Agora! Anarchy! Action! – Page 14

You Can’t Stop the Signal

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) really though it was hot shit after shutting down the original Silk Road. But the Internet doesn’t take kindly to censorship and markets cannot be stifled. Since the original Silk Road was taken down others have popped up to replace it. And online advertisements for unpatentable drugs have actually increased:

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed down the original online illegal drug market, Silk Road, in 2013.

But new figures suggest the trade has actually increased since then.

And other research indicates one in four British drug users has accessed hidden websites.

This is a beautiful thing. Silk Road, in addition to providing for the wants of drug consumers, also reduced the amount of violence in the drug trade. Nobody should be surprised by this since violence is much harder to perpetrate when both parties in a transaction are anonymous. It’s also much harder for the biggest perpetrators of violence in the drug trade, the police, to storm the homes and kill the dogs of drug consumers if they cannot identify them.

It’s always nice to see the state’s control slipping through its fingers. The war on unpatentable drugs is untenable because markets always win. Agorism is such a powerful tool against the state precisely because it relies on markets, which are the manifestation of human action.

You Need the State to Protect Your Rights; You Need to Fight the State to Protect Your Rights

As an anarchist that hangs out with statist libertarians I am often involved in political and philosophical debates. When I mention my belief that we humans don’t need to be ruled my more statist cohorts have to quickly jump in to tell me how wrong I am. According to them government is absolutely critical for a free society (because nothing says free like being ruled). When I ask why they almost always claim that a government is necessary to protect the rights of the citizenry.

This reason has always amused me. Governments have it easy. They get to make all of the rules, including what is considered a right under their legal system. You would think that they would write a set of rules that they intend to follow. But governments are the biggest violators of the very rights they declare. When I point this out my statist friends reply by saying that we need to stand up to the government whenever it violates our rights.

So the theory of statism goes like this. We need a government to protect our rights and we must protect our rights against the government. If we’re worried about our rights why would we want to charge the biggest violator of those rights with protecting them? That makes as much sense as charging the fox with guarding your chickens.

Being forced to choose between defending my rights against smaller groups of vicious people or one large, centralized organization with a monopoly on violence and perceived legitimacy by a sizable portion of the population I’d choose the former. It’s much easier to defend yourself against small mostly disorganized groups who nobody considered a legitimate authority. When you have to defend yourself against a government, which is nothing more than a very large gang, you end up not only having to fight the government but all of the people who believe it to be a legitimate entity (because, after all, it’s their gang so it must be the right one).

Make Way for His Majesty

Hear ye, hear ye, all subjects of the realm. His majesty, our king, Barack Obama will be here in Minnesota for two days. In recognition of his gloriousness both parks that he’s speaking at will be entirely shutdown in addition to the roads he will grace with his presence:

For starters, access to the boat launch was shut down at 10 p.m. Wednesday. And starting early Friday, no boats will be allowed on the lake. That means people who have sailboats there won’t be allowed to access them.

A playground, a beach, the rose garden and trails will be closed, as well as the restaurant next to the Band Shell.

[…]

Obama arrives in the Twin Cities early Thursday afternoon and will take part in an invitation-only town hall about 2 p.m. at Minnehaha Park, which will also be essentially shut down. Several roads near both parks also will be closed.

That was me trying to poke a little fun at the fact that one man has the power to shutdown entire parks and inconvenience the people who are forced to pay for them. It’s annoying but not the end of the world. This part, well, this part crosses the line:

People who live near the Band Shell, where Obama will speak Friday, will have to be escorted to and from their homes that morning.

[…]

On Friday, police will escort homeowners on Queen Avenue S. between 40th Street and 42nd Street to and from their homes from early morning through the end of the event.

Every reader knows how I feel about violence. I abhor it. But if some piece of shit in a cheap suit thinks they are going to escort me to and from my home they’re going to get a rude awakening when my fist makes contact with their face. There are some lines you do not cross. Making me a prisoner in my own home and requiring me to beg for permission to come and go as I please is one of them. I will not tolerate such bullshit. Fortunately for the Secret Service I don’t live there because if I did I would make it a point to walk around my neighborhood without permission or an escort.

