Recent comments

To me, anybody I suspect to be promoting a "libertarian orthodoxy" appears to be simply acting out her latent desire to be in charge. It is my prerogative ("right" if you please) to so believe. I sometimes wish I were wrong (cognitive dissonance with respect to you, since I've known and admired much of your writing and conversations for years). Perhaps I am. That, too, is my prerogative. Being wrong, that is. Because I believe the libertarian philosophy allows one to believe what she has come to believe without need to subscribe to a list of libertarian "rules". Obviously, when one subscribes to the libertarian way of life, s/he will not continue to aggress, insult, or defraud. That rather comes with the package. But liberty is liberty. S/he need not check her brain or her personality or her philosophy in at the door. "Live-and-let-live" appears to be the only viable path to freedom -- for me. It might not be so for you. That is your prerogative, as long as you understand that folks like I might see folks like you as innate managers and controllers. But please remember this, Jim my dear friend: the world revolves around MY belly-button, not yours. My world. Your world revolves around YOUR belly-button, whether you admit it or not. The advantage this philosophy offers me -- right up to and alongside "live-and-let-live" -- is lots of freedom. It is not necessary for me to expend emotional angst worrying about what you think of me or how you might phrase some imagined insult toward me. You're much more concerned about your affairs than you are about mine. Sam

So Sam, in your opinion "libertarian orthodoxy" is an oxymoron. Really?   You also wrote 'I learned "live-and-let-live" is the only path to freedom.' That phrase is not at all a bad summary of libertarian orthodoxy, and you say that it's exclusively so.   Which is it, then? - an oxymoron, or the only path to freedom?  

'...Until 95 percent of AA congregations say "LOOK...we don't want you here...we're not signing courtcards anymore," I will continue to view AA as an involuntary organization...' Kevin, I believe you've detected the pulse of and identified an underlying diagnosis as to why the "libertarian-movement" has experienced difficulty getting off the ground and going anywhere. I'll attempt to explain by using the AA example that you've so colorfully explored in your essay and pinpointed by your personal experience. AA exemplifies the one truly libertarian exercise that I'm aware of. There could be others of which I'm unaware. Individualist thinking in a collectivist world is virtually unheard of -- unthinkable. You can witness bickering and squabbling and "divorce proceedings" among participants right here on this supposedly "libertarian" forum over trivial detritus like definitions for and existence of "law" and/or "rights", etc. The term "libertarian orthodoxy" was mentioned -- an oxymoron of oxymoron's in my book. AA fits the libertarian model. Lots of quarreling and arguing over nothing definitive. And religion. Religion formed the backbone of AA, or so it seemed at the time. But "they" (treatment centers, rehabs, organized religions) have nothing to do with us, and we have nothing to do with "them". One would think that libertarianism, by the nature of the definition, would absolve all squabbling and dialectic polemics. Not so. Bill W was quoted as defining early AA as one gigantic squabble. Long before forums such as STR and the internet I stood in AA Intergroup meetings and chairman's workshops belaboring your above quoted argument. I would pound tables and insist that "we" should abstain from signing court attendance papers. That would elicit some-are-sicker'n-other looks so common in AA -- particularly after the influx of intellectual "treatment center" graduate types. Some would always counter that chairmen should hold court papers until the end of the meeting before signing, to insure that the parolee "would-get-the-whole-treatment". It took years of cyber-fellowship here and other anarchist forums to turn my authoritarianistic mentality around. I eventually stumbled upon an unknown libertarian/anarchist writer, the late Delmar England, who wrote one un-acclaimed essay, then up and died. "Mind and Matters" was published posthumously. At times it is AA slogans that present solutions. I learned "live-and-let-live" is the only path to freedom. For me. Along with "one-day-at-a-time". My sponser of soon-to-be 40 years once took me aside at an AA clubhouse (after bailing me out of "treatment" for the n-teenth time) and said, "Sam, all those slogans over there on the wall are important. But there is one you should ignore. It does NOT apply to you: "Think, Think, Think". Because, for you, that one always seems to translate into "Drink, Drink, Drink". So, with this I'll quit thinking and leave y'all alone. Sam

(re-posted as a reply)

Mil-Indust complex shareholders profited quite hansomely during President Peace Prize's reign. If you made drones, parts, programs, missles, bombs (smart & stupid) & etc you likely did real well sales-wise.

