Please enjoy this recent episode of the Seeds of Liberty Podcast. This week we were joined again by CJ of the Dangerous History Podcast. Herein we discussed the soothing sounds of Anarchism’s Smooth Operator, CJ’s speech on Abolitionism and Anarchism from the Midwest Peace and Liberty Fest, the New England Non-Resistance Society, radical abolitionism, CJ’s friendly version of guerrilla warfare, pulling instead of pushing, guerrilla gardening the seeds of liberty, Lewis Perry, Lyndon Johnson’s johnson, how cocaine and power produce the same rush, how there is no lesser evil, the alt-right, and more!
Those who claim that we need the State to take care of the environment, protect the lakes, streams, rivers, forests, and declare National/State Parks are unconsciously committing various logical fallacies such as the appeal to antiquity, appeal to authority, false dichotomy, and tragedy of the commons.
The tragedy of the commons is the brooch that characterizes all “public property”. It demonstrates how human action is directly affected with an alteration in the incentives. When everyone “owns” a particular piece of land, forest, lake, stream, or river, it is the same as if nobody owns it. When nobody owns something there is no vested interest towards preservation and conservation. Therefore everyone seeks to use that natural resource to its fullest capacity without thought of the future. The tragically inevitable result is waste and plunder until that resource is thoroughly barren and depleted.
Moreover when a natural resource is State owned and considered “public property” it still requires currency and resources to maintain. How can a monopoly on initiated aggression know exactly what is needed to maintain this natural resource when all currency is obtained at the barrel of a gun and there is no competition to establish the price equilibrium? Without allowing for open competition in the Free Market these factors cannot be adequately determined. The result is further waste and inefficiency.
If, however this natural resource becomes privately owned the incentives change dramatically. Some people may choose to homestead it by living there, erecting a home, and starting a family. Other people may respond to the demand for untouched wilderness for the purposes of hiking, camping, backpacking etc. Such wealthy investors might purchase these large swaths of wilderness for the express purpose of maintaining their pristine nature for those who appreciate the natural world. They would be in direct competition with other wilderness owners and indirect competition with any other activity that consumers might elect to do in their spare time. Their incentive would be to care for, ensure future survival, and maintain this natural resource as it is satisfying significant consumer demand. Free Market Capitalism is an elegant solution to a world of infinite desires and scare resources.
With sufficient imagination one can always conjure up the outlandish exception to the rule. I am not interested in satisfying all possible individual scenarios. I am only interested in discovering dependable moral principles on which to base my life. Individual situations must be dealt with given those specific circumstances. It is not my place to think of an answer to all of them.
True freedom is not the recognition that there will be no moral dilemmas, but that those dilemmas will not be given the moral pass that the State or any action that appeals to the State claims to possess. This undoubtedly applies to receiving stolen currency in the form of financial aid or grants from the State. No amount of appeals to pity or appeals to emotion will change the immorality of asking for stolen currency from a monopoly on initiated aggression. It does not matter whom the stolen currency goes to and for what purpose it is used. If a thief steals my currency and then assures me that he will use it for helping his sick grandmother that still would not excuse the violent expropriation of currency AKA theft. It does nothing whatsoever to alter the initial immorality of the act. The ends never justify the means. This is a principle I will never concede. Once the compromise of one’s principles begins it is often the precursor to rationalizing truly monstrous acts.
Please enjoy this recent episode of the Seeds of Liberty Podcast. This week we were joined by Joe Allen, one of the co-hosts of the Anarchy Roundtable. Herein we discussed dealing with statists online, converting vs. planting seeds and walking away, false derivative definitions, the Manhattan Project, the 4th annual Midwest Peace & Liberty Fest, the failures of incrementalism, the non-collapse of the Soviet Union, and more!
Every national border in Europe, marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others.
How does one help the poor and indigent the best? It is a testament to the charitable spirit of human nature that many people ask me this question when I advocate an abolition of the Welfare State. How will we help those in need if we do not force our neighbors to “donate” a portion of their wealth at the barrel of a gun? Indeed if coercion is required to carry out your idea it is safe to assume your idea is worthless. If many people vote to propagate the violent redistribution of funds via the Welfare State, they could’ve organized to do the very same task voluntarily. It is never compassionate or charitable to decide what to do with other people’s stolen funds. That is the kernel of evil and the initiation of force.
The poor and needy are helped by giving them the tools to help themselves. Start a business to employ them, teach them useful skills, educate, and enlighten them. By all these methods they will lift themselves out of poverty. They will gain self-knowledge so they can pass it down to their progeny and so continue the ever-expanding wealth creation that is the legacy of the human race.
“They say if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish then he’s gotta get a fishing license, but he doesn’t have any money. So he’s got to get a job and get into the Social Security system and pay taxes, and now you’re gonna audit the poor cocksucker, ’cause he’s not really good with math. So he’ll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he’ll take all your shit. He’ll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, ’cause you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, and you couldn’t even cook the fish ’cause you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the Health Department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where are you going to dump the scales and the guts…” Doug Stanhope, stand up comedian
