Let me put a scenario in front of your eyes. It's one that goes on every day all around the world. For the nonce, I will not allude to the morality of this scenario. Until I've presented it, I will leave all conclusions to you, the reader.
On with the story.
One evening you decide to go for a walk. The idiot box is boring, you have no real plans for the following day, and just feel like taking the night air.
After you've been walking for a few blocks, a man steps in front of you, points a weapon at you and tells you to put your hands where he can see them.
As he has the drop on you, and you are not armed, you comply. He then binds your hands and takes you away and locks you in a small room where he states you won't be leaving until someone pays his price. He allows you to make a call for help in meeting his conditions, but only with him listening in and censoring what you might say.
You don't know this man. You've never seen him before. You have no reason to believe he has any grievance against you.
How would you describe this scenario?
I would call it kidnapping. I would further define it as grossly immoral. I would, in fact, say that you would be entirely justified in using any means or force that you could muster to escape this situation up to and including killing your assailant.
Would you agree?
Think about it for a minute. You've been kidnapped and held for ransom. Isn't it your human duty to escape by whatever means you can? ...
And now, we'll add one more element to the story. The man in question wears a blue uniform.
Do you still think you're correct in trying to escape at any cost?
I do.
In normal human interactions, murder, kidnapping, theft, and other open aggressions are taken to be criminal acts.
The primary difference between a collectivist and an anarchist is that we hold the State to the same standard and therefor find it unfit to exist.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Environmental Protection
(rubbing hands together) How deep down the rabbit hole shall I go?
Short form. The Government's proper role in protecting the environment is no role at all. In fact, the Government's proper role is a bookshelf, as a part of a really DETAILED encyclopedia of long term folly. It is my firm belief that if humanity survives, it will be with the abolition of central government. It's concept damned for all eternity, and regularly discussed lest people forget.
Nobody likes to shit where they eat. NOBODY. Corporate and Government pollution are relics, maintained because they are AFRAID to change, AND get massive kickbacks and opportunities to loot BECAUSE of the enforced and archaic regulations.
Regulate in the old sense, in particular to set standards AS A REFERENCE, makes perfect sense. Organizations that did this would have to be sensitive to changes in technology and scales of economy. Yet the trend, even prior to pollution laws, was always to find ways to clean up manufacturing processes. It was not uniform nor regular. It is usually more efficient to produce less waste in ANY process. But humans don't design that way. We figure out the crude way to do something. We establish the possible. THEN we improve it!
There is a vast, largely untapped market out there for effective control of pollution. I'm part of it. I love the outdoors. And I'd no sooner regulate industry and pollution by force then I would deliberately shoot off my pecker.
Most people I've met feel the way I do. If we thought it would do a damn thing for the problem, we'd go out of our way to buy recycled goods, even though more expensive at present, we'd try to find new ways of production that are less polluting and more efficient, and we would outcompete those who failed to keep up.
Yet it's not happening like that. The old ways, especially in the East where I currently live, are kept alive artificially by both regulations that make impossible demands and exemptions for existing facilities. Both hamper the improvement of the environment DIRECTLY.
Where these regulations don't exist or are much less, factories and mines tend to VOLUNTARILY be built and improved to exacting standards, often the state of the art in pollution control. Even where it's required by force, new factories in areas that are not traditionally given to heavy industry are built BETTER than the regulation requires. But because of the lobbying going on, along with often stupidly obvious scams disguised loosely as "environmental regulations" that stipulate EQUIPMENT instead of results, a great deal of time, money, and resources are wasted and polluted instead of allowing industry to figure it out on their own. The issue has been raised, the cry has been heard, and if you give an engineer a problem to solve, he will. If you give him a problem to solve with SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT with no or little variation involved, you likely increase the problems.
I'll give you a specific example. I can't recall who invented the thing, but in 1974 a law was passed requiring EGR systems on all new vehicles manufactured in the United States and imported from certain countries. (others were exempt do to various treaties and agreements. Even in this, the law utterly failed to be uniform). Problem was, it didn't work very well. It did, as advertised, reduce the specific emissions BY RATIO in the exhaust gasses of the vehicles so equipped. Sounds ok so far, right?
WRONG. EGR systems severely reduced the efficiency of the engine. So while the RATIO was smaller, given how much more fuel the car consumed, the actual AMOUNT Of pollution was DIRECTLY increased by this idiotic law.
To the credit of the engineers in the automotive industry, they did eventually make EGR systems work. But it required the invention of the engine manangement system, to whit computers, to even START to get the kinks out. The technology to make it work was simply not available at the time the law was passed. They would have been better off funding research on the damn things as ONE possible avenue to emissions reduction. It's hardly the only way. In 1999, a Honda Civic model met the ULEVIII standard in exhaust emissions and fuel efficiency, yet was initially denied entry into the united states. Yet that standard is JUST NOW a legal mandate. It was denied on the basis of not having a standard EGR system. They did it radically different and reduced the horsepower and efficiency losses tremendously, while emitting both less by volume AND ratio of the specific gasses that the EGR system is supposed to contain.
But the equipment was not "approved" by our government EVEN THOUGH IT DEMONSTRABLY WORKED. In one of the rare instances of Justice prevailing over Law, Honda et al. won that lawsuit and were able to import the car. Their innovation is now standard on most cars. Think how far we'd get if EVERY engineer with balls, brains, and a budget were set to working on the problem WITHOUT constraint! Why specify EGR, when you can merely specify the desired outcome? Brilliant people have brilliant ideas. It's what they do. Restricting them with stupid regulations makes for stupid outcomes. Even when well intentioned. Most of the political environmental movement doesn't have good intentions. They are in fact traitors to the human race, and openly so. Almost all of the "mainstream" environmental agitators and absolutely all of the fringe ones favor the vast reduction of the human race and curtailment of reproduction. In short, they think we haven't the right to exist.
I am deeply concerned about the environment. I don't think we can truly harm the earth, in the long term, but we can harm ourselves a great deal. Using government, the largest enabler of pollution that has ever existed, to combat the problem makes about as much sense as putting your dick in a meat grinder.
But Free Men are concerned about the issue. A whole lot of us are. Should we gain the freedom to act, WE WILL SOLVE IT! And we'll create new problems. And we'll solve them, too. It's what we do.
The only reason I do not favor a violent, armed revolution is that too many good people would be killed, and another fucking government would probably come out the other end. This is why I'm an agorist. Subversion, competition, and open contempt are better weapons than the arms that we still need for Mr. Justin Case.
Short form. The Government's proper role in protecting the environment is no role at all. In fact, the Government's proper role is a bookshelf, as a part of a really DETAILED encyclopedia of long term folly. It is my firm belief that if humanity survives, it will be with the abolition of central government. It's concept damned for all eternity, and regularly discussed lest people forget.
Nobody likes to shit where they eat. NOBODY. Corporate and Government pollution are relics, maintained because they are AFRAID to change, AND get massive kickbacks and opportunities to loot BECAUSE of the enforced and archaic regulations.
Regulate in the old sense, in particular to set standards AS A REFERENCE, makes perfect sense. Organizations that did this would have to be sensitive to changes in technology and scales of economy. Yet the trend, even prior to pollution laws, was always to find ways to clean up manufacturing processes. It was not uniform nor regular. It is usually more efficient to produce less waste in ANY process. But humans don't design that way. We figure out the crude way to do something. We establish the possible. THEN we improve it!
There is a vast, largely untapped market out there for effective control of pollution. I'm part of it. I love the outdoors. And I'd no sooner regulate industry and pollution by force then I would deliberately shoot off my pecker.
Most people I've met feel the way I do. If we thought it would do a damn thing for the problem, we'd go out of our way to buy recycled goods, even though more expensive at present, we'd try to find new ways of production that are less polluting and more efficient, and we would outcompete those who failed to keep up.
Yet it's not happening like that. The old ways, especially in the East where I currently live, are kept alive artificially by both regulations that make impossible demands and exemptions for existing facilities. Both hamper the improvement of the environment DIRECTLY.
Where these regulations don't exist or are much less, factories and mines tend to VOLUNTARILY be built and improved to exacting standards, often the state of the art in pollution control. Even where it's required by force, new factories in areas that are not traditionally given to heavy industry are built BETTER than the regulation requires. But because of the lobbying going on, along with often stupidly obvious scams disguised loosely as "environmental regulations" that stipulate EQUIPMENT instead of results, a great deal of time, money, and resources are wasted and polluted instead of allowing industry to figure it out on their own. The issue has been raised, the cry has been heard, and if you give an engineer a problem to solve, he will. If you give him a problem to solve with SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT with no or little variation involved, you likely increase the problems.
I'll give you a specific example. I can't recall who invented the thing, but in 1974 a law was passed requiring EGR systems on all new vehicles manufactured in the United States and imported from certain countries. (others were exempt do to various treaties and agreements. Even in this, the law utterly failed to be uniform). Problem was, it didn't work very well. It did, as advertised, reduce the specific emissions BY RATIO in the exhaust gasses of the vehicles so equipped. Sounds ok so far, right?
WRONG. EGR systems severely reduced the efficiency of the engine. So while the RATIO was smaller, given how much more fuel the car consumed, the actual AMOUNT Of pollution was DIRECTLY increased by this idiotic law.
To the credit of the engineers in the automotive industry, they did eventually make EGR systems work. But it required the invention of the engine manangement system, to whit computers, to even START to get the kinks out. The technology to make it work was simply not available at the time the law was passed. They would have been better off funding research on the damn things as ONE possible avenue to emissions reduction. It's hardly the only way. In 1999, a Honda Civic model met the ULEVIII standard in exhaust emissions and fuel efficiency, yet was initially denied entry into the united states. Yet that standard is JUST NOW a legal mandate. It was denied on the basis of not having a standard EGR system. They did it radically different and reduced the horsepower and efficiency losses tremendously, while emitting both less by volume AND ratio of the specific gasses that the EGR system is supposed to contain.
But the equipment was not "approved" by our government EVEN THOUGH IT DEMONSTRABLY WORKED. In one of the rare instances of Justice prevailing over Law, Honda et al. won that lawsuit and were able to import the car. Their innovation is now standard on most cars. Think how far we'd get if EVERY engineer with balls, brains, and a budget were set to working on the problem WITHOUT constraint! Why specify EGR, when you can merely specify the desired outcome? Brilliant people have brilliant ideas. It's what they do. Restricting them with stupid regulations makes for stupid outcomes. Even when well intentioned. Most of the political environmental movement doesn't have good intentions. They are in fact traitors to the human race, and openly so. Almost all of the "mainstream" environmental agitators and absolutely all of the fringe ones favor the vast reduction of the human race and curtailment of reproduction. In short, they think we haven't the right to exist.
