Thoughts Aloud

Archive for the ‘Liberty’ Category

Scott Adams has penned another provocative article, “Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA“:

On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime.

On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense.

If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible.

But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.

That’s a gross generalization. Obviously. Your town might be totally different.

A generalization, perhaps; but an entirely plausible one. It will surely be deemed bigoted by the PC SJWs to publicly say so; but the Democrats have only themselves to blame. The Republicans have always pandered to the “law & order” and NRA folks, while the Democrats have pandered to the malcontents ensconced in a culture of victimhood. Read the rest of this entry »

Good advice from a pro:

It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Pay attention… â—„Daveâ–º

To the timid souls and precious snowflakes, perennially advocating gun control and/or a gun-free existence:

Have you ever lived in a totally gun-free society, where even the police had no firearms, and there was no military? I did, back in the late ’60s on a tropical island out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. At one point, there was a frightening period of political upheaval, before an election. Whipped up by Chicom backed ‘community organizers,’ for the “People’s United Party,” the restless natives, drunk on toddy (fermented palm sap), began rioting.

The sparse police force, armed only with truncheons, was completely overwhelmed by rioters wielding pangas (machetes), and beyond useless at crowd control. Without an airport, and located a thousand miles from the nearest land mass of Africa, there simply was nobody they could call for mutual aid backup. It got pretty ugly for a few days. I can just imagine the special snowflakes ensconced on today’s Ivy League campuses, stamping their dainty feet over there being no phones, with which to dial 911 demanding their “safe spaces,” be cleared of the unpleasant riffraff.

The generally ex-military American expats living there, were on our own, and also unarmed; but not quite helpless. Yankee ingenuity was employed in preparing to defend our homes and families. After unstringing our spear guns, and fabricating powerful slingshots with surgical tubing, we turned our attention to what today are called IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). It happened that large 4 & 6 inch firecrackers were readily available, in the Chinese sundry shops scattered around the island. Read the rest of this entry »

I always remember Flag Day, because 50 years ago today, I was discharged from the US Army. Now, of course, it is also Read the rest of this entry »

There was so much steam coming out my ears yesterday that it almost destroyed my relatively new hearing aids.

Why, you ask (not really caring)?

Because I was listening to our Traitor-in-Chief trying to disassociate the Orlando terrorist from anything to do with Islam!

Then an obvious truth occurred to me…

Our once great nation is so far gone that an obvious traitor can serve as POTUS and that WTS and our elected representatives in the Congress are too damned stupid and/or scared to even whimper about it. That is why I have shown so little interest in the election farce currently being conducted for our entertainment.

Then an even more obvious truth occurred to me…

It really matters not who is elected (appointed, designated, etc) president because the problem is not with our so-called leaders. They only reflect the attitude and incompetence of WTS. Ergo, the problem is US and we will still be US no matter who is elected POTUS, to Congress, to local dogcatcher or whatever.

Nothing has happened to this nation that WTS did not willingly allow to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

The upcoming “Brexit” referendum in the UK, is essentially an European secessionist movement. As is the fundamental right of a free people, the citizens of a disgruntled sovereign state, are deciding whether to throw off the yoke of a remote out-of-control central government. While there may very well have once been good reasons for joining the trade association known at the time as the Common Market, mission creep has since morphed it into the Leviathan now known as the EU, which has become more of an oppressive liability, than an asset to Great Britain.

Since the most common target of the secessionist musings in the US is the Republic of Texas, it would seem a natural to coin the portmanteau ‘Texit,’ yet a quick search of the term, yielded no such reference. Perhaps we should change that. 🙂

Meanwhile, I stumbled across an article the other day, with the implausible title, “How Bernie Sanders can still become president.” I only bothered to follow the link out of curiosity. It turned out to be an interesting and informative piece, well worth pondering:

Bernie Sanders will not become president of the United States. But he could still become president of Vermont if the Green Mountain State secedes.

It’s not such a far-fetched notion. Vermont was an independent republic from 1777 to 1791, and despite signing the Constitution, Vermont reserved its right to leave the union. New York, Rhode Island and Virginia explicitly did so.

