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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In one of the most beautiful avenues of Budapest, Andrássy Road, is a museum dedicated to the two 20th century horrors, Nazism and Communism. House of Terror (Terror Háza) does not differentiate between the two toxic ideologies. After all, they are the same thing with different packaging – one in black, the other in red. That they hate and fought each other is not evidence to the contrary, merely evidence of territorial in-fighting.
In winter of 1944, when the Hungarian Nazis came to power, hundreds of people were tortured in the basement of the house in 60 Andrássy street. In 1945 Hungary was occupied by the Soviet Army. One of the first tasks of the Hungarian communists arriving with the Soviet tanks was to take possession of the location. The building was occupied by their secret police, the PRO, which was later renamed ÁVO, subsequently ÁVH (names for political police). The entire country came to dread the terrorist organisation. The ÁVH officers serving at 60 Andrássy Road were the masters of life and death. Detainees were horribly tortured or killed. The walls of the cellars beneath the buildings were broken down and transformed into a prison.
After the end of communism in Hungary, 60 Andrássy Road has become a shrine, the effigy of terror and the victims’ memorial. At least in Hungary they recognised that the ‘past must be acknowledged’. The exhibition is a visual feast, both in the artefacts displayed and in the symbolism of their arrangement. The rooms have themes and objects in them are meant to create an atmosphere as well as communicate facts. Alas, the visual beauty conjures an image of a retro nightmare – distant and unreal it masks the brutality and dull reality of communist terror.
There is an exquisitely designed hall dedicated to Soviet forced-labour and slave camps. There are reminiscences, photographs and the display cases contain relics, the original paraphernalia used by the people detained by the Soviets and taken to gulags. And yet, it does not squeeze your heart and make you sick to your stomach. The muted light and the droning voice of the audio guide fail to convey the tragedy. By trying to describe the suffering of many thousands, they miss the opportunity to make us feel the suffering of one, to put ourselves in their place, imagine our lives being arbitrarily and brutally torn apart. And to remember that this did not happen in some kind of parallel universe, that this is history next door.
I wanted to know the people whose meagre possessions I was looking at in the display cases. Their names, stories, family, circumstances, fates. I believe that the best and only way to understand Communism and Nazism is through the lives of individuals who were affected by it not through a historical methodology or chronological exposition.
And so we need to be told about their neighbours reporting and spying on them, children betraying parents, we need to hear the tales of endurance, mercy and resistance that no historical narrative can capture. We document history in such impersonal terms and yet there is nothing more powerful then actions of a man. We look for overarching explanations but historical causality without human beings and their behaviour leaves the patterns of history indistinct, lacking in colour and texture. → Continue reading: House of Terror
There are many aspects of the European Union that I dislike but I have never quite shared the view that the euro is due to collapse at some point, even if one or two member nations revert to domestic currencies, which at this stage looks highly unlikely barring an Asian-style collapse. Of course, I certainly think that imposing a single, monopoly currency on widely diverging economies at different points of the economic cycle is fraught with danger but that, remember, applies to single political jurisdictions like Britain or the US as well as blocks of different countries, which is why I am interested in the idea of free banking and multiple currency systems within a single polity. People who scoff at this idea have to argue why, if this is so weird, you can operate in a world with different forms of computer software, etc. Here is another interesting article on the idea.
Of course, I know that the prime reason for objecting to the euro for many people is not the economics anyway, but its place in the political agenda of those who wish to forge a European single state, relegating the separate nations to the status of provinces. But if people imagine that the economics of the euro-zone are going to blow the whole thing apart, they may have to wait a long time. A couple or more years ago, remember, it was argued – with a lot of convincing detail – that the euro would fall apart and countries like Italy would be forced to quit. That has not happened. The Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, with columnists like Evans Ambrose Pritchard and Liam Halligan, have argued several times about the euro’s demise. Halligan is arguing this again. Well, try as I might, it is quite hard to imagine at the moment that the euro is about to fall to pieces. Try telling that to anyone who has bought euros with sterling or dollars lately. We might soon be reaching the point where, to borrow from Mark Twain, the comment is that rumours of the euro’s death have been much exaggerated.
I know that ID cards will help me to prove more easily who I am
– Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP, the Home Secretary, proving to us what she is.
The Libertarian Party convention has, as most of us expected, selected Bob Barr as our candidate. As I have been on the road the last month I have not had an opportunity to do much in the way of research on the man. I intend to correct that in the ensuing weeks.
