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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From being the envy of the world, the British armed forces are in danger of becoming merely average: a cut-price, camouflaged UNICEF…
My sources tell me that this is an accurate account of what’s going on in the British Army at the moment. Or more precisely, how the New Labour government has been undermining one of the most respected and professional British institutions:
The British military and New Labour are politically and philosophically polar opposites. The government has made these differences even more acute by spending much of the last few years forcing soldiers to adopt a work ethic more in line with commerce than with combat. Who Dares Wins has been replaced by Health and Safety. The government believes that it has a duty to look after soldiers by protecting their ‘rights’, but this approach to soldiering seriously undermines the ability of the men and women of the armed forces to get on with a difficult and dangerous job.
[…]
The government’s obsession with political correctness has been applied to the military with such relish that at times it seems almost insane. I have lost count of the number of forms I have had to fill in giving details of my ethnic origin. These forms used to be anonymous, but the last one I had to complete carried my name, rank and service number. Perhaps this was a reaction to an earlier (anonymous) form, which had revealed that in our all-male unit there was a huge number of Bangladeshi single mothers!
[…]
Health-and-safety inspectors are blamed for recommending that chlorine be introduced into the underwater tunnel, in case some poor Commando picks up a bit of dysentery or a sore throat as a result of wading through dirty water. The steep ravines worn into the slopes that recruits had to run up and down at various points on the seven-mile course were also contrary to all sorts of well-meaning legislation. The recommendation was for proper steps and handrails to be installed — just like the ones you find in the mountains of Afghanistan or the wadis of Iraq.
The armed forces in the UK are currently so over-streched that their management amounts to a permanent crisis-management. The professionalism and high quality of the British army currently rests on the dedication of its officers. Let’s face it, they are not there for the money and they don’t get to shoot much these days either. The British military doesn’t lobby, speak out, point out the ignorance of the current government of military matters (which has no limits as this is the first government where nobody has a direct military experience) or do anything that would undermine its strong ethos as a ‘civilian’ army. Her Majesty the Queen, a civilian, is head of the Navy, Army and Air Force of Britain.
Perhaps they should.
I briefly toyed with the idea of posting this under the ‘Humour’ category but, the trouble is, I am not making this up. I couldn’t possibly make this up.
In a country where virtually all forms of private firearm ownership have been outlawed, there was a march today in South-East London by a group calling itself ‘Mothers Against Guns’ in protest at rising gun violence.
But that thigh-slapping irony descends into tragi-farce:
“The march had to be re-routed away from the crime scene of the early morning shooting outside Pharaoh’s Pub in Peckham Road.
Police confirmed one man was killed on the spot and that another was in a stable condition in hospital after the incident.
Sometimes I feel as if this isn’t a nation anymore. More like an open-air Theatre of the Absurd.
David Carr is happy, because now not only is he sunk in gloom but he reckons all of us are, and especially me, Samizdata’s Optimism Correspondent. Bad news David, I’m happy now.
I have a number of reasons to be happy, but I’ll focus on just one. Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has been taxing the British economy at a higher rate, but, to his surprise and consternation, the extra tax revenue that he assumed he would get by putting the rates up has not proved to be forthcoming. In the House of Commons yesterday, he had to explain. He blamed the world economy. (Don’t they all?)
Well guess what. I told you so, on Tuesday May 28th. This makes me happy.
What this confirms …
(I was referring to a piece by Paul Staines)
… is that British government income is now as high as it can be. Increasing the percentage rate of taxation doesn’t increase government tax income, it merely slows the economy down and causes government income to remain static. Similarly, if the government were to reduce the percentage rate of tax, government income wouldn’t decrease. This would merely cause the economy to surge forward, and the smaller slice of a bigger cake would end up being the same size as the bigger slices of smaller cakes. Britain is now at the top of the Laffer Curve. Isn’t that exciting? In plain English, the bastards are taking us for the absolute maximum amount they can, and if they get any greedier we stop coming through their bit of the forest.
