Tolerance - The New-Old Definition

What is "tolerance" and being "tolerant"? For ease of understanding I will use the very very simple definition. Tolerance is the ability to accept something while disapproving of it. This is definitely not the way tolerance is being described today by lefties and neo-liberals. Nowadays if you simply disapprove of something you are immediately being labeled a "hater" and intolerant and "backward". Take the example of homosexuality. In today's homo-tolerance debate you either have to be on the tolerant side (approve of homosexuality) or intolerant side (disapprove of homosexuality and want to ban it). Where is the place for people like me, who disapprove of homosexuality but don't want to ban or attack it per se? Where is the good old kind of Leckean tolerance, the kind where "You do what you want at your house, and I'll do what I want at mine." That kind of tolerance is long gone with the wind. The wind of socialism. Statists always want to promote social strife and conflict - and socialists are the more extreme statists. They know that real tolerance would lead to real cooperation without government coercion. There would be no war between, for example, homosexuals and Christians, just like there is no longer a war between Catholics and Protestants. They stay away from each other's Churches, but live in peace. If the government would stop looking into our bedrooms and inciting hatred I'm sure we'd get a lot more understanding in this world. After all, doesn't forcing someone to be tolerant (As the government does for example by banning "discrimination". See my earlier post on this here.) go against the very principle of toleration? I'm not a racist - but I'd like to think that as a tolerant individual I can tolerate racists, not put them in jail or hurt them for their beliefs (however false their beliefs may seem). And to the neo-liberals I say: Read John Locke, don't you yourselves claim him as the founder of your movement?

To quote Locke: If any man err from the right way, it is his own misfortune, no injury to thee; nor therefore art thou to punish him in the things of this life because thou supposest he will be miserable in that which is to come.

Wars far far far away...

Today's government see no restraint on their ability to start aggressive foreign-based wars on other continents. This is largely due to the principle of democracy. Since the leaders are the voice of the people, and the people are infallible, it only follows that the leaders have the right to do anything the please. When the USA sent troops to Iraq in 2003 and began a full scale invasion of that country (notice they gave it nice names like "Operation Iraqi Freedom") I was not surprised. War-loving Presidents were nothing new to the US. I think the war-craze began in earnest with Abraham Lincoln, who destroyed all inhibitions of war by invading and brutally conquering the Confederate States of America. To some degree, Lincoln invented Total War, something Hitler would later acknowledge (Lincoln was one of Hitler's role models). Then the list just goes on - Wilson(World War I), FDR(WWII), Truman(Korea), Kennedy(Vietnam) and finally Bush&Bush (father and son having some sort of mania of invading the Middle East). Who will Obama attack? We will have to wait and see... The real shocker to me was not the United States attacking Iraq, but Poland attacking Iraq along with the US. Being Polish, I know a thing or two about Polish history. Poland has been invaded and (sometimes) occupied around 300 times in its over 1000 year history. Most recently of course by the Soviet Union, which only removed its troops from Poland in 1990. How can a nation like Poland, whose people suffered immeasurably throughout the centuries under different occupants, now invade a country halfway around the world which is guilty of NO transgression against it? Iraqi diplomacy never as much as mentioned Poland. I don't think Saddam Hussein (the actual rightful ruler of Iraq) even knew or cared about Poland! And yet we went in there and occupied the civilian population for a number of years. How can this be justified? How can this be morally sanctioned? Someday maybe Polish (and American!) politics will grow up and apologize for all these imperialist transgressions...

British Airways Strike - How it should end...

The British Airways strike continues - 131 flights already called off (as of this moment). Luckily the airline is a very resourceful one and thanks to good management techniques and transferring flights to other carriers it has only failed to serve 7% of all its passengers since the strike started. However, this scenario got me thinking... The UK is currently facing very high unemployment (around 8-9%). It should be no problem to find workers to replace those who are unhappy with their working conditions at BA! Why shouldn't the prudent management just fire all strikers and take on new employees? Of course I don't know what the cost of training the new employees would be - so maybe my idea is not viable. On the other hand I think this is on the whole a bit fishy. Labour Unions always cause this kind of mayhem which hurts everyone, employers and consumers alike. Unfortunately the EU seems to have introduced a hugely idiotic concept of "the right to strike"! What is this "right to strike" thing? If someone goes on strike they should be well aware that their employer might get impatient and find someone else to replace the striker. That would be the natural way of things. Sadly with all our national and international government (EU) meddling in union laws and regulations, the unions have taken over the labour market almost completely in some sectors.
Look how our world has turned upside down! Many people now earn not how much they're worth, but how much we can blackmail our employers for! And the employer has no right to say "Basta! That's enough! You're fired!"... Where has private property disappeared to?

