am taking a stand on the ageless means versus ends controversy but I'm not. Rather I consider the use of good means to be part of a good outcome. Means and ends are fungible; they can be traded off against each other.
To sum up my political values in one phrase: I don't like to treat people poorly and I don't like for awful things to happen. This captures the way that many people think about politics, maybe even most people.
However, libertarians tend to elevate means above ends to an extent that is unpalatable to the popular conscience. The standard way that libertarians wiggle out of this criticism is to deny that libertarian means ever lead to anything but the best possible outcomes. But that is when the movement takes on an air of a religious phenomenon - economic scientology. It assumes the existence of a benevolent world that is not guaranteed.
If you can't think of one instance where libertarian policy might create a sub-optimal outcome under some circumstances, then we're not going to have very interesting policy conversations. Anyways, I'd rather discuss structure instead of policy.
Libertarian ethics has a weird effect when it comes to the policy decisions which shape the substantive character of the world in which we live. Current governments possess an odorless, colorless quality called "publicness", and therefore libertarian ethics condemns these entities as illegitimate managers of the land they possess. Moreover, it strictly limits the policies they may ethically pursue. Governments may not create a public safety net which alleviates the worst suffering of citizens from sudden illness or injury - the taxes to pay for it would be coercive. Nor may governments seek to shape immigration policy in favor of well-educated and highly-skilled persons, or prevent pollution in situation where the cost of doing so through courts is infeasible (e.g. pigovian gas taxes), or offer incentives to have children to a population breeding below the replacement rate. A manager cursed with the quality of publicness must sit on its hands and hope that everything works out for the best.
But in some future world where all governments have passed through at least a momentary period of "privateness" (think seasteads or burbclaves) libertarian ethics allows managers to enact any set of policies they damn well please. If every government in the world were a fundamentalist theocratic mormon dictatorship that flogged gays and banned coffee, libertarian ethics would consider that perfectly fine as long as the management was put in place by some legitimate owner.
Libertarian ethics can lead to weird outcomes in some extreme circumstances, outcomes that most libertarians wouldn't like. I suggest we should allow outcomes to shape our decisions in concert with our ethics so we can live in a world that is pleasant to be in and not just a world that satisfies all the checkboxes of our moral philosophy.
This is the Libertarian Paradox again. It is also a good case for Moldbug's Formalism, which is less about ethical navel gazing and more about designing governments that have the incentive to function well.
Yes We Can! get away with murder
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Thu, 2010-01-28 17:54.Chris Floyd's excellent blog contains a new entry in response to the disgusting circus known as the State of the Union Address:
As the overflow of pundit effluent after the State of the Union speech continues to sulfurize the political air, Glenn Greenwald brings up a background point that we have been hammering on about here for years: i.e., the fact that the President of the United States claims the arbitrary right to kill anyone on earth -- including U.S. citizens -- without charges, without trial, without warning.
As I first wrote in November 2001, George W. Bush proclaimed this divine power shortly after 9/11. And as we have often noted (here, for example), Barack Obama has reaffirmed this megalomaniacal principle. Greenwald focuses on the latest, and one of the most brazen, assertions of the doctrine of presidential murder: the Obama Administration's casual compiling of "hit lists" of people in Yemen that it wants to assassinate, including at least three U.S. citizens. (Fittingly enough, one of the first people murdered by Bush's universal murder racket was an American citizen in Yemen. Continuity, continuity, in all things continuity!)
I like Floyd's stronger wording, so I quote him here, but Greenwald's article is also great.
"Suck on that, Supremes!"
Submitted by Jonathan Wilde on Wed, 2010-01-27 23:40.The Brown victory over Coakley has reignited an interest in politics for me; I don't know how long it will last. For the first time in many years, I watched the SOTU instead of American Idol.
One part that struck me was this surreal scene in which the POTUS shames the Supreme Court in front of the entire audience:
Edit: Here's Randy Barnett's take:
In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.
When people begin to speak with, "No offense, but..." what they actually intend to say is offensive. When Obama says, "With all due deference to separation of powers...." what he actually means is, "Screw this separation of powers stuff."
Every time I listen to Obama, he speaks as if the Presidency is an Emperorship.
Market 1, Chavez 0
Submitted by Arthur B. on Wed, 2010-01-27 19:33.Yesterday came an awesome piece on news hasn't been spread enough so here it is.
It is strongly reminiscent of a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing for the same thing... dump the US gold reserve to burn the nutty right wing hoarders. Some nutty right wing hoarders said in the comment: Bring it on, we'll be here to buy.
Well Chavez tried to do something quite similar. Prop up his failing currency by dumping his foreign reserves on the market. And guess what? The evil speculators thanked him and sucked up the money.
Of course, those greedy speculators artificially devalue the great revolutionary bolivar by manipulating the market, but somehow a huge oil exporting nation sitting on a ridiculous amount of foreign exchange reserves is unable to manipulate anything. Manipulation works in mysterious ways ^^
Now don't get me wrong, dumping one's reserve in dollar might be a good thing, but if you're going to do that
- You do not brag about it. Trading 101. You do it stealthily like the Chinese. When the Chinese central bank say they don't want to buy more Gold, it's dumb to believe them, that's what they'd say regardless.
- You do not exchange it against your moronic socialist currency that you're simultaneously working to devalue.
All in all, this is evidence that markets work pretty damn well.
Doing business in an anti-business culture
Submitted by Randall McElroy iii on Wed, 2010-01-27 13:57.A lot of legal climates are fairly hostile to business, but there's a deeper problem in some places, which is that the culture is also hostile. Legal climates can change drastically in the short term, but cultural attitudes are much slower-moving. Here's how one group tries to change their culture, a little at a time. I'll keep my fingers crossed for them.
Pirate Government Pirates
Submitted by Jacob Lyles on Wed, 2010-01-27 01:26.Econ Talk is my new addiction. Today I listened to Patri's interview on seasteading and I had a thought on the problem of piracy.
One of the obvious difficulties with seasteading that occurs to everyone when they first hear of it is the problem of pirates. Seasteading supporters often respond to these fears by noting that pirates will not have an incentive to attack seasteads because the vessels will provide little booty of value compared to the pirates' normal prey, cargo ships.
But this answer is incomplete. There is one obvious piece of booty of high value on a seastead, namely the seastead itself. What pirate wouldn't kill to have a permanent, mobile, highly-engineered, self-sustaining sea base?
My objection is not unanswerable. I get the impression that most modern pirate operations are small and located in coastal waters, so it isn't hard to avoid or outgun them. Pirates would have to make major changes to their organizational strategy to pursue well-defended seasteads in deep ocean waters. But given the value of a seastead, making the change may just cross the 1:1 benefit/cost ratio threshold.