Against the phrase 'anarco-capitalism'

Before you leave a comment saying my argument is purely semantic, please reread the title of this post.  The nature is semantics, but I do believe the argument is one worth writing about.

First, let's define our terms.

Anarchy~  a state of disorder due to lack of authority;
Absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual.

•  I think most people agree on the basic idea "absence of government"

Capitalism~ private ownership of the means of production for profit.

• in my experience when people think of capitalism they think of business.

The business aspect is what troubles me.  When anarco-capitalists use the phrase, so far as I can tell, what they are getting at is the non aggression principle.  I know this because whenever I myself am confronted with the obvious questions people ask about a free society, what will the poor do, I revert to answers involving community and charity. 

The definition and examples of charity need not be discussed here, basically, people give stuff or money to the poor with no expectation of anything in return.

Community is a little bit more tricky. I see community as organizations in which people participate based on location with no expectation of monetary compensation.  An example is a neighborhood watch program (minus the public police involvement of course). Or perhaps your neighbor goes on vacation and you collect their mail and keep an eye on their house while they are away. 

These two examples, community and charity, by definition are not capitalist ventures as there is no monetary expectation involved, yet we use both when we answer questions about how a free society could work.  For this reason, I believe the phrase anarco-capitalist should not be used by advocates of freedom.  Especially in today's world of wall street bankers using state power to rip everyone else off...  The term may do more harm than good when naming our views. 

As for me, I simply say anarchist or anarchy. The absence of "legitimate" coercion is really what we strive for.

Please comment and share your thoughts.

You may be propagandized if....

1)  You see 6 mafia-men jump a man and take his money, but when you see the police lock someone in a cage for not giving the government tax dollars, you identify the same victim as a criminal.

2)  You gloss over every piece of evidence that says maybe your government isn't the greatest thing in the world and dismiss it as anti-american propaganda.

3)  You see a counterfeiter get arrested and quickly say "good thing they caught that guy.  Counterfeiters reduce the value of my money by injecting more/fake money into the economy... But when the Federal Reserve creates new money out of thin air, you call it "good fiscal policy."

4)  You agree with absolutely everything government does.  Remember the pledge of allegiance?

5)  Facts found on the internet are true when they point to the idea that the U. S. Government is the greatest entity on earth, and when you see facts found on the internet that contradict that conclusion, you say "anyone can say anything on the internet"

6)  You think that graduating high school/college means you are educated, regardless of how much information you remembered and forgot, how many tests you guessed on, etc.

7)  You see the civilians who die in war as collateral damage instead of people who were murdered.

8)  You think of the nuclear bombs launched on Nagasaki and Hiroshima as a testament to the government's power rather than as a testament for the government's capacity and willingness to commit evil.

9)  You are glad to live in a first world capitalist economy, which outlasted communism in the cold war, and push for regulation of business, welfare projects, wage controls, central banking, etc.

10)  You identify moral rules as being universal, but when questioned about the government's violation of those rules, you bring up the effects and dismiss it.

11)  You see government as the solution to any social problem.

12)  You know what the president's golf score is, what he had for dinner, where he ate it... all or any one of these is fine.

13)  You refuse to believe that calling government a necessary evil is the same as saying evil is necessary.

14)  You say thank you when a police officer gives you a ticket or a judge decides to throw you in a cage.

15)  You cannot conceive of any way to build roads, enforce safety standards, or make sure our food is not rotten without the government.

16) you think capitalism means government giving money to businesses.

What makes a person ethical?

For most of my life I believed that if a person generally understood the difference between right and wrong, it meant that they were a moral person.  Maybe they did not see the actions they were taking as being immoral for some reason, but the people themselves had good intentions at heart.  The best example I can think of of this kind of person would have to be a supporter of say the war on drugs.

Drugs are completely destructive.  In  my opinion, people become addicted to them because fantasy is preferable to the reality of their lives.  The drug replaces the pain of reality with the pleasure of fantasy.  It erodes the need for the people to take actions which would make their lives better.  Sometimes life changes that are necessary for a person's true happiness can be difficult and perhaps be seen as completely unobtainable; why not take x drug, by the way we are talking prescription or street-drugs, and do it that way?

So the drug warrior is looking at the situation saying "this is awful!  we need to get drugs off the street and out of our society."  Fine.  This is a goal that I believe in as well, though I do not consider myself a supporter of the war on drugs.  So "Hooray" for those cops fighting the good fight...

