Star Trek and the Real Future

I recently decided to watch the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture again. As a big fan of sci-fi and the future, I have always enjoyed Star Trek. What really amazes me about this show and many other modern sci-fi TV, is that in its portrayal of the future it totally ignores any potential change in the human mind and therefore in human conduct. What is even more amazing is that this was not actually true of the original Star Trek series. It aired in the 1960, a time of deep social strife when segregation of government-enforced racism were still the norm. And what we saw among the multi-racial crew of the original Starship Enterprise was the total absence of any racial discrimination. The message was clear: In the future such irrational discrmination will not exist. But with later series this character of Star Trek largely disappeared. We saw regular modern people using amazing futuristic technology, but they were still just our normal average Joes. They thought and behaved like we would think of behave in the modern world. In the movie Doctor McCoy makes references to spanking children - something I think will be universally recognized as a type of child abuse within the next few decades. Furthermore, it is easily inferred from the conclusion of the movie that human emotions are something that surpasses and improves on logic. There seems to be a fully accepted premise that the universe can be grasped better using some other sixth sense which has nothing to do with reason and empiricism. In face, Earth is saved by the very existence of human emotions, when the gigantic alien computer which was going to destroy Earth fuses with a human and evolves to become some higher being.
And this is, of course, another symptom of the age-old "fear of machines", which science fiction has been using as an apocalyptic vision scarcely less often than the "fear of alien invasion". Both of these scenarios are highly unrealistic and logically problematic. But let's look at the very nature of man versus machine. People seem to think that machines are some cold and evil things (because they have no emotions and no 'moral standards') which rely purely on mathematics and logic - i.e. a supercomputer is the perfect Benthamite utilitarian. This is not the case, however. Machines are actually made in our image. Human beings use logic and empiricism to get by in their everyday life. All other superstitions are 'emotions' are either reactions to logic and empiricism, or they are ways to explain something that logic cannot yet explain. Machines are kind of like children - they don't create strange explanations to problems they can't solve, they simply ignore those problems as unsolvable. Our computers are not some seperate sort of creation, their programming is based on observations about the real world and it reflects our own brain activity.

All discussions of futuristic scenarions in modern discourse and popular culture are woefully ignorant of the concept of Social Darwinism - the fact that our ideas and knowledge (and therefore conduct) continually evolve towards their best adaptation to our universe. The most powerful aspect of human evolution is the continual shift in our morality and code of conduct. As Herbert Spencer put it: "Evil perpetually tends to disappear." And why is that? Simply because, as common sense dictates and as Spencer rightly observed, "all evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions."

Creepy Poppy Day - Spencer is right, as always

The "British people" (i.e. the tax serfs of the UK government) have been celebrating the memory of their military dead (i.e. the government's cannon fodder), especially those who died in recent interventions in the Middle East (i.e. genocidal expeditions of Mr. Tony Blair). To be honest I have had enough of seeing people all wearing poppy flowers on all their clothes, cars, and other property. I guess the poppy has a similar function to the ribbon in the USA. In that both are symbollic ways of glorifying mass murder. Maybe it is something about being raised in a Polish family, I don't know, but I have a thourough disgust for war. Even warlike rhetoric sickens me. I have no respect for any soldiers who died on missions in the Middle East in recent years. They were guns-for-hire who lost their gamble. And if these wars consisted of states fighting states, I may have a neutral stance here. After all, why would I favor one mafia ahead of another? But currently all I see is state (i.e. mafia) armies (i.e. groups of goons) attacking innocent civilian populations. Furthermore, the American government has created concentration camps (we don't know how many in total, but one of them is actually official - Guantanamo) where Afghani goat-herds are being kept and tortured for months and years at a time. The people who freed the Nazi extermination camps after World War II are now establishing similar facilities themselves (maybe not designed for mass murder, but certainly designed for kidnapping, torture, and sometimes probably assassinations).
Just because a man puts on a silly uniform does not mean he is not required to abide by the basic rules of ethics. Green or blue clothes do not entitle you or me to shoot, kill, kidnap, murder, enslave, steal, rape, pillage, or occupy. But the government seems to think it does. Maybe someone should show up at Tony Blair's house wearing green-yellow camo and show him what waterboarding feels like?

