I think one of the biggest mistakes made by Classical Liberals in Britain was to allow (and, indeed, encourage) the government to start funding education in the 19th Century. He who pays the piper calls the tune and it was only a matter of time before the government took over education and began to run it as the state monopoly we are still lumbered with today.

As with all these monolithic government services they are indifferent to the needs of their customers, exisitng primarily as fiefdoms of a professional education establishment. Well-to-do families can afford to escape the system but not so modest income and poor families whose children are left victimised by the shambolic sausage factories through which they are processed.

To date, there has been insufficient challenge to this state monopoly but that could all be about to change. Last night I had the pleasure of meeting James Stansfield at the October 'Putney Debate' hosted by Tim Evans. James works with the famous James Tooley, a former socialist who has seen the light and now campaigns for a free market in education. Together they have established the EG West Centre at the University of Newcastle; an academic research body dedicated to spreading radical ideas about the provision of education by means other than the state.

The man after whom the project is named, EG West, was a British-born academic who did most of his work in Canada in the 1950's and 1960's. Swimming completely against the tide of the received wisdom of that era, this man who concluded, from his meticulously documented research, that state education was a disaster. Unsurprisingly, he was pilloried by the rest of academia and the education establishment as some kind of dangerous madman before being proved absolutely correct.

West's legacy is a comprehensive set of ideological and analytical tools which are now being wielded by the likes of Messrs Stansfield and Tooley with a view to revolutionising public policy. James Stansfield is clearly passionate about his mission which he described in detail at last night's meeting.

It seems there is both good news and bad news.

The good news is that governments all over the world are getting so exasperated at their own failure to deliver that they are willing to consider any other alternatives on offer from the private sector. This is particularly the case with developing countries like India where the government is so desperate to get their people educated that they have entirely jettisoned all the old ideological baggage and are happy for the free market to let rip. James was also very enthusiastic about the widespread Home-Schooling movement in the USA and the burgeoning movement in the UK.

The bad news is that there appears to be very little chance in the immediate future of any headway being made in Britain where the government still clings tenaciously to the old ideal of centralised control despite its increasingly apparent failings. James was of the opinion that the government is still very much in thrall to the left on this issue. Elsewhere, organisations such as The World Bank and UNESCO are vigourously lobbying Third World governments to establish universal, compulsory state education i.e. to make the same mistake we have made in the West. [James kept referring to these people, sarcastically, as 'Charming purveyors of love' so I took the liberty of introducting him to the term 'Tranzi']

But the very fact that there is both good and bad news means that battle is being enjoined and that victory is out there to be won. With the EG West Centre we have the equivalent of a mechanised infantry division on our side.

This is not just a British issue, it is a universal issue and, if you have any interest at all in education, then I strongly recommend that you take a look at the highly informative EG West Centre website linked to above and spread to the word.

No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
- Judge Gideon J. Tucker

After periodic, and if the truth be known, inevitable paedophile scandals in Britain of the sort that occurs in every school system in the world, checks on the backgrounds of teachers have been stepped up and made more rigorous. No problem there as if someone has a history of paedophile activities, it is entirely reasonable that a potential educational employer should want to discover that.

But then why does the state insist that as part of this information gathering process, that the prospective teacher reveals their banking details and how to access their secure password to get at their financial details?

It is because the Panopticon state regards privacy as in and of itself a cause for suspicion.

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.
- Dennis Wholey

In what can only be the yet another indication the the EU intends to ignore even the semblance of democratic norms when it does not suit them, whilst at the same time wrapping themselves in the cloak of legitimacy that the European 'Parliament' allegedly brings:

Günter Verheugen, enlargement Commissioner, said on Wednesday, that it would be difficult to interpret a second No by the Irish: "If a treaty is rejected twice in a country and that country knows exactly that this treaty is a precondition for the conclusions of enlargement negotiations, the outside world cannot make the judge whether the rejections means enlargement or something else."

So if Ireland votes NO to EU enlargement, Günter Verheugen feels it might in fact mean something other than NO to enlargement. I suspect I understand the source of the misunderstanding: When translated by official EU translators from Irish accented English, into Greek and then into Danish and then back into English, the result was:

A pint of Guinness please

However when translated by official EU translators from Irish accented English, into German and then into Swedish and then back into English, the result was:

Top of the morning to you, Mrs. Murphy

Yet when translated by official EU translators from Irish accented English, into Portuguese and then into Italian and then back into English, the result was:

We are just a bunch of Paddy jokers, pay no attention to us

No wonder poor Günter Verheugen is confused as to the meaning of the word NO.

Thanks to Instapundit, I have just come across this gem of a blog. It seems to consist of three guys writing a fairly lengthy and very well thought out articles about French anti-Americanism, Rousseauian Conservatives, New Jersey, UN and global warming, American politics, EU, you name it. Last Tuesday they even discovered John Fonte and his Tranzi article. Welcome to the fold!

Go and see for yourself, they are definitely worth the read!

I suppose it is only to be expected that Iain Duncan Smith would round off the Conservative Conference in Bournemouth with a triumphal assertion that the 'the Tories are back'. The poor man could hardly do otherwise having presided over a week of fractious in-fighting, broody soul-searching and insurrectionary plots to topple him as leader. He just had to try to end things on an upbeat note and stamp his authority.

But is he right? Like Perry, I think that the answer is 'no' and, furthermore, I feel that the situation is unlikely to be improved by any well-spun policy initiatives. The problem for the Conservatives was, in fact, highlighted this last week by their Chairman, Theresa May when she exhorted the assembled party faithful to work to shed their 'nasty image'. Therein lies the crux of the problem: nobody likes the Conservative because they are popularly seen as being 'nasty' and 'uncaring', i.e. it is believed that, once in power, they will cut taxes, curtail generous welfare handouts, privatise healthcare and education and stop creating sinecure jobs in the public sector for the competence-challenged.

Now there's a sublime irony here because, in the event that the Tories ever did ascend the throne again, they are highly unlikely to do any of those things. For sure, about half of the party consists of people who would very much like to do those things but the other half consists of people who would rather stick their genitals in a food blender and press the 'On' button before they rocked any boats whatosever, and it's the latter half that usually wins (as well as being the half that toppled Mrs.T).

