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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Well, as Samizdata’s token Australian, I guess it is my job to do a little bit of cheering from the point of view of England’s opponents in the final of the Rugby World Cup on Saturday. Like Brian, I have also been writing about the tournament on ubersportingpundit, but if he is going to bring it here and the commenters are all then going to complain about Australians I might as well use my God like Samizdatista powers too.
For in the other semi-final on the weekend, Australia versus New Zealand, the Australian side that have looked second rate all year suddenly came good, and played superbly to beat New Zealand. Sydney is getting excited. The final is Australia v England, a great grudge match.
Which leaves me with two things to discuss. The grudge, and the match. First, the match. → Continue reading: Australia in the Rugby World Cup Final – and New Zealand hung out to dry
I think you will find this DOD transcript a fascinating entree into the current situation in Iraq. Major General Charles H. Swannack, Jr., the Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, is high enough to have a fairly global view but not too high. He’s still close to the combat and day to day reality.
It is well worth a read.
David Frum has a strong editorial in today’s Telegraph writing about the anti-Bush demonstration in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London last night.
The war on terror has glaringly exposed the moral contradictions of contemporary political radicalism: a politics that champions the rights of women and minorities, but only when those rights are threatened by white Europeans; a politics that celebrates creative non-violence at home but condones deadly extremism abroad; and, perhaps above all, a politics that traces its origins to the Enlightenment – and today raises its voice to protect militantly unenlightened terrorists from the justice dispensed by their victims.
He talks about how obtruse the ‘protesters’ were about answering his questions or generally engaging with him, warning each other about how he is bound to misquote them or quote them out of context. This is what he has to say to that:
I agree that context is everything, and the context of this week’s events is that many thousands of British people intend to converge on central London to protest against the overthrow of one of the most cruel and murderous dictators of the 20th century – and to wave placards calling the American president who ordered the dictator’s overthrow “the world’s number one terrorist”.
It’s a deeply shameful context, and though I would not quite endorse the verdict of the taxi driver with the poppy stuck in his dashboard who dropped me off at the demos (“Not many of them traitors out tonight, I see”), he at least saw something that they, with all their apparently abundant education could not: that the two leaders they most scorn are the latest in the long line of Anglo-American statesmen whose willingness to use force to defeat evil secured them their right to make bloody fools of themselves in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and through the streets of London to Grosvenor Square.
Although there is no love lost for Bush on this blog and we do endorse the taxi driver’s verdict, the article contains sentiments that we hope are shared by more people in Britain than the current coverage seems to suggest.
Wandering into the back streets of anarcho-capitalism, for the first time recently, I started out with the naive idea that there would only be one form of it. Sort of like when you discover jazz, perhaps as a teenager, with the misguided impression that there’ll only be one musical format dominating all late-night jazz events. Well, Professor Hoppe steered me straight on that feeble notion, when he blasted his trumpet towards me in Democracy: The God that Failed. Staggering out into dawn’s clear light, after a full whiskey flagon of Hoppe’s invective, I needed a few days to recover from the mentally-induced hangover. Where before I’d been a happy-go-lucky wanderer, breezing through this vale of socialism we call the United Kingdom, Hoppe turned me into a paranoid Cassandra seeing the evils of the state under virtually every rock and anti-social nuisance order.
Is car parking costing too much in Henley town centre? The parasitical agents of the state in South Oxfordshire District Council are exploiting their monopoly position as coercive public roads owner and enforcers of parking law to rob honest individuals who wish merely to trade with one another in local shops. Is graffiti starting to cover the local road signs? This marks the disintegrating failure of state government, in the guise of that dangerous idiot David Blunkett, to provide decent law and security services thereby causing degenerative failure because of the hopeless government monopoly provision of both. Plus, the forced integration, into the great democratic vote bank, of hundreds of thousands of economic migrants in search of welfare has destabilised the UK’s fragile network of societal links. Arrrrggggghhhhh!!!! I can’t take it any more.
Hoppe’s book is enough to drive you towards Abba Gold albums, to lie in a darkened room with a wet flannel over your face thinking of bearded portly men strumming exotic star-shaped guitars, to briefly escape the logic of its conclusions about every decivilising aspect of modern state-dominated life. Is there an alternative? → Continue reading: David Friedman: Radical capitalist or utilitarian apologist? The Machinery of Freedom
The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush
David Frum
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003
It would be nice to think that a lot of people will read this book and have their perception of and attitude to George Bush altered for the better, but given the relentless negativity of the media, I’m not too hopeful.
David Frum, a not very “observant” Jew, was offered a job of speechwriter to GWB shortly after his election. Though a Republican, he was not a strong supporter of Bush in particular, but grew to be impressed by him, mainly from his straightforwrd character and his persistence in trying to do what he considered right, rather than expedient or merely strategic.
