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.
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Tony Adragna of Quasipundit has some interesting and provocative things to say about Libertarianism.
As a Libertarian, I welcome this. Tony is clearly a very intelligent and moral man (and, if he reads this, then I hope he takes those observations at face value because that is how they are meant) and he has done what every intelligent and moral person should do when confronted with any idea or philosophy: he has challenged it and challenged it well.
It would be tempting to respond be hectoring him about Libertarian ideas; tempting but unnecessary and probably counterproductive. Tony has obviously been more than a little exposed to those ideas and finds them wanting. As far as rebuttal is concerned, I shall confine myself to a rejection of his use of the term ‘anarchy’ when he really means ‘chaos’. The two concepts are quite different both in theory and practice.
But, of all his statements, this, for me, is the most telling:
“I think libertarianism is the most noble model for human society, but I don’t believe that humans can make the model work. Not yet, anyway…”
Whether intended or not, Tony pays Libertarians quite the highest of compliments. He is saying is, your world would be wonderful, if only it were practically realisable. The argument between us, therefore, is not about the worth of Libertarian ideas but about the nature of human beings and the societies they create.
But this is not why I applaud Tony. I applaud him because rather than display the reflexive conformity of so many otherwise intelligent people, he has taken the time and trouble to develop a serious critique and that is a good thing. He seeks not to dismiss but to engage. Rather than start a debate with Libertarians, Tony has done something far more significant and laudable; he has started a debate with himself.
All philosophy and political thought, of whatever stripe, has one goal: the improvement of the human condition. Welcome to the battlefront, Tony.
Since I made the reference to Tom Lehrer it is only fair to explain it. Or rather, let Tom Lehrer explain it in his own words.
Smut
I do have a cause, though, it is obscenity. I’m for it! Thank you. Unfortunately, the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what’s really involved: dirty books are fun! That’s all there is to it. But you can’t get up in a court and say that, I suppose. It’s simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution, unfortunately. Anyway, since people seem to be marching for their causes these days, I have here a march for mine. It’s called:
Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can’t shut
If it’s uncut
and unsubt–le.
I’ve never quibbled
If it was ribald.
I would devour
Where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
“To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance.”
Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they’re hard core.
Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained
glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I’m still not satisfied!
Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious and vile
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
Let’s face it I love slime!
All books can be indecent books,
Though recent books are bolder.
For filth, I’m glad to say,
Is in the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz — there’s a dirty old man!
I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil–thy.
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I’ve got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they’re trying to take it all away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words: Smut! I love it.
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I’m a market they can’t glut.
I don’t know what
Compares with smut.
Hip, hip, hooray!
Let’s hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don’t let them take it away!
For those who are unfamiliar with Mr.Lehrer’s work, the preceeding is from the CD “That Was The Week That Was”. He was a solo piano/vocalist performer of his own biting and hilarious satirical songs; wrote music for the TV series “That Was The Week That Was” (Tee Dubhu Three); and who could ever forget his stunning songs for Sesame Street like “Ly”?
If you aren’t familiar with him, you should be. Go forth and purchase.
Erratum: a reader points out it was “The Electric Company” and not “Sesame Street” for which the “Ly” was written.
It is the month of black history in the good old USA, and the month that white/Hispanic/Asian students must be committed to black history. Now that is a separate issue from what is underpinning a sub debate of black history month: the nature of confederacy.
This issue was raised by my history teacher, when he said, slavery in America was a result of the south’s political system and that had it not been for the Civil War, the issue of slavery would have never been resolved. I asked the teacher if he truly meant confederacy was a system that inevitably led to slavery. Let me try and put the same case I made to him to you:
1. Confederacy is a system of government that gives more power to the states or local government and less power to the federal or higher levels of government. America is a federalist society, whereas, Switzerland is an example of a confederacy.
1a. Non-confederacy type governments have adopted the system of slavery, meaning that slavery is not unique to confederacy.
1b. Confederacy is not about slavery; it is about state’s rights and devolving rather than centralizing power.
2. The Articles of Confederation, which created a system of pure confederacy, were overturned in 1789 by the current US Constitution…nearly a century the US Civil War.
3. Slavery began in Colonial America before the USA even existed. Slavery in Colonial America started in Virginia in 1619 because of the need to find cheap labor to produce cotton, tobacco, and other such goods.
