Discouraging Lessons From Imperial Spain

"In the 1560s, Spain faced a minor revolt in the Netherlands, which were then controlled by the Spanish crown. Hundreds of Catholic churches were sacked and desecrated by mobs of Calvinists. Philip II of Spain decided to send an army, commanded by the duke of Alba – despite the fact that by spring 1567, the Netherlands' regent had put the rebellion down. In effect, Philip and Alba embarked on a "war of choice," against the advice of both local authorities and many of Philip's counselors.

The duke of Alba's arrival in Brussels on Friday, Aug. 22, 1567, at the head of an army of 10,000 men – it was the first to follow the famous "Spanish Road" – created a problem where none existed.

Henry Kamen writes,"The duke of Alba, observers guessed, was there to restore order, arrest dissidents and check the growth of heresy. But the situation, according to Margaret of Parma (the Regent), was under control, so why was an army needed? It was in any case the first time that heresy in another country had ever appeared to be a concern of the Spanish crown."

Once Alba got himself settled, he began arresting Flemish aristocrats, including some of those who had helped Margaret suppress the previous year's rebellion. King Phillip wrote to Alba in November 1567, "you have a free hand." He did so despite some excellent advice from Friar Lorenzo de Villavicencio, who had lived in the Netherlands.

"The situation, Villavicencio insisted to the king, could not be resolved with an army. Nor must force be used against the Netherlanders, for that would unite them all against Spain. … 'Don't let Your Majesty be persuaded that the Flemings are beasts and drunks, for they are human beings and if not so now they will be so one day, standing together and in their own land and with neighbors who will help them; and even if they kill one of ours and we kill ten of theirs, in the end they will finish us.' Spaniards could not be allowed to govern in the country, 'for they neither know the language nor understand the laws and customs.'"

Philip and Alba ignored this advice; Alba's motto was "Hombres muertos no hazen guerra" – dead men make no war. His army did what armies do, kill people and break things, and the result was a string of local victories.

By the summer of 1570, Kamen writes,"Alba felt he could congratulate himself on having achieved what no other general in history had ever achieved: the pacification of a whole province, 'and without losing a single man, because I can assure you that in the two campaigns barely a hundred soldiers died.'"

But that wasn't the end of the story.

The Dutch rebels adapted in a way the Spanish had never imagined: they based themselves where no Spanish troops could reach them, at sea. On April 1, 1572, the Sea Beggars, as the maritime rebels called themselves, seized the offshore port of Brill. On April 14, the prince of Orange called on the Dutch people to revolt against "cruel, bloodthirsty, foreign oppressors," and they did.

The resulting war would last for 80 years and result in Dutch independence and Spanish ruin." Discouraging Lessons From Imperial Spain by William S. Lind

Democracia Politica e Liberalismo-Democracia Civil

Imaginem um desses grandes condomínios residenciais, que os já existem, com vivendas, ruas, lojas, etc.

A gestão do condomínio estará a ser efectuado por uma empresas especializada, as decisões são tomadas em Assembleias previstas em estatutos, e a tradição-costume de convivência encarrega-se de um modus de convivência pacífico, que em última análise se destina a conservar e até a valorizar o património individual e comum dos proprietários, que determinam em última análise os regulamentos (o que é ou não permitido no espaço comum, manutenção, etc) e a sua constituição (estatutos).

De repente, por parte de residentes não proprietários (filhos de proprietários residentes, etc) surge a ideia de "revolução democrática":

A pretensão que o condomínio seja "democrático", que todos os maiores de 18 anos possam universalmente em "um Homem um voto" votar em eleições para "democráticamente" decidir os destinos no condomínio e isso inclui poder mudar a sua constituição (estatutos).

Podemos imaginar o que se poderá passar depois desta revolução: o actual paradgima social-democrata.

O igual voto convida a que a maioria se auto-legitime no centralismo democrático igualitário para ultrapassar a legitimidade do direito de propriedade dos condóminios. Os proprietários (em geral, pais e avôs de família) que enquanto o são detêm uma hierarquia natural com os seus filhos e convidados passam a disputar em minoria, o desejo da maioria se desligar dessa ordem natural.

É este o problema entre democracia civil (baseado em contratos e proprietários) e democracia política. E na base está a noção igualitarista das democracias modernas, que aparentemente resolveu "problemas" mas trouxe muitos outros, como a quase incompatibilidade do actual centralismo democrático moderno e a noção de liberdade numa ordem natural.

