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.
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Which is more reprehensible? A genuine belief in socialism and Gramschian deconstruction or a willingness to pay lip service to the ideas in order to curry favour with a particular constituency?
Either way, ‘Conservative’ MP John Bercow, once regarded as a radical free-marketeer, opens his heart to the Guardianistas in an article which is, shall we say, thought-provoking:
“For too long, Conservatives have ducked expressing their belief in social justice for fear of being disbelieved or derided. This taboo must now be broken”
Translation: Don’t be silly, we were socialists all along.
“Social justice is not about stopping people from becoming too rich; it is about stopping them from becoming too poor.”
Er…can you just run that one past me again, John?
“Although Labour ministers have not achieved as much as they would like, they clearly care even if they cannot always cope.”
Attaboy, John, you give ’em hell. Gosh, Labour must be terrified of you.
“So what is needed? First, review every benefit to ensure that it is focused on the most needy. Simplicity, transparency, targeting, fairness, effectiveness – these are the criteria against which policy must be judged.”
The Tories will throw even more money at the Welfare State than Labour will.
“The government cannot be the only supplier of assistance but should work with charitable groups, churches and community leaders.”
We will nationalise all the people.
“Discrimination is inimical to social justice. Conservatives should reject it without qualification. The case for equal treatment is not about political correctness, but about human decency. Where pay inequalities between men and women result from differences in skills or qualifications, this must be addressed. However, where inequalities are down to cowboy or chauvinist employers, Tories should side unequivocally with the individual whose right to fair treatment has been infringed.”
Yes, the Tories will hunt down those evil capitalist hoodlums wherever they’re lurking and flay them alive. You thought New Labour was tough on enterprise and freedom? Hah! Wait till you see NuTories in action.
“The first step to changing this negative perception would be to declare that helping the poorest pensioners, for example, should be a vastly higher priority than cutting taxes for the middle classes.”
Oh tsch, tsch. Surely there are loads of good excuses to plunder the middle class to the point of penury and not just pensioners?
“It is vital that Tories should aspire to govern Britain as it is, and not Britain as it was. That means valuing equally rich and poor, public sector and private, urban and rural, male and female, young and old, black and white, gay and straight.”
SWEETIES FOR EVERYONE!!!
” We must share the commitment of our fellow citizens to the ideal of social justice and demonstrate to millions of doubters that Conservatives will deliver it.”
The Tories must fully embrace state socialism and convince the electorate that only the Tories will deliver it.
Pitiful, eh. Now all you non-Brit readers have some idea of what we have to put up with in this country. Is there any wonder that we sound just a little jaded from time to time?
In among blogging up as much of a storm as I could manage during the last few months, I’ve also been ploughing my way through a book, which I’ve had cause to mention here several times before, but do not apologise at all for mentioning yet again: Peter Hall’s magnificently blockbusting Cities in Civilization.
It is full of delights beyond numbering. Recently I enjoyed a thrill of patriotic pleasure when I got to the end of the chapter dealing with the birth of Rock and Roll (“The Soul of the Delta”).
The Story So Far: Rock and Roll has arisen, in Memphis, as a creative collision, fertilised by the newly active music radio, between Delta Blues and Country and Western. But the New York Los Angeles Axis of Evil (bland pop with no mention of Black People) is fighting back and threatens to submerge R+R in a tsunami of upbeat but basically middle-class woolly cardigans and Christmas albums. But, riding to the rescue, yes, it’s the British Cavalry:
Understood or not, these British groups left no doubt about their debt. Indeed, they went out of their way to record it. When the Beatles first came to America they told everyone they wanted to see Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley; one reporter asked: ‘Muddy Waters … Where’s that?’ Paul McCartney laughed and said, ‘Don’t you know who your own famous people are here?’ Eric Clapton quoted Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Bib Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, and Blind Boy Fuller, but above all B. B. King; Muddy Waters was discovered by white America only after the Rolling Stones took their name from one of his tunes. John Lee Hooker understood when he said: ‘It may seem corny to you, but this is true: the groups from England really started the blues rolling and getting bigger among the kids – the White kids. At one time, fifteen years back, the blues was just among the blacks – the old Black people. And this uprise started in England by the Beatles, Animals, Rolling Stones, it started everybody to digging the blues’.
