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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Cecile Dubois begins a longish post here with a discussion of the fact that her classmates, teachers, etc., have now found out about her blog, and are all reading it. Where will that lead? Somewhere interesting, I feel sure. Her English teacher is reading all of it.
So what will her English teacher make of this, which comes at the end of the very same post? Here’s Cecile taking a pin to the Great Blimp bimself:
… Michael Moore is my idol. His posters plaster my walls, and I’m dying to see his next film. I seriously like want peace in the world, and we should so elect him as president. Kerry is such a Nazi for me – we should kick his arse, man! We shouldn’t have any enemies at all! I think we should instate Muslim traditions so another 911 doesn’t happen, that way those funny people (heh heh) over there don’t nuke us, and can freely migrate over here. Don’t you just love France? I want to bring their culture here! I love America – but to make it even better, we should have more diversity! Let’s celebrate the Palestinians – I’m going to dress up as a suicide bomber – it would fit me so cool. Don’t I look sexy in that belt? I’m da bomb! (Tee hee!) Ah, Michael Moore. Amen to him. We shouldn’t have guns. If a burglar comes in with one, I’ll just roast him a pig and kiss him on the cheek – let him come in and steal my TV set – I so don’t deserve it. We should also welcome the proletariat to power! We rich people are scum. Yo dude? Yeah, I’ll meet you in front with your Mercedes Benz. OMG, did I say Mercedes Benz? Whoa! I meant electric car – gas kills! Peace out! …
What she should make of it is that Cecile must be encouraged to stick with the writing.
The federal court sitting in (of course) San Francisco has struck down the recent federal ban on “partial-birth abortion.”
First, I agree with this decision, but on federalism grounds, not the privacy grounds cited by the Court. Nowhere does the US Constitution grant the national government the power to ban any medical procedure, as far as I can tell. It is interesting that this particular basis for overturning the statute apparently never occurred to the (liberal/statist) federal court in San Fran. Liberal statists are horrified by any reference to the fact that the Constitution grants the national government very limited powers, as taking these limitations seriously would probably require either extensive amendment of the Constitution or the junking of over half of what the national government does.
Second, it is interesting to observe the politics around this decision. The statement by the abortion rights spokesman that whether a fetus feels pain is irrelevant to a woman’s right to choose is utterly tone-deaf, and seems to be telegraphing a belief that at no point does a fetus acquire personhood that would negate or need to be balanced off against the woman’s right to choose. That is a losing position with the American electorate, and probably explains the rather noticeable silence from the Kerry camp.
The doctors probably have the law, and the morality of it, about right according to this article. The seminal Roe decision granted/recognized a right to choose abortion up until the point of viability, and was basically silent after that. I am no abortion scholar, but I do not think that the Supreme Court has ever really expanded on this time period in any explicit way, although it has danced around it in a number of decisions on ancillary and peripheral issues. Doubtless the inveterate Samizdata commenters will refine my understanding of the law, but I think that viability is not a bad place to draw a line on abortion rights. The difficulty is, of course, that technology constantly pushes the point of viability backwards, but that is a discussion for another day.
However, whether the common medical understanding of abortion rights is correct in turn begs the Constitutional question of whether the US Supreme Court had any business overturning state laws on abortion in the first place. The underlying reasoning, relying as it does on “emanations” and “penumbras,” has been endlessly mocked, and rightly so, for it signalled a Court that no longer cared much what the words on the page said, but rather what they wished the words on the page said.
This in turn showed a Court much less concerned with what the Constitution says than with what the Court says. This disregard for the plain meaning of the Constitution, although arguably employed in the service of individual rights in the abortion cases, paved the way for such utter travesties as a Court upholding extensive and explicit restrictions on political speech. Very little of the US Constitution’s substantive provisions concerning the powers of government and the rights of citizens are still operative in any meaningful way, because the primary enforcer of the Constitution no longer cares to apply the plain language of that document.
While researching for my weekly CNE Environment column I came across a barking mad website. This led me to another loony story. Unfortunately, neither of these would do for an environment column that is meant to present a credible analysis of the eco-fascist movement.
So I ended up with this story from the French TV station TF1. In what has to be the most perfect economic suicide note since the 1920 Soviet Constitution, the French National Assembly has voted to amend the French constitution so as to enshrine the precautionary principle by 328 votes to 10. This could make any future government decision to deregulate anything illegal.
