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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“Good evening, this is the news from the EBC.
The Security Commissioner today announced the final destruction of one of the last remaining internet cabals. (Older readers may recall the “internet”; it was a sort of primitive precursor to Maxitel, but being utterly unregulated provided means for various perverts and seditious libellers to conspire against the peace of our Community.) Members of this grouping, the so-called ” [CENSORED] Samizdata [/CENSORED]” were taken into custody. Viewers will be happy to learn that these once-recalcitrant citizens made a full recantation and apology for their crimes before sadly dying of AIDS all on the same day.
Meanwhile at the Hague, the trial for War Crimes of ex-President Bush of the area formerly known as the United States continues. His court appointed defence lawyer (required by the somewhat archaic procedure of the tribunal), Maitre Cherie Booth, while admitting that Bush’s so-called “War on Terror” held back for several years our present happy accommodation with the Protector of the Three Holy Places, did at least pursue in the last years of his presidency economic policies that controlled currency speculation and protected the environment by reversing the selfish phenomenon of economic growth.
Some more good news is that, as part of the widely-popular Drive for Health, the bread ration has been reduced again…
Things in EU land are going to get a lot worse before they get even worse than that. Within 18 months all Europeans could be lumbered with a Green Tax on airline travel.
I don’t know how I managed to read through this article without the veins in my head exploding, especially when sentiments such as this go unchallenged:
“Of course there would be a reduction in the number of people who want to fly. Setting the level will be a political choice …”
A political choice!!?? Readers, this is the voice and mind of the EUnuch.
It is yet another thin end of yet another very thick wedge. The tax, once created, will most assuredly be ‘reviewed’ and ‘adjusted’ until it makes travelling by air impracticable for all but the wealthiest and the bureaucratic elite. Not for nothing have the EUnuchs chained themselves to enviro-mentalist ideology.
I have made a promise with myself never to succumb to the melancholy indulgence of conspiracy-theory but isn’t this the kind of thing the regimes do when they want their tax-cattle to stay put?
Lagwolf does not think much of the ideology underpinning the EU.
The EU has decided in all its brilliance in order to make sure to avoid facism in Europe it has to be have like the Nazis in the 1930s. It yet another gross breach of liberty and individual rights the EU is trying to bring in legislation to ban “racism and xenophobia”. Neither is illegal in the UK. To add to this outrage, it will be possible to be prosecuted by other EU countries for offences committed in another EU country.
So some nosy German know-it-all (yes, I know that is a tautology) (mis)hears me making some derogatory comment or joke about the Germans. He then goes home and reports me to his local black shirt (er, sorry, policeman). This policeman can then issue a warrant for my arrest in the UK and I can be dragged to Germany for a trial. This law could pretty much cause the arrest of every comedian in Britain as well as most of my friends.
I am sure we can expect the French to use this to prosecute any Briton who dares question French behaviour towards the Jews during Vichy. There are also worries that this will be used to quiet criticism of the EU in Britain. For years there have been attempts made to paint any Eurosceptic/Realist/Phobe as a racist and a xenophobe.
In short, this law is outrage on everything that is right and true in the Anglosphere. One hopes, this is yet another nail in the coffin of Britain’s membership is the 4th Reich/2nd Holy Roman Empire/EU.
Lagwolf
Thanks to Natalija for the use of her ‘interesting’ graphic
There’s an old joke about a camel being a horse designed by a committee. Well, what do you call a Navigational Positioning Satellite designed by a committee? Galileo.
“At a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, EU ministers reached a deal to provide funding for the launch of Galileo, the multi-billion Euro navigation satellite system intended to rival the US Global Positioning System (GPS), thereby removing the last obstacle in the way of the project.”
Ah yes, the ‘last obstacle’ being a blank cheque for the mind-boggling amount of taxpayers money that they are going to throw at this thing. The report estimates the cost at a laughable 3.6 billion €uros but who are they trying to kid? It’ll cost more than that to supply the EU ministers with a set of custom-made luxury ‘space slippers’ for when they attend the ceremonial launch.
