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]
|
The GATSO killers must be starting to give the state a serious headache.
From the UK Times:
THE police have come up with a new way to catch irate motorists who vandalise speed cameras: set up other cameras to film them in the act.
And then other cameras to film those cameras and still more cameras to film those cameras and……
A closed-circuit television system would be installed beside the speed traps under plans being considered to curb a spate of attacks in which 700 cameras have been burnt, pulled down or had their lenses spray painted.
Of course this means that the closed-circuit security cameras will become targets as well. It seems that the campaign of the GATSO killers is moving beyond the sporadic outbursts of pique and onto a low-grade insurrection.
Today I received an email from the LSE (that’s London School of Economics) Hayek Society. I’ve been in occasional touch with this operation over the years, and have attended a few of their events, which have always been lively and well organised. It would appear that, this academic year, under the leadership of Nick Spurrell (whom I met again a few weeks ago at the office of the International Policy Network office where he was helping out over the Summer, alongside samizdatista Alex Singleton), the Hayek Society is keeping all this going in fine style.
They have elected a new Committee. Here it is:
President: Nick Spurrell; Vice-President: Lauri Tahtinen; Treasurer: Sarah Meacham; Secretary: Natalia Mamaeva; Financial Officers: Vicky Yuen, Peter Bellini; Events Officer: Szymon Ordys, Louis Haynes, Oliver Dully; Editor-in-Chief: Erica Yu; Co-editors: Michael Chen, Harry Cherniak; PR Director: Daniel Freedman.
Now apart from Nick, I don’t know who these people are whose names I’ve just put up here in lights. But I like it that many of these names are female (Sarah, Natalia, Vicky, Erica), and that many are non-British (Tahtinen, Mamaeva, Yuen, Ordys, Yu). All the non-Brits could just be Americans, but I’m pretty sure that there are more places of birth involved that that. These people are bound to attract lots more people, of lots of types, from lots of faraway places. I mean, if each of them invites four friends … In a university, a mere two or three people can make a huge difference. The Hayek Society already has a definite thirteen, and the year has only just started. Extraordinary.
The Hayek Society has for years now been dosing the LSE with the message of limited government liberalism – liberalism, that is, when it really was liberalism and before the socialists of the sort who infested the LSE during an earlier era got hold of the word liberalism and turned it on its head. And through the LSE, the Hayek Society will dose lots of other places besides in the years to come. Get them when they’re young …
The LSE is an important place and always has been. For good or ill, what they think today, the world thinks tomorrow. And this time around it’s for good.
The Free State Project is a group in the USA looking to get at least 20,000 liberty oriented activists to move to a single state in the USA so that they can have more political impact somewhere rather than be lost in the sea of Republican and Democrat statists by being scattered across the country.
And the result of the vote to see which part of the USA they would all move to is… New Hampshire.
Godspeed to you all. I shall be watching this project with great interest.
You’ve had a long, hard day. You want to go home to relax and unwind. You can hardly wait for that sweet moment when you place your key in the lock of your own front door. You make your way back to your car as it begins to rain. Your feet hurt. You’re getting wet. You want your comfy sofa and a hot meal and the TV and your warm bed. You finally reach the place where you parked your car only to find….disaster! It’s been clamped!
You stand there helplessly while the rain pitter-patters on your brow. Your blood begins to boil into toxic fumes of rage and frustration. You are stranded and alone, feeling victimised and vulnerable.
But, just at that moment, from out of the scudding, grey skies there swoops down a heroic figure of salvation to end your torment and set you free. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Angle-Grinder Man! → Continue reading: Desperately seeking heroes
Like I said, respect for the law appears to be on the wane. Although the word ‘hostility’ might be even more apposite:
They are the black knights of the road; balaclava-wearing highway hitmen out to burn, bomb, decapitate and dismember. But drivers need not fear, for it is speed cameras that this growing band of rebels are after.
