The Libertarian Alliance: BLOG

Posted by David Davis 

Tesco is under renewed attack, again, this week, for wanting to open a 30,000 square foot supermarket in Manningtree, “England’s smallest town”. (For foreign readers, 30,000 square feet is slightly less than 3,000 square metres, or about 0.29 of a hectare. this is not exactly very large by today’s standards, and there will probably not be room for selling tellies, kitchen appliances etc.

You should also be aware that the modern British have a very stange character trait. This is to turn collectively and publicly (at dinner parties and in the media at any rate) against any person or enterprise which professionally and systematically achieves a very very great deal of success in its field. Slightly surprised amateurs who succeed, are not reviled and execrated to any like extent - witness Richard Branson and J K Rowling. By contrast, the flawed, wounded deities, who appear to struggle messianically against impossible odds, such as Tim Henman and Lady Diana, and who then severally fail or die tragically, are canonised.

The British have been fortunate to be able to have forgotten what it was like to “Go Shopping” in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Nowadays, there is a (nearly) free market in retailing, on an American pattern, (except for the mechanics of property development which is quite regulated.) This has spoiled them into needing no memory of what it was like before.

Tesco, one of the “Big Four” with Asda, Sainsbury and Morrison’s (there were five but Safeway underperformed some years ago and was bought for too much money by Morrison’s) has been the most successful and professional in its business model.

That is to say, it has negotiated confidently on price, so being able to undercut much retail competition, while yet having a queue of wannabe suppliers stretching round the world. The result is the highest ROC for sharholders plus generally the lowest overall prices for customers. Couple this with a well-trained friendly staff who know how to “sell”, seem to know their stuff and offer to pack for you, plus not having to drive round for half an hour & then worry about traffic-gauleiters, and you have a winning formula. No wonder certain sections of the British Enemy Class hate Tesco.

Furthermore, they have done the unforgivable; they have (in the words of a lady in the 80s who thrw wine over Sir Terrence Conran at a party) “TAKEN ALL OUR PRECIOUS THINGS, AND YOU HAVE GIVEN THEM TO EVERYONE”.

But I say this: I said it on a Daily telegraph Blog about an hour ago:

Three cheers for Tesco. NO! That’s not enough; four, five, twenty-one! 

Thirty-odd years ago, Tesco was down there in the crud with Kwik-Save, and the rest of the 70s poor-service, dirty-produce losers. Who bothers to badmouth Kwik-save now? (It’s effectively bust anyway – read the business pages over the last few months.) 

More importantly, Tesco has succeeded so dramatically, because it does what we want (And what all you opponents, in your hearts, want too. In your guts, you all know that it is so!) Tesco brings affordable goods, especially food, and especially nice food, to poor British people, which is most of you on this blog! If as many people really hated Tesco as say they do, it too would be bust; it is not – why? Because you all go there, as do I. 

In a sort of pre-capitalist, theoretical, neo-pastoralist world, where there were no “Councils”, and no traffic-Gestapo slobbering their tickets everywhere, and no “pedestrianisation”, and if you could park everywhere in a normal way, then it might be fun to drive into say Much-Binding-In-The Marsh, park outside that lovely little greengrocer that sells fresh local produce every day, queue up to buy it from him/her, have a jolly banter with him and everyone else, then saunter the few yards along the High Street to your car! Great! I’d love it. So would you.

But you were all aslepp on the job while socialist, car-hating Soviets got control of your Town Halls, and stopped your vehicles from even thinking about being anywhere near this poor shopkeeper, so…….he went bust. You also have yourselves all to blame, if you do not like Tesco (and Mothercare, PCWorld, Tiles-R-Us, Staples, Halfords, Currys, Comet, homebase, B&Q….need I go on?) building all these O-O-T shopping centres on farmland and green belt. Enough of you people failed to not-vote-for gumments that allowed local Soviets to allow it.

You also failed to not vote for gumments that cared not a jot for farmers, and used DEFRA as an attack-dog to put them out of business (probably because most of them are naturally conservative – have you thought about that?) Small wonder that they found it more profitable to sell up – their land now vulnerable to “developers” – most of whom are in league with Soviets anyway; foolish not to be! 

