Huckabee in tonight’s debate:
They have a saying in the Air Force: If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target. Well, I’m catching the flak, so I must be over the target.
Isn’t there some sort of term for this?
Archive | January, 2008
Libertarian Tag
William Gillis has tagged me with the question: What motivated you to start looking into Anarchist/Libertarian thought?
I’ve got a long version here, but the short version is: as a 15-year-old science fiction fan I read an article on “The Science Fiction of Ayn Rand” in the May 1979 Starlog; this led me to Ayn Rand’s novels, which led me to her nonfiction, which led me to read people she cited, and then to people they cited, and so on; hence I was soon reading Murray Rothbard, Isabel Paterson, David Friedman, etc. I resisted anarchism for an embarrassingly long time – but I was gradually growing more radical, thanks to my reading, to the influence of the Institute for Humane Studies (including such lecturers as Randy Barnett and Don Lavoie), and to events like the first Gulf War. On May 12, 1991, I decided I had finally become an anarchist.
I hereby tag everybody.
Chambers Film in the Works?
I see that this website lists The Repairer of Reputations as an upcoming film, but gives no further information.
“The Repairer of Reputations” is a short story by Robert W. Chambers, written in 1895 but set in 1920; it also serves as the first chapter of Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a collection of inter-related fantasy stories that exercised an important influence on H. P. Lovecraft.
“Repairer” takes place in a future in which something vaguely resembling World War I has occurred and the American progressive movement has achieved political ascendancy under a President Winthrop, who has introduced a comprehensive program of centralised bureacucracy, aggressive nationalism, extensive public works and urban renewal projects (with an emphasis on neoclassical marble edifices), a nationalised police force, severe racial cleansing laws (including “the exclusion of foreign-born Jews as a measure of self-preservation”), and tax-funded euthanasia chambers in every town (to encourage the unhealthy and maladjusted to relieve the community of their presence).
The Wikipedia page for the story says that these features of the projected future society reflect “the author’s xenophobic tendencies.” I wonder what the basis for this latter bit of speculation is. For all I know Chambers did have xenophobic tendencies, but I don’t think this story by itself is evidence of them. Are the wikipedists assuming that Chambers approves of the society he depicts? Admittedly the narrator obviously approves of it – but the narrator is also pretty clearly intended to be recognised as unreliable, and in fact insane. It seems at least as likely to me that Chambers is satirising the proto-fascist political tendencies of his day. But I await correction from those who have read more of Chambers’ other works than I have.
Etiquette Lessons from Shakespeare, Part 1
INCORRECT:
KENT: Is not this your son, my lord?
GLOUCESTER: His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush’d to acknowledge him, that now I am braz’d to it.
KENT: I cannot conceive you.
GLOUCESTER: Sir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon she grew round-womb’d, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?
KENT: I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.
GLOUCESTER: But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.
CORRECT:
KENT: Is not this your son, my lord?
GLOUCESTER: Yes.
Please Go Away
There are websites that will host a petition, for free, so I’m planning an anarchist one; I’m curious how many signers I’d get. Here‘s a draft. Feedback? Suggestions for rewording? (I want to make it generic enough that anarchists of multiple flavours could sign on.)
To all those currently exercising positions of responsibility in the Government of the United States of America, whether elected or appointed, and whether at the federal, state, or local level:
Whereas the United States Government’s claim to legitimacy is purportedly based on such principles as the consent of the governed, human equality, and the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and
Whereas few if any of those over whom you claim authority have ever consented to such governance; and
Whereas governments, as claimants to such authority over others, are by their nature inconsistent with human equality; and
Whereas your laws, ordinances, decrees, and policies generally stand in violation, directly or indirectly, of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
We, the undersigned, hereby demand:
That you cease to claim to be acting in our name or as our agents; and
That you cease all attempts to exercise authority over your fellow human beings, on this continent or elsewhere; and
That you work to dismantle the institution or set of institutions known as the Government of the United States of America, in every branch and at every level, as speedily as possible; and
That you make no attempt to interfere with its replacement by voluntary associations of free and equal individuals.
Two possible objections that come to mind are: “Why just the United States? Why not all goverments?” and “Why petition these bozos? Why not instead petition our fellow citizens to withdraw consent?” To both of which I reply – I never said that this should be our only petition.
Dim Bulb of Liberty
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
And so now a ban on light bulbs, brought to you by the same outfit that gave you the ban on efficient toilets.
Can’t someone please give these people real jobs?