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]

Samizdata slogan of the day

The older media generation, particularly those covering the war from comfortable television studios, has not covered itself with glory. Deeply infected with anti-war feeling and Left-wing antipathy to the use of force as a means of doing good, it has once again sought to depict the achievements of the West’s servicemen as a subject for disapproval.
– John Keegan, Telegraph

Samizdata slogan of the day

There is an old Arab saying I’m hearing more and more from Iraqis, I will side with my brother against my cousin, but with my cousin against the foreigners.
– Paul Wood on BBC Reporters’ Log, 11:51GMT

Samizdata slogan of the day

So while the war in Iraq might only be beginning, the pundits of the Blogosphere can already register a victory. It’s a bloggers’ world. We only link to it.
– Steven Levy in his article Bloggers’ Delight, MSNBC

Samizdata slogan of the day

Getting shot at was not that bad, just the getting shot part sucked.
– Sgt. Villafane, via The Command Post

Samizdata Quote of the Day

[Napoleon] had one prodigious advantage – he had no responsibility – he could do whatever he pleased; and no man has ever lost more armies than he did. Now with me the loss of every man told. I could not risk so much; I knew that if I ever lost five hundred men without the clearest necessity, I should be brought upon my knees to the bar of the House of the Commons.
– Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Our present day military commanders probably think in private that Old Nosey had it about hundred times easier on the PR front than they do.

Battle of quotes

Last Friday, the Mises Institute published a special edition of their daily article containing nothing else but quotes by von Mises on the subject of war.

The quotes are hard to disagree with, apart from their mistaken application to the current situation. No distinction is made between using war as a means of conquest, expanding one’s power and using war as a defensive measure, protecting one’s security, freedom etc. For those who believe the US and the UK are engaged in the former, I shall leave them to their struggle against the neo-imperialists…

For the rest, I retaliate with a small collection of quotes that make such a distinction:

We make war that we may live in peace.
– Aristotle

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
– John Adams

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
– John Stuart Mill

That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a torturer and a surgeon.
– G.K. Chesterton

I cannot see how we can literally end War unless we can end Will. I cannot think that war will ever be utterly impossible; and I say so not because I am what these people call a militarist, but rather because I am a revolutionist. Absolutely to forbid fighting is to forbid what our fathers called “the sacred right of insurrection.” Against some decisions no self-respecting men can be prevented from appealing to fortune and to death.
– G.K. Chesterton

OK, this is not going to win the war, but it will have to do while we are waiting for our logins for The Command Post warblog!

Samizdata slogan of the day

Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.
-Ryszard Kapuscinski, Polish journalist, 1991

Samizdata slogan of the day

The Parliamentary Conservative Party is filled with people who despise principles too much even to see the value of pretending to have any.
Sean Gabb in Free Life 43

Samizdata slogan of the day

More than half a century of experience shows that the U.N. is a theater of hypocrisy, a sink of corruption, a street market of sordid bargains and a seminary of cynicism. It is a place where mass-murdering heads of state can stand tall and sell their votes to the highest bidder and where crimes against humanity are rewarded.
– Paul Johnson in Five Vital Lessons From Iraq [via Instapundit]

Samizdata slogan of the day

Michael Moore is just like P. J. O’Rourke, only without the wit, the humour and the insight
– Tom Burroughes

Samizdata slogan of the day

The government announced today that it is changing its emblem to a condom because it more clearly reflects the government’s political stance. A condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks and gives you a sense of security while you are actually being screwed. Damn, it just doesn’t get more accurate than that!
– Anonymous

Samizdata slogan of the day

I don’t fault Dan Rather for going to Baghdad. If someone had interviewed Hitler in ‘39 for three hours, we’d prize the tapes as an invaluable historical document.
– James Lileks from his Bleat this morning