“I’ve had it, Mom—the last straw has landed. I’m taking Shaun out of school this week and I’m going to have him learn at home. And I’m never going to send Patrick and Molly to school. And if Ian wants to homeschool, he can, too!” With those words, I let my mother know I’d taken the drastic step I’d been contemplating and researching for months.
Tag: peace
Polar Opposites, or Two Sides of the Same Bloody Coin?
The alt-right and the ‘leftists’ (broadly speaking) see themselves as polar opposites despite embracing nearly identical tactics of dehumanizing their opponents and using violence against them. Both sides believe that peace can be achieved only after the streets run red with the blood of their enemies.
The “Problem” of Immigration
Before I was introduced to voluntaryism I believed that illegal immigration was a huge problem for the people of the United States. However, I now understand that all of the alleged problems of illegal immigration disappear when we take government out of the equation.
Editor’s Break 013 – Milo and Berkeley is a Property Rights Problem (12m)
Editor’s Break 013 is an analysis of the Milo Yiannopoulos and UC Berkeley issue that’s seen a protest turn into a riot. Once again, ill-defined property ownership stemming from government intervention in the lives of peaceful people is to blame. Listen to Editor’s Break 013 (12m, mp3, 96kbps) Subscribe via RSS here. via iTunes here.…
The Violence And Justice Monopoly
Almost all of us hold two beliefs which contradict a third near-universal belief. The first is that a state, however else defined, is a geographic monopoly of security and justice. One cannot appeal a ruling beyond the state, and whatever private providers of security and justice may exist, they do so in pronounced subservience to and supervision by the state. The second is that monopolies invariably cause high prices and low quality.
Compassionate Connection: Attachment Parenting & Nonviolent Communication
How do we deal with a two-year-old when he grabs every toy his friend plays with? What do we say to a four-year-old who screams in rage when her baby brother cries? How do we talk with a ten-year-old about the chores he has left undone, again? What strategies will keep our teenager open with us – and safe? Nonviolent Communication (NVC), sometimes referred to as Compassionate Communication, offers a powerful approach for extending the values of attachment parenting beyond infancy. A process for connecting deeply with ourselves and others, and for creating social change, NVC has been used worldwide in intimate family settings as well as in organizations, schools, prisons, and war-torn countries.
An Open Letter to a Statist
If you have an opinion about politics that differs from mine, I can’t just ignore the difference and get along with you. Why not? Because any “political” opinion that differs from mine necessarily includes you wanting men with guns forcing me to live my life, make my choices, and spend my money according to your preferences and whims. There is no such thing, and can be no such thing, as a tolerant statist. If you want peaceful coexistence, you have to stop advocating violent aggression against your fellow man.
An Attempt to Insult and Humiliate Mexicans
Suppose the Canadians were to build a wall to keep Americans out of their country, making it clear that Americans are simply not decent, productive, peaceful people and therefore the fewer of them who enter Canada the better. Might Americans take justifiable offense at such treatment? Why does anyone imagine that Mexicans feel any differently?
The Profound Value of Market Values
Even though economists, like others, don’t know the objective value of anything, they do know that as long as people voluntarily enter market arrangements, all parties to each transaction expect that the subjective value they will receive as benefits will exceed the subjective value they bear as costs. Greater subjective values for all is the result. And any coercive intrusion that forcibly moves the quantity exchanged away from what individuals would voluntarily choose destroys joint gains to participants, making the “solutions” offered by economists’ Wilde-eyed critics worse than the supposed problems used to justify them.
Who Anarchists Are Actually
Thanks to the media’s portrayal of masked malcontents kicking over trashcans as “anarchists,” I believe some clarification is in order. I am an anarchist because I recognize that the institution of the state is fundamentally based on violence and coercion, not because I punch people in the face for exercising their freedom of speech.