It is a shame that the precautionary principle is not applied to government regulation: in the absence of any overwhelming proof that it will work, such regulation ought to be prohibited. One might expect such lunacy in the French Assembly to be supported by the extreme left and the Green parties (there are several of these in France). But no.
The “centre-right” parties of the UMP and the UDF voted in favour, the Socialists and the Communists abstained, and the Greens voted against.
If this was appeasement, it failed. So which story was the barmiest?
…but not for us. We want to see if we can get anyone to make contributions, however large or small (large is better, of course!) to help out Stefan Metzeler’s good work evangelising liberty and capitalism in Eastern Europe.
I met Stefan recently in Switzerland and what a very fine and exuberant gentleman he is. Any assistance will be gratefully received and duly passed onto Stefan. We already have a couple contribution (thanks!) and would love to pass on more. Our PayPal buttons can be found for the currency of your choice in your left sidebar.
Really large donations just might get you dinner with the Samizdatista of your choice (subject to availability) 
Well, anyone reading the latest headlines will have realised by now that the price of oil, and hence petrol, is zooming higher, following the latest violence in the Middle East, in this case, the attacks on western oil workers in Saudi Arabia over the weekend. The price of Brent crude passed through the $42 per barrel level by the time I had switched off my price feeds in my City offices, and for all I can guess, it could go higher still.
In the near term, all this is bound to trigger a number of responses from politicians and certain quarters of the commentariat. We need a “Integrated Energy Strategy”, drastic cuts to petrol taxes, etc, etc. (It has already started, judging by the stuff beamed into the television channels which I can watch while burning off some decidedly non-oil calories in the gym).
Well, it is good to know that that the chaotic and unplanned world we know and love as entrepreneurial capitalism is already cranking out possible solutions to present and future energy needs, whether it involves biomass, solar energy, hydrogen fuel cells, and other technologies. The venture capital industry, still recovering from the fading of the dotcom boom, may gain a new life from energy projects of the sort sketched out in Wired magazine. Longer term, things such as nanotechnology and continuing developments in materials sciences could help us make lighter, and hence much more energy-efficient cars and better insulated homes and workplaces.
All to the good. The prospect of entrepreneurial solutions would be even brighter were it not for the current Western angst about nuclear fission and fusion power, given that it may be possible in future to build nuclear plants at much cheaper cost than at present and perhaps deal far more effectively with some of the waste problems that have proven so ticklish in the past (side observation – there are obvious security issues to do with nuclear waste in the current geo-political situation).
Overall, however, it would be well to remember – not that readers need reminding, surely – that a high price for X may be a serious bug for some, but a raging opportunity for others. I’d wager that a lot of the calmer economists and analysts out there are poring over the possibilities that exist in the energy sector and related R&D. We could be in for a rough economic ride, but surely, if the price of petrol keeps rising, the market surely offers a better bet for figuring out some kind of solutions that anything we are likely to see from our political masters.
And at the risk of pulling the chains of some of this blog’s most loyal readers, it may also mean sales of SUVs will decline and folk, not just in the United States, will have to turn to smaller, and in my ‘umble opinion, aesthetically nicer forms of automobile instead. But fear not, the current situation won’t stop me blogging about the latest hot bit of stuff to come out of the Ferrari factory. Oh no.
The storm over the revelations of prisoners’ abuse in Iraq may have subsided a bit, however, the events have prompted Our Man in Basra to come out and offer his personal comments. His perspective comes from working and talking to people who deal with Amnesty International (AI) and International Red Cross Commitee (ICRC) in Iraq and elsewhere and from knowing their reputation in the Army.
I actually support the concept of an independent civilian organisation that moderates us [ed. armed forces]. There are often unconscious pressures to slip into “abuse”, and they are most effective because of “socialisation”, the process by which you take your cue for acceptable behaviour from those around you – that is why it is easy when standards slip for all to gradually slide down. Armed forces are designed to reinforce this process, and if the standard is not set from the top (as military hierarchy is designed to ensure it is) then they can slip down quickly.
