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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I recently received an article about hate crimes from one of the many email groups I read. It purported reporting is one sided and made a number of interesting statements. One that cannot be denied is that acts of violence of one person against another simply because of “what” rather than “who” they are is about as nondiscriminatory an occupation as one can find: everyone bashes everyone else with approximately equal fervour. This was most humourously stated several decades ago by Tom Lehrer in his song “National Brotherhood Week”.
The gist of the posting was that when whites trash blacks it is reported; but when blacks do similarly awful things it is not. It noted the absolute numbers of hate crimes committed by whites against blacks was larger, but statistically the rate of such crimes by blacks against whites was higher. As I have somewhat of a mathematical inclination this got me thinking. There was just something wrong with the reasoning and it wasn’t until much later over a pint at the local the flaw finally made itself clear to me.
It’s the perceived risk.
Let’s say there is an imaginary and mostly happy land of VRB in which a mix of A’s and B’s live. The vast majority of A’s and B’s are extremely decent folk, but unfortunately there is a rare genetic disorder that strikes 1 out of 10 newborns. They are born throwbacks to a primitive type of A or B. On the average these pitiful genetically-challenged pre-A’s and pre-B’s commit one act of violence against a member of the other type per year.
Now it happens that the VRB’s population is 100. There are 85 A’s and 15 B’s. So there are roughly 8 pre-A’s and 1 pre-B’s. That means that 8 B’s and 1 A get the shite kicked out of them each year. That is to say, over 50% of B’s are assaulted in a given year and 1% of the A’s.
Needless to say, the perception of B’s will be all A’s are out to get them. The average A will feel virtually un-threatened. They may not even know any of the violent pre-A’s who attack the B’s and wouldn’t associate with that sort anyway. The average A would likely only have heard pub rumours of an A getting beat on.
The second year, the pre-B’s will have some of the more fearful B’s beside them for “self-defense” and the percentage of violent B’s will go up. If just 2 more join the pre-B, they will triple the rate of violence of B’s against A’s. However the difference between a 1% and 3% chance of getting clobbered will not modify A’s risk perceptions at all.
Well, actually post Christmas Day now, but nonetheless, we had at least one of the ingredients for a Traditional(tm) Christmas here: it snowed. Now, you would think that a place this far North would see a fair share of snow. Nope. When an inch comes down Belfast drivers are about as prepared and perplexed by the white stuff as someone in South Carolina. Iceland and Greenland are not all that much further North, but the Gulf Stream keeps us from looking like Norway. Which is fine except for the long, long nights this time of year. That’s one of the reasons for the pub life I suspect… besides the lack of central heating of course… at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
On other fronts, someone hacked into Blogger and left a posting on Instapundit today. While the post was innocent enough, it was not quite an example of ethical hacking because if it were, we would not have seen a message: only the system administrator would have known.
Ethical Hackers can be helpful although many admins would publicly disagree with me. The facts of life are nearly every computer facility in the world is vastly undermanned. The result is a few heroic souls who do their best, but with the number of sources of information to watch and the rates of changes and updates to be dealt with they face a nearly hopeless task. if you visualize an anteater with ten anthills to watch you’ll have a good idea of the reality admins live with. In this sort of environment it is inevitable that something will be missed or an error will be made . If an Ethical Hacker spots the security hole and sends a nice polite private email to all involved stating what is open and what action should be taken to fix the problem, they are doing a service for all.
But if it is just a matter of putting a line on a blog or website so friends can see you did it… then you are just part of the problem. I would like that person to consider that they most likely pulled some guy away from his only day off in weeks, a day to feast with family and friends… Christmas Day fer chrissakes… just so they could show off.
To whomever did it: get some Christmas spirit in your soul. Someday you’ll be the one getting a call out in the middle of Christmas dinner.