I am deeply concerned about the environment. I don't think we can truly harm the earth, in the long term, but we can harm ourselves a great deal. Using government, the largest enabler of pollution that has ever existed, to combat the problem makes about as much sense as putting your dick in a meat grinder.
But Free Men are concerned about the issue. A whole lot of us are. Should we gain the freedom to act, WE WILL SOLVE IT! And we'll create new problems. And we'll solve them, too. It's what we do.
The only reason I do not favor a violent, armed revolution is that too many good people would be killed, and another fucking government would probably come out the other end. This is why I'm an agorist. Subversion, competition, and open contempt are better weapons than the arms that we still need for Mr. Justin Case.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Political Systems
This was posted from a private website of which I am a member. Those who know, know. Otherwise, it's still funy.
FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.
FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.
DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
American Democracy/Capitalism: You have two cows. You convince the rest of the world that the milk from YOUR cows is much "cooler" than the milk from anyone elses cows and sell it to them for an outrageously marked-up price.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Free web servers
My current host for the Anarchy Is Not chaos forum and my currently contentless web page is slow and buggy. The price however is exactly what I can afford right now: Free. But the performance isn't worth the price. Any of y'all out there that know of a decent free server, could you point me at 'em? I'm not entirely averse to advertising requirements, so long as they don't clutter up the whole page or use popups.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
"Glorious" war. How to get away with murder, American Style.
Watch
this. Now tell me this is a just war... Oh, and isn't it nice how our government "allows" one weapon per household in a country torn by war? What nice, democratic looting sons of bitches!
Nuremburg's gonna be a full house, this time, and the defendents goose stepping to "hail to the chief" isn't gonna make a damn bit of difference. Heil Bush.
this. Now tell me this is a just war... Oh, and isn't it nice how our government "allows" one weapon per household in a country torn by war? What nice, democratic looting sons of bitches!
Nuremburg's gonna be a full house, this time, and the defendents goose stepping to "hail to the chief" isn't gonna make a damn bit of difference. Heil Bush.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
I'm not Anti American
It's actually been some time since I last heard this thrown at me in the electronic world, but I get it a lot in the meat world. To me, it always seemed obvious, but I guess I better illustrate.
I've been called anti American for some time by many and various people. Even before I styled myself an anarchist.
It's not true, people. Since I'm putting this on both AINC and polycentric order, I know an international audience will read this. But I'm aiming it primarily at my fellow Americans, for two reasons.
One, my observation has been that foreigners understand that when I refer to America's actions and denounce them, I am speaking primarily about The United States of America. That would be the foreign sovereign ruling over what purports to be fifty independent states in cooperation. That all ended a long time ago. 1913, to be precise.
And Two, Americans need it more. A great many of my countrymen do not understand the difference between America and the United States of America.
America is a place. It's a label on a map describing, primarily to the english speaking world, the northern hemisphere of what was once called the "new world". Both Canada and the United States. It also describes South and Central America, but not so much culturally.
It can also refer to the ideals of it's settlers, or at least a significant amount of them. For instance, the idea that the common citizen should have a say in the affairs of state. Democracy wasn't spawned here, contrary to what a LOT of Americans think, but it did spread itself farther than at any other time in history. The twentieth Century was the Century of Democracy.
Yet Democracy is a failure. It was recognized as such by the founders. Even, reluctantly, by Thomas Jefferson. So they put it as PART of the system. A republic. Representative democracy to elect the rulers. And a means of ousting them. All states were to retain their sovereignty, relinquishing some rights and privileges as a price of membership. But as Sovereign States, they always had the right to seceed. This was never questioned during that period. Later, the Federal Government waged war on thirteen States that exercised that right, thus settling the question. Not by reason, or right, Nor treaty or any consideration for the legitimate (relatively) bounds of the Constitution. By Force of Arms it was established that the Union is not to be broken.
But it wouldn't be truly established until 1913, with the passage of the seventeenth amendment. The sixteenth was also passed that year (sorta, it wasn't properly ratified until somewhat later). But the seventeenth was the end of the Republican Form of government "guaranteed" by the Federal Constitution. The seventeenth, without ever directly declaring it, announced that the States were no longer sovereign. And removed what was probably the greatest of the original checks and balances.
The seventeenth Amendment eliminated the Senate in all but name. The function of the Senate was to be the representatives of the individual state governments. How they were chosen, prior to the seventeenth, was as the State Government chose. No uniform standard actually existed between states, because that was the POINT!!! The Senate represented the corporate entity of the state.
The House of Representatives were the representatives of the People at large, proportionate to population. Elected by direct democracy. Exactly the same function the Senate now serves. Clever, eh? They never SAY the states are no longer relevant and therefore no longer represented, but the States no longer have control of who represents them. Instead, Senators are now elected by direct democracy.
All of this and much more has been done deliberately, maliciously, and deceitfully by the United States of America. I hate them with every fibre of my being. Those sons of bitches have defiled my country and turned it into a wasteland of stagnation and low expectations. Basically because they got away with it. Even though I know it's not true, I still think of ALL politicians and Federal bureaucrats as deliberately evil. But it's not true. Some of them are accidentally evil. And they're worse!
They have polluted indiscriminately. I don't see this as the kind of "life and death right now" issue that the environmentalists do, but I still don't see the point of shitting where you eat once you learn not to. But worse, worst, they have polluted our minds and ideals. The American Dream used to be liberty. Now, it's a house you can't afford in a kingdom you don't want.
American Culture is partially to blame for this, though we've been led. I've been all over the country, and most Americans seem to be really REALLY naive about the world around them. Much more than people from the UK and Australia, at least. Our Media is pure garbage. Half of what they say is either untrue or misleading, and the other half is useless information about useless people in a couple of cities. Americans think of themselves as moral people, for the most part, and don't want to believe that The United States of America has committed and is committing grossly immoral acts from ANY philosophy except, possibly, some forms of nihilism.
They are blinkered. Because the government has relentlessly pounded home the idea that WE are the United States of America. This has made people feel personally responsible and simultaneously helpless as they believe that the actions taken by the state are necessary, and that we chose them.
It's completely false. Even in it's conceptual language, the government makes itself clearly separate from the people. Just like all other governments. It is a ruling institution over a certain geographic area. The American Government was supposed to be ANSWERABLE to the people. Not part of them. They are supposed to be our employees, and they are supposed to follow the book. They are and do neither.
Unless somebody reading this is a legislator, I think it safe to say you've never passed a law in your life, nor had ANY INPUT AT ALL in the process other than choosing your overlord. Even then, the lesser overlords given the current state of Imperia... I mean, Presidential power.
And while we're on the subject, if you're fool enough to think you can reform the government via elections, STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE!!! "We the People" do NOT elect the President. I don't personally elect anybody, because I'm an anarchist and absolutely HATE the government. But if you wanna play, and have any effect, negative or positive, worry about who you can actually elect. They threw you two branches.
Now, these are the kinds of things I say to you who say I hate America. Horseshit. You're ignoring the argument and committing an ad hominem. Whether I hate America or love it with all my heart has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments I've presented against it's rulers.
I was born in America, in the Occupied Territory of Washington. I've travelled all of the west, most of the north and a fair bit of the south. Some of it is magnificent. Some is plain. Some, like Pittsburgh, is a blight on the planet. All in all, it's my home. I love America. I hate it's rulers, and I am disgusted with how easily we were led into an Empire.
Our rulers have been immensely successful in reversing every gain the founders aimed for or were argued into agreeing with. We have become horribly entangled in foreign alliances, grievances, and petty wars. Our rulers tax us outrageously, even if you are fool enough to think that Tax is not an outrage to begin with. They deliberately debase our currency. They divide man against man and nation against nation with malice aforethought. They tell us what we may or may not ingest. What risks we may or may not take. What kinds of property we may own, and under what circumstances. What we may accept in trade, and how we do so. Who we love. Who we associate with. Who we fuck. Everything. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they have made so many rules with so many variations that you cannot live and not be in violation of the law. This is very deliberate. This allows them to hold you accountable IN YOUR OWN MIND to them. Because we all concede that Criminal Acts are, well, Criminal. They have fashioned us all criminals. Thus, we are all liable to the "justice system" at a time and place of their choosing.
But they "forgot" to tell you something.
We outnumber them. By really a lot.
If you love America as your home, and want to keep it a place worth calling home, then you need rid of the parasite that rules you from the swamp nobody wanted on the east coast. The foreign nation called The United States of America. Then, maybe, we can be great as a people again.
I've been called anti American for some time by many and various people. Even before I styled myself an anarchist.
It's not true, people. Since I'm putting this on both AINC and polycentric order, I know an international audience will read this. But I'm aiming it primarily at my fellow Americans, for two reasons.
One, my observation has been that foreigners understand that when I refer to America's actions and denounce them, I am speaking primarily about The United States of America. That would be the foreign sovereign ruling over what purports to be fifty independent states in cooperation. That all ended a long time ago. 1913, to be precise.
And Two, Americans need it more. A great many of my countrymen do not understand the difference between America and the United States of America.
America is a place. It's a label on a map describing, primarily to the english speaking world, the northern hemisphere of what was once called the "new world". Both Canada and the United States. It also describes South and Central America, but not so much culturally.
It can also refer to the ideals of it's settlers, or at least a significant amount of them. For instance, the idea that the common citizen should have a say in the affairs of state. Democracy wasn't spawned here, contrary to what a LOT of Americans think, but it did spread itself farther than at any other time in history. The twentieth Century was the Century of Democracy.
Yet Democracy is a failure. It was recognized as such by the founders. Even, reluctantly, by Thomas Jefferson. So they put it as PART of the system. A republic. Representative democracy to elect the rulers. And a means of ousting them. All states were to retain their sovereignty, relinquishing some rights and privileges as a price of membership. But as Sovereign States, they always had the right to seceed. This was never questioned during that period. Later, the Federal Government waged war on thirteen States that exercised that right, thus settling the question. Not by reason, or right, Nor treaty or any consideration for the legitimate (relatively) bounds of the Constitution. By Force of Arms it was established that the Union is not to be broken.
But it wouldn't be truly established until 1913, with the passage of the seventeenth amendment. The sixteenth was also passed that year (sorta, it wasn't properly ratified until somewhat later). But the seventeenth was the end of the Republican Form of government "guaranteed" by the Federal Constitution. The seventeenth, without ever directly declaring it, announced that the States were no longer sovereign. And removed what was probably the greatest of the original checks and balances.