That is exactly what happened in Abu Ghraib. There is therefore a need for an independent organisations such as Amnesty International or ICRC monitoring Army (and civilian) activity. They are a separate group, not subject to same socialisation, and so can act as a brake and ensure standards are maintained even if military’s own system fails.
This relates to a more general point about Anglosphere intuitions being less corrupt in general and more effective. This is not because of better people, but better systems. This is why the United States as a country works so well with so many non-Anglo-Saxon people. In this context, one could think of Amnesty International checks as a sort of moral separation of powers.
However, Amnesty International and International Committee of the Red Cross have completely lost perspective, which in the long run is a pity for all of us. These organisations rely upon their moral authority, and in the past their most important and influential supporters have been people in the west with a strong moral sense and anti-despotic beliefs – whose faith in the ICRC and AI will be undermined once details of some current claims come out. As an anecdotal example that know of from a man working on the reports AI compile on us: They complained that Iraqis in Umm Qasr (British/US administered detention facility in the South) where being degraded because their food was handed out in plastic bags rather than delivered on some kind of trolley or plate. The Iraqis were not bothered, the food was perfectly good, but this was thought to be “degrading”. This is an important point – when one of these reports comes out and accuses anyone of “degrading” or “humiliating” behaviour, etc, it is essential to dig deeper and see exactly what they mean.
The interesting question is why has this happened? I think there are a whole host of reasons feeding off each other:
- Ignorance. The AI and ICRC are not monolithic, they have different people reporting in different places. It is a fair bet that the overwhelming majority people reporting on Iraq were not there before the war, because Saddam sure as hell would not let them. The same applies to every other Arab country. The investigators are therefore every bit as ignorant as the average journalist reporting on the country, with whom they share a lot in common, such as probably the same general meta-context and the same belief (with rather more justification) that they are there to uphold their view of civilisation. Not the local one.
- The investigators are civilians (as they must be) but therefore often poorly equipped to put things in to relevant tactical perspective. These are not weasel words – to give a concrete example, suppose an Iraqi man has been “beaten up” by British troops; a clear case of abuse? This depends upon the circumstances. There is a world of difference between beating up a helpless prisoner once back in camp (this is clearly abuse), and, for example, using physical force to subdue a struggling looter, or an armed rioter. The whole purpose of Armies is to use violence, which cannot be defined as abuse every time they do without rendering the term pointless. It is moral infantilism to say that the context does not affect the morality of the act, and it is not clear that all of the reports or accusations take this in to account.
- The above is essential to the most important point – Iraqis lie. This is not at all a criticism of Iraqis in a racial sense – being born Iraqi does not make you a liar. But lying reflexively to strangers is an entirely rational, indeed inevitable, response to living your entire life under a brutal and intrusive police state, in which the only efficient institution were the secret police forces. Therefore Iraqis have a neutral attitude to truth at best – they feel no automatic inclination to tell it the way westerners do.
In addition most Iraqis have a strong sense of pride that prevents them from admitting ignorance. They will consistently claim knowledge they do not have, rather than admit that they do not know something. It is a matter of face, especially for the more important Iraqis. This was and is a constant source of frustration for anyone trying to gather information from them. They have lived their whole lives by exploiting any small opportunities the state bureaucracy may have given them.
Most importantly, there is no punishment for lying to an investigator – what are we going to do, sue them for libel? Bear in mind as well that the vast majority of detainees were either looters, rioters, criminals of some kind (as the military, against its wishes, was stuck with running basic law and order) or actual ex-Ba’athists or terrorists. This does not give the slightest justification for abusing them, but it does suggest that they are not the most objective or reliable of witnesses.
Now consider the following scenario:
AI (or ICRC) investigator: We are investigating claims of brutality by British soldiers. We are deeply ashamed of such things, and want to assure you that we are not like the last regime; we will investigate any complaints, and we will compensate anyone who was unjustly harmed; do you know of any such incidents?
Iraqi ex-prisoner (or even not): Why, yes I do I was beaten up, and so was my brother, and my cousin, and my father was shot, and all my family, and how much did you say the compensation was?
It is an entirely rational economic act if you feel no obligation to the truth, a no-brainer gamble – money if you are believed, no cost if you are not.
