The end approaches?
Friday, March 22, 2013
It has been a terrible week politically. I have nothing to add on the subject of the press "regulation" omnishambles. My views have been well-represented around the blogosphere and even - for once - in the mainstream media. I have already offered my views on the EU/Cyprus bank deposits grab.
Our lords and masters have revenged themselves on the few independent journalists who don't always fully promote the statist consensus. Oligarch-financed celebs have exploited the idolatory of the moronic masses to destroy another key freedom for their own selfish ends. Innocents have had their bank accounts frozen in Cyprus while the national and supranational political classes debate precisely how much to steal from them. There's some novelty in all this, but the trend is no surprise.
What is surprising for me is the total public indifference. Cypriots still seem to have some fight in them and I wish them well, but the British public frankly deserves servitude because it does not value freedom. I am now bitterly convinced that nothing but the crushing misery of totalitarianism will wake them. Provided that their freedoms continue to be removed slowly, slice by salami slice, they will probably claim even then that the state is their friend.
Schadenfreude is not my bag, but I would find it hard not to smile at the thought of them in some future gulag, were I not likely to be sharing their cell. They are a sad shaming remnant of a once great nation.
When I started this blog from Russia, I was angry with British politicians and felt sorry for the British people, thinking them ill-served. Now that I live amongst them again, my views have reversed. The British masses are a shiftless, ignorant, nastily-envious bunch who believe above all in the arboricultural nature of money, the desirability of the free lunch and the infallibility of the state. I now feel sorry for those few politicians who would like to do right, but are restrained by their electorate's vile inclinations.
I will need to review the future of this blog in the light of the new regulatory regime when it has been finalised. It has been interesting and I thank you for your contributions, but it may now be time to accept that our regular commenter Mark, indefatigable state toady and political submissive, has won the argument. Eight years of hoping against hope as our freedoms are worn away has been a huge effort. This is a democracy, after all. If most of our fellow-citizens get a frisson from the firm smack of strong government, they had better get on their bondage gear and have at it.
Perhaps the French have always been right about le vice anglais?
Tom,
An interesting piece, as always.
As someone who is British, I have long characterised them as lazy, apathetic and fatalistic. As long as there's the football, Coronation Street is on the television and the government benefits keep coming, they're happy. If anyone doubts that, look at the history of the last Labour government. It embarked on a systematic assault against ancient liberties, catalogued at some length by yourself and other bloggers. Despite that, it was re-elected twice and would probably have won a third time, had it not been for Gordon Brown's "bigoted woman" comment, shortly before the last general election. Currently they're ahead in the polls and will likely win the 2015 election, presumably because people believe Labour is more likely to give them free stuff.
But perhaps I'm being unduly harsh to my countrymen. I've always been convinced that the uprisings in eastern Europe, and the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall, were caused by there being nothing to buy in the shops, rather than an innate longing for freedom. Had the communists been able to create prosperity, their other shortcomings would likely have been overlooked. A few would doubtless protested the lack of liberty, but would likely have been ignored.
Perhaps Lord Madelson is right: we're heading into a post-democratic age. So long as the government benefits keep coming, they'll likely get away with it.
Posted by: Schrodinger's Dog | Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 10:14 PM
The question you ought to ask is "_Why_ are the Brits...." At least some of the answer must be terrible ignorance and the lazy stupidity poor education and being hand fed brings and surely this must have something to do with the State?
As for Cyprus... Why does the solution need to be so especially destructive of their own ability to manage in their particular case.
Can their banking sector actually survive this "solution" Who would be stupid enough to keep their money in a cypriot bank, or a non German European Bank, maybe even a British bank?
Posted by: Moggsy | Monday, March 25, 2013 at 11:37 AM
"I am unconvinced of UKIP's libertarian credentials".....At this point, a UKIP vote is pretty much a protest vote. Surely a libertarian can support protest against the present gallery of "legalized theft" parties. Given the poverty of choice available on that slate, UKIP seems a logical choice.
Posted by: Cascadian | Sunday, March 24, 2013 at 01:17 AM
I would agree with nearly all of that, the exception being the necessary source of taxation.
VAT is a dreadful spanner in the spokes of the free market albeit an easy one to inflict. Far better to tax capital gains at a high flat rate.
