Magnus

Peter Joseph is just another Marxist, but without that refreshing Marxist honesty that openly declares how much they would like all non-believers to be dead. Damn, but this Zeitgeist schtick is O.L.D. Lenin himself tried to abolish money. Lenin! How unfashionable can you get? IT'S BEEN DONE. Granted, Lenin's no-mo-money scheme didn't work out too well, but at least the man did more than whine all day and make YouTube videos.

Melesina, the clip from the movie is here, at Daily Motion. As it turns out, there was a federal marshal there, since the hearing had a prisoner as a witness. The marshal took it on himself to sneak over to my table to plug the mic back in. (No one told me there would be microphones.)

There's a scene in Broadcast News where Albert Brooks fills in as the TV news anchor. He's the smartest newsman working there, but in the big chair, he starts sweating like crazy, and in typical Albert Brooks fashion, he has the presence of mind to make deadpan jokes about it during the commercial breaks, as the stage hands are frantically mopping up his perspiration. I had that happen to me for a while when I was in college. The worst was in a language class (which are interactive). I had some kind of weird Singing in the Rain moment when I was asked a question (even though I did fine). Around that time I'd developed a kind of social anxiety where I found it uncomfortable to just walk around in public on campus. It was completely irrational since I didn't physically stand out in any way and was essentially indistinguishable in appearance from the thousands of other students swarming around the buildings between classes. I wish I could lay out a method for you for solving that problem, but I do know it can be done. I'm now a criminal lawyer, and I speak in public for a living. If I can do it, anyone can. My first appearance as a lawyer was before a federal judge. It was not pretty. I was intimidated by the judge before I ever started because she had recently thrown another lawyer from our office out of her courtroom for abusing the subpoena power. It was bad -- I started sweating, I tried to pull the desktop microphone toward me and only succeeded in causing reverberating echos in the room and then accidentally unplugging it. I talked too fast. Too softly, then too loudly ... Just bad. Awkward for me and everyone watching. The symptoms are literally a fear of death. They are the fight or flight response. The reason that familiarity and practice help you overcome this response, I believe, is that with each public speaking event, you are convincing your brain that you are not, in fact, at risk of death. It won't actually kill you. It takes time to convince your brain, though -- repeated demonstrations of the fact that you will survive, not just reassuring self-talk. Once your brain learns that this particular fear is largely illusory (or at least it's not genuinely life-threatening), your body will gradually stop preparing for an imminent demise.

There is no reason that private dispute-resolution enterprises could not perform the same function, and do it far better, than the States' courts do now. There already are huge private DRO operations now, which most ordinary people don't know about, set up by and for businesses, so they do not have to go to the government's courts. The entire financial industry uses a private arbitration system whenever possible. The field we now call commercial law was created in the early modern period, by and among merchants in a fully private court system, which they created so they could trade with one another, and it operated for centuries before the government courts co-opted that function wholesale. One important feature of private dispute resolution services is the extent to which they offer reciprocity with other similar services -- when you get a decision from one, will it be considered valid by all of the other mainstream arbitrators? That's a valuable feature. That sort of reciprocity is the way that the States' courts operate now -- a judgment in FLorida is equally valid in California. It would be up to the parties to agree to a service. I suppose that one feature of such a private network of dispute resolution services would be that anyone who ignores a claim against him (and thus loses by default) would thereafter be unable to go back to that service to ask for its services as a plaintiff in another case -- if you're not going to recognize a company's dispute services when you're the defendant, you won't get access to their services when you are the wronged party and want to make a claim of your own.

I think this is it. The 911 call center is the front-of-house. It's the main interface with the livestock. The State's courts would never decree that the State's muscle (back-of-house division) is legally obligated to serve the interests of the livestock, but they would come down hard on anyone who helps strip away the facade that the police exist to protect and serve. Just look at how hostile they are to the livestock making recordings of police in action. From the State's perspective, a 911 operator who reveals the truth is basically in the same category as a guy with a camera documenting a checkpoint.

I have absolutely no desire for what passes for luxurious wealth. I live in a part of the country with some major high rollers, so I see these people with their multiple houses with servants' entrances, cars, boats, all kinds of travel ... it holds zero appeal for me. It makes me tired just to think of dealing with all that stuff. When I daydream, I dream of having zero debt and economic independence. I would just as soon live in a small apartment and keep my personal possessions to minimum -- a bicycle, a tablet, my bass, a tennis racquet. I already dress like an Amish person. If I wanted to get really fancy, I think about buying a motorcycle from the 1970s and rebuilding it myself. If I could afford the $2,000 for that, that's what I'd drive. Even my short list of stuff represents some real luxury, I think. The level of quality of modern clothing, shelter, electronics and transportation ... it's things that most of humanity, for most of human history, would never be able to own. In the modern West, as hamstrung as our markets are, having so little stuff is considered to be extremely odd. I think the typical consumerist fantasy is promoted by the same interests that promote Statism. And, unfortunately, the groups that tend to promote minimalism and anti-consumerism are all heavily Socialist, or (even worse) Enviro-nutters. Libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism tends to be anti-anti-consumerist, just to rebut the Commies and Greens, and revels in the consumer abundance that markets provide. I tend to agree, philosophically, but personally, none of it motivates me. It's anti-motivating, if anything. One of the things that people used to justify a upper-middle-class consumerist lifestyle was the idea that high incomes meant you could send your kids to the best schools. That sounds so selfless and laudable doesn't it? But nowadays, in the age of the Internet, I'm not convinced that legacy educational credentials are a good buy, even if you could afford them. The price is insane, thanks to governmental subsidy, and is only going to get worse now that Obama has fully socialized the "student loan" industry. For what? So you can send your kid off to Princeton so he can become a bond trader? So he can "repay" his loans? Something like 70% of them go into finance or "consulting" after graduation. Where's the creativity? The entrepreneurship? Ivy League educations are trading entirely on their brand name now (i.e., a lot of smoke and mirrors), not offering any real value to a person's life. So, beyond achieving financial independence, what is a good motivation? I don't know. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I guess I'm too busy getting out of my debt-prison to figure it out, but if I had to answer, I'd say that the only thing that could motivate me to get out of bed in the morning would be to accomplish things that are difficult and personally-meaningful -- whatever your strengths are, offer them to the world to improve it. That thing could be artistic, philosophical, scientific, entrepreneurial, or something else entirely, but it's too personal and subjective for anyone to tell you what it is.

