Quotulatiousness

May 28, 2026

“Van Langenhove is not charged with spreading false information. He is charged with presenting facts in a way that incites hatred”

Filed under: Europe, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

This is the natural end result of “hate speech” laws, as a court in Belgium clearly states in the finding quoted here:

These two paragraphs of my verdict are crucial for everyone to read and understand.

“Even if all of the statements made by Van Langenhove are based on scientific evidence and statistics, it makes no difference to the criminal intent. Van Langenhove is not charged with spreading false information. He is charged with presenting facts in a way that incites hatred against persons on the grounds of one or more of the protected criteria in the Anti-Racism Law.” 1⃣

“For Van Langenhove to have committed a crime, it is not necessary for him to have incited concrete acts of hate or violence. It suffices that others are incited to take on a general attitude of intolerance or disapproval regarding a group protected under the criteria of the Anti-Racism Law.” 2⃣

This means you can go to jail for “inciting hatred” even if your statements were 100% factual (see 1⃣) and even if you did NOT incite concrete acts of hate (see 2⃣).

The benchmark of “inciting hatred” , a crime punishable by prison, is thus “saying something that has the potential of inciting someone to have a general attitude of disapproval regarding a protected group“. This means literally any criticism of mass migration is now a punishable offence. If you cite a statistic, and someone could potentially think less of a protected group (like migrants) because of it, you can be jailed.

The craziest part is that there is no defence possible against this. I brought the scientific studies that I cited to court, but the judge didn’t care 1⃣. I also proved that the hundreds of students present at the lecture included students of all different political affiliations, and everyone was able to voice their opinion or ask questions. The lecture went very calmly, so obviously nobody was incited to hatred. But this too did not matter 2⃣, because if the judge says he believes there is the possibility that someone COULD be incited to “a general attitude of disapproval“, this is enough for the judge to send me to jail, even without any evidence.

I’m telling you this to warn you that by the time these hate speech laws have come into place, it’s already too late. You will NEVER be able to beat these laws in court. You have to stop them before they are implemented. Let my fate be your warning.

QotD: Re-defining economic liberalism

Filed under: Economics, History, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The L-word is not taken to mean American “liberalism”, the distressingly anti-liberal, lawyer-driven politics of increasing governmental planning and regulation and physical coercion. It is instead the rest of the world’s “liberalism”, economist driven, “the liberal plan”, as old Adam Smith wrote in 1776, “of [social] equality, [economic] liberty and [legal] justice”, with a modest, restrained government giving real help to the poor. True modern liberalism.

A liberal “rhetoric” explains the good features of the modern world compared with earlier and later illiberal régimes — the economic success of the modern world, its arts and sciences, its kindness, its toleration, its inclusiveness, and especially its massive liberation of more and more people from violent hierarchies ancient and modern. Its enemies claim that it also explains alleged evils, such as the reduction of everything to money or the loss of community or the calamity of immigration by non-Christians. But they are mistaken.

Dierdre McCloskey, “The power of liberalism can combat oppression in all its forms”, The Economist, 2020-01-08.

May 13, 2026

“Electoral authoritarian” regimes

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Government, Law, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

eugyppius points out that the reflexive descriptions of the former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s government as “electoral authoritarian” fail to note just how authoritarian the rest of the EU’s national governments have become:

this description of an “electoral authoritarian” regime applies far more aptly to Germany than to Hungary. What did Orbán do, defund a few NGOs? meanwhile our police, intelligence agencies & state media have all collaborated for years to keep the opposition out of power.

And after some harumphing from the cheap seats, he followed up with:

Various people are clapping back at this, so let me tell you what is happen in liberal democratic non-authoritarian Germany:

– Getting raided by police, charged with speech crimes, etc. because you post online is a professional risk, I personally know various people to whom this has happened and I live my life with a bunch of opsec annoyances for the day it happens to me.

– State media coordinates with intelligence agencies to smear and harass not only the political opposition but their prominent supporters, for example by doxxing them, getting them fired, subjecting them to harassment.