In fact Alex, your articles prompted mine. This essay was finished MONTHS ago. But I had to take out all references to yours, and then BEG (like one does with all publishers) to have it put up.  So...since you agree that nobody should be forced into AA -- but that AA meetings by and large have no problem with people being forced to enjoy their company -- we don't disagree on much.  Thanks for weighing in.  Cheers. 

Sam, I really do appreciate you opening your AA meetings with that line. In my experience, that's very, very rare. I've tried to have people just sign my court cards beforehand, and while that can happen pretty often with the guys smoking outside, never have I heard a meeting faciliator act so libertarian. Until 95 percent of AA congregations say "LOOK...we don't want you here...we're not signing courtcards anymore," I will continue to view AA as an involuntary organization. I theorize it's because they want more people who are quick to throw a buck around. Also, as I say in the article, plenty of state-sanctioned health programs include AA....maybe somebody is worried about losing their subsidies. We dont know because their HQ remains so damn quiet.  "Dissing religion is stupidity personified"........I agree. I was just heeding the word of God, and therefore slaughtered a ram in His honor, afterwards sprinkling its blood in the right corner of the temple, just before scolding someone for eating shellfish and then watching homosexuals getting stoned to death. I kid, I kid. Religion is totally rational. 

The meme is no doubt an inarticulate smear. But I wonder what our resident AA proponents think about introducing LSD into the regimen. The point is, far too few people know about that little factoid (as insignificant as it was in my arguments), and we should have a fuller understanding about AA and it's creators. 

Good point, Brian. My Blog did consider the Idle Rich a while ago, and more recently Rich Folks, with a reference to Forbes; but neither specifically considered high CEO salaries.   Government regulation of some industries - notably banking - is such that competition is virtually excluded, so the normal way excessive pay could be trimmed is negated. Such firms are "too big to fail" and so that incentive for limiting officers' salaries is removed. On the other hand shareholders can usually set such pay rates without interference, and if (as in the banks' case) a potentially catastrophic failure is averted when the CEO negotiates a bailout with the FedGov, they are understandably grateful.   A separate consideration is that multimillion dollar salaries only puts such CEOs on a par, more or less, with founders of successful startups, of which Forbes is very good at reporting. This month for example it portrays 30 people under age 30 who have begun enterprises worth $100 million or more; they may presently pay themselves a modest "salary" but their endeavors are setting them up to be much better off than a mere senior employee of a Dow-30 firm.   The coming zero government society will, I think, continue to reward innovation in such ways but by removing the prop of government support it will allow large inefficient firms to collapse and be replaced by nimble competitors, plural, who will be led by CEOs whose pay will be under more active control by shareholders eager to control costs and so stay competitive.   I'm not clear, though, what impact AI will have on that process. As Will Groves has argued, it may impact the jobs and pay rates at the bottom of the ladder (though I think very little) but how would it much affect the top rung?

The author is carrying a huge chip on his shoulder; why, I cannot guess.  I can't speak for every chapter of AA, but the one my friend attends is nothing like the author's lurid hell.  Nobody crams the 12 steps down anyone else's throats.  My friend describes it as a supportive, extended family.  He's been sober for several years now, after multiple drunken run-ins with the law and ever-longer jail sentences, all pre-AA.   Of course no one should be compelled to attend: it's axiomatic among libertarians that no one should be forced to patronize any particular organization.  But the author is not content with making this point; he feels compelled to tar AA with every brush in his palette.  I find the result extremely uncompelling.

Kevin, please allow me to offer a very minor correction: Oxford is not a "college", as stated. It is a University (and incidentlally a city.)   Like its immeasurably superior rival Cambridge, it consists of about 30 affiliated colleges, such as Christ's, Trinity, Baliol, Lady Margaret, etc; see here. In broad outline the University furnishes the laboratories and lectures, appoints the professors and awards the degrees, while each of the colleges provides student accommodation, fellowships, scholarships and tutors.   I'll not take sides with or against your thesis, for I'm fortunately not an alcoholic (cheers!) but I was interested indeed to notice that AA has roots in Keswick, in 1908. In a former incarnation I was a Christian, and still believe that the annual Keswick Convention, which I once attended, is possibly the very acme of that religion. Its influence has been profound and worldwide, and now I know it even includes AA, for good or ill. Keswick is a small town on the edge of the most spectacularly beautiful area of England, called the Lake District. If ever you get the chance, pay it a visit. When it's not raining.

