Friday, October 03, 2014

"...libertarianism isn't pacifism though. A libertarian is just a pacifist that will punch you back."


RAWIllumination.net: Jake Shannon talks to RAWIllumination: "You define liberty is "what you can get away with," an obvious reference to RAW's "Reality is what you can get away." Do you see the use of encryption on the Internet an example of carving out liberty for one's self?  
I tweaked RAW's prose thus because I was growing very weary of the fear-mongering and sense of hopelessness I had noticed consuming the "Liberty Movement". I felt it important to inspire optimistic individualist anarchists by shifting their attention to the blessed liberty they already had (and could grow) but were souring it with the pessimism and constant focus on the negative...

I truly hope that "liberty is what you can get away with" becomes a bit of a libertarian mantra reminding people of reasons for libertarian optimism, like encryption...

Your book predicts that there will be a total financial collapse of the system that props up the U.S. government. How confident are you about that? Is that still  your prediction? 
Yes, there is a coming collapse of the American political economy as we know it but that isn't to sound apocalyptic or to immanentize the eschaton in any way. I am an apocaloptimist actually. As Johan Galtung so succinctly said, "I love the US Republic, and I hate the US Empire." The debt levels of the US Federal government are unsustainable, this isn't really controversial. Both the Congressional Budget Office and General Accounting Office figures corroborate this. The date when the debt to GDP ratio proves that the US Federal government is insolvent arrives shortly after 2020. 

My guess is that when this collapse comes it won't result a Mad Max scenario. Instead it will be more similar to the post-USSR economy until, of course, entrepreneurs zip in to fill the service gaps previously provided by the government sector. I am optimistic since the Millennials, those that will be taking the reigns of power after the collapse, seem like a demographic that favors decentralization. I could be wrong though, I mean just look how poorly the hippies did when they inherited the reigns of power...

Do you regard taking an antiwar position on U.S. military adventures overseas an important element of the liberty movement? It's an impression I get from your book, but I thought I would make sure. Yes, I think it is very difficult to be both pro-war and libertarian simultaneously. This is why the combination of sociological recuperation and the Beckian/Palinesque detournement so effectively neutered the liberty elements within the nascent 21st Century Tea Party movement. It was basically conservatarian jingoism that brought the Tea Partiers back under the influence of the Republicans, unfortunately. This theme was given a much longer treatment in my TEA-O-CONNED book. No one that actually knows my positions would ever call me a conservative but that is the great thing about libertarianism, in my opinion. It serves, as Nozick called it, as a framework for utopia. Meaning, libertarianism is a big tent where both conservatives and revolutionaries can get together to battle their common foe, authoritarians (this was a point made originally by George Orwell). I do think it is important to make it explicitly clear that libertarianism isn't pacifism though. A libertarian is just a pacifist that will punch you back."


Godly.  St. Louis Archbishop Carlson claims to be uncertain if he knew sexual abuse was a crime : Lifestyles: "Archbishop Robert J. Carlson claimed to be uncertain that he knew sexual abuse of a child by a priest constituted a crime when he was auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, according to a deposition released Monday. During the deposition taken last month, attorney Jeff Anderson asked Carlson whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child. “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied. “I understand today it’s a crime.” Anderson went on to ask Carlson whether he knew in 1984, when he was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a child. “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t,” Carlson said. Yet according to documents released Monday by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates in St. Paul, Carlson showed clear knowledge that sexual abuse was a crime when discussing incidents with church officials during his time in Minnesota."




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