Agora! Anarchy! Action! – Page 19

Government Shutdown Part II

Things are even worse than I imagined. The gangs have already turned to highway banditry. Any vehicles that are found capable of traversing the deteriorated roads are attacked. Anything of value is seized and the occupations are either killed or kept as slaves. By keeping to back roads and cutting through lawns I’ve been able to avoid much of the danger. But even on these back routes violence is a constant threat.

The first firefight happened as I was cutting through the backyard of a burning home. Seeing the house ablaze I assumed the gangs had already killed the inhabitants, taken anything of value, and moved on. I was wrong. A shot rang out from the direction of the house. Ditching my bike I raise my LR-308 and ran behind a shed for cover. All the time I spent reading gun boards on the Internet paid off. Using what I learned from those message boards I was able to identify three threats and their approximate locations. As they unloaded on the shed I was hiding behind I sneaked into the woodland that bordered the property. From here I was able to move, albeit slowly to maintain stealth, into a better firing position.

One of the gang members crept out of his hiding spot and made a beeline for my bike. He obviously believed it to be of value and wanted to grab it before one of his fellow gang members did. I almost felt sorry for the stupid bastard as I put a .308 into his skull. Before he even hit the ground I was already moving to a different position. I learned from the movie Red Dawn (the original, not the new one) that you never fire from the same location twice otherwise the enemy will be able to zero in on your location. By the time I found my second firing position the two remaining gang members were already blindly firing into the woods.

My second firing position gave me a perfect shot at the other two gang members. The first one I drilled in the head with my .308 again but the second one I shot in the knee. If I was going to learn about the gang’s current activities I needed to interrogate one of its members. Walking over to the screaming gang member I quickly took the pistol from his hand and dropped my knee onto his chest. Using one hand I hit his blasted knee with the grip of his own pistol. He howled in pain. Then I put the pistol to his head and demanded he tell me the location of his friends. Just as he was about to spill the beans I heard more gangs heading in my direction. The sounds of gunfire had probably piqued their curiosity. Knowing that my odds of surviving another firefight were slip I collapsed my prisoner’s throat with his own pistol. Seeing that the gang members were carrying 9mms, and remembering what I read on the Internet about 9mms being too weak for effective combat, I tossed their weapons into the burning home. Then I grabbed my bike and pedaled off in the opposite direction of the approaching gang.

I’m now making my way towards the police station. If I make it there and I’m lucky I’ll find some government. Even if I don’t I’ll be able to acquire better equipment.

Government Shutdown Part I

I’m writing this to let you know that I was wrong. I believed that humanity could get along without government but now that the government has shutdown I see that I’ve been wrong. It happened almost instantly. As soon as it was announced the government was shutting down the gangs began to gather. My sleep was interrupted by the scream of dying men and raped women. The gangs had begun to lay siege to my sleepy suburb. Fortunately I had prepared for this scenario. Grabbing my bug-out bag, Glock 21SF, and DPMS LR-308 I headed out the door. What I found when I stepped outside was beyond my ability to describe, but I will try. All of the nearby houses were in flames and the roads had already deteriorated past the point where anything besides the most well equipped off-road truck could traverse. Seeing this I ran back inside and grabbed my mountain bike. There was no way I would be able to drive my car on these roads and, honestly, I don’t think I want to be on the roads with the gangs patrolling the area.

Civil Forfeiture Strikes Again

Pop quiz ladies and gentlemen. How do civil forfeiture laws differ from outright theft? They don’t. Government agencies use civil forfeiture laws to confiscate property when they lack actual evidence of wrongdoing. When you think about it civil forfeiture laws are a wonderful scam. The very concept of innocent until proven guilty gets turned on its head since civil forfeiture mandates that you prove that your confiscated property wasn’t tied to a crime (which is really hard to do in a country where most people commit and average of three felonies a day). Traditionally civil forfeiture laws have been used by drug enforcement agents but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) likes to get in on the action as well:

I’ve always paid my taxes and have never been arrested or charged with any crime in my life. I am a successful small-business man. But in January of this year, I woke up to find that my business’ entire bank account — more than $35,000 — had been wrongly seized.

Read the story. It’s a sad case of an independent business man having his assets seized by the IRS without being accused of any criminal activity. This brings up an interesting point that I’ve been discussing with people. Putting your assets in a bank is dangerous. While we often think of banks as secure strongholds the truth is they are willing to hand over anything they’re holding to government agents. That means the money sitting in your business account could disappear tomorrow because some IRS agent felt the need to harass you.