– The state funds a vast “civil society” network of violent street thugs to intimidate the political opposition and also anybody identified by state-sanctioned ops like those detailed in the above item. Opposition party congresses, other events routinely disrupted by coordinated civil society protests, where the local population is sympathetic (as in many east German venues) they bus in protesters from the west and the big cities to create the necessary atmosphere.

– Domestic intelligence agencies use espionage methods to surveil and compromise the political opposition; among other things they pay informants, tap telephones, read emails, and so on. We’ve had various indications that materials gathered in these operations are then used for state media smear campaigns.

– Yes, domestic intelligence openly coordinates with state media and certain private media elements too. Various aspects of political coverage in Germany are staged by secretive unelected bureaucrats.

– Procedural rules, other laws are routinely changed in ad hoc ways to disadvantage political opposition, though we haven’t had any outright gerrymandering like in the US so that means Our Democracy is safe. 👍

And:

I’m sure I’m forgetting some things. I’ve spent years documenting this shit on my blog and literally none of the present Hungary hyperventilators have ever given the slightest shit. Orbán was a guy who observed the Euro freak show as it is manifested in countries like Germany and tried in a kind of inept half-hearted way to imitate this machine from the right, the results were ridiculous and transparent and like 25% as effective as what the German state gets up to but nevertheless all these clowns confronted with a hint of their own methods started shrieking about FaSciSm.

April 24, 2026

The Mailbox Test

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Devon Eriksen responds to a thread about the ethics of setting up a trap that will only be effective if someone attempts to destroy it:

The Mailbox Test, like the breakfast test, is an excellent way to tell who you can allow to wield power in your society.

Goes like this:

    If someone is hurt trying to destroy someone else’s stuff in order to take pleasure from their pain, do you sympathize with …

    The aggressor because he got hurt?

    Or with the guy who owns the stuff, because he wasn’t the aggressor?

You can have people in your society who fail the Mailbox Test. That’s okay … they can work at hospices, or shelters for orphaned kittens, or something.

But you cannot allow them to vote, or otherwise wield political power. Because if you do, they will open the gates of the city to the enemy.

I am personally tired of everyone pretending that people who enjoy ruining things for random strangers are just kewt smol beans who are only aggressive because of all the complex socioeconomic factors and lack of resources.

They knew someone would be hurt by what they did. They knew that someone had done literally nothing harmful to them. And those two ideas, in combination made them feel pleasure. And they went and did it.

That is the sign of a rotten soul.

Defending ourselves and our property is not just a right, it’s a moral obligation. Otherwise, we just kick the can down the road for someone else to deal with, someone who may not be able to defend herself.

I don’t care if a vandal breaks his arms trying to destroy my stuff. Because I value my stuff more than a vandal’s arms. And the fact that he tried to destroy somebody else’s stuff shows that he, too, values his arms less than the opportunity to hurt somebody.

We cannot allow such people inside the city, and we cannot give the keys to those who would open the gates for them.

Another response to the original post from Kit Sun Cheah:

Sure, this adheres to a strict interpretation of Just War Theory.

However … we’re talking about a mailbox.

A mailbox is not a weapon. It does not serve any military purpose. Its existence is entirely inoffensive.

That is why it is an easy target.

A reinforced mailbox is purely defensive. Do not meddle with it and it will leave you alone. Strike it, and Newton’s Third Law kicks in.

Poke it and nothing will happen to you. Try to smash it and you risk smashing your own arm. It does not amplify an incoming force, it merely resists and returns it. Thus it is inherently proportionate.

No law or theory of war requires that you advertise your capabilities. Concealment may feel wrong to a certain type of personality, but openness is not always a social good.

Yes, you can fortify the mailbox in a blatantly obvious fashion. Some ne’er do well will notice it, then decide to pick another easier mark.

You have deterred an attack on your own property by redirecting attention to someone else’s.

