For the coming Dark Age, all libertarians, and indeed all people, will need other skills.

This This is a picture or two of (parts of) a rather nice staircase that I have just spent two weeks French-polishing.

Most of the people who read this blog must be libertarians. By definition that means you are all fairly intelligent, well-read people who can also sometimes write and argue well; it kind of goes with the job, as you find yourselves in these “situations” with either normal people who just need to be given the low-down on how reality works, or socialists and genuinely persuaded “big-guv” types who need to be argued with as they live even today in Wonderland.

As the outlook darkens in much of the West and particularly the Anglosphere, and as Science retreats before superstition, the Rot Will Set In, but (in the words of the late Enoch Powell) “be of good cheer, for it will take quite some time”. Sean, a student of the effect of Rome’s decline, would I am sure comfirm that Rome did not cease to be a great city (if not instead a barbarous one) for centuries after the fall of the Western Empire, if ever. Buy his excellent, informative, bloody-and-thundery book, “The Column of Phocas”, here.

We will not all be able to make a living by writing and speaking to meetings and TV progs about our beliefs. Nor indeed will some of the traditional outlets of skills be still as available as they have been, or at all, such as teaching or lecturing. I forsee a major closedown of “universities”, especially in the UK, as their output is found over the next 10 years to be manifestly unsuitable for any kind of profitable employment. Maybe ten will survive, if that.

But there will always be rich(ish) people who need stuff done. Now, these are mostly in the private sector, but as time passes they will increasingly be senior “local gumment” “officers”, Police Chiefs, Party Gauleiters, and of course “Sports” “Stars” and “Media Celebrities” such as “News Casters” and “Weather Girls”. The odd “Mayor”, and even chaps who are allowed to run companies that sell hardware to all the above agencies, may still qualify.

My advice today is learn how to do “stuff”. Anything. But it should be in the sectors that will be servicing the needs of the New Enemy Class as it revels in its Imperial Triumph, and we all have to become its serfs. We have to survive, so let’s learn how to do all the things that make its life worth living for it, and learning of which it has bypassed, so it will be coddled to sleep in its comfort and then be able to be overwhelmed later, as is happeneing to our civilisation now. 

My father said that his father said that you should

“Always rub up against money, my lad, for there is a chance that some of it may come off”.

Zazzy typefaces and Central Planning

Apologies to our reader for the rather bizarre typeface effect on my last blogpost (Knowsley). I can’t imagine what happened; some bureaucrat no doubt, playing with my laptop, and planning the future.

A Picture of Our New Lord and Master

Welcome to LibertarianUK.net

Yesterday, I was alerted to the recently established web site: LibertarianUK.net

Having now had a look at the site in some detail it is clearly good news and to be welcomed. Its team of authors are clearly sound, thoughtful and professional. They certainly write well.

I hope that like the Libertarian Alliance they continue to thrive long into the future. The more libertarian groups and web sites around the better.

Taking Liberties the Film

The recently launched film Taking Liberties will be of interest to British libertarians and LA supporters everywhere. A full synopsis of the film can be found here 

Sean Gabb – Two Wasted Hours in Doughty Street

Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 163
29th June 2007
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/flcomm/flc163.htm

Two Wasted Hours in Doughty Street
by Sean Gabb

I must apologise to those of my readers who logged onto 18 Doughty Street last night to see me discuss the issues of the day. If you were among them, you will have wasted your time. I said very little, and what I did say had little effect on the course of studio discussion.

This was at least partly my own fault. Failure in anything hardly ever comes entirely from without. But it was also a defect of the way in which the programme had been set up.

I knew this would be bad television from the moment the cameras were switched on. I found myself trapped on a couch with some loud woman from the BBC, with a toad in a suit who was something in the Greater London Conservative Policy, and with a Labour apparatchik who had cycled up from Rotherhithe. I never caught their names, and do not feel inclined to look them up on the Doughty Street website. These struck up a detailed and generally approving examination of the new Cabinet Ministers appointed by Gordon Brown. With growing disquiet, I sat listening to the flow of knowing, self-referential chatter. The other guests seemed to be competing on who could claim to know more of the new Ministers and who could pass the most flattering comments on their ability.

I looked at the studio clock. There were two hours of this to go. I wondered if I might get through the first hour by saying nothing at all, and leave before the second hour.

Suddenly, Iain Dale turned to me and asked if I thought the Conservatives might have trouble finding people of sufficient quality to shadow the new Ministers.

Yes, I answered wearily, the Conservatives would have trouble matching the quality of these new Ministers—but only because they were themselves even more useless and morally corrupt than Labour. I added that a better government than the new one could easily be formed by choosing two dozen people at random from the catering staff at the Palace of Westminster.

That started a flood of denunciation. The Loud Woman asked grandly who I thought I was to speak so slightingly of our masters. I answered that every politician I had ever met was human trash—the better ones were in the game for the money and sex; the rest were plodding control freaks.

The Toad drifted into a monologue about his hard work for the people of London. Mr Dale asked if I thought he was trash on the grounds that he had once stood for election.

This was at least entertaining. I had a good sneer at the Loud Woman and the Toad, whose passion for “democracy” was matched only by their refusal to consider leaving a European Union that had made every ballot box into the country into a dustbin.

And that was my whole contribution to the evening. Mr Dale and his other guests settled into a long examination of whether David Milliband was intensely brilliant or merely brilliant. My further interventions were ignored or quickly wrenched back to the question of who was in and who out.

And this went on for two solid hours! The trio of bores beside me might easily have gone on all night. My biggest regret is that I lacked the courage to get up, to unplug the microphone, and to go home to my wife.

Now, I have been accused, because of my recent postings, of political nihilism. My accusers have a point. But what is wrong with nihilism?

Suppose you are taken into a restaurant, where everything offered is some preparation of stinking fish. Do you placidly go ahead with your order? Or do you throw the menu aside and comment on the smell?

