Our Enemy, the Pigs

Limey polemicist and fiction author George Orwell is claimed as a hero by progressives and libertarians. How can this be? Tom Watson, commissar of the thought police and writer at Salon, says we must be in opposition to one another, instead of uniting against the NSA. George Orwell was not a libertarian, nor was he a classical liberal. He was however, a man with a proclivity to liberalism, and this is the least common denominator betwixt progressives and libertarians.

I may be a smidgeon tardy, but I just finished reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. Literary critics, and more importantly Orwell, say that the entire novel is an allegory to the U.S.S.R. under commissar of the commissars Joseph Stalin. I agree. SPOILER ALERT, this should not be necessary seventy years after Animal Farm was written, but I'm covering my bases with my readers. Mr. Jones is a human farmer who gets his farm, Manor Farm, overthrown by his animals who had been preached the equality of nonhuman animals by an aged goat. The nonhuman animals, hereafter beasts, want to have equality of outcome and establish seven commandments which they will abide by. It does not take long for hierarchy to set in. The pigs, the most literate of the herd, take charge and deliver orders. Most of the commandments are about not emulating humans - one in particular bans trade with them. The pigs incrementally break/alter the commandments and become more human. In the end the beasts can't tell pig from human. Mr. Jones is the tsar, the pigs are the State Socialist ruling committee, the neighboring humans that the pigs trade with are the varying interventionist countries bordering the U.S.S.R. , and the beasts are the uneducated masses intellectually won over by the utopia of State Socialism.

A progressive and a libertarian can read this tale and learn that as Lord Acton says

power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I would stipulate this phrase works in the context of man, and has no metaphysical connotations. The pigs claim to be equal with the beasts, but over time they become "more" equal. They get more food. They dress as the humans do. They get drunk as the humans do. They walk on two legs as the humans do. The progressive sees that this is an issue of authority. She says that the pigs have no right to tell the beasts what do in the privacy of their homes. The libertarian takes this one step further and says the pigs have no authority the beasts are bound to respect. Let's make like a tree and leave this allegory.

The brushfire of liberty is being ignited in the minds of progressives, because the State has penetrated our collective privacy to an extent they did not expect. Progressives do not want the State to read the emails, listen to the phone calls, and track all electronic trails of Americans without a warrant. They don't think the State should have the authority to do this, nor to prevent homosexual unions, nor to hail missiles at Syria until kingdom come. The libertarian agrees. Again, she takes this thinking to its theoretical conclusion. She pontificates, "If the State should have no authority to do x, why should the State have authority to do y?" She concludes, the State should have no authority that men outside the aegis of statehood should have. She concludes, the State should have no authority to steal, kidnap, murder et cetera. She concludes, the State should have no authority.

The great uniter betwixt progressives and libertarians is our shared appreciation and history against authority. Though Lord Acton uses the term power, authority is interchangeable. Progressives and libertarians are witnesses to the collusion of corporation and State in sundry sections of the market economy. The libertarian testifies to this persistence in all State action - roads, courts and security production included.

I'm not asking every progressive to wave the black flag, against all other flags, though I would ooze jubilee everywhere I frolicked if they did. I'm asking progressives and libertarians to put aside their other differences and collaborate against authority wherever and whenever they both see it. Smash the NSA, the banks, Big Pharma, land thieves, oil tycoons, patent/copyright Gestapo, the military-industrial-complex and any other tentacle of the State. People of the world, unite against our enemy, the pigs.

The Gang or Us?

Cookie cutters, suburban domiciles, and textbooks provided by the State are engraved with the stale bacteria known as commonplaceness. Cookie cutters are designed to mold raw materials to one prescribed shape and size. How boring. Suburban domiciles are mass produced to reduce the cost of quickly expanding across former deserts. Great for affordability, horrendous for standing out in our universe. Our enemy, the State, has had a stranglehold on individuality since it was a zygote. Statehood and individuality are inherently at each others' throats. The former demands, at gunpoint, uniformity and mediocrity of services. The latter permits herd thinking, but thrives when host to sundry strains of dissent. The public school system in the U.S. is an abject failure. No controversy here. In this discussion, let us prioritize the mal effect this has on our ideas over the economic disarray it displays.

There is no positive reason to have a system of State sponsored schooling. The commissar, or lobbyist, responsible for maintaing the status quo is acting either in ignorance, or malevolence. Either she does not know that she is suppressing the human spirit, or she is proud of the fact. The secular humanists worship the State. Like any other religion, secular humanist adherents have texts considered holy. In this case, it is those anointed for distribution to our children by the State's high priest of schooling. Revisionist historian Jeff Riggenbach notes the constricted view of history this leaves us.

Wendy is damned to have her world view highly influenced by an institution that wants her no different then the other cogs. She may have wanted to explore art, theoretical mathematics, Eastern mysticism, Austrian Economics et cetera. Her wants are for not. She gets the same recipe as the rest of us, the glory of the State. Why is there order? The State. Why is there respect for contracts? The State. How should security and law be provided? The State. What about the roads? The State. To think otherwise is sacrilegious.

If we abolished the State today, thought would be freed. The diversity of ideas would be expressed in the varying schooling methods of local communities. There would be more home schoolers, cooperative based teaching, private schools, religious schools et cetera. The specifics are questions for entrepreneurs to pursue. With certitude, I can say that we would have ranging opinions on history, science, mathematics, art and so forth. This would promote the investigation of truth. Which one is right? Which schools have the most voluntary consumers? Who gets to select what we learn, the gang or us?

If State theft and transfer of wealth is an inseparable part of your ideology, fret not. There is a plan for you as well. If we abolished the schooling bureaucracy, we would see the same advancements in education as listed above. Sponsoring students with scholarships (reduced tithes), from the State, to attend these myriad schools is a better alternative to the status squo.

The first option would be better for lack of theft. Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

Recall the book review I did of legendary polemicist Murray Rothbard's Education Free & Compulsory. If nothing else, I want you to read his analogy of State education

One of the best ways of regarding compulsory education is to think of the almost exact analogy in the area of that other great educational medium- the newspaper. What would we think of a proposal for the government, Federal or State, to use the taxpayers' money to set up a nationwide chain of public newspapers, and compel all people, or all children to read them? What would we think furthermore of the government's outlawing all other newspapers, or indeed outlawing all newspapers that do not come up to the "standards" of what a government commission thinks children ought to read? Such a proposal would be generally regarded with horror in America, and yet this is exactly the sort of regime that the government has established in the sphere of scholastic instruction.

She is A Paper Tigress

Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, And Structural Poverty is a tome of authors who hate the State. Not because of ivory-tower-circle-jerk-abstractions, but because of systemic invasions in the affairs of consensual exchange that have unintended yet damning consequences. Here is professor Gary Chartier's video summary.

The premise of the series of polemics is simple. We all have an enemy, the State. This enemy has an ally, corporate America. We should not anathematize a company for making profits, but we should beware of the means of said profit. The authors live by the motto "let any union of State privilege and corporation be anathema". The authors criticize zoning laws, licensing laws, permit laws, trade barriers, border Apartheid, the land monopoly, the credit monopoly, the currency monopoly, the digital files monopoly, and indeed the entire apparatus of centralized law and security production as a monopoly.

A ruby of wisdom I found, whilst flipping through the digital pages of my copy of Markets Not Capitalism, is the open field for alliance with unlikely friends. People who call them selves non-State socialists, or enemies of property, or communists, or syndicalists have more in common with market anarchists than I previously thought. Anyone who waves the black flag of Anarchy, and verily seeks a stateless society, should work in stigmergic direct action protests of the corporate-capitalist statist quo. What happens after the disintegration of the State should be determined after the disintegration of the State. Until then, we should weave decentralized networks, on the internet and in our communities, to dismantle the false principalities and powers that be. The Axis of Evil comedy tour had a phrase about America that I think is apropos for the corporate-capitalist statist quo.

She is a paper tigress - she will fall.

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

If you prefer Amazon, go purchase the book here.

A five minute video on why all anarchists should unite, by Karl Hess, can be found here.

Capitalism: A Conflation Story

Those of us who give a damn about societal discourse should have consistent terms. Many disagreements occur because of what the debate community refers to as two ships passing in the night. If our arguments don't meet each other face-to-face, we are talking at each other and not with each other. Communication brings understanding. Without understanding we convince no one.

The Telegraph and The Guardian are two British newspapers that I read from time to time. I sense less partisan goat offerings, and it is refreshing to see English written differently. Read this article about Detroit from The Guardian. Read this article about Detroit from The Telegraph. Richard Wolffe and Daniel Hannan, I accuse you both of conflation. They both use the term capitalism in contradictory ways.

Wolffe says that

Over the past 40 years, capitalism turned that success into the abject failure culminating now in the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.

