Living Without Government

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Critics will say living without government is only theoretical; nobody has done this before for real. The nagging fear of change and distrust of the unknown is strong. It moves men to wonder: “well, couldn’t we just limit government, instead of doing away with it altogether?”

The answer to that is a resounding NO, we can’t just limit government, and here’s why:

1. The Phrase Itself is a Contradiction in Terms

Consider the term – Government. A Government is an entity that governs, or rules; the best definition being – “the absence of a market.” Another good definition of a Government is “an organization that governs those within its power” and “whatever has a monopoly on the use of unaccountable force in its domain.”

Thus, if government is government, it has nothing governing it; it is the outfit on top, the entity that does the ruling.

2. But what about the term -Limited. We know what that means; it tells of restrictions, of prohibitions. If a slave was ordered not to stray outside the plantation perimeter but did so anyway, authority came down, and demanded an explanation. The word limited absolutely implies that the one doing the limiting rules the one being limited!

Put the two words together then, and what you have is a perfect oxymoron – Limited Government – a contradiction in terms. The phrase attempts to convey the impossible idea of a ruled ruler, a governed governor! Either a government is able to govern without limits within its domain, or else it’s not a government! Limits either limit, or else they are not limits!

In case the contradiction isn’t abundantly clear, let’s take this even further. Suppose by some violation of logic an alleged government “Gov-A” exists which is, in fact, limited. That being so, the party doing the limiting is and absolutely must be the true government. Call it “Gov-B”, and suppose that the earnest believers in the myth of “limited government” insist that Gov-B, too, is limited.

By whom? – why, by government “Gov-C”, of course. Then Gov-C must be limited by Gov-D, the true and actual government; and Gov-D by Gov-E and so on ad infinitum. That progression really must be infinite, and because the number of human beings available to govern or be governed is not infinite, we now have conclusive proof that “limited government” is a logical impossibility. It does not exist, it never has existed, it never will exist, it is a myth. End of story.

3. Limited Government Was Well Tried, and It Did Fail

So urgent, however, is the irrational desire of some folk not to leave the familiar cocoon of such mythical limits on government that irrefutable logic alone somehow does not suffice. Let’s observe therefore that this utterly impossible theory has been attempted in practice, and it has (as we ought to expect) abysmally failed.

That refers to the United States of America, and to all other nations that boast a “constitution” said to limit what their governments are “allowed” to do. Ridiculous; but let us see what happened, anyway. The fatal contradiction can be seen in the thinking of the Founders even before the Revolutionary War was fought; it comes in the first few lines of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

4. So America’s Founders, who were no dummies to be sure, actually advertised that they “held” two wholly contradictory concepts to be “true”: that liberty can be “secured” by instituting something that in its very nature is an absolute denier and violator of liberty, and that it is conceivable that those governed can give their “consent” to be governed!

It really boggles the mind, that they could be so profoundly stupid. A second, perhaps even more incredible idiocy? If you give your consent for me to rule or govern you, you’re not being governed; your will has been declared subservient to mine by your own doing. This is doubly impossible; it firstly guts the word “govern” of all significance and secondly requires belief in the possibility of voluntary slavery, which is logically contradictory and flatly violates the self-ownership axiom.

Perhaps they weren’t stupid; perhaps they were cunning politicians like all the rest, winning support by words that, to this day, sound magnificent but have no coherent meaning. Hard to tell; those men did at least lay their lives on the line, in the War, for what they said they believed.

5. But there are only two possibilities: that they were cynical manipulators, or just plain stupid. Either way, by 1781 the great experiment in allegedly limited government had begun, and shortly after that the Constitution was in place to permit the new government to do certain things and to limit or prohibit it from doing any others.

The most important Amendment in the Bill of Rights is #9, and that’s the one that’s been most carefully ignored, ever since:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. That is, the fact that the Bill of Rights named specific limits on government power did not mean that no other limits existed.

It was implicit throughout the document that the government was to exercise only those powers expressly “delegated” but just to make sure, that Ninth Amendment was put in place. Never before or since has “limited government” been established better or more clearly than in America. It has been very well tried. Now let’s observe how thoroughly it has failed.

6. Stated Limitation – #Actual Performance

Article 1.Sec8: The Congress shall have power… to coin money, regulate the value thereof.

#Actual Performance 1.Sec8: Far from merely coining such metal as individuals choose to bring to its Mints, the government routinely issues and even prints what it cynically calls “money”

Article 1.Sec8: The Congress shall have power… to borrow money on the credit of the United States

#In huge amounts, the government also lends money (eg to foreign governments to purchase their cooperation) using a power which the Constitution nowhere grants.

Article 1.Sec8: The Congress shall have power… to provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States

#The government endlessly provokes offensive wars andprovides for the particular welfare of its favored clients at the expense of others

Article 1.Sec8: The Congress shall have power… to establish post offices and post roads

#Government virtually monopolizes all roads, whether “post” is conveyed along them or not, and whether competing alternatives could have been provided or not.

Article 1.Sec2: Direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states The main “direct tax” is the US income tax, which is expressly not apportioned, on the pretext that Amendment 16 relieved government of that requirement. However, that Amendment used the term “income” without defining it; and during the half dozen years following alleged ratification the Supreme Court repeatedly defined it as “corporate profit” – one of them expressly confirming that the Amendment gave Congress “no new taxing power.” Yet it now furnishes 50% of all Federal revenues, direct from individuals’ earnings.

Amendment #1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…

#Government brutally murdered 84 men, women and children in Waco, TX in 1993 who wanted only to be left alone freely to exercise their religion; and time after time has savagely curtailed free speech. Examples: the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798, gagging of anti-war speech during the Civil War, WW-I, WW-II and in the current phony “War on Terror” with its infamous “Patriot Act.”

Amendment #2: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

#That right (derived directly from the self-ownership axiom) has been not merely “infringed” but savagely and repeatedly denied by every government entity in the USA with about 20,000 anti-gun laws

Amendment #3: No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner

#Literally, this limit has been respected. However, the standing, peacetime US
military establishment costs every household over $6,000 a year in taxes – the money equivalent of a compulsory paying guest.

Amendment #4: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

#This is possibly the Right most frequently trashed in the whole Bill of Rights. Quite openly, the Feds are spying on every international email, phone call, and internet packet that they wish, on the catch-all pretext of “National Security.” Ever since the early 1990s they have been doing the same surreptitiously, by having foreign governments (notably the UK) do the spying on US Citizens then providing the date to the US Government; and vice versa. And searches and seizures of homes without proper, sworn warrants are the norm, and if the SWAT raiders happen to invade the wrong home in search of drugs and kill the occupant well, that’s really sad but – humans err.

Amendment #5: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous, crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of war, or public danger; nor shall any person be subject, for the same offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

#Government routinely tricks suspects into “confessing” by deliberately lying to them – with full support from its courts; and gladly places them in double jeopardy by creating two levels of adjudication, criminal and civil.

Holding prisoners without trial or even access to a lawyer in Guantanamo Bay has become a worldwide scandal, a good reason to pour well-deserved mockery on the supposed virtues of American “justice”. The trick is to allege that they are prisoners of war held outside the USA (and so not protected by the Bill of Rights) even though no war was ever declared by Congress as required by Article 1.Sec8. The hypocrisy fairly reeks.

Property, meanwhile, is routinely grabbed by government for both “public” and even private use, whether the “compensation” is just or not. (It never can be in reality since “just” is what is equally acceptable to buyer and seller in a voluntary exchange; by definition, a “taking” is not a voluntary exchange. That’s a fatal flaw in the Amendment.)

Last but not least, every year over one hundred million Americans are compelled or tricked (same difference) into filing a confession with the IRS that can and will be used against them if the government sees fit. It’s called a 1040.

Amendment #6: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.

#6 Reality: government trials are almost never “speedy” by any reasonable definition and juries are certainly never “impartial” because (a) jurors are selected only from a list of those who register to vote, who therefore endorse the political system, and (b) jurors are submitted to lengthy voir dires or questionnaires, to show the government lawyers, who have all the time and money
they need, whether their profiles fit what is required to convict the defendant.

Amendment #7: In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.

#7 Reality: exceed the speed limit when a cop is watching, and when your trial comes up with a potential fine of $21 or more, see if you can get (a) a criminal trial, with its unconditional guarantee of a jury in Amendment 6, or (b) a jury anyway under Amendment 7, if they insist on pretending it’s not a “criminal” matter. Case closed.

Amendment #8: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.

#8 Fine words. No definition of “excessive” or “cruel” or “unusual” and government drives through those holes with a Mack truck whenever it feels so inclined. You might think that giving a prisoner a 2 inch mattress on a steel bed and denying him his regular medication is “cruel”.

Government does not.

Amendment #10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or by the people.

#10 Reality: You can read quickly through the powers that are so granted, in Article 1; and then compare it with the monstrous, $3.8 trillion per year spending machine that the Federal Government has become in a mere two centuries, on top of a similar monster in the States, cities and towns.

There is no grant of power whatsoever for the overwhelming majority of what government actually does; the limits of Amendments 9 and 10 have become just a piece of paper, that nobody bothers to read any more.

The above is just a sampling; endless other examples could be named. Inescapable conclusion: not only is it impossible logically to limit government, it cannot be done in practice either.

7. This is a hard conclusion to embrace, so deeply has the idea of some degree of government embedded itself in our awareness of “the way things ought to be.” Many Conservatives have embraced some of the free-market ideas of libertarian anarchism – indeed many have written books in its favor.

Many Liberals have endorsed the principles of privacy and freedom from a military draft implicit in the self-ownership axiom. But few members of either group have shown themselves willing to act consistently within that axiom; possibly they “see the dots” but something deep in the unconscious prevents them from connecting those dots and concluding rationally that the cultural norms under which they have been raised are, simply, flat wrong.

8. Hopefully, you are learning that government is absolutely incompatible with the essential nature of human beings, both by tightly-reasoned theory and by numerous major examples in practice. If not, what else must be nailed down hard to make you accept the fact that “limited government” is no more feasible than partial pregnancy; that, again, it is an impossibility both by reason and in practice.

Hopefully, you have now reached a moment of decision. The evidence is before you, and you have found it conclusive. The decision must be yours alone.

So, what’s your choice going to be? Is the reasoned and evidential case for libertarian market anarchism so overwhelming that you will henceforth endevor to follow where logic leads so as to remain true to your humanity?

Do you want to live in a fully free society ASAP and to help one form?

Or will you stay put for now? Continue to consider what your beliefs truly are. Though you can’t fault the reasoning, the conclusion is just too risky and
radical.

9. Will you remain conventional, even if that means living under a violently imposed myth, rather than facing reality and taking control of your own life and living by your own principles?

174 COMMENTS

  1. We’ve seen boy meets girl, right side up before, after all. Boy meets girl, upside down? Now, that’s something new.

    Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Upside Down”
    http://liztellsfrank.com/2013/03/26/liz-tells-frank-what-happened-in-upside-down/

    There are three immutable laws of double gravity for this two-planet system:

    All matter is pulled by the gravity of the world that it comes from, and not the other.

    An object’s weight can be offset using matter from the opposite world (inverse matter).

    After a few hours of contact, matter in contact with inverse matter burns.

    Upside Down (sci fi film)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upside_Down_(film)

    Adam lives in an orphanage in Down, having lost his parents in an oil refinery explosion. The only living relative he has is his great-aunt, whom he visits every week. His great-aunt has a secret recipe for flying pancakes using pollen from pink bees which gather pollen from both worlds. The recipe has passed through generations and will be inherited by Adam.

    As a child, Adam secretly climbs a mountain that gets very close to Up. There he meets Eden, a girl from Up. Years later in their teens, they are in a relationship. They meet on the mountains and Adam uses a rope to pull Eden towards Down, and they head to the woods for a stroll.

    They are later discovered, and while Adam frantically releases Eden back to her world, he catches a bullet in his arm and drops her. Helpless, he watches Eden lying motionless on the ground as blood oozes from her head. When he returns home, his aunt Becky is arrested and her home is put to the torch.

    Ten years later, Adam is now working on creating an anti-gravity product using his great-aunt’s recipe. The recipe allows matter to feel both gravitational fields at once. Adam is developing it as a cosmetic product for face-lifts. Then he sees Eden on TV and learns she is alive and works at TransWorld.

    Upside Down 2012
    http://www.solarmovie.is/link/play/1115428/

  2. The Eternal Ballad of Yeshua

    Peter Pumpkinhead came to town
    Spreading wisdom and cash around
    Fed the starving and housed the poor
    Showed the Vatican what gold’s for

    But he made too many enemies
    Of the people who would keep us on our knees
    Hooray for Peter Pumpkin
    Who’ll pray for Peter Pumpkinhead?
    Oh my!

    Peter Pumpkinhead pulled them all
    Emptied churches and shopping malls
    Where he spoke, it would raise the roof
    Peter Pumpkinhead told the truth
    But he made too many enemies…

    Peter Pumpkinhead put to shame
    Governments who would slur his name
    Plots and sex scandals failed outright
    Peter merely said
    Any kind of love is alright

    But he made too many enemies…
    Peter Pumpkinhead was too good
    Had him nailed to a chunk of wood
    He died grinning on live TV
    Hanging there he looked a lot like you
    And an awful lot like me!

    But he made too many enemies…
    Hooray for Peter Pumpkin
    Who’ll pray for Peter Pumpkin
    Hooray for Peter Pumpkinhead
    Oh my oh my oh!
    Doesn’t it make you want to cry oh?

    XTC – The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYupSHWEJxA

  3. This special night of my fifteen, I’ll never forget.
    All the crybabies, get out of here! – Babymetal

    Head Bangya

    [hedoban hedoban] [headbang, headbang!]
    [hedoban hedoban] [headbang, headbang!]
    [hedoban hedoban] [headbang, headbang!]

    Babymetal unofficial translations
    http://du-metal.blogspot.com/2013/07/headbangeeeeerrrrr.html

    With the legendary black long hair
    disordered around and gorgeously,
    blooming crazy, this flower
    will soon disappear fruitlessly.

    Now the time has come.
    I no longer hesitate.
    I hold tightly
    the discount railway tickets.
    To the east, to the west,
    to the south, to the north,
    today too I rush to the very front of the stage center.

    On the left side, [Come on!]
    on the right side, [Come on!]
    standing up still, leaning back,
    jumping toward the stage, [And then!]
    leaning over the fence, [And then!]
    rolling over the mob, [And then!]
    and then all deeply headbanging.

    It’ll never come back again
    and it’s so short period.
    I etch in my heart
    this special night of my fifteen.

    I jump lightly and dance in the air.

    Hedobangyaa! Headbanger!

    [[Hedoban hedoban …]] [[Headbang, headbang,.]]

    [Atama atama atama atama] [Head, head, head, head]

    https://community.musixmatch.com/lyrics/BABYMETAL/HeadBangya-!!

    Densetsu no kuro kami wo kare inimi dashi
    kuru hizaku kono hana wa hakanaku kieru…

    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    bam bam badai

    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    bam bam badai

    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    bam bam badai

    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban

    Sato kiwa kita no mayou wa nai
    nigiri shimeta no juhashipu

    kiga shieru shieru
    mira ni ekutaeru kyoumodose ni totsukeki

    kamite, shimote
    tsukuri fufudo no kezomi

    takudai, takudai, torodai, orikatani

    Ichigo no yoru wo wasurebashinai
    nakiru shidayatsuwa
    kokokara kierusero

    Densetsu no kuro kami wo kare inimi dashi
    kuru hizaku kono hana wa hakanaku kieru

    mou womidoto modoranai wazuka na toki wo
    kono muneni kisarunda ichigo no yoru wo
    kirari ju nimaru

    Headbanger…

    Ichigo no yoru wo wasurebashinai
    nakiru shidayatsuwa

    kokokara… kiero…
    Ichigo no yoru wo wasurebashinai

    damabo tsuruyatsuwa
    bokugani kierusero

    Densetsu no kuro kami wo kare inimi dashi
    kuru hizaku kono hana wa hakanaku kieru

    mou womidoto modoranai wazuka na toki wo
    kono muneni kisarunda ichigo no yoru wo

    Densetsu no kuro kami wo kare inimi dashi
    kuru hizaku kono hana wa hakanaku kieru

    mou womidoto modorenai wazuka na toki wo
    omoideni kisarunda ichigo no yoru wo
    kirari ju nimaru

    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    bam bam badai

    HEADBANGERR

    bam bam badai

    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    Hedoban
    bam bam badai

  4. Flight MH17 – What You’re Not Being Told – Storm Clouds Gathering (good indian name BTW)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b67OGUsQC44

    MH17 Graphic Wreckage Footage
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px2rfWBW4wg

    Locals behave like governments and loot the MH17 crash victims
    http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/07/flight-mh17-crash-site-has-been-heavily-looted/374707/

    MH17 corpses are alleged to be shown respect by murderous mafia govt
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CImFlhuSn40

    Passenger posts preflight MH17 plane pic to CIA Facebook
    http://imgur.com/fvGcpkS

    first MH17 debris fotos
    http://imgur.com/a/s7AkM

  5. sheeit I like radiohead, and I get raped by da govt all the time, yo.

    Glenn Beck Reveals Painful Family History of Rape and Abuse
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFW3f2EE2is

    Da Rapin’ Rappa Sharpp – I don’t really know you
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk0eRTFnjl4

    Rapper 50 Cent talks bout how The Game’s Father Used To Rape Him & His Sister
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWjX-k8CcgM

    In Da Club – 50 Pence – By a Brit/UK’er
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTwGUhr-uKM

    In Da Club – 50 Ruble – Comrade Putin Version
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXGIEwvf5WU

  6. Jimmy smoked crack and I don’t care (BTF blue tail fly)
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=500_1405797906

    A seven year old and his sister smoke crack and I don’t care
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f55_1227641725

    <a href="http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/s/s/15/media15/2008/Feb/2/LiveLeak-dot-com-147801-farley3.jpg?d5e8cc8eccfb6039332f41f6249e92b06c91b4db65f5e99818bdd7904847dcd136e9&ec_rate=230&quot; NSFW __ Chris Farley smoked crack and died and I don't care, I'll miss his comedy he was a funny guy, seemed like he enjoyed hisself

    Hong Kong girl snorts ketamine and dies and I don’t care the blue tail flies and the masters gone
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f19_1266132766

    original BTF/JCC requires cowboys croonin to locals at the county laissez fair:

    de blue tail fly – the masters gone away
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q5W5sXnkxY

    • Dear Tor,

      As you know, I sometimes don’t “grok” your comments. It’s not that I disagree with them. It’s that I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at.

      But I gotta say that

      “Jimmy smoked crack and I don’t care… ”

      cracked me up, so to speak!

      • thanks B!

        The internet agora has given sporadic reporting sovereignty back to the people. The monopolistic control of information is somewhat compromised.

        Mainstream media takes down comment sections and it is an open question, can we retain a functioning spirit while living parttime online, can we accept the reality of events and suspend both shock and criticism as we normalize and categorize the horrors and spectacles captured on video in new matter of fact objective ways.

        Paul Joseph Watson and the Info War
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w221YPENk2A

        Germany says keep the gold meriKa, we trust you, and maybe now Ukraine will return to some manner of stabilization in an entirely unrelated story
        http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2014/7/25/central-bank-theater.html

        Garcés on how to defeat the state… just walk away
        http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.6031

        Perfect the art of fleeing – be a rabbit – don’t stand your ground and put your life at risk – Garcés and Virno
        http://thedailybell.com/editorials/35502/Wendy-McElroy-Flee-Rather-Than-Stand-Your-Ground/

        • By the way, I left a comment at the TDV page on gold.

          Avatar
          Bevin Chu • 2 days ago

          Q: What’s the difference between the government and the Mafia?
          A: A flag.

          The US government’s refusal to return the gold it is “holding for Germany — for safekeeping” reminds me of a scenario in the classic Martin Scorsese gangster film “Goodfellas.”

          Jimmy Conway, Henry Hill, and others heist a Luftthansa airline shipment. Jimmy Conway, the gang leader, “holds the loot — for safekeeping.” When other gang members pester him for their shares, he has them whacked.

          As the old joke correctly notes, the only difference — a flag.

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          Avatar
          wendymcelroy Bevin Chu • 18 hours ago

          Hey there, Bevin Chu. I’m actually more cynical than you are. I prefer the mafia because they pretty much want the money and then they leave you alone. The government wants money *and* social control. They want my purse and my conscience. Oh…Goodfellas is a good movie!
          1

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          Bevin Chu wendymcelroy • 17 hours ago

          Dear Ms, McElroy,
          Can’t argue with that! To be entirely fair, the Mafia deserves credit for wanting only money, and having no interest in micromanaging our lives.

          Also, as people awaken to the fact that governments are actually more despicable than street criminals, public understanding of what constitutes evil in popular entertainment will change dramatically.

          Even non-libertarians will begin to realize that the real bad guy in “Breaking Bad” was not designated villain Walter “Heisenberg” White, but DEA agent Hank Schrader!

          This shift in perception will be essential to the debunking of the myth of authority and to the eventual adoption of voluntaryism as the Conventional Wisdom.
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  7. What kind of world would I choose, if one wasn’t being forced on me? Something like this, looks pretty good.

    Night and Day 大西由希子 with 浅井あきこ
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dACd82O2wbM

    SummerTime 大西由希子 Yukiko Onishi
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1O_inCMCaY

    sometimes a man’s gotta man up, and admit some fathers are far outperforming. just look at their daughters. and say it out loud. and be got damn glad and grateful that this is the case. cause that means there’s still hope.

    Ai Shinozaki’s Wonderful Voice!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RZck0evRE

    Ai Shinozaki – this video serves no statist purpose, it diffuses rather than increases aggressions, I wonder how dear leaders permit such a thing to exist
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNlh-ejvF5A

    Another Japitalist fantasy of Tokyo Disneyland screenwriters, Anri Sugihara is typical of frivolous females with zero weight and presence
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgDMSijF3EQ

    Kyary Pamyu Pamyu meets Katy Perry
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DADgsW4JCV0

  8. Hey, BrentP.

    You might like this one:

    I met this entrepreneurial guy ( I was in awe, being entrepreneurial is quite heroic all in itself) he had a few job openings.
    I told him I’d make his company more efficient and how I could make it more money.

    He told me I was an engineer type and there was – “No Way” – he was hiring me.

    It seemed like we got along Great! Ha! But my way of looking at things closed That door.

    …. Funny that.

    Being an engineer type was detrimental.!?

    I had no idea.

    Also, I ‘wiped’ my bike this evening.
    It was down a dark path (pitch black) on a hill. I hit strong weeds and a tree branch. The foot peg gave me a hell of A bloody gash.
    All I could think of was, “I wish Clover and his/her/its bunch were her to see me stand up, shrug it off, and keep going.”

    I know they wouldn’t. They’d be baby-wine-ing the whole way home. ..Maybe try and call in an airlift or something?

    I had of LOT of ‘living without government’ this evening. Most of which I can’t tell you about.
    …But it was All fun as Hell.

    I even got a couple of fellas to – Want – to write down Lewrockwell.com
    The empire might smother us all,… but there will be pockets.

    …Now, how Am I going to explain this bloody gash to my better-half in the A.m.?
    Ha! I wonder if that’s how one aspect of cloverism was developed?

    ….”It was …” I can’t even fake say it, but I think perhaps you’d know what goes there.

    Anyway,… where’s the SuperGlue? I
    …Awe, fuck it!. I’ll let it heal naturally.

