Uber is a app service that helps customers connect to taxi or limo services in their area and make deals with them far more efficiently than most cities currently monopolised cab services do. Unfortunately, DC is already trying to cut them down as one could well have predicted. I think this is a marvelous example of how technology is slowly beating back the monopolists, or at least bringing them out in the open. Here’s an article for “the Atlantic Cities” about DC’s latest attempt to foil a legitimate service. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/01/dc-taxi-industry-already-irritated-uber/926/

My AP World History textbook defines “White Racial Supremacy” as:
“Belief in the inherent mental, moral, and cultural superiority of whites; peaked in acceptance in decades before world war 1; supported by social science doctrines of social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer.”

Spencer gets a bad rap from the educational establishment for his supposed “social Darwinist” views. What they fail to realize is that he was condemning existing nation states by saying they only existed because they were stronger than those before them, not by some social contract or divine right. He was actually very anti-imperialist. If anyone needs further proof that what a man actually believed and wrote in his lifetime could be drastically different than what he is famous for; here it is. A great article about how drastically wrong the textbooks are about Spencer can be found here,

http://mises.org/daily/4779

Apparently they also forgot about the time Spencer wrote this lovely article, not to mention his writing against imperialism, racism, and coercion:

PATRIOTICSM
Were anyone to call me dishonest or untruthful he would touch me to the quick. Were he to say that I am unpatriotic, he would leave me unmoved. “What, then, have you no love of country?” That is a question not to be answered in a breath.

The early abolition of serfdom in England, the early growth of relatively-free institutions, and the greater recognition of popular claims after the decay of feudalism had divorced the masses from the soil, were traits of English life which may be looked back upon with pride. When it was decided that any slave who set foot in England became free; when the importation of slaves into the Colonies was stopped; when twenty millions were paid for the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies; and when, however unadvisedly, a fleet was maintained to stop the slave trade; our countrymen did things worthy to be admired. And when England gave a home to political refugees and took up the causes of small states struggling for freedom, it again exhibited noble traits which excite affection. But there are traits, unhappily of late more frequently displayed, which do the reverse. Contemplation of the acts by which England has acquired over eighty possessions – settlements, colonies, protectorates, &c. – does not arouse feelings of satisfaction. The transitions from missionaries to resident agents, then to officials having armed forces, then to punishments of those who resist their rule, ending in so-called “pacification” – these processes of annexation, now gradual and now sudden, as that of the new Indian province and that of Barotziland, which was declared a British colony with no more regard for the wills of the inhabiting people than for those of the inhabiting beasts – do not excite sympathy with their perpetrators. Love of country is not fostered in me on remembering that when, after our Prime Minister had declared that we were bound in honour to the Khedive to reconquer the Soudan, we, after the re-conquest, forthwith began to administer it in the name of the Queen and the Khedive – practically annexing it; nor when, after promising through the mouths of two Colonial Ministers not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Transvaal, we proceeded to insist on certain electoral arrangements, and made resistance the excuse for a desolating war.* Nor does the national character shown by a popular ovation to a leader of filibusters, or by the according of a University honour to an arch-conspirator, or by the uproarious applause with which undergraduates greeted one who sneered at the “unctuous rectitude” of those who opposed his plans of aggression, appear to me lovable. If because my love of country does not survive these and many other adverse experiences I am called unpatriotic – well, I am content to be so called.

To me the cry – “Our country, right or wrong!” seems detestable. By association with love of country the sentiment it expresses gains a certain justification. Do but pull off the cloak, however, and the contained sentiment is seen to be of the lowest. Let us observe the alternative cases.

Suppose our country is in the right – suppose it is resisting invasion. Then the idea and feeling embodied in the cry are righteous. It may be effectively contended that self-defence is not only justified but is a duty. Now suppose, contrariwise, that our country is the aggressor – has taken possession of others’ territory, or is forcing by arms certain commodities on a nation which does not want them, or is backing up some of its agents in “punishing” those who have retaliated. Suppose it is doing something which, by the hypothesis, is admitted to be wrong. What is then the implication of the cry? The right is on the side of those who oppose us; the wrong is on our side. How in that case is to be expressed the so-called patriotic wish? Evidently the words must stand – “Down with the right, up with the wrong!” Now in other relations this combination of aims implies the acme of wickedness. In the minds of past men there existed, and there still exists in many minds, a belief in a personalized principle of evil – a Being going up and down in the world everywhere fighting against the good and helping the bad to triumph. Can there be more briefly expressed the aim of that Being than in the words “Up with the wrong and down with the right” ? Do the so-called patriots like the endorsement?

Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be “our interests,” we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – “When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”

I foresee the exclamation which will be called forth. Such a principle, it will be said, would make an army impossible and a government powerless. It would never do to have each soldier use his judgment about the purpose for which a battle is waged. Military organization would be paralyzed and our country would be a prey to the first invader.

Not so fast, is the reply. For one war an army would remain just as available as now – a war of national defence. In such a war every soldier would be conscious of the justice of his cause. He would not be engaged in dealing death among men about whose doings, good or ill, he knew nothing, but among men who were manifest transgressors against himself and his compatriots. Only aggressive war would be negatived, not defensive war.

Of course it may be said, and said truly, that if there is no aggressive war there can be no defensive war. It is clear, however, that one nation may limit itself to defensive war when other nations do not. So that the principle remains operative.

But those whose cry is – “Our country, right or wrong!” and who would add to our eighty-odd possessions others to be similarly obtained, will contemplate with disgust such a restriction upon military action. To them no folly seems greater than that of practising on Monday the principles they profess on Sunday.

——————————————————————————–

* We continue to hear repeated the transparent excuse that the Boers commenced the war. In the far west of the U.S., where every man carries his life in his hand and the usages of fighting are well understood, it is held that he is the aggressor who first moves his hand towards his weapon. The application is obvious.

—I saw this post on the old mises community and I have to say, I think the guy is dead wrong. I actually read the books and think I understand the narrative a little better than this guy:
“I just saw this movie. I’ll try to recall the obvious stuff, maybe a discussion can get going about what others noticed. I’ve always been extra skeptical of tv/movie/music propaganda, and my wife is absolutely obsessed with hollywood and can predict any movie. Her secret is, “every detail counts” but I’m sure she’s just good with hollywood propaganda patterns. Anyways, I’ve thought a lot about propaganda in movies, and if the rest of my thinking in life is any indication then I’ve probably caught onto a lot of the right things. So this is what I noticed, and my take on that movie given my perspective: The movie is pure war propaganda. From the hyperemotional yanking from family to be conscripted, to the proving yourself with violence in front of your judgemental peers, to the “group mentor” a la the military, to the obvious stuff like sportifying murder, impossible moral decisions, laughing about the killing your group has done, absolute disregard for morals because of some clearly avoidable crisis. It had blatant military and prison overtones, and yet never showed the rape that would likely have occurred from such disconnected and powerful supermales (the 10 guy, the black mentor, the white mentor, and the old god man). The murder-scapegoat was a posterboy military superhero stock character who killed shamelessly and laughed and got the girl while times were good, and stayed strong until the bitter end. And just like that he exits the movie and we’re supposed to not judge him because “all he knew how to do was kill” and at least he fought to the death for what he believes in. Stock characters and the morals and themes: The girl is a sex toy/prize, but she has talent. The berserk 10 points military hero is white and automatically has a girl and friends and dominates everyone, and when he is exposed as a plain murderer its simply brushed off because he couldn’t help it. I live in a military town, and half the people in the theater were women/girls, so I noticed that they all giggled (if you rewatch the movie, you’ll notice the girl characters giggle often too) during scenes that normal people would hate. For example when the military superhero is running around slaughtering people with teeny boppers giggling presumably blowing him off between scenes of murder or some other psychologicalk trauma. Or when the boyfriend (?) back at home saw that she was falling in love with another guy. In fact, the whole idea of sexual promiscuity and widespread cheating and the idea of never talking about the rape that’s all around you is psychological preparation for a standard military life. More preparation was for PTSD, I forget the precise details of every scene, but of course there was something traumatic which involved the anatagonist making an impossible moral decision and panicking afterward. As I mentioned before, the panick for acknowledging evil was clear, and then immediately brushed aside as it cut to the sex prize hero girl sleeping peacefully. There’s so much more. I saw the latest showing and it’s extra late now. I wonder how this will seem to me in the morning.”
— The Hunger Games takes place in a fictional dystopia. Nobody respects the Capitol and the only time the protagonists try to impress them is when their lives depend upon it. Rather, I think the existance and popularity of this series reflects a realization by people in the Western wolrd that we are the Capitol and that we are on top of the world for reasons that may not be too pretty to look at. A major theme in the Hunger Games is the depiction of the Capitol as a “Bread and Circuses” society. In fact the country Panem is named for the Latin for bread. The fact that people giggled every time someone was slaughtered only reinforces what the book is capturing; that we live in the Capitol; that too many things are controlled by a nefarious government; that the wealth and success of that government exist largely through theft and hegemony; and so much more. It really reflects that people understand that the way we live off of others is wrong, but we don’t know how to change it. So pop culture reflects societies feelings. Sometimes popcult is full of propaganda, but this, I think, is much more a reflection of our understanding that things are just fucked up.

