Philosophical Detective

Chuckle

Good god!  Where to start with this?

How about the title?

Bush Strongly Warns Iran on Naval Clash

That'll learn 'em.

So Bush is on his way to the Middle East to shake hands and look diplomatic.  Not all is as rosy as it first appears however.

Bush, on his first visit as president to Israel, acknowledged widespread doubts about whether he can break through decades of distrust to achieve his goal of a major peace agreement by the end of his presidency in January, 2009.

Doubts?  Surely not.  Come on now, it's only been 50 years.  Give peace a chance, man.  You know that's all they want.

...Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction...

Don't worry though.  Our leader knows exactly what to do.

...Bush said, "We'll continue to keep the pressure on the Iranians. And I believe we can solve this problem diplomatically."

Israel, being in control of the US government and all, makes sure that all of America's aid is aimed at them.  They are also in firm control of their own government as can be seen by their vicious demands from the oppressed Palestinians.

Olmert said Israel would not accept a peace agreement unless there is a halt to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, controlled by Islamic militants dedicated to Israel's destruction. The U.S.-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, wields authority in the West Bank but not in Gaza, meaning the Palestinian population is effectively split between two governing entities.

Here we see the deadliness of euphemisms:

"There will be no peace unless terror is stopped," Olmert told Bush. "And terror will have to be stopped everywhere. He said that "Gaza must be part of the package and that as long as there will be terror from Gaza, it will be very, very hard to reach any peaceful understanding between us and the Palestinians."

A bunch of scruffy peasants have been specially bred as cannon fodder to trigger "aid money" from the taxpayers in the West.  This money makes the "leaders" very rich.  Why on earth would they ever voluntarily stop their racket?

The threat to Israel was underscored Wednesday when Palestinian militants in the Gaza bombarded southern Israel with rocket and mortar fire.

This isn't even news anymore.  It's just tagged on the the main news story as background.  Two of the world's most powerful governments are totally unable to stop rockets raining down on civilian neighborhoods.

Without the government, of course, there'd be anarchy.

This fool thinks that the elected government of the Palestinians will soon be answerable to the voters they work for.

Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, sounded pessimistic about Hamas joining the peace process. "Nobody, unfortunately, is very optimistic that they will make that choice," Hadley said. "Hamas came to power in election; it will have to submit itself at some point to the people of Gaza in terms of their approval of the job they have done. And at this point, it's a pretty depressing situation in Hamas - in Gaza for all those people who live there."

Bush told the Israeli government that he wasn't too pleased about the settlements.

"In terms of outposts, yes, they ought to go," Bush said. "Look, I mean, we've been talking about it for four years. The agreement was, `Get rid of outposts, illegal outposts,' and they ought to go".

Look, none of this has any relevance to anything.  Who lived there first?  Who first settled and turned desert into viable land?  If that has been taken off them within living memory, give it back.  If not, leave them be.

It doesn't matter which government claims ownership of them.  They are people living by using the land.

This incessant squabbling between governments is like a chess game for them.  They play their little games with no thought of consequences other than range-of-moment satisfaction.  Meanwhile some people get slaughtered for being owned by the wrong set of thugs.

It's even worse than waring mafia families.  They mostly killed each other.  With the mobsters we have in charge it is us that they throw at each other while they get whisked off to bunkers in supersonic jets.

All of this, all of it is caused by idiots waring over a piece of land given to them by their ultimate slave master.  God commanded and they must obey in order to gain his favor.  This means they must kill each other over bits of desert.  I know that the aggression is from the Arabs but the Israelis piss me off too.  They go and live amongst those who hate them the most on earth (right after being nearly wiped out by the last leader of such a group) and then decided that they'd best stop defending themselves by destroying those who keep attacking them.

40 years of peace process later and rockets are raining down on civilians just trying to get on with their lives.

The State is the Effect

Maximizing personal freedom is an intriguing idea for me.  I've always loved Dr. Bernstein's "How to be an Impassioned Valuer" with it's message of ruthlessly expunging the negative from one's life.

Here's (pdf) an interesting article on the continuation of this theme to the political level.  It's a little hokey in spots but I like the general thrust of it.

Then I found one of Stefan's latest on the same theme.  "The IRS is just an effect of our willingness to attack each other":

I can say that my life has become much more free since I cast off the unchosen obligations of family etc. so I think he's on to something here.  I'm not sure about his final assessment: "we end the state by setting each other free".  I think the focus is on personal selfishness but the effect is the same.  I think he's approaching this from a psychological perspective rather than a purely philosophical one.  I like this because it's not simply a case of learning new ideas or new arguments.  Instead it's about changing the things we actually do in day-to-day life.

After these two sources of ideas I found myself grinning when I encountered the home security section of Fry's the other day.  People are recognizing the fact that the state is not protecting them so they're buying security cameras and recording equipment for their homes.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the greatest level of protection from such devices comes from the effect of turning a public eye (through uploads to You Tube) on our "protectors".

