Clinton scrambles to halt Obama momentum 
- Obama is leading handily in the upcoming primaries in Maryland and Virginia... Is it me or does anyone else think that Hillary will not win any other states again? I think the Dem race is pretty much over. It's all about momentum, and Hillary got none.
Losses signal challenges for McCain - Ultimately McCain should win this but I can't help the feeling that Huckabee is waiting to see if something will happen to John... If McCain wins the nomination, there is no way whatsoever that he will win in the general. If he stumbles now, perhaps Romney can step back in and do a deal with Huck. I know I am just dreaming, but this is one of the most uninspiring campaigns ever on the GOP side.
Happy Monday!
Comments :
Go Huckabee
I am rooting for the guy from Hope, Arkansas.
It is the economy, stupid.
What??!
You're rooting for Huckabee?! Seriously?!? Ouch!! Or are you just being snarky?
__________________________
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) dies
80 year old holocaust survivor had cancer of the esophagus
A great American. RIP.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
He was amazing!
That's sad. God rest his beautiful soul!
It is the economy, stupid.
Dem race
I don't think so. That is, I agree Obama has momentum, but I don't think that is all that important anymore. The point of momentum is to make it more likely to win future races, and we're well past the halfway mark now, including all the big states (Florida, California, New York).
Actually I guess there is Texas still, that's a pretty big state.
Right now Obama and Hillary both have ~1100 delegates. They need almost twice that.
Feb 12th there are 237 up for grabs.
Feb 19th- 121
Mar 4- 444 (Texas and Ohio mainly)
rest of March- 58
April- 188
May- 391
June- 110
That's a total of 1549 delegates left. Obama needs 904 of those or 58% (assuming super delegates don't change). The only primaries where he's done that well are Georgia and Illinois. He's done that well in many of the Caucus states. The final thing to consider is whether the states are winner take all or proportional.
Texas for instance is a proportional primary, so there's no way for Obama to get all 200+ delegates (on the flip side there's no way for him to lose them all either).
A brokered convention is looking pretty likely as I see it.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Superdelegates
There are still, I believe, about 400 undecided superdelegates as well. Culminating the primary campaign with a string of victories would, presumably, convince most of them that they should pick the candidate that is consistently winning. So momentum might be a bigger factor than you think. 55% of the remaining delegates and 75% of the remaining superdelegates will be enough.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
US to try alleged 9/11 planner
The problem of course is that we now want to try them in a court of law after having kept them in guantanamo. Any competent lawyer will hammer the government on every detail, raising the specter that it was obtained through torture and thus tainted. Cheney's boner for hurting helpless people has screwed us.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Why I'm an anarchist
read this
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
??
why ??
Reading about people voluntarily submitting to evil, either as the perpetrators or the victims, simply because they were told to...
What does it make you think?
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
having no government is not going to prevent
the people of dubious moral character from doing evil things.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
True
but it may very well stop the rest of us from obeying the people of dubious moral character when they want us to do evil things.
Pause to consider how much evil that would prevent.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
More libertarian arguments....
You're good at this! ;)
As I've said
libertarians see half the problem.
But obeying the CEO is just as likely to lead to atrocities as obeying el Presidente.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
And as I've said,
You misrepresent the libertarian position when you reason this way.
All I see is a warning against collectivism, socialism and
Illiberalism (classical) as well as a real world example of what Hayek warned against in "The Road to Serfdom".
Furthermore,
(I was on my iphone before so I had to be brief)
You are simply using small bits and pieces of the classical liberal/libertarian argument...which in turn, fits into a very developed argument for liberalism (classical) and limited government to support individual sovereignty.
I actually chuckle when you defend anarchism because you defend it using very narrow and basic components of my libertarian position. But when seen in the context of how "illiberal" (classical) your world view is as manifested in your philosophical foundations when you speak in general socio-econo-political terms, it's actually quite shocking.
You aren't looking hard enough
These are general truths, not in anyway confined to the peculiars of the Nazis. It is a warning against all forms of organized social groups.
Every government is just an atrocity waiting to happen. The US has proven this repeatedly. Despite being a liberal western democracy we've committed horrible crimes, precisely because people choose to obey orders.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
very true...
that's part of the problem with your reasoning when compared to how you act.
If anarchism were possible now
I would advocate for it now. It simply isn't. Consequently I advocate for the best possible government under the circumstances, all the while fearing what it may become.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
You're an anarchist?
Since when? You're an anarchist wannabe, not a real anarchist, as evidenced by your actual political stances.
Your personal views have you neither rebeling against authority nor overthrowing the established order. Your actions and positions result in exactly the opposite, the advancement of authority and the consturction of an established order (i.e. one that promotes your views).
But more to the point...
Please, help us to understand how being an Anarchist would affect this outcome in any way? If the Jews had been Anarchists this would have saved them how?
You can't assume that the Germans would be Anarchists because that would be requiring everyone to be Anarchists which is decidedly not an Anarchistic point of view, right? Even if you are an Anarchist you must allow for other groups to organize if they so choose, ergo the Nazi's could have still existed even in an Anarchistic view of the world.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
I think a simpler way of putting it, GR, is that
Nazism and Fascism are two of the most anti-libertarian, illiberal (classical) and collective expressions of government along with Communism.