    …could you imagine if a clover was over my shoulder when I said that? Ha! Fuckin’ baby-wine-ing pussies too stuck in their day-to-day rut.

    • Helot, baby pussies indeed. Just can’t break out into manning up. I feel sorry for them up to the point I remember it’s their whining that causes me so much grief. I’ve been to the ER twice in the last couple months, only once was I willing, the other was strictly legal bs(this week when one big rig almost went over the top of mine). I bet their daddy didn’t hit them like mine did, brute he was, all 130 pounds of him. I don’t ever recall him actually causing me pain but showed his displeasure by swatting me. Of course I had to feign pain so it was realistic to my mother, the one who really wanted revenge. I do recall him hurting me badly though from his recliner with the words he carefully chose that were right on the mark. Now THAT hurts, esp. when you know he’s right.

      I used to play games of trying to cover injuries from my parents(my mother since my dad would just look at it and not say anything….hey, he was a boy once too). I’d sneak in and clean up and put on a long sleeve shirt to cover the wounds I’d received doing something daring. Sometimes my aunt would be complicit in it and would make me feel like a wuss when she’d climb way up the tree I’d just fallen out of. I had to fake it for days to cover my falling down the cellar steps off my bike I’d ridden there to stop at(my bikes were always way too big) and broke my wrist. I missed the top and ended up at the bottom. My mom nailed me one day asking why I didn’t use both hands so I did and it hurt like hell. Only when the bruising started showing did she demand an answer. Just fell I said. I never mentioned the bike or the cellar since either would have had me walking, what an indignity.

      These days, call the 9/11, two dozen vehicles, ambulance, big hospital bills, people walking around the bike looking at it like it was a demon, cellar steps, need to be wheelchair accessible(I remember one tornado and a family member in a wheelchair. He was whisked to the bottom of that cellar so fast and nicely you’d have thought he could levitate but it was just the neighborhood guys going into action and taking care of those who couldn’t take care of themselves). 911? Hell, we were 911 but we just called it taking care of each other. I was about 4 feet tall when I jumped a 6′ fence and never touched it. We need a big Texas twister at the Olympics to set some records.

  9. Airbag jackets
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX_YIr5CkDM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQr8YkzEEWQ

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo9Vlt5tGwY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA8j3M6YBwo

    Ducati airbag jacket
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9ThdUSmsZk

    – cool stuff, for whoever wants one. what is wrong with people that they want everything to be mandated?

    – Americans are the worst, running up the debt higher and higher with all kinds of mandated schemes. Nearly every new scheme more idiotic and bankrupting than the last.

    – Sooner and not later, Chinese bill collectors are going to start executing these FSA idiots. And they won’t stop, until these idiots wise up.

    They aren’t sentimental dreamers, who take kindly to watching trillions of dollars of their wealth being wasted. The BRICS are already 43% of the world’s income. There’s talk that Germany or some other nation tired of being spied on will defect.

    Most of the world works hard to save their money, and I think they’ve all pretty much had it with these clovers and their idiotic flushing of trillions of dollars down so many rat holes.

    I expect a mini-holocaust of these waterheaded morons to begin soon. It will probably include UK and Israel, who are the biggest beneficiaries of these stupid non-productive wealth transfers.

  10. Englisch ist die Teufelszunge

    lernen die Sprache der Freiheit

    keine Meister keine Sklaven
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPEqCEE95Q

    ein Straßensänger in München singt Bob Marley

    Deutsches Alphabet
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEaQVdCwhsI

    das ist der freie Markt Aufruf großen Tom
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoidJVAMAVE

    Gründlich durchgecheckt steht Sie da
    und wartet auf den Start , Alles klar.
    Expirimenten streiten sich um ein paar Daten.
    Die Crew hat dann nach ein paar Fragen
    ,doch der Countdown läuft.

    Effektivität bestimt das Hendeln
    Mann verläßt sich blind auf den andern
    Jeder weiß genau was von ihm abhängt
    ,jeder is im Streß , Doch Majer Tom
    macht einen Scherz
    Dan hebt er ab und !

    Völlig losgelöst von der Regierung
    schwebt das raumschiff völlig schwerelos

  11. As he explains during his 1971 Massey Hall performance in Toronto, this song is about the old ranch foreman who lived on Neil’s ranch and came with the place when he bought it.

    The song was released on his 1972 album Harvest

    Alyssa Bonagura’s Cover of Neil Young’s Old Man
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtGU_yKeeXE

    Lullabies, look in your eyes
    Run around the same old town
    Doesn’t mean that much to me
    Does it mean that much to you?

    I’ve been first and last
    Look at how the time goes past
    But I’m all alone at last
    Rolling home to you

    Old man look at my life, I’m a lot like you were

    • Tor, absolutely amazing. I was just scrolling down reading right now(1937 CDST)and that song was playing. It’s just on a big playlist and I couldn’t have found it to play it right now if my life depended on it. You must be a genius ha ha. Far out!

  12. Responses to 7.10 Article – Motorcycles Afflicted by the Car Sickness:

    DerBrizon’05 SV-650S; ’13 TR650 Strada 4

    That learning to ride a sport bike especially was not unlike learning to fly a high-performance aircraft. Or becoming a lion tamer.

    I stopped reading here. This guy is full of himself to the Nth degree.

    If you take your bike to the race track, or want to specifically ride it off road, I can understand a distaste for electronics and airbags. But ragging on EFI?… EFI is one of the greatest things that has happened to the internal combustion engine.

    Btw, how the fuck will an airbag save you on a motorcycle? My kneejerk response is to doubt their efficacy.

    trebor89Ohio | 2014 CB1100 DLX 2

    The EFI bitching is ridiculous. If someone wants a carburetor, fine, whatever, but the level of entitlement necessary to say “somebody sell me a carburetor!” is ridiculous. If the economics were in it for the major manufacturers, they would sell carbureted bikes. They don’t because a combination of consumer demand (hey, I want my bike to start in the morning!) and emissions standards makes it a losing proposition. If you want a bike that’s finicky with respect to changes in altitude and temperature, is less efficient, and has decreased power, go to a specialty manufacturer.

    re:[Btw, how the fuck will an airbag save you on a motorcycle? My kneejerk response is to doubt their efficacy.] They’re not going to be nearly as effective as on a car. It makes sense that they would help with head-on collisions, though, say a left-turning panel van.

    DerBrizon’05 SV-650S; ’13 TR650 Strada

    Hmm. I’m gonna go read tonight. I still have my doubts and I would be extremely pissed if I had to replace an airbag because I dropped my bike or something.

    (This demonstration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApYPzyPnFOs&feature=kp) looks like it would be pretty effective for standard bikes, but for anything sport-related, I feel like it would just help launch the rider, but I guess launching is better than hitting the car. More info for other readers, if they care.

    I feel for the rest of riders, suit-mounted airbag systems will become more normal, not bike-mounted.

    SurfinSeaOtter’03 Dyna FXDWG

    Yes, those airbags will help a ton as you fly through the air!

    Wraith888882 V45 Sabre, 74 CB750K 3

    His basic statement is crap. There are plenty of new bikes that don’t have tons of electronics and safety features. Almost no bikes even have ABS standard but as an available optional feature.

    daveonline123’99 Yamaha XJ600S “Diversion”

    From 2016 in the EU, all new bikes over 125cc will be required to have ABS. I personally think it’s a good thing. It takes one danger away from riding and doesn’t interfere with your ride unless it’s needed. All this article shows is the author cares less about his safety than he cares about how hipster he sounds.

    About 99% of riders would benefit from ABS, the 1% who can brake perfectly probably don’t get themselves in that situation in the first place. Not only that, but everyone makes mistakes, even the professionals.

    The only downside is the initial purchase cost, but if you activate your ABS once, it probably just paid for itself and more.

    Wraith888882 V45 Sabre, 74 CB750K

    I think the lobbyists have somehow managed to keep ABS from being made mandatory here in the U.S.

    I know that I’m one of those 99% that could really use it. Of course I also like antiques so there’s the conundrum.

    Macchinario 5 points 12 days ago

    Yeah, and you know what? Those pesky helmets are really lame, they only make you use that so the helmet factories can make some money. Lobby power, I say!

    Also, it is clear to me that the author is a poser. EFI? Carburetors are the only way to go, man! What kind of sissy uses fuel injection? And those ridiculous electric starters?? No man worth a grain of salt should have those, the bike must be started by kicking it hard, several times. It’s lots of fun – specially in winter – and way more authentic! And while we are at it, screw the oil pumps, a man should pump your own oil to it’s engine, and if you don’t know how to do it you play on the wrong side of the road, if you know what I mean.

    You really know what? Get a bicycle, engines are for pussies who lack the man power to propel itself by his own strength.

    Wat3rs 7 points 12 days ago

    Yeah all those safety features on a bike seem real annoying and inconvenient until a car pulls in front of you while you’re going 50 mph. I can tell you from experience I could’ve avoided some serious damage( a couple destroyed organs) to my body if i had a newer bike with handlebar airbags.

    DerBrizon’05 SV-650S; ’13 TR650 Strada

    How do airbags on a bike save that much damage? I’ve gone over the bars a few times and usually the result is bruising to the legs. Of course, never at massive speed, but nevertheless. The rider usually separates from the bike… How can an airbag help?

    Wat3rs 1 point 11 days ago

    I personally didnt make it all the way over the handlebars. I was at higher speed so in my experience I ended up hitting the windscreen.

    rawcaret’83 BMW R80

    Well, now you can have them.

    debludklud 1 point 12 days ago

    Seatbelts and rollcages to make sure you hit those air bags and you won’t fall off.

    daveonline123’99 Yamaha XJ600S “Diversion”

    They actually tried seatbelts on bikes to see if it would help, but it didn’t. You’re better off being free to leave the bike in an accident.

    cr0ftTriumph Rocket III 19

    Well, that article is full of a lot of bullshit.

    The reasons cars have safety features is exactly safety. Deaths in cars have plummeted radically since we started adding security to them and cars are no less enjoyable as a result, and tragedies are averted and tons of money is saved from the lack of carnage. Well.. the lowered levels of carnage, the roads are still incredibly unsafe.

    There is no reason to have bikes be any less safe than necessary – a motorcycle is never going to be a safe vehicle regardless, and even now the safety and rideability assistance features like traction control and ABS can be manually disabled. I for one love the fact that my bike is fuel injected and has an adaptive ECU – it allowed me to remap it for more performance with ease and the ECU will keep the engine in tune as it ages, so far fewer hassles overall.

    And finally, of course, travel on public roads isn’t supposed to be primarily fun, it’s supposed to be primarily transportation. If you want fun beyond the fun you get in daily riding at legal speeds, buy a track bike or race car with no electronics and go out on a track and ride.

    sirkazuo[Los Angeles, CA] 2 points

    Not only that, but the author claims that you can’t do a power slide in a car because… ABS? That’s not even what ABS does, it would be some traction control system that prevents wheel slip for a power slide, and most if not all of them can be disabled if you want to power slide.

    Then he goes on to complain how dual-clutch gearboxes blip the throttle and “do the double-clutching” for you. Double-clutching hasn’t been a thing since synchros, grandpa.

    Article is retarded, author is a grumpy old man that doesn’t actually know anything.

    spongebob_meth1995 Ninja zx7/2006 RM-Z 450

    cars are no less enjoyable as a result

    Yes they are. Drive by wire has ruined many cars, you just feel so disconnected. Might as well be playing a video game, because the pedal response is so jacked up in a lot of new sports cars.

    cr0ftTriumph Rocket III 1

    That’s on a car by car basis, and it also brings us back to the main point which is that the primary reason we have roads is transportation, not playgrounds. If you want to have more fun with a vehicle than is road-legal, you do it on a track and can do it in whatever track-day weapon you choose.

    ghrelly 2 points 12 days ago

    Well, yeah, if you get a toyota corolla, you are going to feel disconnected. There are plenty of drive by wire cars that are responsive.

    spongebob_meth1995 Ninja zx7/2006 RM-Z 450

    There are plenty of sports cars with annoying drive by wire systems

    My dad has an 06 mustang GT that is annoying as hell to shift because of its weird throttle

    fruhlingstal

    Air bags aren’t optional. To drive my car, I have to either buckle the seat belt or listen to an annoying chime the whole drive.

    IMHO, “we added security to cars”, in a similar way to how we picked the cotton not that long ago.

    It’s great you like how things are. What about those who want something different?

    Do I own the things I buy? Or do we all own everything together so that our national statistics look impressive?

    cr0ftTriumph Rocket III 2

    If you really want to add lack of safety to a safe vehicle, you can just systematically go through it and remove air bags, seat belts, reinforced side panels etc. The average car owner, not being suicidal, no doubt wants the security features, because they prefer to survive their daily commute if possible.

    However, you aren’t allowed to remove soft crumple zones in the front and rear and other improvements to cars that have made them less lethal to whatever they hit, because your fetish for danger doesn’t allow you to increase the danger to others.

    fruhlingstal 1 point 11 days ago

    Fiddler: Never you mind, boy, never you mind. Let’s get on back to home. I got enough trouble teaching you the difference between manure and massa. ‘Course there ain’t all that much difference when you gets right down to it.

    Roots 1977

    NoTimeForThat 3 points 12 days ago

    Yes, lets go back to drum brakes. Hey, like having a steering column that pierces your sternum in an accident? Old technology can be yours. Remove the new shit from your car and really show the man.

    DerBrizon’05 SV-650S; ’13 TR650 Strada

    Well you sound like a libertarian who believes in unbridled capitalism. Let capitalism do it’s thing: If there’s enough of you who want what you want, someone will make it for you to purchase. Until then, your concern for your individuality is moot.

    the_savages

    This is more a libertarian rant than a motorcycle complaint.

    the_savages

    To each their own. Not my cup of tea, I’ve crashed enough vehicles to know that helmets, abs and seat belts are a good thing and this person seems to have more of a political issue.

    • Jeez!

      Can people read? I guess not.

      My objection wasn’t to the technology per se. It was to it being force-fed to people via mandates.

      As it has been with regard to cars.

      Fuel injection may have advantages; it also has disadvantages – the obvious one being cost (up front as well as down the road). Wait until bikes start going to direct injection and see what the cost of a bike is. They’re still at the the throttle body stage – which is the stage that makes sense, economically and functionally.

      How about a mandatory air bag riding suit? For safety?

      And so it goes…

      • Yeah, your articles are well accepted in Libertarian, Bad Cops, Tyranny, Progun, Objectivist, Conspiracy and other segments.

        These are just general people that are interested in motorcycles.

        Kind of discouraging to read, but it’s better to know the truth, I think.

        A lot of these guys are european/uk.

      • CloverEric as usual you are a joke. You say that you do not like fuel injection because of the cost? You got to be kidding me! Fuel injection has so many advantages that the cost is insignificant. Fuel savings alone will probably make it up in a few months. I have had fuel injection and it never had to be repaired. If someone needs their carbs repaired or adjusted then they pay more than the cost of fuel injection. Eric do you call yourself a car expert? You are a joke. I remember having carbs. Hard starting, suck fuel and over time need adjustments or repair. Do you want the car manufacturers to cater to Eric and spend thousands to redesign a car so that Eric will be happy? Do you know anything about business?

        • Clover,

          It’s been established that your mechanical/engineering knowledge is nil. Regardless, the issue is not the pros or cons of fuel injection; it is that fuel injection – ever more complex and expensive forms of it – has been de facto mandated to comply with government mandates chasing ever-more-diminishing returns (incremental increases in fuel economy and incremental reductions in emissions).

          I enjoy publicly revealing your idiocy, Clover.

          So keep ’em coming!

        • Whether FI or carbs, Clover, you’re incapable of repairing (or adjusting) either.

          You therefore rely on others to “make it go.” Because “they are smart.”

          And you are not.

          • CloverAgain Eric you do not get it. I have adjusted carbs. 99% of people do not want to adjust carbs if they do not have to and if there is something better. Tell me Eric how much more it costs for fuel injection in a modern car compared to carbs? I would bet a million bucks that you do not have a clue. Eric computers used to cost thousands of dollars 20 years ago. Now you can get a better one for 300 bucks. Eric it is the same with fuel injection. Tell me Eric how you make a living when you do not have a clue about how business works? Eric people do not want your old carbs. My car starts and runs very well at 25 below zero. Cars with carbs usually don’t. They cough and sputter and the engine dies. Eric my car runs just fine.

            • Clover,

              If I had “a million dollars” for every bet you’ve lost – and welshed on – I’d be a very wealthy man.

              I doubt you’ve ever “worked on” anything – especially English grammar – given the demonstrations of your “knowledge” on this site.

              As far as cost: A carburetor is a stand-alone fuel delivery system. The casting, plus a few loose parts. Even today, you can buy a brand-new Quadrajet four-barrel carb for about $400. Mind, this is complete – the entire fuel delivery system. Oh, there is the fuel pump – a simple mechanical device that costs about $40. But that’s it.

              Now, let’s consider a port fuel injection system (as distinct from throttle body injection and also direct injection). On a V-8, there are eight individual injectors. Ever price these, Clover? Plus the several sensors that are necessary to maintain the correct A/F ratio. Plus 02 sensors (usually at least two, if we’re dealing with a V-8). Plus high pressure fuel rails. Plus an electric fuel pump in the tank that’s both expensive to replace and difficult to replace. Plus a computer to run the works.

              These components are not adjustable, Clover. When they begin to get balky, you throw them away and replace with a new part.

              The cost to repair/replace all the components of an EFI system – or even just a few of them – is orders of magnitude more than the cost to rebuild a carburetor, Clover. I place rebuild in italics to emphasize the point. A carburetor, barring abuse (such as over-tightening) that physically damages the castings, can easily last for 50-plus years and be rebuilt (by someone who “can make it go”) almost indefinitely for about $50 (for the gaskets, seals, needle and steam float, etc.).

              Now, it’s true that fuel injection usually needs less maintenance… for awhile. A carb will need occasional small adjustments – again, easily done by someone not like you… i.e., someone who can “make it go” – but this is no big deal. But when EFI develops problems, they are not infrequently very expensive to fix – and are well beyond the ken of an Elio such as yourself.

              Poor ol’ Clover!

              Now, if we were comparing the merits of throttle body injection to those of carburetors, you’d have a much stronger argument. TBI is very simple, and does improve driveability, especially cold-start.

              But – thanks to Clovers – TBI systems have been effectively outlawed, too – just like carburetors.

              And, guess what? Port fuel injection is on the way out, too – also because of Clovers. It is being supplanted by direct injection.

              Do you know why, Clover?

              Because fatuous fatheads such as you pass laws demanding fractional – microscopic – “gains” in fuel efficiency and “reductions” of exhaust emissions… without regard to the cost.

              Just “make it go.”

              Because “they are smart.”

              Too bad you aren’t.

          • Eric have you ever talked to a person that daily repairs cars? How many of them say that hundreds of cars come in with fuel injection problems? I have not had any problems. No one else I know has had problems. Yes an oxygen sensor can go bad eventually but those are fairly inexpensive. Again Eric you were incapable of telling us how much fuel injection costs but I knew that. Yes if you go and buy all the individual parts they will cost you a lot but manufacturers can build a system with somewhere around 20% of replacement costs. Clover

            Again you do not care about fuel economy of things like fuel injection or the improved performance and better engine life. You do not care that using more fuel empowers guys like Putin to take over the world. Go over to Russia and kiss his ass.

            • Clover,

              In addition to being a competent mechanic myself (unlike you, I know “how to make it go”) I have two good friends who own their own repair shops. So, yes, I have “talked to a person that daily repairs cars.”

              Here’s a quick snapshot of Clover’s ship, the Mondor:

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeFoGo3N_4g

              As explained previously (and which you’ve ignored, per usual, and then go on to rant about something else) a basic throttle body (TBI) and even port fuel injection (PFI) system usually doesn’t require much, if anything, in the way of maintenance or repair for quite some time from new. But when the system does develop problems – as it inevitably will, as all mechanical/electrical systems eventually do – the cost to replace components can be very high. Not so much for the TBI set-ups, which are very much like carbureted set-ups (“wet” manifold with a simple throttle body bolted to the plenum, with two and sometimes four sprayers for a V-8) but PFI is another animal.

              Direct injection, another world.

              At some point, components will have to be replaced. This can entail thousands of dollars if it’s a PFI or direct injection system – the systems now in use, Clover, to eke out the fractional improvements (over TBI) in gas mileage and similarly fractional reductions in exhaust emissions demanded by the government, courtesy of Clovers.

              For an ordinary car, used for A to B driving, TBI makes functional and economic sense. Carbs also make sense. PFI less so. DI, much less so.

              Unlike you, Clover, I understand cost-benefit analysis.

              I also believe in free choice.

              Again, unlike you.

              You believe in force (exercised on your pitiable behalf, by others who are at least physically prepared to do the violence themselves while you cringe behind your ballot box and euphemisms).

              Because you can’t make it go.

              Poor ol’ Clover!

              The sun is setting on his world!

            • Poor ol’ Clover.

              An obvious typo (spelling error) is not a grammatical error.

              I’ll match wits – and skills – with you any day, any time.

              In your case, it’s the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight.

              But, you’re a pussy in all things – as well as a general ignoramus.

          • Eric yes you may be a better writer of lies than I am . I could care less. I make a good living at common sense and business sense. I am smart enough to know that no company in the world would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars modifying an assembly line to create an inferior product to please a few people like Eric. That is pure stupidity. Fuel injection gives you more power over all rpm ranges, uses less fuel, is very reliable, gives you great engine starting in all kinds of weather, gives you longer engine life, pumps less unburned gas into your oil and the air. What does a carb do? It gives Eric a job that he thinks he can do. Again Eric it is your lack of business sense that is the problem. Anyone with business sense does not care if something costs a few dollars more if it can be made up with less fuel usage and a far better driver experience and less costs in the long run. You say that in the long run fuel injection will need to be fixed with an expensive repair. Why is that Eric? Is it because the engine lasts so much longer with fuel injection? I have seen dozens of cars with fuel injection that never needed repair. What numbers do you have? What percentage of vehicles with fuel injection need a major repair in the first 15 years? I am waiting for your numbers? Clover
            By the way, I read to replace a fuel injector if you take it to someone to do costs $200 to $500. If you do it yourself it is cheap. It is also easily diagnosed. Since few have problems most would be willing the risk to save thousands in fuel costs.

            • No lies, Clover. Just statements of fact – and simple, direct questions. Which you refuse to directly answer.

              Again:

              Do you believe you have the right to assault people (or threaten to or have others threaten to on your behalf) in order to further “goods” you regard as good? It’s a simple, direct question. Why won’t you directly answer?

              On fuel injection:

              I’ve explained that TBI delivers the things you’ve mentioned – immediate starts, better driveability/economy and lower emissions. But I also explained that TBI has been rendered as obsolete – by government fiat – as carburetors. Because of creatures such as yourself that do not understand the concept, diminishing returns.

              Further, you demonstrate (again) your mechanical/engineering ignorance when you write: “Fuel injection gives you more power over all rpm ranges.”

              It does no such thing. Not an opinion, Clover. A fact.

              Carburetors are better at producing maximum power than FI. And the RPM at which an engine achieves peak horsepower has nothing to do with whether it is fed fuel by injectors or a carburetor.

              And: With PFI you have an injector for each of the engine’s cylinders. Thus, six for a six-cylinder engine and eight for a V-8. Multiply your “$200 to $500” times six or eight, Clover.

              And even that is becoming moot – because direct injection is supplanting PFI.

              I realize, of course, that an ignoramus such as yourself does not know what the difference is between TBI, PFI and DI.