I guess most Americans who care about such things knew this story already, but I didn’t realise this until now. I just thought, you know, the Brits went to America and sold a lot of tickets and a lot of records and got drunk and drugged and had a good time, playing essentially the same kind of stuff as their US rivals. That they played such an important part in the nurturing (if not the birth) of Rock and Roll, I did not know.
It’s a frightening thought that, world impactwise, this is probably about the last truly interesting thing that Britain has done. Are there any other more recent Big Things that have originated in or even been partly done in (like Rock and Roll) this little land of ours? I’d love to be told, but fear that the comments won’t add up to much. (And before Rock and Roll, you have to go back to Bomber Command.)
Our current popsters – and I know I sound like an old fart here but there you are, I am an old fart – are an embarrassment, not just musically to my Rolling Stones trained ear, but also commercially. I’m told that Britpop is doing no business at all in America. Right?
I thought Robbie Williams made a promising start, and I loved his performance of “I Hope I’m Old Before I Die” on Top of the Pops about a decade ago, but his latest single is, I think, as exciting as cold washing up water. I further understand that some Idiot Old Record Company has just paid him 4 billion quid for his next fifty albums. I believe that They Will Regret This.
On the other hand, I bought a DVD of the Rolling Stones recent “Zimmer Frame Tour” (no, the “Bridges to Babylon Tour 97-98”, which is but a blink of an eye ago in Rolling Stones time) and there was a new track on it which I hadn’t heard before, in among the old classics, called “Flip The Switch”, which I thought was great.
Have a nice weekend.
A lie told often enough becomes the truth
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I suspect Vladimir is more widely read in Broadcasting House (The BBC) than Hayek, Rand, Mises, Bastiat, Friedman and Popper added together
David Goldstone has discovered that ‘voodoo economics’ is alive and well and living in Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London
Yesterday I discovered that:
The UK has the second highest rate of poverty in the European Union, with 22% in poverty compared to the EU average of 15%. Only Greece is higher. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, with their highly-developed welfare states, have the lowest poverty rates.
Even worse…
The number of people living below the poverty line… is twice as high as it was 20 years ago.
How can this be? Have real incomes not risen in the last 20 years? Has trickle-down failed? Is capitalism not producing more capital? Should I take up socialism?
Well, it turns out that “poverty” BBC-style means anybody with an income below 60% of the median, regardless of the fact the purchasing power of that median has been almost constantly rising. How does the fact some people get richer (in fact most people over the last 20 years) actually make other people somehow poorer?
David Goldstone
I am a fairly regular reader of New Scientist for its take on fast breaking technological news. The magazine does have a downside though. It is very… well… representative of UK “liberal” politics.
I have just finished an item in the 29-Nov-2002 issue, “I see a long life and a healthy one…” about entrepreneurial companies making genetic testing available to the consumer. One would think a science magazine would be praising them for taking cutting edge science and bringing it to the consumer in an affordable and appealing way while potentially creating many high paying jobs for scientists in the UK, generating yet another path for massive capital infusion into genetic and health research and adding to UK exports to top it off?
Naaah.
I’ll let these quotes from the article stand on their own:
British regulators were caught on the hop when Sciona’s tests first went on sale. No one had foreseen that consumers would suddenly be able to learn something about their genes without a doctor’s agreement, or even knowledge.
Another option would be to return control of genetic testing to the medical profession, banning companies from providing tests unless requested by a doctor. Companies say this is a step too far towards meidcal paternalism, and argue that people have the right to obtain genetic information about themselves. But [Helen] Wallace [of GeneWatch UK] disagrees: “We need to ensure proper consultation through GP’s to ensure that people understand the implications of taking a test,” she says
What could I possibly add?
Who would you pick as your ‘Newsmaker of the Year’? Who do you believe has had the most significant impact in 2002? It is a tough one, isn’t it. So many candidates, some for good reasons, some for bad reasons.
However, on the assumption that you are at all interested in this kind of thing, then you might care to toddle along to the BBC Website where they have very helpfully published a shortlist of suitable nominees for you to consider:
- Jimmy Carter
- Bill Clinton
- Louis Farrakhan
- Alan Greenspan
- Jeremy Hardy
- Prince Harry
- Ali Hewson
- Henry Kissinger
- Michael Moore
- Christopher Reeve
- Clare Short
Now I do not wish to appear overly judgemental or anything, and I am always wary about jumping to conclusions, and I realise that you must not go around accusing people of all sorts of things for no reason or putting two and two together and coming up with five, but I honestly do think that the BBC have an ever-so-slight left-wing bias.
