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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Vladimir Putin has announced that if NATO does not act in a manner more to his taste in future negotiations, he will take action to let them know he is not to be trifled with by unleashing an arms race.
So Russia (GDP $2.08 trillion) is threatening the EU (GDP $14.44 trillion) and USA (GDP $13.86 trillion) with an arms race?
Who says Russians do not have a great sense of humour? They are famous for it, in fact and this is a case in point. In effect Vladimir Putin is saying “if you do not start respecting me, I will bankrupt my country by producing large quantities of the same weapons that the Israelis consistently turn into confetti using western military technology.” Oh saints preserve us! It is rather like a petulant child threatening to hold his breath until they turn blue unless they are given what they want… except I cannot see why anyone should give a shit if Russia goes blue in the face and keels over due to self-inflicted stupidity.
Modern Russia is rapidly turning into a vile police state, so why pander to this unrepentant KGB scumbag with delusions of grandeur?
A person has only so much time allotted to him, and I hate to waste it reading tripe. I suppose that’s why I rarely listen to politicians’ speeches – why waste time that could be better spent scratching my ass?
– commenter veryretired
The UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Human Rights has recorded the death of 133 women in Basra, 79 for breaking ‘Islamic laws’ and 42 ‘honour killings’, though this does not add up to the total number of deaths. In 2007, the grip of conservative Shi’a militias on Basra tightened after the withdrawal of the British army and hastened the atmosphere of fear that grips the women of that city.
Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: “They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut.”
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was “the best.” But now, she says, it’s “the worst.”
“We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror.”
The control of the militias has resulted in barbaric and violent actions designed to cow the inhabitants of Basra and enforce the power of the gangs. The punishment of infractions is designed to ensure that the militias maintain their control over their neighbourhoods, their families and their women. Such examples are deemed to be required by the militia since well-educated, civilised women had more freedom and, therefore, more to lose. The insecurity of the militia fuels their violence:
One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra’s police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another.
“I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly,” he says. “There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads.”
“When I came to Basra a year ago,” he says, “two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant.”
The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.
Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: “We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you.”
The security forces in Basra are unable to protect the population from the actions of the gangs. Western charities may wring their hands and salve their threadbare consciences by blaming the security forces for not achieving miracles. Yet, these militia members are cowards and maim or kill their victims because they are defenceless. These barbarians would think twice about inflicting pain if their victims were well-armed rather than unarmed and could shoot back.
It is of lasting shame that Britain scuttled back to the airport and left Basra in the hands of these lunatics.
I never have seen any of the Rambo movies and who knows if I ever will? Probably not. The day is always full, and they’re not on any priority list of mine. Despite all this, the latest picture from Mr Stallone has given me one moment of pleasure. How so? Well, it’s being reported here and there that the movie, in which Rambo takes on Burma’s military junta, is making an impression with some of the junta’s opponents. And this has caused Marina Hyde a moment of irritation. ‘Oh, please!’ she exclaims. I don’t know why I should take satisfaction from it. After all, I have no interest in the quality of Marina Hyde’s day; in the normal way of things I’m happy for it to be altogether fine. But there you are: opponents of the Burmese regime don’t have the name of some smug little metropolitan liberal on their lips. They enjoy seeing the discomfiture of a tyranny at the hands of … Rambo. Dearie me, how gross.
– Norm Geras
Here is an interesting profile of Deborah Ross, the American entrepreneur who also manages to home-school her children. Naturally, the thought does occur to me, in the light of the recent controversy kicked up by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s thick-headed remarks about sharia law, whether parents with strong religious views who want to indoctrinate their kids, against their children’s will, might bring the idea of home-schooling into disrepute. Personally, I think the benefits of letting parents play a much more hands-on role in schooling outweigh some of the disadvantages, particularly if children have the ability at a certain age to choose how they want to be schooled (the issue of giving children more freedom is still a very controversial one, even among liberals). The key change that must come, in my view, is an end to compulsory schooling or at the very least, a sharp reduction in the existing school age, rather than raising it ever further. I am also in favour of hacking away regulations to make it easier for companies to take on youngsters as apprentices. Many young folk are bored senseless at school and would be far less disruptive if they could learn a trade and generate the pride that comes with a paying job, while keeping up with academic subjects at a later date if they want (this might also reduce youth crime a bit).
