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President Bush just nominated a judge for elevation to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that I think I can really get behind. The DC Court is arguably the “first among equals” of the federal appellate courts that function one level below the US Supreme Court. Judge Janice Brown has had some very interesting things to say that I think many of a libertarian bent will find appealing:
In Santa Monica Beach, Ltd. v. Superior Court (1999), for instance, she dissented from a decision upholding a rent control ordinance, declaring that “[a]rbitrary government actions which infringe property interests cannot be saved from constitutional infirmity by the beneficial purposes of the regulators.”
In a dissent in San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco (2002), which upheld the city’s sweeping property restrictions, Justice Brown expanded on that theme. “Theft is still theft even when the government approves of the thievery,” she declared. “The right to express one’s individuality and essential human dignity through the free use of property is just as important as the right to do so through speech, the press, or the free exercise of religion.”
She is, of course, rabidly opposed by the Democrats and by some “social” conservatives. Unless Bush is willing to go to the mattresses for her, she will likely be filibustered by the Senate Democrats and denied a seat on the DC Court. Still, the nomination is good news.
To all outward appearances, the Conservative Party has gone mad, and many of its most rabid enemies will now be rejoicing at the turmoil now afflicting it.
Just when the Conservatives ought to be uniting, concentrating on the issues, attacking the government, pulling together, speaking with a united voice, racing ahead in the polls, blah blah, they are instead deep into a leadership battle, concerning the future of a man who has yet to lead them into a General Election. What kind of mad bastard loser psychopath idiots are these people?
That’s the text. But I think that this is a case where the subtext is far, far more important – the subtext and the context.
The context first. For the first time since it was elected over six years ago the Labour government is in serious trouble, six years being the usual time it takes, for some reason, for a Labour government to fall to bits. The Iraq war has turned a relatively amicable coalition of semi-normals and lefties into a shouting match, and the manifest failure of the government to sort out “public services” by any means other then chucking money at them has finally become obvious to all. The honeymoon, the benefit of doubt, wait and see – all that’s coming to an end.
At the deeper level of things, Europe is turning from a Labour issue back to being a Conservative issue. Because of the expansion of Europe, the case for serious deregulation in defiance of the Franco-German axis is now seriously puttable. And ask yourself this: which party of the big two feels more comfortable with such pro-free-market rhetoric? This stuff will play well with the Conservatives and only cause yet more havoc within Labour. The times they are a-changin’ and in a profoundly Conservative direction.
And this – and now I’m moving to the subtext bit – is precisely why the Conservatives are now in such turmoil. Suddenly, it matters who their leader is. This is now a job worth having. → Continue reading: The dogs of Conservatism – fighting now, hunting soon
I could not resist a bit of mischief making… The BBC has set up something called iCan, which Wired magazine described thusly:
A couple of years ago the British Broadcasting Corporation was blindsided by a grassroots campaign against rising taxes on gas. Although discontent had been growing for some time, the BBC didn’t report the story until the British army was called out to protect gas stations from protesters.
Hoping to avoid this kind of blindness to ordinary Britons’ political concerns, the broadcasting behemoth is launching a radical online experiment to reconnect itself with grassroots sentiment.
[…]
On the other hand, the effort is intended to counteract what officials at the broadcasting network feel is widespread political apathy in the United Kingdom, marked by low voter turnout at elections and declining audiences for its political programming. As a state-financed institution operating under a royal charter to inform, educate and entertain, the BBC feels it is within its purview to help disenfranchised citizens engage in public life.
And therefore I have taken it upon myself to set up an iCan campaign aimed at… encouraging people to not vote (i.e. active voter apathy, yeah I know it is an oxymoron) and to regard politics as just proxy violence. I have called this Anti-Activist Activism. Come join me as I take some herbicide to the BBC’s grassroots.
It is just too damn tempting 
Update: I have made the first journal update at Anti-Activist Activism called Turning iCan into iShouldn’t.
Most Arab media on Tuesday blamed the U.S. failure to provide security in Baghdad for the latest suicide bombings in the Iraqi capital. They agreed that Washington had only itself to blame for the chaos and said the United States had failed Iraqis by not providing enough security to prevent the devastating attacks that killed 35 people on Monday, the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
I think my personal favourite is from the daily al-Khaleej, published in the United Arab Emirates:
Iraq, on the first day of Ramadan, was the scene of a bloodbath and occupation forces are directly responsible for this because of the instability they created in Iraq.
I suppose knowing where you stand with your torturers is stability of sorts but somehow I do not think that the victims of Saddam’s regime see it that way.
