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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If you want to read about the truly extraordinary and deeply depressing paroxysm of anti-Americanism that has swept like a firestorm through the British media over the last few days and weeks (having merely smouldered for years), you can read about it here.
Of a particularly fatuous TV guide blurb (“Jonathan Dimbleby takes a critical look at the Anglo-US war on terror…”), Mark Holland has this to say:
A critical look! Just for a change. I don’t know about you, but for me all those “Hey it’s all going swell; Bush, Blair and Howard are doing fine; the oil for food scandal has lined the pockets of Saddam, the UN and Total Fina Elf; etc” documentaries have become a tiresome bore.
For me the most depressing British anti-American exhibit of the last few days was a rant by Peter Oborne in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. Having ignored the Mail, Sunday or of any other sort, for years, I had no idea it was capable of sinking to these depthsm and I only spotted it because I shared some coffee with Michael Jennings in my local Café Nero yesterday.
This picture, of the front cover of the Review section, sums it up well:
Click to get it bigger and more legible. If you really want that.
This is absolutely not mere anti-Bushism, for Oborne is vitriolically nasty about both Democrats and Republicans. Maybe this piece is available to read on the internet, but I cannot myself find it. I am actually rather pleased about that. → Continue reading: British Anti-Americanism gone mad
Business enterprises are often attacked for selling people ‘junk food’ and not telling them about the health benefits of vegetables.
Well recently ASDA (the British arm of Walmart) labelled its vegetables, explaining that people who eat certain types of vegetable have a lower chance of developing certain forms of cancer.
ASDA was promptly prosecuted and punished. It seems that ‘making health claims’ is not legal in Britain.
Oh well, back to selling junk. The state is not your friend.
At long last the shooting death by police of a man ‘armed’ with a table leg has been ruled an ‘unlawful killing’. It has been a damning indictment for so many years a couple servants of the state can gun an innocent man down in cold blood with impunity whilst at the same time other British subjects are denied the right to legitimate self-defence in any meaningful sence.
We have written before about the killing of Harry Stanley in September 1999 and I can only hope now that not only will the perpetrators of this act face prosecution for murder, the careers of everyone who worked to prevent charges being brought in the first place will will come to an absupt end, as an absolute minimum, and if there is any evidence that there were attempts to pervert the course of justice, then additional charges will be forthcoming higher up the chain of command.
It is a national disgrace that it has taken this long for the family of Harry Stanley to see anything even approaching the first glimmer of justice.
In conversation with a business associate, Alan Moore of SMLXL, yesterday, we got on to the topic of how the UK really is lagging behind when it comes to anticipating and preparing for the seismic shifts that are happening in business. I’m not sure if it was Alan or me who came up with this line, but it is as if they are standing at the foot of the volcano, having a picnic and drinking champagne. Maybe if they pretend everything is going to be okay, they won’t have to change. (See, on this note, SMLXL posts passim, including yesterday’s Another business model under threat.) Yes, we have covered this ground with Alan before.
Similarly, the UK market is way behind when it comes to blogging. I met in Paris last week with Guillaume du Gardier of PR Planet, and he was surprised to hear that France is much more developed on the blogging front than Britain. Does that make sense? On the surface, no, it doesn’t. The UK, sharing a common language with the US, should be much more up to speed on these things.
I am sure it can be annoying for a Brit to hear it from an American, but I suspect that one of the reasons for the slow uptake of blogging in the UK is that in general it is quite unlike Brits to get overly excited about anything. It is almost something of a sin to be wide-eyed and evangelical about anything, no matter how worthy that thing may be. Brits excel at cynicism and being understated and controlled; they are not entranced by the sort of hype that excites people in the US. (I again emphasise the generality, as I know and work with many Brits for whom the appearance of cynicism is not a concern.) In Britain, it is far more the done thing to be looking the other way when the bandwagon rolls up, and then scoff and roll your eyes when you finally see it, as it goes past…and then run run run to jump right on it, usually about 18 months behind the rest of the developed world.
Indeed, I remember as far back as a year ago, observing many conversations in British blog comments and on UK-based blogs, wherein bloggers themselves were turning their noses up at the buzz being whipped up in the US about blogging. Sure, it is good enough for them and they spend hours a day in the blogosphere, but God forbid they appear genuinely enthralled by this ‘phenomenon’! No, it is far easier to seem cool towards blogging. A shrug of the shoulders and a yawn would suffice…and then back to updating the blogroll and commenting on their daily tour of their niche of the blogosphere.
