Talkin’-’bout my Generation

David Davis

In the late afternoons of our lives, various thoughts occur. I had a cyberchat with my colleague, the Dear Leader of the Libertarian Alliance, Dr Sean Gabb, at some indeterminate time overnight last night. We both agreed on some things:-

Emma Goldman: Anarchism and Other Essays, with a new introduction by Keith Preston

Available from Black House Publishing at Amazon.Com

Emma Goldman is often depicted in current academic discourse as a mere prototypical feminist and socialist. Yet this collection of essays by Goldman reveals that she often expressed ideas which many of her present day admirers might find surprising and unsettling. She distrusted the proletariat, wrote disdainfully of the early feminists who were her contemporaries, and even expressed scepticism of women’s suffrage. Goldman was an admirer of Nietzsche and in many ways represents a model of a superior individual who is capable of rising above the herd instincts of the masses and embracing confrontation with danger. She never hesitated to countenance both the ire of public authorities and the scorn of public opinion. As contemporary anarchists have fallen into the mundane habit of politically correct conformity, a full examination of Goldman’s thought suggests the need for a new anarchism that reflects the martial spirit of which Goldman was an exemplary.

Orwell on Modern England

Shock Horror: Statistics that don’t look like barefaced lies!

Note: New socks every month? Clean underclothes every day? Er…. SIG

For more information please contact Mark Hall on 07841779892 or mark

British Men Are Officially Lazy Slobs

Survey reveals bad habits as men “simply can’t be bothered”

Four men out of five admit that they often wear the same pair of underwear two days in a row, a survey on Britain men’s bad habits has revealed.

The results showed a litany of shocking behaviour from both single men and men living with a partner, including a lack of both personal and domestic cleanliness.

Among the survey results published by Socked.co.uk, the sock subscription company, are British men who say they rarely do any domestic cleaning, and a worrying percentage who say they have never cleaned a bathroom in their lives.

“We’re all well aware that men have been letting standards slip over recent years,” said Mark Hall, gentleman creation officer at Socked.co.uk, “but these figures just go to show how far we as a nation have let ourselves go where men simply can’t be bothered.

“And it’s a terrible slippery slope,” said Hall, “Once men stop caring for themselves and their immediate surroundings, they also stop caring for those around them.”

The Socked.co.uk Men’s Personal Habits Survey showed:

The good is oft-interr-ed with their bones

David Davis

Since Margaret Thatcher is to be in-terr-ed tomorrow, I just thought we’d throw one last punch at her enemies and ours. I found this wonderful piece on The Last Ditch the other day, and one para deserves to be highlighted in our usual way:-

“If you want to know who freedom’s enemies are, mention her with approval. Mad eyes will light up all around you and foul sentiments will fill the air. Note their names and never leave them alone with anything you value; material, spiritual or ethical.”

Yes of course, I _know_ that we object to her having

(a) made the British State more efficient – as a recipe for disaster one would recommend this since the British-Political-Enemyclass is efficient already at making a powerful tyrannical state, and

(b) because she failed to absolutely destroy socialism at home and in the world, before members of that same EnemyClass destroyed her.

But I think that Tom Paine’s paragraph sums up who we are up against, whatever we as classical liberals think of Thatcher herself. I think we can lay her to rest now. May The Iron Lady Rust In Peace.

Housekeeping

I’ve just added a new contributor to this Blog. He will post as Mustela nivalis.

Also, I’ve closed all postings over 21 days old to further comments. Our Blog Master may decide to change this back. I only suggest that older postings are more prone to attracting spam of various kinds.

My main change – and I defer both to our BM and to the weight of general opinion – is to reconfigure the commenting system, so that later comments are displayed first. I like this, because I don’t need to scroll down and down and down to look for the newest comments. As said, however, this is a change that may be reversed.

Something else I’d like to do is install a proper Facebook module, so that posts can be fully linked. Sadly, this means more digging round on the instruction pages than I have time for at present.

 

Sean Gabb on the Thatcher Police State (May 1989)

The Full Coercive Apparatus of a Police State:
Thoughts on the Dark Side of the Thatcher Decade

Sean Gabb

3rd May 1989, Published as Legal Notes No. 6, by the Libertarian Alliance,
London, 1989, ISBN 1 870614 39 9

Ten years ago (1979) I gave way to one of my rare bursts of enthusiasm. I was at the time, I’ll grant, still a schoolboy; and these things are always more permissible in them than in others. But, even for a schoolboy, it was a very great burst of enthusiasm. I seriously thought that, along with Mrs Thatcher, the second dawn of classical liberalism had arrived. This was it, I thought. No more socialism. No more national decline. No more Road to Serfdom. Oh, even as lads of my age went, I was naïve.

