Contemplating a Different World

I agree with IOZ's major points here, and I want to offer these additional thoughts.

By way of personal background: I haven't called myself a libertarian for several years. Even when I did, I wrote about what I called "contextual libertarianism," and that essay explains why I considered that approach so crucial. The essay proper was first published in November 2003, which seems a lifetime ago. In terms of how my ideas have progressed (and, I would hope, improved, but you will properly judge that for yourselves), the introductory comments I added to that post two years later were only another stop along a longer road. My view of both libertarianism, certainly as represented in contemporary American thought, and Ayn Rand has grown steadily more negative. One of these days, when I have time to kill completely -- I won't, so don't hold your breath -- I'll explain why I have virtually nothing positive to say about Rand, and a great deal to say which is negative in the extreme. The sole exception on the positive side of the ledger concerns a very limited aspect of her work, one which I view as meaningless given the totality of her views (although it does explain the very limited attraction her work once held for me, and which I mistakenly tried to convince myself represented a broader positive response). I recognize that some sort of Rand "resurgence" is occurring at the moment. I consider this renewed interest in Rand's work perfectly understandable, and I also view it as not remotely approaching a good thing. On second thought, I may have a few things to say about that in the future.

(I identified what is perhaps my most basic criticism of Rand in very broad terms in the introductory comments to this article: "I hope to return to the 'Systems of Obedience' series in a few months, after completing some other writing. And Rand's 'philosophy,' such as it is, fits perfectly into that series: despite the protestations of her followers and of Rand herself that her philosophy reveres reason and independence above all else, the opposite is true. With regard to how her ideas actually work in the lives and thought of her admirers and, I would submit, the only way those ideas can work, Rand's notions ultimately and inevitably reduce to a demand for obedience to principles that are often defended very poorly or barely at all, that are frequently incoherent and contradictory, and that are extraordinarily damaging, in ways both small and tragically large." As long-time readers will know, my entire life revolved around Rand and "Objectivism" for close to a decade, and I worked in the office of her last publication during its entire five years of existence in the 1970s. I had regular contact with Rand and all of her associates, and a few of them -- although certainly not Rand herself -- became very close friends. So I know all this from extensive and very painful personal experience, in addition to now considering all these observations to be fully and necessarily accurate given the nature of Rand's ideas and her approach themselves.)

I described my own journey in more detail just before my sixtieth birthday:

It is often noted that many people become more conservative as they age. The opposite is true in my case. Over the last three or four years in particular, I have become more and more radical. I once described my political beliefs as libertarian in nature -- although, I hasten to add and I think the record will show, my libertarianism was of the genuine and serious variety, as opposed to the utterly phony libertarianism that will be found in today's culture, and especially among many bloggers. I opposed the very dangerous authoritarianism of the Bush administration from the time I began blogging in September 2002, and I opposed the invasion of Iraq before it began. I always recognized that the corporatist-authoritarian state at home and an aggressively and violently interventionist foreign policy are inextricably linked, that they are but the two faces of the same coin. But as my political-cultural critique has hopefully deepened, my political views altered. I now describe myself as a leftist-anarchist: the leftist part of the description designates the cultural-economic-historical-political perspective I try to employ, while the anarchist label indicates that I view the State as the primary problem. As I have said (and I will have more to say about this at some point), I view anarchism as useful in theory only at this point, although the theory is of immense importance. Until and unless a critical number of individuals alter the primary motives that move most people (the desire for power and control, and the demand for obedience, being chief among them), any state of affairs approximating anarchism will lead only to more chaos and death. If humanity manages to evolve through several more stages, which assumes we don't kill ourselves in huge numbers in the meantime (a fragile hope, indeed), then peaceful anarchism might have a chance.

As to those circumstances in which anarchy would be immensely beneficial and life-enhancing and not merely destructive, I offered these further brief thoughts:

I will be writing more on the following point shortly, so now I only mention this glancingly: for anarchy even to be possible (and to be a positive good, rather than only immensely destructive), a profound transformation of human consciousness would be required. I don't mean that fancifully; I intend it quite literally. The disavowal of a single overriding authority -- a power that commands the obedience of all under its sway, under penalty of law -- could only rest on a radically different conception of our own nature and, of equal importance, of how we relate to one another, in contrast to the ideas almost all people accept today. In fact, I think evolution may take us to that point at some time in the future; there are small indications supporting that possibility to be found here and there. But I doubt it will occur on any significant scale when you or I will see it.

