Squaring the ObumaCare Circle by Ohmyrus

President Obama's health care plan is running into trouble even from his own party. In his quest to be President he had to make all sorts of promises and the center-piece was reforming health care. He claimed that tens of millions of Americans are not covered by health insurance and the cost health insurance is also rising faster than the average income.

He promised to expand coverage, improve quality, lower costs, honor patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable - whatever that means. But votrepreneurs (politicians) must have a bogeyman to blame.

This is like trying to square a circle. If his ObamaCare is passed, the current number of health care providers and facilities will be spread over a larger number of patients. How can he expand coverage and improve quality at the same time? If you expand coverage without increasing the number of health care providers and number of hospital beds, then quality will have to drop. For some people, they will not get the doctor that they previously had. Or you have to wait a longer time before a hospital bed becomes available - by which time you might be dead.

So you can see how votrepreneurs get elected by selling snake oil, then rush to come up with a bad plan to keep their hasty promises. An obvious part of the solution must surely be to increase the supply of health care services by training more health care providers and building more hospitals. But this takes time and the system works on a four year election cycle - which is one of the flaws of democracy that I have written about elsewhere in this blog. I have mentioned time and again, the democracies are too short term in outlook to solve long term problems. That is why his Reforms did not even mention anything about training more health care providers.

Currently, 91% of Americans say that they have health insurance. Out of that number, 83% rated their health care as good or excellent. This works out to 76% of all Americans rating their health care as good and excellent. What this means is that Obama wants to help the nine percent of the people who do not have health coverage and the 24% who feel that their health care is not good enough.

But without increasing the supply of health care, the additional 9 percent coverage will be at the expense of the 91% of the population. In reality, no government policy can ever benefit 100% of the population. You have to do the greater good for the greater number. Obama's plan will do the greater good for the smaller number which does not make sense. It should also be remembered that the nine percent of Americans not covered include the rich, the illegals, those in between jobs and those eligible for other government programs. Perhaps, only 5% are left who really needs help.

But it gets worse.

His program is going to cost a lot of taxpayers' money. How is he going to pay for it? To get elected, he has promised that there won't be a middle class tax increase. Only the rich will pay for it. This is popular with the majority of course and it is how votrepreneurs (politicians) win votes. Promise to spend on the majority by taxing the minority.

But this is also nonsense. Already, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is proposing a 5.4% surtax and an 10% point increase in the payroll tax to fund ObamaCare. The surtax is a complete reversal of his promise not to tax the Middle class. But it is the payroll tax that is more damaging. An increase in the payroll tax should result in cuts in wages but the companies are forbidden to cut wages.

So this is effectively a compulsory rise in wage costs for the companies which is stupid at a time of recession. Any rise in wage will result in higher unemployment, smaller bonuses, lower salary increments and lower starting salaries. So the Middle Class will be made to pay for it indirectly. There is still no free lunch. Its just that the cost to the voters is not so obvious.

Even with the tax increase, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) contradicted Obama's claim that his Health Care Reforms won't increase the Budget Deficit, now already in the trillions. Instead, it estimated that ObamaCare will add $64 billion to the budget deficit by 2019.

The whole affair is depressing. What happened was that Obama, a slick votrepreneur, promised the voters the moon and used his eloquence to con them into believing that he can deliver. After entering the White House, he hastily came up with a stupid plan that will worsen America's budget deficit, increase taxes at a time of recession and end up helping maybe only 5% of the population.

If the US is serious about improving health care to its citizens, they should see how others do it. Some experts, like Cynthia Ramsay, have rated Singapore's health care to be the best in the world, while the WHO has rated Singapore's health care system at 6th.

What's amazing is that Singapore spends very little on health care - only 3.5% of GDP as compared to 8.9% for Italy, 8.2% for the UK, 15.2% for the US and 11.2% for France. Life expectancy for Singaporeans is about 82 as compared to about 78 for British and Americans while infant mortality is also lower in Singapore than in the US or UK. See Wikipedia for life expectancy and infant mortality.

How does Singapore do it? While this complex issue is beyond the scope of this article, one key to Singapore's success at providing good healthcare at low cost to the taxpayer and the patient is to adhere to the dictum, "There is no free lunch".

Healthcare in Singapore is not free although the poorest people are subsidized up to 80% of health care costs. Once you give free health care, costs will balloon as patients demand the state to provide everything. Then you need to ration health services. There are horror stories in the UK where patients have to wait up to one year before an operation. By that time, you could be dead. This does not happen in Singapore even for the poorest patients.

So its possible to improve health care without increasing costs but ObamaCare is not the way to do it.

The Spy who Hate me.

Recently, Congressional leaders were outraged at the CIA and Dick Cheney for allegely not telling them about plans to kill Al Qaeda leaders. Hello? Have they been reading their newspapers?


Ever since the Afghanistian war following 911, the US army has been dropping bunker busting bombs on suspected hide-outs where Osama bin laden may have been hiding. All this while the CIA has been using predator drones to bomb and kill Al-Qaeda leaders all over the world.


They are still doing it in Pakistan and Afghanistan under a Democrat President. Nearly all politicians, including Barack Obama, have publicly called for the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden. Now, they are suddenly outraged that the CIA has plans to assasinate him and other Al Qaeda leaders? Have Congressional leaders been watching TV? Of course, the alleged plans were for a more surgical way of killing such as by poison, a favorite method by the KGB. This is in fact a better method than dropping bombs from Predators as it would minimise collateral damage.

So what is happening? Votrepreneurs (my term of contempt for politicians) want to win votes. The ones bashing the CIA are Congressional Democrats wanting to please their voters must pretend to be outraged at the CIA for allegely not telling them about their plans during the previous (Republican) administration.

Earlier in the year, Senator Pelosi accused the CIA of misleading Congress. She claimed that she was unaware that the CIA was waterboarding Al Qaeda captives to obtain information. Her lie was exposed by current and former CIA directors who revealed that she knew all along. That she knew that such aggressive interrogation techniques were necessary to protect lives was obvious or she would have objected. But such methods are unpopular with her naive Liberal voters. So she lied and pretended not to know.

The more recent case of pretending not to know it was US policy to kill Al Qaeda leaders is even more ridiculous since it was plain to all who has eyes to see. You don't even need to be briefed if you watch TV. In war, you are supposed to kill your enemies.

But the upshot is that CIA agents are demoralized by all this. They are needed to protect the country from its enemies. This is not the way to run a war. But votrepreneurs don't care. Their main objective is promoting themselves. The welfare of the country, as usual, come second. They can't be loved by the spies at the CIA.

Democracy and the Financial Crisis - by Ohmyrus

According to a Congressional report by Darrell Issa, government intervention in the housing market is the main cause of the Financial Crisis.

The report explained how the Clinton administration in 1995 issued a National Homeownership Strategy, which weakens Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's lending standards and insisting that banks 'work collaboratively to reduce homebuyer downpayment requirements.'

Clinton complained that in 1989 only 7% of mortgages had less than a 10% downpayment. It wanted that figure to be raised to 29%! Generally speaking, the businessman should be left alone to make their business decisions because he knows what's best for himself. The 'invisble hand' of Adam Smith ensures the optimum allocation of resources. Only in rare occasions where there is a market failure in the proper allocation of resources, should the government intervene. Why did the government intervene in this case?

It must be remembered that in a two party democracy, one party is fighting for the losers of society and the other is fighting for the winners. In the case of America, the Democratic Party is the party for losers. It tries to win votes from the bottom half of the income divide by promising to bring material goodies to their voters. This is normally done by redistribution policies ie taxing the top half and spending the money on the bottom half.

The Republicans, the party for the winners of US society, strives to cut taxes and minimise the transfer of wealth from their voters to their political opponents' voters.

So government intervention in this case, was not to make the economy more efficient or more prosperous but to win votes and hence power for the votrepreneurs (politicians) . Power comes with its perks and in Clinton's case, his chief perk seems to be access to loose women.


Monica Lewinsky: Freud believed that people act out of sublimal desires which they are not even aware of. Was she also a cause of the global financal crisis?

But banks were reluctant to give loans to poorer people because they were higher credit risks. So Clinton toughened the Community Reinvestment Act forbidding banks to expand if they do not lend more (in effect) to Clinton's voters - the lower income groups, especially minorities.

The result was that banks ended up making a flood of mortgages they formerly refused to touch with a 100 foot pole. This fueled a housing boom. Many of these mortagages carried little or no downpayment. That's why they are called sub-prime mortagages. Voters thus were bribed for their votes by giving them housing they could not afford. But there is no FREE LUNCH. Someone has to pay. Let's see who.

The banks, of course, did not want to pay for the lunch given away by the votrepreneurs ie they did not want to hold on to these dubious mortgages. So Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were told to buy up these dud mortages and repackaged them as Mortgaged Backed Securities. The Glass Steagal Act was also repealed to allow banks to do Investment Banking. This allowed them to repackage these dud mortgages into securities and sell them off to anybody who is willing to assume the risks of defaulting mortgages. Somebody else can carry the risks. Hey! Somebody has to be the sucker.

Private investors, fund managers, banks, pension funds bought them and eventually were made suckers when the property market crashed. But the biggest owners of Mortgaged Backed securities were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These two are government sponsored enterprises which Congress oversees. Bad deal for their shareholders. What this means is that Congressional leaders will want the two companies to behave in a manner that maximizes their votes instead of maximizing profits for the shareholders. So they ended up owning tons of these risky mortgaged backed securities at very high leverage. If things go belly up, which they eventually did, the shareholders loose their pants. But they are not the only ones to go trouserless.

You see, while Congress did not explicitly guarantee Freddie and Fannie's debts, there is an implicit guarantee. This means that taxpayers will loose their pants in the event that they go belly-up, which they did. Bad deal for taxpayers too. Now you know who the biggest sucker is.

So the bottom line is that the votrepreneurs (politicians) have arranged things in such a manner that taxpayers paid to vote them into office. But don't blame the votrepreneurs, its the system.

While the above description was basically what happened, the whole affair is a lot more complicated and its not just votrepreneurs that should be blamed. A host of characters also must share some of the blame for the financial crisis.

In no particular order, the first on the list is Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve. Let's call him the Fedhead. Well, Mr Fedhead kept interest rates too low for too long. This flood of money encouraged speculation in the property market. Everytime, it looks like there might be a recession, the Fedhead turned on the money taps.

This encouraged people to suffer the delusion that recessions have been banished forever from Wonderland. Soon businessmen and consumers were lulled into complacency and they put on more debt. Actually, recessions are healthy for the economy. It weeds out badly run companies and redeploys capital and workers more efficiently.

The economy is like a forest. From time to time, there is a fire. Forest fires are simply a part of nature. So forest rangers should not try to put out fires. The fire burns away at the dead wood that collect at the forest floor and opens up clearings for new trees to grow. Similarly, a recession forces poorly run companies to go bust, creating space for younger, newer companies to emerge.

If park rangers keep putting out fires everytime lightning strikes, dead wood will collect on the floor. One day, there will be a fire too strong to control and the whole forest will burn down. So it is the same in the economy. The Fedhead kept 'putting out the fire' and thus allowed inefficiently run companies to survive. Complacency set in and these companies piled on more and more debt. The consumers also put on more debt like the forest accumulates tinder.

Then one day we get a severe recession and global crisis that they cannot control - like now. It is better for the Fedhead to allow frequent but smaller recessions to take place than having a huge one like what we have now.

The next on the blame list are the bankers and fund managers. These guys 0n Wall Street get huge bonuses by gambling with other people's money. They system goes like this - heads we win but tails you lose. In the case of bankers, they geared up their companies to make risky loans or buy risky assets. When the going was good, the banks reported fat profits and the executives collected fat bonuses. Shareholders also win.

This encouraged them to take on risky behavior - since they do not generally suffer personal bankruptcy if their banks go bust. The more they leveraged their banks, the more money they made. When the banks go bust, they still get to keep their bonuses earned in previous years. But you, the shareholders get wiped out.

In this current financial crisis, while initially banks were initially reluctant to retain mortgaged backed securities in their books, prefering to sell them, they eventually did so. They wanted to enhance their earnings and hence their bonuses. If the mortgages default, its the sharholders to bear the loss while they get to keep all their bonuses during the good years.

Its the same with hedge fund managers. These guys collect money from their clients to buy financial assets like stocks, derivatives, mortgaged back securities etc. They also used leverage. If they market goes in the right direction, they make more money for their clients who will pour in more money into their funds. During good times, they collect fat fees from their clients.

But when the market crashes, their clients often get wiped out. But they also get to keep their fat fees earned during the good years. In a nutshell, bankers and fund managers gamble with other people's money. They get to grow rich during good times and suffer no losses during bad times, prompting them to take huge risks with other people's money.

The nature of the financial markets is that crashes are inevitable and their shareholders or clients will one day be wiped out given the high leverage. Heads we win and tails you lose. Sooner or later, you are going to lose. But they won't go to jail in a paddy wagon like Bernie Maddoff. Instead, they can sail to Bermuda in their yachts.

That is why I cannot understand why Bernie Maddoff ran a Ponzi scheme. Not only is he a crook, he is a stupid crook. Doesn't the clown know that Wall Street gives you ample opportunity to cheat people the legal way?

The next one on my blame list are the credit rating agencies. There are three large rating agencies - Moody's, Standard and Poors and Fitch. These guys are supposed to give their opinion on various financial instruments. Unfortunately, they get paid by the guys whom they are supposed to rate! This is one time when competition is bad for you. If one agency gives you lousy ratings, you go elsewhere. In the end, risky assets like Mortgaged Backed Securities got high ratings. Its like your boss asking you what you (honestly) think of him.

While the blame for this financial crisis can be spread fairly wide, the largest share of the blame must fall on the votrepreneurs (politicians) and the political system that produced them. After all, it was they who encouraged the growth of sub-prime lending so that they can win votes. That was how this mess got started.

We need to reform the system in such a manner that the personal interests of the political class coincides with the nation as a whole. Unfortunately, the current system makes it worthwhile for the votrepreneurs to behave irresponsibly and betray the very people they were elected to serve.

What can be done about it? The key is to empower the taxpayers whose money is used to bribe voters so that votrepreneurs can win office. Paying taxes is the chief contribution an average citizen makes to his country. Those who pay more taxes must have more say as to how that money is to be spent. That is why America's Founding Fathers restricted the vote to those who paid taxes. They understood the linkage between taxation and representation. That was why their complaint was, "Taxation without Representation is tyranny."

Today, all too often we have Representation without Taxation and it is also tyranny.Those who pay little or no taxes have more power to decide how to spend taxpayers' money than those who paid most of the taxes. The result is to make everyone poorer. In my earlier article, Lessons from the Ancients, I have proposed some solutions that can empower the taxpayers without sacrificing the one-man-one-vote system. Its time for reform or America will go the way of hyper-inflation and economic decline leading to the collapse of democracy itself.

Bernie Ecclestone's Hitler fascination - by Ohmyrus

The Billionaire Boss of Formula 1 racing stepped into a minefield when he publicly praised Adolf Hitler.

He said that Hitler could get things done and added that democracy "hasn't done a lot of good for many countries, including this one".

This is the sort of thing I feared when I started this blog. In my very first article, I warned that if democracies cannot solve its problems, people will turn to a strong man, a Hitler perhaps. This is something nobody wants.

While a lot of people condemn Bernie's words, especially Jews, it is really a cry for help. He can see, as I do, that democracy is not working to give people better lives. In fact, I would say that most democracies are disfunctional.

The problem is that the system is incapable of producing effective rational government. I have analysed why this is so in many artcles. So I won't go into detail. In Business School, students are taught a subject called, 'Organizational Behavior'.

Organizations must be designed with a reward/punishment system that encourages employees to behave in a manner that ensures the companies' survival. In the same way, democracies must have constitutions that rewards its political leaders that behaves in a manner that ensures the survival of the country.

This is not so today. The chief weaknesses are that it produces short term thinking, encourages disunity of the people, avoidance of necessary pain, promotes welfare states and a illogical immigration system. Sooner or later, the whole system will break down unless intelligent reforms are made.

But first, people must accept that the system is broken. I fear the words of John Adams 2 is coming true:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Britain: From Parliament to Police State by Fjordman

I am aware of the fact that some British people speak of Europe as “somewhere else,” to which they do not belong. In my opinion, Britain is very much a part of European civilization whether they want to admit so or not, but I am willing to grant them a special place within the European tradition. There is a reason why English became the first global lingua franca. While I focus mainly on the history of science in my essays these days, let us have a brief look at some of the political ideas and concepts championed by the British in the modern era.

The famous English legal charter known as the Magna Carta, issued in the year 1215 and written in Latin, limited kingly power in England and had major long-term political consequences when combined with later events. King John (1166-1216) had signed the Magna Carta unwillingly, and the heavy spending and foreign advisers of his son and successor Henry III (1207-1272) upset the nobles, who once again acted as a class under the leadership of the nobleman Simon de Montfort (1208-1265), Earl of Leicester. In 1258 they took over the government and elected a council of nobles which was called parliament or parlement, a French word meaning a “discussion meeting.”

This “parliament” took control of the treasury and forced Henry to get rid of his foreign advisers. Henry died in 1272 and his son Edward I (1239-1307) took the throne. He brought together the first real parliament. Simon de Montfort’s council included only nobles and had been able to make statues, written laws, and make political decisions, but the lords were less able to provide the king with money. Several kings had made arrangements for taxation before but, as David McDowall writes in An Illustrated History of Britain:

“Edward I was the first to create a ‘representative institution’ which could provide the money he needed. This institution became the House of Commons. Unlike the House of Lords it contained a mixture of ‘gentry’ (knights and other wealthy freemen from the shires) and merchants from the towns. These were the two broad classes of people who produced and controlled England’s wealth. In 1275 Edward I commanded each shire and each town (or borough) to send two representatives to his parliament.

These ‘commoners’ would have stayed away if they could, to avoid giving Edward money. But few dared risk Edward’s anger. They became unwilling representatives of their local community. This, rather than Magna Carta, was the beginning of the idea that there should be ‘no taxation without representation’, later claimed by the American colonists of the eighteenth century. In other parts of Europe, similar ‘parliaments’ kept all the gentry separate from the commoners. England was special because the House of Commons contained a mixture of gentry belonging to the feudal ruling class and merchants and freemen who did not. The co-operation of these groups, through the House of Commons, became important to Britain’s later political and social development.”

Merchants and country gentlemen were anxious to influence the king’s policies, as they wanted to protect their interests. When France threatened the important wool trade with Flanders they supported Edward III (1312-1377) in his war. During Edward III’s reign Parliament became organized in two parts: the Lords and the Commons, which represented the middle class; the really poor had no voice of their own in Parliament until the middle of the nineteenth century. Many European countries had similar kinds of parliaments in medieval times, but in most cases these institutions disappeared when feudalism died out. In England, however, the death of feudalism helped strengthen the House of Commons in Parliament.

Like the Civil War of 1642, the Glorious Revolution, as the political results of the events of 1688 were called, was completely unplanned. It was more a coup d’etat by the ruling elites than a revolution as such, but the fact that Parliament made William king, not by inheritance but by their choice, was indeed revolutionary. Parliament was clearly more powerful than the king and would remain so in the future. Its power over the monarch was written into the Bill of Rights in 1689. The king was from now on unable to raise taxes or keep an army without the agreement of Parliament, or to act against any MP for what he said in Parliament.

England was by the seventeenth century emerging as a great power whose influence increasingly stretched far beyond Europe. It was also one of the most intellectually creative regions in the world. After Isaac Newton had published his Principia in 1687, probably the single most influential text in the history of science, the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), a friend of Newton, in 1690 published his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, proclaiming the doctrine eventually known as the tabula rasa, where humans come into the world as blank slates. This was perfect for a world in which reason ruled and everything was possible. Human nature itself could be improved by applying reason, and history could take the direction of eternal progress. Locke published his Second Treatise of Government, stating that government is the servant of men, not the other way around, and that men possess natural rights, expanding on Thomas Hobbes’ concept of the social contract.

In the early 1700s, England's combination of economic prosperity, social stability and civil liberties had no equivalent anywhere in Continental Europe, at least not among the larger states; smaller states such as Switzerland is a different matter. The French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) lived in England for several years in the 1720s and knew the English language well. He preferred British constitutional monarchy to French absolute monarchy. Voltaire praised England's virtues in Letters on the English from 1734 when he returned to Paris. This caused great excitement among French intellectuals for the ideas of Newton and Locke and the plays of Shakespeare, but their own philosophies went in a different direction.

That an important European city such as Paris was the home of a major intellectual movement is not too strange. It is more surprising that the smaller city of Edinburgh was so as well during the second half of the eighteenth century. What came to be known as the Scottish Enlightenment, whose effects were felt far beyond Scotland or Britain, produced a series of prominent intellectuals and scholars, including the pioneering modern geologist James Hutton (1726-1797), the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), the brilliant, but famously eccentric economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) and the historian Adam Ferguson (1723-1816).

Adam Smith from the University of Glasgow in 1776 - at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, although he did not realize this at the time - published his Wealth of Nations, widely considered the first modern work of economics. Smith stressed meritocracy and introduced the principle of competitive advantage and the metaphor of the Invisible Hand. Above all he championed the idea that trade is not a zero-sum game but a win-win situation; he challenged the ancient assumption that wealth is a pie of fixed size over which everybody has to fight to get their share by showing that the size of the pie itself can grow through trade.

Scotland at this time had a good education system and very high literacy rates, as did the emerging Scandinavian nations. The American polymath Benjamin Franklin, who visited Edinburgh in 1759, remembered his stay as “the densest happiness” he had ever experienced. By 1762 Voltaire was writing, with a touch of malice, that “today it is from Scotland that we get rules of taste in all the arts, from epic poetry to gardening.” In England and the Netherlands, where political power was already in the hands of the merchant middle class, intellectual activity was directed toward analyzing the practical significance of this change.

In contrast, according to scholar Bruce G. Trigger, “The continuing political weakness of the French middle class in the face of Bourbon autocracy stimulated French intellectuals to use the idea of progress to reify change as a basis for challenging the legitimacy of an absolute monarch, who claimed to rule by divine will and protected the feudal economic privileges enjoyed by a politically moribund nobility. By proclaiming change to be both desirable and inevitable, Enlightenment philosophers called into question the legitimacy of the existing political and religious order. Beginning as an intellectual expression of discontent, the French Enlightenment gradually developed into a movement with revolutionary potential….The Scottish interest in Enlightenment philosophy reflected the close cultural ties between Scotland and France but also was stimulated by the unprecedented power and prosperity acquired to the Scottish urban middle class as a result of Scotland’s union with England in 1707. Southern Scotland was experiencing rapid development but the highland areas to the north remained politically, economically, and culturally underdeveloped. This contrast aroused the interest of Scottish intellectuals in questions relating to the origin, development, and modernization of institutions.”
Scottish intellectuals made very important contributions to science and to our understanding of the modern world, but it was the more revolutionary version of Enlightenment philosophy which developed in France that would become popular among the middle classes seeking more political power for themselves in Europe and in North America.

The sad part when writing this is that while Britain was once admired for its political system and was rightfully hailed as a beacon of liberty, today Britain is one of the most politically repressive countries in the Western world, which is saying a lot given how bad Politically Correct censorship is in the entire Western world these days. Britain today is a Multicultural police state where sharia, Islamic law, is quite literally treated as the law of the land. I suppose there is a strange sort of symmetry in this: Britain was one of the first countries in the West to embrace political liberty and is now among the first to leave political liberty behind.

Welfare Excuses: the causes of multiculturalism and western self-loathing - by Free Hal

Welfare Excuses: the causes of multiculturalism and western self-loathing

Many writers are openly baffled by European Society’s self-loathing, currently manifesting as multiculturalism and political correctness. And resentment at the fierceness with which these orthodoxies are enforced.

Some more-or-less random examples:

· A 14-year-old girl arrested, fingerprinted, photographed, held in a police cell for 3 ½ hours, and questioned by police on suspicion of committing a race-based public order offence because she had, Oliver Twist-like, they had to approach a teacher to ask if she could sit at a different people for the science lesson because the other three children at the table only spoke Urdu.
· A 10-year-old boy (just inside the age of criminal responsibility, “doli incapax” ending at age 10) arrested, charged, and brought before a judge for responding with “Paki” to taunts from an 11-year-old boy that he was a “skunk” and a “Teletubby”.
· The makers of the Channel 4 documentary “Undercover Mosque” investigated subjected to a year-long police investigation for themselves investigating extremism and mosques.
· Public funding of exclusive organisations for migrant populations, combined with the public prohibition of any such organisation by the host population. What reason, other than exclusiveness, could there be for the “Muslim Boy Scouts”? It isn’t hard to imagine the firmness with which the state squash a Non-Muslim Boy Scouts troupe.

You can find similar stories most weeks, usually accompanied by “How did our elites get to be so witless?” commentaries. To say nothing of the comments section when these reports are published online.

Politicians ignore this frustration at their peril, perhaps in the belief that only eccentrics comment on news stories. But things are reversing: those not baffled by such stories are now the unusual ones.

In this essay I try to trace how such wretched attitudes arise in the first place, and why the wider population tolerate them. The source and extent of the problem need to be revealed if we are to cure it.

The argument I shall put forward is that the welfare state and its justifying philosophy, collectivism, is at the root of western self-loathing. As follows:

· the majority of voters want to keep the welfare money flowing;
· they, therefore, generally endorse the welfare statist philosophy that I call collectivism;
· collectivist entitlements extend to ‘cultural’ minorities as well as ‘disadvantaged’ ones (i.e. most voters);
· multiculturalism is, therefore, a further useful attack on morality, which is anti-collectivism.

I also try to summarise some notable writers’ theories. And I try to guess what will happen if and when welfare shrinks or disappears altogether.

Self-loathing

I refer mainly to “self-loathing “, with “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” as offshoots, although I occasionally refer to these things in their own right.

Self-loathing has is historically rare, but not unheard of. After a period of failure, e.g. Weimar, cultures have indulged in self recrimination. But even this has usually been a prelude to a resurgent ambition. I can think of no society which, from a position of physical and political strength, has adopted so rigorous a prejudice against its values.

Surprisingly, few of the first-class thinkers who warn us about cultural relativism and multiculturalism have convincingly explained its cause.

I try to give an overview below of the best explanations for cultural relativism so far: Melanie Phillips, Fjordman, Mark Steyn, Theodore Dalrymple, Bruce Thornton, Walter Lacquer, Paul Gottfried, and even Geert Wilders. Brevity makes it difficult to do the writers justice. I would recommend reading any of them.

Melanie Phillips

A brilliantly articulate and clear thinker. Having suffered years of vilification, she shows no smugness that her warnings are becoming received wisdom.

She puts our enervating political culture down to the general philosophy of relativism amongst intellectual elites, and a lack of appropriate pride in our institutions and traditions. Whilst it is hard to disagree with this view, I think it restates the situation rather than explains it. It would be wrong to call her reasoning tautologous, but moral and cultural relativism describe the texture of western self-loathing rather than its roots.

Theodore Dalrymple

I love this writer for the quality of his prose, his precise humour, and his observant irony. Theodore Dalrymple combines farsightedness with moderation.

He explains political correctness as “communist propaganda writ small”. Marxism, unlike fascism, survived its denouement, and has retained its attraction to intellectuals because of the status it gives them , and they have evolved it into a more resilient form.

Theodore Dalrymple sees the political elites’ attempts to make the public financially dependent as one of their tools:

Of course, the majority of Britons are still not direct dependents of the state. “Only” about a third of them are: the 25 percent of the working population who are public employees (the government has increased them by nearly 1 million since 1997, no doubt in order to boost its election chances); and the 8 percent of the adult population either unemployed or registered as disabled, and thus utterly dependent on government handouts. But the state looms large in all our lives, not only in its intrusions, but in our thoughts: for so thoroughly have we drunk at the wells of collectivism that we see the state always as the solution to any problem, never as an obstacle to be overcome.

Also their attempt to reduce belief in European culture:

While I have no objection to the children of immigrants speaking their parents’ native tongue at home, or to the private decision of anyone to master any language he chooses, a private choice is very different from the government’s ideological decision to offer such languages (of minor global importance) in the state schools. How not to see such a decision as deliberately subversive of belief in the primacy of European culture—with which, after all, the immigrants have chosen to throw in their lot?

These points strike me as observations rather than explanations, although they go further than merely describing the problem. They do not, for instance, explain why the attraction for Marxism has remained. There are other doctrines – e.g. platonic aristocracy – which intellectuals could have, and haven’t, used to their own ends.

Nor do they explain why the non-elites, the voters, have allowed political correctness – an unpalatable fact that commentators generally skirt around. The traditional British scepticism for egg-heads, and the public scorn that politicians have long attracted, are poor soil for a self-serving elite. It seems unlikely that British voters tolerate soft-core Marxism for the privilege of paying for an unnecessary class of academics.

Whilst I would agree with Theodore Dalrymple about the anaesthetic effect of political correctness, and the dependence of the welfarised public, I don’t think these factors are enough to force the public to get themselves robbed. Theodore Dalrymple seems to me to come close to the tempting fiction that the electorate are the victims of elite manipulation.

Marxism does much to explain the mentality of western self-loathing, but doesn’t explain how that self-loathing arises.

Paul Gottfried

In his devastating “Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy”, Paul Gottfried states that multiculturalism denies civil society its independence by casting it into competing groups. All of them are subject to the state’s authority, and dependent upon its patronage. To this end the managerial state imposes ideological orthodoxy, which becomes state religion. Heretics fare badly, and there is “the substitution of designated victims for the older adoration of religious martyrs”. “Third World, gender, and lifestyle victims" become the new “suffering just”.

I think Paul Gottfried is exactly right about the guilt-trip effects of multiculturalism, and the state’s wish to undermine cultural independence. But I think he too succumbs to the temptation to blame the elites and passing over the role of the public.

This is a similar to Theodore Dalrymple’s belief that multiculturalism is a deliberate government policy. There is no doubting multiculturalism’s usefulness to Europe’s unscrupulousness elites, but I don’t think this view explains public tolerance of it.

Fjordman

The brilliantly sensitive and scholarly defender of our western heritage. His conclusions – e.g. that we have “no intellectual cadre that can think” – are the more devastating for being thoughtfully researched.

I think his view is similar to Theodore Dalrymple’s. For him, “cultural Marxism” is a Gramscian strain that survived the fall of communism, and which our treacherous elites promote for their own selfish ends. I think he is right. But I wish he went further. Like others, he seems to avoid the conclusion that those elites, whilst self-serving, may be doing the public’s bidding. To be fair, he has expressed doubt that democracy is up to the challenge (“Democracy not Working”), but I can’t find anything from him that alters his basic view that we are duped by the elites.

Geert Wilders

His views and recommendations are clear and consistent. Like Churchill, he sees the concrete in front of us (God knows, it isn’t difficult). One must admire his sense of purpose, living as he does under effective house arrest, only able to see his partner once a week, menaced and demonised by the collusive Dutch state.

