Editor’s Break 043 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: social coercion and voluntaryism, rights in the negative sense and as a social convention, how markets, and not governments, increase peace and tolerance in society, using force when persuasion fails, the negative aspects of the so-called “thin blue line”, what Utopia is and why the free society is not Utopian, the foolishness in treating celebrities as authorities on politics and economics, and more.
Year: 2017
Authorities They Are Not
Political discourse is an open-access activity. Anyone can have a say. Among those whose opinions and allegations receive the most notice are celebrities — especially entertainers, actors, TV news figure and pundits, athletes, and people who are famous only for being famous — and politicians. The prominent attention that these persons’ statements garner is unfortunate, to say the least.
Another Set of 2018 Predictions
In 2018, we will see: POTUS commits a gaffe; POTUS spends taxpayer funds on golf; POTUS eggs on North Korea…
Looking Through Your Magic Lenses
Yes, a bad guy can become a good guy in a heartbeat, but it requires facing, honestly, the evil he has been doing. Bad guys are never going to do this as long as people keep excusing them and patting them on the back for their “service”.
Radical Ideals Aren’t the Same as Utopian Visions
If I have one ethical ideal for how human beings should relate to each other (“politics”), it’s this – non-violence. There’s a lot more to say about ethical societies and ethical human behavior, but when it comes to politics, I’m really not much more complicated than that. My views are actually pretty mundane.
Maintaining Victim Fluidity
The difference between crimes and non-crimes is that with the former, you have a real, identifiable victim, but with the latter, you don’t. Therefore, the government stands in place and assigns itself victimhood in order to bring charges. The more charges it brings as a victim (eg. The State vs…), the more revenue it generates. The more dynamically ambiguous it identifies itself as a victim, the richer and more entrenched in the fabric of society it gets.
Murderous Scumwad Shrugs Responsibility
So, a murderous scum Blue Line Gang member murders a kid while killing a suspected thief, and once again isn’t held responsible. Instead, the whole disgusting gang protects him or her (probably “him”) from responsibility by hiding the murderer’s identity.
Herodotus on the United Nations
Both recent and long term developments at the United Nations have been illuminated by newly discovered (by me) passages from Herodotus of Halicarnassus.
Stock Exchange
Congress blamed insider market abuses and inadequate disclosure of financial data for the Great Depression, and reacted by creating the SEC. In truth, the Great Depression had more to do with tariffs and poor Federal Reserve policies. I feel like I’ve heard this story before: the government causes a problem, and uses the problem as a reason to take more power.
Cancerous Cartmanism
If you as an individual have no right to do something, a bigger group of individuals can’t magically make the right pop into existence, and can’t turn that magical “right” into “authority” to imbue someone else with. It just can’t happen.