MEMBER

Per Bylund
Per Bylund's picture
Offline
Columnist
Joined: 2009-08-30
Columns on STR: 63
Skype: 
per_bylund

GENERAL INFORMATION

Name: 
Per Bylund
Sex: 
Male

Short bio:

Has a passion for justice.

Links:

Homepage: 
Link

RECENT COMMENTS BY Per Bylund

Columns by Per Bylund

STR: A Glorious Decade of Radicalism
10
Per Bylund 2011-08-11 00:00
Column by Per Bylund.  Exclusive to STR  For the five-year anniversary, I wrote a column about the value of a site like Strike The Root. I argued that the main problem to making anarchism an attractive social theory is its lack of guarantees. Rather than basing our worldview on the illusion of a stable and never-changing core to which we can fix and around which we can organize our...
Reform Sucks. Or Where Do We Go From Here?
8
Per Bylund 2011-06-30 00:00
Column by Per Bylund. Exclusive to STR I recently participated in an online discussion on gay marriage, an issue that was stated to be “such a sure thing” that my views could be dismissed at the outset. And, I suspect, laughed at. Why? Because, it was argued, government’s opening up the state-enforced institution of marriage to gay couples “decreases” discrimination...
More on Minarchism as Evil
10
Per Bylund 2011-03-03 04:00
Column by Per Bylund. Exclusive to STR My previous two articles on minarchism versus anarchism [1, 2], and why minarchism is “evil,” have stirred up quite a debate online.[1] This was expected, since minarchists desperately want to see themselves as radical (whereas compared to anarchists they clearly are not) and anarchists almost as desperately seek alliances and ideological kindred...
Rejoinder on Evil Minarchism Recommended
7.66667
Per Bylund 2011-02-18 04:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   John deLaubenfels responds to my previous column on minarchists being “the enemy.” His response is a case in point. Even though it is surely not his intent, his “quick response” directly supports the thesis of my original column. This is also true with most of the e-mails and comments I have seen by those disagreeing...
Why Minarchists Are the Enemy
6.88889
Per Bylund 2011-02-16 04:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Libertarians want to roll back government to a much less oppressive size. In this goal, libertarian minarchists and anarchists often stand together and aim for the same goals, at least short term. In a limited sense, this may not be such a stupid idea. After all, pushing back the powers of government is a good thing, is it not?   But what...
North Korea Is Not a Problem – The U.S. Is
4
Per Bylund 2010-11-23 04:00
Column by Per Bylund. Exclusive to STR News agencies report on another potential nuclear threat from North Korea, which has developed an advanced program for enriching uranium. Granted, nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous – and they are especially dangerous in the hands of nutcases such as Kim Jong-il. However, the media misses the point as they urgently run in the direction pointed out...
Your Sticker Makes a Lot of Sense Recommended
9
Per Bylund 2010-11-03 03:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Election Day means there are a lot of people walking around proudly carrying a sticker on their collar or lapel: “I Voted.” It bothered me at first that they would take pride in such ugly, immoral, and destructive behavior and that they so urgently wanted me to see that they had cast a ballot. I do not particularly like that these...
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
8
Per Bylund 2010-07-21 03:00
By Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   What is fascinating in this day and age is how the definition of previously well-known concepts mysteriously have changed. I’m not thinking of e.g. the word “defense,” which nowadays seems to have a much broader meaning and includes waging wars, occupying foreign nations, and having permanent military bases in almost 200 foreign...
On the 'Rule of Law'
8
Per Bylund 2010-07-07 03:00
By Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR     Conservatives and libertarians often claim an inherent value in the Rule of Law, a concept that to anarchists may seem a bit strange and, frankly, quite evil. Of course, most of us would accept the notion that predictable, principle-kind laws are much better than arbitrary rulings by a power elite (be it one man or many). Some would even claim...
Hope in the Age of Darkness
8.5
Per Bylund 2010-06-29 03:00
