I sincerely hope that post-politics is becoming a thing. I'm looking for people who want to build decentralized jurisdictions with consent-based (not political) governance. We don't have time for all the fighting inherent in politics. In the future, we will subscribe to governance, not submit to it or fight over it.
“If everyone who wants freedom goes all in on politics, then innovation and culture creation will suffer.” Best line in the whole article. Everything else feels like a diatribe from the condescending middle. However based on the rhetoric of all these characters you certainly have allowance to point it out.
I loved this article. I had no idea of the current state of the US media. But It's happening... the post-political world is just around the corner of massive disillusionment. Anarchists content creators will start to pop up but only the one capable of handling IA to max out his ability to become more viral than this new wave of rightwing guys
“The libertarians, whose number you can count on fingers and toes, are fractured too. One branch is a remnant dedicated to flogging the non-aggression principle (NAP), another branch sits comfortably in ineffectual beltway jobs, churning out little more than TDS articles and whitepapers no one reads, and a third branch sits around sending their friends Michael Saylor videos so they’ll buy bitcoin. In short, the libertarian movement is thin and useless. Their brand is toxic. Their principles are too abstract. And they have about as much culture as a cardboard box in the rain.”
I understand a libertarian to be an advocate of liberty. In the past, you've self-identified as a libertarian. Are you still a libertarian? If not, what are you now? If so, to which branch of libertarianism do you belong?
I am closest both dispositionally and doctrinally to *libertarian* than any other common label. Still, I don't find it useful to label oneself in general, anymore, and certainly not to label oneself a libertarian. The term carries too much baggage. A liberal was also an advocate of liberty, but the progressives ruined that word, so we got libertarian. Then the libertarians and their enemies successfully sullied the word. Libertarians have developed a reputation for black-and-white thinking, regurgitated slogans, silly party antics, and ideological purity tests. They want to argue about irrelevant things and don't know how to *read the room.* They'll winge about the police state during times of high crime, or make abstract arguments for drug legalization against the backdrop of Fentanyl zombies camped on urban thoroughfares. Whether or not they're right in principle, they have no finesse, no timing, and rarely present a positive vision of what's possible. (I could go on, but I have to get back to work.) I am curious to get your thoughts about the branding problem and the ideological frameworks that, IMHO, hamstring them.
Five decades ago, I rejected the label “liberal” because it morphed into “progressive.”
Now I don't object to being called a libertarian. I can't think of any term I find more appropriate, and if I don't label myself, others may call me something I find less acceptable. Depending on how your words are interpreted, I may be guilty of (1) flogging the NAP, (2) being useless, (3) having principles that are too abstract, (4) black-and-white thinking, and (5) ideological purity. I don't understand the meaning of “having about as much culture as a cardboard box in the rain,” so I have no idea whether I'm guilty of that or not. However, I seem to be innocent of the other charges.
Before I respond to the numbered charges above, I'll address what I take to be your claim that libertarians in general are guilty of foolish, objectionable, and ineffective behavior. I haven't been involved in libertarian activism since 1989, so I haven't observed their recent conduct. Assuming you're not overgeneralizing, although such activity hurts our movement, it doesn't violate libertarian principles. What I most objected to in the past was libertarian hypocrisy. For about 15 years, I loaned more than $30,00 to libertarian friends on the assumption they were trustworthy. Not one repaid the full amount owed after being able to do so. Even a common thief who doesn't profess to respect property rights and who preys on a stranger doesn't thereby betray a friendship or return kindness with injustice. I doubt that libertarians are worse than committed conservatives or progressives. But since libertarians advocate respecting rights, when they fail to do so, their behavior seems worse than that of non-libertarians. It's easier to dismiss a small group than a large group of people because of the poor behavior of some of its members. Since we libertarians make up a small group, we must live up to higher standards than progressives or conservatives to be taken seriously. Below, I'll respond to the charges of which I may be guilty.
(1) Flogging the NAP: On February 12, I sent you a comment that included the following sentences: “The main reason I'm an individualist libertarian is that I discovered that theory by a process of reasoning in 1972 from which I independently derived a political philosophy I later learned is called libertarianism. My basic principle is similar to (but, in my opinion, superior to) the NAP. “ Your response: “Please share your superior principle if you care to do so and explain why you think it's superior. I am genuinely curious and I suspect readers will be too.” I replied: “In the space allowed for a comment I can state the principle but I can't adequately (1) explain it, (2) explain how I discovered it, and (3) explain why I find it superior to the NAP. If you want more than a brief account, I'll have to send it by an email attachment. If you'll settle for a brief but inadequate comment, tell me how many single-spaced lines I can use and I'll try to fit something in.” You responded: “If you receive my newsletter in your inbox you can reply and that’s my email. Please feel free to share, but only if it’s convenient for you, sir.” When I attempted to do what you requested, I generated an extremely lengthy document. It contained a lot of repetitious material which could be deleted, but I still had more to say. I abandoned the project because it was taking too much time, and I didn't think you'd take the time to read it. As you can see from what I've written so far, it's probably a bad idea to ask me questions. I always have too much to say.
