Let’s be clear: The United States isn’t a protection agency; it is a criminal organization. Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute (“Wikileaks Must Be Stopped,” August 3rd) completely reversed the roles of good and evil in his in his analysis, but he accurately describes the danger that Wikileaks poses to the American state’s war policies and regime of opaque empire.

Thiessen worries that “Wikileaks is preparing to do more damage …. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told ABC News that Assange had a ‘moral culpability’ for the harm he has caused. Well, the Obama administration has a moral responsibility to stop him from wreaking even more damage.”

The US government doesn’t have a moral responsibility to stop Wikileaks. If it has any moral responsibility at all, that responsibility is to stop unnecessarily putting the lives of American soldiers and Afghan civilians at risk. Even if one concedes all of the most important questions about political authority, taxes, land claims, and the consent of the governed and skips straight to “The Morality of Protecting State Power at the Cost of Innocent Human Life,” Thiessen’s statement makes sense only in terms of internal consistency. The real-world context of this matter is that questions about the legitimacy of political authority are among the most vital concerns today.

Moral beliefs aside, if America’s rulers want to keep their shenanigans quasi-covert and marginally effective they’d better act soon. With more documents always en route, informants and their white hat colleagues are embarrassing and neutering corrupt military adventurism at its root. To those who support this flavor of insanity, the “criminal syndicate” Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are far more daunting a threat than any Islamist insurgent. The camera is the new gun, and Wikileaks is a howitzer.

The salient reason why governments around the world are able to get away with, well, murder, is that they are effectively able to not tell the truth! Governments typically don’t volunteer to be transparent. Their opposition to honesty is obviously not because disclosure will harm individual soldiers, despite all the current media hullabaloo. If you think the state cares about those who sign up to defend it go visit a Veterans Affairs hospital or any major urban area. Look down, and observe the shells of people they bring home from their wars.

Governments decry the release of this information not merely because it threatens their monopolistic provision of information and foreign boondoggles, but because it shows that courageous individuals can nullify the egregious crimes of government instead of just begging “their” congressmen to reconsider murdering people in far-away lands. When average people see what they’re being forced to pay for — an unsuccessful, destructive, and never-ending war — the peasants stop watching the pundits on TV and start looking around for the organ grinders.

“Wikileaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States,” writes Thiessen. “If left unmolested, Assange will become even bolder and inspire others to imitate his example.” Let’s hope he is correct on this count.  We could use a few more howitzers.

In light of the recent indictment of alleged Nazi war criminal Samuel Kunz in Germany, it strikes me that most folks are familiar enough with the post-World War II Nuremburg Trials to remember that many of the then-accused Nazi leaders, when queried by the Allied tribunal as to why they committed (or more accurately, ordered and authorized to be committed) such atrocities as occurred both on the battlefields and in the concentration camps, simply replied, “We were just following orders,” or, “We were just doing our jobs.”

This lame response is in no way limited to Nazis. In fact, it’s a typical bureaucratic excuse from every government agent on earth when the inevitable abuses and horrors of such backward institutions are exposed. It’s as if the simple invocation of “I have my orders” somehow magically absolves any bureaucrat who acts on such edicts from any and all forms of independent moral judgment. The bureaucrat, earning his or her tax-funded paycheck, is permitted — nay, expected — to behave like a wind-up toy, a pre-programmed robot incapable of any deviation from his or her master’s directions. And at the end of the day, when natural rights are violated, when real human beings end up deprived of their property and/or hurled into cages, when live people end up dead — every bureaucrat pleads “helpless automaton.”

Tyrants throughout history have used such twisted logic to rationalize their actions. At Hitler’s trial following the 1925 Beerhall Putsch, he stated openly to the German court, “What judgment this court will render, we already know. But in the eyes of history, I have already been acquitted.” Fidel Castro, on trial in Cuba for the 1956 attack on the Moncada Army Barracks issued his now famous speech, “History Will Absolve Me.” And in a less grandiose yet equally heinous fashion, all across the modern American landscape, every single day, police use such ill-crafted reasoning to justify shooting a “suspect.” Soldiers use it in order to clear themselves of any transgression after killing civilians either as “collateral damage,” or, in some cases, deliberately.

