Category: Politics
Bourque: an unwitting and witless tool of the state.
Neither the right of self-defence, nor the right to property, includes the right to pose an immediate threat to another’s life. In the absence of circumstances which would justify the need to carry loaded, high-powered weapons around other people, the implied threat to those other people in having the immediate ability to inflict serious harm or death upon them is a violation of their right to life and liberty.
Justin Bourque (the Moncton shooter) is not a defender of liberty, he is a violator of liberty. He is abusing his own liberty by threatening that of others. By doing so he forfeits the claim he has on others to respect his rights. It is irrational for anyone to conclude that the rest of us are safe merely because he is shooting at state agents. That is far too fine a distinction to make when your life may depend on it. What if he is looking for whatever target of opportunity present themselves? What if he mistakenly takes you for a state agent? What if he decides you pose a threat to his rights and decides to execute his judgment against you right on the spot? What if he is simply deranged? High? Intoxicated?
Even in my perfect political model, if I see Bourque walking around as he was, I call whatever agency is obliged to defend me. In fact, I would be justified, once I see him actually initiating deadly force against others, to use it against him.
Anarcho-capitalism is based on the right to do what you want with what’s yours – not the right to hold the lives of others on the thinnest of treads that you can snip on a whim.
Consider the perspective of the woman who phoned in the complaint. She did not see Bourque and think, “I believe he is breaking the firearms laws. I must report him.” She saw him and thought, “There are no wild animals about, there are no criminals, no invaders. I see no possible threat to this man that could justify him walking about with a deadly weapon. Perhaps he sees me as a threat or perhaps he is the one about to initiate violence.” Under the circumstances, for her to have taken the chance that he possed no threat of initiating violence, when she might never have a chance to reconsider, would be unreasonable to the point of insane.
Even if we assume we were endowed with some super power of perception that assured us that his only targets were state agents, and that he would not misidentify anyone as a state agent, we should not condone his actions. Just as electoral politics is a deceptive shell game rigged to ensure statist outcomes, surely armed revolution is even worse. If it comes down to a matter of who can exert the most force, the state clearly wins. What is so attractive about the agorist position is that, over time, given the rapid pace of technological change that empowers the individual vis a vis the state, the power and therefore authority of the state will inevitably whither and die. The only thing that could interfere with that is if the state’s pseudo-authority to use force were bolstered by people worried about idiots like Bourque roaming the streets.
Nothing can set the cause of liberty back so efficiently as a good scare. Remember 9-11?
Trudeau in a landslide
I believe Justin Trudeau will probably become the next Prime Minister of Canada in a landslide sometime in 2015. That’s because he has all the right values for the office. In a recent speech at a charity event he showed the same class as his father by using the most vulgar language which polite hypocrites at least reserve for more private affairs.
But that wasn’t even the worst part of his speech. Lost in the media furor over his vulgarity was the meaning of what he said, which was far worse.
“I will tell you, there is no experience like stepping into this ring and measuring yourself,” Trudeau said, recalling his match with now-suspended Sen. Patrick Brazeau in a similar charity event only a few years ago. “Not your name, your fortune, your intelligence, your beauty; none of that f—-ing matters.”
Of all people we ought to hold politicians strictly accountable for the meaning of their words. After all, they are posturing to be worthy of our votes – those magical pencil marks that convey to them authority to do violence to our neighbours, authority we do not have and therefore cannot actually convey, but that doesn’t matter because so many still accept the politically convenient fiction. Others can be afforded the benefit of the doubt and forgiven for a slip of the tongue or other occasional indiscretion, but those who would exercise the levers of the state should never be given a free pass.
But Trudeau doesn’t assess himself, or presumably others, by such criteria. His measure of a man is how hard he can throw his fist into another person’s face.
