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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The world’s largest Muslim nation went to the polls on Monday in its first ever direct elections for President, in a difficult climate. The three main candidates were incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri (the daughter of Indonesia’s founding President), General Wiranto, the candidate of the Golkar Party, which was the political vehical of long serving President Suharto, and also General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a late entrant who had been President Sukarnoputri’s Minister for Security until he resigned earlier this year.
It is hard to tell what the actual issues in the campaign were. To grossly oversimplify, President Megawati Sukarnoputri is offering more of the same corrupt, inept and incoherent governance, while General Wiranto seemed to be campaigning on a platform of corrupt, inept and repressive governance. General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s platform of trying to have somewhat less corruption and incoherence in government has proved to be more popular, although not popular enough to get an absolute majority.
So what happens now is that General Yudhoyono and the second placed candidate will fight another run-off election on September 20.
What is really pleasing from a western point of view is that it has been an orderly and fair election, and also, Islamic fundamentalism is not a big issue in Indonesian politics. In a nation of this size, there’s always going to be the extremist fringe, but this election helps demonstrate that extremism is not a vote-winner in Indonesia. As an Australian, I personally am relieved to see this.
A couple of interesting stories caught my eye.
First, the Queen is working hard to use legal means to include privacy clauses in the employment contracts with palace employees, in an effort to prevent leaks and protect the privacy of the Royal Family.
The new contracts cover more than 300 staff from gardeners and cleaners to the lord chamberlain, but will also affect those working for other leading members of the royal family such as the Prince of Wales whose accounts are published separately.
The move forms part of a broader royal strategy, including the appointment of a director responsible for internal security and vetting, aimed at halting the spate of damaging leaks in recent years.
It is a sign of the times that the palace requires a Director for Internal Security to provide them with a modicum of privacy.
Meanwhile, in another sign of the times, US airlines and the US government are under fire for privacy breaches during background checks.
Four airlines — including Continental, Delta, America West and Frontier — and at least two reservation systems provided the information to the government or its contractors, the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration, David Stone, told a Senate committee. Some of the companies denied that.
The agency previously had said only two airlines had done so.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, top Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said the agency ”may have violated” the Privacy Act, which says the government must notify the public if it intends to collect records on people.
An agency spokeswoman, Yolanda Clark, said the Homeland Security Department’s privacy officer is investigating the agency’s involvement in the data-sharing from airlines. The information, known as passenger name records, includes credit card numbers, travel reservation details, address and telephone number. It also could mean meal requests, which can indicate a passenger’s religion or ethnicity.
The potential for abuse here seems clear, and I hope that firm action is taken to prevent a reoccurance.
The reason why academic politics are so vicious is because the stakes are so low.
This quote from Henry Kissinger could easily be applied to Australian federal politics. And, with a Federal election in the offing, the stakes are getting lower and lower. Australian politics, more then ever, resemble drug-gang warfare- there are two gangs, both eager to secure the lucrative cash flows that come with the commanding heights of the Treasury Benches.
This may surprise the casual observer of the political scene. On the surface Australian public life seems to have a frantic flurry of debate, on foreign policy, on health, and on values. But a closer inspection reveals that this is just surface froth, designed to sate the appetites of the media machine and the political junkies. Beneath the scenes, one sees that the purpose of all these debates are simply designed to enjoy the power and perquisites of office.
In Australia the time and date of the election is at the choosing of the Prime Minister, and he studies the signs, looking for the opportune moment to strike. The opinion polls suggest that the ALP has a slight lead over the governing Coalition, but the bookmakers, who have the edge in accuracy in predicting Australian elections, have the Government as firm favorites to retain office (for what it is worth, Bush is just ahead of Kerry, although prices vary from firm to firm).
So what is this government that is, if you believe the bookmakers, about to be elected for a fourth term? → Continue reading: Commentary on politics Down Under
Yesterday Michael Jennings introduced me to Skype, a sort of instant messaging program that is very good at voice communications. This is part of an ongoing trend which is seeing computer networks challenge the traditional telephone networks for business.
