Coming After Me

As I have said before, I am not an anarchist, but I am distrusting, even hateful, of large government and what it means for the liberties and freedoms for the citizens of a nation.
I have played the bass guitar since I was 13, and when I was 18 I bought a guitar and taught myself, albeit poorly.

Music, and writing, have always been my creative outlets. I’m not talented with physical aesthetics; I can’t paint or draw, or sculpt or build like an architect. But I’ve always written short stories and poems, and once I picked up an instrument I sometimes put my poems to the shitty melodies I create.

I am a huge nerd, and though I’ve graduated I still read economics books. One of my favorites is David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom, the anarcho-capitalist handbook of how a society could function without a government and solely on free-market economics. In it, there is a poem called “Paranoia,” and after re-reading it I was struck with a sudden burst of creativity.

A link to the poem is found here. The thing that really captures my attention is the idea of being followed, all the time, by a bodiless, omni-present entity run by man. It is made up of flesh and blood, of brains and minds working, but it all comes together in an idea called The State, from which there is no escape. An entity that decides your decisions and thinks your mind for you, that can tell you to whom you can associate, to what you can do to your own body, and can even conscript you and send you to fight a war you don’t believe in. And how sometimes we feel helpless against an entity you cannot fight because it exists, though not centrally in one man, but in many, all of whom “know more” or “know better” than you. An entity that no matter how much you ask, plead, beg, or fight against, will always be there, with its hand out asking you for more.

So, with those feelings, and the inspiration of the brilliant Dr. Friedman, I took the best parts of his own poem, put them in my words, and wrote this;

Coming After Me

Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?
I think there’s someone after me
He does not like the way I live, he just won’t let me be
He will not hear my talk of free speech, life, and liberty
Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?
I think the State is after me

Oh let me be, oh let me be
I ask, I cry out and I plead
But he still has some use for me, so he won’t let me leave
He won’t be satisfied until I’m begging on my knees
Oh let me be, oh let me be
I ask the State that’s after me

It ain’t for free, it ain’t for free
I’ve got a family to feed
His tax man comes ’round with his gun and takes all he can from me
He says I owe him for his lies, and I must pay a fee
It ain’t for free, it ain’t for free
I fund the State that’s after me

An M-16, an M-16
He conscripts me to distant seas
A gun strapped to my back as I spread his democracy
In sovereign foreign lands, I spread peace making others bleed
An M-16, my M-16
Kills for this State that’s after me

Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?
The State is coming after me
I spoke my mind, but my State wants to think my mind for me
They’re knocking at my door to erase my identity
But can’t you see, why can’t you see?
The State is not just after me

I have music to this too, and maybe sometime I can figure out a cheap way to record it and put it up on this blog. But for now, I think the words will do.

When all the punks come out tonight!

I am a huge fan of punk rock music. I started listening to it when I was 6. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of my dad driving me to school, or picking me up from karate, while we listened to Rancid, the Offspring, or the Ramones. In fact, for my day’s 50th birthday, Rancid came through Reno with Rise Against and Billy Talent, and I took him to the show.

Granted he sat in the stadium seats the whole night while I got my lip split in the mosh pit.

I grew up during the 90’s alternative and grunge era, but in the mid 90’s there was a heavy mainstream interest again in punk. Green Day put out Dookie, The Offspring released Smash, NOFX dropped Punk in Drublic. Not to mention Blink 182, Decendents, Bad Religion, and others who released ground breaking material that caught the public’s eye and re-introduced a world of misfit kids angry at the world and authority to a whole new generation of kids angry at the world and authority.

I grew up in the Bay Area, which was, and still is, home to one of the largest punk scenes left in the US. However, I now live in Reno, and while Reno does have a punk underground, it is not nearly at the level of the East Bay. We have our local bands like Sucka Punch, Melvin Makes Machine Guns, half of the Vampirates (the other half lives in Oregon), and of course local heroes who made it big (by punk standards), 7 Seconds.