And so it goes. In the end, all you can do is shake your head and smile at such people – they can appear as unfussed as they like, and the bandwagon will roll on with or without their enthusiasm. But it is a shame for Britain that it once again is playing catch-up with the rest of the world when it comes to blogging and to the shifts in business that will be necessary for success in the coming decades. At times like these, that usually charming cynicism costs – big-time.
This post has been cross-posted to the Big Blog Company blog.
The British government is preparing to launch a further assault on the English Common Law by eroding the presumption of innocence in jury trials involving certain categories of offence. In short, the government wants it to be possible for a defendant’s previous convictions to be made known to a jury unless there are compelling reasons in the eyes of a judge against it.
It does not take a lot of imagination to see why prosecutors and even the odd well meaning but deluded politician think this is a grand idea. It must be disheartening for a prosecutor to see a serial rapist, mugger or thief get off on a technicality and for the defendant’s nefarious past to be undisclosed to a jury. But – and it is a very big but – keeping previous convictions a secret except in certain conditions is designed to ensure that juries examine a criminal case on the facts as they are presented, and not by trying to guess the motives of the accused or rushing to a conclusion on the basis of a hunch.
Also, by withholding information about previous convictions, police and others are forced to present their evidence as strongly and as competently as possible. The Law of Unintended Consequences applies here. My fear is that prosecutors and others could become lazier and more slapdash in how they present evidence if they think that they can always shove X’s seedy past in front of a jury as part of the case.
I must say it is hard to summon up feelings of surprise or even anger any more at what our political classes are doing to the traditional checks and balances of our criminal code. To be fair, much of this process began long before Tony Blair, although this most authortarian of governments has set about destroying our liberties with a zeal not seen in decades. I hold little hope that the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrats will offer much resistance, given their terror at being thought to be ‘soft on crime’.
And so we go on, changing processes of law in ways which will undoubtedly lead to more unsafe convictions. The present government, like all too many before it, is extraordinarily hostile to process and the understanding of the long-run bad consequences of interfering with constraints of law and custom.
The likelihood, of course, that all this messing around with the Common Law will reduce crime significantly is, I confidently predict, zero.
So hapless Prince Harry takes a swing at some paparazzo who bashes him in the face with a camera, and the British press have apoplexy tut-tutting over his behaviour.
To use internet parlance, WTF? If some pushy bastard negligently clips you in the mouth with a camera whilst in search of a few quid, the correct response is to return the favour with interest. That is not ill-advised or thuggish or incorrect, it is an entirely appropriate means of male-to-male comminication at such a time. I am glad to see that there is a member of the royal family who actually has personality traits that approach those of the Crown’s normal everyday subjects.
It seem quite appropriate that not only should he not apologise for his reaction to the incident, he should be advising Christopher Uncle that if there is a next time, there should be some expectations of a royal boot in the bollocks as well.
Earlier this week I received a telephone call at work which left me trembling with rage and disgust. Had I been asked to make a donation to Hamas or buy a Michael Moore DVD? Had a born-again Christian harangued me about my evil atheist views? Was I trying to get some data from our Paris office? Had I been told that my soccer team, Ipswich Town Football Club, was about to be merged with Norwich City FC?
No, it was none of these things. I had just been lectured about what I should consider paying for a house by a early twentysomething estate agent.
Now, like a lot of people, I realise that the process of buying a home can be stressful. I work in the London financial market, which is a pretty stressful place full of aggressive folk and also some of the smartest, nicest folk around, too. In my decade or more of working here, though, I have never encountered such a rancid mix of rudeness, patronising attitude, overlaying a rather obvious desire to grab my money as fast as possible. A very British set of character failings, in fact.
During my recent and wonderful trip to the United States, I used to chuckle at some of the real estate advertisements, with expressions such as “We don’t just sell houses, we sell dreams.” Smug Brits may laugh at such cheesy imagery and words, but frankly, I will settle for a bit of American cheesiness and cheery good manners over the British alternative every time.
From yesterday’s Guardian.
The creation of spin-off companies by university researchers, one of the chancellor’s key policies, has ground to a halt because of a catch-22 in tax legislation, say frustrated academics.
Gordon Brown, who today hosted a seminar on science and wealth creation at 11 Downing Street, has been alerted to the problem, but has so far failed to sort out the muddle over the aptly named Schedule 22.
Plans for scores of companies to work on developing science and research projects have been put on hold by universities after they learned that their academics were threatened with multimillion pound tax demands as soon as the companies started operating, long before they made any profits.
