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]
« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »

G’day

· Aus/NZ affairs

Somebody (they have chosen to remain nameless) has posted a comment to one of the posts below requesting a ‘plug’ for their Australian libertarian website.

Our anonymous commenter describes it as a “meagre attempt to create a Samizdata down under” which I think is an undersell. It looks like a fair dinkum site to me.

Anyway, surf on over and crack open a few tinnies with those intrepid (but modest) Antipodean freedom fighters.

March 14th, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)

Murder is always a crime

· Abortion

I have always taken what I regard to be a classically liberal and ruggedly secular approach to the issue of abortion, a matter which I feel is best dealt with by reference to degree rather than dogma.

It is for these reasons that I have (and still do) lean towards the view that abortion is a matter for the individual conscience rather than the dictates of the state. This does not mean that I think aborting a foetus is a good thing. It simply reflects my belief that a blanket prohibition would be a cure that proves to be worse than the disease.

However, there is abortion and then there is ‘partial-birth abortion’, a process that is conducted between the 20th and 26th week of gestation when the infant is dragged from the womb feet-first before being killed by a blow to the skull. For the life of me I cannot see how this barbaric process can be distinguished from murder most foul.

So I have no hesitation in endorsing British conservative Peter Cuthbertson in his welcome of this decision of the US Senate:

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 received a 64-33 vote. It now heads to the Republican-led House, which passed the ban last year before it was stopped in the then-controlled Democratic Senate.

Peter has uploaded some photographic evidence of the horrific aftermath of a partial-birth abortion. He should make no apologies for doing so. That the truth is ugly and unpalatable is all the more reason for confronting it and it is not anti-liberty to protect a small human being from this brutal and undeserved fate.

March 14th, 2003 | 45 comments - (Comments are closed)

And at the going down of the sun

· European Union · UK affairs

At this very moment, a coterie of bureaucrats and politicians are holding an intense round of meetings and negotiations on a matter of great international significance.

In actuality, what they are doing is plotting the destruction of a nation. Several nations, in fact. But the only one that matters to me is the one of which I am citizen: Britain.

No cruise missiles are involved. No smart bombs, no fighter jets, no artillery and not a single soldier will be deployed on the ground. Instead, the Weapon of Mass Destruction to be employed is called the EU Constitution.

Imagine, if you can, a constitutional document that has been drafted by the editorial team of the Guardian. Well, now you have some idea of what it contains. It is currently in the draft stage under the stewardship of former French President (and those words alone should be enough to raise the hackles on your neck) Valery Giscard D’Estaing. Once completed, it is the instrument by which Europe will be governed.

For a more detailed analysis of exactly what these people regard as the essential missions of European governance, I recommend this essay for the Cato Institute written by Patrick Basham and Marian L. Tupy (who also blogs splendidly from his University at St.Andrews):

“Conversely, the EU constitution is filled with “positive” rights for Europeans that can only be guaranteed by limiting the freedoms of other Europeans. As Hans Werner Sinn, director of the Munich-based Institute for Economic Research, notes: “The document ignores the free-market economy. There is not a word about the protection of property and no commitment to free enterprise and the division of labor.”

But the EU constitution does vow to protect “social justice,” “full employment,” “solidarity,” “equal opportunity,” “cultural diversity,” and “equality between the sexes.” It claims to desire “sustainable development,” “mutual respect between peoples,” and the eradication of poverty.”

Bear in mind that the precise terms of this document are still in negotiation which means they could conceivably get worse. As it is it condemns every European to a sullen and proscribed existance under the velvet whip of a honeycomb of pettyfogging, authoritarian bureaucracies. Some future!

At this point it is appropriate for me to extend my thanks to Philip Chaston who has painstakingly charted the progress of this melancholy circus and, most importantly, the enthusiastic role being played in it by everybody’s ‘war hero’ Tony Blair.

It does give us cause for a deeply ironic chuckle when we see him being compared to Winston Churchill in the foreign press. Janus is nearer the mark, for while he struts the world stage bleating about ‘freedom’ he is quite knowingly pushing this country towards the trap-door. Oh yes, he is being seen to quibble about some of the details but there is no doubt about his commitment to the project.

I suppose we must take a portion of the blame for the misapprehension. Perhaps we should have made it clearer that this man is not trustworthy. Anyway, for the record, this man is not trustworthy. How ironic that he should be instrumental in liberating the Iraqis from their baleful tyrant whilst simultaneously glad-handing the British people into bondage. Sorry, irony is not the quite the word. Tragedy, more like.

We have taken our eyes of this ball for too long. Maybe mesmerised by the spectacle of this man defying much of his own party to do the right thing on the War on Terror, we have scandalously overlooked the fact that he is also busy writing the final chapter of this country’s glorious history.

