Thoughts Aloud

Archive for the ‘Anarchy’ Category

On a recent comment, Jim offered a link to David Friedman’s discussion of his “Hard Problem,” regarding national defense in a stateless society. It reminded me of Harry Browne’s elegant solution 45 years ago, in “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.” Longtime readers will recall that this is my favorite book, which I have reread at least once a year since 1979, just to keep me grounded. Anyone think they can refute Harry?:

National Defense

What about national defense? Isn’t the nation safe from foreign enemies only because of the government?

What is a nation? In common usage, a nation is considered to be a geographical area under the jurisdiction of a single government that isn’t a subdivision of a larger government. The government assumes responsibility for the defense of the geographical area and makes all decisions regarding armed conflict with outsiders.

If there were no government, there’d be no nation. And if there were no nation, there’d be nothing to defend.

If that sounds too simple, think about it. No aggressor conquers a nation by overcoming every single inhabitant and occupying every part of the geographical area. It would be far too expensive to do so.

Instead, the aggressor applies force against the country until the government of that nation surrenders. Then the aggressor takes over the existing governmental machinery to enforce the occupation. If no such machinery existed, how could it enforce the occupation?

Hitler couldn’t have conquered Europe without the help provided by the governments of the occupied nations. Would he have sent every one of his Nazis into Norway to police all the Norwegians? If he had, who would have been left at home to police the Germans?

That doesn’t mean that aggression would stop if there were no governments. But the aggression would be no more formidable than the examples of crime we’ve already covered.

Hydrogen bombs and other modern tools of war are effective only when they can be used to pressure governments. Enemy rulers have nothing to gain by destroying U.S. property and people — except as a means of pressuring the government to surrender. Otherwise, the more they destroy, the less value to them in conquering the nation.

If there were no federal government in the U.S., the Communists would have to conquer fifty different state governments — which would be far more difficult. But what if there were no state governments? Then they’d have to conquer every town separately.

But what if there were no town governments — no governments at all? Then they’d have to make over 200 million separate conquests — and use millions of their own policemen to set up new governments.

Obviously the answer to the threat of communism (or any other enemy) is not a stronger government to defend us but just the opposite. We’d be far safer if there were no government to conquer.

It’s surprising how many “national issues,” problems that “cry out” for government intervention, wouldn’t even exist if there were no governments.

The dictators of the world have always operated in countries where there was a strong respect for government. The prevailing European awe of the state has produced an endless number of tyrants, wars, and low standards of living.

And now that generations of Americans have been taught that governments are vital to their well-being, present-day Americans are afflicted with all the problems that invariably result from big government.

Such a trend has developed over many lifetimes; it won’t be reversed within ours. Governments grow naturally because individuals see them as ways of increasing their rewards at lower expense. It’s an over simplification to say that people want “something for nothing.” All people want to obtain as much as possible for as little effort as possible; that’s why labor-saving devices are valuable.

Unfortunately, however, government isn’t the labor-saving device it appears to be. It always gives back less than it takes. But because it does appear to be a giver of good things, its appeal is almost universal and there isn’t much likelihood that the trend will be reversed.

Browne, Harry. How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (Kindle Locations 1640-1678). Kindle Edition.

Pretty simple logic, huh? â—„Daveâ–º

It would appear to be the season for redefining who we are, how we think, and how we became us. My lifelong journey from academic liberal, to patriotic authoritarian, to selfish libertarian, to now being an avowed stateless anarchist, is fairly well documented on this blog. What is most interesting to me is that although I literally spent years studying and pondering the subject before making that last leap, few seem to take my decision seriously. At times it is trivialized and/or ridiculed hereabouts. I reckon it is the connotation most have for the word ‘anarchy.’ To me it means stateless — without rulers — not without order. Perhaps it is time to republish my 2 ½-year-old essay, to try to elucidate my thinking once more:

Liberty or the State

Choose one. Only one. They are mutually exclusive.

It is interesting how both sides of our Incumbrepublocrat duopoly have very different visions of the purpose and utility of the State. Yet, both staunchly defend the existence of the Federal Government, as absolutely necessary to protect our rights and freedom. Of course they do, their cushy jobs are on the line; yet, a good many actually believe they are doing good works, in their life-long struggle to save their own vision of America, from their opponents’ strident agenda and goofy ideology. It seemingly never occurs to any of them, that if they simply shut it down and went home, most of their ‘worthy’ causes would evaporate for lack of opposition, and they would never be missed by the vast majority of a much relieved population.

