"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Recent comments
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoNo Mandatory Mental Health Screening for Children!Web link Don StacyAnother caged animal in the agricultural city-Statist (civilization,) "zoo," as Richard Manning puts it. Richard Manning on the Psychosis of Civilization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5iBOXcoP_8 The only real solution is to deregulate big-government enforced artificial borders designed to restrict the free movement of people. Libertarians call city-Statist Land enTITLEment "private property." I call it "Gambol* Lockdown." _______________ * Why agriculture? In retrospect, it seems odd that it has taken archaeologists and paleontologists so long to begin answering this essential question of human history. What we are today—civilized, city-bound, overpopulated, literate, organized, wealthy, poor, diseased, conquered, and conquerors—is all rooted in the domestication of plants and animals. The advent of farming re-formed humanity. In fact, the question "Why agriculture?" is so vital, lies so close to the core of our being that it probably cannot be asked or answered with complete honesty. Better to settle for calming explanations of the sort Stephen Jay Gould calls "just-so stories." In this case, the core of such stories is the assumption that agriculture was better for us. Its surplus of food allowed the leisure and specialization that made civilization. Its bounty settled, refined, and educated us, freed us from the nasty, mean, brutish, and short existence that was the state of nature, freed us from hunting and gathering. Yet when we think about agriculture, and some people have thought intently about it, the pat story glosses over a fundamental point. This just-so story had to have sprung from the imagination of someone who never hoed a row of corn or rose with the sun for a lifetime of milking cows. GAMBOLING about plain and forest, hunting and living off the land is fun. Farming is not. That's all one needs to know to begin a rethinking of the issue. The fundamental question was properly phrased by Colin Tudge of the London School of Economics: “The real problem, then, is not to explain why some people were slow to adopt agriculture but why anybody took it up at all.” ~Richard Manning, Against the Grain, p.24
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowOnly a mendacious "grievance collector" would think those examples of objectification, meant to illustrate common cases of objectification and depersonalization, were all applied to libertarianism. However, you bring up the subject of war. Self-styled "free-market" types aren't at all consistent on war. Ayn Rand lauded the genocide of 90,000,000 invasion/occupation victims. And in a rather racist way, as follows: "[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land ... Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent." ~Ayn Rand, speech at the US Military Academy at West Point, March 6, 1974 Plus, there's nothing like a good ol' libertarian police beat-down on those damn long-haired hippies that are ruining property values where they hang out: "Cops must be unleashed ... unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares?" ~Murray Rothbard Libertarians claim to be non-aggressors, but they merely whitewash the aggression they're willing to commit, without truthfully identifying it as aggression.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoFree to Die?Web link Don StacyCivilization is a collectivist activity. Walter Williams and the Kock-sucker economists laud the collectivist part of city-Statism (civilization) that increases the wealth of their pay masters, while ignoring the external costs of those collectivist activities. One can point out the hypocrisy of being for universal pollution and universal birth defects, but being against universal health care for the victims. Myself, I'm against universal health care. But then I'm against collectivist civilization, and the birth defects and sundry horrors it meets upon its victims.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowNow we see the WhiteIndian meltdown. He attacks as sexists and war-mongers the one philosophical group that has consistently opposed war (antiwar.com is the oldest antiwar web site and is known for opposing the interventions as far back as Yugoslavia) and has never referred to women in the manner he does.
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Suverans2 12 years 18 weeks agoFree to Die?Web link Don StacyNow 'trolling' for a "collectivist troll". Wonder if we can get a bite?
