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 – avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at our case and conclude from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?
– Thucydides nails it. For once I agree with Rory Stewart, which is disconcerting.
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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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There is nothing wrong with talking about justice – and it was clearly wrong for Athens to attack a city that had done them no harm. It was also wrong for Pericles to take the Treasury of the Delian League and move it from Delos to Athens – to take the money of other cities (by force) and use it for government spending in Athens itself.
However, the question of whether or not to go to war with Athens over its attack on another city is also a matter of prudence – whether going to war will lead to better consequences than not gong to war.
There are also some odd things in these wars for justice – for example, two powers invaded Poland in 1939, National Socialist (Nazi) Germany and the Marxist Soviet Union – yet Britain and France declared war on one of these two powers – but not the other invading power.
The Soviet Union then invaded Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and part of Romania, and then invaded Finland – yet there was still no Declaration of War from Britain or France.
Either invading, and taking over, countries is wrong or it is not wrong – it can not be wrong for some powers to do it, but not wrong for other powers to do it.
Preventing the domination of Greece by Athens did not mean that the city states kept their independence – after a brief period of dominance by Sparta (a more repressive society than Athens) and then by Thebes, Greece was dominated by Macedon – and, eventually, by Rome. Later Greece was ruled from Constantinople – first by the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire – later by the Ottoman Empire.
The independent city states never returned. And today the capital of Greece is – Athens.
I never put bumper stickers on my car (except for a few whimsical ones). Anything political will make at least non-friends of a LOT of people. And why do that? Pity the poor Tesla owners whose cars have always been bumper stickers, hostage to the tides of political passion.
Ellen – that is not really a matter of making enemies, but rather of revealing whose one’s enemies already were.
People who would attack Tesla cars because they do not like Mr Musk trying to cut government waste – were never “neutrals” – they were always enemies.
If a person makes a public stand, reveals what they believe in, they do not “make neutrals enemies” they reveal who their enemies have always really been.
There is truth in what you say, Paul. But even so, I’d prefer not to stick my head out and say “enemy here”. I’m too old for this particular Grand Guignol we have going. I’ve been in enough of these battles, I’m allowed to retire.
Ellen quite so – and I certainly do not begrudge you some peace.
As for myself – I am naturally rather conformist, but the evil around me is so extreme it sometimes overcomes this, I find myself having to oppose it (regardless of risks and consequences).
Speaking of evil – on the front cover of the Economist magazine this week (which I just came upon at the supermarket) is a drawing of a Tesla crushing an American Eagle – with the question “Is Elon Musk remaking the American government or destroying it?”
“Destroying it” – over minor cuts to spending. If only Mr Musk were “destroying” the vast unconstitutional creature the Federal Government has become – sadly his minor reductions in spending are unlikely to save the United States.
The once free market Economist magazine is evil – it is (although it would deny this) encouraging violence against Tesla and against Mr Musk personally, on the basis of lies.
They are evil – just plain evil. And the rest of the “mainstream media” is the same.
On the other hand….
Risking war over Ukraine is at least a just cause – rather than the unjust cause, propping up the Ottoman Despotism, for which we risked war several times, and actually fought one war – the Crimean War (much to the disgust of John Bright) in the 19th century. If Russia was a threat to British India it was so directly – via Afghanistan, not via Turkey.
Both John Bright and, later, Gladstone, pointed out what a monstrous regime the Ottoman Empire was – with its endless massacres.
If we must risk thermonuclear war then better we do so for Ukraine – which has faults (most certainly), but is nothing like the Ottoman regime.
Paul. The last part of your first comment seems a bit purist to me. History shows, surely, that it is difficult for a single country or empire to police the conduct of the whole world. It was of course wrong for the Soviet Union to invade Poland but it was wholly unrealistic to expect Britain to declare war on both countries. Put simply, during the run up to WW2 Britain rightly saw Germany as a much greater threat to it and its interests than the Soviet Union. And in any case Britain obviously didn’t have the resources to fight both countries.
David Norman,
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. – Winston Churchill.
Paul,
Russia invading India via Afghanistan. Now that is a thought! They would have been kicked up the Kyhber Pass before they even met the Devil’s in Skirts.
NickM – if Russia could not invade India via Afghanistan it certainly could not invade India via Turkey. People in the British government seemed to have no idea of the distances involved on the conditions of the Middle East.
I am reminded of the British government view, in the early 1900s, that New Zealand was bound to join up with Australia because “they are so close together” – in reality there is a vast distance between the two, but it did not look that way in maps in the Foreign Office.
David Norman – even leaving aside the “little” matter of the Soviet Union being responsible for many millions of deaths in the 1930s (something even my father, Harry Marks, was well aware of – and, we now know, both the British Foreign Office and the American State Department knew), read-your-own-comment-again.
