The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

With the government shutdown, and the theatrics surrounding it, now would be a good time to explore Bastiat's essay The Law, and his concept of legal plunder. As specific government services are shut down, seemingly to draw the greatest public outcry, it is worth understanding the nature of the state, and of those with vested interest in keeping it going. Those receiving benefits from the state support its entrance into all aspects or private lives and the market.

But the state has no wealth itself, it can only give to one party by first taking from another. That forced redistribution of wealth is what Bastiat warned would be a nation's downfall, and the sentiment remains constant through the centuries. Even Margaret Thatcher believed that redistribution only worked until we run out of other people's money. The irony is that in fighting communism, the US embraced socialism fully.

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

Democide: Death By Government

"Armed with this understanding, the authors of The Black Book present the following statistics regarding how various communist governments killed their own citizens by the millions (p. 4):"

U.S.S.R.: 20 million deaths

China: 65 million deaths

Vietnam: 1 million deaths

North Korea: 2 million deaths

Cambodia: 2 million deaths

Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths

Latin America: 150,000 deaths

Africa: 1.7 million deaths

Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths

"Rummel has studied more than just the former communist regimes, and includes Nazi Germany's 21 million civilian murders, among others."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/11/thomas-dilorenzo/death-by-government

If murder is immoral, and rightly outlawed, and governments are statistically far more likely to be responsible for murder than any other group of people, does it follow that the state should also be outlawed? I think democide is a significant enough reason to consider it.

Threats are not Crimes

A 16-year-old boy is facing a disorderly conduct charge after making an online threat against Oregon State University.
The boy, who lives outside Corvallis, was arrested Friday, a day after authorities spotted the threat on a blog, said Oregon State Police. An emergency alert was sent out to the university community and security was temporarily increased on campus.
No one was hurt and there is no evidence of other further potential threat, police said. The boy's identity and details about the threat have not been released by police.

Source: Oregon State University online threat lands 16-year-old in handcuffs | OregonLive.com

Threats are not crimes. Of all of the reports on this incident, none have cited the blog posting, simply falling back on the police intervention on a non-crime. A crime must have an infringement on the rights of others, meaning there must be a victim. Philip K Dick explored this concept as pre-crime in his story Minority Report, in which "criminals" were charged and convicted before actually committing a real crime. The idea quickly collapses in application.

The Morality of a Robin Hood Tax

True, investors and large financial institutions often profit more than necessary to sustain their efforts. The "Robin Hood Tax" is an effort to skim 0.5% off of financial transactions for "social goods." If theft any effort through which a social good can flourish?  Despite the existance of poverty and famine, is there a moral high ground on which Robin Hood stood? The benefits of ill-gotten gains are no different than the spoils of war. There is no dignity in receiving those spoils. 

What say you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEeRsRddYQQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Common Ground in Liberty

For the last few years, I've begun to believe that both liberals and conservatives can find common ground in the libertarian philosophy to reinforce their core beliefs. I've yet to meet anyone that can not find ground with the ideology, while most hold fast to their socially-prescribed labels. I'm no libertarian, though I also share many values and beliefs with the ideology. I find myself at odds most with Liberals, though I share more common ground with them than with conservatives. Perhaps I'm more of a left-libertarian that I assumed? I've never accepted social stereotypes or labels, so perhaps its more of a semantics issue that creates the separation from my peers? In any case, I have more love than spite for my brothers, if we could only focus on ideas rather than politics. We have more in common that you might think.

From Nineteen Eighty-Four

From Thomas Pynchon's introduction to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four:

"We recognize this 'sort of schizophrenic manner of thinking' as a source for one of the great achievements of this novel, one which has entered the everyday language of political discourse – the identification and analysis of doublethink. As described in Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, a dangerously subversive text outlawed in Oceania and known only as the book, doublethink is a form of mental discipline whose goal, desirable and necessary to all Party members, is to be able to believe two contradictory truths at the same time. This is nothing new, of course. We all do it. In social psychology it has long been known as 'cognitive dissonance'. Others like to call it 'compartmentalization'. Some, famously F. Scott Fitzgerald, have considered it evidence of genius. For Walt Whitman ('Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself') it was being large and containing multitudes, for Yogi Berra it was coming to a fork in the road and taking it, for Schrödinger's cat, it was the quantum paradox of being alive and dead at the same time."

