This week's post is up, but it is at the new URL and host for the Mad Philosopher blog.  You can reach the post here.

The new URL, where the blog will continue (there will be no new material on this site) is www.MadPhilosopher.xyz.

All of the main posts have been moved to the new site, but all of the old "daily resource suggestions" will remain here for your reference.

Carpe Veritas,
​Mad Philosopher

If we were drawing direct comparisons between these two trifectas, I would say that vice is the inverse form of virtue. I defined vice as “any non-criminal activity which would prevent or inhibit the participant from effectively pursuing their telos.” Virtue, as an opposite, is fairly easy to describe by comparison: “a habit of action which aids one in pursuit of one's telos (or end).”
Since I have already outed myself as a deontologist, it may seem odd for me to be focusing on virtue for a blog post. However, as I mentioned in “New Logo”, the brutalism of a mere prohibition against violating the NAP creates an impoverished ethical framework by which one should live one's life. Even if I'm not murdering, coercing, or stealing from people, I am not likely to achieve happiness (take your pick of any of the, like, eight Greek words that have different flavors) if I am not pursuing some form of human excellence. Even a hedonist is really pursuing ataraxia (which is something akin to contentedness or tranquility), even if they are unaware of it.
One of the fundamental precepts of both virtue ethics and teleology is the assumption that one will be most happy when pursuing or achieving their end (telos). This assumption is awfully intuitive, and modern psychology seems to be providing pseudo-empirical evidence to bolster such an assumption, so I am reasonably confident in universalizing my own experience of such things. Of course, this virtue ethics/teleology requires a lot more exploration before one can just say “being good will make you happy”, obviously.
For example, one's telos could be anything. For the last two-and-a-half millenia, lots of stupid people and a few smart people have argued about this very subject. I'm planning on contributing to this mess (and hopefully helping sort some of it out) in my 95 Theses, those chapters are much longer than I could expect someone to read as a blog post or listen to as a podcast, so I'll have to be brief here.
Aristotle, and anyone who has Aristotelian influences, argues that one's telos is primarily knowable and possibly even determined by one's attributes. I say “attributes”, because it is the most philosophically vague term; each philosopher since Aristotle has tried to pin telos to a different aspect of a creature's being, but they are all related in some way or another to the faculties/functions/attributes/essences of the creature in question. I'm no exception to this accusation. I argue that there are higher-order and lower-order teloi, the higher-order relating to the categorical nature of a thing and the lower-order relating to the specific nature of the thing. A simple example of these things would be that of a hammer; a hammer's higher-order telos (categorical nature) is to hit things, however, a hammer can be a ball-peen, rubber, claw, sledge... each of which hit in a particular way, are designed to hit a particular material, or have additional functions which do not impede their utility as hitting instruments.
In a similar way, there ought to be higher-order, human teloi and lower-order individual teloi. A relatively less-controversial example of a human telos would be the necessity for growth (mental/physical/spiritual/whatever). An equally less-controversial example of a specific telos would be that of a naturally-gifted doctor; one could have the natural disposition and skill to care for others' bodies and derive happiness from the pursuit of such, but not every human would be “called” to be a doctor. Just like the case of the hammer, one's specific teloi can't come into conflict with their categorical teloi, by virtue of the ontological relationship between one's essence and existence. In the case of the doctor, caring for others' (and one's own) bodies can lend itself to one's growth and, if pursued appropriately, will even aid in such a pursuit.
In this way, one can establish both a Aristotelian list of virtues which ought to apply to all men and a much more subjective and individualistic list of virtues associated with specific teloi. I wish to reserve the actual list-writing for later (time and space constraints for today's post), but one can start composing such a list on their own. I would love to discuss such lists with people outside the blog, either in the comments below, via email, or on facebook. These discussions will help revise both the lists themselves as well as the theory we are using to compile the lists. What I want to do here is explore the specific nature of virtue, especially as relates to morality, ethics, and honor.
Virtue, defined as a habit, has quite a lot of baggage associated with it, but what matters for this discussion is to merely define “habit” as a “propensity for particular types of action”. Much like vices are habit-forming, virtues are as well. These habits often contribute to one's productivity, epistemic rectitude, security/self-sufficiency, humanity, etc. At a minimum, though, they contribute to one's character in a manner consistent with virtue ethics, existentialism, and a number of other ethical frameworks.
Where morality is a relationship between action and deontological proscriptions, ethics is a series of prescriptions predicated on individual value judgments and an understanding of how the world operates; I explored this in “Morality and Ethics”. Therefore, virtues are an element of ethics, in general. If one values ataraxia, an understanding of virtue would lead them to conclude that developing a habit of temperance (not the puritanical bastardization, but rather the actual meaning of “enough of all things”) will help one achieve ataraxia. If one values eudaemonia, an understanding of virtue would lead one to pursue industriousness or discipline. If one values apatheia, an understanding of virtue would lead one to pursue epistemic rectitude and objectivity.
How does one pursue such virtues? For fear of being branded an Aristotelian, I'd have to say “Fake it 'till you make it.” A praxeologist will tell you that a virtue is expressed in demonstrated preference, and I will tell you that demonstrated preference is, in fact, how one forms preferences in general. Performing an act that is virtuous (practicing one's art without external motivation is a disciplined action) aids one in forming that particular virtue; doing so consistently will ingrain the habit of doing such... which is the act of possessing that particular virtue. So, if I wish to be magnanimous, I ought to determine what behaviors are magnanimous and do them until such a point in time that it would require effort to refrain from performing those actions. Nietzsche, G.E.M. Anscombe, and Alasdair MacIntyre each have their own particular flavors of virtue ethics, and I recommend that interested readers pursue their works in order to come to a greater understanding of the specifics.
In the mean time, though, I believe that virtue can aid in a great many limit-cases when discussing anarchist morality and ethics. Remember, anarchism is a philosophy of personal responsibility. I have been accused by several people of “wanting to live in a world totally devoid of rules, like some sort of nihilist” and “wanting to live in a world in which I exist alone in the wilderness, like some sort of solipsist”; how a regular reader of this blog could come to that conclusion is beyond me. I may wish to live in a world devoid of crime, AKA a world with no laws and will do what I can to pursue a lifestyle in accordance with such, but the very nature or reality is that of rules; “If I drop this, it will fall,” “If you want to stay alive, you shouldn't pick fights with people better armed and practiced than you,” and every if-then statement in-between demonstrate this reality. Additionally, if one were to live a solitary existence, they would likely have their time wholly consumed with mere survival and asceticism, rather than a more common teloi, such as that of a profession or of philosophy.
What virtues allow for is reduced friction and uncertainty in an otherwise brutalist reality: in all reality, if something doesn't violate the deontological proscription against crime, it is morally justified. I may be more interested in living amongst others who pursue and express christian eudaemonic virtues, as opposed to mere brutalists. Conversely, I may wish to live amongst brutalists and be spared the social repercussions of being a libertine amongst Christians. What these virtues allow for is the sort of self-selection mentioned in my post on mereology. Additionally, when one is faced with a limit-case, such as Nazis at your door asking if you are hiding Jews, witnessing a mother (in an anarchist society) abusing her children, abortion in all of it's controversies, or cases of extreme discrimination, an understanding of virtue can inform one's actions in such a circumstance. Of course, one cannot produce a categorical moral statement concerning some limit cases (if one witnesses a crime in progress, one does not have a moral obligation to intercede), but one's own pursuit of virtue may encourage action (courage, honor, etc. would encourage one to intercede).

TL;DR: Virtue is primarily an ethical principle, much like its inverse: vice. It is a principle which dictates “If one wishes to achieve happiness (in whatever form), one ought to engender a habit of X.” This is because a virtue is best defined as “a habit of action which aids one in pursuit of one's telos (or end)”, and intuition and modern psychology suggest that pursuit of one's telos is a primary source of happiness for individuals. There exist virtues that are categorically applicable to all humans, and other virtues that apply to individuals, contingent upon their own unique construction. Virtues, while not necessarily necessary, are certainly useful in helping individuals pursue happiness and lubricating the gears of “society”.

 Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.

How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does not contain—prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science, religion—should ever have gained ground in the political world? The modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain. ~Bastiat

Last week, I denounced the existence of collectives in the name of anarchy. A few commenters requested clarification on this subject for a few reasons. I figured that I ought to shoulder the inevitable burden of addressing collectivism and the philosophical issues therein.

The first order of business is to clarify my specific claim which was made last post. Some people demonstrated a desire to adapt a radical and likely unpopular claim to better jive with their own worldview or better lend itself to discussions with non-anarchists. While I am certainly sympathetic to that desire (see my posts about the Pope), this issue is foundational and, therefore, requires a certain clarity and inflexibility. My claim was not ethical, claiming that one ought to do a particular thing concerning collectives. Nor was my claim a pragmatic one, saying that things would be easier if one ignored collectives in favor of individuals.

My claim is a categorical, unequivocal ontological one. My claim is that collectives do not exist. Collectives posses the same ontology as Xenu, lizard Jews, and human-caused global warming. They are a fairy-tale. As my selected examples of fairy-tales demonstrate, though, some people do insane and violent things in the name of such fairy-tales.

I'm about to get ahead of myself. Before exploring collectives and the results of believing in them, I ought to give a definition of what exactly I mean by the term. Clearly, I'm not claiming that hippie communes, political migrations, cults, or other random gatherings of people are not a thing; these phenomena are easily observed. I am raising the question of their ontological status, though. I hope to make that distinction more clear through this post. When I say “collectives do not exist”, what I am saying is “an entity which exists distinct from and beyond the functioning of its individual components is a metaphysical impossibility”, specifically in the case of agents.

At this point, I expect scientists and pseudo-scientists to reel and accuse me of ignorance. In physics, elementary particles which exhibit certain behaviors can coalesce into a larger particle which exhibits behaviors different from the elementary ones, without an account of how the elementary particles contribute to said behavior. Quarks and protons/neutrons are a widely-known example of this phenomenon. A significant portion of my personal philosophical pursuits have revolved around philosophy of science and epistemology (probably because disillusionment with astrophysics is what drove me to philosophy), but one will notice a lack of such on this blog. This is for a variety of reasons, but if enough people express interest in my 95 Theses, that may change.

Anyway, one such reason is because scientists and science fans are trained to be openly hostile towards philosophy of science. Your reaction to this paragraph may demonstrate this. Protons and quarks are mere instruments. They are concepts which serve a function; specifically, they express regularities in mathematically mediated observations. Because this is the case, it is unnecessary to explain how quarks contribute to the behavior of protons... it may even be impossible to do so within our current paradigm. Another way of saying this would be that quarks are not “real” in the platonic sense; they are a predictor for phenomena in a similar (but more accurate) manner as Aristotle's teloi or the medieval nature spirits.

Similarly, a biologist will discuss species or evolution in an anthropomorphized or teleological manner, “racists” will discuss statistical trends across demographics in a collectivized way, and sociologists or politicians will speak of “humanity” and “society” as if it were a tangible entity. There are nuanced distinctions between these examples and the physics example as well as distinctions betwixt each other. The primary distinction is the specific relationship between the individual and the whole. Where quarks are a tool to describe regularities when looking smaller than the atom, species, races, societies, etc. are tools to describe regularities when looking at unmanageably large numbers of individual instances.

In both paradigms, one must be very aware of one's ontology. A long-standing basic principle in establishing ontology is simplicity; something akin to Occam's Razor. If one can effectively describe, explain, and predict the nature of, say, a falling object using a tool such as gravity, one need not and ought not look for a coincidental explanation such as telos or “gravity spirits”. In the case of collective identifiers such as “species” or “society”, every significant behavior is explained by the behaviors of individual actors “within” the collective.

In other words, “society” or “species” are useful instruments for biologists or economists, but are ontologically superfluous. If, someday, one can determine what “real” object correlates to quarks, quarks would also become ontologically superfluous. This claim renders two significant outcomes.

The first is one of historical and scientific significance: in the same manner that believers in river spirits or flat earth theory are (appropriately) ridiculed, if science is allowed to continue progression, believers in “society” may be faced with similar reactions. Where virgin and child sacrifices used to be offered to spirits, modern-day sacrifices of comparable magnitude are offered to “society”. Such behaviors need to stop.

The second is one of philosophical and practical significance. Obviously, such a claim secures the case I made last week. That aside, one must critically assess one's belief and rhetoric concerning “society”. For example, a materialist/scientism-ist/pragmatist is faced with a significant challenge. When faced with a choice between identifying the behaviors of material bodies behaving in deterministic ways and the emergent properties of those behaviors or believing in a metaphysical (immaterial) entity which interacts with those material bodies, determining behaviors outside the laws of physics, most often these materialists will opt for the metaphysical option. This is intellectually inconsistent and eminently damaging to the case for materialism.

Materialism aside, people at large seem to consistently believe that “society” possesses attributes contrary to the attributes of its constituent elements. I often argue against such a claim when it emerges in the context of voting and law enforcement. For example, if individuals lack the right to dictate the actions of others (forcing gays to act straight, forcing nuns to buy other people contraceptives, shooting people for driving the wrong car), how can they delegate that right (which doesn't exist) to a representative, enforcer, or “society”?

The rhetoric concerning “society” oscillates between using “society” as a tool to accomplish personal goals (this is at the heart of electoral debates) and treating “society” as a force of nature to be mitigated and resisted (when one is on the receiving-end of “society” used as a tool). One must look no further than the “anti-war” movements on the right and left only being “anti-war” when the opposing team is in charge of the war.

This accusation goes beyond “society” and applies categorically. “Race” is a useful instrument for identifying genetic similarities amongst individuals and statistically analyzing unmanageably large populations. However, “race” possesses the same ontology as “species” or “society”; it exists as an epistemic tool, nothing more. Even when dealing with teams, gangs, or communities, (that is, associations of choice) one is merely dealing with individuals who may have common goals or proclivities. Such a community lacks ontology distinct from its constituent elements. If there are no individuals called “crips” there is not gang called “the crips”; if there are no police, there is no gang called “the police”. Additionally, with the possible exception of the Borg (TNG only, Voyager kinda' goofed it) one cannot interact with the collective, only constituent elements of the collective. I will renounce my strong position on the non-existence of collectives if someone will allow me to speak to and shake hand with “society”.

This position, despite what you may think, does not disallow the existence of “communities”. With a very minor degree of re-definition, community can remain. If, by “community”, one means “a collection of strong and interconnected interpersonal relationships”, communities exist everywhere. One needs only be cautious to not assign metaphysical or moral properties it communities which are not appropriate.

My more religious friends may appeal to panentheism or the Body of Christ/Communion of Saints as a counter-argument. This argument doesn't actually reject either concept; instead, it opens the door for a discussion concerning the nature of such metaphysical concepts and their relationship to the material world. To begin this discussion, I will suggest that such concepts operate primarily as eschatological phenomena and secondarily as an ethical heuristic.

One final note, as I am out of time: this is why such issues are self-defense, the tragedy of enforcement, and the state of war are so morally involved on this blog. Even though the police are such by virtue of a voluntary association centered on the pursuit of criminal activity, I do not believe asymmetric warfare against police as a whole is morally justified, but defending oneself from instances of extortion, kidnapping, coercion, and murder with lethal force is morally justified and ethically encouraged.
​

TL;DR: Last post, I was not claiming that one should merely behave as if collectives do not exist, but instead making the strong claim that the do not exist at all. Belief in collectives is ontologically and epistemically lazy and such laziness prevents the epistemic rectitude required for ethical action. Increased intellectual rigor with regards to “society” is required if one wishes to improve one's quality of life or the quality of life of others.

This week, I wrote up an extensive outline for a post concerning a more complete definition of anarchism than the one from about a year ago.  As I was preparing to record the audio portion, though, my brother arrived to help me with a project I started yesterday.  I didn't have time to record and write a transcript, so I will share the fruits of my labor with you.

 Before I can argue about intellectual property, we must first have a working definition of property at large.

 Property, like the other concepts I've tried to define in this blog, is an idea that nearly everyone uses daily without much self-awareness. Of course, the precedent set by previous posts will be upheld here; my definition is going to be functionally approximate to common use, but counter-intuitive. A good starting place would be to identify the common understanding of what property is and what function it serves.

Property, in its common conceptualization, is simply an item, process, idea, or region of space to which one lays claim and society acknowledges said claim. Usually this claim comes in the form of a title, deed, or bill of sale (receipt) issued by the seller or government and the acknowledgment takes the form of deference to property and licensure laws (and all the violence inherent therein). Of course, an anarchist would be disinclined to use such a convention. Before throwing it out, though, we ought to explore the function of such a convention.

What function does property convention serve in contemporary culture? Ostensibly, it is a determining factor in the acknowledgment of rights and liabilities. If some thing is one's property, one has the right to do with it what one will; if said thing is not one's property, one can only do with it that which is permitted by the acknowledged owner. Of course, if this rhetoric is to be used as a definition of property, the state is the owner of all property by virtue of laws concerning what uses are allowed for all property. As a function, though, this idea serves as an excellent starting place for defining property.

What could be necessary and sufficient conditions for an item to be considered property, with an eye to producing a functionality similar to that mentioned above? I am not confident that I could fully formulate them here, but I must at least begin the discussion.

One such condition I believe to necessary is the discrete nature of the object in question. This is both a practical and a definitional concern. Where one could indicate a clearly defined object and lay claim to that specific object, it would be nonsense to indicate something nebulous or unconstrained and lay claim to it. For example, I could lay claim to a specific apple as my property and the claim could be easily constrained to the perceptible material boundary of the apple's flesh, but it would be practically and conceptually impossible for me to crop-dust the line at the DMV and then lay claim to the fart cloud permeating the room and everyone's nostrils. Another possible example would be for me to fence-in a distinct and limited area of land and lay claim to it and it may be a legitimate claim. Barring that being a legitimate claim, I can at least claim that the fence is my property.... which, given the basics of property rights, would be more or less functionally equivalent to claiming the land inside the fence.

However, laying claim to “all the land between this ocean and the next” or “from sea to shining sea” would be as absurd as, and logically equivalent to, claiming “all the apples”. It may be possible that, by way of trade (purchase) or labor, I may successfully acquire all of the known apples or all of the known land, but this is a circumstantial quality of that claim, not an essential or necessary one. What this means is that an apple or piece of land could be discovered to which I have not yet laid legitimate claim and I would then no longer own all of the apples or land, whereas, a categorical claim to “all the things” would mean that if a new “thing” were discovered, it would automatically be incorporated into my property.

