The Full-Bottomed Indelicacy of the Ancients

When I was younger, I used to snigger endlessly over the Epigrams of Martial. That was many years ago. Just now, though, I was checking a reference, and I came across this in Bk XI:

XLIII

Deprensum in puero tetricis me vocibus, uxor,
corripis et culum te quoque habere refers.
Dixit idem quotiens lascivo Juno Tonanti?
Ille tamen grandi cum Ganymede jacet.
Incurvabat Hylan posito Tirynthius arcu:
tu Megaran credis non habuisse natis?
Torquebat Phoebum Daphne fugitiva: sed illas
Oebalius flammas jussit abire puer.
Briseis multum quamvis aversa jaceret,
Aeacidae propior levis amicus erat.
Parce tuis igitur dare mascula nomina rebus
teque puta cunnos, uxor, habere duos.

This wasn’t what I was looking for. But the final couplet has brightened my morning. Note also the innocent, rising tone of “Dixit idem quotiens lascivo Juno Tonanti….”

If I taught Martial in any of my occasional Latin courses, I’d almost certainly have the Plod on my back (er!)

O Saeclum insapiens et infacetum!

What are Chinese colleges like?

by Tim Swanson
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thelibertarianstandard/~3/o6FeKnxez5E/

For roughly three years I had the opportunity to live and work at two colleges out here in China. I could describe any number of observations but one that sticks out at this time is the role the Communist Party plays in curriculum.

Brief Note on Original Performances

I’m presently finishing a book, and am otherwise busy with going through a student’s thesis. However, I’ve been listening in whatever breaks I can get to Beethoven S3, Hogwood/AAM. I don’t like their BS8 – brutal tempi, even if the metronome markings may call for them. BS3, though, is done very well. The tempi are much closer to what you get from Bohm/Klemperer/Karajan. The performance is generally civilised and well-balanced, and also exciting. What I particularly like is that I can hear the scoring, which is something you often don’t get with c20 mainstream performances.

Persecution of the Churches: The Canary in the Mineshaft

Sock Puppet Report Touches A Nerve?

by Dick Puddlecote
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DickPuddlecote/~3/IhqXRzibeSQ/sock-puppet-report-touches-nerve.html

A new graphic has appeared on the Cancer Research UK website, most probably following something the IEA said recently.

In the last 15 years, state funding of charities in Britain has increased significantly. 27,000 charities are now dependent on the government for more than 75 per cent of their income and the ‘voluntary sector’ receives more money from the state than it receives in voluntary donations.

It looks something like this.

The Dialectic of Destruction

by Murray Rothbard
http://mises.org/daily/6045/The-Dialectic-of-Destruction

[This article is excerpted from volume 2, chapter 10 of An
Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought
(1995). An MP3 audio file of this chapter, narrated by Jeff
Riggenbach, is available
for download.]

Some might protest that, in our discussion of communism, we have not mentioned the feature that is generally considered the hallmark of that system: the slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This phrase seems to contradict our view that the essence of the communist society is a secularized religion rather than economics. The locus classicus, however, of Marx’s proclamation of this well-known slogan of French socialism, was in the course of his vitriolic Critique of the Gotha Program in 1875, in which Marx denounced the Lassallean deviationists who were forming the new German Social Democratic Party. And it is clear from the context of his discussion that this slogan is of minor and peripheral importance to Marx. In point 3 of his Critique, Marx is denouncing the clause of the program calling for communization of property and “equitable distribution of the proceeds of labour.” In the course of his discussion, Marx states that inequality of labor income is “inevitable in the first stage of communist society, … when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and the cultural development thereby determined.” On the other hand, Marx goes on,

Unilateral Free Trade

by Patrick Barron
http://mises.org/daily/6135/Unilateral-Free-Trade

The Only International Economic Policy That a Country Needs: “Mind Your Own Business and Set a Good Example.”

