I hope that if evil days should come upon our own country, and the last army which a collapsing Empire could interpose between London and the invader were dissolving in rout and ruin, that there would be some, even in these modern days, who would not care to accustom themselves to a new order of things and tamely survive the disaster.
– Winston S. Churchill
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February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 Tony Adragna of Quasipundit has some interesting and provocative things to say about Libertarianism. As a Libertarian, I welcome this. Tony is clearly a very intelligent and moral man (and, if he reads this, then I hope he takes those observations at face value because that is how they are meant) and he has done what every intelligent and moral person should do when confronted with any idea or philosophy: he has challenged it and challenged it well. It would be tempting to respond be hectoring him about Libertarian ideas; tempting but unnecessary and probably counterproductive. Tony has obviously been more than a little exposed to those ideas and finds them wanting. As far as rebuttal is concerned, I shall confine myself to a rejection of his use of the term ‘anarchy’ when he really means ‘chaos’. The two concepts are quite different both in theory and practice. But, of all his statements, this, for me, is the most telling:
Whether intended or not, Tony pays Libertarians quite the highest of compliments. He is saying is, your world would be wonderful, if only it were practically realisable. The argument between us, therefore, is not about the worth of Libertarian ideas but about the nature of human beings and the societies they create. But this is not why I applaud Tony. I applaud him because rather than display the reflexive conformity of so many otherwise intelligent people, he has taken the time and trouble to develop a serious critique and that is a good thing. He seeks not to dismiss but to engage. Rather than start a debate with Libertarians, Tony has done something far more significant and laudable; he has started a debate with himself. All philosophy and political thought, of whatever stripe, has one goal: the improvement of the human condition. Welcome to the battlefront, Tony. February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
After nearly 300 years, Spain is regaining control of the Rock of Gibraltar, against the wishes of nearly everyone who actually lives in Gibraltar. The British government plans to “share sovereignty” with Spain. Until recently, Britain has insisted that any deal would have to be approved by the people of Gibraltar in a referendum, as required by Gibraltar’s constitution, but now they appear to be backing off from that position. Gibraltarians are livid, and the Gibraltar government has refused to take part in the negotiations as anything less than equal players. They’ve even made a desperate appeal to the Queen. “Shared sovereignty” is merely a foot in the door. Spain considers anything less than full control to be an interim measure and will continue to claim full sovereignty over the territory. Spain’s foreign minister Josep Pique expressed indignation at the idea of a referendum in Gibraltar to accept or reject the agreement: “Negotiations between two sovereign states cannot be subsumed to the will of 30,000 Gibraltarians. The opinion of 30,000 people will not dictate the will of two sovereign states.” The taint of Franco endures. Britain’s willingness to relinquish control comes partly from Gibraltar’s decreased military significance and partly from a desire to strengthen ties with Spain. According to the Telegraph, Britain wants a closer relationship with Spain to balance the power of France and Germany within the EU, a situation reminiscent of the Habsburg-Bourbon power-jockeying that created the Gibraltar situation in the first place. But Gibraltar was probably the least significant of what Spain ceded after the War of Succession. Why are they so intent on getting it back? A peevish nationalism is certainly a large factor, but just as important is Gibraltar’s tax status. Gibraltar is exempt from the EU’s tax uniformity and, in particular, has no VAT. Pique’s belligerent ravings about smuggling and money laundering are a result of this, and echo the OECD’s criticisms of ‘harmful’ tax practices. Gibraltar is an easy target, since it’s already part of the EU. But other European tax havens are at risk as well. Andorra, though ostensibly sovereign, is a co-principality under Spain and France. Monaco reverts to France if there is no male heir to the throne, and is dependent on France for water and electricity. As long as the EU is bent on spreading bureaucracy and high taxes throughout Europe (all EU countries are members of the OECD), the situation looks bleak for Europe’s tiny tax havens. February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
The Demopublicans are at it again. A campaign ‘reform’ law we all thought was born dead has been revived. It’s a congressional effort to deflect attention from the fact virtually every member raked in the Enron largesse while it lasted. The rhetoric is they are reforming. The truth is they are passing a law aimed at holding onto the Demopublican power monopoly. Jim Babka of Real Campaign Reform reports:
Of course Samizdata’s ruling elite are not in the USA, so we’ll back the Libertarian Party candidates all we want up to election night. Perhaps we’ll add a raised finger logo after our VOTE LIBERTARIAN posts to show our opinion on the collective intelligence of Washington. Americans can send messages to their congresslime via the Real Campaign Reform web site. February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Since I made the reference to Tom Lehrer it is only fair to explain it. Or rather, let Tom Lehrer explain it in his own words.
