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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Oh, it’ll change. We must always strive to avoid the common misconception that we live at the end of history. Humanity has a very long time ahead.
In the shorter term, there will be a reaction against the current hegemony. The key thing for us now is to strive to be the ideologists of it when it happens; last time that role was grabbed by the marxists.
We’ll win this thing one day. Not next week. But we will win. We will win because liberalism is the only ideology compatible with sustainable advanced civilisation; all the competing ideologies, of Left and Right, are holdovers from more primitive social/technological stages of existence. We may never see it (but we may; history moves faster than we think) but our descendants surely will. Without running away anywhere.
– Redoubtable serial commenter Ian B
“Brooks and Krugman are on some sort of Thelma & Lousie like quixoticly suicidal journey to be the last guy off the bigger government meme. They’re going off the cliff, but they couldn’t be happier. At least their abusive small-government loving spouses won’t hurt them anymore.”
From the comment thread of this article about the absurd David Brooks. No wonder he writes for the New York Times.
I am very optimistic it will quickly become an established form of transport
– Patrick Döring, deputy chairman of the German Free Democrats, discussing the fact that long distance bus travel may be about to be legalised in Germany.
“Colonialism today is a dead issue. No one cares about it except the man in the White House. He is the last anticolonial. Emerging market economies such as China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage and growing much faster than the U.S. If America is going to remain on top, we have to compete in an increasingly tough environment. But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father’s time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father’s dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.”
– Dinesh D’Souza.
Those mid-term elections in November should be interesting.
A free life makes it harder to acquire riches for this is not easy to do without becoming servile to mobs or kings.
– Epicurus
To pursue a so-called Third Way is foolish. We had our experience with this in the 1960s when we looked for a socialism with a human face. It did not work, and we must be explicit that we are not aiming for a more efficient version of a system that has failed.
– Vaclav Klaus
A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.
– Benjamin Disraeli
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Love, when legislated, becomes hate.
– John B, from the comments here. (This is a SQOTDBPD, or Samizdata Quote of the Day by Popular Demand.)
I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound – if I can remember any of the damn things.
– Dorothy Parker
In the intifada that began in 2000, Palestinian terrorism killed more than 1,000 Israelis. As a portion of U.S. population, that would be 42,000, approaching the toll of America’s eight years in Vietnam. During the onslaught, which began 10 Septembers ago, Israeli parents sending two children to a school would put them on separate buses to decrease the chance that neither would return for dinner. Surely most Americans can imagine, even if their tone-deaf leaders cannot, how grating it is when those leaders lecture Israel on the need to take “risks for peace.”
– George Will.
As someone who has consistently been in favor of in-your-face attempts to offend Muslims (e.g., “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”), I can’t very well advocate any governmental effort (or any violent effort by other parties) to prevent the building of this in-your-face attempt to offend non-Muslim Americans. But to suggest that this center is not provocative, and that Americans should not see it as such, insults my intelligence. There is no right to NOT be offended, but we have every right to be offended, and to protest loudly to that effect.
– Commenter Gene
Most revolutions throughout history have been conducted by a small but determined group, maybe as much as 20% of the population (and probably less). The majority of the people are basically indifferent, just keeping their heads down until the shooting stops so they can go back to their lives under the rule of whoever prevailed. 20% could be more than enough for a successful revolution, but it’s not enough to win an election.
– Commenter ‘Laird’
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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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