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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This is rather startling. Martin Walker is a lefty, but he’s no mug. I’ve read his book about the Cold War, and although lefty, it’s not bad. This is Walker reporting from Washington for UPI, November 13th:
“You want to know what I really think of the Europeans?” asked the senior State Department official. “I think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years.”
They were wrong, the diplomat continues, about Bosnia, and about Russia accepting NATO enlargement and Missile Defense. They were wrong about the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and the Kyoto Protocol. They were wrong about the European Union’s new common security and defense policy. They were wrong about Reagan and the Evil Empire, and they helped vote the US off the UN Human Rights Commission. They whine about the US Farm Bill when they are the world’s prime protectionists.
The official, a career diplomat who speaks fluent French and likes to vacation in Italy, sat back and took an appreciative sip from his glass of good red wine from Bordeaux.
“One more thing,” he added. “Whenever I use the word Europeans, I don’t mean the Brits.”
It was perhaps the most interesting and informative off-the-record lunch this reporter had attended in some three decades in the news business. The speaker was not a political appointee with a cursory knowledge of international affairs, but a professional and highly experienced Foreign Service officer with a wide range of friends and contacts across Europe.
He is a cultivated and courteous man, but he was angry, in that dangerous way quiet men can be. And the unveiled contempt in his voice and the curl of his lip when he drawled out the word “Europeans” said as much for the depth of his feelings as his bitter rhetoric.
Europeans do not yet get this, the great sea change that has taken place in the American foreign policy establishment. …
Thinking about it, what I find startling is not what it says, but the fact that it says it, in a boring old wire service. I have only one thing to add. Read the whole thing before it disappears from easy view.
My word, HMG has been busy of late. You’d think the prospect of impending Middle East conflagration might slow them down a tad, but no, not this lot. They’ve still found the time and dedication to set hundreds of monkeys loose on thousands of typewriters and they’ve whipped up a thunderous swarm of new laws and initiatives with which they hope to cure All The Problems in the Known Universe.
So what, exactly, are the primates gibbering on about now? Let’s see, shall we:
“This approach will enable my Government to continue to invest in the public services, while supporting major programmes of reform on health, education, transport and crime.”
They’re going to whack up taxes again so they can feed the public sector while endlessly tinkering around with the Soviet-style systems in a vain attempt to get them to work properly.
“New types of sentence will be introduced to protect the public from dangerous offenders, help reduce re-offending and deal with young offenders.”
None of which will stop our houses getting burgled, our cars getting stolen or our loved ones getting mugged for their loose change.
“The Bill will also allow retrials for those acquitted of serious offences where new and compelling evidence emerges. It will also simplify the rules of evidence to allow judge and jury to hear all the facts, including relevant previous convictions of a defendant.”
Yes, because abolishing the right to a fair trial is a sure and certain way to keep the crime figures down!
“My Government will introduce a Bill to tackle anti-social behaviour that damages communities.
?????????????????????????
“A Bill will be brought forward to modernise the laws on sexual offences and to strengthen the framework of penalties for sex offenders to protect the public.”
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
“A Bill will also be introduced to improve international co-operation in tackling crime, including drugs trafficking, and to modernise the arrangements for international mutual assistance to catch criminals.”
Hello to the European Arrest Warrant, goodbye to Habeas Corpus.
“My Government will bring forward legislation to streamline the licensing system for premises selling alcohol.”
Alright, I’ll give them that one. Long overdue actually. Still, if you toss around enough mud, some of it hits the right spot.
“Legislation will be brought forward to devolve power and resources to frontline staff; give greater freedom to successful hospitals while increasing their accountability to local communities; and to introduce an independent health inspectorate.”
More jobs for Guardianistas!
“University reform proposals will be published to improve access and build on excellence.”
More semi-literate cretins taking degrees in ‘Cake Preparation’ to keep the unemployment figures from rising.
“A Bill will be brought forward to establish a Railway Accident Investigation Branch…”
More jobs for Guardianistas!
“Legislation will also be introduced to provide for the holding of referendums on the issue of regional governance in England.”
