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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Yes, the USA is through to the last eight of the World Cup, despite, our news people are telling us, nobody in the USA giving a damn. But of course that’s the reason. Why did those wretched Irishmen miss all those penalties yesterday? Because the Irelandosphere in its entirety was watching in agony, and the poor fellows knew it. If you’re a Mexican with a chance of scoring, all those millions of Mexicans, brothers and cousins and uncles among them, clustered round their TV sets, howling and gasping like wounded animals, flash through your mind at the critical moment and your legs turn to seaweed. In contrast, when a US player gets a shot at goal, it’s between him and few dozen other Ivy League type blokes, none of whom are that bothered, so in it goes. USA 2 Mexico 0.
Nevertheless, my favourite US drama today is the lady forest ranger who confessed that, in the course of burning a letter from her estranged husband, she had also set fire to the entire state of Colorado. Why did she confess? Easy. This is the ultimate in saying: “Look what you made me do!” Hell hath no fury, and so on. But this does make we want to rethink female equality when it comes to owning or controlling thermonuclear weapons.
Robert ‘I don’t blame them for hitting me’ Fisk makes a rare intelligent point in the UK daily newspaper, The Independent. He points out that the U.S. government’s proposal to finger-print certain Arabs and Muslims from a set of Middle East countries will not apply to people travelling from Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that the men who attacked the U.S. on September 11th were mostly Saudis.
He is right to point out the absurdity of this. While I detest much of Fisk’s reflexive anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric, on this point he is right. Saudi Arabia is the country which has contributed the lion’s share of terrorists waging their war against the West. The sooner that Western policy-makers recognize that fact and reduce our reliance on their oil, the better. (This is already starting to happen due to growing ties with oil-rich Russia). Of course, whether fingerprinting will make an iota of difference to catching would-be terrorists is another point entirely. Predictably, Fisk does not object to the U.S. government fingerprinting persons on a matter of principle, but mainly to use it as a stick to hit Bush.
In the recent Samizdata article American Perfidy it is claimed that “apart from the tax cut” Mr Bush has allowed his agenda to collapse.
Actually (as I and others have pointed out) “apart from the tax cut” Mr Bush did not have an agenda worth talking about (just a lot of waffle about being “compassionate” by handing out tax payers’ money to religious charities). To be fair if Mr Bush had gone into the 2000 election with a decent agenda he would have lost. The “window of opportunity” that existed in Britain in 1979 and the United States in 1981 has gone. Just over 20 years ago most people would have accepted real budget cuts and deregulation, but this mood has past. The public (in both the Britain and the United States) are now obsessed with the “public services” and see new regulations as the correct response to any problem from Enron to hay fever.
Sadly the judgement on Mr Reagan and Mrs Thatcher must be that they had a chance but failed (in terms of regulations and welfare state programs government is bigger than ever now) – although in both cases one can produce a case for the defence (Mr Reagan faced a House of Reps controlled by the Democrats, Mrs Thatcher was surrounded by traitors from day one…). As for Mr Bush – he never had a chance. The media were against him, the “intellectuals” and their universities were against him, the Republicans did not have firm control of the Senate – all these things might have been overcome. However, Mr Bush faces a general public the majority of whom are statist – and against that what can he do?
Oh by the way – no Mr Clinton did not favour free trade. Mr Clinton liked trade agreements if they led to regulations being imposed on countries (especially “pro labour” union type regulations) and he especially liked trade deals if they helped build up the old dream of a world government (replacing G.A.T.T. with the W.T.O. was a fifty year old dream in certain circles in the U.S.) – one step at a time was Mr Clinton’s way (after the health care defeat early on in his administration). However an actual free trade deal – no, Mr Clinton never very keen on them.
Paul Marks
Last September two very big towers in New York were zapped by terrorists, and ever since then the argument has bubbled along about what ought to be done with the site once all the debris was cleared away, as it now has been. I’ve only just seen the piece in which, last Wednesday (which I’m learning is like a month ago in blog time), Anne Coulter says: rebuild and rebuild big! I agree, and I hope (and I learn that) New York does, and probably will.
Ask yourself this. What would Al Qaeda want? A park and some silly sculpture? They’d love that. That would be game set and match to them. Two huge concrete and metal fingers raised to the sky, or maybe one even bigger one, featured on every other photo of New York for the next five decades? They’d hate that. There you go.
The recent massive U.S. government increase in subsidy to its domestic farmers comes in for a deserved and amusing mauling from Daily Telegraph journalist and Tory MP Boris Johnson. He is right to point out that by signing off the vast increase in aid to American farmers, Bush has compounded the damage to international free markets made when he agreed to steel and lumber tariffs earlier in the year.
