Is the FDA finished? / Things they don't teach you in high school

In an earlier post, I expressed hope that the murderous statist FDA would one day be toppled. A former vice-president of Pfizer says he expects the FDA will be finished soon:

And when the FDA is caught red handed making decisions that have nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics and religion, the trust in the FDA effectively ends.

The FDA, as we know it, is finished, and here's why:

It was just revealed that two key Food and Drug Administration officials recently testified that former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford took them out of the agency's normal drug approval process, in order for him to personally block over-the-counter sales of an important early pregnancy contraceptive or "morning-after pill."
(...)
And who's behind this decision? The usual suspects. Conservative groups and religious fundamentalists have lobbied the FDA and the White House against nonprescription Plan B sales.

Yet another little item you haven't learned in school or hear about in the media : seat belt laws are based on false science. Two empirical studies found higher death rates, especially for pedestrians, after seat belt laws are passed, and governments use extrapolations from crash tests (which, conveniently, do not take into account the risk of accidents OR pedestrial fatalities) in order to cook up their numbers.

[Professor John Adams'] conclusion was that in the eighteen countries surveyed, accounting for approximately 80% of the world's motoring, those countries with seat belt laws had fared no better, and in some cases (e.g. Sweden, Ireland and New Zealand) significantly worse than those without. In particular, those outside cars (pedestrians and cyclists) had experienced significant increases in fatalities involving cars.
(...)
The author of the Isles report was alarmed to find that in Europe the predominant effect of seat belt legislation was of increased numbers of injuries to non-car users. The author predicted that in the UK, deaths to other road users would rise by approximately 150 per year in the event of compulsory seat belt wearing legislation. In terms of injuries to other road users the prediction was for a 11% increase in pedestrian injuries with injuries to other road users climbing by 12 to 13% (numerically 7,000 and 36,000 respectively).
(...)
The year of the law saw increases in deaths to pedestrians of 135 per year and of deaths to cyclists of 40 per year, a 75 year high and somewhat in excess of Isles' predictions. There was a reduction in driver fatalities and an increase in fatalities of rear passnegers (not covered by the law). A subsequent study of 19,000 cyclist and 72,000 pedestrian casualties seen at the time suggests that seat belt wearing drivers were 11-13% more likely to injure pedestrians and 7-8% more likely to injure cyclists.

Who loses once again? Yes, everyone in unison... GOVERNMENT WINS, WE LOSE! Especially if, like me, you don't have a car. Of course, government workers and workers at big corporations don't walk their way to work now don't they?

Somali freedom defeated

The defeat we had been waiting for has arrived. The anarchy in Somalia is over. Thanks to the US government's reckless foreign policy (attacking Somalia without success, applying pressure for a new state, and recently giving financial backing to some faction leaders to fight others, provoking the Islamic faction), good has once again lost in the world. All the economic and technological progress that the Somalis have done in the past 16 years without a state will mean nothing in the end.

The great anarchist experiment in uplifting the third-world from poverty will be nothing more than yet another footnote on the path of the American Empire steamroller.

Are libertarians against everything?

A common criticism of libertarianism is that we are intractable - that indeed, we simply don't like any use of political power at all, that we are unyielding, and that we simply won't allow people their own comfort, security nets, or what have you.

To a certain extent, this criticism is due to the political presence of libertarianism. When engaging on the public arena, libertarians tend to have to play a retreating battle, shouting briefly to protest a new law, then having to fight against the law that comes after that one. As the state constantly grows, very few victories can be won by a libertarian party.

Of course, the idea of a libertarian political party is absurd and laughable. Then again, so is the idea of a federal separatist party, and we have that too. Absurdity apparently does not prevent people from forming political parties - but why should it? Pretty much all politicians (there are exceptions that prove the rule) are clowns and the butt of ridicule already, so we shouldn't expect little incongruities like that stop them.

Should this mean that libertarians must always oppose, oppose, oppose? Not at all. In theory, I am not socially opposed to anything. I just don't want to participate in it. I believe that you should be free to join unions, have a minimum wage, ban guns amongst yourselves, prevent each other from having abortions or smoking pot, have social security, put a fucking hundred foot Ten Commandments monument on your lawn (which breaks one of the commandments anyway, but I suppose that's details to a fundie), or even start another holy war.

