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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Just as I suppprt the right to publish drawing that annoy the hell out of some Muslims, I also support the right to publish drawings which annoy the hell out of some Christians.
If some find provocative images of Jesus offensive, they should feel free to express their outrage… but should not feel free to express their outrage to their legislators, because the implication is clear that they want them to use the violence of law to prevent themselves from being offended… to which I can only say, they have no such right.
Australian government efforts to foist an ID card on its subjects have not really worked out, but the statist desire to identify and regulate its subjects are as perennial as weeds, and the latest gambit looks likely to get the go-ahead, with the cabinet to discuss a photo-ID ‘government services card’. This half-way house measure could be announced in next month’s budget, despite costs that look likely to be north of $A 1 billion.
As well as a photograph, the card will carry a computer chip with all of the subject’s details on it.
Charles Clarke, the current boot boy in the Blunkett-Howard tradition, is upset that the government’s abridgement of fundamental rights is being called for what it is. It is at least a good sign they feel the need to be a bit defensive as previously they scarely seem to try and diguise their contempt for notions of privacy or personal civil liberty.
Although the Tories (or at least David Davies) have said in the recent past that they would scrap the whole monstrous ID card plan, I wonder if that will remain their view if they actually end up in power with this scheme already in place. I have my doubts that any party which so recently has Michael ‘a touch of the night’ Howard as its leader really has any honest commitment to civil liberties.
Mr Clarke pointed to recent articles in the Guardian, Observer and the Independent newspapers which made “incorrect, tendentious and over-simplified” statements about Labour’s record on civil liberties.
– BBC Online
The pieces I’ve seen there were actually considerably more accurate than his rebuttals, and relied not at all on the circularity and misleading literalism that is the foundation of any Home Office statement. But maybe he’s worried about anyone else getting into the business of tendentiousness and over-simplification in relation to civil liberties. That’s his (and Mr Blair’s) job.
Six of the victims of the Waco massacre are due for release.
I mean, hey, the federal government comes in, attacks your church, is a party to the death of your friends and family… and you get 13 years in prison. Right.
According to a 9th Circuit case decided in favour of John Gilmore, you do not have to provide identification to travel. You may instead submit to secondary screening.
Read more about it here.
Erratum: Actually, Gilmore *lost* the case, but the judges stated what I said above.
Not content with bullying its own population, the British Government is now spending taxpayers’ money to export the culture of fear. This from the website of Her Britannic Majesty’s Embassy to Romania:
With approximately 100 illegal immigrants deported from Britain to Romania every month and 250 Romanian asylum seekers registered last year in the UK, the Home Office and the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) decided to launch this publicity campaign in March 2005.
The existence of the IOM ‘Managing migration for the welfare of all’ is unwelcome news to me.
[…] But how does a state achieve the balance between the need for control of its borders and the need to facilitate movement across its borders for legitimate purposes such as trade, tourism, family reunion and education?
…asks the IOM, seeking to explain its purpose, but begging the question. The assumption is that states will naturally ban travel and trade (which is what ‘control their borders’ means) and then decide what are ‘legitimate purposes’ for permitted movements. But this is a convenient doctrine invented by states in the 20th century, a generalization of the conditions of the Tsarist police-state and the petty, nationalist bureaucracies that emerged in the 19th.
Where – let alone why – I choose to live or travel is no business of states, unless I am doing injury to their citizens. By going from place to place I do accept that places are different legally as well as culturally and physically. If there were no differences there would be no point in travel. But the natural condition of borders is openness. They are just lines on a map.
Borders finally got around to responding to me… with the same form letter as I have seen elsewhere:
Dear Dale,
Thank you for your expression of concern about our decision not to carry the issue of Free Inquiry magazine featuring cartoons depicting Muhammad. Borders is committed to our customers’ right to choose what to read and what to buy and to the First Amendment right of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. In this particular case, we decided not to stock this issue in our stores because we place a priority on the safety and security of our customers and our employees. We believe that carrying this issue presented a challenge to that priority.
We value your thoughts and sincerely appreciate that you invested your time to tell us how you feel about the issue. I can assure you that our management team gave careful deliberation to this decision and considered all sides of the issue before reaching this conclusion. As always, we are interested in customer feedback about our choices and while we know you do not agree with our position, we hope you can understand the challenge of balancing the needs of our customers, employees and our communities.
I hope that this information is helpful. If you should have any other questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Borders Customer Care
http://www.bordersstores.com
I have responded:
Yes, I’ve seen this form reply posted on other well read blogs.
