Wearily staggering from one World Cup barbecue to another, I managed to get five minutes alone on a friend's laptop to see the distressing news that United States government funding of Somalian warlords has helped create a quasi-government in Mogadishu; now the CIA has someone it can finally do business with, even if this particular 'government' may make the Taliban look like girl scouts.
But while reading the usual statist rhetoric about nature abhorring power vacuums, as if a personification of nature cares a scrap about the petty scrabblings of puny naked apes, when she's quite busy enough, thank you, moving tectonic plates around, I was struck by the nature of this jolly country of ours, this jewel set in a silver sea, this England.
We must be one of the few nations left on Earth, outside Somalia, that doesn't have a government. Que? I hear you ask. Well, yes, it's slightly cheeky, and yes, we are ruled here by a British government, composed mainly of Scotsmen, but there is no actual English government, except for perhaps a solitary member, the Queen of England, as head of state. Even Herr Professor Hoppe would surely approve of such an arrangement. The Scots have a government, the Welsh have a government, and John Prescott tried and failed to foist a serious of other such pointless and wasteful overarching bodies onto the English, but, and here's the more serious point, if nature so thoroughly abhors a vacuum, why don't the English appear to need a government, to feel in control of their own destiny? Even the Romans always had a government and a governor for each nation they controlled, much as those modern-day Romans do, the Washingtonians, with the 50 separate nations that they currently milk as a tax base to fund their growing empire of violence.
But we in England seem to have rubbed along now for over three centuries without a government of our own. And yet we know who we are, even when abroad, we know what flag to wave, even if it's made of plastic, and we know that Wayne Rooney is going to win the World Cup for us, with a glorious winner struck off the fourth metatarsal of his right foot, in the last minute of extra time against Brazil.
We are a nation without the need for a government and I, for one, think that this is a splendid arrangment.
If only we could think of some way of throwing off the twin parasitic yokes of the British Scottish Mafia and the European French and Italian Mafia, and then we could get some private security in to get this nation back to becoming a green and pleasant land once more.
Well, it's just a thought.
PS> AngloAustria will be coming to you sporadically this week, from Cambridge, England. If you see any strange men wandering around down by the river Cam, thorougly soaked after attempting to punt, and wearing a Ludwig von Mises polo shirt, there aren't that many SEK3 Agorists around, so it'll probably be me. Otherwise, I'll see you at Parker's Piece on Thursday, watching the game against Trinidad and Tobago, if someone manages to get another big screen up. Come on England!
Monday, June 12, 2006
Monday, June 05, 2006
The International Policy Network
These people seem to have been getting a lot of airtime recently, even on the dreaded BBC. I'm not entirely sure what they're about, or who is funding them, but anyone who has a Bastiat Prize must surely be on the side of the angels.
Their ruling out of weblog pieces for this prize, as possible entries, is a little harsh, but the more important question is, do you think their Kendra Okonski would agree to marry me if I asked her?
Their ruling out of weblog pieces for this prize, as possible entries, is a little harsh, but the more important question is, do you think their Kendra Okonski would agree to marry me if I asked her?
The Other Side Of The Same Coin
Okay, so I may have got a little side-tracked on Tony Blair recently (not that he doesn’t deserve it), but what about the other side of the coin; the glorious shiny haired leader of the Stupid Party? Well, I think after his outburst in the Torygraph today, we all know exactly where we are. Strapped with yet another feckless puffed-up politician whose only claim to greatness is that he hasn’t been in power long enough to become completely corrupted, yet. So what exactly is the difference between Tony Blair and David Cameron? Ideologically speaking I have absolutely no idea. So, let’s Fisk the article, for fun.
David Cameron will today make a further decisive break with the Tory past by demanding that his party abandons its traditional hostility to public services and the "lazy assumption" that the private sector is always best.
The lazy assumption? How about an assumption borne out of theory, experience, and two hundred years of Conservative politics? If the public coercive sector was so good, we would all pay for it voluntarily rather than being forced to pay for it against our will, as at present. Has this never occurred to Mr Cameron? What a load of old bananas.
It would seem the Stupid Party really has elected a leader with absolutely no ideology whatsoever, other than the ideology of becoming the caretaker king and temporary owner of the keys of Camelot, to bleed us dry in yet another myriad ways.
I suppose it was always going to come to pass, but once 51% of the any morality-free population gets 51% of their income from the other 49%, it becomes absolutely impossible to do anything, under a democracy, than to cave in to all of their parasitical whims. Step forward, David Cameron, an obvious choice as the ambitious parasitical goat who can deliver. Step forward too the end of democracy as a serious ideology worth continuing with. Obviously, it’ll take another hundred years or so (or maybe less?) to founder completely, but the game for democracy is clearly up. Oh how wise those Greeks were to abandon it so soon after they first invented it.
Tearing up another chunk of Conservative policy that he helped to champion before the last election, he will say it is time for the Tories to stop attacking bureaucrats and civil servants, most of whom are dedicated to the "high ideal" of community service.
It’s like reading the ramblings of a man trapped alone with a hot bong and five pounds of Moroccan Black. Unfortunately, for my sins, I know (or at least used to know) a large number of civil servants. And every man jack of them was in it for themselves, their holiday rights, their pension rights, and retiring as early as possible due to stress. One high idealist turd I used to know, from the Inland Revenue, even managed to retire due to stress at the hilarious age of 41, on a full salary, until he properly retires at 60, on a full government pension, courtesy of J. Maturin Esquire and everyone else who does something useful. Laugh? If the man ever dies a horrible death due to mutilation and torture, I expect to be placed right at the front of the queue of suspects.
Although, I suppose, everyone who, ahem, 'works' for the Inland Revenue (in the same way that Frankie Four Fingers 'works' for the Mob), should really expect the same when the Agorist revolution comes.
"Anyone working in the public services could easily have heard a pretty negative message from my party: 'there's too many of you, you're lazy and you're inefficient'.
Correct. Yes. Excellent. That’s more like it. Well said, that man.
This is far from how I see things," he will say in a speech to a National Consumer Council summit.
Well then, David, you’re obviously an idiot.
In their desire to achieve value for money, Mr Cameron will argue that the Tories have too often portrayed public servants as "burdens on the state" rather than people dedicated to improving the lives of others.
He just hasn’t got it, has he? These people aren’t a burden on the state. These people are the state and it is the state that is a burden on the rest of us.
Targeting doctors, nurses, teachers, the police, members of the Armed Forces and other public servants fed up with Labour, he will add that in many areas the private sector has lessons to learn from the public sector.
What? In how to beg, cheat, lie, steal, and thieve? I must admit, I am a fan of the Godfather movies, and I have learned much from them. Such as how to murder my brother when my mother dies. But once again my vain residual hope that the Stupid Party has anything to offer other than yet more crass theft and duplicity, has simply evaporated.
Democracy really is a God that has failed.
It would seem the only difference between the Stupid Party and New Labour is one of managerial competence. They both propose the same statist plan of continuing to steal our properties and our liberties until there is nothing left but a socialist ants' nest, but now they're merely arguing about the colour of ant we will be.
Even if I was still stupid enough to be a democrat, I cannot see any point whatsoever in voting. The only real difference is that if you don't vote for one lizard, the other lizard will get in. Poor old Douglas Adams. I wonder if he ever thought it would come to this? I get the feeling that he did.
Wir lieben Der HoppeMeister.
David Cameron will today make a further decisive break with the Tory past by demanding that his party abandons its traditional hostility to public services and the "lazy assumption" that the private sector is always best.
The lazy assumption? How about an assumption borne out of theory, experience, and two hundred years of Conservative politics? If the public coercive sector was so good, we would all pay for it voluntarily rather than being forced to pay for it against our will, as at present. Has this never occurred to Mr Cameron? What a load of old bananas.
It would seem the Stupid Party really has elected a leader with absolutely no ideology whatsoever, other than the ideology of becoming the caretaker king and temporary owner of the keys of Camelot, to bleed us dry in yet another myriad ways.
I suppose it was always going to come to pass, but once 51% of the any morality-free population gets 51% of their income from the other 49%, it becomes absolutely impossible to do anything, under a democracy, than to cave in to all of their parasitical whims. Step forward, David Cameron, an obvious choice as the ambitious parasitical goat who can deliver. Step forward too the end of democracy as a serious ideology worth continuing with. Obviously, it’ll take another hundred years or so (or maybe less?) to founder completely, but the game for democracy is clearly up. Oh how wise those Greeks were to abandon it so soon after they first invented it.
Tearing up another chunk of Conservative policy that he helped to champion before the last election, he will say it is time for the Tories to stop attacking bureaucrats and civil servants, most of whom are dedicated to the "high ideal" of community service.
It’s like reading the ramblings of a man trapped alone with a hot bong and five pounds of Moroccan Black. Unfortunately, for my sins, I know (or at least used to know) a large number of civil servants. And every man jack of them was in it for themselves, their holiday rights, their pension rights, and retiring as early as possible due to stress. One high idealist turd I used to know, from the Inland Revenue, even managed to retire due to stress at the hilarious age of 41, on a full salary, until he properly retires at 60, on a full government pension, courtesy of J. Maturin Esquire and everyone else who does something useful. Laugh? If the man ever dies a horrible death due to mutilation and torture, I expect to be placed right at the front of the queue of suspects.
