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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George Monbiot begins a banker-bashing article in the Guardian with these words,
If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.
Inevitable result? That is a lot to ask, in Africa or anywhere.
If in most of Africa in the last half-century the probable, or, Dear God, the permitted, result of the hard work and enterprise of women – or men – had been a modest increase in wealth, and not, as it mostly was, the expropriation of whatever you had gained and a chance to be murdered as a hoarder or class enemy by whatever Derg or other bunch of socialist thugs was calling itself the government that week, why, then Africa might have thrown off poverty the way Taiwan and South Korea did.
As Adam Smith said, “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.” Let us remember those who died in avoidable famines because that “little else” was too much to ask from Africa’s leaders, and from their Guardian reading admirers.
Even Africa is now slowly but surely getting richer, now that the worst of the folly has been thrown off. Inevitable wealth as the result of enterprise and hard work was not necessary to bring about this result. Just a half-decent chance at it.
To politicians, endless horror is much preferable to a horrible end.
– Samizdata commenter “Plamus”, discussing the future of the Euro here.
What will happen to the Euro? I am not asking “what should happen”, but what will happen. Take this opportunity to put your predictions on the internet, and later be hailed as a true prophet or derided as a false one.
Disappointingly, it seems that some of these scenes of the happy family life of a Star Wars stormtrooper may have been faked. In the comments to this Daily Mail article, “John, Bristol’ claims that “the small one is a Lego toy.” I shall leave readers to make up their own minds.
‘Why Britain Should Join the Euro’ – a pamphlet by Richard Layard, Willem Buiter, Christopher Huhne, Will Hutton, Peter Kenen and Adair Turner, with a foreword by Paul Volcker.
One of the authors, AdairTurner, now Lord Turner, is interviewed in today’s Observer, which is where I saw the link. He has changed his mind a little since 2002, when the pamphlet was written, but not to an unseemly extent. Now Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, he is concerned about the current situation but remains confident that “sensible decisions are going to be made”.
So there you are then. Cheer up!
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
– From the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America in the Congress of July 4, 1776 to the London E.17 postal district and a very expensive cardboard box is something of a comedown, but there is a common theme. I used to live in Walthamstow, East London, a place with what they call “character”, i.e. a bit of a dump. Sorry to any loyal Walthamstowites out there but think about Hoe Street on a Saturday night and deny it if you dare. Apparently it is even more of a dump than usual at the moment because of fly tippers. So one would hope that the council officers would zealously pursue the fly tippers, would one not? Nope. That would be too much like work. Much easier to persecute and prosecute one of the diminishing number of successful business people in the area for giving away a cardboard box to a passer-by.
‘My hell after council took me to court over a cardboard box’
A businesswoman told of her “months of complete hell” after a council took her to court for giving away a cardboard box.
Linda Bracey, 54, was asked for some boxes by a passer-by at Electro Signs in Walthamstow last October.
But Waltham Forest council prosecuted her firm for disposing of business waste illegally, in a case that cost the taxpayer £15,000. The council lost this month, and was condemned by a judge for causing “a monumental waste of public time and money”.
Mrs Bracey, a mother of three and grandmother of five, called the town hall’s campaign “mad”, adding: “It’s been nine months of complete hell and sleepless nights.
How many years on average do you reckon it takes for a newly instituted Government to decline to this level of simple predation?
Or should we deal with it at all?
Sean Duffy targeted the relatives of dead teenagers with defaced pictures of the teenagers and offensive messages. His victims were unknown to him. He has been jailed for 18 weeks.
What is the opinion of Samizdata readers on whether he should have been jailed, and if not, whether there are any legitimate means of stopping him? (I trust it is already the opinion of Samizdata readers that he is a foul excuse for a human being.) If he had sent personal emails to the relatives, then I think most of us could, with a sigh of relief, invoke concepts of private property and harassment. Actually, having just written that I have become unsure about it. Moot point, anyway; as far as I can see he either posted his offensive messages on Facebook pages open to all or made his own websites. Some of his messages were also libelous – so much so that I cannot understand why he has not been prosecuted for libel – but others were not, despite their malice. It is the latter category that present the difficulty for believers in free speech.
Or perhaps all I have done is demonstrate that I am not such a strong believer in free speech as I thought.
