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 second instalment, from the same source, of historical events relevant to current affairs, as it often seems with history. This is due to the comments on the previous posting about slave trade by Muslim corsairs, correctly identifying who took them on.
More effective were the exploits of the Americans, who put the British government on its mettle. The activities of the corsairs, who did not scruple to kidnap Yankee sailors, led to the new republic’s first experiment in geopolitics. It was principally on their account that Congress decided to establish a navy in 1794, and America consistently refused to ransom captives in the European way by handing over money, powder, shot and arms to the Muslims. As President Jefferson put it: “Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute.” From 1803 Washington, in effect, made war against the beys. In one episode in 1805 American marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing Tripoli to make peace and surrender all American slaves, and giving rise to the famous line in the U.S. Marine Corps anthem “From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shore of Tripoli”. Immediately after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, when the cruising season of 1815 opened, Washington sent out a squadron under Stephen Decatur to punish the Barbary towns for violations of previous agreements. He forced the Bey of Tunis to pay $46,000 in compensation, and in Tripoli he also exacted a fine and secured the release of some Danish and Neapolitan slaves. His squadron was relived by five of the new ‘big’ frigates under Commodore William Bainbridge who, in June 1815, achieved a remarkable moral victory over the Bey of Algiers, who was given exactly three hours to comply with an American ultimatum to hand over all U.S. captives plus a cash compensation; the Bey capitulated on time. There is some doubt about the permanent effectiveness of this American intervention, since all the pirate rulers repudiated their treaties once American ships were below the horizon. But news of it created a sensation in Britain and led to irresistible pressure on the government to order a similar display of British naval power.
Could we, please, have the history repeat itself again now?!
Lastminute founder Martha Lane Fox admitted to a little indiscretion. The dotcom kept a record of all men who had ordered red roses for Valentine’s Day 2002 and then sent them an email this year asking if they’d like to do the same thing.
Lane Fox revealed that, since some ended up going to home email addresses, the result was “quite a few phone calls from wives who didn’t get any flowers from their husbands last year, demanding to know where we’d sent them”.
Now we know why exactly is data collection bad. Sod privacy and civil liberties – there is a threat of confronting wives ‘foxed’ over missing flowers…
You’ve heard of Parkinson’s Law, Sod’s Law and various other codifications of observations about human affairs. How about this one?
One of the comments to an earlier post of mine, made by Mark Griffith, seemed to embody such a fundamental truth of commercial life that it deserves to be a law in its own right.
“Speaking as someone from Manchester, I can tell you the Guardian is not the only Mancunian organisation to get silly after moving to the capital.
“Marks and Spencers’ troubles really date from the shift of its head office from Manchester to London.
“Come to think of it, I believe the headquarters of the hyper-merde bank Credit Lyonnais were relocated to Paris, not Lyon, a couple of decades ago, before the debt disaster really took off.
“Could we have a theme here?”
Can readers think of any other examples?
In news which will surprise no one who has actually been following events and listening to what Tony Blair has been saying consistently for more than a month, it has been reported that 300 British SAS troops are already operating inside Iraq. God speed, Gentlemen.
Now please stop this preposterous charade of pretending to need the imprimatur of that exclusive club for mass murderers, thieves, thugs and tyrants (The United Nations) to justify anything whatsoever. We are already well past the point of no return, so just leave those friends of Saddam Hussain and Ba’athist Socialism who write for and advocate the views of the Guardian newspaper to their delusions of relevance.
The moon in silence goes its way and heeds no yelping cur.
knock, knock…
Melanie McDonagh, ever the dependable voice of anti-idiotarianism and reason, has pointed out the ludicrous thinking behind the latest changes planned regarding laws on domestic violence. The intention is to remove the defence of provocation, whilst at the same time introducing a plea of self-defence for women who kill after years of being abused… or as Melanie sums it up:
a killing that is premeditated for a long time will be treated more lightly; in another, a killing that was not premeditated at all will be treated with the maximum severity.
As one would expect from a socialist collectivist like Solicitor General Harriet Harman, because men tend to kill out of anger and women out of fear, the law will be skewed to in fact make that a presumption. This is not really English law so much as feminist law, treating men and women according to their category rather than as individuals judged on the basis of facts.
But murder, like romance, is unique to the couple concerned. And it doesn’t take much reflection to see that a blanket extenuation of self-defence is quite as likely to lead to miscarriages of justice as the blanket extenuation of provocation.
Quite so! This is a charter for murdering partners with whom a woman has a volatile (but not necessarily violent) relationship. The statue on top of the Old Bailey is ‘blind justice’, but no longer if you are male, it seems.
