The following is a set of questions I
would like to ask Sam Seder, the liberal Democrat who hosts the political
commentary show The Majority Report with Sam Seder.
This set of questions (and comments) is based on what I
feel he does not yet understand about libertarianism.
Table of Contents
1.
Introduction Regarding Alex Jones and Various Libertarians
2. Euthanasia and Health Insurance
3. The General Welfare Clause, Means-Testing, and Racial Discrimination by the
Federal Government
4. What Authority Does the Federal Government Have Over Immigration?
5. Medicare for All
6. Cooperatives and Non-Profits, Wages, and Self-Governance as the Price of
Exclusion
7. Fulfilling Libertarianism and Leninism Through Mutualism and Syndicalism
8. Regarding the Taxation of Unimproved Land Value, Church Land Holdings, and
Criminal Enterprise
9. Federal Health Subsidies, Debt, and M.M.T. (Modern Monetary Theory)
10. How Much Union-Busting Should the Federal Government Do?
11. Property Rights Without the State
12. Courts and Laws Without the State
13. Resolving Property Disputes Without the State
14. Conclusion: Run for President
15. Post-Script
Content
1. Introduction Regarding Alex Jones and Various Libertarians
Hi, I’m a libertarian, and I have several
ridiculous points that I would like to make.
First off, I want to make it clear that I do not listen to Alex Jones anymore, after he continued to support Donald Trump, even after Trump ordered the dropping of bombs in Syria in April 2017, and after Trump was revealed to be a longtime friend of Jeffrey Epstein.
Jones should be commended for exposing the crimes of the Bushes and Clintons, and many other examples of corruption, but I cannot trust him due to his refusal to disavow Donald Trump.
That said, however, I want to (sort of) defend Alex Jones on one thing: Aliens.
Some people think that Alex Jones believes that alien-lizard-human hybrids control the world. That is not true. We do not know for sure whether Alex Jones believes in aliens.
[Note: More information on the "Triune brain" theory can be found at the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain]
As the theory behind the Triune brain model goes, the reptilian segments of the brain are the most primal, and control the most important parts of the body that we need to survive; the heart and lungs. These parts of the brain developed before the amphibian and mammalian "brains" (or brain fragments) which developed around, and after, the reptilian brain.
Icke described the reptilian brain as the most basal, and as the most related to ritual. This is why Icke sees the reptilian brain as integrally connected to the ritual aspects which are extremely common in organized religion.
That's why it’s possible that Icke subtitled his book “How an Interdimensional Race Has Controlled the World For Years – And Still Does” solely in order to get people interested enough to buy it.
I personally suspect that – on a subtle or perhaps even subconscious level – Icke’s allusions to an animal aspect to humanity (one that feels bestial or inhuman because it doesn’t seem to recognize our humanity) could be rooted in a desire to expose British royals for their genocidal crimes under colonialism (as well as their sex crimes), and achieve that task without communicating it so openly that Icke could end up imprisoned by the Queen of England.
If you feel that this issue is worth your time, then I urge you to independently investigate this issue for yourself, and have Jones and/or Icke on your show to ask them, point blank, whether they believe in aliens, and how sure they feel about their answer.
Second, I’m sorry that you
haven’t had much luck finding intelligent, consistent enough libertarians
willing to debate you as well as (most importantly) find common ground with you
on the issues that divide us the most.
As an open-borders
libertarian, I believe that the libertarian left and the libertarian right
should work together against left-wing and right-wing variants of fascism
alike. I would like to defend the idea that self-government, and voluntary
association with mutual aid, can replace the state.
I know that you support mutual
aid, so I would like you to consider whether mutual aid could replace the
state, or at least supplement our needs whenever the state collapses. But you
don’t need to comment on that yet.
I suggest that - if you want a
detailed answer regarding what would happen with courts and law if the state
ceased to exist – you invite either Gary E. Chartier, Charles W. Johnson,
Stephan Kinsella, Stefan Molyneux, David D. Friedman, Roderick T. Long, or
Robert P. Murphy on your show to do an interview on the topic of “personal
law”, and D.R.O.s.
I would also recommend that you invite John Stossel on your show, to discuss the topics of how government welfare primarily benefits the rich instead of the poor, and how government intervention in the economy to assist consumers often results in laws that hurt consumers and limit their choices. I think that you will be surprised by how much you agree with Stossel.
Personal law is a sort of
voluntarily-chosen legal system. And, as you're aware, D.R.O.s. are Dispute Resolution
Organizations.
Basically D.R.O.s (or “adjudication agencies” or “private
courts” as you have called them in your discussion with Walter Block) are like
private arbitration agencies that are not affiliated with the state.
Each of them would also
function as a sort of insurance company, on the basis that they’d offer
replacements for the government’s social insurance (in terms of security for
physical, property, and financial purposes). I want to clarify how these
agencies would work, and interact. But I’ll get to that topic towards the end.
First I want to talk about
death and taxes, the only things that are (supposedly) certain in this life.
2.
Euthanasia and Health Insurance
Do you believe that terminally ill people should be free to end their own lives?
Do you feel that your position on this comports with your belief that the government should protect people from their mistakes and bad decisions?
You also seem to believe that it is impossible to survive without the government. It’s a funny coincidence that believing in both of those things, happens to obligate the government to compel people to associate with the government.
If you believe that it is impossible to survive without the government, then I suggest that you look up the six following people and terms:
1) Mike Gogulski (a stateless person);
2) Daniel Suelo (who lives without money);
3) Christopher Ryan (who writes in his book Civilized to Death about how “civilization”, or industrial society, only fixes what it broke in the first place);
4) the stateless area of Zomia;
5) the quasi-anarchic society of medieval Iceland around the year 1,000 C.E.; and
6) the stateless practice of the Xeer form of community government.
Believe it or not, it is possible to live without the state, money, and industrial society.
Do you ever worry about the unintended societal consequences which could potentially be involved, in protecting too many people – or the wrong people – from experiencing the consequences of their own decisions?
What happens when government loses sight of the need to protect the vulnerable from their mistakes (and to help them after accidents), and instead focuses all of its efforts on protecting its cronies from experiencing the consequences of their “bad decisions” to commit crimes!?
The idea that the government can pay for us all to take a lot of risks, should not be used to justify obligating the taxpayers to foot the bill for the foolishness and risky behavior of complete strangers.
Especially not when someone would rather take-on the consequences themselves.
What if someone is not terminally ill, and wants to take his own life?
Suppose, for example, because he is sick of being constantly stalked, and harassed, and spied on by the corrupt government?
I wanted to clarify something you said about Ron Paul’s position regarding what someone should do if they are healthy and don’t buy health insurance, and then discover that they have a deadly disease and are at risk of dying.
Paul did not say that an uninsured person dying is “a tribute to how free we are”, the way Noam Chomsky characterized it (during a question-and-answer session, following a speech at Kutztown University in 2011. Paul said that what is a tribute to how free we are, is the freedom to take our own risks, and experience the consequences of our own decisions.
Do you agree with that statement?
To put it another way, do you care so much about making sure that Libertarians have medical insurance, that you would be willing to put us in jail for not paying the Obamacare tax? Or even kill us if we defend ourselves against police who attempt to arrest us for failing to pay that unconstitutional tax on our income?
Why do that, when you could just as easily let us make our own decisions, and then (if you’re correct that we’ll die without federally provided health insurance) eventually we would die without your help?
Which do you care about more: Protecting libertarians (who annoy the shit out of you) from their own mistakes; or being able to mock us for the rest of our lives, until everybody worships the corrupt, bloated, racist criminal federal government (which you, for some reason, love)? Why keep mocking libertarians when you could simply let us die, and spare us from the horrors of being controlled by you, thereby conveniently ridding the world of us libertarians who do nothing but annoy you?
If the government is so great that we’ll die without it, then why not let us prove it? If we fail, we fail, and the rest of you are under no obligation to support us. And we, and our businesses, have to pay for our own roads, and utilities, and security detail, and so on.
