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 that Will Wilkinson is back from his Teutonic debauching, The Fly Bottle is overflowing with typically excellent offerings.
Goldberg pretends to loathe grab-bag culture, but he and his ilk do it just the same when they pick Christianity over Celtic paganism and individual rights over collectivist subjugation. However, conservatives attempt to camouflage that their preferences are just preferences by constructing a highly selective narrative about “Western Civilization” that gives their preferences the illusion of intrinsic worth as necessary keystones of their fictitious cultural edifice. I’m not being postmodern here. I’m being descriptive.
Of the essentials of Western Civilization, Goldberg writes:
… some of the ingredients for Western civilization I have in mind are such categories as Christianity and religion in general, sexual norms, individualism, patriotism, the Canon, community standards of conduct, democracy, the rule of law, fairness, modesty, self-denial, and the patriarchy.
Why not Stoic mysticism, collectivism, military nationalism, absolute monarchy, slavery and the Napoleonic Code? Why don’t these go in Jonah’s grab bag?
Top notch stuff.
A great film and nice biscuits but…
Ginger Stampley spectacularly misunderstands not so much our views on the dynamics of insurrection, but the entire nature of the conversation that was taking place. Whilst I also think she gravely under estimates the polarisation going on in American society, I do not think that is really the issue. She says our views are based on dystopian fantasy. Well, yes… that is the whole point. Neither Walter nor I think the United States is ripe for armed groups to rise up against state tyranny… things would have to get far worse than they are for that to even be within the realm of possibilities as things stand.
I actually look to civil society in the United States, for all its many and variegated flaws, as the Anglosphere’s beacon of hope and regard it as almost certain to overcome the contrary tides of repressive statist stasis (well, almost certain). For there to be an armed insurgency in the US beyond that of fringe groups like the KKK, I would have to be quite wrong in my essentially optimistic long term view of US society. Yet if it turns out I am, and that Waco was just the first and most spectacular of many, then the dystopian fantasy would indeed be turning into dystopian fact, and the required ‘popular support’ for armed resistance Ginger talks about would indeed start to develop.
The reason I am so keen to prevent the attempted disarming of American society is that this is a wonderful litmus test of civil society’s health… and hence why I am increasingly pessimistic about already disarmed British civil society, which grows more like Stanley Kubrick’s vision of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ year by year as our common law rights are rachetted away by Brussels with the assistance of people like Tony Blair and Jack Straw and David Blunkett and Michael Hesaltine and Christopher Patten, all profoundly hostile to the essential underpinnings of non-state centred British civil society.
Thanks to Gary Larreategui for a small correction
Advocates of the imposition of irreversible transnational socialism (Trazi?) for Britain via the European Union, have long implausibly argued that it was a purely ‘economic matter’ rather than a political/constitutional issue. For the few credulous enough to actually believe that, the remarks of UK Treasury official Gus O’Donnell must have come as a bit of a shock.
Gus O’Donnell, the Treasury official charged with overseeing assessment of the tests, was cited in several newspapers on Friday as having said it would be impossible to reach a “clear and unambiguous” verdict on the tests. “Ultimately, it will be a political decision,” The Times quoted O’Donnell as telling a student seminar. But a Treasury spokesman said O’Donnell’s comments, taken from a careers presentation to a group of undergraduates in late November, had been “totally misrepresented”. “Mr O’Donnell has no recollection of saying ‘ultimately it will be a political decision’,” the Treasury spokesman said.
Ah, that explains it then.
via Reuters
In response to an e-mail from a reader that asked me “Why do you distrust the state so much? How else do you expect order to be maintained and property protected?”… I present the following gem from the Daily Telegraph:
A LANDOWNER was arrested by police he had summoned to help him after more than 60 “ravers” had broken open a padlocked gate and started a party in one of his barns.
[…]
“It was like being a farmer in Zimbabwe,” Mr Benton told Radio 4’s Today programme. “The police stood outside the gate while inside people were smashing up my property and they were doing nothing about it.”
Does that answer your question?
Over on the The Catallaxy Files, top notch bloggah from down undah Jason Soon has an outstanding post about immigration.
However on the Blogical Suspects, that doctor of intestinal blogages, Will Quick suspects we Samizdatistas may have over indulged during the New Year’s festivities and developed blogorrhea due to our high volume of postings. I guess we need to cut back on the philosophical roughage, but at least we are letting it out unlike a certain un-named blog, which is clearly very full of it.
