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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An article about the exploits of the Royal Anglian Regiment reminds us that the fighting in Afghanistan has been very sharp indeed: over six months the Royal Anglians suffered one hundred and forty four casualties (nine killed and one hundred and thirty five wounded), in return for one thousand Taliban killed (which according to the traditional 5:1 ratio which would probably be more accurate for the technologically unsophisticated Taliban, implies at least a further five thousand wounded).
Yet I cannot escape the feeling that the quality of the politics has gone a long way to undermining the quality of the military efforts. Why oh why are we trying to stop people in that poor country from growing the cash crop they have grown since time immemorial and thereby making enemies of people who just want to make money? And as paying people to not plant opium is a demonstrable waste of time, if the governments of the west are so keen to stop opium ending up on the streets of western cities, why not take the vast ocean of money wasted on odious subsidies to affluent western farmers in Europe and the USA, and instead just buy whatever opium the Afghan farmers can grow? At a stroke the Afghan economy is improved in the short term, distorting subsidies removed from western economies and Afghan farmers and warlords alike given a very good reason to maintain good relations with their western patrons (i.e. addict them to subsidies).
I have just sent NO2ID a cheque. Now might be a good time for many people to do the same, whether or not they took the pledge.
I long ago endorsed Ron Paul despite strong disagreements with his foreign policy. Now, with Iraq looking more and more like less and less of an issue for the next election, that disagreement is fading in importance.
Meanwhile my distaste for ‘security measures’ taken in the name of ‘defense of the homeland’ has reached a point of utter disgust. On the issues which matter to me there is probably not the light of day between a Clinton or a Guliani Presidency. Neither is likely to ask for congress to kill off ‘Real Id’. Neither is likely to put Presidential authority behind removal of even some of the more obnoxious sections of the un-Patriot Act or any of the other wildly misnamed acts of Congress.
Over my many years as a libertarian I have come to feel like someone alone in the wilderness. People who believe as I do simply do not get elected. I assumed that a Ron Paul run for the Republican Party slot would be the same, with the very positive upside that he would gain more publicity for the ideas of liberty and individualism than decades of efforts by thousands of dedicated libertarians.
I am beginning to wonder if I might have been wrong. I was rather pleasantly surprised to read that Ron is picking up more money and attention on the web than any other Republican hopeful. While this does not translate into as much attention off web as I would like to see, it is nonetheless a surprise. Ron is still very definitely in this race and it is beginning to look like he will still be in it come the Republican convention.
I would really look forward to that happening. I have not bothered to watch convention coverage in many years because the people running did not even vaguely represent me.
I could rub my hands with glee at Just imagining the horror in the eyes of media and politicos alike if someone were to stand on the podium at that convention and not just mouth words about Liberty and Individualism… but really mean them!
Anatole Kaletsky, writing in today’s Times (of London) has a justifiably ferocious piece about how the “loan” by the benighted British taxpayer to the stricken British mortgage firm, Northern Rock, has encouraged the latter to make all kinds of presumptions about its future behaviour.
I knew this would happen. They may wear smart suits and talk the language of capitalism, but the truth is, City financiers can be just as infantilised by the prospect of taxpayers’ largesse as any farmer or coalminer getting a subsidy. At least the coalminers did a job that was physically dangerous.
A Muslim is somebody who believes that a man called Muhammad… passed on certain revelations and instructions directly from God Himself. By logic, a non-Muslim is somebody who does not accept that Muhammad was any such prophet, and thereby rejects his teachings as not having come from God… If, contrary to Muhammad’s claims (assuming he has been represented correctly), we do not believe that he was any such prophet from God, what do we truly think of the man?
The answer must be one of three possibilities: either Muhammad was a liar, or he was deluded, or he was mad. These are the only possible conclusions of the intellectually honest non-Muslim. Let us ponder one of the three possibilities – that Muhammad was a liar. Would it be unreasonable then to posit that a man willing to deceive many thousands of people, perhaps out of hunger for power or self-aggrandisement, could be labelled as ‘evil’? If so, on what basis do we object to an extremely negative portrayal (either graphic or prose) of such an ‘evildoer’?
Whether or not such a portrayal may appear ‘gratuitous’ or provoke widespread anger, it would nonetheless be a justifiable expression of dissent. Therefore, to place legal sanctions on any such piece of literature is to necessarily outlaw opposition to, and disagreement with, Islam to a logical denouement; this suggests we are implicitly calling for the abolition of the right to proclaim oneself a non-Muslim in clear and in certain terms. That is, one may still be a nominal ‘non-Muslim’ free of harassment, but one cannot explain and defend one’s position in any significant detail without committing the act of blasphemy.
