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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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.
The House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber in Parliament, has thrown out government proposals on identity cards in the UK.
If anyone needed any doubt on the likely disaster that ID cards would prove to be, read this by Henry Porter. Even those inclined to roll their eyes at our libertarian worries might get the jitters about the details of Porter’s article, even if only a part of what he says is true.
The fight is not over yet.
The media has minutely examined the financial affairs of the Labour Party, offsetting the silence of potential Tory hypocrisy. Yet, this is less than not very important. The man who will not contest the next election has low approval ratings and the party that his successor will battle has lost their lead in the polls. Such are the dangers of binding yourself too closely to your enemy.
The real dangers lie in the rapid erosion of our civil liberties. A message that is always worth repeating and Henry Porter in the Observer does it better than I ever could:
You may have noticed the vaguely menacing tone of recent government advertising campaigns. Here is a current example: ‘If you know a business that isn’t registered for tax, call the Revenue or HM Customs – no names needed.’ Another says: ‘Technology has made it easier to identify benefit cheats.’
Whether the campaign is about rape, TV licences or filling in your tax form, there is always a we-know-where-you-live edge to the message, a sense that this government is dividing the nation into suspects and informers.
The article is a succinct reminder of all the arguments that need to be brought to bear to offset ID cards and the database, open to all and sundry. We must remember that only totalitarian states abolish privacy: whether they are of the soft or hard variant. In Britain, this will partially be achieved by linking ID cards to the ‘chip and pin’ systems that provide universal verification for card transactions.
You will need the card when you receive prescription drugs, when you withdraw a relatively small amount of money from a bank, check into hospital, get your car unclamped, apply for a fishing licence, buy a round of drinks (if you need to prove you’re over 18), set up an internet account, fix a residents’ parking permit or take out insurance.
Every time that card is swiped, the central database logs the transaction so that an accurate plot of your life is drawn. The state will know everything that it needs to know; so will big corporations, the police, the Inland Revenue, HM Customs, MI5 and any damned official or commercial busybody that wants access to your life. The government and Home Office have presented this as an incidental benefit, but it is at the heart of their purpose.
Last week, Andrew Burnham, a junior minister at the Home Office, confirmed the anonymous email by admitting that the ID card scheme would now include chip-and-pin technology because it would be a cheaper way of checking each person’s identity. The sophisticated technology on which this bill was sold will cost too much to operate, with millions of checks being made every week.
The British state has one objective: Without the ID Card, you will have no life.
David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute makes some good points about the FCC’s proposed fines against CBS. If a Danish newspaper can establish that freedom of expression does indeed mean the right to do things that will offend some people, should that notion not also apply in the ‘Land of the Free’?
The $3.6 million in ‘indecency’ fines proposed by the FCC against CBS are an ominous attack on the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
Just as the government does not fine newspapers that publish cartoons that Muslims deem indecent, it should not fine broadcasters that air shows that viewers deem indecent. Viewers are free to change the channel or turn off their TV set if they do not like what they see. They can not be forced to patronize a station they find indecent.
Moreover, it is the parents – not the government – who should be responsible for determining what their children are allowed to watch on TV.
There is a rally going to be held in Trafalgar Square between 2:00pm and 4:00pm on Saturday March 25th 2006, in support of freedom of expression. Be there and show your support! There is also going to be a similar rally in Berlin on the same day and hopefully others organised in various cities if a critical mass of interest can be attracted.
A few weeks ago during a talk hosted at the Institute for Economic Affairs, I picked up a pamphlet written by Lawrence W. Reed of the Mackinac Centre about the life of Thomas Clarkson, a man who, in the late 18th Century, campaigned in print to ban the slave trade. While characters such as William Wilberforce or T.B. Macaulay may be more widely recognised for their role in outlawing this vile business, it was Clarkson who in many ways provided much of the intellectual ammunition. (His name is probably not greatly known and the first thing that sprung to my mind was whether he was the ancestor of British motoring journalist and TV personality Jeremy Clarkson.)
Clarkson wrote an essay for a prize at Cambridge University, and chose to write on the subject of slavery — then a booming industry enriching many a Briton. For the remainder of his life, he campaigned tirelessly, sometimes even to the point where his own life was put in physical danger. But as we know, victory was eventually secured.
