"Can we put a price on basic standards of quality?"

Actually we have to. The alternative to quality allocation by price, which generally amounts to Regulation, ends up becoming allocation by status. Of course the people who propose these non-priced solutions tend to be people of high status. Coincidence?
Schools are one example. "Public" schools really are just one aspect of a multi-tiered system of regulated education. The only truly private school in the US is the home school. In some places that isn't even the case any more.
If the logic of Regulation is taken to its conclusion, the only beef allowable by law would be Filet Mignon or better, and since its price would be regulated, it would not be available to the peons at all. Only the well connected would get beef. And maybe people on welfare could get "government beef" which would probably be decent (I know the government cheese was) but only available on a first come first serve basis.
Does this remind you of a certain Union of Republics? Soviet Republics?
Well that's also no coincidence. They know the hard limit now, but they will try to get us as close to that asymptote without breaking the engine of "white market" labor power altogether. Fortunately, I doubt their ability to pull off this brinkmanship for long, no matter how many PhDs and other supposed "experts" they've got trying.

"But there's nothing wrong with her"

These lyrics explain what I find disturbing about most (but not all) "right libertarians"

"And every single day, without much to say
These apparitions raise a toast to their kind

The people who are these things
Are not afraid with you
And caring must go with the wisdom
Of their selections

Never can touch their sign language
So is the cost of sound barriers "
- from one of the greatest songs I love: Guided By Voices - Christian Animation Torch Carriers

it's easy to dismiss the concerns of people when you don't realize the dangers they face...

Yet I am a libertarian/anarchist and I do not want a super-mafia as my guardian, because it is, and must necessarily be, my oppressor as well.

Give unto Caesar... not a damn thing.

"Since the core ambition of the state is to displace God while enriching its Faustian associates through redistribution, none of this can be a surprise."
- Lew Rockwell

This is one of the best, most concise ways of putting it that I can imagine.

Abandon your earthly god. Find spirituality in the small places. Do not seek power, even for what seems good. It will not remain good long once touched by power.

It comes down to this.

As many of you are aware, there's been a schism in the left-libertarian world, over "cultural leftism" etc, more specifically targeting queer folk as if we're the most egregious of the lot.
Personally, I don't want to ditch anyone who has good ideas, but when it comes to things like this, it's important to have some realistic idea of what goes on. Usually my standard of judgement about these things comes from a thought experiment:
If I or some other trans-woman were getting beat up, with the specific aim of permanently mutilating and/or killing me (as most beatings of trans-women are, they go for the face right away, probably for deep-seated sexual reasons, almost all of the time), how would this person react?
Would they applaud/cheer my attackers?
Would they do nothing and watch?
Or would they jump in and defend me?
If they heard about it later, would they be reviled at this open display of aggressive violence?
Or would they laugh?
Would they say something like "they had it coming"?

I try to envision this in my head, because THIS is my standard. This is what MTF trans people and femmy males of all kinds have to worry about every time they are around other people. I am an anarchist, I don't want the state to be my guardian. But if it's going to be, I'd rather have it protect me while it's protecting everyone else. The fact that the people that ruined my life or ended it were not wearing a badge (though they often are) is irrelevant after the fact.
It doesn't give me my face or my life back.

All your economic base are belong to us.

The logic of the War on Drugs is the logic of all government wars. It is to make what is "illegal" vastly more profitable for the benefit of a small oligarchy who can get away with it. This oligarchy are who is running the government behind the scenes.

The drug lords fund the "drug warriors". Draw your own conclusions about the war on terror, or the drive toward more financial regulation, farm subsidies, the tightening of border controls, etc.

You have no chance to survive, make your time.

"Unless you’re a self-hating closet dweller, there’s no such thing as a case against sexual equality that doesn’t consist of some mix of bible-thumping & childish “EEW!” factor*."

- B-psycho (psychopolitik 2.0 in my blogroll)

Well fucking struck.

