Month: July 2003

More on the Dime’s Worth of Difference

And why Glenn Reynolds and Rachel Lucas should be elected in 2008!

Kevin Tuma’s take:

A picture worth a trillion dollars…

THIS is the Funniest Thing I’ve Seen in a While

Link via Common Sense and Wonder – The Difference Between Italy and the EU, a short film.

My wife, who has worked with all manner of Europeans, says it’s bang-on accurate.

Glenn Reynolds for President!

NOTE: THIS POST IS UPDATED CONSTANTLY! (Nominees are now listed here.)

And Rachel Lucas for VP!

Jeff at Alphecca states the case plainly:

I mentioned that both the Democrats and the Republicans suck and we need something, someone in-between — a libertarian — to promote for president.

—

Anyway, in my previous post I speculated (fantasized) that in two or three election cycles (say, 2008 or 2012) we in the blogosphere could promote and get elected a true small “L” libertarian candidate for president. It would help if some in our sphere of friends got elected to Congress.

—

I was thinking about who I would like to see in the White House in 2008 or 2012. Who meets these requirements? And my thoughts keep coming back to my blogfather Glenn Reynolds for President and for Vice-President I could suggest (grooming her for eight years hence) Rachel Lucas. Folks, we have plenty of years of preparation for this and I really think we can do it. Of course, I also believe I will win the PowerBall lottery tomorrow…

I’ve said for a long time that the only way to get really good people into office anymore is to draft them.

“Greetings! For the next (2, 4, 6) years you will be serving as (Representative, President, Senator). Please report to the Public Office Registration Center by 12:00 on such-and-such date.”

And anybody who actually wants to run for office above City Mayor should be immediately disqualified for mental reasons – they’re either power-hungry or just plain nuts.

But that’ll never happen, so what we have to do is draft the candidates and run a grass-root blogosphere-based campaign.

And hack the vote counting machines.

Great idea, Jeff! I can see the cabinet now!

Eugene Volokh for Attorney General!

Kim du Toit for Secretary of Defense!

Bill Whittle for any damned position he wants!

Who can name the other cabinet candidates?

Poster art! We need poster art! Where’s Cox & Forkum when you need them?

Let’s get this thing rolling!

(You don’t think the puppy-in-a-blender thing will come up during the campaign, do you?)

Update: Triticale recommends

Jane Galt for Commerce

Joanne Jacobs for H.E.W. (I confess, I’m unfamiliar with Ms. Jacobs. Link?)

Emperor Misha I for Homeland Security.

Let’s hear some more!

UPDATED: 10:21PM

Here’s some more recommendations. I WANT FEEDBACK, DAMMIT!

Cabinet:

Agriculture ?

Interior ? Can’t we combine Interior and Homeland Security? Call it “Interior Security” or just plain “National Security”?

Commerce Jane Galt (Don’t know her well enough, myself, but she comes with a recommendation.)

Justice Eugene Volokh

Defense WAR! Donald Sensing – Brilliant, retired marine ARMY (mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!), and a man of the cloth too!

Labor ?

Education Mrs. du Toit – Connie knows education.

State Steven Den Beste – he’ll reason our enemies into insanity! And outthink them at the same time! And clear out the halls of the State Department in favor of people who THINK!

Homeland Security Toss up: Emperor Misha or Kim du Toit – nobody should be able to do it better than a naturalized citizen!

Energy Laurence Simon of Amish Tech Support has been recommended.

Transportation ?

Treasury Mindles H. Dreck from Asymmetrical Information has been nominated.

Health & Human Services Two nominations: Joanne Jacobs and James Lileks. I go for Lileks. If he can manage home and Gnat, its good enough for me!

Housing & Urban Development Can’t we scrap this one?

Veteran’s Affairs Roll this into WAR!

Environmental Protection Agency Scrap this one too.

Office of Management & Budget ? I think Den Beste and Sensing and two or three others ought to combine on this one.

Chief of Staff BILL WHITTLE! (Or maybe just make him head speechwriter?)

Office of Drug Control Policy Another one to scrap.

U.S. Trade Representative ?

Ambassador to the UN The ambassador to the what?

UPDATE! 7/26/03 10:00AM

Jeff at Alphecca recommends Bill Quick of DailyPundit for Press Secretary, and has come up with a campaign slogan already:

ELECT THE GREAT IN 2008!

Scott Ott of Scrappleface has been recommended for Press Secretary, but really, we want to tell the world the truth (only as much as they need to know.) Scott wouldn’t be that different from the various previous Press Secretaries, only more blatant. (But it would be fun!) And Bill Quick gets a nomination for the (useless) position of Ambassador to the UN. I think I’d leave him as Press Secretary.

I’m going to have to build a spreadsheet, aren’t I?

I’ve got one of my own to recommend (a new advisory position?): National Technology Advisor – Eric S. Raymond of Armed and Dangerous.

OK, NOW we’re getting Ambassadorial nominations! Such as Frank J. as Ambassador to France! (Bejus, I LOVE IT!)

Keep ’em coming! This is too good!

As an adjunct to this, one respondent informs me:

I’ve heard Glenn Reynolds has a place in Tahoe. Why not give him a warm up for the White House by electing him Governor of California this October 7?

I’m not sure I’d wish that job on ANYONE.

Fred Pruit of Rantburg has been nominated CIA/NSA director.

Keep ’em coming!

UPDATE: 11:00PM 7/26

I’ve got an IHMSA match to run tomorrow morning, early, but tomorrow afternoon I’ll try to get a comprehensive list of the nominees for each position. And I’ll even include the (immediately disqualified) volunteers. Such as Bill Hobbs who is vying for Press Secretary, too.

UPDATE! @2:15PM I finally got the table of candidates up. Some formatting problems I can’t figure out, but the data is right. WooHoo!

Here’s Something Interesting

Ravenwood covers two items: First the Washington Post’s reaction to Orrin Hatch’s bill to repeal the D.C. gun ban. Money quote:

The best way to dry up this supply of guns would be for Congress to enact a federal law extending the District protections to Maryland, Virginia and all other states.

Which, if you weren’t able to translate that for yourself, Ravenwood puts plainly:

In case you were wondering, by “protections”, they mean “gun ban”, and by “all other states”, they mean yours.

The second item is the reaction by politicians to the NYC City Council shootings, which I recommend you read. But the money quote here is the one I’ve been using all along when it comes to the political fear of the .50BMG rifle:

Of course, you should also ask yourself just what is it that these politicians are doing, that they are so worried about being dragged out of their offices and shot because of it.

Or capped through the armor of their limousines.

Reader Ray dropped a comment below:

So long as the public is stupid enough to think they can get things from the government (politicians) at no cost they will be socialists.

How you stop this is beyond me. This is I believe the root cause of the growth of and infringement by bureaucracy into our lives.

This reminded me again of the quotation, popular among conservative sites, that is attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, (1747-1813) Scottish scholar, lawyer, poet and historian who was contemporary with the forming of the United States. (Also often referred to as Alexander Tyler.) I have found no definite link to Lord Woodhouslee for this quotation (and I’ve looked) but what the quotation says is food for thought regardless of its source:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence

From bondage to spiritual faith

From spiritual faith to great courage

From courage to liberty

From liberty to abundance

From abundance to selfishness

From selfishness to complacency

From complacency to apathy

From apathy to dependency

From dependency back again into bondage

The only way to stop it that I know of, Ray, is education. It is possible to teach people that there’s no such thing as “something for nothing.”

And that, I believe, is why our education system has been destroyed.

I GOTTA Get Me One of THESE!

Thanks to Rachel Lucas for the pointer, ThoseShirts.com (maker of my other favorite – the “Celebrate Diversity” shirt) is selling this Cox & Forkum masterpiece on cotton:

Go here to order yours!

More Tinfoil! More Tinfoil!

Well, THIS is interesting. According to sitemeter today I have received visits from:

NIPR.mil (three times)

epa.gov

DIA.mil (twice)

and uscourts.gov

One of those NIPR.mil visits covered 10 pages and took over 24 minutes! (I hope you found it informative.)

Comment sections are open for questions, or you can just e-mail me. (Don’t you guys have to work?)

I’d also like to say Suomi to my visitor from hut.fi and Goede dag to my visitors from xs4all.nl and chello.nl.

To the visitor from gc.ca, I say “Get back to work, hoser!” 🙂

More Evidence That Our Collapsing Schools Aren’t Accidental

Also from Samizdata:

What 1776 was really about?

I have been enjoying the television documentary of the American war of Independence shown over on the BBC (yes, that pinko channel!), presented by military historian Richard Holmes.

Bestriding around the countryside, Holmes is excellent. He even looks the part with his bearing and military moustache – you could imagine him in an army officer’s uniform circa 1940.

During his trip Holmes asked some locals on a bus travelling near Charleston about what the war meant to them. One elderly lady gave an articulate take, arguing about the issues of taxation, representation and liberty. And then he spoke to a young guy, probably in his early 20s, who came out with this gem. I paraphrase slightly:

Well, it was all about rich folks, who just did not want to pay their taxes. If it hadn’t been for them, we’d be British, and enjoy (!) socialised medicine.

So there you have it. Some of the younger American generation wish that George Washington had lost so that all Americans could use the National Health Service.

Don’t know whether to laugh or cry, really.

Neither do I.

Read the comments on this one, too.

More on Tony Martin

Samizdata has this post up concerning the continuing Tony Martin saga. Money quote:

The system is not just broken, it is insane.

Go read. And see where we’re headed.

And don’t miss the comments, either. Toren Smith, on hiatus from The Safety Valve makes this perceptive point:

I’m beginning to think that one of the ways one can judge the degree to which a society has progressed towards a government-controlled police state is to look at the reaction of the police to encroachment on “their turf.” In a free society where the police are truly viewed as the servants and protectors of the citizens, the cops respect the rights of the citizens and see them as partners in the battle against crime. In a place like New York or San Francisco where the government is pressing towards complete control of the citizens, the cops bitterly resent any interference with their monopoly on the use of force and treat all citizens as simply potential criminals. In any citizen-criminal battle, cops in such places are always careful to make sure the citizen doesn’t “get away with it” and even in cases of the most righteous shooting, one can expect charges to be pressed as a warning to other uppity peasants. (Always self-righteously defended, usually along the lines of “we can’t have vigilantes running around on the streets,” as if someone shooting a burglar who broke into their house is the same as some guy hunting down crack pushers as a part time job.) The final corrupt state of such a society can been seen in England, where all pretense has been dropped and citizens who act in a “police-like” manner towards criminals are seen as a much greater threat to the government than the criminals and are thus treated with greater severity than the criminals themselves. The next step is the gulag, although I expect it will make its appearance in a difference guise, perhaps as “sensitivity training facilities” or “community service centers” or some such.

Can you say “Ronald Dixon”? “José Acosta”? “Memphis District Attorney Bill Gibbons”?

I thought you could.

And that argues that the system isn’t insane. This behavior is purposeful.

And I think he’s right.