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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Oh dear:
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is concerned that the Government has yet to make it clear how it will ensure that the UK has a seamless broadband infrastructure to avoid a divide between rural and urban areas, as figures show that for many small businesses broadband speeds aren’t adequate.
This is the latest incarnation of a story that has been running for years.
There are advantages to high population density. That is the reason cities exist. For telecommunications, the advantages are shorter wires and more customers per cell, so the per-user costs of broadband are lower. People in rural areas will have to pay more for such things. But why put up with such mathematical truths when there is subsidy to be shared around?
It should be possible to discuss racial genetics dispassionately and honestly in a public forum. But it is not. That is simply an empirically derived conclusion gained from running Samizdata for 10 years… it.can.not.be.done. Sorry but that is the inescapable truth. Racists are the perfect example of Churchill’s definition of a fanatic and unless you immediately show them the door and boot them through it, discourse in the comments section will quickly become untenable.
So Samizdata will continue to delete and ban racists when they leave comments and no apologies will be made for that. Our house, our rules.
For another article pertaining to why we will not tolerate racist discussions on Samizdata, read this.
Bourgas, Bulgaria. Hmmm.. “As the relationship between alcohol and health is a complex one and drinking patterns can differ significantly between countries, our strong recommendation to you is to go to your national website where the information provided is relevant to your own national drinking context and in your own language”.
I think that translates as something like “The peoples of Europe are about as likely to agree on what responsible drinking actually consists of as they are to levitate spontaneously to Venus, or to save the euro”.
Do drinking contexts have to be national? (Of course not. In my experience, international drinking contexts are often the best). Can I have my own personal drinking context?
Nannying is universal, however. As is the fact that Flash websites suck.
Unless, of course, you are saying that people can freely come to these islands providing they are not ill, don’t ever require homes or need education then it is fine because these services are not benefits.
Pretty much, yes. I think that people should be able to freely come to these islands to earn a living, and then should be required to pay for their own housing, schooling, and healthcare in the free market when they need it. As should the natively born. The government spends huge sums of money on these things, and all three of them are worse in quality for almost everybody than they would be if the government did not spend any of this money.
– Michael Jennings, spelling out exactly what folks in these here parts most certainly do think.
The internet has been buzzing for a while about the incident of a woman, Emma West, who, as shown in a video, shouted abuse at people on a tram. It is not exactly clear from the clip what might have led to this, but regardless, it is pretty nasty and a young child sits nearby as she delivers these words. She has, according to reports, been subsequently arrested and charged.
Some people out there in the blogosphere are outraged by this turn of events – that West has been dealt with by the authorities, I mean. Initially, the libertarian in me agreed wholeheartedly, regarding this as an appalling attempt to enforce codes of conduct, including speech, in public places. It does make me deeply uneasy and I wonder whether the law would have come down like a ton of bricks on her had she just left, say, litter on the floor.
The blogger Old Holborn expresses such a view, for instance. Some people seem to suggest, in fact, that people like this woman have been provoked beyond endurance by the impact of mass immigration. Well maybe, although as a supporter of the freedom of people to move from A to B – so long as they do not expect state benefits – I don’t see why immigration should be halted because it offends people like this woman. After all, given that she lives in London, and that it is, thankfully, a cosmopolitan city and one of the financial capitals of the planet, she will have to face up the chance of meeting lots of foreign-looking folk on a fairly regular basis, immigration or not.
I had second thoughts about this business, however, when I considered that under the old Common Law (which libertarians often praise), and other laws too, an offence of “breach of the peace” might apply to this woman’s conduct; such a situation should, perhaps, involve no more than a rap over the knuckles from a magistrate and told to be of good behaviour. The same used to apply to people who got very drunk and disorderly, etc. This would not have anything specifically to do, as such, with being politically correct, as far as I can see. (There may have been elements of PC-ness in this case, of course.). The issue would be simply whether her behaviour was deemed likely to cause disorder, and of what the risk of that really was.
