Tag: Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals

Konkin: First Significant Thinker to Get Libertarianism Totally Right

Stephan Kinsella, an excellent libertarian thinker to whom I cannot even hold a candle to, made a quick post where he declared Hans-Herman Hoppe the first significant thinker to get libertarianism totally right. In the post Samuel Edward Konkin III received an honorable mention:

One of the people I’m learning a bit more about is Sam Konkin III. From everything I know about him he was pretty solid on everything—the state, IP, everything. He was in fact one of the pioneers of the modern anti-IP movement. However, he was more of a minor figure and did not have a fully fleshed out political theory that I am aware of. He is known for “agorism” and his fairly brief (but profound and correct and perspicacious) comments on IP, but ….

But he didn’t quite top Hoppe in Kinsella’s opinion. Personally I rank Konkin at the top of my list of libertarian thinkers. There are several reasons for this. He was decidedly anti-state. If I remember correctly he lived in the United States illegally and avoided having any legal source of income so he didn’t have to pay income taxes. That’s the type of consistency that is rare to come by. More importantly though Konkin managed something that few well-known libertarians have managed: he described an entire philosophy in a few short essays.

Many people mistakenly believe that Konkin didn’t have a fully fleshed out political theory but I believe he did a better job of fleshing out a libertarian philosophy than almost anybody else. Libertarianism, when you really boil it down, tends to advocate the principle of non-aggression. Where people go from there differs wildly but the foundation is simple. Konkin, by not writing lengthy books explaining a view of the One True Libertarian Theory, demonstrated he understood something about libertarianism that few others did: libertarianism shouldn’t try to describe the single proper society.

Liberty implies individuals having the freedom to form whatever group they desire with the understanding that members are allowed to come and go as they please. Non-aggression ultimately means one person cannot coerce another person into participation. If a group of individuals want to form a collective where all goods are commonly owned they should be free to do so. Any individual in that group should be free to leave if they so desire as well. While collective ownership is almost always scoffed at by libertarians it isn’t incompatible with non-aggression so long as the people participating in the collective are doing so voluntarily.

Konkin identified the opponent of libertarianism and, through his advocacy of agorism, proposed a means of destroying it using a libertarian strategy: voluntary association. By participating in “black” markets individuals can associate with one another on their terms and keep resources out of the hands of the state. It’s a simple strategy that doesn’t need volumes of material to explain. Furthermore Konkin didn’t waste time telling everybody how to do agorism in minute detail because that really is up to the individuals participating in the “black” market.

Mises wasn’t an anarchist and Rothbard and Hoppe both invested a lot of time telling people what the One Truth Libertarian Theory was. Konkin briefly described libertarianism and left people to explore the potential societies that can arise when people are allowed to associate voluntarily. In other words Konkin basically took market anarchism to its logical extent by letting markets determine what kind of associations will succeed and what kinds will fail.

Getting the State Out of Marriage

The opinion of an Alabama Supreme Court justice has caused a minor amount of jimmies to get rustled. Justice Glenn Murdock opined that allowing same-sex marriage to continue in Alabama could result in all marriages behind banned in the state. Needless to say this has the writers over at Think Progress very upset:

Thus, according to Murdock, if gay couples and straight couples must enjoy the exact same marriage rights under the Constitution, the proper remedy might be to deny those rights to everyone, rather than extending them to same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike.

In the unlikely event that a majority of the state supreme court adopts this approach, that could cause a largely academic matter that has divided federal judges to suddenly become hugely important. Though the overwhelming majority of federal judges to consider the question after the Supreme Court’s most recent gay rights decision in 2013 agree that the Constitution does not permit anti-gay marriage discrimination, these judges have split on rationale. Some judges have held that denying equal marriage rights to gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals deprives them of their right to equality under the law; while others have held that denying such rights to these individuals violates a “fundamental right” to marry. (Other judges have embraced both rationales in favor of marriage equality, or they’ve embraced a hybrid of the two rationales.)