It is clear that GWB’s character was radically altered for the better by his Christian conversion, and the White House ambience reflected his beliefs. Those chosen to work with him tended to be notably pious. Indicative of this, the book opens with “Missed you at Bible study,” a remark made to Frum’s companion, it’s not clear by whom, as they entered the White House together. Mutual courtesy and consideration extended to restraint to any rivalry. Profanity (even “damn”) was out, sober suits, jackets and ties in and all stood when the President entered a room, unless waved down. “Yet sometimes I found myself wondering whether there was not a danger of overdoing this solid and sensible business … my colleagues reminded me of the sort of girl my grandmother’s friends encouraged me to take out … Nice – and what else?’ [he’d ask] Just nice – what else do you want?'” → Continue reading: The Surprise Presidency
Things are getting fraught on the speed camera front.
Glenn Reynolds has a blistering post at his other blog (sheesh – I can barely hold up my end at a group blog, and Reynolds has two of the damn things) about the “anti-war” activists and their willing accomplices in the media.
The picture he paints (and documents) of traditional media outlets is horrifying. Groups raising money to fund the guerrilla/terrorists are “anti-war militants.” Western reporters have hired their former Saddamite minders as interpreters. Massive pro-American protests in Iraq go unreported in the elite media. I would add the major media blackout on the Hayes report discussed below, and the near blackout of the interim WMD report confirming to a large degree Saddam’s WMD capabilities. Punchline:
It certainly seems to be the case that neither Americans nor Iraqis are being well-served, as the press bends over backward to characterize terrorist sympathizers as “anti-war” while doing its best to minimize Iraqi support for peace and reconstruction.
As the man says: Indeed, and, Read the whole thing.
I should have had a good brag about this well before now, but at least the delay has given the Guardian the time to translate the comments in the French and Australian sporting press about it all – it all being the fact that, last Sunday morning London time, England beat France 24-7 in the second semi-final of the Rugby World Cup, in Sydney, and are through to next Saturday’s Final against Australia.
This was something of a surprise to some, and some included me. France had looked terrific all through the early rounds, while England had stuttered against lowlier opposition. But when it came to le crunch England were up for it and France crumpled.
The twin nemeses of France were the two Ws, the Weather, and Wilkinson. → Continue reading: England in the Rugby World Cup Final – and France hung out to dry
The Independent reports that despite Big Blunkett’s posturing the public is losing patience with his plans to force compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent British citizens.
A new MORI poll suggests 19% of people believe wrongly that ID Cards are the best way to cut crime. That figure is depressingly high but still a lot lower than the 29% who gave the same answer two years ago.
Blunkett has said that compulsion will not be introduced unless there is “clear public acceptance” of the principle. Polls like this suggest that we are slowly turning the tide of public opinion.
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
The Independent reports that lawyers and civil liberties groups yesterday urged the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, to back down over proposals to limit the right to trial by jury as he prepared for a bitter parliamentary battle to force the proposals into law.
In a letter to The Independent, the Law Society and the Bar Council joined civil liberties groups in urging Mr Blunkett to accept a string of Lords amendments toning down the Criminal Justice Bill.
Ministers will attempt to revive the plans in the Commons today after they were thrown out by a coalition of Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers. They will also try to reverse defeats over proposals to allow juries to be given details of defendants’ previous convictions.
An article called Case Closed by Steve Hayes in American conservative journal, The Weekly Standard has yet to cause much of a stir in Big Media. But it should.
If this story is even partly correct, and frankly given my scepticism about our intelligence agencies, we have to be careful, the findings could be crucial to the war debate. It has been a frequently made point from the anti-war and war sceptic crowd that there was no provable connection between Saddam and radical terror groups linked to 9/11. (They have tended to dismiss this possible link with rather blase haste, as if Saddam was some sort of misunderstood old fellow). Well, that claim of no-link is looking a lot weaker now if Hayes’ article is correct.
I hope this story is properly analysed, the evidence sifted and cross-checked. And please, could bloggers like Jim Henley, who has probably been one of the most articulate anti-war libertarian writers these last few years, and with whom I have enjoyed a friendly email correspondence, do better than just dismiss the Hayes story out of hand?
The Mayor of London (and you cannot begin to imagine how ashamed I am to have to type those words) Ken Livingstone is making a play for the Moonbat Demographic: [From the UK Times]
But the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, branded Mr Bush as “the greatest threat to life on this planet” whose policies will “doom us to extinction”.
Obviously the ‘global warming’ schtick has played itself out.
The mayor also said that he did not recognise Mr Bush as a lawful president and he condemned America’s rapacious capitalist agenda.
Those protestors are wasting their time. The President of the USA will not be in London this week. Just some guy from Texas.
Poor old ‘Red Ken’ must have been provoked into this outburst by the unbearable thought of those steel tariffs.
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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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