(1:26:41 AM) annamnesis: I don't want to slowly pull liberty back, like pulling teeth
(1:26:49 AM) annamnesis: I want to see it while I am alive.
(1:26:58 AM) name withheld: haha, yeah
(1:27:27 AM) annamnesis: I want to knock out the damn teeth
(1:27:33 AM) annamnesis: till there's no more bite
(1:27:47 AM) annamnesis: we already have won the drug war, more or less
(1:27:56 AM) annamnesis: we're going to win the copyright war
(1:28:01 AM) annamnesis: which is a big one
(1:28:28 AM) name withheld: Pirate Party
(1:28:32 AM) annamnesis: hell yes
(1:28:43 AM) annamnesis: we have a seat on the goddamn EU parliament
(1:29:05 AM) annamnesis: the big war coming up is the sex war
(1:29:10 AM) annamnesis: and that one is a tough one
(1:29:25 AM) annamnesis: because a lot of our natural allies are squicked out by many of us
(1:30:01 AM) annamnesis: but it's the same principle
(1:30:38 AM) annamnesis: I generally don't like crack heads and junkies (while they are on the shit)
(1:30:54 AM) annamnesis: but I don't think they should be in jail for it.
(1:31:55 AM) name withheld: right
(1:33:10 AM) annamnesis: but religion doesn't attempt to control drugs as much as they try to control sex
(1:33:42 AM) annamnesis: there is no westboro baptist church picketing drug rehab places going "god hates junkies"

Patri Friedman, you are an agorist!

In a blog post, Patri Friedman, a fairly well known libertarian (and the only well known 3rd gen lib) says:

Despite my broad agreement with much of the underlying philosophy, I find this chain of events ludicrous – and I am not using the word lightly. Let us consider one of the largest black markets in the world, the market for illegal drugs, which has been thriving for decades. Has this resulted in market demand for protection agencies to replace the government? Um, no. It has resulted in exactly the opposite – a strengthening of the monopoly provider of security and law. It has given us the militarization of policy, legalized theft via civil asset forfeiture, and a well-funded DEA.
...
I agree that the direct effect of the black market for recreational drugs is to increase freedom – it provides something the government is trying to ban, thus ameliorating the effect of that ban. As an occasional user of illegal drugs, I think that’s fabulous. But to see black markets as the route to indirectly weakening and eventually toppling governments just doesn’t match up to the evidence. Coercive geographic monopolies on violence work, folks, much though we may hate it.

Ahh so much material for dismantling here.
First: "Has this resulted in market demand for protection agencies to replace the government? Um, no."
Well first off I'd say, your own approach to this game has clouded your ability to see what is relevant. You may actually have a point here, but assuming you did, that's not what the black market in drugs is attempting to solve. It's attempting to provide people with drugs, at which it succeeds admirably. That is one avenue of government interference that is thwarted.
Then again, you might be wrong about that also. As Jim Davidson said:

The answer is yes, it has. And most drug dealers provide their own protection, often in concert with other dealers in their area. These private protection agencies are referred to as “gangs” and their leaders as “drug lords.” They employ violence to enforce contracts, control territory, and defend the sovereignty of their members.

Secondly, we don't live in a free market, which is the whole thing we're objecting to in the first place with all this libertarianism! Can we adequately measure the demand for private protection services? All we can measure is what is supplied, which is filtered by what the government allows to be supplied.
All you're really saying here is that the government is somewhat effective at suppressing/containing private protection agencies for now. (which has some interesting implications for what their priorities really are)
Secondly, the natural market for illegal drugs is almost certainly not as massive as the government propaganda wants us to believe in the first place. To look at this as the one marker of what agorism stands for is like saying the free market in drugs would be the shining example of the free market, overall.
Certainly the people want drugs! But we want a lot of other things much more. Look at the Copyright War as a more classic example of agorism in action, doing it's job, providing alternatives.
And in the long run, the war for freedom is won in the minds of the people. What has brought more people to question the legitimacy of the government than the fact that they won't give us what we want... and that when we say "fuck the law", we can get it?
How many budding young anarchists or at least potential anarchists have been sparked (excuse the pun) by becoming stoners and/or "pirates"? The answer, is, a whole shit load.
Now also there's this part:
"But to see black markets as the route to indirectly weakening and eventually toppling governments just doesn’t match up to the evidence."
Again, there is this sort of mental filtering, this lack of relevant response.
We aren't "indirectly weakening" the government... we're not trying to slink into liberty. We're playing "Operation" with the body politic.
"Oops, there goes control of drugs!"
"Oops, there goes intellectual property"
We don't care if the government raises it's hackles in response. Let them come! This will only make more of us. You're thinking of a war of attrition. We're thinking of 4th generation warfare. The bloated, wasteful MEGASTATE cannot survive very long. A state that is 80% free, but still authoritarian? That would be a fearsome opponent and far more dangerous to us, in our opinion. Nonetheless, all other things being equal, agorism is the most functional strategy in almost all cases, except possibly near the end game, when the state is almost about to fall, when other approaches might become effective.
Here's some more from the same post by Patri:
"I believe in a different indirect path: global competition between governments. Let’s hit states where they are weak – at providing good services to their customers, not where they are strong – at holding onto territory with violence. We can do this by competing for citizens and capital, not for territory. Whether this is done through seasteading, free zones, or some other method entirely, I think it is a far more plausible route to indirectly improving political institutions."
Well, we can't improve political institutions. This actually again points at what I mean by "meta-agorism". What makes a government a "government" and not a mafia?
Perception.
Agorists want to kill the state, piece by piece, not improve it gradually.
Meta-agorism wants people to understand that there's no such thing, there never was, and you're being imprisoned by a mafia.
In that sense, what you are doing is extremely valuable, because you're giving people somewhere to escape to.
And as an "illegal" provider of defense service you are also an agorist!

