Free the Animal

Roots of Destruction

Karen De Coster calls attention to Bill Maher, his comments on religion in general, and those of the Pope and The Catholic Church in particular. The segment for which she posts a transcript begins at 3:15 into the video.

Well, what can I say? I could maybe pick at a thing or two, but he more or less makes a lot of valid points and draws some certain parallels. He's as right as the sunrise: the only reason the Catholics get a grudging pass on their institutionalized child rape and cover up, and that "kooky Mormon cult" doesn't, is that, for one, the Catholics have lots of voters; and two, they either cannot, or refuse to think honestly and in terms of consistent principles when grappling with mind-created fantasies like imaginary friends and sooper beings with sooper powerz.

We are dealing with people -- voters -- who are operating under delusions, Karen, and Sunday morning Mass and Friday fish are the least and non-essential manifestations of such delusion. Ideas have consequences, and the problem with delusions is that the public policy that ultimately trickles down is perfectly integrated with such delusions.

I think we ought to always fight the idea of State omnipotence and, the difference with me is that I just go one god farther, and just as hard.

...he should look to the state and its war on human freedom, and not focus on people who privately "believe" and therefore carry personal feelings between them and their religion/church, and cause no one any physical harm in doing so.

The modern western state derives its moral authority from mainstream religion, both explicitly and through political manipulation. Ultimately, unless you're going to get people to believe that their god is really loving and benevolent, rather than a murderous mutherfucker who smites women, children, and livestock, and tortures non-believers in eternal fire, then you're simply not dealing with the very most fundamental psycho-epistemological underpinning of the state.

The Carnival of Clowns

I don't know the actual number of news events, but just seeing the leading photo and article on my Yahoo home page each time I've opened it over the last few days seems to indicate that the Pope's visit is dominating the news. Even more ridiculous is how the politicians are falling all over each other to roll out red carpets.

"Pope says Church needs purification." You know what? They are all worth less than a runny shit to me and I don't see how you can possibly purify a load of crap. Seriously.

Now, I know there are plenty who derive inspiration and comfort, and just like there's no end of Constitution lovers, democracy lovers, enthusiastic voters -- and no matter the destruction wreaked upon humanity, the State is power and people love the powerful and the authoritarian. I guess they figure they'll always be on the "good" side of the equation, though they delude themselves mightily. Same, I suppose, for the Bible, Koran, and Torah lovers. If I could delude myself into being stupid enough to believe in imaginary friends, fairies, ghosts and a magical all-powerful being who could destroy the world with a single thought on a bad day, I'd sure want to be on his side, too, and I'd probably fool myself into thinking I was.

Megan McArdle

She started off blogging as "Jane Galt," a moniker Billy always scoffed at. Now she also blogs for The Atlantic, along with Sullivan. I only ever read anything when linked from elsewhere; as her blog, like so many political blogs, is geared to jerk you off, and most people who read blogs go to them every day to get jerked off, and not to explore questions of political philosophy in an honest manner.

The simple truth.

Today, Warren Meyer links to her about "tax day," and I'll just let the euphemism stand for now.

So this is libertarian speak, under the guise of the female manifestation of John Galt?

Obviously, like everyone else I do not enjoy contemplating my cash outflow to Uncle Sam--I can think of a lot of uses for that cash. That, however, is the price of living in a free society.

The price of living in "a free society" (not euphemism; simple delusion, or falsehood) is to pay upwards of 50% of everything you have produced under penalty of loan-shark interest and penalties, audits, levies, garnishments, seizures, criminal investigations, arrest, prosecution, trial, and jail time. That's what passes for "a free society" nowadays. Well, so long as we can smoke pot and frolic nude, I guess. Uh...

Then there's this:

I should not have, in the course of paying my debt to society...

Heads explode. Well, in calling her a "ditz," I must confess that Billy has been far too charitable.

A Moral Question on Charity

So can anyone tell me when the the notion of charity -- to give help -- became "giving back?"

Do you see the difference; the moral difference?

To put it most bluntly: in the former, you're giving someone your property. In the later, you're giving back someone their property, carrying with it the implication that you didn't earn it -- commonly known as stealing -- and they are the ones entitled to and deserving of it.

I watched a big big show last night that raised a lot of money under the moral principle of "giving back," wherein I suppose that millions were encouraged to feel guilty -- perhaps because it has been found more motivational and effective than causing people to feel pity, compassion, good will.

I'm not even going get started on the whole insanity of dependence-perpetuating aid to Africa and elsewhere, much of which ends up as cash or product in the hands of the kleptocracy and of their nomenklatura*. What those people really need is freedom to prosper, and they'll take care of their own problems. Here is, I think, a perfect charity: Kiva.org. And it sports the correct moral principle too: loan them your money, but only for an entrepreneurial purpose; they execute, and pay you back your money. It's social, so you've only got a few bucks at risk on any one entrepreneur. The charity is the risk you take on, plus the opportunity cost, since you're just getting repaid principal (the borrowers pay interest (as they should), but it goes to support the local branches who help to arrange these loans).

So, to my mind, you can go glitz, pat yourself on the back for "giving back," perpetuating the dependence that is the morass of institutional international aid, or, you can help out because you've determined you can, and what you're doing is helping someone with drive and a dream to not only escape dependence, but to create jobs and opportunities for others to do likewise. Civilization can take root in no other way.

* Beck

Pat Condell

Hmm; this might get interesting. I can't get enough of Pat. Here's another of his videos, and this is really better than the last. It's about appeasement, cowardice, racism, and culturism. Standard disclaimer: his base premises are wrong. That said, it otherwise works.

