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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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They get up and at ’em young in Kettering As some people involved in Samizdata know, I have promised not to write posts attacking the local election campaign of a certain political party – at least until the election is over.
As I have promised this I feel uncomfortable in writing anything that could be seen as an attack on any other political party. So in the following both the name of the candidate and the party that candidate represents will not be stated.
On Sunday I came upon a political leaflet. Along with the normal fluff about loving Association Football (candidates, of all parties, really do write stuff like that – some of them even list the pubs they go to) I read the following:
“I have been involved in campaigning for the … party since the age of 6, leafleting and canvassing…”
Now I hope that that “6” was a misprint for “16” – but, such are the times we live in, I can not be sure.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I certainly remember leafleting aged around 10 or so, and I may have done less demanding jobs like stuffing envelopes a few years before that. I don’t see anything very unusual in it, and in terms of the menial tasks that children do to help their parents, it was certainly more fun that washing the car, doing the dishes or tidying my room.
At 6, J?
Hmmm, yeah, you’re right 6 is really pushing it.
The problem is, there really are people who are concerned about which team you support, let alone whether or not you’re in to football…
You have to expect a certain amount of expedience. It’s not all that much of a problem if it’s true, anyway. Much like stating on a flyer that I like rice pudding with strawberry jam in the middle. It’s the voter’s own fault if they’re vacant enough to make a political decision on that basis, although you could perhaps make an exception if they were to enquire about the rice pudding’s origins and whether or not it was ‘Fair Trade’…
Six, pah! That’s positively elderly. I was an election teller in the 1979 election (they’re the people that hang around outside polling stations and ask who you are so the parties know who they still need to rustle up).
I was five years old at the time.
Canvassing is an interesting one, a six year old assuming (or rather being led to assume) that their judgement is superior to the people behind the front doors – so that they can advise them who to vote for.
However, why is assumed that early political activity (of whatever kind) is a good thing? Something that should make people more likely to vote for you.