But every once in a while, we get lucky and get a bigger band to come to town. I’ve already mentioned Rancid and Rise Against, but Against Me!, the Misfits, Flogging Molly, Foo Fighters (not really punk, but still awesome), Bouncing Souls, and The Addicts are just some of the bands who have rolled through and graced our shit town lately. Part of it is because Reno has a new, larger venue in the Knitting Factory, but also the owners of a local bar called The Alley (a real dive, but the coolest joint in town) have incredible connections and can pull those big name bands into town.

And of course, the Dropkick MF-ing Murphys have come through two times in the past three years.

As I said, I love punk rock, but I am also of Irish decent through my father’s blood, and I am fiercely proud of it. So when you put traditional Irish melodies and instruments together with the raw edge of loud as folk punk rock, add a Guinness and a shot of Jameson, and I’m in love.

Last night, the Murphy’s played a set in town. Originally, it was a festival called Punch Drunk Punk, featuring DKM, Alkaline Trio, Pennywise, and NOFX. I immediately bought my tickets. I begged my wife to come. She is my favorite person to go to shows with. She has stuck it out with me through the good and the bad shows, though I think they have mostly been good. But weird, she thought a punk concert was not the place for a 7-month pregnant woman. I told her she could sit in the stadium seats, but she was probably right in the end in not going. So I invited my brother in law instead. I was so excited, mostly for NOFX because I hadn’t seen them before, but then on Thursday before the show tragedy struck.

“Attention ticket holder. Your event, Punch Drunk Punk, has been cancelled.” Basically, the venue didn’t sell enough tickets, and one or more of the bands dropped out.

Do punks cry? This one almost did…

But every cloud has a silver lining, and the Murphy’s announced a new show, in a smaller venue, with one of my favorite bands Larry and His Flask. They are based out of Bend, Or, and started as a folk-punk band, kind of a hybrid of punk music, with a little hillbilly and country. But after a few line up changes, they added a mandolin and banjo player, and switched to acoustic instruments. If you haven’t heard of them, please look them up and support them. They are incredible.

But I digress. My brother in law, Christofer, was bummed about the show, but I promised the new one would be just as good. But I was wrong.

It was better. Inside the venue, as far as the eye could see, mohawks, studded jackets, mix-match clothes sewn together, an environment where alienated and isolated kids could all come together and, not feel like they did, but actually belong to something, even if its only for a few hours while the music plays.

For the first band, locals Sucka Punch, my brother in law didn’t really know what to do. He told me he had only been to a Luke Bryant concert before. I smiled, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Fuck Luke Bryant.” By the end of their set, he was jumping up, flailing around, and screaming along like the rest of us, and kept going until the doors opened and we poured out onto the streets five hours later.

LAHF and the Murphy’s put on incredible performances as well. But the most wonderful part was watching a member of my family, one of my friends, get exposed to a culture he wouldn’t normally have experienced on his own. I watched as he moshed, as he put his arms around the people next to him, pulling them in close as they screamed together. Strangers, who didn’t know each others names, brought together by a shared excitement, feelings of being ostracized, and a love for the music pulsing into their ears, rushing through their veins as hearts beat in time to the song. It brought back memories of my first concerts, when I experienced the same feelings, the same angst, the same strangers who I connected with.

I guess in closing, as silly or sappy as it may sound, I’m truly glad for punk rock, and for the chance to share it with someone I love. I’ve been to country and rock concerts, but none give the same exhilaration, leave the same impressions, or from what I’ve seen, bring people together more than the snarls, the sneers, and the screams.

And I mean, what else is the alternative to listen to? Dub-step, bubble-gum pop, or Christian rock? Gross, disgusting, and no thank you.

The Artist

Ever since I was little, my brother and I have been involved in martial arts. We grew up in the Bay Area, but when I was 15 my family moved to Nevada. In the transition, we both fell out of practice, though a few years ago my brother started up again, and quickly took over one of the schools in town.