For those who are unfamiliar with Mr.Lehrer’s work, the preceeding is from the CD “That Was The Week That Was”. He was a solo piano/vocalist performer of his own biting and hilarious satirical songs; wrote music for the TV series “That Was The Week That Was” (Tee Dubhu Three); and who could ever forget his stunning songs for Sesame Street like “Ly”? If you aren’t familiar with him, you should be. Go forth and purchase. Erratum: a reader points out it was “The Electric Company” and not “Sesame Street” for which the “Ly” was written. February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Natalija and Kathy’s point that two women are on the ‘pro-porn’ side while two men are on the ‘anti-porn’ side has interesting connotations. Forty or fifty years ago it would have been different. Nice girls were prim and proper and never thought of such things so guys read Playboy… or so guys were brainwashed. But then came the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Tom Lehrer, Supreme Court Decisions, Free Love and Feminism. Radical Left Feminists have always been basically anti-pornography. Because of it, they have often found themselves in bed with the Extremist Right Christians. This has caused a role reversal. Women were liberated from old stereotypes and seem to have promptly used their new liberty in the pursuit of happiness. Meanwhile, Left men were brainwashed by the feminazi’s that porn is demeaning to women and should not be allowed. Right men were just beaten even harder with the same Old Testament whip. This time around the girls get to lead the charge against the establishment. I think our lasses have already started rolling up the left flank… February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Well if the boys can have Inter-blog Gun Wars, why not Inter-blog Porn Wars? And contrary to what one e-mail said, I do not write these things just to wind people up…
But in truth I do think the issue lies on the edge of some very fundamental questions about human society and what makes it work, or not. Kathy Kinsley has joined the battle, giving William Sulik a forceful handbagging. I agree with Kathy and digging out my Oxford dictionary find a much more straightforward definition of pornography:
As Kathy also mentions, it is interesting to find that women seem to be the ones who tend to the ‘pro-porn’ side of this argument. Last time I wrote about this issue and, as has also been the case this time, generated a big spike in e-mails, women overwhelmingly agreed with me whereas men were more evenly divided. Also I do address the matter of the more extreme forms of porn in my latest pro-porn frolic. Like many others I have poked around the Internet and seen some of the more alarming stuff but I cannot help thinking that it is much less significant that many seem to insist. It is a fact that people are capable of astonishing brutality and cruelty, but having seen that first hand on a large scale, I cannot see how people can then conclude when the same things happen on a small scale elsewhere, it must be due to pornography. Why not vodka or anything else you care to think up? I will try to make some time later to answer more of the e-mails and bloggings on the subject that have sprung up overnight. I have a feeling these issues are going to have a long shelf life. February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
The music industry is a wonderful example of how established players in any market often feel they have a vested interest in stasis rather than dynamic change. Rather than see new technical innovations as potential boons, the industry has spent a fortune trying to use the state to defend its existing business models with an army of lobbyists and lawyers, attempting to un-invent the technologies that they (rightly) see as shattering the current structure of its multi-billion dollar industry. Steven Den Beste has a good article on the subject and makes an excellent point regarding the self-defeating culture in the boardrooms of the music industry majors:
A classic case of this syndrome of ‘customer-as-enemy’ was provided by Steve Heckler a VP from Sony Pictures Entertainment in August 2000 who said:
Although Sony tried to apply some damage limitation spin to Heckler’s remarks soon afterwards, this is clearly delusions of grandeur on a spectacular scale and is exactly the mentality to which Den Beste has alluded. The major players think they can translate their wealth into political muscle and use the state to crush would-be new entrants that seek to undermine their businesses. taking out Napster has only encouraged this flawed thinking. Additionally yet more money is being spent on technological fixes which are also doomed to fail due to the ‘Swiss Watch Effect’ (it is cheaper and easier to smash a Swiss Watch than it is to make one): they spend millions on copy protection that will be broken within months or weeks by the worldwide army of Internet linked 15 year old crackers who work for free. Another indication of the scale of ‘wrong-think’ going on in boardrooms is that they do not seem to realise that many people’s CD player is their computer. I might have purchase the new Natalie Imbruglia CD White Lilies Island but I have read that most