Why do I mention this tale? I do so because it is fashionable amongst a certain type of person to decry the importance of ideas, of individual campaigners against injustice and oppression, and to claim — with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, of course — that slavery, and other monstrosities, only declined because of economic or other forces. But even though there is some truth in ascribing changes to these things, as this Wikipedia entry accepts, it still requires the energy and commitment of actual people to force the pace of change. We do not know, for instance, how long slavery might have persisted under the British Empire had people like Clarkson not bothered to campaign against it. It is fair to assume, however, that it ended a good deal sooner than otherwise and hence millions of people probably owed what freedoms they had to people such as this fellow.
It is sometimes a bit depressing to be a libertarian in a country where freedoms are being stamped on as they are at present but frankly I have no time for self-pity, and stories like that of Thomas Clarkson are an inspiring example of how good people with ideas in their heads and fire in the belly can make a difference. Clarkson is a great British hero.
The British pub chain JD Wetherspoon has decided to postpone a ban on smoking in all its pubs, although a nation-wide ban will come into force at the start of 2007, due to the government’s new law. A rather ironic tale.
How odd. In many ways, JDW was a good example of how, in a free market, people who wanted a quiet pint without breathing cigarette smoke or listening to loud music could do so. In my own area of Westminister, there is a large chain called the Willow Walk which I and a number of friends use from time to time. Everyone is happy, smokers and non-smokers alike. Considering that the majority of the adult population do not smoke, one would expect plenty of entrepreneurial pub and restaurant owners to cater to the tastes of said public, and indeed many such businesses have developed.
But of course, markets are messy and full of tradeoffs. And for our tidyminded masters, that is unacceptable.
The Guardian’s Jenni Russell points out that the attitude of British officialdom is changing subtly.
I find this change truly frightening because I spent the first few years of my life in apartheid South Africa. My parents were political activists, and we lived in an atmosphere of fear. My mother’s relations distanced themselves from her, fearing that they too would be targeted if they associated with us. My earliest memories are of police raiding the house at night, emptying out dolls’ cots and sweeping books off shelves. People would simply disappear. A black friend left our house to travel to his family in Zululand, and vanished.
After a month of inquiries, someone found a witness who had seen him being picked up by the police. He was being held without charge under the 90-days legislation – the same policy that the government is trying to introduce here. The relief when we came to England was incalculable. This country, these policemen and this government were benign, reasonable and trustworthy. As my father never ceased to point out, a Britain that had fought fascism had a deep-rooted commitment to protecting the individual from the state.
That is no longer true. ID cards are one danger, but there are other measures which are already a reality. […]
I fear that many of us are failing to see the danger we are now in, precisely because we have grown up in a largely benign state. We still trust in the good sense and reasonableness of its agents, and the rest of officialdom.
However, I think she is wrong about the cause:
This change in the relationship between people and officials can only be explained as a result of the new illiberal atmosphere in which we are living.
That’s back to front. An illiberal attitude is insufficient for oppression or we would be living under the dictatorship of the Free Church of Scotland. It is actually about power. Unchecked power will be abused. Not may, will.
You cannot change the culture of the law – Blair minor – without affecting the culture of the land. British police were once famous for courtesy. But then as little as twenty years ago they had few powers not available to the ordinary citizen. They relied on voluntary cooperation for much of their authority, and the reasonable exercise of that authority yielded general cooperation.
Before the merger of the agencies, the Inland Revenue was proverbially gentlemanly and reasonable compared to HM Customs and Excise, though the taxation functions were very similar. The difference in culture wasn’t accidental. Customs had vastly greater powers and found it easier to rely on fear to do the job.
ASBO-land is a different place from England. And this is why: as they gain more capacity to order us about, those in office will order us about more. What else?
The PM implies he wishes us to ‘respect’ one another and social norms. He claims he has given powers to officials to make it so. But respec’ on the streets will mean something else. It will mean respec’ (in the sense of fawning obedience) towards the same officials who have the powers to make it so. And as we have ever fewer rights – perhaps not even existence – without their say-so, truculence, swagger and oppression by officials will become the norm.
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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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