1984 was written by an Englishman, right?

Appropriately enough.

Rule by Technocrats

Convergences (a blog I'm not familiar with, aside from this article) tackles the issue, "Can Science Rule Society?" Some interesting discussion, but I find it hard to identify the author's point, if there is one. There's a lot of on-this-hand/on-the-other-hand, without coming to a clear conclusion. But I think the author is wary of rule by scientists.

If that's the point, I agree, although perhaps for other reasons. Science and scientists (I am one, after all) can identify processes and facts and so on that relate to practical issues before the government. But the question of policy--of what we should do about it, if anything--is not a scientific question. It's a political one.

Let's take global warming. Is there global warming? If there is, is it man-made? If there is, and we wanted to stop or reverse it, what techniques would work? These are entirely scientific questions.

If there is, should we stop/reverse it? That's not scientific. A scientist can give the consequences for different policies, but science cannot tell us which policy (if any) to take. Science itself is morally neutral. Man's well-being, morality, and ethics are not scientifically determined. These can come from common sense (in easy cases), from political ideals, and most fundamentally from established religious and moral systems.

The article misses some of this, for instance with sex education. It declares abstinence-only education a failure (I'm not familiar with studies; it's not much of an interest of mine) and denigrates the idea, saying the issue is well-suited for rule-by-scientists. But pregnancy and STD infection rates aren't the whole issue. The morality of the actions are also important, and that's something entirely missed by looking at statistics. Should sex-ed be resigned to or even encouraging of sexual behavior by kids? A scientific approach misses this whole question.

Heck, let's take it up a notch to eugenics. There was a great job of rule by science! Scientific principles were driving the whole scheme. But should it have been done at all? Ahh, you see, that wasn't a scientific question, and the immorality of the program was dismissed by those Progressives who pushed for a scientific government.

Policy can or should be informed by research (depending on what we're talking about), but the decision of what to do cannot often be a scientific one.

Honduras: Zelaya's hints of force against the congress

Mary Anastasia O'Grady reports in the Wall Street Journal. He'd used thuggish tactics earlier this year in fights with the congress for things outside presidential powers. Not surprising, and perfectly in keeping with his being a Chavista.

Conrad Black has an article on Honduras in National Review. One thing that surprised me in this, if I understand correctly, is that Honduras doesn't have provision for impeachment of its president. Huh.

How to turn Congress into a rubber stamp

Propose that an independent advisory commission propose laws and have the Congress simply vote up-or-down on them. That's what the Obama administration wants Congress to do with some changes to Medicare. Have the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission write the bills and require Congress to vote on them as-is. Of course, even that wouldn't require Congress to approve; they could still vote them down. But it would put Congress on a footing more like the President's veto power.

It would be nice to see this discussed in terms of Fascist political theory--how do you organize government in that system? Where does the real power lie?

Did Obama's team make Chrysler shut dealerships of GOP donors?

Lots of blogging being done about this. The dealers who've been closed are overwhelmingly GOP donors.

But one basic statistic that must be found is the percentage of GOP donors among the dealers remaining open. For instance, what if Chrysler car dealers in general tend to be GOP donors? Then having a high percentage of Republicans among those that are closed would be what we'd expect, all other things being equal.

If, on the other hand, the dealers that remain open show a significantly lower percentage of GOP donors, then we ought to start being suspicious. Even at that point, there might be non-political reasons for the discrepancy. Perhaps there's a correlation between dealers that perform poorly and dealers that donate to the GOP. The neighborhoods could have a different economy that affects both, for instance. Though if that were the case, then it would make a nice retort to the "rich Republican" stereotype.

Anyway, thus far, I haven't seen anyone do a look at the control sample, and we ought to withhold judgement until then.

Roots of Italian Fascism

An older (1980s) article; worth reading now that I've read Jonah Goldberg's book. It brings up the differences between fascism and naziism, which I'd never known before reading Liberal Fascism.

Totalitarian architecture

Nazi design: Impressive and intimidating. They stripped out the decoration from classical architecture and scaled it up, massively. It does have the intended effect of making you feel the power of the state and its domination.

Soviet architecture was its cousin. Here one architect gives it a gothic twist. (I note his imitation of Monet's studies of Note Dame in varied lighting.)

Both of these have some connection to these other early 20th century designs from around the world. Not that I'd want to live in any places like these, but the Metropolis movie set was pretty impressive. Still, they all dwarfed the human scale. Man was essentially a cog in the machine in some of these visions.

Administration refusing repayment of TARP money?

Here might be why. Force the banks to keep the government's money, and the government keeps control of the bank.

Progressive Corporatism

via Instapundit:

Arnold Kling on Progressive Corporatism and the Resistance

Just for reference...

It's the same with me.

James Lileks: "Maybe I’m old-school, but 'President fires CEO' looks as wrong as 'Pope fires Missile.' Does not compute."

I know what you mean.

Was there a gun sitting on the table?

The Obama administration pushes GM's CEO out the door. Why couldn't this have been done with a formal bankruptcy procedure, again?

Umm...

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms

This is sounding very early-20th-century to me. I know these guys think they're doing what's necessary, but...

Arbeit macht frei

Obama's campaign idea of encouraging community service has morphed into requiring it for middle school, high school, and college. (H/T to Derb in The Corner)

UPDATE: They've changed the text on the official website in the past few hours or so. The first time I saw this today, it said it would be required. Now it's part of some kind of deal, apparently in return for money for college, and at the secondary level vaguely worded as a "goal." Well, that part still sounds like a euphemism for a federal requirement.

We scientists could never do anything that would hurt people!

Report on a study tracking cell-phone users' movements to see how far they move around during the day. They did this in a foreign country and encrypted the cell numbers so the subjects were anonymous. Still, it's a little worrying, thinking about who's watching where you're going. And if they can do it, who else might be? A government?

These guys were obviously harmless, but I got an eye roll out of this quotation:

"In the wrong hands the data could be misused," Hidalgo said. "But in scientists' hands you're trying to look at broad patterns.... We're not trying to do evil things. We're trying to make the world a little better."

Go read Liberal Fascism and think of that quotation again.