In addition to being a discrete object, one must claim it in order for it to become property. A rock in a forest, unseen by man, may as well be a planet in the Andromeda galaxy: undiscovered, unowned, unimportant. A rock in my hand, though, is mine (unless the rightful owner has handed it to me... whatever). Of course, if two parties lay claim to an object, there must be some principle by which to determine whose claim is legitimate, but that problem should be explored later.

There are those who claim that whatever object is claimed, it must be a limited resource in order to become property. I hear AnCaps assent to that claim, but only because they believe it to be a tautology; all resources are scarce, only the degree to which they are scarce is in question. I also hear liberals and liberal-leaning individuals assenting to this claim. However, I believe this claim is assented to solely because it can serve the liberal agenda of eliminating property; in a post-scarcity world, property couldn't exist. I am inclined to agree that such a condition for property is tautological, but for a different reason than the AnCaps. In laying claim to portion of even a non-scarce resource (such as a bucket of seawater or a fistful of sand at a beach), one creates a particular type of scarcity. The sand owned by the individual in question is scarce by virtue of being his sand. It can be argued that such a distinction is meaningless, that his sand is indistinguishable from any other which is non-scarce... but the industry of religious and cultural relics would argue otherwise. Of course, this scarcity only exists so long as one cannot lay claim to the entirety of a resource, scarce or not, as I addressed above.

The next condition is complex and may be considered the deciding factor by which property is defined. Property could be considered an object to which one has the most full control over and access to. While this principle sounds straightforward and implies a Hobbesian brutality, it is far more nuanced and just than it sounds. Some examples really are simple and Hobbesian. If I wander into the woods and find our previously undiscovered rock from before, I can pick it up and claim it as my own. It is mine by virtue of being in my hand. If I bring it home and place it in my yard or home, it is mine by virtue of being on my property and in my control. If I were to claim it as mine, drop it in the woods where I found it and walk away, never to return again, anyone could claim the rock because I have forsaken control over and access to said rock.

This is where simplicity breaks down. What happens if I loan said rock to my neighbor, or rent it to a client? I abdicate physical control and access to someone else, how is it different from simply having gifted or sold it to someone else? An easy answer, which I reject, is “contracts”. Contracts, as readers of this blog will know, are as fictitious as the law in my mind. A lease or renter's contract amounts to nothing more than a promise with a written reminder of that promise. Which, incidentally, serves as an excellent launching point for my suggested solution. So long as my neighbor honors my wishes regarding the rock (contractually state or not), I still exert control over the rock, if indirectly. I may lack access to said rock, depending on the nature of my agreement with my neighbor, but insofar as the nature of that lack is temporary, my control of the rock serves as a substitute.

If my neighbor decides he values my rock more than his friendship with me, he may decide to violate our agreement and claim the rock as his own. In which case, he takes control of the rock and renders my lack of access to it permanent. These two factors being the determining factors of property would render the rock as his property. At this point, the Leviathan of social acknowledgment reawakens and rears it's many ugly heads. One method by which I could prevent or mitigate such an event would be to publicly establish my claim to the rock before lending it to my neighbor. At which point, if my neighbor steals the rock, I can call upon our community to place social pressure on him to return my property. I could also alert the community that I intend to retrieve my property at any cost, in order to dissuade the virtuous men of my community from interceding on my neighbor's behalf if such an attempt were to escalate to violence. In this way, the social forces I can bring to bear could still be considered “control”.

There are many technologies that lend themselves to this solution, though. Branding, titles/deeds, third-party records-keepers, smart property, remote bricking, social conventions, etc. have all come from the long-standing intuition of social acknowledgment. Even with such technologies, as a principled anarchist, I believe the utility of such solutions may be insufficient justification in light of the potential for abuse. One can turn to fictitious accounts of the wild west for examples of abuse of the contract/social acknowledgment solution to theft. These flaws are sufficient to encourage me to look for a better resolution, but this is one stopgap measure that seems to parallel the average person's intuition and lend itself to marketability. Other options have been explored and are in use today. I believe that a small enough community would have no need for such technologies, especially a community centered on anarchist principles. In the case of larger communities, I recommend reading Spooner, Rothbard, or (oddly enough) Proudhon for alternatives. Again, I believe in letting a thousand flowers bloom and seeing what works, but this particular issue and resolution is raised this time for definitional purposes.

The issue of theft gives rise to the last condition I have found to be necessary for a thing to be considered property; legitimacy of claim. My neighbor claiming the rock he borrowed from me as his own is considered an illegitimate claim and, therefore, theft. There is an overabundance of issues and theories concerning legitimacy of claim. Most straightforward of these issues and solutions is that of homesteading. It's a very involved discussion that I will explore further at a later date. A quick overview, though, is essentially thus: the first person to use or add value to an unowned object has a legitimate claim of ownership. After one establishes such a claim, one may give or sell it to whomever one so desires.

By extension, then, if one purchases property from someone else, one then has a legitimate claim to it. Of course, if the seller has stolen said property, there remains the issue of whether the original owner's claim or that of the unwitting purchaser is (more) legitimate. Thus far, I have not read or synthesized a categorical answer to this particular problem. Perhaps discussions with you, the readers, will help me to do so. In the mean time, I'm inclined to give the pragmatic case: don't let your stuff get stolen. If it does get stolen, get it back before the thief sells it. If you fail to do so, there's little cause to steal it from someone uninvolved in the crime. Maybe, if you ask nicely, you and the new owner can work something out.

This answer is clearly unsatisfying, so I will venture two cases that each have their own flaws, but may prompt appropriate discussion. If ownership is some metaphysical attribute that a person or piece of property has, then the claim of ownership that the original owner makes would be more legitimate than that of the thief or the unwitting purchaser of stolen goods, as theft would not transfer the metaphysical ownership from oneself to a thief... or we wouldn't call it theft and expect the thief to return the stolen property or equivalent goods. If, in fact, ownership is merely a term we use to describe a practical state of affairs, the purchaser of stolen goods has a legitimate claim to the property by virtue of having engaged in a voluntary exchange of goods, trading something of approximate value for something else of approximate value.

There also arises the issue of homesteading abandoned property, which closely parallels the limit cases of theft. I feel I've taken enough of your time this time around, and I believe any satisfying answers would have to be informed by the limit cases of theft and their resolutions, so we'll save that issue for later. For now, titles, records, blockchains, receipts, deeds, etc. are useful tools to try and avoid finding oneself embroiled in such an issue.

TL;DR; My working definition of “property” is, “any discrete object to which one has access, control over, and a legitimate claim by virtue of homestead or acquisition from the previous owner with the owner's assent.” This definition needs improvement and exploration, especially in establishing a principled resolution of theft and homesteading abandoned property.

I recently spent a long weekend in New Hampshire. Despite the overall trip being fairly unpleasant for personal reasons, it confirmed my decision to migrate there.

There are a great many pros and cons involved in the process of migrating to the Shire. Some are philosophical, some are practical, and some are personal. I don't have the time or motivation to cover them all today, but I'll move through the highlight reel as quickly as I can.

The Shire is less un-free than anywhere else I've been in the country.

There is no such thing as half-free, but there are varying crime rates by locality. I make no distinction between public and private sector crime or institutional and individual criminals. In the Denver area, crime is out of control. I witness roadside robbery daily and armed gangsters prowl the streets in uniform, non-stop. I, personally, have been mugged several times in the last couple years. This is a comparable set of data to the statistics I have seen published. This is secondary, though, to the systemic oppression in the form of legal violations of rights. For example, taxation, gun control, vehicle and property regulation, licensure, insurance, drug policy, zoning controls, etc. present an unending litany of minor and major roadblocks to achieving human flourishing. Additionally, no amount of ethical or practical gymnastics can justify the threats of murder used to enforce these roadblocks. Southern California, Boston, Las Vegas, Arizona, Florida, Wyoming, and other places I've been seem to be comparable in both experience and statistics.

In the handful of days I was in the Shire, I saw a total of four cops. (I saw six times that number in the drive from Boston to the Shire, but that's why I'm not moving to Massachusetts.) That is the number of cops I see in Denver, daily. Of the cops I saw, two were assisting in traffic direction for an event in downtown Manchester, one was helping change a tire, and one was engaged in highway robbery... but in a really half-assed way. Anecdotal and statistical data seems to support this disparity in my experiences, so I'm not totally delusional in thinking life would be less rife with criminal interaction if I were to move to the Shire.

The most prominent body of anecdotal data is the numerous examples of law enforcement having been “trained” by activists in various towns in the Shire. By “trained”, I mean that being held accountable at all times by activists armed with cameras, knowledge of the law, and a culture of resistance has rendered law enforcement very cautious and professional. The Keene police department is rumored to be one of the most professional and benign criminal gangs in the nation, limiting a majority of their services to activities that would be carried out by private security in a post-state society. Of course, less coercion, murder, and rape is still coercion, murder and rape.

In Denver, it is illegal to collect rainwater, grow sufficient crops or livestock for either sustenance or profit. The area is rife with laws restricting basic liberties, especially gun control, licensure, labor unions, zoning, building codes... oh, and the taxes. Everything is taxed, heavily and repeatedly. The Denver law enforcement (and their bureaucratic accomplices) is often very vigilant for opportunities to enforce these laws, often quite zealously so. I've had “visits” from police because I was walking around my own apartment without a shirt on, for facebook posts I've made, and for driving an older vehicle. Weed is nominally legal in Denver... but that hasn't kept a few friends and acquaintances from spending time in jail. Conversely, there exist fewer laws restricting what one may own, what one can do with one's property, what methods of self-defense one may implement, and how much the state can steal from any individual in the Shire. Couple that with the mob enforcers being “trained”, and the case in defense of the Shire being less un-free is mostly complete.

I'm not alone in my decision.

The aforementioned disparity in the scope of government between the Shire and elsewhere is due to two phenomena which are related. The first is a cultural heritage. The state's motto, “Live Free or Die” is unequivocally liberty-oriented and has been taken seriously throughout history. Despite geographic proximity to the of the most misanthropic, powerful, and far-reaching empire in known history, the Shire has resisted gun control, moralistic legislation, and a number of other American hallmarks to this day. Because of this pre-existing, yet insufficient, culture of resistance to tyranny, the Free State Project decided to focus its efforts in the Shire.

The Free State Project is two distinct but entwined entities in itself. One such entity is the company by the name of “The Free State Project”. I am not a believer in or supporter of the company for many of the same reasons I do not support the Libertarian political party; but the company spawned the second entity: the people engaged in the project itself. The stated goal of the FSP is:

“The Free State Project is solely an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.”

A great many people have decided that such a migration is a beneficial move for freedom-minded individuals (sorry about the pun). The FSP is, broadly speaking, an attempt to incentivize people like me to concentrate in a geographically local area and experiment in anarchy. I have met several people of outstanding moral, intellectual, and social quality in the project who have moved to the Shire. I would be remiss in not pursuing a relationship with them and assisting in their project as well as taking advantage of the fruits of their experiments.

These experiments are as numerous as the number of people migrating. People are running for public office as open anarchists, and enough people are voting for them to actually win elections. People are trying, with varying degrees of success, to live entirely off of alternative currencies, such as gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Permaculture, microfarming, and a cornucopia of sustenance and market farming practices are being used and promoted. Peaceful parenting, unschooling, free-range kids, nonviolent communication, the trivium and more and more efforts are being made to improve interpersonal relationships and self-awareness. Constant in-person, social media, and public content debates, arguments, and friendly explorations concerning the principles of liberty and alternative lifestyles are ongoing throughout the Shire and internet communities centered on the FSP participants.

  These communities and discussions exist elsewhere and online (which is technically everywhere), of course. I've participated in “Anonymous” protests, home school co-ops, Bitcoin meetups, philosophy clubs, and microfarming in Denver. However, each one of these communities were totally distinct and separated from each other and require a fair amount of effort and travel to find and participate in these things. Even in these groups, too, I exist in the margins. “Anonymous”, for their anarchist imagery and organization structure, are very SJW-leaning in their activities, for instance. Another example would be the philosophy clubs, which tend to focus on and endorse the clearly post-modern and statist metaphysics of Searle. In the Shire, a great deal of these communities overlap and exist more locally as a result of the intentional community of the FSP.

As great as I make the Shire sound, it's not the ultimate goal.

I often say that I'm going to New Hampshire to “find my liberty legs”. If it hasn't been clear in my blog posts, it is certainly in my book: I argue that belief and will exist solely in action. If I believe the things I write in this blog and, for example, will myself to be free, I must necessarily “walk the walk”. If paying taxes and obeying the law are moral and ethical evils, as I claim to believe, then I ought to do what it takes to cease doing so; the same is true of my beliefs that pursuing independence and human flourishing are ethical and aesthetic goods, if I believe that, I must necessarily pursue those activities. In the Shire, I will be far less likely to find myself in a kill-or-be-killed circumstance as a result of avoiding evil and doing good, but it is still too great a risk, given the ultimate nature of the costs associated with such a risk.

As such, migrating from the Shire to somewhere else, further away from imperial influence, is in order. Perhaps central Mexico, rural Greenland, Liberland, Cambodia, or anywhere with a weaker government that is less-interesting to the American Empire. Of course, such a move is incredibly risky. Without a solid grasp of local languages and customs, the laws that do exist in that region, and the skills necessary for self-sufficiency and freely living, my family and I would likely wind up destitute, imprisoned, drone-striked, or in any number of unfortunate modes of being. My time in the Shire is intended to be an attempt at learning the requisite skills, locating the next stopping point, making connections with other liberty-minded people, and possibly recruiting others to go the “the promised land” and found an intentional community there.

Remember, anarchy is a philosophy of personal responsibility.

Responsibility is impossible without reason and knowledge. Fear stands in opposition to all three of those things. One must avoid acting out of fear if one wishes to make rational and beneficial decisions. I bring this up because people have accused me of “running away” because I'm afraid of “they/them/those” and I've been accused of having not already moved to Somalia out of fear that I'm wrong. I have done all I can to rationally pursue cost/benefit and risk/gain analyses concerning these goals as well as engendering a spirit of discernment, and only time will tell if my analyses were correct.

I have taken on responsibilities and made investments throughout my life, and the goals and methods of achieving those goals that I have decided upon are directed at maximizing those investments and my ability to uphold my responsibilities. Maybe I'm mistaken; maybe, once I arrive at the Shire, I will discover that such a goal is best served by finding a state of being “free enough”... who knows?

TL;DR: I'm moving to New Hampshire because the cops are less evil, the laws aren't as far-reaching or draconian, there's fewer taxes, and there are more people there that think like me and value the things I value. I have a job lined up there that will start in about a year, and I'm applying and interviewing for temporary jobs to fill the time between now and when that other job will start. I would love to put my money where my mouth is and go to the Shire today, but I have a family to care for and must therefore be responsible in my pursuit of freedom, even with regards to interim steps towards it.

P.S. I initially produced this post before the NH rulers' decision to defund Planned Parenthood, granting them yet another feather in their hat as far as setting an example of how to pursue “liberty and justice for all”.

A second audio-only post in a row?  The reason why is explained in the recording.  I promise, guys, after my "vacation" in New Hampshire next week, I'll be back on top of getting regular OC out to y'all.

https://soundcloud.com/mad-philosopher/musings-on-my-autobiography

 Has Mother Church wielded the sword and shackles of the state for so long She has forgotten the use of the shepherd's crook?

A Response to Laudato Si

As is usually the case, the Pope did something and the liberal media came in their pants with excitement. My less-involved Catholic friends and some non-catholic friends then asked me what he actually said and did and what it means, media spin aside. I make it a point to read Encyclicals as they come out, as often as possible. While I'm skeptical of Catholic social teaching for a number of reasons, it would be unbecoming of a Catholic intellectual critical of some social teachings to not keep abreast of progress made in that regard. Also, with the persistent questions from others, I find that it is beneficial to myself, my friends, and our relationships to be able to provide a service in the form of translating 170-odd pages of teaching that's very involved and built on millennia of scholarship into something digestible to a more secular mind.

In interest of defending Church teaching against the portrayal it will receive in the mainstream (RE: pagan) culture, I spent a good chunk of yesterday and this morning reading and re-reading Laudato Si and reading many short commentaries written by various clergymen and lay Catholic journalists. I have several pages of handwritten notes, addressing specific things that were said, the general theme of the encyclical, and its relationship to history and standing Church teachings, and I'm not sure how much use those notes are going to find in this post, as there's some very important general themes that need to be addressed. These issues far overshadow individual lines or phrases that may be misinterpreted or otherwise used contrary to the goals set out for the encyclical, so these smaller issues may be overlooked in this post.

The most important point to get out of the way is the relationship between Catholic social teaching and the general body of scholarship within the Church. Many Catholics, even devout Catholics do not understand the role that the encyclicals and other works in Catholic social teaching play in the Faith. Catholic social teaching is not Doctrine or Dogma, it is not an infallible pronouncement by the Pope acting alone and in persona Christi. Catholic social teaching is, essentially, the magisterium of the Church saying, “Based on what we have to work with, here, this looks like the best solution to a particular problem the Church faces.” In the case of this encyclical, it identifies several problems, some real and some imagined, and looks for a root cause for these problems in order to make “a variety of proposals possible, all capable of entering into dialogue with a view to developing comprehensive solutions.” In such a dialogue, “...the Church has no reason to offer a definitive opinion; she knows that honest debate must be encouraged among experts, while respecting divergent views.” This post (that will be wholly invisible to the magisterium and to those who could and would affect change) is an attempt to address the issues presented, their root causes, and continue the dialogue sought by Pope Francis. No, I don't claim to be an “expert” as indicated in the encyclical, but I am confident that I am no more or less an expert than a substantial majority of the people involved in and affected by this dialogue. As such, I am as entitled as anyone else to express my informed assessment of the situation.

This document is essentially three different encyclicals blended together in a frenetic and haphazard arrangement, a departure from the more analytic and procedural voice and style of Francis' immediate predecessors. It may sound strange, but I will do my best to explain what I mean.

One of the encyclicals is an assessment of mankind's relationship to it's environment, the role that we play in our environment's well-being and the role that our environment plays in our well-being, both spiritually and physically. It explores how exploitative and irreverent practices with regards to creation develop vicious attitudes within the practitioners which results in the exploitation and irreverence being directed at other human beings as well. In a surprising but well-defended argument, the Pope lays out how industrial monoculture farming is culturally related to inhumane medical experimentation and abortion, for example. This encyclical reads as a slightly less poetic text that one would expect Francis' namesake to have written, waxing on and on about the glory of the Creator as seen in His creation, our role as stewards of that creation, and the teleology of all things. This encyclical appears to be addressed to the traditional audience of the encyclicals: the people of the Church in the world at large and within the magisterium. It calls for a pastoral approach centered on acknowledging the almost panentheist nature of reality, how God Himself is part of his creation and His presence in His creatures must be respected, lest one fall into the habit of not acknowledging that same presence on one's fellow humans. With typical Franciscan flair, the primary focus is on how the poor are marginalized and harmed the most by these irresponsible and irreverent practices.