If you wanted your “little shops” to survive, then you should have fought politically for the transport and access environment that would let customers (modern ones with less and less time to spend all day shopping for the next day) get at them! But enough of you voted Labour, for long enough, in enough kinds of election, especially local ones (for psychological self-gratification) that you have brought what YOU see as the “Tesco-Monster” upon yourselves. 

Tesco is wonderful. For the alternative, you can either shop in Britain in the 1950s, or go to an average Soviet-Empire town as late as 1990. you could even have European supermarkets, where the checkout assistants don’t smile at you, there are no carrier-bags (until recently), and they complain if you hand them say a 100-Zloty note for Z-68.19 of goods, and you don’t proffer the exact money! 

Think of life without Tesco; absolutely without it, and also without its clones whom you ought in all intellectual honesty to hate equally.  

Or do you all just hate Tesco because it’s successful and that’s what the British do?

I thought I would make the bolg a bit more zazzy.

Here are just six, in order as they appear on the masthead now;

Friedrich Hayek (to be controlled in one’s economic life is…..to be controlled in…..everything.)

Lord Harris of High Cross (bugger the saddo draggo bozo nazi non-smoker slairs. They are not only evil, but worse, they are boring and sad.)

Chris Tame, as himself (what else can you say?) in the pose we all knew and loved, outside the Bookshop. (Let’s go for a burger afterwards!) 

Arthur Seldon (grand logician and great chap.)

Murray Rothbard (no prisoners to be taken on the way! Press ALL the buttons in front of you, to destroy ALL statism, now!)

And….the Gipper. Sound chap; he, er, saved the World (for a little time, but sadly everybody has now fallen asleep, and has forgotten,and the Hour Is Late) along with The Pope and The Prime Minister (there can be only One.)  All I want to say about him is “and so he passed over, and All The Trumpets sounded for him on The Other Side”. Even if it was only him waiting for us, and he’s fairly unimportant, I’d be chuffed. (I’m a Catholic ,you see.)

My first thoughts on this matter;

 These are fairly random jottings put down in haste.
But here go my thoughts on the Human Rights Act.

A declaration of human rights is to be welcomed - especially a declaration
that cannot be overridden by ordinary legislation.  It is hard to place the
exact moment of death, but the English liberal tradition is now dead. This
rested on the notion that people had certain rights to life, liberty and
property, and that laws should not be made, except in limited circumstances,
to infringe these rights.  However, we live now in a country where the law can be
changed so easily, that there are no laws at all in the old sense. See, for
example, the reaction of the Government whenever a taxpayer wins a case in
the courts. There is no acceptance by the Administration of such judgments. Instead, the
politicians set to work to “close the loophole”.  

Or, regarding political rather than fiscal matters, I only ask you to see the first reaction
to the acquittal of Nick Griffin last year. The promise then was to rewrite
the laws so that he could be more efficiently prosecuted next time.

In such a legal environment, laws become a sword for the state rather than a
shield for the innocent. All that blunts them as an instrument of total
despotism is the irreducible effort needed to make changes.

So *a* >Human Rights Act< is to be welcomed, in principle, in a particular sense. To some extent, this means
welcoming *the* “Human Rights Act” – that is to say, the “European” one. The European Convention, from which the
HRA is derived, is a reasonable statement of liberal ideals - that is, it
emphasises the real rights of freedom to be left alone as opposed to the
socialist “rights” to live at the expense of others. Thus, the HRA declares
rights to freedom of speech and association and fair trial etc, and says
nothing about the “rights” to state education or healthcare or whatever.

The main fault of the HRA is that it imports into England the European
notion of abuse of rights. Therefore, the section dealing with freedom of
speech does not simply affirm a right to say what we like, but adds
something about how this right must be balanced by duties. This is a formula
for censorship, as almost any speech not approved by the authorities can be
called an abuse of rights. That this has not been done very often owes much
to the influence of English judges in the jurisprudence which is surrounding the
Convention as it stands.

