Everyone likes "their" Fascist...

Why are nationalism and patriotism dangerous? Well - because they cause people to act irrationally. In my book anything that makes people irrational is in fact bad. I notice this danger most when discussing historical leaders with people from many different countries. I have written about this before in relation to irrationality, but I have never identified the root of the problem which lies in patriotism and nationalism (both forms of religion worshipping the State). The motto of these people is "well, he made out country great". For example if anyone in the Western World was asked if they admire Stalin, I doubt he would get more than a 1% positive approval rating. Meanwhile in Russia he was chosen the 3rd greatest ever Russian hero! By any objective standard Abraham Lincoln would be considered a tyrant (Hitler was a big admirer...), but in the United States he gets high praise from people blinded by patriotism. Similarly I have met a lot of Italians who speak positively of Mussolini and there are still plenty of Francoists in Spain (putting aside the fact Franco was much better a man and leader than the previous three I named). This phenomenon is like i say - a religion. Basing actions on any relogious faith-base is totally against rationality in any way, shape, or form.
This religion also has its rites and practices, of course. One symptom in the United States is the "national greatness conservatism" movemement composed mainly of NeoCons like John R. Bolton and John McCain. These are the sort of people who like to build giant monuments to their God-like heroes (anyone who has been to the Greek temple known as the Lincoln Memorian knows this). Hero-worship is a very primitive custom which existed in ancient Greece and Rome - it has no place in modern society. Having a role-model in life has nothing to do with worshipping and building statues.

The great Christian-Anarchist Leo Tolstoy once described this relation of statism, dominance, and patriotist in these words: "Patriotism ... for rulers is nothing else than a tool for achieving their power-hungry and money-hungry goals, and for the ruled it means renouncing their human dignity, reason, conscience, and slavish submission to those in power. ... Patriotism is slavery."

Mr. President, don't make me laugh!

NeoLiberals keep using this amazing Newspeak where 'spending' is for some reason synonymous with 'investing'. The two could not be further apart, they are actually opposites. Then again what else could we expect from the bunch who advocate government growth claiming it's a 'liberal' measure? Everyone knows liberalism is the ideology which opposes big government...
But have no fear! President Barack Obama announced a plan of spending-cuts. I don't know if by that he means investment-cuts? Probably not. But this question is beside the point because no spending cuts are on the way. If I didn't know better, I would call Mr. Obama a liar - but I just can't do that. He's not a liar - he actually believes these reforms he proposes are spending cuts.
So let's look at the figures. The President says his policy will cut the deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years. This kind of promise must seem disingenuous even to the Obama-supporters out there. I mean come on, the US budget deficit is at around $1.6 trillion A YEAR right now, and it doesn't look like that's going to change in the near future (I say 'around' because nobody knows how much money the government is really spending). So this 10 year savings rate doesn't even cover the 2011 problem. We need to cut DEBT, not just the DEFICIT. How can you cut DEBT if you will keep adding DEFICITS on top of it, no matter how minor or major they are? This is all just plain silly stuff. I suspect a Greece scenario soon...
A second problem is this - how in the world can Mr. Obama guarantee something for 10 years? This is what politicians in democratic countries keep doing. They promise things which are way out of their reach in terms of being able to actually carry them out. Mr. Obama will not be President 10 years from now, the Congress might be entirely different, how can he talk about anything outside his own term in office? This is just ridiculous democrat-babble and must not be trusted or belived in any country. In fact I tend to trust US politicians more than those in other parts of the world, but still I say only a complete moron will buy into this.
As always I leave the most important issue for last. Namely - How did the government get to spend these absolutely huge amounts of money it doesn't have?! Thomas Jefferson must be rolling around in his grave - he proposed a nation in which the government could not create a public deficit or have public debt at all. I cannot believe anyone would let this Leviathan get this out of control. It seems that not only do all the politicians think we're all idiots, it also seems they are right - that is exactly what we are! I should think a good, responsible, limited federal government could be ran with a couple billion dollars. We don't need trillion of tax dollars and we certainly don't need trillions of debt dollars on top of that.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson: "I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." Amen to that!

