Eric Sundwall

In between the butchery in Georgia, the hikers being freed in Iran and the premiere of Dancing with the Stars, Fox and Google relented by letting former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson into tonight’ s Republican debate. While Ron Paul tends to suck all the oxygen out of the liberty tent in the GOP, the addition of Johnson will be of little impact on the race or the format. I know I’d be a bit miffed that Thadeus McCotter and Buddy Roemer weren’t included if I were a member of the Republican party.

As a political party, shouldn’t the GOP be concerned that two of there otherwise high profile members (a former Governor and three time elected Congressman) are not included by the private hosts Fox & Google. For that matter Google, the premier purveyor of information on the tubes. If there’s any question of Fox’s bias, it might be laid to rest with it’s exclusion of seeming neocons like McCotter and Buddy Roemer.

Seriously, if a former Senator or Congressman were seeking the LP nomination and C-SPAN sought to exclude them in our one moment in the Memorial Day sun, party leaders would be peeing their pants. Not only due to the exclusion, but the possibility that C-SPAN would just turn an impassive shoulder. I’m still reeling from the fact that in 2008, two Doctors of Science and two former elected officials couldn’t put their arms around the Tragedy of the Commons question poised by the moderator. It’s doubtful Christine Smith would have done better if the party let her get past the crazy token system that the party leaders came up with.

I’m for open exchange and debate, regardless of the inconvenience of the media outlet or the party elites. So’s Buddy! Go to his website and he implores you, ” Go ahead and ask Buddy a question or even tell him what’s on your mind. Buddy’s ready to talk.” I have no idea what the rest of his platform is, but somebody might care.

The gatekeepers do a lot of keeping. The lack of resistance in all ranks in th GOP, including the starry eyed Paulites, says a lot. Makes me wanna run for Prez, just to get the Tragedy of the Commons question right.

From dictionary.com:  Statism – the principle or policy of concentrating extensive economic, political, and related controls in the state at the cost of individual liberty.

The extremists who have supported government currencies and their subsequent headlong foreign interventions fancy themselves the saviors of civilization, but these myopic apparatchiks to their cousin, collectivism, may invoke the chaos they fear so much, precisely because they are control freaks of the first order.

The so called ‘order’ of the state is to demand legitimacy and enforce the proposition with the threat of violence or actual violence. Resistance is futile. One must comply to the so called rules or risk marginalization via ostracization. It’s no wonder that youthful protest often raises the black flag of anarchy in its quixotic protestations at government summits designed to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the few.

Now whether one is a nefarious banker or just an instructor at a public school, the complicity is manifest in the acceptance of the ‘state’ as the purchaser of one’s own economic security. If money is defined and manipulated by government through the machinations of a central bank and its subsequent fiat currency based on fractional reserves, then certainly extending the grand illusion of the debt ceiling makes defining order paramount. The messy facts about taxation as theft or hideously distorted reasoning about public goods theory in relation to monstrous bureaucracies is quite irrelevant if economic Armageddon is at our doorstep.

Let’s face it, tea parties are for little girls and prissy old farts. The latter have managed to ensconce the Keynesian apologists with pitiable images of so called forefathers in tri-corner hats and an almost religious fundamentalism with regard to ancient documents. The Constitution can’t save us as long as the priesthood in black robes control it.

Is the solution a demand that politicians have a grasp of Quickbooks? Anarchy is not a zero-sum game with chaos. If anything results in a condition of utter disorder it is the abuses of statism over time on the individual. A call for competing or specie based currencies is a hedge on the prevailing statism that produces the ultimate chaos, war. Since the establishment of central banking, the state has wreaked a havoc on the world that has been the progenitor of war and destruction.

Anarchy is the non-acceptance of statism. If government is not legitimate, it doesn’t follow that chaos is the solution. Voluntary human transaction, without violent conflict, happens every day. It happens without the coercion or threat of government reprisal.

Inarticulate writers like Mark Dalton may always get their pieces published when the main guy is on vacation, but it is very obvious that their capacity to look and find the articulate, alternative, visions of society is very limited. They would do well to study beyond the strictures of public institutions. I doubt very much that Mr. Dalton has ever read Mises or Rothbard, let alone some of the very new material on the subject as articulated by Crispin Sartwell or Gary Chartier.

What it does, is to infuse the average reader with a horror about something that they fully don’t understand or grasp. Fortunately, neither does the writer and further postulation and conjecture about anarchy is certainly in more capable hands.

Scholar Tom Woods recently posited a two prong piece regarding the reasons why anarchists should vote for Ron Paul.  The first component revolves around an analogy to a prison camp and the second considers voter consideration.  As a result, I kind of want to get the Ron Paul blog entry out of my system in order to have a productive year. Getting caught up in politics, movements or acting as a missionary really cramps my rural life style.

I’m probably as free as I have ever been in my life, regardless of politics. I make my way through the world being industrious at prudent moments in order to enjoy a life unencumbered by institutional malaise or organizational rot. That is, I’ve been self-employed virtually my entire adult life. I’m not licensed by the state to perform a service, nor employed by the Leviathan. I’m always thankfully that I’m not doting behind some aged academic or back stabbing department therein.  I can twist a wrench, use a shovel and configure a sophisticated computer network at will. Old houses are more than just a hobby in my world.

