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It looks as if I am going to be a ‘talking head’ on UK satellite TV tonight. I have been asked to appear on the ‘Richard Littlejohn Show’ to discuss the case of a train driver who has been expelled from his Trade Union because of his membership of the British National Party. In other words, it’s ‘freedom of association’ stuff. The show will be broadcast live at 8.00pm UK time on the Sky News Channel. June 26th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I have heard of ‘co-operating with the police’ before but never with quite this degree of enthusiasm:
They actually have one of those?
And Mr.Sullivan went further:
But if all that is not enough to leave a queasy feeling in your innards, try this:
Perhaps they’re expecting to find something like this:
Or perhaps they are just keeping a beady eye open for those suspicious antique Staffordshire teapots. [My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame of the Libertarian Alliance for the link.] June 26th, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
A gaggle of envoys from the European Union were in Washington today where President Bush presented them with a list of his demands. They are as follows: 1. Stop trying to get in my way The envoys said that they had never been so insulted. Mr.Bush told them that they should come to Washington more often. June 26th, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Never mind San Francisco or Hampstead, Brussels is the true home of the radical student left. Still as committed as ever to the anti-ismism crusades of the 1980’s, they continue to dig away at the foundations of our ‘bourgeois values’. Seems they have just struck another seam:
If it wasn’t so offensive and inappropriate, I’d say that they’ve just discovered a motherlode. The real devil in this detail lies with the apparently reasonable proposition to ‘leave it to the Courts’ thereby providing a fig-leaf of objective justice. Actually, though, this is a charter and blessing for looney-left activists to drag any number of advertising agencies and media companies through any number of Courts on pretty much any pretext they damn well please (as these things are usually drafted in the widest and vaguest possible terms). However, in practice, this will only need to be done once or twice for the wicked capitalists to get the message and, in order to avoid the risk of a ruinous lawsuit, start censoring themselves. That is the ideal solution because why bother with all that messy and troublesome enforcement business when life is so much easier for the ruling elite if everyone just internalises their own repression. The European Union: if it didn’t exist, we would not have to invent it. June 25th, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Children are always a bit of a knotty problem for libertarians (yes, I am still using that word until a better one comes along). I have almost lost count of the number of arguments I have engaged in concerning their rights or absence thereof and I have still not reached any (or very many) satisfactory conclusions. So it is with the question of physical punishment. Every instinct I possess and every principle to which I subscribe tells me that hitting children (albeit a moderate smack to the posterior) is wrong. You can camouflage it in as many codes of discipline or doctrines of necessity as you wish but the bald fact remains that it is an assault. If assaulting somebody is wrong (and I should hope that most sane people will agree that it is) then surely it remains wrong notwithstanding that it is administered by someone who otherwise loves and cares for you and is intended to provide some sort of memorable object lesson. If I strike out at my wife, co-worker, best friend or next-door neighbour I run the risk of prosecution and a lawsuit. But not so if I strike my child. I find it extremely difficult to justify this distinction. In fact, if anything, a child should have an even stronger presumption of physical integrity because they are incapable of mounting anything like a plausible self-defence. So, while my mind is not closed on the issue, that is where I currently stand and that is what I currently think. But, however starkly I may oppose the physical punishment of children, I am even more stridently opposed to the idea of appointing the state as guardian:
Heavens to Betsy! We’re ‘out of step’. Quick, somebody crank up that metronome. Actually this is not a fresh hell. There is a dedicated coterie of toweringly self-righteous do-gooders who have been campaigning for years for a ban on all physical punishment to be enforced by the state and every couple of years or so they manage to force their agenda on to the front pages. I am implacably opposed to them. Quite aside from the fact that these people are so obnoxiously condescending, there is no way I want to hand an excuse to the ‘Social Working Classes’ to drive the thin end of what is sure to prove a very fat wedge in between children and their parents. It will provide further justification for them to go trampling all over people’s private lives and accelerate the process of family nationalisation and resulting social disintegration. A few red rumps are by far the lesser of those two evils. Fortunately, I can cast aside my customary pessimism because there appears to be no chance whatsoever of this law getting onto the Statute Books. At least not yet. I allowed myself a cheer of relief upon hearing a government minister on the radio news this morning give it the unequivocal thumbs-down. I don’t