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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Maybe there is no tradeoff “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
It has been fifteen years. Throughout that time most people, however much or little they valued liberty, have talked as if a loss of liberty were the price of increased security. Even Benjamin Franklin’s famous words quoted above assume this tradeoff.
What if it were not true? In what ways could more liberty bring about more safety?
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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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Getting rid of anti “hate speech” regulations could bring more security in the long term – even if it caused more trouble in the short term.
Western policy is based upon appeasing Islam and discouraging, indeed in many countries legally forbidding, serious opposition to Islam and its founder Mohammed. In the short term that may reduce violence -but in the long term it just means that Islam becomes stronger. An expanding, by natural increase and by conversion, Islamic population (who are taught that Islam is right and the West is wrong – and, seemingly, Western elites agree with this) is the result of such policy.
What about allowing people to seriously try and discredit Islam and convert its followers? Perhaps they would fail – perhaps what they say is WRONG (perhaps Islam is CORRECT). But why not give freedom a chance?
One thought that has occurred to me is that the important word in this quote is “essential”. We give up lots of liberties in the name of safety, often because the nannies don’t want us to do stupid things that might cost health care resources, or for any of the other nanny reasons they can think about. We don’t like to give up those liberties, but we do so because it makes the society workable and it also saves lives.
I think the better argument here is whether we have to give up essential liberties, and if so, for how long, and whether there is some process and criteria for re-evaluating the situation periodically to determine when those liberties can be restored.
To my mind, this is the essential failing of things like the drug prohibitions, where we made a decision a long time ago that certain drugs would not be tolerated, and we seem ti have no way to correct this decision. Prohibition in the US was corrected only after a decade of violence and civil disobedience that weakened the respect of the people for government.
I usually think about this on a very fundamental, even primal level. Maybe it is because I am seriously claustrophobic, but I always felt safer when not physically constrained (to an area, not to mention to an object). But I think there is an actual rational basis for it, at least to some extent: freedom of movement allows us to move away from approaching threat, or to seek weapons to defend ourselves that may not be readily available where we are at the moment. Freedom of speech allows us to communicate with existing and potential allies. And of course when we willingly give away some of our freedom, we become more dependent on others for our safety – and it is better to depend on partners than on agents.
“To give up our freedoms”, we do not get a choice in the matter, the nanny state dictates and we are expected to obey, why?. Many of those doing this are no more intelligent than the average person, some in power seem to be way below the average. I am sick and tired of the way a bunch of people like the green blob for example can exert their views whilst us , the People cannot. As was shown in the Referendum, the majority saw through the lies of both sides and overall we were proven to be more sensible. It was the first actual democratic thing that I have experienced in my long life.
The essential creativity resulting from truly free markets provides resources that can overwhelm any opponent, in any number of ways.
I should have thought an armed citizenry was the obvious example of more freedom => more safety.
No no no Lee, we are all going to shoot each other in the streets, like they did in the Wild Wild West!
“At this moment, after a year of war, pamphlets abusing the Government, praising the enemy and clamouring for surrender are being sold on the streets almost without interference.” [George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, written in late 1940.] This sets a strong case for how much liberty we can keep even in the face of great danger. When the Nazis were preparing to invade from Calais, we kept more freedom of speech than today.
It may be noted that formal democracy, by contrast, was deferred. The parliament elected in 1935 was still sitting in 1945, twice the usual timespan. This would have been unconstitutional in, say, the US, but was merely an exercise of prerogative power in the UK. I think that having Churchill unquestionably in charge till Hitler was dead helped us win. When Labour took power, the promptly did some stupid stuff that only the A-bomb’s quick ending of the war prevented form being obviously harmful – see e.g. Slim’s campaign description for details.
Did this liberty actually make us positively safer in WWII? Did it do yet more than just prove wholly compatible with our safety? One could make an argument based on feelings – that our war machine pulled ahead of Germany during the war, won more allies, etc., – but it would be a weak and disputable argument. Long-term, history argues strongly that more-free societies become stronger than their less-free rivals, but 5 years is too short a time to demonstrate the effect reliably. Fifteen years is longer, and this struggle is not going away.