3. The General Welfare Clause, Means-Testing, and Racial Discrimination by the Federal Government
So what’s the benchmark, then? What sorts of things
definitely shouldn’t be federal powers, and should be left up
to either state or local government, business, or the people?
Perhaps Means should have won the nomination for the presidency
that year. But it’s not as though Ron Paul has never criticized the federal
government for enforcing racially discriminatory policies. Paul has criticized
Jim Crow laws, and racial segregation in the military, saying “that’s the
government”.
But few of you realized that this came at a time when Senator Harry Reid had come under scrutiny after being suspected of profiting $1.1 million from land dealings, several years after he had ceased owning that land.
So the story evolved into a debate over whether ranchers, or the federal government and its politicians, were behaving more disrespectfully towards the land than the other.
Associates of Cliven Bundy - such as his son Ammon, and his friends, the Hammond family of ranchers, and LaVoy Finicum – became the focus of the media attention, when Ammon Bundy and friends peacefully occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
The peaceful occupation was characterized as if it were a violent occupation of a “federal building”, almost as if the order of the terrorist act committed by Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.
What’s more; when LaVoy Finicum lost his life to F.B.I. agents, he was an old, unarmed man who was trying to lift his arms to gain balance while stumbling around in the snow, after being pulled over by police suddenly and violently via a barricade. Federal agents shot this man to death for trying to prevent himself from falling down.
Few liberals knew at the time – nor still know – that Finicum grew up with Native Americans, was the foster father of more than ten children (many of them Native American), and made a video shortly before his death detailing the mishandling of Native American artifacts by the same wildlife refuge which the anti-B.L.M. activists occupied.
Moreover, the Hammond family of ranchers did not set fire to federal land, as the government claimed; they set a controlled burn in order to stop an existing wildfire from destroying their ranch house. This occurred after the Bureau of Land Management declined to get back to the Hammonds to give them permission to light the controlled burn.
I know this is something that matters to you, because you mentioned – during your recent appearance on Ben Burgis’s show – that the Iroquois would do controlled burns to keep the land lush for farming.
The Malheur standoff, and Finicum’s death at the F.B.I.’s hands, were just two more examples of Native Americans dishonored and betrayed by a eugenicist federal government that has no regard for the sanctity of the land, nor for the people who hold it sacred.
Liberals demanded that the federal government do something about Bundy (or his sons, or the Hammonds, or Finicum or the other activists). But the action that was taken in response for the liberals’ salivation for blood, was that the F.B.I. killed an old man in the snow, and made four activists fear for their lives after peacefully taking hold of a wildlife refuge during a holiday when no employees were present.
So what if I reject the federal government – or even want to
secede from it - but not on racist grounds, and not violently?
What if I want myself, and Russell Means, and everyone else, to be
free from central government control, and free to live in an intentional
community or intentional city of their choice, run on any social and economic
principles as they agree to abide by voluntarily?
Is the supposed need for the federal government to provide for the
general welfare, so important, that it outweighs the need to respect the
consent of the governed?
In my opinion, any and all existing welfare programs should be
universal and not means-tested according to income. But additionally, the need
to respect the consent of the governed, suggests that any such programs be
participated in on a totally voluntary basis.
This could be done through asking the citizen to opt-in to a program,
rather than having the government automatically enroll people; and also through
implementing a voluntary taxation program which only requires people to pay the
taxes that they feel they owe (within reason).
[Note: Andrew Yang ran for president in 2020 while promising this
sort of voluntary tax reporting idea.
I have described my own idea of such a plan, which is sort of a
hybrid of voluntary tax reporting and payment, and the Negative Income Tax
described by Milton Friedman. You can read more about that proposal in my 2014
article and infographic “The Flat Negative Income Tax”, available at the
following link:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-flat-negative-income-tax.html]
You say that you support federal spending programs as long as they
provide for the general welfare. But “general welfare” doesn’t mean what you
might think it means.
“Welfare” means well-being, in a general sense. “Welfare” does not
refer to government food aid, nor housing aid, nor educational loans, nor to
any form of government-provided welfare in particular.
Also, “general” does not mean “broad”, nor “vague”, nor does it
mean that we can spend money on anything and everything. “General”, here in the
phrase “general welfare”, means universal.
That is, the spending must benefit everybody. [Note: It is up
for debate whether that means all Americans, or
all documented Americans, or all tax-paying Americans, or all
residents, or Americans between 18 and 65. But I think all non-racists and
non-sexists should be able to agree that whiteness and maleness should never
again be limiting factors, in terms of participating in government or receiving
government services. However, property ownership as a limiting factor is still
debatable; as some Americans believe that the only people who should derive
benefit from government are the people whose property taxes pay for that
government to exist in the first place.]
Additionally, Clauses 1 and 8 (of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S.
Constitution) provide that excises and customs are to remain uniform, while
Clauses 1 through 3 provide that direct taxes must be apportioned according to
the Census. So as long as those requirements about taxes are fulfilled, then
spending which benefits everybody, should be allowed, as long as it’s
implemented constitutionally, via the amendment process.
This means that non-means-tested programs – such as Medicare for
All, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee, Social Security, and other programs –
could be enacted, without violating the limitations which were intended to be
imposed by the General Welfare Clause (which liberals interpret as expansive
rather than limiting). That is, as long as the legislation authorizing those
programs were to be passed constitutionally (through an amendment authorizing
exclusive federal power over medical insurance, retirement, or whatever).
Why do you think it is, that the Environmental Protection Agency
is powerless? Do you think it could have something to do with the fact that the
environment is not specifically mentioned in the Enumerated Powers of Congress?
How can an E.P.A. be created by the Congress, if Congress has no
original power to legislate on environmental matters in the first place?
This is why Ron Paul and Libertarians want to get rid of
departments like Energy, HUD, Interior, Education, and Commerce. That is; because
energy, housing, land management, education, and giving handouts to businesses,
are not mentioned in the Constitution (although commerce is mentioned).
Is this unreasonable?
4. What Authority Does the Federal Government Have Over Immigration?
Do you believe that the authority under which I.C.E. (Immigration
and Customs Enforcement) operates, is constitutional?
In my opinion, it’s not, as I.C.E. was created as part of the
post-9/11 Department of Homeland Security, which is unconstitutional. The 1947
reorganization of the state intelligence apparati allowed unprecedented
executive control over what is and is not part of the federal government.
But this was never something that all Americans were supposed to
obey in the first place. Duties related to homeland security are contained in
Title 6, a portion of the U.S. Code which is non-positive law, meaning that it
is not part a positive law code which confers an obligation
upon all Americans to obey it.
Thus, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act is null and void, and I.C.E. is
operating illegally. I.C.E. agents, and all who enforce the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act,
should either be arrested, or at the very least not be allowed on state
property.
The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act must be abolished immediately, and Title 6
of the U.S. Code (on Domestic Security) must be prevented from becoming
positive law (and thus obligatory upon all Americans).
You can read more about that topic in my January 2021 article
“Half of the Federal Laws Do Not Apply to All Americans: Explaining Positive
vs. Non-Positive Law”, available at the following link:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/01/half-of-federal-laws-do-not-apply-to.html
Liberals and Democrats are allowing their belief that the
Constitution authorizes border patrols, to justify appeasing Republicans by
agreeing to pay for border enforcement.
But why risk that these funds could be re-routed towards paying
for a border wall, when liberals and Democrats could simply point out that
the only immigration-related power which the federal government
has, is the authority to “establish a uniform rule of naturalization”?
It says nothing about an obligation to enforce that
rule; only to establish it. There is no reason why the states, or even
counties, couldn’t be the ones to enforce that rule.
So why appease Republicans, and pretend that they’re right about a
part of the Constitution which liberals and Democrats are not even that
familiar with, when, instead, we could have open borders? Why put guards on the
borders, when we could place Immigration and Naturalization Services employees,
and Doctors Without Borders on the border?
We should abolish the Department of Homeland Security – and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement along with it – citing the
Constitution itself; specifically, the naturalization clause, and
Amendment IV which provides for due process.
