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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Our theme for today comes from George W Bush: “Freedom is the desire of every human heart.”
Whether or not freedom is the desire of every heart, I think it is abundantly clear that most people are indifferent or hostile to their neighbor’s freedom, which is why a mere democracy, unencumbered by principles of limited government, is assured of devolving into some sort of Total State in short order. But the inimitable Mr. Steyn is not content with observing that most people think of freedom as “fine for me, but not for thee.” No, he has in mind the apparent eagerness of so many to give up their own freedom.
A year ago, I wrote that, “The story of the western world since 1945 is that, invited to choose between freedom and government ‘security,’ large numbers of people vote to dump freedom — the freedom to make your own decisions about health care, education, property rights, seat belts and a ton of other stuff.”
This is what makes being a small-government libertarian so frustrating. Our patron saint should be King Canute, for it often seems like we are standing on the shore, trying to stop the tide. The reply to Mr. Steyn, if it is not couched in shallow democratism (“we are just giving the people what they want”) is usually couched in terms that imply that freedom is not possible, or at least can not be enjoyed, without material security provided by the State. This inversion of real freedom (the freedom of self-ownership) was perhaps best catechized by FDR, the man most responsible for freeing demagogic democracy from the strictures of the constitutional republic, as “freedom from want.”
FDR’s heir is Hillary Clinton, and she is pushing (again) for nationalized health care in America. The battlecry this time is that there are “45 million uninsured” (or whatever spurious number is trotted out).
My first response is “so what?” Anyone in America can get health care simply by walking into the nearest hospital, as all hospitals are required to give an exam and emergency treatment regardless of ability to pay.
But, as always, one should not let the factual assertions of the advocates of the Total State go unexamined. Mr. Steyn continues:
So, out of 45 million uninsured Americans, nine million aren’t American, nine million are insured, 18 million are young and healthy. And the rest of these poor helpless waifs trapped in Uninsured Hell waiting for Hillary to rescue them are, in fact, wealthier than the general population. According to the Census Bureau’s August 2006 report on “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage,” 37% of those without health insurance – that’s 17 million people – come from households earning more than $50,000. Nineteen percent – 8.7 million people – of those downtrodden paupers crushed by the brutal inequities of capitalism come from households earning more than $75,000.
In other words, if they fall off the roof, they can write a check. Indeed, the so-called “explosion” of the uninsured has been driven almost entirely by wealthy households opting out of health insurance. In the decade after 1995 — i.e., since the last round of coercive health reform — the proportion of the uninsured earning less than 25,000 has fallen by 20% and the proportion earning more than 75 grand has increased by 155%. The story of the last decade is that the poor are getting sucked into the maw of “coverage” and the rich are fleeing it.
At a conference on health law last week, I predicted (only half in jest) that Hillary would be signing the bill nationalizing health care at the beginning of her second term. The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. The tide of the Total State never sleeps.
Richard Dawkins is someone whom I generally admire in the field of science. He is on the right side of the argument, in my view, in excoriating attempts to portray ‘intelligent design’ (creationism) as science; much of what he says about religion is true and he is a sharp, lucid commenter about scientific issues. But alas, that does not mean his grip on reality is particularly strong when it comes to other matters. Take his recent comments about the supposedly enormous influence of Jews on US foreign policy, which have already provoked a lot of comment.
My own take on all this is as follows: Dawkins is not anti-semitic and it would be pretty outrageous to suggest as such; I don’t think he is trying to say that Jews totally control the foreign policy of the world’s most powerful nation, only that they have a lot of influence in proportion to their numbers. But what Dawkins plainly does not consider – assuming his remarks have been reported accurately – is how the ‘Jewish lobby’ is not some sort of undifferentiated mass. Also, consider some of the main policymakers in Washington: Dick Cheney and Condi Rice. They are not Jews; neither, as far as I know, is Don Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, etc. Nor do I think that the policy of the US/other major nations has necessarily favoured Israel vs other Middle East countries. Arguably, if the Jewish lobby was as powerful as some say, then the US would have sanctioned the ability of Israel – which certainly has the means – to reduce its foes to radioactive dust. Anyway, a desire to protect the state of Israel from annihilation – a threat that is all too real if one takes the ravings of Iran’s leadership seriously – is a noble one. Israel is, with all its faults, one of the few functioning liberal democracies in the Middle East (that is partly what drives its Islamic foes nuts, of course). Even if one subtracts the beneficent impact of foreign aid, Israel’s domestic economic success is a standing rebuke to the theocracies that surround it.