              Just as you do not understand the difference between aggressive violence and defense against aggressive violence.

              Pitiful little Clover.

          • Eric you are a joke. Eric I NEVER run my engine at peak horsepower. Eric that sucks gas just like carbs do. Eric you are all over the board. You want to save pennies but are willing to spend a lot more in fuel by running at peak HP. I said over different rpm ranges. I seldom go over 3,000 rpm except maybe slightly on the interstate. It sucks gas Eric to run at peak HP and sucking gas costs money. Something you said you were trying to save every penny. Maximum hp is somewhere in the upper 4,000 rpm range. Fuel injection does run more efficiently over the full rpm spectrum. Again facts do not matter to libertarians.
            I mentioned the average cost to have someone replace a fuel injector. Then you bring up replacing all 8 injectors if you have the very rare 8cyl anymore? Eric I would guess that you would never replace all injectors unless you are a piss poor car repair person or you ran something other than gas in your engine. Clover
            Eric to sum it up you should find something else to complain about because you do not have a clue. As for direct injection yes it would run you somewhere around a100 bucks more for direct injection but again if you can save 5% in fuel usage you again would save money within the first year of use. Eric I am investor. I am very willing to put out a few hundred dollars to save thousands. That is something you will never understand. You would be a very poor choice to run a company.

            • Poor illiterate Clover!

              Go back and read – slowly, one word at a time – what I wrote previously. Whether you “run your engine at peak horsepower” is beside the point. The point, Clover, is whether an engine makes the same (or more) peak hp with a carburetor or fuel injection. You – per usual – evade dealing with this, and go off dancing to your own spayshal song.

              Next: I tried to explain the difference between the three types of fuel injection systems – TBI, PFI and DI – and that there is progressively increasing cost and complexity as one moves from TBI to PFI to DI. Clover – who like his spacefaring Pakled cousins does not know how to “make it go” – doesn’t comprehend these distinctions. To him, there is just “fuel injection” and “he can make it go, he is smart”!

              Poor ol’ Clover!

          • eric, Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m a Quadrajet fool but for all the good reasons. A friend and I always used those Govt. Motors pickups because…well, they were way superior to everything else. When we’d meet, we’d kill our trucks and talk. When we got ready to leave we’d hit the ignition switch(and I used BB’s and SB’s both) and the engine would be instantly running, barely even hear the starter engage. We’d laugh and say something like “Damn, these things won’t ever start” and grin at each other and go on.

            I allow we need to get together and rebuild a few of differing persuasions. The auto choke feature as well as the warm-up system before you could get into it was always so far above the competition it wasn’t funny. I worked for a major company and every morning when it was really cold you’d hear every make start in the parking lot. I could pick out the GM’s by sound. All you had to do was wait for the engine to spin and then hit high idle and purr. Meanwhile, the Ford’s and Mopars(that nasty starter sound)would crank, fire, die, crank, fire, die, crank, fire, maybe rev a bit, die, ad nauseum. I’d be idling by on high idle while they were still trying to attain continuous ignition. Those two barrel, four barrel looking Holley/Ford carbs were the absolute worst. As far as performance goes, that old quadrajet would HOWL and make some serious power toot sweet. Turn that air cleaner top upside down and have 4″ of big air cleaner sucking air right now. I’ve done all sorts of mods to the air cleaner housing to get the most air in and they all worked well. When GM switched from points to the HEI, it just got bulletproof. How many of those coils have you had to replace? I’d be surprised if you ever had to. I have replaced the rotor, cap and coil so that when I flipped the switch for nitrous it would do everything it needed. That little SBC would turn into a monster, best get out of the way.

          • Clover rarely/never exceeds 3000rpm in what is most likely a FWD driving appliance with a typical high final drive…. why am I not surprised?

            • Hi Brent,

              I was going to pipe up on that, too!

              Just picture him easing his Camry out from a side street onto a busy main arterial… expecting the world to come to a halt for his sake.

          • CloverEric you say I can not read. What is it with your reading ability? I said it does not matter about your peak hp because only idiots use peak HP in a car on a continual basis on the roadway. Using peak HP is is like taking a 5 gallon gas can and dumping it into the engine. Yes Eric a carb is capable of that. I flat out don’t care.

            Again Eric a carburetor is not as fuel efficient as fuel injection. Eric I am willing to spend a couple more hundred to save thousands in fuel costs. I can not help it your are stupid.

            When I think about it you are consistent. You are always for today. Always for the now. I on the other hand look out for what total cost is. Eric that is why I have 100s of thousands of dollars more than you. I do planning. It is obvious that libertarians do note of that. I ask you how your road is going to be maintained and you say that it will just happen. Eric you have no math skills and no planning skills. Clover

            Eric it is just like I said months ago. You say to buy an old used gas hog because it is cheaper and I say buy a new car because you can make up the difference in costs with the fuel and maintenance savings in a few years. That concept is beyond your comprehension.

            • You’ve shown again that you can’t read, Clover!

              Whether one uses peak hp or when it occurs is not what was being discussed, you crashing imbecile! I corrected your erroneous assertion that fuel injection produces superior peak hp. It does not. Never did I argue or even discuss using peak hp, or where in the powerband it occurs. That is your non sequitur, your dodge.

              You also seem unable to understand the differences (mechanical and economic) between TBI, PFI and DI. Which is understandable, given you’re a government bottle washer and lack any mechanical or engineering knowledge.

              PS: Your net worth says nothing about your worth as a person, or your intellect. Nor is it an argument. It’s just a pathetic attempt to make yourself seem important.

              Which of course indicates you’re not.

          • Off and on all day, I’ve wondered how Clover gets away with Not following the manufacturers scheduled maintenance plan for fuel injectors. A.k.a. cleaning/flushing!

            The price of which, is astronomical.

            I didn’t see That factored into his clovearian calculations.

            …It’s kind of funny to imagine if all the guys who do that stuff tell him he’s on his own and he has to do it himself.
            It’d be a Lucille Ball moment: Pies a flyin’.

            Not too mention, how he/she would be crying when it came time to replace the fuel pump in the gas tank.

            …”You mean I have to do what!?”

            Oh yeah!, imho, replacing the fuel pump is about the wor$t. …Well, next to having to replace eight fuel injector$.

          • Eric what is your problem? You were the one that talked about superior peak hp not me. As I said, I can care less about peak hp. The ONLY time you ever need peak hp is when you are a stupid idiot that passes in a no passing zone and a car is headed right at you.Clover

            I said that fuel injection is far more efficient over the entire rpm range. If you want to include peak hp in that statement then you are an idiot. Again if you hit peak hp all the time then you are a poor and dangerous driver and are dumping gas in the air. That is something that someone who is worried about saving a buck or two would never do. The only one who should care about peak hp is if you race the car. I am more worried about lower end torque which fuel injection helps. That is why they are able to put small engines in trucks now and 4 cyl cars work great.

            • My problem, Clover, is I’m dealing with an idiot.

              And, a liar.

              You argued that one of the merits of fuel injection is that it produces greater peak hp. You made that statement, not I.

              I merely corrected it.

              Let’s correct another one, shall we?

              “I am more worried about lower end torque which fuel injection helps.”

              Nope.

              Fuel injection is just another means of delivering fuel to the engine. It does not “help” torque output, which is a function of mechanical design – things like displacement (including turbocharging and supercharging, which effectively increases an engine’s displacement) as well as cam profile, compression ratio and so on.

              You can make the argument that FI improves cold start performance, lowers emissions and increases fuel efficiency. Because those points are factual. “Helping” torque, on the other hand, is laughable.

              It’s like squashing a toad, Clover.

              Only I’d never squash a toad. Toads are valuable – and innocuous.

              Unlike you.

          • eric wrote, “My problem, Clover, is I’m dealing with an idiot. ”

            Ha! Ha! …Too funny.

            I went through at least ten of those this evening before I found three who were receptive to the message of their Very own freedom.

            Keep hacking.

        • You’re so predictable and boring, clover.

          When a statist who’s on his game attacks, me, I get flushed in the face. Red hot with anger. Reason goes out the window. I lose what little coherence I usually possess online. It’s limbic lizard go-time.

          With your “attacks” ,however, I just get a little half-smile on my face. And I try to parse the indecipherable jabs that are supposed to be lethal vitriol, but they’re just sad. They’re like sugery red dyed Kool-Aid flavored venom-ade.
          Oh Yeah!

          You’re just a Toys-R-Us rubber snake hissing on the driveway, and not even a 3 years old is afraid of you.

          I wish you’d make a plausible case for how mandatory state authority could get back on the tracks and start to carry some freight and accomplish some real goals. All you do is spout nonsense.

          Or stay true to form, look at the insults of your superiors, clover. Read and learn from all the ones on reddit and do your worst.

          raaaaar
          http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/18300000/i-big-scary-monster-lol-18303927-251-201.jpg

          I’m an FSA soldier boooy
          http://image.blingee.com/images15/content/output/000/000/000/320/114231124_1580276.gif

          big scary clover
          http://lol0.com/LOL/2012/01/LOL-birds%20are%20scary-funny-photo.jpg

          you’re a proud member of the world’s greatest killing machine. start acting like it
          http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/32600000/LOL-scary-movie-32654052-500-273.gif

          I can’t even care enough to post some decent pics in your regard. Give me something to go on. What part of government do you really love, and cherish above all its other hydra heads. Tell me something new.

        • Dear Clover,

          You wrote:

          “Eric do you call yourself a car expert? You are a joke.”

          Clover, you would do well to steer well clear of any argument over automotive matters with Eric. He’s a bona fide car expert who’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know about cars, motorcycles, and other forms of motorized transportation.

          What you are doing is analogous to a neocon chickenhawk challenging an MMA champion to a fist fight.

  13. How! So MAMBA, what would your STATIST Indian name be?

    It seems to match your vision of a coherent group of PARAGRAPHS written on the walls of a TEEPEE.

    All Dwarf MAMBA Vines
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ilTXiJG2c

    Do you consider the Native American tribal collective a model to strive for? An orderly and egalitarian society, with everyone on an equal footing and individual diversions to a minimal.

    – all tools were fashioned from the good earth.
    – nature was greatly admired and respected
    – wolves were seen as brothers
    – buffalo were glad to provide sustenance

    Or was the communal PEACE PIPE passed around for a reason and the BRAVES all dissipated like puffs of smoke?

  14. I guess I don’t understand, why the name your parents were legally forced to record for you in your county of birth is your “true identity.”

    To my mind, anything involving force is invalid and non-existent.

    I truly hope every thing American and English is wiped off the face of this Earth. That it becomes a lost civilization and language, like Thracian. Yet our wealth and accomplishments remain.

    Then all the evil currently being partaken in will be only vaguely recalled as something done by the English Zibythides – the English Noble Thracians.

    No one need lose their life, just be forced to relearn a new non-cloverian language and adopt a non-cloverian culture. Maybe it will be Tangerine. The world language that’s being developed to replace Mandarin, starting in 2017.

    Let’s say 90% of the regulars here identify by their true identity. Why does that require anything be done by the 10%?

    I’m glad clover doesn’t divulge his petty government checkbox details. That forces us to dissect him on a philosophical level.

    I loathe him all the more, because he doesn’t speak of Illinois whatsoever. And I want to keep on loathing him, I don’t want him to humanize himself and take the animosity down a few notches by “coming clean.”

    I surely detest his talking about his wealth and possessions. To be honest, I hate any man discussing this on the internet with strangers. It’s beyond stupid. It makes my brain tissue shrivel, to hear mundanes actually acting mundanely, and in some small measure deserving their monickers.

    Clover probably drives a bus like Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooners. Only he’s far less interesting and likable. As we’ve all witnessed.

    The web has certainly come down a few pegs. Now everyone is an IP address, and there’s a weasily sort of ethos where IP addresses are looked up and facts are discerned.

    And at most every business, the owner looks at security footage at his employees and customers, and checks credit records, and monitors police blotters, and goes thru reams and reams of employee documentations.

    Truly to be an American, is to be a detestable vermin in a pointless bureaucratic vermin maze.

    And really, that’s why the only good American, is a defeated and despondent American. A conquered and discontinued American.

    Because they’re almost every one of them just babushka dolls within babushka dolls of pettiness and Last Men.

    And I don’t see how anyone can be expected to winnow out the few good eggs in the midst of so many cracked and rotten ones.

    And so I play the bad egg. And engage in anti-bragging. And sell myself far short. And refuse to step onto the scales of weighings and measurings. I’m typing this right now while under a bridge, in a cardboard box. With an cracked Ipad I found next to a drunk hooker.

    I appreciate that you’ve chosen to bring your legal birth certificate name into the internet. And of course it’s great you choose to be a real consistent person. For your website to be a success you have to choose either your given legal name, or some kind of easily recalled persona.

    I enjoyed hearing your real voice. I’m glad you’ve taken the risk and sought the rewards of being a real person. I’m trying to tone down my bluster, so as not to conflict with this sector of majority, and seat of significance and possible profit.

    My favorite hangout used to be a site called “whoisjohngalt” and the guy running that site just went by John Galt. If I were to choose a name from Atlas Shrugged, I’d go with Ragnar Danneskjöld.

    I admit I’m quite nervous around those who say they’re laissez faire, and then start typing out orders to tell us your true identity, what you do for a living, etc.

    I’ve decided it is done to clover because he’s worn out his welcome. The remedy for not undergoing that kind of checkpoint groping, is to not wear out my welcome.

    I don’t trust that way of behaving. I don’t trust any American way of behaving. Even the so called good behaviors.

    I don’t trust anyone here to know anything real about me. Because we’re all scumbag slaves. And we should realize, that at any moment, we can be made to face that plantation reality, by any slave master.

    So if forced to compare myself true attributes to true attributes, I will describe myself as 3 feet tall and 50 pounds. 30 pounds of which is a water filled cranium.

    You may have seen my video. I’m Rubber Johnny.

    I guess I don’t care for mere humans very much. I’m glad I’m so alien and atypical.

    It makes me want to puke, hearing the normals saying: gots me a bunch of shiny things in my nest. Squawk! Me too. Let’s tell each other stories about the colored string we saw the other day. I know, it was genuine 100& rayon. Boy Howdy!

    My real name is Rubber Johnny, despite all your surveillance and records to the contrary.

    Snopes – Teenage Mutant – Rubber Johnny
    http://www.snopes.com/photos/gruesome/johnny.asp

    I hope to keep on living here without complying with official governance. Or even local voluntary governance.

    It’s been interesting so far, seeing how far down the rabbit hole I can go, yet still effectively communicate with those on the surface.

  15. The thing about the internet, is you don’t need to be typecast, but if the clovers finally pass their law allowing only one identity, I’d like to be thought of as Rubber Johnny.

    A coke snorting hydrocephalic wheelchair bound homunculus talking tough on the internet from my parents’ basement. Yeah, that’s the real me alright.

    Rubber Johnny – Chris Cunningham – Aphex Twin
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRvfxWRi6qQ

    Vordhosbn – Aphex Twin
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwe10iDlFQo

    Window Licker – Aphex Twin
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MBaEEODzU0

    Nannou – Aphex Twin
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaXqU7hVVhI

    Flim – Aphex Twin
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhHkUg-QCwk

    Alberto Balsalm – Aphex Twin
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUT3KoxVzQg

    • The irony here, Tor, is that our Clover has yet to divulge his true identity – while most of us here have not only used our real names but openly discussed what we do for a living, where we live and so on.

      Clover is a poltroon.

      • It’s slowly leaking out of Clover, although I believe it to be at least in part lies.

        Apparently Clover is fairly rich with multiple vehicles and homes** and has had jobs in the private sector, but it was stated as if it spent a good portion of its career in the government sector. This tells me, that if it’s not lies, Clover has participated in the revolving door. Going in and out of government jobs to spend time working for crony capitalist companies. True or not Clover seems to be playing the role of some lower level revolving door opportunist who through this system has made many multiples above and beyond its abilities.

        **This doesn’t mean much, multiple homes and vehicles can be done on the cheap if one wants to.

  16. Maybe I’m needlessly reinventing the wheel. It turns out I’m against dirigisme.

    There’s already a ready-made term for what I loathe about the state and statists.

    Check out the implied dirigisme in this SHTFPlan headline:

    Illegal Immigration And Gangs: Someday Our Cities Will Burn Because We Didn’t Protect Our Borders

    What about the state itself being a gang? What do you mean by “Our Cities.” I sure as hell don’t consider myself part of Las Vegas. They’re a bunch of violent jackoffs. I loathe them to their core. I don’t consider the borders my borders.

    I admit, I don’t know all the economic ramifications of opening the borders. But I’ve made the executive decision not to care or get involved. If tomorrow all 1.2 billion people from India are now somehow all within are borders, I’m still not going to care.

    http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/illegal-immigration-and-gangs-someday-our-cities-will-burn-because-we-didnt-protect-our-borders_07232014

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigisme

    Here’s what it would look like if you put every living human being in a pile in the grand canyon. Even if you included every human being who’s ever lived, about 106 billion people, you’d only have 15 of these piles.

    Visualization of every living human on a pile
    http://sploid.gizmodo.com/if-you-put-every-living-human-on-a-pile-it-would-only-1569188500

    There’s plenty of room and resources for all. It is mainly the governments creating false scarcity that makes us suffer in misery because they deny us accesses to the vast resources of our bountiful planet.

    • That’s about what I thought, too, when I saw that headline.
      I expected a bit better from that website, but….

      I read some of the comments, most all of them were in favor of shooting this and rounding up that, it seemed futile to attempt to persuade them otherwise.

      Dirigisme.
      The word sounds a bit like, and has the meaning of, ‘Die or, Just-Gives-me’:

      di·ri·gisme

      • Gibs me dat or die. Exactly so.

        Alleged accomplishment:
        Individuals were no longer allowed to own slaves

        Actual state accomplishment:
        Nation states were allowed to enslave their entire populations. Limited exceptions granted to corporations, trusts, and oligarchs – for the most part – everyone is property of the nation state plantation.

        American School
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_(economics)

        1 Support [state controlled ] industry: The advocacy of protectionism, and opposition to free trade.

        2 Create physical [state plantation] infrastructure: Government finance of internal improvements to speed commerce and develop industry. This involved the regulation of privately held infrastructure, to ensure that it meets the nation’s needs. Examples: Cumberland Road and Union Pacific Railroad

        3 Create [state monopolized] financial infrastructure: A government sponsored National Bank to issue currency and encourage commerce. This involved the use of sovereign state powers for the regulation of credit to encourage the [state power consolidating] development of the economy, and to deter [the free market].

        4 Government support for the development of [state] science and public education through a public ‘common’ school system and investments in creative research through grants and subsidies.

        5 Rejection of [individual/phyle] class struggle, in favor of the “Harmony of [state plantation] Interests” between: owners and workers, farmer and manufacturers, the wealthy class and the working class [roles of the state apparatus.]

  17. Damn you all to hell. The ones enforcing rules for distributing the bananas. The ones withholding the bananas. The ones limiting the number of bananas being produced. The ones preventing the transfer and trading of bananas. You know who you are. You damned dirty apes.

    Remembering Fatima Dyczynski
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD1I73nfX04

    Faster Than Light – Theme Song
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHDMqWMzBG8

    Faster Than Light – Spaceship Simulation
    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light

    A simulation is useful for planning and designing purposes. But when is the real one being built? I need a way to get away from this place.

  18. Let’s make space personal – Fatima Dyczynski. She was on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 when it was shot down over Ukraine.
    http://www.futuretimeline.net/videos/5.htm

    I despise ALL political means. Including any kind of group administered justice. She is dead because of politics.

    In a better world, those who care about her would do what they felt was best. And none of us would be involved.

    Everyone is free to associate with those they choose and to administer justice through any group means they devise. But any kind of top down societal political justice is inherently chimpanzee. There is no good form of group administered involuntary force.

    I believe only in the social means. I signify this choice with the bonobo.

    The majority believes in the political means. I signify this choice with the chimpanzee.

    This young lady is dead because of those who believe in the political means. Any who think this can be fixed thru further political action, are just as dead as she is, as far as I’m concerned.

    Interesting future timeline contains both voluntary and forced technological advances
    http://www.futuretimeline.net/

    • I found an article on Daily Sheeple stating that the passports were in pristine condition, that luggage was organized and undamaged…
      And another (also Daily Sheeple) where a rebel commander supposedly said that there were old, decayed (smelly) bodies, drained of blood….

      There was another Malaysian Airlines plane that “disappeared” recently… Had fewer people, but same model of aircraft. Considering this flight was supposedly tailed by Ukrainian fighters, and deviated from known safe to known UNsafe airspace?

      This WREAKS.

      I’m CERTAIN this is a set-up…. Pushing for war.

      • @Jean,
        I was driving and Michael Savage was on the radio. A caller said he believed both the Malaysian 777s had been told by their factory computer systems to crash the same way someone might use OnStar to turn off a vehicle.

        Savage seemed in complete agreement that it was possible. The guy was on for quite a while. Savage mentioned he prefers older vehicles himself without any computer control for that very reason.

        I assume the worst to be true in most cases. My latest take on this is to not play the political game at all. I don’t care about Putin, Obama, or whoever else. They’re all less than nothing in my book.

        Maybe politics functions rationally somewhere. But it doesn’t appear to ever do so in any of the media I am able to view.

  19. Have you swallowed the red pill?
    http://www.returnofkings.com/1177/have-you-swallowed-the-red-pill-take-the-test

    The vid used in the test is by soul pancake. I know Rainn’s a comedian, but I’ve never seen any of his work. He doesn’t move me one way or the other.

    SoulPancake

    Wilson founded the website and YouTube channel SoulPancake. The channel has over 1,190,000 subscribers, and over 139,000,000 video views. Soul Pancake has been featured on Oprah Winfrey’s Satellite Radio Show and Super Soul Sunday.

    My answers.

    A. I didn’t follow the instructions, I just watched the entire video because that’s what I wanted to do.

    1. Heart-warming? No this “compliment station” is just a microphone and some amplifiers. Editing in some reverb and background music into the video is also meaningless to me.

    2. No one in the video made an impression on me. I don’t even remember any of them.

    3. I tried being friends with girls in high school that I wanted to have sex with. Made them mix tapes, etc. Horrible, it always got weird at parties when the mask of friendship slipped and they recoiled in mock horror, “how dare you” they’d shriek

    And then they’d have random sex with some upperclassman because I’d gotten them good and liquored up in the hopes of becoming really good friends.

    4. I found this vid annoying and a waste of time.

    5. I didn’t even notice that one of the girls was a friend with one of the guys. I didn’t care about anyone in the vid.

    This ROK is an incomplete red pill to my eyes. it leaves too much authority intact which will seek to impose an equally oppressive PG-13 mancave matrix on everyone.

    What can be gayer than a manosphere I ask? The more time you associate only with men, the less time with women you will have. The trick is to exclude clover women, not all women, I think.

    • Dear Tor,

      Left a comment at the video.

      Bevin Chu • 2 minutes ago

      This is bullshit.
      This is totally unrelated to whether one has or has not taken the red pill.
      The real criterion is whether one believes that collectivizing coercion through “democracy” (mob rule) makes brute force coercion morally legitimate.
      The real criterion is whether one adheres consistently to the Non-Aggression Principle, aka NAP.


      Edit

      Reply

      Share ›

    • I edited my comment:

      Bevin Chu • an hour ago

      This “test” is risible pseudo-science, akin to the “test” administered in “Divergent” that pigeon-holed individuals into simplistic categories. It is totally unrelated to whether one has or has not taken the red pill.

