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Samizdata quote of the day A major power centre has been challenged and almost by definition power centres have some control over the public narrative. For decades EU apologists have wielded their immense budget and nomination powers to promote people with the “right” attitude and projects with the “right” purpose. Simultaneously a highly skewed PR narrative has been dished out so incessantly (complimentary of unaware taxpayers) that numerous voters now confuse this narrative with the truth. This is why so many EU apologists genuinely seem to perceive the EU as a force for everything worthwhile, and every EU-critic as either dumb, a xenophobic throwback or misled by the PR-narrative of the other side.
– Mark Brolin
It is such a shame, though, that the term “metropolitan liberal” is used here. I like to think I am a liberal in the John Locke/Ludwig von Mises use of that fine word, and also glory in living in the greatest metropolis on earth – London. It is one of those terms that is in danger of becoming hackneyed. Stop it.
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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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I saw only the phrase “cosmopolitan liberal,” which I think fitting. As for “liberal,” I can’t say for the UK, but in the US that word lost its original classical meaning and connotation decades ago and for some time has been synonymous with “Left” and “progressive.” I think that “liberal” was always foremost a relative term. Party political and ideological relations having changed since the 18th and 19th centuries, the original relation of “liberal” to its former contemporary designations would no longer make any sense.
Where do we find “Metropolitan liberal?”
We read:
and
Sorry; hit post instead of preview.
The latter term, cosmopolitan liberals, as described, may be a bit off; but, a lot of liberals are cosmopolitan in outlook. Perhaps the most liberal are the most cosmopolitan (and vice-versa).
However, many who are “cosmopolitan” (oed), are not liberal.
Well I am a cosmopolitan liberal for sure 😛
“It is one of those terms that is in danger of becoming hackneyed.”
Sorry. That ship has sailed.
How true, Perry.
You’re one of *those* people who want to make the rest of us live our lives under an unwavering, hideous omnipresent tyranny that controls every aspect of our brutal squalid existence, while denying us the warm, caring embrace of Big Sibling.
PdeH
I shall raise a glass here to that tonight.
Indeed you are>
>Sorry. That ship has sailed.
Many, many, years ago. Decades, really.
In the USA perhaps, but not everywhere else.
“glory in living in the greatest metropolis on earth – London”
– Well you should have seen it when it was British and they spoke English.
You certainly are Perry, and God doesn’t it show. You remind me of the quote by C S Lewis who said that “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Oh but I do not give a fuck about most other people’s crap life decisions, and am quite happy to let them die in a ditch as a consequence of their own stupidities rather than accept that is an excuse for them to have a call on anyone else’s tax money. Idiots need to be made to hope for charity, not government. You see, I am a liberal. I am the real deal.
Rapscalion sounds as if he/ she has a few issues.
“…glory in living in the greatest Metropolis on earth – London”
Or soon: “Bangladesh on the Thames”
John Galt III: Where I live, I can’t move for French, Italians and East Europeans. What’s a poor Brit to do? (Sarcasm warning)
JP
There is hope from London’s past.
The German Hansa quarter (Steelyard) lasted barely over 100 years.
Although they did not finally “sell out” until the 19th century.
Time wounds all heels.
What planet are you on? Actually the biggest influx are not who you think. All that hot Polish totty is doing wonders for the gene pool here.
Stop getting your information about London from Steyn, he vanished up his own arse long ago. I actually live here and even venture out of my hipster enclave occasionally 😛
“…John Locke/Ludwig von Mises use of that fine word…”
How many of your fine compatriots that currently self identify as either metropolitan, or liberal,
even know what Locke/Von Mises even means?
How many of them complain, via. smart phone, that they can’t get off The Dole?
Is this the London in which a few summers ago a trashcan’s worth of rioters and looters had the run of the streets for a few nights?
I recall a time when affay was vastly more common in London back in the ‘Good old days’ than it is today, Ed.
But then, the police woukd actually try to stop disturbances, and an affray is less serious than a riot. The State does not now, seriously challenge the ‘socially-friendly’ elements off which it feeds.
Which just means the police need to do their job. Not sure why that is germane to the cosmopolitan nature of London or why it is any less splendid a place to live.
Perry
I did not suggest that it was, you allude to it being so, is that relevant?
And with the police dopng nothing and doing it very badly, it is less spendid a place to live than it might be. And this will only get worse.
But it will take a lot of effort to destroy it utterly.
And in my view, I consider the Bank of England to be a substantial source of ‘subsidy’ to the maintenance of London, at a cost to the rest of the Sterling area, so to an unknowable extent, the prosperity of London is illusory.
Perry de Havilland (London), July 23, 2016 at 12:40 pm: ” …the biggest influx [to London] are not who you think. All that hot Polish totty is doing wonders for the gene pool here. Stop getting your information about London from Steyn, he vanished up his own arse long ago. I actually live here and even venture out of my hipster enclave occasionally :-P”
Glad to hear it. However London’s mayor is muslim, not Polish – and not so long ago he ran a fairly unpleasant campaign against an Ahmadi rival (his attacks on his LibDem rival as not a real muslim seem a bit unfortunate when one thinks of the Ahmadi murdered in Glasgow, the city I know). I predict these facts will be an obstacle to your persuading MarkS that his concerns are misplaced (or JGIII). And I can sort of see where they are coming from. It’s sure not “Bangladesh on the Thames” but it’s not “Poland in England” either. I have a hard time seeing the Poles as the mainstay of the mayor’s victory. And I think a catholic of Polish origin who ran for mayor would get a rougher time from the beeb than the protective coverage they gave the current incumbent.
Niall, the Tories ran Zac Goldsmith against him, Zac. Goldsmith… a man who is on the green far left fringe of the Conservative Party. That is why Khan won. Hell I am delighted Goldsmith lost.
And frankly I have zero interest in persuading Steyn of anything.
That is right, it is Cosmopolitan London on the Thames, and long may it be so.
I’m not entirely convinced that London became a world-class city by virtue of its “liberal metropolitan” character or multicultural bona fides. Will importing new cultures enhance London’s quality of life or global prestige?
Isn’t London a chunk of land for people to live on much like “Europe”?
From da glorious Sout Side of Chicaga-where da Mare ( fater Richard and filius Richard II) created the great urban political machine augmented by Alinsky’s Rules and Hilary’s exposure to the Chicago Way and Barack’s forays into liberal (read interventionist) politics led to the mess we’re in – Metropolitanism and Classical Liberalism just ain’t a given- rather an anomaly that might occur (given the amazing coincidences of neccessary factors) particular to a major city.
Perry de Havilland (London), July 23, 2016 at 10:42 pm: “Niall, the Tories ran Zac Goldsmith against him, …”
Indeed, they (idiotically) did. If Hillary wins, our US friends can reflect that she was not running against Reagan. Sadiq Khan’s victory would have a different meaning if he’d defeated Boris running for a third term.
Regrettably, however, there is still a meaning in the fact that “the plays-rough muslim defeated the idiotic jew”. There’s an actual meaning that you and I, well-informed voters ( 🙂 ), can consider, and there’s also a public domain meaning for low-information voters in the fact that London had 7/7 on that date and has a muslim mayor on today’s date. London is multi-cultural, but not all its cultures are equal in the eyes of the PC. The Guardian quoted approvingly that “Electing a Muslim mayor would ‘say something about our confidence as a city’”. If a polish catholic ran for mayor, the Guardian would say something different, and the beeb would not spin like a top to cover up any plays-rough past the candidate might chance to have, and to shame any who dared mention it.
The behaviour you reward you get more of; low-information voters can prove very able to get the message.