Just joking Charles, and hey Brian, we think you are rather nice really (“some of my best friends are liberals, honest”) and feel free to send us more of those pictures. hehehehe.
Rand Simberg is in lethal form reporting the death of Buddy, the Clinton’s dog, over on Transterrestrial
Best of the Web helpfully points out the other occasions when the Clintons were “deeply saddened.” I suspect that a couple of those 2200+ occasions were the deaths of Vince Foster and Ron Brown. I wonder if Buddy was about to write a tell-all book?
Nasty!
Take a peek at On the Third Hand and you will see Kathy Kinsley urging the adoption of a weapon that when wielded resolutely against an ‘Islamic’ would-be hijacker, makes even the mightiest of handguns pale into insignificance… after all, a suicidal hijacker is hardly going to be afraid of being shot dead… but the prospect of getting their brains bashed out with one of these babies is likely to reduce them to paroxysms of idiot terror! Does the deviousness and innovation of the post-enlightenment mind know no bounds?
Stock up on them now before Charles Schumer starts demanding they be regulated and all purchasers licenced, thereby expanding the remit of the BATF yet further (renaming it the BATFS). It might be a good idea to bury a few in your deep freeze under the frozen peas where Federal snoops will not find them.
Charles Dodgson at Through the Looking Glass takes us to task regarding our views on the interblog gunwars. Whilst some of his points just boil down to a matter of opinion, he also spectacularly misunderstands a few things. In this discussion we are dealing not so much with the rights or wrongs of guns but whether there is actually any point in owning arms as a hedge against tyranny.
Take, for example, Waco and Ruby Ridge. Both of them show American law enforcement at its absolute bloody worst, actually killing civilians; I would have liked to see some of the officers involved in these fiascoes go up on manslaughter charges at least. The victims in these cases had significant arsenals which proved, in the end, to do them no good at all. The reverse, if anything, at Waco at least; the Feds were at least nominally there to arrest the folks they wound up killing on weapons charges — if not for the guns, the Feds would never have showed up in the first place.
That is a strange way of looking at it, blaming the victims for, well, being the victims. It is rather like saying if people didn’t have valuable stuff worth stealing, they would not have to worry about being robbed. Certainly the US security apparatus is more than capable of picking off groups like the Branch Davidians or Randy Weaver if it is thus inclined, no argument there. Of course I would argue that looking at those incidents is rather incomplete unless you look at all the consequences, namely Oklahoma. One does not have to agree with or admire Tim McVeigh to see that the action he took in response to those events does seem to have raised awareness amongst the jackboot tendency in all governments that there can be costs to the application of tyranny beyond immediate calculation. If a few more Waco’s were to happen, I have no doubt more Oklahoma’s would have followed. Guns themselves are just part of the equation. It is just a matter of whether a critical mass of a society is involved or just a disliked fringe like the Branch Davidians.
Of course, I’m not arguing here that the answer to homicidal loons in the ATF is unilateral civilian disarmament.
Actually I suspect he is probably arguing for incremental civilian disarmament, but we’ll let that slide for now.
There are plenty of good reasons for responsible civilians to have access to firearms — self-defense, hunting for food, just plain sport. What I’m arguing against is the Samizdata crowd’s faith in gun ownership as a way for people to defend their other civil rights. When used for that purpose, the damn things just don’t seem to work.
It seems to have worked in Northern Ireland, regardless of whether or not you think Sinn Fein’s objectives are admirable or not. No superpower assistance required.
What makes the Samizdata claims here even harder to swallow is that they’re talking about loosely organized civilian irregulars repelling not just squads of rogue cops, but the combined United States military forces — the most fearsome military machine that has ever existed on the planet — on its own home ground. That may have made sense 200 years ago, when it’s how we kicked out the British. (Oh wait, it’s not. Never mind). But that was then; this is now.
Now here is where Charles really blows it. He seems to be describing a scenario in which a tyrannous US state is able to turn the US military, not just the thugs of BATF or the FBI, against a section of their own people without question. And just whose ‘home ground’ is Charles describing? The home ground of the families of those self same people in the US military. It is one thing killing Afghans from 20,000 feet up. It is rather different telling folks in the US military to fire on people in Kansas or Florida.
Forget the guns. Where are these guys getting the bullets? Sustained combat operations of any kind chew up ammo at a ferocious pace, and current American combat doctrine seems to begin with the interdiction of supply lines, disruption of communication channels, and destruction of stores. Camouflage can delay this a bit, but the activity around these sites is more than likely to give them away eventually. Any industrial-scale production is likely to glow like a beacon on IR. And it’s difficult to deny the United States Air Force air superiority over East Texas.
