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]
|
Samizdata quote of the day – Oi mate! You got a loicense for that opinion? Richard Hanania once wrote about how the measures of freedom calculated by NGOs like Freedom House were skewed and worthless, because they were more concerned with those interpersonal freedoms than with actual concrete liberties. What matters to most people is simply whose side you’re on, and it goes without saying that a Right-wing European regime in which police turned up at people’s doors for expressing unfashionable opinions would be roundly condemned – and rightly so.
What makes our anarcho-tyranny all the more illiberal is that no one can be entirely sure what exactly are the unfashionable opinions deemed worthy of the state’s interference. In recent years moral norms have changed so quickly that people can find themselves in trouble for saying things that were totally mainstream ten years ago. In many cases they might not even be aware about the unspoken edict that such an opinion is now verboten, and I suspect it is not a coincidence that so many of the individuals caught out by this new tyranny have some form of autism.
– Ed West
|
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.
|
I ran into that sort of trap in an online discussion group when I used the word “transgendered” rather than “transgender.”
Me too. These days, what I hear instead is: “You can’t say that!”
I think people only will say “it’s a free country” with heavy irony, if they say it at all, these days.
it’s not just an unfashionable opinion or word that can get you in trouble in the UK, sometimes it’s a photo taken while on vacation in the US:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/11/british-man-arrested-harassed-months-police-after-posing/
Henry, I saw that. Insane.
A good article by Ed West.
Perhaps there are only two approaches to public life in Britain.
A person can be ultra attentive to changing fashions – for example throwing their own brother under the bus for alleged sexual conduct that was considered not a crime (although very grubby – very grubby indeed) a few years ago, whilst (at the same time) putting up a monument (and putting on a display of exaggerated, fake, emotion) for people whose sexual conduct was, at the time, considered far worse than anything one’s brother is alleged to have done. And always being “Politically Correct” as Joseph Stalin used to say – for example celebrating mass migration and the natural increase of immigrant populations (and showing anger at any resistance from the native British), and celebrating the knighting of Mayor Khan “you should have had a knighthood years ago!” And on and on….. all to show that one is a “good person” (one “signals one’s virtue”, “virtue signalling” – rather than the British tradition of helping people PRIVATELY and seeking no praise), filled with hatred for the “intolerant” and “reactionary”, the “ists and phobes”. Islam is wonderful, Mohammed was a peaceful man, claims about Rape Gangs are all lies, and-so-on.
Or, alternatively, one can get used to the idea that one will die in prison.
For that will happen to those who speak freely – and the modern “Conventions” and “Declarations” on “Human Rights” do nothing to protect Freedom of Speech, any more they do anything to protect the right to keep and bear arms for one’s own defense and the defense of others – the traditional definition of a free citizen in both Classical Greek, Republican Roman and Anglo Saxon law, or prevent Covid lockdowns.
The Covid lockdowns did nothing to reduce Covid deaths – but they did show that people could be reduced to a level of unfreedom not seen in this country even in either World War or under the rule of Cromwell and the Major Generals.
And the public?
“My father died because Boris Johnson broke the rules” – had a piece of cake with people he had already been working with for eight hours, this is what killed the father of the person the BBC presents, or so the Gentleman claims – holding a photograph of his father, for the camera.
No questioning of the, insane, lockdown policy, no questioning of why the person did not receive any Early TREATMENT for Covid (oh yes – effective EARLY treatments existed from the start – but were not used), no questioning of why vulnerable people were given morphine and midazolam – which killed them off.
And, of course, no questioning of the precious “Covid vaccines” – that are not vaccines at all.
Even when a person at the BBC was killed by one of these “vaccines” there was no questioning – her colleagues just silently agreed to pretend that she had never lived.
Bills of Attainder seem to be back informally in britain. At Zerohedge [a blog normally involved with the intersection of investments and politics] there is mention of a case in britain where a woman was arrested and imprisoned for a single comment online that was deemed racist. The text of the post was not put on the site. She has done her time and is out. She entered her daughter in a school, and the schoolmaster kicked her out for being related to her convicted mother. She was punished for her mother’s political beliefs.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-girl-barred-school-over-imprisoned-mothers-racist-tweet
Apparently in britain, they assume that political opinions are genetic and hereditary.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai Bahadur.
Although the first of these “racial speech” laws in Britain dates back to 1965, imprisonment for casual words was unknown till recent years.
The practice of sending to prison for casual racial speech seems to have started in South Africa (the “Rainbow Nation” which the international establishment touted as a success story – till it became obvious that ANC rule was a disaster, just as the coming to power of Robert Mugabe in Rhodesia was a disaster, 31 years of “Social Justice” rule in South Africa and 45 years of “Social Justice” rule in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe should have discredited the concept – but the international establishment clings to it) and spread, by international fads and fashions (pushed by the education system) to Britain, Australia and other Western countries.
Persecution of children of the “racists” – yes that is normal as well, unless they formally denounce their parents.