Anarchoblogs

• Operation Revelation. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-05). Here's the intro to a press release from the sheriff of Bossier Parish, Louisiana: Bossier Sheriff Larry Deen has unveiled a new emergency operations plan that will be a continuation of public safety in Bossier Parish should disaster ever strike here at home. The plan, known as Operation Exodus, will... (Linked Friday 2010-03-05.)
• apophenia » Blog Archive » ChatRoulette, from my perspective. www.zephoria.org (2010-03-06). "[...] I love the way that it mixes things up. For most users of all ages – but especially teens – the Internet today is about socializing with people you already know. But I used to love the randomness of the Internet. I can’t tell you how formative it was for me to grow up talking to all sorts of random people online. So I feel pretty depressed every time I watch people flip out about the dangers of talking to strangers. Strangers helped me become who I was. Strangers taught me about a different world than what I knew in my small town. Strangers allowed me to see from a different perspective. Strangers introduced me to academia, gender theory, Ivy League colleges, the politics of war, etc. So I hate how we vilify all strangers as inherently bad. Did I meet some sketchballs on the Internet when I was a teen? DEFINITELY. They were weird; I moved on. And it used to be a lot harder to move on when everything was attached to an email that was paid for. So I actually think that the ChatRoulette version allows you to move on with greater ease, less guilt, and far more comfortably." (Linked Saturday 2010-03-06.)
• Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule - Part 3. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-03-03). “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued] ARMED AND DANGEROUS Perhaps this has all taken a strangely martial turn, given mutualism’s generally peaceful reputation. Isn’t the core of mutualism the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?” Yes, indeed. But there’s nothing simple about fulfilling the Golden Rule. The... (Linked Saturday 2010-03-06.)
• Raspberry Cliché Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-07). Last night Hollywood held its most rigidly predictable exercise in conventional wisdom: the Golden Raspberry Awards, a.k.a. the Razzies, established to honor the worst films of the year. Sandra Bullock showed up to collect her Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple prizes for All About Steve, then razzed the crowd... (Linked Sunday 2010-03-07.)

It’s that time of the week again. You know the deal: time to get as Shameless as you wanna be.

What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

On Saturday, March 20^th, I will be speaking at the Free State Project’s 2010 Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire. Liberty Forum runs from March 18-21; I’m honored to be on the same roster of speakers as Brad Spangler, Scott Bieser, Anthony Gregory, William Norman Grigg, Radley Balko, David Friedman, Angela Keaton, and Jason Talley. My own talk is scheduled for Saturday, March 20^th from 11:00am – 11:45am in the Amphiteater. Here’s what I’ll be talking about:

The Revolution Will Be Made Of People: Anarchy, Direct Action, and Free-Market Social Justice

Freedom is not a conservative idea. It is not a prop for corporate power and the political-economic statist quo. Libertarianism is, in fact, a revolutionary doctrine, which would undermine and overthrow every form of state coercion and authoritarian control. If we want liberty in our lifetimes, the realities of our politics need to live up to the promise our principles — we should be radicals, not reformists; anarchists, not smaller-governmentalists; defenders of real freed markets and private property, not apologists for corporate capitalism, halfway privatization or existing concentrations of wealth. Libertarianism should be a people’s movement and a liberation movement, and we should take our cues not from what’s politically polite, but from what works for a revolutionary people-power movement. Here’s how.

WHAT: The Revolution Will Be Made of People, speech and Q&A with Charles Johnson

WHEN: Saturday, March 20^th, 11:00am - 11:45am

WHERE: Liberty Forum 2010, Crowne Plaza Hotel, 2 Somerset Pkwy, Nashua, New Hampshire. (Details aqui.)

Many, many thanks are due to Tennyson McCalla for working to get this arranged and seeing the arrangements through.

See you in New Hampshire!

As you may know, there are only 10 more ranting days left until Tyrannicide Day, which this secessionist republic of one celebrates every year on March 15^th, in commemoration of the nearby anniversaries of the assassinations of Gais Julius Caesar and Alexander II Nikolaevich, the self-styled Caesar over all the Russias. As in years past, (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), although my time for the celebrations may be limited by the weekend trip to San Francisco that I’ll be just getting back from.