Although, I suppose, everyone who, ahem, 'works' for the Inland Revenue (in the same way that Frankie Four Fingers 'works' for the Mob), should really expect the same when the Agorist revolution comes.
"Anyone working in the public services could easily have heard a pretty negative message from my party: 'there's too many of you, you're lazy and you're inefficient'.
Correct. Yes. Excellent. That’s more like it. Well said, that man.
This is far from how I see things," he will say in a speech to a National Consumer Council summit.
Well then, David, you’re obviously an idiot.
In their desire to achieve value for money, Mr Cameron will argue that the Tories have too often portrayed public servants as "burdens on the state" rather than people dedicated to improving the lives of others.
He just hasn’t got it, has he? These people aren’t a burden on the state. These people are the state and it is the state that is a burden on the rest of us.
Targeting doctors, nurses, teachers, the police, members of the Armed Forces and other public servants fed up with Labour, he will add that in many areas the private sector has lessons to learn from the public sector.
What? In how to beg, cheat, lie, steal, and thieve? I must admit, I am a fan of the Godfather movies, and I have learned much from them. Such as how to murder my brother when my mother dies. But once again my vain residual hope that the Stupid Party has anything to offer other than yet more crass theft and duplicity, has simply evaporated.
Democracy really is a God that has failed.
It would seem the only difference between the Stupid Party and New Labour is one of managerial competence. They both propose the same statist plan of continuing to steal our properties and our liberties until there is nothing left but a socialist ants' nest, but now they're merely arguing about the colour of ant we will be.
Even if I was still stupid enough to be a democrat, I cannot see any point whatsoever in voting. The only real difference is that if you don't vote for one lizard, the other lizard will get in. Poor old Douglas Adams. I wonder if he ever thought it would come to this? I get the feeling that he did.
Wir lieben Der HoppeMeister.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
The Temptation of Power
A rather fine Daily Telegraph reader, with the intelligent sounding name of David Whelbourn, has passed the opinion, in reply to a comment I made to an Andrew Gimson commentariat piece, that I should be made Prime Minister! What sound judgement.
Alas, my first act as Prime Minister would be to sack myself for being an immoral coercive tax parasite. But it's the thought that counts. Thank you Mr Whelbourn.
Alas, my first act as Prime Minister would be to sack myself for being an immoral coercive tax parasite. But it's the thought that counts. Thank you Mr Whelbourn.
Heraldry Revisited
It seems every organisation needs a brand, so I thought I'd try my hand out at creating an AngloAustrian logo. Here's the beast, below:
We have the black flag of Anarchism and Agorism, the anglo-heraldic badge of England, and upon the black flag, emblazoned, the double-headed golden eagle of Austria with a superimposed shield of the Duchy of Austria. I've tried to follow the heraldic rules of not juxtaposing metals ('argent' and 'or') against each other, or colours ('sable' and 'gules'), and I quite like what has emerged. Well, it'll do for the moment, anyway.
We have the black flag of Anarchism and Agorism, the anglo-heraldic badge of England, and upon the black flag, emblazoned, the double-headed golden eagle of Austria with a superimposed shield of the Duchy of Austria. I've tried to follow the heraldic rules of not juxtaposing metals ('argent' and 'or') against each other, or colours ('sable' and 'gules'), and I quite like what has emerged. Well, it'll do for the moment, anyway.
The All-Seeing Eyes of AngloAustria
Apparently, Tony Blair is looking a new job at the UN. Well, any AngloAustrian readers would have known that a week ago, but obviously not enough world rulers twigged his speech, so our Lord and Master has found it necessary to get his flunkies to repeat the message more directly.
In case the deadbeats in the world's ruling classes don't get it again, here's a no-holds-barred AngloAustrian translation of Tony Blair's speech:
PS> Here's another AngloAustrian prediction. Kofi Annan leaves office on the 31st of December, 2006. Tony Blair will therefore resign as Prime Minister of the UK at a short period before this, to leave Downing Street one day, and pop up as UN Secretary General after a quick tour of the world to pick up enough votes to do it. At least, that will be the plan in Blair's mind. Personally, I don't think he'll make it, as it's Asia's turn for the secretaryship (or Australasia), plus international personalities, for want of a better phrase, such as Bill Clinton et al, are usually hated by enough people to be blocked, so non-entities usually get the job. But because he has God and Cliff Richard on his side, never ever underestimate Tony Blair's capacity to get himself in where he's not wanted. I don't know what tricks he will play, but I'm guessing that the big one will be to bring the US back on-side, by getting them to agree to pay the fees and play the rules of the UN club. If he does make it, the World Government we all dread will almost certainly come one step closer, along with the increasing death and chaos, and progressive pre-emption, that this will entail. Watch this space.
In case the deadbeats in the world's ruling classes don't get it again, here's a no-holds-barred AngloAustrian translation of Tony Blair's speech:Please kick out that fool Kofi Annan and make me boss man instead. If you help me get what I want, the deal is I will get your feckless country onto the Security Council or the G8, or whatever international pelf-making body you prefer. Once I'm World Controller, help me ramp up my powers to go invading anywhere I damn well fancy, to help out my neocon mates in Washington, and who knows what pelf I'll be able to send your way. And my CV? Well, I've killed more innocent civilians in the last ten years than anyone except old Georgie boy, I've broken more UN resolutions and international laws than even Joseph Stalin managed to do, and I know where all the bodies are buried. You know it makes sense. If you don't, I'll send the boys round. Know what I mean?Pure class.
PS> Here's another AngloAustrian prediction. Kofi Annan leaves office on the 31st of December, 2006. Tony Blair will therefore resign as Prime Minister of the UK at a short period before this, to leave Downing Street one day, and pop up as UN Secretary General after a quick tour of the world to pick up enough votes to do it. At least, that will be the plan in Blair's mind. Personally, I don't think he'll make it, as it's Asia's turn for the secretaryship (or Australasia), plus international personalities, for want of a better phrase, such as Bill Clinton et al, are usually hated by enough people to be blocked, so non-entities usually get the job. But because he has God and Cliff Richard on his side, never ever underestimate Tony Blair's capacity to get himself in where he's not wanted. I don't know what tricks he will play, but I'm guessing that the big one will be to bring the US back on-side, by getting them to agree to pay the fees and play the rules of the UN club. If he does make it, the World Government we all dread will almost certainly come one step closer, along with the increasing death and chaos, and progressive pre-emption, that this will entail. Watch this space.
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Apes of a Cold God
Well, if I am to become a fully-fledged SEK3 Agorist, I had better start writing some libertarian fiction. Here's the first chapter of the bare bones of an idea. If you think it's worth me pursuing it as a novel and trying to get it published somewhere, please let me know and I'll see what I can do:
The Apes of a Cold God
Book I
Chapter 1:
And we, we Apes of a Cold God, still cherish,
With frenzied pain upon our loving breast,
The viper so voluptuously warm,
That it as Universal Form rears up,
A curse shall finish what a curse conceived
17:8, The Book of Stars, The Bible of Social Justice
The Apes of a Cold God
Book I
Chapter 1:
And we, we Apes of a Cold God, still cherish,
With frenzied pain upon our loving breast,
The viper so voluptuously warm,
That it as Universal Form rears up,
A curse shall finish what a curse conceived
17:8, The Book of Stars, The Bible of Social Justice
Pope Jean-Paul Stalin bent his stiff neck down from looking up at the stars, and faced James Wilde. It was below freezing on the northern heath overlooking Karl Marx City, and Wilde was unsure whether the ancient holy man's lips were trembling from cold, old age, or nervousness. Stalin's cloudy breath began to rise in a silver moonlit glow.
'It's impossible James. I can see no alternative.'
'But millions will die.' Stalin paused for a second, and rubbed the back of his shaven head. Throwing the briefest of glances upward again, he shrugged his narrow shoulders.
'It's for the greater good.' With nothing more to be said, James bent and kissed the emerald ring on the Pope's proffered left hand. Stalin then scurried back towards the beckoning warmth of his nearby horse carriage, his black velvet cloak rustling over the dark clumps of rain-soaked grass. Once the carriage's door thumped shut, a pair of black Holstein horses started pulling the mahogany coach out from its muddy ruts, as their driver shook bell-studded reins.
The large iron wheels rumbled back down the track towards the People's Palace, where the twenty-year-old Empress awaited her orders. James wished she could live longer. But it was only one more year before the cardinals would flay her alive on Eurania's Salisbury Plain, just like all the others. Her necessary sacrifice would also be for the greater good.
Archbishop James Wilde lit a cigarette with a small golden lighter monogrammed with a tiny imperial eagle. Virginian peasant girls had rolled this cigarette on their tanned thighs from a special blend of his own devising; Moroccan cannabis to deaden the senses and Turkish tobacco to sharpen the mind. He looked up again at the tiny star Atlas, as it sparkled on the left side of the distant Pleiades star cluster; this stellar group swam just above, and to the right, of Taurus the Bull. Around Atlas swung the enemy planet.