Gordon Brown’s response to his problem is that he has decided to take the government a lot deeper into debt than he originally had in mind to do, which is a further – albeit disguised – increase in the rate of taxation. If the government borrows the kind of money it now intends to borrow, it will raise the interest rates that all other borrowers have to pay.
So let me leave all my winnings from my previous bet on the table and give this prophecy game another whirl of the wheel. Brown’s latest decision will slow the economy down some more, and he still won’t get his hands on enough money to finance his spending spree. These plans can never materialise, and that fact will have to be recognised if Britain is not to be pushed down the far side of the Laffer Curve towards economic meltdown.
What this all shows is that, as usual, there are, in the words of Noel Coward, bad times just around the corner. What it also shows is that enjoying life is all about attitude. It’s not the facts that make you happy or unhappy; what counts is how you look at them and what you make of them.
This poster can be seen all over London. In it a young man standing at a bus stop chats on his mobile phone, a sight one sees all the time on London’s busy streets.
What the Metropolitan Police are saying is that doing this, talking on a mobile phone in London, in public, is unwise behaviour. Okay, fair enough, London is a big city and all big cities have their fair share of street crime, so what is the problem with this message from the boys in blue?
The problem I have is that this poster is not warning criminals who might attack us and steal our phones of the sure vengeance of the law. Not it is calling on us all to refuse to tolerate thieves in our midst and to resist to the best of our ability. Hell, how about suggesting “if you have a mobile phone in your hand and you either witness a mugging in progress or think you are in danger, dial 999 and the Police, whose paychecks and cars with flashing lights come from your taxes, will come rushing to the rescue”.
No, it does not say that at all. The real message here from our appointed protectors is not “we will protect you from crime” and certainly not “protect yourself from street crime”, but rather HIDE from street crime.
OUT OF SIGHT IS SAFER
The state cannot protect you, it will not permit you to protect yourself effectively, so all it can do is offer advice… and the advice is hide. Do not show anyone you have something worth stealing. I expect we will soon see posters across London saying “it is safer not to wear Armani suits, you might get mugged” and then “don’t wear short skirts, you might get raped” and finally “don’t go out at all, the streets are not safe”.
Perhaps when the state has taxed everything and we no longer have anything left to hide, we will indeed have ‘safer streets’.
The state is not your friend.
I don’t suppose any of our readers can have failed to notice the patina of despondency that has, of late, descended upon this corner of the blogland.
I am the usual and evergreen suspect. Optimism has always stood in stark contrast to my natural grain and my comrades have long-since stopped denouncing me for it and learned to live with my periodic predictions of impending doom. However, I am but Pollyanna herself compared to Paul Marks, the poster-boy of the Euthanasia Movement.
There was a time when our brooding presence was felt but nonetheless heavily diluted by the ebullient, thematic jolliness of the remaining Samizdatistas. But now Perry de Havilland seems to have stumbled into a pit of despair and even the stomach-churningly cheerful Brian Micklethwait has ‘fessed up to an onset of the highly contagious Carr-itis.
But why, I hear you inquire. Is this a neurological condition brought on by over-exposure to the internet? Is it because we are perenially-disappointed libertarians? No, it’s because we are British:
“People are growing increasingly pessimistic, with a majority believing that Britain is “grinding to a halt”, a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph has found.
The survey shows a country depressed by the prospect of falling pension values, failing hospitals, pot-holed roads, unspoken fears of terrorism and a possible war against Iraq.
Eighty five per cent of people worry that they can no longer rely on public services, while 53 per cent agree with foreign media reports that “nothing in Britain works”.
See, for all these years I was not being contrary, I was merely ahead of the curve and now that all my compatriots are conforming to national type, I can take nought but scant consolation in feeling vindicated.
All exhortations to cheery optimism are futile. It’s too late for therapy and prozac won’t work. We’re not depressed, we’re just British. Pity us.
Paul Marks laments attitudes in Britain to anti-tax protests.
Those people who know me will know that I like family owned enterprises (more common in Germany than in Britain these days) and that I like the people who are at the top of manufacturing companies to be trained in such things as engineering rather than such things as law (I sometimes feel that many British managers think a “machine tool” is something to do with kinky sex). But, have no fear, I will say no more about my personal prejudices – and I fully accept that Germany has higher government spending and (in some ways) more government regulations than Britain.
