The Beauty of The English Language

English to me has a special quality. When reading certain verse, it really makes the bones tingle. It can be particularly onomatopoeic and lyrical even in prose. The epitome of these qualities, for me, are the works of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973), who reinvented the idea of Anglo-Saxon mythology and revolutionized the world of fantasy by setting it within an almost divine and definitely Catholic framework. The Old English style and rhythm really beat a pulse into the reader's mind. Consider the following stanza from his 1937 novel, The Hobbit:
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

Or the following example from the same book:

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep where dark things sleep
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

Or something just with less power, yet more beauty from The Silmarillion:

Lúthien Tinúviel
more fair than mortal tongue can tell.
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien for a time should be.

Inspiring? Certainly! And this from a man whose ideals motivated the emergence of my own. I live by The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. Any Monarchist, Anarchist, or Catholic worth a damn should read his works and feel the power of those words. Aside from the amazing imagery the books also offer lessons in ethics and morality. Even in The Hobbit, which is commonly referred to as a children's tale, rather difficult ethical dilemmas appear. Did Bilbo Baggins have the right to the Arkenstone of Thrain? Did the Elven king behave properly upon encountering the Dwarves in his lands? These are questions we might all benefit from analyzing. All important themes are looked upon: loyalty, authority, power, risk, friendship, piety, strength of will...

To finish on a high note, here is another brilliant piece from none other than The Hobbit:
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking
What is it?

Bad DNA, why do we protect it?

I like playing Devil's Advocate, and this subject is perfect for such a role. Here is the story. Lately many British newspapers have reported about a man named Keith Macdonald who has been labeled 'Britain's Worst Father'. Apparently the man (now 25) already has 9 children by 9 different women and is expecting a 10th by his 10th girlfriend. Mr.Macdonald had his first child at 15 and, crucially, he does not pay any money for child support (He is himself on a £44 a week unemployment benefit, so he is supported by the state). It is expected his children will cost the British taxpayers £1.5 million in benefits and childcare. Meanwhile he has publicly stated that he will never use condoms (which has some people calling for a forced vasectomy).
The question I want to ask about this story has nothing to do with the actions of this man or any action the state may or should take against him. I do not want to discuss any of his former girlfriends (who are clearly welfare-lovers) either. Rather, I want to ask a more fundamental question: Why are this man's children our business? It seems by supporting them we are bailing him and his lovers out. They completely avoided the consequences of their actions!
Now most people would reply: It's for the children! They are innocent in this scenario and we as a society must help them.
To that I answer - why? Indeed they are innocent children, but we did not harm them. It would be nice of us to help them, but we don't have to do it. The children have parents to take care of them. If the parents fail - so be it. May I just remind everyone - these children are the offspring of their parents. They are carrying their obviously inferior genetic material. Now what happens when we support not only psychological inferiority (helping the lazy and the stupid), but also genetic inferiority (helping the children of the lazy and the stupid)? It must also be pointed out we are helping these kids at the expense of others, whose parents were not irresponsible and actually make money. So we are in fact subsidizing fools and their children (who are more than likely to end up fools themselves) by taking away from intelligent people and their children (who will most likely be successful). Is this in any way fair or just? Does this in any way help society progress? It feels good to help, and it feels right to help, but is it right? Deep question - think about it.
Interestingly, it is written in the Bible that "the sins of the parents are visited on the children to the third or fourth generation". This means that if the parents are sinners (do not take care of their responsibilities) then the children will have poorer lives. It is an obvious statement which many people fail to grasp. So, would it be just to alleviate the consequences placed upon people by the Law? The Law of Nature, the Law created by God?