Hmm… I had forgotten that talk of secession has been as common in New England, as it is in Texas in recent years. Let’s add ‘Vexit‘ Read the rest of this entry »

…we had a real POTUS:

…and I still had a sense of patriotism, for the nation I loved, and actually thought was invincible. A whole lot has changed in the past 22 years… :(  â—„Daveâ–º

I was participating in a thoughtful comment section discussion elsewhere, regarding the 2nd Amendment, when I was inspired to pen a rather fulsome reply to a comment, which I think worth sharing here. He was at once advocating serious preparation for an inevitable SHTF armed confrontation, and then declaring his support for Trump, because he hopes he might be able to delay that reckoning a little longer. My reply:

Has it ever occurred to you that we are being played like a fiddle, and by continuing to delay the inevitable SHTF, our generation is letting our posterity down? It might just be that hoping Trump can again delay it, might one day be viewed as an act of cowardice by an old man, hoping to put off the unpleasantness until after he has gone.

I have been saying for years that they are delaying the implementation of their NWO dreams, until after we Vietnam era veterans have either died, or are too old to fight. At the same time, they have been indoctrinating and training the current kids in the military and DHS, to be ready and willing to confiscate civilian arms, and shoot or roundup dissidents when so ordered.

After the first oil crisis in ’73, I became convinced that the US government was completely broke, and that there was no way the politicians could continue to get away with inflating the currency, to hide it from the sheeple. Today the term is ‘preppers’; but back then they called those of us preparing for SHTF ‘survivalists.’ Read the rest of this entry »

In my continuing  research into what I refer to as a Laissez Faire Stateless Society, I have encountered a lot of new terms attempting to redefine anarchy, which has such a negative connotation in the minds of sheeple. One of them is ‘Voluntaryist.’ I have discovered an interesting and informative website, with the simple URL of voluntaryist.com. Friday evening, I was perusing a section of it entitled, “How I Became a Voluntaryist,” which consists of personal testimonials. While reading Ben Speers’ biographical, “Conscience of a “Former” Conservative,” I encountered:

This idea, that people should be free to do whatever they want apart from initiating violence, crystallized in my mind. Soon I realized that there could be no ethical justifications for exceptions to this rule. This immediately led me to a conclusion that shocked me to the core, for I had never considered it before. The conclusion that I came to was that there was no moral justification for any violence-based government, which is to say any government at all based on the popular definition of government. Logically, the only road left to me was anarchism.

Bingo… welcome to my world! Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have noticed, I have had little to say on this topic lately. That is because it did not seem worth the effort. Then it dawned on me why… I have been focused on what SHOULD be done when the real question is, what CAN be done.

Said another way, what might a few people like ourselves actually suggest that would motivate others to get involved? A list of my initial suggestions follows:

–> ??

–> ??

That’s about all I have. Sorry.

Troy L Robinson

Recently, in objections to my interest in exploring anarchy, or what I prefer to call a laissez faire stateless society, James Madison’s famous quip that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary” has been mentioned a few times. The implication being that since we are not angels, we absolutely require rulers and a coercive state to make us behave, or society would quickly devolve into total chaos.

I decided to pen a rebuttal to this common belief, and did a quick search to find Madison’s exact quote, and the precise context in which he made it. It was in “The Federalist No. 51,” where he was expounding on the necessity of the separation of powers, with checks and balances, in the Constitution:

“The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

Thus, the context speaks for itself. Madison was far more concerned with mechanisms to limit and control the government, than how best to control the people. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Ringer’s just released article, “The Arrogance of the Prom King,” is another masterpiece. It brilliantly makes the point I was recently trying to make in a comment to Troy, that Trump’s success is a bellwether of a real revolution happening in America:

Just when you think you’ve heard and seen it all in the Republican campaignathon, along comes prom king Paul Ryan displaying an arrogance that makes Donald Trump look like the Dalai Lama by comparison. Millions of American jaws must have dropped in unison when chameleon Ryan casually told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he’s “just not ready” to support Trump.

Really? Where do I even begin to address such a remarkable display of unflinching arrogance? How about just stating the obvious — that the litmus-test conservative crowd still doesn’t get it.