According to the author’s view denying anybody the ability to marry would be the denial of the right to marriage. I actually propose an alternate view. Rights are supposed to be acts individuals can partake in freely. Privileges, on the other hand, are acts individuals can partake in so long as they have permission to do so. This means any act the state interferes with becomes a privilege instead of a right. Marriage, by being regulated by the state, is today a privilege that one must seek approval from the state to partake in.

Progressives and libertarians agree that people should be free to marry who they want. Where the two groups disagree is how such a freedom can exist. According to progressives the freedom to marry can only exist if the state allows it to. Libertarians believe that the freedom to marry can only exist if the state is entirely divorced (excuse the pun) from the process. The difference between the two beliefs is stark. If the state is involved then it has the power to grant or deny marriages. Currently the fight for marriage equality focuses on same-sex couples. However granting same-sex couples the privilege to marry doesn’t necessarily grant, say, polyamorous groups the privilege to marry. Meanwhile divorcing the state from marriage would mean the institution is up to individuals to define so same-sex couples and polyamorous groups would both be free to declare themselves married.

By denying all marriages Alabama could create a de facto environment where state approval of marriage is no longer sought and therefore individuals would be more apt to declare themselves married on their own terms. In my opinion far more would be accomplished if Alabama denied all marriage licenses than if it approve heterosexual and homosexual couples to get married. The former would encourage people to ignore the state whereas the latter would require, say, polyamorous groups to drudge through a long legal fight to seek permission to get married.

The Terrorist Canard

With encrypted communications threatening to reduce the state’s revenue stream by letting us little serfs conceal our black market business dealings the political body is getting worried. Whenever the political body gets worried it begins efforts to propagandize the general populace. The propaganda always exploits fear. At one time the fear being exploited was drug usage then it became street crime and now it’s terrorism. Hoping the hamper the development of strong cryptographic tools the political body has been looking at introducing laws that would require software and hardware developers to introduce backdoors for state usage. Because it’s the fear of the day they’re selling these laws under the guise of fighting terrorism:

President Barack Obama is making his position on encryption known: he is a supporter and “believer in strong encryption” but also “sympathetic” to law enforcement’s needs to prevent terror attacks.

“I think the only concern is… our law enforcement is expected to stop every plot. Every attack. Any bomb on a plane. The first time that attack takes place, where it turns out we had a lead and couldn’t follow up on it, the public’s going to demand answers. This is a public conversation that we should be having,” Obama said in a Friday interview with Re/Code. “I lean probably further in the direction of strong encryption than some do inside law enforcement. But I am sympathetic to law enforcement, because I know the kind of pressure they’re under to keep us safe. And it’s not as black and white as it’s sometimes portrayed. Now, in fairness, I think those in favor of air tight encryption also want to be protected from terrorists.”

Can we stop with the terrorist canard? Nobody expects law enforcement to stop every terrorist plot. In fact nobody, at least nobody sensible, expects law enforcement to stop any terrorist plot. What people expect of law enforcement is to clean up after a terrorist attack. If people actually expected law enforcement would stop terrorist attacks they wouldn’t be afraid of terrorist attacks.

Furthermore the state’s widespread surveillance efforts haven’t stopped a single terrorist plot. Every claim made to the contrary has been thoroughly debunked. This isn’t surprising. Widespread surveillance creates a sea of data from which no single piece of useful data can be extracted. What makes widespread surveillance even more worthless is that no single piece of data can reveal a terrorist plot so you need to find multiple pieces of connected data to being revealing a plot. If finding a single piece of useful data in a sea of noise is difficult try finding many pieces of connected data that aren’t obviously connected.

The only way law enforcement can stop terrorist plots is to utilize old fashion investigative techniques. But these techniques are expensive in both money and time and don’t lead to revenue for departments. Why would a law enforcement agency put resources into uncovering a terrorist plot when it can rely on anonymous tips to kick down the doors of drug deals and legally confiscate all of their property to auction of later? To add insult to injury solving a terrorist plot is actually detrimental to a law enforcement agency since they rely on successful terrorist attacks to justify buying surplus military equipment.

