Marriage, 2009.08.18

A fundamental element of self ownership is your authority to associate with any competent willing person. You can enter into a contract, you can cooperate, and/or you can cohabit with another human who wants the same things you want. As your self owner, you have the responsibility to manage your life; this includes deciding with whom you wish to associate.

Marriage is a purposeful relationship defined through exchanges of promises between its parties. You can see this when you consider the wedding(s) in which you participated or that you witnessed. For example, the parties promise to love, honor, and cherish each other, to stay with each other no matter what, until one dies. Often, someone will discuss why this event is taking place. Weddings are precursors to the marriages that they define. And you can tell how well a marriage turns out by observing how well its parties keep their promises to each other.

Unfortunately, when your life is a resource, other people tell you who and when and why and where and whether you can marry. They demand that you get permission from them, or from those to whom they delegate the power to grant such permission. If you refuse to get permission, these people refuse to recognize your marriage. They may even encourage someone else to coercively marry your partner or you.

As your self-owner, you have the ultimate authority to share your life with another like-minded party. You have the self-granted authority to celebrate through exchanging promises a decision between someone else and you to have a purposeful relationship. You have the authority to disregard the demands of people that you allow them to direct your life according to their designs.

2009.08.18

Bonds 1.26.2008

A. Robbery is seizing another's justly-owned property without the owner's consent.

B. In taxation, representatives of government seize subjects' justly-owned property without their subjects consent-always under the threat of severe penalties if they refuse to comply.

C. Therefore, taxation is definitionally and morally synonymous with robbery.

Bonds issued by governments are repaid through money collected through taxation. Why do bond advocates want to promote something that will result in more theft of property by government agents?

Why is using stolen money to help people moral?

Lifestyle Collectivism

“Collectivism, by common definition: ‘The principles or system of ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by the people collectively, usually under the supervision of a government.’ The ‘means of production’ include all wealth. Wealth is anything that exchanges for a price.” -Michael S. Rozeff, “Who Decides Who Lives and Who Dies?" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff248.html)

Collectivism is a notion that you, a real person, owe to a metaphysical nonentity the satisfaction of reaping the benefits of your productive use of your property. That is to say: you, by existing, owe a debt to a group. You can never pay this debt. You must always live your life for the group: society, the state, the community.

Coercion is the apparently valid threat of initiated aggression to obtain compliance from you in favor of: somebody else, a group of people, or a metaphysical nonentity. “Thug”, “mob”, or “community” are examples of words used to describe the intended beneficiaries of such compliance.

A characteristic of collectivism is the should-to-shall progress of theory to action. For example, if a collectivist believes that the community should live healthily, he then determines that you shall live according to his ideas of ‘healthy’ living practices through coercion. If he believes that society should be governed for the benefit of a given race, he demands preferential treatment by you that complements his goal. He believes that the common good should be paramount, so you shall work toward that end. He criminalizes your behavior in order to bring about his fantasy of Utopia.

Different collectivists have divergent utopian fantasies that all feature “perfect living in a perfect world.” Your rights do not matter if the free exercise thereof conflicts with the collectivists’ agenda of imposing their “perfect” vision on other people and on you.

When justifying actions that they want to commit, collectivists claim to act on the behalf of such nonentities as, “the community”, or “the people”, or “society”. These robbers embrace “collective rights”.

A collective rights fallacy is that merely because several individuals have joined together as a group, that its members are entitled to special considerations, by virtue of their memberships. The only thing they have going for them, aside from your sanction, is coercion to bring about compliance with their directives.

Special considerations include efforts to protect lifestyles through coercion.

Your lifestyle is your pattern of consumption as a means of self-expression. Lifestyles are lived, or practiced. For example, if you consume scenery, land, the sights, smells, and sounds of farm animals, the scent of sagebrush, and the sounds of crickets for your own pleasure, you could be living a rural lifestyle. Or you if consume land, architectural designs, building materials, and labor for your own emotional needs, you might be living a custom home lifestyle.

Your lifestyle is your pursuit for happiness through consumption. Your happiness is subjective. It is unique to you and can only be experienced by you. Since happiness is unique to each of us, you cannot mandate a guarantee of satisfaction for anyone.

To justify support of a lifestyle through coercion, proponents argue that consumption choices by some of the residents are in fact a common good.

There is no common good derived from lifestyle choice imposed through law.