That’s right, hard as it is to believe, after ten months of watching Trump swat every political fly who’s annoyed him, the pathetic “Never Trump” crowd really and truly still does not understand what’s taking place in America.

Specifically, what they don’t get is that this is a genuine revolution. And it’s not a revolution about Trump. It’s a revolution about the corruption and arrogance of the leadership of the Republican Party — and, on a broader scale, the entire Washington political establishment.

That’s right, it’s taken eight long and destructive years, but the Republican Party’s base is now in full revolt against the Ryans, the McConnells, the McCains, the Grahams, et al. You’d have to be blind, deaf, and stupid — or totally delusional — not to have figured that out by now. Nevertheless, the guys who have run things for decades have chosen to stubbornly remain in a state of denial.

State of denial, indeed… Do go read and enjoy the whole thing. 😀 â—„Daveâ–º

[Note: Posts with titles that begin with “AR:“ are stubs for the project described at “America Reborn,” which probably should be read first…]

Alas, it is with great disappointment that I can see already that I am not going to be very helpful with this project. I had difficulty even picking a relevant stub for this comment. Thus, I will add this new one. What exactly is to be the purpose of America 2.0?

As I understood our mission, it was to design a workable replacement societal structure, for the rapidly collapsing America 1.0. I find I am not ready to concede the basic premise inherent in the descriptions of these stubs; namely that whatever their forms, there must again be a nation-state, with a hierarchy of ancillary governments to control the population.

Next to my life, my personal Liberty, and individual Sovereignty, are at the top of my hierarchy of values. I regard what is being referred to here as ‘limited government,’ as instead a ‘coercive’ entity, providing ‘limited Liberty’ and perhaps ‘limited Sovereignty,’ for the ‘altruistic’ benefit of the ‘collective,’ all of which are odious concepts to me.

As I have suggested, I think I have some workable ideas that do not require coercion, or empowering anyone to violate enlightened civilization’s fundamental non-aggression axiom. Before I can figure out how to incorporate them into these categories, I need the answer to the above question… what is to the fundamental purposes we are trying to achieve? If I could demonstrate how they might be achieved without government, will anyone be willing to entertain such ideas seriously? â—„Daveâ–º

This is very well put:

Yeah, the negative choice of the lesser of two evils… Please just Stop Voting; it only legitimizes and encourages the insufferable bastards. What would happen if they held an election, and nobody came? 🙁 â—„Daveâ–º

Robert Ringer has republished an article I had already read the other day entitled, “2016: The Year the Americans Found out Our Elections Are Rigged,” which included:

What we are witnessing — for the first time on a large scale — is the political establishment’s true role in selecting the president of the United States. The illusion of choice has become apparent. The establishment anoints their two picks for president, and the country proceeds to argue vehemently over the two candidates they are spoon-fed. This dynamic is reminiscent of a prophetic 1998 quote from philosopher Noam Chomsky:

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

Ahh, the illusion of choice. Sure, in reality there are third party candidates who should be given a fair shake, but in our mainstream media-augmented reality, third parties do not exist. They aren’t mentioned. They aren’t even included in presidential debates. This is another way the media stifles healthy debate, stamps out dissenting opinions, and preserves the status-quo.

“We The People” don’t choose our presidents; they are hand-picked by a powerful group of political party insiders — parties that have long since sold out to the highest bidders. What we have on our hands in America is a rigged oligarchy, and that’s not a conspiracy theory — it’s fact. Now, however, millions of Americans are becoming aware of it thanks to the populist campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. America’s elections are controlled by a big club, but unfortunately, “you ain’t in it!”

Carlin had this figured out long before I ever got around to seriously thinking about it. So, once again I ask, why do we legitimize their rule over us by voting in their sham elections? â—„Daveâ–º

I have stumbled across a profound and thought-provoking academic essay, which effectively slays most common arguments that governments are necessary for a modern peaceful society to exist. A downloadable PDF, it is entitled, “The Obviousness of Anarchy,” by John Hasnas,  Associate Law Professor, Georgetown University, J.D., Ph.D, LL.M. Those familiar with my Montessori education background, will understand why my antenna went up when I read:

“The author wishes to thank … Annette Hasnas of the Montessori School of Northern Virginia for a real world illustration of how rules evolve in the absence of centralized authority.”