Another one of the encyclicals is drawing a connection between this renewed environmental focus and the greater body of Catholic teachings, the relationship between abortion, postmodernism, consumerism, the destruction of the family, the evils of war and violence, etc. These passages are, unsurprisingly, the main focus of the articles popping up all over the internet titled some variation of “Ten things that the mainstream media will ignore in Laudato Si”. This encyclical is, essentially, a reaffirmation in the long-standing tenets of the Church: Abortion is murder, contraception is bad, gay marriage is a metaphysical impossibility, postmodernism is an intellectual cancer that is killing humanity and faith, etc. The only new addition to this litany that is presented is to try and add “and mind your greenhouse gasses” somewhere in-between “Postmodernism is bad,” and “We have to be careful with GMOs.”

The main focus for everyone, myself included, is this third encyclical. This one is addressed to “world leaders” and the UN in particular, as opposed to the Church and its people. This encyclical is rife with praise for worldwide economic manipulations, the use of government violence to accomplish the ends of the Church, an appeal for granting all governments more authority and force to implement stricter environmental regulations, broader economic manipulations, and redistribution of wealth. This encyclical explicitly calls for a progressive carbon tax, a world government with a navy and police force with authority to supersede national governments, national and local governments to implement “free” public housing and utility access, and heightened enforcement of drug laws.

Worse, though, than pleading with the state to use it's swords and shackles to coerce responsible behavior out of humanity at large, Francis takes a page out of Pope Urban VIII's book. Overstepping his authority in moral and theological matters, the Pope attempts to side with the “scientific consensus” and endorse a worldview that is anti-scientific and empirically falsified. Declaring human-caused global warming to be an existential threat to creation of a magnitude equivalent to the great flood which God repented of in Genesis, Francis demonstrates that he needs to hire better researchers and ought to be more reticent before declaring Galileo anathema. He makes this mistake twice, in rapid succession. After demonstrating an unwillingness to critically assess the legacy academic stance in light of empirical evidence in science, he does so again in the realm of economics. Using Keynesian economic prescriptions and “green” socialist rhetoric, he creates a straw-man of the free market which is even more flimsy and caricatured than those manufactured by liberal college students on social media.

  There was one line, in particular that required a double-take, a re-reading, and it ultimately elicited a violent reaction from me:

“Civil authorities have the right and duty to adopt clear and firm measures in support of small producers and differentiated production. To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit, restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise[sic] a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute.” p96

This quote is taken from the midst of pages upon pages of diatribe against international outsourcing of labor, speculative investment, development of trade infrastructures, the automation of menial tasks. While lamenting these actions, the Pope calls for an increase in the policies which are the direct cause of them. Economic regulations, such as the minimum wage, intellectual property legislation, and progressive corporate taxation and subsidies creates innumerable perverse incentives within the market, as a natural matter of course which is empirically verifiable. To blame “the market” and paint such claims as “a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals,” demonstrates a wholesale ignorance of the science that is economics. One should expect a former scientist to understand the limitations of his understanding of others' fields and at least call upon them to inform his opinion. If he has done so, he needs to look harder for a reliable resource.

The reason this sudden interest in mainstream sciences and display of ignorance in these matters is offensive is because the Pope is a moral authority in the world, and to draw upon obviously false data, bundle it up in moral language and issue ethical and political proclamations demeans both the sciences he misrepresents and the position which he occupies in the See of Peter.

These three encyclicals are blended together in a manner that makes them inextricable from each other. In one sentence, Francis will point out a theological understanding concerning substantive relationship of the trinity, move to an analogy concerning the nature of agriculture, and indict private ownership of resources. Because of this, it is impossible to tell where the Pope is addressing individual Catholics and exhorting them to consider their role in creation from a theological perspective and where he is exhorting politicians to use violence in order to protect the poor in the developing world from global warming from an economical perspective.

There is no denying that people everywhere in the world are facing ecological crises: living in cities that are not conducive to human flourishing, living near industrial mining operations, facing evictions from tribal lands or private property in the interest of economic gains for the powerful, the destruction of biodiversity in inhabited areas, and a general disregard for the inalienable rights of human beings are all issues that need to be addressed, and quickly. However, to blame “the free market” when there is no such thing, to pin the blame on people that are merely doing their best to survive when faced with systematic violations of their rights, and to fall back on methods that are the direct cause for the decline of Christianity and the rise of the postmodern world seriously misdiagnoses the cause of the problem and results in a very dangerous situation, both in the world at large and in the Church itself.

This political edict in the guise of moral teaching places those that are well-versed in science and economics in the difficult position of trying to justify the teachings of the Church that are explicitly contrary to what they know to be true. Some may lose their faith, either in the Church or in reason. The loss of faith in either is a tragedy, and it can be prevented simply by Francis double-checking his work and being cautious not to overstep the bounds of papal authority. An even greater tragedy than some umber of individuals losing their faith due to a contradiction in moral teaching and empirical fact is the alienation that such teachings has formed between the Church and the people and institutions best situated to aid the Church in pursuing a more Christian world. Economists the world over are denouncing the Church and discovering the long-standing trend on Catholic social teaching towards full-blown socialism. The scientific communities that tend to lean more socially and fiscally conservative (like the Church) also happen to be the ones that have disproven any substantial causal relationship between human activity and global climate change, in outright ignoring their findings, the Pope has alienated the scientific community once again, driving the long standing wedge between reason and faith even further. Even in moral and philosophical circles, there is outrage that the pope would undermine basic human rights (such as the right to be secure in one's property) for the sake of the rights of woodland critters and soil bacteria, which is explicitly done in this document.


TL;DR: Despite all of my defenses of Pope Francis to-date, my re-interpretations of his words in the light of reason and Church teaching in order to explain to others how one can rationally support his teachings, there is no way to deny that he is a full-on socialist with a callous disregard for economics and science. While I am not a sedevacantist or about to apostatize, this is an excellent opportunity to begin picking apart the whole of Catholic social teaching and calling for reform in the Church, not concerning matters which are doctrinally secure (such as prohibitions on gay marriage or abortion) but concerning instances where the Church draws too heavily on philosophically and scientifically flawed information. Many lament that this encyclical will be remembered as “the global warming encyclical”. I lament it as well, the global warming was merely a pretext for pushing a theologically-backed call for one world socialist government, and to remember it as the “global warming encyclical” discounts the very real damage that has already been done by the document to the integrity of the Church and the incalculable damage that will be done if world leaders heed the Pope's plea.

Discovering that the See of Peter is occupied by a died-in-the-wool socialist is a good opportunity to review Church history. I've found, in my limited education of the subject, that the delineation between a Doctor of the Church and a heretic is a razor-thin one between those who are willing to admit the possibility of error and those too prideful to do so.

Only time will tell.

You can read the full text of Laudato Si here:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

Dear Mom and Dad,

We rarely find time to talk anymore. I guess that's what happens when you have eight kids and your son has three more. Rushed, oft-interrupted, and emotionally-charged bursts of conversation are not conducive to mutual understanding, and I understand you are too busy to read and understand everything I write. While considering this reality, I've decided to address my confusion over our philosophical disagreements and consolidate my ruminations into the most direct and concise letter I can write for your to read at your leisure. Depending on how the letter turns out, I may publish it as an open letter on my blog, for others to better understand as well.

Really, the heart of my confusion is centered on mom's disparaging and dismissive attitude towards my ideas and understanding of the world. I have arrived at this stage of my understanding primarily due to your influence. Dad's perennial pragmatism and skepticism gave me a high standard and difficult challenge for rational methodology and mom's example for action has given me a healthy respect for intuition and substantial consideration regarding virtuous and moral action. In a way, I guess I'm concerned that I may have put you on a pedestal and now require more form you than you can provide, but I am extremely reluctant to admit that possibility. So, here I will write the things I feel you have taught me and how they have led me to the conclusions I have reached; hopefully, it will give us somewhere to begin understanding each other.



If an idea or approach is discovered to be false or does not work, eschew it for what is and does:

When I was a little kid, I often had great ideas or plans which were poorly engineered. Clubhouses which required far more than the few pieces of scrap wood I had available, for instance. While he may not have had the greatest method of explaining why, dad was very good at pointing out why the idea was impossible and providing a more realistic, comparable plan. After the school system had demonstrated that it wasn't working, mom pulled me out and attempted home schooling. At which point, you perpetually modified and refined the curricula and methods of schooling. Trying different methods for allowance, chores, discipline, and personal liberties, keeping what worked and dropping what didn't was a constant state of affairs growing up. It seems that ethos is still in full force today.

It shouldn't take too much explanation to see how this ethos has had an effect on my journey thus far. Primarily, identifying and learning from mistakes. Whether it be my approach to studies, finances, personal life choices, whatever, I'm not afraid to admit error and strive to rectify it, and to rectify the subsequent mistakes made in the attempt to rectify, ad infinitum. Philosophically, I have always had a set of needs. I've applied this ethos to fulfilling those needs, moving through pursuits such as paleontology, vulcanology, meteorology, astronomy/ology, cryptozoology, theology, astrophysics and demonology, ultimately settling on philosophy. Along this path, I've found what fulfills this need and what doesn't

This process has served as a useful tool for self-awareness, but I will save that for later. For now, I will move to the things you have shown me which have been consistently shown to work.




Deontological maxims supersede practical considerations:

This is a truth that was a long and hard task to learn. For a long period of time, possibly due to the environment in my early childhood, it was hard to critically assess the position that, “The ends justify the means.” “If my goal is noble enough and attainable, the most direct course of action to get there must be taken, regardless of how undesirable the course of action may be.” This claim, in it's myriad forms, consistently saw resistance from you. “Murder is still murder, even if it's for a good cause,” was a common response I would get.

As I warmed up to the idea, for example, that the ten commandments are non-negotiable, I explored the real world and hypothetical ethical dilemmas which would test such a deonotological maxim; trying to expose inconsistencies and contradictions with such an approach became a daily exercise. So far, after trying to break deontology, all I have found is that a clearly-defined and concise set of maxims are the most resilient and reliable basis for moral action. Sometimes, these maxims set a standard too difficult to achieve; this is due to human failings, though, not the mind of God to which we ascribe these maxims.




It is infinitely more honorable to set a moral standard, strive to meet it, and fail than to set a low standard or otherwise make no effort:\

These moral maxims, such as “Thou shalt honor the LORD above all else,” “Thou shalt not murder, steal, or covet,” and their necessary conclusions, “Love your neighbor as I have loved you,” and “Uphold the dignity of the human person,” can be more demanding that one can manage at times. This is not an indictment of these maxims, but instead an empirical fact of the human condition. When faces with this fact, one may choose to dissemble and rationalize or justify their failures and accept them or, worse, to simply give up altogether. I've lost too many friends and seen too mane others loose friends to this temptation. Seeing you strive to more consistently meet that standard, and succeed, has demonstrated the honor in doing so.

Rather than striving to meet such a standard, I would often attempt to reinterpret these maxims or rationalize my status. You dissuaded me for doing so, mostly by example. It helped that, as I explored limit cases of these maxims, you made an effort to resolve issues or directed me to resources wherein others made the effort. Often, neither you nor the sources could provide a compelling resolution, but instead gave me the tools needed to do so for myself. The important trend through this process was the need for integrity: if someone abandons honesty to themselves and their standards, it is tantamount to lying.




Acting justly is more important than comfort:

Between the maxims mentioned above, the need to act in accordance with those maxims, and the need for integrity, one has a duty to accept responsibility for their situation. Again, this is something I learned from your example, first, and be exploring the philosophy behind it later. Simply assessing your circumstances and making what is ostensibly the best choice available, even when it will be difficult or uncomfortable. Those instances when we would move, switch to hippie food/medicine, move to homeschooling, etc. seemed to demonstrate that duty and the discomfort associated with it. Discussing my situations concerning college, marriage, kids, work, etc. with you also followed that trend.




To engage in or directly benefit from immoral action is to be complicit in that act:

Part of acting justly despite discomfort is to avoid immoral action. When I was younger, I had a hard time understanding why you would discourage ideas of what would be a clearly profitable venture: varying from things like selling vices or running (relatively) harmless scams. The recent example would not be wanting Tommy to be a security guard for a pot shop. While I may disagree with you on specific questions of morality, I think we all agree now that selling one's morals for profit is unacceptable.




That which is immediate and actionable supersedes, distant, future, or theoretical concerns:

Even though it may pay the bills to sell cocaine out of the Church garage, and may make enough to be comfortable on top of paying the bills, but the ends do not justify the means. There's a story stuck in my head that I think dad told me, but even if it was someone else it sounds like all the other stories about poop brownies and the like. There was a olympic rowing team that lived together and whenever someone wanted to do something, the team would ask them, “Will it make the boat go faster?” At face value, it would seem to justify the idea that the sole justification of the means is in fact the end.

That interpretation is incredibly naive, though. The olympic rowers found themselves in the circumstance that they were olympic rowers; the olympics was upon them and they had a demonstrable and immediate goal of making the boat go the fastest. In their case, the olympics is as distant or theoretical as getting shot is when on a battlefield or being corralled onto a train in 1939 Poland. That is to say, not very abstract. When faced with a choice, as one is thousands of times a day, the primary consideration of that choice ought to be, “is this option just, in and of itself?” and then whether the demonstrable outcome of the action will “make the boat go faster”. After that analysis, the “what if?” and big picture enter into the equation.

This is how I was coached with regards to Boy Scouts, college prep, financial issues... Dave Ramsey's version of this is “debt is bad, mmk? Avoid selling your future for unnecessary gains (like one does with a car loan). Use what is on-hand to solve the problem.”




It is impossible to judge the heart of another, for your sake you must give them the benefit of the doubt even when judging their actions:

The way I have best seen this expressed is Hanlon's Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Dad has consistently stated and re-stated this claim in some form or another at every occasion I have judged another person. It took an embarrassingly long time to come around to the idea. Philosophically, I call it the “phenomenological/epistemic barrier”. That is, one is privy only to one's own internal experience, it is impossible to directly apprehend the outside world, especially the internal experiences of others. One has an indirect access to others' behavior (the same way they have access to the behavior of a rock, tree, or beast) but not to the internal experience corresponding to the behavior.

One can, with varying degrees of ease, judge the behavior. For example, dismembering an infant with scissors can easily be identified as the crime of murder, regardless of whether the murderer's internal experience reflects that behavior. The CIA could have slipped the murderer some crazy drugs, he could be indoctrinated by the medical school system to do so, or he could simply have dementia. I can't judge his internal experience and call him evil or insist that he is going to hell, but I can say that he has murdered a baby. However, some cases are not so clear-cut and it would not be unjustified to err on the side of caution.




Question the auspices of authority (the only authority is epistemic):

This is something that I think I watched you learn which, of course, is what taught me. My early life experiences like my appendicitis ordeal and elementary school career demonstrated the need for skepticism when interacting with an individual or institution, even if they have the credentials (like an M.D., 100-ish years of history to back them up, or a teaching certificate). The authority of the doctor, teacher, administrator, or priest is not some metaphysical or divine attribute, but instead an epistemic one. The doctor is an authority in medicine insofar as his knowledge of the field is accurate. Not all doctors, teachers, etc. are created equal. Hearkening back to how those who have no standards tend to dissemble and rationalize, those that lack authority tend to lean on their credentials and auspices of authority and, subject to skepticism, are therefore not to be trusted.




Independent research and conceptual reasoning countermand the status quo:

Alongside authority, the status quo is also subject to skepticism. Your rejection (or partial rejection) of vaccines, standard education models, debt-oriented finances, moral/legal equivalence, and the “2.4 kids and a puppy” paradigm is the logical extension of the skeptical approach to the auspices of authority. Independent research can be anything from getting a second opinion from another authority to actually doing the requisite work oneself. Very little on the internet is true, of course. For that matter, very little outside the internet is true, either. This makes independent research incredibly difficult; by extension, that difficulty makes finding an actual authority equally difficult.

What, then, can one rely on when searching for factual or true knowledge? Conceptual reasoning can guide the process, at least. The application of careful deduction, induction, and abduction is ultimately the only tool one has in discernment between different claims, authorities, or options. Of course, like a hammer and nails, reason is useless without experience. All epistemic crises aside, the facts one is able to discern as immediate and actionable often come into conflict with and overcome the status quo. That's because the status quo is an emergent property of human nature.




The human condition is such that utopia and systematization is impossible:

Back in my Marxist days, dad frequently said things like “people don't work that way”, “You can't program society like a computer”, and “who is going to program the computer you put in charge?” Meanwhile, mom was vocally denouncing standardization, especially in education but also in medicine and just about everything else. That, coupled with the Scriptural education you provided, paints a pretty clear picture about the relationship between the human condition and utopia. Utopia being the Greek word St. Thomas More made up which means “no-place”.

Namely, that relationship is radically irreconcilable. In spite of rejecting gnosticism, I am certain that corporeal paradise as we can conceive it, is fundamentally opposed to the human condition. This is not a failing of the human condition, but instead one of utopia. Utopia, in all of its implementations, requires humans to be standardizable, equal, replaceable, and incapable of growth or change. Humans are none of those things; attempts to make them such are doomed to failure.




Coercion doesn't work, neither does rules:

Coercion is essentially any engagement which can be reduced to, “Do/don't do X, or else.” In hindsight, almost every moral crisis I had faced until recent years was a result of being coerced. Sometimes, the coercion was an explicit statement as above. Other times, the coercion was inferred from consistent exposure to the above statement or the behavioral equivalent. I don't want to air dirty laundry, new or old, especially as everything is essentially forgiven and forgotten or is still a secret and not yet beyond the statute of limitations. Having been on both the giving and receiving end of coercion, even in the form of rules that are “for your own good”, I have seen how such behavior does infinitely more harm than good and, on a long enough timeline, ultimately fails to accomplish its intended end. Besides, the ends do not justify the means and coercion undermines the human dignity of the victim in every instance.




Contracts are bullshit:

This is something I have to pin on dad, so you can skip this portion, mom. This comes primarily from our discussions on social contract theory. I unknowingly, used to place undue metaphysical belief on the social contract. You brought this to my attention be demonstrating how the social contract has no effect on the physical world. In a world such as Hobbes' state of nature, there is no difference between two people backstabbing each other over a limited resource and the leviathan's people/leaders backstabbing each other over other issues. The social contract has no more effect in the real world than any other metaphysical fairy-tale. I can believe in ghosts all I want, but that will not change your behavior. The same is true for “real” contracts. Ultimately, any contract signed is nothing more than a promise which alludes to the integrity and ability of the signers to uphold that promise, a-la the social contract. Admittedly, there is a difference between the social contract and a “real” contract. That is, a social contract attempts to coerce its “signers” with the boogeyman of anarchy and a “real” contract attempts to coerce its signers with the threat of government violence. But we've already had this discussion.