I’m with Lee Moore on this – as Robert Heinlein said, an armed society is a polite society (I wonder why, eh?) and it is remarkably difficult to push around a population that is well armed and knows how to use those armaments. It is, in my opinion, the fundamental bedrock of freedom. Clichés become clichés because they are true. So without wishing to sound like a frothing at the mouth “swivel eyed loon”, can I say “Free men own weapons, slaves do not”. And “When the Government fears the people, there is freedom, when the people fear the government, there is slavery and tyranny”. Hey ho!
The history and development of the British disarmament laws is interesting and based on lies. The original 1920 Firearms act was introduced to prevent armed revolution – the Russian revolution scared the bejeezus out of the establishment but it was introduced as a crime prevention bill and went downhill from there. Britain has had 96 years of counting every firearm and round of ammunition manufactured, imported, bought, sold and transferred and the only people it affects is the law abiding. I notice (from the security of New Zealand and with several rifles) that armed crime is commonplace in gun free Britain.
However, the same 96 years has seen a propaganda effort against those “gun nuts”, those “gum fanatics”, those knuckle dragging, Neanderthal mentally subnormal people salivating to KILL, KILL, KILL everything in sight and persuading the vast majority of the public that firearms can be owned safely would be like trying to persuade them to commit suicide (and in their minds, guns = mass murder in the streets).
With firearms in the general population with a population willing to stand up for their rights, do you think that the politicians would be so arrogant in their behaviour and do you think that, for example, Article 50 would not be ratified?
The “Look what happens in America” makes me smile as it is a bit like accusing someone of being racist – it is used as a shit the conversation down tactic without needing to provide any evidence. I wish people WOULD look what happens in America but that is beyond comprehension for the brainwashed and the intellectually lazy.
Two typos – In the third paragraph, please read GUN fanatics instead of GUM fanatics and in the last paragraph please read “SHIT the conversation down” as “SHUT the conversation down”
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson “DOH!” >};o(
“There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.” “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Nice school you got there. All the building codes , ADA parking spaces, and unisex bathrooms. Fine, fine, now HERE’S your mandatory
courses list, “official” history books, and here’s how many folks you must pay to enforce compliance.
Now lets discuss your mandatory “No-fault” vehicle insurance! Mandatory Health insurance, and mandatory flood insurance.
About those light bulbs and that house paint, and that new “two flusher” toilet you’re gonna have to buy.
Oh no, you have to have a licensed, union, electrician replace that switch.
By the way, your town has been deemed a Syrian/ Mexican unaccompanied minor(< 21) “refugee” relocation zone.
The following Churchill memorandum to one of his ministers may suggest why we kept as much liberty as we did in WWII: “it would be unwise to embark upon a lot of fussy restrictions in order to give, or try to give, satisfaction to the Fleet Street journalists, who are exempted from military service, have no burden of responsibility to bear, and live in the restaurants of the strand.” [Churchill, World War II, Vol iV, Appendix C]
CaptDMO – Nobody does the math but eventually there’s an exit. There was at least one district that calculated that they would be on a sounder financial footing if they dropped out of the federal food program and ran things honestly with the poor getting free food and the rest of the kids eating relatively tasty and popular foods with parents being the ultimate authorities. Nobody knows how many other programs are costing districts more than the aid that they get to cover them.
At a certain point, a school government will opt out of it all. That’s when the fat will be in the fire.
TMLutas, that’s encouraging. Makes me think of when I was in school, in the 50’s. (Not that I know how our food was paid for, except that we did buy lunch tickets each day in high school. But I know that once in awhile the kids would successfully badger the parents over the food, and once in a once-in-awhile the parents would cut up rough and the item would re- or dis-appear, whichever was the fix.)
Where is this wondrous district?
Niall :
Actually this is still pretty spot-on, you have to try really really hard, a la Choudhary to get banged up for seditious speech.
GUM fanatics – Soviet window shoppers?
Nowadays, much easier to get banged up for speech that isn’t seditious and isn’t in any sense dangerous, e.g. committing a racially aggravated public order offence, (God help us) by being, in effect, drunk in charge of computer on the internet.
Even where liberties were eroded in the Second World War, at least in Britain and Australia, it was temporary (the malleable nature of the Defence Power in the Commonwealth Constitution, for example, knocked back once things were over) and came after debate and with a realisation of the seriousness of doing so. Now, seriousness is not something one associates with government action or policies.