My brother and his best friend, also another instructor in town, both badgered me to rejoin and start studying again. However, I had the best excuse; I was working a full time job and going to school, and with my busy work and study schedule, I kept telling them there was just no time for me to spare. When I finally graduated school, my brother came up to me during the party afterwards, and said, “Well, now that you have your schedule freed up, I’ll see you in class tomorrow morning at 7.”

Since jumping back into a martial art, the one thing I’ve noticed most of all is just how damn good my brother is, not just at his teaching, but at his own technique. He always tells us in class the difference between a student of martial arts, and a martial artist himself. A student learns the techniques and regurgitates, but the artist adapts and flows without blinking an eye or locking up in a moment of panic. A true martial artist doesn’t just show how something is done, but teaches how to accomplish. Watching him spar in tournaments, teaching a class of adults or little kids techniques and the application and theory behind the movements, or just seeing him practice on his own, it is clear that my brother has become an artist.

There is something truly astounding about the human body and how it can move, generate power, or pass seemlessly from one movement pattern into another. And in the hands of the true artist, it is incredibly beautiful. Footwork that flows like water, strikes that are crisp and hands always find their target, all brought together with a sharp mind ever anticipating the next two moves.

Recently, my brother and his friend decided that they had reached a point in their training and teaching, that they had to open their own school. They used to work for the same martial arts studio chain, but like any artist, began to feel confined by a homogenized and generic “one-size-fits-all” style. Yesterday was their last day teaching at their respective studios, and after class I went with my brother and his friend to their studio space. They have their work cut out for them; they are doing all the inside renovations and painting themselves. They are taking this week to tear up the floor and lay down a new one.

Though the work ahead is a lot, and they will face all of the challenges of opening a new business, I couldn’t help but feel just a little pang of jealousy walking around their new building. The excitement of starting something that is truly your own, the thrill of its success at your own hands, and the knowledge that through great risk, a belief in yourself made it possible.

I wish my brother all the best in his new business. I pray that he finds success, and is rewarded for all of his hard work. I am so proud of him.

Own the Air?

I realized that I was becoming a stuffy economist just recently, when I was listening to one of my NoFX CD’s. Their song “Eat the Meek,” decries the culture of mass-production/comsumption in which we live, and point out the dangers of us allowing everything to be commoditized. I don’t know why after years of not only listening to this song, but studying economics, that these lyrics didn’t synch in my mind, but a few weeks ago I was driving home from work and the two finally met.

“You know there’s always gonna be pedigree
One own the air, one pay to breathe”

And the first words out of my mouth were, “Good luck trying to establish sound and enforcable property rights for oxygen.”

And then I realized that I was becoming more like my father. And I openly wept.

However, it is an argument that I have heard from those who are anti-captialist and anti-market. I grew up in the Bay Area, known for being a very liberal demographic, and in discussion with peers and teachers I would be told that if we left markets and businesses up to their own devices, we would reach a point where we would have to pay for breathing. I understand the fear of allowing things in life to be avaliable for purchase and profit…but oxygen? Really? Arguments like these are based completely off of emotion, and what I believe to be a fundamental ignorance to basic economic and business principles. There is no way, on a large scale (I will explain later), for a person or entity to make oxygen a private good.

First off, what is a good? And how do economists’ classify them? A good is…well a good. It’s one of those things that you know what it is, but it’s difficult to explain. A word you use in conversation all the time, but when asked its meaning, you stutter and cannot articulate. A good, essentially, is anything consumable. This includes tangible and intangible items, free and for profit, and even services and ideas. The product of a factory line you buy at the store, a drink of water from the stream behind your house, a lawyer or even a social networking site.

In Economics, we place these goods into 4 categories; public, private, club, and common. They are all relatable in two regards; their excludability, and rivalry. By excludability, we mean that someone can be barred from consumption. By rivalry, we mean that one person’s consumption affects all other’s ability for consumption. In either case, the presence of exclusiveness or rivalry imply a finite amount of whatever good is being consumed.

A private good is any good which is both exclusive and rivalrous. My house is a private good. I can exclude your use of my house, and my consumption of the house and the land denies your ability to use the land for your own purposes. Most commodities fit into this category; food, clothing, consumer electronics, etc.

