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 Spotted in Friday’s print version of the Evening Standard:
Mr Blair’s two security advisers, Sir David Omand and Sir John Stevens, tell us each week that such bombs [in public places] are “unavoidable”, to exonerate themselves in advance from blame. They tell us to be fearful and vigilant. But they do nothing physically to protect us.
There are no walls going up to block Oxford Street from car bombs. There are no sniffer dogs at Holborn Tube or scanners at the entrance to Trafalgar Square. The citizens of London are being told, in effect, to look after themselves and don’t blame the Government. Meanwhile Sir David and Sir John spend millions protecting those for whom they work.
– Simon Jenkins
In other words: You are cannon fodder. The state is not your friend.
Have a cheerful weekend.
With thanks to Guy Herbert
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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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Er, no. Al Qaeda is not your friend.
I thought this was a libertarian blog? Are you suggesting that the state provides concrete barriers everywhere and creates a police state to “protect” us all?
I’d prefer it if the state was tracking down and preventing attacks from Islamists, which is what I assume they are doing.
Jenkins recently suggested the war on terror was a fiction in The Spectator, and as his piece was hitting the newsagents, pieces of bodies were hitting the platforms in Madrid.
At least in Spain the Socialists blamed Aznar for the bombings after they occurred, Jenkins is blaming Blair, instead of the terrorists, before the attack happens!
Well Anthony, seeing Parliament being protected from being blown up when I am not allowed to protect myself if some scrote breaks into my house does rather make it clear who really matters to our political masters.
As I understand it you can defend yourself if a scrote breaks into your house, I certainly would. But of course defending your house from a scrote, has nothing to do with defending yourself from a suicide bomber or truck bomb. It is not clear to me why you are conflating the two issues.
This blog has previously been refreshing clear about who was responsible for terrorism. This post muddies the waters. We all have to accept some risks in this war – and I’m surprised to see you lot wobbling – although the actual individual risks are very small. Politicians do run risks, ask Thatcher or Tebbit. So must we. That said a nuclear device would largely ignore the security barriers at Westminster.
Whatever your views on Blair or the state, the fact is that the perpetrators of terror are the ones who should be blamed. After losing lots of the left to nutdoom, are we to see Libertarians marching after a terror attack in the UK waving placards saying “Blair didn’t protect us”?
I may not agree with all your politics, but this blog has always struck me as somewhere were people had the guts for a fight. Weird to see them suggesting that Parliament should not be protected from Islamist terrorists.
Or: the fuss is an attempt to menace the public with “with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”; the lack of protection reflects the realistic rarity and comparatively small impact of terrorism; the protection for GovDudes is intended, as always, to protect their paranoid asses from you.
I think Tony Martin would disagree that people in Britain can protect themselves without fearing the state as much as the criminal.
I really have no problem per se with with protecting parliament from Al Qaeda, but the point is the rather larger issue that the state tends to looks after its own (at my expense) rather than allowing me to look after myself. It is not conflation but seeing something rather different in what underpins the system. The quote was from Simon Jenkins but I for one read his remarks and find they resonate for reasons which I suspect Jenkins did not have in mind when he wrote them.
Jenkins is talking specifically about the risk from terrorism. There is no way in which you can protect yourself as an individual from a truck bomb or suicide bomber.
Samizdata Illuminatus tells us the state is not our friend. Well, I don’t want it to be my friend, I want it to be my servant. Specifically in this case, I want it to be ruthlessly hunting down and eliminating threats to the society I live in.
Using the term “canon fodder” implies the state is pushing us “over the top” at Al Qaeda, again blaming the state rather than the terrorists. We are targets placed in the line of fire by the terrorists. No-one else.
One of the things I was arguing on my blog today was that we need to get used to accepting risks(Link) and then I come here of all places and see the “state is not my friend” in response to the terrorist threat we face. It’s like a cry from help from Polly Toynbee after finding her pension is less than she expected. Honestly. 😉
I have to agree with Anthony–this post read very strangely.
While I agree that the right to protect oneself is compromised in Britain, the quote seems to be driving home the point that the government should do more to protect the general public than it is. It has less to do with individual rights and more to do with collective security.
