How 'High Fidelity' Showed Me the Right and Wrong Way To Spread Liberty

I was thinking recently about the movie High Fidelity (set mostly in a record shop) made in the year 2000 and based on the book by Nick Hornby. The scene that really stuck in my mind was when two of the main characters Barry (played by Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso) are selling records. Dick's approach is to identify what bands the customer likes and make suggestions of bands who influenced (or are similar) to said band. This is in stark contrast to Barry's approach, which is to bully the customer and make them feel inadequate for not having certain records, which can be seen best when he says “You don't own Blonde on Blonde? Don't tell anyone” and while shoving the record in the customers hand says “it's going to be okay.”

So what does this have to do with the price of fish? Well, I realised that when talking about liberty and freedom to random people I have often taken the same approach as Barry. “What? You don't know about fractional reserve banking?! Sit down while I lecture you aggressively for twenty minutes. Don't worry, it's going to be okay.”
 

When Caity and I interviewed Darrell Becker from VoluntaryVisions.com he gave us some great ideas for strategies when talking to other people based on non-violent communication. But a week or so after our interview I found myself getting over excited and lecturing people just as I always had.

Since realising this a while ago I have tried to figure out why I am so aggressive. I could put it down to extreme passion to spread the philosophy of liberty or extreme frustration that more people don't understand (or don't care about) this stuff. Either way, this is clearly not the approach that is going to work. I realised that you cannot bully people into accepting your philosophy. Then I had a more disturbing realisation, who are the real Barry's of the world? They clearly are the statists, dictators, politicians etc. I say this because even though Barry sold the records, he was selling them through coercion and shame – the same way the public is sold welfare and government schools. “You don't want to help the poor? Don't tell anyone.” And as you begrudgingly hand over your tax money you hear “Don't worry, it's going to be okay.” And so just like the bemused man in the movie handing over his money for the records he feels he must buy because of the shame and aggressive sales tactics so the average person is left with useless government programs that help no-one but feels (out of misplaced guilt) that they must hand over their money for them.
 

I began to contemplate people who had inspired me philosophically (not just libertarians) and I immediately thought of Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Alan Watts, Bill Buppert and Neil Kramer (among others). When I think of how these speakers talk and what drew me to their work, I realised that it was largely the humour and the lightness they bring to their subjects. They engage on a conversational level without having to raise their voices and jump all over the person they are talking to. In tone they are more like Dick than Barry and in reaching me it certainly worked.

 

The conclusion I have come to is that if we are serious about spreading liberty we have to be more like Dick in this analogy. We have to find common ground and build on it gently and in good humour, we can't preach non aggression physically and engage in aggression verbally to get our point across, all that does is make us look philosophically inconsistent not to mention alienating the people with whom we are speaking. What I am saying here is not new, many libertarians (and people with other beliefs) have said the same thing many times, it's just that many of haven't been really listening and if we truly want liberty then that's what we must begin to do.

Scottish Secession Bid Has Lit A Fire That Cannot Be Put Out

Walking my dog in this grey Glasgow morning I could see the saltires still limply dangling from the tenement windows. A few hours earlier the result of the much followed Scottish independence result was confirmed 44.7% voted yes and 55.3% voted no. The mood is very different this morning from the palpable excitement you could feel in the air in Glasgow the day before. Independence may now be off the table for the time being but it's hard not to feel like a fire has been lit.

Over the course of this long campaign I have been very critical in podcasts and articles about how independence was being packaged. I constantly argued that remaining within the European Union (EU), retaining the pound and being tied to the Bank of England and to a lesser extent keeping the monarchy made it for me not really independence, rather just some more power for Scotland while keeping the real power structure in place. After all, what good is being independent from the rest of the UK only to find Scotland just another state in an EU superstate with government based in Brussels?
 

Like every other campaign this one was riddled with lies ranging from “Vote no or there will be border guards on the border with England” to “The only way to stop the NHS from being privatised is to vote yes”. But that was to be expected, we are dealing with politicians after all. There was also many, many people making their decision based on emotion rather than critical thinking. Again, something we should expect.
 

But these criticisms aside I have to say that this debate really seemed to awaken something in the often apathetic Scottish people. I was involved with the Scottish National Party (SNP) just less than ten years ago and at that time the idea that the SNP would get into power in Scotland was a bit far-fetched and the idea of a Scottish independence referendum seemed like pure fantasy. Even when the campaigning started two years ago it seemed like the no campaign would just easily skate their way to victory. That is not what happened. Glasgow has been so transformed over the last few months, I have never seen such a level of debate and engagement in a political issue in my lifetime and that can only be a good thing.
 

The question of independence may be settled in the minds of certain politicians but it certainly is not in the minds of a huge section of the population. It's hard to see people who voted yes turning back to the three Westminster parties (Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats) in upcoming elections because they are traitors now in the minds of many people. It is equally hard to see no voters ever voting for the SNP again (many people in 2011 voted SNP but disagreed with independence and many didn't even think the referendum would happen) because I seriously doubt they ever want to go through another one of these stressful and nail biting referendums.
 

So what does this mean for the future? Well it really is anyone's guess at this point. One thing is very true, people who had no interest in politics and political theory whatsoever have been educating themselves and we all know that you cannot unlearn something. The other thing is that sixteen and seventeen-year-old's were allowed to vote for the first time and from my experience many of them were voting yes and have as such been part of an exciting political debate for the first time. We have definitely had a moderate shift in conciousness in this country and that is exciting. Don't get me wrong, most people are still socialist to varying degrees, but that's not what's important. People are talking about secession and localisation now in a way they were not before, this debate has stirred something that was lying dormant in many people and not just in Scotland, secession movements all over the world from Catalonia to Texas have been inspired by this referendum and you would make a huge mistake to assume that that feeling is just going to go away. There will be other secession movements and they will start to succeed and that terrifies the elite classes.

 

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The Westminster Leaders Don't Want to Save The Union – They Want To Save Their Jobs

I, like many Scots while watching the coverage of the independence referendum have been nauseated by the sight of the three identical Westminster party leaders traipsing up north to come and convince us rebellious Jocks that they are really in love with the United Kingdom and they would love nothing more for us all to live in harmony as one big UK family. However, one only has to analyse the situations of these men to realise that they are only interested in saving the union because that's the only way to save their jobs...and their parties. They are not in Scotland campaigning out of love but out of fear. Let's start with the Ed Miliband and the Labour party.

No-one really knows what the Labour party are for anymore. Many on the left see them (and quite rightly so) as the once-socialist party who have spent the last few decades betraying the working class. After the Thatcher-era the Tories became irrelevant in Scotland and Labour cleaned up so to speak. But something quite strange happened in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections. The parliament was set up in such a way that it seemed impossible to achieve a majority but somehow the SNP did just that. For me that was the point that Scots simply became sick of the Labour party. At that time the SNP presented a positive vision for Scotland that the Labour party could not match and people left them in their droves to find something different. While this was a major setback the Labour elite in London still knew that the Scots would vote for them in general elections out of fear that the Tories would get into power.
 

But now the game has changed dramatically. Scottish Labour's first catastrophic error was letting their hatred of the SNP and the influence of their Westminster bosses cloud their judgement in terms of coming out against Scottish independence. Rather than being seen as brave defenders of the union they are now viewed by many to be simply poodles for their Westminster handlers. So now we have the spectacle of Ed Miliband and all his Labour pals vigorously defending the union – they are in so deep now that they simply have to. Imagine that Scotland votes yes on the 18^th and (as many are predicting) it's a narrow victory, well then a huge portion of the population are not going to vote for the Labour party because they will hold them responsible for selling the Scots out. If the Scottish Labour party had come out as being pro-independence from the start then I believe we would be now looking at a landslide victory for the yes campaign and as such they would be in a position to wrestle power from the SNP in an election. But this is not the case.
 