We set about abolishing England, keep our masters in Brussels happy and provide even more jobs for Guardianistas!! An HMG Trifecta!
“Measures will be brought forward to protect our environment, including legislation on the conservation and proper management of water.
And even more jobs for Guardianistas plus the added benefit of crippling industry with lashings of unnecessary red-tape. What’s not to like?
“A Bill will be introduced to enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on hunting with dogs.”
You realise, of course, that this means war.
“My Government will make a decision on whether to recommend entry into the single currency on the basis of the assessment of the Five Economic Tests to be completed by next June.”
Because Europe is heading down the toilet-bowl of history and we are determined to bravely follow them.
“My Government will work for rapid and effective implementation of the agreements reached at the recent World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and will focus on tackling climate change and finding new ways to meet our energy needs.”
We’re going to abolish breathing.
“Britain’s aid budget will be increased and we will work to implement the Africa Action Plan in response to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.”
And we’ll even save time and paperwork by remitting your money direct to the numbered Swiss bank account of Mr. R. Mugabe.
It’s all getting a bit much, it really is. I think it’s beginning to overwhelm me. Living in Britain is like taking part in a 24-hour Grumblethon. Phone in with your generous pledges, ladies and gentlemen. All receipts to HM Treasury who will syphon it all off into the infinite black hole of the public purse, never to be seen or heard from again. Just keep paying and smile like you’re having a good time.
I’m fed up, I’m tired, I’m seriously grumpy and I’m going to bed; perchance to dream of a better world where Saddam Hussein is a cab-driver in South London, Al Qaeda is a gameshow host and where all the monkeys have been rounded up and put in the zoo where they belong.
Crime seems to be a flavour of the day in the UK. Today a battle plan to fight crime was unveiled by the government in the Queen’s speech opening the new parliamentary year. And a new advertising campaign was launched on Monday by the Metropolitan Police Service named “Help us cut out hate crime”.
I noticed such posters on Monday and at first I thought they were designed to change the attitudes of the potential perpetrators of hate crimes by yet another ‘awareness’ campaign. (The New Labour seems to be very fond of ‘awareness’ campaign managing to spend prodigious amounts of tax-payers money on pointless and expensive advertising.) My immediate reaction was that of incredulity that anyone could imagine that plastering posters on the Underground would change anything, let alone someone’s bigoted and hateful opinions. Or do they believe in subliminal advertising?
No, the truth is far less subtle – the campaign urges victims of hate crime or those who have information about it to come forward. A name, an address or even a description of offenders will enable police to target criminals and stop the ‘abuse’. Adverts will appear in newspapers and in a number of gay, ethnic and disabled press titles, and on the Underground. There will also be a hate crime and domestic violence radio campaign as well as posters appearing on washroom panels, the underground, and on trains.
Yes, it may seem a good thing to encourage victims to come forward. But that would be more effectively and properly achieved by restoring our confidence in the criminal justice system by making sure that criminals are arrested, sentenced and jailed in timely and effective manner and that victims are not ignored or forgotten in the process.
The effect, if any, of the campaign will be an atmosphere of paranoia at the local community level. Abuse of the system will ensure that. Imagine the trouble you could cause to a neighbour you dislike by simply reporting on him for alleged domestic violence:
“reported cases of hate crime and domestic violence received by the MPS will be, where appropriate, passed to local Community Safety Units (CSUs) for investigation, otherwise handled by local borough police.”
But the scary bit is the bit about the hate crime itself, defined as abusing people because of their race, faith, religion, or disability, or because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual. The danger is in the shift from the emphasis on one’s actions that can be classified as criminal acts – murder, rape, theft etc to an entirely different and vague area. Yes, it says ‘abuse’ but so does ‘substance abuse’ and nobody is encouraging drugs to come forward to report on their junkies. Suddenly, the crime is in the eye of the beholder and although it is correct that the victim is the obvious one to do the seeing, it is not correct to encourage the seeing of crime without providing a clear definition. It is precisely such vagueness of definition of hate crimes that encourages victim culture.
I loved this, which I have only just found, “The Warblog of J. Alfred Prufrock”. It was posted on March 4th of this year, so I think it okay to give away the ending.
