What is imperiling the desert is human domination of the landscape.

Planning, zoning and development ultimately seek economic growth. There are of course guidelines and restrictions, town hall meetings and financial statements, but at the end of the day centralized economic regimes will develop a landscape if there’s a profit to be made.

Landscapes have been divided, not based on the sciences of resource management, geology or ecology, but rather to serve political and economic ambitions. States draw fictional lines in the sand for the sole purpose of claiming landscapes as property to enclose, develop and regulate. The political boundary is a marker of centralized economic planning — an institution that sprouts cities, municipalities, lush green golf courses and dam construction in arid lands.

Feed 44:

• http://www.c4ss.org/
• http://www.youtube.com/user/c4ssvideos
• https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c4ss-media/id872405202?mt=2
• http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/smash-walls-radio/c4ss-media?refid=stpr
• https://twitter.com/C4SSmedia

Bitcoin tips welcome:

• 1N1pF6fLKAGg4nH7XuqYQbKYXNxCnHBWLB

In the Sonora, just outside of Coachella, California new development plans call for building tens of thousands of new homes on the landscape, converting wilderness to neighborhoods and town squares.

Media reports coming out of the southwest the past few months, however, note the great drought and water crisis gripping the region. Residents wonder where the water for even more sprawl will come from. NASA satellite mapping the region reveals incredible reductions in groundwater across the landscape. The trend is resource depletion, and we are warned it will only get worse.

But, the water shortage is not the crisis gripping the Southwest.

There is water everywhere in desert. Water flows in braided streams and deep channels such as the great Colorado. Water carves out canyons and gorges against quartz rich sandstone, occupies porous rock and nurtures incredible desert plants such as the flowering cacti. As desert enthusiast Edward Abbey writes in his book Desert Solitaire: “Water, water, water … There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount … There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be.”

What is imperiling the desert is human domination of the landscape.

Planning, zoning and development ultimately seek economic growth. There are of course guidelines and restrictions, town hall meetings and financial statements, but at the end of the day centralized economic regimes will develop a landscape if there’s a profit to be made.

Landscapes have been divided, not based on the sciences of resource management, geology or ecology, but rather to serve political and economic ambitions. States draw fictional lines in the sand for the sole purpose of claiming landscapes as property to enclose, develop and regulate. The political boundary is a marker of centralized economic planning — an institution that sprouts cities, municipalities, lush green golf courses and dam construction in arid lands.

It is a pity that advocates of central planning, in the name of the environment no less continually deny that high-liberalism is a failed dogma. The market mechanism, however, coupled with common governance offers a fresh take on resource management. This adaptive approach allows us to analyze landscapes in terms of watersheds, ecosystems, capacity for food production, resources available for trade, cultural heritage and resource conservation.

Such an order would ensure that vast landscapes will rarely, if ever, be occupied by our bodies.

The market mechanism, free of sweeping land use policy, would naturally cap resource extraction at its maximum sustainable yield. There would be strong economic incentive for water conservation in arid lands, as opposed to the maximum utility we see today. This respect for natural boundaries would in turn limit the amount of sprawl into the landscape. In the commons, land is not a commodity, but a connection — a place of labor and heritage.

I have long admired the desert. In these lands geologic formations readily display the story of an ancient Earth, streams intricately carve new landscapes while deep canyons and alluvial fans speak to the power of time. The desert should not be subjected to the Anthropocene, but liberated from it.

Cominciamo dall’idea di una tassazione progressiva come rimedio alla diseguaglianza economica, e all’ingiusta distribuzione della ricchezza, prendendo Bill Gates come esempio illustrativo. Quasi tutto il prezzo del software Microsoft, probabilmente 99 centesimi per ogni dollaro che entra nelle sue tasche, corrisponde ad un furto. Tutta la fortuna di Gates è un bottino, rendita monopolistica estratta dalle tasche dei consumatori grazie alle leggi sulla “proprietà intellettuale” (sic). Se non fosse per il copyright e il monopolio dei brevetti sui suoi sistemi operativi e altri prodotti, Gates avrebbe potuto diventare, giusto come possibilità, milionario vendendo servizi di supporto e di personalizzazione di software di per sé gratis (il modello imprenditoriale di Linux). Anche accumulando 10 milioni di dollari, raggiungerebbe lo 0,01% del suo reddito massimo raggiunto, che è di 100 miliardi. Se pensiamo che Gates non avrebbe mai potuto acquisire quel bottino senza l’aiuto delle leggi federali, sembra ragionevole supporre che l’obiettivo della giustizia potrebbe essere raggiunto solo tassando il reddito di Gates al 100%. Altrimenti, lo stato sta semplicemente aiutando Gates a derubarti per poi renderti una frazione del bottino tanto per rendere l’ingiustizia meno destabilizzante.