Or, rather, when they don’t because if this thing ever actually makes it into space then my name is Buzz Lightyear. Just like that other grand EU project the Eurofighter the damned thing will be lucky if it ever emerges from the assembly line. The Eurofighter has had public money hosed it at for lord knows how long, it was obsolete 2 years ago and it hasn’t even been built yet!
The exhausted European taxpayer would have had to have forked out far less money if the EU had simply ordered a squadron of F-16s (as HM Government was advised to do by the Ministry of Defence). But, oh no, we don’t want that. We have to have a ‘European’ combat aircraft to express our distinct ‘European’ identity. Looks like they got it.
So, cue another round of horse-trading, bickering and monumental waste as each part of the Galileo project is apportioned out according to who makes the most noise. The French will build the electrics, the Italians will build the housing, the Belgians will make the navigation system, the Germans will make the rocket boosters, the Spanish will make the launch platform, the Austrians will make the sandwiches and Sweden will provide the environmental protestors.
And you can guess, I mean you just know that none of the bits will fit together, the rest of the bits won’t work and all the bits will be behind schedule, ludicrously over-budget and held up by strike action. And, naturally, nobody will wish to complain because to do will cause a diplomatic incident and the launch site will be located in the country that agrees not to vote against French agricultural subsidies (and guaranteed to be the one furthest away from the Equator – Finland probably).
The Galileo project will, again, graphically illustrate everything that is wrong with the EU. The Soviets managed to get into space because they had a command economy where a Kommisar for Space simply ordered that a satellite be built and it was duly built. Mind you, they had to work with a wooden crate, a leaky old battery and a tube of glue but, by golly, they did it. But there will no such bullish positivity for Galileo, proving that the EU is riven with all the drawbacks of a totalitarian state and none of the advantages.
This whole debacle could have been avoided if they’d simply taken up the American offer of buying bandwidth on America’s own GPS system. It would certainly have saved a mint. But, no, the EU has to have its own satellite system so it can cock a snoot at those imperialist ‘Yanquees’ and get on with doing lots of, er, ‘European’ things in space. Besides, the European taxpayers have got far more money than they need.
There is some small chink of light at the end of this particular worm-hole, though. The US government has expressed concern that should Galileo become operational it could be used by terrorist cells to plan attacks on the US. Now, personally, I think that the Americans, the Russians, the Indians, the Israelis, the Australians, the Japanese and just about everybody else will have functioning colonies on Mars before that happens, but, in the event that it does, the US just might find itself in a position where they have to shoot the bloody thing out of the sky (chortle, snigger, stuff handkerchief in mouth). What a tragedy!!
The EU parliament has indicated its warm support for a new draft Directive which will regulate conversations between EU citizens.
The new Directive, which is the brainchild of French MEP, Bertrand Maginot will provide a legislative framework to ensure democratic oversight of all conversations which take place within the EU.
“This law is both overdue and necessary” said Monsieur Maginot. “At present there are absolutely no controls over the things people say to each other. This is dangerous and unacceptable”
British Commissioner, Sir Crispin D’oilly-Gitte also gave his full-hearted support to the new legislation.
“We must protect our citizens from being exposed to inaccurate or dishonest things”, he said. “This law is an important step forward to a safer and more democratic Europe”
Dismissing the concerns of civil liberties groups, he added:
“These people are just wreckers. This law will increase freedom in Europe. Everyone will be able to converse with confidence; safe in the knowledge that they are not being exposed to wrong ideas and bad information”
The new law will require any EU citizen wishing to have a conversation with another EU citizen, to first send a draft text of their proposed conversation to a Conversation Monitoring Officer (CMO) who will be appointed at national level. The CMO will check the text for honesty, accuracy and consistency with democratic European values.
Provided the text meets the required standards, the applicant will be given permission to hold their conversation with such other person or persons as are identified in the initial application.
“It is a simple safeguard”, said Monsieur Maginot.
