I don’t care what his politics are, the sound of crowds of people mindlessly chanting someone’s name is downright creepy to me.

In the tradition of Leni Reifenstahl, here’s the latest Will.i.am Obama video:

Of course the only colors in the video would be black, white, and red. Something about those colors really get certain types revved up.

Reminds me of a passage from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. At this point in the book we’re following Sabina, an immigrant from communist Czechoslovakia living in France.

A year or two after emigrating, she happened to be in Paris on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of her country. A protest march had been scheduled, and she felt driven to take part. Fists raised high, the young Frenchmen shouted out slogans condemning Soviet Imperialism. She liked the slogans, but to her surprise she found herself unable to shout along with them. She lasted no more than a few minutes in the parade.

When she told her French friends about it, they were amazed. “You mean you don’t want to fight the occupation of your country?” She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison. But she knew she would never be able to make them understand.

Kundera, living most of his life behind the Iron Curtain (like Ayn Rand) knew a little something about the importance and fragility of individual liberty. I suspect slogans like ‘We are One’ and Obama’s plans to massively expand the power of government would have creeped him out, too.

From Czech President Vaclev Klaus’ speech at Heatland’s climate change conference in NYC last week:

…I am the only speaker from a former communist country and I have to use this as a comparative — paradoxically — advantage. Each one of us has his or her experiences, prejudices and preferences. The ones that I have are — quite inevitably — connected with the fact that I have spent most of my life under the communist regime. A week ago, I gave a speech at an official gathering at the Prague Castle commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1948 communist putsch in the former Czechoslovakia. One of the arguments of my speech there, quoted in all the leading newspapers in the country the next morning, went as follows: “Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical — the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality.” What I had in mind was, of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism….

…What frustrates me is the feeling that everything has already been said and published, that all rational arguments have been used, yet it still does not help. Global warming alarmism is marching on. We have to therefore concentrate (here and elsewhere) not only on adding new arguments to the already existing ones, but also on the winning of additional supporters of our views. The insurmountable problem as I see it lies in the political populism of its exponents and in their unwillingness to listen to arguments. They — in spite of their public roles — maximize their own private utility function where utility is not any public good but their own private good — power, prestige, carrier, income, etc. It is difficult to motivate them differently. The only way out is to make the domain of their power over our lives much more limited. But this will be a different discussion…

…I am also afraid that the same people, imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniac ambitions, want to regulate and constrain the demographic development, which is something only the totalitarian regimes have until now dared to think about or experiment with. Without resisting it we would find ourselves on the slippery “road to serfdom.” The freedom to have children without regulation and control is one of the undisputable human rights and we have to say very loudly that we do respect it and will do so in the future as well…

…What I see in Europe (and in the U.S. and other countries as well) is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Malthusianism, of cynical approach of those who themselves are sufficiently well-off, together with the strong belief in the possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project.

This brings me to politics. As a politician who personally experienced communist central planning of all kinds of human activities, I feel obliged to bring back the already almost forgotten arguments used in the famous plan-versus-market debate in the 1930s in economic theory (between Mises and Hayek on the one side and Lange and Lerner on the other), the arguments we had been using for decades — till the moment of the fall of communism. Then they were quickly forgotten. The innocence with which climate alarmists and their fellow-travelers in politics and media now present and justify their ambitions to mastermind human society belongs to the same “fatal conceit.” To my great despair, this is not sufficiently challenged neither in the field of social sciences, nor in the field of climatology. Especially the social sciences are suspiciously silent…

…We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Now it concerns the whole mankind, not just the citizens of one particular country. To discuss this means to look at the canonically structured theoretical discussion about socialism (or communism) and to learn the uncompromising lesson from the inevitable collapse of communism 18 years ago. It is not about climatology. It is about freedom. This should be the main message of our conference.

Nice references to Hayek’s two masterpieces (The Fatal Conceit and The Road to Serfdom). He also makes an implicit and apt reference to Public Choice Theory.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus spoke on threats to freedom at Cato this March.

Klaus presents what he considers the three primary threats to freedom today:

1) “Popular and fashionable ‘isms’ which…put various issues, visions, plans and projects ahead of individual freedom and liberty. It is social-democratism (which is nothing else than a milder and softer version of communism), it is human-rightism (based on the idea of mostly positive rights applicable all over the world), it is internationalism, multiculturalism, europeism, feminism, environmentalism and other similar ideologies.”

