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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The true face of collectivism on display in London Bianca Jagger addressed the Anti-War protesters assembled in London this evening thus:
No matter how terrible a nation is, the UN charter forbids just overthrowing the regime. The war against Iraq is unjustified.
In other words, if the National Socialist regime has confined its programme of genocide against the Jews to Germany and had not invaded other countries, war against Nazi Germany would have been unjustified.
And there you have it… THIS is where collectivist thought takes you. To hell with an individual’s right not to be murdered by the state, because the state, the NATION, the collective, is what matters more.
Evil. Truly evil.
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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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Yeah, well that is the truth about quite a few people. If it happens within a country (particularly someone else’s) it is a no ones business. Why risk any lives on what is happening elsewhere. It is none of our business. nothing to see, move along…
And yes, it is evil.
Saddam must really be laughing his ass off.
The regime in Iraq HAD invaded another country and is still under the terms of the agreement that brought hostilities [more or less] to a halt after that invasion, so the current situation is still a continuation of that battle against an agressor nation.
I really wish the people who say these things could be calmed down for a minute and shown what they just said. Maybe some of them would realize how awful they really are.
The implicit endorsement, or at least toleration, of mass murder, torture, rape, and robbery, all out of some quasi-religious Faith in the almighty state is what is so depressing about much of the anti-war movement. There is a cogent and morally defensible argument to be made against ending Hussein’s reign of terror by force of arms, but that argument is drowned out by the shouting of the moral numbskulls. It reaches it crescendo when they begin to yap that they oppose making war on the butcher Saddam’s regime because of the negative effect it would have on the Iraqi population. Are these people truly so dense that they cannot fathom what it is like to live under the totalitarian boot of a sociopath like Hussein? Or does the comfort of their existence truncate their imagination? I really try to maintain optimism, but observing this sort of phenomena leads me to despair for the human race.
This is the woman who blamed a hurricane that hit Nicaragua on Detroit, Michigan, i.e. the automakers.
she is the perfect definition of idiot
If that is the charter of the U.N. then why the hell did we go through them? Oh, yea, to save poor old helpless Saddam.
Somewhere in Nicaragua, a village is missing its idiot.
wow perry’s matching wits with Bianca. Can’t he take on somebody who actually has strong points against this war – like fucking up the world just to overthrow one man, while ignoring equal and greater atrocities throughout the world.
But no. Bianca Jagger is “the true face of collectivism.”
Get real. You are reacting. And you are in the minority.
America kills many people each year through government approved gas chambers/executions. Cambodia was left to its own devices for decades. Why Saddam? Why now? ETC ETC. You’ve heard most of it before, I’d imagine.
A Holmesism: You see, but you do not observe.
dim,
If Perry is in a minority then does he qualify for ‘minority rights’? Shouldn’t you respect those?
Minority status is the normal status for libertarians in Britain, old chap. No terrors there. That way we see it, being in a minority doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
Dimn wrote:
“America kills many people each year through government approved gas chambers/executions. Cambodia was left to its own devices for decades.”
Actually, the gas chamber is antiquated. Nowadays, convicted murderers are put to death with lethal injection.
Cambodia, doing business as Kampuchea, was under the control of Pol Pot’s Khymer Rouge from 1975 to 1979 when Vietnam invaded the country, overthrew the regime, and exposed the spectacle of the “Killing Fields” to the world. That’s four years, not decades.
I forgot what Bianca Jagger had to say about it over a mirror covered in lines of cocaine at Studio 54, but I’m sure it was profound.
“ignoring equal and greater atrocities throughout the world”
I’ve never quite understood this sort of point. Should we invade those places too? Or should we invade nowhere, for the sake of consistency? And where are these places? Name ’em.
Bianca must be right, she’s rich.
I’m sure she looks forward to the reinstatement of Milosivic in Serbia and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Both were illegally overthrown. Not only that but there must be at least sanctions if not imprisonment for those who illegally put the stop to the Rwanda massacres.
As long as those doing the killing and the dying are in their enlightened estimation just gooks, spooks and towelheads, they must be allowed to allowed to continue without outside interference.
If the appeaseniks want Perry de Havilland to rebut “somebody who actually has strong points against this war” istead of Bianca Jagger, they might have better luck if they have somebody who actually has strong points against this war speak at their rally instead of Bianca Jagger. Or would that be too obvious?
There are at least two separate issues here:
Q1: What would we do with Iraq if we had the power?
A1: Clearly Saddam needs a bullet in the head. Badly. Where’s my gun?
Q2. Are the people who have the power now (Bush/Cheney/Rice/Perle) believable/trustworthy?
A2: From the evidence I have, the answer to question two is NO DEAR GOD NO. It gets worse the more I look at their past history.
From where I sit, many of the most pure and aggressive defenders of liberty (like Perry) are being snowed. The promise of Liberty for Iraqis is too good an offer for them to pass up. The only problem is that the USG can’t be trusted to deliver.