His speeches to the Dutch Parliament protest rule by a cowardly and self-serving elite, dedicated to handing over Western civilisation, as an outgoing President might concentrate on handing over the Oval Office. In a 2008 budget debate he stressed the disconnection between “the leftist canal-zone” (the high-price areas near to the Amsterdam canals where left-wing celebrities and politicians tend to live) and “The other Netherlands (which) consists of people who have to pay the bills”.

As one might expect from a democratic politician who still values aspects of state provision, this line avoids criticism of the electorate. Elite swindlers dupe the unsuspecting tax-paying public, who have not queried the bill yet.

Mark Steyn

A virtuoso and entertaining writer who mordantly nails hypocrisy early on. And a knack for getting things right that pokes his detractors in the eye.

I think his explanation goes furthest so far. He sees multiculturalism as an absurd symptom of “civilisational exhaustion”. And the most civilisationally exhausted, Europe, is the most absurdly multiculturalist. I think that his argument is right, so far as it goes.

But I think that, like Melanie Phillips’s view, this argument is a little circular. It would be absurd to describe self-loathing and cultural relativism as a symptom of “civilisational vigour”. I don’t think “Civilisational exhaustion” explains PC multiculturalism so much as it describes it.

But he goes further by tracing the exhaustion back to the problem of deathbed demographics – “demography is destiny”. I still have my doubts about this explanation, however.

First, I’m not sure which is the cause and which the effect. Are deathbed demographics the result of civilisational exhaustion, or the other way around? And where does the primary cause come from? Perhaps it is just a feature of age – western civilisation has had a good long run and has had enough of leading. But Mark Steyn, rightly, has little time for such arguments about historical inevitability.

In “America Alone”, he suggests it is the result of the luxury of American military protection since World War I, but I’m not sure he thinks that is the root of the problem. If it were, that would not explain why America appears to share some of Europe’s self-loathing?

Second, whilst demography is a plausible explanation I think it is an oversimplification. It doesn’t explain why multiculturalism, of all things, should be a symptom of shrinking demographics. For instance, inter-war Germany had been experiencing a demographic decline, which the Nazis tried to reverse. Although that policy failed, Nazi Germany cannot be cited as an example of cultural relativism. Similarly, Japan and China have deathbed demographics, and yet neither of them is falling for the cultural self-loathing and relativism of Western Europe. Japan, if less confident than in, say, the 1980s, still has low levels of immigration, and virtually no Islamic immigration, and shows no sign of abandoning its orderly culture. China on the other hand appears to be combining a demographic crunch with civilisational resurgence, and is cited by Mark Steyn as an example of the ‘strong horse’ feared and respected by Jihadis. Russia has, if anything, even worse demographics, owing to disease and low male life expectancy, but shows no wish to abase itself. And whilst the British birth rate is significantly higher than Germany’s, PC multiculturalism appears to be higher in Britain. And America, whose population passed the 300 million mark two years ago, is playing catch-up with Britain in the self-loathing stakes.

I’m exaggerating slightly. And I think that there is merit to Mark Steyn’s view that low demographics are a key factor. But, those demographics look more like a reinforcer of self-loathing than its main cause.

Collectivism - the philosophical poison

The European welfare state forces higher earners to subsidise consumption for lower earners. At least half of all wealth created in European countries is spent by the state, a massive vested interest. It means a good deal for the lower-earning majority of voters.

This is a form of extortion, albeit highly proceduralised. It is not done voluntarily just because it is required by democratic vote. If tax were voluntarily then it would not be tax but generosity, and the taxman, police, courts, and bailiffs would not exist. Tax isn’t freely given and you can’t opt out of it. And democracy cannot legitimise extortion any more than murder.

People say that tax is voluntary because they approve of it, and think that no reasonable person could object to so fair a system. The reasoning is similar to Soviet dogma: I like the system, anyone who doesn’t is irrational, you can’t get out of it, and you will go along with it or face punishment.

Yet the world of tax and welfare is more sophisticated than a mafia racket. It needs wealth creation to continue, and wealth creation requires voluntary motivation. So welfare collectivism needs a widespread acceptance of orthodox opinion. It requires a justifying ideology.

Monarchies use the ideology of the divine right of kings. Military dictators use the national imperative. Communists use the march of history. Welfare democracy uses collectivism.

Hence the misuse of language: “Compassion” – as if forcing a minority, at the point of a truncheon, to pay for things you want is a compassionate act; “social justice” – a phrase without meaning except to imply that everyone should have similar incomes; “giving money to the rich” – as if the state taking less is an act of giving; “investment” – as if it makes financial sense to be forced to buy consumables for others. These terms are used to justify theft by tax. Their common denominator is collectivism.

By collectivism I mean the idea that group rights overpower morality. It replaces rights and duties based on your motives, actions and effects, with rights and duties based on your group identity, particularly your victim identity.

Collectivism is the philosophical poison at the heart of Western self-loathing. Its gradual de-coupling of entitlement and behaviour has permeated welfare democracy for almost a century. The rift between collectivism and morality puts the global fault line in Europe – a new Iron Curtain of the mind.

Collectivism has been surprisingly successful. The meaningless language it uses is widely accepted at face value. Collective wishes trump individual rights, especially property rights.
The corollary of welfare collectivism is that traditional morality is bad because it lacked “social justice”, “compassion”, and “investment”, and because it “gave money to the rich”. The injustice of life without the welfare state is taken for granted, and people adopt this view intuitively. And there is no shortage of self-serving intellectuals to flesh out this crude orthodoxy: that western culture was dull and unspectacular; that individual responsibility is oppressive; that self-restraint is repression; that self-reliance is impossible.

This collectivist mentality extends to a variety of victim groups, including religious minorities. This may irritate Europeans who find themselves on the wrong end of minority entitlements, e.g. the right not to be offended, but most will tolerate this if it helps keep the welfare flowing.

Why multiculturalism?

Multiculturalism’s power derives from guilt. European shame following the holocaust is disabling – Europe died philosophically at Auschwitz. A century ago, popular history focused on the high points of your history: the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Trafalgar and Waterloo. Today, it focuses on the Nazis. And guilt. Multiculturalists are not slow to take up this opportunity.

See for instance the calculated comments of the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday 2007, that Britain was becoming like Nazi Germany. Remembrance Sunday, being the most solemn day in the secular UK calendar, is intended in part to honour Britons who fought to defeat Nazi Germany.

Or, in 2000, Jack Straw’s (the UK Home Secretary and a major exponent of multiculturalism) comments that the English are "potentially very aggressive, very violent" and "increasingly articulating their Englishness". It makes no difference to have fought against violent nationalism: guilt is desired.

Or, from the other side, take this quote from Martin Wolf, a respected Financial Times analyst:

“The most important conclusion is that one's assessment of the desirability of sizeable immigration is a matter more of values than of economics. It is not a choice between wealth and poverty, but of the sort of country one desires to inhabit.”
‘A Matter of More Than Economics’, Martin Wolf, The Financial Times, 13 April 2004

The value of guilt is that it overpowers opposition. Self-reproach means that any accusation of chauvinism, or “being right wing”, is enough to end discussion. This has been recognised as a law of debate since 1990: Godwin’s Law briefly states that “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one” and the discussion is effectively ended.

Multiculturalism is, therefore, a very efficient method of overcoming opposition to state management. This is why it is used so frequently – see, for instance, Pim Fortuyn, here, and here – to vilify opponents.

The general public don’t have much enthusiasm for the absurdities of multiculturalism, or particularly enjoy the denigration of their history. But most will put up with it as part of the drive for “services”. Not because they like it but because it is useful.

Unpalatable reality

This is the most unpalatable aspect of my analysis. I appear to blame the majority of my fellow citizens and, therefore, democracy itself. This is controversial because commentators attach great importance to the goodness of democracy.

It would be unfair of me to caricature my neighbours as selling out a towering cultural heritage for a slew of welfare. If you look closer, it isn’t the majority of the public who are the cause, so much as man’s tendency to self-interest, to allow his short-term gain to prevail. This seems to me an inevitable, even a natural, tendency, and one that I share with almost everyone else.

If blame is appropriate, then I go along with the writers I began with by placing it on Europe’s elites. They are not agents but representatives and trustees. Yet the more closely you try to examine their motives, the more self-serving they appear.

The future

What does all this mean now that things appear to be starting to come apart?

If PC multiculturalism stems from the financial transfers of the welfare state, we can expect it to continue whilst the welfare state continues. But we can also expect conflict as limits to the tax take become apparent. If we can no longer increase overall tax-take by punishing higher earners, then that hostility will transfer to other groups competing for the welfare. Each group will have the incentive to blame the next for reductions in the welfare pot, and to cast the other as undeserving.

We can expect this scramble for welfare to fall out along ethnic lines. Partly because of the disproportionate consumption by Islamic populations; partly because European populations don’t see immigrant groups as having such strong collectivist entitlements as themselves; partly because multiculturalism entrenches ethnic entitlement; and partly because the European ethnic divide is so deep. This probably explains the current unpopularity of multiculturalism.

If PC multiculturalism stems from the welfare state then the disappearance of the welfare state will transform self-loathing into a chauvinism which, having heard enough foolish talk, is deaf to reason.

If PC multiculturalism stems from the welfare state then ethnic hostility will not be the primary or immediate cause of European breakdown but will be its harbinger and accelerant.

I hope not. It is one thing to write words like “ethnic hostility” and “civil breakdown”. It is quite another to see those things in reality.

Conclusion

It should be obvious from the above that I have deep misgivings about welfare democracy, and that I think collectivism and its mutations are poisonous. As we watch the breakdown of European multiculturalism, and the welfare collectivism that gives rise to it, I think this view will prevail on some others.

If these people, however few, can take the opportunity to devise ways to live without the state, then the trauma will not have been wasted. And the stature of man, which the western cultural achievement represents, can be renewed.

Reply to Hal's comment

Dear Hal,

You wish to replace the state with a system on private law. It won't work. Who is going to enforce the law? Even if you found a group of people who agrees to these laws, someone has to enforce them.

Let's say you abolish the state. Everybody lives under private laws. One day, you walk along the street. Someone bonks you on the head with a bat and robs you. Who is going to arrest the assailant? There is no longer any police or jail.

Or say you have signed a contract with someone. He reneges on the contract and runs away with your money. Who is going to force him to deliver the goods you paid for, failing which you may seize his property.

Today, the state has courts which have the power to force him to pay up. The state has a monopoly of violence. If he does not pay up, the police will get him. Or send the guy who bonked you on the head to jail.

So someone still has to administer the law, hire police and build jails. Let's assume that you have managed to hire police, build jails and set up courts to enforce your privately agreed laws. Say you live in a city of 10,000,000 people with a thousand systems of private law. You will need 1,000 different jails, police forces, courts etc. And our neighbor might be living under a different laws from you!

What if something is legal in one system but illegal in another? Say under one private legal system, its legal to sell heroin but illegal in another. A buys heroin from B. In A's law books, its legal. But B (who is trying to cheat A) lives under another set of laws which is illegal. B runs away after getting money from B. How will A get his money back? A contract is enforcable only if it is legal. Which court should A go to to get redress?

So people living in the same geographic area must have only one law and you end up with a state.

A system of private law won't work. You still end up with a state and then you need a mechanism to choose the leaders of that state. So we are back with the question of how to set up a government.

I noted your comments on my proposed reforms. Remember, nothing lasts forever. No system is going to be perfect. I simply looked at Venice which lasted for more than a thousand years under their system. But eventually, it broke down. They failed because one group - the aristocrats usurped all the power. The British Parliamentary system is failing because one group - the people usurped all the power.

My proposal is an attempt to restore the balance of power between three elements for a long lasting and succesful government - the people, the elite and the executive who must manage the country.

Hal's reply:

Hi Ohmyrus,

These are essential objections, which my proposed scheme needs to address. I should have done so in my reply to your essay, but it would have been too long!

Taking your points in order.

“Who is going to enforce the law?

Judges, investigators, and police. As they do now, but privately, rather than under state control.

A legal code will have to be accompanied by a realistic enforcement machinery to be taken seriously, for two reasons.

First, so that potential members know that they can force other members to observe the code’s terms – not to assault fellow members, and to stick to their contracts. A legal code without an effective enforcement mechanism won’t attract members.

Second, to give third parties the confidence to deal with you. Remember, this is one of the main reasons for joining such a code. It tells third parties that it is safe to deal with you, that you will not assault them or break contracts. This applies even, or especially, if you are rich and powerful, and even if there were no other members.

Without an effective enforcement mechanism, third parties will not feel safe to deal with members of a code. And members won’t be able to trade. They will be lonely and poor!

Think of it as like getting a college degree. Sure, it would be nice if your college would relax its enforcement procedure – exams – and give out easy degrees. Some do (see my spam folder). But word soon gets around. Third parties – employers – discount those pieces of paper and render it a waste of time and money getting them. Decent students avoid college like this.

The same thing will happen to a legal code which does not enforce its rules.

“One day, you walk along the street. Someone bonks you on the head with a bat and robs you. Who is going to arrest the assailant?”

Police, investigators, prosecutors, judges, jailers and bailiffs.

Suppose the assailant is another member of your code. The police and investigators follow the criminal procedure prescribed by the code. The prosecutors and judges, following the code’s rules of evidence, try the case and sentence the assailant. The jailers jail him or extract compensation from him. (I leave the economics of such a system to a separate discussion, but refer you to http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan026.pdf for some interesting thoughts)

Suppose the assailant belongs to no legal code. Your code may state that he should be afforded the same procedure or protection as if he were a member of the code. More likely, your code will state that the benefit of your code can only be claimed by other members of that code or a recognized code. Except, perhaps, for a core of residual standards that it would demean members to transgress against even the most worthless characters. I.e. mutual rights and obligations. In which case you, or your code’s enforcers, can do more or less what you can get away with to the assailant. Thus putting the member of no legal code in a vulnerable position.

“Or say you have signed a contract with someone. He reneges on the contract and runs away with your money. Who is going to force him to deliver the goods you paid for, failing which you may seize his property.”

Similar to the crime situation. Lawyers, judges, and bailiffs force him to comply. Suppose the renegade is not a member of any legal code – he has no protection. Should your legal code afford him protection against you? It is difficult to see why. So, at its crudest, you are free to find him and force the goods out of him.

However, it is unlikely to get that far. You would probably not contract with him in the first place if he didn’t belong to a legal code with an effective enforcement mechanism. Would you, as an American citizen, contract with a bankrupt in, say, Somalia? If you did, you would probably ask for goods upfront, to avoid feeling a fool if he ran off with your money?

Your question illustrates why people would need to belong to a code in order to enter into contracts. Third parties will require this partly for their own peace of mind, and partly because their banks insist on it. It would be a condition of any mortgage, or company loan, that the borrower only enter into contracts with members of an approved code.

“Say you live in a city of 10,000,000 people with a thousand systems of private law. You will need 1,000 different jails, police forces, courts etc.”

In reality, it’s unlikely you will have 1,000 systems within one city. But if you do, they are likely to be highly compatible.

The main reason for joining will be to be able to deal with other people. So the main criteria for choosing a system will be its ability to talk to other systems.

Let’s say there is a minor difference, e.g. smoking in restaurants, between your system and mine. If they are the same in all other respects, then it is very easy for them to coexist. It may be tedious for us to go out for a meal, but it will be straightforward for our two systems to share a high level of recognition on contractual and criminal matters.

As for jail, police, and courts services, why does a code has to provide them in house? A good simile is the PC or car industry, where the component makers may be fewer than the brands. E.g. two or three different legal systems use the same police provider, perhaps assessing the precise level of service that their customers will value most.

I would guess that your local police authority contracts a fair amount of labour from agencies – administrators, ‘phone operators, trainers. This would extend to some front-line duties were it not for employment and union restrictions. I would also guess that these agencies offer their services to private security firms as well.

This is where I think my system would have a substantial advantage over the current state monopoly, because the mixture of competition and private incentive would, as usual, lead to greater efficiency, and a much finer awareness of what the public value. It always does.

“And our neighbor might be living under a different laws from you!”

I think you’re right, but I don’t see this as a problem. I suspect that you are falling into the leftwing, statist trap of thinking that the fact that people need something (in this case the ability to live and deal with others) somehow disables them from providing it for themselves.

People will select a legal code because it enables them to live and deal with a large number of people, particularly those nearby. So they’re likely to join a system which is the same as, or compatible with, the system that others use locally. In the same way that VHS, IBM and Microsoft became dominant – compatibility!

Differences will be minimised. What’s the point of them – to be perverse and antisocial? Some people are like that, but let them! They aren’t many.

Let’s look at this from an abnormally pessimistic point of view. Suppose the people on your side of town, the Montagues, belong to one system, and those on the other side, the Capulets, belong to another. And suppose neither system recognizes the other, even though they say substantially the same thing about contracts.

You will find it inconvenient not to be able to buy from or sell to Capulets. Suppose the Montague code authority recognizes this and unilaterally decides to extend Montague contractual law protection to people who belong to the Capulet system.

The Capulet system may respond in kind, in which case all well and good. But suppose it doesn’t, out of bloody mindedness. Montagues are at an advantage, because whilst you can expect Capulets to trust your word, Capulets cannot expect you to trust theirs.

So, if you buy a car advertised for sale by a Capulet, you can tell them you will write a cheque once you have received safe delivery and a test-drive. But the Capulet can’t expect you to make a cash purchase in advance of delivery.

But the advantage really shows if there are 3 systems: if the Montague system recognises Capulets and Friar-Lawrences, but the Capulets and Friar-Lawrences only recognise their own. In that case, Montagues can deal with everyone in town, but Capulets and Friar-Lawrences can only deal with themselves.

Now extend that effect across 1,000 systems, as per your example. Which position would you prefer: being able to trade with everyone in town, or being able to trade with 0.1% of people?

Each system will have the incentive to maximise commonality with other systems, in order to maximise its members’ opportunities to deal with as many other people as possible on as many levels as possible.

Every salesman knows the importance of rapport!

“Say under one private legal system, its legal to sell heroin but illegal in another. A buys heroin from B. In A's law books, its legal. But B (who is trying to cheat A) lives under another set of laws which is illegal. B runs away after getting money from B. How will A get his money back? A contract is enforcable only if it is legal. Which court should A go to to get redress?”

I think you’re reaching a little here, my friend! The situation is not much different from the way it is today (although, I would expect a system of private law to be more law-abiding). Heroin sales are already illegal, and contracts to sell it are unenforceable. How does A get his money back under today’s system? Presumably he asks for cash upfront, threatens violence, or hopes he is dealing with an honest user!

I think the issue you’re getting at is ‘levels of compatibility’. Two systems which don’t recognise each other’s rules about heroin sales can still recognise each other’s rules about contracts and tort. So an Amsterdam dope-dealer who visits London can’t expect Londoners to treat his trade as just another contract! And the Londoner who visits Amsterdam has to be prepared for drug use on the streets.

In your example, A’s system, the one that tolerates heroin sales, would be well advised unilaterally to state that members of system A observe contract law on heroin sales in respect of any purchaser whatever his or her code. That way members of system A can sell heroin to anyone, because those third parties know that members of system A must deal honestly with them on heroin sales. But members of system B might find that when they get back home, system B sends them to jail!

As an aside, the drug-dealing situation offers an interesting insight into how a system of private criminal law will work. It suggests that, contrary to perception, private legal code societies will be conservative. I suspect that members of private legal codes will be restrictive of drug-use, because the choice is not simply whether or not you want to use drugs. The choice will be whether you want the freedom to use drugs at the expense of living in an area where other people use them, or whether one is prepared to give up the freedom to use drugs in return for living in an area where other people don’t use drugs.

People who don’t use drugs will probably prefer not to have others around them using drugs, because of the problems that tend to accompany drug use. So non-users will opt for a code that prohibits drug use. Which means that for people who want the freedom to use drugs, the price of that freedom is living amongst people who actively use them. For the vast majority, the attraction of living in an area free from drug-use and its attendant problems is likely to outweigh the value of feeling free to use drugs if you decide you want to. I find this poetic, and appropriately undermining of sham leftwing libertarianism.

“So people living in the same geographic area must have only one law and you end up with a state.”

I agree with you up to a point. People living in the same locality will have a powerful incentive to adopt similar, and compatible, systems. For the reasons I’ve given.

But the tendency of birds of a feather to flock together is nothing new! It happens today. If anything, this tendency is exaggerated under social democracy, whose welfare states create such dangerous levels of segregation.

People like shared values because it creates trust, law-abiding, and solidarity. I don’t think shared values automatically amount to a state. The crucial difference is that you are not free to opt out of the state’s rules. Once the vote is counted, and the government in place, you obey its rules, whatever you voted.

If you were free to opt out, then tax wouldn’t exist because tax isn’t tax if it is paid voluntarily.

“I noted your comments on my proposed reforms. Remember, nothing lasts forever. No system is going to be perfect.”

You’re right! I am slightly embarrassed by what people may take to be the utopian nature of my suggestion. Utopia means gulags.

“I simply looked at Venice which lasted for more than a thousand years under their system. But eventually, it broke down. They failed because one group - the aristocrats usurped all the power. The British Parliamentary system is failing because one group - the people usurped all the power.”

Actually, I hope I was not too hard on your reformed democracy. I think it stacks up pretty well, particularly the part about sellable votes. I think they would concentrate power in the hands of those with the money and the sense of responsibility to pursue it. My hunch is that it would attract the rich and paternalistic – Soros, Gates, Buffett – rather than the rich and unscrupulous.

However, the point which I seek to play as my trump card is the unlikelihood of your system coming into play. Welfare democracy is not going to be reformed. It is going to collapse.

I see no politicians or voters willing even to question the welfare state. The shelf-life of such European finance ministers who have queried the affordability of welfare programmes has been short. Witness too the European elites’ limpet-like attitude to discredited multiculturalism, foreign debt, and popular dependence. Still chirping like crickets in the face of the calamitous implications.

The number of people wishing to reform democracy is few indeed, as I’m sure you realise, and turkeys will vote for Christmas before dependent populations and elites vote to reform the welfare out of welfare democracy.

It is not an exaggeration to say that, at least over here, democracy means state provision. I think they would prefer to collapse democracy rather than let democracy turn off the welfare drip-feed.

Mark Steyn has called the “perfect storm” facing Europe, and I don’t see how European democracy can survive it.

In which case, it is not a question of reforming democracy if democracy ceases to exist. The realistic hope is to provide a system people can use once democracy has gone down, to avoid the descent into the war zone.

So my proposal, is more realistic than it seems at first. People will need stability more than ever, but the state won’t be there to provide it. If there’s a mechanism for them to provide it for themselves I think they will use it. What is the alternative – the poverty, chaos, and violence?

Well, Ohmyrus, I’ve enjoyed trying to reply! I hope I have given satisfactory answers and haven’t descended to sarcasm. I would be interested to continue, and also to hear the views of your colleague Fjordman who appears to share my doubts about the future of democracy.

My guess is that you will still not be entirely convinced, so fire away!


Hal

"Lessons from the Ancients - a reply from FreeHal"

Whilst I think you are one of the best thinkers on the web, and certainly miles ahead of anyone else on the democratic roots of current problems, I wanted to take issue with you on your proposal here.

It is characteristic of your clarity of thought to have the confidence to propose solutions. The overwhelming majority of commentators would not dare to, even if they could. So I hope you won’t mind my debating you!

It is not just that I disagree with you, but that the things I disagree with most are fatal flaws in almost all political thought about the future. Specifically, the assumption that the state power is a natural necessity, a fact of life. And that state power tends to a stable equilibrium.

These assumptions, so unconsciously made on this side of the Atlantic, underpin the catastrophic complacency of political leaders here, and the suicidal destructiveness of left-wing activists.

“Catastrophic complacency”, because European elites appear to believe that the state will always be in place and, thanks to the inoculating effects of democracy, always protective. I cannot think of leaders with less historical right to think like this.

“Suicidal destructiveness”, because activists such as the black hoods tend to be inordinately welfare dependent. It makes no sense to hack away at the tree whilst perching on its driest twig. Worse than that, the routine use of violence against the state is dangerous on a continent where civil breakdown has so often led to carnage.

So I would like to challenge your proposal on the following bases: first, its own merits; second, its impracticability from our current position; third, it’s limiting assumptions (see above).

And, finally, to propose a more realistic and preferable alternative.

Before that, I should reiterate your view that democracy leads to the welfare state. Also, what I take to be your view that, as with the Ancien Regime, any class or group will use state power to exploit others.

I don’t know if you would agree with me that the commonest use of the state – it’s common denominator – is to enrich those controlling it. Usually by coercive methods such as simple taxation, or the sale of monopolies. But also by reducing the relative wealth of other groups, e.g. by preventing business people from prospering by banning usury.

If so, then I think it is difficult to see how the state can be rendered beneficial, as you seem to me to be saying it can.

Your proposal’s own merits

Your proposal appears to me to be an attempt to reduce, rather than cure, democracy’s self-destructiveness. In the same way that the American constitution sought, in part, to prevent abuse by checking state powers against each other, your proposal seems to countering electoral incentives against each other.

I don’t think this will work.

First, your proposal seeks to prevent abuse by inhibiting action, and governments need to take action. This was precisely the problem when the British constitution was more “balanced”, i.e. when the House of Lords had more power, and led to the Parliament Acts reducing that power in order to get its legislation enacted.

This was one of the problems with 18th-century Venice. It’s oligarchical republic looks corrupt to modern eyes. It had served Renaissance traders well, but was ill suited to the needs of Industrial Revolution and emerging stockmarkets for transparency and moralism. As a result, Venice lagged, and was easy prey for Napoleon.

Second, there is no stable equilibrium between the three classes (monarchy, aristocracy, and general population) whom you empower. One of them will always be stronger, or weaker, than the others. If the optimum balance is reached, it will be momentary.

You mention the British setup as a potential ideal. In which case, why didn’t it work? Britain ought to be in much better shape than its European deadbeats, but it isn’t, at least not by much.

That lesson from Britain is instructive: there was no logical stopping point at which the balance of power was just right. When the power of the monarchy was too restrictive for some, it was taken away by revolution. When people felt the aristocracy had too much power, the constitution evolved to reduce it. This was done by the power of the state, served by elaborate constitutional theory. The powerful use the state to their own ends. The state invites this.

Third, class is not the only, or even the primary, group-interest. Tribal divisions can be felt just as strongly. See, for example, Saddam and the Tikriti clan. See the Islamic enclaves in Europe, a continent which prided itself on having grown out of such divisions. Or the scourge of anti-semitism, whose blight has been promoted by monarchies, aristocracies, and populations alike.

Or anticapitalism – hostility to those who make money. A lot of people have something to gain from that if only via taxation. This is the current situation in Europe, and quite compatible with your proposal. Just look at the current situation in Britain from the point of view of your threefold system.

The monarchy is unaffected by the prejudice against commerce and trade. The monarchy does not live by trade, but by inherited wealth, chiefly landholdings which are largely unaffected by anticapitalism. If there is a reduction of wealth in society generally, the monarchy becomes relatively wealthier. It has little to lose, and something to gain, from prejudice against moneylending, share-dealing, and widget-making.

The Aristocracy is in a similar position (in fact, I wonder why you separate the monarchy and the aristocracy? The monarch has historically been first among aristocratic equals). Aristocratic wealth has traditionally derived from land. Their landholdings insulate them from the effects of inflation. Suppose, for example, the current mania for government bailouts leads to high inflation, the price of land will probably keep pace with inflation, or outpace it, because land, like gold, is limited.

Democracy, or “the people”, probably benefit the most from anticapitalism which vilifies money-makers, in order to justify confiscating money from them. I don’t need to repeat the argument which you make so clearly about the majority voting for welfare programmes to be paid for by the minority. This is happening right across Europe, and most other western democracies, and is the motor and linchpin of their problems.

In summary, I don’t see how, if your solution was put in place tomorrow, it would significantly affect the European democratic demise.

Impracticability

I note your honesty and realism on this point:

“What can be done? Probably nothing. The game must be played out. But what should be done if we could?”

I cannot resist asking what is the point of hypothetical solutions? Please forgive me if I sound sarcastic. It is simply that I think it is important to consider practicable solutions, in response to the terrible violence ahead. The more so because so few others are doing so.

As one of the comments to your essay says, your solution would require substantial reworking of the American Constitution. I think this would require a breakdown so severe as to create the tabula rasa situation which prevailed in the decades after the American Revolution. I wonder if a solution which requires so severe a breakdown is worth having? In those circumstances I doubt that heads will be clear enough rationally to think through proposals such as yours.

Civil breakdown gives rise to more Benito Mussolinis than Thomas Jeffersons. Which is why systems such as your proposal are generally the result of continuity rather than break down – ancient Greece, the Venetian Republic, Great Britain.

I have described elsewhere terrible violence which is going to accompany the breakdown of democracy in Europe. The important thing is to provide a solution which people can take up as democracy starts to fail. And that is simple if we can shed the blinkers of our times.

Limiting assumptions

“Freedom for the Wolves means death of a sheep” – Isaiah Berlin.

People need rules in order to live safely and to enter into bargains.

You don’t need me to tell you the unpleasant facts of human nature, that there are people who will harm you, or break their contracts with you, if they are forced to do otherwise.

And the demand for civil order is evidenced by the lengths people will go to, and the brutes they will tolerate, in order to get it.

After a decade of civil war, the Afghan population tolerated the Taliban. Many Iraqis were compliant under the order, of sorts, that Saddam provided. Even today, European business people tolerate unsustainable tax and spend on the basis that it provides a system of contract law they can use.

In a third world hellhole prison the sensible thing is to give yourself to the biggest brute in the place, because he will protect you from the others. Society can descend to those levels.

People need rules.

The false assumption is that only the state can provide and enforce those rules.

I can’t fault you for this assumption, but ask you to reconsider it. In Europe it is the state’s power – the power to ratchet up government spending – which threatens to destroy the state itself. And to elevate brute force and to let ethnic hatred off the leash.

But there is hope: the fact that people want enforceable rules means that they can find ways to provide them, independent of the state.

This is the stupidity of the statist, that the more pressing the need for order is, the less able people must be to find it outside of the state.

A more realistic solution

The state provides enforces its rules, whether you agree with them or not.

Most people assume that, in a democracy, everyone consents to be ruled in this way, but that is not the case. E.g. taxation: if it were voluntary, it would not be necessary – and it wouldn’t be taxation.

I would prefer to pay for my own health care and education, rather than receive it via the inefficient and prescriptive state, but I have no choice whichever way I vote.

I propose a system of law which people can sign up to voluntarily. Like you might to do with a condominium, health care plan. Think of a state which you can opt in or out of. With enforcement mechanisms, forcing you to comply with the rules you opted into.

I refer to this as ‘private law’.

The immediate question is, “Why would anyone voluntarily restrict themselves like this?”.

The reason is because of their need for safety, and for the regulation of contracts. By signing up to a set of rules like this, you are likely to put yourself amongst other people who have chosen to submit to similar rules of behaviour, at least as regards other signatories. You agree to standards of behaviour towards other people who agree to the same, and vice versa. The bulk of thieves and thugs immediately excluded from your immediate environment.

Even if no-one else signs up to such a set of rules, you still benefit because other people can trust you enough to enter into contracts with you. People can do business with you – you can prosper.