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Suverans2 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowNeither, actually, I was just trolling [pun intended] for an hypocrite to see if one would jump at the bait. ;)
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoFree to Die?Web link Don StacyUniversal pollution* from Koch Oil is libertarian. Universal birth defects** is a result. Universal health care for the victims? KOCHsucker says it's evil. But then, he's well-compensated*** to say so. For his paymaster. _______________ * Pollution linked to birth defects http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1731902.stm ** Huge rise in birth defects http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1878358.stm *** Three Koch foundations contributed $23,030,497 between 1985 and 2002 to the George Mason University, and Walter E. Williams is Distinguished Professor of Economics, George Mason University.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowDo you prefer hypocrisy in the comedy or the tragedy genre? The Comedy of Libertarian Hypocrisy September 18, 2011 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-agin/the-comedy-of-libertarian_b_96771... Libertarian Hypocrisy September 14, 2011 http://redtory.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/libertarian-hypocrisy/
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Suverans2 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. Ludlowhypocrite noun ▸ a person who claims to have certain moral principles or beliefs but behaves in a way that shows they are not sincere ~ MacMillan Dictionary
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowI'm against dehumanization of people by objectifying and degrading people as property. • Rapist degrade people they want to control as "bitches." • Soldiers dehumanize people they want to control as "sand niggers." • Capitalists objectify "The Ultimate Resource" they want to control and use as "property" to be bought and sold. So they convince you that you own yourself -- as property -- and then turn you into their wage slave, because you have to sell yourself to somebody in this prison of civilization or starve. It's a profitable bait-and-switch racket, and keeps the wage-slaves in line.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowWhy do you always quibble about words instead of discussing ideas? The idea being: Dehumanization of people by objectifying and degrading them as property. • Rapist degrade people they want to control as "bitches." • Soldiers dehumanize people they want to control as "sand niggers." • Capitalists objectify people they want to control as "property" to be bought and sold. (Now with new and improved "voluntary" whitewashing for such slavery.)
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowAre the "problems that OTHER PEOPLE have" a topic in your meetings? Or is it more of a self-improvement encounter?
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowYou bandy about "autism" insults, and then when I retort with a scholarly article correlating autism to libertarianism, you throw a tantrum with "medicalize" accusations that, ever so strangely, don't seem to apply to you. Do you have any principles at all, other than meticulous inconsistency?
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowWhittaker Chambers renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent. He was on the editorial board of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review. As you can see, Chamber's quote is still on the National Review website. "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber — go!'” Big Sister Is Watching You Whittaker Chambers From the Dec. 28, 1957 issue of NR. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/fl...
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowPeople aren't mere objects to be owned as property, to claim such is deliberate dehumanization or depersonification. Objectification is a tactic of both physical and emotional abusers. And economic abuse, in which people are looked upon by the controlling hierarchy as "The Ultimate Resource."
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowOh, he's scrounging for dirt again -- see below.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowGee, let's reach into the a bag of insults and find ... well ... an insult! Feeling threatened by the living, breathing reality of a woman who managed to escape becoming a corpse in Stalin's egalitarian communist utopia (50 million dead), which actually existed, the communist Whitaker Chambers attempted to perceive gas chambers where none were to be found -- all the while failing to see that the word "chamber" is in his own name. Thanks for reminding us.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowWhiteQuibbler, you may not have noticed, but people are objects. But that does not mean anyone is objectifying them. Control the anger, please.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowThere you go again creating confusion where none existed -- in a sentence so short that it was easily avoided. Let's try it this way: "Words convey ideas; words convey premises, which are a kind of idea."
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoNeo-Liberalism the Issue, Not IslamWeb link Jad DavisThe absence of a contract signatory does not clear the committed collateral.
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BrianDrake 12 years 18 weeks agoHow to Know When You Have LibertyPage Paul BonneauPaul, "The way you can tell when you have liberty, is when those who want out, can get outside. In other words, it is when anarchists are left alone. That is the test. You don’t have to approve of anarchism. You certainly don’t have to be an anarchist to have liberty." You have actually defined, by description, anarchism. If residing/living your life on Liberal Way, Conservative Boulevard, Communist Lane, etc. is something one chooses to do voluntarily, is able to leave when they choose, and is unable to compel others to adopt the same choice (i.e., force others to live on Communist Lane, or "stay in the city"), then there's no "archy" there. No archy = anarchy. Anyone who desires this situation, is de facto, an anarchist. That they personally prefer certain forms of social organization over others is secondary to the fact they desire a society where no man is forced to the form of social organization preferred by another. You could call these people "anarcho-Liberals", "anarcho-Conservatives" or "anarcho-Communists", but the fact remains, they are all anarchists. So I argue there's no middle ground between anarchy and statism. A statist who agrees to "leave the anarchists alone" is not a statist, he is an anarchist. Because, by "leaving the anarchists alone", he is agreeing that no man may be bound by a State he did not consent to. And, assuming he is coherent, this understanding extends to himself as well. He only continues as a "citizen" to the State the anarchists seceded unmolested from because he chooses to do so. If he chose not to, he would assert the same right he recognized in the "anarchists", that is, the right to be left alone by that, or any other State. But this philosophy attempts to transform the "State" he persists in being a "citizen" to into a voluntary institution. By definition, a State is NOT a voluntary institution and thus any State that "lets the anarchists alone" is no longer a State. It is a governing-services organization that, since it respects the wishes of its "citizens" to voluntarily opt in or out, must now compete with alternatives for the continued consent of its "citizens", which are now more accurately recognized as customers. And thus we have described market anarchy. The "you can remain a statist, just leave the anarchists alone" tactic might be a sly way to trick a statist into becoming an anarchist without realizing it, but it doesn't change the fact that deciding to "leave the anarchists alone" makes one an anarchist. I personally prefer, and find more useful the idea that liberty = self-ownership. The test to see if you have liberty is to ask if any human person, or group of persons has final authority over your life other than you. If the answer is yes, you don't have liberty, someone else owns you...and thus you are a slave.
