Libertarians Are True Believers In Small Government

I don’t often listen to conservative talk radio: I find them to be mendacious, the hosts to be total jerks and repetitious, but I especially save my contempt for the people who call these shows, claiming to know what they’re talking about when they're not; most of whom are total idiots, mere mouth-breathers, in my humble opinion.

One so-called conservative caller made the spurious claim that libertarians believe in no government at all, whereas conservative believe in small government. Libertarians are not anarchists! We believe in the rule of law as much as conservatives (probably more), which require specific institutions to carry them out—which, of course, is enshrined in government.

And since we’re on the topic of small government, libertarians can claim, unequivocally, that they, not conservatives, are the true torchbearers of small government. As we have witnessed, from Reagan to both Bush presidents, conservatives (and liberals) have increased the size of government through a combination of profligate spending, burdensome regulations, and limiting of civil liberties.

For all intents and purposes, conservatives have abandoned small government altogether. Is it any wonder that libertarian ideas are gaining wider currency in the Republican party? It’s time for conservative to walk in the wilderness for awhile and think about what a small government-type is.

How Toy Story 3 Is About Freedom

The libertarian Adam Smith Institute opines that Toy Story 3 is an animated allegory on the pitfalls of socialism. I never thought about Toy Story 3 in stark political terms, but I’ll be damned if it’s not true!

However, there are more movies that harp on the evils of capitalism. One clear cut example is Chicken Run, an animated film about a group of chickens plotting to escape from the clutches of an evil farmer, who is bent on turning them into chicken pot pies in order to maximize profits. The chickens, acting collectively (like good Marxists), manage to thwart the farmer’s plans and fly the coop, so to speak. On the surface, it is a fun little movie, but the underlying theme is more insidious. On this score, Toy Story 3 is a welcome antidote.

Whatever the political themes, both films are a joy to watch.

No Justice For Bhopal Victims

Naturally, the Indian media has come down hard on the recent verdict of eight former Union Carbide executives for their involvement in a chemical leak in Bhopal that resulted in the deaths of thousands and injury of countless more.

I’m not going to quibble about the light sentences the former executives received, this is not the point of this post. What I would like to talk about, however, is how the Indian government betrayed the victims through its inactions.

First of all, that it took 25-years to reach this verdict is mind-boggling. I know justice in India is a very slow, creaky wheel, but even by its own standards, India’s judiciary system has outdone itself! This is a classic example of justice delayed is justice denied. And on top that, such weak sentences! One wonders why the courts even bothered.

Second, the Indian government did not have the victim’s interests at heart when they settled for a paltry $470 million from Union Carbide. This was the 1980s, after all, Nehruvian socialism was still in vogue yet after hectoring both the United States and Union Carbide, it settled for mere peanuts. I have no doubt, in my mind, corruption played a part. Key players were paid off in exchange for indemnity.

The shame of Bhopal and its outcome should be put in proportion, and the Indian government should get the lion’s share of it.

ADDENDUM: Perhaps the victims should sue the Indian government since it failed -- through shear criminal negligence -- to protect its citizens. The multi-billion dollar settlement should come from its coffers and not from Union Carbide, or the United States, who, in my opinion, acted in good faith.

Why Olbermann Is A Jack-Ass

John Stewart takes MSNBC's Keith Olbermann down a peg or two. The performance is simply priceless:

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Review: Marx for Beginners

Rius. Marx for Beginners. New York: Pantheon, 2003. 160pp.

Many people know about Karl Marx and what he stood for, but how many people, including his many admirers and critics, actually understood the man and his revolutionary ideas? In my opinion, not many, including those who unabashedly call themselves “Marxists.’ Not surprisingly, Marx’s ideas are impenetrable by even the most intelligent of people. Very few understand Marx, and even fewer who successfully translated his thinking to the general public: reading and comprehending Marx is simply beyond the ability of mere mortals. Marx’s ideas are a knotty mess of philosophy and economics, written in the turgid, confusing prose that is the hallmark of many intellectuals. So a book like Marx for Beginners is a welcome antidote, as it explains Marx in the simplest way possible—through cartoons.

The book is illustrated and written by Rius, a pseudonym used by famed Mexican cartoonist and left-wing political activist Eduardo del Rio. The book is only 160 pages or so, but Rius encapsulates Marx’s ideas in a tight, unsparing format, not wasting time on ephemeral matters but focusing on main ideas that made Marx an icon of the left. Rius gives us a biography of Marx, his influences, explains the philosophical underpinnings of Marx’s ideas, and Marx’s blueprint how the proletariat (the “working” class) can seize power. Naturally, Marx was no lover of democracy, which, for him, was a bourgeoisie concept.