There are complaints about the workings of the HRA - that is makes the
prosecution of crime very expensive. This may be due to various
misunderstandings of how rights should be upheld. It may be due to a more or
less conscious desire to sabotage a law that may do much to limit the power
of the State. But, ultimately, people do have certain rights to due process,
and matters of cost should not come into the question.

To elaborate on this matter of cost, justice is a very small part of the
overall State budget. If there is a shortage of money to prosecute crimes
while respecting suspects’ rights, then cuts should be made in less
essential functions of the State - fewer officials, for example, to check
through our bins or whatever. Otherwise, we should accept that there are too
many crimes, and that most of these do not protect life and property.
Therefore, all laws against the possession and sale of drugs and pornography
should be repealed. So should all other laws that do not seek to secure
individuals from attack on their lives and property.

To sum up, the Libertarian Alliance believes that the Human Rights Act is on
balance a good thing. If asked, we could suggest many improvements. But we
are glad that we at last in this country have some protection of our rights
and the the politicians are, to whatever extent, restrained from oppressing
us exactly as takes their fancy.

Look, I’m the Director of Northern Affairs, and this happened just kind of down the road (it’s a big place, the North, sonny.) I refer you first to the link. These are the comments I sent the Torygraph in reply.

Everyone knows, but it cannot be said, for fear of retribution, that the causes of these terrible crimes like the death of this poor little boy, are, as follows; 

(1) Very bad (but inwardly cowardly, hence the type of crime) unsocialised young men, caused directly by Marxo-Gramscian socialist education nostrums and saddo-failed theories, that specifically disadvantage white-Western and Black boys, since their prevailing family-structures are the ones specifically able to be weakened by the nonsense pedalled; and that this is probably on purpose (to later expand the population of the client-underclass so that bureaucrats shall have jobs.) Note that Asian boys in Britain have not generally been involved in this kind of thing hitherto (although watch this space) - in their families, the Father is strong as an iconic figure whom the younger family members respect, and deploys his disciplinary weight freely, in my experience of teaching all types. This is good. 

(2) The forced disarming of ordinary people, progressively orchestrated by set-piece-tragedies such as Hungerford and Dunblane. (A conspiracy-theorist could be forgiven for arguing that both incidents were set up deliberately, by………you may well ask…., although we shall have to wait 100 years for the Dunblane facts.) It is quite clear to a child of six that IF nobody can have guns, (or any weapon, you name the next one to be targetted) then criminals and thugs who want one will get them and be the ONLY people to have them. “God created Man in His own image, but Sam Colt made Men all equal” is as true today as in was in the 1860s.  

Until the bad-person realises that any or all citizens whom he can see around him at that moment may not only be armed, but may fight back (it assumes that philosophically they will collectively have re-acquired the will so to do) then this sort of tragedy will happen. Drive-by-shootings done by evil cowards in hoody-stuff are now possible, from a distance, because they know that - statistically - nobody will retaliate.

This particular kind of crime will disappear, after a few robbers and muggers and burglars have been shot dead in cold blood by armed citizens. A further point to make is that as “The War On Drugs” is lost, valuable Police time can be saved. The admirable Police, in Merseyside or wherever, can then go out and crack down onordinary petty villains, who go about wanting to bully young footballers who are doing no harm, but whom they can’t shoot because their parents or other responsible grown-ups, or coach even, may be armed as well! 

So by letting the £100-a-day habit (which is what generates the crime) become the £5-a-day habit whereby addicts can get their drugs at a chemist, they can abolish “Drug-related Crime”. Pharmaceautical firms can then compete in the free market to supply the best (whatever it may be, your particular poison) to the cleanest standards, with the least side-effects, at the lowest price, about 48p a day. Gordon Brown or whoever the Chancellor is now, can then make the 48p drugs £5 or more by taxation, and give the money to the DHSS bureacrats for them to waste in the normal way. 

In addition, the People will be armed, criminals will take fright and wilt, the drugs trade will be - largely -destroyed, and membership of gun clubs will soar; the TA will in the long term reap a bonus from drawing on a basic-weapons-trained population.