One of the most appealing things about working with Libertarian Samizdata is the opportunity to show the many faces of the libertarian philosophy and the people behind it. Libertarians aren’t a bunch of humourless ideologues who spend all their time pondering pin heads. We’re real people who love liberty because we love life and desire to live it to the fullest. We play music, do sports, ride bikes, drive fast cars, ski, fly airplanes, get drunk, fall in love, go to churches or not, read porn or not, and believe it or not, party until dawn with our non-libertarian friends… without ever once mentioning politics.
If you come to us looking for an enlightenment or a revealed truth you will be very disappointed. Rather than answers, we give you questions; rather than proscriptions we tell you to think and to take responsibility for your own life. Of course if you do find comfort in some strange -ism you might find us a community tolerant of whatever strangeness you believe… so long as you do it peacefully.
Libertarianism does have core ideas and core beliefs. No one can be a libertarian without accepting the noncoercion principle. You must accept that I have a right to do anything I damn well please so long as I do not threaten you with direct violence to person or property and I use resources acquired honestly to do whatever it is I wish to do. I can’t use force, fraud or theft to take from you what I “need” for my lifestyle. I am both free to act as I please and wholly responsible for the results. If you are certain I’m a damn fool and will probably kill myself, you are free to attempt to talk me out of my bad behavior if you can get me to listen voluntarily. Otherwise you will have to wait until reality teaches me its’ harsh lessons. If the time comes when I am ready and contrite enough to beg for help and if you are of good enough heart to assist, you are free to do so.
Alternatively, if I attempt to steal from you or threaten you, it is your right to use whatever force is necessary to stop me even if it means my death. Libertarians are not pacifists. You are always in the right when you defend your person and property and loved ones against those who would do them harm.
Understanding non-coercion as an idea is the simple part. But ideas are fuzzy things when brought across the dream bridge to the physical world, a world in which maniacs fly airplanes into office buildings. What action does a libertarian take against a threat like that? The extremes are easy to judge. Few libertarians would agree that we should have had troops in Somalia or Panama. Most would agree that September 11th, 2001 and December 7th, 1941 were sufficient causus belli for any society, libertarian or otherwise. Some don’t and that is their right.
There are numerous philosophical strands that wend their way through the space of ideas and dump their passengers in pretty much the same location. If one thinks of ideas as points in space, then libertarians are those who are neighbors in that thought-space. Each will have their own unique perspective on how and why they ended up there.
However different our journeys we have all ended up with similar ideas. A belief that individuals know better what is good for them than any collective; that more individual liberty leads to better, happier lives; that government intervention even with the best of intentions fails to deliver the goods; that the vast majority of the several billion humans on this planet are decent, honourable and just plain nice.
If you’re really curious about us, try taking this little quiz. It’s not perfect, it’s probably not scientific, but you’ll come away from it with a sense of what all these crazy libertarians believe in. And who knows? Maybe you’re one of us.
Aye, it has not been a pretty sight. Dead bottles have piled ever higher on the table tops and the barrages of incoming pints have been incessant. We’re expecting another intense battering tonight after too few hours rest from the ordeal. Numerous head injuries have been reported. One of my musician friends just called for help after being lost for a day and claims to have suffered grievous braincase damage. We’re planning a rescue party and hope to have him on anaesthetic within a few hours, before the alcohol level in his blood stream falls to dangerous levels.
It’s pure hell, but this is what the Samizdata forces train for!
A Merry Christmas to all, and just remember: Guinness Is Good For You!
Back when I was a kid growing up in Pittsburgh, I remember a blue neon sign across the Allegheny River from the downtown. Mostly I remember it from winters, because that was when it would already be dark when mom and I were on the bus home after one of her shopping expeditions. I don’t think it is there anymore, what with all the Northside development that has come to pass over the years, but it was a series of circled W’s: the Westinghouse emblem. Now Westinghouse was a local Pittsburgh company and absolutely anyone who grew up there knows “You can be sure if it’s Westinghouse”.
One can apply the same phrase to other companies. Many companies really do have products with features you can always depend on, always be sure of.
