'The Myth of Authoritarian Efficiency'

"A spectre haunts debates about governance: the idea of benevolent and efficient dictatorship. Where democratic leaders haggle, delay, and pander, the authoritarian ruler simply acts. Where elected governments bend to lobbyists and electoral cycles, a dictator [it's alleged] is in for the long haul. ...

"Beijing officials invoke it to explain the rise of China; climate activists to argue that the planetary emergency demands that we put democracy on pause; populists to suggest that current institutions are broken and that a fresh start and setting the popular will free requires a firm and unchecked hand. ...

"However, a large body of studies of how democracies and autocracies actually perform across regions, over centuries, and in domains ranging from economic growth to military effectiveness to environmental protection have questioned this story. They do not show autocracies to be superior—on the contrary, the autocratic temptation is, in most domains, a mirage, or even a trap. Not only are democracies morally preferable because they recognise the political equity and dignity of citizens; they also tend to work better. ... 

"Countries that successfully consolidate free and fair elections face substantially lower risks of civil war ... Citizens who can kick out the opposition at elections are less inclined to take to the streets with weapons.

"[D]emocracies have been accused of weakness in warfare. ... Yet the long-term record is unambiguous: since 1815, democracies have won more than 80 percent of the wars they have fought. ...

"Democratic institutions protect property rights in a way that encourages the private investment that drives productivity. And the open circulation of ideas across universities, a free press, and competitive markets is not a distraction from growth but one of its primary engines. Studies show that, on average, democracies enjoy a modest but robust long-run growth advantage over autocracies, and that this advantage strengthens with the quality and longevity of democratic institutions.

"More telling than average growth rates, however, is the frequency with which disasters strike. Unchecked political authority not merely fails to deliver growth; rather, it periodically produces catastrophes. Mao’s Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962 killed tens of millions through an entirely man-made famine, a consequence of ideological fantasy insulated from the real world. The Soviet collectivisation campaign produced similar horrors two decades earlier. Comparable disasters in democratic states are virtually unknown—not necessarily because democratic leaders are wiser or more virtuous, but because they face institutional constraints and public scrutiny that make disastrous policies impossible to sustain.

"The most advanced economies in the world are democracies. The handful of countries that have joined the ranks of wealthy, high-technology societies over the past century, including South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, and Ireland, made at least the final leap under democratic governance. Singapore is the sole exception to this rule. Autocratic regimes can mobilise resources to achieve middle-income status, as China has done. But the transition to a knowledge-based economy requires the rule of law, the protection of intellectual property, and the freedom to challenge received wisdom—all of which are systematically undermined under dictatorship. ...

"At a time when open societies face serious pressure from within and without, the temptation to admire their alternatives is understandable. But admiration is not a sound foundation for political judgment, especially not when it is based on a selective reading of the evidence. The autocratic temptation promises fortitude and efficiency—but too often, it only produces chaos and mismanagement; and, occasionally, it delivers disaster."

~ Jørgen Møller from his article 'The Myth of Authoritarian Efficiency'

How to get me into a voting booth

When it comes to election time my general approach is "Don't encourage them, don't vote." I've never been  disappointed with that considered choice.

But Henry Olsen has an idea that might get me into a booth: a negative vote.

We know exactly who we cannot stand and why the other lot would be a disaster. But our positive support for any party is probably lukewarm at best. ...

Perhaps the voting system should reflect that.

Imagine this: ... You head to the polls and discover that, not only can you vote for a party, but you can also vote against one.

Instead of adding to your preferred party’s vote count, you could bring down the count of one you hate. Now that voters have finally mastered MMP, this would take democracy to a whole new level.

Are you a middle-aged farmer worried about the Greens’ alternative Budget, or a young college graduate mad at the Coalition for reducing Auckland’s housing construction allowance? Use the negative vote to express your anger!

No one would be obliged to use their positive vote, so all votes could be negative. The party with the fewest negative votes would then win the election.

I like it. It could be that all parties are so hated, we could have a Prime Minister leading a party with more negative votes than positive. Just fewer negative votes than all those other bastards.

Then let's see them talk about their bloody "mandate."

