Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Such a demand is clearly a form of blackmail, because it is never really addressed to those who do not love Ruritania and will evil to it but merely to those who disagree with the demander on how best to promote Ruritania’s welfare; i.e., it is not about different ends but about different means to the same end. At worst it is insisted that we love Ruritania’s government, as if the government were the country or the government acted in the interests of the country, both obvious falsehoods. So, who are you to tell me either to agree with you or to get out of the country? (If your reason is that you are in a temporary majority and find it convenient to forget the Golden Rule, wait a little bit, and at some point you‘ll end up the one asked to emigrate.) How can you impose on me such great costs of maintaining my integrity? A “love it or leave it” guy is like a Roman emperor presenting Christians with a dilemma: worship me or be fed to the lions. In both cases the victim is asked to either betray himself or suffer. It’s disgusting.

On the 4th of July Americans commemorate the events that occurred between 1775 and 1783, known together as the Revolutionary War. Yet what is being celebrated? Not, obviously, the resistance to Great Britain’s dominion, for all that is ancient history. For most people, I think it’s clear, it is the glory of the “Republic.” America! That’s the country we are all loyal to. Love it or leave it, etc.

Folks who are more sophisticated than the mass-men singing hymns to the Leviathan, instead emphasize not the federal government but the Constitutional limitations on it, such as: the division and equality of powers; the Bill of Rights; federalism, state rights, the 10th Amendment, nullification, and interposition; local self-government; and such like. The wisdom of the founders is definitely worth bringing to mind. But even that is not the entire story, because the federal government has remained formally limited but in fact tyrannical.

The revolutionaries were not loyal to the American government which did not exist. They were loyal to Washington and the military chain of command during the war as a means to attaining their purpose, freedom, but not as an end in itself. What they were loyal to simpliciter was the secessionist movement and their cause of attaining independence. They were loyal to an idea, namely, the idea that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Each time the Independence Day rolls in, Americans should be reminded to ask themselves and their neighbors: “Should we continue to suffer under the present regime? Has the ‘train of abuses and usurpations’ become intolerable? Should we (1) abolish the federal government (e.g., by calling a national constitutional convention), or (2) secede from the United States, or (3) establish our town as a free city, outside of both federal and state jurisdictions, or something similar? It is these questions which should be on everyone’s minds.

Happy independence/secession day to you and yours. Please comment “aye” if you would like the state you live in to secede from the United States.

“Well, let’s just hope we’re lucky.”

But it’s interesting that Friedman writes that “One of the first things I realized when visiting Iraq after the U.S. invasion was that the very fact that Iraqis did not liberate themselves, but had to be liberated by Americans, was a source of humiliation to them.” Ah, indeed. The difference between Ron Paul and the rest of them is that Paul thinks that America should be a final cause of the liberty around the world, and McCain and others propagandize (and only propagandize, because they couldn’t care less about freedom, either at home or abroad) that America should be an efficient cause of liberty.

This philosopher’s talk translates as follows: according to libertarians, we should make ourselves as beautiful and free as possible and by means of that serve as an example for others to imitate. According to warmongers and killers of every stripe, on the contrary, we should violently interfere into random countries’ politics in order to bring about the results desired by the state. The former is a recipe for prosperity and peace and indeed, liberty. The latter, for endless war and misery.

Of course, the America’s impact on Iraq can hardly be characterized as “liberation.” But regardless, Friedman’s quote nicely illustrates the point that paternalism cannot be a permanent strategy either with individuals (because it fails to soul-make) or with countries (because ideology which ultimately controls the political system cannot be imposed by force but only adopted via voluntary learning).

William Kristol objects to the now famous MoveOn.org ad featuring a mother and her 1-year old son:

Now he argues that “Unless we enter a world without enemies and without war, we will need young men and women willing to risk their lives for our nation. And we’re not entering any such world.” Thanks to him we are indeed not. But anyway, the young men and women can rest easy. I am part of the “nation,” but I don’t want them to risk their lives for me. If anyone wants to risk his life, go climb a mountain or learn some extreme sport. Me, you can leave alone, unguarded and unrisked for. I can defend myself, thank you very much. If necessary, I’ll even call the city cops to help me. (Yes, I know: “defense” is a public good; non-excludability and all that. Readers of my blog will know that I care little for the federal and state protection.)

Doesn’t Kristol understand that the point of the ad is not to denigrate soldiering as such but to protest against particular offensive imperial conquests such as indeed the war in Iraq; against deceiving young men into serving not the “people” but the state and its connected pressure groups; and against foreign statism and interventionism as such? It is true that “Someone has to stand between our society and danger.” But no country in the Middle East was a danger to us, certainly not Iraq. What McCain can’t have is Alex as his tool, his useful idiot in perpetuating government destructionism of the despot-in-chief.