Lo stesso principio si applica a tutta la “tassazione progressiva” della ricchezza dei plutocrati. Il compito primario dello stato consiste nell’imporre diritti di proprietà artificiali e scarsità artificiali da cui la classe economica dominante può estrarre rendita. Aspetto molto secondario, una piccolissima porzione di questa rendita viene data ai più poveri tra i poveri, così da evitare che la fame e la disperazione raggiungano un livello politicamente destabilizzante talmente alto che la popolazione potrebbe fare a pezzi tutto il macchinario dello sfruttamento. Questa ricchezza serve anche a dare alla classe media qualche diritto acquisito, come la Social Security (il sistema pensionistico pubblico americano, ndt), sebbene questo sia finanziato quasi interamente dalle deduzioni non progressive in busta paga. La spesa sociale serve a mantenere il potere d’acquisto abbastanza alto da impedire al ciclo economico di boom e crollo di diventare troppo aspro. Tornando alla questione, tutte queste forme di assistenza sociale per i più poveri e diritti acquisiti per la classe media impallidiscono di fronte alla ricchezza che i plutocrati rubano alla popolazione con l’aiuto dello stato.

Anche tassare i plutocrati al 100% e dare tutto alla popolazione sotto forma di reddito garantito sarebbe profondamente stupido. Sarebbe come prendere con una mano e rendere con l’altra, mangiando metà del denaro con i costi amministrativi. Sarebbe molto più sensato che lo stato smettesse di aiutare i ricchi a derubarci in primo luogo: Abolite brevetti e copyright, diritti di proprietà su terre possedute e inutilizzate, barriere d’ingresso imposte alle piccole aziende, costrizioni normative sui lavoratori autonomi e chi lavora a casa e compete con attività fatte di capannoni e uffici, e altro simile. Ma voi sapete che lo stato non lo farà, perché imporre il sistema di sfruttamento è la sua ATTIVITÀ.

E tutte quelle autostrade, strade, scuole, “difesa” nazionale e altri simili? Bè, in linea generale, tutte le volte che lo stato fornisce “servizi pubblici” sottocosto a beneficiarne di più sono le grandi imprese il cui modello d’impresa dipende fortemente da questi aiuti di stato. I principali beneficiari del sistema autostradale interstatale (messo su sotto la supervisione del segretario al dipartimento del dipartimento della difesa Charles “Quello che è bene per la General Motors è bene per l’America” Wilson, ex amministratore delegato della General Motors), ad esempio, sono i comparti del trasporto su strada, le grosse catene commerciali, le industrie conserviere, le grosse birrerie, che hanno fatto fuori i negozi, le conserviere e le birrerie locali, e hanno trasformato la provincia in un deserto.

La scuola classifica, seleziona e trasforma gli esseri umani in “risorse umane” piegate e deformate per renderle adatte ai bisogni delle grandi imprese, per farne macchine burocratiche obbedienti e acritiche. Il sistema stradale locale, promosso dall’industria automobilistico-stradale e da quella immobiliare, serve principalmente a trasformare l’automobile in una necessità per la povera gente, che un tempo avrebbe usato i piedi, la bicicletta o il tram per andare al lavoro o a fare la spesa.

Quanto alla “difesa nazionale”, il suo scopo principale è l’imposizione del dominio corporativo su tutto il pianeta. Tra “difesa”, ruolo militare dalla Nasa e della Sicurezza Nazionale, e debiti delle guerre del passato, i militari (in pratica, poliziotti a noleggio che terrorizzano il mondo per costringerlo ad accettare il dominio corporativo) prendono più della metà del bilancio americano.

