Is minarchy possible?

I don't see there being a 'libertarian government' middle ground between anarchy and statism, since governments essentially act as markets for political corruption. Since any company can simply buy off politicians and regulators to get around legislation even in the rare cases where it might be beneficial, there's really no argument to be made in favor of putting justice, security, roads, utilities, whatever in the hands of government in the name of efficiency or equity. In the U.S., for example, the return on investment for federal lobbying is around 1000-5000 percent (versus an awesome stock return being around 30 percent). So the common objection of 'who will protect us from bad big business without government' is kinda moot when you look at the big picture of the fact that the bad big businesses have already bought and paid for your 'government' (eg. corruption market) a long time ago. I'd be fine with competing governments if that's what you mean but at that point you might as well just call them private security firms. Really all we'd need to do is undermine the power to tax (or at least collect those taxes) and everything else would follow. If they can't steal from you to line their own pockets and buy more gadgets to oppress people with then it should crumble on its own. One reason why I think Bitcoin is so promising. Of course one part of me thinks widespread anarchy will never be attained until we perfect the human ability to leave this planet and survive in space just like people sailed across the oceans to escape poverty and state oppression in the past. So for now in some respects it might be as much of a fantasy as a workable government that respects people's rights, lol

Re: Voting

(Note: I haven't been on this blog in years, apparently the last post i made was on the same topic, so many of the ideas here are the same. Still, here are a couple thoughts on the topic of voting in government elections.) A Few Quick Reasons Why I’m Not Voting. 1. I don’t recognize the U.S. government as legitimate, so I don’t see the point in participating in the elections that make it even pseudo-legitimate. 2. If you vote in an election, you can not complain about the outcome of that election. That’s the cornerstone of democracy: majority rule. It also goes back to #1: by participating you implicitly agree that the election (and the rulers it puts in power) has a ‘legitimate’ claim to you. 3. The game is rigged from the start. Elections are bought and sold long before the votes are ‘counted’. Politically connected special interests finance the political officials and mandates that will bring them the most favor from the state. 4. Government can be essentially summed up as a ‘monopoly on violence’, that is, the power to unilaterally and coercively enforce a specific set of laws that are created by legislatures and the legal system. Since this legal system and legislature can be definitively shown to be corrupt and responsible for crimes against innocent person and property, it seems to then be implicitly unethical to participate in that very same system. 5. By definition, a monopoly has no competitors. This means that the economic laws of nature and the marketplace, especially the law of supply and demand, are not present. There is no way to hold a government accountable for its actions as there is, say, for a business. A monopoly also has the quality of having the most power and brute force available in the areas it monopolizes, so once the monopoly comes into existence it is hard to get rid of it. This is one reason why the government of America has gotten bigger and bigger since the ratification of the Constitution. 6. There is no philosophical or moral basis for the violent rule of one human being over another, or by the same token a group of human beings over another. Do I have the right to ‘tax’ my next-door neighbor? That is, demand a sum of money from him and either take it or him by force if he doesn’t pay? That is called ‘extortion’. If we as individuals (or ‘citizens’ to use the political language) do not have the right to take money from others, then why should it be O.K. if it’s done by ‘hiring’ the government to do it for us?

Thirteen Reasons to stay home on election day

1. Voting is the ultimate manifestation of the false choices the State presents us with every day. Vote for a Republican, because even though he sucks too, at least he's only 99 percent evil instead of that Democrat who's 100 percent! yada, yada, yada. What if I'm not OK with any evil?

2. The government wants you to vote. The politicians who want to run the government (eg. the lives of you and everyone else) want you to vote. Why? Because it benefits them. If they weren't going to gain anything from political office they wouldn't spend money trying to get elected. And in the "business of government", where do the perks come? You guessed it, your pocket.

3. Continuing reason number 2, the only money the government has, they stole from someone else through taxation or inflation. The MOST that voting amounts to is a redirection of stolen goods- a lot like a Mafia boss deciding what to do with the money he extorted from people.

4. The only chance you have of your vote ultimately making a difference is if the election is decided by 1 vote; and even still, the entire system is corrupt and immoral so it still woudn't really be justified.

5. The system is corrupt and immoral because government represents nothing more than institutionalized violence. Voting allows you to point the guns of the State at someone else, nothing more. Voting for candidates who support government action means that you sanction the government action. If you elect a politician that supports the income tax, you are partially responsible for the crimes against humanity he or she commit once elected.

6. Taxation is theft; taxes on personal income amount to nothing more than the government asserting control over the finances of individuals. Therefore, if you vote for a politician that supports institutionalized theft, you are responsible for the theft they commit.

7. When you cast your ballot in favor of the government and its electoral process, you lose the right to complain about the things that the government does. Therefore, i would much rather keep my right to object to the immoral and illegal things that the State does on a daily basis. If you vote, you can't complain about the things the people you voted for do.

8. Electronic voting is a fraud. Story after story can be found in the news about fraudulent voting machines that change votes; and the entire system is provided by one company (Diebold)- the results can be hacked into at will by the powers that be in D.C.

9. There are better ways to spend your time other than in politics. Activities that are more rewarding and less harmful than voting include: reading a book, writing, playing music, exercising, sleeping, eating, and pretty much every other non-violent activity.

10. Politics is a soulless, goalless philosophy that is based on a lie- and the lie is that as long as we can choose our slaveowners every 2 and 4 years, we can have freedom. Bull. It is impossible to have individual freedom and simultaneously put your life in the hands of corrupt sleazebag politicians from the Republican and Democratic parties.

