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.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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The Sunday Times carries the story that two men have been remanded to await trial on charges of blackmailing a member of the royal family. They are said to have demanded £50,000 not to publicise stories about sex and drugs.
Haven’t the perpetrators missed the point of blackmail? Surely if they had anything that would stick, they could get many times that amount from the world’s tabloids? The point of blackmail is to take advantage of the embarrassment of the person concerned for gain. They seem to have attempted to do it for loss.
I hate the use of the word ‘public’ as a synonym for ‘government’. The government is the government and the public is what is not the government.
But I am not here to save the English language, I am here to save the planet.
– Leon Louw, at today’s Libertarian Alliance/Libertarian International conference in London
Terry Arthur’s 1975 work 95% is Crap was a treasure of my youth (current version is simply called… Crap). I found it a library in Lancing, Sussex one summer holiday whilst staying with my grandparents, and it was a source of both amusement and comfort to me.
Finding a pro freedom, anti big-government book was a rare treat and Terry Arthur’s work was the first humorous such work I had ever read. The endless nonsense taught by schools and broadcast by the media is very painful to people who know it to be nonsense. And from my early childhood I understood that what the teachers said and what was broadcast via the radio and television was nonsense. Terry Arthur taught me to sometimes smile at it, rather than to always be filled with a mixture of rage and despair (although I would not claim that I did not continue to be filled with rage and despair a lot of the time). With this personal history I was eager to read Terry Arthur’s new work – and it did not disappoint.
Mr Arthur examines, normally with total fairness, the speeches and writings of various politicians, journalists and politically connected academics. It should come as no shock to people here that Terry Arthur shows the “reasoning” of these people to be wildly defective – but he also (and here is his true strength) shows their words to be, unintentionally, very funny as well. The ignorance of the “great and the good” (as we say in Britain) is shown in all its glory. But it is not just ignorance of such things as basic economics. The powerful men and women of our time are shown to have no grasp of how to reason. They are shown to contradict themselves, and their “arguments” are shown to be no arguments at all.
What comes over most clearly is the baseless faith in the state that so many of the journalists, politicians and academics have – even when they are claiming to be wary of the ability of government to achieve X, Y, Z. Also the lust for ever more power that lies under the words of these people is exposed. Many of the economic and “social” projects of the powers-that-be (and their supporters in the press and so forth) are also exposed in all their absurdity. So far most people who visit this site will be united in their pleasure at Terry Arthur work – but there are things that may divide us.
For example, Terry Arthur takes a very hostile attitude towards the Iraq war. However, it is at least consistent for someone who (and with good reason) does not believe that government can achieve anything in many fields, to also believe that government will not be much good at “spreading democracy in the Middle East”. And although the source of Mr Arthur’s knowledge of the Iraq war is the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, he shows none of the desire to claim that the war is an evil plot to spread an “American Empire” that one gets from some people connected with the institute.
Terry Arthur assumes that the people involved in the Iraq enterprise were entirely sincere in their motives. Which, of course, makes what he sees as their utter failure more amusing. One can say Mr Arthur is being unfair to some people involved in the enterprise. For example, Donald Rumsfeld is mocked for saying that the whole military operation would only last a brief period of time (at most five months). However, Mr Rumsfeld was clearly in favour of a very different post war plan than the one that was carried out. The Rumsfeld view of the post war operation was very much like that of former General Jay Garner (the first person to be in charge after the overthrow of Saddam) – go in and overthrow Saddam (for supporting enemies of the United States around the world), then elections within 90 days and hand over power. And if the Iraqis made a muck up of things – well that would be their problem. However, it was decided to go in for “reconstruction” and “nation building” before elections and a hand over of power. This was very different from what Donald Rumsfeld had in mind – and it did not turn out well.
Still Mr Arthur is not writing a history of the Iraq war – and, he could argue, if Mr Rumsfeld really opposed the notion of “nation building” why did he not resign when it was decided that this would be the policy?
However, there are also things that to Americans at least will ring a false note:
Not things like half of high school seniors not knowing that 87% of ten is less than ten. Terry Arthur has always been wary of “statistical crap” and does not claim that exactly half of all seniors in government schools are totally ignorant of basic math – he is just saying that government education is not good, which is true.
