They refer to this Nazi-like parties by calling them extreme right. Well, what is right-wing about hatred and bigotry? I’m pretty sure that’s politically universal. Right wing should be supportive of limited government, at least domestically, and nationalism is not just restricted to fascism.

In fact, these parties sound more Stalinist than anything else. And, if the Nazi comparisons are apt, don’t forget that it was the Nationalsozialismus or National Socialist party. Since when is socialism rightist?

I didn’t agree with Al Gore’s win either, but at least the man noticeably accomplished things.

At Samizdata blog, they called it the community organizer’s Nobel because, lets face it, unless you count running for president and NOT getting bills passed through congress and trying to get more troops into Afghanistan (which would disqualify him, in my opinion) he hasn’t done anything else except community organization – whatever that means.

From JohnK in the comments section there:

all the Big O has done is fail to win the Olympics. Who would have thought that the International Olympic Committee, of all people, would have more moral integrity than the Nobel Prize Committee? We live in strange times.

Indeed we do. The Nobel Prize has become so political and, if Nassim Taleb is correct, even the science prizes are little more than socio-political exercises and we should stop giving credence to them. People who win them just get famous through luck, and take credit through skill. I think Obama is a perfect example of that.

If his seat remains vacant, the Democrats will only have 59 votes in the Senate, one short of the 60 needed to overcome the Republicans’ procedural blocking tactics.

Massachusetts’s current rule requiring a special election to fill a Senate vacancy was only brought in in 2004 by the state’s Democrats.

They feared that if then-presidential candidate John Kerry had won that year’s presidential election, thus vacating his Massachusetts senate seat, his replacement would have been chosen by then-governor Mitt Romney, a Republican.

I can’t believe the Dems are getting away with such obvious partisanship.  In 2004, they changed the rules as a political move to prevent a Republican appointment. Now they will change the rule back to maintain power.

At least try to obscure legislation strictly for political gain, Mass politicians.

Former US President Jimmy Carter says much of the vitriol against President Barack Obama’s health reforms and spending plans is “based on racism”.

While it seems inevitable that some portion of the right’s anti-health care rhetoric is based on racism, its a huge red herring argument that Carter is proposing. But, for whatever reason, it seems like race-baiting without evidence is an easy and popular way to try to end opposition to the president’s (or democrat’s) proposals without evidence. It dispenses with the need for intellectual argument. In fact, it makes Carter and the Dems no better than the supposedly-racism right wingers that they are attacking.

The funny thing is about racism accusations is that trying to defend yourself against charges of racism just makes you sound more racist. The more racist you are, the easier you are to discredit and so this type of charge just tends to replicate itself… all without the need to evidence.

It seems like the only way out of the cycle is to apologize, but then you might be admitting to an untruth.

Perhaps this is an exaggeration of the issue, but I don’t think its too far off and it seems to be getting more prevalent all the time.

Speaking before a TV interview, Mr Obama said: “I thought it was inappropriate, it’s like she’s getting an award, why are you butting in?”

He added: “The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she’s getting her award, what’s he doing up there?”Chatting with CNBC reporter John Harwood, Mr Obama made an off-the-cuff remark: “He’s a jackass.”

In case you’ve been living under a rock, he’s referring to this incident.

I think we can all agree with the President on this one, but it also brings up a larger question: why is the President commented on pop culture? Doesn’t he have more important things to worry about? Or is this part of having a “young, hip” president?

Let me be clear, I don’t mind if the President comments on current events that aren’t strictly politically related, but the office of the president seems to have a long tradition of not commenting on things unrelated to the office. Its important to separate things that the President says as a person and things that he says as the figurehead of the government. He shouldn’t want to mistakenly construe off-the-cuff remarks as policy.

But, if he insists on doing this, at least he should be clear about his intentions.

I’m a little disappointed with this news. Stossel is a good (albeit not a great) libertarian mind and is now moving to a notoriously conservative network. I’m not sure this association is good for the libertarian movement .

