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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I read Perry de Havilland and David Carr writing in Samizdata how Britain must resist the EU and defend its civil liberties against Blair’s rapid elimination of traditional constitutional common laws. Yet at least some of the UK media also realises this and there is surely a possibility to fight the tide of creeping repression and backdoor Euro socialism. But if a powerful and rich country like Britain, with long traditions of freedom, has found itself in a situation with enemies of liberty within and without, what chance does the Czech Republic have against Brussels? What chance Poland? What chance Hungary?
When these countries join the EU, they will find their advantages of low labour costs are quickly legislated away in the interests of French and German Trade Unions, and they will be left to compete with the Western Europeans but with antiquated infrastructures and underdeveloped services. Worst of all, they will have their developing culture of liberty that started growing post-Communism, smothered in socialist inspired EU ‘directives’.
And I see many people in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia who just cannot wait to be swallowed alive by these same people. No sooner do they finish slaughtering each other so that they can have self-determination for their respective societies, than they are cueing up to surrender everything they have won at such a terrible cost…and to who? To a bunch of smarmy Eurocrats in cheap suits who promise the same thing as Natalie Solent wrote about regarding Africa.
The EU will seduce the political class with ‘largess’ and make them good little ‘subsidy slaves’. It makes me despair how we will ever see proper capitalist systems develop to provide us with lasting liberty and a decent standard of living, if even Britain has ended up where it is now. The economy of just Greater London is considerably larger than all of former Yugoslavia…what chance do small Slavic societies have of ever developing a wealthy capitalist order once we are under the influence of that increasingly authoritarian bureaucratic nightmare in Brussels?
Receiving junk snail-mail and spam e-mails can certainly be irritating, particularly when it is yet another pyramiding scam/’teen-slutathon’/debt consolidation/shyster solicitation/weepy group-hug chain letter or whatever the annoyance-of-the-week is. As a result the urge to legislate over what is frankly a pretty trivial matter is on the agenda on both sides of the Atlantic.
Matthew Edgar wrote a worthwhile piece on this as it pertains to the USA. In Britain, ever since 1832, Election Rolls have been for sale and have been used by marketing professionals as a source of information and ‘list cleaning’ ever since. In this age of spam, we sometimes forget that marketing is an essential aspect of capitalist economics. Restricting it with regulations that go beyond anti-fraud measures adds unnecessary costs that we, the consumer, inevitably end up paying in the end via more expensive products.
Under the absurd British Data Protection Act, the recording of marketing data has been made subject to ever more bureaucratic red tape and imposed cost. This has made Election Rolls a particularly valuable source of reliable data. Yet now there are plans to require local authorities to produce a severely edited version of the Electoral Roll, which will be available for sale, whilst the unexpurgated version will be available only to the government and for ‘election purposes’… in other words, parties will have unrestricted access to your personal information in order to market their political candidates, yet people who want to sell you something you might actually need are told to get stuffed. If I dislike a piece of junk mail I can bin it; if I an annoyed by e-mail spam I can delete it… oh how I wish we could remove the intrusions of our political ‘masters’ so easily.
There is some humour to be had at the prospect of Hobart’s Funnies chasing blogista to the cognoscenti Natalie Solent across the sandy parts of Normandy.
If you have any idea what this cryptic remark actually means, you really do need to send an e-mail to Natalie and explain it to her at great length.
Over on muslimpundit there is an interesting analysis of Arafat‘s self-serving objectives for Palestine and his ‘credibility gap’. Adil Farooq administers boot-to-groin therapy where it is needed as usual.
Over on Cal Ulmann‘s blog Where HipHop and Libertarianism meet, he points out a simple truth
Bush says quitting drugs will stop terrorism. Well then why can’t marijuana that is grown on American soil be given to medical marijuana patients?
Quite so.
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule
– H.L. Mencken
Editors note: you need to read this carefully in order to ‘get it’
From Reporter J Baxter, Boston (BS NewsNetwork)
The Boston Celtics announced today they have signed a new power forward after several trial workouts. Standing tall is 6′ ‘7″ power forward Sam Ladenson, who demonstrated explosive charges through the paint, and a distinct ability to draw crucial fouls. Contract details are expected to be ironed out by the end of the day.