So why should Ed care? Well, without the votes from Scotland the Labour party will struggle to win any UK-wide general election and as such it looks like they would be out of power for some time (if not indefinitely) if Scotland secedes from the UK. But don't think that means that life is rosy for David Cameron, far from it.
 

I have met practically no-one who believes one word that comes out of David Cameron's mouth much less his 'heartfelt' pleas to save the union. To understand why Cameron cares so much about a country who cares so little about his party we must turn to UKIP and more specifically Nigel Farage.
 

Nigel Farage is not a stupid man, far from it. Despite UKIP not being part of the “Better Together” campaign he has been in Scotland sticking his oar in. Now, he knows that he is not well liked (and in many cases detested) in Scotland, however he carries on. You may think “why bother?” but it's perfectly simple. I believe that he knows that his presence will help the yes campaign because many undecided Scots who dislike him will look at him campaigning and will be immediately drawn to voting yes. And this is what will benefit Farage. Here's why – if Scotland goes independent then it is no great loss to UKIP (they only have one European Member of Parliament (MEP) in Scotland and that is it) because without the fear of the Labour party getting into power in England (backed by Scottish votes) then actual conservatives in England will feel less obliged to vote for the Tories to keep Labour out. So with the fear taken away where might they go....hmmm...it's a tough one right enough...to...UKIP? Maybe? Of course they will. They will not pass go and not collect £200 and I think Farage is savvy enough to know this and David Cameron is terrified. Not only will he be the prime minister that lost the union but he could also be in charge when the Tories finally capitulate to the growing power of UKIP – a disaster.
 

As for Nick Clegg, well he's just following his pal Cameron around at this point, he is a man who has so compromised any principles he may once have had for a small slice of power and as such he is not worth even caring about. Sorry Nick but it is all your own fault after all.

So what have we learned? Well, the “Better Together” campaign is fear all over. They scaremonger because they have no positive vision and their leaders are only up here 'fighting' for the union because they are also scared that their parties will crumble to the new political powers that are emerging. People all over the UK are sick of the pass-the-parcel nonsense between these two parties who only have minute differences in policy. They are dinosaurs and they are dying out and guess what? Most people are happy about that.
 

I am a libertarian and as such I do not want to be part of the EU or the Bank of England and I am no fan of the SNP's socialist policies. However, I feel that the quicker Scotland divorces itself from these Westminster elites the better. They do no care about us, they are simply covering their own arses and more and more of the Scottish people can see through their lies. So I will vote yes on the 18^th but not out of fear but out of hope for a truly free Scotland – one day.

To Achieve True Freedom We Must Let Scottish Socialism Fail

During this whole farce of a Scottish 'independence' debate I have been very upset by many people I know on the left and right of the mainstream political spectrum compromise their beliefs and abandon all reason and logic in favour of emotional, nationalistic and fantasy arguments. It seems that when people (such as myself) want to put forward a case based on logic and economic reality we are shut down because we're ruining delusion for the masses. The only way I see true independence being achieved in Scotland is if we first let this socialist nightmare that is the yes camp fail. I will take some examples and explain.

In my article “Scottish Independence: What It Is and What It Isn't” I detailed that calling what the yes camp are shouting about 'independence' is at best economic ignorance and at worst flat out lies and manipulation. In that article I explained that keeping the power structure in place (the EU, the Bank of England and the monarchy) cannot be called independence. So I won't dwell on those points, important as they are. What has been bothering me is the rampant socialism and nationalism of the yes camp (hint: those two things don't go well together). So what am I actually taking about? Let me throw some examples your way (and please read this using logic and not emotion or simply don't bother).
 

Yes people seem to want the disaster that is the NHS enshrined in some kind of constitution so we can continue to have our money stolen by the government through taxation to fund a crumbling Soviet-style health system. Now in my article “A Scottish Constitution Will Not Make Us Free” I explained how constitutions are not worth the paper they are written on anyway (ask most mainstream US politicians or anyone who lived in the Soviet Union or currently lives in North Korea – all have or had written constitutions) but that's not the issue, the issue is that we would have much better healthcare if we abolished the NHS, or made it voluntary (for more detail on the NHS see my article "Time For A Voluntary NHS?") and the British Medical Association and we actually opened up the market. That statement is dynamite in Scotland right now but only to people who have never genuinely looked into the economics of healthcare. The NHS will crumble eventually.
 

But that's one point (albeit a big one) but it's not just the NHS. All yes campaign literature is packed full of talk of 'social justice' (whatever that means, usually that more money will be stolen from people who actually work to pay those who don't) and government hand-outs. What is talked about less is the fact that the Scottish National Party (SNP) will have to flood Scotland with immigrants to pay for the ageing population and all this damn spending. I personally am not against individual immigration what I am against is massive amounts of people descending on a city and causing social tensions (as I have witnessed in Glasgow) that will only get worse as more immigrants flood the city and put strains on the public services the yes people are so adamant they want to protect. Now, when a statement like that is made people automatically just shout “racist!” to shut you up. But that is not an argument and to anyone who listens to me for five minutes it is obvious that I am not racist in the slightest. But this has become a new tactic of the left in Scotland. Look at when Nigel Farage came to Scotland and was subject to abuse by leftist thugs. I'm no Farage fan but if he is such an idiot as the left claim then why couldn't they let him speak, surely then he would make an arse of himself and no-one would take him seriously? They must have been scared of what he might say to take the extreme step of shutting him down so aggressively (socialists denying people free speech, where have I heard that before...)
 

I know I have railed in podcasts and articles about the evils of central banking but this is worth revisiting. The yes camp want massive government spending in Scotland but bizarrely want to be subject to the Bank of England. I wonder if they know that the reason we have government debt that our children will inherit is because of fractional reserve banking. This currency issue would be solved if the yes folks thought about a Scottish currency backed by say gold or even competing currencies. Even if they decided to follow a debt-free government issued currency model like Abraham Lincoln's “greenback” notes that would be vastly better (although I don't recommend it personally). But no, the yes folks want to go on and on about keeping the pound as it is and basically condemning every person, their children and grandchildren to continue this farce of government debt caused by privately owned central banks (such as the Bank of England) to roll on for generations.

Another point I have only touched on briefly in the past is the Royal mail issue. The Communication Workers Union put out a good booklet explaining why re-nationalising Royal Mail can't work. There are a few reasons for this (despite the fact that nationalised industries don't perform as well as private ones). For example the universal service would be harder to keep in Scotland alone because of it's higher level of rural and hard to reach areas (this would also affect the Post Office network for the same reasons). Also an independent Scotland's proportion of Royal Mail's historic pension liabilities that are currently held by the UK government would have to be determined. A new Scottish postal regulator (such as they want to introduce) would be an additional cost to taxpayers. We don't know what would happen to shares owned currently by Royal Mail employees either. Where will this socialistic plan of nationalising Royal mail end? With many staff being laid off and a worse service for the public. And I thought the left were supposed to support the workers?

