Great article by Brendan O’Neill on the attempts – vain, I hope – to silence folk who dare contest the Truth of Global Warming.
Right, it is Friday evening, I have a life, so have a good weekend and try not to think about English football.
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Economist Bryan Caplan has posed the question: which law would you like to break? I guess, that being a libertarian kind of guy, he favours giving the finger to those laws that do not protect life and property but instead regulate our behaviour for our own good. So, it being the start of the weekend, I shamelessly steal Bryan’s idea and pose this question to the Samizdata hordes: which law would you like to break? And also, why? October 13th, 2006 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
 One of the things that struck me, reading the comments on the recent thread about the casualty toll in Iraq, the North Korean bomb test, and the ongoing debate about what to do about Islamist terror, is what are countries doing to defend against missile attacks, including nuclear ones? When George Bush was first elected in 2000 (whatever Michael Moore might claim), he made a great deal of play about missile defence and the ABM Treaty. Now I may have missed something, but anti-missile defence, as a topic, seems to have gone a bit quiet. But surely, if North Korea has the bomb, with Iran not far behind, then anti-missile defence ought to be one of the top priorities for defence planners. Even if you are a paleo-libertarian who thinks defence policy rules out any form of pre-emption, you presumably – unless you are a pacifist – embrace technologies to ward off attacks. So it seems to me to be a bit strange that we have not had more discussion about what countries should be doing in this area, and the pros and cons of the technologies involved. (There may have course have been a lot of discussion, but it has been out of the media spotlight, for various reasons). Some old thoughts of mine about the merits and perils of pre-emption. Here is a book about what a defence policy that is really about self-defence might look like, via the Independent Institute. October 13th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Terrorism has always been cheap and easy, to be sure. The reason we do not have more has more to do with the tiny numbers of people it appeals to, and the sort of people it appeals to not generally being much good at practical organisation, than the competence of security forces. But modern governments and modern media appear to make terrorising the general population costless, workless and safe. Just hold a few meetings, send a few emails, and confess to plotting some extravagant crimes, and you are guaranteed to occupy the media for days.
Leave aside that ‘dirty bombs’ are not significantly more dangerous than ordinary bombs, but rely on superstitions about radioactive contamination – read further down the story:
October 13th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Perry’s posting on the Libertarian Alliance conference reminds me to tell you about two events, one indoors and one outdoors, that may appeal to those of a libertarian temperament or tendency. First up: less an event, more of an individualist free-speech happening. Monthly mass lone demonstrations. You can not just go along though; you have to fill in a form first. Mark Thomas explains. [Overseas readers: do follow the link, you may be astonished to discover how speech is regulated in New Britain.] The next occasion is next Wednesday. Second: a plug for The Battle of Ideas run by the Institute of Ideas in Kensington on the weekend of the 28th/29th October, under the slogan “Free speech is allowed”. I shall be taking part in what they are calling a Salon Debate [‘salon’ = ‘small’?] on The Surveillance Society, but there are many other attacks on state control and the tyranny of received wisdom to be enjoyed.