I must post…I must post…
I shall link to bloggers that get linked to most.
Shall I write a scathing essay? Do I dare to make a stink?
I shall make my page quite shocking, with my fonts fluorescent pink.
I have seen the A-list linking, link to link.
I do not think that they will link to me.
I have seen them writing onward down the scroll
Thirty posts daily makes a breathless tale
Plus columns and interviews and e-mail,
I have waited for this moment in the sun
On web-sites read and stored in my cache
Then InstaPundit links me! And I crash.
I don’t remember Samizdata attending to this on, say, March 5th, but I am very occasionally wrong about things blogular, and even sometimes about things generally. No doubt I’ll be humiliated by some commenter. “Sorry Brian, but …” Oh well.
More seriously, I want to say that whereas a “week-old piece of election commentary” would indeed be tiresome (I read that somewhere last night but sorry, didn’t keep a note of where), a nine month late blog-reference to something of enduring entertainment value is surely okay. Is not one of our blog-duties to keep the best bloggage from months and years ago alive, even as the rest sinks into the informational sediment that will be of interest only to future generations of info-archeologists?
I have been of the opinion that Saddam Hussein will say ‘yes’ to the latest UN resolution, based on his opportunity to simply buy time and to exploit the rifts in Western opinion and short-and-shallow attention span of the Western public. I was not surprised by the Iraqi parliament’s ‘defiance’ since Saddam is the top man anyway. But Salam has more to say about it all: Nobody inside Iraq even bothered to tune in to hear what the parliamentarians had to say, while Al-Jazeera thought it was worth live coverage. But the Iraqi government did make it worth while for them. Who would have thought that they would reject the resolution? My money was on the Iraqi Parliament accepting the resolution and Saddam reluctantly giving the OK because that was the “will of his people”. Now I am very interested in the speech he will make to “justify” the acceptance of the UN resolution despite the recommendation of the Iraqi Parliament. (not that he has to justify anything or listen to recommendations, but since the whole thing was public he will make his views known, he likes to give speeches).
I may share Salam’s opinion but I can only imagine what it is like to be there:
As much as I find the resolution unfair, provocative, unrealistic in it’s demands and timeline, vague enough to allow for all sorts of traps I hope saddam does accept the resolution. Only to buy us time. It is a lose-lose situation for the Iraqi people no matter how you look at it. The USA is still talking of regime change, I think Iraq will not go past the first 30 days before the USA shouts “foul”. And in a case of war I do believe that if saddam has any biological or chemical weapons he is very likely to use them on his own people to give the CNN and Jazeera the bloody images everyone doesn’t want to see.
It’s not just a question of whether it is right or wrong to fight war with Saddam. The blogosphere has been throbbing with arguments for and against. On this blog we know which course of action to defend. So far the Big Picture, that we are used to seeing both in current affairs and history, rarely includes the individual (usually he is the one driving it, often by means of oppression and violence). Salam’s lone voice reminds me of millions of human tragedies that do not get played out on the world stage.
The blogosphere may be one way of redressing the balance. Reading Salam’s interpretation of events has had a tremendous impact on my understanding of reality of the war on Iraq. I cannot conceive of such information originating from the traditional media. Not only because I do not have faith in their abilities and motivation, but simply because they have not been designed to fulfil such role. They correspond to the Big Picture view of the world, together with historical analyses, diplomatic discourse and political decisions. The media claims of unbiased reporting and enlightenment through controversy ring hollow as there is a mismatch between their explicit role and understanding of their own limitations.
So Salam’s blog is important, not only in the context of the current international events. For now, I just hope that individual voices will become audible more and more.
This is truly terrifying. It’s almost as if, in addition to the Fabian socialists, a parallel group of Fabian fascists was loose in Europe – except they actually found a way into the bureaucracy to steer it.
– Brad Ems
For me, the highlight of last weekend’s Libertarian Conference in London was the after-dinner talk delivered by Richard Miniter.
