The Freedom to Say 2 + 2 is 4

The differences in the political spectrum

2010-01-22T08:05:00.002-06:00

I hate politics. I really do. I hate it because nobody can ever come to any agreement and rarely is there any budging of anyone's view after the hours of argumentation that occurs. And usually when there are differences these conversations/arguments just seem to deepen the divide. Why is it that so many people are never swayed, no matter how convincing the argument might seem to you?

Surely, the environments in which you develop shape the way you think about and view things. I was from a fairly early point a critical and skeptical person, and like I had cast off religion, I also eventually cast off (at least most) of the ideas of the necessity of so many government institutions. But buried somewhere in the development is something which I think is perhaps overlooked. In our hierarchy of values, we all eventually place a certain ideal at the very top, a basic premise from which we assess what is best or most right in the world.

For modern day liberals, this value is 'equality'. For libertarians (and old-school Republicans), this value is 'liberty'. This is not to say that liberals don't value liberty, or libertarians equality, but it means that where these ideas come into conflict (as they often do), that one tends to trump the other. How we stand on issues depends by and large on premises such as these, and it is very hard to undermine someone's most fundamental values.

Also, with this acknowledged, I'm not sure one can say that one is better than the other, because I am biased toward favoring systems which maximize liberty, even if at the expense of equality of economic standing. I think if more people understood this, there could at least be greater understanding of where each other comes from and less of this name-calling and putting-down of political views. I think they are rather unreconcilable, though, which is why I feel like 'liberty' has the edge - it allows those who want to produce egalitarian institutions to do so, just not to enforce it on all. The downside (from their view) being that it doesn't create equality across the board, since not all are participating in it. On the other hand, enforced equality necessitates the suppression of liberty when it is forced on those who would not voluntarily do so.

Take it as you will.

Talking about taxes

2010-01-19T07:55:00.003-06:00

I was discussing with some friends the other day my views on marriage (which probably warrants its own post), and a friend reminded me of the tax benefits that come with marriage and that I should at least make my future undocumented relationship legitimized by the state for that reason alone.

But this raises a very important point about taxes, one which I hear rather infrequently in fact. Let me first say that, while I am still of the opinion that all taxation is by definition taken by force (else it would be donation), this is perhaps not the best way to engage people about this topic if you hope to sway some minds. Let us grant that taxes have a legitimate function - the function they are claimed for and were designed for - raising funds for the government to spend on services. Now let us look at how taxes are used in the U.S.

If taxes were meant to perform only the function of raising capital, we would expect that it was being taken from the populace in a fairly 'equal' way - a flat percentage for everyone. But this is far from the case. Of the taxes in the U.S., perhaps the sales tax can be considered to be 'legitimate', though it might slightly bias against people who spend their money rather than horde it. But the income tax is surely on shadier ground - as a progressive-percentage, it engages in a redistribution of wealth so that the rich (who are already paying significantly more money in a flat-percentage tax, since it is a percentage) are forced to part with disproportionately more of their money. Even this is perhaps the most innocent uses of the tax code though.

Taxes are being used in order to herd us into certain ways of life, or punishing us if we don't. There are still sin taxes in place, which is most evident these days in cigarettes. These are additional taxes placed on things like alcohol and tobacco that are meant to discourage their purchase by inflating the price. The cost of cigarettes has skyrocketed from these taxes and the intent of them was explicitly to deter smoking!

Marriage also gets you a tax break. By officiating your relationship with the State and registering with them, you are given certain tax privileges - a means of encouraging marriage in society. Yet what business does the government have suggesting that people get married? Or that people can get married to only one person? Or that homosexuals can't get married? Since only certain types of marriages are recognized in different states, the tax break also discourages and comparatively harms polyamorous relationships where all partners want to be on the same footing, and homosexual marriages in all but a few states.

There are plenty more examples that could surely be mined from the complex list of deductions and the other taxes the state imposes (import/export perhaps?), but better that they come from someone more familiar. These two examples are enough to get people to see that the tax system in America is not so innocent as they want it to be, and that at the very least some major reform needs to happen. A good stepping stone into the world of questioning the legitimacy of government institutions!

Americans Don't Believe in Democracy

2008-11-15T08:53:00.003-06:00

I've come to the conclusion that American's don't really believe in the values of democracy. Especially those who are politically active.

In conversing with friends who are political and in reading some replies to criticisms of democracy, it is clear that people DON'T want the majority's will to be done, the central creedo of democracy. Democracy is a system whereby leaders and laws are determined by the favor or disfavor by the majority, with the premise that a majority indicates significant support for a choice. It seems to follow that one who upholds democracy ought to value the premises of the system they support, right? A Democratist should thus want the system to be a fair representation of what most Americans want.

That is the polar opposite of the mindset I've been running into though. This election was particularly emotional for a lot of people, especially on the Obama side, and many McCain supporters will be pissed off at the results. I am willing to bet that if Obama had lost, his supporters would be griping many times louder still! Yet shouldn't one be complacent in knowing that the majority wants this or that man?

The attitude that really cought me off guard were soem of the nauseating comments at Greg Laden's blog. Among some of the repliers were people who expressly didn't want those who didn't agree with them to vote. I'll cite one of the many examples, this one by Greg Laden:

It is called pragmatic politics. You've never seen a post on this site calling for everyone to vote unless it was had a thinly disguised liberal agenda (such as the video above).

I don't want conservatives, fundies, right wingers, etc. to vote.

I'm thinking that the people that i've met who have the attitude about not voting we are seeing expressed in this comment thread are generally people who would do it wrong and vote for the wrong candidate and the wrong issues. So I'm glad you guys are not voting. This, essentially, give me your vote.

So to these folks, there is a wrong choice and a right choice, and they have the right one and don't want any of the people who would make the wrong choice to vote. Even if a great number of people don't like a "liberal agenda", which a great number don't, they want to do everything they can to make sure their view is the one that wins. If that means being content that people with an opposing view aren't voting, all the better.

It makes the commercial, to which all these comments arose, a complete joke since the message is that you should vote because your opinion matters. To people like this, though, it doesn't - unless you're going to vote with them. I've always enjoyed the South Park voting episode for picking up on this. Kyle wants Stan to vote, but only because he thought Stan would vote for his candidate.

So I think it's pretty obvious that people like this don't even believe in democracy. They believe in using the democratic process in whatever underhanded way they can to achieve hegemony, regardless of what the majority wants. It's the "we know what's best for you all" parental mentality, and to me it makes them look like pricks.

I propose that the people who hold this view cast aside their facade of democratic values and just outright say what they're preaching - we will not be pleased unless we win, despite what the majority of people actually prefer. They only serve to demonstrate that the American government is not built on consent of the people, but on the will of a small subset who have no regard for really representing the will of the majority. It becomes a battle between two dictators: Republicans and Democrats, where both are looking to win and neither is looking for what Americans want.

Argument from Stability

2008-01-17T08:34:00.000-06:00

Okay, as often does, this thought came to me in my morning shower. For some reason, this seems to be a hotbed for thinking about Market Anarchy for me.

Anyhow, I was thinking about the frequent argument we here about how anarchy is inherently unstable and will just lead to another government. I'm dubbing this the argument from stability, which posits that government provides stability and thus is the preferred solution.

Now I'm not going to go down the usual route of discussing the ways in which anarchy is a situation unfavorable to the rise of one corporation through pure brute force. It's been discussed many places many times, and while I might delve into it here, I'm not going to do it now. No, instead I want tackle a more fundamental part of the problem.

Now at this point I'm going to admit that I don't, in principle, have any qualm with governments existing, so long as all members have voluntarily decided to participate and abide by this decision making process and are not trying to force it outside the system. Undoubtedly democratic processes will continue into anarchy within smaller bodies, like business executive boards, non-profit charities, etc, and we don't expect these to turn the guns outward. But let's say some people do want to maintain a minarchist government, voluntarily choosing to pay a yearly fee for their system of protection and justice. So long as they don't point the guns inward to collect the funds and people can opt out at any time, there's no problem with this.

But the existence of voluntary governments in anarchy (ironic, eh?) will certainly highlight the argument from stability in the minds of statists as an obvious death-blow to free market anarchy. I can hear them now, "SEE! You even admit that governments will become prominent again! Surely one of them will decide to opt for power and conquest, and we'll be back to square one". And now comes my profound answer: "So what?"

The argument from stability is based on the premise that a stable system is better than an unstable one, without referring at all to the characteristics of the systems in question. Totalitarianism is very stable - leaders often rule for life, and conditions, while bad, can remain static for long periods of time. Anarchy, on the other hand, might be unstable, but it is also most conducive to freedom. We can also see from the past that minarchy is unstable (how else did America become the sprawling monster it is today?), but that doesn't make it inferior to dictatorship! Would anyone in their right mind argue that it is better to live under a stable despotic regime or a system that has a disposition for breaking apart and needing to start anew, but where people are free? Few, I'm sure.
If we need to fight for our freedom every decade or two in order to maintain it from those that would take it from us, so what? Are you really willing to give up control of your life just so that you can have a status quo that's never in threat? It is here that I will pay the obligatory homage to Jefferson:

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

I don't think we ought to make our decisions based on what is easiest, but on what is right. I don't care if anarchy is somewhat unstable. I'm going to help put in place countermeasures against the rise of a tyrant or rogue, and I'm sure those who love freedom and their independence won't stand for it either. And if some behemoth should arise out of anarchy trying to impose its will, then we'll stand against and fight it off.

Are people smart or stupid?

2007-11-28T13:30:00.002-06:00

I got into a bit of an argument last night with a friend about the issue of environmentalism. My friend was of the position that the government needed to enact certain practices in order to maintain healthy ecological practices (the one in question being paying farmers to not farm their land to prevent topsoil erosion). I proceeded to argue that farmers and industrialists and businessmen are not stupid, and won't engage in practices that will destroy their livelihood (by desertification), but essentially, he kept arguing that if somebody is not supervising these people, they'll be short-sighted and not looking out for their long term benefit.

Is this right? Are people really inherently stupid? With the absence of government incentive, will people look to their long-term interests, or remain short-sighted and in need of someone to hold their hand?

This, i think, is one of the big problems in the minds of most people these days - they think people are generally stupid. I've heard this opinion uttered from a number of mouths. But it should be noted that every time this happens, people generally consider themselves to be the exceptions. They know other people are stupid because they themselves are not, they know what's better for everyone else. And to some extent, we all thing we know better for everyone else, but really, that's probably not true at all. This probably sounds a bit funny from someone who advocates that anarchy is a situation better for all. But the reason I think that, is because it allows everyone to pursue their own happiness, and doesn't advocate a solution for all - merely the ability to find your solution. Most people, however, would rather their will be imposed on all.

