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 image above, which I took about an half an hour before writing this article, shows an employee of Britain’s premier cancer hospital, The Royal Marsden, standing by the front door having a cigarette. This is a man who works in a cancer hospital and comes face to face with the savage realities of what his habit vastly increases his risk of contracting, on a daily basis.
This picture says something very profound about human nature. One thing is for sure, it says more than any lengthy exegesis I could write about the futility of trying to use the violence of law to mandate behaviour the state feels is in the regulated person’s “best interests”. Ponder that.
You remember the DMCA? It’s that Digital Millenium Copyright Act that Americans concerned with freedom are getting so steamed up about. As usual the EU are not far behind in providing an equivalent for us over here to have bad dreams about. Chris Bertram of Junius has linked to an article by Julian Midgely which claims that:
…university lecturers or school teachers will need to appeal to the Secretary of State on each and every occasion that they need to make a copy of part of a copy-protected CD for teaching or research. Librarians, archivists, private individuals, and the disabled can expect to be similarly encumbered.
We’re based in London, and this is about London at one of its most glorious moments, the one that gave us William Shakespeare (1564-1616):
The London theaters represented a revolution in culture; they were apparently the first capitalist businesses in the world built entirely around entertainment. The heart of this cultural business model was the actors company, in which a group of actors invested money in a common stock of properties, costumes and plays. Each company of actors obtained finance from an impresario, who got a share (usually 50%) of the box office. Shakespeare was 10% owner not only of the Chamberlain’s Men but also of the Globe (that is, the building and real estate itself.)
Theaters were “big business” for the time. Costs included hundreds of very expensive costumes (velvet cost 1 pound a yard), plays (which if bought freelance were usually purchased outright for about 6 or 7 pounds), the salaries of “extras” and minor actors on stage and the salaries of about 30 paid hands (including musicians, actors, prompters, bookkeepers, stage keepers, and wardrobe keepers) behind the scenes. Hundreds of playbills, pasted up around the City, served as advertisements. The range of business affairs was so complex that each company had an administrator, usually called an actor-manager.
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So just keep all this in mind next time you attend a Shakespearian play—what you are seeing was NOT created as “art for art’s sake.”
Friedrich of 2 Blowhards dot com wrote that after himself reading Peter Hall‘s book Cities in Civilization. I wonder if the people – scriptwriter Tom Stoppard in particular – who made the film Shakespeare in Love, the running joke of which is how similar Shakespearean London was to present-day Hollywood, had also read this book. I possess a copy myself. Friedrich’s piece reminds me that it’s about time I read it.
In general, 2 Blowhards looks really good and I’m going to be reading that some more also.
That sounds like the name of some old British movie… but what I am referring to is the Libertarian Alliance meeting held every last Friday of the month at Brian Micklethwait’s place in Pimlico, London.
The speaker was samizdata.net contributor David Carr, delivering his views on the Middle East, specifically the Israel-Palestine troubles. It was possibly the most heavily attended Last Friday at Brian’s I have ever seen, literally standing room only… which made the final standing ovations for David’s outstanding talk all the easier 
Standing room only for David’s talk!
Paul Coulam and Adriana Cronin: the intellectual hardcore
Judith Hatton and Amoy Ing: libertarian thought across the generations
I don’t know who “Shams Ali” is exactly, but he has established something called the The World Court of Justice, and so far as I can judge, his ambition is simple. He wishes to be the Supreme Ruler of Mankind. I know the feeling. I once wanted that job myself, and I reckon I’d probably still take it if someone offered it to me.
Mr Ali has got be a Muslim of some kind, because of being “Ali” and because he writes of “the prophet Jesus”, which (David Carr tells me) strongly suggests a Muslim.
But, from a libertarian point of view Mr Ali is by no means completely to be dismissed. Have a read of this, from his World Court of Justice Comments on The National Security Strategy of the United States of America Report (17 September 2002).
The only difference between politics and ordinary crime is that an ordinary criminal uses his own force to interfere with freedom, person or property of other people against their will, while a politician uses the powers of government for the same purpose.
That at least is a classic libertarian meme.
Politics is incompatible with economic freedom, peaceful relations with other states, and respect for human dignity.
A bit vaguer, but still in our territory.
Political freedom is nothing else than a socially acceptable form of organized crime. Only 100% impartial non-political government, that favors neither majority nor minority, but governs by application of strict rules to fundamental principles can guarantee economic freedom, peaceful relations with other states, and respect for human dignity.
And that is when it starts to become confused. Who exactly is going to do the applying? Evidently not “politicians”, but somebody will have to. What is a “non-political government” when it’s at home? What “fundamental principles” are these? Perchance, the Law of Sharia?