“But what about the powerful man – he doesn’t fear crime, and doesn’t need to submit to a system of law to protect himself. Others will treat him decently out of fear. Why would he submit to such rules?”

He will need to submit to a set of rules in order to be able to trade with people. He might have enough power to intimidate people out of committing crimes against him or his family. But he will still need to observe civil law in order to get other people to enter into contracts with him. This will be more important for such a person, because his power is likely to come from his wealth.

In a commercially active society, wealth and power can only be preserved by participating in commerce. If he refuses to submit himself to law, and retreats inside his castle walls, he will find that others, more enterprising and modest than he is, will overtake him. Other rich people, who do want to trade, will force him to heel because violence creates instability.

The key here is the need to engage in commerce, to enter into contracts which, because of their intricacy, require social stability.

This is how stock markets, those barometers of stability, keep the peace. The myth is that democracy keeps the peace, but this is not so, as any history of 1930s Europe will reveal. Democracy can break down into violence, or usher it in. However, it is rare for societies with healthy stock markets to do so, and if they do the stock markets do not survive.

“But what if you like one system, and I prefer another? Won’t this mean that we can’t trade with each other? Won’t this mean that we go to war? ”

Absolutely not.

My system may be different from yours, but provided the intentions are similar they can be compatible. The people who run my system, and the people who run your system, can agree that signatories observe their rules in respect of members of the other system. The people who run each system benefit most by getting more members, and the way to get more members is to get your system recognized by more people, even members of other systems.

It is likely that these systems will adopt levels of recognition: if your system is very similar to mine, I will observe all my rules in any dealings I have with you; if our systems are very different, there may be only a bare core of rules that we have to observe towards each other.

But the basic incentive is to maximise compatibility, so as to maximise the numbers of people that members can deal with.

“But won’t the tendency be for one system to become all-powerful, and to wipe out other systems by force? That way your system leads to monopoly rule, or dictatorship!”

This is the age-old objection to the free market, predicted by Marx and others. It has yet to materialise.

The evidence, from the American railroads, to IBM, to Microsoft, to today’s newspaper industry, is that corporations become too big at their own peril. Inefficiency and arrogance blind them to new competition and newer markets.

If a private system of law starts to treat its customers and subjects, it will find them leaving in droves. If it prefers to take its members into conflict with people they would prefer to trade with, then its members will become poorer.

In any event, it is unlikely to reach that stage, because even the threat of conflict has a serious effect on share values, and members of aggressive systems will find themselves in a permanent bear market, unable to attract investment.

At its most simple, people don’t want this. They don’t want to be part of something big and oppressive. It makes them uneasy. They will search for the competitor for this reason alone.

“Won’t such a voluntary system be vulnerable to the aggression of more dictatorial, warlike, systems?”

This has been the mistake of most enemies of freedom – from Hitler, to Kruschev, to Gorbachev, to Saddam – to presume that people who live in freedom are weak. Dictators are too stupid to learn the lesson, so they will always be a threat.

But the basic fact is that free people are stronger than the un-free.

First, free people are materially stronger. Free societies are richer because they allow people to do more or less what they want to do, and people will inevitably do what they want to do better than people doing what they don’t want to do.

And they will create more value with their efforts, because they create what people want, not what dictators tell them to. And value is a result of what people want, not what they are told to want. This is important, because material wealth translates into weapons, troops, intel, and alliances.

Second, people who fight for freedom fight harder, from the Greeks at Thermopylae to the RAF fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain. They fight because they want to, as well as because they are told to, and that matters on the battlefield. It also matters off the battlefield, when the various administrative and logistical decisions are made.

It is rare for a free people to lose a war against a subjugated people of a similar size.

This is only an outline of the system of private law which people can take up when democracy collapses. It repays further thinking.

Conclusion

The assumption that only the state can provide order is very widespread, almost universal. I think it stems from the Greeks, whom you have cited, and whom we disregard at our peril. However, their political debates took the existence of the state as a given.

In that respect, the time has come to surpass the Greeks. For this reason I think it is appropriate to talk in terms of a new phase of civilisation.

And this is where intellectuals such as you and Fjordman, who are still able to think, find themselves in a crucial role. We have no such intellectuals class in Europe any more. And this at a time when it is no longer a question of intellectual diversion, but are finding a way to avoid the war zone.

We have no option but to try, unless we are content to live under the rising brute. But saving civilisation is simple provided we can shed the limiting assumptions of our age.

And on this plea I ask you to think again!

Lessons from the Ancients - by Ohmyrus

I have long been dissatisfied with the general performance of politicians whom I now call "votrepreneurs" to emphasise that they behave like entrepreneurs. Then I realised that its not their fault but the fault of the Democratic system itself. This realisation led me to investigate how the ancients viewed the problem of organizing government.

In the Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that there are three forms of government – monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Monarchy is of course rule by one man. An aristocracy is the rule by a few and democracy is rule by all citizens.

According to Machiavelli, all three are flawed and will not last long. The first monarch in a dynasty usually has the competence to rule well. But later his descendents will grow degenerate and the government will fall.

This will lead to rule by a few nobles which after a few generations will also grow corrupt and oppressive. The people will revolt and the government will fall paving the way for democracy. After a few generations, democracies will fall into disorder (I call it mobocracy) which again requires the rule by a strong man to restore order and you get a monarchy again.

In this, Machiavelli was following the writings of Polybius according to Peter Constantine who published the book, “The Essential Writings of Machiavelli.”

This cycle seems to see a rough parallel in the American experience. In 1776, the Americans succesfully revolted against an oppressive King George III and set up a Republic and not a Democracy. The Republic was essentially a libertarian quasi-aristocracy. It should be remembered that not everyone could vote in the new Republic. In 1776, only white males with property could vote because they believe that only those with a stake in the country should vote.

By 1830, fourteen out of 24 states still retricted voting to white males either with property or paid taxes. Even as late as 1860, seven states still had one of these restrictions. So describing this as a libertarian quasi-aristocracy is in my view accurate. Power lay in the hands of its elite who could inherit property and with it the right to vote. What they wanted was a Republic that can protect your freedom and not a democracy.

But with popular demand, the right to vote was gradually extended to all white males, then women and minorities. This peaceful revolution occurred without violence as what Machiavelli expected. But now that America is a full fledged democracy, will his prediction of the collapse of democracy come true? Will it degenerate into chaos which requires the rule by a dictator to restore order?

As expected, when one group of people grows too powerful, they will oppress the others. During the French Ancien Regime, it was the aristocrats and the monarch who had the power. They could party all day and live off the labor of the peasants. They were the parasitic class. So the people revolted.

Today, the parasitic class are those on welfare. They do no work (like the French Aristocrats during the Ancien Regime) but live off the labor of others who pay their taxes. As Marx said, Democracy is the Road to Socialism. Aristotle said something similar. He said, “Democracy is government for the poor because there are more of them and the will of the majority is supreme.”

That is why Democracies always lead to welfare states. Welfare states require high taxation to sustain. This means that wealth and income are being transferred from today's elite to the lower economic classes wheras the reverse was true during the Ancien Regime. Europe has gone further ahead than the USA on this. But America now has the most Liberal President in its history and both Houses of Congress are controlled by Democrats which is basically a Socialist Party.

Will the taxpayers' revolt? There has been signs of this happening with the growing Tea Party movement. Taxpayers do not like the idea that their money goes to fund entitlement programs that benefit others who often don't pay taxes so that votrepreneurs (politicians) can win elections.

If the original Tea Party was motivated that there should not be “taxation without representation”, today's Tea Parties are motivated by a distaste for “representation without taxation”. Once people get used to their Entitlements, its hard to wean them off it. Europe's high taxes, low birth rates are a killer combination making the long term viability of their states doubtful.

To fund these expenditures, the tax burden in France and Italy has risen to 45% of GDP. The American colonists rebelled against George III when the tax burden was far lower than this. According to Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, a tax burden of 12% at the begining of the 20th century would have been considered “excessive”. So taxes have been increasing.

Inspite of high taxes, they still could not pay for the exorbitant welfare benefits to satisfy the voters. So the votrepreneurs borrowed money and thus push the burden to future generations. In Socialist France, public debt has risen to 60% of GDP. In other countries, public debt rose to 100% of GDP.

Besides welfare spending, the votrepreneurs also implemented costly qualitative benefits to the workers like laws making it difficult to fire workers. This comes at a cost to owners of capital because of the higher cost of labor.

But thanks to globalization, capital can move quickly to low tax and low cost jurisdictions. So businessmen have been shifting their investments away from these high tax, high cost countries. This causes high unemployment in welfare states which in turn increases government expenditures because the unemployed are entitled to unemployment benefits.

Consequently, France has an Unemployment rate of 8.6 percent. For the EU as a whole, the Unemployment rate is 7.9%. As Michel Camdesssus said, they need to reform the Welfare State. He gave a list of reforms – like increasing the retirement age and reducing medical and retirement benefits. But once the Mob is used to high level of benefits, it is diffcult if not impossible to reform the system. Any votrepreneur trying to reduce the benefits will not be elected.

Making the problem worse for welfare addicted Europeans is its growing Muslim immigrants who are not assimilating and often form the underclass. But I won't go into that or my essay will be too long.

One day a crisis will occur which makes today's democracies ungovernable and a dictator will take over – making Machiavelli's cycle complete.

What can be done? Probably nothing. The game must be played out. But what should be done if we could? Machiavelli's advice was to combine the three elements into the government – monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Perhaps he got his ideas from Aristotle, who said the same thing.

All three have their strengths and weaknesses. But if one of the three has too much power, the system is unbalanced and will fail. Machiavelli pointed out that Athenian democracy lasted far shorter than the Spartan Republic which had a more balanced system.

If the French Ancien Regime fell because its elite squeezed the people too much, today's democracies will fall because the people squeezed the elite (who pay most of the taxes) too much. In one case, the elite had too much power and in the other the people have too much power.

It is simply human nature to benefit ourselves at the expense of others if we have the power to do so. So you need to strike a proper balance. Has there ever been a country or polity that combined all three – monarchy, aristocracy and the people?

One that came close to this Machiavellian ideal is ancient Venice. It lasted more than a thousand hundred years till it was conquered by Napoleon Bonarparte in the 19th century – far longer than any Democracy, both ancient and modern.

What sort of constitution did it have that helped it last this long? Describing its government is like trying to hit a moving target because it evolved over time. After having read the book, Venice by Frederick C Lane, I will point out some of the features in their constantly evolving Consitution at different points in time that I think is beneficial to us.

First, Venice was led by the Doge who functioned a bit like a monarch. Once elected, he ruled for life. But there were restrictions on his power. Unlike a true monarch, power was not passed on to his son but requires an election. He was a member of the Council of ten and could not go against the wishes of the majority. However, while he ruled for life, his fellow Council members ruled for shorter periods like two years.

This gives him the experience and prestige to get his way most of the time but not so much power than he can abuse it. An advantage of having a King is that he is in a position to think more for the long term. Today's votrepreneurs can only think ahead not more than the next elections. So unlike the Doge they are unable to make necessary but unpopular decisions which causes short term pain but yields great benefits in the long run. This is because once elected, the Doge is secure.

But the other members in the Council of Ten face periodic elections. So there was input of the popular will in the decision making process. So the Doge was not quite a dictator like the average Medieval King nor was he tossed about like a blade of grass by the changing winds of electoral opinion as a modern votrepreneur (politician) is.

Below the Council of Ten was the Council of forty and the Senate. Both had different functions. Below that was the Great Council and at the bottom of the pyramid was the General Assembly which consisted of every citizen of Venice.

In theory at least, the Doge gets his power from the People. Each election of the Doge and important laws must be affirmed by them. But in practice, the important decisions were made by the nobility who served in the Councils and Senate. But they had to take into account the opinion of the common man for the laws and election of the Doge must be affirmed by them.

In Venice's early days, there was no great distinction between nobles and commoners.The only distinction was that the nobles were recognised as men of ability and were chosen to serve in the councils. They started off with minor duties and membership in the Grand Council. If they did a good job, they were promoted up the pyramid and assigned more important duties. So people from poorer families could and did rise to the top.

So you have all three elements present in the government of Venice – bit of monarchy, a bit of aristocracy and a bit of democracy. But of course, the situation was fluid as I said earlier and the Constitution evolved.

In the first few centuries, the Doge had enormous power. But later on, his power was gradually reduced. At the same time, the nobles became more entrenched in the positions of power and distinctions appeared between them and the common people.

The nobles started making it difficult for people not in their social class to gain political power though they periodically opened the ruling class to new members. But eventually, Venice evolved into an aristocracy and membership to the ruling class was closed. This was a bad mistake and Venice gradually declined.

So the lesson we learn here is we must build a system where the ruling class must comprise of its most able citizens by practicing strict meritocracy. There must be social mobility where able people can rise to the top. The head of state must be a strong executive. He must have the ability to make decisions for the long term without fear of unpopularity. To do that, he should be appointed for life.

The voice of the people must be heard but not to the extent that votrepreneurs compete for their votes by promising to transfer property from one group to another. In short, we need to strike a balance between the three elements of society – the King, the aristocracy and the common people.

In today's terms, the King would be the President or Prime Minister of the country. The aristocracy would be the more able elite who no doubt earn more money and hence pay more taxes. How do we go about doing this?

I propose a two chamber Legislative – an Upper and Lower house. In the Upper House (which we can call the Senate) the voting rules would be skewed in favor of the more able citizens. This can be done without disenfranchising anyone.

I suggest that the vote to be made transferable. Every citizen will start with one vote. But for a mutually agreed price, anyone can buy votes from anybody who wishes to sell. An electronic market can be set up to facilitate this. Since the people with higher incomes are likely to end up with more votes, it is not in their interest to vote for anyone proposing entitlement programs that must be funded by taxes which they end up paying.

This may sound undemocratic to some because some people will end up with more votes while others have none. But you should bear in mind that the system requires the voluntary relinguishing of the right to vote when a person sells it. What could be more democratic than respecting someone's wish not to vote? Its his choice. Even in a Presidential election, something like 40% of the electorate do not vote. Now they can get paid for their choice.

The price of a vote could be substantial. Don't forget that hundreds of millions of money were raised and spent during Presidential and Congressional elections. Probablyl most of these funds can be used to buy up the votes of those who do not wish to vote.

America's Founders linked Representation with Taxation. Its time to bring back that link. Paying taxes is, for most people, the main contribution they make to society. Yet in the present system, those who pay the most taxes have less say on how that money is to be spent than those who pay less or not all. Is it not fair that those who pay more should have more say in how that money is to be spent? According to the Wall Street Journal, the top 10% of Americans pay 72.8% of total income taxes. But of course, they only get 10% of the votes under the present system.

Finally, it would be an improvement of the present American system which is undemocratic in spirit. In the US Senate, each state gets two Senators irregardless of the population size. This means that a Californian voter is less important than a Rhode Island voter. I propose doing away with this and alloting the number of Senators according to population as in the House of Representatives.

The present system gives favor to people who happen to live in small states. My proposal gives favor to people who contribute more to the country. I think my proposal makes more sense than the present system.

The Lower House will continue as before where buying or selling of votes will not be allowed. This will strike a balance of power between the elites who are the more able and richer citizens and the common people so that neither group can oppress the other.

Finally, the President should be patterned after the Doge. This means that his power must be increased. He should therefore be elected for life or till he reaches the age of say, 75. While the Senators and Representatives can be elected by the people, the President should be elected by the Senators and Lower House Representatives.

The Cabinet should also be elected by the Senators and Representatives but for a period of four years. One of them can be appointed by the former President for a period of four years. Knowing human nature, it is likely that he appoints one of his sons. This is to encourage the President to rule well with an eye to the long term. A good record will increase the prospects of his son's career.

Undoubtedly there will be problems with this new system. Nothing is perfect, but I believe that it will be an improvement of the current systems in place. The British still have the remnants of such a system. There is the monarchy and a House of Lords both of which are today powerless. Of course, you have the House of Commons which is today all powerful. But it was not so in the past. In the 18th and 19th centuries the monarch and Lords still had considerable power and the voice of the Common man was not as strong as today.

The King (or Queen) gave the country greater cohesion and a longer term outlook. He of course wanted his son to inherit a rich powerful kingdom. So its in his interest to think more for the long term. In contrast, today's votreprenuers can only see as far as the next elections. The result of the political structure today is that it rewards politicians to adopt policies that gives short term gain but long term pain.

In 18th and 19th century Britain, the Lords consisted of the best educated and able men in their society and thus it makes sense to have them wield power disproportionate to their raw numbers. (Of course, in modern times we must reject the idea of inherited power.) It may not be democratic but it was effective and practical. Then you had the House of Commons which protected the interests of the common man though of course at that time not everybody could vote. Nevertheless, with this system, Britain rose to the top of the world. It pioneered the Industrial Revolution and created the largest empire (not that its a good thing) the world has seen.

Later the Common people rose in power and the power of the King and Lords declined. This was different from Venice where it was the Nobles that gained power at the expense of the other two. This weakened them and Venice declined. However, Venician Republic lasted more than a thousand years - far longer than any democracy both ancient and modern.

To sum up, my proposals will increase the power of the head of state and the elite of society at the expense of the common people. I expect to be accused of being undemocratic. But as I pointed out in my earlier article, having too much democracy is bad for the country. The most democratic society is a pure democracy where every decision is made by the entire electorate. The ancient Athenians had one.

Today, with the internet, it is possible to put every decision to the electorate. But nobody is proposing this. It would lead to chaos because we recognise that the average citizen does not have the competence or the time to deliberate complex issues. That is why we live in Representative Democracies.

Thus we accept that somewhere in between a dictatorship and a pure democracy lies a golden mean. I believe none of the democratic nation states has found this. All I am proposing is a little fine tuning to find the Golden Mean.

The Barring of Geert Wilders

Here is an interesting article by my friend Free Hal:

The Barring of Geert Wilders

The 2 reasons advanced for excluding Geert Wilders from the UK are: public order concerns, which was the UK governments stated reason although this doesn’t fit into the national security power they invoked; and Wilders wants to ban the Koran, so we have every right to ban him, which is the line advanced by most muslim commentators including the disreputable Lord Ahmed.

The first reason, public order is mere appeasement. The subtext is that muslims will feel offended and react violently. The Foreign Secretary confirms this by coming out with the tired “shouting-‘fire’-in-a-theatre” routine, which casts muslims as having no more self-control than prisoners in an inferno. He doesn’t say what someone should shout if there really is a fire.

It is just possible that, occasionally, some good may come of restricting a demo on the grounds of the reaction to it. E.g. turning back the British Union of Fascists at Cable Street in 1936. But that is with the benefit of hindsight about the horrors of fascism. And the BUF weren’t banned from marching – the order was for the BUF to postpone its march by a week and use a different route.

So there’s no getting away from the British government’s embarrassing reasoning. Appeasement pure and simple: Fred is dangerous because Joe will riot if Fred comes here, and we’re scared of Joe so let’s ban Fred.

The other reason, that Wilders wants to ban the Koran, tends to be used by muslim commentators (Lord Ahmed, the MCB) to justify the ban. Wilders wants to ban my religion so I can ban his speech. Basic logic, or the idea about two wrongs not making a right, don’t factor in such comments.

Non-muslim commentators tend to use this point as the basis for snide attacks. This is not new. In 1989, politicians who had never read The Satanic Verses suddenly acquired the literary expertise to damn the book as so badly written as to allow the writer no sympathy for having to live under the fatwa.

The parallel with Rushdie is appropriate, except that this time it goes to the root of political comment.

It is far from clear that Wilders seriously wants to ban the Koran. It is highly unlikely that the people who say he does have any idea.

This stems from a speech to the Dutch Parliament, recorded on Wilders own website:


Madam Speaker, the Koran is a book that incites to violence. I remind the
House that the distribution of such texts is unlawful according to Article 132
of our Penal Code. In addition, the Koran incites to hatred and calls for murder
and mayhem. The distribution of such texts is made punishable by Article 137(e).
The Koran is therefore a highly dangerous book; a book which is completely
against our legal order and our democratic institutions. In this light, it is an
absolute necessity that the Koran be banned for the defence and reinforcement of
our civilisation and our constitutional state. I shall propose a second-reading
motion to that effect.


Wilders appears to have been saying that if the Dutch constitution, particularly the ban on texts that incite violence, is to be uniformly upheld, then the Koran should be banned.

If one reads Wilders other statements, in particular calling for ‘nearly 100% freedom of speech’, or saying that his party has no problem with muslims who obey the law, then his call to ban the Koran looks more ironic, rhetorical, than sincere.

But let’s suppose he was sincere. What does a democracy do about fascist texts, or texts which incite violence?

Democracy is much weaker than most people assume, especially to internal division. They cannot long survive large groups who don’t accept the system, as is the case with people who follow calls to violence in a cause. Political groups who advocate unconstitutional means, i.e. violence, threaten the viability of the state if they attain a critical mass of followers. Long-settled democracies can afford to be more blasé, but that excludes pretty much every mainland European country.

Democratic states have to ban fascistic books. It is one of the drawbacks of democracy.

This leaves the question of whether the Koran is a fascist book. There are certainly muslims who, currently, obey democratic law. And a disturbingly large number prepared to commit the worst violence while quoting the Koran. I.e.the question is debatable.

Which means that Wilders should be heard. It is the nub of his case, it is what he wanted to discuss.

And that is the real reason for excluding him – that he would say that the Koran is a fascist book and Islam and fascistic ideology. And no-one should be allowed to say that in Britain.

In short, the media are right to sense that this is a milestone in the history of free speech, because a parliamentarian, invited by the British parliament, has been barred from the country purely because of the substance of the ideas he intended to discuss.

And this is the salient fact of this episode in the decline of democracy: the limpness of the British government’s commitment to freedom. It reveals a level of decadence which bodes very ill for the future.

We can expect a lot more of the same.

Hal

Ban Fred because what he says will cause Tom to riot. Instead of telling Tom not to riot, they are rewarding Tom's violent ways by giving him what he wants. When you reward bad behavior, you will get more of it.

Mark Steyn's take on the G20 meeting

Mark Steyn recently wrote an interesting article called, "Exporting their mistakes worldwide"

In it, he accused the G20 governments of not telling the people the truth in order to enhance their electorial prospects:

If government has a role in this crisis, it ought to be to reverse the combination of unaffordable social programs and deathbed demographics that make a restoration of real GDP growth all but impossible in many European nations. But that would involve telling the citizenry unpleasant truths, and Continental politicians who wish to remain electorally viable aren't willing to do that.

This is exactly what I have been trying to say in this blog. To win elections, you have to do stupid things to win votes. Right now, we are in dire need to create economic growth. But the governments are not coming up with pro-growth policies like lower taxes and curbing entitlement programs. Instead they are gunning for scapegoats - like taxing AIG's managers of their promised bonuses or firing GM's CEO. Or blaming everything on Wall Street's truly greedy executives. Obama has come up with a huge stimulus package which seems designed more to win votes than the stimulate the economy.

The cause of the crisis is very complex. But it started in the Clinton Administration with compelling banks to extend mortgage loans to people the banks are unwilling to lend to by toughening the Community Reinvestment Act. By repealing the Glas Steagal Act, commerical banks like Citigroup were allowed to get rid of these sub-prime mortgages by packaging them into Mortgaged Backed Securities (MBS) and selling them.

I am not saying that this is the only cause. There are other contributory causes including, the easy monetary policy of Alan Greenspan, the perverse financial incentives of Wall Street Bankers to take enormous risks, the failure of credit rating agencies and the complexity of new financial instruments which few seem to understand.

But it was the Community Reinvestment Act that started the housing bubble. Without forcing banks to lend money to uncreditworthy people, there won't be subprime loans. Without subprime loans, there won't be MBS. Without Congressional pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy these MBS, the housing bubble would not have blown this big. The root cause is political. The votrepreneurs (in this case, the Democrats) wanted to win the votes of the lower income groups who could not get loans from banks to buy property.

Similarly, the welfare states set up in Europe resulted in high taxation, high unemployment and other ills. To create jobs, they have to free the market from these constraints as what Mark Steyn said. But the votrepreneurs are too worried about their own elections to take the necessary tough and painful measures. So the problem will fester till people lose confidence in the democratic system itself. Then the stage will be set for the re-emergence of the Strong Man in Europe - like what happened in the 1930s.

The Lesson from AIG

The recent fracas about AIG's bonuses is a symptom of what is wrong with Democracy. AIG has been the receipient of $180 billion of bail-out money. It used $165 million of that money to pay contractual bonuses to its employees.

This touched off a firestorm of protests from the public. Frightened by the angry mob, the House of Representatives recently passed a law to tax away 90% of the bonuses.

In my opinion, this law, if implemented, will probably make the company go bust. Thousands of its hardworking salesmen, managers and other employees have been promised bonuses if certain objectives were reached. These bonuses are contractual. If bonuses are given to the people who did dumb things that caused the company to go under, then I think its wrong. But it is unfair and unwise to deny bonuses to employees that they were legally entitle to in accordance to their employment contracts.

If you were promised Y dollars for doing X, then you have to pay them if they have done X. What Congress is doing is to break the contract. Now, employees will be inclined to leave companies that received bail-out money because they contracts are no longer sancrosant. The ones that are likely to find alternative employment elsewhere will be the best ones.

A financial company is not like other companies, say a mining company. In a mining company, your principal asset is your mine. But in a financial service firm, the principal assets are its employees. While a mine cannot walk out the door, AIG's employees can!

This is something the Mob cannot understand. All they know is that taxpayers' money was used to pay bonuses. Now that their employees know they won't be getting paid what they are promised, the best ones are going to resign. How is AIG going to survive a drain of its employees?

This tax law that Congress recently passed may doom AIG. This means that the $180 billion of taxpayers' money that the government poured into it will go down the drain. The US government, and by extension taxpyers, now owns 80% of the company. Its actually in the taxpayers' interest for AIG to retain its good employees so that the company has a better chance of survival. Edward Liddy was appointed to make the tough decisions required to ensure the survival of the company. Its best to let him decide on management issues like compensation and not the Mob who does not understand the business.

It will also affect other companies that accepted bail out money. If contracts are no longer sancrosanct, then its going to be hard to retain and recruit talent.

Liddy had told the Obama administration of his intentions of paying bonuses. I think the Obama administration understood the rationale why they had to be paid. But he and the other votrepreneurs did not have the guts to explain it to the Mob that elected them. Instead Obama told them, "(The House vote taxing AIG bonuses) rightly reflects the outrage that so many feel over the lavish bonuses that AIG provided its employees at the expense of the taxpayers who have kept this failed company afloat.

In the end, this is a symptom of a larger problem — a bubble-and-bust economy that valued reckless speculation over responsibility and hard work," he said. "That is what we must ultimately repair to build a lasting and widespread prosperity."

He is of course not leading the People but is following them. Obama should have used his eloquent oratorical skills to convince them why paying AIG's staff what they were promised was necessary in order to turn around the company now 80% owned by taxpayers.



If as I predict, talented employees leave, the firm is likely to go bust then taxpayers will not get their money back from their "investment" in AIG. The problem is that when governments run companies, they no longer run it for profitability. They run it in a manner whereby the votrepreneurs (politicians) get votes which of course tends to screw things up for the companies they control.

That is one reason why I was dead set against bail-outs in the first place. See my earlier article, "Let the Big 3 Automakers go bust.

Looks like I may get what I wanted - letting nature take its course and allowing failed companies to fail. Too bad for the US taxpayer that in AIG's case, he has to lose $180 billion for nothing.

What's wrong with Democracy by Free Hal

Here is a good article written by Free Hal. It explains clearly some of the weaknesses of Democracy and why it can collapse.

What's wrong with Democracy?

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." - Ben Franklin

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." - Alexander Fraser Tytler

"Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury, and bankrupt the nation." - Karl Marx

--------------------

Democracy is the best way, pretty much the only acceptable way, to run a state.

Dictatorship, theocracy, tribalism – none of them comes within a mile of democracy as a way to steer the coercive power of a government.

The contest has been tried time and time again, and democracies have always triumphed against the over-ambitious dictators (Kaiser Bill, Hitler, Kruschev, Galtieri, Saddam) who convinced themselves that democracy was soft.

Democracies are just nicer than pretty much any dictatorship you can think of. The freedom, order , and consent that western democracies involve are easy to live by, and allow individuals to take charge of their own happiness.

Democracy is Unsustainable

The problem with democracy is that it is long term unsustainable.

The democratic state leads to the welfare state.

The welfare state overburdens and then capsizes itself.

Without a state you have no democracy.
This may sound sweeping. How does it work?

The fiscal effect

The lower earning majority will out-vote for the higher earning minority into buy things for them, such as health care, insurance, pensions.

The maths is simple: if a 1% tax increase will cost you £1 but will buy you £2 of things you want, you will vote for it. The minority for whom that 1% costs £100, and who aren’t eligible for the benefit, are outnumbered.

Everyone will complain about tax increases, but the majority will vote for the politician who convincingly promises them £2 more of services for £1 more of tax. And they will bitterly resist any government hinting at withdrawing freebies already available. This is the tax ratchet in operation. It has no logical stopping point to prevent it going over the cliff-edge.

Lethal side effects

Freebies will create side effects which further undermine the system.

Currently, in Europe, the side effect of utopian welfare promises has been to attract large numbers of less productive migrants, primarily Islamic populations, who don’t want to integrate. The welfare state has thus created a catastrophic and self-widening ethnic divide in Europe which can break the democratic state on its own, and which will continue to grow even after the welfare tap runs dry.

Similarly, the majority, being employees, will also put squeeze the system from the other end of the system, i.e. getting the state to force others to pay them more for working less. This goes under the banner of ‘health and safety’, and – you’ve guessed it – ‘social justice’. These nice-sounding justifications don’t alter the fact that a quart won’t go into a pint pot. An economy won’t survive if too little is put in, especially if too much is taken out at the other end.

Ideological self-destruct

This process adopts ideologies like “social justice”, “progressive deficit”, and “social inclusion” as ways to justify it. And it will be seen as a right. E.g. a reduction in taxation is always referred to as ‘giving money to the rich’ instead of what it really is – desisting from taking it from them. It’s a highly proceduralised shakedown, adorned with fine words and the high academic seal of legitimacy.

This ideological thrust paints the traditional state of things as uniformly bad, as something to be changed, to be got away from. This simplifies in the general consciousness as the idea that western society, not having always signed up to notions of 'social justice', i.e. the forcible transfers of wealth from the minority to the majority, is bad. If it can be undermined, along with the oppressors who impose it, then the welfare utopia can arise in its place. Not for nothing did Mikhail Gorbachev, during a March 2000 visit to London, describe EU as "the new European Soviet".

Over time, the ingrained wisdom is that anything traditional, anything associated with the old way of doing things, is to be torn down. In this environment, western culture, traditional morality, individual responsibility, self-restraint, and self-reliance, are reflexively perceived as bad in themselves. And western society and its towering historical culture are seen merely as irrelevant or oppressive. This explains the self-loathing of western society, particularly welfare democratic society, and its peculiar determination to weaken and undermine itself in the face of any threat.

So what?