But back to the question at hand. People are not stupid, especially when their own self-interest is at hand. If something is beneficial, most people, when weighing their values will choose the path of prosperity. If you own a piece of farmland, and someone tells you that due to constant planting of crops on your hill slopes, your farmland will eventually loose its fertility and become valueless as farmland, chances are you're going to try to find solutions to this issue. You're going to seek people knowledgeable on the subject, or research it yourself, to avoid the economic loss. More than probably any other field, you won't find farmers looking only at short-term gains. Farms, especially large ones, are an enormous investment. It's not a trade you pick up and put down, something you decide to try your hand at for a few years. generally, farms are a long-term trade. You don't just get a piece of land and decide you're going to farm the hell out of it this year and make a ton of crops, and next year it'll be worthless. And if your livelihood means you have to maintain the integrity of the means of production, you're going to spend for upkeep, just as you would keep in good condition your machines and robots at a factory or production line.

Especially in this day and age, we can expect that people will not be ignorant of these kinds of issues, especially if they're very strongly involved in their field of work. Since there are obviously people out there that care about ecological issues, and people that study it (evidenced by my friend who was deeply concerned with the issue), I think we can be fairly certain that farmers won't be ignorant of these problems they're facing. If it becomes enough of an issue with the general population, it becomes a marketing incentive to be a farm that has 'eco-friendly' practices, anyhow. People are smart, especially when they're trying to make a profit and attain prosperity.

Another question to ask might be this: If people are stupid, why should we trust a government composed of these same people? Are politicians smarter than the average person? Does being in the government suddenly make you more capable of determining what is in each person's best interest? Are politicians even disinterested parties? No, of course not. If anything, politicians tend to be far more greasy than businessmen, because beyond seeking betterment through their own actions, they seek betterment and power at the expense of everyone else, often against their will. How does being elected by popular support make you a better determinate of how people should run their farms, give you authority to decree that you can farm but you can't, that you can't seek viable alternatives?

Another point would be the incentive created by this program of paying farmers not to grow crops on certain land. By subsidizing this object, we increase its prevelance, where there may very well be other viable alternatives that are overlooked and don't require being funded out of loot money, using coercion, or using what amounts to agricultural welfare handouts.

What you have a right to - and what you don't

2007-09-29T08:21:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's been a while since I've posted anything because I've been more focused on religious topics in the past couple of weeks. I may start doing the occasional post on that stuff too, but to date this has been pretty much exclusively a Market Anarchy blog.

Anyhow, I was drawn into a discussion on universal health care the other day with a friend. I have been, of course, taking a position from self-determination, which got me down the road once again about the nature of rights and what rights we have.

Rights stem from the axiom of self-ownership. The individual is the sole owner of his body, because he controls all of his actions and no other person can force him to, for instance, think a certain thought, or move his pinky muscles (we could argue things like pulses through an electrode, but extraordinary scenarios can usually be discounted easily enough). Nobody else has any right over someone else's body, because that would mean everyone had the same right over his body. Everyone thus controls everyone, which we know not to be the case - individuals own themselves and act as individuals,their muscles respond only to their master, not to any other human.

Following from that, you have a right to your body and the fruits of your labor. I think the argument for property following from self-ownership is probably familiar enough in libertarian circles. Every right you have comes from here - the right not to have any harm done to your body (including death), the right not to have harm done to your belongings (i.e. theft, vandalism), etc.

The problem is that many people in this day and age have assumed other 'rights' too, which are in fact counter to this axiom. I'm going to take the 'right to health care' as my first example. The phrase is common enough among Liberals, and is used to justify the setting up of a universal health care system, so that it is 'protecting the rights of all'. Even some pseudo-libertarians use this argument - government is supposed to protect the rights of an individual, I have a right to health care, government needs to provide it. I once, in my early investigations into libertarianism, believed the same sort of thing about education. I know better now, of course.

But what does it mean to say you have a right to health care? Who's going to provide it? Who's going to pay for it? When do you have a right to it? Well, to say you have a right to health care means that you're demanding the labor of someone else (doctor), that they have an obligation to treat you simply because you need it. But how can this be a right, if each individual has full ownership of himself? No other person can lay claim to another's labor as a right.

If we then say that they're hired, making it a voluntary transaction, then who pays for it, and how much? If you have a right to health care, than you're basically saying you have a right to it for no cost, or at a cost of your determination. However, if the doctor doesn't want to do it for the amount you're offering (or for any reason, really), then it's a violation of his self-ownership to force him to perform the operation.

If you have a right to something, you have a right to it at all times and all places. You always have a right not to not be harmed bodily (precluding self-defense and right-violation, of course, a separate topic), no matter where or what time it is. If you're sick, and all of the doctors are busy with other patients, do you have the right to pull a doctor out of the room and demand he take a look at you now? And if so, doesn't that suddenly violate the right of the patient already being seen? It's pretty easy to bring false 'rights' out using the argument from absurdity, pointing out how the right fails when you apply it as an actual right.

Education falls along the same lines. You have no right over the people teaching, you have no right to their labor for free or for a cost of your choosing. You don't have a right to it at 4 in the morning, or when the teacher is showering, etc. What you have is a right to your own property and body, and you can voluntarily trade for these services - a voluntary trade being one in which both parties agree to a transaction without the use of coercion, and in which both parties benefit from an increase in value from the transaction (not necessarily in monetary worth).

The same goes for many other assumed rights, like the right to not be discriminated against, a right not to be offended, a right to food and water, right to housing, etc. I'm sure you can all come up with a dozen or more examples of right people claim to have that quickly evaporate when you play them out as rights, derivatives of self-ownership.

Fuck you, Giuliani... (a rant)

2007-08-23T12:48:00.000-06:00

...fuck you in the fucking neck!

It absolutely frightens me that we have the strong possibility of having Giuliani ruling over us all in the near future. He's apparently leading the GOP polls, and polled higher in matchups with a good number of democratic candidates. Why does everyone hold this guy in high praises? Why is he the 'nation's governor'? What, because he was the fucking mayor of NYC when the World Trade Centers were hit? Big fucking deal - anyone could have been that man. He has also played that card to death, much as Dubya has - all he has to do is mention '9/11' and he's going to get an applause. People, wake up! How many have fallen into that malaise of Statism, that lack of ability to think beyond nationalism and a couple of key trigger words? It makes me sad that so many people are blindly faithful to the government, saying their pledge, worshipping their state-sponsored murderers, holding their hand on heart as they sing the national anthem, worship the flag religiously, defend democracy as freedom and thinking of authoritarianism as freedom?

When someones says something like this"

"What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do." - Rudy Giuliani

why do people applaud this person? Why do they buy into the 1984-style rhetoric that is so obviously doublespeak? Why have people become so complacent to go to pasture, awaiting the slaughter? As your freedoms ar being taken away, visibly and rapidly, you're being told that this new order is freedom, and you're to like it. And so many of you out there are just eating it up! Please, open your eyes! Anyone who says they're going to create laws for this or ban that or create a new government program for this etc ad nauseum is holding out freedom towards you. They're telling you they're going to up your dose of cyanide and that this is good for you, and so you should jump onto their bandwagon!

Politics is one of THE MOST EVIL professions on this planet. They make a living off of chaining you tighter and tighter, leaching money from your pockets at gunpoint, babying you as if you can't make a decision and big brother knows best. They give you things you don't want or don't need at your expense, and they don't give you a choice. They claim to represent you, even though you may have not asked for a representative, or that representative, or to participate whatsoever. They claim legitimacy by majority support, but are chosen by a tiny minority and once they're in have no responsibility to you. They cheat you and lie to you and take money from you to further their own agenda, which is usually at the expense of your bank account and your personal liberties, and you think this is not only acceptable, but that it is IN AND OF ITSELF THE ESSENCE OF FREEDOM AND A FREE SOCIETY.

Politics is covered in blood! Every endorsement of government is a support for their murderings, their arrests and jailings, their death sentencings! Please, look at the man behind the curtain! Forget the fairy-tale stories they told you in grade school about government looking out for the people, protecting law - a look at the history of this country will show you the opposite. And this fucker Giuliani is only the latest in a long string of authoritarians posing as defenders of freedom. Mind you, Giuliani is only the trigger for this rant because he is so obvious about it, but he is by no means the bad seed. They're mostly operating on the same principle, but most of them cushion their intentions a little better, with feel good words and fuzzy terms.

Well, I think I'm done. My next entry will likely be more coherent and have a more specific topic. Thank you, and to those of you with your eyes still closed, now's the time to come out of your dream and out of bed.

Who Will Build The Roads

2007-08-08T12:51:00.001-06:00

Simple answer - people.

Okay, so I know that this topic is nothing new, and every anarchist has heard it. "Oh, we need the State to build the roads! There's no other way! Hyuck!" Okay, maybe I'm getting a bit mean. But I truly think that anyone who asks this question hasn't taken more than a couple seconds to think about it. Not only is it easy to think of a vast possibility of options, but we also have historical and current examples of private roads!

Anyhow, I'd like to expand upon some recent thoughts I've had on the issue. We all know that toll roads are a perfectly good and viable solution to building and replacing currently State-run highways. But let's start without the framework of already existing roads. A lot of statists will probably suggest that beyond maintenance, the State is needed to initially build roads. Well, to start, the State doesn't build the roads as it is. The State contracts construction teams to build the roads - they act as a middle man, taking the money from you and paying these people to do the work. In this process, they lose a bit of money to beaurocrats and in paying extra time for the inefficiencies caused as a result of State contracts. What, then, is the benefit of having the State pay for the construction of roads? Not only are you spending more money, but you have no say in the way it's spent!

Secondly, there are plenty of other mechanisms that could fund the building of roads. My pet idea now is the use of 'incorporating' the road. Rather than up-front paying for the building of a road out of private capital, then spending years to repay the cost of the road by tolls (which may take quite a while, pending on the project and its traffic), a company could easily sell stock in the road in order to raise the capital to build the road, and avoid the initially high barrier of entry that would be created by paying out of pocket. This kind of practice would easily see to it that road construction was not a difficult task. This would probably also see a greater improvement in roads in more high traffic areas, which are those that ought to receive the most attention, since they would be more lucrative investments. One might even see all or part of a city or suburban area's roads build in this fashion in an integrated network, with tolls being collected traveling into the road network system.

These are, of course, not the only options available. We don't even know exactly how competitive other means of private transportation would be if not for the subsidized roads. Perhaps gyrocopters would be more economically feasible? In that case, we may see a completely new infrastructure being created. One thing is for certain, though. Roads are by no means the unsolvable problem of anarchists.

Blog Carnival

2007-07-29T00:30:00.000-06:00

Hello Market Anarchists and lovers of freedom! It's that time again, for the Market Anarchy Blog Carnival! As usual, we've got some great entries by some of our regulars and some contributions from new writers to this carnival.

Warren Wong of INTJ Personal Development submitted an excellent entry entitled The Gap Concept. In it, he discusses how the barrier of entry for a second business entering a market is higher than for the first business.

"This is because it takes extra incentive for the customer to switch to your company’s product. If the two products are exactly the same, there would be no reason for them to take the effort to switch to yours. In fact, oftentimes, your product will need to be much better than the other company’s in order for them to switch."

