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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To this piece by Frank Fisher:
When asked to name countries that impose extensive internet censorship, you might think of China, Iran, or North Korea; I doubt you’d think of the UK, but, after the home secretary Jacqui Smith’s speech to the International Centre for Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence today, you really should.
Britain is not a free country. It is free-er than most perhaps, but at most free-ish; and moving steadily towards a free-esque pantomime freedom.
For the inevitable commentators who think I’m whinging about nothing because I’m able to write these lines, consider this: Britain also has an historically low murder rate. Yet generally homicide is still deplored, and we would like less of it. No politician would dare stand up and call for more gang-violence because ‘known criminals’ being murdered is a good thing.
When I read things like this:
Police in San Mateo County, California apparently first spent months investigating the small-stakes poker game. From this firsthand account, it looks like a couple of the officers were playing regularly for several weeks before sending in the SWAT team, guns drawn, last week.
It just amazes me that so many people in the USA are complacent about the state of their civil liberties. Quite a few people in Blighty seem to have belatedly grasped what deep shit we are in on this side of the Atlantic, and when we run some article lamenting the latest outrage by the British state here on Samizdata, invariably we get some comments from The Cousins across the Water telling us how screwed we are. Indeed, but back at yah, guys.
They send in para-military assault police to arrest people for playing poker? Jeez. There is much to be said for the Second Amendment but clearly the whole ‘keep and bear arms’ thing does not go nearly far enough if that sort of behaviour by the state is regarded as ‘normal’. How about ringing your house with a goddamn minefield? I guess they do not have any real crimes in the People’s Republic of California for the police to worry about.
Seeing as we have been talking about Tom Cruise and Scientology earlier today, there is an interesting ruckus brewing on Gawker, who have posted a rather interesting (in a ‘huh?’ kind of way) video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology. The Church of Scientology’s lawyers have demanded they take the video down and in response fearless Gawker VP Gaby Darbyshire politely invited them to go rotate, citing ‘fair use’ (Gaby is delightful and rather hot, by the way. I met her at Les Blogs in Paris a few years ago).
I take no conclusive view of the legal merits of the case (certainly if extracts of a proprietary video are used, it is a ‘fair use’ slam dunk… not so sure about using the whole thing), but I am much taken by Gawker’s sheer bravery going up against the deep pocketed Scientologists, who are prone on the slightest pretext to sue people who cast aspersions on, or even reveal the details of, their religion. Does that remind you of someone else?
The Scientologists deserve every brickbat they get for their strong arm tactics against detractors. However I do not really understand the intellectual animus directed at the Scientologists for their religious beliefs. Their key myths do not strike me as any more preposterous than those of other more mainstream religions. It seems to me that their only big mistake was going into too much detail, thus in their case it is harder to fog the issue with the ‘allegorical interpretations’ that help us avoid tears of mirth when reading the literal word of other holy texts, ones which were not written by L. Ron Hubbard but rather by his more time hallowed equivalents in antiquity.
A wonderful snippet from a BBC radio reporter (Ed Stourton) in Afghanistan for the Today programme: A new bus-stop has been built in Lashikar Gah as part of the ‘reconstruction’ effort.
The report does not say whether it is a replacement for a pre-war bus-stop. Somehow I doubt it. It is very well-equipped, having its own mosque and a pharmacy, as waiting times “can be rather long”.
An odd approach. In most of the world a bus-stop is a place where buses happen to stop. Of course bus-stops, like ports and railway stations all round the world provide opportunities for traders, places of worship, bars and cafes and so forth, but they seldom have them built in. Bus companies and their passengers are primarily interested in selling and buying travel. The pause at the roadside to move from foot to wheel, wheel to foot, refuel, refresh, is just procedural necessity.
Even in the first world, where there are some fabulous bus stations and garages, mostly this is an utilitarian afterthought, contingently well-designed. Everywhere (I thought) the buses are the transport network, not the stops. You have a shed for the buses at the end of the route, and signs to show where the buses are supposed to stop. Many places they do without the shed, not least because the buses are always on the move maximising their passenger-, luggage- and livestock- miles.
But a government bus-stop is built to different, higher, standards. A throwaway line at the end of the report reveals just how long those waiting times are: “There are no buses yet.”
Writing in Forbes, Alexander Tabarrok has written a cheerful essay on the long term outlook for world economic growth.
New ideas mean more growth, and even small changes in economic growth rates produce large economic and social benefits. At current income levels, with an inflation-adjusted growth rate of 3% per year, America’s real per capita gross domestic product would exceed $1 million per year in just over 100 years, more than 22 times higher than it is today. Growth like that could solve many problems.
It is good to see a whole-hearted, open and positive outlook for humanity. Much of the media’s reportage accentuates the negative, as bad news always sells. Even here at Samizdata.net, we spend much of our time chronicling the follies and evils of governments and handing out (well deserved) brickbats. But there is also plenty of reason to be cheerful too.
I would just add one caveat to Professor Tabarrok’s optimism. Long term economic growth requires a stable framework of liberty, peace and a consistently applied rule of law. The trend of events by governments in the last decade have not been positive on these metrics, and governments who think that they can erode the rights and liberties of their citizens without it having an economic impact in the long term are kidding themselves.
There is a new book about Tom Cruise, the American movie actor. Normally this information would not elicit even a groan from me. I simply have no interest in Cruise, movies, Hollywood and the pampered, pathetic world of the modern celebrity. But this new book, on the other hand, seems to be much more interesting then its subject matter.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian bookstores have been denied access to sell the book, not because of any government ban, but because the US distributor has decided that it will not sell the book outside the US or Canada. The distributor, Ingram International, will fulfill existing orders, but will not accept any more orders.