Take a look. And you can proceed onto others on your own, or stand by and I'll highlight a few over the next few days. I'm going to watch them all.

By the way, I got wind of all this via an entry and the comments at Art's place.

Animal Planet

That's really all there is to say about it. That's Fitna, a 15-minute short film out of the Netherlands. Take a look.

On another note, Englishman Pat Condell has lots and lots to say. I can pick at a lot of it, but the general thrust is right on. His last one was about that film and it's as good a place as any to begin. Here's a bit about the man.

April Fools

My case rests. Just take in the first 10. That's all I did, and honestly, I could have fallen for a couple or a few (at least less than 10). My point? We are all susceptible to being fooled. April 1st is a rare gift: you get to know you're a "fool" pretty quick. It's a good exercise in humility, but more precisely: fallibility.

It's the rest of the year that's the problem and it happens in myriad ways. Hey: These people vote. Political implications? My guess? Randomness to the rescue. Thank god for randomness and some bit of foolish "diversity."

The process of making us less foolish generally, is evolutionary, and thus very, very, very long term. But any individual already has the tools available to mitigate the carnage all by himself. This goes to being among the elite. It's a decision and commitment; not a birth sentence.

April Fools: A Point of Order, Randomness and Fat Tails

I dunno, perhaps you're one who thinks it's silly -- a person I can be on any given day. On the other hand, if you've followed along you know my affinity for randomness and being fooled.

Being fooled is the most important aspect, because we really can't do anything about randomness. And why would we want to? What's life without surprises? April Fools is a decent, once per year exercise in demonstrating just how susceptible we all are.

Just this afternoon I caught a blurb on the radio as I was shutting down the car before stepping into the 4th Street Bowl Coffee Shop for their Monday $10.95 ribeye steak lunch special (It's fucking good). I like simple, straightforward, unpretentious cafes; and I'll have to blog about that, one day. The blurb was in reference to some new "government plan" (what else to keep the populace alarmed  and yet confident all at once?) to oversee financial markets. The quote went something like this: "And oversee hedge funds so they don't take too much risk." Let's set aside the fact that a hedge fund is prohibited, by law, from even talking to you or showing the public their returns unless you're an institution or have registered as a "qualified investor," meaning you have a minimum liquid net worth of $1 million.

Jesus, fuck. Now, I'll readily acknowledge that this is mere opium for the unbelievably stupid and ignorant masses, but I had to shake my head.

There is one big fucking reason you're not living in a cave (more precisely: that you exist at all): people who took enormous risks, laying everything on the table. Nine out of ten lost it all (randomness, not necessarily bad ideas always). You live and prosper because one in ten paid off. Stupid, stupid people. You know, the only reason they come up with this is that they think you're stupid enough to gain comfort from it.

I'm convinced they're dead right.

As a final note, let me reiterate that a post like this is written in the general. I.E., in general, people are fucking stupid, or they put on a pretty good act. It's always been that way. So, am I blogging to admonish the stupid fucks? No, not at all. I blog to sharpen the elite. You must know your enemy, and that's not to say that redemption isn't possible. I used to be of the stupids.

(I didn't get to Fat Tails, but I'm done, for now. Later. The Bell Curve is only half the picture.)

Being Elite

We; you, are either among the elite, or it's within your grasp. The knowledge available to you via the Internet is simply astounding. There is literally everything you need to fully pursue any course of study you wish and take it as absolutely far as any limiting dynamics to human knowledge might permit, and do it 100% independently.

What does that portend for the future? It's simple. In the future -- and get this because it's important -- the very smartest and knowledgeable people, on earth, will increasingly hold no degrees. Why? Again, simple. Why would the smartest person on earth, bolstered by the now-uncloistered ubiquity of all available human knowledge, keenly aware that he has everything at his disposal via the Internet, stoop to have his inferiors certify his knowledge? And though you may not be the smartest person on earth, you can make yourself pretty smart, you can do it all on your own, and so why do you need the USDA stamp of approval on your rump? Won't other smart people recognize you're smart? Won't stupid dumb asses (or parasitic pricks) look to see if you have been "certified" by some external authority, using it in the former as an excuse, and in the latter, a justification? Why would you want to cater to either?

The reason smart people of old got degrees is because all the knowledge was cloistered within the books of secrets maintained by the "recognized official authorities" and you had to pay them to gain access. The bargain is called a degree.

Ponder the above, because it is crucially important and it implies some serious responsibility on your part. For one, you could get led astray by those in possession of degrees (because they're not so smart -- so they paid). Or, you could miss out on real knowledge because it's not "certified." Try to wrap your mind around the concept of "external authority" and how we're so geared to seek the "automatic knowledge" offered up by others. Imagine a world where "smart" is a function of the obvious, fully accessible and judgeable by: YOU; a member of the elite.

Word

Gary Vaynerchuk. I hope he's right. Since the dawn of civilization, the advantage typically goes to the most dishonest, i.e., politicians, clergy, lawyers, academia, activists, large corporations. Even when progress is made (i.e., Enlightenment), those truths too get co-opted by the manipulative and dishonest in order to perpetuate illusions and parasitically generate a dishonest livelihood. Take a look.

What he's saying is that the future is going to be owned by the truly honest. Why do you suppose I post in the very direct, devil-may-care, fuck you if you don't like it manner I do? Simple: fuck you if you don't like it. I don't care. I'm not lying about anything and the manner in which I conduct myself here pretty much proves it, as in the sarcastic "why not tell us what you really think."

I'm not interested in popularity, but in fully integrated honesty. Everything, at all times, no matter how brutal.