Anyone who thinks collapsed economies are some kind of carnival is either a Marxist or a fool, probably both. The effect last for a generation and usually put in train other effects that last for a generation after that. Reflect for a few minutes about what has usually followed economic breakdown in Europe. The state itself usually breaks down, and people resort to the strongest local warlord, or the most militaristic dictator, for protection.


Hal

How Politicians think

The reason why I started this blog is to highlight the current flaws in a modern democracy. I have argued in my earlier articles that the personal interests of votrepreneurs (politicians) do not always coincide with the long term interests of the country. The voters may be forgiven for thinking that votrepreneurs will do what is in the best interests of the country. But that is false.

The personal interest of the politician is to gain and keep power. This may or may not be in the best interests of the country as a whole. So I felt my opinion to be validated when I saw a comment made by former Clinton advisor, Dick Morris, in a recent article:

And Obama will move to change permanently the partisan balance in America. He will move quickly to legalize all those who have been in America for five years, albeit illegally, and to smooth their paths to citizenship and voting. He will weaken border controls in an attempt to hike the Latino vote as high as he can in order to make red states like Texas into blue states like California. By the time he is finished, Latinos and African-Americans will cast a combined 30 percent of the vote. If they go by top-heavy margins for the Democrats, as they did in 2008, it will assure Democratic domination -- until they move up the economic ladder and become good Republicans.

Dick Morris is an old hand who has a good insight into the minds of politicians. The reason why the Democrats are interested in giving amnesty is to get themselves elected. This would endear themselves with the Hispanic minority by portraying Republicans as racists. They don't care if immigration policies make sense. These illegal immigrants are not well educated. Surely a policy of allowing better educated immigrants would enrich the country more than barely educated illegals.

While some businessmen are happy with the cheap labor, low wage workers will find their wagers depressed because of competition from illegals. The children of these illegals also attend schools which are paid for by taxpayers. This could be one reason why California is going broke. Illegals also account for a disproportionate amount of crime.

While some politicians salivate about a loyal new bloc of voters but the costs in higher crime, higher state spending, depressed wages are shouldered by the rest of the population.

There is also a high risk that many of these new immigrants may refuse to assimilate. The votrepreneurs (politicians) could be planting the seeds of a break-up of the USA in 20 or 30 years' time. But of course, they won't be in office by then and so they don't care.

Furthermore, President Barack Obama has said that he wants to create 3 million jobs by borrowing and spending $1 trillion. Why spend that borrowed money when he can create 12 or 13 million jobs by sending home the illegals? All he has to do is to pass laws heavily penalizing landlords and employers for housing and employing illegals.

How come the votrepreneurs can get away with it? I believe its because while the benefits to a minority are large and immediate, the costs to the majority is diffused over a bigger number of people and stretched out over a longer period of time.

Who benefits from giving amnesty to illegals? Well for one, politicans (mostly Democrats) who advocate amnesty will benefit from a bloc of newly minted citizens. The Hispanic community will be happy because they will have more of their fellow ethnic group as fellow citizens. Employers who can get cheaper labor will be happy. For them, the benefits are large and immediate.

Who bears the costs? The rest of the population (the majority) will bear the cost. But the cost - in terms of higher crime, higher taxes, risk of a break-up of the USA etc is not so apparent because it will be spread out over a larger number of people and paid over a longer period of time. So it does not pay the rest to get too agitated over it. That's why politicians can get away with doing wrong things.

How do we reform the system such that the political elite's personal interests coincide with the long term welfare of the country they profess to care for? America had such a system in the 18th and 19th century.

At that time, only those with property (and hence paid most of the taxes) could vote. With stakes in the country, these voters would take a long term view of the country. So they voted in politicians whose interests coincided with the long term interests of the country. What America had at that time was in fact a quasi-aristocracy. It worked better. But of course, we can't go back to those days.

It is unfair if you deprive people of the right to vote. The only way to reform the system was a proposal I first brought up in my essay, "Democracy needs a Reformation."

I proposed that votes be transferable. Each citizen will start out with one vote each. But he or she can sell his vote or buy more votes up to a maximum of say 5 votes. In this way, we tilt the balance towards those who think more for the long term, those who pay more taxes and those who care more about the issues. At the same time, we do away from the middlemen - the politicians who get elected by buying votes with taxpayers' money.

The trillion $ bailout of Obama's Presidency

In a few days' time, Obama will be sworn in as President and his Presidency is already in need of a bail-out. He knows that the economy is in the dog-house. If he does not turn it around in four years' time, he will not be re-elected.

So this $1 trillion stimulus plan is also the Obama Presidency bail-out plan. What does he intend to do with the money. Other than the $300 billion tax cuts, its spend, spend and spend.

The Keynesian theory goes that spending money will stimulate the economy. Spend money on infrastructure will create jobs in the construction industry. Obama wants to create 3 million jobs.

If job creation is the reason for the $1 trillion spending extravaganza, there are far cheaper and better ways of doing it.

The best ways to lay solid foundations for America's future prosperity and hence job createion are things he (or any other President) does not dare to do.

Firstly, he can send the illegal immigrants home by penalizing employers and landlords who hire and house them. This is a no go because he would offend Hispanic voters. He would also offend employers who want to hire them because of their cheap labor. Yet if he is willing to be unpopular, he can create maybe 12 million jobs at a tiny fraction of the cost. Instead he is going to borrow and spend $1 trillion to lift the economy a little bit and saddle you and your kids with debt.

Secondly, he can repeal the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to lend to people who got no money to buy housing. This was what got the housing bubble started. No go either. He was for it when he was a senator. A repeal is too unpopular with his voters.

Thirdly, he can reform public education. Education is the key to prosperity. This one is really long term in nature. But that means tackling the teachers' union who are his voters. No go either.

Fourthly, don't bail out any more companies - especially the auto companies. There will be enormous pain for the next 4 years but in the long run, new firms will come forth and the economy will be in a stronger footing in the future. No go here either. The unions are his workers and now its pay back time.

The chief flaw in democracy is its short term nature. You can't get leaders who plan 10 years ahead because he is up for elections four years from now. I am sure you have heard the saying, "No pain, no gain."

Sometimes you have to deliver pain in the short term (like 3 or four years) to give gain in the long term (like the next 10 years after the pain). Unfortunately, no President can do that because he would be booted out after 4 years and his successor will take the credit. So you end up with short term gain and long term pain.

So Obama comes up with a trillion dollar plan to boost the economy. It will stimulate some spending but at what price? The huge debt will be a drag on the economy for the next thirty years, assuming he is going to at least partially fund it with long term 30 year bonds. This generation and the next generation of voters will pay for it. But of course, if it stimulates the economy enough to make Americans feel good by the end of the 4th year, he gets re-elected.

Therefore, it won't help the economy in the long run but will definitely help Obama's re-election prospects if all that spending can lift the economy enough for him to be re-elected. That is why I said at the begining that the $1 trillion dollar stimulus plan is really the Obama Presidency bail-out plan.

So, all the right things are things that no politician can do. The problem is systemic. You can't do the right thing and get elected. As what Luxumberg's PM said, "We all know what we need to do, but we don´t know how to win elections after we have done it."

That is why I think democracy may not surive another 100 years unless you can reform the system. We need to devise a system that rewards votrepreneurs (politicians) for doing the right things, not the wrong things.

Karl Marx and Fat People

Recently, a Canadian court ordered Canada's airlines to provide two seats to obese passengers for the price of one. This is Socialism gone mad and the triumph of Gramscian Marxism.

Whether he realised it or not, the judge was applying Marx's dictum, "From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs."

The obese has a need - the need of two seats. The airlines which has seats must provide one extra for him or her for free. This means that there is a transfer of resources from the shareholders of the airlines to fat people since revenue and profits will be lowered.

Or perhaps, the airlines can increase the airfares accordingly and pass on the increased cost to other slimmer passengers. Either way, it is a transfer of resources. How much the airlines can pass on to other passengers depends on the elasticity of demand for airline seats. If demand falls drastically, the airlines may have to absorb some or all of the costs.

This Marxist victory shows that in spite of massive defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, Marxism is winning the war for cultural hegemony. This was a concept first proposed by Antonio Gramsci. Marxism can only triumph when Capitalism's cultural hegemony is destroyed and replaced by the Marxist one.

This court ruling is a victory for Marxist culture. Apparently the Canadian judge thought it was fair that others (be it the airlines or other passengers) must subsidize the needs of fat people. I don't know how the judge acquired this central piece of Marxist culture but it must be contested.

We need to show how unjust his ruling is. What his ruling boils down to is that those who are disciplined enough to eat sensibly and exercise must subsidize gluttons and sloths. This is unfair. How long more must virtue subsidize vice? By subsidizing gluttons, you are going to get more gluttons.

The more gluttons there are the more sick people there will be as obesity is linked to heart disease and other ailments. They soon won't be able to work and have to rely on public assistance. This means that the healthy people will have to work and pay higher taxes to subsidize those whose ill-health is largely due to their gluttony and indolence.

This is no laughing matter as obesity is a growing problem. Surveys estimate that 30% of Americans are obese. If airlines are compelled to give 3 out of 10 passengers free seats, then airline tickets will have to rise by as much as 43% to compensate for the loss of revenue.

James Madison once said, "'Government is instituted to protect property of every sort....This being the end of government....That is NOT a just government...nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has...is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest."

In this case, the Judge is seizing the property of slim people and giving it to fat people. Is that fair?

Let the Big 3 automakers go bust.

President-elect Barack Obama is in favor of bailing out the Big 3 car makers - Ford, GM and Chrysler. That comes as no surprise because the Union workers support the Democratic Party. They are his "customers" and politicians behave like entrepreneurs. That is why I call them "votrepreneurs".

One argument is that the US must save the the Big 3 or it will no longer have an auto industry. This is nonsense because Honda and Toyota are employing 113,000 workers in the US. If you include dealerships and spart parts suppliers, Toyota alone created 400,000 jobs in the US. Of course, if the Big 3 fail, then the US is left with foreign owned car companies.

One reason why the Big 3 are failing is that they are Unionized. The United Automobile Workers has demanded and got for its members generous pay packages including expensive health care benefits. Another reason is that the Big 3 are making cars that people no longer want to buy - like SUVs and trucks which guzzle fuel. Making things worse is the higher cost of fuel.

So why should the US taxpayer be made to shell out an estimated $50 billion to bail out the Big 3 so that Obama's voters can continue to earn high salaries to make cars that Americans do not want to buy? Once again, votrepreneurs must buy votes with taxpayers' money.

The benefits to the few UAW members are high while the cost to each individual taxpayer is low. So the votrepreneurs hope that the cost of the bail-out will not be noticed. In this way, inefficiently run companies survive making everybody on the whole poorer. This includes car workers in the long run.

Ironically, statistics show that non-Unionized workers are catching up and in some cases overtaken UAW members in pay and benefits. In its largest American plant, Toyota paid its workers in its Georgetown plant an average of $30 per hour as compared to UAW workers who got $27. In the long run, an efficiently run company is in every body's interest - including its assembly line workers.

Also a government bailout will likely come with strings attached. Some Congressional leaders insist that the price of a bailout includes that the Big 3 build environmental friendly cars so that they can satisfy their green voters. Perhaps, GM's Chevrolet Volt is for the purpose of giving the Congress the excuse for a bailout and not to make profit. GM's Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has acknowledged that they won't make money out of the car. Who is going to pay for the votrepreneur's desire to stay in office by keeping their green voters happy? Taxpayers of course.
But economic logic will be trumped by political logic as votreprenuers do the sums. The worse outcome would be for Obama to bail out the Big 3 while imposing trade restrictions on Japanese cars and using its clout to force the Big 3 to make cars that the public do not want.

The Capitalist Manifesto

Now that Senator Obama has won the elections amidst a crisis in capitalism, it is timely to write what I call the Capitalist Manifesto. Senator Obama is without a doubt a Socialist with long time ties to the radical left in America. He has talked about "spreading the wealth". The Democrats are poised to expand their control in Congress and will be able to pass any law they wish.

As Thomas Sowell said, an Obama victory will likely bring America to the point of no return. America is going Socialist like most of western Europe. It will have a welfare state inspite of the fact that Europe's welfare state is not sustainable given its ageing population and lavish welfare spending.

Therefore, it is timely to write about the inherent injustice of Socialism and make the case for capitalism. Socialism seeks a redistribution of wealth from its most productive citizens to the less productive ones.

This is usually done by progressive taxation and creating a welfare state. Those with higher income pay more taxes than those with lower incomes, some of whom don't pay income taxes at all. During the American Revolution, the slogan was "Taxation without representation is tyranny".

But representation without taxation is also tyranny. In today's world it is the more productive citizens that are oppressed. As I said in an earlier article, if 60 citizens in a country of one hundred rob 40 others, its robbery. But this is no different if the 60 elect someone who promises to tax the 40 and redistribute their property to the other 60.

It is time for all citizens to be treated equally. By this, I mean that each citizen must contribute equally to his nation and derive the same benefits from it. Under the present system some citizens contribute more in the form of taxes and others receive less from it.

This violates the principle of equality. There should only be one tax rate for everybody. The problem with democracy is that votrepreneurs (politicians) get elected by promising to redistribute other people's money through discriminating against one group of voters (the more productive citizens) by taxing them more and spending the money on their favored voters, many of whom do not work.

As Benjamin Franklin said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on who to have for lunch."

Ben was right and that is why nearly all western democracies have evolved into welfare states. Europe is ahead on this and America looks like is about to follow. The nanny state reduces the incentive to work. It is not sustainable in the long run andwill turn citizens in adult children, always dependent on the state. Imagine a CEO deciding to reward his worst salesmen and penalizes his best. His company will go bankrupt.

The welfare state is also not fair because its citizens are not treated equally. For all citizens to be treated equally its time to end the discrimination against the more productive citizens in favor of the less productive. I propose that each citizens be taxed at the same rate and get paid the same monthly income from the state. All welfare payments and entitlements currently in place must be scrapped. The monthly income from the state will take care of the most vulnerable members of society without violating the principle of equality for all citizens since everybody gets it too. Also, it would be helping the weaker citizens without weakening the incentive to work. For example, all citizens will be taxed at say 20% of income and receive $1,000 in monthly income from the government.

Therefore the Capitalist Manifesto demands:

1)All citizens must be treated equally. This includes matters of taxation and state derived benefits. Each citizen must pay the same percentage of income to the state and receive the same income from the state. All other entitlements and welfare payments will be abolished.

2)An end to class warfare where less productive citizens use their vote to acquire the property of the more productive ones.

The Manifesto may be boiled down to two catchy slogans:

i)From each citizen, the same tax rate,
To each citizen the same benefits.

ii)Representation without taxation is tyranny
Using your vote to get other people's property is robbery.

Britain's Labour Party wants to lower Oxbridge's standards to favor their voters

Recently, Oxford University's chancellor, Lord Patten attacked the Labour government for pressurizing Britain's top universities to admit students from low performing schools and deprived areas.
He accused the government of using universities to compensate for the failure of state schools. This is a good example of how the democratic process screws things up. As I explained elsewhere, every democracy has two major parties. One represents the winners of society and the other the losers. Both parties fight for the welfare of their voters. Much of the politics in democracies revolve around this. In the case of Britain, the party for losers is the Labour Party.

Thus it is not surprising that the Labour Party is pushing top Universities to lower standards for their preferred students even though they get poorer grades. This is similar to the Democratic Party in the US who pressured banks to lend money to their preferred borrowers who really cannot afford to buy housing but of course happened to be their voters. See my earlier article, "The political roots of the Financial Crisis" on how the sub-prime loans came about.

If the Labour Party gets its way, it would lower the standards of Britain's top universities. Instead of getting the best people to make the country more competitive, it will end up with second rate graduates and a second rate work force.

Of course the votrepreneurs (politicians) don't care because it will help them get elected. The success of their nation is secondary to their political careers.

You:
Don't know much about history, Don't know much biology.
Don't know much about science books, Don't know much about the french I took.
But I know if you vote for me,
And I know that I'm elected,
What a wonderful world this would be.

(Sung to the tune of Wonderful World)

In Organizational Behavior, a topic taught to MBA students, we learn how to devise a reward system that leads to the success of the business organization. If business executives are rewarded for behaving in a manner detrimental to the company, we can expect the company to go broke over time. So it must be the same for a country.

I am afraid that the reward system in democracy leads to the failure of the society. That's because the reward system (ie electoral success) in a democracy rewards at least half of the votrepreneurs if they behave in a manner detrimental to the country such as by asking for lower standards. So what can we do about it?

How do we devise a system where the votrepreneurs are rewarded for coming up with policies that will lead to the success of the country? That is the question that we must successfully answer or some day democracies will collapse, ushering in dictatorships.

Danger from the Left

The Left (both in the USA and Europe) has always portrayed the Right as neo Fascists, who if they have a chance will take away our freedoms. This is false. In this essay, I shall prove that Fascism is really a leftist phenomena. The danger of dictatorship comes from the Left, not the Right.

Firstly, what is Fascism? Most people can't define it. They assume its some right wing ideology which they associate with Mussolini and Hitler. Its true that Mussolini was the Father of Fascism. So we should start by examining him and his policies to see if he was a creature of the Left or Right.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was named by his Socialist father, Alessandro Mussolini, after Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary who toppled and executed the emperor Maximilian. The other two names were inspired by then Socialist icons, Amilcare Cipriani and Andrea Costa. Alessandro was a member of the First International along with Marx and Engel and read passages from Das Kapital to the young Benito Mussolini.

When he grew up, the young Benito became the editor of "La Lotta di classe" (Class War). He belonged to the extreme wing of the Italian Socialist Party. When the First World War broke in 1914, he at first hewed to the Partly Line.That is to say he was anti-nationalist (like the anti-American radical left in America today) and opposed the war. (That, by the way, was why Barrack Obama initially refused to wear an American flag pin lapel or swear allegiance to the USA.)



In this picture, I believe that Obama was signalling to America's Socialists that his loyalty was not to the USA but to the Socialist struggle. Anti-patriotism has deep Socialist roots.




War was a matter for the bourgeois and need not involve the working class. Only a class war was acceptable to him.

But that did not last long, given his opportunistic nature. He saw that the majority of Italians were patriotic and supported the war effort. Soon, he broke with his Socialist comrades and supported the war too. For this sin, he was expelled from the Socialist Party. But he regarded himself as a Socialist albeit a Nationalistic Socialist (like Hitler) till his last breath.

After he was kicked out of the Socialist Party, Mussolini said, "Socialism is in my blood."

He added, "You think you can turn me out, but you will find I shall come back again. I am and shall remain a Socialist and my convictions will never change! They are bred into my very bones."

Realising that the idea of an international "working class" cannot trump the call of nationalism, Mussolini and his comrades founded the Fasci di Combattimento (the Fascist Party) in 1919 based on the fusion of nationalism and Socialism.

The word Fasci itself betrays Mussonlini's leftist or Socialist leanings. Fasci means union or bundle. The simple idea was that just as one stick can be broken but a bundle of sticks cannot, workers must unite themselves into an unbreakable union. The difference between his party and his old comrades was that his Fascist Party consists of pro-war leftists whearas his old comrades believe that the only war worth participating in was the class war. See the book, "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg.

His party platform included calls for a minimum wage, an eight hour work day, government bodies run by workers' representatives, appropriation of land from land-owners (except those personally cultivated by them) and giving them to workers' co-operatives, a large tax on capital amounting to a partial confiscation of wealth. Naturally, as a leftist, Mussolini was opposed to Christianity just as leftist parties are today. His program also called for the establishment of "rigidly secular schools" for the raising of "the proletariat's moral and cultural condition."

It also calls for the seizure of goods belonging to religious congregations and the abolition of episcopal revenues. Thus in spirit, if not in actual details, his program is similar to most leftist parties in the west today, including the Democratic Party of the USA.

Hitler too was a creature of the Left. After all, the Nazi Party was officially known as the German Workers' National Socialist Party. I will not elaborate further since I have written in detail about Hitler's Socialism in an earlier essay, "Why are the worst mass murderers from the Left." But that's enough for the history lesson.

The purpose of this essay is to explain why the danger of dictatorships come more from the Left than the Right and why Leftist dictatorships kill more people and last longer than Rightist ones.

Rightist dictators like Pinochet or Chiang Kai Shek allowed and encouraged free market capitalism. This means vast portions of the economy are in private hands. The dictator does not have absolute control over the country. If he does dumb thigs, private businesman can take his money elsewhere. The feedback to any wrong move is immediate.

That is why right wing dictators kill less people. A dictator of a free market economy does not have as much power as a Socialist dictator. He needs the co-operation of private enterprise to keep his country prosperous. Free market policies create wealth. With growing wealth comes demands for political freedom. Thus free markets always lead to political freedom. Today, Chile and Taiwan are democracies. But Cuba and N Korea are not.

On the other hand, Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot and Castro killed more people simply because they had or in the case of Kim still has total control of the country. In a Socialist dictatorship, the entire economy was controlled by one man. Once in place, such a dictatorship can last a long time. Witness Castro's hold on power.

In Hitler's case, he did not abolish private property nor did he wipe out the capitalist class like the other Leftist dictators did. Instead he co-opted them. But as I explained in the earlier essay, the substance of ownership was passed to the state. The government controlled nearly every aspect of the production of goods and services in the economy. It sets price controls, told the nominal "owners" of businesses how many workers to employ and how much to pay them and what price to sell their goods.

This was in fact what happened to a lesser extent during the Roosevelt years in the USA. He made laws telling people how many hours they can work, what to charge for their goods and services. Gone was the idea of letting the free market decide such things. One man, Jacob Maged ran foul of such a law and was jailed for three months.

Jacob charged 35 cents for pressing a suit instead of 40 cents as decided by one of Roosevelt's bureaucrats. It was not much different from what Hitler and Mussolini did. Its basically state control of nearly everything and Americans lost some of their economic freedom. The goal of Roosevelt's New Deal was to drive prices up by deliberately creating scarcity which was stupid economic policy. Bountiful crops were burnt, pigs were slaughtered and farmers were paid to leave their fields empty. That was why the Depression lasted so long.

In fact, Roosevelt's administration got many of his ideas from Mussonlini, a fact acknowledged by former Democrat and New Dealer, Ronald Reagan. Reagan said in 1976, "Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."

While Fascists did not obliterate the capitalist class like what Stalin did, they co-opted them. Their idea was that labour and management work together for national goals that they set. The tendency of that is that big business gets bigger. Laws will be passed that only the bigger companies can afford to comply. Smaller companies will find it too costly to comply. Small companies go under as a result.

The political leaders will favor this as it is easier to deal with a smaller group of large companies than with thousands of smaller companies. Big business will favor the arrangement because they have less competition. The collusion between big business and big government will create a marriage of convenience that will not benefit the small guy.

It is ironical that western Socialists claim to be the friend of the little guy. But their Socialist policies of government intervention gives rise to larger companies and the decimation of the smaller ones. In the end, big business and big government will co-opt each other.

The businessman is like a bee-hive. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. But if you throw a stone at a bee-hive, they are going to swarm over you. Bill Gates did not bother with Washington till Washington bothered him. The votreprenuers thought that breaking up a large company might make them more popular. They claimed that Gates' company, Microsoft was being unfair to the competition. Soon an army of lobbyists hired by Gates swarmed Washington. The industries with the least government interference also hire the least number of lobbyists.

What happens when business goes to bed with government? Corruption will come into the picture. Take a look at the current Financial Crisis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were established by Congress during the Roosevelt era to encourage home buying.

Together, they dominate the housing loans market. These are Government Supported Enterprises. Invariably politics come into the picture as explained in my previous article. Fannie Mae's former CEO, Franklin Raines was Bill Clinton's budget director and has close links with the Democratic Party leaders. Under him, Fannie Mae bought up sub-prime mortgages and he also donated generously to Christopher Dodd's and Barrack Obama's election campaigns.

Was he acting for the benefit of his political masters to win votes from people who were unqualified to acquire housing loans? Very likely and in the process, he also enriched himself. Had there been 10 or 20 much smaller Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs instead of two giant ones, it would be more difficult for the votreprenuers to influence the mortgage markets. Hence they would have done less damage in their pursuit of votes. Thus we see how votrepreneurs and big business corrupt each other and damage the country.

Making things worse is the Community Reinvestment Act which I have written in greater detail earlier in an article called, "The Political Roots of the Financial crisis."

The Act compelled banks to make sub-prime loans to unqualified people who were the regular voters of the Democratic Party. These loans were packaged into Mortgaged Backed Securities which were bought up in large part by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac whose top executives were friendly to the Democrat Party.

The result of the current financial crisis is that Americans are lurching to the Left just as they did in the 1930s. The Great Depression of the 1930s gave power to Leftist movements like the Italian Fascists, German Nazism and Roosevelt's New Dealism where Socialist solutions were advocated. Greater government control of the economy actually favors big business.

Concentration of power in the hands of the governments leads to abuses of that power. That is why the greatest mass murderers were from the Left as I explained before. Could the current financial crisis lead to a loss of our economic as well as political freedoms? The danger is there that history repeats itself. Contrary to what Leftists say, the danger to our freedoms comes, as before, from the Left and not the Right.

As of this writing, Barrack Obama leads in the polls. With the financial crisis and an unpopular war in Iraq, he could well be the next President. From all indications, he is from the Far Left just as Mussolini once was. According to the National Journal, Obama is the most liberal Senator in 2007. Besides that, Obama has the penchant of having friends and acquantances from the Radical Left. There is Bill Ayers, who was a terrorist in the 1960s. Then of course there is his ex-Pastor Rev Jeremiah Wright whose sermons condemn his own country, America.

This is a red flag that his organisation is really a front for a Socialist or Marxist group. As in Mussolini's day, the Socialists or Communist groups are anti-patriotic. (Recall that Mussolini was booted out of his party for supporting the war.) Their loyalty is not to their own country but to the so called "oppressed working class". Rev Wright's church is a black power church and black power groups have Marxist roots. Obama's brief career as a Community Organizer is another red flag.

Community Organizing was a technique developed by Marxist, Saul Alinsky to further the Socialist Agenda. In Alinsky's words, "... the community organizer ... must first rub raw the resentments of the people; fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression."

In other words, get the people to riot by making them angry over real or imagined injustices in order to bring about instability. When the country looks like its going to the dogs, they will be ripe for a Marxist revolution.

That was why Fascism made such inroads in the 1930s. Roosevelt, Hitler and Mussolini were Leftists who acquired power when people in their countries were disenchanted and demoralized. The three carried out similar economic policies. Each gathered power in their own hands, stifling to varying degrees freedom in their countries.

One of them committed mass murders. Another interned Japanese Americans. Today, we have the same mood in America with markets crashing and a recession looming. Faith in the free markets are at a low and America is ripe for a turn to the left. Today, a Far Leftist, Barrack Hussein Obama is, as of this writing, ahead in the polls and may take power in America. Could history repeat itself? We are living in interesting times.

The Political Roots of the Financial Crisis

In the midst of the worst financial crisis since 1929, people are asking, "Who's fault is it?"

It is human nature to find someone to blame. We all want to know who the culprit is. Some blame greedy and incompetent executives who over leveraged their firms and drove them to the ground. One favorite target are the speculators who shorted financial instruments.

All these could have parts to play in the debacle. But commentators have so far over looked one important point - the political system that contributed to the debacle.

The current crisis is at its heart a housing crisis. Housing prices rose as a result of easy loans made by banks and other financial institutions. Loans were made to people who could not afford to buy property. These are called "sub-prime" mortgages.

Banks knew that they could not pay but felt that they could get away with it by pooling these mortgages into Mortgaged Backed Securities or Collaterized Debt Obligations. These were sold off by investment banks like Merrill Lynch or Lehmen Brothers to investors who assumed the risk of default in exchange of a higher rate of return.

This blew the housing bubble even higher. As housing prices grew, there was no problem. Buyers of property could always sell off their property to pay off their mortgages. But as in all bubbles, it has to pop sometime.

Sub-prime mortgages started to go sour. The problem was that instead of flogging all these sub-primes to gullible investors, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Lehmen Brothers kept much of them in their own books. I guess they believed in their own marketing hype. Since they were highly geared, they became insolvent. Unfortunately, the biggest buyer of sub-prime mortgages were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That's where the politics come in.

Politics in democracies is mostly about competition between the winners and losers of society. Generally, there are two main parties. One fights for the winners and the other the losers. Both parties behave like business companies and their customers are the voters.

The party of the losers (in the case of the USA, the Democratic Party) tries to transfer income from the winners by taxing them and spending the money on their customers - the losers. The Republicans, try to win votes by cutting taxes and thereby helping their customers, the winners to keep their winnings.

So it came to no surprise that it was the Democrats who took the lead to help lower income groups to own property. After all, they were their number one customers. The first seed of the bubble was planted during the Carter administration when Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act.

Prior to the Act, banks typically targetted lending money to folks from the better neighborhoods, a process called "redlining".

This Act lacked teeth till it was strengthened under the Clinton administration. What is does basically is to pressure banks to make loans to people they normally would not want to. It was to address the so-called problem of banks preferring to loan to people with higher incomes. Banks who wanted to expand or merge must have a good CRA rating. To achieve this, they must meet certain quotas that includes lending to the Party of Losers' preferred borrowers. For a while, Countrywide Financial was regarded as a role model. Of course, we all know what happened - it went bust and had to merge with another bank.

Next we have Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae which were set up by Congress to help Americans to buy homes - a noble idea. Under an implicit and now explicit guarantee by Congress these two giants were able to borrow money at lower rates than banks could which they then use to buy mortgaged backed securities thereby lowering mortgage costs. Trouble was that the two giants were permitted to have 50 times leverage instead of 10 times for banks. In other words, Freddie and Fannie could lend out $100 for every $2.5 in capital. The rest - $97.5 can be borrowed!

Another outrageous rule change during the Clinton administration was to allow Freddie and Fannie to buy sub-prime mortgages. This fueled the bubble even further. In 2005, Alan Greenspan warned Congress of the monster they have created. The Senate Banking Committee passed a Reform Bill to curb the activities of Freddie and Fannie. Senator McCain was one of the sponsors.

But Senators Obama, Clinton and Dodd and others protected Fannie and Freddie and killed the Reform bill. They of course knew that stopping the two monsters would be unpopular with their constituency - the losers and hurt their political careers. Of course, donations from Franklin Raines, ex-CEO of Fannie to Obama and Dodd may have something to do with it.

But don't blame them. Its all the fault of the system. If they did not behave like that they won't be elected. Someone else would and the same thing will happen. If this financial crisis teaches us something, it is that democracy needs to be reformed so that votrepreneurs don't need to behave irresponsibilly to get elected.

