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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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Half a cheer for the BNP Blimey! This is what the deputy leader of the BNP said about the Davis by-election:
We would argue that these people [jihadist extremists] should not be in the country in the first place, but if the price we have to pay for the accommodation of millions of immigrants is the scrapping of our ancient rights, then it is not a price worth paying.
It seems they have principles deeper than the anti-immigrant feeling that people like me assume is their prime appeal. That’s a very pleasant surprise, though for this open-border freemarketeer rationalist and sexual anarchist they have a little way to go to catch my vote. HMG on the other hand makes a big fuss about its ‘anti-racist’ credentials, but is happy to appeal to xenophobia at every conceivable opportunity in order to promote the destruction of liberty for its own sake.
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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 dunno. Half a cheer. You’re a generous man Guy.
A thought experiment of a kind. If anyone cares to reply, please don’t get bogged down into whether this actually maps onto any particular actual real situation. Just consider it within its own parameters.
There are two countries, Happyland and Angryland. In Happyland, the people brew beer. They love to drink their beer, and this makes them happy. Because they are happy, they are very productive and Happyland is contented and wealthy. Sadly, because of Brewer’s Droop, they barely have enough babies to replace their population, but they don’t mind because they love the babies they do have very much, and can always have a beer anyway.
In Angryland, beer is illegal. Because of this the people are very unhappy and angry all the time, so they are not very productive and not at all wealthy. Angryland is not a nice place to live. But because the Angrylanders can’t go down the pub, they have many babies. Many of the Angrylanders would like to move to Happyland, where there is wealth and happiness. But when they get there, they will become part of Happyland’s demos and, reproducing rapidly, ultimately be able to vote to ban beer in Happyland, so it will end up just like Angryland. None of the Happylanders want to live in Angryland, because there is no beer.
Is it wise for Happyland to have an open immigration policy?
Oi!
Ian B! No! That is a racist and public disorder inducing statement to make. ‘Angrylanders’ is a perjorative and dehumanising title to use. Weer all the same, innit……….?
Disclaimer:
Reductio ad absurdum, the value of your investment may go up or down, may contain nuts.
There is a third way (oh god no!) The Happylanders, instead of allowing Angrylanders to aspire to happiness and freedom in Happyland by opening the doors to them, could close the doors and explain quite rationally that if the Angrylanders want to be happy then they have to change Angryland so it is more like Happyland. The Angrylanders may find that happiness earned in this way is far more fulfilling than leeching off the happiness of others, eventually destroying it. Could it not be that the very things that the Angrylanders condemn as being decadent and sinful are the same things that make Happyland so Happy? They need to change their opinion rather than their location, a much harder prospect but more certain to work in the long run.
“for this open-border freemarketeer rationalist and sexual anarchist they have a little way to go to catch my vote.”
As sensible as the BNP’s comment was, they’ll never get my vote either – for much the same reasons – but also because they included the word ‘would’ in their policy statement. Either they bloody argue it or they don’t.
Ian B – the answer must be ‘No’.
Do I want to know what a ‘sexual anarchist’ is?
First guess: ‘Fuck the state’ – not just a motto!
Though, is it not bitterly ironic that the people who describe themselves as ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ are tripping over each other in the headlong rush to construct a fascist-style police-state while the alleged fascist party remains resolutely against it?
Guy,
Sexual Anarchist? Sexual Anarchist?
WTF!
OK, serious point, you sexual anarchist, you 😉
The BNP are just bandwagon jumping. Look at their website. Forget the racism for a bit and just look at their economic policies. They’re demented. The BNP is probably about the most socialist party out there. By which I mean the most socialist party likely to get anywhere.
I will wager that the BNP couldn’t give a flying-fuck for our “ancient rights” and are just using it as a stick to beat to beat their anti-immigration drum. Under Nick Griffin (a bright lad, Cambridge, Law) they’re a slick operation now.
They have quietly dropped some of their more insane, spittle-flecked, policies. A few years ago they would have been in favour of deporting my wife’s nonagenarian Grandmother because she’s half Danish. The fact that she was a PA to Barnes-Wallis during WWII wouldn’t have stopped ’em.
But if you drill down on the BNP website, or look at the forums (Dear God! the use of English is appalling) you will uncover unreconstructed National Socialism.
The BNP is part of the problem. I saw Niall Ferguson on Telly recently. He was talking about the causes of WW II. The Nazis gained traction in Germany partly because of the Jews. This was not because the Jews were “different” or “seperate”. It was because of the extenet to which German Jews had assimilated. In fact, shortly before Hitler’s election, an influential committee of rabbis
had bemoaned this fact. They were worried about German Jewish culture dying out through too many mixed marriages.
