(0) (2)

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it.

- H.L. Mencken

(0) (23)

"Government provision in water has overseen millions of deaths through lack of sanitation and unsafe water. Bringing in private sector expertise and investment is needed, both to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, but to actively contribute towards social justice the world over. In the vast majority of cases, where the private sector has been called upon, it has delivered the goods - even in cases decried by critics as 'failures'."

- Mischa Balen

(1) (141)

My experience of racists is that they are race based collectivists who are so utterly without anything to redeem them (and know it), that they pick out something they didn't have to earn (race) and claim that as their most valuable asset.

Regular commenter VeryRetired, skewering one of those rather sad individuals who are upset that libertarian bloggers do not devote more time to writing about inherited genetic characteristics or the supposed political implications thereof.

(0) (53)

This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.

- Dr Brian Day, of Vancouver, explaining what happens if you make private health care illegal, but leave private veterinary clinics alone. (It's a shame about the picture of Dr Day and Fidel Castro though).

(0) (4)

Whoever said "there is no such thing as bad publicity" obviously never had their career "Dan Rather'ed" into tiny pieces by the twenty thousand bloggers.

(0) (21)

Commentator "rosignol" provides the knockout blow to those who want the whole world run one way, on the mistaken assumption it is always going to be their way:

With multiple governments, people have the possibility of moving to whatever nation suits them (with, admittedly, varying degrees of effort/risk).

With one government, if you object to how things are being run, your non-violent options are just about limited to "leave the planet entirely".

I'd add that with one world government your violent options are going to be be limited, too. Governmental violence will always be quantatively greater than any you can muster.

(0) (5)

"Chatting over a llama is certainly a novel way to meet people in a relaxed environment, and participants can enjoy a romantic picnic afterwards."

-Charity worker Mary Walker, providing Valentines Day advice that is more useful than most I have heard this year.

(0) (21)

"Almost every young libertarian I come in contact with these days is equally opposed not just to the sort of new copyright protections that the content providers seek, but even to traditional copyright laws and rules that pre-date the 76 Act. And not all of these people are wacko libertarian-anarchist types. Many respected young libertarian minds are turning against copyright. I don't believe that the best strategy is to ignore them. You guys should engage them in debate and defend your views before this extreme anti-IP position becomes more mainstream."

- Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation (many years ago, he worked at the Adam Smith Institute), quoted here.

(0) (17)

"The defence of a free society is the defence of its procedures, not its output."

- Oliver Kamm

(0) (5)

"They won’t publish cartoons, but they will run anything they can get out of Abu Ghraib. Both sets of images provoke Islamic anger; note how the media behaves when that anger is directed at them."

- Tim Blair, referring to the Australian media - although the same could be said of the British, in contrast to those papers in Europe that have showed solidarity with their Danish colleagues.

(0) (18)

The ever-rational, ever-eloquent, ever-humane Matthew Parris in The Times:

Many faiths and ideologies achieve and maintain their predominance partly through fear. They, of course, call it "respect".But whatever you call it, it intimidates. The reverence, the awe — even the dread — that their gods, their KGB or their priesthoods demand and inspire among the laity are vital to the authority they wield.

Against reverence and awe the best argument is sometimes not logic, but mockery. Structures of oppression that may not be susceptible to rational debate may in the end yield to derision.

(0) (4)

We have a free press and this freedom of expression is a vital and indispensable part of our democracy and this is the reason why I cannot control what is published in the media
- Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen

(0) (1)

"The French government favours globalisation"

- Brian Micklethwait

(0) (4)

[W]hen we read our newspapers or turn on our TV screens, what we see and hear might well have been "researched" by searching for dirt on the internet. Of course, the mainstream media will never admit it; the pretence that they are above such things is too important to them. They rely on the impression that their reporters are out in the field, fearlessly digging for details on the major issues of the day, not sat in an air-conditioned office with a cup of coffee and an open Google window. But it's the truth, and for the sake of their own reputations, it might now be time for them to start admitting that they read the blogs just like the rest of us.

- Rob Knight writing at Liberal Review about blog and media reportage of recent Lib Dem scandals

(0) (20)

Once upon a time I would have felt awkward about quoting Mark Thomas's New Statesman column with approval, but we live in interesting times:

In Parliament Square recently, a banner reading "Parliament Square belongs to the people" was deemed a statement of fact and therefore not a protest. Barbara Tucker's banner, on the other hand, which declared "I am not the serious organised criminal", was deemed a protest and Tucker faces trial in February. Who knows, had she used the words "I am a flippant chaotic law-abider" the banner may have been legal. In August police arrested Mark Barrett for the crime of having a picnic in Parliament Square. Two weeks later five others were arrested in possession of cakes iced with the slogans such as "Peace " and "Love" in pink sugary letters. When the state is arresting people with iced cakes, it really is time either to change the law or for ministers to start incorporating khaki uniforms into their daywear.

[If I had a picture of the ever-changing parliamentary fortifications, I would insert it here. But I don't. And, as Brian found at the dca not so long ago, it would probably be illegal.]

(0) (46)

Understanding politicians and what they are likely to do is much easier once you realise that almost everyone in politics (even the 'nice guys' who wear sensible cardigans and remind you of Wallace and Gromit) have more in common psychologically and morally with your typical member of a street gang than with most of the people who actually vote for them
- Perry de Havilland

by request

(0) (14)

We all knew Galloway was a wanker before now anyway but by going onto Big Brother all he's managed to do is simply broadcast this to a public who previously didn't know who he was or thought he was that guy who told the American Senate a thing or two. The funniest thing has been the hard left loonies (and others) who applauded his cock sucking antics with Saddam, Assad, Hamas and the Al Aqsa Bastards Brigade but then decided that robotic manouvers in a leotard were beyond the pale.
- Blognor Regis

(0) (9)

No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong
- Winston Churchill

(0) (44)

For decades, every school and university in the West has been teaching that the feelings of the protected classes trump rights of free expression.

