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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First, it was clear to me that to attempt to challenge Islamic extremism with facts and logic as Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris had done was to fail on purpose. Despite their efforts, most of the Western world today operates under de facto blasphemy laws which are enforced not by religious activists lobbying for censorship but by knife-wielding fanatics and suicide bombers.
The liberalism that the new atheists so enthusiastically espoused, the idea that we should be free to criticise, mock and satirise anything, including religion, only works when the Government is willing to protect you from the consequences. In seeking to liberate us from the tyrannical instincts of dogmatic Christians, the new atheists delivered us into the hands of a different and far more pernicious religious zealotry from which the ordinary citizen has no security at all.
– Konstantin Kisin
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types – the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.
– G.K. Chesterton
Just Stop Oil march gets hijacked by stag-do leaving protesters furious
Video courtesy of the Daily Mail via Instapundit.
The Mail writer reveals an unexpected talent for understatement:
The demonstrators are then seen continuing their march, looking displeased.
Following the recent controversy about the closure of a bank account of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage (he is said to have banked at Coutts, although he did not identify that lender by name in his own story), more information about what might have caused this decision is coming out. Dominic Lawson, son of the late UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson (the TV cooking writer and literary editor Nigella Lawson is Dominic’s sister), has been through a similar process in the case of his daughter, who has Down’s Syndrome:
In 2016 we decided to open a bank account for her. She has Down’s Syndrome; this was not something she could do herself. But when my wife Rosa went to the Barclays in our nearest town (where Rosa had had an account for many years), she was told it would not be possible for Domenica to have an account. No reason was given. Fortunately Rosa knew the manager there — the position now no longer exists, and the branch itself is about to close — and he said that he would look into the matter.
He came back to Rosa: ‘I’m really sorry, but it’s out of our hands. It’s because of money-laundering risks. ‘I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s because of Domenica’s grandfather. He is a politically exposed person.’ This was a reference to Nigel Lawson, my late father, the former chancellor, who was by then a member of the House of Lords. And as the Lords is a legislative assembly, that counted under the regulations. As, absurdly, did his granddaughter, who was of course oblivious to the bank’s implication that she might be a link to money laundering, or the funding of an international drugs cartel.
A friend of mine, known to several who write for and manage this blog, is a member of the House of Lords. I know several, in fact. Maybe they should phone their banks.
Eventually, we did manage to open an account for Domenica there, but it involved the most exhaustive form-filling, with much toing and froing between us and Barclays’ compliance people in London.
It seems that this insanity has struck sufficiently close to home that the UK government, usually a model of inanity and uselessness, is getting involved. After all, the Tories know they might be out of office soon, and might not want to go through what Mr Farage, the Lawsons, and several others have been through.
As I said in a comment on Patrick Crozier’s article about the “de-banking” of Mr Farage last week, this also demonstrates the danger of what are called central bank digital currencies. The potential for governments, such as those admiring the “social credit” regime of Communist China, to use CBDCs to enforce “correct” behaviours and suppress “bad” ones, such as blocking payments for alcohol, or closing contributions to unpopular causes, are dangerously large. Consider what the Canadian government of Justin Trudeau did to those financially supporting the anti-vaccine truckers, for example.
This other Samizdata article referred to HSBC. The Dominic Lawson article also refers to that bank in an unflattering way.
As an aside, what the current situation demonstrates is the lack of real choice in the banking system as it now operates. Linked to central banks for their funding, with CBs as “lenders of last resort”, and anti-money laundering laws imposed by force, bankers are no longer able to have confidential conversations with a client. A banker is obliged by law in most major industrialised nations to report on transactions they deem suspicious, for example, for whatever reason, and woe betide the banker that doesn’t. There are requirements such as Suspicious Transaction & Order Reports in the UK. The US Securities and Exchange Commission operates a similar process. In Switzerland, once renowned for its bank secrecy, non-domestic Swiss clients are no longer under its protection.