At least fifty million misguided souls lived there, and Wilde was charged with killing them all. It was his duty. But after five minutes, in the gloom, he'd failed to convince himself it was his honour. The bright star twinkled as a sigh of wind brushed over Wilde's upturned eyelashes. Did this little pinprick star know what he was planning? Was it daring him to try?
Over the next hour, as it lifted up from the eastern horizon, a near-full Moon draped the Pleiades in a growing milky glow. Wilde took comfort from this. Imperial engineers had long ago emblazoned the Empire's black eagle, in scattered carbon powder, for thousands of miles across the Moon's surface. This lunar bird of prey dominated the sky; its wings spread from Mare Tranquillitatis to Oceanus Procellarum, its curved talons sliced the craters of Schickard and Janssen, and its beaked head razored the lunar sea of Mare Imbrium.
Wilde took a long last drag on a last long cigarette, crossed himself, and then flicked away the plain white stub into the wet grass. Before the cigarette's bright orange life had fizzled to a close, he'd turned his back and was marching down back into Karl Marx City, shoulders hunched, and mind focussed. As the Empire's crack general, of its crack legion, James Wilde had decided to remain unafraid of imaginary bad omens. He had a job to do.
Though she'd long forgotten her original name, Empress Rosa IX had trampled the grass as a five-year-old girl among the millions of Earth worshippers at the last sacrifice, when Empress Germaine XII had soaked the turf of Stonehenge with her own fresh blood; a peach sun had just risen, on the summer solstice of Germaine's twenty-first year.
In her last act of renewing the Empire's fertility, the skinless, sliced, and dying Empress had thrust out a left arm out towards the temple's northern Heel Stone. Pope Stalin, in a purple toga, had waited for that moment before breaking open her ribs with a golden hammer and a golden sickle; he'd then gouged out the imperial heart. Rosa could still hear the screams.
As the last clottings of blood splashed over the ancient stone altar, and the quivering muscle heartbeats faded in Stalin's wet raised hand, a line of shaven-headed and saffron-robed cardinals had snaked past the Heel Stone.
They'd crossed towards the Salisbury Plain Cursus, while acolytes strummed gilded harps, and others slapped goat-skin tambourines. The crowd parted in a frenzied wave at the cardinals' progress; it was the God-given task of these imperial elders to find a new empress.
And from the thousands of young girls pressed towards them, by thousands of feverish, naked, and wine intoxicated child guardians, they had selected Rosa for her sharp black eyes, flawless pale skin, and waist length ebony hair. Clothing her in Germaine's last blood-spattered ermine cloak, they'd strewn Rosa's path with pink rose petals and prompted her to begin the pilgrimage towards Avebury, the giant ring of Earth stones which lay across the plain towards the north-west. Once there, they enthroned her upon the Devil's triple-stone altar, at sunset, inside the centre of the temple. Since that day her duty had been to live and then to die for the Empire.
End of Chapter 1
The real question is, of course, would you pay in hard gold cash to read more? Please let me know.
Self Discovery is a Terrible Thing
Oh my God. I've just discovered that I'm a SEK3 Agorist. What the heck is a SEK3 Agorist? I'm not entirely sure yet, but I do think I am one. This will take some more investigation.
Dammit! I had thought I was developing into a LeFevrian proto-Rothbardian Raicoian, with added Hoppeian tendencies plus a smattering of Kinsella-ism. But no, it turns out all along I was mutating into a fully-formed SEK3 Agorist.
Libertarianism can get really tricky, sometimes.
Dammit! I had thought I was developing into a LeFevrian proto-Rothbardian Raicoian, with added Hoppeian tendencies plus a smattering of Kinsella-ism. But no, it turns out all along I was mutating into a fully-formed SEK3 Agorist.Libertarianism can get really tricky, sometimes.
How to Become an Insurgent
With his insatiable need to drop cluster bombs on innocent people, Tony Blair has often been accused of being a military adventurer, particularly by yours truly. However, even from a purely military point of view his constant aggressive wars since he came to power have made Britain less safe defensively. Yes, the SAS are particularly well-honed, having been on active duty constantly since this blood-thirsty murderer came to power, but you can't defend the whole of Britain from a sustained attack with a single special forces unit, no matter how well-trained or motivated. What you need, when the EU Wehrmacht eventually invades, are muck-and-bullets infantry slugging it out in the hills.
But would you join the infantry? Now? After basic training you'll be straight onto a plane to Iraq, given shoddy personal armour, and then constantly shot at and bombed by an inflicted population who hate you. What puzzles me, of course, is why we call them insurgents. We are the insurgents, and it is their land we have insurged. And then when your coffin gets shipped back home, a junior government minister, who would rather be engaged in Ugandan discussions with his secretary, will drape a Union Jack over you at Northolt. What fun!
It may be one thing to serve the Queen and defend your own land from socialist invasion; many young men in Britain are quite prepared to do that. But to defend a hare-brained Washington-hatched plot to take over the world and make it safer for neoconservative social democracy? Please, as the Americans say, give me a break.
Hence the ramped-up advertising campaigns here in Britain to get young men to volunteer to be killed to sustain Tony Blair's career to get rich in America. Every time I turn round I get hit by another army advert, but now I know they're getting desperate because they're starting to fill these adverts with pictures of beaches in Cyprus and scantily-clad female soldiers on close-contact recreational duty. Oh dear.
The army spent £25 million pounds of your money on recruitment advertising last year, and this year will spend much more to try to fill up the increasing shortfalls. My advice? If you do want to serve the Queen and defend these shores, join the Navy or the RAF instead. They don't need to advertise and they don't get shot at by invaded people defending themselves from foreign insurgents calling themselves the British Army.
But would you join the infantry? Now? After basic training you'll be straight onto a plane to Iraq, given shoddy personal armour, and then constantly shot at and bombed by an inflicted population who hate you. What puzzles me, of course, is why we call them insurgents. We are the insurgents, and it is their land we have insurged. And then when your coffin gets shipped back home, a junior government minister, who would rather be engaged in Ugandan discussions with his secretary, will drape a Union Jack over you at Northolt. What fun!It may be one thing to serve the Queen and defend your own land from socialist invasion; many young men in Britain are quite prepared to do that. But to defend a hare-brained Washington-hatched plot to take over the world and make it safer for neoconservative social democracy? Please, as the Americans say, give me a break.
Hence the ramped-up advertising campaigns here in Britain to get young men to volunteer to be killed to sustain Tony Blair's career to get rich in America. Every time I turn round I get hit by another army advert, but now I know they're getting desperate because they're starting to fill these adverts with pictures of beaches in Cyprus and scantily-clad female soldiers on close-contact recreational duty. Oh dear.
The army spent £25 million pounds of your money on recruitment advertising last year, and this year will spend much more to try to fill up the increasing shortfalls. My advice? If you do want to serve the Queen and defend these shores, join the Navy or the RAF instead. They don't need to advertise and they don't get shot at by invaded people defending themselves from foreign insurgents calling themselves the British Army.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
A Warm Dollop of Socialist Heaven
In case you missed it, there's a great article over at Mises.org on socialism in Sweden, which has attracted at least one particularly highly intelligent and civil comment, on the related blog page.
It's always good to see pieces on the European experience, on the Mises.org site. It may be me, but there do seem to be more such articles, these days, than there were a year or two ago, so top work Jeffrey Tucker!
BTW, Jeffrey, if you're reading this, if ever you need anything on the English experience of socialism, I know at least one source where I could get hold of something for you? Have you ever heard of Gordon Brown? He's going to be the next British Prime Minister in the next twelve months or so, and if you ever need anything on this particular closet Marxist, I'm sure my source will be able to knock something out for you.
It's always good to see pieces on the European experience, on the Mises.org site. It may be me, but there do seem to be more such articles, these days, than there were a year or two ago, so top work Jeffrey Tucker!BTW, Jeffrey, if you're reading this, if ever you need anything on the English experience of socialism, I know at least one source where I could get hold of something for you? Have you ever heard of Gordon Brown? He's going to be the next British Prime Minister in the next twelve months or so, and if you ever need anything on this particular closet Marxist, I'm sure my source will be able to knock something out for you.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
My Dad The Corpse Is A Welfare Bum
This morning, I discovered a great new way for Labour voters to get money off other people. For one of your elderly relatives, you arrange to collect all of their government benefits , that is, the wealth stolen from other people like me and then handed over to you if you promise to keep voting Labour, minus 15% off the top, which the bureaucrats keep for their transaction expenses in arranging this theft.
You then wait for said relative to die, but you forget to stop collecting the benefits. Apparently 3,000 elderly relatives have been receiving pelf like this, while in the unfortunate state of being dead. So if we multiply in Milton Friedman's government inefficiency factor of around three, that takes us to about 12,000. Personally, I prefer Jack Maturin's more accurate government inefficiency factor of about 10, which usually proves a more realistic measure for how corrupt and useless governments become in any situation, given a head start and a fair wind.
This means that in the glorious sceptred isle of God's own country, the United Kingdom, there are now 33,000 corpses wandering about claiming UK government handouts. Whoever even thought that the land of King Arther wasn't still literally alive with magic? The welfare state is not only good for us tax slaves while shuffling about on this mortal coil, apparently it keeps us going well into the afterlife too! Those ancient Egypticans were obviously wasting their gold building pyramids. They should've been building welfare states, instead. Marvellous.
