Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Politics

Civil War II: Antifa Boogaloo (The third edition)

Occasionally, it’s good to see where we stand in regards to our political infighting in the good ol’ US of A turning into armed conflict. 13 months ago, I wrote an update that highlighted some of the dynamics that may spark Civil War II. Looking back, I mostly stand by what I said at the time, but some of the dynamics have cooled off since then. Specifically, I wrote:

Overall, I’m still pessimistic on the chances of widespread fighting. I think the worst we will possibly see is an LA riots type situation. However, as shown in Charlottesville, all it takes is one body for the self-righteous leftist media to climb on top and start agitating. Like a high-stakes game of “Press Your Luck,” both sides keep smacking the button, hoping to hit the political jackpot, ignorant of the lurking Whammy.

I still believe that to be true. I’m of the belief that the Left can only muster a LA riot as their maximum amount of agitation. They simply don’t have the fortitude nor the logistical ability to take the fight to the Right. The Right is, and for the foreseeable future will be, the key to any true armed conflict. The Right has the equipment, the tactical advantage, and the fortitude to wage war on the Left if ever pushed to do so. The Left has the motivation, but no ability. The Right has the ability, but no motivation.

Except for the fact that conservative media is continuing to find its own voice by stoking outrage, driving a wedge between themselves and the leftist mainstream media, the Right has nothing to complain about. They have the reins of the federal government, as well as most state governments. They’re winning the charter school battle, and the traditional media is self-destructing. If things keep going the way they are, the leftist hegemony in the universal institutions of society will be broken within our lifetimes.

In my opinion, there are only four ways that a civil war breaks out: 1) There is a significant federal gun control act put in place; 2) the Left grows a pair of balls and takes the fight into the suburbs; 3) Trump is impeached and removed from office in a blatantly corrupt proceeding; or 4) Your average middle-class working man or woman has a substantial chance of losing their livelihood to SJW bullshit. Frankly, 1) and 2) seem highly unlikely.

However, let’s take a trip into the Derplight Zone yet again, and see what’s gonna kick off Civil War II: Antifa Boogaloo.

Isn’t that the Outer Limits?

Let’s imagine a world where this prog-leftist corporate circle jerk intensifies for a few more months. Dicks and Nike and Levi were the precursors, but now we’re seeing major companies daily announce their intentions to fund gun control groups and SJW shakedown groups, and every time a shitlord sneezes in front of an oppressed class, it’s a national case. The constant drumbeat of this shit starts to take a toll not on the A-listers, or even on journeyman race car drivers and local sports announcers. Now it’s senior regional managers and executive editors and anybody with any modicum of power in the workplace either getting #metoo’d or N-worded or pronouned into trouble with HR, no matter the veracity of the allegations. The incentives are there, ruin the life of your shitlord boss, and you’re not only a hero, but the perfect candidate to replace them.

My wife is already concerned about such things. She wants me to do the Mike Pence thing and completely refuse to meet 1:1 with women. Unfortunately, I can’t do that 100% of the time, but I do it as often as possible. I’ve even talked with a couple of coworkers who are concerned about the same thing. They’re not comfortable being 1:1 with women because all it takes is one unprincipled woman with an axe to grind or a path up the corporate ladder, and you’re radioactive.

Anyway, in a world where outrage firings go from one every few weeks to multiple per day across various industries, the primary mechanism for avoiding armed conflict begins to erode. The biggest thing that keeps the US from melting apart in a fiery battle is that most average, everyday people have more to lose by fighting than they have to gain by being rid of their political opponents. When one’s livelihood is legitimately targeted, such incentives flip, and armed conflict is inevitable. Once a critical mass of people feel substantially threatened, they will retaliate violently.