Saudi Arabia’s leading al-Riyadh newspaper opines:
The political bubble has burst in Baghdad. Will it be followed by other explosions or will the voice of reason prevail over the American dream of hegemony?
Disasters and conflicts notwithstanding there has never been a shortage of rhetorics in the Arabian Penninsula. There is only one voice that sounds half-reasonable although based on where it originated I would not want to look too close at the context of the quote. In non-Arab Iran, reformist parliamentarian Reza Yousefian said:
It is unjustifiable to kill ordinary people in the name of an anti-American campaign. On the contrary, the more insecurity prevails in Iraq, the longer Americans will stay.
Others, although outspoken against those who carried out the attacks, cannot help but add a sting in the tail. Lebanon’s as-Safir daily writes:
What happened yesterday in Baghdad is a crime by all measures, but it is more disgraceful than a crime: it is a deadly political mistake… Such political mistakes help the occupation to justify its horrible crimes.
Such outrage was lacking when it came to commenting on Saddam’s horrible crimes. I wish the Iraqis realised who their real enemies are.
Tomas at Teekay’s Coffeeshop has an excellent post on how the Czech police decided to go after the oldest profession and benefit from register all hookers in a special database. The software for this essential exercise was provided by the UN.
After raiding 475 nightclubs past weekend in a well-meant effort to combat organized slavery, the Secretary of Interior Mr Gross (nomen omen) came up with this idea that prostitutes are to be monitored. The official goal is to find out about the movement of prostitutes within the EU.
Police will enter the data about anyone who looks like a hooker, after checking and recording data on your citizen ID card (it’s mandatory to bear it at all times). Main source of data will be nightclubs and bars of certain sorts, but the police isn’t limited to these venues only.
Central European babes are not known for their coy dress sense
Apparently, it is enough for a girl to wear something ‘crazy’ for her to end up in the National Hooker Registry. And there is no recourse, just as there are no rules, no checks, no appeal. Tomas concludes:
The next step will be regulated legalization: with all of them registered and monitored, the State will make a liberal gesture and allow some prostitution. Carefully controlled, with price limits, annual re-registration, you name it. Of course, it will also be much easier to monitor the customers of such services, and that could come in handy, too, right?
I think he may be on to something there…
Following up on this earlier report here, more London School of Economics Hayek Society, here’s their latest news, from the society’s President Nick Spurrell:
Compassion and Capitalism Event – There will be held a major event tomorrow, Wednesday 29th October, with French thinker Christian Michel from Liberalia, entitled “Compassion and Capitalism”. Please do come along. There will be a talk and then questions and debate. D703, Clement House (Hong Kong Theatre Building) on the Aldwych. 12pm. Wednesday 29th October. No tickets necessary.
Students’ Union Elections – Tomorrow and Thursday (29th and 30th October) there will be held the LSE Students’ Union elections for various positions which hold authority and influence on the policy of the students’ union, the body which regulates the work of student societies including the Hayek Society.
Should you wish to vote, you may do so in the Quad, off Houghton Street on Wednesday or Thursday. The following Hayek Society Committee members are standing:
General Course Representative: Jonathan Gradowski (Hayek Society Auxiliary Officer); NUS Conference: Nick Spurrell (Hayek Society President), Peter Bellini (Hayek Society Financial Officer), Daniel Freedman (Hayek Society PR Director); Postgraduate Students’ Officer: Natalia Mamaeva (Hayek Society Secretary), Ryan Thomas Balis (Hayek Society Auxiliary Officer); Court of Governors: Daniel Freedman (Hayek Society PR Director); Alykhan Velshi (Hayek Society Journal Auxiliary Officer), Matthew Sinclair (Hayek Society Auxiliary Officer); Academic Board: Nick Spurrell (Hayek Society President); ULU (University of London Union) Council: Alykhan Velshi (Hayek Society Journal Auxiliary Officer), Matthew Sinclair (Hayek Society Auxiliary Officer)
Discussion Group Next Monday – There will be held, as usual, next Monday evening, the Hayek Society discussion group. All are welcome, in this informal environment to take part in a chaired discussion. The topic this week will be on the environment. More details soon… Monday 3rd November, 7pm, George IV pub, on campus, upstairs. Please feel free to come along.
The thing that impresses me about all this is that the stuff in the middle, about standing for various electoral offices, is not happening on its own. These people are holding speaker meetings and discussion groups as well.