Words and deeds spring from a person’s judgment which in turn is derived from his intelligence. Beauty is not merely superficial but an appreciation for the degree to which the beautiful subject is fully integrated, symmetrical, efficient – in short, how well it serves its purpose. A beautiful song evokes emotion. A beautiful face evokes a smile. A beautiful equation imparts a sense of how nature is an integrated whole. A person’s name represents a legacy one inherits from previous generations. A standard one ought to try to live up to or improve upon so as to leave a better legacy to those who succeed to that name. Your fortune, unless it is inherited or stolen, represents the value your fellow humans place on the product of your mind. None of this matters to Trudeau.
To Trudeau what really matters is a “sport”, if its even that, which mandates gratuitous violence. A throwback to barbaric times. A stand in for warfare. What should women, children, the elderly, the infirm take from the message that our next Prime Minister thinks one’s ability to physically fight is what determines a person’s worth? Should they feel safe casting their lots for this barbarian? If so, they are fools.
And that’s why I am quite sure he will win. Because they are fools. Generally speaking of course. There are exceptions but they are too rare to matter when one is speaking of the electorate. He will win, not in spite of the fact that he is a crass barbarian but because of it. I have no doubt that his vulgarity was not a careless slip but was carefully scripted by his handlers. They want him to appear “real”, “human”, to his core constituency – the young and the foolish.
Well those who vote, for him, or at all, will get what they deserve. And the innocent will suffer – but thankfully not for long.
Democracy kills babies
Hello all you lovers of democracy and the ballot box. All you petitioners who lobby the government to legislate goodness and light. Ever hear the saying, “live by the sword, die by the sword”? Well if its legitimate for the government, our “democratically elected representatives” to heed your call to require people to do what you consider to be the right thing, then isn’t it legitimate for those who disagree with you about what the right thing is to petition the government to legislate that as well?
Bottom line – if its just about democracy and not about inalienable individual rights, then you must admit that this new idea called “4th trimester abortion” is perfectly fine so long as they can get a majority to go along with it. And if college students who were asked to sign a petition in favour of 4th trimester abortion are any indication, a majority won’t be hard to obtain, because everyone who was asked to sign the petition, signed it.
What is a 4th trimester abortion? It is the right of parents to kill an unwanted child right up until the child is 3 years of age. I refer you to this article for further information on this diabolical idea.
Well, why not? People try living together before they get marriage to see if its right for them, why not try out having a kid for a few years before you really decide whether its for you or not.
Ok, enough with the sarcasm. There are people who actually think that this infanticide is ok so long as its not called murder but given some euphemistic label instead and gets approved by the majority. Or their representatives. With in our pseudo-democracy is actually a plurality. This is what the state and its ballot box gets you – mob rule by brutes who don’t have an ounce of brains, sense, ethics or compassion.
Before you object that this is not yet legal so my protestations are premature, have you considered the barbarous practice of late trimester abortion, which is perfectly legal? A fully viable, fully formed, perfect child, but one who has not yet quite cleared the birth canal, is brutally murdered and it is perfectly legal. IMHO it is ethically inconsequential to expand the purview of murderous parents to include “post-birth abortions”. As long as the individual’s right to life, liberty and property are held to be subject to majority whim, we risk this kind of unethical monstrosity becoming a legal reality.
In the absence of the state, those who choose to respect these three fundamental negative human rights could voluntarily associate under a constitution that held them sacrosanct. Without a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given geographic region, the government of this association would have to adhere to this constitution or lose its adherents to an association that did so.
A free market in governments. Under governments which respected individual rights, the people would enjoy peace and prosperity. Under those which readily sacrificed the rights of the individual on the alter of democracy, the people would suffer from the same corruption, political warfare, misery and death that we have now. After a while the benefits of liberty will become apparent even to the most dim-witted democrats and the only competition to slight variations of libertarianism will be a few hippy communes and outright death worshipers – like these homicidal 4th trimesterites – whom libertarians will have every right to eradicate at will.
State Censorship Objectifies the Human Mind.
I wrote this in response to an invitation to sign a petition to request government censorship of pornography.
I am 100% opposed to pornography. I am also 100% opposed to state censorship. If people are forced to choose the right we are no longer moral agents, no longer things that act but things to be acted upon and we can make no progress in developing our moral character through freely choosing the good over the evil.