BUT

There is a problem with the drug war.  It involves coercing people who have not initiated force against other people.  Whenever force is used against someone that is not in the immediate defense of them-self or another person, that force is not justified.  Everyone gets this.  As a private citizen, I cannot "defend myself" against my neighbor when he is in his home smoking a joint.  His actions are not causing me harm.  The police, however, claim the moral obligation/right to knock down the door and drag that neighbor out of his house and throw him into a jail cell. 

So here we have a violation of principle; using force against someone in a circumstance other than defense, or simply aggressive force.  The use of aggressive force is being considered ok, only on the part of cops mind you, to get drugs off the streets. 

"Sure", the drug warrior will say, "it is a violation of the non-aggression principle, but look at how harmful the drugs are!"

Yes, we all understand the point about the drugs.  What the drug warrior is not doing is putting the aggressive force under the same microscope.  He is accepting that which he considers evil (aggressive force) to eliminate that which he considers evil (drugs). 

This situation challenges my former theory that a person is ethical so long as they know the difference between right and wrong, for an ethical person cannot by definition accept evil as an acceptable methodology to solve problems. 


In hindsight, the person who knows right from wrong AND accepts an evil methodology is worse than the person who does not know.  At least the person who does not know has the potential for morality; the person who knowingly accepts evil has sealed their coffin. 

Sure, accepting evil methodologies in life can be revised and actions can change so as to reject evil methodologies, but as long as evil is accepted, I for one can no longer accept the proposition that knowledge is enough for morality.

Since we are saying knowledge is not enough and judging the drug warrior based on their actions, we must add a condition of action to what makes a person ethical.  The knowledge must be applied.

Note: I am not going to discuss the need for knowledge to determine if a person is ethical.  The need for knowledge is too obvious: accidentally doing the right thing is just that, an accident.

Knowledge includes moral principles.  Most people get this principle in Kindergarten.  Don't steal, don't hit, don't lie...  Libertarian circles simply call it the Non Aggression Principle (NAP).  The logic behind the NAP is very simple:  Man is a limited being.  Man does not have perfect knowledge, cannot be everywhere at once, and must choose what endeavors to pursue in his own life.  Man deals with reality the best he can.  Any person interfering with this reality in others blocks their ability to freely and openly live their lives.  If you steal from someone, you rob them of the choice to do what they wish with their own things.  If you lie to someone, you distort their perception of reality in order to trick them into doing something they wouldn't otherwise do.  If you hit someone, you damage the vessel with which they live.  <---Disclaimer: Sometimes people prefer being lied to, sometimes people prefer being stolen from, and sometimes people want to be hit.  A boss at work may request that you leave out details of an event so they do not have to take a particular action.  A person addicted from heroin may plea with a friend to "please go into my house while I'm at work tomorrow and get all my 'stuff' out, so that if I want to do it, I won't be able to."  And a person who takes pleasure out of boxing may jump in the ring with another and spar.  These situations are sometimes tricky and each one must be treated as an individual case, as specifics vary, but generally, when someone WANTS to be hit, jumping into the ring and sparring does not constitute a violation of the NAP since they WANT it. 

The harder thing which knowledge includes sometimes is the perception that a certain action violates moral principles.  Most of the confusion here rests with government.  Government is the only entity in society which may tell people all over the country that they will "pay their taxes or get locked up in jail."  Yet many people miss this obvious violation of the NAP.  Indeed, any time the government passes a law, the message taken away is "Do x or you will be locked up in jail."  When x does not = a restraint from initiating aggressive force against other people, the government IS initiating aggressive force! 

Force can only be aggressive or defensive.  These two categories are not hard to see at all...  Sure, if you turn a corner of a building somewhere and see one person hitting another, it is true that you do not understand the context that warranted, or didn't warrant for that matter, the striking.  However, when someone clearly says to people "you will drive how I want you to drive or you will receive tickets from my agents, and if you don't pay those tickets you will eventually be thrown in jail" then the aggressive party is known. 

To summarize, what makes a person ethical is they must first have ethical standards.  Second, they must consciously try to live up to their ethical standards, and finally, if their attention is brought to the fact that they are doing something that does NOT live up to their ethical standards, they must abandon that action. 

So, who has the right to complain about politics, anyways?

Complaining... it's something everyone seems to love to do.  In fact, almost any political position known to man can be reduced to the act of complaining.  The liberals complain that people do not want to give everything they own to some charity so that mankind may have equal living standards.  The conservatives may complain that others don't want to give enough of their money to the military... the libertarians complain that both the conservatives and liberals want to steal from everyone else... and the list goes on...  but in reality, who has "the right" to complain?

