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The Tory Party in Britain has been beyond a joke for a while now, but having now come out in support of ID cards, the Conservatives have well and truly screwed the pooch. Apart from the Democrats in the United States, never has a political party been so clueless and thoroughly unfit to govern. Let’s get this bursting at the seams. Link via Patrick Crozier December 15th, 2004 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Home Secretary David Blunkett has resigned, which is probably a euphemism for “has been sacked”, over allegations that he used his power as Home Secretary to speed up visa applications of his mistress’ nanny and various other dubious things. (Sadly, he has not been sacked for his fairly successful attempts at abolishing the common law). David Carr will undoubtedly post a comment saying that things will be as bad or worse under a new Home Secretary / future Conservative Government / blah blah blah. He is probably right, but none the less, I salute the demise of this vile man. December 15th, 2004 | 51 comments - (Comments are closed)
The leader of the neo-fascist British National Party has been arrested by West Yorkshire Police on ‘suspicion of incitement to commit racial hatred’. Now let us ponder that for a moment. Incitement to commit racial hatred. He has been arrested for trying to get someone else to hate non-white people. Now if he had incited someone to hate Manchester United supporters, the Old Bill in West Yorkshire would not have hauled him off for questioning, so clearly we are still permitted to suggest to others that they should hate some folks without being dragged into court, just not folks of a given race. But please note he was not arrested for ‘incitement to violence’ against some racial group, he was arrested for inciting hate. He was arrested for trying to get people to think and feel, not act, a certain way. He was arrested for leading people into thought crimes. So they have outlawed certain emotions (i.e. hatred) and have moved to enforce that law against the racial collectivist Nick Griffin, because the hatred he incites is directed towards a certain classification of people. Well I also happen to loathe, yes loathe, certain other classifications of people: communists, fascists, theocrats, some paleo-conservatives, members of Al-Qaeda and many flavours of socialists. I do not necessarily think all such people need to have violence done against them (well, members of Al-Qaeda excepted…) nor should they be arrested for thinking the things they do, but I do indeed think such people should be regarded with a fair degree of detestation. Moreover I have no hesitation inciting others to feel the same way towards such because those who would take away our liberties should indeed incur the hatred of those whose rights they would abridge. I wonder how long I have left before I have to live somewhere else other than Britain if I wish to continue to have freedom of speech and stay out of jail. December 14th, 2004 | 63 comments - (Comments are closed)
The man who gave us New Journalism, The Right Stuff, A Man in Full, From Bauhaus to Our House, the Painted Word, and of course such classics as Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, has suddenly crashed against the buffers of British satire. Yes, Tom Wolfe, one of the grand men of American fiction, has been nominated for a Bad Sex Award for a truly cringe-making passage of sexual dialogue in his latest novel. Can he recover? Does this titan of American literature, who has mocked the lunacies of modern art, brilliantly described the feats of Chuck Yeager and the Mercury astronauts, bounce back from this potentially mortal blow? Let’s hope so. December 14th, 2004 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
A few days back, Perry de Havilland wrote about the sheer weight of regulations which empower officials to tell homeowners what sort of windows and fitting they can have in their own homes and mused as to whether such laws might, given their sheer impertinence, help provoke Britons to revolt. Maybe. I hope so but I want to mention another related thought – how the state makes it harder for us to carry out practical tasks in our daily lives, and what this does to our society. Let’s face, it, home maintenance or ‘Do It Yourself’ (DIY) is not every man or woman’s idea of fun. In today’s hectic world, it makes a lot of rational economic sense to ‘outsource’ work to plumbers, electricians, plasterers and carpenters, and such folk can make a good living thereby (I read somewhere that a lot of ex stockbrokers have retrained as plumbers – it pays better). The usual Adam Smith arguments apply. But there will always be folk who, for either economic reasons or plain love of working with their hands, will want to look after their homes themselves. My dad is such a person and built the very house my parents now live in. It is a very good building. Some of the satisfaction people get in buying a home – as I am about to do – is knowing that you can paint, decorate and shape your possessions as you like, subject to getting insurance cover, which tends