To an extent I share Mark's attitude to the rentier sector. eg A house should not have the financial capacity to buy a house, yet that is what our buy-to-let market facilitates. If I have to tax anything it would be the earning capacity of assets first and the wages of people last.
Posted by: Diogenes | Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 02:31 AM
A state powerful enough to take wealth by force to guarantee a citizens' income would be (and indeed is already proving) a major threat to liberty. Our liberties decline every day under such a state.
Only in the event, unprecedented in history, that the state was entirely run and staffed by benevolent, incorruptible people (the unlikely assumption behind *every* attempt to solve a problem with state power) would it *not* pose a threat. Unless we are invaded by aliens similar to angels, the human material simply does not exist for that.
Posted by: Tom | Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 01:48 AM
¿Qué?
Posted by: Diogenes | Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 01:37 AM
All very good, I am sure. Anything that undermines the current cosy conspiracy between the main statist parties is excellent news. However, I am unconvinced of UKIP's libertarian credentials.
Posted by: Tom | Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 01:24 AM
I can't imagine anyone here advocating an increase in tax. You yourself never openly advocate it, though you propose new state expenditures and never suggest any that might be reduced.
Libertarians would scale the government down massively. After a suitable transition period, only policing, defence and an independent judiciary would remain at the expense of taxpayers. All legislators (not an onerous job, once most laws had been repealed, never to be re-enacted) would be unpaid volunteers. They could get their legal advice direct from the judiciary.
Once again, money is a mere means of exchange; a token of value not value in itself. All I have ever said that could be described as "a tight fiscal policy" is that it's the duty of government (if it's the sole issuer of money, as it currently is alas) to match the supply as closely as possible to the value it represents, rather than to debase it in order to cheat its creditors and/or otherwise to redistribute wealth from the prudent to the imprudent. There would be no central bank in a libertarian state, and private banks would issue the banknotes -as they do in Hong Kong, for example.
I am sure everyone would prefer no taxation if possible, but even a minimal libertarian state would need to be financed. I personally would prefer sales taxes only, as that removes any need for the state to know about earnings. That in itself would be an enormous liberation. Imagine, not having to account for your every financial movement to HMRC! I would take an electronic feed from retailers' tills (as their landlords already often do when they have turnover rents) direct to the Treasury to collect the modest tax.
How luxurious it would be to be able to make all these changes democratically before an economic collapse, instead of having to rebuild on the ruins as now seems the most likely way forward.
As for the final paragraph of your comment, that's what statists always say about freedom. I don't know why you think I am out to protect rentiers - or why you focus so particularly on real estate investors.
I would remove all state guarantees for investors (deposit protection insurance, the "too big to fail" implied put etc). I would also be removing the safest class of investment - the gilt or T-Bill - as the government would be paying down its debts, not increasing them absurdly as at present.
I would be removing all government subsidies to enterprise and as a libertarian government would engage in no foreign wars, even the arms industry would not prosper at taxpayers' expense any more.
Posted by: Tom | Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 01:15 AM
Civil liberties are incompatible with your ideas"
Why?
OK... if by 'your ideas are winning' you mean that most people don't view all taxation as absolute theft, then yes - I'd say you have a point.
Talking about anything else, not so much.
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 11:21 PM
It's not kind, but it is accurate. Civil liberties are incompatible with your ideas. As you have repeatedly stated here, you are willing to impose them with violence. Indeed you have sneered at the notion that any society can be run without systematic violence. You have tried to equate the defence of property (eg Apple's intellectual property) through the courts with violent expropriation of those you think undeserving (or less deserving than you and your favoured groups) of that which they have earned, inherited or otherwise lawfully acquired. There is no doubt your ideas are winning. I am trying to resign myself to that. It is a democracy and, if my grandfather could be cool about his life's work being nationalised in 1946, I guess I can do likewise as mine is inflated, taxed and squandered in other ways. But don't expect me to say that what you do has any moral force, any more than he accepted what Labour did then.
Posted by: Tom | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 10:29 PM
Dear Mr Paine
I omitted the best news - the swing to UKIP was over 30% - 6.5% to 39%.
Last week UKIP won their first virgin council seat in Surrey, with a 26 point swing. This week another Surrey councillor switched to UKIP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-21843814
The county council elections are going to be pretty exciting.
