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.
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A detective working for the Metropolitan Police specialist crime branch fell victim to crime four times in an hour-and-a-half. His car was broken into and his bicycle stolen before being beaten up and having his moped vandalised.
The crime spree started outside his home in Fulham (which is a nice area!) in London. First, his CD player had been taken from his VW Golf. Then his bike was stolen as he went to report the car break-in and to call his insurance company. He took his moped to look for the thief but, after trying to detain a youth he saw riding his bike, he was attacked from behind by two others and violently kicked in the face and body.
John Cullen, the hapless policeman in question, said it was “frightening” that his attackers had little respect for people, including the police. He added:
“I don’t have any answers to all this but a multi-agency approach is surely urgently needed to tackle this sort of youth offending to protect the public – including me.
But there is an answer! 
With the British government’s approach and policy towards crime, gun control and self-defence, how not very odd that even the police are now victims!
Unless, Mr Cullen considers a 9mm Uzi SMG a suitable ‘agency’ to tackle crime…
Update: Just saw Alice Bacchini’s post about the story from yesterday. How very fast – I only read about it this morning!
How can I count the ways! Well first, let me say what is right with him… namely that as a future constitutional figurehead monarch, he is in fact powerless to do jack shit to impose his world view on the rest of us and his ideas are in reality no more significant than John Bull the Greengrocer. That is a very good thing indeed because unlike members of the government, we are free to ignore his bleating if we wish.
The thing that annoys me however is that when Charles opines in some issues, such as hunting, people misunderstand his underpinning philosophy. People think of him as advocating liberties against the encroachment of the state because he supports the right of hunters to hunt in Britain, but this is utterly incorrect. Prince Charles is in fact an advocate of big interventionist redistributive government: for example see his calls for taxpayers to be forced to subsidise organic farms (which overwhelmingly sell to higher income members of the public). Most significantly he has no problem whatsoever with the philosophical position that rights exist collectively, which is the underpinning of every tyranny imaginable. In a letter to Downing Street, the Prince wrote:
The Human Rights Act is only about the rights of individuals. This betrays a fundamental distortion in social and legal thinking
So when Charles says:
Our lives are becoming ruled by a truly absurd degree of politically correct interference
He is not arguing against the morality of the state interfering in people’s lives, just the fact that it is not being done in a way he approves of. Like so many paleo-conservatives, he thinks the state telling you how to live your life is just fine, provided ‘sensible chaps from Eton’ are the ones in control of that state.
It is with great pride and honour that I can report that I, along with blogger Patrick Crozier and Chris Tame of the Libertarian Alliance took part in the Liberty and Livelihood march in London today. Samizdata contributor Antoine Clarke was also on the march and, although we communicated by text-mail, there were so many marchers that we never actually managed to meet up.
Did I say there were so many marchers? That does not even begin to tell the story. It was HUGE. I cannot recall ever seeing any public demonstration in Britain of this magnitude (and I’ve seen a few). The official figures state over 400,000 marchers but, from where we stood, that would appear to be an underestimate.
It began in from two points in Central London early this morning; two start points being necessary because of the enormous numbers involved. Even so, from our start point at Hyde Park, the throng was so large that it was next to impossible to actually determine where it began or where it ended. Eventually we just melded in where we could.
The atmosphere was one of pure defiance though there was no violence or law-breaking at all. The marchers were loud, proud and spirited, blowing whistles and horns, chanting and waving back to the cheering onlookers. Not once did the palpable grim resolve compromise the joyousness. It felt like a victory parade.
The most telling juxtaposition was provided by a handful (and I do mean a handful) of animal rights protestors, who all looked, well, how can I put this? Have you ever been on your way to an important business meeting and trodden in a dog-turd? That’s what they looked like.
Not being a photography-minded chap, I have no photos to post [Editor: sorted!] but I can recall some of the slogans that stood out from the sea of banners and flags carried along with the march (the Stars and Stripes being very prominent, incidentally).
This one stiffened my back:
“Born to Hunt, ready to Fight”
This one made me smile:
“We’ll keep our cowshit in the country,
you keep your bullshit in the town”
And this one raised the hairs on my neck:
“The Last Peaceful Demonstration”
Having moved among these people today, I am left with the distinct impression that they mean it.
The Labour government is dropping heavy hints about further tax increases in order to fund what it euphamistically refers to as ‘redistribution of wealth, power and opportunity’. Pure, coal-filtered, organic bullshit with no artificial additives or flavourings. What they really want to do is loot more money from productive wealth-creating people and hand it over to their parasitical, wealth-destroying supporters in the public sector.
Of all the high-falutin’ media responses to this, none hits the nail so squarely on the head as Richard Littlejohn in The Sun:
“Like the Lottery, Labour takes money from Sun readers and gives it to Guardian readers, who then decide how best it should be spent.
This Government has presided over a massive explosion of unproductive, worthless public sector appointments.
How many times have I written about the hundreds of millions of pounds showered every year on the Guardian-reading classes?
Each week thousands of irrelevant, unnecessary jobs in Town Halls and Government departments are advertised in that newspaper.
Some days, the Guardian’s jobs supplement is three times the size of The Sun.