To all British citizens I raise this appeal: Think carefully before you put on that poppy. Remember the millions of dead men, women, and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. And remember what probably the greatest British citizen ever, Herbert Spencer, once said of British soldiers who took part in the British-Afghan War in the 19th Century: "When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves."

Anarchism and Voting

I have decided to boycott the upcoming Polish Parliamentary elections due to the fact the party I supported was not allowed to participate in countrywide elections (despite this being unconstitutional). So far I have always maintained that despite being anti-State, anarchists should exercise their privilege to vote (or, as the democrats like to say, the 'right to vote') for the purpose of self-defense. This was also Lysander Spooner's argument - voting can be used legitimately as a form of self-defense, protecting yourself from hostile aggressors (i.e. other voters). The great Herbert Spencer argued likewise. He thought voting was legitimate because there is in fact no way to show your disapproval of state policy in any other way. Whether I would vote for one party, another party, or refuse to vote at all, most democratic demagogues would argue that I have consented to the state and that the government over me is legitimate. As Spencer puts it: "So, curiously enough, it seems that he [the citizen] gave his consent in whatever way he acted - whether he said yes, whether he said no, or whether he remained neuter! A rather awkward doctrine this."
Obviously this is a difficult choice to make and I think it is a personal one. Any pacifists among us, for example, cannot vote because of their belief that even self-defense is not legitimate (or ill-advised). Over the past couple weeks, however, I have been leaning in the direction of boycotting all elections myself. I think that choosing a political party could potentially be an aggressive act against the portion of the population who did not vote. They did not use the voting mechanism against me, so I should not use it against them. Democracy puts us all in a very difficult position. The democratic creed is "attack others, or be attacked yourself". The Democratic state is where we really see the famous Hobbesian 'war of all against all'. Especially in today's age when pretty much every caveat of our lives has been politicized. Democratic elections end up deciding about what happens not only on public property, but also on private property and even (alas!) in our own bodies! How much more dangerous and invasive can democracy become?
I am therefore leaning more and more in the sceptical anti-pragmatic direction of ignoring all elections and politics in general.

It seems redundat to remind everyone of those famous words by Lord Acton, who said that "the one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections."
So let's think for a moment. Is egoistic self-defense and unjust democratic peace worth putting ourselves in the position of being those tyrants in the majority?

Resources are Limitless

Lately I have been hearing a lot about 'finite resources' and all the problems the human race has or will have in the future because of them. Oil, water, air - all these things get mentioned. Historically, the most important resource which was argued about in this way was land. This wouldn't be a problem in itself if not for the terrible conclusions these people were led to. Namely - land socialism. This is the phenomenon we now see similarly in the case of evironmentalists, who are air and water socialists (though most of them seem to care more about ice than water). The most important proponent of land socialism (or 'common ownership of land') was Henry George. Otherwise a free-treader, George was a fanatic when it came to the land issue. Frighteningly enough, a case for moral land socialism is made even in early writings of Herbert Spencer (although he concedes that it is impossible to practice land socialism). These writings of George and Spencer heavily influenced many modern 'left libertarians'. Land is given some kind of special status because it is finite. And why does this supposed limit of quantity pose a problem when it comes to land? Because it is argued that Lockean Homesteading can only be justified when land is limitless - when people who don't have land and can't live have the ability to just go somewhere and homestead their own land. This, in turn, has been the cause of many of these modern 'left-libertarians' and most 19th Century individualist anarchists (such as Benjamin Tucker) turning away from Lockean homesteading and instead favouring 'occupancy and use' doctrines. Such doctrines maintain that if a person is not currently living on or using a piece of land, it has now gone back to the common stock and may be homesteaded by anyone else. Clearly this is a huge block on capital accumulation and eliminates landlords and land-rent by definition. Furthermore it has been argued that this land socialism was actually Locke's position, clearly he thought all the Earth was owned in common by all men.
Now, I hate to disappoint my friends on the left, but their beliefs are actually false. If we use their definition of 'finite resources', then everything in existance is a finite resource and must be socialized. But I claim that NOTHING in the physical universe is a finite resource. As far as we know, the only limited resource may be vacuum in outer space because space itself might not be infinite. The rest is up to man's INGENUITY and thus open to change by TECHNOLOGY. Take the example of oil (which is now being hailed as a finite resource as opposed to resources like solar power). There have been opinions going as far back as the late 19th Century that oil is running out. What we see in actual fact is that human ingenuity has discovered ways to get a lot more oil from many different locations on earth and technology allows us to do it efficiently and quickly. Oil is not running out. New oil fields have just been discovered in Canada (100 years worth of oil!). Rants in support of anything being finite, whether it be oil, air, water, the ice caps, or land, are just a symptom of primitive Malthusian panic. Thomas Malthus claimed that resources would run out and overpopulation would destroy humanity. Now, over 200 years onwards, this has not only failed to happen, we cannot even see signs of this being viable. Standards of living increase as populations increase because human labour and human ingenuity (enterprenourship) are the only conceptual finite resources of humanity. The more people, the more work and the more good ideas!