Meanwhile, the global triumph of liberty (which is what Shams Ali says he wants) means that liberty puts a stop to – conquers, you might say – the existing political arrangements of the planet, that is to say, national governments and their various collaborations and aggregations, such as the UN. And that is a lot like establishing an alternative world empire. This man could simply be an utterly deluded and utterly orthodox Muslim fanatic with a vivid imagination. But maybe his fantasies are more interesting than that.
If you wish to communicate your views on these matters to Mr Ali, you can email him, or you can write to him, at the following address:
The World Court of Justice
PO Box 10121
Birmingham B27 7YS
UK
Who says the British imperial spirit is dead?
They have an engine called the Press, whereby the people are deceived.
– C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 292
Let me write a little fiction for a moment:
John is in his late twenties and an Internet power-user. He uses it for work (he is an independent consultant of some sort), he uses it for games (he is a dab hand at playing on-line, feared amongst the community of Alien vs. Predator 2 gamers) and, being a guy, he likes to trawl through Usenet newsgroups to find pictures of who ever his babe-de-jour is… he is currently rather keen on Britany Spears (my, my, she is aging well).
One night, he visits one of his favourite newsgroups: alt.binaries.celebrities.nude
The list of articles builds, then he casts his eye down the displayed article headers, selecting several posts which indicate they contain images of Britany Spears. He sees one that says ‘Britany Nude’. ‘Hmmm, probably another fake,’ he thinks to himself, ‘no doubt some twit has used PhotoShop to put the divine Miss B’s head on the body of some porn star’..
He clicks ‘extract binaries’ to download the images that people have posted in 120 or so articles and while that chugs away in the background, he launches Excel to catch up on some work he has been putting off.
A few hours later, he goes back to the directory in which his UseNet reader saves extracted binary images and sees a long list of 120 .jpg and .gif pictures. He starts to check them out, keeping the good ones, junking the dross and any duplicates. Then he comes to a file called nudebritney.jpg. He opens it and his lip twitches up in disgust. It is a scared looking little girl, maybe 12 years old, naked and posed suggestively with her legs apart, a web address ending in .ru is written across the bottom of the image.
‘What type of vermin do that to a little girl?’ he growls to the un-hearing screen. With a couple clicks of the mouse, he deletes the offending image and moves on to the next, which turns out to be a picture of the real Britany Spears dancing with a snake at the MTV awards. The angry scowl fades and the smile reappears on his face.
About 2 months later, there is a knock on his door and there is a tax inspector with a warrant. They seize his computer as part of an ongoing tax related dispute… two days later they return, not to charge him with tax evasion but with child pornography offenses! They used an un-delete utility (such as Norton Utilities) to recover supposedly ‘erased’ files and found a file called nudebritany.jpg.
Is this a far fetched scenario? Unfortunately not.
There is a fascinating article in Wired magazine about the terrifying approach taken by the FBI towards eradicating child pornography on the Internet:
As one FBI agent put it, “Even my friends can’t believe there’s a federal offense that’s so easy to commit. One click, you’re guilty.”
Possession of child porn is a strict-liability offense, like possession of cocaine. Possessing it, though, does not only mean you have intentionally downloaded and stored the images on your hard drive. Under Title 18 of the US Code, the felony is committed the first time sexually explicit images of minors — defined as anyone under 18 — appear on your screen. If your computer is searched, even files that have been dragged to the trash or cached by your browser software are counted as evidence. Some offenders have been sent to jail for “possessing” images that only a computer-forensics technician can see.
So even if you receive an unsolicited spam mail with attached pictures of child porn and delete the images without opening them, you cannot prove you did not look at them but the state sure as hell can prove they were on your hard drive once!
Much as RICO statutes in the USA were passed to fight against the Mafia but ended up being used against anti-abortion activists and environmental protestors, so too will laws against Internet kiddie porn be used to criminalise people the state just happens to want to criminalise, regardless of whether or not they have the slightest thing to do with the problem of child pornography. This will be hard to stop… after all, who wants to stand up and protest when that risks you being called an ‘apologist for child pornographers’. Nasty.
The Internet gives us many and varied ways to fight the state’s constant attempts to regulate our lives and livelihoods, but is also gives the state new ways to attack us. The state is not your friend.
The other night around Perry’s house after a few cans of beer and the usual chit chat I said that I was thinking of making a “my favourite music CD”. Perry is always trying to get me to post things on Samizdata, so he suggested that I come up with my list, post it on the blog and ask others to do the same. In some way this may give us an insight into the types of people that read this blog. I am not sure what we will get out of this, but it’s worth a go. So please feel free to post your lists as comments to this post. If we get enough, maybe a super list of the favourite music can be compiled.
