Why do we voluntarists struggle to convince people of the fruits of our vision? Why do people look at us as crazy when we say we don’t need a government to do anything? Is it because kids have been indoctrinated in government schools for generations? Perhaps, but I don’t think this is the majority or even a large minority of the cause.
Tag: defense
More Korean War is “Worth it?” To Whom?
The last period of open war on the Korean peninsula cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million lives, including nearly a million soldiers on both sides (36,516 of them American) and 2.5 million civilians in the North and South. What did the American taxpayer get in return for three years of fighting, tens of thousands of Americans dead, and nearly $700 billion (in 2008 dollars)?
Putin’s Plan for America II
It took roughly 24 hours for panic to spread through the newspapers and talk radio all over America. The Pentagon is already using this propaganda as a reason for “expanded U.S. missile defense policy that would address certain threats from Russia and China, departing from a previous strategy that focused nearly exclusively on rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran.”
A Letter to ‘Students Demand Action’ from a Gun Owner
I understand. You’ve witnessed — far too often at first hand and in the most terrifying circumstances — the violent deaths of your fellow students. You refuse to accept that that’s just how it has to be. You’re organizing for change. You deserve to be heard. Don’t let anyone talk down to you or minimize your concerns. You want action. I don’t blame you. But it’s important to consider what kind of action you want, how to go about getting it, and what it will accomplish.
Random Ideas
Can we say yet that neither direct gun control nor background checks have made any difference? Isn’t the definition of madness to keep doing the same things, while expecting different results?
The Economics of Law, Order, and Action
My book The Economics of Law, Order, and Action: The Logic of Public Goods is now available for purchase. Its primary purpose is to provide a comprehensive challenge to the standard position of the economic and political mainstream, according to which efficient production of so-called public goods, including law and defense, requires the use of territorial monopolies of coercive force.
Don’t Blame the Guns, Blame the Schools
Today’s public schools already share many characteristics with prisons, yet the ‘answer’ some folks are proposing to the (statistically negligible) threat of school shootings is to make schools even more like prisons. Schools are an artificial environment that (much like a prison) forces kids to join gangs or cliques in order to avoid rejection and outsider status. Those who don’t fit in are subject to ridicule, abuse, and even brutality in some cases.
Yes, We Do Need 30-Round Magazines for Self-Defense
I keep encountering the truly ridiculous assertion that anyone who has a 30-round magazine for a firearm “must be planning to kill 30 people.” Now, most of the people making such claims aren’t attempting to have a good-faith discussion, but for those who actually don’t understand the issue, here’s a more realistic assessment.
“Peace Through Strength” Is a Racket
“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”
Raining on the Parade
Some people have proposed that Trump’s parade be postponed until all the wars the U.S. government is waging are finished and the troops are back home. That would indeed be an indefinite postponement, and I wouldn’t want to see a parade even then. But if that’s the price for ending those imperial wars, I’ll take it.