There are several elements in your post that indicate depression. The lack of career motivation and social isolation are huge red flags. I've been there. I've flunked out of school. I went back after a year off, in a field I chose for myself, and I did extremely well. It is possible to turn things around. I would strongly suggest that you make your physical fitness a top prioroty. Don't make the mistake I did of assuming that you need to change your mindset first, before you can muster the will to start exercising. It doesn't work that way. Motivation is a product of your physical body as of your thinking and life circumstances. Your brain is made of meat. It is not an abstraction. It is physical, and therefore has physical needs to run properly. Your brain's functioning is directly affected by the proteins floating through your bloodstream, which are in turn affected by the metabolic demands of your trillions of cells. You can't improve that metabolic system merely by changing your thoughts. If you try to improve your life by STARTING with a focus on better nutrition and exercise, then an improved mindset will follow. Your mood will improve, your thinking will be clearer, your confidence and optimism will improve, etc. In other words, I would urge you to consider the possiblity that some of your negative thoughts and feelings might be the product of your physical state -- your hormones and metabolism and micronutrients. This is especially true for men, since our mental health depends directly on our bodies' use and production of testosterone. But it's inhibited by excessive weight, inactivity and sugar intake. If you are largely sedentary, then even a small amount to regular exercise would probably make a huge difference for you. Walking briskly for 30 minutes every day, for example. Aim to break a sweat 6 days a week. Also, take a hard, honest look at your diet -- what is the worst part of it? Sugar? Large meals or grazing all day? Processed foods? A lack of micronutrients? Don't try to change it all overnight. Just pick one thing you can improve, and start there. What about sleep? Any bad habits there? What about substance abuse and toxins -- alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, or other drugs? Focus on improving one thing in each of these 4 areas (nutrition, exercise, sleep and toxins), and improve those 4 small things, I guarantee that your mental and emotional state will start to improve, too. After a few days or weeks of consistent improvement, the problems you're having with school and parents may seem easier to solve.

I'm only superficially familiar with David Irving's views, but he has written on a few topics that I found illuminating. He took a strong moral stand against the carpet bombing of Dresden. He has openly criticized the British government's decision to go to war against Germany (an agenda that was years in the making). I know very little about the whole "Holocaust historians versus the Deniers" issue, but I would point out that very few issues are as heavily politicized as that one. I think we can take it as a general axiom that as political pressure increases, historical accuracy decreases. I can think of no topic (except perhaps the US Civil War) where there is more social pressure to proclaim one's allegiance to official doctrine. Conversations about Nazi Germany typically take the form of a confession at gunpoint -- just like the times when people were coerced into confessing their sins, repenting their transgressions, denounce the official enemies, and declare their loyalty to the Party. One curious tidbit of World War II history always intrigued me -- the German declaration of war against the US. Every historical account I had read always described this event as one of history's mysteries, and left it at that. It was deemed to be an impenetrable conundrum, etc. To me, this non-explanation always seemed like the tactic that Stef calls "fogging" -- when a caller on a show balks at an important question. The vagueness and confusion is a psychological defense mechanism, designed to prevent further investigation. It turns out that Hitler gave a clear speech on the subject at the time. I have never even seen or heard an English translation of it. But I speak German, and the speech is on YouTube. It literally took me 25 years to hear an explanation of Hitler's motive behind that decision. (Hint: He blames Roosevelt.) Of course, Hitler is not to be trusted to honestly explain his own official acts, but you'd think that his own contemporaneous explanation would be a good starting point. That speech has been virtually erased from history, at least as to US popular histories, as part of the campaign to canonize Roosevelt. (Roosevelt's illegal, secret war against Japan prior to Pearl Harbor has also gone down the Memory Hole.) Another interesting fact on WWII to consider is that the Holocaust was largely conducted in territories that, after the war, became Soviet-controlled. The Soviets were masterful propagandists. (WWII was largely the Nazis versus the Soviets, not the Nazis versus America and Britain.) I don't think a reasonable person can have any confidence whatsoever in a highly-politicized recitation of Soviet history.

For propaganda purposes, the importance of an event is determined entirely by its power as symbolism, not by its practical or economic significance. It doesn't matter if a story affects one person or 10 or 100. What matters is the quality of the story. It's all theater. The fact that this trial affects real people in real ways means nothing to the people who are running this theater. The only thing that matters is the ability of the story to grab the audience's attention. Movie producers don't especially care they make a movie that's a touching romantic comedy, a super agent thriller or a post-apocalyptic epic. It's all fiction, and the point is to make money. They'll utilize whatever subject matter will do the trick and put asses in seats. Likewise, politicians don't care whether it's a small-time local crime story like Trayvon Martin's death, or the demolition of a skyscraper -- whatever grabs people's attention and gets them to CARE is what they will utilize to advance their agenda. This Zimmerman trial is, in the grand scheme of national government, extremely small potatoes. It's practical importance is nearly zero. Trials like this are conducted in nearly every county in America, all the time. But its POLITICAL value is incalculable. The trial is just the propaganda delivery mechanism -- it's the vehicle by which the political message is transmitted. That political message is something along the lines of "You need government to protect you from chaos and murder-palooza breaking out in the streets!" That resonates nicely with similar messages, like: "You need government to prevent the unreconstructed racists who live among you from using the LGBT community as targets in human bloodsport competitions!" The fact that Zimmerman will almost certainly be acquitted, and his acquittal will almost certainly lead to rioting, is a no-lose scenario for the Statist class -- they will have yet another opportunity to reinforce the original message: "You need government to protect you from chaos and murder-palooza breaking out in the streets!"

