Wishy Washy Daniel Hannan
So Hannan has finally admitted he was wrong to support Barack Obama.
This is better than nothing, I suppose, but then I’ve never been a big Hannan fan. He’s probably the best of a bad bunch, but he’s still a politician and he still speaks the language of politics. He essentially thinks desirable social outcomes can be achieved by some people forcing other people how to live. He constantly harps on about “democracy” as if that was some noble ideal and he parrots a lot of statist clichés. A few quotes from the article:
I was wrong. Not that Obama is without his good points, obviously. His commitment to school choice is unfeigned. His foreign policy has been a jolly sight cheaper than McCain’s would have been. The election of a mixed-race president who opposed the Iraq war has made the USA slightly more popular.
Wrong! Obama IS without his good points. The man is a sociopathic, lying, war-warmongering, bought-and-sold fascist. Specifically he has NO commitment to school choice, and has done nothing to improve children’s education. He has, however, spewed the same pro-school-union BS that various presidents have for the last 50 years or so. The same school unions that are fucking kids up in their millions.
His foreign policy has not been any cheaper than Bush’s, in fact it’s been the same, bomb, kill & bullshit afterwards to justify it. It’s sick. Whether it’s cheaper than McCain’s is irrelevant because it’s a proposition that cannot be proved. Hannan could easily have stated clearly on American talk shows “I would never vote for either of these hacks” instead he sung Obama’s praises.
Using Obama’s Mixed-Race as a factor in his favour is blatantly racist. I realise Hannan is saying that this is what other people like, but it’s clearly a stupid point to cite in his favour. The fact that they think he’s anti-Iraq war is more fool them, the man is pro-war, he just said a few good things when it was politically popular for him to do so; once it comes to the actions he’s actually taken we see that he’s actually in favour of tens of thousands of troops in Iraq and he loves war in general.
These errors are not random. They amount to a comprehensive strategy of Europeanisation: Euro-carbon taxes, Euro-disarmament, Euro-healthcare, Euro-welfare, Euro-spending levels, Euro-tax levels and, inevitably, Euro-unemployment levels. Any American reader who wants to know where Obamification will lead should spend a week with me in the European Parliament. I’m working in your future and, believe me, you won’t like it.
This stuff is true on a surface level but it ignores the nature of government: even if Europe didn’t exist, Obama (or any president) would be trying to do these things. It’s not “Europeanisation” it’s simply the inevitable increase of state power over time. That’s what the state always tries to do, and Obama is just continuing the general pattern. Perhaps Europe has inspired America, but I think a more accurate way to look at it is that all states are trying to increase their power at all times and Europe is just home to some of the more successful efforts.
No one denies that Obama was dealt a rotten economic hand; but he has played it ineptly. His policies are serving to make his country poorer, less free and less respected. And that is a problem for all of us .
As somebody who claims to subscribe to Austrian Economics and be a big fan of Hayek stuff like this just sounds retarded to me. “Dealt a bad hand” WTF? The “Economy” is independent from Government, they simply interfere with it, it’s not a “hand” for politicians to argue about, it’s people’s real lives, and whenever government meddles in it they are HURTING PEOPLE. All Obama needed to do was NOT PLAY THE GAME, remove regulations, reduce taxes, stop printing counterfeit currency, but, as anybody with any sense could have predicted, he’s done the opposite every chance he’s had.
He was actually dealt a great hand: he was elected into a tidal wave of goodwill and promise and been given ample leeway to make mistakes by his, mostly retarded, supporters. The fact that many of them are actually beginning to lose faith in him is a testament to just how much he doesn’t give a shit about helping anybody except his political buddies. I know it might seem OTT to get angry about this sentence but why is Daniel mincing words? Why is he beginning his sentence with “No One denies…”
Either take a fucking stand or jump off the libertarian bandwagon, sir.
Until I see Hannan call Obama out PROPERLY as an authoritarian, a fascist and an accessory to tens of thousands of murders then I’ll have little time for him. I appreciate the speech he made to Gordon Brown (by far his best moment), but he’s clearly libertarian-super-lite and a far cry from the kind of principled people I want to give exposure to.
June 18th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
“a far cry from the kind of principled people I want to give exposure to”
So why’d you write a fucking great long article about the cunt then? ;o)
June 18th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Good rant :)
June 18th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Hahaha Obo nailed me. I think I used piss-poor phrasing…
Lemme try again:
“but he’s clearly libertarian-super-lite and a far cry from the kind of principled people that will give ACTUAL anti-state ideas the exposure they deserve.”
Completely different sentence, but more in line with what I think I was trying to say. I think I was very tired this morning when I wrote this :p
June 18th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I get what you’re saying – Hannan probably has pretty libertarian instincts but is pretty much still a party animal – but it frustrates me how some libertarians want to demand too much purity from other libertarians in the public eye. Stefan Molyneux, for instance, is a man I agree with a lot of the time, but his dismissal of Ron Paul and associated movements, merely because he’s operating within the existing political machine, I find to be counter-productive to the cause of liberty. While I was fairly libertarian before, Ron Paul as a character definitely cemented my interest, and I’m sure that goes for thousands of others. Hannan, I feel, could have a similar effect if he chose to be a little more maverick in his approach. It’s just unfortunate that in British politics, being a loose cannon isn’t going to get you anywhere.
And yes, I realise Hannan’s ideas are basically stripped down Toryism (I don’t understand his unquestioning admiration for democracy either), but damn, I’d rather have him as an influence on politics than most others I can think of.
Just to undermine my argument, what a fucking numpty for supporting Obama in the first place.
June 20th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Must resist urge to repeat my own forum comments saying exactly this months ago… The man is simply a smarter politician, who realises the Utilitarian benefits of freedom and wants to apply them to the richest (admits wanting socialist healthcare ONLY for the poor etc). He’s everything the BBC pretend the Torys are and worse. Not to mention the localism and democracy…
June 20th, 2010 at 8:42 am
In What it Means to be a Libertarian, Charles Murray, who is far from being a radical libertarian, argues for a principle of subsidiarity – that, if things need to be done by government, they be done as locally as possible. His claim is that the more local something is, the more closely it will tend to approximate what would have been done voluntarily by the people concerned. Perhaps Hannan’s positions on local direct democracy are similar?
June 21st, 2010 at 12:08 am
Charles Murray is far from a radical Libertarian in the same way that Creationists are far from radical physicists. That is, they’re not. Radical, like fundementalist, just means agreeing with the definition – as opposed to using it as a fun label.
So how about instead of having more and more small groups oppressing their minorities, we approximate the voluntarism of the people by allowing them to act voluntarily. Because Localism is as close to Voluntarism as Rape is to Love making, and yes, Hannans position is very similar to that.