Rants

After my last words on the R.P. diversion, I took a long break from LRC. The only exceptions had been Butler Shaffer, and one of the columnists who focused on health issues; but, as the latter recently leveled “intellectual” property violation charges against some excerpts posted in my area at The Boondocks, I’ve stopped reading him. Then—silly me—I heeded the urgings of several people and started browsing the blog, primarily because Butler Shaffer posts there. However, after reading several posts like these, I’m done with the entire site. It’s one thing to encounter nationalistic, grossly oversimplified perspectives in political and media propaganda, but to find it permeating an allegedly pro-freedom web site is too much for me.

Libertarians of all stripes love to talk about principles. Specifically, they like to talk about their principles. The Libertarian Party in the U.S. calls itself “the party of principle”. Yet among its leaders are some who have succumbed to politics as usual at a level equal to the Democrats and Republicans they love to scorn. Libertarians love to debate and pontificate about the Non-Aggression Principle. Yet many support a U.S. war against Iraq and the nebulous “war on terror” despite the inevitable civilian casualties and other catastrophic, NAP-violating consequences of each. Many libertarians think of themselves as being generally more principled than other people. That may be accurate on balance, but I’ve evidence suggesting that, at least on matters of keeping one’s word, libertarians are no better than the “dull normals” some of them enjoy sneering at.

For the past four years I’ve had the honor of working as a contract employee for a major pro-freedom organization. I call it an honor not because I was somehow singled out or had special qualifications for my job, but because of the kind of work I did. I helped spread ideas and information important to liberty to interested individuals worldwide.

In the post-9/11 economic climate, fundraising for this highly prominent organization became more of a challenge. Efforts to secure grants from new sources were stepped up, as were general calls for member donations to help keep the organization afloat. Many, many promises were made of forthcoming support—promises from so-called liberty supporters to an organization widely respected for its work advocating and teaching freedom.

In many cases, that support never arrived.

Somehow the CEO of the organization managed to keep it afloat through a series of financial crises, yet in the end that was not enough to keep the organization going. It has been shut down, in large part because of an ongoing financial crisis that could easily have been averted.

I’m not naïve enough to think that some management decisions couldn’t have been better, or cutbacks initiated sooner. Still, it comes down to this: people promised to support the organization, and failed to follow through. A follow-through rate of just 50% on promises of support would likely have been enough to keep the organization going.

These are among those same individuals who proclaim to stand steadfast on principle, who supposedly uphold honor and integrity as the highest human values. Among them are heads of other major organizations, whose funding hasn’t been as severely threatened, and foundations that reneged on agreements of support. From the luminaries of the libertarian movement to the so-called “little guys”, many said one thing and did another.

If anyone thinks I’m just bitter about losing my paycheck, those individuals are missing the point. I will find other means of supporting myself and my family. I hope to continue doing so in a way that advances freedom.

Because that’s what this comes down to: freedom and principles. I know that unexpected events can throw the best-intentioned person into a tailspin. I’m guilty of failing to keep promises myself. Even so, I try extremely hard to be as certain as I can be of my ability to keep a promise before I make it; and if I can’t keep the promise, I let the other party know, and we reach some alternate arrangement that’s satisfactory to all. I don’t think this organization had much communication of that sort, which would have allowed its CEO to make better contingency plans.

More than anything else, I love freedom. It is the driving force in my life. I needn’t remind anyone of the degree to which freedom is under assault worldwide. Particularly alarming is the attack in the U.S., from our own so-called leaders, who pass legislation like USA PATRIOT and Homeland Security which they’ve not even read, proclaiming those laws will help protect us, when all they really do is strip more of our freedoms away, ensnare us in ever-more life-sucking bureaucracy, and ultimately create a society of repression, intolerance, and fear that will rival—and likely surpass—the U.S.S.R.

The organization I’m writing of had been a beacon of freedom throughout all of this. Despite its budget problems that caused staffing to be cut and services scaled back, it had been breaking traffic records at most of its web sites. Worldwide, the flagship web site was highly known and well-respected. I’ve been to countless web pages upon which one of the few bits of English I’ve seen was its name.

And now that organization—one of the brightest beacons of freedom worldwide—has been snuffed. It died primarily because the people who claimed to value it—those self-proclaimed adherents to principles—never followed through on promises to send in a donation.

I hope you’ll excuse me for not buying into any claims that libertarians are more principled than anybody else for a long time.

A while back, I mused on a possible outcome of the economic situation in the USSA, in Lemonade for Voluntaryists?. And today, I discover that the lemonade is starting to flow.

This semi-rant has been building for some time, as I’ve wandered around the web and seen all manner of definitions and musings about what rights are and where they come from and how they should be identified, protected, enforced, etc. Fie to all, I say.

My, my, my. The bad news has been mounting fast for all the healthocrats protecting the USSA flock. Crows might become an endangered species soon. It could happen ... if all the nanny-ninnies were intellectually honest enough to admit that they’ve been wrong for decades.

