Most people now deeply distrust the government, quite understandably. And many of these same folks have become aware of the extent to which crony capitalism is messing up their lives. Up to this point, libertarians such as myself can only say “welcome to the club.” But here is where things oft go awry.
Tag: security
The USA—Best Not to Go There Unless You Have an Urgent Reason to Do So
The USA is simply not a welcoming place. It is a police state, and a hostile one at that. It makes virtually no attempt to distinguish potentially threatening people from ordinary people who, to anyone with a trace of brain, obviously pose no threat to national security or the personal well-being of current U.S. residents. So, be smart, amigos: don’t go there unless your have a very important reason to do so.
Our Trip to Ireland
This past Autumn, we finally made a trip to Ireland. It was so overwhelming that I could not decide where to start in writing about it. I’ve been fermenting the tale for nearly 4 months now.
The Journey of Survival and The Risk of Failure
Many, probably most, people believe animals are probably better off in the wild rather than the zoo. This is true despite the fact that zoos offer the resources that animals spend most of their existence trying to acquire in abundance and at no risk. We reasonably understand that their evolutionary drive provides them with purpose and that merely giving them the ends of so many of their goals make them weak and depressed.
The Infinite Regress of the Victim Mentality
Now aside from the fact that nobody living today has gone through the injustices of their ancestors, nor has anybody alive today perpetrated those injustices on any living or deceased person today, and therefore, they do not owe any so called “victim” anything, there is another problem with this line of victim based ideology. Namely, there is always another victim further back, to which a claim can be made for “justice.”
Have the Balls to Admit Your Bigotry
There are a number of people who are xenophobic, nationalist, racist dumbasses, who want the violence of “government” used to keep everyone away who isn’t quite like them. However, in that category are two types: 1) those who openly admit what they think and what they condone, and; 2) those who use “code” rhetoric, intentionally speak in vague euphemisms, and pretend to not be what they are. I can’t decide which I like less.
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.
Lock Up Young Men for Safety
Allowing young men – let’s say age 18 to 23 – to be free increases the crime rate, as young men commit a disproportionately high percentage of violent crimes. Doesn’t that fact justify locking up all men between the ages of 18 and 23? If it would dramatically reduce violent crime, and therefore reduce overall aggression, wouldn’t that mean that such an action constitutes moral defensive force?
If Men Were Angels
Although I admit that the outcome in a stateless society will be bad, because not only are people not angels, but many of them are irredeemably vicious in the extreme, I conjecture that the outcome in a society under a state will be worse, indeed much worse, because, first, the most vicious people in society will tend to gain control of the state and, second, by virtue of this control over the state’s powerful engines of death and destruction, they will wreak vastly more harm than they ever could have caused outside the state.
Is the Non-Aggression Principle Self-Negating? You Decide!
A person named Jared emailed me out of the blue about a week ago with the following letter. It contains a request for feedback followed by an argument that the Non-Aggression Principle as made popular by Murray Rothbard was self-negating on the grounds that the creation of private property is an act of aggression. What ensued were several letters back and forth in which we both flesh out the other’s argument and offer our critique. In the end we understood each other better, but alas no consensus was reach.