Social Darwinism is NOT Evil

For some reason many people I speak to equate Social Darwinism with real active Eugenics - Hitler style. They could not be more wrong. "Social Darwinism" is a moral, but mainly scientific, way to view evolution among people, within society. Most of my Darwinist ideas come from the writings of Herbert Spencer, arguably the greatest man of the 19th Century. He is also, sadly, the most misunderstood man of his time. Whenever I mention Spencer in "intellectual" circles (i.e. to some people who have somewhere heard or read something about Spencer) I am told he is as bad as Hitler! According to many scholars Spencer advocated the "might-makes-right" approach to morality, a world where the weak should perish and the powerful should let them die - for the good of humanity. This is blatantly false. Spencer did argue that people who are stupid and a drain on society through their own criminal ways should be eliminated. But we don't need to eliminate them actively, through evolution, they eliminate themselves! This is present where, for example, a gangster shoots another gangster or, in a legal scenario, a man kills another in a duel to which they both agreed. Nowhere does Spencer say we should harm, hurt, or kill anyone on purpose. In fact, the very act of harming others would put us into the category of people who should be eliminated. Eliminated by nature itself because "The whole effort of nature is to get rid of such, and to make room for better. (Social Statics, 1851). As for saving people who were unfortunate and their low status or health problems were not of their making, Herbert Spencer said charity is indispensible as a way to save these valuable individuals for the later good of all.
People often read Spencer's comments out of context. They read 1 or 2 chapters of his massive works and don't understand the overall picture. This is where I think this demonization of Spencer comes from.

I'd like to ask Daniel Hannan...

Mr Daniel Hannan is undoubtedly the most intelligent and articulate MEP currently on duty in Brussels. I read his brilliant blog for the Daily Telegraph (link on the left side of this page) nearly everyday. He is a member of the British Conservative Party, he is a virulent critic of the European Union, the NHS, and "the Lefties". You might think he is perfect - our Eurosceptic champion! There is, however, one major problem with his views. Namely - Daniel Hannan is a Democrat. Now I know his vision of democracy differs from the established one; he is a localist and wants democracy to work in as small and regional a way as possible. I support localism - anything that takes decision-making power from National or Global level governments is good. However, where does the democracy come in? Mr Hannan has repeatedly stated that he is a follower of the real Burkean Conservative way. Burke and Democracy don't mix! A Burkean democrat is a concept as outrageous as a "liberal democrat", something I discussed in an earlier post (here). Edmund Burke was a great critic of the French Revolution, a revolution led in the name of Rousseau and his egalitarian democratic ideals. What frustrates me most about Mr Hannan's views is that he has started to justify things based on whether a majority of people support them or not. Lately he did this in his discussion about Álvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia, being able to serve a third term as president due to popular support. Also, he has said that people should be given referendums about the Lisbon Treaty and if they reject it their voice should be heard and the treaty repealed. I, for one, don't see how referendums are relevant. If something like the Lisbon Treaty violated natural law then it must be rejected even if 100% of the people want it to take effect. I know that throughout history many Conservative Party leaders have agreed democracy is the way to go on government. Most famous was probably Winston Churchill ("Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - 1947) However, we are thinking human beings and just because a famous and great man said something in the past doesn't mean we should be parroting it today. In ages past many great men have said that the Earth was flat.
Of course Daniel Hannan and I disagree on multiple other things (he seems to have caught the "Friedman bug" when he studied economics), but democracy is most crucial.

Maybe someday I'll get to face Mr Hannan (it would be my honor!) and ask him the following question: How can a man so versed in philosophy of Law and Rights as yourself hold democracy as a legitimate system of government?

Big Government is a Big Business

Government is a business and, as every business, it must compete for customers! This is one of the best arguments against World Government and, in fact, large entities which consist of states, like the EU, USA, or USSR. As Daniel Hannan explains here Alistair Darling's plan for 60% of UK's debt to be paid of by the richest 5% of the population is ludicrous. People are simply going to move. For one, because they don't want to pay the taxes in the first place, and for two, because they know these "emergency" taxes will NEVER go back down to previous levels. It was Milton Friedman (a STATIST!) who told us that "There is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program." If I was rich, I would be worried. But, since I'm not rich, I worried even more! All these government schemes eventually end up hurting the little guy. And, as Mr.Hannan mentions, it will be the average citizen who will pay off most of the government's so-called "public debt". Unless of course the government simply goes bankrupt or defaults on its loans. David Cameron may not be a truly hardcore conservative, but by God Almighty, I hope he wins the next election by a big margin!