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AtlasAikido 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowApparently, The Villains in Atlas Shrugged are very much alive and real.----- http://mises.org/daily/5218/The-Continued-Relevance-of-Rands-Villains For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, the lobbyist Wesley Mouch decries the capitalist Hank Rearden's invention of a wonderful alloy that is stronger than steel. And in prior months, in the real world, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. took to the house floor to declare that Steve Jobs's iPad was killing jobs. Congress must, according to Jackson, recognize that Apple is driving companies such as Barnes & Noble and Borders out of business, and the company should be stopped in the interests of fairness. Jackson decried Congress for failing to foster "protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work." It's as if he wanted us to believe the printing press was harmful to the economy because it decreased the demand for scribes. Such a condemnation of a successful business and a demand for protection of failing industries could easily have been lifted directly from Rand's novel. As for Jackson--The similarities are not restricted to this lone Democratic congressman. Similar absurd arguments were bountiful on both sides of the aisle in debates about policies ranging from Obamacare to the bailouts. Americans are directed to believe that if they would just allow the federal government to act in order to prevent further change in the economy, then stability could be restored. It is this *paltry masquerade of politicians feigning action and granting themselves greater power in the name of equality and economic stability that leads Americans to Rand's story*. Indeed, Republicans and Democrats both put on a charade of activity in April, claiming to remedy our nation's budget woes. Both parties threatened to shut down the government over a series of austerity measures amounting to a final savings of $352 million this fiscal year. That's $352 million out of budget deficit of approximately $1.6 trillion, or .02 percent of what would be required to actually balance the budget. Politicians bickered over funding for relatively low-cost line items like NPR and Planned Parenthood, all the while ignoring the harsh reality that our public debt is on track to surpass our GDP. In other words, *Republicans and Democrats have managed to mortgage the entire household worth of the United States*. Their remedy for this self-imposed tragedy? Grant themselves greater power through increased regulations and rising taxes. With each repeated failure of federal action to remedy our economic situation, politicians reveal themselves more fully to the American people as nothing but self-serving villains. Their strategy relies on the appearance of action coupled with soaring rhetoric to convince Americans of their good deeds. Meanwhile, these politicians are gambling with our lives and prosperity, risking the well-being of hard-working individuals in thoughtless policies designed merely to secure reelection. It is due to her apt depiction of these self-serving villains that Ayn Rand's novel has climbed to number four on the top-sellers list on Amazon and that the film is likely to do far better than its mediocre quality would merit. Americans are growing tired of politicians gambling away their prosperity to preserve their own power. The crowd in Reno applauded as Ellis Wyatt walked away, not because he was some great hero, but because they understood the pain of working tirelessly while a reckless and unproductive government needlessly spends away the results of your labor and rewards your hard work with mounting regulations. The idea of walking away has become attractive — and indeed, Americans are increasingly leaving the United States for opportunities abroad, with record numbers emigrating to Australia and East Asia. So long as Ayn Rand's villains continue to resemble the reality in Washington, the story of Atlas Shrugged will remain popular. The average American may not be a powerful railroad executive or steel magnate, but most believe they are entitled to the fruits of their labor. Many are beginning to realize that their future is being gambled away by politicians whose only risk is losing the votes of the individuals who have lost everything. http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/01/05/more-americans-moving-overseas-t... I was just informed about THIS, thought some might be interested. http://atlasshruggeddocumentary.com/
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Paul 12 years 18 weeks agoNeo-Liberalism the Issue, Not IslamWeb link Jad DavisYeah, maybe they should have been more careful.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowI've no need of a reminder. "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber — go!'" ~Whitaker Chambers Source: "To a gas chamber - go!" | October 10, 2007 http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-gas-chamber-go_1...
