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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This thread features TimC comparing unenforced laws to fence posts without the panels.
Here is a clear example of an uninstalled panel.
A vicar who lit his pipe in a Kent police station as a protest against the smoking ban has failed in his attempt to get himself arrested.
The totalitarians typically begin each step by enforcing it against those who garner the least sympathy. Clearly a pipe smoking vicar is too sympathetic of a target this early on. Beginning with social outcasts, progressively less unpopular targets are chosen for enforcement until the ‘Why should ___ be allowed a ‘privilege’ that I am not?’ argument takes over.
And notice that in a five word headline about the vicar’s smoking protest, BBC managed to use the words “unholy”, “stunt” and “failed”.
Gaia is tommyrot in a laser-guided podule. It isn’t just wank it’s wankenstein tetrated.
– Commenter Nick M
There is a very interesting article in the Telegraph about middle class Islamic terrorism. For me the ‘money quote’ came from Ed Husain, a former member of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahir group.
Mr Husain, whose book, The Islamist, exposed the workings of Hizb ut-Tahir, is contemptuous of the idea that the latest plots were inspired by the West’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is just an excuse. They reject Western culture full stop, not just ‘slags in night clubs’. They would have supported the bombing of Muslims attending the cinema in Cairo in the 1950s. They do not want Muslims to enjoy social freedoms. If it was not Iraq they would cite Chechnya. Or Palestine. These are angry men. Accommodation is not an option. It has to be containment or annihilation.”
That is what makes these people so different from the IRA or ETA or any of the West’s entirely indigenous terrorists: there can be no possible meeting of the minds or compromise or middle ground to be found with the current crop of Wahhabi inspired mass murderers. It really is them or us.
I just came across an article describing why the recent bombs in the UK set by Islamic terrorists failed to detonate… presumably this must have come from some member of the British security services or some other part of the government with access to that information.
It seems to me that this is tantamount to saying “Attention all members of Islamic Terrorist cells operating in the UK: the reason your bombs did not go off and kill hundreds of British civilians is that a medical syringe used as part of the firing mechanism caused a malfunction. We hope this helps you to ensure that the next time you do this, you are more successful in your attempted mass murder. So remember, pay particular attention to that element of the design of your bombs.”
Can the person responsible for releasing this to a media company please be found, fired and then put on trial for aiding the enemy (and possibly violations of the Official Secrets Act). Please do this as quickly as possible please.
Which of these places would you say is more economically important?
Shenzhen, China. March 2005.
Silicon Valley, California. June 2007.
President Sarkozy has made an immediate impact as French President:
President Sarkozy has fallen foul of intellectuals and critics who see his passion for jogging as un-French, right-wing and even a ploy to brainwash his citizens.
Adding weight to the ‘jogging as a right-wing activity’ meme is the support he has received from Boris Johnson. I fear that going for a run is not my style. A gentle perambulation is as much as I can be persuaded to do these days.
As Paul Marks mentioned the other day, sometimes something happens that makes you proud to be English. A case in point: I read an article in the Guardian by Marcel Berlins called If half the nation is in denial about the threats we face from climate change, what hope is there? and felt a frisson of excitement wash over me. Perhaps, just perhaps, we are not so totally fucked after all.
I was more depressed by the findings of a single public opinion survey on climate change than I’ve been by all the pessimistic stories about how little is being done by governments and individuals to combat global warming. An Ipsos Mori poll, published this week, found that 56% of more than 2,000 adults interviewed believed that scientists were still questioning the existence of climate change.
[…]
So how come more than half the British nation still believes that climate change is a questionable, arguable proposition, still a matter of scientific debate? Is the media at fault by not informing the public of the true situation? Or are we facing an epidemic of mass denial, because it is too horrifying to think of the ghastly consequences of unchecked climate change?
Of course whenever the other side is ‘depressed’ because the great unwashed refuse to believe their betters, that is a good reason to light up a nice pungent cigar to celebrate. But might I suggest an alternative option to Mr. Berlins: could this be the beginning not of a mass epidemic (oh how the control freaks loves to pathologise disagreement as a disease… of course two can play at that game) but rather a mass revolt. No prize for guessing how the authoritarians will respond to that.
Surely the cumulative effect of all this truth-telling would have persuaded the doubters by now, not just of the effects of global warming but of the almost total unanimity of scientific opinion on the issue? It seems not.
It matters. Up to a point, laws can be passed to combat climate change, and offenders who don’t conform can be punished. But any successful policies will depend on the cooperation of a population that truly understands the dangers and threats we face. If half the nation continues to be ignorant or in denial, there’s not much hope.
The Big Lie of scientific unanimity will be endlessly repeated and they will naturally try to impose their will with the violence of law, driven by the increasing ferocious indignation of the scorned righteous of the One True Faith. But Berlins is quite correct that in the end if much of the nation refuses to cooperate, all their attempts to control us will come to nothing. Remember the chorus of Rule Britannia, hehehe.
Just leave your computer turned on! I am pleased to see that all the modern gizmos that make life worth living are having a significant effect on everyone’s ‘carbon footprint’.
I cannot tell you how delighted that makes me. The notion that all the traffic that Samizdata generates adds to the preposterous statistics used to describe anthropogenic global warming gives me such a warm fuzzy glow I am myself no doubt heating up my little part of the globe… however the notion at all the people using their computer to visit the Greenpeace site are doing the same is thigh slappingly funny.
And yes, I leave my computers on 24/7. Take that, Gaia.
Dick Turpin was hanged for helping himself to people’s money – [Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs] wants it to be legal
– Mike Warburton
All you have to do is take up cigars!
…definitely the time to be in the USA, watching fireworks on a lake whilst drinking far too much Yuengling beer.
On this day, 231 years ago, thirteen colonies declared themselves to be thirteen states.
Less known is that Thomas Jefferson wrote the “original Rough draught” of that declaration. Today is a good occasion to read in that rough draft what the full scope of grievances were before the representatives “in General Congress assembled” took the pen and scissors to it to assure unanimous support.
The last paragraph is the final treason of a treasonous document and had we lost the war that ensued, the greatest thinkers, doers and leaders of this continent would certainly have been executed for the crime of attempting the liberty of self determination.
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled do, in the name & by authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us & the people or parliament of Great Britain; and finally we do assert and declare these colonies to be free and independant states, and that as free & independant states they shall hereafter have power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & to do all other acts and things which independant states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honour.
Like they say, read the whole thing. It wasn’t just about tax. It wasn’t even primarily about tax. Some of the grievances have returned to us in force today and are worse perpetrated today by the government in Washington than they were by the government in Britain when this document was written. But some of the grievances may come as a surprise, particularly to some of you feeling the colonization by the EU. That is EU ‘colony‘ as in definition 2.
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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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