Mediaboss Marketing

One can imagine a just war between a state representing individuals who want to be free and left alone and, on the other side, a tyrannical state aggressor intent on subjecting and looting the libertarian country. If the libertarians win, liberty would increase in the world. But reality is never so simple and war instead typically reinforces, on all sides, the power of the state and the idea that the individual must submit to the collective. War does not bring out the best in all people (contrary to what state propaganda suggests, including the parading women soldiers in Moscow shown on the featured image of this post).

An interesting Wall Street Journal story about the successful resistance of a small Ukrainian town illustrates how war arouses primitive instincts (Yaroslav Trofimov, A Ukrainian Town Deals Russia One of the Wars Most Decisive Routs, March 16), although I admit it is not the most tragic illustration in the history of warfare:

Russian soldiers took over villagers homes in Rakove and created a sniper position on a roof. They looked for sacks to fill with soil for fortifications, burned hay to create a smoke screen and demanded food.

A local woman who agreed to cook for the Russians is now under investigation, said Mr. Dombrovsky. A traitorshe did it for money, he said. I dont think the village will forgive her and let her live here.

In the practice of war if not generally in tribal morality, a traitor is anybody who takes another side than his tribes. But note the other element in the story: she did it for money! I suspect that Mr. Dombrovsky would not have been happier if she had done it for free, perhaps for the cause, and with a big smile. At any rate, money is apparently an aggravating factor (even if paid in deeply depreciated rubles), which corresponds to the reigning orthodoxy among our own academic philosophers.

A moral case can be made that coerced cooperation with the violent aggressors of ones neighbor is acceptable, but not cooperation for the purpose of obtaining personal benefits. But then, isnt avoiding harm a personal benefit? Does it matter that Mr. Dombrovsky, who is a special forces commander, is presumably paid himself? What if the woman had cooked for free and was only paid a tip afterwards ?

We dont know enough about this case to make any serious ethical analysis, but I would bet that Mr. Dombovskys comment reflected a generalized suspicion toward individualist behavior on free markets. If that is true, we are not dealing with the pure war case of a group of libertarians defending themselves against aggressors, but with two more or less authoritarian camps. Not surprisingly, dealing with actual cases is more complicated than with stylized models.

All that seems to confirm the classical-liberal or libertarian idea that an individual usually acts in his own personal interest and that only a minimal ethicsJames Buchanan would say an ethics of reciprocityshould be recognized as a necessary constraint on personal behavior in a free society. (See my review of Buchanan Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative in the forthcoming Spring issue of Regulation.)

Female Russian soldiers of the Military University of the Russian Defense Ministry march along the Red Square during the Victory Day military parade to mark the 72nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, the Eastern Front of World War II, in Moscow, Russia, 9 May 2017.

Original post:
The Traitor Was Paid to Cook for the Russians - Econlib

By Tom Baxter

Last week, as 2,189 candidates were qualifying to run for office this year, there was an ominous reminder that going forward, election results in Georgia may never be as cut and dried as they used to be.

By a majority of 73 percent, voters in Camden County rejected plans to build a commercial spaceport in which the county has already invested more than $10 million. The turnout was 17 percent, which is low but not out of line with a lot of local special elections. Local residents succeeded in getting a vote on the question after a petition drive in which they gathered some 3,500 signatures. The county commission is challenging their right to hold the referendum in a court suit.

Heres the ominous part: Instead of accepting the landslide vote as the end of the line for this long-debated project, the county commission filed an emergency motion to block certification of the results until its lawsuit is settled.

Its not such a surprise the county would do this. Both sides are heavily dug in on this issue, enough to exhaust every possible legal remedy. The Georgia Supreme Court quickly denied the motion, while allowing the lawsuit challenging the referendum to proceed.

Still, the refusal to accept even this clear a demonstration of the voters will makes you wonder whats going to happen in upcoming elections when the outcomes are much closer, and local election boards in many parts of the state arent as nonpartisan as they were before the 2020 election. There is a growing tendency not to accept the results of elections, even when the margin is 3-to-1.

This doesnt seem to have dissuaded people from running for office, however. Of the candidates who qualified last week, 996 are Republicans, 597 are Democrats, five are independents and four are Libertarians. The remaining 587 candidates are running in non-partisan races.