THIS link will amaze you. Or maybe not. I got it quite by chance form a thread in Samizdata.  31 trillion dollars; that’s what we have cost “the people of the world”, in our murderous, rapacious, imperialistic autistic (I would not be surprised) galumph around the globe…..for five hundred years. And there are actually real, thinking persons, out there, who say that “they”, that is to say, “the people of the world”, want it back. Er?

Five hundred years ago, we had been without our first “Empire”, in what is now France, for more than half a century. About 1776, we “lost” part of our “second” one….

Furthermore, the “Empire” that these clever, clever, articulate, nasty, dangerous, to-be-watched-people on “britishreparations” talk about, never really existed in fact, and came into political being quite accidentally and without the authority of either our people or “our” gumment. I am concerned that a sufficiently large number of computer-connected individuals on this planet is sufficiently ghettoized by anti-truth-Nazis, specially among younger teachers in British State Schools, that this story may “run”, and especially here.

We don’t “do” “empires” in this shop, sorry. Not here. Never did, no demand; this is a grocer’s in the North, sonny. We don’t stock that line. Go and see the French or the Belgians across the road (but you’ll find they’ve “lost quite a lot of stock in suspicious fires in Africa” and stuff like that) or that KGB man Putin whose warehouse overlooks Arab Street, if you want that sort of know-how. He’s got some Empires he might sell you (and……. “it’s all about oil” !!!)

I wanted to put the dangerous buggers on the blogroll, so you could watch how it unfolds - but I guess those of you interested in the aftercare in the community of psychotic madmen who ought to be watched, will do it for us. Please report back to me from time to time.

The basic two-star unleaded WordPress masthead has gone. I am trying this one now. I may not like it after a couple of days, or I may, or else I may go and “billion-monkey” a few bits of stuff from round these parts; but please comment, for this is a democracy after all.  A few more of other people’s bolgs gone on the bolg-roll too.

I remember, aged about 8, 9 or 10, seeing a piece on (black and white) British TV - it must have been the BBC as it was hostile I remember -  of a trailer to a Goldwater television advertisement.

It was very interesting, as it showed film footage of a nuclear explosion; I presume it was either the classic Los Alamos one or a later one. The voiceover I remember perfectly as if is was this morning; it said, in a gravelly Tv voiceover voice that you’d expect Dan Dare*** or other hero to have;

“IN YOUR HEART ,  YOU KNOW HE’S RIGHT”.

I can only conclude that this referred to Godwater’s alleged remark on the wireless about Vietnam, then only beginning to insert its baleful self into the arses of American political (non) civilisation. he said, in response to the usual question about what should be done; “in my view, we should put in nukes”.

I imagine at this distance, that he was talking about degrading the facilities at Hanoi and Haiphong.

With hindsight, I think that in 1960 or 1961 ish, we could just about have got away with that. It might have sent the message that we in the West were not only the first to do nukes, but that we were also not to be trifled with, as having found ourselves encompassed in the strong arms of science, we would be prepared to not blink first. I think that the pig Brzhezhnievh would have blinked first, and he would have phoned his wicked gestapo-nasty local Gauleiter Hho Chi Mhinh, and htold himh hto givh inh.

But what if we had miscalculated? Wars are started on miscalculations, after all, such as the 3rd world war of 1914-1918 and its second phase of 1939-1991 with an armistice from 1918-1939. Maybe the buggers would not have tried Cuba in 1962; maybe they would, and would even have meant it seriously; who can say?

I do not know, as Auberon Waugh says. However, I also remember a “PUNCH” cartoon, of the same vintage - it showed an embattled Goldwater, surrounded by darkness, and the caption was…

“Extremism in defence of Liberty is no vice”.

The planet is darkening, now, for those who love liberty, as my reader of this bolg knows. Should we adopt the methods of our enemies? Or should we just keep our heads down, and do “The 6th-Century-Irish-Saving-Of-The-World” thing, and just put what we can rescue onto CD-ROM and DVD, for “later”, when “times are better”?

I expect that Waugh would say “I do not know”.

***Did you know? Dan Dare’s creators, and presumably therefore their hero, came from Southport, Lancashire? There was a bronze bust of Dan Dare, in Lord Street, the main shopping thoroughfare,  commemorating his ancestry and town of birth, but it “has been Removed by the Council for Technical Reasons”.