Although Stossel has known to be a bit extreme in his rhetoric and rely too heavily on anecdotal and circumstantial evidence in his claims, I still have enjoyed his shows. Like Glen Beck, I fear that Stossel will become extremist in his right of center views and lose credibility.

On the other side of the deal, I worry about Fox and the mainstream right’s continuing to strengthen their identification with libertarian views, without actually adopting the more intelligent conclusions. People like Judge Napolitano and John Stossel have some good ideas, but is the right wing only pretending to adopt them while they are popular (Read: while a Democrat is in the White House). When power changes hands again, it will be business as usual; expanding government even more and throwing the small government libertarians under the bus.

Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein leaning suggestively on a doorframe

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday obsessing about Cass Sunstein, whose views on just about everything from free speech to animal rights confuse the heck out of me on first glance.

In general, that means it’s time to learn more.

Here’s what happened: a friend of mine on Facebook, yelling about other things, was gracious enough to share this The New York Post :

Advance copies of Sunstein’s new book, “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,” have gone out to reviewers ahead of its September publication date, but considering the prominence with which Sunstein is about to be endowed, his worrying views are fair game now. Sunstein is President Obama’s choice to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It’s the bland titles that should scare you the most.

[...]

Sunstein was appointed, no doubt, off the success of “Nudge,” his previous book, which suggests that government ought to gently force people to be better human beings.

Fascinating! I haven’t read Nudge, either (this is what happens when one’s book budget goes down the drain) but from what I know, Sunstein seems to enspouse a modified form of libertarian paternalism.

The Post column has actually made me more interested in Sunstein’s work. Considering the press Pop SocSci authors like Malcolm Gladwell get, it seems to be not very well understood outside of law and behavioral economics.

I guess I should stop ignoring the guy.

Most brazen part of this: I have a copy of Cass Sunstein’s 2007 book Worst Case Scenarios sitting right in front of me.

The beer is gone, but the book remains unfinished.

Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave.

An otherwise interesting BBC article on the Google book scanning deal ends with this:

Many believe the issue of rights over out-of-print books would best be solved by legislation and not the courts.

“It is never a good thing for private parties to make deals for the public good,” said Martin Manley, the founder of Alibris.com, an online store which sells used, rare and out-of-print books.

“The public good is meant to be solved by regulators who are somewhat accountable and by legislators who are wholly accountable,” Mr Manley told BBC News.

Now, I’m not a big fan of copy right law and I support Google in their efforts, but Mr. Manley has this completely wrong. The enforcement of private contracts is certainly within the realm of the judicial system. Google is not trying, nor should be expected to, make deals for the “public good.”  They are simply trying to provide a service that consumers find desirable – and working around stone age copyright law in trying to do so. But don’t think for a second that just because Google doesn’t charge internet users directly for their services that Google is acting for the purposes of the “public good.”

Make no mistake, this is a private deal for private interests.

And as for his second quote… yes, copyright law needs to be reworked by legislatures, but it doesn’t sound like this is what he’s saying. It sounds like Manley wants congress to pass some bill that would erase private contracts and copyrights to “protect the public good” of having free books online (which, incidentally, I don’t think one of the rights protected by the constitution).

I hope this quote was taken out of context. Imagine what kind of precedent it would set if congressman could just erase copyrights or patents when deemed to violate the “public good”? Manley claims that legislators are more accountable that judges, but was it judges that were trying to interfere with private contracts during the financial bailouts?

What Manley is suggesting, using erroneous assumptions, is that judges are trying to legislate from the bench via private interests (which is false, they’re just trying to uphold bad laws) in a way which violates the public good (also false: he confuses Google and google customers for the general public). His claimed solution, if I’ve interpreted correctly: give legislators even more power to uphold subjective public good.

Hint – what legislators claim is the public good is more often than not special deals for private interests. In this case, what Manley wants is a deal that works out for Google. What happens when the next special deal is struck for some pharmaceutical company that Manley doesn’t like so much?

There is a good reason why we have checks and balances and that political power is divided the way it is. I would say this recommendation is borderline unconstitutional.

