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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Have a glorious and happy Easter.
Many moral questions are tricky, requiring complex theories and difficult judgements… but many more moral issues are really very simple when you look at them clearly. Manditory mass medication is one of those simple issues. I am as keen as anyone else to not see epidemics of infectious disease and in the case of such, I take the view that it is rather like why you have states to fight against foreign armies: a collective threat to everyone can sometimes only be faced by a government acting collectively. However very few things fall into this category, but infectious disease is one which indeed does – a collective threat that can only be defeated collectively. So yes, I am all for property rights but that does not include having a malarial breeding swamp on your property next to mine or infecting everyone’s water supply with some nasty bug.
Birth defects on the other hand, are not a ‘collective threat’ and so taking folic acid to avoid certain birth defects is the responsibility of anyone who does things likely to get them pregnant. So when Max Pemperton writes an article in the Telegraph opposing government plans to force bakers to add folic acid to bread, you would think I would be supportive of him, right? Well no.
In his article Folic acid is not the best thing since sliced bread he goes into a great song and dance about the pros and cons to various groups in the population of adding folic acid and whilst he does talk about civil liberties, he is mostly just making a utilitarian argument of net-benefit. He ends with saying “It’s certainly a complex moral dilemma”… and that completely fogs the issue.
No, it is actually a very simply moral dilemma: does anyone have the right to alter my body chemistry to benefit other people when my body chemistry poses no threat to anyone else (unlike if I have smallpox, for example). The question (does the state have this right?) and the answer (no) are not complex at all. If women want to avoid neural tube defects in their children, they should take folic acid. Making me take it as well will not help and is none of anyone elses damn business.
Few things are as impermanent as medical theories of ‘what is best’, so the utilitarian argument is utterly irrelevant. As it happens I take folic acid pills for a medical condition so I have nothing against the stuff myself but that does not change the fact the state has NO moral right to medicate me in such a way and anyone who trusts the state to pick ‘what is best’ for your health and make it a force backed law really needs to take a look at the state’s history of screw-ups and ask themselves is this is an institution which should have the right to mess with your personal body chemistry.
I have often marvelled at how people in government and business are even willing to give muslim activists with profoundly illiberal views the time of day, particularly when you consider that such activists are a minority within a minority in the western world. Yet I suppose the reason is not too hard to figure out: it all comes down to violence.
The great majority of muslim activists do not engage in violence. They may say vile things and take monstrous positions on issues at the top of their voices but they never actually put the boot in literally, let alone throw a Molotov or strap on a bomb. However they are all too quick to say things like “well I would never do something terrible like blow myself up on a bus but there are others who feel so strongly about this…”
And so people start kowtowing to the ‘spokesmen’ and ‘activists’ because a deniable lunatic fringe within a larger community which tolerates them threatens (and indeed engages in) violence.
It does make me wonder what might happen if people who oppose the intolerance and gross disregard for civil liberties that seems so deeply rooted in modern Muslim cultures started adopting the same approach. Just asking.
I have always found Scotland fascinating. They take barley and water and create something more expensive than petrol
– Kwame Owino
The New Individualist magazine has put one of the Jyllands-Posten ‘Mohammed Cartoons’ on its cover. If any other US publication has published them at all, I am not aware of that (hopefully the commentariat will let me know if I have missed one). In the UK, as far as I know only The Blanket have done the same. As a commenter has pointed out, anyone with an internet connection can see them on a thousand sites, so the point of publishing now in hard copy is to make a statement rather than facilitate people seeing the cartoons themselves.
The media in Britain and America have hardly covered themselves in glory on this issue, leaving European editors to make most of the running in standing up to those who howl for legislated intolerance (and I am not just talking about Islamo-fascists), so credit to Robert Bidinotto for sticking his head over the parapet and pouring some hot oil on the barbarians below.
The rally in Trafalgar Square today was attended by about 1,000 (at most by my estimate) very disparate people and was a worthy effort for a poorly funded ad-hoc team of folks.
