Who Are The Patriots?

If you have never read or heard Murray Rothbard's article entitled Do You Hate The State?, fix that. He, more lucidly than any other writer I have read, tells us about the string that ties us together. This string, is the radical string. If you are only a proponent of liberty for utilitarian reasons, you most likely don't hate the State. Rothbard says he would rather align with advocates of a limited State that hate the State than with anarchists that don't hate the State. Radicals, who hate the State, have a spring of anti-authoritarianism inside of them.

I woke up this morning and shot over to my keyboard because my mind was bursting at the seems with the ideas of patriotism and the State.

How do you define the word patriot? Let's ignore you for a second, and rely on the expertise of dictionary.com

 1. a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion. 2. a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, especially of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.*

The second definition is evidently favorable to those of us with a proclivity toward liberty. The first definition seems straightforward, but the term country is hazier than you would think. You don't sit at home and ponder "hmmm what does country mean? It's such a big word." Yet, it could mean the land, the people, the regime or some icky fusion of the three. When talking about patriotism we are not talking about devotion to the land, unless we are singing the propagandistic hymns to the State taught to us in compulsory grade school. The common conflation that needs to be noted, time and time again, is the treating of the regime and the people as if they were one entity. They are distinct. You cannot be devoted to the regime and to the people. You would be devoted to one, and despise the other.

The people are the consumers. The State kidnaps producers and charges them millions of dollars for daring to offer an alternative currency for consumers unsatisfied with the Federal Reserve notes in their pockets that are neither federal nor from a reserve. The State, within the coercively guarded territory of the U.S., owns 1/3 of the land, and prohibits at gun point the homesteading of said land by poor people making them homeless. The State prohibits at gun point skilled African hair braiders from braiding consumers' hair at a lower price. The State prohibits dentists at gun point from offering their dental services at a discounted price. The State prohibits tour guide givers from giving consumers a cheaper tour of the city. The State prohibits at gun point paleo (caveman) diet advocates from giving diabetes patients lifesaving advice over the internet. The State prohibits at gun point Amish farmers from selling raw milk to consumers that believe it is in their best health interest to drink raw milk. The State prohibits at gun point street vendors and food trucks from providing consumers with cheaper and more savory foods than establishment restaurants. The State prohibits at gun point drivers who want to give consumers rides to wherever those consumers want to go.

If you are devoted to the regime, you will despise the people. If you are devoted to the people, you will despise the regime. When I speak of the regime, do not think I limit it to President Obama and his administration. That would be nonsense on a pogo stick. When I speak of the regime I mean the coercive form of government called the State. Everything the State does is an invasion into a sphere of potential business. Who are the patriots?

Patriots are people who are for the people. Patriots are those of us who hate the State. Patriots are those of us who stand in solidarity against coercion and for consensual exchanges betwixt adults. Patriots are those who do not bow down in worship to the star spangled banner or to the idolatrous statues at Mt. Rushmore and in Washington D.C. Patriots proudly fly the black flag of anarchy and respect secession down to each household. Patriots want to depoliticize and localize everything.

Are you a patriot?

Post Scriptum:

* Aesthetically, it is not pleasing to write his or her nor to write himself or herself. I understand the desire to be politically 'correct', but you should not sacrifice linguistic beauty to do so. If you want to be politically 'correct', write with gender neutral (impersonal) terms like anyone and they and their. If you don't care about being politically 'correct', use personal terms like she or he. Not both. Choose one, and go with it. When I write about the past I often use he, because it is oft more accurate. When I speak of the future or potentiality I oft use she.

5 Traits Allegra Kirkland's Arguments Share With Exploitive Interventionists

Allegra Kirkland, AlterNet's associate managing editor, is afraid of Lyft, Uber and Sidecar.* She mostly bashes Uber, but she wants you to hate Lyft and Sidecar as well. Kirkland's written thoughts are at times confounded and at other times boldly abhorrent. She outlines 5 ways she thinks Uber is acting as an "exploitive old school capitalist company". I shall plainly show any reader that Kirkland's claim is wrong on each point, and that she describes ride sharing companies best when she says

A key part to Uber's egalitarian, modern image is the idea that it is grassroots-supported, providing a data driven, useful service to thousands of hip young urban professionals who need an easy way to get around town.