A club good is any good which is exclusive, but non-rivalrous. An example here is like a country club, or a lawyer’s services. My consumption of a country club memership does not take away from anyone elses, but the membership is exclusive in the fact that only paying members, or sometimes legacies, can join.

With private and club goods, there is an owner or group who has established clear property rights for their good or services. A product available only for purchase, an idea trademarked, a pool enclosed behind a gate, all establish property rights for their owners, and allow them to seek legal action against those who infringe on their property rights. The next two types of goods, common and public, do not have these clear property rights, because they are non-exclusive, or simply, nobody owns them, sonobody can take legal action against another party based on use.

A common good is any good that is non-exclusive, but rivalrous in consumption. The most famous example of this type of good is illustrated in a theory called “the tragedy of the commons.” There is a parcel of land in an agrarian society, where all the farmers are allowed to let their animals graze. However, because this parcel is free to the public and no one is barred from using it, there is no incentive for its users to limit their use of it despite the fact that the parcel is in a limited supply. In a large group, this is called the diffusion of responsibility; I will let my animals graze and take their fill, but it’s up to the other guy to limit their animals intake. If everyone thinks like that, then the land is soon over-grazed, and nothing is left to consume.

Lastly, a public good is any good that is non-exclusive and non-rivalrous. Oxygen falls under this type of good. Short of someone forcing their hands over your nose and mouth, there is no way to exclude anybody’s consumption of oxygen. Second, it is in limitless supply, therefore there is no rivalry in consumption. My breathing, no matter how deep or how often I breathe, does not affect anyone else’s ability to do the same.

Now earlier in this post, I said that oxygen, on a large scale, is impossible to be made a private good. I said on a large scale, because for the most part, people will not pay for something they can get for free. But, then again, some will. There is a subset of the aroma therapy industry that caters to consumer’s demand for “cleaner, fresher” oxygen. The first “offical” oxygen bar was opened in Toronto CAN in the mid 1990’s, and from there the fledgling industry spread, offering citizens a “richer” oxygen percentage than what we breath regularly from the atmosphere. They market it as a way to excape from breathing the particulate and polluted air from the industrialized world, and you can even pay for the oxygen to come with different scents.

Come. On.

I think it’s stupid, and someone who pays for what they can get for free (if you want to smell apples, then, I don’t know, why not cut up an apple and sniff?) may be at a questionable level of intelligence, but…damned if I won’t defend it. This is consumer demand. If people want to blow their money on oxygen bars, they should be able to. Breathing to live is a neccesity, but paying to breathe is a luxury.

In sum, it is impossible for there to be corporate take-over of the atmosphere. Zero. There would be no way to enforce it. You cannot fence off oxygen. You cannot build a room and hoard it all inside. You cannot have half of the populaiton put their hands on the throats of the other half and refuse to let them breathe until they pay.

Or maybe I shouldn’t take the song so seriously…

A Swift Satire…

When I was going through the Business and Clown College at UNR, one of our required courses was a business writing class. We were presented with two ways of fulfilling this credit requirement; Management 321, or English 321. And though I willingly chose to study and major in Economics, even I thought Management 321 would have been too dry and uninspiring…

Thankfully, on the first day of class, sitting in the building of the English department, complete with the lush, green ivy clinging to the faded red brick walls like spiderwebs, spiriling up the Roman inspired corinthian columns framing the weathered doors, worn too thin around the handles from thousands upon thousands of hands pushing and pulling the wooden gates open to a world of knowledge within…

Also weed. There was definitely the skunk smell of really dank weed…

But anyway, when the teacher walked in, she began class by informing us that she had never taught an Enligsh 321 course, and that until 5 minutes before she walked in, she had no idea that the focus of the class was on business writing. However, on her way out of her office, a colleague let slip the theme of the class, and like a student walking in to class only to find out there is a test they forgot to study for, and after the panic wore off, she embraced her situation and decided to change absolutely nothing. We would continue with her set reading list of Orwell, Woolf, and Baldwin, but when we turned in our final paper, we would just attach a copy of our resume for her to review.