Real Crime and Punishment

What is crime? Doing harm to another person against their will - aggression. What is punishment? Punishment is meant to be a form of restitution for the victim. After all it is he (or she) who has been harmed by the criminal activity of the aggressor. What right do we have to interpose ourselves between the victim who demands justice and his attacker? We have no such right at all! If I had dictatorial control over the criminal justice system I would immediately put these initiatives in place (short of disbanding the whole statist thing, of course!):
1. Eliminate the office of "Public Prosecutor"
2. Eliminate any code of positive laws which specifies certain punishments are to be used for certain crimes.
3. Eliminate the possibility of the defendant to posit insanity or any other motive as a defense.
So what would the result of such reforms be?
Well, most importantly, the victim would have the power to determine the harm done to him (or her) and act accordingly. My experience with life so far has taught me that people do not like being told what to do, they like to be able to apply their own value judgements in certain situations. Many Christians, for example, oppose the death penalty. But under the current system they have little say in whether such punishment is applied or not. Conversely, others who believe they have been wronged so much that only death of the aggressor would provide adequate restitution are denied their right as victims to proper compensation. The subjective theory of value applies to all property. It is for the abused party to determine what the value of its loss really was. Forgiving people might 'turn the other cheek' and request a mild punishment even for murder. More stern individuals might require the court to carry out a life sentence or a million dollar fine for littering on their land. Who is to say whether any punishment is excessive or too slight if not the victim himself! And I dare say this system could prove a better deterrent than the one we have today.
Also the most despised office in the land - the general public prosecutor - would no longer exist. This means that we would finally be free of some snob filing lawsuits for 'the greater good'. In such a case all victimless crimes would not be prosecutable. If someone happened to be doing cocaine in his own house and didn't do any harm to anyone, there would be no one with the legal power to file suit against this individual. This would make most positive laws unenforceable.
And finally motives would not longer be taken into account in trials. Who cares why a certain man killed his victims? All that matters is that he did it. Motives and intentions are always irrelevant in the case of all actions - criminal or not. It is the results and consequences that matter.
I am, of course, aware that this system is not quite viable. It is more of a illustration of how good and just a subjective justice system might actually be had it been allowed to flourish. We must eliminate the compulsory monopoly of aggression which has bound us together within some kind of enigmatic geographical or 'national' borders. Then we will really see what the Law is.

One of the greatest Lawmen of all time and historical icon of the modern Conservative-Liberal movement, Sir William Blackstone, wrote that "Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey." Natural Law is the only Law - applicable to anyone and everyone, anything, and everything.

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.

Government In Your Bedroom

Recently I read an absolutely shocking story coming out of the UK. I have known for years that Her Majesty's Homeland is the world's leader in socialism and social engineering. I did not, however, think that we have moved into the sphere of complete tyranny in personal life. The UK's social-democratic and socialist movements have always been very accepting of all sorts of strange practices especially when they involved a person's sexuality. Homophobia was unheard of among the elites - something I've always admired about the British. In this case though, I don't know whether to laugh (at its absurdity) or cry (because of the awful human rights violation).
As I said multiple times on this blog, the only decent newspaper worth reading in the UK is the Daily Telegraph. You would not believe my shock when I went on the Telegraph website a few days back and found this. The title of said article really says it all: "Court bans man with low IQ from having sex". This adult human being has been restricted - the government's goons will now monitor the inside of his house 24/7 to see that he follows the court ruling. This poor guy was in a homosexual relationship at the time and is quoted as saying that the relationship makes him feel happy. Apparently one of his problems is that he has a vigorous sex drive and doesn't know the dangers sex poses (i.e. pregnancy). So what can we learn from this precedent?
Well, I think we should put a camera in the bedroom of every 14 year old! In England teenage pregnancy figures happen to be the extremely high - maybe all those children don't know the consequences of their actions? And believe me, low IQ has nothing to do with having a vigorous sex drive, little teenagers suffer from that more than anyone. I therefore posit that such a law is passed immediately! We also need to conduct mandatory IQ tests for every person in the country and if they fall below a certain line - let's say 60 - we ban them from having sex forever!
I think I don't have to mention this ruling not only legitimizes the existence of a Police State, but also legitimizes eugenics. The said Telegraph article also mentions on what basis this man is being abused: "Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, its judges have the power to make life or death decisions for people deemed to lack the intelligence to make them for themselves – such as ordering that they undergo surgery, have forced abortions, have life-support switched off or be forced to use contraception." Obviously eugenics has been brought in through the back door. We can now perform abortions and euthanize people who we deem "mentally unstable" or whatever. Life and death decisions at the whim of bureaucrats. This is disgusting beyond belief.

It is clear to me that in this modern "civilized" world we have replaced natural selection with eugenics. It is eugenics to prevent this man from enjoying his freedom just in case he might get someone pregnant (which seems silly considering he is a homosexual...). But it was also eugenics-policy to keep this man alive in government-provided housing and force general taxpayers to pay for his survival. I have been a long-time follower of the doctrines of Darwin and Spencer, and their position is best summed up in the following quote from Sir Francis Galton: "One of the effects of civilisation is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands."

