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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An earlier article by Gabriel Syme which was about the observations of a British Army Officer known to us, in which he relates his experiences in and around Basra, in Iraq, attracted a comment from one of our most thoughtful regular commenters. This gentleman argued that it was unreasonable for this officer to be able to enter and search houses of Iraqis without a search warrant. Now as this particular commenter is clearly a thoughtful fellow traveller with whom all the writers of Samizdata.net would find little room for ideological disagreement on most issues which vex us and whose past remarks were so interesting we used them as a ‘guest writer’ article on Samizdata.net, I thought his views deserved addressing with an article rather than just a comment. I think the core of my problem with the notion being suggested here is one of the most lethal aspects of libertarian thought and why it is so markedly unsuccessful in breaking into the mainstream, at least overtly… this error of which I speak is in fact the flip side of what makes socialism so monstrous… the complete inability to see the difference between normal civil society and society in an emergency situation.
For the socialists, they see how collective action in war works (in effect tribalising society) and try to apply the same logic to peacetime… a Labour Party slogan in post-war 1945 was “If we can achieve so much together in war, think what we can do in peacetime!”… which of course presumes there is no qualitative and material difference between a society at war and one at peace. For them, all economic decisions are subordinated to the collective, which makes some sense if you have to produce more aircraft than Nazi Germany in order to avoid mass annihilation or enslavement but none whatsoever if you just want more people to have more and better washing machines, a wider selection of flavoured coffee beans and responsive dynamic economy… not to mention such bagatelles as personal liberty. Statist conservatives are little better, declaring ‘war on drugs/poverty/illiteracy/whatever’ and trying to deal with the distortions of civil society they themselves are largely responsible for as issues justifying not just the language but the very underlying collectivising logic of war.
Alas so many libertarians make the same error in reverse. They cannot see the difference between when the network of social interactions we call markets and private free associations that characterise normal civil society are functioning… and situations in which large collections of people are trying to kill other groups of people that characterize wars and major civil disorder or serious crisis. Sorry guys, but at times like those, normal rules of civil interaction simply do not apply. Thermobaric explosions, plagues, rioting mobs and forest fires are not known for their propensity to respect even the most pukka of property boundaries.
For a more ‘local’ example… if a house is burning down and the only way for some fire-fighters to put it out is to run their hoses across the lawns of someone who does not wish them to do so, the extremist propertarian strand of libertarian thought would argue that as the lawn is private property, tough luck on the guy whose house is burning down. Well that is lunacy (and why I call myself a social individualist rather than a libertarian most of the time). Without a common law right to go where you must when faced with a clear and present danger, a “libertarian” social order will simply fall apart the first time it faces a collective threat (be it a war, forest fire or plague). People will not sit and watch their families burn because someone else has interpreted what Murray Rothbard or Hans Herman Hoppe wrote about the right to defend private property. I am all for private property and the right not to have people kicking down your doors in the middle of the night, but the reality is that much of the world does not look like the relatively tranquil civil societies of the First World. To see the peaceful and mundane logic that does and indeed should pertain in Islington, Peoria and Calgary as applying to Basra, Baghdad and Mosul in the violent aftermath of a war is not just wrong, it is perverse.
In the real world, a few weeks after a war in which a dictatorship that has been in power for over 25 years was overthrown, normal rules of civil interaction do NOT apply. It does not mean all notions of civilised behaviour goes out the window, but search warrants? Oh please. The mafia-like homicidal Ba’athist are deeply entrenched in Iraq and will only be completely destroyed if the occupying powers are willing to do whatever it takes, which means kicking down peoples doors in the middle of the night on little more than hunches and searching for weapons at bayonet point. The only legitimate use of force is when force can be used effectively… and tying up soldiers in such notions as search warrants during a counterinsurgency action means you would be better off just abandoning any pretence that you are using force to suppress Ba’athist remnants in Iraq and just replace the squadies with an equal number of unarmed American lawyers.
Hmmm… considering the likely outcome of doing that and the vastly excessive number of lawyers in the USA, maybe it is not such a bad idea after all.
Extremism in the pursuit of the Presidency is an unpardonable vice. Moderation in the affairs of the nation is the highest virtue.