German Jews were highly integrated into society. Many thought of themselves as Germans first and Jews second (Otto Frank – Anne’s Dad – fought for the Kaiser in WWI). It didn’t stop the Nazis though and the rabbis soon had a lot more to worry about than gradual, peaceful assimilation.
My point is that the likes of the BNP don’t give a toss about assimilation. They don’t care whether immigrants adopt our culture. I suspect they probably hate them even more if they do. Amir Khan can win a silver medal in the Olympics with his dad watching wearing his lucky Union Flag waistcoat and the BNP still just think, “Filthy Paki”. Kelly Holmes can serve as a PT instructor in the British Army and win two gold medals at the Olympics and be made a Dame of the British Empire and she’s still a “nigger” to the BNP.
Certain portions of the UK “far right” have actually chummed up with Islamists. Why? because they also hate the Jews and at the extremes of the political spectrum the difficulty of making progress makes strange bedfellows (something a “sexual anarchist” must know about already, I apologise).
The very last thing the likes of the BNP wants is racial harmony and intermarriage. Their entire schtick is “us vs. them” and the idea of some sort of “melting-pot” is utter anathema to them. In short, they are exactly the same as the beards who would rather kill their daughter than see her date a white Anglican or a black Baptist or a Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Jew, Pagan etc.
The BNP are just scum. They are grit in the vaseline of sexual anarchists. Of course they’re not the only grit but they’re part of it.
I actually agree with the quote more wholeheartedly. It seems fairly obvious that the Left and Centre have used the issues thrown up by immigration to impose changes on this polity, which are mutually contradictory, but all linked in that they have made Britain a less free and pleasant place to live. Therefore the undoubted benefits of immigration are just not worth the price.
However, my comment is the same as what I would say about all those Communists you hang out with in NO2ID. 42 days is child’s-play compared to what they’ll visit on this country if they get the chance. The BNP is a front organisation for Fascists and not pasta-eating futurist “Let’s invade Abyssinia” Fascists either, but shaven head, “let’s beat up a Paki”, picture-of-Hitler-in-the-back-room type Fascists.
For an E.g. Their entirely sensible public stance about abortion is neither here nor there; in reality what they want is madatory abortions for darkies.
Ian B: I believe that exact situation is happening now, but replace Beer with guns and your two countries with Vermont and NewYork.
Gabriel, I think the situation I suggested is a general problem that open borders libertarians need to address and it maps onto many real world situations. How does any state maintain itself if it has open borders, if the values of potential immigrants are not congruent with the values of that state? It’s a general issue.
Ian B: Maybe you can go some way towards mitigating the problem if Happyland’s constitution says “government shall make no law regarding beer.” Then the Angryland immigrants can’t vote to ban beer. Or it takes long enough that you have 2nd and 3rd generation Angrylanders who understand why Happyland is happy.
I like Ian B’s thought experiment a lot.
Open-borders libertarianism is nuts.
Here’s another thought experiment; to immigrate into the UK you have to eat a pork pie (it has to be a PORK pie) and/or drink a pint of English beer.
A teetollar gets in if he eats the pie, a vegetarian gets in if he drinks the beer.
But teetotal vegetarians don’t get in.
It keeps out other undesirables too.
Rob Fisher,
The Americans have these things called Amendments to the Constitution; for example, the First (“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”), or the Tenth (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”). They sound good and absolutely impossible to contravene, but then Congress manages to pass things like McCain-Feingold or abuse the Commerce Clause as they see fit. Laws and institution are all good and well, but if the people themselves do not believe in them, they are wasted paper. It is society’s desire for freedom, not their institutions, which makes freedom possible; change society and you cannot be sure what will happen.
That may have worked in the past, when integration was, if not enforced, at least strongly encouraged; right now, I am not so sure.
Do I recall correctly, Guy Herbert, that you do not hold any theory of natural rights to be valid?
Hmmmm…lots of beer and not so many kids? Happyland sounds remarkably like a place I know. Is there a vicious blonde beast who chewed my copy of Half-Asleep in Frog Pajamas last night?
I like the analogy, BTW. Producing alcohol and defying state authority have a long history together here. Whiskey Rebellion, anyone?
Nick said
We’ve seen some of that here as well. There was a bulletin about our white supremacists trying to make common cause with the Jihad. Apparently, inbred Ozark pigfuckers and goat-raping suicide jihaddi both hate Jews. I don’t know how well that ended up working out. It might have been the nazidiots trying to pretend that they’re more than legends in their own minds.
