Anarchoblogs

Marc Emery is a Canadian man who is now in (US) federal prison for 5 years over his business of selling cannabis seeds to the public. It breaks my heart to see this man in prison. He has harmed no one. There is no victim for the crime he is accused of. In Canada, his offenses are punishable by fines. So how did he end up across the border in a cage for five years? Watch this short video from Liberty on Tour to find out.

Apart from the victimless crime issues and the cruel and unusual punishment angle, consider the fact that Marc was practicing agorism. Maybe he was doing it openly and publicly, instead of secretly as many agorists claim it should be done. Maybe he was paying some taxes. Nevertheless, he is an agorist and is currently under the thumb of the federal government. There is a lesson here for other (prospective) agorists. Agorism is a form of civil disobedience or peaceful non-compliance. As an agorist, you may someday be caught, caged and prosecuted. When this happens, what will you do? How will you get out of this terrible situation? This is a question that needs to be addressed in order for the agoristic strategy of building the new world inside the shell of the old to succeed.

As Roderick Long has noted, when the government is about to do something terrible, wouldn’t it be better if it did something just bad instead? Can we moderate the government’s actions by participating in it through voting, running for office, lobbying, letter-writing and other more traditional forms of activism? And if we can, isn’t that worth the ameliorative effect that could result? What do you think? Once you or another practicing agorist you know is facing time in a cage, how will we get them out? How will we protect our fledgling economies from state aggression?

Have you heard about the sovereignty movement? This is what I call the people who rally around the ideas expressed very briefly in this video. There are many lines of thought present in the movement. Some think that all unconstitutional government tyranny arises from our voluntary consent. Others think there is a second, secret constitution. I have heard the idea that there are two governments, one based on the constitution and one borne from the federal governance of Washington, DC. Some argue that the 14th amendment, instead of freeing the slaves, enslaved us all, morphing us from sovereigns to citizens. Others look for hidden meanings in words, and tend to take symbolism literally.

I find this movement fascinating and complex while also tending towards the ridiculous and unbelievable. There is a surreal kind of logic to their work. The foundation for their most useful work is solid. Proponents test their hypotheses in the courts. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don’t. It’s this solid foundation of experimentation which, when actually used, most impresses me about the sovereignty movement. Here is some additional work on how these methods and ideas can be used to hold government agents accountable. Don’t write it off without looking into it! You never know when you might be hauled in front of a state judge and forced to fend for your life, liberty and property.

1215.org’s Law Notes is foundational, reasonably rational and more connected to reality than some other sources. There are even 8 hours of lectures available.

Marc Stevens is on the fringe of this movement as far as I can tell (by which I mean he sounds reasonable). His research is reliable and his conclusions tested by hard experience. He has a book and a weekly radio show.

Robert Arthur Menard is a Canadian proponent of sovereignty theory who has apparently met with great real-world success. He has tons of videos on YouTube. And I believe he is associated with thinkfree.ca.

What do you think of these ideas? Let me know in the comments.

While researching the new backscatter X-ray naked-body scanning machines that the federal government is placing in airports around North America, I came across a commenter on NJ.com who claims the scanners infringe on his freedom. Is he right? Are the scanners being forced on travelers against their will? Can enterprising individuals offer a competing security service? Who is paying for these $170,000 scanners, and how?

Luckily, the government agency in charge of these things (the TSA) affords us the rare privilege (at least on paper) of opting out of this government program. You can choose an aggressive rub down instead! And that’s only reasonable, if less than ideal. Airlines will either provide security or go out of business. There are concerns about the full-body scanning machines: they can damage your body with excessive and unnecessary amounts of radiation and they put your privacy at risk. So I’m comparatively quite thrilled that my family only has to be groped in order to travel on an airplane.

The real problem is that government arrogates to itself a monopoly power over passenger security screening. This kind of authority is capricious and unaccountable. It’s simply not practical. There are few strong incentives for honest and fair behavior. If consumers want to purchase their airline security in a different, perhaps more dignified package, they are forcibly denied this option. It’s a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s not like you can go to a different airport and get better treatment. The government effectively owns all the major ones!

Who pays for these scanners? You do – if not through income taxes then through the inflation of your federal reserve note (US dollar) holdings by the Federal Reserve. That’s right, the federal government is running enormous deficits. They fund these shortfalls with debt, much of which is invented out of thin air by the wizards at the Federal Reserve. There’s no opting out of that!

The full body scanners are an infringement of our travelers’ freedom. The government forces individuals to pay for them, whether they fly or not, whether they want them or not. The government claims as its unique privilege monopoly control of passenger security screening. Competing security firms are forcibly barred from competing with the TSA. Airline security is very important, but this is no way to go about it. We need the government to back off and let airlines, airports and travelers find there own solutions, without the use of force.