Sam, I love that opening statement for an AA meeting chair.  That is pure genius.  In fact, if you don't mind, I'm saving it.  :-)

Kevin, this seems an awful lot of vitriol in order to establish the undeniable facts that a.) no one should ever be forced into AA -- or any other recovery program -- by the State or anyone else, and; b.) AA could use some more prominent competition.   Otherwise, it's a good essay.   This was my take on the subject from a while back:   http://strike-the-root.com/voluntaryist-vitriol-anarchic-attacks-against...    

Ha! Very amusing, Will. And quite true, up to a point. Yes, humans have "wants" to a huge degree I for one have not yet fathomed, and yes, less work is always better because there is such a vast amount of beauty and knowledge to explore during one's time away from the work bench.   Yes, too, the universe is "meaningless" in the sense that it comes with none ready-packaged in some mythical enclosure; not, though, in the other important sense that we humans have an amazing and priceless opportunity (unique in all Nature, I think) to fashion our own meaning.   Yes, yet more, I think so highly of the libertarian understanding of which way is up that I am indeed jealous of preserving its "orthodoxy", for want of a better word. I have, however, no such "handbook" as you mention; just a grasp of the essential principle that every person rightly owns his own life, along with some ability to draw deductions from that axiom.   Thank you, yet further, for reference to the Zero Government Blog. I'm gratified indeed that you have been for "years watching it in action." Disappointed, though, that your prejudice in favor of the current manifestation of the Luddite Faith has prevented you embracing its reasoning. Some day, perhaps, you'll favor us with an explanation of how you can simultaneously deplore the alleged replacement of humans by robots, yet earn a living by helping design them.

Thanks Jim,   Your compliment means more to me than if I were published in the MSM.  And paid to do so. 

I'd posit it's only a curse if the average person doesn't have access to owning one of these machines. If all automation is centralized then yes that would leave very little opportunity to those that used to labor. However, most labor saving devices to date have found their way into the average household, garage, and even pocket. If that trend continues, it will be up to the average person to determine how their life is made better.

'...By "jointly envision the same demise of central political authority" you meant that you don't agree with me that the State can be abolished...' "The State" has been abolished. Or is in the process of being. I did not say or infer your apparent conception. "It" will not be abolished by me (well, it already has in terms of "jurisdiction") -- and I don't see it being abolished by you. But if you see differently, that's certainly your privilege. How 'bout let's call it your "right". These squabbles are merely playing with words -- fiddlin' while Rome burns. IMHO -- which ain't all that humble. Sam

On some level, all work is monotonous.  I've been in operating rooms and observed open heart surgeries to speak with surgeons and understand how they want a certain tool designed.  Speaking first-hand, one bypass surgery looks a lot like the next.  It's monotonous, just in the way that making nice furniture or preparing ingredients for a dinner with friends or any number of meaningful activities are monotonous.     Machines that make subtle decisions are here, and in that context, when they can do nearly every task that humans can do, only faster, better, and cheaper, what then?  It's possible that individually we thought that we were working to create machines that would make the world a better place, but in the aggregate, the system created through that action decreases the overall quality of life--and not just the material aspects.  Matt Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft discusses the value in terms of the feeling of self-worth that comes from working with your hands, and my experience resonates strongly with his views.   AI-driven technologies are of a fundamentally different kind from what has come before.  They are able to survey a complicated situation and then "decide" on the best way to approach it.  Not many people know that newswriting algos have been implemented for years now--see here. Push this forward several decades and ponder what creative endeavor this leaves humans to do.   Offhand dismissals of arguments made by the authors I mentioned isn't really a rebuttal when you aren't familiar with their arguments.  We're living in a world when pro-technology mantras are drummed into the heads of everyone from childhood, and most people haven't ever heard a compelling arguement against the march of technology.   Not all, or even a majority of the authors I listed are neo-Luddites (though Kaczynski would identify as such), but most embrace certain technologies while shunning others in an attempt to create a more meaningful and convival life.   If you zoom out far enough, it's not hard to see that humans today are serving the interests of the machines more than they are of their own well-being.  

