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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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Samizdata non-quote of the day

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I’d stick something on Samizdata if I wasn’t so worn out from laughing at these Million Mask March ‘anarchist’ wankers who want, well, government to do more stuff.

– Perry de Havilland

November 6th, 2015 |

11 comments to Samizdata non-quote of the day

  • Runcie Balspune
    November 7, 2015 at 2:09 am

    Is it something about Guy Fawkes? Over at Guido Fawkes website he described his namesake as a “freedom fighter for religious liberty”. Is there something about this image that somehow causes sudden loss of brain function? Sometimes I think the biggest struggle of libertarianism is the random intermittent stupidity. Why do so many of these people represent sound freedom-loving ideas yet manage to cock it all up at the last hurdle?

  • Perry de Havilland (London)
    November 7, 2015 at 8:12 am

    Sometimes I think the biggest struggle of humanity is the random intermittent stupidity.

    There, fixed that for you 😉

    As for Mr. Fawkes, I recently saw it well summed up thusly:

    Remember, remember, the fifth of November. We burn Guy Fawkes. We don’t celebrate his life. We celebrate his death.

    Quite 😀

  • Paul Marks
    November 7, 2015 at 11:28 am

    “Million Mask PubliNews”.

    You just lost the election in Guatemala.

    And your Mayor in New York, the Castro lover, is more unpopular by the day.

  • Paul Marks
    November 7, 2015 at 11:38 am

    Yes Perry.

    Guy F. fought for (not against) despotism – to impose Spanish rule on the Capitalist Dutch Republic.

    And he lost.

    Guy F. fought to impose Spanish domination on France.

    And he lost.

    And he tried to blow up Parliament and murder hundreds of people.

    And he failed.

    As for Black Flag “anarchists” wanting more collectivism.

    They may not use the words “state” and “government” – but more collectivism (more statism by another name) is what Black Flaggers always want.

    Their version of “anarchism” is a fraud – a total lie.

    Which is why, for example, the Red Flag Marxists and the Black Flag “anarchists” happily cooperate in such things in the Chicago Teachers Union.

    Cooperate in a conspiracy to loot the taxpayers and brainwash their children.

    I remember the “mutualist” (or whatever the person calls himself) Kevin Carson producing a blog post entitled “Let the Looting Begin” about Egypt at the start of the “Arab Spring”.

    He loved the mobs with their demands for “free” (or massively subsidised) bread and fuel – and on and on.

    And he wanted them to go and “loot” (his own word) the supermarkets and so on – whether they were owned by companies (“corporations”) or rich individuals (“capitalists”).

    Such people, who advocate looting, should have their Black Flags shoved straight up their backsides.

    Whilst the Black Flags are still attached to the flag poles.

  • Thailover
    November 7, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Yup, often times, “anarchists” are not anarchists at all, they’re nihilists, attempting to destroy the current establishment so that a prefered other estabishment may arrise. This is a key component of Neo-Marxist Critical Theory.

    Nihilism:
    2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity. ~ Dictionary.com

  • Leslie Bates
    November 7, 2015 at 8:14 pm

    And they keep running into that problem with cannibalism again.

  • Billll
    November 7, 2015 at 9:23 pm

    Let’s face it; Anarchy, like green energy cannot succeed without massive government subsidies.

  • Greytop
    November 8, 2015 at 5:41 pm

    I want, so I destroy. Now that I have destroyed I really, really want…

  • Laird
    November 8, 2015 at 11:59 pm

    I won’t defend most self-proclaimed “anarchists”; many are indeed crypto-statists or, as Thailover says, merely nihilists. But I will defend the core impulse of the true anarchist. The term simply mean “no government”, and it’s a worthy goal, however flawed may be some of those who pretend to march under its banner. As a political philosophy anarcho-capitalism has much to recommend it. Incidentally, the so-called “definition” from Dictionary.com which Thailover cites is risible. Frankly, I consider Dictionary.com to be pretty worthless.

    Now, as to the celebration of Guy Fawkes: I understand that Perry (along with others) celebrates Fawkes’ death, not his life, and that his execution is the genesis of the annual burnings of his effigy. (I don’t pretend to know where “penny for the Guy” came from, though.) And I further understand that the historical Guy Fawkes was a Catholic extremist, a terrorist, not any sort of a freedom fighter for the common man. Nonetheless, for some of us he has become a symbol for the destruction of oppressive government. The specifics of his actual cause have become irrelevant; all that matters is that he wanted to blow up Parliament. And a lot of us would consider that to be a Very Good Thing, at least as a metaphor.

    Paul Marks never tires of reminding us that Martin Luther was no advocate of individual rights; Luther’s version of Christianity was, in many ways, far more oppressive that the Catholic orthodoxy against which he rebelled. Nonetheless, from a remove of 500 years, Luther has become the symbol of the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, and universal emancipation from religious tyranny. I view Guy Fawkes in a similar fashion. And if I sometimes use his image as my gravatar (when I’m not using it to mock Islam) it is in that sense.

    Symbols can, and frequently do, change their meaning over time. Deal with it.

  • bobby b
    November 9, 2015 at 1:19 am

    True anarchy requires a strong hand on the governmental tiller to force people to live free of rules and structure.

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