However, when Mr Arthur faithfully reproduces the standard Ludwig Von Mises Institute line that the Republican party was founded simply to rob the taxpayers to get money for big business, an American is likely ask “what about slavery?” It is not convenient for pro-Confederacy people to talk about slavery so they tend to down play the anti-slavery motives of the founders of the Republican party – and Terry Arthur’s sources are pro-Confederate ones. Of course, these same sources do not like talking about such things as the Confederacy putting on restrictions on overseas trade (for example demanding that ships using certain ports – which, unintentionally, helped the Union blockade) or that the Confederacy followed a policy of higher income tax rates and more fiat money inflation than the Union did – i.e. that the war was not really about resisting Northern big business subsidies.
Still I am being a po faced over serious person again.
However, there is one point in the book where Terry Arthur does the thing he points at so many of the Great and the Good doing – he says something that is unintentionally funny.
This is where Mr Arthur attacks President Bush for being anti immigrant – for example for ordering the building of a fence along the border with Mexico. As Americans will know, President Bush (wisely or unwisely) showed no interest in stopping illegal immigration for years. Also that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming into approving the fence – and that he still has not built it. George Walker Bush may be many things (good and bad) but anti immigrant he is not.
Are UFOs evidence that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings?
If this film, a sequel, is half as good as Elizabeth, then it will be one to wait for. Blanchett was simply outstanding in the first movie.
I was interested in the comment by the actor, Clive Owen, who said he was not bitter at being passed over for the role of 007. I am not sure I entirely believe him – but then there was a lot of spying going on in Elizabethan England, so instead of holding a Walther PPK, he gets to use a rapier sword instead. Arguably, M16 and its cousins can trace some of their origins back to that period.
And let’s face it, Cate Blanchett is certainly easy on the eye.
I drive around London at weekends occasionally – I have a car but do not bother to use it to get work (I can reach my office in Westminster on foot, thanks to living nearby Pimlico). But when I do get behind the wheel, the congestion is terrible, not just at the usual peak times. Getting out of London often takes longer than on the open road. For example, whenever I go to visit my parents in Suffolk, at least half of the journey time is taken up by driving from Pimlico through the eastern reaches of London before actually hitting Essex on the A12. Pretty much the same dire situation applies if you head north, south or west.
Has the congestion charge, introduced by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, made much difference? I doubt it; it always looked like a revenue-raiser to me, whatever the spin. While in theory I have no ideological problems with the charge – if the roads are genuinely privately owned, that is – in the current context the charge seems like a bit of a con to me. Or at least it is unless we can get rid of the curse of the Bus Lane. But then the charge does not apply at weekends, so my view might be affected if I had to drive during weekdays. On those rare times when I have done so, I thought the traffic was pretty heavy.
This guy agrees with me. But what to do about it? Well, cutting down the number of buses – heavily subsidised – might be a start since they hog up so much space; some road widening might be workable in places but given London’s densely-packed streets and historic buildings, maybe not easily doable.
Maybe I should face the facts: if I want to drive without raised blood pressure, live in Nevada.
Phone conversation just now with Alex Singleton:
Me: “I hear that yesterday was your birthday.”
Alex: “Yes. I found out about it on Facebook.”
Alex will be the main speaker at the Libertarian Alliance Conference dinner tomorrow evening at the National Liberal Club, in other words the star speaker of the entire event. An excellent choice for this task stroke honour, I think, and I am looking forward to hearing him very much.
I say “recorded conversations” because I never know quite what the definition of a ‘podcast’ truly is. Is it a podcast if you just record it and sling it up at your own blog? So anyway, yes, I have recently done a couple of these.
First, I recorded Antoine Clarke and me having a discussion about the thinkings and writings of Sean Gabb, and person often mentioned here. We are, and accordingly were, somewhat critical. Blog posting by me here.
Second, Patrick Crozier recorded him talking with me about modern architecture, “Modern Movement” architecture, skyscrapers, horrible housing estates etc. Blog posting by Patrick here.
Both last about 40 to 45 minutes. If you have that kind of time to spare, enjoy.
And, Patrick Crozier and I have fixed to do another one of these things next week on the subject of Northern Ireland. Peace (so far, touch wood etc.) may not generate news, but we think it deserves to be at least talked about. I will certainly be re-reading the comments on this posting here before doing that.