In a just society, only those actions that have material impacts on the exercise of your rights are subject to regulation. There, if there is no harm, there is no foul.

In the real world, actions that have no material impact are unjustly subject to regulation. Here, harm or not, there can be a foul. This does not have to be.

East Santa Clarita Land Conservation Concept Plan etc

Page references are taken from the version shown in Adobe Reader format at http://www.aguadulceinfo.com/.

This proposal is an effort to benefit lucky people in the name of enhancing the 'quality of life' of residents and others in the Santa Clarita City (City) area valleys east of the City limits.

By what right or authority, do people working for the City, propose to regulate the behaviour of people outside City limits? What is the legal authority or jurisdiction claimed for mandating compliance with environmentalists' objectives noted (p10) under the heading, 'Santa Clara River Upper Watershed Conservation Plan', second paragraph, in the areas targeted by this Plan? For turning 'shoulds' (p1) into 'shalls'?

Who are the lead agency on this Plan? The City? Los Angeles County government (County)? California State government(State)? United States government (US)? Or some other agency?

Is this an effort to drive up the price of privately-held open space land east of the City limits? Eric Harnett has noted, in a letter to the Country Journal some years ago, that as the City's density increased, adjacent open-space land prices could increase due to their relative scarcity. Indeed, if the proposed acquisitions of targeted open-space land do occur, whatever land that was not acquired could be marketed as premium land due to its proximity to the City and to the other open-space holdings. So, is this an effort to benefit lucky land-owners at taxpayer expense?

Is this also an effort to provide playgrounds at taxpayer expense for affluent users? In my experience, the proposed recreational uses of hiking, trail-bicycling, and horseback riding are all typically enjoyed by people of higher-than-average socioeconomic status. Rather than let these users pay their way, government employees appear to want the acquisition costs to be borne by both users and by non-users, including people who are unable to afford to indulge in such recreational activities. Is this perception accurate?

At the same time, proponents seem eager to bring about a loss of habitats and recreational uses for people of lower socioeconomic levels (p16). The RV parks and campgrounds, targeted for removal or relocation, were/are places where people could enjoy living and recreating in rustic settings for relatively modest payments.
What provisions exist for replacing these particular habitats for people within the Plan area?

Productive use is also to be discouraged (p16). Mining and industrial uses enable people to make money. Why is that a bad thing? Why aren't property owners competent to manage or address open space concerns without punishment, threats, or bribery?

written 2.27.2008 posted here 8.11.2009

East Santa Clarita Land Conservation Concept Plan etc.2

Page references are taken from the version shown in Adobe Reader format at http://www.aguadulceinfo.com/.

The only role of a government employee is to protect the rights of the individual by safeguarding free access to exercise of his rights to liberty, to life, and to property, provided that he does not materially interfere with the free exercise by another individual of his own rights. Government employees have no business regulating any conduct that does not violate any individual's rights. They have no business providing recreative opportunities to anyone at taxpayer expense. They have no business providing remunerative opportunities to anyone at taxpayer expense.

Environmentalism is a belief system similar to Nazism or Communism, with hatred for human life and happiness. In all cases, individual self-interest is seen to cause undesirable events: destruction of the environment, national decline, exploitation of workers. In all cases, the individual must sacrifice himself to the good of a metaphysical nonentity: the Biosphere, the State, the Working Class. In all cases, people must die for the benefit of: the Planet, the Nation, the Prolectariat. [George Reisman, 'Environmentalism is Recycled Communism and Nazism', LewRockwell.Com, 2/19/2008]

Environmentalism is a human-held belief system that: 'Humans Evil, Everthing Else Good'.

Given the nature of Environmentalism, advancing environmentalist objectives as outlined on pg 10 under the heading 'Santa Clara River Upper Watershed Conservation Plan', second paragraph: 'To preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life in the upper Santa Clara watershed, by protecting the land and waters they need to survive', is not compatible with protecting the rights of the individual.

This Plan is not an appropriate use of taxpayer resources. If individuals want to set aside land that they own for open-space purposes, let them.

written 3.5.2008
posted here 8.11.2009

On Bondage, and Who Pays

I have not noticed any discussion of the purpose of government education, of parents' proper role in education, or of the justification of taxation to pay for bonds, in the Agua Dulce-Acton Country Journal, or in any other print publication that I read.