believe there has been any great examination of ethics involved; more likely their minds are concentrated by the fact that (for a change) the overwhelming majority of public opinion is against any state intervention in this area. I think HMG might be tempted if they knew they weren’t going to face such stiff public opposition. And I am with the British public on this one. Well, sort of. I do think that assaulting a child is wrong regardless of the intentions behind it but I am equally sure that legislation is a cure that will prove worse than the disease. Parents should raise their children, not the state and I hope sufficient numbers of parents share my sentiments. That is far from a perfect solution but maybe it is the least worst solution and, in any event, it is the best I can do. June 24th, 2003 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
While it is pointless to even pretend that they are not enjoying every single second of this, we should bear in mind that Messrs.Blunkett & Co at the Home Office did not dream up this ID card malarkey all by their iddle-widdle selves. Let us not forget who is really giving the orders:
By putting two and two together (generally a rewarding activity) we can see why HMG is so grimly determined to see us all electronically tattooed. They have no choice in the matter. Mind you, the EUnuchs might argue that neither do they:
Only ‘partly’, though and it is an argument I would be reluctant to buy. Given the top-down nature of continental societies, I find it very hard to believe that the EU would not have been busily constructing some grand cattle-branding scheme without any prompting from Washington. If, as we are constantly being assured, the Euros were truly determined to establish themselves as ‘the alternative superpower to America’, they would, presumably, tell Uncle Sam to get stuffed. Most instructive though, if rather disheartening, to actually watch the foundations of a global security state being hammered into place. The technology exists, you see. June 24th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Amid the recent revival of the spectre of large tax increases, a simply splendid post by David Farrer pointing out exactly why the political classes need them:
And not just the British welfare state either. For all the robust free market rhetoric that frightens the piss out of European lefties, the American welfare state is in just as parlous a condition:
According to Financial Sense Online (from whence the above quote is lifted) both Medicare and Social Security will be bankrupt by 2010 or 2011. This is really the big, global, dirty, open secret: the 20th century welfare state constructs are lurching, creaking and on the verge of collapse. Yet, in polite circles, this looming disaster cannot even be discussed, let alone addressed. Such is the taboo status of the welfare state that most Western politicians would rather be seen to publicly champion child molestation than any serious reform agenda. It is for this reason that the reactionaries are trying to float various methods for the state to plunder everything and anything they can in the desperate, febrile, frantic hope that they can put off the Day of Reckoning for just a few more precious years. June 23rd, 2003 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
I note with disappointment (but not surprise) that the ‘global warming’ hoax is still proving useful to cash-strapped governments everywhere:
To be known as the Federal Advanced Rural Tariff, it surely has to rank as among the most secure of long-term revenue raisers. Contrast this to the UK where draconian petroleum taxes are justified by HMG’s creepy ‘behaviour modification’ rubric. The argument goes that taxing people out of their cars and onto public transport is a good thing because it ‘saves the planet’ (stop laughing). Of course, if we ever did stop using our cars so much, the paladins in Whitehall would have a collective coniption fit. However, short of turning them all into cheeseburgers, there is no way to persuade cattle to stop passing wind, so a different bonus has to be invented:
Read: “Job creation scheme for the political classes”. Further proof that the Kyoto Protocol really was a lot of hot air. Still, there is a political upside to this. Next time some veggie enviro-mentalist hisses at you for tucking into a steak, you can always respond by telling them that you’re helping to reduce global warming. June 22nd, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I suppose one of the chief attractions of being in the apocolypse business is that nobody can ever prove you wrong. If the catastrophe you have predicted doesn’t happen this year, well, there’s always next year. Point in case being this starkly gloomy article in The Spectator from a certain Sanjay Anand:
Certainly this is not the first time that such melancholy warnings have been issued but the broad scope of these ones make me wonder if the ‘Western Intelligence Services’ are engaging in a bit of back-covering here. Not Mr.Anand though. He is very adamant:
That certainly fits Al-Qaeda’s modus. They do like popping up with an attack whenever and wherever they are least expected and, hence, prepared for. From a strategic point of view they do need to do something big and spectacular and reasonably soon. It should be borne in mind that Al-Qaeda’s attacks are not a message to the West, they are designed to boost the moral of the wider Muslim world (the ‘Umma’) by reassuring them that the ‘infidel’ is vulnerable and can be beaten. Following the pants-down rout of the Iraqi regime, Al-Qaeda are under pressure to respond in style, lest their legend being to fade and the support that they count on among the people they consider to be their constituents begin to trickle away. But, perhaps, they are no longer able to function at that level. Who can say what damage the work of Western security forces has done? Mr.Anand is rather dismissive but, then, he needs to be in order for his article to retain any punch. Clearly the editors of The Spectator felt it important enough to give it front-page prominence. Even pre-supposing I had a back garden (which I do not) I am not about to begin digging it up in order to construct a concrete bunker. But neither can I entirely dismiss Mr.Anand’s dire warnings with anything like the necessary degree of confidence. June 20th, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Who, precisely, is busting out all over? People who call themselves ‘socialist libertarians’ are busting out all over, that’s who. The latest addition to this roll-call of the ragged is a certain Mr.Paul Anderson who, I am advised, was previously a columnist for the left-wing newspaper ‘Tribune’. Mr.Anderson has started a blog. Good for him. His blog is called ‘Gauche’ which is fine insofar as his Francophonic pretensions are entirely a matter for him. My annoyance, however, is with the subtitle of his blog which reads:
May I humbly suggest a clearer alternative to that meaningless bit of cant? How about:
That is what he might as well be saying. In fact, that is what he is saying and, one supposes, with a straight face to boot. Mr.Anderson has clearly not yet been advised that he can either be a socialist OR he can be a libertarian but he cannot possibly be both. Nor can he plausibly pass himself off as representing some sort of squishy compromise position between the two. If Mr.Anderson wants to know exactly why, then I can do no better than to recommend this comprehensive exposition on the subject by Perry de Havilland. I have no intention of apologising for the tetchiness of my tone but, you see, this is something of a ‘hot button issue’ for people like me. We at Samizdata will be tarred, feathered, damned and consigned to purgatory before we sit back and allow the word ‘libertarian’ to be hijacked in the manner that the word ‘liberal’ was once hijacked and then handed over, gift-wrapped, to people who have since proved themselves to be anything and everything but liberal. → Continue reading: They’re busting out all over! June 18th, 2003 | 67 comments - (Comments are closed)
Well, I must say I am shocked, SHOCKED to discover that the gazillions of pounds of taxpayers money that has been thrown at the state health and education sectors have not made a blind bit of difference. Who says? Why, none other than our Glorious Leader, Tony Blair:
‘Higher taxes’! Of course, that’s the answer! Damn, why didn’t he think of that sooner? Er, except he did think of it sooner. He thought of it back in 1997 and we have been paying increasingly higher taxes ever since. Oh never mind, just hike them up again, that’s bound to work. Keep digging, Tony. June 18th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Are you gainfully employed? If so, does your wicked employer make all manner of unreasonable demands upon you, such as actually turning up for work or doing the job you’re being paid to do? Up until now, there was no means of redress for such manifest injustice and rank exploitation. But, lo, the dark ages are at an end. Thanks to the Health & Safety Executive, all employers must now comply with a ‘Stress Code’:
Now I don’t profess to any expert medical knowledge or even any medical knowledge at all but even I know that a broken foot is a broken foot and pretty easy to detect. But how on earth is something as subjective as ‘stress’ going to be either properly identified or measured? Well, the bright sparks at the H&S have come up with a forumla:
If that isn’t a charter for malingerers, clock-watchers, perennial malcontents and compensation-sniffers then I don’t know what is. And, short of being paid to go the park every day and feed the ducks, what job doesn’t involve some level of stress at some point or other?
And I wonder how many of those are actually ‘I’ve-got-tickets-to-the-football-match’ kind of ‘stress’? It would be tempting to suggest that there is some insidious political agenda behind this but I honestly don’t believe that much thought has gone into it. More likely it is another classic case of bureaucratic empire-building which, as in this case, is usually done on the back of quackery, junk science and manipulated statistics. The result is the same regardless. British entrepreneurs, already snowed under with laws, regulations, diktats and directives, have yet another welfarist function to fulfil and, I daresay, yet another sheaf of related forms that they will be required to waste their time completing. I have a dream about just how much more prosperous and innovative our society could be if its wealth-creators were not required to spend so much of their productive time jumping through government hoops and avoiding state-created bear-traps that have no right to exist. It is rather similar to the dream that, one day, somebody in the parasitical public sector will realise that there is only so much blood they can draw out of the private sector before the latter simply rolls over and dies. I am not at all confident that either dream will be realised any time soon. June 18th, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
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