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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The British Conservative Party has today announced that it would (if elected to office) cut 4,000 of the 5,000 civil servants in Department of Trade and Industry and would not expand other government departments to take up these posts – i.e. this would be a real cut (although the cut would take several years to bring into effect).
Of course there is no point in having a Department of Trade and Industry at all (the nickname for the DTI… ‘Death To Industry’… about sums up the department), but this annoucement should still be welcomed.
The Conservatives might rat on the promise if elected – but at least the promise has been made.
They have tried false beards, make-up, wigs, sunglasses, plastic surgery. None of it has worked.
So time for something really radical:
Senior members of Michael Howard’s frontbench team believe the Conservative Party will have to consider changing its name as part of a fundamental “rebranding” if it fails to make a big surge at the next general election.
Allow me to assist. How about ‘Not The Conservative Party’?
The British passport service is demanding that folk no longer are allowed to smile sweetly for the camera when it comes to having a passport photo taken. Apparently, if you show your gleaming grin on a passport picture it messes up the face recognition systems being introduced into airports and other places.
So in other words, it is now official policy for British citizens to look miserable. Marvellous. So now the cliche about we Brits being a nation of gloomy folk is now to receive the official sanction of the State. Does this mean our grinning Prime Minister will be similarly affected? Is it now considered un-PC and unpatriotic to look cheerful and happy?
Of course, this reminds me of the old joke: If you resemble a passport picture, it is time you took a holiday. (Which reminds me – I am off to Malta and outa here in a week for some much-needed R&R!).
Gibraltar remains a British colony to the overwhelming relief of its 27,833 inhabitants. Yet they are well aware that the reason Geoff Hoon, Britain’s dismal defence minister, yesterday attended the 300th anniversary of Britain’s capture of The Rock has little to do with any great enthusiasm for the people on The Rock or a deep commitment for retaining Gibraltar, but rather a disinclination to ‘make nice’ with Spain due to its policies regarding Islamic terrorism and Iraq.
In fact members of both the ‘tranzi left’ and ‘paleo right’ see Gibraltar as a weird anachronism and despite those groups fetishising their minor differences, both have a shared collectivist meta-context and think nothing of what the inhabitants of The Rock wish for themselves.
If the Gibraltarians were wise, they would let it be known that they are prepared to go all the way and exercise a ‘dooms day’ option of Unilateral Declaration of Independence if the political class in Britain ever decide to ‘give’ Gibraltar away: the battalion sized Gibraltar Regiment should simply take up arms with whoever will rally to the red and white flag, and man their border with bayonets fixed. Of course it is unlikely a militia army in Gibraltar could hold off a serious military move by Spain, though success against the odds is not without precedent, but would Spain actually be prepared to fight for 27,833 people who simply do not want to be Spanish?
I realise that is indeed what the Spanish state is doing in the Basque parts of Spain but this is a rather different proposition and unlike in the Basque country, there is no friendly constituency in Gibraltar who sees Spanish sovereignty as in any way tolerable. A Spanish takeover would be nothing less that a colonial occupation of an unwilling population.
People have to be prepared to literally fight for the things they value and if the people of Gibraltar made it clear that in the final analysis they would be willing to do exactly that, perhaps the chattering classes in both Spain and Islington Britain would stop thinking those people’s fate is something that can be lightly signed away by people in a ministry building in London or Madrid.
Well, slap me on the arse and call me Betty!! You spend half a century deliberately fostering and ruthlessly enforcing a culture of civil passivity in the face of crime and malevolence and guess what happens?
[Note: link to UK Times article may not work for readers outside of UK]
NEIGHBOURS have been urged to band together to fight back against yobs making life a misery for many communities in Britain.
Louise Casey, head of the Government’s antisocial behaviour unit, said yesterday that she feared people were becoming too tolerant and afraid to intervene because of traditional British reserve.
Let me take a wild leap into the dark here. Could this ‘tolerance’ and ‘reserve’ have anything to do with the fact that private citizens are forbidden to possess so much as a toothpick and even raising their eyebrows in defence of their homes, families or communities will result in their being dragged off to prison by the very people that are supposed to be protecting them?
“Leave it to the professionals” said the professionals. And so everyone did. And look at where it has got them.
Critics will seize on her call as an admission of government failure to stem a rising tide of social disorder. But Ms Casey said that the answer to the yobs was not more legislation, but greater community spirit and co-operation.