Now suppose the mailbox were covertly fortified. A vandal strikes it and is injured. He passes along word to his friends, and their friends. Then they will start to wonder: are all the mailboxes reinforced?

They can’t tell, so they must assume every mailbox is fortified.

Thus, covert reinforcement does more to deter aggression than overt reinforcement. And ultimately, we want to see an end to mailbox destruction.

This post is not about just war theory or mailboxes.

Update, 25 April: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack – https://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

April 12, 2026

QotD: “Disinformation”

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Media, Politics, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

    Neil Stone @DrNeilStone
    X is coordinated disinformation packaged as Free Speech

The concept of disinformation is inherently authoritarian. It presumes some faultless source from which truth flows, such that all speech can be judged by its alignment with this source.

Yes, sometimes certain issues are fairly clear-cut and people are just lying, but more often people fundamentally disagree about both facts and methods. They disagree about who is trustworthy and what institutions and processes are most likely to produce truth.

I, as a private citizen, might call some claim a lie or some person a liar. That’s discourse. I hope to persuade others that I am correct. But to institutionalize disinformation is necessarily to institutionalize a priest caste of truth determiners. This is antithetical to the scientific method and the process of knowledge production in general.

Truth-seeking must start from a place of humility: we are not sure of our claims or our methods. We are doing our imperfect best. We demonstrate the value of our ideas via evidence, argument, and the practical utility they provide. Not by censoring competing ideas.

It is ludicrous to assume that modern academic or journalistic institutions are bias-free oracles, yet this is the basis of the “disinformation” concept.

Hunter Ash, The social media site formerly known as Twitter, 2025-12-27.

April 4, 2026

QotD: Protect us from “disinformation”, Big Brother!

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

    Troy Westwood @TroyWestwood
    The only thing more important than “free speech” is protecting society from disinformation.

Troy is trying to sound enlightened, but unfortunately he has the IQ of a lobster. “The only thing more important than ‘free speech’ is protecting society from disinformation.”

Translation: “I’m terrified of ideas I don’t like, so please, Big Brother, put a nanny filter on everyone else’s brain … just to keep us all safe, of course.”

Nothing says “I trust the marketplace of ideas” quite like demanding a government-approved Ministry of Truth to decide what’s true for the rest of us. Bonus points for implying that the plebs can’t possibly sort fact from fiction without an elite class holding their hand.

Truly the hallmark of a deep thinker. Admitting you don’t believe people are capable of handling freedom, then dressing it up as noble concern for society.

If free speech is dangerous, the most dangerous speech of all is the one declaring that some authority should get to silence the rest. But don’t worry, comrade, they’ll only censor the bad information. Promise.

Another swing and a miss for Troy.

Martyupnorth, The social media site formerly known as Twitter, 2025-12-28.

April 2, 2026

The persistent wish to “seize the means of production”

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, The Rational Animal explains why the din of progressives demanding that “the rich” be dispossessed of their property always leads to the worst kind of results:

This perfectly captures the parasite’s delusion: that wealth is static loot to be seized and redistributed.

Here’s what actually happens when you “repossess all their stuff”:

The producers will rebuild. They’ll create new wealth because that’s what they do. They identify opportunities, solve problems, innovate, build businesses, and generate value. Their wealth came from their minds, not magic.

The looters will consume what they stole at light speed and wind up with nothing. Because they never learned to produce. They only know how to take.

Look at every socialist revolution in history: seize the factories, the farms, the businesses. Within years, everything collapses. The factories stop producing. The farms stop yielding. The wealth evaporates. Venezuela. Cuba. Soviet Union. Zimbabwe. The pattern is identical.

Why? Because wealth isn’t stuff sitting in a vault. Wealth is the ongoing process of human intelligence applied to production. Confiscate a factory and you get the building. You don’t get the knowledge, vision, and competence that made it productive.

The “rich” you want to loot aren’t dragons hoarding gold. They’re producers creating value. Rob them and you rob everyone, including yourself.

You’ll be left with ruins and still blame capitalism.

Update: Fixed missing URL.

