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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World domination, it seems, is all the rage these days. If it isn’t self-immolating Islamic jihadists than its self-effacing Kofi Annan
And, once again, it looks like the US military that is taking the battle to the enemy in the shape of the formidable Colonel Oliver North who has rather brusquely told the United Nations exactly where they can stick their ‘Global Tax’
Clearly feeling the need to pick up the ball that was dropped by the Soviet Union, these posturing pompadours in cheap suits are working overtime to impose global wealth redistribution. Not to mention global equality, social justice, environmental protection and just about every other canard of a typical 1960’s student teach-in
Anyone who harbours misty-eyed romantic notions about the UN should disabuse themselves as a matter of the utmost urgency. It is not just an organisation that has long outlived its usefulness, it is the dystopic, despotic NWO-in-waiting
When George Bush has finished mopping up Al-Qaeda it might be prudent for him to unleash a few daisy-cutters on this lot. After all, it is always better to nip these things in the bud
Since as long as I can remember, I have had this method of judging people: you are a jock, a “normals”, a freak, a geek, a nerd, or an intellectual. Most of my friends (even the liberal ones) agree with me on this view of the world. However, the older I have gotten, I have started to notice policy trends in all these people, and there is no better place to observe this than in college. I think breaking down the school population like this helps explain why our society is so anti-government and (in the most part) those interested in public policy are so pro-government.
Jocks: Views the world in a very narrow view and is incredibly dense. Typically these people are found in sporting events, but can also be found amongst soldiers. Politics is foreign to the jock; in fact I’ll bet they can’t spell politics, let alone capitalism.
“Normals”: These are people that do not make any statement. They just hope to make it home alive. They raise a family and make some money, but they don’t take risks. They are lousy capitalists and often support government protecting the consumers. They think us free market people are too weird.
Freaks: People who just don’t give a damn about the world anymore. They tend to follow the moral relativists in saying that whatever is right is right and whatever happens will happen. They think capitalists are mean and are attempting to rule the world. They however are individualistic and freedom lovers, so they probably agree with the libertarians, but call themselves socialists.
Nerds: These people can program a coffee pot to run a website, but will get hit by a car because they forget to look before crossing the street. (My best friend in high school was a true geek: he made an alarm clock out of rice and wheat but then he fell in a ditch at a construction site near the playground.) They are oblivious of the world of politics and the world of business….what’s a capitalist? Think pre-CEO Bill Gates.
Geeks: They fit in with the Nerds and the Normals, except that they follow the world very closely, have a good level of practical intelligence (no rice-wheat alarm clocks here), although they do have some level of unimportant intelligence (like the nerds). Unlike the normals, they stick their necks out and don’t mind speaking their mind. Its gets ‘em in trouble (I spent a good many days of school life in lockers, trashcans, and the nurse’s office suffering from bruise attacks.)
Geeky Capitalists: Sub-Group of Geeks. They like what the geeks say and they advocate capitalism. Think CEO Bill Gates. Think Johnny Student. The geeky capitalists are the only people who care enough to defend capitalism out of all the groups identified.
Intellectuals: Can we really know anything? No, so we should sit around the coffee houses and chat all day about Marx, Keynes, Freud, and the complex world. Previously on this blog, I mentioned that the intellectuals are the ones who like to create complex situations – well that is all that these intellectuals do. They are friends of Marx not Smith. By the way, these are mostly the professors and other scholars at the school. They don’t really hold the corner on intelligence, but they like to think that they do.
Although this is a quick overview of the various categories of people on campus, it is clear to see why so few people at a college like libertarians.
To avoid the Ambrose condition, Johnny Student would like to thank Jane Student for her work in co-writing this post
Which is nothing to do with herpes, I assure you.
Samizdata reader Rob Smith has some interesting observations about a common psychological link between the IRA, street gangs and Islamic terrorists:
I was born and raised for a number of my formative years in a coal mining camp in Harlan County, Kentucky. Buried deep in the armpit of the Appalachian Mountains, “Bloody Harlan” is famous for the fussin,’ feudin,’ and fightin’ that went on for years there, first between families that just flat-out didn’t like each other, then between the moonshiners and the sheriffs, then between the Company and the Union during the Mine Wars.
