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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day

· Health & medical · North American affairs · Slogans & Quotations · UK affairs

To be fair: I don’t eat food. Food here is so unsafe I decided years ago to subsist only on internet memes.

– Perry Metzger, in response to this breathtaking absurdity.

June 15th, 2020 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)

Samizdata quote of the day

· Philosophical · Slogans & Quotations

“The only corner of the world that you can control is yourself.”

– Richard Cooper, of the “Entrepreneurs and Cars” show he does (he’s one of the “manosphere” chaps out there), talking about the shit-show going on lockdowns, identity politics nonsense.

I don’t buy into all of his views – I am not a big evolutionary psychology fan – but he is on the mark here in this brief broadcast. He looks like a guy on the edge a bit, in a state of despair. I suspect there are an awful of lot of others like him out there now.

June 14th, 2020 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)

Person of colour dares not sign name

· Deleted by the Woke Media · Education & Academia

It shouldn’t affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.

The well-written open letter from the professor with no (safe to add) name has (of course) been cancel-cultured from where it was first put, but I you can read the whole thing here (and I recommend you do). It is also on pastebin, and another link to the text is here.

(I wrote this as a Samizdata quote of the day – h/t instapundit – but decided the title needed to tell you something not in the bit I quoted. Read the whole thing.)

June 13th, 2020 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)

Discussion point

· North American affairs · UK affairs

The far-Left’s attempted putsch in places such as Seattle and the statue-defacing/removal frenzy in the UK, among other outrages, are a delayed reaction not so much to a specific police act in Minneapolis, but because the far Left suffered a major electoral setback in December 2019 in the UK (yes, I get that the Tories ran to the political centre, but it was still a reverse for Corbyn & Co) and also because of the dawning horror that Trump could well retain the White House in November. Trump was on course to win because of factors such as the Russia-gate scandal that wasn’t, the pre-COVID-19 economy, the fact that the Democrats are led by people either out of their minds or losing them to infirmity, etc. So street politics – or “riot ideology” fills the vacuum of political power that parts of the far Left perceive they have lost. (See a related discussion here.)

Related thoughts from Joel Kotkin on the economic drivers of anger (not that he is excusing it).

June 12th, 2020 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)

A list of abuses

· North American affairs · Opinions on liberty

I saw the following list of problems with the US legal and law enforcement system, which taken individually may not appear to be major issues in terms of it being a “systematically unjust” country, but which taken together do tend to suggest there is a big problem. This is mirrored to a certain extent in other countries, such as here in the UK.

qualified immunity;
LEO unions;
LEO militarization;
inadequate civilian oversight;
plea bargains;
victimless criminal statues (e.g. drugs, sex-work, immigration);
occupational licensing;
civil asset forfeiture;
eminent domain (esp in re gentrification);
unaccountable fines & fees, and quota-based policing;
private prisons;
FISA Courts; and
no-knock warrants.

That is a good list for radical classical liberals and small-government conservatives to get to deal with.

June 11th, 2020 | 46 comments - (Comments are closed)

Keep your eyes peeled

· Arts & Entertainment · How very odd! · UK affairs

Julius Caesar, Act III Scene III:

CINNA THE POET: Truly, my name is Cinna.
FIRST CITIZEN: Tear him to pieces; he’s a conspirator.
CINNA THE POET: I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.
FOURTH CITIZEN: Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.
CINNA THE POET: I am not Cinna the conspirator.
FOURTH CITIZEN: It is no matter, his name’s Cinna; pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.
THIRD CITIZEN: Tear him, tear him! Come, brands ho! fire-brands: to Brutus’, to Cassius’; burn all: some to Decius’ house, and some to Casca’s; some to Ligarius’: away, go!

The BBC reports:

Sir Robert Peel statue removal calls ‘targeting wrong man’

Anti-racism campaigners calling for the removal of statues of a former British prime minister have been accused of targeting the wrong man.

There are several statues of Sir Robert Peel, who founded the modern police.

But city leaders said people appeared to be confusing him with his father, of the same name, who opposed the abolition of slavery.

In contrast the Robert Peel of the statue, to quote Wikipedia, “often started from a traditional Tory position in opposition to a measure, then reversed his stance and became the leader in supporting liberal legislation. This happened with the Test Act, Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Act, income tax and, most notably, the repeal of the Corn Laws.” He also, most pertinently, laid down the principles of policing by consent that many forces would do well to re-learn. Oh, and as Prime Minister he “supported William Wilberforce’s Anti-Slavery Bill wholeheartedly” against the opposition of many in his own party.

