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The Cancer of Absolutism
At its heart, Agorism is a pragmatic philosophy. It is about doing what is best for you and your family. It doesn’t waste time worrying about the silly people who try and hold us back. But, even though we try and live outside of the system, it is possible for even an agorist to get stuck. One cancer that pops up in agorism is the cancer of absolutism.
Agorists say that we are all about freedom and doing what we want, but then too many turn around and begin making absolute statements about what we can and cannot do. For example, they might say that agorists DON’T vote. Or, agorists ONLY buy locally sourced food. Some go so far as to say that agorists DON’T join religions or take part in anything that involves vertical hierarchies and power structures. You might agree with some or all of these, but the problem comes when we insist that these apply to ALL agorists. That just isn’t how agorism works. You don’t tell me what I can and cannot do, or what I must and must not do. Those are my decisions to make for me, and your decisions to make for you.
Unlike many other agorists, I sometimes vote. Does this make me a bad agorist? Some would say that this is anti-agorist, but to me, it is an expression of the pragmatic nature of agorism. I own my home, but unfortunately, my city insists that I pay a property tax which is essential feudal land rent. If I don’t pay, then the city will seize my home. As much as I hate paying it, I still do it because I don’t want to lose my home. I make a pragmatic value judgment. Is it worth more to me not to pay the tax and lose my home? Or, is it worth more to me to keep my home by paying taxes? As I said earlier, I do the latter. Despite hating taxation, I pay because the consequences are even more undesirable.
Now, if I see that there is a measure on the ballot to raise property taxes, I have a couple of options. First, I could thumb my nose at voting, sit on my moral high horse, and then feel good about myself as I pay higher property taxes. Or, I could make a pragmatic value judgment, hold my nose, and vote not to raise property taxes and then enjoy potentially not having to pay more property taxes… at least for that year.
If I were an absolutist on not voting, then I would be creating an artificial barrier between myself and potential benefits for my life. I don’t want to pay my city any more than I have to, and if I have to pull a lever to lessen the load, it is ultimately a small price to pay.
When we become absolutists, we put artificial limits on our lives. We essentially do the government’s job for them. Agorism has a lot more gray area than other ideologies, and I like that. Life is not black and white, and when we force life into those categories, we ultimately make life worse for ourselves.
So, embrace the gray. Don’t be afraid of pragmatism. Do what is best for you and your family. We can agree that you shouldn’t hurt people or take their stuff. Outside of that, anything goes. It’s your choice to make.
Originally posted at: https://technoagorist.com/5
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Good Rand Paul: US Out of Afghanistan
A great answer from the senator to Matt Welch of Reason:
Welch: [A]lmost from the beginning [of your Senate career], you have used the formulation in speeches and also in bills of, “Hey, it’s time to declare victory in Afghanistan and bring our troops home.” Can you give a sense of how the progress of that concept…has evolved over time?
Paul: Well, you know, it’s too slow for my taste—I think we should have been gone years ago. And I think that there is some progress, but it’s very, very slow.
There are two important pieces to the puzzle that are improvements. We have a president—the first president, really—to say that the war has long been over, there is no military solution, he’s bringing the troops home. And President Trump has said that several times. The problem is that several of his advisors that he has appointed don’t necessarily agree with him. So they either countermand his sentiments or talk him into delaying actually ending the war.
The other thing that I think has happened over time—and this is sort of both positive but also sad at the same time—is that you can’t meet a general anywhere in the Pentagon who believes there is a military solution to the Afghan war. That’s the main question I harangue them with when they come up to Capitol Hill to testify before our committees: I say, “Is there a military solution?” And they all admit there is none. There’s been mission creep that’s now nation-building, but they all admit no military solution.
My follow-up question is, “Then I don’t want to send my kid, your kid, or my nephew to Afghanistan, because if there is no military solution, what is one more death going to do over there?” But there are still a number of people who are of what I call the Vietnam village strategy—take one more village and we’ll get a better negotiated settlement.
I’m of the belief we need to declare victory and come home, because…it’s a mess now, but it will be a mess when we come home, too. And we just need to acknowledge that our original mission was to go after those who plotted or attacked us on 9/11, and there’s frankly none of them left. I asked the secretary of state this not too long ago, “Tell me who’s left. Tell me their names, and then we’ll talk about whether you have permission to stay there to get a certain person.” There’s no name left….We’re talking about forces that are associated with forces that are associated with forces that are associated with somebody else. It’s so tangential to have any link to 9/11 that it really doesn’t exist.
Tom Woods Interviews Me On Russiagate
US-Led Bombing Campaign in Syria Killed 1,600 Civilians and Left Raqqa ‘Most Destroyed City in Modern Times’: Study
Julia Conley at Common Dreams reviews the results from a study conducted by Amnesty International and Airwars.
The report—”Rhetoric vs. Reality: How the ‘Most Precise Air Campaign in History’ Left Raqqa the Most Destroyed City in Modern Times“—is detailed on the interactive website created by investigative news organization Airwars and the human rights group Amnesty International*-USA which carried out what they call the “most comprehensive investigation into civilian deaths in a modern conflict.”*
The research collated almost two years of investigations into the assault on Raqqa, the groups said in a statement, and “gives a brutally vivid account” of the enormous number of civilian lives lost as “a direct result” of thousands of coalition air strikes and tens of thousands of US artillery strikes in Raqqa from June to October 2017.
Use of Facial Recognition in Airports Draws Anger
Eoin Higgins at Common Dreams:
We’re basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” said Farrell. “They’re identifying the traveler.”
“It’s actually the U.S. government that’s implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data,” Farrell added.”
Oh, I thought this was another evil corporation behind this. Now that I know the government is involved I’m OK with it. After all, what do I have to hide. I’m sure the’re doing it for our safety.
Israel’s Fifth Column Suffers Crushing Defeat At Hands of the First Amendment
Why does Israel and its partisans hate free speech so much?
It’s because stealing and killing and lying is at the core of Israel’s national strategy and daily public policy, and they’re slightly worried the U.S. government might one day stop letting them take money right out of your paycheck so they can spend it torturing children.
America’s greatest ally? The only western democracy in the Middle East?
It sure doesn’t seem like it.
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