11. Since there is no moral, economic, or ethical justification for monopolized government; and since free market libertarianism is the only system capable of ensuring the freedom and equality of the world (at least under fallen, depraved mankind), casting a ballot in favor of a flawed, immoral system is casting a vote of despair. Voting is acknowledgement that there is nothing better than the corrupt fascism that has become the political landscape of this country.

12. Jesus said "do not steal", "do not murder", and to "love your neighbor as yourself". Since stealing from your neighbor to fund government programs, funding abortions and illegal wars overseas, and imprisoning millions for nonviolent crimes is the precise opposite of Jesus's commands, it is wiser to exempt yourself from the civic religion than to sin by supporting it.

13. See the Bible passage below:

1 Samuel 8:6-18 But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."
10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."

So if you value freedom, individualism, the American dream, and the ethics of Christ, stay home.

I don't vote because voting is evil and a waste of time.

I don't vote because if you vote, you can't complain about what the politicians you elected do to you.

I don't vote because voting has given us such great things as pretty much every war in American history, the Wall Street Bailout, property tax increases, the Federal Reserve, and the American Presidency.

I don't vote because the government wants me to- and the government only wants what is good for it.

I don't vote because Sarah Palin called my house and asked me to.

I don't vote because all voting amounts to is directing politicians to spend money that was never theirs in the first place.

If voting were legitimate they'd give you the option to abolish the whole coercive organization.

If voting were legitimate then ballots would not be secret.

If voting were legitimate there would be a way to independently verify the ballots, instead of electronic machines manufactured by one single corporation.

If voting were legitimate they'd make it illegal.

Voting is expressing your confidence in a corporate-state power structure that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Voting is the most obvious symbol of the blasphemous civic religion.

Voting is a suggestion box for slaves; it's a child begging the bully for some of his milk money back.

Voting is giving implicit consent to the imprisonment of over a million people for nonviolent crimes.

Voting is the ultimate act of futility, of giving in to the cancer that has invaded American society.

So yeah, I'll be staying home on the 4th, or whatever day the election commission has decided to stage The Great Facade of Choice. Because if you vote you can't complain.

Drugs, Freedom, and the DEA

It's always interesting to converse with people who are otherwise pro-freedom (e.g., true liberals, conservatives, etc....) until it comes to the issue of national drug policy. Then things seem to go haywire, at least that's what it seems like. I've heard many well-meaning objections, such as "drug use is immoral", "drugs cause other crimes", "drugs hurt children, families, etc..." All of which are true, but that does not address the issue which pertains to the problems that America faces today regarding the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs was created by President Ronald Reagan in the 80's as an effort to raise drug prices in order to discourage use. This was put into motion by the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency, new laws in place to criminalize possession, the invalidation of many state laws, etc....

Fast forward to 2009. Cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, etc.... have all dropped in price since the drug war began. The only illegal substance that has seen a marked rise in price is marijuana, by far the safest out of all of these. So by that simple definition alone, the federal War on Drugs is a colossal failure. Not to mention the fact that it's much easier now to get drugs than it was then; and a lot cooler. All prohibition of substances like this does is create a rise in demand for the drug, and put the profits into the black market of dealers and suppliers instead of legitimate (albeit shady) honest business owners, farmers, etc. Just as Prohibition by the socialist Progressives of the 20's created organized crime in America, the War on Drugs has created a culture of disobedience and crime that is arguably far worse than the problem it claimed to fix.

The fact is, more people are addicted to harmful drugs now (when they are illegal) as they were before (when each state dictated its own policy). So a simple cost-benefit analysis renders the War on Drugs a failure as well.

Also, from a philosophical perspective, it's hard- well, actually, impossible- to have a small government when federal agents can violate civil liberties and personal property at will in order to regulate the bad habits of consenting adults. Only the statists- the big government advocates in both parties- can possibly be satisfied or happy with that reality.

So if you are a true conservative, you will most certainly reject the tired ideology that Uncle Sam knows what's best for you, and instead embrace what we are actually trying to "conserve"- that is, the Constitution of the USA as it was originally intended. Therefore, since the Fed is given no jurisdiction in the area of legal, illegal, or even prescription drugs for that matter, it's best to support a drug policy dictated by lawmakers and citizens of each state rather than a draconian failure of a federal standard.

So this isn't a moral-immoral issue. This isn't a nice-mean, a pothead-clean, or a religious- non religious issue.

This is, at its core, a big government-small government issue. This is whether or not the government should be able to step in and prevent you from being unhealthy. (Sounds ridiculous, since if it did that I guess we'd all have to be in straightjackets being force fed vitamins all day).

So any true conservatives, liberals, libertarians, etc...- who truly believe that what's right and wrong should be dictated by one's conscience, one's standing with God, one's family & community, instead of some lawmaker or lobbyist in Washington- will rightly oppose the embarassing, unneccessary, creepy, and illegal War On Drugs.

Statists, Communists, Fascists, and everyone else who thinks government is your parent, have at it. As for me, I'll make my own decisions for what I put in my body, and live with the consequences, good or bad, and take responsibility for it. It's the hallmark of the American experiment.

What is 42?

Well, one of my favorite movies (and books) is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. In it, some beings build a supercomputer capable of calculating the answer to the ultimate question of life. They wait millions of years for its answer, which comes out to be 42.

This blog will discuss things that involve life.