OK, so that Franklin quote has come to be used in a particular way today but it is worth remembering that Franklin didn’t mean it in that sense at all. The ‘Liberty’ in question was the liberty of the Pennsylvania Assembly (I may not have the terminology exactly right) to impose taxes on the Penn family, who were using their influence so as not to pay taxes. Funds were needed to finance the defence of settlers exposed to Indian attacks (this was during the French and Indian wars). The Penn family offered to make a voluntary once-off financial contribution in return for a guarantee that there would be no further attempts to impose taxes on them and it was this proposed once-off payment that would have secured “a little temporary Safety”. Franklin did not want this offer to be accepted, as he believed the Penns should pay taxes. So what Franklin was saying was that the collectivity should not give up its right to impose taxes just because rich people may offer to take up the slack with philanthropy. It’s anything but a libertarian sentiment.
AFT:
Franklin, being an erudite and astute sort of chap, probably intended to be valid in the specific way that you suggest AND in the general way that most of the rest of us understand it.
The problem here is that the assumption is that the state can offer liberty and/or safety, or indeed anything. Aside from the fact that the state is easily seized by interest groups, the state only functions if it has consent of the people (states can exist without consent, but they are not functioning and they certainly cannot offer safety or liberty, only compliance), and therefore any safety or liberty is that guaranteed by the people. The discussion on guns is a distraction from this – guns might help oppose a state forcing compliance (although I need to see evidence of that to be convinced – a state forcing compliance tends to have more guns…) but guns do not act as the expression of popular will which underlies a state offering liberty and/or safety.
This is a trick question. The answer is: define “liberty” to mean “ordered liberty,” or, a state in which FDR’s Four Freedoms are realized, or something along those lines.
It’s all in the definition.
AFT:
“So what Franklin was saying was…”
I have no reason to doubt the historical anecdote of the time.
Well have to agree to disagree on the interpretive conclusion on Franklin’s ultimate philosophical overview, that you’ve offered.
Mindful that Mr. Franklin COULD be quite a passive-aggressive, snarky, master of clever weasel words, when the occasion demanded, of course.
This is a common misnomer. I’ve been asked “What liberties are you willing to give up in order to have more safety.” The truth is, liberty and safety are not at odds because the concept of rights are not dangerous for others nor for oneself.
Most people simply don’t seem to understand this, for whatever reason, leftists especially.
Your “right” to swing your fist stops at the tip of my nose, not because government must impose a limit to your liberties to keep you from attacking people, but rather because that’s a self-imposed limit based on the concept of rights itself. (The supposed right to violate the rights of others is a self-defeating contradiction of rights which undermines the entire concept).
The only legitimate rights are what are commonly called ‘negative rights’. One has a right to earn, not the right to ‘have’. The supposed right to ‘have’ imposes an involuntary obligation on others which amounts to slavery, which cannot be a right because it would suggest the contradiction mentioned above.
And, ask yourself, how would losing negative rights make one safer? Are sheep safer when kept in a pen? Ask your mutton chop. I don’t consider being kept, controlled, fleeced and eaten a form of safety.
Would the powers that be literally eat away at your life?
You betcha.
What do you think taxation is?
CaptDMO,
Realize that Franklin was a genius weasel of the sort that made Bill Clinton look like an amateur. We’re damned lucky he was on our side.
He was a master of disguise. He continuously “rented out”, at a considerable expense, an entire pew at the local (mega-rich) Presbyterian church for “the Franklin family”, though no Franklin ever attended. Remember, before what Jefferson termed a wall of separation between church and state, the Presbyterian church held tremendous political power, or “pull”.
He pretended to be Quaker and Deist at the same time…as the mood struck him. What his true religious views were, we’ll probably never know, since even his autobiography is apparent political manipulation, i.e. propaganda. (aka bullshit).
What we DO know is that the “sage advice” of his Poor Richard’s Almanac wasn’t self-applied to Franklin, who, according to Adams, learned his french from the whores in his bed. And he avoided coming back home to America, for many years on end, even though his wife wasted away from sickness in his bed.
Other than his life as a political animal and practical discoverer in natural philosophy (science), he was a real bastard as a husband and father.
If he had no use for you, then he literally had no use for you. He was not what we would term a “good person”.
Wh00ps wrote,
Depends on what one calls “banged up”.
Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for “the 49ers” American football team is catching a lot of blowback, professionally and otherwise, from being an anti-American asshat by kneeling during the pre-game playing of America’s National Anthem, when one traditionally stands to ones feet and covers ones heart with ones right hand.
Am I being fair by calling him anti-American? I think so, yes.
It is the NATIONAL anthem, not the government anthem and not the “flag” anthem, or the “our country is perfect” anthem. And the nation is composed of We The People of the United States of America, and the rule of law based on the US Constitution and it’s amendments, and principally the Bill of Rights. (The first ten amendments which were ratified along with the Constitution itself).
He didn’t merely abstain, he consciously performed the diametric opposite of what one does to show that one’s principles are reflected in our amendment rights.
Like most leftism, his actions were an intellectual contradiction. He exercised his free speech rights to protest that which secured his rights of free speech.
Never mind that his BLM activist (insane) fiance and his recent radial Muslim conversion no doubt prompted this asshattery. What motivated him is something I don’t care about, as he doesn’t care that BLM is motivated by false “facts” and acts out against the innocent.
I take the advice of Ayn Rand and John Galt.
That is, what do I think about Colin Kaepernick as a person?
But I don’t think of him. He’s a non-entity to me.
Thailover,
Of course, it might not be the anthem he chooses, but one imposed on him by others. So he has no particular requirement to respect it, simply because other people feel it represents ‘We The People…’. And we should support this – as it is somewhat inconsistent for us to oppose government coercion, but then allow coercion by even less well-defined (or appointed – at least our governments are still elected) groups.
Frankly I never understand the US obsession with the flag, the pledge of allegiance and the like – none of this is the aparatus of freedom, and deference to these ideas is a case of giving away liberty (choice) in return for security (protection from the mob).
I don’t necessarily agree with Colin Kaepernick, but I’d kneel with him to protect his right to not have to respect an anthem – which he was quietly ignoring, not rudely obstructing.
@CaptDMO
I’m not drawing any “interpretive conclusion on Franklin’s ultimate philosophical overview”, merely pointing out that in this particular instance he was arguing for the imposition of taxes. The quote is such a good sound-bite that it’s easy to forget the context and read things into it that weren’t there.
And I think it’s also important to remember that this was prior to independence and the ‘liberty’ which the colonists sought was as much the liberty to organise their own affairs collectively (such as by levying taxes without the consent of the Crown) as individual liberty.
Watchman, as I said before, he didn’t merely abstain, but showed derision for. And Americanism isn’t to subscribe to a mob, but to show allegiance with the principles it’s based upon. He meant to show derision for the US and did. Why? Because he’s anti-American. His allegiance is with Muhammad and the principles Muhammad acted upon, and anyone over the age of 12 with at least one eye and half sense knows what that means.
Watchman,
PS. If I might say so, you seem confused about ‘Idea’ vs ‘Right to Express an Idea’. Correct me if I’ wrong about that. Of course Kaepernick has a right to express his idea, and it’s his idea that I despise, because I care about individual rights and freedoms, as I also care about respecting women and their choices. He has a perfect right to be anti-American, and I have an equal right to call him out on it. The right to not be censored by the government does not mean the right to show and express allegiance to a detestable position with guaranteed tolerance and acceptance by everyone else in return. Why? Because his right to express Idea X is not the same as Idea X. I support his right to free speech, and I reserve the right in return to say that he’s a wastrel punk and ingrate. He meant to show derision for a “country that oppresses black people and people of color”.
Note that this is a country, mind you, where 6.25% of the general population are black males and yet 72% of NFL players are “people of color”, where he made 16 million dollars for being an ineffectual and chronically injured QB. Does that sound like oppression to you?
Both Jews and Asians in America earn significantly more/yr than non-Jewish “white people” (average family that is), and about twice what blacks make. Does that sound like racist oppression to you? Does BLM pass the laugh test?
Ideas have consequences and visual representations (symbols) have truly visceral effects on consciousness . Having said that( in allusion to few other comments) our best hope for safety snd liberty lies in thr concept of a minimal state with its concomitant foreign policy of non-aggression. This needs to be bolstered by a return to the culture of individualism and a respect for thr Western Liberal Tradition which created the possibiliy of natural rights and liberties which transformed the world !