In any case, I’m happy to receive word through diplomatic channels that this secessionist republic of one’s Ministry of Culture will not be alone in celebrating this international holiday. If you happen to be in the area of Asheville, North Carolina, the Firestorm Cafe & Books will be hosting a celebration on Monday, March 15^th in honor of the holiday. Plus, they’ve designed this awesome logo for their holiday event.^[1]

For those of you who are new to this holiday, I can tell you what Tyrannicide Day is all about. Lights please:

Today, March 15^th, commemorates the assassination of two tyrants. Today is the 2,051^st anniversary — give or take the relevant calendar adjustments — of the death of Gaius Julius Caesar, the military dictator who butchered his way through Gaul, set fire to Alexandria, and, through years of conquest, perfidy, and proscription, battered and broke every barricade that republican institutions had put in the way of military and executive power, until he finally had himself proclaimed dictator perpetuus, the King of Rome in everything but name. On March 15^th, 44 BCE, a group of republican conspirators, naming themselves the Liberatores, rose up and stabbed Caesar to death on the floor of the Senate. Meanwhile, Thursday, March 13^th, was also the 127^th anniversary (give or take the relevant calendar adjustments), of the death of Czar Alexander II Nikolaevitch, the self-styled Caesar of all the Russias. Alexander was killed by grenades thrown by a group of anarchist conspirators on March 13^th, 1881 C.E., in an act of propaganda by the deed. In honor of the events, the Ministry of Culture in this secessionist republic of one has proclaimed March 15^th Tyrannicide Day (observed), which is kind of like President’s Day, except cooler. Instead of another dull theo-nationalist hymn on the miraculous births of two of the canonized saints of the United States federal government, Tyrannicide Day gives us one day in which we can commemorate the deaths of two tyrants at the hands of their equals — men and women who defied the tyrants’ arbitrary claims to an unchecked authority that they had neither the wisdom, the virtue, nor the right to exercise. Men and women who saw themselves as exercising their equal right of self-defense, by striking down the would-be tyrants just like they would be entitled to strike down any other two-bit thug who tried to kill them, enslave them, or shake them down.

… There are in fact lots of good reasons to rule out tyrannicide as a political tactic — after all, these two famous cases each ended a tyrant but not the tyrannical regime; Alexander II was replaced by the even more brutal Alexander III, and Julius Caesar was replaced by his former running-dogs, one of whom would emerge from the abattoir that followed as Augustus Caesar, to begin the long Imperial nightmare in earnest. But it’s important to recognize that these are strategic failures, not moral ones, and what should be celebrated on the Ides of March is not the tyrannicide as a strategy, but rather tyrannicide as a moral fact. Putting a diadem on your head and wrapping yourself in the blood-dyed robes of the State confers neither the virtue, the knowledge, nor the right to rule over anyone, anywhere, for even one second, any more than you had naked and alone. Tyranny is nothing more and nothing less than organized crime executed with a pompous sense of entitlement and a specious justification; the right to self-defense applies every bit as much against the person of some self-proclaimed sovereign as it does against any other two-bit punk who might attack you on the street.

Every victory for human liberation in history — whether against the crowned heads of Europe, the cannibal-empires of modern Fascism and Bolshevism, or the age-old self-perpetuating oligarchies of race and sex — has had these moral insights at its core: the moral right to deal with the princes and potentates of the world as nothing more and nothing less than fellow human beings, to address them as such, to challenge them as such, and — if necessary — to resist them as such.

—GT 2008-03-15: Tyrannicide Day 2008

Anyway. How about you? How are you planning to celebrate Tyrannicide Day? Got any plans? A favorite tyrannicide to highlight for this year’s ceremonies? A party to throw? If you are or do, send some fraternal greetings my way; I’d be glad to hear how you plan to pass the holiday.

Just ten more days, y’all. Beware the State; celebrate the Ides of March!