Also, from a property rights point of view, if a train/other service is run by a private company, say, then I would argue that the train company should be free to decide such matters, just as, in a perfect liberal world, pubs and clubs and other such places could so decide. (Alas, such principles have already been partly destroyed as in the outlawing of smoking in privately owned commercial premises). If I own, say, a theatre, and I saw a customer shout abuse of any kind at another in the bar, then I’d be within my rights as the owner of said property to kick the people out and if necessary, ban him/her from re-entering.
The context is also important in such cases, or it can be. It is one thing, maybe, to trade insults with someone in a fairly open place; it is another business if you are on a confined space such as a train carriage or small office and have to hear such abuse, in close proximity. The smaller the space, the more good manners matter. Indeed, think of how the word “civility” and “civic” run together – manners are a function of having to live close to one’s fellows. Institutions such as navies, where people have to sleep cheek by jowl, understand this point almost instinctively – hence all the seemingly petty rules.
These are issues where a healthy civil society is one in which certain behaviours are internalised, reducing the need for rules on such conduct to be enforced by things like police. We should not need to legislate so that mothers do not swear in front of their young children while verbally attacking strangers, or dumping litter on the pavement, or spitting, or urinating in public. And to a degree, the fundamental problem is that this internalisation of moral conduct has been hit by a variety of forces, including the Welfare State, breeding an often oafish, whining sense of entitlement. And it also leads me to the view that one of the most effective ways to restore civility is through private, non-state ownership of public spaces.
By the way, on a related topic, I can recommend Edward Shils’ classic, The Virtue of Civility.
Here is what London’s Metropolitan Police say about stop and search:
Being stopped does not mean you are under arrest or have done something wrong. In some cases, people are stopped as part of a wide-ranging effort to catch criminals in a targeted public place.
A police officer, or a community support officer must have a good reason for stopping or searching you and they are required to tell you what that reason is.
Reasons include that the police officer thinks you are carrying drugs, or there has been violence or disorder in the vicinity.
It is safe to say that stop and search is a really bad idea. It is reasonable to expect to be left alone by the authorities when you are going about your lawful business. However:
Of the Reading the Riots interviewees, 73% said they had been stopped and searched in the past 12 months – they were more than eight times more likely than the general population in London to have been stopped and searched in the previous year.
Reading the Riots is a report by the Guardian and the London School of Economics who interviewed 270 rioters to find out why they said they rioted. One could argue that cause and effect are reversed; the rioters are criminals and that is why they get stopped and searched a lot.
Theodore Dalrymple, who I do not think is right about everything but is right about a lot, analyses what he calls the underclass in his book Life at the Bottom. Reading through some of the quotes from rioters in the Guardian, his analysis rings true. The essence of it is that people have decided that bad things just happen to them and it is not their fault. Their view of themselves as victims is reinforced by their social workers who get their ideas from articles in the Guardian.
From the Guardian’s report of the research:
Rioters identified a range of political grievances, but at the heart of their complaints was a pervasive sense of injustice. For some this was economic: the lack of money, jobs or opportunity. For others it was more broadly social: how they felt they were treated compared with others.
This sense of being treated unfairly is exactly the victimhood mind-set. As for jobs, Dalrymple writes:
the unemployed young person considers the number of jobs in an economy as a fixed quantity. Just as the national income is a cake to be doled out in equal or unequal slices, so the number of jobs in an economy has nothing to do with the conduct of the people who live in it but is immutably fixed. This is a concept of the way the world works that has been assiduously peddled, not only in schools during ‘social studies’ but in the media of mass communication.
So stop stopping and searching because it is a good idea anyway, but they will find other excuses to riot.
Equal time for each candidate (no playing favourites), no audience to make animal noises, serious questions from people who are not media hacks (the A.G.s of three States – including the key States of Virginia and Florida) and no stupid stunts such as hand shows or video links to media plants.
Each candidate given time to express their opinions on serious matters – just that, nothing else. With even the order people spoke in determined by lot.
Not hard to think up – yet no previous debate did that.
And the “Candidates Forum” on Mike Huckabee’s show did do this. So a pat on the back due to former Governor Huckabee.
How did the candidates do?
Well Jon Huntsman did not show up (so he gets a fail) and Gary Johnson does not seem to have been invited (the one demerit that can be given to Huckabee), as for the rest……
Ron Paul showed his age (both in his thin voice and in the difficulty he had hearing what was said to him) – but he did advise people to read Bastiat’s “The Law” (perhaps the best reading advice any candidate has ever given). He also understood that the Welfare State is unsustainable (as well as being unconstitutional), but also that just waving a magic wand would not wish away the problem of the millions of people who have grown to depend on it – hence the need for transition programs. However, when questioned about terrorism he hinted (did not formally state – but hinted) that America being attacked was the fault of American policy overseas – and that is both vile and just plain wrong.
Governor Perry had some sensible ideas (on energy and on education) – but (as usual) was undermined by his inability, unless speaking from a prepared text, to speak in public (sorry but that is part of the skill set for a candidate).
Rick Santorum spoke with true passion about the things that really matter to him – the social issues (abortion and so on). This will appeal to those who share his passions – but, of course, turn everyone else away from him.
Michelle Bachmann had a lot of good things to say (and some less good) – but she also had that oft mocked (by Jon Stewart and co) fixed look in her eyes. I am certain there is something wrong with her sight – indeed I would not be astonished if it turned out she could not clearly see the people she was talking to. I know poor eyesight should not be relevant – but the look on someone’s face does matter. On budget issues Congresswomen Bachmann was good, on illegal immigration her hard line will alienate some people (especially as it is clear, from her whole manner, that everything she says is sincere – so when she says that eleven million people are going to be rounded up, that is exactly what she would do).
Governor Romney was the opposite – his look was perfect (straight at the people he was talking to – with a look of intelligent concern), his voice was perfect also – exactly the right pitch and so on. Content is not really his thing (deliberately so – as it would give the Obama people ammunition to fire at him in a general election, should he win the nomination), but his presentation was ideal. A very good performance.
That leaves Newton ‘Newt’ Gingrich.
The American Gothic (for that is what he is – an incredible mixture of good and bad in both policy and his personality). Speaker Gingrich’s personality is the opposite of mine – to him no position is unwinnable and he is certain that he is the person who can achieve victory. He could be surrounded by a legion of enemies – and be astonished at his good fortune in so many enemies falling into his grasp.
I should despise the man. After all on policy he is as mercurial as Romney (accept that Governor Romney adapts his positions to suit the audience he is trying to reach, the ultimate democrat, small “d” – whereas Gingrich is always restless, always seeking new ideas, even if they contradict some of his older ideas, and is not wildly interested in saying what he is expected to say as he has total confidence in his ability to convince people that he is right), and in personal conduct…..
Governor Romney appears to have no vices (none whatever), no human is without sin – but “Mitt” appears to be as close to being without sin as it is possible for a human being to be, even his changes of policy are a sincere effort to win the support of the voters, and he tends to keep specific promises he makes to voters if he wins an election. Whereas to list the personal failings of Speaker Gingrich would take quite some time – indeed there was so many things that Democrat attack dogs appear to be confused over what specifically to attack him about, especially as, under the normal rules of politics, a Republican who has committed adultery or taken money from Fannie Mae, or has used political connections for his own advantage in office (and on and on) should slink away in shame (for a Democrat to do these things, and much worse, is fine as far as the media are concerned – but Republicans are held to a different standard).
Yet Gingrich shows no shame whatever… → Continue reading: The best American Presidential debate so far was not a “debate”
Via Japan Probe comes the news that 14 luxury sports cars were involved in a recent pile up. This will have been expensive. The crash took place as the cars were cruising along at (what for a supercar is) the rather sedate pace of about 90mph. This will have been embarassing.
My Japanese isn’t up to much but the video seems to suggest that the pile-up took place on the ‘China Road’. I cannot help feeling there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
Reading this piece, linked to by Instapundit today, we see that politics in the USA, and in fact everywhere, is a trialogue rather than a dialogue. All parties to the trialogue (definitely including me) believe that the other two camps are wrong, and many in each camp believe that the other two camps are actually one camp.