The more I think about it the more I’m beginning advocate the idea of holding cash assets in Bitcoin. Bitcoin has a very nice feature: the only way to transfer funds out of a wallet is if you possess the private key. A government agency can’t simply seize your Bitcoin unless they are able to obtain your private key, which can be protected from seizure in many ways. Instead of taking deposits to a bank and leaving the money in an account you transform that money into Bitcoin using any number of Bitcoin services. Once that’s done you then transfer your Bitcoin from the wallet created for you by the service to a wallet solely under your control. At that point surprise seizures become very difficult because government agents will have to obtain your private key from you to transfer your funds.

As the state become more greedy we’ll probably see more businesses, especially small ones, utilizing things like Bitcoin to keep their wealth from prying hands.

Another Online “Black” Market Bites the Dust

With the exceptions of alcohol and caffeine I don’t take drugs. It’s not that I’m opposed to taking drugs I just choose not to. I believe many drugs have beneficial properties (violence would probably plummet if people would just take to smoking cannabis) and am therefore a fan of online “black” markets like Silk Road (link only works if you’re using the Tor Browser Bundle). Silk Road is an interesting site because it was the first large online drug market. The operator(s) of that site are smart and have remained anonymous. They have also chosen not to advertise the site, instead relying on word of mouth. That being the case, many people believed that Atlantis, a competing online “black” market, would crush Silk Road because of its major advertising push. It appears that the operators of Atlantis weren’t as smart as they thought they were because they shut down the site for “security reasons”:

Atlantis Market, the online bazaar for illegal drugs, has suddenly shut down permanently due to “security reasons outside our control.” The site gained some notoriety after the circulation of an animated commercial that explained how a “stoner” named Charlie uses Atlantis to find “dank buds,” part of a broader advertising push aimed at chipping away market share from the reigning drug underground kingpin, Silk Road.

When it comes to “black” markets, it pays to keep a fairly low profile. Most major advertisers won’t accept Bitcoin, which means there is no truly anonymous way to pay for their services. Anybody buying advertisements from traditional outlets therefore put their privacy at risk. Assuming Atlantis wasn’t a government sting operation (which is quite possible) it’s likely the people operating the site had their identities revealed through ties to their bank accounts.

Meanwhile Silk Road is likely to continue running for some time since the operator(s) refuse to even communicate outside of his/their website forum. If you’re going to run an agorist business that specializes in verboten substances keep a low profile.

Trying to Salvage a Sinking Ship

It’s a miracle! The housing market is bouncing back! Three cheers for our central planners:

US house prices rose 12.4% over the 12 months to the end of July, the biggest annual increase since February 2006, according to a closely-watched measure.

Are you ready for another bust? I hope so because that’s what we’re going to experience in the near future. Let’s discuss economics for a moment. Our glorious central planners have been busy shoveling money into the economy in the hopes of propping it up again. But it seems the more they shovel the harder the crash is. This fits with the Law of Erisian Escalation, which states that the imposition of order equals the escalation of chaos. Trying to instill more order in the economy only results in more chaos.

I’m going to put forward a theory. Do note that I’m not saying this theory is correct nor am I claiming that I have thought this through fully. But I’ve been considering it for a while now and I feel as though it’s worth putting out for others to consider.

History is noted by various paradigm shifts. These shifts can be caused by many things including technological advancements and the need to escape coercive control. The Industrial Revolution is an example of the former, the move away from serfdom is an example of the latter. Could it be that our societies are in the midst of an economic paradigm shift? Rick Falkvinge has an interesting theory he calls the Swarm Economy:

The industrial model with lifetime single-employer careers is dying, and it is not coming back. The first sign was a change from lifetime-marriage employments into its serial-monogamy equivalent, where people change jobs every three years at the most. The next change, one which is already happening, is that most people have more than one employment — or employment-equivalent — at one time: this is an enormous change to society, where people are going to be juggling five to ten projects at a time, some for fun, some for breadwinning, some for both. I have called this the coming swarm economy.

Although I disagree with his idea of a universal basic income, I believe his statements regarding the increasingly decentralized nature of our economy has merit. Technology has allows us, as a species, to become less tied to physical locations and specific employers. Independent contractors are great examples of this shift to more decentralized workplaces. Contractors often lack a specific employer. Instead they go from job to job and sometimes work on multiple contracts simultaneously. Advances in travel and communication technology allow for this.