– from On the Right to Give Offence by Steve Edwards quoted today by David Thompson
Blogger Patrick Lasswell had a real world encounter of the ‘dial 911’ kind that shows whilst civic virtue is a good thing, it is even better when the upstanding citizen has a firearm to hand when investigating a disturbance.
Hiding in my front yard from a shotgun armed maniac last night made me reflect on my libertarian leanings. The Second Amendment never seemed so clear to me as an individual right as I waited for the police to arrive, and waited. I was carrying only a telephone and a flashlight, and updating the 911 operator as the lunatic passed twenty yards from my position it occurred to me how very much I appreciate owning rifles, and how very, very far away they were at the moment.
Read the whole thing. Fortunately the encounter in question was ‘merely’ alarming, yet clearly there was potentially for a shooting and thus Patrick was in violation of Jeff Cooper’s First Rule of Gunfights: have a gun.
Patrick, you live in the USA so you have no excuse to emulate the disarmed civilian population of Britain.
“My faith in airport security has never been the same since I noticed that the man confiscating the shaving foam in my hand luggage (while leaving me with the razor) had the word HATE tatooed on his knuckles.”
– Daniel Finkelstein.
Clarkson is a hero, and Monbiot is a chicken.
– Why Monbiot is so Miserable
The smoking ban was a mere tasty morsel. It has roused the appetite of the beast without bedding it back down again. The hungry beast has drawn blood and it wants more:
Government ministers should shrug off media accusations that they are running a nanny state and introduce tougher public health measures, experts say.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said the time had come to consider a whole host of interventions in the UK after the introduction of a smoking ban.
Its proposes raising alcohol prices, restricting pub opening hours and better food labelling to fight obesity….
The report by the panel of experts, which include scientists, lawyers and philosophers, said there was a balance to be struck between individual freedom and wider public protection.
Welcome to the latest phase of the old ‘public choice’ paradigm. You have to choose between freedom and prosperity. You have to choose between freedom and fairness. You have to choose between freedom and safety. And the wheels of the world turn round and round to the music of the rhythm of history.
Okay. let’s gird our loins, saddle up and prepare for battle again but, this time, let’s make sure that we don’t go charging off in the wrong direction. It would be easy to lose this stage of the war and, as always, the odds are stacked against us. But lose we will for sure if attempt to fight it on the enemy’s ground and what I mean by that is accepting that there is a such a thing as a choice between freedom and health and then attempting to persuade people to choose freedom and to hell with their health. If the public believes that this is the choice they must make, then they will choose to be healthy and, before we know it, we’re standing around scratching our arses and wondering what went wrong while the triumphant, braying beast tramples everything in its path.
We must not make the mistake of arguing that health does not matter. It does matter. As every exhortatory elderly relative has croaked at one time or another, health is the most important thing. But that is exactly why we need more freedom and less compulsion. The healthiest societies are the the most liberal and prosperous ones, while the unhealthiest are invariably the poorest and most statist and centrally planned prescriptions for health will be no more successful than centrally planned prescriptions for the economy. The public must hear, again and again, that the “choice” being presented to them by the likes of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics is vexatious, counterfactual and perverse.
The beast will not stop. It will not change its mind, grow tired, get distracted or give up. The stakes are too high. But that is not the same as saying that it is unstoppable. We just have to make sure that we shoot its legs from under it. Nothing less will do.
I went to watch Elizabeth – the Golden Age – as I had mentioned a few weeks back and I was pretty impressed, despite a few jarring notes (Francis Drake barely gets a mention in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, rather like overlooking Nelson at Trafalgar). But the film was overall good entertainment, if not dead-accurate scholarship. One thing stuck in my mind on the way home: the man who played Philip II of Spain was very convincing in the role of a religious maniac, a man swinging between rhapsodies of hatred for Elizabeth and tearful despair. I thought to myself: “This guy looks like a stunt double for the current leader of Iran”. I mean, he really does. Creepy.
There is a huge plume of smoke rising from Stratford, east of the City. Nothing on the news as to the origin of this. Mobile networks are already becoming overloaded.
UPDATE: Spectacular plumes, but terror motive “discounted”. Any jokes about London’s taxes going up in smoke can be made in the comments.
The Malaysian carmaker Proton has announced plans to develop an “Islamic car”, designed for Muslim motorists.
Any suggestions as to a name?
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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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