Here Charles has a very strange view of the nature of insurgency. The US had air superiority over South Vietnam too and it was that sort of thinking which lost that war. The US military has lots of lovely ammo and in such a scenario, that is where much of the insurgent’s supplies would come from… this is ‘Insurgency 101’ stuff to be honest.
And from there, the comparisons get even sillier. Take Algeria, where Islamic fundamentalists are trying to mount a rebellion against a secular government.
Actually I was referring to the Algerian war of independence against France, not the current fun and games. And interestingly many French make the same claims that ‘France won the war but just lost the will to fight’. Funny that.
Which leaves Northern Ireland. I’m not sure which collection of homicidal maniacs Perry has cast as the freedom fighters here, or what he thinks they’ve achieved, but I don’t think the upshot there was fully protective of anybody’s civil rights.
And here Charles entirely misses the point as well has having a rather poorly informed view of the realities on the ground. The political policies of the IRA are not the issue in this discussion, their methods are. The fact is, Northern Ireland is the best analogy of all. The British have been unable to force its rule on a significant armed section of society and if circumstances ever drove a significant section of US society to do the same, all the fancy toys in the hands of the US military would count for as much as they do for British Army in Northern Ireland. As for what armed violence has achieved, would you argue that the civil rights of Catholics in Northern Ireland are not better now than they were in 1968? Of course they are. And why do you think that is? Reasoned political discourse backed up by women singing kumbayah? I don’t think so. If enough people support it, even if it is only a minority within a minority, as is the case in Ulster, violent insurgency does indeed work.
I am not arguing that is what the US should be headed for, of course not, but the fact is that arms in civilian hands are far more effective against one’s own state than a foreign one and all manner of fancy tanks, ICVs, artillery, aircraft etc., do not make a damn bit of difference in those sort of situations. The RAF has air superiority over Ulster too.
Now that the Euro is a fait accompli, the long slow glide begins, perpetually pointed just below the distant horizon. The interest rates prevailing across a very significant area of the industrialised world will now be set to suit the business cycles of France and Germany. Many predict that once the economies of Europe are integrated like that of the United States, that will cease to be a matter of concern. And of course they are correct, once the fringe economies are flattened.
As the structure of Europe’s diversified economies are slowly legislated into highest common denominator standards of ‘social fairness’ in order to protect the interests of French and German trade unions, uncompetitive businesses and their social democratic backers, a gradual leaching process will set in. Economic cycles will continue as ever, but each down turn will squeeze the non-core economies just that little bit more each time, favouring the parts of the economies whose main role is to service highly regulated French and German dominated sectors, rather than independent global export or entirely domestic sectors.
When economic dunce Ross Perot predicted a ‘giant sucking sound’ of jobs heading south of the border into Mexico, he did not seem to realise that all manner of spontaneous market mechanisms were also inexorably moving to adjust, rather than destabilise, the economies of the United States and Mexico. Mexican interest rates and currency fluctuations, and not just lower labour costs, were also of huge importance. Although trade was greatly liberalised, there was never any attempt to impose the US dollar on Mexico (or Canada), or make the writ of Alan Greenspan extend over the whole of NAFTA.
All that is different in Europe because whereas NAFTA has purely economic objectives, the Euro has mostly political ones. Sophisticated and relatively efficient European core economies will no longer have to deal with defensive depreciation of Spanish, Italian, Greek or Irish etc. currencies and will simply wipe out pools of local capital that might have buoyed up less effective local producers. This in and of itself is not automatically a bad thing, provided the local capital markets can adjust… which of course they will not be able to do. The mid to late 1990’s surge in the US economy was a disaster for Argentina, whose currency was pegged to the greenback, because unlike the US, it was not experiencing an economic surge. No mechanism was readily and incrementally available to off-set the asymmetries by allowing the currency to naturally devalue. With the Euro, which is in effect an ersatz Deutschmark/Franc hybrid, this same toxic effect will happen to Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Portugal etc. with one big difference… it will probably happen to many of them at once when the cycle begins, as it surely will.
Even the obvious aspiration to challenge the US dollar as a global reserve currency is doomed. The welfare states of Europe simply cannot compete on equal terms with the less regulated US economy, either in terms on underpinning asset returns or total global liquidity. For all its faults, such as the current lunatic credit binge, the dollar will remain the international reserve currency for the foreseeable future.
