Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

Happy Birthday Murray Rothbard

Today, March 2nd woud be Murray Rothbard’s birthday, were he not dead and all. Rothbard was the man when it came to both austrian economics and libertarian philosophy. The man’s works speak for themselves and I want to take a few seconds to recommend some of his best works (in my opinion).

Man, Economy, and State was his treatise on economics. Originally intended to be a study companion for Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action, it ended up being a full blown economics book where Rothbard even managed to correct some of Mises discoveries. If you want a deep understanding of economics this is the book to read.

On the topic money Rothbard wrong the excellent What Has Government Done to Our Money? In it Rothbard explains monetary theory (in other words how money is nothing more than a commodity to facilitate trade) including how money came into use, why commodity based money is the only valid monetary system, and how the government fucked us all over by forcing us to use their fiat currency that they manipulate in such a fashion as to steal our purchasing power.

Speaking of fiat money we should look into the Federal Reserve and its origins, which Rothbard did in The Origins of the Federal Reserve. In it he explains the history of the Federal Reserve from the fateful meeting of bankers at Jekyll Island to its actual establishment.

When it comes to libertarian philosophy Rothbard had two excellent titles. The first was For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto and the second was The Ethics of Liberty. For a New Liberty looks at libertarianism as an escape from our current state of tyranny and gives justification. In The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard explained the ethics behind libertarianism. Both books are excellent reads.

Rothbard made great contributions to the libertarian movement and it’s sad that he’s not more well known, even in libertarian circles. I would argue that he was one of the greatest minds to ever contribute to libertarian philosophy and economics. All the material I mentioned is freely available at the links I provided. You would be doing yourself a great service to checking out at least one or two of his books, especially if you consider yourself a libertarian or are curious about libertarians and their beliefs.

The State’s Solution to Everything

The state has a hammer so it sees every problem as a nail. For example if they state is trying to prevent the demise of a species of bird they inevitably look for something that can be killed and label it as the problem:

To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.

[…]

The plan to kill barred owls would not be the first time the federal government has authorized killing of one species to help another. California sea lions that feast on threatened salmon in the Columbia River have been killed in recent years after efforts to chase them away or scare them failed.

[…]

Just how many barred owls would be killed and where remains undecided, although officials said hundreds of birds are likely to be killed with shotguns.

This post isn’t so much about environmentalism as it is about the fact that states only know how to wield violence to solve perceived problems. They have decided that the dwindling population of spotted owls is a major problem meaning there must be something that can be killed in order to help the population recover.

Whether the problem be drugs, poor foreign relations, or endangered animals the only solution is to wield violence until the problem goes away.

We Won’t Pay

People in Greece are finally coming to terms with the abusive relationship they have with their government. While some have opted to riot in the streets others are looking at a far more peaceful, and effective, solution to the problem: starving the beast:

The people who could ultimately give Greece the coup de grace are not the kind to throw stones or Molotov cocktails, and they have yet to torch any cars. Instead, they are people like 60-year-old beverage distributor Angelos Belitsakos, people who might soon turn into a real problem for the economically unstable country. Feeling cornered, he and other private business owners want to go on the offensive. But instead fighting with weapons, they are using something much more dangerous. They are fighting with money.

Belitsakos is a short, slim and alert man who lives in the middle-class Athenian suburb of Holargos. He is also the physical and spiritual leader of a movement of businesspeople in Greece that is recruiting new members with growing speed. While Greece’s government is desperately trying to combat its ballooning budget deficit by raising taxes and imposing new fees, people like Belitsakos are putting their faith in passive resistance.

The group’s slogan is as simple as it is stoic: “We Won’t Pay.”

An elegant solution if I do say so myself. The business owners are pissed and have decide they’re no longer going to pay the state for services that aren’t being delivered. Good on these people. Violent actions against the state seldom succeed because the state specializes in violence. Trying to take on a specialist rarely succeeds unless you are also a specialist. Looking at the riots in Greece, namely the unspecified nature of the rioters’ aggression, allows one to see that the people of Greece are not specialists in the use of violence, they aren’t even capable of targeting the entity that is responsible for the current economic hardships. On the other hand the state can only wield its capacity for violence so long as they can continue paying those it employs as agents. When money is no longer flowing into the state’s coffers they will eventually be unable to pay the military and police, at which point their threats of violence against the people become meaningless as they can’t be backed.