PS: Which of the bastards would you be voting against?

"The Maori seats encourage people to ghettoise themselves"

"It has become starkly obvious that the Maori seats are being used by activists to [ghettoise Māori: to isolate them, separate them, cut them off, according to a cultural identity]. ...

"Ghettoisation can be done to a person or group, or people or groups can do it to themselves. ...

"Israr Kasana, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant to the Canadian city of Calgary, explains why he and his family rejected the temptation to adopt the comfortable way of establishing themselves within a Pakistani community. He says 'Ghettoisation or marginalisation of any kind is bad for society. It creates exclusion, imbalance, envy, anger, ignorance and, more importantly, distrust.' ...

"The Maori seats encourage people to ghettoise themselves according to cultural identity, whereas what we must surely want is a society in which people of all races are able to coexist together in peace and cooperation as equal citizens under the law." ...

"[Then National leader Bill] English said [in 2003] the National Party 'stands for one standard of citizenship for all.' ... 'That’s why a National-led Government will abolish the Maori seats.” Of course, it did nothing of the sort when National came back into government in 2008 under John Key. Instead, the Key government abetted the infiltration of all parts of New Zealand society by elements who would substitute authoritarian tribal rule for a free and democratic society, a process which was accelerated by the Ardern/Hipkins governments. ...

"Under pressure from ACT and New Zealand First, the coalition government has walked this back a bit but not to the extent needed to offer meaningful restraint of the authoritarian tendencies which unthinking acquiescence by most of us has unwittingly allowed. ...

"Leadership is needed. We need a Prime Minister who will say loudly and clearly what English said in 2003 ... Today, when NZ First has advanced a Bill for a referendum and ACT says get rid of the Maori seats now, the opportunity is ripe for that sort of leadership.

"Getting rid of the seats, especially by or endorsed by referendum to show it is peoples’ will, would not only remove an anti-democratic excrescence, but also be a signal that enough is enough and that henceforth we shall be a 'multiracial society [where] people of all races are able to coexist together in peace and cooperation as equal citizens under the law.'

"Yet the National Party is silent. ..."

~ Gary Judd, composite quote from his posts 'Ghettoising the mind' and 'National could signal its support for democracy'

SOME HISTORY: 

"[T]he Māori seats were created to bring Māori into the parliamentary system and guarantee representation, rather than exclude them.
 

"By 1867, when the Māori Representation Act 1867(1) passed, Europeans outnumbered Māori roughly four to one. ...

"The Māori seats addressed a real problem: under the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 [2] voting required individual property or household qualification. Most Māori land was communally held, leaving Māori largely unable to meet the franchise. ...

The Māori electorates solved the voting problem by granting all Māori men over 21 the right to vote, decades before universal male suffrage applied elsewhere in New Zealand [3]. Far from limiting Māori rights, the law expanded them. ...

"The seats also guaranteed meaningful participation. Four electorates—three in the North Island, one for the South—were superimposed over existing electorates. Māori with qualifying property could still vote in European electorates, giving many a dual vote. [4] Officials went to extraordinary lengths to ensure participation: in 1890, a returning officer undertook a six-day trek through dense Urewera bush to establish a polling station at Maungapōhatu. [5] Such efforts are hardly consistent with a strategy to suppress Māori voices. ...

"Seats were originally intended as temporary until Māori qualified under the general property franchise [6] ...

"While Māori were under-represented by modern proportional standards [when the Māori seats were created in 1867, each European electorate represented roughly 3,500 people, while each Māori electorate represented around 12,500 people [7]], the four seats ensured guaranteed parliamentary representation, at a time when European immigration was rapidly outpacing Māori numbers. This was enfranchisement, not suppression.' ...

"However today the original rationale for the Māori electorates has disappeared. In the current Parliament 33 MPs identify as having Māori heritage — about 27% of the House — far exceeding Māori’s roughly 17% share of the population. Even without the seven reserved seats, Māori representation would remain substantial, the historical purpose of the Māori electorates has now been fulfilled and, consistent with the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System and with Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, they should now be abolished in favour of equal representation for all voters."

NOTES

1. New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats

2. New Zealand Parliament, “History of the Electoral System,” https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/history/history-of-the-electoral-system/

3. New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
4. McRobie, Alan, Electoral Atlas of New Zealand, GP Books, 1989.
5. New Zealand History, “Polling in isolated Māori communities,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
6. Ibid.; New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats

7. Te Ara, “Māori representation,” https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-mangai-maori-representation

Collectivism v Democracy

“It is now often said that democracy will not tolerate 'capitalism.' If 'capitalism' means here a competitive system based on free disposal over private property, it is far more important to realise that only within this system is democracy possible. When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.”

~ Friedrich Hayek from The Road to Serfdom, Ch. 5

“The traditional politician asks for your vote so that they can fix your life, as if they know what you need."

“The traditional politician asks for your vote so that they can fix your life, as if they know what you need. What I say is, I ask for your vote so that I can give you back the power to be the architect of your own life.” 

~ Javier Milei, from his Nov 2024 interview with The Economist

"Liberal democracy is a superpower that can make a country, or a continent, great. The world needs to have at least one such liberal democratic power, to a serve as a refuge, a protector, and an example for the rest of the world."

 

"To my friends in Europe, I want to extend an apology—and an urgent warning.

"I am profoundly sorry that Americans are failing you in this dangerous and difficult time, after you have stood with us over so many years. I didn’t vote for this, I didn’t want it, I fought against it. But I am an American, and this is my country’s choice and its policy—and I am heartily ashamed of it.

"Now the warning: Europe needs to become one of the great powers of the world, and do it fast—or you will get carved up by them….

"Yet it is absurd to think of Europe as a nonentity with no standing in the world. The countries of Europe, excluding Russia, represent 700 million people. Europe is composed of advanced and developed societies, great centres of science and culture—and taken all together, it is the world’s third-largest economy, on a par with the US and China. Europe also makes up a large part of NATO, the world’s most powerful military force. Even without the US, you are more than a match for poor, backward, depleted Russia—and the UK and France have their own nuclear forces, which provide a deterrent against other nuclear powers….

"Liberal democracy is a superpower that can make a country, or a continent, great. The world needs to have at least one such liberal democratic power, to a serve as a refuge, a protector, and an example for the rest of the world. If it is not going to be America—for who knows how long—then it had better be Europe."

~ Robert Tracinski from his post 'Dear Europe: Become a Great Power—or Get Carved Up by Them'—which he reckons is "one of the most important things I wrote this year."

Democracy wangled: why public programmes are designed to benefit the middle classes, financed by taxes paid by the rich & poor

A simple principles explains how democracy really works to benefit one group at the expense of several others — and why a Capital Gains Tax would be harder that it looks. The principle is something called Director's Law.

 "Director's Law states that the bulk of public programmes are designed primarily to benefit the middle classes, but are financed by taxes paid primarily by the upper and lower classes. The empirically derived law was first proposed by economist Aaron Director.”

Director’s Law is so-called after the delightfully named Chicago economist Aaron Director. Director’s Law states that 

“Government has coercive power, which allows it to engage in acts (above all, the taking of resources) which could not be performed by voluntary agreement of the members of a society. Any portion of the society which can secure control of the state's machinery will employ the machinery to improve its own position. Under a set of conditions to be discussed below, this dominant group will be the middle income classes.”

Milton Friedman calls it the Robin Hood Myth: “the myth that government has benefited the poor at the expense of the rich.” They key essentially is to fuck the poor and the fairly rich (we’ve never enjoyed a “very rich” here) in order to benefit the middle class. 

As Michael Cullen was to confirm for us when he designed the middle-class subsidy scheme Welfare for Working Families, this is still the logic of local democracy.

“On The Logical level you have a political system under which laws are passed by 51% of the people voting One Way against 49% of the people. Now the way to get a law passed therefore is to form a coalition covering 51% of the people. 

    “You might think that you would take the bottom 51% versus the top 49% but the more you think about it the more you realise that's not a very effective way to form a coalition. Why? Because those people who are at the bottom tend to be much less skilful in political activity for the very reasons that leave them at the bottom in the economic scale. …

   “The most effective people in political activity those of us in the middle classes. Where are the people who are literate; where are the people who write for the newspapers; where are the people who mount the hustings; where are the people who provide the candidates.    

    “Well you might say why doesn't the Coalition come from the top 51% all the way down. The answer is that those people at the top [are]a place we can get a lot of money from! And it's worth sacrificing a few votes to get a large fraction of a tax base. 

    “And therefore the logically most reasonable Coalition is sort of 51% of the people running from the lower-middle class through the upper-middle class, and leaving out both the very rich at the top and the very poor at the bottom.”

So why does that make implementing a Capital Gains Tax harder that it looks? It's very simple. Because as every astute politician knows, those people on whom it would fall are right inside your 51% of voters...

"There is a constant refusal to admit that the West is founded on the principle of individual rights."

"There is a constant refusal to admit that the West is founded on the principle of individual rights. Individualism. That Each individual ... is free.
    "This issue is always omitted.
    "It is Replaced with democracy.
    "It is Replaced with love of life.
    "It is Replaced with <fill the blank>
    "Is it constantly omitted because of evasion or because of ignorance?
    "I believe it is omitted because of evasion. Individualism requires checking the moral code one grew up with."

~ Felipe Lapyda from his post 'The Evasion that is Destroying America'

LINCOLN: "...the central act of my administration, and the great event of the 19th century." #Juneteenth

"Abraham Lincoln was not an original advocate of abolition. In fact we know that his journey to what he called 'the central act of my administration, and the great event of the 19th century' was a relatively slow, though continuous, one. ...

"African Americans had demanded freedom from bondage as early as the American Revolution, and in the 30 years before the Civil War a strong interracial movement had called for the immediate abolition of slavery and for Black rights. Lincoln himself came under enormous pressure from abolitionists and radicals within his own party during the first two years of the war to act against slavery. ...

"We know that Lincoln held at least two beliefs on slavery and race on the eve of becoming the president of the United States. He abhorred slavery as a moral and political blot on the American republic even though he did not advocate ... the abolitionist goal of immediate emancipation. But in viewing slavery as an unmitigated evil, he already shared important ground with abolitionists. ...

"With the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, abolitionists and radical Republicans immediately urged Lincoln to use his war powers to strike against slavery. They were doomed to disappointment. Preoccupied with retaining the loyalty of the border slave states and engendering Northern unity and support for the prosecution of the war, Lincoln insisted that his primary goal was the reconstruction of the Union and he gave short shrift to the abolitionist agenda. ...

"By the summer of 1862 [however], Lincoln decided to issue an emancipation proclamation. It was not simply that he was wisely biding his time and waiting for Northern anti-slavery sentiment to mature in order to move on emancipation. He himself had to be convinced of the failure of his appeasement ... [and] proposals for gradual, compensated emancipation ...

"For abolitionists, the president would become permanently identified with the moment of liberation, living on as an icon of Black freedom in African American celebrations of emancipation in years to come. ... The abolitionist insistence on tying the cause of the slave with that of American democracy influenced Lincoln’s overall conception of the war. He would immortalize this understanding of the war in the Gettysburg Address as the second American Revolution, as representing a “new birth of freedom” in the republic. The abolitionist interpretation of the war gave meaning and purpose to it in a way that simply a war for the Union never could. ..."

~ Manisha Sinha from her post 'Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Born an Abolitionist, He Became One'

Q: Why do we need the concept of 'citizenship'?

"It's time for Ayn Rand's Power Question: What facts of reality give rise to the need for such a concept as X?

"Here, X is 'citizenship.' Why do we need this concept? Mainly, to determine who can vote. You can probably think of a few perquisites that attend to attaining the status of 'citizen.' But that status has nothing to do with the rights of man.

"The territory within the boundaries of a given country is the area in which its law has jurisdiction, the area in which a specific government, by its apparatus of compulsion, maintains a de jure and de facto monopoly on the use of physical force.

"We used to discuss whether the police, in a voluntarily financed laissez-faire nation, would protect the rights of non-contributors against criminals. The answer was: yes, mainly because the thug who would assault anyone is a threat to everyone, including the contributors. The 'yes' answer follows from practical, moral, and symbolic considerations. Defending the rights and freedom of everyone currently in the country is symbolic of a government devoted to justice.

"The same considerations that require the government protect the rights of non-contributors apply to protecting the rights of non-citizens. ...

"But due process and all the safeguards are there to rein in and make safer everybody who faces the possibility of government interference. The safeguards are there to eliminate arbitrary power.

"Government is potentially a far bigger threat than criminals.

"To introduce a preserve within which government agents can exercise unsupervised power is a threat that dwarfs that of any gang of hoodlums (citizens or non-citizens).

"And this is what we are seeing with Trump's every action—the quest for arbitrary power, unconstrained by checks and balances or anything other than the will of Donald Trump.

"If Trump doesn't have to follow due process in regard to non-citizens, does he have to follow it in regard to determining whether or not the person is a citizen? That's not theoretical. That's today's headlines.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to crime is not "screening" or "roundups" of anyone; it's repeal of the drug laws.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to lawless behavior by immigrants is not lawless behavior by the police.

"You can avoid a criminal gang; you can even move to a different locale. You can't avoid a SWAT team, the FBI, or any part of the state's apparatus of compulsion and incarceration."

~ Harry Binswanger from his post 'A sense of proportion'

"The idea that female politicians inherently represent women and male politicians inherently represent men embodies a problematic identity-politics fallacy."

"The idea that female politicians inherently represent women and male politicians inherently represent men embodies a problematic identity-politics fallacy. This assumption simplifies complex identities into superficial categories, implying a universal, shared interest among people based solely on gender. Such oversimplification is both logically flawed and practically misleading ...
    "Individuals within the same gender group frequently possess widely varying interests and opinions ... Moreover ... [e]ffective political representation requires empathy, policy alignment, and competence rather than mere identity resemblance. ...
    "Finally, the identity politics fallacy inadvertently perpetuates gender stereotyping ... Representation should ... be rooted in inclusive, nuanced understandings of individual and community needs, transcending reductive demographic categories. Such an approach better serves democratic ideals, promotes effective governance, and fosters genuine equality."

~ Tim Harding on his post 'Identity politics gender fallacy'

Why America (and New Zealand) Should Be on Ukraine's Side and Not Putin's Side, explained in 8 minutes.

 

"The Treaty Principles Bill ... provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is"

"Consider the two words 'liberal', 'democracy' and their connection. Both give us something that none of our ancestors living in kinship groups had. 'Democracy' gives us a system of parliamentary sovereignty, of law, of regulation. It recognises that our common humanity justifies equal rights. Those rights belong to the individual citizen, not to the group.
    "The word 'liberal' gives us the freedom to be different – as individuals and in voluntary associations based on a range of shared interests –culture, heritage, language, sport, music, religion, politics, and so on.
    "This is what makes liberal democracy remarkable. As citizens we have the same political and legal rights. As members of civil society we are free to be different. This is an enormously important point. It is the combination of rights, responsibilities and freedom within democracy's governance and laws that makes the modern world vibrant and prosperous.
    "That's why I support the Treaty Principles Bill – because it provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is – something we should all know, especially ... Members of Parliament ...
    "The Bill is the symbolic link to the hope found in both the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in the 1852 Constitution Act. Nineteenth century New Zealanders, especially those who had been slaves, decimated by war, of low genealogical birth status, or from impoverished backgrounds – they put their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future for their descendants. In the 21st century we can strengthen that faith for our descendants by agreeing to the principles in this Bill.
    "New Zealand's future may be that of a prosperous first-world liberal democratic nation or a third-world, retribalised state. A first world tribal nation is a contradiction in terms. It is not possible. There can be no prosperity without individual equality and freedom. There can be no social equality without prosperity. ...

    "[A]s early as the 1870s there's the commitment to a united people who belong to, and benefit from, the nation 'New Zealand.' Nearly 150 years later that commitment is under serious threat from those who would replace liberal democracy with tribal sovereignty and, by doing so, create a racialised society – apartheid." 