My reaction was, well of course, a Montessori classroom of 3 to 5-year-old children, is a perfect example of spontaneous order and a smoothly functioning laissez faire society. How had it not occurred to me before to use that analogy? I certainly shall develop it in the future.

The essay begins:

The Obviousness of Anarchy

by John Hasnas

“You see, but you do not observe.”

Sherlock Holmes to Dr. John Watson in A Scandal in Bohemia

I. Introduction

In this article, I have been asked to present an argument for anarchy. This is an absurdly easy thing to do. In fact, it is a task that can be discharged in two words–look around. However, because most of us, like Dr. Watson, see without observing the significance of what we see, some commentary is required.

Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian newspeak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order. And this uninquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state. For if people were ever to seriously question whether government actions are really productive of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse.

The identification of anarchy with disorder is not a trivial matter. The power of our conceptions to blind us to the facts of the world around us cannot be gainsaid. I myself have had the experience of eating lunch just outside Temple University’s law school in North Philadelphia with a brilliant law professor who was declaiming upon the absolute necessity of the state provision of police services. He did this just as one of Temple’s uniformed private armed guards passed by us escorting a female student to the Metro stop in this crime-ridden neighborhood that is vastly underserved by the Philadelphia police force.

A wise man once told me that the best way to prove that something is possible is to show that it exists. That is the strategy I shall adopt in this article. I intend to show that a stable, successful society without government can exist by showing that it has, and to a large extent, still does.

The way he casually unpacked the Orwellian corruption of the term ‘anarchy’ was masterful. I tend to get frustrated at the callous abuse of the English language, and am not as artful as he, at explaining how and why I am using a venerable word in its original sense.

Read the rest of this entry »

Abstain From Beans

by Robert LeFevre (1911-1986)

In ancient Athens, those who admired the Stoic philosophy of individualism took as their motto: “Abstain from Beans.” The phrase had a precise reference. It meant: don’t vote. Balloting in Athens occurred by dropping various colored beans into a receptacle.

To vote is to express a preference. There is nothing implicitly evil in choosing. All of us in the ordinary course of our daily lives vote for or against dozens of products and services. When we vote for (buy) any good or service, it follows that by salutary neglect we vote against the goods or services we do not choose to buy. The great merit of market place choosing is that no one is bound by any other person’s selection. I may choose Brand X. But this cannot prevent you from choosing Brand Y.

When we place voting into the framework of politics, however, a major change occurs. When we express a preference politically, we do so precisely because we intend to bind others to our will. Political voting is the legal method we have adopted and extolled for obtaining monopolies of power. Political voting is nothing more than the assumption that might makes right. There is a presumption that any decision wanted by the majority of those expressing a preference must be desirable, and the inference even goes so far as to presume that anyone who differs from a majority view is wrong or possibly immoral.

But history shows repeatedly the madness of crowds and the irrationality of majorities. The only conceivable merit relating to majority rule lies in the fact that if we obtain monopoly decisions by this process, we will coerce fewer persons than if we permit the minority to coerce the majority. But implicit in all political voting is the necessity to coerce some so that all are controlled. The direction taken by the control is academic. Control as a monopoly in the hands of the state is basic.

In times such as these, it is incumbent upon free men to reexamine their most cherished, long-established beliefs. There is only one truly moral position for an honest person to take. He must refrain from coercing his fellows. This means that he should refuse to participate in the process by means of which some men obtain power over others. If you value your right to life, liberty, and property, then clearly there is every reason to refrain from participating in a process that is calculated to remove the life, liberty, or property from any other person. Voting is the method for obtaining legal power to coerce others.

~ +++ ~

Note: This classic article was obviously written sometime prior to 1986. It is reprinted all over the net, and I was unable to locate the original digital source, so I have taken the liberty of memorializing its profound sagacity here as well. Since it is a rather cogent explanation of my own oft expressed motto: “Don’t Vote – It Just Encourages the Bastards,” I look forward to any discussions of it. Particularly, any reasonable arguments against it. â—„Daveâ–º

…now, shall we expand it?