So there you are. Two Robert Peels, father and son, same name but very different people. This whole statue-toppling thing is stupid but a little mix-up like that did not exceed the base level of stupidity. Easy mistake to make.

The next bit, however…

Despite acknowledging the mistaken identity, campaigners are still calling for the Leeds statue to go.

[…]

Although organisers recognised they had initially referred to the wrong person, they said they wanted it removed because “we should not celebrate colonisers”.

The petition states: “With the legitimacy of current policing in question, the history of policing, its origins in colonialism and its role in suppressing dissent deserves greater scrutiny.

“Peel’s statue belongs in a museum, as part of an exhibition for others to learn about the history of British colonialism.”

Edit: There are two petitions currently running on Change.org relating to different statues of Peel. The first is “Keep the Bradford Robert peel statue” and the second is “Keep the Sir Robert Peel statue in Picadilly Gardens”

As the BBC article states, the petition to remove the statue of Peel in Leeds got its target number of signers. You can see it here.

Peel created the London Metropolitan Police in 1829, the ideas for which he developed while overseeing the British colonial occupation of Ireland. He was pivotal in setting up the police forces which maintained British rule in Ireland and a system which led to the poverty, famine and displacement of Irish people. Colonialism and racism – in this case anti-catholic sentiment – are central to British history. Not only that but with the legitimacy of current policing in question, the history of policing, its origins in colonialism and its role in suppressing dissent deserves greater scrutiny.”

That is an extract from the version they wrote after they were made aware that they had misidentified the Robert Peel depicted in the statue.

June 11th, 2020 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)

The revolting revolting rich

· Historical views · North American affairs · Political Economy · UK affairs

Ed West provided the quote about younger sons of Norman lords which became the SQotD for June 4th. He has now written a follow up piece, “Why the rich are revolting”

Today’s unrest involves two sections of US society, African-Americans and upper-middle-class whites, who together form the axis of the Democratic Party, but it is the latter who are far more engaged in racial activism. The “Great Awokening”, the mass movement focused on eradicating racism in America and with a quasi-religious, almost hysterical feel to it, is dominated by the upper middle class.

I knew that, but I did not know this:

That noble tradition of haute bourgeoisie revolution continues today, especially in the US. The Occupy movement, for example, is deeply opposed to the 1% but largely because they come from the 2-5%; Amy Chua cited figures suggesting that in New York, more than half it members earned $75,000 or more while only 8% were on low incomes, compared to 30% of the city. They also have hugely disproportionate numbers of graduates and post-grads among their members.

The wider Great Awokening, of which the 2020 disturbances are a part, is a very elite phenomenon, with progressive activists nearly twice as likely as the average American to make more than $100,000 a year, nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree, and only one-quarter as likely to be black.

June 11th, 2020 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)

Lording it over history can get out of hand

· Historical Perspective · UK affairs

A Facebook friend of mine put this on her timeline, and after asking, she said I could post this here. I am sure Samizdata readers will appreciate the sentiments.

Since banning and toppling is now the lockdown activity de rigeur, I didn’t want to be left out, so have decided to add to the list:

– The Colosseum – hotbed of slave suffering and anti-Christian persecution. Turn it in to a car park, I say. Whilst we’re at it, the Pyramids and Acropolis didn’t build themselves, so send in the JCBs.

– The Guardian newspaper – founded by a man whose fortune was made on the back of the slave-intense cotton trade. Naughty.

– The Labour party – one of the founding organisations was the Fabian society, which, in the early 1900s called for eugenics and forced sterilisation. Off with your heads.

– Jeeves and Wooster – we all remember how they blacked up as minstrels in one of their episodes? Silence them.

– Most of Southern Spain – conquered and occupied by the Moors for over 300 years, around 1 million white Europeans were sold IN to the African slave trade (well before European colonialisation, Africa had booming slave markets). The historical legacy is everywhere, not least in those colonial place names (Al-Andalus, Al-Meria, Qurtoba) – abolish the lot.

– Scandinavians – what were they up to, sending their vikings over and enslaving our tribes? Actually, add the bloody Normans to that too.

– Mongolia – rapist-in-chief warlord, who had more slaves in his tenure than ever existed in the Western colonial slave trade, and killed 40 million people during his rampages. Apparently, there are 16,000,000 living direct descendants of his wayward penis. No yurts for you.

