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 quote of the day

Meanwhile, you’ve got how many (admittedly very stupid) Australians in Indonesian prisons for something like 20 years on drug charges? So I guess the message here is kill some infidels and you’ll get two years with time off for good behavior, have a couple tabs of ecstasy on you and you’ll do 20 years in a third world prison.
Hank Scorpio

34 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Hank Scorpio

    Samizdata quote of the day…

    And here my metal shop teacher said I’d never amount to anything. Suck it down, Mr. Lukowicz!

  • xj

    An individual who connives at mass-murder has by that act resigned from the human race. A state that commits the same crime has lost its right to exist. It’s a happy conjunction of idealism and realpolitik: if a vile, repressive state has a relatively civilised, wealthy sub-unit that yearns for autonomy, then we will support that autonomy by any means necessary. Not just for them; for us. (Best precedent: Lebanon. Worst precedent, for the regime in Jakarta: East Timor).

    There is a precedent for Australia, the principal military power in the region, interfering in Indonesian affairs to support the independence of an Indonesian province. If Bali, provoked by repeated terrorist acts connived at by the boys on Java, were to declare its independence, I wonder what might happen. Not just in Bali, but in Irian Jaya. In Lombok. In Sulawesi; in the Moluccas; in Sumatra…

    I wonder how many provinces the boys in Jakarta will have to lose before they finally get it?

  • Verity

    Hank Scorpio – That was funny!

    xj – I liked the bit where you said mass murderers had resigned from the human race. It really doesn’t matter what happens to them. If they get sent back to regimes that torture and have the death penalty, how is that the responsibility of the people they’ve tried to murder? An obvious point, of course, except the left subverts.

  • Midwesterner

    xj,

    I really like your plan.

    If terrorists continue to target non-muslim populations, or even peaceful muslims, what better way to reduce further damage that could devolve into genocide?

    Indonesia is not a nation. It is a group of very diverse nations under one muslim controlled government.

  • I don’t think a collapse of Indonesia is in the Australian government’s strategic interests. At least we know the bastards in Jakarta. If the Indonesian empire unravels (and I suspect it probably will at some point), we get several Islamic failed states of various shades of fanaticism on our doorstep. Not ideal.

  • So we could reduce drug crime by aborting Indonesians and Australians, right?

    (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

  • J

    Extremism…

    Catching up on Samizdata after a few days, it feels like the percentage of extremist ranting is much higher than normal. I refering to ‘lgf’ style posting, usually recognisable by sophomoric sentiments encased in grown up language, and usually calling for someone, somewhere to be nuked.

    I mention it because after stumbling across lgf some time ago, I set out to find right wing (for want of a better term) blogs that weren’t written and supported by gibbering idiots – and so found samizdata.

    So, it’s disheartening to see people like EG vanishing, and people like Tom appearing. Is it just me, or is anyone else noticing a distinct gain in lgf-ism?

  • Who is Tom?

    Although I concur, I liked EG’s inputs. And I don’t think some were as tolerant of him as they perhaps should have been. He was always persuasive and reasoned, even when I didn’t agree with him.

    Winzeler is another commenter I miss.

    Despite these folk not visiting as regularly, I think we’ve got a long way to fall before we end up like the LGF commentariat.

  • Verity

    James – J is a lefty troll. Always a bad word for everyone who posts here.

    Euan isn’t gone. He was much in evidence a couple of days ago.

  • ADE

    xj,

    Thanks, now I finally get it.

  • Midwesterner

    xj & James Waterton,

    My aunts both lived in Kalimantan Barat from about independence until the early to mid nineties. Most of my knowledge of Indonesia is from that perspective and consequentially quite narrow.

    For twenty to thirty years, as long as I remember paying attention, they have been warning about the tactics and goals of Islam in Indonesia.

    One of many tactics was forcibly relocating non-Muslim people into an area occupied by other non-Muslim enemies. The intended (and achieved) consequence was of tribal warfare. Meanwhile, the newly opened area was populated with Muslims from over populated islands.