Though this edition was published in 2003, the book was originally published in 1975. This explains the many references to Chile and snide attacks on the United States. Obviously, the author was bitter about the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile and American imperialism in South America in general. Never mind that Allende was planning to turn Chile into another Cuba. But that’s a debate for another day.

Marx for Beginners is not intended to be a comprehensive, or even an exhaustive, look at Marx. That is just not possible. This book is a primer, of sorts, a kind of jumping off point. Because to understand the man there is no going around reading the man's various works. A bit of a warning: reading Marx is only for the heartiest of souls and not for the faint of heart. And I'm not writing this review as a supporter of Marx. Hardly. But you cannot deny the man's influence on history; and to understand the world today you have to understand Marx.

A "Like, Duh" Moment

I know I’m coming to this realization a bit late (shoot me for being slow), but it would have been better if John McCain picked either Mitt Romney - his devout Mormonism aside - or Bobby Jindal as his running mate. Unlike Palin, neither of them are dummies.

Who To Blame?

Did Palin cost McCain the election? According to FOX News, it sure looks like it:



I cut McCain a lot of slack for choosing Palin, but he should have at least talked to her and asked a few simple questions - like whether Africa is a continent or not. I know most American can't find their own country on a map, but even a third-grader knows that Africa is a continent.

(via hit & run)

...The Day After

Congratulations to Barack Obama for winning the presidency. His victory was not a complete surprise given the mood of the voters, but the margin of victory was wide, to say the least. I, for one, expected a much narrower race.

Nevertheless, it is a historic moment in U.S. history: a black man has attained the highest position in the land. Historic in that the Civil Rights Movement is not even 50 years old, but in a space of three generations the United States has made headway in race relations, epitomized by the election of Barack Obama.

Good luck, President Barack Obama!

Why Obama Has A Chance

This is a watershed moment in American politics: we have a realistic chance of seeing our first black president. Possible because Obama transcends race, class and, even at times, ideology.

Why is Obama so appealing, even among white Americans? Americans have given the presidency to white, Anglo-Saxon males (with the exception of John F. Kennedy, America's first Catholic president) since the founding of the republic. It took the imbecility of George H. W. Bush to shatter this myth. Never mind that Bush was rich, educated at both Yale and Harvard, and comes from an aristocratic political family - all the ingredients necessary to be a leader - he proved to be incompetent.

Can Obama do any worse?

Why Help AIG?

Anyone who unflinchingly says the United States practices free market capitalism should get their head examined after taxpayers will have to pay $85 billion to bail out a company that made some bad business decisions. At $85 billion, there is nothing free about it, nor does it have to do anything with markets. I'm so pissed.

Doha Round Collapses: Everybody Loses

The Doha Round of trade talks have officially collapsed. These negotiations, which have been going on for what feels like forever, would have reduced or eliminated odious agriculture subsidies and tariffs and make trading of agricultural products simpler and cheaper. Who to blame for this failure? Depends on whom you ask. Here's an editorial from the The Daily Star, a Bangladeshi newspaper, who is blaming the developed world, specifically the United States and the European Union:

The final impasse was the demand from the G-33 which wanted special safeguard mechanisms to protect farmers in the developing world against temporary surges in cut-price imports of cotton and rice. When one considers that these safeguards would be the only thing standing between hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers and penury, to say nothing of the stability of billions throughout the developing world, it is hard to fathom the opposition.

What is really outrageous about opposition to this from the West is that it insist not only on its own tariffs but also on massive agricultural subsidies that protect its handful of farmers and massively distort the international price of goods, causing further hardship to farmers in the developing world.

But the developed world, in turn, and led by the West, is blaming the developing world for trying to have its cake and eat it too; all at the expense of their farmers. The Washington Post is leading the charge on this score:

Still, as last-ditch talks moved into last weekend, the United States and European Union had made some concessions on farm supports, and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy had submitted a compromise plan that seemed to draw at least tentative approval from most participants. It was at that point that India and China essentially torpedoed the talks, asserting a broad right to raise tariffs to protect their poor farmers from "import surges," price drops and other vicissitudes of the world market. China, which had been relatively quiet throughout most of the talks, was particularly vituperative, blasting U.S. arguments as "absurd," even though Brazil and several other developing countries agreed with Washington.