– Lyndon Johnson, the successful 1964 US presidential candidate (thanks to an article in Capitalism Magazine for the quotation)
The Telegraph reports how the ease with which Britain’s asylum system can be abused has been revealed by an undercover investigation showing the scale on which immigrants are cheating the state.
The investigation found that identity checks supposed to prevent fraud are not working. Instead, illegal immigrants can easily obtain fake identities that allow them to work or claim benefits illegally. In one instance, a reporter from the BBC Panorama programme secretly filmed an asylum seeker who was making hundreds of pounds a month renting out the three-bedroom house he has been given by his local council in Birmingham.
The undercover reporter for the BBC Panorama, Claudia Murg, found that the finger-printing system introduced in an attempt to prevent multiple applications for asylum appeared not to work. It did not pick up the fact that, shortly after her first asylum application had been rejected, she made a second in a different name – even though her fingerprints were on file under both identities.
We, at White Rose, have maintained that measures proposed by the Home Office such as fingerprinting, ID cards and other biometrics technology for recording individuals’ identity are only as effective as the ‘human infrastructure’ surrounding them. The government’s attempts to introduce ID cards are nothing more than evidence of the state’s propensity to control the lives of the ‘honest citizens’ since they are incapable of stopping those who abuse of the system.
I do believe it was Voltaire who came to Britain some time in the 18th Century and described the state of affairs here as ‘aristocracy tempered by rioting’.
Fast forward to the 21st Century. New aristocracy, new rioting:
Hundreds of homeowners rebelling against record council tax increases are facing prison after being summonsed to court for non-payment of their bills as part of a protest which has been dubbed the “Can Pay, Won’t Pay” campaign.
The rebels are angry over the increase in council tax rates that have soared by as much as 40 per cent in the past two years. They have vowed to go to jail rather than pay up.
For non-UK readers, the tax they are referring to is a local property tax which has, indeed, soared to iniquitous levels in the last two years putting an intolerable burden on homeowners with low or fixed incomes.
The current system was brought in to replace the infamous ‘poll tax’ which was excoriated and villified by the left as ‘wicked’ and ‘unfair’. It inspired a campaign of civil disobedience and widespread rioting which, probably more than anything else, did for Margaret Thatcher.
So does anybody think that the ‘caring’ left will get behind this new revolt? I think we all know the answer to that.
“I am not paying. I will not let the bailiffs in and I am prepared to go to jail. I have no family, so if I do end up in prison I’m not going to upset anyone. At my age I don’t feel that it matters if I have a criminal record.”
A brave and nobel expression of sentiment but one which highlights the weakness of such tactics. People with a career to pursue, a business to run or a family to raise cannot afford the risk of incarceration so this is a situation where just a little enforcement will go a long way to quelling the revolt and securing a high degree of compliance.
Also I cannot help but feel that the campaign slogan of ‘Can Pay, Won’t Pay’ (a twist on the anti-poll tax slogan of ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’) will prove a godsend to the establishment lefties who will be able to demonise the rebels as ‘selfish’ and ‘greedy’.
The rebels do have a website called Is It Fair? but even that, as far as I can tell, misses it’s real target. Calls for a ‘better distribution of central government grants’ are not going to help them or anybody else in the long run.
Monstrous over-taxation is not fair or wise or just or good and while I wholly sympathise with the people who are being rapidly impoverished by them, I fear that their rebellion will do little to improve matters.
My good friend Alex Singleton’s liberty loving credentials are impeccable… he was the founder and driving force behind the St. Andrews Liberty Club blog in fact. Thus I never dismiss his views out hand and I certainly understand the points he makes in his most recent article on Samizdata.net.
I would of course be delighted to see the major political parties start being influenced by libertarian ideas. However the basic thrust of Alex’s views must be predicated on the notion that some sort of Perestroika with the system of party politics under which we are governed is actually possible, which is to say, the system can reform itself and kick the habit of tax addicted encroaching regulatory gradualism and ever more force mandated political interaction replacing the very notion there is something called civil society and non-force mandated social interaction. I do not think any such Perestroika is possible from within the system. As a result, I pin much of my hope of the trend across much of the western world of decreasing voting numbers and think it is indeed possible in the long run to delegitimise the whole notion of democratically sanctified kleptomania and its corrosive effects on civil society. I am, in short, anti-political.