In a recent ruling, [in re Rachel L] justices in a California Court of Appeals quoted a 1961 ruling [in re Shinn] by another Court of Appeals to justify their opinion. This quote included the following:"A primary purpose of the education system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism, and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."

Note that no mention is made of providing your children with sports opportunities, arts activities, or advanced studies. No mention is made of offering your children opportunities to improve their lives. No mention is made of giving holidays to be observed by your children as you think they should be observed.

In this opinion, there is nothing about teaching your child about his rights and responsibilities as a human being. There is nothing about teaching your child to be literate. There is nothing about teaching your child to think. The only thing that matters to advocates of government schooling is that your children should be indoctrinated to be loyal to the Government.

You are responsible for your child's activities. If you want your scion to play, you make it happen with your own money. If you want your kid to shine in music, you make it happen.If you want your child to go to university, you make it happen. You made the choice to keep the offspring, you take care of it. That is your responsibility, not that of any one else.

Taxation is morally and by definition equal to robbery. Bonds are paid for through taxation. What right do you have to steal from other people to provide for your child's future?

A gut instinct is an indication that emesis or excretion is imminent. A screaming gut instinct means that you have a mess to clean up, soon. Instincts are independent of intellegence. The bankrupty of your position is clear when you use your instincts to justify it.

Anti-socialist

I am an anti-socialist because socialism is a political/economic system, used by people to coercively collect property from people, including you, and to distribute such property to people. I have no problem with sharing voluntarily. I get a rush when I contribute property to causes or people that I support. I share some of my property because I have read that a study showed that people who contribute to help humans in need do better than those who don’t.I am an anti-socialist because I can better decide if to share or how to share my resources than someone else; because you can better decide if to share or how to share your resources than someone else; because someone else can better decide if to share or how to share his resources than either of us.I am an anti-socialist because I oppose a system granting to a gang the power to own, or to regulate ownership of, the means of production and the power to distribute the output of production.I am an anti-socialist because I understand that under socialism, you the individual must serve the group. Socialism is coercive. That’s what socialism is, you know. You are to produce according to your ability, and you are to be satisfied when you receive according to your need, as determined by someone else. That someone else is a gang member. Gang members threaten you with loss of your right to pursue your happiness, with loss of your liberty, and with loss of your life if you do not share your resources as they direct you. That gang is the outfit that seizes your property in someone’s name and transfers it to another person in your name. That outfit is frequently called a government.I am an anti-socialist because I recognize that there are different types of socialism: corporate, community, nationalist, tribal. All of them are used by people to control other people for the benefit of the former. Adept practitioners are able to plan for future events years, decades, or even centuries in advance, even if they die before the events. These guys have a very long time perspective. And they are all about controlling other people.

I am an anti-socialist. You can be one, too. You own you. You decide if you want to or how to share your resources. You decide how you want to pursue your happiness.You decide. It's your life.Update 6.26.2009http://www.lewrockwell.com/burris/burris15.1.html more about socialism "Ideas Have Consequences", by Burris. Burris provides a comprehensive discussion.http://aaeblog.com/2009/06/22/pootmop-redux/ "POOTMOP Redux!", by Long is a contrasting view of socialism worth reading.

Democracy the Tool

Democracy is a tool for managing a political/economic system used by people to coercively collect property from other people, including you, and to distribute such property to people, a system commonly called socialism.

Socialism is neither a bogeyman nor a demon. Socialism is a real system that folks can use to control behaviour for the “benefit” of a fill-in-the-blank-group. People can control other people by

• persuading them to believe that they are obligated to obey the majority will
• persuading them to support their objective
• persuading them to join the majority

That is how democracy works.

Voters voted to tax property beginning about 1790. Voters voted to tax labour by amending the US Constitution in 1913. Voters voted to bail out billionaire bankers in the fall of 2008 with tax collection proceeds.

Not. Those are all lies.

The truth is that the US Congress imposed those taxes. US Presidents collected and spent those taxes. And US Judges upheld the imposition, collection, and expenditure of those taxes. This is republican socialism. Voters voted for congress members and for presidents; presidents appointed judges. This is at the federal level. It is not democracy.

At state level, voters voted to tax property. They voted to increase fines and fees. They voted pay buyers of bonds proceeds from increased taxation. They voted to force people to surrender some of their money in the name of a higher purpose than their own. This is democratic socialism.

People use that higher purpose to justify the seizure of property. That higher purpose can be anything: society, the community, the group.

