Category: Liberty

Cultures Cannot Own Ideas Either

Several of my friends have been passing around the story of the University of Ottawa cancelling a free yoga class because of concerns of cultural appropriation. I ignored it just as I ignore most culture war stories. Especially when the remedy to the cancellation is as simple as continuing the classes without official recognition from the university. But some valuable discussion did manage to rise from the ashes. Namely that ideas aren’t property and therefore cannot belong to anybody:

Yoga, whether you’re a fan of it or not, doesn’t exclusively belong to some group of people who share the same skin color or language or culture or religion — just as classical music or Western medicine or modern physics doesn’t belong to the Europeans. It, like all such ideas, is the common heritage of all mankind. That means of each and every one of us, even those of us who have a genetic background or culture that some people feel aggrieved at.

We (Indian, American, African, Oceanian, anyone else) are entitled to use it, to adapt it, to merge it with other ideas. There’s no improper “appropriation” here because there’s no “property” here in the first place.

After this the author does some backtracking and tries to justify patents and copyrights. His inconsistency towards the end of the article don’t invalidate the beginning of the article though. Ideas are not a finite resource that can be exclusively held by a single individual. You can copy an idea but that doesn’t deprive the originator of it so the act cannot be called theft.

Most instances where I’ve seen accusations of cultural appropriation made were when somebody was making use of an idea that originated in another culture. Sometimes the usage is malicious and meant to mock the culture but more often than not the usage is innocent. In the former case I think an accusation of the user being a jackass suffices and in the latter I think the usage should be encouraged. Adopting ideas from other cultures tends to have the effect of forwarding the adopter’s view of the culture they’re drawing from.

For example, I participate in Japanese martial arts and part of that involves adopting Japanese cultural ideas not directly related to the combat styles themselves. Several of those ideas are themselves adopted from Buddhism. Buddhism in Japan came from China, which adopted Buddhism from India where the religion originated. So I’ve adopted cultural ideas that were adopted from cultural ideas that were adopted from cultural ideas. If I am guilty of cultural appropriation, and I have been accused of it by one person, then I am merely continuing a trend of cultural appropriation that spans back into prehistory. With all of that said I feel as though I’m a better person because of it. My overall understanding of the world expanded because I adopted ideas from another culture.

I use myself as an example because I am the person I know best. But most people I know who had adopted ideas from other cultures have become better people because of it. A lot of people I know practice yoga and feel they are better because of it. Seeing their enjoyment of life increase leads me to believe they are correct. Many of my friends also practice various forms of meditation, which clearly do not have roots in European culture. Again they feel it has made them better people and I agree. In addition to becoming better people these friends of mine tend to have a more expansive worldview. That fuller worldview tends to make them less xenophobic and if there’s anything the world needs it’s less xenophobia.

The idea that one’s ability to adopt ideas from other cultures is dependent on what culture they were born into is another attempt at monopolizing ideas. Cultural appropriation belongs on the same shelf as copyrights and patents: fiction. While there are certainly valid grounds for criticizing people who adopt a cultural idea for the sole purpose of denigrating the culture they should be based on the person being an asshole. On the other hand people who adopt ideas from other cultures should be encouraged because it will only help expand their worldview and very well may help to different cultures come together. Above all though we should recognize that cultural ideas aren’t a special exception to the illegitimacy of intellectual property.

Property Cannot Exist Under Statism

Although there are a lot of disagreements between libertarian anarchists and libertarian statists one of the biggest is their views on property. Libertarian anarchists generally believe property rights are absolute whereas libertarian statists don’t believe in the concept of property rights. I imagine there are several libertarian statists screaming at their computer as though it was actually me. One of the things they’re probably screaming about is their belief that the state is necessary to protect property rights. But libertarian statists believe there should be a state and wherever a state exists property rights cannot.

This discussion isn’t necessarily restricted to libertarian property rights theory. Anywhere a state exists no form of property, other than the state having all rights over all property, can exist. Anarcho-communism’s concept of collectively owned means of production cannot exist. Mutualism’s concept of usage based rights cannot exist. And libertarian anarchism’s concept of absolute private property rights cannot exist.

A state is nothing more than an organized gang that claims a monopoly on the use of force within a geographic area. Different forms of states exist but all of them share a common trait: they declare a monopoly on making and enforcing the rules.

Consider the United States, a state that libertarian statists generally claim to be one of the most libertarian states in existence. Under the laws of the United States private property rights are the rule. There are no legal means by which a person can forcefully take the property of another. I’m just messing with you. In the United States nobody can be said to actually own anything. Everything is owned by the state and individuals are merely granted temporary usage and possession privileges.