And suppose the other guests—who all seem to have a connection with the management—strike up a debate on the merits of poached as against grilled stinking fish. Do you join in? Or do you head for the door?

And—to complete the analogy—suppose you find yourself chained to the table with a feeding tube shoved down your throat. Is it reasonable to do other than wish for the waiters and the unseen kitchen staff to be taken out and shot?

That describes the politics of this country at the moment. And if saying so is nihilism, I am a nihilist.

That, of course, has described the politics of this country for some time past. But the full banality of things was disguised by having Tony Blair as Prime Minister. There is a glamour in unrestrained evil that even I cannot resist. But if Tony Blair was the Prince of Darkness, those who replace him— and those who want to replace them—are a pack of grinning trolls. He was worth hating. These are barely worth despising.

Now, before going to a full confession of how much I am already missing the wretched man, let me return to Doughty Street. When this channel was started, I read and to some extent believed the claims that it would be a challenge to the hegemony of the established media—that it would bring new voices to our politics and new perspectives. After my last two appearances on the channel, I am beginning to see the many virtues of Drivetime on BBC Radio Slough. This does not drift on all evening, and is not filled with non-entities talking in first-name terms about other non-entities.

I wasted my time last night. I wasted the time of anyone who was tempted by my alert to log on. Once these comments have been read in Doughty Street, I suspect I shall not be invited back. In any event, I am not sure I want to be invited back.

NB—Sean Gabb’s new book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, can be downloaded free from http://tinyurl.com/34e2o3. You can help by contributing to publishing and distribution costs

THE FUTURE IS KNOWSLEY

THE FUTURE IS KNOWSLEY 

WELCOME

This  triumphalist, portentious and gigantic billboard, probably some 40 feet high by 20 wide and seemingly a permanent structure, greets you socialistically in glorious Stalinist technicolour type, as you drive south on the M57 just past Fazackerley. (No, you don’t really want to go there either unless it can’t be avoided.)

 

For our civilised foreign readers, “Knowsley” is a socialist soviet in the north west of what used to be called England.

 

I am sorry that I have not, as Your Director Of Northern Affairs, taken a pic of this monumental notice, but it’s difficult to do while being forced to drive at 79 mph by following lorries and 05/07-reg Golf GTIs going I know not where.

 

I do not think I would want my future to be “Knowsley”, nor would I want to be welcomed to it by bureaucrats. Can anybody tell us why these ghastly people want to welcome us to their hells?

Tony Blair, Good, Bad and Ugly: A Personal Libertarian Perspective

Today, Tony Blair left office after ten years of being the British Prime Minister and many are in a reflective mood as they consider his years in office. With the LA having the luxury of no formal line on these matters here is simply my personal take on his period at No.10.

The Good

On the good side, private healthcare, private education (including home schooling) and the private security sector have all grown during his time in office and no doubt much against his wishes. Today, there are more private hospitals, private healthcare plans and private schools thriving than when he entered office in 1997.

Similarly, I am delighted that university students now have to pay fees and that for every one state policeman there are now more than two private security guards. Away from state courts, private arbitration and mediation services likewise continue to grow.

I welcome these things because as the years go by they have a very real chance of de-coupling ever more voters from the failure of the age of high tax big government.  

A more independent Bank of England, the general advocacy of road pricing, the liberalisation of pub opening hours and the fact that even with recent tax hikes, the overall tax take of the Blair government averaged less than that of Thatcher’s are again all positive, if not remarkable features, given the parlous economic record of previous socialist administrations.

Finally, it is good that Britain seems to be less concerned with the more traditional and deeply collectivist politics of class, race and sexuality than was previously the case.

The Bad

On the bad side, taxes have not gone down. The state continues to consume some 40 per cent of national income. And not only have many billions of pounds been wasted on a greatly expanded welfare state but the regulatory burden is now reaching truly nightmarish proportions.

The British state and European super-state is increasingly involved in every facet of life and there seems little debate amongst any of our political rulers on any alternative course.

The Ugly

On the ugly side, no previous administration has overseen such a systematic dismantling of our basic civil liberties than the Blair government.  

The continual undermining of the common law and trial by jury is a disgrace.

The planned introduction of ID cards, an ever growing list of bans (such as smoking in so called public places) and an ever mounting array of politically correct and totally counter-productive initiatives – such as the war on drugs – is a nightmare. 

Finally, the continual advocacy of a deeply irrational and anti-human eco-fascism poses one of the most profound threats to liberty and freedom that mankind has ever faced.

Overall, it is a pretty mixed bag with the centre of gravity falling in the bad-to-ugly terrain. As Dr. Sean Gabb said in this excellent paper,  ever since the Thatcher decade Britain and its political class has been slowly taking us ever more into the dark side. 

What do you think about Blair and the last ten years?

We brought Gordon Brown upon ourselves.

Sean has, below, excoriated Tony Blair in terms that it would be hard to outdo, and has in effect cursed the man To Eternity. This is good and right. I will never forgive him his black coat and his (almost but not quite tearful) ”People’s Princess” spin-do on the morning of her death. He used it to initiate our ruin as an emotionally-bedwetting nation, and the long-term damage to us as Upstanding People will be hard to undo, if not now impossible.

Sean is right in the main; the man Blair ushered in, whether he intended or not, the most destruction of Britain’s institutions in the shortest time, of anyone in modern history. But we let him get away with it. We let him do it; nobody stopped him.

 I know that earlier this evening I have lambasted another poster on another forum for complaining about “lazy Eurosceptics” who won’t log on and sign the Telly Dailygraph’s petition about something or other. But as I told that lady, “we have not even time to scratch our bums” while trying to pay for the megasocialist state that Brown has created while under Blair’s tutelage.

But we DON’T go on and we DON’T sign, and we let them get away with it.

Democracy works if everyone, most especially the ones chosen to do the representing, respect its objectives. It is no use whatsoever to pretend it does, if the representatives are clearly out for themselves and their wallets, as is clearly now the case in all countries, and sadly increasingly this one, which invented the whole idea.

