Category: Public policy

Virtually all internet platforms have been hijacked by the leftists. First Wikipedia, which I’ve stopped using as a resource (and stopped contributing, something I used to – sporadically). Now quora.

Quora tells me that my answer to a question violates their policy to “be good”, etc. I told them that if they can’t allow free expression of views then no one is going to write for them. I am going to dramatically curtail any interaction with Quora. I STRONGLY REJECT THIS KIND OF CENSORSHIP.

Here (screenshot) is my answer that they have DELETED.

Can India be like the USA? Many Indians have done well in the USA and contributed to society and government, and I don’t understand why they can’t do the same in India.

Good question, but the question assumes that Indians who migrate to the USA know how it reached its present condition. That’s a fallacy.

Indians who live in the USA are hugely ignorant about two fundamental things, without which they can’t be of any help to anyone in India.

First, they had nothing to do with building America’s institutions. They don’t have the slightest clue about the concept of liberty which America had to fight to achieve. They have no clue about the American Constitution and how radically different it is to India’s. India is constitutionally opposed to liberty. There are literally no property rights, no rights to free speech, no right to eat what you want. India is locked down constitutionally into a socialist, bigoted religious system without any rights. Indians never understood liberty and never fought for it. Just because they do well in a free society doesn’t mean they miraculously understand why liberty is crucial to human beings.

Essentially, Indian migrants have fled socialist and ultra-corrupt India for better economic opportunity in the USA. They may be good at their profession, but are totally clueless about what makes USA tick.

Second, they don’t have the slightest clue about the failures in the design of India’s governance system, both in the design of the electoral system and its bureaucracy. These are radically different to that of the USA and are designed solely with the aim of promoting the corrupt (and often murderers, to be exact).

The situation is exacerbated by the total lack of knowledge about liberty and economics in Third World countries like India.

Those who remain behind in India are no better off than their brethren who have fled to USA. The overwhelming majority of Indians are collectivists – either advocates of socialism or religious fanatics. Their collectivist mind doesn’t reven remotely grasp the meaning of “life, liberty and happiness” advocated in the US Declaration of Independence – leave alone understand the economic system of capitalism.

The US was particularly fortunate and its case can’t be easily replicated.

Some of the brightest (classical) liberal thinkers on the planet came together in the 1770s in the USA. They were able to design a highly effective Constitution which has served the USA well and kept the power of the state in check. These few people built the foundations of the USA. The rest was easy. Even a moron like Trump can now do well for the USA because of its well-designed system.

India doesn’t have even one person who understands things the way Jefferson or Madison did. Without the knowledge of freedom and economics, India must necessarily remain poor and miserable.

The US is nothing but liberty – even if imperfect. Low levels of liberty cause oppression and poverty, but Third World leaders such as those in India are entirely focused on crushing liberty. And Indians who live in USA are also overwhelming anti-liberty and support socialism and religious bigotry in India. In fact, vast amounts of money are poured into projects of religious hatred by these American Indians. Hate-filled organisations like VHP and RSS are massively funded by American Indians.

So I’m afraid the “smart” brains of India will keep getting sucked to the USA and other Western nations. These “smart” people, however, will never understand why they have moved – i.e. on account of the absence of liberty in India; hence they will never understand what they can do to “fix” the country from which they have migrated.

Everything begins with liberty – but Indians hate it with all their might. I’ve directly experienced this over the past two decades – there is simply no demand for liberty in India. Any attempt to bring the ideas of liberty and good economics to India is rejected whole-sale by Indians.

A few years ago I finally helped start a liberal party (in the classical liberal sense) – Swarna Bharat Party, but from the response of Indians one can see how hopeless India’s situation is – and why India is condemned to remain a corrupt, poor and filthy Third World country in perpetuity. … or until Indians finally wake up and demand liberty.

The beauty of the situation is that many “educated” Indians even refuse to recognise the ultra-pathetic performance of India in every field of human endeavour. They boast about their “greatness” and refuse to look below their nose at the poverty, filth and rampant corruption – leave alone the violence on grounds of religion and violence against women.

Things are very, very bad, indeed!

The question is a good one, but to get India to become a free nation will take a herculean effort, the likes of which the world has never seen before. And sadly, there is no understanding of the magnitude of the challenge, leave alone any desire to bring about the necessary change.

A young Indian, desperate and despondent, wrote the following to me a few days ago:

One should realize that third-world countries are not that way because of bad luck or historical exploitation by colonial powers. They are that way because of the people themselves.

While first world societies (barring some Muslim sheikhdoms and Singapore) prioritize individual rights and meritocracy, third world countries do not. They instead give prime importance to the worship of power, zero-sum socialist identity politics, and the primacy of the group over the individual. This explains the vast disparity between the living standards of the third world and the first world.

Third world countries are beset with tribalism, feudalism, socialist identity politics, and religious bigotry. No wonder most of them deteriorated in many respects and their institutions significantly degraded after they won independence from the former colonial powers. In many cases, their living standards have even regressed to pre-colonial times. As long as the underlying culture of the third world does not fundamentally transform from tribalism and collectivism to respect for individual rights and liberty, NOTHING can be done about these countries. You can try, but without any demand for liberty and good governance, you are not going to get anywhere.

All this is quite sad, given what Rabindranath Tagore had aspired for a hundred years ago. No one really cared for his Heaven of Freedom.

Everyone, starting from Nehru all the way to Modi, has crushed any prospects of even the remotest levels of freedom in India.

And the entire educated class of the country vigorously supports all attacks on liberty.

So.

This is a placeholder post. This is becoming a bigger issue that I had earlier thought. There are clearly lessons to be learnt from how Australia addresses its corruption.

QUEENSLAND

Review of Games of Mates.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

‘Cats licking the cream’ atop WA’s public service, as chaos reigns below

VICTORIA

The Casey council corruption probe could have Victorian politicians sweating over summer  – 7 December, ABC News

Woodman scandal threatens slowdown as politicians worry about corruption – 13 December 2019, The Age.