anarchei:

Dagseoul, if you cannot own your self, then who just made that statement? It’s not your statement, because according to you one cannot own themselves and by extension everything they say and do. But if we follow that logic, it cannot be anyone else’s statement either, because as you said, no one can own themselves. So where did the statement come from? This is a performative contradiction, as clearly you are the one that said it, it’s your statement. Through exclusive conscious possession and control of your body, you typed on a computer and formed those words. It is this control that constitutes ownership.

dagseoul:

Anonymous asked you:

Give me the best argument against Ron Paul. (I absolutely loathe him I just can’t seem to organize my thoughts to dish out a decent argument)

I’ve written a lot about this since last summer. For my long-time readers, this will be a bit of a review. For newbies, these are my core claims that you can use when talking about Ron Paul. I’ve written a lot more about crass libertarianism, but this would be the stuff that applies most directly to Paul’s beliefs.

1. Ron Paul, Ideologist

Ron Paul likes to use what he called at a recent debate a “bushel of common sense”. He often talks about freedom in folksy rhetoric. Paul argues “Who needs the government babysitting them?” After all, life in the free market is about risk and individuals should be able to look out for themselves. Paul panders to Americans’ obsession with privacy and paranoia about surveillance.

If freedom is “taking your own risks,” then freedom for Paul has nothing to do with the libertarian sacred cow, Liberty. Instead, freedom is nothing more than being free from others. Liberty becomes a rhetorical object embodying this being with(out) others.

Not only is Ron Paul a capitalist ideologist. He’s an aristocrat with a compulsion to cultivate the traditional white power structure. His folksy common-sense rhetoric is cover for his ideology and the tradition within which it cultivates its ground.

I write “ideologist” in combination with the tag “libertarianism is stupid” for many reasons, but each reason rests with(in) the most stupid thing libertarians like Ron Paul discuss: regulation. (I believe this is why he is nothing more than a common Republican.)

If what I’ve illustrated in many posts about Paul, anarcho-capitalism, and American libertarianism is true, that for capitalist libertarians Liberty is the ability to be more or less free from others, then this social and political movement, from capitalist anarchists to fascist objectivists, is about nothing less than insuring the only regulations are the ideological apparatuses that aggressively compose citizens as free individuals who must be free from others. The libertarian ethos is focused on regulating society to compose citizens as free individuals who should be free from others. Capitalist libertarians believe that citizens in the free market are status-seeking individuals whose social action is being-free-from-others. Therefore, people are more or less free from others dependent upon their status. Inequality is built into capitalist libertarianism as a necessity. Inequality is the sine qua non status-seeking could not exist.

In nature, an individual is never being free-from-others. In markets, a consumer is never consuming free from others. In society, a citizen is never living free from others. This free from others is an ideological construction. In other words, it is imaginary. As such, the capitalist libertarian representation of life is a highly regulated representation of reality that relies on ancient and aristocratic notions of the city and citizens. (Want a little homework, read Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics.) It’s the old order of wealthy and privileged elites who wish to define the best we can be via a highly idealized vision of past orders.

I believe libertarianism is willfully ignores the core of its own complex ideological structure calls out for a very narrow construction of what is intended to be seen as a free and public discourse community regulated to reflect an ideal version of nature, market and society that has never existed. It’s not that they believe their own representations of reality as the only reality that’s problematic. That’s just common fundamentalism we cope with in free societies and often marginalize as anti-intellectualism. It’s that libertarians wish to force everyone else to live according to their rules. So much for liberty and freedom, right?

Anyone who denies social and shared goods exist separate and distinct from economic goods, as capitalist libertarians do, is a very dangerous kind of fundamentalist. Libertarians are tricky because they use the anti-intellectual knee-jerk response to the words “liberty” and “freedom” to offer cover for their elitism. They’ll argue, we live in a capitalist market economy that’s ideally free. But what “free” means in the capitalist free market is free to exchange goods and services. As we all know, the money economy rather unjustly limits freedom in all communities to those individuals who have more money than others. Even Adam Smith had to handle this ethical problem of unjust social standing he referred to as unearned ambition. Libertarians deny unearned ambition.