On March 23, 2013, after the Florida State Attorney for Seminole County to decline to press any criminal charges against George Zimmerman, Obama made prepared, rehearsed statements to the media about the Trayvon Martin shooting. After first pretending that he wouldn't comment on the case, Obama said: These comments are, in themselves, is a masterstroke of propaganda. He began by claiming to be reasonable, saying that he was not going to discuss the ongoing case in detail. This is contrary to observable fact, since it was not an ongoing case at that time, since the State of Florida had already investigated and refused to prosecute George Zimmerman, and Obama then went on to comment on the case. Then, note how the very next words out of Obama's mouth were extremely emotional and relatable -- "I think about my own kids." This is called a "hook." At that point, the listening public had been effectively led to think of this case entirely from the perspective of Martin and the Martin family. George Zimmerman, a man who claimed (with credible evidence to support him) to have been physically attacked and put in fear of his life, was not mentioned at all, not by name, and not even anonymously. He did not exist as a person at all in Obama's retelling. He was a non-person. More importantly, Obama's emotional comments caused all rational thought in 99% of the populace to cease. The cessation of rational thought, by the stirring of intense emotion, is a critical component of all propaganda techniques. It renders the subject highly suggestible. Goebbels discussed this at length in the 1930s. Obama continued, by then leading the now-suggestible populace toward his desired action -- acquiescing (and enthusiastically supporting) government action: tasking the Attorney General Eric Holder, and his DOJ, to "look into" the case. Nothing was specified as to what this "looking into" would consist of. There is no federal jurisdiction, not even on flimsy Civil Rights grounds, since Zimmerman was not a government agent. The DOJ had no legitimate role to play at all in this case. But now, despite the fact that the involvement of the federal government is entirely improper, unconstitutional and illegal, it would proceed apace, with full public support. No one has actually disclosed what the DOJ's activities consisted of as it "looked into" the case. But Judicial Watch has obtained documents (lowly expense reports) showing that several DOJ operatives went to Sanford and remained there for three weeks, to help organize the protests. They pressured the police chief to resign. They bused in protestors from Daytona, for the cameras. Protests are a classic pseudo-event. The term "pseudo-event" was coined by Daniel J. Boorstin in his 1961 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America. It is something that is created entirely for media consumption. It creates some statement that the media can talk about, so that other media then talk about it. It creates a self-referencing false reality, an echo chamber, that propagates a wave of energy for some political purpose. About a week after Obama's statement, a new prosecutor was appointed and Zimmerman was charged with second degree murder. After all, Obama's only real job prior to entering politics was as a "community organizer." His propaganda skills are as finely-tuned and sophisticated as any president's in my lifetime.

Religious homeschooling and government schooling are not in opposition. They are rivals for control of people's minds, in much the same way that Fascism and Communism are not in opposition, but are rival governmental regimes. You are the one who is oversimplifying, when you suggest that because people are not revolting in the streets, it proves that things can't be all that bad -- the level of governmental control over people's lives must not be all that intrusive. In fact, the lack of massive, popular response and objection proves no such thing. On the contrary, it shows that the level of control is even more intrusive than you realize -- the State controls not only money, banking, transportation, telecommunications, land use, utilities, technological innovation, and all the rest (which is obvious to anyone who cares to examine these things), but also controls most people's psychological sensitivity to governmental control and intrusion. For crying out loud, it was just revealed (again) a few days ago that every single telecommunication to and from every person whose telephone calls, emails and internet traffic happen to pass through American computers are RECORDED. The East German Stasi would have wet itself to have that level of intrusion, as former Stasi officers have actually said. The Stasi is appalled, and yet, people are not deposing the US government over this. Postman talked about this in Amusing Ourselves to Death -- a book I haven't read in 20 years, but another poster here reminded me of it -- You are looking at the level of popular response to governmental control and intrusion, seeing little of it, and concluding that the level of intrusion and control must not be very extensive. You are clearly not being scientific and rational about your analysis at all, because you are failing (and actively refusing) to consider the extent to which people's awareness of and sensitivity to governmental control and intrusion is itself malleable, and can be manipulated. Who would want to manipulate such awareness and sensitivity? The very same people who would seek to increase control and intrusion. The primary instrument of this psychological manipulation is called "public school," although the state-sponsored media is the primary means by which childhood psychological conditioning is maintained, daily, throughout adulthood.

I found this fascinating. Can you recommend any journals or books about Yuri Bezmenov or similar (re propaganda) in particular. He's great, isn't he? I don't know more about Bezmenov specifically, other than the stuff on YouTube, but as to propaganda generally, the books by Lippmann and Bernays are short and chocked full of the techniques of their time. Joseph Goebbels wrote a lot about propaganda theory itself. Huxley's essays collected as Brave New World Revisited are also very good. Postman wrote a short book called Amusing Ourselves to Death on the effect of TV on society generally, regardless of content. Those are the best popular books I can think of off the top of my head, and they're all very informative. Contemporary marketing books are probably the next best place to turn. The sub-fields within marketing of neuro-psyche and branding in particular are focused on the modern tools of population control.

