Much of human history is comprised of people bitching and moaning about one tyrant, only to cheer for another–suffering under one form of oppression for years and years, only to replace it with a slightly different flavor of authoritarian collectivism.
Tag: history
Stop Looking For Something That Works
Sometimes things will work really well for other people, but they won’t work so well for you. Sometimes things won’t work out for other people, but they’ll work really well for you. Professional advertisers have a phrase for this: “Individual results may vary.”
Negative Balance of Trade? So What?
Although the topic may appear daunting, the essence of the matter is utterly simple. As a fair approximation, each international transaction, whether it be buying, selling, borrowing, or lending across a national border involves a willing party on each side—importers want to purchase goods from sellers abroad, lenders want to lend to borrowers abroad, and so forth. Each party to the transactions expects to benefit by entering into it. In a sane and just world, that would be the end of the matter.
Things to Keep in Mind During the Health Care Debate
Politicians, of course, can declare a right to medical care, but those are mere words. What counts is what happens after the declaration. Since a system in which everyone could have, on demand, all the medical care they wanted at no cost would be unsustainable, the so-called right to medical care necessarily translates into the power of politicians and bureaucrats to set the terms under which medical services and products may be provided and received.
Such a Sad Life
Is it really a sad thing to accept the nature of reality and ethical behavior? To understand that theft and aggression are wrong, even if you don’t feel they actually harm you? Even if you deny the acts in question are theft and aggression? I certainly don’t think so.
Little Kings
POTUS is an impossible job, designed as it is as a little king, after the clown parade in our putative mother country, England. Our POTUS acts out as if he is the crowned head in his court. Is he mad King George III or Henry VIII?
Collectivist Thinking Leads to Atrocities
Collectivist thinking isn’t just about being cliquish or rude to others; carried to its natural extreme, it allows individuals to imagine a conflict where none exists and to use that imaginary conflict as an excuse for the most barbaric of behaviors.
The Religion of the State
Many objects have been turned into totems, but among the most common are flags, which are emblems signifying an association with a group and a cause taken to be larger than any individual. There’s hardly a need to point out how the flag is venerated in the United States — especially these days.
Political Power-Lust Thrives in a Democracy
Under democracy, politicians are less candid about their motives; they need us to like them, and power-hunger is not likeable. But given its ubiquity throughout most of political history, can we really believe that the motive of power-hunger is no longer paramount? One of my favorite political insiders privately calls politicians of both parties “psychopaths”–and he’s on to something. Rising high on the pyramid of power is hard unless the love of power fuels your ascent.
Anarchy and Islam
I’ve met Muslims of every school of anarchist thought from anarcho-socialists to national-anarchists. Prominent among them are Hakim Bay’s “ontological anarchism” and Yakoub Islam’s “post-colonial anarcho-pacifism” but this is my story.