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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A French-based imam who preached polygamy, the right of husbands to beat their wives, the stoning of adulterous women, and the eventual conversion of the whole planet to Islam was bundled on a flight to Algeria at 9.20 this morning (European Summer Time). Abdelkader Bouziane, a father of 16 children who hold French citizenship was arrested at Lyon airport on Tuesday.
The expulsion was justified by the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkhozy (since moved to the Finance Ministry) in a ministerial decree dated 26 February 2004 on the grounds of incitement of violence, especially against women, as well as because the imam was allegedly “an apologist for terrorism”, a charge disputed by Mr Bouziane’s lawyers.
A complaint had been submitted to the French government by the Deputy Mayor of Lyon following remarks published in a local paper, which are the subject of dispute.
In unrelated news, official unemployment figures in France suggest that unemployment reached 2,707,000 in December or 9.9 per cent of the workforce. Meanwhile a proposed law – which would prohibit the wearing of the Islamic veil and other visible religious symbols in state schools – now proposes that bandanas would be exempt if worn as a fashion accessory but banned if worn as a religious statement.
Many sound folks are already rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of the long sought UK referendum on adopting the terrifying EU constitution. The general received wisdom is that the anti-Constitution faction will win and that will be the end of Tony Blair’s political career… and certainly if it was held today it is hard to see any outcome other that a crushing victory for the anti-EU side and political ruin for Teflon Tony given that the latest YouGov poll (pdf file) shows only 16% would vote for the UK adopting the EU constitution, 28% were unsure and a whooping 53% would vote against it. Rule Britannia indeed!
But the promised referendum will not be today but rather at a tactical moment of Tony Blair’s choosing. People who see this ‘surrender’ to the idea of a referendum as a fortuitous laps of judgement of epic proportions would do well to ponder the effect that having notoriously Eurosceptic Britain go to the polls will have on the current negotiations with Britain more Federalist European ‘partners’ regarding the so called ‘red line’ issues of foreign policy, defence, social security and the British budget rebate.
Knowing that only if Blair can return home with ostensible triumph on those issues will he be able to credibly spin the EU constitution as a ‘British victory’, the Federalists will be faced with either the complete overthrow of their plans (Denmark or Ireland might be either ignored or finessed, but a British rejection is a rather different matter) or they can settle for a more gradualist victory for their cherished superstate.
Thus the prospects for Tony Blair arriving back and waving a piece of paper with Romano Prodi’s signature on it promising ‘Euro-peace in our time’ is by no means a fantastical scenario… and given the sheer ineptitude of the Tory party and the lemming-like Europhilia of the LibDems, it would be a brave man who predicts with confidence that this would not pull the Euro-sceptic’s political teeth.
Yes, with a little luck it could, and hopefully will, all go horribly wrong for the UK government and we could see the dismal Conservative party back in the saddle in Westminster in the aftermath of a Euro-Political meltdown of not insignificant proportions. However the prospects of Blair indeed getting Britain to sign up to a first iteration of the EU constitution if the Federalists play ball is by no means beyond possibilities. And if that happens, it means it is only a matter of time before the other issues are gradually chipped away in the years to follow. At that point there will be nothing left to fight for and I for in will be in the market for some property in New Hampshire. Do not underestimate Tony Blair.
The Home office has admitted that it has no idea how much innocent citizens will be charged for being forced to have an Identity Card.
At Lord’s Question’s today, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland of Asthal was asked to confirm the current estimate of £70 per person (already almost twice the figure that was being talked about a year ago). She refused to do so, saying that the Government would not be able to assess the costs until the compulsory phase begins.
So every single person in the country is effectively being told to write the Government a blank cheque.
The predicted cost has already almost doubled within a year. Given the Government record on IT projects, how much higher will it go?
Full report in the Scotsman.
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
… and will soon be invisible. Anyone who bases their arguments about the dangers of camera surveillance on the primitiveness of current technology is, unlike the latest cameras, being very short sighted. Take a look, for example, at this:
It sounds like the speeder’s nightmare. A speed camera accurate up to 150mph which can be concealed in road studs as small as a cat’s eye indicator, and which can also – as you’re passing – cast a glance at your tyres to see if they’re a bit bald.
And at you, to see who you are and where you are, and what you’re up to. If not yet, then very soon.
Wake up: this camera exists, and it’s being trialled.
I’m awake already.
But the anti-camera lobby can rest easy for a while. The Department for Transport says that there is no way that these cameras, designed and made by a British company called Astucia, will ever be used for “enforcement” to level fines and penalty points. However, they will start being tested around the country later this year, as part of the wider efforts to encourage motorists to respect speed limits.
