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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I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts
– Will Rogers
There is an interesting story in the Telegraph about a teenage Afghan arrested as a Taliban supporter and held in Guantanamo Bay. Although he was none too happy about being taken away from his parents, rather surprisingly he claims that he had a good time in the US military prison!
In a first interview with any of the three juveniles held by the US at Guantanamo Bay base, Mohammed said: “They gave me a good time in Cuba. They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons.” Mohammed, an unemployed Afghan farmer, found the surroundings in Cuba at first baffling. After he settled in, however, he was left to enjoy stimulating school work, good food and prayer.
What a funny old world.
MommaBear links to several recent articles on the increasingly revolutionary situation in Iran.
A mouthpiece for the ruling Mullahs has stated resigning members of government will be treated as criminals under Islamic law. With large numbers of popular leaders now out of government the next election looks to be a very weak and sad affair of limited public credibility. After the election? The deluge perhaps.
They have tied the steam relief valve shut. There is nowhere for dissent in Iran to go now. Pressure can only build until it explodes onto the streets of Tehran. The question is whether the Mullahs will begin ‘the Terror’ before or after the explosion.
Over at One Hand Clapping you can read about a new mobile phone technology that will simply knock you dead.
In the early 1860’s the majority of the Prussian parliament refused to accept new taxes (to finance higher military spending) without parliamentary control of the government.
If the liberals in the parliament had been libertarian they would have opposed the new taxes whether or not the government was subject to the control of parliament (the extra military spending was certainly not needed – Prussia was not being threatened with invasion by anyone), but at least they opposed the tax increase.
The Prussian chief minister Otto Von Bismark collected the new taxes in defiance of the Prussian parliament. The liberals made speeches, they conducted votes, they signed petitions – and Bismark ignored them. The Prussian minister understood that government rests on force (‘blood and iron’) not opinion. If the liberals could not defeat the government in battle their opinions were not relevant.
Why does this bit of old history put me in mind of modern Iran? Well in Iran there is a parliament whose votes are often ignored by the unelected ‘Supreme Leader’ and ‘Council of Guardians’. And now the Leader and Council are trying to stop many people (including sitting members of the institution) even standing for election to the parliament. → Continue reading: Why modern Iran reminds me of Prussia in the early 1860’s
This is almost enough to make voting a worthwhile exercise again:
Tony Martin – the farmer who was jailed for killing a burglar – may stand as an MP.
Mr Martin has been campaigning for a change in the law since being released from prison six months ago, where he after served three years of a five year sentence.
He told the Daily Mirror: “Everywhere I go people tell me how they are living in fear, but none of the political parties seem to be prepared to do anything about it.”
And I am not sure if Mr Martin will be able to do anything about it either but he should stand anyway. The joyous spectacle of the bien-pensant convulsing in a fit of bug-eyed, brain-melting horror as Tony Martin steps up to take his seat in the House of Commons would make the whole exercise worth it. A thousand times worth it.
Go for it, Tony.
UPDATE: Having offered my instinctive support, it has just occured to me that Tony Martin may not actually be allowed to stand for Parliament due to his criminal record. Pity. I get the feeling he would romp to victory.
I got a Valentine’s Card once. I cannot remember the exact year but I think it might have been around 1937.
Since then my doormat has been graced with a small mountain of bills, a cascade of unwanted mail-order catalogues and the occasional muddy footprint. But I harbour no grudges and, as the day of luuuurrve and romance fast approaches, let me take this brief opportunity to extend my warmest wishes to all those gaily courting couples of the world. May the aim of cupid’s arrow be straight and true and may it pierce the fluttering heart of paramours everywhere. For what is life but to love, as some philosopher once said. Or should have said.
Forgive the mawkishness but I have been driven to such sentimentalities as a reaction to the rather less enchanting message that is being broadcast from people who, purportedly, are rather more caring than I am:
A hard-hitting advertising campaign to warn young people about the dangers of unsafe sex has been unveiled by the Government.
The campaign, launched in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, features cartoon images of realistic looking Valentine’s cards, with powerful messages about the risks of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
One features a sunset scene of a couple on the beach with the poem: “Oh Valentine, since you came to me you’re always in my thoughts. I’ll never forget the night we met and you gave me genital warts.”
Another shows a pink teddy bear in obvious pain, with the message: “I love you so much it hurts… when I pee.”
Such a bunch of twinkle-eyed, slushy romantics, are they not?
Health Minister Melanie Johnson said it was “vital” to tackle this boom in sexually transmitted diseases and improve sexual health.
“This campaign is aimed at targeting those most at risk by using thought-provoking imagery and direct language.
“The Sex Lottery campaign is targeted specifically at sexually active 18 to 30-year-olds, and has already achieved significant behaviour change.’
At Christmas it’s the dangers of overeating, overdrinking and faulty electrical goods. In the summer it’s skin cancer, sunstroke and cornea-damage. Now, the season of romance invokes finger-wagging and tut-tutting about STD’s. I think what the Department of Dour Presbyterian School Ma’ams is trying to tell us is that life is a bitch, no good will come of it, pleasure is sin and we will all be jolly well sorry we ever started.
While the theological analogy is tempting, it is probably too deep. The real problem lies in there being far too many many state bureaucrats with far too much time on their hands and way too much of our money burning a hole in their pockets. But I do wonder if these people actually mean what they say? I mean, is all this sanctimonious hectoring just a way of bailing out the huge waves of cash that HM Treasury has flooded them with in recent years? Or do people like Melanie Johnson really see the world only in terms of the demons waiting to pounce with malice aforethought on the unsuspecting life-reveller? Are these apparent neuroses just convenient rubrics or is this, in fact, the true face of our political classes that we are seeing, genital-warts and all?