What would happen if we stopped legitimizing their oligarchy? What if nobody bothered to attend the carefully choreographed kabuki theater performances they call ‘elections?’ Without our dutifully voting for the least objectionable candidates offered, they could not claim a ‘mandate’ for their ‘vision,’ and claim the mantle of ‘leader’ for their ‘constituents.’ The most important statistic worth noting in post-election polling, is how many eligible voters chose ‘none of the above,’ by the simple expedient of boycotting the sham election.

For most of a long interesting life, I have generally been an upstanding American Patriot. I wore the US Army uniform for three years back in the mid ’60s, and then a peace officer’s badge in three different small towns for several years after that. Each of these ‘government jobs,’ required that I swear an oath to defend our country and its Constitution “from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It never occurred to me back then, to question the legitimacy of the Federal government, or its moral authority to make laws governing our conduct. Neither did I question the basis of my sworn duty to enforce them. Everyone must obey… “it’s the Law!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Politics managed to sneak back into the previous thread’s ribald attempt to evade such. Chris eventually explained why he thinks of ‘liberals’ as left-wing ideologues, and how outdated it is of me to omit the qualifier ‘classic,’ while employing the term outside of the modern Left/Right political paradigm. While composing a response, it occurred to me that this discussion probably deserves its own post. So, I fleshed it out as a more fulsome reply. The block quotes below are from his referenced comment…

The dictionary is awash in Orwellian distortions of the English language. The venerable term ‘liberal,’ like ‘Liberty,’ is derived from ‘Liber,’ meaning ‘free’ in Latin. Liberal political philosophy was developed by 17^th & 18^th century philosophers during the enlightenment, known as the Age of Reason. Thinkers like Adam Smith, David Hume, Voltaire, John Locke, et al, and all manner of Liberty loving, anti-tyranny, radicals like America’s founders, would have proudly worn the label ‘liberal’ in their day. Thus, I had always assumed that the Left had deliberately co-opted and inverted the term, as typical Orwellian Newspeak. That is, until I finally took the time to look up the word.

As is not at all unusual, the muddled definition I had been carrying in my head for decades, I had originally surmised from context and common usage, rather than consulting a dictionary. I suppose this is how and why language evolves over time. I would bet that most Americans have only a vague notion that ‘liberal’ means one or more of: left-wing; altruist; collectivist; socialist; communist; Marxist; atheist; Democrat; or simply the opposite of ‘conservative.’ The way it is used so often as an expletive by conservatives, suggests as much. Yet, none of those terms are used to define it, by any dictionary I have checked.

The term is used differently in American politics as I’m sure you know. Liberal and conservative now pretty much refer to attitude regarding adherence to the meaning and intent to the constitution and rule of law.

I reckon Chris’ attempt to define it by one’s attitude toward the U.S. Constitution, is much too parochial. That would only further confuse anyone trying to make sense of politics in other countries, which have conservative political parties called, “Liberal.”

Currently, the Oxford dictionary definition of liberal is simply: “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.” I really like the simplicity of that, and it describes me.

The Free dictionary offers: “Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded.” That sure doesn’t sound tyrannical to me; quite the opposite.

My thesaurus suggests as synonyms for liberal: open-minded; broad-minded; moderate; freethinking; tolerant; laissez-faire; and noninterventionist. These are all positive values to my mind. Wouldn’t it require a rather staid dogmatist to reject them?

It turns out that all of these current definitions and synonyms, fairly describe my own attitudes and outlook on life. So, the only reason I ever need qualify my liberal bent with the prefix ‘classic,’ is to disavow the collectivist and altruistic nature of most Leftist social justice warriors, who are routinely labeled and disparaged as simply ‘liberals,’ by cultural warriors on the Right. Surprisingly, nowhere have I found the bugaboos of altruism and/or collectivism, mentioned under the heading of liberalism. This would suggest that in this case, the corruption of the English language was likely done by the Right, rather than the Left. They are the ones misusing the term.

More tutoring from Chris:

“I know it’s hard to accept but there will always be government. Always has been. Human nature doesn’t change like that.”

It depends on your definition of ‘government.’ By mine, in terms of systematic ‘rule,’ and ‘rulers’ employing armed enforcers to govern a population, there certainly has not always been. There have always been ungovernable frontiers on this planet, and there still are. E.g. the Pashtun tribal no-man’s-land, between Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are several others in that part of the world. Afghanistan itself is largely ungoverned, despite being considered a nation state.

