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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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is the head of the Church of England and as such, is still – amazingly – considered to be a person of some eminence. Unfortunately, he does not lend weight to that institution. Although the Anglican Church is far less powerful than it used to be – and for good reasons, such as the removal of 19th century electoral discrimination against Jews, Catholics and dissenters – it is still regarded with affection by many of us, even atheists, agnostics or lukewarm Christians. It has given us great thinkers; its liturgy and music are among the great adornments of western civilisation. Alas, Dr Williams is not a great thinker, although he is no doubt a kindly man.
Dr Williams believes that aspects of sharia law – which aspects he does not explictly say – should be allowed to form part of the law of this country. He does not explain what tests should be used to decide what bits of sharia law are acceptable and what are not. For example, in some of the most conservative muslim lands, the death penalty is used for offences far less serious than murder, such as adultery. We are not told what the Archbishop thinks about this; or whether he thinks things such as arranged marriage, etc, are acceptable. But he needs to be clear about what he thinks is acceptable, otherwise, all we can assume is that the fellow is mouthing vacuous platitudes, nothing more.
I do not believe you can operate a polycentric legal order in Britain, at least not in ways that would allow one legal code to allow coerced marriages, sitting alongside the English Common law. How, for example, could one avoid westernised Muslims wanting to be treated under the ordinary law of the land and not to be ruled over by their co-religionists? Without the active support of the State, I suspect, and hope, that many Muslims, particularly women, will revolt and choose to live under the Common Law tradition of this country. I hope so.
Dr Williams means well; a lot of such people do. But frankly, he gives lapsed Christians such as yours truly plenty of reason for wanting the Church to be shorn of its state privileges.
Of course, if people can freely choose to live under a sharia code, and consent in advance to submit to its controls, then I can hardly object to that. An interesting area at the moment is sharia finance; a problem, however, is that a lot of what is called Islamic finance is re-inventing of the wheel: if it is immoral to charge for lending money because money is not considered a legitimate asset in its own right (which is mistaken, as money accumulated by saving has involved sacrificing consumption) it seems odd that sharia does tolerate things like commodities speculation, such as certain forms of derivative contracts. But at least investors can shop around; arguably, some western investors might want to own sharia investments that avoid banks as a way to avoid the impact of the credit crunch. That is an example of capitalism at its best: allowing people of all faiths or none to do business with one another. Voltaire noticed this when he observed the London Stock Exchange in action in the 18th Century. But allowing sharia law to operate in matters such as marriage, divorce or punishment of supposed wrongdoings, in ways that are at clear variance to the prevailing legal code of a country like Britain, is an entirely different matter.
I hope the Archbishop speaks more clearly in the future.
(Update: one commenter complains about my description of Dr Williams as “the head” of the Church; of course, that, strictly speaking, is the role of the Monarch, by law. In practice, however, the Queen, unlike centuries past, is unlikely to have any real authority over this character, although it would be fascinating to know what she thinks of him in private.
I must admit to being surprised by the volume of comments that this “Samizdata quote of the day” item provoked; I am not aware that we got linked to by some pro-Clinton blogs. One thing that did strike me about the comments was the apparent ignorance of the new commenters as to the philososphical bias of this blog (pro-liberty, pro-capitalism, small, if not minimal government, robust view on defence, etc). My dislike of Hillary/Obama/McCain/Huckabee/Romney is pretty consistent all the way through. Their unifying characteristic is their belief that government can do many good things and should do these things a great deal. Not one of them has – unless I missed it – made the sort of general, shrink-the-state comments that were the trademark of Reagan in his prime (that’s not to say, of course, that the Gipper actually was as marvellous as some of his supporters might claim). Of course, there remain differences, but none so much to really make a major shift in the direction of American, or for that matter, western politics. If Clinton were elected and we got a re-run of the Clinton psychodrama of the 1990s, it would be tedious, even a dangerous distraction from serious events, but I am not convinced it would be the end for Jefferson’s Republic. On the other hand, if McCain got elected, he’d probably only want to serve out one term, as he is getting on in years.
Why does any of this matter? Well, like it or not, what happens across the Big Pond resonates here. British politicians look for suggestions that western political ideas are moving in a particular way. At the moment, Big Government, Greenery, micro-management of personal behaviours via the tax and legal system are dominant ideas, although there is some fightback. This is why, infuriating though it may be to Little Englanders, the US Presidential elections get so much attention.
I’ll just be relieved when it is over so we can go back to bashing Gloomy Gordon and Dave.