Politicians and their cheerleaders might applaud the “ghosting” or “de-banking” of people they dislike, but they ought to be aware that these powers cut both ways. Imagine if, for example, protest groups were to be designated as “terrorist” or whatever. Imagine if Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, or some other group, gets this treatment.
The identitarian left’s nightmarish image of Britain is utterly divorced from reality. It also flies in the face of ethnic minorities’ own view of the UK, wilfully misrepresenting their experiences. Many groups are very content with life in Britain and are optimistic about the future. Yes, they believe that more needs to be done to strengthen equality of opportunity. They no doubt still experience challenges. But ethnic minorities generally view Britain as a place in which people have a chance to thrive.
– Rakib Ehsan
As reported in the Telegraph,
HSBC accused of persecuting dissident Hong Kongers who flee territory
The bank allegedly prohibited residents of the city state from making pension withdrawals
Before it decided it would be trendier to be known only by its initials, HSBC was the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, reflecting its historical origins. Despite its name and its subservience to a foreign government, it is a British bank. (British banks are meant to be subservient to the British government, dammit.)
HSBC has been accused by UK and US politicians of persecuting dissident Hong Kongers who leave the country over pension rights.
Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP and chairman of the foreign affairs committee, and Mike Gallagher, the US Republican representative, wrote to bosses at the FTSE 100 lender expressing “deep concern” about HSBC prohibiting some Hong Kong residents from making pension withdrawals.
In the letter to chief executive Noel Quinn, which was first reported by the Financial Times, Ms Kearns and Mr Gallagher wrote: “We are concerned that HSBC – in support of the Hong Kong National Security Law – is withholding pension funds from BNO [British National Overseas] passport holders and thus contributing to the oppression of people in Hong Kong.”
The rebuke comes as HSBC faces growing scrutiny of its activities in China and Hong Kong, where it has been accused by British MPs of complicity in human rights abuses.
HSBC supported a Beijing-backed law introduced in 2020 that banned anti-government activity in the former British colony. At the time, the bank said it “respects and supports all laws that stabilise Hong Kong’s social order”.
Since the law was introduced, HSBC has frozen the bank accounts of a raft of activists, including pro-democracy politician Ted Hui, on orders from Hong Kong police.
As Patrick Crozier posted about yesterday, several UK banks and building societies have looked upon what their HSBC colleagues did in Hong Kong and found it worthy of imitation in their home country. And not just to famous people like Farage: the Daily Mail reports that when the Yorkshire Building Society sent an Anglican vicar an email asking for feedback and he responded criticising the presence of material on their website that talked about LGBT and gender issues, the YBS closed his account. The fact that the Rev. Richard Fothergill did not initiate the correspondence but merely gave his opinion having been asked for it is somehow particularly galling.
Tim Worstall sarcastically commented on the Hong Kong story:
Of course, such a thing would never happen here.
And in a way it never would. It would be insinuation, something that is never directly said, therefore not obvious nor arguable against.
Mr Worstall is undoubtedly right about the insidiousness of the banks’ strategy, but I have some hope that he will be proved wrong about it staying undetected. The Yorkshire Building Society sounds thoroughly defensive in this tweet, which has been viewed three quarters of a million times:
https://twitter.com/Yorkshire_BS/status/1674832536550227977
Is it ever possible to take a neutral position on the importance of free speech? The task certainly seems quite difficult. As Vogue’s favourite philosopher, Amia Srinivasan, notes this month in the London Review of Books, many Right-wingers seem to assert the value of free speech, mainly or even only to make room for political views the Left would prefer smothered at birth. Occasionally, someone on the Right will complain about the suppression of a position or person they don’t agree with, but usually more to avoid complaints of inconsistency than anything else.
The Left, however, also has its blind spots — many of which are apparent in Srinivasan’s essay. Scathing about the new Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act’s attempt to create a culture which promotes academic freedom in UK universities, she barely acknowledges the problems diagnosed by its authors and defenders. Instead, as many a defensive-sounding progressive has implied before her, real cancellation almost never happens in academia — except, of course, where it happens to exactly those people who deserve it (cough).
– Kathleen Stock
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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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