Monday, January 24, 2005

Instapundit and the Singularity Socialist

When worlds collide...

Via The Sideshow I find that Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit and feudal lord of Right-wing bloggers, is a fan of Charles Stross, the science fiction author.

I have known Charlie and his partner, Feorag at Pagan Prattle, for some years now and I am certain that Charlie is about as left as they come, although definitely a free thinker and nobody's fool.

"The leader and their coterie form a tightly-knit community, bound together by a shared ideological outlook and suspicion of outsiders. They don't trust fellow members of their own party who don't fully subscribe to the clique's world-view. They have a set of policies determined by their ideological outlook, and they appear to be pursuing these policies without any interest in the public response to them. They know they're right and they're not interested in protests: proceeding by consensus is seen as weak.
The in-group have strong links to key industrial sectors and their policies promote the well-being of those sectors at the expense of others.
(Charles Stross on neoconservatives)

In fact, those who are regular Newshog readers will recall that Charlie drew the comparison between Bush and Thatcher long ago, even before Rove admitted the inspiration.

Then again, Reynolds likes William Gibson too - another author not known for his love of corporate power and it's neoconservative political wing.

Maybe Reynolds is batting for the wrong team? Maybe deep in his heart he is a modern socialist and has been reading the Right's propaganda for so long he hasn't realised his true convictions. Perhaps he is yet to have his own Road to Damascus...

Or perhaps Charles Stross just is that good an author.

56 comments:

Glenn said...

Hmm. Well, I'm only a "conservative" in the sense that I support the war on fundamentalist islamist terror. One would think that a war on theocrats would be congenial to the Left, really.

I'm also a big fan of Ken MacLeod's fiction. But, yes, Charles Stross is that good an author.

Avedon said...

No one who opposes violent theofacism allies themselves with the American right-wing.

Cernig said...

Hi Glenn,

Maybe we can convert you to modern socialism yet then. Although a true leftie has no more reason to war on Islamic theocrats than on Christian Theocrats like the current President. We believe in dialogue and in progressive change where possible. "War is the last refuge of the incompetent" and all that.

For my own views on the war on terrorism, I refer you to my archives. If you HAVE to go to war, then maybe the Israeli paradigm of terror fighting is the most discredited of all and the least likely to provide any real solution. The UK paradigm, while sometimes flawed, at least has stopped the fighting in N.Ireland. I would advocate a sea-change in US policy in Iraq away from the Israeli paradigm, for instance.

I assume from your comments however that you were originally against the invasion of Iraq as it was not war against a theocracy. It only became so later after the US led coalition used the wrong tactics and alienated hearts and minds.

That said, thanks for actually visiting the site and commenting. You have gained my respect by doing so - certainly if I had posted an item about Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum or another of the major liberal blogger elite, it is unlikely they would even have noticed.

Regards, Cernig

Glenn said...

In defense of the elite leftie bloggers, there are a *lot* of blogs out there and it's hard to promote them all. I try myself, but I miss people and there are no doubt some angry that I'm "ignoring" them when the truth is that I'm just a busy guy trying to get my daughter to Karate class on time. I do try to encourage people, and I made an effort early on -- when the blogosphere was right-leaning -- to encourage lefty bloggers though some of those, like Oliver Willis, don't seem very appreciative.

Cernig said...

Hi Glenn,

Thanks again for the comment, which adds something to the "progressive pecking order" debate in that it at least seems to be a rebuttal of Atrios et al's claims that the right-leaning blogosphere is a carefully orchestrated top-down heirachy. As you say, you try but you miss some. They seem not to even want to notice. However, that debate has been covered elsewhere.

Secondly, though, whenever a professor of law ignores two thirds of a comment to answer the last third, then we can assume it wasn't by accident. Can I pose three direct questions?

1) Did you approve of the war in Iraq before it became a "war against fundementalists"? Iraq was a very secular state prior to the invasion and the argument could be made that the invasion became a self-fulfilling prophecy for extremists in the Christian right by creating a religiously based insurgency. (I leave aside whether or not ALL of the insurgency is composed of fundementalists, a moot point but not centrally relevant here.)

2)Do you subscribe to the "clash of civilisations" theory about the war on terror? If so, is it a clash between Western-style and Islamic civilisations or is it a war between Christian and Islamic fundementalists (as Bush seemed to suggest by the use of "crusade")that everyone else should be trying to stop from BOTH ends?

3) Given the christian religious right's attitude to science, in particular evolution, does it worry you that christian fundementalism is being courted by the Bush team as a source of election winning votes for the Right? In other words, is this a worrying trend?

If you drop by the site again I would love to hear the opinions of a right-leaning, obviously educated, pundit on this subject. I for one regard christian extremism in much the same light as I view islamic or any other religious extremism.

Regards, Cernig.

Anonymous said...

Erm, who's saying I'm a leftie?

I vote straight Liberal-Democrat. (That's the British political party of that name, which has a fairly specific policy platform, not a vague description that maps onto the US political spectrum.) I'm in favour of mixed economies, public education and healthcare, and as much personal autonomy as we can eat. I'm opposed -- at a gut level -- to the devil-take-the-hindmost policies which seem to have infiltrated conservative politics during the 1970's, but I'll take pragmatism over ideology any day of the week. I guess this puts me squarely in the European social democratic mainstream, with a sprinkling of social libertarianism on top. Not exactly China Mieville territory ...

Oh, Iraq? I didn't oppose the Iraq invasion out of some sort of left-wing post-colonialist cringe reflex; I opposed it because in the light of what I knew about the history of the middle east it looked like a Really Bad Idea, or at best a Dubious Idea being executed by the Wrong People (i.e. Don Rumsfeld). They didn't read their history books. If they had, they wouldn't have gone about it the way they did.

On fiction ...

If there's one thing that I've figured out, it's that preaching at your readers is stupid. It won't make converts, and it'll annoy everyone who doesn't agree with your ideas. So if you catch me doing it, kick me on the shins, okay?


-- Charlie

Glenn said...

I love Stross's comments above.