However, something has caught my attention recently. In Germany a pop song denouncing the German government’s tax increases has reached the top of the charts.
In Britain taxes are increasing much faster than in Germany (government spending and regulations are increasing at a faster rate also) and, sure enough, a pop song has been written that attacks this increase in taxation – and the song was mentioned on B.B.C. Radio 4’s “Today Programme”.
But in Britain the anti tax protest song is not being treated seriously even, it appears, by the man who wrote it. Nobody expects this song to get to the top of anything – even though the British government have also told lies about tax and are increasing taxes more than the German government is.
Is the basic culture of Britain so collectivist that a protest against statism is automatically a joke?
Paul Marks
Nobody should be surprised. Nobody. We all know that if you keep picking at a scab it will eventually turn septic. You can only torment even the most good-natured of dogs before it turns on you and takes a chunk out of your leg.
Despite the ridicule and loathing that has been directed at them (much of it justified I hasten to add), the British National Party has scored another election success in the North of England, this time taking a local authority ward in Blackburn, the parliamentary constituency of the current Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw who has responded by issuing a desperate-sounding public plea for ‘more tolerance’ in our society.
He’s worried. He is right to be worried. And I’m worried too because, despite strenous efforts to market themselves as decent and patriotic, the BNP remains a viscerally nationalist organisation who pose as big a threat to liberty as their counterparts on the left.
However, panic is not yet due; this was merely a council by-election and the BNP are not about to take their seat at the top table of power. But, taken together with their other recent successes at local level, it has to be admitted that they are enjoying a growing popularity as well as building a plausible grassroots movement.
→ Continue reading: Ignore no more
Jacob Resler wonders what would have happend to Britain in World War II if the United States had taken an ‘even handed’ approach between the UK and Nazi Germany.
The British Government has imposed a de facto embargo on the supply of defence related items to Israel. A spokesman of the Israeli Defence Ministry by the name of Mr. Kuti Mor confirmed this in an interview. There were 130 items that the Ministry of Defence whished to purchase from British suppliers, but an export permit has been denied by Britain. British officials said it was their policy not to send military supplies to zones of conflict though they never openly declared an embargo. Most of the items were spare parts, and two of them have been cited as examples: one is a pyrotechnic charge needed to eject the pilot from Phantom fighter planes in emergencies; the other is a small engine used in unmanned aircraft (drones).
It seems Britain’s government idea is that the best way to fight terrorism is to punish its victims. In this Britain fits very well in the EU, it behaves exactely like France, Belgium or Germany. (I could not think of a worse curse). Interesting what would have happened in both World Wars if the US had adopted a policy of not sending supplies to zones of conflict. I think this piece of idiocy needs to be more exposed to the public.
Jacob Resler
Patrick Crozier pins the blame for the strike firmly where it belongs
The firemen (don’t expect me to use the virtue fascist term “firefighters”) have kicked off an eight-day strike. The Evening Standard (and I am sure a whole host of other worthies) have chosen to single out the unions for blame.
Poppycock. It is the sole responsibility of the government to provide firefighting services as no alternatives now exist. If it fails to do so then it is it (the government) and no one else who is at fault. If they find that they can’t sack striking firemen then that is again their fault for either signing no-dismisal agreements or making such action illegal (I am not sure which, if any, applies in this case.)
I think (but I am damned if I can find the quote) Enoch Powell once described unions as “pure as the driven snow”. He was right.
In expectation of an obvious comment… Yes, I know ultimately it is our individual responsibility to provide ourselves with fire-fighting services. I do not know if it would be legal or not to do so but the fact that the state usually provides one and taxes us for the privilege tends to crowd out the alternative.
Patrick Crozier
Frank Sensenbrenner sees the triumph of subjectivism in the British legal system. The victim’s perception of the nature of a crime now replaces analysis of the objective facts.
