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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Which is to say, a politician I respect. Now I do not always see eye to eye with Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican representative for Texas, when it comes to dealing with tyrants and other nastiness outside the USA, but I do respect him nevertheless and given my views on politicians as a breed, that is saying something. When he is correct, oh my, is he correct:
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the “Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.” This legislation prohibits US taxpayer dollars from being used to support or promote any United Nations actions that could infringe on the Second Amendment. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act also expresses the sense of Congress that proposals to tax, or otherwise limit, the right to keep and bear arms are “reprehensible and deserving of condemnation”.
[…]
Secretary Annan is not the only globalist calling for international controls on firearms. For example, some world leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, have called for a global tax on firearms. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council’s “Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms” calls for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control and praises the restrictive gun polices of Red China and France!
[…]
Mr. Speaker, global gun control is a recipe for global tyranny and a threat to the safety of all law-abiding persons. I therefore hope all my colleagues will help protect the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms by cosponsoring the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.
Damn, that is almost enough to turn me into a Republican! Now if that party could just do something about its mercantilist anti-market trade policies, repressive sexual policies in some states and nasty tendency to vastly increase the size and scope of state whilst claiming to be the party of small government…
Despite the most draconian anti-gun laws in the known universe, the British police are having to resort to enlisting the help of musicians in an attempt to curb gun crime:
The senior detective investigating the murder of Toni-Ann Byfield, the seven-year-old girl shot in the back, yesterday told Britain’s black music artists to warn their fans to stay away from guns.
At a summit with senior music industry figures, including Mercury Music Prize winner Dizzee Rascal and members of So Solid Crew, Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, head of Operation Trident which investigates black-on-black gun crime, said it would help stop the shootings if rap musicians, DJs and producers spoke out against Britain’s escalating gun culture.
What’s all this nonsense about ‘escalating gun culture’? How can that be? Isn’t that something Americans are forced to endure but we Brits are mercifully free of?
Priceless.
In response to my posting below about Sean Gabb’s radio interview with Tony Martin, a couple of commenters from the USA have inquired as how they may make a contribution to Mr.Martin’s legal defence fund.
Allow me to assist. Mr.Martin has a support group with a website which, I believe, has details of how to contribute to his civil defence fund.
Our friend Sean Gabb is no stranger to radio or TV broadcasting. Indeed, so commonplace are his incisive contributions to both that Sean himself appears to regard them as somewhat mundane.
But yesterday was different. Yesterday, Sean travelled the studios of BBC Radio Oxford to take part in a phone-in debate on law and order. One of the other studio guests was none other than Tony Martin. As Sean himself says:
This is a case that has at times filled me and many other people with incandescent rage. It is the perfect summary of all that is wrong with modern England. Now, I was invited to meet the man at the centre of the case. Let alone driving – I might have walked the entire circuit of the M25 to be with him. So off I went.
If it is possible to be incandescent with envy then I am.
As is his custom, Sean has written about his afternoon with Tony Martin:
There is in any society an implied contract between state and citizen. We give up part of our right to self defence – only part, I emphasise – and all our right to act as judge in our own causes. We resign these matters to the state and obey its laws. In exchange, it maintains order more efficiently and more justly than we could ourselves. In modern England, the state has not broken this contract. If it had simply given up on maintaining order, that would be bad enough – but we could then at least shift for ourselves. No, the state in this country has varied the terms of the contract. It will not protect us, but it will not let us protect ourselves. If we ignore this command, we can expect to be punished at least as severely as the criminals who attack us. That is what the Tony Martin case is all about. This is not just a matter for the country. The towns have it just as bad, if not worse. If you are a victim of crime anywhere in this country, you are in it alone and undefended. Call for the Police, call for a home delivery pizza – see which arrives first.
Sean has a gift for commentary which few can emulate. This article, as with so many of his other writings, has all the solemn dignity and moving power of a hymn. His melancholy conclusions alone deserve the widest possible audience if only as a chronicle of these troubled times. Seldom has the phrase ‘read it and weep’ been quite so literal.
[Update: I think ‘whoops’ is the appropriate phrase. I drafted this and posted it up without realising that Brian was doing exactly the same thing only marginally sooner. But even duplication can be quite instructive as both Brian and I live up to our respective reputations of him being optimistic and me being pessimistic in response to precisely the same article.]
The latest Free Life Commentary is the occasional essay series written and e-published by the Libertarian Alliance’s Sean Gabb. In the latest, number 112, he descibes how he yesterday spent An Afternoon with Tony Martin:
Since time immemorial, on the third Thursday in September, Thame in Oxfordshire has hosted what is now the largest agricultural fair in the country. From all over England people come to buy and sell things and to see one another. There are tractor displays, and cows, and horses, and stalls selling clothing and food and drink, and vast car parks for the thousands of people who attend.