The seventeenth Amendment eliminated the Senate in all but name. The function of the Senate was to be the representatives of the individual state governments. How they were chosen, prior to the seventeenth, was as the State Government chose. No uniform standard actually existed between states, because that was the POINT!!! The Senate represented the corporate entity of the state.
The House of Representatives were the representatives of the People at large, proportionate to population. Elected by direct democracy. Exactly the same function the Senate now serves. Clever, eh? They never SAY the states are no longer relevant and therefore no longer represented, but the States no longer have control of who represents them. Instead, Senators are now elected by direct democracy.
All of this and much more has been done deliberately, maliciously, and deceitfully by the United States of America. I hate them with every fibre of my being. Those sons of bitches have defiled my country and turned it into a wasteland of stagnation and low expectations. Basically because they got away with it. Even though I know it's not true, I still think of ALL politicians and Federal bureaucrats as deliberately evil. But it's not true. Some of them are accidentally evil. And they're worse!
They have polluted indiscriminately. I don't see this as the kind of "life and death right now" issue that the environmentalists do, but I still don't see the point of shitting where you eat once you learn not to. But worse, worst, they have polluted our minds and ideals. The American Dream used to be liberty. Now, it's a house you can't afford in a kingdom you don't want.
American Culture is partially to blame for this, though we've been led. I've been all over the country, and most Americans seem to be really REALLY naive about the world around them. Much more than people from the UK and Australia, at least. Our Media is pure garbage. Half of what they say is either untrue or misleading, and the other half is useless information about useless people in a couple of cities. Americans think of themselves as moral people, for the most part, and don't want to believe that The United States of America has committed and is committing grossly immoral acts from ANY philosophy except, possibly, some forms of nihilism.
They are blinkered. Because the government has relentlessly pounded home the idea that WE are the United States of America. This has made people feel personally responsible and simultaneously helpless as they believe that the actions taken by the state are necessary, and that we chose them.
It's completely false. Even in it's conceptual language, the government makes itself clearly separate from the people. Just like all other governments. It is a ruling institution over a certain geographic area. The American Government was supposed to be ANSWERABLE to the people. Not part of them. They are supposed to be our employees, and they are supposed to follow the book. They are and do neither.
Unless somebody reading this is a legislator, I think it safe to say you've never passed a law in your life, nor had ANY INPUT AT ALL in the process other than choosing your overlord. Even then, the lesser overlords given the current state of Imperia... I mean, Presidential power.
And while we're on the subject, if you're fool enough to think you can reform the government via elections, STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE!!! "We the People" do NOT elect the President. I don't personally elect anybody, because I'm an anarchist and absolutely HATE the government. But if you wanna play, and have any effect, negative or positive, worry about who you can actually elect. They threw you two branches.
Now, these are the kinds of things I say to you who say I hate America. Horseshit. You're ignoring the argument and committing an ad hominem. Whether I hate America or love it with all my heart has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments I've presented against it's rulers.
I was born in America, in the Occupied Territory of Washington. I've travelled all of the west, most of the north and a fair bit of the south. Some of it is magnificent. Some is plain. Some, like Pittsburgh, is a blight on the planet. All in all, it's my home. I love America. I hate it's rulers, and I am disgusted with how easily we were led into an Empire.
Our rulers have been immensely successful in reversing every gain the founders aimed for or were argued into agreeing with. We have become horribly entangled in foreign alliances, grievances, and petty wars. Our rulers tax us outrageously, even if you are fool enough to think that Tax is not an outrage to begin with. They deliberately debase our currency. They divide man against man and nation against nation with malice aforethought. They tell us what we may or may not ingest. What risks we may or may not take. What kinds of property we may own, and under what circumstances. What we may accept in trade, and how we do so. Who we love. Who we associate with. Who we fuck. Everything. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they have made so many rules with so many variations that you cannot live and not be in violation of the law. This is very deliberate. This allows them to hold you accountable IN YOUR OWN MIND to them. Because we all concede that Criminal Acts are, well, Criminal. They have fashioned us all criminals. Thus, we are all liable to the "justice system" at a time and place of their choosing.
But they "forgot" to tell you something.
We outnumber them. By really a lot.
If you love America as your home, and want to keep it a place worth calling home, then you need rid of the parasite that rules you from the swamp nobody wanted on the east coast. The foreign nation called The United States of America. Then, maybe, we can be great as a people again.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Anarchy Is Not Chaos Forum
Well, the website is up, but blank. However, I've just installed a forum, which is working and sparsely populated. Give it a shot. Bear in mind that it's mostly default, and the software is new to me (MyBB). So far, I like it a lot better than phpBB, which is a pain in the ass.
Now, on to Content and Layout and stuff like that for the web page. Wish me luck, I know not what I do!
edit. Xomniverse pointed out that I don't have a link in the text. Well, I did put it in the links section to your right, and it's url is http://www.anarchyisnotchaos.net/forum/index.php
sorry for any confusion. I'm old and tired.
Now, on to Content and Layout and stuff like that for the web page. Wish me luck, I know not what I do!
edit. Xomniverse pointed out that I don't have a link in the text. Well, I did put it in the links section to your right, and it's url is http://www.anarchyisnotchaos.net/forum/index.php
sorry for any confusion. I'm old and tired.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Damn, Missed Again!
Well, I attempted to register the domain http://www.anarchyisnotchaos.com/ only to find it was already taken, and there is an anarchist's forum there. Site isn't much developed, but the forum appears to be active. Check 'em out. The more of us out there, the better. Even if I did have register as .net :)
Edit. Having now registered on their forum, I find nothing but links to porn in all sections. I smell a rat. Definitely NOT recommended.
Edit. Having now registered on their forum, I find nothing but links to porn in all sections. I smell a rat. Definitely NOT recommended.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Neo Feudalism?
Neo Fuedalism?
My Vision of an Anarchist society.
I deliberately did not title this my vision of an anarchocapitalist society for a reason. This construct, which I've been working in my head for well over a decade, is what led me to believe that anarchocapitalism is not only possible without rulers, it's inevitable. I concluded that it is, in fact, the ONLY way that anarchy could be achieved on a sustainable basis.
However, the deeper I go down the rabbit hole, I see how many similarities this has to what the anarcho socialists believe. There are, in our ongoing arguments, basically two points in which we seem to each other to be diametrically opposed.
1. Property. Both who should own it and if it should even exist as a legitimate concept.
2. Money and Capital. what kind of economic system should exist.
One actually follows from two, but we seem to see them as separate points. I am going to posit that we are not so far apart after all. Much of what the socialists wish to achieve is ALSO what the capitalists want to achieve. Mainly, we disagree on the mechanics. At least in the case of the Mutualists. The divide to the "left" is wider than the divide to the "right". Agorists call themselves "left" in the sense or revolutionary, but they fall more to the right in just about everything else. The only anti property argument I hear from them is Intellectual property, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm not committed to that position, but I am definitely leaning towards it. From there we go all the way left to anarcho communists and syndacalists. Of the two systems, I think the Syndicalists have a more realistic view of how to organize, but it's still pretty anti individual. But I digress, as I tend to do.
Rather than again address these points head on, I'm going to do something else. I'm going to build a mental model for you. This model is how I think that anarchy might be made to progress peaceably, and how it could work as a long term model for society. In all of my thought on this, sustainability has been my prime concern after liberty. Brief liberty isn't really better than no liberty. I am not going to label the activities at any point with the terms "capitalist", "socialist", or "communist". I am just going to describe them.
I think I can confidently say that most anarchists over the age of thirty have thought it through enough to have assumed their political position out of conviction, rather than fad. I don't say this to discourage or disparage the youth who ARE thinking it through, but I also know from my own experience and from watching others that being an "anarchist" is considered "cool" by quite a few youth who don't really follow through. I also think the situation is improving. I talk to a lot of kids who consider themselves anarchists who HAVE thought it through, or are well on their way. This was not true ten years ago, and even less so twenty years ago. The State has become far less important as technology advances, and far more intrusive. Kids today are not particularly well educated in the public schools, but they aren't stupid. They see what's going on. Maybe they don't understand it, hell none of us fully do, but they see it. They know it's wrong. If the world is to change, they're gonna do it. My generation probably will not see a lot of the changes we work for. But given the speed of modern communication and it's ready access, the next generation has a large chance of at least partial success. The establishment of ONE working anarchy that lasts ten years would be sufficient for me. Being a Transhumanist, I hope that I live long enough for life extension to be worked out, but the odds are long on that.
If you're an observer of history, and being honest with yourself, you know that there is no such thing as a "limited" state. The only real limits on it's power is how well it can shear the sheep and keep them from rebelling en masse. Small rebellions are more easily dealt with as a state grows. But states INEVITABLY grow, and just as inevitably become tyrannical. The only solution to this that has been proposed outside of the State is anarchy. The absence of the state, juridical persons, limited liability corporations, central governance, centralized law enforcement (as opposed to local), in short, all the impedimentia of the State.
I am, here, going to posit something that I've never heard an anarchist claim. I am going to claim that the State was necessary. Past Tense. I think, in fact, that given how we came to be civilized and advanced our society just about guaranteed the rising of the State in it's many incarnations. We tend to try things, and hold on too long to the ones that got supplanted. This has always been true of human nature. After a revolution, there is a continuous evolution. And it scares people, and they act out of fear rather than reason. The model that works in a crisis is one in which there is a leader. When the crisis passes, the leader becomes a Leader. Not always, but often. People continue to follow him and give over their power and autonomy under this common banner. After a generation or two of this, the idea that there has "always been" a ruler is well planted in the general populace, and the successive rulers gain ever more power until one or two of them overextend themselves and fall into chaos. Then the whole sequence begins anew with a different model. This is how humanity has always acted. Not just in the political realm, in everything. We try shit. What works we keep. Often along with a lot of stuff that didn't work, or don't work as well.
The problem with that is learning to discard what didn't work AND NOT TAKE IT UP AGAIN. In the past, this was probably impossible. The necessary ability to communicate rapidly and accurately did not exist. Things got lost to time and memory. Our knowledge, as a species, increased dramatically with every improvement in communication, starting with the written word and working right up to the moment with all of our modern forms of "instant" communication. We can now preserve for posterity damn near everything. Cheaply. We no longer have the NEED for the state, as a species, but the transition needs to be revolutionary only on a small scale, and evolutionary from there. And that starts with you and me. Our job, as anarchists in the most controlled statist environment that has ever existed, is to educate, agitate, and hopefully start that small seed that spreads like a virus. With any luck, it won't mutate as fast as a virus, and society will change for the better. I doubt that the other systems will ever go completely away, but if anarchy can be made to happen on a small scale, it will spread. Slowly at first, but along with goods and services, an intangible crosses borders. And that intangible has been the seed of societal change as long as there have been human societies. Ideas. Traders talk. It's part of what they do. Each side brings back the knowledge gained from the other. No monetary or capital value is exchanged, but the actual value is incalculable.
