Perry in particular will be delighted to know of the existence of Moonbat Media – it is new to me anyway. Though they do not seem to be taking the definition very literally.
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Amongst all the the bad things about the French Revolution – the murders, the mutilations, the rapes, the robbery, the paper fiat money (and so on) there were some good things… and these good things happened during one session of the ‘National Assembly’ – a session about the time of the 4th of August 1789 (there was some night work – but there is no great need to complicate matters). Serfdom may have covered only a tiny minority of the French population and courts may not have been in the habit of enforcing it – but it was still good to have it abolished. The old taxes may soon have been replaced by worse taxes – but it was good to have so many of the old ones abolished. It was of course wrong to later rob the Church of its lands (and later to plunder other people of their land, and to rob a lot of other people of various things), but tithes were wrong – and they went in the August 4th session. Of course such things (that some books give credit to the Revolution for) such as religious toleration and the end of torture had been granted by Louis XVI long before the Revolution (and were soon violated by the Revolutionaries anyway), but it was nice to have formal statements about the end of ‘putting the question’ and freedom of conscience. If any day in the Revolution deserves to be celebrated (most of the Revolution being a matter of robbery and mass murder – mostly of ordinary people) it is August 4th. Certainly July 14th should not be celebrated. The Bastille contained about half a dozen people (including de Sade) and it was not ‘stormed’ at all. The Governor of the Bastille gave up the defence of the place when he was offered safe conduct – he was then promptly murdered. When talking of the French Revolution it is normal to make a nod to the Declaration of the Rights of Man – but I have read it (in translation) and the drafting does not compare very well to (for example) the American Bill of Rights. At first glance the French Revolutionary document looks like a defence of individual rights, but the more one reads it and thinks about the wording the less good it is. To put it American terms – the thing smells of Thomas Paine (not the libertarian a lot people think he was). August 4th, 2006 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
 There is still no official word that statist Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has passed away, so any obituaries will have to remain on ice. It is not our habit at Samizdata.net to concede a thing to dictators, but one has to credit Castro for his tenacity in clinging on to power, especially after the collapse of his Soviet patron in 1991. One must never forget though that the Cuban people have had to pay the price for Castro’s tenacity. What to do about Castro has been a policy question that has vexed every US President since John F. Kennedy. Until the end of the Cold War, the US certainly could not ignore a violently pro-Soviet state on its doorstep, but after 1991, a policy of benign neglect might have worked to undo Castro. However, one of the features of US policy has been its vulnerability to poltics, in this case, the political wishes of the large Cuban exile population in the politically sensitive state of Florida. (For example, President Clinton felt he had to sign the Helms-Burton Act which regulates the US embargo against Cuba, in an attempt to secure the state for the 1996 Presidential elections.) Peggy Noonan has more on the political impact of Castro on America. I like her policy prescription as well.
Now that would be poetic justice. August 4th, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
As we enter Day whatever-it-is (sorry, lost count) of the war between Israel and Hizb’Allah, the ongoing suffering of the British chattering classes shows no sign whatsoever of easing up. In fact, and according to reliable eyewitness reports, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have led to the intellectual and moral displacement of tens of thousands of innocent journalists, politicians and media types, all of them old women, and who now have nowhere to go. But I suppose that that is only to be expected given the Uberissue media status of the current war in the Levant. So dominant is coverage of unfolding events and so extenstive is the (usually wrong) analysis that even news of impending all-out, balls-out civil war in Iraq has been relegated to the ‘and-now-for-the-rest-of-the-news’ section. However, I have noticed what appears to be a slight change of emphasis. Amid the dwindling number of pro-forma demands for ‘proportionality’ (as if flogging that dead horse for long enough will cause it to reincarnate), the blanket indignation at what Israel is doing is morphing into a sense of grievous effrontery over what Tony Blair is not doing, i.e. he is not caling for am immediate ceasefire. Some talking-head or other on Newsnight this evening even when as far as to suggest that Tony Blair’s lamentable failure in this regard was the cause of the continued strife. But what if Mr. Blair was to oblige his critics and duly demand a ceasefire? Would the warring parties, upon hearing the plaintiff Voice of Blair wafting in on the Mediterranean breezes, forthwith end their hostilities? Would the Katushya rockets fall silent? Would the Israeli armoured divisions gratefully slam their gears into reverse and head, teary-eyed, back to Israel? Will the lion lie down with the lamb, the Hobbit embrace the Orc and so on and so forth? Well, no, and not even the most woodenheaded of the Ceasefiristas imagine that any of that would happen. And if Mr. Blair were, indeed, to succumb to these demands (which seem to mostly emanate from his own party backbenches) what then? Nobody seems to know. But then, nothing need follow because calls for ceasefire are not really about saving lives in Lebanon, Israel or anywhere else. Nor are they about solving the problems or establishing peace. They are really about adopting the right posture that, in turn, absolves the posturer from having to make any difficult or embarrassing decisions. In short, it is a respectable cop-out. The incessant, prating ceasefire demands have little to do with either the Middle East conflict or, indeed, any other conflict and are much more to do with internal politics. The pressure on Mr. Blair is not really to put a stop to the fighting because everyone really knows that he cannot do any such thing. Rather it is pressure on Blair to toe his party line, mollify his backbenchers and let everyone off the moral hook. So does this mean I get a sick kick out of watchiing the continued bloodshed? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’. I, too, would like to see an end to the war as soon as possible but, as balanced against that, I would like to see an end to Hizb’Allah even sooner. Call me callous if you will but I would rather risk being seen as callous than offer myself up as a fashionably useless poseur. August 3rd, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