By the way why would anyone want to target the UK anyways, there is no gov’t to topple. It’s not as if by attacking the UK the troops in Iraq will be recalled and the Uk will brake ties with the US. In fact, an attack on the UK will strengthen it’s resolve against terrorism, just as the Nazi’s figured that one out the hard way. It’s not as if the IRA was succesfull in bringing the gov’t to it’s knees by launching attacks against London.
Don’t think that Al-Qaeda is illogical in it’s attacks. All it’s leadership is college educated, and they attack where it’s most effective…like Spain, Iraq, Pakistan, Indonesia, Africa, etc. It’s funny how the media presents Al-Qaeda as bunch of idiotic maniacs who have no idea of what they are targeting. Reminds me of how Goebbles characterized non-Arayans as incompetent idiots. Don’t misunderstand, Al-Qaeda’s cause is flawed, but they certainly aren’t idiots…wicked and crazy like a fox…that’s for sure.
UK should be fine, unless Al-Qaeda is getting really desperate. Al-Qaeda has no reason to turn against the millions of heroic protestors who are against the quagmire in Iraq. Most Brits understand that this so called “war against terror” is as phony as Blair’s “New Labour Party”
–Carpe Diem
This post really does sound like the author wants sniffer dogs and check points everywhere.
This is good, this is an improvement, really. It ought to be encoded into national law. “Protect yourselves!” That would be perfect. The people of Britain should rise up and shout with one voice “we will!” Then they should ask, now that they bear the responsibility of protecting the country, that they be able to legally carry and defend themselves with lethal weapons, including firearms. This is the way it ought to have been from the beginning.
Strikes me the original post’s point is intended to be read contextually (if there is such a word) and intends to demonstrate the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude of the Govdudes (like the phrase) rather than complain about not having our bottoms wiped by them.
Anyway, it’s all as predicted by Spike Milligan (I think) who envisaged that if ever he became a General he’d invest in a pair of trousers that would immediately drop and entagle his ankles in the event of an advance by his troops “..go for it lads, be right with you”!
Anthony, the British have no right to protect themselves whatsoever. None. Rien. Nada. No guns, of course, because guns are for grownups and the Labour gov’t seeks to infantalise the population.
And if someone attacks you or breaches your home, you are supposed to stay cool and rationally analyse the level of the threat. So if someone is running at you with an axe, you would be allowed to look around for an axe to stop him with. If he has a baseball bat, you might be allowed your cricket bat at the back of the cupboard, but no axes. If he has a knife, well, you get the idea. These shrewd and accurate judgements about due force, including seeking out appropriate arms, are to be made within – oh 10 to 20 seconds. You call this a right to protect yourself?
Perry is correct. Blair and Blunkett have made certain their arses, their homes, their families are protected from terrorists – on taxpayer’s money, of course. To hell with you. I find the assumption that the British public gives a flea fart whether Blair cops it or not baffling. He’s not a symbol of anything. He stands for nothing. He’s only a temp in admin, and an incompetent one at that.
Are you suggesting that the state provides concrete barriers everywhere and creates a police state to “protect” us all?
Er, no. I’ve spun him a bit, but I don’t think Simon Jenkins (all of whose article is worth reading) is suggesting that, either. The point is such measures would be ludicrous and impracticable as well as illiberal, but nonetheless people seem happy to accept the the hardening of the organs of the state at every sighting of a threat to the (unprotected) public as a reasonable response, when the real message it sends is: Whitehall matters to us, you don’t.
Compare “civil defense” against nuclear attack during the Cold War, when elaborate preparations were made to rule a largely extinct populace, but none to reconstruct society in the longer term. It is likewise a symptom of the solipsism of the state that governs only in order to govern; that is all pretext, no context.
I think Revolutionary Blogger is close but not quite right: Al Qaeda–insofar as it exists other than as a brand–and the various other actors, statal, parastatal and superstatal, aren’t joined in the same conflict. They are coherently in pursuit of radically different goals that are contingently in conflict, but also countersupport and offer elective affinities.
Verity, yes, I know, which is one of the reasons I live in Tuscany, Italy – in theory – 1984 incarnate, in practice, way, way freer than little ole England. The rules – they’re all over the place here all right, but there’s b*gger all will to use them by the general population, including the state! I’ve commented/blogged on this before, trust me. And btw, it’s Antony, as in Cleopatra!