Sandefur writes: “The child has a right not to be, so to speak, falsely imprisoned in a mental asylum due to the parents’ superstitions — and the state has the legitimate authority to defend that right, again, within certain (often vague) boundaries set by a parent’s right to direct the upbringing of a child.” That seems to entail the view of the child’s rescuer, the state, as coldly rational, dispassionate, and scientific; as a kind of perfect NT who sees all and will instead of superstitions impart into the child truths. Now a decision could be defended to take a child away from an intellectually suffocating environment in some particular case. Maybe even under market anarchism a private judge would rule that Child Savers, Inc. was in the right to steal some kid from his parents. But, in keeping with Sandefur’s entirely praiseworthy opposition to public schooling, we should qualify that and say that the state’s own schools in which children are supposed to be taught “truths” are far from adequate. My own view is that the only truths the state should be charged with telling is found in its investigations of violent crimes. Elsewhere, even on the level of a city, it is an unreliable arbiter.

But God bless Sandefur’s mission to defend and restore private property rights.

He is wrong on Ron Paul, though. “Racism” is now a meaningless term. So, the question is, was Paul or whoever wrote that correct? Exactly what in the polemic to which our author links is false? Or must our brains rot with PC crud? We have indeed, as the article argues, failed to convey to blacks that they should know their place as allotted to them by a laissez-faire free market economy lacking both the welfare state and any legal privileges for any race. As Mises points out, for example, “The market… directs each individuals’ activities into those channels in which he best serves the wants of his fellow-men.” (Planning for Freedom, 72) Why shouldn’t blacks be a normal part of the market process? Don’t secure property rights require the legal right to “discriminate” as the owner sees fit and freedom of association? Moreover, Paul is a spectacular proponent of free trade — he wants to unilaterally eliminate all trade barriers erected by the US government, including war-inducing sanctions. As for the other accusations, they reflect a split in opinions between the Cato and Mises Institutes. Sandefur should study these views in detail rather than just wave a whatever-color flag for Cato. E.g., Paul is also great on property rights. The subtlety is, he is very skeptical of the utility of a higher-level government’s, especially the feds, dictating policies to and arbitrating disputes within the territory of lower-level governments, such as cities and states. He is consistent; for example, he does not like the UN determining or even influencing US policy. I’m with him on this. When in doubt, decentralize. Unless Sandefur is not in doubt.

And it is: “Get lost!” You know, I think this member of the “Jew Right” wants to get into a shouting match. This can be arranged: How’s this for a tu quoque, Jew boy: Fuck… off! Poor Jews. They or we, if you like, have to endure this asshole as their spokesman. Goldfarb must not feel he has enough thoughts to suppress. Oh, the irony of a Jew supporting and being elevated by the fascist killer McCain.

Why it won’t work, proves Rothbard:

Another alternative right-wing strategy is that commonly pursued by many libertarian or conservative think tanks: that of quiet persuasion, not in the groves of academe, but in Washington, D.C., in the corridors of power. This has been called the “Fabian” strategy, with think tanks issuing reports calling for a two percent cut in a tax here, or a tiny drop in a regulation there. The supporters of this strategy often point to the success of the Fabian Society, which, by its detailed empirical researches, gently pushed the British state into a gradual accretion of socialist power.

The flaw here, however, is that what works to increase state power does not work in reverse. For the Fabians were gently nudging the ruling elite precisely in the direction they wanted to travel anyway. Nudging the other way would go strongly against the state’s grain, and the result is far more likely to be the state’s co-opting and Fabianizing the think-tankers themselves rather than the other way around. This sort of strategy may, of course, be personally very pleasant for the think-tankers, and may be profitable in cushy jobs and contracts from the government. But that is precisely the problem.

Continue reading…

HT: Lew Rockwell

“Our foreign enemies,” terrorists, etc. are those to whom it is less profitable to sell arms at the moment, and “our friends” are those to whom it is more profitable to sell arms, Jeff apparently argues.

The Catholic (and Christian in general) Church will endure long after the United States and its numerous governments have crumbled into dust.

“[T]he true origin and purpose of public education is not so much education as we think of it, but indoctrination in the civic religion. This explains why the civic elite is so suspicious of homeschooling and private schooling: it’s not fear of low test scores that is driving this, but the worry that these kids aren’t learning the values that the state considers important.” Government schools appear to me designed to be mind- and spirit-destroying institutions, corrupting both the morals and the intellect. In addition, they are a huge waste of time.

Another sickening point about schools is the conformity and lack of choices. Every school is structured like every other school, in terms of hours, curriculum, method, etc. Just as in the Soviet Union you are offered a single brand of shoe and you’d better be happy with it. Why must everything be the same? Why not let the market experiment?