– Ghandi – Had a few unsavoury things to say about black Africans. No more blacked-up Ben Kingsley for you.

– All of us – that’s right, there is virtually no one alive today who is not the product of what is today considered paedophilia. Women were often married off as children, and started giving birth at 12 or 13, so we should no-platform ourselves and our ancestors.

OR

We could just grow the fuck up and consider that man has evolved faster in the last 3,000 years than any other species on this planet. We have gone from cave dwellers to sending humans in to space in a period of time that is barely a blink in the cosmic scale.

To apply our 21st century morality on our ancestors is so completely ridiculous, as to defy morality or reason. To educate our youth fairly and equitably on our progression is a far more powerful tool than to deny our pasts. This attempt to pretend that Britain has a history only to be ashamed of is not only factually incorrect, but so counter-productive and divisive, that we will make whatever problems we think we have, far, far worse.

Everyone calm down.

June 10th, 2020 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)

Peak Guardian in the Independent, and independent thought in the Guardian

· Health & medical · Media & Journalism · Mindless "Inequality" Blather · Sexuality

Amrou Al-Kadhi writing in the Independent:

What the white supremacist roots of biological sex reveal about today’s transphobic feminism

Thomas Chatterton Williams writing in the Guardian:

We often accuse the right of distorting science. But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight

Edit 11 June: The Independent, perhaps stung by mockery in the readers’ comments, has changed the headline of the article by Amrou Al-Kadhi to “How Britain’s colonial past can be traced through to the transphobic feminism of today”.

That leads me to muse on what the Guardian has lost by the decision of its editor, Katharine Viner, to guard its writers from abuse by not permitting its readers to debate those of its articles they are most likely to want to debate. The Independent was able to see that the original headline to the Amrou Al-Kadhi article was not going down well even among its notably “progressive” readers. The Guardian can see from the number of clicks and shares that the Thomas Chatterton Williams article is getting a reaction – but what? I think it is favourable. I see comments from left wingers who are relieved to hear someone finally articulate their sense of unease and embarrassment at the speed with which the “party line” on social distancing was reversed. But that’s going by the comments of the writers I read and the websites I visit. The Guardian is no less hampered than I am.

June 10th, 2020 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)

Nameless remarks on a private forum…

· Slogans & Quotations

1. I’m fairly convinced at this point that anything I say can be interpreted as racist and staying silent is also racist.

2. Race, on the other hand, is a terrible idea that the woke children wish to set in stone instead of getting rid of. That’s not to claim that genetic ancestry has no impact on people’s health etc., only that skin color should be no more meaningful than hair color, but expressing such an ideal these days will get you canceled by those who claim to fight bigotry.

3. There is an immense amount of actual racism in the world. Which is not good enough since that can be dealt with, if not easily, at least rationally. So virtual racism is the omnipresent threat the revolution needs.

That makes it all so poignant to me is the people who wrote these things have jobs and do not feel they can speak openly. Anyone who thinks there is no culture war going on is simply wrong.

June 9th, 2020 | 66 comments - (Comments are closed)

The Anglosphere and our present discontents

· Anglosphere · UK affairs

Contemplating the riots/demonstrations of the weekend (statues defaced and pulled down, police officers assaulted, social distancing ignored, etc) I ask myself about the extraordinary power of events a thousand-plus miles away in the US to excite supposedly “spontaneous” reactions here in the UK. And yet if, say, French police get all heavy with yellow-jacket protesters, I don’t recall marches of demonstrators in front of the French embassy. Or nor do I see this if or when there are problems in Germany, Italy or Spain (racism is a thing in these countries, after all).

Ironically – and this must drive those of a pro-EU frame of mind nuts – it is still North America, with its rawer culture and politics, its legal similarities to the UK (for good and for ill) that resonates, even in the minds (for want of a better noun) of the sort of folk going on BLM demos. What goes on in France, Germany or Italy tends not to have the same grip on the mind. The Atlantic is wide and the Channel is narrow, but in every other sense, it is the other way around. To that extent, then, the Anglosphere lives, even in the hearts and minds of the far Left.

And even with the lockdowns, there is the same focus in large part on what the US is doing or not doing, rather than say, what our continental European neighbours are up to. One reason for this is that those who want to sacralise the National Health Service face the uncomfortable fact that even in more socialist Europe, healthcare isn’t a state, centrally planned system, but rather more decentralised, particularly in Germany.

