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.”

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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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What "Trailer Park Boys" Can Teach Us About State Police

I was sitting with my wife watching the excellent Canadian sitcom “Trailer Park Boys” the other night and a particular story line really brought home the reality of state police to me. In the episode in question the drunk trailer park supervisor Jim Lahey (who was thrown out of the police force a few years previous) decides to wear his old police uniform and act like he's back on the force. He drives around drunk harassing the residents and even constructs a make-shift jail to contain those who don't submit to his demands. The episode is hilarious and quite slapstick but it is a good analogy for state police. Why? Because they too are people who adorn costumes and assume that the costume gives them some kind authority over ordinary people in some real way.

I start from the premise that the only valid interactions are voluntary ones. I have not given my consent to the laws imposed upon me by the state so I see no reason to recognise them. Now obviously I agree with things like don't kill and rape and steal but I don't need pages of written laws to know that. Those are covered by the non-aggression principle and respect for property rights. So I don't need people in costumes who call themselves police to enforce illegitimate laws like taxes (which is theft) or victimless crimes like smoking a joint.

The funny thing about the episode is that (we assume) that the trailer park residents have signed up to Jim Lahey being the park supervisor voluntarily. So it follows that he would actually have more authority than the state police because his authority would not be imposed on people without consent.

Sure, you could say that by living in this country then I consent to be policed. But that doesn't change the fact that non-voluntary interactions are by their nature coercive and furthermore where can I go to escape governmental goons in costumes? Am I supposed to buy my own island on my Postman's salary? Look, just because someone has on a costume given to them by an extremely organised crime gang calling themselves government doesn't give them the right to tell you what you can and can't do on your property, or tell you what you can and can't put in your own body. It doesn't give them the right to stop others from stealing but enforce theft by government and it certainly doesn't give them the right to kidnap you and lock you in a cage for asserting your right to voluntary interaction.
 

One only has to look at the great work done by Murray Rothbard or Stefan Molyneux (among many others) to see how private police would not only be more effective but wouldn't waste time and resources on victimless crimes such as drug use. Policing should be voluntary and their only function should be to deal with those who violate the non-aggression principle and property rights – nothing more.
 

Greening Out – Libertarian Podcasts, Writings and News

http://www.greeningoutpodcast.co.uk

 

Trailer Park Boys (Wikipedia)

Writings, audio and video by Murray Rothbard @ mises.org

Stefan Molyneux / Freedomain Radio