It’s time to put the terrorist canard to bed. Only the completely gullible are being fooled and they’re not the ones that need to be convinced. In order to put backdoors into software and devices the developers and manufacturers have to be convinced and they won’t be convinced because their users will stop buying their products if they implement said backdoors. Since many of their users are gullible idiots the state’s terrorist propaganda won’t accomplish its goal and thus the exercise is a waste of everybody’s time.

Sometimes You Need to Have Conversations Like Responsible Adults

Sometimes I stupidly wade into the cesspool of Reddit’s libertarian community. I’m not sure why I do this. Maybe it’s to remind myself why most people view libertarians as raging assholes or maybe it’s because I periodically have to be reminded that the shitty side of humanity exists in every political movement. It really doesn’t matter why I do it. What does matter is that by doing it I sometimes come up with interesting material to write about. Reddit’s libertarian community recently discussed California’s affirmative consent law. With the understanding that libertarians will take a skeptical view of any law I figured this discussion would end up being fairly interesting. Instead it ended up being fairly cringe inducing.

Rape cases are difficult because they often fall into the realm of he said, she said. Did the drunken college woman consent to having sex with the drunken college man? Can a person who is blackout drunk consent? How can somebody tell if another person is too drunk to consent? What about the bad breakup between two partners. Did one partner accuse the other of rape simply to get back at them? Was one partner abusing the other? These are difficult situations to deal with and there really is no single correct answer.

But to read through the comments in the linked thread you would think every woman is just waiting for that opportunity to have drunken sex with a libertarian man so she can accuse him of rape the next day. Therefore the only legal option left under affirmative consent laws is a notarized contract signed by all parties engaging in a sexual act. And we know that’s ridiculous so this law means every man who has sex will be accused of rape and go to jail because the law no longer offers a man any defense against such an accusation.

Let me provide an alternative to a notarized signed contract: discussing sex like an adult. This may blow a lot of minds but you can actually discuss sexual activity with people. Is your significant partner OK with the two of you having sex when you’re drunk? Discuss it. Will your sexual partner consent to being choked? Discuss it. Does that random woman you want to fuck also want to fuck you? Discuss it. Sex shouldn’t be treated as some kind of taboo subject. In all likelihood reasonable adults will act reasonably when discussing matters.

I know what some people are asking, “But Chris, what if we’re both super drunk and want to fuck? We can’t possibly discuss sex like responsible adults if we’re drunk!” If you play a dangerous game be willing to accept the possible consequences (this is another part of being an adult). I’m not a puritan or a prude by any stretch of the imagination. However I am capable of realizing that involving myself in drunken sex with a stranger is risky behavior. It’s not just because I could later be accused of rape, that’s actually pretty far down my list of concerns in such a situation. Since I don’t know the other person’s medical history I have to worry about contracting a sexually transmitted disease. There’s also the possibility of pregnancy (I know, I know, use protection but we’re talking about making stupid decisions in an inebriated state). If you don’t want to face the risks inherit in having drunken sex with a stranger then don’t have drunken sex with a stranger. It really is that goddamn simple.

Libertarianism is supposed to be about voluntary interaction. A lot of questions arise about the ability of an inebriated person to consent so it’s best not to wait until the person is inebriated to discuss a matter. This goes for everything from buying a used car to fucking.

There are other corners cases in rape cases. As I mentioned above, rape often boils down to he said, she said. But for 99% (percentage pulled out of my ass to illustrate a large majority of cases) of situations discussing sex like responsible adults will have you covered. You won’t need to worry about notarized contracts signed in blood. For that other 1% of situations the specific wording of the law isn’t going to help you.