You then wait for said relative to die, but you forget to stop collecting the benefits. Apparently 3,000 elderly relatives have been receiving pelf like this, while in the unfortunate state of being dead. So if we multiply in Milton Friedman's government inefficiency factor of around three, that takes us to about 12,000. Personally, I prefer Jack Maturin's more accurate government inefficiency factor of about 10, which usually proves a more realistic measure for how corrupt and useless governments become in any situation, given a head start and a fair wind.This means that in the glorious sceptred isle of God's own country, the United Kingdom, there are now 33,000 corpses wandering about claiming UK government handouts. Whoever even thought that the land of King Arther wasn't still literally alive with magic? The welfare state is not only good for us tax slaves while shuffling about on this mortal coil, apparently it keeps us going well into the afterlife too! Those ancient Egypticans were obviously wasting their gold building pyramids. They should've been building welfare states, instead. Marvellous.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Save a Horse - Ride a Cowboy
I was being driven up from a night-time visit to the Iwo Jima memorial south of the Potomac, in Arlington Virginia, back to a hotel near the concrete people-mover horror of Dulles airport, when my driver asked me what I thought of country music. 'Isn't it some kind of Appalachian Mountain amalgam of Ulster Irish and English West Country folk music supported by a blend of African rhythym unwittingly brought up the Mississippi by slavers from New Orleans?'
'Have you heard of Dolly Parton?' he asked, ignoring my attempt at historical revisionism. Before I could answer he plugged his MP3 player into the car's dashboard and said, 'This ain't Dolly Parton.'
He then proceeded to play an album by Big & Rich, the starring track of which was 'Save a Horse - Ride a Cowboy'. After plugging Orson below, I thought I better try to restore some kind of North Atlantic balance.
If you ever get the chance, I heartily recommend 'Big & Rich', which is sort of like Stiff Little Fingers meets Crash Test Dummies meets the Banjo player from Deliverance.
If you ever get the chance, do have a listen. It really ain't Dolly Parton.
'Have you heard of Dolly Parton?' he asked, ignoring my attempt at historical revisionism. Before I could answer he plugged his MP3 player into the car's dashboard and said, 'This ain't Dolly Parton.'
He then proceeded to play an album by Big & Rich, the starring track of which was 'Save a Horse - Ride a Cowboy'. After plugging Orson below, I thought I better try to restore some kind of North Atlantic balance.
If you ever get the chance, I heartily recommend 'Big & Rich', which is sort of like Stiff Little Fingers meets Crash Test Dummies meets the Banjo player from Deliverance.
If you ever get the chance, do have a listen. It really ain't Dolly Parton.
Bring Our Boys Home - Now
Two more poor bloody squaddies dead, and still Blair remains in office. That's 113 British soldiers dead now, all sacrificed on the altar of Tony Blair's evil ambition. How many more must die before this revolting man is removed from political office? As a former squaddie myself, who signed up because he believed one day he would get blown up in West Germany trying to stop an east european socialist onslaught, I want every single British serviceman and servicewoman to be given orders to leave the horror of Iraq before the end of the week. It is one thing to sign up and die defending your country from socialist invaders. But to die in a remote unwelcoming land on the basis of deliberate spin and lies to further the monetary greed of a vainglorious politician, who needs a U.S. post-prime ministerial lecture circuit to prop up his parasitic lifestyle and pay for the mortgage payments on his £3 million pound home, disgusts me beyond mere typewritten words.
As your last act on leaving office, tomorrow Tony, sign the order bringing our troops home. Do it now before another 100 die. Do it now before another one dies. And then in the name of God, get on that jet plane to the United States and never come back.
As your last act on leaving office, tomorrow Tony, sign the order bringing our troops home. Do it now before another 100 die. Do it now before another one dies. And then in the name of God, get on that jet plane to the United States and never come back.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Orson - No Tomorrow
Okay, so I'm about seventy five billion nano-years behind the the times, but what a great track, from the American band who came to Britain to gain an audience! :-)
I nearly spontaneously danced down to the Ceroc dance classes we have here in Henley on a Wednesday evening, to meet a lively divorcee or three.
I hope Orson's new album, Bright Idea, due out next week, lives up to their promise contained in this single.
Yes folks, I am a Rock God, and I have my finger on the, errr..., pulse of modern Britain.
I nearly spontaneously danced down to the Ceroc dance classes we have here in Henley on a Wednesday evening, to meet a lively divorcee or three.
I hope Orson's new album, Bright Idea, due out next week, lives up to their promise contained in this single.
Yes folks, I am a Rock God, and I have my finger on the, errr..., pulse of modern Britain.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Gissa Job: Blair Makes His Pitch As World Controller
Although it makes no difference to me whether the pink lizard of Tony Blair rules Britannia, or the red and blue lizards embodied in Gordon Brown and David Cameron, it is amusing to watch their reptilian struggles for supremacy. And the boy Blair? He knows the game is up. In the Third Way of life, he is now the Third Man; hence, his pitch for a post-prime ministerial job, which you can read about here. I must say, to be so public in his pleas for tax-fed dollars, once he's turfed out of Downing Street, is a little demeaning for this self-styled Colossus, but what is a Doctor of Death to do, once the game is up? Swallowing his pride is the least of his worries. My only real surprise is that he didn't break spontaneously into the lyrics for My Way, at the end of his speech.
Just for fun, though, let's examine his Yosser Hughes style pitch, to see whether he'll get the position he deserves, however this time lifting wealth out of the pockets of the entire world, not just those of us unlucky enough to have him thieving off us in Britain:
Tony Blair last night challenged the world to unite around a policy of "progressive pre-emption" as he sought to shore up his legacy by linking the invasion of Iraq to a range of problems, from global warming and poverty to immigration.
Progressive pre-emption? I think a certain Austrian gentleman with a moustache couldn't have put a better argument for the needs for a World Reich, with supreme power granted to a single man representing the will of the world's Volk.
It's also heartening to see that he's falling back to the usual socialist excuse that because joined-up socialist government has failed in Britain, this is because it needs the whole world to be joined-up in a vast socialist enterprise to really work.
In a speech in Washington just hours after he and President George W Bush made strikingly frank admissions of mistakes in their handling of Iraq, the Prime Minister called for the world to help the new government in Baghdad. On his visit to Iraq on Monday he had seen a "child of democracy struggling to be born".
Ye Gods, what a sickening analogy. What we are witnessing, of course, is a massive civil war being born, with the two midwives of Britain and the United States looking on in horror as three nations emerges from the ruins of one imposed upon them by the French and British colonial powers in the early part of the twentieth century. Once the Kurds have their own country, we'll then witness a Kurdish-Turkish war, and once the Sunnis and the Shias have their own countries, the Shias will amalgamate with Iran, and then we'll have a real Middle-East war to die for, between the Persians on one hand and the Arabs on the other. No doubt the Israelites will find themselves embroiled to create a real imbroglio for War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. Oh what joy. Well done George and Tony.
He also called for radical reform of the United Nations and its sister bodies, the IMF and the World Bank, arguing they were out-of-date and incapable of confronting the financial and security threats facing the world.
I would have just said incapable. And left it at that. No doubt though, Tony has someone in mind to lead this reform. I wonder who this could be?
"Occasionally I look at our international institutions and think as I do about our welfare state: the structures of 1946 trying to meet the challenges of 2006," he said.
So why the haven't you done anything about it in the last nine years, such as abolishing the whole rotten edifice and freeing us from the welfare state's chains of poverty, dependency, and despair? Honestly, Tony. Why are you intelligent enough to see that the Welfare State is a crock, but too cowardly to do anything about it, except make it even more intrusive and even more insatiable for taxation theft? You're even stupider than I thought you were.
Mr Blair was clearly trying to move the domestic and international debate on from the rifts over Iraq to how to tackle future crises.
Yes, and when I was a small boy, if I knocked a plant pot over, spilling wet soil all over a white shagpile carpet, I was always keen to move the debate on too, perhaps to what was for lunch?
But the setbacks in Iraq inevitably overshadowed his visit to Washington, which may be his last as prime minister.
Well, we can but hope.
In a joint press conference at the White House on Thursday night, both leaders briefly dropped their usual staunch defence of the Iraq policy and expressed contrition for some past utterances and actions.
I wonder if this has anything to do with both men taking a kicking in appovals polls? They'd do better to follow Queen Victoria's advice, which helped her remain in political office for over sixty years: Never complain and never explain. (She'd probably still be Queen now, if she could've lived that long.)
Mr Bush said he regretted his "tough talk" conceding that his "bring it on" dare to the insurgents in the summer of 2003 and his "wanted dead or alive" taunt to Osama bin Laden in late 2001 had sent the "wrong signal to people".
It certainly sent the wrong signal to the London Tube murderers, of last year. But I digress.
Mr Blair conceded that they had underestimated some challenges. In an implicit dig at the Pentagon he criticised the decision to bar members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party from the Iraqi government after the fall of Baghdad.