DP
Posted by: DP | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 10:05 PM
A very public attempt to live a life without paying taxes and yet obeying the law of the land?
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:56 PM
except the bot about *nothing* but kindness and sincere attempt at debate.
There have been quite a few insincere (or grossly inept) attempts too - and I'm not sure how stating that the destruction of civil liberties is my victory is kind....
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:50 PM
Mr Cascadian
I didn't, I'm afraid.
DP
Posted by: DP | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:49 PM
Yes... I entirely agree.
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:45 PM
Good question.
If I thought my children were in serious danger, I would leave the country.
Otherwise, Diogenes?
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:39 PM
For you to decide, you know your family's circumstances, I don't.
Obviously some places are more restrictive about entry than others, but NOT Europe, Africa or communist countries, probably not USA or muslim dominated populations, that leaves a lot of scope. If you are older you obviously want a good,reasonably-priced medical system.
Posted by: Cascadian | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:31 PM
Wrong.
Tight fiscal policy - increasing taxation/ reducing spending reduces the overall access to money.
Given the current tax system we legally need money to conduct "honest transactions" - so under the current system reducing the supply of money prevents people from conducting honest transactions.
A Libertarian might prefer a system with no taxation - but given the existance of taxation on transactions they should prefer flooding the system with liquidity.
But of course this isn't really about freedom - it's about protecting the rentier class... but even then it's pretty stupid given that people are free to save in forms other than cash.
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 09:22 PM
"to emigrate"
... but where to?
Posted by: Suboptimal Planet | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 07:34 PM
Havering have done something strange to the link to disallow re-posting.
Here is the result of the 21 March poll:
Gooshays Ward - results Election Candidate Party Votes %
Lawrence James Webb UKIP Local Residents 831 39% Elected
Christine Anne McGeary Labour Party 569 27% Not elected
Marcus Christian Sebastian Llewellyn-Rothschild Conservative Party 280 13% Not elected
Darren Christopher Wise Harold Wood Hill Park Residents Association 227 11% Not elected
Mick Braun British National Party 202 9% Not elected
Malvin Paul Brown Residents' Association of London 24 1% Not elected
Which is indeed good news.
Remarkably, I know this ward very well, it is where I lived as a boy in the fifties and sixties. At that time an unassailable liebour ward. Note the name of the conservative candidate, I try not to be a class-warrior but what the hell is happening in the con-mens central office to run a hyphenated Rothschild in a solidly working class ward, they are beyond ridicule.
Indulge me Tom, this is a chance in a million, DP did you by chance attend Quarles Secondary Modern Boys School?
Posted by: Cascadian | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 07:04 PM
You best hope that "a fantasy of the rest of us in a gulag." is in fact a fantasy.
When governments remove habeus corpus, right to remain silent, and right to free speech within the course of a decade you are well on the way to tyranny, even if it is some kind of paternalistic, don't worry we don't mean you, we know best, it only applies to extremists type of tyranny. It is meant to silence dissent in the most menacing ways.
Having removed your rights, governments then move on to property confiscation. Eventually you will have become a wholly-owned entity of the government, a worker unit maintaining a smug elite in the style they are accustomed. Some will submit willingly, others will not.
Sadly I believe the only solution to this problem (within the one life we are alloted) is to emigrate, there seems to be no will to protect rights against our institutions. It is after all the solution that Tom Paine used, it should not be necessary, it is a major failure of democracy.
As to the future of this blog, we are in the hands of our genial and capable host, but he is not served well by his geniality when accepting juvenile rants casting character aspersions. You have been met with nothing but kindness and a sincere attempt at debate here, your comments are uninformed and unworthy.
Posted by: Cascadian | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 06:07 PM
Dear Mr Paine
There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it's tinged with purple:
http://democracy.havering.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=2&RPID=1001020061
People are awakening.
DP
Posted by: DP | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 05:58 PM
...or perhaps that the majority of interested activists deserve. The active members of the parliamentary parties are functionally identical ideologically and the constituency parties barely exist any more. They used (especially the Conservatives) to be mass movements, but there are probably fishing clubs with more members than any of them now.