My Message to Mr.Cameron: Please, please bring back that real consevative Thatcherist spirit!

Alcohol tax - Discrimination?

The UK government (of which I happen to be a temporary slave) has just raised its alcohol tax by 2%. That is - now instead of paying £3 for my pint, I will have to pay £3.06! An extra 6 pence to the government which has spent its money like a drunken sailor (I am not trying to insult drunken sailors here; after all they spend their own money, not money they stole) and its coffers are completely empty.
The important question, however, is this: Why are only purchasers of alcohol being treated to the new tax? Is this not, to use their own democratic lingo, discriminatory?
The answer is: Of course it is! Why are only people who enjoy a drink or serve drinks being taxed?!
Aside from the fact that all taxation is morally indefensible, this taxation is particularly bad. If taxation is to be done, it should at least be uniform. But I guess no one has ever explained the meaning of fairness to the ruling classes (even though the rant on endlessly about "fairness" themselves). They try to justify this tax by saying alcohol is a very evil thing and the tax will make it more expensive so that fewer people buy it and less antisocial behaviour will occur. This is, of course, nonsensical. If alcohol was really evil we would be banned from drinking it just like we are banned from murdering out neighbours. Once again this is an example of glaring hypocrisy and attempted social engineering by a few self-righteous snobs (while also giving them money!). The truth is that if we had proper police the antisocial behaviour would be targeted and eliminated. Unfortunately here in the UK the police are scared of teenage girls (in some cases, so am I!, but I am not a policeman) and more interested in "promoting diversity and cooperation" than catching criminals.

I think I will pop out to the pub and have a nice cold lager before it becomes harder to afford...

Welcome to the World of Socialism America!

The US House of Representatives passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Yuppie, Obamacare!) the day before yesterday. At least none of the Republicans embarrassed themselves by voting for it, and it was close - 219 evil votes against 212 good votes. I say evil because socialism is an evil beast. Now guaranteeing a so-called "public option" insurance is nothing, but a way to get rid of private insurance in the long term. Luckily America might become bankrupt before 2014 (the year this whole thing is supposed to kick in) and so all this might still be gone with the wind soon.
There are a number of problems with this legislation (I am trying to ignore the fact that ALL legislation is ALWAYS evil) most important of which are:

1. It forces people who don't want to buy health insurance to pay for it.
2. It covers people who are too stupid to buy health insurance, not only the ones that can't afford it.
3. It will eventually lead to the end of privately run insurance and turn the USA into another socialized medicine state.

Since point 1 and 3 are pretty self-explanatory and everyone with any respect for human rights will agree are bad things (1 is a form of slavery and 3 tremendously reduces quality of life; there are thousands of articles already written about this), I will only discuss point 2.
Let's use a real life example:
There are three men. Two of them have $1000 and the third has nothing. The first decides to buy a health insurance policy or to save the money in case of a medical emergency, and the second decides to buy a 50" TV. The third has no money so he does nothing. Now if all three caught some potentially fatal disease, the first man would most likely be taken care of and survive, while the second and third would have little chance of survival (beyond charity). In a normal capitalism world, the two latter men would most likely be taken care of anyway because charity would be bountiful, but let's suppose that the charities only have enough money to save one of them. If the charities then look at the situation, they will most likely choose to save the third man (the poor one) because he had no means of saving himself. The second man (i.e. the idiot who has a very high time preference schedule) would in that scenario have to die. At the end of the day two men would be alive and both left with no money while another would be dead. Also, the health insurance company of the first man and the charity of the third man poorer by whatever cost it took to cure them (say $5000).
But suppose the exact same situation took place in a state which forces people to engage in socialized medical practice. All three men would be covered fully by the national health service provider. The entire cost of treatment for their disease (say $5000) would be payed out of the national pool of money reserved for health care. And let's assume the insurance premium was the same as in a capitalist world ($1000 per person) even though in socialist economies it would likely be much higher. If this situation was resolved all three men would remain alive at the end (I am not taking into account the chronic inefficiency and unethicality of socialized health care systems which have a high probability of not saving the three men), but the country would be $15000 poorer! Of course it would have the $2000 that was paid in premiums by the first and second men (the second man now HAS to pay), but the third man is still not paying. Instead the remaining money ($13000) is a subsidy that these three get from ALL OTHER TAXPAYERS. It is therefore a forced redistribution of wealth. Also, importantly, the second man has now survived! Despite being a short-sighted individual he still has a chance to do damage to the entire society! Moreover, man number 1 is likely to realize his responsibility does not aid him in any way and will become increasingly short-sighted himself, as will all their offspring and people they influence.