Considering that anarchy, as it is explained by Tlaloc, is waiting for everyone to be "ready for it", it would be of no use in such matters. What libertarianism does is safeguard against this usurpation of power and collective coercion by restraining the power of government in defense of individualism.
Have you noticed how he simply refuses to answer ...
even the most basic of questions? I'm not even being pointed in most cases. I admit to being pointed in some cases to try and get him to break his silence! :)
I guess he's like a monk who has taken a vow to never speak to be again! He he.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
yes.
Different types of anarchist thought
economics is the science of efficient allocation in a world of scarcity. In a world without scarcity, there would be no need for economics, and indeed, no need for the state, obviously. But since I do not see the issue of scarcity receding anytime soon, left anarchism is mere utopianism.
As an example of left anarchy, Freedom Democrats had a post about Bluesfield. However, that's actually an example of a Pareto Sub-Optimum because obviously while Bluesfield is made much better off, it's at the expense of the Drug Smugglers.
Market Anarchism is a body of theory developed to posit a 'government" of voluntary association in a world of scarcity. Political institutions are replaced by market instiutions. The term "Market" does not mean "corporation," it simply means "voluntary exchange." The corporation is the legal invention of the state.
The idea that people will not voluntarily choose anarchism is very real, I call it the "Anarchist's Dilemma" and it's modeled after the "Prisoner's Dilemma" in game theory. These are games where the Nash Equilibriums are not Pareto Optimal.
However, I should point out that the Minarchists have their own dilemma as well, very similar. That is, thinking you can politically reform the middle class entitlement state back down to a "minarchist state" is an example of a game whose Nash Equilibrium is a not Pareto Optimal either.
In moving from minarchist to anarchist, I have done so primarily because I see counter economics as the only means to "change the game" so to speak.
You're speaking on a very different level, Ka1igu1a
Couple things:
Yes, as we've talked about over FD, there is a "Minarchist dilemma" and I'm very aware of it. I'm all down with Rothbard. It's all good. He's right and I get the reasons for non-middle ground purity. I just don't see it as a practical vision to advocate right now.
But once all the smoke clears, Rothbard is still a libertarian. He's still a yellow bar. :) He's just an Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarian....IOW, libertarianism arguably taken to full and most complete conclusion...as opposed to Minarchists who make exceptions for some institutions on the grounds of pragmatism.
Aside from Rothbardian anarcho-capitalists, the only people who use the term anarchy are the left anarchists that you describe. The irony I find in them is that they are not market anarchists as you describe. They are utopians who require unreasonable and impossible conditions because they ignore basic tenets of economic reality....like property and incentive. They want voluntary socialism for the most part. You, OTOH, are talking about pure libertarianism. Which is fine. It's not like I really disagree with you philosophically. I am just more reserved on the argument to make and measures to take in public in the here and now with respect to where we are.
I discussed this distinction on a previous thread that started here here
. Have a look.
Bottom line though for me is that what you advocate is still libertarianism...just a purer form with no state because, for me, for all intents and purposes in modern discussion, anarchism is really just anarcho-socialism or a form anarchy that ignores basic tenets in the idea of markets. Once you place sound and very real economic principles at the base in the form of property, freedom of choice, market incentive and other tenets (as Rothbard did!) you move into libertarianism.
AnCap, Multualism, Geolibertarianism, and Agorism
are all variants of Market Anarchism, the differences between them usually being intepretation of Property. AnCap is Lockian, Geo is Georgian, and Mutualism is Proudhonian.
Agorism, which i subscribe to, is a left variant of ancap and places emphasis on "counter economics" as means overcoming the anarchist dilemma, so I actually think it's more practical than political reform via minarchist rational evangelism.
But practically, yeah I'm still a libertarian
i haven't quit the LP or anything nor have i "moved" off the grid...
Right now, it's a theoretical position and I'm researching it using Game Theory framework...
cool
I'd be interested in hearing what you come up with.
You're calling a feature a bug
It is very real, I've said so myself, but it is also a good thing. Without that anarchism is no different than any of the forms of organized societies (and yes I find them far more similar than different).
Anarchism has to be chosen, not compelled.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
More like you are calling a bug a feature...
and i'm not advocating coercion, not sure where you are getting that from. the Libertarian Principle is at the heart of Market Anarchism...
I'm not saying you are
advocating coercion. All I'm saying is that the lack of coercion in anarchism is a good thing, not a bad thing.
And? You say that like Libertarians don't depend on coercion...
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
CRS reports
CRS on US special operations forces. Some interesting tidbits.
Also a CRS report on the National Guard:
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Petraeus
stories like this reinforce my impression of Petraeus as a highly competent officer who really wants to succeed. It's a shame he was handed such a terrible mess and asked to do the impossible with grossly inadequate resources. Consequently his command will ultimately be regarded as a failure of epic proportions through no fault of his own. A tragedy that.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.