A common thread ran through every one of these battles. The “Code of the Hills” dictated that no one could abide any sort of insult from anyone and maintain the family’s dignity. Honor was at stake if that insult was given, and everyone knew that honor was much more important than life. So, a lot of people were killed by crazy hillbillies following their “code,” and I was raised to believe they were all heroes for either killing or being killed.
I grew out of those beliefs, but they give me an interesting perspective on Islamic Holy Warriors and IRA members and a lot of other misguided fools who continue to follow their own personal version of the code today. Some people may have a legitimate grievance against someone else, but taking to the trees and the hollows with a squirrel gun and shooting at anything that moves on the other side often is counterproductive. Sometimes, a lot of people are killed and you’ve gotta pay ’em back for that, so more people are killed, and you’ve gotta pay ’em back for that, and soon the snake is eating its tail, making a vicious circle.
The Al-Qaeda, Sinn Fein and others of their ilk are not very different from drug dealers in the ‘hood who are “dissed” by a rival gang and feel that a drive-by shooting is the only possible response to this insult. They all remind me of the hillbillies I saw do the same thing, because they never used their brains to control their behavior. Everything came from the gut.
Some things are worth fighting for. Given no other option, that’s exactly what I would do. But I would always explore other options first, then fight because my brain told me to, not my gut.
Rob Smith
To say that things are getting nasty in the Middle East would be facile. They’ve been nasty for quite some time
But if this report is anything to go by then the ratchet has moved yet another notch and Israel and the Palestinians are heading into a full scale, balls out, pants down shooting war for real
Is anybody surprised?
I have spent the last 13 years of my life in the West Belfast, Andytown orbit. I suspect I know a little bit more about it than some. I certainly don’t class as an outsider or a disinterested outside observer on these matters. I am also not going to be drawn into a long discussion that will just rehash verbal territory I have been over many times before.
Comparing any of the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland of either side to the Al Qaeda is ludicrous. Ours are a local problem, not a global one. In any other period of history what happened in Northern Ireland would have been called a civil war. In the early days of ‘The Troubles’ in the 70’s there was actual open small unit warfare between elements of the British Army and highly trained IRA units. This was not reported in the newspapers but I have talked to people who were there.
The British Army purportedly arrived to protect the Catholics from the Protestants, but the people who lived through that time say that the results were otherwise. It was as if the National Guard who went to Selma shot the blacks they had come to protect.
It would not surprise me to find that the USSR was feeding money and agents provacateurs to both sides in the late 60’s and early 70’s in the run up to the hostilities. Whatever the causes, the problems between the two communities escalated into open warfare. There were real problems here for outsiders to exploit, not imagined ones. In those days the Protestant community ran Northern Ireland the way the Klu Klux Klan ran Mississippi. Catholics were niggers here, and that made a fertile and inflammatory ground for what was to come.
This was not a pleasant place in those days. One friend was held in his bedroom with an Armalite stuck into his mouth – he was perhaps 15 – while his mother was held downstairs and the British soldiers searched for the hundredth time. 30 years ago, but I think if he ran into that officer today only one would survive the meeting. I could give you a hundred stories like that, all from the people it happened to, all from people I know very well.
Almost all of it happened right here in one small province, about the size of West Virginia. True, the IRA did things in England; but it seems to me that is supposed to be part of the same country. Some of the Protestant paramilitaries acted in Ireland, but I would also have to call that part of the same ‘country’ because there was a rather serious intersection of interests in Northern Ireland.
Did the IRA and UFF commit terrorist acts? Yes. Are they just like the Al Qaeda? Not even close. Al Qaeda killed over 3000 people and injured many more (remember my flame about us never being given an old fashioned casualty figure, dead plus injured?) in one hour. The attack on the World Trade Center was not a military objective; it was planned to maximize deaths of civilians of a nation nearly a half a planet away from where the attackers lived. The same organization killed perhaps another thousand people in the last decade, many of whom were Americans. This is no little local civil war. They aren’t killing their neighbors over which flag should be flown over City Hall.