We failed as a nation, in 1997, to not vote for Blair. (Germany failed as a nation in 1933, to not vote for Hitler; the destruction that ensued should rightly be laid at the door of those voters – a billion tons of rubble first of all, a quarter of a cubic mile, cleared up by……….the Americans and the British; the tragdey was that Germany was arguably the most cultured and socialised nation in the history of the world, or so it  positioned itself via its own intellectuals and many of ours and our scientists, who knew what they spoke of.

By failing to not vote for Blair, not once but THREE times, we have got Gordon Brown, for whom nobody seems to have voted. Clearly, it does not matter to us as a nation who is in supposed “charge”, any more. (It is apparent that the Queen gave up the struggle long ago, if indeed she has ever Understood What She Was For, which I am beginning to doubt sadly.) Therefore we ought to blame ourselves for whatever now will happen, and it ought to be seen as our own fault.

The British will, sadly, never learn to not consort with socialism until they have had their noses rubbed in it ONE MORE TIME, and then, badly. Our failing historically I think is that we are as a people too human and too nice. Being good, human and nice people, who want to see the best in everyone, we fall for the false charms of shysters, doo-gooders, intellectuals with large sexual appetits, and samples of the last three who write well and play good on the telly (Blair!). All these jerks, many on the BBC, tell us how nasty and grasping we are and how we ought to give all our and everybody-else’s money to the “poor” and sundry other-African Jerks-who-Ride-In-Mercs, via sundry Jerks-who-inhabit-the UN.

We have not cared enough about how we are seen, or about our honour as a civilisation because we are the best one.  we just took it for granted, in 1918 and 1945, and went back to bed to grieve for our lost ones. (I will tell you about the Southport War Memorial Sometime.)

Instead by spending too much time meekly trying to pay the Merk-Jerks’ imposts, and the other imposts imposed by the home-Jerks (like “property taxes” eg the “rates”) and not instead opposing them and their ridiculous notions by force or any political weapon to hand (see political correctness for an example – how IN HELL could we, triumphant in 1989, allowed ANYONE to get away with that as a public intellectual property, for God’s sake ?????) we have allowed ourselves to think that people like Brown and Blair are good people.

Instead, people like TAKI had a great party to celebrate the end of communism……….he ought to be ashamed of being such an intelligent man and yet not seeing what the bastards would be up to behind his yacht, and planning for it instead of whingeing later.

It’s easy to say all this in hindsight. But the British have got the gumment they now deserve, by going to sleep on the job. Ah, the “job”! That thing. They forgot what the job was, which was, is, and will be, to teach the rest of the world How To Live.

We got Bliar first, and now we have got Brown (I think it means “dead” in junky-speak, as in “brown-bread”) because we were asleep. Sometime, but not now, I will try to analyse why we went to sleep. but I still will find it in my heart to blame the socialists who wooed us with sirn-siongs of Utopia, because we are nice and kind.

We, liberalism’s students, Are Here To Teach The World How To Live (we ought to begin to say so in so many words) and there is nothing shameful in that destiny. Radical Islam and Socialism, tragically and erroneously for all sorts of reasons, both think the same thing, and are both entirely and totally irrelevant to the problem, as they are not part of the solution in either case, both having signally failed to provide working examples of civilisatiobs which solve the everyday probelms of real humans. 

It will be hard to extinguish the light of Western Civilisation and the Renaissance, even under the EU or the Islameu

This is a picture of my younger child, picking Copernicus’s nose.

The statue is in Olsztyn, Poland, and was put up even under the Communists. Copernicus, of course you will all remember, was he that by observation and mathematical reasoning decided that it would all fit the facts better, if the Earth and the observable planets all went round the Sun rather than otherwise. He arranged for his work to be published about when he died, rather than face a dawn visit by Armed Police and a subsequent hot reception in public somewhere, at an embarrassing moment for him.

It is highly improbable that the soon-to-be-deified founders of the EU, or moreover those “deeply respected scholars” who follow that dead non-white male dark-age desert war-lord whose name escapes me, will allow the statues of their greatest heroes to be so handled and associated with. Indeed, it is even less likely that the said war-lord’s instructions will even allow statues of him to be erected at all. (This is extremely strange and will be explored by me later.)

But the thought-advances of those dead white male philosphers about five centuries ago have so astonishingly enhanced the lives of everyone, and unlike the manifestos of the EUrocrats or the DNWM war-lord, are based on observation and truth. Combined with the power and rise of an Island polity that sought to limit what a State could do – in the teeth of hard and relentless opposition from Europe – and make it responsive to those it taxed for its existence, science brought individual freedom along with betterment of everyone’s condition.

The advance of  collectivism, whether it be by structures imposed by our own Enemy Class in Britain or by our sworn enemies in the EU who cannot ever forgive us for how we saved them from themselves, or by force from outside via the current disarmingly frank and self-avowed enemies of The West, can only succeed in the end if Science is eliminated. We have got beyond the point now where it can be; Chindia makes more scientists per year, trained in the best traditions, than the West owns, and the remainder of the Anglosphere is sufficiently isolated geographically to survive a bit longer.

The internal UK Enemy Class Gauleiters have currently got their fingers on the windpipe of the English GCSE Science syllabuses, and have turned next year’s GCSE exams into a parade of “politically-correct” discussions of PSHE and “citizenship” issues, with not a calculation in sight.

I’m sure our enemies would not allow the children of refuseniks, or indeed anybody at all, to pick the noses of their heroes’ statues.

So on the whole the outlook is bright, although the enemies may yet succeed in destroying the cradle of the civilisation that made them anachronistic and irrelevant. We have to ask whether this matters in the long term; in my more depressed moments I think not.

Rejoice, Just Rejoice!

Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 162
27th June 2007
postCount(‘flc162′);Comments| postCountTB(‘flc162′); Trackback Tony Blair: The Traitor Departs
by Sean Gabb

As I write, Tony Blair is about to stop being Prime Minister. I have waited ten years to see this day. I will celebrate later today by opening a bottle of champagne. In the meantime, I will make the briefest possible farewell to the man.

I am told Mr Blair has a heart condition. I hope this kills him within five years, and that no day between now and then will be other than filled with pain. I hope that fears of being arrested as a war criminal will keep him from seeing anywhere nice in Europe again. I hope that his lecture tours of America will be ruined by popular demonstrations against him and by the tort lawyers. I hope his new job as an envoy in the Levant will end in bitter disappointment. I hope his business ventures will all end in disaster. I hope that death, when it comes, will find a man broken in body and soul.

Of course, he could not have completed the transformation of England into a panopticon police state without the collaboration of an entire political class, and the indifference of the human sheep in the street. Nor could he have taken us so disgracefully to war but for the greed and stupidity of all around him, and for the moral cowardice of the chiefs of staff. But for ten years, he was in charge of things, and he did more than anyone else to drive them forward. It is only fitting that he should receive the greater part of the moral blame.

I have done with the man. I wish him dead, but only after much suffering. Better still, I wish he had never been born.

NB – Sean Gabb’s new book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, can be downloaded free from http://tinyurl.com/34e2o3. You can help by contributing to publishing and distribution costs

Madsen Pirie Reviewed

 

 

Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 161
25th June 2007
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Madsen Pirie: Novelist
Review Article
by Sean Gabb

Children of the Night
Madsen Pirie
Arctic Fox Books, London, 2007, 162pp, £8.95 (hbk)
ISBN 978 0 9555844-0-4

Dark Visitor
Madsen Pirie
Arctic Fox Books, London, 2007, 139pp, £8.95 (hbk)
ISBN 978 0 9555844-1-1

While Madsen Pirie is most certainly the father of these books, I feel in a sense that I am one of their uncles. Last year, I wrote an article on self-publication, in which I explained how writers could nowadays do without the traditional medium of a publisher to get their work before the public. Dr Pirie took my advice to heart, improving on it in several places, and has now published not one but two novels.

Unlike my own novels, these may be given to children. Both are short. Both are clear and simple. Both are wholesome. Both, moreover, contain a strongly libertarian message. Of course, I do recommend them.

Of the two novels, I prefer the first, Children of the Night. And so I will confine my review to this.

Children of the Night is set several thousand years into the future. Our own civilisation has passed away. Correction: our own civilisation has destroyed itself in some dreadful war involving the use of antimatter weapons. All that remains is a civilisation like that of the early middle ages, in which power is divided between the Church of Rome and a feudalistic empire that includes Europe and North America. Some technical knowledge has survived. There are, for example, flying machines. But all knowledge of technology is limited by the ruling class. This relies on a race of dwarves for the machinery it needs to fight its generally losing war of attrition with the Barbarians. It keeps the mass of people in darkness, allowing them nothing more in the way of technology than existed in Europe before about 1300.

The hero, Mark, is a 13 year old boy who works as the lowest grade of servant in Gloucester Cathedral. He was brought here after the Barbarians had killed his family in South America. His job is to help keep the place clean. He is a special boy, as he has telepathic powers that allow him to communicate with a pet rat. But he has nothing to look forward to in life beyond endless menial work and endless humiliation.

His life changes abruptly when Brother Gregor, one of the few monks to show him any kindness, is murdered. Everyone believes he is the latest victim of the Children of the Night – a secret society that is said to practise every class of abomination in its revolt against Church and State. Almost immediately after, Geneva Torvil arrives in the Cathedral. She is a young pilot who has been instructed to bring the great Baron Vassendreyl to a meeting with the Lord Bishop of Gloucester. Mark rescues her from a murder attempt, and they become friends.

Thus begins an adventure that will take Mark and Geneva to the far northern edge of civilisation to help thwart a conspiracy that threatens not only Church and State, but everything that is decent. They are joined by Calvin, a clever dwarf, and by Mark’s telepathic rat, Quicksilver. They learn about the rotten foundations on which their world rests. And they learn the true nature of the Children of the Night.

This is a book for children, and so all digressions and passages of description are ruthlessly edited. Nothing is allowed to come between the reader and a very fast-moving plot. Even so, this world of the future is clearly drawn. And there are brief but significant reflections on the horror of slavery and of taxes and tithes, and on the ennobling nature of trade.

Indeed, just because these are novels for children does not mean that they have nothing to offer adults. All the best literature for children works for children of every age, and these are no exception. I thoroughly enjoyed reading both. And I recommend both to anyone who needs to buy presents for children, or who is simply looking for a good read on holiday this summer.

The novels can be ordered from Amazon.

NB – Sean Gabb’s new book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back,  can be downloaded free from http://tinyurl.com/34e2o3. You can help by contributing to publishing and distribution costs

 

 

 

New LA Publication

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, On the Origin of Private Property and the Family, 2007, 8pp

ISBN: 9781856377522

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/histn/histn048.htm

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/histn/histn048.pdf

Libertarian Alliance Conference 2007

 

The UK’s radical free market and civil liberties think tank

www.libertarian.co.uk

 Liberty 2007

The Annual Conference of the Libertarian Alliance and the

Libertarian International

Saturday 27 October – Sunday 28 October 2007

 Saturday – Conference: 9.15am-5.30pm
Saturday – Dinner: 7.30pm-10.30pm

Sunday – Conference: 10.00am-5.00pm

Sunday – Drinks Reception: 5.00pm-7.00pm

 The National Liberal Club
Whitehall Place
London SW1A 2HE
United Kingdom
http://www.nlc.org.uk

 Sign up now for Liberty 2007 the Annual Conference of the Libertarian Alliance – held in association with the Libertarian International. To confirm your place make out a cheque for £85 (120 Euros or 150 $US), made payable to the ‘Libertarian Alliance’, and post it to: Libertarian Alliance, Suite 35, 2 Landsdowne Row, London W1J 6HL, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can electronically via the LA’s homepage at www.libertarian.co.uk

To be held in London on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 October 2007 at the National Liberal Club the programme includes Leon Louw (TBC), Dr. Sean Gabb, Professor Bruce L. Benson, Christian Michel, Dr. Tim Evans, Alex Singleton, David Carr, Brian Micklethwait, Dr. David M. Hart (TBC), David Farrer, Matthew Elliott, Shane Frith, Professor Gabriel Calzada (TBC), Dr. Cecile Philippe, Alberto Mingardi, Patrick Crozier and Marc-Henri Glendening.