Whilst the new Directive is not expected to be opposed, there is some concern at the dispute about exactly how the new regulatory regime will be funded. Swedish Social Democrat MEP, Helena Hankart has proposed that the CMO service be free to all applicants and funded out of general national taxation. However, Greek Commissioner Taxis Mitopisis is campaigning strongly for all applicants to pay a fee which will be charged according the applicant’s income.
“We have several committee meetings planned and I have no doubt we will achieve harmony on this issue”, said Ms.Hankart.
The new Directive is expected to be in force by January 1st 2003.
Is there some sort of pathological term for people who simply cannot resist the overwhelming desire to fiddle with and meddle with and corrupt everything around them? If not, we need to invent one and fast.
Another draft Directive is formenting in the cesspit of Brussels and this time it’s pensions< that they are pawing at with their oily little hands.
“Spanish officials were trying to insert a clause that would limit the amount of equities that pension schemes can hold. The EU directive could become UK law within as little as two years.”
British pension funds typically invest some 70% of their funds in equities and, if this law passes (Did I say ‘if’? I mean ‘when’) they would have to drastically reduce this figure to bring Britain into line with many European countries where such investment in strictly limited by national law.
But this is not madness, it is cold, hard method. The main alternative to equities in funded pension scheme portfolios are long-term financial instruments such as government bonds and, by a simple extension, EU bonds.
Thus the desire of Eurocrats to control constituents’ economies by means of Frankfurt interest rates and fiscal harmonisation can be consolidated: Euro-peons will be forced to tie their destinies in retirement directly to the success or failure of EU-wide economic hegemony. The law will have the effect of making it impractical for most employers to run their own schemes and will therefore channel billions of funds into the hands of a few crypto-statist financial institutions which are easier for Brussels to push around (behind the fig-leaf of ‘co-operation’).
After a working life governed by EU regulations about hours, conditions, pay rates, vacation entitlements, coffee-temperature, leisure time and just about every other aspect of human interaction imaginable, our descent into a longed-for tranquility of old-age will be managed (and mangled) by those same ubiquitous, inescapable Eurocrats.
I am beginning to hope that there is no such thing as a life beyond death otherwise the buggers will find a way to torment us there as well.
Just say NO to superstatism!
Do politicians really say what they think? Or is their language forever circumscribed by the weight of office, the delicacy of diplomacy and the sensitivities of a fickle public?
If that is true, then maybe ex-politicians find they are invested with a freedom of thought and action denied to them during their careers. Vide the loud and clear message from Baroness Thatcher in her latest book ‘Statecraft’.
“The preliminary step, I believe, should be for an incoming Conservative government to declare publicly that it seeks fundamental renegotiation of Britain’s terms of EU membership.”
We all know what she said and we all equally know what she means. ‘Fundamental renegotiation’ is a polite term for ‘withdrawal’. I say this not because I am in the business of second guessing Baroness Thatcher but because there is no way to ‘fundamentally renegotiate’ the rigid terms of EU membership without excusing yourself from the club. Can we exclude ourselves from the ‘Acquis Communitaire’? If so, we are out and that’s that.
She is not the first person in Britain to suggest full withdrawal from the EU but, to my memory, she is the most high profile. Despite possessing nothing now except an honourary title, Thatcher’s legacy and image loom large over the British psyche for both those who loved and those who hated her. This book will not herald any change in current government policy but it is still important because there is a certain power in simply saying the unsayable. It is like prising open a rusty, bolted door so that others can all begin heaving against it in unison. Up until now, debate in Britain has revolved around whether or not we should adopt the Euro. Now the debate can legitimately move on to our entire place in the EU. Thatcher has said it, so others can say it too.
It may not be the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end but the cracks are starting to show, as evidenced by all the urgent scurrying (deliberate use of metaphor) around by various media, government and political poobahs to condemn, deny, rebut and dismiss her remarks.
So get your crowbars out, boys and girls, we’ve got some cracks to work on.