Doh! Sorry, Verity, now realise you were addressing the aitched Anthony…..obviously a surfeit of Chianti last night
To suggest that protecting a legitimate government from terrorists has anything to tell us about how we should be able to defend ourselves in our homes is as intellectually bankrupt as the assertion made by some of those on the left that Al Qaeda hate the US because of its failure to sign up to Kyoto.
Robin Goodfellow’s suggestion that we all carry sidearms would have no effect on the plans of terrorists to carry out terrorist actions. Certain aspects of the war on terror require state action. E.g surveillance of terrorist groups, and military action against client states.
If Blair or any of our politicians from any of our parties, were killed at Westminster in a terrorist action it would be nothing other than a victory for Al Qaeda. I remind Verity that Osama is not a libertarian.
I suppose it just goes to show that on terrorism, the right and the left are equally lunatic on occasions.
And what is legitimate about it? Dropping bombs on Al Qaeda is a legitimate
Fine, so you are damned by the state and Al Qaeda. Which do you prefer?
It is legitimate precisely because it can be democratically removed. Perry and Guy can start a party which is pro-home defense and tap into the votes that the Today programme showed us existed. If they were elected I would expect them to be defended by the state, not walking round like Arafat at the UN with a pistol.
It is not essential to have Blair, Kennedy(?) and Howard behind a line of sandbags at Westminster armed with M16 and grenade launchers fighting off Islamists, while Jack Straw and Oliver Letwin lock Tonge and Galloway in a room, to prove they “care about us”.
Anthony: I prefer ‘none of the above’ because it is a false dichotomy. It is like saying which would I prefer, AIDS or Cancer. Neither please.
Sure, it is better to be robbed at gunpoint by the state that be blown up for being a non-muslim by Al Qaeda, but I refuse to accept those are the only choices, which seems to be your position. I refuse to judge the legitimacy of the state on the basis of discrete actions of the state. Juts because I supported the war against Al Qaeda and Ba’athism does not mean I regard the British state as any less of a kleptocratic monster with a Home Secretary with aspirations that are coming close to totalitarian.
Democratic politics does not automatically mean legitimate politics. A democratically elected tyranny is still a tyranny. The United States is far less democratic than Britain, but that does not make it less liberal (in the real sense). Democracy ≠ Liberty
Yes, well I of course knew you could pull out the trump card that you don’t like any power structure, but it still does not answer the charge I put to this posting initially, which is that it suggests that the state is responsible for any terrorist action, rather than the terrorists themselves.
You well know the position Jenkins is coming from and I suspect some here share the same opinion of his stance on terrorism(Link). Are we going to start seeing quotes from Michael Moore here, like the famous fictional speech at the Oscars perhaps? It would serve a similar purpose and perhaps “resonate well” though not in the manner he probably intended…
Spare us your tiresome snears. What it suggest to you is your problem. Likewise that other might share Jenkin’s broader views on terrorism has no bearing on these remarks. People know where Samizdata.net is ‘coming from’. And yes, if Michael Moore says something interesting (even a stopped clock is correct twise a day) we might quote him too, something which would hopefully cause his a little pain.
Let’s all agree to disagree, although most seem to agree that the post was poorly worded. I highly doubt the authors intentions were to suggest a soldier on every corner with an M-16 “protecting” you. The intent of the entry was to suggest that one should not expect the state to look after your interests…you are on you own when it comes to home-defense!
Is this really the way forward? A populist police state?
Paul: I really have no problem at all with anyone shooting-to-kill suicide bombers, but yeah, the broader point is correct… we do indeed seem to be headed for what you eloquently describe as a ‘Populist Police State’
Firstly, libertarians do not advocate doing away with government entirely, even they realise that some sort of oversight is nescessary. Libertarians do say that the only true function of government is to provide naional security, at least, that is what I have always understood to be the case. If you want to do away with all government, then you are an anarchist, not a libertarian.
