(Note to self: never post comments immediately after waking up.)

The Quakers ain’t what they used to be. They seem to think it is possible to reconcile their pacifism with letting Islamists use their buildings and these seem to think it is possible to help fund terrorism.

Damn, you’ve caught them out, So Much For Subtlety. All 25,000 banded together to veto those meetings. And – heck – you can’t move in my local Friend’s House for Islamists; it’s like they’ve set up a cosy little Caliphate right there and then.

I don’t think Friends Meeting House should allow Hezbollah hang-ons or shills for Shariah use their space, but these clunking generalisations feel so…smug (“Hah! Who’s the pacifist now, hipppehs?“).

(By the way – idle spinoff from Damon‘s post – why is the NCP, which lauds Kim Jong and Uncle Joe Stalin, an affiliate of the LRC? I mean, I’m all for big tents, but when you’ve got a great, crowded one it’s best not to let in the lamentably flatulent.)

So not pacifists any more. The Quakers ain’t what they used to be. They seem to think it is possible to reconcile their pacifism with letting Islamists use their buildings and these seem to think it is possible to help fund terrorism.

“God knows how they kept going just on people actually purchasing at the shop.”

They probably don’t. Libya used to subsidise a lot of people. So did the USSR.

Great to see Worstall supportung the role of the state, seeing as the state created the internet. Or rather the American state. But still the state.

I guess if it had been left to Tim we would not have had the internet.

Oligopolies, market power abuses to drive out competition – that’s the glory of this free market thing.

Adam Smith

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

conclusion: free markets work best in an institutional setting that does what it can to watch out for and disrupt oligopolistic conspiracies against the public.

(regrettably, sometimes the left-wing endorses such conspiracies on the basis that they are “protecting jobs” which can veer very close to protecting vested interests)

And the internet is the sort of disruptive technology which wipes out previous oligopolies.

As far as I can see I’m supporting people buying from this new online resource. If people wish to support a cause with the money, by changing where they buy things, good luck to them. Indeed, I say that if they want to support a cause then they should spend their money in that manner.

How in buggery is that supporting Amazon?

“But Timmy is on the wing nut welfare circuit so he does not have to work for a living.”

As to that I wish I knew where that welfare circuit was. I don’t get a salary or allowances or anything from anyone. I get paid for freelance writing (as Laurie Penny does and as she’ll tell you, that’s work….as indeed Sunny does and so will he) and I’m a wholesaler of weird and exotic metals. No welfare in there, sorry love.

It’s a Rand race to the bottom fantasy. But Timmy is on the wing nut welfare circuit so he does not have to work for a living.

No rent and volunteer staff?

I’m not knocking the place. There should always be bookshops like that.
God knows how they kept going just on people actually purchasing at the shop.

So we only made money by selling to independents. But when the “big boys” more or less took over we had few places left to sell our books and ended up – sadly – packing it in.

Ahahahahaha…..seriously?

Lowering the cost of distrubution means that catering to minority tastes is more difficult?

Seriously kiddies, you’ve got to be shitting me.

As to the larger campaign, hey, have fun. Buy what you wish where you wish according to whatever set of priorities you have. That’s the glory of this free market thing, that you can do so.

Indeed, you ought to do so.