Rather than trying to explain my principle, I'll just state some objections to the NAP: (a) It doesn't state the types of entities to which it applies. (b) Its violation is a sufficient condition but not a necessary condition of committing an injustice. Its chief shortcoming is that it doesn't cover violations of property rights that don't involve the use or threat of force, such as fraud, non-coercive theft, damage or destruction of property, trespass, non-payment of debts, and violations of contractual rights. (c) It can't be derived from the fundamental principle of liberty (self-ownership) because it doesn't mention rights. What one owns is one's property, which is a bundle of rights. So, it doesn't show that liberty and justice are mutually consistent. (d) It isn't self-evident. Hence, its denial is not a self-contradiction. (e) It's not a true universal proposition because it has exceptions. (f) It's insufficiently simple. It's easy to produce a principle that has fewer flaws. Take this one (which is inferior to my principle): No person can justly violate the rights to life, liberty, or property of any other person. That libertarians regard as unjust acts that the NAP doesn't cover shows that, although they explicitly accept the NAP, they implicitly accept my principle or a similar one. That concludes my NAP flogging.
(2) Being useless: I spent the 1980s as a Libertarian Party activist. The effort cost me much time, effort, and all my savings. At the end of the decade, I couldn't see that I'd accomplished anything, so I gave up the effort. The only blow for liberty I may have struck occurred by accident. In a college freshman-level course, I was assigned to write an argumentative essay for or against an oppressive law that had a lot of support, including that of my influential instructor --of which I was unaware. Apparently, my paper changed my instructor's mind. He returned it with a document requesting that he be permitted to use it professionally. I signed the document. Later, I learned that he read my paper at a professional conference. Soon after, support for the law faded away. Perhaps my paper was partly responsible.
(3) Having principles that are too abstract: Guilty. It's a matter of interest. My favorite field of knowledge is philosophy, which I take to be the most fundamental and general field. Its basic propositions are necessarily abstract. I prefer that knowledge be built on a sound foundation.
Then there's the trend to utilize the intimidation factor of right-wing politics for personal gain or conceal crime. John Papola has effectively rid himself of an embarrassing stagnate son, who was in intimate relationship with young, petite, Latina lady in their state of Texas. John Papola made a video where he cackles hysterically at his own attempt at "anti-woke" humor while he contends that he "sent his son off to Italy" to get a good education. His son (in our reality) left behind a humiliated young lady and posted photos of him in Columbia on Instagram. His friends' comments alluded to a different kind of associated "education". There is also an older Italian man, with same name as John Papola's son, who is a writer in Italy. I think the association isn't apophenia, I think he deliberately planned on plausible deniability of "mistaken identity" when the question of where his son was came up in the future. I'm not going to ever give up on my goal of publicizing John Papola's atrocious actions. Most people don't really seem to care since they're also the kind to b-lame their own children (type thing). My comments about things like this are usually ignored & deleted. https://johnpapola.org/
Sir, you seem to be defaming a personal friend of mine, stalking his kids, their girlfriends, and his extended family online. I doubt the authorities would appreciate a grown man closely watching “young, petite, Latina” ladies. My advice is to back off and leave them in peace.
Accurate observations, I suppose. I tend to agree with Manuel Cyrus, although I fail to understand why innovation and culture creation would be important objectives if that is, in fact, the part he likes about the essay.
Who cares what the extreme left or right thinks about anything? Centralized government is a failed business model. Bust it up. Let the tribes consolidate where they will, and drown in poor choices if that's all they can do.
I think the answer re: innovation and culture is that they are arguably more powerful change vectors. Politics is chanting "End the Fed" while praying to a Ron Paul shrine. Culture is helping more people understand why and how Fed lies at the root of a corrupted monetary system enabling a corrupted fiscal system. Innovation is building Bitcoin (or Monero, or DeFi, or whatever.) If politics is *Criticize and pray,* culture and tech allow us to *Criticize by creating.*
I sincerely hope that post-politics is becoming a thing. I'm looking for people who want to build decentralized jurisdictions with consent-based (not political) governance. We don't have time for all the fighting inherent in politics. In the future, we will subscribe to governance, not submit to it or fight over it.