Fuck anyone who can't take it. That's the future. Get used to it.

(link: Greg, again)

"Character"

This is 100% down the line spot on, I think. It is definitely worth a read, all of it.

Obama’s denunciation of Wright’s bigotry amounts to too little too late. The time to stand up to him wasn’t now, when his association with Wright is sinking his hopes for the White House. The time to have stood up to Wright was when Obama was just another member of his church. If he truly believes in what he says he believes, he should have walked out of Wright’s church or grabbed Wright’s microphone and told his fellow churchgoers that Wright was wrong and that they mustn’t hate. In twenty years of attending Wright’s church, why didn’t Obama once stand before his fellow church members and tell them that they mustn’t hate their country and their fellow Americans?

The fact that he didn’t, and the fact that he upheld this man until just a few months ago as his spiritual mentor and still refuses to condemn him and his deeply flawed character tells me everything I need to know about Barack Obama. I think that he is an opportunistic, weak man. I hope and pray that he doesn’t become President.

There's a silver lining to all of this in my view. It's exposing something right out there in the open for all to see: perhaps the bigger racial bigotry problem in America is minority bigotry against whites. Or, at least, they have been getting a pass on it for four decades. Maybe not so much, anymore?

Want an example, right up in your face almost every day? How about this bit of pretentious nonsense: "people of color." I, for one, have never missed the implications and overtones in that -- what amounts to -- racial smear of colorless white people.

A great many of the ordinary racial bigots I've ever known have been black people. That may not be your experience, but it has been mine.

(link: Beck)

How "Narrow" is the Individual?

Observe:

The idea of liberty, the whole of it, was confirmed:  That a people have a right to self-government, one of their own making.

[...]

...It is simple and elegantly simple.  It doesn’t mean it in the broad sense.  It means it in the most narrow of sense and that is more powerful than anything ever thought of before.

"The most narrow of sense." The most narrow of sense. So, 'naturally':

And they got that.  They got that people have a right to form their own government.  They formed that government...

Who's "they," and who are "they" to transgress upon "the most narrow of sense?"

"Heavy lifting" indeed, Kim.

(link: Beck)

Pretense

Obama expressed understanding of the passions on both sides in what he called "a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years."

"But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races," he said in a speech at the National Constitution Center, not far from where the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

Obama rarely talks so openly about his race in such a prominent way, but his speech covered divisions from slavery to the O.J. Simpson trial to the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. He also recognized his race has been a major issue in the campaign that has taken a "particularly divisive turn" in the last few weeks as video of his longtime pastor spread around the Internet and on television.

Oh, I think he's far, far, faaaaar from where "the Declaration of Independence was adopted."

Later: My friend Chris rings in via email with a VDH piece.

The notion that Obama never heard any such nonsense is, well, nonsense—given that he frequented the church for 20 years, laughed off some of the Wright hyperbole in his own memoirs, and has a wife whose invective about America as not worthy of her pride, mean, etc dovetails with his pastor’s sermons.

[...]

What we have here is a bright, eloquent, and utterly insular candidate, incredibly naïve, with terrible judgment who is absolutely clueless about America. He seems an improved model of Howard Dean—opinionated, snazzy, faddish, riding on popular insanity—and then in one fell swoop (“Yeaaahhhhhhh”) ridiculous.

Yep. Ridiculous.

Oh God, Yes

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And make sure you watch -- if you can stand it -- the YouTube Billy links to.

For me, this really rises to the level of pet peeve on the mundane level of daily nonsense that parades past my eyes and ears; but the political, social and cultural overtones are just horrifying (the deepest implications of such you need look no further than Nazi Germany or the USSR and see how children, as tools of State, were ultimately pitted against their own parents).

It's largely a problem created by parents and grandparents. There is a fine line between encouragement of children and their steps in developing their minds to become rational (which is about keeping them challenged), and outright poisoning their minds by brainwashing them into believing they're some sort of daily savant, or something. It does then no good whatsoever.

Juxtaposition

I had intended to blog about this collection of cell phone videos (link: Seth Godin) taken in public school classrooms that, really, resemble more the monkey cages at the zoo. What to say about all that? One commenter points to this video of a teacher having not nearly so much trouble. What's the difference?

I think it has a lot to do with the basis upon which one presumes or expects respect. In the former collection, I suspect most of those teachers approach the issue of respect as one of hierarchical authority and position; whereas, in the latter, respect is approached as something earned. I'm not excusing their behavior; they're punks, most of them, and I'm sure you can trace it right back to their parents. They've had respect shoved down their throats all their lives as a matter of hierarchy and authority, but have probably never been approached by an adult who would show them the respect of treating the issue and relationship as one of mutual value exchange to mutual enrichment and benefit.

I'm talking primarily about older kids, not 10-12 year olds and below. The younger the kid, yes, the more I think it's a matter of simple authority that's a function of parents' inherent natural responsibility that implies a natural authority (it's a similar derivation to natural rights). I'm simply saying that part of educating kids to be independent is a process of shifting authority from parents (and their proxies, like teachers) to the children and I think the ideal mechanism for accomplishing that is a process of mutually earned respect.

Coincidentally, I saw that same link just this morning in a comment at Warren Meyer's blog, linked from Billy Beck. Outlawing non-credentialed parents from seeing to their kids' own educations? Wow. This is quoted from the appellate ruling:

A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.

So, considering what I wrote above, does that look to you more like an exercise in mutual respect earning through exchanges of values, or more like hierarchical authority, backed by jack boots, clubs, guns, police, prosecutors, courts, jails, and execution chambers?