Statists, on the other hand, believe that I should be forced to finance or obey their insanities at the point of a gun. They believe that no one should have a different way of life from what they feel is best for society.

The real opposers, therefore, are the statists. They are the ones who want to suppress all other ways of life. I want to suppress none - in fact, I think society would be better off if everyone was free to live any way they want, even if they are so insane that they start a state amongst themselves.

In that regards, the difference between statists and anarchists is very much like the difference between Christians and atheists. Christians seek to impose a way of life on others as part of their worldview. It is part and parcel of being a Christian that one must attack other people's choices. Atheists don't mind if someone wants to be a Christian, as long as it is a personal, moral choice, and not the product of childhood brainwashing or social pressure.

We understand that some people are not strong enough to live in reality. We're not utopians. Neither are anarchists utopians. Utopian means a system that seeks to change human nature or clashes against it. Market anarchy is not utopian, since we don't want to change people - on the contrary, we take human nature as an inescapable premise. People will always have different value systems. That is a fact. Market anarchy permits them to express those value systems. It is statism, with its attempts to impose a singular ruling class value system at the point of a gun, which is utopian.

Take the example of unions. Are unions useful and progressive? You bet your ass they are. Should unions be able to use the power of the state to force everyone in a workplace to join them? No way. That's enslavement to other people's choices - and democratic choices to boot! Democracy is evil, and I wouldn't want to join any union which used a democratic process to take important decisions about my livelihood, let alone be forced to join it. Do I think other people should be able to join one if they want? Sure. Might I join a union which didn't use force to get its members, and which didn't use democracy for decision-making? Definitely.

Am I against unions? No. I am against the state. I want those groups of thugs and murderers to be judged for their crimes and recognized as the grand fraud that they are. When this is done, you can mushroom all the fucking unions you want - you can litter the whole landscape with unions if that's what you want. But leave the people who disagree with you alone, or deal with us like adults, not like children who need to be punished for talking back to their mother.

No more statist comments

All statist comments from now on will be filtered. This is a market anarchist blog. It's not made for dialogue with the opposition, to accomodate trolls, or whatever you think it's for. This blog exists for the sole purpose of technical discussions of political theory from a market anarchist perspective. If you don't like that, go to whatever blogs you read and stop annoying me.

Why would anyone troll a blog about political theory anyway? Don't you children have better hobbies nowadays? Can't you go skateboard or have sex or something?

Dontregulate.org / The Crucial Gap

The Flash animation at Dontregulate.org is a great explanation of the "Net Neutrality" scam. And if you damn liberals want to complain about that site, yes, I know they are financed by these people and those people, and so on. Everyone is financed by someone. The only difference is, they make sense and you don't.


On LewRockwell.com, Gene Callahan discusses "The Most Crucial Gap in Politics", on why minarchists are not like anarchists at all :

Picture yourself wandering into a hall within which a large, all-male crowd has assembled, each man present anxious to argue his position on the subject of wife beating. Some attendees defend their right to beat their spouse whenever she has been annoying. Others regard that stance as too permissive, asserting that wives should only be assaulted over more important matters such as, for example, family finances. Yet a third faction holds that spousal abuse is only justified in the most vital cases and only if no less onerous means can guarantee the desirable outcome: for instance, when one’s wife will not contribute as much as one believes she ought to the family’s security.

You find the proceedings quite disturbing, as you consider assaulting any other person to be immoral, even if it appears to be the only way to achieve some important and otherwise desirable end. Violence directed at another, you hold, is only just in self-defense, and then only to the extent necessary to thwart one’s assailant.

Imagine your surprise if the members of the group that advocates wife beating only in extreme circumstances declares that they are your natural allies, proclaiming that the difference between your position and theirs is a trifling matter when contrasted with the large gap separating the minimalist beaters from those more enthusiastic about the practice.

Hey, "Michael Badnarik"

To the ridiculously ineffective troll called "Michael Badnarik":

I know where you come from.

Go cry to your liberal friends. I could parody a liberal far better than you parody me. Tell them to send a better troll next time, jackass.

