As anarchists, we obviously reject representative democracy along with the state itself. As such, many anarchists advocate against voting in elections or even participating at all, seeing it as reinforcing and legitimizing the very system we’re fighting so hard to abolish. However, not all anarchists are against participating in the electoral process in the here…
There is a sentiment among many self-described libertarians that I sympathize with to some degree, but ultimately view as misguided and completely unfavorable. It goes something like this: If we are to have a state, the lesser evil solution is to have only certain groups of people vote. Net taxpayers are a popular go-to example….
The terms ‘anarchist’ and ‘anarchism’ are returning to the center stage of political lingo in the twenty-first century. To quote my own article on Center for a Stateless Society: President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to associate Black Lives Matter with anarchists and anarchism. He has tweeted such threatening posts as just the phrase “Anarchists, we see…
Read any of the classic cypherpunk or crypto-anarchist writings and one thing is clear: the internet offered us freedom. While the open source and peer-to-peer (p2p) movements are still alive and well in certain corners of the internet, most of us have chosen corporate rule instead. While cryptocurrency offered us a medium of exchange that…
It’s common for right-libertarians to attack — with some justification — the stupidity of those who equate opposing a law or government agency with opposing some value or goal in its name. Wanting to abolish the Department of Education, for example, doesn’t mean you’re against education. But right libertarians are guilty of a somewhat related…
In case it wasn’t already implied by the title, I’m arguably a follower of the “transgender ideology.” I prefer the term “non- binary” instead of “trans,” but I’m part of the community and I do adhere to the “ideology” of validating peoples’ gender identities by using their preferred pronouns. Much like a fair number of…
When people talk about the post-9/11 world in terms of politics, most think of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Homeland Security, unwarranted wiretapping, and forever wars but rarely is ICE mentioned in the same breath despite Immigration and Customs Enforcement being a direct result of the post–9/11 policy of the so-called american government….
In his book Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism, Chris Matthew Sciabarra makes the astute observation that “[j]ust as relations of power operate through ethical, psychological, cultural, political, and economic dimensions, so too the struggle for freedom and individualism depends upon a certain constellation of moral, psychological, and cultural factors.” This is something that Dakota…
Facebook is back at it again. In the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville a few years back, and with much pushing from activists, Facebook responded with a wave of bans and censorship of “racial extremists” that was so wide-reaching and simultaneously ineffective that many literal white supremacists were able to continue…
A common idea on some parts of the internet is this idea of “redpilling,” and that if you take the “red pill,” you awaken to a new way of thinking. This darkly ironic appropriation of a term coined by trans women, the Wachowskis, usually includes becoming a TERF and anti-feminist, (although it may also include…
During an ongoing pandemic, the last thing we should be arguing over is the use of PPE. When a majority of medical experts are recommending mask use to slow down infection rates, the last thing we should be doing is protesting the use of said masks. But during a period when we are also seeing…
[Hear an in-depth discussion on this article and its topics in this episode of The Enragés] In a previous column, I examined the way in which those who praise Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and their ilk for their “creative genius” or “value creation” are misplacing the credit. All the components of Tesla designs, and of…
Individualism, community, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and faith are the values of the people of Appalachia. It is in these values that we find an anarchism that has existed in the cities and rural communities for decades. However, most Appalachians don’t refer to their culture as such, but it carries many of the same attitudes and beliefs…
Can there be such a thing as a “conservative anarchist?” Yes, as is true of any broad political label – socialist, democrat, libertarian, the list grows longer every day as the far right tries to appropriate the language of other tendencies. Ultimately, one can identify with whatever values they want, this is the foundation of…
Those against firearm ownership often lead their objections with a distaste for over-enthusiastic attitudes about guns that they say verges on cult-like worship. The claim is also made that these attitudes encourage a needlessly violent approach toward conflicts that have alternative resolutions. At most, those passionately opposed to gun ownership may allow an exception for…
Last month, on July 14th, the United States ended a seventeen-year pause on federal executions and put Daniel Lewis Lee to death, strapping him to a gurney in expectation of a federal court’s decision to end the stay on his execution. Using a new single-drug injection procedure of solely pentobarbital, he was executed with an…
Popular movements, focusing on anti-police community self-defense, may be the best way to effectively circumvent the influence that alt-right fake news sites are continuing to have on society now and in the long-run. In contrast to single-issue protest campaigns, a broad movement towards community self-defense would avoid key pitfalls in the struggle for the support…
Often the free market anarchist response to dealing with business misconduct includes the ability for workers to find a new job, consumers to buy a new product, etc. The more fleshed out version of this ideal includes wildcat unionism, mass boycotts, pickets, and demonstrations. And yes, workers should absolutely be able to use collective bargaining…
Can an anarchist be socially conservative? Yes. I see no reason why someone who is anti-abortion or has fundamentalist views on sex or drugs can’t be an anarchist. Anarchism is about building a society in which no one forces their beliefs on others. As long as you respect the views and lives of others, your…
Ayn Rand wrote that “Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and Socialism are only superficial variations of the same monstrous theme – collectivism.” However, I think this should be changed to reflect all the forms that collectivism, the enemy of liberty, can take. This new maxim would be “Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Statist Socialism, and Capitalism are superficial variations…