China's role in the demise of the Doha Round is particularly dismaying, considering China has reaped huge benefits from global trade in the seven years since it joined the organization -- with strong U.S. support. Chinese exports have quadrupled from $300 billion in 2002 to $1.2 trillion in 2007, thanks in large part to free access to the U.S. market. U.S. supporters of Chinese inclusion in the WTO argued that drawing China into a system of multilateral give-and-take would mute its nationalistic tendencies. Evidently, the Chinese see the matter differently. They, and the world, will be poorer because of it.

It's safe to say that obstinacy on both sides led to the demise of the Doha Round. The developed world insists on paying subsidies to farmers, which in this era of high food prices is absurd. The developed world then demands open access to the developing world markets for their "cheap" food, giving local farmers an economic disadvantage. I believe the developing world has the right to protect its farmers as the developed world protect theirs.

At the same time, the developing world, led by China and India, insist on keeping mechanisms protecting its farmers against the onslaught on "cheap" food, even if the developed world ends its subsidies and tariffs. This will give developed world an advantage while penalizing western farmers for being more efficient and productive. This is a non-starter as well.

But ultimate loser in this fiasco are the consumers in both the developing and developed world, who will continue to pay high prices for agricultural products. It is also a defeat for free-trade, and a disturbing win for protectionism, which will only punish the entire world.

Humor: Chris Matthews And Obama

Great strip about Chris Mathews' infatuation, or man-crush, for Barack Obama:

India's Government Survives

The UPA government has survived a confidence votes, which I suspect Prime Minister Manmohan Singh knew ahead of time. For a cold technocrat, Prime Minister Singh has proven to be a wily political operator, outmaneuvering the Left Front out of power, and out of mind, without needing to call elections.

The Left Front, naturally, is shocked by the result. The CPI-M website and its mouthpiece People's Democracy, for example, are replete with baseless accusations against Manmohan Singh, even offering 'proof' that some MPs were bribed. The Left Front bitterness is obvious: they never had it so good and, hopefully, they never will again.

The Irish Say NO!

Theodore Dalrymple is one of my favorite writers, and is a contributor to City Journal, a publication from the Manhattan Institute, where Dalrymple is also a fellow. In this article, Dalrymple talks about Europe’s political elites repeated – and rather forceful – attempts to create a new European super state, often over the wishes of its constituents. Recently, the Irish had rejected a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, which were inimical to Irish interests. Why? Dalrymple writes

Another explanation for the Irish “no” vote was that Irish citizens had been frightened by the proposal of the French finance minister to equalize tax rates throughout Europe, thus destroying unfair competition (all competition is unfair, unless the French win). No prizes for guessing whether the high tax rates of France or the low rates of Ireland would become the new standard. Ireland’s golden goose would find itself well and truly slaughtered in the process.

The Irish know that both France and Germany, by the virtue of their size, would dominate the European Union both economically and politically; and smaller (and richer) states like Ireland would be at their mercy. To make it more equitable, in my view, the European Union, instead of having a unitary system like a single parliament, should adopt a system used by the United States to check the power of its most populous states – bicameralism.

But such a balanced approach is an anathema to Europe’s political elite, who don’t take criticism too well. Bred to rule, they think they are doing God’s work - secularly speaking, of course. Much of the European media parrot what their political leaders say, rarely questioning the wisdom of their decisions or, for that matter, what the common people think.

Obama Wins Nomination.

Not surprisingly, Obama has won the Democratic nomination for president - unofficially. Clinton has yet to concede, but knowing her modus operandi, she's probably angling for VP.

I'm disappointed it has come to this. I consider politics to be a blood sport, the political equivalent of the MMA. So to see the event end so early has cheated me of the enjoyment I so desperately needed: to see Clinton and Obama beat each other into a bloody pulp by convention time. Alas, it is not to be.

On the upside, it's good to know who the contenders are. For me, both McCain and Obama are bitter disappointments. McCain, with his maverick persona long worn off, represents a party that desperately needs to renew itself ideologically. Obama is the feel good candidate, whose lack of experience (and ideas) seems secondary to his natural gift as an orator and schmoozer. For people who are voting with their hearts instead of their brains, Obama is their man. I'm much too cynical to fall for Obama's charisma.

I'm not saying I'm not voting in November. I am. Just not for McCain or Obama.

Why Government Is Useless In South Asia

Khilado shares his impression of a typical government office in Pakistan:

You walk inside in the valley of the shadow of askew shelves groaning with files, all askew, stuttering fans stirring up yellowing pages under the light of flickering tube lights. People sit around listless, waiting for the next cup of tea and sms message, disturbed now and than by a visitor who mistakenly wanders in trying to get some work done, and sometimes by a peon shuffling around bulging files, in a endless cycle from desk to desk, sometimes only making the journey to the person sharing the same desk, other times all the way outside the room into an adjoining office.

