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]
|
Samizdata quote of the day – Harry Windsor edition “But fully mature people still have a sense of their own privacy, they keep to themselves what is properly kept to oneself. Privacy isn’t some relic of the pre-tech past, as I said once, it is connected to personhood. It has to do with intimate things—the inner workings of your head and heart, of your soul. You don’t just give those things away. Your deepest thoughts and experiences are yours, held by you; they are part of your history. They are part of your dignity. You share them as a mark of trust. This is true intimacy, not phony intimacy but the real thing. If you tell all the strangers your secrets what do you tell your intimates?”
– Peggy Noonan, WSJ ($)
|
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.
|
In the 19th century it was well known that an Income Tax would end privacy – as the government would need to know every detail of the lives of people in order to collect the “correct” amount of tax.
It is ironic that the left, who so scream about a “right to privacy” when it comes to such things as abortion, are totally indifferent to the wiping out of privacy that the income tax leads to.
Nor is it the case that this tax is “inevitable” – after all the United States was the largest and most advanced economy in the world BEFORE the introduction of the income tax (passed in 1913 – started to be collected in 1914), and some countries only adopted the income tax quite recently – for example Paraguay (a country of several million people) adopted this tax only 2012.
The true difficulty that the United States faces is that the GOVERNMENT SPENDING is now so horribly high that a Consumption Tax would have to be very high to cover it.
But that is not the fault of the idea of a Consumption Tax – it is the fault of the PURPOSE of the specific spending powers granted to the Congress by Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution of the United States being treated as a catch all “general welfare spending power” – the “common defence and general welfare” was not intended to be a catch all “general welfare spending power” – indeed that would make the listing of the spending powers of Congress (directly underneath these words – in Article One, Section Eight) totally pointless, and it would mean that the Tenth Amendment has no meaning.
Due to intellectually corrupt Supreme Court judgements, the purpose of the specific spending powers granted to the Congress has been turned into a “general welfare spending power” – such a power must eventually lead to bankruptcy (in fact – even if not in legal theory) and economic and social (societal) breakdown.
Neither an Income Tax or a Consumption Tax (or BOTH – which is what the Corporate State supporting Economist magazine has long demanded) will prevent this – as it is Government Spending (not the tax structure) that is the basic problem.
Oh – Peggy Noonan is writing about Prince Harry.
I have no interest in him.
Noonan’s insight reminds me of today’s comedy routines. Hour-long spectacles revealing (and reveling in) deeply personal vignettes: psychotherapy sessions, experiences with and reactions to partners’ genitalia, etc. Wrapping their crudity in a cloak of recovery or self-actualization, these comics betray their own dignity, seeking validation for being able to mock the trust embedded in their most intimate relationships.
Noonan is right. It is juvenile and sad.
Every time some celebrity puts out a tell-all book about his, hers, or its feelings, I find wisdom in Rust Cohle’s words:
“Listen, can I tell you something? This is none of my business. I don’t want to hear it.”
The only people who should know those people’s innermost thoughts should be historians who read their journals and diaries and memoirs after they have died.
Of course Noonan is on the money there. People incontinent on the internet really are just NPCs, whining digital meat sacks
FFS, I wish there was some way to block your comments, you’re just distracting noise, a waste of pixel space when you can’t even be arsed to look at the bloody link to get some context so you might write something relevant.
Paul
In the ludicrously highly-taxed Isle of Man, where income tax rates got as high as 20%, you have the option to pay the amount set as the tax cap (earnings of £200k pa) and they ask no questions about your earnings.
As to how to run a government, there are counter-examples out there.
One way to (de jure) restrain the US Federal Government would be to pass a Constitutional Amendment to limit its taxing power to a levy on the several States, to, say 5% of the lower of that State’s annual revenue or spending, and deny it the power to borrow. No pork for the House to raise, just a budget parasitic on the prudence of the States. No Federal income tax, no corporation tax, no Customs dues.
Your point has some force sir, but the point of a blog is to provoke thought and comment. It’s just the way his mind works. Write first and read later, he is one more likely to veer off point in a fractal manner than most. But his triple broadsides can be absolute gems.
Much intense secrets? I hope she don’t think all Harry secrets are those he told.
LOL. Agreed 😀
Dear Peggy, he didn’t give his privacy away, he sold it, not just his own but his family’s.
Paul Marks: regardless of whether you are interested in Prince Harry or not, the quote has value in shedding light on how certain people behave today, and what the problems are. That’s why I linked to it. Try and be civil.
The two biggest problems (not counting Harry’s own personal issues) are:
1) We have a culture that worships celebrity, no matter how vapid said celebrity is
2) We no longer value emotional constancy.
