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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Central London was the venue for another demonstration by the Countryside Alliance today, timed to co-incide with a parliamentary debate on the proposed regulation of fox-hunting.
“”We don’t want an unjust bill, which does not have the support of the community to which it applies and I think we are looking at a serious amount of trouble if that happens…”
Judging from the latest reports from the broadcast news, that ‘serious amount of trouble’ is upon us as some 1500-2000 countryside insurrectionists are locked in battles with police and traffic in and around Westminster has been brought to a standstill.
It appears that not everyone in Britain cravenly rolls over when confronted by authority.
After being fined for a very trivial motoring ‘offence’, Leon Humphreys reponse was, ‘fight me for it’:
“A court has rejected a 60-year-old man’s attempt to invoke the ancient right to trial by combat, rather than pay a £25 fine for a minor motoring offence.”
Not surprisingly, his invitation was declined and the fine increased. Still, you’ve got to award the guy some brownie points for his sheer cojones.
You never know who’s trying to get into your computer:
“The phone rings: tech support: “hello computer tech support ” customer: “hello my computer was making a strange hissing noise last night and this morning when I turned it on there was a crackling noise and some smoke then nothing, if I bring it in can you fix it?”
This time, though, the intruder was caught on camera.
It’s a done deal!
“Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia are all set to join the EU in May 2004.”
Following an intense round of Gallic shrugging, Belgian glad-handing, German tax raising, Italian bribing and Swedish introspection, Brussels has munificently agreed to don the mantle of the late Soviet Union and squat like a toad on the peoples of Eastern Europe.
My message to the ten lucky winners of ‘Economic Jeopardy’: you guys need your collective heads tested! Don’t you know that there is no destination printed on that ticket you’ve just bought to ride the Great Rattling Train of Regulation?
Still, there is hope for the Turks, left yapping like angry terriers outside as the stone gates of the Belgian Empire slammed shut in their faces:
“European leaders meeting at a landmark EU Summit in Copenhagen this week thwarted Turkish and Anglo-American hopes for early negotiations for the country’s entry into the European Union, opting instead for a review of its progress on its economy, human rights and democracy by the end of 2004.”
A review!! Oh come on, we all know what that means. Sometime towards the end of 2004 a roomful of enarques in Brussels will take some time out from their daily task of grinding out reams of pointless legislation to call up Jacques Chirac and ask him if he has changed his mind about the Saracens. ‘Non’. Review complete.
No, the real mystery is why the US appears to be so keen to stuff Turkey into the Euro-oven. Do they think it will strengthen the EU? Why would they want to do that? Have they not been keeping up with current events in the State Department?
Or, alternatively, perhaps they realise only too well that the French and Germans are never going to accede to Turkish membership and are therefore sponsoring the proposition in order to lever open a few nascent cracks?
Of course, if Washington wants to be really smart they could always drop a line to Ankara offering them membership of NAFTA. The Turkish terriers would snap at it, I’d wager. They clearly want to join the West. They want to be in the rich boys’ club. Oo-oo-oo I wanna be like you-oo-oo. So let them. In fact, Washington could really set the cat amongst the Princely pigeons by going further and offering NAFTA status to the ten soon-to-be-strangled-in-red-tape candidates above as well.
Of course the EUnuchs would be furious. Wouldn’t want that now, would we (snigger!).
My message to the Turks; we Brits are in and want out, you’re out and want in. Fancy a swap?
Which is more reprehensible? A genuine belief in socialism and Gramschian deconstruction or a willingness to pay lip service to the ideas in order to curry favour with a particular constituency?
Either way, ‘Conservative’ MP John Bercow, once regarded as a radical free-marketeer, opens his heart to the Guardianistas in an article which is, shall we say, thought-provoking:
“For too long, Conservatives have ducked expressing their belief in social justice for fear of being disbelieved or derided. This taboo must now be broken”
Translation: Don’t be silly, we were socialists all along.
“Social justice is not about stopping people from becoming too rich; it is about stopping them from becoming too poor.”
Er…can you just run that one past me again, John?
“Although Labour ministers have not achieved as much as they would like, they clearly care even if they cannot always cope.”
Attaboy, John, you give ’em hell. Gosh, Labour must be terrified of you.
“So what is needed? First, review every benefit to ensure that it is focused on the most needy. Simplicity, transparency, targeting, fairness, effectiveness – these are the criteria against which policy must be judged.”
The Tories will throw even more money at the Welfare State than Labour will.
“The government cannot be the only supplier of assistance but should work with charitable groups, churches and community leaders.”
We will nationalise all the people.