to be rather more effective in promoting quality than government rules. In today’s world, of course, things like preservation orders and planning regulations impose tight limits on certain alterations, but even with such restrictions, owning a home gives us the chance to make a small physical mark on our world in a tangible way. This matters to people. Owning your own bit of bricks and mortar touches something in our psyche deeper than abstract political treatises on liberty ever can. By telling us whether we should be able to wire a plug or put in double glazing, the State officials is continuing to infantilise the public, and also alienate us from our physical surroundings by telling us that we are not allowed to alter anything without a permit. By frustrating our desires to enjoy the simple pleasures of property ownership, our splendidly caring masters may be denying many of us the chance to to grab those small but priceless parts of daily life. December 14th, 2004 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
As the unrelieved gloom surrounding freedom in the UK becomes too much to bear, here is a recommendation for all of those who wish to celebrate the diversity of snackdom before the health fascists force us all to eat lentils and turnips. Visit snackspot and track down all of those arcane foods such as Gummi Zone Gummi Pizza before they are banned by the edict of Nanny Blair. December 14th, 2004 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
On Saturday I found myself (as one does) in the “Freetown” of Christiana, an “alternative community” in Copenhagen in Denmark. An abandoned military barracks quite close to the centre of the city was inhabited by a large number of squatters in the early 1970s, and arfter decades of sometimes hostile, sometimes violent clashes between inhabitants and the authorities (often over drug use), the people of Christiana and the Danish authorities these days basically tolerate one another. These days Christiana has become a major venue for such things as live music and other entertainment, and it contains an assortment of bars, cafes, art galleries, workshops selling a variety of craft goods, music related items, and a vast amount of cannabis also seems to be consumed in the area. Clearly the economy of Christiana is very largely funded by selling stuff to visiting people like me, but that is fine. (I am all in favour of people who want to sell stuff, and I am all for people being able to smoke or ingest anything they want). And like anywhere else, Christiana has a fair bit of municipal pride, with clearly demarcated signs indicating city limits.  (It is actually relatively difficult to document this post with pictures, as photography is discouraged in all of Christiana, and is prohibited entirely in the entertainingly named Pusherstreet, partly because of the questionable legality of some of the things being sold, and partly I suspect because this is a way of preventing Christiana from degenerating completely into a tourist circus, which is always a danger). But clearly the local promoters of certain iconic pop-cultural properties believe that nearby walls are a good place to advertise. → Continue reading: Which culture do you most want to counter? December 13th, 2004 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
It does exactly what it says in the tin. You either have it or you do not… and judging by many of the letters to the Telegraph, many on Britain would rather you not have it. In response to an interesting article by Charles Moore, we see…
For a start, ‘Muslims’ are not a race, they are a religion. But that aside, if I wish to poke fun at the muslim religion, or any equally daft belief in invisible imaginary friends, I will damn well do so. At least the good Doctor is not calling for Moore to be prevented by law from saying what he wishes and that is an important thing to note. The fact Dr. Shihabi is free to respond in the Telegraph is proof enough that the deck is not stacked against him. However…
What we have here is a touching naivety about the nature of states and laws in general. The law may be aimed at the “kill the infidel” brigade (I have my doubts) but that means other remarks which disparage and insult the muslim faith will be illegal and to just assume ‘people like us’ (as opposed to ‘them’) will not have the law enforced against them is preposterous. Making insulting remarks about any religion is like shooting fish in a barrel but the right to say what you will is vastly more important than some imaginary right to not to be offended. Without freedom of speech the whole damaged edifice of liberty really is in the gravest peril and if not enough British people realise that then we are in serious, serious trouble. December 13th, 2004 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