We had to write four major papers; a familiar essay on something personal, a nontechnical report on a new experience, a restaurant review, and finally a proposal essay, in which we could propose anything we wanted. The following is my proposal; drawing on Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” I focused my essay to satire two topics that are dear to my heart; abortion and euthenasia. The result; a satire of shitty statistics that justify radical selfishness.

Giving Something Back

It is undeniable that in society, we are plagued with many burdens. Dwindling resources, financial difficulties, and dealings which literally suck the life out of members of the populous, all amount to such burdens. In the following pages you will find a proposal to give back resources, money, and life to those who are cursed with such turmoil.

Before the solutions to the problem are outlined, the problem itself must be examined and explained. As we are all aware in these times of economic and world crisis, valuable resources such as oil, electricity, and even food and water in some parts of the world, are in scarce supply. Currently these resources are being sold off to the highest bidder, who then sells them back to the mass populous for a substantial fee, resulting in substantial profits. But this is not the problem. The average American household is occupied by two parents and two children. If we take into account that they all drink at least eight-eight-ounce glasses of water and three meals a day, we come up with a household average of 256 ounces of water and twelve meals consumed per day. If we multiply this by the estimated number of American households in 2010 (114,825,428), we see an average of 29,395,309,568 ounces of water and 1,377,905,136 meals consumed on a daily basis.

Next we can examine that the average American makes roughly $46,326 annually, only of which $392 are saved, resulting in $45,934 being spent. If we further compute this in regards to the average household in America, we come to each person costing $11,483.50 per year. In addition, the average American household uses 11,040 kilowatts of electricity per month (multiplied out for a grand total of 1,261,711,125,120 kWh per month) and requires 2.8 gallons of gasoline each day. But what does this all mean, and how do we derive the problem from this? We now understand that the average American individual consumes a copious amount of food and resources and requires a vast amount of funds to survive and fuel this consumption each year. Now most Americans are hard-working, industrious means of production who work and earn their place in society. These people produce more than they consume. We cannot deny, however, that there are many among us who do not work, produce, or provide any benefit to society, and in fact consume more than they produce. They are the problem of dwindling resources and funds, who leech off the productive members of society and suck them dry of food, money, and if they are a dependant of that person, their very life. But how do we solve this problem? If we look at the legality of abortion in America, a woman is free to choose to terminate a pregnancy in order to regain her life and not squander it on her infant. In this instance, we are not taking the life of a child; we are giving a life to the mother. We must adopt this same policy to the burdensome members of our society, and here we reach the solution.

Simply stated; we must round up and kill off all elderly, infirmed, physically and mentally disabled, and non-productive members of our society.

There are currently 36,300,000 people over the age of 65 residing in America. On top of that, there are 7,500,000 living with a mental or physical retardation. With recent unemployment and homeless numbers estimated at 15,000,000 and 3,500,000 respectively, we see that there are an estimated 62,300,000 residents in America that serve no real purpose to advancing society.

The issues of those who are homeless and unemployed are the easiest to justify; they simply don’t produce. In a society driven by material gain and possession of wealth, these two classes fall far behind. Indeed, they don’t work to make a good or provide a service, for one reason or another. Mostly, it’s plain laziness that afflicts them and causes them to drag down the rest of us who work hard and earn our right. While not all of those unemployed are homeless, they are the worse of the two. The homeless at least stay outside and don’t consume much valuable food or resource. The unemployed and able, though, are despicable creatures that live in a house, consume such vast quantities of electricity, gasoline, and eat and drink their fill without providing anything back to our great nation. These two groups are nothing more than a pimple on the face of America. Worse yet, the homeless are so pitiful that many of us able-bodied and well-off spend our precious time working for the homeless. The able cram into homeless shelters and provide them with food and a warm place to sleep. Such an act is not economical or ethical. While it may seem altruistic, these parasitic maggots are robbing us of our time and draining us of life.