Another possible get-out clause is that the web hosts, or Facebook, or the Internet Service Providers should ‘do something’. I am almost fanatically opposed to making them do something, but I agree they should. But what if they won’t, or can’t, or can’t quickly enough?
Another line of thought: there has long been a catch all in English law of “conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace”. That could work, but I do not like the way it makes the test whether the victim of outrageous speech is likely to turn violent. It puts the most peaceable or timid victims at a disadvantage.
Similar questions arise regarding the calculated offensiveness of the extended family cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church. One solution was an emergency law:
In January 2011, Westboro announced that they would picket the funeral of Christina Green, a 9-year-old victim of the 2011 Tucson shooting. In response, the Arizona legislature passed an emergency bill to ban protests within 300 feet of a funeral service, and Tucson residents made plans to shield the funeral from protesters.
The law seems to have done the job it was intended for … but it and similar laws remain on the books setting a dangerous precedent.
The common factor that takes Duffy and the Phelps family beyond the level of politically offensive speech (such as the Muslim provocateurs who disrupted the commemorative silence in honour of the victims of 9-11 held in London on Sunday) is the targeting of individuals.
Propaganda ‘own goals’ are always interesting. A couple of self-described anti-fascists from United Against Fascism produced a happy, confident video in which they laughed at the beating administered to a female English Defence League supporter by members of the UAF. The left-wing site Harry’s Place described it as horrifying. In the Telegraph, Brendan O’Neill called it “A glimpse into the class hatred at the heart of the anti-EDL clique”.
The woman concerned is a racist. She gloated on Facebook over the death of a Muslim woman whose burka became caught in a go-kart. But that’s not the point, as the author of the second post from Harry’s Place makes clear.
In the Independent, Laurie Penny writes Class snobbery about the EDL won’t halt the far right. Lady, that ain’t the half of it. The upper middle class laughter – oh, yes, in England laughter has a class – of Ben and Anthony as they call the victim a “the most tattooed horrible scrote of a woman” and their Rag Week chuckles as they say, “Never hit a woman – but they are not women” and “Never hit a woman – but DO kick a dog” will be like salt on raw skin to many working class men.
Anthony and Ben put this video on YouTube themselves, before the EDL got hold of it. They did not forsee how it would look to others. Like ‘No Pressure’ with real violence.
There is a further twist. The boiling surface of the internet has thrown up what are claimed to be the full names and personal details of Ben and Anthony. However one of the men named strongly denies that he is the person who made the video. One act of mob violence may give rise to another.
Felicity Lawrence. Describing her as a health dominatrix doesn’t really work; some people find that fun. In this article, Why the new McDonald’s menu won’t make us thin, she writes:
The coalition government has chosen to cast public health as a matter of personal responsibility. It takes the classical liberal view that individuals should make their own choices, free from state intrusion. Nudging us to healthier choices is OK, but regulating is not.
On this liberal reading, the fact that your risk of being obese relates closely to your socio-economic status is not a question of social justice but a problem of the feckless poor being too ignorant or spineless to make good choices.
This is a dangerous misrepresentation. It conflates the right of the individual to freedom from interference with the right of business to the same freedom from government constraint. It ignores the fact that business intrudes on our choices constantly with its powerful marketing and sales strategies.
The part where she is projecting is the part I have put in bold type. It is Felicity Lawrence, not the supporters of a belief that individuals should make their own choices, who is conflating the right of the individual to freedom from interference with the right of business to the same freedom from government constraint. She is conflating the two rights so as to get her Guardian audience, generally hostile to business, to give up their residual hippy belief in freedom to do what one likes with one’s own body in return for the quick thrill of an anti-business sugar rush.
Those who believe that individuals should be able to do what they like with their own bodies may also believe that businesses should be free from government constraint. I do. They are both freedoms. They are not the same freedom. I would say that the freedom to do what you like with your own body, and mind, and life, is the fundamental freedom – is, in fact, freedom. The specific freedom of businesses is merely an application of that to certain uses of your time and applied to specific types of groups.
I am a sarcastic cow, I am used to being a sarcastic cow and I am comfortable being a sarcastic cow. When the time comes to simply recommend an article in the Guardian my non-sarcastic mooing sounds all funny in my own ears. But, here goes: I recommend you read ‘Freedom of information is for businesses too’ by Heather Brooke.
