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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Deepest thanks to David Farrer for linking to this fascinating article by Dr Raj Persaud in the Scotsman.
Could your political beliefs determine how long you live? New research from sociologist Dr William Cockerham and colleagues from the University of Alabama in the United States has found that differences in attitudes to looking after your body and your health are predicted by your political allegiances.
It seems those who believe the state should take responsibility for most aspects of life also tend to eschew personal responsibility for taking care of themselves. As a result, they are more likely to engage in lifestyles hazardous to their health, including drinking to excess and not exercising.
The just-published research was conducted among Russians, comparing those who longed for a to return to the old-style Soviet system with those who preferred the free-market approach to the economy.
Personal interviews with almost 9,000 Russians found significant differences in how much they looked after their own health depending on where they placed themselves on the political spectrum.
David says that this reminds him of Glasgow, another great bastion of socialist intellectual self-abuse, and bodily self-abuse by other more enjoyable but equally destructive means. But Dr Raj Persaud doesn’t seem to have heard about Glasgow. → Continue reading: The moral hazards of healthcare
There is a fine article in The Times today (link requires registration and may not work outside UK) by Mick Hume, bemoaning the decline of belief in individual responsibility and the growing use of the word “addiction” to describe almost every form of repetitive behaviour.
As the article can only be read through registration (grrr), here’s the opening gaff:
“We are becoming a nation of addiction addicts. Our society has become hooked on the habit of blaming human behaviour on some form of addiction. Apparently normal people – doctors, scientists, politicians (normal? ed), even journalists (ditto? ed) – seem incapable of resisting the urge to inject “addict” or “dependency” into any discussion of social problems.”
Exactly. The use of the word addict is used by policymakers to assault the idea of Man as a being with free will. We are all essentially passive victims. By doing so, it opens the floodgates to authortarian control of our lives. Look at the massive lawsuits against tobacco firms. Now I hold no brief for such firms, but the idea that people become so “addicted” to X or Y that they are unable to resist is surely contradicted by evidence all around us of people quitting such repetitive habits. Millions of people have in recent decades quit smoking, for example, like the good David Carr of this parish. Many have taken the painful step of quitting hard drugs or quitting alcohol. Of course change can be acutely difficult, which is why we praise folk who take the step of leading a healthier life.
Addiction is a word in danger of being rendered useless by applying it to just about every form of behaviour which is either frowned upon or a repeat form of activity.
Come to that, I suppose I must be “addicted” to blogging. Help me nurse, I am using Movable Type again!
Every so often (and it doesn’t happen often enough for my liking) the British public remind us of the yawning gap between received wisdom and wisdom.
Ever since the 1940’s it has been a core article of faith among the left (and more than a few Conservatives I might add) that services like healthcare and education can only be provided for the masses by central government and funded by general taxation. They even have the gall to denounce alternative models as ‘unworkable’.
Well, if the results of this survey are anything to go by, that canard may be reaching the end of its shelf-life:
Voters are prepared to pay for health insurance if it guarantees them better and faster care, according to a ground-breaking new poll that suggests the public is far more open to radical ideas than politicians realise.
The survey finds strong support among taxpayers for a range of controversial policy alternatives, including giving parents the right to choose private schools for their children and American-style “zero tolerance” policing.
I wonder if there is still ‘strong support’ for British-style “zero tolerance” for self-defence?
The poll appears to contradict the Prime Minister’s claim that voters are opposed to health and education solutions that allow individuals to decide where their money is spent.
And it would also appear to contradict my long-held belief that the British public would never relinquish their single-minded devotion to the National Health Service. The day when consumer expectation finally outstrips the ability of the state to keep up with it may be closer than I had imagined.
The American food giant, Kraft, is taking a number of steps to ward off the threat it may be sued by obese folk claiming its foodstuffs made them so big. This comes in the wake of threats by an American man to sue various fast-food chains for making him so big.