Another relief valve in American culture is slowly being eroded. The Internet, for all of the gasoline it dumped on the political and social fires burning in our culture, also gave a platform for people who agree with one another but not with the mainstream media to commiserate, vent, and discuss current events without feeling smothered by the MSM’s blatant agenda. Now that the push has started for deplatforming, the relief valve is gumming up. Folks on the right are running out of patience when it comes to abridging the 1st and 2nd amendments, and if there is a substantial leftist push to deplatform most conservative, alt-right, and libertarian voices on major social media, it’s like holding a flamethrower to a gas can. God forbid they start trying to get the DNS servicers and site hosting companies involved… overstepping into complete censorship on the Internet will end violently. The Alex Joneses of the world may get completely silenced before the right wakes up from its slumber, but if a mainstream conservative/republican were to be deplatformed or completely silenced, I think more than a few right wingers would see the writing on the wall regarding the 1st amendment.

I think that the left is moving fairly slowly and methodically right now. They know they can bide their time until the midterms, and that after the election, they can go full nutzo on Trump and the alt-right for another year and a half before they need to cool off to look semi-sane for the 2020 election. However, I think there is a narrow path to a very bad place. I think that it starts with a legit blue wave, giving the Democrats a majority in the House and a neutral split of the Senate, if not a slight majority. From there, “all is right” in the world again except for Trump, who would quickly be brought up on charges for an impeachment hearing. The inevitable vitriol from a Trump impeachment, possibly leading to isolated violence would be all the impetus a prog-leftist Congress would need to regulate social media and begin deplatforming the right en masse. Also, once that “racist, sexist, bigot” is out of the way, the easiest virtue signal in the world is to dump a ton of money into a bureaucratic leviathan for helping colleges and companies deal with the #metoo crisis through strict enforcement and a liability shield for companies who shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe toss on a recession as the cherry on top? Repealing the tax cuts and passing a medicare expansion would probably trigger a recession.

The right would very quickly go from having a ton to lose, to having nearly nothing to lose, and I think violence would be inevitable in such a situation. How likely is it that all of this falls into place? Infinitesimal. However, it is the one clear path I see to organized violence.

September 25, 2018
Poll: Lost Friends & Family

As most of you know, this past weekend OMWC and I had a lovely dinner with A Leap at the Wheel and Pope Jimbo. During which I asked if they had any suggestions for this week’s poll.

Pope Jimbo’s response was, perhaps, predictable

.

However, Leap had a great suggestion, and so, I present this week’s poll with a big H/T to Leap!

How many friends have you lost due to your politics?

How many family members have stopped speaking to you due to your politics?

Do you have any suggestions for future GlibPolls? If yes, email to: poll at thiswebsite dot com

Discuss!

September 12, 2018
Bob Boberson Ruminates on Voting

Recently I got into an interesting OT discussion here at Glibs regarding voting. The subject in question was, as best I can capture it, what is the best demographic criteria for voting to assure libertarian outcomes? This is a subject that could easily turn into a treatise which I am neither qualified or inclined to write (I’m lazy). Instead I’d rather quote some other people and allow you fine people to weigh in and/or get on with your OT links.

According to Wikipedia:

“Voting is a method for a group, such as, a meeting or an electorate to make a collective decision or express an opinion, usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a place represented by an elected official are called “constituents”, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called “voters”. There are different systems for collecting votes.”

If you accept the proposed definition one must concede that voting by its very nature is a collectivist pursuit. Lysander Spooner, as most of you well know, makes a pretty solid argument that voting is bullshit.

“As we can have no legal knowledge as to who votes from choice, and who from the necessity thus forced upon him, we can have no legal knowledge, as to any particular individual, that he voted from choice; or, consequently, that by voting, he consented, or pledged himself, to support the government. Legally speaking, therefore, the act of voting utterly fails to pledge any one to support the government. It utterly fails to prove that the government rests upon the voluntary support of anybody. On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that the government has any voluntary supporters at all, until it can be distinctly shown who its voluntary supporters are.”

He later concludes:

“The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in
the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes – a large class, no doubt – each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,”2 and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change.”

I am reasonably confident that I (and probably the lion’s share of you fine people) fall into the third category. I’d love to do the work of “making a change” but lack the imagination to put forward a better system and cannot in good faith promote an alternative that is much more than wild speculation.

