We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata slogan of the day

The President does not want to end slavery. The Congress does not want to end slavery. But the Lord God Jehovah wants to end slavery, and slavery shall come to an end.

– The father (a bishop) of Orville and Wilbur Wright, just when the Civil War was getting started. Check out the context in this fascinating Friedrich Blowhard posting, about that, but mostly about the aviation achievement of the Wright brothers.

10 comments to Samizdata slogan of the day

  • Rob Read

    So why are we still forced to work for others by paying income tax?

    Slavery is effectively 100% income tax.

    BTW my code started with 666…

  • S. Weasel

    Whenever I hear anyone declare anything to be the will of the Lord God Jehovah, I back away slowly.

    Anyway, who wants advice from a man who named his sons Reuchlin, Lorin, Wilbur and Orville?

  • Isn’t it marvelous how certain folks, allegedly dedicated to the precepts of individual excellence, when presented with indisputable examples of inventive genius or moral rectitude, can only find it in themselves to make mock, and carp about their verkakte taxes?

    Not that the Wright Brothers were paragons; I seem to remember some controversy about them using hardball patent tactics to try to build up a monopoly, which was eventually broken up by the, hrm, government wasn’t it? But that doesn’t fit into the “government intervention always BAD” narrative, does it?

  • J.H.

    S. Weasel,

    Slavery was not invented by Christians, but
    it was ended (at least in most of the world) by
    Christians. The United States Bill of rights does
    not creating rights ex nihilo, it is enshrining the
    God-given rights as understood by the founders
    of the republic.

    Net liberty increases where Christianity has gone.
    Atheism and Neo-Paganism create communism
    and National Socialism respectively.

  • toolkien

    Net liberty increases where Christianity has gone.
    Atheism and Neo-Paganism create communism
    and National Socialism respectively.

    Net liberty has increased where ever the notions of Classical Liberalism have gone. Since most classical liberals were not the best of christians (at least so considered by the curators of christianity of the time) I don’t know how the two reconcile. I don’t doubt that there is be an intersection between the population of those who are classical liberals and those who are christians but I certainly don’t put the credit solely on the christian population but rather on the classical liberal population. As the post itself put it “Their father was a bishop in the United Brethern Church; no mystic … but rather a tireless traveling evangelist, organizer and religious politician, whose faith gave him a firm sense of his own righteousness; it is this part of the christian miasma that leaves me conserned at crediting them with the infusion of liberty as their righteousness has many times been used to co-opt the power of the State and curtail liberty rather than foster it.

  • Isn’t it marvelous how certain folks, allegedly dedicated to the precepts of individual excellence, when presented with indisputable examples of inventive genius or moral rectitude, can only find it in themselves to make mock, and carp about their verkakte taxes?

    Yeah, how dare they express outrage over the theft of their property!

  • Antoine Clarke

    The Wright Brothers cheated: they used a catapault. It was not the first powered flight anymore than my falling off a trampoline is a high jump.

  • Jacob

    I knew the French, Russians and even Roumanians all had a “first flight”. History seems to depend on who tells it.
    I have no idea of what the truth is, but I have my opinion as to the trustworthines of the different claimants.

  • was orville and wilbur’s dad right about god wanting to end slavery? “The Almighty has his own purposes,” Lincoln said. Read the second inaugural address.

  • John Riding

    Pearce, a long way from Kittihawk, in Ashburton, New Zealand was the first peron to fly. Like everything in NZ though, they keep lousy records.