If, through some miracle, the USG actually installs an independent constitutional republic in Iraq, I will STFU. But I’m not optimistic. If only Doug were here. MacArthur could do this thing right. . .
We can spend all day beating up on ignorant commies and their silly and evil beliefs. (It’s fun too.) None of this will make the USG one iota more accountable, less bureaucratic, or less nationally socialist.
The State Is Not Your Friend.
T.J. Madison,
The potential liberty for Iraqis is a side effect of military action to depose Saddam, not the primary goal. The primary goal is to depose him and destroy any and all means of weapons construction in Iraq. That the Iraqi people would be momentarily free (that is, no functioning government body) is a roundabout ergo propter hoc simply owing to the lack of government.
If they get a working democracy, great. If they don’t, that’s unfortunate. But do not think, for one moment, that this is the primary goal of military action against Iraq–it isn’t and to think so is to misunderstand the entire situation. Disarmament, then liberation, not vice versa.
Oh, and dimm (an apt name, though misspelled):
First off, your time table is wrong. The Khmer Rogue was in power from 1975-1978 and killed over 1 million people in an attempt to bring about Communist utopia.
Secondly, America puts to death men and women who have been convicted by a jury of their peers and deemed so unfit for society that their lives are forfeit. Additionally, those convicted to death have six or seven levels of courts (from the local level to the Supreme Court of the United States) to appeal their case–most death row inmates stay on death row for 20+ years. Those who died under the Khmer Rogue received no trial, no defense, and were never judged guilty (of being unfit for the coming utopia, no less) by anyone other than the government.
If you cannot notice the moral and intellectual differences between these two scenarios, you are incapable of logical thought and unfit for any real debate.
According to this chart, the Khmer Rogue killed 2,035,000 people. And the correct years are ’75-’79.
dimm: like fucking up the world just to overthrow one man, while ignoring equal and greater atrocities throughout the world.
If you had read more than a few of my previous samizdata.net articles, you would see I have argued that Iraq’s Ba’athist socialists should just be the first of many tyrannies to be put to the sword. People have accused my pro-war-against-Saddam position of inevitably leading to war against Korea, Burma, Belarus, Syria and even China… to which I reply, yes… it is not a bug, it is a feature. Sic semper tyrannis.
Perry,
That’s an awful lot of war. Should I be asked to pay for it?
I am against the war not because deposing the Iraqi government is wrong but because it is not the job of British government. The job of British government is protecting me and other loyal subjects, not to protect Iraqis. This is neither selfish nor unselfish, just as to oppose the welfare state is neither selfish nor unselfish. It’s a consequence of recognisng that the state’s role should be limited. If you want Saddam deposed, get a gun and go do it yourself. I’m serious! If you take out Hussein with a single shot, I’ll even chip in for your Belarussian and North Korean missions.
More realistically, a large privately funded volunteer force could surely be effective in Iraq, if that’s what the private sponsors really, really want. I think we can agree there’s nothing magical about the state’s ability to meet the same objective.
WW2 unjustified on sovereignty grounds? Well, actually WW2 _wasn’t_ about saving the Jews and others from being murdered and expropriated by Hitlerites until afterwards. One suspects that the Nazis would have been as unmolested in genocide as most of the century’s other perpetrators, had it not been for the twin stupidities of invading Russia and declaring war on America.
Jagger’s actually right about the UN Charter. And it is certainly true that intervention in Iraq is about to take place for strategic reasons, not because Saddam’s a nasty piece of work. Unlike Jagger I’m inclined to think those strategic reasons and the expansion of US power are good, in this case.
On the whole there’s a lot to be said for the sovereignty principle from the libertarian point of view, and we should strive to avoid it being lost. While the vast majority of states in the modern world operate on some version of national socialism, keeping them and their proxies in the international institutions _out_ of the governance of the handful of free-ish polities is ever more difficult.
Crosbie Smith: The job of British government is protecting me and other loyal subjects, not to protect Iraqis. This is neither selfish nor unselfish, just as to oppose the welfare state is neither selfish nor unselfish. It’s a consequence of recognisng that the state’s role should be limited.
Sure… and when the nation-state which claims me as a ‘subject’ allows private alternatives to its monopoly on force, I will be happy to oblige. However at the moment the UK government will not allow me to own a weapon to defend myself let alone depose tyrants in the Middle East and elsewhere, so asking the people to take my tax money to give me some value for money by dropping a few bombs on Saddam and his ilk is the only realistic option I have at the moment.
If there were libertarian alternatives and the state was indeed limited to the point it was not robbing me on a daily basis, I would be very happy to stop asking less oppressive nation-states to do the job of destroying more oppressive nation-states. That is not yet the case, so…
More weaseling
Even appeasniks are finally have to admit that the Iraqi regime is horrid. yeah Saddam is a POS so it’s OK to blow him away, BUT:
1) the US is too evil and untrustworthy to be charged with the task. George W, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice et al have such a terrible history behind them! It therefore follows that it should be done by some other more “enllightened” nation, sayyyyyy, France or Germany? OR better yet the UN (Zimbabwe, Lybiw, Syria, Iraq itself)! Sure.