Capitalist libertarians have no ability to cope with the unjust money economy. They hold equality in contempt. In addition, they conflate the money economy with nature via a constructed term FA Hayek called the spontaneous social order. He wanted to not use economics. He wanted to write about the catallaxy and catallactics. He claimed it was to resist common sense associations of economics with the pragmatics of household economics. Once you’ve read Hayek enough, you learn that he’s actually attempting to create a new way of looking at nature and society that justifies a market based on unjust exploitation of labor and unjust distribution of the majority of wealth to the Capitalist class. The catallaxy demands inequality is natural and just. Catallactics became a system that viewed all individuals as either business owners or consumers.

Why do I hate Ron Paul? He refuses to talk about these things. And his fellow libertarians can’t talk about these things. None of them are willing to discuss the merits of their foundational texts. Ron Paul wants you to read his shitty propaganda that is nothing more than watered-down Hayek and Von Mises.

2. Liberty is a crass libertarian-ism Ron Paul can’t resist uncritically using every time he opens his mouth.

Liberty, for crass libertarians, is a rhetorical tool. It’s a static object.

Liberty reflects what any individual observing it sees as any thing, process, and/or state of being that makes one feel free of obligation, duty and responsibility—these three often being most responsible for citizens’ anxiety and dread in public.

Liberty is a rhetorical tool designed to make one think about freedom while being educated about how to behave in a capitalist market.

Liberty looks like it has roots in a historical tradition of republicanism and democracy and sounds in tune with capitalism. They appear to go hand in hand.

Liberty is, however, a shape-shifting placeholder for one’s desire to be free from others while laboring with them. It justifies one’s own slavery while excusing others’. Liberty, therefore can be seen as a Capitalist’s ideal form of Cooperation.

Liberty reminds people of an idea they think they share. But the idea was constructed to look old, treasured, lost and recoverable. Liberty has been designed by capitalist economists and libertarian theorists to appear just out of reach. If you have not the liberty you want, it’s because you haven’t worked hard enough, or because the government is keeping you down.

Liberty is part of the white power tradition in the United States. This is the construction of liberty that Ron Paul implements in his rhetoric. Its contemporary roots are in Hayek’s Construction of Liberty and Ludwig Von Mises’s works about human action. Its part of the western tradition with classical roots dating back to Aristotle, in my opinion.

When listening to a political leader, public official, and/or community organizer using Liberty to organize any effort, think twice before trusting him. (Him is appropriate here. Liberty is part of white masculinity. It’s almost always heterosexist.) They’re working in a tradition of white power, imperialism and capitalist economic theory—theory that justifies unearned poverty, war and slavery of others—that justifies the unearned ambition of the wealthiest members of society. Ron Paul is, no matter what he argues, a statist.

3. Don’t let Ron Paul and his fans ignore this. On Crass Libertarianism Wealth Redistribution:

When you talk to a capitalist about taxes and government spending, inevitably the capitalist will want to begin speaking about wealth. A common conversation is that we, as in our government acting on behalf of citizens, should promote (spend on and invest in) wealth creation not wealth redistribution. Never mind that the claim is unreasonable. Business owners, entrepreneurs, employers do not create wealth. Wealth is a capitalist word that is supposed to be a synonym with value. Wealthy people do not create value. We know how value works, but wealth, you know, is the root in wealthy. So, wealth and the wealthy go together. Right? It’s just common sense. Right? Don’t get pulled into a discussion with such shitty use of common sense and language. Resist this shit. When arguing with Ron Paul fans, insist they define their concepts. They won’t be able to and will have to show their hand: that they don’t give a shit about liberty and equality. They care about the capitalist order.

When you hear wealth, you should always insist the conversation returns to labor and value. That’s the most important thing. Capitalists do not want to talk about value. Capitalists want to argue that wealthy people create demand. We know that spending creates demand, but again, capitalists will not want to talk about spending. Capitalists will not want to talk about money in the hands of the poor is much more stimulative than money in the hands of the rich. Why? Well, for example, capitalist libertarians like to believe that 1$ wealthy people spend is worth more than 1$ poor people spend. It’s that simple. It’s an absurd debate to get into. Always insist the conversation turn to labor and value. Bring the conversation from spending, debt, and wealth back to the basic relationship between the employer and employee.