Meaning what, Ms Casy, meaning what? The swapping of tales of woe? Bouts of collective cowering? Group hugs? Yes, I am sure that will turn the tide.
Alas, the burdensome and time-devouring task of keeping a humble roof over my head prevents me from exploring the blogosphere as much as I would ideally like to do. As a result, I suspect that there are stacks of interesting views and ideas that are simply passing me by.
So, praise be for the occasional lazy, hazy Sunday afternoon that affords me the opportunity to saunter through the Samizdata blogroll in search of tasty tidbits. Today, I stumbled across a very tasty morsel at ‘A Policeman’s Blog’ which (as the name indicates) is written by a serving British police officer.
Given the candour of his opinions it is easy to understand why he choses anonymity. Particularly when he says things like this:
As an NRA member (see link on sidebar) I’m in favour of liberal gun laws and I think it’s irresponsible of the state to take away an innocent person’s right to self-defence. As a Police Officer, I get tired of having to investigate crime that is unsolvable, yet has only occurred because the victim is weak and the perpetrator is a bully and knows he will get away with it.
To American readers, the British attitude to guns must seem very strange. On the one hand we want to ban law-abiding people from having guns, on the other hand it has never been easier for a criminal to obtain an illegal handgun. We worry about thugs and crime on our Council estates and at the same time refuse to give ordinary people the means to defend themselves and their property.
The Police have long since given up the traditional role of “law-enforcement” and have now become professional “evidence gatherers”. That’s not a problem for the Police, but it does pose a difficulty if you live in an area where you have a lot of crime. So who does the “law enforcement” nowadays?
Nobody.
That’s where widespread ownership of guns comes in. Together with sensible laws on self defence, guns have a habit of cutting through all kinds of complex arguments about the causes of crime. If I try and burgle your home, you might shoot me: that concentrates the mind. It also reduces reliance on the state and it makes people responsible for their own actions. Best of all though, it gives victims a chance against offenders, something they’ll never get if they involve the Police. All we do is “gather the evidence.”
Given the messianic zeal with which his superiors and their political masters have pursued (and continue to pursue) their policy of civilian disarmerment and compulsory passivity, it is uplifting to hear that at least one of their agents has managed to retain some common sense and a capacity for rational analysis.
But then this is a man who actually has to go in and mop up (quite literally in many cases I should think) the pitiful results of their boneheaded obduracy. Nonetheless it is still a testament to his strength of character that he has drawn the correct conclusions despite every fashionable injunction to the contrary.
We need more public servants like him.
Some time ago, Michael Jennings of this parish caused a stir by suggesting a way of subverting the leftist intent of the staff who decide what sort of books they recommend to customers at Britain’s high street bookstores. While strictly against the rules of property, I totally sympathised with Michael’s intent and his annoyance that the bookstore seemed to be run this way.
It has not got any better in the bookshop world, as far as I can tell (at least not in Britain. Things may be different elsewhere). Earlier this week I spent a quick lunchbreak wandering around the nearby Books Etc. store in Holborn High Street. After browsing through a fairly sparsely-stocked crime and general fiction section, I took a peek at the current affairs and history section. The history bit was okay, if not particularly impressive. But the current affairs section was in a different class. It might have been stocked by the sort of folk who write for the Democratic Underground or who think Michael Moore is a sort of latter-day saint. Books by Chomsky, Gore Vidal, John Gray (a pet hate of mine); Michael Moore, of course; then various authors I have not heard of before but the titles give the general gist: “George W. Bush and the Arrogance of Power”; Why Do People Hate America?”, and blah, blah, blah. Apart from one slim volume by noted scholar of Islam Bernard Lewis, it was a total washout.
Now what is going on here? Clearly, the folk who decide what books to sell and what books to publish presumably want to make money. I tentatively offer a few explanations: the impact of higher education and direct bias from bookstore staff. Dealing with the latter point first, I have found, while chatting to the folk who work in the stores, that most tilt to the statist left. Maybe they directly get to decide what is put up in certain parts of the store. With popular fiction, they have to stock Harry Potter and Nick Hornby like everyone else, but when it comes to politics, they get freer rein. That is my take anyhow.
But I also believe higher education has an effect on all this. The serious, non-fiction parts of bookstores cater for a perceived ‘high-brow’ market. Given that humanities departments, such as political and history ones, tend to tilt to the left in my experience, it follows that the main market for such books will tend to shift the same way. There is not – yet – a big market for non-fiction with a clear libertarian and conservative leaning.
