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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Now I am a great believer that any company should be at liberty to hire or not hire anyone they damn well please for any reason whatsoever (contingent on the terms of a freely agreed employment contract, of course), regardless of whether or not the reasons are sensible or utterly capricious.
So when a tax funded body like the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service says…
Members of the British National Party should not apply for jobs in the fire service as there is no place for racists or bigots, a chief fire officer said in a report released today. Martin Chapman, Dorset Fire and Rescue chief fire officer, said: “Membership of the BNP is not itself unlawful, but its core values are considered to be incompatible with those of the fire authority and the role of the fire and rescue service.”
… I do not automatically think this is a bad thing. I also do not much care for bigots and racists and personally I would not hire a member of the BNP either. But then I would also not hire a communist, a socialist, an islamist or all manner of other folks, simply on the basis that I find their beliefs monstrous and therefore have no wish to enrich them.
But I would like to get some clarification on a few points from the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, seeing as they are a public sector body… would they take a similar position for regarding someone who was a communist or who advocates other forms of violence enforced collectivism, or is only trying to impose national socialism beyond the pale? What about someone who supports radical Islamist organisations that what to impose Sharia? How about members of Sinn Fein, the political wing of an outfit that has murdered thousands of people? Also, are members of the neo-fascist BNP now going to be permitted to stop paying for the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, or is their money still welcome?
Just asking.
Just to remind everyone that today is a rather special Trafalgar Day.
Nicely done, Horatio.
This story seems to be making the rounds…
The US military said Wednesday it was investigating a report carried on an Australian television network that claimed American soldiers in Afghanistan burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters and then used the action to taunt other Islamic militants
…and my response is why oh why is this news? Just to state the obvious, the Taliban bodies in question were dead prior to being burned, so who cares?
I guess is that if they had not burned those bodies, the same people making a big deal of this would be penning articles with the title:
US forces start epidemic in Afghanistan!
As for this being an ‘affront to Islam’, if the object was to ‘smoke out’ the enemy by enraging them, again… so what? The job of US forces is to KILL members of the Taliban and I fail to see why it is unacceptable to outrage their sensibilities and perhaps even hurt their feeling prior to punching them full of 5.56mm holes.
It never takes more than a week or two to have my dislike for the political class resoundingly reinforced yet again.
In particular, those who wish to see a Tory government rescue our civil liberties from the predations of New Labour would do well to read this and this and then ask themselves why they think voting for these people is going to make the slightest bit of difference when push comes to shove.
Not content to rest on their laurels after defending the British people from the menace of pedestrians, our political masters have ensured that this “Freedom of Information” nonsense will not be allowed to stand in the way of confronting that most implacable threat to our way of life… this will put the cat amongst the pigeons! (sorry)
Sorry about the title, a tad misleading…
There was an interesting article on the Adam Smith Institute blog yesterday highlighting the results of a YouGov poll which was examining people’s attitudes to wealth, wealth creators and business generally. Whilst I tend not to put too much stock in polls, this does makes quite encouraging reading.
Prepare yourself for a mega-dose of bitter irony. Please take a look at this link to a splendid 100% Che-free site, kindly sent to me by Toni.
Tony Blair now does not even feel the need to hide the fact he intends to introduce summary ‘justice’ in Britain without the inconvenience of a trial or other for of due process.
He cited the example of a police constable who saw someone throw a brick through a window or abuse an old lady. “If you have got to take that person all the way through a long court process, you are not going to do it,” he said. Mr Blair said he had introduced fixed penalty notices to try to get round the problem. Offenders who disputed such a notice issued by the police could fight the case in court. “Summary justice is tough, it is hard, but in my judgment it is the only way to do it,” he said.
So in other words, rather than just arresting the person and then determining the facts in a trial, we are just supposed to trust that the police will always act in good faith and impose summary justice only against the truly guilty and with only the best judgement. Calling Judge Dredd, please report to Scotland Yard to collect your warrent card. Courts? Bah! Who needs ’em?
So I have been an alarmist all these years, eh?
My contempt for the Nobel Prize for anything grew dramatically today when I read that Harold Pinter won the award for literature. The fact he is an apologist for Europe’s most prolific mass murdering socialist since Joseph Stalin, namely Slobodan Milosovic, is apparently is not something which bothers the worthies in Sweden.
A contemptible prize for a contemptible man.
No prize for now guessing why not much blogging got done today…As Paul Marks got his review up first, I will content myself with just a few observations about Joss Whedon’s magnificent Serenity.
It is what the last three Star Wars movies were trying to be but failed. Serenity has an engaging story, good direction and brilliant writing (it is a tour de force of quips and memorable one liners) and as Paul points out, it is extremely sound politically.
It is also very well cast, with Nathan Fillion truly marvellous as the charismatic Captain ‘Mal’, playing it every inch the Wild West hero (for this movie is nothing if not a Western which just happens to be set in outer-space). Also convincing is the bizarrely named Summer Glau, whose strange looks and lithe moves are well suited to the demented character she plays.
Highly recommended! Run, do not walk, to your nearest cinema. Do not wait for the DVD!
So is GWB really facing ‘rebellion‘ by conservatives over his choice of nominee to the Supreme Court? It has long puzzled me why he has been cut so much slack for so long given that his conservative credentials were never very strong to begin with. I guess just not being Bill Clinton was enough for the GOP’s supporters to stomach his significant expansion of Big Government and clear lack of any interest in trying to revive the squandered Reagan legacy.
But is this the straw that breaks the camels back or just a storm in a media teacup? Are there really enough people in the GOP willing to derail his latest nominee to the Supreme Court on ideological grounds and do they think there is any chance of them getting someone more to their liking from a Big Government statist like George Bush Jr.? Is this ‘outrage’ on the right going to make a difference? I will be curious see how this is really going to play out.
The uses of nano-technology will be many and revolutionise pretty much everything. Micro-circuits? How about nano-circuits!
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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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