But this is all part of a common trend in Scotland. Scotland has developed into a terrifyingly state-dependent society that spends more on benefits per head of the population than anywhere else in the UK. Thinking people know that socialistic policies can't work long term because of the fact that state-planning has been shown up for what it is – ineffective nonsense. Any serious economist will tell you that price is determined in the market and no matter how much you say “No, no, no, we'll ignore economics and build a tartan utopia.” It will simply not change the facts.
 

Socialism has been shown in the 20^th century to be what it is – a dead end. If Scotland goes independent and these damaging socialistic policies are enacted then we must learn from history. Maybe it'll take twenty years but like the Soviet Union it will fall apart eventually. Every country with large welfare states and socialist healthcare will fall apart when they can no longer be propped up.
 

But I'm not in some kind of violent depression about this (despite what you may think) because I've come to realise that no amount of talking, writing and podcasting is not going to get this into people's heads. Unlike the people who have compromised their philosophical beliefs over this issue and have as such discredited themselves from philosophical debate for life I don't think short term. Like the elites in the world (the Fabians and the round table groups etc.) I have started to think long term. The only way we can move towards a truly free society is if we let Scottish socialism be enacted and wait till it crumbles and the people (red delusions completely removed) wake up and realise that socialism makes no one free, helps only the politicians and their corporate buddies and only serves to infantilize the population at large. In my view only then when this tartan socialism has been discredited will people turn their eyes towards true freedom and independence and only then will Scotland prosper.

 

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Why I Am A Libertarian and Not A Conservative

Unfortunately many of the people I interact with in Scotland in my daily life are unfamiliar with the philosophy of libertarianism. So when having political discussions with people I begin to put forward my views I am very often branded “conservative” or sometimes bizarrely even “neoconservative” (which considering the libertarian anti-war stance makes absolutely no sense). Now, to anyone who understands libertarianism these conservative labels are not accurate and I would like to point out why (in my own view) this is.

Before we go on I should point out that the reason why I have called this article “Why I'm a Libertarian and Not A Conservative” opposed to “Why I'm a Libertarian and Not A Liberal” is that (if we leave aside the fact that the word liberalism has been twisted so many times over the years to mean different things and use it as it is currently understood in the mainstream vernacular) frankly in many parts of the People's Republic of Scotland “conservative” is a rather dirty word (especially in Glasgow). So if I talk to someone and mention that I'm anti-war, pro drug decriminalization, for limiting government spending and free markets many people seem to filter out the parts they would call “liberal” and jump on the ones they would call “conservative”. Because to them being a conservative is just downright bad. But this aside, let's continue.
 

Like most ideologies what we call conservative in the mainstream and what being a true conservative is are radically different things. In my opinion no true conservative would call David Cameron and his band of followers conservative. So what do I mean when I talk about conservatism?
 

I'm usually accused of being a conservative when I mention my economic preferences for (ideally no government whatsoever) but realistically a very small one, which would entail massive cuts in public spending (which is associated with conservatism in the minds of many). So I would abolish (or radically slash) welfare, the NHS and even privatise public roads. Now my preferences are actually more radical than most conservatives because I believe having a truly free market minus a state. But you can see that there are similarities between libertarians and conservatives when it comes to free markets and small government. But when it comes to social policy things start to look very different.

To me conservatism is really about either retaining traditional social norms and values (as we have them in this country) or going back further to previous norms and values. Why I do not identify with this school of thought is because to me it seems like imposing your own morality on everyone else. Before I go further it should be mentioned that most conservatives feel this way because they genuinely believe this line of thought keeps social order and is generally good for society. But my problem is that (like most libertarians) I don't want to impose my values on anyone else. Many conservatives in the UK are against things like gay marriage, drugs decriminalization and legalizing prostitution. But - coming at this from a libertarian perspective - I personally don't care what consenting adults do as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. I also don't think that these things destroy the “social fabric” that many are so obsessed with preserving (for more in depth on why see my articles “The Gay Marriage Distraction” and “Legalize All Drugs!”). To libertarians, wasting tax payers money prosecuting victimless crimes like smoking a joint or visiting a hooker is madness. I simply want to leave people alone who are not hurting anyone and I want people to leave me alone as long as I'm not hurting anyone. It really is that simple.
 

In a recent interview Caity and I did on the Greening Out Podcast with Dr Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance UK he explained that in the past in libertarians in the UK allied themselves with the Conservative Party (something they do not do now). So that may be one reason for some people's confusion of the terms. But I think another is simply that libertarian ideas are not widely discussed in the mainstream in the UK so as soon as someone who leans left, shall we say, hears about cuts in government they think “AHH CONSERVATIVES!” In the same way when a conservative hears about gay marriage and drugs etc and being anti-war then the reaction is “Bloody liberals! You want to destroy our society.” Many people simply attribute different policies to where they fit in to their left-right political mind box.
 

The way I understand and espouse libertarianism is that it takes good ideas, some we attribute to the right wingers (free markets and slashing government spending) and some the left (drugs decriminalization and being anti-war) and moulds them into a coherent philosophy which is all it's own. It is my own personal view that if we can spread libertarian ideas as widely as possible then we can begin to dispense with this left-right tribal rubbish and actually talk about what will increase freedom for all.

 

Greening Out - Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News

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Most Scots Aren't Ready For Independence

As an anarchist I am often accused of being too optimistic when sitting with someone and explaining how people can be trusted to take care of their own affairs without having to have a government do it for them. But what I've seen and heard during this independence referendum campaign deeply worries me and shows me that to put it bluntly most people in Scotland are simply not ready for independence.

So what do I mean by that? Well from the SNP to the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) all I see is socialist ideas being put forward by most on the yes side. Like the SNP talking about re-nationalising Royal Mail in Scotland, something that simply would not work when you take into account the thousands of employees who now own shares and also keeping the universal service would be a major challenge.

One of the big fear tactics is telling people that the Tories in England are trying to privatise the NHS and the only way to keep it in Scotland is to vote yes. Now, I have explained in many other articles why the NHS should be privatised anyway. But this is not about that, this is about how socialistic policies in the UK have infantilized large amounts of the population. That's what state socialism (and socialistic policies) do.

It's like this, followers of the Abrahamic religions feel comfort in having a god that is interested in them, loves them and deeply cares about what's going on in their lives like a benevolent father who never abandons them and is always around. To remove that from the very deeply religious is to invoke fear of being alone in the cosmos and it removes the hope that there is someone you can ask to help you out in hard times and will provide a paradise (although in some Christian conceptions a strange one that's like one eternal family gathering – I'll take hell over that thank you very much) after death.

People feel the same way about the state (whether they admit it or not). The revulsion in peoples faces when you talk seriously and intelligently about removing the state altogether is due to the fact that they are afraid to have to fend for themselves without daddy government around to do that for them. By having a national health service, welfare, state pensions and all the rest of it people feel more comfortable because they don't have to worry about that stuff. They're not bothered about the fact that none of this is actually free if you are forced to pay taxes. Or by the fact that we have to put up with inferior services from state-run institutions (I have gone into depth on this in other articles).

As the state grows so does the rise of adult infants. If there was no welfare or NHS many people might think seriously before having children, they would realise that they need to work harder or get a job in the first place. That their resources must be channelled into providing the best life for their child. But when daddy government is around then people feel freer to be irresponsible because they just think fuck it, the government will pay for it. The same goes for people who don't save for their retirement for the same reasons. Do they ever think about the fact that the government steals the money from hard working responsible people to pay for that​ It is a disgrace that so many people are dependent on the state in Scotland. Now before you think, it's the fault of big business creating inequality or some other scapegoat just remember that big business couldn't exist without having politicians in their pockets and it is irrelevant which politician you put in office because everyone has their price and we know people get into politics to get paid – in a big way.
 