If the Fourth Amendment had been followed and respected, then it
would have prevented the sorts of civil liberties deprivations seen in the
post-9/11 wave of legislative overreach on security matters.
The Constitution can be a limiting feature upon
the overreach of expansive federal government. We just have to understand it;
that is, comprehend it and obey the limitations it set down.
So it’s not as if there is nothing about the Constitution that is
worth saving.
5.
Medicare for All
I heard your debate with Libertarian Party Chair Nick Sarwark on
Medicare for All, and I wanted to ask you some questions to clarify your
position. Would that be OK?
If there were a way to get high rates of voluntary enrollment in a
public health insurance system or public option – like by guaranteeing access
to all residents – then would you admit that the need to respect the consent of
the governed is more important than the need to enforce a mandate that everyone
be insured?
Would you agree that a purchase mandate can only increase the
price of health insurance because it gives the private health insurance
companies a captive market, as long as there is any chance that
the single-payer system could fall prey to corrupt influence?
Would it be unreasonable to suggest that Obamacare wasn’t merely a
“bailout for private health insurance companies and Big Pharma”, but in fact,
was even worse? That is to say, didn’t the Obamacare purchase mandate
effectively turn greedy, for-profit health insurance companies into what could
more or less be described as subsidiaries of the Internal
Revenue Service (being that they were empowered to collect people’s money, as
taxes, for health insurance)?
What would you say to me, if I were to ask you to try to guarantee
to me that a single-payer health insurance system does not fall prey to either
corrupt influence by the private health insurance industry, corrupt influence
by Big Pharma, corrupt influence by corrupt medical malpractice attorneys,
corrupt influence by excessively risk-averse health providers or
administrators, or the waste of expenditures on maintaining a health care
bureaucracy (and paying politicians six figures each to manage it)?
If you can answer this question, and we can implement exclusive
federal control over health insurance constitutionally (via the
amendment process), then I could potentially get behind a Medicare for All type
system.
I might add that Libertarians would be most likely to support such
a program if it could be made as voluntary as possible; for example, “Medicare
for All, But Opt In” or “Medicare for All Those Who Want It”. Such a program
would not have to throw people off of their current health insurance, but could
instead give them a long window of time (for example, 18 months, which Rand
Paul proposed) during which they can opt into the system.
6. Cooperatives and Non-Profits, Wages, and Self-Governance as the Price of
Exclusion
But I think it’s difficult to protect the commons, if we don’t even recognize it as a distinct sector of the economy (alongside the public, private, voluntary/charity, and club sectors).
What makes something “private”? Does it have to be a business?
Does it have to operate on a for-profit basis? Does it have to offer sufficient
degrees of privacy? Does it have to be able to practice exclusion against
whomever the owner wants?
This is difficult to answer. So lumping-in everything which is not
the state, with “the private sector” is an unwise way to go about understanding
political economics.
Is public insurance non-profit because the state subsidizes it, or
is public insurance non-profit because the markets and the investors want public
insurance to be non-profit?
The answer is obviously that public insurance is non-profit
because the state subsidizes it. Cooperatives (or, at least, cooperatives that
don’t operate as cooperative corporations) are the least likely types of
enterprises to allow investment from outside sources.
I believe that there would be no need for the federal government
to be involved in the subsidization of health care in the states, if the states
got their budgetary and tax affairs in order, such that the people and the
states could more easily afford to pay for health costs themselves (i.e., without
any federal assistance).
But I’ll get to that.
Knowing that entrepreneurship is the dream of many Americans, can
you see why it might make sense to lower taxes on some businesses (or, at the
very least, on small businesses, nonprofits, and cooperatives)?
Would you agree that cooperatives re-invest all of their would-be
profits back into the company for the benefit of the workers (or, at least,
that that is the purpose of a cooperative)?
Would you agree that this means that cooperatives do not produce
any profits, and do not produce anything that could justifiably be taxed?
Then, would it be fair to say that cooperatives deserve to
pay no taxes, simply because they don’t turn a profit?
If not, then what if you could tax cooperatives, but only of their
land holdings, and not of their non-profit economic activity?
I’ll get to taxes soon. But I have a few more questions.
Would you agree that we all have the right to vote, but that that
right to vote isn’t limited solely to elections sponsored and approved by
government?
For example, that we have the right to vote in meetings of minor
political parties (such as the Libertarians, Greens, and Socialists), and in
our clubs and voluntary associations, and in autonomous unions (like the
I.W.W.), and even among our friends when we decide what kind of pizza to order?
Then doesn’t the right to have democracy exist independent of
government? Don’t we have the right to run as much of our society as we
wish on democratic principles?
Who agrees that some degree of autonomy from the government is
fine, as long as it goes through traditional democratic processes, where people
have the freedom and time to voice their objections, and discuss the proposals
thoroughly before coming to a consensus?
Would you agree that there are at least some non-profits which are
not corrupt, which should also not be taxed, because of their non-profit (or
non-profit cooperative) status?
If a cooperative or non-profit enterprise owes no taxes, and it’s
also fiscally sustainable and responsible enough to provide all of its own
services on its own (like security and some degree of public utilities), then
shouldn’t it be allowed to be self-governing or autonomous in some way?
Or better yet, what if the enterprise operates on the basis of a
consumer-cooperative, such that workers and consumers each make up half of the
board of the company, allowing them to negotiate with each other directly? This
would make it impossible to continue to defend workplace practices such as
having multiple levels of management, paying C.E.O.s countless amounts of
money, and having outside investors who could influence the company in any way
other than consumers.
What if imposing unnecessary taxes on businesses’ productivity,
makes them more likely to charge high prices, exploit their
workers, and cut costs at the expense of safety?
What if we ended unnecessary taxes on production, increased taxes
on waste and destruction, and created a situation in which businesses faced
jail and fines for producing while polluting, but faced lower taxes
and no fines for producing without polluting?
Should a totally financially independent non-profit
enterprise - that provides all of its own services - be free
to govern itself?
7. Fulfilling Libertarianism and Leninism Through Mutualism and Syndicalism
If what enterprises want is low (or zero) taxes and regulations,
then the government should give them a chance to provide their own utilities
and self-regulate.
Whether that should merit obligating an intentional community, or
a cooperative, to provide health services to all people, should
be decided among that particular community (as some people will inevitably want
to, at least sometimes, purchase health goods and services through an agency
other than the federal government).
If enterprises could be financially independent, and
self-governing, and they could also be free to cooperate with one another –
with the only caveats being that they cooperate on a mutually beneficial
voluntary basis, and remain non-for-profit and largely self-regulating – then
should they be free to form into a syndicate (i.e., a cooperative
of cooperatives)?
Should they be free to form a recognizable “union label” which
will help consumers easily identify all enterprises associating with one
another on cooperative or non-profit principles?
There should be no limit upon boycotts, nor strikes, as far as
libertarians understand it. So any Libertarian or liberal who understands that
the Taft-Hartley Act unfairly limits the freedom of private-sector workers to
engage in boycotts and strikes across multiple industries, needs to understand
what that means.
It means that the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 is an obstacle to a
general strike, if we want that general strike to occur legally.
Repealing the Taft-Hartley Act would widen the realm of legal union
organizing activity, and make it possible for boycotts and strikes to be as
effective as their participants want them to be.
In my opinion, the rights of enterprises to work together and self-regulate – and the rights of collectives to work together and self-regulate – in this manner, are the same. They are both examples of voluntary cooperation.
I think that this actually vindicates you in terms of your debate with Charlie Kirk at Politicon in 2018. Some felt that you lost that debate when Kirk pointed out that the American Medical Association (A.M.A.) has a quota which limits how many people can become A.M.A.-licensed doctors each year.
In effect, the ideas that: 1) the A.M.A. did something that caused there to be less doctors; and 2) the A.M.A. is thought to be a union of medical professionals; were used against you, because you are on the left. However, only the first point is true.
The A.M.A. is not a union, but an industry trade group, also called a trade association or business association. It could be argued that industry trade groups are more similar to business alliances or professional associations than they are to trade unions.
So why, then, should the A.M.A.’s failings be blamed on unions, the left, and Sam Seder? They shouldn’t.
Here is how I suspect an agency like the American Medical Association would operate in a free society:
1) Doctors would be free to associate voluntarily for mutual benefit.
2) But any third parties negatively affected by the agency’s without their knowledge or consent, would be free to petition the medical professional agency for redress of grievances, through negotiation that occurs through private arbitration.
3) The organization’s membership should not be limited on the basis of country, unless all members consent to this being the organization’s policy.
4) The medical association would not derive its authority to license doctors from the state, but from the consent of the remainder of the medical community (which would be embodied in a multitude of medical associations, competing for legitimacy, instead of just one).
5) Medical professionals should be free to associate with one another, as long as they do not attempt to use violence, or the state (and its violence) to compel people to become their customers or pay them money.
6) Because of that prohibition on compelling customers to pay (or conscripting a government to do that for you), it would be impossible to bail-out any particular medical professionals’ agency. Since any and all existing “governments” (or self-governments”) would be voluntary-chosen, no existing government or armed authority would rightfully be able to claim a duty or obligation to bail any medical professionals’ agency out. This would allow endless competition for legitimacy; with any particular agency going out of business only when it goes bankrupt, loses credibility, or becomes obviously corrupt. People would be able to withdraw their money without the federal limitations upon boycotts that the Taft-Hartley Act imposes, and without the limitations posed by the process of taxation to support the subsidization of businesses.
We can practice mutual aid, create mutual aid societies, have
direct democracy in our society, and have increasing degrees of democracy in
our workplaces, while at the same time demanding lower prices, and
lower taxes on things that don’t need to be taxed.
We can use our already existing right to democracy, and what
purchasing power we have as consumers and selling power we have as workers, to
effectuate dual power. This is to say that we must use our democratic social
power, and our democratic economic power, to challenge and replace our corrupt
government.
We must replace our corrupt government with a consensus between
societal interests and economic interests, which imposes a reasonable degree of
responsibility upon people not to commit financial crimes and crimes against
social decency and sexual innocence.
The right to demand a health insurance premium of zero, is the
same thing as the right to refuse to purchase health insurance altogether. And
those rights are indistinguishable, in effect, from the right to boycott the
health insurance industry.
To mandate that people purchase health insurance, is thus the same
thing as – and indistinguishable from - limiting our right to boycott health
insurance companies.
There is no reason why the disputes between the left and the right
cannot be resolved. All it takes is to look beyond mandates and federal power
and controls, and to instead immediately seek out whatever common ground exists
between the left and the right on the issue, and then to propose new
legislation accordingly.
That is why the people must never be required to buy any
particular product, nor any particular type of product (such as health
insurance or state mandated identification). Whatever the government wants to
force us to buy, the politicians, bureaucrats, government contractors, etc. should,
at the very least, pay for it.
We can resolve the differences between the left and the right, as
long as we adopt that as a goal, and focus on it.
We can reduce conflict between the left and the right by
re-introducing options which we have long since forgotten, in terms of the
economic systems which we could practice, aside from capitalism and socialism.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once stated in an interview that she
believes that the private sector is better than the government at making
consumer products, and therefore she supports having a mixed economy. We must
teach high school and college students about mixed economies, if we are to
expect less violent conflict between left-wing and right-wing extremists.
I believe that teaching people about the syndicalism of Rudolf
Rocker, the Mutualism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (and propagating mutual aid
societies), and “Georgism” (Henry George’s Land Value Taxation model) will help
decrease the conflict and antipathy between the socialists (etc.) on the
left and the capitalists (etc.) on the right.
Which brings me to Georgism.
8.
Regarding the Taxation of Unimproved Land Value, Church Land Holdings, and
Criminal Enterprise
You say that you want to protect the commons. Yet you seem to be
unconcerned about the risk that the commons could be subsumed under, and
crushed by, the public sector and the federal government. You seem to think that
there is no role for the states and localities, and the markets or the people,
in terms of taking care of the environment, and managing land.
Why should the federal government protect the environment, when
federal authorities have to travel long distances to the localities? Doesn’t
this take up energy, and pollution, and doesn’t the environment suffer in the
process?
The fact that the commons must be protected (and it must) does not
necessarily mean that the federal government should protect it. If all
localities had the same basic standard on environmental protection – from
whatever source, not necessarily the federal government – then there would be
no need to establish statewide or federal legislation, nor
international treaties, on the environment, in the first place.
Sometimes you speak as if, if the markets or the businesses or the
people can’t solve the whole problem, then only the
federal government should be allowed to solve the problem. But I disagree.
I think that what you are doing is - in effect, whether you are
trying to do it or not - making excuses for the federal government, when it
tries to stop states, and businesses and the market, and ordinary people, and
churches and charities, etc., from attempting to solve the problem.
If the fact that the federal government doesn’t solve everything, can be cited to justify limiting all other organizations’ abilities to solve those same problems, then why should I even bother to get out of bed in the morning? Why shouldn’t the federal government get me out of bed, and dress me, and feed me, and wipe my ass?
I cannot wrap my mind around the level of trust you have in the federal government’s power to solve problems, despite all the historical evidence showing how many times it has failed and betrayed the American people. I hope that you realize that you are living in a country in which right-wing, poor-shaming police tell churches not to feed the homeless, and then those concerns are supported by supposedly well-meaning liberals, who jump up and say that they support those restrictions because the food was not inspected by the local health inspector.
People would rather have something than nothing. Walter Block saying it doesn’t make it true, and you not saying it doesn’t make it not true. It’s just true. People would rather have a sandwich than starve, they would rather sleep in a tent than a bush, and they would rather take medicine without a prescription than take nothing and risk death.
We need to look outside of the federal government for solutions sometimes; namely, when the government fails.
Market failure is a real concern, but so is the failure of government. We don’t need to limit the market’s ability to respond when the government fails.
This country is in dire straits. Poverty and homelessness and drug addiction and disease are everywhere. It is irrational to suggest that the solution to market failure is to increase the number of problems which the federal government has the exclusive authority to solve, because this makes us more susceptible to government failure.
It’s not that markets, private property, and contracts are always a better way than collective economic planning, to distribute resources. But they are necessary when the government collapses, or the economy collapses. Especially after government has monopolized the ways in which collective economic planning can be legally performed.
This is why non-state-affiliated cooperatives could and should wield their economic power, and not surrender it to the state.
I believe that the markets, the people, and the communities can and should work together to establish a minimum standard regarding how to achieve rapid advances in both environmental preservation and economic prosperity simultaneously.
This standard should be applied in as many locales as possible, but always on as voluntary and democratic a basis as possible (that is, making sure to require unanimity at some point or at some level, or at the very least, participatory and consensus-based democracy).
Many on the left want to tax churches. Others argue that
churches should not pay taxes because many are non-profit and engage in charity
works.
What if a church is a non-profit, does no business (and only does
charity), and makes no profits whatsoever? Would it be justifiable to tax the
church’s owner (or owners) of anything else besides the value of their land?
I think the rich should pay more taxes than the poor. But I don’t
believe that the rich should be taxed simply because they’re rich.
In
my opinion, people should be taxed because (and if) they chose to do something
illegal (or, more importantly, immoral) in order to make money. But to call
this taxation isn’t exactly accurate; they should be fined, and jailed. And if
they acquired their wealth through illicit and/or immoral means, then they
should be found guilty of a financial crime.
What if you could tax land instead of taxing wealth?
And what if - as part of such a tax program - you could tax
churches, but only for their unimproved land value, so that they
couldn’t be required to generate a profit in order to cover the costs of their
taxes?
That is, what if you could tax churches only for allowing their
land to fall into disrepair, or for defrauding people of their money? Say they
can keep their buildings but not their land.
And the same goes for businesses. How about that?
Tax waste and destruction, not work and production. What about
taxing unimproved land value?
Enacting land value taxation could recoup a whole third of the G.D.P.
in taxes, paying for all levels of government combined (which now costs about
$8 trillion per year).