However, that is not the general perception and, when it comes to voting, its perception that counts.

My own reading of the British public is that they are deeply attached to the Welfare State in all its various manifestations and react with pointed hostility to any suggestion that it should be dismantled or even reformed. It is like trying to take a comfort blanket away from a 250lb baby who can punch your lights out.

Therefore, if the Conservatives wish to pursue a truly radical agenda they not only have to conquer the rotten half of their own party but that they have to try to sell the public a set of deeply unpopular and despised ideas. That is not how you win elections. It is all very well for us libertarians to scoff but we positively thrive on being loathed and feared (well, at least I do) because, after all, we are the real Nasty Party and, what's more, we really, really, really mean it. Politicians, however, cannot afford the luxury of wallowing in such marginalisation.

All of this leaves the Conservative Party with very little room to manoeuvre. Either they take a leap into electoral darkness of they try to be more Blair than Blair. But, with Blair having somewhat cornered the market in 'being Blair' the Tories are in a fix to which no solution readily presents itself and this leaves us all echoing Alice Bachini's rhetorical lament:

"What, do we want President Blair for the next twenty years?? What are we going to doooo?"

I regret to say that this a vista which we must all contemplate. I honestly see very little on the horizon that could possibly spoil the Regnum Blair but I do know that tomorrow is another day and you never know what it brings.

The Space Elevator concept is one I've always found to be of interest, but which I personally placed at least a century or more in the future. I remember many fun discussions in the early days of the sci.space netnews group; in which calculations of exponential tapers, masses and tensile strength tables were batted about gleefully. Carbon nanotubes were still in the future back then; and even in later discussions we all considered mass production of real fibres to be very far off.

Well, sometimes even those of us who have one foot in the next decade are too pessimistic. A company, High Lift Systems, has been formed to work on a near term design. Advances in production of carbon nanotubes have (mostly) solved the last basic problem. We will soon be able to build sufficient quantities of sufficiently strong material to actually build one.

Of course there is that one little detail of raising $10 billion dollars in the capital markets...

This research from Finland rates very high on the neatness scale.

It looks like it is useable anywhere with reasonably still air, so I can well imagine adverts floating in the aisles of department stores.

It's a great Christmas gift for all those budding young tent preachers you know. They'll get that Holy Appearance vetting them Officially for that lucrative TV contract they've always wanted. If your friends are of a more Shakespearean inclination, just think of the possibilities for their next production of Macbeth or Hamlet!

Ah, the future. I love this era.

Posted from Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Yesterday and the day before, I did a couple of talks in the local high school, with my friend the teacher supplying not so much translation as translatory clarification as and when needed, because my audience had a pretty reasonable understanding - and this is the whole point of what I'm about to write - of English. I spoke about the British attitude towards the EU, and explained why the Euro-debate has become steadily more fierce.

One of the reasons for this fierceness is that the Internet has made the idea of participating in the Anglosphere more appealing, and the idea of a unified Europe corresponding less appealing, to the British. But yesterday morning, before I embarked upon this bit of my talk, I asked how many of my audience had themselves used the Internet during the previous week. Most hands went up. Then I asked: how many of you used only the Slovak language? All hands went down. All of them. Not only that, there was a distinct murmer of disapproval that I should even ask such a question. Only use Slovak internet sites? What a bizarre idea.

What this interchange illustrates is that the Internet means something rather different to us language-phobic Anglos compared to how people like these educated young Slovaks experience it. In Britain, physical travel is easy, but learning other languages is an unfamiliar drudgery. We can travel, physically, but don't need to travel linguistically, so to speak. Not everyone speaks our language, but enough do to make our monolinguistic attitude reasonable, if often impolite.

But for Slovaks it's the other way around. Learning another language is relatively easy, and an obvious thing for any educated person to do, starting with English. Travelling is hard, because so expensive, and because the obvious place to go, to Western Europe, is made so difficult for them. So the Internet is for them, for now, their escape to the big wide world. To use only Slovak on it would be to behave like those idiot British tourists who turn up in Timbuktoo and sulk if they can't get fish and chips. The Internet, for us Anglos, is a different way to divide the world. For the Slovaks, the Internet is the world. Suddenly I felt like a provincial oik, from a huge but basically non-central kind of place like Yorkshire or Texas, in the presence of the world's true sophisticates.

I also sensed a very different attitude here, and especially among these young, bright Slovaks, towards the EU. For them, the EU is indeed a threat to Slovakia. Their worry is that Slovakia will become a small colony in a large empire.  But what the EU means to them personally, or could mean, or they hope could mean - and asking about this produced another huge show of hands - is the chance of people like them to seek their fortunes elsewhere than in little old Slovakia. Instead of making do with crummy au pair jobs, they might soon be able to go West and make real lives for themselves, in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, London. The EU, for them, is the hope of freedom.

Russia, by the way, is absolutely not seen as a problem for these people. The idea that Slovakia might be joining the EU as some kind of long-range defence policy, in case Russia ever gets strong again, was dismissed with contempt.

Slovakia is, I understand, on the latest EU list of countries who are due to be engulfed in 2006, or some such year. I just hope that things for these young people turn out the way they hope, and that they haven't been swindled.

You can also see, however, why older Slovaks might rationally dread the EU, as the great vacuum cleaner that will suck the brightest and best of their children out of their country and leave the place a tired old dormitory country for impoverished oldies, visited only by vastly rich tourists, who then proceed to rebuild Slovakia as a tourist country instead of a real country.

Iraqi deputy prime minister and minister responsible for Iraq's weapons programmes, Abdul Tawab Mullah Hawaish, speaking at a news conference in Baghdad, has invited the United States to send officials to visit Iraqi sites suspected of producing weapons of mass destruction. He said Iraq was not producing weapons of mass destruction and declared that U.S. claims that it was producing them were false.

"As I am responsible for the Iraqi weapons programmes I confirm here that we have no weapons of mass destruction and we have no intention to produce them."

Damn, you are just so convincing, Abdul...

And my personal favourite - he also said Iraq would teach the United States an "unforgettable lesson" if it launched a military action to oust the government of Saddam Hussein.