2) A “tendency towards denationalization of countries and towards world-wide supranationalism and global governance…Freedom and democracy…cannot be secured without the parliamentary democracy within a clearly defined state territory.”

The third is environmentalism. (Full comments):

The third main threat to individual freedom and liberty I see in environmentalism. To be specific, I do understand the concerns about eventual environmental degradation but I do see a problem in environmentalism as an ideology.

Environmentalism only pretends to deal with environmental protection. Behind their people- and nature-friendly terminology, the adherents to this ideology make ambitious attempts to radically reorganize and change the world, human society, all of us and our behavior, as well as our values.

There is no doubt that it is our duty to protect rationally the nature for the future generations. The followers of the environmentalist ideology, however, keep presenting to us various catastrophic scenarios with the intention to persuade us to implement their ideas about us and about the whole human society. This is not only unfair but extremely dangerous. What is, in my view, even more dangerous, is the quasi-scientific form that their many times refuted forecasts have taken upon themselves.

What belongs to this ideology?

- disbelief in the power of the invisible hands of free market and belief in the omnipotence state dirigism;

- disregard for the role of important and powerful economic mechanisms and institutions – primarily that of property rights and prices – for an effective protection of nature;

- misunderstanding of the meaning of resources, of the difference between the potential natural resource and the real one, that may be used in the economy;

- Malthusian pessimism over the technical progress;

- belief in the dominance of externalities in human activities;

- promotion of the so-called “precautionary principle“, which maximizes the risk aversion without paying attention to the costs;

- underestimation of the long-term income and welfare growth, which results in a fundamental shift of demand towards environmental protection (this is demonstrated by the so-called Environmental Kuznets Curve);

- erroneous discounting of the future, demonstrated so clearly by the highly publicized Stern-Report a few months ago.

All of these views are associated with social sciences, not with natural sciences. This is why environmentalism – unlike scientific ecology – does not belong to the natural sciences but is to be classified as an ideology. This fact is, however, not understood by the common people and by numerous politicians.

The hypothesis of global warming and the role of man in this process is the last and till this day the most powerful embodiment of the environmental ideology. It has brought along many important “advantages” for the environmentalists:

- an empirical analyses of this phenomenon is very complicated due to the complexity of global climate and the mix of various long-, medium-, and short-term trends (and causes);

- their argumentation is not based on simple empirical measurements or laboratory experiments, but on sophisticated model experiments working with a range of ill-founded assumptions that are usually hidden and not sufficiently understood;

- the opponents of this hypothesis have to accept the fact that in this case we are in the world of non-internalized externalities;

- people tend to notice and remember only extraordinary climate phenomena but not normal developments and slow long-term trends and processes.

It is not my intention, here and now, to present arguments for the refutation of this hypothesis. What I find much more important is to protest against the efforts of the environmentalists to manipulate people. Their recommendations would take us back into the era of statism and restricted freedom. It is therefore our task to draw a clear line and differentiate between the ideological environmentalism and the scientific ecology.  

Of course each of these three threats is just a subset of a broader ideology. Leftism. I think its fair to say everything he sees as a threat to freedom is embraced by each of the DNC presidential candidates.

His prepared comments end at 22:30, the rest is Q&A. Starting around 29:00 he makes an a point concerning environmental improvements in his own country since the fall of communism - he attributes them not to environmental policy but the re-introduction of property rights.

The full transcript is here.

We’ve been fascinated with Klaus for a while, and have written about him several times (here, here, here, here, here, and here)

From the Prague Daily Monitor:

“The increase in global temperatures has been in the last years, decades and centuries very small in historical comparisons and practically negligible in its actual impact upon human beings and their activities,” Czech President Vaclav Klaus said at the world politicians’ meeting on global warming today…

…Klaus said “the hypothetical threat connected with future global warming depends exclusively upon very speculative forecasts, not upon undeniable past experience and upon its trends and tendencies. These forecasts are based on relatively short-time series of relevant variables and on forecasting models that have not been proved very reliable when attempting to explain past developments.”

No scientific consensus exists, “contrary to many self-assured and self-serving proclamations” about the causes of the ongoing climate changes, Klaus said….