That human beings will actually kill in the name of defending the entirely false and fictitious precepts upon which governments rest is a grim and frightening indication of how deep into the psyche repeated conditioning and propaganda can reach.

It is precisely the undoing of this horrible phenomenon that anarchism seeks to achieve.

Whether Mr. Kunz is found guilty in a government court or not misses the point entirely; indeed, merely serves to perpetuate the “good government” versus “bad government” myth. We must reject holding human beings to different and separate moral standards than based on whether or not they are in government employ. All of us have a natural obligation to respect the lives and property of others — and a natural right to expect the same from all others. Anything less is not liberty. And government, by its very nature, will always fall woefully short of that ideal.

Yes, I voted. Schlepped down to the polling place on Tuesday, presented my papers, and poked the screen until the machine informed me that I had successfully cast my ballot.

I even took one of those cheesy little “I Voted” stickers. Just one. On my way into the polling place, a toddler came bouncing out with one sticker on each hand. Yes, it’s a machine Democratic precinct — why do you ask?

The anarchist arguments against voting (“it only encourages them;” “if it changed anything, they’d make it illegal;” “it falsely legitimizes the system”) all strike me as sound, although Murray Rothbard’s “voting as self-defense” argument holds some water, too.

The “voting as self-defense” bit was part of what got me this time (this one last time, just this one last time, I keep promising myself).

Here in Missouri, Proposition C — a measure to nullify ObamaCare’s “individual mandate” — was on the ballot.

I personally and individually nullified the “individual mandate” nearly a year ago, before the bill even passed, by swearing to drop my health insurance and go to jail rather than pay a fine when/if it goes into effect. Proposition C, to my mind, represented an opportunity recruit a majority (that’s all I hoped for, anyway — it actually clocked in at over 70%!) of voting Missourians to have my back on the issue.

Voting as self-defense, see?

But really I’m just kidding myself. I voted for a lot of reasons, all of which really boil down to one: I’ve got a monkey on my back.

Have you ever tried to quit smoking? It may go well or badly in general, but once you’ve had the nicotine habit it’s always there to at least some degree. I’ve talked to “ex-smokers” who still get the craving 10, 20, 30 years later.

If you also happen to be a drinker, you’re going to constantly catch yourself thinking “you know, a cigarette would go really well with this Fat Tire^®. How the hell can I drink a beer without a smoke?”

I had my “beer” on Monday when I had to drop in at the local election authority’s office to sign some paperwork — one of my duties as chair of my county’s Libertarian Party committee, a job I leave behind me without regrets next week.

Bam … off the wagon! One little sip of electoral involvement, next thing you know I’m blazing up a political Marlboro^®.

I told myself it was about Proposition C. That I had an obligation to support Libertarian candidates whom I had recruited in contested primaries. That the act of voting bore no moral significance. That it was just an exercise in social camaraderie.

But I took a long, long shower when I got home.

At the end of the day, I understand that voting not only changes nothing, but reinforces the putative legitimacy of an evil system which I’ve dedicated my life to dismantling.

The first step in recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

Hello. I’m Tom, and I’m a voter.

After a Pennsylvania high school student told administrators that another student had raped her, the school principal’s response was to use her as “bait” to catch students he suspected were having consensual sex on campus. The alleged perpetrator was not pursued and is now accused of raping the same student later that night.

Yes, you read that right. Not only was a serious crime not investigated, but the alleged victim was forced to take part in a sting operation to catch non-criminals. And then she was raped again.

How could something like this happen?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (“Suit charges Upper St. Clair officials made rape victim ‘bait,'” July 30, 2010) reports:

According to a court filing submitted by the school district, [school Principal] Dr. Ghilani didn’t believe that the students were in danger or that any safety concerns were present. Instead, he thought students were having consensual sex in school after hours.