In answer to your questions, which I answered incompletely because they were a bit tendentious, and when you comment on blogger you can't see the other comments any more -- Iraq is part of the war against the fundamentalists. Just look at the countries it borders, all of whom are now under threat and will be far more so in the near future. In addition, the elections in Iraq are being closely watched in Iran, where the mullahs are in a bad odor. Conflating "the war on fundamentalist terror" with "the invasion of Iraq" is a serious, though common, mistake.

I'm skeptical of grand theories like the "clash of civilizations." But the Middle East is a dreadful place, politically. Actually, most of its ideological/religious problems are European imports -- fascism and other totalitarian ideologies, which don't really have Islamic roots. There's quite a tradition of rather mellow Islam, though it's been in eclipse since the early 20th Century for reasons that have more to do with European power-politics than any inherent characteristics of Islam.

On "Christian extremism" -- well, yeah, it's something of a threat, though rather less immediate than the Islamic variety. (You might read what Keith Henson wrote about domesticated memes for some thoughts on why). But the Bush Administration's problems with science are not rooted in fundamentalism, but in rather well-established (though to my mind unpersuasive) religious views shared by nonfundamentalists like, say, the Pope. I still disagree: I've been pretty criticial, for example, of Leon Kass and the White House bioethics council, on a wide variety of subjects. Being something of a transhumanist myself, we part on most issues.

I think, however, that the Western Left is myopic in its views on religion. In Europe, for example, there still seems to be a lot of worry about Christian extremism even as it's Muslim activists who are murdering their critics. In this, as in many other ways, I think that the Left is still fighting the ideological battles of the 20th -- and 19th -- centuries.

Finally, on socialism, etc., I think it's unworkable in a world of scarcity. As I've suggested elsewhere, however, things may look somewhat different in a post-scarcity world.

Anonymous said...

Glenn, from where I stand GWB seems to be as much a symptom of religious fundamentalism as the ayatollahs -- and the Pope. Caveat: I stand somewhere outside America, in a place described by Pat Robertson as "a dark land full of homosexuals" (in a fit of pique after his investment company was spanked out of Scotland by a boycott that involved everyone from Outrage! through to the Kirk).

As for socialism in a world of scarcity, I don't believe that this is a world of scarcity: I think most of our perceived scarcities are manufactured. Remember, this is the planet where over the past twenty years the population has increased by 50% but the numbers living in poverty have stayed the same in absolute terms -- meaning, half a billion fewer people are living in poverty than would have been the case if we applied a straight-line extrapolation. If we can lift half a billion people out of poverty without most of the rest of us even noticing ...

Cernig said...

The last post was from Charlie, I believe. He just didn't sign it.

Regards, C

Anonymous said...

"Atrios et al's claims that the right-leaning blogosphere is a carefully orchestrated top-down heirachy."

Hahahahaha

Do you really want to ally yourself in the same camp as a nutjob who would say something as obviously stupid as that?

Oh, and being compared to Thatcher is the biggest compliment you could give GWB, keeping in mind how Thatcher extracted Britain from its malaise of the 60s/70s and made it a world power again. I sure hope W is up for the challenge.

Lastly, grouping GWB's Christian constituents together with "Osama and friends" suggests that you are more interested in ranting and raving than in any kind of rational analysis of the real world.

Anonymous said...

Glenn, from where I stand GWB seems to be as much a symptom of religious fundamentalism as the ayatollahs -- and the Pope.This is a perfect example of what many moderates that share many liberal values tend to despise about the modern left: the inability to prioritize and contextualize things without the omnipresent (and often exaggerated) filter of your own experience. Every leftist that makes the direct comparison based on some pastor's blustery crusade against something like the "insidious homosexual agenda" within a free society, for example, clearly can't seem to grasp the concept that islamic radicalism goes for severed heads. Even Christian fundamentalists that might have violent thoughts are hamstrung in a pluralistic society. They have to push their ideas.

Bush Administration = Islamic Radicals

= Taliban, = Hitler, = fascists

These are the hyperbolic and superficial analogies that will essentially continue to consign the left to irrelevance by alienating a whole host of potentially natural allies, in addition the the usual natural enemies. In addition, opinion-leaders among leftists seem more dogmatic than analytic, on the whole, that the center-right spectrum.

Bill from INDC

Anonymous said...

I've never heard the term "modern socialist" before -- is there a more formal definition of it that someone could offer? If so, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

Mark

Robin said...

Yes, Bill nails just why the comments above are so fundamentally silly. Pun intended.

Ron Brynaert said...

Glenn,

Why don't you enlighten us with the story behind your associating with Ricky Vandal, a freeper from the Netherlands who you've helped earn links at his propaganda blogs.

And, it's nice to see that sometimes you leave your name when you post comments.

Who's the winner of this week's win a record deal contest, Mr instapundit?

More on Ricky the troll at Why Are We Back In Iraq? and loaded mouth

Glenn said...

Anonymous: The Pope a "fundamentalist?" Not in any ordinary sense of the term; it is the Pope -- or, more accurately, the Papacy -- that fundamentalist Christianity initially rebelled against. If you see "fundamentalist" as a synonym for "people I don't like based on the intensity of their religious belief" then you may use it in that fashion, but it's otherwise somewhat inaccurate, and likely to mislead many readers who are better informed, or at least expecting a more standard usage.

I find, however, that British and European commentators tend to get religion wrong. Though I'm not terribly religious myself, I think that's very likely to lead to serious misconceptions. Here is something I wrote on that for The Guardian a while back, though I'm afraid it only scratches the surface.

Europe is post-Christian, but it is not post-religious, and again, I think that Keith Henson's point on domesticated memes applies, and that Europe will be unhappy with the lesson. I hope that I'm wrong about that.

Cernig said...

Hi rosignol,

The point of war is to end it...the Brits aren't fighting in NI anymore and the Isaelis are STILL fighting. That was the point of the article I linked (Talking to Terror) which you obviously didn't read.

Bill, you said:

"Even Christian fundamentalists that might have violent thoughts are hamstrung in a pluralistic society. They have to push their ideas."

This palpably isn't true. Look here at Project Meggido, where the FBI documents the christian terrorist groups currently flourishing in the US, who are at present keeping their heads down as they seem to be winning the battle without firing a shot.(Please actually READ this link before blowing off steam, folks)

Although it is Charlie,not me, you are disagreeing with. I dislike fundementalism in all it's forms but see a distinction between even Opus Dei and al Quaida.