Now I have put together tapes of my favourite music before, but they have always consisted of music that I was into at the time. What I wanted to do this time was put together a list of songs/tunes that I would take with me to a desert island if I was given the choice (desert island disc’s style). Now I have started to think about it, it is actually harder than you initially think. I had to make one or two rules for my self just to make things easier. I limited the number of songs to 15 (thats about what you can fit on a CD) mainly because I didn’t want to calculate the lengths of the songs and add them together to see if they would fit and the second rule was that you can only take one piece of music by any particular person.
When I was thinking about what to put on it, three tracks came straight to mind. These have always been favourites of mine since first hearing them, and have always been near the top of the pile of CD’s or records that get played, now all I have to do is get another 12 songs and I’m finished. I have been ill for the last week, so I have had plenty of time to contemplate what I was going to choose. The hardest thing to do was to not choose a song because it was a ‘classic’ song, you know the ones that always get chosen even if you don’t particularly like them, they just make you feel comfortable when you hear them. What I was looking for were songs that I really, really liked and could listen to for the next 10 years (or so). Also I do listen to a lot of music, and I have chosen not to put any of the new music I am listening to at the moment into my list. This is purely because it hasn’t survived the test of time yet, I like it now but may not like it in a years time. Anyway, less of my ramblings, here is my list of my most favourite music. If you don’t like my choices, I don’t care because it’s my list. Make one up and post it as a comment.
Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the waves
Golden Brown – the Stranglers
Norwegian Wood – The Beatles
This Woman’s Work – Kate Bush
Visions of You – Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart with Sinead O’Connor
Mr E’s Beautiful Blues – Eels
Night Boat to Cairo – Madness
Jangle of a Dogs Collar – Butthole Surfers
Ghost Town – The Specials
Sul-E-Stomp – Astralasia & Suns of Arqa
The Rhythm Divine – Yello with Shirley Bassey
59th Street Bridge Song – Simon and Garfunkel
Danse Macabre – Saint-Saens
Stop the Car (12” version) – The Woodentops
Big Noise from Winnetka – Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen
USA: HIGH
UK: SEVERE
This meme hack is brought to you by the voice of critically rational libertarianism, www.samizdata.net. We now return you to your regularly scheduled torpor.
Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, has delivered a rather splendid kick in the orbs to the pro-€uro/anti-sterling campaign. Greenspan said whilst speaking in the City of London (London’s powerful financial district):
The City of London is thriving outside the eurozone and has not suffered from Britain’s decision not to join the single currency in the first wave […] and was a sterling place to do business. London has stayed on top in the provision of financial services despite the euro…
Now I am no fan of the whole concept of central banking (and hence no fan of central bankers) but the fact is it would be bonkers to deny that Alan Greenspan is probably, hell, certainly, the most influential voice on the subject of economic affairs alive in the world today. His remarks are therefore going to cause some gnashing of teeth in certain circles, which has to be a good thing, as the pro-€uro campaign is predicated upon turning the abolition of sterling from a constitutional issue into a purely practical economic issue… and thus having Greenspan point out that Britain is managing just fine outside the eurozone is not what Brussels’ fifth column in Britain want to see splashed across UK newspapers.
Ah, but you should have seen the size of the one that got away. It was this big I tell you!
A detective working for the Metropolitan Police specialist crime branch fell victim to crime four times in an hour-and-a-half. His car was broken into and his bicycle stolen before being beaten up and having his moped vandalised.
The crime spree started outside his home in Fulham (which is a nice area!) in London. First, his CD player had been taken from his VW Golf. Then his bike was stolen as he went to report the car break-in and to call his insurance company. He took his moped to look for the thief but, after trying to detain a youth he saw riding his bike, he was attacked from behind by two others and violently kicked in the face and body.
John Cullen, the hapless policeman in question, said it was “frightening” that his attackers had little respect for people, including the police. He added:
“I don’t have any answers to all this but a multi-agency approach is surely urgently needed to tackle this sort of youth offending to protect the public – including me.
But there is an answer! 
With the British government’s approach and policy towards crime, gun control and self-defence, how not very odd that even the police are now victims!
Unless, Mr Cullen considers a 9mm Uzi SMG a suitable ‘agency’ to tackle crime…
Update: Just saw Alice Bacchini’s post about the story from yesterday. How very fast – I only read about it this morning!
Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual
– Thomas Jefferson
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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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