But it is not just the homeless and the unemployed. The elderly and the physically and mentally infirmed are also to blame. They are dependent on the kindness of their families, friends, and state-appointed guardians for survival. Both of these groups place heavy tax burdens on the population. We are forced to pay for their medical care, their doctors and hospital visits, their surgeries and medication! So much money is wasted on a foolish endeavor! Why spend money for the sick to get better when the money could be better spent for the able to live above their means? We squander money on their nursing homes. We pay the wages for the nursing staff. We pay for their food and for everything they consume. Their only saving grace is that some still hold jobs and work, but this is not enough to justify the time and money the able-bodied waste on them. They take and take and what they give back is not sufficient.

Some might take offense to this proposal and call me a radical. But their accusations and name-callings are trite and un-founded. They may try to attack the morality of this proposal, saying that taking a life is never justified. But I ask, is it moral to pay for someone else, to provide food and energy for an individual without receiving anything in return? Never. The greater immorality comes from the laziness and vampiric nature of these groups. If any immoralities are perpetrated by the able-bodied, it is that we have wasted too much on the helpless, the sick, and those in need. Others might try to rationalize their actions; that these groups provide some sort of intrinsic value. They may bring their care givers and tax payers happiness, or love. But can you hold love in your hands? Can you pay for gasoline and electricity with happiness? Is it possible to purchase groceries with smiles and laughter? You simply cannot. And without material production or gain, these groups are nothing more than scavengers, feeding off of the able.

As I have shown, these groups consume and consume but do not give anything useful back. We must eliminate them and stop them from their thievery! But what method of extermination is most efficient, for time and cost. The answer is fire. We must burn them alive. To dispose of this trash any other way is too costly. Bullets for a firing line are expensive, poisons takes too long, and any other conceivable mode of death is one, the other, or a combination of both. These scum have robbed us enough of our time and money, let it be no more! We must gather up these groups, corral them in the streets and set fire to them! Fire is free; they do not deserve anything else! And through this fire we will cleanse our great nation! The wind will carry their ashes away, and we will be burdened no more! The landmark court case Roe vs. Wade laid the ground work; let us follow it through. If a mother can terminate her pregnancy, we too should be able to eliminate any bothersome and burdensome individuals in our lives. For in the end, we are not taking the lives of others; we are giving something back to ourselves.

“There’s no government, like no government…”

I am not an anarchist.

Though it you ask my father-in-law, I am. Actually, he calls me a hippie. But that’s okay, because he’s a war-mongering facist. We like to keep things on an even keel…

However, in moments of passion, in debates, or just for the hell of it, I fall back on anarchistic rhetoric, hence the title of this post. Arguments made by Lysander Spooner, Von Mises, and David Friedman, pepper my own. But as I said, I am not an anarchist, truly, though I do sympathize with their ideals, their rhetoric, and their beliefs.

I understand where they come from. I understand the fear and anger that lies in the hearts of those who see an ever-growing State that seems to take more and more liberties and freedoms away from the people. From a state becoming larger, threatening to extinguish the hallmark of America that once was the land of opportunity and choice. There are many reasons why this is happening, but I won’t focus this post as to the reasons why, though I will say it is entirely our fault, the result of an ill-informed (by choice), gullible, and lazy voting populous, which we have been incentivised to become. I believe that individuals are rational, but groups of individuals are not. I mean, for God’s sake, under our watch we have seen Federal spending increase 9,807% from $37.4 billion in Q1 1947 to $3,705.2 billion in Q1 2012, and we sit back and let it happen! (Figures provided by the Federal Reserve Database)

Really, it’s hard not to focus my entire post on that, but I’ll force myself to stay on topic.

While I understand the fear, anger, and even hatred towards a centralised government that defines anarchism, I do not believe true anarchism is possible in this world today with things the way they are. I believe that there are two factors preventing this world from knowing true anarchism.

But first, what is anarchy? Isn’t it just chaos, dog-eat-dog, unruly mob mentality? Well, no. Though critics of the ideology want you to think that, know that it is a scare tactic to keep you complacent and willing to accept governmental authority, as it is the only thing keeping us from the world of robbers, thieves and murderers that would be anarchy! Anarchy, in it’s true definition, simply means “without rulers.” Not without order, not chaos as it has been come to be defined in the colloquial sense, but without forceful, coercive rule.

I earned my bachelor of science degree in Economics from the University of Nevada Reno Business and Clown College, and though you may not think of it as one of the best, most reputable schools in the nation, the Economics program is blessed with some of the finest professors from around the globe, who not only expertly teach us micro, macro, economic development, and public choice theory and application, but how to juggle, wear big floppy shoes and take a pie to the face. As an economist, I believe that people respond to incentives (a reoccuring theme that will highlight many future posts), I understand consumer theory and believe in the rationality of the individual, and hold strong feelings against Collectivist mentality. As such, the two things keeping the world from anarchism can be classified by consumer demand, and a battle between Colletivism vs. Individualism.

The first of the aforementioned preventions of anarchy is how large we live. Not in terms standard of living, wealth, or disposable income, but instead from how big our societies are. When you reach the population threshold that separates tribes and communes from states and nations, anarchy becomes a practical impossibility. When you reach the level of state or nation, there are certain things that private companies and individuals cannot accomplish on their own. These are a standing military for national defense, a court system for individuals to dispute property claims, and a police system to enforce court rulings and protect the citizens of the state or nation from physical violence against each other and one another’s property. I believe David Friedman’s theories of law as a private good are fascinating, and I believe in smaller societies it absolutely could work, but in a world with nations as large as America and China, the establishment of a military, of police, and of courts could not function on a private, market based mechanism. This is because we as a society, as consumers, demand that these things be a not-for-profit nature, which could be disputed and argued against as politicians, judges, and policemen can be corrupt and for sale, but on the whole, as consumers we place our faith in these officials to be right and just men and women. Whether good or bad, we demand that these activities be centralised in the hands of the government.

The second obstacle to anarchy is a fundamental lack of respect for the rational free-choice mechanism of individuals. Collectivism runs on an underlying theme of force; forced conformity of people to adhere to social norms, forced possession of the means of production from the hands of privately controlled interests into the hands of “the people,” and forced (not to mention heavy) taxation of the people to fund elaborate government schemes and agencies (look into the Soveit’s Feldman Model of forced savings and investment into heavy industry which led directly to the under-production of consumer goods such as bread, causing the starvation and desparity of a nation). Collectivism IS force, and it’s opposite, Individualism, IS free-choice. But in our world today, we do not accept the idea that individuals are rational, and make free, rational decisions for themselves. After all, what rational individual would argue against government Social Security? What rational individual wouldn’t buy healthcare? In America, we truly take freedom for granted, it has become this touchy, feel-good idea of “ain’t nobody tells me what to do! This is ‘Merica!” And it offends our delicate sensibilities, but what do we do when people, rationally and freely, choose to be under someone else’s direction? As Americans, we look at nations like Iran, Palestine, and Afghanistan and cannot fathom why people would choose to subject themselves to a leader’s rule the way they do.

My father-in-law and I have gotten into numerous arguments about this. If someone, willingly and freely chooses to live under someone else’s direction, isn’t that just government? Doesn’t that defeat the idea of anarchy? And the answer is no, simply because that choice was made freely! A favorite scenario we argue is a zombie apocalypse; there is a group of people, and one person inevitable takes charge. Isn’t that government? If that leadership was taken by force, and if individuals in the group are forced to stay and cannot leave, then yes, that is government. But anarchy is without rule, forceful coercive rule, not without order. There is always a natural order to the world, and some people are more adept to being leaders than followers, and vice-versa. But say the leader tells the group, “We should head North,” and two of the group say, “No, we should go West.” An argument ensues, and in the end, the group splits, the majority go North and two go West. Now that IS anarchy; rational individuals making decisions for their own self-interest. The one thing flawed about my father-in-laws example, is that in the case of a zombie apocalypse, people are incentivised, by their own self-interest, to stay together, as their probability of survival is higher in a group than individually in the face of the living dead. The idea of freely subjecting yourself to another’s direction as not being the same as forceful government rule is a subtle nuance that many won’t accept, but that is the difference. Anarchy is the absolute pinnacle of free-choice, and in a world of increasing collectivisation, where individuals are not free to choose, anarchy is an impossibility.