To add insult to injury, the universities themselves are responsible for collecting the tax from their enterprising academics.
University business development officers believe that spin-offs have almost ground to a halt and fear that delays will be damaging to many ideas and projects.
This arose because of one of those tax loopholes that our Chancellor so loves to close. → Continue reading: Schedule 22
The British government wants, so it says, to ‘modernise’ Britain’s gambling laws, which will, so it is said, make possible the creation of Las Vegas-style gambling resorts in all their lovely, gaudy, tacky glory.
Now, being one of those crazy libertarian types, I naturally take the view that if folk wish to waste their hard-earned wealth in gambling, whether it be on the horses, baccarat or a fruit machine, then it is none of the State’s business to prevent them. Gambling is after all a manifestation of Man’s love of taking risk in the hope of gain, something which is a part of the capitalist system and in fact a perfectly healthy part.
But it is ironic, is it not, that this change to gambling law is happening under the reign of Tony Blair, our preachy, puritanical, Prime Minister. Mr Blair is, so we are told, a devout Christian. Now, I realise that one cannot generalise about these matters, but I was not aware that gambling was something that Christians were particularly in favour of. So what is going on?
I have a vague theory, and I would of course like to know what commenters think about it. It is this: socialistic governments naturally repress and in some cases, crush, risk-taking behaviour of entrepreneurs. However, said governments dimly realise that the desire to take risks and profit from risks does not disappear. So instead, such governments offer citizens an alternative outlet for this risk-taking appetite, setting up things like national lotteries and so forth as a sort of general safety valve.
Or to put it another way – if we really allowed people to take risks in a wealth-creating fashion by slashing taxes and red tape, it would not be necessary to create a tacky gambling empire to satiate the desire for risk taking. Who needs the cheap thrill of gambling when one can hope to imitate the achievements of a great entrepreneur? Of course, I am not so naive to imagine that gambling will ever fade if the top rate of tax were to be halved tomorrow, but I would hope that some of that risk-taking drive would be channelled in a more productive, perhaps more useful, direction.
By the way, I once visited a casino in Vegas. My overall impression was that it was one of the most boring places I have ever visited, at least the gambling side, anyway. There were, other compensations, of course.
I saw the headline of an article in the Telegraph which said Economic crimes cost UK firms over £40 bn …
Imagine my surprise when it turned out not to be article about tax. Of course I should have realised straight away as the state costs UK firms a great deal more than a paltry £40 bn.
I read a very odd story a few days ago on Front Page Magazine called An American in London, in which Carol Gould recounts how she and other Americans have been repeatedly subjected to anti-American abuse in London.
What I find so frightening is that I cannot conduct business or even take a taxi ride in London, Bournemouth or Edinburgh without a scathing tirade about the scurrilous Yanks. The day after 9/11 I was obliged to keep a consultant’s appointment and the minicab driver informed me that the ‘yellow Americans’ on the four hijacked planes were typical of the way ‘the Yanks do battle’ — they chicken out and let the Brits do the dirty work.
Now the title of my article might suggest that I do not believe what she wrote to be true, but that is not what I am saying. If she says that is what people have said to her, then I will take her at her word. However I also know a significant number of Americans here in the UK and I am puzzled that they do not tell me that they have shared Carol Gould’s experiences. In fact a fellow Samizdatista who is an American, is living in my house most of the time and we often go out places in London both casually and for business and although we talk together (and thereby announce to all nearby that she is an American), I have yet to see her nationality pique the slightest bit of interest from anyone at all. Here in London Americans are like taxicabs… they are just normal part of the fabric of this enormous and most cosmopolitan of cities.
Now I realise that Anti-Americanism exists in Britain… hell, it exists in America (and amongst the same ilk of people generally), but I must say that Ms. Gould describes a Britain that bears very little relation to the one I see every day. No doubt if I actively sought out the people who despise all things American I could find them in so diverse a metropolis, but then I could say the same about almost any set of views. However I suspect I would say the same if I still lived in Manhattan (which I did… and moreover worked in the World Trade Center at the time).
Ms. Gould says she knows many other expat Americans with similar experiences to hers. Well all I can say is we clearly know a very different set of expat Americans then. In fact, we clearly encounter a very different set of British people as well. I do not know what circles Carol Gould moves in but I do not think she has heard the real England speak.
And that is why it seems to me that if we are both in London, then the two of us must be existing in alternate realities.
It looks like hundreds of British lawyers will have to repay over £50 m taken from clients in what amounted to ‘referal fees’ (an ethical no-no). I cannot tell you how sad that makes me 
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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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