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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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.
Tessa Jowell is the first British minister in recorded history to retire from her family on order to spend more time with her government.
– Andy Hamilton
It seems we will be reading Mark Steyn mostly on-line now in the UK. If the irascible New Hampshire based Canadian has indeed been axed from two UK media syndication outlets (The Telegraph and The Spectator), does anyone have any information on what caused this? Lionel Shriver of the Guardian ponders that it might be a case of ‘political self-censorship’.
As it happens Steyn was one of the few reasons I look at either of those sadly diminished publications (particularly the Spectator, which I find almost unreadable these days). Any industry insiders out there have any scandal they want to share on what happened? Leave a comments or drop us an e-mail, you know you want to…
No doubt Harold Pinter will be sad that his favourite masss murderer and communist/national socialist despot has snuffed it but my guess is that they will be celebrating in the streets in Croatia, much of Bosnia and in more the rational circles in Serbia.
Good riddence to bad rubbish.
We are still wresting with configuring the anti-spam defences and some other work on the blog will be continuing for a few days yet in all likelihood, so apologies in advance if things are a bit slow or if the comment system is a bit tetchy at times. We will have things running more smoothly as soon as we can.
Because of all the processes going on (such as batch republishing 108,000 comments and over 7,000 articles), the site may run rather slow today.
There are moves afoot to ban the burqa in the Netherlands on the basis that they are oppressive to women and in the words of Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of parliament…
an insult to everyone who believes in equal rights
Which is quite curious logic because if he believes in equal rights, does that not include the right to wear what you damn well please without it having to be politically approved by the state? Will other forms of clothing be banned in order to make this an ‘equal right’? Moreover it sets a horrific president: does that mean ‘offensive’ clothing can be banned, such as, say, a mini-skirt that some Muslims with sexual hang-ups find offensive?
This proposal is a dreadful idea with only one thing to recommend it, and that with proviso is does not actually pass into law. The notion of making Muslim fundamentalists (and I would argue that anyone wearing a burqa is a fundamentalist) feel that they are not accepted and that even toleration of them is hanging in the balance is not such a bad message to send. Yet this is nevertheless an appalling notion for the state to decide what people can wear. A vastly better idea would be to just scale back the welfare state which brough many of these people to Europe and most importantly return the abridged property rights and freedom of association and dis-association to individuals to deal with who they please and freely (but peaceably) express themselves without fear of prosecution for ‘discrimination’.
That way, if enough individuals decide that not make people who wear burqas welcome into their places of business, the problem of state supported non-assimilation would quickly disappear. If people really do not care, then that too is the ‘voice of the people’. Either way, the state has no business enforcing dress codes. Provide some real social motivation to assimilate and adopt western norms of behaviour. If some un-assimilated Muslims find that notion offensive and choose to leave for some nation which is more accepting of dark ages mores. Either way the problem is reduced.
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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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