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“Everyday life is as important to understanding of what happens as are historical milestones. It might help people realise how little it takes for the society to find itself in a grasp of a toxic ideology and how gradual the decline can be, how unnoticed the erosion of freedom, dignity and moral strength.” From this blog’s Adriana Lukas, in her moving and chilling account of an exhibition in Hungary, yesterday. Scroll down and read it all. June 10th, 2008 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I rather like this story about one of the smallest islands in the Channel Islands group being up for sale, or at least its lease is. I like this detail:
And this:
The only catch is that the price tag is £15 million. As to whether the new owner of the property would be in a position to declare self-government and become an independent state, I am not sure. It would be a nice idea, though. Here’s a book on the subject. As a Pimlico resident, I naturally would be amused to see if we could ever follow the example of a brilliant 1940s movie. May 19th, 2008 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
The monster who locked up relatives in his Austrian home for many years – at god knows what cost to their psychological state or physical health – is trying to defend himself by blaming it on Adolf Hitler. Oh well, makes a change from blaming it all on video games, globalisation or George Bush, I suppose. May 8th, 2008 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Via this blog, comes this awesomely silly story:
Fantastic. Just imagine how one could play with this. Suppose the town council of Dorking, southern England, sues anyone who is referred to, or uses the pejorative term, “Dork”. Greece: did not that country once come up with clever chaps like Aristotle or something? As ever, those interested in silly lawsuits should keep an eye on Overlawyered, an invaluable blog. May 2nd, 2008 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I previously reported on the saga of Mikko Ellilä. Here is the trial (in English) and now the state has spoken its verdict: guilty. So it has happened: thoughtcrime is now officially a crime in Finland. Stating your opinion, moreover stating your opinions based of government statistics, is illegal. Finns may now only express a politically sanctioned range of opinions subject to supervision by official Gauleiters like Mikko Puumalainen. The fine is small but so what? The message is clear. Dissent will not be tolerated by the Finnish state. It should not matter a damn if you agree with what Mikko Ellilä says, it is outrageous that he is not being allowed to say what he thinks. The thing I find so nauseating is these sanctimonious pathological control freaks act as those they are not repressive government thugs using force to prevent dissent. The freedom to only state popular opinions is no freedom at all because freedom of speech is the right to say what some other people do not want to hear. It is the right to express opinions that may offend because if you cannot do that, you do not have freedom of speech. People like Finnish bureaucrat Mikko Puumalainen exist everywhere (see the Ezra Levant case in Canada) and they must be resisted by any means necessary. March 28th, 2008 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Raising issues like non-intervenionist foreign policy on a site like this is a bit like poking a bear with a stick: potentially hazardous. In my recent item on WW2, the issue surfaced again of whether a viable foreign policy for a nation is the “Swiss model” (no, not that kind). I personally doubt it works for all nations, certainly not the largest ones with long, porous borders. But as I have praised tax havens recently, I am reminded of how the Swiss seem to cope very well thankyou outside a surpranational organisation like the EU or a military alliance like NATO. But is that country what economists call a “free rider” – taking advantage of the fact that other, bigger nations have done the heavy lifting in standing up to tyrants, etc? March 27th, 2008 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
The toxic effects of collectivism rear its ugly Hydra-like heads in Finland, where the state wants to introduce a Chinese style ‘Internet Great Wall’ to stop people expressing political idea the state disapproves of. It also wants to prosecute Mikko Ellilä for the thought crime of expressing a dislike of multiculturalism.
And what ‘racist act’ did Mikko Ellilä commit that enraged the state?
Yup, he quoted official crime statistics. Given that Finland has one of the highest rates of internet usage in the world, I hope this provokes a powerful backlash against the control freaks who run the country. March 14th, 2008 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
A lot of elections at the moment. Besides the US elections, we have just had the Spanish elections and in my wife’s small country, Malta, the ruling Nationalist Party, a vaguely right-of-centre party that supported Malta’s entry into the EU and the euro, won by an incredibly slender margin (just over a thousand votes). As I have a vested interest in Malta remaining a broadly open country, I am glad that the party won, or at least relieved that Labour, the main opposition party with a vindictively regulatory streak, did not. But my views on Malta’s election are tinged with a bitter-sweet taste as the Nationalists, for all their generally pro-enterprise views, have made serious errors. The party took Malta into the EU. By staying out of the EU, Malta could have retained and expanded its status as an offshore tax haven, providing Monaco, the Swiss, Liechtenstein and Gibraltar with some useful competition as a friendly venue. Malta has quite a thriving IT and financial sector and English is widely spoken there, a priceless advantage. By keeping out of the EU, it could also have avoided becoming a conduit for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who use the small island as an entry point for the EU. Malta, an island the size of the Isle of Wight with half a million people, is not a country that can easily absorb a large influx. But as my better half points out, Malta, a Catholic country, has long feared the shadow of its Muslim neighbour, Libya, just a hundred miles or so to the south, and sees EU membership as somehow tying it ever more closely to a non-Muslim population. The Maltese are quite a tolerant bunch but they are fiercely pro-western. The Archbishop of Canterbury would be thrown into Valetta’s Grand Harbour. One reason for the closeness of the elections is that there is a lot of anger at the governing party, even among most moderate voters, at some of the crasser building developments in the densely populated island. Even the most ardent defender of free enterprise will sometimes struggle to defend the ugly high-rise developments in part of the island that have gone up next to the attractive, honey-coloured buildings along parts of the country (in the smaller neighbouring island of Gozo, such developments have been far fewer, thankfully). Tourism is a crucial source of income for Malta; its historic buildings