Friday
(14)Anything that p*sses off the mad mullahs is worth seeing twice in my book. In addition to seeing cool special effects you can set 10th century heads spinning in blind hatred as you enjoy a doomsday fantasy!
I recently recorded a conversation with Toby Baxendale, who owns and runs a fish distribution empire, and who is the founder of the Cobden Centre. Listen to it by clicking here.
Our chat lasted about fifty minutes and a lot of interesting biographical and intellectual ground is covered. For the benefit of those for whom that is rather a long time to spend listening to talk, I have written at greater length about listening to and learning about this interesting and formidable man here.
I suppose it says something about The Daily Telegraph's admirable commitment to freedom of speech that it let this comment I paste up below through, or possibly, the laxness of its editors. Following a comment piece about the forthcoming trial of the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, we get this remark, by someone dubbing itself "Lord Barnett":
The trial will be a farce,held in New York for the benefit of the jews and the media of the World,The people who should be on trial are the Israelis,George Bush senior,Bill Clinton,the Bush Administration and American jews.Nobody is interested in why 9/11 happened,you can also lay the blame at the door of all Western Govenments for doing nothing to stop the holocaust on the Palistinians by Israel.Every American Administration has stood by,watched and helped Israel steal Palistinian land and murder its people, then call them Terrorists when they try to get it back,we have all watched and read about it,what is going on there is an absolute disgrace,lets just have a look at the Middle East today,Saudi Arabia,run by dictators with American backing to keep them in power,well its either that or the mad mullas who would switch the oil tap off,who would you rather have in power?, Its the same with Kuwait,Bahrain,Oman and the rest,but then you have Syria and Iran,the only Arab Nations who are trying to fight America and its dominance in the Middle East,they are called pariahs because they speak out against America,Iran is developing nuclear weapons,just like the Israelis,why should Israel have them but not Iran?, And then yesterday we have Netanyahu saying he is going to build around nine hundred more new homes on stolen Palistinian land,and what does America say to this? "Its Disappointed", wow,there`s a strong statement that will have the Israelis quaking in their boots,until the West stands up to Israel and America there will never be peace in the World,but i am sure there will be another 9/11.The United Nations is a farce,not one single resolution it has brought against Israel has passed because America has vetoed them,whats the point? Then Independant Inquiries done by jewish people outlining all the crimes that Israel has committed have been dismissed by Israel and America as biased,who is going to stand up to these criminals?.
This character repeats the trope that Israel has "stolen" land from others, that it is a terror state, and that its fear about Iran's having nuclear weapons is somehow groundless or unfair. This moron presumably is deaf to the fact that from the time of its founding, various Arab powers have been vocal in their desire to crush this relatively tiny state; he - I assume it is a he - is deaf to the fact that Iran is led by a man who is openly in favour of wiping Israel out.
As I said, it is perhaps right for the Telegraph to let people like this rant and rave about the Jews, Israel, blah-blah. It is sometimes salutary to be reminded of the depths of hatred and ignorance that exist in the breasts of those who wish that country and the Jewish people harm. It pays to know that there are enemies out there, if only to encourage continued vigilance.
About the only half-truth admitted by this idiot is the point about Western backing for Saudi Arabia. That remains, in my book, a serious failing of Western foreign policy. The sooner we can reduce our use of oil from that nation - which has financed a good deal of anti-western terrorism - the better.
Thursday
I wonder what Patri Friedman, moving light in the Seasteading Institute and an advocate of the idea of creating new nations, makes of this story.
Sealand is one of the longest-running attempts to create a micro-state. It is off the Suffolk coast, based on an old anti-aircraft tower. The article, by the local newspaper in the East Anglian region, contains a nice photo of the place.
I suspect that if Sealand ever provided services - such as totally encrypted financial service facilities - then a tax-hungry UK would not demur at sending over a frigate to shut the place down. But the guy who set up this place has been known to defend his territory vigorously. For a supposed old eccentric, he's held out remarkably well.
It is no secret I am no great admirer of some aspects of the US legal system and the corrupting influence of the US trial lawyers lobby, but then along comes a particularly stark example of why the US really really really needs a UK style 'loser pays' system to discourage preposterous actions like this...
Man Blames Planes For Divorce, Seeks $555 Million [...] (Stanley) Hilton's 16-page suit against San Francisco International Airport blames 37 organizations for the collapse of his marriage and seeks $15 million from each of them. Targets of the suit include the city and county of San Francisco, the airport and every airline based there, airline engine manufacturers and the real estate agencies involved in the sale of his house.
