Who Owns Who?

Posted on March 6, 2009

I was just thinking about immigration and border control – the endless debate over whether a government should have the right to control who crosses its borders. And it occurred to me that the fundamental difference between an Anarchist approach and an Authoritarian one comes down to a fundamental divide over the relationship between people and government, and more specifically a divide that can be framed as a question of ownership.

If Government (and I use the word Government instead of the word State deliberately in order to include non-statist forms of governance) own the people, then it is completely proper for Government to dictate who can do what, where, when, and how. Further, all forms of authoritarianism, from a mild liberal “democracy” to the most authoritarian fascism, are all legitimate because in essence they’re only different methods for the Government to manage its property.

If, on the other hand, “We the People” own the government then border controls and all other forms of coercive control that typify the modern State are illegal and illegitimate.

It’s really that simple.

Thoughts?

my last post on the elections for at least a little while

Posted on September 10, 2008

D’ya know the thing I hate most about elections – even more then the lying scumfucks who promise us the moon and the stars? What I *REALLY* hate is that every four years everyone gets totally sidetracked by this trivial irrelevant bullshit puppetshow and diverts their organizing energy away from all the vitally important real organizing work that needs to be done and instead pours hundreds of thousands of hours and billions of dollars into a corporate-controlled clusterfuck in the hopes of getting a “lesser evil” elected; and at the end of that whole ridiculous process all we get is 4 more years of the same old bullshit and we’re left even more dis-empowered then before

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On the High Seas

Posted on May 22, 2008

Just saw this online, thought it was pretty cool. Apparently a bunch of rich libertarians have started a company whose goal is to allow people to set up their own floating ocean colonies in international waters and start their own mini countries. there’s an article about it in Wired magazine here. My favorite quote is from Milton Friedman’s grandson (one of the investors). Check it out:

“Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry,” he said. “You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That’s a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it’s got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship.”

They’ve even got a full-on booklet detailing all the technical stuff, complete with diagrams.

Tell ya what, if they pull this off I’m officially calling dibs on a spot in the floating republic of Anarchia.