I will argue that this trend towards Collectivism will destroy us, that as we allow more decisions to be taken out of our hands and placed into the hands of “benevolent and omniscient” rulers, that will will spell our own demise. But I will not argue that the size of our nations is a detriment to the world. Larger nations allows for greater opportunities for division of labor, for entrepreneurial spirits and minds to find eachother and create, for free trade to raise its participants standards of living, and to unleash to productive forces that can be achieved only through a free-market mechanism. If giving that up that is the price of anarchy, then anarchy be damned.

I guess, to end, I will restate that I am not an anarchist. In the 18th and 19th centuries I’d be called a Classical Liberal; today I’m called a free-market Libertarian, who dabbles in Anarcho-Capitalism. I believe that the government has grown too large, and that many inefficiencies and inequalities in society can be solved by taking the government out of the free-market and industry. I believe the government should be in charge only of a standing military for national defense, for the esablishment of a court system, and for the regulation of a police body. For all other decisions, I truly believe and have faith in the rationality of the individual, in the free-market, and in the free-choice mechanism.

Helter Skelter

As I sit here writing this blog, my wife and I are watching a documentary on the Manson Family killings.

It was her choice for movie night.

We don’t share taste in music; I love punk and ska, and she loves stadium rock (or what I affectionately call butt rock) and rap. But we love the same movies, we read the same books, and we both have the same macabre fascination with serial killers. I look at her, and she is not just watching the screen, but taking it in. Her eyes are processing the images, and you can see how truly interested and intrigued by this awful, grisly tale of sex, drugs, racism, and death.

It was quite a relief when we first met, and our conversation turned to serial killers, as coversations with me often do. Most of the pretty girls I had met before were put off by my descriptions of the suits made of human flesh a la Ed Gein and altars of skulls courtesy Jeffrey Dahmer, but she waited patiently, attentive, and when I was done, she spilled a wealth of knowledge about cannibalism, H.H. Holmes, and being a dual English/History major, ritualistic murder in ancient cultures and tribes.

If there is such a thing as love at first sight…

We didn’t live together before we got married. But when we got our first place together, we had to merge our libraries and movie collections. We had two copies of Animal Farm, two copies of Fareneheit 451, three copies of Dracula (my personal favorite), two copies of Edward Scissorhands, two copies of the Lost Boys, two copies of Carrie, two copies of the Shining, and on and on and on…

Our music libraries, however, have not made the transition. I know she would just die if she had TSOL, Descendents, Bad Religion, and NoFX on her iTunes, and I would rather eat the barrel of a shotgun than admit that I have Journey, Jay-Z, Garth Brooks, and (gag me)…Aerosmith, on mine.

I admire my wife, for many reasons. But her taste in literature, and cinema, show a very intelligent and strong woman. Yes, she still likes the occasional stupid, childish thing like Twilight, but hey, I still unapologetically rock Green Day. She can not only read, but intelligently discuss the works of Dostoyevsky, Coleridge, and Blake. Her favorite movie is any with Marlon Brando, Jimmy Stewart, or Bing Crosby. She is the only one I know that can shut me down in a debate. She values her faith, her family, and her freedom above all other things. She is the one who dragged me kicking and screaming from under my rock, and stood by me as I transitioned from an introverted, melancholy boy into the man that she deserves to have. I once thought I would never get married, and she proved me wrong. She is the only woman I would trust to be the mother to my children…

…And for one of our first dates, she suggested that we see Inglorious Basterds. What a woman…