Democracy not working - essay by Fjordman

Currently, the democratic system is in my view not working properly in any Western country. It is more or less dead in Western Europe, where most of the real power has been transferred to the unelected organs of the European Union, anyway. Virtually all Western countries have lost control over their borders. This is not a sustainable situation. You can call your political system a democracy, a dictatorship, a republic, a monarchy or whatever you want, but a country that does not control its territory will eventually die. It's inevitable.The situation is made worse by the fact that globalization of transportation has put severe pressure on our nations in a manner which was unthinkable only a few decades ago. When the first Christian Gospels were written down at the end of the first century AD, the population of the Roman Empire was about 60 million people. This mirrors the annual global population growth in the early twenty-first century. In other words: The global population grows by another Roman Empire every single year. Our system wasn't designed for such numbers. It needs fundamental change, or it will soon collapse into civil wars or dictatorships or both. We also have a situation where some left-wing parties in particular deliberately import Muslims and others because they vote overwhelmingly for left-wing parties. A political system where it pays to import enemies obviously isn't sustainable.When I criticize democracy, this should not be taken as an indication that I believe in elitist rule. I criticize it because it clearly doesn't automatically ensure freedom of speech and security for life and property, which is the hallmark of true liberty. Another problem is that it isn't always the best system for long-term decisions because people tend to prefer short-term gains. I still believe, however, that there should be a powerful element of real public influence, to curtail the potential for absolute rulers and abuse of power. We have clearly veered too far in the direction of the latter with the EU, where the ruling elites have skillfully eliminated any constraints on their power.The democratic system has significant flaws, but it worked to some extent as long as there was sense of being a demos, a people with a shared identity and common interests. What we are witnessing now is the gradual breakdown of this demos, starting from the top down. Powerful groups frequently have more in common with the elites in other countries than they have with the average citizen in their own. If you no longer believe in your nation as a real entity with a specific culture, it simply becomes a tool for obtaining power, a stepping stone for your global career. Without a pre-political loyalty, emotional ties or even a pragmatic interest in supporting nation states, the democratic system becomes a vehicle for distributing favors to your friends at home and abroad, for fleecing the voters while in power and hopefully ensuring a lucrative international career along the way. You will have few moral inhibitions against importing voters from abroad for maintaining power or because your business buddies who give you financial support desire it. This process is related to technological globalization, but it has gone further in the self-loathing West than in any other civilization.Average citizens who still identify with their nation states thus keep electing people who betray their trust. Since the elites identify little with the nations they are supposed to serve, more power to them will only make matters worse, as it already has in Europe. Corrupt and incompetent individuals will always exist. If you get a corrupt leader every now and then you are dealing with a flawed individual. If you constantly, again and again, get corrupt leaders you are dealing with a flawed system. Our political system is now deeply flawed. The problem is that I cannot easily see how to fix it.The most important thing to realize is that democracy is a tool, a means we use to achieve an end. Too many people now confuse it with the end itself. "Democracy" has come to mean something that is good, something everybody wants, a bit like sex or chocolate. But there is no rational reason to assume that democracy of universal suffrage is uniformly good and can be applied with equal success in all circumstances, a huge mistake Americans made in Iraq.Any political system must first and foremost ensure the survival, the continued physical existence, of the community it serves. After that comes ensuring the prosperity and liberty of this community in the best possible way. However, when I look at the situation in Western countries today, I cannot see that democracy always ensures our liberty or prosperity, and in many cases it functions so poorly that it threatens our very survival. Perhaps in order to ensure our continued existence, we need to supplement democracy with other tools in our toolkit.

The year of the unknown votrepreneurs

Sarah Palin's selection as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate has shaken up the race. Currently polls shows a reversal of fortune as McCain surges ahead of Obama in the polls.

First the American voter turned to an unknown politician, Barack Obama in great enthusiasm and now they are turning again to another unknown politician, Sarah Palin, with equal entusiasm. What's going on here?

Americans are tired of the war in Iraq and worried about the economy. They want their country to take a new direction. Bush has low approval ratings at around 35%. Congress has even lower approval ratings at around 17%. This desire for change was shrewdly spotted by that brilliant votrepreneur, Barack Obama who embodies that possibility. He is black and talks well.

The fact that they don't know much about him allowed voters to fill him with their hopes which can never be fulfilled without blood, sweat and tears. It is very scary that someone as unaccomplished and inexperienced as Obama could be so close to getting power in the world's most powerful country. After all, he was Senator for only three years and part of that time was spent campaigning for the Presidency. Well, that's democracy for you.

Now McCain is also campaigning as an agent of change by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. Calling himself a maverick, he is going to distance himself as far away from Bush and his Republican Party as possible. Making promises that can never be kept is the stock in trade for votrepreneurs.

Can either candidate make the changes they promised? I doubt it though once in a long while, someone comes along and actually does something. The problem is systemic. Its not the votrepreneurs' fault. They have to labor under the constraints that the system imposes.

I have long written about the flaws of democracy - the short term nature of the decision making, the difficulty in giving out necessary but bitter medicine etc - that I will not repeat myself here. But for meaningful change to come, the electorate must be pushed to the point where their backs are at the edge of the cliffs before they will respond to a Statesman's call for sacrifice instead of a votrepreneur's selling of more snake oil.

The American voter is not there yet.

Why do we do dumb things?

My friend Fjordman sent me a link about Behaviorial Economics that got me thinking. This new area of study is the intersection of human psychology and economics. In economics, we assume that people will always make the rational decision.

This is proving to be a wrong assumption. The truth is that we often make irrational decisions in economics as well as in voting. Behavioral Economics also explains why people lose money in the stock market as well as vote for the wrong politician.

Let's start with the stock market. To make money, you have to buy low and sell high. To do that we have to buy when everybody else is selling and sell when everybody else is buying. But our human nature was developed in the thousands of years of living in the jungle. To survive in the jungle, we have to group together in order to aid each other.

Thus we have developed a herd instinct. This works well in the real jungle but is disastrous in the financial jungle. In a bull market, even the taxi driver has bought stocks. In a bear market, most people have sold out. Thus, while its comforting to buy when all your friends are buying, you are doing something irrational.

You end up buying high and selling low - the opposite of what you are supposed to do. Another problem with human nature is that we are all pleasure seekers and pain avoiders. That is good in most circumstances but bad when it comes to the stock market and voting at election time.

When it comes to your stock market investments, you tend to hold on to your losers and are quick to sell your winners. That's because its painful to sell stocks at a loss. We suffer anguish when we sell loss making stocks because of the hard work and sacrifice we endure to make that money. On the other hand, when we take profits we are delighted at the though our profits can make.

This is illogical. You should sell, if the prospects are no longer bright and hold so long as prospects remain good, regardless of if you are making a profit or loss. So how does all this explain our voting behavior? Well, for a start it explains the phenomenon of Barrack Obama. He is a hardly known freshman Senator from Illinois.

Yet, he is winning against Hilliary Clinton who should have won nomination by Super Tuesday. How do you explain this? I think its to do with our desire to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. If you listen to his speeches, Obama is very good at promising you everything without asking you to make any sacrifices. Are you worried about losing your jobs? Obama will renegotiate Trade Agreements (read more protectionist measures).

Do you want Socialized Medicine? Obama will provide by raising taxes. How are you going to create jobs by raising taxes and becoming protectionist? That's trying to square a circle. Obama does not say. He just promises. Raising taxes will drive away investments. If you turn protectionist, so will your trading partners.

Are you sick of the war in Iraq and at the same time fearful of terrorism? Don't worry. Obama will withdraw from Iraq and talk to America's worst enemies. He tells people that he can make America more secure by simply talking to his country's enemies. What a fairy tale he is selling
people and they believe him. More likely after withdrawal, Iraq becomes a Shiite style Taliban-land that threatens the oil supply and support terrorist groups.

Jihadist groups will be encouraged into thinking that Allah is on their side - like what happened after the Russians were driven out of Afghanistan. There will be more, not less terrorism.
Obama's popularity soared because he makes promises to give pleasure without inflcting pain.

His inexperience, on balance, actually works in his favor. While he lacks a track record to boast about he also has none for his opponents to attack. This makes it easier for people to believe him and his snake oil promises. People believe him because they want to believe that he can do all this magic for them without any pain.

A politician who tells the truth will not get elected. That is a flaw of human nature. People don't want to hear the truth if it is painful. The truth is that Americans have been spending beyond their means for many years now. Savings are at an all time low and Americans must cut down on their consumption. America faces a relentless enemy in Radical Islam and it will take years of blood, sweat and tears to win this war. But people don't want to hear that.

So you end up putting liars in office.

Murtha: The surge is working but withdraw anyway.

Recently, US rep. John Murtha stunned his Democrat collegues when he said that the 'surge is working'. This prompted him to backtrack by saying that 'the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily' and again called for withdrawal. His colleagues were stunned because he had predicted the failure of the surge and is a prominent critic of Bush's Iraq war. This also came at a bad time when Democrat House Leader is trying to pass a war funding bill tied to a withdrawal time-table. I bet Nancy Pelosi is mad at Murtha.

Of course, Murtha did not explain why it cannot be won militarily when the surge is working. If the surge is working then it follows that the US military is winning. Withdrawal would of course give up the gains made and make a mockery of the sacrifices made by US servicemen and women. It would be like calling for withdrawal after winning the Battle of the Bulge and letting Hitler rule Europe.

What is going on here? Of relevence to this site is how the democratic process impacts decision and policy making. The votrepreneurs (politicians) are not interested in the welfare of the people they claim to represent. What they want is to win next year's elections so that they can keep their jobs.

What this means for the Democrats is that they must discredit the Bush administration. To do that, they must convince voters that the war in Iraq is a failure. Murtha had earlier told his supporters that the surge was not working and predicted a military disaster. Failure in Iraq, which is bad for America, is good for the Democratic Party.



The success of the surge corelates inversely with the number of votes Democrats will get. That's the key to understanding Murtha's flip flop comments on the surge.




His statement that the suge is working undermines House Leader, Nancy Pelosi, who is blocking funding for next year's combat operations unless Bush gives a time-table for withdrawal.

That is why Murtha backtracked even though premature withdrawal would mean disaster for both the Iraqis and the American people. Iraq would be plunged into Civil War. Al Qaeda, who had been chased out of Anbar province will make a comeback. Iran will take the opportunity to fill the vacuum and try to establish a Shiite style Islamic state.

This will be opposed by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states who will then support Iraq's Sunnis. Whoever wins will establish a Taliban style government in Iraq, hostile to the US. Meanwhile, oil prices will go even higher because of the instability.

Of course, Pelosi and company cannot see so far ahead. For them, the next elections are all that matters. It took 12 years for the British to win the Malayan Emergency in Malaya against the Communists and this war in Iraq is comparable.

The war in Iraq is a clash of two ideologies. The US wants to install a western style democracy. Its opponents Al Qaeda in Iraq (Sunnis) and the Shiite Iranian regime wants Iraq to become an Islamic state with Shariah Laws. It is clear that US troops must stay for a long time to prevent the emergence of another Taliban state In Iraq (whether Shiite or Sunni style).

Unfortunately, democracies are not good for long term planning when votrepreneurs have to face elections every four years.

Aristotle was right

“In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.”

--- Aristotle

When I told a friend what Aristotle said years ago, she thought that he was crazy. Doesn't the rich have advantages over the poor? The rich can afford the best education for their children and the best healthcare. Its true that an individual rich person has more advantages than an individual poor.

But collectively in a democracy, the poor has more political power simply because there are more of them as what Aristotle said. I also pointed this out in my earlier articles, "Democracy needs a Reformation" and "Democracy and the Welfare State".

The result is that votrepreneurs (politicians) promise to tranfer income in order the buy their votes. That is why the Reagan and Gingrich revolution has failed. Government spending during the years when Republicans were in charge of both Houses of Congress accelerated. This sounds strange because Republicans have been traditionally the party of the small government.

But on closer look, its not so strange. Republicans could only gain control of Congress because they made promises to spend and transfer income. Thus was born Bush's compassionate conservatism. They spent money and cut taxes at the same time, resulitng in historical record deficits.

So long as the one man one vote system is in place, America is on the slippery road down to a Socialist state. Its a matter of time.

What can be done to reform the system? One easy way is to allow only taxpayers to vote. Those that take from the nation or worse damage it should not be allowed to vote. I am referring to those on welfare and those in prison for a serious crime. Don't forget that America's Founding Fathers initially allowed only those with property to vote.

These were the ones who paid most of the taxes and the best educated in American society in their day. Had they not done this, American democracy may have died in its infancy. But I don't recommend this because it would disenfranchise millions of voters. It also won't fly.

Another way is as I proposed in "Democracy needs a Reformation", we allow voters to buy and sell votes. In this case, nobody is deprived of their vote. Instead, they have acquired a new right which they did not have before - the right to sell (or buy) their vote to another voter.

There will still be wealth transfer from richer to poorer voters but without going through the noxious middleman - the votrepreneur. This will stop these salesmen from buying votes with other people's money.

Spiegel Interview with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew

In an interview with Singapore's founder, Lee Kuan Yew, an answer to a question is relevent to this blog.

SPIEGEL: During your career, you have kept your distance from Western style democracy. Are you still convinced that an authoritarian system is the future for Asia?
Mr. Lee: Why should I be against democracy? The British came here, never gave me democracy, except when they were about to leave. But I cannot run my system based on their rules. I have to amend it to fit my people's position. In multiracial societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion. Supposing I'd run their system here, Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese. I would have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority would always overrule them. So I found a formula that changes that...

Lee has pointed out a weakness of Democracy which I highlighted in my first essay, Democracy needs a Reformation.

Votrepreneurs (politicians) will pose as champions of their ethnic groups and defend them against real or imagined threats, making democracy difficult or perhaps impossible. For democracy to work, you need a more homogenous population with the same race, language and religion. The west had since the end of the Second World War, largely homogenous populations making it easy for democracy to function.

But with the flood of immigrants coming in, I forsee tensions arising especially in Europe but less so in America. Race, language and religion are three sources of identity. If an immigrant has all three that are different from the host population, then assimilation is more difficult than another immigrant who has one thing different.

The immigrants the Europe are accepting tends to be from North Africa or Pakistan. They are of a different race, a different language and a different religion. America is fortunate in that their immigrants are mostly Hispanics and only differ in terms of language. So for them, assimilation only requires that the Hispanics give up Spanish and adopt English.

The Europeans are out of luck. A large component of their immigrants are Muslims who have a poor track record of assimilating and are being radicalized by a militant strain of Islam.

Another great Actor

Like Jim McGreevey, Larry Craig is another great actor.

Larry was arrested in a Mineapolis airport toilet for allegely trying to solicit sex from a undercover police officer. Larry is a conservative Republican who has been against gay marriages. So it turns out that he is likely to be gay himself. Larry has vigorously denied he is gay and his family is standing by him.




His kids believe him, but will
the voters?




He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but is now trying to undo his guilty plea. This would weaken the Republican Party further because it would damage its appeal to conservative workers.

Party leaders want him to go for precisely this reason. For Larry to win elections, he must reflect the values his voters expect. This includes the need to be straight because most people are straight and there is still a stigma to being gay. So in the end, a honest votrepreneur (politician) being himself is probably unelectable.

He or she has to present himself to the public an image that the public wants to see. If the people in his state are conservative, he has to be conservative even if he is not. If they are liberals, he has to be a liberal even if in his heart he is not. They system seems geared to eliminate the honest and elect the best actors.

Doing the right thing spells electoral defeat.

In a link sent to me by Scandinavian blogger, Fjordman, Luxemburg´s prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker said:

"We all know what we need to do, but we don´t know how to win elections after we have done it."

Juncker has candidly pointed out one weakness of democracy. This is what I am trying to get at in my blog. In my earlier article, Democracy needs a Reformation, I pointed out that it is difficult to inflict short term pain to achieve long term gain.

Politicians do not have the luxury of planning more than four or five years ahead. Under pressure of winning the next elections, the policies achieve the opposite - short term gain in exchange for long term pain. But of course, they won't be in office then.

A study on how beneficial economic reforms affected the electoral prospects of the incumbent votrepreneurs (politicians)concluded that the incumbent ruling parties lost an average of 23% of the votes.

If as Juncker said, votrepreneurs cannot do what they know is right to win elections, then you will do what is wrong. That is why most democracies are ineffective.

Why Left Wing Parties want things that are bad for the country.

Dennis Prager in his latest column at Townhall.com wrote that Democrats want things that are bad for America. He gave a long check-list:

(1)The first fault-line to exploit is the economic divide. By playing up resentment and envy, votrepreneurs (politicians) always call for a transfer of wealth from the more capable, frugal and diligent to those less so. This is a flaw in democracy as I pointed out in "Democracy needs a Reformation."

Prager wrote:

"The better Americans feel they are doing, the worse it is for Democrats. By almost every economic measure (the current housing crisis excepted), Americans are doing well. The unemployment rate has been at historically low levels and inflation has been held in check, something that rarely accompanies low unemployment rates. Nevertheless, Democrats regularly appeal to class resentment, knowing that sowing seeds of economic resentment increases their chances of being elected. "

This will inevitably result in a welfare state with its high taxes, high unemplyment and sluggish growth rate. Remember, its all about perception. No matter, how good the economy is, its the perception that counts. So it is in the Democrats interests to project a feeling that you are not getting what you are entitled to.

2)Racial tensions between black and white. Votrepreneurs have to champion (or at least pretend to champion) one racial group or the other. Thus it pays to portray blacks as the perpetual victims of racial discrimination even though there is very little discrimination nowadays. Prager wrote:

"If African Americans come to believe that America is a land of opportunity in which racism has been largely conquered, it would be catastrophic for the Democrats. The day that most black Americans see America in positive terms will be the day Democrats lose any hope of winning a national election. "

If racism is still a problem, Oprah Winfrey won't be so wealthy today. Nobody can accuse you of racism for switching channels. Instead of helping the blacks examine themselves to see what they may be doing wrong, they always blame others for their problems. But that is the nature of democracy. It is not in the interest of Democrats to solve this problem. As long as blacks feel victimized, the Democrats have a willing bloc of voters.

2)The Democrats oppose making English the official language because they want to court the Hispanic vote. But they also know that when Hispanics assimilate, it would vote more for the Republicans, according to Prager. But having a divided nation is bad for America. Of course, the Democrats don't care.

Prager wrote:

"If immigrants assimilate, it is not good for Democrats. The Democratic Party has invested in Latino separatism. The more that Hispanic immigrants come to feel fully American, the less likely they are to vote Democrat. The liberal notion of multiculturalism helps Democrats, while adoption of the American ideal of e pluribus unum (out of many, one) helps Republicans. That is one reason Democrats support bilingual education -- it hurts Hispanic children, but it keeps them from full assimilation -- and oppose making English America's official language. "

So instead of helping Hispanics assimilate and hence begin the climb up the economic ladder like so many early waves of immigrants, the Democrats want another aggrieved minority race that vote Democrat.

3)As I said in my earlier article, Prager also pointed out that the Democrats will benefit if the US loses the war in Iraq. So even before the "surge" in US troops was complete, the Democrats were eagerly declaring failure.

4)Prager on marriage:

"If women marry, it is bad for the Democratic Party. Single women are an essential component of any Democratic victory. Unmarried women voted for Kerry by a 25-point margin (62 percent to 37 percent), while married women voted for President Bush by an 11-point margin (55 percent to 44 percent). According to a pro-Democrat website, The Emerging Democratic Majority, "the 25-point margin Kerry posted among unmarried women represented one of the high water marks for the Senator among all demographic groups."

Perhaps that is why the Democrats are eagerly supporting homosexual marriages and welfare payments to single unmarried women. In so doing, they are undermining traditional marriages. The more unmarried women on welfare, the more votes for the Democrats. Homosexuals do not generally have children. This will have an adverse impact on the Social Security program.

Are these trends that result from the Democrat's program good for America?

Is it good for America that its Hispanics do not assimilate and you end up with a divided nation?

Is it good for America to have a welfare state which results in high unemployment and dependency?

Is it good for America to lose the war in Iraq to radical Islamists?

Is it good for America to have more single parent families resulting in more troubled poorly educated children?

I think the answer to all these questions is a 'no'. Denis Prager rightly pointed out that the things Democrats want are usually bad for the country. But he did not explain why.

The short answer is that they want to win the elections. Democracies do not give rise to long term planning because the votrepreneurs won't be in office when the problems come home to roost. But the long answer is that in any society, there are bound to be winners and losers. So in a two party democracy like America, one party (Republicans) will cater to the winners and the other (Democrats) to the losers.

By winners, I don't necessarily mean rich people. My defination of winners are people who have the right attitudes and values that make success likely. Some rich people are losers and some poor people are winners. I know of people born with silver spoons but because of poor work ethics ended up failures. On the other hand there are also people born poor but became successful later on. Of course, people who are diligent, frugal and keep stable marriages are more likely to be better off financially.

Therefore, the Republicans cater to the winners by promising tax cuts so that they can keep more of their winnings. The Democrats usually come up with income dstributive programs to take money from society's winners to give to the losers. This leads to welfare dependency and is detrimental to work ethics. By subsidizing losers, you end up creating more of them which is bad for the country. By subsidizing unmarried mothers, for instance, you end up with more of them because irresponsible fathers know that their children won't starve. Its the responsible taxpayer who will foot the bill.

The Democrats are the Party for Losers. (This is generally true of left-wing parties throughout the world.) So their policies are catered to the losers of society. What this means is that they must come up with policies to please their clients (ie their voters).

Thus they end up with policies that subsidize their voters and hence preserve the wrong behaviors and attitudes that cause them to be losers in the first place. Correcting the wrong attitudes and behaviors is simply not on the agenda. They can't tell them that their failure is largely their own fault because nobody likes to hear harsh truths. Instead they have to tell them its the fault of somebody else and they are entitiled to a share of the pie without having to make sacrifices.

For example, the Democrats offer to fight for bilingual education even though It is difficult for an average person to master two languages well. Lack of proficiency in English will be detrimental to job prospects and assimilation. Remaining poor and disgruntled would keep them losers and they will continue to vote for the Party for Losers. A parallel in Europe is that the left-wing parties are the ones that fight for more Muslim immigration.



The Left & Islam yesterday: Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini
(Hitler was a leftist)









The Left and Islam today: Red Ken & Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi






It should also be kept in mind that the Republican votrepreneurs are no better in their self interests. They too are chiefly concerned about keeping their jobs and not about the long term welfare of their country.

If their policies make better sense, its because of the clients (voters) they cater to. Their clients are the winners of American society - those whose attitudes and values benefit themselves and their country. Coming up with policies that pleases them, they effectively preserve and promote the types of attitudes and behaviors that made them successful and thus is good for the country in general. This is true in general of other Parties for Winners throughout the world.

Democracy and the Media Bias - by Fjordman

In democratic societies the press, the Fourth Estate, should supposedly make sure that the government does its job properly as well as raise issues of public interest. In practice, we now seem to have a situation where the political elites cooperate with the media on making sure that some topics receive insufficient or unbalanced attention while others are simply kept off the agenda altogether. This isn't the case with all issues but with some more than others, especially those related to Multiculturalism, mass immigration and anti-discrimination where there seems to be a near-consensus among the elites. Together they form a new political class. This trend is recognizable all over the Western world, but it has become more deeply entrenched in Western Europe than in the USA, partly because more media outlets in Europe are either controlled by or at least sponsored by the state, but mainly because the political class has become formalized through the European Union.

In Europe, politics is more and more becoming an empty ritual. The real decisions are taken before the public even get a chance to vote on them , and the media won't talk honestly about important matters. Our daily lives are run by a bloated bureaucracy which is becoming increasingly transnational. Ever so slowly, everyone is reduced from being an individual to being a cogwheel in a giant machine, run by supposedly well-meaning administrators and technocrats. They don't really care about you; they just don't want anybody to rock the boat, so they constantly grease the bureaucratic machinery with lies.

In 2007, former German president Roman Herzog warned that parliamentary democracy was under threat from the European Union. Between 1999 and 2004, 84 percent of the legal acts in Germany – and the majority in all EU member states - stemmed from Brussels. According to Herzog, "EU policies suffer to an alarming degree from a lack of democracy and a de facto suspension of the separation of powers." Despite this, the EU was largely a non-issue during the 2005 German elections. One gets the feeling that the real issues of substance are kept off the table and are not subject to public debate. National elections are becoming an increasingly empty ritual. The important issues have already been settled beforehand behind closed doors.

As British politician Daniel Hannan says: "When all the politicians agree, the rest of us should suspect a plot against the ordinary citizen. Without all-party consensus – and this is true of all the Member States, not just Germany – the EU would never have got to where it is." He believes the EU was intentionally designed this way: "Its founding fathers understood from the first that their audacious plan to merge the ancient nations of Europe into a single polity would never succeed if each successive transfer of power had to be referred back to the voters for approval. So they cunningly devised a structure where supreme power was in the hands of appointed functionaries, immune to public opinion. Indeed , the EU's structure is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic."

In the eyes of American theorist Noam Chomsky, "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion , but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." This is undoubtedly true , which is why it's strange that Chomsky thinks that the Internet, currently the freest medium of all, is "a hideous time-waster."

In June 2004, a survey showed that 50% of all Swedes wanted a more restrictive immigration policy. Mass immigration reached the highest levels in history in 2006, yet before the general elections that year, all the major parties and the media cooperated successfully on keeping a lid on the issue. During the past few elections in Sweden , there has been virtually no public debate about mass immigration, but a passionate debate about "gender equality" in which almost all contestants call themselves feminists, and only argue over which ways to implement absolute equality between the sexes. The more suffocating the censorship becomes regarding the problems created by Muslims, the more discussion there is of ways to get rid of the straitjackets of heterosexuality. This is clearly done in order to give the citizens the sense of living in an open, free and tolerant society. Diversity of sex is used as a substitute for diversity of political opinions.

Author Bruce Bawer describes how before the rise of maverick politician Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch political scene had to a great extent been a closed club whose members, regardless of party affiliation, shared similar views in the widest possible sense. Most of the journalists belonged to the same club. If the majority of the populace didn't quite agree with this cozy elite regarding the most sensitive issues - and the most sensitive of them all was Muslim immigration - this hardly mattered much. Since all those who were in positions of power and influence were in basic agreement, the will of the people could safely be ignored.

According to Bawer, "Fortuyn had been an active politician for only a few months but had already shaken things up dramatically. Before him, Dutch politics had been essentially a closed club whose members shared broadly similar views on major issues and abhorred open conflict." Journalists and rival politicians alike - notice how they worked in lockstep - responded by smearing him "as a right-wing extremist, a racist, a new Mussolini or Hitler." Indirectly, this led to his murder by a left-wing activist who stated that he killed Fortuyn on behalf of Muslims because he was "dangerous" to minorities.

Later, the Islam-critic Theo van Gogh was murdered in broad daylight. As Bawer states, "In 2006, in a crisis that brought down the government, Ms. [Ayaan] Hirsi Ali was hounded out of Parliament by colleagues desperate to unload this troublemaker. When she moved to Washington, D.C., last year, polls showed that many Dutchmen wouldn't miss her. The elite, it seemed, had reasserted its power, and the Dutch people, tired of conflict, had embraced the status quo ante. (…) Five years ago, Fortuyn inspired widespread hope and determination. Today, all too many Dutch citizens seem confused, fearful, and resigned to gradual Islamization. No wonder many of them — especially the young and educated — are emigrating to places like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand."

Pim Fortuyn was indirectly murdered by the political , cultural and media elites whereas Theo van Gogh was murdered by Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been driven from the country. Islam-critic Geert Wilders is still there , but he is subject to similar smears as Fortuyn was about being a racist, receives daily threats from Muslims and not-so-subtle hints from the establishment that he should tone down his criticism of Muslim immigration. The Dutch spirit appears to have been broken, at least for now, and things are slowly returning to normal. The extended political elites are once again firmly in control of public debate, and the embarrassing peasant rebellion has been successfully struck down.

I've suggested before that native Europeans face three enemies simultaneously when fighting against the Islamization of their lands: Enemy 1 is the anti-Western bias of our media and academia, which is a common theme throughout the Western world. Enemy 2 are Eurabians and EU-federalists, who deliberately break down established nation states in favor of a pan-European superstate. Enemy 3 are Muslims. The Netherlands from 2001 to 2007 is a clear case in point where enemies 1, 2 and 3 have successfully cooperated on breaking down the spirit of the native population through intimidation and censorship and by squashing any opposition to continued mass immigration.

The fact that members of the media and the academia tend to be more, sometimes a lot more , left-leaning politically than the average populace is well-attested and documented in the Scandinavian countries. Senior members of the BBC in Britain frankly admit that they are biased and champion Multiculturalism in their coverage. During the 2005 Muslim riots, it was openly stated by several French journalists that they downplayed the coverage of the riots because they didn't want it to benefit "right-wing parties." Judging from anecdotal information it seems fair to assume that this trend is universal throughout the Western world.

Bill Dedman, investigative reporter at the MSNBC, made a list of American journalists' political campaign contributions from 2004 through the first quarter of 2007. Of the 143 journalists surveyed, 125 had donated money to the Democratic Party. Only 16 of them had donated money to the Republican Party or conservative causes, and two to both parties.

Dr. Chanan Naveh, who used to edit the Israel Broadcasting Authority radio's news desk, mentioned, with no regrets, examples in which he and his colleagues made a concerted effort to change public opinion: "Three broadcasters - Carmela Menashe, Shelly Yechimovich [later a Labor party Knesset Member], and I - pushed in every way possible the withdrawal from Lebanon towards 2000... I have no doubt that we promoted an agenda of withdrawal that was a matter of public dispute." As Charles Johnson of American anti-Jihad blog Little Green Footballs commented: "Journalists are no longer in the business of simply reporting facts and events; increasingly, they see their job as 'activism,' and the points of view they promote are invariably leftist and transnationalist. Honest journalists will admit this outright , and we see the pernicious effects of this information manipulation and filtering everywhere."

But why is the situation like this? One could claim that this is the effect of the Western Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, or alternatively a product of the Cold War. But if you believe the esteemed Friedrich Hayek, the trend was discernable already in the late 1940s, before the Cold War had left a major impact. How do we explain that ? One plausible hypothesis could be to assume that those with conservative viewpoints will generally direct their energies towards business and commerce , while those with left-leaning sympathies desire to get into positions where they can influence people's minds. Over time, this could mean that in an open society, the media , the academia and the intelligentsia will tend to gravitate towards the political Left and become dominated by people sympathetic towards Utopian ideas. Because of the positions they have gained, their political bias will significantly influence what information is presented to the general masses, and how.

In his essay The Intellectuals and Socialism, Hayek noted already around 1950 that "Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working-class movement. It is a construction of theorists" and intellectuals , "the secondhand dealers in ideas. The typical intellectual need not possess special knowledge of anything in particular, nor need he even be particularly intelligent, to perform his role as intermediary in the spreading of ideas. The class does not consist of only journalists , teachers, ministers, lecturers , publicists, radio commentators , writers of fiction , cartoonists, and artists." It also "includes many professional men and technicians, such as scientists and doctors."

"The most brilliant and successful teachers are today more likely than not to be socialists." According to Hayek, this is not because Socialists are more intelligent, but because "a much higher proportion of socialists among the best minds devote themselves to those intellectual pursuits which in modern society give them a decisive influence on public opinion. Socialist thought owes its appeal to the young largely to its visionary character. The intellectual, by his whole disposition, is uninterested in technical details or practical difficulties. What appeal to him are the broad visions."

He warns that "It may be that as a free society as we have known it carries in itself the forces of its own destruction, that once freedom has been achieved it is taken for granted and ceases to be valued, and that the free growth of ideas which is the essence of a free society will bring about the destruction of the foundations on which it depends. Does this mean that freedom is valued only when it is lost, that the world must everywhere go through a dark phase of socialist totalitarianism before the forces of freedom can gather strength anew ? If we are to avoid such a development, we must be able to offer a new liberal program which appeals to the imagination. We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage."