Samizdata quote of the day, 18.08.07

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests’, I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

- Barry Goldwater, the greatest president America never had.

Nothing more to say really, is there…?

It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice, this years as in the past ones, that all the exciting and excited pictures of jubilantly happy teenagers in the press, posed as in the act of receiving theie A-level results, are girls. I presume that a few boys did actually turn up and sit some exams: surely it must also be reasonable to suppose that at least one or two of these got grades worth chirruping slightly about in front of a camera?

Libertarians are all more or less agreed that the very idea of a “National Curriculum” - that is to say, where the content of State-imposed education, and by inference, leakage and force, the content of most of that provided privately also - is inimical to human liberty and quite possibly dangerous to the proper and truthful spread of real knowledge also. The last is especially the case where an increasingly authoritarian State, such as this one that we have allowed here while we slept, has all its frames of reference and public discourse informed by gramscian marxism.

In this outfit’s efforts to turn all British children into good, non-sexist, dogma-fearing fascists, it has gutted real education and substituted a contentless, feminized, politically-correct (that is to say, marxist) de-historicized agglomeration of “topics”. the preferred learning style, from primary school upwards, favours girls in the first place, and also practically none of these “topics” is of much interest to boys or is presented in a way that will get their blood up and make them want to feel involved, still less to compete to do well. Intra-pupil competition is off the menu anyway, being an “elitist” concept that must not be allowed to be thought of - let alone spoken out loud.

I am not personally surprised that it is hard to find boys to take part in this obviously orchestrated results-junketing smugfest. And then we have the gumment wringing its hands yet again, asking what’s to be done about boys underperforming……again…..versus girls?

Perhaps happy girls sell more papers than happy boys? I do not know. (Have you noticed how all the girls’ teeth are always invariably perfect?)

If anybody has seen official pictures in the public prints, featuring jubilant boys gyrating for the camera while holding A-level (or GCSE, to come this Thursday 23rd August) results, please could they comment? I would be glad to be proved wrong.

It is needful, and also an honour, to say something about Bill Deedes. 

We are all journalists here in the Bolgosphere, else why the hell are we trying to save the world (as my poor long-suffering wife puts it)? Bill Deedes is THE classic example of why the only people who ought to be allowed to become politicians, and/or be listened to for any reason whatsoever, are those who have done some other real stuff in their lives. Until libertarian philosophy, and truly libertarian civilisations, are universally accepted as what any sane person believes is right (echoes of Islam here? Except we don’t spread it by the sword, thinking the pen, perhaps erroneously, to be mightier) politicians will be a necessary, but hopefully declining evil. there may even be a need for “libertarian politicians”, except that a hard-core Rothbardian Objectivist, or a Randian, would think this idea tautological!

The Free World is going down into the cesspit of socialist pre-capitalist barbarian darkness and noisome smelliness and megadeath, without even the benefits of fuelled transport or electricity, because those who are allowed to rise without trace under Statism into “positions of authority”, go straight “into” “politics” (or bureaucracy) without (a) having been educated classically, and (b) without having to do proper work, for themselves, or an employer, for money, earned as reward given for value received, conditional on customers being satisfied.

A few weeks’ gap-year-shelf-filling in Tesco does not count, admirable as it may be; the threat of firing is real but the consequences are nugatory, and the cost can be stood by parents. They can continue to study non-subjects such as sociology, at “universities”,  become part of the Salariat, or politicians - I cannot tell what is worse for humanity - with no bad consequences for themselves.

Bill Deedes was no libertarian, and would probably have been appalled to be described as anything more radical than a “liberal” (we here do note for example, that he advocated the decriminalisation of private homosexuality long before this came about.) But he personified the Man of Classical Liberal Education, who when the occasion demanded, could see the world through the eyes of those who were less fortunate, and, without having to invoke the wickedness-based ”solutions” stridently trumpeted by the evil, imitation-personoids of socialist tyranny and darkness, could gently prod for good, by appealing to the natural humanity present in nearly all of us. Just read the length of tributes to him on the Telegraph web pages and elsewhere.