1) "Regulation Free"
This first brief claim of hers is evidently confounded. She conflates "regulation" with regulation by the United States' government. There is no doubt that ride sharing companies are regulated - the normative debate should be about who is doing the regulating not whether or not they are regulated. There are several levels of regulation for us to select from when making this decision. Ride sharing companies can be regulated by the coercive federal government, the coercive state government, the coercive municipal government or the consensual choices of consumers. Clearly, I prefer the consensual model. Kirkland notes that the taxi industry is called a protectionist scheme, but refuses to refute the claim. A protectionist prioritizes the job security of low performing producers above consumer benefits, and petitions goons with guns to make this status quo prevail. This is the taxi industry. Why don't we let the freed market eat the rich, via consumers regulating transportation with their choices of whom to give money to and whom not to?

2) "Avoiding Accountability"
This is neither for me, nor for Kirkland to have much of a say in. If a ride sharing employee has done harm to a passenger, the passenger should submit a case to dispute resolvers. When choosing dispute resolvers there are again myriad selections. Two disputants can select consensual negotiation, consensual mediation, consensual arbitration or the coercive courts. The two disputing parties should make this decision, not I. I humbly suggest consensual mediation, and if that fails consensual arbitration.

3) "The Perils of Surge Pricing"
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I try to keep an open mind as often as possible, but it is difficult when people are arguing for flat earth theories and against Euclid's Elements of Geometry. The question of prices is simple. Who decides? That is what matters. If passengers want to be whisked away at a moment's notice, at 4 ante meridian, then the cost of that consensual arrangement should be determined by those passengers and the providers of that whisking service. No one outside of them should dare determine for them what is a "just" or "fair" price, because that does not exist. Prices are wholly subjective. For more on this, see the Austrian School of Economics.** Anyone who argues against the subjective (labor) theory of value is claiming to have objective knowledge of what prices should be. This puts the arguer in the same corner as the Soviet and Maoist economists who suggested collectivizing farms - thinking they could determine the price of bread. The results? Tens of millions of deaths of Eurasians and Asians, at the hands of brutal atheist 20th century rulers.***

4) "Labor Exploitation"
Do I care about the well being of ride sharing employees? I should hope so, as you would find out if you read my full disclosure at the bottom of this piece, I am a provider of transportation services who is willing to charge for it. Is it more likely that Allegra Kirkland wants to exploit my labor, or that I would like to exploit my labor? Lofty goals for employees are nice, but not so when it comes at the barrel of a gun. I have sovereignty over my labor, and should be able to make money from my labor without Kirkland requesting goons with guns to prevent me from doing so. When the coercive government, at whatever level, selects the standards they deem appropriate for my labor there are seen and unseen negative consequences. The seen, are all the people employed by Uber, Lyft and Sidecar that would be fired if the bureaucrats and their cheer leaders in the 4th Estate got their way.  The unseen, are the lost opportunities to benefit society through the increasing of consensual arrangements, the increased cost of living to these fired people and every act they do to get money once they are desperate for income. The State is not the daddy of ride sharers, so paternalistic ideas about what our jobs should look like are not welcome.

Alternatives to poor conditions offered by ride sharing companies:
We ride sharers can form consensual unions if we feel we are being exploited. Empowerment comes from the bottom-up not the top-down. Learn words like guerrilla and stigmergy. Or even better, give us better employment, healthcare and car insurance on your dime Ms. Kirkland.

5) "Blinded by Boosterism"
150 is a blatantly arbitrary number that is defeated by the same arguments made in section 3 above. If ride sharing companies have to launch PR campaigns, it is because they face mainstream opposition from Sovietized economic intelligentsia and commentariat blurting out daily arguments that amount to no more than nonsense on stilts.

