We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
You can be a "partner", a "reliable supplier" or perhaps even an "ally" of Brussels. You can even stand next to Ursula von der Leyen in London and proclaim the end of the Brexit wars. But unless you are an EU member state, you will always be a competitor and ultimately expendable.
“Nuclear has re-entered the chat because it’s the only energy source that can deliver enough clean, safe, round-the-clock electricity to feed AI. Nuclear is to AI what oil was to the Industrial Age. It’s the fuel for a new era of exponential progress.”
– Stephen McBride and Dan Steinhart, from the Rational Optimist Society.
There is no offence of blasphemy in our law. Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive. The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset. The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.
We live in a liberal democracy. One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so. The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.
Ronan McCrea starts his Telegraph article with a glimpse into the past.
Three and a half decades ago, Henri Leconte, then one of the world’s biggest tennis stars, swept up in the adulation of the crowd, mocked a gay-looking ball boy on the centre court of a Wimbledon warm-up tournament. Pointing at the boy, he swung his wrist limply, while laughing, and encouraging the crowd to join in the fun.
And everybody thought it was a hoot. Everybody except one.
The ballboy was me, aged 13, and I still vividly remember the horror and total isolation I felt at the time. The fact, however, that such a scene would be unimaginable today shows the extent to which society has changed its approach to gay people.
Yes. If I were not hearing about this incident from the person with most cause to remember to the day when it happened, I would have thought it took place in the 1960s or 70s, not 1990.
But the dramatic shift in society’s approach to homosexuality mustn’t be taken for granted. Indeed, I fear it could all too easily return: it takes a striking degree of complacency to think that after centuries and centuries of repression, a few decades of tolerance could mark an irrevocable change.
Ironically, the unprecedented freedom that we’ve won in the past few decades is now under threat from within our own ranks – not least the approach of gay rights groups like Stonewall.
I’m among many gay people who believe that hanging on to what we have would be a good long-term result.
Mr McCrea then describes the almost Stakhanovite pressure on companies and their employees to do ever more to prove their “allyship”:
Getting a good score on the [Workplace Equality] index requires a dizzying range of active steps from verifying that suppliers are "committed to LGBT inclusion" and community engagement work. In the US, the main gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, went even further, recommending a kind of gay tithe (as or they put "cash or in-kind donation to at least one LGBTQ+ specific organisation") along with a "standard of demonstrating at least five efforts of public commitment to the LGBTQ+ community".
I suspect any private sense of “commitment to the LGBTQ+ community” that the managers and employees of these companies might once have had was neutralised by the third public demonstration of commitment and sent well into reverse by the fifth.
He continues,
This approach not only risks alienating people who are happy to live and let live but don’t like being subjected to propaganda at work. It also undermines the key argument that helped gay rights to advance in recent decades, namely that accepting gay people required simply that approach: live and let live.
He is right. Though I agree with what he has said so far, I doubt that Mr McCrea would agree with what I am about to say: as a libertarian, I believe on principle that there should not be any anti-discrimination laws whatsoever. I think gay people would be more accepted, not less, if coercion was removed from the equation entirely – and even if they weren’t, I would still advocate for it on the grounds of the fundamental right to free association. However, back in the real world, at least the laws against discrimination in employment and so on do not reach that deeply into people’s personal lives. They are nearly always passed after the bulk of the public have already been won over by moral argument. Their main effect is to make people somewhat grumpier and more cynical about doing what they were going to do anyway. A terrible wrong turning was made when gay activists, having got about as far as was logically possible in terms of forbidding workplace discrimination, started trying to compel speech, as in the cases of Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and others in the UK and Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in the US.
Note that in the British case at least, the plaintiff was not shocked to discover that the bakers would not bake a cake with his required slogan on it. Gareth Lee deliberately sought out bakers who would object. He wanted to set the legal precedent that they could be compelled to promote a message antithetical to their beliefs. If the decision had gone the other way, I have sometimes wondered what Mr Lee’s position would have been regarding slogans offensive to his deepest beliefs.
Although both the Ashers and the Masterpiece cases were eventually decided in favour of the right of the defendants to free speech (which includes the right not to be forced to speak), the years-long attempts to force people to write words which they thought were morally wrong made a mockery of “live and let live”. Legal cases such as these, and the increasingly onerous demands for displays of support for the LGBTQ+ cause made upon every workplace and institution, have made many people feel – as did the Stakhanovite workers – that every act of compliance merely lays them open to new demands. That breeds enmity, not solidarity. Stop demanding that people feel certain emotions. Let us get back to the humbler, more achievable principle of “live and let live”.