No individual person has the right to make decisions like this for another. When you ask the state to do it for you, you are neither exercising nor delegating a right, you are simply resorting to brute force and asking the state to wield that force on your behalf against others who think differently. By advocating the initiation of force you the aggressor, the perpetrator of a crime against these others.
You perpetuate a war that has been going on for a very long time, between liberty and slavery. Even if the slavery is to what you consider the good, it is still slavery and slavery is always wrong.
I consider the advocates of this petition to be the same as had they shown up at my door with a gun to decide for themselves what liberty I was permitted to exercise with respect to my property. I recognize the right of all persons to defend their lives, liberty and property and to use force to do so.
That is the level to which you who support this petition descend. You are seeking to use force against those who have decided to treat as children, incapable of making decisions for themselves. In your pride you have established yourselves as their moral superiors and seek to strip them of their moral agency.
You have admitted that your beliefs lack the power to persuade and thus you give up persuasion and resort to force. This is intellectual laziness as the case against choosing to view pornography is persuasive and ought to be made, to free individuals, not to political tyrants.
Pornography objectifies people. What do you think your attack on their moral agency does? You are every bit as guilty as the pornographers of the very same thing. Where their is no moral choice, their is no moral development.
Moore’s Deadly Utopia
This article starts out like a typical Moorish rant about gun control, but it goes much deeper than that. He himself admits, “Connecticut had one of the strongest gun laws in the country. That did nothing to prevent the murders of 20 small children on December 14th.” That one quote destroys the argument that banning guns will prevent these atrocities. In fact one extra gun, in the hands of a trained staff member would probably have saved many innocent lives.
Moore correctly identifies that the underlying problem is arrogance in the application of state power. In international affairs he condemns America’s leaders for forcing other states to act as America requires them to. Let the leaders of Iran and North Korea and Syria butcher, mutilate and starve those unfortunate enough to live between certain arbitrary lines drawn on a map. 262 million people have been killed by their own governments in the last century (not counting wars) but Moore doesn’t see that as justifying some form of international state gun control. According to Moore, internationally the American state should mind its on business. And the business of the American state is the American people.
He says the fact that some are poorer than others “creates more crime”. Clearly then someone should take money from those who have it and give it to those who have less. But wait a minute. Isn’t that what crime is? So it’s not the use of force to redistribute wealth that needs to be prevented, its just that it should be left to the government to do it. We need to nationalize violent crime. Well that doesn’t require anything new really. Just an educational campaign to show violent criminals that they don’t need to risk jail – they just need to be patient while the government commits the deed on their behalf. But there already is such an educational campaign – it’s called an election.
He says when Americans “fantasize about being mugged or home invaded” they picture the perpetrator being poor. He makes it clear that he thinks this fear is exaggerated even though he just finished saying that being poor “creates” crime. This is not muddled logic, he is leading to something – something that he sees as the root of the problem. It is the cause of poverty and both the crime and the fear of crime that poverty creates.
That something is what he calls the “me” society, which is his euphemism for an old fashion principle that allows people to be mean, rotten, nasty and even violent. But that same principle also allows people to be kind, generous, good, and peaceful. Call it liberty, freedom, or personal choice – it is the principle that my life is mine to live, not yours. My choices are my own and their consequences are mine to suffer or to enjoy. If I choose to share I do it on my terms and for my reasons. If I ask for help I make no threats or demands but ask with respect and accept with gratitude, offering to do what I can in return. It is the only principle upon which self-improvement is possible.
It is this liberty that Moore opposes, knowing as he does, that the slaves of a totalitarian state lack the freedom to do violence. They can’t do any good either but there’s no need for individuals to freely choose to do good – that’s what the state is for. As for individual self-improvement, that too is unnecessary. A good person is simply a dutiful citizen of a good state. It is the state, the community, the group which is moral, not the individual. Society must require the sacrifice of the “me” for the “we”.