My main criticism would be that most of the speakers seemed to have little concept of speaking to a wide coalition of people united by a single issue: If an Iranian communist or anyone else, wants to talk about freedom of expression at a rally in London, then I am happy to listen, but the moment they start talking about Guantanamo Bay, US foreign policy or ‘just’ economic systems, which are NOTHING to do with the issue at hand, I will quite bluntly thank them to stick their views where the sun does not shine. They would do well to talk about what we have in common and not remind me that we are in fact profound ideological enemies.
Peter Tatchell and Evan Harris were well received and made compelling points. However in my opinion Sean Gabb was without doubt the best speaker as he was direct, clear and uncompromising, and most importantly confined his remarks entirely to the subject of freedom of expression. He also spoke for about half as long as most as the others, eschewing off-topic rambling and partisan digressions, which also endeared him to many in the crowd. If an unreconstructed free market capitalist like Gabb can resist advocating capitalism at a pro-freedom of expression rally, I will thank communists, socialists, greens and anyone else to kindly show the same focus on why we came to listen to what they have to say.
The stout fellows of the Infidel Bloggers Alliance were well
represented and took the piss most artfully
In the Trafalgar Square cafe, they were serving Danish Pastries, which seemed appropriate
 
Police photographers were very much in evidence and
seemed inordinately interested in the back of Sean Gabb’s head
 
The police did not like this sign at all
According to a warden, there is allegedly a by-law against flying national flags in Trafalgar Square, which I find hard to believe as I always see Palestinian flags and (burning) US or Israeli flags when ever folks from the Middle East protest in Trafalgar Square… so the Danish Flags here became ‘Danish Shawls’… I find such lack of compliance with regulations quite heartening.
On two occasions, The Plod tried to prevent certain signs being shown (one featured the Mohammed Cartoons on a placard from the Iranian Communist Party and another showed a mask of Tony Blair over a Nazi symbol). These incidents at a ‘pro-freedom of expression’ rally, and the presence of the police taking pictures of the crowd, were a useful reminder of the deadening hand of the state and just how precarious the state of civil liberties in Britain are.
Just a reminder that there will be a rally in Trafalgar Square tomorrow between 2:00pm and 4:00pm, Saturday March 25th. The Samizdatistas will be well represented there and I hope to get the chance to meet a few more of our commentariat at the event. Time to hold the line.
Comments may be unavailable for a while as we are getting hammered by spammers and are working to adjust our defences to keep them out.
noun. Spam blog. A blog created purely as a payload target for spam. The spam itself is delivered via trackbacks, comment spamming or e-mail and the ‘splog’ is where you end up if you click the spam link (which is something you will not do, of course)
The view that genuine bloggers have of splogs is best summed up with the phrase “people who create splogs should die in an unpleasant manner and soon”.
I have always found group names quite interesting, such as a ‘crash’ of rhinos, ‘school’ of fish, a ‘gaggle’ of geese, a ‘stupidity’ of politicians, a ‘conspiracy’ of lawyers, etc… but what is a collection of French students to be called? Perhaps an ‘unreasonableness‘? Or would it be a ‘perversity’? Or maybe a ‘delusion’ of French students?
Three hundred thousand of them were protesting and/or rioting because of attempts to change the laws that make no business in their right mind want to hire them in the first place. This is because if they turn out to be indolent layabouts, a company is still not allowed to fire them. So, as unemployment approaches 10% in France (or quite a bit higher according to some), demonstrating that something is just a tad wrong with the ways things work in France, these clever chappies want to motivate employers to continue to not hire people. Outstanding.
There is a rally going to be held in Trafalgar Square between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on Saturday March 25th 2006, in support of freedom of expression. Be there and show your support! There is also going to be a similar rally in Berlin on the same day and hopefully others organised in various cities if a critical mass of interest can be attracted.
Comments on Samizdata may be unavailable for a short while as we are in the process of changing systems.
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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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