During a conversation I had with a Swedish friend and a lady who grew up in the Communist dictatorship of Romania , we concluded that Westerners are at least as brainwashed by Political Correctness and Multiculturalism as they ever were with Communism. There never was a universally shared belief in Multiculturalism in Western Europe, and the percentage of True Believers is declining by the day. Still, it is probably accurate to say that more people believed in Multiculturalism in Western Europe in 1998 than who believed in Communism in Eastern Europe in 1978. But how is that possible?

Ideological indoctrination is most effective if the people maintain the illusion that they are free and that they are being served balanced information. Citizens in Communist states knew that they participated in a large-scale social experiment, and since ideological hegemony was upheld at gunpoint, this left little room for doubt that they were being served propaganda to shore up support for this project. Yet in the supposedly free West, we are taking part in a gigantic social experiment of Multiculturalism, seeking to transform our entire society, and still we refuse to acknowledge that we are being served ideological nonsense by the media.

The differences, particularly on issues related to Jihad and immigration, between the information reported in blogs and independent websites and the information presented to us by the established media are so great that it shocks many ordinary citizens once it dawns upon them just how much censored propaganda we are spoon-fed every day. This experience has shattered the myth of free, critical and independent Western media, at least for some.

In the view of blogger Richard Landes, the media play a critical role in the global Jihad's success. The major media outlets "are the eyes and ears of modern civil societies. Without them we cannot know what is going on outside of our personal sphere , with them we can make our democratic choices in elections, assess foreign policy, intervene humanely in the suffering around the globe. But as any paleontologist will tell you , any creature whose eyes and ears misinform it about the environment, will not long survive."

This can be compared to being attacked by an angry and hungry polar bear, while your eyes and ears, the media , tell you that it's a cute koala bear who just wants to be cuddled. Meanwhile , your brain has been indoctrinated to think happy thoughts about diversity and smile to all creatures, regardless of their nature or intentions. This is pretty much how the entire West is today. The heavy bias of our media and our education system constitutes a very real threat to our survival.

Why are the worst mass murderers from the left?

The worst mass murderers from the twentieth century and possibly for all time were Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler - all left wing dictators.

Did I say Hitler? I think that most people would not object to my calling Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot left wing dictators. But Hitler? Many people think of him as a right wing dictator but that is not correct. Why is Hitler a creature of the left?

To begin with, the Nazi party stands for the German Workers' National Socialist Party. Hitler claimed in a speech on May 1, 1927:



"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

The Nazi Party campaigned on a recognisably leftist platform. Here is an excerpt from the 1920 Nazi party manifesto:

"10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. The activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.

13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.

14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.

15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land."

The party manifesto does not call for free market capitalism. Calling for nationalization, confiscation of land are things that Socialists or Communists call for. Of course, you can say that Hitler or any votrepreneur (politician) will say anything to gain power. His rhetoric gained him the support of mostly lower income and middle income Germans. Ultimately, its what he did that counts. Action speaks louder than words. So what did Hitler do when he came to power?

Hitler took over control of nearly all means of production like a good Socialist or Communist would. He did not nationalize all assets of production like what Lenin or Mao did. The nominal ownership was left in private hands. But the substance of ownership passed to the state.

This is explained in an article by George Reisman writing for the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Drawing on the writings of the great economist, Ludwig Von Mises, Reisman explained why Nazism is Socialism and why Socialism leads to totalitarianism.

When Hitler took power in Germany, the "owners" of assets of production (eg factories, farms etc) had every major economic decision decided for him by the state. The state (or some central planning bureaucrat) told you how many workers you must employ, how much to pay them, how much to charge for your products and services and how much dividends the owners get. The government also practiced wage and price controls in 1936.

(The government had to impose wage and price controls because of the runaway inflation as a result of increasing of its money supply to fund its huge programs of public works, subsidies and rearmament. To keep the people happy, he gave them cheap subsidised holidays to the Alps and the Canary Islands. )

When your rights to your "property" such as a factory or farm or rental apartments etc are so eroded, the state effectively owns them. You are "owner" in name only. Thus I would put the Nazi party left of say the British Labor Party but right of the Communist Party of Soviet Union.

Since Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin were people who claim to be Socialist or Communist, is there something in Socialism that leads to totalitarian government?

The answer is a yes.

I will sum up the arguments. Firstly, Socialism calls for state control of all means of production. This means that all workshops, farms, factories etc are to be controlled by the state. What to produce and how much will be centrally planned.

The state will decide what to produce, how much to produce and sell at what price. It has no way of telling what consumers want. In a capitalist economy, all these questions will be settled by the market as each individual pursues his own self interest. If a product is in demand, then its price will go up.

Other independent producers will see a profit opportunity and increase production for the product. As production increases, the price will drop. In a command economy the bureaucrat decides all this.

Since prices are controlled, shortages or gluts will be the result since it is hard for the bureaucrat to get it exactly right. That is why in the former Soviet Union, you end up with long queues - which is an unproductive way of spending your day. The Soviets also sold staples like bread very cheaply. The result was wastage as people fed the bread to their pigs.

Of course, there will be people who want to sell at a higher price than the officially sanctioned prices so as to gain a larger profit. So to enforce the system, the state will have to make it a crime. This means that they will employ an army of spies to detect black market activities. People will fear one another for anybody could be a spy. Even your girl-friend might be a spy.

Punishment for profiteering is severe since a fine would merely be regarded as a business expense. Since a jury is unlikely to send a man to the firing squad for selling a bar of soap at a higher price, you need state appointed judges to do the dirty work.

The result is a complete loss of freedom. To enforce Socialism then you need a totalitarian system where everybody is suspicious of everybody else and power is concentrated at the top. This was what happened in Nazi Germany and the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Once the state has so much control over the lives of its people, all sorts of nasty things can happen - including mass murder. That is why the worst mass murderers of the 20th century were all creatures of the left. The more concentrated the power, the more abuses are likely and Socialism has a tendency to concentrate power.

This has not fortunately not happened in any western democracy even those which are run by parties that call themselves Socialists. But the tendency for greater state control over your lives are always there. Its just embedded in Socialism.

For example, in the year 2000, France's leftist government of Lionel Jospin created the Department of Work Police. The Work Police will catch people who work too hard! (2)

At a time when countries try to compete to by working harder, the French Socialists wanted to do the opposite!

Here is a comment by Fjordman from the Gates of Vienna that I believe is relevant to
this blog :

gatesofvienna

"When I criticize democracy, this should not be taken as an indication
that I believe in elitist rule. I criticize it because it clearly
doesn't automatically ensure freedom of speech and security for life
and property, which is the hallmark of true liberty. Another problem
is that it isn't always the best system for long-term decisions
because people tend to prefer short-term gains. I still believe,
however, that there should be a powerful element of real public
influence, to curtail the potential for absolute rulers and abuse of
power. We have clearly veered too far in the direction of the latter
with the EU, where the ruling elites have skillfully eliminated any
constraints on their power.

The democratic system has significant flaws, but it worked to some
extent as long as there was sense of being a demos, a people with a
shared identity and common interests. What we are witnessing now is
the gradual breakdown of this demos, starting from the top down.
Powerful groups frequently have more in common with the elites in
other countries than they have with the average citizen in their own.
If you no longer believe in your nation as a real entity with a
specific culture, it simply becomes a tool for obtaining power, a
stepping stone for your global career. Without a pre-political
loyalty, emotional ties or even a pragmatic interest in supporting
nation states, the democratic system becomes a vehicle for
distributing favors to your friends at home and abroad, for fleecing
the voters while in power and hopefully ensuring a lucrative
international career along the way. You will have few moral
inhibitions against importing voters from abroad for maintaining power
or because your business buddies who give you financial support desire
it. This process is related to technological globalization, but it has
gone further in the self-loathing West than in any other civilization.

Average citizens who still identify with their nation states thus keep
electing people who betray their trust. Since the elites identify
little with the nations they are supposed to serve, more power to them
will only make matters worse, as it already has in Europe. Corrupt and
incompetent individuals will always exist. If you get a corrupt leader
every now and then you are dealing with a flawed individual. If you
constantly, again and again, get corrupt leaders you are dealing with
a flawed system. Our political system is now deeply flawed. The
problem is that I cannot easily see how to fix it."

Fjordman is a great thinker who also realises that the democratic system has flaws in it. This blog is dedicated to people who think likewise and wish to discuss ways of reforming democracy.

Vote buying in Canada

This article came to my attention courtesy of Fjordman, the insightful Scandinavian writer:

Vote buying in Canada

"Naresh Raghubeer is executive director with the Canadian Coalition for
Democracies

Ontario Auditor-General Jim McCarter reported that the province's
Immigration and Citizenship Ministry has been dispensing millions of
dollars in grants to ethnic groups under a process that is "not open,
transparent or accountable." In many cases, groups got money simply
because their members were chummy with ministry insiders.

He documents a taxpayer-funded political black market based on
"ethnic" vote-buying. Dalton McGuinty's government marked the 2006 and
2007 fiscal year-end by rushing $32.5-million dollars out the
treasury's door. Destination: cultural and religious groups likely to
vote Liberal in the coming October elections. The Iranian-Canadian
Community Centre's $200,000 grant was disbursed despite there being
"no written request for funding."

Whose interest is served when politicians play vote-bank politics with
Canadian tax dollars? We risk importing into Canada the tribal
politics that afflict the countries from which many of our immigrants
have fled."


Here you can clearly see the votrepreneurs do not have the country's interests at heart. All they care about is their re-election. For them, democracy is about vote buying, not with their own money but with taxpayer's money. As I said in my earlier essays, we must reform the system such that the personal interests of the political elite co-incides with the national interests.

Lesson from the Laughing Cossacks

Above is a famous Russian painting called "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks". In it contains a lesson about dictatorship and democracy. I have created this blog to point out the flaws of democracy hoping to stimulate discussion on how to fix the problems. But occasionally, I also want to remind ourselves what is great about democracy by pointing out the flaws of its alternative - dictatorial rule.

The Cossacks had recently defeated the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmet IV. Yet the Sultan wrote them a pompous letter demanding the surrender of the Christian Cossacks. The letter read:

As the Sultan; son of Mohammed; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Moslems; confounder and great defender of Christians-I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

(signed) Sultan Mehmet IV

The painting by Russian artist, Ilya Repin, depicts the Cossacks in a hilarious mood as they composed a reply to the Turkish Sultan, head of the last great Muslim empire. What lesson about democracy and dictatorship can be drawn from this painting?

A major defect of authoritarian and totalitarian governments is that the ruler at the top is often in the dark. Information flow to the top is filtered through many layers of officials who are often afraid to tell their boss the truth. Obviously, Sultan Mehmet's generals dared not tell his boss that his army had suffered a severe defeat. They may have told him that he had won a great victory albeit at a heavy cost. That would explain why Mehmet IV sent such a pompous letter to the Cossacks who received it with such merriment.

This reminds me of the Iraqi Information Minister, also known affectionately as Baghdad Bob.



The Iraqi Disinformation Minister:
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf




The whole world was laughing at him when his reports of the Iraqi war were so far from reality. This sort of thing happens in nearly all dictatorships because the people below are afraid to tell the Big Boss the truth.

Thus Chairman Mao did not know his Great Leap Forward was a failure till he saw starving people dropping dead on the streets. Mussolini believed he had a powerful air force when his generals showed him acres of warplanes but did not tell him that most could not fly.

The results of this ignorance at that top often leads to disaster. For Mehmet IV, had he known that his armies suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Cossacks, he might have tried to improve the Turkish army before sending them to attack Vienna in 1683. The result was defeat at the hands of Johan Sobieski III, King of Poland.

In the case of Saddam Hussein, he probably genuinely believed that he had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Otherwise, I can think of no reason for him to expel UN inspectors in 1998. My guess is that his people were afraid to tell him the truth that he had no nuclear program worth talking about. Unfortunately for him, the expulsion led the US to believe that he genuinely was hiding something. This may have cost him his life.

The good thing about democracy is that people are not afraid to tell their leaders the truth. But freedom of speech is under attack in many western democracies. To win votes from Muslim immigrants, votrepreneurs (politicians)in some western democracies tried to pass laws that stifle free speech such as Britain's Religious Hatred Act, which fortunately was watered down from the original.

Thus for me, the famous painting of the Zaporozhian Cossacks represents the value of free speech. But some votrepreneurs seem to forget this. During the Danish cartoon affair, they apologized instead of defending free speech.

Finally, I have saved the best for last. I am sure that you, gentle reader, are interested to know what the Cossacks said in reply to the Sultan. Here it is:

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil sh*ts, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, you mother-f***er.

You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-f***er of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our d*ck. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, go f*** your own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won't even be herding Christian pigs. Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

(signed) Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

I wish the votrepreneurs were as eloquent as the Cossacks when it comes to defending free speech.

Is Holland heading towards the 7th century?

It is reported in NISNEWS that the Labour Party is trying to muzzle a young Labour party member for fear of angering its Muslim voters.

The young member, Ehsan Jami, was fighting for the rights and safety of Muslim apostates. Shariah Law dictates that apostates are to be put to death. This is something I have warned against in my earlier article, Will Muslim Immigration destroy western Democracy?

It must be remembered that votrepreneurs (politicians) cannot be counted on to protect our liberties. Their main interest is in gaining or retaining political power. That is why in this case, the Labour Party wants Eshan Jami to shut up. They know that Islam cannot tolerate apostates and a party member fighting for the rights of religious freedom will lose them Muslim votes.

As the number of Muslim immigrants grow, democracy will become less and less viable. Ironically, the one-man-one-vote system may end up reducing our liberties. If there is one more vote from people who cherishes 7th century Shariah Laws than from people who values the Enlightenment, then your society goes back to the 7th century. Its as simple as that.

The freedom of choice of one's religion has been a hard won gain in Europe after years of religious conflicts. Holland has traditionally been a very free society. In medieval times, the persecuted Huguenots fled to Holland in search of religious freedom.

But as the Muslims increase as a percentage of the Dutch population, its society will become more and more like a Muslim majority country. The average Muslim country fares very poorly in terms of personal freedom and democratic rights as I pointed out in my earlier article, "Will Muslim immigration undermine Western Democracy". Thus we can expect the hard won liberties to be gradually reduced in Holland. The Ehsan Jami case won't be the last.

Sick and Sicker

That is the name of a documentary that Logan Darrow Clements is trying to make to rebut Michael Moore's upcoming "Sicko" which touts Socialized Medicine.

In an interview with Frontpage Magazine, Logan explains why.

He said, " I simply don't want the government to force me and everyone else into
socialized medicine. I don't like being forced around when I haven't done anything wrong and I can see that nearly everything that government does is a complete and utter failure, often with deadly consequences."

This is one part of what my blog is trying to say. In a democracy, votrepreneurs (politicians) are slowly taking away more and more of our freedom as the state grows more powerful. Votrepreneurs gain and retain power by distributing other people's money to benefit his group of voters. He dreams up new ways to spend that money through mainly ineffective government programs. In so doing, the government grows in size and intrudes into lives. As a result, we end up with less liberty.

As stated in my earlier article, "Did America's Founders want Democracy", I argued that they wanted to give the people liberty and not democracy. Loss of freedom has happened in the case of Canada's Socialized Health system, according to Clements.

He said, "People are not aware how close we are to having socialized medicine or single payer foisted upon us. Everyone will be forced into this system rich and poor, old and young. If it is designed like Canada's system it will be illegal for you to pay for faster treatment even if you want to. If you have a life threatening condition or you are in pain you'll simply have to wait in line for your turn to be treated through the government system.




Socialized Medicine:
Why are we waiting?



Government bureaucrats will decide if and when you get treatment. But the affluent pro-liberty people who could fund this movie just don't realize how close we are to disaster. Perhaps they won't realize what a disaster it is until they need medical care a few years from now and it resembles a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles."

I don't want a faceless government bureaucrat deciding for me when I can have treatment and what kind of treatment I am allowed to have. The best way for us to receive our health care is through the free market. The free market gives us, well, more freedom. We are free to choose what kind of treatment we can have and when.

Besides, government intervention have usually been costly failures. Clements explained why.

He said, "The reason that nearly everything that government does is a failure is because everything that government does is an act of force. You are forced to do X. You are forced to not do Y. It takes money by force from its rightful owner and gives it to another person. As humans our primary tool of survival is our mind. However, when the government forces us around we are unable to use our mind. Instead of each person using their own mind and acting in their own best self interest we are forced to act in a way that suits the political interests of the people that made the law."

The basic problem with Socialized Medicine is that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody - be it government (ie other taxpayers) or insurance companies (ie the shareholders) or yourself pay for your health care. If you are not paying for your own health care, you are passing it to government or the insurance companies. Trouble is that when you don't pay for it, you demand more and the best health care. If the government passes a law that says all lunches are now free then you eat steaks instead of hamburgers. It works the same for health care which the Europeans are finding out. As a result, health care costs have ballooned.

Those on the left who tout Socialized Medicine should study the effects it has on places that tried it - Canada, UK, Sweden etc. In the run-up to the elections next year, we can expect votrepreneurs to come up with their Socialized Medicine schemes.

Barack Obama has unveiled his Health Care plan. As usual, it involves buying votes with other people's money - the time honored way for votrepreneurs to gain and retain power. He proposed that the scheme be funded by eliminating Bush's tax cuts which has propelled the US economy the past few years. Obama estimates that his scheme will cost taxpayers $65 million. His scheme is not as expensive as that of John Edwards who estimates would cost $120 billion. So far Clinton has not come up with details of her own plans. I guess she wants to see which way the wind is blowing.

But you can be sure of this. Whatever, they come up with, it will be a combination of tax increases and a degree of coercion of employers, insurers and individuals. With coercion comes a loss of liberty to all of us.

Obama & Hillary votes for defeat

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has voted against the troops funding bill to court the anti-war vote.

These two votrepreneurs (politicians) are between a rock and a hard place. They have to please the anti-war crowd but cannot be seen by the average American as been unpatriotic by not supporting US troops at a time when they are facing danger.

Voting against the bill because it does not have a time-table for withdrawal has its risk. If in the next few months, the situation improves, the anti-war sentiments will decline and they will be left high and dry. Their public demand for a time-table for US withdrawal will look foolish at best or unpatriotic at worse and they cannot claim any credit for an American victory.

On the other hand, if the situation continues to be sour and anti-war sentiments incease, then they stand to reap more votes for appearing to be wise and farsighted. They stand to gain from an American defeat.

The two must have made the calculations and decided that the US will fail or at least be perceived to have failed. Things will go badly and anti-war sentiments will increase thereby allowing them to win more votes.
That is why politics is like business. The politician is an entrepreneur who has to anticipate public trends just like a retailer has to predict fashion trends. Get it right and you win. Get it wrong and you lose money or votes. That is why I call politicians votrepreneurs. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have betted on and are now hoping for an American defeat.

Why is Iraq so hard?

This was a question, Ralph Peters answered in an op-ed published in the New York Post. Peters cited the "strategic errors of the administration, the pernicious effects of the media and factional hatred within Iraq". Also corruption, poor leadership and bloodlust of Al Qaeda all made matters worse.

His solution is that the US should adopt more ruthless methods including torture if lives can be saved. Peters thinks that the US troops should go on more frequent patrols which of course require more troops than what the US has in Iraq now. His solutions are all military in nature.

They are not wrong but cannot work because of the constraints the US army labors under. I will attempt to answer Peter's question, "Why Iraq's so hard?" by looking at things from another angle.

The reason, why Iraq is so hard is not because the US lacks military power or brave soldiers but because American is a democracy. That is the short answer. Now allow me to elaborate.

Peters mentioned the pernicious effects of the media. Well that is true and its part of democracy to have a free press. Why is the press so negative and unsupportive of the war effort?

Firstly, its the nature of the press to report bad news. All attempts to start a good news newspaper have failed. People love to read bad news. A story about a mother and child safely walking down the road in Baghdad does not make it to the front page or the evening news.

But if they were blown apart by suicide bombers, then it makes the news. As Bernard Lewis has pointed out (1), "Most of Iraq are functioning rather well." But the news media is only interested in reporting on those parts that are not functioning well.
Secondly, newspapers sensationalize the news in order to boost circulation and hence profits . Thus calling the Iraqi situation a 'civil war' helps grab the attention of the reader. I think it is closer to Tombstone or Dodge City in the Old West than a Civil War. Calling it a civil war would be news to the Iraqis as I pointed out in an earlier article (2).

Only 27% of Iraqis think that a Civil War is going on, compared to 61% who do not. So the news media thinks they know better than the Iraqis who live there. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. We need to boost our ratings or our circulation.

Compounding the problem are the votrepreneurs (politicians) who feed on the drum beat of bad news like sharks - in this case, the Democrats. As stated in earlier articles, the way the system work is that opposing votrepreneurs must undermine each other by portraying each other as failures. In so doing, you pursuade voters to switch sides.

Success and failure is to a large extent a matter of perception. It pays for the Democrats to create in the minds of the public high expectations of what success means. So if everything is not hunky dory by next Thursday in Iraq, then the whole war is a failure. Any success is ignored. Never mind that a dangerous dictator, Saddam Hussein is gone. Never mind that Iraq has its first elections and taking its first fragile steps to democracy.

Better get out now. Never mind if Iraq ends up under the control of Radical Islamists and becomes a terrorist Disneyland in the words of a terrorist expert, Rohan Gunaratna. (3) This is his prediction if US troops were to leave. After losing Afghanistan, Radical Islamists would have gained a better, richer country - oil rich Iraq. This is the same kind of people as those who attacked the US on 911. While they may not belong to the same formal organisation, they are united by the same ideology.

The problem is that votrepreneurs cannot see beyond the next elections. The Presidential election is coming up next year and the Democrats are anxious for the US to lose the war or at least perceived to be losing the war. This would boost their chances of winning. This is not so far fetch. During the Cold War, Ted Kennedy went to Moscow to encourage the Soviets to be tougher to Reagan instead of making concessions! (4)Perhaps he genuinely believed that the Cold War tensions were Reagan's fault. But as a sceptic of human nature, I think it is safe to assume that people are easily pursuaded to adopt a belief that is advantageous to themselves.

Fortunately, he failed and President Reagan went on to win the Cold War. His success in dealing with the Soviets enhanced the popularity of the Republicans - something I am sure an old hand like Kennedy knew would happen and not in the interests of the Democratic Party.


One of them would probably be the
next President
if America loses the War.



It was not in their interests then for a Republican President to win the Cold War against Communism. Similarly, it is not in the interest of Democrats for Bush to win this war against Radical Islamism.

Thus we see that democracies are inherently unsuited for waging war. While it makes democracies more peaceful, it also makes them vulnerable when danger threatens. Democracies have checks and balances like a free press and oppostion parties. Each group fights for his own interests and in so doing prevent a dictator from emerging. But it should also be recognised that the press in fighting to boost its circulation sensationalize and distort the news and opposition votrepreneurs fighting to get elected hampers the war effort against a dangerous enemy who is out to destroy you.

(1)Bernard Lewis
(2)What Civil War?
(3) Expert: Iraq terrorist Disneyland if US troops leave

(4)See page 254 of the book, 'The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister.
Ted's overture to the Soviets

Does democracy erode property rights?

Here is the latest article by the incomparable Scandinavian writer,
Fjordman:

The Gates of Vienna

Of relevance to this blog are his comments that supports my thesis that modern democracy is not working well and may be heading for collapse:

"As Alexander Boot writes in his book, 'How the West Was Lost', "a freely voting French citizen or British subject of today has every aspect of his life controlled, or at least monitored, by a central government in whose actions he has little say. He meekly hands over half his income knowing the only result of this transfer will be an increase in the state’s power to extort even more.

[...] He opens his paper to find yet again that the ‘democratic’ state has dealt him a blow, be that of destroying his children’s education, raising his taxes, devastating the army that protects him, closing his local hospital or letting murderers go free. In short, if one defines liberty as a condition that best enables the individual to exercise his freedom of choice, then democracy of universal suffrage is remiss on that score."

Friedrich A. Hayek warned in 'The Road to Serfdom: against all collectivist ideologies', and feared that the social democratic welfare state would eventually propel society in a totalitarian direction. He has been dismissed as wrong, but was he? In Western Europe, it is difficult to imagine that we would have accepted the massively bureaucratic European Union if we hadn’t already been conditioned to accept
state intrusion on all levels of our lives in our nation states.

The EU became just another layer of bureaucracy. We now have a situation where a massive, inflated national and transnational bureaucracy runs our lives, and even writes our laws. We have become serfs, just as Hayek warned against.It is possible to
argue that this is a built-in flaw in the democratic system. As blogger Ohmyrus (ahem - that's me) has shown, democracies will tend to expand into high-taxation welfare states because, simply put, there are more low-income people than rich people, and it is possible for politicians to stay in power by giving people access to other people’s money. But if individual liberty diminishes with high taxation and intrusive bureaucracy, and if democracies have a built-in tendency to gradually increase taxes and create more state jobs, does that mean that democracy will, over time, diminish individual liberty? Is democracy bound to go through cycles of bureaucratic inflation and collapse?

This could well be a basic flaw in democracy, but I still believe we need a
system where the majority population have a genuine say in politics."

So as you can see, as democracy matures, there is less and less liberty for all of us. As I said in my earlier article, "Did America's Founders wanted Democracy," what America's Founders wanted was liberty and not democracy.

Today, we find that the state is taking more and more of our money to buy votes so that votrepreneurs (politicians) can win or stay in power, intrude more and more in our private lives, telling us what we can and cannot do and how we should think. In one European country, the government even tells you how to pee! (1)

I used to think that democracy and liberty comes together, but now I am rethinking my old ideas.

The more taxes the state collects, the more powerful it becomes and the less liberty we all have. The Reagan-Gingrich revolution has failed though they both tried to trim down the role of the government. But as I have shown in my article, "Democracy and the Welfare state", the size of the government grew under Republican governments. In spite of their free market philosophy, they cannot defeat the iron law of the one-man-one-vote system:

For votreprenuers to stay in office, they must redistribute wealth.

A certain amount is beneficial. Money raised to provide education, the police force, the construction of roads and infrastructure benefits all. But the problem is that the public will always demand for more. They will demand what is beneficial to themselves even though it is harmful to everybody else.

The votrepreneurs are happy to oblige their customers - the voters। Most of the welfare and entitlement systems found in western democracies are actually harmful to the long term interests of society. Welfare to unmarried mothers led to breakdown of families is one example perpetuating poverty instead of alleviating it.

Protection of favored industries led to higher prices for consumers is another. In each case, the benefits to the small group of beneficiaries is great and the cost to the majority is small. So there was no outcry or strong opposition. But the cumulative effect of all such programs harms society.

Property rights is also a basic human right. This is often forgotten. One of our government's job is to protect the fruits of our labor. We work hard for our money and we want it protected from robbers. But with the one-man-one vote system, other people can have access to your property by using their votes. The more the government taxes us, the more our property rights are eroded.

Besides taxation, government intervention also erodes our property rights in other ways। There are laws in some western countries that tells you who you can hire and who you cannot fire and even how many hours your workers can work in your factory or office. In the case of landlords, governments have been known to pass rent control laws and laws making it difficult to evict your tenants.

These laws are passed so as to help votrepreneurs remain in office because they know that standing for your property rights is a net-vote loser. The long term prosperity of the nation is the last thing on their minds. America's Founders realised this and what they wanted ultimately was liberty:

'Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.'- James Madison

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
- Benjamin Franklin (2)

(1) Big Brother teaches you the correct way to pee.
(2)Article on Ben Franklin

A great actor

He was a great actor!

That was the picture Dina McGreevey painted of her estranged husband and former New Jersey (D) Governor, Jim McGreevey.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she said, "I think it was all a charade for him."
She also explained that on the day her husband announced, "I am a gay American", she was made to smile in spite of the internal turmoil.

Dina said, "As his world was falling apart, he was still choreographing the entire day." Jim asked her to play the role of Jackie Kennedy, stoic and courageous in the face of adversity.

Jim leaves hot Dina for a man.

This snapshot of the life of a votrepreneur (politician) is exactly as I imagined. The votrepreneur is a salesman who must sell himself to his voters. He must present an image of himself that is designed to appeal to his potential voters.

If his voters are religious, he must present a religious image even if he is not। If his voters are secular, then he must be secular even if he is not. It must put a strain on an honest man who has to pretend to be what he is not.

That is why there is an element of the con-artist in most votrepreneurs. A very honest person is probably unelectable. In Jim's case he must present to the public the picture of a straight guy who is happily married. That image appeals to the middle American voters. A gay living with another man does not.

In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Dina said, "You know he had the entire day scripted. His entire life had been choreographed, and even as his world was falling apart, he was still trying to script everything and making sure that day went as he wanted it."

Choreographing scenes for the TV cameras is standard behavior and as a political wife, Dina should have known better. Even though Jim's political career was over, I guess he was still choreographing out of habit. A picture of a tearful wife suggests weakness which does inspire confidence with the public.

So Jim asked her to play 'Jackie Kennedy'. It was all an act. How do we keep our elected leaders to really mean what they say? How do we get them to say what they mean? How do we stop them from behaving like salesmen and instad behave like statesmen? The only way is to take away the fear of re-elections from their minds. In earlier essays for example, I suggested that Senators be elected for life or at least for a long time. That way they can be themselves and be honest with the public.

In the case of Jim McGreevey, the strain of public life is finally over. Now he can be himself. His political career is over but he is probably happier now - and feeling gay.

Mr Spog's reply

Mr. Spog said...
If a senate consisting of members with life tenure were considered too undemocratic (as seems likely), one possibility would be to qualify its veto power, much as the U.S. President's veto power is already qualified. For example, the lower house might be given the right to override a Senate veto by a 2/3 vote. (Presumably the lower house would then need, e.g., a 3/4 supermajority to override combined vetoes by the Senate and President...)

This approach to limiting the formal powers of the upper house was proposed by the 19th-century British political thinker and historian W.E.H. Lecky, who saw that the legitimacy of the Lords was eroding, and hoped to arrest this decay by drawing clearer boundaries around the upper house's powers. Without some formal rule of this type, any move by the Lords to contradict the will of the Commons would be viewed as a threat to democratic supremacy. With such a rule, everyone would be assured that the Commons remained ultimately in charge (if it was sufficiently united on an issue), even if the Lords started to throw around its veto power quite often.

How Goes the War?

How goes the war on terrorism? This is really the war against the ideology of Radical Islamism which began long before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in 2001.

Following September 11, there was a rare moment of political unity in America. But now that unity is gone as votrepreneurs (politicians) go back to their usual form. They are more interested in promoting their political careers than in their country's national security.

For the Democrats, this means that they must portray the policies of their opponentsas failures। This is the nature of democracies.

As stated in my last article, Harry Reid was quick to say that the war is lost. Hillary Clinton called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. The Senator from New York said:

"Guantanamo has become associated in the eyes of the world with a discredited administration policy of abuse, secrecy, and contempt for the rule of law."

