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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Some consequences really are unintended ‘Underground, overground,
Wombling free,
The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we.
Making good use of the things that we find,
The things that the everyday folks leave behind.’
I was half watching one of those interminable nostalgia programmes on TV last night when my intention was caught by the voice of Bernard Cribbins, whose vocal intepretation of the flawed yet quietly heroic role of Orinoco (not to mention Tomsk, Wellington, Tobermory, Madam Cholet and Great Uncle Bulgaria) in The Wombles will forever have its place in the hearts of all who heard it.
Among the many interesting things he said (did you know that all those endearing dithery mutters were ad-libbed?) was that Womble-fixated kiddies used to go to Wimbledon Common and drop litter there in the hope that a Womble would come and take it away.
This proves something. I am not sure what, but something.
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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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That children are impressionable?
I was thinking something more along the lines of “if you believe that someone else will clear up all your mess you have no incentive not to make a mess – or even a positive incentive to make a mess if watching someone else clear it up will be interesting.”
On the other hand, the Wombles, making good use of the things that they found, clearly benefited from such a mess.
So, perhaps the children thought that they were acting charitably?
Trickle down litternomics!
It means huntin’ womble is harder than you might think.
Natalie’s “if you believe …” Reminds me of a young lady I knew who had spent too much time in the Chicago of Mayor Daley the First. We were walking in a park, and when I picked up a piece of litter to toss it in a trash receptacle, she said something to the effect of “Put that back on the ground! There’s a man whose job it is to pick up that stuff. Do you want to put him out of work? Do you want his children to go hungry?” Gave me an insight into the way that working for the government works. If Daley had had Wombles, he would have had to send them to Wisconsin [or Narnia, or anywhere away], in order to maintain employment levels at home.