Re the article, I do not think that anyone wants , nor expects, concrete chicanes in Oxford Street, or even an armed citizenry. But it is rather ironic that the government, which is largely responsible for the large influx of legal, and illegal immigrants and so-called asylum seekers to this country, bearing in mind these people come from the same backgrounds and countries as the very terrorists that we are supposed to be fighting and guarding against, is itself rather well barricaded and protected by well armed police.
My convoluted point is that surely our first, and probably best line of defense, would have been a more rigid enforcement of the existing laws of entry to this country. That government has turned a blind eye – purely on the grounds of political dogma, – to the wholesale infringement of these laws, shows at best a dereliction of their duties, and at worst a deliberate attempt to undermine the sovereignty of this country.
I am not suggesting a total moratorium on immigration, but just a proper implementation of the existing laws. It may well have been impossible to keep all terrorists out by this means, but at least a message would have been sent to immigrants, that it was not that easy to come here, and to the indigenous population, that best efforts were being made on their behalf.
I hear the cry – ‘It’s easy to have hindsight’, but there were many, decrying the unregulated influx, back in the 60’s, they were, of course branded as racists. Whatever their reasons for speaking out, at that time, they are largely being proved correct, that unrest, from within and without, would be the order of the day.
It is a bit rich that they (them, the Enemy), have known of a number of terrorist organisations and meeting places in this country, known for many years, and yet have done little or nothing about them. All the petty excuses of keeping them in one place, the better for surveillance purposes, is as unbelievable as the rest of the nonsense they expect us to believe. Token raids are seen as just that, tokens…let us see that they mean business and deport them. of course the kid glove treatment of the recently returned POW’s would immediately belie the fact of any true endeavour to protect the citizens of the UK.
Why should we, after all the traumas and sacrifices of the twentieth century, still have to expect, and accept, a higher level of risk than at any other recent time in our history. Even during WWII, during the Blitz, the risk was acceptable, because there was an end in sight, this perpetual warning of terrorist attack, and dont forget it has been going on for years, is like the Water Torture, it has the capability of driving you insane….
Even the biggest simpleton knows that at the first sign of trouble you pull up the drawbridge, that we had every right to expect the government to do, they did not. They abdicated their collective responsibilty, now they want us all – not to actually do something, – but to expect a much higher level of risk. That’s it, not even a ‘bend over, put your head between your legs, and whistle ‘God Save the Queen’. Whether the threat is real, or not, whether you believe Jenkins or the Commisioners of Wimps, just trying to live a normal life is going to be just that bit more stressful.
In reply to Anthony in the fist comment on this post, Jenkins will be right to blame Blair if attacks happen. There is no doubt that Britain is a far more dangerous place since Blair decided to support the US in their war against the wishes and interests of the British people.
America was attacked on 9/11 largely for their middle east foreign policy. Now I care not one jot what that policy is as long as I am not involved. Sadly Blair has involved me.
Let America fight her own war, stop trying to create some all powerful anglosphere and restrict the British armed forces to protecting British interests, not endangering them.
“[…] of course the kid glove treatment of the recently returned POW’s […]” – against whom there appears not to have been sufficient evidence to hold them, despite two years of US military attempts to extract confessions. What do you suggest would be the non-kid-gloved approach? And since you are apparently already aware who’s a terrorist and who’s not, perhaps you could save everybody a lot of trouble and just name names.
Oh dear,
When will you grow up… caught in Afgahanistan, admitting to going to training camps, etc, etc, etc. Just what do you think they were doing there? researching the local talent?
These were terrorists, not patriots or freedom fighters, then they were caught and became pow’s, and none of your infantile prevarication will make it otherwise.
Now do your pathetic bleat about ‘human rights’ and complete the picture for us…
First rule of profiling, when you see a man in a turban, pointing a rifle at you, or shooting at you, then be assured, he is the enemy. When you capture an enemy camp, then all present are the enemy, yes, even the cook, or some smart arse western reporter caught where he should not be. these are also the enemy…
Second rule of profiling, when you hear the drivel spouted by ‘fifth columnists’ in the media and being discussed on the web, about the people shooting at our soldiers, and their reasons for doing so, then, be assured, these are also the enemy.
They may well have only been ‘foot soldiers’, they are still POW’s, and as English nationals their actions were traitorous, and as such they deserve punishment, whether the two years in Guantanamo is sufficient or not, is for others to decide, but to return to acclaim from the ‘anti war’ faction is plain insulting and ridiculous.