Kraft, of course, is fully entitled as a private company to adjust its products as it wishes. It is probably a wise move. In the U.S., and sadly, increasingly also here in the UK, the idea that the consumer should adopt the posture of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is on the decline. We are increasingly told that we are all victims, passive suffers of the blandishments of big, evil, and mostly multinational corporations.
The idea of taking responsibility for your actions is dying out. We are on the way to all being treated like naughty little moppets in a creche.
And of course if we do still sneak into a fast-food joint for a big burger, there’s a chance our state nannies will want the evidence recorded on CCTV.
Are you gainfully employed? If so, does your wicked employer make all manner of unreasonable demands upon you, such as actually turning up for work or doing the job you’re being paid to do?
Up until now, there was no means of redress for such manifest injustice and rank exploitation. But, lo, the dark ages are at an end. Thanks to the Health & Safety Executive, all employers must now comply with a ‘Stress Code’:
Employers will have to protect their staff from stress – or risk legal action, a watchdog has warned.
The Health and Safety Executive has launched a six-point code which firms must abide by.
They must support their employees and ensure they do not feel overly pressured in their roles.
Now I don’t profess to any expert medical knowledge or even any medical knowledge at all but even I know that a broken foot is a broken foot and pretty easy to detect. But how on earth is something as subjective as ‘stress’ going to be either properly identified or measured?
Well, the bright sparks at the H&S have come up with a forumla:
Companies will be assessed to see if they have reduced stress to manageable levels.
If fewer than 65 to 85% of all staff feel each standard has been met, the company will fail its assessment.
If that isn’t a charter for malingerers, clock-watchers, perennial malcontents and compensation-sniffers then I don’t know what is. And, short of being paid to go the park every day and feed the ducks, what job doesn’t involve some level of stress at some point or other?
Up to 13.4m days a year are lost due to stress at work.
And I wonder how many of those are actually ‘I’ve-got-tickets-to-the-football-match’ kind of ‘stress’?
It would be tempting to suggest that there is some insidious political agenda behind this but I honestly don’t believe that much thought has gone into it. More likely it is another classic case of bureaucratic empire-building which, as in this case, is usually done on the back of quackery, junk science and manipulated statistics.
The result is the same regardless. British entrepreneurs, already snowed under with laws, regulations, diktats and directives, have yet another welfarist function to fulfil and, I daresay, yet another sheaf of related forms that they will be required to waste their time completing.
I have a dream about just how much more prosperous and innovative our society could be if its wealth-creators were not required to spend so much of their productive time jumping through government hoops and avoiding state-created bear-traps that have no right to exist. It is rather similar to the dream that, one day, somebody in the parasitical public sector will realise that there is only so much blood they can draw out of the private sector before the latter simply rolls over and dies. I am not at all confident that either dream will be realised any time soon.
Switch on the TV, open a magazine, buy a newspaper or surf the net and it won’t be any time at all until you come across an advertisement for some diet-related product. Be it an exercise-contraption, a formula drink or a low-calorie food range, the market cup runneth over with weapons we can use to fight the Global War on Flab.
As a veteran footsoldier in this campaign (my abdomen is more ‘lunch-pack’ than ‘six-pack’) I bear many scars of battle. But I long ago realised that I can never really win this war. Though I have succeeded, with grim determination and effort, to cast off the oppressive tyranny of blobdom, my liberation has only ever been temporary. Somehow, by various means, the forces of fattiness manage to regroup and come roaring back to overwhelm me again and take me prisoner.
Still, surrender is not an option and I am always on the lookout for new ideas that may, I pray, grant me permanent victory and eternal snake-hips. Somebody recently suggested that getting one of those Jane Fonda videos might help and, prickly with expectation, I went out and bought one. Another let-down, I’m afraid. I spent the whole of last weekend watching ‘On Golden Pond’ and I didn’t shed an ounce.
Now, fortunately, I have private health insurance which means that my midriff mission-creep has few practical consequences apart from a vampiresque aversion to full-length mirrors and the occasional ‘magic flying shirt-button’. The same cannot be said for many of my fellow citizens who find themselves at the less-than-tender mercy of the state healthcare system:
Patients could have to sign up to healthier lifestyles under new plans being considered by the Labour Party.