You might not like the conditions extant in such frontiers; but there is nothing preventing those who choose to live there, from moving to the more ‘civilized’ areas of their countries, where they would be subject to the rule and rulers of the state. How many of us would move to a Galt’s Gulch in a heartbeat, to escape the tyranny of ubiquitous government rulers, tax collectors, and enforcers, if such a frontier still existed in America? I sure would.

“The single document in the world that comes closest to guaranteeing the liberalism you would desire is the constitution of the United States.”

Poppycock. Setting aside my rejection of your premise that a constitutional government is somehow required to maintain Liberty, the U.S. Constitution has obviously done no such thing, and never will. The only way such a document could ever hope to constrain a nation state’s tyrannical rulers, is if the citizenry were indefatigably ready, willing, and able to effectively revolt against their jackbooted thugs if necessary, and summarily hang the offenders without mercy, to strictly enforce it. With the passing of our generation, such will definitely no longer exist among the largely docile, dumbed-down, domesticated, sheeple that remain in America. More the pity… ◄Dave►

I recently mentioned that I rarely even turn on my TV anymore. That is primarily because, as a political news junkie, that is all I have ever watched for the past 40 years or so. It hasn’t always been that way. As a young man, I was hooked on football. It began long before TIVO, when I couldn’t miss a pro game on Sundays. When it advanced to the point of not wanting to miss a college game on Saturdays, it finally occurred to me that I was wasting my weekends, watching other people have fun. I went cold turkey in the mid ‘70s. Now, I only ever watch the Super Bowl, and half the time I DVR that.

Now that I am effectively boycotting cable news, for loss of interest in partisan politics, and am probably getting too old to enjoy much exercise, I just might become a football fan again. My prime motive would be to support the NFL, in the face of the state’s call for sheeple to boycott their games. Whatever one might think of their personal motives for doing so, the players’ open defiance of nationalistic rituals, needs to be encouraged by right-thinking Liberty-loving individuals.

The notion that those dissatisfied with the state, can just stop waving its flag or standing at attention for its anthem, is certainly to be encouraged. It wouldn’t do if the NFL had to knuckle under to the state’s economic pressure, so the least I can do is help keep their ratings up. I think I’ll set my DVR up to record all NFL games, even if I don’t bother to watch them.  😉 ◄Dave►

Isn’t it only a matter of time before this mindless cultural suicide begins in America? Read the rest of this entry »

My frustrated comment to the previous post by Troy, caused him to reply with a thoughtful comment, regarding my increasingly serious flirtations with anarchy. My efforts to compose an equally thoughtful rejoinder, outgrew that somewhat off-topic comment section, so here it is as a new post specifically addressing my perspective on the subject of anarchy.

One of us is surely mistaken.

Perhaps we both are at this juncture, Troy, and now just living with very different illusory movies running in our heads, which we mistake for reality. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

some government is needed

As you well know, I spent the first 70 years of my life convinced of exactly that; but that in no way obligates me to be submissive to any so-called authority, or support the tyranny into which the Federal government has devolved. Madison particularly despised the concept of democracy. How then, did we end up with mob rule? Why is it so readily accepted by the sheeple?

Can we agree that mankind deserves at least the level of individual Liberty he and his contemporaries enjoyed? Would you not also agree that the odds now of retrieving that worthy goal, through any nonviolent political process, are essentially nil? Must we abandon it entirely then, perhaps out of some errant sense of patriotism, or is another violent revolution inevitable?

At a quick glance, anarchy may seem to have a lot to recommend it. But, upon deeper reflection, it soon becomes apparent (to most of us) that anarchy provides a sure and consistent path to some manner of “strong man rule”.

Troy, you have had a front row seat to my slow, cautious, careful, and deliberate investigations into the philosophical underpinnings of anarchical thought. This was in no way a causal “quick glance,” and I can assure you that after reading several books, numerous scholarly essays, and countless articles on the subject, I have given it considerable ‘deep reflection.’ Interestingly, the notion that it would inevitably result in “strong man rule,” is still not at all apparent to me. With all due respect, from my perspective, reaching such a conclusion appears to be the result of distinctly shallower thought than I have invested in the subject.

As for strong man rulers, try to convince me that the average citizen Read the rest of this entry »

Profound:

So am I, Stef… so are we. Let the Marxist fools on the Left have their goddamned hate-filled cities. DC is 2.4K miles from here. So is El Salvador. Read the rest of this entry »

James O’Keefe has done it again:

I have absolutely nothing in common with these foul characters, and refuse to consider them as my countrymen. Obviously, they would have similar disregard for anyone who thinks like me. Read the rest of this entry »

This is very well done:

What would happen if everyone understood this? What would you do if you came to believe you didn’t need and/or want rulers controlling your life anymore? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve taken a week to decompress. I have had an interesting reaction to the outcome of the election. On election night, I was nearly euphoric, as I bemusedly watched the stunned media, dealing with the mounting results. What had seemed so obviously predictable to me, had been more or less inconceivable to them. But after that night, the news coverage of the aftermath has been somewhat boring, and I am looking forward to focusing on other subjects.