Societies, throughout most of history, have evolved with very little in the way of a plan. That has become less true with the passing of time, because of our ability to pass knowledge forward, but it's still the case. Here in the United States, much of what is our Law comes from the English Common Law, and much of it from even older sources than that. The differing influences are immmense. This is overly complex and unneccessary. Yes, the way things are has been built on the way things were. Under the current systems, we can't purge the dross. It currently outweighs every benefit.
But this is not purely necessary. We can, in small groups, begin anew with agreed upon standards, and in common courts of many sorts build up a new body of common "law" that addresses specific situations. And this can and should be done within the market rather than in one monolithic juridical monopoly. I was impressed with Robert Heinlein's description of a court that was considered binding by the residents of Luna in his book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". They went to a guy who was trusted as a judge (it was NOT his profession) and gathered up some people to act as a jury. They all got paid, and the amount was agreed upon beforehand. I think this perfectly valid, and I think such would be part of anarchic juridical procedure. I also think that Stephen Molyneaux's DRO theory is a valid model, and that both compliment one another.
And that's all for today. I'm going to put up a website with a forum for this model, as the limits of a blog don't really give me the layout I want, but I'll still post each addition to the blog as well.
My Vision of an Anarchist society.
I deliberately did not title this my vision of an anarchocapitalist society for a reason. This construct, which I've been working in my head for well over a decade, is what led me to believe that anarchocapitalism is not only possible without rulers, it's inevitable. I concluded that it is, in fact, the ONLY way that anarchy could be achieved on a sustainable basis.
However, the deeper I go down the rabbit hole, I see how many similarities this has to what the anarcho socialists believe. There are, in our ongoing arguments, basically two points in which we seem to each other to be diametrically opposed.
1. Property. Both who should own it and if it should even exist as a legitimate concept.
2. Money and Capital. what kind of economic system should exist.
One actually follows from two, but we seem to see them as separate points. I am going to posit that we are not so far apart after all. Much of what the socialists wish to achieve is ALSO what the capitalists want to achieve. Mainly, we disagree on the mechanics. At least in the case of the Mutualists. The divide to the "left" is wider than the divide to the "right". Agorists call themselves "left" in the sense or revolutionary, but they fall more to the right in just about everything else. The only anti property argument I hear from them is Intellectual property, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm not committed to that position, but I am definitely leaning towards it. From there we go all the way left to anarcho communists and syndacalists. Of the two systems, I think the Syndicalists have a more realistic view of how to organize, but it's still pretty anti individual. But I digress, as I tend to do.
Rather than again address these points head on, I'm going to do something else. I'm going to build a mental model for you. This model is how I think that anarchy might be made to progress peaceably, and how it could work as a long term model for society. In all of my thought on this, sustainability has been my prime concern after liberty. Brief liberty isn't really better than no liberty. I am not going to label the activities at any point with the terms "capitalist", "socialist", or "communist". I am just going to describe them.
I think I can confidently say that most anarchists over the age of thirty have thought it through enough to have assumed their political position out of conviction, rather than fad. I don't say this to discourage or disparage the youth who ARE thinking it through, but I also know from my own experience and from watching others that being an "anarchist" is considered "cool" by quite a few youth who don't really follow through. I also think the situation is improving. I talk to a lot of kids who consider themselves anarchists who HAVE thought it through, or are well on their way. This was not true ten years ago, and even less so twenty years ago. The State has become far less important as technology advances, and far more intrusive. Kids today are not particularly well educated in the public schools, but they aren't stupid. They see what's going on. Maybe they don't understand it, hell none of us fully do, but they see it. They know it's wrong. If the world is to change, they're gonna do it. My generation probably will not see a lot of the changes we work for. But given the speed of modern communication and it's ready access, the next generation has a large chance of at least partial success. The establishment of ONE working anarchy that lasts ten years would be sufficient for me. Being a Transhumanist, I hope that I live long enough for life extension to be worked out, but the odds are long on that.
If you're an observer of history, and being honest with yourself, you know that there is no such thing as a "limited" state. The only real limits on it's power is how well it can shear the sheep and keep them from rebelling en masse. Small rebellions are more easily dealt with as a state grows. But states INEVITABLY grow, and just as inevitably become tyrannical. The only solution to this that has been proposed outside of the State is anarchy. The absence of the state, juridical persons, limited liability corporations, central governance, centralized law enforcement (as opposed to local), in short, all the impedimentia of the State.
I am, here, going to posit something that I've never heard an anarchist claim. I am going to claim that the State was necessary. Past Tense. I think, in fact, that given how we came to be civilized and advanced our society just about guaranteed the rising of the State in it's many incarnations. We tend to try things, and hold on too long to the ones that got supplanted. This has always been true of human nature. After a revolution, there is a continuous evolution. And it scares people, and they act out of fear rather than reason. The model that works in a crisis is one in which there is a leader. When the crisis passes, the leader becomes a Leader. Not always, but often. People continue to follow him and give over their power and autonomy under this common banner. After a generation or two of this, the idea that there has "always been" a ruler is well planted in the general populace, and the successive rulers gain ever more power until one or two of them overextend themselves and fall into chaos. Then the whole sequence begins anew with a different model. This is how humanity has always acted. Not just in the political realm, in everything. We try shit. What works we keep. Often along with a lot of stuff that didn't work, or don't work as well.
The problem with that is learning to discard what didn't work AND NOT TAKE IT UP AGAIN. In the past, this was probably impossible. The necessary ability to communicate rapidly and accurately did not exist. Things got lost to time and memory. Our knowledge, as a species, increased dramatically with every improvement in communication, starting with the written word and working right up to the moment with all of our modern forms of "instant" communication. We can now preserve for posterity damn near everything. Cheaply. We no longer have the NEED for the state, as a species, but the transition needs to be revolutionary only on a small scale, and evolutionary from there. And that starts with you and me. Our job, as anarchists in the most controlled statist environment that has ever existed, is to educate, agitate, and hopefully start that small seed that spreads like a virus. With any luck, it won't mutate as fast as a virus, and society will change for the better. I doubt that the other systems will ever go completely away, but if anarchy can be made to happen on a small scale, it will spread. Slowly at first, but along with goods and services, an intangible crosses borders. And that intangible has been the seed of societal change as long as there have been human societies. Ideas. Traders talk. It's part of what they do. Each side brings back the knowledge gained from the other. No monetary or capital value is exchanged, but the actual value is incalculable.
Societies, throughout most of history, have evolved with very little in the way of a plan. That has become less true with the passing of time, because of our ability to pass knowledge forward, but it's still the case. Here in the United States, much of what is our Law comes from the English Common Law, and much of it from even older sources than that. The differing influences are immmense. This is overly complex and unneccessary. Yes, the way things are has been built on the way things were. Under the current systems, we can't purge the dross. It currently outweighs every benefit.
But this is not purely necessary. We can, in small groups, begin anew with agreed upon standards, and in common courts of many sorts build up a new body of common "law" that addresses specific situations. And this can and should be done within the market rather than in one monolithic juridical monopoly. I was impressed with Robert Heinlein's description of a court that was considered binding by the residents of Luna in his book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". They went to a guy who was trusted as a judge (it was NOT his profession) and gathered up some people to act as a jury. They all got paid, and the amount was agreed upon beforehand. I think this perfectly valid, and I think such would be part of anarchic juridical procedure. I also think that Stephen Molyneaux's DRO theory is a valid model, and that both compliment one another.
And that's all for today. I'm going to put up a website with a forum for this model, as the limits of a blog don't really give me the layout I want, but I'll still post each addition to the blog as well.
Intellectual Property
My thoughts on Intellectual Property.
After long thought and some violent internal conflict, I have come to a conclusion regarding intellectual property. It's bullshit, but it's not unfounded bullshit.
When a book was the main, often only, means of dissemenating information, I think that copyright may have been justified to some extent. I can still think of several arguments against it, but I can think of a number FOR it as well, in the sense of securing for LIMITED TIMES an exclusive right to market that which you have created.
But even under that rationale, once transmitted by the written word into another man's brain, the ideas are no longer soleley your own, if they ever were. So it's a rough point even under the statist doctrines I once adhered to when I was foolish enough to believe in the concept of limited government.
Now? With the internet and other electronic media that can be transmitted worldwide in seconds? I think that if the idea ever had merit, that day is past. Just as the iron plow has no place in the modern world outside of a museum, the idea of intellectual property AS A REAL, TANGIBLE RIGHT is something that belongs in the pages of history. Probably digitally stored and archived, with free access to any interested party.
This does NOT mean that I think authors and inventors should not profit by their creative efforts! I firmly believe that every man who creates should benefit by it. But, for the sake of argument, let's say I write a book, and I market it in multiple media. If someone then copies my book and sells it on their own, what have I truly lost?
Honesty requires that I answer: Nothing. If they claim the work as their own, they are committing a sort of fraud, but if they merely copy it and charge for the service? Well, you could accuse them of being unoriginal, derivative, perhaps uncreative. But fraudulent, or having committed theft? Not really. I lose nothing. Maybe a potential customer, but even then, there was no guarantee that the persons buying from the other party would have ever even HEARD of me if they had not seen my work via a third party. In the long run, were I cited, it might even benefit me in FUTURE sales of other works. At worst, I have a chance at widening my audience without any personal effort. At best, said audience would seek out the original source after being exposed via third parties.
Same case in the instance of inventions. If they take and market my design, I've really lost nothing. I might even be able to get some prestige by telling potential customers that , yes, Joe makes my widget too, but I invented it. Now if Joe were to steal my actual widget, that would be a different story. But the design? I should have been more careful in concealing my art if I didn't want this to happen. Almost every machine in existence is inspired by prior art. That's a real basic truth about technology. We don't reinvent the wheel every time we set out to accomplish something. More often, the inventor sees something and thinks "I can do it better or more efficiently" and runs with it.
None of this, however, makes me "rebel" at the idea of an author or inventor making an effor to conceal their process or make it difficult to copy their works. After all, they DID expend the energy, mental and otherwise, to create it. Till such time as the information becomes disseminated, they DO exclusively own, or at least possess it. I have no problem, then, with copy protection schemes from a moral or ethical perspective. I do find them annoying and often intrusive, and so seek out other similar programs if I am in need of such, but I have no ethical problem. No force is being employed, they are merely trying to conceal their art and maintain a partial exclusivity.