I also hate to disappoint all the land socialists, but not only is land infinitely available throughout the universe, but it is barely beginning to be occupied here on Earth. Imagine the possibilities: space stations, other planets, asteroids, huge skyscrapers, underwater cities (or floating cities!) here on Earth. Currently land - most of which is not even being occupied here on Earth yet due to either government meddling or lack of technology - covers only 30% of the planet. People have used technology to enlarge it, but soon maybe technology will allow us to simply live in the water-covered areas as well. Austro-Libertarian Dr. Walter Block has called for the privatization of the world's water for just this reason (as well as environmental reasons). As he says it "water is just fast moving land, and land is just slow moving water".

Communist Man versus Christian Man

As a Social Darwinist and believer in a better future of humanity, I often get accused of being overly idealistic and optimistic. People allege that the Spencerian model of human evolution tends to produce results which end up looking inconspicuously like the famed "new socialist man" who Marx wrote about. Furthermore, people also seem to conflate this "new socialist man" with Christianity's ideal man - Jesus. After all, aren't Spencerian evolved men selfless, as are the communists and the Christians?
All this is brought about by the fact people misunderstand Marxist, Spencerian, and Christian teachings. I once wrote a short post about the difference between statist "do-gooders" and Christians (here) and there I highlighted the differences in modern Christian and Socialist behaviour towards others. When speaking about the future, however, the topic becomes a bit different still. After all, as my critics have said, if the "new socialist man" of tomorrow is a communist voluntarily and no coercion is used, does he not become the perfect Christian? And is Spencer's future man who never does wrong by others and takes pleasure in the pleasure of others (and feels pain at the pain of others) also not similar to this ideal socialist man? The answer is simple - No. There are huge disparities between all three "ideal men".
Marx was an economist and it is easy to see where his man is different from the other two - he is a materialist. The communist man considers most things and people as a function of utility for the commune. I.e. individuals who slack or do not produce as much are considered inferior to others who give their lives to pursue greater gains. For Marx, who subscribed to the faulty labour theory of value, gains are usually material. The final Marxist position was best espoused by the early Fabian socialists in Great Britain who asserted that individuals who do not "pull their own weight" in society and consume more than they produce should be judged by the collective and maybe even eliminated in some kind of final solution. The communist man is therefore cold and calculating despite his outwardly cooperative demeanor. We get here the picture of an uncoerced form of the "Homo Sovieticus".
The Christian perfect man is someone we can actually already know and follow - Jesus. Jesus is certainly not a materialist. If anything, he is the embodiment of separating oneself from the material world through prayer. The Christian ideal lives a humble and quiet life where pleasure is not frowned upon, but is controlled for the sake of helping others. In this way the Christian man is very much an Epicurean - the ideal I aspire to someday reach. The Christian life is also communal, but it is very pacifist and has certain rules which matter above those of utility (in fact utility is not a concern at all for the Christian).
The Spencerian man is someone who is a rational egoist. He is not an altruist like the Christian, but he is not an ant or termite like the communist man seems to be. The Spencerian man has aligned his emotions with reason - he feels compassion for those who deserve it, but he is willing to ostracize and refuse help to those who deserve punishment. In a way he differs from the Christian man in that instead of providing active positive help and assistance to others, he rather minds his own business and never participates in any aggressive acts.