Libertarian and Far-Right Anarchist Ideology

Far right-wing ideologies, which I consider Libertarianism and Private Property Anarchism to be, have one key distinction from others. Namely - they are based on non-aggression and non-compulsion. I have been accused by some people of 'trying to make everybody think like me'. They equate my ideology with that of Nazis or Communists. The truth is that it is Liberal Democracy which is akin to those government models. Private Property Law is the exact opposite. Proponents of the State of Nature do not try to force others to be like them. Instead, they try to force (usually by persuasion and logic) others to stop aggressive action against them. What people fail to understand is that we do not try to make everyone act like us, but just want to be left alone. We want to have the "right to ignore the state", as Herbert Spencer put it, just like we have the right to ignore Walmart, Pizza Hut, or any business which is trying to sell us its services. Libertarianism is very individualistic. It does not concern itself with others, only ourselves. Thus, I do not oppose states as such. People can happily live in them. I would, however, like to have an option to opt out of this collective endeavour if I saw the need. I would much rather pick up my property and join a different organization (maybe a Private Law Society, or a Monarchist state). Others can do whatever they like as long as they don't tell me what I can or cannot do with myself and my things! But Democrats, just like Nazis and Communists, have always been guilty of that...

As H.L. Mencken famously wrote: "The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable." So why not just let the 'man who is able to think for himself' out? Why keep him chained down? He doesn't ask for any special privileges, just independence.

The Means versus The Ends

I don't particularly like calling myself an anarchist. It just sounds bad (connotations can really ruin a good word). I prefer to argue for an extreme (i.e. logical through-and-through) form of Monarchy - a system I call Private Property Rule or Private Law. According to me this form of state (or non-state for that matter) would correlate closely with the structure of medieval European cities. A serious objection that is always raised against this system, however, is its lack of safeguards for the rights of the poor, weak, and unlucky. This is not entirely true; Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote a marvellous defense of the practical aspects of living in the state of nature in his Democracy: The God that Failed. However, let's just assume this criticism to be correct and then refute it. The main question this argument comes down to is as follows:
Is it right to break people's rights (by enforcing a involuntary social contract which legitimizes the state) in order to protect their rights?
I think the answer is 'no'. No matter how unpractical this system may be (which it is not, but even if it was) it is the only right system which people with the correct morality may support. The system of Statism which is prevalent today is a system in which "Exitus acta probat", as Ovid wrote, "The result justifies the deed". This is a collectivist morality implemented largely by such regimes as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. However, if we examine it closely we see that the very acceptance of such a thing as a implicit contract between an adult and an abstract entity (in this case the government) is in the exact same mode of thinking. Forcing a contract upon this man is for his own good - it protects his inalienable rights and the inalienable rights of other people in society. But it also breaks his rights by existing in the first place!
This paradox is therefore unacceptable for people like me - people who define their lives largely by the use of reason. For me, it is the other way around - the means justify the ends. Therefore if doing the right thing has some bad side-effects we cannot blame ourselves for not implementing a more 'just' system and forcing it on other people. We can only blame the ones who cause the harm. Also, in terms of practicality, this system would entirely rid the world of the class of 'bums'. Bums seem to rule the Western world - they live by voting for people who will confiscate other people's property and give it to the bums. And by 'bums' I don't only mean drunks on street corners or single mothers with welfare babies. I also mean people with influence in today's Corporatist state such as CEOs of companies which receive constant bail-outs from the government ('corporate welfare'). In a world more attuned to Social Darwinism the lazy bums would likely starve or be forced to work. No one would give them handouts; there would be no reason for anyone to do so. A big motto of the Private Law system should be: "charity for the unfortunate, not for the bums!"

Warren Buffett Strikes Again

Warren Buffett has actually stated (again!) that the US economy is back on track and there will be no 'double-dip' recession. During the Montana Economic Development Summit he said his company (Berkshire Hathaway) is again hiring workers in anticipation of a quick economic recovery. I just wanted to point this out because this man is being treated by many as a economics prophet. I cannot doubt his investment talent, but also I can see how he would stand to gain by propagating these plainly false ideas (there is zero economic recovery). For one, he invests in a large amount of businesses in the US (including - smartest investment ever of course - Goldman Sachs). It would be in his best interest if people believed there was a recovery instead of believing what is in front of their very own eyes. Mr.Buffett's empire depends on the status-quo of US borrowing/Chinese lending to continue. This status-quo is also the only thing keeping the US Dollar 'alive'. In a fully free economy, ceteris paribus, the dollar would fail tomorrow. However we do not have a free market and Mr.Buffett knows this fully well. Strangely enough even Mr.Obama doesn't agree and is planning another huge stimulus package which will bring the economy into an even deeper depression. A part of me wants to say that maybe Mr.Buffett knows this and is trying to prevent another stimulus...
What worries me is that someday China might decide it is no longer advantageous to keep the USA afloat. We don't need to live under the illusion that our fate is in our own hands anymore - it's in China's hands. Why? Because we have sold it to them!