Hannan says that

The Observer, naturally, quotes a native complaining 'that capitalism has failed us', but capitalism is the one thing the place desperately needs.

They cannot both be right. Either capitalism was a detriment to Detroit, or would be a boon. Wolffe and the Detroit denizen seem to be speaking of capitalism in its common usage. The prefix corporate makes it more accurate, but capitalism usually references the status quo. Proper understanding of the status quo, lets us know that Wolffe is confused. He wants more workers' cooperatives, and claims the movement of production was the main woe. The status quo incursions into the production process by the State, on behalf of corporate interests, was, is and will be the problem unless we end the State. For smaller workers' cooperatives to flourish, the State imposed increased costs of production need to be discarded. Hannan is usually a sober analyst of economics, and does not disappoint in noting the problems with Detroit. His Atlas Shrugged reference is a bullseye. Ayn Rand's fictional Starnesville is a doppelgänger of Detroit in 2013. But, he should know better than to think that the Detroit denizen and he agree on what capitalism means. Hannan is no anarchist, but he definitely wants to sever the umbilical chord between corporation and State. He wishes the market would be freed.

The corporate capitalist State is the ungodly polygamous union of privileged cyclopean corporations to the tangled bureaucracy of taxgatherers. Corporate capitalism is the status quo. Corporate capitalism is the theft of our funds, to maintain and promulgate the flourishing of the largesse of corporations and the State. State regulations, State licenses, State prohibitions, State land grabs, and State monopolization are the tools of oppression. Corporate capitalism is evil, always and everywhere. I capitalize the s in State, because I want that word engraved in your minds. Corporate capitalism is impossible without the State. If you don't believe me that the State is the problem, I want you to at least consider it. Many ignore the State. Ignore the State, and it wins. I refuse to cede to it, and will ever more audaciously proceed against it.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Reparations Exist

The adage goes

even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The State, though evil root and branch, is capable of making good decisions. In Columbia, the State has  a law that helps victims of land theft get their land back. Non-State marauding gangs of goons with guns, led by supervillain Carlos Castano, stole land from Mario Cuitiva. Thank God, Mario got it back.

Find the full story from Human Rights Watch  here.

These types of joys are what we should appreciate more often today, and look forward to in a stateless society. With no monopolized court system, we would have sundry consensual dispute resolution firms. Some would be cooperatives, and some would be business. There would be community courts of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. The State occupies acres of land that was acquired through conquest. In a stateless society distribution of this land would be settled in consensual courts. Consequentialists would yawp for the land slide in land prices. Fanatics of justice would yawp for the equality of protection under the homesteading principle.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Call a Duck a Duck, and a State an Honor-less Thief

Lysander Spooner is my hero. His religious views and copyright/patent views aside, I stand in solidarity with him. He was a lawyer when the legislators said he couldn't be. He delivered mail to consumers when the legislators said he could not- resulting in lower prices for consumers. He was an abolitionist when slavery was a la mode. He called the constitution an antislavery manuscript, whilst maintaining that it was of no force.

In any case, the man's writings deserve to be explored. Have at it.

Lucidity is one of my immovable values. Conflation of ideas, meanings, and intentions sully our talks. Whether you disagree or concur with Lysander Spooner, you know where he stands. I made this blog with this intent. I don't think everyone will agree with me. But, these ideas need to be considered outside the hollow halls of Capitol Hill, and the suburban ivory towers of academia. Spooner's lucidity on taxes is unparalleled in today's discourse.

No middle ground is possible on this subject. Either "taxation without consent is robbery," or it is not. 

This is an apodeictic claim. He asks, where do you stand? And by the phrasing of the question, we can infer where he stands. Depending on where you stand, what follows?

If it is not, then any number of men, who choose, may at any time associate; call themselves a government; assume absolute authority over all weaker than themselves; plunder them at will; and kill them if they resist. If, on the other hand, taxation without consent is robbery, it necessarily follows that every man who has not consented to be taxed, has the same natural right to defend his property against a taxgatherer, that he has to defend it against a highwayman.

 No one can truly call this argument inconsistent. Spooner goes further. He says a highwayman is evil, but he is a saint in comparison to the State goons. The State goons are duplicitous. The highwayman is lucid in his theft.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travelers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave (emphasis is mine).

Spooner continues his kritik, by illustrating the cowardice of State theft. The bureaucracy is so dense and interwoven that the victims of theft don't know whom to blame for the loss of their property. Is it the taxgatherer? The monopolized law writer? The monopolized security that protects and serves the taxgatherer and the monopolized law writer? Is it the bankster whom stores these stolen goods? Is it the rubber stamper, judge, who approves of this process?

The whole institution of coercive governance is to blame. We should have voluntary governance. Furthermore, we must end the State.

Our Enemy, Centralized Power

Before I knew I was a libertarian, I knew that I delighted in asking questions. Usually the questions that others left to the dust mite kingdoms. Liberalism is the pattern of thinking that questions the status quo. Do we need to be ruled by bosses at every level of society? Or is there room for me to be the boss of me? Do I need the State to tell me what food I can eat, and whose dietary recommendations I can pay for? Do I need the State to tell me which tour guide I can use? Do I need the State to tell me which hair braiding professional I can use? The scientists, political analysts, cable news anchors, environmental inspectors, licensing writers, corn and sugar lobbyists are all establishment thinkers. At its root, they say, there are no problems with this world. I say nay, the problems are legion.

When I was a young warthog, I loved studying George Orwell's 1984 and watching JRR Tolkien's Lord of The Rings trilogy. Their fiction novels have been fodder for the edacious readers of the English language, as well as the wide-scale consumption of the reading laity. Listening to revisionist historian Jeff Riggenbach's podcasts on Erik Blair (George Orwell) and J.R.R. Tolkien told me why I was a party to this feast. Authority and power are wielded by people, with the same flesh and blood as us, who believe us too incompetent or evil to manage our own affairs. The banner of Liberalism contains people who, at differing degrees, say "no, I want to manage my own affairs." For some this leads to opposition to State invasion of social affairs. For others this leads to opposition to State invasion of economic affairs. For the globally conscious, this leads to opposition to State invasion of international affairs. For the anarchist, this leads to opposition to State invasion in all affairs.

When I read 1984 and watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was in the first and third platoons of Liberalism mentioned above. I opposed State invasion of social affairs, and international affairs. Now I am more consistently against State invasion. Orwell, were he alive, would stand with Eric Snowden's whistle-blowing of the NSA's global peeping Tom network. Orwell criticizes centralization of authority and power. The State's invasion could not occur without the centralization of power. Tolkien is also an enemy of centralized power. There are 19 rings, and one ring to rule them all. Whomever wields the one ring gains power over the rest of the world. Anyone who uses the ring will eventually become corrupt. If that is not a kritik of using the State, I don't know what is. I believe that my reasons for smiling through these stories were sundry. But, the struggle of the protagonists against centralized power was subconsciously pushing me to empathy, and I believe it did the same to you.

Please take the time to listen to the two podcasts highlighted in yellow above, and come to your own conclusions on these two literary behemoths.

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

Whatever theses authors' specific policy prescriptions may have been, they held their convictions through principled thought. Tom Woods Jr. recently wrote a piece on Sweetie-Pie Libertarians. Though Orwell and Tolkien may have never called themselves natural rights libertarians, their opposition to centralized power aligns them with the libertarians that believe in natural rights, and against the sweetie-pies. The sweetie-pie, or utilitarian, or pragmatic libertarians lack the passion of the natural rights variety. Murray Rothbard asks the question that is telling of where you stand, Do You Hate the State? An incendiary passion to change the world, because the world is engraved with centralized power, is a yes to this question. The beauty of Orwell and Tolkien lies in this passion. Do you have it?

The State is the Health of the Corporation

It had been awhile since I had ventured into the club scene. This Independence Day holiday weekend changed that. Some songs you hear have a classic ignorance about them summed in Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks series as "booty, butt, cheeks, booty butt, booty butt, booty butt cheeks". This brand was indubitably in attendance. But, the most wretchedly worldly brand of ignorance is corporate capitalism induced obsession, and nigh idolatry of, luxury items' names.

Listen to this song and be the judge.

Drake says Versace 12 times in his bars. Quavo chants Versace with an imagined bobbing head and Cheshire smile, 18 times on the hook. Quavo then says Versace 7 times in his verse portion. The hook plays again. Takeoff plays the moderate card and only glorifies Versace 5 times. Then you hear the Quavo 18 again. Offset then finishes the song with an even more humble 4 mentions of Versace.