If Dawkins wants to press the claims of atheists, fine (as an atheist myself, I count myself an admirer of what Dawkins has done to challenge religious superstition). But he does himself no favours by repeating the tired mantras about the vast influence of the Jewish lobby.
With infuriating credulousness, the BBC has taken as its top story (on radio as well as the web) the launch of a report from the ‘All-Party Committee on Identity Fraud’:
The All Party Group on Identity Fraud said a tsar was needed to co-ordinate the work being done by the government, police and private sector. The MPs also called for the government to make the public and businesses more aware of identity fraud and how they can avoid becoming victims. […] In their report the MPs also recommended police are given the resources to employ dedicated identity fraud officers. They said tougher sanctions should be placed on organisations that put people’s personal information in danger.
(Such as the Identity and Passport Service, local planning authorities, the Department of Health, ContactPoint, DVLA…and all the other branches of the caring data-sharing state? Just asking.)
So far so hopeless. The usual call for for more officials and more powers rather than any attempt to analyse the problem. The committee itself is not quite that stupid, even if it has not taken a particularly fresh look. It rightly blames the indifference of institutions and the foolishness of the public for much of it.
What is really damaging to the BBC’s credibility and to the honesty of public debate is what is next.
The crime costs the economy about £1.7bn a year, according to government estimates, with 171,488 cases coming to light in the UK during 2006. Recent surveys suggest as many as one in four people may have been affected by identity theft.
“Surveys” by whom? I wonder if the reporter knows. I can guess: Experian. But I can not readily find where this headline comes from. It appears in a more nuanced version on the National Identity Fraud Prevention Week site as…
“A quarter of the UK population has been affected by identity fraud or knows somebody who has.”
My emphasis. Not remotely the same thing. I know several Catholics quite well. My catechumenacy is a distant unlikelihood.
YouGov did a proper poll a year ago on behalf of NPower and found one in ten claimed to have been a victim in some way – without themselves providing a rigorous definition or checklist. The difference ought to indicate to anyone with the remotest curiosity that something is screwy about all these figures. You have to be suspicious of anything described as a “survey” – do BBC reporters not learn that in training?
And worse, they persist in quoting the entirely spurious “government figure” for identity fraud of £1.7bn a year. Anyone working in this field ought not just to ask, “What is the source for this figure?” and then check it. They should know that the Home Office report has been utterly discredited…
See here, or, in more detail, here.
… but it keeps coming back time and time again, as if you can make a fact by repeating a lie often enough.
There is no agreed definition of ‘identity fraud’. There are few useful figures, and in the circumstances there can hardly be. Meanwhile several interested parties – Experian, the only organisation linked to from the story on the BBC site, being one, and the Home Office being another – are engaged in a sustained campaign of hype for their own benefit. That is a scandal in which you would expect the news media to take an interest.
It is (at least) disappointing that the BBC apparently uses no critical judgement or background knowledge – or even Google – in reporting these things, but sees fit to reprint the gush of press-releases, as if it were a cheap fashion magazine handling a cosmetic company’s announcement of the latest face-cream. For all its admitted corporate culture problem in editorial matters, this is one of the world’s most widely trusted news sources (which, unless you take Fox or Xinhua to be gospel, you may say only shows how appallingly untrustworthy the others are). But it is starting to give the impression of not caring about the integrity of basic, readily-checkable, facts.
It’s a pretty good piece, though author Bara Vaida calls me a “conservative,” which is only true if “conservative” is a synonym for “supports the war.” But then, that’s common usage these days.