Although I have not been bullish on gold for a very long time, any European portfolio might do well to tuck a little yellow ‘mad money’ away and just forget about it for 10 years as a hedge against economic apocalypse, particularly as dollar interest rates are so unattractive right now. Anyone who is actually confident about the future of not just the Euro but the Euro zone, well I have this bridge in Australia I would like to sell you.
The Samizdata legion of wild-eyed but erudite libertarians continues to grow apace. Our lastest regular contributor is Tom Burroughes, who has been known to moonlight as a journalist at Reuters for his measly paycheck when not more productively spending his time with Libertarian Samizdata. Expect to see him poking a pointy stick in the eye of irrational socialists of both left and right on a regular basis.
Also expect a steady flow of guest articles from people such as author of Statism Sucks! Ver 2.0, the redoubtable Andrew Ian Dodge and many other such folk in the New Year.
New Years greetings from Britain, Europe and North America to readers and fellow bloggers down-under. Special greetings to the redoubtable Aussie firefighters who, judging by the reports in the British media, are still in the midst of their finest hour. Godspeed gentlemen.
Over on Inappropriate Responces, the every readable Moira Breen analyses…no, dissects…hmm, no… I’ve got it…Moira Breen mercilessly crucifies Roger Owen, who is the director of the Arab Contemporary Studies Program at Harvard University, in her article “B.S” SCREAMING FROM EVERY PIXEL.
The bulk of the article (paragraphs 6-11) is essentially an exercise in issue-avoiding gobbledegook – you can see man burrowing through a steamin’ heap o’ stats, trying to find a pellet for face-saving spin. Owen argues not only that the only meaningful comparisons are local (previously undefinable MENA country to MENA country), but that an economy must be measured outside the vagaries of the global market: that the only proper benchmark is some mythical economic “normal” point, unaffected by oil prices, multinational hiring, emerging markets, and, bizarrely, better or worse economic management. As far as I can tell, his idea is to factor out just about everything that could be used for objective measurement and practical application.
Splendid stuff. If you are into blood sports the way I am, you will enjoy the whole article. Highly recommended
Just a brief exchange of munitions this time as I am up to my eyeballs in editing something for Natalija (which she keeps changing every 15 minutes).
Esteemed ace meta-blogger Tony Adragna from Quasipundit replied to my remarks below thusly:
Of course, rational libertarians don’t advocate “chaos or pious hopes”, but that is precisely where “spontaneous ways of deriving order in which guns tend to feature rather prominently” lead us sans some form of regulation. Even in Switzerland – every gun rights advocate’s favourite model of an armed citizenry – GUNS ARE REGULATED.
Quite so. But I have never been against the regulation of the actions of armed people (as in ‘a well regulated militia’) because I do not want to see my neighbour’s teenage son riding down genteel Cheyne Row on his mountain bike firing off a Kalashnikov in a fit of youthful exuberance. What I oppose is anything that would inexorably lead to prohibitions on ownership. I have no problem with seeing unreasonable endangering behaviour with weapons punished severely, just as my support of free speech does not extend to support for fraudulence and criminal liable… I have no desire to see voices licensed, just their misuse punished.
The key difference between Switzerland and the USA, is that the Swiss state does not pose a serious risk to the right of its citizens to be armed with military weapons… I am not completely uncritical of the structure of the Swiss state either but there is no Swiss version of a powerful figure like Senator Charles Schumer or his myriad of political and media supporters. The same cannot be said of the USA circa 2001 AD.
Perry takes me to task over my contention that we have at least de jure if not de facto protection from an overreaching state. Again, I admit that it’s a difficult argument for me to make, but then the real world is a difficult place to live – absent de facto protection from anything, I’m happy to at least have the de jure protection of my Bill of Rights.
As it clear from your own remarks that you are aware of your precarious position over exceedingly thin ice, I shall resist the urge to heave a stick of dynamite out onto the lake. Let me put it this way, you have just convincingly made my case for me: I support private ownership of arms because I do not actually think the state can ever be a reliable guarantor of my intrinsic rights. By agreeing that de facto protection from the state by the state does not in reality exist, you are actually saying the same thing I am, which is why I contend the state cannot be trusted to control to whom weapons are doled out.
Then you say you are happy with the de jure protection provided by the Bill of Rights, which in the previous sentence you admit means, de facto, not much. Tony, should you ever find yourself in a war zone, I strongly recommend against straw flak jackets that look good when worn and promise you invulnerability to the flying metal fragments of reality. I recommend the kevlar of objectively derived rights defended by a well armed culture of liberty. Accept no paper substitutes.
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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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