Thus socialism leads to the process Decivilization - it subsidizes fools and taxes the frugal citizens in order to do it.
Therefore the issue here is not only that, as James Madison famously said, "charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government" but also the deeper problem of decivilization.

Today I will end with a quote from Herbert Spencer: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools."

A True Human Rights Approach to Abortion

Abortion would not really be a contentious issue if only people used common sense and logic in their evaluation of its ethicality. And yet there have been volumes of published works pertaining to it, and supporting some argument or another over "abortion rights". Logic is dead - Aristotle would be devastated. But let me shorty explain what is in my opinion the only truly justifiable position in the abortion debate. There are a couple of basic premises on which I base my conclusions:
1. Everyone has the right of self-defense against any unprovoked aggression.
2. Everyone has a right to life unless he/she infringes the equal right of any other person (this is a paraphrased version of Spencer's Law of Equal Liberty of which I am a strong supporter)
Now let's apply these principles (which are definitions of basic human rights) to a few of the usually controversial cases in abortion debates. (If someone does not believe in human rights, then I assume everything that follows in this discussion is irrelevant.)
A. Abortion on request - the woman simply wants to "get rid of" the baby, giving no coherent reason other than her being willing to have the abortion performed. This case clearly violates statement number 2. The baby is not infringing the right to life of the mother, therefore she has no way to justify attacking the baby. Killing members of species homo sapiens simply because they exist or you don't like them is clearly wrong.
B. Abortion for "socioeconomic reasons" - here the mother offers certain dubious and very subjective arguments to prove her case; she can, for example, state that she doesn't know who the father is (and the baby will be worse off once it's born) or that she is unable to financially cope with taking care of a child (and the baby will be worse off once it's born). This once again violates statement number 2. Just because someone may be an inconvenience to you, does not mean you have the right to kill them (or otherwise get rid of them).
C. Abortion due to fetal defects - the baby has some genetic or developmental disorder which will impair it in later life after birth. Again (as stated in number 2), just because someone is quote "not normal" and may at some stage be a burden to you or other people, does not give anyone the right to kill that person.

These three cases were very straightforward, let's now move on to more complicated matters.

D. "Medically justified" abortion - the mother can prove with testable results that the pregnancy will harm her health (this can be anything from loss of eye-sight or hearing to death of the mother). This is a more complicated issue, I approach it from the angle of the existence of a mother-child implied contract*. Thus, when a woman willingly engages in any activity which can lead to pregnancy, she willingly creates a scenario where she says (implicitly) "this activity may result in me becoming pregnant". Therefore, once she says this, she cannot classify the possible pregnancy as something that was forced on her, but rather has to acknowledge that she now has a responsibility for the baby in her womb (I am explaining it here, but this also applies to cases A,B, and C discussed above). The woman understands the possible consequences of her pregnancy, and one of those is physical harm to her own body. Therefore strictly speaking even if she is in mortal danger she cannot kill the baby, she can only get rid of it if, for instance, the fetus is already dead. It could be said that here the woman can invoke the right given her by statement 1 (self-defense), however, it is not so. By accepting the consequences of the possible pregnancy, she has also accepted the possibility of danger! There is another solution to this problem, which I will discuss below with reference to case E (look for "evictionism").