The media are ruled by it, politics is in thrall to it, and each and every citizen of all these great, free, democratic societies knows in the back of his or her mind that if you dare say the wrong thing, you will be keel-hauled.

We've all watched it happen. We've complained and objected and had various hissy fits. The PC crowd just shrugged and found some more terms that were offensive, some more victims that needed to be protected, some more ideas that demonstrated a depraved, sexist, racist, whatever-ist mind and needed to be cast out.

I don't care who this guy is, or how ironic it all is. What difference does it make. The suppression many predicted, and so many others played down, is here.

Did you think they were kidding?

(0) (12)

Copy protection is guaranteed to fail because it’s a house of cards. No matter how sophisticated the software, it takes only one person to break it, once, and the music is free to roam and multiply on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks.

- Damian Kulash, lead singer of OK Go

(0) (22)

"I think this nanny state business, you know, is just nonsense."

- Tony Blair, today's BBC2 Newsnight, responding to the allegation that he is creating a nanny state

(0) (8)

And another thing - the argument that we can all support Cameron's leftward lurch because it's all an act and he doesn't really mean it - he is lying pretty low. I might be prepared to give someone the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that they are telling the truth, but to give someone the benefit of the doubt in the hope that they are lying through their teeth?
- Wolfie

(0) (18)

Veisalgia- the medical term for the common or garden hangover. I suspect that there has been a slight epidemic of veisalgia in the ranks of Samizdata's contributors and editors lately. A useful word to know when filling out sick leave application forms for work.

(1) (26)

Last century over 170 million people were murdered by their own governments, and your government doesn't want you to have a gun. Doesn't that bother you just a little?
- Unknown

(0) (13)

Oh, um, oh God, um, yes, um, I can't believe that you said that. I can't believe that you, um, said that, um, all that stuff about, um, oh no, about that stuff... Oh God, you guys at, um, Samizdata, are, um, naughty.

- Boris Johnson MP

(0) (0)

Now that they have a fairly sensible and popular sceptic policy on Europe, the Conservatives react with wounded surprise when polls say that the public still do not respect them on the subject. But the reason is very simple: again and again, their actions have belied their words.
- Charles Moore

(0) (49)

But, whatever the crimes of our forefathers, this is the country of Drake, Clive and Kitchener, not of Tipu Sultan, Shaka Zulu or the Mahdi.
- Max Hastings

(0) (36)

These whiners are the same people who complain of American cultural imperialism because people like Coke and Starbucks. [Yet] there is no more rigid, aggressive, ignorant bunch of cultural imperialists in the world than Muslims who, as a group, are intent on forcing their preposterous beliefs on the rest of the world. Give me Starbucks any day.
- Commenter Verity on the 'Satanic Cartoons' controversy.

(0) (8)

Are you uncomfortable enough? Good. Welcome to my world.

(0) (76)

Tony Blair showed just how courageous he is... he chose to face up to an internal battle based on one idea - the European Union - rather than just doing his job as just Britain's prime minister.

Pity Samizdata.net does not have a catagory for articles called "Treason & Betrayal".

(0) (3)

Protectionism does not aid development. Developing countries with open economies are catching up with rich ones; those with closed economies are falling further behind.

- Andrew Mitchell, the UK's Shadow Secretary of State for International Development

(0) (4)

My least favourite radical chic interviewee: the talented but humourless Ute Lemper. Ensconced in a luxury suite at the Savoy, she embarked on a lecture about the downtrodden masses, and was so busy talking about how East German workers were exploited that she forgot to even acknowledge the existence of the maid who'd put a tray of tea in front of her.

- Clive Davis commenting on this.

(0) (52)

I admit to feeling a little uneasy at the sight of a Muslim woman shrouded not simply in a headscarf but a face-concealing, head-to-toe chador, and wonder just how much choice she has had in deciding her lifestyle. I am not hugely sympathetic to a Muslim seeking asylum because he claims to have been discriminated against because of his support for sharia law.

I cannot celebrate such culture in the way that I celebrate Italian National Day in Leichhardt or the Tet festival in Cabramatta or Greek Orthodox Easter or a Seder at Passover or a service of Eritrean Orthodox Church, such as the one I attended a couple of years ago in a borrowed Church of England in London, or lunch with a couple of Palestinian intellectuals.

Some multicultural theorists will squawk and say that I prefer only a soft multiculturalism (if they insist on calling it that) that does not offend western liberal values. They would be spot on. My acceptance ends when the assault on the liberality of society itself begins.

- Andrew West, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald. (Link via Tim Blair)

(1) (20)

Society is something emergent that occurs when people interact with each other, you cannot point at it and you cannot owe it anything. When any politician says the word 'society', you can be damn sure what he really means is 'the state'.
- Perry de Havilland

(0) (25)

An unfunded pension is like a university education. If everyone has one, you can't expect it to be worth anything.

(0) (4)

Mr Drucker says that modern government can do only two things well: wage war and inflate the currency. It's the aim of my administration to prove Mr Drucker wrong.

- Richard Nixon

(0) (13)

Actually, I have had some very good experiences with extra large prawns.

- Michael Jennings

(0) (29)

"Only the arms industry relies on taxpayers for its profits more than the pharmaceutical industry."

- The Pharmopoly Campaign

(0) (23)

"If the French social model is so great, why is the country in flames?"
- Peter Mendelson in an off the cuff remark before talks with Philippe Douste-Blazy, French foreign minister.