I would like to think that it is the former but, increasingly, I suspect the latter. I really do think that our entire ruling class is deep in the grip of some paralysing psychosis that has turned them into medieval peasants, muttering incantations and kissing toads to protect themselves from the Dark Faeries That Dwell In The Woods.
Generally speaking, the world is a dangerous and worrisome place for defeated and exhausted people.
Almost everywhere I turn I hear bad news and horror stories about youth and education. Based on that I was quite surprised by this paragraph in a DOD press release:
These reference group scores are called norms. The current ASVAB norms were developed in 1980, and no longer accurately reflect the aptitude of today’s youth. Over the past 20 years, aptitude levels in the United States have increased. Scores on educational achievement tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are up; high school and college attendance rates have increased; youth demographics have shifted; and the country has experienced an explosion in technology development and application. Consequently, the 1980 norms are no longer representative of American youth.
It must be the computer games.
There are some people in this world who do such a good job of discrediting themselves you need hardly bother. I refer you to the public attack on Dr. Glenn Reynolds by a Mr. Mark Modzelewski.
I double checked the impression given by his writing with a physicist friend who runs into him on a regular basis and will for political reasons remain anonymous. “The guy is a PR Flack” and “He knows nothing” were perhaps the kindest remarks I heard, and this is from deep within the ranks of people Mark deals with.
So I’m a Drexlerian by his lights? I find that a label to be proud of.
At least I can pronounce it.
There used to be a time when companies has serious names. Standard Oil. East India Company. Marks & Spencer. Ford Motor Company. Western Union. General Electric. Blohm und Voss. Consolidated Engineering.
Now companies have names like Eat My Handbag Bitch.
Perhaps the commentariat knows of some other interesting examples? God bless post-modern capitalism!
In our ceaseless quest to track down fine examples of modern capitalism, I lift my hat and salute blogger Andrew David Chamberlain , who has recently returned to blogging after a haitus, for pointing out a stupendous example of modern factory design in Dresden, Germany. The new Volkswagen plant is amazing, and if you follow the Car & Driver site he links to, you can see just how far things have come.
At one stage, car factories, like factories generally, were grim, smoky and frankly ugly buildings. We all know the images from old school textbooks about the Industrial Revolution, with rows of workers grinding away in massive structures belching out smoke. (Of course the same textbooks were often written by historians hostile to free enterprise, such as R.H. Tawney and Stalinist apologist Eric Hobsbawm but that is another topic on its own).
Well, for a variety of reasons, not least the massive rise in working condition standards, the quality of surroundings in a modern manufacturing plant has moved a light-year away from the Dark Satanic Mill cliched image of old.
I find it rather amusing that Germany, not a country which gets the credit it perhaps deserves for its futuristic design skills, should have come up with this terrific building. And of course the building also prompts thoughts about how styling of buildings, even supposedly very utilitarian ones like a car plant, is now a perfectly normal feature of life, as libertarian writer Virginia Postrel has already pointed out in her recently published book, The Substance of Style.
One of the most appealing aspects of a libertarian outlook is simplicity. It is often the case that when one examines, in greater depth, what initially appears to be a libertarian conundrum, it proves not to be. One such faux-dilemma, suggested to me by Alan K. Henderson’s comments to Andy’s post below, is the extent to which liberty can be threatened by non-state interests.
This can be the basis for populist political crusades against “Big Oil”, “Big Pharma”, even “Big Food”. The faux libertarian conundrum is the notion that we need a strong state as a guarantor of “real competition”: to break up monopolies in the interests of consumers. Yet surely such interference in the market is un-libertarian? In reality the conundrum evaporates when one examines how such monopolies arise. Put simply, monopolies wither in the free market and thrive under state regulation. Such monopolies, rightfully abhorrent to any free market capitalist or libertarian, are sustained by the very political system which seeks to regulate them. Just as the enforced “tolerance” of multiculturalism is a form of intolerance, so enforced competition is inimical to true free-market competition.
A similar dilemma is suggested by considering the plight of those in Northern Ireland who have fallen foul of paramilitaries. It matters little to a person tortured or exiled on threat of death whether his tormentors are acting for the state or a paramilitary group, Yet so-called human rights bodies such as Amnesty International, pay little attention to the human rights of such individuals, reserving their comments for infringements by state forces. Glenn Reynolds struck a chord when he cheered David Trimble for pointing this out. Needless to say this did not go down too well with some of the socialists and nationalists who comment at Slugger O’Toole. The conundrum is that surely a libertarian can agree with Amnesty’s justification: It is proper to be more concerned by state abuses than actions by private agents.
In examining this “conundrum” it also evaporates but leads to a surprising, counter-intuitive insight. In the segregated, working class urban ‘bantustans’ of Northern Ireland, paramilitaries are in a position to exert punishment and enforce exiles because they have been ceded a monopoly of violence. By the state. Local hostility to police forces means they are reluctant to carry out normal policing and individuals are prevented from defending themselves. This gives the paramilitaries a free run. Though they are nominal antagonists, the IRA effectively operates a monopoly of violence backed by the British state. The plight of its victims should be the proper concern of any agency which professes to uphold human rights.
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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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