One of the major problems experienced by the Fox show’s gaggle of bureaucrats is whether or not to ignore liberty in exchange for the capture of terrorists, write Matt McCaffrey. “The common good” is a phrase constantly invoked (as it is in America today) by these characters, whose violations of personal liberty include, but are certainly not limited to, illegal searches, theft, kidnapping, destruction of property, and torture. The show calls to mind the brilliant propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl. FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/6194/the-orwellian-ideology-of-24/
The Orwellian Ideology of 24
Previous post: Industrial Media
Next post: Can Wealth Make Us Happy? Sort of
{ 75 comments }
← Previous Comments
Brooks:
It is true that Mises described the praxeological approach as one traceable to the ancient Greeks and that he attributed its rediscovery and (methodological) application to Menger. But the word itself and description of that application he laid (in a footnote) at the door of someone with a name like “Lispas” writing in the late 19th.
The debate you’re having on this site is not one involving praxeology, per se, but morality. And, in that particular debate, you and I are on the same side, as would–very clearly–be Mises, were he alive and participating. Our opponents are what I’d describe (and others, including, perhaps, themselves, have described) as
“left-libertarians.” The schism is moral and political, with the site itself being somewhat skewed (from its founding, and, indeed, its founders themselves) toward just that end of the spectrum.
Mises believed (and I with him) that Praxeology and Economics (which he described as the best-developed branch of the former) are, truly, “science,” in the most rigidly-applied, universal definition of the term. That is to say, that it provides both rationale and means for valid prediction within the sphere of its application, to wit, human action.
The principal difference between “us” and “them” is that we (conservatively) generally wish to move or change current practice carefully–within bounds proven beneficial through understanding of our science; opponents (along a spectrum of belief) insist on moves which (our side would insist) cannot be so proven (though they may share–with our view–a common direction). In such understanding, our opponents are not only “radicals,” but seem (to us) to transcend bounds imposed by reason. There are classic arguments for their side as well as for ours and there can be hardly any doubt but that some of their prescriptions, enacted into practice, would prove us unduly apprehensive. Many (indeed, most!) of the reforms we’d suggest would strike those unacquainted with Austrian-school economics, in like wise, as radical.
My chief criticism of the left-libertarians or anarchically-inclined is that they obfuscate (and I do not accuse them of deliberateness in this regard) emphasis on beneficial changes which might be more ably pro-polemicized were it not for emotional reaction engendered (in the media or the electorate, for example) by their positions on rather unrelated matters. Further, the site itself and its general tenor of extremism “scare off” many visitors who might otherwise become acquainted with Mises’ thought.
In this latter wise, though, I must state my opinion (subject only to the reservations stated) that the site must be seen as an enormously positive influence; no other organization (including FEE, Heritage, Cato, etc.) has managed to achieve anything remotely resembling the popular success of the LRC/Mises sites. (Just can’t knock the “throw enough shit against the wall” process when, previously, virtually nothing whatsoever “stuck”).
“[N]o other organization (including FEE, Heritage, Cato, etc.) has managed to achieve anything remotely resembling the popular success of the LRC/Mises sites.”
Ah, but surely it is the sites’ “general tenor of extremism” — i.e., their radicalism, as in “arising from or going to the root” — that distinguishes them from the others. For the more you water your message down in an attempt to make it palatable to larger numbers of people, the less meaningful your message is and the less of a following you therefore attract.
Brooks:
The divide between conservatism and radicalism is fuzzy. Indeed, though my opinion on most matters tends toward the conservative (Do no harm!), I’d fall on the radical side on others. A case in point is education. I’m with Ms. Taylor (article below) on this one: the system is broke beyond repair and needs a new one–preferentially without gov’t. involvement. For that reason, I believe the efforts of people like Horowitz (for academic freedom) and Harvey Kors’ FIRE are essentially counterproductive–will actually serve to further entrench the collectivists, as long as they “shape up” and eschew some of their more putrid excrescences.
I have even more radical thought (shared by no one else–ever–to the best of my knowledge) on monetary matters. In my view, everything (!) said on the topic–by everyone, including Mises–is fundamentally flawed. In that area, everything (so far) imaginable has been tried and found wanting in one respect or another, have all eventually failed, and will always continue to do so; no use whatever in expending either ink or breath on the problems until something actually different comes along.
gene berman,
OK, I’ll bite. What’s your radical thought?