In reading Orwell and comparing the differences between the perspectives of Animal farm and his final novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the author seems to have shifted from a view that the state is an effective social equalizer to one that is skeptical of even those of like mind yielding that power, hoping some positive change will come of that inherent incompatibility. 

Trayvon Movement Occupation of Florida Capitol

You had me at Florida...

The ignorance of the general public never ceases to amaze...

"Florida Governor Rick Scott was still nowhere to be seen Thursday as protesters angered by George Zimmerman's acquittal in the self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin occupied his office in Tallahassee for the third day in a row. 

"The doors of the Capitol locked at 5 PM with around sixty protesters from the group Dream Defenders signing and chanting as CNN's cameras rolled. The group is demanding a special legislative session to consider a repeal of Stand Your Ground laws, an end to what they call racial profiling by the police and end to what they describe as criminalizing youth. 

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BigGovernment/~3/HnokMHkiq6o/story01.htm

The trouble with the protests is that they miss the mark entirely. They are protesting against a law that was entirely irrelevant in the Zimmerman trial. When Martin attacked Zimmerman and threatened his life, Zimmerman acted in basic self defense. Stand your ground law did not apply, because Martin was the aggressor. The only wounds he sustained was the fatal gunshot, while Martin delivered multiple injuries to Zimmerman. 

Given this reality, repealing stand your ground laws would have no effect on similar cases. The protestors are merely trying to politicize a tragedy for political gain. By focusing on issues of race, they are promoting racism where it was not an issue. This sort of willful ignorance plays on people's emotions and offers little in the way of reason. Ignoring the facts will not resolve perceived social problems. 

Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics

If everyone took the time to learn about economics from a sociological perspective, society might achieve much more than ever before, in a voluntary manner. Unless, that is, people relegate social decision-making to a small group of sad sociopaths. That worked well for Germany, the USSR, Great Britain, and many other prior empires. Now its America's turn, I'm sure the central planners get it right this time... 

Those who fail to learn from the History Channel are doomed to watch it on repeats. 

Hazlitt's gift to us both clears any misconceptions about the science of economics and reinforces it with the moral arguments against violence and coercion by the state. Statists come in all flavor. We must each take up intellectual arms against tyranny to conquer the ruling ignorance that seeks to guide society, it would rather watch us stagnate and suffer. If you think you know anything about economics, let Henry school you. 

Reviews at:

Economics in One Lesson: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3028.Economics_in_One_Lesson

Also available for free courtesy the Mises Institute's publishing efforts to bring prosperity to society.

http://mises.org/document/6785/Economics-in-One-Lesson

You make mistakes

You make mistakes, you don't regret
You learn to play the game
you don't forget

Choices

Man must be free to make his own choices, even bad ones, for impeding this natural feedback process prevents men from learning from their mistakes.

An Eye for an Eye

I guess I'm finally going to get into libertarian criminal activity and punishment theoretics. I hear the famous quote by Gandhi, that "an eye for an eye makes the world blind," and I can't help but think that he was wrong in application, but not principle. Sometimes it takes small steps to rid society of violence, rather that one large leap. Gandhi has nonetheless been a motivating factor in the lives of many who seek peace in the real world.

When a theft has occurred, the plunderer gives restitution, though hardly "fair." Paying taxes to keep criminals locked up is simply not effective in deterring crime, and has the economic consequence of encouraging the incarceration of people to make a profit. Confess, thief! Russian roulette? I finally disagree with professor Block!

I would instead suggest that the opposite action be the reaction. Fear and its reciprocation is, I believe, what Gandhi was more concerned for, that a violent reaction would be excessive reaction to a nonviolent action. In roulette, there is the potential for loss of life, and it is known upon consenting to the activity. In theft, violence is a risk, though not inherent, especially if one steals from another when they are away from the property to be stolen. Would the initial return in value doubled the original loss not be sufficient? Would it be objectively sufficient in returning potential death to the petty thief?

