Category Archives: Political Philosophy

UPDATED: Thankful For BBC World News (Bang-Up Job On Same-Sex Marriage & More)

Bush, Family, Gender, Journalism, libertarianism, Media, Political Philosophy

Federalism, the right of individual states to decide, a case that should not have been brought before the Supreme Court of the United States for adjudication—these points of political philosophy should inform the American media’s reports on the case currently before the SCOTUS. They don’t! For such fleshed-out and nuanced reporting on California’s ban on same-sex nuptials, watch BBC World News.

BBC News’ Washington correspondent Jonny Dymond does a bang up job of not only answering every What, Where, When, Why and How journalists are obliged to address in a lede—but of providing a substantial level of abstraction and analysis, after discharging his duties as a correspondent.

All this without a hint of opinion. From his American counterparts expect the furrowed brow, the tsk-tsk, the clucking, the pouting and the noggin nodding—all to convey that the idiot anchor is on the side of the angels at all times, on all issues.

That’s when America’s news men and women aren’t openly opining.

I’m thankful for the much-maligned broadcaster. In general, BBC World News is a refuge from the anti-intellectualism and plain piss-poor news reportage you find on CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, and most other American cable and news networks.

UPDATE: Ideally, government should divorce itself from the nuptial business, heterosexual and homosexual. Ideally, religious institutions ought to act as the ministers of marriage. If marriage were thus privatized, conservatives would have to accept that some liberal churches and synagogues (the mullahs would resist) would wed homosexuals.

Exorcize The Neocon Within! (You Know You Are A Neocon If…)

Feminism, Foreign Policy, Gender, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Race, Reason, Republicans

Wear your amulets to ward off the neocons; they have us surrounded. Old Right, peace-loving classical liberals—to the extent we still exist—are never safe from accusations of appeasement (not wanting to kill innocents abroad), racism (believing in the right of the individual to associate and dissociate at will—once known as the right of private property), and lack of patriotism (wishing to see Rome’s military and marching camps downsized considerably).

Jack Kerwick provides a wonderfully exhaustive list in case you are in need of exorcism. I particularly appreciate the following more subtle points:

You talk tirelessly of individual responsibility even as you affirm political determinism when it comes to black Americans and Middle Eastern Muslims. All of the ills that plague black Americans you chalk up to the poisonous policies of the Democratic Party while all of the problems of which the Muslim world is ridden you attribute to its lack of “democracy.”
Even though Hispanics voted for Barack Obama by over 70 percent in November, and blacks voted for him by over 90 percent, you insist that the only reason for this is that Republicans have failed to “reach out” to these groups. If only their members knew what the Republican Party could do for them (more political determinism), you imply, they would flock to the GOP, for blacks, and particularly Hispanics, are “natural conservatives.”
You make claims regarding the “natural conservatism” of Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants that you would never think to make about Muslims—even though, by many measures, Muslims are far more “conservative” than Hispanics and white Americans alike.

I would add that neocons, led by their fairly stupid eye candy on the idiot’s lantern—S. E. Cupp (“Another Mouth in the Republican Fellatio Machine”) and Dana Perino (“the Heidi Klum of the commentariat”) come to mind, or just mediocre minds like that of Andrea Tarantula—all argue from feminism. Their gender based commentary is that of the left, with a difference: They claim that the GOP is the natural home of women—just as it is the party of black and Hispanic homies.

Glass ceilings, 70 cents to a man’s dollar: These are the stock “arguments” made by skimpily clad (usually single and childless) Republican/neoliberal women on TV.

The Republican Party’s operatives seldom challenge the pay inequality folderol. The Daily Caller’s take on gender reflects the mindset of your typical Republican toots; it enforces the Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber perspectives we’ve come to expect from the Democrats and the Republicans, respectively. The correspondent protested Nancy Pelosi’s pay equity protest, staged in Washington, D.C. the other day.
In the typical tit-for-tat, rudderless case the Republicans excel at making, this reporter condemned Pelosi—but not for her bogus theory of pay inequality, but for her hypocrisy. To wit: “…a report in the Washington Free Beacon … revealed that women working for Senate Democrats in 2011 had an average salary of $60,877, whereas male staffers made about $6,500 more. Pelosi chose not to condemn the Democratic senators,’ complained the Daily Caller’s cub (female) reporter.
Implicit in this accusation is that the wage discrepancy reported spoke to the widely accepted conspiracy to suppress women’s wages. Had this reporter been capable of argument, this is what she’d say: “We commend you, Mrs. Pelosi, for not practicing the nonsense you preach and, paying your staffers in accordance with their productivity” (a term you can’t honestly apply to the wealth-consuming government worker, but which we will, for the sake of argument). …

Yes, Republican twits and turncoats have even joined the war on older, white men.

UPDATED: Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?