Yes Gene, I think it’s odd that so many lefties seem at home on this Mises site. A lot of the listserv articles coming out of here also reflect that bent. Structurally you could say that the Austrian school is every bit as dogmatic as Marxism, and many on the left would probably see an equivelence there and miss the substantive differences. I personally don’t know how one confuses a command economy that obviates moral choice and a voluntary economy that rewards moral behavior but also keeps it from controlling the market.
I enjoy Horowitz’ site, even moreso since he incorporated Spencer’s Jihad Watch into it. And FIRE pretty much stands alone in doing what the ACLU should be doing on campus to preserve the First Am. These voices, with a few others, are all that stand against the tide of monolithic leftist control of academia. Just as jihadis will not cease hating the West if we withdraw from the fight, collectivists will not temper their totalitarian principles in the absence of counter arguments. These are fights we cannot avoid. That the tension between ordered liberty and dictatorship persists without resolution after thousands of years should be clear enough evidence of the futility of pacifism.
I think that it is important for me to respond to some of the criticisms that have been raised in regards to the article. Firstly, I think that many people have probably misunderstood what I was trying to achieve with it. I attempted to analyze just how television can be used as propaganda to distort the reality of a topic such as the ‘war on terror,’ by replacing paperwork-completing government employees with dramatic and interesting protagonists, who, despite the fact that they ‘agonize’ over their decisions, always seem (for some reason) to come down on the side of violating personal liberties.
Also the analogy to the war speech in 1984 was appropriate because both cases involve the state changing both the definitions of ‘enemy’ and the enemies themselves. The claim that the analogy was deliberately misleading is absoltely beneath whoever made it.
As for the oh-so-witty gentleman who made the remark about Star Trek- it is an absolute fact that art, even low art, especially film, can and is used for purposes of propaganda. I did not mean to imply that 24 represents some sort of vast conspiracy theory, merely that it reflects a distortion of the reality of the ‘war on terror’ a distorion that serves the purposes of the state. Examining how this show is refereced by pundits and politicians alike only drives home the point that, either deliberately or accidentally, this show is being confused with reality.
I hope I have cleared up some of these points.
Hmmm. Reading this debate it has been an interesting bounce between several subjects. I want to actually make a point of contention with Brooks Imperial. Now In response to the discussion of the State destroying civil liberties for the common good, let me just say that the State no matter how its formed doesnt have any authority. At all.None. I actually wrote an article a while back on my blog(accesible through my name) on State jurisdiction in regards to tax protester Ed Brown.
From what I can sense, Brooks Imperial, your a “conservative”. I highlight quotation marks because the idealogy you succumb to is the different idealogy that was embraced by men such as Albert Jay Nock, James Flynt, or William Graham Sumner. Basically, what men like Horowitz embraces is not the same conservatism that men of the turn of the century embrace. In fact present day Neo-conservatism is branched off of Straussian and Trotkyist ideas, hardly considered conservative. Given that the world is a different place then in ancient days doesn’t imply a different set of principles. Brooks, if private people were to ever use the same tactics the government uses in property violation towards you then you would be on the fritz and be very upset. It’s easy to exclaim that searches and property violations are necessary from your own abode without being on the receiving end.
Given that you work with law enforcement I can get a grasp of why you hold the State in such esteem. How anybody can be pro-state is beside me. Without reitering everything. I would recommend you going to http://www.lysanderspooner.org and reading No Treason. Lysander was a lawyer and he saw that the constitution or the government had no real authority.
Don’t get me wrong, Brooks. I think the aims (and
actions) of FIRE and Horowitz’ campaign in favor of academic freedom are necessary and admirable. But that’s not the same as believing that they hold hope for a re-creation of the system along lines both fundamentally (educationally) sound and generally amenable to what we’d conceive as a practical academic freedom.
