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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There are lots of bridges in Normandy – like this elegant beauty of civil engineering – but in this very pleasant region of northern France, few such constructions carry more historical significance and reminders of the costs of war than this one. I visited the Pegasus Bridge museum during a very enjoyable trip to the region last week on holiday. I also went to Arromanches, which has an excellent exhibition about the Normandy landings. You can see the remaining bits of the old Mulberry harbours that were used by the Allies to land their equipmment before the main ports along the French coast were eventually captured.
Most of the folk in France last week were enjoying the usual August holidays without a care in the world. I like to think that is what the men who fought so brilliantly to liberate the Continent would have wanted us to do: have a good time.
“Whatever the marketplace, if talented people are given resources they’re going to keep driving us to having better, simpler, cheaper solutions to problems. And, by the way, if they come up with a better solution but it can’t be cheaper – which, in the beginning, most things aren’t – nobody says you have to buy it. If you think this new drug is too expensive, it’s not a good deal, we have a crisis, buy the old one. It’s a generic now. It’s cheap. You can’t look at the problem and say, “I want them to do more, better, faster miracles – and not invest in research, not invest in development, and have those miracles delivered to me free.” It’s unrealistic. And people know that about most things. They do. Nobody expects that just because they’ve made computers better they’re going to give them to you free.”
– Dean Kamen, warning about how US medicine will be demaged by socialistic “reforms” by Mr Obama. Mind you, I get the distinct impression that health care could turn out to be one of the biggest problems for The Chicago Community Organiser, who seems to be losing a lot of his post-election goodwill. And not before time.
Tom Palmer on the late, Marxist philosopher, G.A. Cohen, who died a few days ago:
Millions had to die so that Cohen and his rich friends could enjoy “a non-capitalist mental space in which to think about socialism”. Words almost fail me. But not entirely. He should have spent his life begging forgiveness from all of the people who suffered from his pro-Soviet (he spent a good bit of his youth as a Soviet propagandist, which was essentially a family enterprise) and pro-Communist activities. He was no different than any old National Socialist who might have regretted that National Socialism wasn’t nationally socialist enough, but who enjoyed the “mental space” it created to construct fantasies of an ideal life.
They say it is wrong to speak ill of the dead, or at least, recently deceased. But given the enormity of the evil associated with Soviet Russia – the millions killed, starved to death and generally immiserated – that I consider it to be a moral failing not to call out those who chose to look the other way, or make excuses, for what that regime represented, and what it did. G.A. Cohen was more honest that some Marxists/egalitarians in at least recognising the force of the classical liberal critique of his views; he did, for example, appreciate that the Lockean idea of Man as a “self owner” and the associated right to pursue the acquisition of property was a serious challenge to collectivism. But in the end he brushed it aside. I did not realise that Cohen was an apologist for the Soviet Empire in the way that Palmer describes. That came as quite a shock.
By the way, G.A. Cohen’s arguments are nicely and civilly dissected by Jan Narveson’s splendid book, The Libertarian Idea. And Tom Palmer’s own book looks also to be well worth checking out.
I must admit that in many respects, I find the former Labour cabinet minister, Roy Hattersley, to be a bit of a buffoon in his clinging to socialist dogmas of a planned, highly taxed economy. But he can write: and this essay on the funeral of Harry Patch, who had been the last surviving British soldier of the First World War, is first class.
In a perhaps understandably nasty tirade about Harriet Harman, Rod Liddle, the Spectator’s resident yob, we get this paragraph:
“The reason we should have disquiet about Harriet is because she is either thick or criminally disingenuous. My guess is thick. Being a bit thick should not disqualify someone from leading their party, I suppose, as both Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Salisbury would concur.”
Well it may be true that Ms Harman is as dumb as a stump, a moron of heroic proportions, completely out of her depth, etc. But Lord Salisbury? The gentleman, who was prime minister for long periods at the end of the 19th Century when the British Empire was at its greatest extent, was hardly thick. Wrong, maybe, but thick, no. His shrewd handling of foreign affairs for certain periods, for example, puts him considerably ahead of most contemporary politicians. And he was quite libertarian in many ways, a skeptic about the efficacy of government power to improve human lives. A sign of wisdom, I’d say.
In making such an assertion about Lord Salisbury’s alleged thickness, Mr Liddle comes across as a bit of a thickie himself. And in wondering out loud about the sexual desirability, or lack, of these various New Labour women, he also undermines what might have been a good essay on the awfulness of their ideas by being so incredibly crass. But maybe I am just old fashioned or something. “That is the trouble with you, Johnathan, you’re not “edgy” enough.”
