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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Even when you get robbed by the taxman, they mess up Anyone in Britain who wishes to file a tax return to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs must do so online. Oh goody:
The security of the online computer system used by more than three million people to file tax returns is in doubt after HM Revenue and Customs admitted it was not secure enough to be used by MPs, celebrities and the Royal Family.
Thousands of “high profile” people have been secretly barred from using the online tax return system amid concerns that their confidential details would be put at risk.
Of course, as the Daily Telegraph rightly points out, the HMRC is the department that managed to lose details of 25m people back in the autumn; it may be a rash prediction to make, but the more this sort of nonsense piles up, the less likely it is that the ID card will go ahead as planned. We can all live in hope, anyway.
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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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As more and more of these cock ups appear, with our personal data being lost, leaked, stolen and misused, confidence in the ability of the state to do anything but the most minor things competently will hopefully decline and we’ll see a move towards a more minimalist government.
Hah! Had you going for a minute there.
Wot?
Not secure enough for MP’s and celebrities?
I may be prepared to concede special treatment for the Royal family, but if it is not secure enough for Bono, Sir Richard Branson and Fred Bloggs, MP, then it is not secure enough for anyone else either.
Cheek of it all.
You could probably come up with a decent definition of insanity involving people like that still actually paying taxes in Britain.
I’m terribly sorry Mr Taxman but I was far too busy to file my tax return on time.
And that £102,000 underpayment of mine was just an oversight.Could happen to anyone.
So we’ll call it quits shall we? I’ll try and do better next year.
Great. One rule for the rich, another for the not-so-well-off.
Too much risk of receiving letter-bombs in the post, I suppose.