This is a very curious story. What is not said but is left implied is that the most controversial aspect of the Tom Cruise story is his adherence to the Church of Scientology. It seems that the Church came to some sort of legal arrangement with the distributor.
US-based Ingram International, described on its website as “the world’s largest wholesale distributor of book product”, sent an email to its Australian customers this morning citing unspecified legal reasons for not being able to distribute the book outside the US and Canada.
“Although I recently e-mailed stating Ingram’s ability to offer the book to international customers, the position has now changed that we will not sell it outside of the US and Canada,” Asia, Australia and New Zealand sales representative Jonathan Tuseth wrote in the email.
If so, it seems to be hardly worthwhile- anyone who wants to read the book, anywhere in the world, can do so by ordering through Amazon.com.
However it is another sad retreat from the old position of ‘publish and be damned’. The publishers of Salmond Rushdie’s book showed some courage in the face of Muslim rage in 1989, but now publishers seem to be willing to retreat at the first hint of a lawsuit.
This is just the sort of case that an aspiring young political figure with a passion for freedom should take up as a rallying cry for liberty, freedom and rationality. Do not hold your breath.
Fidel Castro is on the mend and is ready to resume a political role, according to Brazillian President Luis Inacio Lula de Silva.
Although his future has been a matter of speculation, Dr Castro on December 17 gave his strongest hint he would not return to power, in a letter read on television. “My basic duty is not to cling to office, nor even more so to obstruct the rise of people much younger, but to pass on experiences and ideas whose modest value arises from the exceptional era in which I lived,” he said in a signed letter.
Very modest value indeed.
Former governor Mitt Romney won the Michigan Primary, and it seems he did it the old fashioned political way, not by showing any leadership or vision, but rather by showering other people’s money at the voters. This earned him the scorn of David Brooks in, of all places, the New York Times. The money quote was pure snark.
His campaign was a reminder of how far corporate Republicans are from free market Republicans. He proposed $20 billion in new federal spending on research. He insisted that Washington had to get fully engaged in restoring the United States automotive industry. “Detroit can only thrive if Washington is an engaged partner,” he said, “not a disinterested observer.” He vowed, “If I’m president of this country, I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I’m in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, Congressional and state leaders and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America’s automotive leadership.”
This is how the British Tory party used to speak in the 1970s.
Who should be more ashamed of themselves- Mitt Romney for pandering or Michigan primary voters for swallowing this claptrap?
A headline in the Australian newspaper struck my eye just now: ‘Teachers warm to merit pay‘. A deeper reading of the story reveals a few caveats, but the fact that Australian education unions are willing to concede anything at all to the principle still struck me as the most surprising thing to me. I thought we’d see peace in the Middle East, cold fusion and spending cuts long before seeing education unions in Australia concede the principle of merit pay.
Statistics of the sort unearthed by Matthew Elliott here are of the kind that any ambitious Tory MP, anxious to hammer the government, should memorise by heart.
One of the briefing notes that I get from a stockbroking company has this to say:
I see from the headlines that this Government seems to be reverting to type over the treatment of fee paying schools. When times get tough, “lets put a bit of trendy legislation through attacking those nasty ‘rich’ people” in a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the state of the economy. The definition of ‘charity’ used to be ‘for the public good’; it would be difficult to find a better description of that than educating a seriously large section of the ‘public’ (even if you are Middle Class you are still part of the Public), to a much higher level then the average at absolutely no cost to the Exchequer, and with money that has already been taxed at 40%.
The definition of ‘charity’ (where Public Schools are concerned), now appears to exclusively mean ‘benefiting those in poverty’ which, were it applied universally, would put virtually every charity in existence in a bit of a quandary. The problem with this type of legislation, is that it is almost impossible to defend against because it will always be the majority ganging up on the few (remember fox hunting?), especially when the few are perceived as the privileged minority. The UK establishment seems to be doing its normal reaction to success, which is not to lambaste the failures but to drag down the achievers.
The circular refers to this story. Now, ideological purists for classical liberalism might well argue that charitable tax breaks are a problem, since they immediately beg the question of who gets to decide who is entitled to the tax break and why. Far better, of course, to get rid of the taxes in the first place and let people spend as they wish; part of the case for low, flat taxes of course is that it will remove the need for a vast stage-army of accountants, lawyers, “tax planners” and the like who earn a high living on what is essentially paper-shuffling rather than genuine wealth creation. But, but… we live in the world we have, not Galt’s Gulch. Hence the current attack on tax breaks and government interference in private schools should be seen for what it is; an attempt to further undermine any semblance of independent education in the UK.
Of course, Samizdata regulars will know that for real radicalism about education, we need to embrace the notion of removing compulsory schooling across the board, but I’ll discuss that again in the future, no doubt.
If only I was a American voter – what wonderful things I would be get for voting for the correct person.
Former Governor Romney has been busy for weeks telling everyone that he will restore “every job” lost in the Michigan Auto industry if they vote him – and not by anything difficult like taking away the government granted power of the United Auto Workers union. No, all that is needed is more taxpayers money for scientific research and ‘Mitt’ Romney’s own management skills if he becomes President. After all there is no basic difference between a business enterprise and the government, so if one can run a business one can “run the country”, right?
Senator Hillary Clinton has added another 150 billion Dollars of government spending on top of the all the other hundreds of billions of Dollars the Senator has already promised – again if only people will vote for her.
And it is only January. What will the candidates be promising by November – eternal 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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