You’ll discover that libertarians aren’t capable of discussing value and labor because they typically don’t know what they’re talking about. They haven’t done their homework. They’re simply repeating propaganda.

peak-society:

dagseoul:

stateless-crusader:

This is a term I should be using more often, for two good reasons. 

1. It pisses off anarchists. Traditional (lefitst) anarchists mostly, but even anarcho-capitalists have been annoyed the few times I’ve used it. It just doesn’t sound right. 

2. I am a conservative and an anarchist. I use “anarchy” in the manner that political scientists, and most individuals in general, use it, describing a society that lacks any semblance of a centralized state. I am a conservative because I wish to preserve my nation, this includes some factors like ethnicity, values, customs and legal traditions. The state is a hindrance to this goal of preservation, I have even argued in previous posts that the state is necessarily anti-conservative. 

The rigamarole about what anarchy means is very revisionist here and strictly in-denial. I’m going to address what I think we should infer from crap like this. I’ll try to be as respectful as possible, but I’m not keen on tolerating proud bigotry like this.

Stateless-Crusader is a white supremacist. It’s clear from his blog’s title. “Crusader” is a white wink to Christian identity, nationalism and I belief in maintaining purity. This guy believes he can’t be racist because he believes in “free association” and is honest. After all, this post is a confession. Both “crusader” and “free association” are white pride badges.

The United States is itself a unity of different nations. We have one nation out of many states. White supremacists never understand what this means. It doesn’t mean, in Mississippi we get to do what we want and in New York you get to do what you want and our government protects us from non-citizens and other threats and leaves us alone. If you’re an Americanist, conservative or not, a white guy speaking about his desire to preserve his nation and his desire for free association is explicitly un-American. White guy making this claim is a straight up bigot.

In spite of his white pride, even this crusader is unwilling to betray his whiteness. Conservative Anarchism is a made up term for An Excuse for My Possessive Whiteness. Here’s what Stateless-Crusader has to say for himself:

First off, I’m white.

This deserves it’s own space. It’s a confession. Not a way to admit privilege, not a way to betray his unearned ambition that comes with being white. It’s a means to establish power within discourse. In fact, it’s a threat. Let’s be honest. He’s establishing order.

At least I believe I’m primarily of European heritage, my mother was adopted so I can’t know for sure. But nevertheless, I identify as white, my community is white and I feel it’s perfectly natural to want that to continue. To be more specific, I’m primarily Pennsylvania Dutch, meaning I’m mostly of Germanic origin. There are unique cultural traits I wish to preserve, and I wish for the group to continue to exist. It’s the right of all nations to exist.

There are also other issues, like higher crime rates and less social cohesion, that comes along with heterogeneity, and I’ve written posts about that before. Basically, tension and conflict increases when more different people occupy a common area. 

And before anyone get’s all concerned, know that I’m generally a libertarian in my ethics. I believe in the right of free association and private property

1. “There are unique cultural traits I wish to preserve, and I wish for the group to continue to exist. It’s the right of all nations to exist.”

• “It’s the right of all nations to exist” but I don’t believe in the right of the state to exist. In other words, a constituted society of different people from different places is a problem, but a purity is a right. This is explicitly white supremacist.

• “I wish to preserve…” We might ask just what he wishes to preserve? A certain kind of nose or ear? Does he admire his Pennsylvania Dutch penis? This desire to preserve is explicitly white supremacist. I wonder how much this lover of liberty knows about the American eugenics movement? My bet is “a lot”. I’ll permit people who know much more about genetics than I do to address his failure to recognize that his belief in the potential for purity is based on ideological social constructions and not biological reality.

2. “There are also other issues, like higher crime rates and less social cohesion, that comes along with heterogeneity, and I’ve written posts about that before. Basically, tension and conflict increases when more different people occupy a common area.”

• The Myth Of Social Cohesion in Social Purity is like basic White Power 101 stuff. I’m not going to bother with calling bullshit on it.