Here is a story suggesting that employees might use the outbreak of swine flu as an excuse to extend their summer holidays. I guess this is inevitable, given that some people will try anything on, although in a recession, it does seem rather dumb for staff to risk a disciplinary warning or outright sacking to lie about their health in this way.
Talking of holidays, in a few days’ time, yours truly is heading off to Normandy, northern France, for a week’s holiday with family, including, I am very happy to say, my father, who has recently made a recovery from a serious illness.
There will be lots of Calvados consumed. My blogging is likely to be slow next week.
“I’m nobody’s conservative, but I’m pretty sure if I was telling conservatives how to think I wouldn’t admonish them for failing to champion limited government within two sentences of praising FDR’s pragmatism. It’s like, I dunno, lecturing the Labour Party about demonstrating their pro-union bonafides while praising Margaret Thatcher’s centrism. Sounds a bit off.”
Matt Welch on the hapless Andrew Sullivan.
August 4th was one of the good anniversary dates of the French Revolution, argues our own Paul Marks. Here is his comment from a year ago, explaining why.
You have to hand it to him for sheer, brass neck: George Monbiot, uber-Green, is trying to claim that those calling attention to what he claims is Man’s disastrous impact on climate are being censored, while those nasty, capitalist running dogs, climate change “deniers”, are bully boys:
One of the allegations made repeatedly by climate change deniers is that they are being censored. There’s just one problem with this claim: they have yet to produce a single valid example. On the other hand, there are hundreds of examples of direct attempts to censor climate scientists.
As evidence, Mr Monbiot says:
Most were the work of the Bush administration. In 2007 the Union of Concerned Scientists collated 435 instances of political interference in the work of climate researchers in the US. Scientists working for the government were pressured by officials to remove the words “climate change” and “global warming” from their publications; their reports were edited to change the meaning of their findings, others never saw the light of day. Scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were forbidden to speak to the media; James Hansen at Nasa was told by public relations officials that there would be “dire consequences” if he continued to call for big cuts in greenhouse gases.
Well, such outrageous events are entirely possible, but Mr Monbiot, in trying to claim that the Green movement is some sort of vulnerable, weak grouping ranged against the forces of evil big business, is surely testing the reader’s patience and intelligence. The thesis of Man-Made global warming is widely promoted and repeated in the MSM. To argue against it, even to argue that such warming must be mitigated rather than reversed, can often land the arguer in hot water professionally. Consider, for example, the treatment of skeptical enviromentalist, Bjorn Lomborg. Note the use of the word “denier”. Anyone who goes against the standard party line on Man-made global warming can expect to be dubbed by the Monbiots of this world as a “denier”. Consider how even the word, “skeptic”, which once may have implied a sort of admirable refusal to take certain big claims on trust without the most rigorous testing, is now almost a term of abuse in the mouths of some, if not all, climate change alarmists.
So in truth, while Mr Monbiot may have some merit in his argument, for him to claim that the green movement is operating against forces of censorship is laughable. As far as I can see, the force is very much with the alarmist case, albeit perhaps less potent than a few years ago. There is only so much panic that flesh and blood can stand.
I am an agnostic on the climate change issue, and not being a scientist, do not presume to know what the position actually is with regard to whether such warming is man-made, or not. However, my political and economic views lead me to favour approaches that work to enhance prosperity and freedom, and my suspicions about some of the alarmists is drawn very much from the fact that their agenda seems to be incorrigibly statist. Sometimes you have to go with your gut instincts.
“As for politicians’ personal conduct, I doubt it is much worse, relative to other professions, than it has always been, and it is not — or should not be — the main cause for concern. Personally, I would much rather MPs had numerous extramarital affairs, their hands in the till, or lucrative second jobs exploiting inside knowledge, than that they cavalierly abolish yet another civil liberty that took hundreds of years to establish. As far as I am concerned, politicians are welcome to be not only greedy, but also dull, unapproachable, ugly, pompous, clubby, elitist or socially inept, just as long as they do not consider it their job to reform society by making up a few more laws and rushing them through parliament as quickly as possible. Sadly, the people who agree with me appear to be a very small minority.”
Fabian Tassano. His blog is required reading, in my view.
He is far from perfect, being happy to run a railway business that takes state funds, but my goodness, one has to admire the entrepreneurial brio of Richard Branson.
If true, this story suggests that his commercial space venture could be soon involved in taking up satellites. There is a distinct buzz around such ventures at the moment, which might have something to do with lessons people are hopefully learning about the flawed, if magnificent Moon landings of 40 years ago. For some extended reading, this long article by Rand Simberg is a good guide to some of the issues involved in spacefaring. In particular, I liked the way he addresses the issue of getting fuel into space and making it possible to set up the equivalent of a gas station network.
Here is also a good book on how spacefaring get back on track.
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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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