– Glenn Reynolds
I like to read paperback thrillers as well as the supposed more “serious stuff” out there. Authors that I willingly take to the beach or read on a train, the Tube or for that matter, while curling up on the sofa in my flat are ones that many people will recognise: Frederick Forsyth, Ian Fleming, Alastair Maclean, Eric Ambler (a much under-appreciated writer), Mickey Spillane, Roger Simon, John D. McDonald (Travis Magee stories, etc), and many more. And I am never more grateful than when I stumble upon a new author who has the ability to keep the pages turning. One such example is Lee Child, a TV journalist from the West Midlands who has emigrated to the States and become an accomplished thriller writer via his superb Jack Reacher stories. If you haven’t read them, start now. There’s no excuse. Reacher is simply one of the most engaging characters I have come across in years. Reacher embodies the sort of “loner hero” one gets in the best Westerns (think of the great movie Shane or Clint Eastwood’s terrific Outlaw Josey Wales) and the very modern up-to-date know-how of a criminal investigator. He has a manly, no-nonsense attitude towards dealing with the bad guys with a very smart understanding of women but does not fall into fake sentimentality or over-the-top macho posturing one gets in certain kinds of movies. Reacher has his demons – he cannot deal with being tied down in any sort of relationship – but he is blessedly free from the “flawed hero” syndrome of much popular culture. He is a hero, full stop. If ever there is a series of novels crying to be made into movies, this series is it, although part of me hopes that it does not happen, given how Hollywood often royally buggers up fine material.
Now, gentle reader, you are wondering why I referred to the “power of blogs” in the headline. Well, I wrote that because I owe Robert Bidinotto, a blogger, academic and magazine editor a large ‘thank you’ (if we ever meet, the beer’s on me, Bob) for praising Lee Child’s writings to the skies. Bob’s literary judgement is normally laser accurate, so almost as soon as I read his interesting interview with Child, I made sure that the next time I passed a bookshop, I got one of Child’s novels (Bob’s blog can be found here).
For spending a week on the seaside in Malta and Gozo, as I have been this week, there is not a better writer to stick in the rucksack for the trip to the beach than Lee Child.
Of course, there are some who would argue that the greatest thriller ever written, certainly in terms of its sweep and scope, is the Count of Monte Cristo. I am not going to contest that.
I hardly know whether to laugh, or cry, at this one.
First, the tears:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 “baby bond” from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.
A more grotesque pander is hard to imagine. Naturally, the more rational among us are puzzled:
How might this be funded? There are only three groups that could be asked to pay for the new entitlement with higher taxes (or lower benefits): the current elderly, those currently of working age, or the same future generations who are getting the new benefit and are slated to pay for existing unfunded entitlements. Which group do you think Senator Clinton has in mind?:
As with all arbitrary handouts, it also raises the question (and you can be sure it will be asked if this goes anywhere) of “why not more”? If $5,000 of free money is good thing, why isn’t $10,000 twice as good?
Now, the laughter:
Sixty percent (60%) of America’s Likely Voters oppose giving every child born in the United States a $5,000 savings bond, or “baby bond.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 27% support the concept suggested on Friday by Senator Hillary Clinton.
Unlike socialized medicine, which I believe is a genuine Cause to the otherwise calculating Hillary, the baby bond is most likely just a trial balloon, thrown out there to see if it would strike any sparks. Having drawn derision and virtually no support from anyone who wouldn’t vote for her anyway, I suspect we have seen the last of it. Still, it is a little chilling to contemplate the leading contender for President of the United States already toying with naked wealth transfers such as this.
Where is the Israel boycott? The University and College Union (UCU) does not know how to deal with the calls for a boycott and have received legal advice that the action would be illegal. The legal advice noted that the boycott would contravene discrimination legislation and that it did not meet the aims and objects of the union. There is a fitting irony that the boycott demanded is defined as discriminatory under the politically correct legislation advanced by the New Left. Moreover, it does not appear to meet the union’s legal reason for existence which is, of course, pursuing the interests of its members.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, insisted the majority of the union’s 120,000 members would neither support a boycott call nor regard it as a priority. She said last night: “I hope this decision will allow all to move forwards and focus on what is our primary objective, the representation of our members.”
