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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Whilst I often agree with Glenn Reynolds over on Instapundit, there is one pet theory of his that he has mentioned several times before that I find baffling:
I still say that what’s going on right now is that the Israelis are dismembering the Palestinian Authority and all the various terror groups there so that there won’t be any significant resistance when the Jordanians move in and take over.
To which I say, and have said before, what on earth is in it for the Jordanians? Why would the Hashemites want to risk another Black September uprising against their Bedouin dynasty five to ten years down the road by adding 2 million pissed off, radicalised, impoverished Palestinians to an already complex Jordanian 5 million strong ethnic Palestinian/Bedouin mixture? Quite apart from the horrendous political and security nightmare the occupied territories would present to Jordan if they were handed back to them, they are an economic booby prize. The Jordanians have a GDP of about $3,500 per capita, hardly rich…compared to the West Bank Palestinians GDP per capita of about $1,500, which is truly dire.
So whilst it might well take the pressure off Israel, so what? I must ask Glenn to say what on earth is in this for Jordan? They would have to be bonkers to want the West Bank back!
[Update: Glenn responds on Instapundit. However I do not doubt that Jordan and Israel will continue to cooperate in security matters, just that Jordan will accept the poison pill of reacquiring the West Bank. The article to which Glenn links seems to strengthen my case regarding the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Jordanian monarchy for having the West Bank Palestinians within Jordanian borders]
Ah, those famous lines from the Stealer’s Wheel. Brendan Nyhan over on American Prospect drew my attention to the fact that Ted Kennedy was not the only one making a total ass of himself over the meaning of a game of American football.
Now there was a time when Rush Limbaugh was actually witty and insightful, hell I went to see his show live once in New York some years back. Yet after listening to his radio remarks (available via the Brendan Nyhan article linked above) I am forced to the conclusion that Rush has finally completed his journey from right wing punditry’s doyen to its doofus. I guess the bailiffs must have come calling and repossessed that ‘talent on loan from God’.
Limbaugh contends that because the Patriots Football Team market themselves to ‘the soccer mom’s season ticket base’ as a team rather than by emphasising the individual players, then the Patriots are in fact ‘socialist’. Never mind that it is just a capitalist marketing ploy and never mind that socialism is a political system in which the means of production, including labour, are controlled by the state (unlike a voluntary football team of millionaire players).
And so there we have it: Rush Limbaugh and Edward Kennedy in agreement as to what the Patriots Football Team actually represents. Two of a kind: a brotherhood of absurdity, spouting fallacies that must surely reduce anyone who actually knows what the word socialist really means to either stunned silence or embarrassed laughter.
Thanks for all the kind reactions to Brian’s Lament. No-one said, American style: “Get over it!”, which is a big part of why I probably will. I’m among friends.
However, the Vampire situation has become complicated. According to David Carr I’m one, and thanks to me, so is he. And then about one day after that startling revelation, we were all given an award for our prowess in hunting Communist vampires. I suppose if you’re hunting vampires, it helps to have a couple in your own team.
I’ve also been cheered up lately, following on from Tom Burroughes’ complaints about television, by Britain’s two current late night chat shows. On Channel 4 on Friday (repeated the following Thursday) is the sublime Graham Norton. Less commonly noted in Britain these days is that over on BBC1 (Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays) Johnny Vaughan is doing just as well as the heterosexual community’s answer to Norton. Before Vaughan, on BBC1, there was Jonathan Ross, and that show caused everyone involved, Ross, the help, the guests and the viewers to ask themselves: “Is this as good as Graham Norton?” and to answer: “No”. The Ross show was full of embarrassing gay references, because, you know, er, that’s what late night chat shows have to have these days. Before Ross, there was Parkinson and he’s past it. Vaughan, on the other hand, is the genuine article.
Vaughan’s politics are not right wing exactly, more masculinist. A fortnight ago there was, for example, a short but respectful interview with a train strike trade unionist, a buddy of Arthur Scargill’s, the point being not: here’s a stupid lefty dynosaur, but here’s a “forgotten man”. Man, is the point. He also specialises in getting glamorous women on, and then a bloke, and Vaughan and the bloke then get deep into some ultra-bloke topic while the woman’s still there. The other night he had this fat and hairy comedian on and they assembled this big three-piece Star Wars toy with three Star Wars characters fighting each other, and there was this actress watching it all … Well, you had to see it. Both Norton and Vaughan have in common that the agenda is pleasure, not politics. Norton ignores politics completely. He’s too busy celebrating the uncensored joys of the Internet. Vaughan does the occasional sneer at things like £40,000 research projects paid for by the government which reach such conclusions as “traffic jams can seriously frustrate the travelling public”, before getting stuck back into the serious business of finding out what it was like being an actor in Blackhawk Down or how some farmer nearly got chewed to death by his own bailing machine and has a Captain Hook hook on his arm to prove it. When American superstar visitors appear on these two shows they seem genuinely to enjoy themselves
I know what Tom Burroughes means. Capitalists get a horrible rap on the telly. But the products of capitalism get a good showing. Look at it this way. Lefties don’t produce any decent stuff. The only decent thing about them is that some of them do decent impersonations of decent people (which is perhaps why lefties dominate the TV advert voice-over profession). But capitalists produce all that great capitalist stuff, and that’s what they’re selling. They’re not selling themselves.