The problem with refusing to pay the state comes in getting a large enough base of taxpayers to sign on; something that can be difficult when the state threatens violence against those who don’t pay the demanded tithe. If these business owners succeed, if they get a large enough percentage of the population refusing to give the state money, they have an opportunity to resist the present austerity measures being imposed upon them. I wish these people luck. The government of Greece violated the coercive contract it foisted upon the populace so there is no argument to be made for the people complying with the government’s demands.

Are You in an Abusive Relationship

Those in abusive relationships often don’t realize it. It’s sad and difficult to bring up when you believe one of your friends is in an abusive relationship because you know the potential for cognitive dissonance is high. I think it’s important for all of us to take a few minutes out of your life and see you’re encountering any of the 10 signs that you’re in an abusive relations… with your government:

When you think of an abusive relationship, what adjectives come to mind? Controlling? Violent? Humiliating? Jealous? Obsessive? Go figure, it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to apply these same adjectives to many of the world’s governments throughout history and certainly the absolute states that emerged in modernity with their absolute warfare, constant surveillance, and obsessive control of every aspect of their citizens’ lives from cradle to grave– the federal government of the fifty American states being no exception to this unfortunate state of affairs.

[…]

Conclusion

Yeah, we’re in an abusive relationship with our government. The problem with abusive relationships is that it’s hard for the person in them to see that they’re in one. They make excuses for their abuser. They believe that their abuser really loves them and has their best interests at heart. They think a real change is always just around the corner, and the abuser takes advantage of this by perpetually promising to make changes and get better, promises that are never kept– the abuse just keeps going on and getting worse. Of course the first step is acknowledging that there’s a problem, that we’re in an abusive relationship with our government, and while a lot of Americans are starting to reach that point, it seems we’re not yet at a critical mass. We need to keep spreading the message and helping the people in this country to see just how abusive, violent, controlling, and malicious their government is.

I’ve acknowledged the abusive nature of my relationship with the government and have been trying to get out of it. Sadly it’s not easy. For our entire relationship the government has been claiming they only hurt me because they love me. When I ask the government to show me it loves me it will talk about all the people overseas that it’s killing, claiming that those people wanted to harm me. The government will also point to the roads I used every day and tell me it provides them because of its love for me, then reminds me that nobody else could possible provide me with such a luxurious lifestyle. I’ll bring up the fact that the government doesn’t let me leave without permission but it assures me that requiring a passport to leave and come up is absolutely necessary for my protection.

The hartest part is admitting the relationship is abusive. Once you’ve admitted this you can work on getting help. I’ve tried begging, discussion, and counseling to no avail. At this point I think the only option is to entirely end this relationship and send the government packing. Unfortunately the government claims ownership of my home and has friends in the court meaning my chances of kicking the government out of my life are slim at this point. Knowing others are in the same position I’ve started a support group for victims of government abuse and we’re trying to support one another until we can get out of our current predicaments.

Kickstarter Demonstrates the Effectiveness of Voluntary Giving

I’m a huge fan of voluntary charity, which is why I like the idea behind Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a service where people can post ideas in need of funding and people can voluntarily donate money to the ideas they like. In essence Kickstarter has established site based on a form of mutual aid and they’re kicking some major ass:

Kickstarter is off to a running start this year. As Alexis Madrigal reported, the crowdfunding platform saw its first two million-dollar projects in one day, within four hours of each other, and a third reached that benchmark this past Monday. Earlier this month, people on the site pledged more than $1.6 million in a 24-hour period, more than doubling the previous record, which had been set the day before. Now, Carl Franzen of Talking Points Memo is putting that cash flow in perspective. He reports that the company is expecting to bring in $150 million in funding total this year — more than the $146 million provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency charged with supporting the arts (many Kickstarter initiatives are art projects of one kind or another).

Instead of using government coercion to take money from people and redistribute it to others Kickstarter simply asks members to donate money to project they want to see happen. Kickstarter’s success demonstrates that people are more than willing to give to causes they support, a fact that many collectivists deny.