It doesn’t help that there are countless newspapers and magazines devoted to covering celebs (and I do wonder if it is the public demand for those periodicals driving it or if it is the periodicals convincing the marketplace they must be up to date on the latest celeb news). Having a stiff upper lip in public has been replaced by sitting on a tv host’s couch and letting the tears flow in front of a live studio audience.
I’m guessing that there have been a few serious academic papers devoted to the issue of public emotional outpouring and the media’s role in it in some sociology and media studies journals.
https://babylonbee.com/news/meghan-proudly-announces-that-harry-has-of-his-own-free-will-decided-to-transition-into-princess-harriet
Once again the Bee nails it.
Privacy is very un-woke. You can’t truly be a victim if you don’t broadcast your failings and your weaknesses and your mental illnesses. Strength – stoicism – is merely a remnant of the macho patriarchy. Come the revolution, we’ll all be on anti-depressants and wearing badges bragging about it. Just look at the typical social-media bio.
Harrison Bergeron uber alles!
There is. As soon as I see a really long comment, I check who the author is. Then I skip it completely.
Bulldog Drummond.
I did not mention you at all.
I have no idea why you insist on being so rude (and this is not the first time), but that is your choice. This is clearly the person you choose to be Sir.
As for you obsession with Price Harry, I do not share your obsession Sir.
Johnathan Peace I was civil – it was Bulldog Drummond who was not civil.
Why is “Bulldog Drummond” – a person who is endlessly rude, never asked to apologise?
My original comment was dealing with something that matters in relation to privacy, the debate on income tax which is happening in the United States right now – although even if the House of Representatives passes the proposal to end income tax, it will not pass the Senate. It is a valuable marker for the future – especially with the move towards digital currencies threatening to get rid of what little privacy we have left.
Your post did have “Harry Windsor” in the title but I missed that, because I was thinking about privacy in relation to a debate that is happening now and matters – I then clicked on the link and found that
Peggy Noonan was writing about Prince Harry.
I do not why Peggy Noonan, an intelligent person, would be writing about Prince Harry.
I do not know why anyone is writing about Prince Harry.
However, I suppose there is a point – this being that all the important things going on in the world can be drowned out by “celebrity stories”. “That popstar flashed her knickers whilst singing a song”, “Prince Harry has got a new book out and is doing interviews” and-so-on.
Indeed that may, come to think of it, why Peggy Noonan is writing about the matter – to draw attention to the fact that we really should be discussing other matters.
As for Prince Harry.
The man says he wants privacy, but has, for a long time, tried to get as much publicity as he can – therefore he does not really want privacy. As he regularly talks about his wife and children he clearly does not want privacy for them either.
What else is there to say? It is not important – but it is clear.
I am told that his wife believes herself to be black, I have seen the lady on television – and she is not black. Not that it would matter if she was black.
If I believed myself to be a unicorn it would not make me a unicorn.
I’d love to see Harry’s gene testing. I’d lay you long odds he’s not Charles’s son… He just doesn’t look at all like he “fits” in that family, physically.
Which would go a long, long way towards explaining the Prince Harry of today, and why he’s acting the way he is.
Kirk – I do not know.
Perhaps it is best if no one knows. Such testing might cause further distress.
I hope that Prince Harry and his wife and children live long and happy lives in California, and I am sorry that the weather there is so bad (like Australia, California has for centuries had a weather pattern of droughts and floods), but I not wish to hear from them again.
Meh. He wouldn’t be the first child a queen or princess had with a side piece and he won’t be the last. It only matters now because the whole world sees him and can titter that Diana was a whore instead of just a select few courtiers.
Besides, I am quite certain the DNA testing has been done and if he was Chuck’s kid the Royals would have leaked it out just to put the rumors to rest. That they haven’t says a lot about the issue.
Steven R
I think “whore” is too strong a word.
It is not really fair. Not that I liked the late lady – I, of course, did not even know the lady.
I was not one of these people weeping on the streets of London (indeed I did not understand them at all) when the lady died, but being in a loveless marriage must have been awful.
Meaning no disrespect to His Majesty – he should have, when he was a very young man, married the lady he had always loved, and eventually he did marry her. When he was told he should marry Diana Spencer, he should have said no – and stuck to no.
I know that arranged marriages can work – but it is not likely when the above circumstances apply.
Speaking of DNA testing: Meghan could easily find out how much Blackness there is in her.
Wikipedia says that a Black ancestor is just family lore, as in the case of “Pocahontas” Warren.
In my opinion, she calls herself Black just so that she can accuse people of racism; which is why i have no sympathy for Harry.
Harry claims that he is not delusional, but of course he is: we all are.
Snorri has a point.