Versace, Gucci, Nike, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz et cetera, would be atomized in a freed market. A freed market is incompatible with the status quo of corporate capitalism. There are key institutional privileges granted to corporations in the status quo that bar us from true freedom. One of these is the State harassment, threatening, bludgeoning, stealing, and kidnapping done to people selling products of their labor that emulate others' ideas. Corporations cower behind the State privileges of patents and copyrights. These two devils shield corporations from the free competition that would spread the wealth more evenly in society. Anarchist writer Jeremy Weiland says we should "Let the free market eat the rich!"

A patent is a State gifted privilege of dominion over a combination of preexisting quarks, neutrons, and protons. A person asks the State, the monopoly of goons with guns, to steal from or incarcerate competitors emulating her combination of preexisting particles. A copyright is a State gifted privilege of dominion over a combination of words, beats, software et cetera. A person asks the State, the monopoly of goons with guns, to steal from or incarcerate competitors emulating her combination of ideas.* Who wins? The State and the corporation. The State wins whenever demand for it is either increasing or staying the same. To end the State, we must reduce demand for the State. Godwilling, to zero. The corporation wins whenever it is permitted its artificial reign by the State. The current reign of the corporation is impossible without the violence of the State against decentralized local producers emulating ideas. The corporation, as we know it, would collapse if we abolished patents and copyrights. Who would arise? At the expense of the corporate capitalists, the proletariat and bourgeoisie would arise. The countless jobless would find gainful employment, and use their numbers to shred the corporations whose life support of the State vanished. Long live the rEVOLution.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Post Scriptum:

*If I am being repetitive, it is because the blunders of the State are repetitive. And I want you to feel that.

Who is the Bandit?

William Rouse, of Los Angeles Yellow Cab, is a liar.

I have values which I would change for no one. The first immovable value is to have immovable values. Cornell West identifies the passion youth have for him and Ron Paul, two outliers of the philosophical spectrum, as being rooted in constancy and integrity. Both West and Paul have moral codes that they strive to apply consistently to sundry issues they speak about. Kudos. There are unjust and just views when it comes to politics. Not all dogs go to heaven. I won't spite you for holding an unjust view, if you are putting in rigorous effort to apply it consistently.* Lies however, are inexcusable. If it smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, and a panel of scientists identify it as a duck, I'm going to call it a duck.

William Duck, uh... William Rouse is a liar.

I don't have enough fingers and toes to count how many industries the State invades at each level of its  cleptocratic hierarchy. Let's zoom in to the State's branch in Los Angeles, CA. Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar want to serve consumers looking for alternatives to the taxi cabs granted the State privileges of licenses, bureaucratic guidelines, and monopoly. These companies dared to help consumers with the State's privileges intact. God bless them. In response, William Rouse and his ilk, are calling for the State to prevent these companies from helping consumers. Unfortunately for these companies and their consumers, the State has more goons and more guns.

This is a small taste of what the State does every moment of its existence. It cannot exist without feeding. It feeds on funds collected at gun point, it feeds on the desires of groups seeking State privilege, and it feeds on invading the voluntary exchanges of humans. I have known this for awhile. And yet, I still get ornery when I read the words of a man beseeching the State to steal accusing his victims of theft.

William Rouse is a liar.

He says

Not only are these high-tech bandit cabs unsafe, they are breaking regulatory standards and disenfranchising safe, legal drivers.  

I won't lose sleep if you see the State as omnibenevolent, and think it should be the sole provider of taxi permits. I won't lose sleep if you deem Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar unsafe. I won't lose sleep if you feel suburban security in the State privileged taxi cabs. I won't lose sleep if regulatory standards titillate you to the point of losing sleep and standing on street corners passing them out for free, so that we the people can read them. But, a thief calling a victim a thief is an injustice worth opening the window and screaming for.

Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar are NOT bandits. They don't use guns to coerce consumers to purchase their services. Their consumers volunteer their funds in exchange for these companies' services. William Rouse, and anyone like him or with him, is a bandit. He asks people with guns to threaten producers into halting production of their services. Why? He has a monopoly, and monopolists hate free competition. Free competition decimates oversized, overcharging, hierarchical corporations. Free competition favors decentralized and localized production, because the costs of production gets reduced. Small businesses would chomp the State-made big businesses in a freed market.

William Rouse is a liar and a bandit.

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:
here is the article from which LA Weekly exposed this to me

shoutout to my fellow Rugger and Libertarian Amir for showing me this article

*On this point, I would like to direct you to one of my favorite quotes by the late revisionist historian, Austrian Economist, and State iconoclast Murray Rothbard.

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

Equalize Unequal Contracts

Let's say you have an AK-47 aimed and loaded at my gray matter. I am seated at a blank white table, in a blank white room without windows. You are standing on both feet, and the nosel of your piece is giving me an Eskimo kiss. Your comrade slides 50 sheets of paper and a red pen my way. "Sign here, there, and yonder" you say. I stab my scribblings in the allotted areas with the madness of Mikami from Death Note. Is this an equal contract?

Kevin Carson sees many

credit card agreements, telephone service plans, website terms of service

as being neutered mirrors of my example above. He calls us to first rid our minds of the notion that these contracts, and the authority behind them, in the current corporatist statist quo should be respected. The next step is to put on a wildact unionist hat, and have at it. If there are any ordinances or obligations you were coerced into accepting on paper, do your best to be a guerrilla against them. If you can disobey them outright, do so. If you must do so behind an overlord's back, do so. If you disagree with a rule, but deem it dangerous to defy, then begin an anonymous online protest or petition.

Don't sleep. Be free.

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

Here is Kevin Carson's writing
Here is James Tuttle reading aloud Kevin Carson's writing

A small anecdote. I once had a job that required me not to spit. There was no way I was bound to respect that preposterous bureaucratic hoop. Along with friends, and even alone, I would delight in spitting to and fro. It is not to be a contrarian that I did this. It was because I generate a lot of saliva, and the rule was totalitarian to the root. Radicals beget radicals.

Eschew Evil, Vote on Measures

"I chose her as the lesser of two evils". "I prefer the devil I know to the devil that I don't know". These mantras are morally bereft, overapplied, and reveal the layers of sloth wrapping Maria Doe's grey matter. Don't be caught in emulation.

If both candidates are evil, select neither. You are duty bound to role play Paul Revere, and reveal the malice the candidates would commit if granted the monopoly on force. The second one has a more simple solution. Don't deal with devils. Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Dennis Kucinich are the only statesmen today that I could even think about voting for. Kucinich folded when Obama asked him to vote yay on the Affordable Care Act. Rand and Amash, have folded on the issue of Israel. Ron Paul never folded. Now that he has left the game, it is unconscionable to vote for candidates. I vote for measures.

Local politics is a drag show of Republicrats deciding what to do with funds they have stolen, and plan to steal. There is no politician of worth in my perenially lusted after habitat of Los Angeles. I will leave their kind's bubbles as blank as works without faith. Let the ratiocination continue.

City of Los Angeles Measures
C) RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT REGARDING LIMITS ON POLITICAL CAMPAIGN SPENDING AND RIGHTS OF CORPORATIONS.

I vote no. I hate corporations. They are subsidized by our sovietized roads, disparate theft collection, and gun-point-prohibition of small scale producers. This is unjust. Our stomachs shouldn't churdle, because corporations lobby the State. Our stomach's should churdle, because the State has fresh pickings to offer corporations. The State produces nothing. We are its pickings.

D) MEDICAL MARIJUANA REGULATION AND TAXATION. LIMIT NUMBER OF BUSINESSES TO APPROXIMATELY 135 THAT OPERATED SINCE SEPTEMBER 2007 AND REGISTERED, IF THEY MEET OTHER REQUIREMENTS AND OPERATIONAL STANDARDS. EXEMPT DWELLINGS OF THREE OR FEWER PATIENTS/CAREGIVERS CULTIVATING MEDICAL MARIJUANA FOR THEIR PATIENTS OR THEMSELVES FROM REGULATION. INCREASE TAXES ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA BUSINESSES.

I vote no. Do the scales of justice balance perfectly on September of 2007 A.D., or the number 135? Does the State have one perfect software program for adminstrating marijuana in the mutual aid sector of the economy? Has taxation suddenly stopped being theft?

Measures E & F are reformulations of Measure D. Trust me, or do your own research. I vote no on both. Voting, and saying why on the internets, are a part of the just darg.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Consensual Exchange Breeds Empathy

The antiwar, or positively pro-peace, movement is still alive. The Old Left, the Old Right, and the Libertarian writers at antiwar.com help stoke brushfires of peace in the minds of men. Last Sunday, after church, I had the supreme delight of attending an antiwar event. It was hosted by downtown L.A.'s ever vibrant The Last Book Store. The Last Book Store is a bastion of words, radical authors, and local artists. If I may digress, their upstairs area alone has over 100,000 books each for the price of 1 Federal Reserve Note. Go there, and buy books. The Nation Institute writing fellow, prolific peacenik, and documentarian Jeremy Scahill was giving a talk on his new book Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. Also, the subsequent documentary similarly entitled Dirty Wars.