However, Sue Blackwell, a member of the union’s executive and of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, said of the decision: “It is quite ridiculous. It is cowardice. It is outrageous and an attack on academic freedom.”
This is the stupidity of the Left. Bound by laws that they passed, they now howl in frustration since they find their own freedoms circumscribed. These laws were designed to silence their enemies, not themselves. Even more galling is the long march of infiltration designed to provide an organised platform for their sectarian ways falling before the legal demands of British law. They fall back upon their own odious shibboleth of an academic freedom that they do not espouse for others. The shrill hysteria of the disappointed pervades Amjad Barham’s article, who is rather vocal for a man who has been silenced:
By resorting to bullying, censorship and intimidation, however, the Israel lobby in the US and UK, supported by the Israeli government and academic establishment, is declaring its definitive loss of confidence in its own ability to rationally refute the case for an academic boycott against Israel.
By muzzling debate and free discussion on the boycott, the lobby and its supporters within the UCU are suppressing academic freedom in the most crude manner. They are proving once again that they were never concerned about the alleged “infringement” of the boycott on academic freedom; rather, their only concern has always been how to shield Israel’s unique form of apartheid from scrutiny and censure. Their aim has been to protect the Israeli academy from damning accusations of complicity in maintaining Israel’s oppression of all Palestinians, academics and students included…
Needless to say, the boycott campaign will not only continue, but is likely to gain public support among western academics in particular; the true face of the anti-boycott camp has been exposed as a McCarthyist front that unabashedly violates the most revered values of academic freedom and open debate.
They have every right to debate, boycott and protest in print, academia and in politics. They just will not be able to use the vehicle of UCU for their demands since this is probably illegal. We really need to educate the Palestinian sympathisers about the rule of law. It might make their campaigns more intelligent.
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.
– George Orwell
Whoops, looks like this spiffy-looking gadget has not achieved a trouble-free start but it may be too early to scoff. Even so, even a gadget nut like yours truly is sticking to his Blackberry (yes, I am semi-permanently attached to it) for the time being. Does any reader own an iPhone and have any views about whether it is worth the money?
For people with the sort of money to burn on one of these things, surely a spot of good, old-fashioned luxury is more appropriate if you want to have something snazzy to show off to your friends. I think a few members of the Samizdata crew should pay a visit to the wine and cigar department of the glorious Wonder Room of Selfridges. (Mr Jennings, Perry?) Keep a tight hold on those credit cards.
The government has – with virtually nil consultation or fanfare – announced changes to what has been known in English law (I do not know how this works in Scotland) as Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) – an important process for people who want to put the control of their financial affairs in the hands of close family members or friends whom they trust, to deal with the sad circumstances of senility and extreme old age.
Naturally, the British government, in its determination to prevent us poor little dears messing up, has decided to regulate the practice, which will make such a process far more expensive. Added to the recent fiasco of what are called Home Information Packs (HIPS), this lot seem keen to inflate the costs of housing transactions or handling the affairs of a close relative. This makes the current supposed enthusiasm of Middle England for the present government even more of a mystery, although I guess what it really shows is how little confidence people have that the Tories would reverse one iota of this sort of thing. Depressing.
This is both an historical and an historiographical puzzle.
It might well be true. It would be interesting if it were.
I do not think it is of any consequence for current affairs or community relations whether it is true or not (and I could not give a damn what anyone thinks on that point either way). But I thought my naval history was pretty good, and I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
The BBC reports Trevor Philips speaking at an event today:
“When we talk about the Armada it’s only now that we are beginning to realise that part of it is Muslims,” Mr Phillips told the meeting. “It was the Turks who saved us, because they held up Armada at the request of Elizabeth I.”
Now what is he going on about? How would one arrange that with 16th century communications? Elizabeth certainly chartered a Levant Company, and had diplomatic relations with the Ottomans. But where is the evidence? Did the Turks hold up the Armada at all? And if so did they do it by arrangement? If so, what’s the new research that “only now” gives us this information? If not, where does Mr Phillips get the idea from?
It is capitalist America that produced the modern independent woman. Never in history have women had more freedom of choice in regard to dress, behaviour, career, and sexual orientation
– Camille Paglia
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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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