It's when the Rulers step in and tell me and others that I cannot possess that which is in my head that I start to have a problem. As with all such intrusions, they are making a claim that has no basis in reality and in the long run (often even the short!) harms the market and may even keep important advances at bay for a long time.
I have at this point become fully an agorist, as I no longer believe in the validity of Intellectual Property.
After long thought and some violent internal conflict, I have come to a conclusion regarding intellectual property. It's bullshit, but it's not unfounded bullshit.
When a book was the main, often only, means of dissemenating information, I think that copyright may have been justified to some extent. I can still think of several arguments against it, but I can think of a number FOR it as well, in the sense of securing for LIMITED TIMES an exclusive right to market that which you have created.
But even under that rationale, once transmitted by the written word into another man's brain, the ideas are no longer soleley your own, if they ever were. So it's a rough point even under the statist doctrines I once adhered to when I was foolish enough to believe in the concept of limited government.
Now? With the internet and other electronic media that can be transmitted worldwide in seconds? I think that if the idea ever had merit, that day is past. Just as the iron plow has no place in the modern world outside of a museum, the idea of intellectual property AS A REAL, TANGIBLE RIGHT is something that belongs in the pages of history. Probably digitally stored and archived, with free access to any interested party.
This does NOT mean that I think authors and inventors should not profit by their creative efforts! I firmly believe that every man who creates should benefit by it. But, for the sake of argument, let's say I write a book, and I market it in multiple media. If someone then copies my book and sells it on their own, what have I truly lost?
Honesty requires that I answer: Nothing. If they claim the work as their own, they are committing a sort of fraud, but if they merely copy it and charge for the service? Well, you could accuse them of being unoriginal, derivative, perhaps uncreative. But fraudulent, or having committed theft? Not really. I lose nothing. Maybe a potential customer, but even then, there was no guarantee that the persons buying from the other party would have ever even HEARD of me if they had not seen my work via a third party. In the long run, were I cited, it might even benefit me in FUTURE sales of other works. At worst, I have a chance at widening my audience without any personal effort. At best, said audience would seek out the original source after being exposed via third parties.
Same case in the instance of inventions. If they take and market my design, I've really lost nothing. I might even be able to get some prestige by telling potential customers that , yes, Joe makes my widget too, but I invented it. Now if Joe were to steal my actual widget, that would be a different story. But the design? I should have been more careful in concealing my art if I didn't want this to happen. Almost every machine in existence is inspired by prior art. That's a real basic truth about technology. We don't reinvent the wheel every time we set out to accomplish something. More often, the inventor sees something and thinks "I can do it better or more efficiently" and runs with it.
None of this, however, makes me "rebel" at the idea of an author or inventor making an effor to conceal their process or make it difficult to copy their works. After all, they DID expend the energy, mental and otherwise, to create it. Till such time as the information becomes disseminated, they DO exclusively own, or at least possess it. I have no problem, then, with copy protection schemes from a moral or ethical perspective. I do find them annoying and often intrusive, and so seek out other similar programs if I am in need of such, but I have no ethical problem. No force is being employed, they are merely trying to conceal their art and maintain a partial exclusivity.
It's when the Rulers step in and tell me and others that I cannot possess that which is in my head that I start to have a problem. As with all such intrusions, they are making a claim that has no basis in reality and in the long run (often even the short!) harms the market and may even keep important advances at bay for a long time.
I have at this point become fully an agorist, as I no longer believe in the validity of Intellectual Property.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Wargaming and Anarchy
There has long been the theory that warring is in our nature. That it’s inevitable that humans will go to war from time to time. I dispute the accuracy of the claim, but see some merit to the argument. We are an aggressive race. If we weren’t, we would be extinct.
Does this, however, inevitably mean we will organize to kill one another over resources, religions, resources, philosophies, and resources?
I think not. I think it’s one of the things we can and will overcome. But not by denying it’s existence, but rather by constructively embracing it. For instance the qualities that make a great war leader also make a great businessman. Many of the flaws are the same, as well.
Even so, that has been the trend, and it’s been a fairly quick one, since Business started being organized and global. As it began, there were some of the most horrible wars in the history of humanity. The 20th century, in particular, stands out as one of the most bloody periods… no strike that. THE most bloody period in verifiable human history. Yet the seeds of peaceable interaction were growing at the same time. They had to. The crux of the decision of war vs. voluntaryism is whether or not we continue as a race. The war side of the equation has the ability to destroy everyone.
And we HAVE adapted to our needs as a growing, trading, and technologically adolescent species. Not uniformly or even well, overall, but we are adapting. When I was a kid, the internet was a far off dream. The current generation that’s becoming adult right now never knew a world without it. Most of us, I think, would prefer not to be at war with anybody. But the ‘warriors’, using the term loosely, are still in charge. And there is something in us that’s stirred by martial images.
Which brings me to what I think could solve both sides of the equation. And I’m only joking a little bit. War Games. Not "real world" with the lives of soldiers, civilians, and pet fish on the line, but things like World of Warcraft, The excellent Warhammer 40,000 from Games workshop, and many others. They allow us to simulate war in all it’s bloody glory without losing anything but time. They are vastly stimulating. I think one of the reasons that war is so popular among the "elite" is exactly that. War planning is among the most difficult things there is, and the plans have to be dynamic enough to contain a developing situation that you DIDN’T expect the other guy to do. It’s exhilarating.
Now, think about what we could do if we could persuade our alleged leaders to get together over the internet and blow each other to bits on a LAN instead of in reality? They could divvy up their virtual world amongst themselves, play stupid economic games, and generally do all the fucked up things that rulers do without actually ruling anyone. The hell of it is, it would probably work to sooth their egos. I can’t see it ever happening like that, but it’s amusing to think about.
But nevertheless, as we evolve to a voluntary society, I would guess that wargames will GAIN popularity rather than losing it. Much like various other games throughout history have become commonplace and harmless, when they started out as deadly serious religious affairs. We adapt. And if we adapt well enough that our needs for conquest can be played out on a tabletop or a LAN? What’s wrong with that? I suspect that the people who flip their wig over kids playing war games are the same people who have "support the troops" magnets on their cars. Sheep who do not think things through. They ought to play more wargames and learn how to think strategically.
Does this, however, inevitably mean we will organize to kill one another over resources, religions, resources, philosophies, and resources?
I think not. I think it’s one of the things we can and will overcome. But not by denying it’s existence, but rather by constructively embracing it. For instance the qualities that make a great war leader also make a great businessman. Many of the flaws are the same, as well.
Even so, that has been the trend, and it’s been a fairly quick one, since Business started being organized and global. As it began, there were some of the most horrible wars in the history of humanity. The 20th century, in particular, stands out as one of the most bloody periods… no strike that. THE most bloody period in verifiable human history. Yet the seeds of peaceable interaction were growing at the same time. They had to. The crux of the decision of war vs. voluntaryism is whether or not we continue as a race. The war side of the equation has the ability to destroy everyone.
And we HAVE adapted to our needs as a growing, trading, and technologically adolescent species. Not uniformly or even well, overall, but we are adapting. When I was a kid, the internet was a far off dream. The current generation that’s becoming adult right now never knew a world without it. Most of us, I think, would prefer not to be at war with anybody. But the ‘warriors’, using the term loosely, are still in charge. And there is something in us that’s stirred by martial images.
Which brings me to what I think could solve both sides of the equation. And I’m only joking a little bit. War Games. Not "real world" with the lives of soldiers, civilians, and pet fish on the line, but things like World of Warcraft, The excellent Warhammer 40,000 from Games workshop, and many others. They allow us to simulate war in all it’s bloody glory without losing anything but time. They are vastly stimulating. I think one of the reasons that war is so popular among the "elite" is exactly that. War planning is among the most difficult things there is, and the plans have to be dynamic enough to contain a developing situation that you DIDN’T expect the other guy to do. It’s exhilarating.
Now, think about what we could do if we could persuade our alleged leaders to get together over the internet and blow each other to bits on a LAN instead of in reality? They could divvy up their virtual world amongst themselves, play stupid economic games, and generally do all the fucked up things that rulers do without actually ruling anyone. The hell of it is, it would probably work to sooth their egos. I can’t see it ever happening like that, but it’s amusing to think about.
But nevertheless, as we evolve to a voluntary society, I would guess that wargames will GAIN popularity rather than losing it. Much like various other games throughout history have become commonplace and harmless, when they started out as deadly serious religious affairs. We adapt. And if we adapt well enough that our needs for conquest can be played out on a tabletop or a LAN? What’s wrong with that? I suspect that the people who flip their wig over kids playing war games are the same people who have "support the troops" magnets on their cars. Sheep who do not think things through. They ought to play more wargames and learn how to think strategically.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Your Comments, Please!
Some bloggers get annoyed with comments, some don't. I only get annoyed with trolls, but overall I really like people to comment on my blitherings, as it gives me the feedback I need to write, and also often challenges my assumptions. So if you got an opinion on what I write, or just a question, I'd like to see it.
And of course, if you like this blog, please send your friends here!
And of course, if you like this blog, please send your friends here!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
A Moral Conundrum
The Moral Conundrum
By Kevin Karl Biomech
Recently, I received two responses to a video I put up on youtube asking the question which is an unanswerable moral conundrum if you believe that the State should exist. That question, which above all others led me to anarchy, is simply this: At what point does that which is immoral or impermissable to the individual become moral or permissable to the group.
I actually didn't expect anyone to try and answer that question directly. It's a question who's main purpose is to make the recipient THINK DEEPLY about their convictions of morality.
Proceeding from the concept of Universality, the answer is simply that there can be no such exception. Even situationally, the exceptions are so rare as to not be codifiable. There are the so-called "good samaritan" acts, in which you act to save the life or safety of a stranger, but even here, that's not a real exception. It is not immoral or impermissable for an individual to act in the defense of another, especially one who's incapacitated or in imminent danger.
Yet that's the trap I got drawn into. I was once captain of my school's debate team, and I blew it.
One gentleman had replied that the line is drawn to protect the weak from the strong. This statement, while not in itself wrong, is unrelated to the question. It is both a non sequitur and a strawman. Subtle, though. Here's why it fails.
One, it's a non sequitur in relation to the question asked. Why? Because the question is when does it become permissable or moral for the group to do that which is impermissable or immoral for the individual to do. In no culture that I've ever read of or experienced is it impermissable for the individual to defend the weak against a strong aggressor. Not one.