If you don’t believe me try not paying your property taxes. You will soon find armed officers at your door threatening to either arrest or evict you. But large property like houses aren’t the only instance where your supposed property can be taken from you. If you fail to pay your income tax the state may put a lien against your property and seize it if you fail to pay off your “debt” within a specified period of time. Civil forfeiture laws allow the state to seize cash, automobiles, and any other property a police officers claims might be related to a drug crime. Your firearms can be seized if the state deems you a felon. There really are no limits on what the state can take.

These laws haven’t always been in existence, which is the biggest point of this post. Although the property rights granted under a particular government may be “libertarian” at one point that can change. Since a state has a monopoly on making and enforcing the rules it can change any rule at any time. Civil forfeiture laws are a prime example of the rules on property ownership changing. Before civil forfeiture laws were passed a random police officer couldn’t steal your car and all of your cash by simply claiming he believe it was somehow related to a drug crime. But the state changed the rules and now random police officers can take your stuff without so much as a court order. The income tax wasn’t always in existence but after it was brought into existence it gave the state an excuse to seize the property of anybody delinquent on their income taxes.

The reason property rights can’t exist under a state is because the state has the power to change the rules at any point. That power makes any property ownership nothing more than a temporary privilege that can be revoked at any time.

You Can’t Vote Your Way To Libertarianism

Are you a libertarian? Are you politically active? If you answered yes to both questions then I have a question for you: why? I came across a good article by Jason Farrell that addresses the contradiction of political libertarianism:

There’s a good reason libertarians remain at the ideological fringe: “Libertarian politics” is a contradiction in terms. Libertarianism is not a third party, like the Know-Nothings or the Whigs or a prescription of policy tweaks to make the government more efficient. It is a distinct value system that abhors political power itself, even if some of its adherents consider power a necessary evil.

Libertarians may disagree whether the state should be abolished or minimized, but the difference matters little to the average American: Both seem frighteningly outside his own experience. Even the most moderate libertarians will wax poetic about ending intellectual property or privatizing the welfare system. Moreover, virtually all voters are deeply invested in government services they have come to depend on, and libertarians have been unable to present hypothesized private-sector alternatives while the state forces dependence upon itself. Conceptually, libertarians are on a page that most people find bizarre.

Libertarianism is best understood as the latest in a long line of radical liberation ideologies, rooted in the principles of natural law and individualism, that have provided the intellectual basis for rebellion since the American Revolution. It is a reaction to the perpetual expansion of government power in the U.S. and its frequent abuses. But radicalism, by definition, is immoderate and cannot compromise its way to reforms. Rather than moving toward the “Overton window” of public opinion by moderating controversial views (as Rand Paul attempted), radicals must pull public opinion towards their own viewpoints. Rand’s straying from libertarian principles means that he likely has little unique appeal even for the tiny libertarian electorate his father created. David Boaz’s research shows that 70% of libertarian-leaning voters went with Mitt Romney over Gary Johnson in 2012, so we know even libertarians who believe in politics are willing to blunt their own sword.

Libertarianism is a radical ideology and therefore doesn’t enjoy popular support. Politics is a popularity contest. If your candidate doesn’t support the views of the majority of voters then they’re not going to get elected. And one need only look at some of the more popular presidential candidates to see what the majority supports.

The current frontrunner for the Republican Party is Donald Trump. Trump is a raging asshole. If it were up to him Muslims would probably be wearing armbands. Ben Caron, another popular Republican candidate, believes the pyramids were funny shaped grain silos.

On the other side of the field we have Bernie Sanders. Sanders spends most of his time bitching about economics, a field he demonstrably knows absolutely nothing about. He also supports dropping bombs on foreigners, which is something he shares with Hillary Clinton who is his primary competitor.

So the majority of voters want a candidate who will blow up foreigners, promise them free shit, or believes archeology is a made up science. They’re not interested in freedom. Quite the opposite in fact. They enjoy their comfortable slavery.

This is usually where some political libertarian tells me that victory can be achieved by slowly moving the political needle towards libertarianism. They will say Rand Paul isn’t perfect but he’s palatable to the masses. According to them his victory will show Americans that a tiny bit of freedom doesn’t hurt. This will supposedly make them receptive to a little more freedom when the next election rolls around. I’ve seen absolutely no proof of this. In fact my observations lead me to believe the opposite is true. The masses are always a crisis away from accepting more chains to wrap them in the false feeling of safety. Maybe the needle moves so slowly I can’t perceive it. If that’s the case I’ll be dead before any perceivable freedom is gained so what’s the point?