"If the Americans commit a new foolish action against Iraq, we will teach them an unforgettable lesson."

But, Abdul, honey, how would you do that? This is the US army you are talking about, remember? Lots of lovely, lovely modern missiles and other amazing equipment that actually works, not like your mucked up 1950s Soviet Scud Bs (ripped off V-2s). And besides, you just convinced me that the peace-loving Iraq has no weapons to speak of!? I am sooo confused!

Not surprisingly the UK and Irish media are filled with the rapidly developing crisis in Northern Ireland. On the face of it, the situation is fairly simple: Following a lengthy investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, culminating in a high profile raid by uniformed officers of the PSNI on Sinn Fein's offices at Stormont itself (the seat of the Northern Irish assembly), Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, has been caught spying at the highest levels of the Northern Irish coalition government of which they are a member. The Ulster Unionists are outraged, the British and Irish governments are stunned and the Northern Irish peace process stands on the very brink of collapse.

And yet...

Can it really have come as a surprise to anyone that Sinn Fein, a Marxist party dedicated to the end of British rule in Ulster and the stripping of the Protestant majority's democratic political power, would be using the fact it is in a coalition government to compile information on its British and Protestant Irish political enemies? Clearly anyone with at least half a brain would expect them to use whatever means presented themselves to acquire information to gain political advantage. The leadership of Sinn Fein are also the leadership of the IRA, which is to say they are people who have gained their place at the very heart of Northern Ireland's government because they have ordered large numbers of people killed over the last few decades. Are these the sort of people who would not use covert means to continue to advance their political agendas?

So if that is hardly unexpected behaviour from people who have got where they are now by the successful use of violence, then why the shock and outrage? Also, are we really to believe that all this information has only now come to light in spite of the fact Ulster is riddled with informants and undercover assets of Britain's rather effective security services? Nonsense. It just does not add up.

Here is what I think is happening:

1. Tony Blair can pretend to Labour dominated Parliament and the readers of the Guardian that the IRA has decommissioned more than a tiny fraction of its weapons and they it had stopped using violence within the Catholic communities of Ulster to maintain their authority, but no one in Northern Ireland really believes that.
   
   
2. Yet Tony Blair was so loath to see his peace process go down the toilet the way of so many before it in Ireland had, that he would overlook almost anything the Republican side did if that was what it would take. As a result Sinn Fein could see all their dreams coming true, in gradual incremental installments.
   
   
3. The Ulster Unionists had been making it clear for quite some time that they have had enough. David Trimble was facing progressively more discontent from within the Ulster Unionists and the crunch point was fast approaching: if he intended to remain as the party's leader, given that the British government of Tony Blair did not have the stomach to face down Sinn Fein, Trimble himself was going to have to pull the plug on the Northern Irish settlement unless Sinn Fein actually lived up to its promises. This would involve him in effect taking the settlement and telling Tony Blair to stick it up his arse.

Result? Tony Blair gets the blame and is shown to have simply been too weak to force Sinn Fein to do what it had promised for real... Political disaster for Labour of the highest magnitude.

So... Given that consummate politician Blair has realised that nothing can now save the Northern Irish peace process from exploding, he decided the only way to minimise the political damage that Trimble would inflict on him is to blame the whole thing going down the crapper on the bad faith of... Sinn Fein. Thus all the information that Blair has in reality known about for years is suddenly 'discovered' following a high profile raid, he washes his hands like Pontus Pilate and says "It's not my fault, oh if only those wicked Sinn Fein people had just been as honest with us as we had been with them".

Of course if Tony Blair, like John Major before him, had not allowed the likes of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to get away with telling a never ending stream of porkies for years in the hope they would eventually 'play nice', we would perhaps have seen a more stable agreement reached... but the fact is there was bad faith on all sides.

It's official. The socialists run New Jersey.

Less than a month before the election and despite clear election laws to the contrary, the NJ Democrats swapped out a losing candidate and swapped in a retired ex-Senator. The courts rubber-stamped the maneuver on the argument that "the people deserve a choice."

Never mind that there are four other parties running. Never mind that before they made their first candidate bow out the people already had a choice. Just focus on the realization that the choice before the bait and switch involved a Democrat who stood a real chance of losing. In New Jersey, that just can't be allowed.

To maintain a facade of propriety, those voters who already returned their absentee ballots were invited to sue, which is a complete non-starter. As the candidate shenanigans show, the Democrats control the courts and any outcome will at most be a footnote to a hijacked election.

The only remaining question is whether the millions of dollars in political contributions raised by the original candidate can be used by his replacement. The obvious answer would be "That's riduclous!" but don't be surprised when the courts bless that one too.

The real issue is not about New Jersey but about how it relates at the national level. The socialists have only a one seat lead giving them control of the Senate. To have the New Jersey "election" a genuine race instead of a coronation simply did not fit into their plans.

Incidentally, the new candidate is not Frank Pallone as I reported earlier, but none other than Frank Lautenburg. Freedom minded people might remember the name. After an uninspiring 18 years in Congress, Lautenberg championed a major gun control bill just before retiring. The bill, which applied retroactively, was so broad and draconian it would have prevented a significant portion of the population, including a large number of police and military personnel, from possessing weapons. Instead of correcting the many faults with the bill, Lautenberg demonstrated his belief that the government is above the law by exempting the police and military and leaving the average citizen to bear the brunt of his confiscatory legislation.

Can you imagine what an emboldened Lautenberg will do with his belief in government supremacy if he is re-appointed Senator in a manipulated election and ushered into his old seat in the vaulted halls of Congress?

That veritable taste sensation and Slavophile angst muffin of the blogosphere, Shannon Okey needs help from you technical engineer types... so surf on over and see if you can lend a hand.

Whither the Tories as a low-tax party? Well, I came across this piece of defeatism by Danny Finkelstein, who was once an adviser to former Prime Minister John "bonker" Major.

Essentially, Finkelstein writes that the Conservatives should stop talking at all about tax cuts since it would give them nil public credibility in arguing for reform of the public services.

"There have been times when tax cuts have been a sure-fire election winner and such a time will undoubtedly come again. Yet in deciding to put so much emphasis on public services, the Tories have decided that the next election is not such a time. for if public services are to come first, something must come second."