Lastly, I truly see no difference in the levels of vitriol or idiocy exhibited by thoughtless people either from left or right. Both sides of the equation are guilty of sloppy thought, lack of logic, and name-calling, from time to time. (eg Ann Coulter)

Regards, C

Anonymous said...

Go talk to a few Greeks about what life was like in the Ottoman Empire and you'll be enlightened. Talk with the Egyptians who are Coptic Christians and it will be very eye opening.

Cernig said...

Glenn,

Congrats on the Guardian piece, it is excellent work. I suspect thee and me (avowed leftie from a modern, practical socialist tradition) would agree on a whole lot more than you would with many others who voted Bush. I still think you voted for the wrong guy based on your other beliefs but if you were for the invasion of Iraq from purely geopolitical grounds I can see why you did. You must feel stymied by his administrations handling of the whole affair though, surely?

I have a feeling you would be happiest voting for Gordon Brown of the UK :-) Brown is pretty much the definition of a "modern socialist" for the poster who was asking earlier...and the man who actually did the work to drag the UK out of the financial gutter Thatcher put it in, however much US propaganda about the Iron Lady may claim.

Regards, C

Pixy Misa said...

I know Charlie from Usenet and he's clearly a smart guy. But when he says things like Glenn, from where I stand GWB seems to be as much a symptom of religious fundamentalism as the ayatollahs -- and the Pope. he shows that he has no real understanding of religion and its relationship to politics. I'm an Australian atheist myself, and even to me that statement is utterly and obviously absurd. Bush is not a fundamentalist, not even of the contemporary Christian variety, and that is in turn miles apart from Islamic fundamentalism. Not even in the same state, let alone the same ballpark.

Anonymous said...

Glenn's comment on fundamentalism is equivocal and I think panders to this post. As a PhD candidate in English I also have a fundamentalist belief in the Bible as God's word, but I don't have the fundamentalist praxis as regards the use of culture. What non-Christians sadly get so wrong is how they tar all Christians with one broad brush. Whenever I see a Christians are Fascists, or Bush is Hitler post I just cringe at the colossal ignorance of the person. Here's an analogy: all lefties are Stalinists, or all lefties are Pol Pots, or all lefties are Maoists. These three are responsible for anywhere between 50 & 100 million deaths. Hitler persecuted Christians even more than did Stalin and Mao and he managed to exterminate a paltry 9 million or so in the camps. The fact is that the ideologies of Communism and Fascism are secularist religions and they are the greatest evils that have confronted mankind in the past 2000 years, ever since the Roman empire. Though the Fascists have been discredited, the Left is still hopelessly deluded about how the nature of its ideology inevitably leads to the gulag. It's not that leftists are bad, it's the system which is bad and always falls under the control of the worst people. Compare those crimes to the most commonly cited crimes against Christianity: the Salem witch trials in the US; the inquisition in Spain; the Crusades in the middle ages. The Salem trials about which we have a landmark play by a leftist writer killed 16 or so; the inquisition killed anywhere from 1,000 to 30,000 to 300,000 people (see http://biblia.com/christianity/spanish.htm) . The latter is an anti-Catholic number used by Protestants and not credible. In any case, how does that measure up to the Left's wholesale massacre of civilians in every country they have ruled? And the Crusades? They were a response to Muslim fundamentalism which swept across the world and imprisoned my own country of Greece for 400 years. My grandfather was born under Turkish rule in Crete in 1885. But in the aftermath of 9/11 and hundreds of self-detonating Muslims slaughtering civilians, Cernig claims that Christian fundamentalists are just as bad as Muslim ones? See, it's logic like that that discredits putatively intelligent people and causes them to be seen as delusional. Such rhetoric is shameful, disreputable, and abhorrent and anyone who uses it undermines their own argument more than any counterargument can. Come on people, grow up and argue logically.

Old Wacky Hermit said...

"Look here at Project Meggido, where the FBI documents the christian terrorist groups currently flourishing in the US, who are at present keeping their heads down as they seem to be winning the battle without firing a shot.(Please actually READ this link before blowing off steam, folks)"

I read the article, and I have to say I didn't find anywhere in it which said which battle these wackos seem to be winning. Even in right-wing states like Utah, where you can't spit without hitting somebody who thinks Clifford the Big Red Dog is a Communist plot, these sorts of people are thought of as being way out of line. They move to places like Idaho, not because they find loads of converts there, but because these places are so sparsely populated that they can live by themselves. There is pro-militia sentiment among Christians in Utah and Idaho, but by and large it is definitely NOT in favor of racist or Christian militias.

If by "winning the battle" you mean the battle for the hearts and minds of the right, even the religious right, these groups are definitely losing it.

Shannon Love said...

Cernig,

I think your post reveals more about your stereotyped based view of the Right than it does about the paradoxes of Glenn's reading habits.

I am an agnostic, a philosophical rational-empiricist, and I was educated as a biologist but I grew up in a small American rural community in the late 70's early 80's when evangelical christians were just becoming a political force. I was raised by my Grandparents who were Southern-Baptist (like the Clintons) a sect far more fundamentalist than those milk-toast Methodist to which Bush belongs to. Most of my relatives are still very religious so I have a very good view of the phenomenon from the ground up.

I couldn't wait to escape small, town rightwing life and flee to the open-minded, progressive thinking, Leftist world of the university that I read about. I wanted a place where ideas came in rapid succussion, where people abandoned the dogmas of past generations for new ideas created by empiricism and reason.

Imagine my utter shock to find the exact same type of behaviors in the Leftist of my school as I had left behind in the churches of youth. Charles Stross's description of neo-conservatives is a dead accurate description of the social dynamics of Leftist subculture. For example, Just like Christian fundamentalist pride themselves on not consuming certain types of media, Leftist are very proud that they never (to take some popular American examples) listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Fox news.

I learned that group-think and group over-identification are not the flaws of a particular religious or political viewpoint but are instead cognitive failures of human beings in general that must be resisted by conscious effort. Leftist are horribly prone to group think because they spend so much time telling each other how open-minded and rational they are. Believing themselves immune they fall prey to group think and over-identification faster than those who know they hold their beliefs out of faith.

