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.
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There are some similarities in the USA and UK with the convergence of practical politics into a ‘radical centre’ of regulatory big government statists, whose ‘left’ and ‘right’ labels are rather like those of Coke and Pepsi… sure there are differences, but in the end they are still selling sweet brown fizzy drinks… or selling a vision of state in which the mainstream ‘right’, be it Dave Cameron or George W. Bush, are not talking about shrinking the state (even a bit) and freeing the individual (or even the community) but rather just increasing the pace of regulation a bit slower and in different places than the ‘left’.
Similarly the mainstream ‘left’ like Tony Blair or Al Gore are not selling wholesale paleo-socialist nationalisation of businesses as they did in the past, because they, like the mainstream ‘right’, now follow a more (technically) fascist economic model in which property can be ‘private’ but control of it is contingent upon being in accord with national political objectives and permission from some local political authority.
The ‘left’ and ‘right’ use different metaphors, different cultural references, different symbolism, but in truth they are selling much the same product. They put huge effort into fetishising their product differentiation precisely because there is so little difference in their core beliefs. In the USA, even the issue of self-defence and opposition to victim disarmament is less than solid with the Republicans than it once was as Bush made is clear he was ‘flexible’ regarding anti-gun legislation and needed hard lobbying to not renew the so-called ‘assault rifle’ ban (i.e. semi-automatic rifles which look ‘scary’). Put simply, all mainstream political parties (at the moment) are statist centrists, neither in favour of overt nationalisation nor of individual autonomy, regardless of their sales schpiel.
Why this is true is not hard to glean. Professional politicians are people who have the psychological disposition to both meddle in other people’s lives and to use force to have their views imposed. They are people who value having power over others above all else and the more aspects of society that are subject to political direction, the more important politicians become regardless of their hue.
So the natural order of things, if you are a person who makes their living out of being a politician, is to work to extend the state into more and more areas of life because the state is what you have influence over, thereby making yourself more important to ever more people. → Continue reading: The folly of always voting for the lesser evil
By now, we have surely all heard about the Lancet’s new claim that over 600,000 Iraqis are dead as a result of the US invasion of that country. Lets put that number in perspective.
It exceeds by 25% the war dead (450,000), military and civilian, suffered by Great Britain in all of World War II, including the Blitz, the African campaign, the Pacific campaign, and of course the European campaign.
It exceeds by 25% the war dead (460,000), military and civilian, suffered by Italy in all of World War II.
It exceeds the war dead(562,000), military and civilian, suffered by France in in all of World War II, including the initial battles with the Germans, the Occupation, and the reconquest by the Allies.
The death rate claimed for Iraq (around 2.6%) is approximately the same as that experienced in a number of the countries occupied by the Nazis where the Holocaust was implemented, and approaches that experienced by the Japanese in World War II (around 3.6%), which includes both the horrendous death tolls inflicted on the Japanese military during the island warfare, the virtual extermination of the Japanese navy and air force, and of course the firebombing and ultimately the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities.
Keep in mind the fact that the WWII numbers encompass a six year period, whereas the current war in Iraq dates back just over three years.
Does it seem remotely possible to you that the Iraqi war has been harder on Iraq than WWII was on a number of its major combatants, and in half the time? And doesn’t it strike you as a remarkable coincidence that the Lancet releases its studies on deaths in Iraq in the month before major US elections?
This film will lure me to a cinema – in the unlikely event that any of them run it, that is. I do not think it megaplex fodder, and no doubt it will be widely ignored by the artistic community; the diversion from the party line is just a tad wide for most arthouse patrons. Call me cynical, but I cannot envisage Gheorghe receiving a standing ovation at Cannes. Oh well, have to wait until it is released on DVD.
(Via Tim Blair)
The obesity crisis, epidemic, or whatever (is fatness contagious?) continues to keep the chattering classes busy. In the Daily Telegraph today, Andrew O’Hagan, of whom I was blissfully unaware until about a month ago when he sprung to the defence of Mel Gibson after he made his anti-Jewish rant, argues for stuff like taxing “junk food” and encouraging a whole cultural battle to get the moronic lower orders off their dietary habits. It is an article reeking of disdain for vast swathes of the UK population. Perhaps it is deserved. Many Britons are disgusting people, I suppose, but being the wild-eyed libertarian that I am, do not consider it my business to nag them into eating better by a mixture of state exhortation, punitive taxes and compulsory five-mile runs.
I am not entirely sure what to make of Mr O’Hagan, or indeed the decision of the right-leaning Telegraph to hire him. I thought his article on Gibson was a terrible piece, both patronising towards Jews, other groups, and offensive but perhaps a one-off lapse, one which might not be repeated. But pretty much everything he has written since seems to be entirely lacking in humour, grace or wit. I fear that paper is in one of its down-cycles. O’Hagan may perhaps fit in nicely into the modern Conservative Party.
For a related article on obesity, diet and the nanny state, read this by Jacob Sullum.
Brian Micklethwait is going on ‘internet TV’, which should be interesting. I recall Brian once telling me that he thought he had a ‘good face for radio’. Check it out and hear what he has to say.
Brooke’s main achievement seems to have been in preventing Churchill from losing the war.
