Commentary
The Trump-Era “Free Speech” Shell Game
In Wisconsin, buzz has been building over a “Campus Free Speech Act” which creates harsh penalties for interrupting, protesting, or otherwise disrupting speakers invited onto colleges campuses. Meanwhile last week, 61-year-old Code Pink protester Desiree Fairooz was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison for laughing.
Bill de Blasio and Big Tobacco: Together in Smoke
Speaking at the American Heart Association on April 19th, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled anti-smoking policies going “up against a multi-billion-dollar industry.” This might seem an adversarial showdown between public advocacy and entrenched power straight out of a Hollywood movie — say, “Erin Brockovich” or “Spotlight.”
Reclaiming the Anti-Fascist Roots of Libertarianism
Let’s face it — the libertarian movement’s flirtations with paleoconservatives over the years have put us in the situation we are in today. Alt-righters and other self-proclaimed fascists, white nationalists, and racial separatists feel that they can use the libertarian movement as an effective recruiting ground: despite their willingness to crush individual liberties in order to…
Trump’s Military Budget Is Not NATO’s Fault
President Trump’s budget proposal would increase military spending $54 billion, not quite a 10 percent increase over the current level.  According to Quartz, the increase alone is more than all but two countries — China and Saudi Arabia — spend on their militaries. (China spends $145 billion, Saudi Arabia $57 billion, Russia $47 billion, and Iran $16 billion,…
Terrorist is the New Green
In the wake of several IWW-backed labor strikes in the US and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the US was thrown into a frenzy over fears of the red menace. Thus began the first Red Scare. The homes of suspected anarchists, socialists, social democrats, communists, and other radical leftists were raided and at least 500…
Time to Use Uber’s Weapons — Against Uber
Uber, the controversial corporate employer masquerading as a “ride-sharing” service, has recently stirred up more controversy with new revelations about its Greyball program for circumventing enforcement of local taxicab monopolies. Greyball maintains a database of likely local government officials. This database is populated by users who frequently open and close the Uber app near government buildings,…
Decriminalize Immigration, Free Movement for All!
The United States recently experienced its first wave of large-scale anti-immigration raids following the election of Donald Trump, who made the mass deportation of “illegal” immigrants a central part of his campaign. Although ICE officials claim that these raids targeted individuals with criminal records, immigrant rights groups dispute this claim, arguing that law-abiding people were…
Wealth is Concentrating Too Fast to Keep Up
Remember the Oxfam report early last year that found sixty-two individuals owned as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity put together? It’s gone down to only six — that’s right, six — in the past year: Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Amancio Ortega, Mark Zuckerberg, and Carlos Slim Helu. The total wealth held…
Trump Assumes Command of the American Church
As Donald Trump demonstrated in his first address to Congress, no matter how loathsome a ruler may be, he can bring an assembly of politicians to its feet and disarm some critics simply by invoking the quasi-secular faith — Americanism — and eulogizing the latest uniformed war-state employee to sacrifice his life for it. Trump has…
Stop Banning Muslims, Stop Banning Guns
The debate over President Trump’s travel ban and the debate over gun control look surprisingly similar – except for who’s on which side. In each case, supporters of the policy argue that it’s necessary in order to prevent incidents of lethal violence, while opponents argue, first, that the policy’s likely impact on such incidents is…
C4SS at ISFLC17
The Center for a Stateless Society represents a diversity of views and approaches toward our shared goal of eliminating coercion in political, economic, and social spheres of individual life. Many of us brand ourselves as anti-capitalists because of the popular associations that the word “capitalism” has in contemporary discourse. Rejecting capitalism as the way to…
Same Colonial Wealth Extraction, Different Name
If you keep up with right-libertarian media, you’ve probably seen more than one puff piece on how much global capitalism has improved things for people in the Third World: higher per capita GDP, longer life expectancies, and so on. But if average standards of living have gone up, according to an article at the Guardian…
Can Someone Protect Us From Our “Protectors”?
I’m one of those “clicktivists,” I guess. I sign petitions and send emails in response to most pleas for causes I consider worthy, on the calculation that it won’t hurt and might even help just a tiny bit. I recently sent Arkansas Governnor Asa Hutchinson an email asking him to do everything in his power…
Milo Is Not the Victim Here
Milo Yiannopoulos, who writes for the “alt right” (i.e. white supremacist or neo-fascist) website Breitbart.com, is a master at victimizing other people and then claiming victim status for himself when he’s hit back. For example, he actually took advantage of a position in the White House Press Corps to whine to former President Obama about…
Disrupt J20: The Fight Against Fascism and Fake News
With the recent hubbub about fake news I couldn’t help but think about the fact that most of the news we have consumed throughout our lives has been intentionally misleading and spun to fit the narrative of government officials and corporate sponsors. At no point was this more apparent to me personally than watching the…
Hunt Sabotage Accomplishes What Law Cannot
Last week’s brutal massacre of Illona Mitchell’s animal companions in Spain by bloodthirsty huntsmen reminds us that hunting needs to be stopped, period. The executions of several of Mitchell’s dogs, and the gouging of a horse’s eye, came as retribution for Mitchell’s refusal to allow Spanish hunters to carry out their dastardly deeds on her…
Don’t Let Him Build the Wall: A Call to Action
With Trump’s recent declaration that construction of a border wall between the united states and Mexico is to begin immediately, many are left wondering how to respond. Such a wall, while being a seemingly insurmountable task to construct and practically ineffective, would not only cause diplomatic issues (indeed, it already has) but also environmental issues….
Vermin Supreme’s Inauguration Was A Riot!
If you didn’t already hear, Vermin Supreme was recently inaugurated as President of the United States on January 20th, 2017 and the celebrations couldn’t have been more festive. Tens of thousands of people or more showed up to show their support with fireworks, musical performances, cannabis, campfires, and more. But there was another man trying…
Empires Don’t Practice “Free Trade”
In a recent commentary at The Future of Freedom Foundation, Richard Ebeling celebrates the “triumph of free trade” in 19th century Britain (James Mill, David Ricardo and the Triumph of Free Trade,” Jan. 23). As Ebeling frames it the British political elite, under the influence of classical liberal economists like Mill and Ricardo, realized that…
Trump is keeping his promises. We must keep ours
The sun has not yet set on Donald Trump’s first week as President of the United States, and already he has made good on several major campaign promises. He has signed executive orders that pave the way for the forceful restructuring of the ACA, begin construction on both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines,…
Anarchy and Democracy
Fighting Fascism
Markets Not Capitalism
The Anatomy of Escape
Organization Theory