The stories of how outrageously the anti-war protesters in London dealt with those who will bear the consequences of the West’s actions, whatever they are, reminded us again of the double-standards of the peaceniks and other useful idiots. Blinded by their ideology they let the pleas of those who experienced Saddam’s tyranny fall onto deaf ears.
There is also the now institutionalised double standard for racial relations and the double standard on which the entire debate about ‘white imperialism’ is based. Pondering such inconsistencies in people’s positions, I often attributed them to the lack of intelligent and rational public discourse. The short attention span of mass audiences maintained by the mass media enables them to substitute the rational with the emotional.
Or so I thought. And then I came across this early example of double standard by Western politicians that would score a high political correctness count, even in these affirmative action times:
In the early 19th century slavery was almost ubiquitous in the world but the Barbary Coast, stretching 1,500 miles from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Sirte in Lybia, was unique in being the only area where white men and women were subjected to it in large numbers. The Barbary pirates, using what would now be called a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam as their pretext, regularly kidnapped Christian livestock from Italy, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and from the ships of all nations sailing the Mediterranean.
Wealth capitves could usually obtain ransom without difficulty. The rest were treated with varying degrees of barbarity. Torture was used to obtain convestions to Islam, “turning Turk”, as Western sailors called it.
The West’s supine attidute towards the horrors of Barbary piracy had long aroused fury in some quarters. Officers of the British navy were particularly incensed since seamen were frequently victims of the trade. They could not understand why the huge resources of the world’s most powerful fleet were not deployed to root out this evil affront to the international law of the sea, once and for all. They could not understand why liberal parliamentarians, who campaigned ceaselessly to outlaw the slave trade by parliamentary statue, took no interest in Christian slavery.
Admiral Nelson wrote in 1799:”My blood boils that I cannot chastise there pirates. They could not show themselves in the Mediterranean did not our country permit. Never let us talk about the cruelty of the African slave-trade while we permit such a horrid war.”
But William Wilberforce, MP, and the other Evangelical liberals, who finally got the slave trade made unlawful in 1807, flatly refused to help. They were concerned with the enslavement of blacks by whites and did not give the predicament of white slaves a high priority on their agenda, an early example of double standards.
So, nothing new under the sun…? History repeats itself…? People don’t change…?
OK, that’ll do.
It appears that we may have underestimated the soaring ambitions of the European Union. Not content with absorbing the ‘Vilnius 10’, they have set their sights on outer space:
“Europe’s first mission to the Moon looks set for a July blast-off.
Scientists and engineers working on the Smart 1 spacecraft are hoping to fly around the 15th of that month – but it all depends on the status of the launcher.”
Doubtless this will be the first of many such missions designed to extend the scope of the European orbit. According to French EU Commissioner Bertrand Maginot:
“At this time, the cosmos is totally unregulated. This is an intolerable situation.”
A Swedish EU representative, Helena Hankårt was prepared to outline the precise aproach:
“It is not so much that we intend to conquer space. It is more a question of bringing space within democratic control.”
The British deputy chair of the Celestial Expansion Committee, Sir Crispin D’oilly-Gitte was rather more forthright in his views:
“Oh but we simply must extend Euwopean influence into space. Otherwise it will be full of those fwightful Amewicans”
The Celestial Expansion Committee has drawn up detailed plans for future ventures and even a broad agreement on contingency operations, as indicated by Dutch Committee member Willy Van Der Pimp:
“There is a draft plan setting out an appropriate response in case of encounters with alien life-forms. However, it is agreed that the aliens must commit themselves to meeting certain minimum regulatory standards before any communication can be approved.”
Members of the committee refused to be drawn on the question of whether space should, indeed, be referred to as the ‘final frontier’.
It may be a response to our inability to halt the ageing process that causes so many of us to plot out our memories with milestones: first day at school, first kiss, first job, marriage, birth of child etc.
I think we mark these milestones because they provide us with a certain comfort. If we cannot go back then at least we can progress. Change is an option and one never knows what tomorrow may bring.
I say this because I think it is time for me to acknowledge another milestone. Truth be told, it was raised a little while ago but it is only now that I am forced to grant it full recognition: pop culture and I have gone our separate ways. It was a passionate and intimate relationship while it lasted, but now the ‘spark’ has gone. We’ve both moved on and changed. I’m not the same, it’s not the same. There’s no communication any more. Time to call it a day. Not only do I no longer know who is topping the charts, I no longer care.
