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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It’s a Big Pond, but it’s Home

· Independent sites, Blogging & Bloggers

My experience is quite different from Brian’s. For me the Internet has “always been there”. I had access to its earliest form when I was a grad student at CMU in the early 70’s. Although I became a card-carrying Libertarian during a time when I lacked access to the university computers, that soon changed. I’ve been continuously on the internet from 1983, and a researcher who digs hard enough will find my very libertarian oriented Space Digest postings from that period.

This brings me to a point it has long been my intention to make. Blogs did not come out of a vacuum. Many writers like myself have been debating, arguing and posting for two decades. That’s a lot of practice. We’re not people who sat down one day and said “Oh, I think I’ll start writing about current affairs”. Some of us have been writing for every bit as long as the “mainstream” journalists. Our editors were not our bosses but our peers; they gave us the harsh critique of people who knew the facts and were unafraid to let you know it. You also learned to withstand attacks that could be harsh and personal. Libel? Hah! You just returned fire. Courts were for wimps!

I do understand a little of what Brian says, because I can remember a time when I could say I knew all of the key people on the internet. That is certainly no longer true. I feel honoured to have been in the circles of those early days and that ring of acquaintances is one I still find valuable to me professionally and otherwise.

If there are journalists reading this who have spent their working lives in the traditional print media, the blog phenomena must be quite disconcerting. It seemingly appeared from nowhere around September 11th. Things do happen fast on the net, but I assure you many of us have been writing for as long as yourselves. The format has been different, the rules have been different, but we are really quite as experienced (and blooded) in our media as you in yours.

Back to Brian’s Lament (sounds like an Irish trad song title, don’t it?)… we each add our small contribution. Being the most read or the top rated isn’t what matters. The Internet is our home and its residents are our friends and neighbours. It takes a bit of getting used to, this non-territorial territory we live in, a “place” where your neighbors may be physically anywhere that humanity is to be found and proximity is defined by shared interests and values rather than place.

But it’s a good place and it is where the history of this century will be written.

February 4th, 2002 | Comments are closed

We’re from Different Planets

· Opinions on liberty

I’ve been catching up on my essential reading this evening – or rather this AM – and was annoyed to the point of blogging by a recent DOD news briefing. The fantasy mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo seemed to be the only item on the press agenda that day.

I, too, have a question about the prisoners’ treatment. One that is not being sufficiently addressed. One I suspect resonates with others from the same planet as I, ie normal people.

How are we going to keep these bastards off the street permanently?

I want assurances these people will never, ever again have the freedom and opportunity to crash an airplane into a skyscraper, release a bio-agent, smuggle radiological weapons, poison a cities water supply, machine gun a crowd, blow up an embassy or nuke Chicago and LA. I’m really not much interested in whether they’re getting the proper sun block in their Club Gitmo tanning butter.

These prisoners are excessively dangerous men. They are trained, drilled, lethal killers… every one of them. They will seek death for the opportunity to take some of us with them. No normal prison or prison guards will be capable of holding them. If it meant 50 of them had to die so one could grab a soldier’s weapon, they would do so. They will quietly wait 3,5,10 years for a guard to slip, to forget what sort of people they are, to become complacent. They will revolt and kill and revolt and kill again until there are none of them left. So exactly how the hell are we going to neutralize these arseholes? That’s the kind of investigative journalism I wish I were seeing.

I still prefer baseballs in Yankee stadium, but if push comes to shove I’ll settle for a good ol’ fashioned necktie party à la Nuremberg.

February 3rd, 2002 | Comments are closed

It’s the story They chose

· North American affairs

I don’t often have time to respond in any depth to e-mail about articles I have posted. I’ve so many “irons in the fire” I barely have time to post, let alone debate. However reader and fellow blogger Swen Swenson of A Coyote at the Dog Show made some valid points:

FYI, there are still a lot of polygamists in the Rocky Mountain states and you rarely hear about one of them being prosecuted. Tom Green’s mistake – ‘marrying’ a 13-year-old and bragging about it. The first is statutory rape regardless of your religion, the second just plain asshole stupidity. With Green you could also make a case for chatel slavery.  His ‘bride’ apparently had little choice in the matter.

I agree that the government has no business limiting the number or gender of those who would enter into a marriage contract.  But in this situation you’d as well bemoan our attack on the religious freedom of the poor Taliban. They too were acting on their religious beliefs..