As Peter Schiff said: "While we’ve been buying time, things have gone from bad to worse. We have debased our currency so much it is already beyond control. We just haven’t felt the full impact yet because we have had massive artificial support from abroad." It is percisely that artificial support from abroad that might run out at any time. Americans are exploiting the Chinese, why should they expect the Chinese to put up with it over time? They might as well consume all the goods the produce themselves instead of shipping them off to America...

Social Responsibility - The Unicorn Everyone Sees!

Government and its allies have been out there for years trying to convince us that we cannot take care of ourselves. Human responsibilities are too vast and unfathomable for a single person to take care of - they claim. As a result 99% of humanity now thinks they are personally responsible for everyone's livelihood. We are responsible for the poor people within out society, for the sick and starving in Africa, for teaching other people's children, for healing other people's sick relatives, even for preserving the environment of our planet for future generations! No wonder we cannot fulfill all those obligations! But there is a solution - just give some money to the government who will appoint the right officials and all will be fine! Fund foreign aid, environmental subsidies, public schools and hospitals, and the armies of bureaucrats involved in them. Even businessmen can no longer practice their trade. They must be 'socially responsible' and not seek 'excess profits' and 'exploit' their employees and customers...
But what is responsibility - really? It is not a difficult term to grasp. We all learn it during our childhood. A person is responsible for his actions. For instance, if you drop a gum-wrapper on the ground, you have to pick it up. Now, the doctrine of social responsibility says that if someone else - no matter how unrelated to you he/she is - drops a gum-wrapper (purposely or accidentally) on the ground, then you are the one who has to pick it up! You lose time and energy, but who cares? The collective gains another slave! A person is never responsible for the actions of another unless he/she agrees that the other is his responsibility. I never did anything to aggravate the recent Banking Crisis in the UK and US. So why should I be the one responsible for 'bailing-out' those who were the culprits? I was forced to bail them out due to the doctrine of 'social responsibility' i.e. everyone is punished for anyone's crimes and mistakes. Nowadays even criminals aren't treated as criminals - they blame society and get away with it (resocialization instead of punishment). Because, as the socialists say, how can someone be punished for the crimes of society (i.e. the criminal had no free will, society compelled him to commit evil). It is the same with the bankers.
But someone might ask: What about those poor people in underdeveloped countries in Africa or South America? Aren't we responsible for helping them?
My answer is, equivocally, NO! We are not responsible for the state they are in (I never took anything from people in Africa), so why should we be compelled to compensate them for an offence we never committed? Of course it would be very noble and nice to help them (as it would be kind to pick up a gum-wrapper that the wind blew out of someone's hand), but by no means are we responsible to help.
I think the gum-wrapper analogy is quite a useful one in understanding the concept of responsibility. Everyone should pick up after themselves, but picking up after others can only be considered kindness (not fulfilling one's responsibility). In fact picking up after others in some circumstances can be evil. Picking up after people who throw trash around on purpose makes them more irresponsible and helps them avoid consequences of their actions, it is therefore the exact definition of irresponsibility and injustice. And helping unfortunate people can also be very dangerous - aid dependency is a big problem in sub-Saharan Africa these days.

The Amazing British!