His work illuminates the darkness that Obama, and his administration, would like to shroud our eyes in. Scahill's flashlight on the State reveals an indiscriminate murderer of women and children. He shows that the so-called cleanly and targeted assassinations of Al-Qaeda "leaders", are verily dirty and international-treaty-breaking cluster bombs of unknown tribesmen. His qualitative research is legion. He tells us stories of people who had never even heard of America or the Pacific Ocean, but now want to see its decimation. This is the sad conflation of country and the State. The actions of the State bear blowback on the people in our country. The entirety of many Yemeni experiences are summed in the wanton explosion and dismemberment of neighbors, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, siblings, and grandparents. Imagine if Chinese troops severed the heads of your family members in broad daylight. Then imagine that these forces claim to be the victims, when you retaliate. Please, let the word empathy hover in your mind. How would you feel?

I am reminded of the pejorative use of the term isolationist. Often against, the greatest statesman that has ever lived, Doctor Ronald Paul. Warmongers slam their war drums with the grace of an inebriated Tasmanian Devil. The terms they propagate are inconsistent. What does left mean? What does right mean? Especially, when both survive by ceding power to perennial warfare and State cheese. Early 20th century writer Randolph Bourne tells no lie when he says

war is the health of the State.

An isolationist would prevent, prohibit, encumber, restrict, hamper, impede, or invade the consensual exchange betwixt people from sundry global neighborhoods. Republicrats promulgate policies of this flair all the time. The peacenik should promulgate more consensual exchange, never less. We don't want to be insulated or isolated from our sistren in Yemen. We want to get to know our sister, and see what mutual aid she may join us in. Ron Paul calls this position noninterventionism. That is a slimsy, flaccid, and disemboweled symbol for this idea. If we must use negation, we should call it noninvasionism. When the State hampers consensual exchange, the State is committing an invasion. When speaking affirmatively of our foreign policy concerns, we should say we want peace and prosperity.

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

Radio host Scott Horton has lovely discussions with guests on this subject often. Check out this interview with Jeremy Scahill. Peep his whole archive.

Alabaman Land Theft

If you hear the phrase "for the public interest", or "common good", scram immediately. These are euphemisms that aggressive people use to mask their theft, or propose theft. Eminent domain is the confiscation of land for supposedly public good. The privileged corporate goons that thrive of this theft never have the gumption to take it outright. Instead they hire a middleman, whom retains the monopoly of security production within arbitrarily drawn borders. Our enemy, the State.

The Institute for Justice dares to enter the home of the State, and spit at its face.They oft defend land theft victims, in monopolized dispute resolution centers (courts).  IJ writer Nick Sibilla tells us that Alabama legislators had actually reduced the legal privilege to steal land. No one who cares about justice should ever be lukewarm on the issue of land theft. For though they reduced the privilege temporarily, now they have given the State license to

ensure the location and expansion of automotive, automotive-industry related, aviation, aviation-industry related, medical, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, computer, electronics, energy conservation, cyber technology, and biomedical industry manufacturing facilities 

These are sectors of the economy littered with State monopolies of patent, copyright, and licensing. Three tools used daily to discriminate against the poor. Patent and copyright prohibit the sale of a gal's own property to whomever she wants. Licensing bars entry to lower income professionals that cannot afford the cost of schooling, or regulatory paperwork. In addition to this lack of free competition, Alabama legislators are now burdening the poor with the potential to have their land legally stolen.

My opponents may say, that there is no theft afoot. Their evidence would be the recompense given to victims of land theft. The subjective theory of value disproves this claim. There is no objective price to land. If a land owner wants to exchange her land with someone else, that is her right. She may peacefully trade it for free, for services, or for currency. Eminent domain users choose a price for their victims, and their price is backed by the authority of a gun in the victim's face.

Everywhere and always, eminent domain use is abuse. Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

extra reading from Reason

Frederick Douglass and Dominion of Wages

American history cannot be justly separated from the wrongdoings of white, male, State-facilitated land owners. It is not just mud on her boots, but a drowning typhoon of injustices. Slavery is her most condemned  facet. And yet, slavery persists.

I tutor kids in an elementary school, and I know that modeling good behavior is the best way to influence kids to copy good behavior. To copy is to learn, and innovation comes when we add to the collective knowledge of humanity. Today, I trekked to the school library with my classroom. Inside, some gathered tomes to peruse, while others' eyes sagged staring at the ceiling. I modeled reading and checking out books from the library. My section of choice, as it has been for the past few years, was the nonfiction section. I rented A Picture Book of Frederick Douglass. It's a couple scores of pages, and written by David Adler. Frederick Douglass was a great man. Born a slave, died a free man.

The book reads like a well painted Wikipedia article. Short and packed with facts. Here's a gem

Frederick longed to be free.

This is a simply written phrase, and the motor behind anarchist, libertarian, liberal and any other anti-authoritarian thought. Also, the motive behind the Laissez-faire portion of this blog's name.* Here is a more finely crafted gem

In New Bedford, Frederick worked loading and unloading ships, shoveling coal, and sweeping out chimneys. Frederick was pleased he didn't have to share his wages with a slave owner.

The text in bold is my emphasis. The State imposes a whole-scale theft of every wage earners' salary. The State calls it the income tax. After the State expresses its dominion over our wages, it reminds us that it is our benefactor by returning a percentage of our stolen earnings. I long for the day when we will be free. I long for the day when we don't have to share our wages with our slave owner.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Post Scriptum:

*Uh oh, I collapsed the fourth wall. Shoutout to Deadpool.

Slavery in Chinatown

An editor tells me that local news should be scoured and devoured, for it holds the events close to the emotions of the masses. I listen. You and I tend to perk our ears when startling events occur in our neighborhoods. The news is the reporting of startling events. When I study the State, there is no bureaucratic shortage of news.

Los Angeles Downtown News reports that

Macy Liquor, a Chinatown shop that many community stakeholders long complained about, quietly closed about a month ago.

Why? Was it the bumbling incompetency of the American free market? Was it the poor recovery of the economy "after" the Great Recession? No comrade. Our enemy strikes again.

area leaders urged a city zoning administrator to revoke Macy's permit to sell alcohol

 Where to begin? This is an issue of dominion. Dominion is simply who owns what. Republican politicians and commentariat, and the rare Democrat, voice their approval of private property. They don't want to seem unAmerican. Though their voices may be legion, they are hosts to the level of falsehood that Greek sirens screeched at Odysseus. If I have dominion over my property, then no one can tell me what to do with it, so long as I do not use it to harm my fellow man. There is no middle path , when it comes to property. You either absolutely affirm it, or absolutely deny it. To partially affirm my right to my property, is to say someone else has dominion over it. When our, the proprietors, interests conflict, whom has the ultimate decision making power? Whomever she is, she has dominion.

I believe land ownership is the most important issue to those advocating free enterprise. A woman's house is her castle. You do not tell a woman what to do with her castle. The State, backed by its monopoly on kidnapping, does not allow a woman to sell alcohol without a permission slip from its licensing commissars. The State, backed by its monopoly on kidnapping, does not allow a woman to establish a shop without a permission slip from its zoning commissars. The State, backed by its monopoly on kidnapping, allows area leaders to petition it to crush the castles of women. If the State can do all of this, then we do not have private property. Instead, we have a world in which the State has dominion over all property. If we are told we have private property, yet it is only by the permission of the State that we can use it, we are under the dominion of the State. We are slaves to the State. Macy Liquor is a victim of slavery.

God bless America. Furthermore, we must end the State.

Post Scriptum:

Alexis de Tocqueville warned us of the tyranny of the majority in his magnum opus of American life, Democracy in America. Whenever people talk about the "public good", they are usually about to advocate the theft of private property. Eminent domain, or guidelines given to proper usage of property ensue.

Read Raimondo & Greenwald

Vociferous writer, and peacemonger, Justin Raimondo oft exposes the false dogma of the left-right paradigm. The so-called left and right bicker and groan like the siblings that they are. Their parents are central planning and the monopoly on force. A morally ugly family picture, to say the least. Like most kids, the left and right enjoy spending other peoples' money. On what? Guns and butter.

Guardian writer, and civil liberties extremist (an accolade he appreciates), Glenn Greenwald is the most prominent defender of liberty I see talk with the establishment. Thank you Mr. Greenwald. The butter I speak of, is the distribution of stolen goods called welfare. I don't know where Mr. Greenwald stands on this subject. I don't care. His barrier breaking work against guns sets him apart. When I speak of guns, I am referring to the military-industrial-complex. Drones, McCarthian witch-hunts for "terrorists", the indefinite kidnapping of humans without a trial, the indefinite kidnapping of humans after humans have cleared their names in court, and the prohibition of words not in line with the lilting bourgeoise sense of propriety, are the culprits of tyranny he jots notes on.