Questo è il genere di “civiltà” che stiamo finanziando.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Even if government did tax the plutocracy at 100% and give it back to the public in the form of some kind of guaranteed income, it would be utterly stupid. It would just be taking with one hand and giving back with the other, eating up half the money in administrative costs. Far more sensible would be for the state to simply stop helping the rich rob us in the first place: Abolish patents and copyrights, absentee titles to unimproved land, entry barriers for small businesses, regulatory constraints on self-employment and home-based businesses that compete with brick-and-mortar establishments, and the like. But you know the state’s not going to do that, because enforcing an exploitative system of power is what it DOES.

Ok, ok, niente di più lontano dalla verità.

La triste verità sul 15 aprile è che la stragrande maggioranza del gettito va alle spese militari passate, presenti e future. La War Resisters League ha trascorso tanto tempo a studiare il gettito federale, con risultati più che seri.

Il gettito destinato alla spesa militare comprende 584 miliardi dell’enorme bilancio del Dipartimento della Difesa. Altri 202 miliardi circa vanno ad altri settori della difesa. In totale 786 miliardi per operazioni militari correnti. Se si aggiungono i 47 miliardi per le “Operazioni Contingenti Oltremare” di Obama (proseguimento della “Guerra al Terrore” di Bush), si arriva a 833 miliardi per operazioni in corso. Altri 521 miliardi sono usati per le spese militari del passato. Con questo debito di guerra arriviamo a 1.400 miliardi di dollari.

Ma il conteggio non si ferma qui. Il Dipartimento degli Interni, che si è fatto un (triste) nome con la sicurezza aeroportuale, ha militarizzato i dipartimenti di polizia di tutto il paese fin dall’inizio. La guerra alla droga non sembra rallentare (anche se fioriscono sacche di resistenza). Produzione di armi, droni, prigioni, macchine da guerra, mantenimento di arsenali nucleari in grado di mettere fine alla civiltà umana diverse volte (distruggere la terra una volta basta mica)… l’elenco si allunga continuamente.

Il 47% circa del gettito fiscale va alle risorse umane: finalmente prendiamo posto a tavola! Ma non dimenticate che quando i “troppo grandi per fallire” sono nei guai è sicuro che i soldi andranno a loro, non alla popolazione. Mr. Smith chiude bottega, le famiglie perdono la casa, ma l’élite economica è salva. Invece di ridistribuire il gettito tra le persone, i soldi delle tasse vanno a proteggere gli interessi economici dello stato. Il primo salvataggio fatto dall’amministrazione Bush è costato ai contribuenti americani 700 miliardi… e la spesa continua.

Quello che per gli americani è una priorità, come una comunità sicura e pulita, un ambiente pulito, infrastrutture, scuole, ricerca e altro, perde importanza di fronte alla potenza economica e militare dell’impero americano.

Il giorno della dichiarazione dei redditi non è il giorno della cooperazione; è il giorno della beffa. È il giorno in cui ci ricordiamo che lo stato azzoppa il potenziale umano. Serve a ricordare che lo stato è un ostacolo permanente al mercato risorgente. È il giorno in cui ci ricordiamo degli orrori e dei costi della pianificazione centrale.

Il libertarismo offre una soluzione. Immaginate un sistema socio-economico messo su da esseri umani liberati; istituzioni alternative create dall’autogoverno e dalla libera associazione. Le possibilità dell’umanità sono enormi. Neanche possiamo immaginare l’effetto che il talento libero e il lavoro autonomo avrebbero sul progresso e sull’edificazione della società.

Una cosa è certa: Non è negli interessi dell’uomo liberato morire per lo stato; una società senza stato non sprecherebbe risorse immani in guerre.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Let’s start with the idea of progressive taxation as a remedy for economic inequality and unjust distribution of wealth, taking Bill Gates as an illustration. Virtually the entire price of Microsoft software — probably 99 cents out of every dollar that goes into his pocket — amounts to robbery. The entire Gates fortune is stolen loot, monopoly rent extorted from the pockets of consumers by virtue of the state’s “intellectual property” [sic] laws. If not for copyright and patent monopolies on his operating system and other products, Gates might — just possibly — have become a millionaire from selling customization and tech support services for software that was itself free (that’s the business model of Linux distributions). Even if he accumulated $10 million, that comes to about 0.01% of his actual peak fortune of $100 billion. Considering that Gates’ entire treasury of stolen loot could never have been acquired without the help of federal law, it stands to reason that the only way for government taxation to achieve net justice would be to tax Gates’s income at 100%. Otherwise, the government’s just helping Gates rob you, then giving back a fraction of it so the injustice doesn’t become too destabilizing.

