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.
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I do sometimes wonder if the British press has much room for actual news at all. So much of the available space (both pixelated and dead-tree) appears to be taken up with the results of surveys, opinion polls and studies all of which emanate from very august-sounding bodies but which are usually, like as not, merely trojan horses for some vested interest or other.
That said, this latest ‘shock, horror report’ does have a certain resonance to it. Even if it turns out not be accurate it still sounds as if it should be or could be:
The middle classes are turning to crime in the belief they have been victimised research finds.
More than 60% of people surveyed in England and Wales admitted they had exaggerated an insurance claim, paid cash to avoid tax or kept money when given too much change.
But they would not consider themselves criminals, scientists told a science conference in Salford.
This appears to be causing something of a hubbub and I am not surprised, given that we like to think of ourselves as reliably law-abiding people. I cannot entirely discount the possibility that this is all the result of the same old method of stringing together a bunch of manipulated statistics into a pre-determined theory but it would not surprise me in the least if it turned out to have some basis in reality.
British civil behaviour was never an accident. It was the entirely predictable result of a lightly and reasonably governed country which allowed all those tacit, civic relationships to grow and bloom. But that was then and this is now and now we are monstrously over-governed and intolerably regulated. Hence, the reverse effect begins to set in.
The forgotten lesson is that obedience to the law is not and never has been a one-way street. It’s a deal under which the law gets respect provided it acts respectably. Too much top-down and you begin to crowd out all the spontaneous good that comes from ground-up.
We’re not talking about revolution here or anarchy on the streets. At least not yet. But we are fraying at the edges and that is a warning sign.
I did not post anything about the second anniversary yesterday but only because I logged on to find that Dale Amon had beaten me to it. I judged his sentiments to be so appropriate that they left me with nothing I could usefully add except the confirmation that Dale spoke for us all.
As has the Dissident Frogman who has applied his exceptional talents to a stirring presentation of his own. From France with love (for a change).
Puits fait, mon ami.
I will never again allow it to be said that reading the Guardian is a depressing experience. Not after reading the most eye-wateringly hilarious column in the entire history of British print journalism.
The alleged author (because there is a fair chance that he was invented for comic effect) is someone called ‘Subcomandante Marcos’. No, I kid you not. Go and check the link yourselves if you don’t believe me. Apparently he is the ‘is the leading voice of the Zapatista movement’ and not a character from a Woody Allen film at all.
Anyway, ‘El Subcomandante’ has a tub-thumping message for all us globalista gringos:
Brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world, who are gathered in Cancun in a mobilisation against neo-liberalism, greetings from the men, women, children and elderly of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
Hey, what about the transgendered?
It is an honour for us that, amid your meetings, agreements and mobilisations, you have found time and place to hear our words.
They must have told him this was going to be read out at a student sit-in.
The world movement against the globalisation of death and destruction is experiencing one of its brightest moments in Cancun today. Not far from where you are meeting, a handful of slaves to money are negotiating the ways and means of continuing the crime of globalisation.
Nuanced. Balanced. Sophisticated. Definitely food for thought.
The difference between them and all of us is not in the pockets of one or the other, although their pockets overflow with money while ours overflow with hope.
Mixed in with a dash of neurosis, a dollop of resentment and liberal sprinkling of schtoopidity.
No, the difference is not in the wallet, but in the heart. You and we have in our hearts a future to build. They only have the past which they want to repeat eternally. We have hope. They have death. We have liberty. They want to enslave us.
Dead slaves are no good to us. We want live ones.
That is what this is all about. It is war. A war against humanity. The globalisation of those who are above us is nothing more than a global machine that feeds on blood and defecates in dollars.
Stop laughing! I’ll have you know that the Guardian is a serious and highly-respected journal of record.
In the complex equation that turns death into money…
No, it’s very simple. You die and a gravedigger gets paid to bury you. What’s so complex about that?
…there is a group of humans who command a very low price in the global slaughterhouse.
Yes, Guardian journalists mostly.
We are the indigenous, the young, the women, the children, the elderly, the homosexuals, the migrants, all those who are different. That is to say, the immense majority of humanity.
But what about the rights of the monolithic minority? And you still haven’t included the transgendered. El Subcomandante is just a hate-speech spewing bigot.
This is a world war of the powerful who want to turn the planet into a private club that reserves the right to refuse admission. The exclusive luxury zone where they meet is a microcosm of their project for the planet, a complex of hotels, restaurants, and recreation zones protected by armies and police forces.
I’m booking myself a fortnight in Cancun right now. This isn’t a political statement, it’s a travel guide.
Brothers and sisters, there is dissent over the projects of globalisation all over the world. Those above, who globalise conformism, cynicism, stupidity, war, destruction and death. And those below who globalise rebellion, hope, creativity, intelligence, imagination, life, memory and the construction of a world that we can all fit in, a world with democracy, liberty and justice.
Question for El Subcomandante: if you have all the creativity, intelligence and imagination then how come ‘they’ are above and you are below? Comprendez?