The anti-civilization primitivity on display, even from the bench of a major appellate court, is astounding. I don't know about you, but I see right through those robes. I see savages.

Object Lesson

Well another "memoir" written by a liar -- Margaret Seltzer aka Margaret B. Jones -- goes down in flames. Ha. Ha. Ha. "Love [those] Consequences." Whatever; I'd have have never read it anyway, and hated it if I had. You'll recall James Frey and how he suckered Oprah with A Million Little Pieces. Then there was Misha Defonseca with her "memoir" of the Holocaust years just a few days ago...

I bring it up simply as an object lesson, as something to keep in the forefront of your mind when dealing with other people and the things they say -- and the things they believe to be true. It's the latter that's far more pernicious. Liars on grand scale can only exist because human beings seem to be so gullible.

The other thing to point out is that it's entirely unsurprising. Look at how many people still believe the story about their imaginary friend Jesus Claus that was told to them when they were kids. ...On the other hand, there's something enticing about believing the fantastic, isn't there? It's a big part of what makes us human and I can definitely see the value in it from a lot of angles. After all, a whole lot of of the great things that get done, get done because someone was stupid or gullible enough to believe it could be done, and made it so. I suppose the challenge is in keeping it human, but keeping it as real as possible, i.e., management.

"Hatchet in Buckley's Head"

Edward Cline did -- bury one, that is. It's well deserved.

Buckley saved their necks and provided them with a "system" of ideas they could feel at home with. He persuaded a spent and ideologically rudderless conservative movement to base its political philosophy on religion, altruism, and self-sacrifice as an alternative to the "atheistic" liberal welfare state of society, altruism and self-sacrifice. Individual rights were nothing to him if not "God-given." He was as much an enemy of freedom - and of freedom of speech - as any holy-roller Democrat. Fundamentally, there is no difference between the policies advocated by "atheistic" or secular collectivists and "religious" ones. Buckley never seriously challenged the "status quo" of controls, deficit spending, or the regulation of business and industry. He was one of the original advocates of volunteerism or mandatory public service.

Damn right. Read the whole thing. The title is Billy's line.

Billy Notes

Coupla posts I'd been intending to getting to.

First, this cite of H.L. Menken on Public Enemy Number One. Note: the "police officers" you see today are of the same character makeup as those Good Germans who -- as Billy himself puts it -- "didn't listen to their own conscience as they loaded Jews into cattle cars." Go read the whole cite, but here's the essential:

What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace: the peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary.

Next, some old notes on our beloved Constitution.

...the very height of what America was all about was stated in the Declaration of Independence.

And it was all downhill from there. Read it.

This Should Be Easy

If you want to follow along (see comments).

Do you grasp the ignominy of it all? Americans; and the greatest political statement you can make for yourself is to go into a pathetically flimsy booth once every two to four years and have your one in 300,000,000th say in your own affairs.

Disgraceful.

Land of the Free Update

Whew! Close one.

She would love to sell bacon-wrapped hot dogs — trust her — but a trip last year to the women's county jail, a trip she says officials orchestrated to "make an example" of her, finally pushed her to give up the bacon and illegal grilling device she used for so long. Instead, she prepares dogs the only way the county Environmental Health Department currently allows, by boiling or steaming. Not grilling. And grilling is the only way to make a classic L.A. bacon-wrapped hot dog.

"Honestly, I can tell you, I've been a working person all my life, I've worked since I was 9 years old," Palacios says. "I don't like being bothered, I don't like being arrested. Never in my life had I been to jail, and they threw me in jail for violating the laws of the health department."

She's not the only one. Ask any Fashion District hot-dog vendor and he or she is sure to have at least one story of being cited, arrested or even jailed for grilling bacon-wrapped hot dogs on the sidewalk.

(Balko)

"Freegans"

No, really. "Dumpster Directory," even. Well, whatever floats their boat, I suppose, but at least it's a pretty funny read. And now I know what to call the bums around here who dig through trash and sleep in the parks.

It somehow escapes their notice, apparently, that theirs is a deep irony: in order to protest the "conventional economy," as they call it, in part for being so wasteful, they subside off its waste. It's really just a more stark and obvious (honest) form of the same irony that underlies all fundamental opposition to capitalism, free markets and private property.

I Get Paid For This, Sometimes

An email yesterday.

Richard -

I've added your blog to those I regularly read this week, and wanted to let you know. I don't have a blog of my own, but I want to thank you for helping me feel less alone.

I came across the awful posting by Dale Franks (back on 1/10/2008) about his federal jury service and read the comments. (where he defends sending a man to 10 years in prison for essentially helping deliver a product to willing buyers) You, Billy Beck, D.R. Zinn, and a couple of others seemed like the only rational people in that thread.

I've been strongly sympathetic to anarchism and libertarianism for years, but until recently I hadn't made much of an effort to find blogs that spoke from that overall point of view. That has all changed now.

Again - thank you so much for sharing your points of view, on your blog and elsewhere. They are very much appreciated.

He adds a post script.

I found the QandO thread thru Roderick Long's blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, which I already have on my regular reading list.

Thanks. And for the other readers, here's a couple of posts on the topic with excellent comments under both those links. For any newer readers, this is the incident I essentially kicked off with this post, and followed up both here and here.

Sure

I'll sign.