    My aunts believed, and I believe, that this was to establish and entrench Muslim’s control of non-Muslim islands. They saw no likelihood of the process stalling, much less failing.

    As a serious question, how do you think the break-up of Indonesia would play out? Has this long time, ongoing process made it impossible to free the formerly non-Muslim islands? It sounds like something you’ve thought about. It’s something I’ve wondered about for a long time.

  • Midwesterner – you’re right, Javanese have been repatriated to the far flung corners of Indonesia for years. Many of them return, however. To my mind, the Javanese empire is most susceptible to collapse under one of these two conditions :

    1) during an acute political crisis when the central government is less able to act against distant insurgents.

    2) when the Javanese decide they’re better off going it alone (which they would be) and cut the peripheral provinces loose. They’d probably keep Sumatra and Bali, however.

  • Verity

    They’d definitely keep Kalimantan!

  • Midwesterner

    Kalimantan has a huge wealth of natural resources including oil, hardwoods and even others like precious stones etc. I have a hard time imagining option two working there. I don’t know about other barats but it seems protecting places like Bali would be one of the points.

    Option one looks quite interesting. The Indonesian government is quite corrupt and will probably be rather disfunctional in any serious situation. Its functionaries could probably be bribed into further failures.

    Is a picture possible where western powers, lead by Australia (Is Australia a ‘western’ power?) would be willing to assist? It sounds like you think it’s a non-starter.

  • Midwesterner

    James Waterton

    It’s interesting that you point out that they often return. My aunts also said the new arrivals were unhappy. I don’t recall if they said why.

  • Robert Alderson

    Legalize drugs and reduce the size of the criminal underworld in which terrorists can operate freely.

    It has been reported that the explosives used in the Madrid bombings were bought by the terrorists from Spanish criminals in exchange for a few tens of kilos of hashish. If hashish was legal that particular method of getting explosives would not have worked….

  • Joshua

    Here, here!!!!

  • Joshua

    Hear, hear!!! (whatever)

  • Euan Gray

    Rumours of my demise are, to coin a phrase, exaggerated. It’s nice to be missed, though, even if some who point out you’re still here don’t bother responding to the inconvenient points you raise in answer to their blithe assertions *cough*Verity*cough*

    Now, to business and to drugs. Anyone who thinks legalising drugs would solve problems really ought to read Dalrymple’s piece on the subject. Find it here. Then think about it. Dalrymple makes pretty much the same argument I have always considered valid on this issue, although he can write better than what as how I can do.

    EG

  • nick

    We all know who the problem groups are – be they fools addled by drugs or religion. Maybe our efforts would be best spent eliminating these people?

  • Midwesterner

    Dalrymple is so far off it’s hard to know where to start. I’ll save myself the trouble of a point by point and address a few that caused me to stop reading.

    “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of the community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others,” Mill wrote. “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” This radical individualism allows society no part whatever in shaping, determining, or enforcing a moral code:

    Dalrymple is clearly unwilling to accept individualism as a moral code. His statement is that individualism is unwilling to accept a socialist moral code.

    But once a prohibition has been removed, it is hard to restore, even when the newfound freedom proves to have been ill-conceived and socially disastrous.

    !?!?! Since when has the government ever had trouble prohibiting anything?!

    In practice, of course, it is exceedingly difficult to make people take all the consequences of their own actions—as they must, if Mill’s great principle is to serve as a philosophical guide to policy.

    There is no problem at all making people take all the consequences of their own actions. We just need to lose the socialist idea of protecting them from their own actions.

    At this point I stopped reading.

  • Euan Gray

    Dalrymple is clearly unwilling to accept individualism as a moral code

    Given that man is a social animal, surely one must question whether individualism can be a workable moral code. We are indeed individuals, but we are individuals who are members of a collective entity called society, and generally of numerous other collective sub-entities such as family, company, golf club, political party or PTA. Individualism is good in some ways, but not in all, and as a putative sole basis for the morality of society it is simply not up to the task.