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve been took, I’ve been had. This is actually a parody cooked up by some impish scribblers in the sub-editors department to catch the unwary and take some of their less regular readers for a ride. All I can say is, guys, well done. The trip was worth it.
What do you call a country which is run by the police for the benefit of the police? Is that a ‘police state’? Yes, I think that qualifies. Surely it does?
SENIOR police officers will call this week for the DNA of everyone in Britain to be put on a national database from the moment they are born.
They believe that this would be a vital weapon in the drive to curb crime and help to solve hundreds of murders.
[From the UK Times]
Some nerve those plods have got! Assuming that nothing has been lost in the media translation, I detect not even a hint of humility. After all, they are supposed to be public servants. And what next, I wonder? ‘Police demand increase in income tax to help fight crime’? ‘Police demand greater integration with the European Union to help fight crime? ‘Police demand greater regulation of world trade in order to fight crime’?
What disturbs me here is not so much the idea of a national DNA database. Okay, that does disturb me but HMG hasn’t got the money to fund such a grand scheme so it isn’t going to happen (yet). No, the ugliness is more immediate than that; it lies in the casual assumption by police chiefs that they can simply demand such a thing and expect their will to be done without even paying lip service to the principle of democracy that most people in this country set great store by. Who died and left them boss?
The crime-solving canard has worn so thin that it is almost beyond mockery. Solving crimes is something that the UK police are not much interested in doing anymore. Population control is now their job (‘Social Management’ in NuSpeak). And as they now regard themselves to be a uniformed wing of the ruling elite, I suppose we’re going to get much more of this kind of thing from them in future.
So now we are the servants and they are the masters. How did that happen?
Cross-posted from Samizdata.net
What do you call a country which is run by the police for the benefit of the police? Is that a ‘police state’? Yes, I think that qualifies. Surely it does?
SENIOR police officers will call this week for the DNA of everyone in Britain to be put on a national database from the moment they are born.
They believe that this would be a vital weapon in the drive to curb crime and help to solve hundreds of murders.
[From the UK Times]
Some nerve those plods have got! Assuming that nothing has been lost in the media translation, I detect not even a hint of humility. After all, they are supposed to be public servants. And what next, I wonder? ‘Police demand increase in income tax to help fight crime’? ‘Police demand greater integration with the European Union to help fight crime? ‘Police demand greater regulation of world trade in order to fight crime’?
What disturbs me here is not so much the idea of a national DNA database. Okay, that does disturb me but HMG hasn’t got the money to fund such a grand scheme so it isn’t going to happen (yet). No, the ugliness is more immediate than that; it lies in the casual assumption by police chiefs that they can simply demand such a thing and expect their will to be done without even paying lip service to the principle of democracy that most people in this country set great store by. Who died and left them boss?
The crime-solving canard has worn so thin that it is almost beyond mockery. Solving crimes is something that the UK police are not much interested in doing anymore. Population control is now their job (‘Social Management’ in NuSpeak). And as they now regard themselves to be a uniformed wing of the ruling elite, I suppose we’re going to get much more of this kind of thing from them in future.
So now we are the servants and they are the masters. How did that happen?
Every time there is even a semi-serious debate in this country about the provision of health care and reform of the NHS, the reactionaries cry ‘Do we want to be like America?’. It is the British equivalent of ‘Do you want Farmer Jones back?’.
Well, do want to be like America?
Patients who have major operations on the National Health Service are four times more likely to die than Americans undergoing such surgery, according to a new study.
The difference in mortality rates was blamed on long NHS waiting lists, a shortage of specialists and competition for intensive care beds.
One of these fine days, that plaintive, theatrical and bogus rhetorical bleat is going to result in a resounding ‘yes’.
In electoral terms, the British National Party are still miniscule but success in local elections is now regular to the point of being almost monotonous:
The far-right British National Party have picked up another council seat after a by-election in Essex.
His party has tried to moderate its policies and rhetoric in an effort to shake off its racist image and become more electable.
The by-election was triggered by the death of a Labour incumbent.
In common with everybody else, the BBC always refers to the BNP as ‘far-right’. Such nonsense. The BNP is not of the right, near or far. It is an old Labour-style socialist party with a bit of wog-bashing thrown in. They are, in the truest sense of the term, the Nationalist Left.
But quibbles aside, there can be little argument that their appeal is widening if not spectacularly then at least steadily.
I have heard it mentioned, more than once I must add, that Polly Toynbee lives in a little world all of her own. Not true, I say. This is a woman who knows only too well that ‘dark forces’ are gathering on yonder horizon and they are attacking not just politicians but (shudder!) the institution of government itself:
This approach is in danger of making the country nearly ungovernable: were Iain Duncan Smith to win power, his government would get barely more respite these days. Journalism of left and right converges in an anarchic zone of vitriol where elected politicians are always contemptible, their policies not just wrong but their motives all self-interest. Those on the left should take this very seriously indeed.
Taking it seriously is one thing. Doing something about it is quite another.
The right is individualist, anti-government, anti-tax, anti-collective provision.
Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?
Undermining the idea that government is a force for good is its ideological aim, alongside the mad militias of Idaho. But the left, which purports to believe in government, should be wary of joining the same all-governments-are-rubbish camp. This anarcho-individualism is a very British mindset – and it is not compatible with social democracy.