So, for lack of a better system than a constitutional republic, I believe we for the foreseeable future stuck with electing slimy sociopaths to ostensibly represent our interests in the body politic. Most, I dare say, if not all of us agree with Alexander de tocqueville’s prophetic observation:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

We see this play out year after year, election after election. I’ll go out on another limb and dare suppose that many of us agree that the appeal of “free shit” will be popular in any race and among all demographics. That being said if Bernie and She Guevera of have shown us anything it’s that young people and recent immigrants are, at least at present, very susceptible to the politics envy and the appeal of hand-outs. Eager to capitalize on this phenomena, the political left seems to be eager to expand voting rights to non-citizens and 16 year olds. I’ll again speculate that if they got their way it would only be a few years until they were making appeals that it is a great injustice non-resident/non-citizens and 14 year- olds are being denied their right to vote. The question I’d like to have answered is; is there a just rationale for limiting voting to certain demographics? Many of our founding fathers favored restricting the vote to not only property owners but specifically white property owners. While my intent is not to disparage our founding fathers one doesn’t have to think very hard as to why this criteria is ‘problematic,’ if I may borrow a common phrase from our left-leaning friends. Setting aside the racial overtones it still was a less than perfect protection against the appeal of legal plunder. In the discussion Suthenboy astutely pointed out:

“With that rule the wealthier property owners jack up taxes to price everyone out of ownership, then buy up everything. As I said, around the last turn of the century only timber companies, railroads and insurance companies would have been able to vote. It is a disaster.”

So we see that limiting voting rights to property owners has it’s own pitfalls. Heroic Mulatto proposed:

“The pre-frontal cortex doesn’t finish development until around 32 years of age. If we define adulthood as the completion of maturation, then it should start at 30 (to give it a nice round number). Likewise, voting and other adult rights and responsibilities should be delayed until then. I am serious.”

While upping the age limit for voters would appear to have it’s merits, I think it would also have it’s unintended consequences. What of young property owners and their interests? What gives a middle-aged failure more right to a ballot box that a young and successful entrepreneur? If the issue of social security has shown us anything it is that the old are not immune to voting themselves plunder from the public treasury either.

I have no proposed solutions and this article has already run on longer than I intended and touched on more freshmen-level civics topics than I meant to. I earnestly look forward to the lesson I’m about to receive from the Glibertariat.

September 6, 2018
Are you registered?

With the primary season ongoing, I’ve noticed comments here and elsewhere about party affiliation and voter registration. It got me wondering: how many of the Glibertariat are registered with any party at all?

[yop_poll id=”1″]

Discuss!

August 29, 2018
The Problem with Aggregation, Part 1 of an.. Aggregation
“I am not a number! I am a free man!” So begins one of the filler songs on one of the top 5 metal albums of all time. But I come here today not to extol the virtues Bruce Dickinson or to ruminate on the fact that galloping bass-lines are best bass lines.

No, today I’m here for something much more interesting – Math!

Let’s take a look at second grade arithmetic. Here’s a refresher on the equivalence properties of equality:
- The Reflexive Property tells us that an A is (equal to) an A. Oh, now I’m sad again.
- The Symmetric Property tells us that if A is equal to B, then B is equal to A.
- The Transitive Property tells us that if A equals B, and B equals C, then A equals C.
Pretty straight forward, and if you want to do arithmetic or algebra, these are the rules that let you do it. But there are a lot of assumptions built into. For example, you can expand the Transitive Property of Equality to generate the Transitive Property of Inequalities, such that if A is less than B and B is less than C, A is less than C.

And that is useful and intuitive too. You can do some nice arithmetic and algebra with that too. But like both my graduate-level math classes and my collected works of HP Lovecraft reminded us, there is more to this universe than nice reasonable Euclidean space.

Take football. If Directional State beat Poly A&M last week, and Poly A&M beats Costal U this week, stands to reason Costal U has no hope against Directional State next week, right? After all, if DS > P A&M and P A&M > CU, so we know DS > CU. Just stands to reason, Transitive Property and wot not. All us learned gentlemen can see this.

And a any sports fan knows… That’s not the way it works. CU beats DS in, what, 35% of the games under this scenario?

