Anthony Gregory's Columns
The Good Cop and Bad Cop of World Government
"Despite what the left believes, the UN is no pacific check on the US and never has been. It is a complicit party to US hyperdominance." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Recommended "Have you heard [Rudy Giuliani] talk? I can't endure it for a minute. I thought I hated hearing Shrub mutter. But at least there's a strain of comedy value in the Babbling Bush. He sounds kind of funny, like an evil but goofy clown. There's a chuckle to be had on occasion. Even if it's black comedy. Rudy is just terrifying, not funny at all. His speech is just as incoherent, just as sleazy, just as totalitarian as Bush's. But he comes off as even more disjointed in his thinking with even a more maniacal drive toward fascist rule." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"I’m
perplexed by anyone who still hates
Why the Supreme Court Should Have Just Shut Up
"When a government steals private property to give it to big business, what we have is nothing short of economic fascism – that is, a corporate-state collusion conspiring to trump individual rights and liberties for their mutual benefit: profits for the corporate interests, expanded tax revenue, and augmented central planning powers for the state." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"
"When I think about the problems facing America, they all come down to a government not doing enough to enforce its many wonderful laws....The colonists who threw off the yoke of the British Empire fought for life, liberty, property, well-enforced borders and a government that would carry out its laws mercilessly. The last thing they wanted was an inactive, impotent central government." Column by Anthony Gregory.
The Mere Absurdity of Checks and Balances
"Libertarian reforms of government should always be in the direction of the ultimate goal: abolishing institutionalized coercion altogether. Any time you can weaken the power of any branch or level of government, without expanding any other powers of government, is likely a good step. However, we must relinquish the fantasy that government will play nice if only the criminal subsidiaries are organized in a clever enough manner." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Abortion, Coercion and the State
Recommended "From my perspective, abortion should not be thought of as a political issue. Indeed, every statist I know is hypocritical on the subject. Pro-life statists tend to favor or at least capitulate to the warfare state. Pro-choice statists tend to approve or at least be comfortable with the choice-crushing domestic leviathan. The abortion controversy is embraced by the political elite, not as a philosophical disagreement over personal sovereignty vs. the life of the unborn, but as a cynical method of expanding government power, legitimizing the consolidated state as the sole moral arbiter, posturing politically as if anyone in Washington held a principled position on life or liberty, and garnering grassroots political capital and campaign contributions to perpetuate a phony political battle under the subterfuge that the Republicans care one wit about innocent life and that that the Democrats care at all about privacy and civil liberties." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"America was a great idea, while it lasted, but it was also a flawed idea from the beginning. We need a better idea – one rooted more purely and consistently in liberty, private property and peace – if ever we will see America reverse its current trends and become as good as, and indeed better than, it once was." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Freedom Ain't Free: It's $2.57 Trillion Per Year
Recommended "I don’t ask for utopia, though it would be nice. I just want to be free. But freedom isn’t free! You have to fight for it, kill for it, pay taxes for it and sometimes die for it! This doesn’t sound like freedom to me. I thought freedom was not having to fight, kill, pay taxes or die at the behest of some one’s higher good." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Radical Solidarity and Moderate Anarchism
"I see myself as a paleo-libertarian free-market Old Right New Left-anarchist with traditionalist and yet extropian tendencies...[but] I’m really just middle-of-the road." Column by Anthony Gregory.
