Mont Order English Vol 1

We Do Need a Great Reset — and a Different Burden of Proof

Thomas L. Knapp — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 19:39:38 GMT

World Economic Forum Great Reset Dialogue virtual summit | Kigali, 21 October 2020 | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License

In 2020, the world’s political and economic elites gathered in Switzerland to discuss ways of restructuring society after the COVID-19 pandemic. The occasion: The 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, themed “The Great Reset.”

That meeting and its theme give rise to a number of novel theories — we’re all going to be micro-chipped for constant tracking in a “social credit system” operated by a single world government, etc. — and in our 21st century authoritarian age, it’s hard to blame anyone for fearing moves in that direction.

In my view, the World Economic Forum isn’t just thinking in the wrong direction, it isn’t thinking big enough. It’s far too constrained in its goals, which revolve around bringing the world’s regimes into closer conformity with each other and with the United Nations on issues like taxes, regulations, and the bugbear du jour, climate change.

To put it a different way, The Great Reset is about finding ways to make it easier for the same people who’ve been running things for the last 400 years — since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, when the modern “nation-state” model we live under came into existence — to remain in charge, doing the same things they’ve been doing, with even less inconvenient dissent from uppity serfs, forever and ever, amen.

In my opinion, we need a far Greater Reset than that. It’s time to tear the whole Westphalian Model down to its component parts — from its shearing of the public as sheep with taxation, to its periodic large-scale military and political holocausts, to its technocratic mismanagement and “sovereignty” disputes — and demand that those parts justify themselves or be discarded.

As a panarchist, one of the most amusing demands I run into is that I prove how, without monopoly government in the form it exists now, we wouldn’t run into the problem of … well, insert any major problem we already have.

They’ve had 400 years to solve Problem X, and haven’t. Where Problem X is concerned, the burden of proof should be on them to prove how their solution is going to suddenly, magically start working when it never has before, not on me to prove that an untried alternative will solve what they haven’t.

I don’t expect to see a free society in my lifetime, but four centuries seems like a more than generous trial period for the Davos Crowd’s alternative. It’s time to get moving toward A Greater Reset.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Collins Emails Spotlight Bureaucracy’s Attempted Subjugation of Science and Scientists

Thomas L. Knapp — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:44:24 GMT

Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya at the American Institute for Economic Research, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Photo by Taleed Brown. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

On December 17, the US House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a series of emails between outgoing National Institute of Health Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In the emails, Collins refers to the authors of something called “The Great Barrington Declaration” as “fringe epidemiologists” and states his desire for “a quick and devastating published takedown” of its premises.

Collins defended his characterization and call for action on Fox News Sunday, telling host Bret Baier that “hundreds of thousands of people would have died” if the Declaration’s recommendations (strong measures for the protection of the elderly and otherwise vulnerable, leaving the rest of us to achieve herd immunity through widespread infection) had been followed.

I’m reminded of something William F. Buckley, Jr. said about the 1964 presidential election, which US Senator Barry Goldwater lost to President Lyndon Baines Johnson: “They told me if I voted for Goldwater we’d be at war in Vietnam in six months and I did and we were.”

I supported the Great Barrington Declaration — and hundreds of thousands died. Not because US policymakers implemented the Declaration’s recommendations, but either because of, or in spite of, US policymakers following the recommendations of Collins, Fauci, and others.

The question isn’t which set of recommendations would have produced better outcomes. It’s whether science should be reduced to the status of handmaid to bureaucratic diktat, with scientists whose findings don’t support that diktat marginalized through the influence of those same bureaucrats.

How “fringe” are the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration?

Sunetra Gupta is a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the University of Oxford. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Princeton and a PhD from Imperial College London (her doctoral thesis title: “Heterogeneity and the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases”).

Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University, where he’s earned four degrees, including an MD.

Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, with a bachelor of science from Sweden’s Umea University in mathematical statistics and a PhD from Cornell in operations research. He sits on scientific advisory committees for the US Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control.

Agree with their recommendations or not, neither their credentials nor their policy positions qualify as “fringe” by any reasonable definition. Their only real offense was disagreeing, on what they considered relevant scientific grounds, with policies advocated by Francis Collins.

“Francis Collins has spoken” was neither good science nor a good up-or-down test for determining the quality of public policy recommendations. Freedom of scientific inquiry and unconstrained public discussion of the alternatives are too important to sacrifice on the altar of technocracy.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

If You Want More of Something, Subsidize It (Population Edition)

Thomas L. Knapp — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 17:43:50 GMT

World Population Growth 1700-2100. Max Roser. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

“There’s scientific consensus, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in a 2019 livestream on climate change, “that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?”

Less than three years later, AOC’s mad at US Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) for suggesting that perhaps Congress limit itself to one or two, rather than three, federal subsidies (from among a child tax credit, paid leave, or “universal” child care) in its multi-trillion dollar spending bill.

Ditto Bernie Sanders, who in 2019 indicated his support for population control to fight climate change, but in 2021 pronounces himself “delighted” by the expanded child tax credit and thunders that “we must now either make this Child Tax Credit expansion permanent or, at least, extend it for a number of years.”

I’m agnostic on the relationship between population and climate change, but I can’t help notice a contradiction when prominent progressives who claim to believe that overpopulation is a problem simultaneously support paying Americans to have more kids.

And that’s exactly what schemes like the child tax credit come down to. It’s a time-worn truism: If you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less of something, penalize it.

True, those same progressives generally support using foreign aid to subsidize “family planning” elsewhere, but if overpopulation is the concern, that amounts to bailing water out of the bow of the boat and pouring it into, rather than off, the stern. At best.

At worst … well, paying rich white people to breed and paying poor black and brown people not to sounds like something I’d expect to hear from a Tucker Carlson guest panel on “replacement theory.”

In addition to being agnostic on the relationship between population growth and climate change, I’m agnostic on the desirability or undesirability of population growth as such.

Assuming certain conditions — conditions which prevail in the United States, where contraception is inexpensive and widely available — it seems to me that population growth is largely self-regulating.

The costs of having children correlate strongly with the conditions affected by population. Prices will reflect food aplenty, or not enough. Childcare will be easily found and inexpensive, or scarce and costly. Wages will be high and unemployment low, or vice versa. More or fewer people will choose to become parents based on those conditions.

Government subsidies in either direction disrupt the complex but largely rational operations of that “market.” To at least some degree, they encourage having children when conditions say not to and discourage it when conditions say to go ahead.

Lowering taxes for everyone would be better policy than spending tax money on encouraging, or discouraging, parenthood.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

No, President Biden, We’re Not Your “Customers”

Thomas L. Knapp — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 20:43:59 GMT

The Internal Revue Service before “customer service improvements.” Public domain.

“Today,” the White House announced on December 13, “the President is taking decisive action to promote fiscal stewardship by improving the Government’s service delivery to its customers, the American people.” Joe Biden’s latest executive order “includes 36 customer experience (CX) improvement commitments across 17 Federal agencies.”

Portraying government as a business and you as its “customer” ranks right up there with “the consent of the governed” on the list of fictions contrived to confer “legitimacy” on an institution that does its best to run every aspect of your life, at your expense, whether you consent or not.

Let’s have a look at some of the “customer experience improvements” on offer in the new executive order.

First up, the Internal Revenue Service. Income tax filers, we’re told, “will save time by having the option to schedule customer support call-backs,” and get “new online tools and services to ease the payment of taxes.”

The IRS isn’t a store selling you a product or service. It’s a protection racket that takes money from you whether you care to “do business” with it or not, on pain of fine or imprisonment for declining. If this is “customer service,” so is a mugger assisting you in getting your wallet out of your pants pocket.

How about the State Department? “Americans will be able to renew their passports securely online, saving time from having to wait and the effort and cost required to print, go to a post office, and use a paper check.”

You’re required to beg the government for permission to travel, and fork over a bribe to get that permission, but hey, now you can beg and pay (the second time, anyway) online! Wow, what a deal!

Some of these “customer service improvements” do run in the other direction, making it easier to request access to some of the money taken from you over the years with or without your consent.

For example, online tools for collecting Social Security benefits that come nowhere close to the return an indexed mutual fund would have provided had you been permitted to choose your own retirement plan. You’re not Social Security’s “customer.” Customers get to choose with whom they do business with and on what terms.

Some of these “customer service improvements” may be real experiential improvements for you over previous methods, but they don’t magically make you into a “customer.” They just make government’s constant victimization less unpleasant.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Cryptocurrency and the Shocking Revelation That White Supremacists Like Money

Thomas L. Knapp — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 16:57:05 GMT

Art by Flying Logos. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

“White supremacists embraced cryptocurrency early in its development, ” Michael Edison Hayden and Megan Squire report at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog, “and in some cases produced million-dollar profits through the technology, reshaping the racist right in radical ways.”

I have no doubt the claim is true. What’s also true is a note several paragraphs into the piece: “Nothing is inherently criminal or extreme about it, and most of its users have no connections to the extreme far right. ”

You’re not going to hear much about that angle on the story in mainstream media reports on the topic, though. Political coverage of cryptocurrency tends more toward cultivating moral panic — arousing the public to fright whether the facts justify that concern or not — than about care with such inconvenient facts.

Having mined out the moral panics over cryptocurrency being used by drug dealers and human traffickers, it was certain beyond doubt that the next step would be tarring Bitcoin and its siblings and children with the brush of racism and antisemitism (and trying to dip libertarianism in that tar as well). NBC News gets right to work on the matter, quoting report co-author Squire:

“Crypto looked to [the far right] like an interesting toy and a way of being in charge of their money and not having to use central banking. Then when you layer the antisemitism, on top of that, as in ‘the banks are controlled by the Jews,’ it makes a lot of sense why these early adopters, these libertarian-styled guys, would get involved in Bitcoin so early.”

Just to be clear, libertarianism is neither inherently “right-wing” (I’m a left-libertarian myself) nor has anything whatsoever to do with anti-semitism. Many of libertarianism’s foremost framers and thought leaders, from Ludwig von Mises to Ayn Rand to Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard, have been Jews, and the Libertarian Party’s platform “condemn[s] bigotry as irrational and repugnant.” Libertarians dislike government currencies and central banking because we like freedom, not because we hate Jews.

One attractive feature of cryptocurrency is that it reduces interference from intermediaries who might not want to do business with marginalized groups, and from governments persecuting those groups. It doesn’t care whether those groups are good or bad, loved or hated, socially accepted or socially ostracized.

That doesn’t just include drug dealers, or human traffickers, or child pornographers, or racists. It includes immigrants who need an easy way to send money home. It includes adult, consensual sex workers whose incomes and assets remain under constant threat from the police. It includes anyone who’d like a little privacy, please.

Nor is cryptocurrency unique in that respect. You know what else all of the groups I just named use? Cash. Yes, all those people use the same little green pieces of paper you probably keep in your own wallet for times when the fast food joint’s debit card terminal is down.

Cryptocurrency is money that doesn’t care who you are. It just does its job. And that’s a good thing.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Censorship as an Investment: Turn Two Cents Into $311,562!

Thomas L. Knapp — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 17:20:00 GMT

Press Freedom Index 2021, by NordNordWest. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

Writing at Antiwar.com, Natylie Baldwin reports on letters sent in October by the US Treasury Department to American writers Daniel Lazare and Michael Averko, threatening fines of up to “$311,562 or twice the value of the underlying transaction.”

The “underlying transaction” in question? Getting paid to write for a publication the US government disapproves of: The Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russian think tank sanctioned by the Treasury Department because it’s regarded as an arm of the Russian state.

Yes, you read that right: Putting in one’s two cents on current affairs (the SCF’s focus) can yield a profit of more than 1.5 million percent!

Unfortunately, that investment return runs in the wrong direction — out of the writer’s portfolio and into the US Treasury.

Although I’ve run across the Strategic Culture Foundation’s articles here and there, and recognize the names of some of the authors whose work appears on its site, I can’t claim any great familiarity with its editorial line or funding sources. For all I know, it really IS a Russian state medium associated with that regime’s intelligence service and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In other words, SCF may be the equivalent of the US government’s Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio y Television Marti, Center for Strategic and International Studies, et al.

If so, well … so what?

The First Amendment’s freedom of speech and press clauses make no exceptions for speech or writing published in foreign media, or speech or writing for which the writers or speakers are paid. Nor, the US not being at war with Russia, is there any question of, say, treason (“adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort”) involved.

Last time I checked, the US Constitution, as “Supreme Law of the Land,” outweighed Executive Order 13848, under which the Treasury Department issued its threats against Lazare and Averko.

Writing for a foreign publication, even a state-funded or -operated publication, even for money, is not a crime.

Threatening writers for doing so is a crime in both the legal and moral sense.

Since 2002, the United States has fallen from 17th place to 44th place on the Reporters Without Borders global press freedom index. Need we wonder why?

US president Joe Biden says that “a free press is essential to the health of democracy.” If he means it, he’ll forbid future use of his predecessor’s Executive Order 13848 to impose censorship under threat of financial punishment.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Elections: Is There Light at the End of the “Big Lie” Tunnel?

Thomas L. Knapp — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 16:51:59 GMT

Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes. Photo by Z thomas. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

“Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup,” Barton Gellman writes at The Atlantic. “It will rely on subversion more than violence …. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024.”

There’s nothing new about claims that an election was stolen, or is about to be. The phenomenon stretches back into the 19th century — most famously the 1876 presidential election, which was arguably stolen from Democrat Samuel J. Tilden on behalf of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.

Of the six presidential elections since 2000, at least four have generated loud claims of fraud. Democrats complained of judicial skulduggery in Florida in 2000 and voting machine rigging in 2004. In 2016, Democrats asserted “Russian meddling” to explain Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, while Trump (and Republican supporters) insisted in both 2016 and 2020 that he could only lose (and lost) if the election was “rigged.”

And, to be fair, the two major parties use ballot access laws and debate participation schemes to rig EVERY presidential election, and most other elections, to preclude the possibility of a competitive independent or third party candidacy.

Democrats are already sowing the seeds for claims of a rigged 2024 election with credible complaints about Republican efforts to, well, rig the 2024 election.

In a 2016 column, I pointed out the danger that casting doubt on election credibility represents to the United States as we know it. History is full of coups (real ones, not annoying riots), revolutions, and civil wars sparked by arguments over who gets to be in charge. America is not immune to that possibility.

But for libertarians and anarchists like me, there’s a potential up side to this growing distrust of election outcomes.

The next step after losing trust in the integrity of the election system and the honesty of the outcomes that system announces is losing trust in the idea of elections as a way to settle our differences. That could be a very good thing, as long as we don’t replace elections with monarchs or other rulers for life.

The problem with politics is not who we put in charge, or how we put them in charge. It’s THAT we put them in charge.

As military strategist Carl von Clausewitz pointed out, “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” Conversely, politics is the waging of war by other means.

Thomas Hobbes described the state of nature as “the war of all against all” and prescribed government as the cure. He got it exactly backward.

Putting something — anything, no matter how trivial — under the control of politicians amounts to declaring eternal, unceasing war over that thing.

The best solution to the perceived problems of election “rigging,” election “meddling,” etc., isn’t to resign ourselves to dictatorship, or even to seek more trustworthy elections. It’s to cut the power of government down so much that elections become too unimportant to bother “rigging” or “meddling in.”

We can have politics, or we can have peace. We can’t have both.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

All Should Be Free in America

Joel Schlosberg — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 05:01:50 GMT

George Chakiris leads the Sharks against the Jets and the State. Public domain.

Six decades later, America’s headlines could remain in “America.”

Memorials to Stephen Sondheim didn’t have to search far to find parallels between the musical West Side Story and a United States disunited by class and ethnic strife in 2021. Sondheim’s lyrics “Everywhere Grime in America, Terrible Time in America” became Jacobin‘s headline for an anniversary retrospective on the 1961 film version two weeks before his passing on November 26.

Meanwhile, current-year academic contentions that “white identity is intrinsic to Western ideas about liberty” may as well have borrowed the couplet “Life is all right in America/if you’re all-white in America.”

Less fashionable are sentiments celebrating the right to be “free to be anything you choose” nearly two decades before Milton Friedman popularized a shorter version of the phrase. In contrast to the rejoinder that this meant a mere freedom “to wait tables and shine shoes,” Friedman documented how economic restraints, rather than their absence, trapped workers in low-paying jobs and kept goods out of reach of consumers.

Sondheim’s paeans to expanded personal options were likewise echoed at the end of the 1960s in Karl Hess’s “libertarian insistence that men be free to spin cables of steel, as well as dreams of smoke.” Hess noted the emerging libertarian movement’s break with “patriots who sing of freedom but also shout of banners and boundaries.” West Side Story‘s wayward youth, faced with prejudice and legal harassment, refuse to be barred from the “sweet land of liberty” of another song named “America.”

Esquire‘s critic Dwight Macdonald saw West Side Story as replacing a “lively and disrespectful” musical style with a “schmaltzy” one at odds with urban grit. Ironically, the same Macdonald championed the cultural ferment of city-states “riven by faction, stormy with passionate antagonisms” squelched by the “uniformity and agreement” needed for “that achievement of power over other countries that is the great aim of modern statecraft.” As Hess observed in writings like Neighborhood Power, the decentralization of politics to the smallest possible scale need not result in social devolution. Freedom of choice has enough room for all of us.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a senior news analyst at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“All Should Be Free in America” by Joel Schlosberg, Anchorage, Alaska Press, December 3, 2021
“All should be free in America” by Joel Schlosberg, Kenosha, Wisconsin News, December 4, 2021
“All Should Be Free in America” by Joel Schlosberg, OpEdNews, December 7, 2021
“Six decades later, America’s headlines could remain in ‘America.'” by Thomas L. Knapp [sic], The Glasgow [Montana] Courier, December 8, 2021

Criminal Justice Reform Needs to Catch Up With the Meaning of “Public”

Thomas L. Knapp — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 05:01:36 GMT

Unknown author. Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

“Join me,” US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted on November 29, “in demanding the #GhislaineMaxwellTrial be public.”

In reply, attorney (and former Libertarian National Committee chair) Nicholas Sarwark tweeted “Is the Congresswoman unaware that all Federal criminal trials are public, as required by our Constitution?”

Mr. Sarwark is correct, but Congresswoman Greene has a point.

The Sixth Amendment specifies that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”

Traditionally, that’s been taken to mean that members of the public (and press) may plant their posteriors in seats in the courtroom and watch the proceedings. But don’t bet the ranch on even that seemingly reasonable concession to transparency. I’ve seen municipal courts get around it by filling the courtroom with a whole day’s worth of defendants, then having a bailiff stop would-be spectators outside the door, claiming there’s only room for those defendants and their attorneys.

Additionally, many courts — including US federal courts such as the one hearing the Maxwell case — either don’t allow, or only selectively allow, recording and/or broadcast of trials.

As a libertarian, I’m not big on appeals to “there ought to be a law.” Or on agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

But in this case, I do agree with her.

It’s 2021, not 1821. Allowing an artist to draw pictures, and a reporter to take notes, for publication in a newspaper is neither necessary nor sufficient to make a trial “public.”

There ought to be a law.

Not a law that applies only to sensational or controversial trials like that of Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of procuring young girls for Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual predations.

A law requiring that all trial proceedings, from the local level to the US Supreme Court, be made “public” for real.

By law, all trial proceedings should be live streamed — audio and video — to publicly accessible platforms, with links to those streams prominently posted on the web sites of the courts in which those proceedings occur.

Just as the availability of everything from tape recorders to photocopiers to social media has extended the reach of the First Amendment, cameras and live streaming platforms can expand the application, and make real the promise, of the Sixth.

Yes, controversial trials will get the most attention. But the ability to see American justice in action at all levels and without filters is a key first step toward making it truly just.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

OMG, Omicron: Next Step Down the Path From Pandemic to Endemic?

Thomas L. Knapp — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 16:13:52 GMT

Scientifically accurate atomic model of the external structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Alexey Solodovnikov (Idea, Producer, CG, Editor), Valeria Arkhipova (Scientific Сonsultant). Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

On November 24, South Africa reported detection of a new variant of the COVID-19 virus to the World Health Organization. On November 26, WHO designated it a “variant of concern” and tagged it with the name “Omicron.”

At the same time, WHO advised against travel restrictions and other knee-jerk responses to Omicron, and in favor of a “risk-based and scientific” approach, noting that it is “not yet clear” whether Omicron is more transmissible than other variants or even causes severe disease.

The US government ignored WHO’s advice, immediately banning travel from eight African countries and cranking up the latest version of COVID hysteria and hygiene theater.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and the mainstream media’s favorite administration flack/hack/quack — gleefully announced an intention to do “anything and everything” in the name of combating Omicron, but seemed crestfallen that it’s still “too early to say” whether new lockdowns or mandates are in the offing.

While most governors issued cautious “watch and wait” statements, New York’s Kathy Hochul immediately declared a state of emergency, limiting “non-urgent” hospital procedures and ordering nursing homes to make vaccine boosters available for all residents — despite seemingly having no information that the current vaccines are effective against Omicron, nor any evidence of Omicron cases in her state.

What’s missing from the above is any mention of Omicron being more deadly than prior variants of COVID-19.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first spotted the variant, tells BBC that patients so far display “extremely mild symptoms.”

While confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa rose from a seven-day average of 326 to 2,447 between October 31 and November 28, deaths have dropped from a seven-day average of 35 to two — yes, two — over the same period.

As all viruses do in the process of becoming endemic, COVID-19 is evolving in two directions: It’s getting more transmissible and less deadly. That’s how natural selection works. Viruses that kill their hosts don’t reproduce as successfully as viruses that give their hosts the sniffles.

So far, Omicron looks like it may well be the virus’s next step down the path toward becoming yet another version of “the common cold.” If so, we should be praying for its arrival on our shores. And even if not, we shouldn’t let authoritarian politicians use it as an excuse for yet another round of mass hysteria cultivated to accrue more power over our lives.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Jay Leiderman, the First Attorney of Anonymous: A Statement from Christopher Doyon, aka Commander X

raincoaster — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:23:26 GMT

Statement by Christopher Doyon aka Commander X on the death of Jay Leiderman

Dark Dot Fail: Hacked, Then Back

raincoaster — Thu, 06 May 2021 22:01:29 GMT

An exclusive interview with the admin of Darkdotfail on the man in the middle attack which stole the site for four days.

CERB Repayment Letters: A Very Murky Christmas to Everyone

raincoaster — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 23:40:15 GMT

Attention, Canadians! If you are one of the perhaps one million people who got this heart-stopping letter from the Taxman, you need to read this. Pour yourself a few fingers of the holiday spirit of your choice and realize it’s... Read More ›

Cool Covid-19 Initiative: Lifeline Tablets

raincoaster — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 06:17:36 GMT

Originally posted on #OpCovid19:
Well friends, we are deep into the Second Wave here in North America, and thus we’ve dusted off the ol’ website to bring you the news you need in These Trying Times. From the Department of…

Jeremy Hammond is free!

raincoaster — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 02:54:00 GMT

Originally posted on raincoaster:
Chelsea. w0rmer. Kahuna. t0piary. Owen. Barrett Brown. Other Anons by the score. Even Julian (for at least a bit). Freed. And now Jeremy. After eight long years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYPjWEi6pmw A year ago this week Jeremy Hammond was…

Curt notice about our sudden return

raincoaster — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 05:32:35 GMT

Help support Cryptosphere writer Curt Hopkins in his fight against The Big C.

Anonymous activist X3lj: facing a possible 18 years in jail for alleged participation in #OpCatalunya

raincoaster — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 18:15:46 GMT

Originally posted on hacktivist culture:
An alleged hacker from Vila-rodona, accused of having illegally accessed a total of 41 websites of different bodies and entities, faces a sentence of 18 years in prison for five continuing crimes of unauthorized access,…

DIY Plague Doctor Mask Instructions

raincoaster — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 20:19:41 GMT

Make yourself a funky and effective plague doctor mask, with or without optional virus-grade filter via DIY Plague Doctor Mask Instructions

Bernie, Trump Fans: Sorry, Labor is Over With

noreply@blogger.com — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 21:58:00 GMT

[Published in the Daily Caller, March 22, 2016]

Bernie and Trump fans, I have bad news.

The one idea you all have in common is really terrible, backward, and misinformed.

It’s the idea that all those jobs we “sent to China” can be imported back to the U.S. and that we can just employ millions of unskilled laborers with profitable production jobs like it’s 1955 again.

Here’s the really tough part for you: the period in history you are nostalgic for was a fleeting moment in time and can never be recreated no matter how badly you want it. And that’s a good thing.

The truth is the U.S. economy has moved on… becoming bigger, better, more productive… and creating far more for less than it did 40 years ago.

This is really the goal of human civilization: making all of our lives easier, cheaper, wealthier by making marginal improvements in productivity over time. And we’ve really knocked it out of the park: Food, clothing and shelter have been steadily declining in cost for more than 80 years.

That kind of productivity helps everyone. The fact that even the poorest in the U.S. have to pay a declining fraction of their income on food and other basic commodities is a triumph of economics.

But there’s always tradeoffs: as we’ve gotten better at producing things, the value of unskilled labor has plummeted. Over the last 35 years the labor share of the workforce has declined significantly.

Those jobs are just no longer valuable. That’s why this chart is a thing:

You can’t magically make unskilled labor “worth more” by mandating a $15 wage or pressuring companies to return their labor force to the U.S. Even if those jobs came back, they’d be automated within a few years to save costs and maintain productivity.

Bernie fans, it’s important that you understand that companies aren’t evil for doing this. To survive in a globalized marketplace they have to compete with companies from around the world with lower labor costs. Everyone has to adjust.

Trump fans, it’s important you understand that China is not evil for using those jobs to lift their population out of unfathomable poverty. As China’s own productivity and standard of living improve, many of those jobs will likely to be turned over to automation as well.

The demand for unskilled labor isn’t what it was 40 years ago… and in 40 years it will probably be worth far, far less as developing economies grow to compete with our own.

But there’s good news: the workers remaining in the productive labor force will probably be making more than $15 an hour… because they’ll all be engineers and technicians.

So please, abandon this “make wage labor great again” idea. It’s objectively terrible. Most economists are against Bernie’s minimum wage plan, and early experiments in cities like Seattle have caused massive spikes in unemployment. Applied nationally, this idea would plunge us back into a recession and boomerang back against the people you’re trying to help.

If you want to find creative ways to make education and job training more affordable, that’s a legitimate policy talk we can have. But a $15 wage for people with no real skills is not a great idea.

I know everyone is nostalgic for the day when America ruled the roost, when all the jobs were here and other countries stuck to subsistence farming and you could support a family even if you had no actual skills. Nostalgic nationalism is the central theme of the malcontent populists who are dominating the narrative this election cycle. Every time Trump talks about “making America great again”, and Bernie longs for the days when the top marginal tax rate was over 90%, they’re asking us to return to 1950’s America.

Those days are over, and you are not entitled to the employment of your choice. But the good news is that if you agree to do work that people value, there will always be money to make for you. Nostalgic populism will never “fix” America. It’s time to move on.

Response to Marcella Atzori: Can the Blockchain Provide Governance?

noreply@blogger.com — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 17:27:00 GMT

It’s only been around for a few hundred years and democracy has already bred distrust of its institutions and discontent with its processes all over the globe. Pew research data shows public trust in government in the U.S. has been steadily declining for more than fifty years. Polls in Europe show increased suspicion of the EU. Around the globe, trust in government among the general population has fallen to all-time lows, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer; Edelman called their 2015 results “an evaporation of trust across all institutions.”

