Samizdata

“First they came for the Jews and I did nothing because I am not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did nothing because I am not a Communist.
Then they came for the Catholics and I did nothing because I am not a Catholic.
Then they came for the Lawyers and I could not stop laughing”

Natalija Radic (2002)

Which is nothing to do with herpes, I assure you.

Crazed Samizdata reader Peter Barker has written in with a proposal that we felt needed to be shared:

I was involved in an interesting discussion with a self claimed libertarian the other day. We were doing the rounds on the usual ideas about gun control and the right to arm bears. This guy was up for the idea of unrestricted possession or firearms but was advancing the idea that a legal caliber limit (?) might be placed on personal weapons.

This got me thinking in my radical way. When the “founding fathers” drew up the American constitution (and all its subsequent amendments) and gave American citizens the right to bear arms they did so to enable the citizens to defend themselves not only from hostile people but also (and mainly) from hostile governments (like their own…). The general idea being, I suppose, that if the “government” attempted to impose unconstitutional means upon the populace then they could resist effectively – as they did against the British.

So move this ideal forward a few centuries. Now if the government think you shouldn’t be doing something – they send round a semi-armoured swat squad, a few APCs and have a helicopter with missiles in reserve. If the neighbourhood ain’t so quiet they send in the national guard with the whole cacophony of modern warfare. Now of course if the local citizens objected to this and “tool up” to resist effectively, well, the administration will just calls them “unlawful combatants” and your civil rights are history. Remember those mad mullahs – the Branch Davidians of Waco (We Ain’t Commin’ Out) as an excellent example.

So how to square the circle? American citizens are supposed to be able to effectively defend themselves from government aggression. This can only mean one thing. The right to bear arms must translate (in new speak) into the right to own an effectively deterrent against anyone attempting to arbitrarily impose their will.

Which leads me to conclude one thing. I want a tank and a nuclear bomb [Ed: only one?]. As much as I’d like a Sukhoi 29 (or the new 31) the running costs are too high – there are some fiscal limits to my imagination. So, libertarians, who’ll support me?

Oh! that many…. Hmmmm.

Peter did not say if he takes cash, cheques, gold or credit cards for this worthy cause.

The European Commission convened an emergency session today to urgently discuss a response to the eruption of the Mount Nyirangongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo

“This is a very serious situation” said Hans-Pieter Blinkenblankenblonken the Dutch chair of the Committee for Pompous Pronouncements. “The Congolese will now have access to the highest quality building materials that could threaten the livlihoods of our European producers” he added

The delegate from the German Green Party, Annaliese Klumpf said: “This volcano has simply erupted without even any consultation process. It is completely unacceptable, undemocratic and flies in the face of all European opinion”

The French Minister of Duplicity, Bertrand Maginot was furious. He condemned Mount Niyragongo as a “shitty little volcano” and called for urgent measures to protect French quarries from what he termed “these unfair volcanic practices”

The Commission agreed that these unregulated volcanic eruptions posed a grave threat to the environment and European jobs. A draft resolution was unanimously adopted demanding legislation to curb unfair volcanic activity worldwide and the setting up of a committee to insitgate and oversee a set of formal consultation procedures to be implemented before any further eruptions were permitted to take place

Q: What is the difference between Argentina and Japan?

A: About five years