Richard is one of those people who has a resume so chocked full of impressive achievements that it leaves one wondering how he manages to fit it all into one life. As well as being an award-winning business journalist he is also an expert on security matters and will shortly be publishing a book on America’s terror war with Al-Qaeda.
He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the New Europe.
His presentation was utterly captivating, not just because of the breadth and depth of his knowledge but also due to his style of delivery which makes every person in the room feel as if he is talking to them personally. During the hour that he spoke, I heard not one cough, nor saw one fidget, nor even one yawn stifled.
So fascinating and important were Richard’s insights that they are worth replication here, if only in a précised form. There is no way I can do the presentation full justice, nor replicate it in its entirety. I was far too interested in what was being said to bother with the distracting and unseemly practice of taking notes.
→ Continue reading: Miniter’s World
Putin really laid into the EU and reporters about his handling of Chechnya. He’s certainly got a clear idea of what it is he is fighting.
I’d say Russian and American interests are being driven ever closer together at the same time both are diverging from the EU. This is definitely one of the developing features of the geopolitical landscape to watch closely.
It could well be the defining global political feature of the 21st Century.
Glenn Reynolds pointed out an article in today’s New York Times on the 4th day of student riots in Iran.
What? You haven’t heard? Presumably that’s because the news media thinks we’re more interested in whom is buggering whom in Buckingham than in events of real import? Yes. Of course. That must be it.
The Iranian government has given a sentence of death by hanging to an academic, Hashem Aghajari, for what Americans would call an exercise of his First Amendment rights. If profs in the USA think they are losing those rights simply because someone criticises them, they should consider Iran, where the State can make you lose your head instead of just your temper.
The student protests have spread to other cities and seem likely to continue unless the medieval mullahs stomp on them, an action which would just polarize any remaining fence sitters. The Iranian students are living proof there is a liberal, tolerant 21st Century face to Islam crying out for escape from the rule of fundamentalist fruitcakes.
News media everywhere should be pushing this story with as much alacrity as possible. No reasonable person wants to see blanket hatreds grow. This is precisely what al Qaeda wants. If they have any strategy, it is to bring about the war of civilizations in hopes they can win by expending more lives than we in the civilized world have a stomach for. They are not sufficiently versed in history to understand how terribly mistaken they are or exactly how apocalyptic such a war would be for all… but most especially for them.
We must let the average guy on the street know there are Muslims out there who are just like him or her; people who want to live their lives, worship in their faith, exercise basic liberties… and most importantly, allow others to do the same.
My feelings of hope for Iran are not new. Even in the days immediately following September 11th I told friends Iran is different. There is hope for it. It was never as crazy a place as the rest of the Medieval East; it has an educated populace which understands what a civil society is about. One way or the other they will find their way out of the swamp Khomeini led them into.
I do not think their own government is quite so evil as others in the region. I do not believe Iranians will sacrifice their own children to the past and there is no other path but that of massive and violent repression if they are to block reform.
If I knew an appropriate Muslim phrase (other than Inshallah, which is a bit weak for what I wish them) I would say it for those young Iranians who seek the blessings of Liberty.
I guess “good luck and godspeed” will have to serve.
Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all
– Nikita Khrushchev
The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual
– Adolf Hitler
At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for the greater good
– Ted Kennedy, 2002
There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual
– Benito Mussolini
We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society
– Hillary Clinton, 1993
All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person
– Vladimir Lenin
Thanks to James Knowles for compiling these quotes
As I checked the on-line version of the Evening Standard, a London daily, for an update on yet more travel chaos in the capital, I ended up in the newpaper’s chat room. The posts covered a range of topics from strikes in the UK to German economy, Gordon Brown, the EU, etc. I was fascinated by the following opinions and encouraged by an unexpected degree of common sense they contained.
On Gordon Brown, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer:
Comparatively other European economies are worse off than ours… for now. The strikes [ed.note: London tube drivers, fire fighters, airport staff] were inevitable. As soon as Brown started raising huge amounts of tax (direct, indirect, stealth, overt, personal & corporate) and making such a great play out of how he was intending to chuck vast quantities of cash at public services without insisting on reform, the unreformed public sector was always going to demand its ‘fair’ share.