The relative excellence of education (and literacy) in this nation–formerly–were the result of relatively happy and unique accidental circumstances , combined with the relative intellectual immaturity and disorganization of the various systems of collectivist thought. That world is gone; it is simply a datum of our (and world) history that Marx did, indeed, provide a neatly-fitted systemization and justification for social thought and prejudice that had long been dominant in much popular opinion, continues nearly undiminished to this very day, despite glaring failures, formerly unimaginable slaughter, and the dramatic implosion of its chief national expositor. (Though it cannot be maintained that the dominance of socialism owes merely to its prior systematized appearance: there is some essential attractiveness in its precepts that transcend bounds of social or economic position, race, nation, level of intellectual ability or attainment, etc.) But it is, indeed, a fact that its conquest of mens’ minds had at least a half-century “head start” on its only consistent challenge (and, of course, I refer specifically to the “Austrian School” of economic thought.) It is impossible to return to those better days (in education) of 50 and more years ago; as long as education is viewed primarily as a legitimate function and responsibility of government, the collectivist forces will command the heights, no matter that their most egregious offenses be curtailed–and that whether by frank and active opposition or their own caretaking efforts to preserve dominance. And, though I deplore the state of much common education of today, I am in virtual complete agreement with the expressed opinion of Mises (in one of the lengthy essays, I believe, collected under the title “Planning for Freedom”) that it were better for the young to be raised as illiterates than as the raw material shaped by any of the collectivist factions intent on shaping the rising generation according to their particular lights.
If I seem a slavish devotee of Mises, so be it. I have been thinking about these matters (as well as observing unfolding events) for much of the time during the last half of my 70 years and have found not the tiniest detail in which I could, honestly, offer the slightest contra opinion. You could say I came, I saw, I concurred. (That’s original with me, though at much earlier time.)
The single detail in which I differ from Mises is in my thought on monetary matters: I simply find it almost inconceivable that he did not see the glaring inconsistency in his (and everyone else’s) plans or recommendations for “reform.” And that is simply that all experience has shown that, regardless of any limitation placed on “those in power,” all will be disregarded and broken as political exigiencies demand. That constitutions, no matter how nobly inspired, are “mere scraps of paper” in the face of determined men, is a truth at least as self-evident as any other (and it did not escape Mises’ attention, which is why I cannot comprehend his failure to apply that very same understanding to proposals for monetary reform). Essentially, he seemed to propose that the best system of the past be reinstituted and simply hope for the best–that, in the future (very, very, long, indeed) people would somehow avoid making the bad choices that had marred past experience.
Note to David White: I wasn’t fishing. I’m not prepared to discuss my ideas at present and cannot even guarantee I ever will be so prepared, though I certainly hope so. I’ve got the e-mail addresses of about a dozen people–most of them readers here–to which I’ll communicate something when I can practically do so. You’re welcome to send yours to me to add: gene.berman@verizon.net The one thing I can guarantee is that you’ll have never heard anything remotely resembling. And, just to whet your appetite a bit, I’ll throw in that, at the same time, I’ll demonstrate conclusively that Archimedes cannot have developed the concept which we know as “specific gravity” but must have lived in a society in which the principle was already well-understood and, further, that the phenomenon we know as “Gresham’s Law,” (which today is placed a couple hundred years before Gresham) need have been fairly widely understood much earlier–by a couple thousand years.
Gene Berman/Brooks Imperial: where do you see leftists on this site? Well, OK, first question I suppose is: what do you mean by “leftist”? If you’re using the original definition, akin to “radical”, that’s one thing; if you mean the modern definition, there are no leftists here. The closest thing to a “left libertarian” here (he even calls himself that) is Roderick Long…
[Is anyone else thinking of The Life of Brian right now? "Welease woderick!"]
Mr. A. Scum,
I believe I’ve accurately covered some principles of our constitutional authority on the 4th Am., which, in so far as it also applies to persons, concerns much more than “property.” But that is an aside.
You may not recognize constitutional authority and the whole system of subordinate authorities it governs in America, including state and federal governments, the heirarchies of state and federal courts, law enforcement agencies, etc., however, these interlocking systems of legal authority don’t require your personal recognition for their continued existence. At the end of each day (almost) they will produce new judicial opinions, new statutes, and new regulations, that will impose some new conditions of life in America.