Welcome to the freest country on Earth.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

There are approximately five billion different branches of anarchism. I can find some kind of common ground with most of them but one branch that I do not understand is anarcho-primitivism. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, anarcho-primitivism advocates the abandonment of all technology. In other words they want a massive amount of starvation and disease. In fact it’s such a shitty philosophy that its own proponents don’t live by it:

VICE: You advocate for all of civilization to abandon technology and return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. How do you feel about the Skype call that we’re having right now?
John Zerzan: I was on the Art Bell show years ago and he kept saying that to be consistent with my philosophy, I should live in a cave. I said, “Yeah, you’re right, but then this conversation wouldn’t be possible.” You have to try to connect with people. You have to be part of the conversation in society or else you’re not serious.

So, is that the only reason that you don’t go live in the wilderness?
Well, I guess so, although I would have to say that, like most people, I’m pretty damned domesticated. I enjoy when I’m out there, but I’m not as equipped as some people.

Have you had periods where you have lived off the grid?
Not really, though I’ve gone to the mountains for a few days at a time.

That last answer really gets me. Mr. Zerzan believes that we should all abandon technology and live off of the grid. But he admittedly has never done any such thing. If you’re going to advocate for something you should probably try to abide by it. The irony of most self-proclaimed anarcho-primitivists is that they spend a lot of time online instead of hunting and gathering food and sleeping in a cave.

Bypassing Canadian Gun Control Laws

Gun control is such an interesting thing to debate. This is because advocating for gun control is pointless. Laws, being human constructs, will always be ignored, bypasses, and worked around. Take Canada’s gun control laws. While they’re not as draconian as many other nations’ gun laws they are still pretty strict. Fortunately some innovative people have come up with a novel way to get verboten guns into the country, attach them to automobiles going across the Canadian border:

The gun smugglers called him “fool” – one of many Windsorites they used to unwittingly mule firearms over the border.

Buried in volumes of recently released Toronto police documents is the frightening revelation that Windsor gun runners hide firearms and GPS devices in the cars of unsuspecting Canadians to sneak them through customs.

[…]

Police say Porter and the people who worked with him scouted out cars with Ontario licence plates in Michigan parking lots. Once they found suitable vehicles, police said, they would hide guns and GPS devices under the bumpers. Chrysler Pacificas, Dakotas and Jeeps were among the cars they looked for.

Sometimes they would follow the car, watching as it crossed the border. Other times, they would let the GPS lead them to the person’s home.

Speaking from a smuggler’s point of view, this method is pretty low risk. If the guns are discovered your hands remain clean. You may lose the gun but so long as you get enough across to meet your needs you’re victorious. Speaking from an unsuspecting mule’s point of view, this sucks because you’re at risk of being prosecuted under Canada’s bullshit object restriction laws.

But this demonstrates, yet again, why attempting to control objects is a foolish. So long as those verboten objects are in demand some entrepreneur will find a way to fulfill that demand.

Register for Agorafest 2014

Are in or near Minnesota? If not, are you willing to travel to Minnesota? Do you want to get your counter-economics on? Have you been looking for an event where you can hang out with agorists instead of people who want to vote their way to liberty? If so I have the event for you, Agorafest 2014! That’s right, after last year’s success we’ve decided to host another weekend of telling the state to go fuck itself.

For those who haven’t heard of Agorafest (which is probably a large number of you since last year was the first year) it’s a conference for agorism. Agorism, for those unfamiliar, is a strategy of attaining liberty not by begging our masters (also known as politics) but through counter-economics. In other words it’s a strategy to live freer today by using voluntary cooperation amongst like-minded individuals. You can read all about it in And Agorist Primer [PDF]. Like any good conference, Agorafest will have food and alcohol available. We will also have vendors because counter-economics isn’t much fun if there isn’t, you know, economic activity.

Agorafest 2014 will take place on August 22^nd through the 24^th at the Villa Maria Retreat in Frontenac, Minnesota. All of the information is available at the registration page. We’re still getting the schedule of events up but we will have a wide selection of counter-economic discussions and workshops just like last year.

