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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Struggling into the office via the Tube (London’s subway system) this morning, I distinctly thought I heard the following announcement over the public address system. I may have been hallucinating, but I am not sure:
Ladies, gentlemen, buskers and beggars, London Transport regrets to announce that in addition to the Central Line being closed until Hell freezes over while we check to see if the nuts and bolts have been screwed in correctly, the Piccadilly Line has been suspended. So I suggest you suckers get outside and into the fresh air for a bracing walk. Let’s face it, transporting you people is more than our jobs are worth
As I say, I may have been imagining things.
I wanted to write something about this tale earlier, but have been rushed off my feet with work. Anyway, I think it notable that in an age marked by preening Hollywood celebs and British thespian luvvies spouting peacenik garbage about Iraq, it is heartening that in another aspect of life – sport – there are real examples of folk willing to take a stand where it matters.
Nasser Hussein, captain of the English cricket Test side, will not go down in history perhaps as a victorious cricket captain like Len Hutton or even David Gower. He will, however, go down as a man who stood on an issue of principle over Robert Mugabe’s vile regime in Zimbabe. Defeated, mabye, but not with dishonour.
Addendum: for our American friends who haven’t a clue about cricket, my apologies.
Newswires and television stations are reporting that two of OBL’s sons have been arrested in Southeastern Afghanistan. Spot gold prices are plunging. Hmmm, a lot of high-profile arrests recently.
British taxpayers it seems, are not very clued up about the upcoming raids on their wallets, according to this article.
A recent survey showed a high number of ordinary investors do not know that dividends paid out on equity ISAs (tax-free plans which are a bit like 401K plans in the US) will be liable for tax from next April. Brilliant. The government launches a tax-free investment scheme to get us folk to save and hey presto! – whacks us for tax a few years’ later!
The background to all this, of course, is the ongoing slow-motion car accident that Gordon Brown’s stewardship of the British economy is beginning to resemble. Brown has enjoyed about four to five years of a relatively muted press, outside of the most partisan ranks, a flourishing economy coming off the back of the 1990s boom and the Tory reforms.
Now it is going horribly pear-shaped. It would of course be grossly unfair to pin all this on the dour-faced Scot, but his reckless jacking up of spending last year, even while stock markets were cratering, has proven a gross folly. His star is waning. My guess is that if PM Tony Blair does fall because of the Iraqi crisis – and I pray he doesn’t – then it is far from certain that Brown will inherit the keys to 10 Downing Street.
But lest I be accused of partisanship (perish that thought), I should add that the Tory Party’s MPs, such as shadow Chancellor Michael Howard, have not exactly raised the decibel count over such matters as the tax on savings or else. The party is still seemingly wedded to the idea that if they mention tax cuts they’ll be accused of letting Granny starve in the streets.
If any Tory party readers off this blog want to correct me on the above, I’d be delighted to see it in the comments section.
Well, if you have a lefty friend who you think should be taken to sample what life under socialism is really like, then this “tourist attraction” in former East Germany is just the ticket.
Who said the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?
Samizdata has in the past said some uncomplimentary things here and here about Hollywood actor and Republican Party supporter Bruce Willis, so maybe he is trying to redeem himself by laying into the various celebrities who have been opposing the case for war these last few weeks. It turns out that Willis volunteered to serve in the military, but was turned down due to his age.
There is a particularly good, but rude quote from his first Die Hard movie that springs to mind when I imagine what the white-vested Willis would say if he ever met the moustached villain of Iraq. Movie-goers will know the expression I mean. (Heh-heh).
On a totally different note about movies, I wonder how many readers have seen the Roman Polanski film, The Pianist? I saw it the other evening and although a harrowing film, contained some beautifully poignant moments as well. The terrible plight of Poland’s Jews is all too stark a reminder of the cost of appeasing evil. And the lessons of that time for our own are equally only too apparent. I urge those who haven’t to see this film.
New York is a place I have got to love in my all-too brief visits there, but one of its less endearing characteristics is the puritan bossiness of some of the folk who unfortunately get to run that city. Mayor Bloomberg has already succeeded in a total ban on smoking in private places like bars, regardless of the wishes of the owners of such private property.