Lots of people say “we shall not see his like again”. I understand their sadness and sense of loss, but it is defeatist. I hope we will, for that bodes well for the rest of humanity.

The “prog” said that “file does not meet security guidelines”. Here is the link then;

(.) Just there to the left (sic)…………..

Ah.

I forced it to accept it by operating in DOS, what a surprise! Here it is…….

(Jesus H Christ!) FOUR United Kingdoms, and a bit more!

 More useful than France then, to run to and hide in, and with more oil and gas to burn, to keep the planet’s plants running until Man can be Free Again, without a global Ice Age pulling our pants down in the interim.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens may therefore yet survive. We have been through “genetic bottlenecks” before now, and we may have to do so again, if socialism and its current pre-capitalist barbarian warlord allies (and I don’t just mean Ken Livingstone, Hugo Chavez, the chap in Persia whose name I can’t ever spell, and the dead Guava-droid Castro - oh, and Polly Filla,) are allowed to prevail.

I don’t know what the illibertarian Greenazi movement is planning for Alaska, whe they will have managed to pull the blinds donw on the rest of the world, but I hope it’s not much. We’d all better encourage everyone to eat the Caribou that live there before it’s too late for Man.

Also, as the Earth warms up, more people will be able to live there, as in Greenland again. Good prospects then, and I can go to bed happy.

I go to his stuff periodically. Here he is in the American Spectator for 23rd July 2007. (Go if you still can to the whole article; I have merely posted in the link via Roger, to avoid popups, but you will still be able to get it regardless - it will take longer.)

There will be a short written test on the content of this, for Feminazis, Radical Imams, and certain Police officers including ones controlling >censored counties< if they are not careful…!

Roger Scruton for Prime Minister.

(That is to say, in the Interregnum, when Dr Gabb is elected Proxy for Regent, after we have shredded the records and malleted the Hard Disks, and before the reconstituted liberal civilisation.)

I could not resist sharing this with my bolg-reader.

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth and populated
the Earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow and orange and purple
and red vegetables of all kinds, and all manner of plant material that was

meet to be boiled without salt, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives. Then using God’s great gifts, Satan created Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, pate de foie gras,
and Krispy Creme Donuts. And Satan said, “You want chocolate with any of that?”

And Man said, “Yes!” and Woman said, “and as long as you’re at it,
add some sprinkles.” And they gained 10 pounds. And Satan smiled.

And God created the healthful yogurt with good bacteria, that Woman might keep the figure
that Man thought he found so fair. (Size 4; idiot chap. Bunner. (ed.)) And Satan brought forth white flour from the
wheat, and sugar from the cane, and he combined them. And Woman went from
size 4 to size 14.

So God said, “Try my fresh green salad. It is good.” And Satan presented Thousand-Island Dressing, buttery croutons and garlic toast on the side. And
Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast.God then said, “It has pleased Me to send you heart-healthy vegetables and olive
oil in which to cook them.” And Satan brought forth deep fried fish
and chicken-fried steak so big that it needed its own platter. And Man
gained more weight and his cholesterol went through the roof.

God then created a light, fluffy white cake, named it “Angel Food
Cake,” and said, “Eat, It is good.” Satan then created chocolate cake and
named it “Devil’s Food.” They ate it also, and ballooned. 

God then brought forth running-shoes, from Java, so that His children might lose
those extra pounds. And Satan brought forth cable TV with a remote control so
that Man would not have to toil and strive in changing the channels. And Man and Woman laughed and cried before the flickering blue Gallium Arsenide pixels, and gained pounds.Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming
with nutrition. God said; “It Pleases Me that you might eat three egg-sized potatoes per day,

boiled, without salt, as per the directions of the sainted Virginia Bottomley, whom it hath pleased me

 to create for you.  And Satan peeled off the healthful skin of the tasteless unboiled potato, and sliced
the starchy center into chips, and deep-fried them in tasty fat.  And Man gained pounds.It pleased God then to give lean beef, so that Man might consume fewer

calories and still satisfy his appetite. And Satan created McDonald’s and its 99-cent double cheeseburger. Then Satan said, “You want fries with that?” And Man replied, “Yes! And super size them!” And Satan
said, “It is good.”  And Man went into cardiac arrest.God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery.