Democracy does not justify a system. The system can be hierarchic, or egalitarian. The system can be collective or individualist. Democracy is just a tool to maintain and manage a system.

update 2009.07.28
Additional reading: "National Security by Spreading Democracy?" by Michael S Rozeff, http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff305.html. This is a comprehensive critique of democracy as a form of government.

update 2009.08.30
Additional Reading: "The Tyranny of the Majority, vs the Unanimity of Liberty" by Kaz, http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/the-tyranny-of-the-majority-vs-the-unanimity-of-liberty/>

Sheep, Dogs, and Wolves, Oh My!

Some folks use fables to justify systems. One fable is about people as animals.

Remember, socialism is a coercive political/economic system of group ownership, or group control, of production and consumption resources. Humans interact with each other through rational and emotional behavior. Animals interact with each other according to their nature.

Socialism must have dependents, fabled sheep that sheepdogs protect from wolves. Within socialism, the dominant group members assume defense responsibility because, so they say, “most people are unable to defend themselves.” The socialist group owns the means to produce a good or controls the production of that good. They then distribute or control the distribution of that good. In this case, the good is defense.

Socialism dependents supposedly are weak, only wanting to enjoy life’s pleasures and ignorantly live, just like sheep. I have been around sheep. Some sheep are mellow. I can walk right up to them and touch them. Some sheep are skittish. They see me, they run. Other sheep can be hostile, running right into me if I get close enough to them. Some of the sheep I have seen can inflict serious injuries on attackers. Sheep don’t always behave the way folks say they do.

If you can take care of yourself, you don’t need some sort of nanny-daddy to protect you. Unlike a “sheep”, you can learn to defend and protect yourself.(1)

But a nanny-daddy, kind of like a sheepdog, lives to protect and to control. I have had experience with all kinds of dogs. I have noticed that border collie/Australian shepherd type-sheepdogs bite people, enthusiastically push toys or other objects around, and just love to herd other animals. Poorly trained, such dogs can be a pain in the behind. When well trained, they mind their handlers. Sheepdogs don’t always behave the way folks say they do.

Within socialism, “dogs” protect “sheep” from “wolves”, depicted as indiscriminate sadists who live only to prey on the “sheep”. I can only point out that in real life, wolves tend to spare their own kind, and generally kill only for food. Wolves don’t always behave the way folks say they do.

In the socialist world, animals are consumption actors. Herbivore “Citizen Ewe” is shepherded, sheared, shagged, slaughtered, and savored. Carnivorous “Deputy Dog” cooperates and collaborates, corralling the sheep. Carnivorous “Outlaw Wolf” competes, and consumes. So, who owns sheep? Who directs dogs? Who defines wolves? The group does all of that within socialism.

Real humans do all of that in the real world. You own you. You are not chattel requiring protection. You are not a dog obligated to defend owner interests of chattel. You are not a wolf destroying chattel. You are a human who can learn self-defense, who can join with other like-minded folks in mutual defense, who can control impulses to consume more than productive output.

Thank you, Will Grigg for this :"And We, Like Sheep...." http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/06/and-we-like-sheep.html

(1) There are websites where you can learn where to go to learn how to do that. They do offer some free advice.

4. Carcinoma

Carcinoma

Cancer has been among us for a long, long time. You would think that folks would come to understand that cancer is part of life, that it is a natural thing. Instead, we fight like mad to defeat the scourge that ravages lives, spending huge amounts of money and time to find cures for the various forms of this crab-like-monster system.

We do not accept cancer as a natural system to be tolerated.

We have accepted the coercive abrogation of our natural self-ownership for the benefit of the ‘common good’ for a long, long time. We have accepted that other people have the right to use our labor and our property in exchange for their promises. We have accepted that we have a duty to labor for the common good to the best of our abilities and that we have a duty to appreciate what we receive as we need. We have accepted these beliefs for most of our history.

We accept progressivism, a belief that aggressive state interventions into the market and private voluntary behavior will improve human life, as a natural system to be tolerated.

Both systems are parasitic, feeding on bodies.

Some cancers mimic other systems. For example, folks have mistaken lung cancer for pneumonia, bronchitis, or other serious ailments. Cancer starts out as a small anomaly, usually benign, usually unnoticed. The anomaly becomes malignant, displacing/devouring flesh, spreading through-out its host-body until the body dies. If the body owner notices and excises or neutralizes the anomaly in time, his body continues to live.

