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]
|
Last night’s seminar on blogging at the House of Commons was quite interesting for all sorts of reasons. Firstly it is always nice to meet fellow denizens of the blogosphere face to face for the first time, such as Mick Fealty of Slugger O’Toole. Secondly, it is fascinating to see who ‘gets’ blogging and who does not. Much of the discussion was about how blogging can make politics more inclusive and participatory… ‘making democracy work’.
Labour MP Tom Watson, who is the first Member of Parliament with a blog. Tom clearly does indeed ‘get’ blogging but I think he is quite wrong about blogs being inherently ‘democracy-friendly’, though in fairness he did not labour the point and seems quite realistic about the potential downside for a politician of having an easy to search archive of his views. He also made the interesting point that party whips are going to get very nervous about blogging MPs and I am sure he is quite right once they realise that an enthusiastic but untutored MP swinging his blog like Excalibur is more likely to take his own head off than that of the leader of the opposition… to be an effective blogger you must write what you really think: insincere political PR speak is treated with derision by the blogosphere… and thus I look forward to watching many MP’s torpedo themselves spectacularly via injudicious blogging far more effectively than we could ever do it for them. Not surprisingly we at Samizdata.net see this as a feature, not a bug.
It will surprise no one who knows me that during the public section of the proceedings I could not resist making the point that blogs like Samizdata.net are not in the slightest bit interested in helping the political system work but rather about throwing spanners into political interactions whenever possible. To be able to say that within the Grand Committee Room of the Houses of Parliament, with Members of Parliament present, was something of an inexpensive thrill for me.
Redoubtable blogger and journalist Stephen Pollard was also one of the speakers and we were delighted that he mentioned our across-the-spectrum civil liberties sister blog White Rose as an example of an issue specific collective blog. He also rather artfully addressed the question of ‘why would a professional mainstream journalist write for free on a blog?’… and his short answer was that he does get ‘value’ from his blog which often translates into paid journalistic output. Unsurprisingly Stephen uses his blog as a ‘vent’ for issues which irk him but for whom there is no market, but also he uses blog commenter feedback to spark ideas for articles for which he does indeed get paid.
Overall it was an interesting evening. Blogging continues its march ever deeper into the public consciousness.
Adriana Cronin, Perry de Havilland, Mick Fealty, David Carr
News yesterday of the steady expansion of Britain’s national DNA database. From the Guardian:
Civil liberties campaigners last night claimed the government was intent on building a national DNA database “by stealth” as police prepared to enter the two-millionth genetic profile on to the system later today.
The police minister, Hazel Blears, who will load the sample on to the system, claimed last night that since 1995 the national DNA database has transformed the fight against crime, helping to catch not only serious criminals but also more minor offenders such as burglars and car thieves.
The British DNA database was the first and is the biggest in the world with currently more than 1.8 million criminal profiles and around 200,000 DNA samples from unsolved crimes, including blood and semen stains.
. . .
The Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes said this meant those who were never charged or who were subsequently found innocent would be unable to remove their details.
“Now that one in every 30 people features on the police DNA database, the government must come clean on its intentions,” he said. “If ministers want a database of every citizen’s DNA, let them say so instead of trying to create one by deception.”
The civil rights organisation Liberty claimed the government was hell-bent on creating a national DNA database by stealth, and that academics had warned it was not foolproof.
Several test cases are in progress in the US over how unique a DNA match actually is. Even the British founder of DNA fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, has warned that samples involving only a small number of cells could prove misleading, as we are all potentially covered in bits of other people.
But Ms Blears last night defended the growing use of the DNA database. “DNA profiles… play a vital role in the search for truth, establishing innocence as well as proving guilt. Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear and today I will have a sample of my own DNA taken and loaded on to the database.”
Ah yes, law abiding citizens have nothing to fear. But that is assuming that there are only a reasonable number of laws, and that most of us never break them. But what if there are tons of new laws being passed every year, and most of us, including Ms Blears, have no idea what they all consist of, and most of us are breaking some of them every day of our lives? What, in short, if none of us are “law abiding” any more?
Oliver Letwin is one of my favourite Parliamentarians, so I was pleased to find an article by him in today’s Telegraph. He is defending the right to trial by jury – which is under attack again by Our Glorious Government. He makes the very good point that the legal system should be bottom-up, rather than top-down:
There are, in essence, two models of justice. In the first, justice is an item imposed from above upon the community. In the second, justice is the means by which the community uses the power of the state to protect itself.
The significant difference between these two models is that, if justice is seen as something imposed from above, the citizen begins to regard the law and its enforcement as alien forces; whereas, in the second model, justice is understood to be something in which we all have a stake – and hence, as an activity in which all honest citizens can co-operate.
This of course helps protect individuals from abuse by the state:
The fact that amateurs have this role is one of the guarantees against the state arbitrarily imprisoning an individual.
The depressing thing is that David Blunkett just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see why the people need protecting from him. After all, he’s an altruist and New Justice is in everyone’s interest. He’s from the government and he’s here to help.