Guerilla Drones FTW

When you have faith in God, and in those he made in his image, the future is luminous. No matter the darkness that appears before us now. There might be a bad day, or forty years, as you wander to and fro through creation. But, the future will bear more fruit than the present. Or, as the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior so prettily told us

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever." How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."... How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

 The truth that is crushed to the earth, is the immorality, chaos, and social disintegration brought about by do gooders using the State. The lie, is that the State can secure your property. By definition, it must forcibly expropriate your property. Market Anarchist Kevin Carson's words weave an intricately patterned story to the contrary of the doom and gloom spread by most libertarian writers. He speaks of our future as overflowing the proverbial glass, with goodness. The word is optimismo. Click here for an audio account of his thoughts on the growth of drone production.*

Bring the Drones! His title selection speaks volumes, and multiple editions, to his view. Carson believes in the market. He believes in those made in His image. The trades of us image bearers are the market. Carson believes in us. He knows economic theory and the historicity of less State invasion in our trades. As we progress the market will eat the State. The voluntaryist flag has gold over black. The light will inevitably overcome the darkness. Corporate elites lose their ground every nanosecond Earth spins. Corporate elites rely upon State theft and the doling of stolen goods thereof. I am not afraid to call them by name; Lockheed Martin, Dyncorp, and Halliburton are a few. Today's drones are products driven by State fiat. When drones are mass produced due to demand by consumers, the moneychangers' temple tables will be overthrown.** Apply Moore's law, and do the arithmetic. Carson doesn't just slap the answer on his paper, he shows his work

The 20th Century was the age of the large hierarchical institution. By the end of the 21st, there won't be enough left of them to bury.

After you click the click here link above, and let Carson's prophecy sink in, remember emcee Immortal Technique's wisdom on the subject of guerrilla/asymmetric warfare

The point of guerrilla war is not to succeed, it has always been to make the enemy bleed, depriving the soldiers of the peace of mind that they need, bullets are hard to telegraph when they bob and they weave, the only way a Guerrilla War can ever be over, is when the occupation can't afford more soldiers. 

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

*It is written by Kevin Carson, but orated by James Tuttle
**Saint Matthew's good news chapter twenty-one

#FreeBopha

Hip-hop artists are oft portrayed as villains by themselves and the 4th branch. Eminem has played on his bad-boy visage to sell millions of tapes. Lil Wayne, aka Weezy F. Baby don't forget the baby, has been kidnapped by Johnny Law for daring to try to buy non-politicallycorrect arms and dabbling in doobies from south of the border. T.I., Atlanta's monarch, has been kidnapped for like reasons. Lil Boosie has been thrown into the cages for the alleged hit-man ordered murder of a man. In response to their favorite rappers being caged, fanatics become activists. They start free movements. They make signs, wear t-shirts, and trend hashtags of #FreeSoandSo. These rappers are now free. Whether the activism of their disciples was the main factor, or not, I do not know. But, I think their grassroots free movements help. I find the kidnapping of rappers alarming, but I am more concerned about the kidnapping of protesters whose only listed crime is being the victim of land theft by the State and being bold enough to talk about it. I'm talking about the peaceful Cambodian land-rights advocate Yorm Bopha. #FreeBopha

Yorm Bopha sits, sleeps, and urinates under the dominion of the Cambodian State. She is the State's kidnapee. Her daily view includes a main dish of metal bars with a side order of musty roommates. They say mock trial is great preparation for middle and high school students to learn about the real world. Whoever they are, they are right. Bopha was put through a mock trial a few days ago.

"On March 27, 2013, the Cambodian Supreme Court denied bail to Yorm Bopha, who was imprisoned in December 2012 after receiving a three-year sentence on  apparently politically motivated charges for protesting government land grabs that have adversely affected 700,000 Cambodians" says the Human Rights Watch.*

Speaking is not grounds for kidnapping. At least in the moral realm it is not. Follow the money. Follow the money. A familiar mantra to American ears. So, let's follow the money. Where there are people being exiled from their land by the State, there will be a tale of privilege. This is crony-capitalism, or corporatism. Our enemy, the State, selects a target she deems weak enough to steal from and a friend that would willingly accept the target's resources. The friend is usually a donor who keeps the local commissars' election money growing. The Commissars gain the privilege of governance, and the corporations gain the privilege of stolen resources. Now the Human Rights Watch will fill out my formula for me

Bopha, 29, is one of the leaders of long-term protests against illegal evictions of residents of the Boeung Kak area of Phnom Penh by a Chinese company and a local firm closely linked to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Pay attention to this formula. This formula separates the vulgar libertarians from the market anarchists. The vulgar libertarians, often conservatives wanting to use a more hip label, limit this kritik to farm and sugar subsidies. However, it applies to any State sponsored bridge building, highway leasing, dam constructing, green converting, tariff raising, weapons contracting, henchmen hiring or court establishing. We should not be lukewarm in our opposition to privilege handouts. We should either be cold, or hot. To be cold is to support the State in its edification of corporate privilege. To be hot is to oppose corporate privilege from every angle it can be measured by. I am hot.

Hotness is applicable to sighting the methodology of the State. Her methods include the initiation of violence, always and everywhere. While monitoring the Gambellan case, I noted our enemy's usual tools. Her Cambodian branch is no different. Humans who are trying to inform others about the injustice of land theft, have the bloodhounds sent after them.

They were assaulted by a mixed force of police, gendarmes, and security guards, who severely beat several protesters, including Sakhon.

Help me trend #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha #FreeBopha

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Post Scriptum:

*All quotes on this page are from the Human Rights Watch link on highlighted in yellow.

Gambella: the new New World

The freedom philosophy, the libertarian movement, or liberalism, says Ludwig von Mises, is encapsulated in the word property. Gary North points out that most Economics books begin with chapters on scarcity. He thinks they should start with dominion instead. Me too. Once we know who has dominion over what, we can spot a violation thereof. If you have dominion over property and I take, damage, or otherwise use it without your consent, we have a violation.

Eminent domain is not just a tool of the State in the United States. My brethren and sistren in Gambella, Ethiopia are victims of said violation. The State, via its Ethiopian branch, is removing the humans of Gambella from their ancestral homes at truncheon point. To make up for this discomfort, the State is giving them new homes on new land. This idea, now called villagization, is as old as the European invasion of North America. Watch Guns, Germs, and Steel and you too will see. What was done to the Native Americans is being done to the Native Africans. Guardian writer William Lloyd George reveals the evil perverted by mouths mouthing good intentions, with quotes from the Gambellans

"These mass evictions have been carried out under the pretext of providing better services and improving the livelihoods of these communities," says the letter. "However, once they moved to the new sites, they found not only infertile land, but also no schools, clinics, wells or other basic services."

If it takes a whole village to raise a child, then those who uproot villages are attacking the youth. Legally, the State in Ethiopia gets away with this, because they claim dominion over all land in Ethiopia. Their law books are on their side. Whether they fiat windward to be leeward or east to be west, or more dreadfully both, they will find the paperwork to back their claims. The masses are only allowed to own structures made on top of land. No system of property rights assigns this much leeway except for the Legal Positivism exploded by Judge Andrew Napolitano's 2011 tirade against the State, It's Dangerous to be Right, When the Government is Wrong. We hear people say that actions speak louder than words, but reading about actions through words works well as well. And again William Lloyd George lets the Gambellans do the talking after his short introduction

It says the government forced them to abandon their crops just before harvest, and they were not given any food assistance during the move. "Those farmers who refused to implement the programme... have been targeted with arrest, beating, torturing and killing,"

You know, the usual tools of our enemy. Every time I look at a human interaction I ask, is this the initiation of violence, or consent? You've seen my cards, what are yours?

Furthermore, we must end the State.*


Post Scriptum:

Shout out to Thomas Knapp's tagline

No Issue is Small

I'm a foodie. My love is sensorial in a full sense- I love its smell, its look, its feel, its sounds and the obvious taste.

Baylen Linneken, founder of the food freedom fighters Keep Food Legal, uses paperwork and the court system as medieval knights tarnished their crested shields and blades. He writes about his success with a lower court judge here at Reason. You can find his moving pictures (pirate speak for videos) here.

Thank You Johnny Williams

Justice is an elusive maiden that rarely shows her face on the worldly plane. She is no goddess, but an idea. Ideas are revered by men, because they show us how weak we are. They remind us of our finitude. Our bodies, our money, and our monuments will all fade to dust in the ages of ages. But, our ideas live forever.