You should recognize these sources of authority because they will certainly recognize you when you cross them, and ignorance of their laws will rairly be an acceptable excuse to them.
It’s not that I am an apologist for the state. I just choose to understand it and know what it can do because the last person I want to have to respond or react to some imposed legal authority is me. Moreover, I don’t see how one can succeed in America today without a thorough understanding of the legal and regulatory environment that governs so many aspects of our daily lives.
The authorities are established and the rules are published. Mostly, they are fair rules. The ones that aren’t fair I avoid or I set about changing if it’s worth it to me.
AnarchistScum,
“Given that you work with law enforcement I can get a grasp of why you hold the State in such esteem.”
I’ll tell you how it is from seven years military experience. Whenever we had volunteers, guests, etc. with us, we put on a front. We fake being nice and say that we do things in a manner which in no way reflects reality when nobody is looking. I am being serious, and I am not lying. If anyone complains about the way we do things, then it is our butt that gets sent to the brig, so when visitors come we try to avoid the naughty list. As long as they’re around, we stop wasting ammunition, stop wasting supplies, take down the “turn iraq to glass” posters, clean everything up and put on our “we’re proud to serve you” faces.
I wish I had brought a video camera to all the brainwashing “musters” we had. We are good. They are bad. We are good. They are bad. Over and over again. I wouldn’t doubt if every day we were told what was good and what was evil a number of times over. I remember one of the last meetings I had to attend. We were all bunched into a movie theater on base. There were somewhere from 500 to 1,000 of us. While we sat and listened to the “preachers,” we were watched to ensure that we were awake and listening. For over five hours (with bathroom breaks), we were reminded that drugs are bad, alchohol is bad, smoking is bad (those three you hear 1 mil times in a 4 year enlistment). This time we learned of some new evils, such as predatory lenders. I wanted to throw up. Predatory lenders, among other things, are now bad and they would burn them all down if their superiors gave the order.
My experiences weren’t nearly as unbelievable as others. I have friends who were told to dump supplies into the ocean so they could maintain funding. Do we do that in front of you when you come to visit? Your tax dollars at work.
Kevin B.,
You make a good case for more citizen oversight of public agencies.
On funding, every government in America uses prior-year based budgeting. From the fed to states, counties and localities, if there’s money left at the end of the year in the till, they spend it to keep the base up for next years budget. Efficiency is not rewarded. Spending is rewarded.
Look at Medicare. CMS keeps their budget up by keeping Medicare fee schedules rising. Drugs get cheaper, devices get made for a fraction of the cost in China, and hospital stays get shorter, yet reimbursements keep going up. Manufacturers and health care providers have incentives to increase their bottom lines, but there is no systemic reward for lowering the cost of health care. Build a better mousetrap at a fraction of the cost, and charge more for it. All governments do it.
Public agencies (governments) in America should be constitutionally limited – by amendment – to zero-based quantity-justified budgeting.
Brooks:
I strongly recommend you read Mises’ BUREAUCRACY.
It’s short (about 125 pocket-book-sized pages) and much easier to understand quickly than almost anything else the man ever wrote. When you’re done, you’ll know (and, what is more–you’ll know that you know) virtually everything of any importance about the subject.
A bureaucracy is bound to act in just the fashion that they do–including spending the entirety of their budget by hook or crook: any leftover is prima facie evidence of either or both of two transgressions: non-feasance or incompetent performance. A surplus is proof that more of the assigned mission could have been accomplished within the funds allocated; incompetence (poor planning) is the only possible (and only partial) exculpation.
An executive branch is (of necessity) primarily bureaucratic; the only alternative is petty (and not-so petty) despotism. The only possible way to reduce the inefficiencies and general aggravations of bureaucracy is neither to fix the bureaucratic methods nor the bureaucrats–but to reduce the areas and the extent to which government is involved in various aspects of life.
Brooks Imperial,
“You may not recognize constitutional authority and the whole system of subordinate authorities it governs in America, including state and federal governments, the heirarchies of state and federal courts, law enforcement agencies, etc., however, these interlocking systems of legal authority don’t require your personal recognition for their continued existence. At the end of each day (almost) they will produce new judicial opinions, new statutes, and new regulations, that will impose some new conditions of life in America.”