It’s almost like you can’t apply the Transitive Property to a model when in reality it doesn’t apply. You can’t just apply theoretical rules, you have to look at the real universe and see if they apply before you can incorporate them into your model.

So let’s move to another domain and see if all the rules of basic arithmetic apply. A man, a woman, and their kid are going backpacking. Weight is the limiting factor, they can walk until any one of them is worn out. In a universe that is perfectly fair, but stupid, they all would carry the same load. In the real world, the kid would carry a day of food, a day of water, and emergency supplies. The woman would carry a bit more, and the man would carry the most. They then hike farther than in the stupid and fair world. Thus, the transitive property holds true in this model.

Here’s my first assertion for this series of articles: Assuming arithmetical property where they don’t actually exist in humanity is the root of most evil these days.

One place that it shows up* is in macroeconomics. Specifically, I’m thinking of the study of optimal tax policy. This is the study of how to structure taxes to maximize utility. Assuming arguendo that taxes will be a thing, how do you structure them so that the most good / least bad is done by them. There’s a lot of math, behavior economics, etc that goes into these analysis. And there are some beautiful curves telling you how to structure a tax policy.

And they are always wrong.

No galloping bass-lines here. Move along.

They all boil down to how much can I rob Peter to pay Paul. If a tax structure results in Peter having -3 happy points and Paul getting +5 happy points, that’s a net of +2 happy points. So that’s a winner right? (I’m going to call “happy points” by their common made up name, utils.)

No. There is no +2 utils floating around as the product of aggregation. There isn’t Peter+0 and Paul+2. There is only Peter-3 and Paul+5. This leaves a pissed off Peter and a Paul who is going to get trained in the fine art of rent seeking. Take it too far, and the Peters revolt. Take it too far the other way, and Paul becomes a parasite on society. Keep it right in the middle, and you can divide and conquer Peter and Paul for their votes.

Why does aggregation work for the backpackers and not for the taxpayers? Distance. Emotional distance, to be precise.

The backpackers are a family, but that was just an excuse to use a kid in the example. They could be a group of friends out for vacation, or a firm out to find gold in them thar hills. Human nature says that those we care about are those closest to us. Its

Adam Smith was probably into galloping bass-lines too, but we’ll never know.

normal for you to care about yourself. Adam Smith has a great example about a man in Europe facing the loss of his finger and hearing about an earthquake in China. Which one does he care about more? The finger, even though he would know that that’s nothing compared to hundreds of deaths. It sounds cruel and heartless, but that’s just utopian thinking. In the real world, we all can identify with this idea. The closer you are to someone else, the more you care about them.

You might even care enough to take on their burden to make their life easier. In the real world, a parent would pay -3 utils to see their kid get +5 utils. The transitive property works because there is an emotional bond there.

But there are 300 million people in America. Any random American can only have a personal relationship with maybe a few dozen of them. Any system that assumes the aggregation utils among all Americans is going to be a cock up.

So ok, there’s one mathematical model with this flaw. Hardly the root of all evil. Well, step out of the math and into the real world. Race. Class. Religion. Political Party. These are all aggregation techniques. On rare occasions they are useful mental shortcuts. In most cases, they just erase the individual in your mind and replace them with a cardboard cutout called up from your own mental Hollywood. All cops are violent. All Southerners are racists. All progressives are stupid. All intellectuals are out of touch and dangerous.

These are common errors in thinking. And they are the root of all major humanitarian disasters of the last century. Except it was all blacks being violent, let’s roll out the drug war. All reactionaries are racists, let’s roll them off to the gulag. All low-income female workers are stupid, let’s sterilize them. All intellectuals are a danger, let’s hunt them down. The pattern repeats itself, and as we’ve seen, this pattern is dangerous. Any pattern that could lead to genocide, mass sterilization, or the drug war should be cut off before it can get anywhere near this scale of disaster.