…”As as a responsible politician, as an economist, as an author of a book on the economic of climate changes, with all available data and arguments in mind, I have to conclude that the risk is too small, the costs of eliminating it too big and the application of a fundamentally-interpreted precautionary principle a wrong strategy,” Klaus stated….

We’ve written about Klaus before (here, here, and here).

The Czech Republic is causing a major headache for its EU partners. Protesting policies on climate change, defense, and EU integration, the tiny country is emerging as the consistent bette noir in the group.

This week’s Economist reports the CR is stirring up trouble on another front - human  rights. From the article:

…Czech officials regard their newly minted EU membership as a chance to influence a club with global clout, and throw Europe’s weight behind democrats everywhere from Myanmar to Belarus, Moldova and Cuba (a particular Czech obsession). Indeed, there is a whole unit inside the Czech foreign ministry devoted to helping dissidents in other countries.

Alas, inside the Brussels foreign-policy machine such concerns are an irritant. EU diplomats describe the Czech Republic as out on a limb, even “unprofessional”, when it makes emotional points about freedom that are far off the agenda of given meetings. When the Czechs speak about Cuba, there is particular eye-rolling and checking of watches. The Czechs do not really believe their rhetoric, murmur old-school diplomats; they are merely acting as “message boys” for the Americans…

…Czech officials say they are motivated in part by their memories of Nazi and Soviet oppression (though several other ex-communist EU nations with similar histories appear rather less fussed about human rights). A bigger reason, all agree, is the moral example set by Vaclav Havel, an ex-dissident writer and the country’s first post-communist president—not least his role in ensuring that ex-dissidents filled key government positions, notably in the higher ranks of the foreign ministry…

Good for the Czechs. And I’m flattered that the most tireless advocate of human rights in the EU is automatically, if falsely, assumed by the establishment to be an American lackey.

Yesterday was the 39th anniversary of Prague Spring, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The Russian’s celebrated with veiled threats against their former colonial possession. From Reuters:

Russia’s military chief told the Czech Republic it would be making a “big mistake” to host a U.S. missile defense shield on its soil and urged Prague on Tuesday to delay a decision until a new U.S. president is elected.

The Czech Republic is discussing hosting a radar station which would form part of the U.S. missile shield — a system designed to intercept and destroy missiles from “rogues states” but which Moscow sees as a threat to its security.

“We say it will be a big mistake by the Czech government to put this radar site on Czech territory,” said Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian military chief of staff, after meeting the Czech deputy defense minister, Martin Bartak.

He said the Czech Republic should hold off making a decision until after the U.S. presidential election, scheduled to take place in late 2008. Incumbent George W. Bush will not be running.

Why its any of Russia’s business what purely defensive preparations the Czech Republic makes is an interesting question in itself.

But maybe more interesting is their view of American domestic politics. For some reason they think that a Democratic President will abandon our NATO commitments.

That’s unlikely. Former Soviet allies Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland were admitted to NATO (despite strenuous Russian protests) in 1999 during the Clinton Administration. At the time Clinton said:

Today we welcome Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, finally erasing the boundary the Cold War artificially imposed on the continent of Europe.

The expansion strengthens an alliance that now clearly is better preserved to keep the peace and preserve our security in the 21st century, by giving the 16 current members three new allies ready to contribute troops, technology and ingenuity.

Approval in the Senate was broad and bi-partisan, the treaty passing 80-19.

I seriously doubt a Democratic administration would mean a change in our NATO policy, but for some reason the Russian’s believe otherwise. For some reason they believe that a Democratic president would abandon a formal ally. For some reason they think they think American treaty commitments are worthless. For some reason they think a little intimidation is all it takes to send the US packing.

Maybe that’s because its exactly what the Dems have been telling the world for the last 4 years. I’ve ascribed it to crass political opportunism that would be set aside if the American people gave them responsibility for our national security. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.

From an interview with Czech President Vaclav Klaus:

RFE/RL: Thanks partly to your latest book “A Blue, Not A Green Planet” you’ve become well-known abroad for your opinions on global warming. Was this your intention, do you welcome this? Do you want to be an “anti”-Al Gore?

Klaus: This issue has concerned me tremendously for a long time. I met Al Gore in a television debate about this in New York some 15 years ago, so it’s not some new thing that I’ve just discovered. I consider it one of the most serious threats to freedom in the world, one of the most serious threats to the normal development of humanity.