– Patrick Crozier writes about Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke’s War Diaries
Sorry, but the comment system is acting weird… we will try to get it fixed as soon as possible.
It seems to be blocking things it should not and has posted most of the comments entered today dated… some time tomorrow!
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.
– Evelyn Waugh, novelist.
This year’s Libertarian Alliance Conference will be on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th November 2006, at the rather splendid National Liberal Club in London. Details and on-line booking can be found here, but a word of warning… the event is filling up quite quickly this year and the number of tickets is finite so if you want to come, book soon to avoid disappointment.
But not the usual suspects it appears. I just came across this story more less by accident.
David Bolais Jackson, 62, of Trent Road, Nelson, was arrested on Friday in the Lancaster area after leaving his Grange practice for the last time. Jackson was charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. However, it is unclear who or what the intended target might have been.
Police found rocket launchers, chemicals, British National Party literature and a nuclear or biological suit at his home. The find came shortly after they had recovered 22 chemical components from the house of his alleged accomplice, Robert Cottage, a former BNP election candidate, who lives in Colne. The haul is thought to be the largest ever found at a house in this country.
Some BNP members stockpile the largest ever haul of explosives found at a house in the UK and this does not make the front page of the national media? Did I just somehow miss the articles about this in the Telegraph, Guardian and Times?
I was going try and summon up the enthusiasm to write something about the North Korean nuclear test, but how could I improve upon this?
If I had the chance to put a few questions to the Idiotarians of the world, they would be… if the most repressive regime in the world having nuclear weapons does not bother you, what does? 1
Secondly, if one month ago the US had taken military action to demolish the nuclear research facilities of the North Korean state, you would have accepted (a) that preventing people like the leader of North Korea from getting nukes was a reasonable justification to use force (b) that North Korea even had a nuclear weapons programme?
Just curious. 
1 = and of course the answer is CAPITALISM… and Jews… and BushMcHitler. What is a huge open air prison camp like North Korea compared to that?
For what a political party is supposed to be, one should turn to Edmund Burke (the man who is often cited as the founder of modern Conservatism), who produced the classic defence of political party – defending it from the charge that is was simply a ‘faction’, a despised term in the 18th century and before, of people out for power.
Edmund Burke argued that a political party, as opposed to a faction, was a group of people allied around a set of principles – i.e. they were interested in how government acted, not just in who got power.
Burke’s argument was made more credible by the fact that the leader of his own party (the Rockingham Whigs) was the second Marquis of Rockingham.
Rockingham was well known to be uninterested in the financial benefits of political power or influence, his being one of the richest men in the land may have aided him in his disinterest, as may have the fact that his wealth came from his unsubsidized landed estates, and the Marquis was well known to be uninterested in power for its own sake (he would much rather give up office and return to running his estates or just watching horse racing, than commit any dishonourable act).
Rockingham was no weakling or fool (contrary to what is sometimes said, I hold him to have come to his principles before he met Burke rather than Burke having imposed principles upon him – they shared principles, neither imposed principles on the other), but it was clear that whatever led this man to politics (indeed to be the leader of a party and twice Prime Minister) it was neither financial advantage or lust for office or power.
Nor was it some vague ‘desire to serve’. Rockingham was loyal to the King – but he would not take office other than on his own principles. The Rockingham Whigs held that the power of the King should be limited, but they (or rather Rockingham and Burke and some others) held that government itself, whether from the King or Parliament, should be limited. That there should not be wars for trading advantage (as the older Pitt was alleged to have supported) and that taxes, government spending and regulations should be kept as limited as possible, and there should be no special projects for interests in the land whether those interests were rich or poor.
Rockingham was not good at writing or clever talk, indeed he had the strange English vice of never wishing to seem more intelligent than anyone he was talking to, and not pointing out an error in what someone was saying if he thought that doing so would undermine them or make them sad, but Burke was a good talking and writing and took up the task of explaining the principles of the Rockingham Whigs.
Sadly Burke was mistaken in thinking that all the Rockingham Whigs shared the same principles and this was to be seen after Rockingham died in 1782.
It is often said that the party broke up over the French Revolution. With most of the party following Charles James Fox, but some (such as the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam, eventually coming to side with Burke on the Revolution), however the strain was clear years before the French Revolution.
Pitt the Younger proposed free trade (more or less) between Britain and Ireland whilst the Rockingham Whigs (led by Fox) opposed his bill. BUT Burke, and those who thought like him, opposed it on the grounds that it included a tax on Ireland, whereas Fox opposed it on the grounds that he did not wish to allow Irish goods free access into Britain.
More broadly, Burke (and those who thought like him) defined freedom as limited government (freedom from government), whereas Fox (and his followers) defined freedom as the rule of Parliament (a rule in the interests of ‘the people’ of course)… freedom as a ‘free government’.
Whilst the goal was to limit the power of the King, or rather of ‘the Crown’ as it was the interests around the throne, not George III himself that were the threat, there was common ground – but over time the basic difference in principles made itself felt. The French Revolution (in Burke’s eyes unlimited state power, in Fox’s eyes a new people’s government freeing itself from the King and ruling in the general interest) was just the great issue that made the clash of principles obvious.
So what is this all got to do with the modern British ‘Conservative’ party? → Continue reading: Why the British ‘Conservative’ party is not a political party at all
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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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