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 British media this morning, including the Daily Telegraph is reporting that Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned of a heightened terrorist threat in the event that we went to war in Iraq. And the coverage implies that somehow that it was a great scandal that he failed – allegedly – to make this warning public.
I don’t know. It should have been blindlingly obvious to all that by threatening to topple Saddam, terror groups with a vested interest in his staying in power would try to foil said effort by attacking us.
Of course it is a repeated refrain from the tin-foil hat brigade on the pacifist left pessimistc right and head-in-sand Raimondo libertarian sect that if we act, we will only make Islamic groups even angrier. Problem is with this argument is that it is a “heads I win, tails you lose” sort of position. If we act – such as topple Saddam – the Islamo-loons will get mad. If we do nothing, they will hold us in contempt and attack us again for being weak.
Personally, I can live with their hate. They hate us anyway, so we might as well give them something to actually hate us for, by trying to establish liberty and prosperity in the Middle East.
I do sometimes wonder if the British press has much room for actual news at all. So much of the available space (both pixelated and dead-tree) appears to be taken up with the results of surveys, opinion polls and studies all of which emanate from very august-sounding bodies but which are usually, like as not, merely trojan horses for some vested interest or other.
That said, this latest ‘shock, horror report’ does have a certain resonance to it. Even if it turns out not be accurate it still sounds as if it should be or could be:
The middle classes are turning to crime in the belief they have been victimised research finds.
More than 60% of people surveyed in England and Wales admitted they had exaggerated an insurance claim, paid cash to avoid tax or kept money when given too much change.
But they would not consider themselves criminals, scientists told a science conference in Salford.
This appears to be causing something of a hubbub and I am not surprised, given that we like to think of ourselves as reliably law-abiding people. I cannot entirely discount the possibility that this is all the result of the same old method of stringing together a bunch of manipulated statistics into a pre-determined theory but it would not surprise me in the least if it turned out to have some basis in reality.
British civil behaviour was never an accident. It was the entirely predictable result of a lightly and reasonably governed country which allowed all those tacit, civic relationships to grow and bloom. But that was then and this is now and now we are monstrously over-governed and intolerably regulated. Hence, the reverse effect begins to set in.
The forgotten lesson is that obedience to the law is not and never has been a one-way street. It’s a deal under which the law gets respect provided it acts respectably. Too much top-down and you begin to crowd out all the spontaneous good that comes from ground-up.
We’re not talking about revolution here or anarchy on the streets. At least not yet. But we are fraying at the edges and that is a warning sign.
Posting looks as if it may be thin here today, so a quick comment on the economics of the internet.
The usual story is that the big, bad, old organisations could be in trouble now as the internet whistles into existence a million new nimble players to run rings around the big, bad, etc. … blah blah.
But how about this for a train of thought?
Selling text on the internet is working, okay, sort of, but it hasn’t really taken off. There’s too much free stuff, and anyway, people don’t want to pay. Maybe they’re scared that if they start surrendering £30 here and £30 there, it will never stop and they’ll be bankrupt. Maybe they just reckon the prices will come down, and they’re waiting.
But what if you are a huge, globally celebrated organisation which wants to be able to swank even more than you do now about how much beneficial impact you are having on the world, to your donors, charitable or political, and would actually quite welcome the simplicity of not having to be too businesslike about it all, and to have to chase every last cent for every bit of virtual stuff that you part with?
What if you are the BBC? Despite all that our bit of the blogosphere may say, the BBC still counts for a hell of a lot in the world; that’s why our bit of the blogosphere complains about it so much.
Or what if you are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? → Continue reading: Big brands getting even bigger by giving it away
I did not post anything about the second anniversary yesterday but only because I logged on to find that Dale Amon had beaten me to it. I judged his sentiments to be so appropriate that they left me with nothing I could usefully add except the confirmation that Dale spoke for us all.
As has the Dissident Frogman who has applied his exceptional talents to a stirring presentation of his own. From France with love (for a change).
Puits fait, mon ami.
In a shock move, last night, the UK’s Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, spectacularly failed to resign when given an open goal opportunity to do so. In a powerful and sometimes moving soliloquy from the floor of the House of Commons, Mr Hoon looked on as someone else made a dramatic speech demanding the Defence Secretary’s resignation. This was Mr Hoon’s reply:
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I didn’t fool anyone important when I lied to the intelligence and security committee, just the proles.
Under strong media pressure, UK Premier Tony Blair also defended his beleaguered colleague:
Come on, guys, look, well, you know. Geoff can’t resign now, I need him to resign when the Hutton Report comes out. If I throw his body out the back of the plane before then, there’ll only be me left to carry the can, and I’m not having that. Don’t worry, you’ll get your scalp, but only when Mandy, Alastair, and I decide you will. We’ve got all the ‘least worst’ resignation moments mapped out on the grid, and it’s not Geoff’s turn yet. So can we draw a line under this, guys, and move on?