There are young americans dying overseas to fight these scumbags. You do not even have the guts to stand up against them on your own turf. By folding you endanger others. You prove that threats work.
You are, to use old fashioned terminology, lily livered cowards with yellow stripes down your back a mile wide and you are being called out on it.
Get some backbone. There is more to life than avoiding risk. Your life has to stand for something.
Borders does not stand for anything except cowering in a hole praying it will be left alone… for a little while longer.
Yes, it is indeed their right to be cowards. It is likewise my right to call them on it.
I am not a serious photographer like some other Samizdatistas. I’ve never had a camera before. So my apologies for the quality of my snaps. I thought I might start using my new phone, which comes with a camera, to record the bullying advertising I see everywhere in London.
That was my intention. However, the first thing that struck my eye yesterday was not direct scaremongering or threat on behalf of the authorities, more an accidental declaration of the New Labour credo:
This is what life is like in the convergence to the total state: ordinary traffic markers acquire political meaning. The dumb stones and steel become eloquent of our masters’ will.
The abrupt end to the parliamentary wrangling over what we must now get used to calling the Identity Cards Act 2006 has taken many people by surprise. (Not least the parliamentary draftsmen, who find themselves with internal references to the Identity Cards Act 2005 in places.) I still can’t quite figure out what happened, but am starting to think the timing is a matter of Tory electoral and media strategy.
For those benighted souls who are not yet subscribers to NO2ID‘s newsletter, here is our declaration of intent.
The Bill has passed – now the real fight begins.
One of our key tasks is to make the ID scheme politically unsupportable BY ANYONE. We have to make running on a platform that supports (in fact, that does not actively oppose) compulsory registration, a National Identity Register and ID cards political suicide for any party or politician going into any sort of election.
Starting NOW.
This is a long term goal, but one that is absolutely achievable in stages. We are already winning hearts and minds – a 30% shift in public opinion to date – and will continue to do so.
The Government knows that it has to win people over, too – it can’t simply bully its way to its goal, like it did in parliament. But it’ll be hampered by the scheme’s costs spiralling out of control (with the attendant blast of bad publicity every 6 months), the technology failing (predictably or spectacularly), having to background-check and fingerprint perfectly law-abiding citizens, screwing up 1 in 10 (or more) people’s details, issuing a card that is basically no use for anything much but scraping ice off your windscreen until 2013 (except maybe ‘travel within Europe’ – but then you’re getting the thing alongside a proper passport…), etc., etc., etc. PLUS all the stuff we’re going to do!
In May, there are local elections.
→ Continue reading: We have not yet begun to fight
I managed to find this email address, ccare@bordersstores.com, for Borders and have taken my own advice and notified them loudly of the downside to their actions:
The ‘blogosphere’ is alive with the recent announcement you will not stock the Free Inquiry issue with the Danish cartoons.
We abhor your cowardice in the face of the enemy and your lack of moral fibre to stand up for the First Amendment in the face of those enemies.
Our publication, Samizdata, has joined the Borders boycott call which is spreading amongst other high profile network publications.
While we are a publication of only 20,000 global readers a day, they are all solidly in the intellectual book buying demographic. Other publications, in the same demographic, are also calling for your metaphorical head. At least one of them has a quarter to a half million highly educated and mostly american readers a day.
There is no way out for you other than to carry that issue and to announce that fact loudly enough that it will catch up with the rapidly disseminating news of your prior decision
The ‘blogosphere’ has a long memory. This will not be forgotten in a month or two. Borders will from henceforth be linked in people’s minds with the word ‘cowards’.
Dale Amon
Editor,
Samizdata
You may reply if you wish, but I represent only one of many, many publications that are going to be pounding you on this. Only loud visible action will mean anything to any of us.
I recommend anyone who decides to quit Borders not simply stop going. You should make one last appearance and tell them why you will not be back. If you prefer a carrot approach, tell them what they could do to win the return of you and others like you.
 Cartoon shown with thanks and our highest regards to the Freedom Fighters of Jyllands-PostenCowardice does not make you safe. It makes you a safe target
– D.Amon
It appears my faint optimism of yesterday was misplaced. The House of Lords has agreed a compromise on ID cards which means they will go ahead. This Reuters report makes it clear that the cards are the most ambitious such cards to be attempted in terms of the data to which they draw access.
They will prove a costly and oppressive fiasco. Perhaps that is Blair’s main legacy.
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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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