Because rather then pay a large sum of money to make an international phone call, I’m now able to speak with Michael in London from my Australian home, for free, and with a better sound quality then I was able to do before.
So as you can imagine, it is a time of fast change in the telephone business. This has implications wider then the share prices of telephone companies.
To encourage take up of VoIP, legislation has been introduced in the US Senate, by Senator John Sununu. The VoIP Regulatory Freedom Act of 2004 is designed to exempt this technology from most state and federal regulations.
Needless to say there’s been plenty of opposition to this. Much of the opposition comes from self-interested telephone companies, but the US Dept of Justice is not happy either.
The VoIP Regulatory Freedom Act of 2004, sponsored by Senator John Sununu, would exempt VoIP service from a wire-tapping regulation called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, commonly used to listen in on traditional telephone calls, said Laura Parsky, deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s criminal division.
“I am here to underscore how very important it is that this type of telephone service not become a haven for criminals, terrorists and spies,” Parsky told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Wednesday. “If any particular technology is singled out for special exemption from these requirements, that technology will quickly attract criminals and create a hole in law enforcement’s ability to protect the public and national security.”
You can read Laura Parsky’s complete testimony here
What this statement is all about is that the Dept of Justice has got quite accustomed to using the wiretap to track down undesirables and is most unhappy that this legislation might prevent them from doing so in the future.
This is part of a wider trend that I suspect we will see more of, with people taking the opportunity to try out new ways of communicating with each other, and regulatory agencies scrambling to keep up. In the United States, there are US Senators who seem, like Senator Sununu, who consider privacy issues and freedom from regulation important. I fear that when the EU catches up, as it surely will, that those issues will be the least of the concerns of the people who draft the regulations.
Skiing in Australia might seem rather like sunbathing in Britain, but just as there are actually beaches in the UK, so there are indeed ski slopes to be enjoyed in Australia. And the Australian skiing industry has been around for quite a while in its own quiet little way. In some sections of the Australian community, it is an annual feature to have a trip to the ski slopes in August or September.
The industry lives in terror of global warming, which is forecast to reduce the amount of snow available. However, since even the most rabid statist accepts that there is no way for the government to change the climate, the Australian ski industry has conceded that there’s no point pestering the government about it, and have decided instead to do something about it.
But the crucial factor in sustaining the industry is an increase in, and better application of, snow-making.
“Each of the resorts told us what type of depth they would like throughout the year, and we were able to use a model to show that that profile throughout the year would tend to become lower, and to compensate for that they would need to invest in between 11 and 200 per cent more snow guns,” says Hennessy.
Colin Hackworth, managing director of Australian Alpine Enterprises, which runs the Victorian snowfields at Mount Hotham and Falls Creek, says snow-making is now vital to attracting crowds.
“As the industry has embraced snow-making, we have been able to provide a more consistent product, which has given people more comfort when booking a ski holiday,” he says.
Hackworth says snow-making technology continues to improve and artificial snow can now be produced at up to 10C.
It’s not the only challenge that the Australian ski-industry faces, but once again they are trying to solve their own problems, rather then whine about it.
It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it?
The Cassini Space Probe has arrived in the vicinity of Saturn. As well as taking some breathtaking photos of Saturn, the probe is going to investigate some of the ringed planet’s moons. On June 11 Cassini flys past the moon of Phoebe.
These space probes are a frivolous use of taxpayer’s money, but we do at least learn something from them. The geek in me loves them but the libertarian in me isn’t quite so amused.
Last month, I was in the Sydney Fish Markets with fellow Samizdatista Michael Jennings. We had a splendid lunch, as the Fish Markets have plenty of good places to eat. Anyhow on leaving we grabbed a coffee to go, and headed off back to the tram stop to return to the CBD.
I was tardy in finishing my coffee, and in fact I did not finish it until I had got to the tram stop. So I got up to put the cup in the bin. However, I found to my considerable surprise that the bin had been closed. A plastic lid had been placed over the top of the bin.