I was there yesterday at the invitation of the BBC. Bill Heine, a populist libertarian from America, has a show with Radio Oxford, and is in the habit of getting me on air every week or so for five minutes at a time. Yesterday, he wanted me not on the end of a telephone, but in person. Without offering the usual fee that I charge for leaving home, he wanted me to drive for a round trip of 300 miles to spend an hour live on air discussing rural crime and the right to self defence. For that distance and that time, regardless of fees, I would normally have refused. However, this was different. One of the other guests was to be Tony Martin.
He is the farmer who shot two thieves in August 1999, killing one and wounding the other. He was put on trial for murder and convicted. On appeal, his conviction was changed to manslaughter, and he was eventually released on Friday the 8th August this year, having spent more than three years in prison. He could have been released last year, but the authorities argued at the parole hearings that his lack of repentance made him a continuing danger to any thieves who might try to break into his home. He is presently facing a tort action for damages from the thief he neglected to kill – the man is claiming for loss of earnings and for reduced sexual function. His legal fees are being charged to the tax payers.
This is a case that has at times filled me and many other people with incandescent rage. It is the perfect summary of all that is wrong with modern England. Now, I was invited to meet the man at the centre of the case. Let alone driving – I might have walked the entire circuit of the M25 to be with him. So off I went.
And so should you, by reading the whole thing. Sean took photographs of the event, or persuaded others to take photos in those cases where he was a photographee. Sean, to those who have known him at all long, looks impressively slim, while Tony Martin looks pleasingly plump despite his ordeal by injustice, and subsequently by celebrity.
The piece may be about a rather doleful subject, namely injustice and official stupidity. Nevertheless I found that reading it made me feel quite cheerful – cheerful that such men as Tony Martin exist, cheerful that I have a friend like Sean Gabb who is prepared to go to all that trouble just to lend him moral support and then to write about it, and cheerful that I now have the chance to give the whole event another little boost, thanks to Samizdata.
According to FEE Missouri has joined the free states:
Concealed-Handgun Law Passes in Missouri (9/12/03)
Lawmakers today granted most Missourians the right to carry concealed guns, overriding a veto by Gov. Bob Holden (D) and reversing the outcome of a statewide election on the issue four years ago. Missouri becomes the 45th state to allow concealed guns, although nine sharply restrict permits, according to the National Rifle Association. (Washington Post, Friday)
I understand Michigan is also very close to falling in line.
Correction: It’s Wisconsin, not Michigan
The British media this morning, including the Daily Telegraph is reporting that Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned of a heightened terrorist threat in the event that we went to war in Iraq. And the coverage implies that somehow that it was a great scandal that he failed – allegedly – to make this warning public.
I don’t know. It should have been blindlingly obvious to all that by threatening to topple Saddam, terror groups with a vested interest in his staying in power would try to foil said effort by attacking us.
Of course it is a repeated refrain from the tin-foil hat brigade on the pacifist left pessimistc right and head-in-sand Raimondo libertarian sect that if we act, we will only make Islamic groups even angrier. Problem is with this argument is that it is a “heads I win, tails you lose” sort of position. If we act – such as topple Saddam – the Islamo-loons will get mad. If we do nothing, they will hold us in contempt and attack us again for being weak.
Personally, I can live with their hate. They hate us anyway, so we might as well give them something to actually hate us for, by trying to establish liberty and prosperity in the Middle East.
The latest news in the Tony Martin/Brendan Fearon saga is in today’s Sun. There are pictures of Tony Martin dining out with the lady who works for his publisher (“Valentina Artsrunik”!), as they prepare Martin’s forthcoming book for publication. Excellent. Martin deserves a bit of the high life.
But more intriguing to me was the sidebar story on the right. Journalists must spend an awful lot of time ringing borderline celebs for juicy quotes only to be given either waffle or nothing. But this time, if that’s how it happened, they struck gold:
COMIC Paul O’Grady last night warned would-be burglars: “Break into my house and I’ll shoot you.”
The 48-year-old – telly’s Lily Savage – threatened to do a Tony Martin after talking to pal Cilla Black about the £1million burglary at her house.
The comic lives in a plush £1million riverside flat overlooking London’s Tower Bridge. He said: “I’ve just bought myself a gun. After what happened to Cilla, I’m not taking any chances.
“If I’m lying in bed and any gob-sh**e burglars are in my house, thinking I’m not going to do anything, then they’ll be in for a shock. I’ll shoot them in the kneecaps and feed them to my pigs.
“I’m with Tony Martin on this one. If you’re in my house and you shouldn’t be, then I’ll shoot you, simple as that.”