June 8th, 2020 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)

An excited delirium of political correctness

· Deleted by the Woke Media · Health & medical

Given the irrational and potentially violent, dangerous, and lethal behaviour of an Excited Delirium Syndrome subject, any law enforcement officer interaction with a person in this situation risks significant injury or death to either the officer or the subject who has a potentially lethal medical syndrome. This already challenging situation has the potential for intense public scrutiny coupled with the expectation of a perfect outcome. Anything less creates a situation of potential public outrage. Unfortunately, this dangerous medical situation makes perfect outcomes difficult in many circumstances.

– White Paper Report on Excited Delirium Syndrome, issued by the American College of Emergency Physicians, September 10th 2009

Ya think?!

When we get to see the bodycam videos of the police officers, we’ll know whether George Floyd had Excited Delirium Syndrome. Had the officers switched off their cams beforehand, that absence (like Hillary Clinton’s missing emails) would speak volumes. If the cams show a calm Mr Floyd ready to be put in a police car, then the officers’ defence of excited delirium will be tossed with contempt. As we’ve heard nothing about the cams from the media, they may not support the narrative.

– in the video we have been allowed to see, a panicking Mr Floyd says he can’t breathe – showing that he can breathe but it’s not doing him much good. Despite his being able to breathe, and so speak, his organs are begging for oxygen they’re increasingly not getting. That fits final-stage Excited Delirium Syndrome.

– His autopsy showed fentanyl and methamphetamine. That drug cocktail is good for giving yourself Excited Delirium Syndrome, especially when it is far from your first time.

I hope we get to find out at the trial, if not before. Till then, if anyone tries to make you swallow the media’s narrative whole, add a pinch of salt.

Meanwhile, this grim subject at least raises a grimly amusing question: are the politically correct experiencing a kind of excited delirium syndrome? Some common symptoms are very much present, especially in the rioters:

remorse… and understanding of surroundings … are absent in such subjects. … subjects are known to be irrational, often violent … delirium and agitation … destructive or bizarre behavior generating calls to police … ongoing struggle despite futility … Subjects are incoherent and combative … delusional, paranoid

Not yet observed in the rioters (AFAIK) are

unusual physical strength and stamina

nor

Impervious to pain

(unless it’s the pain of others), and I don’t think we’ve yet had a chance to observe whether the rioters would show

Significant resistance to physical restraint

or an absence of “normal fear and … rational thoughts for safety”, as there has not been much physical restraint, let alone cause for the rioters to feel afraid. Since we are clearly in the early “sudden onset” stage of “violence and hyperactivity”, it is no surprise we have not yet seen any symptoms from the syndrome’s late stage:

“sudden cessation of struggle, respiratory arrest and death.” (The Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2010)

If we make the diagnosis, how should we treat excited delirium in the politically correct?

the specific physical control methods employed should optimally minimize the time spent struggling, while safely achieving physical control. The use of multiple personnel with training in safe physical control measures is encouraged. … research is needed to establish field protocols and techniques that allow police, emergency medical services and hospital personnel to interact with these agitated, aggressive patients in a manner safe both for the patients and the providers.

I share the writers’ desire for safety all round, but while this research on how to achieve it proceeds, I refer readers to the top-of-post quote: these perfect outcomes are ‘difficult’ – and these US physicians seem to have perfected the art of English understatement. (I assume this belief – that achieving swift safe control is essential, to end the subject’s wild agitated activity that is speeding his own death – is part of why the elected Minneapolis authorities teach their police to use knee-to-neck-hold as department policy.)

A less technical summary seems to be saying the same thing.

Deescalation does not have a high likelihood of changing outcomes significantly …

The subjects require physical restraint (this is because if they continue to struggle it accelerates the death) …

Once the decision to do this has been made, action needs to be swift and efficient …

I feel sure this is the treatment the rioters need. Whether it would have been (or indeed was) also the right (albeit, sadly, too late) treatment for Mr Floyd is something the bodycam videos will tell us.

—-
(In the above quotes, I have expanded ‘ExDS’ to ‘Excited Delirium Syndrome’, ‘LEO’ to ‘law enforcement officer’ or just ‘officer’, and ‘EMS’ to ’emergency medical services’, for ease of reading.)

June 6th, 2020 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
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