The state only deals with people by hurting, killing, caging, and robbing them. It wraps these actions up in hundreds of thousands of pages of demands, orders, mandates, regulations, prohibitions, licenses, and certificates; but the bureaucratic maze which supposedly allows individuals to escape unscathed is an illusion.
Tag: order
Children Are Not Interchangeable Cogs
Variations of this picture of educational cogs have been widely distributed in schools. Education works best, we are told, when all the parts work together. The picture shows three gears, arranged in a circle. If you remember your studies of mechanics, this arrangement cannot possibly work.
#DrainTheTSA
Can we #DrainTheTSA? I write in response to an article about a $100 million cocaine ring, which included at least two TSA agents.
How Econ Textbooks Sanitize the Horrors of Communism
When I was first learning economics, I was surprised by how pro-communist many economics textbooks were. I don’t mean, of course, that any economics textbook ever said, “Communism is good.” What I mean, rather, is that textbooks were very positive relative to communism’s historical record. Indeed, many seemed deeply ignorant of actual communism, basing their assessment on second-hand information about communists’ stated intentions, plus a few anecdotes about inefficiencies. Many textbook authors were, in a phrase, communist dupes: Non-communists who believe and spread a radically overoptimistic image of communism.
Borders != Doors
Having locks on some doors does not mean that every door, every road, every shopping mall, every border should be locked and should require ID checks. I say this in response to BCFs (Border Control Freaks) who constantly draw a false analogy between sealed borders and a locked door.
The Many Benefits, for Kids, of Playing Video Games
Video games have been under attack by the fear-mongers ever since they first appeared, and the attacks have not diminished. If you Google around the Internet using harmful effects of video games as a search phrase, you will find all sorts of frightening claims. If you look into the actual research literature, you find very little if any evidence supporting the fear-mongers claims, and considerable evidence against those claims.
Anarchism as Constitutionalism
Trying to refute anarchism by pointing to undesirable instances of anarchy is about as bad an argument as trying to refute Bidinotto’s advocacy of government by pointing to the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Whether a state is horrendous or decent depends in large part on its constitutional structure; whether an anarchic society is horrendous or decent likewise depends on its constitutional structure.
What Are the World’s Three Biggest Problems?
Are you a serious thinker? Then self-consciously change the subject to the Big Picture.What can be done to mitigate the media’s policy misdirection? I suggest we start the New Year with what I call the Priority Resolution. Are you a serious thinker? Then step back from the media cycle and name the world’s Three Biggest Problems. Instead of trying to score points over the latest exciting story with colorful characters, let us self-consciously change the subject to the Big Picture.
Liberty in the Balance
If we truly wish to live in a free country, we need to carefully think about what, if anything, the government ought to be allowed to do. I suggest that we think about this, as Rawls would, while imagining that we might not be in the driver’s seat. We might not be favored by the law. In such a case, would we not prefer an even-handed set of rules which, while not giving us any particular advantage, also do not give particular advantages to those who do not like us very much?
Civic Religion Impedes Clear Thinking
Even I sometimes forget how thoroughly the religious belief in political “authority” mangles people’s ability to think. For example, a certain statist just expressed genuine confusion and bafflement when trying to comprehend this: Sometimes I don’t want “A” to happen, and yet I don’t feel justified in using force (on my own or via “government”) to prevent “A” from happening.