The Post-Democratic State

Hoppeans concerned about "democracy" really don't have anything to worry about, as far as the United States is concerned. There is truly almost no power the people at large have to influence the government. Once the government can lie to the population on matters of "national security" on the grounds that if the people knew the truth, they would withdraw their support, all pretense of "democracy" is transparently thin indeed. And it's not this pretense that keeps people from revolting. Frankly, most people probably don't care.
It's fear of police brutality, and fear of economic privation. The triumph (so far) of American Corporatism has made most people economically dependent on the State, either directly or indirectly through the banks and large corporations. To rebel would be to become rapidly impoverished, let alone in danger of imprisonment or death, whereas to go along with things, for most Americans right now, means a life of comfort and peace.
During the days of the American Revolution, the economy was at least somewhat disentangled from the State. The "patriots" were still able to eat regularly, save maybe the common soldiers of the Continental Army, which is a whole other story. Nowadays that isn't so much the case. This is yet another reason why only some form of agorism or meta-agorism can work as a liberation strategy. Unless we have a counter-economy running in parallel to the official economy, any attempt at rebellion would fizzle out pretty rapidly. Once we do have one, the resistance, such as it might be, will largely take the form of self-defense against an ever-more-desperate police state hunting down "black marketeers".

perhaps not so unintended at all...

"Almost everyone believes that the state should be in the business of setting national goals in every area of life, of guiding its subjects' paths, of reordering their lives and the world. Most people argue only about particular choices and the degree of control involved. Almost no one will challenge the principle itself."
- Arthur Silber

And this, this right here, is the only ideology that actually matters, when it comes to the State. The rest is just gas and bullshit to fool the rubes. The "republicans" handle one side of the con, and the "democrats" handle a different side of it. In the long run, they're both working together to extend their collective power over us. Any real disagreements are like two farmers disagreeing over livestock management techniques.

"These are only some of the very bitter fruits of foreign intervention: uncontrollable consequences are always set loose and, all too often, those consequences are directly opposed to what the original stated purpose had been. And yet, like the insane man, we repeat this behavior over and over again, insisting that this time the result will be different, and it will finally work -- and we'll get exactly the result we want, and no others at all."
- Arthur Silber (from a different essay)

Ahh but to this I would say, if you keep throwing the baby out with the bath-water, maybe it was the baby you wanted to get rid of in the first place.

After 100+ years of practice, those playing this game must have at least some vague idea of the praxeology of intervention. Certainly, if you or I have figured some of it out in the short span of our years of analysis.
At the very least they must understand that the more chaos and capital destruction, outside of their "walled city" of private order, the better it is for them. If you're a water oligpolist, a world-wide drought is just what the doctor ordered. Extend the pattern... and voila!

The game really has to work that way, because that is functionally how it works, either that or they're just all insane. Either explanation makes at least some sort of sense.

"It seems like you might need a little 'stimulus' there, buddy"

Listen, when I say that the government is a "super-mafia" this is exactly what I'm talking about:
Bankers Told by Paulson to Accept U.S. Aid or Be ‘Vulnerable’

The planet is fine... the people are fucked!

As someone who will be directly affected by the "Conscience Protection Rule", I was tempted to write something about it, from an individualist anarchist perspective. But I see that Roderick Long has beaten me to it, writing what is basically the sane take on this so I don't have to:

The Conscience of the King

The core quote:
"So I can’t get excited about either the critique or the defense of this law. Indeed, it’s a great example of how the Rawlsian/Dworkinian [Ronald, not Andrea or poor Gerald] dream of a state apparatus that is neutral among its citizens’ competing conceptions of the good is ultimately incoherent."
Exactly so.

If I want 3 breasts and a tail, that's my goddamn business.