The paradox becomes more evident with time: despite the fact that information has never been more accessible, the global population wealthier, or violence less prevalent in the 100,000 year history of modern man– something is clearly wrong with how we run things. Separatist movements are multiplying across the globe in the wealthiest and poorest countries. Angry malcontents are so numerous they are sending reality TV stars and fringe candidates hurtling toward high office just to do something to alleviate their angst.

And yet, the perpetually sinking ship of democratic governance hobbles along, bailing out the hull just enough to keep it afloat, simply for lack of a better alternative. Scholars seem to be at a loss to explain such widespread discontent when by most measures, the human condition has been only improving over the last century. We should consider then, that innovation may be the lifeblood of political culture, just as vital as it is in business, science, and the arts.

Democracy has been without new and inspiring ideas for the last fifty years. As conservative and progressive impulses have settled into an unquiet equilibrium, both grow increasingly discontent. The “Democracy” we all have been brought up to worship has become cliché, despite its great accomplishments. How is this possible?

Governments exist to protect the three natural rights, according to John Locke: Life, liberty and estate. But as economies grow more complex and interconnected, and populations put increasing demand on centralized bureaucracies to smooth out every sort of social ill, bureaucracies are inevitably seized up by their own inefficiency.

This inefficiency is a feature, however, not a bug. The state is functioning exactly as it was designed: its best asset (stability) is the flip side of its worst (inertia). It resists change in the worst and best of circumstances, and especially when competing political winds attempt in vain to sway it in one direction or the other. When the government inevitably fails to deliver on voter desires, there is no alternative but to live with it.

We should consider the possibility that governments have run up against the limits of their abilities to effectively satisfying the conflicting demands of their respective voting populations. This may be because government as a concept has reached the end of its rope as an innovator of solutions. New solutions are necessary to solve this problem, and only the blockchain technology is providing real possibilities.

At a minimum, government must provide a fair and transparent system for redressing grievances, managing resources and defending the rights of those who have invested in it. As modern democracies fail at their most basic tasks– alternatives are taking root.

The Historical Fallacy in Action

This brings us to a questionable academic paper by Marcella Atzori of the University of Nicosia on the plausibility of blockchain governance. In brief, Atzori claims that an abandonment of traditional nation states in favor of blockchain governance would reduce our civilization to a loosely connected network of rapacious mini-societies ruled by elite coder warlords that only worship wealth.

The argument is not well supported and most of her fawning over legacy government processes pitiable, but we should give credit where it’s due. Atzori has clearly taken the time to understand the technological issues surrounding Bitcoin and the promise of blockchain technology. She also deserves credit for not trying to scare the reader with the impenetrable language typical of academic writing. But her paper is not real academic work; it’s full of Bernie Sanders-esque proselytizing that too often sounds more like a stump speech than a fair and reasonable critique of the theories that underpin Bitnation or Bitcoin. Just the same, she brings up some common criticisms of Bitnation that deserve addressing.

At the center of her argument–like most arguments against both Bitcoin and blockchain governance– is the shameless deployment of the “historical fallacy.” Historians try to explain how things like governments and currencies arose primarily by examining qualities of the finished product, then inferring that the qualities they value most must have been necessary to its development and function. In this case, she claims politics is the only answer to mankind’s problems, and blockchain governance is unworkable simply because it is not political:

Nonetheless, why such a society is all but perfect? Simply because it is incomplete: it is still primitive or pre-political. Indeed, in this phase individuals are not citizens yet: in spite of the sophisticated technologies they may use to create contractual arrangements, they are still living in a state of nature, in which the law of might – or the laws of the market – prevails on common good. In this new-tribal scenario, frictions and conflicts will eventually rise between different networks and interest-bearers at local and global level, needing negotiation and compromise to reach a stable peace. If well-intentioned to avoid mutual abuse of power, groups may create a non-aggression pact to refrain from violence and seek peaceful solutions in case of conflict… This non-aggression pact can be gained through consensus and represents a formal move from the state of nature towards the establishing of civil society. And nonetheless, as Bobbio recalled, reaching consensus is not sufficient and it does not solve conflicts: indeed, the observation of this pact is not ensured in any way and it is not protected from external, opposing forces. As a result, society is still quite unstable, dispersed and agonistic [sic].

That last sentence easily describes the current state of affairs in virtually every nation state in the world, not least of all, the United States and most of Europe. We have clear evidence that democracy and the nation state model is insufficient in solving serious political disagreements, with enforcement inconsistent, unduly harsh against minorities, and subject to the whims of self-interested elites. State-based coercion has failed to live up to her standards.

But the most important question for blockchain advocates is not whether political coercion is necessary to maintain social order, but whether the right to govern must be 1) tied to certain geographical boundaries 2) exclusive to a single authority within those boundaries. There doesn’t seem to be any real principle governing how this works in today’s society that the blockchain technology cannot handle.

Traditionally, someone offering what we call “governance services” needed to meet certain conditions within the polity before their service can be considered reliable and legitimate:

They must be able to ensure that services can be fairly distributed
They must be able to ensure that services will be universally recognized
They must be able to ensure that services will be worth the price
They must ensure that there is a process for changing the rules and services as needed

Perhaps the biggest challenge is universality. Governments can ensure through coercion that their services are universally recognized. The dollar’s value, for example, is enforced by American guns, as is its legal system, identification system, etc. Without universal recognition of your marriage or birth certificate, so the convention goes, you have a mess when it comes to leveraging those documents to procure other resources.

But is monopolistic power really critical to universal acceptance? We know that the international system is still anarchic: when you travel abroad, a foreign country accepts your passport, a method of identification from an identity verification system they are not intimately familiar with and are not generally coerced into accepting. They trust it because they trust that the institution that has certified your identity has a rigorous identification process and a system by which your reputation can be discerned. So basic observation indicates that it is not coercive authority, but reliability and predictability that ensure official information can be trusted.

Governments have historically been the trusted verifier and issuer of identification and transaction information simply because they were the best positioned to offer those services to the public. When private companies do offer some identification or reputation service, such as a credit bureau, it is usually to a specific market for a specific reason. They don’t offer the broad range of services the government are able to with redistributed tax dollars. If a competitor is to offer such services, they must be permanently reliable: i.e., they can’t just go bankrupt and lose your birth certificate or marriage record. They have to be able to maintain accessibility to the records regardless of market volatility. They also must have a universally recognized and widely trusted process for determining your identity and they must be around as long as the document is guaranteed to be valid (in the case of licenses) or forever (in the case of birth records) to vouch for you.

The blockchain protocol may be the first technology that checks all of the boxes required of government identity, legal, notarial and reputation services. Once the information is online, it exists forever on the network. It has a rigorous verification process that is virtually impossible to crack once the network reaches a certain critical mass. It can record births, marriages, deaths, property ownership, business contracts and a variety of other records traditionally created and held by governments. The identities of individuals on the network can be established definitively through their unique “signatures”, and in turn, those individuals can sign and verify transactions (say, the attending physician at your birth, or the priest officiating your wedding). Instead of a government official acting as notary or other trusted third party verifier, the consensus of a blockchain’s “miners” or other verifiers takes on that role.

Blockchain Aspirations Overly “Deterministic?”

Atzori condemns blockchain advocates as “deterministic” in their enthusiasm for the transformative power of technology, while employing some deterministic logic of her own:

In the end, the natural need of security and the necessity to avoid fragmentation of social efforts lead [sic] individuals to establish a permanent point of control, a neutral Third Party to which [sic] delegate the responsibility of maintaining order, coordinate activities and resolve [sic] future conflicts in a legitimate way, through a pactum subjectionis (submission to organized coercion). That moment is crucial and marks the emergence of the idea of State, which can be deemed as a product of logical thought – as also Kant claimed – rather than an historical event.

Atzori claims that because the nation state exists, it must not be just one of many forms of potential human organization but the inevitable result of logic itself; as though no other way to protect human rights or organize human affairs could have ever been possible.

Most anarchists are familiar with counterarguments to this claim: the locally-administered anarchic systems that governed Iceland in the middle ages are one popularly attested counter-example. I won’t get into anarchist theory here, but there are theoretical possibilities with blockchain technology worth addressing.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of an anarchist society is creating legal systems that are broadly considered fair and reliable. In a sense, the world is already a web of competing legal and governance systems, just tied to geographic territories. But is there a value in creating a virtual governance system that is not tied to geographical boundaries? Is it even possible to offer such a thing without a monopoly on coercion?

According to attorney Pamela Morgan of empoweredlaw.com, one way to prove provenance while circumventing coercion may lie in the presence of the “timestamp” in the blockchain protocol. One of the reasons government has been expected to provide identification and property ownership services is it considered sufficiently impartial that it would not lie or cheat to favor one citizen’s interests over another with respect to provenance for land rights, for example. The timestamp removes the need for this level of trust in a person or organization. The transaction’s date and time cannot be tampered with, and thus can serve as the final arbiter in the event of a duplicated or fraudulent transaction, even across different blockchains.

The blockchain protocol also has some advantages over traditional government services, including very a high degree of transparency, low overhead/transaction costs, and a high degree of accessibility. The system is also highly stable with just enough flexibility to ensure systemic changes can be made if they are very necessary. Unlike a nation state government, it doesn’t require an army of bureaucrats to maintain. It cannot be bribed or blackmailed and it will never make you wait hours in line or slap you with arbitrary fees and fines in order to boost revenue. This makes it a great alternative to traditional services.

What if many blockchains exist simultaneously? Couldn’t there be conflicting information for the same identity? Yes. However, it won’t likely matter much. First of all, without a barrier to entry, any user can join any blockchain just by downloading freeware so he or she can check identities wherever they exist. Second, if there is conflicting reputational or transactional information, users will eventually even out the differences through regular activity across networks, with larger, more utilized networks, having higher value, predominating.

Think of blockchains as competing information marketplaces. Like with prices in exchanges in a competitive marketplace, the information that is freely available to all will tend to even out over time, making arbitrage more difficult. So the reputational arbitrage that scammers may attempt on various blockchains will get increasingly difficult as the system matures. Furthermore, layers of meta-systems will eventually be constructed on Bitcoin and other blockchains that will enable users to easily navigate information between them.

The net result is a competing set of reputational systems, with some overlap and redundancy that exists permanently in cyberspace, with identities verified by the users themselves. Universality through force will become superseded by universality through competition, and consensus is something that will be achieved by the “votes” of miners or other system custodians, rather than by political votes.

Atzori doesn’t seem to give much consideration to the possibilities inherent in providing competitive services or the virtue of experimentation. But that may be because her analysis was always supporting a foregone conclusion.

Sufficient Record Keeping Reliability?

Atzori notes:

Government records require high performance and a high degree of reliability, accessibility and predictability… Moreover, a formal and transparent process of legitimization must be strictly required when dealing with government services, in order to avoid the indiscriminate emergence of private powers over public affairs.

Blockchain record keeping passes all of these tests. The mechanism is different, and really, more efficient. Rather than records kept by petty bureaucrats hired by plutocrats who are themselves hired by a mostly ignorant and disinterested population, blockchain record keeping is reliable, easily accessed and exists for the life of the network. It is also far more transparent and requires at most a holon to code a smart contract into the blockchain, and a miner to confirm it in exchange for his flat fee. Unnecessary middle-men and public or private interests of any sort are excised from the process.

Blockchain governance takes the basic idea that humans are self-interested and employs it to improve the way we govern ourselves. Rather than a form of “hyper-capitalism” as Atzori describes, it is more accurately described as “hyper-Madisonian”– a system to constructively employ competitive self-interest in the service of peace and prosperity for all. This doesn’t mean it will guarantee prosperity for everyone–attempts to do so in the past have generally led to mass murder. It will however guarantee access to both the levers of power and ensure the potential to self-actualize is real for everyone. Which really, is all democracies do.

She goes on to completely abandon any pretense of impartiality in an impressive display of cognitive dissonance:

It is therefore clear that the State, as a guarantor of fundamental rights, is not an unwieldy third party that can be by-passed through a technological disintermediation process: the State is us, as a result of the first and biggest crowd-funded project ever existed in history, and it should not be defined in opposition to civil society.

Not once does she address the concerns of nation-state opponents: the disenfranchisement, oppression, abuse, and mass-murder–even in the Western nations that she lauds– that has accompanied the existence of governments throughout history. The downside of nation state governance is very real history– her criticisms of blockchain governance are, at present, purely speculative.

Algorithmic Governance Too Impersonal?

One argument she posits against blockchain governance seems to be that algorithms are unfeeling mathematical formulae and cannot possibly guarantee human rights:

In particular, algorithms and binary codes are not meant for policy-making, since politics is an art that stems from the ethic sphere of human beings and it belongs to them exclusively, as creatures ‘endowed with reason and conscience’ (Art.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Computer scientists tend to overemphasize the efficiency of encryption and codes as

political tools, capable to [sic] verifying and aggregating individual decisions on large scale without intermediaries. But politics and governance, of course, are much more than aggregating votes, keeping databases in sync, or enforcing transactions through algorithms.

She provides no examples or proof of this claim, nor any reason why algorithms could not assist in the defense of human rights by protecting property rights in the developing world, improving transparency and reducing the influence of corrupt political actors. In this, blockchain-based organizations working to better people’s lives are finding some of their first essential uses.

One of the primary problems in the developing world (as identified by Hernando de Soto) is the lack of incentive for governments to keep a careful record of property rights within their own borders. Bitnation and several other blockchain projects are currently working to remedy this using the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Experiments are underway and several legacy governments have bought into the idea. Should they succeed, the improvement to human rights around the world could be staggering.

But the bigger problem with her paper here comes down to granting governments undue credit for the state of global peace and prosperity, and the rapid decline of global poverty. She says:

Not only markets are proven to be incapable of creating social justice and redistribution – in spite of what techno-entrepreneurs may claim– but it is rather the subjugation of politics to “turbo-capitalism” and its financial dictates that bears most of the responsibility for the problems currently affecting our democracies – from long term unemployment, poverty, regulatory capture and erosion of social capital, to imperialist wars, diffused insecurity and fear (Luttwak, 1999; Ziegler, 2002). In fact, it is with the increasing atomization of social life, the extreme individualism and the restless rationalization of economic structures that corporate power reinforces and reproduces itself, to the detriment of individual and collective rights (Boggs, 2000; Marden, 2003).

“Turbo-capitalism?” Someone is “feeling the Bern.”

Government advocates claim governments exist to correct market failures– they seem to forget that historically, the opposite is true. Governments have historically made lousy guarantors of rights, while market economics have had an increasingly equalizing effect from the 15th century to the present. Modern societies have mitigated the homicidal tendencies of governments, but only over the last six decades or so, indicating that the outcomes she wants are hardly inherent, exclusive properties of traditional nation states. Markets, meanwhile, derided by Atzori, have created prosperity everywhere, even where governments remain oppressive, such as Singapore and China. That “unfeeling” technology she talks about has put capabilities in the hands of even the poorest in

the world they never had before.

A Rule of Rapacious Programmer-Warlords?

Atzori claims that an elite will emerge that will exacerbate wealth and political inequality simply by being more tech savvy:

In virtue of their technical skills, code developers, miners, fintech professionals and technopreneurs would easily have a privileged position in society, becoming the new policy makers to detriment of a big mass of computer illiterate or low skilled individuals, reduced to mere passive recipients of services.

Oddly enough, she is hypothesizing that coders will fill the same role in the future that lawyers fill today: the authors and interpreters of the protocols we all live by. Lawyers, masters of the arcane, complex and obtuse, have dominated politics for hundreds of years. And yet democracies still function, primarily because individuals have always managed to hold elites accountable without sharing their expertise.

But coders will not be able to keep others from joining their clique like lawyers do with law school and the Bar. With no formal governing structure or barriers to entry, anyone can learn or coding and become an integral part of the feedback loop that governs a blockchain system. Secrecy and opaqueness will also be far more difficult: Information is porous–a single leak can destroy in a second any ruling-class opacity that took decades to build. If coders become a ruling class, they would be unlike any other in human history, without the exclusive control of the means of violence or formal structures that inhibit admission into their circles.

The presumption here, is that the entire globe will not be governed through a single blockchain. Far in the future, many blockchains will likely compete to provide services that individuals will be able to choose from. Deriding the Bitcoin Foundation (as she does) as some sort of oligarchy betrays ignorance of the nature of such a system. If you don’t like how Gavin Andresen is running things, you don’t have to overthrow him in a bloody coup or vainly attempt to vote him out of office– you will be able to join a different blockchain, leaving him strong incentives to make his services as competitive, flexible and transparent as possible. These sorts of options don’t exist in a modern democratic system, which forces you into submission to a ruling system that inherently and often violently disenfranchises minority opinions.

As an important aside, the existence of competing blockchains also allows for informational redundancy– you will be able to put your most vital records on more than one blockchain in the event of a “black swan” apocalypse that kills any single blockchain.

Collective Identity Necessary to Protect Rights?

She does make an interesting point here: the end of the nation state means the decline of “collective identity” and a return to “pre-political” social organization:

“The major problem of an [sic] hypothetical global society only run through organizational

patterns based on individualism – namely Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, free market rules, and “authority floating freely” – is that it would essentially lack legitimate mechanisms to regulate the convergence of the particular into the general, which is the traditional role of centralized political institutions. Breaking the collective identity building, citizens may not see themselves anymore as a part of a whole, because the general will has been replaced by a myriad of immediate acts of the individual will. This would entail a serious risk of regression of human communities into a pre-political condition, characterized by ‘Hobbesian deregulated landscapes and a retrieting [sic] State” (Marden 2003, p. 90). Individuals would not be citizens anymore, but mere service consumers and players, ‘independent interest-bearers … with no agreed-upon norms to regulate their interactions as free and equal beings’ (Urbinati 2006, p. 65); and society would be dominated by adversarial private interests…”

Her assumption here is that a massive national identity is necessary to protect human rights. The fetishization of “citizenship” and collective belonging is evident here, protected by the Historical Fallacy. It’s important to remember that a blockchain system would enable community enforcement of basic values and norms through consensus, much like a democratic government, but in a far more responsive and localized context.

At the most fundamental level, governments are just masses of people acting according to their strongest self-interest. They are only weakly incentivized to protect the rights of all, but wealthy, educated populations hold them accountable as a matter of routine. The ability to provide feedback in the form of reputation damage or if necessary bring a rights violator to trial would still exist in a blockchain-governed system.

Even better, in a competitive governance environment offenders wouldn’t be able to grant themselves exclusive legal privileges (such as qualified immunity for law enforcement, or “national security” secrecy for spy agencies) as government agents do, without enduring real repercussions and a possible flight from their services. Such a flight is not practical in the modern nation state system, leaving our hierarchical systems with weaker feedback mechanisms.

In short, the benevolence of governments doesn't really protect rights– self-interest does. The stronger you can align individual self-interest with the defense of natural and civil rights, the better your system is going to function. This is one of the goals of blockchain governance.

How Could This All Really Work?

Atzori correctly notes that we are still working largely in the realm of theory:

In this regard, it is not clear, for example, how a fully distributed, blockchain-based society would regulate conflicts, mediate between opposite interests, or rectify social iniquities, other than through market adjustments, complex webs of smart contracts or other sophisticated, automated incentive mechanisms.

This is a fair point. It is not clear how all this will work, but we don’t have to figure all that out now. We must be free to experiment with the basic architecture. The details will emerge as a result of trial and error over the coming years, and a few early examples, such as Bitnation’s partnership with Estonia, are encouraging.

There is a palpable inevitability to all this. Even major publications like the New York Times and The Atlantic have hypothesized the obsolescence of the nation state. The United States National Intelligence Council envisioned that in just 15 years a “nonstate world” could exist in which “governments had given up on real reforms and had subcontracted many responsibilities to outside parties, which then set up enclaves operating under their own laws.” Nonstate systems will likely develop increasing leverage to compete with legacy nation states. The New York Times acknowledged the scenario describes “much of how global society already operates.”

In general, the future will not be one of grand visions and master plans to control us all. It will be a complex web of smaller consensuses, with mediating holons to resolve disputes and confirm information and identity.

It would be great to see a better analysis from Atzori, and more critiques from the academic world are welcome. The idea of blockchain governance is not going away and whatever it may ultimately achieve in diminishing the less savory attributes of monopolistic governments can only benefit mankind.

[Published on the Bitnation blog March 16, 2016].

[TPG] Statement in support of the (US) Transhuman National Committee

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 19:36:52 GMT

The following is an open letter being read as an address at the (US) Transhuman National Committee convention on 27th February 2016:

My name is Amon Twyman, and I am making this statement in my capacity as Leader of the Transhumanist Party, a registered political party in the United Kingdom, and as a founder of the worldwide Transhumanist Party movement.

The Transhumanist Party in the UK and beyond is fully supportive of the work of the Transhuman National Committee (TNC) in the United States. We see that work as an essential stepping stone toward the international development of our movement and a positive future for humanity. In addition to our general support and encouragement, there are three points I would like to raise which you may choose to reflect upon while planning the TNC’s next steps as an organisation.

1. Open source, decentralization and networking, rather than ownership

The Transhumanist Party movement is a loosely organised thing, still in the process of emerging as a mature phenomenon, but already a few things about its nature are clear. One is that we represent a political aspect of the broader Transhumanist movement rather than any attempt to replace the movement as a whole. Furthermore we cannot claim to represent all politically-inclined Transhumanists, but merely to focus on Transhumanism in our political efforts, and give a voice to all those who share that focus.

Similarly, we have learned that the growth of this movement is a process of developing respectful partnerships, networking, and simply finding ways to work with people who share our values and ideals. Not only do we not want to tell anyone what they can or cannot do, but more to the point we find all attempts to “own” the movement or its symbols to be counter-productive. With this in mind, you can see that there is no global authority within the movement which must give its stamp of approval to the TNC; instead this is a matter of like-minded activists in other countries showing our wholehearted support for the emerging US wing of the movement, and looking forward to working together.

2. Transcending limits, and creating a better future

When we talk of a global movement encompassing organisations such as the TNC, we naturally find ourselves asking (and being asked) what is the idea or common factor which ties the whole thing together. After all, any truly global movement will be a highly diverse thing, and while diversity can be our great strength, we need to be sure of a certain unity too.

There is only one idea that goes to the heart of what Transhumanism must and always will be, no matter the additional baggage or interpretations it picks up, and that idea is of transcending limitation through technology. To use every means at our disposal to overcome the limitations of the human condition. Such limitations are not only biological, but also philosophical, social, legal, and political, and a mature future Transhumanist Party movement can be a powerful tool in our fight against such limitations.

3. Pragmatism, effectiveness, and strategy

Even though we are a futurist movement with a particularly high-minded ideal at its heart, our goals are concrete. We want to live longer and better, to allow as many people as possible the opportunity to achieve those things, and not to allow anyone else’s beliefs to get in the way of that. To that end, we must always remember to prioritise clear goals and action over endless debate, squabbling, and preaching to the converted… all things which, let’s face it, Transhumanism has been known for in the past. Whatever names they go by, the various groups associated with the global Transhumanist Party movement must be focussed on what specific changes they can facilitate – what tangible goals they can achieve – and actively supporting other groups with broadly compatible goals.

While remaining focussed on our common ideal of transcending limitation through technology, each group must look to its own highest priorities first, and then actively and effectively support a small selection of like-minded organisations in a kind of “local network”. That way, we can develop an effective, unified movement with the power to determine goals in a decentralised way, while yet being unified by a clear common ideal. It is in this cooperative spirit that the Transhumanist Party in the UK is making clear its wholehearted support for the TNC.

Last but not least, it is important to consider the question of strategy in determining the next steps for our organisations around the world, including the TNC. What do you hope to achieve, in specific terms, and how do you intend to achieve it? Most broadly speaking, in many ways simply having clear goals and the determination to work toward them is more important than the actual details of those goals. At the same time however, there are a few home truths which we should take into account before making any grand plans.

The first is the question of whether you’re actually trying to facilitate some concrete change, or simply to make a splash in the media. Media outreach is extremely important of course, but it doesn’t count for anything if it does not help us toward an eventual goal. Toward real positive change. The goals of any given organisation will to some extent be determined by local conditions; for example directly contesting elections is a much more viable strategy under proportional representation systems than in countries where a “big two” parties dominate. Consider alternative approaches, and direct action rather than electioneering if it would be more effective. Ask yourself what strategies your opponents are using to suppress what you would see as a positive future, and think about how you could beat them at their own game. Think about how your organisation can help other, like-minded groups to achieve their goals. Remember that social change takes time (even taking technological change into account), and so being committed to this movement means playing the “long game”. The positive change we are working toward may take some time to achieve, but it will be real, and it will be deep.

The Transhuman National Committee has taken the first step in a long and historic journey, and the rest of our worldwide movement looks forward to helping in any way we can, and celebrating your successes!

[PRESS] TRANSHUMANIST PARTY CONGRATULATES THE UK HUMAN FERTILISATION AND EMBRYOLOGY AUTHORITY ON ITS FORESIGHT IN ALLOWING GENE EDITING OF EMBRYOS

davidwoodspr — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 17:22:24 GMT

http://www.hfea.gov.uk/10187.html

“01 February 2016 – Our Licence Committee has approved an application from Dr Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute to renew her laboratory’s research licence to include gene editing of embryos.”

The Transhumanist Party views this decision as a key landmark in the progress towards a future in which hereditary diseases are eliminated. Furthermore, we
see this decision as a vital first step in exploring and developing applications of the new, revolutionary and globally accessible genetic engineering tools that have become available over the past three years.

With such tools the human genome can be modified and enhanced not only to eliminate disease but to make significant progress towards the Transhumanist goal of citizens being “better than well”, wherein various traits such as resistance to all forms of disease, increased healthy longevity and improved cognitive ability can be emphasised to improve general health and happiness for all through all stages of life.

It is our vision that this technology be made accessible to all, and applied to the point where such historically divisive issues as race and gender become no more important than fashion choices on the road to becoming a posthuman species.
In accordance with our ideological position, we have a number of reservations with regards to how these technologies are developed and used.

Firstly, we believe that when these techniques are perfected and can be applied safely, that it is crucial, that all prospective parents have access to them, regardless of wealth or status and in keeping with the NHS model of “free at the point of delivery”.

Secondly, while we uphold and advocate the principle of morphological freedom, we resolutely do not support such freedom, if such freedom results in genetic modification that diminishes capabilities. That is, we do not support modifications that would lessen a child’s abilities or senses.

Finally, we view the label “designer babies” to be a desirable nearterm goal – After all who would not want a happy child, free from illness, graceful and athletic, with a long and healthy life, and possessed of greater intelligence to help solve pressing social and scientific problems? Genetic engineering of the human genome has the potential to become one of our most vital tools in helping to remove traditional inequalities in society and also those imposed upon us by blind
evolution, and is the first true step in taking control of our shared destiny from nature.

[PRESS] Transhumanist Party urges exemption of nootropics from the Psychoactive Substances Bill

davidwoodspr — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 09:37:40 GMT

The blanket ban undermines past and current research, and threatens the future development of other low risk, non-recreational drugs and supplements that can be of potential therapeutic benefit to citizens.

Contact: David Woods
Email: PRESS@TranshumanistParty.Org.UK
Website: http://www.TranshumanistParty.Org.UK

The Psychoactive Substances Bill was proposed to “Protect hard-working citizens from the risks posed by untested, unknown and potentially harmful drugs” specifically targeting new “legal highs” (sometimes referred to as “new psychoactive substances (NPS)”), that are sold in “head shops” as alternatives to already scheduled and illegal substances.

The bill effectively proposes a blanket ban on any substance with psychoactive effects, which extends well beyond the intended targets of recreational and unsafe “legal highs”. Consequently, a number of amendments to the bill have been proposed, to specifically exempt psychoactive substances found in foods and medicines, in addition to more socially acceptable recreational substances (shown to harm citizens considerably) such as alcohol and tobacco..

