if we can keep it

the silencing of nozick

Conversation with a "philosopher":

What are you teaching this term?

Political philosophy.

Oh, what are you teaching?

The first half of the term is Rawls, the second half contemporary critiques of liberalism.

That sounds great—are you teaching Nozick at all?

No, I find when you teach Nozick, students just accept his criticisms and can't take Rawls seriously any more . . . .

on elites

Noonan.

Popehat.

government is rape

Fascism and slavery are two sides of the same coin. Control implies the controlled; subjugation implies the subjugated.

When is this relationship legitimate? Only when the subjugation is agreed to by the subjugated starting from a position of equal power. Typically, this only occurs in the bedroom.

The relationship between the government and the citizen is one of unequal power. The government spies on, searches, taxes, controls the movements of, the employment of, the abilities to express oneself of the citizen. This power relation is one of slaver and slavee. But is it legitimate?

Never.

Because the citizen has never agreed to this subjugation beginning from a position of equal power—s/he was never in a position to spy on, tax, search, or control the movements of the government. The agreement was made from a position of power imbalance.

Just as one may "agree" to hand over ones valuables to a thief at gunpoint, we "agree" to hand over our autonomy to the government.

The situation here is not unlike statutory rape. Even "consensual" sex between an adult and a child is reprehensible because the child is in no position to give consent. This is because of the power imbalance between the two participants. The adult abuses the child no matter what the child thinks s/he may have consented to or not. Such "consent" cannot be legitimate.

It is incorrect to identify reason as the distinguishing factor. The child is in no position to rationally assess the consequences of hir actions, one might say, but the mature citizen is, and can legitimately decide to cede power to the government.

This is a red herring. It is completely incorrect.

The only analysis of rationality we have is means / ends rationality. But by this reasoning, it is rational for the slave not to run (because s/he will be whipped); it is rational for the unarmed at gunpoint to hand over hir wallet; and it is rational for the child to submit to the adult who controls hir future. Rationality does not coincide with legitimacy or morality. The means / ends reason for ceding power may nevertheless be morally illegitimate.

This also explains why the government systematically grants itself more power (greater powers to spy, to search, to tax, to control), and why this is so dangerous. Not just pragmatically dangerous (though it is), but morally dangerous. In doing so, the government distances itself further and further from the ideal of legitimacy. The more powerful the government, the less possible any legitimate moral mandate from the governed.

We are being systematically raped by a villain who uses the money from our pockets and tears licked from our cheeks to empower himself to rape us more easily and frequently.

We are slaves.

true words in egypt

snowden on us

From Edward Snowden's latest statement:

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised—and it should be.

bonnie dundee

". . . tremble false whigs in the midst of your glee, for you've not seen the last of my bonnets and me!"

art from politics

. . . well, maybe not art, but a damn fine piece of writing. Almost makes the whole thing bearable.

Almost.

unger on obama

the necessities of the struggle

The necessities of the struggle impel the workers to support one another across political boundaries and professions. The more active the struggle becomes, therefore, the stronger and more extensive this federation of proletarians must become. And some narrow-minded economists accuse this federation of workers, represented by the International, of instigating strikes and creating anarchy! This, very simply, is to mistake the effect for the cause: the International has not created the war between the exploiter and the exploited; rather, the requirements of that war have created the International.

~ Bakunin, 1869

let the people go!

Penn on Obama's drug policy.

1. Yes, beyond hypocrisy.

2. Yes, class and race warfare against African Americans and the poor.

protest as prayer

Today is May Day, a holiday which used to involve virgin sacrifices, wicker men, and maypoles; now it involves waving signs, interrupting traffic, and chanting slogans about "change" and "revolution" and how everything wrong with the world is someone else's fault.

This exercise is an instance of "prayer"—therapy through supplication to an imaginary entity. Protests as practiced in the contemporary United States do not affect government policy, they are not appeals to the president, they do not affect the opinions of individuals in any positive way, they do not generate any measurable, positive effect on the socio-economic status of the underprivileged or of those who engage in particularly onerous and under-remunerated brands of labor.

We can see they are not appeals to the president, since he himself is held up as an instigator and supporter of protests:

But who is the president exhorting the occupy movement to appeal to? Who are they protesting against?

It is the imaginary "other"—he who is responsible for all my travails, whoever it may be, that one.