    Since when has the government ever had trouble prohibiting anything

    Once things are made legal, it can be politically difficult to ban them again. In terms of executive authority it is trivial, but if you wish to carry the consent of the people it can be a lot harder.

    There is no problem at all making people take all the consequences of their own actions

    Unfortunately, the presence in society of large numbers of prisoners, leeches, scroungers and basically anyone with a victim mentality (thank you, legal profession) would tend to indicate that we do experience quite considerable problems in having people understand that their actions have consequences at all, let alone accept them.

    EG

  • Verity

    Once things are made legal, it can be politically difficult to ban them again. Not really. The Blair Reich had no problem banning private ownership of guns.

  • Robert Alderson

    According to Dalrymple’s arguments then alcohol should be made illegal.

    I’m perfectly happy to agree that taking drugs (including tobacco, caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, ecstacy etc.) is not a “good idea,” and restricts the users’ lives. So what? Large numbers of people damage their health and affect others around them by gross overeating. Again, so what?

    People have to be allowed their freedom. Sure, freedom means freedom to mess up your own and others’ lives. Restricting freedom in this case causes far greater social ills. Having a family member who smokes cannabis every day may harm the family (although not much and certainly no more than somebody who gets drunk everyday) putting that person in jail, depriving them of employment etc. is infinitely more damaging to society and the family concerned.

    Human society is greatly harmed by the war on drugs. Millions of people are treated as criminals simply because they make “bad” life choices. The general criminal sector of the economy and society is greatly expanded. Billions are wasted on beefed up police forces. Civil wars in countries like Colombia, Burma or Afghanistan are kept going. Several hundred people in the UK die each year from herion use – well to be more accurate they die from impurities in the heroin or unreliable dose strengths – a direct result of criminalization.

    As a general principle drugs of all types should be freely available to adults; exceptions would be for substances like antibiotics where misuse affects the general population in terms of increased bacterial resistance. Sellers should be obliged to accurately describe what they are selling and its effects.

    A sudden move to such general liberty would, I concede, be a huge social change and I have no problem with the idea of proceeding slowly and maybe never fully attaining the total liberty I suggest. As an immediate measure cannabis should be made legal; thereby taking millions of regular users out of their current outlaw status.

    The government should restrict sales to protect minors, regulate places of sale to avoid social problems and insist on clear labels. The government may also tax the products. After the hurdle of cannabis legalisation is cleared the government should proceed to legalize or, at least, decriminalize other drugs.

    Up until the 60s in Britain heroin was available on prescription to treat addicts. Doctors would only prescribe to people who already should clear medical signs of addiction. The effect of this was to make it a totally uneconomic business to go into the freelance heroin supply business.

    Dalrymple’s argument is nothing more than a desire to use the state’s formidable powers to force his morality on everybody. You have to trust people and allow them to make their own mistakes.

  • Robert Alderson

    Once things are made legal, it can be politically difficult to ban them again. In terms of executive authority it is trivial, but if you wish to carry the consent of the people it can be a lot harder.

    You’re bang on there, Euan. Cannabis, herion, cocaine were all available from pharmacies in Victorian times. Steadily, government banned them without the real consent of the people so here we are now in the mess they created.

  • It certainly would be best for the Balinese if they could seceed from Indonesia altogether, or even to throw their lot in with us as a protectorate of Australia. Unfortunately any such action would result in mass carnage and the Island would probably be destroyed, and Australia and Indonesia would be at each others throats for the next 200 years if we helped them.

  • rosignol

    Catching up on Samizdata after a few days, it feels like the percentage of extremist ranting is much higher than normal. I refering to ‘lgf’ style posting, usually recognisable by sophomoric sentiments encased in grown up language, and usually calling for someone, somewhere to be nuked.

    That’s fairly normal in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. People get riled up, it takes a little while for passions to cool.

    Of course, sometimes passions don’t cool, and someone is more or less permanently radicalized by the event. The phenomenon is fairly well known, but in the past it has generally been applied to Muslims becoming radical militants by events in places like Bosnia…. an amazing amount of the supposedly deep thinkers of the day don’t seem to have considered that people are people, and that things like Bali or Beslan or Madrid or London or 9/11 can radicalize westerners, just as things like Bosnia can radicalize muslims.