By Per Bylund   Exclusive to STR   These are troublesome times: the police state is literally only months away (if not here already), Big Brother already has full control of what everybody’s up to, and governments wage numerous wars while taxing their poor populations to ridiculous degrees. Yet in the midst of all this darkness, after a century of endarkening, there are signs of...
Only Cowards Vote
8.125
Per Bylund 2010-01-08 04:00
 Exclusive to STR   The official truth is that voting is a glorious thing, that it may even be a democratic duty. After all, most free countries have a history of bloodshed and war, which was the only way of finally getting rid of terror and oppression to establish Democracy: where we, the people, rule ourselves and there are no kings, lords, or absolute rulers. In such a world, are we...
On the Meaning of Voting
0
Per Bylund 2009-10-07 16:00
Exclusive to STR   There have been endless discussions among libertarians "even the anarchist variety" about the meaning of voting. Somehow, it seems, we cannot agree on what it means to vote: Is it self-defense to support the "lesser evil" or is it not? And even if we believe it is not, many libertarians cannot help casting a ballot on Election Day; they cannot resist...
Should We Hope for Civil War?
0
Per Bylund 2008-04-27 16:00
Exclusive to STR April 28, 2008 It is no news that politics act centralizing. In Europe, the free regions subjected to a distant, and therefore practically powerless, monarch are forever gone, and have step by step been forced to give up whatever powers they had. The nation states took over, but are now giving way to the super-national entity called the European Union. The same development has...
Blame Anarchism?
0
Per Bylund 2008-02-17 17:00
Exclusive to STR February 18, 2008 Youngsters dressed in black wearing facial masks setting another McDonald's restaurant on fire. Some of them trying to make the full body of protesters attack the police and innocent passers-by. Others are throwing rocks at whatever is close enough to hit. Still others, with spray cans "borrowed" from daddy's garage, making sure the riot leaves marks...
The Power to Get Away With It
0
Per Bylund 2008-01-10 17:00
Exclusive to STR I have received a number of e-mails from frustrated and stooped Ron Paul supporters asking me to investigate the possibility of vote fraud in New Hampshire and write about it. The polls showed that Ron Paul might get at least double digits in the "Live Free or Die" primary; with the help of independents he could perhaps end up at second or third place. Yet when all the...
The Ron Paul Problem
0
Per Bylund 2007-12-16 17:00
Exclusive to STR December 17, 2007 There should be no doubt that Ron Paul and his presidential campaign have become a phenomenon, both among Republicans and independents and among libertarians. Also, there is no doubt Ron Paul running for president and bravely and clearly arguing a libertarian case in many issues attracts a lot of people from the "mainstream" to the libertarian movement...
Anarchist Forum Statism
0
Per Bylund 2007-11-28 17:00
Exclusive to STR November 29, 2007 The anarchist movement never ceases to amaze me. I constantly face people who are anarchists and have been anarchists for a very long time and know everything about the great anarchist thinkers, yet who merely wish to replace the state with something rather similar but with the prefix "anarchist." I also receive numerous death threats from anarchists...
Inequality Is the Threat to Liberty
0
Per Bylund 2007-11-25 17:00
Exclusive to STR November 26, 2007 Claiming that inequality is the greatest threat to liberty could easily be misunderstood, yet I proudly and sincerely make that claim. I do not mean it in the as common as ignorant state socialist kind of way: that everybody should have exactly the same amount of assets. In essence, such a statement calls for violent and forceful redistribution from the...
The Hijacking of the Nobel Prize
0
Per Bylund 2007-10-14 16:00
Exclusive to STR October 15, 2007 When the multi-billionaire industrialist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel died, he left a will dedicating all of his fortune to supporting great science. He wanted to see an annual prize in his name to the greatest innovators and scientists--the ones "who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" according to...
Real and Fake Anarchism
0
Per Bylund 2007-09-23 16:00
Exclusive to STR September 24, 2007 People arguing for the stateless society, i.e. the abolishment of the state along with whatever coercive hierarchies in society, sometimes find themselves in a position where they hesitate to use the word best describing their position: anarchism. The reason, and this is often explicitly stated, is that anarchism often makes people think of violence, terror,...