Anarchists in Space

Or the Middle East. But as far as some American are concerned that might as well be in space. With the expanding threat of the Islamic State (IS) much of the Middle East is more chaotic than usual (which is saying something). Old states are crumbling, a new state is rising, and within the chaos a little bit of anarchy is cropping up:

The Democratic Union Party (PYD) and Kurdish National Council (KNC) established in the region of Rojava a society that mixes fierce libertarianism (guns are everywhere and there are no taxes – none) and Occupy-friendly anarchist thought with a healthy dose of feminism. While most Kurdish groups, especially those the US is friendly with, would some day like to establish a Kurdish state, in Rojava they have leap-frogged over the idea of the nation state into a more advanced system that they call Democratic Confederalism.

Heavily armed anti-state feminists? Sounds like my kind of crowd! If you know your Middle Eastern history then you’re aware that the Kurds have always had their own thing going. Other Middle Eastern nations have tried conquering them time and again but have never really succeeded. The IS is no different. While other Middle Eastern cities have fallen to its onslaught the Kurds have managed to keep it at bay.

According to statists anarchy should devolve into survival of the fittest. The people in Rojava should be slaughtering one another. But they’re not and that isn’t surprising. If you know the history of anarchism you know that it likes to creep up in areas of turmoil and act as an oasis to the burtchery surrounding it. Not only are the people in Rojava enjoying a far freer existence than the people around them but they’re also doing so with classic anarchist tools of organization and justice:

In the cantons of Rojava, there is a small central government with an absolute minimum of 40% female delegates, but most of the day-to-day work of running society happens at a local level, street by street and village by village. Democratic Confederalism’s chief architect, Abdullah Ocalan, says that “Ecology and feminism are central pillars” of the system he has spearheaded, something that you would have to go very far to the margins to hear from Western politicians. In Rojava, men who beat their wives face total ostracism from the community, making their lives in a highly social, connected society virtually impossible. Instead of a police force and jails, ‘peace committees’ in each municipality work to defuse the cycles of inter-family revenge killings by consensual agreements between both sides – and it works.

Like the Catholic concept of subsidiarity, anarchist societies strive to make decisions on the most local level possible starting with the individual. Rojava is doing that by leaving the day-to-day decisions at the local level and only involving more people in the decision making process when it’s absolutely necessary.

In addition to decentralized decision making the people of Rojava are opting for social ostracism instead of vengeful violence (imprisonment, lashings, and other forms of institutionalized violence) as a form of punishment. Statists often claim that anarchism can’t work because vengeful violence against bad actors in society is necessary to prevent societal collapse. But history shows that social ostracism and outlawry, that is taking away the protection of the law from those who refuse to live within it, is very effective at protecting a society from bad actors. There are few threats more frightening to most human beings than being completely cutoff from other human beings. Such is the burden of being a social species.

Obviously this won’t get much play in the media because the narrative of statism must be upheld at all costs. But for those of us who advocate anarchy it’s just another example of it working in the real world.

Montana Passes Law Allowing Terminally Ill Patients to Tell The FDA to Pound Sand

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ultimate control over what drugs and medical technologies are allowed to be used in the United States. Because of the expense of getting FDA approval the drug and medical technology markets (at least the legal ones) are almost entirely monopolize by extremely wealth and established companies. Getting FDA approval also requires a very long and drawn out process, which means the United States lags many other countries in medial technology (but medical tourism gives people in the United States access to better technology). What’s especially stupid is that the FDA doesn’t even allow terminally ill patients, people with literally nothing to lose, to try unapproved drugs or medical technologies that may save their lives. Montana appears to be the first state to recognize the absurdity of this. It recently passed a law that would allow terminally ill patients in Montana to tell the FDA to pound sand:

On Monday, the Montana State Senate unanimously passed a “right to try” bill, which would allow terminally ill patients to ignore federal restrictions on experimental treatments and drugs. Too often, patients who cannot be cured by conventional treatment are denied the ability to try new options thanks to onerous regulations by the FDA.

It’s about time somebody did this. There is absolutely no reason why a terminally ill patient shouldn’t be able to try any and all means available to them to save their own life. I would even go a step further and say a person has the right to try any drug or medical technology they want regardless if they’re terminally ill or not. It’s your body so you should be free to do with it as you please. But this is at least a step away from the fucking ridiculous, which is appreciated.