Meanwhile, both houses of Democrat controlled Congress passed a bill calling for the US troops to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by October 1. Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut said:

'Staying the course' has cost us over 3,200 young lives of our brave men and women in uniform and more than $400 billion, with no progress to speak of."
All these comments must be comforting to America's enemies. I can imagine, Osama bin Laden in his cave somewhere gleefully absorbing the news. He would vote for them, if he could.




Ahmedinejad would
also vote
Democrat, if he could.




Its time to ask, 'Who are they and what do they want?' Also, what does America want? America's enemies are Radical Islamists who are fighting to implement Islamic Law in Iraq with the eventual goal of bringing Islamic Law throughout the world.

Its part religion and part politics. Indeed, Islam traditionally does not separate politics from religion. America on the other hand wants to promote its ideology of democracy throughout the world. The two ideologies are incompatible.

For the Islamists, the world must be ruled according to Islamic Law (also known as Shariah) which was revealed to Prophet Mohammad 1,400 years ago. In a democracy, it is man who makes the laws, not God. Thus if the majority of the people vote to legalize alcohol, this is against the Will of God and cannot be accepted by Islamists. In an Islamic state it must be God who makes the laws and not man. Thus democracy is a form of idolatry in which man worships himself and puts himself above God.

Thus when Bush wanted to plant the democracy in Iraq, he was throwing a gauntlet down at the Islamists. The two leading Islamic states are Saudi Arabia (Sunni version of Islam) and Iran (Shiite version). Both have supported the Islamist agenda with their oil money.

Should America succeeds in Iraq, Muslims might be seduced from the Islamist ideology. That is why the Iranian Mullahs call America the Great Satan for Satan is the great deceiver who misleads mankind from Allah's Laws. They are thus anxious for Bush to fail in Iraq.

Also anxious are Bush's political rivals in America। To persuade voters to switch sides, you must always portray your opponent's policies as failures.That is why every little problem in Iraq is magnified into a major failure. Every suicide bomb blast in Baghdad is cited as evidence of failure ignoring the more tranquil parts of Iraq. Every success no matter how big is ignored. Thus the big fact that a bloody dictator, Saddam Hussein is gone and Iraq held its first elections is played down.

Instead the focus is on the missing WMDs or the fact that 3,200 American lives were lost. While every life is precious, the lost of which is a tragedy to family members, it should be remembered that this war is cheap compared to other conflicts. It cost 500,000 lives in the Civil War before slavery was finally abolished. It cost about the same number of lives before Nazism and Fascism was defeated. It cost more than 100,000 lives in the wars against Communism. You can't fight a war without casualties.

For Bush's political rivals, the focus must always be on failure - no matter how small. The news media too must focus on failure. A story about an Iraqi mother and child walking down the road safely does not make the news. But a story about them blown apart by a suicide bomber would. Its the nature of news. Bad news raises ratings and advertising revenue. Good news don't sell.

For every Iraqi killed, thousands others go about their lives unmolested. But TV images of the victims of suicide bombers gives the impression that the Bush's policy of trying to plant a democracy in the Mid East is a failure. Democrats and the news media are of course please to call it a civil war. But it is not a failure and there is no civil war. Don't take it from me. Ask the Iraqis.



Iraqis: What Civil War?





In a survey, 61% of Iraqis think (1) their country is not in a Civil War as compared to only 27% of think otherwise. Most also think that their lives are better now than under Saddam Hussein. This means that American intervention is not a failure - unless US troops withdraw. Then you will get a Civil War.

Portraying your political opponents as failures is the nature of democracy. But it does undermine public morale in a war, making defeat more likely. The average voter also gets confused and loses his or her focus on what this war is about which is to prevent the spread of Radical Islamism. America wants to promote democracy and the Islamists want to promote the Islamic state. For Bush's political opponents, the most important thing is to win the next elections, not win the war against Radical Islamism. In fact, a victory would improve the electoral chances of the Republicans, their rivals.

To get voters to switch sides the Democrats must tell them that going into Iraq was a terrible mistake. But if its a mistake, the inescapable conclusion is to get out.That is why in the recent bill passed by both houses of Congress, now controlled by Democrats, calls for withdrawal to begin by October 1. Bush is certain to veto it.

But what would happen if the US withdraws from Iraq? A civil war is likely to ignite with Iran supporting supporting their thugs and the Saudis supporting theirs. Soon one thug will emerge victorious and you get an Islamic state that is hostile to the US. Its likely to be Shiite dominated because the majority of the Iraqis are Shiite and it is also likely allied to Iran.

Radical Islamism would have made a big gain after losing Afghanistan (the Sunni version). Iraq, like Iran would support radical Islamists throughout the world with their oil money. Meanwhile, a Bush administration weakened by its political opponents, seems to me to be losing its will in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Should that happen, it would be the first time that an Islamist state have nukes. Very soon, its Sunni rivals, the Saudis would want nukes too. The security of the free world, not least the USA, will be endangered. If you cannot stop drugs and illegal immigrants from crossing the porous Mexican border, you can't stop terrorists with nuclear materials crossing either. Don't forget that these Islamists are not deterred by Mutually Assured Destruction like the atheist Soviets. Indeed, martyrdom is an inducement to use nukes.

So the war against Islamism is going badly. Yet the election circus goes on with the Democrats putting their personal interests ahead of national interests. They of course want to get elected. It does not matter to them if national security is compromised by their behavior. But we should not blame them for this. The problem lies with the system which rewards such behavior.

As I said, to persuade voters to switch sides you must always portray your opponents as failures even if it undermines public morale in a war. That is why I said that politicians behave like entrepreneurs. A businessmen trying to sell a detergent has to slime 'Brand X' to persuade you to buy his product. That is why I have called them votrepreneurs because politicians are entrepreneurs trying to win your vote instead of money.

How to reform the system? In my first essay, 'Democracy needs a Reformation', I have called for a single eight year term for the President and Senators should be elected for life. House Reps will be elected for four years as before. The life term for Senators term is likely to provoke opposition. But I was trying to replicate the British House of Lords without the element of hereditary power. In my opinion, the British Parliament in the 19th century, when the unelected Lords of the Upper House had real power, protected national interests better than the elected clowns of today.

That is because the personal interests of the British monarch and nobles were more aligned with national interests.
The ruling class saw the country as belonging to them and wanted their sons to inherit a rich powerful country. Defending the country meant defending the privileges that the country had given them. Only problem was that in their pursuit of national interests, Britain and other European powers became expansionist and made life miserable for others - including my own ancestors. But that is a topic for another day. (By the way, the British House of Lords, the most undemocratic element in the British Parliament, opposed the recent Religious Hatred Act and helped to preserve liberty of speech. A much watered down act was eventually passed.)

By electing Senators for life (or at least for a long time), you have a body of people who need not constantly behave like salesmen. They are free to think of the long term good of the country. They should also be well paid. A system of reward based on objective measures of national welfare (eg employment, GDP growth, inflation rate etc) can be set up to align their personal interests with national ones.

A Lower House which faces elections every four years will inject the immediate needs of the people into the decision making process. The President with his eight year term can act as a balance between the Upper and Lower Houses. As I said in an earlier article, too much or too little democracy is undesirable. The time for reforms is now - before some terrorist smuggle in a nuclear device or a 'dirty bomb' across the border. This could result in the Constitution becoming suspended. Should democracy fail to protect the people, the people will lose faith in it totally and turn to a dictator or strong man. I don't want to see this happen.

(1)Iraqis: Life Getting Better

Do the Democrats want America to win?

"This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week. "

...Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader last Thursday.

Why are Democrats so eager to claim defeat?

Well that is the way, democracies work. Votrepreneurers (politicians) on both left and right must always portray their opponents as failures. Since this war was started by a Republican President at a time when both Houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans, a defeat of Bush's war aims would be a political victory for them.

It does not matter one whit to them if their country loses. In fact, if America loses Reid wins. Of course, by claiming defeat for their political opponent, Bush and their own country, they are also taking a risk. What if Bush (and America) wins?

Then it would look bad for the Democrats. That is why perception is so important. It does matter if Bush got rid of a potential threat, Saddam Hussein, who has been oppressing his people. It does not matter if violence is declining since the surge in troops. As long as there is a bomb blast somewhere, the Democrats will happily claim defeat. An American defeat is bad for America but they don't care.

If they succeed in getting a premature American withdrawal, Iraq will end up in Civil War. Eventually, some thug will emerge on top of the heap and he is likely supported by Iran who will then impose an Islamic state in Iraq - just like an American withdrawal from Vietnam led to a Communist state in Vietnam. That can't be good for America nor the rest of the world. Remember, this is a war between two ideologies - democracy and Islamism. America champions the first and thugs like Osama bin Laden and Ahmedinijad champrions the latter.

But Reid's main priority is to make Bush look bad and not winning the war. Remember, what votrepreneurers are most concerned about is what is good for themselves and that means winning elections. What is good for them may not be good for the country.

Watch them play with words and move the goal posts. See how they will define defeat or victory. Both Republicans and Democrats will quarrel on where to put the goal posts. But you can't blame votrepreneurers. Its just the way the system works.

That is why I think democracy, though the best system of government, needs reformation. There must be a way of aligning the politicians' personal interests with that of the country they claim to serve.

How Democracies commit Suicide.

There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.- John Adams

This is an astonishing statement coming from one of America's Founding Fathers. In this article, I will try to explain how politicians often place personal ambitions ahead of national interest to the point of destroying their own country that they claim to serve.

For a start, it may be a suprise to many that political rivalries in democracies can lead to votrepreneurs (politicians) reaching out to the country's enemies. I came across an interesting passage in the book, 'The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister' by John O'Sullivan.

Senator Edward Kennedy met with President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union in 1986 and held talks with him and other Soviet leaders. One of them was Vadim Zagladin, deputy head of the International Department, whose records of his own talks with Kennedy were declassified following the demise of the Soviet Union.

According to Zaglady's notes (1), Kennedy told him that following Reagan's meeting with Gorbachev in Geneva, 'the senator's speculations seemed to suggest that Geneva was a great success for Reagan and a doubtful one for us (the Soviets).'

In Kennedy's words according to Zaglady, '... The average American sees the situation as follows: "Reagan has managed to establish contacts with the Russians, gaining much from them, but giving nothing. He is a great leader!" '




Kennedy wanted Gorbachev to be
firmer with Reagan in their
negotiations.




Kennedy was unhappy that Reagan was popular with the American people because he gained much from the Russians and conceded little. As a political opponent of Reagan, he of course wanted Reagan to be as unpopular as possible. Thus he ended up telling the Russians, 'No, it was not (a mistake to go to Geneva), but you should keep pressing, be firmer.'

Kennedy went on to give Zagladin practical advice on how to outdo Reagan in the next round of negotiations. Zagladin wrote:

'We (the Russians) should choose two or three points which could be achieved and constantly put pressure on Reagan in order to restrict his freedom of maneuver. These points might be the following: confirmation of the ABM treat; restriction of the nuclear test limits and a cut in their number; missiles in Europe' (though Reagan, Kennedy said, will demand the elimination of missiles from Asia.

Summarizing, Kennedy said, "The present complacency of the Americans, their almost Christmas mood, must be broken. You should put more pressure, and firmer pressure, on Reagan ... And, of course, I shall think over what can be done on my side, on the Senate's side. At the Congress session, I shall report on my meeting with Gorbachev. I will speak in the country as many times as neccessary. Gorbachev is right, we shoul not miss this opportunity." '

From this account, you can see that the votrepreneurer's (politicians) first concern is in acquiring, retaining and increasing his own power - even when it is detrimental to his own country's interests. Often, a votrepreneurer would rather be Captain of a sinking frigate than to be a First Mate of sea-worthy aircraft carrier. From this exchange it seems to me that what Kennedy wanted was to bring Reagan's popularity down and that was why he wanted the Russians to be tougher in their negotiations with Reagan. He was prepared to co-operate with the Russians so that Reagan won't get the best deal for America because he, I assume, did not want Reagan to look good to the voters. Thus there is a similarity of interests with America's enemies.

The west has defeated Communism in the Cold War though many in the Leftist parties do not accept the verdict. Currently, the main threat to the west is Radical Islamism in the context of a growing Muslim community in Europe. The Leftist parties still contain many unrepentant Marxists who dream of bringing in their Socialist Utopia. Thus, again we see, an alliance of the Left with the forces that threaten the west - this time from Radical Islam.

For example, Marxist mayor of London, Ken Livingstone (red Ken) seems to be courting the Muslim vote in the city. He has invited Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi to London and praised him for his 'moderate' views. This is inspite of the fact that the Sheikh called for suicide bombing of Israelis, the killing of homosexuals and beating of wives as a husbandly right. (2)



Red & Green together: Ken Livingstone & Yusuf Qaradawi. The left is usually hostile to religion unless its Islam.




Meanwhile, the Labor Party passed the Racial & Religious Hatred Act in 2006. This was seen as a move to appease its Muslim voters after Blair supported Bush so resolutely in Iraq. Fortunately, the final Act that was passed was much watered down after considerable objections were raised that it might restrict free speech.

Left Wing parties in Europe are also very pro-immigration because they see an alliance with the Muslim immigrants would bring in enough votes to win or stay in power. You can see the sentiments by this astonishing statement from Hanne Andersen, a Danish Social Democrat:

"I have for many years been of the opinion that it is incomprehensible that some people (especially from the Danish People's Party) think they have a greater right than other people to live in a specific part of the earth. All people, all over the world, who have respect for others, their religion, culture, history and values have, as far as I'm concerned, an equal right to live wherever they want to."

It is quite clear that these Left-Wing votrepreneurers want power by getting the Muslim vote without considering the long term consequences of Muslim immigration into Europe.
After all, they won't be around by then. As I said, in my earlier article, 'Democracy needs a Reformation', this is one of the weaknesses of democracy.

They don't see, or don't care, that putting people of different races, religions and languages together would raise tensions. Its just human nature. But if the immigrants are Muslims, the difficulties are much worse. Muslim immigrants are the most difficult to assimilate and most of the conflicts around the world involve Muslims.

Its just too politically incorrect for the left to examine critically any other cultures other than their own Christian heritage. In an insightful essay, Fjordman explores the connection between political correctness and Marxism and how it became so deeply imbedded in the West's cultural elite in the Universities and the news medias. (3) Fjordman wrote:

"The Left have become ideological orphans after the Cold War, or perhaps we should call them ideological mercenaries. Although the economic alternative to capitalism didn’t work out, their hatred for this system never subsided, it merely transformed into other forms. Multiculturalism is just a different word for "divide and conquer," pitting various ethnic and cultural groups against each other and destroying the coherence of Western society from within."

Critics of Islam are silenced by accusations of racism even though Islam is a religion, not a race. While the left cannot tolerate criticism of Islam, it welcomes criticism of Christianity and Europe's Christian heritage.

In fact, the left sees Christian traditions as an obstacle to the Socialist Utopia that they dream of. The want a heaven on earth inspite of the fact that all attempts to create one has failed miserably. For the Left, their beliefs are a kind of religion as I pointed out in an earlier article, 'Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The left and Islam.'

But what would the future of Europe be like, if the votrepreneurers on the Left continue to support immigration from Muslim countries? They should take a look at Lebanon, a formerly Christian majority country which is now Muslim majority.

Lebanon was once a prosperous country when Christians had a clear majority. But higher birth rates of its Muslim population led to a change in political power following a Civil War in which the Christians lost. Today, the country is in ruins.

Could a Civil War erupt in Europe in the future? With the relatively higher Muslim birth rates compared to classical Europeans, the Muslims would use the one-man-one vote system to press to reorder society along their preferred lines. This would alarm the classical Europeans who would feel that their way of life is passing away.

Soon, right wing votrepreneurers would capitalize on this and fan the flames of communal tensions. We can learn some lessons on how this might happen by looking at the Yugoslavian experience.

Following the Fall of the Berlin Wall, most Communist leaders fell from power. The few exceptions were found in Yugoslavia. How did they, at least for a time, survive the transition to a more democratic system?

People like Slobodan Milosovich (Serbian leader) and Franjo Tudjman (Croatian leader) managed to stay in power by fanning the flames of communal hatred. The career of Slobodan Milosovich is instructive of what might happen in Europe in a generation's time. He rose to the top of the Serbian Communist party by the old fashion way in the Communist system - through patronage and connections. His chief patron was Ivan Stambolic.

As Stambolic rose through the hierarchy, he took Milosovich with him often passing him the same post that he vacated. In exchange, of course, Milosovich gave Stambolic rock solid loyalty. Milosovich was seen as nothing more than Stambolic's sidekick with a dull Communist hardline reputation.

By 1987, it was clear that Communism was crumbling throughout Eastern Europe. The writing was on the wall and Milosovich needed a political makeover to survive.(4) His opportunity came when his old boss, Stambolic sent him to Kosovo to quell ethnic tensions between Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Albanians.

In a stunning act of betrayal, Milosovich did the opposite. He decided to pose as the champion for Serbian nationalism in contradiction to years of Communist policy of suppressing ethnic tensions. Fanning the flames of ethnic tensions, he organised demonstrations by ethnic Serbs to portray them as victims of Albanian oppression so as to pose as their champion. Deliberately creating ethnic tensions in order to pose as a protector for an ethnic group is precisely what people like Al Sharpton are doing in the USA.

Posing as a champion for allegely oppressed Serbs in Croatian, Bosnian and Albanian areas allowed Milosovich a high degree of popularity to overcome the unpopularity of being a discredited Communist. He placed his friends in key places of the media to control it. State controlled TV and newspapers played up stories of massacres inflicted on the Serbian population by Croats during the Second World War. Milosovich and the Serbian Communist Party, now renamed the Socialist Party of Serbia was returned to power in 1990 following elections.

Meanwhile, the image of vengeful Serbs also allowed Franjo Tudjman to pose as a champion and protector of the Croats. Instead of dampening ethnic tensions as in the days of Tito where news of past massacres were suppressed, both sides played up hatred. Two former Communists remained in power by opening the Pandora's box of ethnic hatred and blood.

Could Europe tip into civil war if the Muslim population grows larger? Of course the Yugoslavian experience is not completely similar to the rest of Europe. For starters, the news media was controlled and there has been a long history of violence between the various communities. But I think that the Yugoslavian civil war gives us valuable lessons in how votrepreneurers will react to acquire and stay in power. Unless Muslims assimilate with the rest of the European community, which they are not doing, then I can safely say that votrepreneurers in seeking to court the Muslim or classical European vote will raise the ethnic tensions so as to pose as protectors of their communities.

A civil war or at least grave civil strife is likely in one of two generations time. John Adams was right. Democracies contain the seeds of its own destruction.

(1)See page 254 of the book, 'The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister.
(2)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4165691.stm
(3)Gates of Vienna blog
(4)See the book, 'The Serbs' by Tim Judah. Page 161 to 163.

Comment by Joe on Previous Article

The unity of mosque and state, indeed mosque and military seems to me to be the deadliest element in the mix.The other most populous religions of the world, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism lack this element. And in those contexts, making a separation between the sacred and the mundane is far easier. Those belief systems are also more amenable to independent internal reform. as their clerics and proponents are more independent of the constant battle for power and influence that animates the political world.But it is not to be underestimated that those other religions do not spend time or attention on how to regulate slavery, the taking of spoils, the conduct of war or other matters that characterized the comparatively primitive life of the time of their founding -- whereas mohammedanism does. Thus in the mohammedan countries medieval institutions and standards are preserved, indeed sacralized, by their regulation in holy writ.Finally I maintain that the most important element in all of this is not actually democracy but the concept of rights.The main articulations of the concept of rights are recent occurances, 17th & 18th century things from western Europe and America.All religions of the world antedate the discovery of the concept of rights, and have it nowhere in their teachings. For those religions whose other-worldliness leads them to "render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's" so to speak, it is easier to mold themselves around a new articulation of how to respect a human soul. But for the totalitarian teachings of mohammedanism, this is a much more difficult attainment.It has to be asked whether a mohammedan thinker can ever fully and without reservation embrace the concept of human rights, without rejecting some aspect of mohammedanism.And this I think is the key to understanding the relation between the free world and the mohammedan world.

Will Muslim Immigration destroy Western Democracy?

With increasing number of Muslims now living in western countries, particularly Europe, I have to ask this rude and politically incorrect question.

Will Muslim Immigration destroy western democracy?

To answer this question, we have to look at whether Islam is compatible with democracy. Democracy means rule by the people. It is a form of government designed for the rule of a nation state. Rule of the people in practice means rule decided by the ballot box. Implicit is the acceptance that the majority of the people will decide what laws will be passed through their representatives in Parliaments or Congress. It also assumes that the loyalty of the people will reside in the nation state and each citizen is expected to contribute to the welfare of their nation state. It means that the people must agree that the majority has the right to rule. Unfortunately, Islam has teachings that go against these conditions that make democracy difficult at best, impossible at worst.

The problem with Islam is that it teaches loyalty to the Muslim Ummah (nation) first. For them, the world is divided people of many religions who happened to live in different countries. For the rest of us, the world is divided into different countries who happened to have people of many religions.

That is why Muslims have set up an Organization of Islamic States. But there are no Organization of Christian or Buddhist or Hindu states. This loyalty to the Muslim Ummah results in world wide Muslim protests whenever any Muslim country is attacked by any non-Muslim nation, no matter how justified. When the Taliban shielded Osama bin Laden and refused to give him up after September 11, the Americans attacked.

Predictably, Muslims went livid with rage that fellow Muslims were attacked by a non-Muslims. They chose to believe in any conspiracy theory no matter how ridiculous to justify their reflex action of opposing non-Muslims attacking Muslims. Of course, it goes without saying that they don't shed a tear in sadness or wag a finger in anger when Muslims kill Muslims, no matter how brutal. What matters for them is who does the killing and not the reasons for war. Muslims have killed more Muslims than did the Israelis. But there was not a speck of sadness or anger from the Muslim world. This biasness is hard-wired in their minds by Islam.

Thus accepting Muslim immigrants means accepting people whose loyalty will not lie with the host country. If the numbers of Muslims are small, the problem is not serious. But with their high birth rates, a tipping point will be reached in which the viability of the western nation states will be compromised.

The second problem with Islam is that it does not separate mosque and state. This is because the Founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, was both spiritual and political ruler. He was both King and Pope rolled into one. After he died, his successors, called Caliphs, carried on this tradition. Prophet Mohammed also gave detailed instructions on the laws that his polity was to be ruled by. These are laws that devout Muslims believe come from God and must be obeyed.

This puts the devout Muslim on a collision course with modern democracy. For the devout Muslim, he must live under laws made by God and revealed through his Prophet. It is God and not man who must decide what laws should govern them. A democracy can only work if it is agreed that the majority has the right to pass laws through their elected representatives. The problem is that devout Muslims will view such laws that contradict Islamic law (also known as Shariah Law) as invalid or illegitimate.

By itself, this view is still not fatal for democracy. What makes it fatal is the propensity for Islam to generate violence. Even a cursory look at the Koran will reveal that violence is never far from the surface.

(Koran 8:39) And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah; but if they desist, then surely Allah sees what they do.

The commands are still valid today. What is meant by persecution? For some Muslims, this can mean something as harmless as the Danish cartoons! Thus even if a minority of Muslims use violence to fight for the triumph of Islamic law, democracy will be undermined. Compare their reaction to the cartoons with the Christian reaction to the screening of the Da Vinci Code and you will see how religious beliefs affect human society.

Muslims behave in this way today because they are imitating their Prophet Mohammed. The Founder of Islam was not tolerant of criticisms – like all medieval rulers. He killed many of his critics like Ka'ab and Asmah bin Marwan. See Ali Sina's article for further elaboration. (1)No doubt, Mohammed Bouyeri felt justified to murder Theo Van Gogh and I am sure that many Muslims would agree.

When we talk of democracy, we don't mean just one man one vote. It also must include freedom of speech and freedom to choose one's religion. But according to shariah law, it is death for blasphemy and apostasy. Thus once again, Islam is in conflict with the basic tenets of democracy. That is why Bush's project to transplant democracy to the Middle East is so difficult if not impossible.

So far, we have only looked at how Islam works in theory. How does it work in practice? Lets take a look at the empirical evidence. Of the 55 Muslim majority countries (not counting the Palestinian territory), only 5 are rated as Free by Freedom House. The rest are rated as Partly Free (24 countries) and Not Free (26 countries). That is a poor record. Islam has obviously produced a culture in which it is hard for democracy to take root.

The more Muslims seek to imitate Prophet Mohammed, the harder it is for democracy to function. He was after all a medieval ruler. To be fair, all medieval rulers were like that.(The British should be grateful that Henry VIII did not declare himself a Prophet and start a new religion, instead of simply breaking with Rome.



Prophet Henry would have
allowed husbands to chop
off the heads of adulterous
wives.



Otherwise, they would have similar problems. Unfortunately for Muslims, Prophet Mohammed is seen as the perfect man and role model. Imagine the problems the British will have if they take Henry VIII as the role model. British men would demand the right to behead their wives if they are unfaithful.)

Yet western countries are admitting Muslim immigrants whose religious beliefs are not compatible with democracy and whose actual track record in adhering to the basic tenets of democracy is poor. Obviously, the more Muslims there are in a population that gives each person one vote, the more the country will be like what we have in an average Muslim majority country.

Western democracy is at the moment still viable but the Muslim minority is growing fast with its higher birth rate. Already, one quarter of French children are Muslim. By the end of this century, Europeans might be majority Muslim and speaking Arabic. Unless Muslims acquire new values and abandon old ones, democracy will not be viable at some point. But so far, Muslims are not assimilating or acquiring new values that make a liberal democracy possible. A survey taken in Britain for example shows that 40% of Muslims there want Shariah Law. (3) Another survey showed that only one quarter of British Muslims regard Britain as their country. As expected their primary loyalty is to the Muslim Ummah.

I predict that as the Muslim minority grows, social tensions will also grow. Ascerbating the tensions will be the economic disparity between Muslims and non-Muslims. This can be seen in a survey done by Essex University. (5) The survey states that Pakistanis and Bangla Deshis (who are mostly Muslims) are easily the poorest people in the UK with high levels of unemployment and large families.

It should be noted that Indians and Chinese have earnings on par with whites. Thus the under-achievement of Muslims in the UK cannot be due to racial discrimination. After all, the successful Indians (who are mostly Hindus) are racially very similar to Pakistanis and Bangla Deshis.

As I argued in my earlier articles, such as 'How Islam failed Muslims', Islam has impeded the progress of Muslims (8). I argued that Islam is a warrior's religion designed to facilitate Arab imperialism. While it can still produce brave warriors, it cannot produce the sort of people needed for a modern society.

Thus, the culture that Islam produces not only makes it difficult for democracy to work but also impedes economic development. As Muslim leaders like Dr Mahathir Mohammed and Pervez Musharaff have acknowledged, Muslims are amongst the most backwards people in the world (6). This would not be so bad if Muslims are prepared to assimilate and adopt new values. But from the surveys I cited, it appears that so far they are not willing to do that.

The problem is that Islam claims the Muslim Ummah to be the best nation. You can see this arrogant attitude in the Cairo Declaration of Islamic Human Rights. (7) If you see the preamble, you will see their self-image of themselves as 'the best nation':

"Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation that has given mankind a universal and well-balanced civilization in which harmony is established between this life and the hereafter and knowledge is combined with faith; and the role that this Ummah should play to guide a humanity confused by competing trends and ideologies and to provide solutions to the chronic problems of this materialistic civilization."

If Muslims form the best nation, then it follows that the rest of us are inferior to them. This is what Islam has taught them. That is why Muslims are unwilling to acquire new values or to assimilate when they move to the west. Thus we have a tragi-comic situation. Muslims migrate to the west to escape the dysfunctional societies that their Islamic culture created and still wish to replicate in the west the kind of societies they fled from. Yet the so-called best nation is amongst the most backwards on earth, as what Pervez Musharaff admitted.

In conclusion, let me say that I have written this essay not because I want to insult Muslims or make them angry but to make everybody think about the consequences of Muslim immigration to the west. Muslim immigration has created a serious long term problem and the west will have to face it. You can admit Hindus, Buddhists, Confuscianists and Christians without endangering western democracy and prosperity. But you face a serious risk with Muslims. The greater the percentage of Muslims in a country, the more that country will resemble Pakistan or the Middle East since they refuse to assimilate or acquire new values.

The politicians cannot be relied on to articulate much less solve this problem. This is the flaw in democracy. Since you have elections every four or five years, politicians do not have the luxury of thinking twenty to thirty years ahead. Yet some problems are of a long term nature and we have to think about them. Though my essay drew almost exclusively from the British experience, I believe that the experience is the same for most western countries.

Since I drew from the British experience, it is fitting that I end my essay with a quote from Sir Winston Churchill, a giant compared to the lilliputian politicians of today:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.



Politically incorrect Churchill:
Would he today be in trouble with the
Religious Hatred Law?



The fact that in Mohammedan law, every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome." - The River War.

The great man was and is still right about Islam – unfortunately. What even he did not foresee is that the civilization of Europe might yet fall.

(1)http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/assassinations.htm

(2)http:///www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=278

(3)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/19/nsharia19.xml

(4)Many British Muslims put Islam first

(5)http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/sprN48.asp

(6)Musharaf: Muslims are backwards

(7)http://www.religlaw.org/interdocs/docs/cairohrislam1990.htm

(8)http://www.faithfreedom.org/Author/Ohmyrus.htm

Here is an interesting article by Fjordman. What I found striking and of relevence to this blog was his comment on European votrepreneurers importing immigrants to help them win elections.

Electing a New People: The Leftist - Islamic Alliance - by Fjordman

Bertolt Brecht wrote a satirical poem after the 1953 East German risings:
"The solution
After the uprising of 17 June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the People
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

At the beginning of the 21st century, electing a new people seems to be exactly what Socialist parties in Europe are doing. Perhaps the greatest idea of the Leftist parties after the Cold War was to re-invent themselves as Multicultural immigration parties and start importing voters from abroad. In addition to this, they have managed to denounce the opposition as racists, bigots and extremists. A new alliance of convenience between Leftists and Muslim immigrants is taking shape in Europe. I think the deal is that the Leftist parties get a number of new clients, I mean voters, in return for giving Muslims privileges and subsidies, as well as keeping the borders more or less open for new Muslims to enter. As one Muslim put it: "I vote for the Socialists because they give me more money." The Leftists are, in essence, electing a new people, replacing the one already there with one more supportive of their agenda.

There is, of course, nothing new in buying votes and "clients" by promising them access to other people's money. This was the essence of Leftism in the first place. However, although this is probably a flaw in the democratic system, democracy has still functioned within the borders of stable nation states. This flaw gets a lot more dangerous when combined with massive immigration, where certain political parties simply import people from other nations, even vocal enemies of their country, to shore up their own short-term support in elections. This will in the longer term breed resentment among the native population, who will in this way be forced to fund their own colonization. In the context of Europe, Muslim immigration could turn democracy into a self-defeating system that will eventually break down because native Europeans no longer feel that it serves their interests.