This lack of definition means that this ban will also disrupt the use of non-recreational, low-risk psychoactive compounds such as nootropics (commonly referred to as “smart drugs”). These have have been shown to enhance one or more aspects of mental function (memory, cognition, alertness, focus, resilience to stress…). Citizens, academics, shift-workers, entrepreneurs and students currently employ nootropic substances responsibly to aid cognition and modulate mood during times of stress or when peak productivity is required. Nootropics are defined by their ability to act as neuroprotectants, and in this therapeutic role these substances can potentially delay the onset of mental disorders such as: anxiety, depression, age related cognitive decline or alleviate the symptoms of some forms of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

It is in this potentially therapeutic domain that the proposed bill will have its biggest negative impact; by denying citizens easy and legal access to what could be a beneficial intervention, the government will instead, enforce a reduction in “quality of life”, placing further pressure on the NHS who could delay the prescription of more costly interventions and medications.

Nootropics are sold by legitimate professional businesses that safely and responsibly produce, market and distribute these substances (and supplements). The proposed indiscriminate ban therefore risks pushing nootropics onto the black market (along with “legal highs”), giving rise to a market populated with unregulated substances of dubious origin and safety and distributed by persons of lesser moral fortitude, potentially harming those hard working citizens the bill aims to protect.

Only a few MPs, such as Cheryl Gillan (MP for Chesham and Amersham) have expressed concern over the unintended consequences arising from the Psychoactive Substances Bill. The Psychoactive Substances Bill as currently proposed demonstrates a severe lack of sound scientific knowledge and foresight on the part of the government and requires further exemptions to include the nootropic class of substances before it can be properly considered. Nootropics have long been shown to be much less harmful and addictive than current exemptions (such as alcohol and tobacco), but are astonishingly, yet to be included in the exemptions.

The Transhumanist Party urges members of both the House of Lords and the Commons to consult with their scientific and medical advisors to familiarise themselves with each and every class of psychoactive substance this bill intends to ban. Furthermore, given the evidence of safety and efficacy of nootropics, the Transhumanist Party calls for exemptions to be added to the proposed bill to include the nootropic class of substances. Failure to do so will affect the wellbeing of citizens and will directly contradict the purpose of the bill. Furthermore, the Psychoactive Substances Bill may well impede the progress being made to understand mental health and neurodegenerative diseases.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact David Woods at PRESS@TranshumanistParty.Org.UK

[ISF] The Jewel and the Lotus

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 11:11:48 GMT

The following post is from the Institute for Social Futurism (ISF). Although its concerns are essentially philosophical, they inform many practical realities for organisations in our network over the coming year and beyond.

If you’re looking for a quick punchline, this is perhaps not the article for you, but you could try skipping to section 1: The Jewel and the Lotus.

0. The Desert of the Real

Over the last few years, we have been developing a network of organisations which share a positive attitude toward technological change while being mindful of the serious challenges the world faces today. The idea is for that network to develop connections with like-minded others who wish to usher in a new paradigm for our society, based on a combination of science, technology, positive values and principles. During that time there has been a natural process of weaving together the ideas and views of many people, and that process has been driving the emergence of a worldview which we call Social Futurism.

Aside from the usual logistical issues of a growing movement, I have become aware of a strong need to reach beyond the complicated tangle of inspirations and concerns which have brought us together, and clearly articulate a single core idea underlying this nascent movement. To momentarily put aside our many assumptions and preconceptions, and examine the deepest ideological nexus which ties them all together. Having done that, we will be able to move forward sure in the knowledge that we are all working toward a common goal, no matter any differences in our philosophies, affiliations, or methods. In short, I have recently felt the need to cast a radically skeptical eye over everything we collectively believe and are committed to, throwing out all unnecessary assumptions in the hope of discerning a single common axiom. It seems to me that any such axiom must be extremely simple and incisive, akin to Descartes‘ “Cogito Ergo Sum“.

The key to this inquiry is to put aside every claim or belief which may not be true, or which can in any conceivable way be countered or argued against. We are of course very much in support of science and greatly value its utility, but no scientific fact can ever be our central axiom, as scientific facts must by definition be potentially disprovable by new evidence. Our common focus must be more akin to a steadfast attitude or conviction than a mere observation that could change at any time. Chinese and Indian philosophy traditionally saw the observed world as composed of myriad relative “facts”, apparent phenomena and distinctions which could change just as easily as a viewer’s perspective, and such schools of thought (particularly Taoism and Buddhism) consistently warned against identifying too closely with ephemera. The traditional Eastern view is that all identification with any apparent fact (perspective, observation, expectation, philosophy or ideal) would cast a “shadow” consisting of everything contrary to that position. Like Descartes, initiates of these religions were urged to let go of every conviction that could be doubted (both the Buddhists’ and Descartes’ conclusion was that everything could be doubted except the existence of Mind), and simply live in the world as they found it. We could learn a lot from the minimalism of this stance, encouraging activists to use the myriad facts of science and the world as necessary, but to embrace a common identity rooted only in a single, fundamental, undeniable axiom. That kind of strong shared identity would enable us to rest assured that we are all “on the same team”, no matter what disagreements we may have over any details, which would be a thing of great practical and strategic value to the movement as a whole.

A recent Western echo of these ancient Eastern ideas is particularly relevant to techno-social concerns in the early 21st Century, and to the future of our movement. In 1999, The Matrix presented such philosophical concerns about the nature of reality, along with issues involving technology and social control, in a very popular action-adventure entertainment format. The movie drew not only upon traditional Eastern thought, but among a great many other things the writings of French Postmodernist philosopher Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard said that we are surrounded by simulacra or simulations which no longer refer to any underlying reality, such as news stories which reflect consumer demand and media manipulation rather than any deep truth. He further claimed that in this ultra-mediated environment, actual reality (i.e. unmediated, unmanipulated things-as-they-actually-are) is now extremely hard to find. We see things almost entirely through the lens of culture and technology, now. This notion of reality as an increasingly hidden, deserted place was summed up in Baudrillard’s phrase “the desert of the real”. The idea that we live in some kind of mediated bubble of false reality while an authentic reality exists “outside” is the central theme of Gnosticism, found today in the work of people such as Science Fiction writer Philip K Dick (both Gnosticism and Dick’s ideas were also prominent in The Matrix).

At this point you may well be asking what all these wild and wonderful ideas have to do with advancing technology, social progress, or indeed the real world. It all boils down to the intrinsic nature of the Transhumanist urge; to go beyond all that we have known in order to become more than human. To transcend the traditional limitations of the human condition. It is no accident that Transhumanists are regularly accused of being “neo-Gnostics”, because the idea of extending human life and health beyond current limitations is indeed reminiscent of the ancient heresy, albeit expressed in a very new way. This is a touchy issue, as Transhumanists are generally at pains to distinguish their technological hopes from ancient religious dreams, despite their clear common origin in simple human yearnings for a greater or happier existence. We should note that it is not as simple a matter as some people calling Transhumanists ‘Gnostics’ and Transhumanists themselves uniformly rejecting the idea. Not only are many Transhumanists open to spirituality of various types, even including nuanced (usually secular) interpretations of Gnosticism, but the “accusers” are often sympathetic to both (neo-)Gnosticism and Transhumanism (and therefore presumably trying to draw attention to what they see as a good thing). Perhaps the best example of this is Erik Davis, in his 1998 book “TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information” (to show the close interrelatedness of all these ideas, we may note that Davis is a scholar professionally interested in the works of Philip K Dick).

The thing that Transhumanists, Gnostics, and the heroes of The Matrix have in common is a pointed and total disrespect for the limitations of a world which pretends to be the whole of reality, but which is in fact only a subset of all that is truly possible. In other words, we Transhumanists are inherently driven to reject any convention or ideology that tells us to be content within our limits, to know our place. Instead, we seek to venture beyond those limits into the “desert of the real”, and in doing so take responsibility for directing our own evolution. I must stress that this need not imply a hedonistic, individualistic flight from communitarian responsibilities, when the very act of transcending limits makes it possible for others to follow our example; and for the whole of society to thus evolve and progress beyond its former limits.

In short, we feel that we could be more, that we could help others in the process, and that no-one has the right to impose their arbitrary limitations upon us. We would explore beyond the safe havens of the world as we know it, and out into the desert of the real… into the darkness of possibilities. This rejection of the world’s distinctions and limitations is the one and only thing that can unite our diverse movement. That movement already includes many people who do not consider themselves to be Transhumanists, and that will only become more true over time, but the common impulse that unites us is clear: To sweep away the old world that stands between us and a much better future. A person might oppose this impulse for whatever reason, but they cannot argue it to be false in any way. It simply is.

1. The Jewel and the Lotus

We have discerned the idea that lies at the heart of our movement’s many manifestations (i.e. not just Transhumanism and other forms of Futurism but all truly modern and progressive activism, and any number of related philosophies, arts, and sciences): That our salvation lies beyond the limits of the world as we currently understand it… and that by transforming ourselves we can transcend those limits. In short, that we can and should remake the world and our place within it. Paradoxically, this idea is truly ancient, and yet its combination with technology makes a powerful new revolution in human affairs possible.

At this point, we should take a moment to note a parallel between the advice offered for individual living by religions such as Taoism and Buddhism on the one hand, and the necessary way forward for any modern activist movement on the other. Followers of the ancient Eastern ways are encouraged to live in the present moment, rather than dwelling unduly on the past or future. This reduces identification with transient things, and thus reduces the suffering caused by regret over the past or anxiety over the future. Interestingly, any truly revolutionary movement would do well to heed the same advice, since the act of relinquishing the past and future (i.e. memories and expectations) is tantamount to rejecting limitation by those things. In other words, to focus on the present and to reject all unnecessary limitations are two sides of the same coin.

Having identified this central idea, our next question is of course how to simplify and condense its expression, to maintain its clarity for ourselves and communicate it easily to others. Traditionally this is the realm of symbols, or simple signs that stand for (and easily summon) complex sets of ideas. In keeping with the ancient Eastern philosophies mentioned earlier, I have settled upon two key symbols with a somewhat oriental flavour: The Jewel and the Lotus. In this section I will explain these two symbols, and their potential value.

It is common to depict an incisive axiom as a blade or sword, as in the cases of Occam’s Razor or Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot (indeed the very word “incisive” implies both clear, rational analysis and the act of cutting). In ancient Indian writings there is mention of a sword known as the Jewel of the Desert, and that strikes me as a particularly apt name for an axiom which refers to the Desert of the Real. This “Jewel” is our central idea – an article of faith which unites our emerging movement – and it can be expressed as follows:

Act Now and Be Free

(Nunc Agere et Liberi)

The only reality is action in the moment, and the bonds of the unreal demand to be cut. In other words, the individual and any movement for positive change must always focus on what they can be or do now, and all apparent limitations conjured by tradition, convention, history, hope or expectation with no solid basis in the reality of the present must be cast aside without hesitation. If an obstacle can be overcome, it should be. If a limitation can be transcended, then transcend it. This is a point of view which should come naturally to Transhumanists, Gnostics, all opponents of arbitrary and unwanted limitation, and all those who would sweep away the old to make way for a better future. It is often said that you can best know a thing by looking at what it opposes, and in this case we are utterly opposed to entrenched limitations which only exist out of a sense of history, social convention, or “natural order” rather than having something clearly positive to contribute to the future of humanity. We must tear down all such false limitations in our bid to remake civilization.

Beyond this central philosophical matter, as mentioned earlier I have become acutely aware of logistical issues that naturally arise with the growth of any movement. I won’t go into the details of these issues, except to say that they boil down to a question of resources: How to get the resources we need, and how to use the ones we have well. Perhaps the most pressing resource issue has been the question of time and communications. A lot of people have something to say or ask, but we simply cannot respond to every such contact in a centralised way. Instead, the network must scale up in such a way that local groups can handle initial contact in most cases, and important messages can be passed through the network as appropriate, meaning that no single part of the network is overloaded with messages from everybody. In order to make my own part of the network more manageable and to set an example, I will be restricting my personal engagement to the activity in eight official channels. I can no longer guarantee any response to any communication outside those channels, which are outlined briefly below.

If every part of the network were to operate in a similar manner, maintaining a small number of recognised and well-maintained collaboration/communication channels, then the result would be something like a mosaic of decentralised activity, a fractal heterarchy or holarchy. A symbol for the network (and any given node within it) which I find to be appropriate and appealing is the lotus flower. The lotus is essentially a memorable image which represents a centre connecting multiple channels or aspects. The lotus is also a symbol common to the various Eastern philosophies mentioned earlier, although a rose would be the equally appropriate counterpart traditional in the West.

Others are free to organise themselves as they see fit, of course, but the specific eight channels which I will personally be focussed upon, going forward, are as listed below. In each case I will only be working with a relatively small core team, rather than attempting to manage all functions of these wider organisations directly. Such functions represent my “close neighbours” within the network, that I collaborate with but am not directly responsible for. If we all operate in this way – with clear cooperative links but limited personal workloads – then we will be maximally effective as a network.

I am currently in the process of reorganising the core teams and preferred communications channels for these groups, and will link to further information and full contact details for all eight channels from here on Friday January 22nd, 2016. In the meantime you can still contact these groups as before.

Aeon Executive Intelligence
Institute for Social Futurism (ISF)
- Transhumanist Party
- ISF Research & Advisory Sections (4)
- Affiliate Network
Null-A Media

This post has covered a number of complex and subtle ideas with an unfortunate but necessary brevity, where any of these could be the departure point for long conversations in and of themselves. My objective will have been met, however, if you remember the symbols of the Jewel and the Lotus. That the Jewel of the Desert is simply a determination to stand squarely in the reality of the moment and cut through the proliferation of illusions, distractions, and false limitations which we are constantly told to embrace and respect (or at least take seriously). And that the Lotus is merely a reminder that while remaining focussed and effective, you always have the option of being connected with others in a movement toward something greater.

[PRESS] Transhumanist Party welcomes RSA support for a Universal Basic Income

davidwoodspr — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 22:23:09 GMT

Contact: David Woods
Email: PRESS@TranshumanistParty.Org.UK
Website: http://www.TranshumanistParty.Org.UK

The Transhumanist Party today welcomed the publication of the RSA’s report “Creative citizen, creative state: the principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income”

The RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), which was founded in London in 1754, has the stated mission “to enrich society through ideas and action”. The RSA report into UBI (Universal Basic Income) follows one year of research into the topic, and makes specific proposals for how UBI might be implemented in the UK.
The idea of UBI aligns well with the Transhumanist Party principles of “Personal freedom, social justice” :

“All citizens shall have a right to sustenance, clothing, shelter, energy, healthcare, transport, education, and access to information resources. The Party also advocates that all citizens must be able to contribute to society, in their own fashion, without blemish to their dignity or sense of self worth.”

According to Transhumanist Party research and analysis, accelerating technological unemployment has the potential within the next decade to magnify social inequality, disruption and alienation. People who trained hard for new career opportunities may discover that their employment prospects have been overtaken by increasingly sophisticated robots, AIs, software, or other automation.

Dr Amon Twyman, Party Leader, commented:

“A new social contract is needed, involving strong educational and economic support for those who are left with no viable option of ‘earning a living’ due to rapid technological change. A UBI would provide an important part of this new social contract. The RSA’s advocacy of a UBI will help the task of the Transhumanist Party to bring about new political thinking in the UK that champions individual and social creativity.”

The Party looks forward to accelerating public discussion of UBI:

● Designing and supporting local trials of UBI schemes
●Sharing insight and understanding with groups worldwide who are investigating UBI ●Building broad support, across the traditional political spectrum, for UBI ●Mandating that, where possible, overseas foreign aid should be made available to local citizens via direct UBI schemes rather than by government manipulation.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact David Woods at PRESS@TranshumanistParty.Org.UK

Why Libertarianism Will Crush Conservatism

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 17:18:00 GMT

[Published at Policymic.com on Aug. 18, 2013. This was one of my biggest viral hits, garnering almost 7,000 shares on social media when it came out.]

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus recently wrote a piece on PolicyMic attempting to draw millennials to the GOP. Priebus and the rest of the Republican leadership know the future of their party is in serious jeopardy; what they don't realize is that only libertarians can save them.

At the core of the party's problems is conservatism itself. Having never been a coherent philosophy of government, conservatism exists as an amalgam of reactionary concepts loosely tied together by historical accident. The only apparent unifying theme among ideas as unrelated as opposition to gay marriage and aggressive foreign interventionism is a fear of the unfamiliar. This reactionary nature is leading conservatives down a path to irrelevance in an age of improved communication, access to information, and cultural understanding.

Murray Rothbard pointed out that conservatism, lacking a coherent ideology, offers only a practical defense of the existing status quo, reacting to progressivism in defense of "tradition." But when progressive reforms endure and become part of that tradition, conservatives lose their intellectual ammunition and end up accepting the change, for better or worse.

Through the decades, conservatives have been overwhelmingly impotent at preserving their ever-shifting vision of tradition. They have over the last century lost their battles against Wilsonian progressivism, the New Deal, the Great Society, racial integration, abortion, drug abuse, and secularization, and they are now losing their fights against gay rights and so-called illegal immigration. The fact that they have lost so reliably, despite their persistent numerical superiority, is a testament to the holes in their philosophy. Along the way, they've adopted virtually every bureaucratic idea pioneered by progressives, increasing government spending while wasting energy and billions of dollars fighting losing cultural battles.

The diminishing appeal of conservatism for younger, more cosmopolitan millennials as well as exploding immigrant populations who view it as bigoted or old-fashioned translates to serious demographic problems for Republicans. If current trends continue, winning the White House will become a distant memory for the GOP. Absent a commitment to change (something they don't generally excel at), the party may cease to be competitive at the national level.

Libertarianism can perhaps be thought of as a natural response to this contradiction. Libertarians are skeptical of power in an age of skepticism, embrace science in an era of rapid scientific improvement, reject banal expressions of nationalism in an increasingly-globalized world, and remain dedicated to individualism, not for tradition's sake, but to advance mankind's virtually limitless potential.

The growth of libertarianism in the GOP is very much the result of the millennial generation's coming of age. Millennials seem to have a different view of what conservatism is than their parents and grandparents. It's well known that they are much more socially liberal than previous generations. They are, however, still split on the role of government, with millennials today slightly more conservative than Generation X was at the same age.

Libertarianism is the true yin to progressivism's yang: a platform consistently emphasizing individual rights and self-determination can more effectively combat the global march toward collectivism and consolidation without conservatism's archaic cultural baggage.

The differences between libertarianism and progressivism are scientific, rather than sentimental, so the battle can be fought on scientific grounds consistent with the values of today's youth. Having a firm philosophical foundation, libertarian congressmen such as Justin Amash and Tom Massie have demonstrated an immunity to the customary weaknesses that have drawn the GOP away from its small-government ideals.

Conservatives don't have much to lose by embracing libertarianism. Whether they like it or not, their reactionary philosophy has led them to defeat in both the culture wars and the quest for limited government. Sometimes, change is good.

The Natural Right of Cryptographic Governance

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 16:54:00 GMT

[Published at the Center for a Stateless Society, Dec. 10, 2015]

In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and around the U.S., sentiment among the governing class is turning powerfully against encryption.

Reuters reports an impending “crackdown” on Bitcoin in the EU. Other reports suggest France could inhibit Tor and free wi-fi at will. U.S. officials have taken the opportunity to go on the offensive against any form of encryption, with Senator Dianne Feinstein arguing encryption “ought to be able to be pierced.”

At the heart of the state’s fears is the loss of control it faces. In encryption, human beings have a tool to ensure security and privacy that is resistant to the escalation of force. Even after governments have taken out a warrant against someone, that person still has the ability to keep his information secret, subject to negotiation between himself and the state.

But officials correctly point out that child pornographers, drug dealers and terrorists can use encryption as a tool to keep vital information away from law enforcement. Its reliability and agnosticism, they claim, makes encryption a threat to public safety.

That creates a moral and philosophical dilemma for users and advocates of cryptographic technologies. We have an incredible tool at our disposal, but with the equal potential for legitimate use and abuse. Do we have the right to encrypt information regardless of government interests?

To answer this question, common law and statutory law are insufficient. With the improvements that blockchain technology could bring to the human condition, this is a deeper question with significant implications. The proper use of a disruptive technology that transcends borders should be considered outside of the normal philosophical channels when its existence is an affront to long-established political authority. Natural law and the fundamentals of the “social contract” provide better answers and a clearer direction.

The Surveillance State is Absolute

Rapid changes in information technology over the last two decades have created a banquet of easily acquired information about virtually everyone in the world. The world’s reliance on the internet has made normally private information incredibly easy to acquire. It has also made the existing social contract argument for government authority obsolete.

By the old nation-state system, a nation makes laws and protects rights within a certain geographical boundary. Those outside the boundary are neither subject to its jurisdiction, nor its protections.
But most international threats are now coming from non-state actors. The world has long since stabilized at the state level, but terrorist networks are waging peer-to-peer warfare, circumventing states in most cases by taking their political grievances directly to their citizens.

To combat this “denationalized” threat, states have exploited loopholes between these various “social contracts” that exist between states and their citizens. States may make some effort to respect the legal rights of their own citizens within their own borders; but rights do not tend to carry over to citizens of other countries. The Five Eyes Alliance is one glaring example, where states are widely believed to spy on each other’s citizens and share information so that each may circumvent their own domestic spying restrictions.

This trend is compounded by a lack of accountability. Control is difficult to enforce legislatively with widespread public apathy, and finding standing in court can be likewise impossible without information from behind the veil. The global surveillance state is expanding its reach beyond any practical restraint by legislatures, evolving into a highly fluid, rapidly adaptable information siphon. In that sense, it is becoming as “denationalized” as the threat it is trying to fight. As one NSA official succinctly put it: “It’s becoming a cliché that a permanent state of change is the new standard. It is the world we live in — navigating through continuous whitewater … lucky for us.”

Meanwhile the security state has used its powers to commit financial espionage, intimidate journalists and whistleblowers, and circumvent restrictions on information gathering for crimes unrelated to terrorism. According to cybersecurity expert Chris Soghoian, they continue to “prioritize their own foreign intelligence goals over the security of the Internet”, deliberately inserting exploits into vital security systems.

In light of this conflict of interests between the surveillance state and the citizen, the onus falls on the latter to protect his own privacy.

To break this down into a simple epistemology:

Political violence (war) is being denationalized.

The means of fighting political violence are being denationalized.

Since individual rights are at risk in war, the defense of rights should also be denationalized wherever possible.

States will not protect the privacy of foreign nationals because it would defeat the purpose of their job. They will continue to spy domestically because it’s easy to get away with. There aren’t enough Edward Snowdens out there to stop them. Their global reach leaves virtually no person’s privacy untouched. But this new paradigm isn’t just a reason to protect one’s own privacy. It invalidates the social contract and renders the prohibition of networked cryptographic alternatives morally impermissible.

The “Social Contract” Reconsidered

Since the decline of the “divine right of kings” doctrine, social contract theory has dominated the reasoning behind the coercion of the state. Its logic (like that of the “divine right” theory) has always been circular, but amenable to most people as a post-hoc rationale for their general approval of the role of the state in human affairs. For that reason, a careful reevaluation of the theory is necessary.

John Locke claimed in his Second Treatise on Government (1689) that the contract was the price of civilization: prehistoric humans, possessing natural rights of life, liberty and property sacrificed those rights to the state in order to create early civilization, reaping in turn the stability, security and prosperity that large societies make possible. Natural rights can then only be taken away legitimately by the state upon conviction of a crime through a rigorous process of law. As long as the state abides by the rules set by the contract and receives the continued support of the governed, so the argument goes, individuals have no right to subvert it to pursue their own interests.

But the growth of global information systems has created some new problems for the social contract.
The first problem is the collapse of reciprocity: According to Locke, the social contract necessitates the state and the citizen exercise mutual obligation toward each other, the state to protect rights, and the citizen to maintain the legitimacy of the state through voting, paying taxes and abiding by its rules. But with a networked surveillance apparatus not controlled by any single nation state acting in secret, the ballot box is unlikely to be of much help. This “deep state” exists outside of the contract: it is its own entity and routinely violates privacy rights as a matter of course.

The second, and more important issue is one of consent. If individuals don’t want any part of this, do they have any recourse or are they bound to the terms of the contract? Locke acknowledged that individuals cannot be perpetually bound to any government, “every man being… naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power but only his own consent.” Consent, he argued, could be tacit, but it was nonetheless vital. Non-consent could be expressed by abandoning the system and creating a new one. “Since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over the land”, Locke claimed, individuals are free to “begin a new one, in vacuis locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and unpossessed.”

There were also little “loopholes” in the contract created by the difficulty in determining consent. Locke noted that “EVERY MAN HATH A RIGHT TO… BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE” (caps all his) because “if by the law of nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against it … I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country; since, in reference to him, they can have no more power than what every man naturally may have over another.”

This is a key point. The Father of Classical Liberalism claimed that because social contracts did not reciprocate across national boundaries, any individual could morally punish a transgression against his own rights by a foreigner. This could of course easily translate to the peaceful defense of one’s privacy against some foreign government’s spying capabilities. Locke’s acknowledgement shows the weakness of the social contract argument when applied across national borders. It also shows the intellectual bind Locke found himself in in order to affirm that the contract requires consent to be valid.

Privacy and the Open Source Revolution

As I have argued previously, privacy should be considered a natural right if it can be considered a right at all. Individuals retain the right to use air-tight encryption as a defensive tool to protect their privacy against the failure of their legal and political systems. But if individuals are retaining their “state of nature” right to defend themselves against state dysfunction, they must create a new kind of “state” with multiple functions in order to defend those capabilities.

For example, the right to exchange value must necessarily accompany the right to procure a resource, or opponents could render that right functionally irrelevant. Open source encryption software is free and easy to come by for now. That could change if states make it illegal, requiring a risk premium for developers and high costs for consumers.

To counter this possibility and deter prohibition, a robust cryptocurrency trade would be necessary to keep people free in the event the state shut down people’s bank accounts or credit cards, as was the case when the U.S. government pressured credit companies to shut down Wikileaks’ finances. This means that denationalized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dash are an integral tool to preserve individual rights.

As former CIA officer and open-source advocate Robert David Steele noted, to function properly, open source systems must develop in tandem. “The open source ecology is made up of a wide range of opens — open farm technology, open source software, open hardware, open networks, open money, open small business technology, open patents – to name just a few. The key point is that they must all develop together, otherwise the existing system will isolate them into ineffectiveness.”

Cryptocurrency transactions, run through a trustless mixing system are virtually untraceable. We’re not just talking about private emails anymore, but the right to create a new, transparent, resilient framework of alternative institutions as the old ones succumb to their own opacity.

But cryptography may not just tear down the social contract in the negative sense — it could also rebuild it in a way that better defends individual rights.

The Social Contract and Land Rights

The natural rights were enumerated by Locke as life (the right to defend one’s person against physical threats), liberty (the right to act freely without interference from arbitrary authority) and estate (the right to retain property mixed with one’s labor). Property in particular is one space that is being redefined by technology, leaving open the possibility that the nation-state could be disintermediated from its traditional role of definer and defender of property rights.

Locke argued that in prehistory, the very first “social contracts” were formed when individuals ceded their land to governments in exchange for protection. All subsequent owners of that property, he claimed, enjoyed the protection of the state, and were thus bound to perpetuate its authority. The logic is circular, to put it mildly, but worth noting: he makes it clear that the Social Contract is justified because there was no practical alternative to define and protect land rights.