Coisas

A direita anti-pacifista julga o terrorismo pelos olhos delicados e ofendidos de um pacifista
A esquerda anti-guerra olha para o terrorismo pelo julgamento violento e bruto de quem pratica o anti-pacifismo

Democracia Universal

'Universal Democracy' Is the Goal As Congress Eyes New Legislation

WASHINGTON - When senators return to Washington this September, they will be set to consider new legislation that would commit America to ending tyranny the world over. Tucked inside the House version of a bill that authorizes spending on foreign aid is the language of what is known as the ADVANCE Democracy Act. The act instructs American ambassadors and embassy staffs to draw up democracy transition plans for unfree regimes, with input from nonviolent opposition movements in the various countries. While Congress has passed laws that require America to work with democratic opposition groups for specific countries - such as the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act - never before has it considered a law that would, as ADVANCE proposes, "commit United States foreign policy to the challenge of achieving universal democracy"

PS: parece-me que o direito internacional tem de ser reescrito. Se todos podem influenciar mudanças de regime de todos invocando principios (democráticos agora, porque nao "direitos sociais" mais tarde, valores republicanos...direito ao aborto...comercio "justo", etc) acabamos na prática no caos hobbesiano internacional eo fim da soberania do Estado Nação, ou seja, a um passo desse monstro e blasfemia a que podemos chamar de governo mundial. Parece-me que a direita (ou conservadores, liberais) que abraça este tipo de internacionalismo intervencionista não percebe o quanto perdeu o norte.

Do lado Liberal fica a pergunta, porque é que todas as democracias modernas são sociais-democracias - e cada vez mais? E do lado Conservador, como pretender conservar a soberania da familia, património e comunidade, esmagado numa lógica de crescente centralismo democratico de massas?

Ainda "Million Dollar Baby"

"Last but not least, on my summer vacation I watched the video of Million Dollar Baby. I particularly liked the stark difference between Maggie Fitzgerald and her welfare-check–cherishing family. Maggie had known that kind of life, and she left it behind for something far more unpredictable and individualistic and decentralized. In doing that, she learned what it meant to truly be alive. She created an escape hatch." Karen Kwiatkowski

Alan Greenspan e o Ouro

"I would like to mention a point raised last week by Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, during what may be his last testimony to Congress before he retires. He was asked by Congressman Ron Paul why doesn't the U.S. return to a gold standard when fiat money (paper money not backed by gold) created the problems of the 1970s in a scheme to induce inflation and defraud people of their hard earned money.

Greenspan didn't dispute Ron Paul's assessment of the 1970s, but said a 'scheme' would imply a conscious effort, yet the effects of the 1970s policies were "inadvertent." Greenspan said that in the early 1980s, a return to the gold standard, as he suggested at the time, may have been a prudent option, but that former Chairman Paul Volcker's policies were also effective.Nowadays, however, there is no need to return to a gold standard because central banks have learned from their mistakes and are acting as if there were a gold standard.

Greenspan must have forgotten George Bernard Shaw's quote: "You have to choose between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the government. And, with due respect to these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold."

Greenspan appears to be a victim of the same lack of modesty as all central bankers throughout history have been. Every generation of central bankers seems to believe that they have not only learned from the mistakes of the past, but also imply that no new mistakes will be made. During World War I, the German Reichsbank's central bankers -- all educated men --, believed financing a war is 'exogenous' and non-inflationary to the economy; hyper-inflation a few years down the road proved them wrong." A Snowball in the Making: China's Basket of Currencies Axel Merk

Che Guevara - The Killing Machine

Um artigo de leitura obrigatória: The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand, por Alvaro Vargas Llosa.

The metamorphosis of Che Guevara into a capitalist brand is not new, but the brand has been enjoying a revival of late—an especially remarkable revival, since it comes years after the political and ideological collapse of all that Guevara represented.

(...)

It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth. (Many Rastafarians would renounce Haile Selassie if they had any notion of who he really was.) It is not surprising that Guevara’s contemporary followers, his new post-communist admirers, also delude themselves by clinging to a myth—except the young Argentines who have come up with an expression that rhymes perfectly in Spanish: "Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué," or "I have a Che T-shirt and I don’t know why."

(...)

Guevara might have been enamored of his own death, but he was much more enamored of other people’s deaths. In April 1967, speaking from experience, he summed up his homicidal idea of justice in his "Message to the Tricontinental": "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine."

(...)

Che’s lust for power had other ways of expressing itself besides murder. The contradiction between his passion for travel—a protest of sorts against the constraints of the —and his impulse to become himself an enslaving state over others is poignant. In writing about Pedro Valdivia, the conquistador of Chile, Guevara reflected: "He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural." He might have been describing himself. At every stage of his adult life, his megalomania manifested itself in the predatory urge to take over other people’s lives and property, and to abolish their free will.

(...)

Guevara distanced himself from the Soviet Union in the last years of his life. He did so for the wrong reasons, blaming Moscow for being too soft ideologically and diplomatically, for making too many concessions—unlike Maoist China, which he came to see as a haven of orthodoxy. In October 1964, a memo written by Oleg Daroussenkov, a Soviet official close to him, quotes Guevara as saying: “We asked the Czechoslovaks for arms; they turned us down. Then we asked the Chinese; they said yes in a few days, and did not even charge us, stating that one does not sell arms to a friend.” In fact, Guevara resented the fact that Moscow was asking other members of the communist bloc, including Cuba, for something in return for its colossal aid and political support. His final attack on Moscow came in Algiers, in February 1965, at an international conference, where he accused the Soviets of adopting the “law of value,” that is, capitalism. His break with the Soviets, in sum, was not a cry for independence. It was an Enver Hoxha–like howl for the total subordination of reality to blind ideological orthodoxy.