A Nation of Wimps

Call me crazy, but I don't think that sterilizing life for our children is doing them any favors in the long run. There is a fine balance between keeping our children safe and keeping them from experiencing and learning from life. Don't pick them up every time they fall, encourage them to get back up, and to learn to pick themselves back up.

Maybe it's the cyclist in the park, trim under his sleek metallic blue helmet, cruising along the dirt path... at three miles an hour. On his tricycle. 

Or perhaps it's today's playground, all-rubber-cushioned surface where kids used to skin their knees. And... wait a minute... those aren't little kids playing. Their mommies—and especially their daddies—are in there with them, coplaying or play-by-play coaching. Few take it half-easy on the perimeter benches, as parents used to do, letting the kids figure things out for themselves. 

Then there are the sanitizing gels, with which over a third of parents now send their kids to school, according to a recent survey. Presumably, parents now worry that school bathrooms are not good enough for their children.

More: A Nation of Wimps | Psychology Today

Arthur C. Clarke on Theism from Childhood's End

"Profounder things had also passed. It was a completely secular age. Of the faiths that had existed before the coming of the Overlords, only a form of purified Buddhism-perhaps the most austere of all religions-still survived. The creeds that had been based upon miracles and revelations had collapsed utterly. With the rise of education, they had already been slowly dissolving, but for a while the Overlords had taken no sides in the matter. Though Karellen was often asked to express his views on religion, all that he would say was that a man's beliefs were his own affair, so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of others."

Buddhism has always been the only faith in which I have ever placed any stock, and as I grow older it becomes easy to understand why. Many religions have an inherent function that is hierarchical and controlling, a form of coerced social order, and a lack of accessible education promotes the fears that drive the persistence of such faiths. Attempting to live a life free of coercion and violence, as Clarke offers in Childhood's End, I can only think of Buddhism as being compatible, even for those with a more scientific or skeptical disposition. 

Being both agnostic and agoristic, Clarke's vision for the future lays out a social change that comes through voluntary interaction and cessation of coercion and violence, with the Overlords merely showing humanity the destructive results of our own actions, intervening only to prevent harm to others. 

"Perhaps the old faiths would have lingered for generations yet, had it not been for human curiosity. It was known that the Overlords had access to the past, and more than once historians had appealed to Karellen to settle some ancient controversy. It may have been that he had grown tired of such questions, but it is more likely that he knew perfectly well what the outcome of his generosity would be…" "The instrument he handed over on permanent loan to the World History Foundation was nothing more than a television receiver with an elaborate set of controls for determining coordinates in time and space. It must have been linked somehow to a far more complex machine, operating on principles that no one could imagine, aboard Karellen's ship. One had merely to adjust the controls, and a window into the past was opened up. Almost the whole of human history for the past five thousand years became accessible in an instant. Earlier than that the machine would not go, and there were baffling blanks all down the ages. They might have had some natural cause, or they might be due to deliberate censorship by the Overlords." "Though it had always been obvious to any rational mind that all the world's religious writings could not be true, the shock was nevertheless profound. Here was a revelation which no one could doubt or deny; here, seen by some unknown magic of Overlord science, were the true beginnings of all the world's great faiths. Most of them were noble and inspiring-but that was not enough. Within a few days, all mankind's multitudinous messiahs had lost their divinity. Beneath the fierce and passionless light of truth, faiths that had sustained millions for twice a thousand years vanished like morning dew. All the good and all the evil they had wrought were swept suddenly into the past, and could touch the minds of men no more." "Humanity had lost its ancient gods; now it was old enough to have no need for new ones." 

Schrödinger's God is Dead Alive

I love being agnostic, because both positions are potentially plausible. I try to ground my beliefs in scientific principle as well as philosophy and morality, and not knowing whether something exists at once proves that it can not be proven either way without hard evidence. 