He devised a plan to have school police officers follow the students in question to determine who they were and where they were going.

Ideas about teens and sex — that sex is something that older adults must restrict until teens are older or married — come through here. Catching teens having consensual sex in school appears to be a higher priority than pursuing an alleged rapist. It is the role of the administrator to protect adolescents from sex — preventing them from honestly learning about it — whether consensual or not.

It should be asked what role sexism played. A male principal did not believe a female student’s accusation, but decided that she was accusing the male out of jealousy. His response could not honestly be called skeptical. The principal was so sure of what happened that he decided to investigate something entirely different from the actual complaint. He did not appear concerned for the victim’s well-being.

The Post-Gazette contains passages from the school’s legal filing:

Security personnel followed the students. Whether the sexual activity was alleged to be consensual or nonconsensual would not have altered the plan. … The plan to was to monitor the students and stop the students before any sexual activity occurred.

This makes it sound like the accuser was at least as much a subject of investigation as the accused.

At the root of the problem are authoritarian ideas. The victim’s personal autonomy is denied, not only by the rapist but by those in charge. If she can be useful in establishing greater control, she’ll be used for that purpose. The administrator will decide what kind of risk she is to be put at.

Authority often becomes institutionalized irresponsibility. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. When one person is in charge of another, the ruled is expected to serve the ruler. Since the ruler views individuals as a means to the end of power he will take care of the ruled as means, not as ends in themselves.

Authorities betray freedom. Whether through social prejudices that they buy into or through their priorities of securing power first and individuals second, they hurt people.

Alexander McCobin (“Considering a Conservative Plea for Libertarian Support,” Students for Liberty, 08/04/10) makes an excellent rebuttal to the claim that libertarians are just a faction of conservatism. The label “libertarian” indicates someone who consistently supports the liberty of the individual — a standard that most conservatives just don’t reach.

Unfortunately McCobin’s article, like many free-market libertarian works, does not look deeply enough into the assumption that conservatives support economic liberty. Are conservatives in general really in favor of a free economy?

Conservatives do not appear to be more likely than liberals to support the freedom to compete against patent monopolists. Or the liberty of Iraqis to use their property to transport wounded people without being shot at by helicopter gunners.

Conservatives are more likely to support dictatorships than the freedom of developing-world workers to organize for better bargaining power. And they are more likely to back developing-world plutocrats who have been handed land titles by government privilege than to back those who actually work the land. When one segment of the economy is supported by state intervention, the economy is not free, but is instead based on military-backed domination.

McCobin rightly notes “the inability/lack of desire by conservative leaders to turn the rhetoric of economic freedom into substantive reform.” But how consistently does conservative rhetoric support economic freedom?

Immigration is often motivated by personal economic concerns. Conservatives are likely to advocate the building of walls and the arming of enforcers to keep immigrants away from the jobs they want, using government force to prevent people from creating wealth that will benefit themselves and others.

Any time someone imposes a tax on you, he is telling you what to do with your money. He is requiring that a portion of your earnings go to government programs. Conservatives who support government war policy are telling you that you have to spend your money on enriching war profiteers.

Just as police protect and serve power first, conservatives have a tendency to support economic freedom for the powerful, not equal liberty among all individuals.

But the division between economic and personal liberty is nonsensical anyway. The absurdity of liberty falling under one of two categories based on whether or not money changes hands might be best illustrated by the Drug War. Why should growing marijuana shift from a matter of personal liberty to a matter of economic liberty once the grower starts selling it to friends? And are conservatives more likely than liberals to oppose state restrictions on either activity?

Oppression of queer people interferes with their economic freedom. The decision to marry is often partly an economic decision, and conservatives are likely to advocate government interference in this decision. Harassment sanctioned by governing homophobes makes it harder for targeted people to participate in economic activity, and transgendered people categorized against their will by government documents will be less able to meet employer requirements.