To:  All those currently exercising positions of responsibility in the Government of the United States of America, whether elected or appointed, and whether at the federal, state, or local level

Whereas the United States Government's claim to legitimacy is purportedly based on such principles as the consent of the governed, human equality, and the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and

Whereas few if any of those over whom you claim authority have ever consented to such governance; and

Whereas governments, as claimants to such authority over others, are by their nature inconsistent with human equality; and

Whereas your laws, ordinances, decrees, and policies generally stand in violation, directly or indirectly, of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;

We, the undersigned, hereby demand:

That you cease to claim to be acting in our name or as our agents; and

That you cease all attempts to exercise authority over your fellow human beings, on this continent or elsewhere; and

That you work to dismantle the institution or set of institutions known as the Government of the United States of America, in every branch and at every level, as speedily as possible; and

That you make no attempt to interfere with its replacement by voluntary associations of free and equal individuals.

It is an interesting thing I have found over 15 years of advocating such a political position. Implicit in the above is that anyone wishing to maintain their Cannibal Pot on the fire is entirely welcome to do so. Let them gnaw at each other's limbs to their heart's content. But, they'd need to do so at their own expense, and they'd have only those willing to subject themselves to being regularly fed upon.

And that's essentially and honestly why the State has the nature it has. It's a very convenient mechanism for extracting value by those clever enough to be on the side of the fed rather than the fed upon.

But the reason it really works is because most all of those who are fed upon are actually delusional enough to believe they're feeding. And about the most sensible person you can find is only sensible enough to recognize he's being fed upon, but freedom would be worse.

Freedom would be worse: that's honestly what they're saying. The most sensible.

Nails & Heads; Hooks, Lines & Sinkers

Previous entries surrounding the Ron Paul Newsletter topic here and here. The first thing I read this morning was Raimondo's piece, here, which is to date not only the best argued thing on the issue, but finally, finally includes the complete honest context of some of the quotes from the newsletters in question.

If you care about honesty, you should be shocked; and you ought to condemn Kirchick, TNR, Reason, and Cato. The former two, for the dishonest journalism; the latter two, for jumping on the bandwagon before possibly having the time to fully research and reflect. Fuck them all. Here's a couple of examples...on second thought, no. Dig through it yourselves and then ask yourselves how many of you swallowed that disgrace hook, line, & sinker.

Truth and Honesty

Billy invokes the truth. But, I don't get it, Billy. Clearly, Cato and Lew Rockwell aren't comrades-in-arms. But I don't know what "our movement" means. I have my ideas. I post them here. I support, agree with, and disagree with a variety of people, some of them the same people on different things. I suppose I'm part of the libertarian "movement," but calling it "our" is insolent and presumptuous. Calling it a "movement" without qualification is rather like calling the herding of cats a "movement." Yea, they're "moving," I suppose.

I guess that to large extent, the whole kit & caboodle looks libertarian to me, from all corners, including the fighting and taking offense (some of it false, I am convinced). ...Which is to say that when I hear talk of defining libertarianism in terms of what "self-proclaimed" libertarians aren't part of it, it's kind of a self-contradictory thing, to me. You get what I mean?

I don't know anything of the alleged racism of LRC. I've been reading them only for about six months, for the sole purpose of getting Ron Paul updates (I've really not seen anything that smelled of racism). I've seen lots of religious crap there, and I hate it. For the life of me, I cannot understand how someone arrives at such contradictory premises, but I see neither Cato nor LRC advocating guns, clubs, trails and jails against those who hold different values. Having had some association with Cato in the past, they are certainly not what I'd call anti-state, which to me means they can't possibly have any serious long-term effect, other than to perhaps incubate people who become anti-state. LRC seems to be largely anti-state, and they certainly support those who are. So what's more oppressive for blacks, the state with its drug war and malicious prosecutorial "case-closed" abuse, or anti-statists, a few of whom also happen to be bigots but have no real political power?

So what mystifies me (and this is really all new to me; I wasn't aware of this rift in the libertarian space-time continuum) is how anyone thinks that keeping the "libertarian" ranks clear of small-mined racists and bigots is important. Don't we recognize that it's the state that makes such stupidity magnified, by playing on the fears, passions, hatreds, emotions of people who would otherwise have little voice or power?

Now, my credentials as a non-racist or bigot will go up against anyone. I've shared rented living quarters with black people for years at a time, most of my girlfriends have been Asian, I'm married to an Hispanic, and I have lots of gay and lesbian friends; and I even go to dinner on occasion with my gay-partner neighbors, who look the part, and I could give a shit what people in the restaurant think. Let their imaginations run wild. I wonder how many people who profess "cleanliness" could actually walk that talk.

Yet at the same time, I keep coming back to the state. It's the state that fucks everything up and keeps people focussed on the differences rather than the common values. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: how many racists did you do business with, today; at the mini-mart, the department store, and whatnot? That's your anarchist life, and does it matter what they think and how small their minds might be?

But perhaps I'm missing the point, and if I am, I'll be happy to know about it. Honestly: I do not see how libertarianism can be an honest movement without frank acknowledgment that it includes some racists and other loons, and so long as they don't condone force to advance their values, their small minds are simply, though regretfully, welcome, as are all peaceful people regardless of idiosyncrasy. I see this as the kind of dreadful task where you say to yourself: let's get it over with.

The Guilty Animal

Hasn't it always been, in one form or another? When you think about it, Ayn Rand's Original Sin, among her many from the perspective of all political sides, is her chief ideal characterization of man as the rational animal. That has implications. You see, if man has the capacity of rational action by nature, voluntarily, then his ability to mold material reality to serve his needs and desires is virtuous at his highest levels of production.

But doesn't that just throw a monkey wrench into every sort of power structure, from modern politics to the theocracies of old? There's nothing new about any of it. Fundamentally, it's always about painting man as a selfish beast who ought to feel guilty simply for the effrontery to exist, and the only virtue possible to any man is to spend his life in atonement for having been born.