The commentariat choose to refer to State schools as houses of education, and State courts as houses of justice. This is a lie. State schools administer State dogma to the next generation- making sure our kids accept the faith in coercion. State courts uphold the "living" constitutions that shift the definitions of terms more than Hollywood totters and teeters on paths of hip diets and religions.* The laws they uphold have been read in their entirety by no sane judge. The diction in the laws is purposefully selected to confound expert and layman alike. If justice were to be weighed on the scales of quantity we would be winning in the United States of America. Don't you lose hope in the misery of my jeremiad. Grit is a fertile Redwood that bears milk and honey. It will see us to the port of liberty, in a world of consensual courts. Until then, there are moments that we can praise the release of another life from the tentacles of Leviathan.

Johnny Williams is an innocent man that was kidnapped by a gang of men with guns that calls themselves government**. The police officers (deacons of Leviathan) stole fourteen years of Williams's life based on the faith in hearsay. His so-called crime was the rape of a nine year old. An act he did not commit, as proven by the science of forensics. The Huffington Post article I read this in words the injustice of the State with fatal precision

 The release said Williams was put in a line up despite not matching the girl's initial description of her attacker... Though he told police 45 times that he didn't attempt to rape the girl, authorities told him "they had dozens of witnesses, security video, and DNA evidence," the release said.

They had none of the above. The police officers that told these lies are evil. In the vein of Virgil, I write ever more boldly against their evil. The difference between coercive and free enterprise is in the consequences of mistakes. Especially when they are of this magnitude. Any free enterprise's profits would plunge into the Abyss after a mishap of this magnitude. The employees that messed up would be fired, and the higher ups would have to live the rest of their days with a scarlet letter on their foreheads. But, the State fails and fails and fails and fails and keeps its staff. In fact, they may get raises and be asked to increase regulation on themselves. You know, because that works.

Thank you Johnny Williams, for surviving the Boa constrictor hold of the State and living to tell your tale. You were released from your cell with lips that still thank the lord God. You give me hope that the State cannot keep us down forever. When the rule of law is Kritarchy, I pray to never hear a story like yours again.


Post Scriptum:

*It's really one religion rehashed with a thesaurus of euphemisms. Nihilism or nothingness. The idol worship of the self that results from the hubris denial of objective truth.
**British philosopher Thomas Hobbes thinks that "life is nasty, poor, brutish and short." His solution is to give the government power to forcibly mold our lives. He refers to this forceful governance, or State, as Leviathan, and trusts her sword to hold us upright.

The End of Time... Incorporated

 Apropos, or orchestrated, I don't believe in coincidences. After writing on Jeffrey Tucker's recalling of the walking word's words

But many who are first will be last, and the last first. (Mark 10:31)

I read The Guardian's tracking of a recent fall from secular achievement. The Guardian has been scribbling notes, for awhile, as Time Incorporated tumbles. In other words, they are following the flight path of the pterodactyl. Maybe partially delighting in the descent of a renown competitor. You can find the quote below here- the rest of the blood trail goes back a couple of months here, here, here, and here.

Time Inc's historic brands hold out hope for rebirth as company crumbles. Time was once the world's most influential magazine. Its founders virtually invented the modern news weekly and went on to become publishers of some of the most storied and popular titles on the news rack: Sports Illustrated, Fortune, People.

  In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy economist Joseph Schumpeter calls this creative destruction - the structuring and restructuring of free enterprise. Time's destruction will lead to the creation or edification of another enterprise. In the digital era print producers are going through birthing pains to convince us to cough up our coffers. Why pay for news when Twitter, Facebook, and amateur writers are feeding the masses' minds for free? Every story I publish on this blog is my product. I seek something in return for this product. It is not your money that I am asking you to exchange, but I will accept it. I want you to read what I write. I want you to come to the understanding that the State is a problem. Not just in delivering mail and subsidizing corn producers that would fail in a freed market; but in providing roads, protection, and court services. I value your understanding above what I think I could make if I charged for my products. And so I vociferously voice my concerns over this loudspeaker on the interwebs. How can a competitor compete with millions of me selling products for free?

The digital age is inexorably scuttling us to a better world - where more people will have more free selections. If there are no jobs in print, let us find new ways to voluntarily serve one another. Let us play in the rialto like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Freedom to Let Go: coauthored by Lij Miki

I went to elementary school in Los Angeles' Unified School District (LAUSD). An early taste of the State is a good forewarning. Its negation, the market, is also to be familiarized with. My view of the market then is different than it is now. Now, I know its bigger. The rialto exists everywhere and anywhere we decide to exchange goods and services. Whether this exchange is dressed in a compulsory, or voluntary attire. In LAUSD, it is of the compulsory calling. As with any and all systems of the compulsory kind, there are chaotic consequences.

Behavior is quoted as the most nefarious suspect in the case against miseducation of our youth, both on this side of the Mississippi and East of it. I concur. Special Education classrooms are at times stuffed with more kids with disorderly conduct than mental disabilities. The students with mental disabilities are directly analogous to nonviolent offenders of Johnny Law in the prison industrial complex. Nonviolent offenders' recidivism grows as their contact with violent offenders grow. Behavior is a contagion. State law, as it stands, confines kids with bad behavior to circulation. If they are not liked at one school they are bounced to another with similar problems. The root of the matter remains unaddressed.

To get to the root of a problem you must be radical- definitionally so. If you do no not believe that we have specific inviolable rights grounded in the brute fact of our humanity, you have no business here. Neither reading this, nor walking the same plane of existence. We are endowed with the inalienable freedom to associate. This much both authors of this paper agree with. Our disagreement lies in this axiom's application to the rialto- which really is a debate about, what is the rialto? To go further would be to digress.* Our freedom of association should not be defended in only the obvious markets of stock exchanges, grocers, gas stations, massage parlors, and churches. It should be defended in our public schools.

Public schools are not allowed to unequivocally expel students for disruption, or other disrespectful behavior. Some violent behavior can become grounds for expulsion, after bounding over hurdles of commissars and their beloved paperwork. This is a problem. Excluding the equal opportunity debate, store owners can legally open or close their doors to anyone of their choosing. Hence the mantra "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone". Public schools should be granted the same right.** Corporal punishment is dead and gone in the United States' public school system. Whether you think it effectively molded behavior, or not, it was leverage to be used against students. Now it is not there. Amongst the peaceful methods, we should take heed from how we reward and reprimand each other in the rialto. We reward each other through voluntary purchases. We reprimand each other through refusing to trade, or disassociation. The threat of disassociation, if it exists at all in public schools, is a flaccid banana beneath an anvil falling from the heavens.

The belief that the federal government should decide which kids are to go to which schools is tertiary- a fashion left to the ages two million years ago. It comes down to philosophy. Do we have the right to limited mistakes in public schools, or to an unlimited amount of mistakes? To right the chaos caused by kids with bad behavior we have to empower public schools with the right to associate. The conjoined twin of association is the freedom to disassociate. When I say public schools, I mean just that. Not the federal government, nor the state government, nor the county government. An assembly of people involved with the students on a consistent basis should host the right to let them stay or let them go.

"... Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Let my people go" (Exodus 5:1)

Post Scriptum:

*I, Henok Elias, believe that the only just method of education is the voluntary variety. Selected and paid for freely by the likes of you and I. In the same fashion as Chapstick, Trident gum, cheap haircuts, and dandelions are. The best possible world for maximal education is to privatize education from head to toe.
** I, Henok Elias, see this right as applicable even in the cases listed in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yes, black males can oppose that act without hating themselves.

Helpful links: the rights of store owners, Center for Public Integrity research, UCLA research, the rights of school owners

Drink Jeffrey Tucker's Bourbon

Words are delectable. Especially when they go down the mind's throat smoothly- without the harsh fizz of soda pop. Jeffrey Tucker's Bourbon for Breakfast: living outside the statist quo is the POM wonderful of books. It is a collection of his essays. I find this text pleasing for its accessibility- I had a 4th grader read and understand a couple chapters. Tucker is an unabashed anarchist, and a clothing connaisseur. Swoosh the style advice around with the quick fixes for State boondoggles for a merry olde time. Tucker exposes the creep behind almost every woe we face in our lives,

It's the hidden hand of government that has mandated this leap back to barbarism.

In The Glories of Change, one of Tucker's essays in the book, Tucker tells the story of two burning stars that meet the fate of all white dwarves. Death. Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch were known throughout the land as monetary mountebanks. It was only a matter of time before people stopped buying and drinking their Kool-Aid. The market is made of us peacefully trading with one another. Businesses perish or thrive on our voluntary selections. Thank you Mr. Tucker, for toasting to the descent of these vultures after their encounter with the electrical wire of free enterprise.

