Tag Archives: Molyneux

Anarchy is Old

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Discovering and developing the anarchist mindset over the last few years, all these ideas seem to be new and novel to me.

Yet, while researching the history of the concept of voluntary interaction instead of force, I am finding that the ideas I encountered first through modern anarchists like Larken Rose or Stefan Molyneux are not really new, but that these people stand on the shoulders of others that have carried the torch of personal liberty before them.

Just as for me personally the ideas become clearer and more obvious with the time I am exposed to them, so the ideas themselves have become clearer and self-evident through the attention they get from thinkers and philosophers through history, and will, most likely, continue to develop.

Today I watched a video made in the 80s that I want to share here…

It helped me find another resource that I will now research further – Emma Goldman. Thanks to the internet and mp3 I can now fill my time in the car with the study of a very early anarchist.

Another proponent of the idea of personal liberty who I am still wrapping my mind around, is Richard J. Maybury. (Thank you, Nicole, for introducing me!) He does not call himself an anarchist, even though, judging by his ideas, he probably is one, or at least close to one. It would be hard for me to understand why, if one understands the inherent dangers of governmental powers, one then would continue to support it, even on a very limited level. If rape is bad, then you want to get rid of it and don’t keep a little bit of it, just in case there is a psycho who needs to let off some steam.

So, Richard, I call you as an anarchist, even though it would be nice to have a word for the proponent of a stateless society that is not also a synonym for the initiator of chaos and mayhem. This brings up a point that is also made in the movie above: using the concept (and word) of patriotism as support for one’s country as well as its government, while in fact the two are very different things.

I can certainly love my country and everything it is – thus being patriotic – without also supporting those people who are claiming it – unjustified, I might add – as theirs, including all the workforce in it. Thinking of it, I believe that, in order to be patriotic, I would have to do everything possible to rid a country claiming to be free, of the elements that try to enslave the people living in it.

But back to Richard Maybury. I just finished his book Whatever Happened to Justice, in which he explains the difference between natural (common) law and political law.

One little tidbit jogged my mind.  It is an example for the fact that under natural law all people are treated equally, including government officials. I want to quote this here:

The Criminal Justice Museum in Rothenburg, Germany, has a copy of the Sachsenspiegel, the common law of the Saxons, which was used as a top law-book from 1220 until 1900. It explained how to bring suit, inheritances, property rights, guardianships, and so on. So that illiterate persons could read and understand, each law was illustrated with a picture.

Exhibits in the museum show that German law was especially hard on government officials who were caught committing fraud. In Augsburg, Germany, if the head of the government mint were caught debasing and inflating the coinage, the penalty was loss of a hand. If his inflation amounted to more than 60 pfennigs ( 4.8 ounces of silver, about $25 in today’s money) he was burned at the stake.

Consider this in light of our current situation where politicians print money as if there is no tomorrow, thus debasing and inflating our money. I wonder how many of our “elected officials” would run around without hands and char-coaled.

Tim Hawkins tells it how it is

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There is plenty of good information out there on the vast reaches of the internet promoting a society based on voluntary interaction – such a society would not have any room for a government, which is based on the initiation of force.

One of the biggest and most successful sites of this genre is Stefan Molyneux’s site Freedomain Radio. To my dismay, great talks from Stefan on Youtube get – maybe – a few thousand views, when I wished that millions of people would get this information.

Now, how happy was I when Nicole (thank you so much) told me about Tim Hawkins. He is a comedian, a co-home-schooler and, apparently, somebody with an anarchistic streak. What made me so happy was that his parody of The Candy Man Can – The Government Can – got nearly five million (in words 5,000,000) views.

That’s the exposure people who still think voting is a good thing need. Don’t misunderstand, I am not against voting. I am just against having to choose from the (slightly) lesser evil. I am all for the voting with you wallet, in that you only pay for what you really want. Could not imagine that you would really voluntarily pay for the war on drugs, the war on Irak, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. – or the health benefits of somebody you don’t even know.

You know I am talking about taxes, right? Extortion, that the nice politician that you just voted into office, extracts from you at gun-point, yes?

So, when you start voting with your wallet and don’t pay those politicians any more, then Mr. Hawkins will have to make some new song soon – but I am sure he would like that very much.

Without further ado, here is The Government Can…

And to help you sing along, here are the lyrics:

(Hey everybody! Gather ’round! I’m here to give you
anything you like! You want free college, money,
mortgages?! Whatever you like! You have come to the
right place! Why? I’ll tell you why!)

Who can take your money?
With a twinkle in their eye?
Take it all away and
Give it to some other guy

[Chorus]
The Government
The Government can!