The three camps are:
Camp 1: Capitalism is fine, so long as the government stays in charge of it and does a few more of the right things and a few less of the wrong things. The mixed economy is fine, if only we can just mix it right, and meanwhile preserve confidence that all will be well. No need for radical change. Trust us. No, we’re not convinced that’ll work either. Camp 1 is very powerful, very clever, very unwise. For now.
Camp 2: Capitalism is an evil mess. This crisis was caused by capitalism – naked, unregulated, unrestrained – being let loose by neo-liberal fanatics. What should be a poodle has become a wolf. Do whatever it takes to make capitalism a poodle again. Yeah, yeah, we need a bit of capitalism, to make stuff, but not nearly as much as we’ve been having lately. Anyone who gets in the way … boo! We hate you! No, we don’t think that’ll really work either, even if the people were willing to give it a go. They won’t, so boo! And if they did, it would fail horribly, and we’d have to blame capitalism even more. So … boooooo. Camp 2 is very stupid, but horribly numerous.
Camp 3: Capitalism would be great, but what we’ve had has not been capitalism – unregulated, unrestrained, as hoped for by us neo-liberal fanatics – but capitalism mixed with statism in a truly horrible way. What we’ve seen in the last few decades has been crony capitalism, capitalism with politicians in its pocket, so that whenever a big chunk of capitalism looks like failing, most notably a big bank, the politicians squirt more money at it. Which ain’t proper capitalism. Meanwhile, capitalism even of the crony sort makes better stuff. Capitalism, the real thing, should also be allowed to make better money, the kind that is allowed to fail if it does fail. The adjustment process will be horrific. No, we’re not sure that will work either. If we could do it, it would work great. But will we ever be allowed to do it? Camp 3 is right. But maybe not numerous enough or clever enough (maybe not wise enough) to win, and prove itself right. → Continue reading: The three way argument
People who know me are most likely sick of my ranting against the Economist magazine, but an article in the present edition deserves to be noted – as example of establishment statist folly.
Under the title of “Poor By Definition” we are told that the Chinese government has adopted an international measure of poverty (support for international government, European-world-whatever, is one of the defining features of the establishment to which Economist magazine writers belong) which will mean that one hundred million extra people will get various forms of government benefit. This is “good news” – “for them” and “for the economy”.
Let us leave the World Government (world definition of poverty, claim of entitlement…) stuff aside – like its support for the European Union, the international statism of the Economist is too demented (and too unpopular – outside a narrow international elite) to be worth further comment. I will just comment upon the social and economic claim being made in the article.
One hundred million MORE (not less) people getting various forms of government benefit is a “good thing”. Someone can only suppose it is “good for them” if they have ignored all the careful examination of what welfare dependence does, to individuals, families and whole communities. Works such as “Losing Ground” have been out for some time – but if the Economist magazine writers have not yet got up to speed with Aristotle and Cicero (who made similar points about the Greek and Roman worlds) it is perhaps too much to hope they would have read and understood more recent studies on how just handing out benefits undermines people – destroys families, undermines communities by destroying self help and mutual aid. And on and on – the growth of the “underclass” and the destruction of such institutions as the family among large segments of the population (the poor) all over the Western world, has been a central element of the history over the last 40 to 50 years – but the Economist magazine writers have totally missed it.
As for “good for the economy” this is the spend-our-way-to-prosperity fallacy that the Classical Economists (such as J.B. Say and Bastiat) thought they had killed off – but got a zombie rebirth with the influence of the late Lord Keynes. As Hunter Lewis points out in his “Where Keynes Went Wrong“, what we call “Keynesianism” (all the central fallacies) had been refuted long before Keynes was even born – even Karl Marx (not known as a hard core “right winger”) laughed at the absurdities of what is now called “fiscal and monetary stimulus”. However, neither the works of the Classical Economists or more recent works (such as those by W.H. Hutt.., Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig Von Mises and many others) have had any effects on the minds of the international elite – because they have never read such writers. Their education is confined to nonsense and, being intelligent (but not wise) and hard working people, they absorb the nonsense and it remains with them for the rest of their lives. They base all their policy opinions and proposals on a foundation of nonsense – which they learned (with great attention) in their early years. They are (falsely) taught that rejecting common sense is the mark of the “intellectual” (putting them above the common herd of humanity) – and so they reject common sense (basic human reason) with a passion, embracing the absurdities they are taught, perhaps, because what they are taught is absurd.