I don't disagree with you, STer, that a less-radical set of statements about the State will tend to resonate more with people who tend to resist radical statements. Who could argue with that? It's practically a tautology. I just think it's a trivial point to make. There is no perfect argument to be made that will do the trick, no magic combination of words that will suddenly snap billions of people out of their current mindset, and meaningfully orient them toward a greater respect for freedom. Thats what I was saying when I mentioned the blindness to the color red. When it comes to almost everyone, it will not matter one iota that you make an argument. It will not matter if you make a more refined and elegant argument. It will not matter that you make a more sound and rational argument. You really need to get your mind around a very important point here -- billions of people are completely unreachable. There exists a very small group of people who are not fully brainwashed, who are not beyond hope. In America, it is probably a number that is smaller than the number of people who would fill a basketball arena. The purpose of anarchist thinkers and writers is to discuss the unvarnished truth, regardless of how radical it may be. The watered-down version that you are promoting, which dithers over discussions of trivial points, is best left to the conservatives, liberals and libertarians. They waste their time with those topics on purpose. It preoccupies them, so they don't have to think about the disturbing questions. That's a feature, not a bug. The degree of control that the State has over the other 99.9999% of the population renders them completely impervious to your arguments. You might be able to reach some of these people through propaganda -- by sneaking libertarian themes into widely popular forms of entertainment. That is the only way to meaningfully persuade large numbers of people, not by changing our argument from "the State is all bad" to "the State is mostly bad." I am not convinced that you are genuinely interested in talking about the nature of psychological population control. Every time I try to discuss it, or point out that your trivial refinements to anarchist rhetoric are missing the Big Picture, you say that I am just ranting against the state and am blinded by my rage, etc. That is clearly a psychological defense mechanism. You are not an anarchist, and are discussing these marginal issues to avoid the more important issues.

In a sense, I agree. That's why the most effective states do not begin their attacks with brute force out of the blue, most of the time. That has not been done (in Western Europe, at least) for 1,000 years, since the times of the Germanic migrations, and all of the brutal mass invasions and Viking raids, and such. Since 900 A.D. or so, governmental take-overs are far more sophisticated. They are preceded by a very large, broad propaganda movement. The propaganda component of State action -- the psychological attack on a people -- is critical. It facilitates the violence that follows. Yuri Bezmenov discussed this process at length in the early 1980s. He was a Soviet defector, and KGB propaganda expert, who described the psychological methods of control, which they called "Ideological Subversion." The first phase of Ideological Subversion was what the KGB called "demoralization," by which he meant the de-programming of people's basic moral compasses. An entire population, in one generation, he described, could be de-moralized -- all vestiges of their instinctive moral reactions could be removed, and replaced with a set of moral attitudes favoring the government. Videos of his interviews and lectures are all over YouTube. In the case of racial discrimination in the US, the State did a masterful job of its own "ideological subversion" -- the twisting of basic moral principles -- before taking violent control over people's formerly-voluntary relationships. It involved the complete eradication of the idea of Freedom of Association. It was effectively removed from the national vocabulary, on purpose. If that's not the most trivial concern, I do not know what is. Whole generations of children are forcibly removed from their homes for 12 years, daily, and indoctrinated in state-worship, and has been done for a century, and you are concerned about the racial division among those enslaved children? Are you kidding me? What if the government decided to implement a program of forced breeding of all females, starting at age 14? Let's say that, along with turning all of America's daughters into forced-breeding stock, the government gave tall girls the discriminatory privilege of choosing their sires, whereas any female under 5'9" would be assigned a male at random. Would you complain about the intolerable HEIGHT DISCRIMINATION going on in this program? Is that really the heart of the problem? Or does it miss the point? Race-based voting rules had been illegal in the US since the 1860s. The Voting Rights Act prohibited racially-neutral voting rules that had a disproportionate impact on blacks, largely because they had a disproportionate impact on poor people. The vast majority of the post-1965 rules concerned the banning of poll taxes and literacy tests. There is probably not 1 person in 100 today who knows that there were zero racial laws on the books at the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Part of the State's propaganda has been to imply that the VRA abolished racially discriminatory laws in voting, when it did not, since there was none at the time. Public perception in manipulated by the State, as part of its propaganda campaigns. I would submit that the State's activities reach directly into the most sensitive and personal areas of everyone's lives all the time. The reason people do not resist it is NOT because these controls do not exist, or that they float around on the periphery of most people's daily lives, but because the State (masterfully) inoculates and anesthetizes people against objecting to these controls, before the controls are fully implemented. The State controls all money, banking, land use, construction, transportation, utilities, marriage, education, police, fire, communications, retirement, pharmaceuticals, invention of new technology, and now the entire health care industry. The problem is not identifying or comprehending the scope of Statist violence in everyone's daily lives. The problem is seeing it for the atrocity that it is. The problem is ethical blindness -- the ethical distortion that precedes every successful Statist take-over of some area of people's lives. It's perfectly credible. The problem is that the vast majority of people's minds have been indoctrinated, for multiple generations, to reflexively reject the truth. My opposition to the State's violence is indistinguishable from the perception issue, because the State has created the perception problem. The State is a corporation that produces two products, not just one -- slavery and lies. The lies are critically important -- they enable the slavery. Without it, it would be impossible for such a small group to enslave such a larger one. The only way to accomplish such a task is to get the population to enslave itself. Orwell described this in 1984 -- how MiniTru's department dedicated to developing NewSpeak was not merely improving the language. It was controlling thought -- by removing certain words, they removed the ability of people to psychologically formulate certain kinds of opposition to the State. The inability of people to see through the lies is the problem. It's as if the State has managed to train a whole generation of people to only see the lower half of the visible spectrum of light, and now whenever anyone tries to point out the color red, he's labeled as a crazy person. My point is that the reason you think my "rants" about the existence of the color red are just resorting to ineffective cliche arguments about the State is because you also fail to appreciate the fact that the State is also responsible for the widespread inability of most people to see the color red.