August 3rd, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that says the world is being run by a handful of ultra-rich capitalists, and that our elected governments are mere puppets. I sure hope it’s true… The only way I can get to sleep at night is by imagining a secret cabal of highly competent puppetmasters who are handling the important decisions… I know some of you will say that it’s obvious that corporate money influences the government. But that’s not enough to make me feel comfortable. I want to know there’s an actual meeting of the puppetmasters every Thursday at 3 pm… – Scott Adams via Frank McGahon who got to it via Hit and Run August 3rd, 2006 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Specter-Cheney ‘Warrantless Surveillance Bill’ will leave a gaping hole in American civil rights by providing a tissue thin excuse for warrantless surveillance of Americans in America. Anyone who has any dealing with foreigners, as long as the state claims the surveillance is ‘aimed at foreigners’, will now be subject to surveillance at the pleasure of some faceless government employee…”in other words, if you call or do business with someone overseas, the government may be watching you”. August 3rd, 2006 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is an article in the National Review by former Sunday Telegraph journalist Tom Gross what lifts the lid on what the British taxpayers who fund the BBC gets for their appropriated money… not that CNN et al are much better:
Without the internet to fact-check and contextualize what the media shows us, our ability to form opinions about what is happening in the world would be totally at the mercy of organisations whose reportage comes filtered through world views that are perhaps no more or less distorted than any other but which claim, without any justification, to be ‘objective’. Blogs like Samizdata do not claim to be ‘objective’ as we do not hesitate to say who we think that the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ or ‘less-worse-guys’ (we do try to be truthful however) as we take the view that as long as our biases are transparent, the reader can make his own mind up about the things we say. Bias + Transparency = Credibility. You make not agree with our conclusions but we will not intentionally lie to you. However when organisations like CNN or the BBC claim to be ‘unbiased’, they are quite simply lying. I recall that pool reporters during the last Gulf War often said words to the effect “we are reporting under the restrictions imposed on us by the US military” before delivering their reports, which is fair enough as a disclaimer. I have yet to hear anything similar said by a reporter in Beirut reporting under Hezbollah restrictions (although I did hear one in Israel mutter that he was being prevented from saying exactly where Hezbollah rockets had struck), which in effect makes them a willing participant to Hezbollah’s propaganda efforts. In short, you are being deceived. August 3rd, 2006 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
Some headlines just speak for themselves. (Via Andrew Sullivan) August 3rd, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
With all the disturbing developments going on in the world this week, it is a surprise to see that Mel Gibson’s drunken antics on the weekend captured so much attention. Neither his drinking habits nor his anti-Semitic views were secret; however, the timing of this latest escapade has meant that reams of newspaper space and gigabytes of bandwidth have been devoted to discussing this. The wider question that may be asked was well put by Ann Althouse:
I did not see anything particularly anti-Semitic in that movie, myself, but I was not looking for it either. The violence of the movie left a more profound reaction on me then anything else. In any event, there is nothing new in artistic and creatively talented people having repulsive political views or social habits, as Andrew Norton points out:
And of course, Hollywood and the wider literary-arts- musical establishment has been filled for years with people who have had pro-communist sympathies. Sadly, the notion that it is beyond the pale to support murderous ideologies of the left have never really taken hold in our wider society. For the thoughtful person who peruses their cultural interests, there is nothing for it but to hold one’s nose. Maybe one day artists will be judged by the content of their character, but I won’t be holding my breathe. August 3rd, 2006 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
With the IAF striking border crossings with Syria and the Syrians shooting down an Israeli reconnaissance drone in Lebanon, perhaps a greater Middle East war is indeed at hand. As Israel really has no viable options that do not involve destroying Hezbollah and destroying Hezbollah probably requires preventing Syria from acting as either a safe haven or supply source, a wider war was probably inevitable. Seeing the last of the Ba’athists in Syria crushed would be splendid but of course the most likely people to fill their still smoking shoes would be Islamists of some ilk. Not easy to see a happy outcome no matter what happens and yet doing nothing is not an option for Israel either given that it would be pointless to try and negotiate with such intractable enemies when in truth they will be satisfied with nothing less that Israel’s annihilation. August 2nd, 2006 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Human beings are a strange lot. Despite being blessed (theoretically at least) with the powers of critical analysis they are nonetheless wont to form an unquestioning consensus around an idea that makes little sense and produces consistently awful outcomes. In fact, the awfulness of the outcomes seems to be directly proportionate to the dogmatic insistence that there cannot possibly be any other way of doing things. I can think of no clearer example of this than compulsory education: a bad idea which is (by and large) badly implemented by the state in the form of day-prisons which act as a factory for producing unacceptably large numbers of witless, traumatised, ignorant, semi-literate teenagers and not an insignificant number of violent, anti-social thugs. Nor is this a secret shame. Indeed, it is the subject of much national hand-wringing about ‘what to do’. And yet, if I dare to suggest that the whole idea of incarcerating children for at least 10 years and then indoctrinating them with the things that politicians think they should know about is both counterproductive and immoral and bound to produce very little except awful outcomes, the reaction I get is rather similar to the one I imagine I would get if I were to demand that all pregnant women be injected with rabies. Still, the best way to deal with a ‘truth-that-dare-not-speak-its-name’ is to speak it; often and boldly. That is why we need press releases like this one from the Libertarian Alliance:
And when that day comes, human beings (being a somewhat strange lot) will be disinclined to recall or even believe in a time when there was a consensus around state education. August 2nd, 2006 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)
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