The international economic scene is dominated by state interventions at all levels. Daily we read of disputes over exchange-rate manipulation, protectionist tariffs followed by retaliatory tariffs, highly regulated free-trade blocs that erect trade barriers to nonbloc nations, bilateral trade agreements, and more. For instance, Great Britain is a member of the European Union (EU) but not of the European Monetary Union (EMU), meaning that it abides by all the regulations and pays all the assessments to remain a member of the EU in order to trade freely with the other members of the 27-country EU. But it does not use the common currency, the euro, which is used by only 17 of the EU members. British industry chafes at the many seemingly meaningless and bizarre regulations that raise the cost of British goods just so Britain can trade freely within the EU. Some regulations are so onerous that some British manufactures will be put out of business. The pro-EU faction in Britain, such as the leadership of the three main parties — the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats — recognizes the damage but proposes to lobby for special exemptions on a case-by-case basis. The anti-EU faction, led by the United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP), wants Britain out of the EU entirely, arguing that the cost of membership is too great and that the loss of sovereignty is unconstitutional. The same debate can be seen within every EU nation to some degree.

Booker: Gummer and a dodgy barrage

by Richard North
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83087

The jokes of the century, perhaps, are that the UK is a democracy and that members of our parliament actually represent our interests.

Libertarianism and Liberalism: What Went Wrong

by Kevin Carson
http://c4ss.org/content/11951

Since the general theme of this blog is an anti-authoritarian entente – or even coalition – of diverse liberal and libertarian elements, one question that comes to mind is: “What are the most objectionable features of both establishment libertarianism, and establishment liberalism, from the standpoint of achieving such a coalition?”

Civil Society or Manipulated Democracy?

by D.J. Webb

Libertarians have traditionally stressed the need for freedom, rather than democracy. There is a good reason for this: democracy is a way of selecting legislators, but contains no guarantee that legislators will not seek to become ever more intrusive in the lives of citizens. Furthermore, democracy, if interpreted as indicating widespread popular support for the political élite, may be used to justify state interventionism. A democracy can be a manipulated democracy and not a free society. Consequently, freedom and democracy are not equivalents, and are not necessarily even mutually supporting concepts.

BBC ties itself in knots

David Davis

It’s droll to see the BBC refusing a sculpture of George Orwell, in that he’s “too left wing”.

By the same token, I wonder if they’d display one of Hitler, they not believing him to be left-wing at all (even though he was – hating the Communists mostly because he and they competed for the votes of the same political clientariat)?

RapeCrisis: yet another “fake charity”?

David Davis

Sean Gabb writes,  incidentally while he is not maintaining regular postings on the blog as he has other stuff to do…

“I did Rape Crisis over on the radio earlier. It’s denouncing George Galloway for his sensible comments on rape, and calling for all rape laws to be respected. One of the points I made was that RC can hardly be regarded as an independent voice. Bearing in mind that it gets the majority of its funding from the Home Office and the Equalities Unit, it should be regarded as a front for the British State – ie, it’s another fake charity. I didn’t actually accuse RC of corrupt motives, but did draw attention to the scale of funding and the fact that HMG would dearly love to put Julian Assange on the first plane to Stockholm.”
SIG

Sean points to the accounts, the most recent set available, which is not very recent by company-or-private-sector-standards and would get them heavily finded for lateness if they were a simple plumber or small retailer…which says in the small print at the back that:-

(1) “Rape Crisis” received in 2008, £6,285 from charitable and fundraising activities, and £103,750 from the Home Office, “Lankelly Chase” (which must be some place or other), “UNISON” and the Government Equalities Office”.

(2) In 2009, it received £11,214 from charitable and fundraising activities, and  £196.685 from the various collectivist sources stated just now above.

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends80/0001119680_ac_20090331_e_c.pdf
I think that makes it a “fake charity, don’t you? It seems to exist to do PR to lobby the government into bring in laws that the government wants brought in.