Governments were defined by the land they protected. Within their borders was a single “final arbiter” with a monopoly on violence to keep order. Many would argue this model provided stability and security for populations around the world and enabled the growth of economies of scale for centuries.

But if property rights can be established and defended without the state, dependence on government institutions could be broken. A major pillar of the old social contract could be replaced.

Securing property rights is a pillar of the new cryptographic governance. Projects like Factom are attempting to show the blockchain can be a substitute for government agencies in the developing world, functioning as the final word on property ownership without risk of corruption or alteration.
Similarly, other projects are being developed for reputation verification, and still more are revolutionizing how we think of notary and legal systems. Connectivity experiments like Bitnation are seeking to show these ideas can be converged and exercised together, functioning as a sort of alternative governance system enforced through cryptographic protocols and consensus.

With non-state record keeping a reality, enforcement mechanisms can be created. But their quality won’t be determined by their geographic origin. They could be competitive, transparent, overlapping systems available globally.

These technologies are still in their infancy. But theoretically, the capabilities are there. As the use of the blockchain and other cryptographic systems grows, they become more secure and reliable. Due to the malleability of the technology, they could also evolve greater and more useful capabilities over time.

What Does This All Mean?

As the NSA likes to point out, we live in a rapidly changing world. The legacy social contract is inadequate to protect individuals in an increasingly fluid global information system. The rapid development of technological capabilities that few in any legislature in the world understand are leaving the sluggish legislative process in the dust. Individuals cannot morally be compelled to sacrifice their own right of secure communication of ideas or private exchange of value without submission to a global security state they cannot control. The globalization of information necessitates individuals learn to employ open source, cryptographic systems to define their own social contracts in peaceful terms.

Since private, secure monetary transactions cannot be taxed except with the consent of the participants, this denationalization could expand the shadow economy over time. Advocates of cryptography can probably expect a backlash, including bans and even jail time in some parts of the world.

Ultimately, this experiment will likely prove that consent in democratic societies has always been manufactured. Locke twisted himself into knots trying to shoehorn the notion of consent into his Social Contract, an exercise largely abandoned by John Rawls and other modern theorists. But the new cryptographic governance introduces the possibility of real consent in governance for the first time. This could ultimately exonerate John Locke’s contributions to political thought.

There is a palpable inevitability to all this. Even major publications like the New York Times and The Atlantic have hypothesized the obsolescence of the nation state. The United States National Intelligence Council envisioned that in just 15 years a “nonstate world” could exist in which “governments had given up on real reforms and had subcontracted many responsibilities to outside parties, which then set up enclaves operating under their own laws.” Nonstate systems will likely develop increasing leverage to compete with legacy nation states. The New York Times acknowledged the scenario describes “much of how global society already operates.”

The real question is how difficult this transition will be. Most states around the world abhor any loss of authority and are likely to prohibit any capability they consider a threat. Bitcoin and other cryptographic technologies have been in their sights. In doing so, they drop any pretense of moral authority and act merely as animals in Locke’s “state of nature,” fighting more for self-preservation that the protection of natural rights. For the first time in history, a real social contract is a possibility within reach. We’d do well not to squander it.

Charles Holloway's Open Source Government white paper

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 03:39:00 GMT

The internet says Holloway coined the term "Open Source Governance" and he certainly has a command of the topic. He presents a nice stroll through history explaining the rise of governments and financial systems in terms even a third grader can understand, although he doesn't really mention the blockchain tech until around page 120.

He does introduce several shaky assumptions that appear to be predicated on his own original formulations, and interestingly (but questionably) claims freedom is quantifiable. In the second half of the paper he gets into the peer-to-peer and open source technologies and does a good job of explaining in layman's terms why this is important.

Noteworthy: He claims "money and insurance are the two most fundamental technologies in society because society is a gathering of individuals to exchange property [he defines property as every sort of action or idea, not just physical things]." Cryptographic governance can replace hierarchical government because all a government really does is insure and protect property (life and liberty being forms of property, since you own yourself and your actions according to his formulation).

I think this would be more widely read if he distilled it down to a much shorter piece, or even a series of op-eds. He also seems over-reliant on himself as an authority and there are few citations or quotations throughout, which will likely mean this isn't taken seriously. Nonetheless, it's a large and noble effort for a worthy cause that should be at least skimmed by anyone who wants a primer on the topic of open-source governance.

You can download it from his site or read it here: http://www.thefreedomchambernews.com/osgWP3915/osgwp_ChasHolloway_2015.pdf

Writing Plan for 2016

noreply@blogger.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:59:00 GMT

So since I have some regular daily traffic coming through here, I thought I'd give readers some overview about why I write, what I've published and what's coming in the next year.

In a nutshell, I'm writing about the nexus between individual rights and technological advancement from a libertarian anarchist perspective. I think the course of human progress is synonymous with the devolution of power from the centralized to the decentralized. Peer to peer arrangements and open source protocols are the next step in this process as governments around the world find consensus and control increasingly elusive.

The blockchain is one of the most fascinating ideas in this space and the potential to use it to replace government services and create alternative institutions will likely be the most important work of the 21st century. So I like to explore this idea in philosophical and strategic terms.

I'm close to wrapping up my 2015 series on natural law and tech, which is as follows:

1. The Natural Right of Cyber Dissent (how libertarian ideas are inspiring civil disobedience and a technological resistance to opaque authority)

2. The Natural Right of Encryption (natural law and the right to secure communication)

3. The Natural Right of Cryptographic Governance (natural law, social contract theory and the blockchain)

4. The Natural Right of Cryptographic Exchange (forthcoming)

Any one of these topics is HUGE and could merit an entire book. I mostly wanted to get these ideas out there for now in the barest possible form.

I haven't found too many decent treatments of these topics and I think they are extremely important. Novel technologies cause disruption, which existing institutions aren't fond of and will try to stop. This disruption will require novel arguments and an integration into existing mainstream philosophies (i.e. the social contact), rather than just the imposition of strictly libertarian ideas (i.e. the NAP) as they become more influential.

In 2016, I'll probably focus more on shorter 600-800 word pieces using arguments from these longer ones. I do have a piece about the Sinn Fein that will go up on the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in April. I also plan on doing some more detailed work on electronic civil disobedience. But more op-ed type works are planned, since those get read a lot more.

Thanks for reading. Feedback always welcome.

Gandhi the Anarchist

noreply@blogger.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:36:00 GMT

[Published at the Center for a Stateless Society, Oct. 29, 2015]

A complex man with a controversial legacy, Mohandas Gandhi remains one of the pioneers of civil disobedience as a political weapon and a giant in 20th century anti-colonialism. An individualist anarchist who motivated millions to fight to liberate themselves from British rule, his success showed a potentially powerful application of libertarian ideas during a major political crisis and the ability of those values to inspire positive, peaceful outcomes.

Gandhi’s principles of radical liberation existed within a moral framework that abhorred violence but empowered ordinary people, intellectually and spiritually, to prevail against oppressors and shatter a miserable status quo. According to the research of Erica Chenoweth, Gandhi’s template of non-violent resistance has been immensely successful for later generations around the world in creating lasting improvements in civil rights.

Modern activists and political thinkers shouldn’t discount the essential libertarian qualities of Gandhi’s philosophy, as they were among its most powerful and effective attributes. A commitment to natural law, self-determination, individualism and an abhorrence of government were core to his thinking and largely responsible for his success as an activist.

Gandhi’s Philosophy

Satyagraha, Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence, which translates to “truth force” or “love force” carries with it some distinctly libertarian ideas. It incorporates elements of both the “knowledge problem” (applied in a moral sense) and the non-aggression axiom, although taken a step further into moral obligation to others — which is more than libertarianism demands. According to Gandhi:

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself.

Gandhi noted the purpose of Satyagraha was to “convert, not to coerce, the wrong-doer.” Success is thus defined as cooperation towards a just end, rather than a political “win.” He also spoke of means and ends as inseparable, rejecting the use of violence or the “victory, by any means necessary,” mentality of some who have practiced passive resistance in the West. Gandhi knew using violent means would embed injustice in whatever ends are attained, exacerbating the cycle of violence that plagues so many societies. In this way, the practitioner’s authority is rooted in moral force instead of violence, and has the potential to reduce antagonisms within a society without harming the antagonists.

Gandhi developed a set of very particular rules and mores for Satyagrahis to follow, including mandatory spinning, chastity and abstinence from alcohol. With these we are unconcerned, since different disobedience movements employed different particulars in their belief systems. What is interesting and relevant is the commonality among them, and the parallels to libertarian beliefs: The notion of the moral abhorrence of coercion, and the acknowledgement of coercion’s role in perpetuating injustice; the belief in natural rights that oblige disobedience to unjust laws; finally, and most pertinently, the almost mystical ability of this approach to inspire entire populations to mass action is an historical fact.

Foundations of Indian Liberty: Satyagraha in Action

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919 (also known as the Amritsar massacre) has been characterized as the turning point in the history of British India, the event that lost Britain her ‘jewel in the crown’ and eventually her empire. The event, condemned by Winston Churchill, nevertheless produced an escalation of tension and insults against Indian subjects and shattered the notion that Indians were British subjects with the same rights as the British themselves, much in the way the Easter Rising created that same clarity for the Irish.

The Tribune of India described the massacre as a

[M]ilestone in the struggle for freedom which brought Mahatma Gandhi on the scene in his capacity as a leader of the masses whose presence inspired millions of people for three decades.

In the annals of our freedom struggle the Jallianwala Bagh massacre occupies an unforgettable place. Overnight, men and women resolved to defy the British might. For Gandhiji, the incident was a turning point. He became a ‘rebel’ and realised the futility of achieving freedom through British cooperation. The seeds of his ‘do or die’ movement were thus sown then and there.

Noted the Tribune:

History bears ample testimony to the fact that the ill-conceived and unwarranted 1919 military operation proved to be a catalyst for bringing the doom of the British Raj as it created an unbridgeable gulf between the British Government and the Indian people, leaving the British with no other option but to transfer power to the Indians.

Gandhi capitalized on the anger against British rule with the first concerted civil disobedience campaigns, the non-cooperation movement that began in the 1920’s. The Salt March of 1930 was among his most famous successes. The march began with a mere 78 people, swelling to throngs of 30,000-50,000 as they marched through four provinces to protest the salt tax. Gandhi went to sea to make illegal salt, a highly symbolic and dangerous act that challenged British authority. The result was widespread support and media attention, and the building of a broad-based movement. That movement contributed to Indian independence from the British in 1947.

Gandhi’s Libertarian Ideology

Though Gandhi the monolithic figure is widely revered, his actual political philosophy is seldom discussed, perhaps because he was an anarchist who believed in a cooperative agrarian economic model that prevented stratification of classes and political power.

It is well known that Gandhi was motivated by a desire to see India gain independence from the British Empire. Beyond that, his experience with governments seemed to have led him to a deep abhorrence of the institution, and an embracing of individualism, self-reliance and spontaneous order, part of a moral system he called the Swaraj, which translates literally to “self-rule.”

According to Swaraj.org:

The call for Swaraj represents a genuine attempt to regain control of the ‘self’ — our self-respect, self-responsibility, and capacities for self-realization — from institutions of dehumanization. As Gandhi states, “It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.” The real goal of the freedom struggle was not only to secure political azadi (independence) from Britain, but rather to gain true Swaraj (liberation and self-rule).

Gandhi scorned the representative democracy due to its conflict with his deeply held reverence for the rights of the individual, noting “Swaraj will be an absurdity if individuals have to surrender their judgment to a majority.”

Gandhi recognized inequalities would persist. He was, however, deeply skeptical of government as a tool of social improvement:

I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor.

It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will fail to develop non-violence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.

Gandhi was a believer in spontaneous order as well: “We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day be the mass of people acting as if by instinct.”

Influenced by Western traditions in part due to the time he spent in Britain in his youth, Gandhi was also a believer in individualism, and the use of reason to underwrite a person’s morality. According to Professor T.N. Madan, Honorary Professor of Sociology at New Delhi University:

One of Gandhi’s outstanding contributions to social and political thought, I suggest, was the conception of altruistic individualism within a cultural setting that was generally considered group-centred … In regarding reason and moral sense as the primary sources of good conduct, Gandhi asserted the right of the individual to arrive at judgments and, if necessary, to defend them against collective opinion, whether traditional or contemporary. His excoriation of the practice of untouchability was not merely an assertion of his own individual right to make moral judgments — indeed he considered this an obligation but more importantly the assertion of the moral worth of every single human being, irrespective of his or her ascribed social status. Such moral worth is the basic premise of good society; whether it is enhanced or eroded depends on the dialectic of social pressures and individual agency.

Gandhi not only believed in asserting individual rights against the coercion of the state, he evidently believed market processes and private property would best meet man’s needs and scorned the use of parliamentary systems in attempting to achieve social ends. He was hostile to centralized authority of any kind and believed strongly in individualism and self-rule. “If we become free,” he said, “India becomes free and in this thought you have a definition of Swaraj. It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.”

It is worthwhile to note the relevance of natural law in radical liberation. Like with most governments, the British claim that their colonies enjoyed rights as British subjects was farcical. Whenever conflict arose, those rights seemed to dissolve quickly into coercion and bloodshed as the British fought to maintain unquestioned supremacy. Gandhi, like the Sinn Fein and the American founders before him, used the notion of a higher “natural” law and an emphasis on self-rule to motivate the oppressed to seize their own freedom.

Gandhi angered some by extending his notion of power and Swaraj to the history of colonization. While acknowledging the British Empire’s cynical intentions in India, he places the responsibility for the disaster of colonization on the Indian people. “It is truer to say that we gave India to the English than that India was lost … to blame them for this is to perpetuate their power.” Because power resides in the people and they can only lose it by relinquishing it (often through coercion by others), petitions to the government get a new meaning with Gandhi. “A petition of an equal is a sign of courtesy; a petition from a slave is a symbol of his slavery.”

Here again is a similarity with Sinn Fein’s embrace of natural rights — rights don’t come from government, but from within. Therefore, rights continue to exist when they cannot be openly expressed due to coercion. This is a crucial intersection for libertarians. Radical ideologies succeed in part by inculcating oppressed and apathetic populations with a sense of self-worth. The concept of natural rights was important during the colonial period, when colonized people believed rights were rare morsels tossed to them on the whim of their superiors. Gandhi’s philosophy sought to rob Britain of their power to determine the law as a sort of demystification of white rule.

Anarchic India of course, was not to be. Gandhi, not being able to realize his “oceanic villages” system with Indian liberation in 1947, settled on minarchism:

Gandhi recognized that there would be a national government, and his anarchic, oceanic circle would not yet be possible. Nevertheless, he used the terms of nationalism to move towards the ideal of Anarchy. He advocated for a minimal level of State organization to fund some education programs and to promote his economic concept of trusteeship. Hence, Gandhi was a compromising Anarchist.

Gandhi had to compromise his principles in some cases. But of greater import is the fact that his individualist principles caught fire and exploded in popularity in the face of severe oppression. Indian independence was a complicated endeavor, but in the end, Gandhi proved to be on the right side of history. The radical anarchist who had been repeatedly imprisoned, classified as a terrorist by the British parliament and derided as a threat to law and order, was described by former U.S. Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall as “a spokesman for the conscience of all mankind.” With the positive impact non-violent resistance movements have had in the last seven decades, he might also be considered a true political visionary.

Why Libertarians are Failing at Politics

noreply@blogger.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:33:00 GMT

[Published at the Center for a Stateless Society Oct. 6, 2015]

Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center dropped a truth bomb on the beltway in his recent piece for Fox News about the decline of Rand Paul. Taylor notes that the alleged growth of the libertarian movement in the wake of the Ron Paul campaign was largely illusory. The alienated populists and conspiracy theorists that filled out Paul’s numbers in 2012 easily made the transition to the very un-libertarian Donald Trump in 2015, leaving Rand out in the cold.

The lack of a broad-based movement, despite a number of high profile campaigns and events, is a bitter pill for libertarians who believe in electoral politics. Having libertarians in office may help raise the profile of issues like overcriminalization, tech freedom, and the insanity of the drug war. But those who await a libertarian takeover of the GOP misunderstand the fundamentally radical nature of libertarian ideas and how deeply that radicalism conflicts with the perceptions most Americans have about the role of government.

Trump supporters are a grim reminder that millions of voters view the government as a hammer that can be wielded to smash opposing values or groups and force their beliefs on others. Educating the electorate about libertarian ideas misses the fact that they have no real incentive to learn; most don’t care about the relationship between man and state and likely never will, as long as the state continues to provide the stability they have come to expect. Ron Paul’s success in 2008 and 2012 can largely be credited to the mortgage crisis; once the sting faded, so did support for his radical ideas.

There’s a good reason libertarians remain at the ideological fringe: “Libertarian politics” is a contradiction in terms. Libertarianism is not a third party, like the Know-Nothings or the Whigs or a prescription of policy tweaks to make the government more efficient. It is a distinct value system that abhors political power itself, even if some of its adherents consider power a necessary evil.

Libertarians may disagree whether the state should be abolished or minimized, but the difference matters little to the average American: Both seem frighteningly outside his own experience. Even the most moderate libertarians will wax poetic about ending intellectual property or privatizing the welfare system. Moreover, virtually all voters are deeply invested in government services they have come to depend on, and libertarians have been unable to present hypothesized private-sector alternatives while the state forces dependence upon itself. Conceptually, libertarians are on a page that most people find bizarre.

Libertarianism is best understood as the latest in a long line of radical liberation ideologies, rooted in the principles of natural law and individualism, that have provided the intellectual basis for rebellion since the American Revolution. It is a reaction to the perpetual expansion of government power in the U.S. and its frequent abuses. But radicalism, by definition, is immoderate and cannot compromise its way to reforms. Rather than moving toward the “Overton window” of public opinion by moderating controversial views (as Rand Paul attempted), radicals must pull public opinion towards their own viewpoints. Rand’s straying from libertarian principles means that he likely has little unique appeal even for the tiny libertarian electorate his father created. David Boaz’s research shows that 70% of libertarian-leaning voters went with Mitt Romney over Gary Johnson in 2012, so we know even libertarians who believe in politics are willing to blunt their own sword.

If libertarianism is denied its radical characteristics, it degrades into a flimsy millennial conservatism: Fiscally conservative, socially liberal and completely powerless, a mashup of existing ideas better espoused by other parties and ideologies. Without unyielding commitment to truly radical ideas, libertarians are drowned out by louder voices catering to the will of angry, pitchfork-bearing constituents. They add little of value, and are likely to end up little more than a footnote in the history of conservatism.

To fail to understand this is to remain resigned to swim against the tide of American politics. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out: “Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this has rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide.”

Instead, libertarians might be more useful as single-issue activists and innovators. While U.S. politicians fail to shrink government, individualists like Erik Voorhees, Cody Wilson, Peter Thiel and the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto are using technology to forge a new path. Time will tell exactly where that leads. But Rand’s decline underlines the fact that libertarian ethics predicate disruption and revolution, not moderation and compromise. As such, it is unlikely to ever get big votes in American politics.

Translations for this article:

Italian, Perché il Fallimento Politico dei Libertari.

Citations to this article:

Jason Farrell, Why libertarians are failing at politics, USA Today, 2015-10-12
Jason Farrell, Why libertarians are failing at politics, The Spectrum (print), Opinion, 2015-10-13
Jason Farrell, Why libertarians are failing at politics, The Spectrum (online), 2015-10-12
Jason Farrell, Why libertarians are failing at politics, Deseret News, 2015-10-07
Jason Farrell, Why libertarians are failing at politics, The United Patriot, 2015-10-07
Jason Farrell, Why Libertarians Are Failing At Politics, Western Journalism, 2015-10-09
Jason Farrell, Why libertarians are failing at politics, Sentinel Source, 2015-10-08
Jason Farrell, Why Libertarians are Failing at Politics, Fetch Your News, 2015-10-08
Jason Farrell, Why Libertarians are Failing at Politics, Pravigos, 2015-10-09
Jason Farrell, Why Libertarians are failing at politics, Augusta Free Press, 2015-10-07

Membership representatives on the NEC

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 16:42:43 GMT

The Transhumanist Party is now looking for suitably qualified and motivated membership representatives to sit on its National Executive Committee (NEC), in line with its constitution (which can be found here). Membership representatives (“reps” for short) are people who sit on the NEC for one year as full voting members, speaking on behalf of the membership as a whole, until they face re-election at the next AGM.

While we are still in the initial stages of establishing the party, our first set of five reps are being appointed by the other NEC members as they volunteer themselves, rather than pushing a full election outside of the AGM. All of these initial reps will, however, face re-election at the next AGM as required by the party constitution.

This is a chance to help the party and our movement, by providing a vital link between the membership and the National Executive Committee which makes decisions on their behalf. If you would like to be considered for the role of membership representative, then please email contact@transhumanistparty.org.uk.

We do not yet have a full role description for these representatives, but we can say the following things with confidence at this stage:

The position is unpaid, and carries reponsibilities including (but not limited to) engagement at NEC meetings twice per month and engagement with the party membership between those meetings.

All membership representatives must be full party members, and their activity is subject to the requirements of the party constitution and NEC.

Development of full role descriptions for the representatives will be the responsibility of the first set of reps.

Similarly, establishment and maintenance of AGM electoral procedures for membership representatives will be in the hands of the initial set of reps, subject to constitutional & NEC requirements.

[Press] TRANSHUMANIST PARTY VIEWS ON ACTION IN SYRIA

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 15:27:00 GMT

Contact David Woods
Email PRESS@TranshumanistParty.Org.UK
Website http://www.TranshumanistParty.Org.UK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 25, 2015

TRANSHUMANIST PARTY VIEWS ON ACTION IN SYRIA.
STRICT CONDITIONS MUST BE MET FOR TRANSHUMANIST PARTY APPROVAL.

The Transhumanist Party upholds the principle of Social Futurism: the social consequences of interventions, whether technological, political, or military, should be thought through in advance, to reduce the risk of unintended outcomes. In addition we support the right of minority self determination.

Given the lack of foresight shown by successive UK governments over the past two decades which have reduced much of the Middle East to ruin, and noting that David Cameron now wants to bomb Syrian rebels this time, instead of the Syrian government when Parliament last refused his request two years ago:

The Transhumanist Party would only support the bombing of Syria under the following conditions:

(a) That the military action is limited to strikes against Islamic State and will not be widened to include other factions in the civil war or elsewhere.

(b) That it is part of a wider plan to end the war in Syria to enable refugees to return home, even if it means backing Assad on a temporary basis with Russian assistance.

The cessation of all military action in Syria, as soon as possible, is a precondition that will allow the people in that region to participate in the collective technological, economic, educational and social progress which is their Human Right as defined by the United Nations Charter, and their extended Transhuman Rights”.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact David Woods at PRESS@TranshumanistParty.Org.UK

Zoltan Istvan does not speak for the Transhumanist Party

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 14:02:04 GMT

EDIT: Please note that the first paragraph below has been expanded slightly, to make it perfectly clear who the author is, and in what official capacity this letter has been written.

My name is Amon Twyman. This is an open letter to the entire Transhumanist community, written in my capacity as Party Leader of the Transhumanist Party (a registered political party in the UK), coordinator of the Transhumanist Party Global umbrella organisation, and founder of multiple associated groups. It is important to note that in the UK the Transhumanist Party is an officially registered and fully constituted political party, which operates in accord with a clear set of internal rules which are consistent with UK law. Our membership count has grown rapidly, in the few months since the party’s inception. The following statement is primarily made in my capacity as the leader of that party, reflecting both my official responsibilities to that party, and the due processes of that party.

I feel that it is now necessary to address an unfortunate apparent schism within the Transhumanist movement, and show the way forward toward a positive, constructive, intelligent solution to the problem. In other words, a solution which captures the intended spirit of Transhumanist thinking. In short, I feel that I must address the question of Zoltan Istvan. His role in relation to the Transhumanist Party, and in relation to the movement as a whole, and the mixed reactions to some of his more notable recent actions. It is not my intention to support or condemn any individual, but instead to offer perspective which will help us all move forward as a unified movement.

The Transhumanist Party is a rapidly growing, worldwide movement of organisations, some of which explicitly use that name (or some version of it) while others do not. It is effectively a network that represents the primary manifestation of Political Transhumanism, which is in turn an important current within the broader Transhumanist Movement.

The strength of the Party is the same as the strength of the wider Movement of which it is a part: Cooperation, and a sense of unity which paradoxically arises from an acceptance of diversity and pluralism. In other words, the Transhumanist Party – worldwide – is thriving because we understand that our members do not all have to believe exactly the same things in order to be on the same team and achieve common goals. The same goes for Transhumanism as a whole. The Party is just one aspect of Transhumanism, and Transhumanism as a whole thrives when we understand it to have many facets, all reflecting and supportive of each other.

I think this is important to understand, and sometimes visual metaphors can cement understanding, so you may wish to think on it this way:

Imagine a large room or chamber, effectively hidden (for now) from the eyes of the wider world. That chamber constitutes our entire movement, every aspect of Transhumanism as it currently exists. The chamber is filled with candles, each representing an aspect of the movement, a person or group or idea. There are small and large candles, candles standing alone and others in clusters, some larger than others. When they are all allowed and encouraged to shine together, their collective light might stand a chance of being seen from outside, and the world may come to see. We should not wish to extinguish any of the candles, or to imagine that the light of any single candle can ever shine brightly enough on the world to bring the changes we want to see. If we do not all shine together, we might as well not be shining at all.

Recently we have heard a lot of disgruntled mumblings about schism, and disunity within the movement. Most of this is just idle internet noise, but real issues and differences have flared up. Once such issue has involved unilateral statements made by Zoltan Istvan, ostensibly on behalf of the Transhumanist Party. People have increasingly been asking what right Istvan has to make such proclamations, and some worry that he is bringing the movement as a whole into disrepute, despite being a particularly bright-shining “candle” himself. I would like to take this opportunity to briefly sum up the situation, once only and as a matter of record.

Zoltan has a spectacular drive, sense of personal ambition, and ability to connect with mainstream media. We as a movement could all learn well from him, and intend to do so. But while his efforts gives him a unique opportunity to “brand” Transhumanism for a wider audience as he personally sees fit, he does not have any moral authority to do so. His implicit claim to moral authority comes from his claim to be founder of the Transhumanist Party, but the fact is that he is no such thing. He created and popularised the idea, to be sure, but he deliberately chose not to build a real party. He has explicitly rejected all real party-building, due process, and even democracy itself. There is a real party in the UK, and serious party organisations developing in Europe (supported by TP Global), and even a real party beginning to form in the U.S. – but Zoltan is not even a member of that U.S. Party. The simple fact is that he has his own small media group, which does what he needs to do to run a media campaign, and that’s it. Therefore, Zoltan has no mandate to speak on behalf of any other Transhumanists in terms of policy or anything else. His opinions are his own.

Now, I do not mean to imply that’s a bad thing. It’s a spectacular thing, and more of us should be doing it. But it does not make Zoltan anything more than a particularly effective advocate for the Party – one whose service the Party will always be grateful for. His personal organisation is a fraction of the size of the larger groups he inspired, but which are not under his personal control. His personal focus is on longevity, which is a great hook in media terms, but longevity technologies are only one aspect of real Transhumanist Party policy being developed… and which is not being developed autocratically by a single person, but in collaboration with multiple established Transhumanist think tanks, and in accord with rigorous, democratic due process.