It seems that in David Blunkett’s Britain, it has become a greater crime to offend the opinions of a select class than to infringe upon their rights. Natalie Solent recently reported on Robin Page’s arrest. Mr Page, a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, was arrested for inciting racial hatred after stating that rural individuals should have the same rights to legal protection for traditional events as other minorities, such as blacks, Muslims, and gays.
At the heart of the subject is the definition of inciting racial hatred. A libertarian perspective would conclude that inciting racial hatred would be advocacy for direct action to deny liberties and rights to a certain race or group, as opposed to merely voicing bigoted opinions. No matter how repellent one’s opinions are, if one is only disparaging certain groups, as opposed to suggesting criminal action against them, it is free speech. After all, no one is forcing anyone who might be offended by free speech to listen to it. Most of history’s famous human rights campaigners such as Martin Luther King, Steve Biko, and Mahatma Gandhi used the same construct as Mr Page. They did not advocate hostilities against their oppressors, but demanded equal rights. Today, suggesting similar ideas is racial hatred.
There is deep hypocrisy in the enforcement of the Public Order Act in this context. While Mr Page stewed in prison for advocating equality, Sheik Abu Hamza and his cohorts preach the slaughter of infidels on the streets of London and by main landmarks. Surely proposing murder is a greater crime than proposing equality? Just a look at Al Muhajiroun is bad enough. While Mr Omar Bakri Muhammad is certainly free to preach whatever he likes behind closed doors, to allow him to advocate crime in public is too far.
In addition, the Public Order Act may go too far. According to an official government website, racial hatred is defined as threatening, abusive, or merely insulting behaviour. Also, was looking at what laws enshrine hate crimes against gays, and it looks even worse in that respect. According to Rainbow Network the perception of anyone that a crime was a homophobic or racially motivated attack is enough for it to be deemed so.
Therefore, Samizdatistas de Havilland, Carr, Cronin, Micklethwait & Amon, I look forward to seeing you as a fellow defendant versus The Crown when they get around to prosecuting the Samizdata Team for hate speech, as I’m sure there’s some idiot in Islington who’d deem Samizdata ‘hate speech’.
Frank Sensenbrenner
I’ve just run my beady eye over a draft of the Criminal Justice Bill conveniently printed in The Times but since non-UK residents have to subscribe I will refrain from linking (in accordance with the recent directive handed down by the Samizdat-buro).
Casting my mind back a few months, I distinctly recall that warm, fuzzy feeling of exuberation that only comes when the scent of a victory (albeit minor) is in the air. The scent in question was the aroma of cannabis which, HMG magnanimously informed us, was going to be ‘downgraded’ from Class B drug to Class C drug. Thus, whilst it would remain theoretically illegal, police could no longer arrest anyone for being in possession of small amounts for personal use.
Well, it was minor but worthwhile advance. Or so we thought, because the good news is that HMG has proved good to its word and cannabis is, indeed, to be reclassified as a Class C drug. The bad news is that the new Criminal Justice Bill gives police the power to arrest anyone found in possession of Class C drugs.
In short, we’re back where we bloody well started.
Triangulations, Third Ways and New Deals are all euphamisms for playing ‘Hide and Seek’ with reality. But reality is famously persistant and you can’t hide for long before it finds you. Then the game is up.
And even the ludicrously partisan BBC has to admit that the Labour government has a serious problem on the horizon:
“The Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday that the government’s coffers were £2.5bn in surplus last month, down by more than half on the same period last year, and well short of the £4.3bn predicted by analysts.”
The article points the finger at lower corporate tax takings but the real reason is that HMG has crossed over the Laffer Curve and further tax hikes will only result in diminishing returns.
This is a deeply worrying problem for a government that has ridden to power on the promise of an endless supply of lovely lolly to their core supporters in the public sector. That same public sector took them at their word and grows more militant by the day in its demands that HMG now cash the blank cheque they recklessly wrote to buy the election.
So the pot is empty and Chancellor Brown is left only with the option of massive borrowing to fund further spending. That means going back to the ‘bad old days’ of the 1970’s; something which Tony Blair has said repeatedly he is not prepared to countenance.
‘Hey reality, HMG is in the cupboard under the stairs’.
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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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