Socialism functions as just another religion. It adherents are just as immune to empirical evidence as religious fundamentalist.

Cernig said...

Shannon,

"I think your post reveals more about your stereotyped based view of the Right than it does about the paradoxes of Glenn's reading habits."

On this you are undoubtably right. Don't mistake me as someone who cannot think for themself, however :-) It has become obvious during this conversation that Glenn is not typical of the Right in the US, any more than I am a typical Leftie, at least by US standards. By the same lights, several posts here have shown a knee-jerk ability to equate socialism with communism or with a form of hidebound ideology which was discredited and discarded back in the 60's - a common mistake I have found here in the US but rarely made in my home of Scotland.

Regards, C

Cernig said...

Note to Americans:

Tony Blair and his appointed right-hand man, Gordon Brown, are members of the "Labour and Socialist Party" of the UK. Brown is a bit more left than Blair, however he still keeps to practical politics (ie what really works) more than to some philosophical ideal.

Cernig said...

Hi Wacky Hermit

I would suggest that even in strongly Islamic areas like Iran, the guys doing the beheadings are regarded as extremist wackos too. In fact, I know this to be true as many prominent moderate Moslem clerics there and elsewhere (eg Iraq)have spoken out against the practise, as they have against waging war on women and children through indiscriminate bombs. Dont believe me? Its easy enough to google. So, that is the flip side of your coin.

The battle I refer to is the one the Christian wackos say they should be engaged in, but they don't have to bother since everyone else is doing it for them - against moderates and extremists alike. Or do you think a cluster bomb in a built-up area is smart enough to only kill wackos?

Yes, I know the wackos in Iraq are killing US and UK troops...but this is why I advocate trying UK tactics instead of Israeli ones in that theatre for a while. The UK troops are trained to isolate the wackos from the moderates through better "hearts and minds" work before they kill the wackos.

Anonymous said...

A recent (2003) scholarly (and hence the horrific price on Amazon and hence the incredibly boring prose - it's a reworked dissertation) treatment of ACTUAL threats from right wing extremism in America is Confronting Right Wing Extremism and Terrorism in the USA. Get your library to order it (list price is $102.94 on Amazon. Have you ever seen something for sale with 94 cents? Perhaps it's part of the right wing top-down hierarchical conspiracy?). It's worth slogging through. Lots of the 304 pages are bibliography and notes, and you don't have to read those parts if you don't want to.

Michael Tinkler
http://crankyprofessor.com

Shannon Love said...

Cernig,

"It has become obvious during this conversation that Glenn is not typical of the Right in the US"Actually, Glenn is far more typical of the American Right than many external observers, even those in American Left, suspect. He is especially representative of that very important swing voter in the vast American middle who actual decide which way elections go. He votes not by party or ideology but issue by issue. He will jump party lines at will to vote for the individual politician that best represents each specific issue.

you write about "neoconservatives" and "christian fundamentalist" as if they and their ideas arose from some politically extreme minority. They don't. Both groups have deep roots and wide roots in American political culture. They were largely invisible back when we had a monolithic media but they were still there nonetheless.

My main point is that the decision making process for christian fundamentalist is no more dogmatic and ideological than for their counterparts on the Left. For example, Leftist disregard for evolutionary theory that contradicts their political beliefs is every bit as severe as that of any "scientific creationist".

Perhaps you have problems with taxonomy? You seem to think that neoconservatives and fundamentalist are synonymous. They are not. Neoconservatives are members of the Right who used to be Leftist. They kept the ideals and passions of their youth but lost their faith in the practical mechanisms of Leftism. Neoconservatives seem to be a small cable because their most visual representatives are a few hundred intellectuals operating within a handful of prominent think-tanks and universities. Many if not most of them are actually Jewish.

In any case, neither group represents a large or radical group within the American political spectrum. People on the far Left like to portray them so, but in reality, they are just projecting themselves onto others.

Anonymous said...

Or do you think a cluster bomb in a built-up area is smart enough to only kill wackos?Again, Cernig, this is an example of overblown hyperboly from the left that turns off a lot of people. Cluster bombs are used to infrastructure like runways and bridges. Have they ever been used at the local bazaar in Iraq? I think not. Just say Bush=Hitler. It's faster.

Anonymous said...

I am one of those crazy capitalist, Christian (although not too fundamentalist) right wing loons that strike fear in the hearts of the Guardian's editorial board.

And I liked the Stross book "Singularity Sky," very much.

Why? Because it was a good book.

If Mr. Stross thinks that we Christian types are as dangerous as the Islamonauts, that is fine. I think he is very wrong, and he probably would think I was a brainwashed kook. That's OK, it's no big deal. He writes good books, and I will continue to read them.


p.s. I think the European, and Northeastern American view of what exactly a fundamentalist Christian is might be horribly off base. Because of lack of contact with actual practising Christians, there may be some confusion about this. Bush is not a fundamentalist Christian. He is a Methodist, which is a fairly mild denomination not known for door knocking, snake handling or clinic bombing. I have friends that do not smoke, cuss, drink or have sex before they are married. But they are not fundamentalists even though they are devout. they are not going to condemn me for being a Papist imbiber or my wife for her bland Methodism. A small minority of Christians are nuts, sure. But they mostly do things like picket, act weird and call people "fags." Much less dangerous than the sawing off heads, car bombing, plane hijacking, woman stoning, goat romancing Islamonauts (I couldn't resist) that populate much of the Middle East.

Anonymous post by Z M Ward here is sunny Fla.

Cernig said...

Hi TallDave

You wrote: "I'm curious how your brand of socialism differs from the kind you claim people are confusing it with. Do you espouse universal, government-provided health care? Comfortable pensions for all those over 65? Mandatory month-long vacations? Rigid labor markets in which it is difficult to fire unproductive workers? How much of this do you believe is economically supportable? "

In order - Yes, No but I do support a basic subsistance pension, no, no. The costs...well, the US as a whole (not just the gubment) spends 15% of it's current GDP on healthcare, much of which is taken up by over-inflated admin costs from insurers and hospitals. The Swedes spend 8% of their GDP on universal healthcare provided by the state, the UK figure is comparable. You do the sums. Socialists in Europe got over kindergarten politics a while ago, we use what works. Unfortunately, both right and left in the US haven't quite got there yet, I would say.