March 20, 2026

It’s okay to hate …

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

On his Substack, Frank Furedi defends the right to hate:

In recent decades hate has become thoroughly politicised to the point that the mere mention of the word serves as a prelude to discrediting, delegitimating and criminalizing its target. In public life the charge of practising the politics of hate is frequently deployed by leftist promoters of identity ideology against their opponents. The claim promoted by The Guardian that states that “a Tory party that stokes hatred is the real threat to our democracy” is illustrative of the attempt to associate conservatives and other critics of identity ideology with the politics of hate.1

The project of transforming hate into a malevolent ideological standpoint is underpinned by the assumption that all displays of the emotion hate are potentially malevolent. In effect the very human emotion of hate is now frequently demonised as a pathology.

In recent decades hate has been transformed into a stand-alone cultural stigma. According to dominant cultural conventions it is sufficient to use the word hate without any reference to the object of this emotion. It is now common to use the word, Haters. It is not necessary to indicate who the Haters hate. The term Hater serves as a negative identity. As one study acknowledged, “persons branded as ‘haters’ are effectively excommunicated from the polity”.2 The use of the term hater morally contaminates its target.

According to the cultural script that prevails in the West, hate serves as a secular form of moral evil. One expression that captures this evil is that of “The Hate”. By placing a definitive article in front of hate a permanent threat to society is invented. This reified public threat demands vigilance and willingness to mobilise to defeat its manifestations. For example, this is the approach of the campaigning group Stop The Hate.3 The content of The Hate is deliberately left vague so that it can serve as the target of a variety of different campaigns.

The politically motivated designation of hate to describe the behaviour of an individual or a group is not simply an act of description but also a boundary-setting manoeuvre. It basically works as a warning that signals the claim that The Hater cannot be included within the confines of a democratically governed public space. The Hater exists on the wrong sides of the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate politics. This sentiment is frequently communicated by the slogan “Hope Not Hate”, which establishes a moral boundary between legitimate and illegitimate politics. From this perspective hate serves as a diagnostic label for illegitimate public life. Imposing a moral quarantine on those branded as haters is regarded is necessary for the maintenance of a just democratic society.

The frequent use of the slogan “Hope not Hate” smuggles a moralising ethos into public discourse. Through the drawing of a moral contrast between the secular evil of hate, hope emerges as a progressive political virtue. The transformation of hate into a morally toxic antithesis of hope assists the political polarisation that afflicts society. Since haters are regarded as beyond redemption dialogue with them is pointless. The only appropriate response to their words is to criminalise it. Hence the proliferation of rules and laws criminalising Hate Speech.

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/04/a-tory-party-that-stokes-hatred-is-the-real-threat-to-our-democracy
  2. Post, Robert, “Concluding Thoughts: The Legality and Politics of Hatred”, in Thomas Brudholm, and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen (eds), Epilogue, in Thomas Brudholm, and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen (eds), Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate, Studies in Penal Theory and Philosophy (New York, 2018; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 June 2018), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190465544.003.0013, accessed 12 Mar. 2026.
  3. https://www.stopthehate.uk

Update, 21 March: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack – https://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

March 3, 2026

New name for Vancouver incoming in 3 … 2 … 1…

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Canadian federal government is not eager to share the details of a new agreement they’ve signed with the Musqueam First Nation that apparently cedes most of the city of Vancouver to the band, casting the property rights of two million people into legal limbo:

The Liberal government is refusing to publicly release an agreement with the Musqueam Indian Band that recognizes Aboriginal title over a vast area of British Columbia, including Metro Vancouver and surrounding areas, potentially affecting nearly two million people.

Buried in a seemingly mundane fisheries announcement put out on February 20th, the acknowledgement could radically undermine property rights in one of Canada’s largest and most populated metropolitan regions.

On February 20, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada issued a news release with little fanfare titled “Musqueam and Canada Sign Historic Agreements Recognizing Rights, Stewardship and Fisheries”.