So how does this all tie in? Government is the most dangerous superstition (as Larken Rose put it) that we have. All this independence chat is is about bringing some form of Tartan Socialism to Scotland within the already existing power structures (the EU and the Bank of England). Until we have a major paradigm shift in Scotland and people wake up to what is really holding them back then all this independence stuff is frankly a waste of time. I would be the first to enthusiastically support a free Scotland with a minimal state to begin with and I would be out campaigning every day if that was on offer but all I hear from pro-independence people is talk of growing the state even larger if 'independence' is achieved. Let me tell you until the people wake up to the reality of government we're just re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

 

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SNP Propaganda Piece Decoded

I recently struggled through a short SNP propaganda video lately which, I have to say was one of the worst attempts at propaganda I have ever seen in my life. But it is full of what passes for debate in modern politics and it is this fallacy that will win the independence referendum and that is the logical fallacy known as the “Appeal To Emotion”.

The definition of this fallacy from Wikipedia is: “Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument. The appeal to emotion fallacy uses emotions as the basis of an argument's position without factual evidence that logically supports the major ideas endorsed by the elicitor of the argument. Also, this kind of thinking may be evident in one who lets emotions and/or other subjective considerations influence one's reasoning process.” These fallacies are nothing new in politics of course, pretty much every word out of a politicans mouth is an appeal to emotion, tradition, authority etc.
 

The video I watched is about Kirtsy who is so intelligent that she is mulling over Scottish independence as a foetus. And she has some questions which I'd like to answer for her.
 

Will it be a Scotland that is fairer and more prosperous? A Scotland where I can reach my full potential? Crystal ball anyone? I always worry when the word 'fair' comes up in political discussion in Scotland because it's usually used in a socialistic fashion. For example people may think that it's fair to steal money in the form of taxes from hard-working people to give to people who choose to do nothing with their lives. Is it fair to give said money to people just for having children? What about the word 'prosperous' by that are the SNP talking about the oil fairy again? We would be more prosperous if the SNP dropped the idea to keep the pound and we could finally escape from the control of central banking which creates money out of thin air and causes inflation.
 

Will it be a Scotland of opportunity, where free higher education is a right for all, and going to Uni depends on your ability, not your bank balance? Unpopularity alert – education like healthcare is not a right. I don't actually mind funding intelligent people from poorer backgrounds to get an excellent education but I would like to do it voluntarily and not have money stolen from me to do it. Also, what about parents, is saving for your kids college education (which would be easier with much lower or no taxes) such a bad thing? Another point to this is that University education for prosperity is a lie. There are many people with degrees who are out of work or in low paying jobs (believe me, I know a few) and at the same time we have very prosperous people like Richard Branson and Bill Gates with no degrees! With a wealth of information available at our fingertips higher education is becoming irrelevant in many fields, how about teaching entrepreneurship in schools? That would make us prosperous.
 

Will the land of my birth be a true nation that stands proudly alongside all other nations, with a voice and a vote to help build a better world? This is a classic meaningless sentence. What is a 'true nation' anyway, one that exists? What does a “voice and a vote to help build a better world” actually mean? A vote where? In the EU perhaps? With it's unelected president? This is just meaningless emotional garbage.
 

Will my Scotland be free of weapons of mass destruction and a country that can never be led by others into illegal wars? I would love nothing more than to say yes, yes and yes again. I have never agreed with the 'deterrent' argument for the UK having nuclear weapons, there is no circumstance under which we will fire them unless we decide with other countries to all have one huge earth-wide suicide. But with the SNP voting to stay in NATO it seems likely that they will exert pressure to keep the nukes if they think it's beneficial and just by being in NATO it is likely that we will be dragged into 'illegal wars' – guess what, pretty much all wars are illegal, mass murder isn't exactly a good thing. Another point is that NATO was set up as a defence against an attack from the Soviet Union – something that doesn't even exist any more.
 

Will I grow up in a Scotland where our wealth and natural resources are in Scotland’s hands, not squandered by Westminster governments we didn’t even vote for? Hmm, well did we not affect a hung parliament in Westminster when only one Tory MP was elected in Scotland? Let me tell you this is a post-Thatcher type of voting because the Tories used to pick up many MP's in Scotland before the Thatcher-era and the disastrous poll tax that left a very sour taste in Scottish mouths. Oil could be great revenue for Scotland but we would have to keep the EU's hands off it to profit.
 

Will my mum and dad be able to live their old age with dignity, in a Scotland that respects and cares for its pensioners? Ah yes, back to the appeals to emotion here. Why would you not want a private pension? They don't take as much as the tax man and you will have more in the end than you would with a state pension. Also, the SNP have talked about how much they would have to increase immigration in an independent Scotland to have enough young people working to pay for it. Now, I have no problem with immigrants all my grandparents were and my wife is one also. However, mass immigration can lead to major social tensions (as we are seeing right now in Glasgow) that can lead to major social unrest and a strain on these much praised 'services' that our tax money pays for.
 

Will my own kids be born into a society that is more equal and safer, a society that reflects the true values of Scotland? Again, more emotional chat and not much facts or policy. What are the “true values of Scotland” anyway? Friendliness? Sure, there's a lot of that. Sectarianism? There's just as much as that also. By “safer” do they mean increasing the already growing police state? If they want all this immigration and it causes social tension will that make us safer?
 

Will I raise my family in a Scotland where the decisions about our future are taken by the people who care most about Scotland, the people who live here? I hate to break it to you Kirsty because I've come to be quite fond of you but the elites in power don't give a shit about you and they never will. Governments are no better than organized crime, they are inherently violent. They steal your money through tax and if you object they send uniformed thugs to your door calling themselves police to kidnap you. If we accept that initiation of violence and stealing are wrong then we have to conclude that government is morally wrong.
 

Now, I have picked on the SNP in this but the Better Together mob are every bit as bad. I would love the people of Scotland to think critically instead of being led into emotional arguments either for a yes or no vote. If we don't see through the manipulation of the people through emotional arguments then we will never figure out what works economically. We have to get out of thinking in the sectarian box, that's the only way we can make sensible decisions about the future. Sorry Kirsty.

 

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http://www.snp.org/vision/better-scotland/independence

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25910947

http://www.snp.org/blog/post/2014/may/what-yes-vote-means-immigration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

 

To All Scotland's Left-Wingers – Government Is The Problem

As we know Scotland is a very left wing country ideologically and from these pro-independence leftist groups, bloggers, commenter’s, people who talk at me and the rest I hear a lot about fairness and how an independent Scotland would be fair if we just could get the right government in place to deal with Scotland's problems. What these well-intentioned folks fail to realise is that having a government in the first place is the problem and replacing a ruling elite with a new, bigger, tartan ruling elite won't make anything better in Scotland, it may even make it worse.

So if you've made it this far it's because you want to see where I'll take this madness next. Well let's start (as everything should and most things don't) from some philosophical principles. Most people accept that initiating violence against people for no reason is wrong. So far so good. Most people also accept that stealing is wrong. But when I take those principles to their logical conclusion then I lose most people for some reason.
 

