The right honorable Thomas DiLorenzo tells about his trip to Poland, where he was picked up by a young man who displayed on his dashboard a Confederate flag magnet which he bought while visiting Richmond.
Politically-Correct Interpretation: Obviously, this young libertarian, whose parents were slaves of socialism, is a racist who reveres nineteenth-century American slave owners and would probably like to introduce slavery to Poland.
More Realistic Interpretation: This young Polish libertarian, who has not been brainwashed by American government schools, and who has never attended a Claremont Institute seminar, naturally thought of the Confederate flag as a symbol of opposition to a hated centralized governmental tyranny.
Or how about this possibly more realistic interpretation: This young Polish libertarian is fascinated with not-exactly-libertarian idiosyncracies of other cultures' histories, just as I as a young American libertarian am fascinated by Soviet-era classical music and entertain an arm-chair interest in socialist realist art, and this young libertarian Pole wishes to collect trinkets and other paraphernalia that reminds him of these unlibertarian idiosyncracies, partly because they tickle his brain and partly because they make him feel rebellious.
Of course, it was Tom DiLorenzo who rode with him from the airport to the hotel or the conference, and so DiLorenzo knows more about the guy than I do. Maybe the Pole really was a Confederate sympathizer. Or maybe he was just being chatty.
I just today stumbled upon this beautiful piece by Stravinsky.
The lyrics of the first movement are from Psalms 39: 13 and 14. At Wikipedia they're translated as: Hear my prayer, O Lord, and with Thine ears consider my calling: hold not Thy peace at my tears. For I am a stranger with Thee: and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me a little that I may recover my strength: before I go hence and be no more. This translation grabbed my attention, because like several other passages of the Old Testament, this passage seems to present an image of death as the complete end of the individual's existence - which is very different from the contemporary view of death being just a temporarily painful transition to a better world.
My mind then wandered on to contemporary compassionate views of God. According to moderate and liberal theists, God couldn't have commanded genocide, punished whole nations with disease, disasters, or conquest, or set up all humanity to fail - He's too good for that. I think this view cuts away at least 50% of what the idea of God is supposed to be.
Religion is a reaction to death and suffering. That's why so many people turn to it - it helps them deal with suffering, and especially to make their peace with death. The Old Testament idea of God was a very useful innovation. "God", as something that's bigger than you, that holds the puppet strings to the conditions of your existence, and against which you as a mere human are totally powerless, instills a comforting dose of resignedness. Old-fashioned monotheism was an open and frank acceptance of those evils that we cannot control.
Monotheism began loosing its edge more and more, especially in recent amplifications of God's attributes of Mercy and Love, to the detriment of other traditional attributes. This blunting process accelerated 2 centuries ago, but I think it got underway more than 2 millenia ago, when monotheism started making explicit assertions of belief in an afterlife.
Belief in an afterlife is problematic for two reasons. For one, life after death is probably untrue. The idea of an immortal soul goes against the contemporary understanding of the interrelation between the soul, or psyche, and the physical body. You may as well believe that wiping yourself with fiberglass insulation won't irritate your skin. Heck, you may as well believe in pink winged unicorns. Placing your hopes on something that no one can venture even an educated guess about, and which all the evidence we have actually weighs against, is something the Epicureans call a "vain and empty" desire.
The other reason belief in the afterlife is problematic, is that it's inadequate for religious purposes. Your religious beliefs are supposed to help you make peace with death. Unfortunately, most people view death as a nap, or as a trip to another world. If you accept death as a benign transition to another world, then you haven't made your peace with death. You've made your peace with a coma, but you haven't made your peace with death.
Belief in the afterlife whitewashes what is most inherently evil about the world - the permanent end of one's existence as an experiencing being. Yes, death is evil. It is the elimination of all capacity to enjoy - it is the erasure of everything good. And yes, it is natural. This awareness of death being both essential to our world and evil is necessary for a full acceptance of death, and of this world in general.
Granted, some people just like to play religious make believe. It's as if the only thing that can help them make peace with someone's "homegoing" is to make things up about their loved one playing a gold harp in the sky and watching out for them. The Baptist version is a little different. In that version Heaven is a non-stop church service in a cube. Everyone stands around the throne and sings praises to Jesus without end while throwing their hard-earned crowns at his feet. If that's really what's needed to give them peace about it, then so be it, I guess.
Up until yesterday or the day before that I was an ardent supporter of the ballot initiative to legalize weed in CA. The first mark I made on my ballot was to tick a yes on Prop 19. But I might ask for a new ballot soon. There are a few reasons Prop 19 might not be better, and might even be worse, than the laws as they presently are.
First things first, Prop 19 can make it harder for medical marijuana users to get all the weed they need. It sets a limit of one ounce per person, and makes no exception for medical marijuana users, who would need more. And though it allows up to 25 sq. ft. of cultivation space for personal use, it also allows local governments to tax and restrict (or flat-out ban) it. This could be the end of marijuana collectives in some areas. Since 19 does not exempt medical marijuana from being taxed, weed might get too expensive for some medical marijuana users to afford, and since the limitation on cultivation space might forbid users from growing enough for themselves, some (or many) medical marijuana users would simply not have access to weed - despite the nominal "legalization" of it.
Though weed may be legal, the symptoms of prohibition may remain. If the taxes are high enough, and the restrictions draconian enough, there may still be a black market in weed. Earlier I was hoping that weed legalization could make it possible for us to get old-school weed - weed that isn't potent as fuck. Hopefully the one ounce per person limit and the 25 sq. ft. limit won't make it impossible to get it; but these resitrictions along with the restrictions of local governments may likely allow the high-potency strains that originated in prohibition to remain the dominant products in the market.