Replicate this across every office, every ministry, at every level of government, from district to federal, and that's a lot of people sitting around pushing papers from one side of their desk to the other. It's a disease that afflicts every country in South Asia.

I happened to visit one government office in Bangladesh and I was horrified by what I saw: cheap, ramshackle desks, with decrepit plastic phones, no computers whatsoever and the closest thing to modern technology was a single manual typewriter. Files all over the place, and what they contained didn't matter since many haven't been touched in years. And then they were the people: listless, counting the seconds to lunch, then to tea time, and finally to go home.

The whole system would be so much more efficient if they just fired the bureaucracy and let the people who do the work anyways do it. The amazing part is that the system is so broken yet somehow the country still shambles on.

Alas, if it were only that simple. Khalido is right, though, the country shambles on because bulk of the work is done by a few key people. Khalido is also correct that bureaucracies are completely unnecessary. But people must be employed: so, through a system of political patronage, the government gives them meaningless jobs in return for passivity.

Too Good To Be True

The only thing the PML(N) and PPP had in common, besides despising each other, was their mutual hatred of President Pervez Musharraf, which seems to be fleeting. So when these parties announced that they were forming a coalition government, everybody knew it wouldn't last long. Parties driven by cult of personality politics like the PML(N) and PPP don't like to share the limelight.

For now, the PML(N) is only withdrawing from the cabinet, but will continue to support the coalition government. But this is just a pretense. Another excuse will be manufactured to exit the government altogether. This will either mean new elections, or another intervention by the military. Either way, President Pervez Musharraf will be pleased as punch

Is Obama The Winner?

The consensus seems to be to declare Obama the winner since destiny, and a little math, is on his side. Consensus also seems to be for an Obama/Clinton ticket. I don't know if that's such a good idea. Clinton is petulant, vindictive, and, not to mention, ambitious. As vice president, she'll try to undermine Obama as much as she can. Yes, she's capable of that!

England Turning Right? The Hindu Doesn't Like It

The Hindu offers its comments on Labor's recent troubles in local elections in England and, naturally, they're dismayed by the results. Nothing depressed them more then the loss of Ken "The Red" Livingstone, socialist member of Labor, who was defeated in London's mayoral election to whom The Hindu dubs as a "joke". I don't know who this "joke" is, but he still managed to beat Kenny boy. So you can say "joke" is on Ken, who will, no doubt, end up in some cushy E.U. job like other Labor leaders.

The prospects of Conservatives returning to power is giving The Hindu ulcers, in which they quip:

The Labour defeat is, however, not an automatic pointer to the next general election, which must be held by June 2010. Tory voters might well turn out in greater numbers from now on, but other voters will remember what 18 years of Tory government (1979-1997) were like.

From what I remember, those years were golden compared to the severe economic malaise, brought on by dubious socialist policies, when Labour was in charge from 1974-1979. The worse thing to happen in England during Conservative rule, in my opinion, was the foolish dumping of Margaret Thatcher for John Majors. The Conservatives have been wandering in the wilderness ever since.

China: Friend Of The Environment?

No one kisses China's ass more than The Pakistan Observer, whose editorials are nauseating for their sycophancy, if not outright worship of the Red Dragon. In its latest editorial, it heaps praise on China's new found concern for the environment:

The world today is facing grave threats due to unplanned, reckless and irresponsible development that has produced serious ecological and environmental problems for the mankind. Most of these problems are the direct result of the blind pursuit of material development by the West, which is still not prepared to take bold and vital steps to save the globe from impending disaster. In this backdrop, China deserves credit for bringing leaders and experts together to discuss the crucial issue of how to improve environment of Asia. This is timely initiative in view of the fact that after Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, countries like China and India too are moving swiftly on the path of industrial growth raising concerns about environmental issues.

If China wants to improve the environment, it should look in its own backward. According to The Guardian, no friend of capitalism, China is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, and it's only going to get worse. Many of China's major cities live in clouds of pollution so toxic residents have to wear masks. And in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, China has banned thousands of automobiles from Beijing in order to improve its air quality.

It is quite obvious that the developing countries, which are at the receiving end, cannot spare adequate resources to undertake comprehensive programmes for promotion of environment and therefore, it is responsibility of the rich and developed nations to provide them financial assistance as well as transfer technology for the purpose.

Interesting. Is The Pakistan Observer saying that China-- with over $1 trillion in foreign reserves and arguably the second largest economy in the world-- is still considered a developing country, and that developed countries (code for the West) should give it resources to improve its environment so China can continue its economic growth at no cost? Ridiculous, simply ridiculous.