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

I found while driving in Wyoming that wearing a stetson and driving a beat-up pickup meant you could go as fast as you like, while the police picked up Californian winnebagos that went one mph over 55. After all, they wanted to bring money into the state, not merely circulate it.
-Terry Pratchett

Samizdata slogan of the day

That’s why it’s always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it’s all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There’s No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they’re going to start dribbling one of ’em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy’s ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles.
-The many and varied advantages of philosophy (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

Samizdata slogan of the day

Dream on. British TV Is The Best In The World is on a par with the statement about how British Justice Is The Envy Of The World (“Hey, Miguel, how come we can’t convict innocent people so quickly and expensively?”)
-Terry Pratchett

Samizdata slogan of the day

I must confess the the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occured to him.
-Terry Pratchett [Lord Vetinari is the rather Machiavellian ruler of the fictional city in Pratchett’s books]

Samizdata slogan of the day

They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal and tomorrow is pretty much like today.
-Lord Vetinari (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

Samizdata slogan of the day

The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
– Frédéric Bastiat

Samizdata slogan of the day

In a real democracy, the relationship between the media and the governing elite is that of a pack of rottweilers maintaining surveillance on a gang of burglars. In Scotland, it more closely resembles the relationship between the Brigade of Guards and the sovereign.

– Gerald Warner in yesterday’s Scotland on Sunday quoted in Freedomandwhisky.

Samizdata slogan of the day

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
– Frédéric Bastiat

Samizdata slogan of the day

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder
– Frédéric Bastiat

Samizdata slogan of the day

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul
– George Bernard Shaw

Samizdata slogan of the day

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem.
– G.K. Chesterton

Samizdata slogan of the day

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
-Jeff Cooper