The great revolutionary had a chance to put into practice his economic vision—his idea of social justice—as head of the National Bank of Cuba and of the Department of Industry of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform at the end of 1959, and, starting in early 1961, as minister of industry. The period in which Guevara was in charge of most of the Cuban economy saw the near-collapse of sugar production, the failure of industrialization, and the introduction of rationing—all this in what had been one of Latin America’s four most economically successful countries since before the Batista dictatorship.

His stint as head of the National Bank, during which he printed bills signed “Che,” has been summarized by his deputy, Ernesto Betancourt: “[He] was ignorant of the most elementary economic principles.” Guevara’s powers of perception regarding the world economy were famously expressed in 1961, at a hemispheric conference in Uruguay, where he predicted a 10 percent rate of growth for Cuba “without the slightest fear,” and, by 1980, a per capita income greater than that of “the U.S. today.” In fact, by 1997, the thirtieth anniversary of his death, Cubans were dieting on a ration of five pounds of rice and one pound of beans per month; four ounces of meat twice a year; four ounces of soybean paste per week; and four eggs per month.

(via The Guest of Time)

Leituras Recomendadas

Recordo na próxima Sexta (dia 29) será editada a 14ª edição das Leituras Recomendadas. Quem desejar recebê-las deve inscrever-se na lista da Causa Liberal (canto superior direito desta página).

Hoje sinto-me mais monárquico...

A República é muito engraçada... No plano das balelas que a sustentam, os cidadãos escolhem o mais apto para desempenhar a suprema magistratura. Na realidade das coisas, José Sócrates decide que Mário Soares será candidato. Assim se fazem os presidentes, sobre os quais um político francês célebre confessava que o melhor método para os escolher era garantir que fosse "surtout le plus bête". Sobre este sistema, já David Hume disse o que havia a dizer no seu ensaio "That Politics May Be Reduced to a Sicience" (no qual também explica por que razão a monarquia hereditária é o sistema mais lógico para a chefia de Estado). Quem espera que Mário Soares vá desempenhar o cargo com toda a competência e representando todos os Portugueses não pensa de certeza o mesmo que José Sócrates, que sabe ao que anda - é a função dele como político, não há que o condenar. Com a chefia de Estado entregue aos políticos, pode valer tudo, até catapultar para Belém um octagenário com as suas faculdades em claro declínio. O grave é os que não são políticos terem colocado nas mãos desses senhores a escolha do chefe de Estado. Porque são eles que escolhem - alguém tem dúvidas?

"Collective security against aggression"

"(...) The theoretical analogue of such a concert against "aggression" is held to be combating criminal action against individuals.

A robs or murders B; the local police, appointed defenders of the right of person and property, leap to the defense of B and act to apprehend and punish A.

In the same way, "peace-loving" nations are supposed to band together against "aggressor" nations or states. Hence, Harry Truman's otherwise mystifying insistence that the U.S. war against North Korea was not a war at all but a "police action."

The deep flaw in all this is that when A robs or murders B, there is a general agreement that A is in the wrong, and that he has indeed aggressed against the person and just property rights of B.

But when State A aggresses against the border of State B, often claiming that the border is unjust and the result of a previous aggression against country A decades before, how can we say a priori that State A is the aggressor and that we must dismiss its defense out of hand?
Who says, and on what principle, that State B has the same moral right to all of its existing territory as individual B has to his life and property?

And how can the two aggressions be equated when our global democrats refuse to come up with any principles or criteria whatsoever: except the unsatisfactory and absurd call for a world State or blind reliance upon the boundary status quo at any given moment?

What, then, is the answer? What national boundaries can be considered as just?

In the first place, it must be recognized that there are no just national boundaries per se; that real justice can only be founded on the property rights of individuals. If fifty people decided voluntarily to set up an organization for common services or self-defense of their persons and properties in a certain geographical area, then the boundaries of that association, based on the just property rights of the members, will also be just.

National boundaries are only just insofar as they are based on voluntary consent and the property rights of their members or citizens. Just national boundaries are, then, at best derivative and not primary.

How much more is this true of existing State boundaries which are, in greater or lesser degree, based on coercive expropriation of private property, or on a mixture of that with voluntary consent! (...)

But wasn't the Wilsonian attempt to impose national self-determination and draw the map of Europe a disaster? And how! But the disaster was inevitable even assuming (incorrectly) good will on the part of Wilson and the Allies and ignoring the fact that national self-determination was a mask for their imperial ambitions. For by its nature, national self-determination cannot be imposed from without, by a foreign government entity, be it the United States or some world League.

