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Authoritarians hate being called authoritarians Charles Clarke, the current boot boy in the Blunkett-Howard tradition, is upset that the government’s abridgement of fundamental rights is being called for what it is. It is at least a good sign they feel the need to be a bit defensive as previously they scarely seem to try and diguise their contempt for notions of privacy or personal civil liberty.
Although the Tories (or at least David Davies) have said in the recent past that they would scrap the whole monstrous ID card plan, I wonder if that will remain their view if they actually end up in power with this scheme already in place. I have my doubts that any party which so recently has Michael ‘a touch of the night’ Howard as its leader really has any honest commitment to civil liberties.
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I often wonder what state we really would be in had the Conservative Party actually won the 1997 election. We had already suffered serious inroads into the right to silence and we know that Howard was considering the introduction of the ID card but I do doubt that the Tories ever considered measures so extreme and decidedly unpleasant as those introduced by Blunkett and Clarke – the ASBO, the VOO and the countless amendments to the anti-terrorism legislation.
Regarding any pledge to scrap the ID Card Bill I wonder can this really be done? I strongly suspect that the bureaucracy of the United Kingdom is now so solidly entrenched into the political system – in my opinion the very worst thing that Blair has done as Prime Minister – that I think any policy that Cameron et al wish to revise or cancel may well be too set in NuLabourite stone to be scrapped. I would hope to be pleasantly surprised, by a pledge from Cameron to nullify this horrendous bill, but somehow I get the feeling that I won’t be.
And to quote from today’s Telegraph leader on Mr Clarke,
At least, but not only, David Davis.
Davis has promised to scrap the ID scheme. Dominic Grieve gave a speech the other day one of the key themes of which was how to make it absolutely clear the scheme needs to be completely uprooted. David Cameron told the Tory Spring Conference they would scrap “ID cards” (not quite the same thing as the whole scheme, but probably equivalent for a lay audience. Malcolm Rifkind told me before the election that: “We will probably end up having to repeal it, but we will beat it eventually.”
Any commitment to civil liberty the Conservative Party might profess is an election tactic. Even if I thought Cameron had the inclination to give up powers handed to him by a previous government, I seriously doubt he has the intelligence or tenacity to stand up to the entrenched bureaucracy that would oppose him.
Clarke came across to me less as Honecker or his friend Castro (who after all were in control), but as some South East Asian authoritarian, Dr Mahatir Mohammed of Malaysia, perhaps.
There is much of the neo-Confucian in the scolding style of New Labour and its cadre of bureaucratic normalisers.
“It is at least a good sign they feel the need to be a bit defensive as previously they scarely seem to try and diguise their contempt for notions of privacy or personal civil liberty”
Any defensiveness will wear off pretty quickly. Charles Clarke is, like so many current Blairites (e.g. Stephen Byers, David Blunkett, Margaret Hodge), a former member of the Stalinist-Trotskyist-nut tendency which could easily have wrecked Britain were it not for Margaret Thatcher. I don’t know why people are so surprised that somebody who admired Soviet Communism so much is authoritarian – the only surprise is that the British public are not uninterested in the past of the people they elect.
As far as the Conservative Party’s commitment to liberty is concerned, any large political party will have both authoritarians and libertarians in it. But I think that libertarians are slightly more likely to gain the upper hand in the Conservative Party than in Labour, for a number of reasons. Few Conservatives were ever openly admiring of totalitarianism, and the Conservatives at least have some credentials as economic liberals (though they deposed the only prime minister who implementec such an agenda). It’s possible for a low-tax country with strong private property rights to be an authoritarian state, but much easier for a high-tax country where property is held to be the state’s to be one.
Guy Herbert – Dato’ Seri Dr Mahathir (spelled thus) Mohammad has nothing in common with either Charles Clarke or neo-Confucianism. He is, as you may know, an Indian Muslim.
Dr Mahathir brought Malaysia from Independence to the modern and dynamic country that it is today, keeping his hand steady on the tiller for 30 or so years. He is a pragmatist, with an iron grasp of issues, down to the tips of his toes.
An interesting little fact about Dr Mahathir was, when he was prime minister, he used to go to a company on Saturday mornings (Saturday’s a half working day). I have no idea how he or his advisors chose the company – it might be a small enterprise or it might be large – but they would pick one and he would just go. He would go into the reception area and ask to see the managing director. You can imagine how the poor little receptionist would feel. She would nervously dial her boss’s number and say, “There’s someone here to see you” and the boss would say, “I’m not expecting anyone. What does he want?”
Anyway, the boss would come out of his office and get the shock of his life. I know this because I have a close friend who was sitting in the managing director of a small company’s office in KL when this happened one Saturday. Mahathir sat down and asked about the business and the industry and wanted to know my friend’s opinions as well. He stayed for over an hour, then he went back to his waiting car and drove off.
He was known for doing this. Absolutely no fuss and no one accompanying him with notebooks or agendas.
The very last thing I want is for my receptionist to call me saying, “Charles Clarke is in reception”, possibly worse than hearing “Stephen Byers to see you sir”.
Julian Taylor – V good!
My worst nightmare would be, “Tony Blair’s here to see you.” I’d run down 20 stories of stairs, two at a time, without stopping.