Mr.David William Donald Cameron is currently one of my heroes. He is finally cleaning up Britain in a way Baroness Thatcher would be proud of. The new budget includes £16 billion in savings and crucial cuts in welfare. Of course I would argue for elimination of all welfare and benefits entirely, but £16 billion is a great start. Especially if this is compared to the rest of the world. The USA, for example, is heading in the opposite direction under socialist leadership of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. I cannot praise the British enough for this achievement in today's eurosocialist European society and a overall leftist worldview of most people.
On the other hand I also read a couple of articles in the Daily Telegraph lately about all these cuts. I like reading the Telegraph. It is usually good at covering the viewpoint of all sides while having a certain Conservative bias in terms of the issues covered. The one that really caught my attention was an article about a report by some lefty named Frank Field. Some people would call this gentleman a respected member of the British elite and Labour Party politician. I would call him a 'Looney-Tune'. You can read the article here. Now let's review some ideas which are being propagated by this man and his party (just to justify referring to him and them as loonies):
1. Pay women £25,000 for having a baby.
2. Abolish summer holidays in schools.
Why are these things crazy? It's pretty self-explanatory...
1. Paying someone for having a baby?! What has this world come to?! Having babies is a privilege, not a right! If you want a child, pay for it yourself rather than stealing my money to pay for it!
2. You want more time to indoctrinate my children with you socialist and immoral views? Why don't you just take them away from me and then pay me the £25,000? Oh wait... selling children is illegal...
Apparently Labour want to give you money to raise your children (so now you don't have to work), but they also want to raise your children for you. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. But it does to greedy, lazy, and stupid people. Those three groups put together make up something like 90% of society, so in a democratic election the 10% of normal people don't stand a chance.

But the most astonishing quote of the article comes near the end from Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. Namely this quote here: "Mr Osborne last week revealed that the welfare bill will be cut by another £4 billion on top of £16 billion of savings already announced as he seeks to limit the "lifestyle choices" of those who prefer to stay at home on benefit rather than work." Now what in the world is that supposed to mean?! Does that mean that people have a choice and can actually stay at home, be lazy, and still live is society as normal citizens? I really never knew British mentality and morality have degenerated to such a sad state! Staying at home on benefits is the same 'lifestyle choice' as that of a thief. The mentality which asks the question 'why work when others can do it for me and I just take their stuff' is that of a thief. But look what the world has come to after 200 years of leftist propaganda by men like Karl Marx or Frank Field...

The Crusade Against Pleasure

The ancient Athenian philosopher Epicurus (341 - 270 BCE) has taught us the wisdom which nowadays most people seem not to recognize. Many people I talk to (even the intelligent ones) have a very wrong perception of pleasure and often treat Epicurus as a frivolous philosopher who advocated a crazy morality of "doing whatever seems pleasurable at the time". That is not what the man was about at all. An important quote of his that I want to mention is the following: "No pleasure is in itself evil, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail annoyances many times greater than the pleasures themselves." . What this means is that certain pleasures must be refrained from because they do not produce pleasure in the long run - rather, they produce pain and "annoyance". But the pleasure itself is not wrong. I don't think anyone would actually agree that what feels good to us is automatically defined as evil. Rather, it should be defined as good. Also important in the Epicurean philosophy is teaching that pleasure is not just about immediate gratification. It is also about living a just life (famously Epicurus describes the greatest pleasure in life to be friendship). You cannot enjoy immediate pleasures in excess because that will cause dire consequences in the future. Therefore it is important to find a balance which produces the most 'net pleasure', so to speak.
Meanwhile the morality of today seems to simply say "refrain from all pleasure". There are laws enacted to prevent people from doing that which is pleasurable to them. Moreover, the general public seems to agree that these laws are necessary and that pleasure should be restrained! This can be seen in all sorts of initiatives such as: high drinking and smoking ages (drinking and smoking are pleasurable); bans on all kinds of sexual practices (sex is pleasurable); bans on many substances such as (so-called) drugs (drugs induce pleasure); restrictions and bans on gambling (gambling is pleasurable); bans on any activities people would voluntarily take part in, but are not allowed to do so (bare-knuckle boxing and sword duels are illegal for some reason...). This list could continue on forever. Why are these activities illegal? Because supposedly they cause harm to society. This, in turn, is because people can't judge for themselves what is bad and excessive in terms of pleasure. But will someone, in God's name, tell me how people can ever learn what is excessive and what is not if they are not allowed to try it in the first place?! This kind of restrictive policy not only breaks human rights, but also makes no logical sense whatsoever! It is simple tyranny!