Of course, protests in the US are directed against this imaginary other, while prayer in the Judeo-Christian sense is usually directed toward an imaginary other. In both cases, however, the primary function served is catharsis an inner relief from stress, depression, and pain by the foisting off onto an omnipotent other of one's problems, and, crucially, one's blame and responsibility for those problems.

And just as blameless is the retreat from the pain of this modern world into impotent prayer, so also is the retreat into impotent protest—protest free of conscience and clear of blame, but also closed of eyes and crippled of agency.

[This is not to say the practice of gathering in the streets has not, at any time, had political effect—many times it has; but in those times, there was purpose, focus, and unanimity, not ignorance, selfishness, and inconsistency.]

campbell's beef barley

Campbell's "Hearty Beef Barley," exp. Nov. 06, 2013

Campbell's "Vegetable Beef with Barley," exp. Oct. 31, 2013

"Hearty Beef Barley" detail

"Vegetable Beef with Barley" detail

(Note difference in "Labels for Education" points!)

"Hearty Beef Barley" (left) is official soup of the NFL while "Vegetable Beef with Barley" involves "Select Harvest" "real ingredients"

ron paul on wikileaks

snoop on paul

Snoop Dogg has endorsed Ron Paul.

Question 1: is the assumption that it must be (or that it is solely) due to Paul's stance on drug legalization legitimate?

Question 2: does this help or hurt Paul?

oh, america

You bitch:

"The role of government is to secure for citizens the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In that order. It's like a filter. If the government wants to do something that makes us a little unhappy, or takes away some of our liberty, it's okay, providing they're doing it to save our lives. That's why the cops can lock you up if they think you're a danger to yourself or others. You lose your liberty and happiness to protect life. If you've got life, you might get liberty and happiness later."

~ more disturbingly realistic "irony" (= documentary) from Doctorow's Little Brother.

I bolded the naughty parts to help you out if you've drunk the koolaid. God help us all you fuckers if you don't see that this fiction has come true and we live in a fucking police state.

The most important point, though, is to notice where the flag waving happens: if you're pro Obama's shit-on-the-public-and-spend-their-money-in-Africa-beating-up-on-random-dictators-and-replacing-them-with-America-hating-Islamists stance OR you think beating up on foreigners is a higher priority than helping / feeding / employing American citizens in this hemorrhaging economy then you are equally anti-American in my books. Don't believe the Republican v. Democrat hype but look at actual differences (or lack thereof!) in policy.

The good Lord said, "first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." We'd better get our own backyard in order before we get back to telling the rest of the world how to mow theirs.

Vote Ron Paul.

ghetto d ~ master p

After SOPA, gems like this will be lost forever, like tears in rain. Do what you can, however insignificant.

christopher hitchens, rip

Passing of another great orator / writer / reformed-communist-revolutionary.

I strongly recommend Hitchens' biography, Hitch-22. In all likelihood, given his slow death from cancer, Hitchens will be remembered most for his vocal pro-atheist stance, and his consistency in maintaining and defending his beliefs even in the face of a fatal disease. For me, however, the more interesting and compelling side of Hitchens was his political metamorphosis from left-wing radical to staunch pro-interventionist supporter of both Iraq wars. Like great left intellectuals of the early 20th cent. (e.g. Aldous Huxley or George Orwell) Hitchens gradually grew to realize the inconsistency between the rhetoric of the left (pro-worker / underdog) and its actual policy choices and implementation of those policies (Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, or take your pick of any practicing communist country out there). Amongst many other amusing anecdotes and diatribes, Hitch-22 details Hitchens gradual realization that the libertarian and collectivist tendencies of the "left" (communist?) ideology were in profound and inherent conceptual conflict. Facing a choice, he chose liberty, freedom, and the autonomy of individuals over the dogmatic adherence to collectivism, developing a surprisingly (disappointingly!) idiosyncratic, but internally consistent and well-motivated, stance, unique on the political scene.

He will be sorely missed, both for his courage to hold consistent and reasonable views, and for his eloquence in defending them.

Explaining what the "left" would have to be like for me to identify with it.


If there is a heaven based on merit, Hitchens will go there; and if it is based on faith alone, it won't be worth going to . . .

life is life

assaf sharon on west bank settlements