I say what I think not about global warming but about the opinions that are being imported, thanks to the false threat of global warming, by people like Al Gore and many others. The hysteria around this in Western Europe and the U.S. is ridiculous and undignified and there’s no doubt that people in a few years’ or decades’ time will laugh at us and wonder if we went mad in the first decade of the 21st century by betting on this card.

I think we should use all sorts of ways to break this hysteria and one of those ways is by writing this book and by traveling around the world and giving lectures, talks, and interviews. I’m ready to go at the end of September to New York, where the UN secretary-general is organizing, a day before the general assembly, a specific conference on global warming, and it will be a gathering of “Gore-ites,” so they’re going to be shocked that they invited me “by mistake,” too. And I’m going to give a very tough speech.

RFE/RL: You write in your book that socialist ideology has been replaced by the threat of “ambitious environmentalism.” Could you define what you mean exactly?

Klaus: Let’s keep repeating until we’re weary that one thing is ecology, scientific ecology, a descriptive, positive science that describes real things and phenomena in the world and tries to find connections between them and laws and so on. That’s not the discipline we’re discussing. A completely different thing is this “world view” wrapped up around it that exploits some theories from this or that discipline in order to carry out yet another in a never-ending line of attacks against human freedom and the market economy.

The main attack on the market in the last 150 years has been the softer or stronger versions of what — now that communism has gone — is known as the “social market economy,” basically the official ideology of Germany and Austria and now the EU. In other words, the main attack on the market and on human freedom has been to add the “social” adjective [to the word “market”].

People know how I began my political career and if there’s one expression of mine that’s been quoted most, it’s the early one from the beginning of the 1990s when I said, “a market without adjectives.” In other words let’s not spoil things with any adjectives. So the first attack is social, [either] in the softer version of today’s European system, [or] in the harder version of communism. Now, more and more, [the words] “social and ecologically oriented” or something similar are added. So it’s another attack, [meant to] destroy the market and human freedom and using a slogan — social in the past and now ecological — to do something completely different. And for me this is a fundamental attack on human freedom.

As someone who went through communism, I know what this is about and I think it’s necessary to sound the alarm. I’m not comparing, like some caricatures have me, the threat of communism versus the threat of environmentalism. Communism was probably worse, though I think that with some of those extreme environmentalists we would live to see something similar. They would be cutting off heads, too, but I’m not comparing them.

If I say that something has replaced something, it’s that communism today is no longer a doctrine that could speak to millions, billions of people, where they could go crazy under communist slogans to transform the world. That’s why I say this isn’t the main danger. The main danger is environmentalism, because there are new, very attractive slogans — who wouldn’t be interested in a clean environment? You’d be mad to say something else — and this is the path through which, again, we’re being fed things that threaten us in a fundamental way.

RFE/RL: Are you skeptical about global warming as a whole, or rather about its extent and the degree to which human behavior can affect it?

Klaus: The word skeptic is inappropriate. How can you be skeptical about whether prices are rising or not? Or how can you be a skeptic about whether you are measuring a temperature or not? Simply put, temperatures are measured and one can’t speak about skepticism. Look at the actual numbers and you will see that over the past 100 years the average temperature around the world…has risen by 0.7 degrees Celsius.

In Prague, if you have a thermometer in your car, and you drive from Wenceslas Square [in the city center] to any of the outlying housing estates, the difference in temperature will be, on average, 1.5 to 2 degrees. So, in a five-minute car journey you’ll find yourself in another world where the temperature is different by 2 degrees. And you will survive.

Humankind has not even registered the 0.7 degree rise in temperature over the past 100 years. So this is not skepticism regarding measurements. It is a call to reason that says: “Let’s not go crazy. If the temperature goes up by 0.7 degrees in a century, let’s not go crazy.” This is not skepticism. It is an appeal for realism, for a rational approach to looking at the world. I’m not saying that the temperature rise cannot somehow accelerate.

There are countless scientific debates about this. Nevertheless, it is not true, it is just not true that there is a single view on this issue. It is a flat-out lie trumpeted by some media and politically backed groups that there is a scientific consensus about this — not to mention the fact that “scientific consensus” is not a technical term. When Galileo was alive, the “scientific consensus” was that he was wrong. But that proved nothing. There are equally strong arguments to be made that global warming will not be that big a deal.