Does that mean I am indifferent to Party Politics completely? Alas no… I too have to live in the here and now world and certainly we do not have the luxury of just standing by when dire things are happening. Matters such as the war against Ba’athist Iraq and events like the current power grab by the €uro-political tranzi elite force folks like me to take an interest in the foetid waters establish politics… but I try to never loose sight of the fact party politics is inherently corrupting. It does not matter how much you are in the side of the Angels, to become truly successful in democratic party politics requires you to become a whore-for-hire and to constantly feed the vast kleptocratic machine or be devoured by it.
So if you want to join a party and try to nudge them in the direction of respecting individual liberty, well God bless you. I wish you well and will certainly count you as a fellow traveller of mine even if I do worry that you may be legitimising the very process which is the root of the problem. However I will never embrace or respect any political party myself and I sure as hell will never join one. My object is get as many people as possible to, as Apple Computers likes to say, “Think Different”.
The section of Libertarian Alliance pamphlets I find most interesting is Tactical Notes. One of the most important questions for Libertarian strategists should be: how close to party politics is it advantageous to be?
I spent my four years at University distant from the Conservative group. The group was, most of the time, largely worthless. Sometimes they were wet, other times just offensive. I remember the time when one Tory president went into a chip shop and exclaimed loudly, “I think it’s great that I buy from the common people here! It keeps them in a job.”
The Liberty Club, which is non-partisan and interested in ideas, was much more successful, with more members, a higher budget and a higher profile. One of the Tory presidents declined our invitation to join saying that the Liberty Club seemed “extreme”. I replied: “Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Being independent of a political party was very useful because we could express ideas seen as being slightly on the fringe.
But I do think it harmful when libertarians completely remove themselves from mainstream party politics. The creation of a Libertarian Party in the US has been wholly unhelpful because it allowed the religious right much more influence over the Republican Party. It has taken away the influence of libertarian ideas. Giving centre-right parties a libertarian hook does seem to me to be worthwhile.
Yes, I know all of you on this blog disagree with me. So I’ll shut up now, and promise not to write on this subject again.
Samizdata has been getting very political lately. I blame all these Conservatives who have wormed their way on to the Samizdata writers list.
So, to more serious matters. Here is an item to warm the cockles, drawn to my attention by this guy. He made this Portillo bon mot his quote of the day, and I think that this gem that he linked to last Friday deserves a chance to sparkle more universally than I have noticed it sparkling so far.
Masturbating more than five times a week between the ages of 20 and 50 could protect men against prostate cancer, Australian researchers claim today.
Excellent. The Anglosphere continues to pull its weight, scientifically speaking.
Inevitably, the Mother Country, in the shape of a charity worker, disapproves.
Dr Chris Niley of the UK’s Prostate Cancer Charity said: “It’s plausible – which isn’t the same as being true. One of the unanswered questions is whether the young men who were questioned may have exaggerated how many ejaculations they had had.
Speak for yourself you boring killjoy.
What we now need is another study about the correlation between being a rabid believer in expanding the power of the state, and getting prostate cancer, along the lines of this. That’s prostate as in pro-state.
This has just popped up on the Libertarian Alliance Forum courtesy of Dr Chris R. Tame, who intends to live for ever and who therefore keeps an eye open for such things:
(7-3-03) BOSTON, Mass. – A new pill, developed by CereMedix, a biotech startup at Northeastern University, could restore the body’s natural defenses so drastically that people might routinely live to be a healthy 120 years old, researchers say.
The substance, which promotes the production of natural anti-oxidants, is set to be tested in two prescription forms, one designed to repair lung damage from smoking and the other to speed recovery from heart surgery.
In prescription form, the drug could have valuable applications for a wide range of ailments, including Alzheimer’s Disease, stroke and coronary damage, diabetes and virtually any illness that results from oxidative stress. In addition to the two prescription drugs in trial, CereMedix has another version in development: an over-the-counter supplement that would slow aging and increase energy by stimulating the production of natural anti-oxidants.
Etcetera etcetera, miracle miracle.
