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 AUT boycott of the Haifa University and the Bar-Ilan University has been joined by many British Universities.
From Harry’s Place, who is calling on the dissenting members of AUT not to tear their membership cards but act to reverse the decision:
Haifa University is to be boycotted because Ilan Pappe, who is an anti-Zionist academic there, says that he has come under attack from the university which has thereby infringed his academic freedom. The story is long, involved and complex. But Pappe remains in his job, in spite of the fact that his views are extremely unpopular in Israeli society. Let us hope that the university continues to respect his tenure, as it is now doing.
Bar-Ilan University is to be boycotted because it gives legitimacy to the ‘College of Judea and Samaria’, which is a settler college in the West Bank.
The Hebrew University is under threat of boycott because it has built a new dorm block on a disputed piece of land.
It is clear that these stories relating to these three universities are excuses for the boycott rather than reasons – the pro-boycotters actually want to boycott all of Israeli academia and are not actually concerned with these particular incidents.
The AUT decision has aroused tremendous opposition, both in Israel and in England. Members of AUT said opponents of the boycott were not permitted to speak at the discussion, and the decision was taken without requesting the universities’ response. In addition, doubts were raised about the legality of the decision.
Clive Davis has forwarded me one such sign of the opposition by Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, who wrote an open letter to Sally Hunt, the Secretary General of the AUT and bcc’ed to the Guardian, the FT, the NYT and the Jewish Chronicle. → Continue reading: Academics who do not learn
On first viewing, my instinctive reaction would be to punch the air with triumphal joy:
Flat taxes, once a fantasy of free-market ideologues, are sweeping across the European Union and could be introduced in more than 10 of the bloc’s 25 member states.
The European commissioner for taxation, Laszlo Kovacs, described flat taxes, – one rate for all income and corporate taxation – as “absolutely legitimate” and said Western European nations may be tempted to adopt them. His comments will fuel debate that low-tax, low-cost economies of the East are undercutting Europe’s industrial heartland.
However, and in my experience, this needs a second viewing and even a third viewing.
First off, what they are sloppily referring to here is not ‘flat tax’ but actually ‘flat-rate tax’. The prospect of a flat tax (however remote) would most certainly have me breaking out the bubbly.
Secondly, let us assume that Mr. Kovacs and his posse somehow manage to persuade Western Europe’s nabobs to swallow this idea and go with the flow. I would not put it beyond them to agree to a flat-rate tax and then set the rate at 60%. The fate of politicians in Western Europe is decided almost entirely by their bloc-vote public-sector clients and they are not going to kick them in the teeth any time soon or at all.
Thirdly, there is no mention at all of what happens to the various extant reliefs and allowable deductions. A great deal of the complexity in the tax system results not from calculating the rates but negotiating the brain-fryingly difficult issues of the applicability of reliefs and the legitimacy of deductions. Hence, simply establishing a ‘flat-rate’ will not simplify the system to any material degree. Furthermore, it is only those reliefs and deductions which save many businesses and self-employed people from being bled white.
This could all turn into a lamentably hollow ‘victory’. I can easily see HMG apparently agreeing to a ‘flat-rate tax’ and even agreeing to set it at a reasonable level and, while we are all celebrating, promptly announce the abolition of all reliefs and deductions which would result in a great many people paying a lot more tax and not less.
No, I am not happy. Not yet anyway. There are far too many devils lurking in the detail.
Without any disturbance to the process of modern government, the House of Commons could easily be filled with people resembling the extras in one of Mr Romero’s zombie films.
– Dr. Sean Gabb
It has been said that the Internet, and specifically blogs, are to politics what Sam Colt’s Peacemaker was to the Wild West; an equalizer. That sentiment has apparently been taken to heart by the US Federal Election Commission because, like today’s gun prohibitionists, the FEC wants to take away your individual power and concentrate it in the hands of a chosen few.
