If our own government will not act in accordance with the very laws it has passed then you are not obligated to do so either.The Market Ticker
There Is No Law. Behave Accordingly
Karl Denniger
When there is a double standard of justice, then law erodes and eventually order, too, as the society descends into anarchy. To prevent this, the power structure imposes total control if it can.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Mish piles on. Hypocrites and Bullies Speak on "The Importance of Trust"; Bullies, Bribes, and Foreign Aid
These are significant voices on the Libertarian right.
25 comments:
Never underestimate the apparent ability of diverse libertarians to selectively ignore certain things ....
RSP,
Denninger is a certified nut job: http://www.suckerforum.com/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=3519bbf8f961e373abf7b53e45fc266c
Mish is eons more credible than Denninger too.
Both have considerable followings on the right. Karl is known as one of the original Tea Party guys and is more of a political activist than Mish.
He may have his quirks, but he is right on this one and the more excitable right will be listening to it.
Manchester United has a considerable following. 'Activists' who suggest the US is about to descend into anarchy are not worth paying attention to.
Snowden's revelations are not news to millions of Americans who already assumed as much of their government. Whereas the libertarian right are driven by their irrational hatred of government, the mood amongst most people is one of apathy.
"Whereas the libertarian right are driven by their irrational hatred of government, the mood amongst most people is one of apathy."
Dosen't seem so irrational to me. I agree with you though that most Americans don't know or care about NSA data mining of billions of phone calls, emails, Spypes, etc... every day. Time to get rid of the Patriot Act and enforce the 4th Amendment.
"Dosen't seem so irrational to me."
It is rational to hate bad government, irrational to hate the government we need…you know, to enforce the law.
"It is rational to hate bad government, irrational to hate the government we need…you know, to enforce the law."
Governments that enforce the law selectively and governments that use law to oppress lose their legitimacy as the guardians of public order.
Barkely and Marina Vcherashnaya Rosser did some research showing the relationship of growing inequality and rising underground economies.
Another Failure of the Washington Consensus on Transition Countries
Inequality and Underground Economies by Barkley Rosser, Jr., and Marina Vcherashnaya Rosser
So it seems that privilege and a double standard of justice drives many people outside of the conventional and legal boundaries of society, which leads to societal dysfunction.
I hear a lot of young people giving up on government and deciding that they have to establish their own conventions and institutions, which a reason that alternative currencies are gaining ground.
The same thing happened in the Sixties and Seventies to some degree and an alternative economy and underground economy spun off from that. These parallel economies, often running on a cash basis, have become a multi-billion dollar phenomenon in the US, and some people are able to live largely off the radar.
Of course the surveillance state threatens that, and for sure there will be push back. I think we are just at the beginning of this.
Again, I think Strauss & Howe and Ravi Batra's predictions are operational at this point. We are in the phase transition to something new and it is not yet clear how it will manifest or what it will involve. But the old order is breaking down, as it did post WWI.
An impending crackdown on the underground economy?
That is a war the government has consistently lost. In fact, parts of the underground economy have been encouraged for decades, from drugs for weapons deals, to 'illegal' immigration. All the usual examples of laws being selectively enforced.
As long as there are no resource constraints why would the government concern itself with activities that on the whole are beneficial? They turn a blind eye to illegality every day.
Would an MMT administration be concerned with the size of the black market?
Time to get rid of the Patriot Act and enforce the 4th Amendment.
That's what the Supreme Court was for. The only option now is the ballot box.
"It is rational to hate bad government, irrational to hate the government we need…you know, to enforce the law."
Paul - It's pretty easy these days to to be fed up with the size and scope of government as we have come to know it. Don't get me wrong. I am a Libertarian of sorts who is influenced by MMT and I appreciate the need for government to enforce the law. It's all the other activities that I have a gripe about. For starters the IRS and the byzantine US tax code is a monstrosity and just the type of tyranny the founding fathers were so opposed to.
A lot of this stuff reminds me of the seventies, where a combination of the post-Vietnam suspicion of government, combined with Watergate and economic recession along with the postwar influx of traumatized ex-military into civilian society, caused a surge in the "paranoid style" of American politics. We got a whole menagerie of survivalists, militias, cults and random white-guys-in-a-bunker as a result. Some of the paranoia was drug-assisted. And pervasive nuclear fear contributed.
Something similar is happening now with the post-Iraq hostility to the American state coupled with a profound recession. The contemporary version is also internet fueled. The web gives everyone the opportunity to seek out and live inside a limited echo chamber of their own preference, which amplifies and recirculates distorted information and epistemic pathologies.
There is a deep strain of American culture tending toward emotional isolation, narcissistic self-containment and profoundly anti-social attitudes. There will always be plenty of folks around who crave this form of "liberty" - by which they mean their right to be alone, uncooperative and balled up inside their own heads.