~ Elizabeth Rata from her Oral Presentation to the Parliamentary Justice Committee on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

 

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." 

~ H. L. Mencken, from his 1916 Little Book in C Major

UPDATED: "The richest 20 per cent of the world’s countries are now around 30 times richer than the poorest 20 per cent. Why? Differences in a society’s institutions."

"The richest 20 per cent of the world’s countries are now around 30 times richer than the poorest 20 per cent. Moreover, the income gap between the richest and poorest countries is persistent; although the poorest countries have become richer, they are not catching up with the most prosperous. ... Why? ... [D]ifferences in a society’s institutions. ...
    Europeans’ colonis[ed] large parts of the globe. One important explanation for the current differences in prosperity is the political and economic systems that the colonisers introduced, or chose to retain, from the sixteenth century onwards. The laureates demonstrated that this led to a reversal of fortune. The places that were, relatively speaking, the richest at their time of colonisation are now among the poorest. ...
    "In [these] colonies, the purpose was to exploit the indigenous population and extract natural resources to benefit the colonisers. In other cases [however], the colonisers built inclusive political and economic systems for the long-term benefit of European settlers. ... [These] settler colonies – needed to have inclusive economic institutions that incentivised settlers to work hard and invest in their new homeland. In turn, this led to demands for political rights that gave them a share of the profits. Of course, the early European colonies were not what we would now call democracies but, compared to the densely populated colonies to which few Europeans moved, the settler colonies provided considerably more extensive political rights. ...
    "[T]hese initial differences in colonial institutions are an important explanation for the vast differences in prosperity that we see today. ...
    "[This year's Nobel laureates in economics] have uncovered a clear chain of causality. [Mercantilist] institutions that were created to exploit the masses are bad for long-run growth, while ones that establish fundamental economic freedoms and the rule of law are good for it."

~ from the 'Popular Information' released by the Nobel Prize Committee, awarding this year's Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. [Hat tip Conversable Economist]

UPDATE: Not everyone's happy that the Prize has gone to what economist Deirdre McCloskey calls "a B+ statist": 

McCloskey of course has her own answer to what caused the prosperity that Acemoglu et al ascribe to good institutions: a cultural change before the Industrial Revolution she calls the "bourgeois revolution." Her ideas are debated here. For what it's worth, I'm in agreement with the great Joel Mokyr who says, "Ideas mattered, but so too did institutions."

"Logical fallacies are not the only errors that retard thinking. Conceptual fallacies do, too, and often in subtler, more destructive ways."

"Logical fallacies are not the only errors that retard thinking. Conceptual fallacies do, too, and often in subtler, more destructive ways. ..."[These f]allacies ... include package-deals, anti-concepts, frozen abstractions, floating abstractions, and stolen concepts. Below are definitions and examples of each, along with brief indications of the principles they violate. ...

"The fallacy of package-dealing consists in conceptually combining things that are superficially similar but essentially different and, thus, logically do not belong under the same concept. If and when we commit this fallacy, we muddle our thinking about the subject in question and make clear communication impossible. ... 

    "An extremely common instance of package-dealing is the mental blending of 'majority rule' and 'rights-protecting social system' under the term 'democracy.' ... 'Power' is a[nother] package-deal when used to equate 'economic power' with 'political power.' ...

"An anti-concept is a kind of package-deal, in that it combines ideas that logically don’t belong together. But an anti-concept is different from a regular package-deal, in that it is intended to cause conceptual confusion and harm. As [Ayn] Rand defines it, an anti-concept is an unnecessary and rationally unusable term intended to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept(s) in people’s minds. ...

    "The alleged meaning of 'social justice' [for example] is 'the moral imperative of treating people fairly with respect to various social matters.' Its actual meaning is 'the moral imperative of coercively redistributing wealth and forcing individuals and institutions to act against their judgment for the sake of various groups whose individual members allegedly can’t think or live on their own.' In other words, 'social justice' is the soft bigotry of low expectations—fused with the hard coercion of a government gun.
    "The purpose of the anti-concept of 'social justice' is to obliterate the concept of actual justice in people’s minds. And, when people accept the phrase as legitimate and try to use it, that is what it does. ...