Politics is a lost cause for libertarianism just as it is for any radical philosophy. Instead you’re better off taking direct action to advance freedom:

Instead, libertarians might be more useful as single-issue activists and innovators. While U.S. politicians fail to shrink government, individualists like Erik Voorhees, Cody Wilson, Peter Thiel and the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto are using technology to forge a new path. Time will tell exactly where that leads. But Rand’s decline underlines the fact that libertarian ethics predicate disruption and revolution, not moderation and compromise. As such, it is unlikely to ever get big votes in American politics.

Cody Wilson and Satoshi Nakamoto accomplished more for freedom than Rand Paul ever will. Wilson showed the world how technological advancements will overcome restrictions against self-defense. Nakamoto gave the world a functioning alternative currency that is highly resistant to centralized control. Disarming citizens and controlling their money are two of the State’s biggest tools for dominating people.

Direct action, unlike politics, has the advantage of not needing popular support. Most people probably don’t support Wilson’s efforts to make firearms easy accessible or Nakamoto’s, probably inadvertent, contribution to empowering the underground economy. But the masses were powerless to stop either of them just as they were powerless to stop Dread Pirate Roberts from building and operating an online market for illicit substances. Even when the State managed to take him down nothing was really accomplished because alternatives sprang up like wildfire. The man that started the first major hidden service marketplace might have been taken down but the idea can’t be destroyed. Hell, the idea is only advancing. Now efforts are being made by projects such as OpenBazaar to create decentralized online marketplaces, which will be even more resilient to government interference.

Freedom is advancing but not because of libertarian politics. It’s advancing because people unwilling to accept their chains chose to rebel. If you’re willing to rebel you too can play an active role in advancing freedom. But if you’re only willing to beg the masses to see things your way you’re doomed to fail. The masses don’t want what you’re selling.

The State Is A Specialist

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about propaganda. Although we started off discussing corporate propaganda we quickly ended up talking about the State’s propaganda when I mentioned its program for paying football teams to be propagandists. This lead my friend to ponder whether the general libertarian claim that the State is incompetent was false.

This is actually something worth discussing. Is the State actually incompetent or very competent? I don’t see the State as either. Instead I see it as a specialist, which is to say it’s very competent within its speciality but varies in its competency in other areas. So what is the State’s specialty? Theft.

The State is just another name for the largest gang in an area that pilfers wealth from the people. This pilferage has many euphemisms including taxation, permits, fines, civil forfeiture, and prison work programs. But all of them result in wealth, both in the forms of assets and labor, being transferred from the citizenry to the rulers. Since this is the State’s speciality it’s no surprise that it’s very competent at it.

Propaganda is just one of many tools the State uses to commit theft. As I mentioned yesterday, the State needs to convince its victims that they’re not actually victims, otherwise they get uppity and may either overthrow the rulers themselves or assist a neighboring gang in “liberating” them. A good analogy is the Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes rely on an ever increasing number of victims. Getting more victims is made possible by the perpetrators of the schemes convincing the victims that they’re actually investors and will make money in the end. So long as this fiction can be maintained the victims aren’t likely to go to the authorities.

As with most perpetrators of Ponzi schemes, the State is very good at selling its criminal activity as an investment. It tells its victims that taxation is actually an investment that funds infrastructure, defense, and education facilities. Permits are sold as a necessity to fund oversight that ensures dastardly citizens won’t cause undue suffering to their fellows. We’re told fines and civil forfeiture are disincentives for actions that harm others. And prison labor is called a method to reform wrongdoers by giving them valuable skills to make a living with after they’ve paid their debt to society.

Unless the State at least provides the illusion of investment the citizenry is unlikely to believe it for long. So the State invests some of its plunder in building roads, militaries, and schools. Of course, of those things, only the military is any good and that’s because it furthers the State’s plundering. But there’s something there for the State to point to as proof that taxation is an investment. Maintaining the illusion of permits is easier because it only requires finding one or two wrongdoers to make a public example of. Fines and civil forfeiture are even easier sells. All the State must do is scare the citizenry into believing that without such punishments in place horrible things like drug dealers handing out heroine to children would become commonplace. Prison labor may be the easiest one to sell because everything takes place behind giant walls that separate the incarcerated from the citizenry.

Through all of this propaganda the victims can be made to believe they’re investors and maintaining that belief is necessary for the State to continue its specialty of theft unopposed.

So, I believe, the State’s varying levels of competency can be explained the same way as any specialist’s varying levels of competency: when you focus the majority of your efforts on a single skill you slowly become extremely competent at it. Propaganda is a tremendously useful skill to a thief, which is why the State excels at it. It’s the same reason a brilliant computer programmer may, for example, display no skill whatsoever in linguistics.