In my view, a country that does not provide universal health care is uncivilised, no matter it's other accomplishments.

Regards, C

Anonymous said...

Oh dear: storm, meet tea-cup, tea-cup, meet storm. Hope you get on well together ... we seem to have attracted a combative little audience, don't we?

My religious beliefs are nobody's but my own: but as I said earlier, I have a knee-jerk dislike of ideologies. In principle I don't care what anyone else believes as long as they don't try to make me live by their rules (and don't preach or proselytize at me). Unfortunately, instinctive authoritarians seem to crop up in all cultures and places; and when they don't pick a political ideology to beat their neighbours over the head with, their second choice is usually religion. Hence my comment about George W. Bush, the Pope, and the Iranian clergy. Their specific beliefs may be different, but they all seem to want to impose their religious rules on their neighbours -- and I'm not happy about that.


-- Charlie (still anonymous on blogger)

Shannon Love said...

"In my view, a country that does not provide universal health care is uncivilised, no matter it's other accomplishments."America does provide universal health care, we just do so in a decentralized manner. American heath care, as measured in health outcomes, is on parr with and often exceeds that of nations with politically managed health care.

There is more than one way to arrive at the same outcome.

Anonymous said...

Glenn, from where I stand GWB seems to be as much a symptom of religious fundamentalism as the ayatollahs -- and the Pope.

This is a perfect example of what many moderates that share many liberal values tend to despise about the modern left: the inability to prioritize and contextualize things without the omnipresent (and often exaggerated) filter of your own experience to silly belief patterns.

Bush Administration = Islamic Radicals = Taliban, = Hitler, = fascists

...leftists seem more dogmatic than analytic, on the whole, that the center-right spectrum.


- BILL FROM INDC

Good point Bill - once a leftist has adopted this (religious dogma) worldview, they respond to any challenge or the introduction of contradiction (heresy)with repetition of chant-like leftist slogans (prayer); and merely offer (faith-based) assertions in the place of rationale.

My pet theory is that in many cases, (not all) their political beliefs fill the void left by the rejection of any formal religion; and their political rhetoric similarly becomes quasi-religious in tone.

The Plain old' Faithful are at peace with the "mystery" of their g_d, but the anti-religious left has to maintian their creed without that helpful bucket - "mystery" for anything that does not follow logically, from other elements of their faith. (see; G_d, merciful, cross reference, Tsunami).

This is really why the angry left is so damn angry.

Conitive Dissonance hurts.

Anonymous said...

I am a former professor of history at a state university in north Fla. I no longer teach as I was ostrasized for being a...*gasp*...a republican and having worked on a (first unsuccessful, then another successuful) gubenatorial campaign. You talk about Sweden as being a model of socialism. What you fail to mention is that Sweden has a nearly 60% unemployment rate. Yes, they are in fact a socialist constitutional monarchy. However, the country is nearly bankrupt from having a cradle to grave "nanny" social care system.

They have the highest tax rate in Europe (66% on average). Those who are footing the bill are beginning to revolt. There is a growing underground movement to heavily modify the system as it now exists. Additionally, like many other countries that have a growing muslim population that is taking advantage of the generosity of their host nation, there is beginning to appear a strong anti-immigrant sentiment in the native population.

As for socialism as a form of government. It doesn't really work all that well. Government is by nature a drag upon a national economy. The less government interference, the more dynamic an economy. Additionally, what most Americans fail to realize is that the NAZI's (the acronym stands for: Nazione Sozialist Arbeiter Partie or National SOCIALIST Workers Party) were socialists, and their bitter battles with the communist movement in the 1920's stemmed from the similarity of goals for Nazis and communists (differences between brothers is often the most bitter of all).

The Illicit Professor
Rich V, Pikesville, MD

Harkonnendog said...

Dear Cernig,

Your post regarding health care is simplistic. First you need to prove that the Swedes or Brits offer the same level of care as the Americans. For instance, the UK spends a smaller total amount on its military than the US does. According to your logic that means the US does not use its military budget as wisely as the UK. Obviously that logic doesn't hold up since the militaries are not equivalent.

Not to burst your bubble, but I wonder what the UK percentage would be if the UK health care system worked as half well as the US system. I wonder what the US percentage would be if Americans had to wait 18 months for heart operations, when they didn't die in the meantime, like they do in the UK. Or if they were forced to remain in hospital beds because the US lacked secondary care facilities, like the UK does. Maybe you should make that a factor in your calculations. I wonder what the percentage would be if the US sytstem didn't invent most of the new drugs the UK system benefits from.

A two minute google search will show you your health care system is in crisis. The US rejected the socialist medical solution for rational reasons. This is a complicated issue. Our system is not perfect, but I would rather pay 15% of my income for the best care in the world, available upon demand, than pay 8% to be put on a series of waiting lists.

Cheers!
Harkonnendog

Old Wacky Hermit said...

Illicit Prof, I'm not a history expert (I've only read ONE book on German Pre-WWII history, not TWO, lol) but IIRC the "Socialist" in "National Socialist" was chosen as part of the name in order to try to lure people away from the real Socialist parties. It seems like every other party in Weimar Germany was the "______ Socialists".

Cernig said...

Oops, Illicit Prof...

You are a liar, Sir.

Statistics Sweden, 2005The Swiss unemployment rate is 5.3%, their GDP is growing, their total of all taxation is 31.6%.

The previous poster is correct about the NAZI party - they were certainly nothing socialist by the time Hitler had control, as you doubtless well know.

Can I suggest you were fired for incompetence, not being a Republican?

Regards, Cernig

Judith said...

The political labelling here is truly one-dimensional, and surprising for SF fans. The fandom I remember didn't try to pigeonhole people's politics into mainstream categories.

Just to add to the mix: I am a post-60s socially liberal feminist, mellowed out libertarian, who usually voted Democrat before 2004, voted for Bush this time. There are many like me. We don't agree with some of Bush's domestic policies, but we do support and understand his foreign policy, and the Democratic alternative was much worse. I guess if you like labels you could say we are Koch Democrats or Schwarzenegger Republicans. Or hawkish libertarians. I think Glenn fits into that category too.

Anecdotal evidence (but lots of it!) leads me to believe that we were the swing voters who made the difference.

