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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There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics.
– Robert Peel
“It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.”
This was sent to me as a joke via email from a friend. The problem is, that folk such as Paul Krugman would argue that this is sound economics. Happy Christmas!
And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;
That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
– 1 Samuel 8 verses 10-20, King James Version
“American conservatives who want to blame pet villains like the public-employee unions for the insolvency wave in the U.S. are missing the forest for the trees. Those unions are doing nothing but rational minimaxing within a system where the incentives are broken at a much deeper level. And it’s no coincidence that the same problems are becoming acute simultaneously nearly worldwide, because the underlying problem transcends all details of any individual democracy’s history or particular political arrangements. Between 1880 and 1943, beginning with Bismarck and ending with Roosevelt’s New Deal, the modern West abandoned the classical-liberal model of a minimal, night-watchman state. But the redistributionist monster that replaced it was unsustainable, and it’s now running out of other peoples’ money. We are living in the beginning of its end.”
– Eric Raymond.
But I don’t get the impression that Cameron and his Coalition are any more interested in personal liberty or rolling back the frontiers of state than their predecessors. The “Big Society”, indeed, is a watered-down version of the sort of bogus, grand, unifying scheme employed in the Fascist Italy of the Thirties.
–James Delingpole
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
– Leonardo da Vinci
If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information, that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the First Amendment and the independence of the internet?
– Ron Paul
New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression.
At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.
– State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, announcing at UNESCO that the US intends to commemorate World Press Freedom Day next May. The theme will be “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers.”
The MD-11, a derivative of the DC-10, first flew in revenue service a mere 20 years ago, making it just middle-aged by aircraft standards. However, KLM’s birds are included on this list because they’re the only three-engined jets currently operating in scheduled transoceanic passenger service — with the exception of an occasional Qantas A380.
This delightfully catty witticism nicely rounded off an interesting Wired presentation: Fly Away on These 10 Classic Airliners
I always thought the A380 a hideous gargoyle of a plane. And Qantas is a pretty rubbish airline these days. So have at ’em both, I say.
(H/t: Instapundit)
Culture is very important. That is why the government should never be allowed to have a role in it.
– NickM
I mean there’s enormous pressures to harmonize freedom of speech legislation and transparency legislation around the world – within the EU, between China and the United States. Which way is it going to go? It’s hard to see.
– Julian Assange
It is not necessary to have divine permission to know right from wrong
– Christopher Hitchens
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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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