Libertarians/classical liberals/whatevers who get involved in student politics often justify this by saying that the politicking “draws attention to the ideas”. But often they get so busy politicking that they forget about pushing the ideas. Worse, in order to get more votes in their damned elections they actually conceal or even contradict the ideas in their public statements, on the grounds that the important thing is “successful” politicking and if the ideas don’t help with that, then they must be dumped.
But the important thing is to do the ideas successfully, and if the politicking doesn’t help then the politicking should be dumped.
Politicking makes heat, and you make this heat is to draw attention to the light, which is the ideas. Trouble is, politicking sometimes burns up all the energy that ought to be used making light. All manner of “attention” is thus drawn, to nothing.
These guys don’t seem to be making this mistake. I’m impressed.
An interesting post by A.E.Brain, an Aussie blogger, on contrasts between style and substance when it comes to governments:
The most reviled form of Government in recent times has been National Socialism. With Good Reason. The two most famous – or infamous – National Socialist parties have been the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – National Socialist German Workers’ Party) AKA “Nazi” party, and the ANSP (Arab National Socialist Party) AKA “Ba’ath” Party.
But… a bad form of Government executed by Good People is better than a good form of Government executed by Bad People. therefore present for you a contrast in styles, of two “National Socialist” movements, though one of them didn’t call itself that. Judge for yourself.
 
National Socialism often conveys Public Service messages in
militaristic terms, but not always
I do agree with A.E.Brain that there are similarities in the ways that states, regardless of their ideology, usurp a prominent place in the social interactions. It is the desire for total politicisation of the civil society that makes Communism and Nazism such intimate ideological bed-fellows. Practically too, there is not much difference between a concentration camp and a gulag, except the fact that many more millions died in gulags. As a commenter in this thread put it:
The commie shoots ’em in the head,
The facist, in the skull.
Their ideological differences
For victims, rather null.
The US posters skillfully juxtaposed with their Nazi ‘counterparts’ use identical imagery and the similarities in style are meant to be sinister. But it should not really come as a surprise, since propaganda toolbox was not as ‘diverse’ in those days and both Nazis and Communists would have used and perfected the ‘marketing’ techniques of the day. The more subtle reminder is the pervasive hijacking by the state of the ‘positive’ collective sentiments that are transformed into a collectivist norm imposed by force.
A.E.Brain concludes:
What’s important is the matters of Substance, like the very real differences that existed between the Franklin&Eleanor team and Adolf.
Absolutely. There is only one small fallacy in his argument. Propaganda does not equal style, at least not in any meaningful sense. So although National Recovery Administration (NRA) was no doubt bureaucratic and authoritarian in its nature, I cannot see the implementation of its policies being even vaguely reminescent of the ways of Nazi or Communist institutions. In the end, precisely because of its authoritarian substance (and style), the NRA did not last long enough to even fully implement its policies.
What the posters demonstrate is that States have instinctive tendencies to take over the society whether by force or ideology or a threat of external/internal enemy. Toxic ideologies will turn the state into an instrument of terror. Credible or fabricated external/internal threats will enable the state to expand its powers and effective use of force will make the state a frightening tool in the hands of those who wield it.
The difference is not just what those who are in power believe but also what kind of society they face. Both Communism and Nazism have taken over the societies where the rights of individual were not paramount. It is when individual is no longer valued as the corner-stone of the society and his freedoms protected from collectivist impositions, the state is unrestrained in its natural course.
Londoners are to be asked what they think about using force to prevent people smoking in ‘public’ places (meaning privately owned places to which members of the general public may choose to enter… or not enter).
I do not smoke, though I did puff on a Havana recently, and I generally do not like smoke filled rooms. However, I do not have anyone holding a gun to my head forcing me to go into a smoke filled room against my will or compelling me to take employment with someone who allows people to smoke on their private property (such as a restaurant or bar owner). And yet millions of people see nothing wrong with legitimising threats of violence against others to force them to not smoke for nothing more than their personal convenience.
To take the view that replacing social interaction (such as deciding to walk out of a bar because it is too smoky or quitting your job because you dislike smoky environments) with political interaction, namely agreeing that people can be dragged off to jail by armed men because they smoke in places you would like to enter as a matter of your discretionary ease, is nothing less than taking the view that imposing your convenience by force (and we are not talking prohibiting robbery or murder here) is okay, because anything done via political process is okay. This is what is really meant when people like George Monbiot talk about ‘a more democratic society’… what they really mean is a society in which all interaction is political rather than social.