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowYes, voluntaryists are so into gas chambers.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowActually, Rothbard was not taken out-of-context. (And no, one doesn't need to quote a whole essay to stay in context by any scholarly definition.) The blog from which I cited Rothbard's racist comments even quotes a prominent libertarian who concurs that Rothbard was racist. It seems you're the one displaying intellectual dishonesty. But remember how I compared Libertarians to fundamentalists? You've just scored again -- accusing those who quote the Sacred Canon of taking their Holy Prophets "out-of-context." Context!!!!!! Feb 22, 2010 | 239,985 views http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZFf5o Anyway, whenever fundies like you get frustrated and give a royal wave good-bye, you never mean it. I guess we'll see. P.S. I didn't miss any "argument" Tzo made. All he's doing is re-parroting the Scriptures, like a fundamentalist conjuring up Canonical word magic, as if that addresses what I brought up -- that humans are not property, and equivocating humans with property is a deliberate capitalist ploy of dehumanization and objectification.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowYou "medicalized" first, with your autism insult. I'd reckon that makes YOU the *original* "Soviet Union" "gas-chamber" operator -- if we're to judge you by your own standards. Sweet Hayzeus, what a cirqe de Godwin.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowPS: Your willingness to medicalize the ideologies of unpopular movements would have fit in nicely in the Soviet Union, where people were declared insane for not being socialist enough. We can all smell the gas chambers now, and this time you'll have the psychiatric community pulling the strings. How therapeutic!
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowClearly you haven't been following the posts of Glen Allport or me on NVC (non-violent communication) -- or the people at the complete liberty website. Many of us have been following the work of Marshall Rosenberg and his Center for Nonviolent Communication for some time, but you'd better ignore that, eh? You wouldn't want to get caught at one of our weekly NVC seminars, would you? Then you'd have to take it all back? Then again, I don't want to pop your over-generalizing bubble of sophomoric assumptions and hyper-criticism because then you wouldn't feel better about yourself after shooting at all the imaginary problems that OTHER PEOPLE have.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowThe etymology has an underlying truth: there has never been a City without a State. Both "POLIS" and "CIVILIZATION" mean city-State because human language reflects, quite accurately in this instance, demonstrable reality. Many libertarian volumes laud civilization (the city-STATE) as a good while simultaneously deprecating the State as evil. And how many times have I seen Statist used as a pejorative? Calling civilization (the city-State) good while calling the State bad is a contradiction. You're dodging and weaving around that reality. Care to address the issue rationally?
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowOnce again, you miss the argument Tzo made, and then you go spinning off into your own world of wordplay again and veer off into pseudo-Rothbard land. I say "pseudo" because the blog you cite (instead of citing the entire essay by Rothbard as an honest use of scholarly apparatus requires) is an example of deliberately mis-construing what Rothbard said and meant, and you probably know that because you are making cheap shots without merit. He was clearly discussing a hypothetical instance in which statistics are used, but you are hoping nobody notices that, aren't you? I won't defend all of what Lew Rockwell or Murray have said (they err frequently), but in this case, he is clearly not using the term in the way you hope a skimming reader would assume without full context. On a separate topic (because you have not made your point on racism) you should take a peek at how many people on this site are aware of the foolishness of the whole paleo-phase of Murray and Lew -- but the example you cite is not one of them since Murray is making a rhetorical point about statistics. I've even written about it in the environmental essays that I put together on it. But there you go, spinning off into your own self-make whirlwind. I'm just going to have to view you and your comments as non-communication -- i.e. as troll dust meant to waste time. Bye.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowWhiteBoy: That's your problem. You put words in other people's mouths, and then you complain about those words. Why would anyone say "good" or "evil" about the fact that there was something called a polis in Greece as in your statement #1 and #2? What kind of game is that? If you looked at your comments on Alex Knight's essay, you'd already know that I thought that the Greeks were indeed very silly about many things. So stop with the ventriloquist act, eh?