"The fallacy of freezing an abstraction consists in making a false equation by substituting a particular conceptual concrete for the wider abstract class to which it belongs. Like a package-deal, it involves integrating concepts in disregard of the need for crucial distinctions.
    "[Ayn] Rand’s seminal example of this fallacy is the equating of 'morality' with 'altruism' by substituting a particular morality (the morality of self-sacrifice) for the whole, general class 'morality.' ...

"Conceptual knowledge is hierarchical. Higher-level concepts, such as mammal, animal, mile, and tyranny, presuppose and depend on lower-level concepts, all the way down to first-level concepts, whose referents are at the perceptual level, such as dog, bird, inch, and force (e.g., a punch in the face). In order to know what a mammal is, you must first understand a chain of more basic concepts, including fertilization, reproduction, animal, and various kinds of animals (e.g., cats, dogs, birds, fish). Without this more basic knowledge, the concept of mammal wouldn’t and couldn’t have meaning in your mind.
    "This principle of hierarchy applies to all conceptual knowledge. Higher-level (more abstract) concepts can be understood and have meaning in someone’s mind only to the extent that he grasps the lower-level (more basic) concepts that give rise to them. And there are essentially two ways people can violate this principle: via floating abstractions and via stolen concepts. 

    "When someone uses a word or phrase that is not supported in his mind by a structure of more basic ideas that are ultimately grounded in perceptual facts, he is using a floating abstraction—an abstraction disconnected from reality in his mind, disconnected from the things the idea refers to, disconnected from the facts that give 't meaning.
    "For example: 'Everyone has a right to a living wage.' If someone uses the word 'right' this way, he doesn’t know what a right is. He doesn’t know what the concept means, what it refers to in reality. He doesn’t know the facts that give rise to our need for the concept. (Or, if he does, he is committing a more grievous fallacy; see concept-stealing below.) ... 'America is a democracy.' If someone thinks or says such a thing, he doesn’t know what “democracy” means (see “democracy” as a package-deal above). The term is a floating abstraction in his mind. 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.' If someone chants such nonsense, he has no idea what 'free' means. The term is a floating abstraction in his mind.
    "Floating abstractions abound. Be on the lookout for them in your own mind and in the claims of others. ...

"Now, if someone goes beyond merely using a concept that is disconnected from reality and uses a concept while denying or ignoring more basic, lower-level concepts on which it logically depends, he is committing the fallacy of concept-stealing.
    "Here, as with floating abstractions, the operative principle is the hierarchical nature of conceptual knowledge. Higher-level, more abstract knowledge is built on lower-level, more basic knowledge, all the way down to sensory perception, our direct cognitive contact with reality. Concept-stealing consists in using a higher-level concept while denying or ignoring a lower-level concept(s) on which it depends for its meaning.

    "Examples: ... When someone claims that an experiment has shown that determinism is true—that all human action is antecedently necessitated by forces beyond our control—he steals the concepts of 'experiment' and 'true.' ... When someone claims the senses are invalid, he steals the concept of 'invalid.' (Invalid, in this context, means 'incapable of delivering knowledge of reality.') ....

    "Stolen concepts are rampant in philosophic discussions. And they not only cause confusion; they also make way for much mischief and lead people to waste ungodly amounts of time pondering and debating things that don’t exist, don’t make sense, or don’t matter. Be on the lookout for them. ...

"Keeping your thinking connected to reality is essential to success in reality. And that’s the only kind of success there can be."

~ Craig Biddle from his post 'Conceptual Fallacies and How to Avoid Them'

'Why liberal capitalism opposed imperialism and colonialism'

“The whole Idea of colonial policy was to take advantage of the military superiority of the white race over the members of other races. The Europeans set out, equipped with all the weapons and contrivances that their civilisation placed at their disposal, to subjugate weaker peoples, to rob them of their property, and to enslave them . . . If, as we believe, European civilisation really is superior to that of the primitive tribes of Africa or to the civilisations of Asia – estimable though the latter may be in their own way – it should be able to prove its superiority by inspiring these peoples to adopt it of its own accord. Could there be a more doleful proof of the sterility of European civilisation than that it can be spread by no other means than fire and sword?
    “No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism. Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid to waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or justified. The dominion of Europeans in Africa and in important parts of Asia [was] absolute. It stands in the sharpest contrast to all the principles of liberalism and democracy....”