Written contracts would ensure a certain standard of treatment in return for people following doctors’ advice and attending appointments.
Or, ‘Ve haf vays of making you slim’. Okay, in some ways I am quite pleased that this is now out in the open because it has actually been bubbling away just below the radar for a good few years now, mostly as ominous mutterings from NHS doctors that they might refuse to treat patients who smoke (despite the fact that taxes paid by smokers prop up the NHS).
Yes, carry on I say. How about a ‘no dangerous sports’ contract? A ‘stress-free career’ contract? A ‘no casual sex’ contract? A ‘no riding motorbikes’ contract? Why not? Since the NHS is clearly destined to become a lifestyle-policemen they may as well go the whole hog. And I sincerely hope they do because then our dirty, little secret will be secret no longer. The dirty, little secret (that no-one ever mentions in polite company here) is that nationalised healthcare is not free healthcare, it is rationed healthcare and this is just the latest rationing scheme.
The unpalatable truth is that this is a cost-cutting measure. Not so much doctor’s advice but bureaucratic diktat. Despite the extra squintillions of pounds that have been poured into it by the current government, the NHS still cannot meet the market demand for healthcare and so increasingly ruthless ways to cut the waiting lists are having to be formulated.
I have no doubt whatsoever that proposers of the scheme will argue they are only finding ways to improve people’s health and forcing them to lose weight and give up smoking is therefore a truly kind act of a caring government. But that is not why they’re doing this. And, while no reasonable person would argue that losing weight and quitting the weed can by anything but beneficial to health, a threat to withdraw healthcare for those who fail is nothing but a squalid act of bullying.
But, this is time for satisfaction not outrage. The great fabian promise of free healthcare for all regardless of who they are or how much they earn is finally showing up for the lie it always was. Let it grow and deepen. Perhaps, when some poor sod has been turned away from a hospital because of his ‘irresponsible’ roller-skating hobby, the British public will finally realise what Ayn Rand realised a long time ago: that the difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is merely a matter of time.
Health fascism? Islamofascism? Same thing?
[My thanks to Marc Brands for posting this to the Libertarian Alliance Forum]
Next time you run into a bunch of eco-loonies howling from the rooftops about the number of innocent Iraqi children killed by Anglo-American sanctions or the number of Africans whose lives are blighted by the alleged predations of globalisation, you might want to take some comfort from the realisation that what is really going on here is a massive exercise in guilt-displacement.
Green campaigns, you see, are not just a laughable manifestation of Western illiberal neurosis. They actually kill real people in the real world. There is no better illustration of this than their the long-standing (and shameful) war against DDT, an extremely useful chemical spray that has a proven track record in stopping the spread of malaria but which the greenies regard as a ‘toxin’ that must be eradicated in order to ‘improve’ the environment.
Using their customary formula of junk-science, scare-mongering, moral blackmail and religious fervour, the enviro-mentalists have managed to persuade Western governments to lean on the governments of developing countries to prohibit the use of this life-saving bit of technology.
This is neo-imperialism of the worst kind. Western greenies seem to regard the Third World as a sort of benevolent plantation where they can administer their muddle-headed, quasi-mystical, do-goodery to the poor, benighted fuzzy-wuzzys.
The results have been disastrous but the good news is that the ‘noble savages’ have had just about enough of this crap:
Kenya’s leading research center has come out in favor of using DDT to stem the toll of malaria in the country, reigniting a bitter debate between those who want to protect the environment and those who favor saving African children.
With the announcement, Kenya is poised to join a handful of other African countries, which are disregarding donor-nation admonitions that the chemical is an environmental disaster.
Proof (as if any more were actually needed) that one can afford to play along with these self-indulgent parlour games and humour the participants until such times as actual lives are on the line as a result. The Kenyans have rudely (and justly) reminded the world that they are critically vulnerable to the consequences of fashionable clap-trap in a way that over-stuffed and ridiculously coddled Western metropolitan elites are not.