That same principle applies to all “progressive taxation” of the plutocracy’s wealth. The primary purpose of the state is to enforce artificial property rights and artificial scarcities that the economic ruling class can extract rents from. On an entirely secondary level, it gives back a tiny share of those extracted rents to the poorest of the poor, in order to prevent starvation and homelessness from reaching the kind of politically destabilizing levels that might lead to people pulling the whole edifice of exploitation down. It also provides some middle class entitlements like Social Security (although they’re funded almost entirely by non-progressive payroll deductions) in order to maintain sufficient public purchasing power to prevent the boom-bust cycle from getting too severe. But to repeat, all these forms of welfare for the underclass and entitlements from the middle class don’t even approach the levels of wealth the plutocracy has robbed the public of, with the help of government.

Even if government did tax the plutocracy at 100% and give it back to the public in the form of some kind of guaranteed income, it would be utterly stupid. It would just be taking with one hand and giving back with the other, eating up half the money in administrative costs. Far more sensible would be for the state to simply stop helping the rich rob us in the first place: Abolish patents and copyrights, absentee titles to unimproved land, entry barriers for small businesses, regulatory constraints on self-employment and home-based businesses that compete with brick-and-mortar establishments, and the like. But you know the state’s not going to do that, because enforcing an exploitative system of power is what it DOES.

What about all those highways and roads, schools, national “defense” and the like? Well, generally any time the government provides “public services” below cost, the main beneficiary is corporations whose business models depend most heavily on such subsidized inputs. The main beneficiaries of the Interstate Highway System (built under the supervision of DoD Secretary Charles “What’s good for GM is good for America” Wilson, former CEO of General Motors), for example, are the long-haul trucking industry, nationwide retail chains, food processing corporations, breweries, etc., that have driven local retailers, canneries and breweries out of business and turned America’s Main Streets into deserts.

The schools grade, sort and process human beings into “human resources” warped and deformed to suit the needs of corporate employers for obedient and uncritical bureaucratic cogs. Local freeway systems, promoted by the automobile-highway complex and real estate industry, serve mainly to turn the car into a necessity for poor people who once could have used feet, bicycles and streetcars to get to work and shopping.

As for “national defense,” its main purpose is to enforce corporate domination on the entire planet. Between the “defense” budget, the military aspects of NASA and Homeland Security, and debt on past wars, the military — basically rent-a-cops who terrorize the world into accepting corporate rule — accounts for over half the total US budget.

This is the kind of “civilization” you’re paying for.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Denuncia dei Redditi: Che Genere di “Civiltà” Stiamo Finanziando?

OK, OK – nothing could be further from the truth.

The sad fact about April 15th is that the overwhelming majority of tax dollars are collected for past, current and projected military spending. The War Resisters League has spent a lot of time researching federal tax revenue and the results are rather sobering.

Revenue collected for military spending includes the grossly bloated $584 billion budget for the Department of Defense. Additional military revenue, about $202 billion worth, is collected outside the DoD. This totals $786 billion for current military operations. Adding the Obama era “Overseas Contingency Operations” (a continuation of the Bush era “War on Terror”), roughly another $47 billion dollars, brings total revenue raised for ongoing operations up to $833 billion. Further tax revenue, $521 billion worth, is used to cover past military spending. This payment for war debt puts us over $1.4 trillion.

The tally doesn’t really stop there either. The Department of Homeland Security, made (in)famous for airport security, has militarized police departments around the nation since its inception. The war on drugs shows little sign of slowing down (though promising pockets of resistance are flourishing). Weapons production, drones, prisons, manufacturing the machines of war and upholding a nuclear payload that could end human civilization multiple times over (because destroying the Earth once isn’t mighty enough) … the list goes on and on.