UPDATE : Now he's claiming that this post is a "meltdown". What a damn sissy. Well, anything to claim victory, I guess - even when you get your ass kicked for not even being a good troll.

The properties of propaganda part 2

There are two ways to accomplish this, subsidies and force. The state may subsidize artists who produce acceptable artworks (which basically amounts to subcontracting propaganda), or it may threaten to revoke a licence to any artist who does not follow these same guidelines (licences are the easiest way to implement threat-based control). The example of artists also illustrates that, while propaganda starts from the ruling class, it is not exclusively the work of the ruling class. So we cannot let our guard down on the basis of a specific message being delivered by a private organization or corporation.

Look at the most popular television shows today, that glorify policemen and politicians, and movies that glorify war. These are the biggest agents of force. The biggest agents of progress - private industry and science - are villified, or at best seen as tools for a greater goal. Even nature shows nowadays can't show us animals without giving us a broadside of environmentalist propaganda.

The second property of propaganda is that its role is not to convince you to adopt something by appealing to your value system (as advertisement does), but rather to align your value system with that of the ruling class. This implies a marginalization of self-interest, individualism, and rationality.

In this regard we can compare political propaganda to religious doctrines. Both appeal to man's desire to conform and his risk-aversion. Both try to use this leverage to get him to deny his own values and inherent compassion in favour of the values of his rulers. Propaganda would be worthless without the mental acceptance of its targets, as people simply do not accept lies without question. Most of us are indoctrined from early childhood to believe in God and the state, and thus are naturally brainwashed to accept propaganda lies.

One aspect which is not touched by the previous definitions is that of the argument from morality. Propaganda is especially suited for a duplicitous use of morality, because after all propaganda aims to change one's personal morality. Of course, any propaganda has to deliberately ignore the coercive principles underpinning any statist moral argument, because that would expose it as fraudulent.

For example, a proponent of socialized medicine may argue that chaining medicine to the apparatus of government would be better for the least fortunate; that it exemplifies the principles of equality and security; that health care is a right. These arguments are all complete lies, but the biggest lie of all is the omission of how all of this is supposed to be accomplished in the first place. Are all the needed resources going to materialize from thin air ? Of course not. They will come at the point of a gun. That, and the fact that no government program ever works, is the only certainty in political affairs.

In fact, the argument from morality has been so monopolized by propaganda that, any time you hear someone use moral terms like "freedom", "values", "equality" or "ethics", you can be almost certain that they are lying (unless, of course, they are individualists, but that is rare in itself). This is why there is the utmost need of propaganda in times of war - war is in itself such a morally atrocious concept that it takes a lot of propaganda to dress it up in jingoistic language and make it look good. Propaganda seems to always be applied to support the most atrocious and absurd amongst the collectivist beliefs necessary to the state - war, the police monopoly, politico-science scares (including the most murderous organization in the United States, the FDA), and of course the most absurd of them all, democracy.

Can we now define propaganda from a market anarchist perspective ? I think so. Bytwerk's definition is succinct, but I would amend it to read : the systematic attempt to persuade a public to accept the value system of the ruling class through psychological manipulation, especially fallacious arguments from morality, with the goal of legitimizing the activities of the state. The ultimate goal of propaganda is to facilitate exploitation. A government without propaganda is generally hard to maintain, as free individuals will not tend to attribute legitimacy to an organized band of thieves. It is solely because of propaganda that democratic governments have been able to attain their full potential of exploitation.

Using "the poor" as a moral totem

After I expressed my opposition to Net Socialism:

http://uberkuh.com/node/623

Hehe, it's interesting that while Francois claims to be an anarchist I can predict his opinions on issues solely by asking myself "What would benefit the rich the most?"

He would like the government to be abolished so that the ruling power would exclusively be wealthy corporations who wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of the people getting some influence in their own lives.

And here we have one of the most widespread and ridiculous moral arguments in favour of the existence of the state - in fact, three related arguments.

1. Without the state, "the rich" would take over.
2. We need the state because the state protects "the poor" against "the rich".
3. In a market anarchy, we would be ruled by giant corporations.