4. The northern states industrialized faster than the southern agricultural states, resulting in no need for slaves in the North, as slaves were needed for agricultural work, but not industrial work, in which paid workers were cheaper.
5. After Lincoln’s nearly 50/50 election there was a great tension between the North and the South about the role of the federal government (Lincoln wanted more federal government, which the Southerners opposed).
6. The US Civil War started over the role of the state versus the role of the federal government – not slavery.
Needless to say that when I said this in class…well, let me just say this: I am lucky to be alive. I have presented the facts not a politically popular statement. The fact of the matter is, saying stuff like this does not fly with PC lefties that run the school.
This is one opinion (fact based though it be) of the issue, but it is one (fact based) opinion that is never offered in school, and is instantly struck down if a student dares to offer it.
To emphasize how large the problem is: The four student collective that consists of Johnny Student worked on this post jointly – all four of us are currently dealing with this in our classes at four different universities throughout the country
And his name is Will Quick. When Will is in full vitriolic flight, it is a thing of wonder to behold. If, like me, you enjoy savouring the savage directness possible with the English language, then read Will’s latest spleen venting invective regarding all manner of folk that grievously irk his anti-idiotarian sensibilities:
Where a pack of stupid, venal whores whose tarnished Olympian wares are for sale to the highest bidder in the lowest bidet can profess distaste for a minor show of honest patriotism, though if somebody had thought to keep them supplied with sufficient hot and cold running hookers, they’d have no doubt been out waving American flags themselves.
These are disconnects so blindingly obvious you’d think they’d be pointed out in every major media outlet in the United States. But they aren’t. Which means somebody else has to do it. That would be us. That’s what we’re good for. Pointing things out.
With a chainsaw.
It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Read the whole article and then go put some fuel in the motor of your chainsaw.
This humourous phase was once used to describe fox hunting but could just as well be applied to the US Congressional investigation into the fun and frolics pertaining to Enron. For a rather more forthright view of this investigation, let me refer you to the blog known poetically as Gut Rumbles:
The central point seems to be that a bunch of overblown, publicity-seeking assholes who lie, cheat and waste other people’s money for personal gain have a lot of nerve to appear on television and barbeque a bunch of overblown, secrecy-seeking assholes who lied, cheated and wasted other people’s money for personal gain.
Not quite how I would have phrased it but I can’t say I disagree.
Check out a first-class summation of Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia by Alastair Palmer in the latest edition of the British weekly magazine, The Spectator. Very good, particularly in bemoaning Nozick’s failure to give a substantive defence of natural rights. Otherwise Palmer has nice things to say about Nozick, not least the fact that he makes it clear that Nozick was certainly not an apologist for Big Business or the Republican Party. What is so good about this review is how the author manages to draw out the essence of Nozick’s critique of egalitarianism and ‘social justice’ theories generally.
I thought Microsoft had plumbed depth’s of tastelessness none could match. But the Opinion Journal has pointed me to a cartoon from the Concord (N.H.) Monitor (clipping courtesy of PoliticsNY.com) that takes the prize.
Where are the rocks these people crawl from under? Wherever they are, we should build a parking lot there so they’ll be an endangered (or even better an extinct) species.
Thanks for all the kind reactions to Brian’s Lament. No-one said, American style: “Get over it!”, which is a big part of why I probably will. I’m among friends.
However, the Vampire situation has become complicated. According to David Carr I’m one, and thanks to me, so is he. And then about one day after that startling revelation, we were all given an award for our prowess in hunting Communist vampires. I suppose if you’re hunting vampires, it helps to have a couple in your own team.
I’ve also been cheered up lately, following on from Tom Burroughes’ complaints about television, by Britain’s two current late night chat shows. On Channel 4 on Friday (repeated the following Thursday) is the sublime Graham Norton. Less commonly noted in Britain these days is that over on BBC1 (Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays) Johnny Vaughan is doing just as well as the heterosexual community’s answer to Norton. Before Vaughan, on BBC1, there was Jonathan Ross, and that show caused everyone involved, Ross, the help, the guests and the viewers to ask themselves: “Is this as good as Graham Norton?” and to answer: “No”. The Ross show was full of embarrassing gay references, because, you know, er, that’s what late night chat shows have to have these days. Before Ross, there was Parkinson and he’s past it. Vaughan, on the other hand, is the genuine article.