And here is one more snippet to tease your intellectual thirst

For this reason, everyone has reason to celebrate the end of Lehman and Merrill. Overnight, while we slept, the seemingly mighty were humbled, the first made last and the last made first. The greatest became the least, all without a shot being fired.

Post Scriptum:
The source of Tucker's reference is the most sold book of all time. Jesus, the healer of the world, is quoted by Saint Matthew as saying

So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen. (Matthew 20:16)

Monopoly: Free and Compulsory

Monopoly is no new word, but the definition shifts in the newspeak of the intelligentsia. A book length's diatribe can be exhausted on the euphemisms used to hoodwink the masses into trusting governmental authority. College students are bamboozled into thinking they are reading American. Someone with the gall, should offer a foreign language course in journalese. The 4th branch would cringe in revulsion. They like secrets.

Monopoly is my favorite board game. It was crafted by enemies of free enterprise to persuade people that private ownership over the means of production is a nightmare. Instead, people bought it as if it were the last Takis bag in the 7-Eleven aisle. The idea was doomed from conception. Monopoly was sold, not given out for free. It was traded voluntarily. Socialists using Capitalism will fail to convince others that capitalism is bad. Slavoj Zizek goes on tour selling books about the evils of book selling.  Makes it child's play to be

an angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our time (Network, 1976).

 The loose lips in news clips shiv monopoly repeatedly with every misuse. Either the term refers to State invasion of free enterprise or not. The 4th branch tells readers and listeners to fear monopolist mergers. Sowing the seeds of jealousy is a heinous act. Monopolies do not come about by merging business with business. When businesses sleep with the State, she bears monopolies. Allowing companies to consolidate voluntarily gives them an opportunity to better serve consumers (us) with lower prices or higher quality. If newcomers are barred entry to an industry, by the State, then it is time to fear the corporations in that industry. Uneven theft exemptions, forced licensing, and bans on voluntary mergers have a common root. The State. She is nothing more than the forced monopoly on security production. Telling the pluses from the minuses of monopolies is hard when the word is purposefully employed to confound.

I work strenuously to ease understanding of politics. Monopoly is no different than other concepts in politics. The same question should be asked of every political issue. Is it free, or is it compulsory?

I Speak American

The American language is a slut, and a skank. She entertains foreign tongues with the regularity of the rising Sun. This a compliment. The new words complement the lexicon when they label an unnamed concept. If there is nothing new to be gleaned from the word, it deserves the proverbial boot. The great wind of typhoon, comes from China. Flat mountainous regions, known as mesas, come from Latins. American numerals are Arabic. Active participation in the editing process is the duty of every American. Don't sleep.

Charity in Praxis

Los Angeles, California is a stretch of earth that should be dissected by lovers of life. Foodies can bathe in the myriad tastes found while splashing in the melting pot. Seekers of the sublime can stare at the rolling hills and peaceful ocean. Architects can marvel at the downtown skyscrapers, Hollywood sign, Valley mansions, and rustic South Central neighborhoods. Welcome to Watts.

Riots, gang violence, and eye-watering poverty brought about by invasions of the State have defined Watts to outsiders. Never forget, humans live in Watts. Humans work in Watts everyday. Little ones play on their jungle gyms, now ignorantly called apparati. Separate the stereotypes from the facts. There is danger, but caution should be the modus operandus in any trek through unknown lands. Otherwise, stay in your own castle.

I do my part to serve my fellow man. The love of humans is the second great commandment, and I obey the lord God. Father Gregory Boyle, of Homeboy Industries, says

Nothing stops a bullet like a job.

The way to take that to heart is to vote in the 100% democracy of the market economy. Casting your ballot for any old businessman is not going to count. Peacefully exchanging goods and services with locally run industries has a positive affect on community growth. You vote for a family man by paying for his product. He is given more leeway to running his finances, and can better provide for his family. His kids receive more attention, and are able to do better in school. They grow up to be more successful, and give back to the community. Ripples are real.

 An elderly gentleman of latin descent runs a fruit stand within blocks of the school that I work at. He is surrounded by competition in substitute goods. Inexpensive pizza, assortments of meat and Takis the peoples' champion. A veritable who's who of villains, in the eyes of nutrition commissar Michelle Obama. In spite of the penetrating rays of the Sun, he patiently stands and waits for his next trade. He has an orthodox faith in his product. The sign of an entrepreneur.

"I'll have the pineapple slices without chile or lime."

"La pina?"

"Claro que si, sin chile y sin limon."

Peel peel peel, chop chop chop, slice slice slice. He packages the pineapple segments.

"Quiero la, para llevar."

"Si, no problema."

"Gracias patron, tenga buen dia!"

Post Scriptum:

I get cuts at barbershops in South L.A. Cash run industries are muckier for the State than card based industries. I will render unto Caesar what is his, but I will rub it in dirt first.

Honesty

Truth is reality. That which is. Honesty is the act of telling others truths about yourself.

I am reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser. His accolades are numerous. Rarely am I so affected by an author that I will implement their way of thinking before finishing the text. Bravo! I am masticating on each noun with the pace of the renown tortoise, slow and steady. The verbs are being swooshed back and forth in my mouth and spit out. He covers libertarian journalist H.L. Mencken's The Scopes Trial, while I use scope metaphors. Needless to say I have taken it to heart that I need to take words out that I do not need to say over and over.

My work at internofchrist.blogspot.com already contains elements of this style. I re-edited my political piece on charity. Zinsser claims to be indebted to E.B. White, who scribed three classics I read and enjoyed as a child. Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and the Trumpet of the Swan tickled my mental ears into perking. I understand why. Writing is subject to the same natural laws that bind the finite. People are born with different strengths and weaknesses, but these predispositions do not preclude greatness in a skill one was born weak in. A legal midget can train hard enough to dunk on a standard National Basketball Association rim. A blind, deaf, and dumb girl can become an illustrious writer. E.B. White took his katana and practiced the same swinging motion thousands of times a day. Devotion can overcome the inequities of man.

I apologize to those whom have been lured into the muck of my cascading rhetorical flourish. Perhaps my perpetual peering into the powder puff powerpoint presentations of politicians, perturbed my proclivity to prettily pursue poetic prose. Now the word slinger will jet out of the holster straight from the hip. POW! Right in the kisser, and straight to the dome.

Economics in One Post

Praxeology is the logical study of human action. The prefix praxis means practice, and refers to how human beings act. Economics is a subdivision of human action, focusing on the interactions of humans during production and consumption. It describes the market. The illustrious praxeologist Ludwig von Mises avowed the valueless nature of economics. There are economists who hold economic views that are normative. A call to how things should be. Mises sets them straight. Economics is descriptive. It describes the way things are. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Austrian analysis of economics is host to a difference in kind, as opposed to just a difference in degree, from all other analyses of economics. I will refer to the amalgamation of all other economic analyses as the antiaustrian method. The Austrian method uses deductive logic to ascertain the nature of human action. All other methods rely upon empirical studies or tests to back hypotheses they have about human action. They use graphs, statistics, econometrics et cetera. Mises scoffed at this.*

Frequent readers will notice the usage of the term apodeictic, or apodictic, in reference to a statement that I have made. Apodeictic means logically true. The statements that I call apodeictic are axioms and maxims. It is not my believing them to be true that makes them true. I am impotent in this regard. Regardless of how disconcerting or jovial the understanding of axioms can make one, they are true. Independent of human existence is the truth about human action.

The primordial maxim of praxeology is that humans act. Wow! So controversial. From this maxim all other apodeictic axioms are drawn out, and elaborated upon. Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian School of Economics, provided the subjective market theory of prices. This is a basic tenet of economics, that is indubitable.** Humans, when acting, put value judgements on how much they are willing to pay for specific goods and services. This weighing mechanism is the price system. Barring invasion upon voluntary exchange, prices will approximate the subjective vagaries of the humans valuing them. Apodeictic. There is no room for doctrines of "fair trade" or the "labor theory of value".*** Individuals with fluctuating moods and sentiments place their own values on products. Outside observers are incapable of quantifying the degree of satisfaction potentially or actually obtained between two parties.

People tend to appreciate evidence. I will rack up some more for purposes of clarity. From the maxim that humans act, can be drawn out the maxim of scarcity. Scarcity exists. We do not have access to an indefinite supply of whatever caprices we have. From thence springs the axiom of satisfaction. The realization of scarcity guides humans to act in a way to satisfy their whims. Whether or not they achieve their ends is irrelevant to the fact that they attempt to do so. Try. 

Speaking of try, triangles have apodeictic truths that will be beneficial to get a quick reminder course in. Triangles, of necessity, have no more and no less than 180 degrees. The length of one side must be less than the sum of the lengths of the other two sides. The foundational mathematician Euclid espoused apodeictic maxims as well. The part can never be greater than the whole. If A=B, and B=C, then A is indisputably equal to C. 