A culture of bacteria, a gaggle of geese, a confusion of monkeys, a conspiracy of lawyers, an army of caterpillars, a parliament of owls… and an absurdity of lawmakers. In response to rising violent crime in Britain, our political masters have proposed outlawing the sale of knives to people under 18. I assume that will swiftly be followed by laws requiring all unattended kitchens within every house in Britain containing a person less than 18 years of age be securely locked to prevent access to…  … large and really sharp knives. Do anything, anything, no matter how self-evidently preposterous, rather than face the intolerable idea that the problem is not thugs with knives but rather victims without the means to effectively defend themselves. December 13th, 2004 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
If foreign aid is the process of taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries, then Band Aid is the process of taking money from gullible people in rich countries and giving it to cunning people in those same rich countries:
Two decades after the original Big Top and the Circus of Guilt comes rolling into town again though I am relieved to note the distinct absence of national fanfare and clappy-happy exultation that accompanied the first great feast of famine back in the mid 1980’s. Twenty years on and my stomach is still churning from the experience. But this time I have even further cause for complaint. Christmas? Christmas??!!. Just what message are these insensitive, monocultural, fascist bastards trying to send here? This is just Vocal Imperialism, pure and simple. Less pure and less simple, I wager, are the motives of the organisers. Two of the prominent names are Bob Geldof and Bono, both ageing rockers who have managed to sustain lucrative careers long past their sell-by dates by successfully reinventing themselves as saviours of the planet. Hey, it’s all about getting down the with kidz, man. Or something. To me, they have more in common with American TV evangelists. They also promise salvation provided you send them your money. Lining up alongside them are a rabble of pasty-faced no-talents, has-beens, wannabes and never-wases: a million mediocrity march. But together they can make a big noise and that matters a lot in an industry where the noisiest wins. In fact, if they owe anything to Africans at all then it is not spurious Christmas wishes but a royalty cheque and a big thank you for being the best marketing tool in the world. I will be keeping my loose change in my pocket where it belongs this festive season. I have not lost a single night of sleep over Africa and I never will. In fact, I could even cash in on my conscience by starting a record label called ‘Truth in Music’. My first single release will be called ‘I Don’t Give a Hoot About The Starving’. All profits go to me. It may not be the stuff that dreams are made on but, by George, it will have integrity. December 12th, 2004 | 60 comments - (Comments are closed)
Just found your page and I have experienced this mistaken identity by the National Identification Service (NIS) and been wrongly identified with a convicted criminal with a similar name and date of birth – but absolutely no other similarities. I am trying to emigrate and was shocked when the report from the NIS came about a man who was convicted of fraud, serious assault and most distressing sexual assault! I found all doors for complaint closed to me. I called the NIS and was told by an ignorant person on the phone ‘that’s your problem and it’s up to you to prove otherwise’. The Police where equally difficult to deal with. No lawyer would touch it. I then took it to my MP Mr James Wray, who wrote to Blunkett, who passed it to the Minister Bob Ainsworth, who then wrote to my MP, assuring him that it wouldn’t happen again. I then received a corrected document which stated I had no offences, and an apology for the error. That wasn’t the end of it though. On July 25th of this year I was stopped in a US Airport (after trying to collect an eticket from BA check-in, who instead of giving me a ticket held on to my passport and alerted and armed security guard) and prevented from boarding my flight to Gatwick for over an hour. A manager finally came and told me it was an issue between myself and my government, and let me board the plane. On arriving back in the UK I wrote to the NIS asking for justification of why my name is still being linked to this other person, and recorded proof of posting of my letter – Royal Mail tell me it was received on 30th July 2004. I never received any response. It was quite simply ignored. Today I believe there has been no change despite the intervention of Mr. Ainsworth. Once again I find myself needing to get a copy of this sheet and just today had a letter sent to me asking me several questions which relate to the other man. I have been told by someone in the legal profession that it is a ‘violation of my rights to privacy by government’ and that I could in fact have a legal case. Any advice would be appreciated. Right now I would just like to be at my liberty and enjoy my freedom to travel in the world without harassment or any violation of my civil liberties. I am an honest person who has never been charged with any offence. The PNC and the actions of the NIS is an absolute disgrace – it would seem that a civil servant in London has more power than any Judge or Jury in the nation and has the ability to put one person’s criminal past on another. There is I have found no way to completely clear your name. December 12th, 2004 | 62 comments - (Comments are closed)
