We have a free press and this freedom of expression is a vital and indispensable part of our democracy and this is the reason why I cannot control what is published in the media
– Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
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February 3rd, 2006 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Gulliver’s Travels is a satirical story about two factions that face over how to eat boiled eggs. The first maintains that boiled eggs should be cracked at the smaller end. Their opponents maintain that they should be cracked at the larger end: and they are all set to go to war over it. With the ‘offensive’ Danish cartoons, we have the modern equivalent: the large-enders (Western apologists) are apologizing to the small-enders (offended Muslims) for making a joke out of small-ending! This entire furor is premised on the assumption that we can not dignify people by giving them responsibility for the way they choose to react to the things in their world – and especially things that they do not like. Just as I have the responsibility not to choose to get angry at all every Muslim when a few damaged individuals commit such evil acts as beheading of innocents. No one can insult me or offend me unless I choose to be insulted or offended. In denying that, I deny my own power over myself. I understand that people may not have arrived at that understanding, but since I have it, I cannot in good conscience withdraw my own free expression when no hurt was intended. Did all these politicians and pundits not learn this very basic lesson when they were five and got upset at a hurtful remark in the playground, and their teachers told them, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”…? While I am the first to expound openness to those who see things differently from me I also expound my own need to be who I am. We have a right to do our truth as individuals, and as a culture, just as do all Muslims and the culture of Islam. While I will always respect the right of someone to disagree with me, and respect the equal humanity even of those who disagree with me violently, I never have to deny my own truth. Voltaire’s famous line, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” will only make for a better world if we add to it, “You disapprove of what I say, but I will defend to the death my right to say it.”… In the instance of the ‘offensive’ cartoon, no one needs to defend anything to the death. We need only politely apologize for causing unintended upset; politely explain that we do not require that the cartoon be read by anyone who is in any way upset by it, and that we respectfully disagree that our culture is worse for protecting freedom of expression where it is not imposed and does no physical harm. Then let it drop and let the fire burn itself out. It is called “agreeing to disagree” and is the very manifestation of treating everyone with equal respect. February 3rd, 2006 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
— Ben Walford on Spiked. How many 7/7s make a Blitz? Roughly 775. Totting up the figures given by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, gives us the total murders achieved by the most sustained bombing campaign directed against any liberal state. Deaths since September 1993 (not counting the bombers): 855. Real wars kill more in a single air-raid. Israel has over 500 deaths in road accidents every year. Even there, you are in more danger from your car than a suicide bomber. Me, I am taking the tube. February 3rd, 2006 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
The contributors and most of the commenters to this site actively defend the free speech rights of fanatics, bigots, blasphemers and pornographers. Where the shield wall falters, that is where we go to fight. I think we have the right to be proud of that. But I wonder if even we do not still have our sacred cows – sacred cows that need to be slaughtered. I am fully aware that the disclosure I am about to make may cause outrage even among people who think of themselves as absolutists when it comes to free speech. I must apologise in advance to Perry and the others who have extended me the hospitality of this site for what may seem to be an abuse of it. I realise that there are some people who may think that, having said in public what I am about to say, they can never associate with me again. Forgive me. I feel I have to say this. → Continue reading: The limits of free speech February 2nd, 2006 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Not only is the state not your friend; it does not live in the same country you do. Failing to keep proper books and records in a business is likely to end in your going to jail, if you do not go broke first. So almost all businesses do manage it. What would happen to the board of directors of a corporation with a turnover of £10 Billion and 61,000 employees, if it were discovered it did not even reconcile its bank statements during their tenure? Something like this, perhaps? In most corporate scandals the accusation is not defective or absent bookkeeping, but that it was too clever. Here is the National Audit Office on 31st January 2005:
I particularly like, “the Home Office found no evidence of fraud”. Did nobody think to call in the Serious Fraud Office just so that they could say there’d been an independent check? This is government, you see, and the rules for government are different. I confidently predict that there will be no consequences whatsoever for anyone but the taxpayer, who will stump up for yet another incompetent systems review. No minister will be censured, no official will lose his job, and no-one will go to gaol. Which is just as well, considering how badly the prisons are run — by the Home Office. The Home Office is an organisation that is currently preening itself before setting out up to become the Master Department, ruling them all through the largest and most complicated IT system ever, anywhere. It is currently asking suppliers what it should do and how much they think that should cost, while telling parliament it will not reveal any cost estimates (See: Lords Hansard 16 Jan 2006 : Column 428) in case it damages the bargain to be got from those same suppliers. Though I have other reasons for thinking that the Home Office should not be permitted to seize from the Treasury the role of colossus over the rest of Whitehall, this NAO report at least ought to give any sane administration pause. I cannot see any whelk stalls or breweries taking the risk of offering their facilities for the necessary in-house training. February 2nd, 2006 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
In order to show some solidarity with Denmark, who are facing remarkable pressure over the Jyllands-Posten ‘Satanic Cartoons’ incident, I for one will be stocking up with Danish products at every opportunity. I find it offensive that they are being threatened by Islamist thugs and pissant Muslim governments for daring to be a tolerant western nation. So, what recipes can liberty lovers think up that use Lurpak butter, Danish bacon (lots of yummy Danish bacon), Havarti cheese, Carlsberg & Tuborg beer and smoked herring? And as every campaign needs a ‘face’… 
February 2nd, 2006 | 63 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of the advantages of having a comments section is providing me with new ideas to write about, even when the comment in question is so flat-out wrong that it makes me gape with amazement at the screen. In my recent post about the economic fallacies surrounding immigration, a commenter opined that Indian immigrants into the UK were leeching money out of this country by not re-investing it in new businesses but merely writing cheques to “inactive” folks back in the old homeland. It is a lousy argument on a number of levels, and I am not even going to dwell long on the obvious dangers of inciting distrust and hostility towards economically successful immigrant groups and accusing them of not being sufficiently “patriotic” by not spending all their profits in Britain. The argument also fails because it ignores the subjectivity of economic value. If a businessman earns a million pounds in profit from a drycleaning business in Birmingham and sends the odd cheque back to his aged relatives in Bombay, then how is economic value being destroyed? In the eyes of the businessman, helping his loved ones is worth more to him than investing that money in something else, even though other people might disagree with that decision and think him to be deluded. It is none of my business to force a change in that decision. Also, that businessman is doing something that supporters of a liberal civil society have traditionally supported: philanthropy. How can it be wrong for a man to steer a portion of his wealth to his dependants, educate them, feed and house them? Who gives any entity the right, least of all the State, the power to say yay or nay to that decision? The argument that such transfers are wrong is an echo of the old Bethamite notion that the State is entitled to seize wealth if that maximises the “greatest happiness of the greatest number”. A final point. No doubt large sums of money are paid by immigrants and migrant workers back to the points of origin all the time. This has happened for centuries. These transfer often sustained people in great hardship. I have come across some dubious economic arguments in my time, but the idea that immigrants paying money to their folks is some sort of parasitical waste has to be one of the weakest. February 1st, 2006 | 50 comments - (Comments are closed)
The bizarre desire of Islamists to prolong the Jyllands-Posten ‘Satanic Cartoon’ saga has now escalated the whole issue and caused French newspaper France Soir to join the fight for freedom of expression and also republish the offending cartoons. To quote what a commenter called Max wrote in an earlier article here on Samizdata whilst arguing with an outraged Muslim commenter:
Aux armes, mes amis! February 1st, 2006 | 54 comments - (Comments are closed)
February 1st, 2006 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
I spotted this online quiz on a Tim Blair thread. Normally, such quizzes tend to be inordinately tedious, but this one raised a chuckle. It features a series of quotes taken from both Al Gore’s book Earth In The Balance and The Unabomber’s Manifesto. Get marks by correctly attributing each quote to either Unabomber or Gore. I scored precisely 50%. Heh. As an antidote to environmental luddites, used copies of Bjorn Lomborg’s fantastic book The Skeptical Environmentalist are going for a song over at Amazon. When I bought this book a few years ago, it cost me more than fifty (Australian) dollars. If you have not yet read this fascinating expose of the Green movement, what are you waiting for? Whip that credit card out now! February 1st, 2006 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Big Pharoah has some rather rational things to say about the ‘Satanic Cartoons’.
Indeed. February 1st, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
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