The jewel in the crown of Samizdata.net
A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. 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]
There is much to find for those who look
We are not alone
Made possible by...
 
July 01, 2010
Thursday
 
 
A medal for liberty goes to, er, Tony Blair
Johnathan Pearce (London)  Civil liberty/regulation

Beyond satire.

Comments

I'm sure he will deserve it and treasure it just as much as a Nobel Peace Prize winner does.


Posted by Chuckles at July 1, 2010 01:56 PM

Life imitates The Onion


Posted by Perry de Havilland at July 1, 2010 02:05 PM

About time that Mr. Blair got the recognition he deserves. The fact that he has never received the Nobel Peace Prize is scandalous.


Posted by Young Mr. Brown at July 1, 2010 04:07 PM

What about the freedom to do whatever you feel like, and get away with it, regardless of the consequences? Maybe that's what the medal is for.


Posted by el windy at July 1, 2010 08:40 PM

Young Mr. Brown: and he'd only have to walk across the Channel...


Posted by Alisa at July 1, 2010 09:06 PM

I see the proposed ID cards (that many average Brits would go for) as being a nasty totalitarian tool. But what is the Computer data base linked with National Insurance numbers ?
Yes, a control freak, but what else is a politician ?
Almost his worst crime is imitating a Conservative and seducing average moderate sanity Brits back into voting in the Labour Party in 1997. But he never could have done that if the Tories hadn't given it away in 1993.
Besides those, what has he actually done that is so bad, besides having been a normal hypocrite career politician (all of them +/-).


Posted by John B at July 1, 2010 10:09 PM

It's not so much that people actually award "prizes" such as this to such utter unworthy cunts, I have wearily become resigned to this, what with Obama getting a Peace Prize before his bum has properly warmed the Oval office chair even, and that love and peace hippie Arafat getting the same.

No it's that the bastards can actually accept them with a straight face, and actually believe they deserve them.

I'm a little confused though. Does the Twat get a medal, and £100,000 ? or did the medal cost £100,000? If the latter, I could knock one up out of bullets removed from dead soldiers and bits of recycled snatch Land Rovers for £50,000 tops.
Probably get a Green Nobel myself!

Still every little helps, eh Tone? Afternoons shopping at Harrods sorted for the misses.


Posted by RAB at July 1, 2010 11:37 PM

Now if there was a prize for honesty and humility, well my vote goes to this dude...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7866230/Mathematician-rejected-1-million-prize-because-it-is-unfair.html


Posted by RAB at July 2, 2010 02:24 AM

well, he DID boost the chances of the LIBERal Democrats. Does that count as helping LIBERty?


Posted by Nuke Gray at July 2, 2010 02:29 AM

Liberty Medal; doubtless named after the USS Liberty. Awards to war criminals: You have to go back to 1973 when Henry Kissinger accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, for a comparable example of ineptitude and mind-numbing intensively. You will doubtless recall that Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho declined his award on the entirely justified grounds that there was no peace in his country. Keep in mind Bill Clinton heads the US National Constitution Center.
But no chance Blair will decline his medal, not when the prize includes a $100,000 sweetener.


Posted by Jackthesmilingblack at July 2, 2010 07:20 AM

John B - May I mention the strange death of Dr David Kelly, which case, in all its bizarreness, has just been reopened.


Posted by Verity at July 2, 2010 08:39 PM

I suppose one would be surprised if security services didn't get up to such things occasionally in covert war situations. What would be surprising is if the event made its way into MSM. If it did I would be inclined to ask, what is someone really up to?


Posted by John B at July 3, 2010 10:20 AM

If one defines "liberty" the way neocons do (and it seems that, in this at least, Bill Clinton is a neocon) then the award is totally logical.

To a neocon - "liberty" means democracy (in the sense of elections to choose leaders).

This is "liberty" in the "New Freedom" sense of President Woodrow Wilson - "liberty" as representative democracy, not liberty as limits on government power (that was the "old freedom").

And Mr Blair helped spread representative democracy to many nations.

So the award (if one accepts this definition of liberty) makes perfect sense.


Posted by Paul Marks at July 7, 2010 07:45 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?


Enter anti-spambot Turing code:





Select some text and click this to format it as a quote Make the selected text bold Make the selected text italic Add a web link


Basic html active.

Alas, but for obscure reasons Mozilla, Mac and Linux users shall not harness to power of the push-button formatting options and shall therefore compose basic html with their bare hands. Yet Mozilla, Mac and Linux users shall not fear, for we shall reveal forthwith the mysteries of Basic Html:

<strong>This text in-between is bold</strong>

<em>This text is in italics</em>

And
<blockquote>This is a quote</blockquote>
Remember to close your opened tags as such: <tag> tagged text and closing </tag> and we promise you will get out of here alive.

For adding links, either use the link URL button on the toolbar or enter your code by hand in the following format:
<a href="http://www.your_link.com">your link text or description here</a>

Movable Type's anti-spambot e-mail address protection is enabled.

You are a guest on private property. Have fun but please be civil and succinct. Blogroaches will be persecuted, not to mention IP banned.

Long third party quotes or articles will also be deleted... so just link to articles you think are germane to your comment, don't quote the whole bloody thing.