March 9th, 2003 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)

Dubya’s revenge

· French affairs

Thanks to their miserly and un-blog-friendly policy of charging non-UK readers a subscription, there is no direct link to this article in the UK Times. However it is worth a mention as it may go some way to explaining a thing or two:

Four decades of feminism have turned middle-class French men into miserable creatures who are intimidated by women and losing their way in an increasingly matriarchal society, a study says.

Of course, Groundskeepeer Willy would say that he knew this all along.

Men under 35 in particular felt that they were being treated as sexual objects by predatory young women.

And this is a cause for complaint?

Modern men see women as “castrating, vengeful, power-hungry and obsessed by men’s sexual performance”.

And that’s even before she’s hired a lawyer.

Men blamed advertising and the media for treating them as useless or sexual objects. They had suffered various phases of “destabilisation”. In the Sixties and Seventies they had experienced the moral revolution and the doctrine of female equality.

In the Eighties they had faced “implosion” through an explosion of models, from Golden Boys to gays and the Rambo type. In the Nineties they had been stressed by unemployment, aids, globalisation and the failure of the “masculine” technocratic model of society that had prevailed in France.

Younger men were said to be more unhappy than their elders. The 25-35 group felt that women “consume men and abuse them sexually”. The saddest group seemed to be those aged 20-25, who the magazine defined as “subjugated and feminised”.

It is not rare that they cultivate a gay image in which they find a model for acceding to femininity. Behind the abandonment of their virility there lies another odd ideal: that of ‘homosexual fusion’ with the woman, a loss of differentiation between sexes.

Perhaps this explains all that French obstructionism in the UN. Maybe it’s the result of a deep mistrust of all this Anglo-Saxon ‘virility’.

March 9th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)

The joys of blackballing

· Activism · Arts & Entertainment

As a dissent-crusher of some repute, I think I have found a truly inspired means by which this noble art may be perfected.

Perversely, my inspiration was provided by the insistent bleatings of one of our commenters offering his tale of purported woe in response to this posting by Perry.

According to the commenter, Mr.Briant, Hollywood celebrities who have engaged in anti-war activism are now being subjected to ‘McCarthyite’ persecution. It has to be said that Mr.Briant is not alone in this view:

“McCarthy is riding again,” declares Glenda Jackson, Oscar-winning actress turned Labour Party member of parliament.”

To all normal people this is, of course, rubbish on stilts. Anti-war campaigners are not being hauled before tribunals or thrown into gulags. All performers trade on their popularity and their worth is measured by the extent to which the public will pay good money to watch them perform. If the public are unwilling to pay as aforesaid, then it is only natural for producers to re-evaluate said performers contract. It isn’t called ‘showbusiness‘ for nothing. I would expect similar consequences to befall any film-star who spoke out in favour of, say, the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Fame has its price.

But I daresay that neither Mr.Briant nor Ms.Jackson will be the slightest bit moved by these distinctions. Neither will anybody else for whom ‘disapproval’ constitutes ‘repression’ and I wholly expect the cry of ‘witchhunt’ to be ringing around the corridors of the Western leftist pantheon for the foreseeable future.

That being the case, I am prompted to propose that we bring back McCarthyism for real. I don’t just mean the regular anti-idiot fisking with which the blogosphere has become so intimately associated. No, I mean a real actual honest-to-goodness UnAmerican Activities Committee complete with powers of subpoena and blackballing. We, in Britain, could have our own version aimed at clearing out the Augean mess of the BBC. We already have the historical precedents to go by so all we need to do is copy them:

“CHAIRMAN: Mr.Sheen, are you now or have you ever been, an apologist for Saddam Hussein?

SHEEN: Well…I…I.. just want to say…

CHAIRMAN: Answer the question, Mr.Sheen

SHEEN: But…but…my rights….

CHAIRMAN: Never mind your rights. Just answer the question.

COMMITTEE MEMBER: Mr.Chairman, I believe Mr.Sheen is being deliberately evasive with this committee.”

The vista is so easy to conjure; the cigar-chomping Chairman, the occasional thwack of the gavel, the murmuring from the public gallery, the flashes from the cameras of the photo-journalists. It isn’t just public affairs, it’s high drama! They could even televise it on pay-per-view thereby enabling the subject film-stars to continue earning a living from the all the legions of people who would tune it to watch them squirming for real. No ‘method’ required.

I realise of course that a lot of solidly anti-idiotarian people might feel a little squeamish at the thought of a proposal such as this but I do urge them to give it serious consideration. Politics is, and always has been, a practical business and resurrecting the legacy of Joe McCarthy is, I submit, quite an elegant solution. Since the Hollywood activists and their supporters sincerely believe that they are being persecuted for their beliefs there is nothing to be lost politically or tactically by actually persecuting them for their beliefs.