The Legacy of Margaret Thatcher

Sean Gabb

Much will be said over the next few weeks about the “achievements” of Margaret Thatcher. These will probably divide between Daily Mailish eulogies and Guardianesque whines. My own view is that she was a bad thing for England.

Archbishop’s Address Analysed and Answered

Archbishop’s Address Analysed and Answered
Comments on the new Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter sermon
by
Dr Alan C. Clifford
Norwich Reformed Church
www.nrchurch.co.nr

Unmatched Bargains on E-Bay!

Much furous bidding encouraged!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/seangabb/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

Sean Gabb: Speech to a Traditionalist Conservative Group

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2013-02-01-swinton-sig.mp3

On Friday the 1st February 2013, a debate took place at The Counting House, which is a pub at the junction of Gracechurch Street and Cornhill in the City of London. The question was How to be a Conservative in 21st Century Britain.

Sean Gabb spoke for the Libertarian Alliance. Sam Swerling spoke for the Swinton Circle. Their speeches were followed by a lively question and answer session.

Anti-Semitism

This is an ex cathedra statement, not an invitation to debate. It is made in view of certain comments recently posted on this blog.

The problem with anti-semitic conspiracy theories is that they involve continuous selection. Therefore, you take the fact that Karl Marx was a socialist, and overlook that he was a racist and cultural conservative. You take the fact that Mahler was a musical revolutionary, and overlook that he was a German nationalist. You wholly overlook people like Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises, or Paul Gottfried and Meyer Schiller. You also overlook how many poisonous lefties there seem to be in Israel, calling for open borders and the demotion of Jewish symbols.

Unmanly and unEnglish

“Unmanly and unEnglish”
by Sean Gabb
(First Published in The Libertarian Enterprise, 26th August 2012)

Having seen what they can do to others, I generally try to avoid personal disputes. I write this article with some reluctance. But, since I am aware of a directed campaign to blacken my name, I feel that I have no choice but to write it.

Paul Marks: Condemnation and Disclaimer

Statement by Sean Gabb
Director of the Libertarian Alliance

I have had my attention drawn to this comment, posted by Paul Marks on our blog:

“It would, of course, be emotionally satisfying to cut Kevin Carson’s Black Flagger (Black Flaggers like Carson will side with the Red Flagger Marxists – indeed they already are and have for years) throat, or blow his head off with a bullet (although he would be more likely to do those things to me) – but it is the job of politics to AVOID THAT SITUATION.”
(http://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/libertarian-self-marginalization/#comment-48626)

The comment, I think all will agree, shows a most alarming degeneracy of character. I am shocked. It is not the job of politics to keep us from cutting the throats of those with whom we disagree. No one of good character is tempted even to fantasise about such things. The next time Paul boasts of his conversion to Christianity, or of his instinctive cultural conservatism, or in general of his spotless moral purity, I for one will remember the malevolent and dangerous beast I have seen behind the smiling mask.

In a normal country, this would be the limit of what I need to say. However, I am advised that Paul has committed a crime under the Public Order Act, and the Malicious Communications Act, and under about half a dozen other of the laws that comprise the Thatcher-Blair police state. Regardless of this, he has put us in breach of the terms of service of the organisation that hosts this blog.

Therefore, I will say that Paul’s comment does not, in its particulars or its generality, represent the views of the Libertarian Alliance, and that it fills us with the same abhorrence that any other reasonable man must feel on reading it. We will take no action against him this time. But we are watching him. We require him to place some minimal restraint on his disgusting passions. We have tolerated, and will continue to tolerate, his inability to refrain from vulgar and sometimes hysterical abuse. But a repetition of these murder fantasies will not be so indulgently received.

 

Happy Christmas and a Free and Prosperous 2013

Virgin and Child enthroned (867), apse mosaic in the Great Church in Constantinople

A Happy Christmas from The Libertarian Alliance

Progress

I have written 280,000 words this year – 20,000 down on last year and the year before, but still worth announcing. I have a new book on freedom of speech coming out next year, among other things.

New CD published by Distinguished Musician and Scholar and Libertarian

A new CD has been published by Romantic Discoveries Recordings.

Piano Music of Sydney Smith (1839-89) volume 2
John Kersey, piano
RDR CD99

Total time: 76 minutes 47 seconds

1. Nadeshda, fantasia on the opera by Arthur Goring Thomas (1850-92), op. 211b 2. Aspiration (mélodie), op. 208 no. 1 3. Inquiétude (impromptu), op. 208 no. 2 4. Gavotte and Musette, op. 188 5. Vie orageuse (Deuxième ballade), op. 203 6. Chant de berceau, op. 156 7. Harmonies du soir (morceau élégant), op. 54 8. Menuet romantique, op. 174 9. Rayons d’or (Bagatelle), op. 176 10. Happy memories (morceau de salon), op. 77 11. Kermesse (Scène hollandaise), op. 181 12. Voix du coeur (Mélodie), op. 178 13. Zeffiretta (Morceau de salon), op. 159 14. Bacchanale, op. 170

Our thanks to the Sydney Smith Archive for supplying scores of these rare works.