“DDT is not the only weapon against malaria, but given its success in other parts of Africa, it would be of great benefit for malaria control in Kenya,” Richard Tren, director of Africa Fighting Malaria, in Johannesburg said yesterday. “Not using DDT, in effect, condemns Africans to die.”
Dr. Davy Koech, director of KMRI, said DDT is one of the most effective pesticides against the anopheles mosquito, which transmits malaria. He said malaria in Kenya has reached epidemic proportions.
Every person engaged in this campaign of prohibition should hang their heads in shame and ignominy.
Cheap and effective, DDT was once considered a modern miracle for dealing with malaria and insect pests in agriculture. It was used during World War II, when entire cities were sprayed to control lice and typhus. DDT was used to eradicate malaria in the United States, but it was also used by the ton for agriculture, where it killed birds. DDT was named the culprit and vilified by Rachel Carson in her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” leading to its ban in the United States in 1972.
I wonder if that book has even been objectively scrutinised?
Zambia recently decided to reintroduce the chemical for malaria control, and Uganda announced that it would begin using DDT again.
“In Europe, they used DDT to kill anopheles mosquitos that cause malaria,” Ugandan Health Minister Jim Muhewezi told the Monitor newspaper in Kampala. “Why can’t we use DDT to kill the enemy in our own camp?”
Because, Mr.Muhewezei, some Westerners regard ideology as being more important than life itself.
I sincerely hope that this outbreak of common sense continues to spread. I also hope that this episode goes some way to persuade sensible people in the Third World that their lives will not improve until they dismiss the idiotic ravings of Western socialist cranks and start to embrace the enlightenment of technology, capitalism, progress and property rights.
And, if there is any justice in this world, Western enviro-mentalists will all be rounded up and prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
[My thanks to Chris Cooper for flagging up this issue on the Libertarian Alliance Forum]
Because I grew up in the 1970’s I still associate Trade Unions with the rank-and-file of the British urban proletariat; the lantern-jawed, barrel-chested, horney-handed, hobnail-booted sons of industrial toil. These were the rough, tough, no-nonsense men who hewed the coal, forged the steel and rivetted iron plates down in the boiler-room of the British economy.
In those days ‘male grooming’ meant a smell of honest sweat and a smear of brickdust and anyone who was stupid enough to go into a working class pub and prissily complain about the smokey atmosphere was more likely than not to experience ‘Death by Shipbuilder’.
Alright, I know that’s a cartoon but at least it was corroborated to a small degree in real world of shop floors, lathes and jackhammers. But the coal fields are silent now, the shipyards have all gone and the smokestack industries are billowing clouds of vapour over Taiwan not Teesside and so the Trades Union Congress (TUC) needs new rubrics to campaign on. Out has gone the fiery old rhetoric of revolution, strikes and class war and in has come the priggish, condescending ideology of health fascism:
Pubs, clubs and restaurants could increase their takings by banning smoking, says the TUC.
The TUC is pushing for the ban, because it believes passive smoking presents a health risk to waiters, waitresses and bar staff.
Very useful this ‘passive smoking’ hoax. What would organisations like the TUC do without it?
Rory O’Neill, editor of the TUC-backed Hazards magazine which published Saturday’s report, said: “Big Tobacco (the lobby) has spent big money to prevent UK workplaces going smoke-free.
Ah yes, the hobgoblin of ‘Big Tobacco’, yet another shadowy capitalist conspiracy determined to preserve our right to choose. They’re a ‘lobby’, don’t you know. All ‘lobbies’ are malevolent and driven by greed, as opposed to organisations like the TUC which is motivated solely by altruism and love for their fellow humans.
Let us hear the voice of the ‘lobby’:
But Simon Clark, director of smokers’ rights group Forest, said: “Neither the consumer nor the hospitality industry wants a complete ban on smoking and there is absolutely no need for it.
“If the overwhelming majority of people wanted smoke-free pubs and restaurants it would happen, believe me, because people vote with their feet.
Is this Apostate of Hell trying to tell us that if that people wanted a smoke-free environment then any entrepreneur who opened a non-smoking restaurant would clean up? Just further proof that the concept of a free market is a standing affront to people with agendas to advance and empires to build.