Last night I attended a fascinating talk about the libertarian movement in Spain, hosted by Tim Evans in Putney, and given by Gabriel Calzada, who had been known to me before last night only as the author (maybe – I was unsure) of this essay. The message Gabriel delivered to a small but very attentive group of London libertarians can be briefly summarised as follows: the Spanish libertarian movement is extraordinarily big and is doing extraordinarily well. Gabriel started his talk with some history, concerning the Salamanca school of Natural Law theorists, mentioning the names of Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco de Suarez, and Juan de Mariana. Here is a famous Mariana quote:
But that was a very long time ago, and that kind of thing only influenced modern Spain indirectly, via its influence on the Austrian school. It became very clear as the evening went on that the enormous Spanish anarchist movement that flourished about a century ago is crucial to any understanding of the current Spanish libertarian movement. Anarchism as a political force in Spain was eventually decapitated by the supposed allies of the anarchists, the Communists, for being insufficiently obedient to Stalin, but the climate of opinion – what we here at Samizdata call the meta-context – of anarchism lived on in Spain. Whereas the typical political question in other countries is something like: How shall we govern ourselves?, in Spain the question is: How shall we be free? How, as it were, do you do freedom? With a question like that, it makes sense that the libertarian answer to that question (one word summary: property) would attract a mountain of enthusiastic attention, and it has. Perhaps another reason for the dramatic impact of libertarianism in Spain is that Spain has, until challenged by the libertarians, been intellectually dominated by Communism. Anarchism having been wiped out, and anti-Communism having become so tainted by Francoism, that left the lefties ruling the media roost in Spain, in the form of such mass media giants as El Pais, the biggest national newspaper in Spain, which makes the Guardian seem to Gabriel like a centrist/liberal kitten by comparison. Lots of libertarians are converts from leftism, and Spain is very full of people who have been raised in a leftist manner but who are looking for different answers. It may also have helped the rise of libertarianism, although this was not mentioned by Gabriel or in discussion, that Spain is now economically so vibrant, compared to earlier times. Gabriel, interestingly, preferred to focus on the achievements of two individuals: Jesus Huerta de Soto, and Federico Jimenez Losantos. Huerta is the key scholar, and Jimenez is a key media performer, and both are men of “contageous enthusiasm”, a phrase Gabriel used several times. He also mentioned the vital role that the Internet has played in this story. Again, summarising brutally, whereas the Communists owned the old media, the libertarians own the Internet, to the point where the Communists are getting seriously worried. Gabriel mentioned two internet sites in particular, liberalismo.org (scholarship) and Libertad Digital (current affairs). Both have astronomical hit rates, of the order of a million a month (sorry but I am bad at numbers). When those Communists type any Spanish ‘issue’ into their search engines, time and time again, the first few hits are libertarian analyses. No wonder they are so anxious, and have been saying that something ought to be done about controlling the Internet. Jimenez is also doing extraordinarily well on the radio. I could attempt to go on, on the basis of my scribbled and inadequate notes, but I will leave it at that for now, hoping that Gabriel will regard this report as better than nothing. (Antoine Clarke, also present, might like to comment about all the things I missed, and maybe clarify some of the numbers involved in this story, people, hit rates, etc.) I will add only that whereas there are now no Spanish libertarian sites which also present themselves to the English speaking world in English, this is apparently about to change. There will soon be an English language site devoted to Spanish affairs, written by Spanish libertarians. Gabriel has promised to inform us as soon as it gets going. Altogether a fascinating, and most encouraging evening. Afterwards we had a late supper at Tim and Helen’s, which is where I took this photo of Gabriel.  Hayek (on the left in black and white) is saying: what is that greenery doing in front of me? Gabriel is a great enemy of greenery, having recently penned a denunciation of the Kyoto Treaty, so particular apologies for that blemish. Oh, and did I mention that Gabriel Calzada has also just been made a Professor at the University of Madrid? If ideas have consequences, and they definitely do, then Spanish libertarianism is going to have some very big consequences indeed. December 11th, 2004 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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