Anarchy and Utopia

People seem to think I am fighting for some sort of strange world where no aggression and no violations of property rights are possible. This is, of course, not true. I am an anarchist in the Rothbardian tradition, i.e. I apply the code of ethics that classical liberals and libertarians have to organizing society. I am pretty sure it is impossible to have a world where no aggression happens. Some people are violent and they will always remain so (NB. most of these people enter government in democratic states). Anarcho-capitalism or, as I prefer to call it, Individual Monarchism, has nothing to do with utopianism! We live in the real world. People need to sacrifice their absolute freedoms in order to gain the ability to live in a structured society. What I want, however, is for these sacrifices to be freely made and made on an individual basis. We cannot have dictators of any kind (whether democratic like Napoleon or autocratic like Caesar Augustus) determining our lives for us. This is why I do not call for the complete destruction of the state. All I call for is the absence of legalized violence and aggression. Note, this does not mean aggression will diappear, but violence perpetrated by states will!
In actual fact it is the statists who are the utopians. They say "If there is a problem, leave it to the government" or "If we can't deal with this naturally arising problem, government must". Such sayings are just pure rejections of reality. The government is composed of the same men as the general populace (except maybe of the more conniving variety). They cannot magically solve our problems. It is as Ronald Reagan used to say: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

I think Murray Rothbard, one of the greatest champions of liberty in the history of mankind, defined it best when he analyzed the non-aggression axiom and its relation to govermental structures:
"I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights."
The key is not aggression (aggression will always exist as long as man is not a perfect being), but LEGALIZED AGGRESSION. That is what we want to eliminate.

Faulty Anti-Gold Economics

Recently I nailed a man named Bartosz Turek on this blog for praising Communist Dictator Edward Gierek's housing policy. I think it's time for another "real economist" to bite the dust. A few days ago my sister sent me the following anti-gold article. And here is my rebuttal to each of the author's main points:
1. Valuing gold is impossible - What kind of fool could write something like this? There is some kind of anti-vault argument used here (prejudice against stuff we put in vaults? - that's usually valuable stuff!). If this is true, it is also impossible to value diamonds, jewelry, works of art, etc. Gold's value is measured like the value of any other good on the market. It is a normal commodity. What I would like to ask the author is the following: How do you value money?! That seems like the tough question to me! After all it's just little multicolored pieces of paper!
2.Knowing when to sell is even harder - Agan, this is true for every investment in the history of the world. Stocks and government bonds work the same way. But, as I mentioned a moment ago, gold is safer because it has intrinsic value (unlike pieces of paper, whether bonds, currency, or stocks).
3. Trading costs are high - Again, at the risk of repeating myself too much, how is this not true for every single thing a person buys or sells? For example, if everyone wants to buy milk at the same time (i.e. bull market is milk) transaction costs will be high. This is true of everything including money itself (dollar, euro, frank, etc.)
4. Gold provides no income - I have two objections to this. For one, it may or may not be true. If the world demand for gold suddenly increases then indeed holders of gold to gain money through increase in their asset value. And even if this does not happen - gold is meant to be used as a hedge against loss, not as a money-making extravaganza scheme. Certainly people have a much better chance of gaining wealth (or at least not losing it) when they hold gold, versus the chance they have for the same results when holding money, bonds, or stocks.
5. Buffett doesn't like it - Another two ojections. First, Warren Buffett is a puppet of the government bailout machine. He supports all kinds of crazy things which I wrote about extensively before (here). And second, this is an argument from authority! Just because someone is against something in opinion doesn't make it wrong! Personally I wouldn't be surprised if Mr.Buffett owned quite a lot of gold (in secret of course).
6. Gold loses to inflation - Wait... what? Property values are subject to huge inflationary booms (this is why we are in a crisis!), so they are in no way a better investment than gold. And how does gold inflate? I mean it is mined out of the ground... but this tiny inflation of supply is a miniscule when considering the comparative advantage. Namely, gold is a very solid asset to hold. It is not subject to rapid and crazy price fluctuations that land or some other commodities are.

In other words the author, Mr. Neil Faulkner, is wrong. Maybe his aim is to persuade people to sell gold so that he can buy it up? I don't know. In my own opinion gold is the best hedge any average citizen can grab hold of to protect himself from serious economic troubles which are surely coming.

As the great Ron Paul once said, gold has retained its value and purchasing power for over 6000 years now. So to Mr. Faulkner and any other anti-gold buff out there: Can you came another asset of commodity which has done half as well? With the possible exception of silver, of course!