“Discrimination is inimical to social justice. Conservatives should reject it without qualification. The case for equal treatment is not about political correctness, but about human decency. Where pay inequalities between men and women result from differences in skills or qualifications, this must be addressed. However, where inequalities are down to cowboy or chauvinist employers, Tories should side unequivocally with the individual whose right to fair treatment has been infringed.”
Yes, the Tories will hunt down those evil capitalist hoodlums wherever they’re lurking and flay them alive. You thought New Labour was tough on enterprise and freedom? Hah! Wait till you see NuTories in action.
“The first step to changing this negative perception would be to declare that helping the poorest pensioners, for example, should be a vastly higher priority than cutting taxes for the middle classes.”
Oh tsch, tsch. Surely there are loads of good excuses to plunder the middle class to the point of penury and not just pensioners?
“It is vital that Tories should aspire to govern Britain as it is, and not Britain as it was. That means valuing equally rich and poor, public sector and private, urban and rural, male and female, young and old, black and white, gay and straight.”
SWEETIES FOR EVERYONE!!!
” We must share the commitment of our fellow citizens to the ideal of social justice and demonstrate to millions of doubters that Conservatives will deliver it.”
The Tories must fully embrace state socialism and convince the electorate that only the Tories will deliver it.
Pitiful, eh. Now all you non-Brit readers have some idea of what we have to put up with in this country. Is there any wonder that we sound just a little jaded from time to time?
Who would you pick as your ‘Newsmaker of the Year’? Who do you believe has had the most significant impact in 2002? It is a tough one, isn’t it. So many candidates, some for good reasons, some for bad reasons.
However, on the assumption that you are at all interested in this kind of thing, then you might care to toddle along to the BBC Website where they have very helpfully published a shortlist of suitable nominees for you to consider:
- Jimmy Carter
- Bill Clinton
- Louis Farrakhan
- Alan Greenspan
- Jeremy Hardy
- Prince Harry
- Ali Hewson
- Henry Kissinger
- Michael Moore
- Christopher Reeve
- Clare Short
Now I do not wish to appear overly judgemental or anything, and I am always wary about jumping to conclusions, and I realise that you must not go around accusing people of all sorts of things for no reason or putting two and two together and coming up with five, but I honestly do think that the BBC have an ever-so-slight left-wing bias.
Or do you think I’m being too hasty?
‘Spirited’ is the word I would use to describe this article by stalwart Guardianista Polly Toynbee in which she pours all the hot water she can boil over the ‘Tory Press’ for what she regards as a ‘naked political assault on the government’.
Perhaps ‘vituperative’ is a better word. She certainly does not pull her punches. But what really caught my eye was this most damning conclusion:
“The question is why do we tolerate a press that is the worst in the western democratic world? Wild, unaccountable to anyone, anything goes and no one can stop it: what politician would dare call for a privacy law in the face of their wrath? The only hope is public revulsion.”
Being more than a little intrigued by this prima facie hypocrisy, I found myself composing (and then sending) a little request for clarification:
“Is this not the press of which you are a very prominent part, Ms.Toynbee? Or are we to take it that you consider yourself to be above and beyond the rest of the ‘unaccountable’ rabble?”
A not unreasonable question I thought. A view shared by Ms.Toynbee as she was kind enough to respond to me (albeit tersely):
“I do not regard the Guardian as in the same business as the Mail.”
I believe that my question has been answered in the affirmative.
I ask you, who would want to be a celebrity these days? If you aren’t being pestered by ‘peacenik’ goons to endorse their idiotic petitions then you’re having the strong-arm put on you by animal rights activists:
“An animal rights group is giving Liverpool’s homeless mink coats for Christmas.
Bond girl Barbara Bach and Playboy magazine centrefold Kimberley Hefner were among those who had donated furs..”
So they are taking mink coats from rich people and giving them to poor people. But, hang on, if wearing fur is wrong then surely it is wrong regardless of one’s social status, right? Apparently not.
“”We cannot bring these animals back – but we can send a message that only people truly struggling to survive have any excuse for wearing fur.”
“To show these furs were “recycled”, the garments had had white stripes painted on the arms, so the recipients would not be left “open to ridicule for wearing something so cruel”
“Recycled”? That’s not quite the word I would use. The word I would use is re-distributed because that is really the point of this whole exercise. The white stripe on the arm is nothing less than a badge of party membership, identifying the bearer as the ideologically sound beneficiary of plantation politics as opposed to those “open to ridicule” for resisting the moral blackmail and proudly displaying their property for all to see.
Not ridiculous: Giselle looks good in fur
The old class warriors have found some ingenious ways to hide their rhetoric and ‘animal rights’ is one of them. Of course, they are not really concerned about the fate of cute, furry animals. No, what really bothers them about fur coats is that they are a conspicuous symbol of wealth and, as such, are only acceptable if being adorned on the bodies of the duly appointed deserving.
And if you have ever wondered why mink and fur is so offensive but leather is unremarkable then may I suggest that it is because ‘ridiculing’ and strong-arming little old ladies and bulimic supermodels is a very safe way of exercising one’s alleged virtues. Taking on a 250lb Hell’s Angel is an altogether more risky proposition.
Click me
The Wild West wasn’t just wild, it was a scream:
“Marvel Comics plans to break new ground in the comic book industry by introducing the first openly gay title character in a comic book.
The character will appear in a revival of the 1950s title, “The Rawhide Kid.” Marvel expects a February debut.”
Here’s one gunslinger that will definitely be shooting up the bad guys.
Perhaps this is my own personal jaundice and nothing else but I seem to have found myself in an ‘issue-trough’. I think this is what journalists call a ‘slow news day’. I can seem to find anything worthy of truly sinking my teeth into and grinding away. I do detect the onset of a series of ‘Great World-Shaking Events’ in the offing but they’re teetering back-and-forth on the precipice so tantalisingly that they’re starting to lull me into a hypnotic trance.
Well, something will come along pretty soon, I’ll bet. But, in the meantime, I shall use this hiatus in the global narrative to indulge in a bit of mischief-making.
It’s becoming quite clear that the EU is adopting an increasingly anti-American character. As illustrated in this post from Perry a while back, the EU elites are actively marketing their project as being the plausible rival to the American ‘hyperpower’, the antidote to US-style ‘cowboy’ diplomacy and vigourous (which they see as ‘virulent’) market ideology.
The grumbling and foot-dragging from various European governments over US plans for Saddam Hussein are a symptom of this background antipathy not the cause of it. It’s already causing a rift in relations and that rift is only going to get worse. Having given up trying to forge an identity for their superstate, the EU elite are having to rely increasingly on an anti-identity and that anti-identity is Anti-American.
So, what could the US government do about this? Work round it? Fight against it? Try to mollify it? Options which are all expensive, difficult and far from guaranteed to succeed.
No, I can think of a better solution: open up the US to immigration from Europe.
It’s a policy that would have nothing but nothing but benefits for the US:
- It would attract vast numbers of bright, young, well-educated Europeans grown weary of the burden of their increasingly fossilised economies. They would sprout wings and fly in the more entrepreneurial environment of the USA.
- European immigrants would be able to assimilate seamlessly in a heartbeat and, more importantly, they would want to.
- It’s a no-cost policy. Not a penny of US taxpayers money would have to be spent.
- It’s a politically winning policy. The American left could hardly object unless they want to stand on an anti-immigration platform; the isolationist right won’t mind because, let’s face it, the overwhelming majority of Europeans are white, and libertarians cannot possibly have any cause for complaint. Thus all potential political opposition within the US is neutralised.
- America gets progressively richer and more dynamic while Europe’s enarques are left lording it over a constituency consisting of pensioners, cretins and Al-Qaeda sleepers.
So, if the EUnuchs get too far up George Bush’s nose, may I suggest that a heady revenge can be obtained by a mere stroke of the Presidential pen by which he could consign the aforesaid EUnuchs to a slow, lingering, humiliating death. It really is a win-win-win-win policy. In fact, from an American point of view, I cannot think of a downside.
Oh yes, sorry, I can think of a downside; some Americans living in the vicinity of any Ports of Entry risk being trampled to death in the rush.
Self-defence is not necessary because we have the police to protect us, right. That’s their job. That’s what we, the tax-payers, pay them to do. So, we can all sleep safely in our beds at night, knowing that the agents of the state will keep us safe from those who would do us harm.
That’s the theory; this is the practice:
“Police have launched an inquiry into why it took officers an hour to respond to an emergency call from a Jewish couple who were the victims of a terrifying burglary at their Southgate home.”
Well, as long as there’s no ‘hate speech’ involved, it probably isn’t a real emergency.
“Officers eventually arrived at 6:40am, long after the intruders had driven off with their haul in the couples’ two Mercedes saloons.”
Laughing their arses off, I’d wager.
““Although I am disgusted with the police who should have been there to help us, they have been very supportive and efficient since. It was just a break-down in communication and it shouldn’t have happened.”
‘It shouldn’t have happened’!!. Oh, that’s all okay then. As long as this kind of thing ‘shouldn’t happen’, we can all go back to sleep again.
One of the things I like about America, is that Britain is far too stuffy, po-faced and politically-correct for this kind of thing. (Media player required)
[My thanks to Samizdata reader Boris Kuperschmidt for the link]
[Update: the link seems to have been withdrawn]
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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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