When pressed on whether it was a disastrous though retrievable situation for British troops to be in the line of fire, in Iraq, while their Ministry of Defence Chief hid in a hole in the ground in London waiting for his resignation grid appointment, a furious Mr Blair went on to add:
Look, come on, do you really think Geoff Hoon is the real Secretary of State for Defence? He’s just a stooge, a figurehead, a nobody. I’ve got one of my Downing Street boys running the real operation, and he’s reporting back directly to me. It makes the lines of control much easier.
Mr Archie Scroggins, 17, a former apprentice gas-fitter from Lewisham, was later revealed as this vital kitchen cabinet insider. His mother, Mrs Olive Scroggins, was as surprised as anyone:
Archie got this job installing a new boiler, in 10 Downing Street, and Mrs Blair took a shine to him. Archie’s been there ever since. He told me he was an assistant masseuse, when I saw him on telly in the back of a car with Tony. But to find out he’s Secretary of State for Defence is a mum’s dream come true! I’m made up for him! And he hasn’t even started shaving yet!
Archie Scroggins was later said to be unavailable for comment, as he was on a plane to Iraq to discuss British and American troop deployments. His father, Mr Reginald Scroggins, 74, was said to be down the pub.
I’m in the midst of my nightly reading and this dialogue from Donald Rumsfeld on Jim Lehrer’s News Hour caught my attention:
Now, there’s another reason it’s a bad idea. If you go to Afghanistan, the Soviet Union had 300,000 troops in Afghanistan and they couldn’t do the job. We have 10,000 in there and it’s making steady progress. Why? Because we don’t want to occupy a country. The Soviets wanted to own Afghanistan.
We don’t want to own Afghanistan. We don’t want to own Iraq. We want to help them get on their feet and then move out. We do not want to put so many forces in there that we create a dependency on us and then have to stay. We want to keep creating an environment where they can take over their security.
Maybe our way of looking at things is catching on.
The second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is as good a time as any to take quick stock of progress in World War IV:
(1) Afghanistan. The Allies (America and its ad hoc coalition) have driven the Taliban from power and deprived the Islamic terror network of one of its primary bases. The Islamists still in Afghanistan are now on the defensive, and are focussing, apparently, on trying to regain control of one of the world’s poorest countries, rather than exporting their theology to other countries. Despite ongoing difficulties, this is a clear win for the West because Afghanistan is less of a threat now than it used to be.
(2) Iraq. Pretty much exactly the same analysis applies in Iraq. The Baathists are no longer funding any part of the Islamist terror network, and are no longer a potential source of WMD for the islamists. Based on current information, I would say that this is also a clear win for the West because Iraq is less of a threat now than it used to be. Ultimately, of course, Iraq still has miles to go, etc., but it certainly does not seem to be on course to be a net exporter of terror. Right now it is a net importer of terrorists, and that is fine be me – better to kill them in Iraq than in Iowa.
(3) International Islamist terror network. Clearly on the defensive and less capable than it was before 9/11. Many of its leaders or members are dead, in hiding and emasculated, or in prison. Many of its resources, including terrorist havens, are gone. Recent attacks have been directed, not against Western targets, but against Middle Eastern and South Pacific ones. Offhand, I can’t think of any theaters where radical Islamism is stronger now than it was before 9/11.
(4) Middle East. So far, it is hard to say that the Islamists have gained any ground even in the Middle East. Syria is going multi-party and has made some, admittedly not terribly significant, stand-downs in Lebanon. Arafat is isolated and his days certainly seem numbered. The Saudis have executed a number of their princes that had ties to al Qaeda, and seem to be going after al Qaeda with a little more credibility since it broke its promise not to operate in Saudi Arabia. Lots of fulminating and bitching about the Great Satan everywhere, of course, but that isn’t new and doesn’t really count on the debit side of the ledger. It is still early days, of course, but all told, I would say that the Middle East is certainly no more hostile to the US than it was, and in significant ways is less dangerous, if no more friendly, than it was.
(5) Diplomacy. The common complaint is that the US has sacrificed or damaged many good relationships in order to pursue its war. I think that this is complaint is overstated, at best. Rather, World War IV has tested relationships and revealed which of them were shallow and weak.
I am willing, on the whole, to say that the diplomatic front has been a break-even for the US. On the one hand, many erstwhile “allies” are more vocal in their criticism of us, and possibly even have withheld substantive aid that they might have offered a different diplomatic team. On the other, the UN has permanently devalued, the true colors of the transnational progressives have been revealed, and many of the other impediments to a new and much more functional international order have been weakened or cleared away.