October 13th, 2006 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
There are some similarities in the USA and UK with the convergence of practical politics into a ‘radical centre’ of regulatory big government statists, whose ‘left’ and ‘right’ labels are rather like those of Coke and Pepsi… sure there are differences, but in the end they are still selling sweet brown fizzy drinks… or selling a vision of state in which the mainstream ‘right’, be it Dave Cameron or George W. Bush, are not talking about shrinking the state (even a bit) and freeing the individual (or even the community) but rather just increasing the pace of regulation a bit slower and in different places than the ‘left’. Similarly the mainstream ‘left’ like Tony Blair or Al Gore are not selling wholesale paleo-socialist nationalisation of businesses as they did in the past, because they, like the mainstream ‘right’, now follow a more (technically) fascist economic model in which property can be ‘private’ but control of it is contingent upon being in accord with national political objectives and permission from some local political authority. The ‘left’ and ‘right’ use different metaphors, different cultural references, different symbolism, but in truth they are selling much the same product. They put huge effort into fetishising their product differentiation precisely because there is so little difference in their core beliefs. In the USA, even the issue of self-defence and opposition to victim disarmament is less than solid with the Republicans than it once was as Bush made is clear he was ‘flexible’ regarding anti-gun legislation and needed hard lobbying to not renew the so-called ‘assault rifle’ ban (i.e. semi-automatic rifles which look ‘scary’). Put simply, all mainstream political parties (at the moment) are statist centrists, neither in favour of overt nationalisation nor of individual autonomy, regardless of their sales schpiel. Why this is true is not hard to glean. Professional politicians are people who have the psychological disposition to both meddle in other people’s lives and to use force to have their views imposed. They are people who value having power over others above all else and the more aspects of society that are subject to political direction, the more important politicians become regardless of their hue. So the natural order of things, if you are a person who makes their living out of being a politician, is to work to extend the state into more and more areas of life because the state is what you have influence over, thereby making yourself more important to ever more people. → Continue reading: The folly of always voting for the lesser evil October 12th, 2006 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
By now, we have surely all heard about the Lancet’s new claim that over 600,000 Iraqis are dead as a result of the US invasion of that country. Lets put that number in perspective. It exceeds by 25% the war dead (450,000), military and civilian, suffered by Great Britain in all of World War II, including the Blitz, the African campaign, the Pacific campaign, and of course the European campaign. It exceeds by 25% the war dead (460,000), military and civilian, suffered by Italy in all of World War II. It exceeds the war dead(562,000), military and civilian, suffered by France in in all of World War II, including the initial battles with the Germans, the Occupation, and the reconquest by the Allies. The death rate claimed for Iraq (around 2.6%) is approximately the same as that experienced in a number of the countries occupied by the Nazis where the Holocaust was implemented, and approaches that experienced by the Japanese in World War II (around 3.6%), which includes both the horrendous death tolls inflicted on the Japanese military during the island warfare, the virtual extermination of the Japanese navy and air force, and of course the firebombing and ultimately the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities. Keep in mind the fact that the WWII numbers encompass a six year period, whereas the current war in Iraq dates back just over three years. Does it seem remotely possible to you that the Iraqi war has been harder on Iraq than WWII was on a number of its major combatants, and in half the time? And doesn’t it strike you as a remarkable coincidence that the Lancet releases its studies on deaths in Iraq in the month before major US elections? October 12th, 2006 | 67 comments - (Comments are closed)
This film will lure me to a cinema – in the unlikely event that any of them run it, that is. I do not think it megaplex fodder, and no doubt it will be widely ignored by the artistic community; the diversion from the party line is just a tad wide for most arthouse patrons. Call me cynical, but I cannot envisage Gheorghe receiving a standing ovation at Cannes. Oh well, have to wait until it is released on DVD. (Via Tim Blair) October 12th, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
The obesity crisis, epidemic, or whatever (is fatness contagious?) continues to keep the chattering classes busy. In the Daily Telegraph today, Andrew O’Hagan, of whom I was blissfully unaware until about a month ago when he sprung to the defence of Mel Gibson after he made his anti-Jewish rant, argues for stuff like taxing “junk food” and encouraging a whole cultural battle to get the moronic lower orders off their dietary habits. It is an article reeking of disdain for vast swathes of the UK population. Perhaps it is deserved. Many Britons are disgusting people, I suppose, but being the wild-eyed libertarian that I am, do not consider it my business to nag them into eating better by a mixture of state exhortation, punitive taxes and compulsory five-mile runs. I am not entirely sure what to make of Mr O’Hagan, or indeed the decision of the right-leaning Telegraph to hire him. I thought his article on Gibson was a terrible piece, both patronising towards Jews, other groups, and offensive but perhaps a one-off lapse, one which might not be repeated. But pretty much everything he has written since seems to be entirely lacking in humour, grace or wit. I fear that paper is in one of its down-cycles. O’Hagan may perhaps fit in nicely into the modern Conservative Party. For a related article on obesity, diet and the nanny state, read this by Jacob Sullum. October 11th, 2006 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Brian Micklethwait is going on ‘internet TV’, which should be interesting. I recall Brian once telling me that he thought he had a ‘good face for radio’. Check it out and hear what he has to say. October 11th, 2006 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Brooke’s main achievement seems to have been in preventing Churchill from losing the war. – Patrick Crozier writes about Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries October 11th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sorry, but the comment system is acting weird… we will try to get it fixed as soon as possible. It seems to be blocking things it should not and has posted most of the comments entered today dated… some time tomorrow! October 10th, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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