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be." Thus wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson. But what would be more appropriate is that all we know is what could be. We don't know what the man of the future will be like. We don't even know what the man of the present is! Let's worry about what is today and the problems we must face in the present. The discussions about the Übermensch can be left for those times when we all relax in a small smoke room with a glass of whiskey, and fine cigar, and a few philosophically inclined friends.

What is Pity for?

Pity is a rather confusing emotion. On the one hand it seems good - but it can surely have bad results. I would venture as far as to say that most problems of the welfare state and socialism are created by people feeling pity for others. Herbert Spencer, in his essay "The Coming Slavery", put it this way:

"The kinship of pity to love is shown among other ways in this, that it idealizes its object. Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions. The feeling which vents itself in “poor fellow!” on seeing one in agony, excludes the thought of “bad fellow,” which might at another time arise. Naturally, then, if the wretched are unknown or but vaguely known, all the demerits they may have are ignored; and thus it happens that when the miseries of the poor are dilated upon, they are thought of as the miseries of the deserving poor, instead of being thought of as the miseries of the undeserving poor, which in large measure they should be. Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their misdeeds."

But I would argue that pity is a good emotion. The problem is, as Spencer suggests, the misdirection of it. What the problem has always been is the lack of reasonability the average person displays. This blog is all about just that - reason. We libertarians have been, along with conservatives, often labeled as callous. Supposedly because we don't favor government welfare, we don't favor charity. We don't like "helping people". This is absolutely absurd. As studies have shown, conservatives give multiple times the amount of money (on average) to charity as compared to social-democrats and other leftists.
The emotion we call pity is an instinctual "red light" that may show us something bad is happening. If I see an old woman begging for change on the street, the "light" comes on - I pity her. The problem is not charity itself (fueled by pity!), but the way the charity is administered. Government welfare is a gigantic loss of money, time, and effort. Statistics show that for every dollar destined for welfare the poor recipients only receive 25 cents! That is a tragic result! Common rhetoric of the leftists and statists is "we need to eliminate government waste" or "there is no use in cutting programs, we just need to streamline them and fix them". This is not the case. Government welfare programs end up being welfare for the government employees (who in most cases are half-wits who would not be able to get a decent job in a free economy).
Furthermore I would like to say that these people (pro-government statists) do not actually feel real pity. Pity is a feeling that inspires you to help, not defer the responsibility to other people (through coercive government means). The statists say that private charity is discriminatory and small. I say that their charity is just a dirty callous machine. It is emotionless and truly an evil Behemoth. It breeds poverty instead of eliminating it. It is un-Darwinist, unnatural, and cold. It is devoid of all pity instead of being filled with it.

Under regular circumstances people can apply charity where it is necessary - where pity really directs them. Such a process of helping the deserving poor rather than the welfare addicts is Darwinistic, moral, and does not require government coercion. What did Gandalf say when Frodo suggested it was a pity Bilbo had not killed the poor creature, Gollum? Did the evil little wretch deserve death?
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least."
Professor Tolkien was a very wise man.

God is a Selfish Sado-Masochist?!

Let's talk about God! Most people I know to seem to think he (she/it?) is a being who has designed a world with a lot of rules, put us there, and now wills us to live there. Catholics, who I personally have most experience with, also assert that we need to serve him and obey all his rules and regulations as stipulated by a guy in Rome who wears a funny hat. Now I do not want to disrespect the Pope or this great religion (which is largely responsible for the existence of our entire civilization and capitalist market system), but I do have to say some of its commandments are a bit ridiculous. So let's discuss this special person - God.
God created everything for himself, did he not? And he told everything to follow his rules, did he not? And he punishes those who do not follow his rules, does he not? Are you getting the pattern here yet? It seems to me God is a mighty selfish individual! I could, of course, say that all of the universe belongs to him and thus he has the right to rule it with an iron fist. After all I accept Lockean homesteading and as it is with man, it must be with God: "the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his". But that would also mean something crazy - namely that children are the property of their parents. After all, they did create the children out of themselves much as God created humankind. As Max Stirner put it:

"He cares only for his cause, but, because he is all in all, therefore all is his cause! But we, we are not all in all, and our cause is altogether little and contemptible; therefore we must "serve a higher cause." – Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not well-pleasing to him."