Who can tax the Sun rise?
Who can tax the trees?
Let you run a business and
Collect up all the fees

[Chorus]

The Government can ’cause
They mix it up with lies and
Make it all taste good!

The Government takes
Everything we make
To pay for all of their “solutions”
Healthcare, Climate Change, Pollution
(Throw away the Constitution)

Who can give a bailout?
Tell us to behave?
Make the Founding Fathers
Roll over in their graves

[Chorus]

The Government takes
Everything we make
They’re power hungry
And malicious

The economics are fictitious
Soon we’ll have to eat our dishes
Mmm! Delicious!

Who can be a failure?
In so many ways?
Instead of getting fired, HEY!
We’ll give ourselves a raise!

[Chorus]

The Government can ’cause
They mix it up with lies and
Make it all taste good!
And your government can ’cause
they mix it with lies and
Makes it all taste good!

And I feel so good
Because the Government
Says I should! Oh!…

Cynicism and Reservation towards Authority

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There are now two-thirds in the family that more or less tell me I should not bitch so much about cops, politicians and consorts.

I could not help wonder if I am really that cynical towards authority. Looking at it from the point of view of somebody who is afraid of what authorities can do if you don’t honor and cherish them, I do see that I might appear rather cynical.

The example I have in mind is a remark that I have made probably more than once when I see some cops pulling over an old lady for some little traffic violation: feeling much safer now that those cops handled another hardened criminal and rid the streets of her!

Lately my son pipes in, in instances like this, with the (true) statement that not all cops are bad. Obviously I want him to be critical of authority – what else would you expect from an anarchistic father? – but do I cause the opposite to occur by making authority a victim of  my cynicism?

I actually don’t want to by cynical – it’s supposed to be funny! I know just too well that fighting again somebody or something will make that target only stronger, anywhere from actually winning against me to succumbing but becoming a martyr and thus gaining sympathy from well-meaning people.

I also know that the only way to rid us of these little tyrants is to ignore them. Just withholding any energy from them – good or bad – because this is what they live on. I believe it was Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio who predicted  that the current system will go out with a just whimper. It makes total sense to me that somebody or something parasitic will just whither away once the food source is withheld.

Everybody who understands this only has to do one thing – spread the word without falling into the trap of preaching. Say what you have to say and back off. No defending of the statement if it is attached, no arguing for it and not even cynical remarks of laughter. Just see, say and move on.

Here is a story, that appeared as a “letter the editor” in the Jackson, MS news paper on August 29, 2009, to practice that on…

Dear  Sirs:

During my last night’s  shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer  status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has  money to buy beer.

And  our Congress expects me to pay for this woman’s health care? Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality  hospitals, doctors or nurses.  It is a crisis of culture — a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices  while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks “I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of  me”. Life is really not that  hard. Most of us reap what we sow.

Don’t  you  agree?

Starner Jones,  MD
Jackson, MS

We can look at this situation with fury and get all worked up about it or we could just look at it from the far future as an interesting historical deviation from sanity.

And it’s definitely nothing to get cynical about it – so, no more cynicism for me!

Germania v. Washingtonia

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Synchronicities are always surprising and can, at times, be outright scary. Here is one that is somewhat in the middle.

Sometime last week I talked to somebody and the subject of Washington came up. The drives or walks along the impressive buildings oozing history, statesmanship and greatness of this nation. Did not really think much more about it and actually had the thought that I should take my son there and show him the sights that document how great this nation is.

This thought did not fit quite in with my latest subjects of study, my journey into the philosophy and realization of anarchy (*) but then again, I just had a chat with a friend who told me how she took her daughter to DC to show her the sights.

But the universe, or whoever that might have been, could not just let that sit there, no, it had to rub my nose into my glibness regarding this display of of state power, built in a way so that the people who actually build these temples for their masters, were even proud of their accomplishment.

So what did the universe (et al) do? – It threw this video into my general direction , so that I could not look past the facts any more…

Germania would have been bombastic, I’m sure, probably similar to how Washington, DC feels today to all the school children visiting the cradle of this greatest nation of the world, looking at the wonders and temples build to honor our politicians. I guess, as Hitler was not really a politician and lawyer, he was a lot more honest at what he was doing – Heil, Hitler! – for helping me to see a bit better what is going on and confirming the words of my two favorite anarchists (yes, I have two now!) – Larken Rose and Stefan Molyneux.

(*) anarchy: this word has two main meanings, one, that is often used in emotionally charged arguments, is a synonym for chaos and lawlessness, but the other one is the more objective definition of

  1. a state of society without government or law
  2. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
a state of society without government or law.