Firstly, I was not aware that any senior Tory, unless under the influence of booze, has made a principled and coherent argument for cutting taxes in the last five years. In fact, it seems this previously major feature of what passes for Tory thinking has fallen completely off the radar. More's the pity.

Secondly, the supply side argument. Surely Finkelstein and others should have grasped the point that most major governments, including the present British one, set taxes at rates which actually means they raise less revenue than otherwise would be the case due to the blight on incentives high taxes cause. While I don't expect every pundit to have heard of the Laffer Curve it would be nice to think that the enormous success of Ronald Reagan's and Margaret Thatcher's tax cut measures would have left some kind of mark. Clearly some reminders are needed.

Increases in public spending or holding spending where it is has not proven to work in delivering good health or education, as the shambolic state of Britain's socialised system of health care proves. Many of the problems have little to do with money, more with ideology. Finkelstein's argument is predicated on the idea that reform necessarily will cost as much, if not more, than what is being spent at the moment. That is questionable, to say the least.

And finally, by accepting the notion that one cannot cut taxes while sorting out health, education, etc, the Tories would be allowing the Labour government to dictate the very terms of the debate. That is a recipe for instant failure. That is why Labour-leaning commentators anxious to shaft the Tories urge it as the Tories' only hope for salvation. Such folk are false friends and should be shunned.

And Mr Finkelstein should recall that although his domestic agenda is now either in tatters or in cold storage, one reason why George W. Bush made it to the White House was on account of tax cuts.

Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say that he values civilisation. The history of the two cannot be disentangled
- Henry Sumner Maine

The Illuminatus post below puts me in mind of a little anecdote that was doing the rounds in the legal profession a few years ago. It concerned the case of a homeless vagrant who had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly in a public place. A trivial matter and quite unremarkable but for the sentence handed down by the Magistrate:

"I am going to discharge you on the condition that, for the next six months, you do not touch a drop of alcohol. And when I say 'not a drop', I mean not a drop; not even a glass of sherry after dinner."

It may not be true but I like to think it is.

Overheard on Radio 4 this morning – a plan by Westminster Council to fine the homeless who sleep in the 'tourist sensitive' areas around Westminster. What a marvellous idea, fine the homeless, like they have the £500 ($750 US) proposed fine! Why don’t they just admit they want to lock them up – and cut out the court admin of chasing the fine? The state is not your friend, whether you are rich or poor...

Also, why is David Trimble really so upset with Sinn Fein spying on the Northern Ireland Assembly? Yes, there are security implications given their 'links' to the IRA but surely it couldn’t have come as a surprise? Is he just making political capital out of his opponents being caught with their listening devices out? Is he covering his embarrassment that his party wasn’t doing it? Or is he protesting too much to cover up the fact that he was doing the same thing?

Finally, a policeman's take on the "after the war in Iraq" question (from a trusted source close to the police, i.e., a policeman I know):

"Iraq's population is a combination of three different and ethnically varied races who hate one another with a vengeance. They hate us [the West] even more than each other and may be unwilling and unable to support the west should a strike occur. However, if intervention is necessary and the aftermath is about putting together a new and effective 'junta', then there might be a chance. If not, it will be a hell of a hole to police."

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the government agency trusted with making sure that we, the people of the United States, don't come down with the plague is ramping up an advertising campaign. Is it focusing on the threat of smallpox, anthrax, or any other bio-terror threat? How about Ebola, West Nile, or even maybe Hong Kong chicken flu?

No, the CDC has more important things to worry about. Specifically, fat kids. That's right, American tax dollars are being put to use, in time of war, to tell kids to get in shape. Kids ages 6-17 are being bombarded with a media buy of nearly $3 million dollars (not to mention the cost of creative, the PR agency they hired, additional advertising agency fees, or the costs associated with the on-site events) between now and next July.

As a conservative guess, I would say that the CDC, while being faced with threats to real live national health, are going to be spending somewhere near $15 million dollars putting on a program dedicated to telling fat kids to shape up.

And just to make it better, they are also refusing to discuss the threats facing our nation when it's been requested for interviews. No questions about smallpox vaccinations, the spread of West Nile – all fat kids, all the time.

And the campaign itself – VERB. That’s right, VERB. As in 'RUN', 'SWIM', 'MASTURBATE'¹, etc. Here is a list of events:

• Wild & Crazy Kids - Live staged version of the Wild N' Crazy Kids series, pitting audience members against each other in larger than life stunts.
  • Having the kids 'SIT' and watch other people be active. Good start. How well do you think the fat kids will do in these stunts?

• MTV Experience Tour - Interactive 'day village' that will encourage teens/tweens to experience VERB through a variety of current and relevant booths themed around MTV's franchises and music.
  • MTV. A TV channel. I guess 'WATCH' is the message they are trying to get across here.

• Paint the Town - Identify a mural, water tower or other highly visible figure and paint it to resemble a VERB activity. (e.g. Paint a water tower to look like a soccer ball with 'KICK' across it).
  • 'VANDALIZE' will go well with most of the programming on MTV.

• Treasure Hunt - Kids stop at local places to pick up fun merchandise such as hats, t-shirts, etc. Tie-in with radio station, or existing promotion.
  • 'PURCHASE' will go well with 'DRIVE', getting the parents involved.

• Parent Media Tours - Celebrity couple to speak with local media about the importance of getting kids involved in positive activities.
  • Back to 'SIT' and 'WATCH' as celebrities get kids involved in 'positive' activities. Are "get busted for drugs" or "sleep with director" considered positive?

• Step Club - Online clubs for kids to participate in programs to increase positive activity by using a pedometer to measure daily steps for a chance to win VERB merchandise.
  • 'CLICK' is now a way to get thin? Kick ass, office work will be taking on a whole new light now!

Now, I'm not a completely cold-hearted bastard, but this just seems to be a little bit over the top. Besides, most fat kids either have a genetic pre-disposition that won't be fixed through this program, or they lose weight when they get to college or high school. In fact, this program will do nothing more than give athletic kids a chance to show off, and fat kids something to feel bad about. I understand that weight problems abound, but there have always been fat kids, there will always be fat kids, and nothing in this pork barrel will change that.