In what way does government protect against evil? You can cite many cases. Some of the best examples of how this is not as black and white as people make it are cases where one government entity protects someone from harm from another government entity. For instance, you can look at cases where a state government enabled or tolerated racial discrimination and the federal government intervened to prevent that. You can also look at cases where a citizen sues the government over a violation of their rights and a court (another government entity) finds in the citizen's favor. Or how about when corrupt government officials are prosecuted and sent to jail by a court? Now we can talk all day about the complexities involved. I'm certainly not going to the other extreme and saying government is only the protector. I'm saying many governments play both roles at different times (or sometimes even at the same time) It's not as simple as that the government only oppresses people and never helps them obtain justice. Sometimes the government will even protect people from harm about to be done by others in the very same government. It shows how mixed things are on this question of whether government is a concentration of evil or a protector against evil. And I think that explains why people are so confused about which one it is. Racial discrimination is not evil. Forcing people to refrain from racial discrimination is evil. I do not understand how you can spend any significant amount of time here and not grasp this basic idea -- adult relationships are voluntary. People can freely choose to associate only with men, or with women, or tall people, or short people, or bald people, or hairy people, or sci-fi fans, or Luddites, or Francophiles, or Anglophiles, or .... When the State labels any kind of voluntary association (or disassociation) as evil, and then uses force to compel the State's preferred modes of association (or disassociation), that itself is evil. It's completely indefensible. As far as the State being a mixed bag of good and evil, because it catches murderers and thieves, I'd say that the overall "balance" between the evil committed by the State and the countervailing good it does comes out to at least 99% evil to maybe 1% (marginal) sort-of good. The catching of (true) criminals is about 1% of what the State does, if that. But here's the thing -- even then, they do it badly. The State's criminal response system is insanely expensive, just like the way they build roads for 100 times the appropriate cost. And the system of responding to criminals solves almost none of the problems it purports to solve. It puts young criminals in prisons with experienced criminals, effectively training the young ones to become better criminals. And the other 99% of the State's activities is a major contributor to the existence of criminality in the first place. There wouldn't BE as many murders and thieves if the State did not destroy economic opportunity on a daily basis.

Yes she makes a very correct point that sometimes people who are slaves don't realize they are slaves. There is also the famous Goethe quote "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." But it just goes back to my last post. Debating the semantics of whether to call a modern Westerner's situation "slavery" or just a certain degree of limited freedom is kind of irrelevant in terms of activism. If people are content with the level of freedom they have then not only will they not really care what you label it, but if you try to convince them it's "slavery" you will more than likely just lose credibility since that doesn't match their experience. I honestly think the "freedom" argument is just not that strong an argument in the West because it quite honestly does not speak to so many of the more viscerally felt concerns of people, not the least of which, as I've mentioned, are the very opposite feelings - feelings of being neglected, lost and abandoned. Until libertarians and anarchists have a good answer to those feelings, they will be missing a huge part of their potential audience. Libertarians (and anarchists, presumably) tend to rank Liberty as their highest value, so they see every issue according to where it falls on that scale, ranging from total freedom on one end to total control on the other. Conservatives consider Civilization to be their most important value, to which all other matters take a back seat. That's why they are so hot about advancing cultural issues, and are so willing to sacrifice their (stated) free-market principles in order to win some minor short-term political battle on a social issue. They actually care more about those social issues than they do about economic freedom. They have a very hard time thinking in any terms ofher than the past and tradition, and find it almost impossible to think in terms of alternate (hypothetical or counter-factual) scenarios. This is why they're obsessed with history. Leftists rank Oppression as their most important issue. They see everything as a matter of power, and the differentials in power. This means EVERYTHING to them, and all relationships are interpreted according to their Power attributes. They assume, deep within the recesses of their minds, that the State must exist, or else the Powerful will run amok. They cannot conceive of a State that IS the right arm of the Oppressors. They are perfectly willing to perpetuate slavery if it means that everyone is equally enslaved. That's why they have no problem with global government and HATE the idea that the Powerful can go places that the State cannot go. Hence, the Internationalism of most variations of socialism. In appealing to Lefties and RIghties, we not only have to modulate our priorities, but our core language. If you portray the government as the instrument of Oppression by the Powerful, then you'll get tons of traction with the Left. If you argue that the freest societies are also the most traditional, Righties eat it up.