The torturous rationales some of you are going through to pigeonhole us according to your prejudices are amusing.

Judith said...

PS It's also odd for SF fans - by definition people who enjoy good fiction for its own sake - to be surprised that someone can enjoy works by an artist whose political beliefs differ from his. I mean, that's the difference between art and propaganda isn't it? Or do you all vet your authors' politics before deciding what novels to read?

Cernig said...

Hi Harkonnendog,

I took your advice and googled "UK health crisis" and guess what, there isn't one. Its a persistent myth but a myth nonetheless. There never ever were 18 month waits for heart ops. Ever. There was a crisis about 5 to 10 years ago, but it was a legacy of the Conservative years when they drew down spending on health. Now it is recovering. The UK, like most of Europe, has an advantage over the US in most health indicators. To the extent that the Swedish model has been touted by some Republican heathcare experts as a solution to the US crisis.

To be honest, that fits my personal experience of both systems. I have received better and faster care in the UK than the US.

I also googled "comparisons of UK and US healthcare". I hope to present my findings in the next couple of days, so keep reading Newshog :-)

Regards, Cernig

Cernig said...

Hi Judith,

Ah c'mon. You have to realise that the original post was pretty light-hearted. I posted it because someone on Glenn's blog had asked about Charlie's rep for being a "leftie". Certainly Glenn and Charlie took it as light-hearted. You have to admit it gave rise to some interesting conversations though.

Just for the record - I love Heinlein, I enjoy Pournelle, I enjoy all kinds of SF authors without care of their politics.

Regards, Cernig

Anonymous said...

Reverand Lovejoy and Ned Flanders (and the whole Flanders family) are annoying but they're not evil. Bush's Christianity is closer to Ned Flanders's than Pat Robertson's.

Cernig said...

Hi TallDave and welcome back.

Actually, I said there were never 18 month wait times for heart ops.

I do not deny there are wait times for non life threatening ops. There are wait times for those in the US too, aren't there?

The wait times for ops were HUGE under the Conservatives. I KNOW, I was there. They have consistently come down under Labour, not as fast as some have liked though, and THAT is the crisis referred to in the Guardian article.

Just so you know, The Guardian seems to regard itself as the newspaper of opposition - it will slag off the party in power no matter who they are. That isn't a bad thing, now is it?

Regards, Cernig

Cernig said...

Hi again TallDave,

"a country that embraces government-run health care is dangerously delusional, no matter how well-intentioned." In what way is that any less or more a statement of faith than my words, I ask myself? And oddly enough I have an answer for myself.

Do you think a country that didnt offer any health care whatsoever for its citizens in the modern age could fairly be labelled as uncivilisied? Well of course you do. My statement becomes the logical collary of that realisation, as such an important matter does not, surely, admit of degree. No faith required. A simple matter of a verbal expression of symbolic logic.

What is this "politics as faith" thing anyway? Bash the godless commies by telling them they have a god anyway and its their political beliefs? The latest right-wing meme? You use it almost as if you don't quite believe it will work - and you are right in that suspicion. Give it a rest as it won't fly here - I am a deeply religious person so the godless guilt trip doesnt work. My politics are thought out, and I will happily embrace what purports to be a right-wing policy when it also happens to be the correct policy. The kindergarten for politics was left behind at the sites of some other, more strident, leftie pundits. Sorry. Attack my evidence or my logic by all means, but leave the name-calling at the door.

Next. It's hardly fair to compare an EU which has just taken on a whole bunch of ex-Eastern Bloc countries as members with the US on a pure toe-to-toe basis. It would be far fairer to compare "Old" Europe and the US on a per capita basis. I will have to see if I can find the stats to do so. You can, I hope, trust me to be totally impartial when I do so.

Lastly, thank you for the link. I notice it comes from a very right-wing pundit's site so is unlikely to be a fair and representative sample, but it will still come in very useful for the research I am embarking upon for an article to be posted this weekend sometime. The subject will be a comparison of the UK and US healthcare systems on a cost for results basis and on overall quality of care.

Thanks again for your interest in my blog, Dave. I hope you stick around to throw in thoughts and comments from the right. You seem to have strong opinions (faiths?) about your politics but can express them (when you choose to) without the strident playground-style name-calling so prevalent from both left and right in US political debate

Regards, Cernig

Harkonnendog said...

Cernig,

I didn't mean you should google using the words "UK health care crisis," I meant you should use google to check out the UK system.

I can't fisk your sources, but here's mine regarding long waits for services.

http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/healthspectrum/features/0503/healthtourism.html
One of the things clearly stated in that article is people waited 18 months or more for heart operations in the UK, to the point where they went overseas to get operations.

Here's another exerpt:

The fruits of the extra millions poured into heart surgery by Mr Milburn are already appearing; two months ago the national heart "tsar" Dr Roger Boyle predicted things were going so well that the ambitious target of a three month maximum wait for heart patients would be achieved by 2005 - three years ahead of schedule.

Maybe we have different ideas about what constitutes a health care crisis. A 3 month wait is not, to my way of thinking, an ambitious target. Talk about loewered expectations...

This article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/talking/gp/private_care.shtml
describes how people are getting private insurance despite free healthcare. Why? Because the wait is shorter and the service is better. Despite the fact that they have access to free healthcare (not free, of course, since it is paid through taxes, but still) they are choosing to use private insurance.

Cheers!
Harkonnendog

Cernig said...

Hi again Dave and Harhonnendog,

Aw c'mon guys, read more carefully.

I keep saying - the huge gaps in the UK health system are purely the result of the lack of funding it was given by the right during the Thatcher years. The Labour govt. under Blair/Brown has been consistently funding it to present levels with plans for further increases and things are changing fast. The article Harkonnendog cites is already obsolete.

Oh, and as far as dental care is concerned....been to the South recently? I live here and my teeth are in far better shape than many I see here.

Can we wait until I get a chance to write the article on the US/UK comparison before we debate this further, please? It will make a far better platform to begin from than this post.

OK...Info time. Please stop confusing Communism with modern socialism. It bears no more resemblance to it than old-style robber-baron capitalism bears to the current US right. Here, read this on Social Democracy, which is the prevalent and mainstream socialist current in Europe nowadays.