This idea of making the state obsolete is intriguing to me.  It's along the same lines of what people did with the church.  There was no direct confrontation, people just stopped paying attention to it, stopped giving it their sanction, and it mostly withered away.  Of course, it's coming back now but that doesn't change the fact that we mostly got rid of it (compared to its monopoly on morality for much of history) by simply ignoring it.

Interesting...

Law

Some random thoughts on the meaning of the word "law".  It's very scattered as I'm still trying to work it out but I thought it might be interesting to have a look at my growing evidence file.  If you'd rather not peer into the dank workings of my brain, go have a look at some cute cats.

Cops now hold people down and draw blood on the mere suspicion of being a witchdrunk.  Well, not drunk specifically.  Having more than .08 BAC.  Well, not even that really.  See, you can go to jail if it's .01 and you're under 21 or simply if the cop decides that your driving is inappropriate.  Shit, it's even worse.  While googling examples I came across this.  In DC they'll arrest you for zero BAC.  If you have a drink with dinner then drive home you will be arrested and forced to the ground while some goon extracts blood.

Note, you "rule of law" folks, this bit from the first link above:

In some cases, this use of force can cause permanent damage. Montague, Archer and Clay counties have similar programs except that these departments do away with the nurse and have police officers perform the blood draw themselves, despite a state law banning the practice.

About that last sentence.  What are you going to do?  Call the police?

Note, also that the defenders of liberty are asking, "is this constitutional", not, "is this right?"  People seem to think that a piece of paper stops bullets

I've heard that no state is a terrible idea because it would simply lead to competing governments.  That's different to what we have now in what way exactly?

As far as I can tell the nature of law comes down to, "everyone should be able to do everything they can."

When I say something like that I usually hear, "so I can decide to take your wallet if I am able?"

I believe that's a stolen concept (I'm not sure of how the definition is applied, probably because I'm not too clear on the definition)

Anyway, the point is that someone who says that is declaring that people should not be allowed to do all they can, specifically, his victim should not be allowed to keep his money.  All one has to do then is grant him his premise.

None of this is difficult.  It doesn't require a degree in philosophy or law and it is not subject to approval from one's neighbors, the magic man in the sky or a goon from the state.  Putting it to the vote doesn't change this fact.

One of the things I like most about Stefan Moleneux is the way he concretizes the "gun in the room" (this is my favorite of his so far):

You really should go watch that video.

(And, if you have a spare day or so, go read this thread over at Reason.com)

An idea from the Reason thread that hit me right in the conceptual eye was the question, "if you don't trust your neighbors to leave you alone why do you think you'd be able to trust them if you gave them all the power and called them the state?" (or something to that effect).

Another simple question that has stuck in my brain happened at a local Objectivism discussion group.  Attendance was mostly a useless exercise but one night we were discussing the nature of the state.  One guy was pure, by-the-book Randian and just kept parroting her idea on the necessity of the state.  At one point my friend, Kelly, after he insisted that government should exist and everyone should submit to its protection, yelled, "Are you going to make me?  What if I don't want to be a member of your state?"  Absolutely unanswerable as far as I can tell.

However, something worked with the American system of government.  Something led to Americans being free enough to produce more wealth than the world had ever known.

More:  from this article by Mises:

However, the experience of the last decades has clearly evidenced that no legal precautions are strong enough to resist a trend supported by a powerful ideology.

Isn't the most important part of all this centered on whether or not most people want to be free?  Isn't that simple idea the most fundamental?  We've seen what happens when an almost perfect state is created only to be destroyed because too many people fear freedom.  This wouldn't change even if the perfect constitution were written and enacted as law tomorrow.

Another idea I'm batting around:  I've heard several people claim that Libertarians (Paul especially in the current context) will do more harm than good to the cause.  It usually takes the form of the following:

They'll get in on a "limited government/expanded freedom" platform.  Soon, due to the workings of Washington or their own malfeasance, they'll betray that platform and return to government as usual.  Or, if they really are idealists, they'll do something like abolish the department of education and cause massive civil unrest.

This'll lead, inevitably, to disillusionment with liberty.  Something like, "well we tried liberty and that didn't work so to hell with liberty."

I've heard a few people claim that this will set back the "movement" by at least a generation.

The problem I have with this is that it assumes that people too stupid to distinguish between real liberty and a corrupt politician pretending he's for liberty will somehow be clever enough to be persuaded by abstract philosophical arguments.

It just doesn't make any sense to me.

As you can see, this is a complete mish-mash of ideas.  My next task is to put them in some sort of order...

Great Closing Wish

I like how this one ends: "May all your Christmases be godless and free!"

Yay!

But wait, there's more:

What He Said

Another bloke I'd like to meet and chat with.

I wonder how long it'll take for someone to tell me that he said X Y Z irrational thing the other day so, by listening to his ideas, my idealogical purity must be in question.

Still, it's amusing when it happens.

North Korea

Positive Liberty had a post today about North Korea's FAQ page.  After reading it I went surfing on You Tube and found this horrifying look at the country-wide gulag.

Once again I am astounded that this lunacy is kept going by billions of dollars from the American taxpayer.  There are a lot of truly sick individuals in Washington.