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 vindication of Jack Cade Henry VI Part II, Act 4, Scene 2:
ALL:
God save your majesty!
JACK CADE:
I thank you, good people:— there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
DICK:
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
CADE:
Nay, that I mean to do.
The Guardian, today:
Ken Livingstone: Venezuela crisis due to Chávez’s failure to kill oligarchs
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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.
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If you or I advocated killing people, we would be arrested.
So presumably the Metropolitan Police are dragging Ken Livingstone away in the back of a police van as we speak…
No?
Oh dear. I dislike to criticize unfavorably the Mother Country’s second-most-reverend* newspaper, but I think the guy who wrote the headline got mixed up. S/B,
There, is that better?
(I don’t know about the Oligarchs. I’m just playing the odds.)
*I assume The London Times still has pride of place, at least formally?
Nah, it’s Viz.
How can it be that a failure so obvious as that in Venezuela does not cause the regime’s former cheerleaders to pause for thought?
Is it some fundamental fault in the way their brains work? An inability perhaps to connect cause and effect.
Is it because for them failure, far from being a bug, is in fact a feature?
Is it that they actually like the queues and the shortages and the suffering?
Is it that they like the tyranny and the violence?
I am struggling to think of an innocent explanation.
The logic of Mr Livingstone, like that of Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell, is based upon the premise “socialism is good” – if one accepts the premise “socialism is good” then everything else they say is logical.
For example, if socialism-is-good then it can not be to blame for the collapse of Venezuela. So a conspiracy by evil enemies of socialism (class enemies – “the rich” and “big business”) must be to blame, and socialists must fight back against these evil enemies of socialism (and fight back means kill “the rich” and “big business” who are wreaking the country in their evil conspiracy to make socialism look bad).
Once one accepts the premise “socialism is good” everything that follows on from this premise (the Death Camps, the executions, the mass starvation of “Lenin”, “Stalin”, Mao, Pol Pot and …..) is quite logical and can not (can not – by definition) be the fault of socialism.
Mr Livingstone is saying nothing publicly that Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell would not say privately – and it is quite logical, if one accepts the premise “socialism is good”.
Nick, what’s “Viz”?
It’s a popular cartoon comic Julie… But I will leave it to Nick to elucidate further as only he can. 😉
With establishment figures letting loose with such tripe (with the apparent approval of the powers-that-be) how far away can we be from death squads?
On either side.
If I, a white male, kill someone who is publicly calling for the killing of white males, wouldn’t that be self-defense?
Shouldn’t Livingstone consider that calling for the deaths of vastly rich and powerful oligarchs might prod them into just that thought, when it’s those people who are most able to carry through on protective measures?
We’re getting into dangerous territory.
Julie,
Viz is utter puerile filth which is frequently very funny. Just Google it. It is though largely written in Geordie (the vernacular of the Newcastle area in the NE of England) which apparently is difficult for non-Geordies to understand. I am originally from round there so I don’t have a problem. The print version is sold in the USA (or was). Think of it a bit like The Onion or The Daily Mash written with the brakes off and not really political. The funniest bits are the adverts. For example:
http://viz.co.uk/ich-bin-ein-naughty-boy/
Livingstone may be on to something. He was Mayor of London (including the financial district) when the financial collapse occurred, so clearly that collapse was due to the failure of anyone to assassinate him. Even though the financial damage is now done, at least that error can still be corrected.
The City has its own Mayor, Laird, so sadly we cannot hang that one on dear old Ken 😛
But maybe you could hang him instead?
Ah, I see. Thank you, RAB and Nick. As it happens, I use Pantene myself, but being as I am here and Viz is there, I probably wasn’t included in their 12,000*-user count. So I assume that lets me off the hook as to being a member of the 12,000-member pro-Hitler contingent. Oh well, nobody can belong to everything.
* Or was it 25,000? It’s already been 30 seconds since I saw the comment, and after all you can’t expect me to remember everything for such long periods.
I’ve been told (repeatedly) the reason for the collapse in Venezuela is the result of the “resource curse”, and it would have happened no matter who was in power. It’s all just bad luck, you see. And I suppose, pace Heinlein, I can agree.
Very likely, but to a very wide range of degrees. All governments screw things up, but some governments screw up more than others.
The difference between Nazism and socialism is that nobody says, “Well, we just haven’t yet tried true Nazism”.
The strange thing is, whilst he’s funneling the best part of a million pounds through his company to
avoid taxbe tax efficient and thenfestering anti-semitismdirecting the objectives of the next Prime Minister, he probably doesn’t count himself as one of the “wealthy oligarch” elite.“We’re getting into dangerous territory.”
Indeed, bobbyb, indeed.
Lately I’ve been toying with doing just that in response to the no-true-Socialism fallacy.