I have another even better answer to Tom’s problem, about how the capitalists might sell themselves, but I’ll save that for later.
The notorious Lagwolf writes in with his views of streaking and joys of older women
For some odd reason both Maine and the UK, two places I hold dear, are both in a tizzy over silly sex stories. I have been resisting to write about these two stories, but they do seem to be getting many a knicker in a twist. Both involve 20-something women doing things, they ought not to, but in perspective not too egregious.
In Maine two women have successfully defended themselves (Judge rules women can jog naked in Maine) against the charge of public indecency. In seems that these two “streakers” were not breaking the law because no genitals were shown. Having done their research, the arresting officer was asked if he say any genitals. He said “no.” Case dismissed, and the state of Maine has wasted oddles of money prosecuting two women for doing something college students have been doing since Rome. This does mean the law is sexist of course, because men’s genitals are exposed they may not streak. You would almost think the law in Maine is encouraging women to streak.
There are those who want to ban “streaking”. As Maine Goes has a whole thread dedicated to who is more childish, those defending these women’s right to run around nude or those against it.
The case is the UK is a bit more serious, but just as daft. A woman has been found not guilty of “sexually abusing” two boys over the age of 14. Of course, the Independent is screaming that she raped these boys. The Telegraph and its columnist Boris Johnson have quite rightly poo-pooed this notion. That is not to say that pressure groups have not fired off a few terse letters to the paper for their “callous” disregard for the case.
We get to read how one man became a drug addict, socially maladjusted and a loner after he was “raped” at 15 by a woman twice his age! Oh give me a break, this guy was all of those things before he got his cheery popped.
Another letter fails to realise, as the Telegraph clearly stated, that there are big differences between girls and boys. Boys cannot get pregnant, have to be “interested” to perform and were no doubt quite willing.
The woman involved, the ‘Mrs Robinson’, was a 25 year substitute teacher. It could be argued she took ‘lessons’ a tad too far, but rape? The only reason the woman got busted was the two boys involved bragged. No doubt one of their mates who was not getting any, ‘told’ in fit of pique. For what its worth the woman involved has been sent back to Canada and won’t work as a teacher again.
There are, of course, advantages to boys having flings with older women. The women are more likely to insist on a condom, choose somewhere discreet and less likely to have guilt pains afterwards. Far from discouraging this sort of behaviour amoung young men, we should encourage it. The older woman might knock some sense into these testosterone fueled young boys. Worked for me.
Lagwolf
You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
– Alphonse Capone
Just the other day I finally got a box out of storage, one which contained all of my old photographs. Now the truth can finally be shown.
I prefer going for accuracy over rate of fire. It’s all a matter of situation and appropriateness to the purpose at hand.
Perry (below) makes reference to the idiotic comments of US Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) — the folks at Best of the Web have also had some fun with this one — see today’s Stupidity Watch. But this is not the first time that Kennedy botched a sports analogy with an absurd malapropism. In 1998, he managed to refer to fellow Democrats Richard Gephardt and Tom Daschle as “the Sammy Sooser [sic] and Mike McGwire [sic!]” of politics during a campaign stump session. (For our European readers, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire play baseball, a distant cousin of cricket played by men in pajamas.)
Kennedy’s staffers must hand him this stuff — he probably didn’t know his constituent team had won the Super Bowl until his interns told him — but what is more disturbing is his suggestion that we are fighting against “individualism.” I am still trying to think of a single aspect of OBL’s ideology that favors individual rights over collectivism. And, as Perry astutely observes, the New England players honed their skills and negotiated their robust contracts in a spirit of self interest, not “sacrifice to a greater cause.”
One word for you, Senator: O’Doul’s!
Today’s Opinion Journal newsletter has an interesting quote from the Axis of Evil:
Iranian Ex-Prez: We’ll Nuke the Jews
Anyone who thinks Bush was wrong on the merits in calling the Iranian government “evil” should consider a speech ex-president Hashemi Rafsanjani gave on the occasion of “Jerusalem Day” last month. He said that the Islamic world will soon have nuclear weapons: “On that day, the strategy of the West will hit a dead end, since a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counterstrike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world.”
