Margaret Thatcher - R.I.P.

I've been trying to think of the right things to say about the Iron Lady's passing.  I've failed. 
Perry de Havilland, my good buddy that I've never met says it all: 

Maggie Thatcher pissed off all the right people and I swung her name around like a handbag with a brick in it.


Go here.  Read the whole thing. 

Samizdata's Quote Of The Day

I've long admired the Samizdata blog.
Every now and then, they admire this site.

Go here for their quote of the day.  Check out the comments, when time permits.

Thanks for all the traffic, Perry !!

Schadenfreude from Perry de Havilland

One of my libertarian heroes from England has made some sharp comments about the Republican party. 
Here's Perry de Havilland of Samizdata:

I see that Mitt Romney, a big government Republican statist who partially nationalised healthcare in his state and gave Obama the opening for more grandiose Federal healthcare nationalisation, is closing in on the Republican nomination.

Well so much for the influence of the Tea Party. If Romney wins, I can only hope Obama wipes the floor with him for exactly the same reasons I was delighted McCain was defeated... and do not see Romney as any less loathsome than McCain, so I am all for the Greater Evil winning again.

And I hope a large number of Tea Party figures make it clear they will be staying home next election day if Romney gets the nod.

No, no, no, no, no.  There is no need for anyone to stay home, Mr. de Havilland.  The Libertarian Party will be on the ballot, running someone as an alternative to the Obamneys.

I hope that candidate will be former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson !!!!
Please remember, the only way you can "waste" your vote is to support the political status quo, and we've got 16 trillion dollars worth of status quo to dig our way out of.  Unless you folks start supporting 2nd-party candidates, it ain't gonna happen.   

A modest proposal from Perry de Havilland for those who are under attack

Samizdata's Perry de Havilland, one of the guys whose excellent typing got me hooked on this blogging thing, has an excellent suggestion for those trying to respond to the London rioters:  Be a vigilante. 

I am delighted to see that some people are 'taking the law into their own hands' and not just abandoning their communities to the barbarian thugs...

When the trouble came, hairdressers, sales assistants and butchers were among the scores of Turkish and Kurdish workers who stood outside their businesses in Green Lanes, Haringey, from 8pm having been warned by police to expect trouble.

The Guardian filmed others – some armed with baseball bats – on guard outside shops and restaurants in Kingsland Road, only a mile away from Hackney's burning high street. Three workers from Re-Style Hairdressers were among those out in Green Lanes, after word spread that an attack was imminent at about 4pm [...]

"We were outside ready and expecting them," said the manager of Turkish Food Market, who asked not to be named. "But I felt very panicky because we are not safe from either the rioters or police. We put all of our efforts into this shop. It took 20 years to get it like this. But we do not know about our rights. I'm scared that the police and the government will attack us if we defend our businesses. We are being squeezed between the two."

Firstly, to those blaming 'immigration' rather than the welfare state, and the utterly grotesque way the state demands you do not protect what is yours, well people would do well to emulate the Turkish and Kurdish community in Britain. Indeed the looters we see on television and streamed over the internet are so multi-racial it must gladden the hearts of the Welfare Statists who created them.

So when the police decry 'vigilantes', I would point out that communities can often do a better job at protecting themselves than the police can and the folks who got out on the streets, not to loot but to defend their neighbourhoods, well they are the real heroes here.

The safety of you and your property is only tangentially of interest to the state (certainly they want to tax what you own, so to that extend they do indeed care about your life and property), but as demonstrated starkly over the last few days, the state also created the conditions that led to these riots and is therefore rather uneasy about punishing people who, after all, only do what the state does every day only without having to smash any windows.

A community of few people with rifles and something worth protecting are not such a soft target to thugs, even armed thugs, than a disarmed general population looking vainly for the Plod to save them. But for all sorts of reasons, the British state has so effectively propagandised this country that to even suggest armed self-defence puts you on the lunatic fringe... so crowbars and cricket bats it is then.

If these last few days shows anything it is that when push comes to shove, only you and your neighbours can defend against what can only be called barbarian scum. Contrary to what the state would have you believe, you have the right to defend yourself and your property that morally supersede any law that would deny that right. The rioters 'took the law into their own hands' so I applaud those Turks and Kurds (and many others whom the Guardian would not be so keen to report on) who did the same... they took the law back from the barbarians with and put it where it belongs: in their own hands.

Go here to read de Havilland's last sentence.  It says it all. 

If any Fort Worth readers disagree or think it is over the top, come live in the East Side for a while.  Yeah, some places aren't safe.  But if you have proper armaments in your castle, you can sleep like a baby. 

Good luck, London !!!