Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Rise of the Jerk Chicken Inspectors

You may remember a piece I wrote about a hundred years ago on 'The Rise of the Chocolate Orange Inspectors'?

Well, it seems real life has finally caught up. Lew Rockwell cites the case of a 'killer' jerk chicken shop, which dared to open within walking distance of a UK school:

The hit squad had prepared their raid long in advance.

At 10am eight police officers, some in anti-stab vests, joined three council employees on the doorstep of the Bamboo Joint takeaway.

Their mission? To stamp out the practice of selling jerk chicken within 400 metres of a secondary school.
Diese Kapitalisten Schweinen should be taken out und shot, Nicht War, meine Freunden?

Or, in the famous words of Mr Richard Littlejohn, you really couldn't make it up.

Oh well. Only another British business ruined, people sacked in the middle of a recession, and the pleasures of eating jerk chicken denied to thousands, all done by an organisation which compulsorily forces all of the above people to fund its crazy small-minded activities. And no, they probably weren't able to think of anything better to do.

How much longer will the British people put up with tolerating all of this state-gone-mad nonsense? Or has democracy and state education so ruined us that we are now totally incapable of resisting this ongoing diet of 'Little Hitler' stupidity? What a banana.

(Well done Tom H, for getting this preposterous tax wasting news to Karen DeCoster.)

4 comments:

Tom H said...

Thanks Jack.

The only crumb of comfort is to be found in reading through the comments left by readers of the story, who almost to a man, have utter contempt for the council's action.

Another article that I saw this morning which should be filed under "Laugh or Weep: Either is Appropriate" is this one from the FT:

"How libertarian dogma led the Fed astray"

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/705574f2-3356-11de-8f1b-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html

It's written by Henry Kaufman. He was chairman of Lehman's Finance and Risk Committee when the firm went bust.

You'd think he would have the sense to keep a low profile. But no, here he is in the FT, telling us that the Fed is just too damn libertarian.

Jack Maturin said...

Shame he can't even spell 'Laissez-Faire'! ;-)

Still, his position probably isn't too far from the Cato Institute or any of the other Kochtopus beltway 'libertarians'.

I suppose we should take it as a badge of honour that so many of our enemies keep stealing our clothes, as many neocons have stolen the term 'libertarian'.

Personally, I dislike the term 'libertarian', because it sounds too 'Dalek-Android' and too much like 'parliamentarian', or 'anti-disestablishmentarianism' and I much prefer the term 'liberal'.

But this too was stolen by the socialists, who liked its anti-government connotation, even though they have now become the biggest of the big government worshippers.

What are we to do?

Though I suppose they'll find it hard to steal 'Austro-Anarcho-Capitalist'! ;-)

Tom H said...

I'm not particularly keen on the word libertarian either. Reminds me of when Homer Simpson was lured into the cult called the Movementarians.

Although I've always thought Ayn Rand had a cheek to say "libertarian" sounded too artificial, when she offered up "Objectivist", or expected people to go around saying, "I'm a radical for capitalism"!

Anarcho-capitalist doesn't half spook the horses though!

I prefer classical liberal. It's a bit of a mouthful but I find that those who might be inclined to listen to you, run of the mill conservatives for instance, give you a fairer hearing than when you use the word "libertarian".

Jack Maturin said...

The Movementarians? Fantastic! ;-)

I think my favourite 'Arians' I've come across were the 'Elvis Presleytarians', worshippers of the First Church of Elvis the Divine.

It's a shame Uncle Murray couldn't think up a better term than 'libertarian'. I suppose 'Classical Liberal' is the best of a bad bunch, but it always suggests bow ties and Edwardian suits to me, and bow ties always imply underlying insanity (which is why I've ordered one from the Mises Institute.)

'Anarchist' really frightens the horses, as you say, and has also confused us with the nihilist socialists.

Anything with 'Anti-', as in 'Anti-Socialist' always comes across as too negative, 'Radical Conservative' sounds like Tory Boy on acid, and 'Individualist' sounds like you have some kind of terrible skin disease.

'Objectivist' implies a holier-than-thou-mere-subjectivist-undermenschen arrogance, and 'Anarcho-Capitalist' is pure science fiction, and therefore very sad.

What else have we got? 'Misesisan' - who was Mises?; 'Rothbardian' - even more like the religion of the Daleks, "The Emperor Dalek considered himself a Rothbardian"; 'Heinleinian' - sounds like you're an alcoholic; 'Hayekian' - well it's not too bad actually, but Hayek was too close to the socialists; and then 'Hoppeian' - which is far too dangerous, if you know what it implies.

Personally, I think I'm coming round to being a "Robert LeFevreian", certainly up to the point where I still want to be heavily armed in a Swiss-like way, but now it's just getting plain silly.

'Classical Liberal' I suppose keeps coming out as the winner, especially as Mises was the "Last Knight of the Liberals". I shall have to hone my bow-tie technique! :-)