So, Rockwell is right, of course, and as far as the whole state schools hierarchy starting from teachers at the bottom and ending with the top echelon of the federal government is concerned, they should heed that “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Mt 18:6)

The question of what should and should not be taught in schools is best settled by fully and immediately privatizing every school in the US and (why stop there?) the world. But suppose that people are nuts, and government schools are here to stay. We may admit that Christian dogma ought not to be taught in these schools as truth. However,

• Can natural theology be taught in public schools? Natural theology is, after all, a branch of philosophy; in other words, it relies on reason unaided by revelation.
• Can there be a class called “Bible as Literature,” based, for example on Jack Miles’s God: A Biography?
• A class called “History of Ancient Israel,” where one of the primary texts is the Bible?
• “History of the Catholic Church”?
• “Theological Controversies within the Christian Church”?
• Or my favorite, “Religious Influences on American Politics”? (See Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role for starters.)

It is surely pernicious to forbid teaching those numerous aspects of religion that are innocent of the charge that teaching them in government schools is contrary to the separation of church and state.

The following letter was sent some time in the previous century.

Dear Mr. Carson,

I’d like to recommend an addition to your list of Films on Liberty and the State on the Mises Institute site. Kiss Me Deadly, a 1955 film noir, has struck me as a very ingenious commentary on the nature of the state. Warning: spoilers below.

Mike Hammer, played by Ralph Meeker, is a sleazy private detective whose specialty is obtaining evidence in divorce cases by pimping his lover/secretary, Velda, to seduce the husband. One day Hammer picks up a frantic half-dressed girl on the highway, but before he could drop her off, a bunch of thugs capture them and send them off a cliff in his car. Hammer survives and starts his own investigation, which ultimately leads him to a mysterious box.

The striking comparison is between Hammer with his petty vices and character flaws, and the state with its A-bomb or whatever it was in that box, and its propensity to murder with impunity and without remorse. Hammer, mean and dangerous fellow that he is, pales in comparison to the evil affairs of state.

I figured out that Hammer was dealing with a political matter as soon as the corpses started piling up; did you? It was just too random, too impersonal, too professional.

In a way quite a few films noir, such as The Third Man, fit in this category. What happens when “private” morality is replaced by what passes for “public” morality, i.e. the sort of things that governments do? “Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving — forever? If I said you could have twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money — without hesitation? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”

Sincerely,

Dmitry C.

It’s one thing to call NPR state media, because they are financed in part by the feds. But what is the rationale for labeling your normal mainstream media “state”? The reason is simply that the members of the MSM all worship the state. They are the faithful and at the same time the low-level priests — in their capacity as second-hand dealers in ideas — of the church of the US federal and other governments. Their job is to convert and minister to the mob, exciting the worst in them. And they do this with zeal. In addition, there are perks of good service, for example, access to the state — and the vicars of the demon horde on earth.

The most astounding thing about watching the thusly named program on CNN the other day was the contrast between the content of the broadcast and the commercials. The killing, the blood and gore, the destruction, the fanaticism of the state and its terrorist cousins was every few minutes interrupted by a message of what some peaceful and productive company wanted to do for you. There was UPS, delivering our goods to the ends of the earth. There was Lexmark, showcasing its peripherals. There was CICSO, welcoming us to its “human network.” What the state destroys, the market knits together. It was remarkable to recognize both the fragility of the market and its resilience. Like all life the market can be destroyed with ease, but at the same time it is found in the most oppressive environments.

The firms paying for the ads seemed almost innocent in their incomprehension: “Why are we so despised when all we want is to help and serve you? And why is the state, on the contrary, deified?”

What Bush wanted was to bring order to the Middle East, echoing Darth Vader’s saying to Luke: “With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.” He put his faith in technological terrors, as well as into the power of the dark side, the violence of the state. He fully subscribed to Stalin’s (false) dictum: “When there is a man, there is a problem. When there is no man, there is no problem.” To every problem he saw only one solution: to tighten the screws, to clamp down on the “permissive environment” (as though the difference between permitting crimes and permitting entrepreneurship and personal freedoms escaped them). He succeeded as much as Vader did, namely, not at all.

But why have Bush and his top men failed to end the war when it proved unwinnable? Well, do you really expect the barbarian chieftain to admit defeat? Both he and the mob respect only force. If he were to show “weakness,” his legacy as a fool and coward would be secured. But if he were to hold to the end of his term, then maybe history would see him as a tough guy who did his best but in the end could not, despite every good faith attempt, overcome the absurdities of the Middle Eastern politics. Surely the latter result beats the former one.

The evil collectivism of the belief that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are “ours” has always outraged me. In fact:

• The troops belong to the federal government, not you.
• The government does not do what you want it to do, nor does it listen to your advice.
• The troops don’t obey your orders.
• The troops don’t protect you nor serve your interests.
• The troops are not sacrificing for your freedom, etc. or for any common good.

