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 Claims of dire consequences by business executives are particularly unreliable. In 1999, Adair Turner, then director general of the Confederation of Business and Industry supported Britain joining the euro. Now the number crunchers torture the data to show that British productivity could decline precipitously. This is economic nonsense.
– Ashoka Mody
Indeed and it is comical how many end-to-end lurid scare stories Reuters has been running on Britain capsizing if the vote is in favour of Brexit. It is at times like that it becomes clear who is on the payroll of whom 😉
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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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These scaremongers make me think of a bloke in his late thirties who is scared to move out of his mum and dad’s house.
The intellectual level is akin to that deployed by foaming Scotch nats and Australian republicans – from exposure to the latter one would deduce that the climate would be better and all problems would disappear by a click of fingers. But at least the Australians hold proper referenda and some have a proper understanding of federalism (even in the debased form it has become down there – the debasement being largely the work of over-active and very inventive judges).
This is like the closing of inefficient coal mines. More were closed during the Harold Wilson Administration than during Margaret Thatcher’s Administration yet M.T. is fitted up with the lot. Europe will stil trade with Britain.
I rather liked this from the News Thump website:
“The European Union has told the British they’ve got a lovely country and it would be a shame if something were to…happen to it, if you know what I mean.
Walking round tapping valuables with a heavy cane, EU President Donald Tusk observed that Britain looked ‘very flammable’ and he didn’t want anyone to do nuffinck they might regret.
“Economies,” he added.
“Fragile fings, economies. Give ’em a bit of a tap an’ ker-krash. All come tumblin’ down.
“Remember what ‘appened to Greece when they didn’t want to play ball? Shame if the same sort of fing were to ‘appen ‘ere too.”
When asked if he was making threats, Tusk denied the suggestion and insisted he was nothing more than an honest wellwisher who wanted to make sure no nasty accidents happened.
Mister Tusk went on to outline a highly effective form of insurance he happens to sell, where for the low price of £55m a day he can guarantee the whole place doesn’t go up in smoke.
Encouraging the British to ‘fink it over but not to take too long about it’, Tusk then left, pausing only to light a match off some antiques and smash the car headlights with his stick.”
Hereditary titles are a great way of breeding hemophiliac feebs, but not much use for governing.
mojo, “Lord” Mandleson is _not_ a hereditary but a Labour-party life peer. He obtained the lifetime-title ‘Lord’ by worshipping (in language that makes the remark more literal than you might think) Tony Blair in the latter’s early years as prime minister. IIRC, he had eventually to leave his official position after one too many scandals. The title was a compensation.
(Readers will note I am assuming that mojo’s comment was directed at the next post.)
mojo, as Niall says, being a ‘Lord’ in the UK now is mainly about being a ‘Life Peer’ or being made a ‘Baron’ for life, this started in earnest in the late 1950s as a way to flood the House of Lords with retired or semi-retired politicians as ‘Peers’ who could sit and vote and be called ‘Lord’ like the others without their heirs inheriting the titles and the Lords being flooded with unreliable and unnoble second and third generation peers, who might not be politically active (or reliable). The advantage was that it enabled a politician who had lost his seat at an election to come back as a Life Peer and hold a government post without ever having to worry about the voters again.
Lord Mandelson resigned from government twice, once iirc over an undeclared aspect of a mortgage that he had, and the other might have been to do with some perception of strange co-incidences over Indian businessmen getting UK passports. He then went of to Brussels to work in the EU as a Commissioner before returning to help Gordon Brown finally bury the UK under a debt mountain, before the 2010 General Election led to Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne (our Marco Rubio) carrying on where Mr Brown had left off.
But some people seem to think that governments can give people titles and they become a ‘Lord’, a ‘Baroness’, a Knight or a Dame, but I am not aware of any way in which someone can change their nature by a government decree, it might all be a fantasy of play acting, until the expenses claims are put in. And of course, being in the House of Lords gives you some legal rights under Parliamentary Privilege, including exemption from libel or slander for what you might say in Parliament.
If a British business executive tells the truth about the E.U. he runs the risk of being dismissed.
As the head of the British Chamber of Commerce, now suspended, discovered.
Only businessmen who actually OWN their companies are really free to speak their mind against the E.U.
And even they can be hit by the denial of government contracts and by a thousand different “little” regulations whose “interpretation” can be made more harsh if they speak against the E.U.
We live in a rather evil world.
But that is no excuse for not fighting evil.
On the contrary – one must proceed “ever more boldly” against evil.