Or do you think I’m being too hasty?
‘Spirited’ is the word I would use to describe this article by stalwart Guardianista Polly Toynbee in which she pours all the hot water she can boil over the ‘Tory Press’ for what she regards as a ‘naked political assault on the government’.
Perhaps ‘vituperative’ is a better word. She certainly does not pull her punches. But what really caught my eye was this most damning conclusion:
“The question is why do we tolerate a press that is the worst in the western democratic world? Wild, unaccountable to anyone, anything goes and no one can stop it: what politician would dare call for a privacy law in the face of their wrath? The only hope is public revulsion.”
Being more than a little intrigued by this prima facie hypocrisy, I found myself composing (and then sending) a little request for clarification:
“Is this not the press of which you are a very prominent part, Ms.Toynbee? Or are we to take it that you consider yourself to be above and beyond the rest of the ‘unaccountable’ rabble?”
A not unreasonable question I thought. A view shared by Ms.Toynbee as she was kind enough to respond to me (albeit tersely):
“I do not regard the Guardian as in the same business as the Mail.”
I believe that my question has been answered in the affirmative.
“Jesus Christ was so little minded to give specific guidance as to politics that he didn’t even deal with the issue of slavery. And these twits think that it’s heresy to be in favour of the free market or against the UN.”
Funny how that same topic has kept coming up recently. Just the other day, I posted the words above on my own blog. Now Christopher Pellerito’s comments in the post just below this one, and the Howie Carr and Joe Bob Briggs articles he quotes, have got me thinking.
“What would Jesus do?” when first coined might have been a good phrase to prompt Christians to examine their own lives in the light of Christ’s example. There is nothing logically wrong with that principle, employed with due modesty. Christians Socialists, Conservatives and Libertarians all may sincerely believe that their political beliefs either flow from their religion or are at least compatible with it. (Not all of them can be right, but that’s one for another post.)
However the WWJD phrase has now become little more than a hook for anybody to make any claim they like about divine backing for their side in whatever temporary and local kerfuffle happens to be in the paper this week, secure in the knowledge that the authority they quote is scarcely going to gainsay them.
At least, not yet.
By definition every Christian believes that he or she will one day stand before Jesus. I can’t help wondering whether some Christians would be so presumptuous about putting words into Jesus’ mouth if the prospect of that final, consummate meeting were truly real to them.
Boston-area conservative talk show host and syndicated columnist Howie Carr (presumably unrelated to our own David Carr) wrote a column accusing Bernard Cardinal Law, archbishop of the beleaguered Archdiocese of Boston, of hypocrisy. In Carr’s words:
Until the recent unraveling of his corrupt empire, the sanctimonious prince of the church annually went to Beacon Hill to bang his tin cup on the State House steps, demanding ever more generous handouts for the shiftless, the indigent and the promiscuous. But now that it’s finally Law’s turn to buy a round, he’s tipping over tables in his unseemly rush to get out of the room. Money for sodomized altar boys? Don’t push me, pal. Ever hear of Chapter 11?
Now, this is a little off the mark. After all, bankruptcy laws don’t exist to help debtors weasel out of their obligations; they exist to provide for orderly payment of creditors. The point of filing under Chapter 11 isn’t to avoid paying out potentially massive liabilities; it is to ensure that you will be able to continue operating — and paying your creditors — under a worst-case scenario.
(For a quick refresher on US bankruptcy law, here is a nice little e-pamphlet from the Securities and Exchange Commission.)
But Mr. Carr may have tapped into a richer vein of thought here. (Even a blind squirrel finds a few acorns.) This is what I want to know: when did morality stop being about how you conduct your own affairs, and turn into a referendum on your political views?
Maybe there’s some of that in Rand — who wrote at great length about the moral superiority of capitalism and individualism, etc., and who remained a stern moralist in this arena despite a personal life marked by marital infidelity and other peccadilloes. But I think that Carr is correct in hanging this one largely on the liberal left. → Continue reading: Who would Jesus vote for?
I ask you, who would want to be a celebrity these days? If you aren’t being pestered by ‘peacenik’ goons to endorse their idiotic petitions then you’re having the strong-arm put on you by animal rights activists:
“An animal rights group is giving Liverpool’s homeless mink coats for Christmas.
