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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On Friday the 13th of January I listened to BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions, The first question was “Can we trust President Bush over Iran…?”
Now I am no fan of President George Walker Bush (on his watch there has been the biggest increase of government spending since President Johnson and the biggest increase in domestic government spending since President Nixon), but it was an odd to hear someone clearly regard President Bush as worse than the President of Iran (a man who has denied the Holocaust, pledged to wipe Israel off the map, and has supported suicide bombers, in various parts of the Middle East, for many years).
The audience cheered and clapped the various anti Bush comments of Clare Short M.P., and the (rather milder) anti-Bush and pro-UN comments of the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes present.
The Conservative party person on the panel (Mr Ian Duncan-Smith) did not really try to defend President Bush (although he did say we should not exclude the United States from world affairs). So that left the last member of the panel.
This man (whose name I can not remember) is the new editor of the ‘Financial Times’. Now this newspaper has (perhaps surprisingly, given its name and target readership) normally been on the left of British politics (it tends to favour government spending and regulations, and it favours the statist European Union) so I did not hold out much hope for balance.
And indeed, later on, the editor turned out to have some very standard statist opinions – for example he supported a total ban on smoking in bars and restaurants (almost needless to say, the audience was wildly in favour of a ban “by 98%” – most likely they would have supported any bit of statism that was put in front of them). However, I was surprised as the editor started a pro Bush story of how he had met the President some time ago and…
Then the BBC suddenly went off the air. The broadcast of the show started again when the story was over. At the end of the programme the BBC blamed “technical difficulties” for the break in transmission.
So I listened to the repeat of the show (today Saturday the 14th of January) in order to hear the editor’s story of his meeting with President Bush. It was cut out of the programme – even the start of the story that had been broadcast on Friday night. It seems that the BBC will not tolerate any pro-Bush comment.
Of course it is not a simple of hatred of President Bush as a man (indeed if the B.B.C. people bothered to find out about his policies they would be surprised to find that they support some of them – the bad ones, “No Child Left Behind”, the medicare extension, and so on). They hate President Bush as a symbol of certain American characteristics that they, as members of the ‘liberal’ (i.e. illiberal) left hate – opposition to higher taxes, opposition to ‘gun control’, a belief that crime is caused by evil human choices (not poverty), belief in the family, and in tradition (including traditional religion), national pride and resistance to would-be world government institutions (such as the U.N., the various international ‘rights’ treaties, and the ‘World Court’).
President Bush may not be up to much, but as long as he serves as a symbol of all the BBC hates about the United States (i.e. all the good things in the United States) I find it hard to totally dislike him.
As I have mentioned before, I am weary of the endless programmes going out seeking to show that Islam in Britain is peachy and they are ‘just like us’. I do not want to see communal tensions raised either but enough with the damn propaganda.
But what really annoys the hell out of me is when I read yesterday that Prince Charles intends to lecture President Bush and other Americans on how they need to take Islam more seriously and be less ‘confrontational’. Oh that is going to down just splendidly. We have heard this before from Charles closer to home and my view has always been that as Britain is an overwhelmingly secular country and most tend not to take Christianity all that seriously, he has got to be joking if he thinks all too many people give a rats arse about what Islam has to offer global civilisation.
The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America’s “confrontational” approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam’s strengths. The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. “I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational,” the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.
And when I regularly read Muslims standing up and openly repudiating putting apostates and homosexuals to death, perhaps I will conclude Islam might be anything other than a blight on any tolerant culture. Oh and please, spare me the tales of how historically ‘tolerant’ Islam can be because it is only tolerant on its own very narrow terms.
It used to be that many Christians would burn or hang ‘witches’, slaughter those who did not share their denomination and kill scientific free thinkers. All of those things were done based on biblical justifications, some convoluted and other much less so.
Yet you would be hard pressed to find a Christian who would regard going back to that as desirable and I doubt many would have a problem if someone stood up and said “Yes, I know it says in the Bible that we should kill witches or people who use ‘evil magic’, but that’s barbaric nonsense and we just do not tolerate that sort of stuff any more”. Of course no one needs to stand up and say that because it goes without saying.
And when I hear lots of Muslims say “yes I know it says in the Koran that the penalty for turning your back on Islam is death, but that is barbaric nonsense and we just will not tolerate that sort of stuff any more”, then, and only then, will I think that Prince Charles is anything other than a fool for suggesting modern Islam could possibly be an overall force for good. I am not a Christian any more but I do not keep looking over my shoulder for a Jesuit with a garrotte sneaking up behind me because I dared to publicly state that fact. Ex-Muslims should feel just as free as I do to publicly repudiate their religion if that is their wish, even if there are social consequences for them in their narrower community.
Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, was also at the meeting at St James’s Palace. “His criticism of America was a general one of the Americans not having the appreciation we have for Islam and its culture,” he said.
I have news for Khalid, it is not just Americans who do not have much ‘appreciation’ for Islamic culture. Many aspects of Islamic culture are not something with which people who value tolerance and pluralism should be trying to reach an accommodation. You cannot compromise with something that is inimical and there is nothing illogical about refusing to tolerate the practice of a creed in a way that requires intolerance.
Well, one hopes this means George Galloway will never sully our shores again.
Although, really, how low does a man have to sink to be contemptible, to a US Senator?
Mihir Bose has a very interesting and though provoking article in the Telegraph about why many of the lessons of the American ‘melting pot’ have little resonance or even relevance to Britain.
The difference is simple but profound: America can impose a coherent historical narrative on immigrants because the countries they come from had no previous involvement with America. Settlers are able and encouraged to discard their native histories and accept the American version.
But the vast majority of non-white immigrants to Britain have come from our former colonies, and bring not only their own cultures but also their own versions of our shared history. So, in trying to construct a single coherent narrative for this island, we are faced with trying to marry two historical streams: the “home” version and the “export” version.
I am not sure I agree with the entire thrust of the article but it certainly provides considerable food for thought. Certainly I have always found it curious how, at least in my experience, race relations in Britain have been (generally) far better compared to the USA (and I only speak from my personal observations) and with far less government intervention forcing that state of affairs to be the norm, at least until quite recently. Perhaps Mihir Bose’s article contains some of the reasons underpinning that. That could be worth pondering.
I am watching that supreme embodiment of the Anglosphere culture at the moment – cricket, surely the finest game invented by Man. England are building on their first-innings batting performance against a rather shaky-looking Australia, although the Aussies have a chance to draw the match I think thanks to a superb batting effort by Shane Warne. Warne is normally and rightly famed for his leg spin, able to make the ball move in a bewitching fashion.
The Ashes series, as the England vs Australia Test matches are known, are currently shown on the Channel 4 terrestrial tv channel. The channel has made a huge success of its cricket coverage, I think. Its commenators are excellent, intelligent and don’t interrupt the flow of play. Even the adverts shown during a brief pause in play don’t irritate me like I thought they would. Simon Hughes, a true cricket geek, does a fine job of explaining key terms and tactics to novices. Cricket is a complex game and yet the presenters seem to make it accessible without dumbing it down.
Four of us Samizdata scribblers are split down the middle on this Ashes series, I guess. Two Aussies – Scott Wickstein and Michael Jennings – pitted against Brian Micklethwait and yours truly.
Update, despite the so-far snarky remarks in the comments sections, my joy continues to rise thanks to today’s batting performance. Summary of the game here.
Occasionally, life throws up little synergistic surprises. Last Sunday, I was reading a rather interesting opinon piece in the Daily Telegraph in the morning and then (quite unexpectedly) found myself breaking bread with the author of that article in the evening.
In common with a great many pundits (both amateur and professional) John O’Sullivan casts his eye over the persistantly and curiously comatose Conservative Party and, in doing so, makes a rather astute observation:
Throughout the West, but especially in the English-speaking world, parties are changing their class composition. Working and lower-middle-class voters are moving Rightwards, middle and upper-class voters, Leftwards. George W Bush won the votes of West Virginia miners in the last two elections; in Australia, John Howard was cheered by loggers: both lost votes among their own progressive middle class. Most “missing” votes in Britain belong to the working and lower-middles who have left Labour and are repelled by the Lib Dems but have not been given good reasons to vote Tory.
That may seem like a strange and rather radical suggestion to some but, actually, it does make quite a lot of sense. A great swathe of what we now call the ‘middle-class’ are not really bourgeois in the true sense of that word. Rather they are public sector professionals or elsewise beneficiaries of the client-state whose wealth and status is entirely dependent on a bloated and active government. Lower tax and less regulation is simply not in their interests.
On the other hand, members of the lower-middle and working class are having to hand over ever more of their hard-earned (either directly or by stealth) for ever less in return. It is their elderly parents who are expiring, neglected, in the corridors of state hospitals; it is their children who are being turned out from state schools without being able to read, write or articulate themselves.
This changing dynamic is just begging to be seized by anyone with the political savvy to spot the opportunity. Mind you, that probably rules out the Tories.
A review written by Keith Windschuttle has appeared in National Review. The book reviewed is The Anglosphere Challenge by James C. Bennett. (N.B. updated link allows access to US, British or Canadian Amazon and lets you read some of the book content.) I liked the book and liked the review and want to talk about them.
