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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Samizdata quote of the day Doubtless politics has always had its dark side. But the depths to which it has sunk over the last 12 years under New Labour has been unprecedented in this country. Of all the legacies left by this Government the poisoning of political discourse is surely the worst. Gordon Brown, foul-tempered and intolerant, has been at the very centre of this mess.
Gordon Brown never was fit for Number 10 and, given the wreckage of the economy, the public finances and the financial regulatory system, was never fit for Number 11 either.
– Ruth Lea adds to the admosphere now being created by the WAGS. Have those Blair Babes finally justified their existence?
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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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The depths to which politics has sunk is because it has become all about the politics. Presentation without substance. Promise nothing meaningful and you have no obligations around which you can fail. Success is not the goal – power is.
Of course it’s all about getting, keeping and expanding personal power. That’s what politics has always been about. The more interesting question, implicit in this post, is whether it’s really any worse today than it has ever been. I’m not convinced that is the case. Court intrigue has always included such tools as the stealthy knife through the ribs and the occasional poisoning. In countries where we elect our leaders, posturing, pandering and character assassination have been the norm for as long as I am aware. Sometimes it’s more blatant than others, but it’s always there, lurking just beneath the surface. All that’s different is that a new generation of idealists has had the blinders ripped from their eyes. They’re discovering that they don’t like what they see, and (narcissists that they are) since it’s all about them they naturally think things are worse now than in halcyon days of yore.
Plus ça change . . . .
I was starting to believe that we were in fact living in very exciting times, the mainstream parties having reached such a nadir that new alternatives were going to have their best ever chance of having some kind of a breakthrough. The analysis of the Euro election results at Heresy Corner has shattered my delusions somewhat.
I guess this is a bit O/T, but there’s been nothing on Samizdata about last week’s local UK and EU Parliament elections. Due (no doubt) to our provinciality there’s not much about either in the US news; a couple of articles in today’s Wall Street Journal, but not much more that I’ve seen. I’d be interested in hearing some thoughts from our hosts and the Commentariat.
O/T Hell, I want to know if this is true:
FORMER Home Secretary David Blunkett suffered a broken rib when he was flattened by a stampeding COW.
The blind Labour MP was out walking on his 62nd birthday when an enraged herd of cattle charged towards his guide-dog Sadie.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2469523/David-Blunkett-flattened-by-stampeding-cow.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
Brian M. is correct in what he is pointing to.
For example, the Labour party has just had its worst result in a national vote in 100 years (O.K. they got a lower percentage of the vote in 1910 – so it is 99 years).
Yet Mr Brown is still sitting there. He has never won a general election or even an election to be leader of the Labour party (when Mr Blair retired Mr Brown made sure there would be no contested election). Yet this unelected man still sits there as Prime Minister.
Now there are arguments against democracy – but Mr Brown does not make them. On the contrary every time he speaks he goes on about how much he supports demcracy – a system that he does not apply to himself.
Mr Brown clearly holds that he has a divine right to rule – yet he talks endlessly of democracy.
This is a radical contradiction.
Nor is it the only contradiction.
Mr Brown and “his ministers” (such as Peter Mandleson) contantantly praise his “courage” in making “the hard choices” and “investing for the future”.
This is against the tradition of the Church of which Mr Brown is supposed to belong (both his supporters and he himself make a great point of his Church of Scotland background) as self praise, and getting other people to praise oneself, is totally against the tradition of the Kirk.
However, it is more than this – for these boasts are the reverse of the truth.
Mr Brown has not made the “tough choices” – he has put them off by borrowing money. Indeed he has borrowed more money than any other British Prime Minister since World War Two.
Nor is Mr Brown “investing for the future” – on the contrary he is selling out future generations by burying them under a mountain of debt.
In short, to use modern language, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a scumbag.