A request by tobacco giant Philip Morris International has reignited concern about the use of freedom of information laws. The data it was interested in was collected as part of a survey of teenagers and smoking carried out by the university’s Centre for Tobacco Control Research.
The UK’s FoI law is meant to be applicant blind. This means anyone can ask a public body for official information and there should be no discrimination based on the identity of the person asking. In the case of scientific research conducted and funded in the public’s name, there is a strong argument that the underlying data and methodology should be disclosed. It is precisely this transparency that grants research reports their status as robust investigations.
It is right to ban the English Defence League’s march, argues Lutfur Rahman, the leader of Tower Hamlets council. How sensible and moderate he is. Observe how he calms the fears expressed by the left wing feminist writer Nina Power that the power to ban the EDL today is certain to be used against other causes tomorrow. Mr Rahman writes,
So while I applaud the Metropolitan police and the home secretary in listening to the many voices from our community in banning the EDL march, I will support the right of community organisations to hold some of the events that Power fears might be banned. However, I feel sure that good sense will prevail, and that the authorities will be capable of distinguishing between community events and demonstrations designed to whip up racial and religious intolerance.
Pernickety people might argue that once the “right” to demonstrate is dependent on your organisation falling within the authorities’ definition of a “community organisation”, then it is no longer a right. Really, though, who can be bothered with such far-fetched ideas? We have the assurance of a local politician that good sense will prevail.
Sit down. I am about to astonish you. Via the Drudge Report, I found this: Seattle’s ‘green jobs’ program a bust.
A green jobs scheme has failed. Over the shock yet? I’ve always meant to ask one of the enthusiasts for these schemes why they do not also support a job-creating proposal to forbid the generation of electricity by any means other than men on treadmills, but I have not done so for fear of giving them ideas.
I was lying earlier. I am not surprised at all and do not expect you to be. The best that any government “job creation” scheme can ever do is “create” a few jobs in some specific place or profession while the spotlight is on that place or profession – at the cost of destroying the wealth that actually creates long term jobs, but in a conveniently spread out way so no one much notices. Greens strive to convince us that there are external costs paid by the community as a whole when jets fly or factories produce geegaws. “Look at the whole picture,” they urge. “Don’t be bedazzled by the transitory benefit accruing to a few and fail to see the larger but subtler harm being borne by the many.” They have a point. I wish they could apply it to ‘job creation’.
Apparently, however, this Seattle scheme was even a bust in its own terms. It withered even before the spotlight moved on.
The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.
McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.
But more than a year later, Seattle’s numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.
I enjoyed the implication that there are others who do not wonder at all, no sir, no sliver of doubt that the original goals might not be met has ever crossed their minds.
That was not the only part of this article rich in irony. Look at this:
“Who’s benefitting from this program right now – it doesn’t square with what the aspiration was,” said Howard Greenwich, the policy director of Puget Sound Sage, an economic-justice group. He urged the city to revisit its social-equity goals.
….Greenwich said the energy retrofit market has turned out to be extremely complicated, with required hammering out of job standards, hiring practices, wages and how best to measure energy benefits.
Market? Where was the market there? The things that have “turned out” (talking as if it all happened by chance) to be “extremely complicated” (that I can believe) are the workings of the interlocking tangle of government rules and protections that people like him and his “economic justice” group advocate. Job standards. Hiring practices. How best to measure energy benefits on some government form. It is sad for all those whose hopes are dashed by these schemes, like the mugs here in the UK who trained as assessors to issue Energy Performance Certificates, or like the unfortunates who got burnt metaphorically and literally in the great Australian insulation debacle. (Not surprisingly, Tim Blair, chronicler of that saga, also has a post about this Seattle fandango. Mine was started first, though.) But what a joke when the very thing that reduces the progressive silver bullet to a twist of mangled brass is… all the stuff that progressives wanted all along.
On second thoughts, I need not worry about giving them dangerous ideas. The great ‘men on treadmills’ job creation scheme would never get moving. It would have to be persons on treadmills regardless of gender, age, religious belief or sexual orientation for a start. And what about disabled access?
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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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