The subjects to be discussed include: The Disaster of Water Socialism – Why the Sea should be Privatised; Private Law Enforcement – Libertarian Ideas on the Future of Justice; The Developing World – A Worthy Case for Global Capitalism; Towards a Surveillance Society – The New Calculation Debate for the 21^st Century; Anarcho-Capitalism Versus the Minimum State – Would a Society Without Coercion Eventually Re-Invent the State? Thoughts on Building Campaigns for Liberty; Libertarian Groups on the Continent – Examples from Spain, France and Italy; Post-Modernity and Liberty.

This year’s programme includes the Annual LA Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Saturday evening and a Drinks Reception to be held during the early evening of Sunday. Although this will be the largest LA Conference for some years spaces remain limited and will only be allocated on a first come first served basis. Please note that while the conference fee includes the LA Annual Dinner and Sunday’s Drinks Reception it does not include other meals or accommodation – which have to be arranged separately. 

 For more information email tim@libertarian.co.uk  sean@libertarian.co.uk

 

What Sean Gabb did in Turkey

Free Life Commentary,
A Personal View from
The Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Issue Number 160
21st June 2007
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The Second Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society,
Bodrum, May 2007:
A Brief Record
by Sean Gabb

When I came back last year from the inaugural meeting in Turkey of the The Property and Freedom Society, I was unable to imagine how the next could be better. Everything about that meeting—the hotel, the location, the speeches, the new friendships—was as near perfect as could be. How, then, could the next one be better? It was set for the same place, between the 24th and 28th May 2007.

The answer is that it managed to be better by being much the same, plus a little extra. The Hotel Karia Princess was as wonderful as before—and I do most strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to visit the Aegean coast of Turkey. My opinion of the Turks is, if possible, higher still than it was last year. I then compared them with the Greeks. I had yet to discover the Sicilians, about whom I cannot speak truly without risking imprisonment under the Public Order Act.

I will speak later about my impressions of Ephesus and Constantinople. But I gave my general thoughts last year on Turkey, and so will not repeat them here

I turn then to the conference proceedings. Remember that the Property and Freedom Society was set up by Hans-Hermann Hoppe for the uncompromising promotion of libertarian values—that is, a promotion that is not to be moderated by any considerations of what the ruling classes of the West consider to be appropriate. Last year, what was said was so interesting that several ordinary guests in the hotel booked their next holiday to coincide with the next meeting. I do not think they were disappointed. Let me summarise those speeches which I recorded on video or of which I took written notes.

Friday 25th May 2007

First were Richard Lynn, on “The Global Bell Curve” and Tatu Vanhanen on “IQ and the Wealth of Nations”. Though these gave different speeches, both were on the same theme, and both speakers drew from the book they have written together, IQ and Global Inequality. They explained that one of the main indicators of economic success for a nation—assuming reasonably sane government—is IQ; that it is possible to construct a scatter diagram to show the stability of this relationship; that IQ is largely inherited and fully innate; that IQ is different between countries and different between the temperate and equatorial regions of our planet; and that IQ averages in the former regions may be depressed by migration from the latter.

They dismissed cultural differences between groups and social inequalities. These, they insisted, did not explain differences of income so fully or so simply as differences of IQ.

These are controversial claims, and they provoked a long discussion from the floor. At the end, Professor Hoppe made a number of points which are worth summarising;

First, these are claims about matters of fact. As such, they ought to be subject to the same reasoned discussion as any other set of evidential claims.

Second, if they are true, they have no bearing on the core values of libertarianism. Just because some groups may not be of equal average intelligence or other ability does not mean that any individual should have other than equal rights to life, liberty and property.

Third, a free society based on the division of labour has room for all levels of intelligence and other ability.

The next main speakers were Yuri Maltsev and Paul Gottfried. Professor Maltsev spoke about “The Quest for Equality and the Poverty of Nations”, and showed that those nations in which equality of outcome has been most strenuously pursued are the poorest and least equal places on earth. Professor Gottfried asked “Can We Defeat the Disease of Egalitarianism?” I did not record his speech, but I did record an interview with him that is now available on the Internet. In this, he gives a characteristically radical answer.

That was the end of the first day of proceedings. We moved to a long and enjoyable dinner in the gardens of the Hotel.

Saturday 26th May 2007

The first session on Saturday included: Peter Mentzel on “The Ottoman Empire: How Sick Was the Sick Man of Europe?”; William Marina on “A Desert Without Thaw: US—Iran Relations 1944-Present”; and Hunt Tooley on “Divide, Rule, Manipulate: Western Strategies for the Middle East in the Period between the World Wars”.

These were all fascinating speeches, and I wish I had recorded them on video. I learnt that the Ottoman Empire was actually dong rather well by all normal indicators until 1914, and that it managed to outlive the Tsarist Government that had coined the “Sick Man” epithet. From Professor Marina, I most recall his revelation that the Persians will, within the next generation, become a minority in Iran, and that there is, in obvious consequence, a natural basis for a settlement of all differences with the western powers.

Next came Thomas DiLorenzo on “The American Myth of Limited Constitutional Government” and Marco Bassani on “Empire or Liberty: The Anti-Federalist Alternative”. These took sceptical views of American politics in the 1780s, and showed how failings in the framing of the American Constitution gradually defeated the stated purpose of the War of Independence.