Bond girl Barbara Bach and Playboy magazine centrefold Kimberley Hefner were among those who had donated furs..”
So they are taking mink coats from rich people and giving them to poor people. But, hang on, if wearing fur is wrong then surely it is wrong regardless of one’s social status, right? Apparently not.
“”We cannot bring these animals back – but we can send a message that only people truly struggling to survive have any excuse for wearing fur.”
“To show these furs were “recycled”, the garments had had white stripes painted on the arms, so the recipients would not be left “open to ridicule for wearing something so cruel”
“Recycled”? That’s not quite the word I would use. The word I would use is re-distributed because that is really the point of this whole exercise. The white stripe on the arm is nothing less than a badge of party membership, identifying the bearer as the ideologically sound beneficiary of plantation politics as opposed to those “open to ridicule” for resisting the moral blackmail and proudly displaying their property for all to see.
Not ridiculous: Giselle looks good in fur
The old class warriors have found some ingenious ways to hide their rhetoric and ‘animal rights’ is one of them. Of course, they are not really concerned about the fate of cute, furry animals. No, what really bothers them about fur coats is that they are a conspicuous symbol of wealth and, as such, are only acceptable if being adorned on the bodies of the duly appointed deserving.
And if you have ever wondered why mink and fur is so offensive but leather is unremarkable then may I suggest that it is because ‘ridiculing’ and strong-arming little old ladies and bulimic supermodels is a very safe way of exercising one’s alleged virtues. Taking on a 250lb Hell’s Angel is an altogether more risky proposition.
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As an anti-statist, free market capitalist libertarian, I am often ‘accused’ of being on the political right. Yet as so many libertarians will tell you, many of my ilk refuse to accept the statist left/right axis as having any relevance to us. One only has to listen to a pro-immigration libertarian such as myself and then listen to most Tories in the UK/Republicans in the USA to see an issue which shows the differences.
We often find that neo-conservatives agree with libertarian antipathy to Marxist and Keynesian state centred economics and the wealth & liberty destroying regulatory state. Yet to think that advocating laissez-faire makes us ‘right wing’ is to misunderstand just how large the cultural and philosophical gulf is between most true (i.e. capitalist) libertarians and most conservatives. Conservatives are about conserving, they are about continuity above all else… however libertarians are about liberty, conserving it where it can be found but also tearing down whatever impeeds it, regardless of whose sacred cows get gored in the process. We may wish to conserve what is objectively good but otherwise we are as Promethean as the Marxist left.
In the Daily Telegraph article Britain risks huge influx of east Europe migrants by Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor, we see loaded language even in the title: ‘risk’. How about calling the article:
‘Britain opens doors to those formerly oppressed by Communism’
or maybe:
‘Britain steals a march on Continental Europe in grab for east European labour’
But no. The thrust of the article is that only the wonderful Tories want to ‘protect us’ from the Eastern Hordes.
Ministers said that allowing migrant workers from these countries into Britain at the earliest opportunity would help the economy. But Oliver Letwin, the shadow home secretary, challenged the Government to explain why it had not made use of the transitional arrangements. “We live in a small and crowded island,” he said. “Why does the Government consider it appropriate not to have transitional controls when other EU countries have imposed them.”
Well it just so happens that the Telegraph article I am quoting from actually links to an article here on Samizdata.net from the Telegraph external links sidebar (cheers, guys!) called Why do people think that Britain is overcrowded? It really is not overcrowded and the idea we are somehow not going to be able to assimilate other Europeans is laughable. Oliver Letwin does not really care about providing the British economy with high initiative eastern European workers and entrepreneurs, he is just concerned with playing politics and attacking anything the dismal Blair government does, even when it is entirely correct.
As a bit of a “petrol-head”, I have been saddened by the recent demise of Formula One motor-racing, which is increasingly indistinguishable from a procession of cars with few chances for overtaking or for drivers to demonstrate their brilliance.
There are few characters or opportunities for eccentric outsiders to take the field, as in the great days of Fangio or Jim Clark. So it is encouraging to read that F1 bosses are trying as best they might to tweak the rules to make the sport get our pulses racing once again.
Of course we may end up being disappointed once more, but fingers crossed, this great sport can get a much-needed dose of excitement again. And of course all good libertarians should want a sport that celebrates fast driving, the internal combustion engine and obscenely-rich motoring moguls. You can bet that the Guardianistas loathe it. In fact, the killjoys would probably ban it.
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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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