Without the state

Yet another token post...

More stuff for Etsy, originally uploaded by ibanda.

Although I aim to post something everyday, I fail more often than I succeed. My excuse this last few days is twofold.

First I hope to be moving house soon and am therefore throwing away all those things that should have been thrown away years ago, which of course takes time away from blogging.

Secon, I am doing my first craft fair on Monday, so in between throwing stuff away, I have been making more stuff to clutter up the house! I wil let you know how the day goes.

Thoreau on Civil Disobedience

The opening to Henry David Thoreau's essay Civil Disobedience.

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

 

Mill on Centralisation

I was going to post this anyway, but since today is the 200th anniversary of Mill's birth it seems appropriate to do so today.

Englishmen are accustomed to think that the nations of the Continent--and France the most conspicuously, as being in all other respects the most advanced--have been kept in a state of political infancy by over-government: that the concentration of the entire direction of national affairs in a bureaucracy has been more crushing in its effects on the character and capabilities of the nation than tyranny itself, and the main instrument by which tyranny has been established and maintained: that the government, by doing everything through its own officers, which it can possibly contrive so to do---by regulating minutely whatever it allows to be done by others, and requiring, in all cases which involve the smallest collective action, its own previous assent formally obtained, not only to the thing to be done, but to every item of the means proposed for doing it--has dwarfed not only the political, but in a great measure the entire practical, capacity of the people, and even their intellectual activity and moral aspirations in every field of mental action except pure theory.

John Stuart Mill, Centralisation, Edinburgh Review 1862

Of course, nothing like that prevails now does it? And certainly not here...

Privacy is an inherent human right

Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

[via Metafilter]

Also, from the comments, this article by David Brin on why we have already lost any serious chance at protecting it.

This is a tale of two cities. Cities of the near future, say, 20 years from now.

...

Consider City Number One. In this place, the myriad cameras report their urban scenes straight to Police Central, where security officers use sophisticated image processors to scan for infractions against the public order - or perhaps against an established way of thought. Citizens walk the streets aware that any word or deed may be noted by agents of some mysterious bureau.

Now let's skip across space and time.

At first sight, things seem quite similar in City Number Two. Again, there are ubiquitous cameras, perched on every vantage point. Only here we soon find a crucial difference. The devices do not report to the secret police. Rather, each and every citizen of this metropolis can lift his or her wristwatch/TV and call up images from any camera in town.

Here, a late-evening stroller checks to make sure no one lurks beyond the corner she is about to turn.

Over there, a tardy young man dials to see if his dinner date still waits for him by the city hall fountain.

A block away, an anxious parent scans the area and finds which way her child has wandered off.

Over by the mall, a teenage shoplifter is taken into custody gingerly, with minute attention to ritual and rights, because the arresting officer knows the entire process is being scrutinized by untold numbers who watch intently, lest his neutral professionalism lapse.

In City Two, such microcameras are banned from many indoor places ... except Police Headquarters! There, any citizen may tune in on bookings, arraignments, and especially the camera control room itself, making sure that the agents on duty look out for violent crime - and only crime.

Despite their similarities, these are very different cities. Disparate ways of life representing completely opposite relationships between citizens and their civic guardians. The reader may find both situations somewhat chilling. Both futures may seem undesirable. But can there be any doubt which city we'd rather live in, if these two make up our only choice?

Alas, they may be our only options. For the cameras are on their way, along with data networks that will send myriad images flashing back and forth, faster than thought.

Iran: Consequences of a War

Via Ken McLeod this worrying article about possible US plans for an attack on Iran. A more rigorous analysis of the consequences from the Oxford Research Group here.

An attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would signal the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably grow to involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, as well as the USA and Iran. The report concludes that a military response to the current crisis in relations with Iran is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further.

Alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be.

As for what is currently going on:

Two air-craft carriers are already en route to the region, RAW STORY has found. The USS Abraham Lincoln, which recently made a port call in Singapore, and the USS Enterprise which left Norfolk, Virginia earlier this month, are headed for the Western Pacific and Middle East. The USS Ronald Reagan is already operating in the Gulf.

As for what that means:

The Reagan may be rotating out soon, ..., then again it may not.

Now, I was hoping to learn that the carriers could support an attack on Iran from outside the Gulf, since then the only reason to move the carriers into the Gulf would be intimidation value. However, it appears that the combat radius of the F/A-18s that form the bulk of our carrier strike forces have a range of only 290 nautical miles. Iran’s a pretty big country, so you’d want to get relatively close to bomb interior targets from a carrier.

