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]
|
Sometimes, late at night when the cheese and port have hit the table and conversation has taken a lubricated turn toward the candid, the odd dinner guest at the Billabong is sometimes heard to remark that the Professor is a paranoid troglodyte who sees conspiracies where none exist. These remarks seldom surprise since, sadly, we live in a society that insists, and does so despite all evidence to the contrary, that intrusive government and its stickybeak agents are forces for the common good. Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, so the Professor merely smiles, denies the charge, offers another glass of sauterne — and makes a mental note to write an anonymous letter to the Australian Taxation Office suggesting that his critical guest be ruthlessly investigated for dodging taxes. True, that prescription is a harsh antidote to innocence, but after the tax man has probed every nook and cranny of a blameless citizen’s financial affairs, the light bulb generally goes on. Government, they suddenly realise, ain’t their friend, not by any stretch of the imagination.
— mysterious but always enjoyable Australian blogger Professor Bunyip. He’s quite right, but if he writes an anonymous letter to the tax office suggesting I be investigated, he ain’t my friend by any stretch of the imagination either.
(Link via Scott Wickstein).
By a free country, I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like.
– Lord Salisbury (1830-1903)
The visibility of accidents has gone up due to the mushrooming of TV news channels and that’s causing all the worry.
– M.Y. Siddiqui, India’s Railway Ministry spokesman when asked about mounting public anger over the safety record of India’s antiquated rail network, after accidents killed nearly 300 people in the last 12 months
Just because you have a Self doesn’t mean you should express it.
– Amy Alkon
We can’t change the way that newspapers are written but we can sure change the way people read them.
– Perry de Havilland
Sir, If Tony Blair is seeking a weapon of mass destruction he has only to read the proposed European constitution.
(From today’s UK Times letters page)
I always thought Burke’s metaphor of the English oxen ignoring the buzzing political insects was a good thing, however in the present situation placidity in the doorway of the abattoir may not be a virtue.
– Doug Collins
As a general rule of thumb, when two non-government organisations, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, the BBC and the New York Times agree that the whole powder keg’s about to go up, it’s a safe bet that things are going swimmingly.
-Mark Steyn, reporting in the Telegraph about the lack of a humanitarian crisis in post-war Iraq.
Actually, the whole article is terrific, particularly his explanation of why the NGOs need to be sent home.
There are just as many guns as there were before, except now people are angry that they have become criminals if they try to protect themselves, when American soldiers are more interested in protecting themselves than us.
– a trader selling weapons covertly in Sadr City, a Shia slum about the effect of sending the trade underground after the drive against gun markets in Baghdad last week.
A Message to the British People:
Jacques Chirac wants to thank you
for saving France on the beaches of Normandy
by giving you
10% unemployment
the Napoleonic code
a Franco-Belgian style military defense
vive le UK
– Clio
“I’ll tell you why people find it “hard” to give up smoking: they don’t really want to do it, is why. Using force against yourself is a bad idea. It sets you up for magnificent failure later on, as anyone with bulimia will tell you. What I say to people who don’t 100% completely absolutely and totally actively want to give up smoking, actually enjoy the idea of living without smoke, anticipate with joy the thought of nurturing their health and becoming energised breathing human beings, is: don’t bother. Carry on smoking, because if you don’t want to give up, you’re only setting yourself up for failure. Anyway, the rest of us aren’t interested in your self-sacrificial whining. It’s your life you’re saving, not ours, don’t expect us to be grateful!”
– Alice who is back from her camping expedition
[Editor’s note: apropos the second link, as usual the blogger.com/blogspot archives are not working correctly]
“My song is a hymn for individualism and against collectivism. I am also for balls and against circles, for corners and against edges, for trees and against the forest. In my performance it is not so much the song that counts but the moral attitude behind it. Whoever votes for me is against being standardized and cemented in by ‘European Banality’.”
Alf Poier, Austrian entrant to the European Song Contest.
(Via Michael Jennings.)
(In the end, Mr Poier got a respectable 94 points. It seems Britain got no points at all. Politically, this is all to the good.)
|
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.
|
