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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It may sound like an odd thing to claim that a ‘saint’ has nothing to do with religion but in the case of St. George, that is quite a reasonable thing to say. Thus when the politically correct functionaries of the Church of England start floating the idea of replacing St. George with St. Alban as the patron saint of England, I would have to say that the Church of England are flattering themselves if they think it is actually up to them. Dating from the reign of Edward III, a certain conception of St. George has been part of English iconography considerably longer that there has been a Church of England and I suspect the association of this mythic dragon-slayer with ‘Englishness’ will outlive England’s established church comfortably.
In a post-Christian society like England, St. George, who may or may not have been a Roman general, is really just a cultural construct that embodies certain mythic values ascribed to England. And that is, of course, why the emasculated appeasers who make up the leadership of the Church of England really want to replace the mythic warrior St. George:
But the Church of England is considering rejecting England’s patron saint St. George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims.
And given that Britain is fighting two wars at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan, against an enemy who are Muslims, I can think of nothing better to commend St. George to a nation which may feel the need to summon the fortitude of warlike archetypes more than it needs an irrelevent and collapsing Church.
In what bizarre universe is this guy ‘liberal’ while someone like me – who is strongly pro-gay marriage, pro-easy availability of pornography, against the stupid drug war, and stridently anti-authoritarian – is often described as ‘conservative’? If he’s a liberal, I’m a Prada handbag.
– Jackie Danicki
Or, rather, Independence Evening, which brought a motley crew of celebrants to Chelsea for some of Adriana’s salad, Nancy’s pasta, and some rather scandalous conversation. What is said at Samizdata HQ stays at Samizdata HQ, but a few of the photos can – as ever – be shared…
Three authors, an editor, an engineer, an actress, a Cambridge student, and a Brian
Two patriotic pavlovas (with thanks to Nigella)
Now that she had cleaned her plate, Jo hoped to be granted a refill of vino
Thanks to all who braved the heat to come along, and do not worry – your secrets are safe with Samizdata…
I am in the US at the moment sharing today’s festivities with all manner of creatures…
Mike Hudack of blip.tv wishes all a happy Independence Day with a few thoughts worth noting:
The Fourth of July isn’t significant simply because it marks the beginning of independent American politics. It’s significant because it marked one of the first times that a group of people threw off the yolk of foreign leadership and chose self-government. It is significant because of the emphasis placed on individual empowerment and individual choice. It is significant, most of all, because of the ideal of America created on or around July 4, 1776 — an ideal that we have yet to realize, but that we continually strive for.
His personal hero of the American revolution is Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, whose arguments created conditions for writing the Declaration of Independence.
“[the] distinction of men into kings and subjects… [is something for which] no truly natural or religious reason can be found.”
and
“I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain.”
It is allowed to be idealistic today:
The moral here is a simple one. In 1775 and 1776 one man’s words ignited the firestorm that led to the Declaration of Independence. One man’s views on democracy, on republicanism, on individual rights and individual responsibility. One man’s views that almost didn’t get printed because no printer would dare put those words down in ink. Thomas Paine’s access to the printing press, thanks to Robert Bell, changed the world.
Such words are very encouraging, especially coming from someone who has set up and runs a videoblogging community. It means that this particular community and the company behind it is driven by an understanding of the profound impact that individual creativity and its distribution will have on the future. And, surely, that is a Good Thing.
This is daft:
POLICE issued two stallholders at a farming show with £80 fines for displaying T-shirts bearing the slogan “Bollocks to Blair”. Officers questioned staff on two stands at the Royal Norfolk Show after receiving a complaint, subsequently issuing two fixed-penalty notices of £80 for the offending garments.
But, it is entirely legal, given the state of the law these days. Someone says something is offensive, and if they say it is offensive it is offensive, because offensive is whatever offends anybody. Then, once the complaint is made, the police are legally obliged to inflict over-the-top and ridiculous summary justice.
Last night Norfolk police defended the action. A spokesman said: “Officers from Norfolk Constabulary issued two fixed penalty notices, each with a value of £80, at the Royal Norfolk Show in relation to two trade stands displaying T-shirts emblazoned with offensive language. The notices were issued under Section 5 of the Public Order Act as the language was deemed to cause harassment, distress or alarm at an event, where a cross section of people were present including families and young children who may have found the displays offensive. Police did receive a complaint from a member of the public.
Quite so.
I reckon that a creative application of this law could render illegal just about any damn thing anybody took against, definitely including the Police, Tony Blair, etc. Has Tony Blair never used language that was “deemed to cause harassment, distress or alarm at an event”? Selling the Koran would definitely be illegal, provided only that the Police received the complaint about it through the proper channels.
My guess is that Police morale is now so low that a lot of them are now in Good Soldier Schweik mode, i.e. doing every stupid thing that the law says they must, just to show everyone how ridiculous the law now often is.
My late father, who was a rather distinguished lawyer, used to tell us about a bloke who sat in Whitehall somewhere looking at all new laws that they were threatening to pass, pointing out inconsistencies and collisions with other laws, and unintended but possible consequences, and then deftly rewriting all the laws so that they achieved only what they were intended to achieve, and stopped only what they were supposed to stop. (He himself, apparently, had no firm opinions about what the law should do, other than what the people passing it said they wanted it to do.) Then he died, and they were never able to replace him. That must have been, if I remember it rightly, round about forty or fifty years ago. And that, my dad reckoned, was when, legally speaking, the rot set in.