1. ^[1] Which has the advantage of combining multiple visual puns with some remarkable skill, and which, for a dinosaur nerd like me, is like the funniest thing ever. ↩

• By: Sheldon Richman. Sheldon Richman, Comments on: Should Libertarians Oppose “Capitalism”? (2010-03-04). “Sheldon, we are “holding onto” the term because we favor a peaceful, prosperous, cooperative society with a concomitant advanced economy, which will of course be characterized by the widespread “private ownership of the means of production.” We need a word for this important concept, for this libertarian and good institution.... (Linked Friday 2010-03-05.)

• Welcome to Statelessness. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-03-01). Gary Chartier is offering an introductory online course on anarchism under the auspices of the Molinari Institute’s Center for a Stateless Society. Check it out. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• SWAT Team Endangers Child, Parents Charged With Child Endangerment. The Agitator (2010-03-02). Police are here to keep kids safe: "So smoking pot = 'child endangerment.' Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone’s safety. Just so we're clear." (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• “Looters” and Food in an Emergency. Matthew Yglesias (2010-03-02). Disaster Statism Vs. Human Survival and Reclamation of Lost and Abandoned Property (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• NONVIOLENCE. A REVIEW OF MARK KURLANSKY’S 2006 BOOK. www.wendymcelroy.com (2010-03-02). NONVIOLENCE: A REVIEW OF MARK KURLANSKY’S 2006 BOOK BY THAT NAME By Jim Russell (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• HOUSE DEMOCRATS SUPPORT TORTURE. UNDERNEWS (2010-03-02). Keep on Hoping, y'all. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• t r u t h o u t | Alexander Cockburn | The Bogus Crime Wave. www.truthout.org (2010-03-02). Siege Mentality vs. Empirical Reality (Sin Fronteras Edition): In spite of the constant shrill efforts by Anglo nationalists to cultivate a siege mentality, there actually is no empirical evidence of an immigrant crime wave. When you control for age and state of residence, and when you don't count bogus victimless "offenses" which are directly related to immigration status, young Latin@ men are no more likely to commit violent crimes than young white men. If the undocumented population is significantly undercounted by the census (as many, including the nativist fear-mongers, would generally believe it to be), then the Latin@ crime rate is actually significantly lower than the white crime rate. The American Conservative, of all places (!), has the story. (Via the November Coalition.) (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• School district admits installing covert webcam activation software on student laptops, denies wrongdoing. Boing Boing (2010-03-02). In which Perpetual State of Supervision meets Stasi-statism: "The Superintendant of the Lower Merion School District -- where parents have initiated a class action suit over the covert use of students' laptops to surveil them in school and at home -- has sent a letter to parents with more information about the spying. The school admits that there was spyware installed on students laptops that allowed for remote, covert activation of their webcams, ... They have disabled the system for now and deny that it was misused." Dude, seriously? Of course they were "misused." The thing itself IS the misuse. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• Nolan Klein: an innocent man who died of an untreated medical condition inside Nevada´s prison system. NPW, Nevada Prison Watch (2010-03-02). From the January 12 2010 Meeting of the Board of Prison Commissioners:Tonya Brown stated she had a private autopsy performed on Mr. Klein and passed out the updated death certificate to the Board. She stated had he been properly treated, he would still be alive today and the State of... (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)

(Via a private correspondent.)

If you hope to be officially recognized as an enemy of the state of South Carolina (as per South Carolina Code Title 23 Chapter 29), you’d best move quick and make sure you send in your notice that you directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina, or any political division thereof. You may be running out of time.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — In South Carolina, any group that plans to overthrow the federal government — or any other government in the U.S. — must register its activities.

It’s the law.

Now some state legislators are looking to repeal it.

State Sen. Larry Martin said Monday the 1951 McCarthy-era statute that’s meant to deter communists is one more thing making South Carolina look bad, since bloggers and talk radio picked up on it last month. A misconception spread that the statute, on the books for nearly six decades, had only recently become law.

[…] His bill to repeal it comes up for debate this week in a Senate panel.

The “subversive activities registration act” requires any group that advocates overthrowing local, state or federal governments to pay $5 and register the group’s name, its leader’s address, beliefs, all members living in South Carolina and check yes or no to the following: “Do you or your organization directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government?”