Let's take taxation. If we want a bigger welfare state and more money poured into the NHS and childcare and whatever else is on your left-wing state shopping list it has to come from somewhere. A lot of these more radical leftist independence campaigners either don't mention higher taxation or think that the oil fairy will pay for everything. Well it will be higher taxes in Scotland and if we accepted the first two principles (that initiating violence and stealing are wrong) then taxation is inherently immoral. Why? Well because - just like the Mafia extorting a shopkeeper – money that I have earned is stolen from my wages by criminals calling themselves government. Now, what happens if you refuse to pay tax? Violence happens, first you are threatened violently then if you continue to resist men in costumes calling themselves police will kidnap you and lock you in a cage.

I hear you making the argument in the distance that tax pays for services. Look, every service that taxation pays for can be provided peacefully, voluntarily and without violence. Look at bin collections, my workplace (and many others) use private companies to remove their rubbish. If we had a free market without government then healthcare could be opened up and without regulations could provide varied coverage for all incomes. But what if the doctors were not very good? Well we have comparison websites right now I'm sure in a free healthcare market doctors would be rated so you could see which ones have the highest success rate in any area. Why do people get all teary-eyed about the NHS anyway? Have you been in an NHS hospital lately!? And what about all the scandals that have come out?
 

Providing services is like this, when one entity (government in our case) has a monopoly then there is no incentive to innovate or no competition to push standards up. People have to pay for it anyway so you can provide as poor of a service as you like. I have made the argument using a fictitious shoe company before and I'm sure you will understand that we enjoy immense choice in areas of our lives like shoes and cars and electronics, all of which companies are competing with each other to have the best product for the best price. If it's good enough for shoes then why is the free market not good enough for healthcare?
 

People are angry about wealth gaps also and I agree this is a big problem but it is also a problem that government has helped to create. Politicians are lobbied left, right and centre and it's government that gives perks to big corporations and introduces legislation to make it harder for smaller companies to compete with the bigger ones and they will do this all for massive donations from wealthy men. A 'corporation' as we understand it would not exist without government!

Now I know you're thinking about the poor and elderly and the ill. We have great charities all over the British isles that deal with these matters and others very well. People say to me “Who would take care of the poor.” and I say “I would, wouldn't you?” Then they agree and we wonder what we're arguing about! Without the burden of taxation I have no doubt that the people of Scotland would take care of each other, look at food-banks that are privately funded or even the SSPCA (which receives zero government money) or the National Trust (which is also privately funded). Look, if we can take care of cats, dogs and historic buildings with private donations I think that we could definitely take care of the poor, sick and elderly in our country. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind about the generosity of the Scottish people to get things done and take care of each other without violence.

This is obviously a breeze through some anarcho-capitalist thought but let's quickly tackle one more issue – law and order. Government is not required for justice in fact often it's an obstacle to justice. If a stateless society were to run on contractual and voluntary relations among people with (as Stephan Molyneux envisions) Dispute Resolution Organizations (DRO's) to enforce contracts and deal with violent crime then you can see how easily it could work. It is beyond the scope of this article to go into depth as to how crime would be dealt with in a stateless society so if you're sceptical then please read the work of Murray Rothbard and others (available at http://www.mises.org) and listen to Stephan Molyneux at http://www.freedomainradio.com they will describe the minute details for you better than I ever could.
 

Albert Einstein got it right when he said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's all we're doing by changing the government, we're just moving the pieces on the chess board but we are still all stuck on the board. The solution to problems created by government is not to change the government but to get rid of it all together and give freedom a try as Murray Rothbard points out, the worst that could happen is that we end up with another state, but at least humanity would have had a holiday for a while.

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A Scottish Constitution Will Not Make Us Free

In my talks with Scottish independence enthusiasts they can't wait to tell me about the Scottish constitution and how it's going to free us to have a better society. But will it? We should start by listing some previous examples of countries with constitutions.

You may be surprised to learn that the Soviet Union had a constitution and that North Korea still does. Now, while I think that many people in Scotland are socialists in denial I am not suggesting that an independent Scotland will turn into a hard-core totalitarian nightmare, so let's take another example of a constitution. How about in the US?

 

Ah the much argued about US constitution. We know it's been broken several times but who was first? It depends on who you ask, but a number of people will tell you it was George Washington himself although the debate rages to this day. Which brings us to our first problem with constitutions – they are open to interpretation. No matter what you write or how you word it people will interpret parts of any constitution differently. An example right now is the fight in the US over gun control. These disputes rarely get solved to satisfaction and it ends up being a judge (employed by the state) who interprets the thing in the end. Since we're talking about law we find ourselves at the next problem with written constitutions.

In 1870 the philosopher Lysander Spooner's classic work “No Treason – The Constitution of No Authority” was published. A trained lawyer himself Spooner showed how the US constitution applies to virtually no-one, chiefly because for it to be a legal contract among the people then all the people would actually have to sign it and this would be true for a Scottish constitution also. Because if we have not all signed it then you cannot claim it is a document of the Scottish people it is a document written and signed by a minority which they then impose over the majority of the people and by agreeing with that then you agree that a small minority of people have the right to rule over the majority. You see Scotland is just some imaginary lines drawn on a map, the Scottish nation is the people themselves. As Spooner himself says “two men have no more natural right to exercise any kind of authority over one, than one has to exercise the same authority over two. A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.”

 

A hilarious aspect of “Scotland’s Future: from the Referendum to Independence and a Written Constitution” which is the basic draft of a Scottish constitution is their mention of the US founding fathers. The SNP would do well to study those men and realise that they did not bow to the British monarchy when the going got tough as the SNP have. I knew many SNP members in my younger days and they were viscously anti-monarchy but now it's a different story altogether. You can measure people by how they stick to their moral and philosophical principles (don't be surprised if after independence the Scottish government bow down to their NATO masters and break their promise to get the nukes out of Scotland).

This is really the sticking point for me. I respect people who reason from first principles and stick to them. I have seen people on the left and the right who are in favour of an independent Scotland throw their principles aside to get what they want in the short term and this never works, it only ends in disastrous compromise and weak middle-of-the-road thinking. We can turn to that old socialist Aneurin Bevan here (the one thing we agree on) when he said “We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.”

 

Sure, people will say “Oh, you have to do things this way to get people on board.” Compromising principles is never the answer to anything and I am proudly against the state and I will not put that aside for short-term political gain. You can write all the constitutions you want, but I challenge you to prove that your constitution applies to me.

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Lysander Spooner: No Treason - The Constitution Of No Authority (full text)

Want A Safe Independent Scotland? Legalize Guns And Slash The Military

One of the major debates we see during the Scottish independence referendum campaign is talk about what will happen to the military. This is an important question and many in Scotland (and other places) will disagree with my conclusion. The only way for an independent Scotland to be truly safe is to legalize guns and radically cut the military.

In my recent article “ Scottish Independence – A Critique of the Yes and No Campaign's Propaganda” I brought up the point in the Westminster government's propaganda pamphlet they stated that we would lose Britain's armed forces which “keep us safe at home and abroad”. Perhaps that would be true if there was a radically smaller defensive army but anyone can see that the British armed forces are anything but that. Due to a “do what we're told” attitude to American foreign policy the British armed forces have been drawn into pointless and disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. Sure, politicians love to pretend that “Our boys are over there keeping us safe.” but this is a lie. These wars are being fought over resources and to feed the already out-of-control military industrial complex.
 