Children are naturally inquisitive and rebellious against authority – thank goodness – so my reservations about some of the people who want to school their kids at home are not very large, although I do not dismiss them lightly. I sometimes hear in discussions about home-schooling the old canard about how children educated this way are less well ‘socialised’ than their supposedly more fortunate, state or private-school peers. I doubt this: having myself suffered the joys of state schooling, with all the charms of bullying and indifferent teaching that went with it, the idea of encouraging a possibly more individualistic culture as a result of home schooling is to be welcomed (my education experience was not all bad: I got a good degree in the end, so must have done something right). Many people who have been subjected to more than 11 years of compulsory education in a boarding school or some state school never recover their self-confidence as adults. In any event, the whole point here is that education should not have to follow one ‘ideal’ system at all. As a libertarian, I say let education evolve where it will. Does that mean that Walmart or Barclays Bank should be able to run schools? Yes, why the heck not? I look forward to reading headlines like this: “Education Ltd, Britain’s largest listed schooling company, launched a daring bid for Lycee France, the Paris-listed school chain which has boasted the highest examination result tests for the last five years. The deal, if it goes through, would produce a group to rival that of School Corp, America’s largest education chain by market cap.”
Anyway, I strongly recommend people read the whole article. This Wikipedia entry is also a pretty interesting overview with loads of links for different approaches around the world to homeschooling.
I write a lot of letters to the press. They are usually edited for length by the letters pages subs, and often improved thereby. If you can say something shorter it is usually better. However, occasionally it goes wrong. This week the London Evening Standard mangled something I wrote so badly as to remove most of the point.
The original may not be the most eloquent piece, but it should be published somewhere. I have added a few links to give blogospheric readers the context:
Sirs,
A man is held without charge at the instance of a foreign power and a visit from his MP is secretly recorded on the instructions of police acting without a warrant. A decade ago this would have been Britain only in a science-fictional parallel-world. David Davis is quite right (Article, 5 February) to condemn it. But things are still getting worse. Surveillance powers – most of which date from 2000, before the “War on Terror” was declared – are old hat.
The Government obsession now is “information sharing”, connecting the numerous databases now kept on us by various departments. This “Transformational Government” multiplies the attack on privacy and liberty many-fold. Its shadow falls on almost all new legislation. The Counter-Terrorism Bill currently before parliament, for example, would allow information to be disclosed to and passed on by the Intelligence Services, regardless of how it is obtained and despite confidentiality or privilege. Meanwhile the Ministry of Justice has been given a programme to weaken in general the existing controls on information in government hands, and the National Identity Management Scheme (ID cards), the means to join it all up, is being pressed forwards on a new schedule.
We are facing not just a surveillance state, but the building of a new phenomenon, the database state.
Yours faithfully
Guy Herbert
General Secretary, NO2ID
If you do not read Michael Totten’s blog regularly (and why the hell don’t you? It is one of the best damn things on the internet!) then you may have missed this treasure.
And this comment is pretty good too:
This video proves that the surge has failed miserably. The Iraqis are running wild with their scissors and refuse to drink milk and wear seat belt. The pitiful American forces can’t even muster the courage to summon insurgents to a shootout themselves. Instead, they have to order random drivers on the road as “human invitation cards”. This is sickening.
Heh indeed.
Via the excellent engadget blog, here is a nifty item to put on the wall for all you health-freaks out there. Perhaps I should strap my arm to one of the controls the next time I read about the Archbishop of Canterbury, the eco-Leninist thoughts of Madeleine Bunting, or watch the English rugby/cricket/football team give up a lead?.
Or maybe I should stop doing all these things for a longer, happier life.
Following on from my post yesterday, I scanned the front pages of the main British papers today; with one or two mild exceptions, the headlines – including the Guardian – were pretty damning (David Blunkett was admirably blunt; proof that the former Home Secretary has his good points). As far as the general thrust of commentary is concerned, as well as the straight news reports, the tone is that the Archbishop has made a right royal berk of himself.
I disagree with fellow Samizdata contributor Guy Herbert that the Archbishop is not an ‘ass’ but guilty at most of over-optimism; frankly, a man of such supposed learned views as Dr Williams should know that a religion that has a legal code that applies to women in the way that it does is outrageous; doubly outrageous, considering that the Church, with all its faults, has in the past acted as a moral beacon on stirring up consciences on issues like the slave trade. I am sure there are admirable aspects of sharia: it is hard to believe that it would not have died out were it not to have contained such features. But let’s be crystal clear: if the Archbishop thinks it is right that whole groups of the UK population can choose to deal with issues like marriage, divorce and treatment of women outside the structure of the English Common law and its insistence upon treatment of women as consenting adults in matters of marriage, then he might as well hang up his cassock.
