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]
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Samizdata quote of the day “Liberal democracy is not about “paying a fair share” based on the exigencies of the moment and the vagaries of public opinion. If it were, Parliament would be little more than a trading floor where the freedoms of minorities were bartered away for temporary fixes and periodic bond repayments. True liberal democracy was and still should be about protecting and preserving freedom, equality in liberty and equality before the law – even when it is not, financially or politically, in our best interests to do so.”
PJ Byrne, over at the Adam Smith Institute blog. Alas, “true liberal democracy” is hard to achieve, given the strong urge by politicians to persuade one group of electors to rob another group, or indeed, even to rob themselves.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Unfortunately, these two statements stand in conflict with each other.
Democracy is about Mob-strength. Liberal, from liberty, usually means individual or minority rights. So the two are in conflict from the start!
I suppose it depends on your definition of “Liberal”. The modern usage (Social Democracy*) fits our current mess!
Democracy is just the least bad option we have to hand today to preserve/maintain what remains of Rule of Law.
I do not see how I can have a representative that I cannot sack. I do not see how I can have a representative under PR – that is like saying a pool car at a company I don’t work for is “mine”. But I suspect PR is about doing just that – ending direct representation.
We get closer to democracy the less the State does and so the more we as individuals decide on, i.e. we vote with our feet and wallets. If someone says they want more democracy but see the State as monopoly agent/enforcer, what they want is mob rule (by a mob in line with their views, natch) or more accurately The Mob rule – tyranny of the minority manipulating the majority.
* obeying the rule that any word preceded by “Social” has its meaning negated, debased or inverted.
Let us be plain: there is no historic tradition in Britain in which liberal democracy is about ‘protecting and preserving freedom’.
Which ultimately, is why there was (and the world needed) an American Revolution.
Pity they didn’t stick with the principles they started with.
Mickael Taylor – there may not be now, but there used to be.
There was a strong body of opinion in Britain that was pro freedom.
Some were democrats (i.e. believed in democacy – such as Major Cartwright) and some were very wary of democracy.
However, the idea of a “constitution” united both – not written in a single document certainly, but the idea of a constitution that defended basic liberty was a common one.
Remember – before the First World War there was a vast Constitutional Club network in Britain (and they were not just drinking clubs) and the British National Rifle Association was bigger than the American.
The pro freedom constitutional tradition was in decline in Britain – but it was still very large.
Even today there are ghosts of it – such as the Freedom Association, and so on.