The whole point of national self-determination is to get top-down coercive power out of the picture and, for the use of force to devolve from the larger entity to more genuine natural and voluntary national entities.

In short, to devolve power from the top downward. Imposing national self-determination from the outside makes matters worse and more coercive than ever. Moreover, getting the U.S. or other governments involved in every ethnic conflict throughout the globe maximizes, rather than minimizes, coercion, conflict, war, and mass murder. It drags the United States, as the great isolationist scholar Charles A. Beard once put it, into "perpetual war for perpetual peace."

Referring back to political theory, since the nation-state has a monopoly of force in its territorial area, the one thing it must not do is ever try to exercise its force beyond its area, where it has no monopoly, because then a relatively peaceful "international anarchy" (where each State confines its power to its own geographical boundary) is replaced by an international Hobbesian chaos of war of all (governments) against all.

In short, given the existence of nation-states, they should (a) never exercise their power beyond their territorial area (a foreign policy of "isolationism"), and (b) maintain the right of secession of groups or entities within their territorial area.

The right of secession, if fearlessly upheld, implies also the right of one or more villages to secede even from its own ethnic nation, or, even, as Ludwig von Mises affirmed in his Nation, State, and Economy, the right of secession by each individual.

If one deep flaw in the Wilsonian enterprise was its imposition of national self-determination from the outside, another was his total botch of redrawing the European map. It is difficult to believe that they could have done a worse job if the Versailles rulers had blindfolded themselves and put pins arbitrarily in a map of Europe to create new nations." Murray N. Rothbard

Hayek Links

Thanks to Greg Ransom and Johan Norberg for the kind references to Hayek Links.

Descentralizaçao

"Rothbard was a defender of multinational corporations and global trade, but he also saw that too much integration in the production structure is bad for business. Firms lose the ability to calculate their profits and losses when they are responsible for too great a degree of internal production for their own capital goods.

How does this impact the organization of other institutions in society, like church, extended family, civic associations, and ideological movements? Is centralization best or is decentralization best? The answer must be left to experience. The Catholic Church is centralized doctrinally but decentralized managerially." What We Mean by Decentralization by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

PS: Rothbard foi o primeiro a transpor o principio da impossibilidade do socialismo (so existe "economia" se existirem preços, so existem preços se estes forem livremente determinados e estes so o sao se existirem direitos de propriedade que obrigam as partes a voluntariamente negociar um racio de troca) para a esfera da economia privada - a acusaçao socialista sobre as grandes empresas e grandemente exagerado porque quando uma grande empresa integra demasiados negocios começa a ter o mesmo problema de calculo economico que um Estado intervencionista.

Londres

Duas teses fragilizadas:

- o terrorismo causado pela pobreza (Mario Soares)
- o terrorismo contra a "democracia" ou os "valores ocidentais" (neo-conservadores e a esquerda internacionalista)

Como D. Duarte procurou dizer numa excelente entrevista no Independente, no essencial, sao questoes territoriais que o motivam ao longo dos tempos. Agora, nao e Londres que se parece com o Iraque, mas o Mundo que se parece mais com o conflito no Medio-Oriente. Mas tambem nao e este conflito a origem de tudo (uns quantos a disputar qual o Estado a deter o monopolio de lei e segurança no mesmo territorio de pedras e areia), o problema esta em querermos resolver os conflitos territoriais dos outros e ainda pior, querer "levar" a democracia aos outros.

Hayek Links

O Hayek Links foi actualizado em 20/07/05

novos artigos em "online books and articles about Hayek"

Antoine Martin
"Currency Competition: A Partial Vindication of Hayek" (with Stacey L. Schreft)

Christian Schubert
"Hayek and the Evolution of Designed Institutions: A critical Assessment

David Colander
"The Many Roads to Serfdom"

Enrico Colombatto
"Hayek And Economic Policy (The Austrian Road To The Third Way)"

Evelyn Gick
"Hayek’s Theory of Cultural Evolution Revisited:Rules, Morality, and the Sensory Order" (with Wolfgang Gick)

Gerrit Meijer
"Some Aspects Of The Relationship Between The Freiburg School And The Austrian School"

Henry G. Manne
"Insider Trading: Hayek, Virtual Markets,And The Dog That Did Not Bark"

J. Stephen Ferris
"Competitive Bank Monies: Reconsidering Hayek and Klein from a Transactions Perspective"

Jack Birner
"The surprising place of cognitive psychology in the work of F.A. Hayek"
"Mind, Market and Society - Network Structures in the Work of F. A. Hayek"

Jakob Von Weizsäcker
"The Hayek Pension An Efficient Minimum Pension To Complement The Welfare State"

Johan Norberg
"The Power of Ideas"

John Jaanmat
"The Hayek Hypohesis and the Production Decisiom: An Experimental Analysis"

Luciano Andreozzi
"Hayek Reads the Literature on the Emergence of Norms"

Luís Aguiar Santos
"E se o “caminho para a servidão” for um labirinto?" (in portuguese)

Nicolaas J Vriend
"Was Hayek an Ace (agent-based computer economist)?"