I do not pay attention to the Libertarian Alliance Forum, but many do of course, and according to one of these guys, Sean Gabb recently posted there a link to this:
It is a video clip of a bolshy brummy filming a couple of policemen. The policemen spot him doing this and tell him to stop. He tells them to take a hike. He is breaking no laws. He also, as if interchangeably, says: “I’m doing nothing wrong”, and of course I agree. But, however right, and however desirable from the point of view of restraining the misdeeds of the powerful, how long before this kind of behaviour becomes illegal in Britain? I actually worry that too much publicity might be given to stuff like this, because it may give our meddling legislators ideas (was it wise to do this posting?)
Somebody told me last night (I think it was Perry de Havilland) that it is already illegal in some states of the USA to record the police. Commenters here often say that freedom etc. is doomed in Britain and that if you want such things you must emigrate to the USA. Hm.
At present the British Government already films whatever it wants. But cheap video cameras are rapidly becoming so small that soon everyone else who is inclined – rather than just wannabee spies and private investigators with money to burn – may be filming whatever they want, wherever they want. How will that play out, I wonder?
I have argued in the past that violent repression, gulags and mass murder are not in fact the defining characteristics for a state to be ‘totalitarian’. The defining characteristic is, as the word itself suggests, that control over people be pervasive and total… mass murderousness, goose-stepping troops, waving red (or whatever) flags are merely an incidental consequence and which can be better described in other ways (such as ‘tyrannical, murderous, dictatorial, brutal, national socialist, communist, islamo-fascist etc.).
As a result my view is that we in the west are already well on the way to a new form of post-modern totalitarian state (what Guy Herbert calls ‘soft fascism’) in which behaviour and opinions which are disapproved of by the political class are pathologised and then regulated by violence backed laws “for your own good” or “for the children” or “for the environment”.
And so we have force backed regulations setting out the minutia of a parent’s interactions with their own children, vast reams on what sort of speech or expression is and is not permitted in a workplace, rules forbidding a property owner allowing consenting adults from smoking in a place of business, what sorts of insults are permitted, rules covering almost every significant aspect of how you can or cannot build or modify your own house on your own property, moves to restrict what sort of foods can be sold, what kind of light bulbs are allowed, and the latest one, a move to require smokers to have a ‘licence to smoke‘. Every aspect of self-ownership is being removed and non-compliance criminalised and/or pathologised.
The person suggesting this latest delightfully totalitarian brick-in-the-wall, Professor Julian le Grand, says some very telling things:
“There is nothing evil about smoking as long as you are just hurting yourself. We have to try to help people stop smoking without encroaching on people’s liberties.” […] But he said requiring them to fill in forms, have photographs taken in order to apply for a permit would prove a more effective deterrent.
No doubt Julian le Grand thinks that makes him seem reasonable and sensible, because he does not want people to have their civil liberties encroached upon… and he then proceeds to describe how he would like to do precisely that in order to ‘deter’ you from doing what you really wanted to do.
The reason for this seemingly strange approach is simple to understand because to the totalitarian, something does not have to be ‘evil’ to warrant the use of force to discourage it, you merely have to have (a) coercive power (b) disapprove of another person’s choices regarding their own life. That is all the justification you need, simply the fact other people are not living the way you think they should, in your presumably infinite wisdom.
Notice how coercive actions imposed by state power are described as ‘helping’. We will force you to pay more, force you to go to a doctor…but we will throw your arse in gaol if you dare try to circumvent our unasked for ‘help’.
The ‘paleo-totalitarian’ simply uses force if you disobey, no messing about… however the post-modern totalitarian prefers to add a morally insulating intermediate step that allows his kind to talk about ‘civil liberties’: first he gives you a nice regulation to obey and only if you dare not comply with that do the Boys in Blue get sent to show you the error of your ways.
I can think of quite a few ways I would rather like to ‘help’ Julian le Grand and his ilk in order to mitigate their pathological need to interfere with other people’s lives. All for the greater good of society, you understand.