If I Disappear the FBI Probably Kidnapped Me

The state’s war on self-ownership is ramping up something fierce:

The Homeland Security Department has ranked the movement [sovereign] as a major threat.

[…]

According to court papers, Rice was involved in the “sovereign citizen” movement, a group that has attracted little national media attention but which the FBI classifies as an “extremist antigovernment group.” So-called sovereign citizens argue that they are not subject to local, state or federal laws, and some refuse to recognize the authority of courts or police.

Since 2000, members of the movement have killed six police officers, and clashes with law enforcement are on the rise, according to the FBI. The deadliest incident came in 2010, when a shootout with a member left four people dead, including two police officers, during what began as a routine traffic stop in West Memphis, Ark.

[…]

In two recent unpublished studies, the Homeland Security Department and the National Counterterrorism Center ranked the sovereign citizen movement as a major threat, along with Islamic extremists and white supremacists. The FBI assigned a supervisor to coordinate investigations of the movement last year.

“This is a movement that has absolutely exploded,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Montgomery, Ala., that tracks domestic terrorists and hate groups. More than 100,000 Americans have aligned themselves with the sovereign citizens, the center said.

It’s come to this, those of us who recognized the axiomatic principle of each person being a sovereign are not seen as equal to Islamic extremists in the eyes of the state. If this site goes offline (and it’s not a DNS issue) it probably means I’ve been kidnapped by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and am being held on fabricated charges. Never mind the fact that out of, supposedly 100,000 people, only six incidents of violence (that’s 0.006%) have been recorded, we’re all apparently violent scumbags.

What I find most hilarious is the fact that this “sovereign” movement supposedly only consists of 100,000 people. Why does this strike me as funny? Because every human being is sovereign. How can I make such a claim? By using Hans-Herman Hoppe’s demonstration of the axiomatic nature of individual sovereignty.

When you choose to persuade somebody that they’re not sovereign using argumentation you’re recognizing the other person’s sovereignty by the fact you recognize their right to use their body in order to argue. The act of arguing demonstrates you’re recognition of another’s free will and that free will is the definition of sovereignty.

Let’s look up the definition of sovereign on Google:

1. A supreme ruler, esp. a monarch

2. A former British gold coin worth one pound sterling, now only minted for commemorative purposes

For this case we’re interested in the first definition, a supreme ruler. By definition having complete control over one’s own actions makes that person a sovereign, or supreme ruler, of him or herself.

There is no “sovereign” movement. Yet most people don’t understand the nature of sovereignty and therefore the state, who doesn’t recognize the sovereign nature of individuals as demonstrated by their use of force instead of arguments to convince, can use it to drum up more fear and therefore justify seizing more power. Looking at the FBI’s presented numbers shows how much of a non-threat the “sovereign” movement is, only 0.006% have demonstrated any capacity for violence.

This is likely because those who recognize their sovereign nature also recognize the sovereign nature of others. Recognition of another person as a sovereign individual usually brings the non-aggression principle into play. That is to say you recognize every other person as a sovereign, recognize that sovereigns coming together to cooperate is more productive than fighting, and therefore find the idea of initiating violence against others distasteful.

Saying one recognizes the value of cooperation by recognizing sovereignty probably sounds like a large assumption but it is one that can be stated with reason. As previously state one recognizes another as sovereign by the very act of using arguments to persuade them of something instead of force. If you desire a property held by another you will likely attempt to persuade him or her to give it to you by offering something to exchange. That is to say you recognize the sovereign nature of the other individual by using something other than force in an attempt to get something they hold, and by not using force you have chosen to use cooperative non-violent methods in your attempt to obtain the object you desire. Therefore those that actually understand and recognize sovereignty also adhere to the non-aggression principle.

What the FBI is claiming is false. They’re applying the title “sovereign” movement to anybody that doesn’t recognize the state’s authority over their person. Basically “sovereign” to them means inconvenient or politically undesirable. Don’t believe the FBI’s lies, these are the same people who create terrorists so they can look like heros when they “stop” them. Their actions are built on lies and deception because that is the only way to drum up fear and fear is the only way they get more funding and power.