The dignity of the human person:

More important than the practical issues concerning coercion, there is a moral issue. Being created in the image of their creator and being given a special moral quality which is at the center of salvation history, there is a certain revealed dignity to human persons. Even “natural man”, a.k.a. Pagans, are aware of this dignity, expressed in our reason, will, and relationship to each other and the divine. Actual catechesis aside, you taught me this be way of debate, example, and counter example, just like all the other items in this letter.

I'm going to circumvent the whole Plato vs. Aristotle, “human being” vs. “human doing” debate and just assent to people possessing their own dignity by virtue of being human. Ultimately, that's the only available underpinning for individuals' duties and rights, but I'm trying to avoid getting too philosophical and lengthy in this letter. I'm just going to stick to the duty (or right) to life, in the interest of time. Simply by virtue of our relationship with out creator, humans have inalienable rights. Chief among those, that from which they are all derived, is the duty to life.

Simply put, it means murder is wrong. By extension, coercion (the threat of murder) and theft (depriving one of their resources used for living) are wrong. Accidental murder, that is, killing someone through avoidable circumstance is still murder. For example “If I leave this toxic waste near the well, people may get poisoned and die. Oh, well, I'm will do it anyway.” So, abortion, murder proper, the death penalty, and war are necessarily a violation of human dignity. Additionally, abdication of one's humanity and person-hood is an offense against human dignity. I imagine this is the basis of mom's paranoia concerning drugs, but I'm not sure. I am sure, though, that intentionally allowing oneself to be objectified, abased, or to lose one's free will/discipline is a violation of human dignity as if they had done the same to someone else.

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask why you changed your mind with regards to the American proxy war in the Middle East. When Bush Jr. wanted to re-invade Afghanistan and Iraq, I fell for the propaganda. You were quick to try and dissuade me from that position. A decade later, I came to your earlier position by a different avenue, that is, by way of the dignity of the human person. I was surprised, then, that mom is so anxious to continue that war and the slaughter of millions of innocents that she tried to dissuade me from supporting. Dad is a bit more coy on the subject, but I think he agrees with mom.

Find what you love and pursue it; make it a tool for survival:

I have a million interests and desires, but the all grow from a root desire which is a love affair I have with Truth and my family. Unfortunately, there is a very limited market for these things in a world rife with lies and captivated with misanthropy. That's not an excuse, but an assessment of my situation. Why does it matter though? I mean, the aspect of the “american dream” you preached to me the most was entrepreneurship and the ability to turn one's loves into a tool for living. So, then, I ought to determine how I and my family are called to live and do what we can to fulfill that vocation.

“If you're not growing, you're dead.” Another nice soundbite from dad that I now totally agree with. In each aspect of one's person, if they are not growing, they are dead. Spiritual, mental, and physical growth, at a minimum, is required for one to uphold one's dignity and pursuit of Truth/flourishing/perfection/“the good”/whatever. Mental growth is clearly the aspect of person-hood I am most disposed towards, with a constant pursuit of numerous “-logy”s and “-ism”s and such, seeking to ground my rational faculties in Truth. Mental growth alone has it's limits. To pursue mental growth, spiritual and physical growth are required. People and action are required.

I am confident in a great many beliefs I have as to what my own vocation has in store for me, and only slightly less confident in what I feel my family's vocation is. Of course, to come to such conclusions, I have to constantly work together with them; I know only myself, and must rely on them to know themselves.




Exit Strategy. Have a concrete goal with demonstrable success/failure criteria and have a contingency plan:

There is so much I have to write on this and the preceding subject, as the main initiative for this letter is to try to figure out where our misunderstandings lie in general, but most especially concerning moving to New Hampshire and later fleeing the american empire. Unfortunately, I'm running out of steam for writing this letter, so I'm sure you've run out of steam and time to read it.

One of the many books dad is never going to write inspired this one. I know I took his treatise on eschatology and turned it into a practical tool, but you grab truth where you can find it. I don't know how much I need to expound on the heading, it seems straightforward enough.




So, what?

This collection of beliefs and lessons has obviously influenced my worldview at large. I think I've spent far too much space and time exploring these ideas, so I will try to wrap this up quickly. Really, I can't understand why you would be so dismissive and crude about the things I have come to understand and what I intend to do. I totally understand disagreeing, as we have always had disagreements, but those disagreements were (generally) calm and rational. Yelling, name-calling, and repeating fallacies is unproductive and neither calm nor rational. It certainly won't change my mind as previous discussions have.

I don't find the beliefs I have to be too extreme. Due to the dignity of the human person, no one has the right to murder, coerce, or steal from another. One has a duty to life, in the fullest philosophical sense of the words. One has an obligation to uphold whatever responsibilities and obligations one takes one. One must have rational justification for one's actions, derived from these first principles.

I find myself in a position where I have taken on the responsibility for the well-being of four other people whom I love dearly. I have this responsibility in the midst of a disturbing situation. This situation is one where I live in a culture centered on misanthropy and death. A society where myself and my children are treated as livestock, coerced into various behaviors by the perpetual threat of murder, routinely stolen from, and ridiculed for pointing these things out. A brief study of history demonstrates an unavoidable cycle of imperialism, where we are currently in one of those cycles, and the fates of those unable to predict such historical cycles. Most importantly, the situation is such that a murderous gang of kidnappers with no accountability, far more firepower than I possess, and a predilection for kidnapping children from those who have beliefs such as mine operates in my neighborhood (funded by the money stolen from me, no less).

A simple cost/benefit analysis revels a clear course of action, especially when the well-being of my children, all the way down to the state of their immortal souls, hangs in the balance. We must assess what fundamental needs we have, what desires we have, and how to change our environment to best fulfill those needs. In order to achieve the flourishing we seek, we must be able to avoid or counter the coercion, murder, and theft we may encounter. That is categorically impossible where we currently live, therefore we must go somewhere else. We must go somewhere where we will either not encounter such things or have more of a fair fight against them. The simple matter of fact is that it is too late in this place to fight back and I don't want myself or my children to face the circumstances that naive Catholics have been faced with in first-century Rome, 18th century Prussia, 20th Century Poland/Germany/France, and at least a dozen other places and times.

I am fully aware that I am to be a martyr, but martyrdom comes in all shapes and sizes. I would like to be a martyr worth emulation, even if never recognized by historians. I would not hesitate to kill or die for my children, so why should I hesitate to forego creature comforts and worldly status? If the status quo is such that I could take advantage of criminal activity, imperial decadence, and misanthropic agendas if only I would forego my conscience or “move to Somalia”, I would side with morality, reason, and my conscience. Not for my sake, but for my kids, so that they will not have this dilemma foisted on them because I didn't feel like addressing it.

I don't need you to understand. I don't need you to agree or condone my ideas or actions. What I need is to understand you, your actions, and help giving you a chance to prove me wrong. I wrote this down so you could read it at leisure and approach the discussion more calmly and rationally and so that you could see that I still value our relationship and your opinions, even if they are wrong.

Red, black, and yellow? Is that some Illuminati Jew symbol? Didn't you put an uglier version of this logo on last post? What's wrong with the nice, simple, easily dismissed anarchy Ⓐ you were using? Why should I care about a picture on a blog I don't read? These are all legitimate questions.

The new logo, like the blog itself, is intended to be a conversation starter. The idea for this design actually emerged as a result of my frustrations in trying to find a lapel pin with a respectable-looking anarchy Ⓐ. I eventually gave up and said, “I will have to design my own.” Of course, if one has to design their own product (especially a costly product), there is no excuse for not designing it in a manner consistent with one's own desires.

My desire for a lapel pin that looked nice but also looked like the anarchy Ⓐ was to be able to start conversations in the least obnoxious way one could start such conversations, like a sort of respectable bumper-sticker. Of course, if I were to ever encounter someone who is even slightly educated with regards to the history of modern political thought or the philosophy of anarchy, the simple red and black Ⓐ may cause some confusion.

Wait, what? Isn't the red Ⓐ the definitive anarchy logo? Haven't you made the case that anarchy is, as a philosophy, incredibly simple and straightforward? It's the rejection of criminal institutions. Simple and straight forward.

It is simple in theory, but humans tend to make things more complicated when putting them into practice. Time for a history lesson. One upon a time, avoidance of coercion, theft, and murder were widely the daily routine. Free exchange of goods and services and people minding their own business was far more common than kings stealing, armies murdering, and sheriffs enforcing, statistically speaking. As social technologies and infrastructures develop and become more efficient, the daily freedom of action diminished due to efficiency in government. After a time, empire collapses and freedom returns. Rinse and repeat.

I am speaking vaguely and mythologically on purpose, as this narrative is cyclical and each cycle consists of generations at a time. In the course of a more recent cycle (circa 19th century AD), a certain philosopher named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is credited with resurrecting an ancient Greek concept called anarchism. The anarchy he resurrected was, philosophically, in its nascent stages. The Greeks that were prone to mentioning anarchy always did so from the perspective of statism and provided very little development before passing the torch to gnostics and other heretics in the early centuries AD, which did not bode well for the philosophy's development under christian empires. As a philosophy, it is motivated by the same moral principles today as it was at its inception, but a great many more considerations have been provided with regards to the necessary conclusions of those moral principles.

Proudhon's infant anarchy was a radical reaction to imperial statism and institutional violations of human rights. In his fully justifiable fervor to do away with that which is inherently criminal and misanthropic, Proudhon made the mistake of throwing out several ideas that were misrepresented to him and institutions that were not inherently criminal but only incidentally so. Influenced by the popular philosophical zeitgeist of modernism and communism, witnessing the historical relationship between the Church and the state, and the state-like behavior of aristocratic industrialists, Prudhon rejected the ideas of religion and capitalism. This mistake made his particular brand of anarchism indistinguishable from secular communism in practice: a violent revolution of the poor against their oppressors and those who resembled their oppressors in favor of a social justice warrior utopia of violent atheist egalitarianism. The classic punk-rock anarchist Ⓐ is commonly associated with this brand of anarchism, “anarcho-communism” as it is now known.

Something needs to be made clear here. Two things, actually. First, even though I used to be a straight-up commie when I was younger, I am not an ancom. Second, Proudhon was correct in rejecting the state-like behavior of the industrialist aristocracy and the Church's use of state violence in pursuit of worldly power. The mistake was believing these crimes to be intrinsic to the philosophies of capitalism and religion instead of a result of individual human failings or the influence of the state.

Fortunately, the philosophy of anarchism has not yet waned. Others have taken up the mantle of anarchism from Proudhon and further refined and developed the philosophy. Most notable of which are likely Spooner, Rothbard, and Mencken. Something all three share in common is the fact that they were all economists. Real economists, not Keynesian socialist bullshit artists... Austrian economists. They were also abolitionists. In the moral pursuit of eradicating the crimes and slavery of the state, they applied their understanding of the human condition, as received from economics, and cleaned up anarchism. They saw the political correctness, feminism, egalitarianism, and socialism embraced by ancoms for what it is: statism.

In response to the red and black ancoms, these second-generation anarchists billed themselves anarcho-capitalists, agorists, voluntarists, and a handful of other names. Being economically minded, these men were more aware of the marketing challenges of advocating freedom in a slave society. Some boldly called themselves anarchists, trying to reclaim the truth; others, justifiably, took the easier and arguably more productive route of adopting wholeheartedly the name, “voluntarist” (or voluntaryist). This, more human-friendly, brand of anarchism took on the yellow and black V of voluntarism to differentiate themselves from its communist progenitor, while still hearkening back to its heritage.

Something else must be made clear here, as well. No, I'm not an ancap. More importantly, the excessive focus on voluntary interaction and economics has come at the expense of an awareness of a deeper, more fundamental, aspect of anarchy. If one's rights are directed at the goal of human flourishing, there must be more ethical rigor and development beyond simply determining whether or not an action was voluntarily assented to. Anarcho-capitalism (aka real capitalism) may also present certain complications in practice, not as severe as the practical results of anarcho-communism, mind you, but results which resemble the environment which produced Proudhon in the first place. In a society devoid of the pernicious influences of government and absent a more developed ethics, a feudal-grade series of corporate rentership fiefdoms is likely to develop. One needs to look no further than Google, Facebook, or Goldman-Sachs to get a taste of what this would look like. If you see nothing wrong with any of these companies... just go back to sleep.

If I am not an ancom or a voluntarist (ancap), what am I? Well, as far as this conversation is concerned, I am an anarchist. I reject all belief in institutions predicated on coercion, theft, or murder. I recognize my responsibility to secure my rights to liberty and property in pursuit of flourishing and acknowledge the same in others. I pursue the abolition of slavery, including the slavery of the state. I believe human interaction is largely voluntary and all agreements and exchanges ought to be voluntary, but that is not a necessary result of anarchism, not the point of origin, nor is it the goal. I believe that, in a state-run society, the truly rich are such at the expense of those who cannot purchase their freedom from the law, but I am not opposed to the legitimate acquisition of material wealth or social influence.

So, the new logo is designed to be identifiable to one with even a basic exposure to anarchy, in either of its popular brands. It is designed to convey that I am either a mixture of both or neither. It is designed to look cool, obviously, and it is designed to resemble a hex or Illuminati doo-dilly because everything is. Most importantly, it is designed to start conversations. As a lapel pin, it can start real conversations, IRL. As a simple logo on a website, it can serve as an identifier for my radical notions and aggressive philosophizing.

Best of all, it can instigate conversations amongst anarchists. We need more discussion amongst ourselves, to try and better understand our own position more deeply. I would love to see Christopher Cantwell, Sloane Frost, and Brian Sovryn go on a retreat together for a weekend. We can all benefit from sharpening our teeth on each other and forging deeper friendships and support structures, as free men are a small minority in today's world. As I pointed out in “Is Anarchy a Bad Word?”, we face a tough marketing challenge against an institution with a mandatory 15,000 hour child indoctrination system; every little bit helps.

Remember, more important that changing people's minds by way of symbols or rhetoric is to simply do what is right and pursue flourishing. Setting the example has always been more productive than arguments or advertising. Without an identifier and an explanation, though, the example set will be too esoteric for others to follow.


Tl;DR: The red and black Ⓐ is typically associated with anarcho-communism. The yellow and black V is typically associated with anarcho-capitalists (aka voluntarists). The new logo, a work in progress, is supposed to be suffix-agnostic, so it's got both logos integrated in one simple design. Please give feedback on the history lesson, the logo itself, or on the idea behind the logo. Also, Please, please, let me know if you would be interested in purchasing a lapel pin at a reasonable price. Manufacturing the pins requires a certain large number be ordered at once, due to the casting model that is used. I can only get my pin if I want hundreds of them or if enough people want to reimburse me for their own pin, thereby reducing the cost to me.

“So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.” Hunter S Thompson

Rothbard mentioned “Button Pushers” in his work “Do you Hate the State?” If there were and “abolish all government” button, I would push it with such fervor and force I would likely injure myself and those around me. I believe, with a fair degree of certainty, that what would follow would be a relatively peaceful and gradual shift in peoples' behavior and attitudes such that a culture of responsibility and respect would slowly grow out of our current slavery. However, even if I knew that the result would be an immediate collapse into “the Purge” or “Mad Max”, I would still push the button without hesitation.

You see, I'm a deontologist of sorts. It's no mistake that my last post was about ethics. Deontology, at least my particular brand of it, is an ethical framework centered on moral absolutes and individual action. In other words, I believe that, regardless of circumstance or outcome, murder, coercion, and theft are categorically immoral. I believe that the ends never justify the means and that ethical reasoning applies exclusively to the decision at hand and not the past or the future. Considerations of goals, intentions, consequences, etc. only enter the picture after the moral absolutes sort out the morally justified and the unjust actions available. Alternatively, after one determines the most desirable course of action based on such considerations, one must verify that it does not violate moral absolutes. This is all a direct result of my broader philosophy, but that discussion is best left to another place and time.

If Deontology Man were a superhero (he'd be Rorschach), he would need an arch-nemesis. This arch-nemesis would be (Ozymandias) The Utilitarian and his sidekick/son, Consequentialist. Utilitarianism is a sterile, mathematical approach to life and ethics. Its goal is to maximize quantifiable pleasure for the maximum number of people. Imagine giving Spock or the T-800 the keys to the kingdom and the directive of maximizing everyone's pleasure. Best case scenario, you'll find yourself in a Peter Singer (advocate of murdering retarded kids and granting whales constitutional rights) book; worst case, scenario, you get “The Matrix”, but with more robot sex slaves and limitless cocaine.

What does deontology and utilitarianism have to do with LibPar and utopia? You'll see, but we mustn't forget Consequentialist. Consequentialism is a form of utilitarianism which uses the results of an action to retroactively determine whether or not it was a morally good or bad action. In the example of the miraculous “abolish government” button: if my guess were correct, it would be good to push the button and if we wound up with Mad Max, it would have been bad. A lot of people are sympathetic to this line of reasoning; a law can be called a good law or a bad law based on whether we think it improved or detracted from people's quality of life... but, by that logic, if someone were to have brutally murdered Maria Schicklgruber in the 1700s, it would have been a morally good act, by way of preventing Hitler from ever existing: ignoring, of course, the impossibility of knowing about the possibility of Hitler in a world where his grandmother was murdered. As a matter of fact, I will milk Godwin's law even further: modern medicine and space travel, invented by Nazis, have saved and improved more lives than those lost or ruined in the Holocaust, so Hitler was a good guy.

Now we have arrived at anarchy and LibPar. I tend to avoid discussions about Liberty Paradise, except behind closed doors with close friends. People like to (incorrectly) brand anarchism as a utopian philosophy and ridicule it as such. Way back in “Towards a Definition of Anarchy”, I explained that anarchism is not a positive, goal-oriented philosophy but instead is a proscriptive moral claim against criminal institutions. Due to the nature of anarchism and my deontological leanings, discussions as to “the ends in mind” when discussing anarchism vs. statism is inappropriate; such discussions distract from the importance of the issue at hand, namely, “How ought I conduct my affairs in this moment?”

That said, I can engage in a discussion of what I expect LibPar to look like, so long as we keep in mind this important principle: the rest of this post is not a discussion of the necessary result of people behaving in accordance with the principles of anarchy, it is an assessment of a likely possibility, based on my understanding of the human condition and experience. LibPar is a fairy tale that, like the utopian visions of democracy, have no influence on the daily actions of anarchists.