That is why I was not terribly surprised while I was having difficulties posting stories to blogspot all day long and kept seeing this message:
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Timeout expired
/blog_form-action.pyra, line 53
Yes, you really can be sure of some things in this life.
There have been quite a few retrospective’s recently about how badly wrong some September pundit prognostications were. Unfortuneately Samizdata was not then in existence so my thoughts were spread amongst numerous private email groups and private “conversations”. I looked at some of these this evening as I was doing some system admin and came to the conclusion that I did much better than most. The essay below is one I mailed to a small private policy discussion that sprang up shortly after September 11th and lasted only a week or two. I won’t specifiy any names but there were some interesting people on it. I also know it circulated a bit in amongst some policy types but whether anyone “in high places” read it I do not know.
I’ll leave it to you the reader to judge, but I think I deserve at least a B grade.
Wed, 19 Sep 2001 00:28:09 +0100
Comments to a small group of friends.
I’ve a few thoughts on the prosecution of this war, and although I’ve stated a number of them in assorted public lists, some may be of interest to this small selection of what appears to be rather more than average in terms of policy analysis.
One issue that is paramount to me is that we do not give an inch on the liberties we value. There is no sense prosecuting a war against a potential oppressor if we are willing to do to ourselves what he would do to us if victorious. I hear all to many calls for invasions of privacy, restrictions on civil liberties and the like. If such are indeed required for the prosecution of the war, they should be carefully limited to what is needed only for the prosecution of that war and sunsetted so that they must either be re-enacted at a specific time and unconditionally terminated with the end of the war, regardless of how much time there is left in the sunset clause.
The country has a significant libertarian and libertarian leaning component now, and if those (myself included) are to give wholehearted backing, we must know that by so doing we are not driving a stake into the heart of our liberties.
If we are to prosecut a war, we must have a clearly defined target and a clearly defined end point. The information supplied on bin Laden shows that we do indeed face a foe who is effectively one of the new nonterritorially based states. His is based on hatred and violence whereas as most of the others which are developing are not. The concept of a nation as a place with borders is blurring and will continue to blur. I, for instance, am an american by birth living in the UK/Ireland and dealing real time with a peer group that spans the globe.
So we have a new form of warfare as well. bin Laden is the first virtual state to declare war on another state. Defeating his virtual state will require application of force that is independant of borders. To do that there will have to be strong international acquiesance. And to retain support at home it will have to be clear that we are not creating a tool that will be turned to other, highly undesirable uses.
On the home front there are several battles:
* ongoing public support
* classical law enforcement and security
* the average citizen as a soldier
* dealing with the 5th column
I’ve touched on the first issue. We have to be sure we are fighting for our liberty.
The second issue is the one the press and most policy types seem to be focusing on. I probably cannot add a great deal to what has been said there.
The third issue is one that has been almost ignored. What is new about this war over others is that there are no lines. The battlefield is anywhere at any time. The enemy will attempt to chose those times and places such that miniscule force will be overwhelming force. That is what they did on Tuesday. However if we learned no other lesson on that day, we have better have learned this one;
Terrorists will always be victorious when surrounded by sheep.
That was the force multiplier that allowed them to capture an airliner despite being outnumbered 10:1 and most likely in fact *outarmed* at least 5:1 as well. Most guys carry small knives just as dangerous as the mattknives carried by the enemy; additionally, large numbers of americans are trained in martial arts.
The only reason that they succeeded in the first two cases was that what they planned to do had never been done. All previous hijackings ended in extended negotiations. The vast majority of all passengers hijacked sat quietly and eventually returned to friends and family.
But that all changed. The second flight may have found out about the WTC; the news has not told us, but I would suspect that at least one of the known cellphone calls passed the info on. However there was simply no time to react for them.
But the time line for the 4th plane was enough for the fact to be communicated and discussed. There in lies the flaw in the enemies logic. Americans are rational; but they are not sheep. The terrorists in aircraft number for died for their mistake.