      Whether one has taken the red pill depends on whether one believes that collectivizing coercion through “democracy” (mob rule) makes brute force coercion morally legitimate. It depends on whether one adheres consistently to the Non-Aggression Principle, aka NAP.

      Those who have taken the red pill have awakened and freed themselves from the Matrix, the involuntary web they were caught in. Those who have taken the red pill are individuals who think for themselves.

      In short, this video “test” is juvenile nonsense.


      Edit

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      Share ›

      • Thanks Bevin, I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to make of the RoK article.

        As far as Divergent, they totally screwed the pooch in the making of the movie.

        Spoiler alert.

        If they make future Divergent movies, at some point it will be revealed the entire city is a laboratory experiment. The experiment is run by CIA MI6 types of agents.

        I believe this is a close approximation to the world we actually live in.

        Divergent Quote:
        “We’re lucky to be in the city. They say that war was terrible, that the rest of the world was destroyed. Our founders built the wall to keep us safe and they divided us into five groups, factions, to keep the peace.

        The smart ones, the ones who value knowledge and logic, are in Erudite, they know everything. Amity farm the land, they’re all about kindness and harmony, always happy. Candor value honesty and order, they tell the truth, even when you wish they wouldn’t. And then there’s Dauntless, they’re our protectors, our soldiers, our police. I always thought they were was amazing. Brave, fearless and free. Some people think that Dauntless are crazy, which they kind of are.

        My faction is Abnegation, the others all call us stiffs. We lead a simple life, selfless, dedicated to helping other. We even feed the factionless, the ones who don’t fit in anywhere. Because we’re public servants, we’re trusted to run the government. My father works alongside our leader, Marcus. It all works, everyone knows where they belong. Except for me.”

        http://www.moviequotesandmore.com/divergent-quotes.html

        What a sell out and waste of film that movie ended up being. That shit about dauntless exists only in the POS movie. Disgusting.

        • Dear Tor,

          I really would suggest watching the film again, because the message of the film is exactly the opposite of what was in that voice over.

          That voice over represented the naive and childish perception of the narrator BEFORE she realized the whole set up was an authoritarian scam.

          Basically the main character underwent an awakening, and realized that the Officer Friendly myth was bullshit.

          • maybe so. why add that quote to the script tho other than to please the PTB?

            won’t regular movie-goers conclude that this was a special case. the dauntless heroes were victims of mind-control by the erudites.

            big budget movies as of late seem to grossly distort things in the state’s favor and in service of its agenda.

            in the new Planet of the Apes movie, the ape villain is a human and ape murdering Bonobo named Koba.

            and how did this bizarre tale come into being? Serling and Wilson’s script seems to have little to nothing to do with Pierre Boulle’s Monkey Planet.

            In America, its effectively impossible to perform theater in the agora commons.

            The only viable entertainment choice under the American Plantation System is the highly propagandized and scripted hollywood blockbuster. It’s a shame really.

    • Tor,
      RoK is only meant for a narrow portion of life: Interaction with women, and self-improvement.
      I would wager that you’ve read more of it than I have, actually. 😉

      But take a look at this, first:
      http://www.returnofkings.com/10251/how-to-build-a-beta-male

      I felt like I was reading parts of my life a few times…

      Also, there’s a lot of truth to men needing the company of other men. Have you noted the dearth of female commenters here? 😉

      Men hone and sharpen each other. Like steel on steel.

      Women commiserate. The empathize. They share. The make connections.

      Men? Challenge each other – ensure that you are “fit enough.” It’s not just DADD (Dads Against Daughters Dating) – it’s challeninge mental and physical strength – character – to see fi you’re good enough for the tribe. Would you go lifting with a woman? Maybe if you were friends with Nicole Bass, but in general? You’re able to spot her, help her form – but few women can spot for a man, and the better you get, the less capable she’ll be.

      This doesn’t mean to exclude all women, all the time, either. Take what’s good, leave the rest. We need to include the worthwhile (feminine) and exclude the ogres. 🙂
      But many men have been raised to be subservient, and it’s hard to overcome the programming…

  20. I consider myself a moral person trying to offer alternatives to the usual coerced violence which could benefit interested parties.

    Creativity is booming in the exciting growing new world of free market anarchism as already imagined and becoming increasing real in my head.
    – – –

    I was rehabbing a rental unit one time, and my wife had stopped in for some reason.

    She mentioned that on the way inside, she had seen some black guy and a white girl in a car arguing loudly, and the woman had slapped at him and then the guy had punched her in the face hard, and then reached over and pulled her hair and pulled her head into the dash a few times.

    The woman seemed to have struggled a bit, and looked to be trying to exit the car. But then she seemed to have changed her mind, turned back to the guy, and started arguing again as before.

    So my wife says, “what do we do, should I call 911 or something.”

    So I said “give me a second.” Walked over and closed the vertical blinds. Went over and made sure the front door and dead bolts were locked.

    I stopped what I was doing, and went into a back room, closed that door behind us and started working on something else in there.

    “We’re really not in a position to get involved”, I told her in a low voice. “For all intents and purposes, it looks like she’s voluntarily with that guy, and we’re on our own here, I don’t see what we can do.”

    It doesn’t feel good to say such things. And for them to be true. But really, when you’re on your own a mile deep into a rental neighborhood, and you have someone along you have to watch out for, what good options are there?

    Later, we decided we’d each do something nice for someone else, and then hope that would have to serve to offset what we didn’t do the other time. That would have to be good enough.

    I don’t tell her most of the stuff I recommend or think about here. She knows I’m antiwar and antigovernment in general, but not in specifics. She never shows up any more since that last time.

    It’s not so hard to talk about such things here, because we’re not that far apart. But away from here, things seem totally different, I really wouldn’t even know where to begin.

    Things one writes on a page, and things one experiences in reality, these are often two different animals, at least in my experience.

  21. Alan Watts on waking up to the real you:

    When you’re ready to wake up, you’re going to wake up, and if you’re not ready you’re going to stay pretending that you’re just a ‘poor little me.’

    And since you’re all here and engaged in this sort of inquiry and listening to this sort of lecture, I assume you’re all in the process of waking up. Or else you’re teasing yourselves with some kind of flirtation with waking up which you’re not serious about. But I assume that maybe you are not serious, but sincere – that you are ready to wake up.

    So then, when you’re in the way of waking up, and finding out who you really are, what you do is what the whole universe is doing a the place you call here and now. You are something that the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing… The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around; the real, deep down you is the whole universe.

    So then, when you die, you’re not going to have to put up with everlasting non-existence, because that’s not an experience. A lot of people are afraid that when they die, they’re going to be locked up in a dark room forever, and sort of undergo that. But one of the interesting things in the world is–this is a yoga, this is a realization–try and imagine what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up. Think about that.

    Children think about it. It’s one of the great wonders of life. What will it be like to go to sleep and never wake up? And if you think long enough about that, something will happen to you. You will find out, among other things, it will pose the next question to you. What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born.

    You see, you can’t have an experience of nothing; nature abhors a vacuum. So after you’re dead, the only thing that can happen is the same experience, or the same sort of experience as when you were born. In other words, we all know very well that after other people die, other people are born.

    And they’re all you, only you can only experience it one at a time. Everybody is I, you all know you’re you, and wheresoever beings exist throughout all galaxies, it doesn’t make any difference. You are all of them. And when they come into being, that’s you coming into being.

    You know that very well, only you don’t have to remember the past in the same way you don’t have to think about how you work your thyroid gland, or whatever else it is in your organism. You don’t have to know how to shine the sun. You just do it, like you breath.

    Doesn’t it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing, and that you’re doing all this and you never had any education in how to do it? Never learned, but you’re this miracle?

    The real you – Alan Watts
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMRrCYPxD0I

  22. Was reading Aesop’s fables while waiting for work to work.

    The Belly and the Members

    THE MEMBERS of the Body rebelled against the Belly, and said,
    “Why should we be perpetually engaged in administering to your
    wants, while you do nothing but take your rest, and enjoy
    yourself in luxury and self-indulgence?’ The Members carried out
    their resolve and refused their assistance to the Belly. The
    whole Body quickly became debilitated, and the hands, feet,
    mouth, and eyes, when too late, repented of their folly.

    As in the body, so in the state, each member in
    his proper sphere must work for the common good

    • Dear Jean,

      The “Belly and the Members” fable can be interpreted either of two ways.

      One is wrong. The other is right.

      The wrong way is as political hierarchy and obedience to the state.

      The right way is as economic division of labor and mutual cooperation for win/win.

      • Even the “obedience to the state” can work, if they realize they are only a part of the whole, and/or must answer to a still-higher power.
        We do not have that these days; they believe they exist in a vaccuum.

        There’s a similar story, actually, where the organs were arguing over who was the most important.
        The mouth claimed it was, as it was first in ingesting food.
        The stomach claimed it was, since nothing could survive without the energy he provided.
        The brain claimed it was, as it was what moved the body and found food in the first place.
        The anus said, actually, I’m the most important. At which, all the other organs laughed, and then went back to arguing – and the anus said, I’ll show you all!
        The anus went on strike.

        In two days’ time, mouth didn’t want to put anything in it. Stomach wasn’t felling well. Brain could barely function. And finally, all the organs had to capitulate to anus.

        Moral of the story: You don’t have the be smart, strong, or irreplaceable to be in charge, you just have to be an A$$hole….

        😉

        Hence, we get government. Note that like anus, they are full of…

  23. Summertime

    Summertime, and the killin’ is easy
    Missiles are flyin’ and the body count’s high
    Oh, your military’s rich and your nanny’s good-lookin’
    So hush little mundane, Don’t you cry

    One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up screaming
    You’ll spread your demon’s wings and you’ll take to the sky
    But ’til that morning, there ain’t nothin’ can harm you
    With Daddy and Mammy proxies standin’ by

    – Gershwin Hayward Porgy Bess Raytheon Northrup Gruman Operation Endless Summer Cover cityofsun88
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwdBjxaSGEo

    • Dear Tor,

      Alan Watts was a real character. He recorded several decades of weekly lectures with Pacifica Radio in SF. A real treasure trove of Zen wisdom.

      • Yeah, I’ve been listening to him lately on your recommend. A real mensch’s mensch. Thanks for letting my weird comments thru without rebute, except of course wherever I again falsely accuse you things. Cause that’s not a menschian thing to do to one’s own.

        Aria: Summertime by Gershwin from the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.

        Clara: Paula Ingram(sung by Harolyn Blackwell)
        The London Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle
        The Glyndebourne Chorus
        ……………………………………
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-Qa92Rzbk

        • Dear Tor,

          You have your own unique manner of expression.

          Much of the time, I can’t really make out what you’re saying, but others can, so obviously you are in fact communicating something of value to people.

          Not to worry. One of the virtues of libertarianism and the free market, is variety, diversification of products or services. It is the antithesis of “one size fits all.”

          So, just do what you do.

  24. Alanis Morissette – Chattering Chimpanzee Chi – All I Really Want

    Alanis Morissette – As a Beautiful Blessed Bonobo – Thank U

    The first song is grating and sets my teeth on edge. Chimpanzic.
    The second song is serene. Sets me at ease. Bonobian.

    Inside each of us are two distinct simian essences.
    We choose to channel one or the other.

  25. Radio Free A1bemuth is an American film adaptation of the science fiction novel by author Philip K. Dick, which was written in 1976 and published posthumously in 1985. The film stars A1anis Morissette

    Interview with director/writer/filmmaker begins at 24:00 mark
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXODvwOMi9o
    .
    Radio Free A1bemuth
    http://vodly.to/watch-2747439-Radio-Free-Albemuth

    RFA is PKD’s most autobiographical novel (he is even a character in the novel). Radio Free Albemuth reveals a disturbing alternative-world where a godly police-state oppresses humanity and warps reality itself within holographic Black Iron Prisons and golden mind-forged manacles.

    The novel has eerie parallels to our own society. The movie version has already won several prestigious awards in its limited release; many critics have lauded it as the most loyal Dick adaptation yet. We journey into Radio Free Albemuth and the Gnostic-mind of Dick with the director himself. He discusses the challenges and rewards of bringing the Gnosis of Philip K. Dick to the visual arts.

  26. The Slithery Dee (NSFW) UK Palestine Mandate
    http://newobserveronline.com/three-dead-israeli-teens-why-is-there-no-media-coverage-for-the-1500-murdered-palestinian-teens/

    Gaza Deaths You’re Not Being Shown – StormCloudsGather
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRO1YFreNA&list=UUEHsSWvrGVSIA63OV3J6vhA

    The Slithery Dee (NSFW) Syria (French Mandate/Baath Coup)
    http://newobserveronline.com/america-slides-into-poverty-as-obama-regime-gives-another-half-billion-dollars-to-murderous-syrian-rebels-graphic-video-warning/

    Israel Murders Palestinians, Demands US Absorb Central Americans
    http://newobserveronline.com/as-israel-rains-death-upon-gaza-us-zionist-groups-demand-america-absorbs-illegal-immigrant-invasion/

    – disclaimer. I am pro Israelis/Jews and applaud their cultural successes but am anti-Jewish-UK-Bankers and anti-UK-MI6-Psyop-State-of-Israel

  27. Also, I’m not sure where to put this, so I’ll put it here:
    That new donation meter thingie, shouldn’t it be Red, on Black?

    Seems to me it should be like a gas gauge rather than a pie. Theme wise.

    …You guys have been running on fumes for far too long.
    Reminds me of back in The Day. We ran around town on just an empty tank. Somehow we almost Never ran out… there was this one time out in the middle of nowhere with these hot girls we did it on purpose.. oh, but I digress.

    If I were a rich man I’d fill that tank.
    Are you sure you won’t take Blood money? I think maybe I could get some of that and send it.
    I could get over the dirty part. … Maybe … Sorta … Not really, but still.

    It doesn’t matter, … you all wouldn’t get over it/

    That’s cool.

    Way.

    Red and Black.

    That way your audience could breathe a sigh of relief seeing you in, ‘The Black’.
    JMHO. Redline it, people!

    Sheet, I wanted to post a link to that redline bit (simple old-school music) but I encountered this:

    “Content Warning

    The video you have requested has been rated N V+ and may contain content intended for mature audiences.”

    Redline is for mature audiences????

    Whoa. The sensitivity meter for the gooberment has just gone Up, or wHAt?

  28. RE: Living Without Government.

    I was sitting on my back porch this evening.
    Last year about this time in the distance I could hear about a constant rip and roar of motorcycles and HotRods taking off or slowing down.

    I listen in envy Every year.

    Tonight, I heard,… one.

    Over at SHTFPLAN I saw a comment about how this person’s homeowers insurance was jacked up (as he was told by his insurance carrier) on account of an increase in the minimum wage (it cost more for the insurance company to pay people to make things whole) is that what happened to the motorcycle riders and the HotRodders? Is that why they are sooo quiet tonight? They can’t afford to ride?

    What with this polar vortex making the MidWest seem like leaf crunching September, I’d imagine they’d be out in full force. [Oh shit, eric. This portends an early and extra cold Winter like last Winter!]

    Anyway, it’s so quiet, I can hear the hot girl next door… oh, I turned my head and went back inside, Ozy.

    Now all I can ear is crickets.

    It’s freaking weird. No Harley roars, no HotRod tire squeals.
    I guess we’re skipping Summer this year from this point, or…? Idk.
    It’s just weird,… the silence.

    It’d be fine and ok if I was out in the country.
    But this…? it’s so misplaced.

    Even the damn trains are quiet and not blowing their horns as much or as often. I can point my finger at the fall off in The Baltic Dry Index to see why that is… But the motorcycles and the HotRods? Hmmm. I just don’t know.

    • Hi Helot,

      This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve also noticed what seems to be a downturn in recreational riding (and driving) activity. Fewer bikes on the road; definitely fewer old cars on the road. Extrapolating from my own situation:

      People are working more (to earn the same or less income), hence less time (and money) for other things.

      There is no way I could afford to own – or even drive – my Trans-Am today were I 25 today (the age when I bought my car, back in the ’90s). I can’t recall the last time I saw someone in their 20s driving a car like mine (V-8 muscle car). No wonder. The cost to keep one is prohibitive. Nearly $100 to fill the tank. $50 to change the oil. Insurance? Forget about it!

  29. December 1, 2013
    The Prince of Liechtenstein on leadership
    (Now a figurehead, he once “ran” this small country in the alps between Switzerland and Austria, a country with no military whatsoever BTW)

    Born leader: the prince is not convinced that leadership is an easy skill to teach if there is no aptitude

    Very few people go to university knowing that their studies will need to equip them to run a country. Arriving at the University of St Gallen in the autumn of 1965, Johannes Adam von und zu Liechtenstein was one of the exceptions.

    If it had been up to him, the heir to the principality of Liechtenstein – a tiny Alpine state nestled on a narrow strip of land between Switzerland and Austria – would probably have been arriving to study archaeology or physics.

    However, his father, Franz Josef II, wanted his son to take a course that would prepare him both for running the family businesses, and for his future duties as head of state.

    Neither physics nor archaeology quite fitted the bill. So the young prince instead signed up for a four-year undergraduate degree in business, economics and law, subsequently deemed by the Swiss University Conference to be the equivalent of the later masters in management.

    The course was good, and despite his royal background, he was able to lead a comparatively normal life as a student, the prince recalls, sitting in the library of the royal residence, a well-turreted medieval castle perched on a mountain top overlooking Liechtenstein’s capital, Vaduz.

    “That was no problem. Of course, the other students knew who I was. But when my parents sent me and my brothers and my sister to school, we went to primary school like everybody else, and my parents told the teachers that they should treat us like everybody else. And it was the same at university,” he says.

    Along with his peers, the prince took classes in a broad variety of subjects, ranging from economics and business to marketing, several types of law and technology. In addition to this, students also had to clock up six months of work experience, which the prince did via a stint at Hambros, the London merchant bank.

    It was not long before he had an opportunity to put the lessons he had learnt into practice. When he left university in 1969, his father told him that – at the age of just 24 – he was to oversee the rebuilding of the family’s businesses, including the bank, which were in a state of some dilapidation.

    “I wanted to go to business school after university, but at that time the family business was in a terrible shape. My father had been financing the monarchy by selling art and land since world war two, because about 80 per cent of the family business was in Czechoslovakia and was expropriated after the war,” says the prince.

    “The family bank was in a bad shape, and the family business that was left was also in a bad shape, so I started to get involved with reorganising the bank.”

    As part of his course in St Gallen, the prince had written a thesis on the introduction of computers into the financial services industry – where much record-keeping, in those days, was still done by hand. This, in combination with the courses he had taken in bookkeeping, he says, was a good preparation for overhauling the family bank.

    “My father did not have much insight into the running of the bank,” he says. “It was basically run by relatives and some other managers who were not very efficient, to put it mildly.”

    Part of the problem, the prince says, was that while the bank’s official bookkeeping was good – more advanced, he reckons, than what he had seen at Hambros in London – the bank was being used to finance a lot of bad businesses, not all via the official accounts. “Off balance sheet, as you would say,” the prince adds wryly.

    “Through my thesis, I had gained insight into this. I knew what was going wrong. So I started to reorganise the bank, and when I had done this I closed down some of the family businesses in Liechtenstein that were losing money and were financed basically off-balance sheet by the bank.”

    After winning a family tussle, the prince took control of the family’s businesses in Austria, and spent much of the 1970s reorganising them as well, a process he says was helped by the knowledge of commercial law he had gleaned at St Gallen.

    With the family businesses back on an even keel, the prince had hoped he might finally be able to return to university to study physics or archaeology. But events took a different turn. In 1984, Franz Josef II passed on his executive powers to his son, leaving him in charge of running the country that his family has ruled since 1719.

    The prince had always been interested in foreign policy – as an 18-year-old, he caused a stir with a speech arguing that Liechtenstein should develop its own foreign policy, rather than being carried along in the “rucksack” of Switzerland – and he devoted much energy in the early years of his leadership to international relations.

    [Royal residence: Vaduz Castle, a well-turreted medieval palace, overlooks the capital city of the principality]

    One of his first goals was to take Liechtenstein into the United Nations, which he saw as a means of protecting the sovereignty of the tiny principality, which has a population of little more than 36,000. However, to do so, he had to overcome significant opposition both at home and abroad.

    In the latter days of the cold war, western countries were afraid that fragile postcolonial states would be sucked into the orbit of the Soviet Union. As a result, there was a movement to stop small countries joining the United Nations.

    With the aid of Claiborne Pell, a US senator for whom he had briefly worked as a teenager, the prince succeeded in changing the US’s position on this question, before turning his attention to winning over domestic opinion.

    Liechtenstein’s parliament was opposed, arguing that UN membership would be an unnecessary expense. The prince, who is among Europe’s wealthiest monarchs, responded that he would pay the fees himself, but then also pick the country’s UN ambassador. The parliament dropped its opposition, and agreed to pay the bill. In 1990, Liechtenstein joined the UN.

    The lessons the prince had learnt at St Gallen did not play much of a role in this struggle, he says. But in his next big foreign policy battle, they did. With European integration gathering pace in the early 1990s, the question of whether Liechtenstein should join the European Economic Area became increasingly pressing.

    He was convinced that, as a tiny economy dependent on being able to trade freely with its neighbours, Liechtenstein should join. Once again, he found himself on the opposite side of the debate to the parliament.

    “It was really a fight,” he says with a smile. To rally popular support for membership, the prince spent a lot of time canvassing members of the public, and says that his knowledge of business, economics and law enabled him to do this more convincingly.

    “I was able to see why it was so important for our economy to join. And with the arguments that I put forward I was able to convince the people, because I had a grasp of economics and business,” he says. “St Gallen was useful because it helped me to analyse the question from a number of different angles.”

    In 2004, the prince handed down the powers of day-to-day governmental decision-making to Hereditary Prince Alois, the eldest of his four children with Princess Marie – although he remains the legal head of state. After decades of leadership, does the prince believe it can be taught? The subject is now a focus of many business schools but he is not convinced that it is easily learnt in a classroom. Nor does he feel that it is necessarily something on which business schools should concentrate.

    “I think it can be taught, but of course, to be successful, you have to be at least gifted to a certain extent. When I was a boy I was taught to play the piano. The teacher gave up soon because I was totally ungifted,” he says. “I think it’s the same with leadership. It’s still a little bit of a black art.”

    ertlator Dec 12, 2013

    I was so disturbed by the ignorance of the first post by MypoV that I went through the registration process to respond. I recently became aware of the prince from an interview he gave concerning a book that he wrote. I was so impressed that I purchased his book, which I am currently reading, and also started reading about european royalty online. I would like to share some of the things that I learned about the prince that I think are impressive. He isn’t a figure head like many european royals. He actually has an active role in governing Liechtenstein and has proven himself to be a highly effective leader in both business and government. The citizens in Liechtenstein have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. This tiny landlocked country without natural resources is not only a center for banking but a center for manufacturing. He seems to be well liked and respected by the people of Liechtenstein. He isn’t taxpayer supported but this is the wealthiest royal family of europe, which is an indication of his leadership abilities in business. He also appears to be a man of high moral standards and a good example to follow. I think that he is highly qualified to comment on leadership and there is nothing minor about this royal.