3) My taxes shouldn’t pay for this. Since this is ALL ABOUT OIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIL, and that’s a PRIVATE concern, then it’s private matter to put a bullet in Saddam’s head. So Perry, go ask Exxon for a contribution. Now there’s an intelligent argument.
If your govenment’s job is to keep you safe and not go on overseas adventures, then why the FUCK are they allowing into your country murderous fanatics llike the ones recently arrested at the Finley Mosque?
Crosbie Smith:
Dear child, the adults in the British government are trying to protect you. That’s why they arrested those naughty kids playing with ricin. If you don’t know, ricin is bad for you. If the naughty boys spill some ricin, it will be a really bad day for you and all your little anti-war friends. Now Mr Blair wants to make sure naughty kids don’t play with ricin in your playground anymore. Bad people like Mr Hussain and Mr Bin Ladin and their friends don’t like you and want to hurt you really really bad. So Mr Blair wants to stop them from giving kiddies dangerous toys like ricin to play with. Mr Bush knows where these bad people are, and are going to talk to them and make them stop. Mr Blair is going to help Mr Bush make sure the bad people never get a chance to hurt you. All so you will be safe at home and don’t have to worry about the ricin monsters under your bed.
Sleep tight.
Addison said:
>>The primary goal is to depose him [Hussein] and destroy any and all means of weapons construction in Iraq.
This sounds great by itself, but bring in the context and this starts to look shaky. First, the NK guys may actually have nukes, and are certainly crazier than Saddam. Maybe NK is on the list of places to hit — but that doesn’t seem to be how the Administration is spinning it. Other unpleasant states (Pakistan/Israel) have been allowed to have nukes — the Israelis even stole plutonium from the USG! Why Iraq? Is it because it’s easy?
Next, pre-1990 we didn’t have much problem with Saddam’s possession/use of chemical weapons, or is brutality against his population and neighbors. What changed? The Kuwait invasion was initially green-lighted by State — why? Why were the Saudis (and us) decieved about the non-existent Iraqi buildup on the Saudi border?
I think we’re being played. I don’t think the upper echelons care much about the WMD issue (especially chemical), and I KNOW they don’t give a DAMN about what happens to foreign civilians.
I’m not certain what the real motives behind this operation are, but I’m pretty sure advancing liberty isn’t one of them.
Martin Luther King Jr once said: A threat to peace anywhere is a threat to peace everywhere.
As long as there are totalitarian regimes that exist in the world, we will always have war. Should the world die slowly from the gangrenous wound of dictatorships? Or should we perform surgery and rid the world of the infection forever? It will not be easy. It will be extremely painful. But it is necessary.
Only then will we have peace.
Perry,
“you would see I have argued that Iraq’s Ba’athist socialists should just be the first of many tyrannies to be put to the sword.”
Why does a person who believes that governments are always wrong in every other activity, suddenly think they are all-knowing and all-right when it comes to overthrowing countries that you don’t agree with?
Excellent site but I think you’re dead wrong on this one. Governments just can’t be trusted to do the right thing.
Richard
And Vietnam didn’t ask the U.N. or give a damn what the U.N thought when Vietnam (pre-emptively) staged the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge for its own self defence, in neighboring Cambodia.
Hey Richard,
I don’t think Perry is slavishly following the government. I think on the other hand Perry came up with the decision independently. As the cliche goes: A broken clock (government) is right twice a day.
Set: Exactly so. I am in no way of the view Bush give a damn about the fate of the Iraqi people but for me, the reason Ba’athist tyranny is going to be crushed is far less important than the fact is it going to be crushed… if an increase in liberty for Iraqis is a side effect, then I am all for it… no ‘trust’ of the US or UK governments is required (which is fortunate)!
But the overthrow of Saddam is going to use government employees, government tanks, government planes, government surveillance.
It’s government gone mad. Everything governments try to do they make things wose. Why do you think this is different?
You likely won’t read this ’cause it’s a few days old, but —
Sorry Perry, you’re right on this point. I didn’t read many of previous posts on this issue of war. But from your previous post against war protestors you seemed dismissive.
And it is D-I-M-N – many people must have worse eyesight than I thought. It’s a British crossword thing. Figure it out. :):)
Not dim or Dimm.
News Flash:
The Gulf War of 1991 never ended Bianca. And since the world has given Saddam and his thugs twelve years to honor their end of the cease fire agreement, it’s time for some whop-ass.
Any questions?
News Flash:
The Gulf War of 1991 never ended Bianca. And since the world has given Saddam and his thugs twelve years to honor their end of the cease fire agreement – and they have refused – it’s high time for some whoop-ass.
Any questions?
i like the way you have set the color of the scrollbar!! does it look the same in netscape?
sincerely,
david ian campbell