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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On BBC 2 last night there was a programme in the series ‘Seven Wonders of the Industrial World’.
This particular episode was on the building of the Transcontinental Railroad in the United States.
As one would expect the show did not present the companies involved (the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific) in a very positive light. And the BBC have a point – the companies were subsidy grubbing, brutal and corrupt.
However, it was also clear from the programme that the the Central Pacific was less brutal, less corrupt and more effective than the Union Pacific.
Some things the programme did not mention (for example the Central Pacific’s policy of ‘buying off’ Indians – rather than just getting the army to kill them). But it did show that although the Central Pacific Railroad were ruthless they were not the killers (of Indians and Whites) that the Union Pacific were. The programme also showed that the owners of the Central Pacific actually cared about their company (rather than just considering an object to be looted as Durant of the Union Pacific did).
Furthermore it was clear that the Central Pacific overcame vast physical obstructions to the building of a railroad and that its people (White and Chinese) showed creative thought and vast physical effort in overcoming these obstructions.
In the end the Central Pacific won the race to get to the rendezvous point decreed by Congress – and had to wait for two days for the Union Pacific to turn up.
Fantasy presents conflicts as being between good guys and bad guys. However, in real life conflicts are more often between bad guys and worse guys (although later in American railroad history J.J. Hill does appear to have been a genuine good guy).
It was good for the soul of America that the bad guys (rather than the worse guys) won the race.
It sticks in the craw to say it, but Hillary is the only one of the Democrats who sounds Presidential. The rest of them are dwarves with limited understanding of the requirements of the job for which they are auditioning.
She and her significant other have consistantly backed Bush on the WMD issue. By admitting they saw the same intelligence reports and by taking responsibility for policy initiatives they set in motion, they appear as statesmen. They have a solidness and class that is severely lacking amongst the Democratic candidates.
I rather look forward to a Condi v Hillary match in 2008. That is an election for which the cemeteries really would get out the vote.
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal Online has an excellent look at the seamy, sleazy side of the California recall election, and specifically the role of Indian gambling money. If you want an accounting of how politics really gets played in the US, this is a pretty good vignette. Discliamer: John is a pretty loyal Republican, for the most part, but I have met him and I can assure you he is savvy and knows his politics.
There are all kinds of lessons in this article. I will leave you with a few to chew on:
Note the brazen contempt for campaign finance law by the Bustamente campaign. Where politicians can’t get the money they need through various kinds of gray-market loophole-oriented money-laundering operations designed to evade these laws, they just violate them outright because they know that no enforcement will occur until after the election.
Note the heavily cynical and strategic use of political money to build up politicians that the contributors actually want to lose the race, because these dark horses will strip votes from a real rival to the preferred candidate.
Money and power will always find each other. The only solution to the kinds of influence peddling activities on display in California is to strip power from the state.
Arnold has finally come out of the closet. In a Wall Street Journal article he states:
I have often said that the two people who have most profoundly impacted my thinking on economics are Milton Friedman and Adam Smith. At Christmas I sometimes annoy some of my more liberal Hollywood friends by sending them a gift of Mr. Friedman’s classic economic primer, “Free to Choose.” What I learned from Messrs. Friedman and Smith is a lesson that every political leader should never forget: that when the heavy fist of government becomes too overbearing and intrusive, it stifles the unlimited wealth creation process of a free people operating under a free enterprise system.
He then lays out the key elements of his program:
My plan to rescue the economy in California is based on the opposite set of values: I want to slash the cost of doing business in California; I want to unburden businesses from regulations that strangle economic growth; I want to bring taxes down to levels competitive with our neighboring states. Within three years, I want business groups to trumpet the fact that California is once again one of the best places in the country to do business.
He then closes with a statement which is difficult to argue with:
Our state will prosper again when we commit ourselves in California to “Free to Choose” economics. This means removing, one by one, the innumerable impediments to growth–excessive taxes, regulations, and deficit-spending. If we do this we will bring California back as the untarnished Golden State.
Long before the California election I read Mr Schwarzenegger had at least slight libertarian leanings. Given this statement I feel safe declaring he is a fellow traveller at the very least.
The article can be found here. It is well worth reading despite the hassles of getting to it. This is perhaps the first Opinion Journal article I have linked to since they started crashing my browser when I attempt to print to file. In general, I do not refer people to something if I am unable to file a copy for future reference in the all too common case where the link becomes unreachable.
That lonely, marginalised, oppressed siren voice in the wilderness John Pilger has managed to escape from the daggers of the vicious McCarthyite witch-hunt that has cowed so many into a silence that has prevented them from speaking the truth about America and the war in Iraq.
This brave, determined peace-campaigner has finally succeeded in casting off the shackles of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that has, hitherto, so ruthlessly crushed his dissent with a one-hour television special screened earlier tonight on ITV1, Britain’s most popular TV channel. There is no link here, mostly because I couldn’t be bothered to go and look for one.