With regard to the State as the primary problem in political analysis and in our lives at present, I direct your attention to "The State and Full Spectrum Dominance," and especially to the Robert Higgs article I excerpt. From Higgs:

With regard to large-scale death and destruction, no person, group, or private organization can even begin to compare to the state, which is easily the greatest instrument of destruction known to man. All nonstate threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty, and therefore can be dealt with. Only states can pose truly massive threats, and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind invariably come to pass.

The lesson of the precautionary principle is plain: because people are vile and corruptible, the state, which holds by far the greatest potential for harm and tends to be captured by the worst of the worst, is much too risky for anyone to justify its continuation. To tolerate it is not simply to play with fire, but to chance the total destruction of the human race.

...

[E]verything that makes life without a state undesirable makes life with a state even more undesirable. The idea that the anti-social tendencies that afflict people in every society can be cured or even ameliorated by giving a few persons great discretionary power over all the others is, upon serious reflection, seen to be a wildly mistaken notion. Perhaps it is needless to add that the structural checks and balances on which Madison relied to restrain the government?s abuses have proven to be increasingly unavailing and, bearing in mind the expansive claims and actions under the present U.S. regime, are now almost wholly superseded by a form of executive caesarism in which the departments of government that were designed to check and balance each other have instead coalesced in a mutually supportive design to plunder the people and reduce them to absolute domination by the state.

All this goes to IOZ's observation that libertarianism's "relentless insistence on state-supremacy ... commits precisely the sin that [Howley} identifies: it reifies that which it claims to seek to undermine," which is entirely correct.

I note that I well understand the concerns that prompt IOZ's question, "why must you call yourselves anything at all?" -- which is in part why I always offer an explanation, however brief, as to precisely what I mean by the terms I employ, excepting only those contexts in which the meaning should be obvious. But using terms such as those I utilize here and in the above excerpts is not only useful, but unavoidable. We do, in fact, live in a particular culture at a particular time. All terms, including those of political self-description, have associations and meanings, even when they are vague and approximate, or represent even dubious connections. That is why it behooves us to explain what we mean when we use them. In the political context, we are building on thought which has evolved over hundreds, even thousands, of years. In significant part, we thus formulate our views in response to how those ideas have altered over time, as well as to how societies have changed. And when we conclude it is necessary or desirable, we reshape those ideas and their associated terms to our own ends, and/or we alter the terms we employ as required.

What I find of special interest are these comments from IOZ toward the conclusion of his entry: "What has [libertarianism] got to say about the construction of community, the nature of cooperative endeavor in the absence of coercion? Most libertarians aren't even willing to accept that property, their central fetish, is itself a cultural artifact, not a constant of nature." The property issue is an intriguing one, and it is undeniably true that the concept of "property" has manifested itself in countless forms throughout history, and sometimes vanished altogether. But that's a subject for another time.

Consider IOZ's preceding question, concerning "the construction of community, the nature of cooperative endeavor in the absence of coercion." Now that is a goddamned fascinating subject. Early this year, I offered somewhat related thoughts in the form of a fanciful fable, "The Tale That Might Be Told." I say "somewhat related," because that fable was primarily addressed to the centrality of coercion in our lives, and what might happen when that coercion was removed. I wrote that piece in the form of a "tale" because I hoped to bypass the strictures of our thought and approach the question on a more basic, even emotional, level. Contrary to what some peabrained critics thought, such a tale was never intended as any kind of explicit political program. It never occurred to me that a reader would believe I seriously entertained the prospect of a future where events actually unfolded in that manner. Here's a clue for the cognitively-impaired: not everything you read is a plan for political action, at least not on this blog. (Given the realities of our lives today and the ongoing deterioration, and even collapse, of the United States in every area, in either slow motion or on a faster schedule depending on events, it is much more likely that a major rupture and/or transformation will be accompanied by widespread violence, brutality and death. But such a naturalistic depiction of what the future may tragically hold had nothing at all to do with the purposes of my fable.)