~ Ludwig Von Mises from, his 1927 book Liberalism. Hat tip Stephen Hicks, who points out (in his post 'Why liberal capitalism opposed imperialism and colonialism') that while "imperialism and colonialism are older than human history, and across the centuries virtually every culture in every part of the world practiced it," it was the culture of the Enlightenment that ended it — movements arising to abolish slavery and the second- or third-class status of women. "Keep in mind," he says, "that 200 years is a blink of an eye in human-historical terms. It normally takes many centuries to change cultural mindsets and long-established practices. The Enlightenment’s liberalism and capitalism relatively quickly undercut and did away with millennia of conquest-and-control baked into human traditions."

 

"Kamala Harris is dead wrong. Freedom is not the right to vote."

"Kamala Harris held an August 2024 interview on CNN in which she ... [voiced] her reactionary core belief that voting is our most important right. ... [This is a] fundamentally anti-American orientation. ...
    "In the words of America’s Founding legal document, the Declaration of Independence,

'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . . [my emphasis]'

"Note the hierarchy. Governments don’t create rights. They secure our rights, which are thus unalienable. Note that the right to vote comes into view only after the institution of government, as implied in “the consent of the governed.”
    "[Harris's] Democratic Party holds the opposite principle—that rights come from the government ...
    "Harris is dead wrong. Freedom is not the right to vote. Freedom is the right to live one’s life by one’s own choices and values, regardless of anyone else’s vote or of the outcome of any election. Any government, including an elected government, that grants and rescinds rights at will is a totalitarian state. The Founders sought to protect individual rights from tyrannical government, whether autocratic, aristocratic, or democratic—or as James Madison put it, the one, the few, or the many. Harris seeks to obliterate that protection. And it’s a premise that dates back to the founding of her party. 

    "So much for Harris’s vaunted value of 'freedom.' .... She was never, and is not now, a champion of freedom, properly understood. Without inalienable individual rights, no freedom is possible. Remember that in the United States of America, we’re not free because we vote. We vote because we are free."

~ Mike LaFerrara, from his post 'Harris's Unchanged anti-American Values'

"...I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America's Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be."

A friend writes saying "this sums it up well": 

It still amazes me [he says] how many supposedly pro-liberty people are pro-Trump. The enemy of my enemy is most assuredly not always my friend. This judge’s response (below) is one that all pro-liberty people should take. I'm not normally a fan of 'tactical voting' but I think that Project 2025 warrants it.

Here's what the (retired) judge said:

Conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig  just officially endorsed Kamala Harris. It will be the first time Judge Luttig, a veteran of two Republican administrations, has ever voted for a Democrat.
    Read this excerpt from his powerful statement on his endorsement:

"America's two political parties are the political guardians of American Democracy. Regrettably, in the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America's Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law.
    "As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party's candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.
    "In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own, but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America's Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be."

Some here down under, of course, need to be reminded that we don't vote in US elections. But as Robert Tracinski reminds us, "any discussion about Trump has to start and end with January 6 — "part of a protracted conspiracy to send fake electors to Congress in order to overturn the results of an election and remain in power against the wishes of the American people" — a "fundamental sin against life in a free society," after which there can be no second chance — and given that, the judge's point itself has merit.

"Any discussion about Trump has to start and end with January 6."

"Any discussion about Trump has to start and end with January 6. ... The riot at the Capitol was not a product just of some intemperate rhetoric from Trump at a rally. It was part of a protracted conspiracy to send fake electors to Congress in order to overturn the results of an election and remain in power against the wishes of the American people. This is a fundamental sin against life in a free society, and there can be no second chance after that."

~ Robert Tracinski from his post 'The Bouncing Balloon and the Fish Out of Water'