The genius of the US Constitution was not that it brought forth democracy, albeit one which countenanced slavery (for Britain was also a democracy of sorts in 1776), it was that at its core the revolutionaries tried to place whole swathes of civil society simply off-limits to political interaction… such as free speech, the means of self defence, being secure in your property etc. It recognised that liberty can only exist within the context of a functioning extended civil society, which means the messy melee of free association and disassociation, private ownership, trade and freely entered into contract, actions constrained and encouraged by social imperatives and opprobrium, rather than the stern violence backed impositions of politically derived law.
For a minarchist such as myself, I see a role for democratic politics as a means of constraining the minimal state that even I concede is required to keep the barbarians from the gates of civilization. Yet until democratic politics is once more seen as underpinning a free republic and not an end in and of itself, most politics must seen as a baleful thing and the people who practice it professionally as legislators little different from Mafia Dons dispensing patronage amongst the people under their ‘protection’
In many places across the Anglosphere, civil society is dying under the cumulative pressure of decades of regulatory statism. “There ought to be a law against it” comes to the lips of anyone who dislikes anything…and yet at the same time the moral authority of states is decaying with trends pointing to ever less people choosing to participate in political processes in an ever more affluent and information rich civilization. This is one of the central contradictions of our modern information age and sooner or later those contradictions will cause something to give in ways that cannot be reliably predicted.
I have been struggling to find a slick way to use the phrase the ‘gobbledegook’ in this sorry little saga but however I stack it, it still sounds clunky.
Let’s just say, as ye sow so shall ye reap. [From the UK Times.]
TURKEY farmers are barricading their premises to prevent the spread of a savage disease after Brussels banned the only drug that can eradicate it. Ten million turkeys being reared for the £100 million Christmas trade are at risk from blackhead (Histomanos meleagridis), which can destroy entire flocks.
The disease, which enters the gut of birds and attacks their liver, has broken out in France, Germany and the Netherlands and farmers fear that it will be carried into Britain by migrating birds. East Anglia and Kent are particularly vulnerable.
Two predictions:
- It will transpire that this drug was banned as a result of ferocious lobbying by the enviro-mentalists.
- The EUnuchs will try and find some way to blame this whole farrago on the Americans in general and George Bush in particular.
Brian Linse seems to be very self-satisfied today over the fact that John Lott Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime (1998), is currently on the ropes in defending his work. He is even going to the point of calling Prof. Lott’s central thesis “fraudulent”. I do not know what Brian’s background is, but I would guess from this that he is neither an attorney or a scientist. In either of those cases, he would know that simply because a theory is flawed, that constitutes no grounds for labeling it fraudulent. Brian should also be aware that, simply because a theory is flawed in its details, that’s no reason to abandon the basic concept.
I must admit, I have been quite remiss in following the efforts to debunk Prof. Lott’s work over the past year or so. But this is a pet issue of mine, so I guess it is time I brought my talents to bear on the matter.
As luck would have it, there is no category called ‘Honking Great Hypocrisies’ so I have had to settle for filing this under ‘Education’ instead.
But that’s appropriate too because this story is nothing if not instructive:
Labour leaders backed Diane Abbott, the Left-wing MP, yesterday over her decision to educate her son privately, days after condemning a Tory MP for saying he would do the same.
Ms Abbott has used her wealth, status and privilege to give her child the best, as is befitting the ruling elite. In fact, Ms Abbott is merely following in the best traditions of Britain’s socialist politicians who have always had a curious and inexplicable penchant for both private education and healthcare (while publicly denouncing both).
Labour MPs were taken by surprise by the news that she had chosen the £10,000-a-year City of London Boys School for her son, by-passing four comprehensives in Hackney and Stoke Newington, the constituency she represents.
In the past Miss Abbott has criticised the Prime Minister, for rejecting schools in Islington and sending his sons to the London Oratory School in Fulham, and Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General, for choosing a grammar school outside her constituency. She once said of Miss Harman: “She made the Labour Party look as if we do one thing and say another.”
Now where would anyone get that crazy, zany idea?
Philip Chaston is a regular contributor to the Airstrip One blog. He believes that the current political climate in Britain presents an exciting and unique opportunity.
Last Monday I went to the University of London Union to watch a concert given by the band British Sea Power. With me were a couple of friends, a carpenter and a handyman from South London. Just prior to the gig, I had been assailed by their voluble and bitter complaints while we downed some pre-concert alocohol in the Toucan Bar which is just around the corner from Soho Square in Central London.
The level of dissatisfaction with the government and the public services in London and the South East has risen over the last few years as people have seen their taxes rise without any perceived improvement in public services. This has been linked to increasing concern over levels of immigration. As my friend said, “I’m going to vote BNP in protest. Who else can I vote for?” → Continue reading: The Protest Vote
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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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