Celtic General Manager Red Auerbach said Ladenson is a triple threat–a mixture of Bob Cousy’s ball handling skills, weaving through bigger men almost unseen, Havlicek with his stop short 20 foot jumper, and Bill Russell, who could take on the big men in the middle whenever necessary. Auerbach envisions Ladenson’s presence permitting the Celtic’s leading scorer, Paul Pierce, to take more uncontested shots inside the three point stripe.
Celtic officials indicate Ladenson may well get some playing minutes during Tuesday’s game in New York. Remarked one team official—“It is not often such talent just appears out of nowhere.” Ladenson has traveled with various European and Central Asian teams, but apparently decided to give the NBA a shot. Overseas he was known for his ability to disappear until a critical big shot was needed.
Ladenson’s agent – M. L. O’Marr – well-known for having a singular keen eye for unusual and special talent, said negotiations are underway with the Celtic brass for a partial year contract, and a contract extension option for the 2002-03 season and beyond. O’Marr said Ladenson was looking to put down permanent roots. The team’s press agent did indicate that Ladenson had one contract stipulation—that he would be joining the Palestinian Olympic team for the Summer games. O’ Marr expected such contract details to be minor concerns, and predicted his client would fare well in the negotiations.
The Celtics, currently a half-game behind the New Jersey Nets, are making their first serious run at the Eastern Division title since the departure of Rick Pitino to the college ranks. Celtic scouts have privately conceded that Ladenson may expect trouble in the middle from the game’s biggest man in Shaquille O’Neil, but O’Marr was quick to point out Ladenson’s quick moves when surrounded.
Ladenson was not available for comment.
Over on National Review, Jonah Goldberg remains in the hole and appears to be digging with all his might. He writes in The Libertarian Lie:
Virginia Postrel suspects that my “anti-libertarian outbursts” stem from a desire to get her and other libertarians to link to my site. Well, we can put aside the suggestion that it’s a web-traffic bonanza to get linked on something called “Libertarian Samizdata” (I actually lose traffic when I indulge my anti-libertarian bent). But Postrel seems to believe my arguments are so silly that they’re better explained by some sort of cynical ploy.
Gosh, I wonder why she might think that? Could it be that she actually has a genuine objective philosophical underpinning to her ideas? Just a guess.
In fact, he makes libertarianism sound like a warm bath you can slip into to melt all your political cares and concerns away. And that’s all fine. Except for the fact that when criticized, all of a sudden libertarianism becomes this deeply complex body of thought with all sorts of Kantian categories and esoteric giggling about “rational fallibility” flying all about (many of my blogger critics actually sound like self-parodies). On offense, you guys are like the “Drink Me” bottle in Alice in Wonderland, or Morpheus’s pill in The Matrix. But on defense, you turn on the smoke machines and cloud the room up with faculty-lounge verbiage. You can’t have it both ways.
Of course not for a moment did I expect Goldberg to actually recognize Karl Popper‘s theory of rational falliblism. Those sort of ideas inevitably lead to the rejection of irrational dogmatism of the sort which underpins Mr. Goldberg’s flavour of anti-intellectual intuitive conservatism. So what does his defence upon finding his views challenged intellectually amount to? “No fair! You’re using big words!”
Thank you for living up to my expectations, Jonah. And by the way, if you are going to insult the Samizdata, you could at least have given us a link! Sheesh.
Prof. Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago opines against the Internet in his article The Daily Me, due to its ability to present ‘customised’ news that is pre-filtered to suit the readers preconceived ideas.
Of course the power to personalize makes life much more convenient and in some ways much better. But from the standpoint of democracy, the rise of “The Daily Me” is a mixed blessing. For democracy to work, people must be exposed to topics and ideas they would not have chosen in advance.
[…]
In short, good citizenship requires far more than countless editions of the Daily Me. Democracy is undermined when people choose to live in echo chambers of their own design. The task for the future is to find ways to ensure that the Internet reduces, and does not increase, the risk of social fragmentation.
This does indeed raise some interesting points and I too have sounded off about how unwise it is to reside in a news-ghetto in which one is fed a diet of insular pabulum. Yet the ghetto that I had in mind is actually the mainstream media which, even more in the USA than in Britain, is in reality a near intellectual mono-culture of recycled received wisdoms presented within a profoundly statist meta-context. Nothing in print or on TV even approaches the variety of superb insights, loopy conspiracy theories, pedantic disections and pointers to obscure stories that can be found on-line.