E. Abortion after rape - the pregnancy was caused by rape. In this case, can the woman simply kill the baby because she had no implicit contract with it? I say - she cannot. As long as the baby does not pose any threat to her, she cannot kill it - it has a right to life as stated in statement 2 (even though it "entered her body" without her consent). Let me explain this with an analogous situation. If a person walks onto your property unaware that he/she is trespassing, it does not give you the right to automatically shoot or otherwise kill that person. You may only evict them from your property. Now, the baby is certainly not aware that it is trespassing inside the mother's body - it cannot yet at its low developmental stage comprehend the concept of property rights. Therefore the mother can only evict the fetus, but may not kill it. This is called evictionism (a marvelous approach developed by Dr. Walter Block). Evictionism gives the mother the right to protect her rights while also not violating the rights of the baby. It is, of course, not possible with current medical technology to evict a fetus early on in the pregnancy, but with the passage of time it will be. (Now that I have introduced evictionism, let me also say that it is a option in case D, above. It does not violate the mother-child implicit contract because it does not harm the child's rights in any way. It simply saves the mother's health). There is, however, in the case of rape, one example of abortion (killing the unborn baby) that can be justified. For this, two circumstances must exist: a) she has been raped and therefore has no implicit contract with the child (she did not agree to the risks before becoming pregnant) and b) the pregnancy is as such that it threatens her life if continued. Thus the baby (althought mentally incapable of understanding its own actions) is attacking the woman and she can invoke her right of self-defense against an unprovoked attack (as stated in premise 1 at the beginning of this discussion). In an analogous situation: if someone suddenly attacks you in the street and it is clear he/she will harm you, you have the right to strike that person down by any means possible and, if they do not stop the attack, kill them if necessary to save yourself.

*An implied contract is a contractual agreement which is not stated out loud or written down, but is still binding. An example of an implied contract is: "If I take a gun and shoot a bullet up into the sky at random, I am responsible for the damage it causes once it lands back on the ground." or "If I put a pen in my pocket and the ink leaks out, I am responsible for the damage to my trousers."

Constitutional Authority - a Fool's Hope

Whenever talking to American libertarians I come across a sub-group who call themselves Constitutionalists. This is an appeal to them:

My Good People! I thought this question was settled definitely by John C. Calhoun in his Disquisition on Government and Lysander Spooner in his immortal work No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. The Constitution, no matter how "nice" and "clever" it sounds, is nothing but a dead piece of paper! I am personally a big fan of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, which I consider to be the best constitution ever written, but nonetheless I acknowledge that it was just a piece of paper. There are two decisive problems with pieces of paper being treated as rulers of countries:
1. They are as illegitimate as any other rule forced upon the people.
2. They cannot enforce themselves - being just paper.
Lysander Spooner tells it best in the opening lines of No Treason: "The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man.". He then goes on to prove - in a remarkably elaborate, yet clear and simple way - that the Constitution of the United States in no contract, but a series of statements forced upon one group of people ("The Founding Fathers") on another (the rest of the population of the former British American colonies). This much is certainly true. Yet, perhaps, we would be able to put up with this ideological hypocrisy ("free men" being "ruled over" by paper), if it was actually enforcable and did its job (protected the liberties of the people subject to it). However, as Calhoun points out, it is an error to believe that a written constitution alone is “sufficient, of itself, without the aid of any organism except such as is necessary to separate its several departments, and render them independent of each other to counteract the tendency of the numerical majority to oppression and abuse of power” . Thus, democracy is again showed to be the monster which constitutional government unleashes on us all. Democracy is founded on the constitution, but eventually it outgrows and supplants it. If you give the majority special priveleges it will abuse those priveleges. Any group given special priveleges is bound to eventually abuse them! I think it is time to stop dreaming and find a better solution to the problem of abusive government.

Stalin - the Real "Carcharoth"

J.R.R. Tolkien's Carcharoth ("The Red Maw" in the Sindarin tongue) appears, among other places, in The Silmarillion. Red Maw appears to be a rather good name to describe the most terrible man who ever lived, responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people and toil of further hundreds of millions. Also, he was "The Big Red" of his day (nowadays I believe Obama has taken over that title). Soon, on the 9th of May, the big Red Square celebrations of the defeat of Nazi Germany and end of WWII will take place in Moscow. It will surely be a stupendous occasion. However, we all need to have a think about our history when the thousands of soldiers march under that gigantic portrait of Uncle Joe, the Red Star shining on his cap as always.

Don't forget the hundreds of millions.

