Friedrich Hayek on Conservativism

Of course, the US right loved him because he said all sorts of nasty things about collectivism, but neglected he was originally a socialist!

On the other hand, he didn't like conservatism very much either.

A dilemma for "Conservatives"

And while you're drinking the water, you can put a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger to show us that guns aren't dangerous and we shouldn't be concerned for our safety.

Remember The Dixie Chicks

via Addicting Info 

Getting off topic

I am deeply confused by how Americans use political tags--in particular how they abuse the term Socialist.  Seriously people, this Spanish Socialist Party shows what happens when you vote socialist:


Unfortunately, the ad was attacked by pretty much everyone in Spain. On the other hand, it does catch your imagination and beats the type of political ads one typically sees: especially US attack ads.

According to Bill Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA,Sarah Plain was far more of a Socialist than Barack Obama since she raised taxes on the big oil companies, and sent the revenue to the people.

Nothing Barack Obama has done comes remotely close to socialism, not even Obamacare.  Somehow the fact that Romney introduced a similar plan is lost on the right.

Next we come to climate change which is up for demonisation on loads of fronts, yet the UK Conservative Party (You know, the Party that produced Margaret Thatcher) has Policy on Climate Change as part of their platform:

Climate Change and Energy
The Government believes that climate change is one of the gravest threats we face, and that urgent action at home and abroad is required. We need to use a wide range of levers to cut carbon emissions, decarbonise the economy and support the creation of new green jobs and technologies. We will implement a full programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for a low carbon and eco-friendly economy.
* We will push for the EU to demonstrate leadership in tackling international climate change.
* We will seek to increase the target for energy from renewable sources, subject to the advice of the Climate Change Committee.
* We will continue public sector investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology for four coal-fired power stations.
* We will establish a smart grid and roll out smart meters.
* We will create a green investment bank.
* We will retain energy performance certificates while scrapping HIPs.
* We will establish an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient carbon capture and storage.
* We will cancel the third runway at Heathrow and refuse permission for additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
* Through our ‘Green Deal’, we will encourage home energy efficiency improvements paid for by savings from energy bills.
* We will reform energy markets to deliver security of supply and investment in low carbon energy, and ensure fair competition.
* We will give an Annual Energy Statement to Parliament to set strategic energy policy and guide investment.
* We will work towards an ambitious global climate deal that will limit emissions and explore the creation of new international sources of funding for the purpose of climate change adaptation and mitigation.

We can also get into conservatives who supported gun control--the most famous being Richard Nixon who said  about gun control in 1969. "Guns are an abomination,".  had he felt free from fear of gun owners' retaliation at the polls, he favored making handguns illegal and requiring licenses for hunting rifles.

It was President George Bush, Sr. who banned the import of "assault weapons" in 1989, and promoted the view that Americans should only be allowed to own weapons suitable for "sporting purposes."

It was Governor Ronald Reagan of California who signed the Mulford Act in 1967, "prohibiting the carrying of firearms on one's person or in a vehicle, in any public place or on any public street." The law was aimed at stopping the Black Panthers, but affected all gun owners.

Twenty-four years later, Reagan was still pushing gun control. "I support the Brady Bill," he said in a March 28, 1991 speech, "and I urge the Congress to enact it without further delay."

One of the most aggressive gun control advocates is Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York City, whose administration sued 26 gun manufacturers in June 2000, and whose police commissioner, Howard Safir, proposed a nationwide plan for gun licensing, complete with yearly "safety" inspections.

Another Republican, New York State Governor George Pataki, on August 10, 2000, signed into law what The New York Times called "the nation’s strictest gun controls," a radical program mandating trigger locks, background checks at gun shows and "ballistic fingerprinting" of guns sold in the state. It also raised the legal age to buy a handgun to 21 and banned "assault weapons," the sale or possession of which would now be punishable by seven years in prison.

So, why does conservative usually apply to people who are batshit crazy in the USA these days?

After all, Socialism is much more fulfilling!