Last but not least, unfortunately Zoltan has created the need for a statement like this, by starkly announcing that the Transhumanist Party believes various things which are violently incongruent with the beliefs of many bona fide Transhumanists. That would be OK if these things were true policy established by some valid process, but they simply are not. This unfortunate rupture has forced those of us working to build real Transhumanist Parties around the world to assert a positive, cooperative message, which we now extend to all Transhumanists and like-minded people:

We want to work as a fully cooperative part of the broader Transhumanist Movement, and will soon be working to extend our media and activist reach far beyond the traditional confines of that movement. We accept all the diverse branches of the movement as valid (or at least potentially so), and vigorously welcome healthy difference of opinion. That difference enriches us, rather than divides. We are already in full support of and in friendly relations with all the major Transhumanist organisations, and so would ask that everyone understand that there is no schism. There is just one Transhumanism, in its multi-faceted, argumentative, free-thinking glory. The Transhumanist Party is not defined by the views of even its most energetic advocates, but by due process (which you can shape by getting involved, whoever you may be), and its guiding mission is to support and carry forward the Transhumanism which already existed before the Party did. In other words, to support you.

You – all those people who we help and who choose to help us – are our mandate. Our due process ensures that it is a valid, and fair one. Zoltan Istvan’s views do not define the Party, and so there is no schism. There is just potential, whether you are politically-inclined or not. I feel that this is a message which every Transhumanist should intuitively understand and support.

Actions speak louder than words. Support an official, due-process driven Transhumanist Party organisation or indeed any active Transhumanist organisation of note, and we are on the same team. We want, and will achieve, the same things. Together.

http://transhumanistpartyglobal.org
http://transhumanistparty.org.uk

Official Policies of the Transhumanist Party (2015)

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 19:53:07 GMT

Last Sunday (4th October 2015), we held the inaugural Transhumanist Party Day in London, including our first AGM to officially determine Party policy by democratic means. You can find the list of our officially approved policies below, but first I would like to make a brief comment on the voting process.

This was the first test of our party’s democratic processes, and it appears to have been an overwhelming success. The party now has a mandate from its membership, which started with policy proposals submitted by the end of August, followed by ratification by the National Executive Committee (to check that proposed policies did not contravene the Transhumanist Party Principles), and finally by an open membership vote held both online and at the AGM.

There were two proposed amendments to the party’s constitution (see below), and I am glad to report that both were accepted with 100% support. Furthermore, there were six policy packages consisting of a number of proposed policies each. We offered members the chance to accept any package in toto, or to pick and choose which policies they supported. According to our party constitution only a simple majority threshold (i.e. 50%+) is required for a proposal to pass. Some consideration has been given to applying a higher threshold for this initial meeting, but it has been decided by the party leadership that an arbitrary threshold would do a disservice to party members who support any given policy which met constitutional requirements but not an arbitrarily higher threshold (and as importantly, one not announced in advance).

As it happens, we received an overwhelming mandate from the party membership, with three packages accepted outright at the 50% threshold, and all individual policies still being accepted at the same threshold where the packages as a whole were not accepted. Where a package as a whole was not accepted and a member had voted in favour of an entire package, they were considered to have cast a vote in favour of each individual policy comprising it (if we didn’t do this, we’d have to explain why we were throwing away half the members’ votes regarding half the policies). All six policy packages are thus considered to have been adopted as official policy, in full. Anonymised voting numbers will be made available to party members upon request, once they have been properly prepared.

Even though a higher acceptance threshold has not been applied, it is worth noting that only 3 of the 27 policy proposals would not be accepted at a 67% threshold, which in the party constitution is a threshold reserved for amendments to the constitution itself. In order to avoid undermining the established mandate, I will not be commenting on which three policies those are.

These are now the official policies of the Transhumanist Party, until the next AGM or special poll of the membership. Rules for submitting new proposals toward future changes will be released shortly. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the party.

OFFICIAL POLICIES OF THE TRANSHUMANIST PARTY (2015)

A. Party Constitution amendments:

1.0
The Transhumanist Party’s ideological position is known as Social Futurism, which represents the integration of social and technological concerns. We adopt this position as a reminder that our central mission as a Transhumanist political party is to harness technological potential for the benefit of society.

2.0
The National Executive Committee (NEC) is responsible for drafting interim party policy where an issue is judged by the party leadership to have arisen for which there is no policy yet in place. The adoption of interim policy must be in accord with constitutional voting rules. Any such policy must be formally ratified at the first AGM following its inception, or be automatically considered rescinded in the absence of ratification.

B. Initial Transhumanist Party policies:

3.0 Political and Judicial Reform

3.1
Governance in the UK to be reformed toward greater democratic, technologically mediated participation in decision making (particularly with regard to functions which can be safely ceded to local authorities), and a greater focus on evidence-based policies rather than ideology.

3.2
Proportional representation is to be instituted.

3.3
The House of Lords to be transformed, over time, to a second chamber augmented by the most effective technological decision aids available.

3.4
No MP may take any other paid work while during their term in Parliament, and laws are to be enacted to reform the “revolving door” system of MP’s subsequent appointments and private sector political influence.

3.5
Freedom of speech will be vigorously defended, with the exception of speech that (1) constitutes a direct incitement to violence, (2) is libellous (with libel reform to have burden of proof put on the claimant), or (3) is the product of a crime designed to acquire or create the information transmitted (trading in or further transmitting such information will make one an accessory to the original crime).

3.6
Reform of intellectual property and software patent law, to allow only the most clearly justified limitation of freedoms of speech and information.

3.7
Laws addressing the regulation of emerging technologies will as far as possible prioritise the preservation of personal freedoms insofar as other people’s personal freedoms, rights, or the needs of society are not being curtailed. People should be free to use new technologies as they see fit if they are harming no-one else and there is no clear potential for such harm, and they must be guaranteed freedom from inappropriate intrusion by the state made possible by new technologies.

4.0 Economics

4.1
The highest goal of the Transhumanist Party is to ensure that the potential benefits of technological change are as widely accessible as possible across society, and to create conditions which maximise opportunities for positive technological development.

4.2
The state pension, and retirement age, to be abolished. Those who cannot work will instead be entitled to claim state benefits. This is a policy to be introduced over a fifteen year timescale and culminate in a Basic Income Guarantee for all citizens.

4.3
A Land Value Tax to be introduced.

4.4
There will be no state subsidies for mature, profitable industries – no “bail outs”.

4.5
The state will provide full grants to all citizen students. Those receiving full grants will be liable to repay them if they emigrate within a ten-year period after graduation.

5.0 Environment

5.1
Transhumanist Party environmental policies must emphasise the use of “Bright Green” technologies to improve the health and wellbeing of the natural world, and to minimise any negative environmental effects of technology. This will necessitate constant reform and improvement of environmental impact legislation.

5.2
Targeted year on year reduction in the use of pesticides and herbicides. Support for vertical farming and robotic techniques.

5.3
Factory farming of animals to be more strictly regulated. Research into tissue culture as a replacement source for meat to be actively supported and subsidised.

6.0 Health and Education

6.1
The NHS will be encouraged to evolve in a direction in which greater emphasis is placed on preventive and regenerative biotechnology.

6.2
Laws governing pharmaceuticals will be modified to allow licensing of drugs that extend lifespan, enhance intelligence or make one “better than well”.

6.3
No culturally divisive education is to be supported by the taxpayer. This includes schools charging significant fees as well as those selecting by class, race or religion.

6.4
New technologies which can significantly reduce educational & health system costs and improve performance of those systems will be subsidised by the government in order to encourage swift adoption.

7.0 Society and Europe

7.1
Although we are concerned with the wellbeing of humanity as a whole, our party focusses first and foremost on British societal needs. The demands of multiculturalism and other societies will be considered secondary to the needs of our own society. Within the broad boundaries of asserting our own societal needs first, we will strive to create an integrated, harmonious society.

7.2
Immigration policy shall prioritise skilled migrants, and while refugees will be welcomed with vigorous humanitarian support, such refugees will not be afforded the full rights or freedoms of properly recognised immigrants. Although we seek to support and enable our fellow human beings, we cannot do so in a manner which abandons our own right to future self-determination as a nation.

7.3
The Council of the European Union (AKA the Council of Ministers) should not be allowed undue control over the democratically elected European Parliament. The Council should be reduced to the status of ‘second chamber’ with power of veto over European Parliament decisions rather than direct legislative power.

8.0 Defence and International Relations

8.1
An immediate halt to the selling of arms to nations that are not democracies, or are debtor nations in the international community to an extent significantly beyond the international norm.

8.2
Retain and properly maintain an effective nuclear deterrent.

8.3
No foreign aid to governments. Foreign aid should only be given direct to people who need the aid, or NGOs which can be trusted on the basis of evidence that they will properly distribute it.

8.4
No aid to nations with nuclear weapon programs.

8.5
Support for self-determination of culturally coherent peoples, where geography allows and can be shown to be viable (e.g. Kurds), as well as devolution movements (e.g. Scotland).

[Press] CORBYN HAS GOOD IDEAS, BUT THE NATION CAN DO BETTER

Dr. M. Amon Twyman — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 15:22:48 GMT

TRANSHUMANIST PARTY PRESS RELEASE

Transhumanist Party press releases can be found here:
https://transhumanistparty.wordpress.com/tag/pressrelease/

CORBYN HAS GOOD IDEAS, BUT THE NATION CAN DO BETTER

Labour is changing with the times, but we need a true vision for the future

We welcome the return of the Labour party to its ideological roots, which will hopefully introduce real choice between the major parties for the first time in decades. However, it remains to be seen if this new leadership can truly move politics into the 21st Century. We applaud Mr Corbyn’s stance on environmental issues; notably climate change, carbon neutrality, and a clean nationalised energy supply. Furthermore, we support the view that the National Health Service (NHS) should remain publicly funded. However we oppose the offer of support for homeopathy, for which there is no scientific basis or evidence of efficacy.

Moving forward, it remains to be seen if Labour, even under new leadership, can make a positive impact in the areas of democratic reform (transparency and proportional representation), technological unemployment, accelerating technological change, and funding for necessary scientific research which fuels true growth. The Transhumanist Party calls for cross-party dialogue to explore and address these issues, and so inform evidence based policy and ensure that accelerating technological progress brings positive social change, to balance the inequalities currently seen across our society.

Party leader Amon Twyman says, “It is refreshing to see the re-emergence of true political choice in Britain, but Nineteenth Century notions of social justice are not well matched to the realities of the Twenty First Century. The Labour Party can demonstrate its commitment to properly engage those realities by inviting cross-party discussions of new issues in democratic reform, education and employment. The Transhumanist Party is ready to contribute to that debate.”

How the State is Breaking the Social Contract

noreply@blogger.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 19:07:00 GMT

This is a brief epistemology arguing the U.S. government is in violation of the Lockean "social contract" and is likely to remain in a state of violation. I am not arguing for the overthrow of the government, but for individuals to seek tools to protect their own privacy. If this argument holds, it would also mean that it is immoral for governments to interfere with the self-defense of privacy online (via encryption, etc.)

Claim: The U.S Government no longer respects the right to privacy and is thus in violation of the social contract.

1. Privacy is a Natural Right.

State control of information much easier and less invasive today. Contextual right based on expectation of privacy (see Katz v. United States, 1967) is unenforceable, since the “expectation of privacy” has been eroded away by nearly limitless spying capabilities (see Xkeyscore).

If privacy is to be considered a right at all, it must be defended as a natural right, since it is impossible to defend oneself against arbitrary power if the state can intercept your most sensitive communications at will.

2. The U.S. Government is strongly incentivized to abuse individual privacy.

Voters don't care about privacy, and generally don't understand complex issues involved.

Congress faces little pressure from an ignorant public so poor oversight of executive power will likely remain routine.

Courts have little choice but to rule“no standing” on secret authority, so justice is unlikely through normal channels.

3. The U.S. Government is centralizing authority within the executive.

Bush and the UnitaryExecutive: The pressures of the War on Terror force the centralization of power in a "strong man" executive.

Abuse of PATRIOT Act powers were rampant within the NSA, but unknown publicly until Snowden's whistleblowing.

The centralizing of executive power means that legislative authority is playing a diminishing role in governance, and is less to reign in threats to privacy rights.

4. The diminution of technical barriers to absolute power is detrimental to privacy.

Xkeyscore: NSA can query massive database and look at content of messages without warrants.

The Five Eyes Alliance proves that states get around legal and technical barriers to domestic spying by sharing information among each other.

Since these capabilities grew in secret until a very risky lawbreaking occurred (the Snowden leaks), and such monumental leaks are very rare, it is reasonable to assume the legal barriers to government spying are likely to remain behind technical capabilities.

5. Since its abuses of privacy are rampant and likely to remain unchecked by other branches, the Executive is in violation of the social contract.

This means that individuals must seek alternatives to enforce their own privacy rights, since government interests are opposed.

Government Spies See Opportunity in Terrorist Attack

noreply@blogger.com — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 15:28:00 GMT

As if they weren’t Machiavellian enough, spy agencies are evidently waiting for the next terrorist attack to change public opinion on the need for encryption backdoors, reports The Washington Post.

The intelligence community’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, lamented in a leaked email that “the legislative environment is very hostile today … [but] it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.” According to the Post, Litt suggested there may be value in “keeping our options open for such a situation.”

A second senior intelligence official added: “People are still not persuaded this is a problem. People think we have not made the case. We do not have the perfect example where you have the dead child or a terrorist act to point to, and that’s what people seem to claim you have to have.”

The intelligence community has been frustrated by resistance to its attempts to weaken encryption through legislation. Congress does not have any legislation on deck that would require companies to hack their own customers if the government can produce a warrant. A “dead child” would undoubtedly help their cause with the public. But their “we need a terrorist attack to prove that people should be worried about terrorist attacks” theory is troubling, to put it mildly.

The leaked email obtained by the Post is another disturbing glimpse into the mindset of intelligence officials. The pursuit of spying capabilities is given paramount importance, despite their widely acknowledged ineffectiveness in fighting terrorism and the damage they do to the security of the internet.

I recently argued the U.S. government’s hunger for information could remain largely unrestrained by traditional constitutional protections due to ongoing information warfare with authoritarian states. While he may not have discussed the merits of warrants, Litt made it known internally that he views domestic spying as a competition the U.S. has with foreign adversaries: “Does anyone seriously believe that if the U.S. says we won’t seek access, the Chinese and Russians will say, ‘OK, you are right. We’ll give up?’ I don’t think so,” he snorted in the leaked email.

The tendency of public officials to exploit tragedy for political gain is of course not new. It is particularly troubling when it is utilized purely for the expansion of power by the security apparatus and echoes the period after the September 11 terrorist attacks when the security establishment had the USA PATRIOT Act ready to roll out, stocked full of new powers that had been cut from Clinton’s 1996 counter-terrorism legislation to make it acceptable to Congress.

The leak underscores the problems associated with secret laws, secret courts, secret spying programs and the failure of the democratic process to secure privacy rights. The competitive nature of domestic spying programs could compel states to further erode privacy rights within their own borders in the pursuit of “national security.” What sort of security that leaves us with remains to be seen.

[Published at C4SS Sep. 18, 2015]

The Natural Right of Flawless Encryption

noreply@blogger.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 14:14:00 GMT

Amid claims by U.S. officials that a “golden key” to all forms of encryption software is necessary to fight terrorism, a UN Report released in May asserts that securely encrypted communications among private citizens aren’t just permissible, but a human right. The report’s author, UC Irvine professor David Kaye, notes the problem of creating a weakness in all encryption systems for the U.S. government due to the high probability that any “golden key” access will likely end up in the hands of foreign governments and hackers, making the encryption useless.

Kaye’s pragmatic argument is valid, and popular among cryptographers and privacy advocates. But this argument doesn’t go far enough. Denying governments the right to crack encryption isn’t just defensible on pragmatic grounds. Encryption is a vital tool to prevent abuses of power since even the most benevolent governments have proven untrustworthy and unlikely to ensure the protection of rights when their interests fail to align with those of the governed.

State actors tend to subordinate the right of privacy to the expansion of their own information gathering. Regardless of states’ procedures designed to ensure individual rights are protected, the unchecked expansion of invasive capabilities that they naturally pursue indicate that there may be fundamental flaws in the democratic model. Air-tight encryption may be the only reliable antidote.

Privacy is a Natural Right

As libertarian scholar Michael Rozeff notes:

The origin of privacy is social necessity. Social cooperation and interaction, freely given, depend on it. Speech depends on it. Not being fearful depends on it. Operating as an autonomous person depends on it. No one can operate at all well without feeling that he can take a walk or a drive or say something in privacy, unmonitored by a State agency. To be monitored in all forms of private activities is a form of imprisonment! One may roam, but one is constantly under guard and subject to State intrusions.

As Rozeff indicates, a society that lacks the ability to communicate privately does not have free-thinking, autonomous individuals. It is populated by something more akin to inmates who have surrendered their sovereignty to the state and live in a tightly controlled environment where freedoms only exist at the discretion of administrators. A life where every action is taken looking over one’s shoulder doesn’t lend itself to building trust, social progress, or otherwise growing a free society. The technical limitations imposed on states are among the least celebrated guarantors of human liberty; imperfect control of information forces states to build consensus and leaves them less able to establish totalitarian systems.

Privacy is an essential component of human liberty, but the United States Supreme Court has taken a half-hearted approach to protecting it. Constitutional law considers privacy highly contextual, and allow for tradeoffs between personal privacy and “public interests.” Currently, the standard set in 1967 by Katz v. United States establishes that a privacy right exists in a certain situation if it can be reasonably expected, and if society agrees that this expectation is reasonable. Subsequent rulings have affirmed this standard up through this year.

This is problematic in our densely interconnected world, since there isn’t broad agreement on what type of communication qualifies, nor a broad understanding of how technology works. The end result has been a Byzantine mess of case law leaving a trail of injustice in its wake, and a global surveillance apparatus that takes advantage of the confusion by growing its power in secret.

Elevating the right of privacy to that of a natural right protects the act of communication itself and ensures it is not dependent on ever-shifting context, according to NYU legal scholar Richard Epstein. Epstein notes that “a natural right is defined as an independent right not contingent on any situational or environmental factors. If privacy is a natural right, that right would apply to both the real and online worlds, equally to employees, students, library users, browsers, and consumers.” The contextual approach approved by the Supreme Court means “an individual’s right to privacy waxes and wanes based on what one is doing.”

The Snowden leaks in June 2013 revealed that the U.S. and its allies are disinterested in restraining themselves with warrants and Constitutional principles. This makes the “contextual” standard even more complicated, since individuals can now expect that they may well have no privacy rights at all. To prevent the right to privacy’s diminution into some curious historical artifact, a broad-based natural rights standard clearly makes more sense.

Constitutional law can only provide so many answers, and only within a framework of specific precedents. But if we consider that a person has a natural, rather than a contextual right to protect their communication or other information, it follows that a person has the right to defend their privacy with whatever tools are available, regardless of the needs of the state. Only air-tight encryption takes the burden of enforcement away from the state and enables the individual to defend his or her own natural right to privacy.

Governments Obey Incentives, Not Laws

The Snowden leaks proved that individuals must take responsibility for their own privacy by revealing an inherent problem at the heart of constitutional government. By revealing the inner workings of the surveillance state, the leaks showed us governments don’t obey constitutions or laws, per se. Like the rest of us mere mortals, state actors obey incentives. The FISA Act shows that Congress defers heavily to state power and seems mostly unconcerned with privacy rights. This helped to create a culture of apathy for privacy protection within the secretive administration of spying programs as well. One former FISA judge even said the FISA Court “has turned into something like an administrative agency,” rather than a proper court.

Given public ignorance, there seems to have been little incentive for legislators to keep a close eye on the NSA or develop a thorough understanding of the technology it employed. Where incentives are weak, government agents are unlikely to restrain their own behavior. And incentives for government actors to self-restrain are especially absent in the cloak-and-dagger world of “national security.” With incentives lacking, “going dark” and denying the state access to encrypted data seems the only reasonable protection.

Even if some democratic governments make a sincere attempt to follow their own laws, they will likely find themselves at a tactical disadvantage against more oppressive governments. As The Atlantic recently noted, “this new world is significantly imbalanced in favor of non-democratic nations — not because authoritarian states are more technologically sophisticated than their democratic counterparts, but because they are more institutionally flexible, opaque, unaccountable, and often corrupt.” The asymmetric nature of cyberwarfare means that even less oppressive states are likely to internally rationalize that violating privacy rights is necessary to battling spies, hackers, terrorists and other offenders.

In this context, it is clear that a golden key is a nuclear weapon against privacy; it ensures the state has the ability to violate privacy broadly and indiscriminately, without separating the innocent from the guilty. A key that opens every safe means that no safe can ever be secure from illegal search and seizure, given the impossibility of ensuring that governments will obey their own laws when acting under the veil of “national security” secrecy. This has already been shown in a number of instances, such as the secret infection of PCs all over the world with spyware. Any government that restrained its own use of the golden key would be at a tactical disadvantage, and would thus find itself in an unsustainable position.

Encryption is Power

Encryption is, at its core, a form of counter-power. It is a sword that can be wielded against an oppressor to expose its most nefarious activities, and a shield against injustice, able to protect a defendant against a meatgrinder justice system. Encryption protects information and buys the owner of that information options, time, leverage and influence. Encryption has become an essential tool of individual sovereignty, much like the printing press was for previous generations.

We have all heard the adage “knowledge is power.” In previous centuries, access to knowledge was tightly controlled by the clergy and state officials. In the Information Age, the ability to control access to knowledge ensures the empowerment of the individual even when the interests of the state are opposed. This is changing the relationship between the state and the individual in remarkable ways. In the past, the government could access virtually any information that you didn’t destroy or hide effectively. They could get a warrant and break into your home within a few minutes; if you had an extra-sturdy safe, they could smash their way in within a few hours or days. Governments around the world knew that escalation of force will get them what they want, sooner or later.

But that era ends with perfect encryption. AES-256 cannot currently be breached without the keys, no matter how much processing power a government agency commands. For perhaps the first time ever, an individual may, at will, keep any government in the world out of his private business with the ease and simplicity of logging into an email account. If the state knows information it wants is inaccessible, it must change course and negotiate, putting the owner in a new-found position of power.

The state would have you believe governance is merely the imposition of authority: You commit a crime, there is an penalty on the books that will be carried out that you have little control over. If you fail to claim certain income on your taxes, you owe a certain penalty. But it may be more accurate to say governance is a negotiation process by which government and governed come to an agreement according to their relative power positions. The state has imperfect knowledge and limited resources. It is sclerotic and bureaucratic. Given its limitations, it must under some conditions negotiate with those who break its rules — criminals, lawyers, whistleblowers, journalists, hackers, foreign states– in order to maintain legitimacy. As Wall Street bankers know, having leverage against the state can keep you out of prison. That leverage can also keep activists safe from abuses of power.

Once it’s written, encryption doesn’t respond to poorly written laws, corrupt judges, mad dictators, overzealous prosecutors, or racist cops. It is unconcerned with human failings and follows only mathematical laws. This might mean that terrible people will have the same protection, just as criminals and terrorists all use telephones, cars and other available technologies. But encryption programming is a language that can be learned by anyone. Even if every encryption standard in the world were banned or back-doored, any reasonably sophisticated criminal or terrorist organization would write their own.

Encryption is the Future of Freedom

Twenty years in, The Digital Age has personal autonomy perched on a razor’s edge. The way we treat privacy today will have repercussions in the future. An oppressive surveillance society is one possibility. But if we fully realize the potential in the tools we have to overcome centralized power, we can create a world where the vision of individual sovereignty philosophers have been developing since the days of Aristotle comes closer to reality than they had ever dreamed.

Evolving technology forces a real philosophical debate about rights, and should lead us to properly re-evaluate its role in our lives. The NSA has voiced fears about large swaths of the web “going dark” due to uncrackable encryption, providing safe haven to terrorists. Their concern is reasonable. But the alternative is a world where governments expand their power with near-impunity. Most state surveillance agencies would likely consider themselves virtually unstoppable, and the near-total reach of the global surveillance apparatus could change the relationship between man and state in horrifying ways. A well-funded, technologically proficient, opaque security state can do far more damage to liberty than any terrorist.

Governments do not have a right to see every communication on the web. They are endowed with police powers by individuals, who are the only holders of rights, in order to provide for the common good, at least in theory. Natural rights, by definition, exist whether governments recognize them or not, and in some cases must be defended in ways that contradict government interests. Even if the battle against terrorism, drug cartels, hackers, spies or other criminals becomes more difficult, “going dark” remains the right of all human beings.

[Published at the Center for a Stateless Society, Sep. 12, 2015]

Quick political tutorial for college freshmen

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 14:42:00 GMT

1. Your opponents are going to give a pass on hypocrisy from people on their side that they won't give to people on your side. That's because they don't want to blunt their own sword.

2. Not every political action is motivated by money, greed or capitalism. People derive plenty of motivation from hubris, ego, and nationalism as well.

3. Government hasn't failed to address your concerns simply because of "special interests." Democratic government is consensus-based, and is very tough to get sweeping changes through.

4. It's not shocking that people care more about things happening in their own lives than all the numerous tragedies going on in the world. If they did everyone would be a quivering little ball of misery.

5. If you care deeply about issue x and want to advocate for it, you're going to spend most of your life convincing people who are completely apathetic or oblivious that they should find your thing more important than the thousands of other issues out there. You will fail 99.9% of the time. Enjoy!

I swear if you can internalize this, the world will make more sense.

Great Moments in White Privilege

noreply@blogger.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 23:29:00 GMT

Was driving through Pennsylvania on the way back from hiking a small part of the Appalachian trail in New Jersey a few days ago when I blew past a cop doing 83 in a 65. Pulled over for the first time in 10 years.

The entire interaction with the cop could be classified as a Great Moment in White Privilege, something I've been more acutely aware of after three or four years of watching mostly African Americans get beaten and murdered by overzealous police on Youtube. The officer was stern but polite and nearly apologetic in her tone, despite the fact that my license address was not current or even for my state of residence. After the obligatory search period she returned with my ID and told me "I tried to cut you a break. I listed the infraction as a 'failure to obey speed limit' rather than a specific speed." I understood this to keep the fine down. It was only $150, so I figured I got off ok. Upon departing she noted "Just be careful. It's a holiday weekend, there's a lot of us out here."

All in all, not bad for a traffic stop. It was remarkable in its unremarkableness. I was acutely aware of my privilege and how it contrasted to the cold sweat that comes over so many African Americans when they see the lights flashing in their rear view.

This naturally made me think of the "white privilege" narrative getting traction around the web for the last few years. Without a doubt, white people are treated differently from black people on balance, even if white people are often grossly mistreated by police as well.

This does not mean, however, that the white privilege narrative is this generation's satyagraha. Every movement for change needs a narrative, because people adapt so well to easily-digestible stories. Every black man murdered by police becomes an accidental martyr for the movement. But as much as I'd like to see the "Black Lives Matter" movement succeed in getting regular, fair treatment from the police, the fact remains that change requires legislation. African Americans just don't have the votes to get major changes through, whether we're talking about at the national or state level, even if they got every single black person to vote. Most Americans just don't care about race-related issues. They need allies among other races, including Caucasians. But the "white privilege" narrative is blunting their momentum every time they use it.

I get it, we're a cynical generation. The "peace and love" narrative of the mid-20th century has taken a back seat to a more egocentric populism along several fronts. After the 2008 crash exposed the rot within the system, the Occupy Wall Street movement demanded more money. The Tea Party arose in response to the election of president Obama and demanded lower taxes. Now Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have seized on the widespread discontent in both parties. The optimistic socialist platitudes of the 60's are gone. Instead, the prevailing narratives have morphed into something strongly confrontational, us versus them, the rich versus the poor, the government versus the governed. Dualities dominate.