Breathing life into a new and serious McCarthyite revival gives the American conservatives a second run at clearing up Hollywood and leaves the radical-chic crowd no worse off than they currently perceive themselves to be anyway. It really is a win-win situation and I thoroughly commend it to the house.

March 8th, 2003 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)

Unlimited SpAm Force

· Middle East & Islamic

Even in times of impending conflict, the Pentagon never forgets that we are living in the information age:

“The US has dropped at least 10 million leaflets on Iraq, telling Saddam Hussein’s troops how to improve their chances of survival if war starts.

Allied planes dropped another 660,000 leaflets with half-a-dozen different messages on 11 sites in southern Iraq.”

But many Iraqis have found the deluge of leaflets to be less than welcome. Baghdad resident Tawfiq Al-Saba said:

“It is so tiresome. I have to shovel them away from my door just to get out of the house in the morning. There are leaflets for everything from Samsonite luggage to water purifiers and pizza delivery. Even credit cards and cheap loans!!

But a spokesman for the USAF defended the policy.

“Look, we’re just following up on our leads. All these people have requested more information on our products. They’re all on our mailing list.”

The USAF spokesman was not prepared to comment on rumours of aggressive salesman being sent in shortly to ‘close the deals’.

March 7th, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)

No UN resolution required

· Privacy & Panopticon · UK affairs

There are signs of an unwelcome strain of unilateralism in this country. It is leading to dangerous instability:

“A £10,000 motorway speed camera has been cut down with a blow torch and thrown off a bridge.

PC Adams said the camera was a write-off and the film inside would have been ruined.”

I wish it to be known that I am outraged by this senseless, fascistic attack on an innocent speed camera that was simply going about its lawful business. All civilised people should rise up in righteous anger and resolve that this kind of thing should never happen again!

March 7th, 2003 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)

Saddam’s revenge

· North American affairs

What’s that old saying? ‘A week is a long time in politics’? If that’s true then what about 6 years? That must be a really long time in politics. But, maybe, not long enough:

“Hillary Clinton is emerging, among Democrats and political observers, as the favourite to be the candidate for the 2008 presidential race.

Until recently, Senator Clinton had maintained a fairly low profile in Washington but she is now being identified as the most likely opponent to the Republican challenger.”

Now Democrats I can understand but who are these ‘political observers’? Just a polite euphamism for the Independent editorial staff? I smell a bit of early British-left campaigning.

“Most observers worry, however, that Mrs Clinton, who has been manoeuvring to portray herself as a centrist, remains a highly polarising figure. While she may have won the affection of many New Yorkers, in more conservative corners of the country she attracts emotions verging on outright hatred.”

It’s those ‘observers’ again. The ‘worry’ is a dead give-away. That combined with the understatement. If our US readers are anything to go by then the above-mentioned emotions go way beyond outright hatred.

Still, can anybody put their hand on their heart and tell me that the thought of Hilary Clinton in the Whitehouse doesn’t send a cold shudder down your spine?

March 6th, 2003 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)

Beam me up, snotty

· Aerospace & Astronautics · European Union

It appears that we may have underestimated the soaring ambitions of the European Union. Not content with absorbing the ‘Vilnius 10’, they have set their sights on outer space:

“Europe’s first mission to the Moon looks set for a July blast-off.

Scientists and engineers working on the Smart 1 spacecraft are hoping to fly around the 15th of that month – but it all depends on the status of the launcher.”

Doubtless this will be the first of many such missions designed to extend the scope of the European orbit. According to French EU Commissioner Bertrand Maginot:

“At this time, the cosmos is totally unregulated. This is an intolerable situation.”

A Swedish EU representative, Helena Hankårt was prepared to outline the precise aproach:

“It is not so much that we intend to conquer space. It is more a question of bringing space within democratic control.”

The British deputy chair of the Celestial Expansion Committee, Sir Crispin D’oilly-Gitte was rather more forthright in his views:

“Oh but we simply must extend Euwopean influence into space. Otherwise it will be full of those fwightful Amewicans”

The Celestial Expansion Committee has drawn up detailed plans for future ventures and even a broad agreement on contingency operations, as indicated by Dutch Committee member Willy Van Der Pimp:

“There is a draft plan setting out an appropriate response in case of encounters with alien life-forms. However, it is agreed that the aliens must commit themselves to meeting certain minimum regulatory standards before any communication can be approved.”

Members of the committee refused to be drawn on the question of whether space should, indeed, be referred to as the ‘final frontier’.

March 4th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)

They all look the same to me

· How very odd!

It may be a response to our inability to halt the ageing process that causes so many of us to plot out our memories with milestones: first day at school, first kiss, first job, marriage, birth of child etc.

I think we mark these milestones because they provide us with a certain comfort. If we cannot go back then at least we can progress. Change is an option and one never knows what tomorrow may bring.