Post Scriptum:

If you made it this far and are confused as to what I was responding to, it is because you did not click on the first hyperlink that sends you to Ms. Kirkland's piece on AlterNet. Remedy that.

Full Disclosure - I have friends and family in both the taxi industry and the ride sharing industry. The distinction betwixt the two so-called industries is solely euphemistic, and exists to thwart bureaucratic meddlers/interveners/invaders with a taste of their own misdirection. Better said, I have friends and family who provide transportation services for a fee. At the time of this writing, I joined them.

*Alyssa Figueroa, AlterNet's associate editor, has a conversation with Nell Bernstein, author of Burning Down The House: The End of Juvenile Prison, that you would be remiss in missing. Bernstein plainly speaks of her nonviolent verbal dismemberment of the prison-industrial-complex. She who has ears to hear, let her hear.
** There are scores of free books. articles and journals there on mises.org to read from
*** Atheism does not dictate brutality. The Austrian School of Economics is filled with atheists - though it is value free, its highly correlated normative system of thought, libertarianism, is also filled with atheists.

Boko Haram Blowback

blowback

the action of a light automatic weapon in which the expanding gases of the propellant force back the bolt, thus reloading the weapon

 I am oft gung-ho about dictionary.com, but this definition is not quite the context I am seeking. I seek the political context. Blowback, is when the coercive U.S. military, or secret three letter forces pejoratively called the alphabet boys, invade a nation hoping to see their will be done, and it backfires on them in an unexpected fashion.

Immortal Technique, long ago, warned us about the dangers of coffee-shop-revolutionaries. They are the whitewashed tombs of foreign policy. Outwardly they cry for the beautiful ideas; justice, mercy and faith, but on the inside, they are apathetic.* Now, they might be confused for hipsters, but I assure you coffee-shop-revolutionaries can, and oft do, include the mundane status-quo guardians as well. When the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, they cheered or ignored it. Osama Bin Laden's extra-judicial assassination? They had a parade. The extra-judicial assassination of American citizen and Al-Qaeda affiliate Anwar al-Awlaki? Not phased. The extra-judicial assassination, via unmanned drone, of his unaffiliated 16 year old son? Shit happens. In 2012, they wanted to play Where's Kony?** This year, along with the FLOTUS*** they demanded that we "BRING BACK OUR GIRLS!"

I am more recently African, and according to 23andme a lot more African, than many of the coffee-shop-revolutionaries wailing in the public domain of social media. This does not mean that I must be more concerned, but I am concerned, and empathy is aided by closeness. I believe that on some level, coffee-shop-revolutionaries care about foreign policy, meaning they are not 100% evil, but the propositions to invade Nigeria and the lack of propositions, by other commentariat, to back their barbaric yelp of BRING BACK OUR GIRLS, was alarming. Now, it is even more so.

Here is the blowback:

1)Backed by Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, the U.S. military invades Libya
2)The U.S. military puts advanced-grade arms**** into the hands of rebels to First Among Equals Khadafi's regime
3)Some of these arms are given, by these rebels, to Boko Haram of Nigeria
4)An armed Boko Haram kidnaps 200 plus Nigerian women

Boko Haram is literally selling women for cattle. If you still care, please pray to the Lord, fund voluntary grassroots initiatives to uproot Boko Haram, and help others think critically over this before making decisions.


Post Scriptum:

*If they did, they would dedicate more time to formulate coherent strategies to aid the couple hundred girls that were captured
**Much like Where's Waldo, except with an African guerrilla fighter that they have less experience with than with Waldo.
*** First Lady of The United States - currently Michelle Obama
****According to Reuters, "rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives, and light anti-aircraft artillery... mounted on vehicles"

Are you on The Right or are you on The Left? Jeff Riggenbach knows

Jeff Riggenbach, with the precision of a neurosurgeon, tells us who is on the Left and who is on the Right, and why it all matters. His book, from 2009,  is Why American History is Not What They Say: an Introduction to Revisionism.  Revisionism is the editing of history according to more recently found knowledge, or a reassessment of the knowledge previously interpreted. Riggenbach tells us that most historical accounts are apologetics for the corporate-capitalist ruling power of the status-quo by authors that are nothing more than "court historians". For this reason, he seeks, and wants you to seek, an analysis of past events that does not hold as its first premise the necessity of highly centralized, taxgathering, ever-warmongering nation-states.