Well of course they don’t need my personal recognition for their continued existence. Nor does the mafia, or a street gang, or even a cult. They exist as they are but doesnt mean I have to follow their rules or their dictates. There was no basis for legitmacy. Having the most force of arms or verbal manipulation doesnt establish legitimacy. Now in a hypothetical situation where there is no more Federal government and the Nation-state is a conglomerate of small countries; I go into a city-state of a 100,000 people and it is ruled by am oligarchy. I rent a room from an owner that has always been part of the city state. Now I would follow the rules because A)The city state is its own organization of property owners ruled by the wealthy and B)I am on private property and regardless I can follow the dictates of the owner or simply leave. Now they could’nt hold me there unless I violated property rights, in which case I would have to pay restitution. Given that the Nation-state we live in is so fragmented, there is no reason to put everyone under the same banner of the constitution. Not everyone recognizes that authority. Naturally, if the Federal State was washed away by whatever means then people will fragment, secede, align, join, to their own voluntary preferences to whatever country, county, city, property, they want to be part of. Everyone is different and putting everyone under the same banner doesn’t do anyone justice.
“You should recognize these sources of authority because they will certainly recognize you when you cross them, and ignorance of their laws will rairly be an acceptable excuse to them.”
Same thing with the Mafia, if I cross them or what not they will come for me. It does not make it legimate though. Stalin understood his enemies that contended against him and he dealt with them swiftly.Hitler did. Mao did. They all did. But it doesnt mean they are in the right.
“It’s not that I am an apologist for the state. I just choose to understand it and know what it can do because the last person I want to have to respond or react to some imposed legal authority is me. Moreover, I don’t see how one can succeed in America today without a thorough understanding of the legal and regulatory environment that governs so many aspects of our daily lives.”
I understand you look to your survival as a priority. So do I. So do all animals. Of course I dont want to deal with the State on its terms, they have the firepower, theyre ruthless, and they have no souls. People succeed all the time without having to deal with State. Albeit the State is in every facet of life so understanding the rules of the State is another means to survival. There is times though when you cannot be bullied anymore. Realization of false authority is a means to an end. If everyone were to rise up against the State right now their would be no State anymore.
“The authorities are established and the rules are published. Mostly, they are fair rules. The ones that aren’t fair I avoid or I set about changing if it’s worth it to me.”
Now thats a fair opinion but not everyone feels that opinion is worth while. So their is contention in that facet. Like the Iraqis being ruled by the US puppet State. Im sure many of them feel the rules being imposed by them by foreigners is unjust.
Mr. A. Scum,
Not all utopian constructs are created equal. Some are more plausible than others, but ones forced on societies have had disastrous results for the unlucky citizens caught in them.
In the American Revolution colonials fought to preserve the societies they had already created in the new world. Then the need for federalism grew out of the weaknesses inherent in the loose confederation that followed the revolution. Colonials responded with a well reasoned, well argued, governmental construct that still preserved much of what they already had. These were measured steps in a direction. They weren’t cataclysmic like the French Revolution, or your libertarian proposals to do away with all existing government and impose a darwinian oligarchy of city-states.
It is unlikely in the extreme that we’ll ever see the rate of change in America that you promote. Americans simply don’t change their minds that radically that fast. Far more likely will be slow demographic-driven changes of the sort that Mark Steyn writes about. But unless a Muslim majority should form in America, I doubt we’ll see much change in our fundamental governmental structures.
“Not all utopian constructs are created equal. Some are more plausible than others, but ones forced on societies have had disastrous results for the unlucky citizens caught in them.”
By all means that is a fact. There is no enforcement on civilization if the present State imploded from whatever means. What the present State does is apply force to everyone and puts everyone, regardless of differences, under the same banner. That to me is a Utopian construct.
“In the American Revolution colonials fought to preserve the societies they had already created in the new world. Then the need for federalism grew out of the weaknesses inherent in the loose confederation that followed the revolution. Colonials responded with a well reasoned, well argued, governmental construct that still preserved much of what they already had. These were measured steps in a direction. They weren’t cataclysmic like the French Revolution, or your libertarian proposals to do away with all existing government and impose a darwinian oligarchy of city-states.”