While his statement is true as far as it goes, he neglects to include the response from elsewhere. I humbly suggest the US could spare a volley from a Trident or two without even raising a particular sweat.
It would be such a lovely memorial fireworks display. Mister Rafsanjani could watch it and ponder his errors… during his last .00000001 seconds.
Honourless buffoon Senator Ted Kennedy read into the Congressional Record, as a result of a sports event, the following example of breathtaking absurdity.
”At a time when our entire country is banding together and facing down individualism, the Patriots set a wonderful example, showing us all what is possible when we work together, believe in each other, and sacrifice for the greater good.”
And so we are lead to believe that a voluntary collaboration of free individuals, working for personal profit, a great deal of profit at that, is a rejection of individualism and an affirmation of collectivism. And what exactly are these sportsmen supposed to have ‘sacrificed’ in the course of their highly paid jobs?
[Update: Mickey Kaus has also picked up on this nincompoopery]
[Updated update: I am glad to see everyone and their brother in the blogosphere has picked up on this floridly ludicrous rant by the dishonourable ‘gentleman’ from Massachusetts]
A salute of many popping champaign bottles to our confreres with the Movimiento Libertario Costa Rica on winning at least five (and possibly seven) of the 57 seats in the Congress of Costa Rica. Bravo!
Recent events in Argentina have helped drag quite a few things out into the light that would rather have remained skulking in the shadows.
One of the things that is now clear is that the idea a debtor nation can be ‘too big to be allowed to fail’ is revealed to be a myth. When Ecuador defaulted on $6 billion worth of bonds in 1999, people just shrugged it off as ‘only Ecuador’. Yet now we see Argentina going the same way to the tune of $132 billion.
Another thing has become clear about the IMF. Anne Krueger, the IMF’s deputy managing director, has let it be known that the fund is very keen to get out of the ‘sovereign bailout business’. To this end the IMF has some fantastical plans for ‘harmonising’ international bankruptcy laws which will of course come to nothing. Yet the source of the impetus for restructuring the IMF’s relations with debtor nations is quite revealing and not one you might think. Much of these ‘new’ ideas being floated come in almost whole cloth from Jubilee Plus, a leading anti-globalization pressure group whose very name you would think would be anathema within the hallowed halls of an ostensibly pro-capitalist organisation like the IMF purports to be. In fact what is clear is that Jubilee Plus and the IMF are just different sides of the same pro-stasis coin, profoundly hostile to dynamic free trade networks and in favour of state centred status rather than value based economics.
It says much about the inevitable evolution of the IMF from a supposed facilitator of the global capitalist economic order to being little more than the financial arm of a network of pro-stasis organisations underpinning almost every kleptocratic state on the planet. For as long as the IMF is not just happy to prop up heavily regulated force based value destroying economies of the sort favoured by Jubilee and its ilk, there is little motivation for financial institutions to tailor their lending to the economic realities of a nation’s governance. Yet there is always the fond hope that while the IMF ponders its restructuring, a few really large international lenders will feel some serious pain.
What is really needed is for a few nice large international names to go belly up as there are few things that get the financial world’s attention better than that. I am thinking of people like Citigroup, FleetBoston, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya and Santander Central Hispano, who are all massively exposed to the mess in Argentina… sadly this is probably not going to happen but if it did, what we would have is a clear causal link established between a willingness to lend to kleptocratic governments and disaster. This in turn would impose a real cost in terms of an inability to borrow on governments which pursue anti-economic statist/stasist policies.
Just as companies with bad ideas must be allowed to go broke, so must governments. Sovereign default can be very invigorating to the cause of liberty and advocates of true non-crony capitalism should oppose any institutions which seek to ameliorate the link between government actions and the consequences of those policies. And if those governments, such as in Argentina, are democratic then all the more reason for allowing the voters of that country to reap the bitter consequences of their theft-by-proxy mandates. Let the financial tumbrils roll and lets see whose heads get cut off without the Scarlet Pimpernel of the IMF to come to the rescue.
Justice is sometimes achieved. Jean Bove, a key figure in the anti-globalisation movement who trashed a McDonald’s restaurant in France, has been jailed for three months for his offence, committed in 1999.
A report by Reuters on today states he claims he was protesting about US tariffs on cheese and other French foodstuffs, but I do not recall this French twerp as a principled advocate of free trade for American products in Europe. Frédéric Bastiat he most definitely is not!
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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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