Announcements

TONIGHT, January twoth, 2008, and each night hereafter for about eight nights, there is a free series of interactive discussions on something called "The Journey." I cannot vouch for this one way or the other, and some parts of me say that it's mega "woo woo" while other parts of me say, Cool stuff! It's a form of personal inquiry and cleansing on an emotional and cellular level, maybe, if I get it right. I have a friend who has been studying it now for quite some time and is a certified practitioner in the method and it has done wonders for her.

For those of you who follow this place via RSS—and therefore wouldn’t’ve noticed when I updated the sidebar—I am offering caramels for sale. Several varieties are available, and others, as well as other treats if one is interested, can be had. If you’re interested in giving caramel gifts for Christmas, the deadline for placing those orders is Sunday, December 14 (primarily so they’ll have plenty of shipping time).

We can start the annual truffle flavor selection conversation at any time, too. :-)

I am all kinds of happy to announce that NonEntity has accepted my invitation to become a Conspirator. Here’s his bio, for the curious. I don’t know how frequently he’ll post, but his comments have already been worthwhile, and I hope we’ll get better glimpses into his mind, whenever he wants to share.

Welcome, NonEntity! Skål!

What with the change in comment and registration policies, I figured it was time to knuckle down and finish my ramble attempting to summarize the guidelines for participating here. So here you go: Getting the Lay of the Land. Comments are disabled there, but are welcome on this post. A link to it will go in the sidebar for easy reference, of course.

This long-overdue page is intended to more clearly identify the guidelines of acceptable conduct at this site. Oriented mostly toward prospective and new participants, it may nonetheless be helpful for regulars as well, as it represents some changes in thought from previous incarnations of this page (which may not be here any longer). As circumstances and changes in my ideas and attitudes may warrant, the page will be modified.

The primary purpose of this group blog is to provide a place to explore ideas and issues relating to freedom and individualism. Both being broad categories, there are many perspectives and paths possible, and I like seeing them. I like helping others to recognize the diversity inherent in both as well; and I deeply appreciate learning from others whose approaches are different from mine. Thus, this place is a fairly open forum for conversation; but that does not mean it is open to all conversation.

First and foremost, as this is a private site—that is to say, not sponsored or run by any state employee or official—the First Amendment does not apply here. We are not under any obligation to provide a venue for every person who wants to post comments here; and we will not do so. Trolling and spamming are two obvious activities that aren’t welcome at all, under any circumstances.

My goal here is to provide a place where individuals can respectfully, civilly consider and exchange ideas and information via conversation with other participants. It is not a commercial site, and no ads will be accepted here. (If you want to target this audience with an ad, please consider Sunni’s Salon the way to accomplish that—with many more readers seeing it, most likely.) Trolling is a bit harder to pin down, as there’s more of a judgment call involved in applying that label. Some actions—trollish and otherwise—that are not welcome here include: framing questions or issues in a non-neutral or incivil way way (e.g., assuming anarchy or voluntaryism is necessarily utopian and therefore unobtainable, that religious individuals are necessarily hypocritical or incapable of rational thought, that tax avoidance is somehow “better” or “worse” than another form of pro-freedom economic activism); disrupting a conversation with a barely-relevant tangent, long quotations, strawman smackdown, or efforts to divert the conversation elsewhere; any sort of holier–than–thou attitude directed at another participant; and flame wars and personal attacks between participants. Conspirators may have differing criteria regarding comments on their posts than I do; in those cases, I will do my best to honor their preferences while keeping true to the spirit of this place.

Somewhat related to the trolling issue, I consider it extremely boorish to make statements claiming or insinuating that one “knows” what’s in another contributor’s mind, or what another’s intent is. Especially among individuals who have never met face to face, that is simply impossible. Observe that I try to use such words and phrases as “appears to”, “perhaps”, “many individuals”, “it may be that”, rather than statements of fact that I cannot know or support—although I am not perfect on this. I find such precision aids my thinking as well as writing. It also helps keep conversations from getting overheated.

Without getting too deeply into the DAM (“Dreaded Anarchist–Minarchist”) debate, I will just say that pro-state perspectives are not welcome here. (I consider voting a pro-state activity, by the way.) I expect that all readers who want to join the conversation would agree that the many layers of government in our lives are entirely too much; and thus the focus is on scaling back coercive systems and identifying the flawed ideology underlying them. That said, there are many ways to accomplish that, and many different end points possible between where we currently are and total voluntaryism. Any contributions that advance liberty along that continuum are welcome—viz., one needn’t worry overmuch about purity issues. To be even more clear, I have few quibbles with minarchism, as long as more coercive rules and/or glorification of the state aren’t advocated.

If you’re in doubt as to your ability to abide by these guidelines, keep in mind that I am not expecting everyone to think in lockstep. I know of voters who participate here, for example, as well as proponents of “intellectual” property—but when those issues arise, they tend not to engage, or do so respectfully rather than antagonistically. I hope that’s because they understand that opposing views do not in and of themselves constitute a personal attack. Read through various comment threads and you should get a good idea of how to contribute here; and you will likely be welcomed by us all.

One may participate here by registering. Doing so confers two benefits to you: your comments are not held in moderation; and your comments are “verified”, i.e., an anonymous user cannot post a comment using your user name. At this time, registration requires admin approval before one can post. This is an anti–troll and –spammer measure. You may wish to facilitate your possible approval by sending me a brief email introducing yourself [my eddress is my first name at this domain; and I do use encryption]. Gibberish user names and/or eddresses from countries that are notorious for spammers will be deleted after 24 hours if I don’t receive an email requesting approval. The few trolls with whom I have personal experience are not welcome to post here; I will similarly bar others on conspirators’ recommendations.