(6) Homeland security. Well, we Americans may or may not be marginally safer from terrorist attacks on our own soil than we were before 9/11. Its hard to say; in spite of the obvious idiocy of most of the high-profile homeland security measures, we haven’t had a terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Measured against the baseline of 9/10/01, I think it is hard to say that we are much safer than we were. Measured against where we should be two years on, I would say that homeland security is a major disappointment.
But the war won’t be won or lost based on America’s homeland security. That is purely a damage control issue, because no matter how good the homeland security is, we will surely lose the war if we do not succeed with our “forward defense” of draining the Islamist swamps where terrorists breed.
The schwerpunkt of America’s offensive is in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of those campaigns were crushing military and strategic victories for the US, victories that have not (yet) been frittered away. They may not turn into little Swedens, but there is really very little chance that either nation will return to being a terrorist haven bent on exporting mass murder to its enemies. That counts as victory in my book.
At this point in history, the Islamists cannot defeat America, but America can certainly lose the war through loss of will and resolution. So far, the will is there.
There has not been much discussion in the blog world that I have seen of late about the British government’s apparent fierce determination to make us sign up to the proposed EU Constitution. While we ponder the difficulties of trying to establish some form of piece and liberty in Iraq, we ought to think a bit more about the threat to our liberties nearer to home.
Unlike some EU sceptics and foreign policy isolationists, I don’t elevate national sovereignty into some kind of religion. The only sovereignty I recognise is that over my own person. I take the practical view that if we are to try to reverse the trend towards ever bigger government, it will be even harder to achieve such a task at pan-European level than at the national one. In the UK we do – in a rough fashion – have a shared political tradition, a common language, and a broadly similar culture. While multi-lingual political unions are conceivable, they are not, as far as I can see, easily sustainable without a lot of positive factors such as shared cultural and economic interests, and so forth.
The fine print of the EU constitution is not the sort of thing to get voters charged up. But I have a sickly feeling in my stomach that unless the process is stopped very soon, we will wake up to find that the juggernaut of the State is even more resistant to control than ever before. Time is running short.
Here is today’s press release from an Iranian student group with ties to those inside Iran. I think you will appreciate it.
The 2nd anniversary of September 11th Tragedy and the Iranian Nation
SMCCDI (Public Statement)
September 11, 2003
Two years have passed since the “Tragedy of September 11th”. A tragedy resulting from an unprecedented terror attack on the US soil and which took thousands of innocent lives and left many grieving families behind.
Without the shadow of any doubt, this infamous attack was the true manifestation that fanatical Islamic Terrorism has no boundaries and is hell bent in uprooting all the advances achieved by the civilized World, replacing it with archaic beliefs along with an intolerant value system inherent in all overzealous religious sects.
September 11th occurred while the Iranians were commemorating their loved one’s massacre at the hands of the fascist-theological Islamic Republic regime. This is exactly why the Iranians, immediately felt in their bones the impact of this murderous act and sympathized with the Americans. Few hours later and in thousands, they took to the streets to support the wounded American Nation and to share its sorrow while undergoing the brutality of the regime’s shock troops. .
“America, America…. Condolences, Condolences!” and “Death to Taliban, whether in Kabul or Tehran” they chanted while holding their candle lights despite the brutal attacks of Hezbollahi thugs!!
Since then, Iranians have become more determined than ever to stand up against intolerance and tyranny as they saw the trueness of the unprecedented declaration of President George Bush on “War against Terror” and his revelation of the hideousness of religious fanaticism. They’ve regain hope by witnessing the overthrow first of the backwarded Taliban rulers in Afghanistan and then of the Iraq’s Bathist regime, two of the most notorious supporters and purveyors of global terrorism in contemporary international politics.
Without the shadow of any doubt, the Iranians, themselves the first victims of terrorism for nearly a quarter of a century, not only sympathize with the Americans, but they identify with them in this “Just war”. They’re are engaged in a daily battle to rid themselves of their monstrous regime known for being the “Mother of Islamist Terrorism” and a notorious member of the “Axis of Evil”.
More than ever, the struggling freedom loving Iranians are looking for the moral support of the Americans in their global quest to rid the world of this unholy, demonic menace. The Iranian people are in search of a democratic government separate from religious fanaticism, and a free and peaceful society. In pursuit of these goals they ask the American people to join with them in opposition to any reform or reformist movement within the Islamic republic, and to ask of their representative not to embrace or endorse any such sham reform in Iran, as they are nothing but an illusion and they do not represent the Iranian people.
The “Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran” while honoring all those who perished during the horrific September 11 attack and expressing once again its deepest sympathy with the families of the victims, declares that will do what ever is necessary to strengthen the bond and cooperation between the two great nations of Iran and America in the fight and struggle against Global Terrorism and Religious Fanatism.
