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I was perusing Bill St. Clair’s most worthy End the War on Freedom blog and was so inspired that for no reason in particular I felt like posting this pictures of myself doing what comes naturally.  Note the AK-74 style muzzle brake… makes the weapon very controllable even on rock and roll but everyone sure as hell gets to see where you are firing from! Photograph was taken by excessively tall good buddy and would-be evil world ruler Willi Zahn. January 28th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 …very different things to different people. Let us consult the Oxford English Dictionary:
Of course this also rather depends on what you mean by ‘country’
And therein lies one of the problems with Patriotism. When some one says ‘I am a patriot’, what the hell does that actually mean? Let’s take me, for example. My mother was American and I have lived about one quarter of my life in the USA. My father was British and I have lived a little under half my life here. For purely accidental reasons, I was actually born in the Netherlands. I feel both/neither British and/or American. So much for the complicated heredity and biology. Now for some ideology: I personally reject as illegitimate any function of the state which is not related to the defence of the individual liberty of people within their area of control, within a broad reasonable definition of those terms. I see the State as, at best, a provider of a service (security) in much the same way as I see the Pepsi-Cola Beverage Company as a provider of cans of fizzy brown liquid. I do not accept the very notion of ‘citizenship’ as I regard that as tantamount to denying me free association with non-citizens and implies the State somehow owns me in some way. So can I be ‘patriotic’? To the State? Absolutely not. Try to make me pledge allegiance to Old Glory or the Union Jack or the Tricolour with the intention of extracting an admission of loyalty to the state and I will set it on fire instead. And if it is on a tee shirt saying “Try to burn these colors asshole”, the wearer might just get their wish. Try to conscript me and the state will discover that I am not a pacifist and have no problem with using force against someone who tries to impose servitude upon me: starting with the guy who tries to serve call up papers on me. And yet… I live in London at the moment but I have ‘Old Glory’ displayed in my front window for all to see. Try walking down Upper Cheyne Row in Chelsea and you will see which is my house. It has been there since September 12th 2001. I do indeed feel an affinity for what James Bennett aptly calls The Anglosphere. I regard myself as a member of a cosmopolitan, English speaking global community, a civil society far greater than any mere nation state. For all its flaws, that extended society is the best hope for freedom and liberty the world has ever known and that is something worth defending. Unlike British society, which has a myriad cultural and regional symbols redolent with meaning, only Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the Star Spangled Banner, truly represents not just the American state but also American society, warts and all. Truth is I much prefer the Gadsden flag (see side bar of this blog) but most people would not know what it means. And so that is why the Stars and Stripes is stuck in my window for all to see. It was not just the people of New York who were wounded, it was all of us and that is a point I think well worth making publicly. So is that ‘patriotism’? Opinions vary. January 27th, 2002 | Comments are closed
There is a funny post on the NRO Blog ‘Corner’ by Rod Dreher relating to Lord of the Rings. The final remark is hilarious… but they do kind of have a point! January 27th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Double bugger! If Ken Layne is to be believed (and of course he should), it sounds like we missed one hell of a party in Los Angeles, hosted by our pet pinko and true gentleman, Brian Linse. Perhaps we need to organize a London (and environs) Blogger Bash along similar lines. Sounds like a damn fine idea to me! January 27th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It appears that US soldiers being sent to the Philippines to fight against Islamic Abu Sayyaf guerillas are welcome to clean up that nation’s mess and possibly get killed doing so, but only if they are kept away from local ‘sex workers’ (remember when they were called prostitutes?). As the commanding officer of the US troops must look after his men’s morale, he should march up to Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, hand her a packet of condoms and a Koran, followed by the single word: “Choose”. Like so many nation states, it appears the Philippines thinks it actually owns the bodies of its subject-citizens and who they may freely associate with. January 27th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It is not just about huge multinational mergers or collapsing energy conglomerates… it is also about small entrepreneurs struggling to make a deal here and develop a property there. Tonight I am delighted to be able to take my good friend Nikki Brandt out to dinner in order to welcome her back to London after an extended stint in Jamaica. She has been trying to breathe some life into a holiday resort development out there in these difficult post-September 11th times. Londoner Nikki is a partner in a small and rather lovely hotel in Negril, on the western tip of Jamacia. 
Clear proof that entrepreneurial activity leads to great legs January 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
From each as they chose, to each as they are chosen. As one of the most influential libertarian thinkers of the 20th century, Robert Nozick certainly deserves a tip of the hat from Libertarian Samizdata. His book Anarchy, State and Utopia is an excellent debunking of coercive statism generally and John Rawls’ book Theory of Justice in particular. Although I must confess I have never been a fan of Nozick’s essentially intuitive approach to rights theory, it would nevertheless be churlish not to recognize his enormous influence in stemming the intellectual tide of statism. He had a key role in widely propagating libertarian memes and adding hugely to the developing libertarian meta-context. Robert Nozick, philosopher, born November 16 1938; died January 23 2002 January 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Our ISP e-mail problems have been sorted out and we are receiving all e-mails properly once more. Anyone one who did not receive a reply to an e-mail sent to us in the last 24 hours or so might want to send their e-mail again as it does seem that the dircon server ate a few incoming mails. Yummy. January 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
As Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit points out, it is nice to see National Review On-line deciding to copy Samizdata’s format of multi-contributor blogging. I am sure we were foremost in their minds the whole time Update: Cal Ulmann over on Where HipHop and Libertarianism meet has a rather entertaining take on NRO Corner<. Cal wrote: The Corner on National Review Online is National Review’s attempt at a blog. They don’t want to call it a blog though. I guess that would mean their opinions are no better than anybody elses opinions. January 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Samizdata seems to be having e-mail problems (or rather the ISP through whom the e-mail routes is having problems), so we may not be getting all incoming mail at the moment (as of 23:15 GMT). It is unclear how long this problem has been going on. I shall report when we are back in touch with the blogosphere. January 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Let me state that I do not expect a paleo-conservative like Pat Buchannan to actually agree with libertarian views, but what I do expect is that, if he is going to comment on them, that he actually takes the time to figure out what libertarian views actually are before opening his noise making apparatus. I have had numerous e-mail on his ludicrous article called Does libertarianism lead to statism?. Over on Dodgeblog, there is also a rubbishing of Buchannan that speculates what his real motivation for the remarks might be. The section of Buchannan’s article that best sums up his complete lack of comprehension regarding what libertarians actually do stand for is:
Libertarians to Buchannan: Read this carefully The state has NO legitimate role in health care, food stamps, rent supplements and ‘general welfare’… Libertarians do not support the very existence of the theft based welfare state! Eliminate that and the only people who will be willing to emigrate to another country under those conditions are self selecting high initiative folks who want to avail themselves of employment and entrepreneurial opportunities…i.e. exactly the sort of people who came through Ellis Island and made the USA the wealthiest nation on earth. I fail to see a problem with that! So in essence Pat Buchannan’s thesis of genius is that “libertarianism leads to statism because non-libertarians have imposed welfare policies that libertarians regard as both immoral and economically unsound”. D’oh! Thanks to Virginia, Andrew, Hank, Ann, Anne, Ivan, Jorge, Margarthe, Will and Dieter for also baring their fangs via e-mail regarding the utterly clueless Buchannan article. I have never received so many e-mails that made almost exactly the same points on the same issue! January 24th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Which is nothing to do with herpes, I assure you. January 24th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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