Labour’s first term in office was relatively moderate for a Labour government. Most of the damaging policies were done by stealth or – with policies like foxhunting – put off until the future. This term, however, Labour is much more authoritarian, openly raising taxes, creating regulations and destroying civil liberties. But a third term, with Blunkett still in the Home Office and possibly Brown as PM, is not a prospect I like to think about.
There is a fine article in The Times today (link requires registration and may not work outside UK) by Mick Hume, bemoaning the decline of belief in individual responsibility and the growing use of the word “addiction” to describe almost every form of repetitive behaviour.
As the article can only be read through registration (grrr), here’s the opening gaff:
“We are becoming a nation of addiction addicts. Our society has become hooked on the habit of blaming human behaviour on some form of addiction. Apparently normal people – doctors, scientists, politicians (normal? ed), even journalists (ditto? ed) – seem incapable of resisting the urge to inject “addict” or “dependency” into any discussion of social problems.”
Exactly. The use of the word addict is used by policymakers to assault the idea of Man as a being with free will. We are all essentially passive victims. By doing so, it opens the floodgates to authortarian control of our lives. Look at the massive lawsuits against tobacco firms. Now I hold no brief for such firms, but the idea that people become so “addicted” to X or Y that they are unable to resist is surely contradicted by evidence all around us of people quitting such repetitive habits. Millions of people have in recent decades quit smoking, for example, like the good David Carr of this parish. Many have taken the painful step of quitting hard drugs or quitting alcohol. Of course change can be acutely difficult, which is why we praise folk who take the step of leading a healthier life.
Addiction is a word in danger of being rendered useless by applying it to just about every form of behaviour which is either frowned upon or a repeat form of activity.
Come to that, I suppose I must be “addicted” to blogging. Help me nurse, I am using Movable Type again!
In a comment on a posting in the small hours of this morning (how time does the opposite of fly (it’s the blogging that flies) when you are blogging) about the fall of the Roman Empire, Terence Kealy, etc., Guessedworker said this:
If one is looking at parallels with the present day they exist a-plenty. The starkest and most fundamental is the destruction we allow of our own traditions and mores, by and large in the pursuit of self-gratification. Close behind that is the weakness of understanding, the blind altruism that permits a river of foreign humanity to flow into our midst.
These are great moral failings then and now, against which any failing in the promotion of science and technology is decidedly minor.
To which I replied thus:
Guessedworker
I couldn’t agree with you less.
→ Continue reading: Here’s where we’ll have the immigration flamewar please
Tonight many of the Samizdata.net, White Rose and the Big Blog Company bloggers will be attending a seminar about blogging being hosted at the Houses of Parliament in London.
It will be interesting to meet fellow members of the Blogerati in such a different context.
In case some of the people attending did not get the message, the time has been changed to slightly later (now 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm), and the venue is now the Grand Committee Room in order accommodate the larger than expected demand for seats. Entry as before will be via St Stephens Entrance, Houses of Parliament.
A few days ago I wrote an article pointing to information indicating that the French government had not only agreed to not arrest General Ratko Mladic, the man who supervised the murder of 7,000 men and young boys in Srebrenica under the orders from Chetnik leader Radovan Karadzic, but were also giving the former Bosnian Serb leadership a safe haven from arrest to this day in sector of Bosnia under their military control.
So when a French serial commenter who leaves his remarks on Samizdata.net left a comments under that post saying:
VIVE LA FRANCE !
VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE !
VIVE L’EUROPE !
VIVE LA PLANETE !
VIVE LA LIBERTE !
I whish you all the merriest July 14 ever.
My first reaction was pure fury. This guy might as well have just pissed on the graves of these people, murdered just eight short years ago. In fact to remind us all of his horror which happened under the nose of humane and oh so moral ‘Europe’, and with the complicity of government officials who are still in office today in Paris, London and the UN in New York, just last Friday it was reported that more bodies had been found in Srebrenica, bringing the total up to about 8,000 murdered in cold blood.
I was on the verge of banning this guy and leaving an extremely hostile remark of my own. But then I thought about those remarks a bit longer and calmed down. In fact it started to dawn on me that those comments were a perfect adjunct to the article.
The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 was an event more important in the mythology of the French Revolution than in the actually history of it (far from freeing imprisioned patriots, the inmates were four forgers, two lunatics, and the Marquis de Sade), but it was indeed a portent of the blood soaked egalitarian horror that was to follow.
So yes, that was the perfect comment to remind us that not only is France, like most countries, rooted in slaughter and horror in the distant historical past… but that recent outrages (giving aid and comfort to mass murderers) will just be forgotten in France and millions of French people will sing the national anthem and feel good about the people who lead them. The same people who gave Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic a free pass for slaughtering thousands in Srebrenica and tens of thousands elsewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Vive la France.
And yet this same commenter, like so many French people, decries the overthrow of Ba’athist Socialism in Iraq. Vive La Liberte? Not for the people of Iraq it would seem and certainly not for the slaughtered people of Srebrenica.