Wong provides an excellent analysis of why market competition results in improved products and innovation, apparently without reliance on patents and copyrights. His argumentation also seems to nicely corroborate the contention that the right to first sale is enough to gain a strong foothold, and other businesses cannot easily step in and take control of the market from you.

Next we have an entry entitled Just Don't Pay Your Taxes by Francois Tremblay of Check Your Premises. In it, he provides a scathing attack on "war tax" protestors' methods, namely the fact that any tax money can be used for any purpose by the State.

The State doesn’t give a shit about what you believe: it will take a proportional percentage of your money and fund the military anyway. There are no dollar bills marked “for the military” : any money can be used to finance anything, whether you object to it or not.

At the end of his post, he provides an excellent link showing how to avoid paying federal (and even State, in most cases) income taxes by completely legal means, in the case you're worried about the consequences of other methods of tax protesting.

Wenchypoo of Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket has submitted two entries this time around. The first is a criticism of Michael Moore's pressing for socialized health care in his new documentary Sicko entitled Who Needs Universal Healthcare?

In the words of Ted Nugent: "to have health care, you have to first care about your health." People should be lining up in the produce section rather than the drive-thru lane!

The second entry is Invasion of the Pod People, round 2. In it, she gives a lengthy criticism of the "Pod People", or the "Greenies" as Tremblay would call them, pointing out a great number bullshit policies and ideas they have been peddling to gain politcal strength. While I disagree to an extent on a couple of the listed items, it seems to pretty comprehensively demonstrate:

What’s different about this new batch of pod people issues is the amount of money they insist we spend to avoid certain doom, and how rabidly radical some people have gotten over their issues.

Jdavidb of Christian Anarcho-Capitalism writes about why "we" don't have the right to set immigration laws for "our" country, pointing out the weasel words of collectivist thinking used to sidestep the fact that my property is mine, and yours is yours, and we don't own everyone else's. He also includes in his post numerous Biblical arguments for his position, for any Christian Anarchist readers. Upon reading the following excerpt, I got a taste of Atlas Shrugged:

The gigantic power continually repeats the collectivist mantra: that we are all in this together, that it all belongs to all of us, that we all have the right (really those who happened to get the turn at power this term) to tell individuals what they may and may not do with what is theirs, or even to take away all or some of it, to make completely blameless actions into illegal acts.

From Jimmy Atkinson of Dedicated Hosting Guide we have his first post - 11 Web Hosts That Won't Dump You at the First Sign of Controversy, ones that won't cut your site for posting something on it they don't like (aside from illegal content - kiddie porn and 'copyright infringement', which can have negative consequences for the hosting company and kill their business). This is especially important to libertarians and anarchists in a time when many web hosts want to just sidestep any controversy and are willing to kill your free expression by censoring their hosted sites. So if you've had problems with your anti-State site coming into conflict with your provider, you may want to take a look at some of them.

There is a large online movement to keep the Internet free of censorship and unfair sanctions. While no reputable Web host would knowingly support illegal content, most mainstream hosting companies also shy away from any controversy. Luckily, the few dedicated hosting services that do support free speech are going strong.

However, he loses several points for use of the phrase 'exercising our first amendment rights'. Surely, without the first amendment the rights still pertain. Also, the phrase 'civil liberties' mean freedoms protected from government control, a la a constitution. Nevertheless, there isn't anything inherently pro-state in the post, and the content is pro-liberty and useful, so I have decided to let it remain.

Aaron Kinney of the Radical Libertarians blog has submitted a thorough examination of illegal immigration: who's at fault, the economic reasons for immigration, and why it wouldn't be a bad thing. He does such a thorough job trashing the argument for constrained immigration so well, I think I'll just let his post speak for himself. Here's a snippet from Illegal Immigration Explained:

The fact of the matter is that there is a worker shortage in the US, both for high-skilled and low-skilled workers. If there wasn't, then there wouldn't be so many immigrants flocking here! The main reason that there are so many immigrants coming to the US year after year, decade after decade, is because there are still so many human resource shortages in the US.

Next, we have our first video entry from YouTube! It is entitled Objectivism and Anarchism, and XOmnivese counters a floundering Objectivist argument against anarchy. He does a very good job at pointing out Rand's contradiction and misunderstanding in arguing against anarchy.

Her argument against the system without a State is surprisingly utilitarian - she pretty much says 'because it won't work'. She never addresses the argument I just pointed out, she never even mentions the fact that a government has to initiate force in order to maintain itself as a monopoly, so she completely doesn't even address the main argument against government from an Objectivist position.

Finally, we have my post called Send a Letter to Your Representative, in which I point out the extensive use of weaselly collectivist language that is used to maintain the notion that you, the individual, have any real say in what the government does to you.

I have no representative, I have appointed nobody to speak on behalf of me. Nor will I. It's this kind of language that has corrupted reality and led so many people to think that they actually run or regulate that body called government that controls them.

In our oddities section, we have two posts this time around. The first endorsed a multi-level marketing scheme that I'm not even going to link to, for fear that someone reading this might actually fall into its trap and lose money. For anyone who doesn't know what a multi-level marketing scheme is, wiki it. Think Amway.

The second is a short post and comic about money from wttf.org. In the post, he criticizes credit cards as not real money, and its knack for helping people get into debt, but he doesn't explain his positions and shifts the blame away from those that should be taking it - the people misusing their credit cards. I just couldn't see any relation to anti-state, pro-market, market anarchy, or libertarianism, so it's going in the oddities. I did crack a smile at the comic though.

Thanks to everyone for submitting their entries, I hope you all submit again next month and we expand our number of entries and readership. Remember - if you don't want to make the oddities section next time, make sure your content matches the criteria of the carnival!
Carpe Libertatem!

Are All Environmentalists Evil?

2007-07-24T14:55:00.001-06:00

In a lot of libertarian and Market Anarchist circles, the very term 'environmentalism' is sure to send a scowl to many faces. It is quickly associated with increased government policy and intervention, regulation and taxation, increased bureaucracy and eminent domain seizures. And this is all very true, at least with a certain type of environmentalism.

I think a lot of us have become so enthralled in the smiting of those "environmentalists" like Gore that use fear-mongering and political lobbying to effect their desires, that we've forgot that that doesn't apply to all or even most who call themselves by the name. In the article The Truth About the Robber Barons by Thomas DiLorenzo, he seeks to correct the confusion over early 20th century industrialists being weaselly, corrupt individuals by separating the Robber Barons into two distinct categories: political entrepreneurs and market entrepreneurs. Likewise, I think it's about time we separate environmentalism into Voluntaryist environmentalism and Political environmentalism, two very different animals indeed!

Most of the environmentalists we hear about are those that are trying to get Congress to vote against oil drilling in Alaska, or to set mandatory Carbon emission standards, or to reclaim wetlands. And those folks are just passing off the force they don't want to use personally onto the feds, so they can point the guns at us indirectly. State gets more power and money, the political environmentalists get their way and public prestige from those that think its doing good, and everyone else is less free. Just like the political entrepreneurs, they're using the State as a weapon to achieve their goals, imposing a monopolistic overarching decree as opposed to offering a solution that is profitable to those who choose it, as we see in market entrepreneurship.

But a lot of people don't bother trying to push their ideas on others by force. Lots of people genuinely care about the environment, especially near where they live, and should be congradulated for showing how to truly go about making positive changes. We shouldn't let the political environmentalists tarnish the real meaning of the term - caring about the environment in which you exist.

If you're concerned about carbon emissions, and voluntarily go out and buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, or choose to bike, why should we condemn you? You're fulfilling your values, and in doing so generally saving money, too. Same goes for Compact Fluorescent Lamps - they cost a bit more, but have a life expectancy that compensates pretty well (up to 15x the life, with up to 10x the cost) with cost and uses significantly less energy. We shouldn't lump these efforts in under the brute political environmentalists' evil freedom-killing, because it's not. Choosing to save money voluntarily is completely compatible, and even advancing, of market ideals.

So to sum up, I think we ought to be more careful with tossing 'environmentalism' in a bad light, just as the statists ought to watch making such dubious, overarching claims about early 20th century industrialists being 'Robber Barons'. There's a political side, which we know is always twisted for power and directly opposed to self-determination (otherwise, why the need for the use of force?). Voluntary measures to make the environment we live in and most of us enjoy are great, and we shouldn't toss those efforts out the window. Being green doesn't necessarily mean being anti-business, pro-regulations/controls, or anti-markets. Contrarily, voluntaryist environmentalism is the complete opposite.

Send a letter to your representative

2007-06-20T09:00:00.001-06:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, but I've enjoyed the past 2 months of vacation and have spent most of it enlightening myself in some very informative books about religion, and also Ayn Rand's epic Atlas Shrugged.

Another thing I did was attend a conference at the Center For Inquiry's headquarters in Amherst, NY for a student leadership conference. There were a lot of great speakers and some good discussion, and it was an excellent experience getting to chat with dozens of atheists and freethinkers in a single building. One of the lectures, however, was about getting involved politically to provide favorable legislation or to counteract legislation in violation of separation of Church and State. And one phrase struck me, and struck me hard - I hadn't heard the phrase used since I've become an Anarchist. "Contact your representative..."

My ears perked up and my brain flooded with irritation. My representative? I have no representative, I have appointed nobody to speak on behalf of me. Nor will I. It's this kind of language that has corrupted reality and led so many people to think that they actually run or regulate that body called government that controls them. This weasel-wording is also found in arguments for the 'social contract' and for the Constitution, neither of which can be legally binding contracts because you didn't voluntarily agree to them and sign them. They were signed for a few 'on behalf' of many, a great many who were not given opportunity to voice their consent or dissent, but were lumped in anyhow.

This is exactly what we see with the use of that subtle turn of phrase, "your representative". These people were chosen by a few people to represent them, but to the rest of us that chose someone else or didn't choose at all, we're told that this person is supposed to represent us, though we never agreed to it.

Why should I plead to this person to vote on legislation in the way I want? I say plead because this person is obviously not representing a homogenous viewpoint - hundreds of people have to try to persuade "their representative" to vote as they would like. How can this person be a representative of you if they don't represent your viewpoint? If they must be persuaded to represent your views? This isn't representation, it's a microcosm of the who political system of majority rule and vulturous opportunism.

I think we, as those who are awakened to the nature of the State, ought to be especially wary of the phrases used by those politiking to the masses - it is often in this weasely language that the public is duped, and we need to be prepared to demonstrate that.

An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan - Francois Tremblay

2007-05-31T18:44:00.001-06:00

An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan

May 29th, 2007

Dear Ms. Sheehan,

You have recently written an entry in your diary which, if you’ll pardon me the metaphor, hands in your resignation to the anti-war movement. Even though I have not gone through the same experiences, I strongly sympathize with everything you say in it, and I think I may help clarify some things you might not yet be aware of.

