Like all religions, the religion of state thrives on rites, rituals and relics, striving to put its god — political government — at the center of human existence. Seldom has this been more apparent than in the run-up to the tenth anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001.
Kevin Carson: He claims to distrust government. But he’s either stupid or a liar.
Darian Worden: As the events of ten years ago are remembered, it is also time to reflect on how to build a better world.
I’ve written frequently on the national regulatory state as a source of monopoly rents to big business. But the true nature of regulation as a naked power grab by incumbent businesses is nowhere more apparent than at the local level. At the lower levels of government, conventional, brick-and-mortar business establishments are heavily involved in using…
After feeding a crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth was recently served with formal legal notice…
Darian Worden on questions raised by Hurricane Irene: media presentation, and government versus cooperative responses.
In a recent Guardian commentary, Timothy Snyder opines that “those who benefit from the Tea Party are more like British lords than American rebels.” Snyder argues that Tea Partiers are “rightwing anarchist[s]” whose “mantras of low taxation and small government have become the way to avoid discussing the challenges of globalisation.” Snyder is more right…
David D’Amato on recent polls showing popular disapproval of American governance.
David D’Amato on how the state makes health care more expensive.
Darian Worden responds to E.D. Kain’s question at Forbes, “what would replace our criminal justice system in a stateless society?”
It ain’t the free market, says David D’Amato.
David D’Amato says that machine is a meatgrinder.
“Right” for whom? asks David D’Amato
Recent news of the West Memphis Three — freed on the condition that they confess their guilt, thus sparing sociopathic prosecutors any public embarrassment — raises an old question. The state’s defenders commonly argue that, no matter how fallible or corrupt individual public officials may be, they’ll be restrained by checks and balances built into…
The August 22 episode of NPR’s Tell Me More inquired into the state of America’s welfare system, taking President Clinton’s 1996 “historical overhaul” as its starting point. Guest Barbara Ehrenreich contends that the overhaul “began an era of the government washing its hands” of “the poorest of the poor.” Whatever you think about welfare as…
In the wake of Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney’s “corporations are people” gaffe, Reuters’ John F. Wasik points out what ought to be obvious, but may not be for many Americans. “The ‘people’ Washington helps most,” he argues, are “big corporations,” noting the “infinite amounts of money” big business spends “to purchase politicians, legislation and…
Tom Knapp on new developments in the information war.
Free culture activist Nina Paley, in a recent cartoon, parodies the philosophy behind “intellectual property.” EUNICE: “Copying a song instead of buying a copy is stealing!” MIMI: “Doing for yourself what you could pay someone else to do is stealing!” BOTH: “Competition is theft!” Unfortunately, Nina was preempted by reductio creep: The tendency of real world…
Kevin Carson on Soylent Gree … er, corporations.
I wish very much that I could report the riots now tearing across England as the opening gambit of anarchist revolution. Unfortunately, I can’t. The riots appear ideologically inchoate: They are a phenomenon born of rage, and rage is irrational, no matter the reason or unreason of the original spark (the killing, by police, of…