A good background description of the bizarre reasons behind this power play can be found here, but basically it is an extension of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a.k.a. the Incumbent Protection Act. Senators McCain and Feingold, authors of the Reform Act, claim this is not true. Do not be fooled. The FEC is under a Court Order to bring the Internet under Campaign control and MUST COMPLY. It will be done by mid-summer. Failure to abide by the FEC rules will carry some stiff penalties, the mere threat of which will be enough to keep most blogs out of the political arena.
There is, however, some hope. The Internet community is aware of what is going on, and a powerful group called Downsize DC has gotten involved in the fray. They have begun a strong grassroots effort and there is a bill pending in both houses of Congress now that would exempt the Net from the BCRA laws. The Online Freedom of Speech Act is only one line long and already has bipartisan support, albeit at a low level. If you are a US citizen, you can urge your representatives to sponsor the bill by using Downsize DC’s electronic lobbying tool. It only takes a couple minutes and, best of all, it is free – the way internet speech should be.
The Globalization Institute’s crack of dawn email of links continues to arrive, every week day, and continues to be well worth getting.
One of the recent links thus promulgated was to this editorial, from Kenya.
First few paragraphs:
With all the money they get as emoluments, one would have expected that our Members of Parliament would strive to ensure that they do an honest day’s job all year round.
But a report on their performance released yesterday shockingly says that the legislators only did 57 full working days the whole of last year. Allowing for public holidays, weekends and the days Parliament was in recess, this translates to less than two months of work.
Yet, these are people who are enjoying a salary package of Sh500,000 and other perks. They are the people who have been entrusted with articulating the needs of their people in Parliament.
Despite this, the study conducted by the Institute for Civic Affairs and Development says, there are some MPs who never brought any Bills to the House, never contributed to any and never raised a point of order.
In plain terms, this could be called incompetence.
One of the more depressing and destructive assumptions now rampaging about the world and doing damage to it is that the basic job of politicians is to pass laws. The more laws they pass, the better they must be doing.
But would Kenya really be a better governed country if all its members of parliament were to bring Bills to the House, instead of only some? Is it really the ultimate criticism of a politician that he never tries to pass any new laws. If politics means passing more laws, then maybe Kenya is lucky that it is not getting as much politics as it is paying for. There are far worse political vices than laziness.
I get the rough idea. Kenya’s parliamentarians are not the greatest, and I am sure that is true. But this is a very bad way to explain what is so wrong with them.
Kofi Annan fears that this:
The United States and other countries have protested about the re-election of Zimbabwe to the UN’s main human rights body, the Human Rights Commission.
Zimbabwe was one of 15 countries chosen by members of the UN’s Economic and Social Council in New York. All but one were chosen by consensus.
Critics say too many countries with appalling human rights records have been on the commission.
. . . may “caste a shadow on the UN’s reputation as a whole”.
Which until now was, of course, completely unblemished.
If I thought the Tories genuinely would spend £35bn less on “public services” I might even vote for them. However….
The various left-wing ninnies who are running around bleating about theocracy are, in effect, hoist on their own petard. Having spent generations destroying the idea of limited government and creating an all-powerful national state, it ill becomes them to complain now that their tool is being turned to different ends.
– Robert Clayton Dean
One of my occasional forays in the United States has washed me up on the shores of historic Provincetown, on the tip of Cape Cod. Looking back over the Atlantic to the West Coast of Ireland has reminded me of how the weather can be just as bad over here as it is at home.
Anti-Americanism remains as popular at home as it is misunderstood here. What was originally considered a prejudice has now transformed into an orthodoxy, where the demonisation of the United States, its people, culture and contributions has acquired the power of an aesthetic reaction. The reaction is not an ideology, although the attacks are structured as such within various contexts, especially as formed by the Left or the Green movement who merge the USA with a wider system of empire, capitalism or oppression. Ideologies tend to wither if they drift too far from reality. Anti-Americanism has acquired the power of an aesthetic, a style derived from its audiences and reproduced from T-shirts of Che Guevara to a new orthodoxy amongst the educated elites. Like left-wing satire of the nineteen-eighties, it has ceased to be funny and its proponents look down on those who disagree with them.
