Treason

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

2nd World Lectures

First Putin, and now Klaus - Russia and Poland are lecturing the U.S. on free markets. 

Is it time yet to consider revolution? 

On Liberty

"Liberty" is too narrow a concept to serve as a foundation for libertarianism. Ultimately, this philosophy of government is not about liberty, but about the love of self. To love liberty, after all, is to love what one can do and be when in a free state -- to love liberty is thus to love oneself, to love being alive.

What does it mean to be happy? Happiness requires freedom.

But wait, this is surely false. Even a prisoner can be happy in his cell. Indeed, in a tyrannical state the threat of prison is no threat at all. It's just one more "right" to which the citizen is entitled. There will come a time in the not-so-distant future when Americans will all demand the right to be imprisoned.

No, happiness does not require freedom. The love of self, the love of being alive, is not happiness. It is something more primal, less tranquil.

Self-destruction, perhaps? Perhaps that's merely the other extreme, a false hedonistic panacea.

What of these extremes? Is it really the sedative of contentment on the one side, and the drunken stupor of self-destruction on the other? What does this formulation tell us about the nature of self-love?

Perhaps this: to love oneself is not to seek escape via the sedation of contentment (Buddhism), and it's not to be found in manic perversions. Instead, to love one's liberty is to love what one can become. The love of liberty is ultimately the love of a future Me that is shaped by the present Me. In loving myself I muster the energy to make myself anew, to find a vision that energizes me for the battle against me.

This is the meaning of Nietzsche's formulation that in self-love there is self-destruction, then. To this I merely add the necessity of freedom. Thus, we must beware of conflating self-love with happiness. The man who loves himself is not content, and he is certainly not drunk. The content one has run away from himself. The drunken one has fallen headlong into the moment. The self-lover, however, does neither: he looks to his future self for guidance, he acts out of an energizing vision that drives him onward because he loves himself -- and in loving himself he hates himself all the same, hates what he has failed to thus far become, and thus loves what he can be.

There's a reason that lovers of liberty -- pace Reagan -- come off as "hopeful." They are lovers of the future, always thinking ahead to that time when a nation -- or a man -- will be better than he is today.

To be a libertarian is thus to love liberty for the sake of being able to carry out one's own self-improvement even when it is not forced upon him. Why? Because it is harder this way! Because to "improve" through coercion is no improvement at all. This is what the libertarian thus resents most about liberalism: that the liberal wants not to improve himself, but he wants to improve others.

The New Environmentalism

It has seemed to many during the last few years as if it were impossible to be an environmentalist without believing in the anthropogenic global warming argument. Of course, this is false: one can be quite concerned about environmental devastation without buying into the sloppy science of the global warming diehards. To wit:

• Water shortages existed prior to the AGW argument, and they will exist after that argument has died out. The challenge of supplying water to the future billions who will populate the earth is a daunting one that will have to be addressed by serious people.
• Rainforest depletion is still occurring at an alarming rate, and that trend has nothing to do with AGW. There might be serious concerns about eliminating such a potent carbon sink, though algal growth is probably a much better sink in any case.

Interestingly, the libertarian position on these concerns might be the best form of non-AGW environmentalism still extant. That position could hold that individuals have a moral obligation to assist in preventing these and other forms of environmental damage, and at the same time reject arguments calling for intrusive government intervention. The chief premise underlying this position is simple: if human beings can't band together on a voluntary basis in order to "save the world," then human beings deserve to perish.

This position can be defended:

• Coercion is undesirable in itself - the default position in human affairs ought to be the rejection of coercion as a model for encouraging desired actions.
• The claim that without coercion survival will not be guaranteed is, first of all, most likely false on its face: humans will be around regardless of how badly they manage the environment. Even if they were to go extinct, however, it is incredibly unlikely that they would take the whole of Earth's ecology along with it. No one, not even Al Gore, is prophesying such a calamitous future.
• If the second claim above is true, then the worst case scenario is the extinction of the human race. Therefore the important question is this: Is the guarantee of human survival (assuming such could be given) worth the consequences of coercion?
• To answer "Yes" to this question is to believe that there is something special and good about human beings - but what could this be? What could possibly justify the use of violence and/or the threat thereof? Why should one accept that violence against our fellow man is justified solely because we want to survive?
• In short - what good is man? What is his raison d'etre? If he is to exist solely by virtue of doing violence to other men, what is the point? And if he, in his free, uncoerced, and voluntary state, cannot muster up the desire to save the very planet on which he lives, then what good was he in the first place? Why would we save such a shortsighted creature?
• Libertarianism offers at least a hopeful answer: Let us try to save ourselves (and the "planet," if you wish) by relying on what is best in us: a free and uncoerced self-love that bids us to go on with our lives as free men. Let us save ourselves and our habitat because we love life.
• But to love life -- that requires freedom.

Missiles and Anti-Missile Missiles

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090302/120375219.html

Two possibilities should be considered: 

• Deception on the part of the U.S. -- that it will continue to develop a missile shield while telling the Russians they have stopped. 
• Deception on the part of the Russians -- that they will string the Americans along in order to give the impression that they are helping with Iran.

Observations:

• A lot will hinge on who moves first: if the U.S. is expected to withdraw its missile emplacements from eastern Europe, then it will need assurances that Iran will be handled. But how could Russia give such an assurance? 
• If Russia moves first, then what guarantee will there be that it has successfully tamed Iran? What guarantee will the U.S. accept? 
• The U.S. apparently made the offer. It must know that it will never have satisfactory proof that Russia has done enough to keep Iran from developing the weapon. So, why would it make the offer? Is it to paint the Russians into a corner? 
• If the Russians say no, then they look like they're backing Iranian aggression. 
• The Russians have to say yes, but they don't have to actually do anything. They can collude with the Iranians to string the Americans along. 
• Best-case scenario for the Americans -- they cancel a relatively cheap weapons system while getting improved relations with Iran. It also gives the U.S. a better image among Europeans. 
• The offer makes the U.S. look weak in Russia. The Russians know that the Americans have the weak hand by virtue of the paucity of guarantees the Americans would have of Russian/Iranian cooperation. So, what are the Russians thinking? Knowing that the U.S. knows it has the weak hand empowers Russia to make inroads into the Ukraine and Georgia. This should give it the small edge it needs to break the stalemate over control of gas delivery into Europe. 

Health, Money, and Human Nature

The challenge for pharmaceutical drug peddlers: convincing the 5 billion who aren't yet hooked on pharmaceuticals that entering the pharma-drug culture is a good thing.

A lot of people are not yet on the drug bandwagon. In many nations it's simply a matter of affordability: pharma drugs are not affordable and therefore it is not rational to spend much time desiring them. In some nations, however, the population is right on the verge of contentment. When a nation achieves contentment one of the marks of its decadence is the love affair with pharmaceutical drugs. The U.S. has long achieved this plateau of civilization, and as a result it now finds itself hooked on the idea that life is worth preserving at all economic costs. This runaway, self-aggrandizing philosophy has taken over the whole of health care in the U.S. And to what end? Has the belief that life is worthy of preservation created a more satisfying contentment among the people?

On the contrary: the addiction to drug-addled life has only made the people more miserable. Like any addict, the pharma addict's life is driven by a cycle of pleasure and tension that can only be broken by giving up the assumption that life is worth living even in the face of overwhelming economic cost.

More than any other modern debate, the question of health care financing cuts to the core of the human nature discussion. To know a people today is to understand its health care financing system.