From the beginning, my mission for Trump was to eviscerate the Incumbrepublocrat duopoly, by disassembling the tenuous coalition of special interest groups, comprising its GOP wing. It has been fun to watch the process, and from my perspective, he has already rather effectively accomplished this mission. There is so much rancor between the competing factions, no matter what happens from here forward, there is no way in hell that the outcome of the GOP convention, could possibly be an enthusiastic grass roots, united behind the eventual nominee. That should spell disaster for the GOP wing in the General election, and rather dim hope for their future.

An unanticipated pleasure, has been to watch Sanders doing the same thing to the Collectivist wing. Like Trump, Sanders populist campaign will be stopped by the Democrat Party elites; and like Trump’s, his now enthusiastic supporters will be so pissed, that they will likely boycott the sham General election. The only thing left to motivate bitterly disenfranchised supporters, of either Trump or Sanders, is the old ‘Lessor of Two Evils’ ruse. Why even bother to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, unless somehow one becomes convinced that the other one is unacceptably frightening to the future. The demagogues are pretty effective at this; but it has been rather pleasant to see all the new Primary voters, turning out in enthusiastic support for a candidate. In the General, most are voting against the worst one, while the ‘none of the above’ citizens register their displeasure by just staying home.

There is one delicious alternative, which could quite possibly destroy the entire Incumbrepublocrat duopoly in a single election. It looks like Trump and Sanders will both be denied the nomination, by arcane convention processes, rules, and procedures. What would happen if they decided to join forces, and run on an independent unity ticket of populists, against the cursed ‘establishment’ that is increasingly despised by the supporters of both?

I would bet good money that if they did so, they could easily win a plurality, if not a majority, of the General election votes against the two Incumbrepublocrat candidates. I for one, would register and vote for them in a heartbeat, just to help destroy the so-called two-party system. It wouldn’t matter a whit to me which one was at the top of the ticket, as long as Trump had the portfolio for trade negotiations and border control. I would probably even send them a $27 contribution or two, just to help the cause and keep them independent of the oligarchs. Any ideas on how we could get such a simple, yet quite likely successful, rebellion started? â—„Daveâ–º

A really good analysis of Trump’s worldview is now available at, “Trump’s 19th Century Foreign Policy.” The correlation with modern libertarian thought on such matters is remarkable. On the off chance that he could actually be elected POTUS, it is well worth reading and pondering:

One of the most common misconceptions about Donald Trump is that he is opportunistic and makes up his views as he goes along. But a careful reading of some of Trump’s statements over three decades shows that he has a remarkably coherent and consistent worldview, one that is unlikely to change much if he’s elected president. It is also a worldview that makes a great leap backward in history, embracing antiquated notions of power that haven’t been prevalent since prior to World War II.

It is easy to poke fun at many of Trump’s foreign-policy notions—the promises to “take” Iraq’s oil, to extract a kind of imperial “tribute” from U.S. military allies like South Korea, his eagerness to emulate the Great Wall of China along the border with Mexico, and his embrace of old-style strongmen like Vladimir Putin. But many of these views would have found favor in pre-World War II—and even, in some cases, 19th century—America.

In sum, Trump believes that America gets a raw deal from the liberal international order it helped to create and has led since World War II. He has three key arguments that he returns to time and again over the past 30 years. He is deeply unhappy with America’s military alliances and feels the United States is overcommitted around the world. He feels that America is disadvantaged by the global economy. And he is sympathetic to authoritarian strongmen. Trump seeks nothing less than ending the U.S.-led liberal order and freeing America from its international commitments.

Trump has been airing such views on U.S. foreign policy for some time. He even spent $100,000 on a full-page ad in the New York Times in 1987 that had a message remarkably similar to what he is saying today.

The critique that follows is perhaps colored a bit by the alternative worldview of the author, Thomas Wright, a fellow and director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at The Brookings Institution. Yet, he seems fair in that he allows that Trump’s views are coherent and consistent, while comparing them with those of Charles Lindbergh and Robert Taft.

Read the rest of this entry »