Recent comments

This reveals the downsides of being "law-abiding". As we learned from experience on our homeschooling email list, many mothers who registered with the state wish they hadn't, while no noncompliant mom ever wished she had.

Yeah, I don't believe the "duped" line either.

Great stuff, do not wait for the masses to understand or permit your own liberty. Prepare for it here and now. Even if it means you have to starve the beast. or get ready for its collapse.

Come now, Will, don't be greedy.  You've won the Black Rosette for January, surely you don't want the February one as well?

Thank you for the kind words, dhowlandir. Scarcity is a natural consequence of resources being finite. As more people demand a particular resource or good, a finite supply naturally becomes more scarce. This leads to increased competition for those resources. When the supply of a resource is faced with overwhelming demand, the allocation of those resources can lead to violence, but not if a strong, peaceful culture exists. The most peaceful method of allocating resources is through trade (the economic means). The alternative is taking it by force (the political means). Cultures based on peaceful exchange (the economic means) are superior to cultures based on conquest and exploitation (the political means), IMHO. If markets were truly free, then the allocation of resources would likely become much more efficient and create more innovation such that we may achieve sufficient abundance to also achieve a very high satisfaction rate among the population, but people are never satisfied and there are always stragglers (see Pareto's Law). This is a good thing because it keeps us adapting, improvising and overcoming - that is: improving our living conditions. Social constructs like free-markets are very useful tools in that area. The important thing is to create new alternatives and substitutes for finite resources (e.g. sun for oil). Free-trade excells at this task while the state is inherently controlled by special interests that seek to use the state (monopoly on violence) for their exploitative agenda. The most fundamental libertarian tenet is The Non-Aggression Principle which is the opposite of "domination of our fellow man" being a "goal of libertarians." Further, I am also "hesitant to believe that the election of any politician to be of that much importance to the real changes that need to be made". My view is that Trump is but one player in a larger worldwide social anti-establishment trend, but a very visible player. Not so much because of his political influence, but also his social influence (e.g. humiliating the corporate media and strengthening the scope and influence of independent journalism on the internet helping cast newspapers, magazines and the TV networks into the dustbin of history leading to more decentralization of political power). Finally, peace and respect are certainly necessary conditions for freedom. I'm glad you brought that up. I ended this piece saying "Liberty will prevail in the end when enough people value it and are willing to fight for it." When I say "fight", I don't mean with arms, but in the arena of ideas. We must battle dangerous ideas with calm resolve using facts, logic and reason. And point out the "violence inherent in the system" when those maintaining a position that can not withstand debate resort to name-calling and violence. I do, however, believe in effective self-defense.

Thank you, Jim. The progressive label is the opposite of what these neo-barbarians seek and regressives would be more accurate; and they are anything but liberal. However, I think that I used this term too many times in the article to put it in quotation marks throughout.

Hi Mark this is a really good article, you say a lot of meaningful things. I'm not sure whether scarcity is such a basic fact of life. If we live in a world where there is really enough for all of us, as I believe seems to be the case, then abundance would seem to be the norm, and "scarcity" the result of organizing ourselves in a system based on violence and an exaggeration of the value of competition. I'm also hesitant to think the election of any politician to be of that much importance to the real changes that need to be made. :) Aside from that, this is one of your best articles, and the best thing i've seen in STR in some time. I especially like your view of the importance of social constructs, in view of some of the recent discussions I've seen here. Respect for the others point of view will be important if we really want to live free, and in peace. And I hope that domination of our fellow man may cease to be the goal of "libertarians". Have a great day!

shoot.....happened again it seems.   

Certainly hope everything is alright with Sam. I have appreciated his input on this forum, and have always looked foward to when he gives his perspective bluntly, without hesitance, and right from his heart. 

Hi, Jim. Glad you like him. The issue of claims seems to revolve around what you have transformed into productive use. And Kinsella would add, that you must make unambiguous boundaries.

It's a fine and concise communication, Alex, and I wish you luck. Good to see there may be at least one of your formerly Libertarian principles still intact.   It presents utilitarian arguments. Although good, I suggest those are inferior to the one endorsed by the new President; that gun rights are natural rights which, in Amendment 2, the Feds have sworn not to abridge.   Does the US Constitution bind the State of Vermont? - maybe not, by Amendment 10. But the Vermont one, in Chapter 1 Article 16, says much the same thing.   All that is paper, which Pols routinely ignore. Until government is eliminated, natural rights will be relentlessly eroded. But then - I nearly forgot - you no longer believe in rights anyway.