The Old Right vs. the New Right?
0
Per Bylund 2007-09-03 16:00
Exclusive to STR September 4, 2007 One thing that the ongoing Ron Paul mania among libertarians and Republicans of the so-called "Old Right" has clearly shown is that there is a great divide in the GOP. This should be no surprise to frequent readers of STR--political parties are founded on and thrive upon the notion that society is in conflict and therefore needs a centralized power to...
Let's Join Forces for Liberty
0
Per Bylund 2007-08-19 16:00
Exclusive to STR August 20, 2007 As a former partyarch and political scientist, I have been following the Ron Paul Revolution campaign closely--as closely as is possible on the Internet without actually participating. Even though I do not at all support party activism or political involvement, the extent of Paul's grassroots support brings hope to the nation and the world. If so many support...
We're All Terrorists
0
Per Bylund 2007-04-01 16:00
Exclusive to STR April 2, 2007 It is rather amazing how fast a cultural heritage of multiple centuries can simply vanish in a few years. Western society, as most of us should be aware, is a product of the continental and cultural awakening called the Enlightenment. Essentially, this period meant people awoke from centuries, if not millennia, of religious unconsciousness to embrace philosophy,...
Towards a Simpler World
0
Per Bylund 2007-03-11 17:00
Exclusive to STR March 12, 2007 Libertarians generally identify with laissez-faire and the free market. Wherever the state isn't involved, i.e. where all actions are voluntary and peaceful, is freedom and thus in its very essence ideal. It doesn't really matter what people do, only how they do it; everything is just fine and dandy if individuals act voluntarily and let other people choose for...
The Statist Mindset of Anarchists
0
Per Bylund 2007-01-01 17:00
Exclusive to STR January 2, 2007 Being a libertarian anarchist, I have come to a terrifying conclusion: most anarchists are pseudo-statists! Yes, it might sound strange, but many anarchists are in fact as much statists as are minarchists. It seems even anarchists cannot in effect break free from the statist thinking in terms of guarantees and fixed systems. One has to ask, what kind of world is...
A Personal Thanks to Strike The Root
10
Per Bylund 2006-08-23 16:00
Exclusive to STRA August 24, 2006 Yes, I should have done this a long time ago. And when the editor encouraged everybody to write about Strike The Root for its fifth anniversary, I thought this is the time. There is so much I want to say, but I just seem to never get around to saying it. So I missed the chance again. But better late than never, I guess. Here it goes. I've been a market anarchist...
More on Minarchism as Evil
10
Per Bylund 2011-03-03 04:00
Column by Per Bylund. Exclusive to STR My previous two articles on minarchism versus anarchism [1, 2], and why minarchism is “evil,” have stirred up quite a debate online.[1] This was expected, since minarchists desperately want to see themselves as radical (whereas compared to anarchists they clearly are not) and anarchists almost as desperately seek alliances and ideological kindred...
STR: A Glorious Decade of Radicalism
10
Per Bylund 2011-08-11 00:00
Column by Per Bylund.  Exclusive to STR  For the five-year anniversary, I wrote a column about the value of a site like Strike The Root. I argued that the main problem to making anarchism an attractive social theory is its lack of guarantees. Rather than basing our worldview on the illusion of a stable and never-changing core to which we can fix and around which we can organize our...
Your Sticker Makes a Lot of Sense Recommended
9
Per Bylund 2010-11-03 03:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Election Day means there are a lot of people walking around proudly carrying a sticker on their collar or lapel: “I Voted.” It bothered me at first that they would take pride in such ugly, immoral, and destructive behavior and that they so urgently wanted me to see that they had cast a ballot. I do not particularly like that these...
Hope in the Age of Darkness
8.5
Per Bylund 2010-06-29 03:00
By Per Bylund   Exclusive to STR   These are troublesome times: the police state is literally only months away (if not here already), Big Brother already has full control of what everybody’s up to, and governments wage numerous wars while taxing their poor populations to ridiculous degrees. Yet in the midst of all this darkness, after a century of endarkening, there are signs of...