You Have No Power Here

you-have-no-power-here

If you mine asteroids in space do you own what you mine? The answer is obviously yes. But even though the answer is obvious the United States government felt it was appropriate to vote on the matter:

On Tuesday evening Congress took a key step toward encouraging the development of this industry by passing on H.R. 2262, the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, with bipartisan support. The legislation provides a number of pro-business measures, such as establishing legal rights for US citizens to own resources in outer space as well as extending indemnification for commercial launches through 2025.

This vote, more so than most, is irrelevant because the United States government, even if it could justify dominion over space, cannot enforce any of its laws in space. The United States has no spaceships, let alone ones capable of blowing shit up. And while it could theoretically lay claim to any materials returned to Earth it would be foolish to do so because a space-based miner could easily deliver the material directly (when you’re at the bottom of a gravity well it’s not wise to make demands of those at the top of the gravity well).

Space is a wonderful place for those desiring freedom. No government currently has any enforcement capabilities in space and if they did there is no effective stealth in space. Miners operating in the asteroid belt could see any Earth-based warships months ahead of time and move operations or push large rocks into the path of the encroaching ships (and a ship only has so much fuel to use for maneuvering so it’s likely the warships would exhaust their fuel supply before the miners would run out of rocks to push).

This is why I think efforts to colonize space are more productive than seasteading. Treaties may say international waters aren’t under the jurisdiction of any particular government but those treaties won’t stop a government from sending its navy to take a seastead. Physics, however, makes it difficult for a government to get a force into space and even if it does physics makes it nearly impossible to effectively use that force unless the target is at the bottom of a gravity well. When your goal is freedom it’s better if natural laws have your back than human laws.

Know Your Revolutionaries

People often make the mistake of assuming anarchists and sovereign citizens are the same. As an anarchists I’m tired of this. For those of you wanting to know the difference between the two let me summarize.

Anarchists: Believe nobody should rule anybody else.

Sovereign Citizen: If you say the right magical incantations, file the correct paperwork in triplicate, and sign government documents with your name in all capital letters followed by “under duress” the United States government will be forced to allow you to live free by its own rules.

I hope that clears things up.

Law Enforcement And Security Provision Are Separate Jobs

Whenever you make a critical statement about a police officer it’s only a matter of time before some neocon piece of shit wishes ill on you. “I hope a burglar breaks into your home and shoot your family!” “I hope a rapist rapes your wife and daughter in front of you!” “I hope you get into a car accident!” The implication is anybody critical of police deserves the consequences of not having police. It’s an implication that can only be made by people who have fell for an all too common trap: the assumption that law enforcement and security provision are the same.

To illustrate this fact let’s consider a scenario that frequently plays out on roadways: a car accident. I’m using this scenario, in part, because it’s one where all three common public safety personnel; fire fighters, ambulance crews, and police officers; respond. The primary task of fire fighters is the make the scene as safe as possible and to rescue any trapped occupants from vehicles. Ambulance crews are primarily concerned with the medical needs of the individuals involved in the accident. But the primary purpose of police is to determine who broke which laws so they can be cited.

In this scenario the fire fighters and ambulance crews are providing security services. Police are providing law enforcement services. The first two are primarily concerned with the wellbeing of the individuals involved in the accident whereas the last one is primarily concerned with the profits of the State.

Did one driver run a red light? Neither the fire fighters or ambulance crews concern themselves with such matters (and if they do they’re powerless to do anything about it). Police officers, on the other hand, care very much because running a red light is against the law and therefore a citation can be issued to the driver who did it. As a quick aside a byproduct of raising revenue is the generation of a report that insurance agencies will use to determine who was at fault and therefore liable (except in states like Minnesota that have no-fault insurance) but that’s not the primary task of the police and culpability an easily be determined by a party that isn’t a law enforcer.

When somebody speaks out against law enforcement they’re not usually speaking out against security provision. Unfortunately the two have been merged into a single job and this merger has existed long enough where a lot of people mistakenly believe they cannot exist separately. But we see the fact these two jobs are not dependent on one another everyday. In fact a lot of businesses hire security providers that aren’t law enforcers.

Consider a loss prevention specialist. Their job is to prevent the theft of goods. One way they often go about doing this is placing a guard at the front of a store. The guard serves two purposes: to be a psychological deterrent to thieves and to prevent thieves from leaving the building with stolen merchandise. Loss prevention specialists aren’t concerned with whether you pay your taxes, smoke cannabis, or otherwise break any laws.