Karen De Coster loads up the latest outrage; the latest in a long list of examples of man's devolution. Now, maybe the fact that drinking straws may no longer properly serve their intended purpose isn't that big of a deal to you, but what about containers that used to keep your burger hot for the trip home, but don't anymore? How abut cups that used to keep your hands insulated from the heat of a beverage your mouth could handle, but don't anymore? And how about the arrogant delusion that your petty "sacrifices for the planet" have a real impact -- beyond the analogous false piety of making sure everyone around you witnesses your practiced performance of dropping that envelope into the church collection plate?

The list of former petty outrages are easy to shrug off, I suppose, and isn't that the idea? Far more important to impress upon people their inherent guilt about anything they do, even so insignificant a thing as using a drinking straw. Man oh my; if we're implicated by a little plastic tube, just imagine the utter horror of something like a power plant, drilling platform, or oil refinery. Man: such a guilty beast. Here, allow me to mangle a metaphor and ask which "straw" will be your last.

I purchased the book form of Rothbard's The Betrayal of the American Right, because I just can't handle reading something of that length on a computer monitor. This bit by Mencken caught my eye last night, and Karen's entry reminded of it.

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible . . . to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally [as Mencken clearly was not] he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. . . .

The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone – one which barely escapes being no government at all. This ideal, I believe, will be realized in the world twenty or thirty centuries after I have . . . taken up my public duties in Hell.

Just like any religion; of the supposed divine, or of the state. The distinction is meaningless.

Prescient California

Billy:

You'll recall the other night on that phone call where I told you how I often tell my wife to pay attention when she walks the corridors of the school district, so's she can remember that it either hasn't changed, or only gotten bigger, the next "budget crisis" to come along and there's fewer teachers and larger classes.

I know what you think of public schooling, but it's the same thing all over California. Last night, for instance, I was racing down I-5, the primary route to connect Northern and Southern California, not to mention one of the two primary routes that service the products produced in the valley where VDH farms. Do you know what? For one, it's only two lanes in each direction, which is an outrage in itself, and especially considering there's a median strip larger than the existing four lanes put together. Also, because of the very heavy large truck traffic, the right lane is literally unsafe for lighter cars traveling at high speed in some areas, the road surface is so badly torn up.

Hanson says exactly what was going through my mind, in disgust.

We in California, given the past budget implosions, know the script to follow. We expect that police, fire, prisons, parks etc will be threatened with cut-backs and closure while the state-funded "Center for this" and the "Department of that" will remain untouched, since cutting the essential while protecting the politically-correct superfluous is the only way to scare the voter and achieve higher taxes.

People should take a dive (that was a typo, and I think I'll just leave it) down I-5 and remember this the next time they're tempted to screech "ROADS!" when someone like me comes along to say that the government shouldn't do anything.

If a private company owned and maintained I-5 in its condition going back a quarter of a century, they'd have been drummed into bankruptcy and liquidation two decades ago, and rightly so.

As in the final two paragraphs of Billy's post, standard libertarian disclaimers apply.

Medicine Men and Witch Doctors

Read all about 'em. According to Radley Balko, they're the top 100 quotes from Fundamentalist Christian chat rooms. I figured to add that, because I had second thoughts about so insulting the intelligence of medicine men and witch doctors.

Oh, be sure not to miss the condolences to the mom whose son committed suicide because he was homosexual in a Fundamentalist Christian household, and well...you get the picture.

Why do I post things like this? Well, because these insane people vote, that's why. Why do you think I'm against the state, anyway? Look right up there. It's plain to see. Now, you can choose to spend your life fighting for control of the reigns of power with nut jobs like those, but just as soon as you knock them out, more will take their place. There are plenty of nuts, and they all want the power to control your life.

I'm perfectly happy to have lots of such nuts around, just like I'm happy to go to the zoo and watch the monkeys at play. But monkeys don't vote. If they did participate in state, would you be anti-monkey-voter, or just go right to the root, to anti-state?

Safety, Reasonable Doubt, and Anarchy

Consider this, in the context of the oft quoted Ben Franklin, that, and paraphrasing: "those who would would trade freedom for safety deserve neither."

Let's suppose it's true that the purpose of the legal standard of "reasonable doubt" in criminal matters is to protect the innocent. In other words, even if you think he's probably guilty, if you have doubt/s that are reasonable, i.e., plausible, logical, then you acquit. Period. In this way, it's far more likely that you'll let the guilty go (to kill, rape, murder, steal again?) than it will be to convict an innocent. Of course, this all presumes competence on the part of the judge (courtroom referee), honesty and integrity on the part of the prosecution and its witnesses, and intelligence on the part of the jury, which, as we know from The Innocence Project and many other sources, is a shaky assumption at best. (Side note: I'm very often told that the essential justification and necessity for the state is to ensure and guarantee "objective justice." Did you check that link?)

But we're talking principles and ideas, so let's proceed. So, do you notice anything in that that's apropos to the freedom/safety trade off? You should. It has rightly been deemed and put into quotedian legal practice that the freedom of the innocent is so precious and important, that we'll trade away some safety by letting some number of murderers, rapists, child molesters, kidnappers, robbers and thugs go free.

Understand? Good.

Anarchy is merely the expansion of that sound and rational principle to it's logical and just moral conclusion.

Libertarianism 101

I really had only a raw sense of my view of the Ron Paul vs. Some Libertarians (note: I am never referring to the LP, unless I write 'LP' or 'Party') over racists and other bigoted remarks in newsletters published under his name when I wrote this.