In order to answer this question to the best of my ability, I feel it important to share a realization that I made recently here, and that is, politics itself is a game... a fantasy... the very word politics, in my opinion, was invented to replace the words "abstract ethics" so that sophists could avoid pointing out that it really is a question of ethics... they would rather have people debating over what should be done with tax money than debating whether or not tax money is ethical.  This debate over what to do with tax money is essentially what is known as political science. 

By calling the questions pertaining to how government should rule politics, and the study of the topic political science, nobody is studying the ethical issues.  So let's attempt that briefly here. 

Any law passed is the State saying: If you do (or don't do) ______, then you will be thrown in a cage.  Some of these laws are justifiable and some are not.  Here are a few examples of some justifiable laws:

If you murder someone, then you will be thrown in a cage.
If you set someone's property on fire, you will be thrown in a cage.
If you steal from someone, rape someone, assault someone, you will be thrown in a cage.

This list goes on.  These laws are justifiable because they all involve the criminal infringing on the property of other people.

Here are a few laws that are not justified:
If you do not give us your money, you will be thrown in a cage.
If you open a restaurant without permission, you will be forced to close it, fined, and possibly thrown in a cage.
If you do not drive how we'd like you to, you will be thrown in a cage.
If you possess drugs which are not on the list of being acceptable, or use a prescription drug in a manner other than prescribed, you will be thrown in cage.

These laws are not justifiable because the criminal in question has not infringed upon the rights of others.  Indeed, others have infringed upon his property. 

In any just society, laws are rules which involve one person infringing upon the property of another; property including the person's body, as self-ownership is where property stems from.  In such a society, the State cannot possibly exist since tax money would be unjust. 

So who has a right to complain?  Why, everyone does. Everyone is taxed or suffers from the problems involved with taxation, i.e. loss of economic opportunities. 

So, how can we say there are some who do not have the right to complain?  I wouldn't say they don't have the right to complain, but I would say that they shouldn't complain.  Those who hear these basic truths and understand them and whom still advocate the government tax others in favor of what they want should not complain.  Those who stick their head in the sand to the truth should not complain... 

As I get older and write more of these blogs and talk to people, more and more every day I believe that at some point everyone gets hit with truth... it is simply too easy to dismiss and forget about it. I write this blog because someone close to me recently told me that since my position is unpopular, I have no right to be offended with the views of others.

Let's check that.  The view of most people is that should I fail to pay taxes that help pay to blow up innocent people and throw more innocent people in jail cells, I deserve to go jail myself and possibly get raped and be ruined economically for violating the law.

What is my view?  My view is simple: nobody should be forced to pay for anything they don't want to pay for.  You don't like the wars, don't pay for them.  If those fighting them have a problem with your failure to pay, well, quite frankly, they never asked you how you felt about it and when push comes to shove, they can refuse to protect you.  If you do not want to give to charity, you shouldn't be forced to... doesn't mean the people in your community won't lose respect for you, it just means stealing is wrong. 

So to say the person complaining about the theft and violence has no right to complain and try to convince others to behave more peacefully because their view is unpopular, well, I find that quite insane.  The only way this even occurs is because of the words politics and political science, as mentioned above.

Let's be honest, nobody makes excuses for private criminals.  If a homeless person stabs me for money to feed his family, I would insist he goes to jail.  First off, beg.  Do not tell me the only alternative was to stab me.  Second, while I am sympathetic to homeless people, see first point.  I've known many of them and they did not steal to eat.

So, who let's criminals off the hook who shoot innocent people while they're trying to take out a bad guy?  Maybe that can be understandable... how about say a criminal who blows up an entire building with all kinds of innocent people in it to get one bad guy?

Suppose a criminal didn't like the way his neighbor treated his kids... he abused them let's say.  Who's letting this guy off the hook for cutting his neighbor off from food and medical care for those same kids?  anyone?

Call it politics, political science, and countries, and you will find different answers with the same questions.

I realize this blog is scattered and unorganized and all that, but it's my blog and I am awfully short on time since I have kids and everything... leave a comment if you disagree or feel you have anything to say on the topic...

Joining the Military?

                                                                     Thinking about joining the Military?


The military... trying times to consider joining...  Economically it may make sense... patriotically it may make sense...  all that may be.  I once joined the military for these reasons in 2002, after 9/11.  My experience was... well, I will explain my experience later.  For now, here are a list of questions you might want to ask yourself:

1.  What if i join the military and it turns out these wars are not justified?  How do I know they are truly justified?

2.  Joining the military means putting myself in a situation where I will be asked, nay ordered, to kill or be killed myself because the Commander 'n' Chief decided it was necessary.  That is, the President.  Is this, or perhaps future and past, presidents THAT trustworthy?  Have they/he ever lied before?