In the global leagues, the IRA and UFF and the rest of the Northern Ireland alphabet soup are pikers. And pretty much out of business pikers at that. I’m sure Natalija can tell us about living somewhere where the terrorists really knew how to go about their job. I think we should all be thankful for the fact that as bad as these people may have behaved, they were not in those leagues. They called and politely told people to evacuate before blowing up places, rather than timing for maximum carnage. They never tried to acquire ‘the bomb’. They didn’t blow up civilian airliners.
And yes, I do agree that the ‘Real IRA’ people responsible for killing so many people of both sides in Omagh should be just quietly shot dead if found. I doubt anyone here would shed a tear over their despicable carcasses.
The Peace Process here is working. I have lived through it. I do not want to go back to the way it was. I want the Republican and Unionist leaders jawing and jockeying instead of shooting. I want them to keep it up for another decade. By then they will be out of touch with the reality of day to day life. Belfast is a lovely place with these lads talking instead of fighting. I’d like to keep it that way.
Some day there may be a vote here on which country we are to be a part of. I suspect by the time it happens the vote will be based on pure economics rather than which flag was printed on your nappies.
Phil Thomas writes in with some remarks about the mess in Argentina
The antiglobalisation movement has made much of the current economic state of Argentina, claiming that the crisis is just the latest example of the economic depression and general ruin that following recommendations of the IMF and similar institutions to create and sustain robust, functional markets brings upon a nation. These activists are mistaken. It is certainly true that Argentine officials attempted to follow IMF advice in reforming many areas of the economy.
However, many of these reforms were stopped mid-stream and later abandoned, as Steve Hanke, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins, details in a Cato Institute report. Once any attempt to provide a sound foundation for Argentina’s economy was abandoned, it was only a matter of time until the system was in serious trouble. Abandoning the path of sound markets, along with a dramatic increase in taxation over the past decade, sealed Argentina’s fate. In the end, blame for the current Argentine affair rests not with the international institutions or international capitalism in general, but with the Argentine politicians who saw fit to kill efforts to build a sound economy and in so doing mismanage their country into the ground.
Phil Thomas
When I was a teacher I would sometimes, not often but sometimes, convince a yob* to do some work. When this happened I would do my best to welcome him back to favour but also tried to avoid giving said yob an easier ride than those who had always been working. I felt that giving him an easier ride would send the wrong messages to both yob and good kids. Correction, stuff the “wrong messages” bit, it would be radically unfair to both yob and good kids.
If I could work this out within weeks of first facing a class, why can’t Tony Blair? I say all this to illustrate why I heartily support David Carr’s recent post “A warning to George W. Bush” while opposing, in gnomic fashion, his post a little further down where he appears to lament the partial reform of terrorists.
* Editor’s translation for our American cousins: yob = English slang for a disorderly young man
I just want to say that I am deeply annoyed by the remarks made in the letter from Peter Barker below. This man actually expects to be subsidised to enable him to buy his weapons of choice. Well, I have just one message for your, Mr.Barker: if you want a state-of-the-art fighter-bomber then you just jolly-well get a job, save up your money and buy it yourself. Sponger!!
[Editor: in the crazed Mr. Barker’s defence, he was only appealing for private sector investors, not state aid, in the matter of financing his purchase of the required armoured vehicle and (single) tactical nuclear device. Peter, my cheque is in the mail. Is this going to be a time-share kind of deal: I get the play with the nuke while you drive the tank?]