As one of those people who has no idea what a natural anti-oxidant is, I file this under: “This sounds marvellous – hope it works one day”. Although that bit about how they are threatening to repair the damage to lungs caused by smoking will already have made them very unpopular. Their laboratory has probably already been surrounded by baying anti-capitalist hooligans. Bad. But also good, because this will drag them into politics if they haven’t been already, and will turn them into devout believers in the Samizdata meta-context, if they aren’t already.
That aside, the worst news this could be is that yet another bunch of scientists got all excited and thought they’d achieved more than they had.
And the best news it could be is yet another triumph of capitalism in the making, and a truly spectacular one.
“Biomedic startup.” Whenever you hear of Americans using the word startup, you know that they are seeing dollar signs as well as the betterment of mankind. And what’s wrong with that, I’d like to know?
The usual burst of technologically well-informed comments would be very nice, to explain to us all whether there is anything to this or if it’s just hype and hot air.
Often, we expect curbs on civil liberties to be the desired goal of our own left-wing authoritarians or the unfortunate consequence of some EU directive. It is rare that the demands of the United States may result in one more step towards the “surveillance state”.
EU passports will soon have to incorporate a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip, including biometric data, that would be machine-readable for entering the US. This is a consequence of the US Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002 that demands all visa-free entrants incorporate biometric information on their passports from October 2004. (Hint: you may want to change your passport if you wish to visit the United States after this date).
In the tension between liberty and security, the demands of this Act appear a prudent measure to curb the use of false passports for perpetrating acts of terrorism. However, the biometric identifiers used will be standardised according to workgroups meeting for the International Civil Aviation Organisation and International Organization for Standardisation.
Their work will be co-opted by the European Union. A European biometric identification strategy was announced in June at the summit in Greece. The European Biometric Forum was established, with major players and strong links to their counterparts in the United States, to ensure that there would a single standard for applications of this technology, pursued by all member states of the EU.
The EBF will be launched on the 21st July in Dublin and the technology is being promoted as an additional protection for the privacy of individuals, although the growth is driven by state institutions and telecom/security companies.
It is often argued that the Conservative Party must move to the Left to win. It must tone down the tax-cutting agenda, and take the centre ground.
Sounds plausible, but reality is different. At a recent dinner of the Imperial College Conservatives, David Davis revealed that the all-important swing voters are more free-market than normal Tory supporters. According to a Conservative Central Office survey, 87% of swing voters think taxes are too high, compared with only 80% of loyal Tories.
So if you hear the nonsense about “gaining the centre”, tell The Enemy Within to go to hell.
This morning as I was reading the Daily Heap of Newspapers for some blogging inspiration but I could not get past the front page news about the WMD dossier and the tragic end of the alleged MoD ‘mole’. Dr Kelly has been ruthelessly used as a pawn in the game far less civilised than chess between Downing Street and the BBC. By the way, I agree with this analysis of the situation.
The reason I cannot get excited or outraged about the ‘sexed up’ dossier containting evidence about Saddam’s threat to the Western world and his WMD capabilities is that I expect that of anything that comes out of the many-mouthed hydra called Government. Do you really believe all those statistics about the economy, crime, schoolsandhospitals? I sure don’t and never have. True, the spin has acceralated under the Labour government and not only because of Alistair Campell, who is merely an embodiment of the New Labour cavalier attitude to reality. I am not stranger to the public relations techniques, however, I expect that even I would be taken aback by how calculating, manipulating and truth-spinning the whole exercise has become.
This is because the current set of politicians regards such practises as the very business of ‘professional’ government. Keeping the media ‘on-message’ has become far more important than the facts underlying the message itself.
Therefore, paradoxically, I think if anything the WMD dossier has been spun less than the usual stream of propaganda from Downing Street. This is because the tension before the conflict had been so high, that even the spin-doctors at No 10 would have appreciated the hightened exposure they were facing. I bet you that they actually took care not to spin too much and stay with ‘just the facts’.
That they failed so miserably is not evidence that they needed to exaggerate the threat Saddam posed to the Western world. It shows that, under scrutiny, even when the government tries to be honest and credible,their routine lies and disregard for the truth leave them looking like used car salesmen.
Governments lie because that is what governments do
To expect otherwise is to expect a government
not to act like a government.
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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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