These totals might lead you to think that Republicans are either more numerous or more fractious than they really are. Every small rural county controlled by Republicans has roughly as many local offices as a large urban Democratic county, so there are a lot more Republicans in these local races, unchallenged by Democrats.

And while former President Donald Trumps beef with Gov. Brian Kemp has generated challenge races down to the level of insurance commissioner, overall Republicans dont seem more likely to do battle with each other in primaries than do Democrats. For instance, there are four candidates running for lieutenant governor as Republicans, and nine running as Democrats.

Its noteworthy that this is the highest office for which a Libertarian is also running. The presence of Libertarian candidates on the ballot caused runoffs for the U.S. Senate in 1992, 2008 and 2020, but that wont happen this year.

The races for state legislative seats probably give us the best indication of the balance between the parties and their relative fractiousness. Overall, 257 Republicans are running for the House or Senate, compared to 241 Democrats. In 42 races, Republicans dont have Democratic challengers; in 28 races, Democrats dont have Republican opposition. House District 28 in northeast Georgia has the most Republicans vying for office six, with one Democratic candidate. House District 90 in DeKalb County has the most Democrats five, with one Republican.

For all their partisan differences, the Democratic and Republican legislative candidates are very similar in many respects. The average age of the Republican candidates is 53. For Democrats, its 51.

The Democrats have 22 candidates who list themselves as attorneys or lawyers and 18 retirees; the Republicans have 21 retirees and 21 attorneys. Its hard to sort out candidates who are business people because they have different ways of identifying themselves. Republicans have the edge in this category, but not by as much as youd think. Interestingly, the five candidates who list themselves as entrepreneurs are all Democrats, while the two candidates who list themselves as CEOs are Republicans.

Four Republicans and three Democrats list themselves as retired military. The only chef candidate is a Democrat; the only chiropractor, a Republican. All in all, the candidates are a pretty wide reflection of what Georgians do for a living. Of course, the winning candidates may be a different story.

Thanks to Maggie Lee for her able data crunching.

See the rest here:
When 3-to-1 is challenged, what about the close races? - SaportaReport

Far-right influencers have often encouraged people to use the small privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo instead of Google, saying that the giant search engine censored conservative ideas.

The praise for DuckDuckGo turned to outrage this week, though, after the company said Russian disinformation would be minimized on its site.

DuckDuckGos chief executive, Gabriel Weinberg, tweeted on Thursday that the search engine would rank websites associated with disinformation lower in its search results.

Like so many others I am sickened by Russias invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create, he wrote.

DuckDuckGo has little control over its search results because they are provided by Microsofts Bing, which announced that it would follow the European Unions order to restrict access to the Russian state news agencies RT and Sputnik.

But the criticism from the far right was directed at DuckDuckGo. The conservative website Breitbart said DuckDuckGo was adopting the censorship policies of Big Tech. In social media channels devoted to conspiracy theories, users vowed to switch to alternatives like the Russian search engine Yandex. The hashtag #DuckDuckGone trended across Twitter in the United States by Friday. And on YouTube, users criticized the company for silencing voices.

If youre using DuckDuckGo, I suggest you stop using it and switch to something else, said Tarl Warwick, a self-described libertarian YouTube user with nearly half a million followers. He added: I want tens of thousands of people to stop using it.

In a statement, Kamyl Bazbaz, the vice president of communications for DuckDuckGo, said that the affected sites were engaged in active disinformation campaigns, meaning they were similar to other low-quality websites already penalized by search algorithms.

This isnt censorship, its just search rankings, he said.

The backlash underscored the difficulties some technology companies face in limiting the spread of Russian propaganda at a time when pockets of America express support for the Kremlin and believe Big Tech companies are censoring their views.

Last month, The New York Times reported that search results on DuckDuckGo and Bing surfaced more untrustworthy websites than the same searches using conspiracy theory terms entered in Google.

DuckDuckGo controls about 3 percent of the search engine market in the United States. The site is especially popular among privacy activists because the company doesnt track its users, unlike Google and Bing.

The company also announced this month that it would pause its relationship with Yandex, the Russian search engine, which was providing certain links for results in Russia and Turkey.

See the article here:
The far right complains after the search engine DuckDuckGo vows to limit Russian propaganda. - The New York Times

Dont get Marla Thompson-Kendall started about Americas two-party political system.