The Purpose of Freedom for Christians

I have heard many people accuse Christians of being as bad a socialists, the Church being a sort of proto-socialist organization. Most notorious in this regard (as being accusers) are followers of Ayn Rand. As brilliant as Rand was, I never understood her constant rants against religion and Christianity in particular. Another wing of critics stems from people like Mikhail Gorbachev, who is famous for saying: "Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.". There is a huge difference between being an altruist and forcing people to be altruists. Christians try to do the former, socialists the latter. But this is a huge topic - to be discussed later.
For now let's focus on the issue of why Christians need freedom and liberty. For a Christian (I speak from my own, Catholic, perspective) doing good things is essential; it is a requirement of salvation in the afterlife. "Doing good" means helping others and following Christian dogma, such as the Ten Commandments and other Church laws. In order to do these things, however, one must have the free will to do them. If someone is forced to do a good thing (like giving a poor man a dollar, for example), then that person is not really responsible for doing the good deed as it was mandatory (i.e. the forced socialist way). By the same logic, if someone is forced to do an evil thing (to shoot someone, for instance), they are also not responsible for the killing. Therefore in a socialist society being a Christian has no value. If you pay your taxes and they are used to feed the poor and house the homeless, it is still not a good deed - because you were forced to pay the taxes in the first place. For a free man life is a test of his virtues and values; he can use all his faculties to the ends he thinks are best. For a slave, however, life is just a toil. A slave spends his days eeking out a subsistance and thinking of ways to get more material goods from his master.
A socialist society is a society of slaves.
A Christian society is a society of free men.

Let me end with a brilliant quote from Sir Francis Galton: "A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organization."

Democracy - Slavery for the Feeble-minded

My job as a Monarchist and true believer in Liberty is clear - I must in equal proportion advance the notion of the greatness of Monarchy and bash Democracy, the system entirely responsible for most of the Western World's problems. One way of showing what a oxymoron of a term "liberal democracy" is, is looking at the question of slavery and forced servitude in society. In a liberal society the ultimate goal is freedom of the individual. This is best defined by Herbert Spencer (as his greatest creation, the Law of Equal Liberty) "each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other.". This is farily straight forward for most people. And because it is just such a plainly simple concept to grasp, I am baffled by the fact that so many people associate liberty with democracy. To best describe the way democracy is contrary to liberty is discussing forms of "people-ownership" in society, which comes in three varieties:
1. Nobody owns anybody else. This means each mature adult individual owns himself (or herself) and himself alone. He has no right to anybody else's life, liberty, or property (i.e. complete self-ownership).
2. Some people (or one person) own(s) some other people. This means that some individuals have the right to somebody else's life, liberty, or property. This could be for a variety of reasons, if an ethnic group is considered inferior for instance.
3. Everybody owns everybody else. In such a society every person has a say on what other people do (I am using a gross simplification here).
Plainly from these descriptions anyone can see that Monarchy can exist as either number 1 (which I fully support as true Monarchy - The Rule of Law) or number 2 (Absolute Monarchies). Another alternative for option 1 is anarcho-capitalism or natural order. Number 2 also contains a broad number of other systems and institutions such as some types of dictatorships, aristocratic rule (oligarchy for instance), or classic slavery (where the slave-owner has a full title to the slave as his property). Democracy, however, fits soundly into option 3. The people elect leaders who then rule them in a totalitarian fashion (for the duration of their term in office democratic leaders fit into option 2). Socialism and communism - two systems which don't acknowledge private property and self-ownership - are also everybody-owns-everybody societies.
Now, since we have established that liberty is self-ownership and democracy is contrary to self-ownership, we must conclude that there is no such thing as a liberal democracy. Democracy is a system which dresses mob-rule up in a fancy way and portrays it as something "superior" and "just to all". In relality democracy is has nothing to do with justice. In a democracy justice is a completely relative term which could mean something today and the opposite tomorrow. For example - alcohol prohibition. How is it possible that something that is considered normal today was outlawed? Or if it is not normal, why is it legal today? Either way you look at it, democracy is bad (either it forbids things which aren't evil, or permists things which are evil).

The Prince is in Poland

HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, is visiting Poland this week. I truly hope he enjoys himself (after all, it's the most beautiful country in the world!) One of these days I promise to write a blog entry about the British Royal Family and the Monarchy in Britain in general. For now it sufficient to say that the United Kingdom is no Kingdom at all. It is, in fact, probably the most disgustingly social-democratic state in Europe (or at the very least it's in the top three with France and Sweden). Prince Charles himself has become inevitably possessed by the Democratic Demon and acts as a more or less unofficial lobbyist for all kinds of legislature. Worst of all, of course, he is an environmentalist. I have little respect for people who cherish Planet Earth more than Humanity, and in particular fanatics who love animals and hate human beings. I can only hope that some miracle change someplace else in the world will help the British Monarchy grow a backbone.

Obamacare polls - Democracy at work!