But furthermore what is the character of this creature, God? Well, he is said to be omnipotent (he created everything out of nothing!). And yet he created an imperfect world. It is a world in which his laws are continually broken. He has to keep punishing or blessing people for their actions. If he is omnipotent he could just repair it all in the blink of an eye! But he continues to trudge on and make series after series of mistakes. Either his omniscience is indeed nonexistent, or he must have some frightening character flaw. I would posit that he is (assuming he is an omniscient and omnipotent being) a sado-masochist. He enjoys people breaking his rules (masochism!) and he enjoys punishing them for it (sadism!). After all if both were not the case, why would he continue on with this arrangement? Since I also assume he is ultimately good, why would he not just fix things? Why would he not make us perfect communistic people?

This whole discussion, of course, was strictly ironic and polemic. It was meant to illustrate the absurdity of God as some people imagine him - that old man (our Father) in the sky who watches over us and helps or punishes those on Earth. I think the Law of God is pure and simple, though we break it all the time without knowing. This Law was defined by Herbert Spencer as the Divine Plan. As the great Spencer writes, "evil perpetually tends to disappear". Why? Because, again to quote the man, "all evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions". And we violate this Law daily by seeking to save the unfit and punish the strong and successful. This is the greatest evil of collectivism, and the greatest evil of the state.

The Militarist Bug

People love the army. This is the simple truth. No matter what political tradition they come from they always tend to support the military of their nation. For example here in the USA even the people who are against aggressive American wars in the Middle East support the troops! They wish them good luck, welcome them home when they do arrive back, etc. I once witnessed a very strange event at an airport where a number of military personnel (all dressed in their uniforms) just arrived back in the US from some foreign country. When they walked in through customs all the random people who happened to be in the airport at the time just applauded them for no apparent reason. Maybe somebody will explain this to me one day... but I just don't know how such people think.
Now I may not be a pacifist, but I certainly know who the aggressors are. And the army are the aggressors. We really need to show some backbone and confront these people. I know they have all the guns and a good PR agency (the entire government), but we must stand up for what is right. Herbert Spencer gave us a great example back in his days. When commenting on the British invasion of Afghanistan (parallels?) he said about the soldiers that "When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves." This is the attitude we should have about the soldiers in our armies (well except for the Swiss who have no such problem).
And there is an even more important aspect to army worship than the glorification of murder. That is, also in the Spencerian tradition, the permeating effect that such worship has on the entire society. Society can only be organized in two ways - the industrial (liberal and voluntary relations) or military (controlled and relations based on status). The militant model lends itself to hierarchical structures and thus the use of socialist means. It creates an atmosphere in which the common man accepts his inferiority to the wise overlord who is, after all, above him on the ladder. But I would add it is also a greedy society - everyone is willing to fight for his place on that ladder to the death. Why do we have such conflict today with the Democrats and Republicans in the US, for example? It is clearly because some people know that when the Republicans are elected their lives will be utterly destroyed and, vice versa, some people know the same about the Democrats. Militant society produces destructive forces, legitimizes aggression (both is execution and legislation), and brainwashed people into accepting the system. The army is all about acting decisively, civilized relations are all about restraint. We must reject that Machiavellian notion of militant society and protest any and every abuse of power.

Tragically I cannot make others understand this crucial concept - the evil of the military society (also known as a fascist society). All that remains for me to do is repeat that helpless shout of Cicero - "O tempora, o mores!"