On Friday 10^th August 2007, the LA Putney Debate will be addressed by Tony Brown who will talk on the subject: ‘On Being a Libertarian Entrepreneur’.

Until recently Tony was a senior lobbyist working for the London based public affairs company Chelgate. He has also been a parliamentary candidate and a local government councillor for the Conservative Party. Now turning his back on party politics he has set sail for a career that aims to develop a range of innovative business organisations. A dedicated libertarian he will explain at this event what he aims to achieve and why.

For more details email Tim Evans at tim@libertarian.co.uk

A Leonardo de Ciprio, whatever that object might be, is holding the world to ransom tonight, in a groundbreaking statement of non-intent, about the “policies” of various “candidates” for the office of “President” of the “United States of America”. Here he is, on “environmental policy”. His words are portentious and his delivery is imperiously plangent, yet also studiedly-mysterious  and, strangely, godlike in a sort of benign, fascist and pre-revelational way:

http://b.casalemedia.com/V2/55982/98820/index.html?www.people.com/people/article/0,,20050585,00.htmlLeonardo DiCaprio’s Presidential Vote Up for GrabsTHURSDAY AUGUST 09, 2007 07:00 AM EDTBy Nicholas WhiteLeonardo DiCaprio traveled to 14 states in 2004 to stump for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry – but the actor and environmentalist isn’t planning to campaign for any of the 2008 candidates just yet.“I’m still on the fence about it, to tell you the truth,” DiCaprio, 32, told reporters at Wednesday’s press conference for The 11th Hour in Beverly Hills. “I have yet to hear a candidate that has clearly laid out their environmental policy in a way that is inspiring to me.”The 11th Hour is DiCaprio’s new global-warming documentary, which he narrates and produces.Sen. Kerry’s candidacy prompted DiCaprio to become active in 2004’s presidential campaign, the actor says: “I thought he had an amazing environmental policy. But I have yet to hear a candidate that has compared in that regard.”The

Blood Diamond star says he’s looking for specifics from the 2008 candidates. “I’m waiting for the right questions to be asked, and for these candidates to give really clear responses to what they’re going to do in a tangible way – not a lot of rhetoric,” he said. “I want to hear hardcore facts.”But with the election still more than a year away, DiCaprio adds, “There is a lot of time left. …I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”Some Hollywood stars have already declared support for presidential candidates – at least financially. Campaign-donation records show Jennifer Annisto.

Well, that’s settled then. We mere mortals can’t form an opinion until this object has done so. How is it that these people get to be like this? What is it about film “stars” in the 21st century that makes them different from earlier ones, who seemed to have no interest in fascism, and less desire to promote it? 

Look, I only worry about this sort of crap because these objects which perform “on film” are clearly so deeply important to everybody. Nearly everyone I pass in the street will genuflect before this Caprio thingy, and yet I had to be told who he was….ought more research to be done?

Imho it is important to find a cultural way for these objects of affection to be either downgraded in the public view (unlikely), or else to upgrade the general appreciation of Western Culture, a real entity, such that these other objects will fall into their proper context, and their opinions thus properly and rightly, become of no account.

If the answer is yes, then my good friend Roy Crawford, his kind wife Dorothy, and their various sons and daughters and their in-laws, run a printing business near here. It’s that kind of business we sort of do around here, still. They have just installed……….

BOOK-BINDING MACHINERY

OTHER STUFF TO PRINT BOOKS (don’t ask me what, I am not a printer/binder.)

They have started doing small print runs, from 50 up to 3,000 copies, of books for anybody who can’t get loved and schmoozed by the big, politically-correct global publishers, all staffed by the Enemy Class, unless you are lucky! They will do hardback or paperback, leather or “ordinary”, whatever.

Contact; Roy Crawford, http://www.crawford-print.co.uk or call 01704 544701,

or fax to 01704 544353, or simply get in your 4×4 and go up the M6 to Arbour House, 32 Arbour Street, Southport, LANCASHIRE, PR8 6SQ

I’m not the Director of Northern Affairs for nothing!