    Prince Clemens von Metternich Dec 5, 2013

    I know quite well Prince Adam and our families are related by blood many times, but I have to recognize that he had worked hard, like any other citizen of his small nation. Once they were subjects of the Holy Emperor from our Habsburg dynasty, they were clever enough to have certain degree of independence of the Austrian monarchy, which most of the great families of the Empire didn’t. Nobody in the Liechtenstein family lives without working, everybody, even other branches they work hard to make a living, so does Prince Adam and his children. The pity is that in Austria we didn’t have as Head of State the late Archduke Otto von Habsburg, a brilliant statesman who was very close to Prince Franz Jozef and his family, including Prince “First” Hans Adam. The best times of Europe and its splendor were when the House of Austria was ruling the immense Empire with wisdom, oppeness and a quite liberal style, which didin’t exist in Russia or Wilhemine Germany, even during Bismarck. Liechtenstein is for me the last principality of the Holy Empire and shows that monarchies can do well if they are ruled by clever and smart people.

    sdaniel Dec 5, 2013

    for doug in japan — also take a look in Vienna at The Liechtenstein Museum, which displays some of the family’s art treasures. There used to be a video playing there that had a history of the family and the collection, probably still have it available. Very interesting.

    doug in japan Dec 2, 2013

    most interesting article, thanks. must go there one day, maybe for more than a couple of hours i spent in Luxembourg and Monaco, although i did spend a week skiing in Andorra. image Continental Europe was once a collection of these sorts of principalities, big and small.

    looking from afar Dec 1, 2013

    With an income per capita of $98,430 Liechtenstein has done well under the Prince.

    Alex A nderson Dec 1, 2013

    In the modern world every “royal” is minor. Yet one can learn from their experience nonetheless.

    MyPoV Dec 1, 2013

    What on earth makes a “work-for daddy” minor royal in any way interesting? So he he inherited a bank and a country and has done very little with it. Is this the best that the FT can serve up for our subscriptions?

    • Interesting bit of info i didn’t know, Tor, Thanks.

      “In the modern world every “royal” is minor. ”

      Doesn’t that speak volumes?

      • I went looking for this, based on the quote below. Early today I was reading over at another site about countries without militaries. Liechtenstein being such a nation, and I had remembered hearing it was ruled by a hereditary prince.

        – B. Chu
        “Frankly, I’m less offended by the monarchist “divine right of kings” rationale than I am by democracy’s “government of, by, and for the people” rationale. Under monarchy there is at least less pretense and hypocrisy.”
        – B. Chu

        It is also attested to by Aristotle that a benign monarchy is the ideal form of rule (if there must be a rule)

        Uncommon sense should take you there as well. Most of us grew up in a monarchy, with a king and a queen. How would we have turned out, if we were raised in a democracy, or a republic family. Or in a minarchy. It’s hard to visualize how these alternate ruling systems would have been beneficial to our development.

        – Love the comment sections. So many panarchic scenarios to understand. Could I leave a convincing comment that I was a royal?

        Some sheep commenter feels superior because he is such a great judge of monarchs. Why? Talk about wasting one’s talents.

  30. I’ll be Bach – Johann Sebastian Schwartzenegger

    From the Terminator of Seville

    Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o

    Greatest Generation Fugue – Johann Sebast
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WhPUqpaRp4

    Air – Bag Has Deployed – JSB Is Concerned For Your Safety
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrVDATvUitA

    Pachelbel Cannon Fodder in D Major
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Af372EQLck

    A Dodge Geo in G-Miner – Albinoni
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMbvcp480Y4

  31. Jeremy my new friend. I am always sincerely sarcastic. And sarcistically sincere. I’ll post some kind of attributive hyperlink here after some mescaline and consultation with my chicano attorney, Dr. Gonzo.

    As I understand it, posting here would probably create copyright instantaneously. Most likely only the user, but I’m unsure.

    Not sure if that is the case on reddit. Its just a social bookmarking site.

    For some reason, maybe incorrectly, I don’t think posting to twitter, facebook, or reddit creates copyright. Also, such powerful entities are capable of all manner of unexpected command and control, so beware.

    But posting to a wordpress blog possibly does create copyright.

    Taking part of an original work and reposting is known as scrapping.

    Though I may edit things, I don’t need or want any copyright. I consider everything I put on the internet, even if wholly original, as a form of scrapping.

    Of a kind of riff on the internet agora itself, if you will.

    Obtaining copyright (lies of Shiva the Market Destroyer)
    http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/obtaining.html

    Originality Requirement:

    For a work to be protected by copyright law, it must be “original.” However, the amount of originality required is extremely small. The work cannot be a mere mechanical reproduction of a previous work, nor can the work consists of only a few words or a short phrase. In addition, if the work is a compilation, the compilation must involve some originality beyond mere alphabetic sorting of all available works. Beyond that, almost any work that is created by an author will meet the originality requirement.

    Works of Authorship:

    The Copyright Act uses the phrase “works of authorship” to describe the types of works that are protected by copyright law. This purposefully broad phrase was chosen by Congress to avoid the need to rewrite the Copyright Act every time a new “medium” was discovered.

    This intended ambiguity allows the Copyright Act to protect World Wide Web pages even though these did not exist at the time the Copyright Act was written.

    In order to clarify what was considered a work of authorship, Congress included a list of eight works of authorship in the Act itself:

    literary works;
    musical works, including any accompanying words;
    dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
    pantomimes and choreographic works;
    pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
    motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
    sound recordings; and
    architectural works.

    Although this list is not meant to be all-inclusive, most protected works fall into one of the specified categories.

    These categories are broader than they initially appear to be. For example, computer programs and most compilations are registered as “literary works,” while maps and architectural plans are registered as “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works.”

    Fixation:
    In order for a work to be protectable, it must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression. A work is considered fixed when it is stored on some medium in which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated.

    For example, a song is considered fixed when it is written down on paper. The paper is the medium on which the song can be perceived, reproduced and communicated. It is not necessary that the medium be such that a human can perceive the work, as long as the work can be perceived by a machine. Thus, the song is also fixed the moment the author records it onto a cassette tape.

    Similarly, a computer program is fixed when stored on a computer hard drive. In fact, courts have even held that a computer program is fixed when it exists in the RAM of a computer.

    This is true even though this “fixation” is temporary, and will disappear once power is removed from the computer. .

    Automatic Creation:
    The above three requirements are the only requirements for copyright protection. As a result, copyright protection exists the moment an original work of authorship becomes fixed.

    For example, the song in the previous example is protected by copyright at the moment it is written to paper, or recorded on a cassette tape. A computer program is protected the exact moment that it is saved to disk.

    No other actions are required for copyright protection. There is no need to file an application for copyright protection, or to even place a copyright notice on a work.

    These additional steps, often referred to as “formalities,” were previously required to secure copyright protection. Under the current law, the formalities of registration and notice now merely serve as recommended steps to expand the protection provided by copyright.

    This automatic creation of copyright protection in the United States began in 1978. Before 1978, statutory copyright was generally secured by the act of publishing a work with a notice of copyright on the work.

    If a work remained unpublished, statutory copyright could be secured by the act of registration. If a work was published without a copyright notice, the work could enter the public domain and would not have copyright protection.

    Any work that was in the public domain on January 1, 1978 remained in the public domain.

    Compilation Copyrights:
    Compilation copyrights are a special breed of copyrightable work. They are defined by the Copyright Act as a work that is formed by the “collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.”

    An example of a compilation would be a collection of the most influential plays of the Eighteenth Century. The individual plays themselves would not be subject to copyright protection, since the copyright would have expired. However, the selection of the plays involves enough original, creative expression to be protected by copyright. Therefore, the grouping of plays is protected by the copyright in the compilation even though each individual play is not protected.

    A grouping of facts is also protected as a compilation, assuming the grouping contains enough original expression to merit protection.

    An example of a protectable grouping of facts would be the links to other web sites. Each individual link consists merely of factual information, namely that a particular web site can be found at a particular URL location.

    Thus, there is no copyright protection for the individual links. Although the individual links can be copied and placed unto another web site, if the entire list (or a substantial portion) of the list were copied, the copyright in the compilation would be infringed.

    The creative, original expression that is being protected is the sorting, selecting, and grouping of web sites into the ordered list found on these pages.

    The white pages telephone directory is an example of an unprotected grouping of facts. The individual facts are not protectable under the copyright law.

    In addition, the compilation in this case consisted solely of gathering all available telephone numbers in a particular area and sorting them alphabetically. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that this minimal level of selecting and arrangement does not involve enough originality to be protected by copyright.

  32. I assumed Bolero was from the mid 1700’s or something.

    Guess it only came out in 1928. Didn’t know there was still classical composing going on after the Titanic and Central Banking had sunk the world’s marketplaces.

    Carole Lombard – Bolero – 1934
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNWoRotdZw8

    The film predates the Hays Code, and at least two scenes would have been banned by the code. Firstly, George Raft tells Carole Lombard, when she auditions in his hotel room, to do so in her underwear; she complies. Later, Rand performs her famous fan dance, in which she hides her nudity with two strategically positioned ostrich feather fans. (note: caring about film censorship and Hays Code is not needed to live in freedom, it’s just something I’m interested in)

    South Seas Island – Bolero – 1934 – Surrealist Version
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXQTNDIVLRo

    Loretta Young James Cagney 1932 Taxi
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq_GWiikgwA

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msy6QPiOIUE

  33. What’s with the socially conservative strain of anarcho-capitalism coming out of the Mises Institute and Hans-Hermann Hoppe?
    http://c4ss.org/market-anarchism-faq/whats-with-the-socially-conservative-strain-of-anarcho-capitalism-coming-out-of-the-mises-institute-and-hans-herman-hoppe

    “If you believe queer individuals have much to teach humanity about who we are, like we here at C4SS do…”

    – Seems to be another quagmire to avoid bringing up. I just read the first four words and then quit, because to me the discussion now at hand is about the means to achieve the ends of freedom.

    Going the next logical step and discussing in specifics what all kinds of freedoms this entails, seems a little off point. Especially when it isn’t a point near and dear to me. I fully understand this is of course on point for whoever this directly affects, and have no issue with them bringing it up, as long as they abstain from becoming irrational about their issue.

    Self ownership and NAP necessitate all manner of freedoms, but “forcing” everyone to accept all manner of things now not commonly considered one way or the other seems unnecessary. (this applies directly to things I believe that may likewise be peripheral issues to the ends of gaining more freedom)

    Gender/queer seems an area to be especially wary about, since the PTB seem to be agitating heavily for this new cohort’s freedom, while continuing to deny countless other cohort’s freedom and not being willing to even discuss the matter.

    This is only speculation, but my feeling is women are granted their rightful freedoms, as are Africans and other minorities if and only if these groups agree that they are to pursue these rights and enjoy these rights in a way that serves the sacred cause of state sovereignty and hegemony.

    The New Right and Anarcho-Capitalism
    http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/dward/newrightanarchocap.html

    The Libertarian as Conservative
    http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-libertarian-as-conservative

    Conservatism: Anarcho-Capitalist or Values-Environmentalist
    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/mccarthy/conservatism-anarcho-capitalist-or-values-environmentalist/

    • My teeth begin to ache when I hear talk of “queer” (or “women’s”) rights. Far better to speak about what no has the right to do – commit aggressive violence. From this all else follows.

      Or, put another way: We have a right to ourselves. We each own ourselves. It’s an affront to speak of anyone owning another person. It follows that no one has the ethical/moral right to control another person against his will nor has a legitimate claim to the things produced by the body (and brain) of another person.

      Whether one has a vagina – or enjoys sex with the same sex – is a non sequitur as far as rights talk.

      • You’re lucky you don’t live in grand central station where every week a new episode of the positive-rights agenda-train barrels down the tracks at full steam.

        One of many statist family agenda dramas… The Fosters – Featuring Two Lesbian Moms – They adopt this young kid who is gay/bi or whatever

        Naturally kids now play spin the bottle on a smartphone app, with new rules that races genders mix in freeforalls of everyone kissing everyone…

        it’s cool dude, let’s just do it
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh-iftlljJk

        Also from Fosters – lesbian mom’s older kid sleeps with biological Dad’s girlfriend…. ooops!
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLMGHHqPQws

        I think they strategically pick certain elements to “liberate” to serve their own ends. We’ll just uhhh, free these slaves, and these millions of hectares of prime plantation real estate, you know for the childrunns.

        got help us all!

        • Very good points, Tor.
          I’m specifically appalled by the network placement and billing:
          ABC Family – timeslots for kids and “family” viewing….

          But there’s no “gay agenda,” the bitter clingers just make that up, right? 🙁

        • Actually, Tor, this isn’t unlikely:

          Also from Fosters – lesbian mom’s older kid sleeps with biological Dad’s girlfriend…. ooops!

          Theory is, we look at people and determine their attractiveness based on something innate. IE, it’s genetic, and we “sense” they’ll make a good mate.
          I’m guessing that the kid was male (I don’t know the show), but that would align with what the girlfriend found pleasing. IE, father has good genes, she’s attracted; Son is same genes… She’s attracted. And there’s youth, too.

          • Thank you Jean, a voice of unflinching reason and science. I consider France to be maybe the high water mark of culture, and this would likely be ho-hum G rated there.

            Incest Taboo
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest_taboo

            Perhaps few here, care to consider this in much detail. Fine by me, perhaps this is only a distraction.

            As a panarch, I try to internalize and mirror the moral compasses I imagine those in this forum navigate by as best I understand them.
            But then its off to my own “random walk.”

            In the show, the 16 or 17 year old boy was drunk, and doing his split-custody thing by being at the biological Father’s home. (Mom left this original Dad for the kid’s new legal Lesbian 2nd Mom many years prior)

            BTW, a major impetus for his drinking, is he is hot and heavy for his foster sister and wants to elope with her.

            If this is ABC Family, I wonder what ABC Adult channel family dramas are like. LOL.

            America is guided by ancient Jewish traditions more than anything, I would say.

            2014 Significant Days. Observe these, if at all, only in a secular sense. No irrationalisms or mysticisms are to be considered.

            Jewish:
            Hanukkah (Festival of Lights)
            Passover (Deliverance of Jews from slavery in Egypt)
            Purim (Deliverance of Jews in Persia from Haman)
            Rosh Hashanah (New Year)
            Shavuot (Festival of Weeks; Harvest Festival)
            Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles)
            Tisha B’Av (Day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples)
            Tu Bishvat (New year of the trees)
            Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
            Simchat Torah (Completion of the Sefer Torah)
            Shemini Atzeret (The beginning of the rainy season in Israel)
            Shabbat (The day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and the holiest day of the week)

            Muslim:
            Ashurah (tenth day of Muharram. first month of the lunar year.)
            Eid (feast): date determined by the lunar calendar and observation of the moon:
            Eid ul-Fitr on the first day of Shawwaal. It marks the end of Ramadan, the fasting month. Part of honoring this occasion is “zakaat ul-fitr” (giving alms to the needy on the day of Eid ul-Fitr).
            Eid ul-Adha on the tenth day of Thoo l-Hijjah, the twelfth and final month of the lunar year.
            Mawlid Al Rasul – Celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birth
            Nisfu Shaaban
            Nuzul Al Qur’an – First revelation of Quran
            Ramadan
            Al-Isra’ wa l-Mi’raj – Prophet Muhammad’s ascension to heaven.
            Youm Arafat – Eve of Eid ul-Adha

            Christian:
            Advent
            All Saints’ Day
            All Souls’ Day
            Ascension Thursday (Ascension of Jesus into Heaven)
            Ash Wednesday (beginning of Lent)
            Assumption of Mary (Assumption of the Virgin Mary)
            Candlemas
            Childermas
            Christmas (Birth of Jesus)
            Corpus Christi (Sacrifice of Jesus)
            Divine Mercy Sunday
            Easter (Resurrection of Jesus, end of Lent)
            Easter Triduum
            Holy Thursday (Celebration of The Last Supper)
            Good Friday (Death of Jesus)
            Holy Saturday
            Easter Vigil
            Easter Monday (Monday following Easter Sunday, not part of the Easter Triduum)
            Epiphany
            Feast of the Sacred Heart
            Lent (40 days of penance before Easter)
            Pentecost or Whitsun (Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus)
            Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (last day of Carnival, last day before Ash Wednesday)
            Winter Lent
            Watch Night

            Celtic, Norse, and Neopagan:
            Samhain (Celtic): 31 October – 1 November, Celtic New Year, first day of winter
            Winter Nights (Norse): 29 October – 2 November, Norse New Year
            Yule (Norse): 21 – 22 December, winter solstice, Celtic mid-winter
            Imbolc (Celtic): 1 – 2 February, Celtic first day of spring
            Ostara/Easter (Norse): 21 – 22 March, vernal equinox, Celtic mid-spring
            Beltane (Celtic): 30 April-1 May, Celtic first day of summer
            Litha (Norse): 21 – 22 June, summer solstice, Celtic mid-summer
            Lughnasadh (Celtic): 1 – 2 August, Celtic first day of autumn
            Mabon/Harvest End (Norse): 21 – 22 September, autumnal equinox, Celtic mid-fall

      • Dear Eric,

        I hear that.

        I’m all for individuals of whatever gender or sexual orientation doing their own thing.

        But when statist gays and statist feminists parlay past victimization into “positive rights,” I get really pissed.

        By doing so they cheapen the very concept of rights, and undermine the personal freedom they purport to be promoting.

        • well I admit, I’m kinda of hurt.

          I was going to share my joyful union into a plural marriage with a pod of transgendered manatees, but now I see you’re all conservative heteronormative thin libertarians. And closed-minded transphobic species-ists as well.

          Outline of Anarchism
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_anarchism

          Anarchism Supports: Autonomy.
          Civil libertarianism. Cooperation.
          Autogestion. Decentrally planned economy.
          Direct action. Mutual aid.
          Common ownership. Voluntary association.

          Anarchism Rejects:
          Authoritarianism. Censorship.
          Coercion. Imperialism.
          Statism. Hierarchy.
          Paternalism. Centrally Planned Economy.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_schools_of_thought

          Black · Buddhist · Capitalist · Christian · Collectivist · Communist · Egoist · Existentialist · Feminist · Green · Individualist · Infoanarchism · Insurrectionary · Leftist · Left-wing market · Magonist · Mutualist · Nationalist · Naturist · Pacifist · Philosophical · Platformist · Post-anarchist · Post-colonial · Post-left · Primitivist · Queer · Social · Syndicalist · Synthesist · Vegan · Without adjectives – Anarchist

      • Dear Eric,

        As I mentioned in a previous comment, this is what separates anarcho-capitalism from all other political ideologies.

        All other political ideologies advocate systems. This system. That system.

        We on the other hand, we advocate a METASYSTEM.

        Anarcho-capitalists don’t actually advocate any system as such. We advocate only a principle, the NAP. What will result we are willing to wait and see. We do not have specific result in mind that “must” come to pass. One could say we transcend parochial advocacy of this, that, or the other system

        • Morning, Bevin!

          Sometimes I entertain the thought that those who have awakened to the NAP are the leading cohort of what might be called a fifth turning – or more profoundly, they are an evolutionary great leap forward, analogous to the transition from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens. The conscious – and reasoned – rejection of aggressive violence is arguably that epochal, that profound.

          Aggressive violence is ape-like, primitive. It is un-reason. Those who deal with others this way are not really much more evolved than gorillas, even though they wear pants and brush their teeth.

          On the other hand, refusing on principle to physically assault others (or threaten to) even when one could do so – in terms of having the advantage or the capacity to do so – is arguably the apotheosis of what it means to be human.

          To be repelled – sickened – by the idea of raising a hand against another person. Imagine!

          (The above is excerpted from an article I’m working on and will post shortly.)

        • Dear Eric,

          Clearly we’ve been thinking along the same lines.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y15NnGZIBuM

          Probably a lot of people have. Libertarian is undergoing increasingly rapid radicalization. I’m sure everyone in the libertarian movement has noticed this.

          The signs are hardly subtle. It’s especially noticeable at LRC. The steady online back and forth among hardline libertarians, is swiftly radicalizing the anarcho-capitalist community. The percentage of minarchist articles has plummeted. The percentage of anarchist articles has skyrocketed. The tone of the anarchist articles has hardened, noticeably, as it becomes ever clearer that “minimal government” is not a “reasonable compromise,” and that any amount of government is unacceptable.

          Re: civilized humans on the outside, primitive apes on the inside

          Amen to that! Could not agree more!

          I think I characterized neo-con “benevolent global hegemonists” as “primitive apes in three piece suits” in some old articles I wrote when I was at antiwar.com.

          Few things piss me off more than “champions of democracy” pontificating about how morally elevated “democracy” is, then making invidious comparisons with Mainland China’s “Communist dictatorship.” Democracy is nothing more than “Communism Lite.” It is nothing more than the elder Bush’s “kinder, gentler” dictatorship.

          The way “champions of democracy” blank out the brute force coercion in “democracy” makes me sick. If you ask me, Chinese Communist Party thugocracy is at least more honest than Demopublican One Party thugocracy.

          • Dear Jeremy,

            “hyphenated rights”

            Hey, that’s a useful synonym for “positive rights.”

            Gotta start using it. Thanks!

            Yeah, I read about that gay wedding case. The fact that large segments of the public actually believe they have a “right” to ram their own choices down other peoples’ throats never ceases to amaze me. Clearly they don’t realize how this must eventually come back and bite them in the ass.

          • I would definitely appropriate this with minimal change and post it to reddit as well.

            But I won’t because maybe you have legal counsel, and contacts to do so yourself, should you want to.(I know, false accusing humor is falsely accusing)

            The moment of creation/invention in my mind, is when something stands up on its unsteadly legs and says “here I am”

            Many have discussed these themes recently, but to my eyes, this article/comment about the hardening and the libertarian split also stands on its own.

            Is already a newborn fawn, ready to scamper off into the woods of world discourse.

            As was the gorillas humans NAP article as well, obviously.

      • Dear Eric, Bevin, Tor,

        The crusade for hyphenated rights is but another scam. Presented as a mechanism for increasing liberty, it is but another excuse to increase state power.

        The enforcement of hyphenated rights almost always involves the violation of actual rights. In short “rights”, properly understood, cannot conflict.

        If there is a perceived conflict in “rights” one, or both, of the “rights” claims are false.

        Consider two examples that recently occurred in New Mexico:

        http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gay-hair-stylist-drops-new-mexico-governor-client-opposes-same-sex-marriage-article-1.1027072

        and:

        http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/court-holds-that-wedding-photographer-cannot-refuse-service-to-gay-couples/

        In the first case, most people lauded Antonio Darden’s inalienable right to choose who he did business with.

        In the second case, Elaine Photography was forced to pay a fine to compensate the “victims”.

        Hyphenated rights = no rights.

        Kind Regards,
        Jeremy

        • This is another one nearly ready to go. Do I just edit it, lengthen it, and post it. Again to reddit for feedback. Or here as one of Eric’s guest articles.

          Your stumble herbivant awaiting instruction.

          Surely we are living in a new era of the Crusades. The muslim authorities doing major damage.

          The christians authorities doing permanent lasting damage.

          Everywhere the market is ablaze, set on fire. Bombed out. Physically. Or Bureaucratically. Cages of statutes. Wardens with guns and clipboards. All commons strewn with broken pieces of goods once held for sale in the open agora.

          Every where government crusaders are killing the market makers and the willing traders.

          • Dear Tor,

            Thank you. Please lengthen, edit and post as you see fit, no attribution necessary.

            I have overcome my foray into vanity and I appreciate that you consider what I write to be worthy of re-posting/elaboration.

            Finally, if you are wondering, I am being sincere, not sarcastic.

            Kind Regards,
            Jeremy

          • Dear Tor,

            Please do as you wish.

            I do not believe that any truly original ideas, products or services can emerge without the appropriation of the ideas of others. We all learn from each other, riff on other ideas, see the flaws in existing products/ideas, seek to improve those products/ideas, etc…

            While I openly admit that I appreciate the recognition of those who value any contribution I have made, I do not believe I have a “right” to it. Nor do I believe that I possess an “ownership right” in what I have written here.