Insofar as the Americans are now winning in Iraq, as they do now seem to be, this is, first, because Al Qaeda have shot themselves in their stupid murderous feet by being stupid and murderous, and pissing off the Iraqi people; and second, because the Americans switched strategies, from (the way I hear it): sitting in nice big armed camps doing nothing except maybe training a few Iraqis to do the nasty stuff, to: getting out there themselves and doing it, thereby giving the Iraqi people something to get behind and to switch to, once they had worked out what ghastly shits AQ really are.
The first bit is very interesting, but this posting is about the second bit. Instapundit linked yesterday to this, and I particular like the first comment. Here, with its grammar and spelling cleaned up a little, it is:
The Democrats missed a great opportunity. Bush would not have changed strategy if the Dems did not win as big as they did. They could have said it was them that made Bush change to a successful strategy.
Over the summer I reread one of my favourite books of the century so far, How The West Has Won: Carnage and Culture From Salamis to Vietnam by Victor Davis Hanson (which was published in October 2001). In this, Hanson makes much of the Western habit of what he calls “civilian audit” of military affairs. Armchair complaining and grilling of often quite successful generals for often rather minor failures in the course of what often eventually turn into major victories. Sidelining Patton for winning some battles but then slapping a soldier. Denouncing Douglas Haig forever for winning too nastily on the Western Front. Votes of Confidence in the Commons during the dark days of World War 2. Most recently, General Petraeus being grilled on TV. That kind of thing.
Above all, there are the journalists, wandering around the battlefield being horrified and sending photos back of people who died during disasters, or during victories, thereby making those look like disasters also (which they were for the people who died.)
Unlike many with similar loyalties to his, who describe all this as a Western weakness, Hanson sees it as a major Western strength. Yes it is messy, and yes it is often monstrously unjust. Yes, it often results in serious mistakes and failures, especially in the short run. Yes the questions put to returning generals and presiding politicians are often crass, stupid and trivial. But the effect of all this post-mortemising and second-guessing and media grandstanding and general bitching and grumbling is to keep the West’s military leaders on their metal in a way that simply does not happen in non-Western cultures.
It must really concentrate the mind of a general to know that there are literally millions of people back home who are just waiting for him to screw up, so they can crow: we told you so.
It also results in Western armies filled with people who know quite well what the plan is and what the score is, having just spent the last few hours, days, weeks or even years arguing about it all. Western armies invariably contain barrack room lawyers and grumblers, to say nothing of people who sincerely believe that they could do better than their own commanders and who say so, courtesy of those interfering journalists.
Central to the whole idea of the West is that you get better decisions, and better (because so much better informed) implementation of those decisions by the lower ranks, if lots of people argue like hell about these decisions first, during, and then again afterwards. In fact if you argue about them all the time.
Take Iraq now. The narrative that is now gaining strength goes as follows: Iraq invaded for dubious reasons, but successfully. Peace lost because no plan to win it. Two or three years of chaos and mayhem. Change of strategy. Now war may be being won. Maybe this story has not quite reached the MSM, but I believe that it soon will, if only because of bloggers like this guy and this guy.
Strangely, Hanson has, during this particular war, been one of the most vocal complainers about the complainers, so to speak. He has gone on and on about how suspect are the motives of the complainers and how ignorant they seem to be of what war is necessarily like and how bad it would be if the West lost this particular war. Yet is not the way this story may now be playing out yet further evidence of the important contribution made by anti-Western kneejerk anti-warriors to the good conduct of Western wars by the West’s warriors? What these people want to do is stop the war by making the warriors give up and lose it. But what they often achieve instead is to bully the warriors into doing better, and winning. They are, so to speak, an important part of the learning experience. Hanson returns again and again to how the West often loses the early battles, but ends up winning the war.
Under heavy political pressure, President Bush switched in Iraq from a failing Plan A to what now looks as if it could be a successful Plan B. Would this switch have happened without all the pressure? Maybe, but it is surely reasonable to doubt it. The next commenter after the one quoted above says that it is still not too late for the Dems to do a switch of their own, and to start claiming that had it not been for them and all their grumbling, the switch by Bush from failure to success would never have happened. If and when they do start talking like that, they will surely have a point.
(Patrick Crozier and I recently discussed VDH in this podcast, more about which here.)
Try and put me in a burqua and you die.
– Ysabel Howard
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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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