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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Racial profiling may be too controversial too touch but just wait until somebody suggests species profiling:
An escaped pet cat created a scare on a Belgian airliner, forcing the crew to turn back to Brussels 20 minutes into its journey.
“We 100% support the decision made by the captain,” Geert Sciot, the airline’s communication vice-president, told the BBC.
Nobody, he said, could tell what an agitated cat what might do in the circumstances, scrabbling around amid the sensitive equipment in the cockpit of the Avro RJ.
An agitated domestic cat is a truly frightening thing. It could have been armed with a machine-gun or a bomb. Who knows what it could have done? Maybe it intended to overpower the crew, take over the plane and crash it into a building? Nobody would be able to stop it!! Terror in the skies!!!
“It took a long time to catch it,” he noted, describing the offending beast – said by Brussels newspaper La Derniere Heure to be a tom by the name of Gin – as “very aggressive”.
It was wielding a box-cutter and screaming ‘death to the Yankee imperialist dogs’.
This is a tragically inevitable result of the constant human meddling in the domestic affairs of cats.
They have tried false beards, make-up, wigs, sunglasses, plastic surgery. None of it has worked.
So time for something really radical:
Senior members of Michael Howard’s frontbench team believe the Conservative Party will have to consider changing its name as part of a fundamental “rebranding” if it fails to make a big surge at the next general election.
Allow me to assist. How about ‘Not The Conservative Party’?
History is a flexible commodity. More like therapy really:
John Kerry started his acceptance speech at last week’s Democratic convention by giving a military salute and saying, “I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting for duty.” He was introduced, very movingly, by a veteran who lost both legs and one arm fighting in Vietnam. On stage were other Vietnam veterans who served with Kerry on one of the so-called swift boats going up the Mekong river. That swift boat provided the metaphor for Kerry’s whole speech. Evoking “our band of brothers” he said: “We may be a little older, we may be a little greyer, but we still know how to fight for our country.”
There is plenty of this kind of eulogising in the Guardian.
Stange is it not? The very same people who would have been spitting at John Kerry and calling him a “fascist baby-killer” in the 1960’s are the same ones who are now getting all misty-eyed and choked up over his Vietnam war record.
Some time in June I was contacted by the production company responsible for making a radio programme called ‘Straw Poll’ for BBC Radio 4. They asked me to join the panel for a forthcoming debate on the proposition that ‘We Should Not Legislate Against Obesity’.
I agreed.
The format of the show is a panel which consists of four speakers, two of whom are in favour of the proposition and two of whom are against. The debate is thrashed out for about 30 minutes or so before the studio audience is given a chance to put questions to the panellists. The studio audience then vote on the proposition.
The programme was recorded last July 19th at a Central London location. My opponents were two doctors representing Orwellian-sounding NGO’s whose names I have not forgotten because I never bothered committing them to memory in the first place. On my side was a very polished and very professional PR spokesman for the food industry. → Continue reading: Taking the fight to the enemy
Well, slap me on the arse and call me Betty!! You spend half a century deliberately fostering and ruthlessly enforcing a culture of civil passivity in the face of crime and malevolence and guess what happens?
[Note: link to UK Times article may not work for readers outside of UK]
NEIGHBOURS have been urged to band together to fight back against yobs making life a misery for many communities in Britain.
Louise Casey, head of the Government’s antisocial behaviour unit, said yesterday that she feared people were becoming too tolerant and afraid to intervene because of traditional British reserve.
Let me take a wild leap into the dark here. Could this ‘tolerance’ and ‘reserve’ have anything to do with the fact that private citizens are forbidden to possess so much as a toothpick and even raising their eyebrows in defence of their homes, families or communities will result in their being dragged off to prison by the very people that are supposed to be protecting them?
“Leave it to the professionals” said the professionals. And so everyone did. And look at where it has got them.
Critics will seize on her call as an admission of government failure to stem a rising tide of social disorder. But Ms Casey said that the answer to the yobs was not more legislation, but greater community spirit and co-operation.
Meaning what, Ms Casy, meaning what? The swapping of tales of woe? Bouts of collective cowering? Group hugs? Yes, I am sure that will turn the tide.
We don’t breed them like this over here:
FORGET eBay. If you want to buy a dysfunctional boiler house, an international airport, a tea plantation, an oil terminal, a proctology clinic, a vineyard, a telephone company, a film studio, a lost-property office or a beekeepers’ regulatory board, then call Kakha Bendukidze, Georgia’s new economy minister. His privatisation drive has made him a keen seller of all the above. And for the right price he will throw in the Tbilisi State Concert Hall and the Georgian National Mint as well.
If only he could get his hands on the BBC!
Next year�if not sooner�he will cut the rate of income tax from 20% to 12%, payroll taxes from 33% to 20%, value-added tax from 20% to 18%, and abolish 12 kinds of tax altogether. He wants to let leading foreign banks and insurers open branches freely. He wants to abolish laws on legal tender, so that investors can use whatever currency they want. He hates foreign aid�it “destroys your ability to do things for yourself,” he says�though he concedes that political realities will oblige him to accept it for at least the next three years or so.
I hear that HMG has kindly offered to take in any unwanted taxes and resettle them here in the UK.