LibPar:
In an ideal state of affairs, I would have the “abolish government” button handed to me from on high and I would make every institution proscribed against in “Towards a Definition of Anarchy” vanish overnight. Yes, the world may be rendered chaotic and in a state of violent upheaval. Some, less domesticated, places would likely continue operations as if nothing had changed, while others may burn to the ground... Of course, that's what’s happening right now, just on a longer timetable. In a less ideal, but more realistic, state of affairs, the message of freedom and responsibility may reach a sufficient number of people and technology may progress to a point so as to enable the widespread adoption of these beliefs in action. Regardless of the specific events which would lead to the formation of LibPar, what would it look like?

Markets:
Firstly, unlike utopian outlooks, I have no specific design for how the entire world ought to work. I expect, in the open market of ideas and philosophies, that a plethora of societies will form worldwide, each with their own distinct features; some will be better suited for perpetuity while others will not. Such is the way of things; without governments to artificially sustain bad ideas, some societies will collapse under their own weight, while others will flourish if genuinely allowed to compete.

This will likely result in different economic models, such as pure capitalism and pure socialism (think first century Catholics, not USSR or USA), being granted opportunities to succeed without the interference of government guns. So will various alternative markets: gift economies, barter and service, token economies, “smart” economies (think blockchains), honor markets... the theoretical options are limitless. Without global market manipulations and capture, we would actually get a chance to see if any of them work in practice. I have a couple that I'm rooting for, but that's unimportant.

Dunbar Number:
The human condition is such that we have the capacity for a limited number of meaningful human relationships that one person can maintain at any given time. Anarchist societies will have to reflect this reality in some way. I expect the most likely way the Dunbar Number will be expressed is that such societies will consist of a few hundred or a maximum of one or two thousand. Such a small population also helps prevent the rise of criminal institutions and most considerations delegated to the state in slave societies will simply not be present in a small enough population. Additionally, genuine human interaction becomes essentially unavoidable, the inverse case of urban environments. The essential quality of the Dunbar Number is that, in a community of appropriate size and density so as to promote human flourishing, you would know everyone by name.

Recently, a friend asked me how a small community marketplace could solve moral issues that people generally turn to law to rectify. The example in question was that of strip clubs, which we both find morally objectionable, but not criminal. The Dunbar number, and small community is the way I think the issue naturally gets solved. Stripper Stacy becomes a lot less fun when you know her parents, she lives down the street, and she knows you and the three other dudes that visit the strip club outside of the club. Also, statistically speaking, Stacy is likely to be the only one in the community that would be willing to be a stripper, which would make it more of a small-business-out-of-your-basement kind of operation, which resembles a strip club solely by way of the vicious nature of the specific service. It does not necessarily mean that the service goes away, but it certainly mitigates the impact on the community as well as making a coercive and violent law regarding it superfluous.

Intentionality:
With a population so small, such a community can be centered around a common goal or ideal. Closely tied to the market of markets, there is an infinite number of possible intentional communities: Catholic parishes, hippie communes, AnCap fiefdoms and marketplaces, farming co-ops, tech outfits, brony conventions, and Amish fellowships all come to mind as possibilities. Some may last longer than others, but as long as people are wiling to experiment there will always be a diversity of intentional communities. These societies already exist around the globe, they land all along the anarchist/statist scale, but as a proof-of-concept, they have demonstrated that such a community can flourish over an extended period of time. Ideally, I would like to live in a familial tribe centered around a certain philosophical bent, pursuit of virtue, and self-sufficiency, but that is neither here nor there.


Mobility and Intercommunication:
Simply put, communities of such small populations and of diverse ideas could only be sustainable themselves if mobility from one community to another and the ability to form new ones is a possibility. Additionally, if a community consists of only a few hundred people, the gene pool may get a little shallow without exchange of populations between different communities. Of course, such migration is inevitable if people trade with, communicate with, and travel to other communities. This will rely on technologies similar to the internet, if not the internet itself and technologies like trucks and boats and such... but we've had such technologies for a while now. It's not too much a concern. Really, freedom needs to be open-source, which would allow for exchanging good ideas between communities and the opportunity to copy what works and improve on what is available.


Security:
There are a multitude of ways that an individual can render themselves "secure". One such manner is with the proper tools and training (AKA guns and the ability to shoot them), another would be a nomadic lifestyle, another would be remoteness (if no one can be bothered to seek you out, they can't bother you), another would be to position your hippie commune such that it is surrounded by radically isolationist militia-type communities... the list of possibilities is longer than I can come up with on my own. What is important is the ability for individuals within an intentional community to defend themselves from others in their community and those around them.

Sustainability:
I don't mean the liberal socialist environmental bullshit, but instead focusing on options which are either cost-neutral or renewable. An example would be making sure one does not deplete the surrounding ecosystem or raw materials (growing hemp permaculture rather than resorting to deforestation and mass agriculture for paper, textiles, construction materials, etc.) or carefully managed hatcheries separate from the native population of fish, or nuclear/passive power generation as opposed to fossil fuels. Not for any pie-in-the-sky theories about preventing global warming or whatever, but because reliance on sustainable resources and infrastructures eliminates the spectre of “the tragedy of the commons” as well as eliminating the need for state institutions built for subsidizing irresponsible industrial practices.

Remember, anarchism is a philosophy of moral action and personal responsibility, not some utopian attempt at a global Galt's Gulch.  If you think it is, you've confused anarchy with the Libertarian Party.  The point of this post is to assuage those who find anarchy to be too short-sighted and not utilitarian enough, to tell them that there is consideration applied to an ultimate goal, even if it is secondary to simply doing the right thing.  The goal isn't to eliminate struggle or conflict, but to mitigate the damage that the human condition can do to human flourishing at large.

The State IS War.

A few months ago, I briefly described a “state of war”. The main focus was on the state of war as pertains to interactions between individuals, but it could be considered a prerequisite to this post on the nature of the state of war as pertains to states. You can read that post here: madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/what-is-the-state-of-war

Hearkening back to “Towards a Definition of Anarchy”, I denounce any institution predicated on or constructed for the sake of coercion, murder, or theft. For now, we will simply define “government” as the very same. Between laws enforced by men with guns threatening murder or imprisonment and theft in the form of taxes, fines, and regulations, it is clear that the common conception of government fits the bill. What are the differences between an individual criminal engaging his victim in a state of war and an institution of thousands of individuals doing so?

The first difference, as will be apparent from readers' gut reaction to the above statement, is one of public opinion. A random individual pointing a gun in someone's face because “Smoking is bad for you” would be publicly reviled and may even be stopped by a third party. However, a man in a blue shirt and a shiny badge pointing a gun at someone for smoking is hailed as a hero and many would likely come to his aid if the victim were to defend himself. Admittedly, public opinions on weed are shifting (and the opinion on tobacco is shifting the opposite direction), but public opinion on law enforcement is not. The same holds true for taxation (because you live within an arbitrary cartographic boundary, the state owns your property), laws (those within said boundary are subject to the opinion of the state with regards to morality), standing militaries, etc. So, where one could easily find support in protecting oneself from an individual criminal, the same is not true with institutionalized crime.

Secondly, due to the nature of institutions and collectivist ideologies, the guilt of the crime is distributed across a great many people. For example, one's intuition is typically such that the grouchy lady making $10 behind the counter at the DMV is not guilty of theft or murder due to her job. Many people, even, do not find the soldiers stationed around the globe or the local cops who are shooting children to be guilty of murder. This intuition can find its root in many claims; “It's just self-defense”, “it's for the greater good”, “they're just doing their job”, and “if you just follow the law, nobody gets hurt”, come to mind. At the end of the day, though, by participating in an institution, one is de-facto endorsing the core beliefs and activities of that institution. If I work for planned parenthood, I endorse eugenics and infanticide. If I work for Starbucks I endorse pseudo-socialist fair trade coffee. If I join the Boy Scouts or the Knights of Columbus, I am endorsing a pseudo-paramilitary organization dedicated to nationalism.

The aforementioned grouchy lady at the DMV, many cops, soldiers, and politicians, etc. are not murdering children or stealing property with their own hands and I am not about to advocate the wholesale slaughter of social workers... but the guilt of these crimes rests more heavily on their heads than the average voter (see more on the ethics of voting: http://madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/on-the-ethics-of-voting-a-dialogue-between-george-and-robert) or on those that do not execute their duty outlined in “What is the State of War?”.

Thirdly, related to the first two differences, is the efficacy or success rate of institutional states of war. Between public support, the apparently clean hands of the individuals operating on behalf of the institution, and the sheer difference in tactical assets available to the state versus the individual, the odds are forever in favor of the state. The tragedy of the commons rears its ugly head when MLK and Eric Frein are murdered by the state, the Confederacy is invaded by the United States, the government massacres native Americans and innocent citizens at Ruby Ridge, Waco, Kent State, the list goes on and on. This ignores, of course, the firebombing, drone striking, and nuclear annihilation of civilian targets on the other side of the world and imperial occupation of the globe.

Closer to home, though, one-third of my wages are stolen from my paycheck before it is even printed, due to the institutional efficiency of compliant victims. Across the continent, arbitrary laws and fines are written, levied, and enforced by a legion of bureaucrats and armed enforcers with the public support and consent of their subjects. Driving 76 on the “free”way is a deadly prospect, not because of mechanical or skill limitations, but because doing so legally grants authority to state enforcers to explicitly engage the driver in a state of war between individuals.

So, what is the cash value of these differences? Well, with regards to “What Is the State of War?” not much. If someone, anyone, attempts to force someone else into a state of war, the victim has a moral obligation to kill or permanently incapacitate them. It matters not whether they are a back-alley crackhead, a law enforcer, a mob racketeer (but, I repeat myself), a Nazi, or a Marine. Does this mean we should all start crucifying social workers or killing cops sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts? Not necessarily. The difference between individual states of war and institutional ones hinges on the difference between individual interactions and institutional interactions; I will write more about this distinction later, but for now I will simply show the result of this difference as applies here.

As is the case for an individual state of war, institutional war ought to be avoided if possible. If one finds themselves living in an institutionalized state of war, whether by way of accident of birth, invasion, or an aristocracy signing some document in a nearby colony at the behest of the French monarch, one ought to take all reasonable action to avoid and opt-out of the state and its inherent war. Anonymity, disruptive technologies, the agora, and perceived compliance are all options which do not require one to abandon their right to live where they may. An option which has greater cost and risk associated with it but with tremendously greater payout is to simply move away. Not to Somalia, of course, but to a more free place; as compared to North America and a majority of Europe, a great many exist. One does not have a moral obligation to leave, but the ought to do what they can to cease support and compliance with regards to the state while also avoiding individual states of war. One such method is to simply leave.

As is the case with individual state of war, one ought to properly equip themselves and conduct themselves so as to be prepared to defend oneself. This requires the formation of a geographically local community centered on the principles of anarchy, with equipment designed to obtain a tactical advantage, an environment of self-sufficiency, and outside the purview of the law. Insofar as these attributes are lacking, such a community must make it as costly and dangerous as possible for the state to operate in said locality, thus discouraging direct acts of war.

One also must try to de-escalate the state of war they find themselves in. This may sound contrary to the preceding prescription, but it is not. In the case of institutionalized war, it is closely tied to the second method of avoidance. If one is self-sufficient and living outside the purview of the state, the state will have little public support in engaging one in a state of war. Additionally, in disseminating the truth of the state and its inherently misanthropic nature, one can garner additional public support, thereby starving the state of its authority. As MLK and Malcolm X's cultural revolution demonstrates, good PR is key.

Ultimately, when individual agents of the state engage one in a state of war, they are no different than any other man, morally speaking. When a master is beating his slave or a rapist is raping or a murderer is murdering, they ought to be stopped at any cost. What about the interim? When a slave owner is drinking tea, a rapist is at Starbucks, or a murderer is at church, ought one stop them from being able to continue such crimes? In 1940's Paris, could a citizen of France be justified in shooting a man in an SS uniform who is simply drinking wine? I do not have an answer as of yet.

I do know, however, that that is the basis on which police arrest people after a crime is committed. In which case, if one supports arresting criminals after the fact, they must also support the execution of professional criminals after the fact as well. Additionally, if you believe that, for any reason whatsoever, that the US soldiers shooting SS officers across the European countryside were justified, then the french resistance is as well and those that wish to kill cops in the name of freedom most certainly are as well. If any war in known history (identified by numbers of individuals in uniform killing numbers of other individuals in uniform) can be justified, a freedom-minded individual is equally justified in killing individuals wearing the uniform of their oppressor.


TL;DR: The state, as an institution predicated on the crimes of coercion, theft, and murder, is itself a state of war. This raises serious moral concerns with regards to the relationship between a free individual and individual members of the state. Much discussion is required, especially taking into account statist justifications for war and how they apply to such relationships. A further investigation into the tragedy of enforcement is also required. (madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/a-preface-to-the-tragedy-of-enforcement)

Also, for your viewing pleasure:

This article, by Murray Rothbard, was originally published in the Libertarian Forum, Vol. 10, No. 7, July 1977.

I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important as these questions are, they don't really cut to the nub of the issue, of the crucial dividing line between us.

Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty and David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman's amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between nonlibertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire, which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too. In short, there is no sign that David Friedman in any sense hates the existing American State or the State per se, hates it deep in his belly as a predatory gang of robbers, enslavers, and murderers. No, there is simply the cool conviction that anarchism would be the best of all possible worlds, but that our current set-up is pretty far up with it in desirability. For there is no sense in Friedman that the State — any State — is a predatory gang of criminals.

The same impression shines through the writing, say, of political philosopher Eric Mack. Mack is an anarcho-capitalist who believes in individual rights; but there is no sense in his writings of any passionate hatred of the State, or, a fortiori, of any sense that the State is a plundering and bestial enemy.

Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is "radical." Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and antistatism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.

Furthermore, in contrast to what seems to be true nowadays, you don't have to be an anarchist to be radical in our sense, just as you can be an anarchist while missing the radical spark. I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical — a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical-liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine's radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism.

And closer to our own day, such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of "Our Enemy, the State" (Nock's title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit anarchism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo.

Where are the Paines and Cobdens and Nocks of today? Why are almost all of our laissez-faire limited governmentalists, plonky conservatives, and patriots? If the opposite of "radical" is "conservative," where are our radical laissez-fairists? If our limited statists were truly radical, there would be virtually no splits between us. What divides the movement now, the true division, is not anarchist vs. minarchist, but radical vs. conservative. Lord, give us radicals, be they anarchists or no.

To carry our analysis further, radical anti-statists are extremely valuable even if they could scarcely be considered libertarians in any comprehensive sense. Thus, many people admire the work of columnists Mike Royko and Nick von Hoffman because they consider these men libertarian sympathizers and fellow-travelers. That they are, but this does not begin to comprehend their true importance. For throughout the writings of Royko and von Hoffman, as inconsistent as they undoubtedly are, there runs an all-pervasive hatred of the State, of all politicians, bureaucrats, and their clients which, in its genuine radicalism, is far truer to the underlying spirit of liberty than someone who will coolly go along with the letter of every syllogism and every lemma down to the "model" of competing courts.

Taking the concept of radical vs. conservative in our new sense, let us analyze the now famous "abolitionism" vs. "gradualism" debate. The latter jab comes in the August issue of Reason (a magazine every fiber of whose being exudes "conservatism"), in which editor Bob Poole asks Milton Friedman where he stands on this debate. Freidman takes the opportunity of denouncing the "intellectual cowardice" of failing to set forth "feasible" methods of getting "from here to there." Poole and Friedman have between them managed to obfuscate the true issues. There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles, and wishes to get to his goal as fast as humanly possible. Hence, while the abolitionist will accept a gradual step in the right direction if that is all that he can achieve, he always accepts it grudgingly, as merely a first step toward a goal which he always keeps blazingly clear. The abolitionist is a "button pusher" who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary — while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it.

It should be noted here that many of Milton's most famous "gradual" programs such as the voucher plan, the negative income tax, the withholding tax, fiat paper money — are gradual (or even not so gradual) steps in thewrong direction, away from liberty, and hence the militance of much libertarian opposition to these schemes.

His button-pushing position stems from the abolitionist's deep and abiding hatred of the State and its vast engine of crime and oppression. With such an integrated worldview, the radical libertarian could never dream of confronting either a magic button or any real-life problem with some arid cost-benefit calculation. He knows that the State must be diminished as fast and as completely as possible. Period.

And that is why the radical libertarian is not only an abolitionist, but also refuses to think in such terms as a Four Year Plan for some sort of stately and measured procedure for reducing the State. The radical — whether he be anarchist or laissez-faire — cannot think in such terms as, e.g., "Well, the first year, we'll cut the income tax by 2 percent, abolish the ICC, and cut the minimum wage; the second year we'll abolish the minimum wage, cut the income tax by another 2 percent, and reduce welfare payments by 3 percent, etc." The radical cannot think in such terms, because the radical regards the State as our mortal enemy, which must be hacked away at wherever and whenever we can. To the radical libertarian, we must take any and every opportunity to chop away at the State, whether it's to reduce or abolish a tax, a budget appropriation, or a regulatory power. And the radical libertarian is insatiable in this appetite until the State has been abolished, or — for minarchists — dwindled down to a tiny, laissez-faire role.

Many people have wondered: Why should there be any important political disputes between anarcho-capitalists and minarchists now? In this world of statism, where there is so much common ground, why can't the two groups work in complete harmony until we shall have reached a Cobdenite world, after which we can air our disagreements? Why quarrel over courts, etc. now? The answer to this excellent question is that we could and would march hand-in-hand in this way if the minarchists were radicals, as they were from the birth of classical liberalism down to the 1940s. Give us back the antistatist radicals, and harmony would indeed reign triumphant within the movement.

Today, we explore the dark side of humanity: crime, vice, and sin.

As readers of previous posts and my facebook page are well aware, I use these terms quite frequently. I have come to realize that, despite my best efforts to contextualize the use of these terms, many people are either unable or unwilling to understand what I mean by crime, vice, and sin. Today, I plan on setting things straight such that I don't have to explain it quite as frequently.

As can easily be guessed, being a philosopher and an anarchist, I do not believe the contemporary and common use of the term “crime” is valid. As I have expressed already, the laws of man are inherently unjust; as such, the term “criminal” cannot apply to an identical class of things as the term “illegal”, as is commonly assumed in our culture. Instead, I define a crime as any action intentionally or negligently directed at the invasion or destruction of another's life, liberty, or property. In other words, it is an action which violates someone's rights or duties.