Some businesses even hire armed security providers. These providers are generally tasked with protecting people and high value property. Armed security can often be found at high risk businesses such as banks or driving and guarding armored trucks filled with cash. A lot of hospitals also hire armed security personnel to, in part, escort doctors and nurses to their vehicles because their shifts often end at oh dark thirty, which is when the risk of being attacked is notably high. But again, the armed security providers aren’t concerned with whether you pirated music, violated the sugar tariff, or did some other unlawful activity.

If you’re unsure if a particular task falls under law enforcement or security let me give you a general rule of thumb. Tasks involving protecting people or property from harm generally fall under security whereas tasks involving the threat or use of force against people whose only crime is violating a government decree falls under law enforcement. The former can be done without the latter as demonstrated by the existence of fire fighters, medical personnel, and private security guards. That being the case it is possible to criticize law enforcement without criticizing security.

Good On Apple For Withholding Taxes

It has once again come to the media’s attention that Apple (and other technology firms the media doesn’t care about) is holding a lot of cash overseas, which means it isn’t required to pay Uncle Sam a cut. Any sane person would celebrate this as it means less money for the United States government to buy bombs to destroy the Middle East with, military equipment for domestic police to murder even more people with, and build out its surveillance capabilities to spy on everybody with. But most media sources, and a lot of American people, are griping because they believe the taxes Apple isn’t paying is hurting everybody here:

One tax law professor told Ars that this untapped revenue source could stand to significantly benefit the United States.

“Losing $90 billion of potential tax revenues every year is a very big deal,” Neil Buchanan, a professor at George Washington University, said by e-mail. “That money could be used to reverse recent cuts in Head Start, and/or assistance to state governments to fund education at all levels, or increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, and on and on. Politicians who respond to proposals to fund these programs by saying that ‘we can’t afford it’ are simply saying, ‘I’d rather cut Apple’s tax bill than educate our children.’”

First of all let’s correct the language being used by these quisling. The United States government isn’t losing potential revenue. Taxes aren’t revenue. Taxes are plunder. What the United States government is losing is the change to plunder wealth from Apple and other technology firms.

Now that we’re dealing with accurate language instead of doublespeak, let’s analyze the situation. The implication, of course, is that the lost plunder means Uncle Sam will either have to cut back on its programs to murder people or plunder more from the people living within its borders. This is the quintessential flaw in statism, the general argument boils down to, “Since I’m getting fucked everybody else should get fucked to.” But does Apple have a moral obligation to get fucked itself just because Uncle Sam is fucking his people? No. That would be like saying a victim who managed to escape an armed thief was morally responsible for that thief robbing other people. Just because you were able to dodge being a victim doesn’t mean you’re in any way morally responsible for other people who are victimized.

Instead of trying to ensure everybody is getting fucked over as hard or harder than you try building a world where nobody is getting fucked over.

Make Dispute Resolution Part Of Your Agreements

Because of my gift for taking a great deal of bullshit and condensing it into a reasonable size (I also have a gift for the reverse) I’m often asked to help people develop agreements. More often than, if I’m not involved in the initial drafting of the agreement, I find myself looking at pages and pages of very specific points.

These days it seems very common for people to try to spell out every possible way a party involved in an agreement could violate it. This tendency results in pages of text pointing out specific actions that are in violation of the agreement. Everything from how close one individual can be to another (sometimes exact measurements in inches are even listed) to what language they can use often appear as points amongst the seemingly billions of other points.

When I’m asked to review one of these agreements I start with the Bill and Ted principle, which is “Be excellent to each other. Party on, dudes.” Such a basic principle seems to leave an almost infinite amount of wiggle room for people to be assholes. The real trick is to also include dispute resolution as a point in the agreement.

Every business contract you’ll read has a dispute resolution point but a lot of agreements for non-business groups lack them. A dispute resolution point is one that explains how a dispute amongst members will be resolved when they arises (and one will arise). Usually this take the form of a few individuals, either from within or outside of the group, respected by members of the agreement being appointed official dispute resolvers.

The old agreement may have said, “Personal space includes any and all space within one foot of an individual.” Through the magic of a dispute resolution point any disagreement over what constitutes personal space can be brought before the dispute resolvers. Instead of having to imagine every possible way members of an agreement could come into conflict (which is impossible anyways) an agreement can now fit on a notecard.

This method is effective because it’s simple enough for anybody to understand and flexible enough to handle changing dynamics within a group. Considering our society’s love for a practically uncountable number of laws and lawsuits regarding those laws it’s easy to see what even basic non-business agreements have blown up into 10 page documents. But sanity can be restored. All that’s needed is appointed a few trusted individuals to resolve disputes amongst members.