So I hope here to have laid out a case that aggregation doesn’t apply on the large scale. But for individuals, they can have it apply to themselves and their small circle. This error is complex, but it reaches into some of the worst events in living memory. In the next article, I’ll discuss how a person could harness this insight to make themselves a better person. And in a twist that I’m sure would make all of you Jordan Peterson fans with clean rooms interested, this technique doesn’t require any change from anyone but yourself.
August 27, 2018
YouTubers of Interest

YouTube, despite its corporate leadership being very regressive, has become a hub for alternative viewpoints regarding current political and cultural events. I thought I’d do a writeup about YouTubers who create content I believe would be of interest to Glibs. The video creators are mainly concerned with current events from a political and/or philosophical perspective, however a few make videos about popular culture or general interest topics as well.

This article is not meant to be either authoritative or comprehensive (and there will be follow ups regarding these or other YouTubers), but rather a jumping off point for commentators to add both their own perspectives on those I’ve listed, disagreements with my opinions, as well as discussing YouTubers I’ve omitted either through ignorance or difference in perspective.

So here, in no particular order, are some of my YouTubers of interest:

Liberty Doll – A Libertarian woman with a Judy Greer-esque 40’s-50s’ nerd chic vibe, she often discusses 2A issues, including the recent 3D printing kerfluffle. She also discusses current events, liberty issues, as well as feminism and other anti-liberty philosophies.

Styxhexenhammer666 – A former Satanist and current mystic/spiritualist, Styx creates a lot of content about current political events, both foreign and domestic (including Trump). He occasionally has a slightly unusual take on matters which doesn’t always jibe with the standard libertarian view. He’s done a couple series of non-political videos. They are mostly related to the occult, but he also has a series of garden videos.

Matt Christiansen – His perspective is (in my view) somewhere between classical liberal and libertarian. Unlike many video producers, he doesn’t see the need to inject a hyper personality, instead stating the facts (and unleashing his acerbic wit) in his calm midwestern inflection. The videos might be on Trump or, say, pointing out the current stupidity in Portland. He also does the Beauty and the Beta podcast/livestream with Blonde in the Belly of the Beast. Blonde is an attractive woman who, over the past few years, moved from libertarianism to a much more conservative / identitarian perspective. (Think an American Lauren Southern without the public provocation).

Sargon of Akkad / The Thinkery – One of the bigger names in the anti-SJW ‘skeptic’ YouTube community, Sargon generally holds classical liberal views. He’s able to court controversy even beyond the standard regressive community (a few Glibs have been quite critical). As a UK resident, his perspective is mainly focused on Britain. In addition to his videos on the Islamization of the UK and Europe, he also has videos about recent events.

Karen Straughn / Honey Badger Radio – Karen and the others at Honey Badger Radio focus on men’s rights issues and critiques of feminism. The mostly female group makes interesting videos pointing out the discrepancies in feminist narratives and the legal and existential realities related to gender issues, ‘male disposability’, and why men’s issues are generally not taken seriously in the larger society (including why women should care about men’s issues).

Freedom Toons – Freedom Toons creates satirical cartoon videos from a libertarian perspective. Some of his targets have included modern journalism and free speech. These videos are short, so they’re good if you only have 5 minutes or so.

Bearing / Patrick – An Australian shit poster, Bearing generally goes after leftists and SJWs with humor. A couple of his recent videos have included one on the fight between Australian senators David Leyenhjelm and Sarah H Young and another on Lauren Southern’s Australia visit. His girlfriend is YouTuber Sugartits, who makes similar content.

Hard Bastard – He largely does videos regarding current events – such as the Cohen tapes – from a right of center perspective. A former Jehovah’s Witness, he often brings a slightly different view to his videos. His girlfriend is Aydin Paladin, who is (amazingly) a sociological graduate student with a general liberty focus. She mainly does videos on recent events, but also likes to delve into academic topics, both largely using that sociological framework. She has also worked with the Honey Badgers on a few of their videos. (Note: while I find her videos interesting, they are 1) academic, and 2) not short)

The Pholosopher – A Chinese American Ancap woman, she’s about as libertarian as you can get. A huge 2A proponent, she enjoys appearing in her anti-gun control videos with her AR. She also makes videos about how the US government has messed up the Middle East, and that taxation is theft.