W. Gillis makes another essential (excuse the pun) post, while on sabbatical even.

The quote with the nitty gritty:
"Conversely the negation of gender does not mean the complete extinction of mini-skirts and aftershave. The destruction of identity has never meant the abolishment of it; what we oppose is rigidity in relations -- not the medium itself."
The medium is indestructible. You have to manifest via some sort of tropes.
The closest you could come to eliminating personal gender expression is to make all manifestation utterly uniform. I don't doubt that this is what some people would love to enact, to take a repression that designates 2 standard forms into one that makes 1 standard form for everyone, as if this makes people more free. (And that just leads to an argument about what the standard form should be. In many cultures, historically, everyone wore skirts.)
What I and many (but not all) transfolk would like to see is the opposite. Let six billion flowers bloom, so to speak.

Secondly, the phrase "unnecessary mutilation" applied to any elective body-modification horrifies me, as an anarchist. I'll fucking decide what's necessary and what's not, thanks.
We're all cyborgs already. We wear clothes over our natural fur or lack thereof, and shoes so we can walk on different kinds of terrain. Some of us even wear glass lenses over our eyes to help us see better!
And I heard some people even inject ink into their skin so they can wear art work on their bodies!!
Will the horrors never end?

There's a third thing, which is annoying to have to go over, but it's so embedded that I really should. If you want to abolish a forced gender identification relating to biological sex, that has to cut both ways (please excuse the pun again). That is to say, if you want to define "man" as simply "anyone who was born with a penis", then that's the definition. You can't sneak all kinds of other definitions of "man" and bundle them in with that. In fact, we transfolk are living proof of that. And perhaps that's a good portion of what makes certain elements within feminism a bit unnerved by us, to say the least.

He says it so I don't have to:

"To understand where to go from here, we have to understand that Americans are in no way attached to Obama the individual, Americans are attached to the way Obama makes them feel."
"Anarchism IS the individualist dream. You, you personally, can singlehandedly start the motherfucking revolution. You're going to have to."

Go click that and read the rest.

Liberty's Children

As much as it's funny, this one is also somehow chilling:

It is your... destiny

J.P. Morgan sitting in his office, in 1914, saying "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it"... and we, liberty's children, so many years later, will not be truly complete until we have confronted Darth Merka.

I look forward to the day when, dying, he says to us... "you were right... you were right about me"
...and the beacon of light that was ignited in 1776 continues forward.

Like in PKD's orthogonal time, we have slipped out of that track, the revolution died as soon as it began, almost. It is not 2008 in Merka, it is 1789, always, until we put an end to this.

this comic isn't the first to notice the comparison...

It's a trap!

I believe that the idea that "the failure of the high finance corporations will harm the working class more than it does the ruling class" is a lie, a trick, a trap and a ruse. It is a carefully crafted myth designed to make you protect those corporations out of fear.

In general, the ruling class always wants to make people think that their own livelihood depends on them. But this is not true.
It never was, it never will be. The rulers are parasites. The wealth is produced by the working class, alone.*

We don't need a bailout, we don't want one, and it won't help us one bit to have one, nor will it harm us one bit not to have one.

If the "recession" or whatever they're calling it these days does harm the working class, it will be because of deliberate action on the part of the ruling class to see to it that the working class absorbs blows meant for themselves (ala the "Bailout"). It will be a form of hostage taking. "You have to support us or we'll squeeze the shit out of you, but you know, we're only doing it because we don't want to sell off our marginal assets. I mean, you can't expect ME to suffer can you?"

Yes. Yes I do. And I intend to do whatever I can (which basically amounts to memetic transmission) to see to it that no one else suffers on your behalf, Mr. Monopoly.

* Clarification: By working class, I mean all of you suckers out there with jobs, not just the vulgar Marxist idea of the 'proletariat'. People who get paid to think and/or create for a living are also workers.

This says so much.

Quiet, but not quietist

I've had only limited access to the internet until just recently, but I would like to pop up in order to say that I'm happy to see what's going on around the RNC. Not the evil actions of the cops of course, that is to be expected, but the heroic actions of the anarchists and other folks resisting them.
On that note, I'd like to point out that transgendered people being arrested in Minneapolis/St Paul are being placed in cells of the wrong gender (i.e. that which is socially corresponding to their birth sex). For MTF transgendered folk, this is tantamount to accessory to rape.
I'd also like to congratulate those of the A.L.L. who managed to make it out there and participate in the resistance (William Gillis, you r0x0r!). Don't let the violence you've encountered make you into a person who thinks that massive force is the solution. This happened to a lot of hippies back in the day, and it is the main point of the strategy employed by the cops.
They want to secretly recruit you by brutalizing you. Remember that physical force without moral force is worthless. (I suspect that anarchists are less prone to this corrupting influence of violence, since they know full well the difference between aggression and self-defence, and they've made all the arguments against aggression before.)
Remember, we will be selling contraband to the children of the RNC delegates, now or in the near future. :)