The Guardian is the last great nationalised industry. Without its massive subsidy from taxpayers it would fold.”
You call it exactly the way you see it, Richard. And you see it the way it is.
Because I expect it to get negligible coverage in the mainstream media, I feel obliged to remind everyone that grassroots Britain goes on the march this Sunday.
The Samizdata Team will be duly represented and, if you wish to join us we will be meeting with several others of a like mind at Hyde Park Corner at 09.45am Sunday morning.
Insights come in varied and peculiar forms, such as those decanted from the lips of such British sages as Rab C. Nesbit to the north and the Macc Lads from a tad further south.
To be honest I think the Macc Lads are at least as reliable as DEBKA when it comes to military analysis and probably rather better… well certainly more forthright. Read the article and make up your own mind.
If there is war, it will be a clash of experts as well as armies. If Saddam’s forces collapse, and the American-led action has a quick outcome, the Macc Lads will have disproved Field marshal Lord Bramall and most of academe.
Before you read the linked Spectator article, let me proffer some linguistic assistance to our non-British readers… ‘Boddingtons’ is an inexpensive but far from ineffective beer in considerable favour with the broader end of Britain’s socioeconomic pyramid.
A ‘Bear Of Very Little Brain’ such as I does not quite follow every twist and turn of the A-Level scandal, but the story goes something like this: the government wants more students in higher education for good reasons and bad. So the government puts direct and indirect pressure on the exam boards to make the exams easier by changing their mark schemes and structures. This manouevre is kept secret; they would like us to think that they have made students cleverer by good magic. The ruse does not work. As grades go up and up people start to talk about “dumbing down.” Finally the jump in the number of A grades is so embarrassing that the exam board start secretly moving the goalposts. This is a betrayal of trust: even if the level of achievement necessary for a good grade is objectively set too low, once the board has publicly stated the criteria it is bound to stick to them as part of its contract. To secretly mark students down is close to libel.
What a mess, hey? What’s a poor Education Minister to do? In an article called Estelle, here is your way out of this mess the Telegraph’s John Clare puts forward his advice to the beleaguered Estelle Morris.
But I’ve got some even better advice. I know a breathtakingly simple way for Estelle to get out of this mess entirely. It’s this: Get out of this mess entirely, Estelle! Yes! It’s that easy! Kick over your ministerial desk, make a barbecue of all your papers, hurl your dispatch box over the balustrade of the magnificent interior balcony of Sanctuary Buildings, and be gone and free within the hour. I don’t just mean resign. I mean make your last act the complete and inalienable renunciation of government interference in A Levels, AS Levels, right through to X, Y and Z Levels, with every record so much as touching upon the subject shredded or electronically wiped to make sure your courageous decision sticks. Because government interference is the only cause of all this mess and government butting out is the only cure.
So moves are afoot to lock the UK into the EU, sponsored by a man who is by any reasonable definition a traitor, by the name of Andrew Duff.
Pass whatever laws you wish, Andrew dear…as long as Britain maintains its own armed forces, ultimately British society can elect to rid itself of its onerous ties to socialist Europe, at bayonet point if required regardless of your meaningless legalisms… at which point it might be best for all concerned if you decided it would be prudent for you to stay in Brussels rather than come back to what you clearly do not regard as home.
Are you an anti-social thug? Do you enjoy terrorising your neighbours? Stealing from them? Generally making everybodys else’s life a hell? Do you sometimes long to live in a country where you can just destroy other people’s property and get away with it scot-free?
Well, then I suggest you come and live in Britain:
“Three men collared a teenage thug who hurled a brick through a window — only to end up charged with Kidnap”.
It gives me such a warm, fuzzy glow inside to know that I live in a country where the police won’t lift a finger to help you and you daren’t lift a finger to help yourself.
[For non-British readers the word ‘nick’ in the article headline is a British slang for ‘bust’]
Contrary to its popular cartoon image as a quaint, bucolic idyll, Britain is, and has been for some time, the most urbanised country in the world. The corollary of this is that British country folk are a minority without the political clout and voting power of the majority city-dwellers.
British governments are elected by those city-dwellers and that means that the country people are, shall we say, surplus to requirements. In most cases, this would be a blessing in disguise but, since emerging from 18 years of electoral wilderness, the re-invigorated Labour Party had dragons to slay.
The country folk are roundly loathed by most of the Labour Party who have always characterised them as ‘robber baron’ landowners, natural conservatives (in every sense of the word) and just too embarrassingly ‘British’ at a time when everyone was expected to have discarded such prehistoric notions.
Maybe Tony Blair shares those views, maybe not but what he has done is to serve up Britain’s rural communities as fresh red meat to quieten the marxist dogs in his own party. From the BSE fiasco, to the appalling incompetence and cruelty shown during the ‘Foot & Mouth’ outbreak (and which may yet prove to have been an act of sabotage), the banning of guns, the manipulation of planning laws so as to favour factory-farms (which have squeezed out the small, independent farmer) and now the proposed ban on hunting with dogs.