Given my long and strongly held reservations about the European Union (EU) and my enthusiasm for most things Internet and World Wide Web, I felt considerable discomfort reading an Accenture paper The euro and eCommerce: Bringing Europe closer to a single market. The reason for my discomfort, apart from the source of the paper, was its argument that ‘the interaction of a single currency and e-commerce will forge powerful synergies across the euro zone, enhance European competitiveness and accelerate the emergence of pan-European capital market’. So does Bad [EU] plus Good [e-commerce] equal an enhanced Good [capital market unification and its benefits]?
How is it possible that something as centralising and anti-competitive as the euro can provide such a fertile ground for e-commerce, a symbol of non-regulated and most free market business model? At first I could not fault the paper’s conclusion or even its argument, but then I realised that a dose of ‘meta-context’ analysis is needed to understand what are the underpinning ‘world views’ at work here.
The EU debate (a civilised term for the battle between the strongly opposing camps) seems to be conducted on a simplistic utilitarian level, an argument that cannot get beyond the second-tier logic and with a short to medium-term horizon. It consists, at least in the media, of collecting examples and anecdotes of beneficial or damaging effects the European project will or might have. The EU supporters put forward the positive results of their efforts and EU opponents strive to point out their negative impact. Although consequences are an important measure of success or failure, this approach rarely addresses the fundamental premises from which both sides launch their campaigns.
An EU supporter would use the paper’s conclusions to point out that the positive impact of the euro, as enhanced by e-commerce, makes the justification of monetary union more powerful. The euro together with e-commerce further breaks down the barriers between the nations and moves us closer and more rapidly towards the ‘glorious day’ of pan-European capital markets. This also:
- reduces currency exchange risk and cost.
- through the Growth and Stability Pact limits the size of public-sector deficits thus indirectly increasing private sector access to capital by reducing ‘crowding out’ by public-sector borrowers,
- encourages growth of the European corporate bond market that is now widely seen as being able to match the dollar market,
- in combination with information and communications technology enables more fluid and efficient payment processes and settlement systems,
- enhances competition and creates greater price transparency.
There you are – all of the above worthy of any libertarian, or indeed common sense, endorsement. Why would we want the UK to forgo such lovely things, which is what will happen, if we don’t join the €uro?
To me the issue is not about centralisation and efficiency versus free market and disorder. The successful coupling of the euro and e-commerce has a straightforward explanation – the euro provides, by default, a transparent standard for transactions. E-commerce, e-business or any e-prefixed interaction cannot reach its full potential without it. The issue is about the distinction between standards (good) and uniformity (bad) – uniformity as an objective, out of context and without regard for the long-term consequences (if we are to play the utilitarian game) does not sit comfortably with the pursuit of freedom. The distinction between inefficiency (bad) and variety (good) – although a certain degree of inefficiency may have to be the price we pay for variety. It seems to me that the EU has been designed and promoted by the kind of mind that does not value variety and freedom as much as it values uniformity and supposed efficiency.
I believe that the truth about the EU lies in understanding and exposing the true objectives and motivations of its supporters. An understanding of the unintended consequences of market and human interactions will have to play an important role. Therefore I call for a meta-context based examination of the EU debate that reveals the actual view of the world its supporters would have us accept instead of wasting our adrenaline on specific EU horror stories.
Tomorrow, the EU parliament will vote on a Directive that will ‘harmonise’ the sale of vitamin and mineral supplements right across the EU.
The effect in Britain will be to remove some 90% of currently commercially available vitamin and herbal remedies from the shelves of British shops.
“Many people believe these supplements are vital to them. This is heavy-handed legislation which I believe should be withdrawn but all we may be able to do is a damage limitation exercise.”
Britain has always been very relaxed about alternative health remedies and self-help as have countries like Ireland and Holland. But this is all to the great and deep displeasure of the German Pharmaceutical industry whose oily fingerprints are all over this bit of contemptible mischief and are now using their political marionettes in the EU Commission to legislate their competitors out of existance.
As per usual the justification is health and safety:
“Manufacturers will be able to make a case for supplements to be put on the list if they can prove their efficacy and safety, but many small companies do not have the resources for this kind of research trial.”
Even a child knows that nobody ever died from eating vitamins or herbal supplements.