are part of its appeal, so long-term tourist entrepreneurs should hopefully follow their self-interest and avoid damaging the very thing that makes Malta a nice place to visit. This is an interesting subject for economists: ugly developments make money for investors in the short run and arguably, are better than no development at all, but the long run costs can be in the form of less tourism overall as would-be visitors go elsewhere for somewhere prettier. Anyway, back on topic: this has to have been one of the closest election results I have ever read about. March 10th, 2008 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Matthew Lynn, a columnist for Bloomberg, has a good and succinct take on the latest nonsense about actions by the German and British government to use information – obtained in highly dubious circumstances – to go after people who have put their money away in tiny European tax havens such as Liechstenstein. Philip Chaston of this blog has already touched on the subject. The difficulty that even any pro-freemarketeer politicians – if there are many – have in defending tax havens is defending the right of people to essentially flee from an oppressive but still-democratic regime. In chatting to people on this issue and reading the commentary, a lot of people make the assumption that wealth is collectively owned if enough voters wish it so and that therefore no-one has the right to flee from the looting intentions of such voters. In other words, non-domiciled residents who want to get away from the British taxman are not being good, democratic citizens by shirking their ‘responsibilities’. At its core, what this issue throws up, beyond the practical issues of how tax rates hurt economies, is a broader issue of the obligations, if any, that an individual has to his fellow citizens. If one believes the classical liberal idea that governments exist to serve the individual and not the other way round, that individuals have no apriori obligations to others, then the crackdown on tax-avoiders should be seen as the power grab that it is. Another issue, of course, is this: democracy and liberty are not the same thing, a point that has been remarked at this blog many times before. For sure, democracy may – may – be the least-worst way to kick out a government and replace it with a hopefully better one, but the idea that freedom comes from letting 51% of the electorate steal from 49% of the electorate has precious little to do with liberty. The right to own property and enjoy its fruits unmolested is as important as freedom of speech or the right to self defence. Tax havens rile communitarians precisely because they are a standing reproach to the looters who use democratic mandates to justify their depredations. They act as a brake on the power of governments with a temporary majority in a democratic assembly every bit as powerful as other checks and balances such as independent courts and upper chambers. And as traditional checks and balances are eroded – as they have been in Britain recently – we need all the constraints on national and supranational power we can get. We should therefore see the efforts by EU and other nations to create a global tax cartel as being every bit as dangerous as the alleged cartel deals forged by the 19th Century “robber barons”, except of course that this latter group were usually unfairly maligned. Compared to the tax-cartel zealots, Rockefeller and Co. were strict amateurs. March 5th, 2008 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
We know that the European Union does not respect the sovereignty of other countries. We know that governments will accept stolen goods if they think that they can get away with it. The British government is now capitalising on the proceeds of theft, a manoevre that would result in individuals going to jail. Let us hope that this is challenged, since how could one guarantee the veracity of stolen data:
The European Commission, Britain and Germany are attacking any country that wishes to provide a tax haven. Along with the OECD and its list of recalcitrant countries, they wish to overturn secrecy laws and end the existence of tax havens. If you cannot stand the heat of tax competition, they reason that you should crush the territories:
They even have Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore in their sights. I foresee an archer’s salute and a raspberry. Note that the usual excuses of terrorism, moneylaundering and social justice will be trotted out as an attack upon the freedom of individuals to live where they please and enjoy the pleasures of low taxation. Remove the threat and the peons at home might not want the same. March 1st, 2008 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
I just do not understand it. When Spain capitulated to attacks from Islamic fascists and elected a socialist government who promptly pulled its troops out of coalition operations… a policy we have been told by many that the USA and UK should follow in order to stop provoking the Islamists… that should have been the end of Spain’s non-Basque terrorist problems. Presumably the nice people from the Al Qaeda Global Franchise were utterly delighted by the developments in Spain and were certain to fulsomely reward this behaviour. After all, we are often assured by writers in both the mainstream media and paleo-conservative/paleo-libertarian circles that this is what governments in the West must do if we are ever to sooth Islamic sensibilities: we leave them alone and they will leave us alone, right? Yet strangely, far from redirecting their efforts and assets to ply their ‘trade’ against the more active members of the coalition, Islamic militants continue to get arrested in ever so repentant Spain. Gosh, one might almost think that leaving them alone is not enough! Surely some misunderstanding? January 20th, 2008 | 175 comments - (Comments are closed)
In Germany recently, there was a pleasing moment of defiance in the face of the determination of the banning classes to ban smoking. Boss fires staff for not smoking is what the headline says, and this is – surprise surprise – inaccurate, assuming that the report under the headline is accurate. The boss fired the non-smokers because they were making a damn nuisance of themselves by demanding that the smokers stop smoking, and he has now announced that he will not hire any more non-smokers, in case they behave similarly. Nobody got fired merely for not smoking. Not that there would be anything wrong with that. But this is only a very small and temporary victory for the right of employers to hire and fire at will, restrained only by whatever contracts may have been made that require otherwise.
It is the little word “still” that tells the true story here. And big offices have already been sorted out. This tiresome little anomaly will soon be corrected, and Germany will proceed methodically towards making smoking illegal everywhere. Adolf Hitler (not even he was able to give legal force to his detestation of smoking) is smirking in his grave, doing no turning whatsoever. January 15th, 2008 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
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