This image pretty well stands on its own…
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Category Archives: Short Notes
A Note To Brits
Dear British People (Left, Right, Centre, or whatever your political persuasion may be)
Please refrain from referring to your ruling party as ‘the Tories’. The ‘Conservative Party’, so-called, is at this point in your nation’s history approximately as Tory as George Washington. No, scratch that. George Washington was a significantly better Tory than your ‘Tories’. And he was a Patriot (i.e. a Whig).
What brings on this tirade, you ask? A quote from Her Majesty’s Prime Minister, The Hon. David Cameron:
Many Muslims I’ve talked to about these issues are deeply offended by the use of the word ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’ to describe the terrorist threat we face today… it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around.
‘British Asian’.
I expect this kind of nonsense from leftists, Marxists, and Jacobins. Which is to say I expect it from ‘conservatives’.
Conservatism is dead. Long live the Reaction.
H/T: Mangan
A Necessary Reactionary Hangout
When the established Church (i.e. the Cathedral) is built on lies, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum is a pretty good place to start looking for truth. Hang out in here:
Google Books and the Dabney Archive are your friends.
In Memoriam: Lawrence Auster
I was saddened to learn today that Lawrence Auster, one of the giants of our movement, passed away early this morning. He had been an Anglican, but was received into the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday (Palm Sunday in the Western calendar) of this year. I wont eulogise him, as others have done that better. I’d encourage you to read Laura Wood’s entry on his blog, View From the Right, doing just that.
Instead, I will simply say ‘Memory Eternal!’
Say a prayer for the soul of Lawrence Auster. Never forget him. People like us, however unworthy, must take up his work all the more fervently now he is gone.
–Avenging Red Hand
Why Issues Voting Is Stupid
In American elections, we hear a lot of talk about ‘the issues’. As near as I can tell, ‘issues’ are specific, concrete problems facing the politicians in power. Politicians who would like to gain (or retain) power attempt to explain to ‘the people’ how they would deal with these issues. ‘The people’, in their infinite wisdom, evaluate each of these solutions and choose the best ones. They then pick the candidate who they believe offers the best solution on the most issues.
At least, that’s the theory. But it’s stupid.
Why is it stupid? Well, first, we need to back up. What are we doing (again, in theory) when we elect a Representative to Congress, or a President? Essentially, we are hiring someone to govern.
The American theory is that the power of government, in some metaphysical sense, rests with the people, but that in practice, they cannot exercise it well themselves, and therefore it behooves them theoretically to delegate it to ‘representatives’ who will make, enforce, and interpret the laws on their behalf.
Now, there are two basic models of hiring. I will label them sub-skill and super-skill.
In the sub-skill model of hiring, you hire a person to do something that you could do, or at least that you know how to do. The reason you hire him is probably because you have more money than time. This is the model you use with the guy who mows your lawn. It’s not that you dont know how to mow your lawn, but you prefer to pay the money rather than do it yourself. In this model of hiring, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to examine the methods used by the people who would like the job and pick the one you think best.
In the super-skill model of hiring, you hire a person to do something you dont know how to do; this person is normally known as an ‘expert’ or ‘consultant’. For example, if you dont speak Italian but you need to communicate with someone who only speaks Italian, most likely you will hire a translator.
In the super-skill model, you cannot evaluate the person’s methods directly. If Giorgio and Giovanni both offer to translate to Italian for you, you cant ask them detailed questions about Italian grammar, evaluate their answers, and then determine who is the better translator on that basis. Why not? Because to understand the responses, you would need to speak Italian, and if you spoke Italian, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
When you’re hiring someone to deal with problems you dont understand, there are a number of strategies you can employ. You can look at his education, his experience, and his track record of results. You can ask people who’ve employed him in the past. The one thing you cant do is ask complex questions about topics you dont understand and then try to judge answers that you wont understand either.
And yet this is precisely what ‘issues voting’ amounts to. The vast majority of voters do not understand the issues. How could they, especially when it comes to complex topics like the budget or foreign policy? Therefore, they are incompetent to judge proposals on these issues. Instead they should be judging persons based on their credentials and track record (if they must be judging anything at all).
Judging candidates based on their issue positions defeats the whole point of representative democracy by putting the choice of issue positions back in the hands of the people. It treats politicians like sub-skill labour, as if the people as a whole could make all these decisions themselves, but we simply dont have the time.
If the model of reality in which ‘issues voting’ worked were true, then we should all be voting on policy questions themselves. Instead of picking a ‘close match’ candidate, we should all get to vote on, for instance, whether to go to war, or what programs to cut.
Obviously, the people are not capable of doing this competently. We’re insufficiently informed and insufficiently trained for such a task. That’s why we have representatives. Why, then, do we promote the idea that we should select candidates based on their ‘issue positions’?