Neither could I actually be bothered to watch the programme. I have been exposed to enough of Pilger’s toxic, manipulative propoganda to know in advance exactly the kind of things he was going to be whining about. In fact, I think I can even summarise them:
Bush. Warmongers. Neo-Conservatives. Oil. Conspiracy. World domination. Capitalism. Globalisation. Unfair trade. Bush. Oil. Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz. CIA. Mossad. Inequality. Poverty. Despair. Hopelessness. Arms trade. Environment. Sharon. Zionist thugs. Oppression. Cruelty. Palestinians. Bush. Oil. Blair. NATO. Poodles. American bullying. Human rights. Amnesty International. Unilateral. Nuremburg trials. Nazis. Aggression. Bush regime. Conquer the world. Crush dissent. United Nations is our only hope.
And those were the good bits!
Which is to say, a politician I respect. Now I do not always see eye to eye with Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican representative for Texas, when it comes to dealing with tyrants and other nastiness outside the USA, but I do respect him nevertheless and given my views on politicians as a breed, that is saying something. When he is correct, oh my, is he correct:
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the “Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.” This legislation prohibits US taxpayer dollars from being used to support or promote any United Nations actions that could infringe on the Second Amendment. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act also expresses the sense of Congress that proposals to tax, or otherwise limit, the right to keep and bear arms are “reprehensible and deserving of condemnation”.
[…]
Secretary Annan is not the only globalist calling for international controls on firearms. For example, some world leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, have called for a global tax on firearms. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council’s “Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms” calls for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control and praises the restrictive gun polices of Red China and France!
[…]
Mr. Speaker, global gun control is a recipe for global tyranny and a threat to the safety of all law-abiding persons. I therefore hope all my colleagues will help protect the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms by cosponsoring the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.
Damn, that is almost enough to turn me into a Republican! Now if that party could just do something about its mercantilist anti-market trade policies, repressive sexual policies in some states and nasty tendency to vastly increase the size and scope of state whilst claiming to be the party of small government…
FEE reports President Bush’s steel tariff has had the unintended consequences most of us expected. According to the Washington post article Steel Tariffs Are a Net Job Killer, 9/19/03:
In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection. Eighteen months later, key administration officials have concluded that Bush’s order has turned into a debacle. Some economists say the tariffs may have cost more jobs than they saved, by driving up costs for automakers and other steel users.
It’s not just those uppity complaining fur’ners the EU is starving who get hurt. Protective tariffs harm everyone.
Seattle voters have rejected a tax on coffee. You can read about it here (registration required).
My faith in America is restored. My furtive bid to try to acquire a Green Card may be renewed again in anger, and the people of New Hampshire or Texas may yet hail me as one of their Britain-escaping sons. Yes, folks, the voters of Washington State’s Seattle have rejected the idiotarian espresso and latte tax, recently proposed, by a margin of seven voters to three. Good on you, Seattle. May the three out of ten of you who voted for it, be shipped out on a boat to Guardian-loving Britain, immediately, to see what it’s like to live under the corrupt welfare monolith you would so dearly love to create.
Last Friday, Alice Bachini blogged this:
I am now going to attempt to eat fire while walking barefoot on hot coals over Niagara Falls juggling three lives cats and singing the National Anthem of the United States of America.
It worked. She is now back in blogging business full time, newly energised and revitalised by having a new blog address without_any_underlinings_in_it_as_per_this, which apparently some people couldn’t get. (Although I notice that the archive links in the rest of this posting still have underlinings in them. If the links below still don’t work for you, go to the one in this paragraph to the top of the blog and scroll down.)
There’s also a picture of Alice wearing a bikini and a fur coat, and there is practically no bikini visible at all. → Continue reading: alicebachini.com
Geez, governments can’t do anything right. I mean, your average paint-huffing teenager can grow decent pot, but not the Canadian government. With a multi-million dollar budget!
Some of the first patients to smoke Health Canada’s government-approved marijuana say it’s “disgusting” and want their money back.
The department was compelled to begin direct distribution in July, following an Ontario court order this year that said needy patients should not be forced to get their cannabis on the streets or from authorized growers, who themselves obtain seeds or cuttings illegally.
The marijuana is being grown for Health Canada deep underground in a vacant mine section in Flin Flon, Man., by Prairie Plant Systems on a $5.75-million contract.
Laboratory tests indicate the Health Canada product has only about three per cent THC – not the 10.2 per cent advertised – and contains contaminants such as lead and arsenic, said spokesman Philippe Lucas of Victoria.
“This particular product wouldn’t hold a candle to street level cannabis,” he said in an interview.
Words fail.
Rand Simberg has done another brilliant piss-take. Just imagine! Japan bombs Pearl Harbour and we go off and invade Italy! My, my….
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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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