Identifying conservatism with economic liberty obscures true freedom with the darkness of government-backed privilege. The liberty to create any consensual economic arrangement that individuals choose to work with should not be confused with the “liberty” of the rich to keep the poor from competing against them.

Coercive monopolies are bad. I doubt there is anyone on the planet left or right who would dare disagree with this abstract statement who doesn’t directly benefit from monopolistic government policies. Monopolies virtually always fail the consumer as they do not need to be flexible, innovative, efficient, provide good quality of service, or eliminate corruption from their ranks to stay in business. Without the cleansing forces of competition to be just and effective, firms of all kinds operate from within a disgustingly perverse incentive structure.

I ran headlong into the monopolists and their incentive structure this weekend, on the occasion of my speaking at the Drexel University Student Liberty Front’s summer retreat in Philadelphia. In the early afternoon, our friend Michael Gurrieri stepped outside to smoke a rolled tobacco cigarette. He didn’t smoke it all, so he extinguished the flame and pocketed the remains for later. As he did so, the Philadelphia police were crossing the street to accost him and determine if he was smoking the wrong variety of leafy growth.

They demanded that Mike reveal the cigarette, which he refused on privacy grounds. As a result he was assaulted, thrown against the wall, and told to put his hands behind his back or the officer would “break his fucking arms.” Handcuffed, Mike asked to speak to the officer’s superior before proceeding. Two other officers arrived. At this point I was summoned from out of Darian Worden’s presentation on Practical Anarchy to observe the situation. I came out of the building in the presence of Stacy Litz, the event organizer, with my camera at the ready to begin recording. I was immediately approached by an aggressive and plump law enforcement official who bellowed at me that I was interfering with a police investigation and needed to move and put my camera away. I stated that he was a public officer in public who had no reasonable expectation of privacy and inquired if he was making legal order. He asked me if I was willing to bet that what I was doing was legal and removed his handcuffs. He approached me from the side and alerted me that if I didn’t put the camera away he would make it “his personal property” and take me down to the station. I backed up a little bit and pulled my camera up once more, at which point his temper broke and he erupted that he would “[expletive] me up and take me to [expletive] jail” if I didn’t comply with his order.

I later found out that he was bluffing. Pennsylvania does not have prohibitions against recording interactions with police officers. It didn’t matter though. I was then filled with adrenaline and more than a little intimidated. This well-armed man I didn’t know who was ostensibly there to keep the community safe was worried that I might create an accurate record of the actions of all parties. He was so opposed to my recording him and his cohorts that he threatened the brutalize me, abduct me, and then throw me in a cage.

If my friend had thereafter acted wrongly, then my video would have reflected his behavior and vindicated police retaliation, if not morally than at least in the eyes of the public. If the police had performed in an unprofessional or excessive way then the aggressors would be the subject of scrutiny. If they were going to continue in a just manner, wouldn’t they want their conduct a matter of public record to make sure that any subsequent use of force against the ‘perp’ was legitimate in case he later claimed otherwise? Their aversion to being recording clearly indicates their intentions to act maliciously against their victims and remain unaccountable for their transgressions.

Sadly, I didn’t know Philadelphia or Pennsylvania law well enough at that moment, so I wasn’t about to risk a bloodied body, obliterated or confiscated property, and a protracted legal endeavor for what very well might turn into another bogus and expensive wiretapping case for yet another liberty activist. Luckily, the ordeal ended soon, with Mike being released by his captors after a ‘good cop’ detailed him a twenty minute justification of the assault they had just committed.

Supposedly, when they saw Mike put the cigarette in his pocket they didn’t know if he had a gun (smokers are usually armed, apparently) so they needed to make sure that everyone in the community was safe. Well, except for Mike. Consciences of the cops salved, we returned to our conference and collectively decompressed from the absurdity we had just experienced.