What Paul said.
Wh00ps, September 12, 2016 at 6:04 am: quotes me quoting Orwell in 1940 – “At this moment, after a year of war, pamphlets abusing the Government, praising the enemy and clamouring for surrender are being sold on the streets almost without interference.” – and comments that, “Actually this is still pretty spot-on, you have to try really really hard, a la Choudhary to get banged up for seditious speech.”
Yup, in the UK today, you do indeed still have to work hard to get in trouble for anti-British speech; can’t argue with that. 🙂 There has been a huge change in the last decade-plus in what you’re legally allowed to say but that specific area has indeed remained relatively exempt in practice.
Perhaps it’s a form of disparate-impact avoidance. If left-favoured groups are not to be disproportionately arrested for hate-filled speech then left-disfavoured groups must be targeted over much milder remarks, and the left-favoured excused over more threatening ones. (Were that their aim, I’d think they were over-correcting even so – but then I’ve always had the impression that disparate impact enthusiasts never mind over-fulfilling their quota.)
Thailover,
I am not sure what the figures around race have to do with anything, since these are simply labels rather than realities. We could use occupation as a label equally well and show that 100% of NFL players are professional sportsmen compared to 0.1% or whatever of the general population. It tells you equally much as your figures about black people, since the reality is that the NFL will employ the best people for the job that are available, as with any rational organisation, and this will logically not reflect the general population (for a start, even if they could play, I doubt NFL would employ women since genetic variation produces enough stronger and faster men to keep all the rosters full) for both genetic and socio-economic (how many NFL players are from well-off backgrounds?) reasons. And Colin Kaepernick is still an individual in all of this, not just one member of a race.
And I am not sure what oppression has to do with it – the only oppression in discussion so far has been your implict demand that Kaepernick complies and does not disrespect (in your view) the national anthem, although you do acknowledge he has the right. But you then seem to accuse him of oppression, despite the fact that as far as I know he does not have any track record of suggesting oppression of women (you know muslims can believe in equal rights? Just like Christians and Jews – seems that oppression of women is not even a pillar of Islam if you look into it…).
Frankly, if I was a US citizen I suspect I would be feeling increasingly uneasy about publically supporting allegiance to the state, which regardless of how you phrase it is hardly a government by the people any more, but rather increasingly a government by small groups who have hijacked the system (and now seem to be hijacking the parties that have embedded themselves into the system). Singing an anthem might give you a sense of community with your fellow citizens, but it is also an implicit recognition of the rights of the state. Note that of western democracies only in the US is this a common thing to do before sporting events (other than international ones, where the supporters are distinguished by their anthems), so it is not a normal feature of what are generally pretty stable and safe societies. I think you need to question why the anthem is so important, and ultimately who it is important to. And if the answer is the people who are opposed to the government, my question would be why is your allegiance to the federal state that bred that government anyway? And I fear the answer from many would be because they want their own federal government to impose their will, rather than freedom from government (even the Tea Party rapidly became a group like this – only in the US is there a Libertarian party of any size, which kind of shows the problem).
If you want freedom, you cannot have the requirement of compliance, even if it is just with a song.
Watchman, with all due respect, I’ve already stated in two separate posts that the nation is not the government nor the state. And, again, with all due respects, if you don’t understand what the subject of Kaepernick has to do with claims of oppression, then you’re admitting that you’re not qualified to be having this conversation and haven’t been following the story even on a cursory level.
Peace.
I find the whole notion of national anthems and flags at club sporting events deeply creepy, nothing less than “off topic” propaganda pushing the fetishisation of state in a context where it is irrelevant.
But at times where nation-state is genuinely relevant, such as a commemoration of 9/11, I have no objection to that whatsoever… wave them flags & beat them drums by all means… as responding to such occurrences is indeed why I support having states (albeit from a minarchist perspective).
I really do think that the work of people such as David Wood (see his Youtube films and so on) could prove more important in the long run that bullets and bombs.
I do not want to kill Muslims in Britain or the United States or elsewhere – I want them to see the truth about Mohammed and Islam.
I want to see Western culture to be restored and to include the new people.
It most likely will NOT happen – the future will, most likely, be incredibly horrible.
However, there is a small hope – and this is it.
Not bullets and bombs (and not world wide controls and so on) – but getting the truth to people.