Thiago Magalhães
"O Brasil no Caminho da Servidão" (in portuguese)

William N. Butos
"The Varieties of Subjectivism: Keynes and Hayek on Expectations" (with Roger G. Koppl)

Blog recomendado

L&LP (Livre & Leal Português)

A Zona Euro entre a estagnação e a estagflação

A única dúvida que podemos ter actualmente quanto ao futuro próximo da Zona Euro é se vamos ter apenas a continuação da presente estagnação económica ou se, a esse estado, já de si preocupante, se virá juntar a inflação. Quanto à presente estagnação, a projecção da OCDE hoje divulgada pelo "Economist" (quadro ao lado), é clara em prever a sua acentuação nos próximos anos, com uma atracção fatal das economias da Zona Euro pelo "crescimento zero".

Ora, para o crescimento económico voltar a subir é necessário fazer cortes na despesa pública e na carga fiscal (o que envolve também reformar a sério os sistemas de segurança social), bem como insistir na flexibilização da legislação laboral. Estas medidas, sabemos que os políticos têm a maior relutância em aplicá-las e vão atrasá-las o mais que puderem, como ficou patente nas escolhas feitas recentemente em Portugal pelo governo Sócrates, que espera ainda o milagre de aumentar a receita fiscal para diminuir o défice.

Perante este impasse e a muito provável deterioração do estado das finanças públicas nos países da Zona Euro, a tentação dos políticos será arredarem o Pacto de Estabilidade e Crescimento e porem o Banco Central Europeu a imprimir mais e mais euros com que possam, no curtíssimo prazo, acudir a estas dificuldades. Como os preços logo a seguir se ajustam a essa maior massa monetária em circulação, anulando os efeitos da "ilusão monetária" que os políticos julgam milagrosa, a tendência será acentuar o crescimento da oferta monetária, entrando-se numa espiral inflacionista.

As declarações descaradamente neste sentido proferidas pelo senhor que em Lisboa ocupa a pasta dos negócios estrangeiros é mais um dos muitos indícios de que essa opção está a fazer o seu caminho entre os políticos da Zona Euro. O sr. Freitas do Amaral está a pedir, tal como muitos outros políticos europeus, aquilo a que já chamei aqui uma "salvífica inflação continental". Este era o maior risco do euro, que cada vez mais se torna uma ameaça real e próxima.

É razão para dizer: tenham medo, tenham muito medo! Porque ao presente estado de estagnação que se agrava, na Zona Euro, se pode juntar uma vaga inflacionista que, dadas as dificuldades financeiras estruturais dos Estados, se pode tornar um caminho depois difícil de parar, descambando numa hiper-inflação. E isso pode ser o fim do mundo como o conhecemos.

Afonso "CAA" Costa

Para o CAA, do Blasfémias, a não adesão à liderança política de Afonso Costa foi uma das razões que fez da "direita" portuguesa um ser iliberal! Isto é inacreditável, mas também revelador do que por aí se entende por liberalismo! E do pouco que se conhece da historiografia dos últimos vinte anos...

Quem sabe pouco sobre o século XIX português tem sérias dificuldades de perceber o que foi o republicanismo e um personagem como Afonso Costa. E o resultado é ficar com uma visão completamente distorcida da nossa história política. Dizer isto e considerar que outra das razões do iliberalismo da "direita" foi a recusa do constitucionalismo liberal (de qual "direita", já agora?), não percebendo que republicanos como Costa foram os principais coveiros da liberdade civil e política em Portugal, mostra bem o que aqui digo.

Quem acha que Afonso Costa era mais liberal que João Franco padece de um grave défice de conhecimento e reflexão sobre a história política portuguesa dos dois últimos séculos.

Era melhor o Prof. Rui Ramos e outros historiadores reformarem-se. Isto não tem emenda.

O Natal segundo Ayn Rand...

Já que descristianizaram o Natal, o que sobra pode, de facto, ser isto...

Actualização do site da Causa Liberal

Novos artigos:

O Brasil no caminho da servidão
Por Thiago Magalhães

E se o “caminho para a servidão” for um labirinto?
Por Luís Aguiar Santos

A liberdade assusta, também no Peru

Autoridades de la Universidad de San Marcos vetan conferencia de Carlos Alberto Montaner

5 de julio de 2005

San Borja, Lima.- En un hecho sin precedentes, la Directora Administrativa de la Facultad de Economía de dicha casa de estudios, Gaby Cortez Cortez, vetó ayer la realización de la conferencia del escritor liberal Carlos Alberto Montaner, organizada por el movimiento estudiantil Vanguardia Liberal y el Instituto de Libre Empresa, a pesar de contar con el apoyo organizativo del director del Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Enrique Palacios y el visto bueno del Tercio Estudiantil de la facultad.