On a broader point, this makes me wonder whether Bush is headed for going down in history as one of the most protectionist Presidents since the Second World War. On the domestic front his pre-election agenda seems to fallen apart with the exception of the tax cut. Instead, Bush is resorting to pork-barrel politics to shore up support in supposed key states for the Republicans ahead of the Congressional elections this autumn. Of course, we libertarians hold no illusions about politicians as a group, so I suppose Bush’s slide into cynicism should not surprise us. But I never thought I could write the following words – I am beginning to miss Bill Clinton. At least he believed in free trade, if nothing else.
Paul Marks takes a rather more jaundiced view of Dubya than David Carr
I agree that the enemies of President Bush tend to be rather evil. However, that does not mean that the Bush Administration is very good.
As far as I know they have not even tried to cut (let alone abolish) any Welfare State program or get rid of any major regulation – they seem to be just marking time before the Democrats take control of the White House again.
Still this better than the first Bush Administration (the Bush with the “Herbert” in his name). That Administration increased taxes and added lots of new regulations (such as the infamous Americans with a Disability Act).
Paul Marks
The world is a complex and confusing place oftentimes. It can be so hard to know for sure whether or not one is doing the right thing. There are, though, some yardsticks and one of them is the ‘European street’ which has risen up in protest at a visit to Germany by George Bush.
I’m not entirely sure what track Mr.Bush is on, but when he induces rent-a-mob to take to the streets with slogans like ‘Nature Before Profits’ we can all be pretty sure that he’s on the right one.
Personally, I’d like to see him rub some salt into the wounds while he’s about it. Perhaps he could play up the ‘cowboy’ image? (Is this Germany? Where are all them folks wearing them leather pants?). Better still he could echo Reagan in the 80’s but instead of calling for the end of the Berlin Wall, he could call for the end of the Welfare State. Then he could fly back to the US, chuckling to himself, while watching Berlin explode in his rear-view mirror.
You know those “what I’ve always said” things, which actually thousands of others have been saying for even longer. Well I’ve always said that we, the forces of enlightenment, the good guys, need to get our hands on more stories where the gun hasn’t been in evil hands and done harm, but in good hands and done good. And when we do get our hands on such stories we should spread them in all directions.
So here is just such a story (“Woman shoots, kills armed intruder in West Seattle”) from the Seattle Times, picked up by a very promising blogger fellow named Glenn Reynolds, on a little thing he calls Instapundit. This Reynolds chappie has a definite future as a blogger. The Instapundit hit rate will now explode …
Canada is treating its soldiers disgracefully. The fighting in Afghanistan is not a gentlemen’s game between sportsmen, it is a fight to the death with desperate terrorists. If some dead Al Qaeda/Taliban soldier was posed for a photograph with a cigarette and a placard around his neck saying ‘fuck terrorism’ then I say so what? It is okay to kill a man, to blow a hole in his body with a 50 cal slug, to shoot him dead, at the behest of your government… but not to disrespect the terrorist supporting son of a bitch’s corpse? Ludicrous.
There has been a big demonstration in Washington D.C. which was referred to by Dale Amon in a previous post. Radley Balko of The Agitator followed the going on in person and reported:
Unfortunately, the two demonstrations met, turning the entire uptown area into a activist stew of random causes, screams and protests. Palestinian flags flew next to signs excoriating Citibank and Monsanto. The crowd was anti-wealth, anti-racism, anti-terrorism, anti-war on terrorism, anti-poverty, anti-drug war, anti-Israel. All the messages blurred together.
Now this is wonderful news. The sight of groups holding up signs saying ‘a suicide bomber is a poor man’s F-16’ standing next to an anti-globalization protestor is just about the most sublime sight I can imagine. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. This public conflation of toxic idiocies is providing people who are pro-capitalist or pro-Israel or pro-war-on-terrorism, or any combination thereof, with what can only be described as a ‘target rich environment’. Juicy.
Undercover operative Radley Balko is going undercover at the anti-globalist demonstration in Washington. If he survives and doesn’t get strung up on a pair of Golden Arches, expect some interesting tales to appear on The Agitator later this evening Zulu Time.
All evil globalists like us should use ‘Zulu’ when discussing our nefarious plans. It sounds so appropriate for the articles in the Secretive Underground Publication of the Samizdata Terran Planetary Cadre of Elite Anarcho-Capitalist Conspirators!
Give ’em ‘ell and fire when ready Radley!
Harry Browne’s American Liberty Foundations has successfully raised funds for another TV ad and it will be airing today, Saturday the 20th, on the Fox News Channel. “Intruder” will air three times so look for it in these slots:
* Noon to 3 PM Eastern
* 11 AM to 2 PM Central
* 10 AM to 1 PM Mountain
* 9 AM to Noon Pacific
It’s absolutely guaranteed to drive the anti-gun crazies over the edge.
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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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