The Rise and Decline of Metallica and American Liberty
"With
every new album, war or president, it seemed like Metallica – or
"...the
Labor Theory of Value would imply that war, one of the most destructive
institutions known on earth, is somehow more valuable than a peace treaty, by
virtue of the difference in labor required. Can we expect Marxists to actually
say that bombing
The Separation of Property and State
Recommended "Now, to see if a left-anarchist is really an anarchist, it comes down to this: if, in an anarchist society, businesses emerged, people decided to trade, including their labor, and it became clear that these markets, however hierarchical, existed not because of state enforcement but because of the voluntarily pursued preference of the individuals involved – regardless of how exploited you considered the workers to be and regardless of the attractive voluntary communalism that would also supposedly emerge – would you advocate the initiation force to stop it? If so, you are not an anarchist." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Recommended "Coercion is a bane on civilization, its very opposite in fact. To the degree that society and individuals rely on violence against each other, thus far do they regress backward and downward, to the depths of humanity’s most depraved and savage condition. To the extent that people embrace liberty, voluntary cooperation, consensual mutual assistance and individual choice, thus far do we see the blossoming of civilization, the constructive and righteous quest for the truth, prosperity for the masses, and wholesome spiritual and scientific discoveries that elevate our species to greatness." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"Nearly
every one of the
The State: A Reductio ad Absurdum
"If a government can’t manage the economy, build good roads, or feed the poor, how can it protect rights? Its very nature is to violate rights and steal property. It doesn’t do a good job at engineering a healthy society, so why would it do a good job defending liberty?" Column by Anthony Gregory.
Anarchism Beats Statism, Once Again
"Until we have anarchy, we must settle for a government that is at least anarchistic enough to disobey its own edicts and defy the rule of law." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Why Anarchists Must Support Bush
"We must not let the election become politicized. If Americans fail to unite behind our leader, whatever his flaws, and all vote for him when he most needs out votes, our once-great democracy will be no better than any single party state." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Government Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction
Recommended "Why do people trust government – a 'tool' that amounts to a weapon always held over everyone’s head and sometimes lowered to crack some skulls – to do so much good? Why does almost everyone realize that government-caused disasters exist everywhere, but assume that – once 'the right people' implement 'the right plan' – government successes are just around the corner?" Don't miss the last quarter of this column by Anthony Gregory.
The Ralph Nader Liberty Litmus Test
"Is this what our country’s become? A man who believes the preposterous notions that healthcare is a 'right' and free trade is a scourge would be a less damaging president than the two major choices before us?" Column by Anthony Gregory.
"Government schools are an atrocity....the system itself, funded through theft in the form of taxation, populated through kidnapping in the form of mandatory attendance, and serving the interests of state propaganda and social engineering, is an abomination constituting one of the very worst programs of American domestic policy." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Radicalism in an Era of War and Terrorism
Recommended "If Goethe was right that 'none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free' – and I believe he was indeed right – how true it must be that 'none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free and always will be free, and who believe they are in fact indisputably, axiomatically and irrevocably the freest people in the world, no matter what their government does'!" Column by Anthony Gregory.
Assault Weapons Symbolism and GOP Totalitarianism
Recommended "The GOP might be the first organization in the history of the world capable of creating a total state while still allowing its subjects to be armed. Just keep them licensed, their weapons registered, and their names registered Republican – just keep an eye on them – and you can suck as much money out of them as you want, and use it to kill and enslave however many innocent people you want, and no one will stop you! Just make sure the Democrats always sound slightly worse on the gun issue, and your gun-owning constituents will stay loyal." Column by Anthony Gregory.
The Function of Government and the Criminality of the Justice System
Recommended "The function of government is not to protect life, liberty, and property – as much as I’d like to see those things protected. The function of government is to plunder, and to provide to those at the reins of the state with the loot stolen from those at the losing end. Sometimes it takes on other functions – kidnapping, brainwashing, torture, maiming, and murder. But the core function of government is theft. The core function is hardly to do something that it never has done – protect liberty." Column by Anthony Gregory.
The Worst Case Scenario Under Anarchy
"But if the worst-case scenario – and I mean the worst-case scenario – that we can expect under anarchy is simply the end of anarchy and the reemergence of government, it seems we have very little to lose in calling for an end to state violence." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Poem by Anthony Gregory.
"And if individuals can be wiped out – if their dreams, families, homes and life savings can be completely disintegrated in an act later rationalized as 'necessary' by the power elite – what limitations are there on how government behaves toward people? None, really." Column by Anthony Gregory.
U.S. Regime Change in November?