But skepticism, that is already a label. And I think it’s pointless. So really, it’s not about the temperature, now that we’re talking about it. The essential point is what is causing this temperature rise — is it the sun or our planet’s internal mechanisms or does man add something to the equation? And here there is an enormous, unending debate. And as a person who is an academic and a university professor, I have to state responsibly that the arguments put forward by both sides are equally well-founded. And to make it appear that there is only one set of arguments is complete nonsense. So this is not about skepticism. I think we have to look at this realistically and not go crazy. That’s the main thing: not to go crazy.

We’ve written more about Klaus here and here.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus in today’s FT:

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right now.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists…

…Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.

The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

I’m optimistic about Sarko, but Vaclav Klaus remains my favorite Continental head of state. Klaus regularly speaks out on the insanity of EU environmental policy.

He gave a speech on the EU earlier this month:

The past 50 years of the European integration have been usually considered to be a success, even if it is very difficult to statistically measure it or to prove it. We all know that there have been many other unique, unrepeatable historical as well as much more important evolutionary global factors which were influencing the economic (and not only economic) performance of the EU member countries at the same time. This is not very often explicitly discussed and recognized. All progress of that period is usually attributed to the existence of the EU.

What I consider important is the fact that the concept (or model) of European integration has been fundamentally changing over time. With the benefit of hindsight, and with the courage to generalize, I see two different integration models (or methods of integration) in Europe in the last 50 years.

The first one I call the liberalisation model. It was characterised by an inter-European opening-up, by the overall liberalisation of human activities, by the removal of various, in the past created barriers at the borders of countries as regards the movement of goods and services, of labour and capital, as well as of ideas and cultural patterns. Its main feature was the removal of barriers and its basis was intergovernmentalism.

The second one, which I call the interventionist and harmonisation model, is characterised by enormous centralisation of decision-making in Brussels, by far-reaching regulation of human activities, by harmonisation of all kinds of “parameters” of political, economic and social systems, by standardisation and homogenization of human life. The main features of the second model are regulation and harmonisation orchestrated from above, and the birth of supranationalism.

I am frustrated that the people in Europe do not see this fundamental metamorphosis sufficiently clearly and especially do not think about its inevitable consequences. I am angry with politicians and their fellow travellers that they do maximum to hide it and to make it fuzzy.

I am – as it is well known – in favour of the first model, not of the second. I am convinced that the unification of decision-making at the EU level and the overall harmonisation of societal “parameters” went much further than was necessary and than is rational and economically advantageous.

I consider it wrong. I am not satisfied with making only cosmetic changes. I am, therefore, in favour of redefining the whole concept of the European Union.

I suggest going back to the intergovernmental model of European integration. I suggest going back to the original concept of attempting to remove existing barriers among countries. I suggest going back to the consistent liberalisation and opening-up of markets (not only economic ones). I suggest minimising political intervention in human activities. Where this intervention is inevitable, it should be done close to the citizens (which means at the level of municipalities, regions and states), not in Brussels.

To summarize, I want freedom in Europe, not democratic deficit, I want democracy in Europe, not postdemocracy.

From Saturday’s Washington Times:

Wrapping up a five-day Washington visit that included meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Mr. Klaus said the global warming movement was based on shaky science, a distrust of free markets and a preference for central bureaucratic control over individual freedom.

“Environmentalism only pretends to deal with environmental protection,” Mr. Klaus said in an address to the libertarian Cato Institute. “Behind the terminology is really an ambitious attempt to radically reorganize the world.”

Klaus has made similar comments before. From an interview with Czech newspaper Hospodářské Noviny:

Global warming is a myth and I think that every serious person and scientist says so. It is unfair to refer to the United Nations panel. IPCC is not a scientific body: it’s a political institution, a kind of non-government organization with green flavor. It’s not a forum of neutral scientists or a balanced group of scientists. Its members are politicized scientists who arrive there with one-sided sentiments and one-sided tasks. Also, it’s an undignified practical joke that people don’t wait for the complete report that will appear in May 2007 but instead react, in such a serious manner, to the summary for policy makers where all the “ifs” and “whens” and “buts” are scratched, erased, and replaced by oversimplified theses…

…We know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It’s clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.