I had never seen anything like it in my life. Michael Jennings, though, knew why- he explained that it was the practice to seal such bins to prevent people from placing bombs there, and that this is a common sight in London.
Well, that makes sense. There is a war on, as they used to say.
If truth is the first casualty of war, then libertarian ideals seem to me to be not far behind. In a society under military pressure, the liberty of the individual is quickly appropriated by the State for its own ends, often quite justifiably. The needs of the RAF in England in 1940 really were quite important, after all.
In Australia, the touch is very light. We are rather remote and isolated from the crosscurrents of the War on Terror. But we’ve had experience of this phenomena before, in the Second World War. With the Japanese ‘at the gates’ so to speak, the Federal Government wasted no time in seizing power over large swathes of the liberty of the individual. And, as a libertarian minded individual, if I had protested, the government would have told me “hey, there’s a war on, you know”.
The only Western society that would really understand this these days is Israel, I would guess. Liberty is best enjoyed when you are alive, and sometimes the need of the latter have to take precedence over the former.
I think though, that it is no coincidence that the necessary loss of personal liberty in both Australia and Britain in the second world war acclimatised the citizens for the massive assault on personal liberty and responsibility that came straight after the war, when socialist governments in both nations erected all-embracing welfare states.
Not that they saw it that way at the time – it was seen as a ‘just reward’ for the people who had endured the costs of war. It turned out to be a false reward indeed, but the idea that there really is no such thing as a free lunch took thirty five years to sink into the minds of the electorates in both nations. (Indeed, it is arguable that it has not penetrated even now).
The lesson is clear though – the state will use the loss of liberties necessary to undertake the war on terror to its own advantage, and we must be vigilant to prevent a second welfare state disaster being built on the back of it.
Yes, so far it is just a rubbish bin. Let us keep it that way.
However badly the war on terror infringes our liberty,
there are at least appropriate ways in which
we can deal with the Wasabi strain of Islam.
Rather like Robert Clayton Dean in America, when I cast my libertarian eye at the Australian political scene, I find little reason to cheer. Australia is due to have a Federal election this year, although the exact date is at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. So election date speculation abounds, with some saying in August and others saying October.
The government here is dominated by the old line ‘conservative’ John Howard, who is basically a right-wing statist. In power since 1996, after a moderately good start at cutting back the state, the government has been in decline ever since and is now a menace, wandering through society causing havoc wherever it goes.
As it happens, last night was Budget night, where the government gives its annual account of its rapine and pillage of our wallets. With the election looming, this is a classic ‘tax-cut and spend’ pre-election budget, although the ‘cuts’ to taxes are not really cuts at all, but mere adjustments of the brackets. Therefore, you have a chance to earn ‘slightly’ more money before the government decides that half of your income belongs to them.
If London readers wonder why their city is full of very clever Australians, that is one of the bigger reasons why.
This is, by the way, the supposedly ‘free market’ party in power. It will in all probability be replaced by Mark Latham and his Australian Labour Party. On economic issues there is very little difference between the two parties, just a disagreement about where to splurge the tax-take on. I can only echo what Mr. Dean said in his survey of his own country’s political scene-as it is, one simply despairs of advancing the libertarian agenda in current Australian politics.
“When the world was young, and the government took 20% of your paycheque and gave you services that worked, you might be willing to remain what economists call “rationally ignorant” about the details. Now maybe 40% of that cheque vanishes, your mother’s coughing blood in the hallway of the nearest ER, and your country has no army. And here comes the guy from the CBC telling you that his expense account should be a state secret. No sale, comrade.”
-Canadian blogger Colby Cosh lets us know what he thinks about the Canadian state broadcaster’s bid to avoid accountability.
Australians are known for having a fondness for drinking alcohol. This is all part of the general easygoing Australian lifestyle, beaches, beer, BBQ’s, and an all round good time.
As you can imagine, those killjoy statists in government here have always found this to be deplorable.