The first argument is ridiculously easy to disprove : most successful politicians were professionals or businessmen of one kind or another. "The rich" have already taken over. And those who are not politicians have the loudest voice in the democratic system, and they get to exert domination indirectly through the law, while suffering no consequence to themselves. The state can pass corporatist laws, create corporate monopolies and trusts all it wants, and people like the one quoted above don't complain - in fact, they see this as a great achievement. But heavens forbid that we have codes of law that are actually accountable to the people!

In a democracy, the poor do not have a voice, apart from a rudimentary sense of decency from the masses. The people who have the loudest voices are those who can support the state - through ideas (demagogues, artists, politico-scientists, pseudo-intellectuals) and through money. Democracy maintains a gigantic ruling class of exploiters. CEOs of big companies are right up there with them, and "the poor" are part of the group that always loses - no matter what is decided. No matter what is decided, we, the "common people", those who are not in the ruling class, ALWAYS LOSE (and if you are in the ruling class, why the fuck are you reading this blog?). There are so few exceptions to this rule that it might as well be written in gold.

This brings another issue to mind. This guy believes that, if left to their own devices, people would trade with big megacorps instead of smaller corporations to get their services. And obviously he thinks that is a very bad thing. If that's true, then why does he expect it to happen anyway? Either he is the only moral person on Earth, which is rather laughable, or other people can make the conscious decision of trading with "the rich" - because they offer better services, because their prices are lower, or for whatever reason - and his whining is pointless.

The second kind of argument is even more ridiculous. I say it is ridiculous because anyone with any moral feeling at all can see that this cannot be the case at all. Someone who threatens others at the point of a gun, with no provocation whatsoever, has no intention of helping people. He is a criminal, who refuses to use reason when dealing with others and thus uses the power trip of the gun to get his will done. The same is true for the ruling class - be it a politician in his ivory tower voting more freedom away, or a cop working the streets looking for hookers and drug dealers. They are all morally corrupt, and have no real intention of helping anyone, except incidentally, when throwing money at a problem can get them more votes.

But apart from this fundamental issue, there is also the problem that states, in fact, do not help the poor. No measure has ever been established that could help the problem of poverty. From foreign aid programs that fatten dictators' wallets, to welfare systems that prevent savings and keep people entrapped, to minimum wage laws that keep the unemployed in poverty, states uniformly attack, first and foremost, the least fortunate.

The third argument is more subtle, but can be broken down to its basic meaning. What it boils down to is, who gets to dictate how you live your life? You, or someone else? In a market anarchy, the answer is "me". If I have the freedom to trade with anyone I want, including refusing to trade, how can a corporation "rule" me? The idea that corporations in a free market are my rulers is a complete ignorance of what a free market is. In a free market, I am free to trade with anyone I desire, big or small. If there is a demand for smaller agencies, then these agencies will be profitable. If people really preferred mom and pop stores over Wal-Mart, then they would survive. But they simply cannot trade enough value to the individual to be accepted.

Only states can force me to accept their rule, because states, as monopolies of force, are not accountable to anyone except their leaders' own basic sense of decency. But one person cannot rule over me, and not even corporations - which are after all just a group of people united by cooperation - because we acknowledge in a free society that such people are criminals, and must be dealt accordingly. Thus, corporatism has no place in a market anarchy. If a "corporation" tries to use violence to crush its competition or force people to buy its products, the people coerced will seek justice against the responsible individuals.

The root cause of these errors is the belief that power is a constant in human relations, and that we are simply arguing over who gets to hold that power. This is a statist mode of reasoning, made to marginalize all criticism of the state as a human construct. They desperately want you totake the state as a given, because their legitimacy depends on it, and without legitimacy - without the important-sounding names and the uniforms and the rituals - it is quite easy to realize that they are nothing more than a parasitical gang of thugs. And class warfare is just a smokescreen designed to hide that fact. Right or left, liberal or conservative - their leaders all partake of the benefits of the monopoly of force.

As long as there is a ruling class, as long as there is a concentration of power that exists for powerful people to exploit, there will be class warfare and social warfare. People like the anonymous coward quoted above think that politicians, financed by big corporations and activist organizations, who can raise as much money and manpower as they want, even send people to be killed in foreign countries, with little impunity (as long as they can build a propaganda campaign the months before), are somehow interested in the well-being of people who can contribute absolutely nothing to their success, apart from a captive audience.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the definition of a "sucker".