Black Lives Matter exists in this environment. And many of its leaders have made the mistake of creating a "black versus white" narrative. The new political mythos doesn't explicitly blame white people for the problems of African Americans for the most part. But it presents Caucasians as the beneficiaries of a system that is set up to cater to their habits, interests and norms that leaves African Americans out in the cold. There is a lot of truth to it, of course, as there is to many narratives. The problem lies in the effectiveness of the narrative to facilitate political goals.

Black militant movements existed in the early 20th century and grew into formidable organizations like the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam. Their rhetoric, like that of similar Marxist movements rooted in exploitation theory, was frustrated and hostile to groups perceived as lording power over the powerless. All such movements ended in violence and burned out without having achieved larger goals.

"White Privilege", as a corollary of critical race theory, isn't exactly the militant separatism of the 60's, but something more academic in nature. What remains is the confrontational racial attitude. "White privilege" theorists posit racial differences as categorical and immutable in nature, even as they abhor being lumped into racial categories. As with most political storytelling, consistency is tossed aside; anything that sharpens the knife dominates the narrative.

The theory's own dynamics indicate it's strategic flaws. If people only act in their own categorical racial or class interest and will fight to preserve their privilege, why would bludgeoning them with their own privilege ever change their minds? The fact that at one count 59% of whites recognize their own privilege, but problems are still endemic suggests that merely forcing Caucasians to recognize the advantages their political and social norms have created for them won't accomplish much.

Yes, even Martin Luther King acknowledged a number of facts respecting white privilege, such as the lack of government resources set aside for blacks. This is all history. But that isn't the same thing as punishing allies and potential allies with their own success. "I have a dream" didn't include stuff like "the real problem with America is the straight, cis-gendered white male patriarchy." The movement would have been over quick and no one would have remembered that speech.

I don't know. I could be wrong. Activists may indeed convince white folk that their privilege means they should vote for changes that are allegedly against their racial interests. I think its more likely that change will occur incidentally over many decades. But the fact remains that significant political changes require mass-empathy. How a confrontational attitude is supposed to engender mass empathy is beyond me. When activists are more concerned with being effective than being right, they may see real progress.

Snowden Leaks Proved State Cannot be Restrained Without Disobedience

noreply@blogger.com — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 15:32:00 GMT

[Published at the Center for a Stateless Society, Aug. 1, 2015]

The Obama Administration finally responded earlier this week to a two-year-old petition on Whitehouse.gov requesting the pardon of Edward Snowden. 170,000 signatures and a wave of anti-NSA public anger later, the White House formally refused to pardon the leaker, citing the alleged, unspecified damage his actions did to national security.

The petition response made no mention of any type of public service Snowden may have accomplished, particularly in the wake of the May 7, 2015 federal appeals court ruling that the telephone metadata program the president has repeatedly defended is in fact illegal. But the reality Snowden's leak exposed is that the growth of state power cannot be constrained—even by normal legal means—without assistance from extra-legal measures.

The intelligence apparatus had not only hid behind the secrecy of its surveillance capabilities; it tried to protect itself from scrutiny by claiming that any substantive information released to a court would damage national security interests. It even claimed that it couldn't explain exactly why or how this damage would occur... without defining what exactly “national security” means or why it trumps civil liberties.

We're fortunate the Court of Appeals saw through this argument. However, it likely never would have heard the case if not for Snowden's heroic act of what the White House's response sneeringly called “civil disobedience.”

The government's obstructiveness with the justice system has already created problems for plaintiffs trying to keep their information private and fighting for some semblance of Fourth Amendment privacy in the U.S. According to the ACLU:

By a vote of 5–4, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs in the [Clapper v. Amnesty International, 2013] case lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the FAA. Specifically, the Court reasoned that the plaintiffs had not shown that they had been injured by FAA surveillance, because they couldn’t establish a sufficient likelihood that their communications were being monitored under the statute. The plaintiffs couldn’t make that showing, because the government had refused to disclose, even in the most general terms, how the statute was being used.

That case was decided just before the Snowden leaks, but the decision may have just signaled a broader shift in judicial opinion on secret surveillance programs could be in the works. The Circuit Court determined in ACLU v. Clapper that the Snowden leaks provided valuable new information:

The government has pointed to no affirmative evidence, whether “clear and convincing” or “fairly discernible,” that suggests that Congress intended to preclude judicial review. Indeed, the government’s argument from secrecy suggests that Congress did not contemplate a situation in which targets of § 215 orders would become aware of those orders on anything resembling the scale that they now have. That revelation, of course, came to pass only because of an unprecedented leak of classified information.

According to Sen. Ron Wyden: “Now that this program is finally being examined in the sunlight, the Executive Branch’s claims about its legality and effectiveness are crumbling.”

Without leaks such as Snowden's, public review of sweeping, and intrusive government policies may not be fully realized. This particular case shows that the architecture of democracy may in fact be crumbling as a result of advances in technologies that can grant states enormous power to acquire information secretly.

All states expand their authority as a result of internal and external pressures, among them the battle for information supremacy. Logically, if knowledge is power, then more knowledge is more power. That expansion progresses toward the end goal of absolute authority. The progression may be constrained by different factors including the democratic process, competition with other states, and technological restrictions. But due to its competitive nature, it must always press forward.

In light of the ruling, we should consider that the state's ability to expand its surveillance power in secret may have outstripped the ability of the democratic or legal processes to properly restrain it. In short, we may be at the outset of a new era, one in which information acquisition can be accomplished so rapidly, so efficiently, that lumbering, deliberative, and arcane processes like elections, legislation and even the court system may be at a permanent disadvantage against the rapidly developing power of what some experts call the “deep state,” a network of secretive government agencies and their corporate partners that form the clandestine security apparatus.

This suggests that such an “illegal” action as Snowden's leak is not only permissible if properly focused, but essential to the cause of justice and limiting of coercive government powers.

Leakers and their journalist allies can provide a bulwark against state power expansion regardless of which government happens to be the offender. We should assume that a lack of transparency broadly means they are all offenders, and are guilty until forced transparency proves otherwise.

The Natural Right of Cyber-Dissent

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 22:18:00 GMT

[Published at the Center for a Stateless Society, March 27, 2015]

At the height of anti-NSA furor in January 2014, The New Republic (TNR) published a hit piece on Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald that criticized their anti-government beliefs, portraying the leakers as “paranoid libertarians” and traitors to progressive government ideas.
Said TNR:

By exposing the secrets of the government, they claim to have revealed its systematic disregard for individual freedom and privacy. Theirs are not the politics of left against right, or liberals against conservatives, or Democrats against Republicans, but of the individual against the state. To oppose them is to side with power against liberty, surveillance against freedom, tyrannical secrecy against democratic openness.”

“Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange hardly subscribe to identical beliefs … [their] outlook is neither a clear-cut doctrine nor a philosophy, but something closer to a political impulse that might be described […] as paranoid libertarianism. Where liberals, let alone right-wingers, have portrayed the leakers as truth-telling comrades intent on protecting the state and the Constitution from authoritarian malefactors, that’s hardly their goal. In fact, the leakers despise the modern liberal state, and they want to wound it. [emphasis added]

One wonders how “paranoid” were those who were ruthlessly harassed and held at gunpoint for questioning the NSA’s authority, such as whistleblower William Binney, whose story was prominently featured in the Snowden documentary CitizenFour. But in arguing that all men were compelled by an essentially libertarian idealism, TNR was right on the money, and this has serious implications for both the future of libertarian thought as well as anti-state activism.

The threat to free expression posed by unrestrained government institutions has created the need for a new front against the quiet, malignant growth of state power over the web granted to it by its rapidly-increasing technological capabilities. The anti-institutional radicalism inherent in libertarian ideals provided Snowden, Assange and Greenwald with an intellectual basis for their extralegal activism and a politically active community for support; it likewise ensured that libertarianism earned a way to not only distinguish itself from conventional “right wing” political thought in the public eye, but provided a real-world justification for its radical characteristics and brought its ideas to a wider audience. This sort of electronic civil disobedience could provide a resilient, anti-fragile bulwark against unchecked state power that legislation and conventional activism has been otherwise unable to create.

Snowden’s libertarian political stance is no mystery. In private chats on the ArsTechnica website back in 2008, Snowden voiced support for Ron Paul and even endorsed the gold standard. According to the chat logs he also told people about his general disdain for welfare-state policies. He is also widely known to have donated to Paul’s 2012 campaign.

Greenwald, like Snowden was likewise inspired by the anti-authority elements of libertarian thought. According to TNR, Greenwald,

began to envisage… [dissolving] the usual lines of political loyalty and unite the anti-imperialists and civil libertarian activists on the left with the paleoconservatives and free-market libertarians on the right in a popular front against the establishment alliance of mainstream center-left liberals and neoconservatives.

In his own words, Greenwald explained a “political re-alignment” had occurred, one that rendered “traditional ideological disputes” irrelevant. That re-alignment, to Greenwald, was of man versus government, no matter who was in charge.

When Snowden was spirited away from Hong Kong in mid-2013, his escape was arranged by Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, another anti-state libertarian who had been long established in the cypherpunk community. According to the TNR piece, Assange, like Greenwald, came to see “the defining human struggle not as left versus right, or faith versus reason, but as individual versus institution,” a core concept of libertarian thought.

In a Forbes interview back in 2010, Assange noted he was influenced by Ron and Rand Paul as well as American libertarianism in general. “So far as markets are concerned I’m a libertarian” Assange stated. “To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information.”

Assange’s libertarianism goes far beyond markets however; his own comments on the nature of state authority are steeped in traditional libertarian notions of coercion. He notes in his book, Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet that,

states are systems through which coercive force flows… factions within a state may compete for support, leading to democratic surface phenomena, but the underpinnings of states are the systematic application… of violence. [Cypherpunks] saw that the merger between existing state structures and the internet created an opening to change the nature of states.

Even though most of the media has not seemed cognizant of the strong ideological association between libertarianism and some of the most prominent privacy activists of the last few years, the inspiration evinces the role of libertarian radicalism in their activity: an intellectual tool that provides a framework for activists to question the legitimacy of major institutions at a critical historical juncture, which in our case, is the breakdown of restraints on state power through the rapid development of invasive spying capabilities by federal agencies.

This helps to put modern libertarianism in an important historical context. Radical institutional criticism has proved critical to the development of civilization as we know it today. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, John Locke’s Treatises, Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, and various works by Irish patriots, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil libertarians all have something critically important in common with modern libertarian activism: the inflammatory, yet foundational concept of natural rights.

A New Libertarian Activism

Natural rights were considered a long-settled set of foundational principles and have resided at the bottom of the stacked assumptions that make up western political thought. At the top of the stack are the assumptions most often dealt with, i.e., should we have higher or lower taxes? More welfare or less?

Despite its importance to our civilization as a foundational legal and political concept, natural rights very rarely come up in politics. Essentially, the theory says that human beings have fundamental, inalienable rights intrinsic to their nature that cannot be contracted away even voluntarily, and that either come from nature’s laws or, depending on the source, God himself. These rights were enumerated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (alternately, “estate” according to John Locke.) The most important aspect was the “inalienability” of these rights, i.e. they superseded all government authority, no matter how seemingly necessary or just.

But when an institution is perceived as violating natural and civil rights with impunity, such as the Catholic Church in the 16th century, the British Empire in the 20th, or the NSA in the 21st, activists are forced to dig deeper into long-held assumptions to question major institutions and remind the public that those institutions only have borrowed authority that actually resides within individuals. “Natural law” is the philosophical equivalent of Excalibur, a weapon so deeply imbedded in our moral framework it can only be drawn out by a select few, and so powerful it can only be wielded when all else has failed.

According to the libertarian-anarchist Murray Rothbard:

The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly “radical” ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason. In the realm of politics or State action, the natural law presents man with a set of norms which may well be radically critical of existing positive law imposed by the State. At this point, we need only stress that the very existence of a natural law discoverable by reason is a potentially powerful threat to the status quo and a standing reproach to the reign of blindly traditional custom or the arbitrary will of the State apparatus.

This foundational essence of libertarian thought that provides a connective thread to today’s institutional critics and anti-state activists primarily because it has been proven effective in both justifying and motivating anti-institutional activism through history. Edward Snowden illustrated during a February 2015 Reddit AMA his belief in natural rights and underpins his own act of defiance as an affront against the supposed “rights” of government:

Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it’s entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.

…Here and there throughout history, we’ll occasionally come across these periods where governments think more about what they ‘can’ do rather than what they ‘should’ do, and what is lawful will become increasingly distinct from what is moral.

In such times, we’d do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn’t defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends.

Well, when we look back on history, the progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality.

The remedy for a violation of civil rights, according to Snowden, is an activist disobedience that prevents their criminal behavior through the development of defensive capabilities by individuals:

How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.

Snowden’s Reddit manifesto is a full-throated endorsement of both natural law and civil disobedience, entirely consistent with the grand American tradition of defiance of bad laws that are inconsistent with those founding Enlightenment virtues.

Along similar lines, Assange clearly states his support for electronic civil disobedience in Cypherpunks: “cryptography is the ultimate form of non-violent direct action … strong cryptography can resist an unlimited application of violence.”

Assange evoked the Transcendentalists in his Wikileaks Manifesto in 2006, likewise proponents of the disruptive idea of natural law:

Every time we witness an act that we feel to be unjust and do not act we become a party to injustice. Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded into servility.

Compare with Thoreau’s quote on injustice from his essay “Civil Disobedience”:

…if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

These men were all in a position where they had to deal with knowledge of grave injustices being committed by the state. TNR is probably correct to argue they had no common ideology because they all may not have been fully committed, bow-tied libertarians. But how much Mises or Hayek each of them digested seems to matter less than what ideas motivated them to act. Ideologies exist to explain and map out solutions to complex social and economic problems that arise from time to time. This is of little concern to the civil disobedient, whose high-stakes action is laser focused on the remediation of a singular grave injustice.

Without a doubt, the core principles of that “paranoid” libertarian impulse were present to both motivate and justify their selfless defiance of bad laws. That “impulse” led them to actions that exemplify a historic unification of radical libertarianism and civil disobedience as underwritten by natural law, a potentially powerful combination of ideas if it is wielded responsibly and inspires others to follow suit.

Where this intellectual synthesis will lead in the future is unclear. If Snowden’s actions inspire other leakers, as seems to be the case, the threat of repeated embarrassing leaks could lead to increased pressure for reform; the resulting information lockdown within the government could even result in increasingly sclerotic information flow and bureaucratic inefficiency as the NSA struggles to plug leaks, according to Assange. Certainly, the Snowden leaks have turned up the heat on governments in a way conventional political activism was unable to do. Public anger toward the NSA has already cooled, diminishing momentum for reforms being pushed by some libertarian activists. Future actions by dissenters, however, could turn the heat back up, and perhaps more importantly, set alight new “brushfires of liberty” in young minds.

Dissenters naturally gravitate toward the most compelling political narrative in order to provide corroboration for their personal alienation experiences. That could serve to explain how these three found libertarianism and each other, and indicate how future leakers may come to justify their actions. But with much of today’s digital activism seemingly unmotivated by any particular set of values, the ideological convergence between libertarianism and disobedience is still fitful and incomplete: The activism of Snowden, Assange, and Greenwald, among scores of others, is only a representation of what it might become.

The Fourth of July

noreply@blogger.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 21:33:00 GMT

Human liberation movements (e.g. US, Irish, Indian, independence movements, Solidarity, Otpor, and the US civil rights movement) have over the long term fared far better those that attempted to force economic equality across classes (French Revolution, Bolshevik Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Cuban Revolution, etc.).

History is clearer about little than the fact that liberating the individual should be the end goal of human political efforts. The Fourth of July celebrates that first courageous effort to put that idea into practice. While we toast ideals of the founders, lets also dance on the graves of all the Bolsheviks who'd have us live in misery in the name of "fairness." May good ideas always win in the end.

Also, don't vote for Hillary.

Piloting a Drone Can Be an Act of Civil Disobedience

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 03:25:00 GMT

Straight from the piece in WaPo:

On his web page, Hughes mentions Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience.” Thoreau wished to “trace the effects of [his] allegiance” to the state. Such inquiry may become impossible if limitations baked-in to computer hardware and software increasingly limit the possible avenues for civil disobedience. We ought to be able to choose to comply with the law, rather than have such compliance be forced upon us by technological architecture.

Arguing that non-violent rule-breaking ought to be possible is not arguing that rules ought not to exist. In this particular case, it makes sense to legally protect the airspace around the seat of our government from willy-nilly flights, whether of drones or manned aircraft. But we must not obscure Hughes’s deliberate, calculated sacrifice by writing him off as a loony and nothing more, and we must continue to make choices like his possible.

Abrogating the possibility of such choices removes an avenue of dissent from our democracy. Let us not further eliminate one of the few ways in which those without much money can nevertheless make their voices heard on the national stage, at great personal cost. There is a place for police robots like the one which tentatively circled around Hughes’s airplane. They can make us safer, and they can make us more efficient.

But if we allow our technologies to limit our speech as if we ourselves were robots, then we step back from Thoreau’s ideal of progress, “imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor.” Fortifying the Capitol or the White House to make intrusions like today’s impossible isn’t only anti-democratic. It’s un-neighborly, too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/15/flying-a-drone-can-be-an-act-of-civil-disobedience/

Charles Murray's Field Guide to Civil Disobedience

noreply@blogger.com — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 13:58:00 GMT

Not quite civil disobedience, but rather a play right out of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: Wear down the state and drain its resources by forcing it to conform completely to its own rulebook. From https://www.aei.org/multimedia/charles-murrays-field-guide-to-civil-disobedience/

The Libertarian Relay: A Historical Defense of Radicalism

noreply@blogger.com — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 22:11:00 GMT

History has shown that some of the most dramatic and beneficial political changes of the twentieth century were achieved by radicals where moderates failed for generations. The Sinn Fein movement in Ireland, Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement in India, and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement are all great examples of successful nonviolent radicalism. In each case, when politics failed to move the needle, disobedience to unjust laws proved perhaps the most important political tool and last peaceful recourse for the disenfranchised.

The pioneers of civil disobedience were those who fought British Imperialism in the early to mid-twentieth century Ireland and India. The famed radical strategist Saul Alinksy saw history as a “relay of radical movements” whereby the “have-nots” seize power back from the “haves” to improve a sense of social equilibrium. Along these lines, the original disobedients can be thought to have inherited an old tradition.

In many respects, they were passed the ideological baton that began with the American Revolution and continues to find its way into the hands of alienated and oppressed populations around the world. The core idea that motivates all of these movements were those of the Enlightenment period and emphasized natural law, individualism and self-reliance as a means of motivating oppressed people to organize and strike back against their oppressors.

Libertarians are cast from the same mold; criticizing the close relationship between the state and large corporate interests, abuses of power, over-criminalization, opaqueness in government, and inequality before the law while demanding monumental changes rather than settling for table scraps from those in power defines a radical. Insofar as a significant portion of its adherents seek the liberation of the individual via the dismantling of political power, the modern libertarian movement can count itself an ideological heir of those who fought the British Empire a century ago.

Methodologically, active resistance seems to be manifesting a bit differently in the U.S., and not necessarily among those who are self-identified libertarians. The mass refusal to register firearms in Connecticut and the peaceful standoff with government officials on Cliven Bundy’s ranch were property rights-related examples of disobedience in the last few years. But libertarians have been strongly identified with the rise of bitcoin, cypherpunks, leakers and civil libertarian protest by the media and general public, and it is in those spaces that their most significant impact seems likely.

The comparisons with the aforementioned liberation movements made here are primary ideological in nature; however, methodological lessons abound. I don’t aim to show their ideologies are exactly alike of course, only to show common themes and lessons for frustrated libertarian radicals who are contemplating adopting the Fabian strategy as the likelier path to victory for libertarian ideas. The big takeaway here: Gradualism isn’t always more effective. Stick to your ideological roots and remain patient.

We can demonstrate how many radical non-violent movements through history:

1. Are similar to libertarianism in that they demanded drastic changes to power relationships in order to reduce or eliminate prolonged injustices;

2. Have demonstrated that the most successful movements have appealed to a sense of outrage, opened the hearts of those who were otherwise apathetic, and capitalized on events that should have otherwise devastated them, infusing their ideas with moral authority through the sacrifices of their heroes and martyrs;

3. Ensured that the political and cultural impact of the successful movements were made an unassailable part of the national narrative, and thus were unlikely to see their legislative changes ever repealed;

4. Proved the success of nonviolent ideologies rooted in natural rights in achieving radical goals where conventional activism has failed;

5. Proved that liberation movements, when successful, lead to the best social and economic outcomes, while egalitarian movements often lead to oppression and poverty, succeeding where incrementalism or appeals to power failed.

I. The Sinn Fein (1905-1922)

The Sinn Fein were founded in Dublin in 1905. After many years of marginality in Irish politics, they rose to prominence in 1916 and led the Irish people to independence from Great Britain in 1922, after 700 years of exploitive foreign rule. Thereafter, the Sinn Fein remained one of the most powerful and respected parties in Ireland and continue to play a major role in Irish politics.

The founding of the Sinn Fein occurred at a low point in rebellious sentiments in Ireland when most of the population favored a push for home rule via the Parliamentary Party, which sought compromise and incremental changes in the way that the British ruled Ireland. Other groups, such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, revived the militant anti-colonialism of the Fenian movement, calling for violent revolt against the British, despite the repeated failure of previous attempts in 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867.

The Sinn Fein, whose name translates roughly to “we ourselves” from the Gaelic, were an Irish liberation movement that stressed self-reliance, independence, preservation of Irish culture and civil disobedience as the method of resistance against British rule. Rather than hope for compromise with the British Empire on the issue of home rule, the Sinn Fein called for a complete dissolution of the Act of Union and full independence for Ireland.

The Sinn Fein were the libertarian movement of their day in many ways: small and unknown, marginal publishers of newsletters and fiery orators, populated by middle- and upper-class Irishmen who, largely due to their radical ideals, dealt more in philosophy than politics. They also believed in the concept of natural rights, inalienable and separate from government fiat. Their policy “was revolutionary inasmuch as it sought to displace existing British institutions and substitute Irish institutions to which the Irish people would respond…” according to Robert Mitchell Henry (1873-1950), author of The Evolution of Sinn Fein.^{^[1]}

The Sinn Fein believed that a nation, like any other group of individuals, had a fundamental right to be independent from any other social group. “They may be forcibly deprived by another and stronger group of rights the exercise of which seems to the stronger to be inimical to its own interests; or rights may be surrendered in return for what may be judged to be a fair equivalent. But it is not held that rights can be extinguished by force or that, if a suitable opportunity should occur, they may not be regained either by force or by agreement.” They also emphasized the preservation of language and heritage and held that a nation can maintain its “moral and spiritual [independence]... long after it has forfeited its political and cultural independence.”^{^[2]}

The Sinn Fein, having formed in the wake of the disastrous uprisings of the 19th century, vehemently opposed violence, if mostly for practical reasons. “We believe, said Arthur Griffith, its founder, “Ireland would be no match in the field for the British Empire. If we did not believe so... our proper residence would be a padded cell.”^{^[3]}

The Sinn Fein also took strategic concepts from 19th century Irish politician and anti-colonialist John Mitchel (1815-1875). Mitchel believed that an obstructive form of civil disobedience practiced in parliament might at length help to exhaust the British and bind up the gears of the state.^{^[4]}“Systematic passive opposition to, and contempt of, law might be carried out through a thousand details, so as to virtually supersede English dominion here and make the mere repealing statute an immaterial formality.”^{^[5]}The Sinn Fein also pursued abstentionism, calling for the formation of a parallel parliament to exist in Dublin, and for all Irish MP’s to serve there rather than at Westminster.

The Sinn Fein’s obstinate “self reliance” policy contrasted sharply with the policy of patient constitutional agitation, in particular the quest for home rule by the Parliamentary Party (and embraced by moderates), which had proved as impotent as violence for many years, as the British continued to defend their stake in Ireland at all costs. “The belief that nothing was to be expected from Parliamentary action received later a striking confirmation: for when the Irish demand was whittled down to a bare minimum and all claim to independence expressly renounced, a pretext was found in the exigencies of English political relationships for refusing even that.”^{^[6]}

Despite the persistent political frustration of the Irish and repeated abuses by the British occupiers, the Sinn Fein’s principled radicalism remained marginal and unpopular for most of its first decade of existence. They succeeded in winning only a few local elections and in 1910 the party conference was so poorly attended the members had difficulty filling leadership seats.^{^[7]}

Fortunes changed for the Sinn Fein in the wake of the dramatic Easter Rising of April 1916. Angered by the proposed partitioning of Ireland and other legislative failures, Irish militants, organized by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, stormed Dublin Castle during Easter celebrations in an attempt to overthrow the British government. After six days of battle, sixteen of the defeated rebel leaders were taken prisoner and unceremoniously executed without charge or trial.

The executions provoked outrage among the Irish people not seen in generations. “The conclusion drawn by nationalist Ireland” explained Henry, writing in 1920, “was that if they had been Englishmen they would have been tried by English courts and sentenced by the judgment of their countrymen: that if they had been Germans or Turks they would have been treated as prisoners of war: but that being Irish they were in a class apart, members of a subject race, the mere property of a court-martial. The applause of Parliament when the Prime Minister announced the executions was taken to represent the official sanction of the English people... It was resented in Ireland with a fierce and sudden passion: a tongue of flame seemed to devour the work of long years in a single night.”^{^[8]}It became apparent to large swaths of the population very quickly that home rule, the Parliamentary Party and patient compromise so longed for with Britain would no longer be possible.^{^[9]}

The impact of the failed uprising served to shake the Irish out of complacency and forced them to reassess their long relationship with Great Britain. It also sparked interest in the Sinn Fein, particularly after the media mistakenly identified them with the uprising.^{^[10]}“People who had hardly heard of Sinn Fein before wanted to know precisely what it was and what it taught... Sinn Fein pamphlets began to be in demand: a month after the Rising it was hardly possible to procure a single one of them.”^{^[11]}By February 1917, Sinn Fein’s newspaper presses were fired up again, appealing “no longer to a few enthusiasts but to a wide public eager to learn more of the only movement which promised anything definite.”

The pamphlets, such as Sinn Fein: An Epitome published in June 1920, detailed the struggle of the Sinn Fein and its use of civil disobedience against the hypocrisy of the Empire. Epitome tugged at the heart, describing “young Irish women with their faces turned toward Wormwood Scrubs, where their brothers and fathers were imprisoned without charge and without hope of trial,” noting that “many a man and woman paused during those days of the hunger-strike of the Irish political prisoners to ask themselves what manner of people these might be whose devotion to a principle led them to suffer such hardships rather than fail of their ideal… someone might have answered, that is Sinn Fein… yesterday a political theory, then an opposition party and today a democratic government which is actually functioning… as a great ethical principle and as the guiding star of men’s passions it is as old as the Irish people—as old as the human race itself. Its other name is Liberty.”^{^[12]}

The blood of the Irish rebels spilled in Dublin had purchased a sense of purpose and unity among the Irish and ensured the primacy of Sinn Fein’s hard-line republicanism over attempts at moderation or home rule that enjoyed decades of political favor. Policy prescriptions previously thought unworkable or extreme exploded in popularity. “[Sinn Fein] offering the Constitution of 1782, [had] failed to carry… more than a few doctrinaire enthusiasts: agreeing to the constitution which the leaders of the Rising died for, it might (and did) carry the country with it.”^{^[13]}

According to Robert Mitchell Henry, The Rising had also raised the bar for political action among the Irish. “If men had died for Ireland (men asked) facing the old enemy, what lesser sacrifice could be called too great?”^{^[14]}

The wave of nationalist enthusiasm “which no appeal to policy or prudence could withstand” swept the Sinn Fein into power in the next national elections and unified several different factions under their banner. The next five years in Ireland would be ones of great suffering and eventual victory. The Irish Republican Army came under the direction of the Sinn Fein’s political leadership, and waged an effective guerilla campaign against the British while the Assembly grew in political strength. Vicious reprisals by British “Black and Tans” led to even further widespread support for the rebels, but it was the heroism of those who employed civil disobedience that won the hearts of the international community, placing enormous pressure on the British to give up their colony.