Schrodinger's cat is both dead and alive, and I believe the principle applies to theistic arguments as well. On one hand, I can not disprove the existence of gods, and on the other a theist is equally unable to prove the existence. We are at an impasse but the agorist in me takes it a bit further, promoting the idea that we are both wrong, and both right. 

I am an agnostic agorist for good reason.  Grounded in the nonaggression principle, it is immoral for a theist to force his view on me, and equally immoral for me to force my view on a theist. We can both be correct and incorrect at the same time. 

Quote from The Case for Discrimination

From Walter Block's book, the Case for Discrimination:

In the previous census, the female-male income ratio for 30-and-over never-marrieds was 99.2 percent; and in that year, the ratio rose to 109.8 percent for those with a university degree who were never married. That is, the average salary of females was 9.8 percentage points more than that of males.

Wait, what? Women with comparable education and experience earned more than men? If sexual "discrimination" exists, why do the statistics tell the opposite story? What does this tell us about the motives of policymakers and groups working to change what statistically appears to be a lack of "discrimination" through public policy?

The second nail emerges when we consider the exotic implications of the employer discrimination hypothesis of the pay gap. If this analysis were true, one would expect to find a systematic and positive relationship between profit levels and the number of women in the firm or industry.

Full book available free in electronic formats:

http://mises.org/document/6078

Clarke on Human Affairs

Arthur C Clarke, from Childhood's End, on the state of human affairs:

"I do not necessarily quarrel with Federation as an ultimate objective-though many of my supporters might not agree. But it must come from within-not be superimposed from without. We must work out our own destiny. There must be no more interference in human affairs!"

Sometimes, a chunk of tangible enlightenment jumps off the pages at me, and is a reassuring encouragement in such unstable times. Clarke is quite observant with an astute view that individuals must be left to make their own choices in life, for only by experiencing the consequences of our actions do we gain the knowledge to progress in life toward achievement, while intervention and prohibition prevents those learning experiences, and society suffers. Those who oppose intervention and actions by the state, like Clarke, are seeking progress from within. The state is simply unfit to exist. 

Am I me?

If I met my loud-mouthed self from a decade or two ago, I'd probably kick his ass. 

Some of the beliefs I held I have reassessed or dropped entirely. Its a philosophical idea, that one is not the person one was before. Mentally and physiologically (even atomically), we are each in a constant state of change. If I have a leg replaced with an artificial limb, or even a heart, at what point am I no longer myself? 

The Platonist Plutarch offers the idea with the example in the Ship of Theseus that if a part of the whole is replaced, is the whole the same as it was before? If all of the parts are replaced, is the whole the same as before? Hobbes continues the pondering by asking if what if the original parts are reassembled as a whole after being replaced? Which is the original, if either?

In society, can the addition or removal of one individual change the nature of that society?

Violence Begets Violence

Last month, as the FBI was closing in on his affair with Paula Broadwell and the political fight over Benghazi was heating up, David Petraeus made an undisclosed trip to Tripoli, Libya. The purpose of the trip, according to congressional and U.S. officials, was to examine what remained of the CIA's presence in the country after the United States abandoned the agency's base and nearby U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi after the Sept. 11 assassination of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/13/david-petraeus-s-secret-trip-to-libya-after-the-benghazi-attack.html

With the coming "unilateral" coalition of allied nations working together to help restore security and order to Libya, I am left thinking on the meaning and implications of words. Unilateral to me signifies unity, with nations coming together to exercise collectivist violence in order to show a violent despot that other violent despots will not tolerate violence. It carries the same weight at "bipartisan," which tells the peasants that the divided ruling class is coming together to make life more miserable for them. 

Will Most Americans Submit to New World Order?

Sherrie Questioning All writes;

Dave Hodges just wrote an article "Most Americans Will Submit to the New World Order."

He sent the article to me and I was surprised that a good portion is about me and two personal experiences  (CPS, Guidestones).   But it is ultimately about people needing to stand up together and if the government is allowed to take our guns then it is game over.