The major party election landscape is about as dismal and disgusting as it has ever been. I would not support John McCain (author of the infamous anti-First Amendment limitation on political speech McCain-Feingold Act) if he were running against the Satan-Cthulu ticket. Had Hillary Clinton been the Democratic winner, I might have given her luke warm support simply because she is a rational political animal and thus predictable. She would be less likely to do something immature and stupid. True, she would have been as bad for our ideals as McCain, albeit in different areas, but at least she is not John McCain.
I might add that the bitter pill would have been considerably sweetened by the probable ascension of a very old and dear friend to top policy wonk in space affairs. There is barely day light between her ideas and mine on what has to happen to NASA over the next 20 years. It would have been a joy to have her in a high position, but that is not to be.
So… I am firmly back where I have been as a voter for the majority of my majority: it is the LP candidate or nothing. So who is Bob Barr? Is he a suitable carrier of our banner?
For those who know even less than I about the man, he is a former Republican Congressman from Georgia who became a card carrying Libertarian about a year and a half ago and seems to have accepted our ideas and platform in toto. His legislative history prior to that has some flaws from our perspective but he does not appear to have ever been a truly hard core statist. He does indeed appear to be someone who was philosophically close to us on many issues and finally crossed the line, decided some of his prior stands were in error and ‘outed’ himself as one of us.
We know we are not going to put our man in the Oval Office so our candidate requirements are different from those of the Republicans and Democrats. We need a communicator and a teacher. We need someone who will attract reasonable media attention. Our candidates job is to move another slice of the citizenry towards a belief in the importance of individual liberty. He must educate the electorate on the death of a thousand cuts the ‘major’ parties have been applying to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Purity is not as important as effectiveness.
I will naturally make up my own mind but at this point it is Barr or stay home. I am leaning towards supporting him and I am interested in the views, pro and con, of other libertarians. Can Bob Barr reap what Ron Paul has sown for us? Can he consolidate those gains and extend them over the next five months?
The ruling can be found here.
Via Ezra Levant. Mr Levant’s name, his own persecution, and that of Mark Steyn are both almost certainly familiar to Samizdata readers and probably familiar to an increasing number in the English speaking world. For that reason they may fare better in their own struggles with the witchfinders than those less widely liked.
On May 29th, SpaceX tested the Falcon 9 first stage in its Macgregor Texas test stand with
five engines.
Rather impressive, n’est-ce pas?
The Economist ran a comparison of Senator McCain and Senator Obama this week. Senator McCain was damned with faint praise for his ‘orthodox’ supply side deregulation proposals (things the Economist itself is supposed to believe in) and then the magazine (sorry ‘newspaper’) dismissed proposals to deregulate health care and other areas of life with the following statement.
“America is already a pretty deregulated place”.
So the thousands of pages of Federal, State and local regulations that are strangling life in the United States, do not really exist?
And people wonder why I hate the Economist. The writers know nothing about the political economy of the United States – or anywhere else. Ignorance is not fatal if someone understands that they are ignorant (for example, I am ignorant of spelling and grammar) but to be ignorant and to think oneself knowledgeable is a fatal combination.
However, how can the writers of the Economist be anything other than ignorant – when they are the products of modern universities?
I recently heard a Professor of Economics from the University of York on BBC Radio. This person suggested that a good way to reduce inflation (so that the Bank of England could reduce interest rates) would be to take yet more things out of the (already rigged) Consumer Price Index. The Professor was not being ironic – the man really thought he was making a sensible suggestion.
The students of such people go on to be writers for the Economist.
Over at ConservativeHome there’s a survey suggesting the social conservatives are doing the Guardian’s work for it by trying to make one’s position on abortion a party-political issue in Britain. The next generation of Conservative MPs support a lower time limit for abortions says an email questionnaire to 225 candidates, answered by just under half. I’m as irritated by this sort of spinning of some very doubtful evidence as I am by the contrary stuff – to the same effect – from the Guardian, which has recently started to suggest (as a measure of its desperation) that no-one who favours abortion choice should vote Conservative.
What really winds me up, though, is the mendacious presentation of their position by the proponents of this staged debate. The legal position of abortion in Britain is the sort of muddy compromise people with a clear ideas about the question are quite right to resent. But the approach of many abortion-banners (as they actually are) is anything but frank, and reminiscent of the step-by-step strategy of the anti-smoking lobby. For every principled (usually religiously principled) pro-lifer, there is someone who secretly shares their conviction, but makes the case for just a little cut in the time-limit now “because science tells us that babies of that age can now survive outside the womb”.