Roughly 47% of tax revenue is spent on human resources – we finally get a place at the table! But don’t forget, when “too big to fail” big shots in the corporate/financial world get in trouble this revenue is sure to go to them instead of the general populace. Main street will shut down and families will lose their homes while the economic elite are bailed out. Instead of redistributing revenue back to individuals, taxpayer dollars are used to protect the economic interests of the state. The initial bailouts of the Bush Administration cost the American taxpayer $700 billion – and we’re still counting.

What most Americans hold as priority – clean, safe communities, a healthy environment, infrastructure, education, research, etc – all pale in importance to the military and economic strength of the US empire.

Tax day is not a day of cooperation; it is a day of disappointment. It is a day that reminds us that the state cripples human potential. It is a reminder that the state is a constant hurdle to the resurgent market. It is a day that reminds us of the horrors and costs of central planning.

Libertarianism offers a solution. Imagine a socio-economic system crafted by liberated human beings – alternative institutions created by self governance and free association. What are the possibilities of humanity? How would the products of self-directed, inclined labor progress and build society?

One thing is certain: It is not in the interests of liberated human beings to die for governments – the stateless society would not be wasting countless resources on war.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, 15 Aprile: Il Finanziamento dell’Impero.

Before the festivities commenced, I wanted to interview some people about how they viewed the secession of the United States of America from Great Britain and how or if they framed modern secession as different from the Revolutionary War.  Here is one of the more compelling interviews:

Youtube:  Voluntaryist Files #1: Why America Can Secede from Great Britain but No One Else Can

After discussing America’s secession with a few more attendees to varying degrees of success, I headed back to our group’s seats. I threw out some ‘Murika!’s for good measure, and then sat back to enjoy the fireworks and accompanying nationalistic music.  Like the zombies in George Romero’s Land of the Dead, I allowed myself to be bought off of my convictions for a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of pretty lights.

I couldn’t think of any recent occasion that the government had more wisely spent our tax dollars.  That round of fireworks were among the most memorable shows I had ever seen.  For a moment, even myself, little ol’ anarchist me, could not hold a grudge against the statists.  Amongst libertarian friends and the well-intentioned, I stared past the reflecting pool at Capitol Hill and couldn’t feel anything but that perhaps I’d judged them prematurely.  Maybe I had been a little unfair to the state.  I’d felt the same way when I visited the monuments.

The week previous I had sweatily meandered over to the Lincoln Memorial.  Speaking as someone who routinely answers questions about the War Between the States as, “it’s complicated,” my emotions were conflicted.  Walking up the steps of the Greek temple of Lincoln, it is impossible not to be impressed by the symmetry and grandeur of the entire spectacle.  Peeking through the columns, a paternal Lincoln sits underneath an inscription:

Prefaced with an acknowledgment of its complexity and a thorough denial that the War Between the States was ultimately about the morality of slavery (over which the use of force is clearly justified à la John Brown), preserving a political union between unwilling parties with war is the equivalent of an abusive husband punching his spouse back into their marriage.

Would there be a Greek temple to King George for preserving the Union if the colonies had failed in the War for American Independence?  Probably. The mythology surrounding Lincoln and the American “Civil War” leaves one with the impression that political unions are apparently good in and of themselves.

These sites which can emotionally move even an alert and seasoned anti-statist are dangerous. If someone who understands their manipulative purpose cannot totally resist their influence, one can only imagine what occurs in the minds of hapless tourists when encountering the striking panoply of state propaganda which freckle the District.

Recovering from this experience, I cruised over to the Jefferson Memorial on my bike.  As an anarchist, I felt relatively better about being at a monument to Jefferson.  Encircling the top interior of the memorial is the statement, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  He obviously wasn’t opposed to every tyranny, but he was eons ahead of the bulk of his contemporaries.  At least his efforts do not merit complete dismissal from anarchists as Abraham Lincoln’s actions do.

Underneath the inscription there are then a few panels endorsing the separation of church and state in reference to Jefferson’s Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and one that if properly contextualized is significantly anti-state:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan.”

