In Part 1 of this piece suggesting a new direction for Libertarians,
I made my case based on the following chain of observations and premises:
So here I am at Busch’s—a family independent grocery store that sprouted on the corner of Meadowbrook and 10 Mile Road in Novi, Michigan—used to be a Farmer Jack. Not having children, never much of a grocery shopper, my idea of going to stores for things, for nearly 40 years, has been, “That looks really good (or cool, or different); just throw it in the basket. $19.95 may be a little steep, but that’s why God invented MasterCard.”
And so it would go… for food, for clothes, for drinks, for car stuff, etc. Continue reading
On the night before the recent election, I’m watching the alternative debates on FreeandEqual.org. The site streams the verbal contest between presidential candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party, only it isn’t much of a contest. The topic is foreign policy, focusing primarily on peace and civil liberties, their positions virtually identical: yes and yes. [Dr. Stein, IMHO, has the greater civil libertarian street credit, having been arrested and held for a day by police for taking part in an Occupy Wall Street protest.] Continue reading
Amazingly, what should have been a routine narrowly construed remedy to a violation of a nonprofit conservative group’s (Citizens United’s) freedom to show a documentary about Hillary Clinton seems to have opened a floodgate for corporate money and power into the campaign process. But on the bright side, The People are beginning to question the incestuous relationship between the corporate power and the state power… and the moral legitimacy of both. — bw Continue reading
As part of my Old Paradigm[1] job search process, I have resumes posted on a couple of online search firms: Monster.com (and—Senior Moment!—I forget the other one it’s been so long since I’ve received any reasonable inquiries). I also had listed my resume with a more direct peddler of personnel named QuintCareers, where my account profile specifies technical or marketing writing/editing but also, apparently, leaves a big door open by listing an “Other” category in my preferred industry focus… not to mention leaving the low end of my salary needs at 10,000 FRNs annually. So I’ve been going along for probably three-four years receiving emailed newsletter lists of mainly technical writing jobs in three regions of the US: New England, Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes. Continue reading
Link to Panarchy Papers, Pt. 2
So what’s this all about? First, I have come upon the concept of panarchy[1], thanks to this Website I visited a few weeks ago. The fundamental idea of panarchy is free choice of government. The government we Americans have come to know and loathe was set up by the founding fathers based on “implied” consent, and as Lysander Spooner questioned in No Treason, why should a man be bound to a contract he never signed? Panarchy resolves that question: a man should not be bound to any contract except those he explicitly makes. This is the advance we have been looking for: government by full consent, government by contract. Such a full-agreement form of government may not have been possible in the late 1700s (when the Divine Right of Kings had only just been challenged). But it makes sense now. Continue reading
In my first Panarchy column, thanks to my discovery of the panarchy concept—i.e., freedom of choice of governments—I feel I finally assembled all the pieces to solve the Big Universal Problem (BUP). The BUP is essentially “tyranny”—the political domination of one group of men over another to the point of enslavement and destruction. My solution has a universal component applying to all humankind and a specific component re: my particular relationship to the American state… which is probably quite a common relationship. Continue reading