Easy examples consist of incidents of murder, coercion, and theft. Some such instances of these crimes are difficult to discern outright, as would be the case of unreasonable bank fees, protection rackets, systematic coercion, or deprivation of life essentials. There exist any number of examples that could be presented. It is crucial to have a clearly defined set of necessary and sufficient conditions for what is to be considered a crime for reference in these more veiled instances of crime, given the dire consequences. (see “What is the State of War?” http://madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/what-is-the-state-of-war).

I doubt anyone is reading this, let alone anyone accepts or wishes to help me refine these conditions, but I am compelled to attempt a definition. The result should be intuitive, but still analytically sound such as to justify one's response. I believe that if one demonstrates resolve with regards to performing an action, has a demonstrable ability to perform such an action, and the action in question is an immediate or direct and demonstrable causal violation of someone else's life, liberty or property, the action in question is a crime. In this way, holding a gun to someone's head and demanding a particular behavior or taking someone else's property without consent is a crime. Conversely, making idle threats, wishing cancer at people, and using incandescent light bulbs are not crimes as they do not meet the conditions I have outlined to be necessary and sufficient.

Now is a good time to point out why my definition of a crime possesses more utility than the non-aggression principle (NAP). The most commonly accepted iteration of the NAP can be and is used to justify coercing, stealing from, and even murdering people for things like using incandescent light bulbs, belonging to a different community, smoking tobacco, driving a car, refusing vaccines, and just about any other non-criminal action that could be considered a nuisance by some. These justifications are logically consistent when using the NAP as one's initial premise. Of course, attempting to do such things to someone for using the wrong light bulb is, itself, aggression. The issue hinges on people's definition of “aggression”, and any definition which does not result in counter-intuitive or absurd claims will be equivalent to my definition of crime. A similar issue arises with the less popular objectivist “non-initiation of force” principle.

If I were to simply claim that my definition of crime and prescription as to how to handle it were the extent of moral and ethical reasoning required, we may very well witness a conservative's nightmare: legions of communist, polygamist, sodomites freebasing coke and praying to Allah simply because it isn't a crime to do so. Of course, it's equally likely that we would see a liberal's nightmare emerge: mobs of tobacco-chewing, corporatist, racist, fundamentalist Christians chugging liters of soda while deforesting the amazon. What I am alluding to, obviously, is that there are courses of action which are not crimes but are not conducive to human flourishing. The main focus of this portion of the post is vice. A vice is any non-criminal activity which would prevent or inhibit the participant from pursuing their telos.

Again, I am guilty of referencing my still-unfinished book. A quick primer is in order. “Telos”, a Greek term which has been at the center of philosophical discourse since Aristotle, essentially means “end” or “purpose”. I argue that any individual is beholden to a certain hierarchy of teloi (plural of “telos”), but that is a discussion best left to my book or later posts. For now, we can simply say that eudaimonia is any individual's ultimate goal. Another Greek word: “eudaimonia” is a very technical and precise term which, for our current uses, can be reduced to “free and productive flourishing”.

Any activity which would limit one's freedom, productivity, or well-being can be considered a vice. Addiction, mind-altering substances, dependency, time-wasting activities, body-harming practices, character-undermining activities, prophylactics... essentially the traditional list of vices are good examples of what can be considered a vice.  Now, am I a tee-totaling puritan hellbent on avoiding anything fun? I play video games, drink alcohol, smoke cigars, stay up late, work a 40-hour wage-slave job, and so much more. I am still dependent on others' skills and resources. I still rely on less-than-perfect activities to sublimate my aggression and discomfort. I still use Google, Facebook, and Windows. In other words, I still have my vices.

As I will likely discuss in an upcoming post, the virtues of prudence and temperance are paramount in flourishing. With regards to handling vice, prudence and temperance are also key. While it would be ideal for people to simply commit to being a taoist or stoic sage, an ascetic monk, or whatever and eschew all vice outright, it is not entirely possible and may, itself, be a vice of sorts. Instead of abandoning the real world for some gnostic exercise in death, most people may flourish best by approaching their own vice from the perspective of a responsible cost/benefit analysis. There is a reason I smoke cigars rarely as opposed to mainlining heroin daily.

Whereas “How do I deal with criminals?” warrants a near-infinite number of discussions, “How do I deal with a vicious person?” is pretty straightforward. If one's vices are, in fact, vices and not crimes, they ought to be free from coercion, murder, or theft, like any other human being. If their vices are beyond the realm of tolerance, such as someone vigorously masturbating in public, they can be refused service, reprimanded, shunned, etc. The social norm can be enforced without resorting to criminal actions against someone. Social norms, tolerance, and exile are ideas that will be more thoroughly explored when I get around to talking about cities, the Dunbar number, and intentional communities.

If any of my nine readers are Christians, they are likely pulling out their hair and screaming, “SMOKING WEED WILL LAND YOU IN HELL!” I jest. In all seriousness, though, a great many vices and all crimes are sins. If a crime is someone violating another's rights and a vice is someone preventing their own flourishing, where is sin in this whole mess? I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet. So far, I've written very little on relationships. There are a handful of reasons this is the case, but now I'm compelled to do so.

Sin is relational. I can pretend that I have a relationship with you, my anonymous, silent reader. If I start hiding pictures of my manhood in my posts or if every post were to gradually devolve into senseless diatribes against Ronald McDonald and the lizard Jews, I would be damaging my relationship with those of you who expect philosophy from me. I would be sinning against you.

If I am in relationship with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnivalent, omnibenevolent, omni-omni, being... especially one that created me personally for the sake of us coming into full communion with each other... any action which would make me less omni-omni and therefore less able to come into communion with Him would be a sin against Him. The same applies to any action which would otherwise damage our relationship.


TL;DR: If someone is intentionally and willfully acting in direct violation of another's rights, they are committing a crime. If someone is doing something which prevents or inhibits human flourishing but isn't a crime, they are committing a vicious act. Sin is any activity which damages a relationship. In this way, sins against God would be actions which damage one's relationship with God. As always: you ought to defend yourself from criminals, reprimand and ignore vicious people, and avoid sin.

 A coworker of mine and I had an interesting conversation while preparing the sanctuary for Christmas a couple weeks ago. He's been a friend of mine on Facebook for about a decade or so, but probably hasn't seen many of my posts until recently. That is, until I began posting hundreds of statuses, articles, and memes daily. A while back, it would have likely been concerning evil democrats ruining our country... nowadays, it's more about evil statists ruining everyone's lives; a small but important broadening of perspective. Anyway, I had mentioned that I hate Christmas music, to which he replied, “Not as much as you hate cops.” A very interesting discussion ensued. I decided that a discussion which touches on the same points would serve as a nice blog post preceding the one on institutionalized states of war.

A different coworker jokingly followed up that conversation with a comment, “People might think you're a Muslim, you hate pigs so much.” Which, while hilarious, was cause for contemplation. Do I hate cops? I mean, I'm an anarchist, so clearly the idea of laws and enforcers raises my hackles. But do I hate cops? Cops, like everyone else, are individuals living out their lives... so, as people, I would have to get to know each one individually before determining whether or not I hate them as a person.

Looking at the psychology of what would entice one into becoming a cop would likely illuminate the situation. In the interest of determining the truth of the matter, I will try to give everyone the benefit of a doubt. From people I know and stories I've read, many people who become cops do so “for the right reasons”. They want to protect the weak from criminals, want to protect society from the chaos of lawlessness, they want to carry on the family tradition, and they want to help those that can't help themselves. It seems that the origin of these desires would be the warrior spirit and inculturation. The warrior spirit drives men to pursue virtue, lead others, and protect one's community. The state has, in a history of calculated genius, always attempted to monopolize the ability to fulfill that telos. Within the confines of the state, in order to pursue the warrior's path, one must become a soldier in service of the state. All other options are either outlawed or regulated out of existence. Before you tell yourself, “Wait, I thought he was talking about cops, not the military,” the only categorical distinction betwixt the two (and now, even a superficial one, given the equipment and “authority” they employ) is who they are aimed at. Military for citizens of other nations, cops for citizens of the same nation. When a young man has the warrior spirit burning within his chest and a DARE officer comes to his class and he watches G.I Joe on TV, it is only natural that they would pursue such a career; all other options for fulfilling that telos have been eliminated by the state.

These intelligent, driven, and virtuous men become cops. Unfortunately, helping protect the weak from the strong, protecting the community, and generally doing the warrior thing are not the only items in the job description. To be honest, I don't even think that these are in the handbook, let alone the job description. These good people are trained, take an oath, put on a badge, and set out to do good. Their intention does not match their actions. The moral reality is such that one cannot both be a good person and be a good cop: one is a good cop at the expense of being a good person and vice versa.

What makes a cop a cop? A cop is a law enforcement officer. Contained within that statement is all of the material I have and likely ever will write about anarchy. Fore example, it contains the question “what is a law?” amongst many others. This question, though, is one that needs to be addressed in part, right here. Many of my friends have brought up laws of physics (aka: natural law) in discussions with regards to the tragedy of enforcement. There is little that can be said to deny that the universe has a natural order to it; gravity works, things live and die, the universal speed limit is 299,792,458 meters per second, and the lowest thermostat setting is 0° K. All in all, it seems logically consistent and can easily encompass the metaphysical. We call this whole of natural order “natural law”.

Of course, even the most staunchly Thomist theologian will deny a claim that God just sat in the clouds and wrote: “Article 1, Section 1, Paragraph 1: No particle shall travel at a velocity exceeding 299,792,458 meters per second. Any particle found exceeding such a velocity shall be charged with a misdemeanor...” In all reality, natural law is either a brute fact or an expression of the logically consistent nature of the divine. We use the phrase “natural law” allegorically, applying our common experience of the irresistible and pervasive desires of a king to our common experience of the irresistible and pervasive pull of gravity. This allegorical use of language is one-way. One can say that the natural order of things is similar to the laws of man, but the laws of man bear only a superficial resemblance to the natural order.

This one-way comparison is such due to one simple element: enforcement. Jesus and/or Carl Sagan don't sit in a heavenly courtroom, sentencing those pesky neutrinos for speeding and anti-gravitons for obstructing the law. The natural order simply is. Every aspect of the material world simply behaves in a consistent manner, despite how much one may wish it to be otherwise. The laws of man, on the other hand, only exist insofar as there is a man willing to enforce it. One can argue that moral maxims are a part of the natural order. I do. For example, “Thou shalt not murder,” seems to naturally fall out of a rational understanding of the nature of the human person. For one to recognize and pronounce such a truth is to do a service to all men. However, to say, “Thou shalt not murder, or a man funded by public theft will hunt you down and lock you in a theft-funded cage for the rest of your theft-funded life (or, just kill you if he's having a bad day)” is a crime. As will be addressed in future posts, the law of man is nothing more than an opinion backed by a gun.

Unfortunately for the good people who become cops, a law enforcement officer is that gun backing the opinion. Rather than protecting the weak from the strong, in becoming a cop one makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker. Whether it be a king demanding taxes, a representative setting an arbitrary speed limit, the democrats demanding Socrates' death, or a mafioso selling “insurance”, the only way such a goal is accomplished is by way of armed enforcers. One who has internalized slave morality in its totality may say, “I pay my taxes voluntarily, I follow laws to uphold the social contract, and when a cop pulls me over I comply because I clearly fucked up.” The stark reality, though, is one of armed coercion. What happens if one chooses to disregard the opinion being enforced? If one fails to pay their property tax, will not cops come and tell him to leave their own property? If one refuses to have their land stolen, will he not be locked in a cage or shot? If one disregards the opinion that he has to drive 65 MPH on the open road or that he must stop for a car with flashing plastic lights, will he not wind up dead on the side of the road?

The truth of the matter is that every interaction one has with the law is one of coercion. If you don't do as you are told, regardless of the moral quality of your actions, a cop can kill or cage you. This reveals one more reason why one could make a rational choice to become a cop. If one is intelligent enough to discover this truth, but lack the moral compass that many posses, they may want to become a cop. If one has few marketable skills, self-esteem issues, violent tendencies, and no scruples being paid with stolen money, there is a particular form of welfare available to these people, called law enforcement. One doesn't need to look far to see evidence to bolster this claim.

I've brought up stolen money twice now. All I mean by it is that all forms of government payroll and protection are welfare, including police “authority” and paychecks. Welfare is stealing from those deemed “too well off” in order to give it to those who have been deemed unable to care for themselves.

So, do I hate cops? Yes, but only in the same way I hate all criminals. That is to say, all of the rules outlined in the post titled “What is the State of War?” apply no more or less to cops than any other person (http://madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/what-is-the-state-of-war). I don't hate them as people, I'm sure they're generally nice, good natured, and virtuous people... when they aren't committing crimes in the name of the king. It's simply tragic that they find themselves daily caught in the balance between paying the bills and being a good person.


TL;DR: A man cannot both be a good person and a good cop. Insofar as he is one, it is at the expense of the other. Every action a cop takes is done in a manner that is backed by the threat of death or imprisonment. This makes all cops criminals. I have already made my opinions on criminals clear.

What is war? Can war ever be justified? So many questions and so many emotionally charged readers... lets see how rationally we can navigate this terrain and, consequently, how many people I can piss off in this post.

War, by the broadest definition, is man killing man. One can argue for qualifiers in order to narrow the application of the term, something like “large numbers of men killing large numbers of men” or “the institutionalized or systematic state of men killing men” or “states fighting states”, etc. While I am sympathetic to the desire to make “war” a technical and precise term, the manner in which the term has been used historically has been intentionally broad and inclusive, with a few exceptions. Instead, qualifiers are typically assigned on top of the term to better explain the circumstance: “civil war”, “guerrilla warfare”, “world war”, “war of X”, “war on X”, etc. It is even said when small numbers of men are involved; when two tribes or gangs consisting of a few dozen engage in killing each other , it is called tribal or gang warfare.

Thomas Hobbes, the architect of contemporary views on the human condition, aptly used the term “state of war” to describe two closely related states of affairs. The first being any situation in which a man attempts to deprive another of their life. The second is an environment or state of affairs in which there is a known disposition for such an occasion. Hobbes then equivocates this second form of a “state of war” with what he calls the “state of nature”: that is, his impoverished view of anarchy. Of course, I disagree with his false dichotomy of either sacrificing any and all rights to a tyrant or living in a perpetual solitary state of war, but his definition of war seems solid enough.

What does a state of war look like, then? Some examples are easy to point out: Nazis marching into Poland, remote-controlled planes dropping “ordinance” on children, and gangs executing people wearing the wrong color, (or an environment where such things are common) for example. There are far less obvious examples to draw on as well, but these tend to be more controversial due to their more discreet nature. I will save those for later.

For now, let's see whether war is ever justified. As I mentioned very briefly in “Towards a Definition of Anarchy” (http://madphilosopher.weebly.com/blog/towards-a-definition-of-anarchy) and hope to addressing detail later, one has a duty to life and a moral obligation to acknowledge and respect others' duty to the same. It's a very short axiomatic step to then say war (and the state of war) is categorically unjust. Simple and straightforward, right? Well, yes... but with a qualifier.

I have a duty to live and flourish, and by extension must not inhibit others from doing the same. In a purely rational and robotic world, this would mean that mankind would never encounter or even conceive of a state of war. Of course, experience tells us a very different, more Hobbesian, story. What happens when someone violates their obligation to allow another to live and flourish? What happens when there is a gun in my face? Does one have a duty to live or an obligation to let live? There is only one rationally consistent answer: the would-be-victim has a duty to stop the aggressor from taking the victim's life. If this means the death of the aggressor, so be it.

It is always tragic when someone is killed; again, in a world of purely rational actors, such an event would not occur. However, it is infinitely more tragic when an innocent person is killed by a criminal rather than the other way around. Why is this the case? When one is innocent of a crime (using Spooner's definition of a crime), the are to some degree fulfilling their duty to live and flourish. Conversely a criminal is not only acting in direct violation of their duty to live and flourish (from the virtue ethics perspective) which is a vice, but also depriving others of their ability to do so. The engagement in a criminal act is to enter into a state of war, and a systematic criminal rings a state of war with him wheresoever he may go.

We have touched on how one instigates war (by attempting to coerce, rob, or murder someone), but not what the target of said instigator ought to do in concrete terms. Firstly, of course, one ought to take all reasonable precautions to avoid such an occasion: moving to a safer region, locking doors, demonstrating a secure posture in both person and property, and behaving in a virtuous and amiable manner are all good examples. Secondly, one ought to be prepared for such an occasion. Both mental and physical preparedness are required; being able to tactically assess one's environment at all times, to have the tools needed for security on-hand, and the mental and physical ability to use said tools are a requirement for preparedness.

Thirdly, if or when the first two steps prove to be insufficient, one will find themselves faced with the immediate threat of war. In such a situation, it would seem that there are a series of morally acceptable courses of action. If possible, one must try to defuse the situation before it escalates to violence. One such option would be to simply “talk down” their aggressor... to say something to the effect of “I know you don't want to do this, let's work through this together” another option would be to warn the aggressor that if he does not stand down, he will, in fact, be executed on the spot. Diffusing the situation is not always possible, as sometimes war sets in unexpectedly and with great intensity. Easy examples would be when a gang randomly assaults a bystander or when the SWAT team performs a no-knock raid, but I repeat myself. In the event such an action is impossible or fails, there remains the most primordial of dichotomies: fight or flight. If one can successfully flee with one's life, liberty, and property intact one would be justified in doing so (as long as one later performs one's due diligence in raising awareness of the instigator's behavior). However, if any one of the three cannot successfully be secured and one parts with any of the three to any degree (even in the de-escalation phase), one is complicit in the crimes committed against oneself. In the act of turning over possessions or liberties demanded of oneself unjustly, one is enabling and condoning the theft and coercion occurring. Additionally, a compliant victim allows a criminal to pursue theft from others and such a criminal will likely become a repeat customer with regards to a compliant victim. Such is the case with murder as well, excepting the “repeat customer” portion of course.

The remaining and most unfortunately likely course of action available to one forced into a state of war is to fight. In the case of war, the victim of the instigator is thrust into an unjust situation by an unjust actor. How ought one conduct oneself in the state of war? Ultimately, there is only one acceptable answer: with all the fury, power, ferocity, and coldly calculated intent to kill that one can muster. Anything less would be, itself, a criminal and vicious act.