Also, when they do rebel, they side with another government which is quickly shown to be just as bad as the Capitol. You’d think war propaganda would portray at least one government as good.
I think these will bemore than your common serial novels turned movies. They will be, as literature should, a reflection of what society is experiencing. Right now we’re expeirencing the fact that we done fucked up the world just like the Capitol did in The Hunger Games.

Orton expressed hope for peaceful coexistence of property systems, after “separation of property and state”:

If ancapistan turned anti-capitalist, I probably wouldn’t notice. I believe that without a State capitalism and socialism are harmonious and non-conflicting. Sure, you may call it a syndical or mutual, while I call it a firm with restricted transfer of ownership. You may call it a commune while I call it a household. Whatever.

Of course, hypothesizing that everyone will have the same economic ideology after separation of Econ and State is like saying that everyone will become atheist after separation of Church and State. No, just as there are various religions and denominations and cults with disestablishment, similarly there will be all sorts of economic arrangements with statelessness. There will be more, not fewer, economic experiments, just as the number of religious cults proliferated. Thus, the answer to your question will most likely turn out to be: Move to the next block, or a mile down the road, or simply change the people you deal with.

But the main answer would be: Who cares? The commies look just like capitalists to me. Who cares about the economic school of the guy who grows your potatoes or bakes your bread?

⁵⁵

I’ve come to the conclusion that both socialists and capitalists would benefit from a stateless society. Even if there is predominance of one form or the other, I think it would be easy and mellow to start a minority enclave. Certainly a damn sight easier than going up against a State! But I seriously doubt that any particular property form will dominate. There’ll be every kind of property arrangement that you can imagine, and many more you can’t. When religion was disestablished, when it went anarchist, did everyone become an atheist? Did the Catholic Church, or any other church or religion dominate?

⁵⁶

Watch One Man’s Terrorist,

One Man\'s Terrorist

It is our turn.
Our turn to do what?
Our turn to assume the responsibilities of moral leadership in the world.
Our turn to maintain a balance of power against the forces of evil everywhere — in Europe and Asia and Africa, in the Atlantic and in the Pacific, by air and by sea — evil in this case being the Russian barbarian.
Our turn to keep the peace of the world.
Our turn to save civilization.
Our turn to serve mankind.
But this is the language of Empire. The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The Spanish Empire added salvation. The British Empire added the noble myth of the white man’s burden. We have added freedom and democracy. Yet the more that may be added to it the more it is the same language still. A language of power.7
—Garet Garret

At the top of the page is a link to a great production put on by a veteran of the Iraq war. It is a sort of “Red Dawn” invasion of America thing, which I think is a very important tool to use when talking with conservatives., as they are the ones most likely to grab a rifle if anyone were to try and occupy their backyards they way we occupy the backyards of people overseas.

From Murray Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty”

Does anyone else think this might be where Parker and Stone got their idea for the “ginger-kid” theme in some of their South Park episodes?

“Let us consider a stark example: Suppose a society which fervently considers all redheads to be agents of the Devil and therefore to be executed whenever found. Let us further assume that only a small number of redheads exist in any generation — so few as to be statistically insignificant. The utilitarian-libertarian might well reason: “While the murder of isolated redheads is deplorable, the executions are small in number; the vast majority of the public, as non-redheads, achieves enormous psychic satisfaction from the public execution of redheads. The social cost is negligible, the social, psychic benefit to the rest of society is great; therefore, it is right and proper for society to execute the redheads.” The natural-rights libertarian, overwhelmingly concerned as he is for the justice of the act, will react in horror and staunchly and unequivocally oppose the executions as totally unjustified murder and aggression upon nonaggressive persons. The consequence of stopping the murders — depriving the bulk of society of great psychic pleasure — would not influence such a libertarian, the “absolutist” libertarian, in the slightest. Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being “doctrinaire,” to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines.”

I saw a post from someone on a Mises.org community blog promoting the website “Bleeding Heart Libertarian” (I can’t remember who it was but if you see this, send me a friend request). I went over to the site and immediately realized that it stood for many of the same principles I stand for and shares some of my perspective on the libertarian movement. I haven’t had much time to explore the site but I believe I understand the central message: That the destruction of political authority and the progress of the market are not enough. We also need to take charge of things, voluntarily, as communities and care for all people.