No government in Australia has ever had the courage/suicidal tendencies to actually try to impose prohibition, but in general, the trade in alcoholic beverages is one of the most highly regulated type of commerce in Australia.
And, as we have a Federal system of government, and the regulation of the sale of alcohol is a state matter, we have in effect seven different regulatory environments.
Although in nearly each case, the regulations started out as a Puritan attempt to regulate the drinking habits of Australia, over time the regulations have become a way for various rent-seekers to protect their interests at the expense of the consumer.
This can have unforseen consequences… → Continue reading: Here’s to a free market in wine!
The Australian government has long desired to force ISP’s and Internet content Hosts to take responsibility for the activities of their clients. An attempt to do this in 1999 was defeated, but the authorites are back for more.
The draft bill states that ISPs are required to determine whether their services are used for “illegal conduct or speech.”
Paragraph 152 of the Explanatory Notes to the draft bill says that “Possible action that could be taken by ISPs and Internet Content Hosts (ICHs) so as not to facilitate use of a carriage service by another person that breaches proposed subsection 474.16(1) includes an ISP ceasing to provide Internet services to that person or an ICH ceasing to host a particular Website containing content that breaches the proposed offence.”
Obviously, the implication is clear- should this measure get up, ISP’s will be legally required to be much more aggressive in their surveillance of their customers; a gross breach of their privacy.
(Via Whirlpool.net.au)
A battle is brewing in Japan between education authorities and liberal minded teachers over the place of national symbols in the Japanese school system, reports Aussie expat Cameron Weston, for Australian news website Crikey.com.au:
Most countries have no law in place that compels its citizens to stand, put their hands on their hearts or do anything else when the national symbols are displayed. Most people do it because they want to, and this is the way it should be. Patriotism is something felt, not imposed. Forcing such action impinges on the basic tenets of democracy and freedom, and democracies have laws that enshrine this principle.
But what if the symbols of your nation had a deeper historical meaning, if they spoke to a past that some were ashamed of, of policies and deeds which some considered criminal?
And what if you felt strongly enough about this that you refused to stand and sing the anthem or to gaze upon the flag of your nation? In a democracy, you would be allowed to do so.
You might still reasonably be called a patriot by some, a person of conscience by others, ignorant and a traitor by others still but it would all be a matter of opinion, and hopefully then of discussion and debate. In 1999, amid some controversy, the Japanese LDP government passed legislation making the rising sun flag (‘Hinomaru’) and the national anthem (‘Kimigayo’) official, legal symbols of this nation. In a country where voluntary adherence to tradition and fixed social rites underpin the very fabric of society and daily life, it is ironic that the government felt that these forces were insufficient to ensure the flag and anthem remained venerated national symbols – they deemed that a law needed to be passed….
However, in the last few months, as the new school year begins, the debate has been taken to a new level. Teachers across Tokyo have been issued with a directive from the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, compelling them to stand and sing the national anthem and for them to in turn compel their students to do the same. No debate, no discussion; this is a direct order.
If the teacher refuses to do so, he will be open to public censure and criticism from his superiors, further warnings and potential expulsion. So far this year, over 200 teachers have refused to stand and many have received written warnings as a result. Miwako Sato, a music teacher who received one such warning when the law was first enacted in 1999 sums up the problem for many teachers perfectly, “Many people in other Asian countries do not want to look at the flag, the symbol of Japanese occupation of their lands, even 60 years after World War II, and I believe its coercive display at school ceremonies is against our Constitution,” she said.
Ah, the Japanese constitution. What I tend to get out of Mr. Weston’s article is a feeling that although Japan has lived under that constitution for over 50 years, it has never really embraced the spirit of the document (which is a bizzare mixture of the liberal and the statist).
But the fact that the more reactionary elements in authority in Japan feel the need to legislate nationalism, and to make it compulsary, gives me heart; I doubt they would have felt the need to do it if people were embracing the nationalistic message willingly.
And the resistance of teachers and the media is a good sign too. Anyway, read the whole thing.
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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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