Two days ago, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness the two leading members of Sinn Fein took up an office in the British House of Commons from where they will continue their campaign to wrest Northern Ireland from British control, over the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants. In this task they will be assisted by an annual grant of £400,000 of British taxpayers money. This is how the British government fights a war against terrorism
Sinn Fein is the quasi-marxist political wing of the Irish Republican Army, an utterly ruthless terrorist group that has conducted a murderous war against British state agents and civilians for over 30 years claiming as many victims as the WTC attacks (albeit over a longer period). The wholly understandable howls of protest from the families of some of those IRA victims (both British and Irish) have been callously ignored
This is the latest stage in what is euphamistically called the Peace Process started several years ago under the then Major government and heralded by all as the start of a new era for Northern Ireland. Little did any of us suspect that is was, in fact, the start of an abject surrender by a British establishment that had decided that fighting against terrorists was more trouble than it was worth
The British public had been spun a line but Sinn Fein were under no illusions and all the time the ‘peace’ was being ‘processed’ , the killings, bombings, intimidation and beatings when on almost without a pause. Yet, at every stage, the British government withdrew that bit further under the heat. After all, they couldn’t break their committment to the ‘process’ now, could they
It has to be said that Sinn Fein can hardly be blamed for any of this. In fact, their bloody methods aside, I can almost concede to them a certain grudging admiration for the tenacity and single-mindedness with which they have pursued their political goals. They are surely the most brazen example of a spectacularly successful insurrection movement
No, the blame must lie with the craven and self-serving British political class that will cut any deal, shake any hand, stab any back and spin any lie in order to keep itself grazing peacefully in the pastures of power; a political class that has abandoned even any pretence that it still upholds the core principle that underpins any government of any nation state – the protection and security of its citizens
One can only be grateful that the campaign against Al-Qaeda is being conducted from the Whitehouse and not Westminster for, if the latter, then apparatchicks in the Foreign Office would already be busy negotiating to give Osama Bin Laden a seat in the Cabinet while the compliant and lickspittle media would faithfully distribute and amplify any government propoganda they were fed
How can the message to the world be anything less than crystal clear? Kill Americans and you sign your own death warrant; kill Britons and you sign a book deal
It used to be said that the USA and Britain were two countries divided by a common language. Sadly, they are now divided by a great deal more than that
Crazed Samizdata reader Peter Barker has written in with a proposal that we felt needed to be shared:
I was involved in an interesting discussion with a self claimed libertarian the other day. We were doing the rounds on the usual ideas about gun control and the right to arm bears. This guy was up for the idea of unrestricted possession or firearms but was advancing the idea that a legal caliber limit (?) might be placed on personal weapons.
This got me thinking in my radical way. When the “founding fathers” drew up the American constitution (and all its subsequent amendments) and gave American citizens the right to bear arms they did so to enable the citizens to defend themselves not only from hostile people but also (and mainly) from hostile governments (like their own…). The general idea being, I suppose, that if the “government” attempted to impose unconstitutional means upon the populace then they could resist effectively – as they did against the British.
So move this ideal forward a few centuries. Now if the government think you shouldn’t be doing something – they send round a semi-armoured swat squad, a few APCs and have a helicopter with missiles in reserve. If the neighbourhood ain’t so quiet they send in the national guard with the whole cacophony of modern warfare. Now of course if the local citizens objected to this and “tool up” to resist effectively, well, the administration will just calls them “unlawful combatants” and your civil rights are history. Remember those mad mullahs – the Branch Davidians of Waco (We Ain’t Commin’ Out) as an excellent example.
So how to square the circle? American citizens are supposed to be able to effectively defend themselves from government aggression. This can only mean one thing. The right to bear arms must translate (in new speak) into the right to own an effectively deterrent against anyone attempting to arbitrarily impose their will.
Which leads me to conclude one thing. I want a tank and a nuclear bomb [Ed: only one?]. As much as I’d like a Sukhoi 29 (or the new 31) the running costs are too high – there are some fiscal limits to my imagination. So, libertarians, who’ll support me?
Oh! that many…. Hmmmm.
Peter did not say if he takes cash, cheques, gold or credit cards for this worthy cause.
Great Moments in Capitalist History: on this day in 1964 the world’s largest cheese (34,591 lbs) was manufactured in Wisconsin
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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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