The news release reads: Canada “recognizes that Musqueam has Aboriginal rights including title within their traditional territory and establishes a framework for incremental implementation of rights and nation-to-nation relations with Canada”.

That phrase “including title” refers to Aboriginal title. Under Canadian constitutional law, Aboriginal title is a contentious but increasingly recognized property interest, affirmed by recent court rulings, including the controversial Cowichan decision. Courts have recognized Aboriginal title as a prior and senior right to land that critics say threatens fee simple title or traditional private property ownership in Canada.

The Musqueam Indian Band’s traditional territory encompasses virtually all of Metro Vancouver, including Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, New Westminster, parts of Delta and Surrey and other regions.

Based on 2021 census and other data, that territory is home to an estimated 1.8 million British Columbians.

The federal government has now formally recognized in writing Musqueam Indian Band’s Aboriginal title over that territory, yet Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada refuses to make the agreement public.

The February 20 announcement specifically refers to the “šxʷq̓ʷal̕təl̕tən Rights Recognition Agreement”, described as recognizing Musqueam’s Aboriginal rights, “including title” and establishing a framework for implementation.

Musqueam Chief Wayne Sparrow emphasized the Aboriginal title component directly in the release:

    Our Musqueam community celebrates these historic agreements as a step forward in our path to Reconciliation. In signing these agreements, the Government of Canada is acknowledging Musqueam’s Aboriginal title and rights to our traditional territory and recognizing our expertise in both marine management and fisheries management.

But when Juno News requested a copy of the agreement from Crown-Indigenous Relations, the department’s media relations spokesperson Eric Head confirmed receipt of the request and then cut communication altogether, even when pressed to ask if the agreement would be made public.

February 26, 2026

Abolish all Human Rights Tribunals in Canada

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Canada’s Free Speech Union has launched a petition to get rid of all our anti-democratic Human Rights Tribunals in the wake of a BC man being penalized three-quarters of a million dollars for not bending the knee to the trans madness:

February 24, 2026

Don’t call German Chancellor Friedrich Merz anything disrespectful … or else

Filed under: Germany, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

German law provides far more protection for the reputations of politicians than any rational country should ever do … because free citizens should always have the right to criticize their political leaders under any circumstance short of threats and physical violence. And by “disrespectful”, they mean anything as trivial as referring to the Chancellor as “Pinocchio”:

In the latest retarded case of political repression to afflict the Federal Republic of Germany, police are investigating a pensioner for the crime of associating the German Chancellor with an iconic children’s book character.

From the Heilbronner Stimme:

    When … Friedrich Merz and Baden-Württemberg Minister President Winfried Kretschmann came to Heilbronn last October for the opening ceremony of the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), the celebrity visit occasioned discussion discussion on social media.

    A post appeared on the Heilbronn Police Facebook page informing locals about a temporary flight ban enacted for security during the visit. A resident of Heilbronn responded by writing that “Pinocchio is coming to [Heilbronn].” He included a long-nosed emoji.

    Three months later, at the end of January, the man could hardly believe his eyes as he received a letter from the criminal police informing him that he is now under investigation for his comment. He is suspected of committing the crime of insult as prohibited by Section 188 of the Criminal Code.

StGB §188 is the notorious “lèse-majesté” statute, which the Bundestag expanded substantially in 2021 when politicians grew tired of being criticised for suspending most of our democratic freedoms in a mad drive to exterminate a respiratory virus. As currently formulated, StGB §188 enhances penalties for “insult, malicious gossip and defamation” when the rabble direct these at “persons in political life”, and also makes these transgressions easier to prosecute. In this case, the pinched schoolmarms on the “social media team” who run the Heilbronn Police Facebook page filed a complaint with prosecutors as soon as they noticed our pensioner’s comment. Apparently it is their policy to monitor comments and cry to teacher whenever they see anything they don’t like.