Your thoughtful disillusionment with left-wing and right-wing politics echoes the feeling that other reasonable people, who desire change for the better but realize that politics is always the same song-and-dance, are eventually faced with. You are far from being alone.

To me, the most poignant passage in your entry is this:

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think.

You, and at least three thousand other mothers of soldiers, as well as tens of thousands of Iraqi mothers, are justified in demanding justice. But such justice will never be granted you by the government, whether it be Republican or Democrat.

Sending young men to their deaths for the interests of the ruling class is a phenomena that has existed for as long as government has existed as a concept. Every empire, from the Roman Empire to the British Empire to the current “America, World Police,” has had its millions of youths willing to spill their own blood for their “homeland,” indoctrinated in believing in their “homeland” from day one.

You probably understand the impossibility of getting justice for the war through politics by now. Neither will the end of these unjust wars be granted, even when the Iraq War itself eventually ends. The fact of the matter is this:

Political means cannot give lasting freedom. All that can be achieved by political means is the sustenance of political means (in short: politics can only create more politics).

I do not blame you from not knowing this from the onset, as most people have been indoctrinated into believing that the only avenue for change is to “work within the system.” I also used to believe in “working the system.” However, no successful ideology or movement has ever achieved any lasting freedom through doing so, because the ruling class is always in control.

You say you want “peace with justice.” This is a laudable goal, and I agree with you. In your tumultuous association with the peace movement, have you found anyone who was actually willing to understand the root causes of war, and how to eradicate them? Or did you only find people willing to agitate against war, but with no binding force or principle?

I am sure you have thought about the causes of war. I can’t vouch for your reflexions on the topic. I will tell you what I know. There are many factors that cause war, and most of these are outside anyone’s reach. But I can point to one necessary and crucial cause that we can change: government power. And who says government, says taxation.

The 20th Century proved, if you were paying any attention, that taxation is the great enemy of civilization. How do you think Hitler paid for that army? With voluntary contributions? How did Stalin pay for the Gulag Archipelago? With baked goods sales?
James Ostrowski

Everyone is forced to comply and finance these wars, whether they like them or not, by taxation. By monopolizing the resources in a society, government has the power of waging war on a grand scale, in the name of interests which otherwise would not waste the money needed for such actions. Government has the power of luring our youth with free educations in order to do its bidding, or outright enslave them for a period of time (through the draft).

Activists love the government because they want to manipulate its power to their advantage. So it is a very hard fact to face for peace activists, but an inescapable fact, that government is necessary for large-scale war. Anyone who desires peace as a primary value of society must realize that lasting peace can only be achieved if there is no government.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
Leo Tolstoy (Christian Anarchist)

As a Market Anarchist, I believe that government, as the monopoly on law and force in a society, exploits people’s resources, children and moral integrity in the name of wars that only benefit itself and its powerful friends. I also believe that the only way to prevent governance abuse is to have a free competition of governance, on the market.

Right now, those who govern us are held accountable to no one. They will never be held accountable unless they have equally powerful competitors able to use the law to get recourse for the victims. They will never be held accountable until we can choose not support them, and support someone else instead, leaving us free to live our lives the way we intend.

It would be absurd for anyone to cooperate with their enemies (the ruling class) in order to try to achieve change! And yet that is what most peace activists do. The ideology of peace, like any other ideology or movement, can only be achieved by disengagement and principled resistance.

All successful improvements in man’s freedom and understanding have been brought about by such means. No positive movement in history has ever succeeded by any other means. And disengagement and principled resistance against government and its criminal monopoly is what we advocate.

You may think that the concepts we advocate sound radical. However, I truly believe they are the only solution to the problem of war. Historically, Market Anarchist societies did not wage war on other societies, simply because war is too costly to wage if you have to bear the cost yourself, and you can’t steal from others or enslave them in order to wage wars for you. Until we understand that having a monopoly of force able to finance war by stealing from our own pockets and enslaving our children is a bad idea, we will never solve the problem of war.

I hope I have been able to clarify some things for you, and perhaps spark some interest in our growing movement. Either way, good luck to you in your future endeavors.

Francois Tremblay

Ron Paul - False Messiah

2007-05-29T14:27:00.001-06:00

It's been the buzz going around libertarian and anarchist circles lately. Ron Paul, the man with the plan! He's going to cut the government down, a great step toward anarchy/minarchy! Libertarians across the country are already pledging to vote for him in the coming election, even people who previously espoused non-participation.

But is Ron Paul really the 'messiah', come to save us all? Will getting him into the presidency really bring us closer to anarchy, or is it a futile move, in fact treading us closer to the waterfall than to the shore? This seems to be a common point of contention amongst anarchists - does one vote, or not vote? I used to waver as well, but I now stand firmly on the not-vote side.

Firstly - voting is the system by which people cast a ballot to choose which rich aristocrat will rule over them. Whether it's a more lenient master or a more brutal master, it is still a master. Sure, we could toss our vote to the lenient one and say 'I want you to rule me', in the hopes he'll throw you a bone or two. But in another 4 years you've got to choose masters again, and because you've done nothing to damage this system permanently, you're back at square one again.

Secondly - by voting, your actions are stating that you acknowledge that your life and well-being are up for vote, and rather than stand aside and say 'I won't have any participation in this illegitimate charade', you toss in the vote in your favor with hopes that most other people don't wish to have you controlled. Your actions says to everyone that you accept the terms that if the majority will it, it shall be done.

Thirdly - if you vote, you can't complain. If the system puts into power a dictator, by the very rules of the voting game, you can't whine that it's not what you wanted. When you tossed in your vote, you agreed to the rules, and you have to accept whatever the end result is, despite the obvious immorality of it. The election of the Nazi Party was in full line with democracy. You can't place your bet on the roulette table and then pull it out after the wheel has stopped spinning. You must accept every outcome of the democratic process, including whatever wars, taxation, laws, etc are put into place by the officials as democracy at its fulfillment. It is the essential trap of the State - your participation damns you and puts a hold on you.

Fourthly - you cannot remove the State through the State mechanism. Trying to do such only validates the State itself. If you must try to work through the system to take out the system, then that means that the State is necessary. Anarchy must be achieved by a separate route from the State mechanism.

Fifthly - your vote doesn't matter. There are only two primary options in the election. There are millions of people. Your vote will not decide the election. Let the people who are still stuck on the necessity of the State vote Ron Paul in. But you ought to stay away from the polls, or at least make a fuss about the illegitimacy of rule. You accomplish more in changing minds than you do hitting the poll.

Sixthly - VOTING IS NOT MANDATORY. Unlike taxes, the State doesn't put a gun to your head and tell you to vote (yet). You are uncoerced. Would you assist the State by taxation if you weren't held at gunpoint to do so? Of course not. So why would you vote, assisting the State in its shroud of legitimacy, if you're not forced to? Don't ever voluntarily give away your freedom or support the looters and leeches! If they put a gun to your head, go ahead and vote for a write-in candidate. But make them hold the gun, and make sure it's exposed!

Finally - in order to take down the State, we need to rid it of it's facade of being the legitimate desires of 'the people'. By participating, we get lumped into 'the people', and become part of their statistic of voters. The smaller the number of voters compared to the population, the less they can honestly make the claim that their rule is the will of the majority. As it is, it is only a small fraction of the population that decide the presidency. We should be seeking to widen this gap between the number of voters and the population number, to shrink the voting population to the point where nobody can deny that it is in fact a small number of people acting as dictators over the rest of us.

This should be the goal to toppling the State - delegitimizing it. If we force the gun out in the open, destroy this conception of 'majority will', then we can enagage in non-violent disassociation from the State, stop obeying laws, paying taxes, etc., and be seen or what we are, fighters for freedom, rather than as criminals. Until the shroud is lifted, that's all we are to most. So don't help this facade to go on - withhold your vote, and take a stand that your freedom is not up for someone else to decide!

New Market Anarchy Store

2007-05-29T14:23:00.000-06:00

I've been working on some MA shirt designs, which you can now purchase here at The Anti-Collectivist. If you like the designs, go for it! If you have suggestions o things that you would like to see, design ideas, different products, etc. let me know. I have a few more in the works as is.

Market Anarchy Blog Carnival

2007-04-29T15:10:00.000-06:00

Well everyone, the second edition of the Market Anarchy Blog Carnival is up, including my post about troop worship. Go check it out here.

Founding Ancapistan

2007-04-26T06:59:00.000-06:00

I was asked a very good question by a friend who's still a big MA skeptic. He asked why we didn't go set up an anarchist society of our own, and why would destroy the United States in order to achieve our task and not some less developed country.

I would love it if we could go and establish our MA society somewhere. That is, after all, what we're trying to achieve. The problem is, where would we do it? Most of the landmass of the world is claimed by one State or another, and we would likely face the same problems there as we would here for not bothering to obey their laws. Governments don't take kindly to those that are seeking to undermine them and offer a choice superior to their own. We could expect that a State would do everything in its power to crush an anarchist society within its claimed borders.

This is why we're seeking to undermine the government first, establishing the infrastructure we need for a fully functional society while the State is still in its waning days - so we don't face the backlash of a state that still has legitimacy and popular support.

Now, there are several areas where there is unclaimed land. Most notably, this would be Antarctica, and the Arctic if you accept living on an ice sheet. There are also some islands we could get away with. Some groups are trying to organize the founding of an island nation, such as the FreeNation Foundation and the attempt to buy Sealand.

There are problems, though, that make this a more difficult prospect. Island ant arctic nations are subject to a problem of minimal resources. If we are to demonstrate to the world that anarchy is possible and pragmatic, we must demonstrate it also on the technological level (or higher) of western society. To do this, we need access to resources that simply aren't naturally available on the islands or in the arctic zones. In order to obtain these, we would need to trade with States to accompish this, and it seems doubted that without the initial resources there would be very much to trade from the island to begin with. So we need a chunk of land where have access to at least some resources necessary for building modern technology and services.

My friend proposed that we should seek to establish our libertarian society in a place like Iraq. At this point he's either just being difficult for his own amusement or isn't thinking about what he said. To establish an anarchist society in Iraq would not be a feasible option right now. The presence of military forces from a variety of countries, all which are seeking to actively establish a democratic State, would quickly move against any efforts to destroy the structure they're there to create.

Secondly, I doubt the Iraqis would take too kindly to a bunch of westerners, who they already have good reason to dislike, who come in and try to set up their own little society in a section of the country. There's a striking contrast of values, and to simply jump in there without trying to gain the infrastructure first would doom the project early on. At least when trying to establish an Anarchic society in the country where we grew up and are part of the society, we have a bit more sympathy in the eyes of the world and don't come off as opportunists going to invade someone else's territory and steal it.

Thirdly, there's the issue of infrastructure. Why would we prefer to take our project to a shit hole country in Africa where colonialism has ruined the economy and allowed the takeover of dictators? Places where the infrastructure would have to be built from scratch? The western countries have most of the infrastructure in place, the only problem is that there's government interference that keeps the society from being free. If the foundation is in place here, why should we go to a less stable country without the foundation or values that we have? That said, I would of course support anyone in one of those third-world nations who wanted to try to establish an Anarchic society, like Somaliland did until the US got involved. But the difference in values and the basic infrastructure makes it unappealing as a place for most of us who have a better foundation here.