Conservatives may talk more about liberty and Labour about equality, but in power they do (plus/minus a vanishingly small bit of public spending) the same things. All votes are wasted now so if wedded to non-violence I am at a loss to know what one can do, except shut up and try to enjoy life.
Posted by: Tom | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 05:24 PM
"I think you might be suffering from a mania of some kind."
I would prefer that to be true than that I am right, so let's hope so. As for your criticism that all I do is write, I am painfully aware of its validity. What positive action would you recommend to me? As you are content with the society now under construction in Britain, you don't need to act but if it were trending the other way - towards a society you could not bear to live in, or picture your children living in - what would you do?
Posted by: Tom | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 05:12 PM
I'd refine that: "people get the government that the majority deserve".
Posted by: Suboptimal Planet | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 04:35 PM
I shouldn't reply, but I can't resist ...
"you claim to be in favour of freedom, but would prefer people's ability to conduct transactions to be limited by a tight fiscal/monetary policy."
Surely you've been hanging around here long enough to realise that the freedom libertarians favour is not "freedom from want" but "freedom from compulsion".
Tight fiscal/monetary policy will never prevent people from conducting honest transactions - the exchange of value for value. It would mean reduced theft, but most people consider theft to be a Bad Thing.
Posted by: Suboptimal Planet | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 04:34 PM
The old saying "people get the government they deserve" is once again being proved so very true. Stupid people which we have in abundance, beget stupid governments and those we also have in abundance.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 03:23 PM
Tom,
I think you might be suffering from a mania of some kind.
It seems pretty clear that the alternative to state intervention in Cyprus is a banking collapse and the loss of all deposits - so what exactly is the government stealing? Against what alternative scenario does your friend have less？
What exactly are you talking about?
And I'm a state toady because I call for a reduction of taxation rather than its abolishment? Really?
I'm a criminal because I believe that a person's right to eat might be more important than a rich man's right to do whatever he likes?
I defend government when I say that they are "incompetent or immoral"?
Have I ever commented upon press regulation?
When was the last time you actually used your brain, or advanced an argument, as opposed to taking refuge in lovely, lovely moral outrage? (class morality of course)
It's actually rather sad. You don't have a coherent economic view - you claim to be in favour of freedom, but would prefer people's ability to conduct transactions to be limited by a tight fiscal/monetary policy.
You are against all violence, except that which supports an arbitrary status-quo.
You have no real response to criticisms except to become red in the face and call people "bandits".
And, to be honest - I was rather worried about making this point explicitly, in case it provoked an obviously slightly deranged man to do something awful (I've concluded that since you're a clapped out old hypocrite we should be safe) - spare us the bullshit. If you truely believe that taxation is ROBBERY, that the government is EVIL - that the current system is completely corrupt - then what fuck have you actually done about it? Except of course sending the occasional tweet from your big house or while driving around in your ferrari...
Are you a good man doing nothing, or simply passively evil?
Either way, I really don't think you are in any position to call anyone "politically submissive".
You're the one who believes they are being oppressed - you are he one who believes the systemis rotten - and the only action you can muster is a fantasy of the rest of us in a gulag.
Even within the confines of your idiotic world view, you are certainly no hero.
Posted by: Mark | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 02:11 PM
"Now that I live amongst them again, my views have reversed. The British masses are a shiftless, ignorant, nastily-envious bunch who believe above all in the arboricultural nature of money, the desirability of the free lunch and the infallibility of the state."
I often feel that way, but I'm conscious that I don't meet a representative sample of the British population in my daily life, nor do I see the British public accurately reflected by the media. The views of vocal minorities are given undue prominence, and the 'ordinary people' selected for display by the BBC are anything but.
Our electoral system was always vulnerable to what we have seen - a gradual slide to the left, with a small number of voters in marginal seats deciding the course of each election.
"I now feel sorry for those few politicians who would like to do right, but are restrained by their electorate's vile inclinations."
What we need is politicians unapologetically setting forth a radically different alternative, as Thatcher once did. Sometimes people need to be led. Speak plainly and honestly, and the public may yet awake from their social democratic slumber. Today I think UKIP are our best hope. We'll see in 2014 and 2015. Losing Scotland would probably help too, though I doubt they'll have the courage to go it alone.
Posted by: Suboptimal Planet | Friday, March 22, 2013 at 12:12 PM