The mainstream historians, or court historians, he says are on the Right, because they cannot help but write with that premise in the back of their minds. The furthest Right you can be is to support total centralization of power, and the furthest Left you can be is to support total decentralization of, or liberation from, power. On the far Right you have state socialists' regimes like Mao's, Stalin's, Fidel's and Kim Jong-il's. Also, fascist regimes like Hitler's and Mussolini's. On the far Left you have the anarchic Native Americans, Inuit, early Irish, early Icelanders, and the customary law of the Afar & Oromo & Somali of the Horn of Africa. *

So who is on the Left and the Right today? He says most Democrats and Republicans are both on the Right. The rhetoric of Democrats is "liberal", but in fact both Democrats and Republicans are conservative. They are conserving the centralized power from the days of the absolute monarchies and aristocracy of the ancien regime. They have more in common with state socialists and fascists (who also model their politics after the ancien regime). This is not supposed to be hyperbole or any stretching of the facts. He is noting that the uniting factor of these parties is that they want to consolidate ruling power. Who then is on the Left? An alliance that is difficult to make sense of, unless you read his book. The Progressives of the early 20th century, The New Left of the mid 20th Century, and The Libertarians from the 1960's until now.

What unites The Progressives, The New Left, and The Libertarians,who surely have at times diametrically opposed economic views? War. More specifically, they are all anti-war, or positively pro-peace. They stand against the imperialistic leviathan that is the United States' federal government, and slice off its overreaching tentacles from the Philippines, the Caribbean, Central America, the Middle East and nigh the entire globe, with their revisionist books.

Who are these authors that dissent from the hagiographical zeitgeist of the court historians? Harry Elmer Barnes, Charles Beard, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, John Dos Passos, James J. Martin, Murray Rothbard, William Appleman Williams, Thomas DiLorenzo and Thomas Woods Jr.

Who should read Why American History is Not What They Say: an Introduction to Revisionism, by Jeff Riggenbach? You, and anyone else that does not believe their grade school history books are the inerrant words of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and protected by angels from even grammatical mistakes. At just over 200 pages, it is brief enough for light coffeeshop reading, and delicious enough where you will sacrifice some precious sleeping hours just to finish this midnight snack and reread passages that shock you enough to want to continue the revisionist legacy. While you are at it, read the works of the authors listed above;

History of the United States - Beard
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace - Barnes
A People's History of the United States - Zinn
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History - Woods Jr.
Lincoln: A Novel (The American Chronicle Series) - Vidal
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War - DiLorenzo
Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism, 1827-1908 - Martin



Post Scriptum:

* He does not use these examples but I think they help frame your mind.
Jeff Riggenbach has a wonderful audio series on mises.org and youtube where you can learn of revisionist history without purchasing any books, and whilst doing other tasks around your home or on your way to work. click here for revisionism on audio

More Capitalism Conflation

C'mon gals. If we cannot agree on what words mean, then there is no way for us to succeed in uniting through discourse. Words should be able to have different meanings in different contexts, but they should never be allowed to have ever-shifting meanings. Capitalism has to mean one fixed thing. It is either the existing economic structure, or one in which the State is removed from the picture. It cannot mean both, or any shifting variety betwixt the two.