All other currently existing forms of taxes (the majority of which
are hated by most Americans) could be eliminated, and replaced with a new tax,
payable to each local community. Those fees would fund Community Land Trusts
(C.L.T.s), which are non-profit, non-governmental entities. These C.L.T.s would
bring together people and organizations in the area (preferably in the
watershed or bioregion) who share the goal of aligning a community’s economic
future with its environmental sustainability goals and ecological preservation
goals.
The eventual long-term goal of this would be to create a situation
in which as many non-polluters in the area as possible, profit economically
from cooperative efforts to preserve the local environment.
Thus, Georgism, Land Value Taxation, and C.L.T.s could potentially
function as a sort of decentralized version of a national “green jobs
initiative” or Green New Deal -type program. It could also reduce the need for
federal environmental legislation, the E.P.A., and international environmental
treaties.
If the E.P.A. is ineffective and unconstitutional, then why not
seek other means to protect the environment? What do you think?
9. Federal Health Subsidies, Debt, and M.M.T. (Modern Monetary Theory)
Would it be fair to say that the only reason that we, as
Americans, are talking about federal Medicare and Medicaid subsidies going to
the states, is because the state governments can’t (or simply don’t)
sufficiently fund themselves?
And isn’t that because they don’t have their shit together, vis-à-vis their
budgets and taxes?
And wouldn’t it also be fair to say that we have two debt
crises on our hands; i.e., the national debt, and also the
states’ debts (in terms of their unfunded obligations to state workers, through
pensions)?
I assume that you would agree.
So why not give the states a tax regime that allows them to
produce, while holding polluters responsible, so that they can fund their
governments adequately, instead of depending on the federal government’s money?
If the states can fund health and environment, and other things,
without the federal government’s money, then health and environmental problems
can be solved without the state requiring their people to submit to unpopular
federal government’s laws in the process.
If the states and the people didn’t need the federal government so
much, and we had the unlimited right to strike and boycott and form new unions,
and businesses could self-regulate as long as they provided their own utilities
and protected their own property, then the private and public sectors (and the
other sectors) would not be anywhere near as entangled with – and unnecessarily
dependent upon – each other, as they are now.
At the same time that we disentangle the government from society
and the economy, we should disentangle the oikos – the
socio-economic sector of the home and the private residence – from the
chrematistics (unnatural wealth acquisition) associated with the for-profit
stock market, large corrupt multinational corporations, and business that prop
themselves up with taxpayer dollars.
Nobody would be dependent upon the need to curry favor – whether
for themselves or their businesses – from corrupt government (nor its cronies,
nor bureaucracies and politicians), nor the for-profit capitalist system, in
order to obtain wealth, or recognition of our many freedoms.
You say that things like food and health care and environmental
quality are things that the government should do, so that the people no longer
“have to worry about” problems like starvation and illiteracy and pollution.
But I’m concerned that you care more about not worrying about
some problems, than you care about solving the problem.
Take the national debt, for example.
The United States currently holds more than $25 trillion in debt.
And maybe a tax on wealth could fix that problem gradually over a few decades.
Maybe a tax on unimproved land value could do the same. Set that aside for a
moment.
Most people on the left, say about the national debt, “We just
print money and give it to the banks, so why can’t we just print money and
bail-out the people?” You act like we can inflate forever, because if we
default, we mostly default to “ourselves”.
As if that doesn’t mean future generations; i.e., our
children and grandchildren, who will have to inherit the messes and debts we
leave behind. As if our foreign creditors will not eventually stop investing in
us (or worse yet, work with each other to form an economic and military
alliance that could potentially challenge the United States militarily) as a
result.
Will you admit that those consequences are not impossible? Why
kick the can down the road, or reason that the problem is not a severe problem
(or that it can be ignored), when you could easily solve the problem instead?
Why not simply solve the problem, and avert the debt crisis, so
that you don’t have to worry about the possibility that the national debt could
cause problems, ever again?
We could easily pay off that debt, by one trillion dollars per
year, by: 1) passing a tax code that targets destruction and waste rather than
work and productivity and trade; and then 2) by having the federal government
take in one trillion more dollars than it spends, every year, for the next 25
years, and paying that money directly into the hands of our creditors.
The size of the federal government would be negotiable; whether
it’s $2 trillion, or $3 trillion, or $4 trillion, or $5 trillion. As long as
the expected tax revenue is one trillion dollars greater than the spending
total, every year for 25 years, the federal government’s overall budget could
be whatever size people want it to be.
10.
How Much Union-Busting Should the Federal Government Do?
You want government to do enough to help keep people free from
fear that they won’t be able to provide their families with the basic
necessities of life.
But increasing the number of federal workers, and increasing the
number of industries which the government regulates or participates in, could
lead to more limitations upon workers.
Think about it: If we had obeyed the Constitution, the only
workers whom would be employed by the federal government as a function of
Congress’s powers, would be military, treasury, and postal workers (and a few
others, like immigrant naturalization services employees).
If there were more – or total – federal control over health and
the environment (and other industries), then wouldn’t the federal government be
able to declare that certain industries are so essential, that long strikes by
their workers are unacceptable, and must be broken up by government (as in what
happened with the air traffic controllers’ union under Reagan)?
I suggest that workers are safer when fewer people
are working for the federal government, than when the federal government is
employing massive numbers of people.
I caution you about excusing federal involvement in health and
education, because of what it implies, with regard to the interpretation of the
legitimate powers of Congress as laid out in the Constitution.
The only reasons that regulating health and regulating the
environment continue to be perceived as federal powers, are that: 1) the abuse
of the Necessary and Proper Clause has led to numerous acts of Congress being
justified solely on the basis that they seem necessary, and
that we think only the federal government is capable of doing
them; and 2) the abuse of the General Welfare Clause and the government’s
authority to defend lands of strategic importance to the military and to
protecting government buildings, allowed the creation of the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, which split into the Department of Education
and the Department of Health and Human Services.
To say it more directly: If you don’t pursue newly proposed
legislation through a constitutional amendment, then you cannot excuse federal
involvement in health and environment, without also excusing federal government
overreach in land management, and unlimited exclusive federal authority over
territories which rightfully belong to the states.
This overreach is important to avoid, because it hinders the
states’ abilities to make full productive use of that land, and to protect that
land better than the federal government does. Negligent land management also
increases the risk that wildfires could harm people besides federal employees
and property not owned or managed by the federal government.
All federal lands outside of the District of Columbia and overseas
possessions, should be returned to whomever can make the most productive use of
the land, whether that’s the states, the people, or the indigenous tribes. That
is, without either devastating the quality of the land, or exploiting the
workers, or denying the public the right to share in the profits from the
removal of those natural resources.
11.
Property Rights Without the State
I noticed, in your talk with Yaron Brook, that Brook seems to
think that government should only protect our lives, liberty, and property. He
seems to think that courts are necessary to make this happen.
I noticed that you were disappointed to discover that Brook didn’t
have an answer, when it comes to the question of what court (or whom, or what
principle) would determine what kinds of property rights claims are acceptable,
if not the government and the courts that it constitutes.
So far, I have defended a “minarchist” (minimal government) idea
of libertarianism, which provides that the federal government perform few
functions other than “money, mail, and military”, but I would be glad to “keep
going” in terms of explaining how property rights and courts would function in
a stateless society, if you’ll indulge me.
It seems to me that Yaron Brook would not require much in order to
justify a property claim.
Brook didn’t use the phrase “possession is nine-tenths of the
law”, but I suspect that he might agree with that idea.
If he does, then in my opinion, this is a problem, and his stance
on what makes a property claim just, should not satisfy you.
I believe that some basic rules regarding homesteading - and
regarding what constitutes productive use of property - must be
exercised, long before we consider using force to back-up
someone’s property claim.
Having something in your possession should certainly not be
regarded as outweighing all other factors, as “possession is nine-tenths of the
law” would suggest. If mere possession were more important than all other
factors, then the fact that I own a slave could potentially be
construed to justify my continued ownership of that slave.