Timcast – This will probably be one of my more controversial picks. Tim Pool is a former Vice reporter who is now trying to make a living as an independent reporter. As you’d suspect from someone who used to work with Vice, his politics are left of center. I include him because he does a couple things incredibly rare for journalists these days. He tries to get his facts correct, and he separates those facts from his evaluation of them. While he deeply dislikes Trump, he actually evaluates Trump’s actions on an individual basis rather than issue a blanket condemnation. I respect this.

Ben Shapiro – While Shapiro is mostly conservative rather than libertarian, he’s a skilled debater and often interesting. Also, since I’ve pointed out the women here a few times, let me link to his interview with Mike Rowe for Kristen.

August 14, 2018
Libertarianism basics: a classic thought experiment

No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. – Decebalus, king of Dacia

But Pie! Thought experiments are dumb! you will say… Well possibly, but they can be vaguely useful and I was always particularly fond of this one, as it was somewhat foundational for my views back in the day. So this is about The Desert Island. It is my attempt to see if this though experiment is or can be made useful as a tool to talk to non-libertarians about certain fundamentals. I will give my own interpretation, open to corrections, addenda and whatnot.

The thought experiment I would say is one on individual rights. Humans, after birth, sign a contract and get to live in a society of sorts. Due to all these messy social interactions, it is sometimes hard to see the border between individual and group – everyone who has been in a 6+ people orgy knows this. The point of this experiment is to simply isolate an individual from the rest and analyze.

So the way this goes, let’s say someone lives alone on an island. In this case there are no constraints on behavior outside of nature –gravity still gravitates. If you build that, you got it, if not, you don’t. If you brought with you your book and record (mixed tape whatever), and no one takes them they are yours to keep. Otherwise do without. Of course, as you don’t have electricity you cannot listen to the music anyway, but if you could, it could be real loud, no one would complain. You can yell obscenities or vocally support Trump – freedom of speech would be quite absolute-, worship whatever interesting rock you see on the island or the local volcano or lightning or some weird notion of an transcendent god.

Basically live as you choose in the limits of you possibilities and possessions, as long as no other human acts against you. Life, liberty and the pursuit of coconuts one might say. In this scenario there are no obligations to others, nor from others to you. No right to things not produced, by the simple fact that there are none available, but absolute right to those you have or make.

Such a human is free from aggression, as there is no one to initiate it. The only issue may be if his island is truly his – that is if he paid the required single land tax. So I consider these a sort of tire 1 rights, purely individual.

Off course, if any of us were in this situation, sometimes we would feel we’re gonna break down and cry, nowhere to go, nothing to do with our time … lonely, so lonely, living on our own. Anyway… In the end coconut oil only gets you so far. So people seek other people. And this is where the average no libertarian will tell you the experiment is useless and there is no point to it, not even making loneliness and lubricant jokes. But I disagree, I fell it helps to see the lone individual in itself. So let us say each human is an island – metaphorically speaking off course.

Let’s say there are other islands all around – with other people. And you can meet them, shoot the shit, trade some, talk, you can even show them your coconuts. Off course, they may be selfish bastards and not want to do all hose things with you. And here is where the philosophy part kicks in. The essence of libertarianism is that those tire 1 rights – the ones the humans have in themselves, as individuals, absent all others – should be preserved in the presence of other people, society if you will. Furthermore these should form the basis of social organization, as unobstructed as possible. The other philosophies of the world beg to differ.

Humans under a certain level of wealth do not live each alone on his island, there simply are not enough islands to go around. So I am going to switch metaphors in the middle of the text … hmmm… people are boats, that works. And boats on the water can run into each other. Some at this point would tell libertarians absolute freedom liberty cannot exist. As if libertarians do not know this… It is implied liberty for all that you cannot be at liberty to infringe upon others’, as my liberty to swing my oar ends at the tip of your boat. So societies create various rules in order to solve or prevent conflict – either codified into legislation or as unwritten rules of society – manners and morality. The purpose of these rules is in much debate by various ideologies. From a libertarian standpoint, the goal is to preserve liberty as much as possible and to minimize infringement of individual rights – defined as rights of individual absent the group.