"En una actitud totalmente intolerable y moralmente condenable de las autoridades, nos han privado a los estudiantes san marquinos de la oportunidad de escuchar una alternativa distinta al pensamiento único marxista y socialista que se nos impone por la fuerza en los cursos y conferencias", afirmó Renzo Cánepa, líder de la agrupación estudiantil Vanguardia Liberal.

No metro de Londres

Foto tirada por um dos passageiros que abandonam o comboio e tentam voltar à superfície.

Atentados em Londres

Cobertura exaustiva no Insurgente e, em directo de Londres, Fernando Albino.

NO TYRANT

King George III was born in London on June 4, 1738. He was the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the grandson of George II. He succeeded his grandfather in 1760, his father having died in 1751. George III was the first of the House of Hanover to be born and educated as an Englishman. He had high but impractical ideas of kingship. George III was the longest reigning of the male British monarchs. George III was king of Great Britain and Ireland and presided over the loss of the American colonies.

Although never an autocratic monarch, George III was always a powerful force in politics. He was a strong supporter of the war against America, and he viewed the concession of independence in 1783 with such detestation that he considered abdicating his throne. At the same time he fought a bitter personal feud with the Whig leader Charles James Fox, and his personal intervention brought the fall of the Fox-North ministry in 1783. He then took a political gamble by placing the government in the hands of William Pitt, thereby restoring stability for the rest of the century. In 1801 he preferred, however, to force Pitt to resign as prime minister rather than permit Catholic Emancipation, a measure that he interpreted as contrary to his coronation oath to uphold the Church of England.

After 1801 George III was increasingly incapacitated by an illness, sometimes identified as porphyry, that caused blindness and senility. His recurring bouts of insanity became a political problem and ultimately compelled him to submit to the establishment of a formal Regency in1811. The regent was his oldest son, the future George IV, one of 15 children borne him by his wife, Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

George III was bitterly criticized by Whig historians of his own and later days. He learned quickly, however, and developed into a shrewd and sensible statesman, although one of conservative views. The best loved of the rulers of the House of Hanover, he enjoyed a personal reputation that stood his house in good stead during the disastrous reign of his son George.

http://www.kinggeorgeiii.com/

O outro lado do "4 de Julho"...

Para lembrar àqueles que gostam tanto de celebrar as efemérides alheias que a revolução americana tem uma história um pouco mais complexa do que a Declaração de Independência deixa ver...

De: http://www.livinghistorypages.com/Loyalists.html

"(…)
History has not been kind to the loyal Americans who fought, died, and in most cases were exiled from America during the Revolution. But who were the Loyalists? Ann Gorman Condon, associate professor of history at the University of New Brunswick at St. John, Canada, writes that there were three categories of Loyalists.

The people in the first category were Loyalists because they had "a vested interest in the imperial establishment" and these were the people you'd expect to remain loyal to the King: colonial governors, royal officials, judges, and Anglican ministers. Their positions depended on loyalty to George III.

The second category of Loyalists were people who belonged to religious and cultural minorities. They remained loyal because they feared increasing American power- power that could destroy them. British tolerance and protection offered these minorities a chance for survival. This category included French Huguenots, Catholics, Quakers as well as blacks (free and slave) and the Native American Indians. All of these groups felt that British rulers had their best interests at heart more so than the Americans. It is interesting-to note that these groups chose British "tolerance" over American "freedom."

The third category of Loyalists were the Tory elite, the people who opposed the Revolution "out of principle." These were the people who wrote pamphlets, organized regiments, and drafted plans to defeat the rebels. These were men such as John Johnson, son of Sir William Johnson, Oliver DeLancey, Alexander McKee, and Matthew Elliot. These people opposed the Revolution because they had hoped to maintain America as a stable part of the British Empire, and seriously doubted that American self-rule would lead all men to be "free." Many also feared that once the rebels gained power America would be ruled by the mob, as was evident in Boston in 1773. Reverend Mather Byles, a noted Tory, wrote, "Which is better-to be ruled by one tyrant 3000 miles away or 3000 tyrants not a mile away?" Many Loyalists felt the same way.

(…)

Every one of the 13 colonies fielded Loyalist regiments against the rebels and the Crown was well served by units such as the United Provincial Corps of Pennsylvania and Maryland Loyalists, the North Carolina Highlanders, the New Jersey Volunteers, and the East Florida Rangers.

Minority groups also formed military units to stand up to the rebels, and the Americans found themselves facing groups like the Royal Catholic Volunteers, the Company of Negroes, the Volunteers of Ireland, and Skinner's Cowboys from New Jersey.

(…)

The years immediately following the Revolution were a nightmare for the loyal Americans. As had been done throughout the War, loyalist property was seized by state governments and was often given to Continental soldiers as a reward for their service in the Rebellion. For the Loyalists whose property had been seized, as well as for those who had no desire to live under the new American government, the only choice left was exile.