Up and down the country, the tools used to keep roads safe are being ripped down, blown up and even shot apart as part of a campaign orchestrated by a gang of web-surfing outlaws. They threaten to become the most popular gang of criminals since Robin Hood and his Merry Men stalked the countryside.
Forsooth, methinks the commoners may be in need of folk-songs.
From the south coast to the Highlands no camera is safe. Known as Gatsometers, or Gatsos, they are being destroyed at a rate that has alarmed police forces. Particularly destructive cells are operating in north London, Essex and Wales – where they rage against machines deployed by renowned anti-speeding police chief Richard Brunstrom.
With each unit costing £24,000 to replace, a huge bill is being run up. But the rebels are unrepentant, claiming the cost is more than met by speeding drivers’ fines. Speed cameras, they argue, are not about keeping roads safe, but about raising revenue. The charred remains of their victims are often adorned with stickers or graffiti which declare cameras to be stealth tax inspectors.
Of course, we at Samizdata.net could not possibly condone these irresponsible actions by an anti-social minority. 
The Target for Tonight? [My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame for posting this story to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
Emma, in a piece here entitled “Outnumbered 15 to 1”, touches on a problem that I find gruesomely fascinating, and have had to deal with a lot over the years. How do you conduct yourself when in company which you want to keep in with but which holds your opinions about some hot issue of the day in very low regard?
Scenario: you are at a dinner party with several friends with whom you enjoy discussing all sorts of things NOT including politics.
One friend, in passing, drops in a little “it’s all about the oil” or [with sarcasm] “well, the french were just cowardy custards, that’s why all good patriots hate them”, or [in tones of deepest contempt] “it’s just finishing off what Daddy left undone”.
Do you
A) Remove the rather good bottle of Australian wine that you brought, leaving them to drink some French blanc de plonk that one of the Guardian readers brought along, and never darken their doors again.
B) Reply “were the Normandy landings an equally unjustified completion of unfinished business?” (or equivalent riposte, depending on the precise nature of the comment), segueing neatly into a heated discussion in which no one will listen to anything anyone else says and everyone will go home riled up.
C) Change the subject to more neutral ground through whatever means necessary. “Oops, I seem to have spilt red wine on your yellow dress” would serve a dual function of diversion and oblique admonition.
What is the best strategy when talking to people about matters on which they disagree with you? – child rearing, say, to pick an example at random. Persuasion? Leading by example? Dropping in odd hints to indicate that there is an alternative and viable point of view? Careful avoidance of tension filled areas?
Help!
I suggest that for the purpose of this discussion we set aside the matter of whether we actually agree with Emma about the Iraq war. The point of these questions is to dig out some general principles for conducting ourselves in company which disagrees about some contentious public issue, but with which we wish to remain on cordial speaking terms. → Continue reading: On keeping friends by not trying to influence them
Our good friend Dr.Sean Gabb is currently in Sweden where he is exercising his estimable talents (by invitation, I hasten to add) in support of the campaign against the Euro.
Like Britain, Sweden is actually a member of the European Union (remember, it’s a process not a club) but has yet to ditch its currency (the Crown) in favour of adopting the Euro currency. That could all change next month as a result of a national referendum on the issue and which has divided opinion in the country along by-now familiar lines; most of the political, managerial and media elite are strongly in favour but are battling against widespread grassroots scepticism.
It is into this confrontation that Sean (as well as Dr.Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute) have stepped and from where Sean has written this report:
Adlon Hotel, Stockholm, Monday 25th August 2003
With Mrs Gabb, I am in Sweden for two reasons. The first is to address the summer conference of one of the main libertarian movements in Scandinavia. The second is to help strengthen the no campaign in the closing stages of the Swedish referendum on the Euro. It was my intention to write a long account of the things seen and done during this past week, together with observations on the Swedish people and their architecture and language. But I am presently short of time, and the glare of the television lights has dimmed all else but the events they illuminated. I will write at more length when back in England. For the moment, though, I will concentrate on the second reason for my visit.