Good Old Democracy

Democracy (Greek "demokratia" - "rule of the people") is a very vague term. Today in schools the state propaganda machine defines it as a system in which majority rule is applied and which creates freedom and equality. This definition is false for too many reasons to count (for one, liberty is contrary to egalitarianism). Still, democracy based on this false definition has many followers. And many of these democratic demagogues take the time to research my opinions before or after they debate me on the issue of government(NB. I greatly respect people who are willing to actually go through the task of research and finding information rather than just blabbering and shouting). Such people often get back to me with snide remarks about two men who I consider to be some of my greatest philosophical mentors - Herbert Spencer and Ludwig von Mises - being in favor of democracy. This is a basic error. Indeed Spencer and Mises thought democracy preferable to monarchy, but that is only because they had a very different definition of democracy. For them it was not something vague and associated with freedom and equality and majority rule. Rather it was, as Mises put it "the right of self-determination both of individuals and of nations". This means that "rule of the people" was interpreted differently by liberal philosophers. Rather than meaning "everybody rules" as is accepted today, democracy used to mean "everybody rules themselves and themselves alone". This is what liberal democracy was really about. This is the principle on which the United States were founded. Herbert Spencer wrote about this most eloquently when establishing his Right to Ignore the State. Secession was the most important and deeply fundamental aspect of liberal democracy as defined by Mises, Spencer, or Jefferson. This principle, cited in the Declaration of Independence, was only quenched and eliminated from the definition of democracy after the War to Prevent Southern Secession in the 1850's. Unfortunately the greatest liberal democracy which ever existed, those Jeffersonian United States, killed itself soon after its foundation...

I think Mises described his views best when writing about liberalism in Man, Economy, and State - "It forces no one against his will into the structure of the state. Whoever wants to emigrate is not held back. When a part of the people of the state wants to drop out of the union, liberalism does not hinder it from doing so. Colonies that want to become independent need only do so. The nation as an organic entity can be neither increased nor reduced by changes in states; the world as a whole can neither win nor lose from them." This is what liberal democracy was really supposed to embody. The democracy we have today is mob rule, a dictatorial democracy. Sadly liberal democracy always degenerates thus, which is why we must oppose this doctrine at ever corner.

Libertarianism and Children

Children and children's rights under a libertarian system have been the most troubling theoretical problem for me over the last couple years. No libertarian theorist has addressed this issue in an acceptable way. Most just dismiss it as trivial or take up pragmatic argumentation which is in itself unlibertarian. Murray Rothbard devotes a chapter of his Ethics of Liberty to it, but even there I do not find all the answers I seek. According to my conclusions children should be treated in the exact same way adults are, otherwise some libertarian axiom is contradicted. If we restrict children's freedom we immediately equate them with slaves. That would set a terrible precedent for other situations where it would suddenly become acceptable to enslave people for pragmatic reasons.
I find myself, as on most other issues, siding exactly with the position of the great Herbert Spencer. As he wrote in Social Statics (the most important book ever written), "Those commonly-observed facts, that the enslavement of woman is invariably associated with a low type of social life, and that conversely, her elevation towards an equality with man uniformly accompanies progress, were cited in part proof that the subjection of female to male is essentially wrong. If now, instead of women we read children, similar facts may be cited, and a similar deduction may be drawn."
Spencer is correct in that progress in society can only be measured by the level of coercion exercised within it - the less coercion, the more the progress. Thus it is right to treat children as if they were just a human being, without applying special categories to them. After all, age is just a category. Similar ones have been applied to the sexes or races in the past. However, I don't think I need to mention the repercussions of such an attitude turning into policy. There is clearly something wrong with children being able to act as adults. In such a case a child could sign a contract which would make him a slave while he is 3 years old and doesn't know how to read yet! The only other option I see is treating children as incapacitated citizens (as if they were mentally ill or something such) until they reach a certain age or level of ability. These standards would have to be set by individuals or communities on a local basis.
I am always willing to listen to proposals on this issue!

Can Man Ultimately Evolve Into "The Good"?