            So, your concerns about counsel, at least with respect to me, are not relevant.

            “The moment of creation/invention in my mind, is when something stands up on its unsteadly legs and says “here I am”

            I agree completely. I would further say that, “the moment of creation/invention” is never a solitary act. Everything I have written, everything that I have built, everything that I have designed, has been influenced by the work of others.

            Kind Regards,
            Jeremy

      • Dear Bevin,

        Thanks! Please use it.

        BTW, I loved your description of anarcho-capitalism as a meta-system. Anarcho capitalism seems to embrace the “panarchy” concept, better than anything else.

        Also, is not forcing someone to provide a service to someone else a form of wage slavery?

        Cheers,
        Jeremy

        • Dear Jeremy,

          Hyphenated rights. A good one. I will use it.

          The system vs. meta-system distinction is a pretty important one I feel.

          All “archies” other than an-archy are fundamentally the same. They all involve “archy,” i.e., the imposition of a system of brute force coercion, from above, by “authority.” They all concoct this or that rationalization for brute force coercion. But none of them can ever be morally defensible.

          Only anarchy does not involve “archy.” By totally rejecting “archy,” anarchy distinguishes itself by rising above all that.

          In… Politics as a Vocation, [Max] Weber defined the state as an entity which successfully claims a “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”.

          In the past, many states have successfully claimed a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. But that hardly means the monopoly was actually legitimate.

          Demopublican “champions of democracy” are the worst offenders of all. Frankly, I’m less offended by the monarchist “divine right of kings” rationale than I am by democracy’s “government of, by, and for the people” rationale. Under monarchy there is at least less pretense and hypocrisy.

          The underlying lack of moral legitimacy is becoming apparent at an accelerating pace. Since 9/11, the impossibility of effective structural constraints on state power within “elective democracy” has become glaringly apparent. The big lie of “limited government” has been exposed for all who are willing to see.

        • Morning, Jeremy!

          One of the things I enjoy most about this little operation is the quid pro quo education/stimulation. You guys never fail to help me hone my intellectual cutlery with incisive comments and – as here – magnificent neologisms (and turns of phrase).

          Thanks to all of you!

          • Dear Eric,

            Thank you! I was a “lurker” here for quite some time before I decided to post.

            What I enjoy most is being challenged by other libertarians/anarchists. The debate forces me to really think hard about my positions. I also appreciate being exposed to new ideas and schools of thought.

            You should be immensely proud of your “little operation”.

            Kind Regards,
            Jeremy

    • Dear Tor,

      You wrote:

      “This is only speculation, but my feeling is women are granted their rightful freedoms, as are Africans and other minorities if and only if these groups agree that they are to pursue these rights and enjoy these rights in a way that serves the sacred cause of state sovereignty and hegemony.”

      You are being much too modest in your claim.

      It is not only speculation. It is quite obvious that “positive rights” for previously persecuted categories of people is being parlayed into support for statist “affirmative action,” aka brute force legal coercion.

  34. Pan is a fertility deity
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fertility_deities

    I’m down with all entities that increase the amount of life, beings, ideas, and so forth.

    The first biblical command, made to all life before resting on the seventh day:

    “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it”

    http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-28.htm

    As a pan-archist, I am might cheerfully co-opt aspects of Judaism, Christianity, ancient Greek, ancient Babylonian, ancient China, and other successful cultures as I see fit, and without any regard to their demands and rules.

    I would say on reddit, I have most in common with anarcho_capitalism subreddit. There seem to be the best of minds their, filled with wisdom and analyses.

    I might say I’m more anarcho-capitalist than anything else, if I have to choose a label.

    But also, I’m agorist in that, given the particular regime I live within, it seems the best option.

    If I was in England, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Macau, I might be more inclined to work within existing systems.

    Macau sitting pretty
    http://macaubusinessdaily.com/Economy/Sitting-pretty

    “With only half a year completed, the Macau Government has already achieved the fiscal surplus budgeted for 2014,

    expenditure continues to lag far behind the revenues flooding in.

    Between January and June, the government took in four times more money than it spent.”

  35. Wanna know something Gross?

    On my local F.M. radio station, twice ( at least, maybe more?) I’ve heard them defending Stalin. By name! …As if were kewl. Ack!

    Twenty or thirty years I’ve been living and listening to the F.M. dial (thank you, Brian Law) and they’ve Never mentioned that bastard on the F.M. radio, and Now, all the sudden….

    wHAt gives?

    More importantly, how many young people are falling for that crap?

    If Stalin were alive today and said in a Cheap Trick way, ” I want you, to Want me!”

    I wonder how many clueless dupes and empty headed chicks would line up to throw him flowers?

    Millions?

    Ahhhhhhhh!

    B.O.C.: “Mommie’s alright, Daddie’s alright?
    … Surrender?”

    Bullshit.

    They aren’t, “All right!”

    They are more than, “Just a Little Weird.”

    Surely you shouldn’t just give yourself away.

    A-way.

    The Empire, did a Cheap Trick, oooon You.

    The sell-out, kiss-ups, blow my mind.

    Catch The Mystery.

    Thank God I’m half-Tom Sawyer.

    Watch out for that S.O.B. who says he’s a friend of mine.

    He’s a killer.

    I was taken in by him.

    And his snitch ways.

    [Did ya see him on the TV as D.E.A.? Shocked the shit of me when I did. Sucker me.]

    Sucker Me.

    Friendship means nothing today.

    Not to those who serve Empire.

    … Run like the wind… But, hide like The Crab,… cause the Drone, will do you In.

    That’s wHAt it means to be an A-merican today.

    I often wondered, what would grade school children say to the question: “What does it mean to be an American?”

    These days I think they would say: To be spied upon is Just. To be guilty, Even If proven innocent, is Just. That the people serve The Government. That, is the New American Way! Slavery for all! Freedom for None! Empire and justice for The President…or his handlers.

    It’s the friggin’ truth. And, that’s the scary, and at the same time, disappointing part.

    And, here I was just doing lyrics. Then I stumbled upon more of the disturbing Truth.

    My only hope is that posterity benefits from my efforts.

    But hell, who am I kidding?

    The youth are clueless. They don’t care about the roof burning.

    Their mom’s are drugged up.

    Their dad’s are out with hookers and don’t give a shit about anything except The Cubs, or, The Cardinals. Etc….

    W.F.D.

    … Unless The Fourth Turning means anything?

    I don’t see it.

    I’m crossing my fingers.

    • How far down the rabbit hole does panarchy go?

      For aren’t we all ourselves each an abundant panarchy?

      I choose my rational self to rule my roost as it were. So far it is a confident, laissez faire kind of authority. I trust in my immune system, platelets, and red blood cells to handle things. I am not fearful of a sneeze, or dirt, or really any kind of disorder.

      When I think about it, inside of me are all manner of unexpressed genes. Countless other potential new lives.

      Bacterias fighting to live. Viruses fighting to live. Cancers striving to replicate and thrive.

      Really, it seems childish to think of my diseases and mutations as evil.

      It’s merely other forms of, perhaps from some perspectives, equally worthy and valid life.

      Who am I to be such an authoritarian. Only 10% of my cells are even under my jurisdiction and central control. My gut is filled with aliens and outsiders who, if I were a democracy, might vote for me to surrender control to them.

      I embrace panarchy, because I embrace life with all its complications and competitions. With all its risks and imperfections.

      I don’t need to control others. I’ve so far always been able to control myself, and that’s always been enough.

  36. Ozzy, Billy Squire, Scorpions, et al:

    Once I rose above the noise and confusion…

    I was tazered and cuffed.

    The cop said, “Don’t resist, don’t resist,… STop resisting!

    Don’t you cry No more!

    The knee you feel in your back, or on your neck is, ‘Justice’… carry on

    You will always remember!

    Carry on my wayward son…

    Don’t you cry! …

    Pitbull dyin’

    Timid dog got shot.

    Child in the crib cryin’

    Burning, burning, …nose turned to plastic..

    Watch your friends love empire!

    They don’t care about you.

    Watch them praise the polic e state.

    Plastic People, us. Theirs to bend.

    Don’t you cry No more!

    The knee you feel in your back, or on your neck, is Justice… carry on

    …Just hear them as they say, “All of my Love” …. “Into your back, onto your neck. taser you deep”.

    “All of my Love”

    “All of my Love”

    Til the Drug War beats you down!

    Lo – ve!

    Love!

    Love!

    Love!

    Boot to the head!

    Lo – ve!

    Love!

    Love!

    Love!

    I get a bit lonely!

    Par-don-me: Boot to the head!

    People think I’m crazy because I’m frowning all the time.

    Then I point to them what I see.

    They turn their heads and say, “I know nothing!”

    …. They only see peaches and creame.

    No wonder, the youth, half pants down.

    No respect Up.

    No respect from on Down.

    3-3-4-2, fuck you@!

    We eat The Night!

    No wonder your worst nightmares will come true.

    From Up on high, they manipulate you.

    3-3-4-2, fuck you@!

    …The IRS is coming to Get You!

    …Love The Empire. … It loves you to death.

    • Helot,
      you look to be rising up the chart right along with tor-surrealist-snark; ozymandias-je-ne-sais-quoi; jean-black-hole-of-mean; and be every bit as great tasting, yet somehow less filling, AND something one can dance to, should some chicks join and dance instead of each of us…

      dancing with myself
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgVwEW48aH0

      Marley – slave driver – (no wages no slave – sounds like a plan)

      Ev’rytime I hear the crack of a whip,
      My blood runs cold.
      I remember on the slave ship,
      How they brutalize the very souls.
      Today they say that we are free,
      Only to be chained in poverty.
      Good God, I think it’s illiteracy;
      It’s only a machine that makes money.
      Slave driver, the table is turn, y’all.

      Marley, not a Rothbardian it seems

  37. AMERICA, THE EXTINCT

    O Dinosaur with feeble mind, this brick is hurled at thee,

    To shatter plate-glass meat displays which veil your poverty.

    You ugly, Dollar-dropping Ea-gle, Batman, Superman,

    To crown your crew-cut corporate head, the black-red brick is hurled.

    Your pickled half-men, experts all, in think tanks plan the end,

    While trivia media, mindless screens, intoxicate the rest

    Blind Dinosaur with feeble brain your reign is at its end.

    Your striped and freckled Symbol falls, destroyed by Black and Red.
    – –
    John Cage
    Untitled Anarchist Poem

    We don’t need government
    We need utilities.

    Air, water, energy
    Travel and communication means
    Food and shelter.

    We have no need for imaginary mountain ranges
    Between separate nations.

    We can make tunnels through the real ones.

    Nor do we have any need for the continuing division of people
    Into those who have what they need
    And those who don’t.

    Both Fuller and Marshal McLuhan
    Knew, furthermore
    That work is now obsolete.
    We have invented machines to do it for us.

    Now that we have no need to do anything
    What shall we do?

    Looking at Fuller’s geodesic world map
    We see that the Earth is a single island, Oahu.
    We must give all the people all they need to live
    In any way they wish.

    Our present laws protect the rich from the poor.

    If there are to be laws, we need ones that
    Begin with the acceptance of poverty as a way of life.

    We must make the world safe for poverty Without dependence on government.
    – – – –
    The Anarchy Song – Fat Blue Man
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2ZHizPDbsI

    Jewish Anarchist Song (Vi lang o vi lang)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbhrtoi9tr8

    http://faujsa.fau.edu/jsa/music_album.php?jsa_num=402850&queryWhere=jsa_num&queryValue=402850&select=belarsky&return=artist_album
    – – – –
    Fable
    There has been no bigger myth No grander lie told it seems. Than if you work really hard
    In this life you’ll succeed.

    For great fortunes will fall upon you Expanding billfolds burst their seams. Who wouldn’t want a part of this…
    The Great American Dream?

    A story told to those who toil For naught with broken backs. While denying them the right to claim
    A seat upon luxury’s lap.
    – – – – –

    Political Alphabet
    A stands for Ananias, The politician’s patron saint.
    B is for Boodle, which Doth all legislation taint.
    C stands for Congress, D.C., Where all kinds of laws are invented.
    D stands for Democracy, Whose dupes are somewhat demented.
    E stands for Expansion, which Stands for piracy and plunder.
    F stands for Freedom, a word Mostly used for political thunder.
    G stands for Gall and Gab, The politicians’ greatest essentials.
    H is a sulphurious place Where lawyers need no credentials.
    I is the personal pronoun That the candidate uses most.
    J’s for a four-legged rascal, Prototype of a political host.
    K stands for Kansas State, Where Mrs. Nation smashes things.
    L’s for Lying, a habit Never discouraged by political rings.
    M stands for Militia and Muskets The props that uphold every State.
    N stands for National Spirit, That divides all humanity with hate.
    O stands for Oligarchy, That rules with a scepter of gold.
    P stands for People, whose rights By the political shysters are sold.
    Q stands for political Quacks, Who would cure every ill with a law.
    R stands for Republican rule That’s supreme from Maine to the Kaw.
    S stands for Stupidity, the same That fills so completely the dear people’s heads.
    T stands for Teddy, out onlyest Ted, Who would so strenuously stamp out all the “Reds”.
    U is for the Union A venerated fake.
    V is for Violence, That governments make.
    W’s for Washington, Where the lawmakers revel.
    Z’s for the Zeal That statesmen serve the devil.
    – – – – –

    by the imprisoned members of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire

    “I want Comrades, not the mob…”

    I know people… people silent and chatty, coward and audacious, humble and arrogant…

    People, who live obediently, like sheep and others, who lurk treacherously, like hyenas.

    I know people who dream without fantasy and others, who live without dreaming… people, whose eyes are used to staring low and whose ears are used to taking orders “wake up”, “work”, “pay”, “buy”, “believe”, “comply”…

    People from the lonely crowd, who patiently wait in the line of life… for the eternal tomorrow, for the better days, the optimistic future, the answers to their prayers…

    They are waiting to believe in every prospective savior and in any conman of thought, who will promise them a better life.

    But those, who wait to live a better tomorrow, are today, already dead.

    I know people, but only a few of them are my comrades. Slow Death or Insurrection here and Now…

    These are the two paths, that unravel before us. We choose to be there, where the strong ones dare.

    The air is cleaner and the crowd, which bows before its false idols, doesn’t ugly our aesthetics.

    It is nice to look down from the mountain Peak of the Unique even if the crowd secretly wishes for you to fall into the abyss in order for it, not to be ashamed of its short stature.

    Our words, carve today like a blade and our actions burn the bridges with yesterday… With tenacity and will, until we murder authority.

    For the Anarchists of Praxis. The members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire:

  38. Not sure where else to go. Well done. How about I Shot The Capitalist (or Banker) (or Landlord)

    No Woman No Cry
    Observing the hypocrites
    Mingle with the good people we meet
    Good friends we have, oh, good friends we have lost
    In this great future, you can’t forget your past;
    Said I remember when we used to sit
    In the government yard in Trenchtown
    And then Georgie would make the fire lights,
    I see logwood burnin’ through the nights
    Then we would cook cornmeal porridge, say,
    Of which I’ll share with you, yeah!
    My feet is my only carriage
    And so I’ve got to push on through.
    – – –
    Taiwan is a CREDITOR economy, recently plagued by (astroturfed?) activists of the worst sort.
    http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/taiwan/economy

    proposed Taoyuan Aerotropolis – NIMBY
    http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=871963671&Country=Taiwan&topic=Economy

    13* I Shot the Capitalist…
    1 Redemption Song
    2 Talkin’ Blues
    3 Three Little Birds
    4 One Love/People Get Ready
    5 Waiting in Vain
    6 So Much Trouble in the World
    7 Stir It Up
    8 Keep on Moving
    9 Trenchtown Rock
    10 Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
    11 Roots, Rock, Reggae
    12 War
    13 Iron Lion Zion
    14 Get Up, Stand Up
    15 Rat Race
    16 Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Roadblock)
    17 Forever Loving Jah
    18 Who the Cap Fit
    19 Sun Is Shining
    1 Easy Skanking
    2 Zimbabwe
    3 So Much Things to Say
    4 One Drop
    5 Lively Up Yourself
    6 No More Trouble
    7 Burnin’ & Lootin’
    8 Crazy Baldhead
    9 Slave Driver
    10 Kinky Reggae
    11 No Woman, No Cry
    12 Johnny Was
    13 Time Will Tell
    14 Natty Dread
    15 Kaya
    16 Duppy Conqueror
    17 Rastaman Chant
    1 Natural Mystic
    2 Positive Vibration
    3 Africa Unite
    4 Is This Love
    5 Jammin’
    6 Buffalo Soldier
    7 Pimper’s Paradise
    8 Zion Train
    9 Exodus
    10 Punky Reggae Party
    11 Survival
    12 Concrete Jungle
    14 Could You Be Loved
    – – –
    can someone please refute this AnCap analysis of wage slavery?
    http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/1gh0oz/can_someone_please_refute_this_analysis_of_wage/

    This analysis is decontextualized from the actual situation of wealth polarized capitalism and state-based protection of the capitalist class that workers find themselves in.

    Capitalism is dependent on using the state to exclude workers from the means of production. This exclusion wasn’t achieved through free market competition, but was rather created by state violence and the expropriation of the means of survival from the masses

    Simon Linguet, 1763:.

    “He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. He is bound to no one; but also no one is bound to him. When he is needed, he is hired at the cheapest price possible.

    The meagre wage that he is promised is hardly equal to the price of his subsistence for the day which he gives in exchange. He is given overlookers to compel him to fulfil his task quickly; he is hard driven; he is goaded on, for fear that a skilfully concealed and only too comprehensible laziness may make him hold back half his strength; for fear that the hope of remaining employed longer on the same task may stay his hands and blunt his tools.

    The sordid economy that keeps a restless watch on him overwhelms him with reproaches at the slightest respite he seems to allow himself, and claims to have been robbed if he takes a moment’s rest.

    When he has finished he is dismissed as be was taken on, with the coldest indifference, and without any concern as to whether the twenty or thirty sous that he has just earned for a hard day’s labour will be enough to keep him if he finds no work the following day”

    It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live.

    It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him …

    What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him? … He is free, you say. Ah. That is his misfortune. The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. But the handicraftsman costs nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him …

    These men, it is said, have no master – they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence. They live only by hiring out their arms, or find someone to hire them or die of hunger. Is that to be free?

    • Dear Tor,

      “Capitalism is dependent on using the state to exclude workers from the means of production. This exclusion wasn’t achieved through free market competition, but was rather created by state violence and the expropriation of the means of survival from the masses.”

      Remove the state, problem solved.

      Many, many people in a truly free society will prefer to work for wages. The state creates barriers for entry into the market, especially for the poor. Minimum wages are one such barrier. You do know that minimum wages were first introduced specifically to exclude “undesirables” from employment, right? The effect of minimum wage laws do not magically change because of the changed intentions of their proponents.

      The State also creates barriers to entry with licensing laws, subsidies, protectionist tariffs, etc… Again, remove the state, remove the problem. Not everyone is interested in, or capable of employing the means of production in a profitable or socially beneficial way. Many people prefer to work for wages. What do you say to them?

      Public ownership of the means of production is as absurd a notion as “limited government”. Should everyone on earth own an equal share of the means of production? If so, why work? This would create a “tragedy of the commons” problem that would be disastrous for humanity. In practice, public ownership of the means of production means elite control of the means of production. In other words, a state.

      Public ownership requires a state, private ownership does not.

      Kind Regards,
      Jeremy

      • In the background, in the extra time I have, the band, The Police, Judas Priest, and VHF, are playing:

        Capitalism…
        – dependent –
        …on using the state!

        To exclude workers

        – This exclusion wasn’t achieved through free market competition! –

        Ahhhhhh!

        It was created by state violence!

        and the expropriation [Sheet, no one is going to know what expropriation means, what’s another word for that?]

        of – the – means

        of – survival

        from – the – masses!

        Out There is a fortune to be had!

        The bastards at the top,
        intend to take that away from you…
        You might not want to let that go,
        But the bastards at, ‘The Top’ have another thing coming at you!

        “Remove the state” you say?

        You’ve got another thing coming.

        Many people prefer to work for wages.

        Why won’t you support empire?

        Just Fall in Line!

        Embrace poverty!

        [Side note: RE: “Public ownership of the means of production is as absurd a notion as “limited government”. Yes, it is. However; many of the Greatest Generation and The Boomer Generation are counting on things like Fracking to pay for Everything! They think the gooberment an “own” it all, and still somehow the private company will continue to produce as if they actually made a profit.]

        Is this just life?
        Or, is this just fantasy?

        I’m just a little stiletto of a man.

        Pawn,

        says I.

        [Fancy guitar lick, followed by drum solo, here.]

        Everybody wants Some!

        I Want Some, Too!

        Everybody’s fucked!

        You’re fucked, too!

        W.F.D.!

        Bunk-er, you?

        Everybody wants Some!

        They want yours, too!

        …. … … Fuck, I’ll pay you for ’em, what The Fuck?

        Zombie says, ” Shrug”

        Zombie, plogs on… Zombie style.

        Warm Bodies

        • Helot,
          That is hilarious.
          You’ve had the best idea of all, I think.
          Panarchy.

          I don’t know how it would be brought about as of yet, but why can’t each be ruled or not ruled according to his wishes?

          Cause really all these philosophies are just possible strategies for cooperation in a competitive world. Ways of chess. Of monopoly. Of Texas Hold Em. Of whatever your game is.

          In an anarchy chess game there is no king, you’ll have to take all the opponent’s pieces. Or is it that every pawn is likewise a king, able to likewise move one square in any direction.

          Anarchy has some strong points. But I don’t see why one can’t disable authoritarians institutions and wielders of authority peacefully. Smash them just enough that you gain enough freedom to assemble your own means of production.

          Why kill others in order to plunder. Of course every school is poisoned, that’s how they rig the game. But really, the more means of production, is usually the merrier.

          It’s not such a burden to learn the rudiments of other schools. Screaming Marx like some voodoo curse word and then shutting off your mind is not
          the path to wisdom.

          Yes labor left-archists will never abandon their fetish for labor theory of value. Left-archists will tell you both Eric and Clover’s 5 hours of work writing for this blog is equivalent because they worship at the altar of the labor theory of value. Poppycock obviously. But there is anarchism without Marxism, don’t let them fool you.

          I’m for Voluntarist Market Anarchism. And for Panarchy. For at least learning the basics of the other schools of archy that might lead to freedom. (So not all schools, such as Muslim schools of theocratic communitarianism for example.)

          • Cool: Every word you wrote.
            Also, “every pawn is likewise a king,”
            Love that, too. [Top Shelf stuff.]

            …If Only, everyone else would see that.

            And, they would put away their hate.

          • Is that: “And, they would put away their hate.”?

            Or is it: “And, they would put away they’re (they are) hate.”?

            I wonder.

            Songs for the future? Or,will The Fourth Turning just be a Roll-over?

            I wonder.

          • Dear Tor,

            Michael Rozeff has written pretty extensively on Panarchy

            http://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/michael-s-rozeff/the-state-must-abandon-its-territorial-claims/

            http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/you-cant-be-a-libertarian-and-not-support-personal-secession/

            It seems that, other than the tendency of those who call themselves anarcho-capitalists to be more culturally conservative than those who call themselves voluntarists/free(d) market anarchists, the core philosophy is very similar, no?.

            If pressed, I usually call myself an anarcho-capitalist, even though I am not remotely culturally conservative. I also consider voluntarist or free market anarchist to be terms that accurately describe my views.