This is a clear anecdotal example for minarchists of why having a monopoly on the most crucial services of justice and defense systems should be subject to market forces. The thugs we encountered that day in Philly could never behave so poorly in a world where the people who paid their bills could begin purchasing rights-protection services from other less abusive providers. Even with moral outrage removed from the mind of the consumer and only economic effects taken into account, firms that recklessly aggressed against innocent people would have to charge more due to their increased liability and legal exposure, and would thus continually lose market share until they ceased to exist.

Without coercive monopolistic control of this market sector, police officers may even actively seek to record their own behavior for public record, both to assure their own firm of their continued reliability and professionalism as well as to disprove any false accusations of illegitimate behavior from competitors.

We weren’t done with the monopolists that day just yet, however.

Later that night, when our reflections on the excitement of the day had nearly petered out, we went to the closing social to have a few drinks and bring the event to a conclusion. A group wanted to have a smoke, so some of us followed them outside to keep them company, spotting a few grazing cops on our way out. In front of the restaurant was a handicapped parking space occupied by, you guessed it, a squad car. Seeking some small token of justice from his assault at the hands of the blue shirt gang that morning, Mike took the initiative and told the proprietors of the restaurant that there was someone parked in the handicapped spot who did not have the appropriate credentials. They came and checked it out, then disappeared inside to presumably alert the kindly officers that they needed to follow the laws they were supposed to be enforcing.

The lawbreakers came outside and meandered up to us to inquire as to why we couldn’t have just asked them personally to move it. Mike calmly retorted that he was being righteous and following the law, to which the cop replied that he was actually “being retarded.” As he walked away, we asked him if he was handicapped or above the law. He grumbled, possibly affirming that he was both.

Police abuse of handicapped spot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The local newspaper once ran a human interest story about a halfway house that found work for mentally handicapped adults. It quoted a restaurateur who employed one of the residents as a minimum wage dishwasher: “I wish I had twenty like him — he’s got such a good attitude!”

That speaks volumes: When people in authority talk about someone with a “good attitude,” they mean someone who hasn’t managed to figure out he’s being diddled, that there’s a man behind the curtain, that the rules are made for the benefit of …  well, for the benefit of the people who make the rules.

The publik skool system serves the need of people in authority to have “human resources” who will obey — with a “good attitude” — anyone sitting behind a desk.

The next time you hear complaints about someone having a “bad attitude,” keep this in mind: It’s entirely because of people with “bad attitudes” that you’re not a slave. For the fact that you’re not working on a chain gang building a pyramid, you should thank all those whose previous bad attitudes won your present degree of freedom. Their bad attitudes echo down to us through time as the principal obstacle to your re-enslavement in the here and now.

When, in all of human history, have those with wealth and power ever willingly surrendered the tiniest crumb of it, or extended the range of freedom by a single millimeter, merely because in the goodness of their hearts they thought it would be a nice thing to do? Have the classes that own the world ever voluntarily reduced the tribute they charged to labor?

No. Throughout history, what Adam Smith called “the masters of mankind” have been motivated by a single “vile maxim”:  All for ourselves and nothing for other people. They have departed from it only in the face of resistance.  To quote Frederick Douglass, power concedes nothing without a demand.

Even when these classes were spurred by shame to moderate the scale of their own injustice, it was only because some slave, some serf, some hand in a Dark Satanic Mill overcame the “good attitude” into which the ruling classes attempted to inculcate them, and told the masters how despicable they were. It was because people with “bad attitudes” contested the values of the system’s official legitimizing ideology and said, loud and clear, “Non serviam!”

Even in history’s darkest and most brutal periods of servitude, the evil was limited in its force by the potential for resistance. The rigor of the master’s hand throughout history has been tempered, if only a little, by the fear of generating another Spartacus, another Nat Turner, another Big Bill Haywood.  The hand of power has always been limited, if nothing else, by the fact that even the most brainwashed slave will eventually say “No more!” The lowliest worm will finally turn.