Ethics, Labor, libertarianism, Morality, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Ron Paul, Taxation

“Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?” is the current column, now on WND. Here’s an excerpt:

“Rand Paul is front-and-center in mainstream media, showing what some call ‘leadership.’ Not a week goes by when the son of Ron Paul—the legendary libertarian legislator from Texas—is not introducing one Act or another, ostensibly to lighten the incubus of government.

This week it’s the REINS Act (‘Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013’). Last week it was the ‘Sequester Alternative Plan.’

I like the Senator from Kentucky’s energy. The question is: Is this political Brownian motion—the case of activity substituting for achievement—or real Randian energy in furtherance of liberty? …

… Rand Paul’s latest political song and dance saw the senator return $600,000 in savings, accrued in the course of running a cost-efficient office, to the US Treasury, where it does not belong.

The savings belong to taxpayers. Stolen goods stuffed down the maw of the federal beast will disappear without trace. For all we know, and given the fact of fungibility, these savings could be diverted into the domestic drone program.

Yes, Sen. Paul followed legal protocol in returning taxpayer property to the Treasury. However, the positive man-made law is not a libertarian loadstar. From the son of Ron more is expected.

But should this be the case? Perhaps Rand Paul deserves a break.

All too familiar is the libertarian type that has nothing to say about policy and politics for fear of compromising theoretical purity. Suspended as he is in the arid arena of pure thought, this specimen has opted to live in perpetual sin: the sin of abstraction.

The ‘ideal of liberty,’ philosopher-pundit Jack Kerwick has urged, must be ‘brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.’

But should the command to lead an earthbound existence push us into political compromises? …”

The complete column is “Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?” Read it on WND.

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UPDATE (Marc 1): “On the heels of Barack Obama’s Las Vegas run-on ramble on the necessity of immigration ‘reform,’ this week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced that he too had ‘evolved’ overnight on the issue. “I’m … open-minded enough to say that it is an issue that we do need to evolve on,” the senator vaporized.”

The Republicans found religion on immigration, and so did Rand Paul “evolve” along with them.

Rand Paul: Political Performance Artist, Or Action Hero?

Economy, Government, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Ron Paul, The State

The purist in me recoils at Sen. Rand Paul’s latest political performance art. As Glenn Beck reports, the senator from Kentucky “took the $500,000 in savings he had from running a frugal, cost-efficient office and returned it to the treasury.”

“Hey, Senator Paul, wait a minute. You know better,” I want to shout. “That money you’ve returned to Treasury in a grand gesture doesn’t belong there, it belongs to taxpayers. Why stuff stolen goods down the maw of the federal beast, into which scarce resources only ever disappear without trace, and where everything is fungible? Rand’s $500,000 could be directed into the domestic drone program. See what I’m saying? The principles absolutist in me rejects many of Rand’s gestures. On the other hand, what American doesn’t like an action hero?! I like Rand Paul’s energy.

The question: Is this Randian energy or Brownian Motion?

Rand Paul is front-and-center in media, showing what some people like to call “leadership,” a contemptible phrase, I know. The libertarian Paul is a pragmatist, whereas his father, Ron Paul, is an idealist.

So far, I’ve been critical of Rand’s compromises, but perhaps he deserves more support? After all, have I not condemned the sin of abstraction we libertarians tend to commit, writing against the libertarian “specimen that has nothing to say about policy and politics for fear of compromising precious libertarian purity”?

Suspended as he is in the arid arena of pure thought, this species of libertarian will settle for nothing other than the immediate and absolute application and acceptance of the non-aggression axiomatic ideal. And since utopia will never be upon us, he opts to live in perpetual sin: THE SIN OF ABSTRACTION.

Ambition no doubt has a lot to do with Rand Paul’s positions, but, boy, is he a doer. The question is, is he doing the right things?

Here’s Paul putting in a good performance over the sequester nonsense:

PAUL …for goodness sakes, it was [Obama’s] proposal. He proposed the sequester. It was his idea. He signed it into law, and now he’s going to tell us that, oh, it’s all our fault?
I voted against the sequester because I didn’t think it was enough. The sequester cuts the rate of growth of the spending, but the sequester doesn’t even really begin to cut spending, which we have to do or we are going to get a credit downgrade, another credit downgrade.
BLITZER: So you don’t think that the $85 billion this year, that would be the forced cuts this year, from your perspective, that’s not enough?
PAUL: It’s a pittance. I mean, it’s a slowdown in the rate of growth. There are no real cuts happening over 10 years.
Over 10 years, the budget will still grow $7 trillion to $8 trillion. He added $6 trillion to the debt in his first term. He’s on course to add another $4 trillion to $6 trillion in his second term. So, really, this is just really nibbling at the edges, and he’s saying, oh, it’s some dramatic thing where all of a sudden it’s still the rich’s fault.
Didn’t he already raise taxes on the rich? I’m having trouble even understanding what he’s talking about because he sets up this rhetoric and this sort of game of let’s go get the rich again that really is divorced from any reality. It’s his sequester we’re talking about, his bill.