computers gag on some of the tracks due to copy protection and I do tend to play a CD in my computer whilst I surf the Net. As a result I have not bought the CD. Well I suppose if the company strategy is to make it hard for me to rip any tracks into MP3s, one way of doing that is to discourage me from buying their products all together. Somehow I don’t think that was quite the effect they were hoping for but that is the one they have got. [Update: article amended with Steve Heckler of Sony’s exact remarks thanks to the excellent input of readers Tino D’Amico and Joachim Klehe] February 12th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Patrick Crozier is happy to see the old lags of British terrestrial television being given a run for their money UK Channel 5 has been dismissed by the elite as being a non-stop orgy of sex and violence. Such statements in themselves lay bare the warped priorities of our ‘leaders’ but there is one other problem: it isn’t true. Channel 5 is simply the most dynamic and innovative British terrestrial channel around. It has the best reality TV programme: The Mole And it has some of the best history documentaries around. My favourite has to be Hitler’s Henchmen. Not least because an inspired piece of scheduling led to biographies of Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler being interspersed with shows covering the life and works of John Prescott and Pete Waterman. In fact, Channel 5’s documentaries seem to be giving BBC2 and Channel 4 something of a headache. For many years these stuck up elito-vision channels have been pumping out nothing but revisionist pap. You know, ‘Churchill was a drunken child molestor’, that sort of thing. But then Channel 5 started broadcasting things like “British Heroes of World War 2” (the title says it all). And then “Secrets of World War 2”. In the hands of the elite this would have been all about how Churchill contributed to the slaughter of Russians on the Eastern Front but from Channel 5 it a set of stories about the daring exploits of our ancestors. I do not know if Channel 5’s documentaries are particularly popular. But the reaction (especially from Channel 4) has been revealing. To “Secrets of WW2” Channel 4 countered with “Battle Stations”. To “Heroes” they countered with “Commando”. And to a fine 3-parter on the Falklands they dusted off a 10-year old documentary of their own and put it out as a spoiler. But the really interesting thing about this is the way the content has changed. Quite simply, Channel 4 has sobered up, smelt the coffee and dumped the revisionism. Commando was an hour long show but contained little more than half an hour’s actual information. Could it be that the missing half an hour was the revisionism they had to axe to get the ratings? Patrick Crozier February 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
The British International Development Secretary Clare Short did a bit of off-message, and hence truthful, commentary by pointing out that the French state is one of the primary obstacles to Africa’s economic development due to their insistence on Europe-wide protectionist trade policies. Now whilst I usually regard Short as a subjectivist economic ignoramus and thus part of the problem, not the solution, she is quite right in her remarks in this subject. The fact is that French policy in African being aimed at maintaining French control rather than fostering African development. My family has had quite a lot of first hand experience of doing business in Africa and I know this to be true on many levels. Socialists have the gall to claim to be the people who care about the impoverished Third World and yet put duty on African goods which can run as high as 300% in order to protect the EU’s grotesque Common Agricultural Policy. The EU are in truth the architects of misery, poverty and starvation if Africa and France is the ring leaders of this ignominious association of the statist, regarding their preposterous concepts of Francophone prestige in Africa as being more important that African prosperity. Clare Short is just another statist clod but she is quite right that France’s strong presence in Africa is a truly malign influence. I could have told her that 20 years ago. Who cares of people are living in abject poverty in Chad just so long as things are status quo on the Quai d’Orsay.  February 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
In a recent interview General Norman Schwarzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness – towards the people who has aided and abetted the terrorists who had perpetrated the September 11th attacks on the United States. He said: “I believe that forgiving them is God’s function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting.” February 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
“Blog this, you Bounder!” “Bloggin’ ‘ell!
A veritable verisimilitude of Bloggers from Blighty Samuel Johnson Only a very few spaces left. E-mail for details if you are a blogger in the British Isles. February 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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…well, I must confess I do rather enjoy seeing 
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