If the economy is in for another paradigm shift what good will central planners do? Preventing change is what the state does but the more it tries to force us into the current economic paradigm the messier it makes the transition to the new paradigm. Instead of a gradual shift enabled by new technology we suffer under a series of very painful busts as the old paradigm continues to fail again and again.

Being an anarchist I’m obviously against any form of central planning. But even advocates of central planning may want to stop and consider the possibility of a complete paradigm shift. For all we know the entire world is in for a change and that change could bring economic prosperity of the likes we’ve never seen. I think we should step aside and let the economy move in the way it wants instead of trying to prop up the current shambling mess so many seem to worship.

#Anarchy in Detroit

The Reason Foundation has started a four-part series titled #Anarchy in Detroit (I’m pretty sure the pound sign is there merely to promote the series on Twitter). Unlike statists who like to point at the ills brought on by statism as examples of anarchy, Reason is showing events that actually arise from anarchy (i.e. spontaneous order). The first part of this series covers a group of individuals who have taken it upon themselves to mow the public parks:

But while politicians, unions, and investors slug it out in bankruptcy court and grasp for their share of what little cash is left, ordinary citizens are left to fend for themselves in a city with no functioning government. This is Reason TV’s coverage of what happens when people are left to their own devices and forced to come up with creative ways to pick up the pieces and find solutions in a city they once loved.

This is #Anarchy in Detroit, a four-part series showcasing what actual Detroit residents are doing to make the Motor City a better place to live.

In Part I, Tom Nardone is tired of seeing Detroit’s public parks go unmowed by the city government. He thinks that children should have a place to play. So, he hops on his mower and does it himself. Then, he invites others.

“I was surprised when the first person showed up. I was like, ‘All right. I guess someone’s as crazy as I am,'” says Nardone.

Hence, the Mower Gang is born.

During discussions of anarchism statists will often ask asinine questions thinking they’re checkmates. One of the most common questions, a question so common that it is mocked relentlessly in anarchist circles, is “Who will build the roads?” The answer to that question is the same answer to other such questions: those who see a need for them. Who will maintain the public parks? The people who see value in maintained public parks. Who will teach the children? The people who see value in educating youths. Since the state is composed of people anything it can do anybody else can do.

Spontaneous order can be summed up as the outcome of people doing what they believe needs to be done. Instead of a top-down method of dictating what needs to be done, spontaneous order allows each individual to act on what they believe needs to be done. Generally the former ends up with tremendous amounts of resources being put towards building weapons to expropriate wealth from others while the latter generally results in neighborhoods and markets.

Anarchy isn’t something to be feared, statism is.

The Folly of Basing Society Agreements of Geographic Regions

In one of my ever fewer forays into /r/Libertarian I found an interesting link by a user who was looking for feedback on a proposted libertarian constitution he wrote. I decided to take a look at it and noticed that it started off with “We the Citizens of the State of New Hampshire…” That brought up a criticism I have of most attempts by libertarians to establish a libertarian society: they have a tendency to based their society on geographic regions.

I believe it’s time to free ourselves of those imaginary lines drawn on pieces of paper. Geographic regions mean far less today than they did a century ago. The advent of efficient and quick transportation technology combined with effective real-time communication technology has allowed humanity to live a more mobile existence than it did in the past. Thanks to modern avionics I can be anywhere in the Continental United States in a matter of hours. Likewise, I can communicate with my associates via e-mail, instant messenger, video conferencing or telephone from wherever I end up. These technologies have allowed me to become members of geographically separate groups. Throughout the year I communicate with my Defcon friends and once a year we all travel to Las Vegas to meet. I would argue that I’m more of a member of the Defcon community than I am of the Minnesota community. The same goes for my membership in the shooting, gun blogging, agorist, and anarchist communities.

Communities, when all said an done, are groups of people who interact with one another. The Internet has allowed these interactions to take place regardless of geographic separation, which has rewritten the rules on social agreements. Libertarian societies, in my opinion, should take shape in the form of mutual aid societies. What other reason would libertarians get together other than for mutual benefit? Libertarian philosophy, especially when you begin moving towards complete anti-statism, isn’t based on geography; it’s based on voluntary interactions. Those interactions can largely take place regardless of physical location. If one of my fellows is in need of assistance I can transfer a quantity of Bitcoin (or pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents) to him instantly and he can use that to access needed resources local to him.