“If everyone who wants freedom goes all in on politics, then innovation and culture creation will suffer.” Best line in the whole article. Everything else feels like a diatribe from the condescending middle. However based on the rhetoric of all these characters you certainly have allowance to point it out.
I loved this article. I had no idea of the current state of the US media. But It's happening... the post-political world is just around the corner of massive disillusionment. Anarchists content creators will start to pop up but only the one capable of handling IA to max out his ability to become more viral than this new wave of rightwing guys
“The libertarians, whose number you can count on fingers and toes, are fractured too. One branch is a remnant dedicated to flogging the non-aggression principle (NAP), another branch sits comfortably in ineffectual beltway jobs, churning out little more than TDS articles and whitepapers no one reads, and a third branch sits around sending their friends Michael Saylor videos so they’ll buy bitcoin. In short, the libertarian movement is thin and useless. Their brand is toxic. Their principles are too abstract. And they have about as much culture as a cardboard box in the rain.”
I understand a libertarian to be an advocate of liberty. In the past, you've self-identified as a libertarian. Are you still a libertarian? If not, what are you now? If so, to which branch of libertarianism do you belong?
I am closest both dispositionally and doctrinally to *libertarian* than any other common label. Still, I don't find it useful to label oneself in general, anymore, and certainly not to label oneself a libertarian. The term carries too much baggage. A liberal was also an advocate of liberty, but the progressives ruined that word, so we got libertarian. Then the libertarians and their enemies successfully sullied the word. Libertarians have developed a reputation for black-and-white thinking, regurgitated slogans, silly party antics, and ideological purity tests. They want to argue about irrelevant things and don't know how to *read the room.* They'll winge about the police state during times of high crime, or make abstract arguments for drug legalization against the backdrop of Fentanyl zombies camped on urban thoroughfares. Whether or not they're right in principle, they have no finesse, no timing, and rarely present a positive vision of what's possible. (I could go on, but I have to get back to work.) I am curious to get your thoughts about the branding problem and the ideological frameworks that, IMHO, hamstring them.
Five decades ago, I rejected the label “liberal” because it morphed into “progressive.”
Now I don't object to being called a libertarian. I can't think of any term I find more appropriate, and if I don't label myself, others may call me something I find less acceptable. Depending on how your words are interpreted, I may be guilty of (1) flogging the NAP, (2) being useless, (3) having principles that are too abstract, (4) black-and-white thinking, and (5) ideological purity. I don't understand the meaning of “having about as much culture as a cardboard box in the rain,” so I have no idea whether I'm guilty of that or not. However, I seem to be innocent of the other charges.
Before I respond to the numbered charges above, I'll address what I take to be your claim that libertarians in general are guilty of foolish, objectionable, and ineffective behavior. I haven't been involved in libertarian activism since 1989, so I haven't observed their recent conduct. Assuming you're not overgeneralizing, although such activity hurts our movement, it doesn't violate libertarian principles. What I most objected to in the past was libertarian hypocrisy. For about 15 years, I loaned more than $30,00 to libertarian friends on the assumption they were trustworthy. Not one repaid the full amount owed after being able to do so. Even a common thief who doesn't profess to respect property rights and who preys on a stranger doesn't thereby betray a friendship or return kindness with injustice. I doubt that libertarians are worse than committed conservatives or progressives. But since libertarians advocate respecting rights, when they fail to do so, their behavior seems worse than that of non-libertarians. It's easier to dismiss a small group than a large group of people because of the poor behavior of some of its members. Since we libertarians make up a small group, we must live up to higher standards than progressives or conservatives to be taken seriously. Below, I'll respond to the charges of which I may be guilty.
(1) Flogging the NAP: On February 12, I sent you a comment that included the following sentences: “The main reason I'm an individualist libertarian is that I discovered that theory by a process of reasoning in 1972 from which I independently derived a political philosophy I later learned is called libertarianism. My basic principle is similar to (but, in my opinion, superior to) the NAP. “ Your response: “Please share your superior principle if you care to do so and explain why you think it's superior. I am genuinely curious and I suspect readers will be too.” I replied: “In the space allowed for a comment I can state the principle but I can't adequately (1) explain it, (2) explain how I discovered it, and (3) explain why I find it superior to the NAP. If you want more than a brief account, I'll have to send it by an email attachment. If you'll settle for a brief but inadequate comment, tell me how many single-spaced lines I can use and I'll try to fit something in.” You responded: “If you receive my newsletter in your inbox you can reply and that’s my email. Please feel free to share, but only if it’s convenient for you, sir.” When I attempted to do what you requested, I generated an extremely lengthy document. It contained a lot of repetitious material which could be deleted, but I still had more to say. I abandoned the project because it was taking too much time, and I didn't think you'd take the time to read it. As you can see from what I've written so far, it's probably a bad idea to ask me questions. I always have too much to say.