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowI'm not sure how your sophomoric name-calling addresses any factual or analytic problems you see with what I've presented about anthropology, but I do invite you to address a problem, if there are indeed any. Pointing out a contradiction isn't telling you how you think. The contradiction in libertarian thought is simultaneously thinking: 1. The AGRICULTURAL CITY-[state] is GOOD. 2. The [agricultural city]-STATE is EVIL. The "Statism" that your rage against is a single cultural package. Agriculture+City+State, commonly known as agricultural civilization or simply civilization. You continue to blank-out that reality with various childish subterfuges. But if you can identify where I'm wrong, let me know, OK?
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KenK 12 years 18 weeks agoNeo-Liberalism the Issue, Not IslamWeb link Jad DavisThe foreign lenders lent to a sovereign entity that no longer exists. Tough luck for them.
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowThanks for the fix, Suverans2. I accept it in the generous spirit in which it was given. I don't interpret it (as WhiteMallBoyIndian would) as an act to capture me via a net woven out of my typos! One of WhiteBoy's problems is that he hasn't mastered anthropology enough to speak about it clearly to others and instead confuses himself and others while reading our minds for us and telling us what (he thinks) we think! Anyway, I had better get back to my "planning out a completely controlled" anarcho-society, complete with plans for everything!
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoHow to Know When You Have LibertyPage Paul Bonneau@Paul: I've been using the prison metaphor to describe city-Statism (civilization) since reading Daniel Quinn, who used it. Prison is a good illustration. I think Richard Manning has an even more accurate metaphor -- civilization as a ZOO. We're animals in cages, and animals in cages turn psychotic -- and that is exactly how hunter-gatherers view civilized people. Psychotic. Richard Manning on the Psychosis of Civilization http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5iBOXcoP_8 Considering that schizophrenia is a Disease of Civilization, as psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey argues in Schizophrenia and Civilization, I think Manning is onto something. @Ken: Freud had it nailed, but thought of city-Statism (civilization) as a "necessary evil." He wrote, "The principal task of civilization, its actual raison d'ette, is to defend us against nature...But how ungrateful. how short-sighted after all to strive for the abolition of civilization! What would then remain would be a state of nature, and that would be far harder to bear." Most city-Statist imprisoned (in-zooed? LOL) people agree with him, including the vast majority of libertarians. That last 60 years of anthropology, ethnology, and evolutionary biology debunk Freud's blind acceptance of the Hobbesian mythology. Man in a "state of nature" enjoyed "The Original Affluent Society." (Sahlins, 1972) The next step? Our lives need to "mirror our genetic heritage" as Manning states in the youtube video above.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoAssemble Freely, and Lose All Your RightsWeb link Melinda L. SecorBut where did you find that I suggest the word "gang" is anywhere in his articles? Go back up, read what I wrote, and understand it. His deceptive definition of corporation, people who "agree to assemble and cooperate," can be applied to any of the groups above I listed as examples.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowNow that you mention autism, libertarians are noted for it. they're the only political group to score higher on systemizing than on empathizing. Not only are they the only political group -- they scored *way* higher. The study notes that such systemizing" is “Characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating AUTISM.” Iyer, Ravi, Koleva, Spassena , Graham, Jesse, Ditto, Peter H. and Haidt, Jonathan, Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Roots of an Individualist Ideology (August 20, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1665934 Keep trying to design a the system of a voluntary civilization. Should be as simple as conjuring an animated corpse. The communist have been banging their head against the same "stateless city-State" block wall for years.
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Suverans2 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowI think the word you intended was solipsism, but your humor is much appreciated. Thanks.
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Suverans2 12 years 18 weeks agoAssemble Freely, and Lose All Your RightsWeb link Melinda L. SecorYou're welcome. And, I do agree that that author does not, evidently, understand what the differences between a "public/business corporation" and a "private corporation" are, or he is intentionally trying to mislead his reader(s), but where did you find the word "gang" anywhere in his articles? Correction: Last paragraph, (in my preceding post), should have read, "...if their 'guardian or conservator', called the STATE, says they shouldn't." Addendum to my preceding post: sui juris noun Law. capable of managing one's affairs or assuming legal responsibility. Origin: 1605–15; < Latin suī jūris of one's own right ~ Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996
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KenK 12 years 18 weeks agoHow to Know When You Have LibertyPage Paul BonneauThat's what Sartre was getting when he noted that: "Hell is other people"* (telling you what to do). Having or needing to reign in our personal prerogatives and impulses in order to live amongst others** is the whole basis for the emergence of statism IMO. I appreciate your insights Paul. Do you have any thoughts about what the next step is? * No Exit, J.P. Sartre, http://www.scribd.com/doc/2925864/No-Exit-by-Jean-Paul-Sartre ** Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Discontents#Overview
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Lawrence M. Ludlow 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowEnjoy the autistic solopsism.