There are measures being taken, though, to move us on a path to freedom. There are many non-voters going on, and voter apathy is increasing. There are more and more libertarian websites and blogs going up all the time. There are the wonderful podcasts of Stefan Molyneaux (including this one, expounding on some other reasons we don't just run out to establish our society elsewhere), there's the Graveyard of the Gods forum. The mechanism for getting the ideas out there and trying to free people from the concept of statism are in place. There are libertarian projects like the Free-State Project, trying to show the world that a libertarian style society (while minarchist) can work and thrive. There's a long struggle ahead to get to freedom.

Providing Cover for Murder

2007-04-14T16:56:00.000-06:00

Troop worship provides cover for atrocity

The United States is full of worshippers. And I'm not referring here to the Christian majority. No, I'm referring to the worship of soldiers. The idolization and heroization of these people is alarming to a freethinking libertarian like me, who sees past the facade put up by years of State school indoctrination, propaganda, and media.

Many people do understand, however, that the military leadership and government make mistakes and issue bad orders. The liberal take on the Iraq war is a sure enough example, where they acknowledge the faults in starting it in the first place. Military leaders are grilled, the people who issued the orders in the prison scandals were condemned... but the soldiers themselves are rarely called into question.

Nobody is willing to go against the phrase "support our troops", and they'll often start a controversial opinion by assuring people that they do in fact support the troops. This behavior, however, is extremely harmful.

Much like the moderate Christians is Sam Harris's argumentation, the people that unflaggingly 'support the troops' provide cover for the bad policy decisions and the immoral actions of politicians and soldiers alike. By continuing to support the soldiers who execute the orders of the State, they do nothing to curb the State's appetite for war.

In fact, they only encourage the State to be more reckless. Because funding will never be cut to the troops afar, the State will have a continued means of waging war. It tacitly justifies the actions of the State, because people are going to support the collective soldiers despite the atrocities they commit. It's the same way taxation works to create more bureaucratic deficiency, except with much more death and violence.

By upholding soldiers as virtuous defenders of our rights and freedom, regardless of the actual actions they commit or their absolute subservience to the State, we perpetuate the State's primary means of keeping us as sheep. If we are not allowed to question whether supporting soldiers is a good thing or not, then we're going to see more and more immorality coming from the military, command AND grunts.

Condemning of the command rather than the people that execute it also perpetuates the immorality of the military. It doesn't hold individuals accountable for their actions, because they fall under the cover of the State. To blame the State alone as the reason why we're at war is to deny that the soldiers themselves have allowed the atrocities to take place. Most US soldiers aren't being forced at gunpoint by the State to shoot people. Most volunteered, and most are proud to be soldiers.

It is the choice of every individual soldiers to actually pull the trigger that kills a person. One cannot absolve his responsibility for a person's death simply because he was instructed to do it. To deny this and pin it on a collective is to remove the responsibility of each individual for his actions. The State is used as a similar collective to bypass the consequences of stealing, or forcing a neighbor to behave in a certain way. But again, when used with the military, it has even more violent and deadly results.

Supporting the US soldiers and/or the State as a collective is thus no different from condoning the immoral actions committed by them. To support the troops, even if you feel their only valid use is defense, is to give them carte blanche. If you do not hold individuals responsible for their moral decisions, then you are effectively supporting the soldiers to engage in immoral actions of violence, murder, kidnapping, and theft wherever they find it necessary.

Waiting for Marriage

2007-04-12T09:23:00.000-06:00

I'd like to continue the topic of supposed virtues by spending some time talking about marriage. Note - this post will be primarily opinion, and this is merely my personal take on the issue.

Firstly, marriage is seen by a lot of people to be a necessary institution. Couples feel a need to get married in either a religious or state ceremony as a way of legitimizing their relationship, as if the moment before they were married was any different (from a non-legal stance). Many traditional or conservative couples see waiting until this ceremony to have sex or to move in together to be virtuous as well.

Firstly, I don't think that marriage is necessary for a relationship. Other than grant certain legal status (which I'll get to...), what does it really change in the relationship itself? It is merely a ceremonial rite, used in earlier times to cement alliances between families, gain goods from one side or the other, and other reasons that we simply don't hold in modern western culture. In the modern world, it is simply a declarative statement that you want to be recognized as a couple to the rest of society.

Many people view marriage as a binding agreement, though, which I suppose it is. The problem I see with this is that it transforms a purely voluntary relationship into one of obligation. While in many or even most cases, the couple would be together regardless of being married, it ofting leads to a couple feeling like they need to stay together despite differences - particularly among the conservatives and tradionalists that see divorce as bad. This is my personal reason for not feeling like marriage is necessary for me, though I'm not necessarily opposed outright.

My next gripe with marriage is that it carries certain legal priveleges in the United States. Married couples are given special rights as far as medical visitation, insurance, and taxes go, whereas unmarried coupels aren't. Why should such an institution be supported by the State, while other family and relationship structures are left to fend on their own? Why can't an unmarried couple who has kids and lives together have the same abilities as their married counterparts? Why is the privelege limited to those who have participated in a state sanctioned institution that only allows certain types of couples to claim codependency?

Finally - it is often argued, mostly by Christians, that it is virtuous to wait until marriage to have sex or even move in together. This seems to me to be a horrible idea, especially when their argument against these things before marriage is that it can change a relationship and force it to fall apart. Well, if this is the effect that doing these things can have, isn't it best to find out before investing in a large ceremony and paying for the divorce lawyer down the road? Or, if you don't believe in divorce, getting stuck in a lousy relationship for the rest of your life? It is better to test the waters before diving in head first.

My personal view on the matter is that marriage is not an important institution to me. It wouldn't bother me if I never got married, choosing instead to live as an unmarried couple. The only issue would be trying to obtain the same priveleges as a married couple. I also have no problem getting married, if my girlfirned is adament. I'm completely passive on the issue. I do, however, see living together and engaging in all of the actions of a devoted couple as being necessary before investing in a ceremony and contract. I think this is only logical.

Morality vs. Legality

2007-04-12T08:16:00.000-06:00

A view perpetuated by the government, schools, media, Hollywood, and pretty much the rest of society is that morality and legality are pretty much synonyms. Or, rather, more virtue is placed on being law-abiding than on being moral. You see people looked down on for breaking the law and great emhasis placed on striving to follow the laws. Very seldom is breaking an immoral law portrayed as virtuous.

Take, for example, the issue of 'underage' drinking (in fact, this was the inspiration for this topic). Many people abide by the criteria set by the State for when you can consume alcohol and condemn those who don't. They see such behavior as deviant and immoral. But is it?

There's a very strong distinction that needs to be made between morality and legality. Morality is objective - based on the physical interactions of people, both with themselves and with others. As I wrote in my Morality - what is it? post,

This means that moral actions on the personal level are determined by your values, while on the interpersonal level they are determined by respect of self-determination and voluntaryism.

Legality, however, does not fulfill those criteria. It is the complete opposite of a respect of self-determination, in that the politicians determine for everyone else what they can and can't do. It is also the opposite of voluntaryism, in that the law obliges people to interact with coercive individuals such as the police and to obey them as the arm of the State.

Laws are not always, or even usually, derived from morality. Much of what appears in the America legal code is meant to give privelage to certain groups, enforce the personal ethical code of one section of the population (or of the ruling class), and expand the body of the State though coercion. If American law was defined by morality, you can bet that the lawbooks would be a hell of a lot skinnier.

Should we, then, condemn lawbreakers just because they're lawbreakers? Should we condemn those people who have a keg at their high school graduation party because they're not following the whim of a portion of society who thinks they have a say in everyone's lives? Certainly not. Upholding the law is not virtuous - one could easily cite the example of the orders to exterminate Jews by the German State during WWII.

Laws in and of themselves have nothing to do with what's right or wrong, only what will be punished and not. What we should really be condemning people for is immoral actions, actions that offend the right of an individual to exercise self-ownership and voluntaryism. That means specifically condemning State law, rather than praising it as all that is right in the world.

Happy Zombie Jesus Day, everybody!

2007-04-08T09:47:00.000-06:00

The 'Capital L' Libertarians

2007-04-03T08:02:00.000-06:00

A lot of confusion often follows the political terms that we use. In the United States, the words 'liberal' and 'conservative' have completely different meanings from how they're used on the other side of the pond. Within the US, there's confusion over the term 'libertarian' - it is associated with anarchist libertarians, communist libertarians (in practice a bit of a oxy moron), and the 'Capital L' Libertarians. This last group referns to the Libertarian Party in the US, freedom-lovers that are only most of the way there.

Many of the individualist that understand the evil of the State seem to flock to this political party in the hopes of changing the system from within. Can this work? Should we stop our fight for anarchy and instead try to strive for a minimalist government? Surely, it's far superior to what we have now. But can it be achieved, and how long would it survive?

The Libertarian Party suffers from some of the same problems as every other party that gets into the system does. Eventually, in order to get themselves into powerful positions, they have to make concessions to draw people to them. Since most of the population is still stuck in the heard mentality of statism, the people they need to appeal to are going to be the ones that still cling onto parts of the State. I was teh same way once - in my first steps into libertarianism, I still thought that it was desirable to keep the public school system in place (now I look back at that in embarassment). Because of the need to make concessions to gain power, it is most likely that we will never see the Libertarian Party get into any effective position without first watering down the position to meaninglessness.

It is easy to see that government always seeks to expand, even if it's unconciously. The government takes on new roles, and as it does so it has to employ more beaurocracies, which in turn create more regulations that need to be enforce, that must employ more people, etc. Wars and scare tactics are used to draw more money from people to invest in further expansion, sometimes conciously and sometimes not, to ensure the jobs and the well-lined pockets of the politicians and beaurocrats.

What does this mean for the Libertarians? Firstly, the objective of repealing taxes and laws that hamper personal and economic freedom will be impossible. Unless you can achieve a legislature with a 2/3 majority of Libertarians, you will never get any of these policies to fly. Most politicians will not tear away at their livelihood or remove the purpose for their career. Both the Democrats and Republicans will fight against one cause or the other - economic or personal - dislodging any piece of favorable legislation. It is also possible that many of the Libertarians that seek to get into office to make changes will end up changing their stance because their livelihood depends on it.

The second problem is that minarchy is only a temporary solution. Because governments grow, the minarchist State implemented by a successful Libertarian Party will only last a couple of decades. I believe it was Jefferson who spoke of rebellion everyten years being necessary to maintain freedom. These were wise words - looking at history we can see that the early American minarchy only lasted until the 1860s, when Lincoln came to office and the war against the South was waged. The loss of the confederates in their attempt to be free from the growing federalism marks the end of the libertarian experiment, as the central government rapidly began to expand in power and reach.