Next was Paul Belien on “Secessionism in Europe”. This included a trenchant attack on Scottish nationalism, which Dr Belien has less to do with creating an independent Scotland than with breaking up a Eurosceptical United Kingdom.

Then came I. When Professor Hoppe asked me for a title last year, I did suggest “Demography and History”. I then changed my mind, and thought it would be more interesting to speak about the possibly libertarian implications of the global warming hysteria. But I found the title on the agenda when I arrived, and Mrs Gabb told me it would be rude to make changes so late in the day.

I therefore spoke about the demographic changes in the Eastern Mediterranean world of the sixth and seventh centuries—how these had been caused by a pandemic as great as the Black Death, and how they led to the collapse of ancient civilisation and the Arab conquest of Syria, Egypt and North Africa. I have uploaded the video of this speech to the Internet, and so will say no more about it.

So ended the second day of proceedings. In the evening, we all went off for dinner in the fishing village of Kadikalesi. We sat on the beach until long after sunset, eating fish and drinking various wines and spirits.

Sunday 27th May 2007

The first speaker on Sunday was Christian Michel, who is, among much else, the Director of European Affairs for the Libertarian Alliance. He spoke about “The Neuroses of Science and State”. Christian speaks the best English of any Frenchman I have met. Indeed, he speaks better English than most Englishmen. And this was a characteristically polished and elliptical speech on how state control and state finance of research corrupts knowledge. I am sure the text will soon be available through the Libertarian Alliance.

Then came Edward Stringham, asking “If Anarcho-Capitalism is so Great, Why doesn’t it Exist?” and Dan Stastny on “The Economics of Economics”.

After this came Professor Hoppe with a long and very interesting paper on “The Origins of Private Property and the Family”. This is hard to summarise. But it seeks to explain the emergence of both property and the family as responses to population growth. It is only when individuals are able to own property that new resources are created. It is only when individuals are held responsible for the maintenance of their children that population does not grow beyond the constraint of the resources presently available.

Mrs Gabb drew a number of highly conservative inferences from the speech. But as the speech will soon be published in full by the Libertarian Alliance, I will not mention these now.

Then came Juliusz Jablecki, commenting on “Libertarian Strategy in the Post-Modernist Age”, and Olivier Richard, making “A Note on Libertarian Strategy”. Mr Jablecki spoke about the feasibility of using the language of post-modernism against the post-modernists, and this led to an entertaining argument with Paul Gottfried. Dr Richard spoke about the need to reach out to groups not currently regarded as libertarian, but who may be favourable to a reduction in state control over their lives.

And that was it for 2007. We spent the evening in the Hotel for a dinner that included belly dancing and a carpet sale.

General Reflections

The fact that these conferences are so enormously pleasant as a social experience does not blind me to their merits considered as conferences. The libertarian movement is hardly on the edge of collapse. Even with its minimal funding, the Libertarian Alliance is going though one of its more energetic periods. There are libertarian movements in almost every civilised country—and in many uncivilised countries.

But there is often a feeling of staleness about libertarian arguments. I am not dismissing our frequent concentration on economic issues. Whatever anyone may claim, we have not won the arguments on economics. We are as heavily taxed as ever—and more heavily regulated than in the 1960s and 1970s. But the nature of the statist enemy has changed in the past few decades. It has learnt to combine some degree of economic rationality with new modes of oppression and new modes of justification. I do not feel that we have, as a movement, come adequately to terms with these changes.

I believe that there is still good work to be done in building alliances with some sexual and other minorities and with many people who regard themselves as on the “left” of politics. At the same time, there is much common ground with intelligent conservatives like Paul Belien and Paul Gottfried. They are not libertarians, but they do have insights into the nature of the new order of things from which we can all benefit.

The value of the Property and Freedom Society is that it provides an institutional framework within which differences can be discussed and areas of agreement explored. The intention is that its annual meeting should become better every time. This does not necessarily mean bigger: it means better and more exclusive. Invitations should become an essential mark of acceptance to everyone who is anyone in our movement.

Therefore, I do most warmly commend the work of Professor Hoppe and of his colleagues in the Property and Freedom Society. Anyone who is interested to learn more about this work should contact Professor Hoppe directly. He is already planning the next meeting in Turkey for the May of 2008, and is looking for additional participants.

Other Activities

This year, Mrs Gabb went with me to Turkey, and she enjoyed herself as much as I did. We spent much of our free time wandering around Bodrum and looking in the shops.

We also hired a car and drove several hundred miles along the Aegean coastline, looking at Ephesus, Miletus, Magnesia, and other famous but now ruined cities of the ancient world.

Most importantly, though, we spent two days in Constantinople—the Second Rome. My new, and so far unpublished, novel is set here in the year 610. It has barbarian raids, chariot races, political intrigue, murder and civil war woven into the plot. But the place where all this happens is the great City of Constantine.

In writing the novel, I relied much on reconstructed maps of the mediaeval city and of descriptions by modern historians. I knew that the old maps were unreliable, due to more than a thousand years of continuous redevelopment. But our first walk through the City told me I needed to rewrite many parts of the novel. I had not realised the immense scale of the City within the Walls of Theodosius. It is bigger than Westminster and the City of London combined. It can take hours to cross from one side to the other.

Then there are the hills. I had somehow imagined the City as more or less flat. The centre, however, is on a plateau that rises to several hundred feet above sea level. You can look out from the windows of the Hagia Sophia Church and look down to the Golden Horn and the Bosporus. I shall have much fun rewriting the relevant parts of the novel.

The modern City is also impressive. We did all the usual sights—the Blue Mosque, the Spice Market, the Grand Bazaar, and so on.