So you spend untold billions on removing the Ba'ath lizards from power, only to reinstitute the same lizards afterwards? Was the whole thing really then just a bid by Blair and Bush to change the tutelage of the socialist tyrants of Iraq, from Saddam Hussein to themselves? So what was all that cant about freeing the Iraqi people from the Ba'ath party? I give up.
The most concrete proposals in his speech at Georgetown University yesterday concerned the UN. He called for more powers for the UN secretary general, and increasing the number of permanent members of the security council.
Here, we get to the meat inside the sandwich of his speech. I wonder who Blair thinks would make a good UN secretary general? Perhaps someone with prime ministerial experience, able to converse with presidents, used to jetting around the world's trouble spots, as an angel of mercy dispensing aid, hope, and justice? Hmmmm...it's a tough one.
In psychology, there's an effect studied in baboons where one baboon who wants to be the group leader will flag with his eyes to potential supporters, behind the back of the current King baboon. The aspirant baboon then tackles the current King, with the aid of these supporters, who on his victory then take up the newly vacant privileged positions in the group, as his lieutenants. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Tony Blair really is a baboon. You read it here first.
A council with no fixed seats for India, Germany, Japan and no representatives from Latin America and Africa was no longer "legitimate in the modern world" and must be changed, he said. "The danger of leaving things as they are, is ad hoc coalitions for action that stir massive controversy about legitimacy; or paralysis in the face of crisis." The G8 summits of industrialised nations should now also include China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.
In a free world, of course, there'll be no need for power blocs, as each and every one of us will be trading with billions of other people, as individuals. But if you do subscribe to the power bloc view of the world, what is the point of including everyone? That's like having a football team with 22 players and no opposition.
Tony Blair really is quite incredible. In one sentence he criticizes the UN for being too unwieldy and prone to paralysis. And in the next, he institutes a plan to make the G8 group more unwieldy and prone to paralysis. Quite simply incredible.
He said his vision was shaped by two crises early in his premiership - the war in Kosovo and the 1997 collapse of the Asian markets. "What these two crises taught me was that the rule book of international politics has been torn up," he said.
Well, in the first, it was Blair who tore up the rule book. In the second, this was just economic reality tearing a chunk out of the Keynesian idiots of Wall Street and the City of London, and their Galbraithian friends in government, who thought the laws of economics had changed to provide for unlimited growth forever. To mix these two entirely separate issues, of Kosovo and inflationary bubbles, however, is a stroke of genius by Mr Blair. Confuse, obfuscate, divide, and rule, has been the succesful ruling stratagem of all bandit tyrant classess since time began.
He may be an evil, dangerous, selfish and debauched man, but Tony Blair is really good at it.
Challenges such as global warming and mass migration "can only be tackled together. And they require a pre-emptive not simply reactive response".
Remove welfare states, and privatise all government property, and the migration problems between states, simply disappears. All you'll have then are people moving around the world to help make their lives better, usually by helping the lives of other people, by providing them with remunerated products and services. That's that problem solved.
And global warming is a chimera invented to provide politicians and their state clients, such as environmental lecturers in state-sponsored universities, to legitimise their control over the rest of us proles. Even if global warming does exist, which I doubt, the climate on Earth has always changed, and always will change, and so we should just get on with it and deal with whatever is thrown at us by nature, as it arises. So that's that problem solved.
What on Earth do we need politicians for? We just need a really good healthy dose of anarcho-capitalism. And it only really needs to be in one tiny part of the world, let's say the state of Alabama, or even just the tinier city of Auburn. If successful, the domino effect of the totally voluntary society could then cascade around the world, if left unchecked.
No doubt if Auburn or Alabama did manage to secede bloodlessly from the United States, Mr Blair would quickly send his UN troops in to make them sign up to his Global Warming, Human Rights, Drugs War, and Welfare State protocols, thus negating the whole experiment. But we can only live in hope that one day the shoot of anarcho-capitalism does manage to break through the morass of western government, at least in one part of the western world.
Mr Blair will face scepticism, in particular over UN reform which is bogged down. He stressed, however, that in nine years as prime minister he had become convinced that the traditional distinction between foreign policies driven by values and interests was wrong.
The only interests Tony Blair is concerned about are the interests of Tony Blair. And that dreadful West Wing puppet-controlling harpie he lives with.
Since the September 11 attacks "the greatest danger is that global politics divides into "hard" and "soft", he said. The idea that the "hard" get after the terrorists, the "soft" campaign against poverty" is dangerous and misleading. "We have to be prepared to think sooner and act quicker in defence of (those) values - progressive pre-emption, if you will."
It's official. Tony Blair is a fascist. And if you don't like it, once he's secured his aspired-for job as World Controller, be prepared to be on the end of some progressive pre-emption. You have been warned.
Just for fun, though, let's examine his Yosser Hughes style pitch, to see whether he'll get the position he deserves, however this time lifting wealth out of the pockets of the entire world, not just those of us unlucky enough to have him thieving off us in Britain:Tony Blair last night challenged the world to unite around a policy of "progressive pre-emption" as he sought to shore up his legacy by linking the invasion of Iraq to a range of problems, from global warming and poverty to immigration.
Progressive pre-emption? I think a certain Austrian gentleman with a moustache couldn't have put a better argument for the needs for a World Reich, with supreme power granted to a single man representing the will of the world's Volk.
It's also heartening to see that he's falling back to the usual socialist excuse that because joined-up socialist government has failed in Britain, this is because it needs the whole world to be joined-up in a vast socialist enterprise to really work.
In a speech in Washington just hours after he and President George W Bush made strikingly frank admissions of mistakes in their handling of Iraq, the Prime Minister called for the world to help the new government in Baghdad. On his visit to Iraq on Monday he had seen a "child of democracy struggling to be born".
Ye Gods, what a sickening analogy. What we are witnessing, of course, is a massive civil war being born, with the two midwives of Britain and the United States looking on in horror as three nations emerges from the ruins of one imposed upon them by the French and British colonial powers in the early part of the twentieth century. Once the Kurds have their own country, we'll then witness a Kurdish-Turkish war, and once the Sunnis and the Shias have their own countries, the Shias will amalgamate with Iran, and then we'll have a real Middle-East war to die for, between the Persians on one hand and the Arabs on the other. No doubt the Israelites will find themselves embroiled to create a real imbroglio for War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. Oh what joy. Well done George and Tony.
He also called for radical reform of the United Nations and its sister bodies, the IMF and the World Bank, arguing they were out-of-date and incapable of confronting the financial and security threats facing the world.
I would have just said incapable. And left it at that. No doubt though, Tony has someone in mind to lead this reform. I wonder who this could be?
"Occasionally I look at our international institutions and think as I do about our welfare state: the structures of 1946 trying to meet the challenges of 2006," he said.
So why the haven't you done anything about it in the last nine years, such as abolishing the whole rotten edifice and freeing us from the welfare state's chains of poverty, dependency, and despair? Honestly, Tony. Why are you intelligent enough to see that the Welfare State is a crock, but too cowardly to do anything about it, except make it even more intrusive and even more insatiable for taxation theft? You're even stupider than I thought you were.
Mr Blair was clearly trying to move the domestic and international debate on from the rifts over Iraq to how to tackle future crises.
Yes, and when I was a small boy, if I knocked a plant pot over, spilling wet soil all over a white shagpile carpet, I was always keen to move the debate on too, perhaps to what was for lunch?
But the setbacks in Iraq inevitably overshadowed his visit to Washington, which may be his last as prime minister.
Well, we can but hope.
In a joint press conference at the White House on Thursday night, both leaders briefly dropped their usual staunch defence of the Iraq policy and expressed contrition for some past utterances and actions.
I wonder if this has anything to do with both men taking a kicking in appovals polls? They'd do better to follow Queen Victoria's advice, which helped her remain in political office for over sixty years: Never complain and never explain. (She'd probably still be Queen now, if she could've lived that long.)
Mr Bush said he regretted his "tough talk" conceding that his "bring it on" dare to the insurgents in the summer of 2003 and his "wanted dead or alive" taunt to Osama bin Laden in late 2001 had sent the "wrong signal to people".
It certainly sent the wrong signal to the London Tube murderers, of last year. But I digress.
Mr Blair conceded that they had underestimated some challenges. In an implicit dig at the Pentagon he criticised the decision to bar members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party from the Iraqi government after the fall of Baghdad.
So you spend untold billions on removing the Ba'ath lizards from power, only to reinstitute the same lizards afterwards? Was the whole thing really then just a bid by Blair and Bush to change the tutelage of the socialist tyrants of Iraq, from Saddam Hussein to themselves? So what was all that cant about freeing the Iraqi people from the Ba'ath party? I give up.
The most concrete proposals in his speech at Georgetown University yesterday concerned the UN. He called for more powers for the UN secretary general, and increasing the number of permanent members of the security council.
Here, we get to the meat inside the sandwich of his speech. I wonder who Blair thinks would make a good UN secretary general? Perhaps someone with prime ministerial experience, able to converse with presidents, used to jetting around the world's trouble spots, as an angel of mercy dispensing aid, hope, and justice? Hmmmm...it's a tough one.