Read the rest of it here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/011610.php

Too Much Democracy (and too little) is Bad for you - by Ohmyrus

The most democratic form of government is when every decision is decided by a vote. This is known as direct or pure democracy. A pure democracy is of course impractical as the average citizen neither has the time nor the ability to understand the complex issues that affect a modern nation. There will be great contention and frequent changes in policy as public opinion like fashions frequently changes. It would lead to bad government and anarchy. This is so obvious that no modern country has attempted a direct democracy. All modern democracies are representative democracies where votrepreneurers are elected for fixed terms.

This is what America's Founders thought of pure democracy:

A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils.
- Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.
- John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration

The other extreme would be a dictatorship where the government is in the hands of one man ruling for life. He decides what is best for everybody. While there is likely to be more discipline, it also invites abuse of power. Power will be used for his own benefit and not that of the general public. Saddam Hussein is a good modern example of this. He could build palaces for himself while his people starved.

In the former, the government is totally responsive to the needs of the people but unable to impose sufficient discipline to prevent anarchy. The latter form of government can impose discipline but is totally unresponsive to the needs of the people.

Clearly, neither extremes of pure democracy and dictatorship are desirable. Therefore there must be a happy medium between them. An effective government must have a sufficient degree of Political Insulation from the heat and capricious passions of the mob. Too much insulation and you get a dictator who builds palaces for himself even though his people are starving. Too little and you get anarchy.

But how much Insulation is sufficient? Judging by the performance of democracies in the last half century, I would say the current levels of Insulation are not enough. Few of the world's existing democracies provide effective leadership. Even the people noticed and many people are not bothering to vote. Opinion polls often show that politicians are not respected. The problem lies not so much with the votrepreneurers (politicians) but with the system they labor in.

Problems of budget deficits, aging population, unemployment and growing ethnic tensions with immigrants etc are not being solved and I suspect cannot be solved by democracies as they are currently constituted. This is due to the inability for votrepreneurers to inflict short term pain for long term gain.

A simple way to thicken the Political Insulation to make governments more effective is to lengthen the time in office for elected officials and fixing it at one term for each politician. See my earlier article, 'Democracy needs a Reformation' for further elaboration on the problems and possible solutions.

If these problems are not solved and worsens in time, the collapse of even mature democracies will one day happen and we end up with dictatorships. History has examples of democracies failing resulting in anarchy in which tired people turned to strong men to restore order. I would like to highlight this quote from one of America's Founders:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
- John Adams

What I see now is many democracies committing slow motion suicide with long term problems which they are not solving.

Democracy and the Welfare state by Ohmyrus

If seventy people rob thirty richer people (in a country of 100 people) of their hard earned money that is criminal. But if these seventy people elect a government to tax the thirty richer people and give the money to them, then that is democracy. Does that make sense?

Essentially there is no difference between a welfare state and robbery. A robber uses a gun to deprive someone of his property. In a democracy, the gun has been replaced with the ballot box. That's the only difference. Violence is still needed. If you don't pay your taxes, the police (who has guns) will send you to jail. The result is the same.

It was reported in 1988 in the Economist that less than 1% of poor people are those who have high school education and stable marriages. Therefore, it is the more virtuous, diligent, smarter people who must subsidize the lifestyle of the less virtuous, diligent and smart people. This is a flaw in democracy. (Inspite of this and other flaws, democracy is still the best form of government devised by man which is a reflection of the sad state of human affairs. )

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a somewhat secluded island with about 500 people who were mostly farmers and fishermen. Disputes were few and were informally settled by 'elders'. So there was no need for a formal government.

As time went by, some of the islanders grew more prosperous than the majority of the people. Some of them got rich out of luck. But most did it out of hard work, skill and discipline.

But the majority did not do as well. A few of these even did abysmally. Some of them suffered from bad luck but it was mostly because they were not as diligent or skilful as those that prospered. Some even neglected their jobs and wasted their time seducing their neighbors' wives or getting drunk on rum. They noticed that some of them were much more prosperous than they were and could even afford to buy luxuries that came with passing trade ships.

Years went by, the population grew and the system of elders was under strain. Robberies, initially unheard of, were becoming common. A group of the poorer islanders who spent their time drunk or chasing women decided to try to rob the fewer rich farmers and fishermen. After all, there were more poor than rich islanders and they would be outnumbered.

But they were dissuaded from doing so because a clever islander came up with a better idea to get their property. Why not set up a government based on one-man-one vote? The elected President would of course need a police force to keep law and order.

Initially, the richer islanders liked the idea because they thought a police force would protect their property from robbers. Of course, they would have to pay taxes to support the police force but that is the price you pay for secure property rights. Or is it?

Soon, to get elected to the Presidency, the votrepreneurers were promising to tax the fewer rich and redistribute their wealth to the poorer islanders. Any votrepreneurer who runs on the promise to protect property rights could not get elected. The few voices who denounced welfare as legalized robbery were denounced as greedy or selfish people who do not want to share their wealth. But to this day, I cannot understand why those people who want others to give them their hard earned money are not considered greedy when those who want to keep their hard earned money are greedy.

This story, though fictitious, has happened in nearly every democracy and America is no exception. The Reagan and Newt Gingrich revolution to cut the size of the government has failed. In reality, it had no chance of succeeding given the income distribution and the one man one vote system. Since the New Deal, transfer payments (welfare and entitlements) by the Federal Government has increased.

In the 1960s, transfer payments comprised less than one third of the Federal Budget. Today it accounts for 60%. (1) What makes this trend even more painful is the surrender of the Republicans to the welfare state. C. Bradley Thompson wrote about this in an insightful essay, 'The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism.' (2)

According to Thompson, Irvin Kristol, who is the Father of Neo Conservatism advised Republicans to surrender to the reality of the welfare state. To win elections, you must persuade voters to switch sides. The traditional conservative stance of cutting entitlement programs has cost them votes. But the welfare state is to be given a conservative spin. The money should be used to nourish the Republicans' conservative base - the Christian right. Votrepreneurers like George Bush listened to his advice and he won a narrow victory against Al Gore in 2000.

Thus was born the concept of compassionate conservatism. While the traditional conservatives like Reagan and Gingrich wanted a smaller government and hence less transfer payments, Bush wants a conservative welfare state. His signature idea is the faith based welfare programs administered by churches.

His idea is that they can do a better job than government managed welfare programs which resulted in welfare dependency, breakdowns in families and drug abuse. It remains to be seen if his idea can work. But one thing is for sure, Government spending has shot up.

During Bush's first term, total spending rose from $1.86 trillion to $2.48 trillion. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP rose from 18.5% to 20.3%. Even without the effects of September 11, government spending still rose. The Republicans are no longer the party of small government. Say bye bye to the Reagan revolution.(3)

To end this article, let me quote a very wise man, Ben Franklin.

'Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting to decide what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!'


(1)Patrick Chisolm, 'Triumph of the Redistributionist Left,' Christian Science Monitor, January 23, 2006.

(2)The Objective Standard, Fall 2006 Volume 1, No. 3 http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-fall/decline-fall-american-conservatism.asp

(3)Stephen Slivinsky, 'The Grand Ole Spending Party: How Republicans became Big Spenders,' Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 543.
Brian Riedl, 'Federal Spending - by the Numbers,' The Heritage Foundation, October 7, 2005.

Article by Lonestranger:

While I admire your fervor for prolonging a dying country, I think you have to accept the ultimate truth that it is a dying country. Like all things living, countries have a finite life span, and they too must cease to exist. In the case of America, the argument could easily be made that it ceased to exist in its intended form a long time ago. What we have now is an America that resembles its former self in appearance only, and even that is stretching it.

The sad truth is that the people who today proudly call themselves Americans would run and hide from the level of freedom enjoyed by the earliest inhabitants of the states. We are so conditioned to accept what the founders would have abhorred that, much like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption, we would rather kill ourselves than taste freedom.

Democracy, Republic, democracy, republic. It doesn’t matter what name you give it or whether you capitalize the word. That is merely semantics. What matters is when the ball got rolling because the lives of nations are etched on a wheel. There is a point where they begin and a point where they end. Granted, those points are not always easily defined, particularly when it comes to the end. After all, no one enjoys celebrating the end of something loved. But the freedom enjoyed at the beginnings of this country will never be enjoyed again by its citizens. The wheel has started turning. The end will most likely be beyond any of our lifetimes, but it is coming.

Man enjoys all manner of rights. Governments are instituted to protect those rights. Unfortunately, all governments operate under the greedy guise of helpers when the wolves in sheeps’ clothing (votreprenuers) are really about solidifying their own power. This is done through the usurpation of the peoples’ rights.

All rights exist in the ether, and all belong to the people. When the people enter into a government, they voluntarily set aside a portion of those rights for the good of society. The trouble is not that the balance never stays the same. The trouble is that the flow of rights only happens from one side to the other. (I’ll let you guess which direction that is and where they are being stockpiled right now.)

Ever read The Firm? In that story, the shady law firm throws money at new associates and gets them accustomed to the good life for a few years before they tell them the truth about the dishonest business dealings. That’s how we’ve gotten hooked as well. We’re comfortable with the way things are regardless of how much we kick and scream about the guv’mint, and the votreprenuers know this. They know they can continue to slowly chip away at our freedoms with our permission and in front of our very eyes as long as they allow us the comfort of the illusion of freedom.

It will continue this way because there cannot be a net gain in rights for us. We started with all of them. The best we can hope for, and the position you seem to take, is that we can reach a happy medium whereby we reach a steady state of no net loss. But governments are tricky by their very nature. As you point out, democracy thrives on short-term thinking. I’d refine that statement further to say that government thrives on short-term thinking. Government rewards the connivers and cheats, making it far unlikely that we can ever beat them at the game of who gets to keep the rights.

Therefore, we’re faced with a dilemma. The government is a politically capitalist entity. And despite our best efforts, we cannot match its efficiency because we designed it to be ruthless in order to stave off all manner of external and internal attacks. Unfortunately, in our haste to craft an unbeatable system, we placed ourselves outside the wall. The citizens of America have reached the point where we no longer can control the behemoth.

That’s why I believe you’re off base with attempting to salvage the current system. It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube. What we’re faced with, and what most people will probably never acknowledge because it threatens their illusion of America, is the realization that we cannot turn back the rolling wheel. It will continue to roll, and the best we can hope for is to slow its acceleration toward death.

Did America's Founders want Democracy? By Ohmyrus

We have come to believe in democracy almost like a religion. But I think it is time to rethink it because it is not working well. Therefore it is useful to start from first principles by looking at what America's Founders were thinking when it crafted the Constitution of the United States.

'Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.'
- James Madison 1



Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
- John Adams 2







[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.
- John Quincy Adams 3

[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.
-John Adams 4

From this we can see that America's Founding Fathers did not intend for the US to be a democracy but a Republic with elected leaders. They were concerned more with liberty than with democracy.
You can see this with the way the Constitution was drafted. It has an electoral vote system which is still in use today. The people vote for these electors who then choose the President. If they had absolute confidence with democracy, they would have a direct vote system to choose the President.
Then there is the Supreme Court who can strike out any law that they regard as 'Unconstitutional'. That is also why the US has a Bill of Rights which they forsaw will protect the individual against the tyranny of the majority. This has worked well in some cases but not in others in ways that the Founding Fathers did not forsee. For example, unjust laws discriminating against blacks were ruled unconstitutional. But on the other hand, abortion was legalised angainst the wishes of the majority. So was pornography.
America's Founders understood, more than today's politicians, that liberty is the foundation for prosperity and the pursuit of happiness. They wanted secure property rights which they know that a true democracy will endanger.
You can see this from James Madison's comment about democracy being incompatible with the rights of property and time is proving him right. Private property rights have been eroded by the tyranny of the majority. In France for example, you cannot fire or hire at will. You have to keep sluggards in your work force. This of course will affect your rights as a property or business owner. In some modern democracies, you cannot easily kick out a tennant that you no longer want again affecting your property rights. Thus you cannot hire who you want and you cannot accept whatever tennants you want.
Like John Adams, I am worried that democracy will soon degenerate into anarchy and anarchy will in turn begat a dictatorship. I see this as a distinct possibility and even probability in the next few decades. I see the irrational decisions made by western democracies and wonder how long they can get away with it. How long before the cumulative effects of bad decisions cause system failure?
For example, governments are overspending all over the western world and Japan. As can be seen in my first article, 'Democracy needs a Reformation', the budget deficits in the OECD averages about 4% of GDP. The shortfall is made up for typically by borrowing money. Thus democracies are spending money to benefit this generation at the expense of future generations who must pay the bill eventually. Of course they can't vote and the current crop of politicians won't be in power by that time. This is a result of the problem I highlighted in my first article.
For a politician to win power, all he needs to do is to promise to redistribute income from the haves to the have-nots. This is also what James Madison feared. In 1792, he wrote, 'Government is instituted to protect property of every sort....This being the end of government....That is NOT a just government...nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has...is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.'
In other words, the Founding Fathers of America clearly saw the danger that one man one vote will bring about a redistribution of wealth from the able, diligent, disciplined and daring to those less able, diligent, disciplined and daring. The Socialist welfare state that we see today in most western democracies would, I am sure, appall America's Founders. Under democractic government, your property risks being taxed away by votrepreneurers so that they can win elections.
Secondly, there is the immigration time bomb. America has lost control of its borders as millions of illegal immigrants have found their way into the country and it looks like most will be allowed to stay legally. Now, both major parties panders to them because they both want to court the Hispanic vote even though they are a minority. It should be remembered that in a close election, even a few percentage of votes can make a difference.
In Europe, the immigration problem is even worse as the immigrants are usually Muslims who have an even more different culture than the Mexicans that go to America. The difficulty of assimilating them is compounded by the religious differences on top of linguistic and racial differences.
A sensible immigration policy should admit those with valuable skills and come from cultures that readily assimilates with the host. But if they stick with their own language and refuse to assimilate, you run the high risk of dividing the nation. A civil war is not unimaginable. The track record of people of different cultures living peacefully together is not good.
Of course the present day politicians won't be around when or if the problem becomes serious and so they don't care. In addition, instead of screening them so as to accept the best and brightest, it seems to me that most of the illegals lack education and skills. This does not make sense.
How long can this last? I see democracies unable to solve serious problems. The solution of these problems require short term pain in order to achieve long term gain. But the voters won't accept this and politicans cannot deliver the bitter medicine. This is the Achilles Heel of any democracy.

1. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, The Federalist on the New Constitution (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), p. 53, #10, James Madison.
2. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850), Vol. VI, p. 484, to John Taylor on April 15, 1814.
3. John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution. A Discourse Delivered at the Request of the New York Historical Society, in the City of New York on Tuesday, the 30th of April 1839; Being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States, on Thursday, the 30th of April, 1789 (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), p. 53.
4. John Adams, The Papers of John Adams, Robert J. Taylor, editor (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1977), Vol. I, p. 83, from "An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, with the Author's Comment in 1807," written on August 29, 1763, but first published by John Adams in 1807.

Democracy needs a Reformation By Ohmyrus

Why should a welfare bum have the same one vote that a taxpayer has? Why should a drug pusher have the same one vote as a Mother Theresa? Why should a school dropout have the same one vote as a college professor?



In a democracy, Mother Theresa
gets one vote, the same as
any gangster like say the
Sopranos. Oops, those guys
are only TV characters.




The one man, one vote system gives everybody an equal say in how a country is to be run. But obviously, each citizen contributes unequally to the society. Some, like drug pushers, damage society. Others, like welfare bums, take resources from society paid for by more diligent members. Given the unequal contributions, why should everyone be given an equal right (one vote) to choose its leaders?
That is the question that I have always asked myself.

Don't get me wrong, I do not want to destroy democracy. I think that despite all its faults, it is still the best form of government yet devised by man.
As Churchill once said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. Yet, there are problems with it which if not addressed may result in the collapse of democracy. I wish to prolong its life by identifying its problems and proposing possible solutions before the problems cause a system failure.
This attitude may seem strange for, after the collapse of Communism, it appears that democracy has finally triumphed. (3) It appeared to many including writers like Francis Fukuyama that we have reached the end of History, meaning that we have reached the final stage in the evolution of human society with democracy as the best way to organize society.

In 1900, only a handful of countries were democracies, compared to 119 or 62 per cent of the world today. US President George Bush wants to promote democracy in the remaining places, confident of its appeal and justness. I am alone in the wilderness trying to sound a warning that we should not be complacent.
We have been brought up to believe that each person has the right to one vote. Thus the thought that some citizens should receive more votes than others is repugnant to most of us.

Leaving aside the moral issue, let us instead analyze the economic and social consequences that flow from this.

Before we begin, let me point out that politicians act like entrepreneurs or businessmen. The only difference is that instead of earning money, they earn votes.
The businessman sells a product or service in exchange for dollars. The politician sells himself for votes instead of money. Both will do a market survey of the population and craft strategies designed to appeal to the buyers or voters. To emphasize the similarity of businessmen and politicians, I will from now on refer to politicians as "votreprenuers" or use the two words interchangeably. As a result of the behavior of votreprenuers, democracy has the following flaws:

1)Democracy produces welfare states
The first thing a votreprenuer will notice in his market survey is that income distribution does not follow a normal distribution. It is skewed to one side. There are, simply put, more poor people than rich people. What this means is that politicians can prosper at the ballot box by proposing redistributive policies. The result is the welfare state and high taxes.

Benjamin Franklin puts it very beautifully and succintly. He said: 'Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.' (5)



Had the wolves eaten Ben's
lunch, would he still have
the time to fly kites?
Maybe we would still be
using candles.



The welfare state reduces the incentive to work and inhibits entrepreneurial risk-taking. On top of that, labor friendly laws in Europe make it difficult to fire workers, who already have very short working hours compared to Americans and Asians.
In some parts of Europe, the debilitating results can be clearly seen. Unemployment in France and Germany is around 10 per cent. Of course, a votreprenuer would not tell the truth to his voters by saying, "Vote for me and you can be lazy because we will get the hardworking taxpayers to support you."

Instead, he would couch his sales speech in a manner that dulls their conscience and makes them feel entitled to use their vote to transfer money from somebody's wallet to their own. This creates a climate of entitlement and dependency which is debilitating. These entitlements help the middle class more than the poor because that is where most of the votes are. In the present system, the centre of gravity of the electorate is Mr Average and this produces mediocre government.

On top of this, dependency on a faceless government has social consequences. It has eroded the ancient relationship between parents and children. For countless generations, parents have depended on their children to provide for them in their old age.

Now they depend on the government. Since children are no longer pension funds as in the past and taxes being so high, people decide to have fewer of them. If you look at the birth rates of Europe and Japan, you will find that they are below replacement levels. Yet the young are still expected to provide for the old! This time the provision is indirect - through the government in the form of higher taxes and welfare payments to the old. As the population in modern democracies ages, and with lower birth rates, it means that a shrinking working population has to support the old.

Would it not be better to cut out the middleman? It would certainly shrink the government bureaucracy if each retired person depended on his children in his old age as in the past. It would give them greater incentive to have more children and to raise them well which would also be beneficial to marriages. It was reported in the Economist in 1988 that less than 1% of American poor consist of people who are married, finished high school and held a job for at least a year. (6) All it takes to stay above the poverty line a a little bit of effort to get an education, be faithful to your spouse and keep a job. In other words, all you need are the old fashioned virtues of diligence, discipline and fidelity to one's spouse.

Nowadays, men find it easy to abandon their wives and children because they know they won't starve. The state will take care of them. This could have contributed to unstable marriages.

At the same time, the votreprenuers also notice that people hate paying taxes. They want benefits from government but don't like contributing money. So to cater for this market, they will promise tax cuts. The results are budget deficits and soaring public debt.

If you look at the statistics, most of the OECD governments have huge budget deficits. (1) As a whole, the OECD is running a combined budget deficit amounting to a tad shy of 4 per cent of GDP. Much of it comes from the US which has a budget deficit of about 5 per cent of GDP.

Japan is even worse at more than 6 per cent of GDP. Some economists have been warning of economic collapse if something is not done. Sometimes, politicians would inflate the money supply to pay for their deficit spending, resulting in inflation. Other times, they would resort to government borrowing which results in higher interest rates. Should there be an economic crash resulting in massive unemployment or high inflation, confidence in democracy will plummet. Then people will be ready to put power in the hands of a dictator. That was one reason why Hitler got into power.

2)Democracy produces short-term thinking
The second thing votreprenuers notice is that they face elections once every four or five years. This means that they cannot afford to take a long term view of things. Politicians know that their time in office is limited. To stay in office, they come up with policies that are popular in the short run even though they know are disastrous in the long run. I am sure you have heard of the saying, "No pain, no gain."

Democracies are incapable of delivering short term pain for long term gain. They tend to do the opposite, ie,deliver short term gain at the expense of long term pain.
The growing government debt in the US and other democracies is a good example of this. To satisfy this present generation of voters, politicians are making future generations pay the bill. The unborn of course cannot vote.The result of one man one vote is higher taxes, interest rates, inflation rates and government spending.

Part of the problem is that there is a misallignment between the personal interests of the politicians with that of the country as a whole. The votrepreneurers want to get elected by hook or by crook. Sometimes, the policies he promotes are damaging in the long term even though popular in the short term. Of course, eventually, the chickens will come home to roost some day, but he wont be in office by then!

If you ask me, I think the monarchies of the 19th century Europe were better macroeconomic managers than the democratically elected politicians of the 20th century. Statistics show that interest rates, taxes and inflation were on the whole lower. So was government debt as a share of the GDP. (2)

The reason is simple. The monarchs and nobles were confident of being in power for the rest of their lives and they wanted their sons to inherit the thrones of prosperous countries. So they tended to think more for the long term. It should also be added that most of the European monarchs of that era did not have absolute power and had to cater to popular opinion. If they provoke them too much, they
will lose their heads - literally like Louis XVI.

This balance between royal prerogatives and popular pressure gave rise on the whole to better macroeconomic management. The former gave a long term perspective to decision making and the latter checked the power of the monarchs, preventing Saddam Hussein type leaders from emerging.

3)Democracy has a tendency to divide people
For votreprenuers to win power, they must at least pretend to fight for
the market segments of voters that they deem are sufficient to secure
victory on election day. Some will fight for one ethnic group or the other. Others fight for different income groups. Some try to court the lower income vote by promising unemployment benefits while others fight for the higher income groups by promising tax cuts.

Still others court the elderly voters. Then there are the social issues. Some are conservative and religious while others are secular and liberal. Thus we see rich pitted against the poor, liberals against the conservatives and racial groups against each other. There is no incentive for a votrepreneurs to take an overall view for the good of the country as a whole. He is constrained by his need for re-election to satisfy his voting base that sent him to office. The people will develop a 'me first' mentality without thinking about the good of the country as a whole.

Antagonism between economic classes and different ethnic groups can be exploited and turned into votes for the votrepreneurs. Instead of cooling the passions of the people, they are more likely to fan them so as to pose as their champions.

Often these lead to riots. In France this year, there were two riots - one economic in nature and the other racial though there was some overlap. In the first riot, people were protesting a new French law making it easier for employers to fire young workers on probation.

The second riot was racial and religious in nature. Ethnic
North Africa minorities who are Muslim rioted for many days.
Race, language and religion divide people into groups. The presence of each element increases tension. Tensions are at their greatest if all three elements are different between two groups and lowest if only one is present between two different groups.

But whether the tension level is high or low, it needs to be managed.
But instead of managing tensions, votreprenuers heighten them to win votes. Hitler won votes and power by unfairly blaming the Jews for Germany's problems. When dictator Tito was in power, Yugoslavia was in one piece with ethnic tensions well managed. But when democracy came to Yugoslavia, politicians posed as champions for their own ethnic groups by fanning grievances and demonising others. The result was a civil war.

Summing up, democracy suffers from three weaknesses - its penchant for redistributive policies, short-term thinking and ethnic discord. These weaknesses are already present in varying degrees in most mature democracies of the western world. At present, none are in danger of collapse. But as time goes by, the danger will grow.

In the case of America, there is a huge budget deficit that threatens to destabilize not only its economy but also the world economy, given America's share of the world GDP. Its growing minorities, both legal and illegal, have the potential to create discord if ethnic tensions are not properly managed.

But it is the Socialist countries like France -- with their combination of redistributive policies and ethnic tensions created by short-term thinking politicians -- that are in greatest danger of a collapse of democracy. France has a Muslim population amounting to 10 per cent of its total population. The Muslims are of a different race, speak a different language and have a different religion than the other Frenchmen.

This makes the problem more serious than, say, the ethnic tensions between blacks and white in America where the only difference is one of race. Also, France has an unemployment rate of 10 per cent, with many of the unemployed being Muslims. The recent riots may be the first shots of a civil war. The day may not be far off for a French version of Adolf Hitler or Slobodan Milosovich to emerge as ethnic tensions increase.

I foresee that European Muslims will within in the next 20 years demand autonomous regions in cities where sharia law rules. This will provoke the "classical" Europeans who feel their way of life being threatened and there will be a backlash. The people will fall prey to racists groups who of course will promise to defend their way of life. While it took a long time for Europeans to learn to settle their differences peacefully through the ballot box, this important lesson is slowly being unlearned. The lesson learned from the Danish cartoon affair is that violence pays.
Most western governments caved in by issuing apologies or condemning the cartoons instead of defending free speech. Soon groups that oppose immigration will turn to violence too. If European democracies cannot manage their ethnic tensions, democracy will break down, ushering in dictatorial rule.

How then should democracy be reformed? We must build a system that balances popular demands with long term thinking. There must also be a system that matches the right to vote with the amount of contribution the voter makes to society. If this sounds elitist, then I am in good company.

The early founding fathers of America were elitist too, especially men like Alexander Hamilton. They restricted voting to those with property, who were then the educated part of the population and who probably paid most of the taxes. Being men of property, they had a stake in the country's long term future and could be relied on to take a longer term view. Even as late as 1824, only 5 per cent of adult Americans could vote in the Presidential elections. (4)

Don't get me wrong. I am not advocating restricting voting to rich people. But I do advocate striking a proper balance between competing needs. I have thought out
some reforms which I believe will improve the situation.

Firstly, I propose that the Senate or Upper House be comprised of people that are
elected for life and their personal interests be more closely aligned with that of the nation. Once made a Senator, he is no longer subjected to
popular pressures that produces short term thinking. The Senator can only be removed if he commits a crime or is incapacitated. The House of Representatives will continue as before and its members be subjected to periodic elections.

The elected Senators should be paid in accordance to his 'market rate'.
This effectively means he should be paid the income he has to forgo as a result of going into politics. Salaries will be adjusted for economic growth. Bonuses will be given if certain economic benchmarks (eg unemployment, inflation, GDP growth) are attained. These benchmarks can be reviewed once every 10 years, say.
To further ensure long term thinking, his salary will continued to be paid into his estate for 10 years after his demise.

By making the Senate a life-time job, we ensure a balance between short term demands of the electorate and long term needs. We ensure a balance between the voters of today with the voters yet to be born. Our huge budget deficits and government debt is putting a burden on future generations who have no vote at present. It is unfair to saddle them with so much debt. Present voters are effectively taxing their children and grandchildren so that they can enjoy a profligate lifestyle.

The second proposal I have is that we make the vote transferable to other citizens. Each voter can buy or sell votes through an electronic marketplace for votes. The logic is like this. Votreprenuers are already buying votes with taxpayers' money by promising all sorts of government programs that will benefit this or that constituency. Why not allow the voters to do it directly without going through the middleman? Why can't voters buy votes when politicians are already doing that, in effect?

There will still be redistribution of income from the haves to the have-nots but without going through an often inefficient government bureaucracy. There will be tax savings from cutting out the middleman. This is what I think will happen in practice:
The higher-income groups will end up with more votes since they have money to spend. But so will groups passionate about certain causes.

They will use the votes to curb government spending and lower taxes to benefit themselves. They will also balance the budget because they know it is unsustainable and eventually ruinous to their stock and bond portfolios.

But the have-nots will be compensated with cash. After some trial and error, a balance will be reached in which the losses from government entitlement programs will be approximately equal to the sales proceeds of their votes. Without welfare spending, welfare bums will have more incentive to look for jobs and improve their skills - even after selling their votes.

It is time to subject the electoral process to some sort of market discipline which my proposal will allow. The end result is that the balance of power tilts more towards the above average. These members of society who for usually good reasons are better educated, more successful and generate more GDP per head.

They also are people who are more talented, more diligent, more focused on the long term. Successful people also tend to have more stable marriages. Under the present system, people who are more disciplined, contribute more to the country and work harder are taxed more to help those more indolent, more irresponsbile and contribute less.

Under the present system, votreprenuers have electoral incentives to market their services to another group of people - the old. Under the present system, retirees are supported by the state. In the US you have Social Security. This means that you no longer need your children to support you in your old age. The state will
support you. In other words,you are relying on other people's children to support you.

But everybody has the same idea of relying on other people's children. Those who take the effort and money to raise good productive citizens are doing it for the benefit of others. They will be paying into Social Security and supporting some faceless strangers. The end result is that couples have fewer children and you end up with fewer working people to support retirees. This is happening not just in the US but also in other democracies.

It violates the millennium old practice of relying on our own offspring for our old age. It also violates a very good principle - you should be rewarded based on your own efforts. Relying on your own children for your old age may also have a beneficial effect on marriages as people have a financial incentive to maintain a harmonious household to raise their kids - since their own kids are their Social Security. People will think three times before they cheat on their spouses as this will endanger their marriages.

Under the present system, people who are very passionate with their issues and people who are apathetic on the issues have one vote each. Under my proposed changes, those who believe passionately in their issues be it the environment or abortion can pay for more votes.

People who are passionate on the issues tend to be better informed since they have done sufficient research and would vote more wisely than those who are apathetic on the whole electoral process. Even in an US Presidential election, usually less than 70% of eligible voters bother to vote. Those not interested might as well sell their vote to those who are interested. This proposal, I believe will shift the centre of gravity of the electorate to Mr Above Average, which should produce more intelligent government.

The third proposal is that the President's term of office be increased to a single term of eight years. This would free him from the need to seek re-election and permits him to think long term. Without worrying about re-election, it is in his self interest to ponder what history will say of him and this will result in better decision making.

To sum up, we should not become complacent about democracy's future. There are long festering and growing economic and ethnic problems which short term thinking votreprenuers cannot solve. With the rise of India and China (with their hardworking cheap labor), it is quite clear that the welfare state in Europe and to a lesser extent in America cannot be sustained.

The rising tide of Muslim immigrants in Europe who refuse to assimilate and adopt the culture of the host countries adds to the problems. A combination of economic hardships and ethnic tensions set the stage for the collapse of democracy and the emergence of another Strong Man, another Hitler perhaps. I am sure nobody wants to see that happen. We should fix the problems while there is still time. But I am not optimistic. To solve these problems requires long term solutions and invariably short term pain which democracies cannot deliver.

(1)http://www.budget.gov.au/2004-05/overview/html/overview_main-03.htm
(2)See the book, "Democracy: The God that failed."
(3)There is currently a challenge from radical Islamism, whose proponents want to organize human society based on Islam. This can cause horrendous bloodshed and must be taken seriously, but at the moment its supporters are confined to a minority of the Muslim population, albeit a large minority.
(4)See the book, "The Future of Freedom".
(5)http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1900
(6)See page 221 of the book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History".