The Sinn Fein’s policy of civil disobedience, designed to make the country ungovernable and turn sympathies against the British, had two prongs: abstention, to build confidence in self-governance, and encouragement of individual non-compliance with unjust and de-humanizing laws. Sinn Fein MP’s (Members of Parliament) elected in 1918 convened the first Dail Eireann (Assembly of Ireland) in 1919. Rather than serve in London, the MP’s refused to recognize the right of Britain to rule Ireland, and created an “illegal” parliament, encouraging popular recognition of independence.

Civil disobedience in its most effective role took the form of hunger strikes. Begun among prisoners in Mountjoy Prison in April 1920, several IRA members began the strike to demand “prisoner of war” status. They were joined by dozens of other IRA prisoners in prisons across Ireland.

On October 25, 1920, imprisoned IRA leader, playwright and Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney died following a seventy-four day hunger strike. Thousands attended his funeral in Cork and his death further galvanized the country, which had followed his agony and decline in the newspapers. His protest and death, reported as far away as the San Francisco Examiner, also brought international attention to the cause of Irish independence, leading Americans to boycott British goods. Protests across Europe and Australia and pressure from South Americans on the pope to intervene in Ireland also occurred. “One day the consciousness of the country will be electrified with a great deed or a great sacrifice and the multitude will break from lethargy or prejudice and march with a shout for freedom in a true, a brave, and a beautiful sense,” Terence MacSwiney prophesied years before his fateful hunger strike. He fulfilled his own prediction.^{^[15]}

The Sinn Fein’s strategy to “make Ireland ungovernable” worked effectively as their political jiu jitsu led to ever worsening hatred of the British. A combination of civil disobedience in political life, political support for the IRA’s guerilla war, the Crown’s own excessive violence and weakened hand following the First World War led to British capitulation by the summer of 1921. By the end the disobedience campaign had such an impact even large swaths of the British population supported Irish independence.

The lesson of the Sinn Fein’s battle for independence is clear: for radicals, violence alone will not win the day, nor will patient debate, appeals to power or parliamentary procedure. Only a firm, unwavering reliance on principles rooted in self-reliance and natural rights and the willingness to suffer hardships courageously can inspire populations to demand seismic political changes. Only then are heroic, even mythological narratives created that become an enduring legacy for future generations, and ensure that the changes wrought are permanent.

II. Gandhi, Satyagraha and Indian Independence (1914-1947)

MacSwiney’s hunger strike had been a great inspiration for the Indian Independence Movement, who were, like Ireland, fighting to rid themselves of British rule. Indian freedom fighters Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi had read MacSwiney’s work and counted him among their influences.^{^[16]}In 1924, four years after MacSwiney made international headlines by dying for Ireland in a hunger strike, Gandhi took up the same strategy in India. Gandhi went 21 days without food in an attempt to force reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims, who had begun warring while he was in prison.

Finding the hunger strike an effective political tool, he took it up several times in 1932, 1933 and perhaps his most famous in 1947-48 to end religious conflict that was killing thousands.

Little needs to be said here about the greatness of Gandhi, one of the pioneers of civil disobedience as a political weapon. Gandhi understood a few crucial points that were well known among twentieth century political actors but seem to be largely forgotten in the West: to initiate seismic political changes, you must maintain moral authority, never show any hostility toward your opponents, and throughout maintain holistic spiritual purity through self-denial and humility.

Gandhi showed us, more than anyone else, exactly how powerful sacrifice can be. Gandhi followed in MacSwiney’s footsteps, allegedly foretelling his own murder. As with MacSwiney, his death accomplished the change in public opinion that he fell short of in life: Interreligious violence that had sprung up in the power vacuum created by the British’s absence virtually ceased overnight after his murder in January 1948; violence that claimed half a million lives in just one year. India has been a relatively peaceful and democratic society since.

“We can’t rebel against the government unless we first rebel against ourselves,” Gandhi had told his followers. He understood a fundamental human problem of political action: People are willing to be party to their own enslavement in order to maintain a peaceful status quo. Energizing them into action requires sacrifice on the part of their moral leaders, in India’s case, the practitioners of Satyagraha.

Gandhi’s Philosophy

Satyagraha, Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence, which translates to “truth force” or “love force” carries with it some distinctly libertarian ideas. It incorporates elements of both the “knowledge problem” and the non-aggression axiom, although taken a step further into moral obligation to others than libertarianism demands. According to Gandhi:

In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself.

Gandhi noted that the purpose of Satyagraha was to “convert, not to coerce, the wrong-doer.” Success is thus defined as cooperation towards a just end, rather than a political “win.” He also spoke of means and ends as inseparable, rejecting the use of violence or the “victory, by any means necessary,” mentality of some who had practiced passive resistance in the West, on the grounds that using coercive or violent means will embed injustice in whatever ends are attained, exacerbating the cycle of injustice that plagues so many societies. In this way, the practitioner’s authority is rooted in moral force instead of violence, and has the potential to reduce antagonisms within a society without harming the antagonists.^{^[17]}

Gandhi developed a set of very particular rules and mores for Satyagrahis to follow, including mandatory spinning, chastity and abstinence from alcohol. With these we are unconcerned, since different disobedience movements employed different particulars in their belief systems. What is interesting and relevant is the commonality among them, and the parallels to libertarian beliefs. The notion of the moral abhorrence of coercion, and the acknowledgement of coercion’s role in perpetuating injustice; the belief in natural rights that oblige disobedience to unjust laws; finally, and most pertinently, the almost mystical ability of this approach to inspire entire populations to mass action is a historical fact.

Foundations of Indian Liberty: Satyagraha in Action

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919 (also known as the Amritsar massacre) has been characterized as the turning point in the history of British India, the event that lost Britain her 'jewel in the crown' and eventually her empire.^{^[18]}The event, condemned by Winston Churchill, nevertheless produced and escalation of tension and insults against Indian subjects and shattered the notion that Indians were British subjects with the same rights as the British themselves, much in the way the Easter Rising created that same clarity for the Irish.

The massacre was a watershed moment for Gandhi personally as well as a crucial starting point for Indian independence. The massacre and subsequent praising of its perpetrators in the British Army forced Gandhi to conclude that India’s only hope of social justice lay in achieving full self-government. After the massacre he famously proclaimed “the impossible men of India shall rise and liberate their Motherland.”^{^[19]} The outrage it provoked likewise propelled Gandhi from minor figure experimenting with Satyagraha to a major national leader.

The Tribune of Indiadescribed the massacre as a “milestone in the struggle for freedom which brought Mahatma Gandhi on the scene in his capacity as a leader of the masses whose presence inspired millions of people for three decades.

“In the annals of our freedom struggle the Jallianwala Bagh massacre occupies an unforgettable place. Overnight, men and women resolved to defy the British might. For Gandhiji, the incident was a turning point. He became a ‘rebel’ and realised the futility of achieving freedom through British cooperation. The seeds of his ‘do or die’ movement were thus sown then and there.”^{^[20]}

According to libertarian blog Reason for Liberty: “When Amritsar unrest started, the British had one rebel city in front of them, when JBM took place they had many rebel cities in front of them and by 1920-22 (Non-cooperation movement) they had whole nation against them.” The massacre provided both the justification and momentum for the Indian independence movement and galvanized an otherwise largely lethargic and timid populace into action.

The event continues to resonate with Indians nearly a century later. According to the Tribune: “On this fateful day every year, Indians revive the anguish and bitterness that followed the carnage in which hundreds of lives were mowed down with a ruthlessness that does not have many parallels in civilised society.” The site, Jallianwala Bagh, became a national place of pilgrimage. Soon after the tragic happenings of the Baisakhi day, 1919, a committee was formed with Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya as president to raise a befitting memorial to perpetuate the memory of the victims, who were already considered martyrs in the cause for independence.^{^[21]}

Noted the Tribune: “History bears ample testimony to the fact that the ill-conceived and unwarranted 1919 military operation proved to be a catalyst for bringing the doom of the British Raj as it created an unbridgeable gulf between the British Government and the Indian people, leaving the British with no other option but to transfer power to the Indians.”

Gandhi’s Libertarian Ideology

Mohandas Gandhi was nothing if not consistent. Gandhi’s actual political philosophy is seldom discussed precisely because he was an anarchist who believed government should be dissolved in favor of a cooperative agrarian economic model that prevented stratification of classes and political power. This has been discussed in relation with modern libertarianism at the blog Reason for Liberty. “We the contemporary libertarians have managed to figure out that the State is the aggressor, but what we have not managed to figure out is how to fight this aggressor. Everything Gandhi did was against state. Every Ghandian principle becomes libertarian if you consider it a libertarian principle applicable against an aggressor with twisted right and wrong.”

It is well known that Gandhi was motivated by a desire to see India gain independence from the British Empire. Beyond that, his experience with governments seemed to have led him to a deep abhorrence for the institution, and an embracing of individualism, self-reliance and spontaneous order, part of a moral system he called the Swaraj, which translates literally to “self-rule.”

According to Swaraj.org:

The call for Swaraj represents a genuine attempt to regain control of the 'self' - our self-respect, self-responsibility, and capacities for self-realization - from institutions of dehumanization. As Gandhi states, "It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves." The real goal of the freedom struggle was not only to secure political azadi (independence) from Britain, but rather to gain true Swaraj (liberation and self-rule).^{^[23]}

Gandhi also recognized the dependence of both owners and workers on each other in a just economic system. Via Reason for Liberty:

“It can be easily demonstrated that destruction of the capitalist must mean destruction in the end of the worker and as no human being is so bad as to be beyond redemption, no human being is so perfect as to warrant his destroying him whom he wrongly considers to be wholly evil. We invite the capitalist to regard himself as trustee for those on whom he depends for the making, the retention, and the increase of his capital. Nor need the worker wait for his conversion. If capital is power, so is work. … Either is dependent on the other. Immediately the worker realizes his strength, he is in a position to become co-sharer with the capitalist instead of remaining his slave. If he aims at becoming the sole owner, he will most likely be killing the hen that lays golden eggs. Inequalities in intelligence and even opportunity will last till the end of time. A man living on the banks of a river has any day more opportunity of growing crops than one living in the arid desert.”

Gandhi recognized inequalities will always persist. He was, however, deeply skeptical of government as a tool of social “improvement” and valued individualism highly:

“I look upon an increase of the power of the State with the greatest fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State has really lived for the poor. …

“The socialists and communists say they can do nothing to bring about economic equality today. They will just carry on propaganda in its favor and to that end they believe in generating and accentuating hatred. They say, when they get control over the State, they will enforce equality. Under my plan the State will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or force them to do its will.

“It is my firm conviction that if the State suppressed capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself, and will fail to develop non-violence at any time. The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.”^{^[24]}

Gandhi was a believer in spontaneous order as well:

“We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day be the mass of people acting as if by instinct.”

Influenced by Western traditions in part due to the time he spent in Britain in his youth, Gandhi was also a believer in individualism, and the use of reason to underwrite a person’s morality. According to Professor T.N. Madan, Honorary Professor of Sociology at New Delhi University:

One of Gandhi's outstanding contributions to social and political thought, I suggest, was the conception of altruistic individualism within a cultural setting that was generally considered group- centred… In regarding reason and moral sense as the primary sources of good conduct, Gandhi asserted the right of the individual to arrive at judgments and, if necessary, to defend them against collective opinion, whether traditional or contemporary. His excoriation of the practice of untouchability was not merely an assertion of his own individual right to make moral judgments — indeed he considered this an obligation — but more importantly the assertion of the moral worth of every single human being, irrespective of his or her ascribed social status. Such moral worth is the basic premise of good society; whether it is enhanced or eroded depends on the dialectic of social pressures and individual agency.^{^[25]}

Gandhi’s Swarajprinciples are so libertarian, there are too many libertarian ideas from him to list here. He not only believed in asserting individual rights against the coercion of the state, he evidently believed in market processes and private property to best meet man’s needs and scorned the use of parliamentary systems in attempting to achieve social ends. He was hostile to centralized authority of any kind and believed strongly in individualism and self-rule.^{^[26]}“If we become free, India becomes free and in this thought you have a definition of Swaraj. It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.”^{^[27]}

It is worthy to take a moment to note the similarities between Gandhi’s Swaraj and the Sinn Fein’s emphasis on self-reliance. Such emphasis, particularly coupled with the concept of natural rights, is necessary to inspire an inert and defeated population to action against an increasingly rapacious government. As the American founders discovered in the 18th century, so the Irish and the Indians found when dealing with the hostile forces of the British Empire. In all cases, the British proclamation of the enjoyment of rights as British subjects by those under their rule was farcical and entirely at the pleasure of the rulers. Whenever conflict arose, those rights seemed to dissolve quickly into coercion and bloodshed as the British fought to maintain unquestioned supremacy.

Even during the worst of times, however, Gandhi maintained his principles, angering some by extending his notion of power and Swaraj to the history of colonization. While acknowledging the British Empire's cynical intentions in India, he places the responsibility of the disaster of colonization on the India people. “It is truer to say that we gave India to the English than that India was lost... to blame them for this is to perpetuate their power.” Because power resides in the people and they can only lose it by relinquishing their own power (often through coercion by others), petitions to the government get a new meaning with Gandhi. “A petition of an equal is a sign of courtesy; a petition from a slave is a symbol of his slavery.”^{^[28]}

Here again, is a similarity with Sinn Fein’s conceptualization of natural rights—rights don’t come from government, but from within. Therefore, rights continue to exist when they cannot be openly expressed due to coercion. This is a crucial intersection for libertarians. Radical ideologies must inculcate oppressed and apathetic populations with a sense of self-worth in order to provoke an activist spirit. The concept of natural rights was important during the colonial period, when colonized people believed rights were rare morsels tossed to them on the whim of their superiors. Gandhi sought to rob Britain of their power to determine the law as a sort of demystification of white rule.

Gandhi, not being able to realize his anarchist “oceanic villages” system with Indian liberation in 1947, settled on minarchism:

In the end, Gandhi proved to be on the right side of history. Remembered as one of the greatest advocates for the downtrodden that the human race has ever produced, the radical anarchist who had been repeatedly imprisoned, classified as a terrorist by the British parliament^{^[30]}and derided as a threat to law and order, was described by former U.S. Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall as “a spokesman for the conscience of all mankind.”

As with the Sinn Fein, Gandhi won by using civil disobedience, underwritten by his individualist philosophy and religious ethos, to build confidence within long-oppressed people and break the myth of impotence while assuring British authorities that he would not endorse violent reprisals. The technique won the admiration of both the oppressed and oppressors, winning Indian independence and serving as a template for a new disobedience movement in the U.S., one that proved that disobedience need not be against a foreign power, nor involve widespread loss of life.

III. Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.: The Ideology and Strategy of Martin Luther King Jr. (1955-1965)

America’s most significant contribution to the school of civil disobedience was the fight for equal rights for African Americans, culminating in two landmark pieces of legislation: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which effectively ended statutory discrimination in the U.S. It’s most famous voice, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is also remembered as a martyr whose achievements are considered a sacred part of the American political narrative. The violence endured by King, the Freedom Riders, the Children’s Crusaders and many other activists propelled them to victory in just ten years of activity after enduring centuries of slavery and over a century of horrific discrimination.

Dr. King acknowledged that Gandhi’s struggle, which he had first learned about from a lecturer at Howard University in the 1940’s, was the primary influence on his ideas. In his college days, King searched for a “method whereby social evil could be removed from society.” Having read the works of social philosophers such as Marx and remaining unmoved by the communist argument, King was deeply moved by Gandhi’s peaceful strategy and strict moral code, which dovetailed well with his Christian values.^{^[31]}

One of Dr. King’s greatest insights, derived from his reading of Gandhi’s idealism, was that only radical change, not patient, incremental change, was going to accomplish his goals. “I think the word ‘gradualism’... is so often an excuse for escapism and do-nothingism which ends up in stand-stillism. I think we must move on toward this great goal… we must re-examine this whole emphasis that the approach to desegregation must be gradual rather than forthwith or immediate” King stated in a 1957 television interview.^{^[32]}No generation wants to be the one to endure a painful shake-up in the status quo, a fact Dr. King and his generation knew too well.

King, like Gandhi, believed that the morality and methodology of civil disobedience were parts of a single system, one that he believed in the power of to change hearts and minds by social disruption. “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue,” he stated in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

As King notes in his famous “Letter,” when his protests started creating serious tension, white and black conservatives alike balked, imploring him to “wait” and chiding him for wanting social change to happen “too fast.”^{^[33]}As with the Sinn Fein and Indian Liberation movements, the Civil Rights radicals found themselves up against considerable resistance from the mainstream of political thought when the status quo of peace—even a peace that masks gross injustice— was threatened. Many black church leaders opposed radicalism in favor of using the court system, fearing reprisals by whites.

But central to King’s success was radicalism at its finest: shaking people out of racial apathy by exposing government evils and drawing out latent hatred within both the state and civilian population, then using non-violent resistance to foster guilt in southern whites and drum up sympathy from the rest of the country. Civil rights groups like the Freedom Riders sought out to confront racists in order to deliberately provoke violence, hoping the publicity would show that desegregationists had the moral high ground. “The Freedom Riders typified one of the standard contradictions within the civil rights movement... on the one hand it’s nonviolent... on the other hand they’re really courting violence in order to attract publicity that will forward the cause... so you have these mixed motives” said Julian Bond, former head of the NAACP.

Jesse Jackson agreed: “Every time the blood of the innocent was spilled, every time a worker was martyred, it exploded interest in our struggle.”^{^[34]}Dr. King saw the strategy as an effective way of exposing discomfort among bigots in the South with their own attitudes…”I think it arouses a sense of shame among them in many instances… it does something to touch the conscience and establish a sense of guilt.”^{^[35]}

Dr. King also saw the value in deliberately receiving abuse for a cause. “Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive,” he exhorted his followers in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Deliberate suffering for political ends, no matter how worthy, seems a foreign concept to most people, rich and poor alike. Regardless, it was essential to the success of the Civil Rights Movement.

The resistance was necessary to expose both racism and perverse government interests; not only the interest of local governments to preserve their racial feudalism, but the interest of the federal government to keep things quiet and preserve the status quo, no matter how unjust. Much of the violence against the Freedom Riders, including a firebombing of their bus and a vicious mob beating in May 1961, happened with the complicity of the local police and authorities. The FBI, under the direction of the Kennedy administration, knew of the threats to the protesters but declined to intervene. Undeterred, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sent a second wave of demonstrators to Birmingham later in the year. Their beatings and the assault of photojournalists drew in King along with increased public interest in civil rights, culminating in federal intervention and the opening of a dialogue between King and Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

The Kennedy brothers, focused on the Soviet threat, had previously been extremely reluctant to intervene in civil rights issues and considered the protests a mere nuisance. Civil disobedience in Birmingham forced their hand. It also forced the Kennedys to proclaim to the world that they sided with civil rights against the mobs in Birmingham. The national media attention created waves of hundreds of freedom riders pouring into Jackson, Mississippi, many of whom deliberately went to hard labor at Parchment Prison for their actions. The Interstate Commerce Commission, under pressure from the Department of Justice desegregated interstate bus travel shortly thereafter. More importantly, it also shattered the myth of impotence for African Americans. President Kennedy finally called on congress in 1963 to ban Jim Crow laws.^{^[36]}His successor, Lyndon Johnson, used public sympathy generated by successful disobedience incidents such as the Children’s Crusade in May 1963 (during which fire hoses were turned on children) to pass the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964.^{^[37]}

The Civil Rights Movement, like the Indian Liberation Movement, had its share of heroes, martyrs and villains. One of its most striking villains was the psychopathic Eugene “Bull” Connor, Birmingham, AL Commissioner of Public Safety. A rabid racist and devout segregationist, Connor’s brutal tactics won a great deal of national support for civil rights. Connor believed the entire social order and the survival of civilization itself, depended on segregation. So much so, that he was willing to turn the city’s police dogs and fire hoses on full blast against a protest of children. Thanks to civil disobedience, Connor is remembered as an international symbol of racism and brutality. His aggressive tactics backfired when the spectacle of the brutality being broadcast on national television served as one of the catalysts for major social and legal change in the southern United States and helped in large measure to assure the passage by the Congress of the Civil Rights Act.^{^[38]}

Bloody Sunday

The last great victory of the Civil Rights Movement also came about as a result of public outrage over violence against protesters. Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, SNCC leader John Lewis led a voting rights march in Selma, Alabama that drew a fury of violence. State troopers attacked the marchers and Lewis suffered a fractured skull. The violence and subsequent public sympathy gave President Johnson the last thrust of momentum he needed to pass the Voting Rights Act, which was signed in to law August 6, 1965. Johnson noted during remarks on the day of the signing:

And then last March, with the outrage of Selma still fresh, I came down to this Capitol one evening and asked the Congress and the people for swift and for sweeping action to guarantee to every man and woman the right to vote. In less than 48 hours I sent the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the Congress. In little more than 4 months the Congress, with overwhelming majorities, enacted one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.^{^[39]}

That quote from President Johnson speaks volume about not only the success of Civil Rights radicalism, but the success of the American Left in general. For decades, the Left has advanced its agenda by exploiting depressions, wars, and national tragedies, appealing to the public’s sense of empathy to advance their own brand of radicalism that redefined the role of the federal government over the last century.

Empathy is unquestionably a powerful force in politics. Dr. King’s use of Gandhi’s strategic nonviolence was powerful and effective, creating tension without warfare, and forcing acknowledgement without violence. Like Gandhi, King’s strategy, which showed respect for the oppressor as well as demanding it for the oppressed, built a bridge between whites and blacks so effectively that the very idea of segregation for any reason is anathema today. Former opponents of integration, such as former governor of Alabama John Malcolm Patterson, have long since rescinded their segregationist views. The twisted, self-serving ideas that were once considered integral to social stability by many whites have long-since fallen out of favor, even if underlying pathologies have not disappeared entirely.

It is also important to note that liberation from an oppressive government is the only sort of constructive radical change that is possible through civil disobedience. Radical egalitarianism has often either ended in disaster or just fizzled out. The Civil Rights movement in the U.S. for example successfully pushed for statutory equality for African Americans. Dr. King’s subsequent fight to make up for past oppression with taxpayer-funded reparations, however, failed to materialize, largely because it threatened to infringe on the rights of others.

Dr. King’s movement is a great example of how one man’s dream overcame the Public Choice problem: government self-interest and public apathy was overcome by appealing to the heart and the moral sense of the public.

Otpor! and Other Subsequent Movements

Following the colossal success of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., civil disobedience largely fell out of favor in the U.S., becoming a tool of myriad small movements that never gained much political steam or public empathy. Environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists have still employed similar tactics for decades and with some success, but to little broader public notice.

Internationally, however, resistance movements sprang up in dozens of places. The Solidarity movement in Poland is credited with setting the wheels in motion that led to the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. The famous “tank man” of Tiananmen Square became an enduring symbol of resistance to oppression to millions. Most recently, the self-immolation of Tunisian small business owner Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010 set off the Arab Spring protests.

A little known fact is that the Arab Spring was coordinated by student protest organizations who had been training for years under leaders of the successful Serbian nonviolent resistance movement Otpor! (Resistance!) that was instrumental in overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Otpor! had themselves been inspired by a manual on nonviolent resistance called “From Dictatorship to Democracy” by American scholar Gene Sharp, who had in turn been inspired by Gandhi’s independence movement. Sharp realized that nonviolent disobedience was a powerful and under-utilized tool that could be used anywhere in the world to break down institutional and popular support for dictatorships. By employing a coordinated strategy, Sharp noted, leaders could harness frustration and direct it productively without inciting violence.^{^[40]}

Movements like Otpor! that have sprung up in the last four decades to fight dictators around the world tend not to be underwritten by a specific ideology, but embrace more general democratic principles. There are still lessons to be taken. Otpor! for example, managed to achieve its goal of a democratic Serbia with legitimate elections without an identifiable leader, functioning with a loose inner circle that divided tasks based on an agreed upon overall strategy. This indicates that a disobedience movement does not need an iconic, messianic leader to pull people together, at least insofar as activists agree on both the strategy and the goals. It does further bolster the idea that goals must be narrowly tailored and specific.

In advanced, western societies that already have legitimate elections but struggle against ignorance or inertia, a specific ideological underpinning including natural rights is likely more necessary in order to justify opposition to the established laws. In this way, one can justify an attack on unjust government activities without claiming the entire government is unjust. It is also a crucial tool to prevent hostility from bubbling over and improving political unity behind positive, inclusive and democratic ideas.

“Nonviolent struggle is reserved for the particular area of activity where people would otherwise feel they were required to use violence. A lot of our theories of just war, etc. are based upon an assumption that violence is the most effective thing you can do… that violence is really the most powerful. That is another claim that I deny,” noted Gene Sharp. “Nonviolent struggle is growing in the world because it is rooted in an understanding of the nature of political power. Political power is not intrinsic to the people who hold it,” he claimed, noting that political power rests on the support of institutions such as academia, the police, the military, business and religious leaders, etc. In a hegemonic world full of advanced, well-armed powers capable of brutal retaliation against uprisers, violence becomes too costly as a means of effecting radical political changes when electoral politics and the judicial system fails to achieve it. Nonviolence is the last, best tool to achieve that change.^{^[41]}

This notion is empirically supported by the research of University of Colorado political scientist Erica Chenoweth. Her study of political movements around the globe that took place between 1900 and 2006 revealed that nonviolent campaigns were twice as successful in removing dictatorships as violent ones, and that they were 15% less likely to see a relapse into violent conflict. She also found that it only took 3.5% of a country’s population to rise up and successfully overthrow an oppressive government, while armed conflict took considerably more. In part this is because of the ability of nonviolence to include women, elderly and youth as well as ambivalent segments of the population. The research showed that nonviolent struggle has been improving in effectiveness over time, while violent struggle is declining.^{^[42]}

Civil disobedience has been employed for years to great effect all over the globe, and has a rich history of success in the West. Yet its impact has been marginalized in both academic and political thought, a mere footnote in events between wars and elections, and thus remains poorly understood. Libertarians have perhaps the best opportunity in a generation to revive it in the West.

Note: This is excerpted from the paper "Radical Libertarianism in Historical Context: The Case for Civil Disobedience" (2013) that can be found here.

^{^[1]} Henry, Robert Mitchell. The Evolution of Sinn Fein. 1920. p 247.

^{^[2]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 39-41.

^{^[3]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 41.

^{^[4]} This “death by a thousand paper cuts” strategy was identified by Gene Sharp and practiced by Saul Alinksy as a method of civil obstruction.

^{^[5]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 53.

^{^[6]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 42.

^{^[7]} Brian Feeney. Sinn Fein: A Hundred Turbulent Years. pp 52-54.

^{^[8]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 222.

^{^[9]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 227.

^{^[10]} A few Sinn Fein members did participate in the Easter Rising, but it was neither organized nor endorsed by the party in any official sense.

^{^[11]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 223-224.

^{^[12]} Sinn Fein: An Epitome. 1920. Published by Friends of Irish Freedom, National Bureau of Information, Washington DC.

^{^[13]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 225.