From the beginning of his campaign, my dream mission for Trump was to create havoc, among the elites in the Incumbrepublocrat duopoly. Several months ago, I reckoned that he had already accomplished my assignment, by thrashing and marginalizing the GOPe, in the Primaries. Although as a budding anarchist, I had no real interest in him (or anyone else) becoming the next POTUS, I’ll admit that I did enjoy watching him vanquish the particularly insufferable (and patently ineligible) Canadian Born Citizen, Ted Cruz in the process. A job well done.

At that juncture, his winning the General was unimportant to me, as the Federal government itself has little relevance in my own life. Eventually, however, my sense of justice, combined with the flood of revelations documenting the nefarious activities of the Clinton Crime syndicate, instilled in me a compelling interest in Hillary’s defeat, so I kept cheering him on. Again Trump overachieved, and that in the end she couldn’t even make it to her own retirement party on election night, was particularly delicious. Was she too busy bawling, shrieking, boozing, or perhaps all three? Another job well done. 😉

Yet, a fair evaluation from my worldview, would suggest Trump’s political achievements so far, go well beyond these triumphs. Read the rest of this entry »

*****Update 10/19/16: This clip turns out to be a HOAX. See Mark Dice’s expose of it in the comment section below. â—„Daveâ–º*****

No wonder so many of these savages are getting shot:

I’d happily shoot these five fools, and rid society of their utterly worthless lives, which shouldn’t matter a whit to any civilized American. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time in our society’s seemingly inexorable death spiral, I have regained a significant measure of hope for the future of America, and indeed all of mankind. Once again, it seems, technology will come to our rescue.

Would a world without any rulers, where war was rendered impossible, be such a bad place to live? If there were a way to eventually nullify the power of all states, not just our own, would it be worth doing?

“Anarchy is not lack of order.  Anarchy is lack of ORDERS.” -unknown

What if there were nobody left daring to even follow unpopular orders, much less issue them? Without so-called ‘leaders,’ and disciplined followers willing to execute their orders, no form of tyranny or warfare could possibly exist. Think about that undeniable fundamental truth for a moment.

I find it astonishing that I had never heard of Jim Bell, and his 20-year-old 10-part essay, “Assassination Politics,” in which he described and defended a technological method for eliminating unpopular politicians from society. Read the rest of this entry »

This is delicious. Finally a BLM protest that makes good sense: “Some Black Lives Matter activists plan not to vote in November“:

Newsome is leading a new campaign to get African Americans to do something that few civil rights leaders have recommended: stop voting. He believes that only by withdrawing support from the major parties can black communities force politicians to address their concerns about police brutality.

He calls it “I Ain’t Voting” — and he says he’s aware that it could be seen as a rejection of the struggle that a previous generation went through.

“Before, we fought to have our right to vote,” he says. “But now we need to fight to have our right to vote mean something.” [Emphasis mine]

Brilliant! I wish him well. Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Adams has done it again. He has provided something worth seriously pondering: “The FBI, Credibility, and Government“:

The primary goal of government is its own credibility.

That notion needs some explaining.

Governments do many things, including building roads, providing social services, defending the homeland, and more. But no matter what the government is trying to accomplish, its macro-responsibility is to maintain its own credibility. Governments without credibility devolve into chaos. Credibility has to be job one.

That is profound! I had never considered it this way before; but upon reflection, he is absolutely right. I would say that this is particularly important in a state like the USA, which claims to be a self-governing, Constitutionally limited, representative republic, where citizens voluntarily accept the rule of law, within the concept of a participatory democracy.

Whether any of that is in fact true, is somewhat beside the point, as long as the sheeple believe enough of it, to accept the legitimacy of the state to rule over their lives. Somehow over the years, the American sheeple have been brainwashed, Read the rest of this entry »

In all I read today about the FBI refusing to prosecute Hillary, I thought Karl Denninger said it best:

The Rule of Law was officially burned and buried today on live television by the Director of the FBI.

You therefore no longer have any moral requirement to adhere to same; your entire analysis must now rest on whether you are sufficiently afraid of being shot — and nothing more.

America, as envisioned and fought for by the founders, died today at 11:00 AM ET, 7/5/2016.

240 years and one day from birth to death.

