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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The following choice quote has perhaps already been recycled here. It has surely done the rounds elsewhere. But just to be sure, here it is for Samizdata readers, either again or for the first time:
“After five years in government, I now have the same respect for politicians that the pigeons of Rome have for statues.”
Which, I think you will agree, nicely sums up the Samizdata attitude towards politicians, whether we have been “in government” on not. Usually, just having a particularly governmental bit of government done to us is sufficient, and it does not require five years of it to happen before such enlightenment is arrived at. And you certainly do not have to be a politician for half a decade to find out how nasty politics is.
This was said by Antonio Martino, Italy’s Defence Minister from 2001 until 2006, at the 2006 meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Guatemala. It was quoted by Charles Murray at the start of this speech, which was given in Washington just after that MPS meeting.
I came across this speech by Murray because I was looking for a picture of him to use in a posting at my education blog, about this article by Murray entitled The age of educational romanticism.
How do we trust a guy who says he knows about London, when he’s just taken three of his kids out of state school and put them into private schools?
– Arabella Weir, on Boris, in The Guardian’s desperate chrestomathy of leftyluvviedom for Ken.
I would say it indicates very clearly that he does know something about London’s state schools. More penetrating political insight from woman of the people Ms Weir here. Foreign readers may be aghast at the political culture of central control the latter clip reveals. It is not for the faint-hearted libertarian – or for that matter anyone, conservative or liberal, with a sincere belief in separation of powers and limited government.
“We’ve had it with baby boomer politics. We’ve had it with coteries and courts, dens and sofas. But if we are fed up with that private politics, we are also tired of the public face of politics. We are told that modern politics is about TV studios: that poisonous truth may be about to become untrue. Westminster and Whitehall might yet make a come-back, as bastions of decently-argued policy and its delivery. This is a switch away from post-60s trends. But it needn’t be a backward step to snobbery and stuffiness.”
– Richard North
I hope he is right, although I doubt that Westminster and Whitehall have ever achieved a high point of “decently argued policy and its delivery”. Rose-tinted spectacles, and all that.
We are marvelling at the multiple possibilities of Oyster, but come back here in 10 years’ time and we will have chips inserted under our skin or inside our heads
– Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, quoted by Computing
[Those foreign readers who are unfamiliar with Oyster should maybe start here. Those unfamiliar with our dear leader, the mayor, can read his official bio here, but Red Ken is a massive subject, and if you can understand his career then you know more about British politics than I do. Here is a recent friendly (!) blog post. Now if you’ll excuse me, it is 6.43am and I am off to vote.]
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests’, I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
– Barry Goldwater, US politician. As cited by David Mayer, over at his excellent blog.
If we want to build the country, maintain our dignity and solve economic problems, we need the culture of martyrdom.
– President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran replies to his critics (also quoted by Mick Hartley)
“The only way that that Liverpool is going to win the [English Premier] League is if Robert Mugabe is counting the points.”
An anonymous commenter on the Guardian’s sports pages, arguably the best bits of that outfit.
It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics but actually because of the Olympics.
– Amnesty International which has detailed numerous arrests and the harassment of Chinese civil rights activists
People say: Is classical music dying? Go to Covent Garden and you can view the corpse.
–Joe Queenan reacts negatively on Newsnight Review earlier this evening to Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s new opera The Minotaur
It is not the level of wealth that makes us happy. Instead, it is the process of betterment – the pursuit of it – that makes us happy. Whether we are twice as rich today as in 1971 has little bearing on our happiness, because it is in the past. Whether people can see their lives improving in the future is what counts. That is why economic growth remains a key component in happiness, despite what the happiness researchers might tell us.
– Alex Singleton, Comment is Free
AntiCitzenOne comments on this posting at David Thompson’s blog, thus:
I think we should give Muslim men with self control problems horse-blinkers, rather than cover women from head to toe.
The posting itself makes a vital point about how to defeat intimidation by Islamofascist zealots, which is not to leave anyone they pick on isolated. Thompson links back to this excellent piece.
This is why a general piling in with the insults against Islam and Islamic nastiness (the former leads directly to the latter in my opinion) is so important. Quite aside from being true and worth saying and a valid contribution to the debate and all that kind of stuff, these insults establish the principle that we can do them, and you can not stop us. There can be a debate. If and when you stop with the death threats, we will make the insults less insulting and more decorous, and some of us will go completely silent on the subject. Your choice.
This also explains why I do not denounce Christianity nearly so often or nearly so harshly. On those occasions when anyone does do this, the Christians do not respond with riots and death threats. So, beyond the occasional polite criticism of their (I think) odd theological views, together with praise for their more positive qualities, leave them alone, I say.
You should trust us, because we’re trustworthy people who would never do anything wrong (please ignore all we’ve done wrong over the past few years). So, now that that’s settled, let’s get this baby rolling…
-Mike Masnick interprets Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff’s response to critics of the planned expansion of the US spy satellite program
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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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