I highlight these examples to remind folks that they are in fact dogmatic in their belief of mathematics. The same fervor should be applied to belief in praxeology. 

I believe in absolute truth, but you are no different. I need only to dig deep in the crevices of your mind to extract your belief in the absolute. If you say absolutes truth does not exist, you are affirming that which your vocal chords are decrying. If you think someone who adheres to strict verbal economics is too rigid in their thinking and methodology, turn to yourself. Ask yourself how loose your attachment is to the whole being greater than the part. Or A being equal to C, if A=B and B=C. Do you waver in that belief? If so, you have a skeptical lens that would drive you to insanity if consistently applied. If not, welcome. You are an absolutist. 

There are way more maxims of praxeology, but I hope this rejoinder to statistical economics has wet your appetite. Stay moist, my friends.

Post Scriptum:

*imagine a mathematician defaulting to statistics to try to prove that A=A

** Austria does not adhere to this, just google it

*** marxism 

Charity and Money

Like the plethora of sheeple out there, I used to think charity was summed up in writing a check to some hoodwinker with images of starving children. Ethiopia, the land of my heritage, has been inseparably linked with destitute poverty in the minds of many. Due, of course, to the efforts of the UNICEF box waving do-gooders. Do not take my criticism the wrong way. I do not oppose feeding the children. However, how do we go about feeding the children?

The ends that are sought by sane men are often the same. A parcel of land, a tid bit of food, an iota of insurance, and a smidgeon of leisure time. The means we select set us apart. There are humans, and there are beasts. There is no middle ground. Where you lie on the spectrum depends upon your interactions. There is the "economic means", and the "political means".

"These are work and robbery, one's own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others... I propose in the following discussion to call one's own labor and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others, the economic means for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the political means." (Oppenheimer, The State)

Dictionary.com defines charity as

 generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill, or homeless

When the State claims it engages in acts of "charity", we should all let out a barbaric yawp, and a Scroogian humbug. When an advocate of foreign "aid" preaches the merits of invasionism you should hold one thought in your mind. Nonsense on a high-rise. The truth behind their docile facade is theft. Forcibly removing funds of certain people for others.

The State produces nothing. Every action of the State is an act of consumption. Follow the money. How is the State funded? The State is funded by; force, coercion, incursions, expropriation, racketeering, stealing, threatening, bruising, kidnapping, hoodwinking, swindling, hornswoggling, and murdering. These occur in two formats, creating currency and taking currency. The former can only be accounted for by the latter. The bureaucrats "print" money (it's digital now), and demand tribute from the populace. Without monopolizing the usage of weapons against innocent bystanders, this could not be achieved. There is nothing generous about force. There is nothing generous about the State's attempt to aid the poor. The State does not engage in charity.

If you believe in being kind, and loving one another, you should never advocate State action. In order to "help" those people whom you seek to aid, a toll must be paid by human lives.

For those who care about giving, give to voluntary associations. Groups of individuals who are so passionate about aid, that they interact with humans without resorting to guns or the threat of guns. I am that type of a person. Let me aid you in your ventures with voluntary regulating agencies (unlike State regulators) that check the merits of charities for you.

GiveWell.org, and CharityNavigator.org

Dialectic Buchananism Reveals Tribalism

Patrick Buchanan is a person worth researching. Polemical prose in print, and presidential primary proclivities tell me so. An expose on what makes him tic would be a tremendous addition to the political landscape. This is not that. Though he calls himself conservative, and runs The American Conservative, his military views are far from it. If one heard him rail against Republican Senator John McCain and the Iraq invasion, steered at the helm by a Republican president, Pat Buchanan would seem liberal. In his repudiation of overseas adventurism, he is a champion of liberty. Sadly, his affinity towards liberty stops there for foreign policy. Buchanan's views on peaceful exchange between nations is radically illiberal. It is isolationist to the core. It is divisive from the root up. The radical liberal that I am, I will venture to uproot his arguments and expose them for the vestiges of Jim Crow bigotry that they are (I will assume here that bigotry qua bigotry is objectively wrong).

Pat Buchanan, in the December issue of The American Conservative, writes a piece that promotes protectionism. How dare we allow the

opening of America's borders to all goods made by our new friends in the People's Republic of China.

Mercantilism lives. It is beyond me how Buchanan could have worked with Murray Rothbard, when Rothbard held a burning hatred for protectionism (read Rothbard in the mercantilism link). Rothbard calls it a "wall of privilege around inefficient manufacturers". 19th century French economist Frederic Bastiat used satire to swallow whole the pathetic reasoning of local businessmen to enlist Leviathan's blade in suppressing voluntary exchange between individuals across nations. It is fitting that Bastiat chose to enlist the Sun to melt the self-aggrandizing arguments of French mercantilists. He points out how "unfair" the Sun is to the candle industry, because it provides light to everyone on Earth for the mercilessly ruinous price of free. Bastiat's classic can be found in its entirety here.

I made the falsehood of mercantilism clear in my post about the illusory nature of beasts' rights

 Humans do not have to exchange with one another, but they do. Ricardo's Law is apodeictic. The division of labor benefits even those producers who are more effective than others. Even the most talented of humans gains from voluntarily exchanging goods and services. 

 In modern discourse the term "isolationist" has become a pejorative used to deride the greatest statesman for liberty, Doctor Ronald Paul. Time after time, newscasters from all over the accepted political spectrum that Tom Woods affectionately refers to as the 3.5 inches between Secretary Hilary Clinton and Governor Willard Romney. The 4th branch does not disappoint its namesake. These tele-prompt readers claim that reducing the U.S. military presence in Germany and Japan is isolationist. They claim pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan is isolationist. The surface level displays a reduction in aggressive interaction with other countries. Admittedly, this reduction of interaction can appear to be the actions of a hermit unless the unseen consequences are noted. The peaceful interactions, or trade, of producers and consumers across nations is diametrically opposed to isolation. This is in fact the essence of being human. Peacefully interacting with one another. The only way the State can allow this to flourish is to get its mangey hands off of products. To scram or 23 skidoo. Cease and desist its tariffs, taxes and any other form of theft it can conjure up. Buchanan supports Ron Paul's views of the military, thus is no isolationist in this regard. Buchanan is an isolationist in regards to his promotion of domestic producers over foreign producers. If his advocacy did not involve requesting the State to bloody its mitts, then he would be no isolationist. He could choose to only pay for American made goods, and tell his friends to do the same. Instead, he tells the State to steal portions of the gains made by foreign producers, that benefit local consumers.

Statists thrive as all dictators do. Their survival hinges upon the maxim of divide and conquer. Fragmenting society into factions that compete for the treasure chest of stolen goods, State coffers, is the way to purchase votes and keep helming "the calm sea of despotism". Chris Sciabarra, while writing for The Freeman, elucidates Ayn Rand's linking together of statism and tribalism.

Racism, in Rand's view, was the most vicious form of social fragmentation perpetrated by modern statism... Rand argued that racism was an immoral and primitive form of collectivism that negated individual uniqueness, choice, and values. Psychologically the racist substitutes ancestral lineage for self-value and thereby undermines the earned achievement of any genuine self-esteem. Holding people responsible for the real or imagined sins of their ancestors, wielding the weapon of collective guilt, the racist adopts, the associational, concrete-bound method of awareness common to all tribalists. This anti-conceptual tribalism is manifested in the irrational fear of foreigners (xenophobia), the group loyalty of the guild, the worship of the family, the blood ties of the criminal gang, and the chauvinism of the nationalist.

Buchanan is affiliated. He belongs to the pleasantly plump, rosy cheeked, red-blooded American tribe. Their tribe views recent immigrants,  and any folk living outside the U.S., as inferior to the WASPy South and Midwest. Buchanan values the jobs of Protestants of European descent over the jobs of browner people. His bigotry is not even consistent. A consistent bigot would promote U.S. consumers, everyone in the U.S., reaping more benefits than brown consumers elsewhere. He could put that into effect by advocacy of free trade with all nations irrespective of reciprocity. But then again, that would be liberal.

Even more liberal, and radical would be a call to end all State barriers to voluntary trade between humans. Not just those invasions, barriers, initiated by the U.S., but the invasions that any State currently has in place. This would be a victory against bigotry. Without States, voluntary human interactions would increase. Globalization in this inexorably shrinking world of digital and communicational wonders would bring humans together. It would make us one.

The illiberal policies of protectionists wrought "Tribes at War" and their regurgitation today serves the causes of aggression and chaos. To achieve peace we need liberal policies. To bring about spontaneous order, we need anarchy.