Or, as Trump tweeted: #riggedsystem. I have argued that this was obvious ten years ago. So did the immortal George Carlin:

…who continues to make more and more sense, the older I get. There is simply no way in hell to restore this country, by voting for the lesser of two evils offered up by the oligarch’s Incumbrepublocrat duopoly. â—„Daveâ–º

To the timid souls and precious snowflakes, perennially advocating gun control and/or a gun-free existence:

Have you ever lived in a totally gun-free society, where even the police had no firearms, and there was no military? I did, back in the late ’60s on a tropical island out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. At one point, there was a frightening period of political upheaval, before an election. Whipped up by Chicom backed ‘community organizers,’ for the “People’s United Party,” the restless natives, drunk on toddy (fermented palm sap), began rioting.

The sparse police force, armed only with truncheons, was completely overwhelmed by rioters wielding pangas (machetes), and beyond useless at crowd control. Without an airport, and located a thousand miles from the nearest land mass of Africa, there simply was nobody they could call for mutual aid backup. It got pretty ugly for a few days. I can just imagine the special snowflakes ensconced on today’s Ivy League campuses, stamping their dainty feet over there being no phones, with which to dial 911 demanding their “safe spaces,” be cleared of the unpleasant riffraff.

The generally ex-military American expats living there, were on our own, and also unarmed; but not quite helpless. Yankee ingenuity was employed in preparing to defend our homes and families. After unstringing our spear guns, and fabricating powerful slingshots with surgical tubing, we turned our attention to what today are called IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). It happened that large 4 & 6 inch firecrackers were readily available, in the Chinese sundry shops scattered around the island. Read the rest of this entry »

The upcoming “Brexit” referendum in the UK, is essentially an European secessionist movement. As is the fundamental right of a free people, the citizens of a disgruntled sovereign state, are deciding whether to throw off the yoke of a remote out-of-control central government. While there may very well have once been good reasons for joining the trade association known at the time as the Common Market, mission creep has since morphed it into the Leviathan now known as the EU, which has become more of an oppressive liability, than an asset to Great Britain.

Since the most common target of the secessionist musings in the US is the Republic of Texas, it would seem a natural to coin the portmanteau ‘Texit,’ yet a quick search of the term, yielded no such reference. Perhaps we should change that. 🙂

Meanwhile, I stumbled across an article the other day, with the implausible title, “How Bernie Sanders can still become president.” I only bothered to follow the link out of curiosity. It turned out to be an interesting and informative piece, well worth pondering:

Bernie Sanders will not become president of the United States. But he could still become president of Vermont if the Green Mountain State secedes.

It’s not such a far-fetched notion. Vermont was an independent republic from 1777 to 1791, and despite signing the Constitution, Vermont reserved its right to leave the union. New York, Rhode Island and Virginia explicitly did so.

Hmm… I had forgotten that talk of secession has been as common in New England, as it is in Texas in recent years. Let’s add ‘Vexit‘ Read the rest of this entry »

In my continuing  research into what I refer to as a Laissez Faire Stateless Society, I have encountered a lot of new terms attempting to redefine anarchy, which has such a negative connotation in the minds of sheeple. One of them is ‘Voluntaryist.’ I have discovered an interesting and informative website, with the simple URL of voluntaryist.com. Friday evening, I was perusing a section of it entitled, “How I Became a Voluntaryist,” which consists of personal testimonials. While reading Ben Speers’ biographical, “Conscience of a “Former” Conservative,” I encountered:

This idea, that people should be free to do whatever they want apart from initiating violence, crystallized in my mind. Soon I realized that there could be no ethical justifications for exceptions to this rule. This immediately led me to a conclusion that shocked me to the core, for I had never considered it before. The conclusion that I came to was that there was no moral justification for any violence-based government, which is to say any government at all based on the popular definition of government. Logically, the only road left to me was anarchism.

Bingo… welcome to my world! Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, in objections to my interest in exploring anarchy, or what I prefer to call a laissez faire stateless society, James Madison’s famous quip that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary” has been mentioned a few times. The implication being that since we are not angels, we absolutely require rulers and a coercive state to make us behave, or society would quickly devolve into total chaos.

I decided to pen a rebuttal to this common belief, and did a quick search to find Madison’s exact quote, and the precise context in which he made it. It was in “The Federalist No. 51,” where he was expounding on the necessity of the separation of powers, with checks and balances, in the Constitution:

“The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

Thus, the context speaks for itself. Madison was far more concerned with mechanisms to limit and control the government, than how best to control the people. Read the rest of this entry »