So why, at a time when we are faced with so many external threats, are we spending a lot of time and money cross-promoting MTV with taxpayer dollars?

Be sure to check out www.verbnow.com if you think I am kidding about any of this.

¹ = Ok, masturbation was left off the list. Just like the state to leave out activities the kids will actually enjoy.

We do not wish our ancient freedom and the decent tolerant civilisation we have preserved in this island to hang upon a rotten thread.
- Winston Churchill, September 1935

Since they are vehicles by which ideas are spread, it stands to reason that definitions are important. Very important. There is nothing controversial in this view but I often feel that it is a principle more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

So I was delighted to read this article by Michael of 2 Blowhards wherein he demonstrates the flagrant absurdity of American left-wingers being referred to (and declaring themselves to be) 'liberal'.

This is a point that we at the Samizdata have made previously and with good reason because American 'liberals' are not liberal at all, they are socialists. It sticks heavily in my craw to have to refer to these people as 'liberals' when the policies they favour and the ideas to which they subscribe (state interventions and pre-planned outcomes) are diametrically the opposite from anything even resembling classical liberal theory.

This is not just word-play, it is important. As Michael points out:

"One of the tricky things about "liberal" is that it’s just such a damned attractive word. It’s nice to think of yourself as being a liberal person. "I don’t care if my neighbor’s gay" equals "Thus I’m a liberal." Sure, why not?"

This rings true. The word 'liberal' being associated with the qualities of being decent, humane and fair, provides a perfect cover for advancing an agenda which turns out to be largely indecent, horribly unfair and often inhumane.

American socialists are guilty of Definition-rustling. They have stolen a term that belongs to us and used it as camouflage behind which they have surrepticiously advanced their forward lines. I think it is time that we venture forth to take back that which belongs to us. Michael agrees:

"I also find it helpful to refuse to let the American left get away with calling itself liberal. I insist on referring to them as leftists, and to their views as leftism. Why let that crowd of sentimentalists, thought-police and socialists maintain exclusive ownership of a word as beautiful as "liberal"?

Why indeed, Michael. Far better to strip them naked and force them out into the open where the whole world can laugh at their grotesqueness.

Posted from Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Here at the only Internet cafe in Bratislava that I can find, I am struggling with a crazy Eastern European keyboard and what are for me the difficulties of using yahoo. It's an arkward combination, not made anz easier bz the fact that whenever I tzpe z I get y and whenever I tzpe y I get z. So it comes out as zahoo unless I concentrate verz carefullz.

But enough of trivia. I got to Bratislava last Friday and leave next Monday, and so far it's been great. I have lucked into a classical music festival, the initials for the Slovak title of which are BHS. So when I went to the concert on Saturday, I thought, oh no, they´ve done a truly tacky sponsorship deal. But all was well.

The concert however was dull, I thought.  The solo pianist, Ivan Moravec, is world-renowned, but frankly he made his two pieces, the Franck Variations for Piano and Orchestra and the Ravel Concerto, sound to me like run-throughs. Maybe it was me. Maybe it is that he looks like a waiter. Whatever, everyone else seemed happy.

But then on Sunday, there was Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Czech Philharmonic in Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. It was sold out of course, but I went along anyway, and a Japanese gent sold me a ticket, for the Slovak equivalent of about £6 sterling ($9 US). Unbelievable. As was the performance. For once all the flim-flam of classical musical ovations - a loud a pretentious 'bravo' as soon as the last chord went silent, vast gobs of flowers for the lady solo singers and even for the gentleman conductor, constant returns to the platform for more applause, rythmic applause - all seemed entirely appropriate.

Ashkenazy is a tiny man, but his conducting both made the absolute most of each passing musical moment and made the piece as a whole - and what a whole it is - all hang together. He has the ability that all the best conductors have of being able to flap his stick arm about like a madman, while keeping not just his torso but also his other arm absolutely immobile. So the flapping arm dealt with the here and now, while the rest of him made sure that the 'paragraphing' of the music, so to speak, still made sense. The only problems were the ensemble of the trumpet section, which wouldn't do if they ever try to turn the evening into a CD, and the coughing of the audience, ditto times five. The trumpets were otherwise excellent, and their occasional fluffs mattered to me not at all, but the coughing made me think murder. But, the vital silence that happens just before the chorus starts to sing in the final movement was, against all the odds, truly silent. When the choral singing did get underway, it was magnificent.

The hall of the Slovak Philharmonic is really too small for the tremendous din that went on inside it that night, but for me this only added to the impact. No way could I play this piece as loudly on my CD machine, because the neighbours would have me expelled mid-way into the first movement.  Concerts in such halls are often marred by traffic noises, but this was a concert I can imagine having seriously threatened the concentration of passing motorists.  It's a huge piece, with no holding back, especially in the first and last movements. Mahler is out to borrow the very voice of God. So all in all, it was the complete and perfect opposite of the night before, and a memory to treasure for a lifetime.

What has all that to do with the usual pre-occupations of samizdatistas, such as the ongoing War on Terrorism? Well put it this way: it's what is being defended.

Graham Turner asks in an article in the Telegraph Can the Conservative Party recover?... and of course the answer I would give is no. It is fascinating to watch the Tory Party Conference. I have not enjoyed myself as much since I last saw Dawn of the Dead.

The new Tory manifesto is starting
to take shape nicely

Iain Duncan Smith continues to amaze me with his triviality and casual insults to potential supporters. The latest thigh slappingly funny remark is that he dislikes the 'doggerel' found in Roman Catholic Masses. Not in and of itself a momentous observation, but then please keep in mind that this is the man who would presumably like Catholics in Britain to vote for him so that he can be the one plundering private assets instead of those nasty labour people.

Did anyone hear front bench advocacy for
genuine capitalist solutions and free trade over
all the blather about 'public services' being paramount?

And when IDS finally implodes, or more likely people just forget his name, it seems that chubby paleo-statist Kenneth Clark still hankers after party leadership so he can revive the glories of the Ted Heath era...

Now this is almost better that Evil Dead...

Kenneth Clark's supporters were much in
evidence this year

Update: I have now sobered up and I would like to apologise to all of our readers who happen to be undead... in no way was I implying all zombies are members of the Conservative Party.