When you violently invade someone's country and kill thousands of people all you do is radicalise the youth of that country. We saw it in Ireland over the years, when something horrific like Bloody Sunday happened many infuriated young men went straight to join the IRA and it is the same in any country. Want to stop actual domestic terrorism? Then don't give recruiters mountains of examples of brutality they can show to impressionable young people. I believe Ron Paul put it best when talking about this same issue in the US when he said “They're over here because we're over there.”
 

So what about an independent Scotland? Well a truly defensive army would be desirable, but if the SNP are as committed to peace as they say then we would get out of NATO for a start. NATO was supposed to be an organization to protect us from the Soviet Union – something that now doesn't even exist! Sure Russia is still demonised in the mainstream media but in reality poses no threat unless poked way too much (they're trying!).
 

So how does legalizing guns fit into this confused rambling? Well, there are numbers to support crime going down in states in the US where carrying concealed guns is legal but you can look at the statistics for yourself, personally I know statistics as these are open to wide interpretations so I'm just going to come from the pure reason argument. If you know that someone may be armed how much less likely are you to rob them? Or, if you rob someone and you know that a passer by may have a gun and shoot you, again how likely are you to rob them? Much less so than currently.

An acquaintance of mine who was from Texas said to me one night in the pub “In Texas people are much nicer to each other cause you never know who's carryin'” If people want to rob or murder you they'll do it anyway, you'll get stabbed or battered with a golf club so why shouldn't you be able to defend yourself with a firearm? What if your house is being broken into? How can you effectively protect yourself and your family? As the old saying goes “When seconds count the police are minutes away.”
 

The fact of the matter is that criminals can buy guns in this country illegally anyway. If I were to give you the short answer to why guns are illegal in this country I would first put on my tinfoil Jimmy hat and then tell you that they're illegal because (as usual) the government wants to enjoy a monopoly of violence. Put yourself in the shoes of the ruling elite for a moment. Would you want an armed population that could overthrow you? Hell no you wouldn't, why do you think they're trying their best to disarm the US population? And this point funnily enough could save us from invasion.
 

I would make the case that a stateless Scotland with no army whatsoever could be perfectly safe, but that is beyond the scope of this article. So I will say this, if we had a small army (for defence purposes only) and guns were legal then any country would have to bomb us into another dimension to take over Scotland. Think about it, if we didn't start wars with other countries over resources and feeding the military industrial complex monster then we would have less enemies who would want to do us harm. Now, add to that the fact that any would-be invaders or terrorists would know that most people own guns, would march an army into a foreign neighbourhood where almost everyone could shoot you? You would be making a mistake if you did.
 

So let's attempt to tie this together. I would be fine with a completely independent Scotland having a small defence-only army. The Swiss model is very interesting in this respect, every male is trained and given a gun and becomes part of the Swiss militia. This has allowed them to stay neutral in major wars and come out just fine. Now, it must be pointed out that most ordinary men don't have ammunition for their guns in their home (as of 2007) as many gun right activists miss this fact when referencing Switzerland. But it is still a fascinating look at how an armed forces could be.

What I am getting at is that if Scotland became independent and then we fell pray to the military industrial complex we would not get anywhere. We would continue to see fine young men dying in foreign war zones for the enrichment of a privileged few and that is wrong. We could be much safer with a (possibly voluntary) defence-only army that would not be dragged into unnecessary wars. I also don't feel that legalizing guns would destroy our social fabric and lead to chaos. If potential gun-owners had to undergo background checks and mandatory training then we could have guns not concentrated in the hands of power only and this would mean that if we the people were aggressed against (by government or foreign invasion) then we could defend ourselves more effectively.

 

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Scottish Independence – A Critique of the Yes and No Campaign's Propaganda

Like most other people in Scotland I've recently been hit with a lot of propaganda regarding the referendum on so-called Scottish independence in September. I see massive problems with the yes and no campaigns arguments and in this article I de-construct the recent anti-independence booklet from the UK government called “What staying in the united kingdom means for Scotland” and the “Your Choice” booklet issued by the Yes Scotland campaign propaganda booklets that have found their way into my mail box recently. Now before we go on I have to make it clear that I'm not going through every point in each booklet, I'm simply critiquing the problems that are glaring in each camps argument.

The No Campaign
 

One of the main reasons why the Scottish National Party (SNP) have done well in recent elections has largely been due to the tone of their message in recent years. They provided an optimistic vision for Scotland while Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives all spent their time scaremongering about how the world will end if the SNP get into power.

The anti-independence booklet sent out by the Westminster government doesn't disappoint and is basically full of scaremongering. They start by going into the economy and how Scotland couldn't keep the pound the way we have it now. Fair enough, no argument from me on that. However they talk about the 'strength' of the Bank of England and to anyone who knows anything about fractional reserve banking and fiat currency we know that that is nonsense. We are forced to pay an inflation tax because our money (issued by the Bank of England) is essentially worthless because it is backed by absolutely nothing. Central banking is a threat to true freedom worldwide and that fact needs to be recognised. It's funny because later on in the booklet they talk about how in 2008 they were able to provide Scottish banks with “support worth more than twice Scotland's national income” hmm, could they mean the Royal Bank of Scotland bailout? With taxpayer money? Which clearly sends a message to the bankers that they can pursue whatever ridiculous business model they like and daddy government will slap them on the wrists and make sure that everyone can walk away bonus-in-hand. In a truly free market without government providing this kind of corporate welfare these bankers wouldn't be able to act in such a manner unless they actually wanted to lose everything.
 

The financial scaremongering goes on with the claim that somehow an independent Scotland would slow down trade with the rest of the UK. Are you shitting me? In an era such as ours where we can trade and share information with ease like we've never known with the rest of the world is the UK government serious in this criticism? There isn't going to be some kind of lake of fire between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
 

It's also pretty funny when they begin to defend the public institutions that we couldn't bear to lose. Like the BBC, wouldn't it be terrible if we weren't forced to pay for a TV licence (regardless of whether you watch the BBC or not) for a state-controlled institution that has been declining in quality for years. Yes, that would be a tragedy. Or the passport office, we couldn't do without the passport office, wait is that the same passport office where there were massive delays and problems this year? Oh that passport office, yes then who would fuck up if we lost that?

Then we get to the part about how the armed forced “keep us safe” so we couldn't possibly lose that. Well if the British armed forces were there to keep us safe why are they fighting a losing war in Afghanistan (a country that poses no threat to us?) If the armed forces were purely there to keep us safe then they would be a defensive army which they blatantly are not.

Since we're talking foreign policy the booklet also informs us about how the UK is the second largest aid donor in the world. I am a big supporter of charity but private charity. Giving tax payers money to foreign countries when our own is going down the toilet makes no sense. We were even giving money to India when they were working on a space program! It sounds like some kind of sick joke and I wish it was.

The booklet starts to taper off with talk of how great the EU is (see my article a Spectre Is Haunting Europe... to see why it is a very dangerous thing) and the UN and the G7 and G8 and G20. Amusingly they claim that the UK can protect Scottish industries like agriculture and fisheries, we all know that those are EU policies and the only way to protect those industries is not to be the big man in the EU but to get out of it completely.
 

It then ends with a whimper about what a successful family of nations we are and the usual empty promise of 'more powers' for the Scottish parliament if we toe the line and behave ourselves and then it's all over and if you see through the statist lies and appeals to emotion and tradition you realise that there are many flaws in the argument and we haven't even got to the pro-independence mob yet.

