It’s amazing how many ideas are impossible without anarchy (the absence of coercion). You can’t have peace without anarchy. You can’t have love without anarchy. You can’t have liberty without anarchy. You can’t have security without anarchy. You can’t have mutual-happiness or mutual-prosperity without anarchy. These are things that most people value and seek after. And they find them. Every second of…
Category: Two Cents
On Anarchy II
Anarchy is the absence of something, the absence of a ruler, an initiator of aggression. By definition, aggression is a trespass, an uninvited invasion of the body or property of the victim. The burden of justification is on the initiator of aggression, on the ruler, to show why he should be allowed to initiate aggression…
On Anarchy
Suffering from a bout of jeffreytuckeritis, I can’t get this most glorious of concepts out of my head. Anarchy. An, without, archy, ruler. Without rulers. Without murderers, slavers, rapists, batterers, and thieves. Without the initiation of aggression and violence and coercion. Every interaction we have with others that is without one party ruling over the…
On “Check Your Privilege”
Are we setting our children up to be shamed for their “privilege”? Relative to most kids, my children have the privilege of not being spanked or schooled. They have the privilege of controlling their own lives, everything from media use to food to sleep. They have the privilege of learning two languages and two cultures.…
On the Police
Police cars used to display – and some may still – their supposed purpose, something to the effect of, “To Serve and Protect”. Naturally, when people read this, they assume it means to serve and protect them. Actually, they’re wrong. The police are not security for the people. Rather, they are law enforcement. Their mission…
On Death
Transhumanist dreams notwithstanding, we’re all going to die some day. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not for one hundred years. But that day will come, I have no doubt. It may be on our terms, but it most likely won’t be. Death will take us the way, the where, and the how that…
On “Have To” II
“Have to” is a grammatically awkward pairing in English and other languages (Spanish tener que). It’s called a “quasimodal,” whatever that means. Lately, whenever I think of “have to,” I change it to how – I think – it was originally used, “have an obligation to”. That is what it means, after all, so why…
On Spoiled Children
To spoil means, non-colloquially, “to strip, plunder, pillage.” That’s why they’re called the “spoils of war”. Colloquially, as it concerns children, it is claimed that if you let a child do whatever he wants, if you overindulge him, then he will become spoiled. But to anyone who understands the needs of children – psychological, emotional,…
On Megalomania
I don’t need a conspiracy theory like the “New World Order” to know that there exists individuals who want power at the expense of our liberties. A simple test suffices, care of Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth epic fantasy series: Who is more dangerous, a 200 lb. mugger, or a 100 lb.…
On “Leaving the Nest”
Humans are mammals, not birds, so the phrase, “leaving the nest” is not only stupid, but inapplicable. Last night my son decided after two years to sleep in another room, in his own bed. We helped him get everything set up, including moving dozens of his favorite plush dolls, his posse, to his new area.…