Several days ago I compared a disgusting group’s support of prohibition to support for chattel slavery. You may have thought I was exaggerating. But was I? Let’s look at the comparisons.
Tag: prison
Supporting Government “Services”
If I am attacking the theft and coercion behind some things, don’t take it as an attack on you for using those things–unless you start being nasty in defense of the status quo and making it about some tangent that buzzes your bonnet.
Explore New Ways of Living
Any inherited rules for how to live are a personal mental prison. You will continue to carry them until you discover life’ s many alternatives. So long as you do anything because you think it is what you ought to do, your are not living your own life. You are living as a manifestation of another mind. You are not true to yourself because you have not discovered what that even means.
Why Free Immigration Is the Moderate, Common-Sense Position
Far from being utopian, saying “Immigration is a human right” is just the moderate, common-sense position that when natives and foreigners voluntarily interact, strangers are morally obliged to leave them alone unless the overall consequences are clearly awful. Even if the stranger happens to be the government – and the government happens to be popular.
An Argument for a Stateless Society
The state fundamentally violates the non-aggression principle. Only its death can absolve its infringement, and I think this simple fact alone is more than enough justification for its termination.
Prison is Counter-Productive
In the majority of cases, prison, as it exists today, is about the most moronic, least efficient, most counter-productive way society could possibly deal with actual criminals (the kind who have actual victims).
Familial Pride
You should be more proud of your daughter if she’s a hooker than if she’s a “public” school teacher. You should be more proud of the cousin who’s a meth manufacturer than the one who’s a cop.
“Collective Punishment”
If the kinderprison teacher doesn’t know who is guilty of some offense (real or imagined) he’ll just punish the whole class. This is an extremely common practice in government schools and similar places. I think the lesson this teaches is different than the one authoritarians might imagine.
Follow the Mythological Path in Life
Our lives become a part of mythology when we pursue personal transformation through primordial patterns in the human psyche. We follow the hardwired path to arrive at superior versions of ourselves. The stories which have recurred with the greatest longevity in our cultures are those which appeal most profoundly to our underlying program for progression through life.
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.