There was one, but only one, real-life political point contained in my fable, and that is the idiocy of voting for national office. Local, even state, elections might have some limited purpose, although even that depends on circumstances of a particular kind. But voting on the national level for candidates of the two major parties -- and especially for president -- in our current, all-encompassing corporatist-authoritarian-militarist system is goldplated idiocy of the first degree, period. My extensive, indisputable proof, a proof which requires nothing further whatsoever, consists of but a single word: Obama. (If you tiresomely insist on a full proof, start here and follow the numerous links.)

Aside from that single issue, my fable sought to encourage people to consider what I often view as the only question that ultimately matters: What if...? What if there were no ultimate authority that dictated the manner in which you live? What if there were no State? For those with sincerely and deeply-held religious beliefs (which is not most people despite what they say, an issue I will soon be discussing in the tribalism series, along with many related issues), what if there were no God? What if you were free -- genuinely free of all outside compulsion, real or imagined -- to fashion your life in a way you chose in total independence, assuming nothing and questioning everything, with only those people as company who chose to join you in the effort? What would you do? How would you act? How would others act? What are the possibilities? Why those possibilities, and not others?

I'm sorry to disappoint you, if I do, but I don't have the answers. How could anyone have the answers? As my headline expresses the idea, it would be a completely different world. And as one of my earlier essays suggests, it would be a world resting "on a radically different conception of our own nature and, of equal importance, of how we relate to one another, in contrast to the ideas almost all people accept today." As against a world dominated by authority, obedience, control and violence, it would be a world where a critical number of people were primarily moved by the inviolable sanctity of an individual life, by genuine, profound compassion and empathy. Some of us seek to make that world real in our own lives to the extent we can -- but what if that world grew larger, if only to encompass a self-sustaining community linked to other similar communities?

I might be able to discern the general outlines of such a world, but I don't know the details of what it would look like or how it would operate. But isn't that worth thinking about? Making it real would be the joyous task of those of us who shared the vision. As we contemplate that vision and consider the possibilities, we see more clearly the limitations that restrict us in both thought and action today, in a world largely ruled by violence and cruelty, a world which all too often cripples and kills the innocent, those people who are most deserving of honor and protection.

Those moments in which we contemplate such matters are immensely valuable in themselves, and also for the light they shine on the issues and controversies that often overwhelm our daily lives. They can be a source of pleasure and inspiration, and even of joy and wonder. Such moments are often among the most precious we have, at least I find them so. And the inherent value of such moments must never be dismissed or underestimated, for it is crucial to the thought to which I often return these days:

Live ecstatically.

Read The Full Article:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/10/contemplating-different-world.html

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Mobile Devices

Unlike the posts over the weekend, this is one is just for tech geeks. It's about usage statistics at TPM for different kinds of mobile devices. If you're really a stats and tech geek, join me after the jump. Traffic analytics are not a perfect[...]

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Isn't That Sweet

Sometimes we need to just step back and remember that politicians, yes, even Republican politicians, are just like the rest of us; people who love their children and whose first concern is for their health:

... Rep. John Culberson among hundreds of people lined up to get the swine flu vaccine at a public clinic at the Arlington County Public Health Division headquarters Wednesday morning.

That in itself isn’t terribly newsworthy — the Texas Republican was there to get his daughter vaccinated, a spokeswoman told HOH.

Isn't that sweet? Taking time out of his busy day because of concern for his daughter's health? It warms the cockles of the heart, doesn't it?

Except for one tiny detail:

But our tipster noted Culberson’s visit to the clinic was "a little ironic since the Congressman voted against the funding that was used to purchase the vaccines in the first place."

Naturally Culberson's office dressed up his no vote as standing up for fiscal responsibility and in the interest of national security, but the fact remains, if Culberson had had his way, he wouldn't have been able to make sure that his daughter was protected against swine flu. Oh, wait a minute, yes he would have -- he has great health benefits.

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Gingrich 2012

If you  need any further evidence that the republican party is an eviscerated shell of it's former self, look no further than what disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on C-SPAN yesterday when asked if he would consider running for the republican nomination in 2012: "Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we'll decide, if there's a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there's not a requirement, if other people have filled the vacuum, I suspect we won't."