Life liberty and the pursuit of coconuts

On various levels the conflict is true of a society as a whole, as it is of people living together in the same home or friends going together to a restaurant. You can no longer do anything you want, you have to take into account others and compromise, even if you may end up in a place serving Hawaiian deep dish. Although, to be sure, all people have some limits to the amount of freedom they are willing to give up. So most ideologies at least vaguely pretend to care about some level of individual rights and liberty, because it does not sound good not to. Off course they mostly lack any clear definition of these rights, which end up being whatever someone likes at a given time.

Which aspects of life are the business of the individual alone, which of the group or family, which of society, and which of government institutions if such institutions exist is the main question of politics. Or, in other words, where the line is drawn – over this line government and/or others do not cross, do not interfere. And this is where such a thought experiment can be useful, although not sufficient.

So this thought experiment got us nowhere in the end, beyond presenting the idea that a human can be seen as a thing in itself, outside society. Isn’t this just preaching to the choir round these parts? Well, maybe, but still. A blog needs posts, does it not? So I dunno, comment or don’t, as is your right

August 6, 2018
Liberty-Leaning Candidates?

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Nobody is as cynical as someone who has seen the legislative process from the inside in a corrupt place like Albany. I am that someone.

Nevertheless, I sometimes find myself being forgetful and letting a tiny glimmer of hope into my heart.

There are actually a few folks running for office this time around who don’t make me immediately despair. I have plenty of time to be disappointed in them later on.

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Rep. Justin Amash, Republican incumbent from the 3rd District in Michigan.

I like Justin Amash. He says reasonable things, and many, or perhaps even most, of his votes on bills are the way I would vote, too, if presented with the same dreck. Amash has one of the best records of doing the most basic part of his job: he shows up to vote. Then, he explains his votes and posts those explanations on various widely-available platforms.

Amash’s seat seems pretty secure. The last time a Democrat was elected as Representative for his district was in 1974, and was soundly defeated 2 short years later.

Campaign Site | Twitter

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Larry Sharpe is running for governor of my native state (NY) as a Libertarian.

Sharpe has pleased me with his positions on many issues I find important: the NYS SAFE Act; public education; business development/corporate taxes; fathers’ rights; drugs; occupational licensing(!); victimless crimes.

Significant to this Upstater: Sharpe doesn’t think the state ends in Larchmont. Sharpe and/or his running mate, Andrew Hollister, have been actively campaigning across the entire state, making appearances at veterans’ groups BBQs, libraries, tiny county fairs, farmer’s markets, vape shops, and coffee houses.

Andrew Cuomo and friends have been a disaster for an already besieged state. Larry Sharpe is really the only viable alternative that I have ever seen to the same old corruption in New York.

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And then there is Austin Petersen, who is running as a Republican for the Senate seat currently held by the completely unprincipled and not-too-bright Democrat Claire McCaskill.

I’ve only recently begun paying much attention to Petersen, which I’m thinking might have been an oversight. There are some issues on which we don’t agree, but he is massively better than the incumbent or the presumptive Republican candidate, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley.

It’s a crowded field, with eleven people competing in next Tuesday’s primary for the chance to unseat McCaskill.

Petersen has a background in media production and it shows in his use of social media. His Ghost Gunner II Giveaway is a brilliant combination of reaching out to pro Second Amendment voters and trolling the gun grabbers, garnering publicity on both sides of the issue.

Best of luck to him next week. Regardless of the outcome, I predict we’ll be hearing from Petersen for a long time to come.

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Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican incumbent from the 4th District in Kentucky.

There are many issues on which I do not see eye-to-eye with Thomas Massie. However, he has been on the right side of the Second Amendment abuses which have been going on forever and are ratcheting up every day. And that goes a long way with me.

Just a side note: The Kentucky list of candidates is pretty amusing. Take a look at occupations.

Campaign Site | Twitter

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Illinois Races

Unfortunately, our horrible Republican governor is likely to be replaced by an even more horrible Democratic governor. I hate them both, so lets focus on the fact that at least there are a number of candidates for all the state-wide offices from several other political parties!