It is a strawman because it argues a different question. I did not ask if the group could do something that was ALREADY morally permissable to the individual. That is pretty much given in the question itself, as well as general experience of the human race.
It is further a sweeping generalization, because it implicitly states that being strong is Malum in Se, which it is not. Had he said a strong aggressor, or the Evil Strong, then the statement would have been correct within the strawman, but still unrelated in any real sense to the question asked as the topic of debate.
To my knowledge, it has at all times in the history of humanity been considered both a moral and courageous act to defend someone against aggression that they were unable to contain on their own. A rather common example right here in the United States would be the "schoolyard bully" getting his ass kicked by another youngster with a conscience whilst perpetrating his bullying upon someone unable to adequately defend themselves. (The inevitable target of such bullies).
Whether this defense was carried out by one man or a group isn't even part of the equation. It's a just response to an injustice, and therfore morally permissable to both the individual and the group. It does not provide an exception to the immorality of an act at the individual level vs. it's morality at a group level. If anything, it reinforces the basic assumption of the question: Morality is universal or useless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ayG2htuz6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtc7_SBtaYY
By Kevin Karl Biomech
Recently, I received two responses to a video I put up on youtube asking the question which is an unanswerable moral conundrum if you believe that the State should exist. That question, which above all others led me to anarchy, is simply this: At what point does that which is immoral or impermissable to the individual become moral or permissable to the group.
I actually didn't expect anyone to try and answer that question directly. It's a question who's main purpose is to make the recipient THINK DEEPLY about their convictions of morality.
Proceeding from the concept of Universality, the answer is simply that there can be no such exception. Even situationally, the exceptions are so rare as to not be codifiable. There are the so-called "good samaritan" acts, in which you act to save the life or safety of a stranger, but even here, that's not a real exception. It is not immoral or impermissable for an individual to act in the defense of another, especially one who's incapacitated or in imminent danger.
Yet that's the trap I got drawn into. I was once captain of my school's debate team, and I blew it.
One gentleman had replied that the line is drawn to protect the weak from the strong. This statement, while not in itself wrong, is unrelated to the question. It is both a non sequitur and a strawman. Subtle, though. Here's why it fails.
One, it's a non sequitur in relation to the question asked. Why? Because the question is when does it become permissable or moral for the group to do that which is impermissable or immoral for the individual to do. In no culture that I've ever read of or experienced is it impermissable for the individual to defend the weak against a strong aggressor. Not one.
It is a strawman because it argues a different question. I did not ask if the group could do something that was ALREADY morally permissable to the individual. That is pretty much given in the question itself, as well as general experience of the human race.
It is further a sweeping generalization, because it implicitly states that being strong is Malum in Se, which it is not. Had he said a strong aggressor, or the Evil Strong, then the statement would have been correct within the strawman, but still unrelated in any real sense to the question asked as the topic of debate.
To my knowledge, it has at all times in the history of humanity been considered both a moral and courageous act to defend someone against aggression that they were unable to contain on their own. A rather common example right here in the United States would be the "schoolyard bully" getting his ass kicked by another youngster with a conscience whilst perpetrating his bullying upon someone unable to adequately defend themselves. (The inevitable target of such bullies).
Whether this defense was carried out by one man or a group isn't even part of the equation. It's a just response to an injustice, and therfore morally permissable to both the individual and the group. It does not provide an exception to the immorality of an act at the individual level vs. it's morality at a group level. If anything, it reinforces the basic assumption of the question: Morality is universal or useless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ayG2htuz6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtc7_SBtaYY
Sunday, March 9, 2008
A Call to Revolution.
Good evening y'all.
I have and will continue to argue with statists as to why they are choosing the wrong path. It's part of who I am. But today, I'm not speaking to the people who believe in the State. I don't much care about them. They've chosen to be a slave, and that is their shame, not mine.
Instead, I'm speaking to those who live under the state, but either reject it or question it. You are my brothers and sisters, not those who labor under the yoke because they think they owe it to themselves. You, like me, do not have such a base opinion of yourself. You don't need to subsume yourself in a "Greater" Whole in order to feel complete. You do not bend the knee just because you're told to. You have discovered the seeds of liberty and discontent.
You know that humans are not perfect, nor always moral, yet you still wish to be human. You know that no society ever conceived will avoid every pitfall nor fulfill every wish. Yet you still wish to improve society. You either know or at least suspect that if the old attitude that humans are irredeemably evil, then we would never have come this far.
Those of you my age and older remember a different world where the rules were not so imposing, and it was actually possible to be free in most things. Those of you around or under twenty years of age have already seen it change for the worse, and it's obvious even having never tasted the freedom that men twice your age once took for granted. We remember when it was good to be alive, and people who left this country wanted to come back.
You see that all this is lost, and some of you want it back. Or at least some return to "normalcy" rather than the current nightmare pace on a treadmill at high speed. All of us, young and old, basically wonder What Went Wrong and How Do We Fix It.
Many of you, even though realizing the State is deeply flawed in an of itself still seek your solution there. To you, my words are fairly simple. Your courage is appreciated and valuable to the cause of liberty, but you are using the wrong engines. Working within the system strengthens it. By no means am I saying you should not work the system against itself, but I am saying that attempts at reform WITHIN the Federal System as it stands will only strengthen them. You may win some temporary concessions, but you will ultimately have become suborned, even if not in your person, in the public mind to the system. You would be better off to vote for the greater evil, the greater incompetent, the most tax and spend buffoon on the planet, then to try and fix the system. By doing this, you are helping to destroy it far faster than any revolution of arms in the street could. By trying to reform it, you send the message that it is worth preserving an instrumentality that has completely failed in every aim it's founders put forth.
It is not worth saving.It is time for a change.
Liberty is worth dying for. Our forefathers believed that, and many thousands of them DID die in the only Civil War this nation has actually ever seen. It ended in 1781. By 1789 the seeds of tyranny were already sewn anew in the newly adopted Constitution of the United States of America. Not that the document itself is inherently evil. It was a well intentioned attempt to bring a new sort of order to a society that had always before labored under a King. Given that background, it was a noble attempt. It was doomed to failure from the beginning. It has major flaws IN IT'S CONCEPTION, regardless of the words of the document. No contract should be valid upon people merely because they were born in a certain place. No Government should be perpetual. At BEST, a semi coherent State might be useful in Time of War. A temporary alliance to repel an invader, agreed upon beforehand BY THE PARTICIPANTS, and for a limited sPECIFIED Time could be useful. After that people should be able to freely return to their own property and pursue their own lives. From this basic error, that any group of men has the RIGHT to bind Posterity forever, flowed all the other errors of this admittedly well intentioned document. That a Perpetual Organization that could only operate via theft on a grand scale should ever be allowed to exist is it's other major error.
These errors, and upon reading the histories of the Men who created the document, they were probably honest errors, must be corrected. In so doing we will commit other errors. It is our nature. We improve, we fail. Both are true, and this dichotomy, in my arrogant opinion, needs to be embraced rather than fought. Constant flux in the way society operates is INEVITABLE, and usually for the better. So long as every man and woman has the ability to CHOOSE whether or not they shall change is paramount. This goal, and the United States of America, are incompatible. But the Dream that created the United States is FULLY compatible with this goal!
It is far past time. Yet for the most part even the dedicated Anarchist quails at Revolution. It is fraught with danger, and the ends often uncertain. We know in our hearts, even if we haven't fully admitted it, that the old means of revolution are closed to us. We cannot take up arms and drive off the invader, for He is too deeply entrenched. We cannot replace our Overlords at the ballot with a new set of Overlords and hope to accomplish anything. So we need to Revolt in another way, or multiple other ways.
We need a Revolution of the American Mind. We need people to lose their apathy and LIVE! Yet the forces arrayed against us, particularly that apathy, seem often insurmountable. They are not. There are ways. There is always a way.
If you wish to use Political means, by all means do so. The Ballot isn't the answer. Instead, use your talents. If you are an able speaker, SPEAK! If you have a handy turn with the written word, WRITE! Above all else, if we are to ever become free, we must educate as many people as possible that it's POSSIBLE!
Remember that a handfull of men turned thirteen Crown Colonies to revolution to FORM this experiment in the first place! And remember how they did it. Neither the Cannon nor the Bayonet won the War for Independence. Words won the war. Written and Spoken WORDS! If the words had not been there, and had not been shamelessly and tirelessly promoted by men who had a vision of a society where they could be free, then the revolution would never have occured. Most of the people, then as now, were complacent even when angered. "This is the way it has always been" came to mean "This is the Way it will Always Be" in their minds. Just like now. Yet it's never been true! It hasn't always been like this, and that's been true in every generation. The older men can always tell you of a time when things were different. Not always better, but ALWAYS different! This is the essence of what it means to be alive, and being alive is a wonderful thing!
Sit down with your friends and stand up in front of your fellows and preach the word of Liberty. Ask them to join you, and when your numbers be such that it's possible, call them forth to repudiate their overlords and dismantle their house of lies and deceit! If one town withdraws, then another follows, then another two or three, That is how it will be won! Against a frontal assault, our Overlords are nearly impervious. But they cannot survive the death of a thousand cuts. And the simple refusal to obey them is a more powerful weapon even than the Mighty Nuclear Bomb.
Soldiers of the State will have no qualms returning fire on the field of battle, but all but the very worst of them will quail before firing on a crowd of civlians who simply will not obey them. And when the Worst Sort does so anyway, that too is to our advantage. In the Modern world it don't take weeks to spread the news of an atrocity. It takes minutes.
Yes, if we are to succeed, there will be people who die in the cause. This is tragic, in the actual meaning of the term, but it is inevitable. Some things are worth dying for. But in the longer term, and this is far more important, Liberty is worth LIVING for!
Those unwilling? Leave them to be. By your very act of leaving them to their own devices, you strengthen our cause. Because they see that the way they subscribe to requires the initiation of force, but ours does not. They will see that we can be quite fierce in our defence, but that our attacks are all in the realm of ideas. As our ideas take root, many of the complacent will join us.
Some will hold out to the bitter end to remain under Rulership. Oh well. So long as they see the futility of ever stopping us from living as we will, and so long as they allow us our space, they are of no consequence. They will always be able to find someone to rule them, and I say that in that event, we'll be well rid of them both, rulers and peasants alike. Then Free Men can build a society by voluntary association and trade, free from the "need" for Overlords.
And to those who fervently desire to live under a State? My parting words to you are from a True American Patriot.