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoAssemble Freely, and Lose All Your RightsWeb link Melinda L. SecorSaying a corporation is merely people who "agree to assemble and cooperate," which is what the article purports, is like saying an animal is a dog. So thanks for reinforcing my point, even if you strain to be contrary. Your last paragraph is right on, and why I questioned the author's deceptive definition of corporation.
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Suverans2 12 years 18 weeks agoAssemble Freely, and Lose All Your RightsWeb link Melinda L. SecorAsking if a gang is a corporation is like asking if an animal is a dog. Gang. Any company of persons who go about together or act in concert; in modern use, mainly for criminal purposes. ~ Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 679 Children don't get to "enjoy", i.e. "to have, possess, and use with satisfaction; to occupy or have benefit of[1]", all their natural rights until such time as they are willing/able to take responsibility for their own actions and their own survival; most individuals are never ready, so they go from being "wards" of the natural family to being "wards[2]" of the "parens patriae[3]", called the STATE. The same holds true for "compan[ies] of persons". The reason for incorporating is to avoid individual personal responsibility, which is why the individual persons who make up corporations should NOT "enjoy" all their so-called constitutional rights, i.e. legal rights, if their "guarding or conservator", called the STATE, says they shouldn't. _________________________________________________________________________________ [1] Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 529 [2] Ward. ...A person, especially a child or incompetent, placed by the court under the care and supervision of a guardian or conservator. Ibid. page 1583 [3] parens patriae : the state in its capacity as the legal guardian of persons not sui juris... ~ Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoAssemble Freely, and Lose All Your RightsWeb link Melinda L. SecorIs a gang a corporation? An army? A choir? A tribe? A band? A marriage? It's rather deceptive to define a corporation merely as people who "agree to assemble and cooperate."
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoDo the Republicans Ever Learn?Web link Melinda L. SecorAggressive NeoCons like Newt do have a better understanding of city-Statism than "isolationists," i.e., civilization must always "grow" (invade, conquer) Several authors analyze this, with one of the best being Jeff Vail's essay The Problem of Growth,* in which he states, "the critical problem facing humanity: the structure of our civilization, its inherent need to grow (and therefore its unsustainability...)" Why? It's a matter of the game theory of The Prisoner's Dilemma. As Jason Godesky states in his essay "Civilization Must Always Grow: "The Prisoner’s Dilemma provides the logical foundation of why civilization must always continue to grow. Each society faces a choice: do we continue to intensify production, adopt greater complexity, and increase the size or scale of our society, or do we happily accept the level we’re already at? If you choose not to intensify, you will be out-competed by those who do–and your lower level of intensity and complexity will become a resource they can absorb to fuel their further acceleration, whether by outright conquest or more subtle forms of economic or cultural exploitation." "War is a staple of [city-Statism] civilization,"*** enabled by division of labor and agriculture, as John Zerzan points out in his essay The Origins of War. There is no static, voluntary, peaceful city-State (civilization,) of which libertarians theorize, for many reasons, and the likelihood of conjuring one is as realistic as creating an animated corpse. War is the way city-slickers roll. _________________ * What is Rhizome? Chapter 1. Problem of Growth. A capstone formulation of why our societal structure is unsustainable, how rhizome presents a solution, and how to implement it. by Jeff Vail http://www.jeffvail.net/2007/01/what-is-rhizome.html ** Thesis #12: Civilization must always grow. by Jason Godesky | 23 October 2005 http://rewild.info/anthropik/thirty/ *** The Origins of War John Zerzan http://www.scribd.com/doc/62268835/The-Origins-of-War-John-Zerzan