People try to keep from getting cancer, and if that fails, they try to get rid of it without dying.

Progressivism mimics other systems. For example, folks have mistaken progressivism for patriotism, communitarianism, or other collectivist systems. Progressivism starts out benign, providing a way for people to help other people, by using other people’s resources. The system grows, consuming more resources from more people. Eventually productive resources become near-extinct. If the body politic understand that they are being robbed and are able to refuse to continue to be robbed, they continue to live.

People try to live in liberty. Failing that, they try to cope without dying.

2009.07.14

rev 2017.04.22

rev 2018.11.28

Social Intercourse

Willing partners can enjoy sex most. Acquiescent partners who are obligated to cooperate can tolerate sex. Resistant partners who are obligated to cooperate can survive sex. People who force other people to cooperate rape them.

Rape looks like sex, and may even feel like sex. Rape is the motion of sex without the consent of all the movers. Look at rape as coercive management of another person’s actions and property for the benefit of the manager.

People who obligate themselves to have sex with another person (or other people) believe that they have a duty to cooperate. They may sometimes enjoy performing their duty. They may at other times wish they were doing something else. In either case, they do not doubt that another person has a legitimate claim to their cooperation. You could see this as collaborative management of action and property for the benefit of at least one person.

Both types of management are forms of socialism, in which human lives are managed resources for the “common good”. Socialism mimics sex; it can be dreadful, even fatal, or it can be fun. But you cannot refuse to participate.

Lovers have sex because they want to enjoy the sensations that result from action. They want the feeling of closeness that comes from mutual satisfaction. They enjoy liberty to reach out to their partner(s) for satisfaction, liberty to respond to partner desires, liberty to say, “No”.

Liberty is like the best sex you can have. You can cooperate, you can delay, or you can demur. It’s all good. It’s your life.

Economics made easy to understand

You decide many of your actions for economic reasons:

• Can you afford this brand (in front of you) or that brand (over there) of whatever?
• Should you spend X for a college degree, or for vocational/technical training?
• Should you invest in a tool, or should you invest in a stock?
• Should you use resources today, or should you defer such use to a later day?

are just a few examples of the questions you face “in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy;…tracing the consequences of that [act or] policy not merely for one group but for all groups”. (Economics in One Lesson”, Hazlitt).So when you are trying to make up your mind you have to more than look at what you see now; you have to look for what you don’t see yet. You need to think about consequences that affect more than you or your circle.Now, you do not need a PhD to understand economics. But you can get a PhD and make economics so complex that nobody could understand it.If you understand economics, you understand why liberty is the only system through which you can flourish. The book, “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt contains rational arguments for liberty-oriented actions instead of social-orientated actions.You can buy the book. You can download the book. You can borrow the book.
Get a hold of this book. Learn why understanding economics is so important to living in liberty.

Your One Right

Within liberty, you have just one right.

You can exercise this right, or you can abstain from exercising it. You can defend this right. You can try to delegate its exercise. You can try to deny its existence. You affirm your one right by doing any of the above. This right is the self-sovereign authority to act.

You can act with impunity in a utopian setting.

Your actions have consequences in the real world. Your right to act is limited by the impact its exercise has on the free exercise of another actor’s right to act. This limitation applies to all actors within a real-world setting.

You can possess a good through voluntary manufacturing, exchange, or transfer. You can think for yourself. These actions are derived from the axiom that you have the right to act.

The right to act does not confer a right to a good. Action refers to efforts you make to accomplish an end. These efforts, aka labor, may result in a product that someone can use. Products, such as shoes or services, are goods. Shoes are material goods; services are immaterial goods.

You can get shoes by making them, or by trading your property for them. Someone could voluntarily give you shoes. These are all legitimate ways to get shoes within liberty. All these ways require that you act: to make, to trade, or to receive. These shoes are goods, products of someone’s efforts.

Someone else provides a service to you. You can legitimately get this service by trading, or as a gift. Service can be anything you can imagine. You can have someone else organize your office or home. You can have someone else represent you in a dispute. You can have someone else treat you for a disease or injury. The list of services ends when you run out of imagination. You have to act: to trade, or to receive. These services are goods, products of someone else’s efforts to organize, to represent, or to treat.

Within liberty, you own you. You have a limited right to act. That limited right includes the authority to legitimately own a good that you made, bought, or received.