3.  No matter what anyone says, the real reasons for war are usually only known to a select few.  Am I comfortable putting myself in that situation not knowing for sure that it really is necessary?



My military experience was this:
I spent 4 years in.  The first 6mo.  consisted of basic combat training and Advanced Individual Training.  The next 2 months I waited for my Security Clearance to pass.  The rest of the time I was a part of SIGINT (signal intelligence).  I cannot go into details here, but I never saw combat, luckily.  But I did take it upon myself to pay attention to politicians for the first time in my life, as this was life and death.  Can you guess what I found?  LIARS.  The reasons for Iraq changed quite often.... I also found that the U.S. Government took credit for over 500,000 children deaths BEFORE 9/11 in the middle east, as a result of sanctions... 

I was not smart enough to think about this stuff until it was too late. When I first considered joining, all I received was praise from those around me.  My teachers at school, my military family,  some of my friends, brothers, you name it.  and now that I have been out for years, and talk about this stuff, one of two things happen.  Either 1) they tell me everyone knows this stuff but I'm just a jerk because I talk about it or 2) they tell me I hate my country.  Well, those are not arguments.  Those are statements that are either true or false...   now, I will take being a jerk or an unpatriotic jerk over having deaths of innocent people on my mind any day of the week and a hundred times on Sunday.  Use logic, think for yourself.

As you can see, I am not spreading a conspiracy theory, I'm not telling you to not join, I'm simply asking you to think about what you are doing.  Go look at the suicide statistics of soldiers in the military these days...  it is not a game.  Life and Death are literally what is at stake...  Choose wisely... and I will make this plea, do NOT sign any papers or take any oaths until you are sure... because once you are facing the gun of some foreigner somewhere, none of this will matter... your survival instincts will kick in and you may say to yourself "ya, I was duped into this mess, it's not my fault, but I am going to survive it."  Well, if you read this and still join without being certain you are doing the right thing, it will be your fault.

My God

                                                                     My God

My God is not a mysterious person in the sky... my god is called Logic.

When I disobey my God, and act illogically, there are consequences to my actions.  I do not reach my goal(s) and as a result, my life suffers a temporary or permanent set back.

My God can be proven; that is, its essence is with us every day.  If it were not, you would have no understanding of the words written here... heck, you probably would not be alive if you were completely without logic.

My God is simple.  "If A then B" is a great starting point for following my god.

My God has never killed an innocent person... although people have died as a result of not following my god in some cases... but Logic itself is incapable of killing anyone.

My God does not require me to believe many things which I know are non-sense, such as talking snakes, in order to believe its narrative.  The narrative is simple; if you want to live, follow Logic.  If you don't, and you decide not to eat when you need food or drink when you need water, you will not make it.  In fact, my god demands that I question things that sound unrealistic.

My God does not need big buildings or men and women dressed in goofy outfits to get followers.  It gets followers on its own merit. 

Unlike any other God, if children were indoctrinated with a belief in my God, there would not be such resistance as there is with the mystical person in the sky, and children would actually benefit... for raising children with a foundation in Logic may actually be useful for them their entire lives, and does not require threatening their soul with eternal damnation.

My God does not require any other God to not exist in order to be proven.  It simply says "Ok, show me some proof of that."  while other Gods(?) say "Following me is of the utmost importance, and no, I will no prove myself to exist to you, you simply must believe it."

I am not always the best follower of My God, for I am human and prone to err.  But that does not invalidate the authenticity of my god...  if anything, it reinforces it... for it takes following Logic to prove someone has acted illogically.

My God is the most powerful force known to man.  Without him we may not have ever come out of our caves.  and yet, unlike other gods, it does not require money...  Logic does not demand you to give any percentage of your income to anyone.  Rather, it would ask you to question who it is you give your money to and determine if it is what you really want.  

You may say you choose not to follow my god, but we both know that to be a lie.  You follow logic when it suits you and perhaps use energy rejecting logic when that suits you... no doubt to gain some end that you have in mind... which in and of itself is an act based on logic... it is to say "if i question this or look at it logically, I may not believe it, so I won't."  Now, there are reasons which you may do this... I am not here to question the why, but to point out the action.  See Cognitive Dissonance.

                                            Thank You for reading about My God.