There are times when geographic agreements make sense. A group of people living around a lake, for instance, would likely benefit from laying down some common mutually agreeable ground rules. But general agreement between fellows one voluntarily interacts with need not be so restricted.

It would do the libertarian community well to toss off the shackles of physical location. We live in a great big world that floats around in a great big universe. Why restrict ourselves to infinitesimal points in a practically limitless area?

AgoraFest 2013

As some of you have probably guessed, I’ve been rather busy with side projects as of late. While I apologize for the lower than usual number of posts I am happy to reveal one of the projects I’ve been involved with: AgoraFest 2013.

It may surprise many people to hear that Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities, has a thriving anarchist communit. Some of Minnesota’s anarchists are socialist, some are capitalists (Yeah, yeah. Anarcho-capitalists aren’t “real” anarchists. Whatever. I don’t give a shit), and some of us are agorists. Those of us who have gone the agorist way have been looking for a way to promote agorism to, hopefully, give people who have become disenfranchised with the political means an alternative way to fight for freedom.

I’ve taken it upon myself to give several presentations on computer security. Keeping with the spirit of things I have dubbed these tracks the crypto-anarchy tracks. In addition to my presentation there will be presentation on starting agorist businesses, making fermented foods, and a presentation by our keynote speakers: Catherine Bleish and John Bush. If you don’t know Catherine she has the honor of being on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of evil terrorists. John Bush writes about anti-statism on websites such as the Foundation for a Free Society. We’re honored as heck to have both of them. And in addition to the currently scheduled events the floor is open to anybody who wants to give a presentation.

When is this gathering of freedom lovers? September 20^th through the 22^nd. Where will it be? You’ll have to sign up to find out. How can you get an invite code to sign up? E-mail me and we can talk. Due to the fact that this is our first year (and hopefully not our last) we’re trying to keep attendance at a certain level. To ensure people interested in agorism have a guaranteed ticket we’re giving priority to those who are known within the local agorist community.

Please note that if you want to attend to promote some political bullshit we’ll probably have you hang out in the violent speech zone. This isn’t a political event, it’s an anti-political event. AgoraFest is for people interested in taking direct action against statism by participating in mutually beneficial, voluntary interactions with your fellow human being.

The “No True Anarchist” Fallacy

I think the most entertaining aspect about anarchism is the fragmentation that exists within the philosophy. Such fragmentation isn’t unusual. No philosophy that I’m aware of has remained united. But anarchism, as a philosophy I personally identify with, is more entertaining to write about than most other philosophies.

There are many heated debates within anarchist communities. My favorite debate at the moment is whether or not anarcho-capitalists are real anarchists. For the sake of transparency I will note that my path to anarchism started in libertarianism and move towards anarcho-capitalism. While I now identify primarily with discordianism, I feel that I’m still marginally qualified to speak on matters involving anarcho-capitalism. With that out of the way, let’s discuss the argument.

The reason this is currently my favorite argument is because it’s quite clear that traditional anarchists, who identify with socialism, don’t like the term anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-capitalists don’t care what traditional anarchists like or don’t like. Traditional anarchists are spending a great deal of their time and energy explaining why anarcho-capitalists aren’t real anarchists and anarcho-capitalists are saying “We don’t care. Have fun with your semantic argument.” If you participate in any online anarchist communities you quickly learn that traditional anarchists have a tendency to isolate themselves from anarcho-capitalists. This isolation has two effects. First, it creates an echo chamber where ideological dissent is crushed. Crushing ideological dissent is the most effective way to ensure your movement never advances. Second, it leaves anarcho-capitalists free to go about their business unfettered. While traditional anarchists are telling anybody who will listen, which is only other traditional anarchists, that anarcho-capitalists aren’t real anarchists, anarcho-capitalists are expanding their philosophy and proselytizing to gain more memebers.

What’s even funnier is the common justification traditional anarchists give for spending so much time declaring anarcho-capitalists heathens. Their reason is that they are trying to prevent the term anarchism from being hijacked. Considering the majority of the world believes anarchism is synonymous with molotov-cocktail-throwing-asshole-who-wants-to-bring-death-and-destruction-down-upon-all I believe it’s accurate to say that the term has already been hijacked. The definition of anarchism used by traditional anarchists is a minority definition compared to the definition used by most people. At this point traditional anarchists can only claim to be trying to reclaim the term. If I were going to reclaim the term anarchism I would start by trying to change the common vernacular definition.

