If you lock someone away as a result of an accident that the State has decided was a “crime”, you’ve shut the barn door after the horse ran away. Worse than that, you’ve locked the horse out of the barn and thrown it to the wolves. The horse will either be eaten, or it will become a wolf in order to survive. This is why prisons are actually Criminal University; training facilities to teach the socially rejected how to commit more and worse actual crimes. Prisons are a net negative.
Tag: society
Statism is Weakness of Character
Recently I saw where someone was told to “go live in the woods” when he said he believed all human interactions should be voluntary and this was why he didn’t “do” politics. Really.
Ansel Adams Was Unschooled; How to Solve America’s Creativity Crisis
Ansel’s father recognized his son’s natural exuberance and determined that Ansel needed more freedom to thrive. When Ansel was 12, his father removed him from school and homeschooled him, granting him abundant freedom and opportunity to pursue his own interests and passions. At home, Ansel learned to play the piano, becoming a professional musician before devoting his life to photography.
Advice to My Children, and Everyone Else
I’ve given this entire learning experience some thought over the last few days, and the following stanza sums up my principles nicely: Don’t hurt people. Don’t take their stuff. Don’t ask permission. This is the advice I will be giving and reinforcing in my children as opportunity arises, and its advice I give to the rest of humanity. Let’s dig deeper.
Illegal If Invented Today – Cars, Danger, Trust, and Innovation
I was driving to work today when I realized how nonchalantly I was piloting my land-speeding hunk of aluminum. Cars are extraordinary, complex, and dangerous machines, but most of us can drive them comfortably and without much second thought. That’s extraordinary. Then I though “There’s no way these things would be allowed if they were invented today.”
In Few Words, What is Freedom?
Freedom is beautiful. It’s a warm cup of coffee in the morning, a sunny walk or drive to our preferred destination, an activity engaged in for the sake of interest, and the loving arms of someone who loves and cares about us.
Lies Cause Weakness
Lies feel safe and cozy. Especially when they are told and retold. When the lies bring you together and make you feel a part of a community you have a special place to fit in. Truth is often lonely and painful. I know.
Am I Being Detained?
“Just cause” is a relative concept. It means different things in different contexts. In the context of voluntaryist legal theory (the only logically and ethically valid kind of legal theory, methinks), someone has just cause to temporarily detain another person when that person is in the process of committing a crime.
Endings
All things must come to an end, but it seems the frequency has been on an uptick this past week. Members of POTUS’s cabinet have seen the end of their service (Tillerson), or at least the beginning of the end (McMaster, DeVos).
Give Freedom a Chance
One of the typical responses to criticism of a government policy, program, or other undertaking is the demand for an answer to the question, “What is your alternative?” Often this challenge demands a blueprint or other detailed plan for the alternative to the governmental status quo. Absent such a fully articulated plan, one’s criticism is often dismissed as mere carping by someone who has no idea about how to replace the present government undertaking. My own alternative is simply freedom.