BTW, Harkonnendog, I liked this post. :-)

Regards, Cernig

Anonymous said...

"Lastly, I truly see no difference in the levels of vitriol or idiocy exhibited by thoughtless people either from left or right. Both sides of the equation are guilty of sloppy thought, lack of logic, and name-calling, from time to time. (eg Ann Coulter)"

As far as comments from the audience, the NY Times does not agree with you. "As nasty as critics on the right can get (plenty nasty), the left seems to be winning the vileness derby this year." Daniel Okrent, NY Times Public Editor, 10/10/2004.

And if the commentators on the left and right are equally nasty, why are their audiences reacting differently?

Jim C.
zgystardst -at- yahoo /dot/ com

Harkonnendog said...

Thanx Cernig! It is a constant battle not to roll down that hill again, lol. I look forward to reading your essay, though I'll admit my gut reaction to the this argument "it would work except it was undefunded" is nausea. (Gut reaction, get?)

Cheers!
Harkonnendog

Kyle E. Moore said...

Man am I sorry I'm not joining the conversation until now. Well, since things are as they are, I won't be quoting anyone directly, instead, I'll jut be hitting some of the many topics, and instructing you all in what is what. Modern Socialism I will leave to C, since I'm not a modern socialist. I'm not an old school socialist. I'm just not a socialist.

BUSH=HITLER:

Bush is not Hitler. Hitler had a moustache. Okay, seriously, Bush really isn't a Hitler clone, but there are similarities. Mind you I say similarities, and these similarities rely on interpretation of information, and analysis, none of which can be directly said to be fact. I had, months before I even got seriously into politics, I broke it down into the question, "how do you try and take over the world?" If Pinky and The Brain had been in the room, we may have all found ourselves subservient to a pair of rodents (although Condi kinda reminds me of Pinky. "What are we doing tonight Mr. Bush? (snarf)" "What we try and do every night, Condi, try and take over the world.").

Essentially, there are three things that you need, and we will use Hitler and Bush as examples. 1) Create a Global atmosphere that is not conducive to dissent. For Hitler, remember the "policy of appeasement." It pretty much ran like this. Hitler would say, "I'm gonna invade this country." Everyone would say, "Alright Ady, but this is the last one." After that, he would pick another country, rinse and repeat. The idea was that no one wanted to really mess with him because of...2)Develop a military strategy or scenario that is difficult or impossible to counter. Blitzkrieg. One minute your sitting there reading the paper, drinking coffee, the next, you're part of a composite material typically referred to as rubble. 3) Rally citizens around a common cause, usually involves subjugating people. For more on this, go on google, and search "holocaust." So how does Bush fit? 1) After 9/11 he made a very famous faux pas, "you're with us, or you're against us." For more of this kind of attitude, check out my earlier post entitled Go Ahead Punk. And of course, the rest of the world takes this kind of swagger seriously because... 2)We happen to have probably the most powerful military in the world. And if that fails, we'll just turn your country into a glass parking lot. 3) Ann Coulter said it best when she said, "we should kill all their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Now I'm not saying that Bush is going to go and actually follow Hitler's foot steps. Not at all, I'm just saying that he could find a little more couth way of going about things.

Fundamentalism:

Here's the sitch, to say that radical Christianity is nothing like radical Islam is, well, wrong. To sit and think that established Christianity is and has always been one big love in is also wrong, and forgetful. Anyone remember the Crusades? How about the inquisition?

Now I know this stuff happened years ago, but still. The idea is not that I'm attacking the religion, but all the stuff surrounding it. I have always said that God corrupts politics, and politics corrupt God. It really is that simple. People will do anything in the name of God if they have enough faith, and you can get them to do anything in the name of God if you are in the right position to do so. Ergo, God is power.

That being said, I rarely ever attack the religious right. Essentially because it is kind of like a Chinese finger trap, the more you fight against it, the more it resists. I could go on, but let me get to the next point.

Left vs. Right:

Cernig is, as he puts it, a modern socialist. We get along great, we're both on the left of the scale, but I am not a socialist, just in case you forgot from the beginning of the comment. Ideologically, I'm a very radical liberal. I don't think guns should exist, let alone be issued to all people, I think it's possible to allow everyone their personal, and capitalistic liberties, and still have a government that can ensure the well being of all of its citizens. I think the environment should be cared for, yadda yadda yadda. On the other hand, I'm also quite moderate, maybe even a centrist. The reason for that is that in the end, I'm a pragmatist.

And that's just not a common thing in modern politics.

I understand that while I feel it is right for gays to be allowed to be Married, I understand that baby steps are necessary, and getting a guy in office that will get them civil union rights is probably the best step. At this stage of the game, I'll accept anyone that doesn't try to openly ban being gay.

So unlike a lot of my left wing friends, I appear much more moderate than I am, and therefore have a slightly different perspective. I also have the tendency to be a little more critical of my own political affiliates than most.

Lefties like their causes. The more extreme the liberal, the more likely it is that they're moderate on most things save one or two issues. Issues for which they will pick up an AK-47 and go to war (unless their anti-gun, at which point they will instead pick up a bowie knife).

This leads to a lot of infighting, and has, to a degree landed us in the problem we're in right now. The other thing that has us stuck in the mud is...

Activisim:

Look, I don't want to offend anyone, but most activists do more harm to the liberal agenda than good. Here's why. Right after the election, I listened on the radio to a deejay say, "well, I think what it is is that the um democrats, like, want to tell everyone how they're, like, gonna live, and I think America's just not gonna, like, put up with that." After picking my jaw up off of the floor board of my truck, I actually thought about that.

Than I thought about PETA. Than I thought about spotted owls. Liberals are associated with the Democratic Party, and all the activists that end up pissing people off are associated with Liberals, so. Yeah, while we may be saying, "look as long as you're not hurting anyone, go ahead," we still look like the people that are trying to control lives.

Okay, I think I've wasted enough space for now, maybe I should write a post or something yah?

Harkonnendog said...

Mr. M-
regarding your Hitler post- It might interest you that Hitler, from the very beginning, said that his ultimate goal was to conquer all of Europe and Russia in order to assure the Aryan race the place it belonged. It was never a secret. Chamberlain et al ignored his this reality because they didn't want to believe it.