Oh, I get it. I should have got it first time, the fault is mine. By "jointly envision the same demise of central political authority" you meant that you don't agree with me that the State can be abolished.   Okay, if none of us do anything, it can't. It may well spiral itself into a destructive black hole of some kind and produce appalling poverty and misery, but out of that will come some monstroius replacement. It will never abolish itself, on that we agree.   Further, a frontal attack on everyone supporting the state won't work either; at any one time, nearly everyone is caught up in the statist religion, yes. Government has been clever and systematic over many generations in educating people to suppose it is indispensable.   But one at a time, dealing just with the few who have become fed up with all of it... there is the opportunity. And it's all we need - along with a little patience. And if you disagree with that, we'll have to agree to disagree.

"...Never mind this, it's obvious that people today aren't happier than they were 50 or 100 years ago. If technology were connected to happiness, I don't think we'd have about 15% of the population on SSRIs..." What you're actually identifying is loss of freedom -- what STR is all about: liberty. And, I'll readily agree that much of the technology and the development of more highly automated and robotic production of physical products is itself having a debilitating effect upon those only educated, skilled and trained for factory work. The mass exodus for manufacturing has been to "third-world" places where starvation nips the lower 2/3 of the population in the arse every day. It's increasingly difficult for manufacturers to remain afloat here in the land-of-the-free. As the article reveals, technology is creating a huge tsunami in "service" industries as well. But the problem is "SSRIs". If there were no such thing as state there could be no such thing as "SSRI". If there were no parasites engaged in redistributing wealth, wealth would abound. Either that, or we're spinning our wheels here at STR. "The poor" are the true sufferers from loss of freedom. Yet it is "the poor" who are directed to interchange with the beast (who claims jurisdiction in robbing "the rich"). It has been largely "the poor" who have voted with and for political progressive-ism -- along with those who benefit by keeping them poor (most often "the rich"). Enter "SSRIs". The enormity of the truth is incredible. Sam

You don't have to prolong anything if you don't wish to do so. If you're last statements on the subject are simple ad hominem you prove what I've said earlier. Some may read your articles, but frankly you limit your prospective audience by your demeanor. It's interesting to watch.

Yes, actions speak louder than words. This brings to mind the-man-with-the-plan, a man of many words. He loves to talk about vague and abstract concepts; and he likes to label and categorize people. It’s easier for him to say what he is than to actually show what he does.

You impute a lot on other people. Some would call that straw-manning. It's one of the reasons you appear to be disagreeable. You keep on harping on whether I want to identify with a label or not. I refuse. You've ignored the point which is that the way you act does not broaden your potential audience. Not my problem, just pointing it out...since you seem to think if just enough people read your articles and go through your training they (and you as a result) will become free. If such a thing is possible, and that's your goal, you are working against yourself.

Whether one is "pro-vaccine" or "anti-vaccine" has nothing to do with anything. The question: Do you want psychopaths grouped under the mindless abstraction called "government" forcing everybody -- under penalty of death (all white man's "law" comes under eventual death sentence until resisters "comply") -- to succumb to forced inoculations? When you can't help knowing that the medical establishment, which includes their incestuous relationship with pharmaceuticals, represent among the largest lobbying outfits in the business??? And they're the folks who want to write the "laws" involved in this discussion??? I and much of my family are counted among "...the-unvaxed-population..." who will have viral and bacterial diseases "...run rampant..." We are the wealthiest of families in our part of the country. Not because of resources defined by US federal reserve notes. But because we're homeschoolers, non-vaxers, and free. And, we're the healthiest individuals in town -- free from diabetes, free from doctors and hospitals, free from disease. We're the ones the lefties are taking aim at. Apparently it's "unfair", or "unequal", or "unsustainable" for us to maintain such good health without enforced vaccinations and other medical conjurations. That thinking, my friend, is the equivalent of the desire for madmen to be in charge of the asylum. Go figger. Sam