“With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly… Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”
Tag: libertarian
Entrepreneurship is the Best Defense Against Hierarchy
Self-sufficiency often brings to mind recluses living in the woods, raising their own food, and building their own shelter. This doesn’t have to be the case though. Anybody who has the means of creating enough wealth to trade for their wants and needs is self-sufficient. You don’t need to raise your own food so long as you can trade with somebody who has a surplus of food and is willing to trade it with you. As an entrepreneur you cannot be fired by a boss and you’re not reliant on a state to protect you from an egregious employer.
The Man Behind the Curtain
Although the Grateful Dead told us that “every silver lining’s got a touch of grey” (lyric by Robert Hunter), it’s my nature to look for one anyway. At the risk of being accused of gross naivete, I’d like to hope that the Trump presidency (I still can’t believe I have to type those words) will once and for all sour people on government and politics.
In Praise of Political Apathy
My children are both non-voters. They have little to no interest in politics. To them it is a big waste of time. They have more important things to do – like develop careers, enjoy the company of friends, have a good time and just live their lives. Some, on both the left and the right, would condemn them as apathetic.
But Who Will Build The Libertarian Society? The Inconsistency of “Immigration Control”
A popular rationalization for “immigration control” is a coupling of the reality that the State currently “taxes” (forces/extorts) people to pay for “welfare,” roadways, etc., and the chance (which proponents claim is fact) that “immigrants” “will vote to take your freedoms away.” This carries the linguistic baggage of layer upon layer of delusion, but in the end it either boils down to the State being rightful owner of all property, or at least acting as if it were, and violently controlling everyone and their property.
Human Evil and the Free Market
It is very common to assert that the advocates of the purely free market make one fundamental and shaky assumption: that all human beings are angels. In a society of angels, it is commonly agreed, such a program could “work,” but not in our fallible world. The chief difficulty with this criticism is that no libertarian—except possibly those under Tolstoyan influence—has ever made such an assumption.
Thought Experiments on The Violence of The State
I just wanted to take a moment and demonstrate how loving your neighbor as you love your own mother would result in the abandonment of the State. Our innate human morals preclude us from punishing our friends and family when they have harmed no one by their actions, nor damaged anyone else’s property.
The True Political “Spectrum”
The purported differences on the “statist” or “authoritarian” side are merely variances in propaganda and state intrusion; all states intrude in “the market” by nature/definition, so all “cross overs” into that realm (statism) are fundamentally the same in that they advocate a violent monopoly forcing itself on everyone else.
Why Paleoconservatives Are Wrong About Immigration
I don’t see how you can oppose free immigration without at least indirectly supporting the existence of a coercive state. I’ve read what (paleo) Rothbard and Hoppe have to say about it, but their argument (essentially, if all land were privately owned, “immigration” would require permission from the landowners) ignores several important facts.
Voluntary Only
Among the whole world of ideological labels that I could potentially attach to myself, there is one in particular that I feel called to talk about. Voluntaryism. This is a label that I have for a long time now felt affinity with, and in recent times have been cozying up to more and more.