This is precisely the point that I was trying to make, lax application of existing laws is only encouraging terrorism, and has led to the problems that we are now facing.
You should also note that I did not advocate prohibiting all and sundry, wherever they may have come from, but a liitle more forceful application of the existing laws, may have helped. Many of the worst ‘jihadists’ allowed into England, were well known prior to their arrival at Heathrow.
You Sir, are deliberately being either naive or duplicitous. Playing Devil’s Advocate on such a serious matter, is not very clever, and just makes you look to be a fool.
ernest young:
I never play the devil’s advocate. I’m too used to being in the minority anyway. It is because I’m not naive, but profoundly skeptical and suspicious of the exercise of power, that I regard the accrescence of local and global state institutions as more dangerous than temporary violent thrashing about of a doomed culture.
I’m not remotely interested in human rights, but I do care about the rule of law. That no reason was found to charge these men (turban-wearing or otherwise) either under the current, very flexible, terrorism laws or in relation to treason suggests to me that there is a doubt to which they are entitled to the benefit. As would you or I be, I hope. That doesn’t make them admirable; it makes them innocent and the subject of arbitrary imprisonment.
You may be surprised to learn that I’m very much with you over the failure to enforce existing laws. Various forms of incitement to violence and threatening behaviour have been routinely permitted to some minorities (and not others) creating a climate of impunity. I suspect that this may have been partly because the threats from Islamists were seen by the security services as directed abroad, and therefore not worth the effort of controlling.
As for immigration, I see it the other way round: Our existing laws are part of the problem, not the solution. Current controls on entry ask for good reasons to enter or remain. A lot of effort is spent barring and interrogating harmless Slovak au pairs, Kurdish plumbers, and Chinese fruit-pickers. It is an absurd rigmarole for even a US citizen to get permission to live and work here.
What we should be doing is prohibiting those who are likely to be a threat or to become a charge on the public purse regardless of the UN Convention on Refugees, but permitting free movement as the default for people from most countries. Yes; I’d consider excluding some nationals from the presumption of free movement, which you might regard as an act of grand profiling, and would almost certainly get labelled as racist–as if I care–but it ought to be exceptional. Like the reactionary I am, I’d be returning us, more or less, to the position of a century ago.
Ernest Young – As always, you have identified the real problem.
The government’s lunatic dereliction of duty to protect Britain’s borders (while at the same time disarming the citizenry) is the issue from which they are now engaged in trying to deflect attention. Lies, lies and more lies and evasions and making it up on the hoof a la Beverly Hughes.
I would suggest doing as Holland has done and declaring a four-year moratorium on any further immigration, and that includes the endless stream of “asylum seekers”. (Are there really that many police and military employed worldwide to persecute these millions of “asylum seekers”?) And either get out of the Un asylum convention or simply ignore it. Who cares?
As we in the West are currently living under a state of emergency, I would suggest that we also engage in wholesale deportation and give a huge contract to Rentakill to clean out the terrorist infestations in the mosques in this country.
According to every poll, the British electorate wants wholesale deportations and the drawbridge pulled firmly up and locked tight.
If there is a terrorist attack in Britain, Blair and Blair alone is the one who is culpable. He has worked for seven years to force “multiculturalism” on Britain, against the express wishes of the indigenes, and he will pay the price.
BTW, the image of Ken’s bendybusses going over concrete chicanes in Oxford Street is just too good! On the other hand, maybe the bendy busses could just be parked outside strategic targets all over London in the hope that, at the appropriate moment, they might spontaneously combust.
klu01dbt, you are really full of it. opinion poll after opinion poll found that, unlike Spain, Britain was by no means clearly against the war. At times a majority was and at times it was in favour. Thus clearly to make statements like “Blair decided to support the US in their war against the wishes and interests of the British people” is just partisan posturing. Regardless of how many marching marxists proclaimed their support for Saddam Hussain remaining in power, a big chunk of ‘the British people’ wanted him out.
klu01dbt – You are writing unmitigated drivel. and have naively trapped yourself in the terrorist propaganda cage. It’s not Israel. The terrorists are enraged with the West because we are infidels and fail to do the will of their god and his emissaries, the primitive mullahs and imans and whatever.