The Heartland Institute Ad Campaign Against Climate Change

via The Huffington Post

The Heartland Institute is out with what is quite possibly its most ill-considered publicity stunt to date: a poster ad campaign comparing a belief in global warming to the psychology of mass murder.

The Chicago-based think tank notorious for denying the basic facts about global warming on Thursday launched billboards in Chicago featuring the likes of Ted Kaczynski (better known as the Unabomber) and convicted murderer and cult leader Charles Manson, saying these notorious criminals "still believe in global warming" and asking viewers if they do, too.

What do you think? Are these conservatives something or what?

TheTea Party

From our Friend Terry Connolly

Koch Brothers, ALEC and Their Corporate Allies Plan to Privatize Government

It was only a day after I learned of the existance of ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) and made the post Who is ALEC? that I learn about Truthout’s Article Koch Brothers, ALEC and Their Corporate Allies Plan to Privatize Government. Unfortunately, the US has the dollar rather than the Pound Sterling or I would refer to what is going on in the same vein as the Genesis Album Selling England by the Pound since that is pretty much what has been going on for the past 30+ years in US Politics (and to some extent the same in Britain). Unlike England, there is less sympathy for government functions, or at least so it appears in the heavily controlled US media.

The Truthout article explains how ALEC works. ALEC contends that government agencies have an unfair monopoly on public goods and services. To change that situation, it has created a policy initiative to counter what it calls “Publicopoly.” ALEC’s stated aim is to provide “more effective, efficient government” via privatization—that is, the shifting of government functions to the private sector. Of course, that makes a shift from Publicopoly to either Monopoly or Oligopoly with little or no public control over those new private entities.

ALEC came to the public’s attention in February and March with the culmination of the fight over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill AB 11, which sought to curtail the collective bargaining rights of government employees and thus disempower Wisconsin’s public sector unions. When on February 23, the Buffalo Beast published recordings and transcripts of a prank call to Walker from a Beast reporter posing as billionaire GOP donor David Koch, it became apparent how intimately involved brothers David and Charles Koch were in Walker’s efforts to break public sector unions.

Subsequently, bloggers and editorialists began batting around possible scenarios involving myriad right-wing public policy foundations funded by the Koch brothers and proceeds of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries (and other Koch-controlled corporations). During such speculation, one name arose as the favorite villain behind the multitude of bills aimed squarely at public employee unions. That name was ALEC.

On February 25, 2011, Florida State Representative Chris Dorworth (R-Lake Mary) introduced HB 1021. The bill sought to curtail the political power of unions by prohibiting public employers from deducting any amount from an employee’s pay for use by an employee organization (i.e., union dues) or for any political activity (i.e., the portion of union dues used for lobbying or for supporting candidates for office). Moreover, HB 1021 stated that, should a union seek to use any portion of dues independently collected from members for political activity, the union must obtain annual written authorization from each member.

In effect, this bill defunds public-sector unions—like AFSCME, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association—by making the collection of member dues an onerous, costly task. With public-sector unions denatured, they would no longer be able to stand in the way of radical free marketeers who plan to profit from the privatization of public services.

Given the similarities between HB 1021 and a rash of like-minded bills in states across the country, including Wisconsin, on March 30 a public records request was sent to Dorworth’s office seeking copies of all documents pertaining to the writing of HB 1021, including copies of any pieces of model legislation the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) may have provided.

Within an hour of submitting this request, Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon’s (R-Winter Park) Communications Director Katherine Betta responded: “We received a note from Representative Dorworth’s office regarding your request for records relating to the American Legislative Exchange Council and HB 1021. Please note that Mr. Dorworth’s legislative offices did not receive any materials from ALEC relating to this bill or any ‘model legislation’ from other states.”

But two weeks later Dorworth’s office delivered 87 pages of documents, mostly bill drafts and emails, detailing the evolution of what was to become HB 1021. Buried at the bottom of the stack was an 11-page bundle of neatly typed material, labeled “Paycheck Protection,” which consisted of three pieces of model legislation, with the words “Copyright, ALEC” at the end of each.