Much the same way liberals today ignore the talk of Islamofascists. Zarqawi, Arafat, bin Laden, they have quite clearly said that ALL the Jews in Israel must be killed and that Shari'a must rule the world. That is their goal. They're quite honest and straight forward about it. But, because they fear the truth, liberals refuse to accept them at their word.

Also, I don't remember Hitler liberating countries from mass murdering tyrants and then granting the people of those countries democracy... like Bush has done in Afghanistan, and as of TODAY!!! TODAY!!! Iraq. I guess that's pretty minor though, given the powerfully compelling similarities you've mentioned above.

Cheers!
Harkonnendog

Cernig said...

Hi Dick,

Iraq War/war on terror: I have written a fair bit about my take on the war on terror, including one post which is linked above and which handles the "UK vs Israeli style" question. For the record, if I was leader of the free world I would have gone into Afghanistan, not let up till Osama was in custody or dead and his apparatus dismantled. I wouldn't have gone into Iraq even if I DID think they still had the WMD the US had sold them. Sanctions were working, just as they did against Libya eventually. Iraq was a side issue pursued for personal reasons and is being justified as exporting freedom after the event. If exporting democracy was the true aim, then Kuwait or Saudi or even North Korea were better targets. Now we are there, we have to do the best we can with the mess we made. My mom always made me clean up my toys at the end of the day. The UK's methods of terror fighting in N.I. have stopped the bloodshed, Israel's methods have poerpetuated the fighting in their own locale. The US uses Israeli methods in Iraq, this is a mistake.

OK, cluster bomb was wrong and I apologise for the hyperbole. However, 250lb bomb is correct. A new variant was developed for use in urban situations and used in the second assault on Fallujah and since. (see Defencetech archives - go look. Everyone who has pretensions of punditry on the military should be reading Defencetech anyway.) Do you know the lethal radius on even a precision-guided 250lb bomb?

Healthcare: Ive said already - can we wait for the post I am preparing to debate this? I promise it will make a better platform for the discussion than this thread.

There, that help?

Regards, Cernig

PS: I notice that at least one right-wing site references these comments as a fun demolition of the irrational ranting lefty by a bunch of logical and well-reasoned righties. Do you all actually feel that way? I thought I was holding my end up pretty well :-)

Kyle E. Moore said...

My my my, what sharp teeth Haarky.

First, and I thought it was kinda clear, the Hitler thing was just some similarities, and I do believe I even said that I don't think Bush is following in Hitler's footsteps per se. But more on that later.

I love how the right loves to pin us liberals with ignoring the threat from Islamofacists in the world. And for that I have to apologize for not necessarily wanting to kill every brown man that doesn't think like I do. I know, it's a character flaw.

But let's not make any mistakes here. I'm not all amped to go give Osama a bear hug. On the contrary. The man may be little more than a paper tiger at this point, but he ordered the murder of 3000 innocent Americans, and I would really like to see him brought to justice. Of course, on that, I'm still waiting.

In fact, I'm very up on the Islamofacist thing. As Richard Clarke put it, Osama is among a group of radical muslims whose intent it is to render the world into a fourteenth century style society that revolves around Islam. Considering some of the practices of modern day unenlightened radical muslims, I'm guessing that fourteenth century unenlightened radical muslims are worse.

So I dig the sitch. Probably more than El Presidente, considering the fact that my response to 9/11 wasn't to go and kick someone else's ass. I don't know I'm just saying. Or maybe not. I mean, the man was tired of swatting at flies. So, let's just leave the flies alone until they drive a couple of jumbo jets into some very large office buildings.

But, hey, who cares about WMD's or terrorism? We're spreading freedom. You know, cause it's like butter.

Actually, and here's the interesting thing. Bush's policy of spreading freedom directly steps on the toes of a nation's right to sovereignty. Look, I'm not apologizing for any of the dictators these people are under, but truth be told, no matter how bad off they are, they have to start the ball rolling on their own. That's just the way it is.

If revolution does begin, than there's no bad for us to go in and help the rebels, but there's so much wrong with just imposing freedom on someone that if I tried to go into it right now, my wife would kick my ass for not letting her be. So I'll check in later, and finish school.

Mr. M

Cernig said...

Hi TallDave,

C'mon man, you KNOW that secretly you want to be a social democrat. :-)

Harkonnendog said...

Nice post, Mr M.

3 things stood out for me.

"We're spreading freedom. You know, cause it's like butter."
Great line, lol. But we're spreading it because free societies don't breed the conditions that nurture Islamofascism and its byproduct: terrorism. Still a great line though.


"Actually, and here's the interesting thing. Bush's policy of spreading freedom directly steps on the toes of a nation's right to sovereignty."
This is interesting, and goes to the heart of the matter, I think. I don't believe any country that is not a democracy has a right to be sovereign. I don't think any non-democracy is even legitimate. But this is another discussion altogether.

"And for that I have to apologize for not necessarily wanting to kill every brown man that doesn't think like I do. I know, it's a character flaw."
Aw man, you had to play the race card. Well, FYI if you were to kill every brown man that disagreed with you you'd have to kill me. (Hispanic, at least according to the government. And because I'm Portugeuse, which they say is Hispanic because of Brazil?!?) Anyway, that argument dehumanizes me and everyone who disagrees with you. It is the old "conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think conservatives are evil" thing all over again... bummer. I call shenanigans!!!

Cernig said...

Hi All,

I just wanted to say that I won't be making any more comments on this thread. Not because I am running away (heh - the lefty is not for running) but because there are other posts on this blog that would make a far better platform for much of the debates that we are having now. I would love all you rightwingers who are now visiting Newshog to have a look around at the other stuff we write or talk about here. Please, pull up the battered old sofa, raid the fridge, and make yourselves at home. I am thoroughly enjoying the discussions so stick around as long as you like.

Regards, Cernig

PS I think John Pike just became my favourite conservative blogger. Talk about telling it like it is.
(Sorry Glenn...you would be my favourite if you gave more of your own opinions and less of links to other peoples. Your own thinking is far more impressive than much of your linkages manage, why don't you use more of it on your blog?) - C

Storminator said...

I must say this is the best discussion in a comments section I have ever read. Very civilized and informative.

PS