It’s nonsense. Without a lot of help a two-year-old can’t survive outside the womb. And the prospect of those few born at the limit of current paediatric technology surviving uncrippled to live a normal life is tiny even with a massive input of medical and nursing resources. But worse, it is mendacious nonsense – they don’t care about “viability” in the slightest. What they want is a plausible excuse to cut the availability of abortion just a bit.
So I have a test to flush them out. It is provided by that ghastly muddy compromise. Britain doesn’t in law permit women to choose abortion, unlike most rich countries. It is an extraordinary construct of bureaucratic paternalism.
What British (mainland) law does is to permit pregnant women to petition doctors to give them permission to abort on the grounds that it will be bad for their well-being to carry the baby to term. With two doctors assenting to this opinion in writing (that is, as the doctors’ professional opinion – the woman’s view doesn’t matter in law), you may have an abortion. Where the ‘time-limit’ comes in is that those two doctors can only approve an abortion to preserving the patient’s social or mental well-being before a certain point. After that terminations may only occur where there is a substantial risk to life or health, or in cases of severe foetal abnormality.
So in practice, in the UK you have a choice only if you approach the right doctor armed with the right argument. A naive or poorly educated, woman who seeks help from her GP when the GP happens to oppose abortion, or who mistakenly calls a pro-life charity canvassing itself as offering help to the unexpectedly pregnant (as opposed to one of the pro-choice groups who do the same thing) may never find out how to get an abortion, or at least not until it is too late. The late abortions themselves aren’t occuring as a lifestyle choice – which is another mendacious narrative element in the pseudo-debate.
My test is this: Next time anyone says they want the time-limit for abortion cut to because “science shows” the baby can survive outside the womb after X weeks. Say, “And of course you support changing the law to allow abortion on demand before that date, don’t you?” Then watch them flounder.
How remiss of me to forget – today is the anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France. In a few weeks’ time me and the missus are heading to Honfleur, the French port town in northern France, for a long weekend. It is one of my favourite bits of France.
We should never forget the sacrifices made on that day and in the weeks thereafter. A relation of mine was in the British beach landings, and he lasted the entire campaign right through the Battle of the Bulge, the Rhine crossings and later, as part of the post-war occupation of north Germany. He went back to Normandy a few years ago and said the same family were working in a cafe near Caen as when he was a young lieutenant in the artillery. Oh, and he married a German girl from Hamburg, who was a lovely woman without a trace of bitterness.
As several commenters like to point out here, the UK parliament, having shed so many powers and transferred them to Brussels, is now more like a branch office of a large company, in which the great majority of the powers are exercised from the centre. The branch office staff may try to kid themselves that they are important, and voters in national elections may take the view that they are wielding meaningful power by voting, but the truth is that they are not.
Also, the workload of politicians as serious legislators has seriously declined. They are essentially implementing laws that have been, to a great extent, decided by someone else. So it makes sense, perhaps, to cull the number of MPs and cut their pay to reflect their diminished status.
I should have linked to this before, but Tory MP Peter Lilley has argued for precisely this: cutting MP’s salaries to reflect their weaker powers. Mr Lilley is a reminder that at least some MPs really get what has happened. As I occasionally point out, as MPs become more pointless, their behaviour, perks and corruption become less tolerable. Lilley’s proposal may not come to anything, but it is a meme worth spreading: these people are unimportant, and should be remunerated accordingly.
In an ideal universe, MPs would not be paid by the taxpayer at all, of course. We can always dream.
I watched Iron Man a few days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Downey is excellent, as are the rest of the cast. And how can you not like a film that starts off with a bunch of US soldiers driving along in a truck listening to AC/DC?
One thing I noticed is that Audi must have wangled some kind of product placement thing: all the main cars that feature are Audis. One of two aspects do not quite work and the physics of the energy system that powers the suit is not something I am fit to judge, but it seems a bit far-fetched. But what the heck.
Jim Henley, a comics buff, has a good review of the film. Mind you, I still have not entirely forgiven Jim for sliming Mark Steyn over the recent Canadian free speech kerfuffle a few months ago. Not his finest hour.
“I’m not sure what is more sickeningly ironic to hear at a food summit – the thoughts of a brutal tyrant such as Robert Mugabe or a would-be genocidal murderer such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Tough call.”
– Stephen Pollard
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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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