- All this is not helped by the seeming automatic tendency of the AI and ICRC to disbelieve anything the soldiers or military tell them but to believe anything an Iraqi tells them. I do not really object to their scepticism towards the military, wearying as it is – after all, in a sense that is their job. But to do a good job they should apply the same standards of proof and scepticism to both sides, not just one. If anything, the benefit of the doubt should belong to the military, who have a better record of honesty. Abu Ghraib, in the US military response actually demonstrates this. It was an entirely US military internal investigation that uncovered and closed down the Abu Ghraib abuses, not an AI or ICRC one.
- Abu Ghraib has not helped, as it enables the AI, ICRC and everyone else to say “Look, these abuses have happened here, they could happen elsewhere, and the possibility must be investigated”. Although it is fair to say that most of the reports currently in the press were prepared before Abu Ghraib became public knowledge. I have no problem with that conclusion – we are all appalled by Abu Ghraib, the military probably more than most.
However, that is not the same as assuming that these things did happen elsewhere. Let’s see proof, or at least strong evidence, before accusations are taken as smearing the whole military. Note to the media: Could we please distinguish between reservists, often great people but basically civilians with minimal training in uniform and who seem to have been almost solely responsible for Abu Ghraib, and the professional regular military? And if, as I suspect, poorly trained reservists are found to be involved in any other cases of abuse, can we consider how that reflects on the moral responsibility of politicians who try to cut corners on the armed forces by sending out civilians to do their job?
- In conclusion, accusations must be investigated, but they are not proper evidence, let alone proof in themselves. They should be investigated by people with some understanding of the relevant factors, i.e. culture, situation at time of event, tactical realities, medical knowledge, etc; and with at least some parity of scepticism between the locals and the military.
Finally, I do not presume ill-will on the part of AI and ICRC per se. I am sure that the vast majority of AI and ICRC workers are genuinely trying to do the right thing. But I suspect them of making a moral equivalent of the old “equality of outcomes” fallacy, that equal treatment must mean everyone has equal wealth.
In this case, they are so keen to be, and to be seen to be, impartial between different governments and people, and between Arabs and the ‘West’ that they seem to feel they must give equal reports of abuses by both sides, when in fact there is no remote comparison of treatment. Such reports are a disservice to objective truth by giving the false impression of a broad comparability of moral standing. Shades of the Cold War anyone?
I said at the start of this post, the current state of affairs is regrettable, because in the long run it will undermine the most important resource of both AI and ICRC, their credibility. And there may be times when we will still need them.
The Libertarian National Convention may have reminded a few observers of Sartre’s “No Exit” – each faction selected the candidate that would deny their rival faction victory, producing a nominee with little broad-based support. Or maybe it was more like the 1969 blaxploitation classic Putney Swope, in which a wildly unlikely darkhorse emerges out of similar circumstances at an advertising agency’s board meeting. At any rate, the Convention certainly produced an unlikely candidate, Texas-based computer guru Michael Badnarik.
Badnarik entered the convention as a distant challenger to two better-financed candidates, Hollywood producer Aaron Russo and Ohio-based talk show host Gary Nolan. But acrimony between Russo’s and Nolan’s camps led Nolan, who fell behind in early balloting, to withdraw and endorse Badnarik, with the intention of tilting the election away from Russo. Badnarik finally carried a majority on the third ballot and became the LP’s unlikely nominee.
Badnarik’s campaign website, as of the time of this post, apparently has not been updated in ‘weeks’, as you are greeted with this message on the home page:
With the National Convention mere weeks away, we owe it to you to finish up our drive to the presidential nomination in style. Please consider NOW to be the optimum time to make a difference! (emphasis mine)
Moreover, it appears that Badnarik has not raised much money to date, and has not even had a professionally managed campaign, although I understand that a team is being mobilized rapidly. Candidate websites can be powerful fundraising tools, but right now, the only way to contribute online is (egad) via PayPal.
Badnarik’s website also contains a link to a speech given at Washington University in St. Louis that contains, well, comments about the United Nations that he would probably rather have back. But there they are, out on the web for the whole world to see. (Scroll down toward the bottom, or just do a Ctrl-F search for “detonate.”) Astute readers may find other causes for concern as they read through his position statements.
The election is still five months away, and Badnarik will have time to refine his campaign between now and November. I will keep an eye on the situation and provide updates (with the best intentions of objectivity.)