FWIW, the thing appeared in one of those bulletins that the FBI sends out to every police department, school security office, Motor Carrier Safety Inspector, and state brand inspector in hopes that someone might somehow think that the feebies are still somehow relevant to public safety in the US. I don’t know how hard they fact-check those, but I have my doubts that these are any better than the “oh teh noez heer comes teh militia” warnings they sent out back in the 90’s.
But looking over the BNP website, yeah, they’re still a mob of collectivist asshats.
Sunfish,
This might be of interest. Yes, the leader of Combat 18 is now an Islamist. Combat 18 derives it’s name from the fact they’re fighty buggers and A=1 and H=8. They probably regard that as intellectual. I once saw them in Nottingham. I came out of Boots and there they were, striding purposefully down the street with less hair than Patrick Stewart between them. It was mid-afternoon. I suspect it had taken them all morning to lace up those boots.
They proceeded to cause 20 grands worth of damage to a Gay Bookshop. By which I mean a bookshop that sold reading matter of especial interest to homosexuals. The actual sexual identity of the shop itself is a matter of pointless conjecture. And they were all nicked because it was all on CCTV.
What no one has ever managed to explain to me is how, exactly, British Nazis identify with Hitler. How can you be british, ultra nationalistic and admire someone who had a bloody good go at destroying this country. Shouldn’t these folks be wearing T-shirts with RAF roundels on and not swastikas?
Oh, and while I’m on this schtick… Isn’t British national Party an oxymoron? I mean English, Welsh, Scottish ot Irish I can see but… British. the UK isn’t an “organic” nation. It’s a political invention. The Shetlander probably has more in common with Norwegians than he has with the Channel Islander who probably has a French surname. It’s absolute Tommyrot of the first water.
the UK isn’t an “organic” nation. It’s a political invention.
The idea of an organic nation is itself a political invention. One which has probably been responsible for more death and destruction than any other.
I think this is a straw man or some other similar fallacy. You’re setting up a particular definition of what a nation is, declaring FAIL and thus invalidating the nation. That’s fallacious. Specifically, that a nation has to be “organic”. It’s much like the “we’re all immigrants” argument. Well, everyone is, except perhaps a few people in the Great Rift Valley. The indigenous Americans arrived from elsewhere, as did the Australasian Aboriginals. That doesn’t mean they have no right to a group concept. The Zulu Nation was constructed by conquest, but we don’t berate Zulus as being artificial and not “organic”.
Whatever we may think of the BNP, their definition of “British” is reasonable enough; it means the people of the British islands, be they in Shetland or Pimlico. There may not be a good scientific definition, but it’s good enough to work with. 50 years ago nobody (except a few dotty lefty intellectuals, perhaps) would have doubted what British, or English, or Scottish meant. That we now earnestly discount these nouns as having any meaning is what drives people towards the BNP. You can tell people that their feeling of Englishness is meaningless, but they won’t feel that, you can tell them that their feeling of Scottishness is meaningless, but they won’t feel that. If nationality is nothing but a state of mind, that’s still good enough.
A BNP type argument, e.g. “why is it that only (white) indigenous Europeans are denied an indigenous identity?” has validity.
From what I have read the BNP regard Britain as being made of four nations – English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
A nation here is people of common desecent tied by language, geography and culture. So ‘British’ is a political entity for sure, but one that makes sense considering the size of the islands and our intertwined past. They would probably have some sort of federal system, devolution, call it what you will, to provide some level of self-determination for each nation.
As for some elements of the right cosying up to hard line Islamists, well, it won’t be the BNP – Griffin faced trial twice for badmouthing Islam. Ken Livingstone on the othe r hand, loved his Islamists.
As for Combat 18 breaking up a gay bookshop, when was that exactly? We’re talking a long time ago now, aren’t we?
To Nick M that says the BNP would send his half-Danish granny back, despite working with Barnes Wallis, I don’t think they would – the English are deemed to be Angles, Jutes and Saxons, with a smattering of Celtic, from their POV, so anyone Danish is a Jute and therefore indistinguishable from anyone of English stock by and large. Good spittle flecked rant*, but not true. As for Amir Khan or Kelly Holmes, you may well be right, but don’t spoil your point by ridiculous references to Danes. Prince Phillip by the way, is of Danish stock not greek, in case someone tries that ‘Phil the Greek’ thing as another non-argument :0)
*Reread your own post – you would howl with derision if some BNP type wrote something in that style….