We can expect no different if we are to emplace a minarchist government today. It may not be as quicker, or it may be quicker. But it will happen - as people turn to the government structure as a solution, the beaurocracies will grow and government control strengthen. And with that, our liverties slowly perish. And as long as the power structure remains in place, people will seek these positions out - and these people will not be, by and large, those that wish to increase the freedoms of all. That would mean the end of their political career. Nor will they simply sit there and do nothing. They will promote their agenda, and thus expand the government. The people that seek the power to rule over all are those with the intent to negate freedom, those who want to tell us how we can conduct ourselves.

Whether the idea of thhe Libertarian Party is appealing or not, it should be fairly clear that the objective of leaving a government structure in place, reduced as it may be, will only lead to expansion later. Pragmatically, we cannot expect any significant success to come from the efforts of the Libertarian Party either. The only way by which we can have a permanent solution to this expanding State is to remove it altogether. It is unecessary for the conduction of freedom and the only way by which we can achieve it.

Market Anarchy Blog Carnival

2007-03-29T07:30:00.000-06:00

The blog carnival is up, to which I contributed my post "State-ianity". Check it out here:

http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/the-first-market-anarchist-carnival/

State-ianity

2007-03-28T23:41:00.000-06:00

When we address the atheist community about the evils of the state and our proposition for anarchy, we often hear the same scoffing remark - you have a belief, it's like a religion. Every time I hear this I die a little inside. Have these people not heard the same kind of argumentation before? Haven't they had a Christian point his finger at them and claim that "atheism is your religion"? I know I've heard it. It's ironic, then that a group that rejects one belief system accuses another group that does the same to be wrong-headed and following a "religion".

Anarchy is obviously not a religion in the same way that atheism isn't a religion. They're both rejections of a claim, neither explicitly defining anything apart from the mythical creatures and motives being demolished. When discussing the free market as a replacement for government, we are merely speaking of the natural means of cooperating and interacting with the rest of society.

But the point I would like to make in this post is that statism, not anarchy, is similar to monotheistic religion, with the State as its godhead.

The State is seen by many, even if not admitted as so, as being omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent, much like the Christian god. It is capable of knowing when people are doing something wrong, something illegal (sin), exploiting others, etc. It is seem as capable of stopping people from doing harmful things to themselves and to others, is capable of crushing all opponents and is seen as the bearer of truth and justice. It is also considered to be all-good in its conquest to crush immorality and illegality, to better the environment, making lots of jobs, helping the poor, etc. And like the Christian omni-all god, it suffers terrible contradictions in definition, because an entity that wields such power will not be all-good, nor will it be likely to be all-knowing.

Like gods, the State isn't held to the same moral level as everyone else. It is given special privilege and power that one must not question. We cannot judge people for their actions, but the State can. We cannot steal from people because it's immoral, but it is perfectly fine for the State to do it because it always has a plan for our betterment. The State works in mysterious ways, after all.

There's the ridiculous idea that without a State, people would act immorally - there'd be no basis for morality anymore. Sound familiar? Atheists, by the same logic, should supposedly be lacking in morality because they don't believe in a god. Why should we think that the lack of a government would suddenly make us all murderers? If all that's keeping you from committing immoral acts is the State, you have issues.

Letters to congressmen could easily be paralleled to prayers, in that lots of people send their desires and wishes to a fictitious image of a caring deity and few will ever get answered. In fact, I would propose that the odds of the contents of your letter being fulfilled are about the same as prayer. About half the time, you'll have guessed right.

Neither belief system respects the principles of voluntaryism. People are expected to obey the laws and whims of the State, or face punishment. It doesn't matter if you believe in or approve of the State to begin with, you're supposed to be damned for making light of its rules. It rules by a sort of divine decree - if the government has determine such an act to be bad, it is suddenly punishable, regardless of its objective moral implications. If you sin against the State, you will be punished with imprisonment (with a likely raping), fined, executed, or any combination.

Claims of necessity of the state are often supported by the view of the majority - most people think government is necessary, most people think that the State exists as a real and meaningful entity, rather than being a mechanism for people to exploit one another. Both are upheld by a majority-decision on their existence and benevolence.

Anarchy is unlike a god, in that it is a rejection of State-belief, acknowledgment that the State doesn't solve problems well, supports voluntaryism, acknowledges that morality can't be legislated through majority rule nor one man's decree, and holds everyone to the same standard of morality (dependence on universality).

I think atheists use this tactic because it's far easier to dismiss ideas if you convince yourself that they are crazy religious fantasies, not grounded in the real world. They'd rather not address the real content of the questions, preferring to subvert the doubting questions as a Christian would to that bit of evidence that suggests the Bible isn't quite accurate. It's also hard to confront a belief that you were engrained with from an early age. Any ex-Christians should be familiar to at least some extent with this issue.

And finally, like religion, belief that the State is actually looking out for our best interests and will listen to our pleas and offerings is a means to make ourselves feel like we're in control over everybody else - much as religion has always been a means of trying to control the forces of nature. It's much nicer to feel as if you have this supreme being trying to make your life better, a being with a vested interest in your life. And just like Christianity, it doesn't take much searching to find out that the teachings and history of the institution lie in direct contradiction to these ideals.

Talking to Others About Morality

2007-03-22T23:45:00.000-06:00

I was thinking about morality on my way home from an event this evening, because a Christian had asked where morality came from if not from god. This is of course nothing new, pretty much any time an atheist talks to a theist who's not been in too many of these conversations, the point comes up.

So as I was walking back home, I was trying to think how I would answer the question very simply and concisely. If you just jump into the conversation on morality by pointing out that it's objective and based off of self-ownership, it doesn't seem to really convince people. While people will agree to this premise, it seems that the connection to morality is difficult for some.

I traced back in my head the reason why this axiom is valid, and as I did so I had a revelation. Self-ownership is axiomatic because of the moral razor, of course. For something to be a moral imperative, it has to be applicable to all people at all times. Otherwise, it's merely a subjective choice. A rule cannot be applicable to one group of people, but not to another.

Therefore, we are left with three options that could possibly be considered universal:
a)Nobody owns/controls your body
b)Everybody owns/controls your body
c)You alone own/control your body

A is ruled out because if nobody controls your body, then your body can't do anything. This is obviously a falsehood. B is ruled out because nobody but you has the power to flex your muscles, or to create your thoughts, at least in all current practicality. Tampering with stimuli in the brain can produce results controlled by another person, but these situations are rare and do not exist from the start. So we are left with C, which most people would see as the obvious solution even without having refuted A or B.

It was here that I had my revelation, thinking about this principle and how theft, murder, and kidnapping are immoral from this axiom. Why, I asked myself, don't people infringe on this right? Because for a moral principle to be universal, it must apply to everyone. Any if you are capable of doing this to other people, they are also capable of doing it to you. Essentially, I realized, the principle of self-ownership is the inverted golden rule. Since this rule states that you shouldn't treat others how you don't want to be treated, it acknowledges the same exact principle - that an immoral action is one that doesn't apply equally to all people - and also essentially holds self-ownership as foundational.

I had never made this connection before, and think it may be a useful way to start talking to someone about objective morality, since the golden rule is easier to relate to the general population. As them to justify why the golden rule should be considered moral, and you will be able to lead them to the concept that the individual's right to self-ownership is fundamental, and from there justify the immorality of the state without scaring off or losing them in the discussion of what morality really is.

Survivalist Morality

2007-02-18T15:12:00.000-06:00

An argument that I’ve never heard before came up the other day. It was that morality is objective, and thus there is only one moral choice in each situation. Up to this point I agreed, but here’s where the problem comes up. It was argued that therefore, the only moral is the one that does the least harm. The example used was that suicide is immoral because it is the killing of the self and thus is a harmful decision.

There are some fundamental problems with this view that I’d like to address, and it really boils down to the nature of morality itself.

The primary problem with this outlook is that it assumes that survivalism is the basis for morality. But I would argue that survivalism is a secondary trait that results from the real primary basis – individual values.

While people have the same basic values, such as life, food, shelter, etc, these are not necessarily on the top of the hierarchy. Often, in a person’s value system, a situation will arise in which there is a conflict of interest between values, and the value of one will necessarily be greater than the other. For instance, somebody who’s being kept alive only by life support may value the lack of pain over his life. Thus he may desire to die, even though this means that he’s denying survivalism.

The notion that morality is based entirely upon survivalism, what action is best for the body, is ultimately Utopian. Imagine a society in which the only moral actions were determined by this guiding principle. It would necessitate that there would be only a very limited number of foods that are moral (optimum nutrition), only one type of house that is moral to build (for space, efficiency, etc), and one type of clothing to wear (best keeps you the right temperature, dryness, etc).

Such a morally optimized world would essentially be automatons reacting in the only way they can to fulfill their need to survive. You may say, “well you’re arguing that there’s an optimum position available, but really we have to choose the best choice of what’s available.” But then I must point out that if an optimum hasn’t been reached, then no decision you make is really moral. You may lack knowledge of a better choice located somewhere else, and so the decision you’ve made is immoral.

So let’s get back to values then. If survivalism isn’t the answer, then how are morals determined? The answer is that morality, when referenced to the self, is the fulfilling of one’s value system. This principle is the key to morality in general, because the right to self-determination is at the heart of every action, and infringement of it is at the heart of every immoral action between people.

The most moral choice for a person to choose is the one that fulfills his primary values best. If his value for a cupcake outweighs his desire for good health, then denying the cupcake is the more damaging thing for him.

An immoral action is one of two things: a) an action that denies his primary values or b) an action that denies somebody else’s self-determination. The latter of these trumps over the former because without it the former is impossible to achieve. This principle is also one of the biggest arguments against government.

Government is necessarily immoral, because its entire purpose is to engage in acts that deny someone else’s self-determination. The very existence of a government depends on it, that people will be subject to the set of rules created by the ruling class despite the implications to their own values. The idea of taxation, which funds government, is also inherently against self-determination, because it is the forced removal of one’s property – theft.

Stepping back to the issue of survivalist morality for a moment, though, we must ask does survivalist morality even demand government. And the answer to that is a firm ‘no’. Even if you accept survivalism as the primary principle of morality, a government does not have this goal in mind. Governments do not attempt to create a better condition for human health, habitation, clothing, etc. Their purpose is not to better the ‘human condition’. The necessary goal of governments is to enforce the views of the ruling class onto everyone.

If people are inconsistent in following survivalist morals on their own, why should one believe that the people within the government would? And if such decisions need to be made on a case-by-case basis, taking in all available data, then how can a government determine and enforce the moral decision anyhow? Legislation by the government may even end up hampering the best choice for you in your particular situation. Even from a survivalist perspective, it seems, government is an unnecessary and even disruptive agent.

New Hellbound Alleee Network

2007-02-01T09:29:00.000-06:00

The new Hellbound Alleee Network is now up and running, with such shows as teh non-Prophets, Freal Forum, Evolution 101, Hellbound Aleee, Machinery to Freedom, and many more! If you enjoy freethought, atheism, individualism, and libertarianism, come check it out!