In a way, we can thank Brown. He has finally proved, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that old-fashioned socialism with a Treasury-centred tax-and-spend doctrine is a failure. In the past, plenty of excuses have been trotted out about how enough money wasn’t spent to really make a difference. Now, Brown has thrown unimaginable amounts of money, particularly at the NHS… and there is no visible benefit.
It is long past the time when Brown should put the brakes on spending until reform has been carried out. He is throwing good money after bad… our money. He intends to raise taxes further and further because his pride won’t allow him to admit that he has got it wrong. He will end up sacrificing British jobs, industries and competitiveness on the altar of his own enormous ego.
Great Chancellor? Ha! The man has the economic instincts and ability of a whelk.
On German economy:
It’s Economy has tanked. Many small Businesses are closing down due to massive tax and bureacracy. The Unions have way too much power here and the cost of employing people is outrageous. We need a Maggie Thatcher here to deregulate everything and make Germany competetive again. The only light at the end of the Tunnel is the success of the Euro.
Reply: Christ, it must a f***king dim light then.
On the EU:
Every new regulation from the EU seems to add to the pile, and the language of the EU is that Britain should become more like these countries, not that Europe should become more competitive.
[ed.note: to a Europhile in the thread] Do you understand? Do you see why so many of us find your seemingly blind adoration of all things Euroepan so laughable?
What we have now [in the EU] is a ‘club’ for failed socialist politicians where ineptitude, corruption and waste are rewarded by monolithic undemocratic structures. The main political agenda is set by France, whose selectivity in implementing the outcomes are legendary and Germany, which is drowning under the very rules it has helped to create.
How sound is that?! 
There is an interesting posting by David Farrer over at Freedomandwhisky, about the now quite familiar experience most of us have had of buying an incredibly cheap airline ticket. David talks of the Edinburgh to London route, because although Edinburgh and surrounding parts is the Freedom & Whisky target-rich commentary environment London is obviously the centre of the universe and he has to visit it from time to time to keep in touch, but of course it’s the same for everyone.
One of the reasons airplane tickets can be so cheap is that buying and selling them has got so much cheaper. You can now buy airplane tickets on the internet at a price that fluctuates from day to day – even hour to hour or minute by minute – according to the vagaries of supply and demand.
This is one of the most characteristic uses of computers in our time. A new business has not in any obvious sense been invented. What’s happened is that an old one – ticket touting – has been re-invigorated. And I think I’m right in saying that the same principle is now being applied to cinema tickets, and of course the package holiday trade has been doing this kind of thing for years.
This experience surely helps to spread libertarianism. Oh, I don’t mean that, as soon as you’ve booked your ticket for your last-minute emergency trip to Athens to get your mad uncle out of jail and been flabbergasted by how little you had to pay for it, you experience an uncontrollable desire then to log in to amazon.com and purchase the collected works of Murray Rothbard. What I do suggest is that several very important libertarian memes, about such things as the fact that prices are a totally subjective matter in no way dependent upon the history of how much it cost for the thing being sold to be made in the first place, and concerning the general desirability of free markets as the best way to coordinate complicated collective activities (such as a hundred or so more people all deciding to share the same plane trip to Athens – tomorrow morning at 6 am) surely are being popularised by these kinds of arrangements.
Note the word “collective” there. Collectivism not only messes with individual activity (because that’s its nature); it also can’t now do collective activity nearly as well as voluntarily co-ordinated individual choice-making.
The plane trip has already been decided upon by the airline, and they can’t now cancel it. The taking-off and landing slots, the crew, the maintenance and the petrol have all been committed to. Whether you are on the plane or not makes hardly any difference at all to the airline’s fixed costs. What does one less empty seat cost them? So if there’s a chance they could maybe fill the plane in a last minute rush by damn near giving away the seats, it makes sense for them to try to do just that. So, you get your bargain ticket.
An airline ticket futures market, you might say. My point is: computers are now turning everyone into Gordon Gekko. Gordon Gekko’s opinions are accordingly that much more likely to spread to everyone.
That’s not an original thought, but it is quite a thought.
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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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