I do not know if he will resign over this, or indeed if it is right and proper for anyone to call for his sacking. Some commenters might know of how these things work, but it seems to me that the General Synod of the Church of England might want to discuss this issue, vigorously.
Now that the rather dismal Romney has bowed out, it looks like absent a brokered deal by genuine conservatives, the truly dismal John McCain will get the Republican nomination.
My hope is that he asks Fred Thompson to run as his veep… and that Thompson tell him to go fuck himself (and if he accepts, then Thompson was not the man some folks thought he was).
Although I am rarely in enthusiastic agreement with Ann Coulter, I agree with her basic premiss regarding John McCain. Better to have the statist poison introduced by the Hildebeeste or Obrama than a Republican, because if McCain gets into the White House, that is the end of the Republican Party as anyone in the Goldwater or Reagan tradition will abandon them, quite possibly forever. The Republicans will be dead and gawd knows it will be a well deserved death.
Of course the upside of a seismic shift style Republican collapse is maybe a new political grouping is indeed what is needed, one that can also appeal to the deeply civil libertarian elements on the so-called left (yes, they really do exist). I have met many Democrats who would never consider supporting Republicans for tribal/cultural reasons and yet quite frankly are deeply uneasy bedfellows with the intolerant authoritarian ‘Daily Kos’ style left that so loves Hillary Clinton. Every cloud has a silver lining.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is the head of the Church of England and as such, is still – amazingly – considered to be a person of some eminence. Unfortunately, he does not lend weight to that institution. Although the Anglican Church is far less powerful than it used to be – and for good reasons, such as the removal of 19th century electoral discrimination against Jews, Catholics and dissenters – it is still regarded with affection by many of us, even atheists, agnostics or lukewarm Christians. It has given us great thinkers; its liturgy and music are among the great adornments of western civilisation. Alas, Dr Williams is not a great thinker, although he is no doubt a kindly man.
Dr Williams believes that aspects of sharia law – which aspects he does not explictly say – should be allowed to form part of the law of this country. He does not explain what tests should be used to decide what bits of sharia law are acceptable and what are not. For example, in some of the most conservative muslim lands, the death penalty is used for offences far less serious than murder, such as adultery. We are not told what the Archbishop thinks about this; or whether he thinks things such as arranged marriage, etc, are acceptable. But he needs to be clear about what he thinks is acceptable, otherwise, all we can assume is that the fellow is mouthing vacuous platitudes, nothing more.
I do not believe you can operate a polycentric legal order in Britain, at least not in ways that would allow one legal code to allow coerced marriages, sitting alongside the English Common law. How, for example, could one avoid westernised Muslims wanting to be treated under the ordinary law of the land and not to be ruled over by their co-religionists? Without the active support of the State, I suspect, and hope, that many Muslims, particularly women, will revolt and choose to live under the Common Law tradition of this country. I hope so.
Dr Williams means well; a lot of such people do. But frankly, he gives lapsed Christians such as yours truly plenty of reason for wanting the Church to be shorn of its state privileges.
Of course, if people can freely choose to live under a sharia code, and consent in advance to submit to its controls, then I can hardly object to that. An interesting area at the moment is sharia finance; a problem, however, is that a lot of what is called Islamic finance is re-inventing of the wheel: if it is immoral to charge for lending money because money is not considered a legitimate asset in its own right (which is mistaken, as money accumulated by saving has involved sacrificing consumption) it seems odd that sharia does tolerate things like commodities speculation, such as certain forms of derivative contracts. But at least investors can shop around; arguably, some western investors might want to own sharia investments that avoid banks as a way to avoid the impact of the credit crunch. That is an example of capitalism at its best: allowing people of all faiths or none to do business with one another. Voltaire noticed this when he observed the London Stock Exchange in action in the 18th Century. But allowing sharia law to operate in matters such as marriage, divorce or punishment of supposed wrongdoings, in ways that are at clear variance to the prevailing legal code of a country like Britain, is an entirely different matter.
I hope the Archbishop speaks more clearly in the future.
(Update: one commenter complains about my description of Dr Williams as “the head” of the Church; of course, that, strictly speaking, is the role of the Monarch, by law. In practice, however, the Queen, unlike centuries past, is unlikely to have any real authority over this character, although it would be fascinating to know what she thinks of him in private.
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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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