The schedule

The feed

Stockholm Syndrome

2007-01-23T10:26:00.000-06:00

For those of you not familiar with it, Stockholm Syndrome is a case where people begin to exhibit loyalty to someone that puts them in danger or does them harm. The term was named for a bank robbery in Sotckholm in which the people being held hostage and defended the criminal after they got out.

It's kind of akin to sympathizing with a band of thugs that takes your stuff and controls you with a gun to your head, isn't it? Well, no, it's EXACTLY that. So what causes somebody to behave in such a way? Here's what wikipedia has to say:

"According to the psychoanalytic view of the syndrome, the tendency might well be the result of employing the strategy evolved by newborn babies to form an emotional attachment to the nearest powerful adult in order to maximize the probability that this adult will enable - at the very least - the survival of the child, if not also prove to be a good parental figure. This syndrome is considered a prime example for the defense mechanism of identification."

Is this why ardent statists behave the way they do? Are they simply reacting to the imposition of this vast controlling machine by identifying with it, in the hope that by supporting it it will have sympathy on them and help them survive? Is it merely a defense mechanism to the fact that the government assumes control over what they can and can't do? And rather than dealing with the truth of this in their mind, they try to identify with their captors to feel that eveything's going to be all right?

I think this may in fact be the case for a large number of people. People have been under the thumb of the government since birth, essentially, in one way or another. How does one deal with a situation in which they have no visible 'out'? You have to warp your brain into accepting the situation as necessary, moral, or the only possibility. The fact that the State begins indoctrinating people in these ideas from a very young age only spurs this Syndrome on. It's as if the hostage situation went on for years and years, and one of the tellers had a baby. The robbers taught that baby that this situation was necessary, and those already caught up in the Syndrome reaffirmed the idea. The child is going to grow up thinking this is alright, and to undermine this belief would probably require great effort, like deconverting someone who's been indoctrinated by the church since childhood.

Of course, some of us are more inclined to questioning the validity of such claims than others, and some are more susceptible than others. The question is, how can we succeed in getting those who are stuck in the Stockholm Syndrome out of it and back into the rational world?

Theft By Proxy

2007-01-22T22:28:00.000-06:00

Theft – taking of someone’s property against their will.

I don’t think making the connection that taxes are theft is very difficult to make. It’s obviously taking your property away from you by force – how many of you can honestly say that if you didn’t have to pay taxes, that you would still toss a good fraction of your paycheck at the government? Whether government gives you anything in return is inconsequential, unless you agreed to the trade and voluntarily chose to pay the government. After all, if I take the clothes you’re wearing and give you $10 in return, it’s still theft unless you’ve consented to that trade. A robber who loses a shoe in your house stole from you, even though he in effect left you a shoe in exchange.

So, if someone wants to argue that taxes are not theft, they’ll truly find it impossible to defend. Unless, of course, they can ask every person in the US if they had consented to being taxed, and all of them said yes. Which, is obviously not the case, since I dissent. Any attempt to try to rationalize an immoral action such as theft is to me almost incomprehensible – that somebody understands that an action is simply immoral but for some reason considers the immoral to be the superior choice, I just can’t understand it.

People can step outside of this situation and look at it and call it ‘okay’, because they don’t have to do it themselves. The State may be used as a proxy for whatever people think should be done, immoral as it may be. What the State allows people to do is to vie for an immoral action, and pass the blame, guilt, and responsibility for the action off to something else – an artificial construct that supposedly doesn’t have to play by the same rules.

If you think that it’s okay for the State to steal from everybody, why shouldn’t it be okay for everyone else to do the same? Don’t bother saying they provide services, because I could provide services too. They might not be services you want, but hell – the state doesn’t necessarily give me services I want! Most of them are worthless to me, or inferior to another alternative I could pay for.

The State is used as a means for people to control other people’s lives without having to feel guilty about coercing themselves. If people had to go around and steal $2 from every person in the country themselves to pay for their retirement fund, do you think they could really do it? Would they? Would they feel good doing it? Most people would not likely engage in such measures to obtain the money. It’s because people are, by-and-large, not coercive to each other. The problem is that the State creates a situation in which people can engage in coercion anonymously to get what they want, and it removes the risk of retribution from the people they’re stealing from, kidnapping, or coercing in some other manner.

No matter how you look at it, taxes are immoral and theft at its very root. All the state does is feed immorality and pits us one against another for its own benefit. As a whole, we all lose, while the people who are in power gain.

You're Not Dying For Me

2007-01-21T11:47:00.001-06:00

“Died for your freedoms”, “risking his life for your freedoms”, “protecting your freedoms”. How many times have these terms been used to describe those in the American Armed Forces? How many times have you held your tongue about the military because, after all, they’re doing a ‘noble’ deed?

I must ask, how is this any different from a Christian saying ‘Jesus died for your sins’? Who made these soldiers so self-righteous that they think they can guilt me into praising their work by claiming that they stuck their neck out for me? What soldier did I ever ask to shoot people for me? What soldier has ever stopped one of my rights from being infringed?

The gist of it is – nobody can ‘die for you’, at least not without your proper consent. Soldiers do not fight for individuals – they fight for the State. They fight to uphold the values of the people in power, and to exploit whoever else they need or desire to, for ideological or economic goals.

For instance, no soldier fights for me. I never asked any soldier to kill someone for me, or to guard my stuff. I never told any soldier to go over to Iraq and kill some people for me. Someone suggesting that I should respect the actions of someone because they supposedly did it on my behalf doesn’t jive when I find their actions reprehensible. It’s like me going to a nursery and drop-kicking a baby, and saying I did it for you.

The tactic of resorting to such lines as these is very clever, though. It’s meant to instill a feeling of guilt in those that would otherwise denounce the actions. It sets up a strawman of the military, creating an image of valiant honor and protecting the people, making sure they can be free and safe!

But alas, the military is not that at all. It is a weapon of the State, used chiefly for waging offensive war (aka organized murder). It uses violence or the threat thereof as a coercive means on another nation, and sometimes within America itself. How can anyone cheer on such a murderer? How can anyone look at a soldier returning from Iraq with anything but contempt? Even if these people disagree with the war in Iraq itself, they’ve placed legitimacy in the idea of the US military and to speak out against one war is completely hypocritical. If they truly felt aversion to warfare like this, they should not have enlisted in the first place.

I will grant this – there are some people within the military that did it for financial reasons and never saw themselves going to war. Some have simply been indoctrinated by the State and have become brainwashed, and simply haven’t considered these ideas. I have less moral qualms with these people (though there are still some, I assure you). But a lot of people in the military are there because they want power and the ability to use force (as an officer I overheard in an airport seemed to be suggesting), or they simply like to kill people.

So don’t bother me with that guilt trip, because it won’t do a bit of good. I’ve seen through the guise, I know what lies underneath. You soldiers are dying for the State, because of either your power-hungriness, your sick and twisted murderousness, your unfortunate bad decision, or your falling to the State’s brainwashing. But you’re certainly not dying for me, and you’re certainly not dying for anyone’s freedoms. Every day you fight for the state is another day you are fighting for suppression and state coercion, hardly lofty ideals. If you wants to fight for my rights, turn on the State. Get out of the military, and decry it publicly.

I hate people dying as much as the next guy, but if you’re in the military, don’t expect to toss the blood onto my hands.

Like Shooting Yourself in the Foot? Choose Socialism!

2007-01-19T00:25:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine forwarded a blog post to me about socializing health care. Most of the arguments in the blog were appeals to ‘streamlining’ health care through government intervention, arguing that efficiency would increase because paperwork would decrease, that a single insurance provider would be easier. And you know what? I’ll grant them that this would probably be true. Do you know why? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU GET WITH MONOPOLIES.

An argument for making the system easier at the cost of choice is simply an argument from laziness. The bait of easier times filling out forms, not having to think about what insurance company you’re using, etc. can be appealing if you don’t think about the steep downside to such measures.

As with any other monopoly, a ‘socialized’ service is inherently going to stagnate, relative to a private industry. A monopoly doesn’t have to compete for its business, it simply acquires the business of whoever needs the good. There’s no threat of another group doing the same for less money, or better service for the price, or faster service and efficiency in the service – there’s nothing driving the medical field forward. The consumers have no real clout – they can’t ‘vote with their feet’ by choosing a different provider, they can’t opt out of paying for the service. They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, they have to take whatever service they can get from the state-monopoly and live with the mediocre quality.

Now why do I say that this is shooting yourself in the foot? Well, I’m speaking mostly to the middle-classers when I say this – you are the group that will be most adversely affected by socialized health care. Do you know why? Because if your money wasn’t being collected by taxes to pay for this service, you’d have enough to easily afford better private care. The rich aren’t being hurt, because they still have sufficient funds to seek out a private hospital elsewhere (look at the Canadians that can afford to get medical service in the US).

Even the poor don’t necessarily fare well in socialism, even though they’re the group supposedly being aided. By handing the business over to state monopoly, they’ve ensured that the quality they get will be of meager quality, whereas in a free market, they could likely obtain good services with the help of charity. Likely, there would be hospitals that found ways to cater to the market of poor people to provide a service that they could afford, which would be more competitive with other similar business ventures, and thus improve in quality.

Every consumer benefits from competition, but none benefits from monopoly.

"The Constitution Grants Us Freedom" and Other Fairy Tales

2007-01-18T09:35:00.000-06:00

Whenever I point out that the state doesn’t allow us to be free, and that the state will continue to dominate our lives, I’m always directed to the Constitution and, specifically, the Bill of Rights.

Is this what people think is freedom? Well, I can’t act too surprised, because when I was a statist I believed the same thing. The Constitution doesn’t create freedom – no, for how can your natural rights be given to you? – what it does is limit which freedoms the government can actively take away from you. It has to name some of these rights, because the government’s nature, even if it doesn’t say it outright, is to cut away at the fundamental principles that are the basis for these rights – self-determination and control of your property.

It can be very easily demonstrated that government isn’t conducive to producing a more free environment. Think about this: how often does a piece of legislation create more options for individuals to choose from in any significant manner? How many of the state monopolies have been broken apart to create more options to the population? How many laws have been repealed to grant more freedom to the individuals? Laws are put into place to hamper freedom, not to expand it, because to expand freedom is to shrink the role and power of the government in the lives of its citizens.

So how do I answer those that would point me to the Constitution? I’d ask them how the constitution protects my right to my property against the Eminent Domain law. I’d ask how it protects me from organized theft of my money by the government (taxes), or how it leaves me free to choose whatever form of defense I want for myself, or what kind of retirement savings I want to undertake. I’d ask how it protects my right to put whatever drugs I want into my body, or to contract for work with somebody for less than ‘minimum wage’. How does the Constitution protect any of these? If it was ever meant to do such a thing, then it’s done a lousy job.