Let me start with a disclosure: I have biffed many an email to and fro with Jim Bennett, and have had the pleasure of meeting him once at one of Perry’s blogger parties. The ease with which that came to pass is of interest in itself. I cannot exactly remember how I went from hearing my husband say, ‘some bloke on the radio was talking about something called the “Anglosphere”‘, to talking to said bloke at a party. But it was not difficult and the internet was involved at all stages. There is nothing new about an interlocking network of informal communities (sustained by the exchange of letters) that include authors and people interested in their ideas, and whose existence is enlivened by the odd party. However what is new is that the ease of formation of such micro-communities has vastly increased. Their transaction costs have decreased.
People exchanging their writings (including but not limited to blogging) and ending up at the same parties are found at one end of an axis against which are plotted possible meanings of the word “community.” The quantity changing as one moves along the axis could be informality, size, fluidity, non-exclusiveness (in the sense that you can belong to many of them) or voluntariness: for any of these variables the resulting spectrum would still show the same types of community appearing in the same order. Libertarians by definition like the fact that email-swapping, partygoing micro-communities are voluntary, and they also tend to have a preference of taste for the fact that they are small, fluid, and non-exclusive. → Continue reading: Evolving political forms and common culture: the Anglosphere
Although I knew this day was coming, it is profoundly depressing nevertheless. It is now the law that ID cards will be imposed by force in Britain, with the support of the Leaders of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. They have won and as far as I am concerned, the guttering flame of the culture of liberty in Britain just blew out.
I do not expect a truly repressive state to be implemented for many years yet (hopefully), but the infrastructure of tyranny is now well and truly in place, all of which came to pass with a soundtrack of a faint bleating sound of an indifferent public in the background. You might as well flip a coin to figure out which party will usher it in but a authoritarian panoptic state is coming. If this is what the majority of British people want, then may they get exactly what they deserve, but I am out of here. For those of you who will be happy to see me go, trust me, the feeling is mutual.
I realise most people will just shrug their ovine shoulders and find my worries inexplicable, crazy even, as it is not like Blair and Howard are setting up Gulags, right? No, of course not. Who needs those when there is a camera on every corner and your every purchase and phone call will eventually be logged on a central government database? As far as I concerned, the war is over and my side lost.
I have to try and speed up my business ventures and get out as soon as I can afford to do so. I shall try to be out of Britain and have my primary residence in the USA by 2007 at the latest to avoid being forced to submit to this intolerable imposition… and I shall be taking my wealth generating assets with me. I cannot say I am looking forward to winters in New Hampshire but I do not really see that I have much choice anymore. I do not see the United States as a paragon of civil liberties (to put it mildly), but at least it is a place in which the battle can be fought within the last bastion of the Anglosphere’s culture of liberty.
Damn it.
I hear the term “Anglosphere” as meaning that there is some community of the English-speaking nations on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. But when I come across this site, I feel like I am living in a foreign country to Americans.
Trying to list all the reasons why Adopt a Sniper is definitely not an English website would take hours. And that is a shame.
[via Instapundit]
The liberal-leaning USA Today describes The Guardian today as a “left-leaning British newspaper”, showing a rather more sophisticated understanding of British political culture than the self-styled most intelligent newspaper in the UK can demonstrate of the world.
We now know that Clark County, the target for a Guardian operation to get out the vote for the Democrats, was the only county in Ohio to switch from a Democrat majority to a Republican one. The idea that Holland Park socialists living in £5 million homes could communicate with the concerns of a district of Ohio where $100,000 is considered a lot of money to spend on housing is bizarre.
In fact it is the exact reverse of the old Tory caricature: grandees looking down their noses at the ‘Great Unwashed’ and telling them what to do, for their own good of course. The true sign of just how ridiculous the Guardianistas are, they have no idea how arrogant and stupid they sound in the real world.
Every conservative and libertarian criticism of President Bush is at least partly justified. He has not vetoed any spending proposal from Congress. He has presided over a terrible budgetary situation (to the point where I almost oppose the tax cuts on the grounds that the budget deficit has to be contained first). He did introduce steel tariffs (which did not win him Pennsylvania or Michigan). The policy in Iraq worries me (since the spectacular successes of liberating Bagdad and later capturing Saddam Hussein) by looking all too similar to the political fudges of Vietnam in the late 1960s. I like the idea of the US spending money on Iraqi state education and a national health service no more than I would like it in Camden. I still think North Korea was and remains a bigger threat to the West than Iraq. The Patriot Act is at the very best a temporary necessary evil. And I am not so sure about “at the very best” or it being “temporary” and “necessary”.
But the tribal test of elections is simple. All the bad guys, the Guardian readers, the little-Hitler bureaucrats, anti-smokers, the Socialists, idiot British Conservatives like Alan Duncan, the Palestinian 9/11 cheerleaders, the terrorists, the UN crooks, virtually the entire Left worldwide. They are the ones reaching for Kleenex, anti-depressant pills and shaking their fists at God.