So, watch the Reagan. If it rotates away from the Gulf in the next couple or few weeks, it’s all business as usual. Otherwise, there’s a buildup, and maybe war.

Everything I want to do is illegal"

Our whole culture suffers from an industrial food system that has made every part disconnected from the rest. Smelly and dirty farms are supposed to be in one place, away from people, who snuggle smugly in their cul-de-sacs and have not a clue about the out-of-sightout-of-mind atrocities being committed to their dinner before it arrives in microwaveable, four-color-labeled, plastic packaging. Industrial abattoirs need to be located in a not-in-my-backyard place to sequester noxious odors and sights. Finally, the retail store must be located in a commercial district surrounded by lots of pavement, handicapped access, public toilets and whatever else must be required to get food to people.

The notion that animals can be raised, processed, packaged, and sold in a model that offends neither our eyes nor noses cannot even register on the average bureaucrat’s radar screen — or, more importantly, on the radar of the average consumer advocacy organization. Besides, all these single-use megalithic structures are good for the gross domestic product. Anything else is illegal.

We are in much the same position in the UK as far as abattoirs go, but so far I think we have managed to avoid some of the other idiocies recounted in this article - although for how long I wonder? (via Kevin Carson) Obsessive concerns for 'public safety' are beginning to reach levels that would I think horrify the original factory reformers of the Victorian era. A C Grayling puts it well (via Samizdata):

Motivating the illiberal policy of Blairishness is a huge and poisonous fallacy. It is that the first duty of government is the security of the people. This is a dangerous untruth. If it really were true then we should all be locked into a fortress behind the thickest walls of steel and concrete, and kept still and quiet in the dark, so that we can come to no harm. Or the government should be prepared to allow us to stay home behind drawn curtains, and to pay our mortgages and deliver our groceries under armed guard, to protect us form venturing into the streets where (so government fear-mongering might have us believe) thousands of bomb-carrying lunatic fanatics lurk.

Thus would we maximise safety - but even then not 100%. That a life of maximum security would be no life for anyone, and a practical impossibility to boot, is surely a commonplace truth: it reminds us, if we needed reminding (though Mr Blair obviously does) that to live is to venture, in every respect. Yes, the government should be active and do its best to safeguard the populace, but consistently with the truth that life is risky, and that freedoms are more precious than safety.

I thought this comment to Grayling's article summed it up superbly:

Blair's Britain and its values. It's Sinagapore, with dirtier streets and worse weather.

More reasonableness...

Apropos this and this we now have The Da Vinci Code Response Group (and others).  There seems no end to this idiocy so I'm now thinking of starting up a Theism response group, with the aim of providing a coordinated media response to the various clerics and other pious bigots who try to tell us all - oh so politely - what we should be allowed to see and think. Ophelia Benson does a good job of taking apart many of these nut jobs on things like Intelligent Design, but perhaps we need a Religion watch group blog. Any takers? (or perhaps there is one).

State Socialism and Anarchism

From State Socialism and Anarchism, Benjamin Tucker

There are two Socialisms.
One is communistic, the other solidaritarian.
One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.
One is metaphysical, the other positive.
One is dogmatic, the other scientific.
One is emotional, the other reflective.
One is destructive, the other constructive.
Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all.

Attempts to delineate the idea that there is such a thing as libertarian socialism on sites such as Samizdata are usually met with derision. Tucker, one of the heroes of the US libertarian movement, clearly thought otherwise.

Free Trade

Real free trade policy, on the other hand, doesn't require multilateral bureaucracies like the WTO. It simply requires eliminating U.S. trade barriers, and allowing Americans to trade or invest anywhere they want to in the world on whatever terms they can negotiate--provided that they also internalize all costs and risks of doing business overseas, without the U.S. government subsidizing their operating costs, insuring them against nationalization by hostile governments, and suchlike. It's that simple.

...or the British, French, Chinese governments, or the EU, the WTO...

I liked this quote too...

it's disingenuous for sweatshop employers to congratulate themselves on providing crutches to destitute Third World laborers when they've colluded with government in breaking their legs in the first place.

Virtual taxes

If like me you are not into on-line gaming this article in Legal Affairs may seem a bit irrelevant. Don't you believe it! Read on and see what the IRS in the US wants to tax...

"If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner"

The idea that transactions in an online game should have a real world impact is weird enough, but that the government should then what a slice is bizarre. Since it appears that the IRS tax barter transactions of the kind carried out in LETS schemes across the UK, however I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.

You can be sure that what the IRS does now, our own wonderful Inland Revenue under Mr Brown's gentle guidance will be thinking about for tomorrow...

[Edited 15-05-06 for clarity and typos]