Don’t get us wrong: we’re not saying that rape is good or all right, just because we are nasty, neoconservative-white-male-dominated mysogynistic-right-wing-fascist-capitalist-imperialist-libertarians. Just that FemiNazis have hijacked rape as an issue to take more power over individuals’ behaviours towards each other, and push that power further deeply into the hands of the state.

For those who don’t know what the concept of a fake charity means, go to http://www.fakecharities.org

I’ve always wanted to ask…what does our header-graphic say about us?

David Davis

While Sean Gabb is otherwise occupied (and he has stuff to do) I thought I’d do a bit of housekeeping. Could any commenter who would like to, tell us what our longtime header-illustration says to you about the Libertarain Alliance?….If anything at all?

No biasing to the question: just that.

Something about sex, drugs and rock-’n-roll

David Davis

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/?q=node/540

And if you’d like to read about why libertarian societies would not deprive people of their cultural roots, go here:-

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/?q=node/544

 

Signing off for the Next Week or so

I’ve decided to have a rest from libertarian activism for the next ten days. I’m behind with a book, and my Baby Bear is permanently at home, pending her starting at school in September. If I break silence in the next week, please regard it as a certain weakness of resolve.

Sean

Blast from the Past: Lament for the Lords

I’ve just found this while looking for something else. I think events have proved me absolutely right – shame, though. SIG

From Free Life, Issue 34, October 1999 ISSN: 0260 5112

Editorial: Days of Shame and Degradation by Sean Gabb

As will be apparent from the Letters Page of the current issue, some of my readers have chosen to complain about the unrelievedly gloomy tone of my Editorials. This is a complaint that has been made at various times during the past eight years, and I propose to give it the same consideration now that I have always given it in the past. I will therefore proceed with my thoughts on the ejection of the hereditary Peers from the House of Lords.

Alleged Frank Zappa Quote

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

Lucid tentacles test ‘n sleeved – Hysterical Navels: Oh Aelric!

Possibly another waste of the state education budget – though also oddly flattering RB

Pussy Riot: From a trumpet with an uncertain voice

by Sean Gabb

Here is a link to the infamous Pussy Riot video. I know everyone important is frothing about the death of freedom in Russia. However, I have a number of observations:

1. They entered a place of worship and committed what any reasonable person would regard as blasphemy. It would be a different matter if they had uttered blasphemies other than here. But this surely makes a difference. After all, most of us would defend the right of a man to say that the Holocaust never happened. We might be less willing to defend him if he had crept into a synagogue to do so.

2. The place of worship they entered was the Church of Christ the Saviour. The original building was demolished by Stalin as one of the culminations of the Bolshevik war on superstition. Its rebuilding and reconsecration in the 1990s was a leading symbol of the return to normal civilisation.

3. If they had entered a mosque in Birmingham to do what they did, they would probably be looking at much the same time inside – that is, if they had survived – and all “people of goodwill” would be denouncing them as a collective Emma West.

4. Russia has at best a tenuous history of religious or any other kind of tolerance. Two years inside for this stikes me as rather moderate.

These points in mind, I feel sorry for anyone who gets two years in a Russian prison. But they brought this on themselves. They are lucky to get off so comparatively lightly. Most of the complaints are from people who diskile Putin’s Russia for its disinclination to bow before the neocon hegemony.

I may, of course, be missing something important. If so, I look forward to correction. SIG

Libertarian Self-Marginalization

by Kevin Carson
http://c4ss.org/content/11798

Go to the average mainstream libertarian venue on any given day, and you’re likely to see elaborate apologetics for corporate globalization, Wal-Mart, offshoring, Nike’s sweatshops, rising CO2 levels, income inequality and wealth concentration, CEO salaries, Big Pharma’s profits, and Microsoft’s market share, all based on the principles of “the free market”–coupled with strenuous denials of all of the perceived evils of corporate power because (as Henry Hazlitt explained at some place or other in PDF – Economics in One Lesson) the principles of the “free market” won’t allow it.