→ Continue reading: Fighting the Euro in Sweden
Last night I gave a talk at the Tim Evans household on the theme of “Which Does Freedom Better? Ideas or Institutions?” I followed my usual practice of trying to organise my thoughts during the day of the talk, but this time the procedure didn’t go smoothly, because my thoughts remained stubbornly disorganised throughout the day and remained so on the night. So instead I just flung out as many disorganised thoughts as I could – enough to provoke a dozen postings here, another half dozen at White Rose, and a dozen more at my Culture Blog – and enough to make a decent evening of it for those gathered, if not such a decent talk.
Here is just one idea that I alluded to last night, and I apologise if you think it’s a rather obvious one.
This – to me anyway – fairly obvious idea is that the Internet has surely shifted the balance of power away from the defence of particular institutions and towards the proclamation of universal, “disembodied” ideas. (That word “disembodied”, cropped up a lot last night, as did “embodied”.) → Continue reading: On the particular and the universal – how the Internet has shifted the balance
Here’s some good news, in the form, for me, of an email from the newly launched Molinari Institute’s Director, Cécile Philippe:
I am delighted to announce the arrival a major new French-speaking free market think tank, the Molinari Institute, and the launch of its website www.institutmolinari.org
Named after the great nineteenth century French-speaking classical libertarian Gustave de Molinari, the institute aims to create an environment in which both individuals and businesses can thrive and be free without the ties of regulation and vested interest.
Through its website and conferences “Les soirées Molinari,” it will help the rediscovery of the work of Gustave de Molinari as well as other French and European liberal thinkers such as Frédéric Bastiat, Charles Coquelin and Bruno Leoni. It will focus on public policy issues such as competition, healthcare, retirement and education.
To launch the website today there is an interview with José Pinera, former secretary of labor and social security in Chile, who radically and successfully implemented in the market-oriented 80’s the pension reform.
The Molinari Institute is a non-profit organization. It accepts voluntary contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. No government funding or endowments are received.
I should say not. I know Cecile Philippe to be both a fearless and uncompromising libertarian activist, and a thoroughly charming and civilised person, two things which don’t always go together. The ideal combination of qualities for someone running an institute like this, in other words. I wish her every possible success, as will many others.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Does Cécile Philippe have a sister? Yes she does
Remember, France counts twice, at least. Whatever opinions, good or bad, sensible or stupid, those French intellectuals may happen to hold, they are, it must be admitted, totally brilliant at spreading them far and wide. Imagine the impact on mankind and its affairs if we could turn the bien pensants of France around, from statists and collectivists into the opposite. That might be a bit incroyable, but wouldn’t it be formidable?
Due to the high risk of an embarrassing misunderstanding here, I think it behoves me to start off by advising our American readers that, in Britain, the word ‘fags’ is a slang term for ‘cigarettes’. It is not generally perceived as having anything to do with homosexual men.
And this is important because cigarettes are no longer just ‘fags’ or even ‘smokes’. Now, they are symbols of defiance as well.
For the past two decades or so, tobacco manufacturers have been forced to print hectoring health warnings on cigarette packets. But now, due to a directive from Brussels (where else?) manufacturers are required cover at least half the space on both the front and rear of the packet with even more lurid warnings. It is the kind of useless, paternalistic gesture that enables the European political classes to posture self-righteously at someone else’s expense.
At last, though, someone is fighting back in the form of a website called ‘Fake Fags’ through which you can purchase waggishly irreverent stickers to cover up the politically-mandated health warnings on your cigarette pack.
It is a delicious act of subversion and, predictably, it has sent the reactionary health fascists into a blue funk:
Deborah Arnott of anti-smoking group ASH criticised the labels.
“These labels do not strike me as being funny,” she told BBC News Online.
Well they strike me as hilarious and I am very heartened that at least some of my compatriots are not prepared to throw in the towel just yet.
HMG is being high-handed, undemocratic and arrogant. That is the view of the British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail on the refusal by the government to put the issues of the EU constitution and joining the single currency to the British public in a referendum.