Rather than trying to explain my principle, I'll just state some objections to the NAP: (a) It doesn't state the types of entities to which it applies. (b) Its violation is a sufficient condition but not a necessary condition of committing an injustice. Its chief shortcoming is that it doesn't cover violations of property rights that don't involve the use or threat of force, such as fraud, non-coercive theft, damage or destruction of property, trespass, non-payment of debts, and violations of contractual rights. (c) It can't be derived from the fundamental principle of liberty (self-ownership) because it doesn't mention rights. What one owns is one's property, which is a bundle of rights. So, it doesn't show that liberty and justice are mutually consistent. (d) It isn't self-evident. Hence, its denial is not a self-contradiction. (e) It's not a true universal proposition because it has exceptions. (f) It's insufficiently simple. It's easy to produce a principle that has fewer flaws. Take this one (which is inferior to my principle): No person can justly violate the rights to life, liberty, or property of any other person. That libertarians regard as unjust acts that the NAP doesn't cover shows that, although they explicitly accept the NAP, they implicitly accept my principle or a similar one. That concludes my NAP flogging.
(2) Being useless: I spent the 1980s as a Libertarian Party activist. The effort cost me much time, effort, and all my savings. At the end of the decade, I couldn't see that I'd accomplished anything, so I gave up the effort. The only blow for liberty I may have struck occurred by accident. In a college freshman-level course, I was assigned to write an argumentative essay for or against an oppressive law that had a lot of support, including that of my influential instructor --of which I was unaware. Apparently, my paper changed my instructor's mind. He returned it with a document requesting that he be permitted to use it professionally. I signed the document. Later, I learned that he read my paper at a professional conference. Soon after, support for the law faded away. Perhaps my paper was partly responsible.
(3) Having principles that are too abstract: Guilty. It's a matter of interest. My favorite field of knowledge is philosophy, which I take to be the most fundamental and general field. Its basic propositions are necessarily abstract. I prefer that knowledge be built on a sound foundation.
Then there's the trend to utilize the intimidation factor of right-wing politics for personal gain or conceal crime. John Papola has effectively rid himself of an embarrassing stagnate son, who was in intimate relationship with young, petite, Latina lady in their state of Texas. John Papola made a video where he cackles hysterically at his own attempt at "anti-woke" humor while he contends that he "sent his son off to Italy" to get a good education. His son (in our reality) left behind a humiliated young lady and posted photos of him in Columbia on Instagram. His friends' comments alluded to a different kind of associated "education". There is also an older Italian man, with same name as John Papola's son, who is a writer in Italy. I think the association isn't apophenia, I think he deliberately planned on plausible deniability of "mistaken identity" when the question of where his son was came up in the future. I'm not going to ever give up on my goal of publicizing John Papola's atrocious actions. Most people don't really seem to care since they're also the kind to b-lame their own children (type thing). My comments about things like this are usually ignored & deleted. https://johnpapola.org/
Sir, you seem to be defaming a personal friend of mine, stalking his kids, their girlfriends, and his extended family online. I doubt the authorities would appreciate a grown man closely watching “young, petite, Latina” ladies. My advice is to back off and leave them in peace.
Accurate observations, I suppose. I tend to agree with Manuel Cyrus, although I fail to understand why innovation and culture creation would be important objectives if that is, in fact, the part he likes about the essay.
Who cares what the extreme left or right thinks about anything? Centralized government is a failed business model. Bust it up. Let the tribes consolidate where they will, and drown in poor choices if that's all they can do.
Yessir.
I think the answer re: innovation and culture is that they are arguably more powerful change vectors. Politics is chanting "End the Fed" while praying to a Ron Paul shrine. Culture is helping more people understand why and how Fed lies at the root of a corrupted monetary system enabling a corrupted fiscal system. Innovation is building Bitcoin (or Monero, or DeFi, or whatever.) If politics is *Criticize and pray,* culture and tech allow us to *Criticize by creating.*