I think you are right that it has always been there, Dan, and probably this is nowhere near as bad has it's gotten at times. But now we can see it as never before through the portal of the Internet.
"There is a deep strain of American culture tending toward emotional isolation, narcissistic self-containment and profoundly anti-social attitudes. There will always be plenty of folks around who crave this form of "liberty" - by which they mean their right to be alone, uncooperative and balled up inside their own heads."
Dan - What is so wrong about wanting to be left alone? My freedom and liberty only goes as far as your nose and vice versa.
"the IRS and the byzantine US tax code is a monstrosity and just the type of tyranny the founding fathers were so opposed to." - Ed
You won'y get any argument there…but this system was designed by the rich for the rich so they wouldn't have to pay taxes and instead the rest of us do, which is counter-productive.
The wrong things are being taxed…we don't need the money (the taxes), but we need some kind of throttle on the upper end.
I don't care if some Master of the Universe makes 20 or 30 times more than me…It shouldn't be a 1000 or 10,000 times more because that can only happen at my expense.
I want to be with who I want to be with. Nothing more than that. Forced associations are evil to the core.
We don't live on Planet Me, where every human being gets to decide on their own personal custom-made society. There is only one planet, one United States, etc.
We are born into pre-existing communities that have their own pre-existing rules. If it is community like the US, we are born citizens, solely as a consequence of being born, and so long as we remain inside the jurisdiction of the US we are bound by the laws of the country, whether we have personally chosen to accept those laws or not.
If we don't like the community and rules into which we have been born, we can try to move to another community, if one will accept us. If that is not an option, we can try to live a life somewhere outside the reach of all communities. This is not a very viable option in the modern world since it is a small planet, and there are few places where jurisdictions and the enforcement of laws don't reach.
There are actually "outlaw areas" in the US, e.g., in the desert in the Southwest. Some time ago, I was reading about an area of about 50K people living in RV's. It's unpoliced and there is no security.
Bucky used "outlaw area" somewhat differently.
"There is another kind of security: being too fast and agile to hit. This strategy requires taking chances and thinking for yourself. It can be effective: ***Bucky said, "All human advances occur in the outlaw area."*** This sort of security is an individual matter, not dependent on insurance or politics."
p.223, paragraph 4
"Bucky Works - Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today"
by J. Baldwin
John Wiley & Sons, 1996
ISBN 0-471-12953-4
"In The Outlaw Area, A Profile of Buckminster Fuller"
by Calvin Tomkins
The New Yorker
January 8, 1966
The article was also included in this subsequent book (one of a set of
four volumes):
Tomkins, Calvin. "In the Outlaw Area: A Profile of R. Buckminster
Fuller."
In The Artifacts of R. Buckminster Fuller.
Volume One: The Dymaxion Experiment, 1926-1943
edited by James Ward, xv-xxxi.
New York: Garland, 1985.
source
My community is more or less local. Dan, your characterization earlier of isolated peoples only fits a relative handful of folks. It's basically a meaningless abstraction.
Mal,
Sometimes try listening to the Rush Limbaugh show or Sean Hannity or some of the other right-libertarian shows here in the US... this is a whole virtual "community" across the US that listens to this stuff all day... it results imo in some of the things that Dan points out... its like brainwashing to me...
I try to tell my friends on the right to stop listening to it all the time but imo its as if they are "addicted" to these radio shows...
Gold selling commercials... always running down govt (except for military/security)... constant "free market" advocacy... anti-tax... Friedmanite monetarism... devisiveness ... 24/7/365.
Its harmful to these people imo... (I see it all the time) and helps create some of the pathologies Dan brings up here imo...
rsp,
"Sometimes try listening to the Rush Limbaugh show or Sean Hannity or some of the other right-libertarian shows here in the US..."
"Gold selling commercials... always running down govt (except for military/security)"
Matt - Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity may be right wing but to call them libertarian tells me that you don't understand the meaning of the term. It's the neo-cons who are always promoting military and surveillance state security options as the solution for every problem, not the libertarians.
Rush Limbaugh et al. are entertainers with a market. For all their bluster they would have you vote Republican.
I like people. I like community---of my choosing (most of which is local. Some of which is national). I like--on balance--everything the USA has to offer. Coercion of any stripe is anathema to America. That is what I rail against.
Hey, Dan, any opinions on Edward Snowden?
"Hey, Dan, any opinions on Edward Snowden?"
Malmo - I don't know what Dan's take on Edward Snowden is but my sources say this man without a country was last seen in Casablanca, wandering into Rick's Cafe Americain, http://bit.ly/13A5E19, seeking his Letters of Transit to destinations unknown.
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