Well, yes. The world is complex. I have not explicated every thought I have on the subject, nor covered everything that everyone could say on the subject. My time is finite, and valuable to me, so I don't unload everything I have to say all the time. But you bring up a good point -- sometimes Statists want us to be lulled into a sense of safety. But notice exactly how and when they do that -- when they WANT something from us. When they WANT our acquiescence and support, in the form of taxes or votes. When they want us to believe that THEY are the sole reason for those moments of safety. That's the essence of the State -- keep people in a nearly-constant condition of fear, threats and intimidation, and then present THEMSELVES as the one and only means of addressing those fears and mitigating those threats and fears. They create the problems, then offer themselves as the one and only solution. That's the con. That's the game. That's the psychological means of maintaining control. They don't want crime or terrorism or poverty to go away entirely. They just want people to believe that these things exist, and will always exist, and any security we may ever have against these threats can only come FROM AND THROUGH THEM. This is one of the Statists' greatest skills -- taking credit for everything that's good in the world (which they had nothing to do with) and avoiding the blame for all the problems they actually do cause. I guess so. But since terrorism is MOSTLY aimed at affecting States, we have to conclude that whatever form terrorism would take in a stateless society would be different. As you said, terrorism's aim is not practical or strictly economic -- it kills very few people and destroys very little property. It's intended effect is to affect the way people think, and not affect very many things in the real world. If people thought differently, on such a broad scale as to reject statism, then terrorists would certainly need to take a different approach with such people than they do now. I think irrationality is part of the root of the problem. Besides, the quoted link came from Mises Institute. Mises contributed a few major ideas to the study of economics, and one of the biggest ones is that States can't make rational economic decisions. States can't calculate. This is one of the greatest ideas in human history, by the way. It's profound and true, and extremely beneficial to mankind, on the order of ideas like Evolution and the Germ Theory of Disease. The blog post that the OP cited merely applied this insight to one of the more topical and timely social issues of the day -- terrorist tactics. States can't calculate the appropriate amount to spend on counter-terrorism any more than they can properly calculate how much to spend on the mail service. The whole purpose of the Mises Institute is to promote Misesian ideas. I don't really see what your point is in quibbling about how the Mises Institute ought to take some other line of argumentation. Pointing out examples of how Misesian thought applies to the real world is clearly an advancement of its mission and purpose. I don't get why you have such a problem with it. If you think you have a better way of reaching people with truth and beneficial ideas, then rather spending your time arguing with the Mises Institute and me, maybe you ought to apply your superior knowledge of society and economics and public relations and create an Institute of your own. Or are you satisfied with merely pointing out the deficiencies, as you see them, in what others are doing? Instead of pointing out ineffective arguments, as you see them, GO OUT AND MAKE BETTER ARGUMENTS. Convince me of the merit of your position by DOING what you think ought to be done. Lead by example. I agree with all of this. It's sort of like making it a crime to burn a flag. A flag is a symbol. As an economic object, it's trivial. It's not worth much. It's a bit of cloth, and cloth is cheap. But there are people who genuinely want to attack, beat, incarcerate and otherwise punish anyone who dares to light such a scrap of cloth on fire. As an anarchist and an atheist, I find all of this attention and meaning being placed on symbols to be both amusing and absurd in the extreme. I find the whole idea of sacredness to be bizarre. It's all imaginary voodoo nonsense crap. Sometimes it feels like I've been air dropped into the middle of crazy-town. Most people live in metaphor. They live in a narrative reality, not an economic reality. That, as I said, is part of the biggest problem with human society. Being rational and anti-sacredness is (I imagine) like what it was like for the men who believed in science before science was cool. It's like believing in bio-genesis when every other supposedly-learned person insists that rats grow spontaneously from bags of grain. Or believing in evolution when most everyone else is convinced the earth is only 3,000 years old. Or thinking that the whole bread-and-wine ceremony is pure symbolism, and rejecting transubstantiation as a lot of hooey. Here, saying that the State's response to terrorism is irrational to the point of being silly is but one example of identifying bullshit. I applaud the Mises people for this good work. Is it an uphill battle? Yes, obviously. The initial reaction by the metaphor-bound irrational public is going to be ... hostile. Describing how a State cannot rationally respond to terrorism is a great advancement in human thought. Is it falling on deaf ears a lot of the time? Sure. The world is nuts, by and large. But still, if your goal is to help make the world a better place, I can think of nothing more important than dispelling bad ideas in particular, and advancing a more rational (and less symbolic) mode of thought in general.

I submit that terrorism intimidates people more than car crashes because it serves the State's interest. The State's propaganda apparatus is set up to constantly cheerlead for the State. The media attention given to terrorist attacks, while extremely low on the scale of threats, is insanely exaggerated, thereby amplifying the importance of these events in people's minds. The fact that people consider terrorism to be more of a threat than cars, medical errors or drowning accidents is plainly irrational. I used to think that way. As recently as 9/11, I was convinced that 3,000 dead was among the worst things that had happened to Americans. However, I now know that it represents about 30 days' worth of car accidents. The accounting for costs in groups is also a market process, but only when people are able to freely join and quit the group. People voluntarily choose to belong to the groups that meet their members' preferences. States don't permit quitting, and compel you to contribute to all of its expenditures whether you want to or not. As a result, as with everything statist, there is no market information about the extent to which a state meets it member's preferences. All potential competitors are violently attacked. That's not consensus. That's coercion. It is not possible for a "society" to act. I agree that empirical studies about the relative effectiveness of various rhetorical approaches is a great idea. I assume that an approach other than my preferred one would be highly effective. Different consumers (in this case, of political opinion) desire different things. I assume I am in the minority. Fortunately, markets cater to everyone. Less-popular products exist right alongside the mass-consumer market leaders. I prefer facts and reason. If that were more popular, then anarchism would be more popular. As to the likelihood of the largest mass appeal, I agree with you. I have studied media, propaganda and rhetoric for my entire adult life. I have no doubt about the effectiveness of non-rational appeals. But there is a certain segment of the population for whom a more rational, economic, fact-based argument is highly persuasive.