I think the actual epiphany came about two years when I managed to get myself caught up in some sort of street festival on my way home from work one night. Not even for a fleeting second did the idea of joining in occur to me. Finding myself in the midst of a gang of teen-somethings gyrating furiously to some noise or other reminiscent of a car alarm, my overwhelming desire was to be somewhere else. I was tired, I was hungry and I really, really wanted to be home.
Nowadays my internet radio ‘favourites’ list has been stripped of virtually everything except classical stations the hegemony of which is only occasionally broken by a nostalgia trip back to the 80’s. I would rather drop paving stones onto my bare toes than go to a rock concert and, even if that were not so, just how ridiculous would I look leaping up and down, punching the air among a crowd where the next oldest person was still young enough to be my daughter? I find myself examining old T-shirts and thinking they might make useful dusters. → Continue reading: They all look the same to me
The naval might of Switzerland has prevailed. A country with all the maritime traditions of Outer Mongolia, Iowa and Chad has prevailed where 152 years of British endeavour have failed. The America’s Cup, a trophy given by Queen Victoria to promote yachting in the English Channel, and which has never been won by a British team has now changed hands from the USA (1851-1983 [No, that isn’t a typo!], and 1988-1995), Australia (1983-1988), and New Zealand (1995-2003). And now Switzerland.
The main priviledge for the winner, apart from collecting a silver trophy named after its first winner, the schooner America is to get the right to host the next challenge, which is now expected to be in 2007. As this has to be on seawater, there is a little problem. Switzerland is about 450 miles from the nearest coastline. So the defence will probably take place in the Mediterranean or on the Altantic coastline of France.
It’s all very jolly for Ernesto Bertarelli the Swiss owner of the Alinghi team, for Russell Coutts the New Zealander skipper hired to beat his former team mates. So why no British success. Until the 1970s, no one else but the British even challenged the New York Yacht Club. The explanation I offer explains why Italian and now Swiss challengers have emerged, despite no obvious historical tradition for this sort of contest. → Continue reading: “England, a seafaring nation…”
Two delightfully silly things, no doubt with strangely profound cultural over- or do I mean undertones attached to them if only I could think of them, are to be found linked to and exhibited at 2Blowhards today. There are singing horses (be sure, as Michael says, to click on the various horses), and there is the Americanised Mona Lisa.
Alice agrees. (And while you’re there check out her libertarian defence of the Stone Age – press “HOME” on the left if you are doing this so soon that the Blogger archiving idiocy blots it out because it’s the newest posting – google are you listening? I’m bored with libertarian arguing, so I haven’t commented on this, but all those still excited by libertarian arguing should comment away.) Alice and I also seem to agree that the LOTRhymes rappers aren’t so good. Personally I dislike rapping and am also Bored of the Rings, as the pun goes, never having been that excited by them in the first place, so I think it’s a LOT of cRap.
But the horses are great, as is the ML’s new cleavage.
So the ‘heroic’ human shields found Iraq not worth laying down their lives for? I previously asked why they weren’t in Kuwait City when Iraq invaded. David Carr suggested jokingly next year North Korea, but I doubt if they would be welcome. The place that needs defending right now from the threat of massive chemical and possibly nuclear destruction is South Korea.
If the human shields were anything more than stooges for Communist evil, they would be in Seoul, Pusan, or forming a chain across the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). If it is of any help to the peacenik who may be reading, try this link for info on places to visit along the border.
I’m not holding my breath.
This has been my 100th posting on Samizdata. Thanks to Brian, Adriana and especially Perry for their patient explanations of this medium, and to all the readers and commentators, who make it all worthwhile. Well sort of 
If you have played the computer game America’s Army, now you have the opportunity to try a… different… sort of real-life based first-person-shooter game:
Hizbullah has launched a computer game allowing players to simulate its fighters during military operations on Israeli soldiers prior to the liberation of the South. Special Force, which took two long year s of development by the Hizbullah Central Internet Bureau, hit the market on Feb. 16. The game consists of different stages all inspired by actual Hizbullah operations in the South. Players face the same conditions as Hizbullah fighters, including geographic locations, mines, the number of Israeli troops and even the weather conditions. Special Force also offers a training simulation, where players can practice their shooting skills on targets such as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli political and military figures.
The medium of computer games is neutral… what next? A mod for a civilian airliner flight sim that re-creates some rather well known flights on September 11th? I would not be surprised. After that, maybe a ‘role playing computer game’ set in Poland in 1943 called Einzatsgruppen?
Unfortunately the good guys do not have a monopoly on creativity.
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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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