This is what I would call the “citizen as soldier”. In this kind of war, the enemy will strike when and where they want, and they will not go where either military or police are in abundance. Neither will security measures at airports or elsewhere stop them from hijacking if they can get on board at all. Remember the dictum:
“There are no dangerous weapons, there are only dangerous people”
Trained enemy can kill with their bare hands. Or with a bit of string for a garrot, or a pen through the eye into the brain, or…
If there is a single guard on the plane, he will be taken out first and then they will proceed. However the citizen is now aware that they are a soldier. Perhaps the average american is not thinking in those terms, but it is almost certainly that case that if a plane is hijacked, the passengers will assume that no matter what the hijackers say, their intent is to kill thousands. Americans will make the rational decision and they will kill the hijackers with their bare hands, even if they all die.
This is a fact proven by the new crater in Somerset.
Next on our agenda. There is a 5th column in place in American and it has had years to bury itself in the flesh of the american islamic community. It will have to be dug out.
I have suggested to some friends that moslems who are truly citizens of the US or UK or where ever should back a Fatwah against bin Laden and his organization.
If they do not do so, they prove they are either unreliable, traitorous or afraid of retribution. A movement by patriotic american moslems to make such a declaration would drive a wedge between moslems. The moslem community must be split into the part which belongs in a modern society like America, and the part which is the enemy to be defeated.
Like others before them, american Japonese, Germans and Italians, they should be offered the chance to stand up and be counted. After WTC there can be no mixed loyalties on the issue of bin Laden. Either you is with us or you ain’t.
Now to move to the international side of things. While bombs and technology and push button warfare have their place… they will only be a backup part of this war. I suggest an air cavalry able to insert divisions onto a target anywhere in the world, with whatever other assets are necessary.
They should be prepared to operate without the permission of the harboring state; they should be intended not for holding ground but for reaching, confirming and destroying (or killing) a specific objective. It also avoids many disastrous mistakes. And if the target has moved or dug in, you will know it and can act on that knowledge immediately. A cruise missile is a hell of lot dumber than the lowliest grunt, and I for one hope that it stays that way.
It does look like there is a great deal of common cause with Russia on this; there have also been been news that the Northern Alliance is willing to back us wholeheartedly; and that Turkmenistan has offered support because it would like a peaceful environment in which to develop it’s (alleged) massive oil and other resources in peace. US investment to extract those resources could change it from dirt poor to one of the wealthiest per-capita countries over night if what I have heard is indeed true.
We may also turn the Taliban’s threats of invasion to our own advantage. They may do very well in their own mountains, but the mathematics of offense are very different from those of defense. If they can be taunted into acting, they can be made to take massive casualties.
Afghanistan is a nation held captive by a (relatively) small number of fanatics. Our goal should be to work with the Russians, the NA and such to get the civil war there going against the Taliban. With the Iranian border closed to them, they have their backs to Pakistan.
So ideally we assist existing forces to install a moderate government that is sufficiently friendly to Russia to give them a stake in this, and under ideal circumstances, friendly enough to us to allow continued hit and run operations against any bin Laden or similar groups who attempt to operate in those fearsome mountains.
In other nations the battles might be entered by working with the local government, as perhaps in the Phillipines; to inserting a commando squad without that government’s knowledge to take out the bin Laden organization members manu a manu.
I’ve long thought myself reasonably knowledgeable on World War II, and in particular on the air war. I had heard Belfast was bombed by a few planes at some point. One friend told me his father sat up in the hills and watched the bombers flying in. I’d seen mentions of it in various histories of the air war, but one is left with the impression the entire Battle of Britain was in the south of England. In terms of strategic importance, it was. London, Coventry and various attacks on other English cities were the heart of the action. That is where the “The Few” fought and died in the Battle of Britain. Squadrons went north for training and reforming. Other raids happened here and there but nothing that was terribly important to the course of the war. A couple raids on Belfast? When you read that amidst the history of the war in the skies over London it hardly registered even if you were sitting in Belfast. The unbidden first thought to cross one’s mind as Belfast resident was that we were doing quite a good enough job blowing it up ourselves. Why on Earth would we have needed any help from strangers?