Only Cowards Vote
8.125
Per Bylund 2010-01-08 04:00
 Exclusive to STR   The official truth is that voting is a glorious thing, that it may even be a democratic duty. After all, most free countries have a history of bloodshed and war, which was the only way of finally getting rid of terror and oppression to establish Democracy: where we, the people, rule ourselves and there are no kings, lords, or absolute rulers. In such a world, are we...
On the 'Rule of Law'
8
Per Bylund 2010-07-07 03:00
By Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR     Conservatives and libertarians often claim an inherent value in the Rule of Law, a concept that to anarchists may seem a bit strange and, frankly, quite evil. Of course, most of us would accept the notion that predictable, principle-kind laws are much better than arbitrary rulings by a power elite (be it one man or many). Some would even claim...
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
8
Per Bylund 2010-07-21 03:00
By Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   What is fascinating in this day and age is how the definition of previously well-known concepts mysteriously have changed. I’m not thinking of e.g. the word “defense,” which nowadays seems to have a much broader meaning and includes waging wars, occupying foreign nations, and having permanent military bases in almost 200 foreign...
Reform Sucks. Or Where Do We Go From Here?
8
Per Bylund 2011-06-30 00:00
Column by Per Bylund. Exclusive to STR I recently participated in an online discussion on gay marriage, an issue that was stated to be “such a sure thing” that my views could be dismissed at the outset. And, I suspect, laughed at. Why? Because, it was argued, government’s opening up the state-enforced institution of marriage to gay couples “decreases” discrimination...
Rejoinder on Evil Minarchism Recommended
7.66667
Per Bylund 2011-02-18 04:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   John deLaubenfels responds to my previous column on minarchists being “the enemy.” His response is a case in point. Even though it is surely not his intent, his “quick response” directly supports the thesis of my original column. This is also true with most of the e-mails and comments I have seen by those disagreeing...
Why Minarchists Are the Enemy
6.88889
Per Bylund 2011-02-16 04:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Libertarians want to roll back government to a much less oppressive size. In this goal, libertarian minarchists and anarchists often stand together and aim for the same goals, at least short term. In a limited sense, this may not be such a stupid idea. After all, pushing back the powers of government is a good thing, is it not?   But what...
North Korea Is Not a Problem – The U.S. Is
4
Per Bylund 2010-11-23 04:00
Column by Per Bylund. Exclusive to STR News agencies report on another potential nuclear threat from North Korea, which has developed an advanced program for enriching uranium. Granted, nuclear weapons are extremely dangerous – and they are especially dangerous in the hands of nutcases such as Kim Jong-il. However, the media misses the point as they urgently run in the direction pointed out...
Power Corrupts
3
Per Bylund 2004-03-03 17:00
The history of man is a history of rule or ambition to rule. It is not, as Marx claimed, a history of constant class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat, even though class struggle may be derived from the fundamental division of society into 'rulers' and 'ruled.' An important part of this history is the continuous 'race to the top' among self-centered power seekers, trying to gather as...
Rejoinder on Evil Minarchism Recommended
7.66667
Per Bylund 2011-02-18 04:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   John deLaubenfels responds to my previous column on minarchists being “the enemy.” His response is a case in point. Even though it is surely not his intent, his “quick response” directly supports the thesis of my original column. This is also true with most of the e-mails and comments I have seen by those disagreeing...
Your Sticker Makes a Lot of Sense Recommended
9
Per Bylund 2010-11-03 03:00
Column by Per Bylund.   Exclusive to STR   Election Day means there are a lot of people walking around proudly carrying a sticker on their collar or lapel: “I Voted.” It bothered me at first that they would take pride in such ugly, immoral, and destructive behavior and that they so urgently wanted me to see that they had cast a ballot. I do not particularly like that these...

 

 Reprint Rights