no third solution

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Category Archives: Anarchy!

Support for Wikileaks

December 20th, 2010

Aside from the occasional Rush Limbaugh fan (I really do try and keep the number of those in my life to a minimum) and the ever present Obama-can-do-no-wrong Democrat, in my experience people from just about every political camp are supportive of wikileaks. I want to think that’s encouraging.

I have friends and acquaintances on all sides of the political spectrum.

The reaction to anything I’ve posted recently regarding Wikileaks or Julian Assange has been overwhelmingly in favor of both. I’d stop short of saying that it’s an anti-gov sentiment because I know it’s not, but it’s nice to see that when someone breaks out the smelling salts, people start to wake up even if it’s just a little bit before the hammer of mass-marketed infotainment and holiday cheer lulls them back to dreamland.

Most of the time when the people are near-unanimous, politicians just ignore it like they did with the bank bailout, like they’re doing with wars in the middle east, etc. This is why I’m pessimistic that wikileaks is just a dog-and-pony show; I’m skeptical of anything that brings in ratings and $$$ to mainstream media.

Anyways, here’s to hoping that the groundswell of public support for wikileaks continues to grow to such a point that it can’t be ignored.

Wikileaks: The Only Talking Point You Need

November 29th, 2010

When discussing Wikileaks, there is only one talking point which you absolutely must commit to memory (if you need more than another, it might help to discuss the big picture). This is really the only argument you need. It also works perfectly well as a rebuttal to whatever arguments someone might come up with in order to try and criminalize Wikileaks:

Revealing crimes committed by the State or its agents (under the euphemism of “State secrets”) does not hurt American interests, endanger American lives, nor is it treasonous or otherwise criminal. What hurts American interests, continually endangers Americans both at home and abroad, and is criminal to the highest degree, is committing those crimes in the first place.

wikileaksEver hear that old adage, “don’t shoot the messenger”?  Yeah. Same thing. There are only two reasons why anyone would react with hostility when an organization like Wikileaks makes these secrets public:  Either they are criminals afraid of being brought to justice, or they are in ignorant denial.

For your entire life you’ve been duped in to believing and supporting those crimes. You’ve been told that they weren’t crimes, and with the truth hidden from view it was easy to believe. You’ve been taking that blue pill all your life but when the truth comes out, you snap because you have so much invested in believing in and perpetuating the lie.

Just swallow another pill and when you wake up you can go on believing whatever you want to believe.

It is important to mind the nature of these secrets: They are kept by and between criminals, with criminal intent, to hide the fact that crimes have been committed. Revealing the truth behind these crimes, of course, will further endanger some of their co-conspirators and some unknowing accomplices.  Anyone who is knowingly involved in keeping evidence of those crimes a secret is an enemy to liberty.

If you are concerned about the safety and well-being of friends and family who may be unknowing accomplices, I can understand and sympathize.  A certain number of unknowing accomplices will likely be placed in more danger than they already find themselves, but the genesis of this danger all goes back to the crimes to which they are accomplices.

They are already in danger because of their involvement.

They alone are responsible for the consequences of their actions.   They alone, are ultimately responsible for the moral judgment that leads them down whichever path they’ve chosen in life. And they alone are responsible for their ignorance.

Let them know it. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.

It serves no justice to join that conspiracy, to suppress the truth and keep those crimes secret.  Instead, you need to do whatever is justly within your power to get them to take the red pill, instead.

Destroying Wikileaks will not reduce the danger to which Americans and American interests are exposed.  Silencing the whistleblowers does not make the crimes disappear from anywhere except public knowledge, but like the tree falling in the forest when nobody is there to hear it, these crimes still happened.  Burying your head in the sand will not make America safer, it will not make the world safer, it will not end tyranny or spawn liberty. Anywhere.  You can take that to the bank.

In order to end the danger, it is necessary to end the criminal acts which motivate others to threaten “us”:

Stop exploiting the third world’s resources for corporate greed. Stop exploiting the people who were born in to those countries for cheap labor.  Stop installing puppet governments in the banana republic remnants of European colonialism and its aftermath, American Imperial Hegemony and transnational-capitalism. Stop using the most powerfully destructive military in the world to secure and defend corporate interests abroad while despots you put in power (“to keep the world safe for democracy” or some other such nonsense) commit crimes against humanity. Stop blitzkrieging the poorest countries in the world after you fail to reign in the despots that you previously installed.

It’s that simple: to get people to stop hating you, just stop hurting them.

h/t Brad Spangler for the inspiration.

After “Limited Government”, Then What?

November 9th, 2010

This is how I normally enter a discussion about the merits of “limited government”.

Is there really some baseline amount of violence and (admitted) imperfection which is necessary to keep the rest of us from going Mad Max?  In order to prevent crime we must empower a small group of criminals to perpetrate crimes (which is what they’d be if done by any other) and thereby protect us from ourselves?  Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?

Being so “negative” all the time doesn’t make you welcome in political discussions.Suffice to say that I do not often enter such discussions, because I am usually deafened by the sound of cognitive dissonance.

A common objection is “So what! Governments aren’t perfect.  How will the dread anarchy perfectly resolve all of the problems at which government fails?”

This objection, aside from being a glorious example of shifting goalposts and double-standards, assumes that minarchism is pragmatically superior to any other social organization, and therefore should be praised for its practicality.  Then again, if we can’t come up with a foolproof system for something as relatively uncomplicated as roads then there is zero reason to believe that we can come up with anything even approaching a foolproof system for governance.

The designs of “limited government” are admirable, or at the very least more admirable than the machinations of those who seek omnipotent government.  But I disagree that they’re any more practical than totalitarianism, or pure anarchism or anywhere else on the spectrum of politics. You need only examine minarchism’s historical record with a critical eye to understand that it often gives rise to, or conceals some of humanity’s worst.

The paragon of limited government — colonial America — ruled over and permitted two of the most brutal institutions ever to scar this planet: human trafficking/chattel slavery and the genocide of American aboriginal people and the expropriation of their lands. Excuse me, but I do not find it particularly alarming, that this isn’t exactly the sort of movement that people are willing to rally behind.

But let’s say we get limited government to “work”. I suppose this means all of the good things about colonial America and none of the bad things like slavery, genocide, the disenfranchisement of women and/or non-landowners, etc. OK. Now what?

I’m not putting the cart before the horse. Assume we get there, first. Now what. Can’t we do better than that? Even just a little bit? At some point, the “limited government”, and the structure of social arrangements and institutions of community that would arise in the absence of the omnipotent State, becomes almost in-discernably different from “no government at all”.

I don’t necessarily believe in the “incrementalist” approach, but if followed it inevitably leads here. At that point, would we still be arguing about this? If you hold restrict, threaten, force us or hold us back, well then you’re no better than any of the evil “big governments” you previously opposed. But I don’t think it would come to that. At least I hope it wouldn’t.

And at that point if you let me go my way, well then, Salut! Comrade, you’re an anarchist. You just didn’t know it.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics