Sarah Palin: Victimhood on the Right

One of the reasons I abandoned my former Leftist beliefs was distaste for the victimhood mentality I perceived.  Leftists do not believe that anyone’s problems have anything to do with their own personal actions; everything is the result of Corporations and Imperialists pursuing profit.  In short, they do not believe that humans have free will.  It’s sad to say that most people on what is considered the American Right have succumbed to this victimhood mentality.  Rather than admit that Sarah Palin is a laughably unqualified and unprepared candidate for President, they insist that those who question her too harshly are just being mean.  If someone asks her a tough question, and she gets that deer in the headlights look, they blame the questioner for having a vendetta, or a bigoted prejudice against gun toting straight-talking women.  It reminds me of narcissistic parents who think that their kid is special, and that if a teacher gives them a bad grade, that the teacher was being too mean.  They therefore insist that she only answer softball questions from sympathetic supporters, lest her feelings be hurt.  “My child is special, how dare you break my illusion!”  They are so happy when their kid actually answer a question right they can hardly contain themselves, as though answering a single question right was an accomplishment.  She is the perfect candidate for farmers who gorge themselves on government subsidies, and zealots calling for the imprisonment of women caught having abortions, all while claiming to stand for, “less government.”  In short, Sarah Palin is an Affirmative Action candidate, chosen because of her novelty and good looks, and not on the basis of any accomplishments.  She is a beauty queen who was picked up on the side of the road by a slick Hollywood producer and told she was smart with such regularity that she actually began to believe it*.  She thinks the words coming out of her mouth are revelations, and not platitudes so asinine that they make the verbal gyrations of the average politician seem almost original.  I seem to recall her blaming Hillary for whining too much.  I’m no Hillary fan, but Hillary’s been through far worse, and had done far less whining.  Who has the strength and courage to say, “I am not a victim!”?

*I’m not saying that all beauty queens are stupid and gullible, so don’t get mad at me.

First Amendment: No Dollar Amount

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

-1^st Amendment

You have just read the words of the 1^st Amendment of our Constitution, a document which I believe must be followed.  Some say it’s a “living document”; therefore we can blatantly ignore it.  What’s so humorous is that these same people attacked the Bush Administration for raping the 4^th Amendment.  What if John Ashcroft said, “yeah, we’re doing unauthorized wire taps, but you know what, the Constitution is a living document, we don’t need to follow it.”  How would these same people react?  Rather than picking and choosing among Amendments, let’s work toward protecting all of them, and insist upon the rule of law, not the arbitrary whims of whomever is in charge.  It is plainly clear that the government can not restrict freedom of speech.  It doesn’t say, “Congress shall make no law prohibiting free speech, except if the people paying for the speech have too much money*, in which case it would be unpopular, therefore we can stop them from speaking.”  Some would say, “yeah but corporations aren’t people, they can’t vote.”  The reason that Corporations can’t vote is because voting is exclusively an individual right:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

-15^th Amendment

If you reread the text of the 1^st Amendment you will see that it is not exclusively an individual right.  A voluntary association of individuals (which is what corporations are) do have the right to buy air time, advertising space, etc.  Few people would be for censoring a different voluntary association of individuals (Sierra Club?) from buying air time or advertising space.  So, what’s the difference between a corporation and the Sierra Club?  “Well, Corporations try to make money, therefore they are unpopular.”  The 1^st Amendment doesn’t say anything about rights being restricted because of profit making.  What’s so evil about profits anyway?  As for unpopularity, this is irrelevant.  We must distinguish between what we may want people to do, and what they have a right to do.  Just because someone may be doing something you don’t like has nothing to do with whether or not they have a right to do it.

*who’s to say what, “too much money” is anyway?  Who makes this judgment?

Thoughts On Israel

In 1948 a terrible crime was committed.  Hundreds of thousands of Arabs living in the British mandate of Palestine were chased out of their homes by Zionist gangs.  The question though is: what relevance should this 60 year old crime have on our current policy toward Israel, and the Middle East in general?  History is a very fascinating subject, and there is much we can learn from it, but ultimately we must live in the present, and decide our policies based upon the present scenario.  Now, the more militant Palestinian groups[1] have made it very clear that they want to “liberate Palestine,” and by “Palestine” they do not mean just Gaza and the West Bank, but the whole of Israel itself.  In other words, they would like to do to the Jews, what the Jews did to the Arabs in 1948.  Would such an action be justified?  I would argue with a resounding, no!  Most of those who committed the ethnic cleansing in 1948 are dead, and most of the victims of the ethnic cleansing of 1948 are also dead.  The question becomes then: is it right to punish people for a crime of their ancestors? Absolutely not!  A person can only be punished for a crime which they themselves have committed. Likewise, a person can only be compensated for a crime which was personally done to them, not to their great great great grandfather.  If a person steals a home, then the home can and should be taken back.  But, if several decades have passed, and the home now has a different occupant who did not himself/herself participate in the theft (and gained the home through peaceful non-coercive means), then you can not take the home from its current occupant.  If one looks at the history of any territory, one will see that it has passed between different groups of people many times over.  Africa was ounce almost entirely in the hands of small hunter-gatherer groups, before they were driven out by the Bantus with their superior numbers and iron tools.  What do Bantus owe to Pygmies?  Spain was ounce in the hands of the Romans, then the Visigoths, then the Arabs, then taken back by the Spanish.  What do the Spaniards owe to the Arabs?  Believe it or not, land-theft was not an invention of Western Europeans; it was something practiced for thousands of years by thousands of cultures.  Western Europeans weren’t anymore rapacious then anyone else, they were just more successful at land theft than others because they had better technology and diseases which other peoples did not have immunity to.  Although the original theft was a terrible crime, you can not make up for the crime by instigating a new crime.  So the big question that I have is: from our current vantage point, who believes more strongly in Liberty?  Israel or Hamas?

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[1] i.e., the ones with the power.

Leftism: The End of Logic

“All arguments that are contrary to mine are excuses to justify the power of Corporations, Fascists, Imperialists, The Church, and the Bourgeoisie. Therefore, they must be wrong.”=Ad Hominum

Guns and Ideology

During the 1970’s, Nixon, and later Ford justified continued involvement in Cambodia on the rationale that if America withdrew there would be a bloodbath[i].  Educated people of course could recognize this as spurious; and advocated immediate withdrawal for the purpose of peace.  When the Khmer Rouge actually began their bloodbath, these same educated people (the one’s who could actually admit a bloodbath was taking place) were quit shocked: “Gosh!” they though, “how come the Khmer Rouge are so mean[ii]?”  The bloodbath shouldn’t have been the least bit of a surprise.  The Khmer Rouge were Maoists, and as such were not doing anything which the Great Helmsman had not already done in China.  Any knowledgeable person could easily have predicted the Khmer Rouge genocide by asking these simple questions:

1. If America withdraws, who will be the one’s left standing with the guns?

In the case of Cambodia, it was the Khmer Rouge.  In the case of Iraq, it was Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other assorted groups.  In order to predict what those left standing will do when left uninhibited, one only need ask:

2. What is their ideology?

Those with the guns always impose their ideology on those who do not have guns.  In the case of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, their radical Wahhabism taught that the Shi’a were subhuman, non-Muslims, and that Takfir allows for their killing with impunity. They therefore advocated killing as Shi’a as possible in order to provoke an all out civil war[iii].  Before Americans ever even think about withdrawing from a country, these two critical questions must be asked.  To do otherwise is the height of irrationality!

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[i] Many peace activists point to the fact that there was no similar bloodbath in Vietnam. They are right, in comparison to Cambodia, the bloodbath in Vietnam was tiny, but that’s not saying much. Instead what was practiced in Vietnam was the internment of about 300,000 people in Concentration, err I mean, “Reeducation” Camps. That’s far more than Diem or Theiu ever dreamed of imprisoning. A good movie about this is, “Journey from the Fall.”  Some of tried to justify this by arguing that those who fought for the Saigon regime, or even worked for this government were traitors to their country.  Which begs the question: why was the Communist North the true representative of the Vietnamese people? Was it elected?

[ii] Some put forward this argument: “Let’s blame their brutality on the people who were trying to stop them from taking power.  Let’s blame the Communist takeover of Cambodia, on those people who were trying to prevent a Communist takeover of Cambodia. Their brutality was mainly because America bombed Cambodia, not because of their ideology. It doesn’t matter that bombing Cambodia was the only way to stop the Khmer Rouge from taking power, and that the bombs actually prevented them from taking power, we’re going to blame it on those who bombed Cambodia.”

Shawcross, Sideshow.

[iii] Ali A. Allawwi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace.

Did Chomsky Best Buckley?

In this famous debate, many claim that Chomsky bested Buckley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Samvw6Z08

Unfortunately he does, but not because he had the better argument.  They go through the old arguments of the morality of the Cold War and foreign interventions.  Chomsky declares that you can’t “satelize” a country without an army of occupation.  Pure rubbish!  If I hire a group of assassins to conquer a country, and impose my rule upon the country, I have statelized it.  This is what North Vietnam was doing in South Vietnam through their puppets in the NLF.  At the time it was possible to deny that the NLF were Northern puppets, now there is no doubt[1].  But, ultimately the debate hinges on this point: what’s the difference between the Soviets invading Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the CIA backed coup on Guatemala in 1953.  Buckley does not explain the difference, so he lost.  I don’t know if he failed to do it because he ran out of time, or what, but I will explain the difference.  Dubcek was in no way a threat to the USSR, he constantly expressed his loyalty, and there’s no evidence he wanted to move his country into NATO orbit.  Arbenz on the other hand was a Soviet proxy and had plans to receive a shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia.  You know, the same Czechoslovakia in which the Communists had just recently mounted a coup that installed a Stalinist regime.  They had won some power through the ballot box, but because they insisted on absolute power[2], they decided to force Benes to resign and give Gottwald and his Soviet advisors total control.  But of course nothing similar could happen in Guatemala, and anyone who says so is a dupe of American imperialism.  There’s also the little matter that Dubcek was trying to increase the amount of liberty in Czechoslovakia through the reforms of the Prague Spring, whereas Arbenz was decreasing the level of liberty in Guatemala by robbing people of their property.  But of course, it’s OK to do that, as long as it’s done to the “rich”.  So Chomsky did win, but not because he had the better argument, it was more of a failure on Buckley’s part to elaborate.

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[1] Read, “A Vietcong Memoir” by Truong Nhu Tang

[2] How could you possible ask the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” to operate within the narrow confines of constitutional democracy??

Countrys Don’t Belong to People

            I would support the establishment of secular dictators in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan.  What confuses me so much is why Leftists would prefer an “independent” Islamist regime in which women were treated as animals, to a secular dictator that promoted women rights??  Well, anyway, the common rebuttal to the establishment of dictators is that, “it’s not our country, Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq, thus if the Iraqis or Afghans want Sharia law, they should get Sharia law.”  The problem with this argument is that a “country” can not be said to belong to person, or a group of people.  A country is a collection of individuals, each of which has the right to do as he or she wants, provided that their actions to not cause direct physical harm to others.  When a woman walks out of the house without a burqa, she is not imposing her will on anyone.  Even if the majority of the people in that country are offended, she has the right to do so unmolested.  If someone tries to prevent her from doing so, she has a right to protection from the State.  At this point, because there is no stable State in Iraq, only the US military can provide such protection.  With US forces withdrawing, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan need good secular strong men similar to the old Shah.  We should help potential Shahs gain power in these countries through military aid, economic aid, military/police training and recruitment, and also help them squash violent opposition to their rule[i].  Some would say, “ahh, but it’s a different culture with different moral standards, you can’t impose your moral standards on that country.”  I would disagree that I’m imposing my moral standards on them.  I’m not interested in imposing my moral standards on anyone through coercive force.  What I propose doing is taking the necessary action to prevent the Islamofascists from imposing their values upon the individuals of that country[ii].  As for different moral standards, I hop that if you were to see your neighbor beat his wife you would demand that some governmental agency do something about it.  Why then would you allow the Taliban regain control of Afghanistan and stone women to death?  Because of an accident of location???

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[i] We should also help Israel regain control of Gaza if it became feasible, for their exit from Gaza has not resulted in more freedom for Gazans, it has resulted in less.  For all the problems of Israeli occupation, I am convinced that Israeli occupation means more personal freedom that Hamas occupation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1M4eH9Kk7I

[ii] It was the exact same situation with Communism during the Cold War.  For all the caterwauling about wars of, “national liberation,” Communism was nothing more than the imposition of the Party’s will upon the lives and property of the individuals in whatever country they conquered through force.

Freedom VS Equality VS Democracy

I have heard people lumping these three concepts together, as though they were one.  They are not one, Equality and Democracy are in direct opposition to Liberty.  Liberty is the absence of Physical Coercion (or “External Aggression”) upon an individual, provided that that individual is not doing something which causes physical harm to another[1].  Now, this idea of Freedom is not necessarily in direct opposition to Equality, depending upon the definition of Equality.  If by Equality, one means, equality before the law, that no one person, or group of people has more political rights than another, then it is not in opposition to Freedom, it is necessary for Freedom.  If, on the other hand, by Equality one means Equality of Material Condition, than that is direct opposition to Freedom.  To reduce everyone to the exact same Material Condition requires Physical Coercion, or its threat.  When you raise someone’s taxes, what are you saying is, “you must pay this extra amount of money, or else you will be thrown in prison.”  So, although taxes may be necessary for the existence of a State (which is in turn necessary to curb the External Aggression arising from both individuals and natural causes) we should[2] still recognize that taxation is a threat of violence, and thus immoral.  To not have a State would mean that rapists could roam free.  The Physical Coercion reaped by rapists upon the women they rape would be a much more harmful that the Physical Coercion needed to collect the taxes needed to pay the police to stop the rapist.  Thus, if one were forced to choose, one would have to conclude that taxation, though a violation of Liberty, would result in a greater amount of Liberty than that which would exist there being no State.  Thus, taxation is a bit like war: it may be necessary, but it is still immoral, thus it should be kept at a minimum.  To me at least, it then follows that we should seek to alleviate “poverty” in the world through peaceful non-coercive means which do not involve increasing the threats of violence associated with taxation.  One way to do this would be to end Agricultural Subsidies, and the Protectionism which the Ag industry enjoys.  This would involve less Physical Coercion, and would be a great boom to farmers in many Third World countries.  The products which they grow on their land would automatically become cheaper by comparison[3].  They could sell them in the West and make a lot of money.  So in a sense, the problem is not that the market is too free, rather the problem is that it is not free enough.  Another way to alleviate problems through less Physical Coercion is to ask: is there anything the individual can do to improve his lot?  Can he/she stop the activity which is causing himself/herself harm.  Can he stop drinking, smoking, eating shitty foods, having kids he can’t afford, taking out loans to buy homes he can’t afford etc.?  Many attack the very idea of Personal Responsibility, but in doing so they deny that human beings have Free Will, and are not slaves to culture.  The common rebuttal to this argument is that it is a copout, “Capitalism has failed us” these people declare, “the argument that the problem wasn’t Capitalism but State interference in the market is just an excuse that they use to hide the hidden realities of their failed system[4].”  But what is their excuse?  It has been about a year since the $800 Billion Stimulus and unemployment continues to rise, and we now have an extra $800 Billion added to the deficit!  What’s their explanation?  “Well,” they say, “the stimulus wasn’t big enough.”  In other words, their copout when their plans fail is that is just wasn’t enough.  Why did the New Deal not stop the Depression, despite the 10 years it had to work?  “Well, they just didn’t spend enough money!”  It’s so funny to hear Democrats who complained about Bush’s deficits now have almost nothing to say about Obama.  It is true, Bush was terribly profligate, but as far as I can tell, Obama is 10 times worse.

            Now, what is the conflict between Democracy and Freedom?  Well, if a majority of the people vote that gays should not be allowed to get married, it’s entirely democratic, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Freedom.  Two people of the same sex getting married causes no physical harm to anyone, thus they should be allowed to do it, the majority be damned!  Many complain that the Constitution is undemocratic, and they are right, that is the point.  We need constitutions to enshrine personal liberties which can not be taken away by anyone.  Many boast of the greatness of the “Social Democracies” which they have in Europe, but “Social Democracy” can lead to a savage tyranny.  We have seen this in France were the hijab was banned, and in Switzerland where buildings with minarets were banned.  Let me be clear: I am not opposed to Islam, or the practice of Islam.  What I am opposed to is people who want to Physical Coercion to make others  practice their religion, this is what I mean when I talk of Islamofascism.  To pass a law banning woman from wearing a hijab is as wrong as a law forcing a woman to wear a hijab.

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[1] This counts for External Aggression arising from the State, an individual, or from natural causes (such as earthquakes, or diseases spread through involuntary contact).

[2] I recently had someone attack me for using, “should” in a political argument, because I guess some old Freudian had something called, the “Tyranny of the Shoulds.”  This was deemed as proof to this person that I was suffering from some sort of mental illness.  What this person failed to recognize is that all political arguments involve “shoulds,”: taxes should be raised, taxes should be lowered, drugs should be legalized, drugs should not be legalized, etc. etc. When we advocate a public policy, we are trying to transform the world into how we think it should be.

[3] This video makes the point perfectly: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5633239795464137680&ei=F5xcS-ibEIW0qwLGyPSrCg&q=globalization+is+good&hl=en#

[4] There have also been many lies about Free Market economists recently as well, like the one that Friedman somehow had something to do with the coup in Chile, or this YouTuber “Radiohogan” who claims that Hayek thought, “all Socialists were represented by Nazis or Communists” a gross oversimplification of his Hayek’s position.  He obviously has not read, “The Road to Serfdom.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQwsgpZ9wM

Potential Responses to Buddhagem

A few weeks ago, I wrote and posted a blog criticizing Anarcho-Syndacalism, in “Social Criticism”, and was so curious as to what Anarcho-Syndicalists had to see that I contacted a number of them on YouTube.  The only person I received a response from was Buddhagem whom I exchanged a number of messages with via YouTube.  He explained that he would make a video criticizing my critique.  This sent me into a flurry of though and activity.  I began to ponder some of the potential problems with my blog, and write out defenses of criticisms which I anticipated Buddhagem would make.  Well, it’s been about two weeks without this supposed video, so I thought ehh, there’s some good stuff here.  Still waiting for that video about me though!  The bold headings indicate a potential problem with my argument that I anticipated Buddhagem to make, and my rebuttal to those criticisms.

 

“The Out of control defense” of CNT:

The argument that the murders in the CNT zone were conducting by individuals without party supervision is common amongst CNT apologists.  In many cases, this was true, but in my mind it still discredits the CNT because any governing body that can not protect people from external aggression is a failure.  Unfortunately for the apologists, the murders were not conducted just by individuals acting alone.  Buenaventura Durutti was one of the most prominent of the CNT commanders, and as Franz Borkenau remarked of his militia, “His column is known to be more ruthless than any other in shooting the fascists, the rich, and the priests in the villages[1].”  Borkenau also recalled of Durruti’s men that, “It seems they had been so ruthless, both in requisitions for the militia and in executions of both real and pretend ‘fasicsts’ that they had nearly provoked a rebellion in the village.  Neither had the executions yet stopped.  They are, it is said, a more or less regular feature of the activities of Durutti’s men[2].”  But I’m sure all of those priests and “rich” people were criminals who deserved to be executed without trial hugh?  It is certainly true that the CNT were the lesser of the three evils, and this is something I acknowledged in my blog.  But I also think its important to mention that while they may have killed less people they also had less opportunity to kill people.  They only controlled Catalonia, whose population was probably much lower in the 30’s than it is today.  It would be interesting to compare the percentage of innocent civilians killed by the CNT in Catalonia, with the percentage of innocents executed in other regimes.  For instance, Pinochet is widely recognized as having executed about 3,000 innocent, making him roughly as murderous as the CNT[3], but I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that Chile in the 70’s had a higher population than Catalonia in the 30’s, which would mean that the CNT were more murderous than the Chilean junta.  I’m might be wrong on that, it’s just a suggestion.  Some food for thought*.

But the CNT had a right to kill all those people because they were undergoing social revolution.

So, let me get this straight: if the CIA weatherboards a terrorist, you all scream, “war criminal, war criminal!” but Durutti and his men can go around executing whoever he damn well pleases and it’s all hunky dory?

You claim that I am, “sick” because I agree with the CNT’s practice of executions without trial.  Are you not sick because you approve of operations like Hiroshima or Operation Linebacker?

Bombing is sometimes necessary in war.  In war, one must do what is necessary to gain control over a piece of territory.  But, ounce control has been secured; there is no tangible reason to terrorize the populace.  We went to extraordinary length to gain control over Japan, but ounce we did so, we did not torture or execute anyone, execute for the top leaders, and only after they were given a trial.  Perhaps some of these priests, landowners, and factory owners were closet, “fascists” as the CNT claimed.  The thing to do then would be to hold them in prison, or expel them from the country.  Even if you still think I am sick for favoring Hiroshima, it does not automatically mean that you are not sick for favoring the execution of priests, and “the rich” without trial.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  You still must look into your own heart and contemplate your inhumanity.

Would they go after the middle class?

(in relation to my Kulak comment).  Like any other Communist movement, the CNT did have plans to eventually turn their guns on the middle class.  One CNT official remarked, “One this war has ended and the battle against fascism has been won we shall suppress every form of small property and in the way that it suits us.  We shall intensify collectivization and make them complete[4].”  The CNT were not opposed to using violence to reach their goals, and there were indications that they already had begun to go after the “rich” peasants.  Executing “rich” peasants was a common habit among Anarchist soldiers.  Borkenau also recalls that individual peasant holdings were being collectivized by the Anarchists, but it wasn’t entirely clear how much coercion was involved[5].  “Libertarian Communism” my ass!  The Spanish Anarchists were about as “Libertarian” as a brick to the face.

Was I lying in the sources?

I contended in my blog that thousands of people were killed without trial and provide a footnote to support this.  You claim that I was somehow lying about this.  Well, let’s turn to page 84 of Antony Beevor’s The Battle for Spain and see what it says, “Anarchists tended to despise this farce of legality and simply got on with the shooting.  Believing in the individual’s responsibility for his actions, they rejected any form of corporate ‘statism’ to hide behind.  The other reason for immediate execution was their genuine horror of putting anyone in prison, the most symbolic of all state institutions.”  This quote confirms my position, but the big question is, did I cite it?  Well, let’s see.  In my first footnote I indicated pages 83-86 of Beevor’s book.  Now what could that little “-“ symbol mean?  Well, if we were doing math homework, that “-“ symbol could be a minus sign, in which case the answer would be negative three.  But were not doing math homework are we, not this is history isn’t it?  So, what does that little, “-“ symbol mean?  It’s a “through symbol” isn’t it?  Which means we don’t just look at pages 83 and 86, but we have to also look at all of the pages in between 83 and 86.  Gosh, I wonder what could have possibly caused you to miss that?

 

My analogies and hypothetical scenarios:

The purpose of analogies and hypothetical scenarios is to make points and provoke thought.  So although the idea of someone trading a kidney for labor may seem silly, what one needs to look at is the message behind the conundrum and not so much the actual feasibility of the conundrum.  So, are my conundrums a little silly?  Yes, but I don’t really think they are any more silly then, “domesticating mosquitos”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmJsiPe6Qt0

Will you also teach them to do tricks?

But anyway, since the meaning behind my conundrums may be difficult to decipher, I will have to elaborate more.

The Kidney:  If someone has something, and someone else needs, and they want to make a voluntary trade of labor for said item, then why not let them?  Both parties benefit, both parties consent, and no one is coerced.  What about the “Labor Theory of Value”?  Well, the potential donor of the kidney may benefit more then the potential recipient, but ultimately both parties benefit.  So, what’s the problem?  Would you really rather Adam die, than Steve make a profit?  You could say, “this Adam character is sick, who would do something like this?”  This is a very good question; unfortunately I’m not the least bit interested in your moral judgments of Adam.  What I’m interested in is whether or not you would use force against Adam.

Bill Gates:  Whether or not Bill Gates uses what he own, or can use what he owns are all entirely subjective judgments.  Buddagem, you once said to me, “show me a Capitalist that can use what he own.”  The big problem is that if someone has to prove to you that they can use what they own, and you are the one who gets to make that subjective judgment, then you have just claimed for yourself dictatorial powers.  If someone has to prove that they can use what they own, the big question is: to whom must they prove it?  Who is the final arbiter of this judgment?  The community I guess?  Do you really believe that the community would never exploit the individual?  I doubt it.  What confuses me so much about you people is that you’re always taking about how you mistrust authority, and yet you seem to have this blind faith in the “community”.  Is the “community” not a form of authority?  Some would call me an apologist for Corporations, but let me tell you why I would fear this Worker’s Council far more than any Corporation.  The Corporation does not have the authority to just take through coercive means.  Corporations often get tax funds through subsidies, bailouts, and corporate welfare, all of which I am opposed to, but I think it’s important to mention that they did not take these things themselves.  These things were first taken by the Government, and then given to the Corporation.  A private business does not, by itself, have the power to just take.  It must engage in voluntary trade, the Worker’s Council on the other hand can just take if it sees fit.

The Carpenter:  The carpenter does no one harm by giving them a job.  Why should this be a punishable offense?  So totally arbitrary!

The Car:  If I rent my car out to someone else other people get to use it.  No one is harmed, both parties benefit, and both parties consent.  But you would like to make this a punishable offense?  If I rent my car out, it automatically becomes, “non-labor capitalist income” which means the Worker’s Militia can just take the car.  This basically means that I’m not going to rent it out to anyone, and thus no one gets to use it.  It seems as though you would like me to just never let anyone use my car than I make a profit?  It is because you people have an irrational hatred of profits.  During the Spanish Civil War, some of the “rich” peasants had grain in their silos while there were people starving in the cities[6].  What is the solution to this problem?  Well since I’m so sick with “False Consciousness” I would say that we could make a voluntary exchange: money or labor for the food.  Both parties benefit, both parties consent, and no one is coerced.  But we can’t exchange money for the food now can we?  No, because we burned all of the money didn’t we, because we said it was evil!  And we can’t exchange labor for the food, because that would be “Wage Slavery.”  So, what then is the Anarcho-Syndicalist solution to this problem?  My guess is that it looks something like this…:

 

“From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs Bitch!  Give us the goddamn food or will fucking kill you!”  Yes, just taking things from people at the barrel of a gun is a much more “progressive” way to deal with problems than voluntary exchanges, now I see the light.  A common rebuttal to this is that people don’t need incentives to share with the community.  Perhaps this is true of some people, but it’s not true for everyone, and would you really want to deny the positive contributions of people who expect profit?  I also think that in declaring the people don’t need incentives to share, you are just projecting your beliefs onto others.

“False Consciosness Canard”:

In accusing me of being brainwashed by Capitalist propaganda, you are simply relying on the old “False Consciousness” canard.  You think that people who do not perceive the world in the same way you perceive the world, or who have different values than you, are brainwashed!  The underlying assumption behind this argument is that your way of thinking is the only correct one, a very arrogant way to think.

Is this government?

Does anyone have the authority to initiate force against anyone else, at anytime for any reason?  If you think so, then you are completely batty.  The Worker’s Militia is the only one that can do that.  Thus, it has a monopoly on force, thus it is a State.

But doesn’t the State use force to defend private property?

There is a huge difference between defensive force, and coercive force.  If someone tried to steal your car, and the State used force get it back to you, then that would be Defensive Force.  It wouldn’t matter that you weren’t “actively using it” at the moment it was stolen, or that the engine could be used to power a machine to make clothes for poor people, which would be a more utilitarian use for it than you driving it; you have a right to use force to get it back.  Likewise, if the “worker’s” tried to take over a factory, then the State has a right to use force to stop them, because the factory doesn’t belong to them.  There is a huge difference between using force to take the property of another, and the use of force to defend your own property.

Are the MOP still the MOP if no one is using them? is a criminal still a criminal if he’s not committing a crime?