That is not the story Opinion Journal chose to emphasize. The titles weren’t of the form “Utah resident takes child bride in forced marriage“. They centered on the old Morman lifestyle. Had the former been the headline, I’d not have given the article a second glance. I’d have left it for someone like Karl “Defending The Indefensible” Hess.

Even the email replies Opinion Journal received and reported on focused on post-sellout (You vill sign ze papers old man!) Morman beliefs rather than the particulars of the case Swen pointed out.

February 1st, 2002 | Comments are closed

Freedom Of Religion?

· North American affairs

The Opinion Journal’s newsletter is a good source of information, but they don’t always come down on the side of liberty. Recently they have been discussing the case of Tom Green of Utah, arrested for having a family with multiple wives. Today’s email newsletter states:

His “head wife,” Linda Kunz Green, implied that the Greens are Mormons. We heard from more than 100 readers, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, who pointed out that although some early Mormons practiced polygamy, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (as it is formally known) renounced polygamy in 1890, and anyone practicing “plural marriage” is subject to excommunication from the church. Although some breakaway groups in Utah and nearby states still practice polygamy, they are not, properly speaking, Mormons.

What the Opinion Journal neglects to mention is why the tenets of the Mormon religion were changed in 1890.

Many would know Brigham Young led his people to Utah after years of persecution in the east. Few are aware of the continous battle fought by he and his people to be left alone. The difficulty was that polygamy was a tenet of those beliefs and was anathema to the majority religion of the populous eastern states.

The first round in the running battle between freedom of religion and the Feds came with the 1858 Utah War sometimes known as ‘the Mormon War’. It was not exactly a shooting war as they were not a terribly violent people and had no particular desire to face off with the Federal troops that were sent in to put them in their place.

Because of this experience, the Mormons later fought the Blackhawk War on their own for nearly 8 years to avoid more unwanted ‘assistance’ from Washington. Nonetheless, Federal Troops intervened in 1872.

The final act came between 1887 and 1890:

The U. S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act, denying that its assault on Mormon institutions constitutes a violation of Mormon religious freedom. At the same time, Congress debates the even more punitive Cullom-Strubble Bill, designed to deny all Mormons the right to vote. In response, Wilford Woodruff, leader of the Mormon Church, issues the “Manifesto,” a revelation urging all members of the church to comply with the laws of the land regarding marriage..

So there we have it. The Green family is being persecuted for following the original tenets of their religion, tenets that their Church was forceably coerced into changing.

The Waco massacre was nothing new. Freedom of Religion in the US has always existed on the sufference of the majority religion. As the Buffalo Springfield song said: “You step outta line, the man come and take you away”

February 1st, 2002 | Comments are closed

Not Really a Star Trek War

· Science Fiction & Fantasy

Like most of the Samizdatistas, I have my critiques of the Star Trek universe. I particularly like Lagwolf’s comment about it containing a lot of the 1960’s without the good bits, eg Sex, Drugs, Rock&Roll and Revolution for the Hell of It.

But all that aside – I suspect the lot of us watch and enjoy them. Critique is not a dismissal. And for myself, if faced upon a winter’s night with the choice between BBC News and an old episode of Star Trek…

January 31st, 2002 | Comments are closed

Krugman Loses Touch With Reality

· North American affairs

The Opinion Journal daily e-mail newsletter reported today that New York Times op-ed writer and former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has gone over the edge:

I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.

Paul, I don’t know what it is you’re smoking, but would you tell me where I can get some too?

January 29th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Carla declares for Massachusetts Gubernatorial race

· North American affairs

Carla Howell is not a woman to rest on her laurels. After running the most successful Libertarian Senatorial campaign in history she followed it up by successfully placing an initiative to end the Massachusetts income tax on the ballot for this fall.

Today she declared for the Governorship of Massachusetts.

There is little I could say that Carla can’t say better, so with no further ado, here is her full statement of candidacy:

Massachusetts government spending has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

Democrat Governor Michael Dukakis’ last bloated budget was $10 Billion.

Republican Governor Jane Swift’s first budget is $23.5 Billion. Republican Governor Jane Swift increased last year’s budget by $1 Billion.

Massachusetts government is Big Government. Bi-Partisan Big Government.

Massachusetts Big Government is bossy, nosy, clumsy, abusive, and intrusive. And outrageously expensive.

Massachusetts Democrat and Republican politicians are laboring day and night to:

— make our state government bigger,
— increase state government spending,
— expand state government power and authority, and
— seize the few remaining remnants of our gun freedom.

Do you believe Massachusetts government is too Big?

Do you believe Massachusetts Taxes are too High?

I do.

That’s why I’m running for Governor of Massachusetts.

I’m running because … small government is beautiful*.

I’m Carla Howell, Libertarian candidate for Governor.

I’m the only candidate for Governor who has signed the small government pledge:

“I vote small government. Every issue. Every time. No exceptions. No excuses.”

Small government is beautiful* … and it leaves our families alone.

Small government is beautiful* … and it leaves our income alone.

Small government is beautiful* … and it leaves our guns alone.

I am the only candidate for Governor who will boldly advance our cause of personal responsibility, individual liberty, and small, constitutional government.

I represent the forgotten taxpayer. The forgotten worker. The forgotten gun owner. The forgotten voter.

I represent responsible individuals. People who work for a living, pay their bills, and support their families. People who are good neighbors, and caring members of their communities.

The Big Government Candidates for Governor

Every Democrat and Republican Candidate for Governor is a Big Government Politician.

Every one of them supports today’s $23 Billion or more in state government spending.

Every one of them proposes more state government programs, more state government spending.

If you like today’s Big Government spending in Massachusetts, pick your favorite flavor.

The Republican: Governor Jane Swift.

The Democrats: State Senate President Thomas Birmingham. State Senator Warren Tolman. Democrat Party Fundraiser Steven Grossman. State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien. Secretary of State William Galvin. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

Here’s what each one of them offers: More laws. More government programs. More taxes. More government.

If you want Ever-Growing Greedy Government, if you want Big Government, take your pick.

Because there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them.

Why They Fail the ‘White Out’ Test

What’s the ‘White-Out’ Test?

Get an issue of the Boston Globe, the Herald News, or another Massachusetts daily newspaper. Find an article about each of the Republican or Democrat candidates for Governor. Find a proposal or program advocated by each candidate. Clip them out.

Take a bottle of ‘White-Out’ and blot out each candidate’s name. And ‘white-out’ the word “Democrat” or “Republican” — if it’s even mentioned.

Take these political proposals or programs and put them in front of 10 people chosen at random. Ask each person to correctly match the candidate for Governor with his or her proposal or program.

They won’t be able to do it.

Why do these candidates fail the ‘White-Out’ Test?

Because their positions, proposals, and programs blur and blend into the same Big Government mush.

That is why the Big Government Democrat and Republican candidates for Governor must spend millions and millions of dollars to publicize and advertise their campaigns.

Voters can’t remember who they are. Voters can’t remember why they’re running. So they subject voters to endless mind-numbing rote repetition advertising.

Carla Howell: The Only Small Government Candidate

I score A+ on the ‘White-Out’ Test. My proposals for making government small are dramatically different. I stand in stark contrast against the Big Government candidates.

If you want small government, if you want to End the Income Tax in Massachusetts, there’s only one choice: Carla Howell, Libertarian for Governor.

And only one issue: small government. A vote for Carla Howell is a vote for small government. Every issue. Every time. No exceptions. No excuses.

— A vote for Carla Howell is a vote to make Massachusetts government so small it doesn’t need an Income Tax.

— A vote for Carla Howell is a vote to give back $3,000 each year to 3,000,000 working people in Massachusetts by Ending the Income Tax. On November 5th, when voters go to the polls to End the Income Tax, they can vote for Carla Howell, Libertarian for Governor.

— A vote for Carla Howell and small government is a vote for 100% Gun Freedom. I am the only candidate for Governor who will shred every Anti-Gun Freedom Law on the books in Massachusetts. Immediately repeal Chapter 180. Immediately repeal and remove every Anti-Gun law, restriction and regulation on the books. More guns means safe communities.

Governor Carla Howell will do everything in her power to repeal, remove, erase, and dismantle destructive and expensive Massachusetts

Governor Carla Howell’s most powerful weapons: the Veto and a Shredder. The Veto to stop new laws, stop new taxes, and stop new government spending. The Shredder to remove every vestige of Big Government in Massachusetts. To make government small.

The News Media knows. When I ran against Ted Kennedy for U.S. Senate in the last election, here was a typical comment:

“If Hollywood needed to invent a challenger to Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, they couldn’t have created anyone whose views differ more than Libertarian Carla Howell.”
— Front Page, Sunday Edition, MetroWest Daily News, November 7, 1999

I champion small government. Every issue. Every time. No exceptions. No excuses.

Gun Owners know. Ask any gun store owner in Massachusetts what Carla Howell stands for. Ask any gun club. Ask any gun owner.

During my campaign against Ted Kennedy, I handed out over 10,627 fliers that explained why “small government is beautiful* … And it leaves our guns alone!”

Taxpayers know. My Committee for Small Government filed 75,629 petition signatures for our Ballot Initiative to End the Income Tax in Massachusetts. The Secretary of State has certified our petition signatures — and we’re headed for the ballot.

Our Ballot Initiative is entitled “The Small Government Act.” It’s designed to reduce our state budget from $23 Billion to $14 Billion. And give $9 Billion back to taxpayers.

Ending the Income Tax in Massachusetts will give back $3,000 each to 3,000,000 working people in Massachusetts. Every year. To People like you. Your neighbors. Co-workers. Family and friends.

Carla Howell For Governor

Small government is beautiful*. I’m running for Governor to make Massachusetts government small.

Ending the Income Tax in Massachusetts will help make government small.

Repealing every Anti-Gun Freedom Law on the books in Massachusetts will help make government small.

Exposing the fatally-flawed, wasteful, and destructive Big Government Programs in Massachusetts will help make government small.

A vote for Carla Howell, Libertarian for Governor, is a vote for small government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.

A vote that says, “small government is beautiful*.”

Carla immediately needs canvassers to collect 25,000 signatures. She also needs a war chest to get things off to a fast start. Donations of up to $500 per person are allowed under Massachusetts bureaucracy.

It goes without saying that I endorse Carla’s candidacy without reservation.

January 29th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Photo Funnies

· Independent sites, Blogging & Bloggers

When our esteemed (or steamed?) editor Perry de Havilland put out the photo opportunity call to the Samizdata team, I found my scanner wanting. The scans came out dark beyond Imagemagick’s Redemption. In lieu of something newer, I found this old black and white from a gig of my old Belfast rock band Transit. It’s a decade old, but it will have to serve for the moment.

January 28th, 2002 | Comments are closed

An Aspirin For Rand Simberg’s Sore Brain

· North American affairs

In a recent posting on Transterrestrial Musings Rand asked:


Yet there seems to be a growing consensus in the punditocracy that the Enron debacle is going to result somehow in the passage of campaign finance legislation a la McCain-Feingold or Shays-Meehan.

Can someone, anyone, explain this to me?

It means the Libertarian Party (and others) are starting to raise enough money to be an annoyance. Vote tallies for Libertarian candidates in a number of election races in November 2000 were actually greater than the margins of victory. Many think we would have done even better if not for the onerous regulatory requirements. Harry Browne was prepared to make a constitutional challenge against the very existance of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) but was unable to do so, partly due to internal party bickering.

The existing regulations prevent small parties from getting a leg up, but they are of little or no consequence to the Demopublicans.

So my take? It’s just another excuse to shore up their monopoly of power. If they can generate good vote-acquring “moral” and “ethical” soundbites while they are at it, it’s an even bigger win for the two faces of the monopoly party.

January 28th, 2002 | Comments are closed

In Remembrance

· Aerospace & Astronautics

16 Years ago today, 7 honoured members of the space community gave their lives for the dream we all share. I and others in that community pledge to carry their names to the stars.

Dick Scobee
Mike Smith
Judy Resnick
Ron McNair
Ellison Onizuka
Greg Jarvis
Crista McAuliffe

I raise my glass. We will never forget you.

January 28th, 2002 | Comments are closed

Apples and Orangemen

· Irish affairs · UK affairs

I have spent the last 13 years of my life in the West Belfast, Andytown orbit. I suspect I know a little bit more about it than some. I certainly don’t class as an outsider or a disinterested outside observer on these matters. I am also not going to be drawn into a long discussion that will just rehash verbal territory I have been over many times before.

Comparing any of the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland of either side to the Al Qaeda is ludicrous. Ours are a local problem, not a global one. In any other period of history what happened in Northern Ireland would have been called a civil war. In the early days of ‘The Troubles’ in the 70’s there was actual open small unit warfare between elements of the British Army and highly trained IRA units. This was not reported in the newspapers but I have talked to people who were there.