"Now,
it’s very possible that Kerry will take
"As anarchists, we must not reject states only because they are called 'states,' but because what they are and what they do. In fact, I tend to believe a good way of looking at governments is to judge them not as governments, but simply as organizations of people. Take away the mysticism of the state, and all you see are huge, dangerous criminal gangs." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"What the true individualist seeks is a world in which all these labels lose their violent connotations – a world in which 'capitalists' and 'socialists' can live with the rest of us in peace, not worrying about the other camp using the power of the state to impose its values, and not feeling like they must preemptively use the power of the state to impose their values instead." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Recommended "...I realize how close I came to forgetting the importance of the Drug War, not as an isolated policy of misery and repression, but as one of the very worst tentacles of the modern state. It is not the root of all evil, but in the last 30 years, it has possibly achieved more than any other policy at enriching the soil from which the mighty state has grown. To push the analogy to the extreme, if taxation is the water, public schooling the sunlight, and central banking the lifeblood...then wars, foreign and domestic, constitute the state’s fertilizer, and the War on Drugs has become a gargantuan pile of manure, engulfing millions of victims and providing the nutrients for the state to grow...." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Bombing Wedding Parties and Strengthening Marriage
"Bush, on the other hand, committed to the sanctity of marriage as he is, has provided one more example of the lengths to which he’s willing to go to prevent marriages from ever falling apart – by killing the bride and groom before their union ever has a chance to be corrupted." Column by Anthony Gregory.
The Appeal of Conspiracy Theories
"But as long as we have the out-in-the-open conspiracy known as the modern state – the ubiquitous root of massive theft, deception, and war – focusing too much on any one lesser-exposed conspiracy theory amounts to searching for hidden branches at which to hack. Those who want to should hack away. As far as I’m concerned, the tree I see in front of me is enough to keep my mind occupied." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"And
certainly, we do not hear nearly often enough that the disaster in
The Beheading of a Torture Scandal
"Lost in all this is the fact that, first of all, U.S. forces have decapitated and dismembered hundreds and thousands of innocent Iraqis with their 'smart munitions' and 'Shock and Awe' bombing campaigns that indiscriminately blow to bits everything within a small radius of their points of impact. The war lovers cheer on the dropping of missiles that inevitably and instantaneously separate thousands of civilians from their arms, legs, heads, and loved ones." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"The dilemma I always had, when contemplating the state’s existence per se, was envisioning how a state could possibly protect rights better than it did in supplying healthcare, stamping out drug abuse, or providing education....I comprehended that the state, properly defined, possessed a monopoly on force.....So what kind of force does it monopolize? The initiation of force. The precise disease I envisioned the ideal state to combat." Column by Anthony Gregory.
"Flags have far too long served to shield and obfuscate the deadly destruction meted out by trampling masses, both in uniforms and in voting booths, laboring at all costs to uphold these pieces of cloth as well as the criminal gangs for which they stand." Column by Anthony Gregory.
'In America You Can Be Anything You Want'
"In
April 15: The American Citizen's Final Exam
"But one thing they will remember is that it’s okay for the state to keep you in a room for six hours a day. It’s okay for the state to force you to read its books, follow its dress code, stand in its lunch line, and submit to the whims of its agents. It’s okay for the state to tell you what are acceptable and unacceptable historical interpretations of its wars....And it’s okay for the state to control your destiny based on how well you can recite its propaganda and fake your way to the top of an indoctrination system inherited from a nineteenth century German mass murderer." Column by Anthony Gregory.
The Social Contract Is Null and Void
"The Supreme Court has made repugnant rulings throughout its entire history. It declared that blacks had 'no rights a white man is bound to respect.' It okayed forced sterilization of indigents....It has either supported or been completely ineffective in stopping the worst abuses of human rights in our country’s history – from the ethnic cleansing of American Indians to Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus, from Japanese Internment to wartime conscription, from the censorship under the Sedition Act to today’s Guantanamo Bay abomination, and on and on and on...." Column by Anthony Gregory.
Recommended A poem by new Root Striker Anthony Gregory.