So what sense is there in “patriotic” bromides about supporting “our” troops?

I’ve always been convinced that statism is a counterfeit religion which endows Caesar with the attributes of God, such as omnipotence, omnipresence, infallibility, perfect goodness, loving concern for us mere mortals, and the like. “Our” poor dearest troops are just like Jesus, sons of the state, dying for us unworthy sinners out of obedience to their solemn duty and perfect compassion. What idiotic blasphemy.

Well, I voted for Ron Paul today.

Here’s what I think of the other candidates:

Obama: a fool, a clown, a buffoon.
Hillary: a witch, unstable and self-hating.
McCain: he has no idea what’s going on; a blind man leading the blind.

What do you think are the reasons for the $1.3 billion fine?

(1) Microsoft’s rivals’ envy and failure to be competitive on the marketplace.

(2) Intellectual failure to recognize all anti-trust legislation as harmful to the economy and the consumers.

(3) The desire on the part of the state to humiliate Microsoft, show it who’s boss, beat it into submission so that they know who’s in charge and whom to pay tribute to.

In other words, we have a familiar 3-pronged attack compised of special interests, evil intellectuals promoting a bad ideology, and the state.

Daniel Larison, a blogger at The American Conservative magazine’s website, wants, according to this writer (at Andrew Sullivan’s blog), “to see the United States splinter into a half-dozen or more pacifist agrarian republics.” That’s way too few. But pacifist is awesome, and as for agrarian, if Daniel knows any economics, he will reply that in a free society the consumers, by their buying and abstention from buying, determine whether a particular region will be predominantly industrial, agrarian, information-processing, or anything else.

Lew Rockwell writes that “[e]nvironmentalism has long been a counter religion, with roots in ancient pagan nature worship.” And George Reisman distinguishes between the greenies who “merely… like to see flowers bloom on open meadows and love trees, whales, and polar bears, and the like” from their more destructive cousins.

It used to be that most of nature was pristine, because humans lacked the power to subdue it. Now that most of nature has been to an extent civilized and put under control (though make no mistake: nature always seeks to break free and kill us), people suddenly clamor for patches of unspoiled wilderness in the midst of urban jungles. Fine. But isn’t it interesting that environmentalism has not reached the conscience of the common man pretty much until now, when technology has advanced to the state when non-polluting power production is economically viable, and the market stands almost ready to provide power sources whose operation has no negative externalities?

In other words, the drive, in particular, to switch over to clean cars has come from two directions. First, people have become so wealthy that they are now willing to spend money on “clean consciences,” that is, on secure knowledge that they are not harming their neighbors by polluting the air they breathe. Second, the technology has matured to the extent of being able to be incorporated into cars that are presumed to be attractive to the regular consumer, that is, to you and me. Both are equally necessary, representing the demand and supply respectively.

It is therefore not the government nor even the environmentalist ideologues who should get the credit for this and similar innovations, though I agree that a certain awareness of air quality has played a role in the process of developing and converting to clean cars. It is private entrepreneurs who have made choosing such cars and devices an easy thing to do. The explanation is not difficult to find. In business there is employed the phrase “good will” which differentiates trusted brands and companies from those considered to be less trustworthy. If a firm is seen to care about what Murray Rothbard calls the unowned and probably unownable “general conditions of human welfare” such as air or to spend money trying to eliminate the negative externalities of the products it offers for sale, though it does not “have to,” then people understandably come to trust it more, to consider it a “good corporate citizen,” and themselves to feel good about owning its goods. There is even such thing as socially responsible investing. Thus, no government intervention is needed to spurn this kind of progress.

In other words, producing clean cars not only simply satisfies the demand but also makes the job of the company’s PR department easier.

(All this, assuming, of course, that neither homesteading nor negotiation can resolve pollution problems.)

It may be objected that even taking ideology and good will into consideration, clean cars will be underproduced. Two points must be made here. First, absent market prices we can never know the optimal number of such cars that ought to be produced. The political test is too crude to be useful. Second, the factors mentioned will still be sufficient to get the majority of the population to switch to the new technology. You’ll see.

I fully endorse flowers blooming on open meadows (though not the assumption that meadows must be owned by the state), useless though such things are. But not if this obvious luxury interferes with economic progress and general happiness. Perhaps the new crop of “zero-emission” cars will shut the environmentalists, or at least most of them, up, such that the near-insane “moralists” who consider humans to be a virus to be eliminated for the sake of the Earth Mother or some such thing will be relegated to the fringes of the genuinely lunatic left. As Reisman writes, “The green movement, in other words, is the red movement stripped of the veneer of reason and science and bent on the destruction of reason and science rather than take the trouble to learn what reason and science actually are. The green movement is the red movement no longer in its boisterous, arrogant youth, but in its demented old age.” (Capitalism, 102)