There was nothing well reasoned in the governmental structure that the Founding Fathers FORCED onto the populace. Like every government, its akin to a parasite, the more it feeds off the host the more it grows. I see this “well reasoned” structure as a dismal failure. Federalism lead to the creation of ever increasing beaucracy and State hood. Now the Federal government is supreme over the States and so forth down the line. Im sure there was weaknesses inherent in the Articles of Confederation but those failures are minute compared to the failures this government structure has created. You contend that my libertarian proposals are cataclysmic. I do not necessarily know how the State will be destroyed. My hope is that people will be eductated and will rise on their own accord. If it was sudden and the Federal government was defeated by some revolutionary faction, then perhaps it will catch people off guard. I’m not an oracle so I cannot forsee the future. What I can tell you is that people and ever growing markets satisfy consumer demands or needs. Im not proposing there to be oligarchic city-states, all I am proposing is people VOLUNTARYILY align themselves with whoever they want. If they want totaltariansim then they’ll go to a place where that idealogy is respected. The list can go on and on. The French Revolution was disastrous because it was an imposition from up top and the worst came into power. There was a government structure still intact that created a disaster and gave power to men like Robespierre.
“It is unlikely in the extreme that we’ll ever see the rate of change in America that you promote. Americans simply don’t change their minds that radically that fast. Far more likely will be slow demographic-driven changes of the sort that Mark Steyn writes about. But unless a Muslim majority should form in America, I doubt we’ll see much change in our fundamental governmental structures.”
Honestly who knows. Since you contend to know how Americans change their minds; liberty will hopefully win in the end, whether its slowly or suddenly. We will see.
I wonder if Kiefer himself worships the state. His grandfather Tommy Douglas sure was a pioneering socialist in Canada. The old sob scored quite well in a recent (state-owned) CBC poll about “The Greatest Canadian.”
Mind you, so did some almost-unknown DJ who “got out the vote” in Winterpeg.
A movie that I quite liked as a kid was Dirty Harry, which is pure propaganda for the police state. It is extremely effective propaganda, in fact. It uses the “ticking bomb” excuse (in this case a suffocating adolescent girl) to justify police torture.
More importantly, the omniscient camera shows us that Harry Callahan is 100% correct and his enemy is pure evil. If only the higher ups would stop being politicians and let him do his job. In the real world of course, we’d have no way of knowing this. In fact, if their were such an omniscient camera, the police would be the first ones to want it banned.
There are occaisionally shows that show up this point of view, for example on The Sopranos the mobsters are certainly evil and corrupt, but so is the State they control and their enemies (aside from each other) the Feds are inept careerists who don’t really care about the people they use to get to the mob. The two snitches are an interesting comparison, one older, savvy mobster is constantly getting money and favors out of the Feds for his cooperation because he understands how much they need him (until he dies, peacefully of a stroke). Pretty but not to bright Adrianna La Cerva is basically revealed to the Mob through their constant, escalating demands and inept plans and killed because of it.
A movie that I quite liked as a kid was Dirty Harry, which is pure propaganda for the police state. It is extremely effective propaganda, in fact. It uses the “ticking bomb” excuse (in this case a suffocating adolescent girl) to justify police torture.
More importantly, the omniscient camera shows us that Harry Callahan is 100% correct and his enemy is pure evil. If only the higher ups would stop being politicians and let him do his job. In the real world of course, we’d have no way of knowing this. In fact, if their were such an omniscient camera, the police would be the first ones to want it banned.
There are occaisionally shows that show up this point of view, for example on The Sopranos the mobsters are certainly evil and corrupt, but so is the State they control and their enemies (aside from each other) the Feds are inept careerists who don’t really care about the people they use to get to the mob. The two snitches are an interesting comparison, one older, savvy mobster is constantly getting money and favors out of the Feds for his cooperation because he understands how much they need him (until he dies, peacefully of a stroke). Pretty but not to bright Adrianna La Cerva is basically revealed to the Mob through their constant, escalating demands and inept plans and killed because of it.
I don’t understand some of you so called “true conservatives”. Stop overanalyzing so much! Just enjoy the show!!! According to many of you, I am a neo-con. But I’m just as conservative as anyone on here. Tell me, how are we supposed to fight these evil people if we don’t go to war with them? You all think if we stay out of their lives in the middle east they will leave us alone. Well, why did they take 52 American hostages in 1979 in Iran? Did we have any troops in Iran back then or anywhere else in that region? Also, tell me how many American citizens have lost there civil rights because of the PATRIOT Act? Answer: NONE! There is no other way to fight this evil called radical Islam! 24 has it right. A few people may have to get there toes stepped on in order to fight these inhumane people who want to drop a nuclear bomb on us. Wake up!! Or tell the nation your plan for fighting terrorism because I haven’t heard a credible alternative to the war.
A big reason for why we are in the Middle East is because we have not been allowed to drill for oil here by the radical environmentalists. I admit that oil is a big reason why we are at war over there. What if we were to drill here along some of the coastlines where it’s estimated that we have approximately 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas according to the U.S. Minerals Management Service. We consume about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year and import about 4.5 billion. What in God’s name is the reason for not drilling for oil in our own backyard??? Can any of you conservatives answer that?? Because of this we have given the radical leaders in the middle east billions of dollars a year in order to fund their war machine which is being used against us right now.
Actually Paul I thought Dirty Harry was a DYI sort of guy. He’d complain that the system was too soft and criminals would be back on the streets in no time to terrorise innocent folks all over again. Yet then there’s one movie where he finds certain police officers are vigilantes because they hate the system for the same reason. However Dirty Harry defends the system against the vigilantes cops (and eventually kills them)with the reply to the tune of: ‘I hate the system too but I’m not going get rid of it until someone comes up with a better one. If we let people do their own enforcement soon you’ll have a neighbour killing another neighbour for his dog crapping on the other’s lawn’. Is this a case of someone with a ideology akin to walking along a barbed wire fence with a leg on either side?
I think Matt did a fine job with the article. I too would like to see Jack Bauer agonize over a decision then CHOOSE NOT to violate some American’s rights. At least once. Then we might know he is “morally and spiritually at the end of his rope”.
Has anyone seen Children of Men? I saw it yesterday and it really affected me. The State was portrayed in a faceless, anonymous way as a force of evil, while the “terrorists/revolutionaries” and “illegals” seemed to be more personal but still evil.
Incredibly sad but accurate movie.
Victor Chavez,
You raised the question as to why the Iranian terrorist kidnapped and help American hostages in 1979. Ever hear of CIA Operation Ajax? Read your history book about Mohammad Mossadeq and how the CIA orchestrated a coup in 1953 to overthrow this pro-US, anti-communist leader on behalf of British M16. I suggest the book “All the Shah’s Men” for more information regarding this topic. Wonder where the roots of Iranian terror come from? How about the US installing a secular dictator in Iran (at the time being a democratic state!)
I’ve never watched the show, but I see the writer has built a straw man argument…
For or against us doesn’t mean everyone in a country, it refers to the leaders. Everyone knows that there are many people of Iran are sympathetic to the west, or would outright overthrow their leaders if they could.
Brooks says
“Kevin B.,
You make a good case for more citizen oversight of public agencies.”
I love government’s ‘logic’. It goes something like this :
We spend 100,000 millions in ‘national defense’ and still the WTC is blown up. What went wrong ? Well, of course, the stinky taxpayers didn’t surrend enough money….it’s their fault.
So, the government doesn’t work as designed ? Well, now the citizens must not only pay the overpriced bills but also do the work of the bureaucrats and/or oversee them.
Also, just what is a ‘public agency’ ?
You’ve already denied that the state is merely a group of persons. I suppose then the state is a collective entity that represent the ‘will of the people’ (that’s of course rubbish, but is, more or less, the definition I think you’d use)
So, I assume that a public agency represents the will of the people. If that’s the case, why is it that public agencies take care of their own interests, as if they were simply a ‘private’ organizations ?
If an entity acts like entities beloging to category xxxx then that entity is an xxxx.
If an entity acts like the Maffia it’s because it’s an instance of the Maffia. If you see a pig and call it a cow, it’s still a pig.
← Previous Comments
Comments on this entry are closed.