^{^[14]} The Evolution of Sinn Fein, 228.

^{^[15]} MacSwiney, Terence (1879-1920). Principles of Freedom. Published posthumously in 1921.

^{^[16]} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_MacSwiney

^{^[17]} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha

^{^[18]} Blog of Vinay Lal, Assoc. Professor of History, UCLA. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/British/Crawling.html

^{^[19]} http://www.amritsar.com/Jallian%20Wala%20Bagh.shtml

^{^[20]} Tribune of India. May 13, 2000. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000513/windows/mail.htm

^{^[21]} http://www.jallianwalabagh.ca/pages.php?id=4

^{^[22]} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_march

^{^[23]} http://www.swaraj.org/whatisswaraj.htm

^{^[24]} http://www.reasonforliberty.com/inspiration/was-gandhi-a-libertarian.html

^{^[25]} http://hindu.com/2002/10/02/stories/2002100200031000.htm

^{^[26]} http://www.calpeacepower.org/0201/gandhi_anarchist.htm

^{^[27]} Ibid.

^{^[28]} Cal Peace Power, Vol. 2, Issue 1, Winter 2006. http://www.calpeacepower.org/0201/gandhi_anarchist.htm

^{^[29]} Ibid.

^{^[30]} OneIndia News, 5/22/2013. http://news.oneindia.in/2013/05/22/gandhi-was-declared-terrorist-declaration-sold-cheap-1222573.html

^{^[31]} “Dr. King Speaks For Himself.” 1957 interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcmlsYVla7g

^{^[32]} Ibid.

^{^[33]} King, Martin Luther. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” April 16, 1963.

^{^[34]} Emmett Till, Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONJ9CUj6h-w

^{^[35]} Dr. King interview, Montgomery, AL, 1957. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ll4QmvnGcU

^{^[36]} Freedom Riders: A Documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66_kqSG6aHI

^{^[37]} http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act-1.html

^{^[38]} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor

^{^[39]} http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/4034

^{^[40]}“How to Start a Revolution.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3dN4ln9lzI

^{^[41]} “The Power and Potential of Nonviolence.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKpsPwb3VP4

^{^[42]} Erica Chenoweth, TEDx talk on nonviolence. University of Colorado at Boulder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w

Can the Blockchain provide governance?

noreply@blogger.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 03:06:00 GMT

Author's Note: This is a brief explanation of how blockchain technology could provide services previously allocated to governments, originally written for the BitNation whitepaper in September 2014 but later excised and completed with some review by Chris DeRose and David Duccini. It explains in brief how the blockchain may have the ability to provide consensus that only governments had previously been capable of, thereby enabling the technology the ability to serve as a general verifier and issuer of identification and transactional information that is permanent, trusted and universally recognized.

This is written from the perspective of a political scientist, rather than a technologist, and describes what a transition in information verification between old state institutions and blockchain technologies might look like.

Why Do Governments Provide Services?

Governments are problem-solving institutions: having a monopoly on violence afforded governments the ability to coerce consensus out of a population in order to solve problems and answer questions in a society, such as establishing identity and land ownership, providing a system for dispute resolution, and much more.

Historically, everyone recognized that a certain framework of rules that were decided upon by majority vote would be followed. This created predictability, because people who followed the rules needed to know that other people would follow those rules as well. Governments created rules and established guidelines and penalties to ensure those rules were followed. All of this work came with costs, so governments also raised taxes in order to diffuse the cost of services among the population that benefited from them.

So traditionally, someone offering what we call “governance services” needed to meet certain conditions within the polity before their service can be considered reliable and legitimate:

1. They must be able to ensure that services can be proportionally distributed

2. They must be able to ensure that services will be universally recognized

3. They must be able to ensure that services will be worth the price

4. They must ensure that there is a process for changing the rules and services as needed

At a glance, there doesn’t seem to be an inherent property that would keep a private sector organization from being able to offer governance services, and many services in the U.S. have been increasingly outsourced to private contractors since the 1980’s. Perhaps the biggest challenge is universality. Governments can ensure through coercion that their services are universally recognized. The dollar’s value, for example, is enforced by American guns, as is its legal system, identification system, etc. Without universal recognition of your marriage or birth certificate, so the convention goes, you have a mess when it comes to leveraging those documents to procure other resources.

But is universality really critical? We know from historical experience that different forms of money, for example, can function in a competitive market without a government mandate. We also know that universality isn’t really global: when you travel abroad, a foreign country doesn’t usually ask to see your birth certificate and social security card. They use your passport, a method of identification from an entirely different identity verification system they are not intimately familiar with. They trust it because they trust that the institution that has certified your identity has a rigorous identification process and a system by which your reputation can be discerned.

Governments have historically been the trusted verifier and issuer of identification and transaction information simply because they were the best positioned to offer those services to the public. Private companies have their own verification systems, but companies come and go. When companies do offer some identification or reputation service, such as a credit bureau, it is usually to a specific market for a specific reason. They don’t offer the broad range of services the government are able to with redistributed tax dollars. If a competitor is to offer such services, they must be permanently reliable: i.e., they can’t just go bankrupt and lose your birth certificate or marriage record. They have to be able to maintain accessibility to the records regardless of market volatility. They also must have a universally recognized and widely trusted process for determining your identity and they must be around as long as the document is guaranteed to be valid (in the case of licenses) or forever (in the case of birth records) to vouch for you.

The blockchain protocol may be the first technology that checks all of the boxes required of a governance system. Once the information is online, it exists forever on the network. It has a rigorous verification process that is virtually impossible to crack once the network reaches a certain critical mass. It can record births, marriages, deaths, property ownership, business contracts and a variety of other records traditionally created and held by governments. The identities of individuals on the network can be established definitively through their unique “signatures”, and in turn, those individuals can sign and verify transactions (say, the attending physician at your birth, or the priest officiating your wedding). Instead of a government official acting as notary or other trusted third party verifier, the consensus of a blockchain’s “miners” or other verifiers takes on that role.

Governance Services

Using the blockchain technology as a platform, companies, non-profits and other non-state actors can offer their own competitive governance services. Theoretically, there is no limit to the services that can be offered, and the distribution and availability of services will be governed by market forces. This concept has already been proven in part with “colored coins,” multi-signature transactions and smart contracts that currently exist on the Bitcoin blockchain.

In a sense, the world is already a web of competing legal and governance systems, just tied to geographic territories. The question then is this: is there a value in creating a virtual governance system that is not tied to coincidental geographical boundaries? Is it even possible to offer such a thing without coercion?

The blockchain protocol also has some advantages over traditional government services, including very high transparency, low overhead/transaction costs, and a high degree of accessibility. The system is also highly stable with just enough flexibility to ensure systemic changes can be made if they are very necessary. Unlike a nation state government, it doesn’t require an army of bureaucrats to maintain. It cannot be bribed or blackmailed and it will never make you wait hours in line or slap you with arbitrary fees and fines in order to boost revenue. This makes it a great alternative to traditional services.

Think of blockchains as competing information marketplaces. Like with prices in exchanges in a competitive marketplace, the information that is freely available to all will tend to even out over time, making arbitrage more difficult. So the reputational arbitrage that scammers may attempt on various blockchains will get increasingly difficult as the system matures. Furthermore, layers of meta-systems will eventually be constructed on bitcoin and other blockchains that will enable users to more easily navigate information between them.

Reputation Systems

The effectiveness of a simple user-driven reputation system was proven long ago by eBay, Amazon and Yelp and taken a step further by Pirate Bay and the Silk Road. Divorced entirely from any sort of legal system, the Silk Road’s various iterations has managed to thrive as a totally anarchic marketplace with entirely user-designated reputations until being taken down by authorities. Despite conflicts with existing law, the system itself remained internally sound, and “dark web” marketplaces succeeded despite lacking access to a formal legal accountability system. Blockchain 3.0 is the next level, creating an autonomous “economic layer” for the internet without authorities, and the ability to experiment almost without limit.

In the words of Melanie Swan of the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies:

“Decentralized models have the potential to reorganize all manner of human activity, and quickly, because they are trustless, the friction of the search and trust-establishment process in previous models of human interaction is eliminated. This could mean greatly accelerated rates and levels of activity on a much greater humanity-level scale. The blockchain (decentralized network coordination technology) could emerge as a fundamental infrastructure element in the model to scale humanity to its next levels of orders-of-magnitude-larger progress.”

Potential applications

Key to establishing a reliable form of alternative governance services is the ability to establish identity, rights and reputation.

Establishing identity: Birth, marriage, death certification, next-of-kin, power-of-attorney, parent/legal guardian, account holder, contractor, property owner, creditor, proof of insurance, student, proof of profession, proof of native American tribe membership, club membership, press pass, proof of payment, and school identification, among possible others. Early applications would probably be geared more toward experimentation than essential legal services, and may include moving some existing identification systems to a blockchain-type system. “We probably need to see this used online extensively, before we start to see these applications,” noted Bitcoin expert Chris DeRose. “So, possible examples of online identity would include facebook-esque logins, comment attribution, and credit mechanisms (think airbnb tenant-evaluations, uber rider evaluations, darknet identity services, etc).”

Establishing rights: Blockchain transactions can help with property disputes by showing (even among different blockchains) that a transaction happened at a certain time, indicating reliably whether a “double spend” problem has occurred. The establishment of provenance over property is crucial to the system’s integrity and usefulness, and how this will work remains to be seen.

Establishing reputation: David Duccini of ID Coin believes that blockchain reputation systems can be far more dynamic than the simplistic, static systems employed by retailers like eBay and Amazon. Signaling not only a positive/negative transaction but indicating the strength of the relationship via signaling mechanisms, as well as the ability to challenge a reputational event and influence one’s own reputation are potential characteristics of blockchain tech, according to Duccini. For further elaboration, check out this interview.

Proofs of identity could replace flawed methods of password retrieval such as mother’s maiden name, having to produce multiple documents or answer questions, provide fingerprints, etc.

The blockchain can replace a single human authority anywhere such is required simply to recognize that an event has taken place. So for example, a doctor can verify your birth on the blockchain rather than signing a piece of paper which is then sent to a governing authority for record keeping. His public key verifies his own identity, and other doctors (or the AMA) and his patients can verify both his identity and reputation as satisfied or dissatisfied patients.

For the time being, governments are likely to reject blockchain transactions that attempt to supplant privileges that they have claimed the right to deny others (such as registering your car on a blockchain instead of the DMV). However, for transactions that do not result in possible revocation of certain rights or privileges granted broadly to citizens in good standing (such as signing a contract or establishing ownership of property), a blockchain transaction can be counted as “digital evidence” in court and is likely to be increasingly accepted as understanding of the technology increases in the legal community. Adoption may also be stronger in markets where reliable governance services are usually scarce. As Chris DeRose noted: “I think decentralized identity is wonderful, but it will need to gain traction in underserved markets for a long time, before it gains traction in well-served markets.”

As time marches on and the technology gains wider acceptance by the legal system, business community and the public at large, usage is likely to increase. The blockchain technology offers an extremely unique approach to transaction and identity verification that has never before existed in human history. If these projects are successful in proving the concept and converge in a way that its convenient and reliable for the average user, the changes wrought to the way people interact could be explosive.

The Espionage Act and the "Golden Key" to Stop the State

noreply@blogger.com — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 00:26:00 GMT

[Published today at the Center for a Stateless Society]

The recent release of the documentary Citizenfour has refocused media attention on Edward Snowden, who last week restated his willingness to return to the U.S. to face the music if permitted a fair and impartial trial.

Of course, this isn’t something he will receive; the state has repeatedly claimed that Snowden has egregiously wounded national security, but cannot say exactly what has been damaged because of … well … national security. They would likely make this claim whether it was the case or not, largely because the real reason they won’t give Snowden a fair trial is that he struck a serious blow to their institutional legitimacy.

As Critical Art Ensemble pointed out in their 1996 classic Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas, “The key indicators of power value [to a government] are the extent to which a location or commodity is defended, and the extent to which trespassers are punished.” In other words, an activist can tell how effective their activism is by how the state reacts to the injury.

There is little that matters more to a state institution than public confidence; as former intelligence director Michael Hayden noted, the “great harm of Snowden’s efforts to date is the erosion of confidence in the ability of the United States to do anything discreetly or keep anything secret … Snowden shows that we have fallen short and that the issue may be more systemic rather than isolated.” No matter the value of the leaks themselves, cracks in the facade must be swiftly and severely punished.

Such is the case with the Department of Justice’s intent to prosecute Snowden under the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. The Act remains a remarkable souvenir of nationalist paranoia during the First World War that managed to hang on into the current century, with apparently little chance of reform. President Woodrow Wilson’s choice of words is indicative of the almost comically authoritarian mindset he was in when he called for the legislation in 1915 to “crush” potential traitors to the state.

He said, “I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once.”

Those “infinitely malignant creatures” prosecuted under the Act included anti-interventionist newspaperman Victor L. Berger in 1919 and Nixon-era whistleblower and renowned journalist Daniel Ellsberg in the 1970’s. Wilson’s nationalism-fueled hysterics also included hostility toward Irish, German and Italian-Americans, declaring “any man who carries a hyphen around with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of the republic.”

A law born from this sort of paranoid mentality will be ripe for abuse by hysterical bureaucrats in any era. Perhaps the most insidious feature of the Act is that it doesn’t just punish leaks that are damaging to national security. Indeed, it prevents anyone from mounting any defense that might delineate different qualities or categories of leaked information, or claims that some leaked info is not relevant to security interests and might therefore qualify for a lesser charge. It demands that courts treat all leakers with the same fire-spewing nationalist venom that Wilson birthed the Act with.

The fact that the state imposes such massively inflexible punishment for information leaks is a strong indicator that it considers revealing privileged information of any sort to be a far greater threat to its legitimacy than think tanks, newspapers, grassroots advocacy, or the largely symbolic oversight of legislators and secret courts. Such a secretive and vigorously defended beast can only be wounded from within.

And thus a new kind of protester is born: the Electronic Civil Disobedient.

Snowden’s heroism indicates that the leaker-hacktivist is an inversion of the “golden key” that the NSA has aggressively sought from cybersecurity vendors to invade privacy indiscriminately: a failsafe security flaw to be utilized in the event of a serious threat from the state against the civil liberties of the individual.

Regardless of the actual threat posed by a leaker to the public good, the state will fiercely defend the worst of its blatantly unjust and unnecessary bludgeons like the Espionage Act. But its own ferocity could work against it: future Edward Snowdens are beginning to realize they may in fact be tools of today’s Woodrow Wilsons.

Why Cab Companies Should Just Burn Now

noreply@blogger.com — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 00:13:00 GMT

Long story short, I went to New Orleans on Thursday, March 12 for a bachelor party and before I returned home on Saturday evening I was convinced that taxi companies are a blight on the Earth and must be eradicated as soon as possible.

So when I stepped outside the airport to the lower level I was introduced to the reason that Hayek’s spontaneous order is magnificent and bureaucratic planning is hellishly inefficient. There was a massive line, probably an hour long, of people who wanted a cab. I went to the booth where you are supposed to put in your order and naturally there was no one in it. Just then a taxi driver I had spoken to moments earlier sauntered up and in a hushed tone said “if you don’t want to wait in line… just go upstairs.”

Holy shit. What a fucking brilliant idea I had never thought of. I went upstairs to departures and within ten minutes I was in a taxi. The driver gave me his card and told me to call the taxi company directly when I needed to go back to the airport… apparently hotels have a little racket set up where if you call a taxi through them, they charge the cab ten bucks as a “finders fee.”

When it came time to get a taxi into town the following evening (there is no Uber service in New Orleans because of state corruption), I called the first number on the business card. Busy signal. Called the second number. Busy signal. After 8 attempts I got a person who assured me a cab would be along in “five to fifteen minutes.” After 20 minutes, we just flagged a passing taxi.

On Saturday afternoon it was time to head back to the airport. If I was permitted Uber, I could have just opened the app, clicked a button and a car would have been on its way in a few minutes. I would know exactly where the car was, how fast it was coming and could have planned accordingly, secure in the fact that I would get to the airport on time. If there was a lesser supply of drivers and a higher demand, prices would have gone up to encourage more drivers to enter the market, and I happily would have paid the extra fare to get to the airport on time.

But no, I had to deal with taxi companies that refuse to use phone apps, reputation systems, and even fucking GPS location. I tried again unsuccessfully five or six times to get through the busy signals and eventually just asked the hotel manager to call a taxi for me.

This taxi driver said he’d prefer cash to credit. “Those credit card swipe machine companies, they rip us off!” So began a 20 minute rant about the taxi business. He told me that a card swipe will cost them as much as 20% of a fare, so to calm him I told him I’d tip in cash. He also claimed that the local government will take a pre-tax fee of as much as 3.5% (managing a racket is of course expensive). He complained about Louisiana corruption vociferously, even claiming he was a victim of Eminent Domain abuse. When I asked him what he thought of Uber, he was emphatic that it was unfair competition that was putting honest taxi drivers out of business. He also didn’t seem to understand how the reputation system worked.

My final taxi driver drove me from BWI to my home in Baltimore. When I asked him if he’d consider being an Uber driver, he too complained that Uber was unfair competition whose drivers didn’t have to pay business taxes or suffer regulations and background checks. “It’s not fair. Everything should be the same,” he said confidently, indicating he believed the government’s, tight regulation, flat fare and queued up taxicab patrons was the right way to do business. I suggested it might be better for business if the government regulated taxis less, not Uber more, a point which seemed to mystify him, although he was more supportive of taxis using an app-based reputation system like Uber.

What I took from all this is the weird combination of Stockholm Syndrome, entitlement and bunker mentality that taxi drivers seem to have when you bring up Uber.They seem aware they work for an outdated, inefficient, and vaguely extortionist government racket and encourage riders to find little loopholes around it, but in the end the bunker wins the day. But like Eleanor Roosevelt and other luddites 1930’s petitioning against automated factory work 80 years ago, they are fighting a losing battle against progress. It's a battle they need to lose sooner, rather than later.

Tools of Injustice

noreply@blogger.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 02:27:00 GMT

The Atlantic is on point with its journalism these days. If you haven't read its absolutely stellar piece on the Islamic State, by all means be enlightened. Its long but you'll never wonder what the fuck is up with ISIS again.

Today, their piece on the Ferguson DOJ report has been popping up in my newsfeed. There's a few things in it that I think are worth noting, beyond the obviously stunning display of blatant racism regularly practiced by the Ferguson PD.

Ferguson, MO, it turns out, is a great case study on all the little ways that the state manages to slip oppression under the radar through formal, but seemingly miniscule loopholes, tricks and caveats. It illustrates perfectly why people with even a small amount of power can never be trusted... and why "freedom" is a process (or more correctly a constant struggle), not a state of being protected by judges and pieces of paper.

Conor Friedersdorf outlines some of the more egregious abuses by Ferguson cops. Much of it was a litany of race-related abuses most of us who are paying attention are familiar with by now. What was really fascinating to me was a slick, under-the-radar way that the little dictators in blue manage to subvert the rule of law. If a cop suspects someone of a crime but doesn't have probable cause, he can post something called a "wanted" status into his department's server.

This creates yet another magical immunity power-up for police that renders them lawfully able to arrest someone without probable cause.

From the report:

FPD and other law enforcement agencies in St. Louis County use a system of “wanteds” or “stop orders” as a substitute for seeking judicial approval for an arrest warrant. When officers believe a person has committed a crime but are not able to immediately locate that person, they can enter a “wanted” into the statewide law enforcement database, indicating to all other law enforcement agencies that the person should be arrested if located. While wanteds are supposed to be based on probable cause ... they operate as an end-run around the judicial system. Instead of swearing out a warrant and seeking judicial authorization from a neutral and detached magistrate, officers make the probable cause determination themselves and circumvent the courts.

... If officers enter wanteds into the system on less than probable cause, then the subsequent arrest would violate the Fourth Amendment. Our interviews with command staff and officers indicate that officers do not clearly understand the legal authority necessary to issue a wanted. For example, one veteran officer told us he will put out a wanted “if I do not have enough probable cause to arrest you.” He gave the example of investigating a car theft. Upon identifying a suspect, he would put that suspect into the system as wanted “because we do not have probable cause that he stole the vehicle.” Reflecting the muddled analysis officers may employ when deciding whether to issue a wanted, this officer concluded, “you have to have reasonable suspicion and some probable cause to put out a wanted.”

At times, FPD officers use wanteds not merely in spite of a lack of probable cause, but because they lack probable cause. In December 2014, a Ferguson detective investigating a shooting emailed a county prosecutor to see if a warrant for a suspect could be obtained, since “a lot of state agencies won’t act on a wanted.” The prosecutor responded stating that although “[c]hances are” the crime was committed by the suspect, “we just don’t have enough for a warrant right now.” The detective responded that he would enter a wanted. There is evidence that the use of wanteds has resulted in numerous unconstitutional arrests in Ferguson.

It's that easy! I was under the impression all these years that if a suspect was "wanted" by the law, that meant they had probable cause and an arrest warrant on hand. Assuredly, this is a power that gets abused by cops all over the country.

These abuses are tough to find out about; the political will needed to expose them is massive. We have it in Ferguson. But Ferguson will blow over soon enough and everything goes back to normal. The struggle against power is something that power gets to dictate the terms of. Maintaining some reasonable level of transparency is essential to maintain accountability, but in an increasingly (and paradoxically) fearful country, the state's argument for secrecy rings bells for most people.

So Ferguson PD has been exposed, and the cockroaches of fascism will skitter back into the darkness for now. Great. Only around 18,000 police departments and other law enforcement agencies to go.

Networks vs. Hierarchies

noreply@blogger.com — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 04:21:00 GMT

If you're interested in the technical plausibility of anarchism in the context of a high-tech networked society, I suggest reading this great bit of research by mutualist Kevin Carson, who also blogs for C4SS. Chapter 2 is really eye opening.

In a nutshell, Carson argues that networks have properties (such as a quick information feedback loop) that make them highly-efficient, anti-fragile and superior modes of experimentation and response, learning from problems and obstructions in a way that makes them inherently stronger. Hierarchies, in contrast, with large corporations and governments as prime examples, are inherently fragile due to the conflict-of-interest necessary to hold them together. This fragility and slow-response time makes complex hierarchies adapt poorly to rapidly changing circumstances and obstructs clear feedback channels that would make them more efficient. Given the rapid growth in networked and crowd-sourced information available on the web, governments will seemingly always be playing catch-up, and may be increasingly overwhelmed by what historian Samuel Huntington called an "excess" of democracy.

Networked "governance" may in fact be the future of human organization. Certainly technolibertarians are working hard to build alternative institutions and uncensorable channels, while of course the U.S. along with the world's finest authoritarian regimes keeps a finger on internet chokepoints and even a nationwide "kill switch" is on the table in the U.S., though it hasn't worked well in Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt. Given the inherent adaptability and resilience of networked organizations, this problem for the government may intensify.

I can't say I know what the future of humanity will look like, except that I have a hard time picturing humans in a few hundred years colonizing the outer reaches of space and engaging in economic transactions using currencies issued by central banks millions of light years away. Or, for that matter, obeying laws and regulation issued by far away bureaucrats. New models will assuredly replace what we're familiar with now... the big question is... is the Bitcoin revolution a glimpse of the future?

Why Bitcoin Could Explode With The "Shadow Economy"

noreply@blogger.com — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 01:50:00 GMT

Bitcoin’s most visible advocates have spent much of the last year begging congress to go easy on their baby so it can grow into the new powerhouse payment system they so badly want it to become in the global economy.

The economy has been mostly inhospitable, probably because Bitcoin’s future remains uncertain in a hostile environment of conflicting tax and regulatory schemes, efficient competing payment systems and public apathy. But as Jon Matonis pointed out in a Forbes pieceback in March 2012, Bitcoin may find a surer footing in the unregulated “shadow” economy that has been expanding globally in the wake of the 2008 crash.

Of course, many Bitcoin fans don’t want to think that such an incredible new invention will be forever known as the currency of drug dealers. But the shadow economy isn’t just the black market; it includes all unreported income. All over the U.S., Americans are increasingly going off the books as they pursue opportunities to generate income in the face of ongoing structural unemployment, Obamacare mandates, and other issues that appear to be facilitating an expansion of the “informal” or “shadow” economy. As its growth collides with the growth of internet usage for day to day business, Bitcoin could become the payment method of choice for the millions of Americans for whom working off the books is the best option available.

As U.S. News & World Report reported last year, the decline of the labor force participation rate to 30-year lows is believed by some economists to reflect a shift to the off-books economy. The percentage of Americans who are "unbanked" or "underbanked" likewise rose from 25.8 percent in 2009 to 28.3 percent in 2011. Many of the underbanked are poor or have bad credit. But the rise in consumer spending over the last few years is larger than the sagging labor market suggest it should be. This may indicate that substantial unreported profits are being reaped. These “shadow” entrepreneurs appear to be electing to keep their earnings-- from consultant, dog walking, babysitting, repair or even online sales businesses-- off the books.

Economists estimate the shadow economy may reach about $2 trillion worth of US GDP. Much of the informal economy is happening online, with billions of dollars in profits on sites like Etsy and eBay. The latter is consideringadding Bitcoin to its menu of payment options. This move alone could mean a bright future for Bitcoin as a currency option for shadow entrepreneurs who don’t want to leave bread crumbs for the IRS to follow.

Internationally, the shadow economy is a much larger piece of the pie. By 2020, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predictsit will employ two-thirds of the world’s workers. It is also the world’s fastest growing economy, already second in size to the U.S., and is likely to be the largest source of new jobs in the coming years—all unregulated, untaxed and off the record. While mainstream consumers may be unimpressed with Bitcoin’s alleged benefits—better anonymity than dollars, better security and cheaper transactions than credit cards—those who need that anonymity for more than just buying mushrooms for the next Phish concert may find investing in bitcoins more interesting.

Despite the negative connotation, the shadow economy’s existence can prevent the real economy from falling apart during lean times, according to some economists. Milton Friedman pointed out that shadow economies are stimulated by overbearing government regulations and excessive taxation. As governments reeling from the impact of 2008 apply new banking restrictions in an effort to stabilize their own institutions, they are likely to find growing numbers of people comfortable going off the books. With access to consumer technology getting cheaper and easier around the globe, cryptocurrencies and anonymizing networks will likely play a significant role as anonymity grows in importance, internet penetration deepens and cash transactions continue to decline.

Tightening capital controls, the introduction of bail-ins, a rise in financial warfare against non-compliant companies, banks and governments, as well as the push by some nations to embrace a cashless society have become the new standard response to the world’s growing economic and debt problems. The vision may not be unified among global leaders, but it is part of an increasingly appealing menu of policy options they have proven more than willing to exercise.

Countries such as Cyprus, China and Argentina have already seen a surge in Bitcoin adoption as a means of circumventing capital controls. Immediately following the advent of a “deposit tax” and strict capital controls in Cyprus, Bitcoin saw a surge from $47 to $88 in just a week in March 2013 as foreign investors sought safe haven from the new policies. Similarly, China’s “sophisticated arbitrageurs” have used Bitcoin to circumvent the country’s strict capital controls, often through falsified trade invoices and offshore exchanges. Argentines flooded into Bitcoin in 2013 to hedge against the instability of the Peso. Since then, the overheated market has cooled. But as investment pours into the Bitcoin market infrastructure and related blockchain technologies, improvements could be around the corner.

Governments around the world committed to crackdowns on free market interactions may find the winds of change sweeping their authority from under them. When a crisis strikes, governments have usually reacted by removing existing options. Markets react by providing new ones. With technology empowering the average person today in ways that encumber restrictions, it is increasingly difficult to see how government will win out in the end.