How could pulling punches of “showing mercy” be a crime and a vice? Well, it is quite simple, really. Once every option to avoid a state of war has been exhausted, the intent of the aggressor to commit a criminal act against the victim at any cost has been established. Any degree in which one is derelict in commitment to stopping an aggressor in the most efficacious and efficient manner possible is a degree to which one is complicit in an aggressor's crime. In this degree one is derelict in combating the aggressor is a degree in which one is willing to allow the aggressor to commit a crime against oneself What's more, not only a crime against oneself but the aggressor has effectively established the nature of his character to be a criminal one; therefore, allowing the criminal to commit a crime against oneself is to encourage him to commit crimes against others.

Remember, anarchy is a philosophy of personal responsibility, not winner-take-all violence. Those who believe it is their right or ability to act out a Hobbesian liberty (the ability to do literally whatever one wants with no regard to the rights of others) will not live long in truly anarchist society. An easy explanation as to why this is the case is to simply imagine a society in which a majority of people live by the standard outlined here and how such a society would respond to a Hobbesian.

I will follow-up on this post in the near future with regards to how one ought to conduct their affairs when living in an institutionalized state of war.


TL;DR: The state of war is is a state of affairs in which one or more individuals cannot be dissuaded from committing a crime. When one is faced with the prospect of war, one ought to do what one can to avoid it. If one is forced into a state of war, one ought to pursue the most effective and expedient method by which to halt said criminal. Namely, they must kill their aggressor.


There is a further discussion of this topic at about the 1:19:00 mark of Sovryh Tech Ep. 108:

Is Anarchy a Bad Word? 

More and more frequently these days, it seems that when meeting people for the first or second time, I am outed as an anarchist. Usually, it is a mutual friend of my acquaintance and myself that does so (sometimes, I think they get some sadistic pleasure from doing so), but sometimes I am compelled to out myself, especially when so many people ask, “What's your take on such-and-such political issue?” More often than not, the statement I am an anarchist” is met with incredulity and disbelief. It's as if I had said, “I'm a racist,” or “I'm a rapist,” or “I shot JFK.” Often, the first thing I'm asked after a moment of stunned silence is, “So, you want an-eye-for-an-eye/Mad Max/The Purge or something?” Sometimes, the more intelligent will ask, “Didn't anarchists kill Franz Ferdinand and start the World War?” or “But who will build the roads?” Very rarely, someone will say, “I think you mean Libertarian...” or will genuinely attempt to explore the idea with an open mind.

Modern media and education definitely do what they can to tarnish the name of a long-standing and rich philosophical tradition. This isn't limited solely to anarchy, many concepts necessary to optimal human flourishing have found themselves ridiculed and marginalized by the agents of the state. Today, though, I want to focus on anarchy (as is the case most days). Easy examples of such “brainwashing” is simply the manner in which the term is used in both “informative” and and entertainment realms of media. The word “anarchy” is rarely uttered, which is not itself indicative of any agenda... but when it is spoken, it is without exception, a pejorative term meant to evoke or describe images of violence, destruction, and criminality. A current example would be the way the media describes the Ferguson riots as “anarchy” while flashing scenes of hundreds of grown men looting a dollar store. In entertainment, only the villain can speak the word without spitting it as if it were a profane and venomous curse. The worst culprits are the news agencies and procedural crime dramas; the news agencies reserve the term for radical combatants or rioters in the third-world or the inner cities of America (but I repeat myself), and the self-described anarchists in the procedurals are always the object of ridicule and often depicted as a villainous caricature of sociopathy.

In education, at least K-12, one is likely to hear the dreaded “A-word” once in all 13 years. That one time is the point when the World War, the result of states' military posturing and nationalistic furor and one of the most devastating events in recorded history, is blamed on the Black Hand, a group of anarchists who killed a politically insignificant duke. The total ignorance of the ways anarchy as a philosophy influenced the American war of independence, the secession of the Confederacy, and the economy of 19th century America, not to mention the history of a greater number of American states is a clear sign that either the history curricula are useless or part of a conspiracy to tell a very specific and pro-state narrative to America's youth. The recent controversies in Jefferson County, CO are actually hinged on this very issue. It is easy to dismiss such a claim as a conspiracy theory and to say I sound just like that crazy guy you saw on Law and Order, CSI, Bones, Criminal Minds, Blue Blood, Cops, America's Most Wanted... but one has to admit that the education system definitely assumes the necessity of institutionalized coercion (laws), theft (taxes), and murder (war, police, etc).

The responses I receive upon coming out of the anarchy closet clearly indicates a cultural reverence for the state. This is puzzling to me, as our government has a 12% approval rating from it's own citizens. I would expect that more people would be open to the suggestion that “maybe the idea of government is inherently flawed” if 82% of Americans disapprove of our particular instance. Especially when taking into account that they simultaneously believe “we are the best nation on earth.” Admittedly, there are a near-infinite number of ways you can structure a government... but the one feature they all have in common is the institutional threat of imprisonment or death to those that do not allow themselves to be robbed or controlled by way of taxation and law enforcement. At the end of the day, all statists agree, whether communist, fascist, republican, democrat, monarchist, or Libertarian, society only flourishes at the business end of a gun. For this reason, the real bad word, which ought to be said with great infrequency and shame is “government”.

How is it that the uptake of freedom-oriented philosophies and movements has not resulted in the reclamation of the word “anarchy”? Well, these philosophies have their own names. With so many agorists, voluntarists, libertarians, capitalists, egoists, and more running around, little attention is paid to anarchy itself anymore. It's a name that has been left for statists to use as a totem for the evils of freedom to ridicule and revile. Besides, doesn't “voluntarism” sound so much more pleasant than “anarchy”? The only problem in thinking such things is, admittedly, a philosophical and intellectual one as opposed to a practical or immediate one.

In order to make a compelling and categorical case for any or all of these ideas, though, one has to understand their philosophical underpinnings. The reality of the matter, in all of its complexity can be glossed in one simple explanation. As I addressed in the last post, anarchy is predicated on a negative philosophical claim: namely the rejection of coercion, theft, and murder as well as institutions which perpetrate such behaviors. These other, nicer sounding, philosophies are predicated on a anarchy first and build a positive claim on top of it. Voluntarism, for example, establishes voluntary association as fundamental to the philosophy.

This may seem like semantic nit-picking, but it is an important distinction to make when trying to establish a strong identity in an inhospitable environment such as that found in the first world. The importance isn't because all the “t”s must be crossed and “i”s dotted, but because all of these positive philosophies of freedom are actually anarchy at their heart, despite their positivist differences. These philosophies, like agorism, are positive assertions built off of the underlying premise of the anarchist principle. So, voluntarism is anarchy + voluntary interaction, or egoism is anarchy + the primacy of the self, or capitalism is anarchy + basic economics, et cetera. In order to best protect ourselves from the war machine of the state, we must learn to get along and collaborate. Doing so is easy if we all realize that we are all anarchists simply building different castles on the same bedrock foundation.


TL; DR: Anarchy isn't a bad word, government is. Freedom-oriented philosophies need to embrace their roots in freedom, rather than obscuring the fact that they are indeed anarchists.

From the Greek: “A/An” = “not” + “Archon” =King/ruler”

Throughout Athenian history, the form and function of an “archon” changed in various ways, but all of the meanings and applications of the term shared three things in common:

• Reverence of the position held, regardless of the actions of the individual holding the position
• Authority to dictate the actions of others
• A support structure or institution designed to grant that authority
  

Because of the close relationship between mythology and political life in ancient cultures, the term archon was used to both describe human actors and intermediary deities/angels/spirits. Excepting instances wherein poetic license was used heavily, the term clearly applied to one or the other type of being; much like our use of the term “love” being applied to loving pie and loving your wife (with the only grey area being “American Pie”). Because of this distinction, I am comfortable in focusing primarily on the word as applies to human archons as apposed to divine archons.

However, it is interesting to note the mythological use of the term, and it does inform the use of the term as applies to humans. In many ancient religions, “archon” was the word applied to spiritual beings responsible for acts of widespread destruction. They typically targeted non-believers. The gnostics, especially, interpreted archons to be any being which acted in such a manner so as to prevent human beings from pursuing individuality, excellence, eudaimonia, or from taking responsibility, but this use was fairly widespread when translating other religious texts into Greek as well.

So, in the interest of crafting a concise, simple, and categorical etymology of the Greek word “archon”, I assert the definition of “archon”is as follows:
“An individual who claims the authority to coercively dictate the behavior of other individuals, especially in cases which cause destruction or prevent other individuals from pursuing individuality, acquiring excellence or eudaemonia, or taking responsibility.”
Of course, a Philosophy is always more complex than an etymological definition of its moniker. I like to make the arbitrary claim that the best philosophies closely match their moniker and I believe anarchy to be an example of this claim. Being an ontologically negative term, “no-archon” can be taken at face value to be a form of either rejecting a claim or to be an enumeration of negative claims. In this case, it is both.

Firstly, it is the rejection of the claim that one has the right or ability to be an archon. Where one may claim to be a monarch, oligarch, tetrarch, etc. they may as well be claiming to be the Messiah or Darth Vader. The same applies to terms which are not explicitly descended from the term “archon”; a republican, democrat, theocrat, etc. is an equally fictitious position to be held. I will address this rejection of belief in archons later.

Secondly, anarchy as a philosophy is an enumeration of negative claims, many of which are ontological in nature. Many times, the dramatic claim of an individual anarchist is, “No gods, No masters”. This claim, while effective and concise is overly simplistic and vague. I contend that the attitude of the motto is accurate, being derived loosely from the etymology of the name and philosophy. A less dramatic but more accurate version would be “no slaves, no masters” or “Man holds no authority over man.” The reasons I wish to avoid “no gods, no masters” is probably fairly apparent; I believe that belief in certain deities is compatible with the tenets of anarchy (that is a matter for later blog posts), and the term “master” has multiple meanings and applications, many of which are not related to slavery; by putting “slaves” alongside “masters”, it demonstrates the particular application of the term “master” which one ought to assume.

So, what does anarchy mean as a philosophy? Clearly, the first negative ontological claim would be that no man has the right to coerce others to behave in a particular fashion and any institution designed for the sake of coercion or predicated upon such actions ought to be done away with. Coercion is a term with many feelings and intuitions surrounding it; many of which, if inaccurate, touch on key elements of it. However, to an analytic such as myself, a clear definition or at least description of the term is required in order to flesh out a legitimate philosophical stance. In the case of coercion, I imagine the definition is something akin to “an action or threat of action which intentionally removes one's means of achieving flourishing with the intent to compel a particular action.” For example, saying “Do X or I will kill you,” is clearly coercion. A less obvious example would be saying, “Don't do X (especially where X is a component necessary or beneficial to one's flourishing) or you will be put in a cage and I will steal your property.” When phrased this way, it is obviously coercion... but it can be less obvious when each piece of that statement is multiplied a thousandfold and spread between millions of pages of legal code. The fallout of such forms of coercion is readily apparent to anyone who looks at certain parts of the public record (or my facebook page).

Equally damaging to human flourishing are the issues of murder and theft. These are both closely related to coercion, but the full relationship between the three is so complex and rich that I do not have the time and space to fully address it in this post, but I will explicitly address it later. For now, I will have to content myself and any would-be readers with a brief examination of the issue as pertains to the definition of anarchy. The root desire which leads to the need to be free from coercion cannot be fulfilled if one is subject to the threat of murder, especially when institutionalized, for the same reasons that one must be free from coercion. Also, by definition, murder is unjustified and an immediate stop on one's ability to flourish by any defensible standard.

Theft is often the most veiled and insidious of the three issues at hand. Where murder is fairly cut and dried as far as identification is concerned and coercion is infrequently undetectable, theft is more difficult to define and can often go unnoticed indefinitely. However, if one is exposed to institutionalized theft, even indirect and unnoticed theft, they are subject to an institutionalized inhibitor of their freedom and flourishing.

So, then, anarchy is ultimately the rejection of any institution predicated on or designed for the sake of coercion, theft, or murder. There is a multitude of reasons why one would come to embrace such a philosophy and worldview, some of which I will address in later posts. One thing is certain, though: no one who embraces anarchy as defined above does so out of naivete or a desire to perpetuate the same crimes which such a philosophy decries. Anarchy is not a guarantee that people will not commit the crimes of coercion, theft, and murder; the idea that such a thing is possible is utopic and therefore absurd. However, any worldview that does not fundamentally incorporate the anarchist position is a guarantee that people and institutions will commit these crimes. Those that wish to commit these crimes have far easier and safer means by which to accomplish their goals than anarchy. For example, they can become politicians, cops, soldiers, democrats, or middle and upper management at a corporation, thereby granting themselves a secure position which allows them to commit the very crimes they wish to pursue while remaining above social reproach, as opposed to taking on the risk associated with the moniker of freedom from such crimes. That is not to say that all people who choose such careers do so out of the desire to commit crimes with impunity, but these positions certainly encourage such activities and some are predicated directly on these crimes. Before I ramble too far beyond the topic at hand, I should save such ideas for later posts.


TL;DR: In conclusion, I propose the starting place for formulating a categorical definition of anarchy would be “The rejection of any institution predicated on coercion, theft, or murder”. This definition is subject to critique and revision, but so far has served me well.

Feel free to comment below or email me at MadPhilosopher@GMX.com if you desire to be a part of this conversation.

A very intelligent and good friend of mine recently mailed me a card (an important and lost art) containing a newspaper article (and equally important and lost art, journalism). The headline read “The Pope and the Precipice”, by Ross Douthat. Full disclosure: my friend is a devout protestant philosopher and I am a devout Catholic philosopher wannabe. I felt this was a good opportunity to show my appreciation for his card and address an issue in the Church at the same time.

Firstly, it was an excellent reminder as to why I no longer read the paper; anymore, it's all bad news written by bad people. Secondly, though, it reminded me of a phenomenon I encounter at least once a month (usually in the church I work at). Someone (Catholic or not, this is an equal-opportunity encounter) will express that they firmly believe that Pope Francis is some sort of reformer, cutting through 2000 years of Tradition and “modernizing” or “liberalizing” the Church. Sometimes, they are happy about this belief and sometimes they aren't so happy.

The source of this belief is not hard to determine. Since the first moments the white smoke issued from the Sistine Chapel, the media in America have been preaching the good news of the new Pope, the first American Pope, the first Jesuit Pope, the first Pope to fall into a number of categories... clearly, this will be the first Pope to allow gay, married women priests and sell the Vatican in order to be the first Pope to carry out Christs message of charity, and oh-my-god isn't he so cool and rebellious, it's no wonder these enlightened liberal millenials in America love him. Of course, this depiction sounds like facetious mockery... but it is only barely an exaggeration. I hear someone parrot these talking points from the Huffington Post at least once a month.

The amusing part of this hubhub is that this is merely the latest sequel in one of the media's most boring franchises. I have heard and read firsthand accounts of life before, during, and after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Despite what so many people seem to think, Vatican II was actually a very minor event, both in the Church and its relationship to the world. Whereas previous Ecumenical Councils resulted in such incredible things as canonizing the Scriptures, building the fundamental doctrines of the Faith, and structurally overhauling the magisterium of the Church, Vatican II resulted in a mere decision to allow adoption of the vernacular, integrating modern technologies into mundane church features such as architecture, and better defining and encouraging lay involvement in Church faculties.

Western society, composed primarily of under-educated, lukewarm Christians and secularists, however, were ecstatic with the results of Vatican II. The media produced a narrative throughout this event that was comically divergent from what actually occurred. Even a very brief comparison of of Lumen Gentium and the newspaper clippings reveal a tale of two Councils. However, because Catholics in the western world received their news and education from the mainstream media, they seemed to think that Vatican II was an endorsement of tambourine-waving belly-dancers wielding snakes and doing bodyshots with the Blood of Christ (way to go, Germany). Even priests and bishops found themselves falling for the state fairy tales rather than simply reading a book issued by the Vatican.

Today is no different. As Francis uttered his first papal words, he could barely be heard over the media ecstatically shouting, “Women Priests! Gay Marriage! Married Priests! Pedophile Witch Hunt!” This, of course, made the more Catholic members of the church very skeptical towards the Pope. I, with my apocalyptic personality, was one of these people. Making a conscious effort to maintain stoic silence and apatheia; I managed to have no comment on Francis until he began speaking, writing, and generally pope-ing. Listening to what he says, reading what he writes, and hearing from friends in the Vatican, I quickly realized that Francis truly is a Pope, like any other.

He preaches the message of Christ, in the same words and the same philosophy as Benedict XVI and John Paul the Great before him. Evangelii Gaudium reads similarly to “Love and Responsibility”, Deus Caritas Est, and “Humanae Vitae” (not from Benedict or JPII, but still important) and, rather than undermining or overthrowing them, simply affirms what they have already stated. There exists two popes today as there exist two Vatican IIs: there is the liberal Jesus who is trying to reform a stale old Church, protestant-style, to change every area of doctrine to match the clearly superior opinions of millenials in the western world, and there is a Catholic pope who preaches love, responsibility, and the infallible and unchanging doctrines of the Church.

This particular article finally inspired me to write about this phenomenon for one particular reason (besides giving my friend a shout-out); There was a clever and vague attempt hidden in the article to undermine the doctrine of infallibility. The article frames infallibility in the context of politics and personal interests as opposed to the realm of philosophy and faith. There does exist certain philosophical issues concerning infallibility, but politics is not one of them. The most central of these issues is the one alluded to in the article and has ties to the philosophy of science. What does infallibility mean and how can one prove it?

Taking the philosophical route, I will attempt to categorically define infallibility. Infallibility is a state of epistemic affairs in which one's knowledge claims necessarily comport to reality. In the case of the doctrine of infallibility, this state of affairs is limited to the pope's definitions of doctrine with regards to faith or ethics to be applied universally. As for what infallibility looks like, we are presented a certain epistemic issue alluded to in the article. Infallibility, as indicated in the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), would be fairly easy to identify... at least, to a believer. Every utterance of the pope that is supposed to be infallible, if logically consistent with all other infallible claims and not clearly a violation of natural law would be identifiable as infallible. Of course, until such a time that a supposedly infallible claim violates existing infallible claims, this instance of infallibility would be indistinguishable from a tradition of very, very careful and academic politicking. In philosophy, it is often referred to as the inductive problem of grue and bleen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_riddle_of_induction). As a popperian, I claim we can assume that the doctrine of infallibility obtains and blue is blue until such a time that the claim is falsified... so long as we are aware of and open to the possibility that it is simply careful politicking and blue is actually bleen.