So, they will not (yet) do “enforcement”, not “for a while”. But they can already do “encourage”. Sounds like enforcement will be with us very soon.
This Guardian headline is terrifying, coming, as it most definitely does, under the “never believe it until it is officially denied” heading:
UK ‘will not bail out EU pensions crisis’.
This denial, on the other hand, might be quite good news:
Mr Brown insisted: “There is no intention of having a European health care system that replaces national health care systems.
My understanding is that, healthwise, they do things rather better on the Continent than we do here, so the fact that we absolutely, definitely, I deny that completely, no truth in that notion whatsoever, are not repeat not going to have a European health system here in Britain, i.e. we very possibly are going to have such a system, is quite cheering. (See the comment 4 on this posting if you doubt the ghastliness of Britain’s current arrangements.)
And then there is this:
He reiterated the government’s determination to resist any moves towards EU tax harmonisation. “Tax competition makes for a more efficient single market,” he stressed.
Things like this are never said until the contrary claim is presented in the form of a question. And that contrary claim is at least as likely to be true as any denial of it.
The EUro-ratchet effect means that it only needs one British politician to relax on any particular issue, usually as part of an attempt to hold back the inevitable on some other front, for the deal to be done.
The Australian government has long desired to force ISP’s and Internet content Hosts to take responsibility for the activities of their clients. An attempt to do this in 1999 was defeated, but the authorites are back for more.
The draft bill states that ISPs are required to determine whether their services are used for “illegal conduct or speech.”
Paragraph 152 of the Explanatory Notes to the draft bill says that “Possible action that could be taken by ISPs and Internet Content Hosts (ICHs) so as not to facilitate use of a carriage service by another person that breaches proposed subsection 474.16(1) includes an ISP ceasing to provide Internet services to that person or an ICH ceasing to host a particular Website containing content that breaches the proposed offence.”
Obviously, the implication is clear- should this measure get up, ISP’s will be legally required to be much more aggressive in their surveillance of their customers; a gross breach of their privacy.
(Via Whirlpool.net.au)
Yes, I know, picking on the Guardian is just so easy that it is verging on bad form. It is rather like challenging a small child to a boxing match.
And speaking of small children, I hear the sound of the petulant stamping of little feet:
In our country, in our culture, at this time, any referendum on Europe is a pre-emptive cringe towards the Murdoch press and the tabloids. Forget any idea that the referendum debate will be Plato’s Republic in action. It will inescapably be a contest fought on terms dictated by the unelected media rather than by the elected politicians.
This is where the European Union referendum really will be a defining moment. It will mark the extraordinary watershed at which this country’s debased, biased and unaccountable media formally take control of the political process. The British media has often claimed that it has greater popular legitimacy than politicians – “It’s the Sun Wot Won it”, for example. Blair’s concession of the referendum marks the moment when politics formally bowed the knee and accepted that claim.
I can visualise Martin Kettle’s bottom lip trembling as bashes out every embittered word. For Mr. Kettle and his colleagues, the mere existance of anti-EU opinion is such a towering and monstrous inequity that advance tantrums are required to highlight the plight of the beleaguered federast to the caring world. He will probably start hijacking aeroplanes shortly and demand to be flown to Brussels.
And what is all this guff about ‘debased, biased and unaccountable media’, as if the Guardian is something other than a national newspaper and, ergo, part of the media? But then thwarted and sulky children often do retreat into consoling fantasy by claiming that their families are not really their families because their real families would not treat them so despicably.
Still, given the perenially low circulation (and their reliance on public subsidy) maybe there is a kernel of truth in the analogy. Nobody likes them, everbody hates them. I think they should go and eat worms.
A battle is brewing in Japan between education authorities and liberal minded teachers over the place of national symbols in the Japanese school system, reports Aussie expat Cameron Weston, for Australian news website Crikey.com.au:
Most countries have no law in place that compels its citizens to stand, put their hands on their hearts or do anything else when the national symbols are displayed. Most people do it because they want to, and this is the way it should be. Patriotism is something felt, not imposed. Forcing such action impinges on the basic tenets of democracy and freedom, and democracies have laws that enshrine this principle.
But what if the symbols of your nation had a deeper historical meaning, if they spoke to a past that some were ashamed of, of policies and deeds which some considered criminal?
And what if you felt strongly enough about this that you refused to stand and sing the anthem or to gaze upon the flag of your nation? In a democracy, you would be allowed to do so.