Callista...that would be Newt's third wife, the one for whom he converted to Catholicism after she got right in the confessional and told a priest about the torrid affair they had while he was still married to his second wife and leading the charge to impeach Bill Clinton for the blow job and the blue dress.

Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich. The guy who presented his first wife with divorce papers as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from cancer surgery, and who, after the divorce, failed to pay the child support he was responsible for.

The guy who shut down the government playing chicken with the Big Dog.

How the hell is this bastard respectable? How the hell can he even consider a run for the presidency when he was the first sitting Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives to be reprimanded for ethics violations? That mess ended with the House voting 395 to 28 to reprimand him for violations dating back to 1994 and the months preceding the midterm elections, and he was ordered to pay an unprecedented $300,000 penalty.

He resigned not just his gavel, but his congressional seat. In disgrace.

And he is thinking about a potential presidential run? I want to laugh, but I can't quite bring myself to chuckle, because if the Newt is the face of the republican party again, they really are so far gone that the party can't recover. And in a two-party system, that is a danger to our way of government, right down to our very foundations.  


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ich-2012

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Reid speaking now - Opt-out public option is in
the bill

Public option source of great discussion.

I've always been a strong supporter.

Not a silver bullet. Important way to assure competition and level the playing field.

Concluded, with support of WH, Dodd and Baucus, best way to move forward is have a public option with opt out.

Intend to include it in the bill.

Strong consensus to move forward. Sending bill in a few hours to CBO.

Lower cost, preserve choice, create competition, improve quality care.

States will have until 2014 to opt out.

Have 60 votes? As soon as back from CBO, I believe we'll clearly have the support of the caucus.

PO is fairest way to go, versus trigger.

Reid: Snowe doesn't want a public option at all, I hope she'll see the wisdom.

There will be a co-op in this bill. (Huh?)

Reid: Legislation is for the poor and middle class. (WRONG. It should be for everyone - all of us are just as screwed if we get really sick and our insurance cuts us off, if we hit a lifetime limit, if we can't afford our prescription drugs because Blue Cross only gives us $1500 a year and MS drugs cost $2000 a month (I know because a colleague's wife has MS).

Reid's prepared remarks, after the jump...

The last two weeks have been a great opportunity to work with the White House, Senators Baucus and Dodd, and members of our Caucus on this critical issue of reforming our health insurance system.

We have had productive, meaningful discussions about how to craft the strongest bill that can gain the 60 votes necessary to move forward in the Senate.

I feel good about progress we have made within our caucus and with the White House, and we are all optimistic about reform because of the unprecedented momentum that exists.

I am well aware that the issue of the public option has been a source of great discussion in recent weeks. I have always been a strong supporter of the public option.

While the public option is not a silver bullet, I believe it is an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients.

As we?ve gone through this process, I?ve concluded, with the support of the White House and Senators Baucus and Dodd, that the best way forward is to include a public option with an opt-out provision for states.

Under this concept, states will be able to determine whether the public option works well for them and will have the ability to opt-out.

I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system. It will protect consumers, keep insurers honest and ensure competition and that?s why we intend to include it on the bill that will be submitted to the Senate for consideration.

We have spent countless hours over the last few days in consultation with Senators who have shown a genuine desire to see reform succeed, and I believe there is strong consensus to move forward in this direction.

Today?s developments bring us another step closer to achieving our goal of passing a bill this year that lowers costs, preserves choice, creates competition and improves quality of care.

I?m happy to answer a few questions before I have to leave for a meeting.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/2-ljfcJsDmY/reid-press-conference-a
t-315pm-eastern.html

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Winning the Peace

With all the Bloviators pulling out their "Afghanistan=Vietnam" analogies, Joshua Kurlantzick writes in the Washington Post, that we should only be so lucky.

76 percent of Vietnamese say U.S. influence in Asia is positive, according to a 2008 study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs -- a greater percentage than in Japan, China, South Korea or Indonesia. When President Bill Clinton visited Vietnam in 2000, citizens greeted him like a rock star, mobbing him whenever he stepped out in public. Two-way trade now surpasses $15 billion annually, compared with virtually nothing in 1995, the year the two countries normalized diplomatic ties. American companies have descended upon Vietnam, and last year foreign direct investment in the country tripled compared with 2007.

