The problem with those who wish to organize society by means of a central governing authority (the State), is not that they don’t have any good ideas, it’s that ther ideas are always a package deal with government force. Which obliterates the ideas, rendering them fundamentally (at the roots of the philosophy) irrelevant, and leaves us only with force.
Category Archives: government
Trump Like Hitler? Well, Let’s Compare Contexts.
USA, 2016: Muslims commit mass murder on a wide scale; US at war or has very poor relations with roughly six Muslim countries and is responsible for thousands if not millions of Muslim deaths; Donald Trump calls for a ban on Muslim entry into the US to protect Americans from the people with whom the country is overtly at war, and is derided as a racist and Islamophobe while his detractors, including anti-war leftists, never mention the wars or the deaths of Muslims perpetuated by the current democratic administration.
Germany, 1939: Jews commit no violent crimes of any appreciable amount and perpetrate zero acts of what could be called terrorism; Germany at war with zero Jewish nations, because none exist, because for thousands of years Jews have been forcefully exiled and expelled from almost every place they’ve settled, primarily because they come from a tradition of reason, the ownership and promotion of private property and the free market, and of self-realization and individual self-worth, which is anathema to the rest of the world, which concedes almost categorically some form of philosophical gnosticim/mysticism; Hitler openly scapegoats the Jews in his autobiography and likens them to an evil, subversive, monolithic force, and, far beyond the call for banning their entry into the German state, indicates the necessity of rank banishment, the violent seizure of all Jewish private assets, the suspension of habeas corpus, and mass extermination.
And in the US today, both the leftist ideologues and right-wing political establishment declare a moral and political equivalency between Hitler and Trump.
There is no basis for this.
If You Really Care About Who Gets Elected, Reject FORCE as a Means to Socially Organize Humanity, and Become a Voluntarist
Despite the claims that one candidate is more or less libertarian than the other (a “classic liberal”–that is, a small government advocate) it is important to remember that due to the nature of the State, or a centralized governing Authority (which is merely a monopoly of force–violence to compel individual behavior on a mass scale), or, more precisely, the human metaphysical premise upon which the State is based–that man, by his nature (i.e. his tendency to evil, where “evil” is defined by referencing morality to the collective which the State “represents”) MUST be governed–yes, it is important to remember that the election of any representative is merely another hash mark on the evolutionary line of inevitable totalitarianism. To be concerned over one political candidate versus another, while ostensibly relevant, is merely to concede cognitive dissonance as the plumb line for political and/or moral truth.
The fact is that as soon as the State is inserted (and it must be inserted, never volunteered or freely admitted) it does not ultimately matter who is elected…for the very presence of the State must necessarily subordinate the individual to a reality where truth and morality are a function of force (violence) at the hands of the Authority and not understanding or will.
Here’s why (one of several reasons):
There’s no such thing as the integration of behavior by choice, and behavior by force. Mutually exclusive concepts cannot be practically applied. This is precisely why human epistemology is meaningful and matters! It’s not subjective. You cannot manifest a contradiction because that categorically undermines the relevancy and efficacy of human knowledge. And further, it is summarily impossible to even CONCEIVE of a contradiction to practically apply in the first place! And that is the cognitive root of the disaster.
So…if you are really worried about who is going to be elected to represent “the people”, reject the abstraction (the “people”, the “nation”, the “common or collective good”, the “race”, the “church”, etc.); reject its agent of force (at the philosophical level), which is the State or the Rulers, or the Authority; reject voting for the deceptive pretense of violent coercion which it is, and become a rank voluntarist.
Socialism (or any Form of Collectivism) is Literally the Ideology of Nothingness
The point of socialism is to subordinate man to nothing–or nothingness. By appealing to the authority of the State to rule on behalf of the “common good”, which is the collective that trumps the individual, socialism makes the rank absence of Self the objective. Thus, it is necessarily, inexorably, about the categorical elimination–not limitation– of opportunity.
That’s socialism, specifically. However, I would add the following in regards to all and any collectivist ideologies, and they are legion; and they all share in common the idea of “rule by authority”. And it is this, I submit, that at root defines collectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics, and which serves as the fulcrum of collectivism’s necessary tyranny, and general loathing of humanity:
An appeal to rule according to ANY amount of authority must inevitably subordinate the entirety of man to this authority. This is because man’s Self, metaphysically speaking (metaphysics being the ontological primary–or the singularity from which all of a thing is derived) is absolute, and therefore any sanction of the Self by appealing to the right of authority to define Self for Self, must therefore also be absolute.