I have so far found these reviews of my book:

You can get all the Mark Steyn’s stuff here, as I am sure that the reader of this bolg knows.

This is an excuse to talk about the Anglosphere, a real long-term practical construct of ordinary real people (unlike socialism, which is an imaginary system , deliberately and fraudulently sorcerized by dissaffected and unemployable intellectuals. Beat that, Polly Toynbee!) Societies in the Anglosphere have got the way they are cos’ they are based on fifteen centuries of reality that mugs you with its ineffable logic. The Anglosphere is branded “politically incorrect” within the fascist circles of the left (although they don’t say so publicly, we and they both know that they know, in whatever diabolically wicked objects function as their “hearts”, that this is true, and that they are assaulting it and that they would like it dead.)

My reader knows what the Anglosphere is anyway.

Perhaps Mark Steyn is going to Australia because it’s……………………….

(A) One of the only countries left in the War,

(B) He is a popular global columnist, who I try to read every day and who has even published my requests! (But the Strines don’t know that and wouldn’t give a 4-X for me anyway,)

(C) The next likely semi-global superpower, within the dwindling band of those nations that believe in and supposedly and outwardly love life (and individual creativity and free thought), as opposed to death (and the opposite of what was in the last bracket.)

I got hold of and read, a wonderful and inspiring book, about 30 years ago, called

RIP VAN AUSTRALIA

It was put together by a couple of what I can only assume were Australian libertarians. There’s no wiki ref to it so I can’t tell you more about it in my usually lazy way, but the guys are John Singleton and Bob Howard, cos’ it’s in my library. It was published by Cassell of Australia, in 1977, and my copy came from Calderwood’s bookshop, 461 Pacific Highway, Crowsnest 43-5108 price $2.50, a bargain.

The book itself is a sort of clever and also extremely funny dictionary; it is of all the political and philosophic terms of discourse in the coming Armageddon between the forces of darkness, and the forces of Light (oh, sorry, I ought not to have said that -  I meant liberalism, or the “Anglosphere.

(The forces of Darkness are of course all leftists plus all greenazis which are the same thing (some of which know what they are doing, and are doing it deliberately which is culpable, and some do not - which I am afraid is equally culpable in this case as in any war  >à-l’outrance<    - they declared it, not us) and…….others….I’d better not say here as it’s public, and tough laws have recently been enacted to prevent me from saying their name.)

 The entry on socialism is particularly fine; it is so long, and I so can’t be arsed to scan it for you, that I will just put this, which is about para-3 in 4 pages;

“Socialism is an economic impossibility. When the Market is destroyed, economic calculation, and all possibility of it, are destroyed with it. A Free Market is almost a living thing - it is constantly in movement, as money, investment, production and resources, flow in response ot the individual decisions of millions of people all of whom are trying to mximize their wellbeing, and whose activity is constantly directed by the mechanism iof supply and demand with its barometer, prices.”

It goes on and gets even better. But the point is that this book was published almost half an ordinary persecuted Russian citizen’s lifetime ago, in a country that nobody reckoned on being important, at least nobody on the death-loving, success-hating, education-denying, Pol-Pot-smoking, lefty fascists’ side I expect.

I wonder if we can do a rap on that stuff? Any ideas anybody? All that hate an’ death an’ denial stuff suggests rap ”music” to me, somehow. “Pol” and “Pot” are good monosyllabic rhyth-bits, whihc ought to be made serious fun of, as he was such an evil thing, and so, so opposite in all he did and stood for, if that is the right way to degrade such a useful word as “stand”.

My usual prize, of a fake FIAT coupon for a 50,000,000-Euro bottle of State-Champagne-substitute (max volume 30 cm³) goes to the first entry of a rap-death-socialism-green “song” opened, that I think is worthy of it, or who lives in Oldham or is of the right ****** mix, whichever is more strategically useful (aka BBC.) 

Watch Mark Steyn’s Australia posts. I think they will be readable.

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2007-08-05-bushell-sig.mp3