[…] Until February, no one had registered, said Secretary of State Mark Hammond.

Now, about 10 have filed, apparently in jest, as political commentary. Two actually paid the fee, according to his office.

—Seanna Adcox, Associated Press (2010-03-01): SC bill would get rid of filing law for terrorists

I’m glad to be one of the 10, but if they think that my letter was meant in jest, then they have certainly misunderstood my intent. I certainly do intend to overthrow the government of South Carolina by means that are against the so-called laws passed by that government. For real. And I really don’t mind if they know it; hence the letter. (If it had any ulterior intent, it was not primarily to make a joke; it was to encourage other people to speak and act like that there’s nothing really wrong with saying that you want to overthrow tyrannical governments. Because there’s not. Tyrannical governments ought to be overthrown.)

In any case: I expect it’s likely that they are going to try to move quickly to save face, and go back to simply presuming popular acquiescence to their rule. If you want to be honored with official recognition as an enemy of the arbitrary governments over the state of South Carolina, the United States of America, and all the local political regiments that they have inflicted without consent on the people of South Carolina, you’d best get those letters sent in quickly, before the opportunity passes.

While we’re on the subject:

Our organization is in fact so dastardly that we have refused to remit the fee, writes someone claiming to represent the Las Vegas-based Alliance of the Libertarian Left.

—Seanna Adcox, Associated Press (2010-03-01): SC bill would get rid of filing law for terrorists

Speaking as the someone in question, I’d like to say for the record that the Alliance of the Libertarian Left is not based in Las Vegas. I’m based in Las Vegas, but A.L.L. is all over the place, and has no Politburo and no national or international office to be based anywhere.

Hope this helps.

See also:

• GT 2010-02-09: Civic duties

It’s March 2010. It has now been two years since my essay Liberty, Equality, Solidarity appeared in Roderick and Tibor’s Anarchism/Minarchism anthology. Which means that those of you who recently ordered now have a shipment in the mail, which should arrive within the next few days. And it also means I can now do this. [...]

Continue reading at Rad Geek People's Daily …

• Ex-New Orleans Cop Pleads Guilty To Massive Cover Up In Post-Katrina Shootings | TPMMuckraker. tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com (2010-02-26). "A veteran New Orleans police officer pleaded guilty yesterday to orchestrating an elaborate cover-up of a shooting in the days after Katrina in which police gunned down six unarmed city residents, killing two and seriously wounding four. ..." (Linked Friday 2010-02-26.)
• Cutting Up Your Credit Cards. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-02-25). "The banks and credit card companies have spent 50 years building a proprietary, locked-down system that handles roughly $2 trillion in credit card transactions and another $1.3 trillion in debit card transactions every year," Daniel Roth writes in Wired. But now "an army of engineers and entrepreneurs is rushing in,... (Linked Friday 2010-02-26.)
• Health Care and Radical Monopoly | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty. Google Alerts - http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/scratching-by-how-government-creates-poverty-as-we-know-it/ (2010-02-24). The Freeman Online. Published by the Foundation for Economic Education .... in “ Scratching By: How the Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” (The ... (Linked Saturday 2010-02-27.)
• "Two-Gun" Mutualism? - Part 1. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-02-27). “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULEThus one remains in perplexity and uncertainty, equally attracted and repulsed by two opposite attractors. Yes, the sympathies of our era are equally lively, equally energetic, whether it is a question of liberty or equality, of individuality or association. The faith in society is complete, but the... (Linked Saturday 2010-02-27.)
• Two-Gun Mutualism? - Part 2. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-02-27). “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued]INDIVIDUALISM vs SOCIALISMIt is clear that, in all of this writing, it is necessary to understand by socialism, socialism as we define it in this work itself, which is as the exaggeration of the idea of association, or of society. For a number of years, we have... (Linked Saturday 2010-02-27.)

It’s Sunday night. Late, I know. But on a night like tonight, it is never too late. A night of love. A night of rage. A night of Shamelessness.

You know the deal. What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.