So, in my opinion, “possession is four-tenths of property” would
be a much more reasonable thing to say. The fact that you own something is
important, but it should not be the only factor in determining whether your
property claim is just.
The principles that would tell us what sorts of property rights
claims should be enforced, are the principles implied by O&U norms
(occupancy and use norms).
This is to say that if someone allows their property to fall into
disrepair, or abandons it, or doesn’t use it often enough for it to be
considered “in use”, then it would be difficult to argue that the government
should use force in order to protect that property claim against people who
wish to occupy it (or make it into a “squat”) in order to make (more)
productive use of it.
Occupancy and use norms could become more widespread through: 1)
expanding homesteading rights; 2) urging all states aside from Wisconsin to
pass homesteading tax credits that relieve the tax burdens of people who rent
apartments (as Wisconsin already has this credit); and 3) expanding the set of conditions
under which people can take advantage of their adverse possession rights
(“squatters’ rights”) in order to acquire disused and abandoned property.
A Geo-Mutualist economic system would fit right in line with
occupancy and use norms.
That’s because a Geo-Mutualist system would combine Georgist Land
Value Taxation (which would govern the tax code, the environment, and the
management of land) with Mutualism (which would govern possession rights, and
the credit and banking systems).
Georgism would entail that a decentralized network of
not-for-profit, non-state agencies manage the environment and collect fees to
manage the land. Meanwhile, ordinary residents would be free to possess and own
their homes, without fear of worrying that their property rights and privacy
will be eroded by warrantless searches and wiretaps, and without fear of
worrying that they could be taxed out of their neighborhoods or out of their
homes.
If Community Land Trusts can prove themselves better than the
government at managing land and protecting the environment, then C.L.T.s could
begin to exercise the functions of a civil land registry – or county recorder
of deeds’ office – and establish a registry of legitimate claims to landed
property in a given community or region.
This may seem strange and unnecessary, but it is completely
necessary, to solve and confront the problem presented by corrupt politicians
helping their business criminal friends acquire vast amounts of land (of which
the rest of us are then incapable of making use).
Think about it this way: If a county recorder of deeds office
becomes corrupt, it can’t go out of business; it can only be reformed through
legislation, or better policing, or the election of new officials (or some combination
of the above).
Until such a change can occur, the people will need an alternative
registry of legitimate landed property claims in the community. This
registry should provide that all polluted, abandoned, and vacant lands, be
considered illegitimate property claims.
There is a pro-cryptocurrency organization called E.F.F., which
stands for Electronic Frontiers Foundation. The E.F.F. is creating a list of
illegitimate intellectual property claims, which it wishes to challenge, while promoting
internet civil liberties.
This is what needs to happen, but in regard to landed
property claims, as well as intellectual property rights claims.
Such an alternative registry of landed property rights claims
should serve the “dual power” goal of creating a new, voluntary, popular form
of self-government, which would eventually grow, until it is capable of doing
things the government has failed to do.
And then, finally, until it can challenge the government for
legitimacy, and replace it (or, at the very least, present people with an
opportunity to safely choose between the U.S. government and the new people’s
government, without fear of consequences or reprisal from the government
they didn’t elect).
12.
Courts and Laws Without the State
The D.R.O.s’ only clients would be those who agree to be their clients. Clients could not – legally nor ethically – be obligated, by any government, to associate with any D.R.O. for any reason, unless and until it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed a crime against another client of that D.R.O. (and thus owe that D.R.O. something).
Nor would anyone be compelled to associate with any particular D.R.O. due to the location or jurisdiction of their residence.
I want to make sure that you (and Ben Burgis) understand the difference between a D.R.O. and a Brazilian drug gang. Agencies like drug gangs, other street gangs, and the types of police officers that we call “beat cops”, all operate on the principle of territory. The legal organizations among those, operate also on the principle of jurisdiction.
Dispute Resolution Organizations, and any armed people who might be in the street so that they can volunteer to help others around who may be in need of protection, do not operate on the principles of territory. D.R.O.s, and the type of police officers that America had in the 1950s which were known as “peace officers”, would serve the people who choose to ask them for help.
You might argue that this principle of only helping people who ask for our help, could be used to justify excluding people who didn’t pay, from being helped by private fire-fighting companies. But those of us who know that firefighters sometimes steal things from people’s homes, can decide for ourselves whether we want government employees in our homes.
Moreover, there is nothing about private fire companies which would preclude them from allowing a neighbor to pay last-minute to put their fire out; whether at a higher rate than normal, or at a normal rate. In a free society, nothing would stop such a company from allowing the neighbor to volunteer to aim one of the hoses, in order to qualify for that lower rate. People would be free to shop around, and choose the firefighting service they like the best.
Additionally, there are not only public and private firefighting agencies, but there is also a quasi-nongovernmental (QUANGO) agency which combines features of the two, called the Illinois Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (M.A.B.A.S.). In my opinion, the more diverse types of businesses we have, offering services, the greater degree of choice the people will have regarding how they would optimize quantity, quality, etc. when choosing a service provider.
The point is that we should only be protected by people we trust, and people we choose.
Right now at protests in America, you can tell a police officer that someone just assaulted you, and if the officer was ordered to stand where he is standing, then he has no obligation to do anything about the crime, as long as he didn’t see it happen.
You may worry about private fire-fighting agencies excluding people who are in need, but: 1) those people are adults who cannot ethically be prohibited from making the decision not to pay for private insurance; and 2) you don’t seem the least bit worried about the government excluding people who are in need, when it comes to the police deciding not to protect people (who have been legally disarmed, and can only legally come to state gun licensing boards, or else the police, when they feel their physical safety is under threat).
Returning to the topic of drug gangs:
Two drug gangs going to war with each other, is not the same thing as two Dispute Resolution Organizations negotiating with each other. D.R.O.s would not go to war with each other, because in a free society, the only “laws” would be: 1) protect those incapable of protecting themselves, i.e., children; 2) respect other people’s property unless they stole it; and 3) nobody is allowed to use force except in self-defense.
The fact that nobody would be allowed to initiate violence is what would require D.R.O.s to keep negotiating with each other even when they feel the temptation to resort to violence. Suppose that I accuse you of trying to kill me, I have no evidence, but I am adamant that I feel unsafe, and I say we have to negotiate. Even if I believe you’re trying to kill me, there is a way to avoid violence.
Just find a mutually agreeable arrangement. Any mutually agreeable arrangement. Say we have to stay 2,000 miles away from each other at all times. Say one of us has to relocate. Say one or both of us can’t be allowed to use certain tracking technologies that could help us hunt the other down to kill or harass them.
A mutually agreeable arrangement will be found, as long as nobody is free to resort to violence to end the conflict, and as long as the state does not arbitrarily take away methods which could resolve the conflict. [Note: I’m not talking about dueling. Dueling is arguably voluntary, but it is murder and involves violence, which a prohibition on initiating violence would mean to avoid. And a duel has to be initiated by one person or the other, through a challenge.]
Saying that a resolution must be found – and then resolving to do something about it when somebody resorts to violence – is very different from assuming that a resolution will be found. It’s very different from simply reasoning or guessing that drug gangs wouldn’t go to war with each other just because fighting each other presents risks of harm.
As Hannah Arendt said, the use of violence is pre-political. To put it another way, the point of politics (in this case, the point of D.R.O.s and libertarianism), is to prevent and avoid violence. If you think about it, this is diametrically opposed to the idea that the state is supposed to wield a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. If the point of politics is to avoid violence, then what is the state doing legitimizing violence?
I suspect that you believe that it’s acceptable that the state legitimizes violence, because tax cheats need to go to jail, and as long as the state is representative of society at large. But I also think you have failed to understand why libertarians criticize the idea of a monopoly on force.
Libertarians criticize the state wielding a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, not because libertarians want to use force a lot and have it be legitimate, but because they want to defend themselves and their own property.
We acknowledge that the state’s monopolization of force, has the effect of taking away our right to defend ourselves without begging or paying the state for permission to do so. We also acknowledge that the state is legitimizing violence instead of making it go away.