In psychology, there's an effect studied in baboons where one baboon who wants to be the group leader will flag with his eyes to potential supporters, behind the back of the current King baboon. The aspirant baboon then tackles the current King, with the aid of these supporters, who on his victory then take up the newly vacant privileged positions in the group, as his lieutenants. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Tony Blair really is a baboon. You read it here first.
A council with no fixed seats for India, Germany, Japan and no representatives from Latin America and Africa was no longer "legitimate in the modern world" and must be changed, he said. "The danger of leaving things as they are, is ad hoc coalitions for action that stir massive controversy about legitimacy; or paralysis in the face of crisis." The G8 summits of industrialised nations should now also include China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.
In a free world, of course, there'll be no need for power blocs, as each and every one of us will be trading with billions of other people, as individuals. But if you do subscribe to the power bloc view of the world, what is the point of including everyone? That's like having a football team with 22 players and no opposition.
Tony Blair really is quite incredible. In one sentence he criticizes the UN for being too unwieldy and prone to paralysis. And in the next, he institutes a plan to make the G8 group more unwieldy and prone to paralysis. Quite simply incredible.
He said his vision was shaped by two crises early in his premiership - the war in Kosovo and the 1997 collapse of the Asian markets. "What these two crises taught me was that the rule book of international politics has been torn up," he said.
Well, in the first, it was Blair who tore up the rule book. In the second, this was just economic reality tearing a chunk out of the Keynesian idiots of Wall Street and the City of London, and their Galbraithian friends in government, who thought the laws of economics had changed to provide for unlimited growth forever. To mix these two entirely separate issues, of Kosovo and inflationary bubbles, however, is a stroke of genius by Mr Blair. Confuse, obfuscate, divide, and rule, has been the succesful ruling stratagem of all bandit tyrant classess since time began.
He may be an evil, dangerous, selfish and debauched man, but Tony Blair is really good at it.
Challenges such as global warming and mass migration "can only be tackled together. And they require a pre-emptive not simply reactive response".
Remove welfare states, and privatise all government property, and the migration problems between states, simply disappears. All you'll have then are people moving around the world to help make their lives better, usually by helping the lives of other people, by providing them with remunerated products and services. That's that problem solved.
And global warming is a chimera invented to provide politicians and their state clients, such as environmental lecturers in state-sponsored universities, to legitimise their control over the rest of us proles. Even if global warming does exist, which I doubt, the climate on Earth has always changed, and always will change, and so we should just get on with it and deal with whatever is thrown at us by nature, as it arises. So that's that problem solved.
What on Earth do we need politicians for? We just need a really good healthy dose of anarcho-capitalism. And it only really needs to be in one tiny part of the world, let's say the state of Alabama, or even just the tinier city of Auburn. If successful, the domino effect of the totally voluntary society could then cascade around the world, if left unchecked.
No doubt if Auburn or Alabama did manage to secede bloodlessly from the United States, Mr Blair would quickly send his UN troops in to make them sign up to his Global Warming, Human Rights, Drugs War, and Welfare State protocols, thus negating the whole experiment. But we can only live in hope that one day the shoot of anarcho-capitalism does manage to break through the morass of western government, at least in one part of the western world.
Mr Blair will face scepticism, in particular over UN reform which is bogged down. He stressed, however, that in nine years as prime minister he had become convinced that the traditional distinction between foreign policies driven by values and interests was wrong.
The only interests Tony Blair is concerned about are the interests of Tony Blair. And that dreadful West Wing puppet-controlling harpie he lives with.
Since the September 11 attacks "the greatest danger is that global politics divides into "hard" and "soft", he said. The idea that the "hard" get after the terrorists, the "soft" campaign against poverty" is dangerous and misleading. "We have to be prepared to think sooner and act quicker in defence of (those) values - progressive pre-emption, if you will."
It's official. Tony Blair is a fascist. And if you don't like it, once he's secured his aspired-for job as World Controller, be prepared to be on the end of some progressive pre-emption. You have been warned.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Pray, Dream, Wonder, Wish, and Hope
I had a dream last night. About Wayne Rooney's foot. In this dream, in the last minute of extra time against Brazil, in the forthcoming World Cup Final, Wayne Rooney comes on as the last England substitute, his first appearance in the tournament. He staggers on, shambles over for a Beckham corner, then hackles the ball over the goal line before once again collapsing in agony as he injures his foot again.
But what the heck, because he's just won the World Cup!
I wonder what the doctors will say today? The dreams of an entire nation are emotionally attached to the backlit film of an MRI scan.
AngloAustria prediction: If his foot is good, the Labour Party might win the next General Election. If his foot is bad, Labour are finished. The fate of a nation therefore depends upon the osteoclast and osteoblast cells of a Scouse exponent of the art of lumping pig's bladders around grassy meadows. You couldn't make it up.
But being a tribal Englishman, I shall be praying to every God I follow as the MRI results are released.
Well, it is Friday. Have a great Bank Holiday.
But what the heck, because he's just won the World Cup!I wonder what the doctors will say today? The dreams of an entire nation are emotionally attached to the backlit film of an MRI scan.
AngloAustria prediction: If his foot is good, the Labour Party might win the next General Election. If his foot is bad, Labour are finished. The fate of a nation therefore depends upon the osteoclast and osteoblast cells of a Scouse exponent of the art of lumping pig's bladders around grassy meadows. You couldn't make it up.
But being a tribal Englishman, I shall be praying to every God I follow as the MRI results are released.
Well, it is Friday. Have a great Bank Holiday.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Shock Horror: Lecturers Go On Strike, Again
Strikes are, of course, almost becoming an entirely public sector phenomenon. You still sometimes get them in large former public sector organisations, such as British Airways and British Telecom, but it is almost always only the people in the public sector who think they have a right to force out higher salaries from the back pocket of the taxpayer, without even considering withdrawing their employment permanently, and risking the free market, like the rest of us have to.
I read the worthy pretensions of one such martyr, this morning in the Torygraph. Obviously, I sent him an email, immediately:
Hi Simon,
If you don't like the terms and conditions in your job, resign, and go and get another job doing something else, where you do like the terms and conditions. Even better than that, start your own business selling your services.
I'm sure a man of your obvious talent would easily be able to command a salary at least three times what you're currently earning, on the free market.
What? You don't agree? Well then shut up and get on with your job the taxpayer is currently being forced to pay you, regardless of your merits.
Rgds,
Jack Maturin
As someone forced to pay his wages, whether I want him or not, if Simon deigns to reply, it should be interesting to hear what he says.
I read the worthy pretensions of one such martyr, this morning in the Torygraph. Obviously, I sent him an email, immediately:
Hi Simon,
If you don't like the terms and conditions in your job, resign, and go and get another job doing something else, where you do like the terms and conditions. Even better than that, start your own business selling your services.
I'm sure a man of your obvious talent would easily be able to command a salary at least three times what you're currently earning, on the free market.
What? You don't agree? Well then shut up and get on with your job the taxpayer is currently being forced to pay you, regardless of your merits.
Rgds,
Jack Maturin
As someone forced to pay his wages, whether I want him or not, if Simon deigns to reply, it should be interesting to hear what he says.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
A Figleaf of Freedom
The Torygraph may be a statist rag, but occasionally they run the odd piece which makes it worth a browse. Once such piece appeared in their comment pages this morning, by James Bartholomew:
We need a revision course on why capitalism is a good thing
Oh yes, and then there was the questionnaire on a different page:
Should the NHS pay for holistic medicine?
This question makes the usual statist assumption, of course, that the NHS has a perfect and total right to exist in the first place, and then to bleed us dry in wasteful tax 'donations'.
Oh well, can't win them all.
BTW, I've left a comment on the NHS questionnaire, which may get through the moderator. You may like to leave a comment of your own? The column does seem to have attracted a large number of the great and the good, many of them state clients in the medical professions, who perhaps need a small dose of freedom to refresh their day? What fun.
Pip pip!!
We need a revision course on why capitalism is a good thing
Oh yes, and then there was the questionnaire on a different page:
Should the NHS pay for holistic medicine?
This question makes the usual statist assumption, of course, that the NHS has a perfect and total right to exist in the first place, and then to bleed us dry in wasteful tax 'donations'.
Oh well, can't win them all.
BTW, I've left a comment on the NHS questionnaire, which may get through the moderator. You may like to leave a comment of your own? The column does seem to have attracted a large number of the great and the good, many of them state clients in the medical professions, who perhaps need a small dose of freedom to refresh their day? What fun.
Pip pip!!
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Robert LeFevre - Obligation and Responsibility
Index: Robert LeFevre Commentary Abstracts
The talk following this one, 'A Definition of Freedom', is an absolutely pivotal one in LeFevre's series. But before he gets there, LeFevre needs to ensure he has a complete foundation in place with the aid of this sixth discussion, on the related terms of 'responsibility' and 'obligation'. This talk is interesting in its own terms because it points out the subtle changes in language, over the last fifty or so years, where collectivists have assigned many of the language-based attributes of the individual to the group, with the individual subsequently becoming subsumed into collective groups via this culturally controlled shifting process.
The Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci may have been the highly successful prime mover here, from a Marxist point of view, with his brilliant cultural analyses on the prime importance of language. But this response, by LeFevre, is an equally brilliant riposte by one of history's great libertarians, to try to get the domain of our language back into the control of the individual. It is only ever an individual who speaks, after all, even if a Marx, or a Lenin, or a Gramsci, and never the disembodied voice of some will o' the wisp collective. But let's get back to Mr. LeFevre and his thoughts on responsibility and obligation:
Obligation and Responsibility - MP3 Audio File
Two very important concepts come close together, in the terms responsibility and obligation. These two words symbolize a pair of very important ideas, but their different meanings have become blurred over time until, in modern times, many people use the words as interchangeable synonyms. But LeFevre wants to clarify that they do not mean the same thing. They convey opposite ideas, he states, and we should be clear about each of them.
Responsibility begins with Latin prefix, re-, which means again, turning about, or turning backward, as in the words repeat, redo, or repetition. The word 'responsible' therefore possesses a chronological component going backwards in time. When we use it we are talking about things already done in the past. It should not be used when speaking about anything in the future, but only when talking about events in the past or in the immediate present.
(Other words making use of the re- prefix include rearrange, rebuild, recall, remake, rerun, and rewrite – see, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/re-.)
It is only individuals who can be responsible, says LeFevre, but in modern times the word responsibility is often ascribed to groups rather than individuals, especially when an individual does something they shouldn't. For instance, a man may rob a filling station. But in the modern age he's not responsible. It is the fault of his family, his school, his society, his geography, his racial background, but never his fault. LeFevre contends, however, that it is the man's responsibility. He initiated the action. Therefore, he is responsible.
As an aside, LeFevre also notes that the word responsibility is often tied into negative actions. A man may be responsible for constructive or positive things, such as writing a great piece of music, but here the credit goes to group again, or to the school, or the church. In a neat twist, the group is made responsible for making the man good enough to do the great thing.
To come back to the main point, we tend to socialize responsibility and attach it to some kind of group. For example, notes LeFevre, the John F. Kennedy presidential assassination was nonsensically ascribed to the city of Dallas. But the city of Dallas didn't stand up and pull the trigger. An individual did. Which individual? We may never know, says LeFevre, because that's the way with government investigations.
(LeFevre is the master of the subtle dig.)
But it was somebody, who pulled the trigger, and not the city of Dallas.
This process of spreading responsibility grew as the assassinations spread through the 1960s. The second Kennedy shooting was ascribed to California and the whole of the United States was made responsible for the killing of Martin Luther King. Which is an absurdity, claims LeFevre, because it is always an individual who initiates any action. When a man initiates an action, he is responsible, and nobody else.
There is another aspect of the word 'responsible'. It is trying to indicate ownership. If a man initiates an action, he is the owner of that action. But once again, in our modern milieu, there is a peculiar tendency to always pass off responsibility and the ownership of actions, to a larger collective group.
This brings LeFevre onto the word obligation, which stems from the Latin ob- prefix, for looking forward or facing ahead.
(See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ob- , and words such as observe and obverse.)
An obligation, says LeFevre, is a requirement that must be faced in the future or a responsibility that will be assumed in the future. Imagine a line, representing 'right now'. Responsible actions are all to the left of the line. Obligations are to the right of line, but once you assume an obligation, it shifts behind the line into the past. You always have to assume an obligation.
If you initiate an action, you are responsible for the action. This is automatic and you cannot get out of out it. But obligation is totally different. It is a volitionally assumed responsibility, although these days we seem to get it all mixed up.
To a modern day collectivist, the man robbing the filling station is not responsible for his theft, but he does somehow have a moral obligation to join the army, or pay welfare taxes. He has no such obligation, thunders LeFevre! An obligation must always be voluntary, otherwise we get problems. If in the modern age we did agree that the individual could become obligated to the group, without deciding to become so obligated, we would end up, with many monstrous situations. Of course, this is where are, says LeFevre, and part of the reason why we're in such a mess.
(Once again, we have to pinch ourselves to remember that LeFevre is speaking in 1970.)
If a collectivist gets into trouble financially, they turn to someone else who just happens to be there and says 'you are obligated to help me, because we're part of the same group.' But what kind of a crazy world is this, asks LeFevre?
The world has become distorted and grotesque, where men in high places of authority make mistakes and then start passing these responsibilities off as obligations to the rest of us, saying we are obliged to pull them out of the mess they got themselves into. It is fine if you want to volunteer to help these men, but absurd to claim we are obliged to do so.
Even in law, a contract is always assumed null and void, if made under force or the threat of force. But now we have a society where it is assumed we have automatic obligations to the army, to the Red Cross, and to the poor. But we have no such obligation, states LeFevre, and we are not responsible. We have an opportunity to help, but it is no more than that.
LeFevre then rounds out his piece with two stories. The first story is about one of the readers of his newspaper in Colorado, whom he managed to convince wasn't responsible for a murder across the country in Oklahoma City. He then follows this up with a similar tale about whether he would be obligated to adopt an orphan, if one walked into his room. He ends by saying that he is not responsible for all the orphans in the world, and he not obligated to them. He may have the opportunity to adopt any orphaned child he came across, but that is as far as it goes.
And now we are clear about the meanings of the terms responsibility and obligation, we can move into a discussion on what freedom is.
(Which is a discussion worth waiting for.)
Previous: Sacrifice and Molestation
The talk following this one, 'A Definition of Freedom', is an absolutely pivotal one in LeFevre's series. But before he gets there, LeFevre needs to ensure he has a complete foundation in place with the aid of this sixth discussion, on the related terms of 'responsibility' and 'obligation'. This talk is interesting in its own terms because it points out the subtle changes in language, over the last fifty or so years, where collectivists have assigned many of the language-based attributes of the individual to the group, with the individual subsequently becoming subsumed into collective groups via this culturally controlled shifting process.
The Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci may have been the highly successful prime mover here, from a Marxist point of view, with his brilliant cultural analyses on the prime importance of language. But this response, by LeFevre, is an equally brilliant riposte by one of history's great libertarians, to try to get the domain of our language back into the control of the individual. It is only ever an individual who speaks, after all, even if a Marx, or a Lenin, or a Gramsci, and never the disembodied voice of some will o' the wisp collective. But let's get back to Mr. LeFevre and his thoughts on responsibility and obligation:
Obligation and Responsibility - MP3 Audio File
Two very important concepts come close together, in the terms responsibility and obligation. These two words symbolize a pair of very important ideas, but their different meanings have become blurred over time until, in modern times, many people use the words as interchangeable synonyms. But LeFevre wants to clarify that they do not mean the same thing. They convey opposite ideas, he states, and we should be clear about each of them.
Responsibility begins with Latin prefix, re-, which means again, turning about, or turning backward, as in the words repeat, redo, or repetition. The word 'responsible' therefore possesses a chronological component going backwards in time. When we use it we are talking about things already done in the past. It should not be used when speaking about anything in the future, but only when talking about events in the past or in the immediate present.
(Other words making use of the re- prefix include rearrange, rebuild, recall, remake, rerun, and rewrite – see, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/re-.)
It is only individuals who can be responsible, says LeFevre, but in modern times the word responsibility is often ascribed to groups rather than individuals, especially when an individual does something they shouldn't. For instance, a man may rob a filling station. But in the modern age he's not responsible. It is the fault of his family, his school, his society, his geography, his racial background, but never his fault. LeFevre contends, however, that it is the man's responsibility. He initiated the action. Therefore, he is responsible.
As an aside, LeFevre also notes that the word responsibility is often tied into negative actions. A man may be responsible for constructive or positive things, such as writing a great piece of music, but here the credit goes to group again, or to the school, or the church. In a neat twist, the group is made responsible for making the man good enough to do the great thing.
To come back to the main point, we tend to socialize responsibility and attach it to some kind of group. For example, notes LeFevre, the John F. Kennedy presidential assassination was nonsensically ascribed to the city of Dallas. But the city of Dallas didn't stand up and pull the trigger. An individual did. Which individual? We may never know, says LeFevre, because that's the way with government investigations.
(LeFevre is the master of the subtle dig.)
But it was somebody, who pulled the trigger, and not the city of Dallas.
This process of spreading responsibility grew as the assassinations spread through the 1960s. The second Kennedy shooting was ascribed to California and the whole of the United States was made responsible for the killing of Martin Luther King. Which is an absurdity, claims LeFevre, because it is always an individual who initiates any action. When a man initiates an action, he is responsible, and nobody else.
There is another aspect of the word 'responsible'. It is trying to indicate ownership. If a man initiates an action, he is the owner of that action. But once again, in our modern milieu, there is a peculiar tendency to always pass off responsibility and the ownership of actions, to a larger collective group.
This brings LeFevre onto the word obligation, which stems from the Latin ob- prefix, for looking forward or facing ahead.
(See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ob- , and words such as observe and obverse.)
An obligation, says LeFevre, is a requirement that must be faced in the future or a responsibility that will be assumed in the future. Imagine a line, representing 'right now'. Responsible actions are all to the left of the line. Obligations are to the right of line, but once you assume an obligation, it shifts behind the line into the past. You always have to assume an obligation.