Update, 25 February: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack – https://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

February 19, 2026

An American anarchist

Filed under: Books, Economics, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

I’ve never met Christopher Schwarz, but I’ve read a lot of his writing in books, magazine articles, and blog posts. He’s forgotten more about hand tool woodworking than I’ll ever know, and he’s amazingly generous in sharing his knowledge with others. He calls himself an anarchist, which often puzzles people who only know of anarchism from media-presented bomb-throwing nihilists and conspiratorial Russian stories. Here he explains what he means when he uses the term:

“Chris Schwarz and Meredith Schwarz” by jessamyn west is marked with CC0 1.0 .

I get asked a lot about what I mean by the word “anarchism”, and if I could please explain what I mean when I use that word.

My answer is always unsatisfying. Here’s why.

For the love of creamed corn, why would I publicly discuss ideas that are – for now – a crime in our country? Why would I say – for example – that I think that copyrights and patents on things that use public money are bullshit? That wars are founded on lies? And that the state – in general – seems to be a menace to peaceable living?

That would be stupid. Dumb nuts.

Also, I am a practitioner of anarchism, not a philosopher.

If you want to know more about American anarchism (and aesthetic anarchism, specifically), you need to ask a philosopher, not a front-of-house worker. Read Native American Anarchism (Hachette Books, 1983) by Eunice Minette Schuster for an easy on ramp. Or Josiah Warren’s Equitable Commerce (1852) for the full banana.

The Anarchist’s Tool Chest: Revised Edition by Christopher Schwarz – Link.

Or follow the trail of breadcrumbs left in The Anarchist’s Tool Chest to figure it out yourself. The book describes how to disrupt the furniture industry by building things that never need to be replaced. It’s also about how to jailbreak yourself from a tool industry that offers up aluminum jigs as a substitute for skill.

That book is not the only path. There are other ways to throw a bunch of ball bearings into the guts of the IKEA robots.

Buy antiques or used furniture. The other week I was in Savannah, Georgia, and visited one of my favorite antique stores. The price of handmade antiques has hit bottom. So-called “brown furniture” can be bought for less that the cost of the materials used to make it.

Even though I make furniture for a living, I sometimes save time and money by purchasing vintage industrial furniture for our warehouse, fulfillment center and workshop. Megan’s giant oak desk from the 1960s cost us zero dollars (we just had to move it from an insurance office). Our printer and scanning station? An old workbench from Pennsylvania. Our associate editors’ shared desk? A giant vintage drafting table from Sweden.

And if you think for a moment, there are other industries and organizations that can be farted upon by your actions. The clothing industry is even worse than the furniture industry when it comes to making flimsy crap and abusing workers.

Yes, you can buy ethically made jeans, shirts and socks. Yes, you will pay a premium for these items. And if you can afford that path, great. If you can’t, then buy secondhand clothing.

I’ve always wanted a pair of R.M. Williams boots but could never afford them on a writer’s salary. Last year I found a used pair for about $100 where the owner had ragged out the elastic part of the slip-on boots. It was a stupid easy fix. And now I have boots I shall wear at my funeral.

The other side of the equation is that I’m denying the new-boot-goofin’ industry my dollars. Forever. I don’t have to buy a pair of shoddily made boots that can’t be re-soled and will have to be replaced in a couple years. All my future “boot money” will go to our local cobbler so she can re-sole them every few years.

February 7, 2026

The Probability Broach: L. Neil Smith’s libertarian fever-dream

Filed under: Books, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Feral Historian
Published 6 Feb 2026

Equal parts political manifesto and wacky adventure story, The Probability Broach is usually not the first title people think of when they hear “libertarian sci-fi” but it almost always makes the list after further reflection. While ideologically-motivated fiction tends to preach more than entertain, L. Neil Smith makes his world so bonkers and whimsical that we almost can’t help seeing our own in a similar light, and in so doing reminds us that things are as they are ultimately because we chose to make it this way.

There’s some jumpcuts in this due to lack of good b-roll, but I suspect that most people who make it past the half-way point on this one are just listening anyway.