Therefore we challenge the monopolization of force, not because we resent force being monopolized, but because force and violence should not be used against anybody (except in self-defense, after somebody else has already initiated it, or has attempted to do so, or has made realistic or credible threats or plans to do so).
We reject the legitimacy of violence, and the monopolization of force, towards the state and the police, to the detriment of the dispersed individuals who are actually on the ground and in their homes and in need of defending.
Currently we use violent enforcement, and the threat of fines and
jailing, to try to deter people from behaviors we consider harmful. But
couldn’t potentially dangerous activities be deterred through the widespread
adoption of high insurance rates as the price of engaging in such activities?
Imagine that you are a hospital employee, and you smoke
cigarettes. Then, one day, you are told that you will be fired if you continue
to smoke cigarettes. Is that reasonable? Wouldn’t you rather lose a quarter an
hour of your pay, or pay a little extra in union dues, or pay a fine, or
pay higher insurance premiums, than lose your job and your livelihood?
If anyone is going to tell you that you can’t smoke, for example,
then shouldn’t it be your employer, or your medical insurer, or the
particular person whose property you are standing on, instead of an entire
state or country (which is a lot harder to leave than someone’s property)?
You can learn more about the realistic possibility of firing
health workers for smoking at the article linked below:
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employer-threaten-fire-us-quit-smoking.html
You might say to this, “Well one D.R.O. could just attack the other, and break the law.” That’s true, but it was always true. The benefit of a free society is that initiatory acts of aggression like that, and wars, would be considered organized crimes perpetrated by insane companies and gangs, rather than being brushed off as legitimate acts of governments.
No government would have a monopoly over “law” (but again, public law would probably not exist; at least not outside of intentional communities). Arguably, law doesn’t even originate in the state.
The most common model of the state in the modern day, is the bourgeois Westphalian nation-state. Yet law itself, and courts, and contracts, the institution of property, the use of bills of lading as currency, merchant law, democracy, and republicanism, all preceded the rise of centralized states, federations, and imperialism.
So why, then, are we looking to the state to provide us with democracy? Democracy was within us the whole time.
If insurance companies were to coordinate with agencies like the
I.S.O. (the International Organization for Standardization, the international
agency dedicated to establishing reasonable and uniform technical, industrial,
and commercial standards), then it’s possible that a handful of upstanding
insurance companies (of all kinds) would step up to challenge the government
for legitimacy, touting those successes. Especially if such companies could
establish health and safety standards, and standards regarding technical
precision, and administer those standards reliably, with minimum or zero use of
force.
Those insurance companies which become capable, and wise enough,
to establish trustworthy standards, and apply and administer them with as
little use of force as possible, will emerge the victors in the economic
competition to deter risks and dangers, without making risk-taking impossible
(just expensive) and without threatening violence, by making sure that people
who suffer from crimes are compensated and people who suffer from accidents are
assisted.
Companies that fail to do those things should expect to be
exposed, if they used violence or approved of flawed standards in order to
benefit financially. But companies that prove themselves exceptionally
trustworthy will set standards for other companies; not to be obeyed, but to be
topped, outdone, and outperformed.
However, the issue of which company is the most trustworthy, will
be considered, to some extent, subjective (especially if a very individualistic
society were to attempt to achieve such a stateless state of affairs). But the
need for popular and widespread standards will diminish the severity of this
problem, as standards will come and go; more so during periods of intense
innovation, but overall, less and less, slowly, over time.
Arbitration agencies and D.R.O.s – some for-profit and some not
for profit - could compete for legitimacy against one another, instead of being
maintained by corrupt governments, each given its own fiefdom in which to rule
(i.e., its jurisdiction).
The less we think of “the public” as the government, and the more
we think of “the public” as a group of 320 million people who were wronged and
need to be compensated, the sooner we will realize that there is no such thing
as a “crime against the public”.
Even if there were, that does not make it OK for the government to
play the victim by impersonating We the People. But “the public” cannot appear
in a courtroom, except as represented by corrupt political entities that
legalize their own crimes.
If we realize that individuals are wronged,
whenever “the public” is supposedly wronged, then the need for public courts
will vanish. All crimes will be seen as what they are; crimes committed by one
particular person against another particular person (or multiple people). If we
punished criminals for their crimes enough, then we wouldn’t feel the need to
tack extra blame onto them for supposedly threatening the remainder of the
community (which not every criminal does).
So, then, why should criminal law, and public law, exist at all?
Why should anything remain, except private law, private arbitration, private
courts, and the contracts which we make among ourselves? After all, contracts
begin to resemble laws, when they exist for decades and decades.
Labor contracts, allowed to exist for decades without being re-negotiated, arguably cause the stagnation of wages. Since the Constitution prohibits the government from impairing the obligation of contracts, the effect is that a contract comes to resemble a law, the longer that it is allowed to stand, and go un-renegotiated.
The Constitution is arguably one of such contracts; it is a contract regarding which types of laws we ought to allow to exist, and at which level of government.
Ron Paul once said something to the effect of, “The First Amendment begins, ‘The government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…’, but if you ask me, they should have stopped after ‘The government shall make no law’.”
That is basically what libertarians are asking for. The minarchists among us want a government that only protects life, liberty, and property; while the radical stateless libertarians go further, demanding that there be only, essentially, one law: that nobody is allowed to use force, except in self-defense.
13. Resolving Property Disputes Without the State
1) Then that is a horrible atrocity, and someone should destroy Chevron, or charge its owners with murder, to stop it from doing such a thing ever again; and
2) Sometimes the smaller army wins. Sometimes the smaller army has better, more tenacious, and more resilient fighters. Sometimes you lose a battle but go on to win the war.
Suppose that there is a real dispute over who owns a piece of land, or a house, and there’s a lawsuit at private court about it. Say that nobody truly knows who owns it. Is violence unavoidable at this point? You might say “yes”, but it is not.
Have you ever heard of time-shares? A so-called “private court” - mutually trusted and chosen by the plaintiff’s D.R.O. and the defendant’s D.R.O. - could decide that the two litigants should each take the house for six months out of the year (or some more detailed arrangement optimized to accommodate as many of their needs as possible).
Have you heard of buildings having multiple levels? If two people want to occupy the same territory, one of them can live at the ground level, and the other can live in the basement or on a second floor or attic.
Violence is avoidable. You just have to keep looking for peaceful solutions which are sufficiently agreeable to all parties involved.
I heard your conversation with former Libertarian presidential candidate, and radio host, Darryl Perry.
I’m sorry to hear that your take-away from that conversation, was apparently that different armed enforcement agencies would fight each other for the right to defend people’s parcels of land. That is not at all what a stateless market society would involve.
As I hope I’ve made clear, territory would have nothing to do with it. If you hire someone to protect your property, and then leave for the day, and you come back and some other guard has kicked his ass and taken his place, then that would be considered an attack and an act of theft.
That upstart guard (who’s really just a terrorist) would not “win” just by defeating someone else who was hired specifically to guard someone’s property for them. Anyone who forces people to pay them – or tries to give someone a service against their will, by first occupying their land, and then saying they’ve defended it – will be considered a financial criminal (and in the case of this example, a trespasser as well).
When it is done involuntarily (ignoring the need to respect the consent of the governed), or done by a corrupt government, then taxation is immoral. When the tax rate is egregious, or the type of tax is economically inefficient, then that is an insult to injury.
Liberals should keep the following facts in mind that when the punishment for not paying your taxes is going to jail:
1) the fact that you can “choose” to go to jail, doesn’t make paying taxes “optional”;
This is not necessarily. Putting people in cages is not necessary. Threatening people with guns as a first-ditch effort is not helpful.
Force isn’t how you turn bad people into good people. Force, and the legal use of it, only show bad people how to get away with what ought to be considered crimes.
It is possible to get people to pay their taxes without the threat of force. Just provide them with a wide array of options.
It’s not that you want people to give the I.R.S. money; presumably the point is to fund public services and infrastructure, right?
