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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As a BBC news announcer gave out the round of story headlines this morning on the television, I heard this particular classic of its type connected to this story about extremism and universities:
“Government money is no longer going to be given to Islamic extremists”.
First of all, there is, as readers of this blog know, no such thing as “government money”. All money spent by government is, despite what some might believe, owned by you, the taxpayer, or lent to it, by other people. Second, it is not just appalling that money levied on pain of imprisonment (taxes) is then transferred to people who want to impose a particular worldview on their fellows; it would be just as bad if the money were to be given to the forces of sweetness and light. No such groups, whether it be Islamic Jihad, The Women’s Institute or the Worshipful Company of Bald People, should receive a penny from the taxpayer. End of subject.
“Vote Labour and we’ll turn debt into investment”
Written by a wag on the Guido Fawkes blog in the comments on an excellent item about inflation. The great thing about that quote is that I can actually imagine some prat such as Ed Milliband, leader of the Labour Party, saying such a thing. And of course this is pretty much what Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, probably thinks also.
Meanwhile, Niall Ferguson, the historian, weighs in on the issue of debt.
There is a good article up at the moment by Brendan O’Neill, one of those strange “libertarians” (he’s a Marxist) hybrids who writes good sense on lifestyle issues and the environment, but a lot of guff on economics. He’s absolutely on target here about New York City and its ghastly mayor, Michael Bloomberg. (As a former news-wire journalist, I used to refer to Bloomberg, the media business, as the “Borg”, given its messianic, controlling tendencies).
Anyone who thinks that the paternalist “nudgers” are not a menace to liberty should read this article.
I love New York, and visited it earlier this year and plan to make a return journey later in 2011 as part of a business trip. It feels safe in the main; I enjoy the sights and the sounds and unlike Taki, the racist uber-paleocon who is strangely indulged in the Spectator, I don’t get het up about about the fact that there are a large number of non-whites in NYC.
I used to read Theodore Dalrymple (aka, Antony Daniels) quite a bit, and some of his collections of essays, such as “Life At The Bottom”, are searing and very honest depictions of problems in the modern world, even though I find them to be short on remedies.
But while I can share some of his horror at certain trends – such as welfare dependency – there is an increasingly marked level of sustained, Daily Mail authortarianism and the sky-is-falling-in hysteria in his work, a sort of constant refrain that everything in the world is getting more “vulgar”. (A certain amount of vulgarity is, if you think about it, a sign of health, or life generally). A particularly good example of this sort of humourlessness can be found in an article about the attractive sister of one of the new UK royals.. In that article, he made a generally good point but as is increasingly the case, overdid it to such an extent that he seemed to be doing what a lot of British grand journalists do: wallow in disgust at his fellow countrymen and women while at the same time keeping the object of his supposed disgust in continued view.
His current obsession is the “vulgarity” of modern culture, and, presumably, a desire that something less vulgar takes its place. Some idea of how Dalrymple thinks that might be achieved can be seen in this not terribly convincing defence of France’s draconian privacy laws, which muzzle the media in its coverage of the shenanigans of public figures, such as the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund. He writes of how Mr Strauss-Kahn’s personal life was kept private by the French media:
“Had the French press and media failed in their duty, or had they maintained the correct distinction between private and public life? The French often pride themselves that they are more respectful of the private life of public figures, more mature about sexual matters, and generally less prurient, than les anglo-saxons, who are at one and the same time libertine and puritanical, in short grossly hypocritical.”
“It is obvious that the two opposed policies – to tell all or say nothing – have different disadvantages. The first leads, when carried to excess, to a general vulgarisation of the culture, well-illustrated by Britain, the most vulgar country in the world (at least that is known to me). The second, when carried to excess, leads to the impunity of the powerful in a sphere well beyond the private. Since most policies are carried to excess at some time or another, the question amounts to this: do you prefer the vulgarisation of culture to the impunity of the powerful? Within limits – and clearly there are limits in France – I prefer the latter.”
He then writes about a tax issue as it affects journalists in France. I was not aware of this tax issue, but if true, this proves that French civil society is even more buggered than I had imagined:
“One of the reasons, not generally adverted to in the foreign press, for the journalistic silence about the behaviour of the elite is the special tax regime that journalists enjoy in France. In a country with very high tax rates, where a visit from the fisc is viewed with about as much pleasure as a visit from the Gestapo, this is a considerable privilege, definitely worth preserving. It creates an identity of interest between the elite and the journalists, who are inhibited from revealing too much about anyone with powerful protectors.”
Here’s another paragraph. I love the silkiness of how TD talks about the “tolerance” of French society:
“Should the French press have told all before the events in New York – with the implication that the events might then have been averted? It seems that Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour went considerably beyond the normal even for a tolerant country.”
No kidding.