There is a fine article in the Telegraph rebutting anti-Americanism and another which features a splendid quote from an unnamed US embassy spokesman who responded to claims that a poll has found many British people are opposed to the US decision to overthrow Saddam Hussain and suggesting many had a low opinion of US civil society:
“We question the judgment of anyone who asserts the world would be a better place with Saddam still terrorizing his own nation and threatening people well beyond Iraq’s borders. With respect to the poll’s assertions about American society, we bear some of the blame for not successfully communicating America’s extraordinary dynamism. But frankly, so do you [the British press].”
Quite. Never apologise to your enemies.
One of my favourite blogs just now is China Law Blog. Its writers are very pro-freedom and pro-capitalist, and are optimistic about the future progress of China, both economically and politically, despite all the present miseries, muddles and horrors.
A recent post there by Dan Harris is about the relationship between the rise of capitalism in China, and corruption. The cliché is that the former causes the latter, by providing the money for it. The price of politicians in China is being driven up by the increased amounts of money now available to pay for them. Ergo, there is more corruption in China now, because there must be. Besides, better to blame corruption on the evil capitalist buyers of politicians than on the sellers, the corrupt politicians themselves.
But the picture Harris paints, helped by a recent World Bank study, written about by one of its authors in Newsweek, is that corruption, which was already a well-established fact in China well before capitalism got into its recent stride there, inhibits capitalism. However, once relatively uncorrupt, relatively uninhibited capitalism gets established and starts to spread, well, it spreads, and with it spreads the habit and the idea of non-corruption.
The deeply corrupt and long established industrial cities, with their big state-owned enterprises, have remained corrupt, and have stagnated. The new industrial cities, many of them near to the coast, had pretty much no industry a generation ago, and hence no old industry to protect with corrupt and discriminatory measures against new enterprises. In these newly erupting cities, corruption is not nearly so great. That is why they are erupting. The claim that capitalism causes corruption is wrong. Lack of corruption causes capitalism, and capitalism diminishes corruption by rewarding its absence.
Coastal cities. Lots of new industry. Openness to global ideas and influences. Sounds familiar, does it not? It is as if those Four Tigers are now raising a mass of tiger cubs on the mainland, and I bet you that lots of the exact same people who made the first tigers are now deeply involved in raising the new litter.
China, viewed from a distance, through blog postings and news stories, now seems very Victorian British to me. Yes there is a universe of Dickensian misery, but there is also a rising commercial class and a rising puritanical zeal for honesty, first established by those who do trade and by those who see the point of trade, but now, it would seem, starting to infect political activity. Meanwhile, democracy advances, step by little cautious step, just as it did in Victorian Britain. At present, the big deal is that they are allowing elections for Communist Party posts, and expanding the Communist Party. Sort of like how the Victorian aristocracy of Britain co-opted the new capitalists, and also became much more productive sorts of capitalists themselves. For more about this process, see this article.
Others, equally devoted to the spread of the free market (they would say more so), like these guys have a much gloomier view of modern Chinese development. The fat cats of state capitalism have merely found a new way to skim off the cream. They have a point. Like Victorian Britain, China now is a harsh and unfair place, unless you are one of the lucky ones who is working hard and is being rewarded.
To switch metaphors from cats to cookery, at least now in China, amidst all the broken eggs, there is the beginning of a seriously tasty omelette to be seen sizzling in the frying pan. A few decades ago, all they had to show for their broken eggs was broken eggs.
I feel that the referee handled the Rooney thing badly – failing to whistle at all during the long physical assault on Rooney by three Portuguese players, then applying the law to what might have been an accidental stamp in the most draconian way. He’d also failed to give England a cast-iron penalty – but otherwise, I felt he had as good a night as might be expected in such a difficult match.
– James Hamilton proving, by being just a tiny bit too rational and even-handed about it all, that he is not entirely English
Like many folk, I get my fair share of free newspapers pushed through the letterbox. These publications live on advertising and in some cases are quite useful, full of details about local plumbers, plasterers, doctors, new restaurants and the like. In my central London neighbourhood of Pimlico, there are a few of these things floating around. I normally give them a cursory glance and either jot down any handy numbers or put the rag into the trash.
The Pimlico and Belgravia Eye has this interesting ad which definitely caught my eye (not available online):
The latest craze hits Pimlico, Victoria!. Experience the ultimate sense of self expression. Not only is it an alternative form of fitness, but it is an overall empowerment source for women. Whether you want to learn new moves for personal enjoyment or for professional career development, we have just the class for you… Students are from all walks of life, ages, shapes and sizes. The school is designed for all levels of experience – total beginners, professional dancers and even aspiring pole dancing performers.
Pole dancing – now associated with ’empowerment’ and ‘professional career development’. Say what you like about we stuffy Brits – there is none of that stuffyiness in deepest Pimlico.
Here is their, ahem, website.
A few days ago former Clinton Secretary of State Madelein Albright condemned the American Libraries Association (ALA) for its tepid response to the Cuban state’s repression of intellectual freedoms by its policies of banning certain books and imprisoning independent librarians who do not follow the party line.
However all I ever need to know about the ALA is revealed in this article with the line “But she won her loudest applause for oblique slaps at President Bush”. Hostility to Bush roused the emotions of more ALA librarians than defending oppressed librarians in Cuba. Of course that Americans are more concerned with American affairs is hardly surprising but when an organisation decries its government’s leadership at home on civil rights grounds and yet balks at heaping any significant opprobrium on an old style communist tyranny off the American coast, I think this is an organisation that can be safely consigned to the useful idiots category.
No doubt many in the ALA are impressed by the more than ten fold increase in the number of public libraries under Castro, ignoring the fact that these libraries can only stock books which are not deemed ideologically unacceptable by the regime. Somehow I rather doubt books by the oafish Michael Moore or Marx are in any shortage in the American libraries presided over by the ALA (and rightly so).
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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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