The Yes Campaign

The pro-independence people are indeed an optimistic and socialistic bunch. Their booklet is an altogether more personal affair with names and pictures of ordinary Scottish folks just like you telling their stories. On the second page we meet a mother who says that a yes vote would mean that her kids would be entitled to government money for her kids childcare so she can work. Sounds nice right? But wait, here I come to be a huge downer as usual. Why does she deserve tax payers money for having kids? But that aside for a moment, if we didn't have ludicrous government hurdles to jump over to start a childcare facility then costs would go down. I hear you now screaming about how then the kids will be left with psychopaths all day. Did you never have a teenage neighbour babysit your kids? My wife did that for years and shock horror not one child came to any harm. I myself was minded by a neighbour who watched local kids for a while and again the sheer shock that not one bad thing happened to me. Now to be mean in the eyes of my friends the socialists. Life is about personal responsibility, if you decide to have kids then you should plan how they will be cared for. Now, of course there are harsh an unforeseen circumstances and I have no problem with helping people who are genuinely in a bind but in the booklet it talks about every child being “entitled” to childcare. I can feel the taxes beginning to rise already and we're only on page two!
 

On the next page the socialism continues with the first of more than one of the English born people who are supposedly supporting independence. We meet Bob standing in a questionable area who campaigns for something abstract called “social justice”. Bob basically wants a welfare state (not good already, for the evils of the welfare state see my article “Against The Welfare State and It's Promoters”) that doesn't attack the vulnerable and poor whatever that actually means. He continues with his vague notion of everybody being equal. Well we know that's not true. I'm not equal in terms of playing football as, say Gareth Bale. Should we go down the road Kurt Vonnegut sketched out in his short story Harrison Bergeron where the government enforces equality so for example ballet dancers are weighed down and their faces covered to hide their beauty? It is an extreme example but there is a truth there about how egalitarianism drags people down instead of raising people up. We are not all equal, sorry to hit you with the truth but that's a fact every one of us is inferior and superior in some way to everyone else. Shocking. There is another fan of welfare we meet later called Scott funnily enough and the words put in his mouth are similar, vague notions of that “social justice” thing and something else called “democratic life”. He's also under the impression that with independence Scotland would be run by people that will do the best for the country. I would love to know about a government in the world that does things on behalf of the country and not the ruling elite and their friends. Separating from the UK government doesn't change the nature of government, politicians will still be in it for themselves and their donors and they always will be. Sorry Scott.
 

But across from Scott is the real appeal to emotion in the form of Mary. Mary is old and broke a bone in her leg and she's worried about the NHS being privatised. It is an uphill battle for us freedom lovers to try and convince people that we are not better off with the NHS. Socialised medicine keeps us down and limits treatment choice (see my article “Time For A Voluntary NHS?”) Mary talks about living abroad and seeing people “sell their homes to pay their health bills.” Well Mary if we didn't have institutions like the NHS and the BMA (British Medical Association) and had a totally free market in healthcare then let me tell you, there would be affordable healthcare the way you like it and nothing close to the ridiculous waiting lists that exist for procedures now. I know you may fear that any rogue could call themselves a doctor but with independent rating agencies the quacks would be out of business soon and with recent NHS scandals of improper treatment of patients we know that they are not whiter than white.

So when we get to the end of this booklet it takes a bizarre utopian turn where we are suddenly reading stories about Scotland in 2020 when everything is just fucking amazing for everybody with an accompanying graphic which reminds me of online social hell-hole Habbo Hotel the last time I saw it. Finally, the yes campaign have pulled out the crystal ball they've been hiding up their kilts and are letting us in on the future. It's amazing, in the future the government is awesome and everything they did just worked out. These fictional stories are full of praise for the state, even Barbara who is supposedly a business owner who runs the most popular pub in town is doing well because the minimum wage has been raised (see our podcast “Does The Minimum Wage Do More Harm Than Good?”) So now we can see that yes, there will be a tartan utopia finally!
 

Conclusion
 

So what have we learned from these little bits of propaganda? Well the no campaign are scaremongering as usual about how awful it would be if we don't have the Westminster daddy government and the yes campaign are talking about how amazing it would be if we don't have Westminster daddy government but how great it will be if we have Edinburgh daddy government. Either way it is all statist nonsense. It is a useless argument about which state is better. I would love Scotland to go independent with no government whatsoever but I am being discouraged by the socialist leanings of the yes campaign. Now I understand that Scotland is traditionally more left-wing than England and this is a problem. Stay in the UK and deal with the same shit or go independent the way the yes campaign want and deal with their shit.

 

Neither campaign addresses the issue of freedom or liberty, they just want to give us new state models and until we forget the notion of daddy government and grow up then a yes or no vote is meaningless, same shit different government.

 

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Links

 

Yes Scotland

Better Together

Harrison Bergeron (story)

Time For A Voluntary NHS?

A Spectre Is Haunting Europe...

 

 

The Coming Anarcho-Capitalist 21st Century and How We Get There

I see the 20^th century as the century of socialism & communism. Early on in 1917 we had the October Revolution in Russia and as the century went on the Soviet Union expanded and totalitarian state communism took root in China and Cuba among other places. Even in so called capitalist countries we have many socialistic institutions such as state welfare and socialised medicine. We already have seen the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of increasingly unaffordable state socialised programs (such as have been mentioned) cannot be far off. Take the UK for example, the NHS has been in trouble for years with an ageing population and welfare payments continue to rise as the UK's 'benefit culture' has taken root and spawned a new social class. As idea's of stateless societies and anarcho-capitalism in particular begin to become more widespread this could be the century of anarchism! But we must think, how could such a thing come about?

Professor Walter Block talks about how when he first met Murray Rothbard in the 1960's they knew very few libertarians and now there are countless groups he's never even heard of. Anarcho-capitalism (as explained by Rothbard) is a new ideology that has grown from the roots of classical liberalism and a quick internet search will show you that this philosophy of (as it appears on lewrockwell.com) anti-state, anti-war, pro-market, is capturing the minds of many intelligent people young and old who are sick of state coercion, the military industrial complex and being told what to do with their own bodies.
 

With the communist revolutions in the 20^th century we saw many wars being fought. Violent revolution was considered by many the best way to affect change. But looking back we can all see the problems, for example after many such revolutions the thugs assume control of the new government and the intellectuals prominent at the start of the revolution are usually killed. But that aside, for the anarcho-capitalist such a violent revolution is not only against what we stand for (by being for peace and anti-war) but also it would be nigh on impossible for example if I amassed an army to take on the British army, even if my army were winning briefly then I would also have to face the might of the US and EU countries respective armies also. Basically a suicide mission from the start and you could bet that when my army was defeated it would give the government a great excuse to tighten control on the population at large. In this way we can see that violent revolution would actually take us further away from the goal.
 

We then stray into the argument that is political action. Many libertarians and anarchists are split on this matter. Some think that political action could dismantle government. We can see this with Adam Kokesh talking about running for US president in 2020 under the promise of an orderly dismantling of the government. I salute Adam for trying something audacious for freedom but I am sceptical that this type of action will produce the required effect. I personally think the best we can hope for by Kokesh standing in 2020 (if he does) is that more people are made aware of libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.
 

My personal view is that we need a non-violent revolution and make no mistake, such revolutions have occurred. Like the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia or the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic (there's an inaccurate name for you) that led to the fall of the Berlin wall. But unfortunately at this moment we are very far from such a revolution happening.
 