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams
I have and will continue to argue with statists as to why they are choosing the wrong path. It's part of who I am. But today, I'm not speaking to the people who believe in the State. I don't much care about them. They've chosen to be a slave, and that is their shame, not mine.
Instead, I'm speaking to those who live under the state, but either reject it or question it. You are my brothers and sisters, not those who labor under the yoke because they think they owe it to themselves. You, like me, do not have such a base opinion of yourself. You don't need to subsume yourself in a "Greater" Whole in order to feel complete. You do not bend the knee just because you're told to. You have discovered the seeds of liberty and discontent.
You know that humans are not perfect, nor always moral, yet you still wish to be human. You know that no society ever conceived will avoid every pitfall nor fulfill every wish. Yet you still wish to improve society. You either know or at least suspect that if the old attitude that humans are irredeemably evil, then we would never have come this far.
Those of you my age and older remember a different world where the rules were not so imposing, and it was actually possible to be free in most things. Those of you around or under twenty years of age have already seen it change for the worse, and it's obvious even having never tasted the freedom that men twice your age once took for granted. We remember when it was good to be alive, and people who left this country wanted to come back.
You see that all this is lost, and some of you want it back. Or at least some return to "normalcy" rather than the current nightmare pace on a treadmill at high speed. All of us, young and old, basically wonder What Went Wrong and How Do We Fix It.
Many of you, even though realizing the State is deeply flawed in an of itself still seek your solution there. To you, my words are fairly simple. Your courage is appreciated and valuable to the cause of liberty, but you are using the wrong engines. Working within the system strengthens it. By no means am I saying you should not work the system against itself, but I am saying that attempts at reform WITHIN the Federal System as it stands will only strengthen them. You may win some temporary concessions, but you will ultimately have become suborned, even if not in your person, in the public mind to the system. You would be better off to vote for the greater evil, the greater incompetent, the most tax and spend buffoon on the planet, then to try and fix the system. By doing this, you are helping to destroy it far faster than any revolution of arms in the street could. By trying to reform it, you send the message that it is worth preserving an instrumentality that has completely failed in every aim it's founders put forth.
It is not worth saving.It is time for a change.
Liberty is worth dying for. Our forefathers believed that, and many thousands of them DID die in the only Civil War this nation has actually ever seen. It ended in 1781. By 1789 the seeds of tyranny were already sewn anew in the newly adopted Constitution of the United States of America. Not that the document itself is inherently evil. It was a well intentioned attempt to bring a new sort of order to a society that had always before labored under a King. Given that background, it was a noble attempt. It was doomed to failure from the beginning. It has major flaws IN IT'S CONCEPTION, regardless of the words of the document. No contract should be valid upon people merely because they were born in a certain place. No Government should be perpetual. At BEST, a semi coherent State might be useful in Time of War. A temporary alliance to repel an invader, agreed upon beforehand BY THE PARTICIPANTS, and for a limited sPECIFIED Time could be useful. After that people should be able to freely return to their own property and pursue their own lives. From this basic error, that any group of men has the RIGHT to bind Posterity forever, flowed all the other errors of this admittedly well intentioned document. That a Perpetual Organization that could only operate via theft on a grand scale should ever be allowed to exist is it's other major error.
These errors, and upon reading the histories of the Men who created the document, they were probably honest errors, must be corrected. In so doing we will commit other errors. It is our nature. We improve, we fail. Both are true, and this dichotomy, in my arrogant opinion, needs to be embraced rather than fought. Constant flux in the way society operates is INEVITABLE, and usually for the better. So long as every man and woman has the ability to CHOOSE whether or not they shall change is paramount. This goal, and the United States of America, are incompatible. But the Dream that created the United States is FULLY compatible with this goal!
It is far past time. Yet for the most part even the dedicated Anarchist quails at Revolution. It is fraught with danger, and the ends often uncertain. We know in our hearts, even if we haven't fully admitted it, that the old means of revolution are closed to us. We cannot take up arms and drive off the invader, for He is too deeply entrenched. We cannot replace our Overlords at the ballot with a new set of Overlords and hope to accomplish anything. So we need to Revolt in another way, or multiple other ways.
We need a Revolution of the American Mind. We need people to lose their apathy and LIVE! Yet the forces arrayed against us, particularly that apathy, seem often insurmountable. They are not. There are ways. There is always a way.
If you wish to use Political means, by all means do so. The Ballot isn't the answer. Instead, use your talents. If you are an able speaker, SPEAK! If you have a handy turn with the written word, WRITE! Above all else, if we are to ever become free, we must educate as many people as possible that it's POSSIBLE!
Remember that a handfull of men turned thirteen Crown Colonies to revolution to FORM this experiment in the first place! And remember how they did it. Neither the Cannon nor the Bayonet won the War for Independence. Words won the war. Written and Spoken WORDS! If the words had not been there, and had not been shamelessly and tirelessly promoted by men who had a vision of a society where they could be free, then the revolution would never have occured. Most of the people, then as now, were complacent even when angered. "This is the way it has always been" came to mean "This is the Way it will Always Be" in their minds. Just like now. Yet it's never been true! It hasn't always been like this, and that's been true in every generation. The older men can always tell you of a time when things were different. Not always better, but ALWAYS different! This is the essence of what it means to be alive, and being alive is a wonderful thing!
Sit down with your friends and stand up in front of your fellows and preach the word of Liberty. Ask them to join you, and when your numbers be such that it's possible, call them forth to repudiate their overlords and dismantle their house of lies and deceit! If one town withdraws, then another follows, then another two or three, That is how it will be won! Against a frontal assault, our Overlords are nearly impervious. But they cannot survive the death of a thousand cuts. And the simple refusal to obey them is a more powerful weapon even than the Mighty Nuclear Bomb.
Soldiers of the State will have no qualms returning fire on the field of battle, but all but the very worst of them will quail before firing on a crowd of civlians who simply will not obey them. And when the Worst Sort does so anyway, that too is to our advantage. In the Modern world it don't take weeks to spread the news of an atrocity. It takes minutes.
Yes, if we are to succeed, there will be people who die in the cause. This is tragic, in the actual meaning of the term, but it is inevitable. Some things are worth dying for. But in the longer term, and this is far more important, Liberty is worth LIVING for!
Those unwilling? Leave them to be. By your very act of leaving them to their own devices, you strengthen our cause. Because they see that the way they subscribe to requires the initiation of force, but ours does not. They will see that we can be quite fierce in our defence, but that our attacks are all in the realm of ideas. As our ideas take root, many of the complacent will join us.
Some will hold out to the bitter end to remain under Rulership. Oh well. So long as they see the futility of ever stopping us from living as we will, and so long as they allow us our space, they are of no consequence. They will always be able to find someone to rule them, and I say that in that event, we'll be well rid of them both, rulers and peasants alike. Then Free Men can build a society by voluntary association and trade, free from the "need" for Overlords.
And to those who fervently desire to live under a State? My parting words to you are from a True American Patriot.
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams
Sunday, February 17, 2008
A few random thoughts
Lately I and my family have run a hard course between illness and economic hardship, and things have been getting to me in a lot of different areas, so I've not been nearly as active on the 'net as is my wont. That being said, I figured I'd write about a few of the things I'm working on, both here and for Youtube.
Several people have stated that the United States has one of the freest markets in the world. This is not strictly untrue, but it's still a far cry from the anarchocapitalist's vision of Laissez Faire markets. I'm writing an article and making a video exploring this theme, with a specific emphasis on the corporation itself, and health care as relates to HMO's and socialized and "privatized" schemes vs. a true free market approach. Yes, HMO's are a good idea in theory, but the government regulated corporate versions thereof have been dismal failures. I'll try to illustrate why, and offer a free market alternative.
I've also been asked by a number of people, most recently Alex Strekal (Brainpolice2 on Youtube, and his website is www.liberty-space.com) what originally motivated me to style myself an anarchist. That's a simple question with a number of complex and convulted thought proceses behind it, and I'm not certain I can cover it in a ten minute video, so I'll also post a more expanded version here, as I get time.
My primary goal as an anarchocapitalist is to establish independent Seasteads both as a means of personal liberty and to demonstrate two principles: That free markets work and can work very well in the absence of governmental meddling, and the beauty of dynamic geography. For more preliminary information, see www.seastead.org, particularly the section on dynamic geography http://patrifriedman.com/projects/socs/commented/drawer/dynamic_geography.html
I've been trying to write three books over the course of the last four years, and I'm picking that back up as well. One of them, The Minimum Wage Survival Guide, is almost in it's final form and should be available as an e-book within six months. The other two? Well, one of them I'm not certain I'm ever going to publish, but it explores the idea of a new religion based on rationality and a love of life. The other is titled the same as this website. Anarchy is not Chaos. I've rewritten the bastard about a hundred times now, and I have to concede that it will never be perfect. But I should have it done by the end of the year if things go reasonably well.
Unfortunately, all of these endeavors take a lot of time, and given my current dire financial situation and the age of my son (he's a bit over a year old), I may not have time for all of this and the timelines above are strictly fungible. Rest assured, short of death, I'm not going to stop spouting on about the virtues of liberty.
Kevin Karl Biomech
Several people have stated that the United States has one of the freest markets in the world. This is not strictly untrue, but it's still a far cry from the anarchocapitalist's vision of Laissez Faire markets. I'm writing an article and making a video exploring this theme, with a specific emphasis on the corporation itself, and health care as relates to HMO's and socialized and "privatized" schemes vs. a true free market approach. Yes, HMO's are a good idea in theory, but the government regulated corporate versions thereof have been dismal failures. I'll try to illustrate why, and offer a free market alternative.
I've also been asked by a number of people, most recently Alex Strekal (Brainpolice2 on Youtube, and his website is www.liberty-space.com) what originally motivated me to style myself an anarchist. That's a simple question with a number of complex and convulted thought proceses behind it, and I'm not certain I can cover it in a ten minute video, so I'll also post a more expanded version here, as I get time.
My primary goal as an anarchocapitalist is to establish independent Seasteads both as a means of personal liberty and to demonstrate two principles: That free markets work and can work very well in the absence of governmental meddling, and the beauty of dynamic geography. For more preliminary information, see www.seastead.org, particularly the section on dynamic geography http://patrifriedman.com/projects/socs/commented/drawer/dynamic_geography.html
I've been trying to write three books over the course of the last four years, and I'm picking that back up as well. One of them, The Minimum Wage Survival Guide, is almost in it's final form and should be available as an e-book within six months. The other two? Well, one of them I'm not certain I'm ever going to publish, but it explores the idea of a new religion based on rationality and a love of life. The other is titled the same as this website. Anarchy is not Chaos. I've rewritten the bastard about a hundred times now, and I have to concede that it will never be perfect. But I should have it done by the end of the year if things go reasonably well.