There is widespread and angry opposition to this and not just from Britain but from all over Europe. Millions of e-mails and letters have been sent to the EU Parliament from angry and frustrated people. Sadly, it is likely to avail them nought . The vote will most likely be a rubber stamp by the Teflon Technocrats. The Parliament is just a fig-leaf to give Europeans an illusion of democratic accountability while the Commission agenda is waved through.
“In the UK, vitamin and mineral supplements are now a huge market worth £376 million in 2001. Direct sales are estimated to add £60-£70 million to this total.”
So yet another thriving British industry is executed by fiat and yet another chunk of our choice and independence is chipped away.
‘Harmony’; such a seductive word. We all want ‘harmony’ in our lives. We long for ‘harmony’. Who could possibly object to ‘harmony’?
Like many who walk the cutting edge, I have friends in the cryonics field and have my little Alcor freezer dogtag hanging about my neck. Well, to be honest, it’s void at the moment as entrepreneuring in Belfast is a better way to end up in the poor house than the cryostat but that is another story. A lot of stories actually.
Needless to say, I found this bit of eurofascism both troubling and astounding:
“A French couple who were frozen when they died in the hope that medical advances would one day revive them are facing a thaw at the hands of local authorities,” the BBC reports. When Monique Martinot died in 1984, her husband, Raymond, put her on ice. Last week he died, and his son stuck him in the same fridge. “What has been done is outlawed in France,” a prosecutor tells the BBC. “In this country, bodies must either be cremated or buried.”
The BBC notes that “many European countries have legislation in place restricting the preservation of dead bodies in such a way.”
In my book the prosecutor will be guilty of a double, premeditated homicide if he goes through with this. Some of you are now thinking: “Huh? But they’re already dead!”
To paraphrase a former American president (and beat you with a dead cliche): it depends on what you mean by “dead”. Cryonics exists on the premise that so long as the brain and memories are intact, a technology will exist at some arbitrary time in the future capable of both undoing the cause of death and repairing the damage caused by freezing. I think most would agree there is at least a possibility of resuscitation.
What we have here are Schroedinger’s People, neither alive nor dead, suspended in a quantum world of chance. So our French prosecutor will be a quantum murderer if he opens the box. He will intentionally kill two people and extinguish their chance to once again walk a Riviera beach side by side.
Note: I was led to this story by the Opinion Journal e-mail news.
The EU has decided to set minimum levels of tax on alchololic drinks and no prize for guessing which way that will move prices for consumers. We have been saying that EU tax ‘harmonisation’ only ever moves up and this is a case in point.
The European Commission argues that the proposals should be good for health, limit tax fraud and reduce wide differentials in rates, which have caused an increased cross border smuggling.
But why not reduce taxes downwards for everyone? Help consumer, retailers and producers? Oh, silly me. This is Europe we are talking about, what was I thinking?
I was fully expecting Steve Thoburn and the other ‘Metric Martyrs’ to lose their appeal before the Lords today. That they did, however, still resulted in my spending almost the entire day in a bug-eyed rage. I spent the afternoon doodling designs for giant siege engines that we could use to surround Brussels and reduce it to brickdust.
But, upon examining the actual rationale behind the verdict, the veins in my head have stopped throbbing with quite such gusto. I am forced to examine the small-print as both a Libertarian and a lawyer and I find myself largely agreeing with Brian Micklethwait below.
The application of EU Directives in British Law is, in fact, governed by British Law, namely the European Communities Act 1972 which rendered all British law as being subject to override by European Community Law. However, the Communites Act itself is a Constitutional Act. As such, it cannot be side-stepped by any subsequent legislation but it can itself be amended or even repealed by the British parliament.
There is a way out of the EU; all that is required is the parliamentary will.
I will disagree with Brian, though, that the Lords ruling is an implied ‘Declaration of Independence’. That ‘Declaration’ can only be made by a sovereign British parliament and, given the near-blanket commitment of our current political class to the EU project, the manifestation of that ‘will’ is still along way off.
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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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