Perhaps most interesting, though, was that we arrived in the City on the 29th May. After a day of walking from place to place, Mrs Gabb and I sat down in the wide space that used to contain the Hippodrome and were busy discussing where we should have dinner. At once, there was the crash of Turkish military music—the sort that Mozart was good at mimicking. We got up and pushed through the large crowd that had formed. Along the street towards us about twenty men dressed as Janissaries were marching. As they passed, the crowd let up a cheer and joined in a procession.

Someone gave me a Turkish flag and waved me into the procession. Mrs Gabb suggested that this might be one of the civil disturbances we had been warned about on the television. But everyone looked very cheerful, and I wanted to know what was happening.

We marched along until we reached a square with a stage and seating set up. The Janissaries and the band went onto the stage, and everyone else crowded into the seats or stood around.

Someone dressed very smartly got up and began a long speech in Turkish. I understood none of this, but turned to look at the banners that had been draped around the square. I read the words “Istanbul Fetih 554 yili Konseri”. I know that Fetih is “victory” in many oriental languages, and that konseri must mean “concert”. The “554″ told me, though, what was happening. This was the 29th May. On that day in 1453, the City was taken from the Greeks.

As I am rather pro-Byzantine, I felt wicked to have taken part—even unwittingly— in a celebration of so notable a disaster. On the other hand, I was smitten with admiration for the Turks. In England, we just about manage to celebrate historical events since 1940. Anything earlier tends to be officially discouraged or ignored. Here, though, the Turks were in full patriotic glow about the fall of the Eastern Empire. And, if regrettable, it was a splendid achievement. Unlike the Crusaders, who simply burnt and looted and killed, the Turkish conquerors rebuilt the City in magnificent style and made it once again the capital of a great empire.

I did as Mrs Gabb said, and put the flag away, but we both stood listening to the concert until darkness and hunger drove us in search of food. I managed to shoot some interesting if disorganised video footage of the event.

We will go back to the City. But that will be another article..

NB—Sean Gabb’s new book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, can be downloaded for free from http://tinyurl.com/34e2o3

New Eurotactic; Franco-Europeans unilaterally abolish the true meaning of someone else’s brand, but defend their own to the death.

I learn today the following;

Poles blast broad new EU vodka definition; 20 June 2007, 17:08 CET
(WARSAW) – Poles on Wednesday blasted a decision by EU
lawmakers to approve a definition of vodka that has
affronted traditionalists who claim it could let pale
imitations of the real thing invade the market.

“A defeat for our age-old tradition,” “The vodka
battle is lost,” “The vodka’s down the drain,” and
“Get ready for banana vodka” were among the banner
headlines in Poland’s leading newspapers following the
European Parliament’s vote Tuesday.

MEPs backed a proposed definition of vodka that says
the spirit must be made from grains or potatoes.

However, to the horror of traditionalists, vodka could
also be made from other ingredients such as sugar
beet, apples and raisins as long as bottles were
properly labelled, according to the text.

Polish lawmaker Ryszard Czarnecki slammed the move,
asking: “Would the French agree to call a drink made
from plums champagne, or the British to let a peach
spirit have the name whisky?”

The Polish media also slammed Agriculture Minister
Andrzej Lepper for his allegedly slapdash lobbying
within the EU in favour of traditional vodka.

Purists from the EU’s so-called vodka belt –
stretching in a loop around the Baltic Sea from
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia through Finland,
Sweden and Denmark — had wanted a tight definition
that would only cover spirits made from grain,
potatoes or molasses.

The traditionalists, who account for 70 percent of
production and 65 percent of consumption in the
27-nation EU, argued that vodka should be protected by
a narrow definition just like whisky and rum.

However, other countries, keen to tap into the
12-billion-dollar (nine-billion-euro) global vodka
trade, wanted a looser definition including spirits
made from other ingredients.

Vodka can be made from any agricultural product that
ferments after it is distilled into alcohol and water
is added.
http://www.eubusiness.com/Consumer/1182348018.96

This is an example of a spiritually and socially-bankrupt régime, deciding in the infinite hubris of its narcissistic self-isolation from reality, to use the honest names of other people’s things to cloak its cast-offs in respectability. I replied;

The Poles just have to employ some marketing.

LET THE FRENCH RULING-CLASS BASTARD-RUINERS-of-other-countries’-native-products (like beef) (they don’t go about declassing champagne or cheeses, do they) do whatever they want. LET them describe any sort of disgusting toxic turpentine paint-stripper as VODKA, if it should please their Ruling Class. Let them. It does not matter a monkey’s f***. Ask Clinton or Prescott about these kinds of f***s, at an early election near you.

All that the (very clever) Poles have to do is rebrand their own proper Vodka as “REAL VODKA as traditionally made in the Polish-Speaking Regions of the EU” – it is IMPORTANT that it should be EXACTLY described as such. The implication is that it is also made from traditional ingredients, but this is not explicitly stated, only on the Statutory Ingredients list if there should be one required.

There is, furthermore, nothing whatsoever to stop Polish producers, or indeed the Polish gumment, on behalf of its producers and its nation, while a still-independent and Sovereign one exists, taking out patents for “Real Polish Vodka made in the EU Region of Polish-Speaking-Peoples”.

They ought to do this in all the major Anglosphere Nations (these are the only ones which matter out of the total of Western And Christianist Nations against which war will be later declared) and also REGISTERING IT as a TRADE MARK.

I will cost the entire legal-op at USD 9 million, about 25 million ZLOTY, less than some footballists paid for their houses and to have them done up all nice in Cheshire and not London. Bless them, the affable chaps.

The Poles can then sell the stuff outside the EU if they want, whether or not the EU decides to allow it to be sold inside its prison-compound itself. The more the Euro becomes toilet-paper, the more “they EuroNazis, those” will want to authorize sale, of anything that people will reasonably buy, elsewhere.
This is so that good old-fashioned low-tech stuff (like Real Vodka, rockets, fish-meal (stolen from Africa or Canada), wooden toy bears that rock on wooden journals, and plastic models of ethic Austrian mountain-dancing-chaps in Lederhosen) should be sold outside the EU, just like the USSR did, Cuba has to do, and North Korea will have to.