Patent Office Off to a Good Start

Earlier this week the United States Patent Office invalided the trademarks for the Washington Redskins (it’s a handegg team for those who, like me, aren’t familiar):

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board canceled six federal trademark registrations owned by the Washington NFL club today, ruling that the term “Redskins” was disparaging to “a substantial composite” of American Indians when the marks were granted between 1967 and 1990. The decision does not mean the Washington team must stop using the name.

A lot of people are complaining about this move and claiming that it’s abuse of the Patent Office’s power. Not me. I think this is a great move that needs to be replicated on all intellectual property claims.

Johnny Cannabis Seed

Some people in the United Kingdom have taken a page for Germany’s book and begun planting cannabis seeds everywhere:

However, since other places – notably Uruguay and the couple of newly weed-friendly American states – started decriminalising and legalising, British activists have stepped it up, uniting previously fractured groups together under the UK Cannabis Social Clubs banner. The most recent action to come out of the UKCSC camp is an initiative called Feed the Birds, which basically involves people up and down the country planting cannabis seeds in public places in the hope that it will open a dialogue about Britain’s current marijuana laws.

It’s a wonderful way to give the state a gigantic middle finger. But the icing on the cake is this:

Are there any planting spots you’re focusing on in London?

Yup, there are. All sorts of public spaces have been done already, all across London and the UK. I think in the month to come, when the plants start maturing, we’ll start seeing a lot more coverage. Also, to my knowledge, we’ve had a lot of the guerrilla cells targeting politicians’ houses. We’ve also had reports that there’s a grow on property owned by the crown. Hopefully we’ll see something come from that in the next couple of months.

That’s the way to do it. Plant cannabis seeds at the homes of politicians. Sadly they’re more or less immune from the war on drugs otherwise they would get a nice taste of a no-knock paramilitary police raid at two in the morning that ends with their dog getting shot and their newborn baby getting burned by a flashbang grenade. But it still sends a message about the futility of trying to control the spread of a weed.

My Six Point Plan to Address America’s Political Problems

Whenever I write something critical about playing party politics there is also some very serious person who asks some variation on “What’s the alternative?” In the past all alternatives I’ve provided have been scoffed at. If I mention voting for third-party candidates they will tell me that third-party candidates can’t win (it’s almost as if they understand the problem of oligarchy but don’t want to quite face it). They claim that agorism, the common alternative I provide, cannot topple the government or if it can the lack of government will lead to chaos. But I’ve finally come up with a six point plan to address this country’s political issues:

Drink a lot of beer
Start a death metal band
Become famous for especially brutal music
Tour the world
Do a lot of hookers and blow
Watch the United States suffer its inevitable collapse from Iceland

This country is fucked. We might as well have a good time and try to watch the fireworks from afar.

Why Voting isn’t For Me

I’ve given up voting. The last presidential election, in which I wrote in Vermin Supreme, was the last election that I plan to vote in. When I say this I’m often met with criticisms from people who believe voting is the way to change things politically. That may be true if your idea of change is to replace a Democratic ruler with a Republican ruler of vice versa but that’s not the type of change I’m trying to accomplish. I came across an essay by one of my leftist anarchist brethren that does a good job of summarizing why I’m done with voting:

To vote is to give up your own power.

To elect a master or many, for a long or short time, is to resign one’s liberty.

Call it an absolute monarch, a constitutional king, or a simple M.P., the candidate that you raise to the throne, to the seat, or to the easy chair, he will always be your master. They are persons that you put “above” the law, since they have the power of making the laws, and because it is their mission to see that they are obeyed.

My goal, politically speaking, is to abolish masters. It’s not a matter of a neoliberal or a neoconservative ruling my life. I’m more than capable of ruling myself thank you very much. The only thing that I ask is that nobody initiate aggression against me and in return I won’t initiate aggression against anybody. We don’t need rulers to dictate this request, common sense and community outcry will do so. There doesn’t need to be men in marble buildings writing decrees against murder because targets of a murderer will defend themselves and members of the target’s family and community will rise to his defense. The same is true of theft, rape, and other acts that involve one individual aggressing against another. Rulers only need exist to write decrees prohibiting behavior that a community won’t itself enforce. In other words rulers only exist to write decrees that a community doesn’t actually want.

Truth be told I don’t care if you choose to vote. That’s your choice. But I’m not going to vote and I don’t give a damn if you think that makes me a bad person.