Five years of systematic bullying and persecution have so traduced Britain’s rural communities that some are simply no longer viable. They have paid a heavy price for being a detested minority. By degrees, their entire way of life is being abolished.
It is always difficult for a minority to fight back against a majority, especially when that majority has its hands of the levers of state power. But a promising way to begin is by (a) getting angry and (b) getting organised. Britain’s rural folk are now both and on September 22nd tens of thousands of them will take to the streets of the Capital to tell the government that they’re as mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.
This is no block of rampaging rednecks. As with most things, the lefty metropolitan bigots are quite wrong about the rural people for they are as multifaceted and diverse as any others but they have actively choosen to unite under a slogan that proclaims ‘Liberty & Livelihood’ and that should tell you everything you need to know.
I canot read that slogan without being reminded of a famous song lyric: ‘Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose’. Well, if that’s true, then ‘nothing left to lose’ is also another word for ‘freedom’.
In yet another travesty of British justice, Barry-Lee Hastings has been convicted of manslaughter for defending not just his property but his family from a career serial burglar.
Naturally the state sees things differently.
Det Chief Insp Matthew Horne said the case sent a clear message that people in such circumstances should call the police “and let us do our job. If you take the law into your own hands there is always a danger”
Yet in the last year we have had story after story of the Police responding to pleas for assistance by turning up hours if not days later. The fact is, the job which Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Horne is speaking about is not your protection but rather the protection of the State’s monopoly on the means of violence.
Institutionally speaking, the safety of you, your family and your property is purely incidental: if it were otherwise, a person could legally own a weapon for their personal defence in Britain… yet regardless of the fact you may manifestly be at risk from violence in a high crime area or live in a home which has been robbed again and again and again, you may not even use a kitchen knife, let alone a gun, to protect yourself. Ask Barry-Lee Hastings.
The state is not your friend.
Dr. Jan Fortune-Wood is a libertarian home educator and freelance writer who supports ‘Taking Children Seriously’. She writes in with some insightful views on the Orwellian ‘Connexions’ programme.
The nine most frightening words in the English language, Ronald Reagan is once reputed to have said, are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” One only has to glance at the latest brainchild of ‘joined-up government’ to know the truth of that statement. The Connexions scheme is meant to ensure that children are tracked in order to give them maximum access to the benefits everything taxation has to offer. The price tag comes in the form of an electronic card that is programmed with a complete history of the child. It is optional, no one has to join the scheme – it’s simply that learning institutions can make it a requirement for registration and it remains to be seen how many other public sector institutions will be joining in the rush for data.
This back door identity card is administered by ‘personal advisors’ (PAs) using the ‘Connexions Assessment Tool’. Based on a system used by Social Services, the tool enables PAs to assess eighteen areas of private life and ‘score’ the answers from 1 – ‘positive strengths’ to 5 – ‘critical or complex issues identified’. With just one simple tool these PAs can sum up and objectify young people under the all encompassing headings of: Life Skills
Key Skills
Basic Skills
Achievements
Participation
Substance use issues
Emotional well-being
Physical health
Income
Housing
Social & community factors
Family history & functioning
Capacity of parents/carers
Risk of offending
Relationships within family & society
Attitudes & motivation
Identity & self-image
Aspirations
When it comes to ‘exploring issues’ with the young person no category escapes scrutiny, for example ‘attitude to authority’ is ‘explored’ as a key skill for young people. As the sickening document develops, PAs are advised to look for evidence of living in a criminal environment to predict risk of offending. Blair’s advisors have not yet discovered any gifted precogniscants who can see the future and lock up offenders before they commit their crime in the manner of the recent ‘Minority Report’ Movie, but they are doing their best to decide people’s futures even without the aid of extra sensory perception.
Young people are expected to report on their parents as part of this welfare provision, telling all about the level of their parents’ aspirations for the young person, what kind of dental care they have provided and how often they are made to take a shower. Parental stability, difficulties and ‘evidence’ of substance abuse by parents, all as perceived by the young person, are all recorded.
Again and again the recurrent word is ‘appropriate’ and the document suggests that it is highly appropriate for some under trained, intrusive PA to explore a young person’s private sexual history alongside her ‘developmental progress’ and immunisation history. Moreover, this PA, fresh from her in service training course on how to be an authoritarian government lackey goes on to delve into the young person’s mental health. ‘Do you now or have you ever had suicidal thoughts?’ Does the teenager have any other juicy emotional life experiences that can be recorded for his own good? Self harm? Bereavement? Masturbation doesn’t seem to be listed, but then there is enough of that going on in this document already.
Home-educated young people are amongst the few escaping the routine invasion of this new and invidious scheme, but as they enter colleges later in their education they are being asked for details of their Connexions cards and pressurized to join the herd of electronically tagged Blairite citizen fodder. Having libertarian views would no doubt earn them a 5 score for critical and complex attitudes to authority. Living in a household where they are taken seriously as autonomous human beings able to initiate and motivate their own learning would put them well off the scale, a new class of ‘potential offenders’ in their own right. The Connexions scheme is inimical to liberty and we need to be campaigning against it vociferously before all young people are made the subjects of joined up government ‘help’.
Dr. Jan Fortune-Wood, North Wales
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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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