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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Wise words have been heard coming from the lips of someone in the acting profession, to wit multi-talented MILF action babe Milla Jovovich.
“I think parents need to take a lot more responsibility than they do about whether it’s OK for their children to go to Resident Evil or any other movie with violence or sex or whatever. It’s really easy to blame Hollywood for violence having an effect on kids, but movies would have no power if parents would just set their own standards. And it’s the same with video games.”
Common sense of course and that she had to even say this is an indication of the extent to which civil society has decayed. Violent art forms are as old as art itself.
The trouble is rules based safety nets often end up subsidising what they are supposed to be alleviating.
The big advantage a charity has is that they do not have to give you anything if they do not think you actually deserve it… the state on the other hand operates (quite rightly) not by using discretion but by following politically derived formulae. To get things from the state all you have to do is understand the system. This has all manner of unintended consequences when you (in effect) nationalise charity and replace private institutions with public ones… in short, when you replace charity with an entitlement, you completely change the rules of the game.
– Perry de Havilland
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
– Lord Acton, from The History of Freedom in Antiquity
…with extra added bonus quote from the same:
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime…
Fact One: preposterous surveys cost the British economy £1.38 billion
Fact Two: prior to the invention of Twitter, no one employed in British offices knew how to waste time that should be spent working, as no one was surfing the internet, flirting with co-workers, staring out the window at that hottie over there with the short skirt and high leather boots, photocopying their bums, telling jokes, gossiping…
Fact Three: 97.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Encourage adults to consume alcoholic beverage in a bar setting. Set an arbitrary closing, thus to encourage rapid consumption during the final 15 minutes. Throw out on to the street, inebriated, disenchanted drinkers, mostly young males. And here’s the clincher, all at the same time. Ensure that all other bars in the immediate area follow the same pattern. Then act surprised when incidents of violence and criminal damage spike.
Suppose for one perverted moment that an increase in violence and criminal damage were the intention. The present arrangement could hardly be improved upon.
– The hilariously pseudonymous commenter ‘Mustapha Jihad‘
Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
– Benjamin Disraeli
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can
– Barry Goldwater
“Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”
– Anita Dunn, White House communications director and fan of the greatest mass murderer in history.
So one network for the Republicans and three for the Democrats then.
The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it
– Terry Pratchett
The destruction of British civil society continues apace…
New anti-paedophile vetting rules will threaten the 90-year tradition of Scout Jamborees, the Scout Association says. It has warned that major gatherings of packs from around the world may be cancelled due to the introduction of the scheme.
Under the controversial rules anyone working or volunteering with children must register for background checks. But organising checks on thousands of foreign Scout leaders was “just not possible”, a spokesman said.
Good. I have nothing against the Scouts, but I do like it when people are smashed in the face by the reality of the political order they tolerate. Let people feel the consequences and start to get angry. Of course I want people to stop even trying to comply, to ‘go Galt’ if you like, to wilfully break laws and subvert regulations, but here we have an example where they really cannot comply, and that works too.
The state is not your friend. Are you starting to get the message?
Upon reflection, I think all the mockery will cease when Barack Obama walks across the Atlantic Ocean to accept His prize.
– Robert Bidinotto
An unusual little back page story…
When they forced their way into Miss Kausar’s home, her father Noor Mohammad refused their demands and was attacked. His daughter was hiding under a bed when she heard him crying as the gunmen thrashed him with sticks. According to police, she ran towards her father’s attacker and struck him with an axe. As he collapsed, she snatched his AK47 and shot him dead. She also shot and wounded another militant as he made his escape.
Sweet. The world needs more people like Rukhsana Kausar.
And an addition ‘bravo’ to all the people across the globe to held up the Mighty Forks and protested the obscene ‘celebrations’ of the sixtieth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party taking power.
Fight the power.
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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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