Rad Geek People's Daily

Has the current occupant of the White House been sneaking reads of Equality: The Unknown Ideal, and, convinced by Roderick’s argument, spent the last few years quietly advocating the Anarchistic doctrine that principles of individual freedom, carried to their fullest extent, logically entail freedom from any and all forms of government? Selective quotation and convenient ellipses would seem to indicate that he has!

We consider these rights to be universal, a codification of liberty’s meaning, constraining all levels of government …. Moreover, we recognize that the very idea of these universal rights presupposes the equal worth of every individual. … We also understand that a declaration is not a government; … [T]here [are] seeds of anarchy in the idea of individual freedom, an intoxicating danger in the idea of equality… [F]or if everyone is truly free, without the constraints of birth or rank and an inherited social order, how can we ever hope to form a society that coheres?

–Barack Obama (2006), The Audacity of Hope, 86-87.

Well, we can’t. Which is fine. Of course, you’re free to go around cohering as much as you want on your own time; but what I want is a peaceful, consensual society. One where people come together where they want to, and aren’t forced into lockstep where they don’t want to be. Obama is of course right that the principles of individual liberty and equality produce declarations, not governments, and that that soil is sown with the seeds of Anarchy. He’s right to see that when you let those seeds grow and come into bloom, it means that everybody is truly free, and that they overwhelm any political scheme of rigid rows, of constraints of birth and rank, of social orders imposed from above (whether by the self-selected, or the majority-elected). Which is exactly why Anarchy is something to be desired and cultivated. The solution to the problem of incipient Anarchy is to realize that there isn’t a problem. Political coherence is not required. Freedom, peace and equality are more than enough.

(Via Francois Tremblay 2008-12-03, via Noor Mehta, via Facebook.)

See also:

• GT 2009-07-13: Oscar Goodman: Deep cover Anarchist?

• The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters. www.salon.com (2010-03-30). BBC’s “The Culture Show” Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks. A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France — in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan.  The Report celebrates the fact that the… (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-30.)

• This amazing photo of Earth cost only $750 to take. CrunchGear (2010-03-30). Technological civilization is awesome. (Cont’d.) (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-30.)

• Government Intercepting Secure Internet Transfers? TeamColtra, United States Pirate Party (2010-03-27). Seth Schoen from EFF has recently run an article starting with the following: Today two computer security researchers, Christopher Soghoian and Sid Stamm, released a draft of a forthcoming research paper in which they present evidence that certificate authorities (CAs) may be cooperating with government agencies to help them spy undetected on "secure" encrypted communications…. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-30.)

• Drawing the Line. Offsetting Behaviour (2010-03-30). In which the government of New Zealand pays a staff of pollsters to trudge up and down the street cursing out randomly selected homeowners. In the interest of public policy, of course. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-30.)

• Goshen College Bows to Nationalism. Jesus Radicals (2010-03-31). Mennonite students Vs. American theo-nationalism and its War Anthem. (Linked Wednesday 2010-03-31.)

The Census and the Social Construction of Race. Contexts Blogs: All Blogs (2010-03-31):

Social and biological scientists agree that race and ethicity are social constructions, not biological categories.  The U.S. government, nonetheless, has an official position on what categories are "real."  You can find them on the U.S. Census (source): Alvaro V. asked us to talk a little bit about the Census.  So,…

On the nationalization of culture, race and ethnicity. The closer: “The changing categories in the U.S. Census show us that racial and ethnic categories are political categories. They are chosen by government officials who are responding not to biological realities, but to immigration, war, prejudice, and social movements.” Which is exactly why any libertarianism worthy of the name ought to include a healthy skepticism towards conventional delusions about these politically-fabricated, border-bound, power-entangled categories.

Regulation of the Day 130: Roommates. OpenMarket.org (2010-03-30):

In New York City, it is illegal for four or more unrelated people to live together. At least 15,000 New York homes openly flout the rule. The ranks of lawless hooligans cut across lines of class and race. According to the New York Times, violators "include young actors and ponytailed…

Yet another way that government intervention and Land Monopoly creates sprawl, ratchets up fixed costs of living, and artificially transfers money from working folks to landlords and “developers.”

Countereconomics is already making inroads; but 15,000-odd people in New York City is only the first baby step towards freedom. A real free-market city would look nothing like the cartelized, rigidified land-grab sprawl created by the rigged markets and pervasive interventions by local governments that we have today.

Here’s some sights of some of the commonest things in the world. The commonest things in the world, seen in a new way. These are living insects, resting on plants outside, and becoming covered in the morning dew.

This and more from the Daily Mail Online (2010-03-26).

These photographs were taken by Miroslaw Swietek, a physiotherapist and amateur photographer who lives in Jaroszow, Poland. He takes the photos because he loves photography, and he wants to show something wonderful to the world. Sights of miracles and wonders that he can capture, and we can witness, because Technological civilization is awesome. Sights so wonderful that they look like a glimpse of another world — a world that is strange, wonderful, and new. And yet is the very world we all dwell in now. A world where creatures so common that we think of them as nothing more than annoying pests, and a substance so plentiful and ordinary that we use it to flush our toilets, can, when you catch them at the right time and look at them the right way, shine in the darkness, like creatures of light, shimmering in their living skin of diamonds.

Awesome.

(Via John Gruber @ Daring Fireball 2010-03-30.)

See also:

• GT 2009-08-17: Technological civilization is awesome. (Cont’d.)