The problem the EU will find is China. China will be able to mass-produce “non-Vodka” for the planet, on Tuesday morning. This will also be stronger and also better screened for crap stuff in it for it will be commercial. it will not have been made in order to use up suplus wine and so therefore to placate failed-grape-producers.

This production will be at 1,000 times the volume of the EU and at 1/1000 of the price, due to China‘s 560 coal-fired power stations now starting to come on stream. The EU being a totalitarian construct like China, is not about to berate China for anything, as it is still desperately trying to sell the dead-Gallileo nonsense to it, and needs the money.

The moral is, for the EU, as follows. Don’t steal your slaves’ brands and corrupt them to your supposed short-term-profit; they may end up corrupting you and busting you instead.

And yet, the French would never countenance in a million years, the use of the word “champagne” by, say, Russians, or Australians, to descibe a generalisd type of sparkling wine sold in robust high-pressure bottles with wired-on  corks.

LA News Release: Ban on ‘Violent’ Computer Game Unacceptable

NEWS RELEASE FROM THE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE
In Association with the Libertarian International

Release Date: Thursday 21st June 2007
Release Time: Immediate

Contact Details:
Dr Sean Gabb (Director), 07956 472 199, sean@libertarian.co.uk

For other contact and link details, see the foot of this message
Release url: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/news/nr053.htm

“BAN ON ‘VIOLENT’ COMPUTER GAME UNACCEPTABLE”, SAYS FREE MARKET AND CIVIL LIBERTIES THINK TANK

The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties policy institute, today condemns the ban placed by the British Board of Film Classification on the computer game Manhunt 2, and calls for the immediate repeal of the Video Recordings Act 1984.

(This computer game was refused a certificate on the 18th June 2007 by the BBFC. The reason given was “unremitting bleakness” and encouragement of “casual sadism”. Though it is formally a private body, no video recording or computer game can legally be sold in Britain without a BBFC certificate.)

Libertarian Alliance Director, Dr Sean Gabb, says:

“This is an outrageous interference with individual freedom. It is unacceptable in what our rulers still like to call a free society. If books were subject to the same regulation as computer games are, The Bible, The Koran and The Communist Manifesto would all be banned for their alleged incitement to violence.

“In a society not driven mad by political correctness, there would be an obvious distinction between speech and action. Of course, individuals should be punished for violent acts against life or property. But they alone must be held responsible for their actions. It is both wrong and unwise to spread the legal blame to anyone who may have inspired such actions. It is wrong because it denies individual responsibility. It is unwise because any diminution of individual responsibility must tend to weaken the individual moral restraint on which all social peace depends.

“The Video Recordings Act 1984, under which this ban was imposed, is a censorship law. It must be repealed. The British Board of Film Classification, being a private organisation, should not be touched by the Government. Neither, however, should it directly or indirectly receive another penny of the taxpayers’ money.”

END OF COPY

Note(s) to Editors

Dr Sean Gabb is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance. His new book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, is available for free download at http://tinyurl.com/34e2o3

He can be contacted for further comment on 07956 472 199 or by email at sean@libertarian.co.uk

Extended Contact Details:

The Libertarian Alliance is Britain’s most radical free market and civil liberties policy institute. It has published more than 800 articles, pamphlets and books in support of freedom and against statism in all its forms. These are freely available at http://www.libertarian.co.uk

Our postal address is

The Libertarian Alliance
Suite 35
2 Landsdowne Row
Berkeley Square
London
W1J 6HL
Tel: 07956 472 199

Associated Organisations

The Libertarian International – http://www.libertarian.to – is a sister organisation to the Libertarian Alliance. Its mission is to coordinate various initiatives in the defence of individual liberty throughout the world.

Sean Gabb’s personal website – http://www.seangabb.co.uk – contains about a million words of writings on themes interesting to libertarians and conservatives.

Hampden Press – http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.- the publishing house of the Libertarian Alliance.

Liberalia – http://www.liberalia.com – maintained by by LA Executive member Christian Michel, Liberalia publishes in-depth papers in French and English on libertarianism and free enterprise. It is a prime source of documentation on these issues for students and scholars.

SIMON HEFFER; if the link does not work use this one

HERE

more on the BBC and what should become of it, from Simon Heffer; also what to do about the Airwaves.

Sean’s release about the BooBy-C has obviously sparked the Heffer into action, here. The whole sad story, of what the Beeb has been allowed to become, begs questions about WHAT we all must have been doing, as a civilisation and as a suppsedly unitary culture recently. This is a culture which fought (and defeated) unimaginable evil, on at least seven occasions in the last 500 years, not to mention minor corrective actions against others.

As to staking claims to and/or occupying the airwaves, they are Real Estate just like Land, for they have physical existence in Fact. In this regard, “Radio Hams” are the quintessential mmodern equivalent of Australian Aboriginals, Eskimos, or “Native Americans”; they have been using quite well-established parts of these since God was in shorts – certainly before absolutely every “State Broadcaster” was founded, and 100% certainly before ANY supranational organisation of any kind whatsoever came into existence, the League of Nations included!

The majority of the planet’s Hams are Old White Men of many nations, most of which majority are also scientists and engineers of many sorts, and all of whom are amiable and sociable chappies who like a quiet life. They are the ideal people to be put in charge of allocating all the competing proerty rights that will be debated when it comes to throwing the “airwaves” open to competition. Let the Hams sort it out; the surviving ones who can drive or at least stand up, will all get together at a “Rally” for a couple of days, buy and sell exciting old junk to/from each other (the most important part of the event), hear competeing claims, allocate them on the basis of need versus practicability versus how much it’s worth for the applicant, and then everyone can go home.

Vaclav Klaus article; I should have looked on the blog first!

How embarrassing; I notice someone has just got there before me!