Idaho is in Britain???!!
Still, she is right about individualism being incompatible with social democracy. She also has some robust ideas on how governments (or left-of-centre governments I suppose) can fight back:
It is time to shed the third way triangulation that strangles clarity of message. Trust comes with a sense of purpose, direction and clear belief, unmuffled by trying to please the enemy. So when some newspapers continue to distort, cut them off and denounce them bravely. Making enemies also makes friends.
No, I don’t think that’s going to work. The trouble with social democracy is that it doesn’t light any brushfires in the mind. It’s boring. The narcolepsy-inducing details of Keynsian pump-priming will simply not lend themselves to set jawlines, steely-determination and blood-curdling battle cries. If your aim is to turn the whole world into Sweden, you’re going to have to find an altogether gentler horse to ride it around on.
Once more into the breech, Ms.Toynbee.
At last, the people of the world unite to take a stand against tyranny:
Casting aside petty differences and forging new allegiances, UN ambassadors said they would ignore New York’s smoking ban, imposed five months ago and extended to the UN this week.
Now that’s what I call multilateralism!
Given its provenance (and prominence) as a marxist tool, class analysis is something which both conservatives and classical liberals tend to ignore. To the extent that people whose politics fall within those groupings understand it at all, they respond to the mere mention of the term with an understandable degree of horror.
But that’s a shame because the examination of class interests can be a very useful means for analysing problems and even discovering possible solutions. I believe it can every bit as useful for individualists as it has been for collectivists.
In his latest Telegraph editorial, George Trefgarne, wields a bit of class analysis in formidable fashion:
I can’t help thinking we need an English Poujade, to speak up for the little person and take on our own Left-Bankers. You know the type. Self-satisfied and pleased with themselves, they are the new Establishment who have deposed the old, traditional elite.
It is they, rather than your stereotypical Tory squires, who thrive in such institutions as universities, the Church, Whitehall and the BBC. Only the Armed Forces seem to be holding out against them. They are hung-up about class, contemptuous of tradition and love petty gestures such as refusing to curtsy to the Queen or abolishing the Lord Chancellor because he wears tights.
If you question their beliefs, they will express disdain, mock you for being old-fashioned, suggest you are immoral or dim, and – their trump card – racist. But the truth is they are, for the most part, members of the government salariat, who live off taxpayers’ money.
It sounds as if Mr.Trefgarne may have read about the Enemy Class. If he hasn’t, he should. In any event he has made a worthy stab at identifying a potential counter-class:
But the real economic pain is being shouldered by the generation I like to call the Baby Busters – those in their twenties and thirties who are the children of the Baby Boomers born after the war.
Unlike some previous generations, Baby Busters find it easy to get a job. But they are an assetless group, groaning with debts. Baby Busters graduate from university with thousands of pounds of loans to pay off; they cannot afford to get on to the housing ladder as prices have soared to their highest ever level (when measured as a multiple of incomes); they are not saving for a pension because the stakeholder wheezes that the Government invented for them are a flop; and they are not earning enough to progress in life.
The ‘busters’ are groaning under the weight of supporting a monstrously overgrown state; the result of their parents endless demands for interventions and government largesse.
Everywhere, their opportunities are restricted by the growth of government, bureaucracy and rising taxation. Yet no political party seems to care about the Baby Busters. They are a rabble, waiting for a rouser.
We’re trying, Mr.Trefgarne, we’re trying.
Your intrepid correspondent (well, sort of) is filing this from Ramsgate on the Kent Coast where there appear to be some odd goings-on.
There is no way of telling whether or not any of this is connected in any way to yesterday’s security alert at Dover but, today, fully-armed, missile-laden RAF jets have been observed buzzing around the Kent Coast. I am advised that jet fighters are generally not armed if merely on exercise.
Also, this evening there have been widespread power blackouts in Dover and Deal although latest reports are that the power is now back on.
Coincidences? Connected? Sinister? Perfectly innocent? Who knows? Heading back to London shortly.
Well, at least the language is sort of getting there:
John Reid, the health secretary, has embarked on the biggest ever programme of ministerial visits to NHS hospitals to persuade staff to accept fundamental changes in working practices to improve the service to patients.
He has told colleagues that the public will not accept there has been genuine improvement in the NHS until patients are treated with the same promptness and respect that they get as consumers of other goods and services.
As ‘consumers of other goods and services’ they are the paying the piper and therefore calling the tune. Contrast the NHS where the paying customer is the government and the patients are units of production.
Health ministers think their biggest political challenge is to engineer this change in the working culture of NHS organisations. They want them to tailor services to suit the preferences of the individual instead of expecting patients to adjust to the convenience of the professionals.
Fat chance! Public services are not run for the benefit of the public they are run for the benefit of the public sector. If you want ‘services to suit the preferences of the individual’ you need a free market in healthcare.
So another doomed ‘initiative’ will shortly bite the dust but not before, I hope, Mr.Reid and his advisers reach the logical conclusions of their own ideas.
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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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