    The main difference between the two groups is that radicalized muslims generally live in nations run by despots. Radicalized westerners generally live in nations with representative governments.

    Every time the radicalized muslims succeed at a bombing, more westerners become radicalized…. and the radical muslims think their tactics are succeeding, and redouble their efforts to blow up more westerners.

    Eventually, there will be enough radicalized westerners to tip elections.

    That’s when the shit will really hit the fan.

    The muslim nutters and leftie twits who despise GWB as a warmonger are idiots- the man is desperately trying to solve the problem before things get to that point, and he recieves no credit at all for doing so.

  • Euan Gray

    Cannabis, herion, cocaine were all available from pharmacies in Victorian times. Steadily, government banned them without the real consent of the people so here we are now in the mess they created

    I don’t think that’s an entirely fair conclusion. On the other hand, I do know that on two subjects it is impossible to have a rational debate with those of a libertarian tendency – guns and drugs. This probably says something about libertarians, but it seems nothing can be done about it. This is gently mocking, good-natured humour, by the way, but since a humourectomy (not to mention a proportionectomy) seems to be prerequisite for libertarianism…you get the idea.

    If I slag off the market, I’m wrong, but if I do it toting a 9mm in one hand and a joint in the other, does this create an existentialist conflict in the libertarian?

    Eventually, there will be enough radicalized westerners to tip elections

    Why should this be so?

    If one looks at what happens when societies and even civilisations decay, one generally finds that the natives don’t seem to care and do NOT get radicalised by their predicament to a sufficient extent to do something about it. Stupefied into passivity by drugs, tv, instant entertainment and easy welfare, with barely the wit to follow simple logic, with only a short-term and self-centred point of view and lacking the discipline at both collective and individual levels, the westerners are on the whole pretty unlikely to rise up in anger and demand someone fixes the problems. Life is easy the way it is, why change it, why make it harder?

    People revolt on an empty belly, not when they’re sated.

    EG

  • Sark

    People revolt on an empty belly, not when they’re sated.

    Well you got that wrong as usual. Explain why the prosperous American colonies broke away from Britain then? Or were you under the impression there was famine and economic calamity in the New World in the early 1770’s? History is full of revolts that happened because people wher seriously pissed but were not starving.

    I do know that on two subjects it is impossible to have a rational debate with those of a libertarian tendency

    But for you “rational debate” means accepting axioms which are nonsence and debating on that basis. Sorry, bubba, not interested.

  • Euan Gray

    Well you got that wrong as usual

    The phrase “people revolt on an empty belly” is what is called metaphor, i.e. it is not intended to be taken as a literal statement of fact. Your comment perfectly illustrates my note about proportionectomy.

    The Americans revolted because they did not have what they wanted. Let’s simplify and say it was liberty, although in reality it was more complex. The lack of liberty was the “empty belly” in this case. When people are sated – i.e. have a “full belly” or no specific grievance that directly affects them – they don’t revolt.

    [If you want to get literal, people often won’t rebel on an empty stomach (i.e. a real stomach devoid of real food) because they may not have the energy to stand up to a usually well fed army.]

    But for you “rational debate” means accepting axioms which are nonsence and debating on that basis

    It doesn’t. Axioms should sometimes be questioned, and I do think some of the more egregious libertarian ones fly in the face of reality, therefore I question them.

    You have things you believe in, with some of which I would disagree. I have things I believe in, with some of which you would disagree. Debate consists in considering the other point of view, not in dismissing it because you, on the basis of what omniscient wisdom I do not know, consider it absurd. Rational debate consists in doing it politely and with an open mind.

    EG

  • Robert Alderson

    Euan,

    I’m probably more of a pramatist than you think. I also hope that I haven’t had a total humorectomy.

    I don’t want to sidetrack this even further back onto the subject of guns (which I am sure we will have a chance to discuss again.)

