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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This sums things up rather well The US Constitution begins, famously, “We the People…”. The European Constitution begins, “His Majesty the King of the Belgians…”. That gives you a fair idea of the different spirit of each document.
– Charles Moore
(Hat tip to Taylor Dinerman for pointing out this gem)
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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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“China is one of the countries with the longest histories in the world. The people of all nationalities in China have jointly created a splendid culture and have a glorious revolutionary tradition.”
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“WE, CUBAN CITIZENS, heirs and continuators of the creative work and the traditions of combativity, firmness, heroism and sacrifice fostered by our ancestors;…” [and on and on for pages…]
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I think you can get a lot from the style. Whose name is put to it is less important, except in most cases you can bet they weren’t consulted until the deal was done, which goes for the King of the Belgians, too.
I also love Mark Steyn’s remark on the difference between the U.S. and European Constitutions. The former can be carried in handy book form in your pocket while the latter would probably cause serious spinal injury.
Guy – For sure, His Majesty the King of the Belgians, all five of them, would not have been naive enough to force himself to read through the garbage he was putting his name to. It was a done deal. No one gets to ask questions. Not even His Majest the King of the Belgians.
“…serious spinal injury,” which means that we may have to be banned from attempting to refer to it (for our own good, of course).
Still, the US Supreme Court is as likely to pay attention to His Belgian Majesty’s as to the USA’s.
It’s the part about the state “deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed” that has earned the US the undying enmity of those around the world who would rather believe that political power belongs to whoever can grab it and kill all their rivals.
Since the latter group comprises most of the ruling elites over the course of the last two centuries, not to mention all of human history, it isn’t hard to figure out the threat such an idea posed.
Needless to say, I have never been bothered by all this agonized soul-searching about why “they” hate the US. We are, and always have been, an utterly deadly threat to “politics as usual” in most of the rest of the world.
veryretired – Nice to see you here again with your usual incisive insights. You are correct.
Mark Steyn said in that same article that it would be more appropriate for it to start with “We know better than the people”.
TY Verity.
Family matters have limited my leisure time.
In the USA it’s the judges who have been saying ‘we know better than the people’ since Brown v. Board of Education.
Before that, it was Tyrant Lincoln, who illegally suspended habeas corpus and then issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Taney when he protested.
America is a kritarchy, not a democracy, and as big a democratic sham as any other people’s republic. Luckily most of the people neither know nor care.
I actually had to look up kritarchy. New one on me, which is saying a lot considering my head is essentially a cultch pile of information.