Though not an absolute, the usage of the word capitalism by a libertarian is quite telling of that person's ideology. The "libertarian" that refers to existing economic arrangements as capitalism, and defends capitalism, is showing that her ideal world is less about radical liberation from oppressive barriers, and more about feng shui. The libertarian that anathematizes, or eschews from her lexicon, the word capitalism, whilst claiming the existing system is capitalism, illustrates a want to leave the status quo. She is aware of the power, offensiveness and weight held by the term capitalism in banal dinner-party-conversations, academic debates, and the blogosphere. This libertarian sees the rosy horizon of the localized bazaar of businesses and cooperatives that will be, once we end the State.

How did this all come to me? I was on my way to smog-drenched downtown Los Angeles, on the 10 highway, from the westside, when I mentally paused to think. Why is there so much traffic on this God-forsaken State owned and managed (sovietized) road? Generally, the libertarian that thinks the status quo is capitalism, and defends capitalism as if it were the freed market, does not seek to relinquish control of the roads from the State back to We The People. If she speaks of any removal of the roads from the State, it is to slide it, for what is lauded as a great deal of money, to the Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell. You know, "privatization" (corporatism). The other libertarian? She wants to have no trades with the State. Skedaddle is the verb that suits the State in her eyes. Then local communities surrounding the roads can use consensual courts to determine who gets which portions, and in what manner.

The difference betwixt the two libertarians is the power they think belongs to us, in determining what our work environments should look like. Should our options be determined by various bosses that have State bestowed access to land, credit, currency and digital files? Or, should each person be able to determine which options lay before her? In the latter, more structural diversity arises from the greater competition. It all comes down to competition. How much freedom do you feel comfortable allowing people to have? Enough freedom to sell health services from home? To work 20 hours a week? Do you want power more centralized or decentralized?


Furthermore, the State is not your friend.

Blockbusted

I can't help but be joyful everyday. Blame my faith or blame my apolitical* philosophy, but either way to the chagrin of the legion, a Cheshire smile adorns my face on the daily. I whipped it to In-N-Out in my American, but not muscle, car today, lo and behold the blandly festering carcass of a Blockbuster video store was before me. 

I was familiar with this particular spot before its desert emptiness sent one chill down my spine. That was for the workers. There was one woman sifting through the darkness and dust of the innards, to take pictures of the remains with her iphone. Lord knows where the income of the fired workers will be coming from now - one worker found out about his store's dodo fate from reading the news. Secular hierarchy oft leads to the formation of information barriers betwixt each layer of bosses. Austrian Economist Hayek says the presumption that these bosses can serve the consumers' whims without knowing what each layer of lesser bosses knows about the consumers is what leads to sluggish movement and miscalculations in behemoth corporations. I don't know what information Blockbuster as a whole lacked about its consumers, that's an entrepreneurial question, but I do know that they lacked essential information to serve the consumers. The market process is the will of the masses like no election in history. In the market process, minority parties' votes count towards the calculation of producers serving them. If not, then the consumers votes in the direct democracy of the market process would have kept Blockbuster amongst the living.

Libertarians and Progressives have room for unity in witnessing the extinction of Blockbuster. Both are in word opposed to corporations. To have consistency in deed, they should delight in the future without Blockbuster. Blockbuster achieved it's rise to largesse because it is protected by State copyrights, patents and trademarks of videos, snacks, video games, and accessories. Without this protection, people wanting to work from their own employ, instead of under a boss, would be able to have localized home production of videos, snacks, video games and accessories. Small scale neighborhood production and sale of these items would have severed Blockbuster's hold over our communities eons ago. Alas, Blockbuster fell to the likes of videostreaming sites like Netflix and Hulu. They too are paper tigers, until the day we abolish State patents, copyrights and trademarks.

Post Scriptum:

apolitical: no interest in the political system

I studied Political Science, read international and domestic news, and even the works of some political scientists and yet I call myself apolitical. Why? I don't believe in using the State as a means to an end. My views on voting are a little more nuanced, but basically I keep my eyes away from electoral politics. If politics means changing the world to the vision you seek, then I do have some political views. I want all adults to form voluntary communities, associations and cooperatives to provide goods and services to each other at any consensual price.

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.