Politics and style are a dangerous combination. Supporting Bush is not the same as accepting America on its terms, good and bad, but orthodox behaviour encourages polarisation in argument. When confronted with an anti-American style that is no longer based upon argument and is winning the culture war, you provide the ‘fishbone statement’ that will make these people choke. To stand up for the Stars and Stripes can be considered a form of private dissent, allowing you to needle those whose views you hate.
“America’s militant agnostic minority has totally distorted the meaning of separation of church and state. It doesn’t mean banning religion and religious values from the public square. It doesn’t mean Howard Stern’s off-color (and frequently off-the-wall) ‘humor’ is protected speech, while the free _expression of religion is banned. It means the United States will establish no official religion, while remaining equally hospitable to all religions — and to those who practice none. Religious principle is not something to fear and loathe and banish from the public square; it is a code of conduct on which we can and should rely to guide our personal and civic behavior”
– singer Pat Boone, writing in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
I know, I know – Pat Boone? But he seems to me he got this one about right (except for the implication that Howard Stern’s humor may not be protected speech).
Contrary to popular belief, “separation of church and state” is not found in the US Constitution. What is found in the Constitution is a prohibition on the establishment of a state church (which is why it is known as the Establishment Clause) reading thusly “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” The ‘separation’ meme comes from correspondence between Jefferson and Madison, but was never enacted in Constitutional language.
A nice, fairly even-handed intro can be found here.
Personally, I think that the issue of impending theocracy and separation of church and state evaporates, once you take seriously the US Constitution’s limited grant of power to the national government. If the national government is held to its enumerated powers, then it lacks the power to implement into civil law most behavioral controls that various religions might promote. Since the federal government restricted to its enumerated powers has no Constitutional basis to, for example, ban abortions, it simply cannot be used for that purpose by the purported theocrats among us.
The various left-wing ninnies who are running around bleating about theocracy are, in effect, hoist on their own petard. Having spent generations destroying the idea of limited government and creating an all-powerful national state, it ill becomes them to complain now that their tool is being turned to different ends. Even so, it is astonishing that virtually none of them realize that the uses to which the Republicans want to put federal power are inevitable, once you establish an all-powerful state in a country that is actually quite Christian and conservative, all told. It is sad but unsurprising that none of them are willing to attack the problem at its root by calling for limited government. No, the only solution the statists can imagine is seizing power again, themselves.
Ooooh..I am so excited! It will not be long now before I will be able to gorge myself on yet another body of incoherent babbling:
When the website huffingtonpost.com launches on May 9, it will eventually see contributions from Norman Mailer, David Mamet, Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Harold Evans, Tina Brown, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the woman who played Elaine in Seinfeld. They will offer a “round the clock commentary on our life and times”…
I don’t know about you, gentle reader, but I am positively aquiver with anticipation to discover what Diane Keaton has to say about my life and times. Yet, my enthusiasm is perhaps somewhat tempered by the inexplicable absence (thus far at any rate) of the great Professor Streisand.
I submit that huffingtonpost.com will prove to be a one-stop, on-line resource for all serious students of thespianomics (advanced module). For everyone else it should be a ‘target-rich environment’.
Enjoy!
For those of you not able to drag your attention from our fascinating British national poll (okay, I’ll turn the snark button off now) there is always the European Union to keep us all amused. It emerges that the EU Commission has gotten a bit red-faced after it emerged that two saunas were installed in the new Brussels HQ out of consideration for its Scandanavian staff.
This seems a bit mean. It must be nice to unwind and loosen those muscle pains after a hard day churning out interminable directives and figuring out new ways to shaft Chinese textile exporters. In fact, I would like to make a modest proposal: perhaps all such officials could spend a lot more time in saunas, not to mention theatres, cinemas, restaurants, nightclubs, race courses and football grounds. In fact, anywhere but their own offices.
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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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