This is a clear indication of a legal system is in dire need of radical reform. I do not know if Stanley Hilton is in fact deranged, but any legal system which allows him to do what he is doing certainly is.
Yet another example of the vileness of the culture which pervades the management of the public sector...
Paramedics fighting to save a nine-year-old road accident victim were told rigid rest-break regulations meant the closest crew could not be called upon for back-up. Lifesavers at a crash scene in Upton were told they would have to wait for a crew nearly 20 minutes away because paramedics in Poole still had a few minutes left on their break.Ambulance staff treating little Bethany Dibbs then called Poole ambulance station directly. A second crew abandoned their break and raced to Sandy Lane, arriving just five minutes after their colleagues [...] But the South Western Ambulance Service Trust is standing by its decision. A spokesperson said the trust took its statutory health and safety duties for all staff very seriously.
But this is also an example of the fact civil society still has at least some life left in it, because the paramedics on the scene said "screw it" and just called the people they needed directly themselves... and of course those lads came immediately, teacup in hand no doubt, regardless of the rules and regulations that the South Western Ambulance Service Trust and the union think are so damn important.
[via Reason]
Wednesday
Bravo to the security men aboard the MV Maersk Alabama, who when approached and fired on by Somali pirates, fired back and drove them off.
Placing armed security men aboard ships vulnerable to pirate attacks has always been the obvious solution to the problem of piracy. How could anyone have thought that hugely expensive warships designed for real wars, operating under preposterous rules of engagement, was ever the solution to a profusion of scabby predators with small arms zooming about in small fast boats worth a few thousand dollars at most? There simply is no excuse for this having taken so long to implement, but kudos to Maersk for doing the right thing... firearms are a great deal better than relying on a hail of beer bottles.
But I would urge Maersk to invest in a pair of .50 cal HMGs per ship to discourage the more redoubtable of the Somali pirates from upping the ante by taking a Dushka off the back of a 'technical'. An additional advantage of using heavy machineguns is it makes sinking the attacker and hopefully killing the pirates more likely, which can only be beneficial in both thinning out the herd and encouraging these predatory scum to find a less hazardous line of work.
And then there is always this humorous private sector approach... and the funny thing is, it would probably not only work but also be oversubscribed and profitable for a while, at least as long as the supply of 'big game' lasts.
The extremely worthy TPA has a nifty new promo for their new book that dares to think the unthinkable...
The book, Ten Years On, is available to order free here.
The "watermelons" - green on the outside, red on the inside - can sometimes be uncomfortable elements, prone to occasional frictions. The old left, with all its many faults, did at least favour industry and material wealth. And the cause of wealth creation can clash with the Green agenda, though let it be noted that the best way to tackle environmental problems, in my view, is for us to get as rich as we can.
Well it seems that the liberal-leftist film director and actor, Robert Redford, has caused some sharp intakes of breath among the climate change alarmists by airing a "denialist" movie at his Sundance TV channel.
Enjoy!
(H/T: Big Hollywood).
An earlier version of this item referred to the Sundance Festival, not the TV channel. My error.
This comment on the current Speaker, of the House of Commons, John Bercow, who is generally regarded by many people as a slimeball of the first order:
"If you feel that is an exaggeration, look what they did when last entrusted with what was potentially a great reforming measure – the chance to elect a new Speaker to replace the compromised and incapable man we must learn to call Lord Martin. They ended up choosing the legislature's equivalent of Donald Duck, not because they believed he might step out of his cartoon one day and restore order to a profoundly damaged but vital institution, but because it would upset the Tory party. That is how serious the present parliamentary majority is about restoring the credibility of the Commons. And as we read endless stories about the new Speaker's lavish refurbishments of his apartments, the size of his television, his wife's political stunts and his decision not to dress properly for the State Opening, the full force of what a pointless little creep he is, and how he squats vacuously in one of the great positions of state, is brought home to us."
There is a passage in F.A. Hayek's The Road To Serfdom where the great man writes about how "the worst get on top" in political systems where there are few restraints on power. Mr Bercow validates that theory most admirably.
Oh, and Brian Micklethwait, like me, has met Bercow. He's not a fan.
Via the Cobden Centre, a relatively new think tank that focuses on banking and money from the "Austrian" point of view, here is a nice article by James Tyler. He sets out how to avoid past problems and what to do about banking and money.
I still think that fractional reserve banking, so long as it is openly stated and so long as legal tender laws are scrapped, is not necessarily an evil. If a person deposits money in an FRB that advertises itself as such and if he takes out commercial insurance to cover a potential disaster, then in a free market based on consent, I am not sure that FRB should be made illegal. For sure, a bank that claimed to be a 100% reserve bank that was in fact, not fully covered, should be prosecuted for running a fraudulent business. But that is simply a case of obtaining money by deception, an offence covered in existing law.
As is so often the case, I think that some of our current woes could be ameliorated, if not solved, if we enforced the basic Common Law of this realm rather than endlessly creating new rules instead. But then I guess that would give politicians nothing much to do, would it?
- Why has the null hypothesis been the backbone for testing for decades
- Epic fail
- Brazil miniskirt woman
- Bratislava babe
- Does my carbon footprint look big in this
- Opinions about healthcare
- Miss Japan porn scandal
- Communism collapse
- Best national anthem
- Dystopia satire
The internet is strange.
Tuesday
The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to be of the view that somewhere in the Bible, it says "take the wealth of others by force and give it to people best able to work the political system". Just another statist thug, but then we already knew that.
And then ask yourself: What is to be done? What can I do? How far am I prepared to go?
John Osimek reports for The Register:
The government obsession with collecting data has now extended to five-year-olds, as local Community Health Services get ready to arm-twist parents into revealing the most intimate details of their own and their child’s personal, behavioural and eating habits.The questionnaire – or "School Entry Wellbeing Review" – is a four-page tick-box opus, at present being piloted in Lincolnshire, requiring parents to supply over 100 different data points about their own and their offspring’s health. Previously, parents received a "Health Record" on the birth of a child, which contained around eight questions which needed to be answered when that child started school.
The Review asks parents to indicate whether their child "often lies or cheats": whether they steal or bully; and how often they eat red meat, takeaway meals or fizzy drinks. [...]
It's been twenty years since my firm belief in a better way of life was vindicated. 17th November was the beginning of the end of an era shaped by collectivism, brutality and industrialised inhumanity. I have written about my experiences of communism on Samizdata before. Today I'll use someone else's words to describe the wasteland communism leaves behind.
In 1992, Peter Saint-Andre has written a disturbing, brilliant and accurate description of what communism does to the soul:
...the hunger that I found most disturbing was not of the body but of the soul. [...] The socialist state cared nothing for the life of the individual, and this was driven home in innumerable ways.Yet the overall effect was not merely physical -- it was a deeply spiritual degradation. It is difficult to put that degradation into words. To me, the most striking sign of it was what I called "Eastern eyes". I could see and feel the resignation, the defeat, the despair, in the eyes of people I knew. It was an all-too-rare occurrence to come upon a person with some spark of life in his or her eyes (the only exceptions were the children, who had yet to have the life beaten out of them). If it is true that the eyes are windows onto the soul, then the Czech soul under socialism went through life all but dead.
It is tough for me to come up with something to say 20 years on that is not tinged with bitterness and disappointment and if not for the significant anniversary, I would have left this memory unturned. Despite the amazing change 1989 and its aftermath brought to my life I feel no closure over the past and a sense of proportion in the way the fall of communism has been 'handled'. Today we should be looking back at the last 20 years counting the many communists who died in prison or are still rotting there... I can only hope that future generations will revisit the past and will have far lower tolerance of collectivism and totalitarianism. It may be a futile hope as today's teenagers have little knowledge of the world my generation grew up and my parents lived in. And so I am bitter and disappointed that people can say the word "communism" without spitting.
I am also bitter and disappointed because those who opposed communism have not won. It is still with us, in the idiotic juxtapositions of Nazism and communism, or socialism and free-market, used by those who aspire to communism and justify it by positing Nazism as the greater evil. It still raises its ugly head in those who despise free-markets and attempt to put a human mask on socialism by pointing out 'failures' of capitalism. Rather hard as socialism, like all totalitarianisms, has no face. It is the ultimate denigration of humanity, destruction of individuality, and subjugation of human beings to the vast merciless machine of control and power.
Communism is still with us in China and North Korea. One befriended by the West, the other frowned upon... but neither is ever challenged because of the oppression of its people, and only when it manages to 'inconvenience' the rest of the world. Once it falls, it will be horrifying and beyond belief to examine the monstrosities committed by the communists in the light of day. Again, I can only hope that the world will be shamed and aghast at letting this happen for so long. Until then, we only have testimonials such as this: Undercover in the Secret State
I am grateful to those who remember, struggle to understand and explain communism, and especially to those who have managed to capture something of the nature of the beast. Here are the ones I found. Please feel free to share yours.
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
The Lives Of Others
Burnt By The Sun
No End
Repentance
The Voices of the Dead: Stalin's Terror in the 1930s
It is impossible, of course, to undo the tyrant's crimes. But one of the tasks writers have set themselves, in the last 50 years, is at least to preserve the memory of the dead, and so to resist the tyrant's historical arrogance.
The book's opening paragraph makes the history come the full circle, back to the suffering of the individual:
The dead cannot speak. Can one retrieve their voices? Death under I.V. Stalin, the ruler of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953, has been written about but the dead themselves remain elusive because their voices have been lost to us. The present book is an attempt to recover the voices of those executed under Stalin.
Monday
There is a fascinating post on Instapundit about the thinly disguised intention of the Obama administration to purge Republicans from federal government jobs... this is excellent news.
One of the best ways to get the next (eventual) Republican in the White House to support taking an axe to the public sector would be if there are as few Republicans apparatchiks as possible and the civil service is seen as a bastion of the Democratic Party (and thus there are few votes to be lost by bashing them hard and often).
More and faster please, Obama.
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and media columnist, has this to say about the new top income tax rate of 50 per cent, due to take effect from next April. He is pretty blunt:
So it is utterly tragic, at the end of the first decade of this century, that we are back in the hands of a government whose mindset seems frozen in the wastes of the 1970s. If Gordon Brown remains in power – and perhaps even if he does not – Britain's top rate of tax will soar far above that of our most important global competitors. China, Germany and Australia are on 45 per cent maximum; Italy is on 43 per cent; Ireland on 41 per cent; France on 40 per cent; and America is on 35 per cent.
I would not mind so much if I thought this expedient was temporary, or that it would work. If the 50p tax was going to plug the hole in the nation's finances, then it might be a good thing, and it would be right that the rich should pay a larger share. But even on the Government's figures it is only due to raise £2.5 billion of the £700 billion required – and those estimates may be wildly optimistic. This tax is predicted to drive away at least 25,000 people; it may simply encourage more avoidance; it may actually cost money, not bring it in.
As he says, many of those whose lives are shaped by the shrivelled, dog-in-the-manger philosophy of collectivism will not give a damn. So what, they will say? And in the Daily Telegraph article that Boris Johnson writes, you can read a goodly number of such dismissive comments, from the sort of cretins - I use the word without apology - who seem driven more by hatred of the rich than by a serious desire to improve conditions generally.
But what interests me in the politics of this is how emphatic Mr Johnson is in saying what a disaster the top rate will be. He's absolutely right, of course, and it is heartening that a senior figure from the opposition Conservatives should say so. I have my problems with Mr Johnson - he's certainly no consistent advocate of small government - but by goodness, it is good that he is making this point and in this emphatic way. No doubt Mr Johnson will be told by the various unlovely allies of David Cameron to shut up, to not be "difficult". (The same thing happened when he mentioned the Tory promise to hold a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty). Well, to hell with that.
It appears that an incoming Tory - or BlueLabour - government will not reverse this new, top rate in the first budget after any election. That would be a gross mistake. I hope Mr Johnson does not shut up on this issue. Of course, he also has to practice what he preaches in his own job.
The state does not wither or even shrink when it pays charities to do its work. It merely decentralises the provision of services while expanding the centre's command and control into new areas of public life.
Sunday
As Samizdata regulars might recall, I am not exactly a great fan of Naomi Klein, author of the Shock Doctrine, a book that tries to argue, rather absurdly, that various dastardly free market governments (which ones? Ed) exploited, in a sort of underhand way, the inexplicable failures of socialism (the horror!) to impose those terrible ideas of people such as Milton Friedman. Yet there was nothing underhand or deceitful about what say, Sir Keith Joseph - one of Mrs Thatcher's close political allies - argued when he said that the stagflation of the 1970s had undermined the Keynesian settlement and proved that big government was harmful. Far from being some sort of sly attempt to exploit a shock, the governments of Reagan/Thatcher or even some of the social democratic governments in the 80s such as Spain, implemented some forms of free market reform because it made sense, given the situation. Anyway, you can read some of my views on this here, and there is a demolition of the book here.
Robert Higgs, a libertarian writer, has pointed out that in fact, it is frequently the case that disasters of various kinds frequently are used by political leaders to expand, not roll back, the state. It may be that the partial halt, if not reverse, to the growth of the state that occured under the Reagan/Thatcher episode was an aberration, although I obviously hope it was not.
Of course, in the ultra-long run, the numerous failures of endlessly repeated regulation, tax and yet more regulation and taxes, may yet produce such a disaster that this "shock" may once again encourage the "doctrine" of free markets, limited government, honest money and free trade. So I guess we must hope that in a perverse kind of way, Ms Klein is vindicated, if not quite in the way she imagines or wants.
Why give a damn what this person says? Well, she sells a lot of books. A lot. JK Galbraith, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, and others do the same. And there are articles by the Richard Murphys, George Monbiots and countless other characters that feed the collectivist narrative that what the world needs even more of is more government, more rules and more powers for the likes of them. Therefore, I share the view of the US libertarian and author, Tom G. Palmer, that we need to be better at knocking their theories down and responding vigorously. And that is why I salute the indefatigible Tim Worstall, who seems to have dedicated part of his blogging energies to making the existence of Richard Murphy, hater of economic and social liberty and a general buffoon, a waking nightmare. It may seem cruel to mock the afflicted, but bear in mind that at the moment, the Murphys of this world seem to be succeeding in their desire to shut down an element of global markets, otherwise known as tax havens, since these places create one of the few incentives left to keep taxes down. He's not just a harmless buffoon, comforting though it might be to assume so. He's certainly not harmless, and neither is Ms Klein.
This trend toward prescriptive behaviour is a direct result of abandoning the Rule of law for a "Law" of Rules.
- commenter R. Richard Schweitzer
One of the morals that can be drawn from the analysis of totalitarian madness is that any reasoning system that is uncritical of itself turns into utter madness. Cold-eyed self-perception is the most important thing, especially when it comes to criticism.
- Sergei Averintsev
Anyone who doubts Britain is spiralling ever faster into totalitarian madness should consider this case:
Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon.
In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: "I didn't think for one moment I would be arrested.
"I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets."
This is not a case about whether law-abiding people should be allowed to have weapons (or even, in accordance with the 1689 Bill of Rights, whether Protestant people should be allowed to). It is closer in smallness of spirit to the sort of vindictive prosecution that occurs in petty dictatorships when you have failed to bribe the right people. But here the motive is the much more dangerous one of nominally altruistic bullying. A case where the populist fad of arbitrary fixed sentences for strict liability offences has met its reductio ad absurdum
Lest you think you are safe, recall that politicians are still involved in auctions of severity in relation to drugs, immigration, alcohol, offensive speech and writing and pictures - and knives. The sentence for possession of a knife in a public place without an excuse acceptable to the authorities can be 4 years in prison in England. In Scotland, the Labour Party is attempting to make imprisonment mandatory, deeming a severe new Scottish Bill insufficiently savage. Criticism is effectively not permitted. No voices in either parliament are raised for sanity. The moral busybodies are indeed omnipotent.
A 'knife' for this purpose is any sharp or bladed instrument, except a folded pocket knife with a blade less than 7.62cm (3 inches) long. So most tools are covered.
If you spot a potato peeler, chisel, or pair of scissors lying on the pavement, do not pick it up. That would be a crime. And you could be disturbing evidence of crime. Call the police. You cannot be too careful.
Often I read, in various Climate Alarmist articles, words to the effect that "time is running out on a global climate deal"... which is great news if it is actually true. It suggests to me that perhaps they realise that the "universally accepted" One True Apostolic Eco-Faith is really the very epitome of a paper tiger as there is far from a genuine consensus on the subject.
So if time is running out, it would seem hard to overstate the importance of running interference and generally throwing spanners into the works for as long as possible. To prevent the latest transnational 'tranzi' red-wrapped-in-green statist power ploys, friends of liberty need to do whatever they can to 'run out the clock' and then encourage as much international political recrimination post-failure as possible, in order to keep the ball out of play for as long as possible. I think it is time to suggest creative but practicle ways to help sow discord and disunity amongst the predatory political elites (and their supporters) of the various countries seeking to extend ever more control over their national subjects under the cloak of green politics.
Certainly if overtly totalitarian measures like carbon rationing are ever brought in, truly the time for unambiguous direct resistance to the state will have arrived, so preventing things getting to that stage is more than a little important.
Saturday
It is the weekend, lighten up
From time to time I get into a lot of trouble with my allies because I express skepticism of the value of prescriptive rights, regulation or transparency. In fact am inclined to think (though there may be tactical advantage in their reception in law) human rights are an ornamental distraction from the pursuit of liberty, Gucci belts for those who think buying trousers is disgusting.
One of the reasons we are in such a terrible mess in the UK is that those on the left who used to care about personal liberty became utterly infatuated with the legalism, having been given the Human Rights Act as a pretty distraction, and now spend all their time defending its importance.