Every couple months we get new poll results about how Americans react to the Obama/Democrat healthacare plan. First the people seemed to like it, then they seemed to hate it, now it's around 50/50... My question is: Who cares what the people think?! If people like something and want it, it doesn't automatically mean that it is good! Unfortunately the US is now a prime example of democracy at work - mob rule has won in Washington, D.C. Appareantly nobody told these people ("these people" mainly refers to the Democratic Party Politburo: Nancy "Pom-pom" Pelosi, Joe "Bobblehead" Biden, and Barack "The Big Red" Obama) that democracy was considered primitive over 2000 years ago, and socialism joined it with the collapse of the USSR. I'd have nothing against the Democrats organizing their own little Sovetskiy Soyuz someplace, but I feel quite sorry for the hundreds of millions of Americans who might be forced into this healthcare serfdom. In the case of democracy, even Aristotle concluded it was an unworkable scam - and he lived only a few generations after the abominable system was introduced in Athens. Incidentally, few people know that Socrates was one of the first to "die by democracy" - a majority of people voted he should die. In a real State of Law (best represented in the form of a Monarchy) it doesn't matter how many people want something done - if it is against the Law, it will not happen. This is best discussed by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 pamphlet titled simply The Law (I highly recommend it!). And therein lies the rub! What's the point of polls on such ridiculous subjects as Obamacare? Socialized medicine violates every moral principle in conservative and liberal ethics! Mainly, it violates the most important principle in conservative and liberal thought - private property rights. Polls are just another way for politicians to get a feel at which absolutely immoral reform they should have a crack at next time Congress/Parliament/Legislature is in session.




Frédéric Bastiat - The Best of the French

Discrimination and Personal Choice

A few short clarifications for my earlier blog entries:

1. I was told that my definition of racism and other "-isms" is an incorrect one. Racism is (I will use racism as an example here, but it applies to all the others equally) the arbitrary belief that one race is inferior or superior to another. Therefore it is evil because it leads to discrimination. As I wrote in my earlier post, discrimination is just a way for people to exercise their right to have a personal choice about things. It can be a logically justified choice, but it can also be completely arbitrary - that does not make a difference. The example I used last time is accurate: Since I prefer the taste of Coca-Cola, I drink it instead of drinking Pepsi, thereby discriminating against Pepsi. Let me use another, even more arbitrary example: If I prefer the color red to the color blue, I will buy a red car, not a blue car. Thus I discriminate against all blue cars. My choice is completely subjective! I don't see any difference in making personal choices about things and choices about people. I don't know why I should be able to discriminate in some areas of my life, and not in others.

2. The subject of "institutional racism" also comes up. People say that since I support all forms of discrimination (and I do, except I prefer the term personal choice), I must also support oppressive legal systems like South African Apartheid, or forced segregation in the US pre-1960's. This is plainly not true. I do not and will never support any measures forced upon people, whether it be forced discrimination (such as under Apartheid) or forced integration (such as Affirmative action laws in the US today). Those sort of laws destroy personal choice, because they mandate that a person must behave one way or another or else... This is where I will make my first argument for Monarchy as a more just system which promotes personal choice. Institutional racism is really just a euphemism for public racism (the term "public" here referring to publicly owned government operations). A publicly owned government (most notable today in the forms of democracy, social democracy, or communism) can mandate that citizens behave one way or another not only on public property by on their own private property. This coercive measure always appears under publicly owned regimes, where one group wants to supplant another group. Some examples are: whites vs. blacks in the United States(democracy), workers vs. peasants in China under Mao(socialism), intellectuals vs. the uneducated in Cambodia under Pol Pot(communism). Now let me portray how this is impossible under a Monarchy (assuming of course the Monarch follows the rule of Law). In a Monarchy, nothing is public - every piece of land and property is privately owned. Every human being within such a state can therefore exercise personal choice within his own property, but cannot under any circumstances impose his will upon any other property owner. The Monarch himself is limited only to controlling his own possessions, therefore he cannot by Law mandate his subjects to treat a group of people one way or another. There are no privileges in Monarchy besides ones assigned to people by personal choice. It does not matter whether it is the personal choice of the King or another property owner because neither can mandate that the other behave in a particular way. In fact a King is far more likely to discourage racism anyway - he wants his subjects to be as productive as possible, and racism sometimes leads to unnecessary isolationism. The King also cannot simply ignore opinions of his citizens. If most of them are against racism, he will not enact any racist laws on his own property because doing so might lead to secession of the discriminated groups or people who disapprove of the discrimination (their personal choice does not match the Monarch's personal choice). Thus their contributions to the royal coffers would disappear.

