The "high" of perpetual wars

There is an old maxim which says "war is the health of the state". Unlike some other maxims, this is entirely accurate. No other method permits more expansion of state power against individual freedom than wars - foreign or internal. Ironically, for an organizational structure supposedly fighting against the evils of addiction, government is in fact hopelessly addicted. It is addicted to wars. The War on Drugs is no exception.

Now marijuana, no doubt, is a fine plant which has many legitimate uses. Being extremely averse to most drugs myself, I have no idea of what it's like to smoke marijuana. I'm sure it's relaxing, conductive to socialization, and so on. The medical facts, anyway, indicate clearly that marijuana is inoffensive and may even be beneficial. The medical facts also indicate that alcohol and tobacco, the two most prominent legal drugs, are the drugs most damageable to human life, even if mortality rates themselves are compared.

As for anything else the state does, there is a utilitarian reason for the War on Drugs to attack only certain drugs and not others. These reasons usually start in deep dark history, in some petty corporate or racial dispute, and the perpetuation of the system is inevitably due to the expansion of powers that it gives the state.

As it turns out, drug policies were motivated by racial disputes. Opium was made illegal because Americans feared the power of Chinese immigration, and cocaine was banned because people feared "cocaine-crazed Negroes". The ban on marijuana was based partly on its use by Mexicans, and was also seen as an alternative to the Prohibition that was going on at the time.

The benefits of war to the warring government include the following : higher taxation, general expansion of power, personal glory to politicians, dissent against the state is temporarily silenced, and the creation of new enemies. We observe this in the history of World War I and II, as well as the current American wars. There is, however, one little problem. These benefits only last as long as the threat is feared. Once the war is over, tax rates somewhat drop, although not as low as they were before the war, tbe expansion of power is stopped, and dissent returns.

This is why the state also uses perpetual wars. A perpetual war is a war whose victory conditions are unattainable, usually because the goal is a nebulous concept or for whose opposite there will always be a demand (such as "poverty", "terrorism" or "drugs"). The War on Drugs is one such perpetual war. It is an unwinnable war constructed in order to prop up the state's expansion of power.

Perpetual wars are the state's "high". And when a government gets the munchies, it does not eat chips - but rather human lives and livelihoods.

Remember the maxim ? Its reverse is also true - "the state is the health of war". Without the state, the War on Drugs would likely dissipate. Private individuals would have no incentive to pay for jail space for "victimless crimes", and the lack of strong support for the Drug War would make its persistence unlikely. Furthermore, private individuals would desire the drop in violence that would follow decriminalization, while governments have no such incentive.

Funding of science / Liberal cities are worse ?

Two interesting studies for you to look at :

1. Clifford F. Thies, back in September, posted an article on Mises.org proving that cities where people vote liberal the most are also cities with the most criminality, unemployment, and population exodus. Here is the proof.

Being an anarchist, I don't think this proves anything except that both liberalism and conservatism are bankrupt belief systems in ways that are perhaps more different than supposed.

2. A new study on private and public funding of science proves that private funding reaps more important scientific papers than public funding. Tyler Cowen argues that this probably means a lot less than one might think, but it's still an interesting and novel indictment of government.

Salaries vs Profits / Wage Gouging

Are employees "exploited" by being given far less than they produce ? Economist Scott Larsen doesn't think so :

GE's 1997 sales were $90.84 Billion, had after tax profits of $8.2 billion and had 276,000 employees. Sales-per-employee was an amazing $329,120/employee. (...) Most other companies come in below $200,000/employee. The after tax profit per General Electric employee is $29,721/employee. Even if the worst paid employee were to get $11/hr plus 30% benefits, the total compensation package is $28,600/year.

You hear about the fallacy of "price gouging", but the people over at Division of Labout ask, why aren't people talking about "wage gouging" ?

A natural disaster has caused suppliers of labor to charge more for an hour of work than they did before the disaster. If this were gas--or even the Burger King that is hiring the now more expensive workers--there would be howls of "price gouging." If charging $5 for a gallon of gas is "unbridled greed" then isn't demanding a $6,000 signing bonus? That many people view these scenarios differently indicates the real issue here is anti-capitalist animus.

Once again, for the retards

Okay, if you didn't get it the first time, let me repeat again : anarchy is not an economic position. Anarchy is simply lack of government. Anarchy is not incompatible with capitalism, or communism, or any other economic system.

Go read the front page of Simply Anarchy and then come back.

Raising the steaks

Reading the latest topic of the 9cast Carnival, I was caught in a quandary. This topic is : "U.S Education system: State, Federal or Parental control?". Unfortunately, I am an anarchist who is also against parenting, so I can't choose any of these ! And I'm not American either, so I don't particularly care what the American education system is like (although according to John Stossel, it's pretty bad compared to other developed countries).

So I'm going to have to look at this from a slightly different angle, and that is the role that the education system plays in the maintenance of government and statist belief systems.

Parts of the government, like parts of any other collectivist system, serve three main utilitarian roles : to make the system seem useful and necessary, to provide another area where government can use its power and create more social warfare, and to divert the flow of resources and the values of private individuals into supporting the apparatus of government.

Public education, and the educational system in general, is no exception to this rule :

1. It makes government seem useful and necessary - when government coercion is in fact the least efficient and useful method there is.
2. It creates another area - what to teach our children - where government creates social warfare (as the continuing saga of "Intelligent Design" continues to demonstrate).
3. It indoctrinates the children in whatever statist ideology is prevalent at the time. There is, of course, no interest in teaching children vital topics like basic economics or critical thinking when they can be indoctrinated through a patriotic rehashing of history, religious classes, or utilitarian bullshit.