Ensuring Only Established Business Can Play

The best thing about having a government is that it can protect the big players from small start ups. One of the biggest threats to established companies such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are small start ups that develop innovating ways to offer superior services for less. Thankfully the state has established a great many regulatory roadblocks between start ups and their already established competitors. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a monopoly on wireless spectrum. In order to utilize any wireless spectrum you must obtain its permission and it has developed an auction model that ensures its permission is much too costly for anybody besides the already established companies:

(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission raised a record $44.9 billion in the auction of so-called AWS-3 airwaves that closed on Thursday, marking the highest point yet in the wireless industry’s appetite for more spectrum.

Wireless carriers Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc and T-Mobile US Inc, satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp and others vied for new slices of airwaves to satisfy the growing consumer demand for streaming video and other data-guzzling applications.

$44.9 billion. While that’s a significant investment even for the likes of AT&T and Verizon it’s an impossible price for a stat up to meet. The auction model for wireless spectrum ensures only companies will billions of dollars to throw around can buy into the wireless game. Sure, the FCC periodically throws a few scraps to the little guy such as the 2.4 and 5.0GHz bands but those scraps aren’t suited for services such as cellular phone provision.

People always talk about how important government is to prevent monopolies. What they fail to see is that the government is a monopoly and it uses that status to favor specific market actors over others.

Obama Wants Enable Abusers to Better Surveil Their Victims

Last week David Cameron, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, publicly stated that he wanted all encryption to be broken so him and his cronies could better spy on the populace. Shortly afterward Obama came out in support of Cameron’s desire:

President Barack Obama said Friday that police and spies should not be locked out of encrypted smartphones and messaging apps, taking his first public stance in a simmering battle over private communications in the digital age.

Apple, Google and Facebook have introduced encrypted products in the past half year that the companies say they could not unscramble, even if faced with a search warrant. That’s prompted vocal complaints from spy chiefs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, this week, British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Obama’s comments came after two days of meetings with Cameron, and with the prime minister at his side.

“If we find evidence of a terrorist plot… and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem,” Obama said. He said he believes Silicon Valley companies also want to solve the problem. “They’re patriots.”

Every time a politician tells us that we need to surrender security they always sell it with fear. They tell us that they must be able to read all of our communications otherwise terrorists will kill us, pedophiles will kidnap and rape children, abusers will continue to abuse their victims, and murderers will be able to kill with impunity. I think it’s about time to bring this conversation full circle. Every one of those arguments can be flipped around.

Without having a means of anonymously and privately individuals become much easier for terrorists to target. Imagine an individual inside of a terrorist cell that wants to communicate the cell’s plans to counter-terrorists. Unless he is able to do this anonymously and privately he will likely be killed. The problem with breaking cryptographic tools so the government can bypass them is that anybody who knows about that weakness can also bypass them.

Then we have the children. Everything attack against our privacy is “for the children”. But cryptographic tools can also protect children from predators. Imagine a school setting where an instructor is planning to abduct one of the pupils. He’s obviously not going to do it on school grounds because the likelihood of him being caught is high. However if his target coordinates plans with other schoolmates via electronic communications and those communications are not secure the predator can view them and wait for them to go somewhere more isolated.

Abusers love to surveil their victims. Keeping tabs on where their victims go, what they spend, who they’re talking with, and what they’re talking about allows abusers to wield a great deal of psychological power. This ability to surveil also makes it less likely that their victims will seek help. When the chances of getting caught seeking help are high and the consequences are physical abuse then a victim is more likely to do what maintains to status quo.

Murders, like terrorists, would benefit greatly from broken cryptography. Like terrorists, murderers need to identify and track their target. If somebody is trying to murder a specific individual they may know where that individual works and lives. Businesses and neighborhoods often have too many witnesses around so a smart murderer is going to suveil their target and use the information he uncovered to strike at a more opportune time.