(Update, it turns out I was mistaken on the date of Margaret Thatcher’s 100th birthday. It was 13 October, 2025, and not before, as my comments might have implied.)
Mrs Thatcher’s 100th birthday was recently marked, and a few commentators, not all of them friendly, have remarked on her influence and the way that she still casts a shadow over our times.
Adrian Wooldridge at Bloomberg is a columnist I follow. I like and dislike some of his stuff. (His book on Meritocracy and the co-authored one with Alan Greenspan on American capitalism are both excellent, in my view.)
Let’s go:
Far be it from me to spit upon the grave: Thatcher was a great prime minister, up there with William Gladstone and Winston Churchill, and Thatcherism was a necessary response to a set of pressing problems. But a serious politician deserves a serious assessment: We need now to address the fact that the Conservative Party to which she devoted her life lies in ruins, that its sister Republican Party has been hijacked by an authoritarian populist, and that Thatcher herself bears some responsibility for this. Indeed, she was a leading player in the transformation of Anglo-Saxon conservatism into a revolutionary political doctrine that may have destroyed conservativism itself.
The idea that Mrs T’s brand of political views were “revolutionary” only works if you have a particular view of what a revolution means. Mrs Thatcher thought that the post-1945 “settlement” – to give it a term, of high progressive tax, high regulation, nationalised industry, powerful unions, Keynesian demand management, state-run schools, socialised medicine, etc, was in broad terms, a disaster. Also, she took the view that the things that conservatives of the large C and small c variety cared about, such as civil society, property rights, ordered liberty, strong defence, and certain values, were damaged by this post-1945 settlement. Therefore, to conserve, one must also sweep much of this away, or at the very least, reform and constrain it. It is a paradox, but not that hard to grasp really.
There is more:
Tory Brexiteers were the most revolutionary people ever to wear the blue rosette.
Well, leaving a federal union with a demographic deficit with its desire to be a new super-national bloc, is I suppose “revolutionary” in the sense of “revolve” back to where the UK was prior to that development. To plead the case for change necessarily is going to irritate many: not just those of goodwill who thought the EU was marvellous in most respects, but of course to all the lobbyists, special interests etc who were happy to ride on the train. Contesting that makes one come across as abrasive and harsh. Soft voices, and “moderation”, gets one no-where, as several UK prime ministers would find out.
Wooldridge then goes on to claim that Mrs Thatcher’s approach led the way to the kind of populist politics on the Right in the US, first with Reagan (although American conservativism was taking a more vigorous turn back in the 60s under Goldwater) and then in particular with the rise of Trump. But that seems a stretch. Trump, a former registered Democrat, fixed on specific grievances, but it was more than that. He also tried to convey a more hopeful message of return to greatness. But there are many differences too. For all her dislike of the EU, Mrs Thatcher also favoured alliances of nation states, and the importance of close co-operation where necessary. And she could temporise when necessary.
In another line, Wooldridge repeats Mrs Thatcher’s line about “there is no such thing as society” – condemned as much on the socialist left as it is on the paternalist right – and falls into the trap of so many of not seeing the full quote in context. If I had been paid a pound every time I heard that line to denounce Mrs Thatcher, I’d be able to buy a vintage Ferrari. Wooldridge is being lazy.
Here is the quote in full: “There is no such thing as society. [end p30] There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate. And the worst things we have in life, in my view, are where children who are a great privilege and a trust—they are the fundamental great trust, but they do not ask to come into the world, we bring them into the world, they are a miracle, there is nothing like the miracle of life—we have these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort, not only just for the food and shelter but for the time, for the understanding, turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect or worse than that, cruelty.”
However you want to parse that, this is not someone saying that we can live our lives in self-contained boxes, not interacting or engaging with our fellow humans in all kinds of nourishing and supportive ways. She understood Edmund Burke’s “little platoons”. Alexis de Tocqueville’s insights about the voluntaristic energies of the young American republic also tap into the same point.
The core of all this is for Mrs Thatcher is that, as much as possible, our interactions are voluntary. Even in the case of care for children, that obligation stems from the choice of having a child in the first place.