Liberty is messy. People are so wonderfully diverse that there is no end to the variety of actions they undertake or the outcomes those actions can have. As a result there is always an outcome (asset) that someone else has that another would like and only 3 ways to get it. He can undertake the same action and hope for the same outcome. He can trade something for it. Or he can steal it, or have someone (a mobster or politician) steal it for him. This last option is Michael Moore’s prescription for reducing violence – to nationalize it. The way to clean up the messiness of diverse outcomes produced by liberty is to abolish liberty and thus ensure a uniformity of outcomes. If no one has anything that anyone else could possibly want, crime will go away, fear of crime will dissipate, and the need of guns for self-protection will disappear. A bland, grey utopia of dutiful automatons – but a peaceful one I expect, except perhaps for the suicide rate.
This truly is the best article of Moore’s I’ve ever read as in it he makes his values crystal clear. And before I ever have to live under a regime requiring me to surrender my values to his I hope that there is at least one gun left, and one bullet.
Obama’s Spending Spree
When Obama took office the US national debt was already a staggering $10.88 trillion. After just 3 years of a fiscally reckless President and an equally reckless Congress, the US national debt has grown to $15.36 trillion. The increase in the debt of $4.47 trillion under Obama is greater than the total debt amassed throughout the entire history of the US from its beginning right up to the end of Bill Clinton’s first year in office.
Got that? In 3 years Obama overspent more than every President from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined.
The only way Obama was able to stave off national bankruptcy was to approve borrowing even more money, thus all but ensuring that bankruptcy will be inevitable and have even more severe consequences. By the way, before he was elected Obama promised to cut the annual deficit by half by the end of his first term.
Marketplace Hatchet Job: Yellow Journalism
Marketplace is a show produced by a state-owned TV network that owes its existence to massive subsidies of money stolen (taxed) from people who would otherwise not watch it and to regulations designed to crush and eliminate its competition in the “marketplace”. Therefore it comes as no surprise that this show would stoop to crass manipulation of statistics in order to egg on fellow-travelers over at Health Canada to squash a highly effective product that dares to treat Canadians as intelligent adults capable of making up their own minds as to what remedies to use to prevent and treat cold and flu symptoms.
Specifically, at about the 10 minute mark of this hatchet job, a U of A expert is cited for the proposition that a person would need to take Cold FX for 17 years (cold seasons) before it would prevent a cold. This is NOT what the expert said. She said the study showed Cold FX reduced the risk of a cold by 15%. That means it could help reduce the risk of 15% of those who take it, EVERY cold season. There are other interpretations as well. That marketplace decided to spin this statistic in the most unfavourable possible way shows that they do not have the interests of their consumers at heart but those of their masters – those who would be out of work if we no longer lived in the overtaxed, over regulated economy in which we do. Those, essentially – like themselves.
I will be continuing to take Cold FX, continuing to remain cold-free, and continue to hold Marketplace, and the CBC as a whole, in utter contempt.
Some thoughts and links about Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a new digital currency with a twist. The twist is that there is no central authority, no bank, etc. It is based on peer-to-peer networking just like bittorrent. The advantage is that just as governments have been unable to shut down bittorrent, they have no way of identifying, freezing or stealing bitcoin accounts (if you are careful). Here is an article explaining more about bitcoin.
Here is a nice simple article that explains agorism. It doesn’t explain the relationship between bitcoin and agorism but once you understand something about both of them the relationship becomes clear.
Further exploration of the archives of the Bitcoin Weekly lead me to an article about how an online community could choose to incorporate the taxes it’s members freely consent to right into its currency. One of the criticisms of the state’s central bank’s power to increase the money supply – i.e. inflation – is that it really is a form of taxation. Well, recognizing this, and obtaining consent to using it for this purpose, could be a noncoercive means for funding the community’s common endeavours.
For trading in the Bitcoin currency Trade Hill has been recommended by some.
Capitalism goes on the offence (About time)
Here’s a nice site, a landing page for an ad that’s making the rounds online. Be sure to watch the video at the end. A rather telling and graphically attractive way to make the case that capitalism = health + wealth + freedom + peace = happiness.