How Jefferson could make such a beautiful statement and then endorse public schools is understandable, as he was living before the era of public choice theory.  However, if the relationship between state and subject is rightly viewed as one of master and slave, wouldn’t we concur with this statement?  But ultimately, the following quote is the one that I empathized with most deeply:

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

It is challenging to determine how much to blame our antecedents for their inconsistency and their failures, as I’m sure we will be called to reckon for ours by our descendants.  Nearly the entirety of human history has been rule by alpha male, as seen in both tribal and monarchical settings, differentiated only by the level of economic development.  As the courage of proto-libertarians caught up to those alpha males, advancements like the Magna Carta and representative government limited the absolute power of those who sought to dominate others through force.  Constitutions and some democratic procedures were established and finally warded off some of the more major predations of the rulers.

The founding of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson and his peers was possibly the biggest step forward in the history of the world toward liberty.  The founders never made it to complete consistency, and now, as I peer back across the dimension of time seeking to understand them and why they left this last battle for us to fight, I can’t help feel a little resentful.  I am very thankful for them who brought us from monarchy to republic and the Constitution but their legacy has still left us short of the statelessness, the next step in the evolution of political philosophy.

The narcotic fireworks and exquisite Greek architecture can strengthen the loyalty to the local state for the average person, but lets not leave our descendants in want for a more consistent and reasonable world in the way that we presently react to the country the Founding Fathers of America left for 21^st Century Americans.

Let’s leave posterity the gift of statelessness and their own undiluted freedom to create beautiful explosions for and to erect monuments to.

July 4th, 2010 Fireworks at the National Mall, Washington DC

This meaning I’m sure is lost though on the majority of Argentines, as it is certainly lost on Americans. Like Christians with the Age of Miracles, the right to withdraw one´s consent from being governed is an anachronism and is not applicable in present time.

If Argentines respect and openly celebrate the action of their historical secession from Spain, they should also respect the current right of the region of Tierra Del Fuego to secede from Argentina if it ever chose to. Consistent respect for this principle also demands that one permit the individual towns to secede from the region, and then to permit individual people to secede from their local political relationships. The logical result of the rigorous application of secession is a world of purely voluntary association and statelessness.

I recently began to think in these terms once more after reading Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo’s “The Real Lincoln” while on vacation in South America, but Murray Rothbard illustrated this concept years ago:

“Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible ´anarchy´ why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person? But, of course, if each person may secede from government, we have virtually arrived at the purely free society, where defense is supplied along with all other services by the free market and where the invasive State has ceased to exist.”

The true philosophical divide between people, which happens to fit rather snugly on top of the individualist and collectivist axes, is whether one supports world government or statelessness. The Marxists I know are consistent in this regard. They do not acknowledge the right of any individual to secede from a Marxist state and would use force to prevent it. Conversely, the pseudo-liberal states of today run the hypocritical ground of being originally secessionist but have now become the oppressors they had once escaped from. This “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” mentality leads to ironic gotchas when upset individuals petition their ruling states.

Ho Chi Minh quoted the American Declaration of Independence in the Declaration of Vietnamese Independence in 1945. The Black Panthers did the same thing in their Ten Point Program. The majority of inhabitants in these post-secessionist states have psychologically and philosophically adopted the behavior of those that their nations’ founders had originally sought to secede from while simultaneously celebrating historical secessionism. This is as true in Argentina as it is in America.

Something however did give me hope at the Bicentenario. Complete with circle A´s was a phrase I took a picture of. It was sprayed onto a concrete parking divide and read “Argentina Trabaja Para Cuando?” In English it asks “Argentina Works for How Many?” There are always those who peer through the silliness. The Age of Secession is not but a memory of epochs past. Still today revolutionaries may send fancy pieces of parchment to their oppressors and state their intent to venture their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in the struggles for their sovereignty.

If one can successfully illustrate the absurdity of an ‘occasional’ or strictly historical right to secede, a rational person must then either approve of the right of secession for people at the current moment or should begin clamoring for world government. They cannot reasonably believe in the right of historical actors to secede but not of people now living, or those who will live in the future. They will then become secessionists or join their statist brethren in true and consistent form and openly embrace the philosophy of world government which they have been unknowingly espousing.