3. In reference to yesterday's post - I am not really supporting the use of the death penalty on economists! It was simply a nice thought and, referring to what I just wrote above, a King might do well enacting that sort of measure on his own private property.

What Edward II of England would have done with the likes of Paul Krugman

I know all conservatives and libertarians have been thinking of a good way to get rid of all the "great liberal economists" that litter today's world. Among these I can name Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke (and their Wall Street and Fed cronies) in the United States, Gordon Brown and his buddies (especially "our Darling" Alistair) in the UK, and Donald Tusk's main man Jan Krzysztof Bielecki in Poland. There are of course thousands more of them scattered across the neo-liberal (i.e. socialist) world of today. A quick and simple answer comes from history (learn from experience!). Edward II Plantagenet of England (ruled 1307-1327) enacted a brilliant law. He simply outlawed all fortunetelling and mystic gypsy-like rituals under penalty of death. This would arguably be a great measure, as it would eliminate all these so-called specialists (who in reality understand little economics and rely largely on mysticism in the form of writing down lots of numbers). Just because you can add and divide doesn't make you any less of a seer in my opinion! This position would of course also have a side-effect of eliminating all weathermen, but they are only fractionally more accurate than the economists of today so the loss wouldn't be insufferable. And the thought of Mr.Krugman having to find a honest job (just like a seer who fished for the future in bird entrails in 14th Century England) gives me a rather warm feeling.
All hail King Edward! Despite being a bit of a sissy bisexual, he knew how to get a job done properly!

x-ism, n-ism, y-ism... the annoying "-ism" story...

I am writing this post after being accused (gasp!) of something called “sexism”. In a casual conversation I said (quote) “there are a lot more brilliantly intelligent men in the world than women”. As politically incorrect as this seems, it is of course a scientific fact. There are more geniuses among men than women. This is due to a much higher variance in the standard deviation of IQ scores of men, i.e. although the average female IQ about the same as the male, there are more men in the groups of “genius” and (sadly) “imbecile”. This is what prompted Walter Block (if I remember this correctly) to call men "nature's crapshoot" and women "nature's safety net", although I prefer the term "nature's greatest experiment" for the former.

The discussion made me want to denounce all these politically incorrect and rather ridiculous ideas. First of all, there is no such thing as sexism. It doesn't exist - just like racism, homophobia (gay-ism??), tree-ism, or speciesism... the list goes on forever. In my mind I don't see discrimination, I see only free-thinking individuals making independent decisions based on their personal judgement. If I want to associate with one person and not with another, I shouldn't have to give any complex explanation of my actions; I simply do what I like! In the words of one of my gurus, Murray N. Rothbard: "Every property owner should have the absolute right to sell, hire, or lease his money or other property to anyone whom he chooses, which means he has the absolute right to "discriminate" all he damn pleases. If I have a plant and want to hire only six-foot albinos, and I can find willing employees, I should have the right to do so, even though I might well lose my shirt doing so." This is of course an excerpt about the use of property, but I don't see any difference between hiring, associating with, or even talking (or not) to any group of people. I should be able to do or not do anything I want with anyone I want (as long as they are willing participants).
All this "ism-ism" talk is made even worse by the fact some so-called liberals now assign rights to all kinds of groups. Of course the rights they assign and the groups themselves are chosen completely arbitrarily with no logical reason for any of them. Thus philosopher Peter Singer thinks we're all "speciesists" if we treat animals differently from humans (humans are according to him just another species). Well I don't like to argue with these environmentalists - they think they are animals, and I have not yet degenerated mentally to the point of engaging in polemics with animals... Another example of group of "ism" accusers are the feminists (otherwise known as FemiNazis).
However, I have to finish on a sour note! After much thinking I have indeed decided I am a "sexist"! I have a deep-seated and intrinsic need to discriminate against all men. If I was looking to hire, for instance, a secretary or a P.A., I would shorten the pool of applicants by weeding out all the men. After all, who doesn't want to come to the office in the morning to see a beautiful young woman? Not even the most astute-looking and kind man would oust her from my office, for the same reason I would rather hang a Rembrandt in my living room than a Picasso (sorry Pablo, aesthetics matter!). Also I have to confess that this morning I discriminated against Pepsi and got a Coke - Pepsi-ism anyone?