The artwork is from the graphic novel adaptation from Big Head Press https://www.bigheadpress.com/tpbtgn
I ordered a copy but the government-run postal system didn’t get it to me in time to use its illustrations of later chapters.

00:00 Intro
01:05 The Setup
03:15 Whiskey Rebellion
05:36 Confederacy
07:50 Property, Culture, and Capitalism
15:01 Cultural Assumptions
19:20 Interventionism
21:04 Choices, not Systems
(more…)

February 4, 2026

Amelia, created by woke propagandists, is now the figurehead for the anti-woke

Filed under: Britain, Government, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, John Michael Greer provides a quick thumbnail sketch of the Amelia story for folks who need to get caught up:

I’ve been watching the saga of Amelia from the far side of the Atlantic in a state of utter bemusement.

For those who don’t know the first act of the saga, the British government had some collection of flacks create a video game for British kids, which was designed to elicit “racist” (that is, patriotic and un-woke) statements from them — at which point the kids who fell for it would be reported to the police for, erm, reeducation. (I wish I was making this up.)

Amelia was a cartoon figure who was supposed to mouth allegedly racist slogans, and they gave her violet hair because they thought that would annoy right-wingers, who make jokes about women with dyed hair.

Ponder the immeasurable stupidity of the flacks who put nationalist and patriotic slogans in the mouth of the kind of cute female figure who would have most teenage boys reaching into their trousers on the spot. Of course these same teenage boys instantly hijacked her and turned her into a mascot, just as they did with Kek back in the day. Of course these same teenage boys, being far more computer-skilled than government flacks, started doing LLM-generated videos of Amelia speaking out in favor of nationalist and patriotic ideas.

Of course everybody in Britain who’s sick and tired of the Starmer government and its woke doctrines embraced Amelia as their latest heroine, not least because the Guardian‘s foam-flecked fury when she’s mentioned is so entertaining to watch …

And then, as with Kek, things got weird. We’re still in the early stages of the weirdening but it would not surprise me a bit to find that just as a cartoon frog ten years ago became the vessel through which an archaic Native American deity manifested and sent the US spinning down an uncharted path, a purple-haired waifu may just become another such vehicle.

Britain used to have quite a collection of war goddesses, back in Celtic times. I’m curious, not to mention apprehensive, to see just who’s taking this opportunity to stream back into manifestation.

January 31, 2026

QotD: Liberal principles according to Karl Popper

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Quotations — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

As usual when Popper addressed a meeting, his aim was to challenge and provoke thought, rather than simply endorsing the assumptions that he shared with his audience. […] It may help to start with a summary of the liberal principles that Popper spelled out in section 3. This will be helpful for a general readership (unlike the Mont Pelerin meeting) where there are likely to be many people who do not hold non-socialist liberal principles and some who are not be clear about what these principles are.

(1) The state is a necessary evil and its powers should be kept to the minimum that is necessary.

(2) A democracy is a state where the government can be changed without bloodshed.

(3) Democracy cannot confer benefits on people. “Democracy provides no more than a framework within which the citizens may act in a more or less organised and coherent way.”

(4) Democracy does not mean that the majority is right.

(5) Institutions need to be tempered and supported by traditions.

(6) There is no Liberal Utopia. There are always problems, conflicts of interests, choices to be made between the lesser of evils.

(7) Liberalism is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It is about modifying or changing institutions and traditions rather than wholesale replacement of the existing order. The exception to this is when a tyranny is in place, that is a government that can only be changed by violence and bloodshed.

(8) The importance of the moral framework.

“Among the traditions that we must count as the most important is what we may call the ‘moral framework’ (corresponding to the institutional ‘legal framework’) of a society. This incorporates the society’s traditional sense of justice or fairness, or the degree of moral sensitivity that it has reached … Nothing is more dangerous than the destruction of this traditional framework. (Its destruction was consciously aimed at by Nazism.)”

Rafe Champion, “Summary and commentary on a paper on public opinion and liberal principles delivered by Popper to the Mont Pelerin Society”.

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