There is not much else left to discuss in the article, but here is a point where Wooldridge makes what I think is a reasonable point but also over-eggs it:
Both Thatcher and Reagan enjoyed extraordinary success in privatizing industries, deregulating markets and generally unleashing entrepreneurial energies. That encouraged their successors to imitate their radicalism. But they also failed to arrest the shift of the culture to the left or to get a grip on the independent-minded permanent state. That failure provoked a combination of fury at the status quo and calls for further radicalism.
But how can a tamer, more “moderate” or “Burkean” conservatism have worked in this case? Inevitably, and certainly with Mrs Thatcher, there was only so much she could do in her decade in office. On education, for example, it was a topic that fascinated her, but how far can one political leader go in arresting its Leftward tilt? I have read Charles Moore’s three-volume biography of her and it is clear that she minded furiously about all this. (There is a single-volume version to coincided with her 100th birthday.) And I think that whatever solutions might be applied, they must involve removing government as much as possible from education, not the other way around. That is, in current terms, a “revolutionary” position to take.
Caution and moderation are not virtues in and of themselves as it depends what one is moderate and cautious about, and why. Mark Sidwell at CapX has these observations about Mrs Thatcher and her political importance. I like this line: “Thatcher’s politics was all about agency: embracing it, restoring it and trusting it.”
Also, if you can hold of a copy, I recommend Shirley Robin Letwin’s “An Anatomy of Thatcherism”, a sympathetic and closely reasoned analysis of what she was about.
Happy birthday to the lady.
The Guardian dutifully reports the inevitable:
Proof-of-age ID leaked in Discord data breach
Video game chat platform Discord has suffered a data breach, informing users that their personal information – including identity documents of those required to prove their age – were compromised.
The company stated last week that an unauthorised party had compromised one of Discord’s third-party customer service providers, leading to the access of "a limited number of users" who had been in contact with the customer service or trust and safety teams.
The data compromised may have included usernames, email, billing information, the last four digits of credit card numbers, IP addresses and messages with customer support.
Discord said the alleged attacker "also gained access to a small number of government ID images (eg driving licence, passport) from users who had appealed an age determination.
[…]
Discord began using facial age assurance to check the age for users in the UK and Australia earlier this year. The company said facial images and ID images "are deleted directly after" ages are confirmed, but Discord’s website noted that if verification fails, users can contact the trust and safety team for a manual review.
Under the under 16s social media ban to come into effect on 10 December, the Australian government has outlined that it expects platforms such as Discord – which is one of the platforms that has been asked to assess if it is required to comply – should have multiple options for assessing a user’s age, and a way for them to quickly appeal an adverse decision.
Platforms can ask for ID documents as part of the age assurance scheme, but it cannot be the sole method of age assurance offered by the platforms under the policy.
In other words, the reason why users from the UK and Australia have been affected in particular is because the UK’s Online Safety Act and Australia’s upcoming ban on under-16s using social media oblige users in those countries to verify their age by giving identifying information to social media companies. The first means of age verification is facial recognition software, but if that doesn’t work, as it frequently doesn’t, the user must give the social media company identifying information such as their username, their email address, their billing information, the last four digits of their credit card number, etc. Which then gets stolen. This procedure is called “keeping people safe online”.
The following is the Wikipedia entry for the Ma’alot massacre:
The Ma’alot massacre was a Palestinian terrorist attack that occurred on 14–15 May 1974 and involved the hostage-taking of 115 Israelis, chiefly school children, which ended in the murder of 25 hostages and six other civilians. It began when three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) infiltrated Israel from Lebanon. Soon afterwards they attacked a van, killing two Israeli Arab women while injuring a third, and entered an apartment building in the town of Ma’alot, where they killed a couple and their four-year-old son. From there, they headed for the Netiv Meir Elementary School in Ma’alot, where in the early hours of 15 May 1974 they took hostage more than 115 people including 105 children. Most of the hostages were 14- to 16-years-old students from a high school in Safad on a pre-military Gadna field trip spending the night in Ma’alot.
The hostage-takers soon issued demands for the release of 23 Palestinian militants and 3 others from Israeli prisons, or else they would kill the students. The Israeli side agreed, but the hostage-takers failed to get an expected coded message from Damascus. On 15 May, minutes before the 18:00 deadline set by the DFLP for killing the hostages, the Sayeret Matkal commandoes stormed the building. During the takeover, the hostage-takers killed children with grenades and automatic weapons. Ultimately, 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and 68 more were injured.
In the US the time elapsed between ‘Defund the Police’ Actually Means Defunding the Police, Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police until Ha Ha, Of Course We Didn’t Really Mean It Like It Sounded was about a year.