Ever since President McKinley sent a declaration of War against Spain to Congress in April of 1898, the Washington Establishment has equated American influence with our military power. But as Intel builds new fab plants in Vietnam, we must understand that our real influence stems from our financial and cultural power. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan erode both of those sources of soft power.

Sponsored Topics: Vietnam - Washington Post - Asia - Afghanistan - United States

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Presented By:

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ConservaDems like Nelson would rather have states
"opt in" than "opt out": i.e., an uphill climb for the public option

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(h/t Heather)

I've been hearing from my sources that the ConservaDems in the House of Lords (The Senate) would rather have states be able to "opt in," rather than "opt out," of the public option in health-care reform. No matter how you feel about these proposals, the one Ben Nelson supports is a far, far worse plan than the other. Here's what he said on CNN's State of The Union:

KING: If there is a vote and Harry Reid needs 60, have you promised him, even if you disagree with the proposal and might vote no on the proposal, you would give him your vote on the procedural issue?

NELSON: I have made no promise. I can't decide about the procedural vote until I see the underlying bill. It would be, I think, reckless to say I'll support the procedure without knowing what the underlying bill consists of. And it's not put together yet. It's a draft -- it will be a draft bill some time next week, submitted the Congressional Budget Office for the review of the cost. And until I've seen a completed draft...

KING: Well, let me -- let me jump in, can you support...

NELSON: ... I'm not going to...

KING: Can you support a public option where states could opt out so there is a public option in the federal legislation, or will you only support a public option where the state would have to opt in, so there is not a national program already created?

NELSON: Well, I certainly am not excited about a public option where states would opt out or a robust, as they call it, robust government-run insurance plan. I'll take a look at the one where states could opt in if they make the decision themselves.

I understand what the other Senators are trying to do with the opt-out proposal -- which comes down to guaranteeing the public option an uphill, state-by-state battle -- but Ben Nelson in particular continually thwarts every effort to include a robust public option in America. I think he uses health insurance payoffs as a form of roughage to keep his bowels clear. And he still won't say if he'll give us an up-or-down vote. Schmuck.

Nelson must be looking to become a health insurance lobbyists once he leaves the Senate and since he takes the most cash from them---I imagine he has a gig already lined up.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/conservadems-nelson-rather-have-states

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ConservaDems like Nelson rather have states "opt
in" to than "opt out": i.e., an uphill climb for the public option

I've been hearing from my sources that the ConservaDems in the House of Lords (The Senate) would rather have states be able to "opt in," rather than "opt out," of the public option in health-care reform. No matter how you feel about these proposals, the one Ben Nelson supports is a far, far worse plan than the other. Here's what he said on CNN's State of The Union:

KING: If there is a vote and Harry Reid needs 60, have you promised him, even if you disagree with the proposal and might vote no on the proposal, you would give him your vote on the procedural issue?

NELSON: I have made no promise. I can't decide about the procedural vote until I see the underlying bill. It would be, I think, reckless to say I'll support the procedure without knowing what the underlying bill consists of. And it's not put together yet. It's a draft -- it will be a draft bill some time next week, submitted the Congressional Budget Office for the review of the cost. And until I've seen a completed draft...

KING: Well, let me -- let me jump in, can you support...

NELSON: ... I'm not going to...

KING: Can you support a public option where states could opt out so there is a public option in the federal legislation, or will you only support a public option where the state would have to opt in, so there is not a national program already created?

NELSON: Well, I certainly am not excited about a public option where states would opt out or a robust, as they call it, robust government-run insurance plan. I'll take a look at the one where states could opt in if they make the decision themselves.

I understand what the other Senators are trying to do with the opt-out proposal -- which comes down to guaranteeing the public option an uphill, state-by-state battle -- but Ben Nelson in particular continually thwarts every effort to include a robust public option in America. I think he uses health insurance payoffs as a form of roughage to keep his bowels clear. And he still won't say if he'll give us an up-or-down vote. Schmuck.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/conservadems-nelson-rather-have-states

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Ouch

Dem challenger, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) says "we can only guess" David Vitter's reasons for opposing the anti-rape amendment. In fairness, Vitter's thing seems to be paying for sex rather than forcing sex. But, well ... [...]

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