I particularly enjoyed this last bit:
A spokesman for O’Grady said last night: “What he was saying was done tongue-in-cheek.”
After all, you wouldn’t want your client becoming too popular with the general public, now would you?
How about a compromise. If Paul O’Grady is burgled, he can shoot the gob-sh**e burglars in the kneecaps. But then afterwards a spokesman for O’Grady can say that he only shot the gob-sh**e burglars tongue-in-cheek.
And when the O’Grady pigs eat the gob-sh**e burglars, they will likewise only be joking.
I’m shocked, shocked:
A man attempting to sue farmer Tony Martin for loss of earnings is back in custody after allegedly breaching the terms of his release from prison.
Brendon Fearon, 33, of Newark, Notts, appeared before the town’s magistrates accused of stealing a Toyota Landcruiser on Aug 24.
He had been serving part of an earlier prison sentence on licence at his home and observing a 7pm to 7am curfew. He did not enter a plea at the hearing and spoke only to confirm his name and address.
Prison sources confirmed that Fearon is back in custody for allegedly breaching the terms of his licence and will be transferred to prison tonight.
There will probably be comments to the effect that here in the great state of (state your state) we do things better and this varmint would be dead by now. Personally, weighing up the evidence and taking a considered and reflective view of the matter, I agree. Tony Martin injured this person in circumstances of maximum fear and confusion. Had he shot him dead, on purpose, in broad daylight, it would have been no more than this nasty parasite deserved, and it would also, in my further opinion, have been “reasonable” (the key legal word here), in self defence against the inevitable next attack.
Once again, the British police risk life and limb to protect us from those who would do us harm:
A father and his son were confronted by armed police after a young boy was seen playing with a toy gun in a car.
Kevin and Jason Price were ordered out of the car and onto their knees after police were told a weapon was seen pointing from the window.
But in fact it was a £15 plastic ball bearing rifle bought for Mr Price’s seven-year-old son Connor, who was sitting in the back.
Police have defended their actions, and say they have to treat reports of firearms seriously.
No, more likely it was another opportunity to put on a public display of virility against a soft, safe and easy target.
Is there no end to this absurd hysteria? Are there no depths to which this official paranoia cannot sink?
Anyone who isn’t exhausted by this subject, will be after slogging through the comprehensive job of heavy lifting over at a spin-off post on the Smallest Minority blog.
This is the post I would have put up if I wasn’t so damn lazy. Many statistics, and a heaping helping of good sense. Extra bonus points for the Jesse Jackson quote!
To follow up on the discussion under Good news on guns, which drifted (and I do mean drifted) into comparisons of US and European crime and the unfortunate concentration of violent criminal activity in the US in the black community, I ran across a summary of statistics at the Useful Fools blog. You really should read the whole thing, but the relevant points are:
Here are Interpol 2001 crime statistics (rate per 100,000):
4161 – US
7736 – Germany
6941 – France
9927 – England and Wales
Thus the US has a substantially lower crime rate than the major European countries!
. . .
[The US] murder rate is high largely due to the multicultural nature of our society. Inner city blacks, members of a distinct subculture, have a vastly higher criminal and victim homicide rate than our society as an average:
Homicide Offender Rate/100,000 by Race in US (2000):
3.4 – White
25.8 – Black
3.2 – Other
It is often hypothesized that blacks are overrepresented in murder statistics due to racism on the part of police and the justice system. If this were true, one would expect that the race of victims would have significantly different distribution than the race of the perpetrators, but this is not the case:
Homicide Victim Rate/100,000 by Race in US (2000):
3.3 – White
20.5 – Black
2.7 – Other
Thus if you remove homicides committed by blacks (total: 21862, Blacks:9316), and assume a proportionality between number of offenders and number of offenses, you can extrapolate US homicide offender rate of only 2.6/100,000, lower than Germany (3.27) and France (3.91).
I asked John Moore, the author of the Useful Fools post, to give us links to the studies or data that he used, but he replied that he had gathered the numbers from a Interpol and FBI stats without keeping the links. Tsk, tsk, John! I had hoped to track down the data myself, but have been unable to do so, and am unlikely to get a chance anytime soon. The data is consistent with a number of other items that I have read over the years, so I think its legit, but caveat blogster.
The data can be read to support any number of things, as I am sure the comment mob will demonstrate soon. I tend to look at it as consistent with my preconceptions (yet another reason why I think that the data is probably good – it makes me look smart!). First and foremost, though, I think it refutes the notion that “cowboy” America is a violent and dangerous place. It is also consistent with the view that, in America at least, more gun control equals more crime, as the high crime areas (large urban centers) labor for the most part under the very restrictive gun controls (and have for decades).
In short, it is safer to be free and self-reliant (that is, armed) than to trust the state to provide safety and security from crime.
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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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