As for me, I don’t care. One of the reasons I identify with discordianism is because it encourages schisms and cabals. You don’t have to worry about philosophical arguments about who is a real discordian because the philosophy itself encourages everybody to define the term however they want. That frees me from worthless semantic arguments and allows to go focus on what I love: promoting the idea of freedom.

Has the Ideological Purge Begun for the Free State Project

The idea behind the Free State Project is a noble one. Get enough people to move to New Hampshire so that the entire governmental body can be overtaken by advocates of liberty. I give the project credit for creativity and optimism but the execution of the idea has been lackluster. One of the ironies of the Free State Project, in my opinion, is its reliance on a board to make major decisions. Small groups of people having unilateral decision making power seems to be the exact opposite of what the Free State Project is trying to achieve. Yesterday the outcome of granting a small group of people power was demonstrated. Chris Cantwell, a rather fiery participant who I believes suffers a from an asshole complex, was booted out of the Free State Project by its board:

Dear Chris,

The FSP Board met last night to discuss your situation and what to do. Our decision is stated below, which includes our reasoning.

Whereas Chris Cantwell has made the following public statements, been offered the opportunity to retract, and has refused to do so: “It’s a terribly unpopular thing to say, but the answer, at some point, is to kill government agents,” and “any level of force necessary for anyone to stop any government agent from furthering said coercion [tax collection in the context of funding the salaries of all government employees] is morally justifiable…”

Whereas the FSP Board believes this view exceeds the right of self-defense

Whereas the Policy and Procedure for Removing Participants (passed 7/11/04) states:

Participants may be removed for promoting violence, racial hatred, or bigotry. Participants who are deemed detrimental to the accomplishment of the Free State Project’s goals may also be removed.

Therefore, according to the Policy and Procedure for Removing Participants, the FSP Board removes Chris Cantwell as a participant and declares him unwelcome to attend FSP-organized events.

In peace and liberty,

Jody

for the FSP Board

I understand why the board kicked him out. Anybody who advocates for violence is a potential liability:

Deep down, Free Staters know this, and that’s why they’re Free Staters. They see this injustice, they want it to stop, and so they are coming together to make a stand against it. The only problem is, now that they have come together, they have absolutely no idea what to do, because their vision of a peaceful evolution to a voluntary society is being shattered on an almost daily basis by government violence. That violence is all too sure to escalate, as the government agents of New Hampshire and elsewhere acquire more advanced and sophisticated technology to oppress these peaceful activists, and the population in general.

So what to do? It’s a terribly unpopular thing to say, but the answer, at some point, is to kill government agents. The government agents know that, and that’s why they want a tank.

Honestly, that kind of advocacy screams agent provocateur. But my main point isn’t the fact that Mr. Cantwell was given the boot, it’s the fact that a board exists to give him the boot. I’ve always been worried about the scale of the Free State Project. Bringing together the people necessary to take over the political body of an entire state is no small task. Trying to bring so many people into a single organization seldom works as intended.

I’m not a fan of large groups. Large groups tend to start off strong and end up paralyzed. Most groups start off with the best of intentions but, at some point, the group becomes more concerned about keeping itself alive than perusing its original mission. Small groups suffer from this complex less and allow member mobility. For example, were the Free Start Project a federation of smaller groups individuals not wanting to association with Mr. Cantwell could easily split off from his group to either form their own or to join another. Leaving a small group is cheaper (in terms of personal connections, group resources, etc.) than leaving a large group.

I’ve often thought that the Free State Project should be a idea, not an organization. In my vision people could declare themselves Free Staters just as they can declare themselves libertarians, anarchists, or discordians. That way individuals would have more autonomy.

My primary concern is that the Free State Project is starting to transition into the self-preservation stage of large organization. Giving Mr. Cantwell the boot does seem like the beginning of an ideological purge. Ideological purges always start small and appear to be focused exclusively on radicals within the group. As time goes on the purges become less and less focused. Eventually all but those deemed ideologically pure by the controlling interests of the organization are sent on their way and the organization effectively ceases pursuit of its declared mission. I hope the Free State Project hasn’t reached this point because I like much of the work that comes out of its members but I believe my concern is valid.