Thus I would argue that there is a subtext to Sunstein’s remarks. Perhaps the source of his disquiet is that people will no longer choose to allow themselves to be propagandised quite so easily as was the case when BigMedia(tm) ruled the ink and airwaves unchallenged. I suspect that customised news from the established media’s on-line outlets is not all that perturbs the good Professor. Although news collection remains the realm of well resourced established media companies, the oligopoly of interpreting what the crude news data actually means has been broken forever. Just refer to Glenn Reynold’s article on instapundit a few days ago announcing his millionth visitor (1). I suggest to you that in our own small but growing way, the newsblog movement is contributing to this disquiet in academia who are, even more than the media companies themselves, the distilled essence of the ‘qualified’ purveyors of opinions. Yet the Internet can, and indeed has, provided a true market place for punditry that is aggressively non-deferential, fact-checking and dissecting the ‘experts’ in near real time… and some people out there do not much like it.
The new wave of ‘instapundits’, for Glenn is indeed the one who started humming the note picked up by the ever growing swarm, are saying things the main stream media would regard as commercial suicide regardless of what they actually believe to be true. For example how many mainstream journalists would admit to being profoundly ambivalent about democracy or admit to rejecting the very concept of exclusive national citizenship that Prof. Sunstein thinks so important? Yet that is what I think and I can say so without incurring the ire of a media proprietor. You do not have to agree with either of these views and that is the beauty of it all: I don’t really give a damn either way because I have no pecuniary interest in your views as a reader. I am not selling your eyeball time to advertisers or worrying about ratings, so if you decide the articles on the Samizdata are just so much pixilated flatulence and thus decline to come back, we will still be propounding our views of the world come what may. Regardless of whether or not Cass Sunstein approves, new and controversial voices are indeed being heard: after all, you are reading this!
Thanks to Basia Jedrzejowicz for pointing out the orginal article.
(1) = Editors update, September 2003: Instapundit had its 25 millionth visitor & Samizdata.net is well past one million visitors ourselves
Some people ask:
“Why shouldn’t our government keep out products from third world countries? We don’t owe them a living.
That is right, we don’t. What we owe to them, and to our own people too, is the ordinary right to buy and sell what they please, along with all the other ordinary rights to life and respect for property. Tariffs against African imports mean that we in Britain pay more than we ought and the people in Africa are arbitrarily forbidden from bringing their wares to our attention – it’s up to British individuals whether they buy or not.
So the European Union, having stopped Africans making a respectable living as producers and traders by denying them access to us, then bestows a lesser largesse via ‘Third World Aid’. Adding insult to injury, the EU then expects gratitude from the very people they have discriminated against. Of course what happens is that Africans, now being dependent on largesse rather than their own efforts, take on the character of beggars, whiny when desperate and sullen when temporarily a little better fed. We in our turn take on the character of patronising social workers-cum-lords of the manor. What a pity, when we could be interacting as equals and fellow human beings.
Over on The Fly Bottle blogista Will Wilkinson writes about Totalitarian Chic.
Resistance is futile. You will be commodified. Attack us with ideology and we will sell it as nostalgia.
It reminds me of someone catching sight of my collection of pretty enameled Soviet Political Activists Pins, Red Army Hats and ‘Heroic Soviet Worker’ posters. As he was well aware of my anti-communist background, I saw his eyebrows raise. Heading off his question I interjected.
Headhunters keep the severed heads of their enemies as trophies.
He understood immediately.
In an EU Observer report, the authoritarian nature of the European ‘Union’ is demonstrated yet again as Swedish citizen, Per Johansson, has been expelled from Belgian and can no longer travel in 14 European countries after pasting up an anti-EU poster at a Belgian police station.
The Belgian police in Brussels arrested the Swede, who is an active member of a legal Swedish left wing party, just three days before the Laeken summit. The police expelled the man for only one reason: he had been helping friends putting up the poster, announcing an anti-EU meeting.
Hopefully such cack-handed suppression of dissent will just encourage more resistance against the EU by people who value freedom of expression, free association and reject unaccountable socialist diktats governing every aspect of civil life.
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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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