            What am I missing?

            Kind Regards,
            Jeremy

          • Dear Jeremy,

            “those who call themselves anarcho-capitalists to be more culturally conservative than those who call themselves voluntarists/free(d) market anarchists… ”

            I have not observed any such correlation myself. I consider the three terms 100% synonymous and use them interchangeably.

            • Hi Bevin,

              I’m probably pretty conservative by inclination and in terms of personal taste. But – as a Libertarian – I respect everyone’s right to partake of whatever they happen to enjoy, whether it’s something I’d enjoy or not!

          • Dear Bevin,

            I agree with you that the terms are synonymous, or at least I use them that way. I said anarcho-capitalists tend to be more culturally conservative because many of the “big names”, Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Hans Hoppe, Tom Woods, Robert Murphy, etc… self identify as such. While many of the more prominent writers who identify as voluntarist/free market anarchists, Roderick Long, Sheldon Richman, Kevin Carson, Gary Chartier, Wendy McElroy, etc… do not.

            I certainly don’t think it is necessary to be culturally conservative to be an an-cap (I’m not), or culturally liberal to be a voluntarist. However, the tendency, at least among prominent writers, seems to exist.

            Sometimes, I wonder if the difference in cultural values seeps into ideological debates and creates conflict, where it really shouldn’t exist.

            Kind Regards,
            Jeremy

          • Dear Eric, Jeremy,

            Re: Cultural conservatism.

            Ditto. As a classical music (opera) afficionado, I’m probably among the most culturally conservative libertarians at EPA!

            Re: Split in terminology.

            Now that you mention it, there does seem to be something of a split.

            But as you, Eric, and I all agree, there is no substantive difference. As long as one adheres to the NAP, the structural fundamentals championed are 100% identical.

            By the way, one very real difference is worth emphasizing. I’m sure most of us at EPA, LRC, TDV, and other allied sites are aware of it. But it is worth reiterating.

            There is a very real difference between champions of the NAP and champions of “traditional” political systems.

            What is that difference?

            It is that champions of “traditional” political systems advocate this or that specific preconceived system. They have a specific agenda in mind that must be forcibly imposed on people in order for their “traditional” political systems to “work.” In short, they advocate “a system.”

            Champions of the NAP, by contrast, do not advocate this or that specific preconceived system. We do not have a specific agenda in mind that must be forcibly imposed on people. That means we do not actually advocate a “system” at all. In short, we advocate a METASYSTEM.

            This is a key point often missed by defenders of “traditional” political systems such as “democracy.” This is a point that often goes right over their heads. They sometimes say, “What makes your system so right and ours so wrong?” Whoosh! They just don’t get it.

            Champions of the NAP are champions of 100% pure laissez-faire. We relinquish all attempts to force fit people into any specific Procrustean Bed. Monarchy. Democracy. Republic. Whatever. We relinquish all attempts to impose preconceived “order” by brute force. We are content to “let the chips fall where they may.”

            In short, we do not advocate any system at all. We advocate a METASYSTEM. We advocate transcending systems altogether.

            This needless to say, is often used against us. Such as when clover demands to know “How would anarcho-capitalism provide roads?”

  39. 團結? Jeremy?
    http://blog.roodo.com/youthlabor95/archives/4246201.html
    sounds: Fresh, Healthy, decent to me

    we go from situation upper right small fish
    http://b1.rimg.tw/youthlabor95/5d715060.jpg
    to situation lower right “big” fish

    AGAINST the Unreasonable Minimum Wage Policy in Taiwan
    http://blog.roodo.com/youthlabor95/archives/cat_361887.html
    we have been strongly appealed Government to raise the minimum wage and change the inconsequent part-time workers policy.

    • Dear Tor,

      Oh those poor, misguided youth. Don’t they know that wages are slavery? Increasing wages will just force more people into slavery!

      I propose that we start a campaign to impose a worldwide mandatory maximum wage of $0.00/hour. That’ll destroy this pernicious wage slavery thing once and for all.

      We could even have a catchy song to go along with the campaign. I’ve written the first verse, perhaps you can help me finish it?

      No Wages, No Slave (sung to No Woman, No Cry)

      No wages, no slave
      No wages, no slave
      No wages, no slave
      No wages, no slave

      Do ya Do ya remember drinkin’ with our group of friends
      in that little bar in Trenchtown
      Nevah evah serving the Cap-ta-list – yeah!
      Struggle with the poor people we meet, yeah
      Good jobs we had, oh, Good jobs we have lost
      We cannot pay, yeah
      In this great future, we cannot work for cash
      So, it’s a battle every day, yeah!

      Cheers,
      Jeremy

      • A little bit of twisted Johnny Cash meets cRap? This is my first song, pardon me. Time limited, too:

        Cash, cash, cash, that burnin’ wheel of fire.
        You hate to pay a lot,
        for that shit that you buy,
        But you’ll be damned,
        you’ll do your best,
        to get that other guy,
        to pay – more – more – more –
        than – you ever would.

        Screw them over, you don’t care.

        Cash, cash, cash, that burnin’ wheel of fire.

        If it means, you’ve No job, that’s ok with you.
        The roof’s on fire, you don’t care, Burn MF, Burn!

        Then one day, you will find: Cash, cash, cash, that burnin’ wheel of fire.

        [Switch to 80’s Hammer Time:]

        …You Can’t touch This!

        Oh, uah-oh, -CASH- …You Can’t touch This!

        The woman wants some shit, but you ain’t got the grit.
        The doorman says, your welfare script, won’t get you in The Door.

        Oh, uah-oh, Uh-oh.

        The woman goes, “Oh, uah-oh, Uh-oh.”

        She’s gone! … (obviously, it’s Hammer Time.)

        … You’re Buds try to cheer you Uup.

        Oh, uah-oh,

        But they ain’t Got no -CASH-.

        [Chant:]

        Cause-The-Rich-Man-Hiring-Ain’t-Lookin’-For-You-
        Cause-You-Got-No-Skills-that-Are-Worth-wHAt-The-Gooberment-Says-You-Should-Be-Paid.

        SO, Go-Work-Three-Jobs …If you can.

        [It needs some work. I didn’t even mention the baby-momma, a pit bull, or a broken car in the drive way. That’s the best I can do with a knife in my back. I hoped you liked it. Feel free to modify it. HA!… As if, it’s terrible! It needs some work. .. Oh wait, that’s a catchy title, “Needs Work”. Or,…’Will Work for Cash’? ]

        Oh, uah-oh,

  40. Dear clover, this is your only notice that I have copy pasted and edited your 2014/07/12 at 10:45 pm “reply” to Jeremy. Proceed to read at your own risk.

    Jeremy you and others here Jeremy crack me up. Jeremy You talk Jeremy about the Jeremy brute force Jeremy that the Jeremy government puts Jeremy upon you. Jeremy if you Jeremy follow Jeremy the Jeremy laws Jeremy of Jeremy our Jeremy land Jeremy there Jeremy will Jeremy never Jeremy be Jeremy a Jeremy hand Jeremy laid Jeremy on Jeremy you.

    Jeremy Jeremy I Jeremy Jeremy have Jeremy Jeremy not Jeremy Jeremy been Jeremy Jeremy touched. Jeremy Jeremy Thousands Jeremy Jeremy of Jeremy Jeremy people Jeremy Jeremy that Jeremy Jeremy I Jeremy Jeremy know Jeremy Jeremy or Jeremy Jeremy have Jeremy Jeremy met Jeremy Jeremy have Jeremy Jeremy not Jeremy Jeremy had Jeremy Jeremy brute Jeremy Jeremy force Jeremy Jeremy given Jeremy Jeremy to Jeremy Jeremy them. Redrum Jeremy Redrum Name me one country Redrum Jeremy Redrum that ever exited that Redrum Jeremy Redrum allowed you to do Redrum Jeremy Redrum whatever the hell you felt like?

    Jeremy Isn’t Here Missus Torrance Name me one country Jeremy Isn’t Here Missus Torrance that ever existed that Jeremy Isn’t Here Missus Torrance followed your beliefs? If Jeremy Isn’t Here Missus Torrance you cannot name one Jeremy Isn’t Here Missus Torrance then why is it Jeremy Isn’t Here Missus Torrance that no country has Redrum Redrum Redrum followed Redrum Redrum Redrum the Redrum Redrum Redrum Utopia Redrum Redrum Redrum of Redrum Redrum Redrum Libertarianism? Redrum Redrum Redrum Tell Redrum Redrum Redrum me Redrum Redrum Redrum what Redrum Redrum Redrum your Redrum Redrum Redrum Utopia Redrum Redrum Redrum world Redrum Redrum Redrum would Redrum Redrum Redrum be All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy like All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy and All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy how All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy it All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy would All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy operate. All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy I All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy have All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy asked All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy about All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy a All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy hundred All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy times All blogspam and no play makes clover a dull boy but I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. I I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. have I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. yet I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. to I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. get I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. anything I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. beyond I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. a I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. 2 I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. year I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. old I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. type I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. of I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter. answer.

  41. – – – – start unfathomable joke now – – – –

    Jeremy, we are not offended. (inside joke for anyone who’s seen Zero Theorem) what you not like, I’ll assume else is meh or like.

    We are wholly at a loss with all things taken for granted by everyone. We have better halves that do damage control, because We honestly don’t know (or have ever tried) to be part of whatever people mean by politeness and courtesy

    – – – reference – – –
    The Zero Theorem, treads much the same ground as Brazil, while updating it to our weird, wired world.

    “Our everyman is Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), an individual who has grown so universalised – or is it schizophrenic? Or just arrogant? – that he refers to himself in an all-inclusive first-person plural. Leth, you see, is also us: a plugged-in, personality-free drone who spends half his time working on endless, meaningless tasks, and the other half waiting for a call that he hopes will be the answer to all his prayers and the fulfilment of all his desires. ”
    – – – end reference – – –

    – – – – stop unfathomable joke now – – – –

    Since it did exceptionally well, I propose posting it as is, or in 3.0 version, or with your instructions RIGHT HERE AT GOOD OL’ possible pfennig in Eric’s pocket EPAUTOS. reddit doesn’t profit anyone directly that I know of.

    Qohen from Zero Theorem quotes
    http://lybio.net/tag/qohen-leth-quotes/

    THIS IS WE

    What seems to be the problem?
    We are dying.
    Whose we?
    Us – ourselves.
    And there’s only one of you?
    So it would appear.

    WE IS STRESSED

    Qohen, how’s it hanging.

    It isn’t hanging at all well.

    Ah – sorry.

    WE IS SCARED

    A fear of death.. fear of life… fear of open spaces… a fear of people…

    We see nothing most of all…

    Are you trying to be difficult?

    “”there are hints that joyless, misanthropic Leth once led a healthier, more integrated life, he has since become a hollowed-out shell of a man, stripped of personality (and hair), held together only by anxieties, and living only to work. An expert in crunching “esoteric numbers that have a life of their own” on his steampunk mainframe, Leth concentrates on proving the ‘Zero Theorem’ – a Sisyphean task that enslaves his mind and saps his spirit.””

    • Dear Tor,

      I have not seen Zero Theorem, but I will seek it out. I have seen Brazil, years ago, and enjoyed it very much.

      You claim not to be offended, which I cannot contest. However, you do seem to think, given the nature of your responses, that those who would try “to be part of whatever people mean by politeness and courtesy”, are being ridiculous.

      However, right after you responded to my comment, you started another comment with these words: “thanks for chiming in garysco”. Was this not an attempt “to be part of whatever people mean by politeness and courtesy”?

      As I made clear in my previous post, I do not expect you to do anything. I made my seemingly harmless, and very slightly chiding comment, because I believe that observing the niceties of politeness and courtesy are important.

      Perhaps, I am wrong. Perhaps such a concern is an “unfathomable joke”, as you suggest. However, maybe I’m not wrong. Maybe the peaceful and free society that we both desire will come about only if those of us who attempt to convince others of the absurdity of “limited government”, employ politeness and courtesy.

      It seems obvious to me that the type of society that we desire will only be possible when enough people are convinced that their minds are shackled with false premises, and controlled by fear.

      As you state in a previous post “Life without government, is not such a terrifying Terra Incognita as this. In this case, the character of a free society is hardly something to be afraid of. We have already seen many of its key characteristics in Medieval Iceland, and the Old American West”.

      Still, as you also note, fear of “life without government” is real and pervasive.

      If, as I believe is true, convincing enough people to overcome this fear and to seriously question the nature and legitimacy of government is essential to the emergence of the society that we desire, do you think that ridiculing concerns about politeness and courtesy is a good strategy?

      Kind Regards,
      Jeremy

      • i had an eidetic memory flash that you had given your full name here, I’ve now copied it(faithfully i pray) in the reddit incarnation of the writing sample of yours. (it is still recognizably yours?)

        – – – notice – – –
        politic bot has mirrored the submission to politic subreddit
        http://www.reddit.com/r/POLITIC/comments/2algdt/dear_minarchists_limited_government_is_an_oxymoron/
        – – – end notice – – –

        i often mean to be jovial and jocular i would say, I speak for myself, but I go fast without much pause, perhaps there isn’t sufficient room enough for anyone else?

        remix of your statement:
        “do you think that ridiculing concerns not addressing concerns about politeness and courtesy is a good strategy”

        again possibly as a non-response response – conversationally i am playing the white pieces usually and leaving the games where i am black pieces unfinished?

        attempted correction of your statement:
        unfathomable joke is only meant my speaking in weirdo plural voice … and to imply no one in epautos main demographic could have seen The Zero Theorem … as it is not released in the US until … 24 Elul 5774 … oy vey … until 19 Sept 2014

        great Scott Marty! 1.21 GIGAWATTS!!! Einstein’s clock is exactly one minute behind mine and still ticking!

        i’m extremely empathic, but not in a way that is accepted by the psychologically well tempered. i like making the odd duck quack now and again

        Oh my god… they found me. I don’t know how, but they found me. RUN FOR IT MARTY!

  42. Dear Tor,

    Thank you for writing this post. I have been making the same argument for a few years now. However, all of my minarchist friends simply refuse to accept that “limited government” is an oxymoron. Even some anarchists don’t get it.

    Anyway, I wrote a version of the following in a previous post, and I’d like to add it here.

    While, all governments are limited in the sense that they have limited resources to plunder, and that they must rely on the acquiescence of the people, no government, as traditionally defined, can be legally limited.

    Legally limited government is impossible both in theory and in practice. Remember that the “right” to possess a “monopoly on the use of legal force” that is claimed by every government, “limited” or not, extends to the judgement of it’s own actions relative to the “law”. This necessarily means that all governments exist, by definition, outside of, and above the law.

    As Tor points out, the American Architects of “Limited” government created a system that, at least on paper, would be more “limited” than any government in history. Tor shows how quickly this fell apart.

    Today, we are taught that “democracy” and the “separation of powers” serve as an external check on the power of government. However, the exact opposite is true. “Democracy” is perhaps the greatest scam ever invented to support the interests of those who seek to wield power. The purpose of “democracy” is to legitimize the power of government, not to check it. Notice that “we” are never allowed to vote on whether the power of government should exist, but only on which particular sociopaths are allowed to wield it. At the Federal level, “we” are allowed to cast a statistically meaningless vote for three people out of the entire apparatus of the Federal government. As one anarchist wag put it, “have you ever noticed that, in an election, no matter who loses, the government always wins”.

    The “separation of powers”, especially the supposed “independence” of the supreme court is a similar scam. Again, the purpose of the supreme court is to legitimize the power of government, not to check it. Consider, if the purpose of the Supreme Court is check the power of government, then the institution, and its’ members, are uniquely unqualified for the job. Supreme Court justices are chosen from a pool of government lawyers who have displayed a lifetime of fealty to the idea that the exercise of government power is legitimate. They are nominated by a president who has no interest in seating someone who is hostile to the exercise of executive power. They are confirmed by Senators who have no interest in seating someone who is hostile to the exercise of legislative power. Again, the function of the Supreme Court is not to check government power, but to legitimize it.

    To illustrate the absurdity of the proposition that government can be limited by law, let’s place the claims of “limited government” advocates in the private sphere. Imagine that Goldman Sachs set up an internal ethics division that was charged with ruling on the legality of the actions of Goldman Sachs. Let’s suppose that the members of this ethics division were nominated by the CEO of Goldman Sachs and confirmed by the board of directors of Goldman Sachs. Let’s further suppose that they receive their pay from Goldman Sachs. Finally, let’s suppose that this division of Goldman Sachs claims a monopoly on judging the legality of the actions of Goldman Sachs. Is it believable that the CEO of Goldman Sachs would nominate a “justice” hostile to the interests of Goldman Sachs? Is it believable that the board of directors would confirm a “justice” hostile to the interests of Goldman Sachs. Does anyone seriously believe that such an institution could be trusted to limit the power of Goldman Sachs? Yet, this is precisely what we are told to believe with respect to government.

    So, yes, legally limited government is impossible. The choice is not between anarchy and “limited” government, but between anarchy and totalitarian government. Wile it is true that some governments are better than others, it is not because they are “legally limited”. It is because they fear the consequences of exerting overt totalitarian control. Smart governments will expand their power gradually, slowly acclimating the people to accept greater and greater levels of government control. Every government seeks to become more totalitarian; the smartest will employ massive propaganda campaigns on behalf of “democracy” and the “separation of powers” to achieve this goal. This process is taking place at an ever accelerating rate in America. Those who do not recognize this are deluded.

    Kind Regards,
    Jeremy

      • Dear Tor,

        I’m flattered that you took my words and posted them over at anarcho-capitalist. I even like most of the small changes that you made. Still, a request, or recognition would have been nice.

        Kind Regards,
        Jeremy

        • Dear unrecognized and unrequested reddit contributor,

          sorry anarchos gotta anarch. the reddit account is linked to the email I use here, otherwise I’d just email you the current password, and you could take over the account and change the password and adopt it.

          There’s no credit meant by me for anyone at this point, just one of millions of reddit ids. nominally my property because they make it so.

          here is a dummy logon. password is all lowercase same as your 6 character userid here.
          http://www.reddit.com/user/metalibertarian1/

          you can use it on reddit, or make your own of course.

          what do?
          1 delete it?
          2 you tell me edits, and I edit them?
          3 add a message of attribution?
          4 something else?
          5 include link for readers for them to contact you or some social account of yours?
          6 build time machine, hire a human PR representative, run everything human related through her so I follow expected protocol?

          Anyway, well done, I’ll waive my usual edit fee and victimize someone else next time,

          Agorically yours,
          Tor

          • Dear Tor,

            I’m sorry your are offended by my comment. When I said I was flattered, I was sincere. I do not expect you, me or anyone else to do anything. Nor do I consider that I was “victimized” in any way.

            I do believe that politeness and courtesy will be very important in the free and peaceful society that we both desire. Of course, I do not believe that they should be enforced, but merely encouraged.

            For instance, if you had said in your post here (not at Reddit):

            “Dear Jeremy,

            I have posted your comment, with some small changes, over at anarcho-capitalism, I hope you like it”,

            I would have said, “thank you so much, I’m really flattered”.

            Again, I’m sorry that I offended you, and I do appreciate your posting of my comment.

            Kind Regards,
            Jeremy

    • Dear Jeremy,

      Profound observation.

      Many anarchists have come to the same conclusion in recent years, including myself.

      Essentially it boils down to this:

      “limited government + time = unlimited government.”

      The only variable is “how much time?”

      In the case of the Weimar Republic, it was 14 years.

      In the case of the unitedstate, it was 225 years. (1776-2001) 9/11
      Arguably far less. 85 years (1776-1861) War of Northern Aggression

      In any event, because under “limited government” the thin edge of the wedge is already in place from Day One, it is really only a matter of time.

      • Dear Bevin,

        Thank you.

        You state: “limited government + time = unlimited government.” This is exactly correct. As you note, the seeds of “unlimited government” exist from the very beginning; it is inherent in the nature of government.

        The State recruits the “intellectual class” to agitate on behalf of “cloverism”, they recruit the “chattering class” to disseminate these approved myths to the “people” and they “bribe’ the people with the promise of “free” goods.

        The goal is to make everyone believe that their livelihood depends on the State. The scam works quite well for awhile. But, eventually, the parasite will threaten to destroy the host.

        Normal, everyday people are starting to see this. They recognize that there is something rotten at the core of “our system”.

        Luckily, the “gatekeeper” system, integral to maintaining the dominance of pro government propaganda, is breaking down. It is our job to offer an alternative.

        Kind Regards,
        Jeremy

        • Dear Jeremy,

          For a time I was still okay with minarchism, even though I knew that anarchism was the only theoretically consistent system.

          During that relatively brief transition phase, I still imagined minarchism was something I could “settle for.”

          But my understanding of the innate structural defects in minarchism became clearer and clearer with time.

          Watching the unitedstate circle the drain under the Bushobama regime added fuel to the fire.

          Eventually my willingness to tolerate minarchism diminished at an ever accelerating rate. Now I have what our clover pols refer to as a “zero tolerance policy.” LOL.

          As I’ve shared with other regulars here at EPA, the little bit of “archy” in “minarchy” is like “a single rat turd in a kettle of porridge.” That’s an old Chinese slang expression.

          Ironically, it’s like Ayn Rand’s analogy about poison in food. No compromise is possible. Funny that she never “checked her premises” on the critical issue of “limited government” but clung to it to her dying breath.

          • Dear Jean,

            “Whiskey Rebellion 1791, when General Washington as President led an army into Pennsylvania to put down the tax rebellion.”

            I wouldn’t argue with that either!

      • Bevin,
        In the case of the unitedstate, it was 225 years. (1776-2001) 9/11
        Arguably far less. 85 years (1776-1861) War of Northern Aggression.

        Arguably less still; Treaty of Paris 1783 (actual creation of the US, as Britain recognized the US existed, and gave up considering us colonies in rebellion; call it “birth”) – Whiskey Rebellion 1791, when General Washington as President led an army into Pennsylvania to put down the tax rebellion.
        As was put on here earlier on a different thread, the local farmers were using distilled whiskey as currency for local dealings. (I’m supposing they didn’t try to pay Amazon with whiskey…)
        Constitution says that FedGov can tax; Hamilton demanded taxes on the whiskey. (So was it sales tax? Illegal at the time, or maybe undefined. But start of the currency problems we’re still unraveling now. “Real. Estate” vs. paper or coin crap. I include coin because our coins have been debased, too. Not only Gold –> Silver –> garbage, but even the garbage is being clipped, made thinner, etc. – and the newer crap is appalling to the eyes of anyone over about 15, if they understand what’s being effaced to make way for E Pluribus Moronicum. But I digress…)

        He who controls the gold, dictates the law, pardon the twist on the old saw. Ayn Rand might’ve been a student of US history, too. We’ve been on the Road to Oz for a LONG time, since before Greece was founded. Hammurabi comes to mind.

        Anyway – it was nice while it lasted.
        Pity it’s only an illusion from the start.
        And we get more myopic as our knowledge grows. Funny how that works. Freedom of choice is what you got; freedom FROM choice is what you want.

        So let’s enslave Clovers and limit their real choices, but they can elect whomever bears the whip this term. And decide whether to wear Chanel or Dior; whether to wear Levi’s or Lee or Wrangler. To buy dodge or Audi or Cadillac or Toyota. To eat GMOs from Walmart – or Whole Foods. Etc…

        It’s not slavery as long as you can vote, right?…

  43. America as a snitch society. What country does this remind you of?:

    “Obviously we can’t see everything, can’t be everywhere so having people in the community helping us out—residents, neighbors—reporting those types of things is a great tool for us too,”

    Drought Shaming Pitting Neighbors Against Neighbors On Social Media
    July 11, 2014 6:56 PM

    http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/07/11/drought-shaming-pitting-neighbors-against-neighbors-on-social-media/

    Just Never mind letting the Free Market sort things out with price, I guess that’s too, ‘outside the box’ thinking for them?