In response, they have been running a campaign in the form of a ‘People’s Referendum’ which gives members of the public an opportunity to let HMG know how they feel and demand a formal, legally-binding referendum of these issues. The campaign ends at midnight tonight.
Whilst I can wholly sympathise with the sense of outrage and injustice that has driven this ‘voxpop’ campaign, I have chosen not to participate because, strange as it may sound, I do not want a referendum.
I do not wish to be too harsh on the organisers of this campaign or the proprietors of the Daily Mail. They are being far more proactive in advancing the debate in this country than just about any other organ of the fourth estate and, to the extent that the eventual result provides a bellweather of public opinion, it may prove useful in terms of boosting moral. But, tactically, to demand a referendum on these issues is to play right into the hands of the enemy.
I say this because with a government which is committed to the EU project, coupled with the ability to write out a blank cheque to enable them to realise their vision, a referendum is anything but the level playing-field that too many people fondly imagine it to be. There are loads of ways that the result can be pre-determined and HMG is almost certain to employ every single one them.
First off, the ‘yes’ campaign will have access to unlimited tax-payer funds while the ‘no’ campaign will have to rely on voluntary donations from their supporters. The (state-owned) BBC propoganda machine will be put into overdrive and current sceptical non-state media sources will be bought off or bullied into switching sides. Organised indepenence campaigns will be infiltrated with people who will start making nazi-type noises to the press at the right moment, thus giving the impression that the ‘no’ campaign is merely a fig-leaf for a scarey national socialist movement and, every day of the campaign will see dark, ominous op-eds in various established media outlets warning of the ‘dire economic consequences’ of a ‘no’ vote.
Added to all this, of course, is the distinct possibility that the actual voting figures themselves will be diddled. I wouldn’t put it past them. Even if that were not the case and, by some miracle, the ‘no’ campaign won a slim majority, we all know what happens next. Yes, that’s right, just as in Denmark and Ireland, we would have to endure another referendum in order to get the ‘right’ result.
In short, the referendum on the Euro and the Constitution will be as rigged as an 18th Century tea clipper. If the independence movement has put all its eggs in the referendum basket, then where does it go from there? The answer is nowhere. Having been spiked by the appearance of a ‘democratic consensus’ we will have no choice but to watch helplessly while Mr.Blair abolishes our country with a flourish of moral authority.
That is why I will not join in the voices calling for a referendum. I choose, intead, to demand complete British withdrawal from the EU and not to settle for any less. It is the only position which cannot be bargained away, compromised or outflanked.
Neither this nor any other government has the right to sign away the sovereignty of the British people and I do not accept as legitimate any show of hands which purports to provide it with the authority to do so. I demand independence and I will accept no substitutes.
Not everything in this will make sense to everyone. Who’s Biagi? Just someone they quite like but argue with a lot, if memory serves. Who, for that matter, is Tupy, the poster of the bit below? He’s one of their ex-activists, now making his presence felt in the USA.
So, the Liberty Club AGM is over and I have just been e-mailed the names of the new LC committee members. Some of them I know and some of them I don’t know. But what struck me about the new composition of the LC leadership is how “diverse” it is. Yuck – the “d” word again! Still, the new LC committee will transcend the boundaries of gender, race and sexual orientation. And the best part is that none of that had to be doctored! The LC does not have a specific committee position for women, gays or non-Europeans and yet it attracts all these people. Why? Because freedom is close to their heart and they are prepared to work for it. Eat that Biagi!
Liberty Club – you rock!
After a brief flirtation with Scotland, it would seem from that last bit that Tupy is becoming a full-blown American.
Seriously, what this shows is how tenacious intellectual traditions at universities can be. And isn’t it interesting how these university covens are staying in touch these days, via the internet?
Mind you, if the circa 2000 Liberty Club crowd do stay connected and have consequences, they won’t be the first St Andrews alumni to do this. St Andrews was the cradle, a quarter of a century ago and more, of this.
|
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.
|
