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Power requires ever larger doses to fuel the addiction I appears that the Blair government has created over three thousand new criminal offences during its nine bleak years in office, almost one for every day they have been our political masters.
Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004
No person shall, in the course of business, import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes.
No doubt everyone will sleep a little safer knowing that England is protected from Polish potatoes.
So on the (very rash) assumption that David Cameron’s Tory Party actually noticed any of this happening in Parliament over the last nine years, are we going to see ‘Dave’ campaigning on the basis that a Tory victory will mean a massive roll-back of the intrusive powers of the state?
Okay, you can stop laughing now.
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But, Perry, Polish potatoes are linked to terrorism, drug-dealing and child abuse!
Personally, i won’t feel safe until each potato has its own id card.
Actually, Thadeus, Polish potatoes are linked to that scourge of society, ring rot, hence their ban.
Whilst it is easy to give a potato a retinal scan,how does one fingerprint them?
Ron – with a tub of poster paint, I would imagine….
That’s terrible! Why aren’t they doing something about it! We’re not paying them to sit around on their fat arses making laws all bloody day! There sould be a law against it!
To complicate matters, the Polish Potatoes Prevention Act only applies to England. In Scotland, it is perfectly legal to possess Polish Potatoes.
Polish potatoes however do not count among those new offences, merely an extension of the scope of an old one created in 1967. There’s been a huge amount of that too, of course.
The new offences created by this government are generally much less well-defined and affect a lot more people. It has created more than 300 new sexual offences for example.
Should have written “well-motivated” rather than “well-defined”, though there’s a lot of vagueness around.
So there are a few more laws, less trees in Finland and more space wasted within PDF files on so many hard drives. Out of 3000 offences, how many will be enforceable? Next to none!
I just got mugged about an hour and half ago. The dispatcher (police) wouldn’t take the details of the mugging, which happed some 7 minutes earlier. She insisted in repeating my address 4 times and informing me that an ambulance was on its way. At this point I lost my temper and made it clear for the 4th time I didn’t need an ambulance. I wanted to talk to a cop with access to the streets to track down the muggers. To no avail. Another 7 minutes passed then the cops arrived followed by an unneeded ambulance. By now, no chance of getting the robbers. I stayed to politely watch and assist a cop fill in a number of forms. Later, I was told that no one could be found matching the description of the miscreants. Why am I not surprised? Nice that the cops were, they were just way too late.
In short, I was attacked by two very large black guys wearing identical black long T shirts and dark wide bottom jeans. I retained control of my wallet (I still have it complete with credit cards and green card etc.) I just got spitting angry in being overpowered and outgunned. I took 3 minutes, an eon in a potentially deadly robbery, to get all the old cash machine receipts and served up only two 20 dollar bills out of my wallet. One of them grabbed the cash. He patted me down for other money, they got my change purse with 18 dollars and my cell phone (I hoped they might miss that one but they didn’t). I grabbed back my cell phone and retained my wallet. Did I consider dying today? Yes is the answer, I lost my wife Marilyn Daljord-Gray last September to cancer hence my shortness of temper with these loons. If I had been stabbed (they showed no weapons, they were so large I had no chance anyway) if it missed my heart or a major artery I would have done my best to deal all I could to one of them before going to the great beyond. The cops were kind and merely said I was lucky to be alive.
Am I racially prejudiced after this? Well no, but I am sure culturally prejudiced as hell, I lump this section of society in as a close second to Islamo Fascists! A society that creates this sort of predatory behaviour and attempts to counter it with red tape isn’t in good shape. Yes I am judgmental, one would be mental not to be. These stupid robbers will get caught on some other occasion and, once in the system , will no doubt be at risk for HIV. More fool them, couldn’t happen to nicer guys. It is comforting to note that being a street crim isn’t a life affirming strategy for getting on in the world.
Both the nasties that attacked me were middle class in well laundered, or new, T shirts and jeans with new unmarked baseball caps on. I gleaned their class by their accent and use of peremptory language. After the attack they vanished in moments from the streets, no doubt in their car parked around the corner. The dispatchers delay in putting me through to an active police command guaranteed success for these crims.
We have lots of laws, more arriving on the books daily here, but we still get ‘drive by policing’ of our neighborhoods. The silly idea that Tony can create the great society with printed criminal laws is just absurd. If most of the major ones are useless, what good are the rest? Yes it is laughable, though I am hardly in the mood to do so.
Perhaps beheading pensioners for not stumping up for the BBC might help the spluttering classes get over their idiotic notions that criminal laws will fix a busted society.
Personally, I think Brooklyn is sinking back into the mire of pre zero tolerance days. I am moving to New Hampshire where I can at least “live free and die” in the Granite State. It is high time to sunset as many laws as possible. Enforce the old ones or just don’t bother. In New Hampshire they don’t like taxes or laws all that much.
“It has created more than 300 sexual offences for example.”
Over 300 ways to be sexually offensive! Who would have thought?
To Howard :
“Am I racially prejudiced after this? Well no, but I am sure culturally prejudiced as hell”.
That should be the right attitude. Can we preserve our western culture, in Brookling (I thought it was safe), in New Hampshire or anywhere else ?
After all these funny posts, you remind me that these absurd laws try to hide or even facilitate, the birth of a new culture, at our expense. In France, there are social charges in addition to criminality, to finance it.
Very much agreed: In fact number of new laws don’t make things safer – they make things much more difficult for the police to act swiftly if they’ve got more laws and regulations to consider – not to mention the extra complexity of court cases especially as the scope for contradiction increases especially considering how vague most of the new laws are.
It would be interesting to take a couple of these laws that were passed closed to the beginning of the Labour government examine how (and if) they’ve been used what impact they have had on Britain today.
Not really suprised, though that a man so intent on controlling his party is also keen on controlling most of public (and private) life in the UK through a vast set of laws. 🙁 Time to roll back the controls.
Howard Grey – just saw your email regarding your mugged ordeal…and sympathize and hope you are doing well now in Ne Hampshire. I also wanted to say Marilyn Daljord was my first friend when I moved to New York…and a beautiful woman with a most beautiful of voices and nature. We met a couple of times in New York and always thought you had gone back to the UK…. If you read this at all… I hope you are well now and living a good life….
Annie (bluebirdchimney@hotmail.com)