Curt Doolittle

Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

  • THE RIGHT MEME: LAW AND ORDER VERSUS CRIMINAL CORRUPTION –“Yes, Russian spets-n

    THE RIGHT MEME: LAW AND ORDER VERSUS CRIMINAL CORRUPTION

    –“Yes, Russian spets-naz are involved but the other layer is the huge network of criminal corruption trying to save itself or at least gain leverage. That’s why it is important not to see this just as “Russian vs. Ukrainian”–that is only one dimension and doesn’t capture the complexity of what is going on. One way to look at this is that this is the extension of the Maidan to the East. It’s the great front in the battle against criminal corruption. This moment was inevitable. As we now know, Yanukovych’s son has for years been supplementing the low pay of the security services and militia in Donetsk with envelopes of cash. They essentially privatized the security services. But that doesn’t make them reliable in the heat of battle. It’s also why the solution is not as easy and straightforward as it may seem–it’s not a simple military operation.

    People are going to have to liberate themselves. And that’s not a bad thing. In Kramatorsk last night, the green men occupied the militia, got drunk, got bored and left. How do you think people in Slaviansk are feeling today? The mayor fled. The local city administration workers were forced to gather and were instructed that “they are now working for them”. What great joy have the armed men brought to their lives? And who can the armed men trust in Slaviansk? This is the problem with occupation. Pretty soon every resident of Slaviansk will start looking like a ‘Banderite”.

    The Russian spets-naz are the most lethal and dangerous–but they don’t want to be captured and will try to elude direct confrontation at all costs. The green men, the Crimean blow-hards (sorry for the vulgarity) aren’t nearly as formidable and the local criminal thugs for hire are in it for the money. It’s not a winning formula, especially if the locals begin to fight back, as they seem to be doing. What happened in Zaporizhzhia was instructive, the “pro-Russian” protesters turned out to be mostly members of a local criminal gang, paid to stir up trouble. People came out by the thousands to surround them. It’s no secret that people are organizing and arming themselves in the East in pro-Ukrainian partisan groups.

    The battle line is less “Russian” vs. “Ukrainian”–it’s criminal corruption vs. hope for law and order. That is the narrative that should find the greatest resonance. To complicate things further–I think the real target is Dnipropetrovsk. The third layer in all of this is the longstanding war between the Donetskie and the Dnipropetrovskie. But the difference there is that Dnipropetrovsk actually makes money and their guys are less afraid of the EU, as opposed to Donetsk.”–

    RUSSIA IS A SOCIETY OF CRIMINAL CORRUPTION. UKRAINE WANTS TO BE FREE OF CRIMINAL CORRUPTION.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-15 18:17:00 UTC

  • CONSERVATIVE + LIBERTARIAN + PROGRESSIVE : ETHICS AND INSTITUTIONS Conservatives

    CONSERVATIVE + LIBERTARIAN + PROGRESSIVE : ETHICS AND INSTITUTIONS

    Conservatives are right on morality, right on social capital, and wrong on institutions.

    Libertarians are right on institutions, right on economics and wrong on morality.

    Progressives are wrong on … literally everything.

    Rothbardianism was a tragedy.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-14 13:00:00 UTC

  • INSURGENCY ON BEHALF OF LIBERTY First America. Then Europa

    INSURGENCY ON BEHALF OF LIBERTY

    First America.

    Then Europa.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-14 12:47:00 UTC

  • ARISTOCRATIC EGALITARIANISM RETURNS? It’s been an interesting spring. We learned

    ARISTOCRATIC EGALITARIANISM RETURNS?

    It’s been an interesting spring.

    We learned that international law is an illusion and that only the ability to use economic and military power determines policy.

    We learned that the only means of controlling the government is if armed civilians encircle and threaten their oppressive government thugs.

    We learned that western governments do not live up to their promises to defend the desire for freedom of people who give up their arms.

    We we learned that nuclear weapons are the only guarantee of self governance.

    The source of liberty is the organized application of violence by a minority willing to die to deny military, political and economic power to the state.

    Violence is a virtue. Violence is the first and most important form of wealth.

    Invest your violence wisely.

    Use it against the state.