It’s time we start calling the politicians on their bullshit fear mongering. Whenever they bring up terrorists, pedophiles, abusers, or murderers we need to point out that those threats are also good arguments for strong cryptography.

Minnesota Law Makers Making Big, Empty Promises

I actively avoid following politics these days. There’s just no point. Everything politicians say is vapid and empty. Nothing they do changes anything in any meaningful way. But sometimes they do something that amuses me a bit and the Minnesota laws makers have done exactly that. They’re hinting at doing all the business of their two year terms in one year:

Minnesota lawmakers may consider completing the entire 2015-16 Legislative session this year alone, opting to stay home next year as renovation is expected to shut down much of the Capitol.

So far, the idea has simply been floated among House and Senate leadership, Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie said Tuesday, shortly after the House and Senate opened the session.

Hann said it was routine for the Legislature to meet only once every two years before the 1970s, when lawmakers alternated between a short session during bonding years, and long sessions during budget years.

I fully support this. In fact they should take every year after 2016 off as well. Hell, I’d even be willing to pay them to not show up. It’s a win-win for Minnesota since the only thing law makers do when they’re at the marble building in St. Paul is cause damage.

Minors and Agency

As an anarchist I am greatly interested in the concept of individual agency; that is the “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power” according to Merriam-Webster. Most often this interest is in relation to the state and its subjects. Subjects, or citizens as they are often euphemistically referred to as, do not have full agency because their capacity to act and exert power is limited. But the concept of agency can be analyzed in other parts of society as well. Employer-employee, husband-wife, and user-administrator relationships are all interesting areas to analyze the concept of agency.

A touchy subject amongst anarchists is agency of minors. The reason this subject is touchy is because children obviously lack the knowledge, experiences, and common sense to survive without guidance. To further complicate the issue different individuals become capable of surviving without guidance at different ages. Most societies, for reasons of simplifying legal systems, have set age ranges for when they consider an individual an adult. In the United States, for example, an individual, with the except of certain extenuating circumstances, has no legal agency until they turn 18. Setting an arbitrary age works when the goal is to create a simplified legal system but relying on arbitrary cutoffs is also extremely rigid.

What happens in situations where the well-being of a minor and the beliefs of their guardians are at odds? That’s what happened in the case of Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen who ended her life after her parents’ religious views conflicted with her needs. In her suicide note, reprinted here (the original source appears to have been taken down), she made her situation clear. Her parents, who were devout Christians (I will use the label with the understanding that I am speaking exclusively of her parents’ specific Christian beliefs, not Christianity as a whole), were only willing to accept the fact that Leelah was transgender within the scope of their beliefs. That is to say they didn’t acknowledge Leelah as transgender but instead saw her as a teenager going through a phase, a sinner, or both and felt that the only solution was to have her see therapists that also saw things within the scope of their religious beliefs. Eventually when the results they desired were not attained they isolated her by removing her from public school and confiscating her means of communicating with her friends.

Leelah’s parents took actions that most mental health professionals would oppose. She obviously had reached a point in her life where she possessed knowledge of her situation. Her words coupled with her parents’ actions lead me believe she was the expert in this matter between the three. But the legal system under which she lived wouldn’t acknowledge that and thus she had no agency in the matter. Instead of being free to pursue options based on her research she was restricted to options permitted by her parents, who seemed entirely ignorant of the matter.

Leelah’s situation isn’t unique. A very close friend (whose permission I sought and was granted to write this) of mine went through a similar situation in her youth and the result was almost the same. She too attempted suicide but survived and made it to the age of 18, or the finish line as she calls it, and was able to pursue options previously closed to her. Those options, which she wanted to pursue years earlier, changed her life for the better. Receiving the help she needed allowed to to move forward and live a fulfilling life. And it is situations such as these that make me believe that we must rethink how minors and agency are treated. Minors should be granted agency when it is clear that they’re the experts on a matter effecting their lives. Admittedly that makes for a far more complicated legal system but I also believe that justice should be the primary goal of a legal system, not simplicity.