Lastly the Economist magazine article declares that the money is better spent on expanding welfare schemes than on Chinese banks. An odd statement considering that the Economist magazine has been the leading defender, in the English speaking world, of credit bubble banking and government bailouts. From the rather limited interventionism (corporate welfare) suggested by Walter Bagehot (third editor of the Economist and enemy of then Governor of the Bank of England who, quite rightly, thought that Bagehot’s suggestions would encourage all that was bad in banking) to the “unlimited” (their word – used repeatedly in articles) money creation (money creation from NOTHING) that the Economist magazine has supported in relation to bank bailouts in the United States and for bank, and national government, bailouts in the European Union. Again for the Economist magazine to attack money being thrown at the banks (anywhere) is very odd. The last demented spit of a demented article – the product of an intellectually bankrupt elite who are pushing the world towards bankruptcy. Not just economic bankruptcy – but social, cultural and moral bankruptcy also.
“Sir Jasper Finch-Farrowmere?” said Wilfred.
“ffinch-ffarrowmere,” corrected the visitor, his sensitive ear detecting the capitals.
– from the short story Meet Mr. Mulliner by P. G. Wodehouse, quoted by Stephen Fry, in an essay by him about Wodehouse published by the Independent in 2000.
Leo Hickman of the Guardian is apparently angry (as Bishop Hill mentions here) that the Spectator published an article by sea level expert Nils-Axel Mörner, an article I recycled the concluding paragraphs of as a(n) SQotD here on Thursday, and Leo Hickman isn’t the only one. The general mood in the CAGW camp is: get Mörner!
To this end a commenter (“schoolswot” – today 11:10am) at Delingpole said this of Mörner:
This is the guy that claims that dowsing works but doesn’t actually want to prove it?
To which commenter “rastech” (circa 1pm) replied:
Dowsing does work, and you can prove it yourself (everybody can do it, some are just better at it than others).
The guy that taught me how to do it (yeah I was surprised I could do it), was a water well driller. He told me exactly where the springs were that he was going to drill, where two springs crossed, their depth (18ft and 24ft), how much water an hour they would produce to start with (it improves the more you pump), PLUS, where there was an even better spring to drill, if those two didn’t work out (it would have been twice as expensive to drill it, as it was almost 50ft deep) too reliable, as they were both in sandstone (but ideal for drinking water as it is beautifully filtered – you should taste the tea!).
He was spot on (you know when you hit a spring as the colour of the rock changes as you go through it – I watched every stage from start to finish on many wells with him, as all my neighbours had boreholes drilled by him and I helped him with them, as he got me practicing the dowsing on them).
Let me guess, from a position of complete ignorance and inexperience in the subject, you are an ‘expert’, right?
Well don’t feel bad about it, I felt exactly the same until I felt that damned divining rod dive for the deck with me holding it.
PS. What convinced me to try him, wasn’t a money back guarantee. I didn’t have to pay him AT ALL until he had delivered a good water supply. He got years of work in the area from that borehole, and he never let anybody down.
So, it’s now officially official. Dowsing, like cold weather, is now right wing.
All this in a comment thread attached to a Delingpole piece about Jeremy Clarkson, and about how all the shouting about Jeremy Clarkson is really about diverting attention from the fact that the recent public sector strike, some time last week, was a failure. Although, Guido reckons Clarkson is now laughing all the way to the bank. They haven’t so much diverted attention from the failure of their strike as given a ton of free publicity to someone who said, admittedly in his characteristically OTT manner, that the strikers were idiots.
Please try to keep your comments on topic. The topics being: Leo Hickman, the Guardian, Nils-Axel Mörner, dowsing, whether tea really does taste better if made with water filtered through sandstone, James Delingpole, the BBC, public sector strikes, Jeremy Clarkson, whether it’s okay for Jeremy Clarkson to joke about people being taken out and shot without really meaning it, Guido Fawkes, how to get tabloid publicity by the ton, paper money collapse … well, I didn’t mention paper money collapse until now, but I thought I ought to.
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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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