There’s a reason American workers aren’t paying much attention to the new financial regulations. And no, it isn’t out of “apathy.” Despite making a combined $18 billion in profits last quarter alone, major banks are still doing all that they can avoid new consumer protection legislation – and, we might add, new legislation hasn’t made [...]

Continue reading at Trial by Fire …

How is it that, 7 years into the Iraq War and 8 years into the Afghanistan War, a lone high school teacher can be treated with such contempt as seen in this video for taking a stand against war? Did student anti-war movements take this long to develop in response to the Vietnam War? Why is she the only one? Why are no students with her? What is so wrong with our country that opposition to war is this impotent, isolated and disrespected? Why are children still volunteering for military service? Did no teacher assign them to read Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” (now available for free online)? Why on earth are they being sent off with such glee to self-destruction? Why are police officers handing out diplomas? Has George Orwell’s world of “1984″ finally arrived?

Notice in the local media coverage how creating controversy is mocked under color of journalistic objectivity. At the end, the reporter claims that the children are going to war in order to protect the teacher’s right to dissent. In fact, these children are being sacrificed to extend the imperial ambitions of a power-hungry gang of murderers enabled by millions whose illusions of freedom and prosperity are sustained by the thin thread of cheap oil and cheap imports which these wars buttress.

The local news station even admits that a former student was killed in one of the wars but is unable to enunciate the next logical step of questioning whether the cause justified a young man’s life. Hopefully, some truth, empathy and thought-provoking questions will soon reach those involved in this incident.

WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the United States government’s campaign of murder, occupation, torture, theft, spying and propaganda worldwide. That is why commentators such as Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post so strenuously demand that it be shut down. This is also why you must step forward in support of WikiLeaks, before its founder Julian Assange turns up shackled in a secret CIA prison overseas.

Don’t be fooled! WikiLeaks is a beacon of truth and liberty in a world under siege by the criminal enterprise called the United States government. Assange and his ragtag crew reveal this criminal gang’s secrets to the civilized world so that we might know them for who they are, and act accordingly. WikiLeaks is the latest star in a long series of truth-tellers, muckrakers and whistleblowers that have made ours a more civilized and just society. Its networked model is the future of our peaceful resistance to war, murder and other forms of aggression.

Let’s be clear: the United States government is putting good people in harm’s way. Not WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks were to reveal a secret list of mafia hitmen and informers, would you accuse them of putting these criminals in jeopardy of being held accountable for their actions? Or would you cheer them for outing evildoers and saving innocent people’s lives? Only a fellow mafia hitman or mafia sympathizer would attack WikiLeaks for this kind of act.

Similarly, don’t stand for any government thug who says Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking the Collateral Murder video to WikiLeaks, should be executed. These thugs aim to swiftly and surely punish anyone who stands up for liberty and truth, to set an example of them so that you will be further intimidated.

The threats against Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are threats against you. While they are among the first to find the courage and wherewithal to stand up against the United Statesian Empire, you or someone you know could be next. Supporters of WikiLeaks would do well to indict Marc Thiessen, and anyone who threatens WikiLeaks, in the court of public opinion. Don’t wait another minute to do so!

Over at FSK’s Guide to Reality, in another one of his ruthless analyses, FSK dissected the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan. He composed some dialog that might take places in an honest supreme court confirmation hearing. I thought it was funny so I dramatized it using xtranormal. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

My online friend, George Donnelly, whom I blogged about previously (here, here, and here), posts an update about his situation and the efforts by the state to punish him for the heinous crime of filming his friend being assaulted by U.S. Marshals. Though his situation has improved, he’s not out of the woods yet. Spread this around so that people begin to learn the true nature of the state: it’s a criminal organization that obtains its funding and seeks its goals through initiatory violence rather than civilized, peaceful exchange and persuasion. It should be viewed not as a ‘necessary evil’ but as an unecessary and unfortunate detour on humanity’s journey toward civilized society. Stop defending it.

Those who choose to mock anarchists by holding up Somalia as the sort of situation that comes about in the absence of the state are missing a lot of really important pieces of the story. A friend of mine (thanks, Donovan!) reminded me of one of the biggest the other day: that Western statism, in the form of foreign aid money violently expropriated from states’ subject populations and transferred to Third World state rulers, results in a violent struggle for control of Somalia. The warring factions each know that whoever comes out on top will stand to gain untold riches from the United States and other Western states. To make matters worse, the factions know that the U.S. sends even larger amounts of aid to regions plagued by al-Qaeda; so they have a serious incentive to invite al-Qaeda into their territory.

And, of course, states like the U.S. have a vested interest in ensuring that Somalia doesn’t become too peaceful prior to the establishment of a strong central state, because such a society would be highly threatening to the illusion that the state is necessary for peace and prosperity.