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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Twenty years of Samizdata

It has been a long and crazy ride, but we are still here snarling, laughing, bloviating and pondering 20 years later.

In these increasingly intolerant times, never have independent sites been more needed than now.

30 comments to Twenty years of Samizdata

  • Paul Marks

    Thank you for providing the site Perry.

  • OldYeoman

    Congratulations to you guys, and thank you from me. I don’t comment very often, but I’ve been reading along for most of those 20 years, and you’re right about it being more important now than ever.

  • Congratulations. No small feat.

  • APL

    Twenty years?!

    From, the wild west of the Internet, which in our naivete, we thought to be outwith the reach of government – to the ‘Online harms bill’.

    Congratulations, and thanks for Samizdata.

  • Clovis Sangrail

    Many Happy Returns!

  • Paul Marks

    APL – sadly so.

  • llamas

    You would think that, with time off for good behaviour, I’d have been out by now đŸ€Ł.

    But seriously, thanks to our gracious hosts for two decades of hospitality. I hope to be logging on to the Blue Screen from the verandah of the Shady Acres Retirement Community.

    llater,

    llamas

  • Congratulations for reaching your twenty year milestone. I’m rarely a commenter here but I always find the pieces here stimulating and interesting whether I wholly agree with them or not. Well done for your persistence and longevity.

  • Sam Duncan

    It’s only when I think that I used to download new articles from the RSS feed on 56k dialup and read them offline while I’m now on 100Mbps broadband that I realise how long it’s been. But I well remember the sense of – how to put it? – relief that there were people in Britain who thought the same way I do. I don’t think anyone stumbling across the site today would get that. And that’s a cause for hope. (Although APL isn’t wrong.)

    Anyway, congratulations on two decades, and thanks for putting up with us in the comments.

  • Cesare

    Congratulations and many thanks for the decades of stories, quotes and reasoned commentary. You are defenders of Western Civilization.

  • George Atkisson

    Congratulations from across the pond here in the USA. It’s so good to get an outside perspective away from the lock-step bubble that MSM and social media have become here. 😁💖😁

  • Congratulations indeed!

  • The Pedant-General

    And to think – shame! – that I’ve only been reading you for 16 of those years…

    Keep up the good work.

  • Ian

    I think I’ve only been reading the site for about 15 of those years, but congrats Perry on such a consistently interesting and thought-provoking place to visit. It’s one of very few that I read every day, and it’s practically the only one where I bother to comment (occasionally). I should also thank you for other things I know you’ve done in private to help other like-minded organisations. Keep up the good work, and here’s to another 20 years!

  • Stephen Fox

    Well done and thanks to you all. I don’t comment much now, but have a look most days to enjoy laughing at the idiocies that surround us.
    PS I was very sorry to read about Brian Micklethwait.

    Kind regards.

  • the last toryboy

    “The last toryboy” is a moniker I only ever used on here, because I signed up in the Blair era when it felt I was the only non-Labour voter in the country.

    Much has changed in 20 years. Aside from technology advancing not a lot of it good unfortunately.

    Samizdata is starting to feel like the last website left standing these days, it’s why I’m lurking a bit less. Thanks for keeping the flame alive.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Proud to have been involved with this blog from day one.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Every year i post a comment of felicitations, but 20 years is special.

    On to the 3rd decade!

  • Mr Ed

    I sometimes pause to think about the dedication that goes into running this blog, and I shudder at the thought of the effort, a shudder of praise.

    20 years ago I thought that the UK was becoming a one-party state, and that got worse in the following years, now it is a uniparty state but outside the EU. We have seen the true nature of the State in the last 18 months, Putin and Xi are not my enemies, my enemy is ‘my own’ government. We can only carry on making that point.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Excellent blog, one of the best.

    Thank you Perry and webmaster for keeping this great site up and running. You are defending us all.

  • bobby b

    Many thanks to PdH, and thanks as well to all those who appear on the left side of the screen under “Authors”, especially the current ones. You can’t control what blather us commenters can come up with, but you do very well at getting the right balls rolling.

  • James Higham

    Amen from nourishing obscurity.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    Been here for a long time too. Keep up the good work!

  • Fen Tiger

    Agreed, thanks to Perry et al. for this site.

    Putin and Xi are not my enemies, my enemy is ‘my own’ government. We can only carry on making that point.

    Quite so.

  • Ferox

    Putin and Xi are not my enemies

    Don’t kid yourselves. It is perfectly rational and consistent to regard both the State under which you suffer and those foreign States (which are certainly just as bad, but in different ways) as your mortal enemies.

  • David Bishop

    Warm congratulations to all concerned, PdH, JP et al, and the commenters, too. I missed the first couple of years, but ever since I first came across it, a daily visit has been a must. It is an oasis of sense and rationality amid the maelstrom of nonsense, especially in much of the legacy media.
    Onwards and upwards.

  • Fen Tiger

    Don’t kid yourselves blah blah

    If the tsunami of propaganda about COP26 and Net Zero means anything, it is that the governing class intends to do mortal harm to me and mine.

    Xi and Putin are tyrants: but any harm that they do to me and mine will be incidental – just business. I have no sense that they would prefer me, and anyone like me, to be gone – permanently.

  • James

    Congrats! I have been a reader since 2002 I think. Don’t often comment but your site has been a great read and source of information for me over all these years.

  • Three Cheers for Samizdata.net! I rarely comment but I have been reading this site since the early days, when the Instapundit recommended in early 2002. I gave up my own blog when Facebook attained a “significant presence” in 2007. That was a foolish decision. I am so glad you wise folk kept on blogging.

    Here is to another 20 years!