Theyre both ineffective, the Riverdale resident said of the Democratic and Republican parties. Although shes voted for Democrats over the years, she remained open to what Republicans had to say and even came to appreciate some Republicans such as former president George W. Bush.

He had Republican views but he wasnt spiteful and vindictive or condescending. He just went in there and did the right thing for the most part for the people, she said.

But now shes losing patience with both parties.

Its just internal fighting. They come into office and say Im going to do everything I can do to make sure [the other party] doesnt get their agenda across. Thompson-Kendall, an adjunct business professor at Life University, told Atlanta Civic Circle. There needs to be a bridge-building kind of system because right now theres a major disconnect.

Thompson-Kendall thinks a third party could be the solution. Im all for it because in the past 10 years we havent gotten anything done, she said.

Thompson-Kendall isnt alone in her frustration with todays polarized political landscape. Fewer Americans are aligning with either Democrats or Republicans. In fact, a December 2020 Gallup Poll found that only 31% identified as Democrats and 25% as Republicans, while 41% considered themselves independent. Whats more, a majority of Americans six in 10 want a third party option, a separate Gallup Poll showed.

The two-party system has dominated American politics for most of the nations existence, enduring through wars, civil, and societal upheaval. But lately, American politics have been paralyzed by legislative logjams, political extremism, racial strife, and a recalcitrant ex-president still refusing to acknowledge his 2020 election loss, sparking the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The divide is only growing between Democrats and Republicans on the economy, racial justice, climate change, law enforcement, foreign affairs, and plenty of other issues, according to Pew Research Centers studies over the past few years.

While lawmakers nationally and locally continue to lock horns, many Americans are tuning out. One in four are politically disengaged, and nearly 70% are distrustful and disillusioned with politics, falling in the exhausted majority, according to a report looking at the polarized political landscape during the Trump administration from More in Common, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit which promotes finding common ground among voters.

With public support for a third party at an all-time high, is the two-party system still viable, despite over 150 years of dominance?

Even with all of its current flaws, Americas two-party system is not going away anytime soon, says University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock, whos written about American politics for over 50 years.

If you want stability, the two-party system is going to promote that, Bullock told Atlanta Civic Circle. Multi-party systems give voters a much wider range of choices, but they have their own problems, Bullock said, pointing to Israel and the Netherlands.Thereve been examples in Holland where its taken more than a year after the election to figure out whos [running] the government.

With as many as 14 competing parties, nobody comes anywhere close to getting a majority, Bullock explained. Once the election is over, you dont really know whos going to be governing the country, he said. Instead, the different factions must start negotiating to see if they can somehow stitch together an agreement among various parties to get to a 50% majority of the legislature.

But Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde isnt counting out a multi-party system for the United States, because of the strong voter dissatisfaction for the two-party one. Mudde is an expert on European politics, particularly populism and political extremism in Western democracies.

Very few of the more established [European] democracies have two-party systems, as very few countries have a first-past-the-post electoral system like the United States, where the winner is chosen by a simple majority, Mudde, a professor in the School of Public & International Affairs at University of Georgia, told Atlanta Civic Circle.

The U.K. is one of the few that do, but its two-party system also has attracted many opponents, Mudde said. Its biggest advantage is that its easy to understand since the candidate with the most votes wins the seat, he added. It also tends to produce clear winners and losers, which many people also like and understand.

While U.S. elections generally produce clear winners and losers, the two-party system still is leaving many voters unhappy.

A very large percentage of people are not represented at times even majorities which is less often the case in multiparty systems, Mudde said. International research has shown that, on average, people in two-party systems are less satisfied with their democracy than those in multiparty systems.

Despite the appetite among voters, creating a path for third-party candidates faces daunting odds, especially in Georgia which has the most restrictive ballot-access laws in the country, particularly for local Congressional races.

Last month, the Libertarian Party of Georgia asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to re-hear its challenge to a state law that has prevented a third-party candidate from getting on the ballot for a U.S. House seat for over 80 years.

Voters in Georgia and elsewhere ought to be free to vote for people who are not in the two major parties if they so choose, the Libertarians lawyer, Brian Sells, told Atlanta Civic Circle. But, Sells said, the rules are made by the Democratic and Republican partiesand most politicians Ive ever known preferred not to have competition.