The first raid was what I had believed it all to have been like. A few bombs on a Harland and Wolff factory, a few deaths here and there. That is what I had always believed had happened here.
I was very, very wrong as I found out tonight from a BBC Northern Ireland commemoration taped in our new Waterfront Hall. Local artists (several of whom I know from my many wastrel nights as a working musician in Ireland) sang period songs in between the film clips and dramatic readings of the words of those who lived through the raids. It is well worth the viewing but since most of you can’t do that, the web site is the next best thing.
900 people died that night on April 15th, 1941 in a second raid on a nearly defenseless city. The first had been a revelation to the Germans. No fighters defended the city. A handful of anti-aircraft guns were the sum total of defences. That was all there was to face over 200 He111’s and Ju88’s that roved at will over the city. Even those few defending guns were silenced when the telephone exchange was destroyed and all coordination lost.
In terms of numbers killed it was the worst single raid carnage of the Battle of Britain but one. Did any of you know that? I certainly did not.
The third raid came on May 4th of 1941. Belfast was still nearly defenseless. There were a handful of defending Spitfires and Hurricanes. This time “only” about 200 people died in the rain of incendiaries that devastated the city. But the destruction was far more complete. It left Belfast as devastated as any city in England and perhaps worse than most. Vast areas of housing were levelled in the conflagration that was visible from the Glen Shane pass 45 miles away. Ships were sunk in the harbour; the city centre was half destroyed.
No matter how much one reads the history of that terrible time, it gives one pause to realize the scope of the war was so vast that raids as devastating as these are reduced to minor historical footnotes.
In my earlier article, as I think Natalija noticed, I spoke primarily of what I think are realistic options on what will happen. My own views are of course imbedded in what I write, but perhaps a clearer statement is in order.
If Mr. Walker is a member of al Qaeda, then there are no options. He should be tried for Treason.
If he is not an al Qaeda member he should be given the option to stay in Afghanistan. He would be handed over to the Northern Alliance with the other foreign Taliban soldiers.
If he wishes to retain his American citizenship and to ever return there, he must take his chances with a Treason trial. If ten years from now he finds he really wants to return, the answer is the same.
There are some rules you must keep to if you chose to be a member of a society. It is one thing to wish to change the society you exist within; it is quite another to work to bring about the deaths of fellow citizens while simultaneously partaking of its’ liberties.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
It’s a hard call without really knowing what Mr. Walker was up to and why. There is little doubt in my mind that he should be tried for Treason; whether or not he is convicted, whether or not there were extenuating circumstances is a matter for the courts to decide. The fact that he was found where he was found is rather damning evidence but is not “beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt”.
What should be done with him if he is found guilty? That again is a matter for the courts. We don’t know what he actually did so how can we decide his fate from in front of our comfortable computer screens? For all we know he could have been dragged along by events and lain cowering in the basement wondering at his own idiocy. Or perhaps he went to fight with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance never imagining he could end up fighting his own country. After all, on September 10th how many of us would have considered US forces in Afghanistan as even the remotest possibility? If that were the case he is a soldier of fortune who got caught up in the wrong war at the wrong time. A few years in prison and a slap on the wrist would suffice.
Of course as Glenn Reynolds has suggested a number of times, we could take it as given he has chosen to give up his US Citizenship. We could leave him to the tender mercies of his chosen enemies, the Northern Alliance. An article about his interrogation in Ananova seems to indicate the CIA men were thinking along these lines just before “the balloon went up”:
On the tape, Walker is seen being brought to the two CIA men for interrogation. Spann is then seen saying to his colleague: “I explained to him what the deal is” and then tells Walker: “It’s up to you.” Dave then says: “The problem is, he’s got to decide if he wants to live or die. If he wants to die, he’s going to die here. “Or he’s going to f****** spend the rest of his short f****** life in prison. It’s his decision, man. We can only help the guys who want to talk to us. We can only get the Red Cross to help so many guys.
If he was there specifically to fight against America, there are no options. He should be put away for a very long time. And if he was actively assisting the al Qaeda… well that is another kettle of sharks entirely. He would, and should, face the death penalty.
Fortunately we have the right President for it.
Some months ago Carla Howell and the Libertarians of Massachusetts set out to do more than just talk about making government smaller. They decided to act. They decided to give the people of Massachusetts an opportunity not to slow the rise of taxes, not to freeze them, not to index them… but to roll them back. They penned a ballot initiative to abolish the Massachusetts Income Tax.
It is not easy to get an initiative on the ballot. It costs a great deal of money and untold hours of labour. Libertarians from all over pitched in with donations of cash; Carla and her crew lived and breathed petition from 6am to 12 midnight day after day, week after week, month after month.
And they did it. 75,516 Certified signatures were delivered in 10 shipping boxes to the Elections Division Office of the Secretary of State on Tuesday, December 4th. The event was covered by local and national media and garnered significant publicity for the Libertarian Party. Carla reports coverage by the Associated Press, the State House News Service, The Boston Globe, The Lowell Sun, Berkshire Eagle, NPR, WBZ, WBUR, WTAG, WSAR, WHMP, WHAI, WHYN, BNN TV, Free-Market.net, The Chicopee Herald, Reminder Metro-West, Providence Journal, Fox News and CNN Banner Headline.
Our modern day Sons of Liberty delivered 101,139 raw signatures to 343 town clerks; 75% were validated. Only 57,100 were required to put this measure on the ballot for November 2002. It was unreported whether they are saving the Indian war paint for next year’s post election party.
The implications are beginning to sink in. Howls of anguish and even fear that voters might actually vote for $3000 a year back into their own pockets are rising from the snouts of the public trough class. You can be sure the next phase will be neither quiet nor behind the scenes. The porkers will be out in force from here on out, inventing tax cut horror stories, trundling out their pet talking head victims, putting career bureaucrats on TV to tell how they will cut their most important services first… Oh it is going to be glorious to watch.
It has already begun. Michael Widmer, Director of Communications and Deputy Chief Secretary of former Governor Michael Dukakis(D) and currently the President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation is one of the first to voice his fears:
“It would decimate state government.”
Awww…. I’m soooo sad about that Mr Widmer. In fact, ending the income tax would leave a state budget of $14 Billion. That’s 40% higher than Michael Dukakis’ last bloated budget.
Mr. Widmer also noted that ending the income tax would cause “the lay-off of tens of thousands of government workers.” He neglects to add it would put $9 Billion back into the Massachusetts economy. That’s enough to create 400,000 new jobs in the private sector. More than enough to put those government employees to work doing something productive, Mr. Widmer. Next Question?
It’s going to be a bloody war for the next year and the opposition is going to bring enormous resources to bear to hold on to their $9 Billion a year tithe from the working people of Massachusetts. Carla’s little tribe are going to need help. I highly recommend that all who can afford to do so donate and continue to donate. Money is the armament of political warfare and we have to keep our braves in arrowheads if we expect them to take on the Leviathan.
It’s going to be an absolutely magnificent tea party.
In answer to many e-mails asking about it… yes, this ad is absolutely real. I scanned it in this evening myself. It is the front page of a one fold high quality A4 size colour brochure that fell out of one of the UK aviation magazines on my floor. Unfortunately I cannot with any certainty say which one because I just this evening noticed it in the pile. I’m sure that if other UK aviation enthusiasts (those not in Greek prisons) check their stacks they will find their own copies. They may be worth holding on to.
The following has to be intentional. I just cannot believe that anyone could be this dumb, even in an advertising agency. Just so those outside the UK understand this fully, dates are written differently over here. Day/Month/Year rather than the american Month/Day/Year.
Take your pick: sick or stupid?
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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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