This raises an interesting (if not horrifying) contradiction. Man, himself, then, becomes absolutely irrelevant–and thus the authority claimed over him is rendered perfectly meaningless. And this is why all attempts to implement authority structures as a means of socially organizing human beings eventually manifest as rank and abject despotisms. Since man relies upon reason and rational consistency for his very survival, attempts to practically apply contradictions always fail…and in the process torment and murder millions.
The Rules to Which we are Obligated are Always a Function of the Individual, So Let’s Stop Obligating People
I submit that we are so concerned and obsessed with the idea that people must do this and must not do that according to the dictates of those in “authority”, or those “outside of us”, that we fail to understand and/or realize that before these behavioral (or intellectual or moral) demands can become a burden for collective humanity, someone must have decided for themselves, alone, what must and what must not be done. That is, only when an individual decides how life must be lived can these decisions become a collective obligation.
Therefore the real question is not: what things must or must not be done? But rather, since all behavioral or intellectual or moral standards are at root a function of the individual and his own moral and intellectual agency, by what assumption(s) and what rationale(s) do we assume that the right of one individual to decide for himself what he must or must not do does not also and necessarily apply to all?
The Law Cannot Affirm or Protect the Individual, it can Only Destroy Him
Principles, or laws, cannot be established until AFTER men are observed to have “violated them” (in quotes because I know this looks contradictory).
Let me explain:
A law which has never been violated is irrelevant. In which case, it isn’t a law at all. Because an abstract concept, like “law”, which is irrelevant can serve no purpose. And an abstract concept which serves no purpose cannot legitimately be defined. Thus, a law which has never been broken does not exist in any relevant or practical sense.
Now, before I go any further let me state that it is not a violation of LAW to violate another individual…and by “violate” I mean theft, violence, murder, exploitation, and fraud….the usual criteria for men who destroy other men for personal gain of any kind. That is, violation of another individual is a moral, not a legal violation. And this violation is the kind that matters, for it violates that Thing which serves as the primary reference for ALL ethics–man’s Self–and not an irrelevant abstract concept like “law”, or “rules”. More on this later in the article.
This being true (that laws which are not broken do not exist, which means that laws themselves are an arbitrary fabrication), then laws are established on this arbitrary basis:
Someone observes someone else doing something of which they do not approve. In order to compel that person into “right” behavior (which is a subjective moral standard), they establish a “law”‘or “rule” and threaten violence (usually by the “authority” of a centralized coercive Authority, like the State) if this law or rule is violated…law which until someone’s subjective sensibilities were offended, did not exist. And still doesn’t, except, again, as an arbitrary extension of one’s subjective sensibilities.
Once you draw the rational line from this fact to the “metaphysical” or “ontological” nature of law, it is revealed that laws, at their root, are necessarily a purely subjective and arguably artificial means of restricting human behavior, and for no purpose other than to serve as a purely abstract ethical standard to satisfy subjective opinions and ideals and which ultimately can only be enforced by threat and violence at the hands of a centralized “authority” established to assert them.
Now, at this point I am certain that some of you are thinking that laws are not in fact subjective, and not fundamentally irrational or abstract because they, when “legitimately” leveled, are established to affirm and protect the individual. But this is a fallacy, and is not rationally consistent in the least. Rather, it is a sophist assertion designed to lull individuals into voluntarily accepting limitations to their own right to self and self-ownership, and (arguably most importantly) economic autonomy.
My argument is this: laws do not and cannot exist FOR man. First, because man PRECEDES them; second, because man is NOT abstract but IS; and third, because man can only (and is ALWAYS) be compelled by force or artifice/fraud (including sophism) to obey them.
To point number three, here’s why:
If man obeys laws because they are fundamentally good for him–that is, the entirety of their moral and rational value is that they affirm the existence and life of man and his right to self-ownership and economic autonomy–then HE is the ethical standard, not the law. And thus, the law is necessarily subordinated to HIM. And this then renders laws pointless with respect to man–which is to say, with respect to reality, since it is only in the context of man’s existence that laws have any relevancy, even in the subjective and abstract sense of which they are applied in society today. Violations of MAN, then, not the law, are ethical and moral offenses, since the law categorically receives value as a direct function of man’s life. Violations of law are not moral violations. Thus, only violations of people can objectively be declared wrong. Violations of law cannot be declared objectively anything because they are abstract, and most of all, utterly irrelevant within the context for which they are intended. In other words, “law”, again, is a useless concept.