Alice Bachini has posted an interesting reply to my recent article called The world is a messy place. Alice writes in When is violence OK?:

Bashing people for the purpose of communicating something moral might sound like an oxymoron, but I don't think it is. I think the idea "No to badness!" is expressed usefully, and anyway, sometimes the only alternative is between that or "Yes to violence!" in the non-bashing alternative. It might seem generous to absorb the other person's nastiness by taking it on the chin and walking off in silence, but unless they interpret this in the right spirit, it's worse than useless.

I could not agree more!

Making dire predictions about the organisational abilities of the European Union is a fairly safe bet I reckon, but even I have been taken aback by the speed with which this prediction (from early April):

"So, cue another round of horse-trading, bickering and monumental waste as each part of the Galileo project is apportioned out according to who makes the most noise. The French will build the electrics, the Italians will build the housing, the Belgians will make the navigation system, the Germans will make the rocket boosters, the Spanish will make the launch platform, the Austrians will make the sandwiches and Sweden will provide the environmental protestors."

has become this reality:

"Germany and Italy are fighting it out within the European Space Agency for the right to provide the main production base for the satellite system, to which EU governments gave the green light in March.

Their dispute has prevented the ESA from beginning work on the project and risks setting back its projected completion date of 2008."

I submit that I am entitled to enjoy a brief frisson of self-congratulation.

[My thanks to Philip Chaston for the second link]

"Socialism in its contemporary watered down form is little more than envy disguised as principle."
-Martin Pot, the Institut Héraclite

Eminent blogger Alex Knapp of Heretical Ideas thinks beyond the impending war against Iraq

As you can tell by the title of this post, this discussion isn't about whether or not it's 'properly libertarian' for the U.S. to wage war against Iraq. I'm going to assume that as a given. The question that has been running around in my mind is this: what is the libertarian case for regime change? Or, to be more specific, there's a clear libertarian case for toppling a government that proves itself to be a danger. I don't think any libertarian thinks that, once World War II started, the only goal of the Allies was to contain Germany within its borders. Clearly, Hitler and the Nazis posed a danger, and it would have been suicide for the world to simply let them rebuild again. However, what about the aftermath? Is there a libertarian case for the Marshall Plan, rebuilding the nations of the former Axis powers, etc.? This is a particularly vital point of discussion when it comes to Iraq.

The Libertarian case for Marshall Plans

First, let's look at a 'Marshall Plan' for Iraq. At first glance, it looks like the libertarian case is easy: 'we're against it.' After all, libertarian theory relies heavily on the idea that neither state-supported safety nets nor foreign humanitarian aid are moral or effective. Yet a Marshall Plan would seem to combine qualities of both. However, there are several factors that differentiate the rebuilding of a country after a war from the twin devils of welfare and foreign aid.

The first primary difference is that a Marshall Plan style rebuilding is partially compensatory in nature. War is, by its very nature, destructive. And often prime targets during wartime aren't necessarily military--roads, bridges, factories, etc. Once war is over, it's arguable that a nation should "clean up the mess it made", particularly as in regards to civilian infrastructure. This is certainly fitting with traditional libertarian ideas of compensation for damage caused to private property by government.

The second primary difference is that a Marshall Plan is usually a one-time arrangement. Unlike foreign aid or welfare entitlements, this type of payments goes to a specific cause aimed at a specific outcome. Therefore, the dependency relationship that develops in the former two cases doesn't happen in a Marshall Plan.

The third primary difference is that Marshall Plan style re-buildings are partially military in nature. History shows that an utterly defeated populace is likely to develop resentment against the victorious power if it is left in a substantially weakened position. This is precisely what happened with Germany after World War I. By contrast, the rebuilt former Axis nations became allies of the nations which defeated them. This can also be seen in Lincoln's post-civil war policy of reconciliation with the South. By accepting them back into the union and providing money to rebuilt (albeit not as much as should have happened), Lincoln probably prevented a resurgence of hostilities by the Southern states. As the Buddhist saying goes, "The best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend." In a similar way, a Marshall Plan style rebuilding can be seen as part of the legitimate defense apparatus of government, because it helps to prevent a resurgence of hostilities by previously defeated enemies.

Is there a libertarian case for the U.S. determining the post-Ba'ath regime?

Perhaps the primary objection to the United States and her allies determining what sort of government post-Hussein Iraq should have is that the Iraqi people should have the right to determine their own government. Writing in The National Review, Amitai Etzioni, certainly no libertarian, makes this argument. Although he mostly makes his case on utilitarian grounds, he does make the point that the Iraqis have the right to determine their own government, whether it be a Green-dominated parliamentary system or a free-market utopia.

Certainly there is strong support for self-government in the libertarian philosophy. However, there's enormous skepticism for the workings of democracy, as well. Majorities do not always protect individual rights, and many parliamentary systems move in the direction of state control, particularly when not checked by judiciary or executive branches. Moreover, in the post-war chaos that will almost certainly ensue after Hussein's fall, who is to say that the Iraqi people will have the ability to determine their own government?

That being said, the question still remains: even if there is no guarantee that an Iraqi-created post-Ba'ath regime is the 'will of the Iraqi people', what gives the United States and her allies the right to determine such a government? My argument would be that the United States has the right, first of all, as compensation for destroying the last government. Secondly, it has the right to determine the next government as a means of security--that is, preventing a government in which enemies of the United States can rise to power. However, both of these arguments are qualified. The United States would have no right, for instance, to create a dictatorship in Iraq. This is because no dictatorship is legitimate, nor should it be recognized as such by free nations. Although the United States has the right to create a new government for Iraq, it also has an obligation to create a legitimate government. That is, one in which the 'consent of the governed' can manifest itself peacefully. This would include, by extension, one that prevents censorship, protects the rights of the individual, and has some measure of accountability, probably through democratic means.

Issues of post-war rebuilding and regime change are tricky ones for libertarians. However, I do think that libertarian cases can be made for both the forced creation of legitimate governments and for Marshall plan style rebuilding in a post-war setting. That being said, my comments are certainly open for discussion and I think that this issue is one that the libertarian community at large should be grappling with.