The question of course is why would I even vote? Many anarchists reach this conclusion based on years of study, contemplation and moral assertion. Having rejected the legitimacy of the state, they are horrified at the mechanism of their presumed oppression (voting) or the perceived notion that acting within the systems rules only encourages ‘them’.  Mostly valid presumptions in my estimation, but I have never let it stop me from writing in ‘no confidence’ at the voting booth.  Perhaps a useless, unnecessary and quixotic pursuit at best, but what it does do is shut the person up who claims I can’t complain if I didn’t vote.

For me it’s an easy stop during errands on any given election day. Small town, small wait.  And yes,  I would still say my piece regardless of whether I voted. Hell, I was on the ballot once for seven days and didn’t even vote when push came to shove on that one.  Real politics is a tough game and I can see why certain intellectual types prefer the green pastures of economic support in their think tanks, institutions and writing gigs. Makes perfect sense.

For me, politics or voting,  it is not a defensive gesture like the prison analogy and it is somewhat related to his second feature regarding the interaction of thoughts and ideas into any individuals in the polity. It also maintains a level of integrity if one claims the moral high ground of freedom and liberty in the pursuit of human actions and claims to rights or property.  Voting ‘no confidence’ or running for office as an anarchist should not be morally suspect because some claim to hypocrisy or contrition is being made.  I’ll make further outrage by claiming that while voting for Ron Paul won’t kill me, it is still a meaningless gesture from my perspective.

Presumably the first analogy about prime rib or gruel in a prison camp is a Roderick Long conception based on Rothbard’s appeal to voting as a defensive action.  You might as well vote for the least harmful choice if you’re stuck in that situation.  Who can blame the hungry otherwise unjustly kept chap like Tom Woods or Roderick Long?  Not being one of these well placed fellows in dire need of a meal, my own bumpkin instincts would question my captors about such a choice.  While my fellow inmates Woods and Long were nibbling on their prime rib and waxing philosophic about why they are not morally accountable for making such a choice, I might be eating gruel because my response would be indifference to such a choice in such a condition.

If I could not discern a motive behind this seemingly grand gesture on behalf of my captors and all things were otherwise equal, than perhaps the choice of prime rib would seem morally appropriate. But if by some unjust circumstance I had become victim to this arrangement by some absurdity or direct political attack or complaint, my compliance with any of their current or future demands or gestures would be at continual odds.  My presumption being that any effort on my part to persuade captors of my innocence, worth as a free man or victimization of the aforementioned absurdity has fallen on deaf ears.

Thus my indifference to their seemingly noble gesture would have grounds.  Shear resistance to every command or action that continued to keep me in that state of being.  If I can’t be free, no food no matter how tasty or necessary would go down easy.  Yes, I would eat, but only at the pleasure of my captors. Thus and thus, I would not make the decision, my captor would.

In regards to the second posit by Woods, sure I’m hoping everybody saw the value in Paul’s anti-war message and the real ratcheting of the understanding of the Federal Reserve. All other hyper-micro affiliation with every other issues important to the average statist doesn’t really concern me.  I’m happily registered Libertarian and will be happy to commit time and money to that end. I’m not registered Republican and can’t vote in their primary. By the time it gets to NY it’s usually over and the Democrat always wins the Electoral College anyway.  I’d rather place my sympathies in a third party with the continual focus of protest , rather than fleeting attempts in the main parties.  I don’t have much interest in the pluralistic engagement of ideas that so many anarchists proffer in their own ideological process.  I’ve read most of the important pieces and feel adequately informed with the help of a website, gathering or whatever. I’ve produced public television programs, videos and was in a live television debate against a political opponent. It’s kind of all the same after a while.  And it doesn’t  get my garage built, I do.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Ron Paul.  I met him on the steps of Grand Central during the Mises 25^th anniversary, voted for him for President in 1988 and I think he understands anarchists and politics. The American Presidency is an archaic, dysfunctional institution that should be abolished immediately. But even if he were to win, let alone enjoy Wood’s double digit postulation, not much would change.  Aside from the typical accusations of laziness and ignorance on part of the voters, the choice is rarely there that comes close to approximating elimination of the most foul organization ever forced on to most of us, government.

Make peace with your daily anarchy, urge others to repress their inner thug when you can. Pick up your shield and charge windmills on occasion. But do not place all your eggs in the’ movement ‘or  ‘political’ basket.  Constant application of common sense and decency will make a better world.  I refuse to bad mouth anybody that tries to get more freedom, for themselves or others.  Nor do I have to jump on a bandwagon or pick up a megaphone.  But again, if that’s what I want to do . . . ain’t nobody’s concern but my own, until I punch ‘em in the nose.

In a world where we scramble to ditch the losers and desperately cling to the winners, it’s not clear where Julian Assange resides. Aside from his Victorian solitary and mansion hopping, not winning Time magazine’s made for the media’s end of the year coronation (the equivalent to the Dos Equis pitchman) , is no loss. In a world that suffered the demise of a peace prize after awarding it to President Wilson, at least we should take stock that at least he sought the consent of Congress before committing Americans to the war to end all wars. While the alluded to award this year went to a dissident statist confined by a regime built on Maoisms and the ancestral belief that dinosaur bones were from dragons, the concussion of the last round of releases from Wiki-leaks far surpasses any screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. It’s great to swap funny videos and let people know when the groceries are home, but a weird accent justifying the truth about global hatred and violence makes a better movie.

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