“It might be argued that his private behaviour in France made him unsuitable for his post in the IMF, not because he was incompetent, but because he was incapable of conforming to the mores of the country in which the IMF had its seat.”
Ah, ze great seducer cannot be allowed to live in eeevil, puritan Amerika. Seriously, is the author of this piece arguing that a man who uses his power and influence to not just seduce, but allegedly attack, women, would be suitable in any part of the world, be it New York, Paris or Tokyo?
“As in so many matters, the relevance of a man’s private life to his suitability for a position of public trust is a question of judgment, rather than of hard and fast rule. Public figures are not, and will never be, plaster saints; and wisdom before the event is always considerably more difficult than wisdom after it. Boring as happy mediums no doubt are, I should wish for just such a happy medium between corrupt French indulgence towards the elite, and vulgar, hypocritical, prurient British interest in the elite’s private affairs. If, for some reason, a happy medium were not possible, I should prefer the French way.”
In other words, a largely ineffective press. For all its many faults, I prefer the British way. After all, in the end – after a lot of attempts – the UK media were able to bring down a number of bent members of parliament over the expenses issue. As I write, there remains coverage of the venality of officials at FIFA, the global football organisation; the UK media has also in the past been willing to cover the corruptions, major or minor, in places such as the EU. And in the US, the First Amendment means that the shortcomings of politicians are covered. Yes, such a “muck-raking” press can be hypocritical, but for example, does anyone imagine that a journalist such as Bob Tyrrell could have hammered Bill Clinton under a French system of law?
“The serf first obtained chattels and then land in property; on them he won his first power, and that meant his first liberty – meaning thereby his personal liberty. His title to these things, that is, his right to appropriate them to his own exclusive use and enjoyment, and to be sustained by the power of the state in so doing, was his first step in civil liberty. It was by this movement that he ceased to be a serf. This movement has produced the great middle class of modern times; and the elements in it have been property, science and liberty. The first and chief of these, however, is property; there is no liberty without property, because there is nothing else without property on this earth.”
– The Essential Essays of William Graham Sumner, “On Liberty, Society and Politics”, (Edited by Robert C. Bannister), page 247.
The Business Secretary, and member of the Liberal Democrat Party, Vincent Cable, likes to let us know he supposedly predicted the recent credit crunch (I am not sure he did, actually), and still manages to be presented as a sage voice on current affairs. Never mind that many of his views are nonsense.
Anyway, the Daily Mash satirical website has nailed him.
This item about Mexico, via the ChicagoBoyz group weblog, is shocking. The scale of violence in Mexico – largely centred on the drugs trade – is rising rapidly. It ought, really, to be the top security issue for the United States. It is hard to justify actions in the MidEast with this sort of crap happening just across the border.
The war on drugs is proving an even bigger disaster than libertarians typically state.
“You heard it here first – we were not born in the Garden of Eden.”
– Tara Smith, talking at the Adam Smith Institute last week, with reference to the idea that we get to inherit something called Original Sin.
Here is an interesting take on the two mainly libertarian-leaning candidates for the Republican presidential ticket: Gary Johnson and Ron Paul. Our own Brian Micklethwait has thoughts on Johnson (he’s a fan); I certainly would be more inclined, if I were a US voter, to go for GJ rather than Ron Paul. Mr Paul is sound on issues like the Federal Reserve but on a lot of stuff, his classical liberal credentials strike me as a bit suspect, although people whom I respect, like Brian Doherty of Reason magazine, say nice things about him.
Of course, the fact that such persons can have a crack at a presidential nomination is in itself a fact that separates the US from the UK. I cannot at the moment think of a single major UK Conservative politician who comes close. And as for continental Europe…….oh dear…..Silvio Berlusconi? (That was a joke).
“A cleaner (janitor) at a London gallery cleared away an installation by artist Damien Hirst having mistaken it for rubbish. Emanual Asare came across a pile of beer bottles, coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays and cleared them away at the Eyestorm gallery on Wednesday morning.”
I still treasure that story, which appeared in this item about the art world (thanks to Tim Sandefur for the pointer. He is on a bit of a roll at the moment).
In thinking of art and tracing out the trends, good and possibly not so good, you can do a lot worse than read this book by Ernst Gombrich.
We seem to be having quite a lot of referendums at the moment in the UK and Europe. As we might note with a sort of grim amusement, the largest recent ones – on the EU Constitution – were airily ignored with customary insouciance by the EU political elites, and therefore fill many people will understandable cynicism. Over at the EU Referendum blog there is a long item about protest movements, violence, referendums and political change. I may have more to say when I have the time to study it. It looks a good piece, and I recommend it.
Talking of protests, here is a nice collection of photos of recent “rally against debt” held in central London a few days ago, as taken by our own Brian Micklethwait.
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
– Tacitus
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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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