Let’s take “speeding” for an example.
A person cannot break a law of speeding because a “speed limit” does not exist–it is an abstraction. And yet, the government is granted power to bind all men to the “law” of “speed limits” which doesn’t and don’t actually exist, in which case it cannot actually bind men at all. So the LAW is nothing. It is government which forces people not to the law, but to the opinions of others–those who have decided that there must be a sanction on the speed of others. And yet, even the opinions of these others is ultimately irrelevant. Because the law is affirmed by the violence of the State, it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks at any given moment. Once government claims or is granted authority to compel humanity by violence, the notion of “law” as a function of the “people’s will” or “people’s good” is moot. Violence, by definition, always trumps the will of those upon whom it is leveled. And so law enforced by the State is merely the State compelling behavior for the State’s sake. Period. And the idea that the State-an abstraction in its own right–can legitimately, or can somehow rationally and morally use violence to compel the behavior of men, makes men existentially (ontologically/metaphysically) subordinate to it.
And thus, if we extend this rationale to man’s metaphysical context, man must be by nature immoral, since the State is that which is established to force man into moral, or lawful, behavior. Man alone, on his own, left to himself, cannot obey the law, since it is a function of the State, and if man could obey he law he would not need to be forced to it, which means that it, and force, and the State, would be irrelevant and pointless and could never practically manifest. Thus, as soon as we establish the law we must establish the State…not as an extension of man in order to ensure his freedom, but because man needs governing. He needs governing because he is, by nature, NOT a law-maker but a law breaker.
Am I suggesting that we become a “lawless” society? Am I advising people to no longer recognize the law in a practical sense? Not at all. For it is preferable in a very practical sense to obey the State than to resist it, and I by far recommend this course of action when doing so is not a direct violation of another individual, which, in the U.S., where I am, thankfully remains the case.
However, I am suggesting that we re-examine the popular metaphysical assumptions about man and then re-evaluate our ideas about how he should be left to live his life; and an examination of the relevancy, legitimacy, and morality of “law” is a substantive part of this process.
Voluntary Valor: Let us remember this Memorial Day
This Memorial Day let us remember:
You cannot truly love that to which you are obligated by force and threat.
You cannot sacrifice to that which takes from you by force and threat.
You cannot fight for freedom if you or your fellow soldiers have no choice but to fight.
You cannot defend the “people”, or the “common good”, or the “nation”, or die for your country, because collectives do not exist. Only the individual–the moral agent of the Self–can be defended. To claim any other beneficiary is fallacy.
A flag is a symbol, and therefore subjective. It has no objective meaning, purpose, nor life of its own. It’s relevancy is in the mind of the individual. To one, a symbol of good, to another, of evil. This is a simple truth; and violence against men doesn’t change it, it affirms it.
It is better to let a flag touch the ground than to subordinate one human soul to it. It is better to burn it than to punish the one caught doing so. For unless you let him be you concede that it should burn.
Do not subordinate what is (man), to what is not (symbolism, national pride, collective identity).
The thing which most makes a soldier great is not their fight, their courage, or their sacrifice, but their name.
–Voluntary Valor
Voting’s Contradiction: Who says who gets to vote?
Voting’s Contradiction: Issues to be voted upon cannot be decided by the vote
Exercising Authority in Service to the “Will of the People”, like other Transcendent Notions, is Mysticism–it is Not Rational
Anyone who claims rulership and/or leadership according to a “mandate from the people” (which cannot exist), or “God’s calling” (whatever that means), or any “authority” which is purely transcendent and abstract, claims such rulership and/or leadership based upon a purely presumptuous, subjective, and irrational right and moral obligation to compel obedience to him or herself and/or the institution under which auspices he or she functions via force, which is violence, and not upon the idea of cooperation between and amongst free, rational, self-owning individuals. This kind of governing system must inevitably dissolve into tyranny, and will inevitably collapse…usually into a massive crater of death and damage.
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