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]

Samizdata quote of the day – does anyone trust UK police?

The prosecution of speech crimes will erode public trust in the police and is taking us to anarcho-tyranny: the police will come after easy targets, and leave persistent criminals to run rampant. There is no British equivalent to the “thin blue line” movement in the United States, a segment of the population which will support the police come what may, and they may find themselves without a dependable public support base. While it is for politicians to repeal the laws which have killed free speech in Britain, the police must do their part too to revive Robert Peel’s founding principles and protect the safety, order and indeed liberties of the British people, instead of enforcing the political creed of multiculturalism over freedom, as many do today.

Fred de Fossard

Samizdata quote of the day – churn and change

Competition has utterly transformed telecommunications after the state Post Office monopoly was ended. The same happened with deliveries when Amazon came along with an innovative service. Uber and Airbnb have each transformed their markets.

That is how competition works. It is Schumpeter’s creative destruction. Like evolution, it works by a selective death rate. It is not who owns the production, it is how easy it is for potential competitors to gain access to the market. Growth, productivity and innovation are driven by competition. Producers vie to satisfy the consumers, and those who do so survive, for a time, over those who do not.

One thing that competition ensures is change. It leads to a dynamic economy, just as its absence leads to a static one.

Madsen Pirie

Samizdata quote of the day – an Epoch Defining Event

The only way that the proponents of the ‘liberal’ international order are able to process such criticism is to cast it as an expression of manifestly unreasonable character flaws. Ironically, then, angry Eurocrat Guy Verhofstadt took to X to proclaim that “America, as a liberal empire, is no more”, and that the “new era of US governance” is an “oligarchy”, “where billionaire members of Mar-a-Lago decide US policy”. But talk is cheap. Trump is obnoxious to the “liberal” order imagined by Verhofstadt, not because his administration is an “oligarchy”, but because it is a democratic departure from the green oligarchies that dominate in Europe and were installed without due process under the largesse of Green Blob billionaires.

Ben Pile

Samizdata quote of the day – the Apocalypse Bill

This Friday, January 24th, the UK Parliament is due to vote on a Private Member’s Bill that could lead to mass starvation, widespread disease and fatalities and the almost certain collapse of civil liberties and society within a few years. The bill has the support of a third of voting MPs and there is a clear and present danger that it could pass. Many MPs depart for their constituencies on a Friday and 200 remaining zealots could have a chance to swing a vote their way. The bill is a thinly-disguised attempt using meaningless climate and nature crisis verbosity to ration and control almost everything that citizens consume. The obvious attack on civil liberties should serve as a warning to other countries to stand against the Net Zero hysterics that have infiltrated large sections of elite British society.

Chris Morrison

Samizdata quote of the day – the deceivers

So, to summarize: it turns out that the “deceivers” were never the energy companies to begin with. Rather, New York City attempted to deceive the legal system by taking information out of context in order to name and shame American energy companies. While unfortunate, this activity isn’t surprising considering the City’s law firm, Sher Edling, is currently under Congressional investigation for its dark money financing and questionable ties to activist-academics.

Mandi Risko

Samizdata quote of the day – the housing crisis is entirely created by government

…it’s now illegal to build reasonable sized houses on a decent garden. Minimum density rules mean you just can’t. What was considered a “Home for Heroes” in the 1920s is illegal to build in the 2020s. Sorry, but that really is it.

Tim Worstall

Samizdata quote of the day – the Canary Wharf Black: from Biafra to Deloitte

The BLM lobby is still dominated by Afro-Caribbeans. More Africans have sympathies with the Conservative Party than Afro-Caribbeans (even if they don’t necessarily vote for them) — just look at Kemi Badenoch. Now, like most Pimlico Journal readers, I have no time at all for her. However, she does have the potential to help obliterate any future prospect of reparations. All she would need to do is ask that Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia foot half the bill for reparations, and black solidarity would immediately dissipate. Very suddenly, the Fulani will see themselves as tanned Tuaregs; the Somali as Cushitic; and Leroy from Montego Bay will forgo his chicken shop Shahada because Moroccan poon tang just isn’t worth that sort of money. Once you distract them from the easy punching bag that is the white man, they can start fighting each other; meritocracy sorts the rest out.

Pimlico Journal

Samzidata quote of the day – get woke, go broke

Whether Jaguar’s new electric car flops as a result of all this remains to be seen. It would hardly be surprising if Jaguar’s traditional audience – the people who actually buy its cars – give up on the company in response to all this insufferable virtue-signalling. After bending the knee so readily to the trans cause, that would be the least Jaguar deserves.

Malcolm Clark

Samizdata quote of the day – macroeconomic management doesn’t work

Macroeconomic management doesn’t work because the data available to do detailed macroeconomic management is shit. Therefore let’s not try doing detailed macroeconomic management. Get the basics right, the incentives, markets, then leave be.

Of course, this then leaves a paucity of jobs for economists but then as I’m not one of them why would I give that proverbial?

Tim Worstall

Samizdata quote of the day – the meltdowns are a wonder to behold

The meltdown of the centrists is a wonder to behold. This is America’s ‘darkest dawn’, cried rhyming-slang-in-waiting, Ian Dunt. Emily Maitlis yelped on live TV that Trump is ‘batshit’, which is rich from someone who is essentially a Halloween version of Princess Diana. The Guardian put out a news notification that said, ‘Trump becomes the first convicted criminal to win the White House’. This really is all they have left, isn’t it? Sly asides to titillate depressed posh people on X? Smug jokes aimed at tempting suicidal liberals off the ledge? Utterly incapable of understanding Joe Public – both here and in the US – the Guardian opts to become the court jester of the cunterati instead.

Brendan O’Neill is in rip-roaring form 😀

Replay! SpaceX launches Starship on 5th flight

I assume many of you will have seen this but just in case you haven’t…

From the good people of VideoFromSpace. Launch is at 30:00…

Am I Racist?

This is hilarious 😀