Edmund Burke understood this when he said: "Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." Our own instincts to grab instant pleasure are what we have to wrestle against. But without them - how would we know our own strength and be able to display it? The government and the majority who curtail our freedoms - those who proclaim to be helpers - they are our enemies.

Democracy forms Communism, or is It a form of Communism?

"Democracy is the road to socialism" - Karl Marx

"Communism needs Democracy like the body needs Oxygen." - Lev Davidovich Bronstein (also known as Comrade Trotsky)

Most of the greatest theorists of Communism agree that Democracy will bring about socialization of any country and, as they said, socialism is just one step away from Communism. Here is how the process works:
1. The majority of people are stupid (or at least easily swayed by superfluous arguments which seem to favour them).
2. In Democracy the majority rules over the minority (i.e. mob rule).
3. The policies that sound simplest and easiest to implement are almost always socialistic. For example, it's easy to understand how welfare or public education might help people. It is more difficult to understand that in actual fact they do great harm.
Now we can all see that this is true not only in theory, but in practice. All countries which initially started out as liberal democracies are now (after a period of prolonged democratic rule) socialist republics. The best examples I can give are the United States and the United Kingdom. Could any one of the founding fathers (even the raging centralizer Hamilton) conceive of an American government overwhelmed largely by entitlements and welfare spending? I doubt any of them would agree (Jefferson was against the existence of public debt at all! - as should be!) this should be the case.
The best book on Democracy (by far!) that I have read is Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed. Read it - to say it's enlightening is an understatement.

To quote Hoppe on the relationship between communism and democracy: "Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else."

Going to jail for buying and selling...

Viktor Anatolyevich Bout - probably not the nicest guy you'd ever meet... But is that enough to put him in prison? First of all I want to say that I do not know all the exact details of this story (so I might be wrong), but as far as I'm concerned Mr.Bout was an international arms dealer who supplied regimes such as Charles Taylor's Liberia and perhaps organizations such as Hezbollah. He got the weapons through his numerous connections which he acquired at his former job in the Soviet Union military and intelligence service. Now - what did he allegedly do wrong? He "trafficked arms"... This means he bought them from one person and sold them to another. As far as I'm concerned this is normal capitalist activity! He was fully within his rights to sell the weapons to whomever he wished because they were his private property. Can he be blamed for the way these weapons were later used? Not any more than a shopkeeper can be blamed for a murder committed with a kitchen knife that happened to be bought at his store. Even if he knew the weapons were going to be used in an evil way, that still does not mean he is responsible for how they were used! Only people who commit crimes can be held accountable for them. Under some moral systems what he did might be considered evil and bad, but certainly not criminal.
Sweden sells weapons. I have not heard of any Swedes going to jail for this. The USA gives weapons to Israel (the country which has used them to repeatedly break UN resolutions and (arguably) engage in genocide in Palestine). Nobody in the USA is being punished for giving weapons to an aggressive power! And Mr.Bout was only selling weapons to Liberia; how is this any better or worse?

LESSON IN LOGIC

Is anything in the world simpler than understanding logic? Apparently most things are. The sheer amount of people I meet who either do not understand basic logical reasoning or fail to accept its outcomes is staggering. There are very few rules one needs to comprehend and accept in order to consider every logical outcome valid (I am not going to get into a big debate here over David Hume and his interpretation of reasoning). First of all, conditional statements are key, so:

If A, then B.

And from there it's just a tiny step to real deductive reasoning:

If A, then B.
If B, then C.
Therefore: If A, then C.

Simple stuff! Let's use a real life example:

If the US Congress enacts bail-outs, then the Federal Reserve prints money.
If the Federal Reserve prints money, then inflation is created.
Therefore: If the US Congress enacts bail-outs, then inflation is created.

Logic is man's greatest tool. Reason is what separates us from animals. People should know that the best reason to follow such movements as the Austrian School of Economics or Spencer's Social Darwinism is that they are deeply logical. And that which has foundations in correct logic based on good principles is infallible.

As Ayn Rand said: "There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns."
And so I say: where there is logic - there is no need for guns.