The British Army purportedly arrived to protect the Catholics from the Protestants, but the people who lived through that time say that the results were otherwise. It was as if the National Guard who went to Selma shot the blacks they had come to protect.

It would not surprise me to find that the USSR was feeding money and agents provacateurs to both sides in the late 60’s and early 70’s in the run up to the hostilities. Whatever the causes, the problems between the two communities escalated into open warfare. There were real problems here for outsiders to exploit, not imagined ones. In those days the Protestant community ran Northern Ireland the way the Klu Klux Klan ran Mississippi. Catholics were niggers here, and that made a fertile and inflammatory ground for what was to come.

This was not a pleasant place in those days. One friend was held in his bedroom with an Armalite stuck into his mouth – he was perhaps 15 – while his mother was held downstairs and the British soldiers searched for the hundredth time. 30 years ago, but I think if he ran into that officer today only one would survive the meeting. I could give you a hundred stories like that, all from the people it happened to, all from people I know very well.

Almost all of it happened right here in one small province, about the size of West Virginia. True, the IRA did things in England; but it seems to me that is supposed to be part of the same country. Some of the Protestant paramilitaries acted in Ireland, but I would also have to call that part of the same ‘country’ because there was a rather serious intersection of interests in Northern Ireland.

Did the IRA and UFF commit terrorist acts? Yes. Are they just like the Al Qaeda? Not even close. Al Qaeda killed over 3000 people and injured many more (remember my flame about us never being given an old fashioned casualty figure, dead plus injured?) in one hour. The attack on the World Trade Center was not a military objective; it was planned to maximize deaths of civilians of a nation nearly a half a planet away from where the attackers lived. The same organization killed perhaps another thousand people in the last decade, many of whom were Americans. This is no little local civil war. They aren’t killing their neighbors over which flag should be flown over City Hall.

In the global leagues, the IRA and UFF and the rest of the Northern Ireland alphabet soup are pikers. And pretty much out of business pikers at that. I’m sure Natalija can tell us about living somewhere where the terrorists really knew how to go about their job. I think we should all be thankful for the fact that as bad as these people may have behaved, they were not in those leagues. They called and politely told people to evacuate before blowing up places, rather than timing for maximum carnage. They never tried to acquire ‘the bomb’. They didn’t blow up civilian airliners.

And yes, I do agree that the ‘Real IRA’ people responsible for killing so many people of both sides in Omagh should be just quietly shot dead if found. I doubt anyone here would shed a tear over their despicable carcasses.

The Peace Process here is working. I have lived through it. I do not want to go back to the way it was. I want the Republican and Unionist leaders jawing and jockeying instead of shooting. I want them to keep it up for another decade. By then they will be out of touch with the reality of day to day life. Belfast is a lovely place with these lads talking instead of fighting. I’d like to keep it that way.

Some day there may be a vote here on which country we are to be a part of. I suspect by the time it happens the vote will be based on pure economics rather than which flag was printed on your nappies.

January 23rd, 2002 | Comments are closed

Libertarian Message on National TV

· North American affairs

Many groups on both the Left and the Right have big money behind them and manage to keep their message and spin on the television screen morning, noon and night. Thus far we Libertarians have had neither the numbers nor the wealthy backers to do more than an occasional Presidential Campaign ad. But that is about to change and I’ll let Jim Babka’s report speak for itself.

I may disagree with he and Harry Browne on some issues, but I still think they are two of the most effective outreach people we have ever had. Without further ado, here’s Jim:

We did it! Thanks to you, we reached our goal — we raised $20,898!

And this morning, I signed a check to CNN for $21,005 for three television spots which will air on Saturday, February 2, 2002.

We’ve chosen Saturday on a major national cable network, which means most of you will be able to view these ads. CNN viewers will be treated to a little lampooning of politically correct gun control advocates in our Yard Sign Ad

This is a historic ad buy, representing the first time, to my knowledge, that a libertarian commercial will be on national television without the benefit of a presidential campaign.

More specific details will be provided next week, along with confirmed broadcast times so that you can tune in to see your contribution dollars at work.

Thank you for your ongoing support, and please stay tuned.

Jim Babka, President
American Liberty Foundation
“21st Century Outreach for Freedom…”

I can’t wait to see the impact of this. Kick the anti-2nd Amendment crowd in the goolies while they’re down. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

January 22nd, 2002 | Comments are closed
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