Anonymous users may also post comments, but they are held for possible moderation. An anonymous comment may be approved as is, may be edited (with no intent of altering meaning, but perhaps removing inflammatory content—if edited, I will clearly state why I edited the comment), may be deleted but mentioned in a comment by me, or may be deleted entirely without mention. Because they are anonymous and I have no way of verifying content, there is a much higher bar for approving anonymous comments than registered users’ comments.

Any registered user who posts an offtopic link to a commercial site (e.g., peddling penis pills, bogus financial/mortgage help, antidrug sites, sex vids or sites) will be considered a spammer and the account will be deleted.

Okay, this is way longer than I had intended when I set out to write it. I hope it is helpful rather than intimidating. If you need help figuring out what html codes can be used in a comment, click on the “input format” link to see what’s usable. As already stated, if necessary, this ramble will be edited and/or updated. If anyone has questions, my eddress information is in here already, so figure it out and give me a shout. Thanks for your time.

I have long been squirming in my seat, waiting for this day ... and in fact, I thought I’d be on the other side of this post, so to speak—in the reading audience instead of writing it. But this is good news I’ve already been waiting too long to share; and now that I’ve obtained permission to share it, I shall delightedly do so.

Now that I have your attention, may I –ahem– titillate you a bit more, by saying that to find out what I mean, you’ll have to follow me to the second part of this tease ... where the photographic evidence can be found.

My silence has been due to FAPpage again, rather than anything else. But enough about my silly problems—I’m here on behalf of a dear friend, longtime family member, and activist extroardinaire.

Vince Miller is one of the founders of the International Society for Individual Liberty, a great organization which has advanced the freedom philosophy worldwide in numerous ways over the past few decades. Some of you may recall that when Free-Market.Net was in danger of disappearing, ISIL stepped in and kept the organization going. ISIL has also been a big supporter of another project near and dear to me, the Liberty English Camps. They recently bought Laissez Faire Books as well, and have been offering terrific, really pro-freedom books primarily online while they get all the details of reopening the shop ironed out. This is a small sampling of the work Vince has been involved in, so that you grok what I meant when I called him “tireless” and an activist extroardinaire. He has done all this and more, with a cheerful mien and a can-do attitude, no matter what challenges he faced. Despite the various stresses upon Lobo and myself during the FMN/ISIL transition, working with Vince was always a bright spot throughout that time.

As “cls” recounts in his entry titled A chance to do something good, Vince recently contracted pneumonia, which was serious enough to require hospitalization. He is recovering, but remains in the hospital, with no clear timeline on when he’s likely to be released. Like me, Vince does not have health insurance. He intends to pay the bill himself, of course, but he has poured much of his life’s energy into the freedom movement instead of more monetarily profitable ventures; it will be a hard go of it for him.

Lobo and I have already pledged to help with Vince’s medical expenses. I hope that all of you reading will consider doing likewise if you’re able. Contributions can be made via ISIL’s online donation form—be sure to select “general donation”, otherwise the funds won’t be put to this purpose. If you prefer, you can call Jim Elwood at 800-326-0996 to discuss other contribution options.

Vince is not asking for charity, and he certainly isn’t going to allow himself to be bailed out by the state. But this is a perfect opportunity for us in the family to put our voluntaryist principles into action, and show that we aren’t hard-hearted bastards as we’re too frequently depicted by the mainstream media and politicians.

Thank you for whatever you contribute to help my friend and an inspiring family member. If you’re interested in following Vince’s recovery, I recommend you check out Classically Liberal blog, as that’s where news will probably be posted first.

[Note: This "story" has been slightly modified from its original form, as an essay published in Free-Market.Net's FMNews.]

Yes, I know -- I've cribbed my title from Douglas Adams. But it's appropriate, given the subject of this essay and my continuing struggles to find my voice after the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hiibel case. And, unlike the Harvard professor, I'm admitting it freely, so it shouldn't come back to haunt me. ;-)

I am all kinds of pleased to announce that my dear friend Polka—a longtime commenter at this place—has graciously accepted my invitation to join the conspiratorial band here! Like all the conspirators, she’s a busy person, so I’m not sure what her schedule will permit in the way of blogging ... but I am confident that her contributions will be stimulating to many regular readers.

Here’s Polka’s profile, for anyone interested in learning more about her. Witamy, Polka!

Yes, it is at last true: I have begun adding my essay archive back to this place. Lamentations, justifications, prognostications, and probably more –ations are offered on that page, so I shan’t repeat them here ... but if there are requests for certain essays to re-appear, I am happy to consider them. A link to the archive is in the right sidebar, under “Noteworthy Nodes” for easy access.

Thanks to B.W. and P.T. for the kick in the posterior scales on this matter.

I have been delaying this for various reasons, but I really can’t any longer. It’s time for me to get on with life.

For the benefit of my Wisconsin readers: Wendy McElroy will be speaking in Madison on Monday, 2/25. The basics of it:

To learn more about being a responsible voter or nonvoter, you can attend a forum on voting featuring Ms. McElroy and Professor Brighouse Monday, February 25 at 7:00 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin School of Law, Room 5229. The event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy.

I don’t think I’ve heard her give a formal talk, but I have met Wendy in person, and read a few of her books, and found her to be a lively, clever, and engaging thinker. Given her writings on the subject of non-voting, this should be an interesting evening!

It’s officially available! B.W. mentioned it as part of his January 16th celebration, saying he thought it’d be available by February first. But I’ve gotten word that The Imaginary Bomb is on sale now, as a downloadable file or paper format. Congratulations, B.W.!

Or maybe more than one victory: that’s up to you esteemed readers.