Producing a product does no harm to anyone, but rape, robbery, murder etc. these things do cause harm to another.  It is completely different.

Capitalism isn’t democracy because we don’t directly control corporations through the ballot box.

In a Democracy, there are certain rights which can’t be taken by the majority.  Certain rights which are not subject to the majority’s whims.  One of these must be private property.  The corporation does not belong to you, thus you can not just take it over.  The corporation has no coercive authority over anyone, it engages in voluntary trade.  Sometimes Corporations use the State to enforce their interest (and this is wrong), but Unions and Environmentalists do the same exact thing.

I didn’t approve his comments:

I swear to the God That Does Not Exist that I have approved every comment that I have gotten so far.  I think he’s just lying, or doesn’t know what he’s doing.  I even posted comments on my blog through a different E-Mail and it worked just fine.  I challenge you the reader to post something on this blog and watch how fast it gets approved.

Property Rights Aren’t Important?:

The peasants wanted clearly defined property rights for their holdings, but the Anarchists objected to this due to, “the dogmatic reason that they are opposed to centralized legislation of any kind.”  This failure to protect the private property of the peasants would be one of the factors leading to the downfall of the Anarchists[7].

*Some good sources on the populations of Catalonia and Chile. In 1900, Catalonia only had 2,000,000 inhabitants, and the population does not appear to have increased dramatically until about the 50’s, so one could assume that the population in the 30’s wasn’t that much higher than it was in 1900. On the other hand, Chile had a population of about 10,000,000 inhabitants in the 70’s. All this would lend support to my claim that the CNT were more murdorouse than Pinochet, as a percentage of the population killed. So, if we condemn Pinochet up, down, and sidewise, we must also condemn the CNT up, down, and sidewise.

http://www.gencat.cat/catalunya/eng/poblacio.htm

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:CHL&q=Chile+population

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[1]F ranz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War, (Toronto: The University of Michigan Press, 1963), 95

Franz Borkenau actually visited Catalonia in 1936, and his commentary serves as an effective antidote to the mindless romanticism of Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.

[2] Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War, (Toronto: The University of Michigan Press, 1963), 109

[3] Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War, (Toronto: The University of Michigan Press, 1963), 110

[4] Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution, 59

[5] Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War, (Toronto: The University of Michigan Press, 1963), 97, 203-204

[6] Anthony Beevor, The Battle For Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939, 112-113

[7] F ranz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War, (Toronto: The University of Michigan Press, 1963),178-179, 205

Marx is out of date, ditto for Bakunin

We must remember that Marx  and Bakunin were writing in the 19^th Century which was a completely different time.  Their ideas are entirely inconsistent with 21^st Century realities.  I thus consider their work highly out of date for three basic reasons:

1.  No Labor Laws:  In the 19^th Century there were no laws to protect workers from bodily harm while on the job.  One of the reasons that I’m not a Libertarian is that I support such laws.  Workplace hazards are a form of External Aggression, thus it is a duty of government to ensure that worker’s do not have to risk life and limb.  All of you “Pristine Libertarians” should read The Jungle!

2.  The lower classes had not yet acquired property:  In the 19^th Century, Western Civilization was just coming of out centuries of feudalism, in which the lower classes were not even allowed to own property.  Thus, from Marx’s perspective, he perceived property rights to be a tool of the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat, because few proletariats had much property to speak of.  But this would quickly change as the Industrial Revolution would soon produce goods so inexpensive that the lower classes would be able to start buying them.  It really is interesting how fast people’s attitudes toward property rights change ounce they can actually own something.

3.  No Birth Control:  In the 19^th Century, birth control was not easily accessible.  There were Comstock Laws and other such things which made it impossible to reach these things.  The effect of these measures was that women were forced to have far more children than they probably wanted, which completely reeks havoc upon a family’s standard of living.  But now, with easily accessible contraception, and (for the time being) legalized abortion, families can limit the number of children they have.  Having more children then one can afford is one of the top causes of poverty.  Rather than expecting a government handout, or forcing others to pay for your mistakes, why not deal with your poverty by exercising you individual right to control your reproductive organs?  And why are condoms so cheap and accessible?  Capitalist competition!