To think that I was one of those deeply ill-informed people who thought that ‘resistance’ was merely the the ratio of the potential difference across an electric component to the current passing through it.
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I was so wrong:
RESISTANCE means saying no. No to contempt, arrogance and economic bullying. No to the new masters of the world: high finance, the countries of the G8, the Washington consensus, the dictatorship of the market and unchecked free trade. No to the quartet of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. No to hyper-production. To genetically modified crops. To permanent privatisations. To the relentless spread of the private sector. No to exclusion. No to sexism. No to social regression, poverty, inequality and the dismantling of the welfare state.
No to the abandonment of the South. No to the daily deaths of 30,000 poor children. No to the destruction of the environment. No to the military hegemony of a sole superpower. No to “preventive” war, to invasion, to terrorism and to attacks on civilians. No to racism, anti-semitism and islamophobia. No to draconian security measures. No to a police state mentality. No to dumbing-down. To censorship. To media lies. To manipulative media.
Resistance also means saying yes. Yes to solidarity between the six billion inhabitants of this planet. Yes to the rights of women. Yes to a renewed United Nations. Yes to a new Marshall plan to help Africa. Yes to the total elimination of illiteracy. Yes to an international campaign against a technology gap. Yes to an international moratorium that will preserve drinking water.
Yes also to generic medicines for all. To decisive action against Aids. To the preservation of minority cultures. And to the rights of indigenous peoples.
Yes to social and economic justice. And a less market-dominated Europe. Yes to the Porto Alegre Consensus. Yes to a Tobin tax that will benefit citizens. Yes to taxing arms sales. Yes to writing off the debt of the poor nations. Yes to banning tax havens.
To resist is to dream that another world is possible. And to help build it.
Got that? Good. Excellent. Carry on.
As the recent attacks against civilians in Saudi Arabia have shown, Al Qaeda does not kill civilians as collateral damage during strikes on military targets, non-muslim civilians are the target and will always be the target. People say we should ‘understand the root causes of their anger’ and I agree. And so, after understanding, that should help us to resolve to kill as many Islamists as is needed to make their cause collapse in ruin.
Of course the usual paleo-libertarians and paleo-conservatives will take this to mean I think we should use carpet bombing in cities or nuclear weapons just to make sure we got ’em all. Yeah, yeah, whatever. But a commenter on Samizdata.net said the other day in a succinctly manner I really cannot improve on:
I just propose that the only rational way to fight a war is to fight a war, and that means using whatever force is needed to defeat your enemy. This is not exactly a revolutionary concept in most military circles.
In the case of Iraq, this just means using the usual range of weapons and tactics and applying them with resolution. There is nothing about Iraq that is at all unusual or outside historical experience to suggest this need be more than a footnote in military history.
And the same applies to Al Qaeda and its confreres wherever they can be found. You find them and then you kill them by whatever means it takes. What you do not do is talk to them or negotiate with them, unless of course it is just a tactic for getting them to stand still for juuuuuust a moment.
Before I proceed, let me make several things clear… Firstly, although I have a certain fondness for Mrs. T (that whole ‘facing down communism at the crucial moment in history’ thing cuts you a great deal of slack with me), I am not a Tory: I just happen to think Britain needs an effective and differentiated opposition party. Secondly, I personally do not vote for anyone as I am opposed the entire system of kleptocratic populism called ‘democracy’, particularly as it is practiced in Britain… but as I realise as I cannot wish it away, I have to address democratic politics. Thirdly, although I find Roger Knapman pretty impressive for what I have heard of his views so far, I also think some of the things certain members of the United Kingdom Independence Party stands for are truly odious and amongst its ranks are to be found no small number of crackpots, conspiracy theorists and crypto-fascists.
I mention that last point because if you are going to vote for the Tory Party (and therefore obviously hold democratic politics and the Tory Party in vastly higher esteem than I do), you might do well to ask yourself why are you voting Tory?
If it is because you like the idea of broadsheet reading Grandees with their safe pair of hands on the tiller of state and trust them to do whatever they see fit in your name (i.e. you are a Ted Heath/Michael Heseltine/Chris Patten fan and therefore support Labour Party-Lite), then please stop reading now and piss off, I am not talking to you… and anyway, what on earth are you doing reading a blog like Samizdata.net which is written by people like myself who utterly despise you?
If however you vote Tory because you think the Anglosphere approach of not conflating state and society is vastly preferable to the state-centred systems which generally prevail in Continental Europe… or you have the notion that British politics of any sort should be made in Britain rather than Brussels (and yes, I suppose I am talking to no small number of Labour supporters here too)… then you have a very simple decision to make.
If you want force to the Tory Party to support traditional civil society rather than have it do nothing mote than debate the speed with which Britain acquiesces to a regulated and therefore politicised existence more in tune with Continental norms… then you must send the message that continued support for Euro-statism is not acceptable to you. And the only way you can do that is not just to abstain, but to vote for the UKIP. Only that sends an unmistakable message why you did not vote for them.
And if by doing that you cause the Tory Party to lose to Labour yet again… so what? If you care enough about the Tory Party, you will do whatever it takes to demonstrate the electoral cost of saying platitudes like ‘In Europe but not ruled by Europe’ whilst demurring to regulation after regulation from Europe which indeed amounts to being ruled by it.
Vote UKIP, at least until you have clubbed some sense back into the Tory Party.
This looks really interesting. I have just learned about it by reading this:
A right-wing think-tank will this week launch a national chain of cut-price primary schools in a drive to open up private education to middle-income families.
The first New Model School will start work in September, charging less than half the average fees of many independent primary or “pre-prep” schools.
Teachers have already been appointed, and tomorrow the school starts advertising for pupils to join the inaugural class of five-year-olds.
So what are these people trying to accomplish?
The New Model School Company aims to establish a chain of local schools, each subscribing to the same ethos and curriculum. A New Model School can be created wherever there are enough interested parents to start one. Organisational structure and support will be provided by the New Model School Company. Curriculum materials will be developed by its sister organisation, the New Model Curriculum Company.
And who are they?
The individuals who have formed the New Model School Company were brought together by the social policy think-tank Civitas (www.civitas.org.uk). Our aim is not just to set up a single successful school, but to provide a model of excellent and affordable schools which will improve the lives of many children and their families.
Our ambitions for the school are far wider than success in exams. The final aim of education is the formation of strong moral character, good manners, and the development of well-informed judgement. Good citizenship is not a subject of the school curriculum, but an aspect of conduct and behaviour that arises from a knowledge of the foundations of the culture, its history, values, and institutions.
If you would like to know more about us, you can telephone Matthew Faulkner on 020 8969 0037.
Because of my continuing interest in such matters, I plan to stay continuously interested in this venture, and will certainly be phoning that number myself in due course. But I think I wlll wait a while before doing that, because something tells me that this guy’s phone will be ringing fit to burst for the next few days.
I especially like that it is being set up by a “right wing think tank”. The idea of saying that was presumably to discredit the whole venture, as, maybe, is the slightly derogatory expression “cut-price”. (like there is something wrong with that). The more likely effect will be to make all “right wing think tanks” look better, if this is the kind of thing they do.
Also, by branding these places “right wing”, the Indy will scare lefties away from teaching in these places, and the political tone of them will undoubtedly be more free market in orientation than your average school. When these people talk about “history, values and institutions” that is not merely code for higher taxation and caving in to public sector trade unions.
I love it, and will almost certain have more to say here about this in the future. I really hope it works.
Mark Steyn describes an incident that confirms my impression that the politicians are botching up Iraq.
During the Falklands War, a bayonet charge on enemy positions would have been publicly applauded by the Prime Minister, honours and medals would have been discussed and the British public would have been in doubt that the government and the military knew exactly what they were doing. We could agree or disagree with the objective or the means, but not the operational competence or the political will.
Where Iraq is going wrong is not that the military are incapable (unless they run out of ammunition, boots, flak-jackets etc). It is that military action will be undermined by political ‘arse-covering’. The resolution shown by troops is frittered away by Colin Powell and his cronies in the US, and by the Labour government in the UK. Powell looks more and more like his caricature in the Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks! played by Paul Winfield.
My view on Vietnam is that it would have been better if the US had not got involved after the French pull-out, given that they were going to do so eventually anyway, or that the US should have fought to win. I take a Barry Goldwater position rather than a Eugene McCarthy one.
It used to be Colin Powell’s position too.
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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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