    My starting point with the drug issue is indeed that individuals have the right to do want they want to their bodies. I think that you challenge that right on the basis of the harm they may thereby do to society. I would say that you are as fixed in your basic axioms as I am.

    I would ask you to consider one final point. Which is the point I made to the man from the Tory party who knocked on my door in 2001 (nobody knocked on my door in 2005.)

    If, when my children grow into teenagers, they decide they would like to drink they will have to wait until they are old enough to go to an off-licence or pub and buy a controlled substance of known strength with no impurities.

    If they decide they want to take drugs they will have no age restriction and no guarantee of purity.

    I would rather if they did neither but the control over alcohol is far better. Years of the war on drugs have not made any difference to the supply of drugs in the West – I don’t want a perpetual war on our own people. I want a change of course.

  • rosignol

    Eventually, there will be enough radicalized westerners to tip elections

    Why should this be so?

    If one looks at what happens when societies and even civilisations decay, one generally finds that the natives don’t seem to care and do NOT get radicalised by their predicament to a sufficient extent to do something about it. Stupefied into passivity by drugs, tv, instant entertainment and easy welfare, with barely the wit to follow simple logic, with only a short-term and self-centred point of view and lacking the discipline at both collective and individual levels, the westerners are on the whole pretty unlikely to rise up in anger and demand someone fixes the problems. Life is easy the way it is, why change it, why make it harder?

    People revolt on an empty belly, not when they’re sated.

    Perhaps that is the way things are in Europe. It’s a little different in the US… The electorate here has already been affected to the point where the Democratic Presidential Nominee last election cycle went on national television and repeatedly stated that his plan for dealing with terrorists was to find them and kill them. Not ‘arrest them’, not ‘put them on trial’, and not ‘hand them to the ICC’.

    Why did he do that? I think it was the usual reason a politican does anything- he thought he would gain votes by doing so. What does that tell you about the electorate?

  • Euan Gray

    I think that you challenge that right on the basis of the harm they may thereby do to society. I would say that you are as fixed in your basic axioms as I am

    My axiom is that if the net effect of permission is harmful, then permission is not the way to go. The evidence on drugs strongly suggests that in places where it has been liberalised, notably Amsterdam, it causes rather more problems than it cures. Dalrymple’s assessment seems to be borne out in practice, even if it doesn’t match with theory.

    The comparison with alcohol control is not directly relevant. As Dalrymple points out, alcohol has been a customary drug for thousands of years, is consumed by the vast majority of the population in most countries and is benign in its effects in about 90% of cases when handled in moderation. Other drugs, though, are used by a much smaller number of people and cause a harm far out of proportion. They are also in most cases much more addictive and often have a far greater negative effect on the user’s life. The two things aren’t the same. Comparisons with Victorian England aren’t valid, either – there is a world of difference between opium and morphine, between morphine and heroin. Then consider the synthetic drugs produced today that were unavailable then.

    Whilst in theory drug law liberalisation would reduce harm, in practice the empirical evidence is that harm actually increases. I accept that the “war” on drugs has not produced much positive result, but I don’t accept that a positive outcome is impossible. It would require harder measures and it would cost more, but such things as random searches of ALL passengers and ALL bags on a given flight, heavier customs presence at ports and airports, meaningful and deterrent jail sentences, rooting out the corruption and incompetence in the police and prison service, all these things which are not done now but which could easily be done would almost certainly have a significant effect.

    Consider the case of drug abuse in Singapore, with the very stringent laws they have on the matter. They don’t have a drug problem. Can you guess why?

    EG

  • Euan Gray

    What does that tell you about the electorate?

    That if you pander to their base instincts, they will vote for you. So what else is new?

    I don’t think you can reasonably conclude from that electoral appeal that the American people are somehow radicalised against the threats or in any way more cognisant of their danger than us silly old Europeans. They have a culture which is more accepting of violent justice and the concept of killing the bad guys, whereas Europe is a little liberal on that sort of thing.

    EG