Sydney Smith represents a lost generation of English composer-pianists who enjoyed both critical and commercial success in his heyday, only to be eclipsed by a rapid change in musical fashion that was compounded by his own ill-health. Born in Dorchester, in close proximity to Thomas Hardy, Smith won a place at the Leipzig Conservatoire aged seventeen and studied there for three years under Moscheles and Plaidy (piano) and Grutzmacher (cello). The Crown Prince of Prussia was apparently greatly impressed with his talent, and Smith’s move to London in 1859 marked the beginning of a career as a recitalist (notably at the Crystal Palace) and teacher. Added to this was the beginning of a prolific career as a melodic and effective composer of works for the salon and concert hall, many of which became included in popular anthologies of piano music of the day. This oeuvre made Smith one of the most famous musicians of his day, not only in England, but in Australia, America and continental Europe, and his name became a household word. Smith was particularly known for his virtuoso opera transcriptions, but as this album will show, was also gifted in a variety of short original forms, including characteristic dances and evocative mood-pieces. These works are written in a masterly way for the piano, showing a mature understanding of pianistic effect (with a good deal of influence from Chopin and Liszt) and providing a considerable technical challenge for the performer. The present recital offers probably the only opportunity at the moment to hear any of Arthur Goring Thomas’s last opera “Nadeshda” and is otherwise devoted to a varied selection of Smith’s original works, concentrating particularly on those from his later years.

Support C4SS with Edmund Burke’s “A Vindication of Natural Society”

by James Tuttle
http://c4ss.org/content/15131
Support C4SS with Edmond Burke’s “A Vindication of Natural Society”

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of Edmond Burke’s “A Vindication of Natural Society“ that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with Edmund Burke’s “A Vindication of Natural Society“.

Viva Obama!

I guessed he’d win. I wish now I’d gone and put some money on him in a betting shop. He won because, while they might not like the idea of being ruled by a black man, enough American whites looked at a the grinning neocon put up against him, and decided the black man was the safest bet. I don’t suppose it helped that the grinning neocon was a Mormon.

Though, normally, it would be none of my business who rules a foreign country, America is the historic enemy of England, and is currently in a dominating position. Therefore, I am very pleased that Mr Obama is back.

First, he openly hates England – something to do, I believe, with a grandfather who was a traitor in Kenya. This is a refreshing change from the patronising embrace of a truly American Anglophobe. Open hatred is easier to deal with. It disabuses most people who aren’t thick or haven’t been bribed into the idea of a “special relationship.” It encourages moves towards the reassertion of our national independence.

Second, he is less likely than his opponent was to start a big war. I think that stands by itself. No doubt, Mr Obama is a Marxist/Moslem with a dodgy birth certificate, and is committed to destroying the American way of life through radicalisation of every institution and through mass-immigration, etc, etc.  That only makes me laugh the more: America’s weakness is England’s potential recovery. However, his plain disinclination to invade Iran is a benefit for us all.

I will add that, awful as he may be in his domestic policies, the Americans deserve him. They supported Labour in this country from about 1993 onwards. I firmly believe they bribed or blackmailed the Conservatives to throw the 2001 and 2005 general elections. Well, they can have a further taste of the medicine they made us swallow. They gave us Tony Blair. They can now stick with their own copy of him.

Thank You For Smoking

Saturday, 24 November, 2012, at the Everyman Baker Street Cinema in Central London

This one-off cinema showing of Thank You For Smoking will take place in the upmarket Everyman Cinema on central London’s Baker Street – you know, the road made famous by Benedict Cumberbatch. The showing will be the start of what we expect will be a very sociable day – with attendees going off to local pubs afterwards. The movie itself is profoundly libertarian. It revolves around Nick Naylor, a communications consultant for naturally toasted cigarettes. Or a tobacco lobbyist as the critics would label him. Along with his friends representing alcohol and shooting, Nick fight the forces of Big Government, who want to put them out of business.

Thank You For Smoking is a hilarious look at the world of nanny state and the fight for the individual liberty. The cinema has a fully stocked bar and will will open for coffee and gin and tonics etc at 10:30am.

The film will be shown from 11am and lasts approximately 92 minutes. To book, please visit: http://www.alexsingleton.com/thankyouforsmoking/