The Libertarian candidates for governor and attorney general have particularly amusing names.

I almost want to like gubernatorial hopeful “Kash” Jackson simply for the truth-in-advertising nature of the nickname of an Illinois political candidate.

And for attorney general, just a good ol’ boy from Southern IL: Bubba Harsy.

Really, none of the Libertarian candidates have any chance whatsoever. But it heartens me that at least they are now on the ballots.

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Please, jump into the comments and let us know who else is out there this year about whom we can feel even marginally OK.

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August 2, 2018
The Wit and Wisdom of Cardi B
- My slogan for my [Presidential] campaign is – “ISIS, Suck a Dick!” Remember, America! Suck a dick! Suck a dick. Suck a whole lot a dick. Vote for me!
- I put niggas to sleep like Jigglypuff.
- It’s cold outside, but I’m still lookin’ like a thottie, because a ho never gets cold.
- Ride the dick like a BMX. No nigga wanna be my ex.
- Eleanore Roosevelt, she did so much for the Blacks. That’s my bitch! And we got the same birthday – October 11!
- Ever since I took that etiquette class, all I wanna do now is white people activities.
- Everybody want to be a rapper. Fuck your dreams! Get a job.
- God forbid, the government tries to take us over, and we can’t defend ourselves because we don’t have no weapons. How do you think American colonizers went to Africa and it was so easy for them to get those people? Because they had guns. No matter what weapon you have, you can’t beat a gun. They have weapons like nuclear bombs that we don’t have. So imagine us not having any weapons at all.
June 28, 2018
The Personal Vs The Political
The thing that attracts me to libertarianism (well, actually I call my own philosophy Constitutional Property Rights Minarchism, but more on that in a later post) is that it is a governing philosophy based on an idea of how society can best survive while respecting the individual. At the purest level it isn’t about how a person should live their life, but how they should be governed, if at all.

Pictured, a leftist’s idea of the common man

What grinds my gears, as Family Guy’s Peter Griffen said, is people who purport to be libertarian who try to tell me what I should accept on a personal level. The idea is to live and let live while keeping the peace, not to control people’s thoughts. Actually, on a personal level, I disagree with a lot of things that are popular in many libertarian circles, and that isn’t a problem for me. Because to me libertarianism isn’t about structuring society, it’s about structuring government.

This is the part where I get into the personal. There are no ‘to be sures,’ there are no caveats. These are the things I feel in my bones on a personal level. I am unashamed of them, this is who I am. I do not judge others by the same standard that I judge myself; I’m much harsher on myself. If I imposed my personal beliefs through politics, the place I create probably wouldn’t be much more free than a caliphate.
1. I have never shot a gun. I do not want to.
2. I do not believe any marriage outside the Catholic church is legitimate.
3. The Catholic church does not recognize gay marriage.
4. I do not believe there should be sex outside of marriage.
5. Except for beer, cigarettes and painkillers, drugs are bad, MKay.
Pictured: Commie Pope

This is not to say I loathe or hate anyone who does any of the above; but I will judge you by your actions, and I am free to disassociate with you as I feel fit if your actions abhor me. For anyone complaining that I wouldn’t personally recognize gay marriage, know that I also don’t recognize the marriage of my brother who got married by a justice of the peace. I hold no animus towards him or his ‘wife’, I just don’t consider them married. They are living together and raising their children and that is just fine, but they are not married in my eyes and are violating rule 4 that I would impose on myself but not others.

Now for the political. Well, all of those points have no place here. As long as people don’t harm each other or respective property, I have no problems. If I can’t convince you that my personal morals are correct, I have no right to force them on you. Choosing the way we govern ourselves is not the same as the way we personally act. Governance should be about understanding the rights inherent in being a human and respecting that. It is a whole other post to describe the nature of rights, as well as to explain my CPRM philosophy. I might get around to that, if you haven’t rejected me as a pariah by then.

We’re all individuals but if we work together we can put Heimdall out of a job.
June 25, 2018