Verity,
Is that where you keep the shotgun?
Dr Mahathir brought Malaysia from Independence to the modern and dynamic country that it is today, keeping his hand steady on the tiller for 30 or so years. He is a pragmatist, with an iron grasp of issues, down to the tips of his toes.
says Verity.
And bloody lucky to have a huge Chinese Minority to do the business for him.
Following on to the truly despicable Charles Clarke’s contemptible press statement regarding his authoritarianism, more cans of worms have been spilled tonight with the revelation that 1,023 foreign prisoners were released from British prisons even though a number of them had deportation orders against them. These include 3 life sentence prisoners who were released on licenses without anyone tracking them (‘lifers’ can be recalled to prison at any time whatsoever even without committing any crime and as such are under permanent supervision).
On Newsnight tonight “Father Jack” agreed that there had been a complete failure within his department but then tried to argue that such a systemic breakdown was not a resigning issue for him – using the new Labour government tactic that, ‘I would rather be left in my job to try and make this mistake right’.
This just reinforces my avowed view that Labour is still sticking to the Gramscian theory of cultural hegemony, as propagated by the even more odious Neil Kinnock, that you must destroy the system through domination of the mass media, and educational institutions (war of position) and through forcing the proletariat to rise up against those very institutions that they hold sacred (war of movement).
Re Verity’s glossing over of some of the (many) negative aspects of Mahathir Mohammed, I suggest reading Wikipedia’s bio. of him for a more balanced assessment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_Mohamad
Excuse me, John Rippengal, did I say otherwise? Hello?
Pay attention. Mahathir is a genius, not on the same level as LKY, but bloody clever. He never impinged in any way on the Chinese (or Indian) wealth-creating sector. Where did I say otherwise? Did you imagine that this brilliant man hadn’t realised that there were around 30% of the population who were wealth creating Chinese? And another approximately 18% (figures may vary) who were from his own Indian immigrant background, who are also entrepreneurial wealth creators?
I said Mahathir was brilliant. What is your point?
Dato’ Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammad encouraged all to prosper. That means the wealth creators who had a trickle down effect. Let us hear from TWG. If you are against giving commercial freedom to a wealth-creating large segment of the population, John Rippengale, please let us know why, but in not too many words.
Bill Scotland – Omigod, Wickipedia! If only I’d kn-o-w-n their little wicki poster didn’t agree with me!
I wrote an immediate, and informed, response to John Rippengale and it got caught in a spam trap, obviously. So what is the point?
Verity,
Pay attention. Mahathir is a genius, not on the same level as LKY, but bloody clever.
LKY? Who the hell is LKY?
OK, Malaysia may not be one of the worst run of the third world countires, but it is incredibly socially conservative. They’ll string you up by the gentials for kissing in public.
I’m much amused to hear you speaking up for a muslim. I expect in your next post you’ll say Khomeini really loved his mum and was kind to stray cats.
LKY = Lee Kuan Yew
I seem to remember a few years ago (2003 maybe?) Mahathir said, while addressing a conference of some kind, that Jews rule the world and they get others to fight for them.
Ah yes, here it is.
Dr Mahathir several times has made allusions to “Jews ruling the world” and similar remarks, but what never gets mentioned is the context. Actually, Mahathir admires the Jews and is continually bringing up their example as people who invent things and excel at medical techniques, with the rider, “Why have we invented nothing?”
I don’t know about the Jews “getting other people to fight for them” remark, but normally, when he mentions Jews, he voices frustration that Muslims aren’t more like them. I am a great admirer of Mahathir. He took over a backward, third world country that exported rubber and palm oil and turned it into a dynamic first world country in just 30 years. The north-south highway was a brilliant financial success both for investors and taxpayers. (As was in the prospectus, ownership reverted to the country after so many years, during which the private investors enjoyed large returns.)
There is plenty to say against Mahathir, but he is brilliant and he loves his country. During the 30 years or so that he was the prime minister, there was never one election postponed – or even talk of an election being postponed – , the Malaysian secret services work alongside the Singaporeans in the WoT and they’ve have some very impressive coups.
I read about that young Chinese couple being arrested for kissing in the park and it saddened me, because that wouldn’t have happened under Mahathir. He knew how to keep things moderate. (If it had been a young Bhumi couple, they may have been arrested; I can’t say.) But Mahathir knew Malaysia had to make common accord with the rest of the world.
He is very clever indeed, but not as brilliant as LKY. But the two of them transformed two small, remote countries into powerhouses.
From that speech:
Lizzie – consider the audience and the context. There are hunmdreds real enemies of the Jewish state, with real intent to harm Israel, out there. I hate this constant bleating on about Mahathir by people who haven’t a clue. Mahathir was someone the world could deal with and he would keep his word.
Now they’ve got a more hardline person in the premiership and you are going to see the difference.
Eh, to each their own. Again, we’ll have to disagree. I read that speech as baiting, and trying to unite Muslims against a common enemy (“The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews”), and I remember thinking at the time “If this is a moderate, then what the hell makes an extremist?”
Yeah. We disagree.
Nick M writes of me: I’m much amused to hear you speaking up for a muslim.
I think it is self-evident that I was discussing him as an individual and his success as a prime minister. My views on Muslims and Islam remain unmodified.