I’ve started listening to audio recordings of the Federalist Papers. I have to say that, at least so far, I’m not impressed by some of the arguments that they where making in favor of passing a Constitution that would unite the States under a Federal government. I realize that I can’t relate to some of them, just because the world we live in and the state of the country is just completely different.

For example, the argument that  a large Federal government is more efficient and has a larger pool of talent to draw on than many decentralized confederacies seems a bit silly now. However, during a time of inept local politicians (well maybe that hasn’t changed) and a much smaller population, this argument (from Federalist #3) must have made a lot more sense.

However, take this argument from Federalist #2 (written by John Jay):

They [the people] considered that the Congress [of 1774] was composed of many wise and experienced men. That, being convened from different parts of the country, they brought with them and communicated to each other a variety of useful information. That, in the course of the time they passed together in inquiring into and discussing the true interests of their country, they must have acquired very accurate knowledge on that head. That they were individually interested in the public liberty and prosperity, and therefore that it was not less their inclination than their duty to recommend only such measures as, after the most mature deliberation, they really thought prudent and advisable… every succeeding Congress, as well as the late convention, have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its Union.

Jay’s premise is that the majority of people were happy with the federalist goals of the original continental congress (a premise which he doesn’t provide support for) and then assumes that because the members of the congress were popular, they must have also been wise and knew what was best for the country. Then he rounds it off with a fallacious appeal to authority and historical precedence to support a large federal government.

It’s interesting to note that the Federalists were also against drafting the Bill of Rights.

One the one hand, I think the political right has been way out of line in criticizing our communist friends… even going so far as to pursue interventionist military action to prevent communism from spreading.

However, it amazes me how far this country has come from McCarthy-era communist witch hunts to praising some of communism’s bloodthirstiest ‘heroes.’  It seems to me that praising Castro and Che is on par with praising WWII Nazi general Erwin Rommel or talking about Mussolini’s glorious train schedules. Why aren’t these words political suicide anymore? Has the media forgotten, and thereby legitimizing, the ruinous methods these dictators came to power?

Is is that when a totalitarian government hangs around for a long, people forget how they came to power? Maybe these right-winged hawks have a point in trying to stamp out these ‘threats’ early.

You report that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick supports “changing state law to allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat while a special election is held” (”Gov. would OK law change for Kennedy successor,” August 26). You report also that only last week a dying Sen. Kennedy requested this rule change.

But you fail to mention that the very rule that Sen. Kennedy last week pleaded be scuttled is a rule that he himself lobbied for in 2004. As your own Jeff Jacoby wrote last week, “Kennedy wants the Legislature to upend the succession law it passed in 2004, when – at his urging – it stripped away the governor’s longstanding power to temporarily fill a Senate vacancy. Back then, John Kerry was a presidential candidate and Republican Mitt Romney was governor; Kennedy lobbied state Democrats to change the law so that Romney couldn’t name Kerry’s successor.”

To the very end, Mr. Kennedy displayed his lack of principles. And your paper continues to display its reporting biases.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Ouch. If the Globe editors have any sense of humility, they must feel bad about that one. It shows that, above all, Teddy Kennedy was a politician, with political goals and aspirations. His goals was to protect the interest of himself and the party. Maybe he was a decent leader – certainly politicians have done worse things but this pursuit of self interested behavior should surprise nobody. Has the main stream media and the general public accepted it, however (particularly in the wake of the senator’s death)?

I wonder if this isn’t a displayof information bias – besides for the obvious problem of the small sample size.  American politics and issues are probably on the news in Iran a lot more often than we’re exposed to Iranian politics.  Maybe there is some neutral terroritory that we can quiz to eliminate the information bias, which tells us nothing about the relative and subjective “informative-ness” of Americans and Iranians.

You can see him speak here:

He’s being adulated for being young, enthusiastic and spirited but to me, he’s just frightening.  One of my favorite things about Ron Paul is that he’s soft spoken but carries lots of information with his words.  Does Kokesh think he can win the congressional seat by yelling at people?

*disclaimer – I have have only seen him in a few videos.

H/T – Young Americans for Liberty