You might still reasonably be called a patriot by some, a person of conscience by others, ignorant and a traitor by others still but it would all be a matter of opinion, and hopefully then of discussion and debate. In 1999, amid some controversy, the Japanese LDP government passed legislation making the rising sun flag (‘Hinomaru’) and the national anthem (‘Kimigayo’) official, legal symbols of this nation. In a country where voluntary adherence to tradition and fixed social rites underpin the very fabric of society and daily life, it is ironic that the government felt that these forces were insufficient to ensure the flag and anthem remained venerated national symbols – they deemed that a law needed to be passed….
However, in the last few months, as the new school year begins, the debate has been taken to a new level. Teachers across Tokyo have been issued with a directive from the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, compelling them to stand and sing the national anthem and for them to in turn compel their students to do the same. No debate, no discussion; this is a direct order.
If the teacher refuses to do so, he will be open to public censure and criticism from his superiors, further warnings and potential expulsion. So far this year, over 200 teachers have refused to stand and many have received written warnings as a result. Miwako Sato, a music teacher who received one such warning when the law was first enacted in 1999 sums up the problem for many teachers perfectly, “Many people in other Asian countries do not want to look at the flag, the symbol of Japanese occupation of their lands, even 60 years after World War II, and I believe its coercive display at school ceremonies is against our Constitution,” she said.
Ah, the Japanese constitution. What I tend to get out of Mr. Weston’s article is a feeling that although Japan has lived under that constitution for over 50 years, it has never really embraced the spirit of the document (which is a bizzare mixture of the liberal and the statist).
But the fact that the more reactionary elements in authority in Japan feel the need to legislate nationalism, and to make it compulsary, gives me heart; I doubt they would have felt the need to do it if people were embracing the nationalistic message willingly.
And the resistance of teachers and the media is a good sign too. Anyway, read the whole thing.
There will be much muttering in their beards in the caves of Tora Bora. There will be much gnashing of teeth and gnawing of livers in the ghettos of the Democratic National Committee.
A new front has opened in the struggle for freedom.
Age 25, single, 5 foot 11 inches: the new Miss America describes herself as “a Republican” and says that she will use her influence to explain America’s involvement in Iraq. Miss Shandi Finnessey is a statuesque blonde from St Louis, Missouri and replaces last year’s winner from Massachusetts. [Thanks to Pejmanesque.com for the link.]
Note: Missouri voted Republican last presidential election. Any bets this time?
I am about to be on Talk Sport Radio, at about 1 am tomorrow morning, they said. I have just done an interview about President Bush’s crackdown on porn, with a guy called Duncan Barkes. I tried to make sense, and probably made some sense. The purpose of this post is to tell you this, not to spend the next three quarters of an hour telling you what I think about it all.
But I will summarise it:
Duncan Barkes: Should porn be illegal?
Me: No.
Often libertarians (and pro freedom folk in general) cite writers who are not libertarians at all – a good example being the number of times I have heard the name of Tom Paine being cited as a great defender of freedom (Tom Paine the ardent welfare statist and defender of confiscatory taxes on landowners, who [like so many of his kind] used the words “freedom” and “liberty” endlessly).
However, sometimes libertarians (and other folk) will cite a something that is a great work – but a work that is full of danger for the reader.
Such a work is Jose Ortega Y Gasset‘s Revolt of the Masses. This is great work and such people as M.J. Oakeshott and F.A. Hayek were right to praise it – particularly for the examination of the origin and nature of the “mass man” that one finds within the work and for its examination of the importance of the mass man in the modern world.
Few people (thankfully) read a great work and assume that all the opinions in it must be true, but a lot of people read what they (rightly) consider a great work and assume that the factual information in it must be true.
This was the danger I was reminded of when I recently reread this work – I came upon very many errors of fact. I do not know whether I was too ignorant to recognise these errors when I read this work as a child, or whether my memory has so far decayed that I can not remember reading the errors – but be that as it may, my purpose here is to warn readers to trust no piece of information they find in this work. → Continue reading: The Revolt of the Masses
Dave Barry links to this:
Phil Henry said he went to Helen Ellis Hospital in Tarpon Springs and was admitted for abdominal pain. A few days into his stay, his I-V malfunctioned causing his right arm to swell.
“On Tuesday night my right arm started hurting. I rung for a nurse. I didn’t get anyone and my arm got swollen up about the size of two golf balls and started bleeding,” Henry said.
After ringing for a nurse several times, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
“I took my urinal can and threw it out in the hallway, still got nobody. I hollered two or three times. Nobody came so I picked up the telephone and dialed 911.”
He said he told the dispatcher his name, where he was and described the problem with the I-V.
He then asked the dispatcher to call the hospital.
“Then I got a nurse. After that they took good care of me.”
Warning to British people: Do not try this with the NHS.
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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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