Karen De Coster does a far more thorough job of it, touches on other idiosyncrasies concerning the libertarian movement, and hashes out some good background. This is an interesting connection I'd never really thought about.

One thing rampant among libertarians is their lack of the ambition gene outside of libertarianism and the web. So many of these people have no real job, no career, and in fact, if they can't align themselves with some small-time, paid position at some libertarian outfit, they remain unemployed. As such, they will do anything to not make enemies in the movement, and in fact they must win friends in order to write columns and hope for paid gigs. They are low-paid and no-paid libertarians. Their perspective on the real world is warped because they sell their principles for a paycheck or a job.

I'd always had a sense about that. I think it was Greg Swann who once characterized it to me as "the virtue of living in squalor." But I'd always wondered about how some of them finance their existence at all. Well, here's maybe a clue:

The Kochtopus. That gigantic and powerful machine that has funded much of the conservative and Beltway Libertarian apparatus. Just look who is number one on its list of organizations funded.

I'm not really ashamed to admit that I once supported CATO, both in donations and attending luncheons they'd sponsor in San Francisco about once a quarter. I got to meet and hear P.J. O'Rourke at one of those and he's among the more honest of the conservative-libertarian hybrid creature. Plus, they do some good work. But I was always irked that their approach is wholly and completely devoid of any moral foundation that I could see. Well, the sticky part of having a moral foundation is that those of us who do, invariably end up yelling at one another from time-to-time. Why? Well, because we can, but more importantly, none of it implies voting booths or goons with guns & jails to keep everyone's thoughts in line. Practical, slide-rule efficiency "libertarian" politics al-la CATO and others implicitly summons the voters and goons. You have to be careful what you say. You might end up implying that one of your co "freedom champions" needs state reeducation, or worse. It's all a matter of efficiency, you see.

Let's continue, and this is the part that's more directly related to my own post I linked, above.

The Kochtopus, and thus those tied to Cato, IHS, George Mason, etc., is made up of hired tongues who have to act within certain boundaries, and those boundaries are a reflection of the state's moral code: the state makes the eradication of racism, homophobia, sexism, anti-Israelism, and all other un-PC "isms" its top priority. The cosmopolitan / Beltway / Centralizing / PC libertarians consistently promote the state, and especially its moral codes. While Lew Rockwell is always and everywhere anti-state, the focus of the anti-Rockwellians is not the state and its effect on individual liberty, but promoting the state's thought control on racism, homophobia, gay marriage, immigration, and all other pc topics. This has become the new "libertarianism." Libertarians have become some sick and twisted version of the Gestapo on thought control, motives, and guilt by association.

Not one of these posts that I have seen, that brand Lew with all these nasty tendencies, have produced a shred of evidence: a link, an article, a byline, or otherwise. What it comes down to is this: Lew doesn't use his website to promote queer marriage, gay this and gay that, Rosa Parks, MLK, or any other "hero" of the politically-correct, libertarian Kochtopus. Instead, he promotes ideas which are against the state and its collectivization of the individual.

So you guessed it - by not consistently promoting the state-approved, pc agenda, one is therefore found guilty of all charges by those who do promote The Agenda. If you don't beat the drums for, say, gay marriage, that makes you a "homophobe." And on and on.

Why do so many people get so worked up about racism and other forms of bigotry and discrimination? Because, one way or another, they have some kind of win or lose stake in it; and that stake that promises a win, or forecasts a loss, is a consequence of the state, of public policy. So there's a public fight at the voting booth, in the media, at the level of  general rhetoric and social discourse. Your words betray your thoughts, your thoughts your likely actions; so it is by your words that you signal to everyone else whether you need to be embraced as one who'll help garner a win, or condemned as an adversary, a cost.

Remove the state, i.e., the organized coercion that sorts those who win from those who lose; those who pay from those who receive, and you get to yell at assholes all day long, be yelled at by others, and somewhere in that great disorganized mess, self-organize into freely chosen associations of people who mostly get along and value one another for largely who they are.

This is libertarianism.

And those on the attack seem to me to be more about singing in the choir for the beltway "libertarian" machine that is as reliant on the state as is the NAACP, NOW, ACLU, NAW, or any of the others. If they want to yell at Ron Paul because they think he is a racist, or too cozy with those who are, that's fine. I've no quarrel with that and they're welcome to make their case. Everyone is welcome to make their personal judgments accordingly.

But it isn't about that.

Primarily, it's about a potential president who promises to essentially remove a CATO and other's raison d'être, though I'm sure they'd find something to do. There'll have to be another school to "privatize" somewhere. But CATO and its ilk are rather like the NAACP, in that both rely on total state regulation of the private affairs of individuals. The principles are exactly the same. The NAACP requires, for its survival, that the state impose racism one way or the other (the other is called: affirmative action). That way, they can oppose the state, or support the state. Same with CATO. They fool libertarians when they "oppose the state," because they're not, really, any more -- not one bit more -- than is the NAACP, which is to say: never on principle. Indeed; they need the state. They require the state; like a vampire needs fresh blood.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. The point is that there's a never-ending battle (which they all admit), and the reason it's a never-ending battle is because the battle, by design, is over managing effects, not -- and never -- expunging the cause: which is the state itself.

And so, libertarians who fret about racism, bigotry, neo-confederacy, or whatever within the movement need to stop and think that if they're fighting for a libertarian world, a real one, then it necessarily means putting up with the likes of racists, bigots, morons, idiots, small minds, neo-confederates, confederates, statists, commies, francophones, anglaphones, goths, and the whole bloody mess.