The key to understanding Social Darwinism has always been grasping the concept of the interrelation between social and biological evolution. I base my understanding of such matters on Herbert Spencer's vision (although such a vision would more properly be called Social Lamarckism). Social Darwinism is not a moral system per se; it cannot tell us what exactly to do under certain circumstances and how we should act. Rather, it i a concept which describes a process inherent in all living things. Namely: That which is in use (being necessary) will grow and enlarge while that which is not in use (being unnecessary) will decline and disappear. Thus, for instance, in a biological sense, humans do not have gills. When our ancestors left their aquatic environment they used these organs less and less until they vanished completely. The same process takes place with regard to societal functions of man. Aggression is a necessary impulse in primitive human societies because it was required for survival in a primal sense. Aggressive individuals were more likely to be able to take what they need and eliminate opponents. They were the ones that produced the most offspring. The 'might makes right' standard of the primitive state of nature required humans to live this way. However, according to Spencer, society and cooperation are based on the lack of aggression. Therefore to be well suited for society humans must curb their aggressive impulses. Overly-aggressive individuals will not be welcome and will die childless - excluded from society. Non-aggression will therefore be favored in a moral sense as well as in a biological sense (the non-aggressive people will now have the upper hand and be able to pass on their superior genetic material). The final product of this process will be the "perfect man".
Now here is where I differ from the great Mr.Spencer:
Firstly - I do not believe we can ever determine what the perfect man will be like. Will he be a non-aggressive altruist for whom causing pain brings pain and doing good bring pleasure as Spencer claims? I am afraid that sounds overly Utopian and, may I say, Marxist!
Secondly, Mr.Spencer bases his claims on that sad and evil beast UTILITARIANISM. This strange and terrible concept has devoured many great minds and twisted them into thinking that which is right is that which 'brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number'. I can never subscribe to such views.
On the whole, however, Spencer is right! Social Evolution is a process whether we like it or not! I do not disagree with Spencer about his conclusions either (I am simply not sure it is possible to prove the 'perfect man' claim). Every Christian bone in my body believes his conclusions are right. But this is, again, just a belief - not rooted in fact or empirically provable. Logic (of which Spencer is a great champion) may, however, point us in the right direction. Maybe man can become good, maybe man can end up existing "in God's image"? We'll never know...

And regarding my last post - the Clintons seem to have a very peculiarly tight relationship with Kosovo. Why else would the citizens of that 'state' erect a statue of the most pathetic US President of the 20th Century?

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.

Bailouts - For Everyone!

I have yet to come up with any better way of subsidizing idiocy and recklessness than so-called "bailouts". Recently the most powerful Red in the world, President Obama, has announced plans to start bailing out individual homeowners who are behind in their mortgage repayments as long as they meet certain conditions. Namely, their mortgage needs to amount to more than the value of their house and they have to be unemployed. I have never heard of a more ludicrous idea! Subsidizing three hugely negative behaviours (staying unemployed and collecting welfare, lowering property values, and borrowing against your house without being able to afford it) in one move! The administration also makes a couple incredibly foolish assumptions while proposing this bailout. One is that "people would rather work than not work". I think that kind of statement needs no comment. It is the exact opposite of the universally accepted law of the disutility of labor. People prefer leisure to work! This is why most people enjoy their weekends and public holidays. This is reminiscent of the theories of Marx or Engels who were sure that the "new socialist man" would enjoy work and therefore productivity under a socialist system wouldn't fall, but increase... Of course these $50,000 give-aways Obama is proposing will not only distort the market and reward foolishness, but also hurt frugal citizens who don't have credit issues. Many people did not get sucked into the easy loan trap and saved their money. They spent within their means and maintained their properties while scrupulously paying off their mortgages. These people will now be taxed and their savings will be diminished through inflation. Their portion of the national debt will rise, something their children will have to face as much as the children of the idiots ("idiots" is probably the mildest term for people who took out zero-down adjustable rate mortgages and immediately started taking out extra loans against their new property...).
The European Union, meanwhile, is doing no better. Let us take the example of the recent Greece bailout. Right after the financial crisis hit in 2008 Ireland suffered a huge economic recession. Immediately tough steps were taken. Paychecks to all government staff were cut. Some staff were laid off. Entitlements (such as unemployment benefits) were severely reduced or even eliminated. During this time the Greek government did none of these things. They continued spending like drunken sailors and getting further into debt with no regard for the future. And now, after their final collapse, Ireland is one of the nations paying off the Greeks! And to no small sum - at least 800 billion euro in the first instance!
As my guru, the great Herbert Spencer, said: "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools."
Peter Schiff had it right all along and he gets it right again here. The Dollar, Obama's Plans, the Lunacy of Politics...

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.

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."

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).