Dorworth legislative assistant Carolyn Johnson claims that, although Dorworth is an ALEC member, neither she nor her boss have any idea how the ALEC model legislation found its way into Dorworth’s office. Dorworth could not be reached for comment.

Though the specifics are secret and “restricted to members,” ALEC openly advocates privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality including bringing in corporations to administer:

• Foster care, adoption services and child support payment processing.
• School support services such as cafeteria meals, custodial staff and transportation.
• Highway systems, with toll roads presented as a shining example.
• Surveiling and detaining convicted criminals.
• Ensuring the quality of wastewater treatment, drinking water, and solid waste services and facilities.

Of course, there are myriads of horror stories regarding the privatisation of the Penal System. such as Luzerne County, PA’s Kids for cash scandal and Googling Private Prisons Scam will net loads of stories like this one: What did Torrey Westrom think he was saving with private prison proposal? or Private Prison Promises Leave Texas Towns In Trouble. The prison privatisations should serve as a large glaring warning of the minefield which privatising governmental functions will bring.

Giving these corporations regulatory powers over environmental quality is also puting the fox in charge of the Chicken coop. The Koch companies have a notorious environmental record. And is the US public so damaged as far as short term memory goes to have forgotten the BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. That in and of itself should be even more of a warning than the prison privatisations.

Quite frankly, there are certain functions that governments do a whole lot better than private enterprise, yet the US public is being sold a duff bill of goods that privatising government. The worst part of it is that the people won’t realise how badly they have been shafted until after the damage has been done.

Additionally, there is the usual US historic ignorance that the panic of 1837 was caused in part by the selling of government assets. This message from that time should be heeded by today’s US Citizens:

Although the excitement of 1839 did not equal that of 1837, there was a duller and completer despondency. It was at last known that the recuperative power of even our own proud and bounding country had limits. Years were yet necessary to a recovery.

Even more importantly, the US public should be asking who is controlling the message that they hear from the corporately controlled MSM (which includes Public Broadcasting which is beholden by underwriting, or commercials by any other name). The US is heading down a very dangerous path, yet few people are doing anything about it.

Politics: Conservative

I find it odd that people describe me as a liberal, although I don't mind that monicker given what I believe conservative has come to mean in this country. Case in point, my wife's "uncle" has a t-shirt with American Revolutionary "patriots" saying "Right wing crazies" or some such.

Now, Conservative is described as a political philosophy that favours tradition and gradual change. Another description of conservative is cautious with adherence to custom and precedent. Any movement toward change is considered. The American Revolutionaries were in no way conservative. They broke from England in contradiction of law and for no sensible reason. The American Revolutionaries were like bratty children. And, the people in the United States which claim the title "conservative" are in no way conservative either, especially if they wish claim to being the rebels' progeny.

On the other hand, that appellation has changed quite a bit since Richard Nixon. Looking back at Nixon's administration, he would seem surprisingly liberal to today's conservative. I would also posit that James Clark McReynolds would also seem very liberal by today's standards. He believed that the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment included an individual's right "to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, to establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, and generally to enjoy privileges, essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men". This belief eventually went on to found the right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479 (1965), and the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

McReynolds also penned US v. Miller 307 U.S. 174 (1939) and its Collective right interpretation of the Second Amendment. Justice McReynolds would find Justice Kennedy's comment about Miller being "deficient" as showing Kennedy's mental deficiency. McReynolds was a person to whom things were obvious. To McReynolds issues were right or wrong, and if you could not tell the difference then no amount of explanation would help. He had no patience for those who disagreed. What was right, was self-evident.

McReynolds didn't feel the need to spell out his decisions for those who were not at his intellectual level. So, I believe Justice McReynolds would return Justice Kennedy's "complement".

Additionally, the Supreme Court which is considered "Conservative" may overturn McReynold's precedent in US v. Miller wihtout any real basis. It goes against the Court second guessing legislation. It goes against public policy. And it goes against logic if the reason is merely that "the public believe the Second Amendment comprises this right". I have mentioned the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum ad naseum and don't feel the need to repeat what it is. I would also add it goes against the rule of law.