I think that there is a point at which most people will resist oppression, but the majority of Americans are simply not at that point yet, but the efforts of the federal government are seemingly trying to find out what that point is by reaching for it. That's not very productive in my mind.

There is a failure here in that people willingly submit to authority. People submit to force, not authority. When the state exists, it thrives through force, either physical or economical. The general population is the recipient of the negative effects of that force, at varying levels, but in a variety of different aspects of daily life, whether it's restrictions on what we can eat, where we can go, what we can buy, how much we can earn for our labor, or what we can say.

From Daniel Bonevac's analysis of positive and negative liberty:

In Rousseau's social contact, then, we surrender everything but get everything back. We give up everything to the community but gain a full share in the results of cooperation and so end up with more than we had before. The general will is not what the community wants but what is in it's interests. The general will, that is, desires not what the community perceives as being in its interests but what is really in its interests. The general will, that is, is the common good. People may be ignorant or deceived; they may not know what is in their own interests. They may vote for a candidate or policy that fails to promote the common good. The vote in such a case does not reflect the general will.

Looking back into history and around the world, it becomes apparent that differing cultures also have varying breaking points. In nations under extreme application of the positive liberty concept, those breaking points are much higher. In societies with negative liberty, those tolerances are much lower. I only wonder how much more Americans will allow themselves to be pushed around by central planners and despots...

A Paradigm Shift in the Learning Process

I am not supporter if this applies equally to everyone, but I learn better at my own pace than under institutional instruction or guidance. The term autodidactism refers to the process of self-education, a method by which more and more people are learning, from scholarly studies to practical knowledge and even job experience. This also means that companies in the education industry have to constantly innovate to stay competitive, such as my employer, Pearson. While the core principles guiding some companies in economically uncertain times may help them stay ahead, it is my belief that capitalization on the process of learning may someday cease to be a profitable endeavor.

The head of the MIT Medialab, whom some of us met last year, has picked out 'lifelong learning' as one of four big trends for 2013: "Education is something people do to you, whereas learning is something you do for yourself," he argues. "Today, the ability to learn on your own or from your peers has become really easy . . . this change is leading to a fundamental disruption in education . . . there is an inflection point coming in how people learn."

Technology is a huge driving force behind this shift, but as information becomes more accessible and affordable, the need for formal instruction in every area declines (though in some fields this will likely remain). Tablets and ereaders become more affordable, the opportunity to consume and share information grows, as does the need to facilitate this new direction in learning, rather than adhere to antiquated institutionalized learning methods. Private companies and public entities alike need to recognize this shift and promote it, rather than hold it back.

The Only Good State is a Dead State

An excerpt from The Utopian Myth of the Good State:

Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed. The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified. Most politicians and pundits are aware of the problems we face but spend all their time in trying to reform government. The sad part is that the suggested reforms almost always lead to less freedom and the importance of a virtuous and moral people is either ignored, or not understood. The new reforms serve only to further undermine liberty. The compounding effect has given us this steady erosion of liberty and the massive expansion of debt. 

The real question is: if it is liberty we seek, should most of the emphasis be placed on government reform or trying to understand what "a virtuous and moral people" means and how to promote it. The Constitution has not prevented the people from demanding handouts for both rich and poor in their efforts to reform the government, while ignoring the principles of a free society. All branches of our government today are controlled by individuals who use their power to undermine liberty and enhance the welfare/warfare state—and frequently their own wealth and power. [...]

More: http://mises.org/daily/6331/The-Utopian-Myth-of-the-Good-State?noredirect=1#noredirect

"The Constitution shall never be construed … to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." – Samuel Adams

Yet so often, we hear emotional cries for the government to save the people, despite the state being the greatest threat in society to liberty, prosperity, and security. As I often argue, the state does not exist. All actions are individual ones by individuals, even when acting in unison with a collective. Point to what you can think the state is and I will show you where you have made error in observation. The White House is merely a building, the Constitution a document. We give them meaning through our consent. And when the state grows corrupt and becomes unworthy of saving, we can just as maternity withdraw our consent and shift toward voluntary society.