Bibliography

"The Loyal Americans. The Military Role of the Loyalist Provincial Corps and Their Settlement in British North America, 1775-1784". Robert S. Allen, General Editor, Canadian War Museum, National Museum of Canada, 1983

"The Loyalists: Revolution, Exile, Settlement". Christopher Moore, McClelland and Stewart, Inc., 1994

Because you're here

"...When the evolutionary psychologist J. B. S. Haldane was asked whether he would lay down his life for his brother, he replied, "No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins." Iraqis have their own version of that line: "My brother and I against my cousin; my cousin and I against the world."

Because marriage between cousins is so common in the Middle East - half of Iraqis are married to their first or second cousins - Arabs live in tightly knit clans long resistant to outsiders, including would-be liberators. T. E. Lawrence learned that lesson when trying to unify Arabs early in the last century.

"The Semites' idea of nationality," he wrote, "was the independence of clans and villages, and their ideal of national union was episodic combined resistance to an intruder. Constructive policies, an organized state, an extended empire, were not so much beyond their sight as hateful in it. They were fighting to get rid of Empire, not to win it."

(...) During the Civil War, Union soldiers were amazed to see poor Southerners without any stake in the slavery system defending it in suicidal charges. But there was a simple explanation, as a barefoot, emaciated Confederate captive famously put it when a Union soldier asked him why he kept fighting: "Because you're here." JOHN TIERNEY

Federalismo e a "Kelo decision"

"...We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not men, and the fixation on individuals as saviors of our freedoms is misplaced. America will regain lost freedoms only when her citizens wake up and reclaim a national sense of self-reliance, individualism, and limited government. A handful of judges cannot save a nation from itself.

The Kelo case also demonstrates that local government can be as tyrannical as centralized government. Decentralized power is always preferable, of course, since it’s easier to fight city hall than Congress. But government power is ever and always dangerous, and must be zealously guarded against. Most people in New London, Connecticut, like most people in America, would rather not involve themselves in politics. The reality is that politics involves itself with us whether we like it or not. We can bury our heads in the sand and hope that things don’t get too bad, or we can fight back when government treats us as its servant rather than its master.

If anything, the Supreme Court should have refused to hear the Kelo case on the grounds that the 5th amendment does not apply to states. If constitutional purists hope to maintain credibility, we must reject the phony incorporation doctrine in all cases – not only when it serves our interests. The issue in the Kelo case is the legality of the eminent domain action under Connecticut law, not federal law. Congress can and should act to prevent the federal government from seizing private property, but the fight against local eminent domain actions must take place at the local level. The people of New London, Connecticut could start by removing from office the local officials who created the problem in the first place." Lessons From the Kelo Decision by Rep. Ron Paul, MD

Stop begging, Africa leaders told

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has told other African leaders to "stop begging" for Western charity.

Powell Revisited

"All war is based on deception." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Nota: esta nao e uma questao Direita versus Esquerda. Para mim, e mais um questao de Estatismo versus Liberalismo. E nas guerras que o Estado mostra a sua face (= poder absoluto sobre o individuo e comunidade), seja iniciada (como todas as guerras americanas o foram) pela "Esquerda" ou nao.

*Powell claimed that Iraq had purchased special aluminum tubes whose only possible use was in uranium enrichment centrifuges. Both CIA and Powell's own State Department confirmed that the tubes were parts for missiles Saddam was legally allowed to have. Following the invasion, no centrifuges, aluminum or otherwise were found.

* Powell also claimed to the United Nations that photos showed "Decontamination Vehicles". But when United Nations inspectors visited the site after the invasion, they located the vehicles and discovered they were just firefighting equipment.

* Powell claimed the Iraqis had illegal rockets and launchers hidden in the palm trees of Western Iraq. None were ever found.

* Powell claimed that the Iraqis had 8,500 liters ( 2245 gallons ) of Anthrax. None was ever found. Powell claimed that Iraq had four tons of VX nerve gas. The UN had already confirmed that it was destroyed. The only VX ever found were samples the US had left as "standards" for testing. When the UN suspected that the US samples had been used to contaminate Iraqi warheads, the US moved quickly to destroy the samples before comparison tests could be carried out.

* Powell claimed that Iraq was building long-range remote drones specifically designed to carry biological weapons. The only drones found were short-range reconnaissance drones. Powell claimed that Iraq had an aggregate of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical and biological warfare agents.

* Powell gave no basis for that claim at all, and a DIA report issued the same time directly contradicted the claim. No biological or chemical weapons were found in Iraq following the invasion.

* Powell claimed that "unnamed sources" confirmed that Saddam had authorized his field commanders to use biological weapons. No such weapons were ever used by the Iraqis to defend against the invasion and, of course, none were ever found in Iraq.

* Powell claimed that 122mm warheads found by the UN inspectors were chemical weapons. The warheads were empty, and showed no signs of ever having contained chemical weapons.

* Powell claimed that Iraq had a secret force of illegal long-range Scud missiles. None were ever found.