According to your comment if two powers invade Poland we should declare war on one of these two powers – but not the other one.
That Sir is mad – utterly mad.
By the way – had Britain and France declared war on the Soviet Union (which was sending massive amounts of help to Nazi Germany – every strategic mineral you can think of) it would have given them legal justification to round up supporters of the Soviet Union in Britain and France. That is what it would have meant – not marching on Moscow, rounding up pro Soviet traitors at home.
The supporters of the Soviet Union who organised a massive campaign of strikes and other sabotage in France in 1940 – enabling the German victory.
Two powers invade Poland in 1939 – and Britain and France declare war on one of the two invading powers, but not the other one.
That is absurd.
Declare war on both or declare war on neither – to declare war on one, but not the other, is the action of a crazy person. No wonder the British Empire, and the French Empire, collapsed.
As for the lack of any unifying principles (“values”) in the United Kingdom – it used to be argued, by some people (I do NOT express agreement), that the United Kingdom did not need unifying principles because it was, more or less (with a very small proportion of exceptions – such as myself), an ethno-state – or a group of ethno-states (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) with much the same people ethnically – and united by a Crown that had roots in all these places (including Ireland – as the British monarch also has Irish ancestors, not just English, Scottish and Welsh ancestors).
This may have been true in the past, but the United Kingdom, especially England, is NOT an ethno-state now. There is no common ethnicity – we are very Diverse (capital D).
So the lack of unifying principles is not mitigated by common ethnicity.
Somewhere like Florida, ethnically diverse, has unifying principles – the Bill of Rights (Federal and State – based on principles of traditional liberties), but the United Kingdom does not.
By the way, the left have their own set of unifying principles – a sort of “Anti Bill of Rights” at bit like Anti Matter in relation to Matter.
Former Governor Cuomo of New York State listed a series of beliefs (basically conservative beliefs – freedom of speech, right to keep and bear arms, opposition to abortion, and so on) and said that people who had these beliefs had no business living in New York – that they should go. He later rowed back on these remarks – but I think his initial statement was sincere, and his rowing back insincere.
I suspect that someone like Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer thinks in much the same way as former Governor Cuomo (just in a more extreme way than former Governor Cuomo).
In short that Prime Minister Starmer thinks there are, or at least should be, a series of principles that would unify the, now, ethnically diverse (or Diverse) peoples in this island – but that they should be leftist principles (the principles laid out by someone like Governor Cuomo), with people who disagree with these principles (for example disagree with censorship and persecution of dissent) being crushed.
That was certainly the thinking of Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Brown (and many others) and led to such things as the Equality Act – and had led to much legislation, and other activity, before it, going all the way back to the 1960s.
It is not that they do not believe that a nation, especially an ethnically diverse nation, needs unifying principles – they do believe in the need for unifying principles, it is just that the unifying principles they push are radically Collectivist and deeply hostile to liberty.
By the way – Mr Putin’s regime is in agreement with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on these matters.
“RT” regularly attacks “far right extremists” (which it claims dominate Ukraine and other countries) and says they should have no right to Freedom of Speech, indeed that they should be in prison.
“RT” is also strongly opposed to “Islamophobia” – cynical people suggest that this position is something to do with the sort of people Mr Putin has recruited into the Russian army.
NickM – I was not joking, British propping up of the Ottoman Despotism really was justified on the basis of a Russian threat to India – utterly misunderstanding the distances involved and the conditions of the Middle East.
French support for the Despotism seems to have been a continuation of the old perverse policy that had led to the Emperor Charles V weeping with frustration (literally – he burst into tears, not for himself – but over the harm that had been done) centuries before – he was desperately trying to defend Europe, Christendom, against the Ottomans, and French Kings, unable to see the wood for the trees (unable to look past narrow interests) kept helping the enemy – the enemies of the French people as well as the enemies of everyone else.
As for why Piedmont sent men to die in the Crimean War – it appears to have been a whim. A whim of the government of Piedmont.
Support for Italian and German “unification” in the 19th century led to higher taxes and to persecution – language persecution in Italy, religious persecution in Germany.
The “unification” was really a conquest – by relatively high taxed Prussia and Piedmont, of relatively lower taxed areas.
A conquest supported by deluded “Liberals” who, even then, seemed to have forgotten that liberalism is supposed to about smaller government, not bigger government.
Paul. I think your position is deluded. Every country throughout history has chosen what battles to fight according to what it rightly or wrongly perceives its vital interests to be and the resources it has available, and not according to an idealistic view that two countries committing similar wrongs should, for moral reasons, be treated in the same way.