Libertarian candidate Angela Pence is putting Georgias ballot-access law to the test, running for the 14th Congressional District seat against Marjorie Taylor-Greene, the polarizing Republican incumbent. But its a long shot. Pence must collect 23,000 voter signatures for her name even to appear on the Nov. 8 ballot.

We have a plan in place. Its daunting, Pence told Atlanta Civic Circle.

What will it take to break the current political impasse? Bullock thinks it could take a crisis to convince enough political leaders they need to join hands for the good of the country Leadership will say its better for each side to get half the loaf rather than nothing.

Meanwhile, Thompson-Kendall says shell continue to vote for the person who represents my interests. If thats a Democrat or Republican, it doesnt matter.

Lately, thats been Democrats, she added. Republicans used to have concrete goals that made sense, but now theyre all [for] Trump.

Thompson-Kendall also said shed like to see term limits instituted in Congress and more mentoring and coaching to prepare new candidates. People dont need to be running for office forever and staying in those offices until they die, she said. Id like to see some new blood come in with some fresh ideas because what we did in 1924 is not what we should be doing today.

People dont need to be running for office forever and staying in those offices until they die, she said. Id like to see some new fresh blood come in with some fresh ideas because what we did in 1924 is not what we should be doing today.

As for moving beyond the current political chasm?

Im an eternal optimist, she said. The only way were going to be able to do it is if we get out and vote. We have to vote those people out of office who are not doing what we need them to do.

What can be done to address Americas entrenched political divide?

Read what some of the nations psychologists have to say here and here.

Read what one Time magazine columnist suggests here.

Read what two top experts on democracy, conflict, and governance have to say here.

More:
What will it take to shake up Americas two-party political system? - Atlanta Civic Circle

Why are Conservatives increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies?

It might seem like an odd fit at first blush. Conservatism, after all, is something of a backward-looking persuasion. It starts from a premise that traditional ideas and institutions should, as a general rule, be protected and sustained. Theyve come through a process of trial and error over the course of history and therefore deserve our deference and respect.

This call for epistemological humility can sometimes manifest itself in an aversion to novelty and even progress. Michael Oakeshott famously described it as:

to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

The point here is that the conservative instinct tells us that most new ideas are false or wrong precisely because they havent been subjected to the rigours of practical wisdom. Conservatism, in this sense, is the political expression of the famous line from Will and Ariel Durant: Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional response which they propose to replace.

That might seem like an odd philosophical basis from which to embrace something as far-out as digital money. Yet there are limits to mere abstractions about conservative ideas and the conservative persuasion. Samuel Huntington tells us that conservatism must be understood in a specific situational context. Its a contingent perspective that reflects particularistic circumstances. A Saudi Arabian conservative is different from a European conservative whos different from a North American conservative. What they seek to conserve necessarily reflects their unique culture and intellectual inheritances.

North American conservatism has long distinguished itself by its unique combination of a deference to tradition and a commitment to change. In his famous essay, Why I am not a conservative, Friedrich Hayek attributed this mix of posterity and progress to the fact that what North American conservatives are essentially seeking to conserve is a classical liberal tradition. That is to say, the North American conservative is, at some fundamental level, a liberal. His or her conservatism is dedicated to the preservation of the continents liberal ideas, institutions, and values.

Its worth emphasizing this point: North American conservatism is somewhat oxymoronically committed to preserving a cultural and political liberalism which itself is fertile soil for growth, dynamism, and innovation. Its a conservative tradition committed to a set of ideas, institutions, and values that are inherently pro-progress.

David Brooks spoke to this unique amalgam of ideas and intuitions in a 2018 podcast episode with Tyler Cowen. When asked about his own conservative worldview, he answered the following:

Well, Im anAmericanconservative. My two heroes are Edmund BurkeandEdmund Burkes core conservative ethosis epistemological modesty, the belief that the world is really complicated, and therefore the change should be constant but incremental My other hero is Alexander Hamilton His conservatism was very different. Its about dynamism, energy, transformational change. And so a European self-conservatism doesnt work here. You have to have that dynamic, recreated, self-transformational element.

This applies to Canada too. As Ben Woodfinden and I outline in a forthcoming essay on Sir John A. Macdonalds own conservatism, the countrys first prime minister personified this unique mix of backward- and forward-looking ideas. He was at once a dispositional conservative as represented in his personal preferences and tastes and something of a futurist with an ambitious vision of the frontier that was manifested in his nation-building agenda. As we write:

For his part, Macdonald saw entrepreneurial freedom, limited but energetic federal power, and national greatness as inextricably linked. These instincts for national development were actually quite Hamiltonian. Like the father of the American commercial revolution, Macdonald came to represent a business liberalism which was suffused with a Toryism concerned with a virtuous and ordered liberty.