So what would it take for a peaceful, non-violent revolution to make us a stateless society? Well we need a shift in consciousness for a start. I am encouraged by the amount of people of various philosophies who have 'woken up' as we call it and the amount of people that we call awake is increasing rapidly. With the internet we are able to share ideas and develop philosophical, political and economic ideas in a way never seen on earth before – this is the first step. The second step is where I agree with Stefan Molyneux. Stefan has pointed out many times that by properly parenting our children we will give rise to the next generation who is unaffected by statist nonsense and can see through the psychological control of the mainstream media. Eventually, there will be a critical mass of people who are awake to the statist control and will simply not take it any longer.

By now you probably think “Well, dammit we won't see this in our lifetimes, why don't we just start throwing bombs?” My answer to that is that throwing bombs is what gave anarchists a bad name in the first place and that's why people like me and thousands of others are trying to reclaim the word. It also never got those people anywhere. I will not see a truly free and stateless society in my lifetime but I am not discouraged. The old statist elites have always thought in the long-term and many political ideologies crashed and burned because they wanted short-term success and failed to realise that the people in power are there because of long-term thinking on the part of their predecessors. Everyone in this movement (even if you just explain these ideas to friends or tweet relevant links) are building the foundation of the anarcho-capitalist 21^st century and our grandchildren will thank god that there were people like us spreading the word while many of the short-sighted nowadays would see out work as hopeless. It is anything but hopeless, it is the future.

 

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Social Media and The Control Grid

It is alarming to walk around any city in the UK (and in most of the world for that matter) these days and see the sheer amount of surveillance that is everywhere. Sure, CCTV has it's uses in businesses and private homes but the sheer amount of cameras that litter urban environments is worrying. You could say that if you've done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide but that would imply that they are there purely to catch criminals. That may be the story but if I'm going to mug someone on a street with cameras then I'll just cover my face! There is also no guarantee that anyone is manning the cameras at any one time. Also why are there cameras going up in low crime areas? Do you really feel safer walking down a dark street with a menacing figure coming towards you knowing that a camera is going to film you being mugged or assaulted? The fact is that CCTV is expensive and ineffective for the aims the authorities claim it is there for.

What about smart meters? We will be told they're a good thing because you can monitor your energy usage. However with proposals of carbon taxes and the like they could be used to ration how much energy you use and that is saying nothing about the massive amounts of harmful radiation they emit or the reports of them catching fire and even exploding!

Anyone who has been on a social network such as Facebook can see how much personal information that is being shared by ordinary users. This is so common that I'm sure that many examples spring to every readers mind almost instantly. We also have the trend of 'after sex selfies' of people taking pictures of themselves right after sex (not to mention some during sex selfies). Also let us not forget the massive amounts of data that is being collected on every single one of us every time we use the internet!
 

It seems like young people in particular are being encouraged through the internet to abandon notions of privacy and put every detail of their lives out there for everyone to see. With my tinfoil hat cocked to one side it really does look planned. If you were an evil genius in a cape looking out of your sinister-looking tower wondering how to get the general public to accept a massive electronic control grid wouldn't it make sense to have people voluntarily sharing massive amounts of their privacy online? In this way as the grid gets larger former notions of privacy have already faded so the general public is less likely to ask why there's cameras on every street or why there is a council official in a uniform that looks like a child dressing up as a policeman watching you smoke a cigarette so that he can pounce on you with a fine if you drop the butt on the street (I have unfortunately witnessed just that).
 

So where could this lead? Well to Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. For anyone unfamiliar with this, the 18^th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham came up with an idea for an institutional building where a single watchman could observe all the inmates without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched or not. So the result is that all the inmates act as if they're being watched at all times so that they control their own behaviour. Now imagine that but instead of a building it's a city or even a country.
 

We can see that if we drop notions of privacy, even with something seemingly harmless like Facebook we will develop into a culture who are used to being under constant surveillance and will just accept a giant control grid. But just remember, once the grid is in place it's easy for the powers that be to strengthen it and very hard for normal people to break it. I will finish with a quote I have used before but it is by far the best quote on the topic and it comes from Benjamin Franklin “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.”

Greening Out - Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News

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Stop Smart Meters UK

Big Brother Watch UK

The Panopticon

Against The Welfare State and It's Promoters

Talk of even limiting the welfare state is considered madness in the UK and especially Scotland with it's peculiar socialist leanings. Despite the fact that politicians talk tough about it to get votes because at low-wage, unskilled jobs (such as mine) people are livid about the government hand-out's to people who basically do nothing and have no desire to. But when you dare to float the idea that we just abolish the welfare state then suddenly you're a heartless bastard who doesn't care about the poor. Let's start with the 'poor'. We call people on benefits in this country poor but the fact is that if they went somewhere like India they would know what poor is. Here so called poor people have flat-screen TV's and iPhones. The horror and degradation of it all! But that aside there is much more to this issue.

You Don't Care About The Poor
 

This is what most readers will think. That I don't give a shit about the poor. But when you say to someone “If there was no welfare would you support the poor?” they usually say yes and so do I. If our tax money wasn't being wasted on welfare payments then people would have more free money to give to charities to support people who are genuinely struggling to find work.

I care about people who are genuinely having a hard time but the plain fact is that there is a benefit culture that has arisen in the UK where a class of society feel entitled for people who work to pay their way because they don't want to work. If we gave out-of-work people some money to tide them over for a fixed period of time then that would help them out while looking for or creating a job.

In regards to people who are genuinely ill and can't work then of course we should all help them and their carers, but those people are not my target. In this article I'm focusing on the class below what was called working class, I'm targeting the parasite class.
 

Welfare Hinders, Not helps
 

Welfare helps absolutely no-one. All it does is provide incentives not to work. Minimum wage laws keep many people out of the job market because the labour they perform simply isn't worth the minimum wage as it is. If employers were free to hire at whatever price then wages would naturally go up as labour was more plentiful and employers become forced to compete for it.

Then we have the issue of children. When the state pays people for having children then some people will have more just for the payments! When you subsidise something you get more of it. So we have the farce of people having kids for the increased benefit payments! That neither helps the child nor parent.

Without state welfare people would be forced to find work or even make their own job by starting a business for themselves.

But There'll Be More Crime!
 

Often people make out that if we abolish welfare there will be more crime. Maybe, initially that could be true as a dying class makes its last wriggles. But generations of parasitic thinking have bread a culture of entitlement and it will only get worse unless we break it now. Better to break this thinking before it becomes even worse and government dependency increases among the population.
 

Welfare Promoters
 

A fascinating aspect of this debate is the people who promote welfare. They stroll about with their hearts bleeding all over the floor for us all to see but the odd fact is that state welfare is a very socialist concept and it's strange to watch socialists who – on one hand – support workers as the 'producers' and the evil capitalists as 'parasites' who feed off the producers but how do they not recognise that people who claim welfare because they simply don't want to work are the real parasites, taking the average working man's money so they can do nothing. Not the capitalists who, shock horror, actually create wealth!

Conclusion

If I were to put on my tin foil hat and speak conspiratorially for a moment it would seem like the government actually want people dependent on them. Why?! I hear you cry out in sheer rage. Well, people dependent on you are people who are easier to control. Not really rocket science. We can see that despite governmental tough-talking on the issue they benefit from more control over the population. What the Attlee government wanted to do with the National Assistance Act in 1948 is completely alien to what we have now – a parasitic culture of entitlement that feeds off the public's wealth for it's own benefit and it's only a matter of time before it collapses.

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