Alex Knapp

It is necessary to guard ourselves from thinking that the practice of the scientific method enlarges the powers of the human mind. Nothing is more flatly contradicted by experience than the belief that a man distinguished in one or even more departments of science, is more likely to think sensibly about ordinary affairs than anyone else.
- Wilfred Trotter

That's it, then. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been warned that military action against Iraq to force a regime change would breach international law. According to the Financial Times, he received confidential advice from Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith and Solicitor General Harriet Harman that international law would allow military action in "limited circumstances" to support U.N. resolutions, but it rules out war to achieve regime change.

Apparently, the legal advice explains why Blair has shied away from openly calling for a "regime change" like U.S. President George W. Bush who wants to see Saddam Hussein gone regardless of whether United Nations inspectors return to check Iraq's weapons capability.

This is Tranzis at work using 'international law' to restrict national sovereignty, this time from within a national legal system. Let's not forget their true agenda:

A good part of the energy for transnational progressivism is provided by human rights activists, who consistently evoke "evolving norms of international law" in pursuing their goals. The main legal conflict between traditional American liberal democrats and transnational progressives is ultimately the question of whether the U.S. Constitution trumps international law or vice versa. Before the mid-twentieth century, traditional international law usually referred to relations among nation-states: it was "international" in the real sense of the term. Since that time the "new international law" has increasingly penetrated the sovereignty of democratic nationstates.

It is, therefore, in reality, "transnational law". Human rights activists work to establish norms for this "new international (i.e. transnational) law", and then attempt to bring the United States into conformity with a legal regime whose reach often extends beyond democratic politics and the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.

Or the United Kingdom or anywhere else...

Imagine you want to set up a business. Let's say it's a software consultancy. And let's also assume that you require some capital funding to get you started. You decide to approach a variety of sources from wealthy private investors to banks to venture capitalists and in order to impress them you draw up a Business Plan.

Only, there is no Business Plan because you are forbidden from charging your customers. Yes, that's right, you are obliged to give away your valuable time and expertise for free. Which means you are not a business, you are a charity. No business, no Business Plan.

Insane? Bizarre? Economically illiterate? Intellectually retarded? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

And that probably explains why it has been adopted by the British Conservative Party as their big, bold, brand new idea for the National Health Service:

"During the health debate, Dr Fox will say that hospitals would be able to raise cash however they wanted and from whoever they wanted.

They will, however, be barred from charging patients for treatment".

I am so resigned to this kind of stupidity that I can no longer bring myself to be outraged about it.

How marvelous that state hospitals will be able to go to anyone for their investment; only wihtout being able to offer a return, no investor will touch them and they will be forced to go back, cap-in-hand, to HM Government (and that means us) and we're right back where we started. In other words, the Conservatives are opting for 'no-change'.

Despite endless tampering, tinkering, revamps, updates, initiatives, policy changes, shifts in emphasis, new approaches, fresh ideas, radical thinking, more funding, down-to-earth measures, sensible guidelines, new directions, even more funding and more wishful thinking than you can point a stick at, Britain's unworkable Soviet-model health care system still won't work.

But coming to terms with that is a pain barrier that nobody is willing to cross.

Do 'snuff' movies actually exist or are they merely an urban legend? I use the term 'snuff' movie in its traditionally accepted sense i.e. an act of murder which is committed to film or videotape and then replayed in order to provide some warped sexual gratification for the viewer.

I have been prompted to raise this question by a showing of the film "8mm" on British terrestrial television this evening. According to the makes of the film, snuff movies do exist but you have to go to considerable trouble (and expense) to obtain them.

I have never seen a snuff movie but even if I had been shown such a movie how could I know for sure that the 'grisly murder' I was witnessing was not, in fact, a very convincing simulation? After all, realistic and gory murders are simulated in mainstream movies all the time so the expertise clearly exists.

Another thing that occurs to me is the problem of marketing such a thing. How (and to whom) do the producers sell their snuff videos when they can hardly be advertised even in the most questionable publications? Furthermore, I am not aware of any criminal convictions (in the UK at any rate) in respect of the making or distribution of snuff movies.

On the other hand, contract killing certainly does exist and if one can pay to have someone murdered surely one can pay a bit extra to have the execution filmed. In the "8mm" film, the snuff movie is made to order at the behest of an extremely wealthy magnate. If they do exist, then perhaps that's how it works.

I am no nearer to an answer but I am not sure I want to be. I never want to see a snuff movie and I'd like to think they they are, indeed, nothing more than exotic urban fairytales. But sometimes, the world can be a very ugly place.

There's a market for "date rape" drugs and now a market for "anti-date rape drug" devices. Drink Safe Technology is producing 'smart coasters' which sniff chemical interference with drinks.

"You can carry this in your purse, take your drink to the bathroom with you, test it out, and if it comes out positive, you know something's wrong with that guy you were talking to," said Janita Patrick, a San Jose State University student. "Keep walking and get away."

Now at some risk of provoking an adverse response, I am going to have to raise a point regarding what is and is not a reasonable view regarding violence.

Although we have written many articles about the subject on Samizdata, I am not talking about self defence this time, which to most libertarians is a 'no brainer'... if you are threatened with violence, you may defend yourself. Nor was I talking about the legitimacy of war against Iraq, which though more contentious is, I think, also a legitimate use of violence.

No, I am discussing the use of violence in everyday life. Now this is still a subject many have written about on this blog, usually with regard to violence and coercion directed at children as one of our contributors is the redoubtable Sarah Lawrence of Taking Children Seriously fame, and two of our frequent guest writers are supporters of TCS.

But I am not really talking about whether or not a child should be hit by their parents specifically but rather whether it is ever justified to use force outside the context of self-defense. When discussing the use of coercion against children, I was once asked if I would ever use force against an adult just because I disapproved of their behaviour in non-self defense situations. My answer was that whilst I would agree that as a general principle I am indeed against the use of force, there are indeed situations in the real world in which violence in the only way to communicate meaningfully.

About 18 months ago, I was crossing a street in Battersea with my 81 year old grandmother. A driver recklessly rounded a corner and only just managed to slam on the brakes in time to avoid running my grandmother down. Far from apologising for his reckless driving and the fact he nearly killed her, he blew his horn and abused her.