If your assertion were true -- that people value their lives and their family's lives beyond any amount of money -- then there would be near-unanimous support for abolishing modern cars (and the roads for which they are built). The risk of traffic is objectively far greater. It could not be any greater than it is, actually. The fact that they don't support such a change proves that there is a profound flaw in your assertion. Societies can't take costs into account. Only individuals can. Costs are incurred individually. Benefits are accrued individually. Only the individual can account for costs, because they are different for every person, they change over time. Also, the benefits (for which costs are traded) are valued differently by every person, and that value constantly changes over time. Since "society" can't account for the costs or the benefits, "society" can't calculate what the rational limit is. We have two data points -- your opinion and my opinion. Only the market for these ideas will reveal how effective the economic argument is, overall, compared to any other. The problem cannot be solved by the same thinking that caused the problem. I happen to think it's very effective and illuminating to think in terms of economics, because economics is reality, whereas words are not. It's like the idea in my sig line -- the State engages in crime, and simply calls it something else. The economic reality is the same. Only the words change. Words are easy to manipulate. That's why States are so good at propaganda -- they want people to see the world through the lens of the State's language and the State's ideas. So, no, the economic reality of security, and the market for security, is not "another discussion." This is the core of the topic as I see it, and as I believe it should be seen. You're not in charge of what belongs in each thread, or what's relevant, or what's welcome. Again, sometimes arguing for a change in the status quo requires a rejection of the assumptions behind the status quo. Those assumptions are embedded in the language -- the language guides people's opinions before they are fully formed. It's why Statism is taught to children -- so they think in those terms from the beginning. That's why Statist propaganda has always fought tooth and nail for control of the language. It's why Orwell wrote about Newspeak -- MiniTru wasn't just controlling the language, they were controlling thought. Security is an economic good. It has costs and benefits. So do roads, schools and crime. The economic calculation problem runs through all of them, and the reason I am an anarchist as to terrorism, roads, schools and crime is the same reason I am a free-market proponent as to the production of cheese, shoes and computers. That's what the linked article in the OP was about, so I don't see how that could be off-topic.

I would not argue that terrorism only exists when there are States. I would submit that, even in a highly advanced, anarchic society, defense against terrorism would still be a necessity. I believe the primary defense against terrorist attacks would need to be focused on attacks that were designed to help bring about the formation of a State, in much the same way that most terrorism today is designed to bring about changes to existing States. 1. Yes, I do believe it's convincing. It's convincing for me, certainly. It helped me tremendously to read anarchist economists who showed me that security is just another economic good. It was (as usual) my last mental obstacle between being a minarchist and an anarchist. 2. Counter-terror is analogous to car crashes in the sense that they are both subject to the laws of economics. The majority of people have a HUGE blind spot when it comes to traffic deaths. Terrorism gets grossly-disproportionate political attention, but traffic death is real. I bring it up because I am trying to highlight the starkest contrast I can think of -- between the State's totally lackadaisical response to traffic, compared to its hysterical response to terrorism. Both traffic and terrorism are a concern because they both pose an immediate threat of death or serious injury. Armed robbery is another example. All three of these topics can be addressed and discussed by reference to the State's economic decision-making process, and its lack of economic information. I found your comment about there being "nothing wrong" to be disingenuous, inasmuch as it followed immediately after saying I was wasting your time by being an "angry." If you want to convince me that this discussion is "not about the state," then let's start by ensuring that it's not about me or my emotions. It's not very convincing when you stray from the topic (e.g., to talk about me) when it suits you, then chastise me for failing to discuss things precisely the way you want them to be discussed.

Why would you focus on Wikipedia pages instead of real lives? Why do you keep returning your attention to words instead of economic reality? Here's a question about economic reality -- How many people die annually from politically-motivated terrorism, as opposed to non-political terrorism? More specifically, how much of the State's response to terrorism is focused on and motivated by political terrorism, as opposed to non-political terrorism? Those questions are far more important than the scope of a dictionary definition of a word. You didn't answer my question -- who is "we"? In a non-statist context, "we" all try to minimize the threats against us in an economical way, all the time. Like all market processes, safety is a good, and people rank different forms of safety differently. Value is subjective. People evaluate risk differently. The cost of minimizing some risks is higher than minimizing other risks. All of those costs and benefits muct be calculated. Only a market for secuity can discover the most economical price and form of that good. What the State chooses to spend money on is always divorced from economic reality. It's ecoonomic decisions (a) are inevitably based on the State's priorities of value, not yours or mine, and (b) are a random guess that's completely divorced from actual costs and benefits. Why spend $75 billion? Why not $72 billion? Why not $78 billion? Will the State's revenue go up or down based on those variations? The State's inability to engage in economic calculation is unavoidably true whether the State is spending money on security or health care or education or anything else. It can never know how to best spend money on any of these things because the State is inherently and unavoidably anti-market. It destroys the market that is the only possible source of economic information. It therefore cannot economically evaluate the costs and benefits of ANYTHING, including counter-terrorism efforts, because the State gets all of its revenue by force, and exludes all competition in that enterprise by force. I never expected the "you're an angry anti-statist" line to be trotted out on an FDR board. Bravo. You have sunk to the level of the Fark comments section. My comments have been directed entirely toward the topic at hand -- the economics of security. Traffic is a security concern -- balancing the benefits of transportation against the threat of death. My point is that the State is no better at making economic decisions about counter-terror spending than it is about any other health-and-safety spending. I bring up traffic because (a) it's the largest preventable threat to life, by far, and (b) for some reason, that threat is almost invisible, and accepted, as if it's normal. If the drink dispensers at McDonald's exploded and killed 100 people daily, with as much predictable regularity as cars, people would not blame those deaths entirely on user error. They'd eventually also say that maybe McDonald's ought to change its drink dispensers. For some reason, the State gets a pass. It can waste huge sums of money, which could be spent actually saving lives, but instead uses it on ineffectual expenditures that no one would incur on his own. Market anarchism is equally relevant, if not more so, to the economics of security as it is in any other context -- schools, corn prices or the use of woods in Gibson guitars, etc. The OP reminds us of that. Why do you think the laws of economics do not apply to security?