There are hypocrites and then there are French hypocrites. Do not let anyone ever tell you that there is nothing at which the French are truly world class.
Just when you think that the world could not possibly get more insane:
President Robert Mugabe’s regime pulled off an extraordinary diplomatic coup yesterday when it was given a senior position within the African Union, the grouping set up to promote good governance in Africa.
What are the odds on Mugabe being appointed as the next UN Commissioner on Human Rights?
A quite splendid editorial in the Telegraph from George Trefgarne:
If Mr Blair signs the European constitution – which he seems determined to do – it will, as far as I can see, be the end of Britain as a serious independent power. It will also lead to the gradual redesigning of our institutional framework.
The euro beckons. Taxation and regulation would increase as we tilted towards the European social democratic model. Judging by the woes of Germany and France, economic growth would be lower and unemployment higher.
I can add little except a recommendation that the whole article be read in order to fully appreciate the monumental folly that Tony Blair seems determined to commit.
The British police: the paramilitary wing of the Guardian newspaper.
– posted by David Farrer to the Libertarian Alliance Forum in response to news of a British shop keeper who was arrested by the police and prosecuted after he gave chase to three youths who were vandalising his premises.
Every so often (and it doesn’t happen often enough for my liking) the British public remind us of the yawning gap between received wisdom and wisdom.
Ever since the 1940’s it has been a core article of faith among the left (and more than a few Conservatives I might add) that services like healthcare and education can only be provided for the masses by central government and funded by general taxation. They even have the gall to denounce alternative models as ‘unworkable’.
Well, if the results of this survey are anything to go by, that canard may be reaching the end of its shelf-life:
Voters are prepared to pay for health insurance if it guarantees them better and faster care, according to a ground-breaking new poll that suggests the public is far more open to radical ideas than politicians realise.
The survey finds strong support among taxpayers for a range of controversial policy alternatives, including giving parents the right to choose private schools for their children and American-style “zero tolerance” policing.
I wonder if there is still ‘strong support’ for British-style “zero tolerance” for self-defence?
The poll appears to contradict the Prime Minister’s claim that voters are opposed to health and education solutions that allow individuals to decide where their money is spent.
And it would also appear to contradict my long-held belief that the British public would never relinquish their single-minded devotion to the National Health Service. The day when consumer expectation finally outstrips the ability of the state to keep up with it may be closer than I had imagined.
The dominant ‘story’ of economic development is that science gives birth to technology, and technology makes money. But who pays for science? That has to be the government, the community, all of us. Because, who else will? So, economic development depends on a strong state, because only a strong state will pay for all that science.
Terence Kealey, in his book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, tells a different story. Strong states destroy freedom. Weak states allow it, and thus allow capitalism, which pays for technology, which stimulates, pays for and is in its turn stimulated by science (the causal link between technology and science is that technology causes science at least as much as science causes technology), and technology also (Kealey accepts the usual causal link about this bit) causes increased prosperity.
The early chapters of this book supply an excellent potted history of pre-industrial Western Civilisation and its development. Here are the paragraphs that describe the fall of the Roman Empire:
So unconcerned with research did the Roman State become, that the Emperors actually suppressed technology. Petronius described how: ‘a flexible glass was invented, but the workshop of the inventor was completely destroyed by the Emperor Tiberius for fear that copper, silver and gold would lose value’. Suetonius described how: ‘An engineer devised a new machine which could haul large pillars at little expense. However the Emperor Vespasian rejected the invention and asked “who will take care of my poor?”.’ So uncommercial had the Romans become, their rulers rejected increases in productivity. In such a world, advances in science were never going to be translated into technology. Thus we can see that the government funding of ancient science was, in both economic and technological terms, a complete waste of money because the economy lacked the mechanism to exploit it.
The fall of the Roman Empire was frightful. The growth of the Empire had always been based on conquest, and the Empire’s economy had been fuelled by the exploitation of new colonies. When the Empire ran out of putative victims, its economy ceased to make sense, particularly as the mere maintenance of the Empire, with its garrisons and its bureaucrats, was so expensive. From the beginning of the second century AD, the State had to raise higher and higher taxes to maintain itself and its armies. It was under the Emperors Hadrian and Trajan, when the Empire was at its largest, that residual freedoms started to get knocked away to ensure that revenue was collected. Special commissioners, curatores, were appointed to run the cities. An army of secret police were recruited from the frumentarii. To pay for the extra bureaucrats, yet more taxes were raised, and the state increasingly took over the running of the economy – almost on ancient Egyptian lines. In AD 301, the Emperor Diocletian imposed fixed wages and prices, by decree, with infractions punishable by death. He declared that ‘uncontrolled economic activity is a religion of the godless’. Lanctantius wrote that the edict was a complete failure, that ‘there was a great bloodshed arising from its small and unimportant details’ and that more people were engaged in raising and spending taxes than in paying them. → Continue reading: Terence Kealey on the fall of the Roman Empire
|
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.
|