As to where investors should put their money, “I don’t know and I don’t care,” he says, and continues: “I have shut down the department of industrial policy. I am shutting down the national investment agency. I don’t want the national innovation agency.” Oh yes, and he plans to shut down the country’s anti-monopoly agency too. “If somebody thinks his rights are being infringed he can go to the courts, not to the ministry.” He plans, as his crowning achievement, to abolish his own ministry in 2007.
Up until a few years ago, this country was run by communists.
The BBC is running a competition:
BBC News Online wants your nominations for the best political websites and blogs, preferably with a UK focus. We are looking for lively, thought-provoking sites that stimulate genuine debate, rather than just pushing a particular narrow viewpoint or agenda, but all suggestions are welcome.
I know of a political blog that is lively, thought-provoking and stimulates genuine debate. In fact, it must surely be a shoe-in for the title of ‘Best Political Blog’.
I would tell you the name but…modesty forbids.
Alas, the burdensome and time-devouring task of keeping a humble roof over my head prevents me from exploring the blogosphere as much as I would ideally like to do. As a result, I suspect that there are stacks of interesting views and ideas that are simply passing me by.
So, praise be for the occasional lazy, hazy Sunday afternoon that affords me the opportunity to saunter through the Samizdata blogroll in search of tasty tidbits. Today, I stumbled across a very tasty morsel at ‘A Policeman’s Blog’ which (as the name indicates) is written by a serving British police officer.
Given the candour of his opinions it is easy to understand why he choses anonymity. Particularly when he says things like this:
As an NRA member (see link on sidebar) I’m in favour of liberal gun laws and I think it’s irresponsible of the state to take away an innocent person’s right to self-defence. As a Police Officer, I get tired of having to investigate crime that is unsolvable, yet has only occurred because the victim is weak and the perpetrator is a bully and knows he will get away with it.
To American readers, the British attitude to guns must seem very strange. On the one hand we want to ban law-abiding people from having guns, on the other hand it has never been easier for a criminal to obtain an illegal handgun. We worry about thugs and crime on our Council estates and at the same time refuse to give ordinary people the means to defend themselves and their property.
The Police have long since given up the traditional role of “law-enforcement” and have now become professional “evidence gatherers”. That’s not a problem for the Police, but it does pose a difficulty if you live in an area where you have a lot of crime. So who does the “law enforcement” nowadays?
Nobody.
That’s where widespread ownership of guns comes in. Together with sensible laws on self defence, guns have a habit of cutting through all kinds of complex arguments about the causes of crime. If I try and burgle your home, you might shoot me: that concentrates the mind. It also reduces reliance on the state and it makes people responsible for their own actions. Best of all though, it gives victims a chance against offenders, something they’ll never get if they involve the Police. All we do is “gather the evidence.”
Given the messianic zeal with which his superiors and their political masters have pursued (and continue to pursue) their policy of civilian disarmerment and compulsory passivity, it is uplifting to hear that at least one of their agents has managed to retain some common sense and a capacity for rational analysis.
But then this is a man who actually has to go in and mop up (quite literally in many cases I should think) the pitiful results of their boneheaded obduracy. Nonetheless it is still a testament to his strength of character that he has drawn the correct conclusions despite every fashionable injunction to the contrary.
We need more public servants like him.
The thing I find most unsatisfactory about the debate over gay marriage is the widespread misunderstanding about the law as it is presently configured.
Of course, I cannot speak about the law in other countries but here in Britain same-sex marriage is not illegal it is void. There is a world of difference in those two positions.
Allow me to explain. If two men (or two women) in the UK decide that they wish to wed then they are perfectly free to engage in any type of marriage ceremony they desire accompanied by confetti, bridesmaids and any number of drunken, embarrassing relatives reeling around the dancefloor while the band plays ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree’.
Nobody is going to a lift a finger to stop them nor will they ever be subjected to any form of official censure or arrest or prosecution. However, the state will not issue a licence for that marriage and, as far as the law is concerned, there was no marriage. It never happened, it does not exist and the participants remain as two single people. → Continue reading: Markets are a many splendid (and unsplendid) thing
This is the best animation I have come across in a good while.
It it appears to be a genuinely non-partisan poke at the Bush vs. Kerry contest and although it may take a few minutes to download it is slickly produced and very funny, even for an Englishman.
I think I have settled on my nomination for Most Frightening Story of the Year. Given the current political climate, the competition for this prestigious title is ferocious but, having carefully assessed the many excellent candidates, I have to put this one forward as the front-runner:
A radical scheme to vaccinate children against future drug addiction is being considered by ministers, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
Under the plans, doctors would immunise children at risk of becoming smokers or drug users with an injection. The scheme could operate in a similar way to the current nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme.
What they mean is that it will be shuffled in under the same ‘health’ rubrics.
Childhood immunisation would provide adults with protection from the euphoria that is experienced by users, making drugs such as heroin and cocaine pointless to take. Such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years.
Note the use of the word ‘protection’. As if emotions are an affliction from which we need to be spared. I wonder what else can be neutralised? Hate? Love? Anger? Curiosity? Rebelliousness? Will this herald the age of ‘Stepford’ kids?
The Department of Trade and Industry has set up a special project to investigate ways of using new scientific breakthroughs to combat drug and nicotine addiction.
To add to all the carnage already caused by the psychotic Conservative drug war, it has now provided a legitimising ideology for these fantasies of chemical zombification.
All the extravagance and incompetence of our present government is due, in the main, to lawyers.They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizen has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we’d all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.
– H.L. Mencken.
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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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