Lobo and I undertook a recon mission a few days ago—we visited an upscale supermarket in the area, in hopes they’d have a larger selection of Asian goods than the other stores in the area. We were wrong on that, but were pleasantly surprised to find competitive prices on a few things (not enough to make regular stops there worthwhile, however).

I did find something in the dairy section that got my culinary coils all knotted up. Imagine this mashup: the epitome of 1970s-tech “convenience” foods, processed and packaged in a pressurized can for squirting, then consuming; and current organic food mania.

There’s been a lot of grouching lately about how Congress isn’t focusing on the “important things”, such as the the federal budget, the general economic slump in the USSA, and the wars it allowed the president to start. Given the mediocrity with which they’ve handled these issues—which are by and large the inevitable result of bloated state government—isn’t better that they focus their time on such ponderous matters as obstetric fistula, congratulating Israel for being around for 60 years, a national bicycling strategy, “celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day”, Frank Sinatra Day, steroid use in baseball, and spying in football? The way I see it, the more time they spend on such idiocies means there’s less time for the Congressmen to steal away our time and money. Alas and alack, however, one has gotten a grand idea for addressing the steep oil price increases of late.

A colleague and too-infrequent correspondent of mine in the freedom movement has, for as long as I’ve known him, signed his emails with the line “Only interested in freedom”. The first time I saw it, my immediate response was, “Well, duh!!”, but over time I’ve come to appreciate some nuances inherent in the phrase. At the risk of sounding like a purist who wants to herd the cats, I’ve been finding myself wishing more liberty-lovers would adopt the line and its implications.

Anyone who’s been in the movement for more than a day knows that we are often our own worst enemies. Far and above all the divisiveness separating Objectivists and Libertarians or anarchists and minarchists is the human tendency to put our own personal interests or desires ahead of freedom. Thus one can find examples of individuals who say they’re anarchists supporting laws that coerce individuals into certain behaviors, or that prohibit nonfraudulent, voluntary transactions. In recent conversations with individuals, I’ve been surprised by emotionalism that often appears to be guiding their thinking, and the negative responses to even hypothetical situations that would challenge the world they want to see.

My recent time in the southwestern desert reaffirmed and refocused my commitment to the freedom movement. I discovered that I am, at heart, “only interested in freedom”. To me, that phrase has become a simple metric against which to measure any plan: will this increase individual freedom or decrease it? If it’s the latter, I’m against the plan.

I had no idea how unpopular such a simple thing could be.

If no one takes an extreme position for freedom and considers the possibilities, how will we know that our progress is truly that? Without a vision of total freedom to guide our day-to-day choices and thinking, it’s all too easy to be sucked into the quagmire of today’s unfree systems. I’m not arguing for a utopian solution, nor saying that a Grand Unified Plan for Freedom must be spelled out in excruciating detail before we act. Considering the “impractical extremes” that some libertarians dismiss is essential to our cause, and to our progress. So, for me, thinking about what kinds of justice services might be offered in a free society is just as important as opening individuals’ eyes to the current sham of justice under the so-called “rule of law”.

I’m only interested in freedom. That means that, as far as I’m able (and fortunately, I’ve a number of good friends who help me when my thinking gets muddled), I don’t let personal preferences cloud my thinking about freedom.

Thus, though I despise physical or psychological abuse, I do not advocate more laws to help solve those problems. There’s no “solving” something that is part of human nature (which is an animal nature, after all), and I firmly believe that we’d see far fewer cases of infanticide, fratricide, and related horrors in a free society. Similarly, while I don’t use many mind-altering substances, I see no reason why my preferences ought to dictate what any other responsible person can do in the privacy of his own home.

I long to see truly free markets. Consumerism has been an evolving process for millennia—why on earth should we think that it would stop simply because some don’t like the thought of “big-box stores” replacing smaller-box stores? Farmers used to sell their wares from their farms, or haul them to markets in the nearby towns to sell; then merchants came along to do that task. Then, “Mom and Pop” stores were largely swept aside by supermarkets that were able to offer greater variety and better prices, largely due to technological innovations and economies of scale. WalMart is carrying on the proud economic tradition of supplying consumer demand—something that I won’t shed a tear over. I’m happy to shop at WalMart because they offer a lot of what I want—decent merchandise at low prices. When I want something special, or a higher level of customer service, I patronize a specialty store, and happily pay for getting what I want. [Addendum: at the time I wrote this, I chose not to address the other side of the issue, viz. WalMart’s use of eminent domain and other laws to acquire property for stores. That has always been problematic for me. More importantly, as I have embraced the Discordian philosophy, WalMart has become part of the consumerist system I try to avoid feeding as much as possible.]

Zoning regulations that are thinly disguised protectionism for some special group or cause, laws that create artificial scarcity or monopolies, prohibitions on how an individual can earn a living—they’re all cut from the same statist cloth, and I want nothing to do with them. This has apparently horrified some self-proclaimed freedom lovers, for I’ve been called amoral and disloyal, among other things.