I share this abridged story of the North American conservative tradition because its important to understand the compatibility of conservative ideas and technological progress in general and conservatism and cryptocurrencies in particular. The conservative persuasion in North America should be generally viewed as sympatico with frontier-like ideas, inventions, and technologies.

These conceptual points bring us back to the more practical question at hand: why are conservatives increasingly pro-crypto?

The first point is to establish that they are indeed showing growing interest in digital currencies. There are various examples, including, for instance, MP Michelle Rempel-Garners recently-tabled legislation that would have the government consult on a framework to encourage the growth of crypto assets in Canada.

Some have dismissed these developments as merely related to the recent trucker protests in Ottawa. But this critique fails to reckon with the broader movement of conservative intellectuals and politicians that has come to support bitcoin and other forms of crypto-currencies in recent years.

The highest-profile proponents arent themselves politicians. The two biggest are probably Elon Musk and Peter Thiel who are investors and entrepreneurs with significant influence on society and culture in general and the world of libertarianism in particular.

Theyve both come to be associated with the growing cultural and political movement around crypto-currencies through a combination of their personal investments, public commentaries, and large online followings. The former has frequently talked about how he owns crypto-currencies, including Dogecoin, which he has been instrumental in popularizing. The latter has described bitcoin as the one asset that I most strongly believe in.

The appeal of crypto-currencies to Musk and Thiel isnt merely about the financial upside. Theres also an ideological dimension. Digital moneys decentralized nature conjures up possibilities of new, more libertarian economic and political arrangements. Thiel has even argued that if we want to think about contemporary technologies in ideological terms, artificial intelligence can be thought of as communist and crypto-currencies are libertarian.

Its no surprise that in the face of sustained pandemic restrictions, libertarian ideas seem to be resonating more and more these days. In this context, Musk and Thiel have emerged as major figures among a cohort of millennial or Generation Z followers who are drawn to their contrarian rebuke of the stuffy conformity of modern life. Ross Douthat has thus described the rise of folk libertarianismor what others have called Barstool conservatismas one of the key socio-political developments of the pandemic age.

This movement is less steeped in the tomes of libertarian thought and instead more reflective of contemporary cultural and political trends, including the rise of cancel culture, identity politics, and perceptions of government bossiness. Its followers are more Dave Portnoy than Ludwig von Mises.

As a cultural and political movement, its highly active online, a bit coarse and politically incorrect, and mostly engaged in politics from the periphery using GIFs and memes rather than direct action. It reflects a series of intuitions about individual responsibility, personal expression, a commitment to technology and progress, and an aversion to so-called wokeism. Recently, The Hub contributor Ben Woodfinden summed up this worldview and its followers as crypto bros. Hes not wrong.

The key point here though is that there are cultural and intellectual factors behind North American conservativess growing interest in new and novel monetary innovations. Its broadly consistent with continental conservatisms interest in frontier ideas and technologies as well as the growing appetite for non-mainstream, decentralized models of economic and political organization in the face of perceived top-down conformity. But it also possibly holds out the potential to bring new and different votersparticularly members of Canadas sizeable non-voter constituencyinto the Conservative fold. Crypto has therefore become an ideological and political rallying cry for North American conservatives.

Its not to say that there are serious issues with crypto-currencies. The recent volatility raises legitimate questions about whether this is a sustainable market development or merely a hyper-online fad. One gets the sense that the true story is somewhere in the middle.

But as Matt Spoke recently argued in an essay for The Hub, there may be a case for a country like Canada to make a huge bet that the future of crypto is more sustainable than it is faddish. Theres reason to believe that the presumptive, next Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, broadly agrees with this perspective.

To the extent that he does, it shouldnt be viewed as inherently incompatible with the conservative tradition. North American conservatism has since its origins reflected an intellectual and political persuasion with both a backward- and forward-looking impulse. A careful yet curious view on crypto-currencies is well-rooted in this long-standing tradition.

Link:
Sean Speer: Why conservatives are so keen on cryptocurrencies - The Hub