    And, another gunvernment-loving headline from today, what country does this remind you of?:

    Meet the medical student who wants to bring down Dr. Oz

    The mafia known as, “Organized medicine is a […] beast.”

    Meet the face of a clueless average do-gooder totalitarian a step before things turn for the worst: Benjamin Mazer

    “Dr. Oz has something like 4-million viewers a day,” Mazer told Vox. “The average physician doesn’t see a million patients in their lifetime. That’s why organized medicine should be taking action.”

    Information Must be controlled! says the wanna-be tyrant. He goes on by basically saying, Only that which is permitted should be allowed! Nothing outside the State, Everything for the State, says he.

    “Last year, Mazer brought a policy before the Medical Society of the State of New York—where Dr. Oz is licensed—requesting that they consider regulating the advice of famous physicians in the media. His idea: Treat health advice on TV in the same vein as expert testimony”

    http://www.vox.com/2014/7/12/5891451/meet-the-medical-student-who-wants-to-bring-down-dr-oz-quackery

    • @Helot,

      What country you ask?

      I’d say Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, dictated by a political system named English Socialism.

      OT your welcome OT:
      I’d heartily recommend checking out The Zero Theorem.

      An eccentric and reclusive computer genius plagued with existential angst works on a mysterious project aimed at discovering the purpose of existence – or the lack thereof -once and for all. However, it is only once he experiences the power of love and desire that he is able to understand his very reason for being.

      Director: Terry Gilliam

      Starring: Christoph Waltz, David Thewlis, Melanie thierry, Lucas Hedges, Ben Whishaw, Peter Stormare, and Tilda Swinton.

      Zero Theorem Official Trailer (1080p HD) Christoph Waltz, Terry Gilliam
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6-3nGbImxQ

      I intend on filling up a subreddit I’ve started on it as well
      http://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroTheorem/

      We’ve tracked Gilliam’s existential crises over the years, so in a way, we already know Qohen the main character before watching.

      Terry Gilliam Filimography
      1968 Storytime
      1974 Miracle of Flight
      1971 And Now for Something Completely Different
      1972 Monty Python’s Fliegender Zirkus (TV film) 1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail
      1977 Jabberwocky
      1979 Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1981 Time Bandits
      1982 Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl 1983 The Crimson Permanent Assurance
      Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
      1985 Brazil
      Spies Like Us
      1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
      1991 The Fisher King
      1995 12 Monkeys
      1998 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
      2002 Lost in La Mancha (documentary)
      2005 The Brothers Grimm
      Tideland
      2006 Enfermés dehors
      2009 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
      2010 Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy)
      The Legend of Hallowdega
      2011 The Wholly Family (short)
      The Monster of Nix (short)
      2012 i rec u (short)
      Yes
      A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story
      of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman
      2013 The Zero Theorem
      9 Month Stretch
      2015 Jupiter Ascending
      Absolutely Anything
      Yes Extraterrestrial (voice only)

      TV series
      1968 Do Not Adjust Your Set
      Marty
      Broaden Your Mind
      1969–1974

      http://terrygilliamweb.com/

      And now back to LWG.

  44. The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over
    W.G. Sumner 1894

    It will not probably be denied that the burden of proof is on those who affirm that our social condition is utterly diseased and in need of radical regeneration.

    The propositions put forward by social reformers nowadays are chiefly of two kinds. There are assertions in historical form, chiefly in regard to the comparison of existing with earlier social states, which are plainly based on defective historical knowledge, or at most on current stock historical dicta which are uncritical and incorrect.

    Writers very often assert that something never existed before because they do not know that it ever existed before, or that something is worse than ever before because they are not possessed of detailed information about what has existed before.

    The other class of propositions consists of dogmatic statements which, whether true or not, are unverifiable. This class of propositions is the pest and bane of current economic and social discussion.

    Upon a more or less superficial view of some phenomenon a suggestion arises which is embodied in a philosophical proposition and promulgated as a truth.

    From the form and nature of such propositions they can always be brought under the head of “ethics.” This word at least gives them an air of elevated sentiment and purpose, which is the only warrant they possess.

    It is impossible to test or verify them by any investigation or logical process whatsoever. It is therefore very difficult for anyone who feels a high responsibility for historical statements, and who absolutely rejects any statement which is unverifiable, to find a common platform for discussion or to join issue satisfactorily in taking the negative.

    When anyone asserts that the class of skilled and unskilled manual laborers of the United States is worse off now in respect to diet, clothing, lodgings, furniture, fuel, and lights; in respect to the age at which they can marry; the number of children they can provide for; the start in life which they can give to their children, and their chances of accumulating capital, than they ever have been at any former time, he makes a reckless assertion for which no facts have been offered in proof.

    Upon an appeal to facts, the contrary of this assertion would be clearly established. It suffices, therefore, to challenge those who are responsible for the assertion to make it good.

    The first US settlement was made by agriculturists, and for a long time there was scarcely any organization. There were scattered farmers, each working for himself, and some small towns with only rudimentary commerce and handicrafts.

    As the country has filled up, the arts and professions have been differentiated and the industrial organization has been advancing. This fact and its significance has hardly been noticed at all; but the stage of the industrial organization existing at any time, and the rate of advance in its development, are the absolutely controlling social facts.

    Nine-tenths of the socialistic and semi-socialistic, and sentimental or ethical, suggestions by which we are overwhelmed come from failure to understand the phenomena of the industrial organization and its expansion.

    It controls us all because we are all in it. It creates the conditions of our existence, sets the limits of our social activity, regulates the bonds of our social relations, determines our conceptions of good and evil, suggests our life-philosophy, molds our inherited political institutions, and reforms the oldest and toughest customs, like marriage and property.

    I repeat that the turmoil of heterogeneous and antagonistic social whims and speculations in which we live is clue to the failure to understand what the industrial organization is and its all-pervading control over human life, while the traditions of our school of philosophy lead us always to approach the industrial organization, not from the side of objective study, but from that of philosophical doctrine.

    Hence it is that we find that the method of measuring what we see happening by what are called ethical standards, and of proposing to attack the phenomena by methods thence deduced, is so popular.

    The advance of a new country from the very simplest social coordination up to the highest organization is a most interesting and instructive chance to study the development of the organization.

    It has of course been attended all the way along by stricter subordination and higher discipline. All organization implies restriction of liberty. The gain of power is won by narrowing individual range.

    The methods of business in colonial days were loose and slack to an inconceivable degree. The movement of industry has been all the time toward promptitude, punctuality, and reliability.

    It has been attended all the way by lamentations about the good old times; about the decline of small industries; about the lost spirit of comradeship between employer and employee; about the narrowing of the interests of the workman; about his conversion into a machine or into a “ware,” and about industrial war.

    These lamentations have all had reference to unquestionable phenomena attendant on advancing organization. In all occupations the same movement is discernible — in the learned professions, in schools, in trade, commerce, and transportation.

    It is to go on faster than ever, now that the continent is filled up by the first superficial layer of population over its whole extent and the intensification of industry has begun. The great inventions both make the intension of the organization possible and make it inevitable, with all its consequences, whatever they may be.

    I must expect to be told here, according to the current fashions of thinking, that we ought to control the development of the organization. The first instinct of the modern man is to get a law passed to forbid or prevent what, in his wisdom, he disapproves. A thing which is inevitable, however, is one which we cannot control.

    We have to make up our minds to it, adjust ourselves to it, and sit down to live with it. Its inevitableness may be disputed, in which case we must re-examine it; but if our analysis is correct, when we reach what is inevitable we reach the end, and our regulations must apply to ourselves, not to the social facts.

    Now the intensification of the social organization is what gives us greater social power. It is to it that we owe our increased comfort and abundance. We are none of us ready to sacrifice this.

    On the contrary, we want more of it. We would not return to the colonial simplicity and the colonial exiguity if we could. If not, then we must pay the price. Our life is bounded on every side by conditions. We can have this if we will agree to submit to that.

    In the case of industrial power and product the great condition is combination of force under discipline and strict coordination. Hence the wild language about wage-slavery and capitalistic tyranny.

    In any state of society no great achievements can be produced without great force. Formerly great force was attainable only by slavery aggregating the power of great numbers of men. Roman civilization was built on this.

    Ours has been built on steam. It is to be built on electricity. Then we are all forced into an organization around these natural forces and adapted to the methods or their application; and although we indulge in rhetoric about political liberty, nevertheless we find ourselves bound tight in a new set of conditions, which control the modes of our existence and determine the directions in which alone economic and social liberty can go.

    If it is said that there are some persons in our time who have become rapidly and in a great degree rich, it is true; if it is said that large aggregations of wealth in the control of individuals is a social danger, it is not true.

    The movement of the industrial organization which has just been described has brought out a great demand for men capable of managing great enterprises. Such have been called “captains of industry.” The analogy with military leaders suggested by this name is not misleading.

    The great leaders in the development of the
    industrial organization need those talents of executive and administrative skill, power to command, courage, and fortitude, which were formerly called for in military affairs and scarcely anywhere else.

    The industrial army is also as dependent on its captains as a military body is on its generals. One of the worst features of the existing system is that the employees have a constant risk in their employer.

    If he is not competent to manage the business with success, they suffer with him. Capital also is dependent on the skill of the captain of industry for the certainty and magnitude of its profits.

    Under these circumstances there has been a great demand for men having the requisite ability for this function. As the organization has advanced, with more impersonal bonds of coherence and wider scope of operations, the value of this functionary has rapidly increased. The possession of tile requisite ability is a natural monopoly. Consequently, all the conditions have concurred to give to those who possessed this monopoly excessive and constantly advancing rates of remuneration.

    Another social function of the first importance in an intense organization is the solution of those crises in the operation of it which are called the conjuncture of the market. It is through the market that the lines of relation run which preserve the system in harmonious and rhythmical operation. The conjuncture is the momentary sharper misadjustment of supply and demand which indicates that a redistribution of productive effort is called for.

    The industrial organization needs to be insured against these conjunctures, which, if neglected, produce a crisis and catastrophe; and it needs that they shall be anticipated and guarded against as far as skill and foresight can do it. The rewards of this function for the bankers and capitalists who perform it are very great.

    The captains of industry and the capitalists who operate on the conjuncture, therefore, if they are sucsessful, win, in these days, great fortunes in a short time. There are no earnings which are more legitimate or for which greater services are rendered to the whole industrial body.

    The popular notions about this matter really assume that all the wealth accumulated by these classes of persons would be here just the same if they had not existed. They are supposed to have appropriated it out of the common stock. This is so far from being true that, on the contrary, their own wealth would not be but for themselves; and besides that, millions more of wealth, many-fold greater than their own, scattered in the hands of thousands, would not exist but for them.

    Within the last two years I have traveled from end to end of the German Empire several times on all kinds of trains. I reached the conviction, looking at the matter from the passenger’s standpoint, that, if the Germans could find a Vanderbilt and put their railroads in his hands for twenty-five years, letting him reorganize the system and make twenty-five million dollars out of it for himself in that period, they would make an excellent bargain.

    But it is repeated until it has become a commonplace which people are afraid to question, that there is some social danger in the possession of large amounts of wealth by individuals. I ask, Why?

    I heard a lecture two years ago by a man who holds perhaps the first chair of political economy in the world. He said, among other things, that there was great danger in our day from great accumulations; that this danger ought to be met by taxation, and he referred to the fortune of the Rothschilds and to the great fortunes made in America to prove his point. He omitted, however, to state in what the danger consisted or to specify what harm has ever been done by the Rothschild fortunes or by the great fortunes accumulated in America.

    It seemed to me that the assertions he was making, and the measures he was recommending, ex-cathedra, were very serious to be thrown out so recklessly. It is hardly to be expected that novelists, popular magazinists, amateur economists, and politicians will be more responsible.

    It would be easy, however, to show what good is done by accumulations of capital in a few hands — that is, under close and direct management, permitting prompt and accurate application; also to tell what harm is done by loose and unfounded denunciations of any social component or any social group.

    In the recent debates on the income tax the assumption that great accumulations of wealth are socially harmful and ought to be broken down by taxation was treated as an axiom, and we had direct proof how dangerous it is to fit out the average politician with such unverified and unverifiable dogmas as his warrant for his modes of handling the direful tool of taxation.

    Great figures are set out as to the magnitude of certain fortunes and the proportionate amount of the national wealth held by a fraction of the population, and eloquent exclamation-points are set against them. If the figures were beyond criticism, what would they prove?

    Where is the rich man who is oppressing anybody? If there was one, the newspapers would ring with it. The facts about the accumulation of wealth do not constitute a plutocracy, as I will show below.

    Wealth, in itself considered, is only power, like steam, or electricity, or knowledge. The question of its good or ill turns on the question how it will be used. To prove any harm in aggregations of wealth it must be shown that great wealth is, as a rule, in the ordinary course of social affairs, put to a mischievous use. This cannot be shown beyond the very slightest degree, if at all.

    Therefore, all the allegations of general mischief, social corruption, wrong, and evil in our society must be referred back to those who make them for particulars and specifications. As they are offered to us we cannot allow them to stand, because we discern in them faulty observation of facts, or incorrect interpretation of facts, or a construction of facts according to some philosophy, or misunderstanding of phenomena and their relations, or incorrect inferences, or crooked deductions.

    Assuming, however, that the charges against the existing “capitalistic” — that is, industrial — order of things are established, it is proposed to remedy the ill by reconstructing the industrial system on the principles of democracy. Once more we must untangle the snarl of half ideas and muddled facts.

    Democracy is, of course, a word to conjure with. We have a democratic-republican political system, and we like it so well that we are prone to take any new step which can be recommended as “democratic” or which will round out some “principle” of democracy to a fuller fulfillment.

    Everything connected with this domain of political thought is crusted over with false historical traditions, cheap philosophy, and undefined terms, but it is useless to try to criticize it. The whole drift of the world for five hundred years has been toward democracy.

    That drift, produced by great discoveries and inventions, and by the discovery of a new continent, has raised the middle class out of the servile class. In alliance with the crown they crushed the feudal classes. They made the crown absolute in order to do it. Then they turned against the crown and, with the aid of the handicraftsmen and peasants, conquered it.

    Now the next conflict which must inevitably come is that between the middle capitalist class and the proletariat, as the word has come to be used. If a certain construction is put on this conflict, it may be called that between democracy and plutocracy, for it seems that industrialism must be developed into plutocracy by the conflict itself.

    That is the conflict which stands before civilized society to-day. All the signs of the times indicate its commencement, and it is big with fate to mankind and to civilization.

    Although we cannot criticise democracy profitably, it may be said of it, with reference to our present subject, that up to this time democracy never has done anything, either in politics, social affairs, or industry, to prove its power to bless mankind.

    If we confine our attention to the United States, there are three difficulties with regard to its alleged achievements, and they all have the most serious bearing on the proposed democratization of industry.

    1. The time during which democracy has been tried in the United States is too short to warrant any inferences. A century or two is a very short time in the life of political institutions, and if the circumstances change rapidly during the period the experiment is vitiated.

    2. The greatest question of all about American democracy is whether it is a cause or a consequence. It is popularly assumed to be a cause, and we ascribe to its beneficent action all the political vitality, all the easiness of social relations, all the industrial activity and enterprise which we experience and which we value and enjoy.

    I submit, however, that, on a more thorough examination of the matter, we shall find that democracy is a consequence.

    There are economic and sociological causes for our political vitality and vigor, for the ease and elasticity of our social relations, and for our industrial power and success. Those causes have also produced democracy, given it success, and have made its faults and errors innocuous.

    Indeed, in any true philosophy, it must be held that in the economic forces which control the material prosperity of a population lie the real causes of its political institutions, its social class-adjustments, its industrial prosperity, its moral code, and its world-philosophy. If democracy and the industrial system are both products of the economic conditions which exist, it is plainly absurd to set democracy to defeat those conditions in the control of industry.

    If, however, it is not true that democracy is a consequence, and I am well aware that very few people believe it, then we must go back to the view that democracy is a cause. That being so, it is difficult to see how democracy, which has had a clear field here in America, is not responsible for the ills which Mr. Bellamy and his comrades in opinion see in our present social state, and it is difficult to see the grounds of asking us to intrust it also with industry.

    The first and chief proof of success of political measures and systems is that, under them, society advances in health and vigor and that industry develops without causing social disease. If this has not been the ease in America, American democracy has not succeeded.

    Neither is it easy to see how the masses, if they have undertaken to rule, can escape the responsibilities of ruling, especially so far as the consequences affect themselves. If, then, they have brought all this distress upon themselves under the present system, what becomes of the argument for extending the system to a direct and complete control of industry?

    3. It is by no means certain that democracy in the United States has not, up to this time, been living on a capital inherited from aristocracy and industrialism. We have no pure democracy. Our democracy is limited at every turn by institutions which were developed in England in connection with industrialism and aristocracy, and these institutions are of the essence of our system.

    While our people are passionately democratic in temper and will not tolerate a doctrine that one man is not as good as another, they have common sense enough to know that he is not; and it seems that they love and cling to the conservative institutions quite as strongly as they do to the democratic philosophy.

    They are, therefore, ruled by men who talk philosophy and govern by the institutions. Now it is open to Mr. Bellamy to say that the reason why democracy in America seems to be open to the charge made in the last paragraph, of responsibility for all the ill which he now finds in our society, is because it has been infected with industrialism (capitalism); but in that ease he must widen the scope of his proposition and undertake to purify democracy before turning industry over to it.

    The socialists generally seem to think that they make their undertakings easier when they widen their scope, and make them easiest when they propose to remake everything; but in truth social tasks increase in difficulty in an enormous ratio as they are widened in scope.

    The question, therefore, arises, if it is proposed to reorganize the social system on the principles of American democracy, whether the institutions of industrialism are to be retained. If so, all the virus of capitalism will be retained.

    It is forgotten, in many schemes of social reformation in which it is proposed to mix what we like with what we do not like, in order to extirpate the latter, that each must undergo a reaction from the other, and that what we like may be extirpated by what we do not like. We may find that instead of democratizing capitalism we have capitalized democracy — that is, have brought in plutocracy.

    Plutocracy is a political system in which the ruling force is wealth. The denunciation of capital which we hear from all the reformers is the most eloquent proof that the greatest power in the world to-day is capital. They know that it is, and confess it most when they deny it most strenuously.

    At present the power of capital is social and industrial, and only in a small degree political. So far as capital is political, it is on account of political abuses, such as tariffs and special legislation on the one hand and legislative strikes on the other. These conditions exist in the democracy to which it is proposed to transfer the industries.

    What does that mean except bringing all the power of capital once for all into the political arena and precipitating the conflict of democracy and plutocracy at once?

    Can anyone imagine that the masterfulness, the overbearing disposition, the greed of gain, and the ruthlessness in methods, which are the faults of the master of industry at his worst, would cease when he was a functionary of the State, which had relieved him of risk and endowed him with authority?

    Can anyone imagine that politicians would no longer be corruptly fond of money, intriguing, and crafty when they were charged, not only with patronage and government contracts, but also with factories, stores, ships, and railroads?

    Could we expect anything except that, when the politician and the master of industry were joined in one, we should have the vices of both unchecked by the restraints of either? In any socialistic state there will be one set of positions which will offer chances of wealth beyond the wildest dreams of avarice; viz., on the governing committees.

    Then there will be rich men whose wealth will indeed be a menace to social interests, and instead of industrial peace there will be such war as no one has dreamed of yet: the war between the political ins and outs — that is, between those who are on the committee and those who want to get on it.

    We must not drop the subject of democracy without one word more. The Greeks already had occasion to notice a most serious distinction between two principles of democracy which lie at its roots.

    Plutarch says that Solon got the archonship in part by promising equality, which some understood of esteem and dignity, others of measure and number. There is one democratic principle which means that each man should be esteemed for his merit and worth, for just what he is, without regard to birth, wealth, rank, or other adventitious circumstances.

    The other principle is that each one of us ought to be equal to all the others in what he gets and enjoys. The first principle is only partially realizable, but, so far as it goes, it is elevating and socially progressive and profitable. The second is not capable of an intelligible statement.

    The first is a principle of industrialism. It proceeds from and is intelligible only in a society built on the industrial virtues, free endeavor, security of property, and repression of the baser vices; that is, in a society whose industrial system is built on labor and exchange.

    The other is only a rule of division for robbers who have to divide plunder or monks who have to divide gifts. If, therefore, we want to democratize industry in the sense of the first principle, we need only perfect what we have now, especially on its political side.

    If we try to democratize it in the sense of the other principle, we corrupt politics at one stroke; we enter upon an industrial enterprise which will waste capital and bring us all to poverty, and we set loose greed and envy as ruling social passions.

    If this poor old world is as bad as they say, one more reflection may check the zeal of the headlong reformer. It is at any rate a tough old world. It has taken its trend and curvature and all its twists and tangles from a long course of formation.

    All its wry and crooked gnarls and knobs are therefore stiff and stubborn. If we puny men by our arts can do anything at all to straighten them, it will only be by modifying the tendencies of some of the forces at work, so that, after a sufficient time, their action may be changed a little and slowly the lines of movement may be modified.

    This effort, however, can at most be only slight, and it will take a long time. In the meantime spontaneous forces will be at work, compared with which our efforts are like those of a man trying to deflect a river, and these forces will have changed the whole problem before our interferences have time to make themselves felt.

    The great stream of time and earthly things will sweep on just the same in spite of us. It bears with it now all the errors and follies of the past, the wreckage of all the philosophies, the fragments of all the civilizations, the wisdom of all the abandoned ethical systems, the debris of all the institutions, and the penalties of all the mistakes.

    It is only in imagination that we stand by and look at and criticize it and plan to change it. Everyone of us is a child of his age and cannot get out of it. He is in the stream and is swept along with it. All his sciences and philosophy come to him out of it.

    Therefore the tide will not be changed by us. It will swallow up both us and our experiments. It will absorb the efforts at change and take them into itself as new but trivial components, and the great movement of tradition and work will go on unchanged by our fads and schemes. The things which will change it are the great discoveries and inventions, the new reactions inside the social organism, and the changes in the earth itself on account of
    changes in the cosmical forces. These causes will make of it just what, in fidelity to them, it ought to be. The men will be carried along with it and be made by it.

    The utmost they can do by their cleverness will be to note and record their course as they are carried along, which is what we do now, and is that which leads us to the vain fancy that we can make or guide the movement. That is why it is the greatest folly of which a man can be capable, to sit down with a slate and pencil to plan out a new social world.

  45. Raving Loony Party – Policy Proposals

    1 All Food sold in fast food establishments should be clearly marked – “May contain traces of real food”

    2 All vegetables sold in supermarkets, should be clearly marked – “Strictly for oral use only”

    3 E.U Referendum Proposed options on the Referendum ballot on our membership of the EU to read–
    a) In
    b) Out
    c) Shake it all about

    4 Saving Fuel

    A bungy rope should be attached to all vehicles making a journey. That way no fuel would be required for the return journey.

    5 email gender confusion elimination solution:

    Emails would be abolished. Instead, to reduce confusion, messages from men would be hemails, and messages from women shemails.

    The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party in the UK since 1983 started by musician David Sutch, better known as “Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party

    http://www.loonyparty.com/about/policy-proposals/

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