There were no witnesses to hand, meaning a formal complaint would just be our word against his, and as he was clearly about to drive off, I was faced with either doing nothing or expressing my displeasure forcefully. I reached in the open window, dragged him out of his car by his collar and punched him in the face. Although we did not discourse at great length, I can say with some confidence that I am sure he understood the causal links which had lead to his face and my fist coming into close proximity.

Do I recommend this as method of communication? Generally no, but the choice I had was simply to allow him to drive away after having nearly killed my grandmother or use force to demonstrate that such behaviour in entirely unacceptable. If there had been witnesses to hand I suspect I would have noted his licence plate and called the police but that was not so... I chose to react forcefully and would do so again in similar circumstances. It may not have been the legal thing to do but I would contend it was the correct thing to do.

The point I am trying to make is that in the real world, sometimes people act entirely unreasonably and thus to try and reason with them is unlikely to achieve much more or less by definition: they are unreasonable. 99 times out of 100 violence is not the answer. On that 100th time however, some level of violence is the only meaningful reaction. The world is a messy place.

Paul Marks holds the line in his worthy ongoing mission to rubbish Keynesianism

Some time ago I sent in a blog claiming two things - first that many of the doctrines of Keynesianism were nonsense, and secondly that one did not need to be an Austrian economics person to see this.

I have had some replies to what I wrote. No one has claimed that one needs to be an Austrian school person to see there is something very wrong with Keynesianism (that no one claimed this surprised me - but then I am an Austrian school person myself).

Some people opposed my opinion that Keynesianism is nonsense (and opposed my strong language with strong language of their own). However, no one has produced any evidence in favour of Keynesianism - either directly or via the books they have suggested I read.

Such concepts as the 'multiplier' (presented in almost all basic economics text books) remain without argument in their defence. The idea that government can help the economy by (for example) issuing money and using this money to buy sand and hire people to shovel this sand into the sea, is absurd. To teach such doctrines someone must either be a knave (someone who teaches something he does not believe), or a fool (someone who believes nonsense).

Of course even if one insisted that government 'investment' actually be about buying capital goods (rather than 'investment' simply being another word for government spending) the idea would still make no sense - investment must be based on real saving (not credit money games).

It is tragic that fallacies refuted by such men as Bastiat almost two centuries ago (such as the fallacy of the broken window) are treated as 'scientific' by the vast majority of basic economics text books (often with lots of formulas and pseudo scientific language shoved in to try and hide the basic absurdities).

Even as I type this many nations in the world are undergoing rapidly rising prices (and prices rising at an increasing rate) whilst at the same time these nations have falling output and rising unemployment. If Keynesianism means anything the above should not be possible.

An Austrian economics person does not rely on empirical examples, but such examples are noteworthy. When one sees the rising inflation, falling output and rising unemployment of such nations as Venezuela and Argentina the concepts of Keynesianism fall apart. As some of these nations export oil and some import oil the idea that 'oil shocks' are a magic way out for the Keynesianism falls apart also.

When I see that most undergraduate textbooks that do not have concepts such as the various 'multiplier' in them (or treat such concepts with the contempt they deserve) then I will apologise for being too hard on the economics profession. I would apologise if even ONE textbook recommended at a British state university exposed such concepts as nonsense.

As far as I am aware no apology is in order at this time.

Paul Marks

This is an article from the Guardian:

"The Angel of Death is stalking the streets and leafy suburbs of Maryland in the form of an unknown and, thus far, unseen sniper who has seemingly murdered up to six people in cold blood and for no apparent motive.

The fear of sudden death hangs like a shroud over the entire State under which its hapless and anxious citizens scurry from cover to cover lest they be the sniper's next victim. This is the real America; rheumy-eyed, mistrustful and dangerous. A place where any passing stranger could be a stone-cold killer and where a violent and bloody death waits just around the next turning for it's vulnerable and haunted citizens.

While the police search frantically to find the elusive marksman before he claims his next victim, maybe they should pause to consider whether they will ever really bring the guilty party to justice. For, regardless of who's finger is actually pulling the trigger, the real culprit here is America itself.

Despite the increasingly horrific death toll, this is a nation which still clings rabidly to the absurd and outdated notion of allowing private citizens to own firearms. The simple fact that guns kill people is so banal in its obvious truth that it should not need restating anywhere; except that is, among the Republicans and their gun-lobby puppet-masters who will baulk at the merest suggestion of sensible regulation lest it blow a big hole in their profits. In the meantime, we Europeans can only scratch our bemused and wiser heads and wonder how many more painful lessons will have to be endured before America's red-necked boys get their toys taken away from them.

But the gun-toting culture is only partially to blame because, in order to be truly lethal, it has to be combined with a reckless, inhuman cowboy capitalism with its injunction to the devil to take the hindmost and let the weak and frail die where they fall. In the land where the Dollar is King, the citizens are merely dispensable serfs providing nothing more than an opportunity cost to be measured on the bottom line against a cardboard cut-out target and a magazine full of dum-dum rounds. In America, breakfast is cheap but so is life.

For us on the safe side of the Atlantic, we can but give thanks for a more progressive political leadership that recognises these squalid dangers and defends us against their encroachment. Not so the average American who is left to twist in the pitiless wind while their elected officials busy themselves with the more lucrative task of propping up their nations corporate interests. When democracy can be trumped by chicanery, as in the Florida elections re-count, good faith lies bleeding. When you witness your own government flaunt the will of the international community, as expressed by Kyoto and the International Criminal Court, is it any wonder your dashed hopes and routed expectations may express themselves as murderous fury? If you hold democratic institutions up to contempt it is but a short step to holding life itself in contempt.

Pray that the Maryland police find this trigger-man quickly and let their be no more tragic victims. But pray also that the bereaved seek true justice by demanding that the murders of their loved ones be added to ever-growing list of crimes that must be laid at the door of George W. Bush"

Alright, I lied. This article did not appear in the Guardian. But it probably will at some point. Who knows, maybe I'll send it in as copy.

There is a new generation coming up through the ranks of the US Air force, one with a steely eyed resolve much like their grandparents back in the days of WWII.

The main article is here.