Not sure what your point was. Were you backing up my point or trying to refute it. Either way that definition reinforces my point. Terrorism aims to intimidate people. Who does it aim to intimidate? Obviously not the small number of people hurt and even more obviously not the ones killed. It tries to intimidate the remaining population around them. Car accidents have no intent to intimidate and rarely ever do intimidate others. So these are qualitatively different acts and not analogous. I believe the definition highlights the fact that terrorism is not merely intended to spread fear and intimidate people in general, but is specifically designed to interfere with the relationship between the "people" and the State. The reason that the State over-responds to terrorism (which it cannot prevent) and under-responds to the larger number of daily, predictable, perennial deaths-by-traffic (which it could prevent) is that the State cares more about itself, and maintaining its direct control, than it does about actual life-and-death. The State is jealous of its ability to terrorize the populace. It resents the competition. It will spend whatever amount of your money is necessary in order to maintain its monopoly on terror. Maintaining control is its raison d'etre. Otherwise, Statists might as well give up and find another line of work. I had a feeling you were going to try that route and I started to add to my repsonse, but then I figured I'd wait and see. Sure enough you went there. So now I can just point out that there are plenty of dictionaries that don't specify politics in their definitions (see m-w.com for one example). And rightly so. Many terrorists have religious aims, not political aims. And if a group decided to start blowing up people to scare the population into caving into any non-political concern, even something as petty as just them wanting money, would you not call it terrorism? I would, as would many dictionaries. Beyond that, nobody expects to stop all terrorism. We try to minimize it. And you'd have to be clueless not to realize the government succeeds in stopping many plots. No matter how strong your bias against the government, you must admit they stop almost all plots, in fact so far. Opposing the State is not helped by refusing to be honest about what they do and don't do. They do succeed in stopping a lot of plots. You can surely make a case that stopping them in that way isn't worth what we give up. But arguing it in economic terms is not a very effective one since you can't measure things like people's lives and the level of security in a society in pure money. Those things are priceless to many people. So the point is simply that you have to make the case in some other way. And trying to compare the situation to that of car accidents is not a convincing strategy. None of what you are saying here addresses my points. First, the "religious" aims involved in terrorism are still political in nature. The Islamist terrorism that is the main global terror issue for the last 100 years or so is not designed merely to promote their brand of Islam -- it so happens that this particular brand of Islam is State-enforced Islam. It's things like Sharia Law. It's the total merger and fusion of religion and statism. You can call these goals "religious" but doing so completely (intentionally?) misses the fact that it is still just politics, but with some religious language glossed over the top. Second, who is this "we" that is trying to "minimize" terrorism? I don't care about terrorism nearly as much as I care about traffic and toxins, because traffic and toxins are FAR more likely to cause harm to me and my family than is terrorism. I care more about water safety. I care more about pharmacy error. Terrorism is about number 857 on my list of concerns. The desire to live may be infinite (hence priceless), but the time, attention and resources one needs to expend in order to cope with existential threats is finite. Hence, security is an economic good. Of course the amount spent on it, and in what areas, matters. People's lives are priceless TO THEMSELVES, but not priceless to the State that monopolizes the aggression in modern society. If people's lives and safety were of paramount concern to the State, then the State's paramount attention and effort would be directed at the No. 1 cause of early, avoidable deaths, until it was no longer No. 1 on the list, and then work its way down. They don't. They DO NOTHING about the deaths they CAN prevent, and spend billions pretending to "do something" about the attacks they can't predict or prevent. Even with Total Domestic Surveillance, nothing will stop guys like the Tsarnaev brothers from packing up a pressure cooker with gunpowder and nails and taking it to another sporting event, or a movie theater. It's ridiculous.

Not sure what your point was. Were you backing up my point or trying to refute it. Either way that definition reinforces my point. Terrorism aims to intimidate people. Who does it aim to intimidate? Obviously not the small number of people hurt and even more obviously not the ones killed. It tries to intimidate the remaining population around them. Car accidents have no intent to intimidate and rarely ever do intimidate others. So these are qualitatively different acts and not analogous. I believe the definition highlights the fact that terrorism is not merely intended to spread fear and intimidate people in general, but is specifically designed to interfere with the relationship between the "people" and the State. The reason that the State over-responds to terrorism (which it cannot prevent) and under-responds to the larger number of daily, predictable, perennial deaths-by-traffic (which it could prevent) is that the State cares more about itself, and maintaining its direct control, than it does about actual life-and-death. The State is jealous of its ability to terrorize the populace. It resents the competition. It will spend whatever amount of your money is necessary in order to maintain its monopoly on terror. Maintaining control is its raison d'etre. Otherwise, Statists might as well give up and find another line of work.

I don't get it. Who thinks of terrorism only in terms of economic damage? Isn't it the loss of life that's more the issue? I'm not saying this to justify or argue against the policies. I'm just not getting how focusing on it in purely economic terms makes any sense. As ribuck said, more than 32,000 people die in traffic collisions every year in the USA. It's the No. 1 cause of death for all age groups under age 45. That number could be reduced to about 32 if the government -- which designs, builds, and polices the roads where these deaths occur, and controls the design and installation of the safety features on all of the cars -- were to make some changes. We could ride around in golf carts. Or walk. But there's an even more insidious level of governmental control that virtually guarantees that these traffic rules and designs won't be changed -- land use restrictions. Government controls the location of every type of business and residence, and their density, which spreads everything out to the point that artery roads and cars become a necessity. Land use rules are the most fascistic restrictions that affect people on a daily basis, but most people don't even know they exist. They are written in secret and in back-room deals. They are written to favor developers and landowners and road-building companies. Making our daily transportation activities less of a bloodbath would have large, negative economic effects on politically-powerful people.

My guess is that she's testing you. She feels rejected by her father (since children tend to blame themselves for their parents' abuse of them, per Alice Miller -- it's a survival skill, that allows them to adapt to even the worst mistreatment). You are now the surrogate father. She's misbehaving in a way that forces you to either prove she will be accepted and protected, or that she'll be rejected and thus on her own. In effect, she's daring you to care for her by being extra-difficult to care for. Her total lack of faith in paternal care is very likely a huge issue in her mind, if not the biggest. There may be some choices you could make that would help you pass these tests, and ways to spectacularly fail them. What specifically are her typical forms of misbehavior?