Of course, what's keeping me from getting a new ballot right now is that I haven't yet decided whether the nominal legality ofweed woud be better than weed being unavailable to some medical marijuana patients. I guess it comes down to how many people would be getting thrown in jail for weed use or possession now than after 19 passes. And I don't have any numbers on that.
Anyone who does have numbers on that is more than welcome to share them with me.
It is behavior like yours that gives the government "reasonable cause" to detain anyone with a copy of the Constitution in their pocket. You really help advance freedom. Dumbass.
I'm going to go to a student-run political debate tonight and if the Democrat doesn't drop your name at least once I'm going to be impressed.
Ever read ALL of the 1st Amendment? It says "the right of the people PEACEABLY to assemble". Jeez, now I want to stomp somebody. See what violence does to people? Don't look at me, look at what your douchebaggery will do to your cause. You apparently haven't yet learned what BLOWBACK is. Well now you're gonna find out.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic attempt to wipe out a particular human population or demographic. The deliberateness of the crime is essential to it being classified as genocide. Wanton killing, even if accompanied by racism, should not be considered genocide unless it is carried out with the express intent to wipe out the entire target group. And the systematic subjugation of an entire nation resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths should not be considered genocide either, unless that subjugation is accompanied by the express intent to exterminate the people of that nation.
I'm writing this because someone I love just facebook "liked" the mis-named International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq. I've known for a couple years that the U.S. military and contractors have done things that result in quite a few deaths - not just of people killed in the crossfire, but of people whose standard of living plummeted after crucial services suddenly evaporated. But though lots of civilians died, and though their deaths can probably be called deliberate (if you know that the death results from your action and you perform the action, the death is caused deliberately), I wouldn't call this genocide against the Iraqis. It was not accompanied by the intent to wipe out every single Iraqi.
Of course, The International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq is not trying to convince us that the U.S. actually intends to wipe out every single Iraqi. The wiping out that the writers of this initiative are decrying is the destruction of Iraq as a nation state.
The crime of genocide is the intended destruction, in whole or substantial part, of an enumerated group as such. Iraq has been intentionally destroyed as a state and nation.
Over one million dead, a fifth of the population exiled, and millions more injured, alongside total infrastructural collapse and an unprecedented promotion of corruption, sectarianism and death squads, constitutes destruction substantial enough to negate the possibility of Iraq functioning as a viable entity. This is and heralds genocide.
Yes, social structures were destroyed in the war and this destruction resulted in numerous deaths. But the unviability of the nation state is not the same as a deliberate attempt to wipe out all members of a targeted group.
I'm being vain, of course, because the term "genocide" is totally useless as far as human rights is concerned. It's as irrelevant as the broader umbrella term "hate crime". Whether the victims were targetted for being members of a particular group is irrelevant - what matters is that their rights were trampled. Killing 6 million Jews with the intent to wipe out all of European Jewry isn't any worse than killing 6 million persons of diverse racial backgrounds without the intent to wipe out any race.
That said, I do think the word genocide shouldn't be used by people who oppose the war in Iraq. Either it makes us peace-niks look like we're dishonest and manipulative about our words, or it makes us look like we don't know what we're talking about. The initiative would sound just as urgent if it were called "The International Initiative to Prosecute US War Crimes in Iraq".
I've read enough anti-voting comments from libertarian anarchists. I'll try to explain my pov very quickly:
I don't in any way give consent to the existence and abuses of a monopolistic government by sending a government office two pieces of paper with tick marks on them. And the governing "authorities" don't base their treatment of me on whether or not I voted, or whether or not I even consent to their authority. They're not going to go - "Oh, you declined to turn in your ballot last November? Well excuse me, here's the full amount of your fine back."
Voting might be an act of violence, but if you vote "correctly" it's analagous to an act of defensive violence.
The vast majority of anti-voting comments - probably 99% of the ones I've seen - are specifically about voting for candidates. These people speak as if they never before in their life seen or heard of a ballot measure. They seem completely oblivious to the fact that you can help prevent the passage of a bad law by voting against it. And they seem equally oblivious to the voters' ability to enact a law that is less evil than the ones that are in place. When CA Prop 19 fails by a handful of votes, all you libertarian anarchists in my homestate will sit there wondering if weed could have been legalized by you spending a couple minutes ticking "Yes" and dropping that ballot in a box.
Voting can be a fun and creative way to protest the ridiculousness (yes that's a word) of representative democracy. Ever tried writing in "Nobody" for President? Or have you ever considered writing in your own name? (Voting is self-government, right?)
The unspoken truth is that you don't have to vote for anybody when you vote. The ballots I mail in usually have very few candidates marked. Yes, I am afraid of voting in somebody who'll exercise power unjustly. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't turn in a ballot.
In short, I don't think voting is unprincipled, or a waste of time. It can actually be amuzing.
Jacob Spinney is a magician who makes videos on youtube about libertarianism and animal rights. He's an anarcho-capitalist, a bit of an animal rights activist, a vegetarian (though not a vegan...yet), and almost as "pro-life" as me. He might be called a "right-wing" anarchist, because he opposes most abortion and because he calls himself a capitalist; though like every good market anarchist he opposes IP - he even opposes contractual copyright, which is further left than where I stand. I'd say he fits into that very tight niche of pro-life animal rights market anarchist, which as far as I know includes 2 people - him and me. Indulge yourself at his blog.