Even if we decided to desert the only (at present, but just wait – yes, Saudi Arabia, I’m looking at you) democracy in the ME, there would still be an unholy war to convert us all back to the Dark Ages.
It’s the jihad, stupid.
Guy – I have a feeling that Ernest was responding to klu01dbt (as in, without a klu), not you. I could be wrong.
Verity,
No, I did direct my remarks to Guy, the other fellow klu whatever, was not worth the time replying. Thank you anyway.
Guy,
I think that you and I are both arguing the same point, that there seems to be some disagreement over the gist of the original post, and the accompaning Samiz comment seems to have carried over to our little spat.
Re the pow’s, they have not been charged with anything, not because they are innocent, (why else would they be in a war zone?), but because Blair does not want them charged. Yet another free ride – in the name of multi culturism!
Re immigration, I agree that the rules of a century ago should apply today, and why not, they are still ‘on the books’, they are just not applied with due diligence. There is nothing wrong with profiling, you know the saying, “If it walks like a duck…….”.
Just why you feel that it is so wonderful to allow totally free movement between countries, is beyond me. They come here because ‘here’ is better than ‘there’, hence ‘here’ will get to be overcrowded, and the quality of life will decline, while ‘there’ will lose the more ambitious, and as a result ‘there’ will be doomed to stay in the dark ages for longer than would otherwise be the case. Surely a disservice to the ‘donor’ country.
While life ‘here’ will no doubt, be wonderful for these incomers, it certainly makes problems for the members of the indigenous population, who have to live in the vicinity of these incomers.
Having worked hard to achieve what little the State has allowed them to keep, they then have to suffer the presence of Chinese fruitpickers, et al, living next door. The salt in the wound, is that the incomers will more than likely be subsidised by the State, and be given what is has taken a lifetime for the native resident to attain. How very altruistic of our Masters, on our behalf.
This whole immigration problem is just a form of reverse colonialism, having taken all that we need from tangible foreign resources, we now import the last thing they have of any value – i.e. their labour, and why? – because ‘we’ don’t want to dirty our hands doing the more menial jobs. It would seem to me that the current phase of immigration is for all the wrong reasons, and predictably, is having all the wrong results.
Ernest Young – Sorry for the presumption.
Yes, Blair, the fearless fighter of terror on the international stage, does not want these traitors tried. Why not? Passing odd, is it not?
Blair is a very rum cove. I’ve said it before, there’s something not quite right about this individual. He is furthering some agenda, and he becoming more reckless in doing so.
Now Beverly Hughes, who is as blatant a liar as Stephen Byers, will not be fired. I wonder why. This government is worse than a third world government. They are a dictatorship of USSR proportions, yet the British are strangely passive about assault after assault perpetrated on them. Are they putting Prozac in the water supply over there?
It is all very strange, as though they have come from another planet. They seem to have no respect for anything older than the time they have been in office… the contempt and hatred of all things British, or rather English, is so obvious.
Mind you, all the ‘good guys’ seem to have left for sunnier climes, pity they left the light on….
I think the Blair era, is best described as a Black Tragedy, problem is that so much of his destruction is irreversible.
Nations do get the leaders they deserve….
Ernest – That’s right! Almost as if they’ve come from another planet, in a pod! They all have that cyber borg look about them. Blair is definitely disconnected, as though he is an actor playing the part of a human being … Errrr …. He is definitely getting more reckless. I wonder why. Is the mother ship on the way back for them and they’ve got to floor the gas pedal to get their project of dismantling Britain finished on time?
All this is getting very off topic, but I’m as mystified by ernest young’s model of the world as plainly he is by mine.
If suspects are not proved guilty then they are considered innocent.
The immigration rules of a century ago are not still on the books. The relatively reasonable controls of the Aliens Act 1905 are not quite 100 years old. Before them there was no immigration or emigration control in Britain whatsoever. The poisonous paraphenalia of passports, visas and work permits that replaced the Aliens Act (and so many people unaccountably think of as a natural subjection of the traveller), wasn’t fully in place until after the Great War. There was no control on Commonwealth immigration–including all those Muslim Pakistanis, Arabs and Africans whom I guess e.y. thinks the rules enforced would stop–until 1962.