The 1950s was rather more than about Elvis, Monroe and The Bomb. Slowly, as Britain recovered from the war, the rationing, and the cheerless austerity during the late 1940s, life got better. It is fashionable, for a certain type of writer, to claim that nothing much exciting happened before the 1960s (a classic Baby Boomer conceit); in fact, arguably, the 1950s were as interesting and colourful, albeit with fewer drugs. One institution that came to the fore in that decade of Ealing comedies and curvy sports cars was Manchester United FC, a once unfashionable club (it used to be called Newton Heath). Old Trafford, its ground, was reduced to rubble by the Luftwaffe; a young Scotsman demobbed after the war called Matt Busby, who used to play for Liverpool and Manchester City, took over as manager.
The story of what happened during his extroardinary career at Old Trafford will be remembered as long as football is played. The fortunes of the Red Devils waxed and waned, but inevitably, the tragedy that hit the club in the February of 1958 is indelibly marked on the history of the club. Eight players, plus other passengers, were killed when the aircraft taking the team from a European Cup match crashed in the snow-bound airport of Munich. It is widely recognised that one of the dead, Duncan Edwards, was probably the greatest British footballer of his generation.
Here is a wonderful account of the last game the team played in Britain – against Arsenal – before the European game. It is hard for any English football fan not to wonder at what might have been; at least three, if not more, of the Manchester team could have played in World Cups in 1958, 1962 and 1966. What a waste.
At least it can be said that air travel has gotten a lot safer since. In the late 1940s, the entire Torino football team from the North Italian city were killed in a crash.
May they all rest in peace.
“One day, there will be a woman worth electing to the White House. But not this one.”
– Andrew Sullivan. His observations on the contrast between Senator Clinton, and Margaret Thatcher, are spot-on.
These things tend to move in cycles, but one expression I think ought to be killed off, deleted, removed, or otherwise expunged from financial affairs is “off-balance sheet”. What this term means, at least according to Wikipedia,, are assets or liabilities that are not recorded on the balance sheet of a company’s accounts but ring-fenced in a separate, legal entity. But in fact what has turned out to be the case is that in the end, these things tend not to be very “off” any balance sheet at all. Take Britain’s private finance initiative (PFI), in which private companies bid to carry out government-funded contracts like building roads or hospitals, operate said facilities for a period of time – like 10 years – and then return them to the State’s control. The government is able to get things built, but, oh so wonderfully, the debt that the government may have to shoulder for the cost of paying for these things is “off-balance” sheet. Marvellous. Many of the banks now mired in the credit crunch ran complex-sounding things called SIVs (structured investment vehicles), which were “off balance sheet”; by using derivatives to insure their debt risks, they also moved a lot of liabilities “off balance sheet”. But in the end, come the economic storms, this will not work. Sooner or later, back to the balance sheet these things must go.
As Ayn Rand might have put it, if you evade the facts of reality, sooner or later they will bite you. That applies to accounting as much as anything else. I wonder if I can move my mortgage or credit card bill “off my balance sheet”. Somehow I don’t see that working out too well.
Peter Briffa is on great form.
One of the not-so-secret reasons why motor cars are popular, to the fury of some, is that some of the designs are just staggeringly beautiful. As with aircraft or yachts, the aesthetics of a perfectly designed machine should never be underestimated. At a time when much so-called Modern Art (the capital M and A says it all) is such empty, vacuous tosh, it is a fact that needs to be remarked that so much industrial design that we have today is outstanding, inventive, clever, even a bit naughty.
This must surely be contender for one of the very best, courtesy of those clever men at Alfa Romeo.
Bill Gates’ Microsoft has made an unsolicited bid – at a cool $44.6bn – for Yahoo!. The offer is either in stock or in cash. I must say there comes a point where the sheer, mind-bendingly large sums of money that are involved (thanks to years of inflation) make it hard to relate to the sizes on offer.
And to think that $44.6bn is chump change to Gates.
Fred Thompson, actor and political candidate, will not be President of the United States. As this fine article points out, that is a pity. He was too normal, apparently.
My father told me a while back that I was distantly related to Henry Blofeld, landowner and legendary cricket commentator. The Blofelds are an old Norfolk landowning family. Well, if it turns out I am related to a family that has the same surname as one of the greatest Bond villains, then maybe I should invest in something suitably sinister.
It may be cheaper than a hollowed-out volcano, if only slightly.
Staying with the Bond theme, you can now, if you have the wealth, live in a beach resort in the same part of Jamaica as Ian Fleming’s old beachside home of Goldeneye. Back in 1956, during the Suez crisis, Anthony Eden, then prime minister, stayed at the Flemings’.
On some, if not all issues, Rod Liddle is a man of sound views. He loathes the nanny state; he is unconvinced that we need to crack down on freedom of speech in order to avoid giving offence to religious groups. He is a patriot. In this week’s edition of the Spectator, where other authors rant away splendidly, Liddle rails against the six-month-old government ban on smoking in all public buildings, including privately owned ones (apart from private homes), such as pubs and restaurants. He makes a good case and some of his paragraphs are cheer-out-loud material:
Of course, one shouldn’t drop a policy simply because the pubs are having a rather hard time of it as a result. But in which case, don’t bother to pretend that they’re not, that actually there are queues all down the street consisting of shiny, happy people who wish nothing more than to drink in a new, healthy, smoke-free environment. Stop lying. Say, instead, that the smoke ban is putting pubs out of business but actually we couldn’t give a toss. Truth is, the government — and the health charities — are caught by their previous, gerrymandered poll findings which purported to suggest that the entire country was in favour of a complete ban on smoking everywhere, when — and again, do a quick vox pop if you doubt this — the reverse was true. People would like to see genuinely smoke-free areas of restaurants and pubs, for sure — but only chose a complete ban on smoking when the alternative on the poll sheet was ‘or would you like your testicles sawn off?’.
Or this:
Perhaps it is true, though, that because of the ban, I shall live for ever, for which many thanks, Dawn. But I doubt it; we will have recourse to one or another means of killing ourselves, such as driving a car (4,000 deaths per year), drinking more (40,000 deaths per year) or visiting a doctor (30,000 deaths per year through negligence or incompetence: never forget that figure. It exceeds the numbers killed through smoking-related illness. And it really, really hacks off the doctors).
But as always with Mr Liddle, the carelessness with which he chucks around numbers makes me wonder if any reader will want to get past his first paragraph:
I am still not sure what I hate the most about this government: its decision to invade Iraq and thus either effect or facilitate the murder of 500,000 Iraqis, or its decision to stop me from smoking in pubs and restaurants.
500,000 Iraqis? Is that correct? Liddle gives no source for this or attempts to do so later in the piece. Now Rod may be right to suggest that the overthrow of a power-mad, dangerous dictator was even worse than letting him stay in power (I occasionally wonder why a certain type of right-winger is so indulgent towards evil men like Saddam). But if he is going to make an argument with statistics as part of his core argument, it is probably not a great idea to kick off an argument with a massive figure based on, whatever.
Oh, in case anyone asks, I don’t smoke, except on National No Smoking Day.
Via the glorious Devil’s Kitchen blog – it’s not for the squeamish or easily offended – I cam across this collection of comments made in the weekend press by various supposedly eminent people on how they would improve Britain. Some are quite good. But our Devil reserves his sulphur for Rory Bremner, an impressionist whom I used to rather like (his impersonation of Tony Blair is brilliant), but who has become boring. Bremner’s pet idea is to force teenagers to serve in “community projects”, a sort of civilian version of an army. Whenever the issue of youth delinquency comes up, as it has recently due to the problems of youth crime in our major cities, you can always count on parts of the right and left to join ideological hands over the idea of making youth “serve” their nation in some way. The objections to this are, however, considerable:
Young people are not the property of the state. This may come as a shocking revelation to anyone straying on to this blog for the first time in their lives, but there it is. You own your own life, and no-one else. The idea that after having been forced, on pain of legal penalty, to endure education until the age of 18, that one should continue to be forced to devote X hours of your time to “serving” the nation in some ill-defined way is monstrous. The issue is about inculcating the virtue of self-responsibility; state-run schemes are not exactly famed for doing that.
It is unlikely to provide a solution to things like crime. It might encourage some kids to become mildly less unruly than before, but the substance of the problem is that far too many youngsters are borne to single-parent families with no male role models. (Yes I am aware of the many children in these circumstances that turn out fine, but the general trend cannot be denied). I am not sure that coercing people into some form of state-run scheme is really going to reverse any problems, although I suppose some people might enjoy it, like the bureaucrats who will be employed to run whatever schemes get thought up.
It says something about the quality of TV “satire” that an advocate of collectively forcing the “nation’s youth” into some form of national service scheme can be voiced by a man who no doubt thinks he is a radical lefty. But then it is not really so strange at all, when you think about it.
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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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