If you initiate an action, you are responsible for the action. This is automatic and you cannot get out of out it. But obligation is totally different. It is a volitionally assumed responsibility, although these days we seem to get it all mixed up.
To a modern day collectivist, the man robbing the filling station is not responsible for his theft, but he does somehow have a moral obligation to join the army, or pay welfare taxes. He has no such obligation, thunders LeFevre! An obligation must always be voluntary, otherwise we get problems. If in the modern age we did agree that the individual could become obligated to the group, without deciding to become so obligated, we would end up, with many monstrous situations. Of course, this is where are, says LeFevre, and part of the reason why we're in such a mess.
(Once again, we have to pinch ourselves to remember that LeFevre is speaking in 1970.)
If a collectivist gets into trouble financially, they turn to someone else who just happens to be there and says 'you are obligated to help me, because we're part of the same group.' But what kind of a crazy world is this, asks LeFevre?
The world has become distorted and grotesque, where men in high places of authority make mistakes and then start passing these responsibilities off as obligations to the rest of us, saying we are obliged to pull them out of the mess they got themselves into. It is fine if you want to volunteer to help these men, but absurd to claim we are obliged to do so.
Even in law, a contract is always assumed null and void, if made under force or the threat of force. But now we have a society where it is assumed we have automatic obligations to the army, to the Red Cross, and to the poor. But we have no such obligation, states LeFevre, and we are not responsible. We have an opportunity to help, but it is no more than that.
LeFevre then rounds out his piece with two stories. The first story is about one of the readers of his newspaper in Colorado, whom he managed to convince wasn't responsible for a murder across the country in Oklahoma City. He then follows this up with a similar tale about whether he would be obligated to adopt an orphan, if one walked into his room. He ends by saying that he is not responsible for all the orphans in the world, and he not obligated to them. He may have the opportunity to adopt any orphaned child he came across, but that is as far as it goes.
And now we are clear about the meanings of the terms responsibility and obligation, we can move into a discussion on what freedom is.
(Which is a discussion worth waiting for.)
Previous: Sacrifice and Molestation
Monday, May 22, 2006
Is Anarcho-Capitalism the New Homosexuality?
As one of the miniscule number of anarcho-capitalists in this country it can sometimes be a little tricky at social events. Only at a very small number of such events can I speak my mind freely, on the rare though always highly enjoyable occasions where I get to meet my fellow travellers. We literally meet in rooms not much bigger than a closet, and afterwards skulk in the most minute corners of anonymous bars.
Admittedly, the numbers are growing. At one recent meeting, we couldn't even get everyone in the closet. One unfortunate soul had to sit outside in the corridor. Yey, I can hear you think, today the closet, tomorrow the upstairs landing!? But what is much worse is mingling in what you might call polite society. Around 99.999% of intelligent people, in this country, are socialists. Some call themselves conservatives, some liberals, and some Labour supporters, but to me, because they all believe in government intervention in society, they are all socialists.
So what do you do? Well, you keep your mouth ultra shut. If you were to ever view your true feelings at any typical London dinner party, it would take about 17 micro-seconds to be shown the door as a raving mono-maniac, never to be invited again. Believe me, I know this through bitter experience. So the choice is, do you wear your anarchistic heart on your sleeve, or do you mumble your way through life discussing cricket and rugby to get thought of as some kind of harmlessly mild eccentric because you refuse to discuss politics? Coward that I am, I'm afraid I've taken the low road to societal inclusion. It's either that or be cut off entirely from virtually all human physical conversation. Because there is nothing that people hate more than having their political views challenged, except for perhaps visiting dentists. Which is kind of weird really! The discussion of politics is supposed to be an intellectual pursuit. But if you scratch it, any political discussion always seems to rapidly revert to the basest form of emotional tribalism. But I digress.
There may be only a few of us anarcho-capitalists around, mostly hiding in closets. And there may be just one or two who actually walk the streets proud to advertise our true nature. But should we be disheartened? Should we get depressed because so few intelligent people seem to share our thoughts and feelings? Only if we have failed to read the lessons of history.
Just look at Quentin Crisp, the naked civil servant. For decades he was seemingly the only homosexual in Britain. Yes, people whispered about Kenneth Williams too, but Earth Mother Goddess Hattie Jacques seemed to mask his nature too, with her Matron routine in the Carry On films.
The bravery of Quentin Crisp is legendary. Despite failing to serve in the army in World War II, he was perhaps the most courageous man in Britain, routinely risking the worst forms of physical harrassment on the streets of London.
But look at Britain now. Just take a stroll past the Admiral Duncan pub, in Old Compton Street, on a warm Spring evening, or Canal Street, in Manchester. Although they may be a minority, Britain is absolutely heaving with homosexuals, none of whom are afraid of the feelings of polite society. And they achieved this through the bravery of people like Quentin Crisp.
Although we will never stoop to campaigning for special government favours to help our cause, perhaps we, the anarcho-capitalists, if we stick to our guns and refuse to get depressed, can achieve a similar level of success. We believe that we represent the true innate feelings of humanity, which have only been masked by a continual propaganda operation by the state. The state needs to keep this propaganda operation going night and day, to sustain itself, with its control of virtually all educational outlets, plus great swathes of the media, particularly the BBC.
Therefore our plan must be to continually work on getting them out of this propaganda operation. Once we have freed people's minds, their true human action nature will quickly reassert itself. And although we may seem powerless up against the entrenched bureaucracies of the Department of Education and the BBC, Quentin Crisp was similarly powerless against the entrenched laws forbidding homosexuality.
But he beat them. He was the victor. He won.
We can win too. But only if we stick to our guns and keep the fight going, till we all draw our last breath. What have we got to lose? A life not worth living as a government slave? So stick to your principles, stick to your beliefs, and keep fighting the enemy without giving up hope or without giving up an enthusiasm for a life of freedom for everyone. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Fight them until we can't.
Admittedly, the numbers are growing. At one recent meeting, we couldn't even get everyone in the closet. One unfortunate soul had to sit outside in the corridor. Yey, I can hear you think, today the closet, tomorrow the upstairs landing!? But what is much worse is mingling in what you might call polite society. Around 99.999% of intelligent people, in this country, are socialists. Some call themselves conservatives, some liberals, and some Labour supporters, but to me, because they all believe in government intervention in society, they are all socialists.So what do you do? Well, you keep your mouth ultra shut. If you were to ever view your true feelings at any typical London dinner party, it would take about 17 micro-seconds to be shown the door as a raving mono-maniac, never to be invited again. Believe me, I know this through bitter experience. So the choice is, do you wear your anarchistic heart on your sleeve, or do you mumble your way through life discussing cricket and rugby to get thought of as some kind of harmlessly mild eccentric because you refuse to discuss politics? Coward that I am, I'm afraid I've taken the low road to societal inclusion. It's either that or be cut off entirely from virtually all human physical conversation. Because there is nothing that people hate more than having their political views challenged, except for perhaps visiting dentists. Which is kind of weird really! The discussion of politics is supposed to be an intellectual pursuit. But if you scratch it, any political discussion always seems to rapidly revert to the basest form of emotional tribalism. But I digress.
There may be only a few of us anarcho-capitalists around, mostly hiding in closets. And there may be just one or two who actually walk the streets proud to advertise our true nature. But should we be disheartened? Should we get depressed because so few intelligent people seem to share our thoughts and feelings? Only if we have failed to read the lessons of history.
Just look at Quentin Crisp, the naked civil servant. For decades he was seemingly the only homosexual in Britain. Yes, people whispered about Kenneth Williams too, but Earth Mother Goddess Hattie Jacques seemed to mask his nature too, with her Matron routine in the Carry On films.
The bravery of Quentin Crisp is legendary. Despite failing to serve in the army in World War II, he was perhaps the most courageous man in Britain, routinely risking the worst forms of physical harrassment on the streets of London.
But look at Britain now. Just take a stroll past the Admiral Duncan pub, in Old Compton Street, on a warm Spring evening, or Canal Street, in Manchester. Although they may be a minority, Britain is absolutely heaving with homosexuals, none of whom are afraid of the feelings of polite society. And they achieved this through the bravery of people like Quentin Crisp.
Although we will never stoop to campaigning for special government favours to help our cause, perhaps we, the anarcho-capitalists, if we stick to our guns and refuse to get depressed, can achieve a similar level of success. We believe that we represent the true innate feelings of humanity, which have only been masked by a continual propaganda operation by the state. The state needs to keep this propaganda operation going night and day, to sustain itself, with its control of virtually all educational outlets, plus great swathes of the media, particularly the BBC.
Therefore our plan must be to continually work on getting them out of this propaganda operation. Once we have freed people's minds, their true human action nature will quickly reassert itself. And although we may seem powerless up against the entrenched bureaucracies of the Department of Education and the BBC, Quentin Crisp was similarly powerless against the entrenched laws forbidding homosexuality.
But he beat them. He was the victor. He won.
We can win too. But only if we stick to our guns and keep the fight going, till we all draw our last breath. What have we got to lose? A life not worth living as a government slave? So stick to your principles, stick to your beliefs, and keep fighting the enemy without giving up hope or without giving up an enthusiasm for a life of freedom for everyone. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Fight them until we can't.
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