    A militia of every able bodied male is the only guarantee of liberty.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-14 12:35:00 UTC

  • The Crime Of Statism : Conspiracy I disagree vehemently with Walter Block on eth

    The Crime Of Statism : Conspiracy

    I disagree vehemently with Walter Block on ethics, but I agree with his proposition that Statism should be criminalized.

    Under Propertarianism it’s conspiracy.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-13 02:07:00 UTC

  • ARISTOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY Aristocracy in a post-agrarian economy is a philosophica

    ARISTOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

    Aristocracy in a post-agrarian economy is a philosophical choice made by individuals with a set of intellectual, moral, and emotional dispositions. It is not a property of wealth. But a property of ones choice to take ownership of the commons, and to abstain from free riding, in an alliance with others who would do the same.

    Aristocracy is a choice.

    Choose.

    THE VIRTUE OF ARISTOCRACY

    The choice is not the same as producing consistent membership in a family that propagates that philosophy.

    One can choose, but its the outcome that is the measure of the achievement.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-12 08:00:00 UTC

  • INSURGENCIES HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON: THEY WIN. —“Although transnational insu

    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141107/david-malet/foreign-fighters-playbook?cid=soc-tumblr-in-snapshots-foreign_fighters_playbook-040914%22–TRANSNATIONAL INSURGENCIES HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON: THEY WIN.

    —“Although transnational insurgencies comprise highly diverse groups across different conflicts and eras, they still have much in common. For one, such forces are winning: transnational insurgencies have won nearly half of the civil wars in which they have fought, almost twice the success rate of insurgencies overall. Several Israeli prime ministers have acknowledged that Israel’s victory in 1948 relied on the World War II veterans who aided the fledgling state against Arab armies. In other conflicts throughout history, prominent foreign fighters were either instrumental in extending insurgencies or making them costlier to suppress: the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general who fought for the American rebels during the Revolutionary War; the Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi, who supported the Republican uprising in Brazil in the 1830s; and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who formed al Qaeda in Iraq under the U.S. occupation. “—

    –“The patterns of recruitment for such disparate fighters are broadly similar and, because of that, they all have the same Achilles’ heel…. Insurgent groups … use despair rather than optimism to recruit members. Generally, they tell recruits that they are losing a war of survival and that they face an existential threat.”–

    –“It might not seem like the most persuasive pitch, particularly for fighters who, if they join, must violate a number of laws and take up arms in an unfamiliar territory. But it works. …. The strategy works best with foreign recruits who share the movement’s ideology, ethnicity, or religion but who, unlike local fighters, do not have immediate communities and families in the line of fire.”–

    –“Such fighters are often persuadable because of their weak affiliations with their own country and national identity,”–

    –” In these conflicts, the foreign fighters, driven by the belief that they are fighting a desperate battle to the end, act more aggressively than local insurgents — even when their side is actually winning. It’s no accident that most suicide missions in Afghanistan and Iraq were carried out by foreign fighters rather than local militants. “–

    –“Some insurgent groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, have taken advantage of this dynamic by using foreigners to target civilians when the local combatants will not. “–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-10 16:16:00 UTC

  • OCCUPY (CONQUER) THE WHOLE OF UKRAINE” If Russia had something positive to add t

    http://24tv.ua/home/showSingleNews.do?putins_main_aim__occupy_whole_ukraine_kwasniewski&objectId=431334&lang=en”TO OCCUPY (CONQUER) THE WHOLE OF UKRAINE”

    If Russia had something positive to add to the world, rather than as a source of corruption, brutality, and poverty, then that would be one thing. But Russia is a net negative influence on everything it touches.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-10 15:18:00 UTC

  • democracy, diversity is ‘a bad’

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/04/demographics_conservatism_and_racial_polarization_could_america_become_mississippi.htmlUnder democracy, diversity is ‘a bad’.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-10 13:57:00 UTC

  • I just get comfortable again and Putin goes and starts insurrections in three ma

    I just get comfortable again and Putin goes and starts insurrections in three main cities so that he can have an excuse to ‘save’ the residents.

    Playbook continues.

    Dammit. Someone shoot that fking guy please.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-06 16:08:00 UTC