I’m only interested in freedom. What that means is that I don’t care what anyone thinks of me, and I don’t much care what anyone thinks of my ideas unless he can show me—with clear, reasoned arguments free of loaded definitions—where I’m wrong. If your view will help get us to a freer world, then I’m all for it. I don’t care if I’m right or if I’m wrong—I just want freedom.

What that means, though, is that no appeal to public good, general interest, or some other group-based outcome or situation will hold any truck with me. Individual liberty is always usurped under those banners. Far too long have they flown, keeping creative, innovative individuals in the thrall of the collectivists who would steal their labors for the benefit of others, under the guise of “public welfare” or some other convenient fiction. It is precisely this sort of horridly misguided justification of the theft of others’ time and labor that has enabled and encouraged the statists to continue to steal from each of us, under the guise of “doing good”.

It is not good to be a thief—which is what everyone becomes, whether he wants to or not under the state’s programs of welfare and other “services”. It is not good to be the recipient of stolen goods—which is what everyone becomes under as widespread a system of looting and redistributing as we see in the United States today.

I’m only interested in freedom. I’m not interested in dredging up all history’s mistakes and seeking retribution for them—there are too many, and no innocent parties among adults. I’m only interested in the past insofar as it sheds light on failed solutions, so that we may find better ones to light our way. Patents and copyrights try to create artificial scarcity—where, thanks to technological advances, none need exist in most areas. A state-supported monopoly is a monopoly of the worst sort; thus I embrace the changes that are coming to creative endeavors that seek to shrug off these outmoded monopolies. The change is going to be chaotic, and likely very difficult for many, as they adjust to the reality that their preferred way of earning a living will not suffice any longer. This has had personal implications for me, as I had the goal of supporting myself via my writing. But I’m more interested in freedom than serving my short-term wants.

I welcome the future, for all its chaotic change, because I’m confident that freedom will win. There’s nothing that the state need provide for us—private markets unfettered by taxation, state-driven artificialities, or other interference can meet human needs. Indeed, they can do so better, cheaper, and much more reliably.

It’s easy for an individual to say that he or she is interested in freedom—many people profess to be, every day. But many seem to want to be granted permission to be free—as if any state would voluntarily free all its slaves. Others agitate for freedom in some areas, while overlooking coercive measures that supposedly work to their benefit, or which allegedly help create a nicer world.

We can’t break free of our shackles if we don't have our hearts firmly committed to working toward total freedom. We won’t create a totally free utopia—but we can’t make as much progress as we might if we don’t set our sights on the highest goal possible.

I’m only interested in freedom. What about you?



Author’s note: This essay was inspired in part by Iloilo Marguerite Jones, to whom it is admiringly dedicated.

How do I despise the USSA’s socialist health care system? Let me count the ways!

Another tease on the Google News page that I knew I should resist following, but failed to exercise sufficient self control:

Nearly 13 Tennesseans die every week due to lack of health insurance, according to a report published this week by Families USA.

Surely the researchers weren’t stupid enough to phrase their conclusion like that!, I thought as I clicked to read the Nashville Business Journal report.

Yep, you guessed it: I attempted to upgrade my Linux OS yet again. That required more maneuvering than I’d anticipated, but I finally got all the preliminary steps completed, and slipped the install disc into my machine. Actually, I tried three discs—each of them sent to me from the Ubuntu Overlords (I think the real name is Canonical)—and failed with all three.

No matter what option I choose from the initial menu, after the "kernel active" message appears in white text, the screen goes blank; then, after a few seconds, the disc stops spinning. And nothing else happens. I had thought this was happening because the discs weren’t set up to handle my nice wide screen monitor; but today I plugged in an old monitor and got the same result.

I can’t download what I’d need to burn my own disc because it exceeds our satlink provider’s niggardly “fair access policy” limit. Exceeding that slows one’s connection to under dialup speed for 24 hours.

I really, really want to have a newer Kubuntu install on my system before I leave ... but I am completely out of ideas as to why I cannot get any of their discs to work in my machine. (Well, I know why the PC one didn’t work—I have a 64-bit machine. But neither of the 64-bit install discs work.) One more try and then I’m going to hit the bottle.

Strike the Root has published an article titled Vulgar Anti-Corporatism. As readers of Kevin Carson’s excellent Mutualist Blog would immediately suspect from the title, the idea is a riff on Carson’s “vulgar libertarian watch” concept. However, Hogeye Bill’s article wasn’t at all persuasive to me.

Sorry, I’m still stuck in econ-land ... hard not to be fascinated by how exactly the USSA economic train is going to end up jumping the rails.

I knew, just from reading the title, that I would be sputtering with indignation if I clicked through to read Is a taste of deceit with carrots so bad for kids?. I clicked. Consider yourselves warned.

As I wrote a while back, in One Individual Defines an Entire Ideology?, I have been trying to understand the sentiment, apparently common amongst a broad swath of libertarians, that distills to “If you aren’t for R.P. then you aren’t a real libertarian”. I have encountered some pretty interesting linguistic gymnastics along the way, along with what strikes me as a lot of intolerance for those of us who love liberty deeply, yet aren’t worshipping at the feet of Dr. No.