Well, now they are trying to regulate the teaching of martial arts, as pointed out by a justifiably enraged Russell Whitaker over at his excellent blog.
What the hell is it with these people? Do they really, actually want us to have no means by which we can defend ourselves? Do they really want us to be like so many docile sheep?
The only logical answer, I fear, is “Yes.”
Addendum: definitely bookmark Russell’s site. Strongly recommended for those like me who are interested in everything from self-defence issues to space.
There was an interesting piece earlier this week in the UK’s Independent newspaper by one of its main economics correspondents, Hamish McCrae. He argues – and this won’t be a surprise to you, gentle readers – that the economic weakness of Continental Europe, especially the highly-taxed, highly-regulated bits such as France and Germany, poses a long term problem not just for the citizens of those nations but for the wider world. A good, thoughtful article. Read.
The piece is all the more telling for being written by someone who hardly qualifies as a rabid free-marketeer. Parts of the liberal-left are beginning to understand that the supine foreign policy stance of the French and German political class is in many ways a reflection of those countries’ relative economic decline versus the Anglosphere nations, especially the US and Britain.
Oh, and while I am in the mood to plug interesting places of economic wisdom, take a look at this site, The Capital Spectator, which is a broadly free market blog focussing on economics and official policy. It has a particularly sharp piece on the Bush tax cut and the reputation of US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. I have even got my work colleagues to bookmark it. (Ideological subversion in the office. Heh).
Currently watching on Sky News a massive fire on a propane barge which exploded off New York’s Staten Island. So far it is not clear what the cause is, either an accident or something more sinister. So far no reports I can link to on the Web.
Do economists have much to tell us about war, terrorism, interventionism and the pros and cons? It strikes me that there is a bit of a dearth of stuff on this area from the libertarian-orientated economics camp, though I would be very happy to stand corrected.
After all, if we are going to invade Iraq as part of a grand strategy to bring liberalism, prosperity and free internet access to the Middle East, does this not in a way smack of the kind of hubristic utopianism which the likes of F.A. Hayek warned against when applied to socialism and central planning?. Do issues of defence and foreign policy inhabit seperate intellectual universes from business?
Discuss.
I was able to avoid the so-called peace rally on Saturday by spending the weekend in the altogether more agreeable company of my girlfriend and the wonderful people of Malta. Malta is currently going through a referendum on whether to join the EU, having won the dubious right to apply for entry to that body recently. Naturally, my temptation is to tell any proud Maltese (and they are proud) to say no.
Malta has a mixed and varied history, as rich as that of any much bigger European nation. English is widely spoken there and there are many signs of Britain’s influence on the island when it was a vast Royal Navy base – red telephone kiosks, old English cars, road signs, old-fashioned bakery stores out of an Arnold Bennett novel. The country has a relaxed feel about it and a fairly liberal business regime. I cannot vouch for this with 100 percent certainty, but I would imagine doing business in Malta is going to get a lot more of a bureaucratic ordeal if it does join the EU.
I think French President Chirac’s recent arrogance towards the European nations who have sided with the Bush administration over Iraq will not have gone missed among the Maltese. It may even have a direct impact on the referendum vote, if the antis can use this intelligently. The Maltese will see, in its rudest form, what being a member of the EU means. Obey moi.
One of the best things about the British Channel 4 television slot is its history programmes. I recall watching a number of programmes about the Napoleonic wars, and they ended with a remarkably Euro-sceptic take on the different visions of social order as evinced by British Prime Minister Pitt the Younger and politician Edmund Burke on the one hand, and those of Robespierre and his fellow totalitarian psychos, on the other. So maybe Channel 4 is not quite the haven of idiotarian marxoid nonsense I used to think after all.
Further proof of that view came last night in the end of the series Empire, a series on the British Empire by historian Niall Ferguson, who also has a good book out.
Anyway, last night’s programme ended with a comment much to the effect that for all its faults, the British Empire spread the English language (good thing), the rule of law (same), capitalism (yep, good thing again), and team sports (ditto). And although it eventually broke up, our influence is still large, albeit indirectly, via the US, although the US dare not call its reach of influence an empire.
In other words, Ferguson has gotten the Anglosphere bug. This meme is spreading fast. Where will it go next, I wonder?
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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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