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

Every age has a language of its own; and the difference in the words is often far greater than in the thoughts. The main employment of authors, in their collective capacity, is to translate the thoughts of other ages into the language of their own.
– Augustus Hare, Guesses at Truth (1827)

Samizdata slogan of the day

There’s nothing like a Socialist to get someone who really despises the Working Class, is there?
-Ian Hislop (on the programme ‘Have I got news for you’) addressing socialist Mark Steel who had just been pouring scorn on the huge number of working class people who turned out for the Queen Mother’s funeral

via David Harthill

Samizdata slogan of the day

The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.
– Henrik Ibsen, in An Enemy of the People

Samizdata slogan of the day

“If you can’t see a woman in a bikini that’s your problem. You can’t force them to cover up just because you can’t control yourself.”

-Malaysian Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir blasts Terengannu’s state government, which is led by the Islamic party, PAS, for its “Taliban-like” plan to ban tourists from wearing bikinis.

Samizdata slogan of the day

Because in the end, even Germaine Greer calls the cops, not Simone de Beauvoir, when she’s personally, physically threatened in the real world.
Jack Robertson

Samizdata slogan of the day

When bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle
-Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Samizdata slogan of the day

Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign
– John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

Samizdata slogan of the day

Definition of a ‘barking moonbat’: someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency.
– Adriana Cronin

Samizdata slogan of the day

To understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman
– John Stuart Mill

Samizdata slogan of the day

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
– Lily Tomlin

Samizdata slogan of the day

Hit a man too hard and you can only rob him once; hit him just hard enough and you can rob him every week.
Thieves’ Guild in Ankh-Morpork (from Terry Prattchet’s Discworld series)

Samizdata slogan of the day

The free market is not a panacea. It does not eliminate old age, and it won’t guarantee you a date for Saturday night. Private enterprise is fully capable of awful screw-ups. But both theory and practice indicate that its screw-ups are less pervasive and more easily corrected than those of government enterprises, including regulatory ones.
– Paul Krugman (who actually is capable of making sense occasionally)