We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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 quote of the day – the establishment loves your conspiracy theories It is a constant struggle to keep a well founded scepticism descending into the kooksphere. There are shit loads of opportunists looking to take advantage of those suspicious of mainstream perspectives and narratives, and it’s hardly just incels stuck in their bedrooms who step on such rakes. It’s curious how James Lindsay, for example, went from debunking woke to formulating conspiracy theories about Michaelmas. Or how James Delingpole went from climate change scepticism to 9/11 trutherism or that dinosaurs are a hoax.
A sad fact is that such dissidents often make themselves quite harmless to the ruling elites. Banging on about dinosaurs, fake moon landings, anti-popery conspiracies etc to the plebs doesn’t bother the elites in the slightest. It both diverts and discredits dissent down rabbit holes. Governments have often themselves covertly pushed conspiracy theories for that reason.
– Martin
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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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Lots of people, but not all, are anchored in their faith, or their politics, or their philosophy. It provides them with a firm place to stand while the world whirls around them.
But if the foundation of their belief is shaken by ‘events’ then they loose their footing and can start believing in other things as well. But for a few people if *nothing* is certain then *anything* can be true and they will select *something* to hold on to grimly for the stability it offers them.
It is a mess – for example the murder of Charlie Kirk could have led to sober reflection on how leftist indoctrination in the education system (and large parts of the media – including the entertainment media) is fueling intense hatred – hatred based on LIES such as that Mr Kirk wanted to harm homosexuals, which he did NOT.
Instead of sober reflection, and possible reconsideration of how the education system works – to end the indoctrination, we got lunatic conspiracy theories – and if the people who spread the nonsense (“the Jews did it” and so on) are NOT mentally ill, then they have behaved in a profoundly wicked way.
In 1963 a Communist murdered President Kennedy – and he also (on the same day) murdered a police officer. The connections between Mr Oswald and the Cuban intelligence agency (the DGI) have not been fully explored to this day – nor has the question of whether Mr Oswald had back up from the DGI or the KGB (with which he also had links).
All this should have led to discussion of how Marxist ideas were spreading among impressionable people in the United States – but it did NOT, because the establishment (quietly – and via manipulated third parties) started to spread rumours that the right murdered President Kennedy – that Dallas was a “city of hate” (in reality Dallas had a Kennedy supporting Democrat Mayor in 1963 – it is Fort Worth that was-and-is the conservative city, but that did not fit then narrative that establishment figures, such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr, wanted to spread).
Ironically the people who thought of themselves as “challenging the official story” and “spreading the truth” that it was the evil right wing CIA (which was NOT “right wing”) who murdered President Kennedy, or that it was “the City of Hate” (supposedly “right wing” Dallas) that collectively murdered President Kennedy, were, in reality, puppets of the “liberal” (Progressive) establishment – pushing exactly the conspiracy theories the establishment wanted them to push.
The truth was the last thing that people such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr wanted spread – the truth being that President Kennedy was murdered by a Marxist (Mr Oswald) possibly (possibly) with the back up of Marxist intelligence services such as the Cuban DGI – they did not want the truth spread because they, the American establishment, although NOT Marxist still regarded the Marxists as “Progressive” like-themselves.
What the Progressive establishment wanted was to distract attention – and to convince large numbers of people that “the right” (conservatives) somehow murdered President Kennedy.
Ironically President Kennedy was dying anyway – he was crippled by old injuries that had got worse over time (wearing a corset to keep him upright), and dying of Addison’s disease, and desperately taking every drug he could lay his hands on to keep going.
It was desperately sad and it was well known (by Vice President Johnson and others) that President Kennedy would have to step down at some point – and was certainly in no condition to successfully stand for election in the Presidential election of November 1964 – by which time President Kennedy would have been so ill it would have been impossible for even the media to conceal it.
But instead of the truth – a very ill (indeed dying) President, who was murdered by a Communist (possibly, possibly, with the help of other Communists) the “truth tellers” have been, for 62 years, pushing the story that President Kennedy was fit and able – and was about to engage in massive “Social Reform” but then was horribly murdered by a conspiracy of the “right wing” CIA (which was not right wing), and the “right wing” “city of hate” Dallas (which, again, was not very conservative – Democrat, Kennedy supporting, Mayor).
In the final irony it was Johnson, not Kennedy, who was the passionate “Social Reformer” (i.e. more welfare programs person) – the murder of President Kennedy led to a move to the LEFT not to the right.
By the way – I am well aware that Dallas County (of which the city of Dallas is part) voted against John Kennedy in 1960 – it also voted for Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, this does NOT mean that Dallas was a “city of hate” or that this “right wing hate” murdered President Kennedy. The impression that Arthur Schlesinger Jr (and other Progressive scumbags) wished people to get.
There is also now a conspiracy theory that the 1892 Dallas County Courthouse (an excellent building – at least I think it is) and other grand buildings of the past, are evidence of a vast civilization that was destroyed in some terrible war or natural disaster.
This, the “Tartaria” or “Old World”, theory emerged in the Soviet Union to explain why old buildings were better than new ones – even the BRICKS were better. The Communists would kill you for saying that things were better under the Czars (which they were – everything was better before the Marxists took over) – but if you went around talking about a world-wide civilization that was destroyed, the Communists would just assume you had gone potty.
In case anyone does not know – the old Dallas County Courthouse was indeed built in 1892, it was not “discovered” in 1892, it is NOT evidence of some ancient civilization destroyed by war or natural disaster.
“If what you say is true Paul – how do you explain the fact that old buildings are much better then new ones?”
For the same reason that old paintings are better than most new ones, or old music better than modern music, or that people used to dress better then we do now, and spoke better – had a wider vocabulary and greater familiarity with the Bible and with Classical literature.
There has been Cultural Decline (I have never denied this – indeed I “bang on” about it) a decline of taste and learning, but there was not some ancient civilization whose remains were “discovered” a century or a century and half ago and claimed by people who did not build them.
For example, my grandfather (James Power) could remember both the Municipal Building and the Woolworth Tower in
New York (both buildings claimed to be part of the ancient “Old World” by conspiracy theorists) being-built.
They were built – not “discovered”, and built in only a couple of years.
“But how Paul – how is that possible?”
Because men were SKILLED and they WORKED HARD – that is how.
The sort of people one sees loafing about on a modern building site would have been fired on-the-spot a few generations ago. And even if they worked as hard as men once did – they no longer have the skills of true craftsmen (no fault of their own – they have not been taught).
And modern, post World War II, “architects”, who just draw boxes (no better than a child of six years of age could do), would never have been hired in the first place.
James Lindsay seems to believe that the Arch Angel Michael battling against evil is a modern idea produced by General Flynn and President Trump (and others).
Mr Lindsay says that he was brought up Catholic – but was not taught about Michael, and that (therefore) this must be a modern myth.
Well I was NOT brought up Catholic – and I knew about the Arch Angel Michael (and General Flynn was not whispering in my ear).
What Mr Lindsay has missed is that just because his family and local parish did not tell him these stories, does NOT mean the stories have only just been made up.
As for James Delingpole….
NO – the Moon landings were NOT staged (they were real).
And NO 9/11 was not an “inside job” – it was an attack by Islamic terrorists.
In 1960 the Republicans were still the party blacks voted for, and the Democrats still had a large segregation and Jim Crow wing.
But “The GOP has always been the racist party we accuse them of being today – just like we’ve always been at war with EastAsia.”
Paul:
There is not space here to challenge your views on the Kennedy assassination, but I do disagree with you on it.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Oswald had any help from Cuba, rather, the trip to Mexico City by someone claiming to be Oswald seems more like an attempt to tie Cuba in to the assassination. It seems to have worked on you.
By the time of his death, Kennedy has established a back channel to Cuba, and the early contacts were going well. Castro had no interest in killing him. Why would he want Johnson in the White House?
Kennedy was indeed not a well man, but he was not dying. Steroids were controlling his adrenal condition, and his bad back was responding well to physiotherapy. Indeed, he had decided to ditch the back brace he had been wearing in the new year, which of course he did not live to see.
I do not like the sort of theory that Kennedy was dying (which he wasn’t), as it tends to diminish the horror of his death, but I am sure that is not your intention.
Ah, I had forgotten about Delingpole. He’s gone a bit nuts.