Vaughan’s politics are not right wing exactly, more masculinist. A fortnight ago there was, for example, a short but respectful interview with a train strike trade unionist, a buddy of Arthur Scargill’s, the point being not: here’s a stupid lefty dynosaur, but here’s a “forgotten man”. Man, is the point. He also specialises in getting glamorous women on, and then a bloke, and Vaughan and the bloke then get deep into some ultra-bloke topic while the woman’s still there. The other night he had this fat and hairy comedian on and they assembled this big three-piece Star Wars toy with three Star Wars characters fighting each other, and there was this actress watching it all … Well, you had to see it. Both Norton and Vaughan have in common that the agenda is pleasure, not politics. Norton ignores politics completely. He’s too busy celebrating the uncensored joys of the Internet. Vaughan does the occasional sneer at things like £40,000 research projects paid for by the government which reach such conclusions as “traffic jams can seriously frustrate the travelling public”, before getting stuck back into the serious business of finding out what it was like being an actor in Blackhawk Down or how some farmer nearly got chewed to death by his own bailing machine and has a Captain Hook hook on his arm to prove it. When American superstar visitors appear on these two shows they seem genuinely to enjoy themselves
I know what Tom Burroughes means. Capitalists get a horrible rap on the telly. But the products of capitalism get a good showing. Look at it this way. Lefties don’t produce any decent stuff. The only decent thing about them is that some of them do decent impersonations of decent people (which is perhaps why lefties dominate the TV advert voice-over profession). But capitalists produce all that great capitalist stuff, and that’s what they’re selling. They’re not selling themselves.
I have another even better answer to Tom’s problem, about how the capitalists might sell themselves, but I’ll save that for later.
Just the other day I finally got a box out of storage, one which contained all of my old photographs. Now the truth can finally be shown.
I prefer going for accuracy over rate of fire. It’s all a matter of situation and appropriateness to the purpose at hand.
… is not the fact that he said this: “Nature intended women to be our slaves. They are our property. They belong to us, just as a tree that bears fruit belongs to a gardener. What a mad idea to demand equality for women! Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”
One is so surprised to see the BBC acknowledge in any manner the existence of black conservatives that it seems unreasonable to ask them to do it politely as well. Actually it wasn’t too bad. Around the middle Keane was stricken by Paxmanitis and got a little offensive as he kept interrupting Connerly and denying the listeners what could have been interesting trains of thought. Then he got a grip on himself and asked some interesting questions about the lessons that Connerly drew from being abandoned by his father.
That wasn’t what I came here to talk about. I get distracted so easily. Brian, I had a similar experience when I went to Oxford. I was used to being Miss Clever Clogs, top of the class, star of the show. Suddenly I was surrounded by people at least as clever as I was. On the one hand, a bit of a blow to my ego. On the other – how wonderful to strike this unsuspected lode of people who saw nothing odd about wishing to talk about Olbers’ paradox. Let’s just be glad they don’t make us take an exam to determine our rankings in the suddenly-extended Libertarian pecking order. You might not come a-cropper even if they did.
That wasn’t it either. Oh yes, aeroplanes. My dear spouse and helpmeet directs me to say that yes, the Spitfire did suffer from a low range, but the British never attempted a long range fighter, largely due to Portal’s opposition. (See The Right of the Line by John Terraine.) As to armament, the US never needed cannon because they never needed to knock down bombers. Against single engine fighters, .50 calibre machine guns were enough, but you need something which explodes to knock down a twin-engine bomber…
There’s more. Much more. Do you any idea what it’s like living with this? I sit down to watch a war flick and rest my eyes on the young Robert Mitchum, and what do I get? “That’s never a Panzergnadigefrau Mk XCVIII, nah, it’s a recycled Abrams with a cardboard hat on. (They sold a job lot to the Vatican in 1958 you know.) And they have the nerve to call that a EntschuldigenSieWaffen uniform? Hah! Don’t they have researchers? Couldn’t they employ someone to tell them that the silver fly-buttons didn’t come in until 1944, and late 1944 at that….”
The Samizdata has been awarded the Croix du Mérite for driving critically rational pointy things into hearts of crypto-Euro-commies, by Thomas Sipos of the Communist Vampires website.
And we have only just begun to fight! So do you think I would make a good replacement if Sarah Michelle Gellar ever retires? Is the world ready for a new Balkan Buffy? Natalija the Vampire Slayer! Mmmm. I bet that pays really well too!
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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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