It’s of this committee’s strongest believe that the Iranian and American peoples will emerge victorious in their noble mission of contributing to a safer and peaceful World!
September 11, 2003 (20th Shahrivar 1382)
The “Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran” (SMCCDI)
The improbably named UK Home Office Minister Paul Goggins, with the even more improbable title of Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Correctional Services, has defended the lack of strict definitions in a proposed new Internet grooming law. This is designed to prevent the entrapment of young children by older sexual predators. However, the proposed law, as it is currently drafted, could theoretically see a 15-year old boy-and-girl couple, who have mutually consenting sex together, being prosecuted, and sent to jail for five years alongside a 45-year old man who has sex with a 13-year old girl.
On the BBC Today program this morning, Mr Goggins said that the government could find no way of wording their new legislation to include the older predators, but to exclude the under-age couples. However, he said this would be alright, because the Crown Prosecution Service would receive the correct legal guidance on when to and when not to prosecute, to avoid imprisoning sexually adventurous youngsters. Which of course begs the question, why aren’t they clever enough to frame this splendid new legal guidance in the new law?
It also begs the question of how many Samizdata readers would be criminalized if this new law were to be retro-actively applied to them, and only kept out of jail via the masterly whim of any future Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Correctional Services? As our socialist lords and masters wrap us in ever more legislation, to criminalize us, in order to control us better, their excuses and deceptions for this cacophony of intrusive legislation grow ever flimsier. I’m confident they’ll soon make it illegal to walk on the cracks in the pavement, in a loud shirt. But don’t worry, I’m sure Mr Goggins will be kind enough not to bang us away for this heinous misdemeanour, unless of course we do something else much more serious to annoy him, such as calling him a very rude name. Mr Goggins, you are an idiotarian.
This is just what we need.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is funding Irish provider of location technology products Mapflow to undertake a feasibility study to look into the possibility of implementing a pan-European road tolling system. The research aims to establish whether satellite technology can be used to calculate the cost of motoring.
A plan exists to complement this activity with a real demonstration of the virtual tolling concept in the greater area of Lisbon. Also under ESA funding, the project is being conducted by the Portuguese company Skysoft in close cooperation with the Portuguese motorway authority. The demonstration is planned for the end of 2004.
In April this year the European Commission published a proposal that all vehicles should pay road tolls electronically, with full implementation foreseen for 2010. Under the proposal, all vehicles will carry a ‘black box’, which will be tracked by satellites relaying information on the distance travelled by the vehicle, the class of road travelled and the time at which the journey was made.
…
Germany recently received EU approval to implement a new tolling system for goods vehicles. The system – currently being tested – uses the US-operated Global Positioning System (GPS). The government hopes to raise 650 million euros a year through the new charges.
Satellite-assisted tolling would make use of Galileo, Europe’s planned satellite navigation system. Galileo is a joint initiative between the European Commission and ESA to develop a global navigation system, scheduled to be operational by 2008.
I am actually in favour of charging for road use on a per kilometre basis. Inevitably this means using electronic tolling devices of some sort (and from a traffic management point of view this is desirable, as people do not have to stop to pay tolls, and also it is possible to manage congestion better by being able to vary tolls depending on time of day and traffic conditions). Equally inevitably this has privacy consequences.
However, having a top down approach in which a centralised EU agency moniters the movement of every car in Europe strikes me as terrifying. (Also, the further you remove the charging scheme from the people who are building and operating the roads, the less it becomes a charge for road use and the more it becomes a simple tax, too. A Europe wide charging scheme is about the worst way of doing it I can think of. What is much more desirable is a bottom up approach in which the individual owners of the roads implement their own systems, and from which they negotiate technology compatibility and a clearing house for sharing charges between themselves. Governments may still get their hands on the data, but a situation where it starts out in the private sectory and possibly works its way up is far better than a situation where everything starts in the hands of the EU and then works its way down.
This trial is perhaps partly a consequence of the fact that the EU has decided that Europe will build “Galileo”: its own alternative to the American GPS system. Having decided this, it needs to find uses for it. And if you are the EU, tracking Europeans at all times is the sort of thing that comes to mind.
(Link via slashdot)
Crossposted from Transport Blog
At this precise hour and date two years ago an event changed history and seared eternal anger into the American soul. This flash multimedia presentation is the best remembrance I have found to date. It came out shortly after and I have from time to time reminded people of it.
I cannot seem to get to the original web site for it at the moment. For the time being I’ve placed a copy on our server. Make sure you have tissue handy when you watch and listen. If you are an American, you will need them.
On some far star a millennium hence, our descendants will pause and remember this date.
We will never forgive and we will never forget.
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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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