More Proof that Humans Natural Tendency is to Cooperate

According to Thomas Hobbes humans are natural brutish beasts that will use violence before cooperation. Logically Hobbes’s argument made little sense because he believed the only way to overcome our naturally violent tendencies was to implement powerful governments to keep everybody in line. The hole in his theory is this: if humans are naturally brutish then giving a handful of them power over the rest will only lead to those few elite reigning violence down upon everybody else. In essence if Hobbes was right humanity is almost completely fucked.

Thankfully more and more evidence keeps cropping up that demonstrates humans have a natural tendency to cooperate:

Biological research is increasingly debunking the view of humanity as competitive, aggressive and brutish.

“Humans have a lot of pro-social tendencies,” Frans de Waal, a biologist at Emory University in Atlanta, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Monday.

New research on higher animals from primates and elephants to mice shows there is a biological basis for behavior such as co-operation, said de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society.

Until just 12 years ago, the common view among scientists was that humans were “nasty” at the core but had developed a veneer of morality – albeit a thin one, de Waal told scientists and journalists from some 50 countries at the conference in Vancouver, Canada.

But human children – and most higher animals – are “moral” in a scientific sense, because they need to co-operate with each other to reproduce and pass on their genes, he said.

The fact that humans around the globe came together to form societies demonstrates our natural tendency to cooperate. If Hobbes was right societies should never have formed because members of our species would have been too busy committing acts of murder and theft against one another to actually cooperate enough to found communities. Communities, after all, developed when humans started understanding the value of dividing labor. Even the cavemen realized it was valuable to have some people out picking berries, some fashioning tools and clothing, and other hunting. Sadly this fact is lost on a large number (possibly a majority) of people.

Death of the Pointless Canadian Long Gun Registry

Canada’s fear of firearms lead them to implementing a $2.7 billion long gun registry that accomplished nothing of value. Thankfully their parliament finally admitted their mistake and dismantled the atrociously expensive registry:

Despite spending a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a long-gun registry, Canadians never reaped any benefits from the project. The legislation to end the program finally passed the Parliament on Wednesday. Even though the country started registering long guns in 1998, the registry never solved a single murder. Instead it has been an enormous waste of police officers’ time, diverting their efforts from patrolling Canadian streets and doing traditional policing activities.

$2.7 billion and not a single murder was solved? How do the anti-gunners consider these registries a good idea? Firearm registries are worthless systems designed solely to let the government know who has firearms for a time they decide to confiscate them. As the article points out, registries almost never solve crimes because guns used to commit crimes are seldom left by the perpetrator:

Crime guns are very rarely left at the crime scene, and when they are left at the scene, they have not been registered — criminals are not stupid enough to leave behind a gun that’s registered to them. Even in the few cases where registered crime guns are left at the scene, it is usually because the criminal has been seriously injured or killed, so these crimes would have been solved even without registration.

Why would a murder leave evidence at a crime scene? Especially when that evidence is a tool they wish to keep to perform future crimes? It’s not a logical assumption, which makes it not at all surprising that anti-gunners came up with it since they’re the masters of illogical assumptions. Either way the experiment has been performed and it has failed so anti-gunners can stop claiming that we should be registering firearm with the government.

Christie Tells Buffett Where to Shove It

Chris Christie, a man whom a strongly dislike in almost every way imaginable, actually said something I agree with:

Buffett may be known as the “Wizard of Omaha,” but Christie sees no magic in Buffett’s call for tax hikes for the wealthy, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

“Cut a check and shut up, that’s what I say, okay?” Christie said Wednesday. “I’m tired of hearing about it. He wants to pay more taxes, pay more.”

I’ve been saying this for a while, if you don’t believe you’re paying enough taxes then write the government a check for more. Of course we could listen to Buffett, crank up the taxes on”rich” people, and we’ll still be in this economic mess. The bottom line is simple, the government is spending too much money. Even if they could raise billions of dollars it’ll be entirely meaningless to the deficit that measures in trillions of dollars. If Buffett actually knew anything about economics he would advice the United States government to reduce their spending dramatically.

Sadly that won’t happen but we’re lucky that an actual economist, one acknowledged by the late but great Murray Rothbard, is running for president this election and has a plan to actually reduce spending.