How do these two ideas come together and how can I tie this to my anarchist principles? Media pope vs. the Pope's words and actions and the doctrine of infallibility meets anarchy. This is my chance to give a peek behind the curtain of my private life and show that I am not just some naive cradle Catholic that imagines the Church to be some inviolate mother who never misbehaves; I readily admit to a great many faults of the people withing the magisterium. The way the western world responded to Vatican II and Pope Francis and outright denies the the teachings contained in Church documents like “Humanae Vitae” is almost entirely the fault of bishops and priests (and to a lesser degree the lay ministers) in the church. The Church has abdicated a great many of it's duties and functions to the state, one of which is exemplified here; Catholics, “good” and “bad”, learn what it means to be Catholic and what the Church teaches from the state and media instead of from the pulpit and parish. I have a lot to say about separation of church and state and how an anarchist could be Catholic (hint: one is a prerequisite for the other), but as pertains to the tale of two popes, this is all I have time for today.




TL;DR: If you think Pope Francis is any different from our last two popes, you need to read what they say, write, and do, instead of listening to MSNBC and Fox (just turn that shit off). Either the doctrine of infallibility obtains or we have a 2000 year old tradition of a most impressive degree of diligence. The confusion concerning the Church and “politics” within the Church is the Church's fault, as it has allowed its flock to become statists at the expense of being Catholic. And lastly, you ought to listen to this podcast on the Synod on the Family: http://catholicstuffpodcast.com/?p=906

UPDATE 2015-5: Brian Sovryn had some excellent points to make on the subject of voting, and I thought they were worth adding to this discussion:

So, this was supposed to be a higher-quality production, but there were scheduling issues and time constrains such that we had to settle on the demo recording as our final recording.  We were planning on having a celebrity guest, but we couldn't get everything worked out in time.  Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to revisit this script and get a better rendition recorded.

Still, all of the material and substance is here, just not as polished and palatable as I had hoped.  Above is the audio version, and below is the script.  Enjoy.

Introduction

George: Oh, hi, Rob... I didn't expect to see you here on a day like today.

Robert: What's going on here? Handing out free books at the library or something?

George: >sigh< Rob... it's election day. And no, I don't have time for your Socratic bullshit; I just gotta get my ballot in the box and get back to work.

Robert: Socrates was an asshole, that hurt my feelings; but I can see where you're coming from. I used to really, really get involved in elections... reading all of the amendments and referendums in their entirety, looking at voting histories and financial backers... It was exhausting, but I felt it was rewarding, even though I only ever voted on the winning side once. But It was rewarding, doing my civic duty and upholding the political system that kept us from destroying ourselves.

George: Yeah, but I follow your social media now-a-days. I guess I have time to talk for a little bit... I am just waiting in line for about an hour or so. You do know that if you don't vote, you can't complain, right?

Robert: It was a very smart and grouchy old man that once said, “If you vote you have no right to complain.” I don't always agree with him, but he was on top of his game for a good portion of his life. So, now, I have to decide whether this one smart guy was right, or the general consensus of the masses is right. >chuckle< You know...

George: Yes, I know... “republic versus democracy”... Your sense of humor has declined over the years. I also think your philosopher is wrong. I mean, if there's a guy that is running for president or congress or something that is vehemently in favor of infanticide and you don't vote against him, you've essentially allowed him to pursue an evil course of action with your tax dollars. You could have done something to stop him, but you didn't. You have no right to complain.

Robert: So, I have to choose a lesser evil?

George: If there is no good candidate, yes... but every so often, Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan runs for office.

Robert: “I sought for great men, but all I found were apes of their ideal...”

George: What was that?

Robert: Nothing, just something a philosopher said... if we are going to get into the “lesser evil” debate again, I would suggest we should lay some ground rules. we've gotta be operating in the same paradigm, with the same premises, or we'll just keep talking past each other.

George: Yeah, I remember your philosophy club; ground rules are fine. What do you propose?

The Anarchist Position

Robert: Well given how the environment we are in is quite adversarial towards my position and we are limited in time, may I suggest we start by assuming the anarchist position today?

George: You'll have to define it for me, because when you say “anarchist” I still only see white utopians complaining on social media and black kids throwing Molotov cocktails at gas stations .

Robert: We'll go with the easy definition, then. We'll just say that anarchy is “the rejection of any institution predicated on coercion, theft, or murder”.

George: I'm not sure what that has to do with voting, but I'm sure you'll tell me all about it. Are you going to tell me that voting is murder?

Robert: Well, I think that we can just confine ourselves to voting like we are here. I wouldn't say that all voting is evil... If we had a group of friends trying to decide where we should go for lunch, for example, we could vote on where we are going as a group. Anyone who doesn't want to go to the selected restaurant doesn't have to go or pay for anything.

George: Isn't that exactly what's going on right now?

Robert: Well, ignoring representatives for a moment, let's take a look at your ballot. Let's see, here I see a handful of amendments, propositions, and issues that are not opt-in like our example. You see, “raise taxes”, “forced labeling”, “more taxes”, “banning pets” “raise taxes”... Regardless of whether or not I vote, or how I vote if I were to do so, I will still be forced to abide by these rules. In effect, my friends are telling me “You HAVE to go to Chuck 'e Cheese's, and you WILL pay a percentage of the bill,” which is coercion and theft. An anarchist wouldn't allow for that.

George: So, you should vote against those things, disallow them from happening, Mr. Anarchist. I think you have a difficult uphill struggle to make a compelling argument from what you just said to reach “I don't vote”.

Robert: Oh, it's even harder than you think. I'm not saying “I don't vote,” but rather, “Everyone ought not to vote as participation in any system that is predicated on coercion, theft, or murder.”

George: Wait wait wait... I see where this is going. We've had these discussions about anarchy before, and we don't have time to do that... last time, we talked for six hours and still had ground to cover when I went home. So for rule number two: let us, to the best of our ability, confine the discussion solely to voting (arguing from the anarchist's position) without getting sidetracked on other pedantic issues about anarchy.

Robert: Fair enough, as long as you let me include this discussion in a book I'm writing on this very subject. Or, at least, use this discussion for inspiration. You may actually help me figure out, once and for all, what my stance is on voting and have sufficient justification for both myself and my critics.

George: That's fine. So, what's your big hangup?

Justifications for and condemnations against voting

Robert: Well, I would say my big hangup is established in the anarchist position itself: I disbelieve in the authority of the government, so why would I vote? Rather than just diving right in, though, I think it may work better if you tell me why you're voting right now. You've already agreed with me that a government such as ours is broken in past discussions, let's start there.

George: Well, that's precisely why I'm voting. Unlike you, I'm not committed to the idea that social order is inherently evil, only that this particular government is not doing it's best at upholding social order and freedom. I'm committed to changing what we've got into something better. It's this commitment to change that brings me here: the action of voting is the most effective and easiest way to enact that change.

Robert: So what are you here voting for? To eliminate taxes, defund the enforcement of unjust laws, and end government-funded murder? I didn't see those options on the ballot; let me see it again.

George: That's not fair, and you know it. It took a long time to get into this mess, and it will take a long time to get out of it. Yes, all I can do this election is choose who is best suited to the political positions available and vote against levying new taxes. In the future, the politicians we elect may put taxation reducing and freedom promoting bills on the congressional floor or on the ballot for popular vote.

Robert: It may not be fair, but it is true. Even if you are assuming government is somehow justified, voting was either the direct cause for this mess or was insufficient to prevent or even mitigate the creation of this mess. To take it from our current specific instance to the categorical realm: I argue that voting in government, when "done right", is the means by which the majority can take advantage of the minority through coercion, theft, and murder and, when "done improperly", is the means by which the ruling class can appease the masses desire for freedom while disallowing the ability to truly influence governance... notice the absence of any good option on your ballot, representative or otherwise.

George: You're mistaken. Voting is the method by which a society of free people agrees on how their particular society ought to be run. We got into this mess because there are too many uneducated, disengaged people voting themselves benefits.

Robert: So, because in the past we have had a majority of fools in society, all of them voting to steal people's property and force them to make bad decisions, we are in this mess? I'm not sure I believe that, but even if it were true I have to ask how you aren't condoning that theft and coercion by continuing to participate in the system which institutionalizes such behaviors.

George: There may have been more people voting for bad representatives and presidents before, but now that people have seen that the old way of doing things it isn't working, we will soon have a majority ready to enact real change.

Robert: That didn't answer my question: "If your political system explicitly allows a mass of individuals to vote in such a manner to steal your property and coerce you to make bad decisions, how do you not support those very actions when you vote?"

George: Oh, that's easy, I simply vote against those choices.

Robert: You may be able to vote against this amendment here that says "Should we raise taxes?", but what about your representatives? You don't get to vote against people, only for them. Even if you could, they can still do whatever they want once they are in office.

George: If you don't vote for someone you're voting against them. And besides, when someone is elected, they are kept in check by the checks and balances of the system as well as the threat of not getting re-elected.

Robert: Wow. 'If you don't vote for someone, you're voting against them." I rest my case.

George: I suppose I wasn't clear enough: if you vote for someone's opponent, you are voting against them.

Robert: It sounds to me like a vote for something is a vote for something, and a vote against something is a vote against it... and paying attention to words and what they actually mean is important if we want to be honest to ourselves. So, say I "vote against" some evil politician or another and vote for some less-evil guy instead; regardless of who wins, then, am I not condoning the actions of the victor simply by participation in such a system and my agreement to abide by the rules of the game?

George: Not if I vote against the guy, or elect someone into the other branches of the government to check their poor decisions.

Robert: I level the same accusation against the "checks and balances" as I do voting in general: either the checks and balances are insufficient or have expressly allowed us to vote our way into this mess.

George: Again, it's the surplus of stupid people that have caused this... that's the risk of a free society. Besides, if you don't like the options, you can always run for office.

Robert: Free society... ha. So, anyone can just show up and say "I want to be president" and have even a remote chance of winning? I think not; show me one candidate in the last century that wasn't carefully selected by the republicans or democrats and got even ten percent of the votes... or even got a spot in the debates before election... but that's beside the point. If I did win, I would be paid money which was stolen from people with the express intent of giving it to me. And, what's more, how are you free if your behavior and rights are dictated by the will of the majority?

George: I'm free because we've voted to prevent my actions and rights from being dictated by the will of any random aggressor. Besides, freedom doesn't mean doing whatever you want, but I've already explained this to you.

Robert: You have attempted to, yes, but I'm going to inquire as to how you expect those laws to be enforced.

George: The threat and reality of imprisonment or death seems to work well enough.

Robert: So, if you're a minority, men with guns will make you do what they want? Well, that explains the environment in the inner cities and prisons... but you can't simply legislate morality and force people to be good.

George: The law IS morality. Voting is the method by which a society ensures just laws.

Robert: Say what, now?

George: Without laws (and their enforcement) against behaviors such as murder, coercion, and theft, those behaviors will run rampant. Voting is the method by which society agrees on what is immoral. The term for it is "illegal".

Robert: With all due respect, that is just patently absurd. If the law derives it's authority from the opinion of the majority, it's no different than justice being the will of the strongest or a direct attack on ideological pluralism. If the majority or their representative decides to round up all the Jews, gays, Blacks, Catholics, Japanese, or whatever minority you choose, and put them in labor camps or gas chambers, that's what is considered just and moral... If the law, however, derives it's authority from some objective matter or truth, then voting is clearly one of the worst ways to determine what a just law is. We would rather go to a theocracy or Plato's Republic.

George: Well, we have representatives, as opposed to a direct democracy, which we elect based on how closely their opinions match ours.

Robert: That still leaves the problems that theocracy or Republic are supposed to account for. I see one of two possibilities. One, there is no objective morality from which the law is derived: your opinion is merely that and you are delegating the actual task on oppressing an ideological minority to your representative. Or the other option is that there is an objective moral good from which laws derive their justification and that the democratic process of voting is actually contrary to allowing that to happen; elected representatives who are elected by ignorant masses are merely representatives of that ignorance.

George: You didn't let me finish. The purpose of the representatives are to be exemplar instances of the population they represent. They are given the task of discussing the issues at hand in order to vote on their peoples' behalf. In this way, our model reflects the ideas in your Plato's Republic: politicians are philosopher kings.

Robert: Exemplar of what, exactly? Clearly, you don't believe this... you wouldn't simultaneously claim "our voting system is just, the only reason we have this mess is because too many people are ignorant people” and also hold the belief that "our system of voting is an acceptable method of electing philosopher kings that can determine the truth of things". They fundamentally contradict themselves, and I know you're smarter than that.

George: Well, if you put it that way, they do. I'll get back to you on that one. Besides, it sounds to me like you're arguing things you don't believe either: "your options are humanistic subjectivism or theocracy.'" Hardly sounds like an anarchist argument.

Robert: Close. I was pointing out the flaw in your reasoning. Your excuse for voting doesn't hold water; it merely justifies non-representative governments, which like anarchy is opposed to voting. Here, let's take a different approach which may represent our actual positions a bit more closely.

George: Good, we've already wasted twenty-odd minutes already. So, now it's your turn: what's your big hang up with democracy?

Robert: Ok, sounds fair. Earlier, you mentioned that law protects you from a random aggressor coercing, raping, or murdering you. I imagine you believe that this random aggressor has no right to do so, hence your law preventing it?

George: It's my turn to examine you, so you have to answer the question for yourself.

Robert: Fair enough. I claim that I, like every other human being, have no right to coerce someone else to do something, steal from them, or murder them. These are the three aspects of the golden rule, or the three violations of the right to liberty. The important part right now is the simple truth that I have no right to violate your liberty by way of coercion, theft, or murder. So, even if I believe you should or should not behave in a particular manner, I have no right to force you to act accordingly. If I lack the authority to do so, how can I delegate this authority to a representative, law enforcement officer, judge, et cetera? Additionally, if I lack the capacity to discern what each individual ought to do, how could I possibly determine who is best suited to do so?

George: Enough with all this conceptual "morals" bullshit. Voting is merely an attempt at maximizing the pleasure of the largest number of people. So long as most of the citizens are able to defend their quality of life from the enemies at the gates, that goal is met. Besides, some people tend to be incapable of responsibly managing their affairs, we need laws and voting and such to protect consumers from making bad choices and evil people from hurting others and themselves.

Robert: What you just described is the oft-referred to adage that, "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner". If you are not ok with that image, I rest my case... If you are ok with it, well... I'm sorry.

George: You're sorry? What for? Don't take this pious attitude with me, this really is what I believe.

Robert: You misunderstand me. I'm sorry for what comes next. You've hit the crux of the issue: Leviathan.

George: The big fish in the Bible?

Robert: America may have inherited its character and constitution from John Locke (eternal optimist that he was), but it inherited its worldview from his predecessor, Thomas Hobbes (the pessimistic monarchist). Your position is precisely that which Hobbes outlines in his appropriately titled Leviathan. He claims that without law, absolute and relentless law, we exist in a world of "every man against every man in a life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." He then claims that by putting on the airs of civility and monarchy, we can escape that reality. Those that came after him thought that constitutions, elections, pluralism, welfare, and the like would do a better job than monarchy. At the end of the day, though we continue to exist in a world of every man for himself, only one guy or group of guys maintains a monopoly on force, infringing on the freedoms of everybody and convince them that it is for their own good. Why else would one vote, except to impose their will on others by means of participating in an institution built with the express purpose of making people behave in a particular way, steal the fruits of their labor, and kill those that resist the first two functions?

George: Dude, you've gotta calm down... we're gonna get kicked out... people are looking at us. Besides, I still say you should vote to opt-out, move to Somalia, or run for office yourself if you don't like it.

Robert: Even voting to be free from oppression is suspect behavior! You were right in one regard; there really are people who are so ignorant and incapable of managing their own affairs that they volunteer for servitude. I have no right to force someone to leave an abusive relationship, I cannot point a gun at someone's head and tell them to quit doing drugs or else, and I cannot prevent someone from making deals with the devil. In this way, even if there were a referendum to disband the government in it's entirety, the first and only true vote for freedom, I could not with clean conscience go to the ballot box.

George: Then, you aren't committed to change. All this grandstanding is for naught, if you won't vote even to mitigate what you see as the greatest of evil.

Conclusion and Challenge

Robert: The ends do not justify the means. Even if it is so tempting to compromise my morals for the sake of progress, “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” If, due to the widespread obsoletion of the government, masses of non-compliant free individuals, and possibly even the threat of war, by people doing what it takes to be free, the government simply starves into nonexistence, my conscience would be clean.

George: Splitting hairs. You refuse to vote because you don't want to do what it takes to be free, and you refuse to put your money where your mouth is and just move to Somalia. You need to calm down, too... I think those cops in the back of the room are talking about us.

Robert: Let them talk. Let me talk. They may just prove my point. Voting, as it exists in this building, is an institution predicated on coercion, theft, and murder. It is tantamount, at a minimum, to condoning these evils. We, as the governed, are all authoritarians, rapists, and murderers by our willful participation in this governance. We may not be in a position to be held accountable for these sins, these actions of slaves against fellow slaves. But, now that my eyes are open, and all you present here who have heard my case, the burden rests on your conscience.

George: You're over-thinking it. All this abstract and convoluted lines of thought are just an excuse to wash your hands of your responsibility to commit a mere hour of your year to your own freedom which you ignore. Your arguments are not compelling, I think you're just too lazy to commit a mere hour of your time, even if you think it is a waste of time. It's almost my turn to go exercise that freedom. Last chance.

Robert: It may not be a perfect argument, especially given how it fits into a much broader discussion. It's amusing to me that people think I believe participating in politics is a waste of time (calling congressmen, voting, etc.). If it were merely a waste of time, I would continue to do it out of the vain hope that something would come of it. I pray almost constantly. Take that to mean what you will. I don't think it's just a waste of time to participate in government, but that those that participate in government are, purposely or not, marching lock-step with the master of misanthropy himself, and I for love of my immortal soul will have no part in it. Be forewarned: if you walk in that box without first discovering a compelling counter argument, you are signing away not only your rights to the king of the Leviathan, but also your soul to a very particular prince with his own personal kingdom... and I doubt they hold elections there.

This is something my wife cooked up to pick on me.  I thought it was too funny to not share, so I created a blog to share it with the world.


1)  When he (or anyone in his presence) brings up the roads (again):

2:  When you lose your husband for the night so he can watch infighting on the internet:

3:  It's the end of a long day with the children acting out and your husband (jokingly) calls you a Statist for sending a disobedient child to their room:

4:  When you suddenly see someone called him a libertarian or utopian on Facebook:

5:  When anyone asks him why he is an Anarchist...

6:  ...And about halfway through his explanation you feel like...this:

7:  He tells you he is done discussing anarchy for the night, at first you are like:

...Then when you realize it's so he can discuss Bitcoin (again):

8:  When a family member asks why you haven’t changed your husband's mind about anarchy yet:

9:  When he tells you we should “encourage Anarchy when raising the children.”

10:  But then you decide to enforce a strict and early bedtime, because by now you really need some chocolate or wine: