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 THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 537, September 20, 2009 "I have a big question for neoconservatives: what's worse, a 9/11 truther or a 9/11 liar?"
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Dear Editor, Thank you for publishing Ian Titter's latest. It was much better than his earliest essay. Ian writes, "L. Neil Schulman's book Alongside Night gives a positive view of this path, but getting a Revolutionary Agorist Cadre going and keeping it secure while making it pay its own way would be a struggle." Well, actually, it was J. Neil Schulman. See alongsidenight.com for details. An Agorist Cadre has been formed at Cadre.ag for starters. "Cell organization, encrypted communications, internet advertising and anonymous servers together with mail-drops and private delivery services are needed. A banking and financial system based on precious metals instead of fiat currency (and based off-shore where confiscation is more difficult) is slowly being assembled and developed. The more of us that use these, the better they will tend to become," writes Ian. All these things exist, though it would be a mistake to call any part of them "banking." Banking is a protected term the state uses to impose fiat money inflation and provide benefits to cronies. They tend to be jealous of the word. The best sized cell is one. After all, the individual is the quantum unit of economic energy. And if you have no people, there is no one to betray you. Ben Franklin explained this point some centuries ago by saying "three may keep a secret, if two are dead." Ian writes, "I think we need to develop an open-source Artificial Intelligence system useable by individuals." I don't. I think we need to avoid mistakes like hot fusion and artificial intelligence. For my entire life, these have both been "about forty years away" and some billions of dollars were to be spent each of those years pursuing them. I don't believe artificial intelligence is a processing power or calculation speed thing. Neurons seem to operate as antennae for cross-narrative information sharing in ways that quantum computing is just now experimenting with. I completely disagree about the Free State Project and Free State Wyoming. These are statist projects and thoroughly about the state. The fact that free people have moved to both NH and WY and are doing freedom-oriented projects of merit in each place isn't an endorsement of the statist, "let's take over the government" nonsense pushed by the ideologues at the center of each movement. Jason Sorens has written effusively about a military contractor company locating in NH, for example, to my particular disgust. While it is true that people are getting together to participate in freedom projects in NH and WY, they are also doing so elsewhere. It isn't clear to me that putting all your eggs in one basket is a good idea, any more than defending a fixed position is a workable military strategy. It failed for the men at the Alamo, it failed at Vicksburg, it failed at the Maginot Line and at the Siegfried Line, and it failed the Branch Davidians. Fixed fortifications are monuments to the folly of mankind. I'm not confident that the 20,000 or so earlier residents of Keene, NH actually want any liberty activists among them. I'm also not sure that joining their crowd is a good part of advancing the cause of agorism. Many of the people who joined Ed Brown have since been prosecuted and imprisoned, for example. On the gripping hand, the technologies now available make agorism available everywhere that communications technology is available, and that is essentially everywhere on the planet. Carrier pigeons, satellites, or what have you, it is all good. One place that has come to some recent attention in the digital gold community is Russia. The tremendous number of bank failures about 1998 has caused a great many persons in Russia to be "un-banked." Accordingly, there are lots of systems for dealing with money without banking gangsters involved. One might do well to research those issues and think about applying their techniques elsewhere. DGC Magazine should have the story in a recent or forthcoming issue. "The Nation-State cannot survive in its present form," is correct, but no artificial intelligence is needed. The state is already obsolete, but that doesn't mean it cannot crush many individuals in its death throes. "What use is gun control if every basement workshop has the capacity to produce a working firearm any time a home hobbyist activates the requisite program?" Also correct, but there is no need for a special computer program. People in prisons build zip guns out of steel tubing and rubber bands. The STEN gun was designed to be built for about $8 using parts widely available and with minimal machining. Video games are certainly a great technology for developing agorism. They bring a lot of people together. Steganography is just begging to be used here. But the real technology developer has always been porn. Porn has done more for advancing computer, graphics, video, and audio technology, including compression, than any other industry. I'm not confident that there is any "royal road" to the end of the state. I'm pretty confident that if there is one, it doesn't involve artificial intelligence. But part of the puzzle is developing new technologies, by whatever names. The struggle continues in part because so many people are committed to the state's agenda, and use their talents and ingenuity to make the state's continued existence possible. That's true of the people working for military contractors (death merchants) and it is true of people actually in the military and government who haven't figured out how to quit, seek conscientious objector status, or refuse orders. It is probably the case that these people will get less far, in part because they are less numerous, than the rest of the world. But probability won't ever be certainty. The seemingly inevitable progress toward a society of freedom over the last 400 years is a perception supported by a great deal of evidence. But the ended and broken lives scattered all down those centuries stand as testimony (mute in some cases, screaming loudly in others) that not all of us are going to get there. Regards, Jim Davidson
Sean writes, "I am well aware of the fact that our republic isn't working... When I wrote about our republic, I was simply trying to explain how it was supposed to work in theory. I never said that a republic is an ideal form of government." No one claimed that Sean said a republic is an ideal form of government. We might be forgiven for getting the impression he thinks it is a pretty good one, though. Or maybe better than any other, like Churchill says. This tiff reminds me of the observations around government schools. Lots of people say "our" schools aren't working. The reality is that they are working very well. Amazingly well—for the ruling class, that is. Not for the rest of us, of course. This may be the source of the confusion; that we are not being explicit enough about who we are talking about when we say republics work or don't work, etc. Republics, in fact, work amazingly well—for the ruling class. The only sense that they don't work is that they don't live up to the promises the ruling class's propagandists told us they could fulfil for us. But as Susan and I have been trying to get across, it is unrealistic to believe that propaganda. It's pointless to say what republics should "theoretically" do, because that "theory" is a lie, a lie because it intentionally ignores things like self-interest and power lust. It's also just a distraction (no doubt one the state loves) to get into this republic vs direct democracy debate. Who cares which it is, or if we have some amalgam of the two? We're still being ruled. Paul Bonneau
Dear Editor, A few weeks ago you were kind enough to publish my essay about The Nude Economy. Here is further evidence that the economy is not doing so well.
See, there is not as much global trade and commerce, so all these ships stand idle. Beware the fake recovery. Regards, Jim Davidson
Cthulhu for President! Awhile back my saner avatar recommended running Burt Gummer for President. The continuing decline of America's political leadership requires that we set lower standards. I say we must support Cthulhu for President in 2012 as by then the American people should be too brain fried to handle a greater improvement over the current Government. I do not claim that this is an original thought, an organization with the website called Cthulhu.org called for his election in the 2008 cycle. However, its merit has become more obvious. The Great Old Ones are coming. Crazy Al
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