My, how the TUC has apparently changed its tune. In the good old days they denounced ‘profits’ and told the workers that they had nothing to lose except their chains. Now they seem to want to enourage profits while telling the workers to lift that barge, tote that bail, have a little smoke and land in jail.
If the Devil makes work for idle hands it is surely because he has no need to find any for busy bodies. They are far too engaged on Satanic projects of their own.
These infernal Children of Eternal Night are, it appears, girding their loins and grinding their battleaxes for another Unholy War, this time against….Vitamins!!
In accordance with sacred Samizdata liturgy there is no link to this UK Times article but here are some of the best bits:
The Food Standards Agency says that many vitamin supplements do more harm than good, and urges people to cut down on vitamin C, calcium and iron. It has for the first time set safe daily limits for various supplements, issues strong warnings on six and even demands the ban of one product — chromium picolinate, which athletes and slimmers use to help them to stay lean or lose weight.
Just a warning, of course. Mere sensible advice. A directive. Guidance. Official common sense. Satanic intentions are usually dressed up in the terminology of caring and sharing in order to mask the faint whiff of sulphur. We all know the Path to Hell has been pre-scripted though. This is where it starts and it is only a matter of time and bureaucratic stealth until the vitamin products they have targetted become restricted by law and then made available by prescription only (which must be accompanied by payment of the state fee, of course).
But this is not the first time ominous noises have been made:
Workers at a Sussex vitamins firm could lose their jobs if a European directive on food supplements becomes law.
Owners of G&G Food in East Grinstead have called on Euro MPs to block the European Directive on Food Supplement which they fear would take vitamins, minerals and herbal remedies off the shelves.
So is this an empire-building initiative from the British Food Standards Agency or are they merely minions taking their order from the Pit of Hades? It matters not, I suppose, because battle is enjoined and the signs are that it is going to be long and bloody:
Ralph Pike, of the National Association of Health Stores, which represents 12,500 health shops, was incensed by the “meddling”, and demanded: “Where are the dead bodies? There has not been one death anywhere in the world from people taking a legitimate vitamin supplement. This is disgraceful, and all it will do will scare people from taking safe and legitimate products for no good reasons. The authorities just don’t like people taking control of their own health and they want everyone to abrogate responsibility for their lives to the nanny state.”
Praise be to Mr.Pike for he has surely Seen The Light and is ready to step up to the ranks of the Holy Warriors.
The European Central Bank has said that joining the Euro would mean the end of the free NHS, reports The Times (we do not link to the Times). Apparently the April edition monthly report of the ECB said that:
Governments should distinguish between “essential, privately non-insurable and non-affordable services”, such as emergency treatment, and those where “private financing might be more efficient”.
In truth, the actual ECB report [pdf file] does not say anything quite so bluntly. The actual report is full of careful conditionals and non-assertions: “governments may have to rise contribution rates”, such co-payments could increase efficiency”, “pre-financing [of geriatric care] has been proposed” and “It has been argued that setting of budget caps…can improve overall performance”. (page 45) → Continue reading: “Euro means end of NHS”
Last night I watched a Channel 4 TV documentary about SARS.
Meanwhile, according to the Radio Times, over on Channel 5 they were showing the movie Outbreak, starring Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo. Sometimes Britain’s broadcasters cancel things at the last minute if they feel that the bounds of bad taste are being crossed, so I made a point of checking if Outbreak was actually being shown. It was.
The way that SARS is, we were told, being contained, is that the various people who took the lead in spreading it are being restrospectively tracked in minute and individual detail, so that all their contacts can in turn be tracked down and placed in quarantine. The movements of the “super-spreader” Professor Lee, who took the contagion from South China to Hong Kong, were recounted as if doing the research for the disaster movie script that all this will surely yield in due course. The scene where the already coughing Professor shares a lift with a young businessman called something like Johnny Chang will undoubtedly be in this movie, with very scary music.
→ Continue reading: SARS is the health of the state
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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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