So, then, why not say to people who don’t want to pay their taxes, “Give us a few weeks of physical labor per year, to clean up parks and construct government buildings, and then you won’t have to pay anything.”? Why not let them work in lieu of payment, or opt out of certain programs in exchange for a reduced tax bill, or let the citizen make suggestions himself?
I hope that, by increasing the number of alternatives available to people, we can arrive at a place where participation in taxation, government programs, and eventually government itself, are wholly voluntary.
I should add several points about income taxation before moving on.
First off, the Sixteenth Amendment (which allowed the federal taxation of income) was rushed through Congress, and voted on at a time when lawmakers were eagerly awaiting their trips home for the holidays. Essentially, congressmen were pressured to approve of that amendment.
14.
Conclusion: Run for President
I hope that you understand, now, that there are libertarians
– like me, Robert Murphy, Gary Chartier, Stefan Molyneux, and others – who
believe that it is never acceptable to force anybody to buy
any particular product, and never acceptable to force anybody
to fund, or become a member of, any insurance company, or government, or
arbitration agency, or anything else.
To say otherwise is a denial of our natural freedom to resist
subordination to involuntary servitude, a right with which we were born.
We must protect legitimate property claims, and people’s freedom
of choice, which includes their freedom to boycott any agency they please; even
the government.
If we do not have the right to boycott the current government -
and possible future governments such as insurance companies or arbitration
agencies - then we risk allowing the current state to bail-out those companies
which it favors, by altering the tax code so as to require us to buy their
products (whether directly or indirectly).
We must not surrender any of our economic power
to the state, in our quest to replace or reform our corrupt government. We must
smash the state, in order to make it possible to appeal all court
decisions, until all parties involved are satisfied.
We must smash the state – while upholding the Seventh Amendment
and protecting common-law courts – in order to prevent corrupt agencies of
government from bailing-out corrupt arbitration agencies, and from making bad
court decisions permanent and irrevocable.
If these ideas sound the least bit feasible, or promising, to you,
then I urge you to reconsider libertarianism.
And furthermore, I would urge you to consider running for the
Libertarian Party’s nomination for president in 2024, as a libertarian
socialist, libertarian Marxist, “democratic libertarian”, or “progressive
libertarian”.
I would suggest that you do so in conference with the Libertarian
Socialist Caucus, the Geo-Mutualist Caucus, and/or any other left-leaning
caucuses in the party.
I would suggest that you run on: 1) a constitutional version of
Medicare for All; 2) a constitutional minimum wage raise that includes tipped
workers; 3) a decentralized Green New Deal -type program; 4) the abolition of
I.C.E.; and 5) the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
In defending the fifth plank, I would tell more right-leaning
libertarians that, although repealing Taft-Hartley would revoke the states’
rights to have Right to Work laws, it would be a net gain for the average
worker (and the average American, poor person, and libertarian), because it
would restore private sector workers’ rights to boycott and strike without
requiring the permission of government.
If some Libertarians have a problem with this, I would suggest
that you tell them that they only want to keep Right to Work laws because those
laws were perceived as a necessary reaction to a state of affairs created by
the Wagner Act (i.e., the National Labor Relations Act of 1935).
I am referring, of course, to the requirement that the union with
a majority of support, be required to represent all workers in the bargaining
unit.
Unfortunately, all too often, it is assumed that
the union will represent all workers, and the only proof offered to show that
it has been required to represent all of them, is the fact
that they have all been made to pay union dues.
This is something that we can debate later. I would tell all
Libertarians who are concerned about your potential support of repealing
Taft-Hartley, to support you anyway, see how it goes, and then worry
about amending the Wagner Act in a way that either: 1) obligates unions to
represent all people in the workplace; or 2) gives workers more options in
terms of which union or unions they want to support (or form).
If you feel that I haven’t said anything too unreasonable during
this discussion, then I wish you luck!
I just hope that you will avoid calling for mandates, price
controls, violent enforcement, and taking away the ability of governments aside
from the federal government to respond to problems.
I also hope that you will stop crediting the government for fixing
a problem, when in fact all it did was fund it, or swoop in at the last minute
and give it a seal of approval. If we assume that government can do everything,
then we might stop innovating and producing, and we might forget to honor the
hard work of people who never worked for the government.
I also hope that you will do something to fix a society which
seems, on one hand, to be made up of an excessively risk-averse government and
health industry, and on the other hand a self-destructive populace which is so
unafraid of taking risks that it is not worried about experiencing consequences
because the taxpayer will usually foot the bill.
I am getting really sick of being expected to continue to support,
fund, and enable other people’s self-destructive behavior. A society plagued
with drug addiction, self-mutilation as a fashion statement, and suicidal
ideation, should not endlessly support risky and
self-destructive behavior.
Enabling self-destructive and risky behavior leads to suicide and
accidental deaths, and ass a moral person, I refuse to support that. The need
for every person to have as much independence as is realistically possible for
them – independence from addiction, from capitalism, from corrupt government,
and more – matters more to me (and should matter more to them) than
their material comfort, and their ability to constantly feel pleasure.
There is more to life than groveling at the feet of whomever will
give us the most money. There is more to life than protecting yourself from
experiencing the consequences of your actions.
It’s fine to want to take care of people, and provide for health care
and mental illness treatment, and to help people afford those services. But we
should never pretend that the federal government’s endless supply of money,
makes the problems of getting sick, and experiencing mental illness, into
things that don’t need to be taken seriously.
The debt is a real problem. Our culture of irresponsibility is a
real problem. A consequence-free culture is a real problem. They are real
problems, and they cannot be ignored.
15. Post-Script
(added on July 14th, 2021)
In August 2019, Medium.com
reported – in an article titled “The Ideological Failure of the Young Turks” –
that Emma Vigeland, co-host of Majority Report with Sam Seder, has ties
to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
Medium reporter Robbie Jaeger
reported that one of Vigeland’s parents once donated several thousand dollars
to each Gillibrand and then senator Kamala Harris, and also that Vigeland interned
for Gillibrand’s senatorial office. Jaeger characterized Vigeland as “understating”
the degree to which her family is “establishment Democrat”.
http://medium.com/@RobletoFire/the-ideological-failure-of-the-young-turks-90c15ddde408
I hope that you and Emma are aware
that Senator Gillibrand’s father defended the NXIVM Hollywood sex cult.
According to a 2006 court document
published by Frank Parlato, Kirsten Gillibrand’s father, Douglas Rutnik, worked
as an attorney for the NXIVM sex cult, earning a $100,000 retainer.
http://frankreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2006-06-29-rudnick-settlement-agreement.pdf
Additionally, according to the
article below from Big League Politics, a man named John Tighe claims
that he saw Senator Gillibrand sat at “the NXIVM table” at a Hillary Clinton
fundraiser.
http://bigleaguepolitics.com/court-docs-confirm-kirsten-gillibrands-father-worked-for-the-nxivm-sex-cult/
According to Frank Parlato’s and
others’ reports, Douglas Rutnik was fired by NXIVM and had to pay them
$100,000. Then, Gillibrand accepted money from Clare Bronfman (who was funding
NXIVM).
These reports make it sound like
Rutnik was betrayed by NXIVM, and that could be true. But keep in mind that he
worked for them, how well they paid him, and also the reports claiming that
Rutnik fell in love with Gillibrand’s stepmother because of the cult.
http://www.artvoice.com/2018/06/23/nxivm-love-story-kirsten-gillibrands-father-and-stepmother-fell-in-love-because-of-sex-slaver-cult/
I hope that you and Emma Vigeland
(and her parents) will stay away from Gillibrand, for the sake of your safety,
and the safety of anyone who might come into contact with the Gillibrands, or members
of the Bronfman family or remaining members of the NXIVM sex cult, as a result
of not suspecting anything insidious about Senator Gillibrand’s connections.
Written on July 8th and
9th, 2021
Published on July 9th, 2021
Edited and Expanded on
July 12th, 13th, and 14th,
2021
Post-Script Added on July 14th, 2021
Section 1 on Alex Jones and "reptilians"
edited and expanded on September 21st, 2021
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