All the Constitution would have needed to say to outline our freedom was this: people have the right to do what they want to themselves and their stuff. Everything else follows from that.

Self-Determination and Why it is Important

2007-01-17T14:49:00.001-06:00

As you read through my posts, you’ll discover that I will continue to emphasize one idea in particular – self-determination. Why? And what exactly does that means? Self-Determination is the principle that you, and you alone, are the master of your person (and your property, but we’ll address that more closely in a later post). You are the moral agent, and you alone decide what to do with yourself.

So why is this important? Well, firstly, it is fundamental to morality. If you do not exclusively control your body, then you cannot be held responsible for your actions. If someone else controls what I do, then I cannot be held to having committed an immoral action. And since morality is determined based on the actions of individuals in situations, an individual must possess moral autonomy.

Self-determination is the most essential aspect of freedom. The freedom to choose what you do with your possessions is the basis for all other matters of freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought – these are derived from an individual’s autonomy. Every right that one possesses is necessarily based in this single acting principle.

What does this mean for government? Well, the government is the main violator of self-determination. In creating and enforcing laws that interfere in individuals’ abilities to do what they want with their possessions and voluntarily associate and contract with who they want, the state strips away more and more of your rights. They limit your freedom to make decisions, to control your body, and thus to act completely moral.

What government does is to erode away the principle of self-determination and replace it with state-determination. The state takes upon itself the task of deciding what is best for you, what you can and can’t do, and what it can do to you to further its own growth and expansion.

This effect can readily be seen throughout the government sprawl: the government has socialized roads, retirement funds, charity (welfare), schools, railroads, and many other things. What is the effect of this? Without getting into the quality and incentive issues, we can point out one glaringly obvious problem: people no longer have choices. People can’t choose another service without paying extra money, money that they would have had if the government hadn’t reached into their pockets to prop up their monopolies.

This is one of the largest objections to the state – it functions to remove personal choice from people to choose how they want to be treated, what they want to purchase, and what risks they want to take. It seeks control over people’s possessions and, in doing so, trims away at the remaining decision-making ability they had by hijacking their finances.

It’s so ironic when people praise America as being so free, yet can’t see just how unfree they are. But, then again, that’s the illusion the state wants to promulgate. They may as well start creating posters now:

CIA is watching you.
Monopoly is Choice
State-Determination is Freedom
2+2 is 5

Morality - What is it?

2007-01-15T11:39:00.000-06:00

I said in my first post that one of my primary focuses for this page will be morality. And in fact, this focus plays an integral part in the other three, as well. But many people have different conceptions of what morality is, and how it must be approached, so I thought it would be useful to outline the positions that I know of. My naming may be different from what you have seen elsewhere, and many of these positions may take other names elsewhere. But for now and for here, this is how I will be using these terms.

Keep in mind that ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ refer to the source of morality as ‘causal’ and ‘acausal’ respectively.

[Radical] Subjective – Subjectivists believe that morality is determined personally by what you think is right. Subjectivism of this kind means that technically, any action could be moral, even eating babies when plenty of other food is available. Morality is determined completely internally and on a personal level.

Cultural Relativism – Cultural Relativists (or moral relativists, though what I categorized as subjectivists also use this term) believe pretty much the same thing as the Subjectivists, except that the morality of an action is not determined by the individual, but rather by a culture or a society. This mixes a bit of utilitarianism in, because it upholds a code of ‘majority rule’ – whatever most people consider moral is moral.

Absolutist – Though this is often labeled as being objective in nature, its common application necessitates that it isn’t. Absolutist morality is usually derived from religions, attributed to a staunch moral set commanded by a god. This is a subjective stance, because morality contingent upon the desires of one supernatural being rather than data in the empirical world.

Utilitarianism – Utilitarians believe that whatever is best for the most people is moral. It is a variant on objective thought, in that it is based on quantifiable actions. However, it depends largely on the validity of collectivism and the denial of the rights of individuals.

Survivalism – Survivalism, which may have another name out there – I chose this label myself – is an objective position that posits that the most moral action is the one that is best geared toward survival/health. This is the closest to what I will define next as Objectivism, the only difference being that survivalists don’t account the hierarchy of values within an individual.

Objective – Objectivism, as will be used here, will refer to morality based on empirical data and individual self-interest. The individual is the moral agent.

There are two principle axioms that define moral actions: a) the action best fulfills the person’s hierarchy of values at the time, and b) other people’s ability to freely pursue the same is not hampered, provided they don’t hamper yours. This means that moral actions on the personal level are determined by your values, while on the interpersonal level they are determined by respect of self-determination and voluntaryism.

This differs from subjectivism on the basis of its foundation on how actions affect yourself and others, and from absolutism in that the action is contingent on the situation rather than being categorical. The difference from utilitarianism and cultural relativism is in its denial of collectivism to determine morals. The difference from survivalism is in its acceptance that survival is not always a person’s highest value.

My moral stance can be summed up quickly as this: a values exchange in which you receive the most value. An act is immoral if it a) doesn’t fulfill your value hierarchy (like choosing to save your neighbor’s wife instead of yours, when you value your own more) or b) results in an aggression of coercive behavior (like forcing a steak down the throat of a vegitarian). This does not preclude self-defense, however, based on the Chosen Aggression Principle (CAP), because an action in response to someone aggressing you more than you desire is in violation of the second axiom.

In future posts, I will examine each of the other moral stances and why they are inferior and invalid in determining good moral actions and promote the Objective stance as the only one that should be considered relevant to determining moral behavior.

Security in Government vs Free Market

2007-01-14T09:12:00.000-06:00

Last night I had a dream that left me thinking about defense this morning. The most common argument, aside from 'who will build the roads', that I hear about Market Anarchy is that private defense would lead into some sort of feudal situation, and defense companies would simply be doing battle all the time or coercing other groups/their clients.

It seems that when people argue this it means that they have a failing understanding of incentive systems, supply and demand, and entrepreneurship. So, let's look comparatively at private defense in MA versus 'public' defense provided by the government.

The government's defense forces - police (domestic) and military (international) - each have monopolies on their sectors. And they're both controlled by the State, thus the State has a monopoly on the market of defense as a whole. Everybody knows that monopolies are a bad thing. In the area of defense, this is even truer, because it is your safety and that of your property that are at risk.

With a State monopoly of force, you have no recourse. There is no obligation, in fact, no incentive, for the State to do a good job at protecting you. There is less incentive if you're poor, because you contribute less toward political campaigning and keeping them in power. Because it's a monopoly, there's no competitive incentive to improve the quality of service. There's no incentive to meet the demands of the people, because they're going to be supported and propped up by the state through taxes, even if the desires of the people are not being properly met.

Now imagine that the State decides they want to take your land away, even though you don't want to accept their offer of 'fair market value'. What recourse do you have? The State is going to use police or military force if necessary to take the land from you. Who's defending you now? You literally have no choice but to give up the land or defend your property yourself. This situation is once again amplified if you're among the poor, because the government doesn't depend very much on your support and you likely don't have much money to fall back on.

Lastly, the government's use of taxation to acquire its police and military funding means that it has the resources to take any action that it wants. It has the funding to start a military campaign in another country, or to force down a section of the population, etcetera. There's no recourse here, either, because you're paying for the service whether you like what they're doing or not.

You may be thinking that when I say there's no recourse, I'm ignoring the fact that you 'have a say in your government'. I'm not forgetting it. But it is also a very trivial matter. You are one vote out of a lot, choosing people to represent you to hopefully defend your desires. But your desires are very likely to NOT be heard, because even if the candidate you chose wins, after he's been elected there's nothing binding him to follow the desires of the people. But I will discuss voting more in another post.

Let's now look at private defense in Market Anarchy. Private defenses will arrive out of a market demand for such a service. Everyone wants and needs protection of their life and property from those rogues that are unfit to behave like civilized people and resort to coercion.

The free market encourages competition and entrepreneurship. If there's a problem that needs fixing, that means that there's a new business opportunity. The incentive in a competitive market to produce superior and lower price goods in very strong, unlike State monopolies. If a private defense begins extorting its clients, or coercing other people, it is likely to drive customers to another defense business. The coercing business will have to either amend its practices quickly and drastically, or face being extinguished from the market. The profit motive demonstrated here is the leading incentive in Market Anarchy.

Since there is no monopoly on defense in a free market, you have plenty of recourse. If one force is acting coercively, you can move your business to another firm to protect you from your original one. This helps two-fold: it hurts the coercing business by cutting away from the financial support it needs to exist, and emplaces a firm that is superior in quality and effectiveness in defense of you.

The poor as a demographic means that they are a considerably sized population in need of defense. What this means for the entrepeneur is that there is a new market of people to which goods can be offered. An agency that can offer a low cost defense service to the poor is going to enjoy a very good business. Unlike the state, which doesn't need to look for funding and thus has no care about who desires what services, there would be a strong incentive to provide services to the poor in a free market.

Lastly, because their existence as a business depends on your funding them, private defenses are far less likely to engage in coercive or aggressive military behavior. This is because they don't have a steady flow of income coming in, no matter what actions are taken. Their funding depends precisely on their support by consumers. War is very costly, and few consumers would be willing to bear the cost of such an endeavor. War, when you have to pay for it out-of-pocket, is far from profitable. In defense, however, private defenses have a natural advantage because people a) want to defend their property, b) will be willing to pay large amounts to ward off foreign invaders, c) have a choice between providers of services, which will likely be of better quality and may include specialized types of defense depending on the area.

It is for all of these reasons that I see private defense as being far superior to State monopolized defense. I know when you first hear 'private defense force', it's easy to get scared of the concept and reject it outright. But Market Anarchy is about thinking about other solutions. Unfortunately, the State preaches that it is the only way, and that safety can only be assured by monopoly. But any meaningful examination of this claim should show that this is purely false.

Their claim is equivalent to 2+2=5.

2 + 2 = 4

2007-01-13T23:18:00.000-06:00

My blog gets its name from 1984, where Orwell painted perhaps one of the most fundamental necessities to freedom. "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four." Why is this important? Because it encompasses three necessities to freedom - the freedom to think the truth, to speak the truth, and to act on the truth.

If we are not free to make connections to arrive at the truth, then how can we claim existence at all? If we cannot trust the products of our senses, cannot rely on science, cannot question the establishment, then what have our lives become? How can one understand anything, for example, in a world where every answer is considered possible, and there are no wrong answers to questions, only different perspectives. Well, here's what I have to say: the freedom to be wrong is worthless without the freedom to be correct.

In this blog, I will be addressing topics concerning four areas: theism/atheism, statism/anarchy, individualism/collectivism, and Objective (causal) Morality/Relative (cultural) and Subjective (acausal personal) Morality. I hope that my thoughts on these issues can be of help to some people, though I imagine that most of the population disagrees with my positions. But just because the majority has been convinced that 2 + 2 = 5, doesn't mean that I will silence my protests. I will continue to fight for 4 that I may remain free, and that I may inspire others to speak for the truth, and to act on it.