I say this because I think it is time for me to acknowledge another milestone. Truth be told, it was raised a little while ago but it is only now that I am forced to grant it full recognition: pop culture and I have gone our separate ways. It was a passionate and intimate relationship while it lasted, but now the ‘spark’ has gone. We’ve both moved on and changed. I’m not the same, it’s not the same. There’s no communication any more. Time to call it a day. Not only do I no longer know who is topping the charts, I no longer care.

I think the actual epiphany came about two years when I managed to get myself caught up in some sort of street festival on my way home from work one night. Not even for a fleeting second did the idea of joining in occur to me. Finding myself in the midst of a gang of teen-somethings gyrating furiously to some noise or other reminiscent of a car alarm, my overwhelming desire was to be somewhere else. I was tired, I was hungry and I really, really wanted to be home.

Nowadays my internet radio ‘favourites’ list has been stripped of virtually everything except classical stations the hegemony of which is only occasionally broken by a nostalgia trip back to the 80’s. I would rather drop paving stones onto my bare toes than go to a rock concert and, even if that were not so, just how ridiculous would I look leaping up and down, punching the air among a crowd where the next oldest person was still young enough to be my daughter? I find myself examining old T-shirts and thinking they might make useful dusters. → Continue reading: They all look the same to me

March 4th, 2003 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)

Burn, baby, burn!

· European affairs

Will this age of wickedness never end? First, some Danish quack tries to convince us that the world is not about to end and now some Swedish ‘reactionaries’ try to debunk recycling:

“Throw away the green and blue bags and forget those trips to the bottle bank: recycling household waste is a load of, well, rubbish, according to leading environmentalists and waste campaigners.

In a reversal of decades-old wisdom, they argue that burning cardboard, plastics and food leftovers is better for the environment and the economy than recycling.”

WHAT??!! How dare they? Don’t they realise how many years of activism are at stake?

“The claims, which will horrify many British environmentalists, are made by five campaigners from Sweden, a country renowned for its concern for the environment and advanced approach to waste.

They include Valfrid Paulsson, a former director-general of the government’s environmental protection agency, Soren Norrby, the former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy, and the former managing directors of three waste-collection companies.”

Probably just a bunch of nazi zionist illuminatis in the pocket of Donald Rumsfeld.

“The Swedish group said that the “vision of a recycling market booming by 2010 was a dream 40 years ago and is still just a dream”

Do the words of John Lennon mean nothing to you, you baby-eating monster?

“Technological improvements had made incineration cleaner and the process could be used to generate electricity, cutting dependency on oil.”

See, it’s all really about OIL!!!.

They added: “Protection of the environment can mean economic sacrifices, but to maintain the credibility of environmental politics the environmental gains must be worth the sacrifice.”

What do these people know about credibility? Everybody knows that the credibility of enviro-mentalism is maintained by clambering all over public monuments unfurling stupid banners and shilling for marxist despots.

“A spokesman for Greenpeace said: “It’s a nonsense to say incineration could ever be better than recycling. That would be a regressive step.”

Yes, quite right. How can one possibly tolerate anything ‘regressive’ whilst trying to drag us all back into the Stone Age?

These Swedes are nothing but terrorists.

March 2nd, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)

White feathers all round, then?

· Middle East & Islamic

They set forth boldly into the world with love in the hearts and the zeal of righeousness in their eyes, blazing with their vision for a better world and a finer day when we would all join hands in common humanity. They were bright, shining, fearless emissaries of truth and justice, striding into the lion’s den as an example to the rest of mankind that there is a better way.

No bullet could graze them, no missile could dent them and no oil-grabbing cowboys were going to deflect them from saving the innocent Iraqis from their merciless predations of an unjust war!!

Only, now they’re coming home because…um..well, they got a bit frightened:

“Almost all of the first British “human shields” to go to Iraq were on their way home last night after deciding that their much-heralded task was now too dangerous.

Two red double-decker buses, which symbolised the hopes of anti-war activists when they arrived to a fanfare of publicity a fortnight ago, slipped quietly out of Baghdad on the long journey back to Britain.”

So that’s that. They’ve had some sun on their faces, seen the sights, tried all the local dishes and now it’s back to tedious old Britain where they can bore everyone with their holiday snaps (“Look, this is Tarquin and me draping ourselves over a Scud missile launcher”).

Next year: North Korea!

“It heightened fears among some peace activists that they could be stationed at non-civilian sites. Mr Meynell and fellow protesters who moved into the power station in south Baghdad last weekend were dismayed to find it stood immediately next to an army base and the strategically crucial main road south to Basra. Iraqi officials said there was little point in guarding what they considered to be low-risk targets.”

What, no baby-milk factories??!! They wuz tricked! They have been denied their rightful glory. ‘Peace tourist’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

March 2nd, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
« Newer Entries  
  Older Entries »