So next time you hear some right-wing authoritarian express “gratitude” for all the freedoms that we’ve been “given” in this country, like we received our liberty from the beneficence of those in power, remember these words from Rudolf Rocker:

“Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather forced upon them from without. … They do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace. …  All political rights and liberties which people enjoy today, they do not owe to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength. … Great mass movements and whole revolutions have been necessary to wrest them from the ruling classes, who would never have consented to them voluntarily.”

Freedom is never given; it is always taken. So for the fact that you’re not a slave, don’t thank those in authority.  Thank someone with a “bad attitude.”

This morning Joe was awakened by his alarm clock.  Thanks to patents, which remove incentives to interoperability and modular design, the clock was designed to be thrown away rather than repaired.  Thanks to “intellectual property” law, as well, the company was able to outsource actual production and then charge Joe a 1000% brand-name markup while paying the people who made it pennies. The clock was powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy — a regulated monopoly operating on the same cost-plus markup accounting system as most other public utilities, including the military contractors who gave us the $600 toilet seat.  Joe then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility; Joe’s water bill reflects a rate structure which provides below-cost water for large-scale industrial use and agribusiness.   Joe watched the news on the kind of legacy broadcast media described by Edward Herman, which thanks to the FCC licensing monopolies is controlled by a handful of corporate gatekeepers.

He watched it while eating his breakfast of General Mills cereal, which thanks to government subsidies was produced at some giant mill in Minneapolis, despite the fact that cereal grains are most economically milled on a small scale near the point of consumption. Joe has no idea what’s in his bacon, because the FDA (at Monsanto’s behest) prohibits labeling food as GMO-free.  Most of what he eats is loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, and what little “fresh” produce he eats is shipped from a giant plantation thousands of miles away, thanks to USDA subsidies.

Joe took pills which were declared safe under an inspection regime originally created at the behest of the drug cartel itself, the inflated costs of which serve as a useful entry barrier and thereby benefit incumbent producers.  He paid a 2000% markup on the pills thanks to government-granted patent monopolies.  Joe’s medical plan stopped paying for prescription drugs because his weak union has been making more concessions at every contract renewal.  The Wagner Act criminalized most of the really effective techniques, so unions like Joe’s are forced to fight by the bosses’ rules.

Joe drives to work on a government-subsidized highway system, built under the supervision of former auto exec Charlie “What’s Good for GM” Wilson.  Joe’s commute takes almost an hour.  Thanks to subsidized freeways and subsidized utilities to outlying developments, it’s artificially cheap to build monoculture bedroom communities far removed from where people work and shop.  And thanks to zoning laws and other regulations against mixed use development, it’s extremely costly to live near your employer or be able to walk to a neighborhood grocer.

Joe begins his workday.  He’s doing the work of a downsized person in addition to his own, the work environment is becoming increasingly hostile and authoritarian, and the micromanagement increasingly demeaning.  He finds his face sore from the fake smile he constantly displays to reassure the bosses he’s got his mind right.  He got no COLA raise last time around, and his insurance copay and deductible are higher.  (It all gets back to the union thing above).  The bosses sometimes drop hints about closing the plant down and moving to China, which is a whole lot more profitable thanks to World Bank subsidies to the road and utility infrastructure the offshore factories need, and thanks to WTO enforcement of “intellectual property” law that corporate headquarters use to maintain control of outsourced production overseas.

Joe pays his bills with legal tender created by banks, under the state-granted power to loan the medium of exchange into existence out of thin air and then charge interest on it.

After work Joe finds his kids back home from the public schools, where they’re being processed into human resources who will cheerfully take direction from some authority figure behind a desk for the rest of their lives — just like Joe does.  While they were there, the kids were taught about the wonders of Our Free Enterprise System  (suitably adjusted, of course, by government action to protect us from corporate power run amok).

When Joe goes to sleep, if he’s a conservative, he will thank the beneficent Free Market for all the good things he enjoys.  If he’s a liberal, he’ll give thanks for the interventionist state as a bulwark against unbridled corporate tyranny.  And he’ll get a night’s rest, preparing for another day of serving the unholy corporate-state alliance that rules his life from cradle to grave.