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoThe Secrets to Nonviolent Prosperity: The Principles of LibertyPage Lawrence M. LudlowFine business, Mark, on avoiding grain; I concur, and have improved my health greatly. It's good to see a few people are catching on to the nutritional facet of the critique of civilization -- agricultural city-Statism (civilization) makes us sick, as Mark Cohen documents.(1) In fact, there is a whole host of diseases called "Diseases of Civilization" and "Civilization Syndrome." Dr. Torrey devotes a whole chapter to the evidence that schizophrenia itself is a recent "disease of civilization."(2) But let's get to the heart of libertarianism: economics. The best metaphor for the agricultural city-State (civilization is a prison,(3) as Daniel Quinn puts it. Many other writers, especially anthropologists, recognize this as they look at the data, as does psychiatrist R.D. Lang in his third chapter in his The Politics of Experience. Civilization is brutal, and unlike how most liberarian writers think, in actuality, civilization imprisoned humans into a rigid hierarchy. Straight to property rights: if civilization is a prison, abstract land property rights are the walls. Those walls are a big-government entitlement program to regulate and restrict the free movement of people to live a Non-State lifeway. In other words, libertarians WANT the prison walls, and then call them "freedom." Mention that the walls are what enslaves humanity to agricultural city-Statism, and they have a hissy fit. Attorney Jeff Vail does a good job of deconstructing the libertarian/capitalist perspective of property rights in his book A Theory of Power.(4) He refers to Jason Godesky who also brings up how Lockesian property rights are based on monotheistic hierarchy.(5) The following hierarchical structure is what most libertarians believe, even if they've somewhat secularized it, the core magical thinking of the culture remains: JEHOVALLAH MAN WOMAN (submits to husband) ANIMALS (submits to husbandry) NATURE (only valuable if used by humans) How did the garden-of-Eden Mesopotamian cedar forest get deforested and desertified into the hellish Iraqi desert? City-Statist "property rights" on clay tablets. It's mine, God gave it to to use, and I can use it as I will. That is deforesting and desertifying our home planet, and western christian civilization has greatly intensified the destruction.(6) It's only taken a short time to lose half the topsoil in the Midwest. ______________ (1) Health and the Rise of Civilization Mark Nathan Cohen Yale University Press, 1989 excerpt from pp. 131-141 here: http://www.primitivism.com/health-civilization.htm (2) Schizophrenia and civilization E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb02208 (3)A Condensation of Daniel Quinn Thought Part 1: The Problem is Civilization Prison http://www.lejournalmural.be/english-antilibrary/gorilla-content.html (4) The abstract notion of ownership serves as the single, greatest perpetuator of hierarchy. When one steps back and examines the notion of “owning” something, the abstraction becomes readily apparent. Ownership represents nothing more than a power-relationship—the ability to control. The tribal institution of “Ownership by use” on the other hand, suggests simply that one can only “own” those things that they put to immediate, direct and personal use to meet basic needs—and not more. A society crosses the memetic Rubicon when it accepts the abstraction that ownership can extend beyond the exclusive needs of one individual for survival. (Read Jason Godesky on Ownership) Abstract ownership begins when society accepts a claim of symbolic control of something without the requirement of immediate, direct and personal use. Hierarchy, at any level, requires this excess, abstract ownership—it represents the symbolic capital that forms the foundation of all stratification. ~Jeff Vail A Theory of Power Chapter 9 - Forward, to Rhizome http://www.jeffvail.net/2005/03/theory-of-power-online.html (5) "To date, however, no philosopher has ever successfully divorced Lockesian property rights from monotheism." ~ The Right to Property by Jason Godesky | 18 July 2005 http://rewild.info/anthropik/2005/07/the-right-to-property/ (6) "Our science and technology have grown out of Christian attitudes toward man's relation to nature which are almost universally held not only by Christians and neo-Christians but also by those who fondly regard themselves as post- Christians. Despite Copernicus, all the cosmos rotates around our little globe. Despite Darwin, we are not, in our hearts, part of the natural process. We are superior to nature, contemptuous of it, willing to use it for our slightest whim." ~ The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis by Lynn White, Jr. Science, 10 March 1967: Vol. 155 no. 3767 pp. 1203-1207 http://www.uvm.edu/~gflomenh/ENV-NGO-PA395/articles/Lynn-White.pdf
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Jim Davies 12 years 18 weeks agoHistory, RewrittenPage Jim DaviesThank you, Suverans2. Duh, I didn't see that "Edit" word under the comment.
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Jim Davies 12 years 18 weeks agoHistory, RewrittenPage Jim DaviesDuplicate deleted
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WhiteIndian 12 years 18 weeks agoWhy Do So Many Condemn Historical Revisionism?Web link WesternerdDodge and weave if you wish, the issue still stands -- how empirical evidence from archeology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, etc. completely refutes the city-Statist Hobessian mythology found throughout libertarian/ancap/what-have-you literature.
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