All the people I know that are cheering are the good guys. I have even made this Guardian article my home page on IE, so that every morning for the next few weeks, I am reminded that We win and They lose sometimes.
My annual reminder that less government equals more wealth, or why I am English and poor, has come round again, with another vacation in the United States of America. This year, to combat the ennui and Autumn chills, Florida and the Keys beckons.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of a trip out West is finding some facet of American life that affirms the surprising echoes and extraordinary mixtures of the British Isles and other cultures. Such experiences confirm that the Anglosphere is certainly a cultural, if not a political project, although this is heresy in some quarters.
This year, my sojourn in the Keys coincides with the “Meeting of the Minds”, an annual shindig for the Parrot Head Clubs, an organisation that I had never heard of. Since their gathering cramped my search for accommodation, this piqued my curiosity. The Parrotheads are fans of Jimmy Buffett, a country rock singer and aficianado of the island lifestyle, who I had also never heard of. He became a far more likeable figure as soon as a website on music banned by the BBC revealed that he was censored:
Jimmy Buffett’s single, “come Monday” contained the line, “I’ve got my Hush Puppies on.” Since the BBC considered this to be advertising he re-recorded that line so it said, “I’ve got my hiking shoes on.”
The Parrotheads are a reminder of the strong links between civil society, charitable activities and other interests which bind individuals together. Such associations are now rare in Europe. The knowing classes would no doubt laugh at the voluntary activities of such simpletons and point out that their activities are wonderful examples of ‘false consciousness’.
It is therefore no surprise that, in the most modern of societies, the prevailing moralism is a hard nut to crack for radical critics. This moralism is not only a theoretical matter, a form of false consciousness. From the seamstress to the First Lady, people have an urge to practice the ideals of altruism, modesty, honesty, compassion, charity, etc. Everyone donates to the Cancer Fund, UNICEF and so on. People join associations which promote stupidity in young people, firmly believing that this is an opportunity to experience something workaday life denies them: community of purpose, solidarity, friendship. They compensate for the necessity to compete against each other by forming disgusting groups on the basis of their ideals, even if their idealism demands further sacrifices.
However, groups still crop up amongst the British and their expatriate communities, proving our traditional bent for voluntarist activities. A recent phenomenon is the Hash House Harriers: running clubs that replicate the joy of hare and hounds:
The Hash House Harriers is a more social version of Hare and Hounds, where you join the pack of hounds (runners) to chase down the trail set by the hare or hares (other runners), then gather together for a little social activity known as the On In or Down Down. In most groups, all are welcome, young and old, fast or slow. The only prerequisite to hashing is a sense of humor, so check out a hash near you.
To split the cultural difference, the emphasis is on humour rather than charity Still, if they ban hunting, this will provide suitable enjoyment for the interregnum, until liberty returns.
I read a very odd story a few days ago on Front Page Magazine called An American in London, in which Carol Gould recounts how she and other Americans have been repeatedly subjected to anti-American abuse in London.
What I find so frightening is that I cannot conduct business or even take a taxi ride in London, Bournemouth or Edinburgh without a scathing tirade about the scurrilous Yanks. The day after 9/11 I was obliged to keep a consultant’s appointment and the minicab driver informed me that the ‘yellow Americans’ on the four hijacked planes were typical of the way ‘the Yanks do battle’ — they chicken out and let the Brits do the dirty work.
Now the title of my article might suggest that I do not believe what she wrote to be true, but that is not what I am saying. If she says that is what people have said to her, then I will take her at her word. However I also know a significant number of Americans here in the UK and I am puzzled that they do not tell me that they have shared Carol Gould’s experiences. In fact a fellow Samizdatista who is an American, is living in my house most of the time and we often go out places in London both casually and for business and although we talk together (and thereby announce to all nearby that she is an American), I have yet to see her nationality pique the slightest bit of interest from anyone at all. Here in London Americans are like taxicabs… they are just normal part of the fabric of this enormous and most cosmopolitan of cities.
Now I realise that Anti-Americanism exists in Britain… hell, it exists in America (and amongst the same ilk of people generally), but I must say that Ms. Gould describes a Britain that bears very little relation to the one I see every day. No doubt if I actively sought out the people who despise all things American I could find them in so diverse a metropolis, but then I could say the same about almost any set of views. However I suspect I would say the same if I still lived in Manhattan (which I did… and moreover worked in the World Trade Center at the time).
Ms. Gould says she knows many other expat Americans with similar experiences to hers. Well all I can say is we clearly know a very different set of expat Americans then. In fact, we clearly encounter a very different set of British people as well. I do not know what circles Carol Gould moves in but I do not think she has heard the real England speak.
And that is why it seems to me that if we are both in London, then the two of us must be existing in alternate realities.
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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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