Finally I don’t assume that people are resources belonging either to a “country” (i.e. state) or their neighbours. They ought to be free agents, entitled to choose their own geographical and political surroundings.
Finally I don’t assume that people are resources belonging either to a “country” (i.e. state) or their neighbours.
I also do not believe that people are the chattels of a country, – it just works that way in socialist states, – but just the opposite, that the country belongs to the people.
On this basis, the indigenous population has a proprietorial right over the country that they live in. they are ‘shareholders’, for want of a better analogy, and the government has a duty to protect this interest. Not to fritter it away for some perceived political gain.
In the same way that houses with fences have good neighbours, so do countries with strong borders.
They ought to be free agents, entitled to choose their own geographical and political surroundings.
Your interpretation of a ‘free agent’ is of an opportunist, going to where the pickings are the richest, and reaping the benefits of others endeavours. All ok, if you are allowed to get away with it, but that does not make it right, or acceptable.
Besides, none of us are ‘free agents’ in any sense of the word. We all owe some debt of allegiance and responsibility to our origins.
The myth of every man, his own island, is another of the impracticalities of libertarianism as a complete political philosophy. I prefer to think of it (libertarianism), as being the ‘salt in the stew’, without which the meal would be tasteless.
You are correct in saying that I am mystified by your vision of a just and fair world, to me it reads as an ill-thought plan for a self-centred and selfish plan for living in a community, without admitting to any communal responsibilty.
As you said, this is all getting off topic, and we are both riding our pet ‘high horses’.
Perry,
I was not trying to snear (is that smear or sneer) you, but trying to point out what I thought was a somewhat peculiar posting for this site. I don’t generally comment, here because much of what you say even, when I disagree with it, is well put.
I had hoped the comments would be seen as part of a polite discussion rather than a personal attack on you.
Regards
Apologies for the bizarrely misplaced commas!
Verity I find it very strange that when I advocate an isolationist, British foreign policy. A policy not to disimilar to something Sean Gabb might suggest in Free Life or might be proposed on Lewrockwell.com you suggest that I am a victim of Marxist propaganda.
Do you also believe in the special relationship ?
How, apart from exterminating every muslim in the world will unprovoked aggression stop terrorism? How will any aggression stop terrorism?
We have to accept that a large proportion of these nutters are rational and well educated. The only way to stop them is remove the reasons they have twisted to promote terrorism. The only way Britain can do that is to withdraw from a war we should never have got involved with. That and ending muslim immigration for a short time however unpleasant having government officials on our borders sounds. .
klu01dbt – The gripe the extremist Muslims have with us has absolutely nothing to do with the war. It has nothing to do with Israel. (If they cared that much about a few million Palestinians, they would have absorbed them into their own countries 50 years ago. Saudi Arabia has plenty of room, god knows, and plenty of money and a constant need of foreign workers. At least Palestinians already speak Arabic and they have the same religion and cultural mores. Why have they not been integrated into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait?)
Their gripe is that we have failed to see the charm of Islam and failed to appreciate their generous and kindly deity. Yet, inexplicably, we fail to get struck down for this infraction of universal law, and it’s just not fair.. We also go from success to success, despite topless beaches, reality TV and a tendency to pour lavish amounts of alcohol down our throats. So it occurs to them, “Oh! Maybe we’re the ones who are supposed to strike them down, on Allah’s behalf! That’s it! We are supposed to be the instruments of divine retribution! Otherwise, why would we get offered 72 virgins for blowing ourselves up to strike at the infidel?”
If you haven’t figured this out yet, you are around 500 years behind the rest of us. It has been thus since their intolerant, rigid and bigotted religion got started. They’re going to impose the Dhimmitude or they’re going to wipe out the infidel. The war in Iraq doesn’t mean diddley (Saddam was a secularist; they couldn’t have cared less what happened to him) and the Palestinians are handy to have squatting around as a convenient excuse. Think about it. It is inconceivable that any bunch of people would be living in refugee camps for 57 years when they are surrounded by countries populated by their own kind, who speak their own language and share their religion.