The Green Party of England and Wales leaves lumbering American lefties standing. PoliticsHome reports,
The Green Party has voted to make party policy a motion that seeks to “abolish landlords”.
The motion titled ‘Abolish Landlords’ was supported by a large majority of members at the party’s conference in Bournemouth on Sunday.
The motion has now become party policy, though leader Zack Polanski is not obliged to adopt the specific wording.
On Friday, PoliticsHome reported that the policy motion was being put forward, which sets out five steps the Greens would take to outlaw landlords.
Starting with rent controls and abolishing Right to Buy, a future Green Party-led government would also tax landlords via business rates on Airbnbs and double taxation on empty properties.
Under the proposals, the party would also end Buy to Let mortgages and give councils the Right to Buy when landlords sell properties, when the property doesn’t meet insulation standards, or when a property has been vacant for more than six months.
Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central, sought to stress that despite the motions “eye-catching” title, “it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords”.
Neat. If the Greens get into coalition with Labour, they can say while introducing this policy, “Too late to complain now. It was clearly stated to be our policy back in 2025.” And when the policy goes the same way as every other attempt at rent control (as even they have some inkling it will), they can say “Doesn’t count, ‘coz we had our fingers crossed.”
Visit BBC Broadcasting House in Central London and you’ll pass a statue of George Orwell accompanied by a quote from an unpublished preface to Animal Farm: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” When the statue was erected in 2017, the head of BBC history said it would serve as a reminder of “the value of journalism in holding authority to account”.
If only. The statue isn’t a symbol of the BBC’s journalistic excellence, but a standing reproach for its failure.
– Helen Joyce, in an article called The BBC’s dangerous lies in the print version of The Critic
A few minutes ago Rachel Moiselle tweeted this,
Sundown is soon and religious British Jews will be turning on their phones to learn about what happened.
I am so sorry.
She was referring to this:
Two Jewish people have died in a car ramming and stabbing attack at a synagogue in Manchester.
The attack came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and is being treated by police as a terror incident.
Police say they know the identity of the attacker, who was shot dead by armed officers at the scene.
I, too, wonder what happened, and I’m not just talking about the name of today’s attacker. Britain did not used to be like this.
I have seen many condemnations of this act of terror from prominent Muslims and other supporters of the Palestinian cause. I think most of them are sincere. But they must confront the fact that hatred of Jews has long been commonplace among British Muslims and is now rampant.
From another angle, it has also long been commonplace to mock those who say that their “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims and the bereaved whenever there is a mass murder. I do not share this view. If you pray, please pray for the congregation of Heaton Park synagogue tonight. And whether you pray or not, think about them. Think about what we can do to protect British Jews in a country that they once thought would be a safe haven.
Unlike many, I do not think that censorship of hate speech – note the absence of scare quotes – will help. When I was growing up there was no censorship and nor were there any guards outside synagogues. Let the people who recently chanted “From Manchester to Gaza, globalise the Intifada” be heard. Let them hear themselves.
The Guardian reports:
‘Reverse Midas touch’: Starmer plan prompts collapse in support for digital IDs
Public support for digital IDs has collapsed after Keir Starmer announced plans for their introduction, in what has been described as a symptom of the prime minister’s "reverse Midas touch".
Net support for digital ID cards fell from 35% in the early summer to -14% at the weekend after Starmer’s announcement, according to polling by More in Common.
The findings suggest that the proposal has suffered considerably from its association with an unpopular government. In June, 53% of voters surveyed said they were in favour of digital ID cards for all Britons, while 19% were opposed.
"The legitimacy of altering social institutions to achieve greater equality of material condition is, though often assumed, rarely argued for. Writers note than in a given country the wealthiest n percent of the population holds more than that percentage of the wealth, and the poorest n percent hold less; that to get to the wealth of the top n percent from the poorest, one must look at the bottom p per cent (where p is greater than n) and so forth. They then proceed immediately to discuss how this might be altered. On the entitlement conception of justice in holdings, one cannot decide whether the state must do something to alter the situation merely by looking at the distributional profile or at facts such as these. It depends upon how the distribution came about." (page 232)
– Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Robert Nozick, First published in 1974.
I wonder if any of the leaders of today’s political parties in the UK have read it, still less understood the profound way that the late Harvard professor eviscerated egalitarian "patterned" ideas of justice more incisively than arguably anyone else, before or since. Somehow, I doubt they have. In this day and age of talk about wealth taxes and other horrors, Nozick is well worth reading again.
The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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