Ian B has a good point. You can apply all the logic and economics you like, but if people feel they are part of a group, then they are: calling them collectivists is as meaningless as calling Samizdata types collectivists because they hang out with each other. A good deal of the life of a nation takes place in its mind, and that’s just as important if not more so than things more spoken about.
Andy,
I’m going on exactly what the BNP site said a few years back. It defined Britishness (which is a political confection) in terms that would entirely preclude anyone without three generations of “pure” UK descent from the party. They were up for breaking-up mixed race marriages. I object to them basing stuff on “racial” DNA markers or whatnot but their view is utterly without even that (pseudo) scientific base. It’s just send ’em back because they’re nasty, they’re smelly and black.
Ian B,
You’re still arguing for a collective. But which collective? Well, go on my son… What brings people closer together? Geography, language, history. I once dated a Finn because she had great tits and shared my political views. I once dated a Jewish American because she had a great ass and knew math and was a brilliant storyteller. If Geography, history and language are the key then riddle me this? Why have I never dated a fellow Geordie. OK, I’m married to an English woman but frankly that has a lot to do with our demented immigration policies.
When J and I split-up over the fact she couldn’t live on this side of the pond and I couldn’t live on that side I wept tears of fucking blood over it. And that is purely because of fuckwittery like, “Whatever we may think of the BNP, their definition of “British” is reasonable enough; it means the people of the British islands, be they in Shetland or Pimlico. There may not be a good scientific definition, but it’s good enough to work with.”
I couldn’t give a flying fuck where anyone is from. I care about where they’re going. I care what they believe and the fact my ex was an extreme anglophile regardless of not fitting whatever demented definition you might have of “Britishness” which is in my book a state of mind and has fuck all to do with Geography or History or even language. Though, admittedly, language plays a role in cultural appreciation.
But heck, despite all that. One of the smartest people I have ever met was a Mexican. She spoke brilliant English. She was forever being threatened with deportation. She loved England. She was doing a PhD in logic. She was deemed of less worth than Abu Hamza.
Sheesh…
If someone wants to come here and work and be useful and embody the concepts of Anglospheric civilisation then I don’t fucking care about the colour of their skin or their class or creed. I don’t give a flying one frankly and Ian, pandering to the Maroons of The Sun doesn’t impress me. I knew a public school educated Indian chap who was more English than I am. Well he understood Cricket at least, which I don’t, and he was kicked out despite having a firm job-offer. He fancied working for an internet start-up in London and they wanted him because he had an MBA and an MSc and he wasn’t allowed because he was a wog.
Dress it up how you like. He was booted back to Mumbai because he was a wog. Listen to the rhetoric of Neu Arbeit. British Jobs for British Workers and all that. They have given-up even pretending not to be fascists.
Well Prince Philip was born on a kitchen table in Corfu – and for all of his life (till shortly before married Princess Elizabeth) was known as “Prince Philip of Greece” (he did not have a family name till Mountbatten gave him his name).
Actually the “Phil the Greek” campaign backfired in Australia (when the republicans tried it).
A lot of Australians of “Greek stock” said “and what is wrong with being Greek?” and although they said these words quietly a lot of them were big men.
Nick M. I’m really sorry for your broken heart, but it’s time to move on, you know, water under the bridge. You can’t decide great issues on the basis of that.
Seriously, the trap you’re in here is sticking to an ideological line and then handwaving away all criticisms. “I’m a libertarian, therefore there is no such thing as the group, or group characteristics”. Which is a pile of poo, which you inadvertently recognise yourself by supporting your arguments with descriptions of how anglophile somebody is. You can’t be an anglophile if there’s no such thing as “anglo”. The only reason we can talk about culture groups is because there are cultural differences between them, and whether your Finnish girlfriend had fabulous bazongas is neither here nore there in that, is it, but having similar cultural values probably helped the thing along too, didn’t it? You could go after a muslim with a fabulous rack instead if you like, but there’d be a reasonable chance her brothers would kill you for it. Because there’s a cultural difference.
This isn’t about “race”, it’s not about skin colour or genetics, that argument is trapped in a model based on the American Civil Rights experience, and because people can’t break out of that mould they cram everything into it, however badly it fits. It’s about culture. It’s about the obvious fact that there are “British” cultural markers and “western” cultural markers and when people define themselves by their religion, those religions have cultural markers too. But because you don’t want the problem to be there because you’re pissed off about your ex not winning the immigration lottery, you deny any problem exists; there is no clash between cultures, people aren’t tribal, and culture groups don’t compete for dominance. It’s all imaginary.
Well try telling that to the Hutus and Tutsis, why don’t you?
And I find all this surprising. You have in previous posts expressed concern regarding muslim areas. Now it’s suddenly all in the mind of
hereticsracists. Anyone who expresses a concern as to clashing cultural values is a racist. And anyone who says they prefer their own western liberal cultural values to the misogyny and violence of another one is a racist, presumably.And you overlook one fact. It doesn’t matter whether you consider yourself part of a cultural group or not. Nick M, the man who is an island. The problem you have to face is that other people do consider themselves parts of cultural collectives and will work very hard to make those collectives dominant.
Well, there is, in my view, such a thing as western society. I’m far more interested in that than “britishness” personally, though I think the nation state is a good political structure at this point in history. And the only single, solitary reason that our societies (which apparently must be a meaningless concept also, but bear with me) have the cultural values they have is because the people living within them predominantly share those cultural values, like not hanging gays from cranes and not mutliating little girls or forcing women to shroud themselves. If the population changes to one which doesn’t hold those values, those values will disappear. But even long before that, if the cultural mix changes, if a larger and larger minority don’t hold those values, accommodations have to be made; politicians have to pander to the diferent values, the hope of becoming more liberal/libertarian (which I believe is synonymous with “westernism” itself) fades.
So. Here’s the problem. Some potential immigrants hold cultural values more compatible with those of the host nation, and others hold cultural values antagonistic to them. And here’s a clue. A busty Finn is more likely to be in the first group than a Somalian in a hijab. But it’s politically incorrect to allow busty Finns in in preference to hijabbed Somalians, because that’s racist, even though everybody, even the BNP, would probably fling the borders open to a horde of lusty busty Finns. And more hijabs want to come in than big scandinavian boobies.
Got a good solution, Nick? Or do we just keep handwaving as sharia turns from a horror in far away places to a problem we have to acknowledge in our own society, to a dominant cultural force?
It would be great if the whole world had western cultural values; rule of law, individualism, science and reason, the private person. But it doesn’t, and even here in the west those values are on the wane. Perry once opined here that western culture is “corrosive”. Well, it is, when it’s proud of itself; but it isn’t at the moment. We’re trapped in a pathetic guilt at supposed past crimes and imperialism, we’re ashamed of ourselves, and that leads to a policy of giving up our values, of being ashamed to promote them, and that isn’t corrosive at all. And even if that were not the case, that corrosion takes time and frankly only works when the corrosive values are hegemonic. It’s bad enough to be ashamed of our cultural values. Pure suicide to deny they even exist.
Ian B,
I have commented in other threads that some of the most ‘American‘ people I know are immigrants, usually ones who speak English as a second language.
These are people who came to the US for the express purpose of becoming ‘Americans‘.
Do you include in your ‘British‘ category people from say, the East or West Indies or Far East that come to Britain intending to adopt and embrace its cultural and legal history? But if you do not, are you not just collectivizing people by the statistical averages for people from their places of origin?
You can thank Muslims for the increasing popularity of the BNP in Britain.
They are everything the BNP require to instill a dislike of “the other” in people. Their allegiance to Britain is questionable at best. And that’s typical of them globally. Muslims, regardless of where they live or their origin are obsessed with Jews, Palestine and Israel. A comparable situation would have been a scenario where Catholics all around the world were going nuts blowing up trains, planes and buses over the troubles in Northern Ireland.
They didn’t do so because it wasn’t their problem. Yet Muslims everywhere are obsessed with Israel when it really shouldn’t be their problem. This is proof enough that their allegiances lie not with Britain or whichever other Western country nourishes them, but with other Muslims where-ever those Muslims may be.
Hitler managed to gain support in 1930’s Germany with an anti Jewish agenda when those Jews were not attacking anyone nor trying to force their beliefs and ways on anyone. By contrast we have a situation where ,Muslims are not only aggressively attacking us in our own country they are agitating to have their ways imposed. Sharia etc.
If Hitler could gain such support using the threat of a non aggressive minority in Germany think how much easier it is for the BNP to do the same thing when all the people see day after day is news of more and more Muslims being arrested for terrorist offences not just in Britain but all over the world where-ever they gather in numbers.
The Muslims are brainlessly sowing the seeds of their own destruction in the West and may even bring down a backlash upon themselves that could make the holocaust look like a minor incident.
And personally I myself harbour major distrust of a group who want to split the world along not political or racial lines which is generally the norm. But along religious lines. Which is what we see globally as Muslims demand autonomy anyplace they appear in sizeable numbers. Is that the type of world we want to see?
I think not. And if this carries on the patience of the majority non muslims is at some stage going to snap and the repercussions for Muslims will be awesome.