Unfortunately, all of these endeavors take a lot of time, and given my current dire financial situation and the age of my son (he's a bit over a year old), I may not have time for all of this and the timelines above are strictly fungible. Rest assured, short of death, I'm not going to stop spouting on about the virtues of liberty.
Kevin Karl Biomech
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I can't be bought. But I can be rented!
I was thinking about one of the major differences in my philosophical outlook as an anarchocapitalist/severe individualist and the thoughts I've heard expressed by both Statists and other types of collectivists. Namely the idea of 'wage slavery'.
I must state that in truth I find the whole argument to be incomprehensible. To Whit: You voluntarily seek to work for some company or individual in exchange for agreed upon wages. This is seen by many as slavery. I don't see it that way. They aren't buying me, just some of my time. If my time is worth more to me than what they are offering, I'm under no obligation to accept the job. I can, if I feel the urge, make a counteroffer. In some cases they'll take it, in others they won't.
If I do choose to take the job, then I feel that it's pay is justified. That is a variable thing, because some areas I'm far better at than others, and some jobs require, therefore, higher compensation. But another factor is whether or not I ENJOY the job I'm applying for. I will accept lower wages for something I truly want to do. Despite the slings and arrows of well meaning friends and demeaning enemies, this has been food service for most of my adult life. I like restaraunts. I enjoy what I do. Or I did. Now, it's time for a change because I'm frankly burned out on the whole industry. That will probably change, as I've drifted before. I still harbor dreams of one day operating my own pizzaria, and given my experience at all levels of that subset of my profession, I'm certain that I can succeed, if I can raise sufficient capital. But again, I digress.
In NO WAY was I enslaved by food service. There were times when it went better for me than others, but it's a rare day when I dread going to work. Everyone MUST do something to earn their way through life. If not, they have two choices. One moral, but fatal, and one immoral, and just as fatal to their individuality.
The first way is to die. If you will not support yourself and have nobody to leech from, that's an inevitable outcome.
The second way, the way that a great many people seem to think moral, is in fact completely devoid of morality: Public Welfare programs. They have many names and many purported purposes, but when it comes down to it, welfare bum is not a pejorative but a blunt truth. A person who WILL NOT work for a living, because it "demeans" him in some way, but then relies on welfare is stealing from everyone who works.
I will grant that there are certain persons who CANNOT work, and that choice two is often, under the current State of affairs, the only option open to them. These people have, in my observation, a far more difficult time OBTAINING that assistance than those who have learned to "work the system" in order to avoid being productive humans.
Yet the people who are not defective and who do not work tend to look down on me. They call me a "wage slave" because I go out and make my own way in the world, with a paying job as a vehicle for my life. Here's to you idiots. I'm not a slave to my wages, I'm a slave to you, via the government. I have no wish at all to support your lazy ass, and given the choice, would not do so. I might, had I the resources, give generously to the unfortunates who cannot work due to some disability beyond their control or ability to repair, but to someone who's "picky" about their work to the exclusion of earning a living? Bite me.
Any man or woman with a modicum of ability can get and hold a minimum wage job. Some are more difficult than others, and if you don't view an SUV and the latest fashions as neccesities, you can live quite efficiently and with a minimum of drama on minimum wage. It's when you start trying to live beyond your means that you become enslaved. And even then, it's not your employer doing the dirty deed: It's YOU.
That being said, if you remain forever at minimum wage, you'll likely have a rather difficult and boring life. Not necessarily, but often. So the goal, as in all things, is to improve your wage earning ability or to become self employed and take direct control of your financial fortunes. The second option being the better, the first is still valid even if that is your eventual goal. You should always be on the lookout for new opportunities to earn more capital, or to better educate yourself so that you can later earn more capital. Specialization is for ants.
This means that when things get tight, you should indeed hold on to your job, but not because you are compelled to by some "master", rather because it might not be easily replaced. But even then, always be on the lookout for something better, more interesting, or higher paying.
This is what I try to do. Sometimes, given the responsibilities of family life, I do have to pass up an opportunity because it's too speculative when there are other mouths to feed. But it's not the behest of my employer that makes me stay with them, it's weighing the risks and benefits of jumping ship vs. what I must accomplish at a minimum. These things are self determined. No one else has either the right OR the ability to determine these things for me, nor do they have any need to explain my actions to me. Maybe to themselves, as if I'm an important actor in the grand scheme of things.
I can be rented. Fairly easily. There is no circumstance under which I can be bought. Those on welfare and other sycophants of the State have already sold their soul, and I think they sold it cheap.
I must state that in truth I find the whole argument to be incomprehensible. To Whit: You voluntarily seek to work for some company or individual in exchange for agreed upon wages. This is seen by many as slavery. I don't see it that way. They aren't buying me, just some of my time. If my time is worth more to me than what they are offering, I'm under no obligation to accept the job. I can, if I feel the urge, make a counteroffer. In some cases they'll take it, in others they won't.
If I do choose to take the job, then I feel that it's pay is justified. That is a variable thing, because some areas I'm far better at than others, and some jobs require, therefore, higher compensation. But another factor is whether or not I ENJOY the job I'm applying for. I will accept lower wages for something I truly want to do. Despite the slings and arrows of well meaning friends and demeaning enemies, this has been food service for most of my adult life. I like restaraunts. I enjoy what I do. Or I did. Now, it's time for a change because I'm frankly burned out on the whole industry. That will probably change, as I've drifted before. I still harbor dreams of one day operating my own pizzaria, and given my experience at all levels of that subset of my profession, I'm certain that I can succeed, if I can raise sufficient capital. But again, I digress.
In NO WAY was I enslaved by food service. There were times when it went better for me than others, but it's a rare day when I dread going to work. Everyone MUST do something to earn their way through life. If not, they have two choices. One moral, but fatal, and one immoral, and just as fatal to their individuality.
The first way is to die. If you will not support yourself and have nobody to leech from, that's an inevitable outcome.
The second way, the way that a great many people seem to think moral, is in fact completely devoid of morality: Public Welfare programs. They have many names and many purported purposes, but when it comes down to it, welfare bum is not a pejorative but a blunt truth. A person who WILL NOT work for a living, because it "demeans" him in some way, but then relies on welfare is stealing from everyone who works.
I will grant that there are certain persons who CANNOT work, and that choice two is often, under the current State of affairs, the only option open to them. These people have, in my observation, a far more difficult time OBTAINING that assistance than those who have learned to "work the system" in order to avoid being productive humans.
Yet the people who are not defective and who do not work tend to look down on me. They call me a "wage slave" because I go out and make my own way in the world, with a paying job as a vehicle for my life. Here's to you idiots. I'm not a slave to my wages, I'm a slave to you, via the government. I have no wish at all to support your lazy ass, and given the choice, would not do so. I might, had I the resources, give generously to the unfortunates who cannot work due to some disability beyond their control or ability to repair, but to someone who's "picky" about their work to the exclusion of earning a living? Bite me.
Any man or woman with a modicum of ability can get and hold a minimum wage job. Some are more difficult than others, and if you don't view an SUV and the latest fashions as neccesities, you can live quite efficiently and with a minimum of drama on minimum wage. It's when you start trying to live beyond your means that you become enslaved. And even then, it's not your employer doing the dirty deed: It's YOU.
That being said, if you remain forever at minimum wage, you'll likely have a rather difficult and boring life. Not necessarily, but often. So the goal, as in all things, is to improve your wage earning ability or to become self employed and take direct control of your financial fortunes. The second option being the better, the first is still valid even if that is your eventual goal. You should always be on the lookout for new opportunities to earn more capital, or to better educate yourself so that you can later earn more capital. Specialization is for ants.
This means that when things get tight, you should indeed hold on to your job, but not because you are compelled to by some "master", rather because it might not be easily replaced. But even then, always be on the lookout for something better, more interesting, or higher paying.
This is what I try to do. Sometimes, given the responsibilities of family life, I do have to pass up an opportunity because it's too speculative when there are other mouths to feed. But it's not the behest of my employer that makes me stay with them, it's weighing the risks and benefits of jumping ship vs. what I must accomplish at a minimum. These things are self determined. No one else has either the right OR the ability to determine these things for me, nor do they have any need to explain my actions to me. Maybe to themselves, as if I'm an important actor in the grand scheme of things.
I can be rented. Fairly easily. There is no circumstance under which I can be bought. Those on welfare and other sycophants of the State have already sold their soul, and I think they sold it cheap.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Welcome to my Blog
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!
I say this because there's no such thing as a good morning in my arrogant opinion.
The Name of my Blog speaks what I hope to demonstrate as truth. Given the state of the State, it should be increasingly obvious to practically everyone that Big Government does not and cannot work without depriving every man, woman, child, and pet fish of Liberty. A great many libertarians, big and small "el" alike, seem to think that this is an argument for less government. I agree. In fact, I would take this to it's logical extreme. I believe, and hope to be able to demonstrate, that there should be in fact many, MANY more governments. About six billion, to be a bit more precise. One man, One government, NO FUCKING RULERS!
In the absence of imposed rule, humans almost always find a VOLUNTARY way to interact with one another. This is anarchy in action. Again, given the default of no governance, people tend to trade freely with one another to their mutual benefit. That is anarchocapitalism, or Free Market Anarchy, if you prefer.
These are the themes I will be persuing here. Hopefully I can give you all something to think about, or at least a bit of a diversion from the daily grind.
K.K. Biomech
I say this because there's no such thing as a good morning in my arrogant opinion.
The Name of my Blog speaks what I hope to demonstrate as truth. Given the state of the State, it should be increasingly obvious to practically everyone that Big Government does not and cannot work without depriving every man, woman, child, and pet fish of Liberty. A great many libertarians, big and small "el" alike, seem to think that this is an argument for less government. I agree. In fact, I would take this to it's logical extreme. I believe, and hope to be able to demonstrate, that there should be in fact many, MANY more governments. About six billion, to be a bit more precise. One man, One government, NO FUCKING RULERS!
In the absence of imposed rule, humans almost always find a VOLUNTARY way to interact with one another. This is anarchy in action. Again, given the default of no governance, people tend to trade freely with one another to their mutual benefit. That is anarchocapitalism, or Free Market Anarchy, if you prefer.
These are the themes I will be persuing here. Hopefully I can give you all something to think about, or at least a bit of a diversion from the daily grind.
K.K. Biomech
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