• White supremacists explicitly conflate class and race. Conservative sociologists, not all white by the way, have done a lot to encourage this confusion. Focusing on social class was supposed to be a way to examine problems that don’t highlight ethnicity. In other words, a sociology that unites us in our common concerns. It hasn’t worked out that way. Intersectionality is important; otherwise, whiteness gets to hide. Conservatives, Capitalists, and white supremacists use their eyeballs to associate poverty and high crime rates as a problem with the people who tend to be poor while at the same time ignoring those social structures that prohibit social mobility. Sociologists and Crusaders may have different intentions, but they’re both wrong. That’s an opinion, but I make the claim to reason we should consider possessive whiteness when we consider social class.
• Stateless-Crusader’s mistake has been decried for centuries. Adam Smith famously wrote about it in the 18th Century. It’s not some liberal plot. We all know the problem. Poor people are unjustly described as dirty, uneducated, lazy, invalid, infirm, and criminal while successfully and socially mobile people are unjustly described as clean, educated, hard-working, valid, healthy, and law-abiding. White supremacists don’t associate these traits with a social class; they associate the traits with tendencies in skin color. (Although it’s cute that he tries to hide his white supremacy in a desire to admire his Pennsylvania Dutchness, it’s still bullshit white pride.) For the bigots, the problems aren’t social, they’re genetic. Both associations are unjust and represent flawed reasoning.

3. “And before anyone get’s all concerned, know that I’m generally a libertarian in my ethics. I believe in the right of free association and private property.”

• Any white guy who writes, “I’m generally a libertarian in my ethics” is generally a bigot without the courage of his white pride. Let’s have a real discussion about your world views, Sateless-Crusader. Give us some proof your belief that white people are less criminal and more healthy than people of color isn’t based simply in your white pride. And cite your data. Let’s put your beliefs in context.
• How do you not have the ability to freely associate and own property right now?
• You are not an anarchist if you believe in private property. At best you’re a minarchist. Private property demands a contract, which demands laws, which presupposes a social structure most reasonable people would call a state. By the way, lots of white conservatives desire to be minarchists. You’re in good company.

“Does he admire his Pennsylvania Dutch penis? ”


i died. 

dagseoul:

good-gollymissmolly:

And you’re right.  If I want to opt out of paying for something, as long as I don’t ever use it, I have every single right to do so.  I have no obligation to pay for a poor person.  Sorry I’m not sorry.

No, you don’t have that right. We live in a society and we take care of each other.

Maybe one day that system will change, but until then you’ll pay your fucking taxes and attempt to behave like a member of a community, and if you don’t you can volunteer to keep your fucking mouth shut while we garnish your wages and share the wealth.

That’s the bargain you make for being a capitalist. Huge oppressed classes of people who need help to continue to labor on the behalf of the ownership classes. And it’s aspiring douche bags like you that make a bargain to continue the cycles of oppression, whether it be classism, racism, or sexism.

Nothing belongs to you. Get that through your head. Everything you have, purchase, eat, do is possible because of the labor of others.

Know how I can tell you’re a privileged anti-intellectual sack of shit? Your stupid fucking profile on tumblr. Your profile is the barf-inducing crackery of a white adolescent.

Sick of people like you. Get bent.

(Source: anticapitalist)

theredchannels:

dagseoul:

stillmindstillcosmos:

The main point I wish to make is: the State causes systematic poverty through regulations, laws and other coercive policies.

1. What is “the State”?

2. What is “systematic poverty”?

3. How does “the State,” whatever you think it is, cause “systematic poverty”?

As an anarchist,

4. How are you an anarchist? Being an anarchist is not opposing “the State”.

I wish to see the State’s systematic oppression of people removed so that they have more economic opportunities to help themselves.

5. You aren’t an anarchist. You’re an economic libertarian—a capitalist. Capitalist libertarians like to call themselves anarchists.

6. I’d like to know how you define “systematic oppression of people.” I’d like you to define the system without using the phrase “through regulations, laws and other coercive policies.” In other words, I want to understand how you see the social order of the free market working and what you think actually mucks it up. I don’t think you can tell me without using the undefined concept “the State” and the unexamined phrase “through regulations, laws and other coercive policies.”

Because holding people’s hands will never help them out of any economic drudgery. They have to put in the work themselves. And people are very capable of doing so.

7. How are people capable of “doing so” by themselves?

But not when the State continuously creates all kinds of barriers in which they cannot make a living for themselves. And with that, this silly reblogging conversation is over. If you wish to continue discussing, message me.

8. You haven’t had a conversation. You’ve used meaningless phrases that are supposed to mean something. I think David is correct: you have no clue what you’re talking about.

holy shit bro, owned.