Consider this: in your anarchist life (that small part left that's largely uninfluenced by state influence or control), how many of the above did you associate with, do business with, or cooperate with in one way or another today? Do you even know? Does it matter? Do you see?

Confrontations

As an opponent of the state on general principle, I often find myself in opposition to other opponents of the state whose principles don't encompass as wide of a context, or those whose opposition is principally unprincipled, i.e., "practical," which is to say: pragmatic.

Let me be frank: I find it increasingly difficult to draw many distinctions between various forms of state that have existed in history that amount to a damn, and that includes the state of those United. This article illustrates why pretty clearly. That's George Monboit in the UK Guardian (via Balko) and it's about the propensity of the British to forget "their own" atrocities vis-á-vis something going on in Turkey, currently.

There is one, rightly sacred Holocaust in European history. All the others can be denied, ignored, or belittled. As Mark Curtis points out, the dominant system of thought in Britain "promotes one key concept that underpins everything else - the idea of Britain's basic benevolence ... Criticism of foreign policies is certainly possible, and normal, but within narrow limits which show 'exceptions' to, or 'mistakes' in, promoting the rule of basic benevolence". This idea, I fear, is the true "sense of British cultural identity" whose alleged loss Max laments today. No judge or censor is required to enforce it. The men who own the papers simply commission the stories they want to read.

Turkey's accession to the European Union, now jeopardised by the trial of Orhan Pamuk, requires not that it comes to terms with its atrocities; only that it permits its writers to rage impotently against them. If the government wants the genocide of the Armenians to be forgotten, it should drop its censorship laws and let people say what they want. It needs only allow Richard Desmond and the Barclay brothers to buy up the country's newspapers, and the past will never trouble it again.

For "our part," I find the glossing over slavery, a contrived war between states that slaughtered 650,000, the torture, rape, burning, slaughter of and theft against natives in what came to be called America, participation in wars instigated by other states (WWI) that led directly to involvement in another (WWII), massive civilian bombings such as Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki really just quite a bit much to chalk up as the ultimate cost of 'basic American benevolence.'

It's the cost of state, and Randolph Bourne was right when he said that war is the health of the state. There is a misapprehension of cause & effect that goes on. War is an inevitable and direct effect of state. It's not that states exist to best and properly manage war.

So what causes statehood? Ideas. Ideas that most of you hold dear. Allow Bastiat to explain, below the fold.

"The Real American Right"

An interesting review by Justin Raimondo of Murray Rothbard's book, The Betrayal of the American Right (also online). Both are worth a look.

Update: Here's Raimondo's Part II.

"...free to do the right things..."

There you go. A sign of the state of the American culture. Jesus. Doesn't Radley's respondent know anything? Who doesn't know that freedom is about authority?

Why do you think I keep writing about the land of the free? Clearly, we're just bursting with freedom.

Happy fuckin' New Year.

Virtue Nugget

Most of my online time today (well, yesterday at this point) was spent brushing up on Lincoln stuff. Lots of it. It so happens that Lincoln is my whole touchstone for what I am today in the libertarian sense. It was essentially discovery of the Lincoln myth in 1990 or so that got things rolling for me. Everything followed from there. Without that, I'd be watching Fox News every day, preening after talking-head liars like Kristol, Hannity, and O'Reilly, generally making myself fit the inner automaton regurgitating memorex that typifies just about everyone else who stoops to that.

More on all that, later: once I get all my bits & pieces in a row. In the meantime, I came across an interesting Murray Rothbard essay (there's a brief mention on Lincoln), Frank S. Meyer: The Fusionist as Libertarian Manqué. It's an excellent read from the perspective of sorting out some of the distinctions between certain types of libertarians. (Note: when I write "libertarian," or even "Libertarian," I am never, ever writing about the great contradiction: "The Libertarian Party.") Section II covers Frank Meyer's position on freedom and if you read nothing else, read section II (it's short). Here's an excerpt:

...To be moral, an act must be free.

Frank Meyer put it eloquently in his In Defense of Freedom:

. . . freedom can exist at no lesser price than the danger of damnation; and if freedom is indeed the essence of man's being, that which distinguishes him from the beasts, he must be free to choose his worst as well as his best end. Unless he can choose his worst, he cannot choose his best.

And again:

For moral and spiritual perfection can only be pursued by finite men through a series of choices, in which every moment is a new beginning; and freedom which makes those choices possible is itself a condition without which the moral and spiritual ends would be meaningless. If this were not so, if such ends could be achieved without the continuing exercise of freedom, then moral and spiritual perfection could be taught by rote and enforced by discipline – and every man of good will would be a saint. Freedom is therefore an integral aspect of the highest end.

Freedom, in short, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the achievement of virtue. With Lord Acton, we may say that freedom is the highest political end; in that subset of ethical principle that deals with the legitimacy of the use of violence between men, the libertarian – as well as the fusionist Meyer – position holds that violence must be strictly limited to defending the freedom of individuals, their rights to person and property, against violent interference by others.

Good stuff. It pays to keep reminding yourself: "...if freedom is indeed the essence of man's being...he must be free to choose his worst as well as his best end. Unless he can choose his worst, he cannot choose his best." I don't know about you, but I think that's just a brilliant insight into the essence of freedom. Seems so obvious -- like it's always been there -- once you read the words.

"War is the Health of the State" (even at Christmas)

That was the title to a Randolph Bourne essay found uncompleted after his death in 1918. It arose out of WWI, and Mendy McElroy penned a 1999 essay on the core meaning of the phrase. Essential reading; essential link in your collection.

The thrust of Bourne's essays is to attack the sanctity of war by showing how it leads to the mo