So Google is the new Goebbels, deciding what news is fake and what is fit to be read.   There are other search engines; I've been using Ixquick. Any others recommended?

Sam Spade ("Samarami") has met with misfortune and will not be present for posting. Written by daughter on Smart Phone

Guess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a shocker.

Guess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a shocker.

Guess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a schocker.

Guess I will just say I enjoyed the perceptive article and to note that I had a representative who actually communicated with me twice about issues coming up for vote, but no more have ever come requesting my input. Ha. Really a schocker.

Ken: Interesting stuff. Do you prep for dooms day?

Douglas, I am probably way left field wrong about this, but wasn't Moore a GM lay off who had an ax to grind because he was laid off? Might have been one of the line workers caught on film drinking and smoking dope? Can't be sure, my memory is really fuzzy because it was such a long time ago. I think he knows he irritates people and he stays on the formula because it makes him a bunch of money. These are just thoughts because I really don't know much about Moore, and I guess I really don't want to know much.

Congratulations, Will, you won the prize! - for the most lurid expression of loathing in the recent torrent of detestation by the squalid bunch of pseudo libertarian whiners and wannabe psychoanalysts here. It seems to have abated following Keven Patten's sobering and hilarious comment yesterday, so I took the chance to look over the lot of them, and yours was head and shoulders above the rest. Your success was all the more remarkable for being unprovoked; I cannot recall having done you harm - unless you count the question I left with you recently on another thread: about how you can (a) deplore the effect of robots on society while (b) earning a living by designing more of them. Yes, perhaps that was a bit cheeky. You would have faced stiffer competition had not Alex Knight stood aloof above this contest, for he is a professional writer of horror fiction and is very good at it; but he did, so you didn't, and so you won fair and square. Two of the highlights were your shrinking of the difference between libertarians and others by a factor of a hundred billion, and your coining of that phrase about frying my transistors. That was a masterpiece, and deserves an entry in the Compendium of Contemporary Curses and Maledictions - perhaps in the form "May your brain be fried in canola oil and its transistors pop loudly one by one." It reminds me of the scene in Hannibal, where Doctor Lecter seats his sedated victim for dinner, surgically removes the top of his skull, slices off portions of his brain and sautées them for an appetizer in a skillet over a table-top fondue burner. Except that I think he used butter instead of canola oil, perhaps with a little garlic. Be that as it may, I have great pleasure in awarding you the Order of the Black Rosette. I hope you'll print out the image, trim the paper with scissors and wear the result on your lapel when you go to work at your robot factory.  

O.K. A. Magnus, I am lost. You obviously know something I don't. It would be impossible to disagree with the thought "...what is being achieved by lying..."--it's weird because I cannot conjure any benefit for distorting the truth about global warming, or freezing, or etc. The threat implied goes beyond the sales of air-conditioner, or a efficient heater. It has to be something great, huge, gigantic, like controlling the population but for the life of me I cannot see how it plays out that way, so, what is the objective, what are we going to "make do with less so ruling class can have more." More what? What am I going to have to make due with less of.

I don't know much about global warming, well, in fact I know absolutely nothing about it, but for me I haven't noted anything significant that would convince me it is. I recall back in the 1970's a Time magazine warned of a global freezing. Problem is is who do you believe. I am guessing most members here have little or no knowledge about Global Warming. Then of course there were the sky is falling idea that the sun is burning out--that was somewhere in the 1950's. Oh! Yes. There are the meteorite's that are going to take us out. What is the real purpose for publishing this kind of stuff? And what is being achieved by lying about these things? There has to be a bigger objective here. A conspiracy?

You are an example to us all of tolerance and patience. Or of a thick skin - a valuable asset here.   So you served government all your working life and only then discovered the libertarian alternative; that explains it. I hope the QuitGov site is useful when you encounter younger, former colleagues.

Ah! cum on Will Groves. Jim can't be that bad is he. I think he is just tryin to do right. I think of him kinda like a hall monitor. You remember those. I think it is kinda nice theres someone willing to try an keep things straight.