Equilibrium Bound

So yes, everything is about individual choice … the choice to consume this or that product, to consume this or that service, to abstain from consuming in favor of saving, to organize a boycott of a particular producer or supplier, to compete with or to invest in existing companies, etc.

fictionalauthority

"I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one." —Voltairine de Cleyre

"The fall of Empire is not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on for centuries and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop."

— Isaac Asimov

"This is war—every crime which human nature can commit or imagine, every horror it can perpetrate or suffer; and this it is which our Christian Government recklessly plunges into, and which so many of our countrymen at this moment think it patriotic to applaud! You must excuse me if I cannot go with you. I will have no part in this terrible crime. My hands shall be unstained with the blood which is being shed. The necessity of maintaining themselves in office may influence an administration; delusions may mislead a people; ... but no respect for men who form a Government, no regard I have for 'going with the stream,' and no fear of being deemed wanting in patriotism, shall influence me in favour of a policy which, in my conscience, I believe to be as criminal before God as it is destructive of the true interest of my country."

— John Bright, M.P., on the Crimean War, 1854

#empire

#religion #atheism #anarchism #slavery

pages 58-59 of The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

Americans Have Always Been Obsessed With National Security

http://reason.com/archives/2016/02/28/the-constitution-and-the-standing-army

The American Nationalism Problem

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-gaddie/the-american-nation-probl_b_8733102.html

#Shirky Principle

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12, The Bible, New Testament

Such a convenient theological perspective for Earthly authorities comprised of “flesh and blood.”

No, the liberals and politicians are the enemy. Being in the military, I think I have only encountered one person who said they would follow a confiscation order. I also know many in fed and local LE and guess what, most are former military who also will not go door to door for two reasons- one, they believe it’s an illegal order and wont follow it. two- they don’t want to get shot over it. If politicians and he left want it so bad, you all can go door to door, because we won’t do it for you.

Then where have all the people in uniform been as the people's liberties and wealth have continually eroded by the government over the last century????

Why have brave government whistle blowers not been rescued and vindicated by people in uniform????

bodhioshea-deactivated20230215

What is your opinion on college? Is it necessary to survive well in the western world? And if so is it at the expense of an individual's autonomy as a free thinker?

My opinion is that it’s unnecessary for most fields of study. If you wish to take formal courses, you can find lots of free and discounted classes offered online from universities, colleges, and educational institutions of all sorts. Otherwise information about most topics under the sun is so widely available and cheap that if you’re passionately curious, you can educate yourself for little to no cost.

No, it’s not necessary for most fields of study and careers.

I don’t think university or college damages one’s autonomy or ability to think freely because it’s so short in duration. Plus there are some benefits one can gain from a traditional college experience including being exposed to people and ideas not native to your place of upbringing. But again, the internet now offers exposure to diverse people and ideas that universities and urban centers used to only provide. Far more damaging to one’s development is the 12+ years spent in K-12 schooling, although college student debt is no small burden either.

#education #reply

… Domination begins at home. The fact that these arrangements became subjects of political consternation does not mean they were political in origin. Slavery finds its origins is war. But everywhere we encounter it slavery is also, at first, a domestic institution. Hierarchy and property may derive from the notions of the sacred, but the most brutal forms of exploitation have their origins in the most intimate of social relations: as perversions of nurture, love and caring. Certainly, those origins are not to be found in government.

What if domination at home served an essential evolutionary purpose for the survival of the species as states emerged? What if patriarchy and punitive parenting originally functioned as survival mechanisms during high rates of attrition during and after the Neolithic Revolution?

The costs of Neolithic statehood were many: disease from urban crowding, malnutrition from grain dominant diets, and war for fertile land. Population growth was stagnant, and so increasing birth rates required a policy of deliberate and dutiful sex. So patriarchy emerged when both child bearer and child were seen as a matter of national security. You could say sexual relations became “nationalized.” Thus men became a sort of fertilizing warden in the home deputized by the state via marital and polygamy laws which rendered wives and children as their property. The value of Neolithic women and children became denominated in the fertility and submissiveness of women and in the child’s conformity to a refined Neolithic life of enclosure, sedentism, and fitting into the hierarchical castes of priests, soldiers, and laborers.

Yes, hierarchy and property did derive from notions of the sacred, but the sacred was whatever the community concluded was essential to its survival. And a deliberate policy of aggressive procreation supported absolute rule outside the home (ie states) and absolute rule inside the home (ie patriarchy) CONCURRENTLY. The arrangement was symbiotic and reinforcing. The state granted authority to men inside the home. In return men possessed women at will and offered their children up to state service and on occasion divine sacrifice.

funnytwittertweets

But trust must be earned, right? Trust is a prerequisite for humans to live in community. Community is a prerequisite for the survival of the species. So yes, your “living” must continually be earned by proving yourself to be trustworthy, capable, and consequently valuable to your community. Of course you may always exit community and test your survival in isolation amidst nature, its hostile elements, and its predators. Either way, whether you be within community or without, your survival must be earned on a regular basis.

bodhioshea-deactivated20230215

Liberia found a stunningly effective way to reduce violent crimes. Now the US is trying a similar experiment.

What if instead or cash and therapy they had community?

What a totally pathetic article. Hey, this just in: Researchers have spent time and money doing important research to discover something never before known … that you can buy and manipulate vulnerable people into compliance. So essentially you can prevent spontaneous, petty theft with centralized, bureaucratic preemptive theft! Who would have ever guessed that???

Authentic community is based on freedom of association. And this implies also freedom of disassociation. The possibility of exile from a community must always accompany the offer of admission into a community. If association cannot be revoked unilaterally, it cannot ever be voluntary and mutually beneficial.

How about instead of political theft to reduce criminal theft, or as Bastiat put it, “legal plunder” to remedy plunder, let’s stop criminalizing consensual behavior. Let’s give people the space and freedom necessary to live as they wish. This is how you incentivize membership into communities and thereby elicit pro-social behaviors that communities inherently find valuable. Paying people to be anti-social results in decivilization, period. Leave it to Vox to promote the end of civilization… 🙄

anarchist-art

Could you explain how education is used to manipulate the masses?

I would say schooling or public education manipulates the masses. Education can be positive, but it depends on the methods used and who’s in charge of it.

Public schools are quite literally institutionalized propaganda camps. Even the useful benefits of public schooling come with negative side effects such as being conditioned to accept the authority and expertise of state approved agents (i.e. teachers), expecting rewards for being compliant, and being risk averse and fearful of failure.

ancap-curt

(via Reddit - Dive into anything)

“Wage slavery is still slavery. It may provide a few creature comforts, but a wage slave is even more disposable than a slave.” -- G.K. Chesterton