In the Internet Age, of course, this may not matter so much. But as a bibliophile it bugs me to see the biggest high street bookshops stocking so much crud.
We have been following the British government’s treatment of the armed forces for some time, when we got hold of some important information…
A document was found in a briefcase left outside Samizdata HQ. We would like to offer it back to the MOD (Ministry of Defence) but in the meantime we publish it for all to see…We believe it offers the key to understanding the thinking behind the government’s recent defence cuts rationalisation of the Armed forces to produce a more efficient, effective and capable military….
Download file: STAFF GUIDANCE ON DEFENCE RESTRUCTURING
We have already been alerted to a website Preparing for Emergencies that, for some strage reason, the statists want dismantled immediately.
It is remarkably similar in domain name and style to the timewasting “offishal” preparingforemergencies.org.uk. Be quick to check it out as its death sentence has alreday been pronounced on Radio 4… They are not amused.
Thanks to Tony Millard for the link.
Britain’s government has a website telling us all manner of splendid things about how we are protected by the state now that we have David Blunkett watching over us… and what we should do in the event of a spot of bother happening when Blunkett is off on a tea break.
Yet it seems a more, well, candid version of this site has also helpfully been made available to us by our political masters.
(with thanks to the eagle-eyed Guy Herbert for spotting this)
Whenever we touch on the issue of state controlled health system versus private healthcare, we get a smattering of outraged readers who cannot understand why we attack that venerable (in their eyes, not ours) dinosaur, the NHS. It’s free and for everybody they screech, you heartless capitalists… would you let your parents/grandparents/children die without treatment and care, if they couldn’t afford to go private?!.
The fact is that those I care about are more likely to be in need of treatment and care, as a result of coming into contact with the NHS. I want them to stay away from the NHS, and the government to give them back their money taken to support the giant leech known as national healthcare.
Many people are now frightened that they could pick up a dangerous infection if they go into hospital. It is hardly surprising. More and more of us know someone who has been infected with the superbug, MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Marjorie Evans has been infected with it on eight occasions at the same hospital in Swansea. Now wheelchair-bound as a result, she says: “I’d rather go abroad and trust foreigners.”
As James Bartholomew writes in the Telegraph opinion section one is vastly safer in a private hospital and the danger of getting MRSA is a risk affecting patients of the NHS.
The NHS both is the most state-controlled hospital system in the advanced world and has the worst record in Europe. At a practical level, it is because of things like ministers driving hospitals at full capacity to reduce waiting lists, with the result that patients with MRSA cannot always be isolated.
But at a more profound level, the MRSA crisis is because the NHS is a state monopoly. Ministers are always making hospitals respond to the latest newspaper headlines rather than doing what is best in the overall interest of patients; hospital workers – like many employees of state industries – are demoralised and their pay rates are unresponsive, thus causing the local shortages. The state has also closed too many hospitals. The list of ways in which it has increased the risk is endless.
This is a result of the fundamental dynamics (or statics) of the public sector, not any lack of funding. There is no legitimate role for the state in healthcare, education and many other sectors that it appropriated for perpetration of what is so misleading called ‘public services’.
The dynamics of the private sector, meanwhile, are simpler and more effective. If you don’t treat your customers well, you go out of business.
Indeed, unless you take their money first and then help yourself to it…
If you are arrested, and the police take your DNA to run tests on it, and if the outcome of your arrest is either that no charges were brought against you or you were brought to trial and found innocent, it has been ruled that the state can retain your DNA records indefinitely regardless.
The moral of the story is, of course, that if you do not want the state to take your DNA and hold it on record forever because you simply do not trust the state or because you have the quaint notion that your body is your own property, then do whatever it takes to not get arrested, regardless of how confident you are that you can establish your innocence subsequently.
Lord Brown said the benefits of this procedure were so manifest and the objections so threadbare that the cause of human rights would be better served by expanding the police database rather than by reducing it.
Just as it has often been said that modern fascism is most likely to appear in the guise of anti-fascism, when some establishment figure like Lord Brown start taking about ‘human rights’ it is a fair bet that ‘human rights’ about to get trampled underfoot.
My guess is that it is only a matter of time before the police in some nations start taking samples of DNA from everyone, probably starting with all children under a programme with a name like ‘The Safe Children Act’ or something similar, probably with the ostensible reason of ‘protecting your child from kidnap by Paedophiles’ or some such drivel. I mean, after all, who could possibly object to that?
The state is not your friend.
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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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