Anyway, there are a few strains of conservativism: Cultural, religious, and fiscal. I would also add neo-conservativism, however, I am not sure what that really is. Neo-Conservativism runs contrary to everything that Conservativism is supposed to be.

A bit of an aside, Conservatives are also supposed to value property rights. An RKBA type wrote to say that he believed his right to self-defence outweighed my rights as property owner. This is thorough nonsense as self-defence is limited by law. I am allowed to bar firearms from my property and you are free not to enter if you feel this is not safe.

Cultural conservativism supports preservation of the heritage of a nation or culture. There is a national myth in the United States which varies greatly with US history. They myth began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the proud yeoman rising up against British tyranny. Although, the more I read Loyalist history, the less I believe that there was any strong support for the rebellion. In fact, I believe many people were forced to the "patriot" cause, but this isn't the place to expound on that. The independent frontiersman is the image we see, instead of the middle class citizen of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Alexandria, Baltimore, Hartford, Providence, Charleston, and Savannah. The first is a myth and the latter is the reality.

Religious conservativism. Again, the radical right is doing everything to trash people's freedom of conscience. Amazing that someone like Justice McReynolds can be considered the father of Roe v. Wade! Additionally, the puritan strain, those who came from Cromwell and the New Model Army were the ones who wanted a separation of Church and State. Yet historical amnesia has struck and we see the resurgence of Cromwell and the New Model Army.

Fiscal conservativism. Is a joke from my previous posts. "Tax and spend" is vilified yet we have profligate spending on the military. We spend more on Iraq while this nation crumbles. Of course, there is a study that says more people are liberal/progressive than conservative in this country; however, one couldn't tell that from the media. And the media is supposedly liberal.

But, then again, what exactly is a conservative since I have just shown that Justice McReynolds would seem liberal by today's standards. He might have to become politically correct, but he would seem liberal. So, labels such as conservative and liberal seem to make no sense in US politics. And, given what conservativism has come to mean, as opposed to what I understand it to be, I am glad to be called something else.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I am not sure where Justice Kennedy was going with the "deficient" comment, but since McReynolds was a known bastard, I will not retract this. I believe McReynolds would have done something as fucked up as that

Richard Nixon a liberal?

What is the US becoming? Somehow the topic of US health care came up at dinner last night. It seems that Richard Nixon proposed a comprehensive health care plan in 1974!:

Now it is time that we move forward again in still another critical area: health care.

Without adequate health care, no one can make full use of his or her talents and opportunities. It is thus just as important that economic, racial and social barriers not stand in the way of good health care as it is to eliminate those barriers to a good education and a good job.

Three years ago, I proposed a major health insurance program to the Congress, seeking to guarantee adequate financing of health care on a nationwide basis. That proposal generated widespread discussion and useful debate. But no legislation reached my desk.
--Richard Nixon

I found it worrying when I watched a documentary and saw some of the programs Nixon brought about, such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, which would now be decried as socialist!

What is going on with United States Politics?

Conservative or Liberal?

I mentioned this post over at Opinione in my previous post, but feel it deserves special mention on its own.

Opinione discusses how the terms liberal and conservative have different meanings depending one where one is in the world. He also points out that: "Looking at Barack Obama from a European perspective, the only issue Obama is considered a liberal on is the support and endorsement of liberalism as an economic model and his liberal support of continuing the perpetual use of military power."

Opinione also says that "After spending a considerable amount of time of living in Italy, it is safe to say that even the most liberal American politician would be a candidate from the conservative polity party of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy or the political party of Pier Ferdinando Casini and the Union of Christian Democrats." One doesn't need to go to Italy or other Continental European country to see that the US is far more right wing than Europe. One can go to The United Kingdom to see that even the Conservatives would seem liberal by US standards.

I have to admit that I find it amusing at the misuse of the term "liberal" in US politics. Even more amusing is the abuse of the term "socialism". Fortunately, it is quite easy to get the American public to work against their own self interests.