* Powell claimed to have an audio tape proving that Saddam was supporting Osama Bin Laden. But independent translation of the tape revealed Osama's wish for Saddam's death.

* Colin Powell's UN debacle also included spy photos taken from high flying aircraft and spacecraft. On the photos were circles and arrows and labels pointing to various fuzzy white blobs and identifying them as laboratories and storage areas for Saddam's massive weapons of mass destruction program. Nothing in the photos actually suggested what the blobby shapes were and inspections which followed the invasion, all of them turned out to be rather benign.

* In at least one case, the satellite Powell claimed had taken one of the pictures had actually been out of operation at the time. And many questioned why Powell was showing black and white photos when the satellites in use at the time over Iraq took color images."

Judge Andrew Napolitano, the Fox News commentator

Via LRCBlog

"...from a Reason interview:

Napolitano: First thing we should do [to end "constitutional chaos"] is abolish the 16th Amendment. That would make the income tax unconstitutional, which is what it was until we enacted the 16th Amendment (even though we had two income taxes before then). That of course would starve much of the federal government out of existence. [...] I would change the third word of the Constitution from people to states because it was the states, not the people, who enacted the Constitution. And I would put the word expressly back in the 10th Amendment [before delegated], which is where it was until it was removed by a political maneuver before the final document was sent to the states for ratification. I would define the word regulate in the Interstate Commerce Clause in its true meaning, which is “to make regular,” not to control every aspect of interstate commerce. In my world, the federal government would be dependent upon the states and excise taxes for its financial wherewithal. It would be limited in its scope to the 18 powers given to it by the Constitution. The states would legislate for the health, safety, welfare, and morality of the people. All government would be required to respect the natural rights of everyone.

Reason: Besides Thomas More, who are your heroes?

Napolitano: I am a great admirer of the work of [Austrian economist] Ludwig von
Mises. He was a true believer that the engine of freedom will make us safer, happier, more culturally admirable, and ultimately give us the freedom to go to heaven. I am a greater admirer of St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei. He taught that any human being by his personal behavior can aspire to sainthood.

4 de Julho

A Revolução separatista, pelo primado do direito natural, contra todas as formas de poder politico centralizado (incluindo o do centralismo democratico). Eu gosto de pensar na excepção americana naquilo que a aproximou de um ordem natural. Recorrendo a Edmund burke (citado por Rothbard):

* "We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the discontented colonists would do, was to disturb authority; we never dreamt they could of themselves supply it."

* "we were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect of anarchy, would instantly enforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is now found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without judges, without executive magistrates"

Foi num ambiente que quase ausencia de Estado, mas presença de governo (o Xerife e Juiz eram contratados, a autonomia local era quase total, gerida pelos comerciantes e notavies como em muitas cidades da Europa de outros tempos, os espaços abertos - da fronteira - cuja ordem era mantida por cada um ou cada comunidade, a propriedade adquirida pela ocupaçao e uso, etc).

Hoje, o pro-americanismo parece por vezes cair numa fixação pelo seu governo federal (e um novo militarismo-nacionalismo - a do centro), cuja dimensao a muito que escapou do seu designio original (causas: primeiro a imposiçao da Uniao pela força - Lincoln, depois a Grande Guerra, o New Deal, a Guerra fria, etc).

No original.

"The Declaration is divided into three main sections: a preamble, a list of grievances, and a conclusion:

1. Authority for Declaration stated to be Laws of Nature and Nature's God.
2. Self-evident truths: all men are created equal.
3. Nature's God, Creator of the Laws of Nature has endowed men with certain unalienable rights.
4. Among these unalienable rights are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
5. Governments are established to safeguard these rights, and derive their just power from the consent of the governed
6. Whenever a government neglects its duties, the people have a right to change or abolish it and form a new government that will guarantee their safety and happiness
7. Long-established governments should not be overthrown for trivial reasons
8. However, repeated crimes and abuses require that the people revolt
9. Such has been the case with Great Britain "

Sobre a Neutralidade e Realismo na Politica Externa II

Mas porque tanto odio?

"4. Concordo com o teu ódio ao paleoconservadorismo isolacionista" Henrique Raposo no Sinedrio.

George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796): Sobre a Neutralidade e Realismo na Politica Externa

Ou a America de outros tempos ("A Republic, not an Empire" diria Patrick J. Buchanan)

"(...) These will be offered to you with the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsels.(...)

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. (...)

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated.(...)

Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. (...) The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others(...).

And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity(...) or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.

How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens, the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.

(...) Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. (...)

(...) There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

(...) The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations. "

Secessao

Secular Shiites in Iraq Seek Autonomy in Oil-Rich South

BASRA, Iraq, June 27 - With the Aug. 15 deadline for writing a new constitution bearing down, a cadre of powerful, mostly secular Shiite politicians is pushing for the creation of an autonomous region in the oil-rich south of Iraq, posing a direct challenge to the nation's central authority.