Like all government systems, public education also discriminates against the masses. Private schooling has been shown to be better for the poor (in countries like India, Brazil and Argentina), and charter schools have also been shown as a superior alternative.

Finally, the educational system gives children their first taste of social warfare. I am writing this as elections are looming in Canada, and students' unions are putting out ads on television demanding more public money for schools (from who ? and how ? blank). This ad is of course paid for by various unsavory unions and organizations which would benefit from a stronger public education system. Teenagers protest without thinking and feel like they are being good little citizens, a nice echo to their later years when they will protest without thinking and feel like they are being good little citizens.

What about homeschooling ? It is difficult to argue with the empirical evidence of its greater efficacy, as well as the fact that parents will devote more time to their own children than teachers would. However, it is also a wonderful opportunity for fanatic parents to brainwash their children in their belief system and surround them with it, which they do in droves. So homeschooling is extremely dangerous for the social fabric, and is probably not worth the added efficacy.

It's Simply Anarchy

Here is a new site I've been working on : Simply Anarchy.

My basic impetus for making the site is :

1. To explain how simple and moral anarchy is.
2. To have a one-stop site for anarchists (especially anarcho-capitalists, since that's all the stuff I have) to read studies and serious articles about historical cases, about the evils of government and the facts of anarchy.

Escaping Jury Duty / Osama offers truce

"Gandalf" on the anti-state forum offers one way to get out of jury duty :

About 8 years ago I received a jury duty notice in the mail. Following the advice of several of my friends, I indicated on the return card that I was not a U.S. Citizen. A week later, a card came in the mail indicating that I was excused from jury duty because of not being a U.S. Citizen.

Does it really work ? I'll have to remember that.


Osama Bin Laden offers a truce :

We don't mind offering you a long-term truce on fair conditions that we adhere to. We are a nation that God has forbidden to lie and cheat. So both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war. There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America who have supported Bush's election campaign with billions of dollars - which lets us understand the insistence by Bush and his gang to carry on with war.

If you (Americans) are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you.

As a deal from one terrorist to another, that sounds like a pretty good deal. Of course, the imperialist warhawks are going to answer that they don't negociate with terrorists. And yet we are forced to negociate with government every day. Talk about hypocrisy.

Osama's goal with 9-11 was to drag the United States into a long war that would sink it economically. Although it didn't have that big of an impact, the War on Terrorism is certainly a big weight on the American budget, so mission accomplished so far. The United States went at war with the intention of spreading its economic imperialism, and bringing the democratic plague to the Middle East so it can put its puppets at the head of Afghanistan and Iraq. Mission accomplished so far. I'd say both terrorists have accomplished their objectives. A rousing success.

Religious slave chains

Even though slavery is over in most parts of the world, there are still millions still wearing slave chains around the world, even in Western Civilization. They are just chains of a different kind of slavery, not political, but religious. And they give rise to social controversy.

Every religion has them, but some are worse than others. On the one hand, you have your chadors and burkas, which basically completely dehumanize women and makes them chattel. You've also got your nun costume. On the other hand, you've got your "empowerment" baubles like the cross of the Christian, the Sikh's knife, and the Jew's yarmulke.

Whether voluntary or coerced, these items are used to brand the individual to a religion, to override individuality and equate its identity with that of the religion. The bauble becomes a symbol of double religious dominance - the dominance of the religion over the person, and of the religion over the rest of society.

With the cultural war turning up the heat in Europe, formerly open countries are becoming more and more intolerent of the baubles. France especially has taken steps to ban them. Is this a reasonable attitude ?

For one thing, you have to consider that a lot of the flak comes from their use in schools. Schools are special environments which must be conductive to learning (not learning individualism or critical thinking, mind you, which would be a lot more helpful, but there you go). Dress codes, including against baubles, are defendable regardless of belief system or political position.

What about women who wear chadors in the street ? The issue of identification of criminals for law enforcment has been raised. Now I think that is not a very good argument. We might as well ban ski masks, for all the good that would do.

You can always ask someone to remove their chador to be identified, just as you would with someone wearing a ski mask. Chadors don't hide nearly as much of someone as a ski mask. Now you could make the case with a burka, maybe, but that's an extreme example.

Now when a society is freed from the Sharia or other religious restrictions, or when people move to a Western country, most people stop wearing their baubles. But some will still do it out of compulsion or brainwashing. It's easy to see banning such things as forcing liberation on these people, but I think that's a facile answer. All you're doing is the equivalent of censorship : fanning the flames of their already strong persecution complex, and creating a victimless crime. People who are brainwashed into seeing their religion as sole moral refuge will only be distressed when you try to take their blankie away. It's just bad all around for social harmony in the end.

The main problem is to free people's personal values first. Then, if they still decide to wear their baubles, it's a bizarre fashion statement, not an expression of an enslaved mind. It would ease my mind if that was the case. I would still find such baubles morally wrong, but I wouldn't be distressed by them. I would just see yet another creative weirdo. Maybe some feminist wacko would come up with the idea that the burka represents women's mediatic alienation from the world because of their beauty, or some shit like that. Then we could just have a big laugh at their expense. But you don't laugh at religious missiles.